#But Sunnie doesn’t have that kind of excuse. She wasn’t protecting shit. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

angelaiswriting · 3 years

Text

Undercover | Bandit x fem!reader

[video by Yogendra Singh from Pexels]

✏️ Pairing: Bandit x fem!reader

✏️ Summary: In which Dominic realizes he's fallen too hard for a woman during an undercover mission and he doesn't think he's fit to work for Rainbow anymore.

🎁 A/N: I wrote this for @kind-wolf‘s birthday but she gave me the okay to post it, so hopefully y’all will enjoy it too 💛

✏️ Warnings: slight angst, 18+ only? idk (the sex is generally only implied but there are some paragraphs in which it’s a little less implied), also a dash of fluff?

✏️ Word-count: 11,555

UNDERCOVER

There was something about early-morning runs that just calmed his nerves, even with music blasting in his ears. There was something in the way his trainers would rhythmically slap against the ground; something in the burning in his lungs, in the way the wind would blow against his face every now and then…

The British countryside expanded to infinity on his runs and it erased anything Hereford Base inevitably brought along—training sessions, mission calls, even more simulations, and then endless tests to pieces of equipment that he surely had not missed while on his last undercover mission.

He didn’t think much about it. About the mission. He always tried his best not to, although he did so unconsciously, probably more out of habit than anything else. It was never easy, to go back to a daily routine that didn’t feel yours anymore, to a routine you couldn’t recognize after having pretended to be someone else for the past six years. Some things just get to your head at some point, and going back to who you had once been feels like being reborn completely, and into someone you can’t recognize. You wake up one day, and you find yourself being forced to put on yet another mask, with the only exception that this is no mask. This is your face. Who you are. Or who you’re supposed to be, at least.

And although most likely unprofessional, this was how Dominic Brunsmeier still felt, six months after his mission had come to its end. He woke up every day and for the first, endless minutes he simply lied there, staring at a ceiling he had problems recognizing, with the reality that he was thousands of miles away from Germany hanging like Damocles’ sword above his head. His ears still subconsciously strained for the sound of two dogs’ nails ticking against the tiles of the floor to come to say good morning, and his left hand still stretched out to feel for someone who wasn’t there—who would never be there again.

That’s why running helped. It emptied his mind—and it also filled his lungs with the smell of wet grass and dirt. And although he still turned around to check behind his back every few minutes in search for furry snouts—one of the habits he had developed in the past life he had been forced to leave behind—, it was getting better, and the music in his ear pods seemed to be starting to do the trick.

Sometime later, when he got back to the Base, he was somewhat ready to be a Rainbow operator once again. At least for that day.

The truth was, he had somehow grown almost detached from anything and anyone Rainbow. He would do something, and then he’d mentally compare it to how he did it before. The way his morning coffee would taste; the way her laundry detergent would smell fresh and somehow cozy; how peaceful car trips would feel, almost as though he could lose himself into one of them for the rest of his life. Now his coffee was just Marius’s boring blend, and the detergent they used in the laundry at the base had no scent. And when he did end up tagging along on short weekend trips, there was no dog whining ecstatically in the back of the car and trying to lick his neck.

“How was your run?”

Monika was looking at him from above the file she was reading—a mission report, a test session report, he didn’t know and he also found himself not caring. That life still felt alien to him.

He shrugged. “Good.” He had somehow become a man of few words, and he had also started to realize that maybe undercover missions weren’t for him. Not anymore, at least. Maybe he had let this one get to him a bit too much, and everyone he had met had grown under his skin without him wanting so and he still did somehow feel like he had betrayed his family, sent them all to jail.

It was a stupid thought—he tried to remind himself of that every time that feeling came up, but maybe he just wasn’t cut for long undercover missions anymore. He didn’t remember when it had become difficult to tell right from wrong, but it had happened, and every time his mind stopped on that period of his life, he found himself growing homesick for a home he never had, not there.

“Just good?”

Elias was there, too. Of fucking course, he would be there. He had been keeping an eye on him for a few weeks now, and Dominic was too much of an expert not to notice. It hadn’t been a surprise to see him enter the kitchen a minute or two after he had.

“Just good,” he nodded

There was some staring, then. Dominic stared at Elias because he wanted to be left alone, and Elias stared at Dominic because he wanted to understand what the problem was, so that he could help his friend. It was all useless, though, and they both knew it: one had closed off too securely to let on anything—or let anyone in, and the other was too stubborn to just stop caring about someone he loved.

That afternoon, though, he was running some errands in town with Marius when a dog stopped right in front of him to sniff his pants. It was a lovely animal, with fur of an almost bronze-red color and a tail that never once stopped wagging.

It brought him back in time, and for a moment he stood there, frozen and rooted to the spot. He could almost still feel the rain on his skin despite that exceptionally bright sunny day. But then, the Irish setter’s owner called Bonnie, let’s go! and Dominic was back to the present day, a bag with stuff he had bought at the hardware store just on the other side of the parking lot in one hand and a bunch of keys in the other.

“Everything alright with you?” Marius asked when Dominic reached him. He had been waiting for him, leaning against the door of the truck, and he hadn’t missed the way his friend had grown rigid. It didn’t matter how much pride Dom felt at the idea of being good at hiding feelings: there was always someone that saw right through his shit. And called him out on it.

“I used to have two dogs,” he blurted out with a smile on his face before he could stop himself. They were both loading bags into the trunk of the car and he hadn’t even felt the words slip through his lips that they were already out there in the open. But the memory had hit him with the same force of a freight train, and he had found himself basking in that warm feeling that had started to blossom inside him at the memory. After all, he loved those two pests like his own kids.

He looked up, the feeling of being caught red-handed quickly seeping in, and he found that Marius had a weird look in his eyes as he watched his every move.

“You had two dogs?” his friend quoted, one hand reaching up for the back door of the car. He closed it shut, and the frown didn’t leave his face for a second. “Back during your mission, you mean?”

“Forget about it. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have said it in the first place.” It had always been custom for him to not open up about his undercovers—the person he was when he was on one wasn’t the person he was when he came back to his real life, and that’s how things had to be.

“To hell with your bullshit!”

The first five minutes in the car, however, were spent in silence.

Dominic was still cursing himself mentally for opening his damn mouth—or his memory vault, for what it mattered. It had been the first time he had mentioned anything about her since his return—his return home his friends had cheered him with six months ago, but that homely feeling still had to make an appearance. She had become taboo, and he had done so to protect her—and himself, in a way, for not having to bring her up had seemed to be the most sensible way to forget all about her, at least back then.

But now here he was, catching himself just in time before worsening his case.

“Where are those dogs now?” Marius used the excuse of a red streetlight to speak again and when Dominic looked at him from the corner of his eye, he found his friend already staring.

A shrug of his shoulders will do the trick, or that was what he hoped. Unsuccessfully.

“You’ve barely put full sentences together outside of missions since you came back from Germany. And now you mention two dogs. That you owned, apparently.”

“I didn’t own them, they weren’t mine,” he corrected.

“Whose were they, then?”

The first time Dominic sees her is on a chilly early-April morning. It’s pouring rain outside, and she’s walking two dogs with nothing to shield her from the rain but an old sweatshirt.

It’s half past five in the morning and his first thought is: What the fuck is this girl doing out here in the rain?

He almost slows down his truck when he drives past her. Probably he should be a good person and ask her if she needs a ride, but this side of town is new to him and he doesn’t want to risk anything that would have Fabian put him on his boss’ black book the month after having been fully accepted into the gang.

She’s in his rearview mirror before he has the chance to think his civilized deed through. He finds himself staring for two seconds at most—red sweatshirt, jean shorts that are a tad bit out of season now, and two happy dogs that walk on either side of her without the need for a leash. Then, he’s pulling over and stopping the truck right before the closed garage door of his new two-bedroom house. He still has to fix it—along with other things inside—but Christian has been keeping him busy with errands and whatnot, and he’s lacked the time.

He’s barely out of the vehicle when there’s barking—short, quick barks in succession coming from two different dogs, defying the sound of the rain and the otherwise silence of the early morning. When he turns around, the girl’s dogs are running across the empty street, their owner right behind them, and they’re aiming at him, tails wagging happily and tongues lolling out from open mouths.

They don’t jump up as he expected them to, but they still do take their few seconds of freedom to sniff him up. His shoes, his legs, a hand—and all the while he’s getting soaked through just as much as the girl running over with two leashes in a hand is.

“Hey, buddy,” he coos, almost involuntarily, as he presents the bigger dog with the open palm of his left hand.

It looks like a nice mutt, the fur a shade of brown streaked with white and black, and it excitedly licks his skin after a moment of indecision.

“I’m so sorry.” When he looks up, the young woman is panting, a hand on her side as the other comes up to wipe the rain from her eyes. “C’mon, Otto, come here.”

The white dog with a chocolate-colored stain on the left side of his face is quickly put on his leash, and he sits still by his owner’s feet as she pries Rex from his hand.

“I’m sorry they’ve bothered you,” she offers, and then groans when she can’t seem to attach the leash to the ring in the dog’s collar. “They’re usually well-behaved.”

“No problem,” he smiles.

Rex lunges forward one last time to get a good-bye caress on his head before he eventually chooses to behave and steps back.

“They didn’t do anything but smell me up a bit, it’s all cool.”

She smiles. He smiles. Rex barks happily and turns back to nudge Otto, and both their tails are wild whips against the soaked grass-less ground of his short driveway. Then, she’s gone.

He stares as she runs down the street, thunder finally rolling up high in the steely sky, and he smiles when he hears her laugh and call for the dogs when the rain starts pouring stronger. Then he turns, walks around the back of his truck and up to his door, and leaves the world outside.

That night Dominic sat at the desk in his room. His things had been relocated to a smaller one while he had been away on his mission and although he would have probably complained once, he found that this new accommodation somehow suited him better now. It felt much more secluded and since it was in the newly-built dorm area where his buddies didn’t reside, it felt much calmer. It didn’t give him much need to lie.

And it didn’t give his friends the chance to see that most of his stuff was still in cardboard boxes he had yet to unpack. The mere thought seemed to overwhelm him somehow and even that night, all he did was stare at them for endless minutes before eventually begrudgingly opening his laptop.

The brief and vague chat with Marius that afternoon had given him that sort of push he needed to finally pull out the hard disks and SD cards he had hidden away but that still contained all the files he had to organize. It was nothing major, of course—that kind of stuff had been transferred onto Rainbow servers the moment he had set foot onto British ground, one could say. But he still had private stuff, videos and photographs he had never thought he’d one day keep, back when he had first taken them, but then again, here he was.

Part of his brain did know that wasn’t the smart thing to do, but when he plugged in the black hard disk with that owl sticker she had slapped on it one night after tipsy sex, he found that his hand hesitated on the mouse.

He had chuckled—even now, he could still hear the sound in the otherwise quiet room. It had been at the beginning of that thing that had slowly—and then more and more quickly, like an avalanche effect of some sort—turned into a relationship. Why? he had simply asked, putting his lighter back on the nightstand when she gave it a disgusted look. And she had laughed, too, and he had stared at her sweaty skin glistening in the light of his bedside lamp, at the way her messy bangs stuck to her forehead, and he thought that fuck, what the fuck was he doing? Because I felt like it, she had answered with a shrug and he had laughed deep in his chest before pulling her back over his body.

Maybe he could keep what was in there. He did not have to look, but maybe he’d keep those files stored away in some folder-in-a-folder kind of thing, hidden away from his eyes and hopefully from his mind, until he’d forget all about them. Until he’d stop being a spineless dick, murmured a mean voice in the back of his head.

“Fuck it!” he groaned, finally opening the main folder and watching as his old laptop loaded everything.

There were some pictures he had never stored away in their respective folders, and he suddenly remembered now that it was because he loved them. Loved those two dogs piled up on each other as they slept in his armchair. And loved the way she’d scream song lyrics using an almost-empty beer bottle as a microphone.

Those were memories—and damn good memories at that! There was no reason to shy away from them. Just as a reminder, he reasoned—something to keep for a long time so that it could remind him to keep his head on his shoulders next time he’d be assigned on some other undercover mission. Something that could tell him not to fall for a chick he’d eventually have to leave behind forever. Something that could prove to him that yes, he could enjoy things while living a lie, but that no, there were things he could not bring back home.

Like Rex and Otto.

Or like Y/N.

He meets her again two weeks later, when Fabian drags him along to a club to have fun and maybe get some pussy. Dominic’s not exactly in the mood for pussy for once, still exhausted after having come back from a quick ‘business trip’ to Austria with two other guys, but he doesn’t want to be the buzzkill. He’s also not been in the city long enough, so he’d rather fly low and not risk making even the slightest doubt arise.

So he goes. He dresses up in an all-black combo of pants and shirt, and meets his friend outside one of the clubs Christian owns. The air is warm, and the night traffic buzzes behind his back as Fabian leads him all the way up to the entrance while recounting the weird-ass trip Alex had the first time he did acid. Domi laughs along in all the right points and for a split second, before Julian lets them in without a question, he finds himself thinking that it isn’t so hard after all, to pretend to be someone he’s not every time Fabian’s around. The dude is chill, five or so years younger than he but just as crazy, and there’s this tiny voice in Dominic’s head that seems to whisper to him that they could actually be great pals if the situation and the setting were different.

“What’s your poison?” his friend of sorts asks as he takes him through the place and then to a table—not right up under the stage, but a bit in the back.

“Just beer,” is his reply. He didn’t think he’d be seeing girls perform when he left his house, but now that he’s here and he gets a glimpse of a redhead beauty before she disappears offstage, he’s not exactly opposed.

Fabian’s face is contorted into a grimace of confusion before it opens up into a grin as things seem to clear up in his head. “Oh, yeah, as a warm-up, I see!”

He laughs, leaning back against the seat before he shakes his head. “One of us gotta stay sober enough to take you home when you’re shit-faced,” he bites back, subtly implying to that one time, three months after Dom had officially become a rookie, when Fabian had ridden himself into a tree on his bike. The others had made him look after and take care of the younger idiot, and he had had to swallow down his pride and cater to any and all silly needs he had been presented with and that had felt like a setback in his undercover path.

A girl hurries by then, a serving platter with drinks in hand as she flags down another waitress and mouths something over the music of the new performance, and Fabian is quick at grabbing a hold of her forearm. When she turns around, an expression on her face that makes it clear she would be more than ready to throw hands, it takes Dominic half a minute to recognize her in this new setting.

“Come back to us later, Baby,” Fabian says, his hand moving to swat at her ass before she grabs a hold of it and presses down hard enough to make him wince.

“Don’t make me kick your ass.”

Dominic turns around when she walks past him and watches as she serves drinks at a table. She’s all smiles as she replies back to something she’s being told, and steps back a little when one of the men tries to stretch a hand out and touch her.

“Is that how you act with women?” he asks when he turns back around.

His friend laughs over a text he’s sending—probably to one of the other guys they’re supposed to meet here tonight, or probably to someone else entirely—Dominic does wonder about it, just as he wonders about many things when it comes to the Club, but he voices none of his thoughts. He never does.

“It’s not what you think,” he shrugs, grinning at him before glancing at the brunette performing on stage. He stares for a long while, and Dominic has the time to study some more of the details in the snake tattoo that crawls up the side of his neck and disappears into his hair. “She’s a friend.”

“She’s still not excited about you slapping her butt, though,” the girl in question chimes in when she finally reaches their table again, her serving platter now held securely against her abdomen. “But Fabian’s— Hey!” she grins, stopping mid-sentence when she seems to recognize him from that rainy early morning of fifteen or so days ago. “You’re the new guy on the block.”

“You know each other?”

“Sorta. The boys ran up to him when we were on a walk a few days ago,” she nods, eyes trailing down to where Domi’s left the first two buttons of his shirt undone, tattoos on full display underneath, before moving back to meet his.

Fabian’s pout distracts the both of them, and when she sets her eyes on him, he’s quick at letting out a childish complaint. “You never smile at me like that.”

“Don’t be a douche.” And then, to Dominic: “I’ll pay you real money if you drag him out of here.”

“Geez, women!” Fabian scoffs. “Anyway. Nic, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Dominic.” He watches briefly as they shake hands before continuing. “She’s off-limits, unless she’ll somehow consider you worthy enough of her and her p— I’m just kidding, Angel!” he pleads, leaning away from her hand as she slaps at his shoulder. “C’mon, be a good girl.”

“You be a good boy and I might not spit in your drink.”

Dominic’s still thinking about her sometime later, after some of the guys have joined him and his company for tonight. They’re watching girls perform, but he’s unfocused. Even the beer in his hand has been forgotten for a while now, as his gaze finds itself being attracted back to the bar—or to wherever she is at the moment.

He stares, and even blatantly so, half listening to Fabian’s words echoing in his mind, and half ignoring them. She’s close to Christian, that’s what he knows: she used to be his sister’s best friend before the girl passed away a few years after finishing high school. And, as Fabian has half-heartedly complained more than once, she’s not that friendly with gang members—if you know what I mean, Nic. Not that he’s thinking about that with her! He barely even knows her. What he does know, however, is that there’s a file, back at Rainbow, that he has to fill with pieces of information he finds out here, and he’s starting to wonder what she could know.

And sometimes—every once in a while and almost covertly—she glances back and meets his eye, and when she finds him staring, she seems to stumble over her words for a heartbeat before the smile is back on her face and she turns her attention back to whatever patron she’s tending to.

He’s back the next Friday night, and the week after that, and on the third week, it starts becoming a habit. Fabian’s with him sometimes; sometimes it’s someone else, but more often—because he starts hanging out at the club on whatever free nights he has during the week—he goes on his own. He drinks, spends money on women, and goes as far as paying for personal dances—and maybe it becomes a bit too often, because one day Christian asks him—through Alex, because Christian’s too busy with a rival gang to do it in person—and mentions something about it.

But the more he sits in there, the closer he somehow seems to get to Y/N—and the closer she seems to get to him. It’s just smiles at first; even when he goes up to the bar to order drinks, she’s always too busy to focus on him only. But then they start exchanging a few words—and in the meantime they wave at each other from opposite sides of the road they live on, when they pass by—and then a few puns, until at some point, probably three, almost four months into his habitual trips to the club, she starts actively seeking him out. And if by any chance he’s absent on one of his regular nights, he finds her politely asking whether everything’s alright on the first night he’s back.

He missed that—missed his club nights and the dancers, even the waitresses. Y/N, of course, although he always did his best not to allow his brain to bring her up. But sometimes, out of the blue, the most random things would make one of the many memories he had stored away out of sight resurface and he found himself thinking about her. It would start subconsciously—with something someone said or did, or maybe it was something he saw in the window of a shop, or in one of the girls he’d find himself dancing with when his friends dragged him along. And then, when he caught himself red-handed, it was hard to stop. His brain would fixate on a memory and the more he willed himself to shift the focus of his attention onto something—anything—else, the harder it was to actually do it.

