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jesncin · 5 months

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A Failure of Asian Lois Lane: Pt 2: My Adventures with Superman, an honest discussion

If I had to pinpoint the fundamental problem with My Adventures with Superman's depiction of Asian Lois Lane it's in their attempt to subvert the classic two person love triangle: Lois loves Superman but is indifferent to Clark Kent. In MAWS, Lois insta-crushes on Clark Kent and hates Superman. In the show's attempt to make sense of this dynamic, Lois' Asian identity becomes at odds with a story meant to touch on xenophobia and immigrant themes.

Let's have an honest discussion about a show that made fandom cheer as an Asian character removed the one thing that made her most visibly Asian.

Disclaimer: While I am of East Asian descent, I am not Korean. I'll be discussing general Asian diasporic experiences but the specifics of Korean culture are outside of my knowledge (as usual I can't and don't speak for every Asian person ever, I am 1 opinion). Secondly, I'll be pulling from my personal experiences every now and then particularly pertaining to being a butch Asian person watching this show. It'll be a mix of formal analysis and personal anecdotes. Thirdly, this isn't an exhaustive analysis of MAWS Lois' character. We'll be sticking to what I consider is relevant to themes of Asian identity and immigration. Lastly once more, I do not believe the MAWS crew had malicious intent in any (of what I consider) poor writing decisions. We're here to analyze and challenge these writing decisions.

Please read Pt 1 of Asian Lois analysis that covers the comics, as it provides the groundwork for the ideas expanded on in this essay.

We need to talk about Lois' design. In the follow up to MAWS' release, people have been speculating on Lois' ethnicity. CBR writes that the show has "some fans believing that she's at least part Asian" and other articles have the show crew confirm Lois Korean heritage via her hanbok outfit in episode 4. The existence of these articles, my own anecdotal experience of streaming MAWS with Asian friends, and comments I receive from people asserting Lois' Asian identity was never explored in the show ("you'd only know she was Asian if you searched up articles about it"), tells me we have a case of an ambiguously designed Asian woman. Tangentially many people had no idea Livewire, the white haired and blue eyed woman, was meant to be South Asian.

There's a lot to be said about art styles that don't properly stylize ethnic features, but for the purposes of our analysis that means the writing has to deliver the heavy lifting where the design fails. This is the opposite case of American Alien: a comic that relied on the art to portray Asian Lois.

Let's start at episode 3. In it, Lois finally manages to conduct a private interview with the elusive Superman. When she asks where Superman comes from, how his powers work, etc- Superman comes up empty. In this version, Superman can't talk to his Kryptonian father (Jor-El)'s hologram because of a language barrier, so he knows very little about his alien heritage. He leaves Lois, assuring her he's here to help the people of Metropolis. When Clark Kent congratulates her for interviewing Superman, Lois rebuffs him. "Oh, he's [Superman's] a liar." smirking as she says it. This is the start of the Lois Hates Superman For Being a Liar arc.

I'd like you to consider the optics of an Asian American woman interviewing an alien immigrant who honestly told her he doesn't know where he comes from and is still figuring out who he is, only for her to think he's lying. Because she didn't get the answers she wanted. I can't help but think about my own experiences, where I was asked "but where do you really come from?" or "okay but what's your real name?" I think of my Asian American peers who would honestly say they're from Texas or Atlanta and get a vindictive "you're lying" as a response. People want to hear you're from China. They want their biases confirmed. I think about how I honestly can't tell you where my elders hailed from, because of cultural genocide and language barriers. This scene makes me uncomfortable, but let's press on.

Episode 4 is where Lois is most visibly Korean. In this episode the trio of Lois, Clark, and Jimmy are tasked with interviewing rich techbro Prof. Ivo of Amazo tech at an investor event. It's a prom episode. Lois wears a "hanbok inspired gala outfit" designed by Dou Hong and Jane Bak in a deliberate move to showcase Lois' Korean heritage. Bak comments "I remember feeling strongly about wanting to inject some aspect of her Korean heritage without disrupting her characteristic as a spunky and resourceful intern/reporter." while the wording poorly implies that Korean heritage is at odds with Lois' spunky personality- I do want to challenge a couple of the decisions that went into this design.

I want to acknowledge as an Asian butch that there are many ways to sport traditional garments and it's okay to mix and match to figure out what reclaiming culture (and your comfort) mean to you. However we're talking about the opportunity to showcase culture in an episode of a fictional animated show. I also encourage cultural gender expression that thinks outside of western white people's idea of gender (in both fiction and real life).

Whenever artists try to do a non-conforming spin on a cultural outfit, I always have to ask: "what standard of masculinity are we basing this on?" It's clear that MAWS is pushing for a "tomboy" Lois, and this gala outfit is an extension of that. But what's the standards of masculinity in a Korean lens? Men wear hanbok too, so why can't Lois imitate how Korean men wear hanbok, by traditionally accompanying her look with baji (baggy and loose pants)? This design notably has tight pants that hug the form, instead. I know the hanbok look has been modernized in and out of Korea in many ways, but in a show where you have the opportunity to showcase cultural non-conformity, I feel more thought should be put into the outfit outside of a potentially western lens- or the idea that cultural heritage of any sort "disrupts" a character's personality.

Now that we've discussed the design of the outfit, let's look into the narrative role it plays in episode 4. While we can celebrate cultural representation in media, I consider it important to ask "what is this media's relationship with the cultures it represents?" and the answer for Lois' hanbok in this episode is: nothing! It's an aesthetic acknowledgement of culture. "Hanbok" or "Korea" are not terms explicitly mentioned in the show. When Prof Ivo offers beautiful women as compensation for Clark to keep quiet about his company's corruption, Ivo looks over to Lois- who spills food on her clothes, and remarks that she's unclassy. She's not judged for wearing othering cultural clothes- which would have tied nicely into Clark choosing to be silent on issues of Ivo displacing a neighborhood, making Clark realize his complacency actively hurts marginalized people. Despite wearing cultural outfits being a political statement in America, nobody reacts to it. It's clear what the actual goal of this scene is: Clark looks cool for defending his "tomboy" crush.

In a scene blatantly made for fanservice, Lois offers to sew up Clark's ripped tuxedo by undressing her hanbok so she can reach her little sewing kit. Lois never wears her hanbok again afterwards. This scene haunts me. It's a scene that tells you that fanservice is more important than cultural representation. It's a scene meant to set up that Clark gives his tuxedo to Lois later on for warmth. Lois removing her hanbok is meant for not one, but two fanservice scenes.

Lois talks to Clark at the stairwell. She opens up about her estranged relationship with her father, how her mom has passed away, and how she's been an intern at the Daily Planet for a year with no sign of being hired. This makes the narrative decision for Lois to lose her hanbok far more tragic. Lois being a diasporic child with so few familial ties to her culture would mean garments like her hanbok would hold a lot of sentimental value! It's hard enough finding a cultural outfit that fits with your butchess (many of my cultural outfits are hand made to fit my form and gender expression), and yet Lois unceremoniously loses her hanbok. You would think in Lois opening up about being distant from her parents that Clark would be able to culturally relate with the distance he has with his Kryptonian parents. But the narrative opportunity to link their immigrant experiences is not taken, because the show simply doesn't recognize the parallel between the two.

Instead MAWS pushes for the Lois Thinks Superman is A Liar thing again. A far less narratively substantial and fundamentally flawed arc. This episode starts with Lois calling Superman a liar and has Lois ranting about him "dodging her questions" (remember, he was honest with her about not knowing his heritage) thereby rendering her interview unpublishable. She resorts to conspiracy tabloids giddily provided by Jimmy for information. She rather cruelly says "nobody normal believes in aliens". We are uncomfortably seeing the build up of Lois being allegorically xenophobic towards alien immigrants- a Lois on a quest to out an alien before he's ready. This is their justification for flipping the love triangle. Lois loves cuteboy Clark from work, and hates Superman for not confirming her biases that would help her publish an interview that would promote her at work. What a love story.

To wrap this episode up: Prof Ivo ends up challenging Superman to a fight so he can flex his Parasite suit to investors, only for it to backfire, destroy his reputation, and greatly damage the Amazo building (remember this it'll come back later). The episode ends with Lois discovering Superman is Clark Kent. Anecdotally, I was so frustrated with the treatment of Lois' hanbok in this episode, that I went online to search if anyone else felt similarly. All I was met with was fandom thirsting over the stairwell scene where Clark and Lois were undressing. Consider the optics of an Asian character who removed the most visible signifier of her heritage (the outfit far more culturally specific where her character design was racially ambiguous) and how people cheered because that meant they could see her in her undergarments. They can happily thirst over the body they desired now that the othering cultural garment was out of the way. It's just clothes after all. Diversity clothes. This show continues to be very uncomfortable, and a little too real.

In episode 5 Lois is passive aggressive to Clark and Superman, trying to get Clark to admit he's Superman and vice versa. She eventually confronts Clark by jumping off the roof of the Daily Planet, causing Clark to fly down and save her. She proclaims she doesn't want to be friends with him anymore for "lying" to her. This episode caused a huge ruckus online as people were divisive over Lois' actions. Some defended Lois, saying that "women should be messy" and "it's not Lois Lane if she doesn't do something crazy for journalism!". Ignoring that opinion's very flandarized view of Lois' character for a second, let's thoroughly discuss how this relates to themes of immigration and Asian identity.

By this episode, Lois had known Clark for 5 days. In that time she's entitled and angry to the point of friend-breaking-up with him because he wouldn't disclose his marginalized identity to her within less than a week. "A secret is another type of lie!" Lois says, regardless of her lying on sight to both Jimmy and Clark upon meeting them at work, and continued to lie in episode 3 (after promising not to in ep 1) about her intentions to interview Superman. Only Lois gets to lie in this relationship. The hypocrisy of her character is never recognized. Clark calls out Lois for having previously admitted to him that she wanted to dox Superman and "publish all his secrets. MY secrets!". Keep in mind that when Clark brings up Superman feeling uncomfortable about his secrets being published by Lois in episode 3, Lois' response was "yeah, but HE doesn't know that's my plan!". She explicitly admits that she would publish private information about Superman without his permission. But when she's confronted by Clark in episode 5 about that, her response is "I would never do that to you, I didn't know it was you until after the gala. How could you think that?" It's only through conflict of interest that Lois spares Superman of being doxed. He's supposed to magically know this. Extremely cool of Asian American Lois to be entitled to an alien immigrant's identity within four business days.

Episode 6 wraps up the Lois Hates Superman For Being A Liar arc, so let's quickly summarize what happens. Lois and Clark set aside their fight to find Jimmy in an abandoned scientific facility (he's being cared for by Mallah and the Brain). Jimmy admits (very smugly) to having known Clark was Superman all along because he kept breaking stuff. As the trio are chased by killer robots, they emotionally confront Clark for not trusting them with his alien secret- despite neither Lois or Jimmy creating a safe environment for Clark to come out to either of them (Jimmy outed Superman as an alien on his video channel). The moral of the story is Clark should have trusted his friends anyway, because lying is bad. Not once does the narrative hold Jimmy or Lois accountable.

We have Black Jimmy Olsen and Asian American Lois Lane being entitled to their white passing friend Clark Kent's marginalized alien identity. A joke is made at Jimmy's expense that he doesn't understand bigotry, and Lois clearly doesn't understand why an immigrant wouldn't be forthcoming about his identity to his hostile friends at work. This is how that arc ends.

I'd like to quickly compare this Lois Hates Superman For Being A Liar arc to my favorite scene in Superman Smashes the Klan. In this story, Superman debuts as a strongman superhero instead of an alien, suppressing his more othering powers to pass as human. He jumps instead of flying. Roberta, the Chinese American girl targeted by the Klan, calls Superman out for not using his full abilities to save people who could've gotten hurt. Yet, as she's calling him out, Roberta understands Superman's fear of not wanting to be othered. She sees the way her father dresses up to pass as an accomplished scientist, how he tells her mom to speak in English, how her brother makes racist jokes at their family's expense to fit in. She's not mad at Superman, she's mad at the world that would be scared of Superman if he flew.

"I wish it were okay for you to fly!" Roberta yells. This is a beautifully empathetic scene that shows a marginalized person frustrated at a systemic problem, instead of blaming the marginalized for being marginalized. It's the empathy and perspective we're missing from MAWS.

Episode 7 is a metatextual episode where MAWS addresses how their Lois isn't like the other Loises you've seen before. Lois and Jimmy are brought on to a team of alternate dimension Loises to find interdimensional troublemaker Mxy. In seeing the other more accomplished Loises in the multiverses, Lois ends up feeling inadequate about her self worth...in connection to being Superman's girlfriend, of course. Because Superman only loves Lois Lane after she wins a couple of Pulitzers, right?

I'm open to a version of Lois Lane that isn't as accomplished as she's historically known to be. I can like a Lois that's young and idealistic, like in Girl Taking Over. It's hard not to compare this episode to 2022's Everything Everywhere All At Once, another multiverse story about an Asian American woman who is the "greatest failure" version of all the parallel iterations of herself. But while that movie talks in depth about themes of generational trauma, expectations, and self potential within Asian immigrant families, MAWS uses the multiverse to say that while their Lois is less accomplished, she's still a good girlfriend to Superman! Why should I bother giving grace to a different take on Lois only to get such a superficial story out of it. This is metatextual-ly frustrating.

Why is it, the minute we get an adaptation of an Asian Lois in something as prominent as an animated show, we get "the worst Lois in the multiverse"? Lois is historically depicted as excelling in her field. She's an award winning journalist, jaded and mean from having to work her way to the top. She owns her sexuality, she's the experienced city girl. Instead of taking the opportunity to inform Lois' jadedness and excellence with her Asian American identity like in Girl Taking Over, instead we have an Asian Lois that's simply incompetent at her job. Why are we now adapting historically accomplished women into adorkable quirky screw ups? She went from being sexually confident to being insecure over sending a text to Clark. Is it more relateable to see an Asian woman that way? Is it too intimidating to see a butch Asian woman who excels at her job? Who's romantically confident? This is what MAWS would rather do than humanize her excellence or her failures.

