#i kind of liked this issue and i want to talk about why

[1d1195]

Ding - Round 3

Read Ding here | ~6.5k words

Warnings: scummy man appearance, angst involving the frustration/grief/sadness of the last part regarding her shitty experience with said scummy man, fluff

Summary: Harry wants to know what happened to Cupcake. She really isn't sure she wants to tell him. Until she has to.

From me: NEW DIVIDER BY @babegoals THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR CREATIVITY AND SUPPORT AND JUST EXISTING 💕

Harry was mad.

Fuming. He had thought about nothing else but seeing her for the last two months and now that he had seen her, he was pissed to see her at his self-defense class. He asked her the same question about ten times throughout the instruction. He was furious and irritated that everyone else needed his help (even though it was literally what he was being paid for) when all he wanted was to talk to her.

He was all for helping women feel empowered. But he was mad she needed it. He knew she was feisty. The fact that she was there said a lot in its own right. The way she bantered with him until three in the morning texting him the other night made him smile more than he could describe. It was flirty and sweet. But always had him guessing if she would suddenly stop messaging for one reason or another.

Someone like her needed someone—maybe even someone like Harry—to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her. And he knew. He knew why women went to self-defense classes. He had been teaching these classes since before he owned his own gym.

He knew.

"Why are y’here, Cupcake?" He asked gruffly. The other women nearby were all but forgotten. One was mid-sentence, asking to clarify something Louis had said. Harry was practically rude to just ignore her question in favor of his own.

“Umm... for self-defense,” she muttered trying to focus on Louis’ answer.

Harry didn’t want her banter right now. (As cute as it was to him, despite his irritation.) “Right. But usually everyone has a story that... convinces themselves t’sign up. So what’s your story?” He repeated.

He watched the way her cheeks warmed at his assessment, and she folded her arms protectively in front of her. Guarding herself. “That’s kind of personal, Harry.”

Once Harry’s anger took hold, it was hard to backtrack. “Listen,” he shook his head. The annoyance that clouded his eyes and covered his face was so obvious, she felt the slightest bit bad about interrupting his lesson with her own issues. “M’not good at this kind of thing, Cupcake. Being subtle. I punch people for a minimal living and work the rest of m’time here, teaching people how t’punch.”

Part of her wanted to break down and tell him. Because as much as she was willing to do this on her own, she was so scared. That nervousness made her feel even weaker, and she wanted to tell Harry, she realized. She wanted someone to know and to help her because this wasn’t something she wanted to deal with on her own—it was too much.

But she couldn’t do it right in the middle of a self-defense lesson, surrounded by strangers. “I’m here to learn how to punch,” her voice was even and final.

His nostrils flared and he stalked back to the front of the room, a trail of anger coming off him as he did. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with her.

The remainder of the lesson went by without incident on Harry’s part. He watched her the entire time. The way she flinched when they practiced moves made him nauseous. But he couldn’t help but notice how good her stances were. Almost natural. “Hey, love,” Louis smiled at her kindly as he geared up to practice more tactile moves. “You liked his match so much you wanted to try on your own?” He asked.

She smiled, but it didn’t fully reach her eyes. “Something like that.”

“It’s good skills to have,” he assured her gently, because even though Harry’s infatuation annoyed him at the time, he knew Harry liked her. A lot. Knew just as well as Harry did why women signed up for a self-defense class. “You have a very natural stance,” he noted. “We should get you in the ring,” he winked at her.

She laughed lightly. “I don’t even know how to make a fist,” she snorted.

Louis chuckled giving her a gentle shoulder squeeze and moved onto the next person.

Harry moved in front of her next and he looked at her footing. Aligned near perfectly and practiced as if she had been doing it her whole life. He was still steaming with anger. It rolled off him and demanded to be felt—and she felt every bit of it. “S’like you’ve done this before,” he muttered.

“I haven’t,” she answered. “I’m just good at following directions. Like a recipe, you know?”

He was staring at her feet and trailed up to her hand where he carefully took hold of her delicate fingers. Instantly, it felt like her whole arm was made of jelly. Her heart took off about the speed of an airplane and she was lucky she could hear anything over the sound of it. Harry touching her skin made her feel faint. Carefully, he bent her fingers and tucked her thumb below the flat of her knuckles. It felt so intimate it seemed wrong to be doing this in a class put on for the public. Holding her wrist, he brought her fist to his cheek and tapped it against his skin a few times. “Like that,” he murmured.

She wanted to be cute and smile. Say something like, I’ll keep that in mind for strangers in dark parking lots when I ding their car. But instead, she was overcome with gratitude for the knowledge and a bit of awe. She was speechless without meaning to be. He released her wrist, and she wanted nothing more than to grab his hand again and never let go. “Thank you,” she whispered. He nodded sullenly.

Harry felt defeated—something he didn’t enjoy at all. Rarely did he feel it, but he wished he felt defeated after a match more so than he did right then. All he could do was walk away from her and finish the lesson without chatting with her again.

*

In hindsight, confronting her in the middle of a self-defense lesson wasn’t his wisest choice. The following morning, he had a renewed spirit and was once more determined to chat with her and figure out what made her join a self-defense class.

What he hadn’t anticipated was how stubborn she could be. He should have known but he was willing to dig his heels in as long as she was. Harry went to the bakery morning, noon, and night—literally—trying to figure out her schedule. “Again?” The girl behind the counter asked suspiciously when they returned at four in the afternoon on the third day of waiting. She had been there all day and hadn’t said anything up until their third arrival.

Niall shook his head and sighed. “Sorry, darling. He’s being super creepy, yeah?” Niall elbowed him with irritation. They sat at a table as they had the last few days. They didn’t stay long, only fifteen minutes to half an hour. (And they only stayed half an hour once because Niall had to get one of the cronuts that he had been pining for since he saw them.)

Harry was looking at their text message thread. The last message was from him. Are you working now? C’mon, Cupcake, you’re killing me here :(

It went unanswered since yesterday afternoon.

“He’s trying to talk to Miss Cupcake,” Niall rolled his eyes. He missed the back and forth between the girl behind the counter. “But I think he’s being a bit ridiculous.”

“Oh, were you her bad date?” She frowned.

Harry was still looking at his phone, checking his schedules, and making sure he didn’t miss anything in his email or messages from his mum or sister. But the moment the girl behind the counter spoke, his head snapped up to meet her gaze.

“What bad date?” He asked, his voice low, menacing.

The girl behind the counter blanched. Feeling bad she revealed something she obviously wasn’t supposed to and quite honestly, if he was her bad date, that was a horrible thing to announce. It was a reflex. “I don’t know, actually,” she tried to backtrack. “I don’t know why I said that out loud.”

“We won’t tell, darling,” Niall assured her. “Do you know when Miss Cupcake works, it would save Harry—and you—a lot of trouble.”

“OH!” She shook her head and went around to the front of the counter. Her eyes widened. “You’re Harry. Context clues, I didn’t recognize you without gloves,” she smiled excitedly. “Thank goodness, I almost closed this place down.”

Harry turned to the girl again feeling a warmth pass over him at the idea that she talked about him to her friend. “Oh brother, so she does like Harry?” Niall grumbled.

“I’m Maeve,” she announced.

“Maeve,” Harry stood up and held his hand out to her. “Nice to meet you.”

“You have a very cute niece.”

Now Harry really couldn’t help but smile because that little girl was practically his own pride and joy. And she was very cute. Plus, it meant she really was talking about Harry to her friend and that had to mean something. “Thank you, she’s perfect,” he agreed. But then he refocused on why he was haunting the bakery. “Does she not work during the day?”

“She pops in,” Maeve shrugged and fiddled with the cupcake display. He noted there was a raspberry filled one on the top tier. He recognized that cake and frosting pair anywhere. “But she’s been mostly coming in after close,” she admitted. “She’s been a little...stingy with details about everything. She gets like this sometimes. Compartmentalizes things so she can deal with it when she needs to,” Maeve bit her lip. “She’s visiting her dad right now.”

Harry realized there was very little he really knew about her. Most of their chatting had surrounded the bakery, boxing, and Harry’s niece. There was a little bit of information about their education and some books and hobbies they liked. But there wasn’t a huge depth of knowledge of her family.

“Oh,” Harry felt defeated again. “Uh... I guess we’ll go then,” he mumbled. “Try later.”

Maeve sighed. “She really likes you, Harry. Really,” she promised with a sad smile. “She’s just...a little stubborn and careful with her heart.”

Harry nodded. “Got it,” he could handle that.

*

She parked as close as she could to the bakery in the parking lot. Thinking about all the steps and stances that Louis and Harry had told her during her class. She took a deep breath and opened her car door. As she went to the back of her car to grab supplies from her trunk, she noticed a plethora of other cars parked in the lot—most people were probably at the restaurant near the waterfront. But there was no way she could miss the car she had accidentally dinged with her door just a few spaces down and across the row from her.

Once more, her gaze met the intense green gaze in the driver’s seat. She sighed knowing there was no escaping this talk anymore. Harry put a bookmark in the novel he was reading while waiting and set it on the passenger seat beside him. He locked his car and hurried to her side, taking the heavy bags of flour and sugar she bought to tide her over until the delivery came to the bakery in the morning. He didn’t speak to her as they walked to the storefront. She was overwhelmingly aware, once more, how safe she felt with Harry beside her in the nearly deserted parking lot. She unlocked the front and held the door open for Harry to enter. “Were you waiting long?” She asked.

He shrugged, putting the supplies on his now regular table while she fiddled with the display case and cupcake display once more. The raspberry one was missing from the top and she went behind the counter to get another. Harry closed the door and locked it, so she was safe inside. It was dark, the only light was a low soft glow coming from the case of treats. It had the glow of a candle, and he wondered if there was a way to keep it that way during the day because it was so warm it made him want one of everything that was in the display. “Yes,” he nodded. “S’okay.”

That felt worse. If he was willing to admit it, it meant he was there a while.

“I’m sorry,” her cheeks felt warm. “I should have just told you when I was working,” she was willing to admit when she was wrong. Harry watched in fascination as she placed the raspberry filled cupcake on top. He wondered if it had always been the one she put on top. He would have imagined the chocolate ganache one was a fan favorite, or the vanilla sprinkles one with the little toothpick and label of A Pinch of Sprinkles on it.

He shrugged again, nearly indifferent. “S’okay,” he repeated. “Read most of my book.”

“Is it a good read?” She asked and grabbed the bag of flour Harry had settled on the table and started for the back. He grabbed the bag of sugar and followed behind her.

He nodded. “Yeah...it’s,” he sighed. “S’a little darker than I expected,” he shrugged. “Was hoping for something lighter.”

“I only read rom-coms in book form,” she smiled. “It’s very light reading, but probably not what you want.”

“Rom-coms?” He repeated. She nodded. “Y’don’t strike me as a rom-com kind of girl.”

“No?”

“Y’seem more like a film noir or suspense.”

“I’ve had enough suspense for a while,” she muttered and turned to her ovens to preheat. Harry placed the sugar beside the flour bag and sat in the same chair he sat in when he fell asleep a couple months prior. He watched her in the same way he had before as she flittered around the kitchen, humming to herself as she worked. “How’s the baby?” She asked.

They were ignoring the elephant in the room, it seemed. But it was the first time he’d seen her since the self-defense lesson. In between his visits to the bakery (his stalking grounds, as Niall was calling it) he had been splitting his time between training, teaching, and ensuring Driven, his gym, was working as expected. He had to call an electrician because the lights in the men’s bathroom kept going out despite the fact, he had already replaced the circuit and lightbulbs a handful of times. But he had gone to see Gemma and his niece two days prior to get his fix of the sweet little girl who made him feel so much better about all the frustration he felt about his favorite Cupcake.

He couldn’t help but smile. “Perfect.”

