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jtl-fics · 7 months

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Fluent Freshman - Part 42

There are things that change a person.

Moments where after they happen they simply cannot un-happen. Things that a person hears that they cannot un-hear. Promises that a person makes that they can’t, and perhaps even wouldn’t, un-make.

Jeremy’s moment came over winter break the previous year. Jeremy heard things that he could never un-hear in the middle of the night. Jeremy made a promise that he would never break while in the guest room of his parent’s house holding one Jean Moreau tight as he talked about the Nest.

Jeremy was different after that night.

Not wildly different. Not to most.

The only ones who knew had also had a moment, had also heard things, and had also made promises that they intended to keep.

Jeremy is on his way back from the bathroom with a freshly washed handkerchief from the Fox’s most promising Freshman when it all happens.

He watches Richard throw a glass on the ground and go for Caleb’s throat which in all honesty he had been anticipating since he’d seen the seating arrangements. Sitting the Jackals with the Terrapins? After Caleb seduced Alyssa during the Fall Banquet? Who thought that was a good idea?

Jeremy sees FF and sees that he is alone and wonders where Michael had gone off to. He’s glad that FF has stayed put, the guys quiet but he’s not bad company. Jeremy thinks he would have gotten along pretty well with Jean if he hadn’t flubbed the recruitment.

“He just got a restraining order against that step-brother of his.” Aaron Minyard says explaining the awkward air after Jeremy had spoken. “He’s a Fox.” he adds and Jeremy had felt foolish in that moment.

It should have been obvious.

He hears a scream and sees that one of the Terrapins has joined in the brawl and he has one of the steak knives.

What was the point of that when they had pre-sliced tenderloin anyways? He looks over and sees Anita Flores watching the evening start to go down in flames and all he can think is that she’ll probably do better next time. It’s the first banquet she’s run on her own since Claire retired in the fall.

His eyes go to Jean when he hears another scream.

He can see Laila with Jean and Kevin. He can see Alvarez making her way to the two of them. The Trojans know better after last Winter Banquet. They come together and don’t make it obvious that Jean is at the center of their formation.

He sees Melissa get punched when she tries to get between Richard and Caleb. He’s sure she probably just doesn’t like having this kind of violence at her stadium but getting directly between Richard and Caleb wasn’t her smartest move.

Oh Jacob took exception to that. Well Jeremy can hardly blame the guy when his girlfriend and Captain gets punched like that. Caleb’s just lucky that she’s not dating Malcolm any-

Oh Malcolm is getting in on it. I guess he does still have feelings for Melissa. They had been real cute until he cheated on her. He thinks Melissa is better off with Jacob but who knows.

He looks to Jean again and sees that Kevin is leaving the Trojan encirclement and can see the other Foxes start to head for the exit as the fighting grows more intense. He sees Andrew holding Neil’s hand in a vice grip and-

Oh, of course they’d be anxious here. Of course the Foxes were on edge.

He looks and FF is still sat at the table seemingly unbothered by the chaos erupting around him. He watches as the Foxes make their way to the table where FF is sat. Sees them gathering their belongings and sees FF remain seated, eyes on them and then on the chaos.

Ah, the rearguard.

He nods and diverts his attention back to the mess at hand. Honestly Caleb shouldn’t bait Richard and Richard should be glad that he didn’t propose to someone who’d cheat on him. They’d talked about it and it wasn’t like he had customized the ring or anything so he got his full deposit back. He thought Richard was feeling better about the whole thing, had even been dating Erika and-

Ohh yeah there’s Erika with a Terrapin’s jacket over her shoulders and a hickey that he’s pretty sure Richard hadn’t left on her neck.

Man Caleb what the hell, what did Richard even do? Caleb you don’t even like girl-

Ohhhh.

Caleb….bro. There are better ways to handle a crush.

Now fully understanding the situation Jeremy can’t help but think that it’s actually a pretty simple solution. Well, not simple. Richard is pretty straight but like a firm talking to with Caleb will probably-

“Hey, back off!” He hears Alvarez and his head whips around back to Jean where it shouldn’t have left.

Ravens.

Those Ravens.

Jeremy made a promise.

Jeremy had taken lessons over the summer and-

God it felt good to slam his fist into Johnson’s stupid awful ugly chin. The only thing that was even sweeter was sinking his fist into Reacher’s gut.

“Knox what the fuck?!” he heard Jasmine exclaim and they’d been buddies at one point but it was hard to feel anything positive for a girl who watched.

“I warned you guys during the Fall Banquet didn’t I?” Jeremy asks with a smile as he shakes out his hand. He looks to the side and sees that the rest of the team has now fully encircled Jean. Nothing was getting through them to-

It’s too late that Jeremy sees a younger Raven meatball in hand. He tries to stop it but his arms are too short and it nails Jean right in the forehead.

He looks at the marinara roll down Jean’s forehead as he blinks in surprise. Laila lets out a scream and has him cradled in her arms and out of sight before Jean even seems to fully understand what is going on.

“Jean, it’s going to be okay.” Jeremy hears Laila assure.