Are you tired of an ambiguously designed Asian American woman reporter being xenophobic to Superman in MAWS? Well too bad because episode 8 introduces us to Vicki Vale, voiced by Andromeda Dunker (an Asian actress), with explicit notes in leaked concept art to design this character as "Indian American or Asian American" (as if those are mutually exclusive...) inspired off of real Asian reporter Connie Chung. Vicki wants to write a hit piece on Superman and interviews Prof Ivo's assistant, Alex, for a negative biased opinion on Superman (to Lois and Jimmy's dismay).

This episode is where it's abundantly clear the writers don't know how to talk about xenophobia. They'll make nods to xenophobic rhetoric, but they don't know what the rhetoric means. In response to Alex's derisive opinion on Superman destroying Amazo tower thereby bankrupting the company and putting "thousands out of work", Vicki responds "Superman wiped out good American jobs". This is a misplaced nod to Replacement Theory: the fear white people have over people of color, but particularly immigrants, coming to "their" country to "steal" jobs they're entitled to, ultimately becoming demographically replaced by non-white cultures and people. This rhetoric is also commonly applied to Jewish people.

The problem is, that's not what Superman did in the show. Amazo tech was going to go bankrupt because of Prof Ivo's poor business decisions. Prof Ivo made the mistake of antagonizing Superman and ruining his own image. Superman damaging the building came from his fight with Prof Ivo, not a deliberate attempt to get hired (if anything don't the building repair people have new jobs now?). No one's job is tangibly being taken by Superman. None of this is called out by Lois or Jimmy, who know the full story and were even the ones to attack Alex for helping Prof Ivo (let's be real the writers forgot this happened). In fact, Lois and Jimmy don't react to Vicki's Replacement Theory remark at all! It's like they don't even recognize she said something with racist implications!

Jimmy and Lois meet up with Superman who learns the people of Metropolis are becoming scared of him (from causing some recent property damage in an attempt to hunt a criminal down) and writing mean comments on social media. A user writes "he should go back to where he came from." This is a transparently xenophobic comment. It doesn't work in the context of the show because of a huge plot hole: Superman never publicly came out as an alien to Metropolis. No verified newspaper has explicitly made this fact known. The only source that mentions this is Jimmy's conspiracy channel, which the citizens of Metropolis are apparently treating as fact- therefore (if we're to believe this is how people knew) this means Jimmy absolutely outed Superman as an alien without Clark's consent.

So how does Asian American Lois respond to seeing her alien boyfriend go through xenophobia? She says "Take a break from being Superman and just try being normal." To be fair, the narrative does portray Lois saying the word "normal" as charged (only here at least, not in episode 4), and when she tells Superman to "take a break" it's because he had been overworking himself after suddenly unlocking the ability to hear when someone's in trouble. But was this really the response Asian American Lois thought to say? To her boyfriend going through such explicit xenophobia? At this point it's abundantly clear that racism doesn't exist in the world of MAWS. Being "normal" is to be human. And to be marginalized- or as the show likes to call it "different" is only reserved for white passing alien man Clark (along with gorilla and robot that was once a white man). Any hope of an immigrant parallel between Asian American Lois and Superman should be fully discarded at this point.

After the events of the previous episode where Superman is kidnapped by Task Force X, in episode 9 Lois regrets being allegorically xenophobic to Clark. At least I think that's what's happening. I often describe MAWS as a show that's extremely squeamish with getting political- and I believe the vagueness of Lois' Dark Night of the Soul moment reflects that. "I said awful things to Clark. I doubted him when he needed us most. I was wrong and now he's gone..." Lois says as she cries to Jimmy. Is this dialogue implying she shouldn't have told a sleep deprived Superman to take a break? What did she doubt about him? This dialogue is purposefully vague about Lois being xenophobic. They've universalized Clark's immigrant identity to such a point that they can't keep their argument consistent. Was Lois in the wrong for telling her overworked superhero boyfriend to take a break? Or was she being xenophobic for telling him to lay low for a while? Or is she regretful for hating Superman for Being A Liar? How is that possible when the narrative sided with her and Jimmy in episode 6? It's woefully non-committal. Regardless, the intent of this scene is to pay off in the climax of the episode.

In the end Superman has a showdown with Prof Ivo Parasite, who has grown into a large godzilla-esque kaiju creature. In typical MAWS fashion, the show is more interested in a surface level nod to Asian media instead of engaging with the specific themes of nature and post-war trauma kaijus and godzilla serve in Japanese culture. I digress. Using Jimmy's massive social media platform, Lois delivers a hope speech that instantly heals Metropolis of its xenophobia towards Superman.

Lois says to the people of Metropolis.: "People have told you to fear Superman because he's different from us. But we humans are capable of causing hurt and pain too. [...] Because we want to punish those who don't look or act like us." I mean this in the most polite way possible, but who on Earth thought this line was a good idea for Asian American Lois Lane to deliver when talking about white passing man Superman?? Why did the writers feel the need to specify Superman not looking like us. I simply don't understand how nobody considered the terrible optics of this.

After Superman defeats Parasite, episode 10 is about Clark, Lois, and Jimmy celebrating Thanksgiving at the Kents' house. At the Daily Planet, the trio of interns are promoted to finally being reporters. It only took Clark and Jimmy a few weeks while it took Lois a whole year! Now feels like a good time to remind you that Lois as a character was historically frustrated at sexism in the industry and despised how men were treated better than her (including Clark Kent). Well in MAWS episode 4, Lois has no idea why she isn't getting picked up to be a reporter. According to the narrative, and Perry White's dialogue ("you're terrible interns, so the only thing to do was to make you reporters")- she simply didn't break enough rules yet! Thank goodness she had the help of two men to show her how it's done! This is a pretty clear case of character regression. Keep in mind that in American Alien, at the very least that Asian Lois still underwent sexism, and I gave it the grace that the story could eventually expand to talking about both sexism and racism if it were to continue. But in MAWS? I don't think even sexism exists, let alone racism. Somehow Thanksgiving does, though.

Half the final episode is spent on Thanksgiving shenanigans where everyone's trying to be polite but they dislike Lois' stoic dad (Sam Lane)- who Clark recognizes as the Asian American xenophobic man who tortured him in Task Force X's government bunkers. A parallel is pulled between Sam and Jor-El, two fathers with different ideals when it comes to protecting their kids. There's a huge missed opportunity to have Lois and Sam speak in Korean with each other, to create a parallel in the language barrier between Clark and Jor-El. Maybe Lois isn't as fluent in Korean as Sam is depending on how culturally connected she is. Oh, but the existence of non-English human languages would imply some sort of minority, who would be marginalized, and we can't have anyone outside of aliens and a gorilla be marginalized in MAWS. Non-English languages in America are political, after all. Oh, but they also got a Filipino actor to voice Sam. Generously Lois could be Filipino-Korean but if we're being truly honest it's clear the MAWS crew think Asians are interchangeable.

Let's talk about Sam. In terms of optics, it's already not great that the main villains who represent the face of America's secret government xenophobia are Amanda Waller and Sam Lane- a Black woman and an Asian man. What's doubly notable is that of the antagonistic villains, Sam and Vicki are the most xenophobic. When Sam tortures Superman, he shouts "When is the invasion? How many of your kind will come through this time?" without a hint of irony. Reminder that historically, Asian immigrants were (and still are) considered invaders in America. They are the perpetual foreigner. MAWS loves making nods to Superman being an immigrant allegory, and yet they can't fathom the human beings that allegory is inspired by.

It's not impossible to portray people of color or even Asian American characters specifically being xenophobic. In Superman Smashes the Klan, Dr. Lee is initially antagonistic towards Superman but we understand why. We see him trying desperately to assimilate into whiteness, to the point he rejects assistance from his Black neighbors who help put out a fire in their backyard (that the Klan started as a threat). We understand why he's a character who would turn on fellow people of color, or fellow immigrants, in order to fit in. For MAWS, if we had a flashback scene where Sam was serving in the military and fought against Asian soldiers, showcasing his loyalty to America over his own people- that would narratively explain why an Asian American character would be xenophobic. Writing bigotry from within marginalized communities requires specificity. Otherwise, you've just got a diverse villain. In the end, Lois defends her immigrant alien boyfriend from her xenophobic Asian American dad.

Whenever I bring up how MAWS fails its characters of color but especially Asian Lois, I'm met with people telling me that "hopefully they'll make Lois more Asian in S2" or "they'll just retcon the bad writing in S1" and I hope this thorough analysis on the treatment of Lois' Asian American identity can help enlighten why I personally think that's impossible. The entire concept is flawed from the very beginning. The story MAWS wants to tell is at odds with Lois' Asian identity. In trying to justify an Asian Lois that loves Clark but hates Superman, they never considered what it means to hate Superman. To hate the alien immigrant. The alien other. What it means for an Asian American character to do all that. MAWS is a show that wants to have its cake and eat it too, they want a diverse world without racism or sexism but still want to reap the clout of lightly portraying Superman as "different".

They'll make the most surface level nods to Lois' Korean heritage- but remove all of the cultural context from them. They can't be bothered to acknowledge the inherit political identity being a person of color means in America, they're too busy doing that with Clark. I'm told "MAWS didn't have the time to go over Lois' Asian identity, it's a 10-episode series that focuses on Clark's alienation", and to that I say the potential of an immigrant love story and time frame was there, they simply chose to go another direction.

When I bring up things like Superman Smashes the Klan, Girl Taking Over, and Everything Everywhere All At Once, it's not to say MAWS should have used those stories as reference when crafting their allegory. All of those specific media were released while MAWS was deep in production already. Girl Taking Over was released the same year MAWS premiered. What I am saying is that we, as the audience, should have higher standards. Because better media portraying Asian American characters already exist. Better media portraying Asian characters relating to Superman mythos already exists. What we're doing when we celebrate the breadcrumbs of representation that is MAWS, is allowing mediocrity to exist uncritically.

Shows like Wednesday are known in the discourse for their portrayal of Black characters as being functionally white, yet that kind of scrutiny doesn't seem known for MAWS. The diverse reimagining of Lois and Jimmy is so poorly handled in MAWS that it would honestly make more sense if Jimmy and Lois were white here. The joke made at Jimmy's expense that he doesn't understand bigotry would be actually funny if it was calling out his white privilege. If, for whatever reason, the writers are compelled to write a xenophobic Lois that unlearns her bigotry and falls for Superman, I'd rather she be white for that kind of story. I wouldn't personally root for that kind of couple, but at least it'd make sense. It's a common joke among DCAU fans of color that we like to headcanon Lex Luthor as Black, or Lois Lane and Terry Mcginnis as Asian. It's a cruel irony that the one time we finally have a canonized Asian Lois in an animated show, she honestly feels and acts whiter than actual white Lois ever was.

I mentioned in Pt 1 of my essay that Asian Lois and Superman has the potential to be a definitive love story. One that considers both their backgrounds as immigrants, othered in different ways by American society. The story of a jaded but accomplished Asian city girl who finds hope to be herself again in an alien immigrant superhero. One where she gets the courage to wear traditional clothes again, to practice languages she once suppressed. The story of Superman, an alien immigrant, finding hope in someone with a painfully similar experience.

As of writing, we have yet to see this dynamic in any canon DC media. A second season of MAWS will not give us that story.

#ramblings #media criticism #jesncin talks maws #lois lane #warning LONG LONG POST #this is a 30 minute read for reference. read it in chunks if u like but this is a big lad fellas #as always please be kind!#jesncin dc meta

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kirain · 4 months

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what do you think of this post about Gale? I saw it today and idk how to feel about it. h t t p s : // www. tumblr. com / galahadwilder / 741497332636467200

I couldn't disagree with it more, to be honest.

First of all, and I can't stress this enough, Mystra doesn't care about her followers. She cares about the state of the Weave and nothing more. If her followers don't worship her, if they're not useful to her, if they don't serve her purpose, they mean nothing to her. After she abandoned Gale, she had no interest in him until she realised she could use him to stop the Absolute—and she only wanted to stop the Absolute because it threatened the Weave. In general, Mystra doesn't care what people use magic for either, be it the most admirable heroics or the most depraved insanity you can imagine.

Case and point: Lorroakan. He is an arrogant wizard, far worse than Gale could ever hope to be, who uses magic for pure evil. When he beat Rolan, he undoubtedly used magic to do it. Do you think Mystra cared? Nope. You can help that nutjob achieve his goals, kill a demigod, turn him immortal, and give him free reign to abuse magic any way he wishes, but do you think Mystra cares? Nope. She doesn't. She doesn't care about people unless they benefit her. In fact, all three iterations of Mystra have a vast history of grooming, flat out 🍇, and the forced impregnation of unsuspecting mortal women. Despite being neutral good, Mystra is and has always been extremely vain, selfish, jealous, and problematic.

With that in mind, I'd like to break this post down piece by piece. Also, please be aware that when I use the word "you", I don't mean you specifically, anon. I'm more so addressing anyone who might be reading.

PS: Please no one harass this person's post. Their opinion is their own, and it's very respectful. At the end of the day, we're just talking about a video game.

Mystra didn't tell Gale not to juggle the torches. She didn't even tell him it was a torch. She let him go on believing it was a part of her missing Weave. Had she told him the truth, he would've stayed away. That's why he's so shocked in Act 3, when she finally reveals it's the Karsite Weave. He had no idea, and she likely never intended to tell him. She didn't before he went off in search of it, and she didn't the entire time he was locked away in his tower, scared and suffering. I can't for the life of me figure out why she wouldn't warn him, but I can only assume it's because she expected absolute obedience, or because she was getting bored of him and wanted him to mess up.