She grinned back and nodded. “Good, and your sister?”

“Good, thanks for asking,” he thought that was polite of her—he always noticed when people asked about his sister. It wasn’t often. Once the baby was there, it was like they forgot about the mum.

“Does your mom live nearby?” She asked.

“Yeah, especially with the baby. Mum sold her house the moment she found out Gem was pregnant.”

She laughed. “That’s sweet. You’re all close?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Mum’s m’hero,” his voice was filled with admiration so thick it made her feel wobbly on her feet. She wished she had that kind of admiration for her mother. “How ‘bout you? Maeve said y’were visiting your dad? He lives nearby?”

She nodded, guarded. “I feel the way about my dad, the way you feel about your mom,” she explained. There was a pause in conversation that seemed to stretch farther than it needed to. Maybe he was trying to get her to break first. Perhaps she did. “You talked to Maeve?”

He looked at her, tapping his fingers lightly on the table. “Didn’t leave me many options, Cupcake,” he reminded her.

She swallowed thickly, nodded. “That’s fair,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Can you please tell me?”

She shook her head. Harry felt so agitated, so defeated. “Not yet,” the bit of hope creeped back in. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she admitted, her voice cracking slightly. She swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat and turned away from him. “Sorry,” she sniffled. His heart broke. Quickly, he realized it wasn’t her wanting to hide it from him. It was painful to watch that frustration fall on her face.

“Oh, kitten,” he frowned. He stood quickly and made it to her side. He put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly not wanting to touch more than she wanted or needed in that moment. His imagination could only guess what went wrong on her date and it was painful to think about for him. He wanted to comfort her, but it had to be at her pace.

At once she melted into his touch. She turned quickly, almost reflexively into his embrace. Her face pressed against his shoulder, her arms wrapped up around his back, and she inhaled shakily. It felt awful to see her sad, feel the anxiety coming off her in waves. But Harry was grateful to hold her so close to him. “M’here, Cupcake,” he promised. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter, nodded against him.

Harry could live with ‘not yet.’ For now.

*

Over the next week, they went back to texting throughout the day and chatting well beyond bedtime on the nights she wasn’t at the bakery. Additionally, Harry walked beside her from her car to the bakery when she arrived and back through the dark parking lot. Not once did he ask her what went wrong with her date even though it was killing him. She wasn’t budging. She knew Harry was waiting for more details, but she couldn’t. It hurt and she didn’t want to think about it—even if she actually did want to tell him. It was overwhelmingly kind that Harry appeared beside her car—especially at night.

“I’m still really sorry about Clay,” she frowned. Harry didn’t park far away from her like he did the other night. But she was very mindful of her opening the door and not bumping into his car.

“S’okay,” he smiled and rubbed his fingers on the little indent. “Reminds me of you,” he winked at her.

Her heart fluttered and she looked away briefly before smiling back at him. “Like you need more reminders of me,” she murmured.

“Can never have enough, Cupcake,” he assured her. “Can I kiss y’goodnight?” He asked on the third night he walked her though the dark parking lot. Her heart literally skipped a beat. Speechless. He tapped his cheek. “Jus’ the cheek, kitten. Need a proper date before I really kiss you,” he acknowledged and smiled shyly at her. That boyish grin that made her weak in the knees. Breathlessly she nodded. His lips swept across her cheek. It was brief and soft. Like a piece of her hair had brushed over her face and tickled her skin. “Thank you,” he grinned. “Been dying t’do that,” he admitted and once more tucked her safely in her car.

Harry mentioned it only twice more. He never pressed or demanded she reveal the facts of her bad date. It was more of—what he hoped was—a gentle reminder. He was waiting for more information. All he wanted was to assuage her worries and fears. She attended the second class for her self-defense lessons (dropping off a box of blueberry scones at the front desk had everyone in the class asking if they could go after the lesson to pick out their own sweet treats). Harry continued to boil with anger just thinking about her using the moves he and Louis taught her. But it was obvious he was much less angry than the previous week. More so, his anger didn’t extend to her. He was mad, but he understood her choice to keep it to herself.

Louis was going over demonstrations using Harry as the attacker. Everyone watched with rapt attention. “Your goal is to get away,” it was repeated about a hundred times and Harry had the hardest time watching her every time it was repeated. Each time it was said, she flinched. He wasn’t sure she knew it or not—it was a reflex. But she did get away. It terrified her still.

Harry couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t pushing him away. Every night, she thanked him profusely for coming to the bakery and walking her to and from the car. She could see his anger growing beneath the surface. He wanted to know. She was trying so hard to brush it off. It wasn’t a big deal. Now she had two classes under her belt, and she promised herself she would never be in such a vulnerable position again.

“Can I watch you at work?” She asked randomly. It was a morning shift this time. She was covered in flour, and she had frosting streaked in her hair leftover from when she put it up after icing four dozen cupcakes. Harry didn’t think she could look cuter if she tried.

“Watch me?” He repeated.

“Not this again,” she smirked.

He chuckled. “Y’want to watch me train?” He repeated anyway.

She shrugged. “You always watch me bake and stuff.”

“You’ve attended the class, Cupcake. S’pretty much the same thing,” he reminded her.

He noted her cheeks turned pink. “Um...if you don’t want me to hang around then—”

Harry nearly gasped. “Oh, no. No way, kitten. I want y’around. I promise,” he assured her. “Jus’ don’t want you t’be bored.”

“I won’t be,” she shook her head.

That was how she ended up sitting beside the ring, Louis padded and guarded while Harry punched and punched and punched for over an hour. His breath was heaving, and his body was slick with sweat. She watched intently examining his form and his moves like she would one day repeat them.

When he came for water at the end of his training session, he was heavy breathing and smiling at her. He struggled to get the towel he had from his bag beside her with his gloves on. “Bored?” He asked.

“Not even a little,” she assured him, grabbing the little towel and swiping it across his forehead. It felt intimate and made Harry feel warm all throughout his body. “Can I try?” She asked with an impish smile.

He chuckled and nodded. “Come on,” he held the ropes open for her to enter the ring. She wasn’t wearing the right shoes or equipment. Louis rolled his eyes discreetly at Harry and held the pads out for her to hit. “Make the fist I showed you,” she did for both hands. “S’all the balance in your legs,” he promised. “No balance, no punch, no follow-through. Punch through the pad,” he explained and guided her hand to the pad slowly so she could see how it would look and feel to go through it.

“Pretend it’s Harry,” Louis suggested. “That’s what I do.”

She giggled. “I don’t think I could throw a punch if I thought it was Harry,” she admitted and gave her best attempt. It was honestly exhausting. She only threw a dozen or so punches and was breathless as she answered Louis.

“You’ll get there,” he assured her.

Harry scowled at him. “Take the pads off.”

“No, you lunatic.”

“Coward.”

She giggled, thanked Louis, and twisted herself out of the ring again. “That was fun,” she told him. “I can see why you like it. Plus, you’re really good at it.”

Harry was staring at her, the way that sent all the butterflies in the world directly to her stomach and began to flutter as if they were trying to escape. His gaze was firm but gentle, his eyes almost glowing somehow as he looked her over. “Please tell me, Cupcake. I want t’help,” his voice was quiet, begging ever so gently.

She looked at the floor, their shoes were nearly toe-to-toe. “I can’t,” she whispered back.

He nodded, defeat did not come easy to him, and she knew that. “I have t’shower, do some office stuff. Get ready for some lessons and classes,” he told her, his voice the slightest bit disappointed.

“Want me to watch you in the shower too?” She asked hoping to alleviate the mood. It worked, his smile returned to his pretty lips, and he chuckled.

“Hell yes, Cupcake,” he shook his head at her cuteness. “Maybe next time. Not here,” he winked.

Even though it was her that was forward it still made her blush. Plus, joke or not, she agreed here was not a good idea. “I have to do some errands anyway,” she admitted.

“I’ll walk you t’your car,” but she knew he would. It was like a safety blanket being wrapped around her.

She really liked it.

*

After her third self-defense lesson she was feeling more confident. She even showed Maeve some of her moves in the back kitchen. Shadowboxing the same way that she saw Harry do to Louis the night she met him. “I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to give the Queen of Sugar boxing lessons,” Maeve rolled her eyes.

Honestly, she was feeling better. More confident. Plus, she was enjoying her not-so-date-dates with Harry. There was one night when Harry wasn’t around, and she realized she missed him so much. Not only because the dark parking lot seemed more foreboding but because his presence made her happy. Happier than she had been in a really long time. It felt undeserving to be so happy but it wasn’t something she thought about when he was actually there. I missed you.

Oh? 😍

Sorry, I know that’s...

A lot...

I miss you all the time, Cupcake. Think about you all day.

The message made her warm and she wished she could explain how simple it seemed to just have Harry fit in her life. They were busy people, but he always managed to come by and see her. She enjoyed watching him train or sitting with Sarah at the front desk and chatting while he taught classes and lessons. Maeve teased her every time he arrived and she wasn’t there. Can’t you just give him your schedule? The poor guy is going to have to train twice as hard to get rid of the extra cupcake weight.

I like to keep him guessing a little 😉

Today, she was up front on her own—one of her employees called out sick and she didn’t mind in the slightest. Working up front was one of her favorite tasks. Interacting with customers and sharing her gift was something she enjoyed thoroughly. Her other coworker was out back, working on inventory and prepping the bagels for her monthly bagel sale.

Ding.

The bell attached to the front door signaled whenever customers arrived or departed. It was a busy morning. So busy that it took her a minute to realize Harry was sitting with Niall at one of the tables. Niall gave her a wave as she finally got caught in his gaze. She waved back, smiling brightly and paused the customers that were at the counter while she ran to the back and then to the table as quickly as she could. She pecked Harry on the cheek without thinking and deposited a raspberry filled cupcake and a personal sized loaf of Irish soda bread.

Harry felt as gooey as the filling on the inside of his cupcake. Her soft little kiss made him crazier for her. Watching her made him happy. Being around her made him happy. Happier than the little kid that was bullied could have dreamed.

Niall was making noises that would have embarrassed the porn industry while eating his bread. Harry snorted at him, tried to steal a piece, only for Niall to slap his hand away. “Eat your cupcake,” he nearly snarled.

“She could make more, m’sure.”

Niall shook his head stuffing his face of the treat made specially for him.

Harry liked watching her. He wondered if it was the same way she felt when she watched him. People obviously fell in love with her the moment they spoke to her. Unironically, she was so sweet. Of course she was. It was like she was a sprinkles-fairy. This ethereal being that passed out sweet treats to everyone.

Ding.

With her back turned to get another bag, she didn’t notice the influx of new customers. When she turned back, her heart leapt to her throat. She was lucky she didn’t drop the dozen cookies she was packaging.

“Shit,” she whispered mostly to herself. He hadn’t seen her yet. Fortunately, it was crowded enough to hide behind her wall of customers. All the progress she had made, the classes thus far, all seemed for naught at that moment. Her gaze darted to Harry and Niall. They were unaware of the turmoil she was facing while she packaged treats for the next customer. Her stomach churned uneasily.

If Harry just looked at her, she knew he would know. “Hey Lexi!” She called toward the back room. But Harry was chatting with Niall. Niall was focused on his soda bread. Neither of them noticed the anxiety that swept over her. Lexi doesn’t answer at first. Making her more anxious and scared. It shouldn’t be that way. He shouldn’t ruin the one place she loved most.

Niall now had crumbs on his cheeks, but his head tilted curiously in the direction of her main display. “Harry, something’s wrong,” Niall’s voice was quiet.

Harry’s gaze snapped up defensively. Sure enough, her whole demeanor had changed. Harry could see it. Her smile was tight, and her eyes darted toward the door and the customer in front of her more times in ten seconds than Harry could ever begin to count. Harry wanted to kick himself. How long had she looked like that?