So, he turned his strategy around. He did that when he transferred all his secreted files onto his laptop—and then onto a new one yet again, when the old thing slowed down too much for him to be able to do work-related things on it. The reasoning was, if he kept those memories where he could easily reach them, then maybe they’d lose that hue of exceptionality and he’d get so used to them that it would finally be easier to coexist with them and all they had once meant.

And the next time Marius asked, tried to pull things out of him the same way he’d done with shards of glass after that one assignment in Bosnia, Dominic found himself loosening up. With him only, no one else for the time being, but it still felt liberating. Marius would listen, and he wouldn’t try to guilt-trip him the same way Domi had done to himself. He’d listen, and chime in every now and then, and then he’d stop asking when it was clear his friend wasn’t comfortable with continuing for now.

Y/N hadn’t come up yet. He told him about the dogs, and the guys—about Fabian most of all, and Markus, the two he had bonded with the most. He talked about the club—and he won’t lie, about the women there and the ones he had ended up in bed or against a wall with, as well. Not many, but enough to make Marius tease him for a while before he eventually relented.

But then one day, when most operators had been sent off on various missions, they decided to go on a trip. They took a Jeep car, loaded it with backpacks and food and tents, and took off for a week to spend camping far from the Base.

It had been quite a long couple of months—with training and simulations and tests, and even weeks spent abroad. And meetings in Harry’s office so that the Agency could see where Dominic’s loyalty lied, and how he was doing, how he was settling back into his old routine, now almost ten months after having come back from Germany. Which he… was, in a way. Settling back into his old routine, that is—everything was normal when he was working, at least.

But opening up to his Director wasn’t the same as opening up to his friend. And probably even Harry knew, or had at least come to that conclusion, for he had relented in his questions and had given him more free time, away from his Rainbow responsibilities.

“So, you were telling me about Fabian the other day.”

Marius’s voice shook him out of his thoughts, and Dominic found himself blinking a couple of times at the pale light of the sun that still had to fully rise. He felt almost as though he had dozed off, his tongue still heavy and laced with the slumber he had been forced to wake up from at two.

“What?” he mumbled, fumbling with his seat belt when he realized his friend had parked the car and it was now time to get out.

He had been sleeping poorly the past few days, with endless thoughts incessantly mulling around in his mind and keeping him awake. Stuff about Germany, but also stuff about Rainbow—missions and briefings and that upgrade he was helping Elias come up with for his shield. It all slowed him down, left him less reactive than he had been in a while, always dozing off when he was supposed to do something else. Even his morning runs had stopped being that nice a distraction.

The cup of coffee Marius pushed into his hands was hot, almost comforting in a way, and it sent a shiver throughout his whole body as they stood there, in the low, late-March temperatures. It was supposed to get warmer as the day progressed, or so the forecasts seemed to promise, and he surely found himself hoping for that to be the case.

“You were saying about how Fabian introduced you to this Angel dude,” Jäger insisted sometime later, when they had heaved their backpacks on their backs and locked the Jeep. They’d be back in a week—or that was the plan, but they both knew that if the weather would take a turn for the worst, they’d be back much sooner, neither of them willing to deal with storms and cold temperatures when they could feel warm somewhere else.

“Angel’s not a dude,” was Dominic’s chuckle.

The sun had finally risen and its light, although still pale, filtered in through the foliage of the forest, casting shapes on the ground and on their faces alike. The temperatures had gone up a bit, but Dom was still glad he had listened to Lera’s advice and had taken off with thermal clothes on.

“Angel is— was,” he quickly corrected himself, casting a quick glance at Marius, walking by his side, “my girlfriend… I guess.”

“You guess?” His friend frowned, not even taking his eyes off of the path they were currently trekking on. They still had quite a few kilometers to go before their next stop and he had absolutely no intention of spending them in silence, not now that Dominic seemed like he had slowly regained his ability to talk and let his tongue loose, although not in everyone’s company. But progress was progress, and he didn’t want to risk and ruin it.

Dominic shrugged. “I’m not sure Y/N and I ever officially defined the relationship.”

“Y/N… Angel, you mean?”

“Yeah, we called her that most of the time. Those dogs I told you about… they were hers.”

Marius nodded. Dominic had started to introduce him to bits and pieces of his undercover life—the clubs, the gang, the dogs, the speed races at night, the way Fabian would often crash on his couch when his partying got too wild and out-of-hand, or the way Markus, three years his junior, would often trail behind him like a lost puppy. It was never a chronological recollection of events, with some kind of thread that would link them together. Sometimes he’d ask questions, making sure to remain as vague as possible when it came to enquiring about someone’s life, and Domi would reply with what came to mind.

But now… Now he had slowly started to piece all those memories together, bit by bit, and he was seeing that it was not all black and white, the way some back at the Organization would make it out to be, but more like grayscale. The good and the bad would mix together in the same bowl, and it would make it hard for anybody to draw absolutes.

“Tell me something about her.”

Dominic’s sitting in Christian’s backyard for the first time in two years and a half. It’s something new, but at the same time it feels so familiar, in a weird and convoluted way, as he’s surrounded by people he knew nothing about just three years ago. He laughs at what his friends say, and even whistles with them when the girl Fabian has shown up with leaves in a hurry after printing the fingers of her left hand across his cheek.

“You truly can’t keep them for more than a week, can you?” Christian laughs, taking a sip from his beer as he and Marcel flip the meat on the barbeque.

Fabian groans. “Always pointing out the details, gee. Anyway!”

Some bickering ensues, and Dominic sits back against the seat of his plastic chair with the rim of his beer bottle grazing his lower lip, barely containing his laughter, but still trying his best because he’s usually the one taking Fabian’s sides—even if just out of pure sarcasm. It all only settles when Franziska walks out of the house, a bowl of salad in each hand, saying something about leaving the poor child alone, what are you? Five? before Marcel pulls her into his side for a kiss.

They’re cute—it’s a weird and intrusive thought as Dominic watches, eyes glinting with a badly concealed smile, but it’s also the truth. Franziska and Marcel are like opposite sides of the same coin, but they somehow fit so well together… He’d tell Marius that, years after that day, and he’d recall the way she’d look up into her lover’s eyes with such emotion that, before Y/N came along, it would have made him feel the pangs of jealousy stab his stomach.

“Ugh, lovebirds.” Markus rolls his eyes, and when Dominic turns his head to look at him, he adds a snort and a wave of his hand.

“Kids.” Marcel shakes his head at Domi, almost as though he knows just how Markus and Fabian can get, and Dominic’s the one who’s spending the most time with them. “Always moaning about what they don’t have.”

But no one’s that serious. They all sort of envy what Marcel has, but they cherish it most of all, and although there’s often some playful mocking during gatherings, Marcel still knows they’d all jump in front of his woman without batting an eyelash if that meant keeping her safe.

There’s commotion coming from inside the house, then. The old dog that had been snoozing by Christian’s feet lifts her head, barking low in the back of her throat, still sleepy, before two dogs dash outside and she’s suddenly chasing them on her three paws, long fluffy tail wagging.

The guys cheer the new-comers and although the white one—it takes Dom a while to recognize Otto, Angel’s dog—jumps and huffs to play with Christian’s Stella, the loud and cheering voices send the other one in a frenzy. Rex runs back and forth, tail wagging as hard as a whip, tongue two meters out of his snout. And it’s such a hilarious sight that it sends Dominic laughing with his other friends as the dog almost trips Eva and that jar of cold lemonade over.

Then, when Dominic’s regained enough breath to stop the wheezing and wipe the tears from his eyes with a hand, he calls him over. “Hey, Rex! C’mere!”

He has no time to see the surprise flash across his friends’ faces, for it’s all downhill from there. Rex stops dead in his tracks, front paws down on the grass to his elbows and butt up in the air, his tail still wagging wildly—and really, he doesn’t know how he hasn’t sprained it yet, or how he hasn’t taken off like in some cartoon. His head turns here and there for half a second before his caramel eyes zero in on him. Before Dominic has the time to beg Stop!, the dog is on him: The impact sends his empty beer bottle flying backward as the chair tips back, a leg snaps, and he’s suddenly half-laying, half-sitting almost horizontally with an ecstatic Rex licking his face and his beard, barely able to keep still in his arms.

The other two dogs are quick to join them, and before Dominic can turn his head to the side and see the way Christian kisses Y/N’s cheek hello or hear the way she groans out a fuck! before she can intervene, two more wet snouts blind and sniff at him.

Sometime later, as Markus is complaining under his breath about the ladies’ ‘rabbit food’, Dominic turns towards Fabian and half-says, half-asks: “I thought she didn’t do members.”

“Huh?” Fabian looks up from where he’s stuffing his face with pork ribs and Franziska’s salad, moaning for a second about how much I love fucking onions, God. But he’s quick at looking where Domi’s quick tilt of the head is pointing.

Y/N and Christian are sitting next to each other, heads close as they discuss something before she feels them staring and sends them a quick smile.

“Oh, no. No.” Fabian coughs as he tries not to choke on his food when he picks up with what Dom’s implying—Jeez, no, shit, Angel and Christian? He laughs, still breathless, and chugs down the glass of lemonade Verena’s poured him. “Nah, she’s like a sister to him. Same for her. It was hard for a while after Mia’s death. The gang…” But he shrugs, cuts himself off and trails his gaze back down on his plate. “It was rough. And they’ve grown real close, but there’s nothing more than fraternal love between them.”

Dominic nods. “Oh, okay.”

He’s thinking nothing of her—or is he? They’ve been hanging out quite a bit these past few weeks. He’s been over at her house for a leaking sink just last Saturday afternoon, and she’s made him stay longer so that they could eat dinner together, watch the wrestling match on TV. He’s not… into her like that, he thinks—yet. Because, really, he wouldn’t mind being.

“Why?” There’s a suggestive smirk growing on his friend’s face. “You thinking of—”

But he’s cut off when Christian calls Dominic and steals his attention. No one discusses business during this kind of gatherings, but there’s a look on the man and his right hand, Marcel’s faces that just makes him think he’ll be hearing from them not long after going back home that night. He’s already made great progress on his undercover assignment, but this truly does start feeling like a step in the right direction.

When the party’s over, that night after dinner, he ends up sitting in Y/N’s car as she takes both of them home. Her dogs would be all up in his neck if it weren’t for the shield provided by the passenger’s seat, and she’s apologizing—although with a grin on her face and a tone that doesn’t make her apology come out that sincere—about their behavior.

“I just don’t understand why they like you so much,” she muses. “Rex most of all.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t even know I was that good with dogs before these two.”

Years later, he’d tell Marius Streicher how pretty she looked, with her make-up slightly smudged and the hair locks that had escaped her now messy bun. How accessible she felt—and not even in a bad way, but more like, he could reach a hand out and poke her cheek with his fingertips, or trail his index along her hairline, down the curve of her ear and touch her piercings, or even just lean back against his seat and just, look at her. How peaceful the interior of her car felt.

He’d tell Marius how Rainbow didn’t exist back then. How it was just him and the wrong waitress he had started falling for. And at the same time, how he still had this thought in the back of his mind, constantly nagging him—what if he ended up blowing up his mission in smoke?

“You’re staring,” she’s saying, smiling, eyes still on the road ahead.

“And you’re blushing.”

If there’s one thing he’s learned about her during his countless nights at the same stupid club, then it’s that she doesn’t blush. Not when his eyes are glued to her. He has stared at her much more lewdly than he’s doing now, most of all with a few drinks too many in his stomach and in his system.

She shrugs, and when she stops the car and Dominic turns back around, he notices they’ve arrived at her house. “You should come in,” she says instead, already getting out of the car and opening the back door to let the dogs out. “You don’t have to,” she adds quickly when he gets out, too. And he can’t see her face now that she’s unlocking her entrance door, but he knows she’s still blushing. “Only if you want.”

He wouldn’t tell Marius how her lips felt against his, nor how the drinks they had in her kitchen tasted when her tongue brushed against his. How she felt in his lap, one of her hands on the back of his head and the other up his shirt, against his tattooed chest. How she ground her hips down against him just right and tore a grunt from deep inside his belly and that vibrated against her lips, making her smile.

He’d tell none of that, but his friend would still understand.

What he did tell Marius, however, as they laid under the starry sky, was that, somehow, no one had felt like her again. Not his random hook-ups, the ones he was guilty of picking either because he needed a distraction or because they reminded him of Angel, and not even Katie, that kindergarten teacher Seamus had introduced to him and with whom he had hung out for a month or so. Nothing serious, and he hadn’t even exactly put effort into it, but a part of him still had tried. More for Seamus’—or even just Katie’s—sake than his own.

It was exactly Katie that Marius brought up with a yawn. And when he asked what had been wrong with her—or, well, maybe not wrong per se but more, I don’t know, brother… Amiss?—Dominic had found himself scoffing.

Katie’s not her—but he didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t say how he had fallen for the way Y/N fought in the ring, how she grimaced or grinned, the way her braids would slap against a cheek or a shoulder when her movements would be too abrupt. He’d go to her after the fights, and sometimes still sweaty and bruised, she’d straight up fuck the living sanity out of him—a hand around his throat and the other on his chest to keep her balance as they went at it on either his or her couch.

“Katie was…” He thought it over, fighting with his words and his brain’s ability to pick the right one. “Too nice.”

Y/N hadn’t been just black or just white—she was a whole spectrum of grays, ranging from one end to the other of it. Soft and kind on any day; but then also fearless and strong when she needed to be, ready to raise hell and fight God when she had to.

Dominic would have never been able to picture Katie on a ring, taking blows and also giving them back, because that wasn’t who Katie was. And although there was absolutely nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with being who you are, it just… wasn’t the same. He never found himself with his wrists tied to the headboard of Katie’s bed, with a blindfold over his eyes, almost holding his breath to see—feel—where she’d touch him next. Or how. Or even with what.

And probably that was why he couldn’t take Angel out of his mind—because he knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t be able to have her again. That she was gone, lost in a chapter of his life that he had reached the end of, and that he had left in the past. And although he did often go back to reread it, that was exactly all he could do—read, but never change a word of it.

“You still have time to add something more, though.”

He had almost dozed off to sleep, the exhaustion and exertion of that day’s worth of hiking catching up with him and his tired limbs. And it was only when Marius uttered those words that he realized he had spoken that inner monologue out loud into the darkness of the night.

The stars were blinking down at him, almost winking at his powerlessness in that situation. He wasn’t scared that she might cut his balls off and feed them to the wolves; nor that she might pull her hair back into two braids and teach him a lesson or two.

What stopped him from working was the very last voicemail she had left him, when she had called his German number for the last time. He had seen her cry—cry with laughter at some stupid joke, or sob her lungs out that one time they watched Marley and Me together, the mere idea of one day losing her dogs tearing her up from the inside out. But the way she had breathed into the phone, trying to hold back the sobs, and the way her voice had broken on every other syllable—Please, Domi, pick up. I don’t understand what’s going on, but I know you’re not with the others—it still wrecked him.

He had listened to it so many times that not only did he know every word by heart, but he could hear her voice—the way it cracked, when she’d sob, when Otto would whine in the background. And what was worse, was that he could see her with his mind’s eye—sitting in the empty tub, or on one of the stools in the kitchen, or even behind the wheel of her car. So strong and resolute… crumbling apart because all he had had to offer was a lie.

Or maybe not all—he had been honest with her. Honest the first time he had told her he loved her, and honest the last time he had professed his love. That hadn’t been a lie. The way he’d hold her at night, when she’d sleep with her head on his chest, or the way he had always been ready to pounce on way-too-daring customers at the club, or when he told her she was the light of his life—none of that had been a lie.

But everything surrounding that? His loyalty to the gang? To the guys? To Christian? His made-up past before he settled down in the city? The real reason he’d sometimes love to go on solo trips and enjoy some peace, when he was in fact meeting up with people from his real life?

“I had my chance,” he decided to say instead, closing his eyes against the night sky. He’d been out stargazing with her, once, the first time they had fucked. It had been sweet and peaceful, until it had turned hotter and messier and sweatier. If he stared up at those stars one minute longer, he knew it, he’d be back on that field, with her trapped between him and the plaid blanket, clothes strewn haphazardly all around. And that was the last thing he needed. “And I wasted it.”

He didn’t say how he wasted it by coming back, but the implicature was still out there, heavy and acrid in the otherwise fresh air of the mountains.

But there had been no backing out of it. Rainbow would have come; something would have been done anyway. At some point in his staying, things had moved too forward before his heart had been able to pick a side, and there had been nothing else he could do. He had broken her heart, but he had also broken his own, and that had been inevitable. A fate he had had zero chances escaping. They had found each other too late, and he’d probably die regretting anything about that case.

There was absolutely no going back there, but he had also started to think that his future didn’t lay in Rainbow anymore, either. It had become too much—and also too little, all at the same time. Gang life surely wasn’t for him, but he was starting to realize that his last undercover mission had ended up messing up with him a bit too much, and although it didn’t exactly interfere with the way he acted in Rainbow, it did with the vision he had of it—and of himself as part of it.

“I think I need a break from this,” he muttered into the night, eyes closed both out of tiredness and that lingering sort of embarrassment he felt any time he addressed how inadequate he now felt. “It’s almost been a year and I still haven’t been able to stop long enough to think.”

He didn’t know if Marius had turned to glance at him in the semi-darkness, before they turned off their torches to sleep, but he knew he had heard.

“What Angel? You’re a little minx,” Dominic chuckles, still out of breath, his chest burning with exhaustion every time it rises and falls. His sweaty back sticks to the leather seats of the car, and he knows the sensation she must be feeling can’t be much different.

But he doesn’t turn to look at her. His gaze is glued to her lace panties, hanging from the gear shift in the front. If he didn’t feel too boneless to lean forward and take her phone from the passenger’s seat, he’d for sure take a picture.

“Who are you calling little?” Her laugh is breathless, and when she moves around like a contortionist to sit up straight, her lips brush against the side of his neck, making his skin break out in gooseflesh and the short hair on the nape of his head tug. “I’m still taller than you with my heels on.”

Laughter rumbles deep in his chest, and he lets her pull his head back when she tugs on his hair with a hand. “Details, pretty doll.”

She doesn’t remind him how she’s kicked his butt just a couple of weeks ago during training and part of him is happy because all they’ve been using that accident as is some sort of foreplay that always ends up with her straddling him, making him tremble with the unexpected touches his blindfold always seems to heighten.

When her finger traces the underside of his cock, however, that chuckle dies on his lips and he gasps almost inaudibly in the back of his throat. Suddenly, his suit pants pulled down to mid-thigh feel constricting and he knows that if she keeps it up, he’ll be hard again soon.

“Don’t.” He didn’t intend for it to come out that way, but his prayer is soft on her lips, when she turns his head to the side to stare into his eyes. “We’re running late for the party.”

She shrugs—and he thinks that fuck, if this car didn’t feel this cramped, he’d fuck her brains out, party or no party, not even when it comes to his boss. “You made me come twice,” she replies, matter-of-factly, not at all moved by his begging or by his breath hitching in the back of his throat when her fingers move down to his balls. “I think it’s just fair I pay back the favor, no?”