Whatever her reasons, she didn't tell Gale to leave the orb alone because he was "worthy" already. He clearly wasn't in her eyes, because he wanted her to see him as an equal. He wanted her to share her knowledge with him, which is perfectly fair in a healthy relationship. If you're dating a god and they treat you like a worshipper—that's all you are to them. A worshipper. A plaything. You're beneath them. You're unworthy. She told Gale to leave the orb alone because she wanted him to be complacent. She wanted to keep him in servitude. That's what she wants from all of her followers, though it's even worse when it's her lover.

In almost every story where a mortal loves a god, the mortal is either ascended into the heavens or the god gives up their divinity. And this isn't even specific to gods, but also vampires, werewolves, elves, and so on. Arwen, for example, gives up her immortality to be with Aragorn. Bella becomes a vampire to be with Edward. Hercules gives up his divinity to be with Meg. Elisa Esposito becomes aquatic to be with the creature. These are common tropes because it makes the couples equal.

Mystra contradicts herself by saying Gale was "always worthy", because her actions don't reflect it. He was a worthy distraction from her job, sure, but not worthy enough for her to treat him like an equal. So in order to prove it to her, to prove his love and devotion, he went after the one thing he knew she wanted—her missing Weave. Yes, she told him not to, and I agree he should've respected that, but this is on par with a woman telling her husband not to buy a bracelet she really, really wants because it's too expensive. If your husband worked extra hours and saved up enough to buy you that bracelet, would you divorce him?

Gale was completely unaware of the danger. He basically thought he was getting Mystra a bracelet. Had she taken the time to explain it to him, the whole catastrophe could have been avoided. He was just a hopeless romantic who wanted to surprise his girlfriend and prove he belonged at her side. The same girlfriend who very well could have made him her equal and shared her knowledge, but chose not to. Why? Because she's selfish. She didn't want an equal, she wanted a servant. We know this because, if you romance and ascend Gale, he will ascend you alongside him and give you your own domain! Mystra had the power to do this, or at least the ability to slowly ease him into it, but she refused. No matter how much he pleaded and proved his devotion to her, she refused.

Mystra did not save Gale when the orb embedded itself in his chest. He survived only because it fed on his gifts. He says as much, and so does she when you go to see her at the Temple. That's why, when we first meet him, he admits he used to be better at magic. He was once exceedingly powerful, but the orb basically knocked him down to level one. Mystra was perfectly happy to let him scramble to find items to absorb, knowing that he would inevitably run out and erupt. When we give him his third item in Act 1, the orb is becoming quenchless, and he knows his time is nigh. Mystra has nothing to do with satiating the orb until Act 2 and 3, and only because he becomes her wild card.

Gale: Mystra will consider forgiveness?

Elminster: She will consider ... what she considers to be forgiveness.

Even Elminster, her most faithful Chosen, knows her "forgiveness" isn't really forgiveness. It's an ultimatum. Do this for me and be welcomed into my hall, or die and literally go to hell. Why would Mystra make this offer? Well, because why else would Gale agree to kill himself only to end up in the Wall of the Faithless? How would that motivate him? Mystra didn't make this offer out of the kindness of her heart, she made it because she was desperate. Had the opportunity never presented itself, she would've let him die and suffer for all eternity, and possibly take hundreds of innocent people with him in the blast. She. Doesn't. Care. 🤷‍♀️

Now, one could argue Gale was asking for too much, but I'm going to have to call bullshit on that. First of all, Mystra showed him things no mortal has ever seen. It's only fair he'd want to share her world and learn as much as possible. Imagine if the Doctor from Doctor Who picked up some random people and took them on breathtaking adventures, but the audience got mad at them for wanting to see as much as they could. Amy, Clara, Rose, etc.—none of them could live a normal life after meeting him, and they wanted to learn as much about the universe as possible. But everyone loves those characters. They don't get mad. There's even several episodes where the companions call the Doctor out for not treating them as equals, and he admits he's wrong for doing that and adjusts his way of thinking.

I would argue that the only real divide between Mystra and Shar/Vlaakith is that Mystra doesn't inflict physical pain ... most of the time. That's it. Vlaakith and Shar only care about themselves and the effectiveness of their followers, but the exact same applies to Mystra. She is the Weave, and she only cares about the Weave; therefore, she only cares about herself. She had ample opportunity to help Gale or tell him the truth, but she didn't until it was convenient for her. The gods of D&D are basically the Greek Pantheon gods—a bunch of assholes toying with mortals, regardless of their alignment. The odd one is decent, but most are only out for themselves and their rule. Now, I will concur that Mystra is hardly the worst deity (in fact, she's unfortunately one of the better ones), but she's still not great and Gale is her victim.

To get a little controversial, I think the writers made a mistake. I know what they were going for, but I think they lost it along the way. At first, I was ready to stand with everyone and admit he belonged in the quintessential "overreaching wizard full of hubris" category, but upon researching the lore, getting to know Gale better, and doing several different playthroughs, I've come to vehemently disagree. First of all, before 5E (the current D&D edition), becoming a god was the ultimate goal for a lot of players, and that was perfectly acceptable, with many DMs providing celestial paths to make it possible. Moreover, many of the current gods were once human themselves, including Mystra!

Second, it's only hubris if you fail. Gale can ascend. He can succeed. Although it's not the canon outcome I would choose for him, he is right about the crown. He does his research and figures out how to reforge it. And he doesn't seek godhood to be worshipped, he seeks it to either free himself (and all mortals) from Mystra's chains, or for her to acknowledge and love him as an equal. His arrogance stems from insecurity; an insecurity Mystra herself planted and cultivated, and in the end he's not really arrogant atfter all. Does him wanting to be Mystra's equal make him selfish? Well, I suppose that depends on how you answer these questions:

Is your partner equal to you? If you don't think so, why are you leading them on? Why wouldn't you take steps to help them become your equal? Why are you holding them back instead of propping them up? If they show interest in your life, in your world, in the things you can do, why would you keep it to yourself, especially when you have the time and resources to share it?

Just some ambrosia for thought. 😉

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #bg3 tav #mystra #all my homies hate mystra

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eliluvschan · 4 months

Text

Guess the Girl :)

pairing: bang chan x reader

word count: 1.486

warnings: lots of fluff

genre: fluff

a/n: did y’all see the way this man teases Stay on ‘FANS’ ? there’s no way he wouldn’t be the same announcing his girlfriend 😩

—

Chan’s pov.

—

“baby!” i called my girlfriend’s attention. she’s my girlfriend of like, four months. and we both really like each other. my parents love her, and her’s love me. the company likes her and so do the boys. so we’re all good.

but the thing is, my fans don’t know yet. they’ve been getting very curious about it, though. i mean, i can only go to so many movies with the others, or alone. and since Y/n was a Stay herself, and i met her at a concert. not at a meet & greet.

i just saw an angelic, beautiful face in the crowd with the most happy, honest eyes- a lot of them are gonna be shocked. some might like us, some may not, and some may even send hate. i’m just worried about the last part.

“yeah?” she looked at me from above her phone in her hands, pausing the TikTok she was watching.

“i think i’m ready to tell Stay about us. what do you think?” i asked her, speaking slowly. i need her opinion for sure. what if she doesn’t want to tell them now? what if she wants to wait a little longer?

“it’s all up to you Channie. remember what Jyp pd님 said?” she smiled. okay, only my opinion matters now.

“you sure?” i asked.

“yep.” she confirmed.

“so we can’t just throw it in their faces, can we?”

“what do you mean?” she asked, looking rather like she was about to burst out laughing.

“i mean, i can’t just post a picture of us and go ‘hey y’all, this is Y/n. my girlfriend. we’ve been going out for four months and we really like each other’ .”

she let out a small laugh. “why not?” she asked.

“well, because one, i’m the creative one here, and i feel like playing a little game with them!” i said, leaning back in my seat as a hundred ways to tease them crossed my mind. i actually feel like teasing them, which i do most of the time during Chan’s room.

“i’ve got an idea!” i exclaimed and jumped up.

“what?” she put her phone away.

“let’s make them guess who you are!” i smiled brightly. she gave me a questioning look. i sat back down.

“look. we post a picture of us together, but maybe conceal half of your gorgeous face.” she blushed here. “or take a picture only showing one side of your face or something like that.” i continued. “should be fun?”

she leaned back and gave me a half smile. “okay.”

i smiled back and took my phone to open Instagram.

i took a photo Y/n took of me and shared it to my story.

i smirked as notifications started rolling in.

“well, i see the fandom’s got something to be eager about now.” she chuckled, scrolling down her own profile. i shook my head, half in disbelief at questions people dm’ed me and half in amusement.

“yep. now we need help.”

—❀—

“Jagiya! you ready?” i asked Y/n excitedly. she put her hair up in a bun and pulled her hood on her head. then she checked herself out in the mirror- can i just say she is the prettiest thing i ever set eyes on?

she smiled happily and followed me outside where Hyunjin stood ready with his phone. he will post a picture of us, in a discussed position.

“positions.” he commanded, in a professional photographer style. pabo.

but we did as he told us to. Y/n got up on a little stone pole and threw her arms around my neck. both of us had put on our hoods.

“got it!” Hyunjin shouted as he took the picture.

we went back inside and got comfortable around the kitchen. Chan and i were laughing, at the reactions he was getting.

@/hynjinnnn

@/hynjinnnn Channie hyung and …Someone ;) #GuessTheGirl

hilarious. i opened my Instagram and liked the photo.

then to tease Stay a bit more, i decided to share a photo on my story.

“very funny, Mr. Bang.” she said.

“what?” i laughed. she gave me an ‘not funny’ look and i stopped and pouted. she giggled and pecked my lips, as i smiled at her.

“next?” she asked. “tomorrow.” i told her. she nodded and disappeared outside.

next pose. what should it be? tease them? go easy on them?

—

i woke up and got ready for the day. after shoving down some breakfast, i drove over to Y/n’s place to pick her up. i haven’t asked her to move in with me yet, but soon i will.

“hey baby!” she greeted me as she hugged me tightly.

“hey. i missed you.” i kissed her forehead. “missed you too.” she smiled. we had a little nose-fight and then we proceeded to her lounge. i spent the day at her house, cuddling, watching movies, goofing around, and then for dinner, i took her back to our dorm.

guess the girl, picture two, goes up tonight.

“hey guys.” Seungmin smiled at us as he saw us on the couch. she was actually on my lap and quickly got off. she’s still shy around the guys.

i pulled her back on and kissed her softly. “ew.” i heard Hyunjin and then heard the guys leave. she smiled kn the kiss. i pulled away. she smiled, her eyes shining. i nuzzled my face in her neck, and we spent another few minutes in each other’s company.

“Seung! picture time!” i yelled over my shoulder.

“be right there!” he called back. and only minutes later he was there, ready with his phone.

i picked Y/n up and threw her over my shoulder. but instead of keeping her like that, i put my head between her legs. Y/n made a flying motion with her arms as she laughed. her hair was in a bun and her face was slightly blurry so it wasn’t clear.

“all done guys.” Seungmin said as he took the picture. i put Y/n back on hr feet and together we looked at the photo Seungmin took of us.

@/miniverse.__

@/miniverse.__ Chan hyung’s girlfriend is honestly the sweetest person alive ;) you guys are gonna love her. #GuessTheGirl!

i chuckled, as my notifications blew up. i scrolled through them and stopped at one. someone’s got the answer right. someone named Da-eun.

“hey, do you know someone named Da-eun?” i asked. she nodded and right at that moment, she took out her phone. “oh yeah. Eun guessed it.” she said, showing me her dm’s.

‘is that you with Chan? OMG! OMG! OMG! why didn’t you tell me?! i’m so happy for you both!!!’

“should i tell her?” she asked.

i nodded. she smiled and began to type. minutes later, a few others guessed as well.

then suddenly a notification from Changbin popped up.

@/jutdwae

@/jutdwae grossest couple ever. #Don’tGuessTheGirl :P

he took a photo of us while we were laying in bed, her face surrounded by her hair. looked like it was taken a few days ago.

then Lix had tagged both me and Changbin.

@/yong.lixx

@/yong.lixx shut up Changbin. #GuessTheGirl

and with that, a picture of me spinning her around when we went ice skating. it was taken a few weeks ago. she wore my beanie and let her hair loose so you wouldn’t see her face.

after Lix’s post, i shared another photo to my story.

then came a notification from Jeongin.

@/i.2.n.8

@/i.2.n.8 these two are so in love, it makes me sick 🤮

i checked my timeline and most people had guessed right.

“Channie?”

“hmm?” i looked up.

“just tell them already.” she said.

i laughed and shook my head.

“why not?” Y/n asked.

“well, i don’t feel like it yet, and it’s so fun to see them making wild guesses.” i said.

“but they’ve guessed.” she said waving her phone in my face.

“everyone?” i asked, sitting up.

“mostly everyone i know, yes.”

“okay.” i sighed. “that was quick. i was hoping to tease them more.”

she rolled her eyes.

@/gnabnahc

@/gnabnahc if you guessed @/yourname you guessed right! well played ;) #GuessTheGirl

“really, baby?”

i laughed. “what?”

“i told them. the guessed who my girl is. you.” i said, putting my arms around her neck and kissing her cheek.

“i love you.” she mumbled into my shirt. did i hear that right?

“w- what?” why the hell am i stuttering?

“i love you.” she repeated.

“i- i love you too ba- baby girl.” i said, and felt my cheeks burn. what is happening to me?

“you do?”

“you guessed right, too!”

#bang chan #bang chan x reader #bang chan x y/n #skz fluff #skz imagines #skz scenarios #skz x reader #stray kids #stray kids x reader #stray kids fanfic #stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #bang chan fanfic #bang chan scenarios

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dekusleftsock · 5 months

Text

Don’t y’all love it when a popular tiktok creator is analyzing a character and interpreting it so, so wrong, and him and his dumb ass take is spreading.

Like it was one thing for you to be wrong

ITS ANOTHER THING FOR YOU TO BE WRONG AND MAKING OTHER PEOPLE MORE WRONG

If one more person says that Izuku is “underdeveloped” and that he’s “uninterested in all of his other relationships” and that he “has a power imbalance in his relationships with other characters bc they care more about him than he does them” STOP. PLEASE STOP.