“Laila, what in the world are you freaking out about?” Jean asks. “I’m French, not Italian. I would not bleed marinara sauce.” Jeremy hears him say out of sight and if Jeremy wasn’t so mad he’d laugh.

“That’s it!” Alvarez exclaims and slugs the sophomore who had lobbed the errant meatball and from there it was an all out brawl between the Trojans and the Ravens. They were all defensive over their frenchmen especially against his old team and Jeremy thinks about the investigation he’s been pushing the ERC towards. Thinks about all the little things he has questioned and put into the heads of all of his friends throughout the Division.

He makes his way to Jean as Ned and Jim have taken on the task of handling Reacher and Johnson.

“God, first the sparse wine selection and now this.” Jean says from where Laila was trying to wipe sauce from his face.

“Here, use this.” he offers FF’s handkerchief and thinks about getting a few himself.

Laila takes the handkerchief, “I thought you said there was a lot of wine.” she says.

“No, I said Kevin was doing a lot of whining.” Jean corrects eyes closed as Laila cleans his face off. Jeremy looks towards the Fox table and wonders how he’ll get the handkerchief back to FF and sees FF rising up from the table and quickly put on his jacket before heading out the door after the rest of the Foxes.

What bothers him is the security guards following them. Everyone should know that security guards + the Foxes + Binghamton = Andrew might start stabbing people.

His concern only grows greater when he sees Michael and a few other Ravens follow.

***

There are things that change a person.

Experiences that you never want to experience again. Words that can never be spoken again. Feelings that can never be carefully locked away not that they’re out in the open and known.

Andrew’s experience happened two years ago. Andrew had heard words that he never wished to hear again in his entire life for the last time in Binghamton. Andrew had felt things staring down at a cell phone that he had never let himself feel before.

He looks at Neil safe and sound on the bus after a different fight, a different riot, in Binghamton and it’s hard to be upset. He hadn’t let his Junkie out of his sight the entire night and the moment that he saw security moving in he had grabbed Neil by the hand. His focus had narrowed down at that moment and no amount of Neil insisting that it was fine would stop Andrew’s determined march out of the stadium.

He only felt like he could breathe when he had ushered Neil into the bus and into a seat. He felt his shoulders ease but he didn’t let go of Neil’s hand, he didn’t know if he would until they were back in Palmetto.

The rest of the team filtered out of the stadium quickly and soon enough Wymack was calling out to make sure that everyone was there. “Smith?” Wymack called.

“He’s right here!” a voice calls out and Andrew thinks it’s one of the other Freshmen.

“Let’s get out of here.” Wymack says.

The team gets on the bus and soon enough they’re putting Binghamton in the rearview.

Andrew exhales.

***

He’d heard Michael call out for him and he’d stopped. With all the distraction and the upcoming loading onto the bus he hadn’t felt the need to be exceptionally low presence.

It’d been a mistake as it usually was.

FF looked at the security guard standing in front of him and out the door to the stadium where the Foxes were loading into the bus.

“Will you meet the Master now?” Michael is asking him and FF doesn’t quite get why he’s asking when it’s obvious that FF doesn’t have a choice.

“No.” he says because Michael did ask which means theoretically he could just be misreading the situation.

“You said you’d meet him if the banquet ended.” Michael says.

FF furrows his brow, “I said I’d get up.” he reminds and Michael looks nervous.

“Please?” Michael asks and FF blinks.

“I need to get on the bus.” FF points and the security guard merely steps into his line of sight as if that erased the fact that the bus was there and he was not on it.

“We’ll get you back to where you belong.” Michael promises.

“I belong on the bus that is going back to my campus where I keep all my stuff.” FF says matter of factly.

Michael looks at him utterly bewildered.

“Enough of this.” The guard says and goes to grab him.

FF moves out of the way.

The guard goes to grab him again and FF backs up and out of the way again.

The guard goes to grab him and FF steps back out of his reach again.

This process continues until they are back into the main stadium where the brawl has taken over all of the teams. FF sidesteps the security guard, and he’s near positive this isn’t a real security guard Binghamton really needs to work on their hiring practices. Only this time he side steps out of the way and the guard crashes like an enranged bull into the punch table.

FF’d feel bad about it but there was no way in the world he was going to meet someone named ‘The Master’ when he has spaghetti pants. Absolutely no chance. Whoever it was probably was important enough to deserve dry clean only pants.

“I need to go.” he says to Michael and heads back for the exit, hopeful that maybe just maybe the bus hadn’t left yet. Nicky was pretty drunk though and he knew that the rest of the team would have a singular focus on Captain Neil.

“No, wait!” Michael pleads and FF stops seeing the other player with tears in his eyes. FF stops and unzips his jacket slightly to reach in and grab the handkerchief he had refolded as his pocket square.

“Sorry, I really can’t stay.” he says and offers the handkerchief to Michael, “You can keep that one or hand it to me the next time we play against one another if you remember.” he says. “Tonight isn’t the night for me to talk with your Master.” he says.

Michael looks at him with wide eyes and accepts the handkerchief.

He walks out back into the exiting hallway and there is an older asian man there. He has a cane and he is standing between FF and the door.