His chest and neck are still flushed when he walks into the villa Christian has rented out for his New Year’s party. The initial surprise of Y/N caving in for a member has quickly subsided, and no one whistles in their direction when they see them walk in hand in hand.

They greet their friends, exchange quick hugs, and before long, they’re all drinking and chatting.

“You were late,” Christian says. The expression on his face is serious, but the left corner of his mouth is slowly twitching up into a smirk he manages to hide when he tips his head back and downs his shot.

Dominic shrugs, gaze wandering back to where Angel is catching up with Franziska and Verena, one leg crossed over the other, left bare by the slit in her dress. “Yeah,” he clears his throat, trying not to think about how her panties are still hanging from the gear shift of the car. “We had a setback.” He hesitates on that last word, for he tries to come up with something that could at least sound unassuming, but by God, the crotch of his pants feels like it’s growing tighter and he just knows kissing her won’t be the only thing he’ll be doing when the clock strikes midnight.

Christian laughs. “If my car smells like sex—”

“We rolled the windows down. We’re not animals,” he replies with a snort.

“Just… get it cleaned before you give it back.”

Y/N glances back at them then, eyes twinkling and lips still kiss-swollen and bruised under the lipstick she reapplied before getting out of the car, he’s sure. But before she can call him to her or he can walk up to her a bit stiffly of his own accord, Christian speaks again.

“We still have some time before dinner. There’s a meeting in the other room. Marcel has news on that seemingly lost package.”

Dominic turns around, brows furrowed in confusion, before his brain manages to quickly piece everything back together and he follows the other man down a corridor and into another room. He’s almost forgotten about the new cargo coming in—it’s been a feat lately, to remember he’s not actually one of them but an undercover agent trying to blow a gang up. It’s harder and harder, and he knows the lines aren’t blurred—not yet, at least—but it’s become way too easy, to lose himself in his new friendships and in the unexpected love he’s found here.

But when reality strikes back, it’s hard to distract his mind again.

Anton’s there—and while he isn’t the boss, he’s high up enough to be one of Rainbow’s main concerns. The oldest in the group, he’s rarely there, he rarely shows up. He does work behind the scenes, but that’s where he’d rather stay—away from the kids’ stupidity, or that’s how he always jokes about it.

He’s tall and strong—a whole wardrobe of a man, but Dominic’s still been promoted to be his bodyguard and he can’t help but feel a pang of something deep in his brain, and there’s this unsolicited thought bubbling up that makes him feel all sorts of ways. Maybe someone’s had some suspicions about him, and this is all a test—or this is what he thinks before Anton moves the wrong way and he’s forced to explain that the reason for that agonized groan is the extent of the injuries he’s incurred into not too long ago.

But then they’re all back for dinner, and Dominic doesn’t have time to bask in that wave of relief washing over him when he figures out there’s nothing to fear. They eat and drink and play stupid semi-drunk games, until it’s half an hour to midnight and Y/N has dragged him into a bathroom and unbuckled his belt.

It’s quick and messy, and his fingertips dig hard into the flesh of her hips as they stare into each other’s eyes in the mirror.

“I was thinking,” she hums, wrapped tight around his arm as he walks back with her at five minutes to midnight—enough time to make her come once more, or maybe twice, but Alex has promised a great pyrotechnic show and neither of them wants to miss how he almost gets himself blown up like last year.

“My thoughts are still in that bathroom and you tell me you’re thinking?” he chuckles, pressing a kiss to her cheek before he gives her hand a squeeze, almost as though he’s telling her to just continue.

“You dork,” she laughs. “But yes, I was thinking. Why don’t you move in with me?” she asks. “You’re already there most of the time, and your house is always messy and your couch not comfortable enough for…” She shrugs, trying her best to hide her smirk. “Plus, I’d really love to have you there.”

He feigns thinking about it, but when she gasps in mock shock, he pulls her in for a kiss—and that is when their friends must see and whistle. “I’d never say no to that, Angel.”

Her smile is bright and in the moment, he doesn’t even realize he doesn’t have forever with her, although that’s what he’s come to crave for.

He didn’t know how he let Marius convince him to go back to Germany and see her. He really had no clue, just as he didn’t have a clue about many things—what he’d tell her, how she might react, what he’d do after. How he’d feel after—relieved? like he’s finally had some closure? and how would things be once back in Hereford?

There were a million and one thoughts in his mind as he sat there, on his hotel bed. Harry had offered to let the organization pay for it, but Dominic would have felt too bad if he had let him. This was personal, and there was no saying if his heart still lay within Rainbow schemes. He’d probably keep in touch; he’d probably always be available for anything, really, but the more time passed, the less he thought that was still the right place for him.

Düsseldorf was still buzzing with life despite the torrential rain when he walked out into the street. Y/N—he feared too many emotions and memories would resurface if he let himself think of her as Angel—had moved from the city three years after her lifetime friends had ended up in jail, sent behind bars by none other than her lover. They wouldn’t stay inside forever—he knew how these things worked, he didn’t live a delusion.

He had called her, the day before he had booked his flight. If there was one thing he owed her, it was at least that—let her know he’d be coming… if she wanted him to, that is. If she didn’t want to meet up, then so be it: he’d go on with his life the way he had done throughout the past year and try not to regret too much stuff he had been forced to do because of his job.

But when she had picked up the phone—he had called her old number with his old number—things had felt… well, not normal, of course—he had disappeared overnight without leaving a note or a text or a simple word that could let her know what the fuck had been going on during the past six years of his life—of their life. But she had picked up the phone and she hadn’t killed him through the device, and although she had remained silent for most of the call—and he had done the same, truly, not even knowing what he wanted to tell her, for the words just wouldn’t come—she had eventually agreed to meet up.

Not at her new house, although Harry had done some digging and knew where she lived—a nice apartment in a nice part of the city, but Dominic hadn’t wanted to know where, exactly, when his Director had offered to share the knowledge. She had picked a café, a nice and cozy place he had looked up on the internet, but still popular enough that the awkwardness of their date of sorts would be easily drowned out by the other patrons’ presence.

She was scrolling through her phone when he walked in and spotted her in the far left corner. It was secluded enough to guarantee them some privacy, but still not enough to cut them off from the rest of the world. He figured it was just perfect.

“Hey,” he greeted when he walked up to the table she had picked and he tried not to sigh when he noticed she had pulled her hair back into two braids.

She looked up at him—she didn’t glare the way he had expected her to, but she also didn’t smile. “Hey.”

He sat down, and they both stared at each other until a waiter came up and Y/N called for a coffee and an orange juice before glaring the guy away.

The awkwardness of it all quickly filled the space between them, and wrapped them up like a blanket, but it wasn’t just that. She was pissed, and angry, and probably murderous, but under all that he could still see the heartbreak in her eyes.

“Well, I’m here,” she said. “Say what you wanted to say. It’s the least I deserve, I think.”

Dominic opened his mouth to speak, but then the waiter came back and he closed it again as he watched their order being placed on the table. His cup of black coffee and her glass of juice seemed to put even more distance between them and he had to resist the impulse of passing a hand over his shaved head the way he did when he was nervous.

“I’m sorry,” was what he sighed, lowering his gaze first to the table and then back out of the window and the rain-washed street outside.

She leaned forward and took a sip from the straw before crossing her arms and sitting back against the cushioned back of the booth. “That’s it? You came all the way from wherever the fuck you’ve been hiding to just say I’m sorry? No explanation whatsoever?”

Another sigh, but before he could open his mouth to speak again, she cut him off.

“Was any of that real? Was there at least a crumb of truth? I opened up to you and you just—” Her voice trembled, but whether it was out of tears or pure anger, Dominic couldn’t tell.

“It was real.” He was quick at biting back, probably a bit too aggressively than he had any right to be. “It was real,” he repeated after a moment, voice much quieter and eyes boring into hers. “I did love you.”

“Love’s too big a word for the things you’ve done.”

“It was work,” he tried to reason. “I got sent here on an undercover mission—”

“I know that. I’ve been interrogated by the ones who didn’t go in. They suspected me. Because of you. Because I had been fucking the snitch for almost five years.”

He gaped at her for a moment before sighing in defeat. “I loved you,” but he didn’t say I still do, or You’re still on my mind day in and day out, and not even I still see your panties on the gear shift of Christian’s car. “That wasn’t fake, it wasn’t part of the mission. I told myself I wouldn’t fall for you, that it would mess things up, that it wasn’t fair to you. But I still did. Every I love you I said was real. Every single one of them.”

She was silent for a minute before she scoffed and shook her head. “You’re so full of shit, Dominic.”

It was different this time. She had told him that he was full of shit many a time, always laughing, always joking, but this time those words cut deep—deep enough to rob him of his breath for a moment.

“I trusted you,” she continued then, much quieter, voice barely audible above the sound of the music and of the other people chatting. “I thought you’d be my forever. How stupid I was…”

He looked down at his cup, his throat too knotted to even stomach the idea of drinking his coffee. “That makes two of us. I thought that I—”

“Don’t you even dare—”

“That I’d have more time,” he continued unrelenting, shaking his head with closed eyes for a second before opening them and staring at her again. “That I could buy more time. I kept on hoping I’d fuck up somehow, that things would go wrong and that I wouldn’t have to complete the mission. Or that I could have the time to make you hate me before it was all over.”

“Well, I do kinda hate you now.”

“Breaking your heart was never in my plans, though.” He almost moved his hand on the table to place it over hers, but a last-minute realization made him understand that that was most definitely the worst thing he could do at the moment. And not because she could snap his wrist easily, but because he had no right to. “I really did love you. I wanted to take you back with me. I tried to tell you.”

There was a spark of recognition in her eyes, then, and he knew what memory his words had brought back. The two of them relaxing in the bathtub, her back against his chest, her damp hair tickling his neck and cheek. Come away with me, he had told her, fingers trailing up and down her arms, making her shiver. Let’s go far away, where no one can find us.

“I didn’t want it to end,” he confessed. “Any of that.”

“You built everything on a lie, Dominic.” A scoff. “If that’s even your real name, that is.”

“It is.”

It seemed to take her off guard and erased the words she had been about to say.

“My name’s Dominic Brunsmeier, not Neumann. I work for an international unit of elite agents that fight terrorism. I was assigned on this mission because we were informed Anton was doing more than simply dealing drugs. I went undercover with a Hells Angels chapter in the past, so the GSG-9 called me back for this one,” he confessed, voice flat and almost professional. He would have never thought he’d one day be making such a speech out loud, but there he was, in a busy café, in front of the woman he still had the nerve to love but who didn’t love him back anymore. “And my love for you could’ve never been a lie.”

She nodded once and turned her head to the side and to the city outside. He was trying to gauge what she might be thinking, what might be going on inside her head. But she remained unreadable and distant. “They’d kill you if they knew you’re back,” she eventually said, glancing at him from the corner of her eye, her chin still resting on the palm of her hand.

He shrugged. “I’ve been close to death too many times to be scared today. This past year…” He couldn’t tell her it had been rough; he didn’t think he had the right to when in her eyes he had gone back home. “I knew I had to see you, even if it was for the last time. I didn’t think you’d agree to meet up, but I’m glad you did.”

They were silent after that. They drank their beverages, and all without speaking a word. But then, when they paid and left, she let him accompany her home.

“I thought you’d break my bones,” he confessed with a chuckle as he stood outside her apartment complex and she picked the right key to open the building’s door.

“I thought I would, too.” She was pensive, lost in thought, and it took her a couple of minutes before she pushed the door open. “But the truth is, I probably could never.”

They stared at each other, and before he could have the time to chicken out, he said, “I know it’s too much to ask, but… We could still have time together.”

She looked at him for a moment longer before she stepped into the building and closed the door behind her back.

Later that night, as he sat on his hotel bed once again, on a phone call with Marius, he couldn’t stop thinking about the last words she told him.

Yes, we could.

Feedback is always welcome if you want to drop old me a line 💛

If you want to be tagged, hit me up! xx

#dominic brunsmeier #dominic bandit brunsmeier #rainbow six siege imagine #r6s bandit imagine #dominic brunsmeier imagine #dominic brunsmeier x oc #r6s bandit x oc #rainbow six siege fanfic

32 notes · View notes

laufire · 3 years

Note

i definitely think clarke is an example of a villain protagonist, and fandom’s need to see her as a hero is due to the need to see protagonists as heroes. my only stipulation is that i do think fandom is capable of acknowledging that certain protagonists are villains, but only under certain conditions. like fandom can only acknowledge a character is a villain if the story really really really explicitly frames them that way. like people are willing to acknowledge that characters like (1/2)

(a few of these seem to have been lost to this hellsite’s void, sorry :/)

walter white, don draper, tony soprano, dexter morgan, the “it’s always sunny in philadelphia” protagonists ect are horrible evil people. (although even with them, there stans who engage in ridiculous apologism, ie the “walter white did nothing wrong” crowd, but i do feel like most of the audience gets that these characters are evil? maybe i’m being to optimistic, or maybe it’s just because i avoid r*ddit lol) but i think in these cases it’s mostly because the framing is so blatant, like (2/3)

like the writers basically have to beat you over the head with the fact that the main character is a horrible person for them to get it. but with characters like dean winchester, elena gilbert, and clarke griffin, the fandom largely sees them as good people, (who may be morally ambiguous sometimes, but only because they CAAARRRE SO MUCHHH) and i think it’s because the narrative framing is different than what it is with a character like walt. that’s not to say that the narrative always (3/?)

frames characters like elena, clarke, dean, ect as good people. i think the narrative sometimes engages in apologism for dean/elena/clarke, and sometimes it acknowledges how terrible they are. i think that for characters like dean/elena/clarke the framing is often much subtler than for characters like walt/don/dexter/tony soprano. i also think sexism/white female fragility plays a role in how fandom perceives elena, clarke, and jessica jones are perceived by fandom (4/?).

This is all true, but I also think there are other factors at play. On is the kind of people these two groups are -I’m less familiar with some of the others mentioned above than I am with The Triumvirate of Doom LOL, but I’d say that (maybe with the exception of Don Draper? I really need to watch Mad Men one day. I remember liking the pilot) they are fundamentally different TYPES of ~bad people. Dean, Elena, and Clarke are empaths, subconcious manipulators; to different degrees of efficiency, and Dean and Clarke use hard power more than Elena, but they’re specifically people who are difficult to parse, and difficult to accuse. They’re the kind of people who trade in social graces and do it well, often coming out of shit smelling like fucking roses. The others are excused by fandom, but Walter White, Tony Soprano and Dexter Morgan’s whole deal is different.

On top of that, there’s a matter of distance. Those you mention are all from mundane worlds, worlds like out, commiting violence in a mundane way. Dean kills monsters, Clarke commits large scale genocide by levers in a distant sci-fi post apocalyptic ‘verse, Elena even has other supernatural beings commiting supernatural violence for her. I know I myself react worse to more “realistic” violence.

And regarding the ‘verses, I think we run into an issue of the perception each of these gets, the depth people are willing to assign to each of them. Nevermind that The Vampire Diaries or Supernatural have been the two most cynically honest shows about the worst of human nature I’ve yet to encounte;, for a lot of people they’re just ~silly genre shows, the first a ~silly girly show, even. The acts committed in those universe is horrifying to the extreme, heightened forms from real-world equivalents, but easy to dismiss for a lot of people because of its source. Which annoys me, ngl, because I don’t think without characters like Elena we’d get some of the female antiheroes we have now, for better or worse; or without shows like Angel for the male ones; Angel was definitely a precursor to the Tony Sopranos of tv, IMO.

There are issues with framing in each of the shows and it matters, but there have also been moments where they have been absolutely ruthless about who Dean, Elena, Clarke, etc. were at their core, and the audience insists on keeping their eyes closed to it anyway. So framing can’t be the only issue.

fandom NEEDS to see white female protagonists as good people. i think this is because of the notion of white female innocence and purity, how white cis women are seen as inherently good and kind, and needing and deserving of protection from white men. of course fandom woobifies the shit out of white male characters too, just look at dean winchester and dean winchester. however i genuinely can’t think of a example of a white female protagonist who was explicitly framed as terrible person, (5/?)

and where most of fandom fully acknowledged her shittyness. the only real example i can think of is dee reynolds, and like that doesn’t really count because iasip is a deliberately absurd bizare sitcom where you really aren’t meant to take the characters actions seriously. the show isn’t grounded in reality and it’s not meant to be. also dee is nothing like elena or clarke, and iasip is nothing like the 100 or tvd so i’m comparing apples to oranges. (6/?)

maybe blair waldorf from gossip girl? i actually think she has a lot in common with elena and clarke, it’s just expressed in different ways. but maybe that’s due to the fact that serena was technically the female protagonist (even if the writers blatantly favored blair), and blair was introduced to the show as an antagonist for serena. although there was a fuck ton of blair apologism in the gossip girl fandom so who knows. (8/?)

i have seen daenerys targaryen referred to as a villain (even before the second last episode), but in her case i actually feel it’s somewhat unfair. i mean obviously burning down kings landing was a villainous act, but on the whole i see her as more of a mix of an anti-hero and an anti-villain. like of course she has done many horrible things, but she isn’t terrible in the same way elena and clarke are, like she is a different type of character than them. (10/?)

i also feel like the got fandom wasn’t as pro daenerys as the tvd fandom and the 100 fandom were of elena and clarke respectively. (maybe because daenerys shared protagonist status with the stark family?). (omg i am so sorry this ask was so long! i seriously thought this was going to be two parts, maybe three tops lol) (11/11)

I’m not too familiar with Blair and only half-familiar with GOT and its fandom, although yes, I would consider them slightly different cases than Clarke or Elena, on first sight.

White female fragility definitely plays an ENOURMOUS part in these characters’ perception. A lot of the Clarke vs. Bellamy discourse was profoundly racist, for example. And do not get me started on Jessica Jones and how the show portrayed, and the fandom received, her dynamics with black men.

#anonymous #replies #talking to the void #my thoughts #fandom nonsense #the writing tm

7 notes · View notes

darkpoisonouslove · 4 years

Text

Winx Club Season 3 Thoughts (4kids) Part 2

Picking back up from where we left off - 3x14. Part 1 here.

Warning for some heavy anti Bloom stuff. I don’t normally let these get hateful but I just cannot anymore and this is my own rewatch and my own opinion. You can just not read it if you think you don’t want to or you don’t need the negativity. And there is some of that just in general as well and not only in regards to Bloom. (This also gets pretty angry with Valtor in the last few episodes because he’s been getting on my nerves.)

3x14:

- Well, I’m crying too. I know Tecna will be fine but seeing Winx so heartbroken is making me weep along with them. And what they said about wishing they’d laughed more at her jokes was particularly hard to swallow. Now I am genuinely upset, too.