A fundamental part of Izuku’s character: He is an UNRELIABLE NARRATOR. Most of his character is, therefore, told through SUBTEXT.

Izuku doesn’t say that he feels ashamed about his feelings for Katsuki.

But he does say that he thinks they’re gross.

Izuku doesn’t say that he thinks that Toga and her feelings aren’t human

But he does say that she is the “perfect counter to this quirk”.

THE LIST COULD GO ON.

Izuku is an unreliable narrator in a third person omniscient story (though sometimes mha acts more like a third person objective story? Anyway). That means that the way we do not understand the story is not through a retelling of what is happening to you, the viewer, unreliably—instead it is not telling you the full extent of his character and his thoughts.

To say “izuocha’s relationship is underdeveloped because it’s one sided” is NOT the same as saying “bkdk’s relationship is underdeveloped because it’s one sided”.

Izuku has always been obsessed with Katsuki. At some point the rhetoric being passed around was that it was Katsuki who was underdeveloped and uninterested in the dynamic. Now that rhetoric has been reversed since we’ve seen so much of Katsuki’s POV.

Ochako has always been obsessed with Izuku, NEVER THE OTHER WAY AROUND. In fact, Ochako’s arc even surrounded letting go of those feelings… as literally said in the text. Because that is a textual statement that she makes.

Izuku does not understand how or what Ochako loves in anybody, especially him. She loves a unique sense of personhood, which Izuku has always carried, and of which she saw in the entrance exam.

Izuku does not know how to view things he deems as “girly”, and Ochako very personally CANT be in a relationship with someone that she has realized is very repressed. Her friendships turn from friends to fascination very quickly, into her heroic form. (Think her few moments with Katsuki in that extra, or how disinterested she became of Izuku as she saw him run away from help, and not know how to respond to an apology. Or, hell, how much more interested she became when Himiko was honest with her feelings in their second real confrontation. She even says that she “admires how she can love so freely, and say it with her whole chest”)

LIKE ALL OF THESE THINGS. THIS IS WHY IZUOCHA ISNT DEVELOPED. That’s a purposeful choice in genius writing, at least in my opinion.

Bkdk is a result of Izuku being uninterested in acknowledging said feelings, and this is shown to be different because of the amount of times he has had that imply a deeper emotion or thought that we are not told. Think black whip, controlling your heart solely surrounding katsuki, “my feelings are gross”, the ear piercing scream when katsuki was kidnapped and the “this was a total loss” line, relaxing into katsuki’s arms after the apology, only coming home because of Katsuki, comparing romantic feelings toga had for him and admiration to ALLMIGHT and not katsuki who was “actually in his life”, I COULD GO ON FOR HOURS.

This is absolutely NOT underdeveloped, this is called SHOW NOT TELL. Horikoshi is so purposeful in what he shows vs what he tells. He tells you that ochako and toga are the same, he tells you that katsuki is worried about Izuku, he tells you that katsuki is there to step in when deku can’t handle it on his own, he tells you that ochako has a crush on Izuku, and he tells you that Katsuki is Izuku’s “closest person”.

But he also SHOWS YOU SO MUCH MORE. Unreliable narration is such a key part of Izuku and his character. Izuku doesn’t understand Izuku as much as the audience doesn’t understand him. It’s why I genuinely think most interpretations of his character are wrong, because you really can’t take him at his word. It’s the same reason no one understood katsuki for the longest time, he was in the same circumstances of a character who is only showed to you, not told.

I know i named so many god damn references so if anyone is curious as to what specifically I’m talking about with what, I’ll gladly show what scene I’m referring to. Apparently I can’t remember a damn thing but this manga anyway.

#I’ll gladly be shouting this to the rooftops no one can shut me up #this was made like a month ago idk if anyone could tell but I just edited it LMAO #bkdk #midoriya izuku #mha deku #bkdk brainrot #bakudeku #bnha deku #mha analysis

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metacrisisdoctor · 11 months

Text

i think sometimes people have a hard time seeing jackie as an individual person and this leads to them sort of seeing her as a villian in rose's story.

in my opinion it's pretty important that as much as jackie is sometimes wrong about things, she is also right about a lot of things as well.

i do feel like jackie was unintentionally holding rose back out of fear of losing her, hence her "airs and graces" comment etc- but rarely do people think of why jackie feels like this.

think of jackie tyler. in doomsday she is forty. this means when we meet her and rose she is 39, meaning she had rose at age 20, meaning she was pregnant at age 19- the same age rose is when we meet her.

19 is young.

think of jackie tyler, age 21, widowed with an infant daughter, on an estate and looked down upon. in army of ghosts we see that jackie's father passed away years ago, and we never see her mother either.

this is partly why the fandoms universal eyeroll at love and monsters frustrates me. that episode fleshes jackie out and shows us how deeply alone she is, but how loyal she is to rose despite the fact that the only family she has sees her as second best. the tentoo and jackie big finish audios also bring attention to this. jackie is not afraid of rose advancing in life, she is afraid of being left behind. because she has no one.

it pains me that the bf audios with her and tentoo aren't more widely known because they explore jackie and her relationship with both the doctor and rose a lot. we see how much jackie loves, and has always loved, the doctor. how she too missed him after doomsday. how she wants to be close to him again but she's afraid of what him being back in rose's life means as well, because now that the doctor is in their world, what is stopping them from leaving again? and i think it's important that jackie feels that way because it shows that her love for rose isn't just because she was lonely, despite it having had played a large part.

she genuinely loves them both and does not want to be without them, so much so that she says if/when the tardis grows the doctor has to take them all- because he has a family now. this mirrors the doctor telling donna that rose had a family and that they had become his family as well in the runaway bride.

in this sense, we should know that the doctor and jackie are on the same page. we know how much he missed rose and how that extends to the sense of family he found in the christmas invasion. however, jackie's own poor self image leads to her projecting her own fear of being left behind onto tentoo and to his relationship with rose and it causes friction in their relationship until they can both be honest with each other in the climax of the audios when they're about to die together and realize they want to live, which is why rose trapped them into talking in the first place.

jackie struggles because rose was so young when she met the doctor, and she was RIGHTFULLY wary of their relationship considering the last time rose trusted a man he left her behind and took all her money. in the audios we hear jackie say that she was the one who payed off all of rose's debts which is a stark contrast to the idea some people seem to have that jackie didn't have a job and mooches off of rose entirely- which makes no sense anyway because how does she keep the lights on at home when rose is missing for an entire year? it's much more plausible that she and rose both have jobs, and that she was going to look for a second job.

jackie gets everything she wanted in a sense. her husband back, a son, rose is still with her, but her own low sense of self is something that is hard for her to shake off because she has been looked down upon for so long because of who she is and how she was raised, so much so that the thought that rose looks down on her terrifies her. in the end of time flashback we sees jackie say that at that point in her life she isn't gonna do much better; but rose tells her she doesn't know that which speaks volumes. rose is afraid of falling victim to the helplessness jackie has in the last twenty years, but we also see that deep down jackie also wants more to her life as well, she just thinks it's too late.

jackie is proud of rose, she grows to love the doctor, but her fear of rose losing herself entirely is a valid one. just like rose wanting more out of life is valid as well. they're both right and they're both wrong which is why they bicker but also very very clearly absolutely love each other more than anything.

this is why the ending rose gets is perfect for everyone. rose gets to keep defending the earth at unit with the doctor, a life that she always wanted. the doctor gets to, in one life, have a family and be human and jackie gets to find her sense of self again and find "more" in her life, and doesn't lose what makes her who she is at all because people like jackie - working class people - are the ones who make it possible for "bigger" things to happen which is what the purpose of the back and forth between rose and jackie is. rose wanting more from her life is valid, but it's also important to rememeber not to look down on people who you subconsciously see as "less" because "less" is just as valuable.

of course rose leaving helped jackie grow, but sometimes the way people talk about jackie is unintentionally classist while also defending rose from classism.

#rambles #jackie tyler #rose tyler #tenth doctor #tentoo #metacrisis doctor #doctor who #dw #big finish

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viperbooty · 8 months

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Back to talking about the Fantasy Fandom and the racism that tends to be part of it!

I genuinely think if Wyll were white he'd get way more attention and love. He'd have sparkle flower crown edits saying "My sweet cornball!!" "My boys got daddy issues!!". Also Warlock is a class beloved by many. And as someone who plays a warlock in bg3 having two of them fucking ROCKED, I always had spells at the ready. So really saying "buh! buh! two warlocks is just bad!" its really not, short rests and cantrips out the asshole really make it easy.

Anyway.

If Gale were black he would be fully ignored and people would, in masses, complain about how annoying he is, how useless he is, how he doesn't really fit in with the rest of the "way more interesting cast". How he's so unbearably straight because all he talks about is his ex.

Lemme keep on this though because if Shadowheart was a Black Person she would have been fucking Crucified for the way she talks about other races, other religions, and just in general the way you have to pull information out of her like pulling teeth. Also if she were a black woman she'd be reduced to "uncaring boss bitch who "dont need no man"" or "unbarable bitch who needs to be Killed"

Am I getting my point across enough?

Wyll was shafted by the game by having literally less content than the rest of the party. Wyll DOES have an interesting story. Wyll is also corny, he's funny, he's so sweet, and his conversations with Karlach are soooo great and yet it's all abandoned because he's generally viewed as "boring".

And by the way. You are allowed to like and dislike characters. But I see a lot of people side stepping the Fantasy Racism to say "but hes just boring thats why I dont like him". Like sure, if you gave Wyll an honest chance and still found him boring then that's your opinion and choice! HOWEVER!! We CANNOT ignore that he is being LEFT OUT of edits, of fan art, of character discussions. When I see posts that are the entire cast MINUS Wyll it tells me everything I need to know about you.

Also one last thing... I cannot imagine being Wyll's VA and seeing how many times you are being left out on purpose. How so few add your character to edits, or fan art. It has to be crushing to some extent, even if you expected it.

#bg3 #bg3 wyll #the color of a characters skin seems to be the measurement of love and interest for the fandom #i genuinely do not understand why people also shove him into “token straight cop” HES LITERALLY NOT.#as a black person it makes my heart ache for the fact he would be absolutely ADORED if he were a fucking white boy #the way people would swoon for him and his cornyness - or explore his background with his pact #feel free to add to this anyway youd like but if you comment BUT HES BORING im going to spear you like an angry caveman #also this is coming from seeing the fucking new wave of hate for a new castlevania black vampire #sure sure you can believe a fantasy world full of magic and creatures but BLACK is where the line is drawn like bffr

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phantasmagoria-in-neverland · 6 months

Note

HI!💛

I was wondering if you could write headcanons about the 141 + Rudy and Alejandro having a s/o who is a highschool art teacher? (or even just a highschool teacher in general if you want). I loved your writings! Thank you💛

141 + Rudy and Alejandro with a High School Teacher! Reader.

A\N: Thank you! Hope you enjoy! 💜

Johnny who laughs himself silly, to the point that he has to wipe away the tears in his eyes, when you tell him all the most absurd excuses you've heard from your students. He knows their shenanigans can be a pain for you, but in his head, he can't help but give them a pat on the back. He's almost tempted to use the most creative ones on Price, just to see what his Captain's reaction would be.

Johnny who loves to tell you stories of his own time at school, enjoying your horrified reaction as you put yourself in his teachers' shoes. Sure, he was one of the smartest kids in his year, every year, but he was also an absolute terror. Always skipping classes, causing some sort of trouble or joking around. Ever since he decided he wanted to dedicate his life to the military, he never paid school too much attention.

John who wants to make the most of every second you have together every time he's home, so he insists on coming to your school to spend your lunch breaks with you. And he takes care of bringing you a warm, home-cooked meal, a small act to show you how much he appreciates you, he always wants to take care of you.

John who's absolutely convinced you would be an amazing parent. Your infinite patience, the way you take care of your students, how understanding you are... it all makes his heart melt into a puddle. If you two ever decided to have children together, he'd watch you like a hawk, trying to learn from you. He thinks of you as an almost perfect balance between strict and loving, and even though he never admits that, you set him straight too quite often.

John whose salary as a Captain in the Army is quite generous, especially compared to yours (you both went on more than one rant about how unfair your pay is). If you let him, and he will literally beg you if he has to in order to convince you, he spoils you any chance he gets. You deserve the world, both for the person you are, and for how hard you work, so he will do his damned best to give it to you.

Alejandro who you know very well is a charmer like you've never seen. Even if they rarely meet him, all your students think he's the coolest, often asking you questions about him. During his time in school, Alejandro used to be every teacher's favourite, his natural charisma getting him out of most of the trouble he got in, without even having to kiss ass (he'd never do it, he's honest to a fault, and can't keep his opinions to himself if his life depends on it).

Alejandro who's high-key interested in all the gossip, he remembers the students and colleagues you talk about the most by name, and he always listens to you when you tell him about your day, no matter how unimportant or uninteresting you think it is. You could be telling him a story, and before you can explain who you're talking about, he's like "Ah si, you're talking about Rosa, verdad? The science teacher that bakes those cookies you like?" and you've talked about her once weeks ago.

Rudy who tries to make your life easier any chance he gets, when he has the time he helps you grade papers and review assignments. He always follows your lead and is a fair judge, he encourages you to stay focused and he's overall a wonderful help. If you're reluctant to let him help, he insists that the sooner your work gets done, the sooner the two of you will have time to spend with each other. But he mostly just says that to convince you, to him, the most important thing is that you aren't as stressed when you share your workload with him.

Rudy who absolutely loves the way you encourage your students, the way you are understanding while still pushing them to do better, the way you always let them know they can come to you if they need to, the way you stand up for them... it all makes him fall more and more in love with you everyday. And also, Rudy who encourages you, he's always right there cheering you on, he's your number one supporter, the one who knows better than anyone how hard you work, and he will never let you think you might not be doing a good enough job.