He approaches quickly and the man hits his cane against the ground once, “You will join the Ravens.” he says with authority.

Oh great.

“I'd actually rather not.” Smith responds and makes sure to keep a wide berth from the crazy old guy who’s made his way into the Stadium somehow.

He gets out the stadium doors and-

The bus left.

He sighs thinks about the crazy guy right behind him and lets his presence fade into something only Jeremy Knox could see (APPARENTLY).

It’s pretty cold out as he gets as far away from the entrance to the building as possible and reaches into his pocket for his phone. He dials Nicky.

***

“COACH, YOU FORGOT SMITHY. AGAIN.” A drunken shout from the back of the bus startles Wymack as he lets out a loud string of curses before getting into a lane to make a U-turn.

MASTERPOST FOR ALL PARTS OF FLUENT FRESHMAN AU

#Fluent Freshman AU #Michael is just staring at this handkerchief #And staring at the back of a guy who didn't even break stride passing Tetsuji Moriyama #And contemplating a lot of things at the moment #Laila: “Wait so what would you bleed?”#Jean: “What? Blood? I bleed blood?”#Laila: “But you said you're french not Italian. What would the french bleed?”#Jean: “Laila..”#Alvarez: “No Jean you've decided that Italians bleed Marinara. Finish the thought.”#Jean: “I don't know probably one of the mother sauces? Maybe Béchamel??”#Laila: “Jean we need to know your blood type if you're ever really hurt. Are you sure it's not Hollandaise?”#Jean: “How dare you imply that I would bleed Hollandaise.”#AFTG #Jean Moreau #Andreil #Jeremy Knox #Implied Jerejean #AFTG OC #FF - 42

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penelope-regulus · 2 months

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Crying at the realization that Reynold barely had a role in the story-

Was he even mentioned when normal mode was being discussed? As I recall it, Callisto was mentioned killing Penelope and falling in love with Ivonne and making her empress, Winter was mentioned to have turned back time at the end and brought her to the estate, Eckles was loyal to Penelope but switched to Laila's side and took care of her, Derrick... Well his role was also minimal if I recall correctly, but!

...But then there's also the route Penelope's taking in the current timeline, following the plot. So little is mentioned about Reynold!

For example, what are his ambitions? Penelope wants to survive, Callisto wishes to be the perfect emperor, Winter wants to save the world, Derrick wants to be succeed and become a duke that can care for and protect his family Eckles wants freedom, Laila wishes to become immortal and rule the world, *the empress wants to throne her son*, but what of Reynold?

Unless he really, truly, just wanted nothing more than to bully Penelope at first and have her kicked out of the house, and then be one of the babygirls that take care of her without end...?

I try coming up with headcanons about his life during and after the main story, but there's so little to work with (Although it's not just with him for after the main story, but also all the other mls) 😭

I've seen him training, so perhaps he wishes to become a swords master? But it's highly likely it's just because he'll eventually become the commander of knights and he has to do this-

Maybe, he'll work to protect commoners better after learning Penelope's story in the attic scene? Since he's compassionate? Like Robin Hood, as someone once said to me?

Or he could build a fortune gambling-

But I need more about him!!!! Or my life as a Reynold stan will be incomplete-!

#Thoughts #Reynold Eckhart #vadd #vadtd #ditoeftv #villains are destined to die #death is the only ending for the villainess #derrick eckhart #Laila #penelope eckhart #callisto regulus #winter verdandi #even the empress-#eckles khan delman

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meanslackofart · 19 days

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saw the laila majnu quote, where Qais goes like, “chal ek baar phir chodha tujhe, jaa ab nahi aata ab tu hi dhoondh mujhe” and my mind straight up went to something i just said a few minutes ago "jao karlo ghost, I'm not texting, waise bhi it was your turn"

doesn't both of them somewhat sound the same except the former is a 🤌🏼

#dramatic #laila majnu #meanslackofart #desi tag #desi tumblr #just desi things #desi thoughts #desi things #being desi #desiblr #desi girl #desi movies #tripti dimri #avinash tiwary #spilled thoughts #random thoughts #desi

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tri1ck-sh0t · 1 month

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Look what I found~!

I Must say, i didn’t expect my host to have some dirt on her name but..I’m not mad at all! I did kind of expect something more from my host, and here we are! She was stupid enough to wear the necklace but apparently not stupid enough to not tie this guy up.. i think I’ll just have to cut through the ropes. If I keep going at this rate, I’ll be able to control at least. 3 people! I guess Rire was right, I did need a bit improvement. This little guy here Is going to be so..helpful in doing that. For next the few..let’s say hours?

I’ll be a bit occupied.

#laila woods #tpof oc #boyfriend to death #btd oc #oc roleplay #the price of flesh #tpof #oc drawing #tpof strade #boyfriend to death strade #btd strade #demon strade #he’s breathing so quietly..#I thought he was dead to tell you the truth #but he’s alive!#and barley a scratch on him!#let’s change that shall we?

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swampthingking · 7 days

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oh! oh </3 oh!! okay!