After an eternity, Lexi finally appeared. She mumbled something to her employee and headed to the back kitchen. Not even a glance in Harry’s direction. Without fanfare, without permission, Harry marched his way into the back almost as soon as she left his view.

“Excuse me,” Lexi said. “Hey, that’s employee—”

“He’s fine, Lexi,” she answered quietly.

Harry found her in the kitchen, hand clutching the front collar of her shirt, her eyes lit with anxiety while she paced back and forth. “Is he here?” He asked lowly, while she moved quickly across the kitchen.

She tried to remember the last time she felt safe. It was her dad, right? Her dad before...before everything. Before she moved her shop here. Before she uprooted her life.

But there were those brief moments where she was overcome with how safe she felt in Harry’s presence. Walking to his fight for the first time. Each time he walked her to her car. How his hand felt when he pressed her fingers into a fist.

She nodded, her eyes watering.

He spun almost immediately to do who knows what. He didn’t know and she certainly didn’t know.

“No, don’t leave me!” She practically shouted before he could hardly take a step further. She started to follow him but he stopped at the sound of despair in her voice.

Harry groaned lowly; it came out nearly as a growl. He turned back to her immediately as if it pained him. “M’never leaving you,” his eyes were so dark and desperate—her whole body felt heavy at the seriousness of his words. Breathless again. “Please don’t ask me that,” his eyes darted back toward the front of the bakery.

“Harry, please,” she whispered.

His hands were already balled into fists. He shook his head. “Cupcake,” he grumbled. It was such an oxymoron in itself. Harry was calling her one of the sweetest things in the world and it sounded downright terrifying.

“Please, Harry,” she begged, grabbing one of his closed fists. “I need you,” she whispered.

Groaning again, he rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “Fine,” he snapped.

She felt bad making him stay. She knew she was forcing his hand, but she was scared. To soften the blow, she threw herself at him. Arms around his neck, face buried in his shirt. She sighed with relief with the feel of him: solid, warm, protective against her body. Harry was safe. He proved that already and she still hardly knew him. It wasn’t hard. It shouldn’t have been hard for her date to make her feel safe.

Harry was momentarily shocked before he returned the hug, one arm looped around her back, the other cupping the back of her head. It was like the antidote to an disease she didn’t know she had. Another loud sigh escaped her. Like the feeling of Harry was cause for another wave of relief.

“What did he do?” He mumbled into her hair. She ignored him and scrunched her eyes shut. “Please, Cupcake,” he begged. She realized she wanted to tell Harry.

“I’m so embarrassed,” she whispered. “I don’t even know why I went out with him...I had met you and—”

“Doesn’t matter, kitten,” he shook his head. “He doesn’t get t’make y’feel unsafe,” he reminded her.

“It was such bad judgment.”

He shook his head again. “No, Cupcake. He doesn’t get t’make y’feel that way. S’not you. S’not asking a lot t’feel safe on a date. S’not even the bare minimum. Y’don’t have poor judgment. Your judgment got y’out of there that night. S’why y’signed up for classes and—”

It poured out of her at that moment. She told him everything. In the middle of the story, she tried to downplay it sensing the way his body tightened around her with every word. Explained why she signed up for the self-defense class. Every detail and emotion she felt for the last few weeks. How scared she was that very night. Why she requested Harry and chatted with him until three in the morning. How he made her feel better when she didn’t think she could. How safe she felt around him in general.

At the end, Harry pulled away from her.

Her heart felt heavy. Now he wouldn’t like her. She was broken and hurt. Harry didn’t want to be a bodyguard, nor should he have to be. “I need t’go to the gym,” he started toward the front, and she thought that was it. It was the last she would see of him. He was too overwhelmed with how stupid she was. This wasn’t what he wanted. Someone who couldn’t defend herself or be smart enough to see the signs earlier.

“Harry, I’m sorry—” She managed to croak with tears thick in her voice and vision. Right as he reached the threshold back to the front of the bakery. He was shaking. Every inch of him. She wondered how he wasn’t a blur from how much he shook. In the moment it took for the apology to form in her mouth, he was back in front of her.

He grabbed her firmly but still softly by the chin, held her sweet face between his palms. Gazed into her eyes and shook his head slowly. His eye contact was overwhelming but still felt so good. “You are to never. Ever. Apologize.” Her eyes welled with more tears. She couldn’t do anything but nod at him. Her heart felt so heavy and broken. But Harry was looking at her. Taking in every inch of her face and he sighed. “M’sorry, Cupcake; m'angry. But s'not something you need t'apologize for. Y'didn't do anything wrong. M'jus' mad I wasn't there for you,” he whispered and brought her back in to hold her against him once more. Her body felt relieved it was ridiculous for him to feel bad--he didn't even know she was going on a date. She didn't want him to feel bad.

"It's not your fault either," she whispered. Harry sighed with relief and he kissed the top of her hair.

She lost track of how long they stood there. It could have been two minutes or two hours. All she felt was Harry’s warm body against hers and reveled in how good it felt. “Call me a half hour before you’re ready to leave here. I’ll come walk you t’your car.”

She smiled softly, hoping to alleviate the tension now that a significant portion of time had passed. “Even if it’s in the middle of the night and—”

He didn’t think her joke was funny at all. “If y’call,” he repeated, interrupting her, his eyes were hard and serious. No room for joking at all. “I’ll be here.”

He was rapidly making her fall in love with him.

*

“Hey Dad,” she smiled softly sitting across from him at the dinner table. He grinned at her.

“Hey sweetie. How was your day?”

“Good! Did you see the game?” She asked. He nodded.

“Your guy did well, don’t you think?”

She laughed, shaking her head and blushed a bit. “Max Kepler is not my guy, Dad.”

“I didn’t say his name, honey,” he reminded her with a chuckle.

She rolled her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek. “I think I met a guy, actually,” she rushed out quickly.

“Oh?” He looked at her curiously, tilted his head ever so slightly and smiled. “That’s nice, sweetie. You haven’t had a boyfriend in a while. You need someone to...chat with, depend on,” he said knowingly. “I want to know you’re taken care of.”

“Dad, that is so 1950s of you. I don’t need a guy to take care of me.”

“Oh honey, I know you don’t. But I want you to have someone,” his voice was gentle.

For a moment she just looked at him. Thought long about all the things that had happened since she met Harry almost three months prior. It was a big deal to tell her dad about Harry. She wanted to make sure it was the right move especially after she was feeling poorly about her gut feeling. But she thought of Harry, the reassurance he gave her that it wasn’t her poor judgment that caused her bad date.

“His name is Harry. He’s a boxer,” she shrugged. “The raspberry filled cupcakes are his favorite.”

“Well, then he’s perfect. Right?”

She laughed, nodded, then bit her lip. “I mean...he’s...” she sighed forgoing all the details about how she was insane to let him steer her to his boxing match. How he helped her with self-defense classes. And why she was taking self-defense classes. No. She would tell him how they met another day. When Harry and she defined more of what their relationship was... if there was a relationship to be had. “I like him,” she admitted. “Then that’s all that really matters, honey,” he assured her. It felt like a blessing.

She couldn't wait to see Harry.

--

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[cy-cyborg]

Dealing with Healing and Disability in fantasy: Writing Disability

[ID: An image of the main character from Eragon, a white teenage boy with blond hair in silver armour as he sits, with his hand outstretched. On his hand is a glowing blue mark. He is visibly straining as he attempts to heal a large creature in front of him. /End ID]

I'm a massive fan of the fantasy genre, which is why it's so incredibly frustrating when I see so much resistance to adding disability representation to fantasy works. People's go-to reason for leaving us out is usually something to the effect of "But my setting has magic so disability wouldn't exist, it can just be healed!" so let's talk about magic, specifically healing magic, in these settings, and how you can use it without erasing disability from your story.

Ok, let's start with why you would even want to avoid erasing disability from a setting in the first place. I talked about this in a lot more detail in my post on The Miracle Cure. this line of thinking is another version of this trope, but applied to a whole setting (or at least, to the majority of people in the setting) instead of an individual, so it's going to run into the same issues I discussed there. To summarise the points that are relevant to this particular version of the trope though:

Not every disabled person wants or needs a cure - many of us see our disability as a part of our identity. Do difficulties come with being disabled? absolutely! It's literally part of the definition, but for some people in the disabled community, if you took our disabilities away, we would be entirely different people. While it is far from universal, there is a significant number of us who, if given a magical cure with no strings attached, would not take it. Saying no one in your setting would be disabled because these healing spells exists ignores this part of the community.

It messes with the stakes of your story - Just like how resurrecting characters or showing that this is something that is indeed possible in the setting can leave your audience feeling cheated or like they don't have to worry about a character *actually* ever dying. healing a character's disability, or establishing that disability doesn't exist in your setting because "magic" runs into the same problem. It will leave your readers or viewers feeling like they don't have to worry about your characters getting seriously hurt because it will only be temporary, which means your hero's actions carry significantly less risk, which in turn, lowers the stakes and tension if not handled very, very carefully.

It's an over-used trope - quite plainly and simply, this trope shows up a lot in the fantasy genre, to the point where I'd say it's just overused and kind of boring.

So with the "why should you avoid it" covered, let's look at how you can actually handle the topic.

Limited Access and Expensive Costs

One of the most common ways to deal with healing and disability in a fantasy setting, is to make the healing magic available, but inaccessible to most of the population. The most popular way to do that is by making the services of a magical healer capable of curing a disability really expensive to the point that most people just can't afford it. If this is the approach you're going to use, you also typically have to make that type of magic quite rare. To use D&D terms, if every first level sorcerer, bard, cleric and druid can heal a spinal injury, it's going to result in a lot of people who are able to undercut those massive prices and the expense will drop as demand goes down. If that last sentence didn't give you a hint, this is really popular method in stories that are critiquing capitalistic mindsets and ideologies, and is most commonly used by authors from the USA and other countries with a similar medical system, since it mirrors a lot of the difficulties faced by disabled Americans. If done right, this approach can be very effective, but it does need to be thought through more carefully than I think people tend to do. Mainly because a lot of fantasy stories end with the main character becoming rich and/or powerful, and so these prohibitively expensive cure become attainable by the story's end, which a lot of authors and writer's just never address. Of course, another approach is to make the availability of the magic itself the barrier. Maybe there just aren't that many people around who know the magic required for that kind of healing, so even without a prohibitive price tag, it's just not something that's an option for most people. If we're looking at a D&D-type setting, maybe you need to be an exceptionally high level to cast the more powerful healing spell, or maybe the spell requires some rare or lost material component. I'd personally advise people to be careful using this approach, since it often leads to stories centred around finding a miracle cure, which then just falls back into that trope more often than not.

Just outright state that some characters don't want/need it

Another, admittedly more direct approach, is to make it that these "cures" exist and are easily attainable, but to just make it that your character or others they encounter don't want or need it. This approach works best for characters who are born with their disabilities or who already had them for a long time before a cure was made available to them. Even within those groups though, this method works better with some types of characters than others depending on many other traits (personality, cultural beliefs, etc), and isn't really a one-size-fits-all solution, but to be fair, that's kind of the point. Some people will want a cure for their disabilities, others are content with their body's the way they are. There's a few caveats I have with this kind of approach though:

you want to make sure you, as the author, understand why some people in real life don't want a cure, and not just in a "yeah I know these people exist but I don't really get it" kind of way. I'm not saying you have to have a deep, personal understanding or anything, but some degree of understanding is required unless you want to sound like one of those "inspirational" body positivity posts that used to show up on Instagram back in the day.