- Aww, Riven is trying to be a good friend (even if he keeps insisting Tecna’s gone). And Timmy saying he can feel her presence is just some next level romantic shit considering his thing (and Tecna’s) has always been technology. He’s throwing logic out the window for his girl and I am ready to cry all over again just for that.

- Did they think of not being friends anymore? I know it feels wrong without Tecna but being together would have surely been better than breaking apart that friendship. And Tecna wouldn’t have wanted that from them.

- Oppositus is just hilarious. “Part sunny and part rainy. Hot and cold.” Well, that’s the perfect weather. Everyone will get what they want at one point or another.

- At least Faragonda and Griselda thought of monitoring the girls. Not that they’re doing such a great job of it but that’s another thing.

- That scene with Stormy getting spelled with Oppositus is really getting on my nerves but in a kind of calm way. It’s like it’s not making me mad but I really don’t like it so I am just sitting through it with a pained smile. I just wish Icy and Darcy would be a bit more supportive. (Also, Stella got spelled with Oppositus in season 1 as well so he’s not really showing them anything that special.)

- Didn’t they establish that the witches were hypnotized and doing whatever Valtor wanted. Why did they think that they wouldn’t be brainwashed all of a sudden? What? Did they think Valtor would give them a break for the day? And of course, let’s just barge into Cloud Tower with no plan of attack and no advantage of taking him by surprise. Fucking spectacular. Also, they couldn’t defeat him when Tecna was with them last time and all six of them fought him together. Why do they think they can take him down now? Yes, Flora got her Enchantix since then but they’re down with one member and Valtor has stolen new spells. They don’t stand a chance.

- I love how Valtor is messing with them. It’s obvious that he can defend himself against Bloom’s blasts but he wanted to get her mad to get her to use her full power and destroy her with Oppositus. And trapping Musa and Flora into what they hate the most is pretty horrible but I am kinda amused. (However, since he is pretty much using their opposites, for the longest time I thought he spelled the two of them with Oppositus too but he didn’t.)

- Rock cannibals of the dark dimension? Damn, I really wanna see that!

- Oritel has magic? I am pretty sure Valtor was lying about that considering that he was lying about everything else. And admitting that he couldn’t have defeated Oritel without a deception? That doesn’t sound like something Valtor would say. Gotta hand it to him, though, that was a pretty good plan he had for getting rid of Bloom.

- Aww, Griffin thinking so fondly of Faragonda even though she’s talking about a time when Faragonda was stronger than her. That is so cute.

- Why wasn’t Stormy at least a bit mad about what Valtor did to her?

- The Detention Dimension is such a fun concept. I love it! (I’m not loving the fact that I just got a second fic idea from this episode, though.)

- At least they figured out that the girls escaped. Otherwise, they would have said bye-bye to Bloom as well. And yay, for the Company of Light being back into action (”There’s just something about Valtor that makes everyone want to give him payback” XD (I think the Company is not over what happened 17 years ago either)) and everything but that “power pose” they’re striking is just so lame.

- Doing a dragon head thing with their hands to summon a protective shield is such a cool idea. Though, it did took me a while to figure out what was going on. It was only after seeing that Saladin was using his staff with the dragon head instead of doing the hand gesture that I figured out what they were actually doing there.

- The deception spell Darcy used was cool but shouldn’t there be some magic to the Detention Dimension that prevents that? Or was the logic that if they can pull such a spell off, then they are free to go because obviously they’re good at being witches?

- Valtor did take damage from Bloom’s fire but that was her full might there and it barely fazed him for a few moments. That Enchantix of hers must be really powerful for her to be so much stronger in later episodes. Or, once again, the writers just simply don’t know what they’re doing and can’t measure up their powers in a normal way. Poor Darcy, though. She thought he was angry at them for using the deception spell.

3x15:

- Ugh, I hate the Pyros arc.

- Thank god Sky missed Bloom. I am so not in the mood for them. But hey, Brandon is back, too! After being locked up like some criminal. Okay, but Sky said that Diaspro was banished from Eraklyon and we wouldn’t see her again. So why do we see her again several times in following seasons?

- I was gonna say that Pyros wasn’t so bad but... yeah, it’s... pretty bad. That shot of Bloom right before she blasted that dragon from underwater is so cool, though! (I kinda feel like she should be on better terms with dragons, though. You know, because of the Dragon Fire. Or does that just annoy them more? Looks like option B in this case.)

- Look at Riven running from emotions like it’s the plague! And Brandon has his own girlfriend and the consequences of staying out with her to deal with. But at least Sky is back to being helpful now that he’s not spelled anymore.

- Since when can’t Valtor shapeshift? He did turn into a deer in 3x10. That is shapeshifting. God, this show is so annoying with its lack of continuity. I reconsidered this and okay, I can see how his shapeshifting was limited to only animate things. And he needed to turn into a lightning which is different. I admit I was slightly but not completely wrong because it is incorrect that he can’t shapeshift. He can, just not to the degree that he needs.

- I see it’s time for Darcy to be the “favorite one”. He’s playing them so hard and Icy and Darcy are so falling for it. I totally agree with Stormy that they’re throwing themselves at him for attention.

- Stormy: I’m over him. Me: Good for her!

- Daphne! It’s been so long. I wish we’d seen more of her. Even though they dragged her into that stupidity about the dragon. Also, how is Bloom supposed to become stronger if she doesn’t know what to do? I feel her confusion (which I really hate to admit but I do).

- “If a monkey falls in a fountain, does it make a sound?” I. AM. SCREECHING!

- Oof, the maneuver with the coat was so smooth! And we saw him fight more physically! And get knocked face first into the ground! XD

- Timmy counted Tecna’s freckles? Talk about precision. XD But aww, Tecna laughed at his jokes because she knew what it’s like when no one laughed at hers. *sob* They are so cute!

- Walk like a dragon? Seriously? That is so ridiculous.

- Oh, thank god. For a moment I thought they were gonna make her eat bugs.

- I’m with Darcy. I like Valtor when he’s so chill in the middle of his chaotic energy. But the bracelet? To protect her from negative energy? Isn’t giving a witch a charm that wards off negative energy the same as casting a protective spell over Cloud Tower? Which he mocked in 3x10. And the shapeshifting thing is still stupid but damn! Turning into lightning? That is FUCKING AWESOME! I WANNA!!!!!!

- Oof, Bloom summoned the Dragon Fire from inside her? Okay, that was cool. Also, interesting that both Bloom and Valtor had major power-ups in this episode.

- Really? Timmy fell asleep just as he made contact with Tecna? Come on!

- That was her dragon all along? I thought we were talking metaphorically about her inner dragon. Why does this show always have to be so literal and lame? Not to mention redundant. This is the same stupidity from back in season 1 when her power was inside her all along and they sent her a whole bunch of places to “find” it.

3x16:

- Omg. Timmy found Tecna! And Brandon and Sky are both so happy about it and so proud of him! Not to mention already gearing up to go and save her even though it is the middle of the night! This scene is so adorable, I love it!

- Woah, what happened to Valtor’s eyes? Was that the demon in him showing up?

- I actually really like that scene with Stella and Sky and Riven talking. It’s nice to see Winx interact with Specialists that aren’t their boyfriends when their boyfriends aren’t around. Sells the whole friend group vibe. And them cheering each other on was really cute.

- Okay, this scene with Bloom is not only pointless, but also stupid. She can fly! She doesn’t need to jump from stone to stone and even if she loses her balance, she won’t fall because she can fucking fly! This is so stupid and not at all dramatic or suspenseful. What’s your excuse for this, writers? Also, where’s her stupid dragon? What? Did she hallucinate her own inner dragon and saw it outside of her the whole time?

- Aww, Timmy just wants to have his girl back and dance with her! That is so cute! And Brandon and Stella!

- What is the point of this scene with Bloom? She was like “No, I am not coming back unless I get stronger” but now she starts screaming at the air that she wants to go home right this second? Which she totally could? Just bc Faragonda sent her there through a portal, doesn’t mean she can’t find her own way out of Pyros. And then again acting like she doesn’t have wings? Even if she fell down that chasm, she could fly out. I am so sick of this.

- Where did Maya come from? And also, of course, on Pyros you can just bend magic rules. Makes fucking sense. And all that stuff about “being destined to battle great evil” is really getting on my nerves. Not to mention that she was looking for her parents and last time Stella checked, the Hall of the Universe said they were still alive. So there are people from her planet out there and she can earn her Enchantix the normal way. But she’s all given up on finding her parents just because Valtor told her they were dead? And she believed him because... he is the biggest evil they have fought so far and plays dirty the whole time? Fucking logic.

- I’m not even gonna talk about that magical meditation thing.

- Stella is killing me. In the Omega dimension and she still thinks about fashion.

- Timmy really thought he was gonna negotiate with Omega dimension prisoners? There was no way that could’ve gone down peacefully.

- Oh, come on! Big deal that they fell in a chasm. They can fly! God, why does everyone keep acting like fairies face the same problems with falling that people do? They have fucking wings! They’re going to be just fine! Stop dramatizing over nothing!!!!!!!!!!

- Damn, how are the Specialists not dead? Or at least not having anything broken after having huge rocks thrown at them and being crushed by them?

- Oh, damn! I always thought the necklace came from her Enchantix but it was Maya that gave it to her?

- Well, she got her Enchantix. Is this over now? I am so ready to move on. And since when does she have ownership of the island? Yes, you’re the princess of Domino and the guardian of the Dragon Fire and the most special ever - we get it. Now calm down.

3x17:

- Really? She’s gonna angst about Winx not being there when she can just find someone to ask? Like, maybe Faragonda? And while she’s at it also tell her that she came back from Pyros? Oh, and the pixies were there all along! See, no fucking reason for drama! AND Griselda and Faragonda were already awake so she could’ve just gone to them. Although, they did not seem the least bit relieved that she was back. I mean, it wasn’t like her life was in danger or something, right? Why would they be happy to see her? It’s just like she came back from vacation.

- Wait, Faragonda knew what was going on on Pyros? Seriously? I am so over all of this!

- Oh, now it isn’t Sky’s fault? But she was all bitchy back in Gardenia. I am so done with them!

- Okay, Winx aren’t too safe but that was not because of the fall. It is because of the ice snake.

- Bloom and Sky are equipped with proper clothing. So why weren’t the rest of them? It wasn’t like they didn’t know where they were going. Why didn’t they prepare themselves?

- Why the fuck can’t she transform? They’re just making stuff up as they go to create the illusion of danger.

- Of course, they find Tecna even though Timmy was the one that build a machine to tell him she was even alive still. And it had her precise coordinates but nope. Bloom will be the one to find her. And then save the day. Because she is Bloom. Miss Universe. No, I am not bitter, why are you asking?

- Sky didn’t have to interrupt that hug so insensitively.

- Also, obviously Tecna was trapped! Where did they think she was? But at least, she is really handling herself! She is awesome. Maybe a bit too much. I mean, making food out of ice? Talk about doing the impossible.

- Really? That’s just some rope. Tecna should be able to do something about it with her magic.

- And yes. Bloom can’t transform but she and Sky are still the ones to save the day. Even though it was all Tecna’s plan and she was the one who found the others. Of fucking course! We didn’t get to see her Enchantix in action even. I am really salty about this if you can’t tell.

- Yes, let’s just shout and draw everyone in one kilometer radius towards ourselves! Not to mention risk making some ice crack and fall! Such a great idea!

- Yeah, “walking” sure happened. And couldn’t Tecna transform and fly her down? The Enchantix wings are way stronger and Bloom has carried both her parents with her winx wings.

- Omg, Stella is so precious! She literally passed out from exhaustion while trying to keep them safe and warm! My baby! I love her so much!

- How have Bloom and Tecna not broken anything? They fell from so high up! This does not logic logically!

- Oh, yeah. Bloom is so much stronger! She’s only needed saving a couple of times since she got her Enchantix less than an episode ago. But how do they all keep lifting each other up so easily? They must be using magic for it. I mean, please. Even children aren’t so easy to lift up.

- Well, of course. She can’t transform... but she just did. Just like she couldn’t get her Enchantix... but she did anyway. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? And it is really stupid because this whole episode has been going so hard for the “oh, poor Bloom who can’t transform” narrative but in the end she is still the strongest one and the one to save the day. Well, you have to pick one! You can’t have it both ways!

- Yes, sure, it was Musa’s fairy dust that fixed this. Right. And why did she even use fairy dust? There was no dark magic to remove from Bloom. None of this is adding up. None of it.

- I thought they were low on Enchantix juice. But they look like they’re doin’ just fine.

- And now she’s speaking with the snake! Which, by the way, should totally be Flora’s department. Or Roxy’s. Not Bloom’s, that’s for damn sure. And the snake isn’t even a dragon! There is some connection to dragons but still. Plus, can’t be destroyed bc it’s part of the Omega dimension? Well, I’ve got news for you! Valtor destroyed some snakes and almost caused the destruction of Omega as well. So it is not impossible.

- “I have an idea” but “I don’t know what I am going to do”. Great!

- “Just think about protecting Stella...” Awwwwwwwwwwwww!

- Omg, I can’t believe her stupid plan worked. First, the ground just opened up to let her through because she’s apparently fairy Moses. And then the snake just did what she told it to do? Really?

3x18:

- Their pajamas are ridiculous. Also, isn’t it a bit early to talk about engagement and marriage? And lake house? You mean, lake palace. I doubt either Erendor or Samara have ever settled for anything less than a fucking palace (and yes, I will take every chance to bitch about them because I can’t stand them.)

- Yeah, just call your boyfriend at 1 a.m. You know, to wish him good night. I mean, just because my sleep schedule is fucked up, doesn’t mean that everyone else’s is. And considering there are classes the next day, it was obviously too late for that. Flora what was that horrible advice coming from you?

- Wait... I don’t think I remember that scene where the Specialists actually infiltrate CT. Am I by any chance watching the RAI version of this episode? I am unclear on that so know that it’s possible. I don’t think it’s RAI but it might be.

- Aw, the vault monsters were re-spelled. :/ But now everything is going to go better since CT is back with Griffin. I never figured out why Valtor just up and left, though. He just sent the Trix after Bloom instead of going himself and then he disappeared. He didn’t even go to Omega to make sure the rest are finished. I totally wouldn’t go back to the place I was trapped for 17 years either but still. Where’d he go off to?

- Awwwwwwwww, look at Griffin just being completely adorable while trying to pull off the witch facade. And her students are precious, too. Plus, I don’t think that some lessons in team work will hurt any of the witches. Their pride maybe a little, but they could use the “practice” of working with others. XD

- Anti magic from the dimension Negatio? Say what now? They really are just going to let those things go against them and possibly cancel their magic forever? Safety just went out the window. Also, isn’t Palladium worried by being so close to those creatures? They could probably erase his magic as well if they go out of control. This is just a bit too much.

- Yikes, Bloom’s pupils looked like they’d caught fire. Her power really is out of control. (But also, you gotta love how they only showed the Enchantix of Flora, Tecna and Bloom who got it last. They were like “Yeah, Layla, Stella and Musa already got to show off theirs a handful of times. Now it’s the others’ turn.” XD)

- Why does Bloom think that Valtor will tell her the truth about her parents?

- Damn, that secret entrance is so well hidden. But really with the box? I hate the box thing. Can we just not? (Did all of those spells come from CT btw? Bc I am pretty sure he said something about realm erasure or something of the sort. Damn, what kind of things do they keep in Cloud Tower?)

(- Gotta love the animation mistake that had Darcy and Stormy in their “confrontation” outfits instead of their everyday wear for a few seconds before it switched right back.)

- Stella really outdid herself with the idea for those outfits.

- Why isn’t Stormy with Valtor, Icy and Darcy?

- Musa is thinking about breaking off the non-quite-relationship with Riven? Why don’t I remember any of that?

- Well, Nabu got busted pretty quickly. Tecna’s gadgets are really cool. And of course, Stella is being Stella.

- Stormy’s outlines showed in the clouds Valtor summoned but she wasn’t with them in the previous scene while they were flying towards Magix.

- Ooh, Valtor really only said he was after the Ancestresses’ Eye so that they’d remove it from the box and clear it for him to take it. Finesse and deception, indeed.

- Yeah, let’s just break through the museum’s security system! And also, scan the whole place to spy on them. (Btw why are they keeping powerful artifacts in a museum where anyone can walk in?) At least they figured that there is something wrong with Valtor announcing his plans.

- Nabu just let Tecna and Stella roll off the roof before he caught Layla. I can’t even.

- Tecna can tell how much magic Valtor has left? Come again? This seems just a tad bit unbelievable to me.

- Valtor doesn’t look weaker at all to me.

- Oh, so now they are smart enough to figure out his plan? But they were all idiotically asking “Why are the witches attacking us?” in 3x10. Can we keep something consistent here?

- Why doesn’t Valtor know that she has Enchantix? Didn’t the Trix tell him? They were there when she got it. Like I said, can we have some consistency in this whole thing, please?

- Okay, I have too many clashing thoughts about that last scene so I’m just not gonna go into any of them. But Nabu clearly cares for Layla since he’s been doing everything he could to protect her.

3x19:

- What did Chimera just do to the Hall of the Universe? Why did it stop rotating? (Also, ew at Cassandra’s comment about Radius revolving around her.)

- “Flying free is a thing of the past in this kingdom” No villains here, though. Nope, sir. Absolutely none. (I really can’t tell if Radius is just faking being spelled or if she spelled him again after his conversation with Stella in 3x08.) And shouldn’t the wedding be guarded regardless of the things with Stella? I mean, this is a royal event. There is no way this can go without security.

- Stella is having a total breakdown.

- Omg, this scene supports my headcanon about Stormy using her magic for everyday things. Aka drying off Darcy’s nail polish. Nice! (But oh, god, it’s the stupidity with the box again.) Where did Valtor’s neck go in those last moments of the scene? They forgot to color it so it looks like his head just hovers above his collar.

- Hey, Stella, that remark about Tecna was rude. Also, didn’t Timmy say that he and Tecna took dancing lessons? So she must have gotten better at it. Also, I am just relieved that Bloom managed to catch Kiko after she threw him in the air like he was a toy. She is very irresponsible both with his physical health and his emotions sometimes.

- I remember that part with the bikes! It’s really cute. And Stella seems to be having fun even if she was against the whole thing. Poor Musa, though. She was right about there being something wrong with Riven’s bike.

- Chimera wants to be the princess of Solaria but behaves like a vampire when exposed to sunlight.

- Oof, that scene in the boys’ dorms. XD Timmy and Riven being disaster boyfriends. But damn, Helia really got mad there and served him the news about Musa’s doubts about their relationship.

- “Think about what you would do and then do the opposite.” lmao

- The pixies appeared so conveniently. But hey, they did make awesome uniforms for the girls.

- Well, at least Riven apologized for the teasing. Now he just needs to apologize for being wrong and not listening to Musa.

- Step 2 of that plan is a little too vague. “Bust up that wedding” could mean a lot of things. And there could be various ways of execution.