#he KNEW that apologizing in the nest was futile but when he thought riko was back he STILL APOLOGIZED #HE DIDNT EVEN KNOW WHO WAS TOUCHING HIM BUT HE WAS ALREADY APOLOGIZING #his genuine confusion makes me SO SAD #he’s been through so much but he's still like. so...innocent #his “normal” is so fucked up. he can’t even fathom how wrong the things that happened to him were #he knows firsthand that apologizing does nothing to break his fall and he's like... “is this a trick?”#like “what do you mean you’re not going to beat the shit out of me after i accidentally hit laila in a triggered state?”#“what do you mean there are ways to solve problems without violence?”#and him saying “i can't promise it won’t happen again” (lashing out when triggered)#as in: when it happens again i am expecting to be punished #as in: i will apologize if that's what you want. if that means you won't hit me. if it pleases you.#as in: but when it happens again-do what you must. i will deserve it.#he’s been hurt so often so badly that protecting himself is second nature #he has never been around safe people #his first instinct is fight or flight #his body is protecting him before his brain can catch up #and he obviously does not want to hurt them #but its so fucking HEARTBREAKING because he KNOWS he won't be able to control it when fight or flight kicks in #and if they are going to be around him it is inevitable he will resort to violence. it is all he knows.#but he still cares enough to prepare them for that reality #like. “i can't promise i won't hurt you again” and “i don't mean to” and “punish me as you see fit”#he's giving them permission to HURT HIM for protecting himself #tsc spoilers #tsc #the sunshine court #all for the game #aftg #jean moreau #the foxhole court #tfc

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like-butterflies-and-glitter · 6 months

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there is something about how qais went so mad in love with laila that he went from being called majnu to majnu and qais becoming interchangeable because of how many times their story has been repeated in so many languages, in so many places, over so many years, again and again

#vidhik.txt #i am having thoughts about the story again and watching the sequence from aaja nachle right after watching the movie #laila majnu

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gncrezan · 5 months

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AHHHH i am too!!! literally can never find other nepali people about omg :DD

HOROORORAAYYY OH MY GOD!!!! apologies for stalking your blog and then the IF u are writing i migiht get worse now that i get my hands on nepalese-written characters and AN ACTUAL NEPALI CHARACTER I THINK??? (MIN? :") !!!!) anyways have some specific niche nepali comics/sketches that i drew like months ago . it's all nick wiseman/oc stuff (not sure if you have played mind blind?? so sorry that i'm throwing this at you cause im like omg u will understand)

hope this wasn't too insanely self indulgent of me to throw at you, nick-laila have almost been stolen away from mind blind atp and they're being churned into their own thing LOL

also glad to know someone will understand the perfect nepali man that i've created all for myself, wherein i project the perfect nepali daughter onto a man. this is #gender. like i do think if a man made selroti from scratch it wouldn't even take 5 minutes i'd be in love. is the bar on the floor? maybe. but good selroti is literally worth everything

#MOMO FOLDING DOES NOT COUNT. EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW HOW TO FOLD MOMO #a nepali man who can fold momo is like. rare but can be found. selroti man is like. my beautiful pipe dream #also i know nikhil is like the most typical fuckboy nepali name but we can break out of it guys.#and nik wiseman is the personification of those pipedreams. he's my silly rabbit.#ANYWAYS. THATS SO FUCKING COOL. OH MY GOD!!!!!!!#ofc nick and laila (and now laila's twin) are half nepali and i have a few others somewhere. gotta drag em out #and again sorry for this. this is so so messy but i never posted cause i thought it was too niche but still wanted to share </3 #saharasdawn #answered #my art #nik wiseman

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thesunshinecourts · 20 days

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countdown to tsc: apr 6., 2024, 07:48 pdt

17. your bed after travelling // jean moreau thinks about belonging

They had an away game against UT Austin, which was more exhausting in flight time than as an actual form of competition.

It’s three hours to Austin from Los Angeles. (“Non-stop flight time is 2 hours, 55 minutes,” Sebastian says, pushing his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose because he thinks it makes him look cool. It makes Jean want to spit on him. It makes Jean think about Kevin at age thirteen, when he dubiously tested out reading glasses at the recommendation of one of the doctors at Evermore. That kind of makes Jean want to spit on Sebastian more, but he restrains himself. Kevin Day at the beginning of teenagehood is not a crime that anyone should have to answer for, save the man himself and maybe Riko. He can’t, though. He’s dead.

It still thrills Jean, that thought, explicit and direct and true. It had been a fantasy for years, the kind he could never share, and certainly not with Kevin, who had loved Riko as desperately as he had come to fear him. It had been a wish, once or twice, entrusted only into Renee’s steady hands, the kind phrased not as a request, but as an expression of guilt given to the only person to whom he could lay himself bare. It is a fact, a gun pointed by Neil and a trigger squeezed by Ichirou and a new type of shackle on Jean, still heavy, but lacking teeth.

No, Jeremy Knox’s Sunshine Court has no such skin-torn, blood-soaked, jagged edges, except those which Jean brings with him. It’s almost harder to bear.)

Three hours to Austin from Los Angeles, meaning six hours round trip.