Be wary when using cultural beliefs as a reasoning. It can work, but when media uses cultural beliefs as a reason for turning down some kind of cure, it's often intending to critique extreme beliefs about medicine, such as the ones seen in some New Age Spirituality groups and particularly intense Christian churches. As a general rule of thumb, it's probably not a good idea to connect these kinds of beliefs to disabled people just being happy in their bodies. Alternatively, you also need to be mindful of the "stuck in time" trope - a trope about indigenous people who are depicted as primitive or, as the name suggests, stuck in an earlier time, for "spurning the ways of the white man" which usually includes medicine or the setting's equivalent magic. I'm not the best person to advise you on how to avoid this specific trope, but my partner (who's Taino) has informed me of how often it shows up in fantasy specifically and we both thought it was worth including a warning at least so creators who are interested in this method know to do some further research.

Give the "cures" long-lasting side effects

Often in the real world, when a "cure" for a disability does exist, it's not a perfect solution and comes with a lot of side effects. For example, if you loose part of your arm in an accident, but you're able to get to a hospital quickly with said severed arm, it can sometimes be reattached, but doing so comes at a cost. Most people I know who had this done had a lot of issues with nerve damage, reduced strength, reduced fine-motor control and often a great deal of pain with no clear source. Two of the people I know who's limbs were saved ended up having them optionally re-amputated only a few years later. Likewise, I know many people who are paraplegics and quadriplegics via spinal injuries, who were able to regain the use of their arms and/or legs. However, the process was not an easy one, and involved years of intense physiotherapy and strength training. For some of them, they need to continue to do this work permanently just to maintain use of the effected limbs, so much so that it impacts their ability to do things like work a full-time job and engage in their hobbies regularly, and even then, none of them will be able bodied again. Even with all that work, they all still experience reduced strength and reduced control of the limbs. depending on the type, place and severity of the injury, some people are able to get back to "almost able bodied" again - such was the case for my childhood best friend's dad, but they often still have to deal with chronic pain from the injury or chronic fatigue.

Even though we are talking about magic in a fantasy setting, we can still look to real-life examples of "cures" to get ideas. Perhaps the magic used has a similar side effect. Yes, your paraplegic character can be "cured" enough to walk again, but the magic maintaining the spell needs a power source to keep it going, so it draws on the person's innate energy within their body, using the very energy the body needs to function and do things like move their limbs. They are cured, but constantly exhausted unless they're very careful, and if the spell is especially strong, the body might struggle to move at all, resulting in something that looks and functions similar to the nerve damage folks with spinal injuries sometimes deal with that causes that muscle weakness and motor control issues. Your amputee might be able to have their leg regrown, but it will always be slightly off. The regrown leg is weaker and causes them to walk with a limp, maybe even requiring them to use a cane or other mobility aid.

Some characters might decide these trade-offs are worth it, and while this cures their initial disability, it leaves them with another. Others might simply decide the initial disability is less trouble than these side effects, and choose to stay as they are.

Consider if these are actually cures

Speaking of looking to the real world for ideas, you might also want to consider whether these cures are doing what the people peddling them are claiming they do. Let's look at the so-called autism cures that spring up every couple of months as an example.

Without getting into the… hotly debated specifics, there are many therapies that are often labelled as "cures" for autism, but in reality, all they are doing is teaching autistic people how to make their autistic traits less noticeable to others. This is called masking, and it's a skill that often comes at great cost to an autistic person's mental health, especially when it's a behaviour that is forced on them. Many of these therapies give the appearance of being a cure, but the disability is still there, as are the needs and difficulties that come with it, they're just hidden away. From an outside perspective though, it often does look like a success, at least in the short-term. Then there are the entirely fake cures with no basis in reality, the things you'll find from your classic snake-oil salesmen. Even in a fantasy setting where real magic exists, these kinds of scams and misleading treatments can still exist. In fact, I think it would make them even more common than they are in the real world, since there's less suspension of disbelief required for people to fall for them. "What do you mean this miracle tonic is a scam? Phil next door can conjure flames in his hand and make the plants grow with a snap of his fingers, why is it so hard to believe this tonic could regrow my missing limb?"

I think the only example of this approach I've seen, at least recently, is from The Owl House. The magic in this world can do incredible things, but it works in very specific and defined ways. Eda's curse (which can be viewed as an allegory for many disabilities and chronic illnesses) is seemingly an exception to this, and as such, nothing is able to cure it. Treat it, yes, but not cure it. Eda's mother doesn't accept this though, and seeks out a cure anyway and ends up falling for a scam who's "treatments" just make things worse.

In your own stories, you can either have these scams just not work, or kind of work, but in ways that are harmful and just not worth it, like worse versions of the examples in the previous point. Alternatively, like Eda, it's entirely reasonable that a character who's been the target of these scams before might just not want to bother anymore. Eda is a really good example of this approach handled in a way that doesn't make her sad and depressed about it either. She's tried her mum's methods, they didn't work, and now she's found her own way of dealing with it that she's happy with. She only gets upset when her boundaries are ignored by Luz and her mother.

Think about how the healing magic is actually working

If you have a magic system that leans more on the "hard magic" side of things, a great way to get around the issue of healing magic erasing disability is to stop and think about how your healing magic actually works.

My favourite way of doing this is to make healing magic work by accelerating the natural processes of your body. Your body will, given enough time (assuming it remains infection-free) close a slash from a sword and mend a broken bone, but it will never regrow it's own limbs. It will never heal damage to it's own spinal cord. It will never undo whatever causes autism or fix it's own irregularities. Not without help. Likewise, healing magic alone won't do any of these things either, it's just accelerating the existing process and usually, by extension making it safer, since a wound staying open for an hour before you get to a healer is much less likely to get infected than one that slowly and naturally heals over a few weeks. In one of my own works, I take this even further by making it that the healing magic is only accelerating cell growth and repair, but the healer has to direct it. In order to actually heal, the healer needs to know the anatomy of what they're fixing to the finest detail. A spell can reconnect a torn muscle to a bone, but if you don't understand the structures that allow that to happen in the first place, you're likely going to make things worse. For this reason, you won't really see people using this kind of magic to, say, regrow limbs, even though it technically is possible. A limb is a complicated thing. The healer needs to be able to perfectly envision all the bones, the cartilage, the tendons and ligaments, the muscles (including the little ones, like those found in your skin that make your hair stand on end and give you goose bumps), the fat and skin tissues, all the nerves, all the blood vessels, all the structures within the bone that create your blood. Everything, and they need to know how it all connects, how it is supposed to move and be able to keep that clearly in their mind simultaneously while casting. Their mental image also has to match with the patient's internal "map" of the body and the lost limb, or they'll continue to experience phantom limb sensation even if the healing is successful. It's technically possible, but the chances they'll mess something up is too high, and so it's just not worth the risk to most people, including my main character.

Put Restrictions on the magic

This is mostly just the same advice as above, but for softer magic systems. put limits and restrictions on your healing magic. These can be innate (so things the magic itself is just incapable of doing) or external (things like laws that put limitations on certain types of magic and spells).

An example of internal restriction can be seen in how some people interpret D&D's higher level healing spells like regenerate (a 7th level spell-something most characters won't have access to for quite some time). The rules as written specify that disabilities like lost limbs can be healed using this spell, but some players take this to mean that if a character was born with the disability in question, say, born without a limb, regenerate would only heal them back to their body's natural state, which for them, is still disabled.

An external restriction would be that your setting has outlawed healing magic, perhaps because healing magic carries a lot of risks for some reason, eithe to the caster or the person being healed, or maybe because the healing magic here works by selectively reviving and altering the function of cells, which makes it a form of necromancy, just on a smaller scale. Of course, you can also use the tried and true, "all magic is outlawed" approach too. In either case, it's something that will prevent some people from being able to access it, despite it being technically possible. Other external restrictions could look like not being illegal, per say, but culturally frowned upon or taboo where your character is from.

But what if I don't want to do any of this?

Well you don't have to. These are just suggestions to get you thinking about how to make a world where healing magic and disability exist, but they aren't the only ways. Just the ones I thought of.

Of course, if you'd still rather make a setting where all disability is cured because magic and you just don't want to think about it any deeper, I can't stop you. I do however, want to ask you to at least consider where you are going to draw the line. Disability, in essence, is what happens when the body stops (or never started) functioning "normally". Sometimes that happens because of an injury, sometimes it's just bad luck, but the boundary between disabled and not disabled is not as solid as I think a lot of people expect it to be, and we as a society have a lot of weird ideas about what is and isn't a disability that just, quite plainly and simply, aren't consistent. You have to remember, a magic system won't pick and choose the way we humans do, it will apply universally, regardless of our societal hang-ups about disability.

What do I mean about this?

Well, consider for a moment, what causes aging? it's the result of our body not being able to repair itself as effectively as it used to. It's the body not being able to perform that function "normally". So in a setting where all disability is cured, there would be no aging. No elderly people. No death from old age. If you erase disability, you also erase natural processes like aging. magic won't pick and choose like that, not if you want it to be consistent.

Ok, ok, maybe that's too much of a stretch, so instead, let's look at our stereotypical buff hero covered in scars because he's a badass warrior. but in a world where you can heal anything, why would anything scar? Even if it did, could another healing spell not correct that too? Scars are part of the body's natural healing process, but if no natural healing occurred, why would a scar form? Scars are also considered disabling in and of themselves too, especially large ones, since they aren't as flexible or durable as normal skin and can even restrict growth and movement.

Even common things like needing glasses are, using this definition of disability at least, a disability. glasses are a socially accepted disability aid used to correct your eyes when they do not function "normally".

Now to be fair, in reality, there are several definitions of disability, most of which include something about the impact of society. For example, in Australia (according to the Disability Royal Commission), we define disability as "An evolving concept that results from the interaction between a person with impairment(s) and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others." - or in laymen's terms, the interaction between a person's impairment and societal barriers like people not making things accessible or holding misinformed beliefs about your impairment (e.g. people in wheelchairs are weaker than people who walk). Under a definition like this, things like scars and needing glasses aren't necessarily disabilities (most of the time) but that's because of how our modern society sees them. The problem with using a definition like this though to guide what your magic system will get rid of, is that something like a magic system won't differentiate between an "impairment" that has social impacts that and one that doesn't. It will still probably get rid of anything that is technically an example of your body functioning imperfectly, which all three of these things are. The society in your setting might apply these criteria indirectly, but really, why would they? Very few people like the side effects of aging on the body (and most people typically don't want to die), the issues that come with scars or glasses are annoying (speaking as someone with both) and I can see a lot of people getting rid of them when possible too. If they don't then it's just using the "not everyone wants it approach" I mentioned earlier. If there's some law or some kind of external pressure to push people away from fixing these more normalised issues, then it's using the "restrictions" method I mentioned earlier too.

Once again, you can do whatever you like with your fantasy setting, but it's something I think that would be worth thinking about at least.

#Writing disability with Cy Cyborg #Long Post #Disability #Disabled #Disability Representation #Writing Disability #Writing #Writeblr #Authors #Creators #Writing Advice #Disabled Characters #On Writing #Disability in Media #Tropes #Disability Tropes #magic #fantasy #worldbuilding #magic systems

[thurio-edau]

SBG GANG MENTAL ANALYSIS

sorry for the delay!

alright, gotta say... this one's a bit shorter. but the next will come like a train wreck i promise😇

Part 3: Ben Clark

oh the sweet old Ben... a kind and loving soul muted away. I'm thinking of inspecting his trauma and his general actions, and give him a diagnosis which I'm sure is canon even. I'm sure everyone who knows the disorder itself is aware that Ben is, in fact, suffering from PTSD.

let's start. first, what is PTSD?

PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a mental condition where someone feels what they have previously went through in a past traumatic experience. PTSD is frequently found with flashbacks to the moment, overwhelming feelings and sudden responses. there are two types of this disorder, PTSD and C-PTSD. but we'll look in the first one for now.