Simon who's constantly wondering how you haven't gone insane yet. Your students are loud and troublesome in a way that gives him a headache just hearing you talk about it, he tried to put himself in your shoes once and it was enough for him to envision his worst nightmare. He's convinced you must be a breath away from committing a crime at all times, no matter how sweet you are, and honestly, he wouldn't blame you one bit for it. He's probably going to offer to take you to a rage room every now and then, just to be safe.

Simon who refers to your students as your "disrespectful brats". He knows you adore your kids, or most of them anyway, so he tries his absolute best to not sound annoyed when he talks about them. He holds a personal grudge against the ones who give you the most grief, no matter how small their offence was, if they upset you, they will go straight to his mental blacklist. But aside from that, deep deep down inside Simon likes them too, if only because he knows how happy they make you.

Simon who is so incredibly protective of you. He knows better than most how bad people can be, so when it comes to your safety, he refuses to take any chances. If a student's parents ever give you trouble, he's more than ready to fix that. He knows that you can take care of yourself, but he'll gently insist on being the one to deal with it, because he knows exactly how to stop anyone from disrespecting you ever again with a single glare.

Kyle who buys you gifts related to your job, both for you and to be used in your classroom. Sometimes it's thoughtful little things, like your favourite brand of coloured pens, a new pretty water bottle to take to class, anything he heard you mention needing... other times it's something silly, like a "#1 Teacher" mug that he knows perfectly well you will find cringe, but it will put that beautiful exasperated smile on your face that makes his heart skip a beat, and you'll use it anyway just because he gave it to you.

Kyle who's more than understanding anytime you come home a bit grouchy, or just exhausted from your day at work. He knows exactly what to do to make you feel better, and he won't stop trying until he hears your small sigh of relief that lets him know you're successfully de-stressing. He gives you some very much needed peace and quiet, he'll take care of dinner, help you wash up if you're up for company, and then hold you close until your eyes fall shut and you can finally rest in the comfort of his arms.

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rose-pearls · 6 months

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Watching you go - Part 11

Here is the new part!! It took some time but it's here and I hope you like it!

Taglist: @avada-kedavra-bitch-187, @nyx2021, @thestarspangledcaptain, @kmc1989 (open for everyone)

Series taglist: @wannapizzamymindposts, @experiencebeinanamericanwhOre, @capswife, @star-of-velaris, @simpinformunson, @nobody7102, @r1dd1kulus, @primscat, @fishfetus, @jellybear455, @ghostieraccoons, @inky-sun, @happinessinthebeing, @magical-spit, @mrsjna, @whats-that26, @fluffybunnyu, @jdbxws, @yazminetrahan, @pillowjj, @v4mpygoth (open)

Previous Part - Next Part

The sun had been shining for the past few days and you couldn’t stop smiling. The whole district seemed happier when the sun came out, which helped with the underlying tensions that always seemed to be in district twelve.

“Alright, I need your honest opinion.”, you hear Peeta say as he comes out of the bakery, the back door closing behind him.

“I promise.”, you tell him, and he smiles shily before showing you a small cake with a large scoop of frosting on it and some decorations.

“Peeta, it’s beautiful.”, you can’t help but whisper as you look at all of the small details, the flowers and the greenery. The boy seems unsure at your words, but you smile brightly, making him sit down next to you.

“Thank you, it’s a test. If they sell out at the end of the day my mother has said they will be a weekly occurrence.”, he seems nervous at the prospect, so you take his hand in yours, squeezing it in reassurance.

“I’m sure people will be rushing in to buy them.”, you tell him and Peeta smiles softly at you, that now familiar look in his eyes, full of love.

It had taken some time to get there, mainly you thinking that Peeta was in love with Katniss and the boy proving you wrong every step of the way. He had been looking at you like you were the somehow the best thing that happened to him and you looked at him the same way.

You never thought of Katniss and Peeta again, until they went into the games and suddenly there was third person in your relationship. Or so you thought, it seemed as if now you were the person too much in the relationship and not Katniss.

You couldn’t breathe, it was like someone had their hands wrapped around your throat, tears brimming in your eyes.

“Hey, kid, focus!”, you hear Haymitch say, and you take a shaky breath, holding onto his arm and trying to keep your beathing at a normal pace.

He takes your hand and puts it over his heart, making you take deep breaths with him and after a moment you finally manage it, tears sliding down your cheeks.

“What happened?”, he asks softly as you fall against the wall, your legs close to you as if they could protect you from the harsh reality.

“I can’t – I”, he nods quietly, as if understanding that you couldn’t explain it.

“It was the sight of them, right?”, Haymitch asks after a moment and you look at him, with the same blue-grey eyes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know the girl was there.”, he says, and you simply shake your head, it wasn’t his fault.

“It’s a shitty feeling, right? Seeing the person, you like falling in love with someone else.”, you look at him with questioning eyes, he looked cynic, but there was sadness in his eyes.

“Are you talking about my mum?”, you ask him quietly, you hadn’t approached the subject with him but maybe you needed to talk about it.

“No, it wasn’t her.”, he says softly, and you look at him for a moment before you remember something.

“You really are like Haymitch.”, Johanna had whispered in the hospital, a soft smile on her lips.

“Johanna.”, you say and for the first time you see him flinch in response.

“How do you know?”, he asks, eyes wide as if you had just discovered his darkest secret.

“I was wondering how Peeta was, and she said that I was just like you, more busy worrying about others then myself.”, he closes his eyes like it’s painful.

“What happened?”, you ask softly and Haymitch lets out a sigh.

“It’s nothing compared to your love story with lover boy there.”, Haymitch says, and you know that he is trying to avoid the topic, you did the same thing.

“Every story is different, doesn’t make it less important.”, you tell him softly and he chuckles before looking at his hands that are wringing his beanie.

“When Johanna got out of the arena, she had no one, her mentors didn’t help her, so I took her under my wing. She was the first person to tell me my four truths to my face, the rest had always been too scared.”, you couldn’t help but chuckle at the image of an angry Johanna spewing words at him.

“Yeah, she was real fun back then. But little by little she started opening up and so did I, we told each other practically everything without even realizing it. She reminded me of my first girlfriend and slowly I started falling for her.”, there is a sad smile on his lips at the words and you take his hand in yours.

“She never felt the same, she was in love with Finnick. The boy had taken some time to realize how amazing she was but once he did, he finally saw what was in front of him and he took the chance I never had.”, there are tears shimmering in his eyes and you squeeze his hand.

“Why didn’t you tell her?”, you ask him softly.

“Because she deserved better than an old drunk like me. Plus, she was never really interested, she always had eyes for Finnick.”, he whispers, and you feel frustrated at his negative thoughts.

“You are far more than an old drunk.”, you tell him and your father scoffs at your words, but you shake your head.

“You won the 50th Hunger Games and had to go to every game after that, that is not something a coward would be able to do. Sure, you may have a drinking problem but, in the end, you were always there for the people who needed you, Katniss, Peeta, Johanna and me. You are insanely smart and cunning you just need to believe in yourself again, don’t let Snow win in making you believe that you are useless.”, he is looking at you with teary eyes, but you can’t stop yourself.

“And you are my goddamn dad, whether it was planned or not you are, and I will not let you bring yourself down. Never let anyone make you feel insecure about yourself, you deserve so much. And if that person doesn’t realize how amazing and wonderful you are then it’s her loss.”, you tell him and after a moment you think of your words, the words that you should also be telling yourself.

Peeta wasn’t in love with you anymore, no matter how much you would try to ignore it and push everything aside. He wasn’t the sweet boy you had met at the bakery, the both of you had changed whether you wanted to or not.

“I think I need to do something.”, you whisper and Haymitch nods in reassurance, there is that knowing glint in his eyes that tells you he already knows what you are going to do.

“I’m here if you need a pep talk or just someone to be with.”, he tells you and you nod in response. He smiles softly at you before kissing your forehead.

“Thanks for the pep talk sweetheart.”, he whispers, and you smile at him.

“Anytime you need it.”, he nods in response before leaving you in the hallway, thinking over what you were going to say.

He looks surprised to see you there, his blue eyes wide open but there is a familiar smile that appears.

“Hi.”, you say, unable to move from the door and Peeta nods in response, like he is unable to say something at the moment.

“How are you doing?”, you ask him as you manage to make your feet move towards the end of his bed and you sit down at his feet.

“The doctors say that I’m doing better, some memories come back, and others don’t.”, he looks unsure at the end, like he doesn’t know if he should say it or not, but you simply nod.

“You can tell me that you don’t remember us, I won’t get mad.”, you tell him softly and he looks at his hands for a moment, fiddling with his bedsheet, he always used to do that when he was nervous.

“How are you doing?”, he asks, his blue eyes meeting yours and you smile, trying to reassure him.

“I’m fine, the doctor told me that I could leave the medical ward and that Johanna should check on my wounds.”, you tell him, and he snorts softly.

“Better be careful with Johanna.”, he says teasingly, and you laugh at the words.

“She’s alright, she was actually the first person I saw when I woke up and she didn’t immediately start yelling around.”, the boy laughs at your words and there is a silence that follows your words. For the first time in a long time, you don’t know how to fill it.

“You like her, Katniss.”, you say after a moment and Peeta looks at you with wide eyes but before he can say anything you start talking.

“I know you do; I recognize the look in your eyes. You used to look at me with that look.”, you tell him, and he seems ashamed of the words.

“I’m sorry.”, he whispers, and you let out a shaky breath.

“It’s not your fault. The worst part is that the both of us haven’t had a say or do in this.”, he looks at you with sad blue eyes and you look at him with tears welling up in your eyes.

“I’ve loved you since I was a little girl and I saw you behind your father’s legs. But we aren’t the same people we were before you got reaped, we tried to make it work but it didn’t in the end.”, you say, your breath shaky as you talk and Peeta takes a deep breath.

“It’s not your fault, I want you to remember that. You didn’t have any control in what happened in the Capitol and even before you got captured it was not perfect.”, you tell him as the blond boy closes his eyes.

“I will always love you, some part of me always will and I will always cherish the moments that we had together, but we can’t keep pretending that all of this didn’t happen.”, Peeta seems pained at the words, and you feel sick at the thought of hurting him.

“I have to choose myself and give you the chance to discover everything again without me holding you back. That doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on you, I’ll always be there for you, but this is me choosing myself for once.”, you tell him, and he nods in understanding.

“You’re right. I was scared to hurt you, but we should’ve done this sooner.”, he says, and the words hurt more than any wound you could ever get physically.

“Don’t be a stranger Mellark.”, you whisper softly and Peeta smiles sadly.

“Don’t be a stranger either Abernathy.”, he whispers, and you shake your head, promising yourself that you would be there for him.

“Goodnight Peeta.”, he whispers goodnight back and you get off the bed, walking towards the door feeling like you are losing a piece of yourself.

And as you close the door behind you, the tears fall down your cheeks and you feel like someone has ripped a part of your body off.

You feel arms wrap themselves around your body and you get ready to push the person off until you recognize the pine smell that Johanna always carried with her, and you just fall in her arms sobbing.

“Haymitch told me you would need me.”, she whispers, and you hold her tighter, sobs leaving your lips.

“It’s okay I’m right here, I’m not leaving.”, she whispers, and you close your eyes, wishing for the memories of the blond boy to disappear but they just flash in front of your eyes.

You don’t realize that at the same time the boy with the bread is watching the door with tears streaming down his cheeks, memories coming back one by one.

#hunger games fanfiction #the hunger games #hunger games x reader #the hunger games peeta #peeta mellark x reader #peeta x reader #peeta imagine #peeta mellark #i love peeta

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deathbecomesthem · 2 months

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Crawling to the Finish | Part 4 | 10K

Eddie Munson x Fem!Disabled!Reader

*This is a completed series that is queued and will be released on the dates below. This Masterlist will be updated with each part that is released.

+18 ONLY | MDNI

Warnings: There will be lots of descriptions of medical stuff. The reader is physically disabled due to an undefined accident. Major bone trauma. Lots of talk about pain. Blood loss/Blood transfusion, discussions about a urethral catheter and post surgical bowel movement. Vomiting. This is an honest story about what a post surgical experience is often like. In my opinion, it's not super explicit, but take heed of the warnings.

There is SMUT in this part. (Oral, PIV)

Summary: You get your hip replacement, and your life.

A/N: The physical disability described in this series is my own. The experiences are very close to what my own. Be kind.

A/N 2: This is it, the last chapter of this series. I hope it's satisfying. It took a lot for me to write this story, especially this part. 💜

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The alarm screams into your quiet bedroom at 4:00. You were already on edge, so the sounds makes you leap in the air, throwing your arm hard into the soft flesh of the person laying next to you. You both groan in pain – you from the jolt to your hip, Eddie from your hard fist hitting his chest.

“Oh, god, I’m so sorry.” Eddie’s rolling over to hop off the side of the bed to help you up. It’s an automatic movement at this point. He’s spent nearly every single night in your bed for the last 2 weeks, and he never fails to help you in the morning, even when he’s still mostly asleep.

“I’m fine, Baby.” His voice is hushed, but alert. He was as restless as you were last night. He held you tightly and played with your hair until you finally drifted for a little while.

You asked him if his uncle minded him being away from home so much, and he laughed and reminded you that you’re both adults. Your mom was fine with him staying over, and all had an unspoken arrangement about refraining from any kind of sexual activities when she was home. Really, you were so tired and scared about your upcoming surgery, there wasn’t much more than occasional heavy petting in the front seat of his van after school anyway.

“Go back to bed, Ed. I’ve gotta get ready, you can sleep.” Wordlessly, not arguing, just doing, he helps you get into the bathroom. You hear your mom moving on the other side of her bedroom door. Eddie gives you a kiss on the forehead, and heads back to your room.

A clean pair of underwear, sweatpants, and a t shirt sit on the stool in the bathroom. You spot the pre-surgical soap sitting on the lip of the bathtub along with a fresh washcloth. Time to wash your body, every inch, with the hospital soap. The smell immediately brings you to realization that – yes – this is happening today.