Jean is used to playing for that long on the Ravens’ court: a much more punishing endeavour than any training plan Rhemann and his cohort of coaches at USC could come up with. Playing the game against UT is laughably easy for Jean, at least when it comes to stamina and skill. Patience is a different matter, but while the Trojans are no Ravens, they are an exceptional team. When Jean makes his meagre attempts at forbearance, he thinks to himself that he is lucky to not have been a Fox. He would likely have lost his voice, given the arguing necessary to whip them into a vaguely-tolerable shape.

Kevin had always been better at that. Jean is not a natural teacher. He taught Kevin French out of loneliness, and he taught Neil to survive out of necessity. Kevin would always have been more suited to the walking catastrophe that called itself the PSU Foxes Exy team.

Belonging is always easier, Jean thinks, when one has a foothold. Personality aside—and truly, Jean has never met a person more stubborn than Kevin, which is less a compliment and more an expulsion of grief—Kevin would always have been better-suited to the Foxes than Jean, for Kevin had a man who would never turn him away simply because of who his mother was, even without knowing Kevin was his son.

Jean does not envy Kevin his father. Jean prefers not to think of fathers at all.

So no, the game is not especially taxing. The Trojans have a strong roster, and are less inclined to allow personal pique to have a say in which players get substituted, and when. (This isn’t to say that there is no personal pique to be found amongst the Trojans; whilst Jean’s experiences with them thus far have proven—if exasperatingly—that the Day Spirit Award has been rightfully awarded all these years, he’s also discovered that Alvarez has stroppy tendencies when she’s tired, and Jeremy’s occasional remarks about the Ravens are cavalier not out of ignorance, but a quiet disdain for their conduct.

So it’s not that the Trojans are all foolish Golden Retrievers rolling over to show their bellies to the world; it’s mostly that none of them are Riko, and nor are they Foxes. They can afford to offer grace as they move through the world. Jean is not sure he can.)

The flights are infinitely worse, because without an Exy racquet in his hand and the court beneath his feet, there is no escape from Jean’s own head.

The flight to Austin is better, of the two. It’s still not ideal, but Jeremy and Laila sit Jean firmly between them and essentially force him into conversation. It’s mostly grudging, and almost entirely about the upcoming match—there is not a single player at UT who Jean finds compelling, but one of their assistant coaches is a former player who once suggested something rude about Thea, who responded by checking him so hard when he next had the ball that he sprawled to the ground and slid three metres across the court.

Jean enjoys this story. He thinks Laila and Jeremy did too, from the way Laila’s eyes gleamed and how Jeremy’s voice had a laugh in it when he said, not exactly a strategy in our playbook, but I daresay it would have been satisfying to watch.

The flight back to Los Angeles is worse.

The ache from the game is settling into his body now, muscle and flesh and bone. It’s not enough to draw him out of his own head.

One of UT’s dealers had pitched herself right at him, driving herself into his hip. That level of force wouldn’t usually have knocked him over, but there’s an old ache there from Riko’s fingers and favourite toys. Mostly Jean stays standing, but sometimes he gives in.

When Jean had lived in Abby’s spare bedroom, there had been a revolving cast of visitors, though there was more frequency than variety. Renee had visited most, then Wymack. If Jean counts the times he shut his door and refused to let Kevin into his room and Kevin stayed in the kitchen asking Abby questions in a quiet voice that was never quite quiet enough, then Kevin probably takes third place. Otherwise, Jean thinks it would be Aaron.

This was less about Jean, and more about the lesson he could provide in Abby’s hands. Jean didn’t care. His whole life had been made of debt and pain and prodding. Cool fingers re-dressing his wounds—all steady hands and clinical efficiency and blunt responses—was almost a balm in the face of it.

Besides, there was something comforting in his lack of expectation. Jean has no idea what most people want from a doctor. He’s heard grumblings about bedside manner and seen some memes through the Twitter timeline Xavier and Alvarez inflicted upon him, but he found his greatest relief in the way Aaron inspected all his wounds without flinching.

Sometimes Kevin would come quietly into the room, and Aaron would roll his eyes at him, and then look to Jean, as if waiting. Jean did not mind so much if Kevin came in with someone else, like Renee or Aaron or Thea. (Well, he had minded very much the time he came in with Thea, but that was due more to the lack of warning. Thea herself had been someone Jean found himself missing.) He liked it more when Kevin came in with Aaron, which was less to do with their behaviour—Aaron was more likely to tell Kevin to shut up or fuck off, but Renee’s quiet presence was equally effective at keeping him in check—and more to do with the fact that Jean preferred to speak to Renee alone, because she was the person he could trust most in the world.

Once upon a time, that had been Kevin, but then Kevin left Evermore, and left Jean, and the first time Jean heard from him in months was when a terrified Kevin called him to beg Jean to tell him that the rumours were false, that Edgar Allan was not coming south.

The rumours had been true, and Jean Moreau has never been a liar, not even for Kevin.

Jean thinks about this as he thinks about the thudding ache at his hip, where Aaron’s fingers once re-dressed a wound, where Kevin had placed a cool compress years before, where Jean’s younger sister had once drawn a rose when they were five and seven, because a rose had been the only thing she had known how to draw.

He supposes it still might be. He wouldn’t know.