Ben has always been a really kind character. ever since the beginning. more of a 'gentle giant' type of character, though we never see him talk. he's soft, he loves to help his friends and never does anything vulgar around them, including the phantom dimension. he feels nice when he gets praised even if he doesn't show it too.

the first time we see him getting flashbacks and his anger issues being visible is when we first see Barron's behaviour towards Logan. anything that includes actual bullying gives him flashbacks and his response is his anger issues unleashing.

in his backstory, Ben is shown that he's more of a shy type of person, but he loves singing. because his tall and intimidating appereance doesn't match his softness, a group of dumbasses try to 'fix' him which he rejects. back when Shane strangled him, is what he gets flashbacks to. it was something that changed his entire life, he had a passion for singing but he never did with his damaged voice. god knows how many times he was hospitalized when he was going around to fights because of his outburst of rage.

yep, rage. I'd classify his anger issues as the 'rage' type with PTSD. PTSD rage makes more sense to me than just normal anger problems. I've seen and lived with many people with anger issues, but none of them are similar to rage. anger problems in general are usually verbal, if you don't make them mad to a point they're all bark and no bite. but of course after a point the violence behind the generic anger issues can unleash (see Tyler)

okay, back to Ben and rage. rage is an extreme condition of anger, the person gets violent and their thoughts are clouded with the rage which makes them not think before doing anything drastic. but he's not very closed off about it either, actually. the time where he accepted Aiden to do the storytelling was before the first half of season one, the gang wasn't even that close.

this means that he saw them as actual friends so early on. probably before everyone. Ashlyn took her sweet time accepting the friendship, I'm kind of sure that Aiden didn't at first (see Tyler, yet again), Tyler also definitely didn't (as said by Taylor in season two premiere) and I think Logan has attachment/trust issues but that's for later. the only other possible person that might accept the group fastly is Taylor but with Tyler's influence so close to her, there is also a chance she didn't at first.

Ben was fine with his friends knowing his past. he put his earphones on because he didn't want to hear about it, or else he knew he'd get flashbacks yet again. I'm thinking that it could be diagnosed too. Aiden knows that it's not just a memory, it's flashbacks to Ben and he covers for him whenever he sees something that might trigger Ben. after learning the situation, Taylor also does the same. they learn the severity of his problems and are all fine with helping him.

another thing I'm sure of is that he's extremely attached to his friends. we know that everyone is close-knit, but Ben specifically. he might not speak but that doesn't mean that he doesn't enjoy their time. he does, fully. which is I think why he/his room was... like that in the facility, without any spoilers.

to say, the gang is more than just friends to him; they're his found family, where he feels like he belongs. they don't judge him for his silence there. they understand his past. they're not scared of him just because of the way he was built and they're not going to be either.

but what about his family?

families are one of the most important part of a character and their backstory. the family is what decides how they will live, act and even feel sometimes. then what about Ben's? where were they during his backstory?

yeah. Ben's rage causes something terrible to happen.

but it ends better for everyone. Ben gets the therapy he needed, starts to live with Aiden, makes the gang his friends and it actually goes well.

his parents?

we meet Naomi and William during Lily's birthday.

yes, Mike, Lily is goshdarn adorable.

first, I think Naomi and William aren't to blame. I think they did the best they could; they tried to help Ben, tried to help him get therapy, sent him to Aiden's place to help himself. then why didn't Ben's story stop?

Ben couldn't control his rage until their house got destroyed and he realized just how far it got. he sneaked out of the house, a lot of people seem to not see that detail. and they seem to be very caring, too.

they're amazing as a whole family, to be honest. even the little Lily doesn't care about her birthday getting wrecked, because she wants to help Ben and his friends. she indirectly helped Tyler extremely well, since the sedative idea came from her in the first place.

Naomi was the first person who brought up the whole 'we-are-seeing-phantoms' discussion and William didn't hesitate to talk about it. Naomi was also the first person to notice the phantoms when the worlds collided for a mere second.

and Ben himself has shown completely zero negative behaviour towards them. and Lily gets treated like a princess -even if she accidentally neutered Ben-

side note here, that Lily also really loves the family too. the way she cuddled Aiden when he died and came back was so cute to be honest.

so I don't think the family is anywhere to blame either. it was Ben who was strangled, Ben who fought, and Ben who saw therapy. the reason why I'm talking about this is because a lot of people suddenly blame a character's family when there's a problem with them.

guys. people with caring, loving families can be traumatized too. just because someone has a happy family doesn't mean they're suddenly over any trauma they live. doesn't mean everything is suddenly okay. it means that they have an accepting place to go to, a safe space. and Ben's family? I think they're just like that. they desperately try to help. help their son, their nephew and their friends. hell, Lily trying to help also speaks volumes in my opinion. their father -dilf no.2 after Mike right here- William was the one who offered the idea to get the kids saved from the centipede phantom. and to be honest? it was pretty smart.

she also tried to prevent Emma from going mad because come on, Emma would absolutely wreck anyone if they dared blame Ashlyn for this. (still I think Jessica has to apologize for being to insensitive smh)

Naomi really seems like a sweetheart to me, I already said what to be said about William in a single very important side sentence and if there was any kind of in-family neglect Lily would also be affected. but she isn't so I think we're good? I adore the whole Ben family tho.

to wrap it all up.

Ben is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which makes him see flashbacks and turn into a rage mode each time he is triggered due to his backstory, being bullied because he's too soft. his rage causes a gang to destroy his home (HELLO?? ARE THERE NO FUNCTIONING COPS IN THIS STOR-- oh wait it's america yea there ain't nvm) and his parents try their best. move, get Ben to therapy and let Daniel's side help him by doing stuff he loves. Ben is still trying to recover, but his flashbacks are strong due to impacting his entire life from his voice and make it difficult.

(vocal chords repair by time actually, but he hasn't been speaking for like 4 years so maybe it'd need some voice exercises until it returns to normal?? if it's just vocal chords he'd be alright. imagine if he could talk and sing normally all this time but he just didn't know. it's something between "aww poor guy :((" and "lmao"

but I don't know about voice box, can someone enlighten me on vocal chord damage vs. voice box damage? thamks)

and Lily. Lily is a cinnamon roll. no other opinions allowed.

-i wanted to make a part for Ben and Taylor but i decided wasn't fit here :P-

#sbgblr #sbg (webtoon) #school bus graveyard #school bus graveyard webtoon #schoolbus graveyard #sbg #sbg ben #ben clark

[reviewsdefinitionofsatisfaction]

Taylor has been lying on Joe since You’re Losing Me (Important Thread)

I’ve been confident in this theory since Midnights, but didn’t know how to spread it. Taylor is now blatantly lying about Joe and rewriting history. SHE was the one who didn’t want to get married, and Joe broke up with her over it. She chose fame over marriage, and the evidence is all over her music.

Ever since I heard “Mine” I instinctively knew Taylor was afraid of marriage. It’s the classic child-of-divorce case. “You say we’ll never make my parents’ mistakes.” / “Brace myself for the goodbye ‘cause it’s all I’ve ever known.”

Her fear of marriage continues throughout her discography. Don’t let “Lover” and “Paper Rings” fool you—those were false promises to Joe at the start of their relationship. Listen to “champagne problems,” a song she and Joe co-wrote. What couple writes a song about breaking up because the girl is terrified of marriage 4 years into their relationship? Why, one where that’s happening, of course. “Your Midas touch on the Chevy door,” aka how she always references Joe turning things to gold. And don’t forget “Renegade,” a song where in the music video SHE is the one anxiously staring out the window being told to “open the blinds.” (“Is it really your anxiety that stops you from giving me everything or do you just not want to?”, the lyric referring to Joe asking for marriage) This was a song written by Taylor from Joe’s perspective at the time. “I tapped on your window on your darkest night” (referring to Rep era) / “Starry eyes sparking up my darkest night.” … “And then you squeeze my hand as I’m about to leave.” (Joe’s POV) / “It’s on your face, don’t walk away, I need to say…” Taylor was the one always blowing up on him and then apologizing, as illustrated in Afterglow, The Great War, and most obviously her post-breakup behavior. Joe was NOT the volatile one of the two (also supported by articles released by her team, stating Joe’s personality was “great for Taylor” because “he is very calm”).

Then, just look at Midnights. The Bejeweled music video (which Taylor wrote and directed) is the clearest thing. A video all about choosing pop-stardom over a ring from a prince? While she and her boyfriend are having marriage disagreements? Hmmm. Interesting. Seriously, just go watch the intro to that video and tell me Taylor was the one fighting to get married behind the scenes.

Midnights lyrics: “He wanted a bride, I was making my own name. Chasing that fame.” (a person who WANTS to get married would NOT be writing this song!!!) “All they keep asking me is if I’m gonna be your bride. The only kind of girl they see is a one night or a wife.” “No deal the 1950s shit they want from me. I just wanna stay in that lavender haze” “I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser.” “I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money. She thinks I left them in the will.” (accompanied by elaborate scene displaying family-related anxieties in music video)

This is someone who is terrified of marriage and being an adult. I believe she launched herself into a fame-hug to avoid confronting her issues with Joe at this late stage in their relationship. After he broke up with her, she realized how deep of a mistake she made during the Eras Tour. Hence, the big lie in “You’re Losing Me” (which was written THEN, in 2023, conveniently dropped during the Matty Healy controversy) and her daring him to “say something” about the lie. (False God lyric: “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this, staring out the window like I’m not your favorite town.” When they fight, he was always the one ignoring her craziness.) And soon after, her peculiar surprise song choices on June 23: “Paper Rings” (“I’d marry you with paper rings”) and “If This Was A Movie” (“If this was a movie, you’d be here by now”).

The initial breakup article by People (Tree Paine’s mouthpiece) even outlines this story. “According to multiple sources, Swift and Alwyn had been ‘talking about marriage as recently as a few months ago.’ But at the end of the day, the couple wasn’t ready for a future together. ‘Taylor didn’t see them working out in the long run,’ says the insider.” This was before she wrote YLM, trying to provoke him, and now she will be driving it further with this new album I’m certain she wrote during 2023, NOT 2 years ago like she and Jack are trying to push. Her having Jack drop YLM’s “2021 date,” and then liking that tweet implying Sweet Nothing was not about Joe (when it was clearly about Joe)… she’s rewriting the narrative. You can’t trust a word she says.

#you are losing me #taylor swift #anti taylor swift #anti matty healy #joe alwyn #matty healy #the tortured poets department #midnight album #reddit #midnights

[buddiebeginz]

You know I think I find this kind of thinking even worse than people who just never liked Buddie to begin with. People who claim to love Buddie or who were Buddie shippers and who are now trashing Buddie just to prop up Buck/T*mmy are literally some of the worst.

I think everyone should be allowed to like and ship who they want. I'm not a multishipper so I don't ship Buck and T*mmy and I'm not the biggest fan of T*mmy in general but I do see the significance of him in Buck's story.

What I don't get is how so many of you have become so enamored with a ship from very little buildup that you don't care anymore about how important Eddie coming out and Buddie becoming canon is. Also that you'd go back on all of your opinions on Buddie and the history they've shared.

The fact is Eddie coming out as gay is incredibly important. Just as Buck coming out as bi is ground breaking in it's own way and increasing much needed representation for bisexual characters, a character like Eddie coming out would also be ground breaking. Eddie is older, a veteran, Mexican, a single dad, struggles with mental health issues, a firefighter, fits a model of stereotypical masculinity, etc. There are so many people who would be helped to see a character like Eddie have a queer awakening in ways that are different than Buck's.

Buddie becoming canon is also equally as important as the coming out storylines for Buck and Eddie. I know people keep trying to say it's not and keep hating on anyone who dares to talk about Buddie along with Buck's bi awakening but it all matters.