- Helia and Layla really took care of the bikers. And Stella apologizing for what they’re doing to them was so adorable. She is a true princess with manners and kindness (even if she can be temperamental and straight up a bitch sometimes).

- Layla saved them again with those tricks she performed. It’s a good thing that she’s really great on her bike.

- Stella was actually pretty clever about this! She showed Valtor’s mark on her father’s neck and then she just went blazing in. I love how she blasted Chimera out of her way! She made Chimera cry. And then just started teleporting to keep Cassandra from getting away. She’s so awesome! And the people also listened to her! (If only the guards had as well.)

- She unspelled her dad! And they now have an idea on where to start about defeating Valtor.

3x20:

- Yikes, Valtor really destroyed the whole Lightrock. I bet the Trix were all too happy about that. (Why was that assembly in Faragonda’s office, though, and not in the big hall where they usually have them? Was it only for the third-years?)

- Oh, my god! Faragonda actually considered the possibility that this might be a trap so that they’d leave Alfea. I bet it was Griselda that actually figured that out. But that “she acts like she controls the school” was hilarious(ly dumb (especially coming from Digit)). She does control the school, lol.

- Well, they are tiny. It’s not like they’re trying to offend them. They’re just saying the truth.

- I thought Stormy was over Valtor. She really looked like she was. (And nobody bought Icy’s claims that she was over him even for a second.) I think that Darcy is on to something with that comment about men’s egos, though. XD Gotta admit that I am not a fan of Valtor listening in on all of this. It really reminds me of the way fake Avalon was baiting all the fairies into being even more smitten with him and that was disgusting. Although, the Trix are adults at least. (They have to be if they were seniors in season 1.) I also love that Darcy tried for a more peaceful solution. But I have a feeling that might have been because she wasn’t actually sure that she could win a magical fight between them.

- Stormy is having a bunch of good ideas here. Cruel but good. And Valtor has to at least appreciate the effort they are putting into impressing him, stealing spells and all.

- And that was the end of the good ideas and the beginning of the clowning around.

- I think Amore is in love with Stella. XD

- There’s a whole army of “little creatures of the forest”. XD

- Darcy has the right idea with the hypnotizing.

- “I wouldn’t respect you if you weren’t a little bit devious”, I can’t.

- Why is Kiko giving a ride to a seahorse that can fly?

- The Trix are now getting soundly defeated by pixies. This can’t get anymore ridiculous but I am going to give it a pass because it was established early on that this episode is just going to be Like That.

- Poor Kiko! He almost got crushed. I am not sure how smart it was of Darcy to make the pixies that big. Also, why can they make themselves smaller but not bigger? That seems kinda stupid.

- “Love energy”? Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I am out of here. And Valtor is watching all of this. The Trix are embarrassing themselves so hard rn and I cannot stand it.

- Oof, even Valtor was done with their bullshit. He came to collect them. I just... I don’t know what to say about this except that I hate how cringy all of it is.

(- They really just spared an entire episode on this.)

3x21:

- That’s actually a smart plan to test their attacks on Bloom in order to figure out how to beat Valtor. I like it.

- Aww, Layla is still being respectful with her mom even when she is firm in defending her beliefs and her agency. I love it!

- So the Dragon Fire is basically matter and the Water Stars are anti matter? I mean, if you parallel them to our theories about the creation of the universe. But if they can’t exist in the same dimension, then how come they were just a few inches away from Bloom and nothing happened? We went from “smart plan” to “this doesn’t make sense again” pretty quickly and I am not here for it.

- You can’t seriously tell me that Faragonda and Saladin agreed to let them go on a mission to get the Water Stars. Why would you let students go get one of the three literally most powerful essences in the universe? This sounds like insanity.

- Edge of the world? Really? Are we in the Middle Ages?

- Okay, but Nabu’s approach is just stupid. Another one that doesn’t get girls. I am just amazed that Layla totally managed to catch him even though he was invisible. She is really awesome!

- “Are you putting a charm spell on me?” “No, I am just being myself.” “Well, stop it because... I don’t know. Just because.” Okay, my mind is made up. I am shipping this! (Layla x Nabu) And I only really needed one scene to start!

- Omg, they crashed. I am shooketh!

- Ugh, I am so not here for the Riven and Musa drama. And he just jumped on his bike and headed after them even though he didn’t even know for certain if there was anything happening there. I know they had some problems in the previous few episodes but that is zero trust right there.

- Holy fuck, what is that monster?!

- I’d totally forgotten that Nabu was a wizard. I just hope that now that he saved Layla and he showed that he could have freed himself at any moment but he didn’t, she will believe him. They are already too cute to not get together asap (especially considering that he dies).

- Aww, Stella was so quick to aid Musa. And she got so angry at that monster. She can be so feisty and also so good in battle. I love her!

- The pixies just tricked that monster nicely. XD I guess they really aren’t too small even for the big dangers.

- So Flora doesn’t kill things. She just “returns them to nature”. That’s one way to make natural compost, I guess.

- “Chill out, main frame.” Lol.

- Honestly, I was kinda surprised that Riven knows Piff’s name. She isn’t even Musa’s pixie (only her bestie’s). I mean, it makes sense for him to know it but at the same time it would have been just as believable if he hadn’t known it. Idk. I guess they just portray him as a jerk so much of the time that I was surprised by this. Ignore my rambling.

- Awwwwww! Layla trusted him. And he surfs. Of course, he surfs. XD (He is from Tides, after all, and they are perfectly compatible.) But of course, Riven had to arrive at the worst possible moment and misinterpret everything even more than he already had.

3x22:

- Riven did not see any of this coming. But I wouldn’t say that what he did was “valiant” at all. It was misguided and fueled by jealousy, insecurity and lack of trust. Def not things you want in a relationship.

- Yes, of course, Bloom can read that thing. And of course, Tecna and Timmy couldn’t decipher it with some tech, which was totally what I thought they would do but no!

- “When we’re big enough to be small?” XD This scene is finally making me realize why Stella has always been my fave. We just have the exact same attitude. All her bitching in this could have come straight out of my mouth.

- They are removing their inner darkness with the fairy dust? I cannot even tell you how much I absolutely despise this idea.

- Btw why is Brandon not with them?

- Omg, Valtor is torturing them by replaying them their loss by the pixies? Oh, that is evil. XD But I have to say that this makes me a little more accepting of the pixie episode because it was used to fuel the Trix here. So it was not completely useless. How come they were animated as if they’re back on Tides, though? ‘Cause I am pretty sure they are not.

- They are trampoline-ing on a cloud! I love it! It is so cute.

- I love how they just picked Stella to be their speaker. I think it’s cool because she is a princess and she will have to learn to be a leader and to hold speeches. Even if that wasn’t very official speak she did there.

- We are still on the Diaspro drama? But omg, I love how quickly Riven and Nabu are becoming friends! They seem to really like each other. And Nabu is so similar to Layla! And obviously totally in love with her already! XD I love that they are playing a game while waiting for the others! We could really use some moments when they’re just being teenagers and are not battling for the fate of the universe. That said, here come the parts with the Crystal Labyrinth that have always been my fave!

- Well, Icy did score that one!

- I am getting chills already by Tecna’s choice and she hasn’t even started debating on it. I love that the room with emotions also showed her friends and not just Timmy. And Tecna was so quick to abandon logic at the idea of never feeling again but she still chose to go through the exit in the name of the greater good. Fuck, I’m already about to cry. My eyes are watering!

- All of Darcy’s clones against all of Nabu’s would have been soooooo cool! She’s never been up against someone who can match her abilities and that would have been epic! Also, Nabu and Riven really have become fast friends and I love it!

- Ancient crow’s dust? Yes, please! This sounds so cool!

- Okay, but seriously. What the fuck did they do to Stella’s face? How does that even translate in a real life look? I mean, what? This was really half-assed. And I kinda don’t like how it implies that Stella’s grandest concern is her looks. That is not the core of her character and they could have done something else here. Also, there was zero build-up with this choice. She just got there and walked straight towards the exit. There was no suspense whatsoever.

- Musa’s test is so unfair! (And yes, I am crying.) Tecna and Stella got back what they sacrificed but Musa never got to be with her mom again. That is really cruel. But at least she got to hear how proud her mom was of her. And Arcadia told her that Stella and Tecna were already outside. Imagine how terrible it would have been if she’d sacrificed being with her mom and one of the others didn’t make it out so it was all for nothing.

- Tecna is truly like a robot without any emotion. Poor baby! But at least they restored what they took from her!

- They really had to waste so much time and have the rest of Winx come back to defeat them. And tell Valtor that Winx ran away? Valtor that can literally see anywhere in the dimension? Yeah, why do I have the feeling that that should not work out for them? Although it probably will.

- Um, excuse me? “Musa, Stella and LAYLA risked everything for”? That was Tecna, not Layla. And I am absolutely convinced that in a later episode the Stars were shown to be six instead of only three. Even though it makes sense that they would be three because they only gave them three.

3x23:

(- I am pretty sure the 3x23 I watched is RAI but I couldn't be bothered to look elsewhere for 4kids.)

- Okay, so they have the Water Stars and they don’t even know what to do with them. Why did none of them think about asking? When they were back at the Golden Kingdom?

- Seriously, Bloom is touching the Stars but there’s nothing happening? Weren’t they supposed to be unable to exist in one dimension with the Dragon Fire? She is literally touching them!!!

- What the hell is this with Valtor? He looks like his favorite puppy died, then he gets weird, then he gets sad again and then he gets so mad he makes Darcy hide behind Icy? I don’t like where any of this is going. And the Company of Light did defeat him. Growling at that fact will not change it so he might want to calm down and find a way to prevent that from happening again instead of raging.

- I love how battle ready Tecna is. Though, maybe it is a good thing that they’re looking for some R&R. She could probably use it.

- Nabu and Layla “developed a little chemistry”? Well, that’s one way to put it, I guess. XD

- Omg, Riven looks so lost when it comes to the girls. XD

- Lol, even Helia is so done with Valtor. It is indeed like Griffin said - everyone wants to give him payback.

- If there are four people fighting, is that still considered a “duel”? (Well, there were three people fighting but still.) I like his plan, though. Challenge all three of them and make it look like it’s about all of them and his revenge. Then go to Alfea while they fight each other under his illusion spell.

- And Griffin's getting some vengeful impulses of her own. I kinda love how petty Valtor was, though, to pick Cloud Tower for his demonstration even though he already fucked around there and did make some of his revenge against Griffin come true. And I love how for someone who always seems to look down on the fairy way of doing things, Griffin was trying to convince her students to stick together because it would make them stronger. That is exactly what the fairies do, you know? XD

- First, what are Ediltrude and Zarathustra doing at that assembly of Alfea teachers after they’ve been MIA since 3x10? Second, “as the oldest teacher on this council”. So Wizgiz is... the oldest of all of them? Like, age wise? And third, now we are having a mention of the situation in Alfea while Faragonda was trapped in the tree? But they didn’t bother to show any of the teachers being worried or even doing shit about it while she was missing?

- “It’s a battle we have fought before and won”. Yeah, right. You’re three members short if you haven’t noticed. And Valtor is more powerful than ever before.

- Good thing Faragonda didn’t take the Water Stars. They would have probably lost them to Valtor and then it would have been the end. I have to admit that his strategy of “divide and conquer” was pretty good. I am still salty about the fact that neither of them could tell it was an illusion, though. Griffin has worked for the Ancestral Witches for fuck’s sake. She must have been closely acquainted with Lysslis’ illusions and how to spot them. This was just too easy for him and too incompetent on their part (and by “their” I’ll let you decide if I mean the Company of Light or the writers... or both.)

- Oof, this is actually Griffin and Faragonda fighting each other. Ouch! That hurts.

- My god, what was that expression on Faragonda’s face? She looked like a rabid dog. I guess Valtor just really brings out the worst in everyone. XD

- Hey, wait! Was that glass shards or ice shards that Saladin was attacked with?

Because that was Faragonda’s magic. What is happening here? (Btw I love how much the boys wanted to help take Valtor down. Idk, it really just struck a cord.)

- Oof, that battle is taking its toll on them and the protective barrier of Alfea is suffering from Faragonda’s powers being drained. But from what we’ve seen so far, it looks like Griffin is holding up the best out of the three of them.

- It’s really cute that Winx believed Bloom about Valtor being at Alfea even if it seemed insane.

- Omg, please treat the books more gently! I am literally begging you!

- The thing with the Water Stars looked intense. But of course, Valtor found a way to cheat out of it. I wonder what the Stars would do to him, though. He was literally made from the Dragon Fire so if the Water Stars cancel that out, does it mean that he will cease to exist?

- Poor Faragonda, Griffin and Saladin. They must have felt horrible about hurting each other and falling for Valtor’s trick.

- This Layla x Nabu train is moving a little bit too fast but he was following her around for a while so I guess he did have enough time to fall for her. And they are literally made for each other so... I guess it’s fine.

3x24:

- Ugh, another dream! And, of course, Bloom’s friends are against her as always. I already bitched about that in my thoughts on the first half of this season so I won’t do it again. It is curious, though, that Faragonda is on her side in her dream(s) but her friends never are. They are supposed to be best friends but she trusts them less than she trusts Faragonda, who has, admittedly, kept information from her before? Or is it that she feels that Faragonda can help her when Winx can’t and that is what this is supposed to mean? And a sidenote – I can just see the writers going “Hehe, symbolism” when they came up with the portraits of Valtor and Marion and Oritel getting destroyed.

- Oh, you can’t be for real! She is seriously buying into Valtor’s lie about her parents? And she even finds evidence to support it in her connection to him? Really? And also, because this goes here, why the hell would the Ancestral Witches tell her the truth when they are even worse than Valtor who is lying to her (even if she doesn’t know he’s lying)? You gotta love how seeing the Ancestral Witches and thinking of seeking them out was the only purpose of that dream. That and the obvious way to up the unnecessary Bloom drama.

- See? Her friends are supportive as hell! They wake up in the middle of the night from her nightmares and aren’t even angry about it. Instead, they check up on her, offer to stay with her and say they will support her no matter what. Why does she keep dreaming of them being against her? If you are not secure in your friendship after all this, then you literally never will be.

- “Those witches are long gone” was supposed to mean that they were dead, right? Yeah, well, that didn’t work out since in Secret of the Lost Kingdom they aren’t dead.

- Why is Faragonda on board with this and ALSO so cheerful about it? She fought those witches and watched them destroy the entire planet of Domino and her friends. The least she should be is wary as fuck and worried about Bloom (and Bloom’s sanity). Not to mention reluctant to do the spell and suspicious of any results they could get. Also, where the hell is that room? Do they just have a room that can reach any dimension even in the past in the school? Because that just spells out trouble.

- Why does the Ancestral Witches’ essence still exist in Cloud Tower? They have never been mentioned to have been anywhere near Cloud Tower. Is there any reason to this or did they just do it so that Winx could bring back Cloud Tower? Because, you know, Griffin is only one of the most powerful witches in existence and the headmistress of one of the most prestigious schools for magic. Why the hell would she be able to find her own school? Especially if she has the help of Faragonda and Saladin. I mean, her and Faragonda’s convergence withstood Darkar’s attacks but, of course, they could never find Cloud Tower themselves. Never mind that Faragonda is a fairy and has been confirmed to have fairy dust in a previous episode so they totally didn’t need Winx to un-spell Cloud Tower for them.

- Yeah, Griffin totally didn’t think of the fact that Valtor might have just used an illusion spell to hide Cloud Tower. Even though she worked with him for the Ancestral Witches and Lysslis has illusion powers which Valtor could totally copy. He was shown to have ice powers like Belladonna in a previous episode so he probably can do all the things that the Ancestrals could. But of course, instead of thinking of any of that, Griffin just sat idly by and waited for students to save her school while she and her witches were probably crammed in Alfea (there is no way the school is big enough to fit both the fairies and the witches comfortably).

- Why the fuck do they need the Water Stars? Also, remember how “the Dragon Fire and the Water Stars couldn't exist in the same dimension”? They seem to be doing just fine here. It’s all pretty chill. Especially considering that the Water Stars are supposed to be able to remove Bloom’s whole magic. But she’ll just put up a shield. You know, with her Dragon Fire. The same Dragon Fire that the Water Stars can extinguish. The stupidity is unreal. And there are six Water Stars now instead of only three. Continuity at its finest.

- Why did only Flora use her fairy dust? And why couldn't they just break the spell from the outside? Ugh, this is again only here to evoke pity for Bloom because, you see, her Enchantix is incomplete and now she has to rely on her friends. Whatever will she do? Poor baby! Gag me!

- I am getting really fed up with everything but especially with Valtor. (And Bloom but I’ve already been bitching about that so let’s switch it up a little.) First, he starts yelling at the Trix that they can’t defeat Bloom even though he couldn't do it himself. Then, he wants to punish them when they call him out on his bullshit and say that he is afraid of fighting Bloom, which he totally is. And also, why did that power-up he gave them had to undress them? They didn’t have to change in bikinis in order to be more powerful. This is actually creeping me out.

- Cloud Tower has dungeons and a crypt? What the hell is going on in this school? This is supposed to be a school, you know?

- “Goth outfits”? You mean beach outfits. And they still can’t beat even the rest of Winx and we all know Bloom is supposed to be the most powerful.

- Of course, she just stumbled into the crypt accidentally! And what the hell were those vines coming out? Why vines when none of the Ancestral Witches can summon vines? Was that an illusion? Or was it some sort of protection spell?

- I don’t know what is worse – the fact that Bloom thought the Ancestral Witches would help her or the fact that they actually told her the truth. They are pure evil. Why the fuck would they tell her the truth? It would have been so much cooler if they’d told her Valtor was telling the truth and she had to fight him while thinking that could destroy her parents. It would have been real drama and not this pseudo drama that has been going on here.

- It looked like the Trix were only pretending to be hit by the Winx’ spell but then they just keep losing in literally one blast. I am so sick of this! Can we see a proper battle? Because this is everything but.

- “We haven’t even begun using our new powers.” Then why don’t you begin using them because Winx are wiping the floor with you? You really need to up your game because you are being ridiculous.

- Really? The fairy dust can now remove powers and not just spells? Convenient as hell and just as boring, thanks.

- Really? Winx are somehow more powerful than the heads of the schools (since they broke Valtor’s spell on CT)? Well, why don’t we just give them Alfea and Cloud Tower and call it quits. I mean, they are the ones doing everything anyway. Why not just hand them over the schools. There won’t be much difference.

3x25:

- Oh, so now Faragonda is concerned that Valtor is dangerous? They have been fighting him all season. She let them go for the Water Stars in what looked like an official mission. But now she is worried for their well-being? You're a little too late for that, hon.

- Okay, I am totally done with Valtor. I know the Trix were laughing at him and everything but blasting them into walls is a big no-no. They are supposed to be his partners and he's abusing them. I am so glad they left him to deal with his shit on his own.

- You know, he doesn't look too weak from here. He looks scary. And not because he turned into a demon. His temper and lack of control are scary. Especially since he has so much power at his disposal.