Your mom meets you in the doorway of the bathroom, ready to take her own shower, as you leave to finish getting ready in your bedroom. She gives you a tight-lipped smile and pats your arm before squeezing past you and into the steam filled room. When you enter your bedroom, you find Eddie sitting on the end of your bed, fully dressed. He’s sitting with his hands held between his open knees. His smile matches the one your mom had just given you, the tension and stress about the upcoming day edging you close to the edge. You’re ready to break.

Eddie points to the chair that sits in the corner of your room and tells you, “Sit down, Baby.” You don’t question it, you sit for him. Your brain is an open nerve, every bad thought runs through it over and over again. You can hear a distant screaming in your head, white noise zinging between your ears. Eddie stands and walks over to you, grabbing your hairbrush from the vanity. He motions for you turn and tip your head back a little. Again, you comply.

Your hair is only slightly damp. You shampooed it last night when you took your first pre surgery shower. Eddie is so gentle when he runs the brush through your tangles. He’s humming something quietly while his hands run up the back of your neck in a soothing movement.

His voice is soft and sweet, filling the room with a warm calm. You’ve never heard him sing before, and you feel a sense of sadness at missed opportunities. You close your eyes and focus on his voice, on his soothing touch on your neck and scalp, and on the bristles of the brush massaging your tension. The surge of affection you feel for him is so intense. You vacillate between overwhelming affection and absolute terror, back and forth. The feelings are both too much to be shared, you feel the intensity of each fully, filling you completely. You want to stay in this chair and never leave it, Eddie singing barely above a whisper, as if the volume of his voice may make time speed up.

The *tap, tap* at your door reminds you that time is, in fact, moving forward, and now you must leave. You haven’t even opened the door yet, but your brain is 10 steps ahead. The moment is broken, and you feel bricks being laid in your head, building a wall to separate yourself from everything and everyone around you. You manage a little smile at Eddie when he pulls you in for a hug before you leave the room and make your way down, down, down the stairs and into the front seat of your mom’s little rust bucket.

For all you know, Eddie stays in that exact spot for the rest of the day, although he’s meant to go to school and get a status report at lunch time from your mom. It had been a, well not a fight, but a disagreement between Eddie and yourself about whether he should drive to the hospital before the surgery. You had told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was not to sit in that waiting room all day with your parents. It would be pointless. Besides, you reminded him that he had an exam study day in one of his classes, and he needed the help since you’d be out of commission for a while. It wasn’t until your mom assured Eddie that he could call the hospital, even going as far as to get the direct line for the waiting area your parents would be in before he relented and agreed to wait until he knew you were in your own room before trying to come down and visit.

At least, that was the plan. The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.

It takes a lifetime and no time at all to get from sitting in the front seat of your mom’s car to lying on the cold metal table of the operating room. From what you can tell, there are about a half a dozen people scooting around the room. It’s hard to know with everyone in caps on their heads and masks over their faces. The one sitting behind your head, somewhere your eyes can’t reach, is the anesthesiologist. You met him in pre-op, and he said several times that you probably won’t even remember meeting him. You will. They always say this, and you always remember.

The smell in the hospital is all too familiar. The disinfectant used within these walls permeates everything. It will be the only thing you smell until you leave in two days, with the exception of –

“Alright, let’s get some happy gas in you. Once you’re feeling good, we’ll get your IVs in, ok?” A mask with a rubber seal around it is placed over your mouth and nose. Your initial reaction is too feel panic, because it’s unnatural to take deep breaths of something that smells like this. But you do it, you let the happy gas fill your mouth and then travel down to your lungs. A couple of mouthfuls and the panic, as well as the worry, starts to fade to black.

“There she goes. Y/n, how are we feeling? Good?” You nod in answer, and it feels as if your head weighs 50 pounds and is also weightless at the same time. You don’t feel the pinch of the needle piercing your skin, but you know it’s in because they’ve got you counting backwards now. 100, 99, 98, 97, 96, “y/n, what comes after 96? Can you tell me?” 95… 94… Everything is black.

“Y/n, I need you to answer me.” An unfamiliar voice is saying your name, and you can’t move. You can’t even open your eyelids. Everything is heavy and, oh god, your mouth is so dry.

“Water.” It’s barely a whisper when it leaves your mouth, a plea, you felt like you might die without a drink.

“No, dear, no water right now,” a hand is fiddling around under your blanket. Yes, a blanket, you’re in a bed, “maybe some ice chips in a little while, alright?”

Not alright, “I’m so thirsty.” Your voice sounds strange, and your throat is so sore. What happened to you? As you wrack your brain for an answer, the beeping sounds from the machines in the recovery room start to bring you back. You were in the hospital. You had surgery.

“Mom?” If you’re in the recovery room, she must be here too somewhere. Your eyes are open now, but you can’t see. The world is blur and you can’t sharpen your focus. You feel panic setting in, but when you try to move you find you’re legs are completely without feeling.

“Your mom ran out to get your dad since you’re waking up. It’s been a long day for everyone, and they’re anxious to see you.” The nurse, you can see her blue scrubs, but still can’t make out any defining facial features, pats you on the arm. It’s supposed to be reassuring, but you’re desperate now.

“Please, water.” You’re minding your manners, but you still need that drink. You need something to calm the fire in your throat. Your tongue is sticky, and you can’t form the words correctly in your mouth. It hurts.

The nurse isn’t answering you anymore, she’s pretending she can’t hear your desperate plea for the most essential need you have. It’s all you can think of. A drink. A drop. Anything. This is when your mom and dad walk into your line of vision. Still blurry, but you know their forms.

“Water,” it’s all you can say, all you can think of, “please.” Your mom is rubbing the top of your head, and you hear a catch in her breath. Is she crying?

“Are you ok, baby?” Her voice is hoarse, and you know she’s been crying now.

“I’m ok,” the words are sticky, your tongue thick in your mouth, “what’s wrong?” Your fuzzy brain tries to focus on her words. Your eyes are starting to focus finally, and you see your dad’s face is full of concern. He’s standing at the end of your bed. Above his head you see the big red numbers of the clock at the nurse’s station. It’s 7:00. Your surgery should have ended 5 hours ago.

Another hour passes and you’re finally in your room. 5 days in the hospital, at least, is what you’re told. Something went wrong, and no one’s really clear about what it was. The surgery went hours longer than it should have, and you ended up having a blood transfusion. You lost a lot of blood, apparently, and most of it was on the surgical gown when your doctor left the OR to update your family on the situation. Your mom was hysterical, according to your dad. She thought you were going to die. But you didn’t, because now you’re staring at the faces of your parents. They look terrified, like you might just disappear if they take their eyes off of you.

Eddie had come to see you after school, expecting to find you in your room already. He stayed with your parents for those few hours. Your mom sent him home, insisted on it, once she found out you were out of surgery and not on the verge of bleeding to death anymore. She said he didn’t argue, but he looked wrecked.

Hearing Eddie’s name sends a pang through your chest, but your thirst and the slowly growing ache in your leg overtakes any thought about anyone else. The ice chips your mom snuck to you without the nurse noticing came right back up, and now your focus was on your thirst and your fear of throwing up any liquid you might try to drink.

In and out of consciousness, that’s how night one post hip replacement goes. People come and go. Your dad and Sun leave after a while. It’s just your mom sleeping in the recliner set in the corner with a hospital blanket draped over her legs. Every hour. Every hour a nurse came in to check your vitals. You drift to sleep only to be awoken by the ice cold hands of the night nurse touching you, putting the blood pressure cuff on your arm, messing with the many tubes that are inserted into different areas of your body.

“I have to go to the bathroom.” It’s 3:30 in the morning when you feel it. The sneaking urge to piss. You knew that it didn’t make sense logically, but it was something that always happened. You had to pee, but you have a catheter inserted into your urethra.

“Oh, do you need to have a bowel movement already?” A bowel movement? No, I don’t need to take a shit. The nurse is moving stuff around, likely looking for a bed pan for you.

“No, I have to pee.” You have to pee. The pressure is incredible, and it hurts.

Your mom is stirring, she’s been listening to the interaction, not intervening until she knew she had to. “y/n, sweetie, you have a catheter, remember? You don’t have to pee, it just feels weird.”

You hate this, you hate feeling like you have to be handled.

“Then take it out. I have to pee.” You know they won’t take it out.

“Here, don’t forget you can use this when you start to hurt.” Your mom puts the morphine pump into your hand. The monitor for the pump is facing away from your bed, she had turned it hours ago when she realized you could tell when it cut you off. Anything to try to keep you on an even keel.

You press the button on the pump over and over. Until you fade again.

You wake up scratching at your arms. Everything itches. Head to toe. It’s the morphine, you know. This is another thing you know that happens. When the itching starts to get intense like this, your desire to get the IV out of your arm starts to drive you crazy.

The next time you wake up enough to register what’s happening around you, the sun is up. Your mom is also up and she’s digging around in her purse. A nurse, a new one now that the morning shift started, is putting a blood pressure cuff on your arm again.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Your mom glides over to you. Your pain is manageable, but your brain is so fuzzy. “I’m running home for a quick shower. Dr. Greene will be coming down in a couple of hours to see you.”

She’s gone, and you’re alone. The sounds and scents of the hospital are all around you. The only solace you take in the morning is the fact that water is sitting fine now. You’ve been able to eat some jello, but it roils in your stomach. You have a plastic bin on the table next to your ice water “just in case”.

In the hospital, time is meaningless. Every moment is the same and it’s never ending. You rationally know that things are happening, every moment spent there your body is healing. You know that your time spent here is short when viewed in the context of your life, but it’s also an eternity.

The morning shows come and go, and in the talk show hours you meet someone new. A woman, smaller than you, and she’s wearing a wide leather belt over her hospital scrubs. Shit. You thought maybe you’d get a reprieve since you almost died yesterday, but no, this is when the torture begins.

“Good morning, y/n! I’m Leslie, I’ll be with you every morning and afternoon while you’re here,” yep, you know this already. You can feel yourself aging backward in this moment, you’re going to be a problem for her, it’s already been decided, even if it is more of a punishment for yourself than anything else, “We’re gonna get you up, how’s that sound?”

“Get me up? Like standing?” This isn’t what you expected at all.

“Yes, standing and,” Leslie walks over to the curtain that closes you off from the door to your room to show you something, “we’re going up the stairs.” There’s a small platform with 3 steps and a railing on either side.

Without further conversation, she’s attempting to help you swing your legs over the edge of the bed to get you standing. You offer no help whatsoever. If she wants you up, she can figure it out herself. She mutters an “I see how it is” to herself before digging in her bag and retrieving a sling. She knows what she’s doing, and she’s not going to let your shit attitude get in the way of your recovery.

You never actively fight these things. You just don’t help. You let her situate the sling under your back with your aching legs hanging over the edge of the hospital bed. You let her hands get a good grip on the handles and pull. She’s strong, and she’s got you on your feet.

It’s grueling. The next 40 minutes is spent being dragged, literally at times, from bed to stairs until this pixie demon made you take at least one step up. The rage keeps you moving. Her comments about how ”maybe you just don’t want to get better”, or “is it really worse than being in that bed? Come on” pushed you to get her to shut up. It became your only thought, get this annoying bitch out of my face before I start swinging.

You know this is how it will go. If you thought that, due to the fact that you almost died yesterday, you’d get a small reprieve, you were mistaken. Your surgeon explains this to you when he stops in your room for 10 minutes to check on you that morning. You knew your mom would have a kitten knowing that she managed to miss him. He wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, and that was only if you were lucky.

“We need to encourage the bone to grow and heal through the hollow rod in your femur,” Dr. Greene is delivering this information, as if it will make anything easier, while he lifts your brand new hip joint high enough for your knee to be level with your face. You want to tell him to stop, because it scary and more painful than you want to admit, “See, it’s perfect. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be better than you’ve been in years.”

Time is funny in the hospital, because you fall asleep as soon as he leaves your room, exhausted from his prodding and the unexpected physical therapy visit. You sleep for what feels like hours only to wake up a half hour later when a nurse is at your bedside with a sight you were dreading.

She thinks you’re still sleeping. She probably has no idea that you’re as familiar with the urethral catheter removal kit as anyone not working in healthcare could be. She’s ripping open the sterile package and opening it up on the table that recently held your barely touch breakfast. She starts trying to rouse you while her back is turned and she’s moving the rolling table towards your bed. You can sleep anytime, but right now she has to do this extremely unpleasant task.

You open your eyes and answer in the affirmative to whatever she asks you. It doesn’t matter, you’re going somewhere else for a while. She can do what she needs while you close your eyes. The sun beats down on your face while you lay in the grass. You feel individual blades between your toes and fingers. It’s itchy, and you think you can even feel a stray ant on your arm. It’s fine, he can crawl around and explore the freckles scattered there while you let the sun’s rays lick across your skin.

A sharp pain brings you back to your hospital bed. The nurse seems unperturbed by your yelp, working diligently at your most private place while it’s laid bare in the cold room. You let yourself drift back to the open field where you hear a bumble bee buzz past your closed eyes. Something else is new, a warm hand entangled with your own. You feel cool rings against your warm skin and you know it’s Eddie there with you. You’ve never had anyone else visit this place with you, but it feels so right to have him here. He’s humming a tune while his fingers stroke your knuckles.

You stay there with Eddie, not realizing you have tears pricking at the corner of your eyes until you hear the nurse speaking to you, “sorry, sweetie, but we’re all done. I’ll get you a tissue,” you hear her crumpling up all of the pieces of the catheter that will go into the bin, and you quickly pull the sheet back over your exposed legs.

“Alright, I’ll be back in a minute with your meds, and we can order some lunch.” She leaves the tray next to your bed, now with a box of tissues to wipe away the tears you had shed at the thought of your boyfriend. You want him here, and you want him far away. You want his comfort, and you don’t want him to touch you. You want to be alone, and you need someone here holding your hand. It’s too much, feeling anything at this moment.