Jeremy shifts in the seat beside him, and Jean cracks open an eyelid to glare at him. He hadn’t even realised he’d shut his eyes, but no matter. He cracks open an eyelid, glaring, and finds Jeremy making a half-apologetic, half-beleaguered expression back at him. It’s an astounding combination, one he would have considered impossible prior to the Trojans, but sometimes Jean wonders if it’s less that Jeremy is particularly talented at facial expressiveness and more that no Raven ever had cause to teach Jean what apology looked like in the lines of a furrowed brow and downturned lips.

“Sorry,” Jeremy whispers, as if the facial expression wasn’t enough. “Were you napping?”

Jeremy has known Jean for several months now, so Jean feels as if this is a foolish question. He makes a derisive noise. Something flickers in his chest when Jeremy shakes his head, looking rueful and amused and sleepy-soft all at once.

Jean ignores it, obviously.

“Right, right, Mr No Naps,” Jeremy says. Jean has suffered many indignities since his arrival in Los Angeles, but being dubbed something that a six year old child would name an especially belligerent cat is a new low.

“We’re not that far now,” Jeremy says, glancing up at the flight map in interest. Jean looks over. He’s right. Twenty minutes or so. “Which means there’s no point in sleeping…” Jeremy continues, almost cajolingly. That gleam from Laila’s eyes earlier seems to have jumped to Jeremy’s as he looks at Jean.

Jean sighs, surrenders. He seems to be doing this a lot lately. Riko never managed to break down that last final inch, that holdout within Jean that refused to lose his accent or stop speaking French to Kevin or any of the tiny rebellions that Neil dismissed but Jean needed in order to have any pieces of himself left for Renee to save that day.

Riko tore every concession from Jean’s bare throat, but the Trojans seem just as adept as getting what they want out of Jean with teeth bared in smiles instead of snarls.

“You should have knocked over that backliner,” Jean says. “He’s a lunk. He would have taken seconds to get up. You could have scored in that time.”

Jeremy, because he is terrible, laughs. “You have such a way with words, Jean,” he says, but he sounds amused. Almost infectiously so. “I ought to be able to score without knocking anyone down,” Jeremy points out.

“Yes,” Jean agrees immediately, “but until that’s the case, you should drop them.”

There is probably something seriously wrong with Jeremy Knox, Jean thinks, watching him laugh. He seems as delighted as ever by Jean’s honesty. He won’t abide unfair barbed statements to his team, but he always seems game to field Jean’s criticisms himself.

It’s only right, Jean thinks. They’re Kevin’s favourite team, and they took Jean in when the backlash would be far greater than whatever meagre thanks they managed to get out of Kevin. Of course there’s something wrong with them.

They pass the rest of the flight in much the same manner, until the descent swoops a little steeper than expected and Jeremy squeezes his eyes shut and grips one hand over his arm rest and the other over Jean’s forearm. Laila wakes up during this, blinking sleepily at Jeremy, before saying, “Oh, babe, your cuticles look awful,” which makes Jean look incredulously at her and Jeremy laugh.

Sleepy chatter gets them through disembarking the plane, and baggage claim, and onto the bus, winding all the way back to campus, traffic egregious even at this hour. Alvarez tows an exhausted Laila by the elbows with an excruciatingly fond expression, Sebastian almost snaps his sunglasses underfoot when they slip off his nose before Derek says, “Dude,” while Emma throws up an arm to stop him in his tracks, and Jeremy half-stumbles into the door before he gets his key in the lock and opens up their room.

Tomorrow, at some point after breakfast and coffee prepared with entirely too much creamer by an overzealous Cox, Jean will marvel at that thought. At the ease with which it sprung to his mind: their room, meaning Jeremy’s and Jean’s, meaning Jean’s, meaning that which belongs.

In the morning, he will think about what it has meant to be Jean Moreau: his first home lost to him through a transaction, where he was an object and not a person, a thing to barter and not a boy with a bed and a family and his own mind; Evermore, his second place to exist, where his bed was so often a landscape of his own destruction; and that bed that he slept in when staying with Abby, crisp and clean and safe and entirely, undeniably unknown to him.

Kevin asked Jean once, when they were younger, to tell him about his home. Jean had looked at him and asked in the blankest possible tone, what home? A home is a space you’re meant to belong, Jean had meant, and there was no place like that for him. There was Riko and his chains, and everyone told Jean that was his place, but he would never call that home.

In the morning, Jean will think about this, and what it means to have a space that belongs to you – to be a boy who owns something for once, instead of just being owned –

In the morning, Jean will think about this, but for now, he kicks off his shoes, peels off his socks, and falls onto his bed, a place he trusts enough to sink into a dreamless sleep, long enough to start to soothe his tired bones.

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laufire · 1 year

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☕️ related to our discussion before... why is Elena Like That.

Born this way?

LOL. I do think that's part of it, but I will elaborate (quite a lot).