- At least the Trix admitted they have no taste in men. It is ironic, though, that it was Icy who said it, yet she fell for Tritanus in season 5. I guess they also never learn.

- The greatest spell is the four elements? I get why they're powerful and everything but I would've loved something more original. This just feels lazy.

- Oof, I don't think we have seen the Trix look so scared.

- I have to say that even though what is happening is pretty horrible, the frantic energy of that scene with everyone telling Faragonda what's wrong is greatly amusing me. Idk why. I guess I am just a little heartless prick sometimes. XD

- It's cute that now Griffin is instantly calling Faragonda instead of them not talking to each other like back in season 1 or having Saladin acting like a mediator, which he was. And I love that the development of their friendship is very subtle but is still there. That is so adorable!

- Please, tell me that their fairy dust won't be enough to fix this because that will be too easy. Also, I am shocked that Griselda is also there (and that she barged in Faragonda's office like that before) and they aren't waiting for Winx to solve everything.

- Oh, so the elements will keep tormenting them forever? Okay, that is a little more interesting than I originally thought.

- And so much for the teachers doing anything. It is all up to Winx... Again.

- Wow, the Specialists can neutralize twisters? That is so weird but also very cool.

- I thought Winx would try to put up a new barrier around Alfea, at least, but I guess there's no point in that. Getting Valtor seems to be the way to beat this.

- Now we're gonna talk about the Omega thing? And again brushing it off? You know what? Whatever.

- Well, his trick with the lake was kinda for nothing because they all made it out. But at least he is back to his human form.

- Formless mud monster? Really? Can't we do anything better?

- Ooh, Valtor's plan about the Water Stars was cool! And I love how Winx tried to protect Bloom. And this battle is at least going on longer even if it's still not much in terms of an actual battle.

- Bloom's idea was pretty smart but it still doesn't make sense. Valtor already absorbed a lot of spells before he got the box so he has to be pretty powerful still even without it. Edit: Or he could just put them all in the box and lose them all because he is dumb like that. Nvm. Also, he just threw away the Water Stars aka the one thing that can really fuck him over to chase the spell with the elements? Idk but the Water Stars seem more important to me.

- Like I said, what was the big idea with the elements spell? It brought him down.

- Watch Faragonda and Griselda act like they can't teleport.

- Well, the Trix finally got their brains back and left. Good for them.

- Wait, the Trix were taken back to Lightrock? I don't remember that. But awww at that shot of Icy and Stormy hugging to console each other about their terrible fate.

- Well, the boys got to Alfea fast.

3x26:

- In the previous episode: “The trees aren’t burning up and aren’t getting charred but are just swallowed in flames.” In this episode: “Everything has burned down and been destroyed.” *eternal sigh* I cannot wait for this episode to be over and be done with this whole season.

- Well, at least they fixed the forest and everything is back to normal. And the animals are so cute!

- Faragonda and Griffin’s friendship is so cute! And I am glad that neither of them is quick to close this chapter because they both know better than to just assume it’s over without evidence.

- Aww, look at Kiko! Trying so hard to cheer Bloom up!

- What was that scene with Valtor? Was he doing it on purpose to capture the Specialists and then do what he did with them? (I think he pitted them against Winx. Or at least made clones of them that went against Winx.)

- Yup! He’s using them all right. (I can’t get that meme out of my head. There was an edit of that scene with Valtor and Helia with the text post “Hey there, boys. It’s me. Ya demon.” and I am just cracking up thinking about it.)

- The spell with the elements again? It is the only one he had left but then again, Helia said he was just as strong as he’d been before that when he attacked them at the lake. Also, he only grabbed Sky, Brandon and Riven then? Not that that wasn’t enough. They would have gone even if he’d only kidnapped one of the boys. But still.

- Bloom can create things that teleport them now? Wasn’t teleportation a Stella gimmick?

- Ah, so he also took Timmy. And those were the clones that Tecna, Stella, Musa and Bloom are dealing with. That last part became apparent after Brandon but now it’s confirmed.

- Okay, this version of the four elements spell seems cooler. And the clones seem hard to defeat as well. There is finally some more tension here.

- Never mind, it’s over. Bloom solved it in a second. Of course, she did. Obviously, she doesn’t even need to see Valtor or know where he is to be able to blast him. Sure. Makes perfect sense.

- Oh, come on! Only reason that blast could have knocked Valtor out would be that he was already exhausted and using up all of his energy for the spell with the elements.

- So the Ancestral Witches aren’t dead. Just banished. Okay, that checks out. But damn, that scene is giving me the creeps and making me feel so bad for Valtor. He literally did not have control over his own body (and even... soul?), not to mention how they kept nagging him about failing. Also, is the mark by any chance how he is bound to them? It seemed to hold him prisoner.

- They’re fighting inside Valtor? That is freaky and not in a cool way. I was kinda glad that he got back to his human form (even if it was only on the inside) but that last part was pretty anti climatic. Valtor didn’t even get to do anything there. It was one blast from Bloom and everything was over. (Though, I should be glad that there won’t be more plot holes in this.)

- Wait, his essence is imprisoned with the Ancestral Witches? So in Obsidian then? That was never followed up in the movie and in s8 he said his essence was just roaming around freely. But whatever. Nothing has made sense all season. Why start now?

- Awww at Nabu and Layla! They were so perfect! How could they kill him?!

I don’t have much of a conclusion for this season. I went in really hyped for it and the last few episodes tore my nerves to shreds. Don’t be fooled by that, though. There is no sense to be found anywhere in this season. I am pretty sure at least 40% of my thoughts were just “This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.” Also, when will continuity come back from the war? I still love Enchantix but there were even things with that that enraged me. And Valtor... I will just pretend that the last third of this season does not exist in terms of his character. I am honestly glad that I am done with this and I can move on to season 4.

20 notes · View notes

quicktelling-blog · 5 years

Text

Amira’s Vanished Hustle, Perceptions of Missed Opportunities, and What Everyone Should Consider About the Story So Far

[deep dive under the cut]

Some messages I got over the weekend were along the lines of: “No Damira again on Friday whew you must be heartbroken huh?” But, y’all, I wasn’t surprised. And to be completely honest, my reaction on Friday was very different from the ones I saw in the tag. Yeah, I was super happy for the adorable Amira and I was also side-eying the glaring absence of Carlos’s besties at his own housewarming -- but my main thought after the clip was: “LOL OH SHIT HERE WE GO.” Because in my mind Friday was an ENORMOUS RED FLAG that the only substantial thing left to do in Amira’s story arc is the cute Bon Voyage party to send her off on her dream trip. Even before this big POV shift happened, Druck hadn’t given us any reason to expect much more than that in her remaining plot, and I’ll elaborate on that here.

I don’t wanna jump to the conclusion that Druck can’t possibly stick the landing, because hey, they might! We have no clear idea what will happen between now and the final goodbye party, so maybe good things are coming that will subvert all of our worst imaginings! But I feel like this is a hinge point in the season to do a little reassessing of expectations... and to come clean about one big reason why I’ve mostly spoken superficially about this season up until now.

The very first red flag, for me, was when I realized Druck was planning to basically pretend Amira never had a job. That oversight might not seem like a big deal to most, and it’s not like her job was the first thing Druck ever made disappear unceremoniously (remember when Leonie and Sara had other close girl friends? lol) but to me it was a signal that my expectations for Amira’s story (based on her previous strong characterization) had maybe been too high. And I immediately felt a bit cheated.

Amira was already so fleshed out coming into her season. She was demanding, quick-witted, and nurturing. She was fiercely protective of her friends, and even more fiercely ambitious, with a willingness to work harder than anyone to get ahead in life. She was sunny but tough-shelled, with a well-established resistance to trusting any men. And, loving her as much as I do, I felt strongly that she deserved to have plenty of brand new story elements that reflected all those things. To have her own story shaped around her, rather than she herself being reshaped to fit Sana’s story.

But then it was finally her turn to shine, in a Summer season, when it would make perfect sense for her to be on a job grind to earn cash for her trip, and... she’s not working? Huh? She managed to work all through a tough school year, but not her free summer vacation? Why? Because of Druck’s low budget? Because they lacked cohesion in the writing process? Some combination of the two? Yikes. Who knows. But suddenly, nonsensically, they had flushed away the perfect framing to showcase her work ethic, her daily perseverance, and her varied interactions (good and bad) with lots of strange customers around Berlin.

It felt like a bad omen to me somehow. Which wasn’t a great mindset to start the season with. And that was the beginning of me trying very, very hard not to be confused and salty about every little thing I began to perceive as missed opportunities to give Amira a new kind of substance in her story.

For example: While David, Matteo, and Sam began having fun off-screen, working on an bold alien movie, Amira inexplicably had no involvement. She kinda scoffed at the idea when it came up on-screen, then immediately lost interest in the conversation because her man was texting. Fair enough, right? That scene was moving her story forward while generously giving a little shoutout to the meta insta storyline, right? The problem is: the off-screen story ended up seeming much more interesting than watching Amira chilling on her own texting a bunch, and we weren’t even given a reason for her to not be part of it after the whole crew was invited to join in. Imagine if we had followed her onto a shitty little makeshift movie set and seen her reacting to the chaos and strangeness of it. Imagine her finding a resourceful solution to a production hiccup or mediating a creative disagreement while trying to hide her own inner turmoil from her friends. And imagine her having an extremely important conversation with David (and/or Matteo and/or Sam) about the film’s deeper themes of alienation and otherness that they can both sadly relate to.

That’s just one weirdly specific scenario, but there are sooo many other ways I fantasized about Amira bonding with her friends (particularly the ones who aren’t cishet white kids or brand new characters). Talking with one or more of them about what it means to be dangerously marginalized, or to be afraid of letting someone get close to you, or to feel torn in two different directions in life. Maybe something like that could still happen before the season ends, but I’m not counting on it. And I think the time has passed for it to have the biggest impact. It could’ve been amazing (and really narratively useful!) if it happened before the resolution of Amira’s brief conflicts with Kiki, Erva, and Mohammed. We saw a lot of scenes with her looking angry and sad, but we weren’t really privy to much of her thought process during all that reflection, so it felt uncomfortably unearned when problems she once saw as insurmountable were shortly waved aside. I would’ve really appreciated even a short conversation with some good change-of-heart exposition.

And while other people were cheering about all the controversial Sana season conflicts being blessedly truncated or completely stripped away, the whole time I couldn’t stop thinking: ��Okay, awesome, but what are they gonna replace that storyline with? Nothing?” And, for the most part, that seemed to be true.

But the problem clearly wasn’t limited to a shortage of well-integrated story threads with Amira at their center. It was arguably also a failure to capitalize on the stories they did use. Instead of getting to watch the emotional fight with her mother about punching someone, and witnessing Amira faced with the threat of losing Australia, we only heard about the drama afterward. Just like we only heard about her family’s religious holiday together. Just like we only got a few texts between Amira and Jonas about the refugee event. And just like how, as I sat typing this, Amira’s mother re-blessed the trip off-screen. On and on goes the list of examples of this unfortunate tell-don’t-show approach, and I’m sure a lot of it can be attributed to low budget and tricky cast scheduling, but the time limit excuse probably doesn’t apply if Amira’s main plot really has been efficiently pared down to 7 episodes.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to reserve final judgment on the season until the credits roll, and there are plenty of good things to say about it in the meantime. Yes, it’s been lovely to see so many gorgeous shots of Tua praying, and boxing, and expressing everything from attraction to anguish to helpless rage. Yes, she and Hassan both did some really strong work selling the magnetic pull between their characters, even in the face of (what I consider to be) an underdeveloped narrative that didn’t totally sell me on the relationship overall. Yes, it was wonderful to have some aesthetically pleasing scenes of the girl squad loving and supporting each other, even if they mostly talked about boys the way Amira hoped they wouldn’t. And obviously just having a story about a strong, kind, devoted hijabi girl is vitally important visibility. So I really haven’t wanted to say anything negative in the face of all that...

... but now I have to say: if you’re feeling cheated and mad about the POV shift, then take some time to consider what else specifically you think should’ve happened to Amira before we entered this resolution phase of her story. It seemed like most people were perfectly happy for her to not face any complex conflict, and not have any lingering hardship to dramatically and triumphantly overcome. Every obstacle getting a relatively swift and easy solution felt underbaked to me, but it was a big relief and source of praise for most people in the tags right up until Amira disappeared from clips. So: in hindsight, how would you have added not just length, but also more compelling drama and greater social impact to her story, so that the extra length felt well-used? It’s really worth thinking and talking about that, even if you’re hesitant to voice any criticism of Amira’s part of the story (even after the season ends, and even if it’s totally constructive) -- because thinking and talking about it is how we’ll get that kind of richer, fuller story in the future.

#druck #amira thalia mahmood #representation #storytelling #amira baby i love you and you deserve the world okay #that's been at the core of my issues all season

164 notes · View notes

ruffiorocks · 5 years

Text

Kara has always had love, Lena has not.

You know I'm all supportive of not liking a character, RAO knows there's a few I'm not a fan of. But what bothers me is when people only focus on half the narrative of the character they don't like. When the rest of the characters narrative is usually the reason and explaination for why they are the way they are.

Take for instance the comparison of Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor. People who don't like Lena but adore Kara will throw out that Kara is a literal ray of sunshine who has suffered trauma and doesn't whine about it, while Lena has no right to be moody because she's privileged.

Ok, so there's quite a bit to address here.

First off, we (and the show) like to refer to Kara as 'sunny Danvers' and how she is a consistent ball of sunshine that only ever sees the best In people. Now I don't know what fan fic the people who think this have been reading but that just isn't true and the show shows us consistently that it isn't true.

Kara has been seen to be moody, depressed, judgmental, have prejudice, be hot headed, refusing to listen and seeing herself as superior whilst giving herself authority over things and people and feeling put out when people do things she personally doesn't agree with or hasn't sanctioned. But thats OK! It shows that Kara is just as flawed and normal as anybody else.

People will say that Kara lost her planet, her family, her race and she didn't let it get to her, but Lena is kept out of a secret or people don't like her and suddenly she's an awful person?

Erm... Ok, so I've mentioned this before but it's worth stating again. Kara has been adored and loved and privileged since the day she was born. Kara belongs to 'the noble house of El' an elite family of Krypton. Her father was a scientist and her mother was basically the head or the judicial system and her aunt a general. She was also well protected. So yeah, Kara was extremely privileged and had a superior social standing on Krypton. Yes her planet exploded but do you know what happened after that? People still continued to love and adore her. She immediately got placed with a loving family who only wanted to take care of her, even if she was rejected by Kal El. The Danvers weren't exactly poor either. Kara had a loving adopted family to help her through her trauma. Then she grew up to be adored by her Superfriends, was welcomed at the DEO by Jonn who took it upon himself to be her space dad and he always protected her and Alex even when they didnt know. People fall for Kara all the time and fight for her affections. She may have had a difficult relationship with Cat but even she was a mentor and was shown to love Kara, both as Kara and as Supergirl. She's also adored by the world because she's Supergirl, the amount of love and attention she gets shows this. She also has a devoted sister who's life is made up of protecting her. Plus she has a devoted billionaire best friend willing to do anything for her and put her self in danger protecting her because she doesn't know Kara doesn't need protecting. Kara also has statues dedicated to her and has friends from the 31st century who told her what a legend she is in the future. She's had cults dedicated to worshipping her, she has an abundance of Superfriends that adore her. It's an awful lot of love, devotion and respect since the day she landed. So Kara may have trauma but she has all the love in the world to help her through it. Oh it also doesn't hurt that she is a blonde haired, blue eyed Caucasian white woman. I wouldn't normally mention skin color but the show made a point of Jonn mentioning this. Kara didn't believe prejudice against aliens happened much anymore because she (the white woman) didn't experience it.

I'd like to point out that Kara's race survived, she also still has her mother.

Now let's look Lena, Lena was traumatized aged 4 by watching her own mother die and grew up believing it to be her fault. She was taken in by a horrible family she didn't even learn was biologically hers until after her father died and her brother had gone insane. Her father may have liked her but he has also been shown to be an alcoholic, her step mother made it abundantly clear she didn't want Lena around and has kidnapped her several times and though she was dedicated to Lex his diaries show that he saw her as a play thing even when they were children. So unlike Kara, Lena didn't get placed with a loving family. People are so focused on Lena's billionaire status, money doesn't equal love and happiness. Lena has been treated horribly for most of her life. It doesn't matter she went to the best school, maybe ate from a silver platter, she was emotionally abused and not wanted. The total opposite of Kara. Kara got a devoted adopted mother and father and a wonderful devoted sister. Lena got a horrible adopted mother, an alcoholic father and an insane, manipulative, mass murdering, genocidal brother. Lena had to watch her brother decend into madness to the point SHE not Superman managed to set him up and get him caught. But Lena has to suffer for what Lex did. She is cursed by her own name no matter how good she is. Kara's family sat back knowing Krypton would be destroyed, her family nearly enslaved the human race with tech ger father created (Astra and Non). But no one holds it against Kara/Supergirl. Lena's mother and brother try to kill aliens and Lena is instanty under suspicion because she simply breathes. Kara's family basically invade but no one sees Kara any differently. Why? Because she isn't her family, a sentiment no matter how many times she proves it Lena will never earn.

Lena is constantly shot at, treated like shit, manipulated, people try to asssinate her and whenever she does something good or saves the world it's only ever Supergirl that gets acknowledged for it. She even tries to help people and cure Cancer but is constantly taken advantage of. Even when she's trying to cure cancer she's condemned because the tech is used (not by her) for nerfarious purposes. She can't even try to cure cancer without being shat on. She had different opinions to the Superfriends and that makes her instantly bad not only to haters but also the Superfriends. She's framed, footage of 'her' shows her getting Kryptonite and no one cares to hear Kara protest her innocence. But does anyone remember Bizarro? Red daughter? Yeah the Superfriends never doubted for a second that that wasn't Kara. Instant love and respect no matter what, something Lena only had Kara for . Until she didn't.

Kara was the one person to show trust in Lena. That was until Lena did something Kara didn't like, approve of and suddenly felt threatened by even though Lena is one of the very few who has never hurt or threatened her and has always believed in her. That actually included Alex and Jonn. Kara felt threatened because Lena had Kryptonite, but never gave a rats ass that Jonn used Kryptonian cuffs on her, owned a Kryptonian knife, or that Alex shot her out of the sky with Kryptonite bullets and owns a Kryptonite sword. She didn't even care the DEO had a stash of Kryptonite until Kal El kicked up a fuss. The Superfriends, ALL of them have even doubted Kara's ability to succeed at some point. Lena on the other hand has done nothing but encourage her. So Kara was so quick to let fear and prejudice cloud her judgement.

Kara had been treated like she was in charge of all things for so long she started to think she was. Legally having Kryptonite wasn't against the law, it's never been stated that it was. Kara also thought she had the right to tell a civilian business woman that she had to give up her property to Kara's sister all because Kara said so??? This still bothers me. Kara actually doesn't have this kind of authority. Lena works with the DEO out of curtesy. She doesn't actually have to be there.