It's not that Buddie has to happen for Buck and or Eddie to be queer but it should. I could write a novel on the history that is shared between these men. They are so much more than just friends honestly not sure how anyone can even see them that way. If you compare them to any other friendship on the show there is so much more there. They also know one another and are there for one another in ways no one else is. Buddie already has this epic love story built up it's why so many of us are waiting for them to reach that next level of their relationship.

Buddie would also be groundbreaking in their own way if they make it a canon ship. We have never really had a slow burn queer romance especially not with two men figuring out their sexuality later in life like this and on a primetime show. It's also not just about Buck and Eddie it's about Christopher too. We've watched Buck and Eddie basically co-parenting together for six years. It would be so amazing and important to have Buck actually recognized as Chris' other dad.

I just don't get how you can watch these men loving and supporting and fighting for one another over six long years and then trash their relationship because one of them kissed someone else and call this new guy basically his soulmate. We don't even really know T*mmy or how a relationship with him and Buck might work out because they're not even in one they're just dating.

I don't get anyone who can't see how Buddie being canon could literally change how queer ships are written in the future. We deserve to have our ships written with the same passion and care as straight ships have been. Also don't say you love Buck and then say you want his endgame love to be some guy you don't even really know. He deserves an amazing love story like the other characters have had on the show. He deserves Eddie who has fought and screamed and chosen him time and time again. Who has literally made Buck Chris' other dad, even put it down legally in writing for all intents and purposes because that's how much Eddie trusts Buck and how much he means to him.

I know the show runners/writers don't let fandom stuff influence all the decisions they make but it has some sway because I fully believe our love for Buddie has helped push things to where they are now. It does seem there is a plan already in place for Buddie to be canon but things can always change in shows I mean Tim said he was still writing and filming episodes. All I know is if the more vocal Buck/T*mmy (endgame) shippers do anything to help derail Buddie happening I'll never forgive you. I'm sure I sound ridiculously dramatic here but this isn't just about me not getting to see a fictional ship. Buddie going canon and Eddie coming out mean so much more and I'm sorry some of you can't see that.

#buddie #911!

[kateisprettyodd]

Discussing Watcher again lmao

Okay, now that a couple of days have passed and emotions aren't running high anymore - I wanna talk about the situation, the backlash, their potential response and everything else once again (with somewhat of a refreshed POV lmao).

I haven't changed my mind about this move whatsoever since the moment I heard about it. I'm an international fan, and through the very kind Tumblr user who is organizing a subscription match-up between fans through Email - I think it was @prettyghoul- someone was thankfully willing to reach out to me and share their account. So the money issue isn't a problem for me, sure, but WAIT - the website isn't international, I don't know if it's gonna be made available in my 'insignificant' Eastern European country (lmao), so a whole slew of issues arise that aren't money related (but of course, someone else would be paying, so I can't really speak on that issue on that person's behalf).

Secondly, people who are defending Watcher on here and on other social media - I understand you, I get you, but to be perfectly honest some of you are cherry-picking the information you present and are somehow blind to their intentions, either on purpose or genuinely. I don't understand how people can't see that making this move is so incredibly selfish. That's the best and frankly only way to describe it. And no, it's not because creatives don't deserve to be paid for the work that they do, and it's not because we are ENTITLED to receiving free content on YouTube (which is the main narrative being pushed by defenders on here) - but it's because their ambitions do not line up with the audience-based shows they have been creating. They have incredible creative abilities and true passion for creating shows which are "much higher-quality than other YouTube shows" (simply not true but I digress), but nothing will ever change the fact that they started on YouTube, that their main audience was cultivated on YouTube, the place they have come to despise because of the limitations to THEIR creative work, such as appealing to advertisers and whatever else they mentioned in the video. This I can understand, YouTube's algorithm sucks and advertisers are also horrible, as well as the fact that 'unappealing' yet passionate shows don't do well - this can all take a hit on their creativity and their passion for YouTube. I understand. But they have to weigh these cons against the pros, and they clearly did a horrible job of that. YouTube allows them to increase their relatability and their marketability if you play by the rules, YouTube allows them to connect with other creators WHICH SOME OF THEIR SHOWS LITERALLY depend on, YouTube allows them things like the discover page and the trending page where new audiences can find your stuff once you expand your reach to appeal to different demographics and interest groups, YouTube Membership is a thing if you need income, whatever. I understand that they don't want to play by the rules, but if your audience is gone then who are you making these shows for??? When your main venture is paid, even if it is 'only' 5.99 a month (lmao again), other options where they can make revenue immediately close up, since they can't really justify them. Why does their Patreon still exist??? What was the purpose of PodWatcher??? How are shows like Are You Scared? and Too Many Spirits going to survive on a streamer, shows which are based on that exact YouTube vibe of low-production two dudes chilling and laughing. Why are they considering their shows TV-caliber? Puppet History and Mystery Files are certainly NOT TV-quality and they are the second- and third-most popular.

Which is what brings me to my next point - how this all seems Ghost Files and Travel Season centered. No one can convince me that most of their expenses are not going to these two shows right now. Ryan said it himself, a season of Ghost Files takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to make, which is fine and I commend him for that effort. I don't even have to tell you why Travel Season also may have cost them a lot of money - which is also fine and I understand the appeal of it. But why not try a different approach? A season of Ghost Files doesn't necessarily have to come out every year, they could space out their budget, spend time churning out Too Many Spirits and Are You Scared (also shows that perform quite well), update their Patreon to look more Mythical Society-esque, do a merch drop (I have seen so many people asking for box-sets of their shows, and I can guarantee people would have paid A LOT of money to get a Puppet History karaoke thing on Patreon or WHEREVER)... Just generally diversify their income??? And space out these GIANT, extremely expensive shows, generally pace themselves and take it easy?

Now, they won't be able to expand their reach EVEN IF they bring new personalities onto the streamer. No one new will hear about them, and if they do, why would they pay for something they've never heard of before? There is no algorithm to cater to the masses which recommends their videos to new people. People who were here from the BFU days are disilluisoned and probably won't pay. They legitimately sacrificed their audience for money to fuel their creative ambitions, but their creative ambitions don't have an outlet anymore.

TO BE CONTINUED as this is too long already

#watcher #ryan bergara #shane madej #steven lim #ghost files #mystery files #watcher entertainment #are you scared #puppet history #too many spirits #travel season

[ellaphnt]

I think Shuro was aware Falin didn’t feel the same way. But she helped him vocalize his feelings for the first time, and so he wanted to offer the same courtesy. Let her answer him herself, when she was ready. That’s why he waited for her. I’m guessing their final discussion on this WAS when they both felt like talking about it. And if not, it’s because enough time has passed plus they were running out of time (Shuro leaving). In the end, he wasn’t surprised at the rejection, just, satisfied at its natural conclusion. They can both step away from this as individuals who chose their own path.

And through the story, ofc he still hopes! It’d be weirder if he wasn’t. But like, when the response to a proposal is “I need time to think,” the answer is obviously “I don’t feel the same way,” whether she accepted or not. Part of the hope could be naivety, but I think he was readying himself for whatever answer she gave. A+ btw for handling the rejection with such grace. And for Falin who was so gentle, and have given her future some thought. Neither are as passive as they used to be. They both grew so much.

Side tangent, Shuro likely sees him and Falin as very similar people, both with issues telling people no, both struggling to become their own person. And she was weird too! (in the bug liking way)! He was always too scared to express himself. He probably looked up her a lot as the kind of person he would like to be. That’s why I think he had faith that Falin would get back to him about the proposal. She needed time to think, but he knew she could come through and vocalize her thoughts. He learned from her, after all.

#not saying they were perfect btw #shuro tunnel visioned hard when he stopped taking care of himself #hes never liked anyone this much #ofc he’s going to fumble #this all goes back to how shuro symbolizes hope in the story #someone said that about the bell and I ran with it #just a hopeful guy #maybe a bit naive #but he learned it from the toudens #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi #shuro #toshiro nakamoto

[hanafubukki]

So Hana; I came across a post talking about unpopular twst opinions and was wondering if you had any.

Hello Violet 🌸💚🌷

I hope it’s okay for me to call you Violet 💚🌷

This is a rather interesting question 🤔 and I had to think on it a bit. I honestly don’t know if some of what I say is unpopular or not, so I guess I’ll express a few of my opinions that I have. ☺️🌺

I guess before I list them I should say that this is my opinion only. I don’t mean to hurt anyone by expressing them nor am I calling out anyone. Literally just my thoughts. You’re allowed to agree or disagree✨✨

Normally, I would assume I wouldn’t have to put a disclaimer such as this because everyone has their own opinions and we should all have an open mind but I’ve seen the internet lol and wowza on how some act to such things lol 🌺🙏

I hate the guest room. Personally, I’m not into that kind of mechanics in gaming. It’s not for me. The fact that we have to do it to level up friendship levels irks me. And it’s a complicated system too which is another annoying aspect. I also kind of blame the guest room function for personal stories being lowered since those have been replaced with furniture. It’s just an extra chore that I’m not really into.

Event wise: I think we have too many octa (+ ortho and ace) in them. My diasomnia bias aside, I don’t think the other characters get enough spotlight. When was the last time Ruggie was in an event? Cater? Riddle? Jack? Kalim? Rook? Deuce? I know octa make them money but still, give the others more spotlight? I don’t count the beach or Halloween event either. Because Halloween, half the cast is in it and beach event was similar. Even New years I don’t count, because eventually, we will get them all in new years outfit. The usually four character events is what I’m speaking of because that’s when you get proper screen time and development for each character. I can literally go on lolol

I don’t know why this would be unpopular but it seems it might be? But I don’t hate RSA. They have a lot of potential story telling wise and their side of things. And I know there’s biasness with NRC and we wanting them to win, but I feel there’s more to RSA than we know. Like how we shouldn’t judge villains, we shouldn’t judge the “heroes” either.

Jp schedule wise I don’t think they are too slow as many believe. I think for the working female class, which the game is aimed at, the scheduling is perfect since it was made for them after all. It gives them time for daily life and twst gaming. Doesn’t mean I don’t get impatient either lolol

On the other spectrum, EN is going too quick. With events and main story. Slow down. What are you trying to accomplish except burn out your fanbase?

I don’t want an anime. We will get one. There’s a high chance and I’ll watch it obviously. But I honestly don’t care for one. The issues that an anime will bring…is a lot.

I don’t think the gameplay is boring. As mentioned before, the game was made for the female working class. So the gameplay is to the point, and depending on the event, can be challenging. But grinding wise and all that? It’s pretty working class friendly. If I didn’t have the auto lessons and battles, I wouldn’t be playing it. It’s because of those mechanics that I am. Thats what stops me from playing many mobile games. The constant forced to play and keep track. Hence part of why I’m not into Hoyoverse games.

I don’t really care for “this place in twst = this place in IRL.” to me, it’s a game in a fantasy world. Is it interesting to see some of the influences? Yes, of course. But that’s it. I’m playing this game for the fantasy setting, the magic, the story, and the characters. I don’t really care to add, realism, I guess you could say? (I’m trying to escape reality okay? Why would I want it in my games?? 🤣🤣)

I wish we had more magic in my magic world. And I think it mainly applies for book 7 for me personally and how “wow, tech is going to beat malleus and save the day” but I kind of wish that isn’t the case. Yes, it makes for fun story telling and memes. But, for a magic based dorm, I want a magic based solution. That and the fact, I don’t care for the implication how magic is slowly being taken over by technology. Kind of hits close to home you know?? With all the AI shenanigans.

I hope two certain popular theories aren’t true and I’ll leave it there. My personally thoughts on them is, I hope it’s not that predictable and I had hoped for a different route for such characters/events.

I’ll stop there before I make a whole essay for you to read lmao 🤣🤣 I have more thoughts that I could share but this is already so long 😆

I don’t know if this was a “unpopular opinion” or more me rambling but I’ll let you decide that Violet 🙏💞☺️

What about you? What are some of your thoughts?