To put this ask in context: we've pointed out that Elena's extreme awareness of social hierarchies and other people's emotions (with some blindspots) is similar to those of characters like Cammie's Laila in The Essence of the Equinox or Dean Winchester (Elena's soul twin as far as I'm concerned!): characters who suffered abusive upbringings. Even Stefan is shown to behave the way he does in part due to growing up with an abusive father he had to manage and fawn at. It's remarkable that Elena resembles this type, given that until her parents' deaths, she lived as charmed and cushy a life as a young girl possibly could in this world.

First thing first: I see no reason to question this assumption. Cushy doesn't mean perfect and I don't think the Gilberts were so. I mean, Grayson did unethical experiments on sapient beings LOL, that's not a good sign. IIRC Elena as a child saw Something of that, but wasn't equipped to understand it at the time and seems to have shaken it off, as she often does. And there is room to argue that Miranda's encouragement of Elena could've taken the form of high expectations of her; Elena, however, seems to want to honour and meets those expectations in a pretty level-headed way that doesn't interfere with her life and ultimate goals, which is a good sign. In summary, there's absolutely nothing in the show's writing that could be interpreted as "Elena is a victim of parental abuse" without making the reach of the century.

With that out of the way, in my opinion, there are some important factors that contribute to Elena's... let's call it mimicry? of this attitude. I think, to begin with, she has an intrinsic intuition she was born with; a capacity to understand and navigate social hierarchies with ease and with no need to reflection, practice, or focused study. Some people are like this, period.

Another factor I'd consider important is her natural amorality. I know, I know, this is not how most people see Elena, to say the least. But c'mon. That girl does NOT have a code, she does NOT have principles, she does NOT have an ideology. Nothing as solid as that could survive her fluidity of character. She constantly moves the goalpost and reacts accordingly when other people move it for her. This is very different from say, Laila: someone with a sturdy moral core, with principles that, if not completely solidified (she starts out in her twenties!), develop and gain strength through the story and through the challenges she goes through. Laila's moral quandaries and outrages, in summary, are genuine.

Meanwhile, Elena is good at mimicking morals, because of another factor: she's subconsciously tuned to the image others have of her, and she knows how singularly important it is. Specifically, she knows how singularly important it is for her to retain exactly the image she wants to cultivate.

Because the thing is, and this is something that ended up working against her: Elena's learned to glorify soft power, at the expense of hard (real, personal, nontransferable) power. Personally, I've always had the headcanon that Miranda was a soft power MARVEL. Loved and idealised and perfect in that just-slightly-imperfect way that makes it all the more loveable, always at ease, admired for it. Elena looked up to her and wanted to live to her image. She might've seen the social power Miranda wielded and wanted to imitate her. And because of how charmed and privileged their lives were, and probably because Miranda was taken from her when Elena was young enough that she had yet to forcibly become aware of the limitations of this method, Elena sticks to it, sometimes stubbornly so. She's seen how well it works when it's meant to work, and for a long time it worked perfectly for her.

This leads me to how I think Elena's privilege is an important factor in how this socially-aware nature happens to work for her. The fact that she instinctively understands how structures and hierarchies work, and how to use other's feelings for her benefit, combines with how she's perfectly at ease with the status quo because so far, it's done nothing but aid her. She doesn't chafe against perceived or real limitations* because she has a (partially earned!) overconfidence in her capacity to thrive in her environment.

*I do think her gender can't be ignored: she's still a girl in a world where that can be dangerous (where that does become dangerous once the Salvatores enter the picture, but although I'm not there yet in my rewatch, IIRC her flashbacks at the end of season 3 regarding her relationship with Matt definitely painted a picture). This quote I reblogged recently really stood out to me:

But this can't be separated from how well she otherwise navigates and adapts to the status quo and from how ultimately she thinks it's better to maintain it and work within it than to challenge it. She's profoundly misogynistic, she has no use for feminist praxis, and she subtly (and later not-so-subtly) works to separate from and elevate herself above other girls, often seeking reassurance of her superiority (see: making sure Matt dating Caroline didn't actually mean he was over her). Instead of thinking "hey, men have one over me no matter what and this is unfair", her goal is to be the One Special Woman they'll be willing to compromise for (without acknowledging this won't necessarily last forever*). This works wonderfully... until the show no longer centres the perspective of a man that considers her special.

*sometimes I wonder. what if some of the information we got about Grayson had involved being a less-than-stellar husband? I think THAT would've wrecked Elena far, far more than to learn he was a torturer lol.

Another way in which her privilege both comes at hand AND gets in her way is that she will always dismiss people she sees as "below" her. People like Vicki, like human!Caroline, etc. She's aware of social hierarchies but she doesn't question them, and she sees them as far more immovable than they truly are.

This is when Dean Winchester becomes a good point of comparison. As I've said before, I think they're cut from the same cloth. But one key difference IS their wild disparity in upbringing.

Dean got four good years in (although we're eventually told they are less idyllic than they might seem, because surprise surprise, it turns out John was always a lousy husband and parent. Or, paraphrasing Dean, "the marriage wasn't perfect until she died"). Then his mother died, and everything went to shit in a SPECTACULAR way. The audience is told that there might've been periods of straight-up food scarcity, because John would leave the brothers alone in motels for longer periods than the money he left covered, and at one point Dean was even caught stealing food. He's such an obvious case of parentification that it hurts. He's a drifter, he doesn't have a safety net, the money he uses comes from schemes and hustling people at pool and poker and the like, something he obviously wasn't born learning, etc. etc.