Kara also decided she had the right to go behind Lena's back and use her relationship, the very one Kara pushed her into against her. It wouldn't surprise me if Lena immediately starts to wonder why she was pushed to date Superman and Supergirls bestie, knowing full well (thanks James, slow clap to you) that Kara used James to spy on her. These things are all ignored because all people want to see is 'bad Luthor with different opinions' and 'sunny Danvers'. People say Lena is portrayed as the victim, but Kara does a good job or making herself one to.

Kara has also been shown to doubt Lena when it comes to HER personally, but in regards to others she tells them that Lena is good and she's usually right . Kara isn't consistent here.

Kara has NEVER had to work to get anyone's love or trust. She just gets given it. The only time she's had to work for it is after the red k incident, and the red daughter charade. But she got it back pretty quick. Lena on the hand constantly works to have trust, she knows she won't get love, but one rumour and it all goes to shit. Lena doesn't have the same support network that Kara does. When Lena makes a mistake she doesn't have lots of people to go to like Kara does. Ultimately the super friends are KARA'S friends first and foremost. Even her boyfriend put Kara first. Lena even has to work just to get respect from Kara and James at work, because neither thought they had to give that to her. Ultimately she got it from Kara who apologized and Lena instantly forgave her because she always does, but she was basically driven out of Cat Co by James. Notice after he refused to do the Lockwood interview and embarrassed her at Thanksgiving also rejecting her love she stopped going to Cat Co and focused her attention at L Corp. Which was sad because remember how excited she was to run Cat Co with Kara?

So Lena will feel betrayed by the secret? I personally think she has ever reason to. She's been used, manipulated, has already been betrayed, judged and kept in the dark by the Superfriends. I'd feel betrayed to. Kara's excuse about it being to protect her because people may use her or hurt her became redundant the moment Lillian told her she knew. It would have been safer for Lena to know at that point so she COULDN'T be used. Lena also had the right to know who she was letting into her life. A choice all the other Superfriends were given the the privilege of making. Lena being around Kara and friends with Supergirl hasn't kept her off people's hit lists. Her not knowing genuinely puts her in more danger.

There's so much more to add but I've made my point. If you're going to mention Kara's trauma DON'T ignore Lena's. Don't ignore the fact that Kara is just given love and respect and people want to protect her and have since the day she was born, whereas Lena has never had that.

Two people with trauma, one who's life is consistently filled with love even when more trauma is happening and one who's life has been full of abuse, assassination attempts, betrayal, being held responsible for others crimes and even being betrayed by the one person who supposedly believes in you. Lena has no such love and devotion to get her through it all.

#supergirl #lena luthor #kara danvers #alex danvers #supercorp #anti james olsen #lex luthor #anti guardiancorp #winn shott #lilian luthor #kara zor el #jonn jonzz

201 notes · View notes

feynites · 6 years

Text

Brunnhilde

Okay I think this is my last Thor fic.

...Probably.

......Maybe. We’ll see.

It has been a long, long time since anyone called Brunnhilde by her name.

She can’t even remember the last time, in fact. Among the Valkyries, ‘sister’ was a more common term of address. Even when it wasn’t, she had ended up bearing the same name as the commander of her order. The two Brunnhilde’s. Her stern commander, cold as a star-filled evening; soft and sweet as moonlight. And herself. Sunny, dedicated, impatient Brunnhilde, who loved her summer wines too well, and her commander far too well.

Not that anyone had minded, in the end.

When necessary, most of the Valkyries had called her Hildie, to keep the confusion away. But ‘sister’ was still more common. And ‘beloved’, too, whispered in words that have kept a place in a corner of her heart. Under lock and key, where they can only whisper to her in the dead of night. After all the noise and the lights have become too much, and she cannot keep it all at bay any longer.

The Grandmaster, of course, has his numbers. To his guard she is ‘bitch’, and to many of her rivals it’s mostly the same. Numbers and insults and sometimes compliments, whenever someone is trying to butter her up.

After Asgard falls, she is ‘Valkyrie’.

Of course. She is the only one left. There’s no need to clarify things any further, and no one seems bothered to ask for a name. Of Asgard’s survivors, she recognizes only one face. And she never knew Heimdall very well – never knew most of the Vanir. He keeps to himself on the ship, too. They’ve only seen each other a few times, and the look in his strange eyes – like they were seeing straight through her – kept her moving.

She’s not sure if she’s happy that someone else from before is around, or if she kind of wishes it’d been more of a clean sweep for the old timers.

And… shit.

Well.

She’s an old-timer too, now.

Sakaar had a way of making time pass differently. Not totally differently. But… differently. She’s not really sure how old she is, anymore.

Not that it’s a big deal. But it’s strange to walk among what’s left of Asgard, and have no frame of reference for a lot of the things people are talking about. For the dead being mourned, and the events being debated. Shit, she doesn’t even know if Odin left any more spawn hanging around, waiting to crop up at the next inconvenient point in time. When she asks Thor, he says ‘no’ at first. But then he gets a deeply concerned look on his face, and excuses himself to go find Heimdall.

He does that a lot.

She’s pretty sure that the throne is actually more or less in Heimdall’s hands, right now. Which is fine by her. At least someone seems to have the first clue of what the hell they’re doing.

Going to Midgard, she reminds herself. The last time she was on Midgard was four thousand years ago. Pretty place. Boring place. Kind of depressing – the people had really short lifespans, and they were all like Bruce in terms of resilience. Tissue paper people. But, without the Hulk.

Unless… they all do that, now…

She veers away from asking Thor about potential Odinspawn to go and ask Bruce if the refugees of Asgard are heading for a planet full of people who can just turn green and throw them around like ragdolls. Because honestly that doesn’t really seem like the ideal safe harbour. She heard about a lot of places on Sakaar. Other realms, other planets. With a little digging they might even be able to find one that’s uninhabited.

She finds Bruce on the bridge. Trying to figure out more of the ship’s working parts. He is smart, she’ll grant that. The universe probably had to offer the tissue paper people a few things to make up for the two-minute lifespans. And, of course, thousands of years of living under Asgard’s ‘protection’.

Bruce blinks up at her with a look that says he’s been reading glowing script for more than six hours, probably. Or that he’s been drinking, but, he doesn’t tend to imbibe. Near as she can tell.

“So just to check a thing – are you the only mortal who does the thing, or is that normal for your people?” she asks, twirling her hand in a way that’s meant to indicate ‘turning green and becoming an unstoppable force of destruction’.

Bruce blinks, and takes a minute to process her question. He looks confused, and then incredulous.

“The – you mean, turning into the Hulk? You’re asking me if that’s normal?” he checks.

She nods. Already kind of guessing at the answer based on his response.

“No,” he confirms. “That’s not normal. That’s… no, not even a little bit.”

“So everyone else on your planet is just, like, Bruce Banner levels of threatening?”

Bruce hesitates.

“Um,” he says. “Uh. Well, no… yes? I mean, it’s not like I’m not a potential threat as Bruce Banner. Intellect is of course the most potent tool and the most dangerous weapon that anyone can wield. Uh, case in point – one of the most prominent people on our planet is Tony Stark. Who… you won’t have heard of, of course, but he’s an inventor. He made this suit. Robot suit. Well not really a robot suit that’s a colloquial oversimplification-”

“Got it. Lots of nerds,” she sums up. “But you’re the only Hulk?”

Bruce nods, and then hesitates a little.

She waits.

This is seeming a lot like the question about potential Odinspawn. It’s a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but apparently at some point after the fall of the Valkyries, people throughout the universe just stopped asking important questions.

…Not that she can get on her high horse about that, considering her own decision to just bury her head in the sand, too.

It’s strange. How much it feels like she’s waking up for the first time in…

Four thousand years.

“I am the only Hulk, but, there are some other people who are… stronger than average,” Bruce concludes.

“How much stronger?” she presses. It’s only practical to know what they’re getting into. Especially since most of the people who survived Hela’s assault are non-combatants. Those who never really could have taken up arms against her in the first place. Aesir are hardier and stronger than most, but they’re not all warriors. And resilient physiology only goes so far.

She would know. She wasn’t the only one to end up in Sakaar. Falling off the stray end of a path somewhere. She was just the only one who made it this far.

Bruce tilts his head, thinking.

“Well… There’s Cap. Steve. He could go toe-to-toe with Thor, I can’t actually say who would win in a fist fight. And there was, um. Another project. Like me. He’s gone now, but, it’s been two years. I guess they could have tried again while I was out of it,” he explains.

“So, you’re saying, there could very well be other Hulks on Midgard?” she presses, folding her arms.

Bruce sighs.

“Possibly? Not many. There wouldn’t be much of a planet left if there were,” he insists. “And they’re not ‘Hulks’. Hulk is… well, it’s a thing, sure, but it’s also kind of like a name. He picked it. I don’t know why, so don’t ask.”

“Hulk’s your name?” she checks. That was what she had thought to begin with, but the way Bruce talks about it…

He shakes his head.

“Hulk’s his name,” he insists. “Not that we’re… we’re not really separate beings, I guess. Except that we are. It’s complicated.”

Awkward silence descends.

After a moment, Bruce lets out a breath.

“Kind of weird to think I spent two years living on an alien planet, and no one there even knew my name,” he muses. “I was just ‘Hulk’ to you all.”

She hesitates. A weird feeling in her chest. Two years is hardly anything to an immortal. But, maybe to a tissue paper person, it feels like a lot more. And time on Sakaar can be strange in more than one direction.

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells him. “No one on Sakaar knew my name, either. And I was there a lot longer.”

Bruce frowns a little.

“No one?” he asks. “That can’t be right…”

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“What’s my name?” she asks.

He opens his mouth, like he has an answer. And then he hesitates. She wonders if his brain is stuttering over one of Hulk’s nicknames, or if he’s trying to grasp it and failing. After a few minutes, though, he gives up, and settles on an embarrassed look.

“See?” she concludes, and turns to leave.

“Well, wait, though – what is your name?” he asks.

In hindsight, she should have seen that coming. Her strides falter, just a little. It’s a simple question. And it’s not like she’s forgotten. It’s still there, in the back of her mind. On the tip of her own tongue. Lurking in the hollow of her throat, like a scream that won’t come loose. Brunnhilde, I’m Brunnhilde, I’m a person, dammit, I’m not a fucking number, I’m…

But it’s not so much the thought of hearing someone say her name, as it is the thought of hearing someone say her name, that’s keeping it under her tongue.

Brunnhilde.

Maybe it’s not even the thought of hearing it. Maybe it’s just the reality of having to say it.

Well. No one lives for thousands of years on Sakaar without learning how to cheat.

“My friends called me Hildie,” she tells Bruce. Glancing back towards him. And it comes with only a little strain. Only a small twinge, like pressing on an old bruise.

“Hildie?” Bruce asks, surprised. He laughs a bit.

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“What’s so funny?” she wonders.

“Nothing,” he assures her. “It’s just… it’s a very sweet sort of name. I like it. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but… it suits you.”

She takes a moment to tell, but, she doesn’t think he’s making fun of her. And she supposes he has a point. Hildie was the name of a Valkyrie sister, a warrior-in-training, someone still new to riding her winged steed when Hela knocked it out of the sky. It’s the kind of name one of her sisters might groan, while leaning against her shoulder. Sore from some battlefield injury, and playing it up a little to get some treat or drink smuggled in.

A name for someone with friends.

“Maybe it’ll fit better again, with some time,” she suggests.

Time that’s finally moving forward, now.

She leaves Bruce, and goes to see if Loki might know more about any hidden bastards of Odin’s. A Valkyrie’s duty is to protect the people and throne of Asgard, after all. If she’s going to do that, she’s going to need to know what else they might be up against.

#thor ragnarok #mcu valkyrie #thor ragnarok spoilers #ragnarok spoilers #bruce banner #thor fanfic #ragnarok fanfic

123 notes · View notes

motorcyclegirlfriends · 7 years

Note

Cycles, I gotta do flailing in your inbox because the fandom hurts my soul. As someone who went through a five year depression over a girl and still has anger issues when I'm low, Kara is painfully relatable. So to see everyone hating on her is really demoralising and I just, well, I'm sad now.

It’s disheartening because it’s exactly what any depressed person fears everyone’s perception of them is in reaction to their inability to “get over it”—that they’re whiny or annoying or a bitch.

But it’s also not surprising in the least.

Fandoms have a history of reacting to depressed characters with anger.

If a character isn’t introduced as a moody or broody type (of course, those are received well enough), but instead becomes moody or broody for a long period of time (a.k.a. depressed) for a storyline—the fandom hates it.

No matter how much sense it makes for them to feel that way.

Of course, the less sympathetic the reason, the more harshly the fandom reacts.

But that doesn’t make the fans any more right, because in reality, people are utterly destroyed for reasons you think make zero sense. Things that would never hurt you in a million years. Things you think will actually make them much better off.

And sometimes people are depressed for no seeable reason at all.

Now, we know that Kara’s depression storyline is a result of years of losses that have accumulated (which of course includes Mon-El). Argue all you want about the quality of their portrayal of the idea so far, but that’s officially canonically why Kara is acting this way. Saying otherwise is actively going against what the point of the storyline is to fit your argument.

But even if it were just Mon-El?

I’d understand the anger directed at the writers for making Kara be depressed and have an identity crisis over the loss of her boyfriend.

I wouldn’t understand the anger toward Kara, the character, for being upset.

I wouldn’t understand insulting her for being unhealthy.

I don’t.

You’re not always going to be able to Get It. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not real. That doesn’t mean that you should respond with less empathy for their suffering or less help with their difficulties.

Even if it gets ugly. Especially if it gets ugly.

Which isn’t to say that depressed or otherwise mentally ill people aren’t responsible for their actions. If you do or say something cruel to someone, you should apologize sincerely and take steps to prevent it from happening again.

But,

1: Kara’s words to Alex in this past episode were not much worse than things the other characters on the show have said to her when they weren’t the midst of a depression that has persisted for 6 months. Alex, Lena and Cat have all similarly lashed out at her with no more an apology than Kara’s symbolic showing up at the bar was.

And despite those being dramatic moments of tension, it honestly wasn’t that big of a deal. Because,

2: Sometimes your empathy has to trump your score card.

People can say mean shit when they’re feeling all fucked up, and so sometimes it falls upon you to keep things in perspective.

For instance, when Lena lashed out at Supergirl for telling her that her mother was the head of Cadmus, it wouldn’t have been wrong of Kara to be offended and to defend herself. But because she cared about what Lena was going through, she side stepped it completely and instead continued to empathize with her and try to help her.

“You know, I thought you were different.You wear that symbol on your chest and everyone thinks you’re good.How many times did your cousin put on that high-and-mighty costume and come after Lex? My mother is no saint, but you come in here and accuse her of being the Devil incarnate? How long before you come after me?”

“I know what it’s like to be disillusioned by our parents.But I’m a pretty good judge of character.And you are not like your mother.She is cold and dangerous.And you are too good and too smart to follow in her path. Be your own hero.”

That’s actually one of the reasons I love that scene.

Now, is everyone going to be able to pull a Supergirl and ignore hurtful things said in the heat of the moment completely just in time to say an inspirational speech? No.

But should we still attempt to recognize that their behavior is a byproduct of their pain and that they may need help, not judgement and insults? Yes.

There are ways this kind of understanding can go overboard, such as in response to Cat.

Because Cat attacks those around her on a daily basis.

Her childhood or strained relationship with her mother or history with depression isn’t an excuse for insulting everyone around her non-stop. That’s not a momentary lapse in judgement, that’s a pattern. The only person who needs choose to be understanding over protecting themselves is her therapist.

So when she is upset with her mother, she amps up the insults at Kara, and Kara lashes out right back at her. Because it’s not different from how Cat usually is, and she’s not so distressed that it warrants Kara’s concern.

When Cat thinks she lost Adam, she tells Kara to jump off the balcony. This time, Kara side steps it and says “…How did dinner with Adam go?” because it’s more vicious than usual and she’s worried about Cat.

But Kara has been basically acting as Cat’s personal counselor for the whole episode, going beyond what level of understanding would be expected.

In fact, not confronting the fact that she continually tries to hurt Kara when she’s upset (at some point, if not in that very moment) is the wrong move, because it will happen again. (Her treatment of Kara when Adam does eventually leave, anyone?)

There is a line, and Cat is often an example of the other side of it.

But Kara is usually the furthest thing from any of that. When she says something mean mid-argument, after months of having a low mood, something is seriously wrong and that’s more important than that she isn’t being nice right now.

And if something like this happens to someone in your life, something is wrong, as well.

And that something is more important than how you personally feel about them not hanging out as much or being as sunny or responding to your excitement.

You miss all of those things, yes, but being angry with them for not being able to give those things to you right now is just kinda cruel.

And likewise, being angry with Kara for being unhealthy is wildly insensitive.

This is a representative storyline. Which means that the things you say about this storyline are things you’re telling to people who relate to it.

“She’s depressed just because she lost her boyfriend? What the hell??”

You’re telling people who became depressed after losing a significant other that they’re weak.

“Kara is annoying me” “This is so ugly” “She should be able to just get over it”

These are all things that you’re telling the real, tangible, human people who watch this show and are in this fandom who have experienced/are experiencing depression.

I’ve already seen a few people talking about how they like this storyline because it reminds them of what they’ve gone through.

This isn’t just theoretical discourse—these are the people who are hearing what you say about Kara. And it applies to them, too.

In the end, it all comes back to “Hope, help, and compassion for all.”

Kara has lost hope. Even the most positive people are capable of losing hope. But that doesn’t mean we should lose our compassion.

It means they need help.

#supergirl #kara danvers #supercorp #supergirl season 3 #racetothedge #tagging supercorp so the supercorp fandom will see about half their ship #also that little kara/lena moment that i still love #oh also confrontation is a form of compassion #analysis: you're gonna suffer but you're gonna be happy about it

91 notes · View notes

onkey-bedtime-stories · 6 years

Text

EUNOIA - chapter 3

Chapter 2

—————-

Though it is summer, the sky’s drawn saturated this morning. Away from coast-crowded situation and glowing skin under sunny day, someone’s already occupied in the kitchen. It’s not even seven in the morning more to surprise.

And what makes the whole scene is more surreal for Junghee when she got on the wooden floor of the living room is her eyes caught Kibum messing around between the stove and her favorite kitchen island. To reassure herself she’s one hundred percent awake and everything before her is not merely random mirage in her life, she checked the clock once again and the urge of pinching herself is undeniable.

Six fifty. Who woke up at six fifty?

Walking to the kitchen silently, she can’t help but gasp when colorful plates full of waffle chicken strips, and bacon lay on a checkered table cloth she just bought last week. Kibum is struggling squeezing some oranges near the sink when she darted her eyes in disbelief.

“Let me do that.”