You know it’s the drugs, partially, that make you feel like this. You try not to think about needing it because your body was split open. The only thing holding the skin at your hip together being staples and internal stitches until it all heals back together. You try not think about the foreign materials inside replacing the useless dead bones that have to be incinerated. You try not to think about the upcoming pain. The humiliation you know you’ll have to endure. You just hope that being up and moving, despite being something you hate doing, maybe it will help your body re-learn how to have normal bowel movements and allow your bladder muscles to regain their strength.

Lunch comes and goes, and your mom comes back. You’re in and out of consciousness, waking for your regular meds and occasionally when the nurses come to prod and poke at you. You dream of walking barefoot through dewy grass. You dream of Mr. Willis’ classroom, the stench of him so thick you can see it in the air, a green fog filling your nose and throat. You wake up coughing and find your mouth full and chest covered in vomit, the half a turkey sandwich from a few hours ago too much for your aching stomach to handle.

“Eddie’s stopping by in an hour,” your mom is telling you this as she cleans bile out of your hair, “I know it’s not an ideal time, sweetie, but he’s been so persistent. He really loves you, ya know?” You’re too tired for this conversation. Your throat is raw. You want to tell her to make Eddie go home when he comes, but you’re too weak. Besides, your mom will clean you and make you smell nice. It’s not the first time she’s had to do to this type of work, it’s not the first time she’s had to cover up the ugly truth of you to make it easier for the people around you to be feel comfortable. She might even put some makeup on your face while your eyes are resting to give you the appearance of a healthful glow. That was fine. It’s all fine. It will all be fine.

When he gets there, your mom makes an excuse to leave. She stops next to Eddie and says something low that you can’t make out. Immediately, you feel angry and cough out the first words you’ve said in hours, “I’m not a child, you don’t need to whisper behind my back.”

“I was just telling Eddie that your stomach was upset,” your mom’s eyes are pleading for forgiveness while Eddie moves slowly to the chair positioned next to your bed. She sighs a little to herself, points at the little vomit catcher on the table next to you for Eddie to see, and steps around the privacy curtain.

“Hey, baby, how are you feeling?” Eddie is cautiously looking for a place to put his hand so it can touch you, you can see the cogs of his brain turning as his eyes scan the multiple IV spots on both hands. You have enough brain power to turn the hand closest to Eddie over, palm up so he knows he can hold it.

His touch is warm, you hand is icy from the IV fluids running continuously through your veins. No matter what you do, they’re always cold. It feels so nice to have his calloused thumb run along the length of your pointer finger, up and down, up and down. You know you’re going to fall asleep again. But he came to see you. You have to try.

“I don’t feel very good, Ed, and I’m so tired.” Your eyes are closed now and he’s brushing the hair away from your face. It’s still damp from the sponge bath your mom gave you moments before.

“Sleep, baby. I’ll be here, ok?”

A mercifully dreamless sleep takes over for a while. When you finally open your eyes, it’s dark in the room with only the light of a small lamp in the corner turned on. Eddie is sitting cross legged on the window sill with a notebook and pencil, your mom in the chair next to him, stealing as much light as possible so she can read her paperback. How long had you been allowed to sleep?

“What time is it?” Your voice is weak, and you’re suddenly very thirsty, very hungry, and your bladder is screaming at you. “Mom, I have to go to the bathroom,” you whisper out before either of them can move.

After a little struggle, and some lost modesty as the back of your gown was wide open, you’re mom gets you up on your feet. You know the rules, she’s supposed to get a nurse in to help me to the bathroom, but that could take a while. So, your mom and Eddie, poor unprepared Eddie, helped you up, and let you lean on them while you hobbled to the adjacent bathroom.

As you sit on the porcelain seat, willing your bladder muscles to work, taking deep breaths, begging your body to do a thing that most people will never know can be so incredibly complicated, you worry about Eddie. You know how this looks from your perspective, it’s misery. The first days after a surgery like this are always terrible, but the added stress your body has been through the last few years and the blood transfusion, it’s left you weak and helpless. You try to imagine what you must look like through his eyes.

A trickle of warmth leaks out of you, and you practically cry with joy. You knew if you couldn’t do it right now the nurse would have to come back and re-cath you to relieve your bladder. You can see from the back of you mom’s head in the corner of the small bathroom that she’s doing a little cheer to herself. She also understands, she might be the only one in your life that knows how bad it can get.

The room is still dark when you re-enter, your arm around your mom’s waist to steady you while you drag the IV pole behind you. The adrenaline of being able to use the bathroom is fading fast, and you’re ready to get back into your bed. You spot her, a nurse, in the corner talking to Eddie while arranging pillows around the big chair and you know what’s next.

Eddie’s quick to meet you and your mom, and to fill you in, “Hey, baby, the nurse said you should sit up for a while, ok?” You don’t like his tone, and you can’t help the frown on your face. You hate being talked to like a child, hate people making plans without your consent, even for something as simple as sitting in a chair.

“Fine.” You can feel Eddie tense up at your tone, while he guides you to the chair. You address the nurse as you lower yourself slowly, “how long do you want me here?” Everything hurts and is uncomfortable. You know the pain meds are strong, but they can’t reach every signal your body is throwing at you. Your nerves screaming that something is wrong with you. It was exhausting having to ignore it and do the work.

You had been warned before your surgery that it would be like this. Not like some of your other surgeries, a hip replacement requires immediate work and physical therapy. Too much rest was the enemy, you had to get yourself moving.

“Oh, I don’t know, let’s see if we can get at least 30 minutes. How’s that sound?” Her beaming smile puts you on edge, but you just nod and let Eddie put a stool under your feet, fussing with it to make sure it would be comfortable.

The three of you sat, Eddie back on the window sill and your mom at the edge of your bed, for an hour. If nothing else, you would stubbornly do more than they expected. It was in your nature to prove something, to be better than you need to be. Feel less pain, heal faster, get the fuck out of this hospital room as soon as you can.

When they help you back in the bed, finally, you don’t have anything to say to anyone. No words, despite the friendly conversation your mom and Eddie had carried on the whole time. The nurse brought your prescribed dinner, a gross chicken breast with mashed potatoes and green beans. It all smelled the same, like the disinfectant that covered every surface of the hospital. You manage the mashed potatoes, praying to a god you don’t believe in that it will stay in your stomach and not make a surprise reappearance in an hour.

When Eddie finally says goodbye, he’s been sitting next to you for a while stroking your hair. His eyebrows pinched in concern at your lack of response to him. You want to tell him you’re sorry. You want to tell him to pick you up and take you home. You don’t want to be here anymore. You hate it, and you hate that you can’t get yourself out of the darkness. You feel surrounded by pain and memories. The hospital always brings out the worst in you.

And this is how it goes. Every day for the next 4, each progressively better. Your recovery is going “exceptionally well” according to Dr. Greene. He can’t believe how fast it’s moving, but to you it’s like you’re stuck in molasses. Everything is hard. The first bowel movement you have on day 3 comes with the aid of suppositories. You have to insist that your mom come up with an excuse to keep Eddie away from your room that afternoon when you heard the nurse’s plan to get your intestines back on track. It’s also the same day that the IVs come out, which means you have more control over your meds. You can even get to the bathroom alone, with the help of a walker.

On day 4, Eddie doesn’t visit. He calls, apologizing profusely. And you feel like you know. This is what you expected. You tell him it’s fine, who wants to be sit and be bored at the hospital? You let him tell you about how excited he is for his new campaign. You let him tell you how much he misses you. If he misses me, why didn’t he come? You wish you could reach through the phone line to touch his face. You want to tell him that you’re sorry for anything bad he’s found out about who you are. You’re so sorry, you don’t want to lose him. You don’t want him to leave you. Please, don’t leave me. Please, I’ll be better soon. I’m so sorry.

He has no idea that you’re barely holding on, tears streaming down your face. Alone in your hospital room while he gives you latest gossip about Dustin and his imaginary girlfriend. You even manage to laugh a little. You tell him you miss him, clearing your throat so he can’t hear the break in your voice.

You fall asleep that night contemplating the end of your relationship with Eddie. He was too kind to do it while you laid in this fucking bed. He’ll wait until you’re home. He’ll wait until you’re back at school. He might even wait until after you both graduate. But you know he will. You can’t blame him. You tried to tell him, in the best way you knew how. Tomorrow you get to go home, but all you can think about is how alone you are. You told your mom to sleep in her own bed tonight, you’d be fine. And you are, but you’re not. Why can’t they see that you’re not ok?

“Good morning, baby.” Your eyes are so heavy, you feel like you’ve been asleep for days. You know it’s Eddie’s hand on your arm, it’s his voice ringing in your head. You wonder for a moment if you’re delusional or dreaming. He’s not the only one here, your mom, dad, and Sun are all in the room with you.

“What time is it?” It’s your first thought. Your eyes can’t focus on the clock positioned on the wall across the room. You’re realizing what this is, it’s Saturday morning, you’re supposed to be released. Don’t these people know it will be hours before that actually happens.

“It’s 8. I brought you some breakfast,” you can’t stop the little groan that leaves your mouth at the thought of another hospital meal, but you see Eddie’s holding up a brown bag, “don’t tell the nurse but I brought you sausage McMuffin.

“Oooooohhhh,” you grab the bag out of his hand, the thought of sinking your teeth into the greasy mess. The first bite is heaven, “oh my god, Eddie, I could fucking kiss you right now,” you can’t even care that your mouth is full when you practically moan the words to him. “Oh my god, did you get me a hashbrown too?”

“Who knew you were such a cheap date, Ilene?” Eddie’s practically glowing at your reaction to his little gift. “I figured you’d be sick of the shitty hospital food.”

“You didn’t tell me you were coming. You should go home, Eddie. It’s gonna be a while before I can get out of here.” His face falls a little, and you immediately regret suggesting he leave. “I’m sorry,” you reach out for his arm and smile at him, “I want you here, I just don’t want you to have to sit around all day with me.”

He waves it off, and pulls an extra chair next to the bed, “you look so good today,” his hand cups your face and it sends a wave of pleasure through your chest. His words make you laugh, though. You know how you look, you caught a glimpse of yourself in the bathroom mirror when you took a piss at 5 am. You had been excited about getting to the bathroom on your own, but grimaced when you caught your reflection. Your eyes were hollow looking with dark purple circles surrounding them. Your cheeks looked thin and pale. Your hair was stringy. You knew the first thing you’d do when you got back home was take a shower, assuming you’d have the energy.

“I’m serious, you’ve got color in your cheeks,” Eddie looks back to make sure your parents aren’t listening and he leans in close to your ear, “I’ve been thinking about all the ways I can help bring that glow back to your face, as soon as you’re up for it.”

“Eddie, don’t be a pervert, my parents are in the room,” your giggle does bring the attention of your mom, and you give her a tight lipped look. You lower your voice so only he can hear you, “Listen here, loverboy, it’s gonna be a while. I’m sorry.”

“No, do not apologize,” Eddie puts his hand through his hair in exasperation at himself, “I’ve just been thinking about it because I’ve been doing a little research.”

“Research? On sex? I mean, what?” This entire absurd conversation was happening at whisper level while your parents and your stepmom were just out of earshot, but he couldn’t leave you hanging.

“Oh, uh, I hope it’s ok, but I asked one of the nurses for resources about post hip replacement, uh, intimacy. You wouldn’t believe how much information there is about this stuff.” His eyes go wide at the memory, and you laugh thinking about Eddie hunched over sex pamphlets geared towards geriatric sex.

It’s a whirlwind after he drops that bomb, but the joy of the moment shared between you and him stays with you through the rest of the morning. The nurses come in with a stack of paperwork for your parents to fill out while the evil physical therapist makes you take your new hip for one last spin before she sets you free. It’s shocking, but you’re taking steps without any walking aids 5 days post-surgery. Your stubbornness doesn’t allow you to thank her for her help, but your mom happily does. By 11, you’ve been told that they’re sending a wheelchair up for you.

Your dad and Sun kiss you goodbye at the passenger side door of your mom’s sedan. This is the first time leaving the hospital after surgery without being locked tight in a cast or cumbersome brace. You feel hopeful. It’s a shock. You think, maybe this is going to work out, as if you never expected it to.

This is the first moment you’ve allowed yourself to think that way. You feel the temptation to push back, to throw that hope away, but you stop yourself. You let it sit. You let it travel through your body. You let that hope move from the top of your head to the ends of your toes. You embrace it. You close your mind to the thoughts you entertained last night, because right now, your goofy boyfriend is sitting in the backseat of your mom’s car, fiddling the ends of your hair while The Bangels blares from the speakers. And Eddie doesn’t say a word about it.

“I know what you said, and I don’t care. I am not wearing that dress.” Your mom is standing just inside the doorway of your bedroom with a white linen dress in her hand. She picked it up especially for the occasion, even after you told her that you would walk down the aisle, but absolutely not in a white dress. Tradition be damned.

“You’ll be the only one dressed like,” she’s waving dramatically at your choice of black jeans and black boots with a Corroded Coffin t shirt, “that.”

“You know I won’t be.” You’re applying the cherry red lipstick you bought especially for today, especially for Eddie. “And it’s a surprise for him. When I take off the gown, he’ll probably pass out.” You pop you lips together on a piece of tissue, “Totally worth it.”

It’s been exactly 6 weeks since you left the hospital. Full release from your surgeon. The only restrictions, which are lifelong restrictions – no skiing, no running, and no pivoting on the hip. Everything else? Go for it. He even spoke to you privately about sex, telling you that you should have no problem having a perfectly normal sex life. You’d wanted to crawl under the exam table during the conversation, you could feel the heat in your face, but Dr. Greene didn’t seem bothered. It was important information to have. He was vested in your full recovery and successful return to all of the normal life stuff. You were his perfect example of how a hip replacement in a young adult should look. (Except for the almost dying in the operating room, which he’s made no mention of since you left the hospital.)