Would love to hear other’s opinions as well ☺️🌺

#answered #🌺Violet🌺

[jesncin]

please do tell about why woman of tomorrow sucks i love reading your takes they’re always so well written

Sure! And thank you for throwing me this bone because WOOF

(btw it's totally fine for people to like Woman of Tomorrow, and I can even see why! This is just my experience with it that I wish was talked about more)

Quick context: Woman of Tomorrow is about a space farmgirl named Ruthye who seeks revenge on Krem, a guy who killed her dad. Supergirl guides her on this journey so they can learn lessons about grief and revenge.

The biggest flaw of the comic is the narrative prose. Ruthye's dialogue is a rambly, over-indulgent, stylized mix of an attempt at medieval Shakespearian speak, but then in the last few issues the writer remembers she's a farmgirl so he decides she should suddenly say "ain't" more often and speak in double negatives to sound a bit more Southern. I can enjoy wordy comics! But Ruthye's dialogue and narration is blatantly excessive purple prose. So many scenes would hit harder with a less-is-more approach while still being stylized and characteristic. Sometimes the narrations pairs nicely with the art to create layered irony, but most of the time it feels like it's disregarding the comics medium altogether.

The other thing about Ruthye's narration is that it holds the story back. I get that the narration is Ruthye writing from the future, but the way it's done gives us a very passive relationship with the events of the story. We don't get to be with the characters in the action heavy moments because we're reading caption boxes of Future Ruthye rambling about poetry recounting The Battle of Capes. I'm not experiencing grief or dread with the characters, I'm being told about it. All of Ruthye's narrative rants boil down to "Supergirl is really badass, sad and kind. I promise this is deep." and "here's how my farm girl experience is relevant to this". Ruthye also speaks in glowing admiration, idealization and worship of Supergirl; it makes it really hard to get to know Kara in a humanizing way. I'm sure the purple prose hits differently for others, but I personally think the story would have more room to breathe without it.

You know how people like saying "Superman is boring because everything is too easy for him, he's too powerful" yeah that's Woman of Tomorrow. The conflict Kara faces are not challenges to her character, they're inconveniences. The resolutions to each story don't feel clever or earned. Kara just knows where to find the murdered purple aliens, Kara just happens to have a silver age-reference magical horse that can outrun the suffering-ball Krem throws at her, Kara just toughs out 10 hours in the green sun. Why be a smart storyteller when you can just give your heroine the upper hand every single time? There could've been a great bonding moment where Ruthye uses her famer-smarts to build shade for Kara, she could've crafted a salve to protect Kara's skin. But I guess having her guard Kara from dinosaurs is ok. Kara helps of course, even though she's dying because she's so cool, badass, sad, kind, etc.

Kara's internal conflict is that she was hoping that taking Ruthye on this journey would teach the farmgirl a lesson about revenge, but has Kara herself learned to move on? She's still thinking about Krypton after all. The problem with how this is presented is that it's not a flaw that we get to see evolve with the story. We see Kara act mopey, get an origin story flashback and then Kara tells us this- in hopes it'll recontextualize everything you've read before. By the time we make it to the end, the characters act like they've learned so much and I'm just standing here wishing I got to see all this growth they're talking about.

At the heart of it, I feel like Woman of Tomorrow represents the side of Super-fandom that wants to see the Kryptonians deified by the narrative. They hate seeing Kara do silly girly rom-com teenager things, she needs to be SERIOUS and EDGY and SAD and ALONE but like a god would be and not how a young woman would be that way. How else will boys take her seriously? Don't forget to remind the reader that she's STRONGER than her boy scout wholesome cousin! There's potential in a short revenge story about young girls finding hope in seeing a role-model woman survive loss, but not like this.

"You don't think I could've solved all those problems? C'mon I'm Supergirl." I sure love seeing female characters be badass girl-god legends who don't get to be humanized by being unflatteringly flawed people. Anyway the better Supergirl grief+revenge story is "Supergirl: Being Super". I don't think it's perfect because it misses the crucial difference between Kal and Kara among other things- but as a story about a teenage heroine learning how grief shapes her and those around her, it's way better.

Woman of Tomorrow's art is stellar though lmao would get a copy just as an artbook to reference.

#askjesncin #woman of tomorrow #jesncin dc meta #media criticism #there's a whole Ruthye rant where she talks about how superfam stories aren't pointless because they'll meet opponents stronger than them #and then the story proceeds to show supergirl defeating genocide pirates no biggie with help from horse #all she had to do was fight harder

[mmurkoff]

hihi not sure how fond myrielle and aerion are of each other (would love to know more about their dynamic if you are willing to share <3) but they remind me of the “who tf is burning down my kitchen” “making breakfast for my beautiful wife” twitter meme

anon ... i giggled .

as for marriage dynamics well .. i feel like by default any relationship with a guy everyone hates for good reason is going to be a bit strained . but somehow they're both kind of deranged enough to make it work (er.. well... somewhat...).

ive talked very briefly about it in my little myrielle post already but it kind of had to grow into anything beyond hating each other . right when myrielle gets to court she holds a lot of resentment toward him, mainly because he's the second son of a fourth son - not really heir to anything, and even when she's young she wants to aim higher than that with her betrothal. she spends a lot of time pining after the concept of another man that she deems 'better' (valarr, matarys, even daeron etc - the actual people matter less than the fact that they're further up in the succession than aerion) just because she's decided to herself that she deserves more. a little girl playing into the idea of being a wife and centering her whole worldview about that ala really twisted westerosi expectations and societal structures

it's kind of what you'd expect from two very willful very spoiled preteens; a lot of petty squabbles and little disagreements that have them bickering and squabbling and it's a bit of a mess . in time though it breezes over kind of because they both grow up and 'mature' in the sense that they aren't calling each other stupid and pushing each other over in the yard anymore LOL

by the time they're married ... well . it's .... . myrielle is fond of him and finds him handsome and dashing while they're in public and in private he at least treats her well a couple days a week which is enough . i think it's very shallow in the sense that ... i'm not sure if they ever truly know each other fully . myrielle projects her ambitions onto him and steadily heads down her path to making sure he becomes king (after the tourney at ashford meadow and the great spring sickness when things get a little crazy in how many targs are dying off) and aerion projects some idea of the wife he'd imagined himself to want onto her . in my mind he's kind of giving targ man too caught up in the idea of his ancestry and his family traditions given his whole deal with the dragon delusions etc so its lots of hey what if you pretend like you're (targ woman of his choosing) and ill be (her evil husband) and then we'll be a Proper Couple instead of a Fake Arrangement between me (perfect prince) and a lesser non-targ woman . you can see that there might be some issues here .

definitely not good . they hold resentment for each other mutually for a variety of reasons but theres also some deep seated dedication there especially from myrielle . she gets so deep into the thought of the both of them rising further than they're expected to that she in turn essentially drops everything for him and makes a lot of questionable choices and does a lot of questionable things to keep him happy and to assist him in whatever way she thinks he needs . i feel like she gets very caught up in the idea of really feeding into the idea aerion has of their marriage . tries to play into the thought of being more of a targaryen and tries to shift and change herself which never really works because she does treasure her own family and her identity but also because things just don't go the way she wants .

errr. ride or die i guess but it's weirrddddddd . which is funny to say because in practice they both cheat on each other and lie to each other and fight and bicker but they keep going back for more . why...? well.. maybe duty maybe genuine care maybe a third more evil option. me when i go out and cheat on my wife but its okay because i come back and bring her nice gifts and we do our historical targ roleplay which isn't weird at all guys i promise please guys listen its not weird its not w

rubs my chin. a lot of thoughts but i'm bad at putting them into words. i hope this is anything . probably not. one day you'll get something better from me .... .... <3

#txt #asks #oc #oc tag #aerion targaryen #aerion brightflame

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Okay so what I am getting is that MHJ is being targeted and pushed out. But what I don’t understand is why? Surely it’s not ONLY because she is pushing against the powers in Hybe? Is this all just because egos were being bruised?

I just can’t wrap my head around it all and why they would risk damaging New Jeans for all of this. But seeing how corporate executives (especially from the stupidity that’s happened over at SM) are I guess it makes sense…

*

Ask 2:

But why would Hybe want MHJ gone, bpp? Or, why would the top dogs at Hybe allow this attack on her? She is clearly very good at her job, and is behind the success of Hybe's second biggest group (I put Newjeans over 17), and until now it seemed like they were ready to provide her with the funds, connections and freedom to grow Newjeans to even bigger heights. Trying to take her out seems so stupid and counterproductive for the future of Newjeans and Ador in general....

***

I ramble. Sorry.

I mean, it’s still quite possible HYBE is right and Min Heejin is stupid enough to be guilty of everything they’ve accused her of.

But I want to highlight a few things I believe about MHJ and this situation. Some of them, such as the blind about the SM colleague who gifted her the ig pictures, I’ve talked about before in more detail, but here’s a summary of what I think about MHJ that’s influenced this outcome:

For Korean sensibilities, she’s an extremely unlikeable woman. Not necessarily because she could be cruel, harsh, or anything like that (though I wouldn’t be surprised if she is), but because of how male-like she is, down to how she expects (and demands) her words and contributions to be weighted. To put it mildly, she’s a freak of nature in Korea. It’s one reason I think she’s only gotten this far in her career because of how genuinely good she is at her job, and how often she insists on full credit.

But the first rule of corporate culture is that no one is indispensable, and it’s necessary to have friends in high places. The latter is easy to do if you’re a man, but near impossible if you’re a woman, especially for a woman like MHJ if I’m right about the kind of person she is.

The best thing for NewJeans and Min Heejin, would’ve been for these issues to be resolved internally. I’m sure everybody involved knows that. There is no outcome with things as they stand now, that doesn’t significantly damage NewJeans and MHJ. But the fact that the current scandal leaves only the current choices, and this is the result only because of a third factor: VP L, stands out to me. Meaning, if VP L wasn’t in the picture, chances are things wouldn’t have come to this point. Recall, VP L was apparently a fairly recent addition to ADOR.

It’s true that Min Heejin wants more independence and exclusivity for ADOR. It was the one condition for her joining HYBE when Bang PD hired her in 2019. In my view, it’s clearly a point of pride for her. However, if another sub-label shows no respect for that independence and exclusivity, I can see how many, including MHJ, would think it’s meaningless. HYBE offers immense resources, but corporate tussles over more access to those resources while insisting on independence and exclusivity can easily become heated, personal, and nasty. Especially if the person demanding it is a woman with the ego of a man.

I’m sure several allegations such as MHJ wanting to gain more share ownership, are probably things MHJ has said at various points, though the practicality of her pulling it off while NewJeans is still such a young group is next to nil - something MHJ has also admitted. So MHJ has admitted to actually wanting more independence and ownership, (something she’s accused of by HYBE), but refusing that she planned to go about it now and in the way they’ve alleged. That’s part of what makes this scandal so insidious. It’s weaponizing an obvious desire years before the target can realistically develop the ability to act on it. I’ve seen people frame HYBE’s move as a counterattack, but in reality it’s preemptive. It slows down NewJeans’ trajectory, yes, but in a multi-label system that’s been revealed to have poorly managed and toxic competition, there are likely more people interested in seeing that happen, than the reverse.

SM Entertainment has a reputation for blacklisting artists and employees who cut ties with them. I’ve talked about this in more detail before, but just as it was during the CBX lawsuit when suddenly, blinds started popping up smearing the characters of Baekhyun, Xiumin, and Chen and it caught on because some truth was mixed with truly fucked up shit (the members eventually dropped most of their demands and settled with SM), and just as during MHJ’s ig scandal where the picture gifts from her ‘friend at SM’ resulted in a smear campaign that combined some truth with a rumormill of misinformation… those are the examples I’ll list for now but understand this is very common playbook with SM in particular. That nonsense about the Pink Bloods didn’t come from nowhere. A top executive could use that phrase unironically and publicly because the company culture at SM, more than any other agency, is patently cult-like, as admitted by their own employees over literal decades. There’s a sense that nobody can really leave. When another blind from 2021 mentioned that the sense of resentment and betrayal at SM was extremely high when MHJ moved to HYBE, it only adds to my view.