Dean has his own blindspots but in general I think he's a better judge of character than Elena because of this. He navigates reality and hierarchies and structures, he adapts, but he's not built in to discard people at the bottom because he's been at the bottom (or as close as a white guy will get in this world!). There are several times where Sam expresses a Blissfully Liberal Opinion (sometimes college un-educates you, ime xD), like implying that doing a job at a prison is a waste of time because who tf cares if convicts get hurt, and Dean immediately shoots that down. Another time Sam makes a disapproving comment about the guy in charge of the group home Dean stayed in as a teen being an ex-con and Dean replies "what, and we're such saints?".

He has principles, is what I'm getting at. He has a morality; one he might not have in another, cushier life (he seems far chillier and breezier in "alternate timelines" episodes where his backstory has been altered in that direction). To be clear, these principles aren't fool-proof or completely consistent. He believes "every person deserves our help", but that belief holds maaaaany caveats. For one, his definition of person is limited, to the point of abject cruelty to those that fall outside it (and sometimes even more damning, towards those that once deserved the consideration until they failed to meet his standards). He has genuine, sincere sympathy for victims, AND this sympathy will translate into actual help for them!! amazing!!!... unless the way you are a victim is perceived by him as faulty on some level (see: Max, a boy with psychic powers that used them to kill his abusive family in season 1, while Dean was still at Peak Daddy Knows Best mode. And of course, Bela, who he can't process as a victim at all, even when he should see that the facts don't add up).

My point is that, despite all that, imperfect morals are still morals. There's a struggle there. They might not come natural to him and be a product of his experiences, but they're there. With Elena................. I don't see them LOL.

But another useful point of comparison is grief. It caught Elena older, on more solid ground, but I think in both cases it contributed to a need for a sense of control (of themselves and their projected images AND of those around them, more evidently manifested in their younger brothers). I think losing her parents enhanced Elena's tendency to hyper-awareness, basically.

Another thing that enhanced it? VAMPIRES VAMPIRES VAMPIRES. See, I think before the show, Elena was understimulated lol. I mean, she was dating Matt, who is ALSO very in tune with social hierarchies (but who chooses hard-power female role models like Liz and Carol. I cannot tell you how funny I find this on its own. But I mean, he clearly saw first hand how soft power was shit with Kelly's parade of lousy boyfriends). But, well, for her, Matt wasn't exactly a strong proposition. There was no challenge there. She was BORED. Caroline's insecurities and her ambition were probably the most difficult thing she had to deal with, and at that point Caroline had yet to be a real challenge herself.

But then Stefan came, and all the dangers to her life, and even Damon to a certain extent (at least, when he was something to retain and be managed without giving him too much). Elena is easily bored and THRIVES on high-stakes situations. In regards to her actual life, of course, but more in terms of high-stakes social situations, where it's only her charisma that might prevent her downfall. They make her more creative, more efficient. She pays more attention as well, which obviously makes her act more hyper-aware.

Her relationship status cannot be ignored here. Elena is extremely dependent on romantic relationships/bonds for her modus operandi, and even outside that, she's an extraordinarily social animal (that also works best with as much forced closeness as possible). It's a good thing she was a doctor during the pandemic* because if you'd make her remove herself from the world at large (worse, alone with only Damon...) she would've died of sheer boredom.

(*......... writing this down for my horror delena wip brb).

This is why she was at her best, in terms of social capital, with Stefan. HE was a strong proposition. HE was a challenge. A worthy partner and worthier opponent. And this is why she slowly loses her magic touch when she dates Damon, who has the social finesse of a baby elephant in a glassware shop. Elena responds to and raises to a challenge. If she's put on the spot, she'll surpass expectations.

This speaks to why becoming a vampire was... not that great for her social capital. Suddenly her soft power strategies didn't work as well, because nobody could forget she now had superpowers. Maybe if the show hadn't combined the double punch of hard-power-thrust-at-her with now-she-dates-Damon things would be different, she could've adapted to a new MO, but alas. This is why she's one of the only two vampires volunteering for the cure (along with Rebekah), and why she actually follows through. On some level, she's trying to return to a better time for her. She almost... fetishizes that human vulnerability of hers, and how she could get others to fight for her with it. But season 6 is a different world, with different rules and very different players, and it proves to be a huge miscalculation on her part.

Oof. This got long xD. Tl;dr: I attribute Elena being Like That to a variety of factors: her intrinsic nature: great instincts wrt social hierarchies, easy charm; a combination of lack of morals and excess of privilege both aiding her and getting in her way depending on the context; a personality that responds to challenges and gets bored and more passive without them; and a learned glorification of soft-power manipulation.

#nectargrapes #cammie tag #replies #talking to the void #my thoughts #plecverse thoughts #the vampire diaries #plecverse #elena gilbert #my schrödinger fave #dean winchester #(him too)#the essence of the equinox #laila is a fave-fave though. no schrödinger doubts about it xD #stackediaries

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