You’ve been working on your gait. To the absolute confusion of your doctor, your left leg is a full 2 inches shorter than your right, and the muscles are weak. He insists that there’s no reason for the difference in leg lengths, but it’s still there. His offer to prescribe shoes with added lifts was met with a scoff from you. You wouldn’t be limited in your footwear. Even if it means you’ll have to deal with the consequences of it down the line.

The boots you’re wearing today you bought a week ago when you started your new job at the Shoe Circus. It’s only 15 hours a week, and you were technically supposed to wait until Dr. Greene released you for work, but you felt good and ready to do some normal teenager stuff. Like, have a shitty part-time retail job and tromp around in the woods with your boyfriend.

Your cane, specially adapted by the man himself, is waiting for you by the front door. You know that Principal Higgins will have a stroke if he sees the skull’s head handle that Eddie picked up somewhere. He just laughs and tells you, “I have my ways, Ilene, don’t worry about it,” when you ask him. The cane, though, can stay in your mom’s car. You shouldn’t need it for the ceremony.

When you arrive at the school, the parking lot is full, but you immediately spot Eddie’s van parked in the back by the trail that heads into the woods. You don’t see him, though, and he usually sticks out in the Hawkins crowd.

It’s not until you’re sat on the stage in alphabetical order that you spot him. He’s racing to the steps on the side of the stage, cap in hand and gown flowing behind him. He has the appearance of someone that just barely made it in time, which is weird because his van was in the parking lot when you arrived a half an hour ago. He manages to sneak to his seat with minimal damage, although you catch him trip over someone’s foot.

The ceremony is long and boring, and you’re so ready to get out of the building you wonder why you agreed to come in the first place. Mom wants you here. Your mom earned this, seeing her daughter walk for graduation, get her diploma, throw her cap in the air. So, you sit still and let your mind go back to the field with Eddie, your special spot, a place where time is meaningless and all that matters is you and him. Except this time, you really get to have that. You get to feel that grass between your toes, Eddie’s hand in yours, the sun beating down on your face. You just have to get through this tiresome ordeal.

Your mom gets her moment, you see her camera flashing its bulb as you shake hands with Principal Higgins, despite the “no flash photography” rule written out on the programs at the auditorium entrance. Your mom also gets to see you goofy ass boyfriend snatch his diploma out of Higgins’ hand and flip him off before he runs out of one of the side doors. It’s so stupid and ridiculous, but what do you expect? It’s Eddie.

Eddie’s shenanigans earn a big laugh from the corner of the auditorium. The Hellfire Club let out hoots and hollers of joy, their leader finally getting the fuck out of this prison. The club wanted to immediately start partying after the ceremony, and you had to do a lot of begging for them to let you steal Ed away for a while. A party was happening in 2 nights. You expect you’ll be taking care of a very sick boyfriend that night.

You let your mom take pictures of you holding your diploma, just like all the other parents are doing. She kisses you, she hugs you, she looks like she’s going to cry – these are all things that make you desperately uncomfortable, but you let her do them. And when she leaves, you know she feel satisfied and proud, so it’s worth it.

You’ve got your cane, and you ditched your robe in the trunk of your mom’s car before she left. You reapplied your lipstick and grabbed your purse. Now all you needed to do is find Eddie. You spot him leaning against his van, cigarette in hand. He was waiting for you. The closer you get, the more you can focus on his frame. Tall and thin, his curls fluffy and framing his face. You swear he’s doing it on purpose, standing in a spot where the sun rays whisper through the tree canopy and make him practically glow.

“Excuse me, sir. I’m looking for my boyfriend, have you seen him?” He catches you with his eyes, a wide smile that turns into wide eyes and a gaping mouth. You do a little twirl for him to catch sight of your very tight jeans. The corroded coffin shirt is cut into a crop top exposing a scandalous amount of skin.

“Holy shit, Ilene, were you wearing that during graduation?” As soon as you were within arm’s reach he pulled you into him, pressing your body against his. He feels like he’s on fire already, “Baby, baby, baby, mmmmm, come here, let me show you something.” He’s nuzzling at your neck like a cat, rubbing himself against you like he can’t control himself. You knew he’d like the outfit, but this is beyond what you could have expected.

Eddie was nervous about being with you. A part of the deal you made with each other was to be completely honest about any fear either of you might have about being intimate, no matter what the reason. Despite everything the doctor told you, what the pamphlets told him, and how using your hands on each other seemed to only fuel the fire you both felt, he kept telling you he wanted to be sure he wouldn’t hurt you.

“What do you want to show me, Ed? If it’s your cock, I’m fairly well acquainted with it already. Although I don’t mind getting to know it a little better,” Eddie’s groan in response is muffled by your hair, “but don’t we have plans?”

“Mmm, yeah, but let me show you first, ok?” Eddie breathes in the scent of your neck deeply before pulling himself away and taking your hand to lead you to the back of the van. When he opens the doors, his eyes are focused on your face. He wants to see your reaction to his surprise. To see the moment you take in the care he put into this.

Eddie has known since the first moments he spent with you that it was right. Everything about you made him feel. He embraced the feeling because he knew you couldn’t do that. You were so raw, an open wound moving around the school, oozing anger, sadness, and a kind of strength he couldn’t help but want to get close to. His initial goal was to get you to smile for him, and the first time he did, he was addicted. Everything he desired in life paled in comparison to the feeling he got when he heard you laugh, or when he heard you say his name. It sent a thrill through his body every time.

You are the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, and he wants to hold and protect you. He wants to laugh with you. He wants to be with you while he sees you unfurl your wings and fly away from all of the pain you’ve known for so long. He counts himself as extremely lucky to have been sent to Principal Higgins for detention all those weeks ago. He knows he never would have reached that graduation stage without you, and he can’t help but tear up at the thought of how much you’ve offered him in the short time you’ve known him.

Today, he wants to show you everything. Rip open his chest to hand over his still beating heart for you to hold. Because he knows you would protect it in the same way he knows he would protect yours. You gave him his future, he’s sure of it.

“Eddie, is that an air mattress?” You reach out to feel it underneath the soft bedding he has it made up with and you know the answer before he can speak it.

“No, baby, it’s a pillow top mattress, super soft, right?” The entire back of his van is made up like a makeshift bedroom, complete with extra soft looking pillows and a curtain between the front and the back for privacy. You see a foam wedge pillow set in the corner, and peep a picnic basket with a blanket folded underneath it, “I was thinking, since we don’t get a whole lot of private time, we could use this as a makeshift spot to, uh, mmmm,” you interrupt his train of thought backing yourself into him, letting your hips push against him. You reach your arm back and put your fingers in his hair, pulling his head down to your neck, “yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

Eddie has to peel you off him to get you into the front seat of the van. You’re ready to test the bed in the high school parking lot, but he has other plans. His plans are better.

He doesn’t tell you where you’re going, just that he had already told your mom to not expect you back until tomorrow. The freedom of that information, something that only a month ago would have set your nerves alight, has you floating. The pain is real, it’s still there, but it feels more tangible. It feels like the pain that accompanies healing and growth, because it is. Your bones and muscles are literally growing stronger every day and the thought of spending the night in the back of Eddie’s van doesn’t terrify you. You can do that, and probably quite comfortably.

Especially because he made a space for you. He keeps doing that, making room, adjusting things without even realizing it. It makes your heart swell, seeing and feeling the care he takes in everything that comes with being your boy. He’s shined a light into all of your dark places and shrugged at the horrors, pushing them away from you and filling your life with an easy peace.

“Alright, so remember that, uh time we had out here a few weeks ago?” You’re pulling up to Lovers Lake, a secluded section you hadn’t realized even existed, “I was walking around out here contemplating life last week, and I found this little road and, well, no one comes out here.” He throws the van into park and wiggles his eyebrows at you, “Pretty, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, Ed. Real pretty.” You tell him while you gaze at his profile. He’s the most beautiful boy you’ve ever met. And you love him.

It’s hot dogs over a fire for dinner, with jello cups for dessert. He brought a bottle of wine, cheap gas station chardonnay that makes you giggly. You take your shoes and socks off to dip your toes in the cool lake water. Eddie fetches sticks to roast marshmallows. You decide camping is fun when you do it with him, especially when you know home is no more than a 20 minute drive away. For all it matters, you could be hours away from civilization with how brightly the moon light glows across the surface of the lake.

“You know, Eddie, I’ve got to tell you something very important,” it’s a reversal, Eddie’s got his head resting in your lap while you sit on a log bench at the lake edge. You’re running your hands through his hair while his eyes close. It smells like summer out here and the peepers are singing a song for you and your boy, “I love you, did you know that?”

He doesn’t open his eyes, but a smirk starts playing on his lips at your words. “Oh, you love me?” He whispers it, like it’s a secret between you and the woods, “I love you too, Ilene. I love you so fucking much I feel like my heart’s gonna explode every time I think about you.”

“No, don’t do that, it sounds like it would hurt, Ed.” You stroke his cheek with the backs of your fingers, “Eddie, do you want to go to bed?” You let your hand slip down into his shirt running your finger along his collarbone where his skin is so incredibly soft. You lean down to whisper, again as if in secret, “I saw that piece of foam in the corner of your van, did you maybe have something else planned for us tonight.”

His eyes finally peek open while he giggles goofily, “Maybe, baby, what do you think about that, hmm?” One of his eyes is squinted shut and the other is watching for your reaction. “Want to consummate this thing finally? We’ve got all the time in the world, and no one to bother us.”

Hand in hand, you make your way to your room for the evening. It’s so much cozier than it should be, and you know it’s because Eddie is with you. It takes no time at all for you to get lost in him – surrounded by his scent and touch, he whispers against your skin. You feel so much by the time you’re both under the warm blankets, nude forms pressing against each other while your mouths move in sync.

“I want to try something,” the heat of his breath on your neck has every hair on your body standing on end, he’s stroking your side with whispered touches. “Tell me if you can’t, but I, uh, really want you to sit on my face.”

You’re groan at his words is almost a yelp. You’re throbbing, he’s worked you up with his gentle touching, and you’ve let him. You know it’s worth it, taking your time will ease any pains that might sneak up on you. I really want you to sit on my face. Your rocking hips tell you that you really want that too.

Eddie’s props his head up at an awkward angle. Much higher than could be comfortable, but his features are written with want as he watches you bring your leg over his face. You want to watch him as he strokes himself, but he’s insistent that you face the other way, at least at first. He’s so pretty, pale skin with scatters of ink. His perfect cock, pink and hard as his hand lazily works his length. You do what he asked, trusting him, and face the front of the van resting your hands on the back of the seat.

“Look how pretty she is, she’s crying for me Babe.” You’ve lost the chance to respond when his broad tongue licks against you, dipping inside. And now you know why he wanted it like this, because he pulls you gently down onto his face. His nose nudges at your sensitive and swollen clit while his tongue wastes no time fucking into you. Your hands are at your tits, playing with your nipples because you don’t need to brace yourself, Eddie’s fully got you. Any concern you have about him not being able to breathe is gone when you hear him moaning and his hand stroking his cock even faster.

You want to tell him not to cum, no you want him in your mouth, but your grinding so hard against his mouth and nose seeking your pleasure you don’t have the words. Your orgasm slams into you hard, every muscle in your body tenses, you can feel your thighs trap Eddie’s head even tighter than before. You’re panting and whining as white heat tears through your brain and you spasm around Eddie’s tongue. Wave after wave until you drop against the back of the bench seat. Eddie taps your outer thigh to remind you that you’re, in fact, still sitting on his face.

You waste no time in climbing off of him, a little stiff but the orgasm haze still has you loose. You feel wild with desire when you kiss him and find his face absolutely drenched in your arousal. Like an animal, you lick a stripe up his cheek, tongue rubbing against his stubble. “Please, Eddie, please. I need you inside of me now.”

Eddie looks blissed to the max, and you can see that he came while you were using him. He’s soft, so you climb down to work your mouth against him. You let your tongue pick up his spend, moving around his base to clean his mess.

“Oh, fuck,” he squeaks out at the feel of your mouth. He’s growing hard, his tip starting to weep again, “Baby, stop, I’ll cum again.”

“How do you want me, Eddie.” Your hand is wrapped around his length, and you look up at him through your eyelashes. He can’t believe his eyes. You look like a goddess, mascara smudged under your eyes, nipples hard and pressed against his thigh. It takes a little effort, but he remembers his research and pulls you to him.

The position he has you in is fail proof, and he has no desire to fuck this up. You both need this right now. You’re back pulled into his chest, his mouth has access to your neck. He brushes your hair away and attaches his mouth to your shoulder while shifts and maneuvers your hips to allow him better access. “Tell me if it hurts.”

He presses into you slowly, and his teeth sink into you shoulder. He groans into your skin, your cunt is clenching him with every inch he gives you. He’s grounding himself inside of you while running a hand down your outer thigh brushing against your scars. You rock back into him, you have no words to tell him what you need so you show him.

A hard and slow rhythm, moving together while he reaches deeper and deeper inside of you. A knot forming inside of you, he’s nudging spots you’ve never been able to reach before. You’re both whining out “I love yous”, his fingers against your clit and the bomb detonates. Your orgasm creates lights flashing against your eyelids, tears are running down your cheeks. Eddie’s sobs of pleasure at the feeling of you clamping onto him bring another wave of pleasure. Your third orgasm of the evening has you spent completely, and Eddie stills inside of you.

“Oh my god, Eddie,” you finish your thought with a groan that turns into a little yelp as he pull himself free of you.

“I love you so much,” you turn to find Eddie with tears in his eyes. You lay that way, face to face stroking your faces for an endless amount of time. Sloppy kisses, breath against lips, sweat cooling against your skin while you bask in the glow of your shared love.

Eddie hasn’t told you this yet, but he’s registered for classes at the local community college for the fall. An HVAC program, and he’s already got an apprenticeship lined up. He’ll wait a while to ask, but he’s already signed a lease on an apartment just outside of Hawkins. He needed to find a ground level unit with easy access to a parking lot. It has a little patio where you can put your herb garden.

You haven’t told him yet, either, that you’re ready for everything that comes next, because he’ll be with you.

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