She doesn’t need to observe too much when Kibum lifted his head. Definitely not even a minute he got to sleep the night before, those bloody eyes and dried skin tell everything. Without saying anything, Kibuk stepped aside, wiped his hand while Junghee easily got all the juice out with single hand.

Before the things became more awkward in the stillness of the air, he moved to the coffee maker to prepare some shot.

“I’m sorry.”

Kibum pretends he didn’t hear anything and chose to follow every single drip of the dark liquid in front of him.

“I just.. you know, very worried and overwhelmed with everything.”

He turned to his side after a deep breath. She looks even tinier with such level of anxiety all over her skin. At the end, his heart’s softened, simple arch formed on his tired face.

“I apologize for yelling to you, too.”

“She’s been through a lot and the fact I wasn’t there at the very second she needed me.. It broke my heart. Now she’s here, suddenly I just wanted to protect her with all my might. It scared me to death when I couldn’t reach her yesterday. All of the thoughts.. Her brother concerns.. for the sui—suicidal.. possibility.. I—I went cr—crazy right away.. I—“

Kibum’s unable to catch the rest since Junghee grabbed the edge of the counter, knuckles almost white, mewling as if someone kill her parents.

“Ssshh..” Kibum embraced her and let her leaned on him for consolation, “I know.. I told you I understand, right? And I’m sorry I’m supposed to text you anyway that Eunsook’s with me. Guess I’ve been selfish..”

“I’m the selfish one. I never asked her what she need because I’m afraid I’d hurt her more by mentioning something close to that topic and just doing whatever I thought the best for her without even care if she’s comfortable with that,” she peeled herself from Kibum, wiping her slightly swollen eyes with the back of her fore arms, “So, are we cool now?”

“We never not cool, Kim Junghee, you know that,” he messed with his friend hair which she replied with hugging Kibum torso in return, “But, you’d kill me if you’re like this.”

He acts like having difficulty in breathing but instead released him, she tighten her grip more as if she really wanted to choke him, “I will really kill you if you dare hurting my best friend, Kim Kibum.”

“I promise you I won’t.”

“Don’t ever think this is your pass! If this is an intersection, the red light is still on.”

He chuckles and gives her pats on the head, “Alright, Shorty! I told you before you’re kind of scary when you’re mad.”

“I told you not to flirt more than one girl under the same roof, Kim Kibum! This is second warning..”

Minho teased both of them while running down stairs, he feels contented with the view of make-up-friends greets him in the morning after last night he spent almost three hours listening slash consoling Junghee because half of the time she’s not only pissed off and ranted but also sobbed liked she was in her own funeral.

“Wait. What did you just said?”

The tall guy realized he slipped something he shouldn’t so he stretched awkwardly, “Good morning, baby.”

Minho kisses his wife passionately, what a view for sore eyes, Kibum mumbles something inaudibly, completely not pleased with them.

“Let’s have breakfast, people. I don’t like cold food. Choi Minho, enough snogging and bring the coffee,” Kibum tried to escape the crime scene as soon as possible before Junghee exploded again.

“Uh-oh! Not that quick, Choi Minho. Stop right there!”

Junghee entailed right behind Minho who just kept walking to join Kibum because at this moment some waffles would be super helpful.

“What exactly do you mean by flirt only at one? You’re kidding, right?”

“Eat, honey, you need it after the whole rounds we had last night,” he ended the morning drama with a wink.

Kibum rolled his eyes again then massaged his temple to ease his rage. But Junghee just cannot let it go after she smelled the big fish jumped out the can. She chewed the chicken strips furiously and gulped it down with tall glass of orange juice.

“Baby, I love you very much so let’s be honest. You knew this after all?”

“Knew what?”

It’s actually hard for Minho to act clueless with Junghee’s eyes caught drilling a hole through him from the corner of his own.

“That this idiot has a crush with Eunsook? With my best friend?”

Junghee put more strength on each syllables.

“Hmmm.. Kind of?”

Kibum quickly removed the knife from Junghee’s plate sensing his life is in a big threat.

“Kind of?! What the hell is kind of?!”

“Wow.. wow.. slow down, Junghee! It’s seven in the morning!”

“Shut up, you’re next!” she pointed her fork to Kibum which the latter instantly raised both his hands to the air then returned back to her husband, “Okay, tell me, what kind of ‘kind of’ is that? Since when?”

Minho purposely takes time to finish a bite of waffle, “Since the first time they met?”

“Excuse me?!”

Kibum slapped his forehead and glanced to the door of Eunsook’s room hoping Junghee’s loud voices not waking her up even if he’s pretty sure her voice can be heard up until the next two houses.

“You know that and you didn’t tell me? At all? Not even hint?!”

“Well, in my defense, honey, I’m still not sure back then but you know.. you got this hunch you cannot sleep on..”

She put down her fork when her consciousness told her to calm a little bit, “And you’re sure right now?”

“I was pretty sure when you rant last night about how Kibum took her here and there and didn’t text you or call you. By that, my dear wife, I will say, yes, he has a crush on our Lady Eunsook. Now can I get a peaceful breakfast I haven’t got since last week?”

“Lower your voice, will you?!”

Suddenly Kibum feels his seat is burning, it’s so hard to stay composed while he’s anxious as hell, because he knew his friends really well and they’re not that good at being quiet.

“I can’t believe it! You all team up behind my back so this jock over here can make his dirty move to my Eunsook?!”

“For the love of God, there’s nothing so called dirty with having a good talk in a café and shopping for some camera’s stuffs. Do you know that you sound like Mother Gothel now?” Kibum ignores Junghee’s unforgiving glare and took another round of piles of bacon, “Speaking of your beloved Rapunzel.. where is Eunsook? You should wake her up to have some breakfast, you evil host!”

“She’s not home.”

“Nonsense! She was there last night talking to me.”

Feeling annoyed Junghee grabbed her phone and shook it on the air, “She texted me she went for a run.”

“Run? When?”

“I don’t know.. around five?”

She went out at five while I’ve been awake the whole night in my room? Stupid headphones!!!

“Why? Why she went for a run?”

“What do you care? She can go running whenever she wants! Especially after she felt suffocated and almost had a heart attack when she woke up in the dark! Who’s the Mother Gothel now?!”

“What?!”

“Stop shouting at me!”

“No, argh, I’m sorry,” he gulped some coffee to tone him down, “Kim Junghee, what did you just say about this suffocated and dark?”

“Gosh, I cannot believe I said this to you.. Eunsook is a bit claustrophobic, that’s why she..”

“..kept the light on at night.”

Her ears suddenly perked up with what he said even though Kibum sounded like he murmured for himself, “How did you know?!”

“Shit shit shit!!! You’re an idiot, Kim Kibum!”

“Kim Kibum, look at me. How did you know?”

Kibum bites his lower lip, looking at Minho for any moral support but his best friend just put a cool expression also waiting for him to spill the bean. He’s contemplating whether he should tell her he turned off her light or just keep it in secret until he faced his death. Because once again, angry Kim Junghee is scarier than any slaughter house and no one under this roof want to deal with that.

“Good morning!”

Kibum about to open his mouth when a beautiful voice‘s chirping from the front door followed by glowing face popped out the front door. Both Junghee and Kibum immediately turned pale.

“Good morning! Right on time, Eunsook-ah! Come join breakfast!”

Minho who senses something is wrong took the lead to greet Eunsook. She smiled so wide, almost blinding in Kibum’s opinion, walked to the other three while still wiping the sweat dripping on her forehead.

“Wow! What a feast!” she received the orange juice from Minho and naturally took the empty chair next to Kibum, “Thank you!”

“Do you like waffles? Kibum made this!”

“Really?! That’s why the chicken strips look so beautiful! Tell me what you cannot do, Kibum!”

She rested her hand on his shoulder unexpectedly. Frenzy pink, Kibum jolted from his chair snatching the coffee pitcher, “We need more coffee!”

“Gosh, I don’t know it’s because I’m starving or he put something here, but this waffle is bomb! Let alone the chicken strips!”

Eunsook looks like someone just had been saved from an apocalyptic bunker and saw real food for the first time, she cannot stop picking the pieces from the plates.

“Well, just so you know, my friend over there had a great cooking skill since middle school.”

“Ah, no wonder. You should make me dinner sometimes!”

“Ugh, yeah, I will..,” then he saw the look at Junghee eyes, “If I have time. I will!”

“That would be so amazing!” she scoops more chicken strips and moved it to her plate, “What’s the point of working out if I ate like a monster? I think this is what I need, Junghee-ah! A man who can cook! What a perfect life, no? Choi Minho! You should start learning to cook! I told you, women love you more if you know how to move in the kitchen!”

Minho just laughs out loud knowing what she said might kill two birds at a time. On the other hand, Kibum wants to grab the nearest knife and stab himself on the chest.

***

“What?! Did you steal some weeds when I’m not around?” when the scent of Eunsook’s perfume brushed his respiratory system lightly, Kibum realized he’s too closed with the woman and quickly stepped back, elbow painfully bumped into the door knob, “The infinity room is the best!”

Eunsook put her shoes quickly and grabbed the slippers in a blink of an eye started feeling suffocated in the limited space of the foyer, plus Kibum is kind of trapped with her making it harder for her to control her breathe.

“I know. But don’t you think the part when we’re laying around on the net, almost twenty feet above the ground is amazing?”

He shook his head so hard when he pushed the next door, “Excuse me, Miss, no one messing around with Kusama.”

“Just saying, you know.. She is amazing, no doubt, but still..”

“Still the best charm in the museum. Period.”

“Is Kibum being stubborn again?”

They forgot they reached the living room already. The sight in front of them is Kibum’s usual view on the other night, Minho’s chilling on the couch after work, beer on the table, and some football on the huge screen on the wall.

“I just found out today,” Eunsook shrugged and dropped herself on the couch next to Minho while Kibum went straight to the kitchen.

“Welcome to the family, Lee Eunsook. He has a huge tendency to be a bit pushy sometimes.”

“Well, at least I’m not handsy like that guy who tried to grope Eunsook’s tight when we’re waiting on the line on the food truck festival.”

He handed the beer to Eunsook while the latter turned pink while she put the pouty mouth, instantly sending goosebumps along Kibum’s spine.

“Really? Did he mana—“

“Nope,” Kibum lifted his legs to the table proudly, “I kicked his shin before those filthy hands landed on her.”

“What a news. Wait until Junghee heard about this. I think she would definitely make up some curfew for the rest of your life.”

“Speaking of the devil, where’s my favorite witch?”

“That witch you’re talking about is my best friend, you know!”

“And my wife!”

“Well, doesn’t change the fact that she might do a spell of unbreakable curse on us or turn us into an ugly frog if we didn’t please her.”

“Good point.”

Minho and Eunsook said and unison, they laughed right away the next second then followed with a beautiful clink when their bottles met for a celebratory buddy-toast.

“I haven’t thanked you enough for that.”

“What are you saying? Anyone should do that whenever they saw some shit about to happen. It’s called common sense.”

“Got a good reflex. He almost joined the baseball team if he’s not collapsed on the field after only two rounds of running track.”

“Shut the front door, Choi Minho!”

“Oh, that attitude! Is this supposed to make my heart flutter?”

Eunsook teased him and Minho almost spurt the beer inside his mouth for laughing hard before he covered it. On the other side, Kibum regret whatever he had said earlier.

“But come on, really. Is that what’s supposed to? Because, let me tell you gentlemen, it wo—“

Her words hanging on the air when she felt her phone vibrates furiously on her purse. She bites her lip after quick glance to its screen.

“Sorry, I need to take this.”

Kibum can’t take his eyes off of her until her silhouette disappeared behind her room door. He tried to ignore Minho who’s clearly waiting for him to say something. After downed his beer, he casually turned his head to his right, unfortunately only to find his best friend immersed back to the game already.

“It’s him, isn’t it?”

“Could be his brother.”

“She didn’t need to hide inside her room if it said so,” now it’s Minho’s turn to cock his head, “Taemin called during lunch and she talked to him comfortably in front of me.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“I don’t know.. maybe trying to convince myself not to dive deeper than I’m allowed? Or waiting for you to lecture me about stuff?”

“You know that I’m not my wife, right?”

“Hmmm.”

Sound of the commentator indicates the game is getting interesting but Minho is not amused anymore. Ten years of friendship shows him that when Kibum started to peel the bottle label it means he’s in big trouble. Like now.

However, he doesn’t feel to say more for he’s afraid of interfering his personal space.

“Looks like we don’t need to wait for her to be back right?” Kibum grabbed his bag and unzipped the front pocket, “I forgot to give this to her. Can you do that for me? I better hit the bed now or I’ll miss the first train tomorrow morning.”

Minho looked at the Polaroid pictures landed on the cushion near his knee and sighed.

“It’s really happening, isn’t it?”

The latter kept his mouth shut until he safely slides under the blanket.

***

“I don’t know.. I haven’t bought my return ticket yet..,” she opened the window as the room’s temperature seemed raised since they began talking.

“But you’re going back to Paris right?”

“Of course.. who will take care my stuffs then?”

“Wow.. wow, easy there, tiger!”

“Hahaha! You know I’m sensitive when it came for my belonging.”

“I know. I know it too well. I still remember when Taemin broke your bag. It’s not that visible, though I found it necessary to take you eating ice cream for two hours to calm down your nerves.”

“Who will teach him a lesson if it’s not his own sister? It’s a rule, you have to return things you borrowed in the same condition.”

“Anyone barely can see it. Would it make different when only one thread a bit loose on the strap?”

Eunsook just chuckled when she remember how outrageous she was when Taemin gave her rucksack back after two weeks road trip. It was quite silly actually but that bag was first month anniversary gift from Jungsoo after she mentioned she likes it when they saw it on the window display they passed.

It’s not about the anniversary gift she cared about. It’s the fact that Park Jungsoo, the most ignorance human being she knew, remembered her unconscious random comment about the design of the bag.

“You haven’t thrown it out, have you?”

“Are you being serious right now? How can I throw away something important? I keep it safe and sound in my wardrobe in Paris.”

“Glad to know that I’m still considered important.”

An invisible fist stuck in Eunsook’s throat, blocking the airway she became speechless in no time.

“Are you okay, Sookie?”

“Ugh, yeah.. why not? For your information, it’s the bag that’s important.”

Jungsoo bursts into huge laughter in the other line, sending comforting breeze to Eunsook who naturally close her eyes.

Ah, those sound.

Eunsook kept her sentiment sealed, not any single soul out there knows how much she missed all of those, the giggles, the suppressed laughter when he’s not supposed to laugh, the rhythm of his breath. Anything she can hear clearly through the phone that convinced her he is real, not only an imaginary figure she created to fix her hectic life.

“Go get some rest. You must be exhausted.”

No. I don’t care. I’ll trade all the time I have in the world to sleep for ten more minutes talking to you if it’s even make sense.

But deep in her heart she knows she is quite crazy to even think about that.

“Not really, but if you’re tired listen to me rambling about how colder here compare to the weather in Paris or Italy, it’s okay. You can hang up.”

“That’s the thing I’m billion percent sure it’s not going to happen in my existence.”

“Park Jungsoo, my favorite sweet talker, everyone.”

“Your favorite?”

Her heart skipped a bit by the simple question, “Yeah. Haven’t you heard about that?”

“Lee Eunsook, my favorite tease, everyone.”

“Don’t copy me.”

“I didn’t.”

“And what did you just do?”

“Telling you some fact?”

“Ugh, how lame.”

“You know I would be lame just for you?”

The words ‘I miss you’ are hanging dangerously on the tip of Eunsook’s tongue. She clutched the nearest piece of sheet she can reach to control herself.

“How thoughtful of you.”

“I’m always, ain’t I?” he’s pretty sure he can see her tiny smile right now, “Look what you’ve done. You should have gone to bed five minutes ago.”

“I told you I don’t mind.”

“And that’s how thoughtful of you. Go shower, get some rest. Let me know when you’re back to Paris, okay?”

“Stop telling me what to do, I’m not a baby, Park Jungsoo.”

“You’re always my baby, Lee Eunsook.”

At this rate, she wants to scream her lungs out and cry at the same time because she can tell it would be nothing but memories by the second their conversation ended.

“We’re only four years apart.”

“Doesn’t change the fact of the first clause.”

“This is why I hate you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yeah, you right.”

She tossed her phone aside after Jungsoo bid his farewell. Something weighed her down inside her chest.

It feels alright. It feels like the other day. But why I don’t feel good?

She turned to the left, looking forlornly to her phone, hoping it would ring once again. Nevertheless, Taemin’s voice is banging uncontrollably on her ear drums, instead.

‘You know yourself better than anyone. I really wanted say I know you better, but there’s a chance you’d slap me hard on the back of my head so, no. If you know your heart is not that ready to forget him, then don’t. People sometimes had mistaken letting go for forgetting. It’s forgiving, honey. And forgiving is way more liberating than trying so hard to bury all those you’ve been called memories.’

Her lips went dried when bunch of memory explosion appear like a long wild commercial before the movie started. She’s almost grateful for the conversation between her and Jungsoo not that changed so much. It did seem like nothing happened, like they never call it quits. But what’s so great figuring you grew sort of false hope in your yard of feeling? Like all the efforts would be in vain at the end once the flower is withered day by day as a replacement for blooming?

“Oh. Where’s Kibum?”

Minho already changed the channel into some old movie while the present of Kibum is changed with Junghee cuddled close to her husband.

“He went to his room already,” Minho bends to the table a little bit making annoyed face appeared on Junghee who already half in dreamland, “He wanted to give this to you.”

Am I that sad?

It’s a candid Kibum took of her while she’s daydreaming again for the hundred times. Her eyes are somewhere else, searching for something she can hold for dear life. The next one captured her silly face when he out of the blue said to her to look pretty behind his camera. Subtle warmth enveloped her heart when she saw herself on the last one, laughing like there’s no tomorrow for the first time since her breakup.

“I think he’s already in slumber. Got an early train tomorrow, he said.”

Minho calm words stopped her in the middle of her way to his doorstep. She looked Junghee’s eyes closed already. When she moved her sight to Minho, he just smiled. Smiled like he understands her whole circumstance. Smiled like he pleading her not to involve his best friend in her heart situation.

Bucket of guilty poured down from her head to toe. She sent Minho bitter smile and quietly left to her sanctuary.

Suddenly she doesn’t feel thirsty anymore.

***

No one can help it if we engrossed too much in our pool of regrets. On the other hand, we ourselves also cannot help but to fall into those pits while busy recalling the good times and refused to be saved? But one thing we should keep in mind even though we are too exhausted to try, some moments, some things, they’re meant to be forgotten. To keep us sane. To keep us living our life. To keep us reminded how precious we are :)

#onkey #jinkibum #eunsook #onew #key #kibum #jinki #shinee scenario #shinee fiction #shinee fanfic #onkey fanfic #onkey fiction #onkey scenario #shinee #eunsook fiction #eunsook fanfic #bumsook #bumsook fanfic

5 notes · View notes