Something that informs my view is that VP L *moved to ADOR* before all of this happened. If it’s assumed he acted sympathetically, that is, wanted to help MHJ achieve her goals of being independent from HYBE, then anyone would tell you that him moving to ADOR was exactly the wrong thing to do. Everything he did at ADOR, he could’ve done while at HQ - the file he created with sale scenarios, the alleged showing of financial documents to MHJ, the supposed courting of investors. In fact, it would be more useful for ADOR/MHJ to have him remain at HYBE if the point was for him to have a hand in HYBE granting them more autonomy. This is like the abcs in business. It’s why the double agent always remains in enemy camp rather than move to the home base. The only thing his move to ADOR does, is incriminate them beyond doubt. And that’s what has happened. This is the most illogical thing to me about this entire scandal.

Min Heejin is naive and careless, and probably not much of a conventionally accepted ‘good person’. In my opinion. The thing about people like this is, even if they are innocent in reality, they are perceived by most people not to be. Because naive, careless, and bad people, deserve to be punished in any case. She’s a classic scapegoat and she has no one to blame but herself for being in this situation.

I like NewJeans, and despite everything, I don’t think HYBE wants them to fail. And like you’ve all realized by now, the fallout of this scandal isn’t limited to just Min Heejin and NewJeans, it negatively affects every single group from HYBE. The company will try to maintain normalcy for their groups. I suspect things will likely continue business as usual for them, unless somebody does something truly crazy. But like most other scandals in k-pop, they’ve become ‘tainted’, something that could only happen due to a group of people within HYBE who don’t genuinely take pride in the work created by the sub-labels in HYBE.

If Bang PD had any sense, he’d root out that group. He seems to still enjoy producing too much for me to think he’s part of that group himself, but I have no longer have illusions as to his limitations as a businessman.

[starry-bi-sky]

I'm having incoherent thoughts about clone danny again from the clone/clone^2 au (when am I not?) but more specifically I'm thinking about his reaction to finding out he's a clone. The standalone clone au digs into that a little more than clone^2, which is more focused on Danny and Damian's relationship. But neither (so far) really get into Danny's issues about finding out he's a clone after 15 years of thinking he wasn't.

Because he resents his parents for not telling him for so long. He resents the way he found out; through a trivial school project rather than a sit-down talk. He resents the fact that, apparently, they had meant to tell him sooner. But forgot. He resents the fact that they never told him because finding out feels like something was stolen from him when it had the chance to not be.

Danny Fenton, just fifteen, cloned not even half a year ago, knows what that personal violation of autonomy feels like. He knows what it's like to be cloned and while he loves Ellie, he does, she's his sister, and in this au his twin. But he is still left with that feeling of unsafety after realizing he'd been cloned. Being cloned is violating. The onset realization that it's so easy to get DNA without the other party noticing, and that what was stopping someone from trying to clone him again?

Followed only after with the rest of the inexplainable mix of feelings of being cloned, the rest of that inner conflict and panic that's an ugly mocktail of emotions that range from horror to fear. Trying to imagine what it's like to be cloned from the cloned party, and I imagine that it leaves you with the feeling of needing to crawl out of your own skin with discomfort.

And then he gets put on the other side of it. Danny Fenton, only fifteen, was cloned not even half a year ago, finding out he is a clone. And reactions, I imagine, can vary from person to person. But to him, it feels like something got stolen from him, like someone took a hole puncher and stuck it right into his chest and stole a chunk of himself from him.

It changes nothing about him and yet it changes everything. It's a betrayal on it's own to just find out he was a clone and they didn't tell him for fifteen years -- it shouldn't mean anything, because he's still Danny, and yet it means everything. It's him, it's him, it's about him. It's his personhood. It's about the fact that a load-bearing rock in his identity just crumbled beneath his feet and now there's a rockslide.

Because then he finds out that they used the wrong DNA. Its like pouring salt in an open wound. He's not even related to his parents or his sister, when for years he thought he was. It's the fact that pieces of his identity that he's been so secure in for so long just got ripped away from him in an instant. Then they tell him -- only through his own horrified prompting -- that the person whose DNA they used -- Bruce Wayne -- didn't even know he existed. That they accidentally used the wrong DNA, then didn't tell the person whose DNA they used.

The betrayal of being lied to for years turns really quickly into horror at his own existence. Something very similar to the horror he felt at being cloned and the skin-crawling discomfort that made him feel like his own skin wasn't really his. And then its not. It's actually not. Nothing but his own name feels like it belongs to him anymore -- not his hair, not his eyes, not his heart or his lungs, nothing feels like his anymore and he didn't know what that felt like until it was gone.

It's a question of Nature Vs. Nurture -- where does the line of "nature" begin and where does the line of "nurture" end? What of him is actually his? What of him is Bruce Wayne's? It's not logical, it's not supposed to be. It's a load-bearing wall on the house of his identity being destroyed and now everything else is caving down in on him. What belongs to Danny, what belongs to Bruce Wayne?

#dpxdc #dp x dc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #clone^2 #danny fenton is a clone #its a combination 'oh my god i've been cloned too i know how violating that feels holy fuck' empathy and also the horror of finding out tha #the things you knew about yourself that you thought were unchanging was all WRONG. #its the fact that tragedy is always one step away from comedy. they're twins for a reason. the humor of finding out you're a clone through #a silly school project and the *horror* of finding out you're a clone from a silly school project instead of a proper conversation #danny goes into his room after he's done talking to his parents and he vomits into the garbage can under his desk. utterly horrified #and he calls sam and tucker crying. it shouldn't change anything he knows this and yet it changes EVERYTHING. he doesn't feel like himself #he doesnt feel like himself any*more.* this might be cause for him to do a closet overhaul. something to make himself feel like he's #in control of himself again. piercings. temporary hair dye. *something* to feel like he's in control. #its no wonder why he never wants to tell bruce wayne he exists because he *knows* how violating that feels and he's *afraid.* #it makes him takinh in damian a little more remarkable bc it undoubtedly made #his identity issues worse. but thats a child and a child who needs help and danny is *kind*

[creative-hanyou-girl]

I don't know if anyone else feels this way but I think a big reason why I'm so chill about the changes made to the PJO show from the books is because I kind of look at each other as their own seperate canon.

Like, I read a lot of anime and manga, and anime adaptations have a huge habit for changing plot points for various reasons, and as a fan of said anime and manga, I've found that I can enjoy both versions of the same story even with the differences when I look at them as their own universe or canon. That's not to say I don't want them to be faithful or true to the source material, but if a scene or situation plays out differently for a logical or entertaining reason, than I can still appreciate that deviation from the manga even if I still like the other original version of that part more. And I can even like the reversal way if I feel an anime does something better than even the manga. But if I want to, I can look at certain moments as more canon than others because I got 2 different versions of that same scene or moment.

And, I don't know, I kind of apply that reasoning to the PJO series as well, mainly with the books, the show, and even the musical (not the movies put that right back where it came from). So far I'm loving the TV show, and while I miss some of the things they changed (like the pink poodle), this adaptation really is doing a great job with staying true to the heart and spirit of the original book that I personally am not even really bothered by the changes, especially when I remember that the books will always still be there with it's own version, or canon, of events.

Like, I will say 1 thing I adore in the books that isn't really in the show is the fact that a lot of Percy and Annabeth's "rivalry" during TLT has more to do with the rivalry between Poseidon and Athena. I just really like on how this adds a level of "forbidden friendship/love" to their relationship 'cause I personally eat the forbidden relationship trope up, especially when it's done well like with Percabeth.

Yet, even if this isn't really the reason percabeth have beef with each other in the show, I can still appreciate and enjoy that according to the show's canon, they have issues because they genuinely have problems with each other as actual people rather than their parents' rivalry, because at the end of the day, that's the PJO TV show canon, and I can always turn to the books for that version of Percabeth's "rivalry", as that is the PJO book canon.

Same goes for the characters too. I will always have and love my dark haired Percy and blond haired Annabeth in the books, but I can also welcome and love Walker's Percy and Leah's Annabeth from the show. And so far, they along with Aryan are KILLING IT as those characters.

I can love both versions of the characters.

I can love both versions of the same story.

I can look at both versions as they own seperate canon or mix them together if I so wish too (especially since both versions of PJO are written by the same guy)

And that's ok. The adaptation doesn't have to be a complete copy of the books. It doesn't have to have things play out eactly the same way. The characters don't have to look exactly the way they are described as in the books. And that's ok. I will still always have the books to love and appreciate, but I can also start to love and appreciate the new adaptation for it's new spin and twists to the same story that sets it apart as it's own canon while still staying true to the spirit of its predecessor.

Anyway, sorry if I'm not making a lot of sense. I just think the people complaining about the changes in the show are looking at it all the wrong way. The show has it's own canon just as the books have their own canon, or even the musical. At the end of the day, isn't that kind of cool to have different versions of the same story and characters? Doesn't it give you so many more options to look at the story in different ways that you can prefer or choose from? Doesn't it give you new versions of canon that you choose from? And really, as long as the PJO adaptation, or any adaptation for that matter, stays true to the heart and spirit of the original story and characters, do the changes made really matter?

#anyway sorry for the long post #I've just been seeing a lot of people complaining about the PJO making changes from the books and I thought I give my 2 cents #& I thought about how the show dies make enough changes to certain events or plotpoints that you could look at it as its own seperate canon #and how that actually is kind of cool as it gives us another version of the same story and characters #it's actually really neat to have different versions of the same story ya know #its like. if I ever want the Percabeth that has more of a 'forbidden relationship' thing going on. there's always the book canon to fall on #likewise if I want the percabeth where they're rivals because they have genuine issues w/ eachother. there's the TV show. ya know? #and if I want the Athena that I can at least somewhat believe might actually care for Annabeth. there's the book canon #whereas if I want the Athena I straight up wanna strangle from the getgo. I now got the TV show for that😊 #same with the characters descriptions #I personally still imagine Percy and Annabeth as they are described in the books #but I am positvely loving Leah and Walker's portrayal of TV Percy and Annabeth so much. especially in these last few episodes. #and don't get me started on how much I love Aryan as Grover. he's the GOAT (literally🤭) #anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk #I just think its neat that Ive now got 2. even 3 versions of PJO canon that I can love together and individually at my disposal now #and I just think the people who are complaining about the show aren't seeing it that way and that's why they're whining about changes #like. chill guys. we still have the books. but now we also the show and musical to give us new versions of the same story and characters #and is that not amazing when you think about it? #percy jackson series #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson tv show #percy jackson #percy and annabeth #athena #annabeth chase #grover underwood #book vs show #percy jackson books #percy jackson musical #percabeth

[bloodanddiscoballs]

I love getting asked why I need a cane when I'm grocery shopping it's my favorite activity when I'm just trying to run errands

#I KNOW I LOOK YOUNG!!!!!!!!!!!! SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP TALKING TO MEEEEEEEEEEEE #i just wanted to figure out what cut of meat to get #i had this guy come up to me and “flirt” which A.) i very clearly am not choosing to look at you so why and B.) insulting me isnt gonna help #“why do you need that? is that just for fashion?” yeah totally its just for fashion thats why im actively leaning on it for support #i say i have back issues and hes like “oh but youre so young ;)” like ok??????? disabled people can be every age. #“what kind of back issues?” I DONT WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT MY MEDICAL SITUATION WHO ARE YOU?!?!?!!? #just #can i not exist #be gone foul white man