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shybunnie20 · 1 year

Note

I think I may have already sent this request before but I can’t remember. Sorry if I already did I couldn’t remember. Please take your time and don’t rush yourself I can wait ❤️

Could you please write an Eddie Munson x reader. The reader is Eddie’s girlfriend. Please do angst and fluff.

The reader gets injured (bit) the same way Eleven does in season 3 and same wound except this takes place in season 4 episode 7 where Eddie, Nancy, Steve and Robin are fighting the bats. At the end of the fight one of the tentacles grabs and bites the readers leg and Eddie is the first one to grab onto the reader as she is lifted into the air by her leg the same way Eleven was. Eddie, Steve, Nancy, and Robin are all fighting to get the reader down and finally do but the reader is severely wounded and losing a lot of blood. Eddie carries the reader as they all rush to get to safety as they try to hide in the upside down and just like Eleven they have to cut her leg open to get what’s inside her leg out. Once they do the reader passes out from blood loss and Eddie carries her as they all rush to Eddie’s trailer to get out of the upside down. Once they get the gate open Eddie helps get the reader through the gate as she is still passed out. They are able to get her through the gate and are able to tend to her leg. When the reader wakes up Eddie is sitting right next to her holding her hand and tells reader he thought he lost her. Eddie and the reader comfort each other over the events that just happened and fall asleep cuddling each other.

Silenced Cries Under Cobalt Skies

Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

★My Masterlist

Author's Note: Thank you for your patience and for trusting me with your request. This isn't nearly as polished as I'd like it to be but I don't want to keep you waiting. I changed the demobat lore along with other details from Ep 7 to better fit the circumstances. This was my first time writing anything Upside Down related, I hope I did your vision justice!

Established relationship. No use of Y/N. Moderate angst with comfort. Loosely based on events from S3 and S4.

Word count: 5k

Warnings: GORE: descriptions of physical injury (of the reader), heartache, includes swearing.

This isn’t how you planned to spend your Wednesday night. Initially, you were going to pick up an extra shift at the arcade. Instead, you’re perched on the bench of a shabby rowboat with your boyfriend seated beside you.

On the opposite bench, Nancy is sandwiched between Steve and Robin. The three of them are staring fixedly at the compass’s twirling needle. Robin relays the discovery to Dustin and Steve gets to his feet.

Nancy eyes Steve’s towering frame. “What are you doing?”

The boat bobs with the movement of Steve taking off his shoes, socks, and sweater. “I’m gonna go check it out.”

You look between him and Nancy with a furrowed brow. “Have you lost your mind? You can’t-”

“Unless any of you can top being a swim team co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years, then it’s gotta be me.” He reasons to no one in particular.

Eddie is unbothered and shows no interest in out-doing Steve’s courageousness. “No complaints from me. I do not wanna go down there.” He angles his flashlight over the gunwale but the beam fails to penetrate the onyx-hued water.

His comment is met with a single jab of your elbow into his side. Eddie groans and shoots you a scowl, “Ow, what the hell was that for?” He scans the disapproving glare that’s formed across the features of your face.

With preparative breathing exercises, Steve primes his lungs and observes the murkiness that awaits him. The heat radiating from his unclothed chest clashes with the evening air and it sends a shiver to his core.

“There’s no way you’re gonna be able to see anything.” Eddie wraps the flashlight in a plastic shopping bag that he pulled from his jacket pocket. “It won’t be waterproof but-” He secures it with a tight knot and holds the flashlight out to Steve. “It’ll do.”

“Thanks,” Steve exhales. He pauses before filling his lungs with a half-hearted prayer. “Wish me luck.” With that, he leaps with a pointed form and plunges beneath the surface of the lake.

Droplets land on your arm and it gives you an idea of how frigid the water is. The four of you sit in utter silence. Unlike them, you’re oblivious to how the boat is rocking from the bouncing of your leg. “He’s taking forever. What if something bad happened?”

Eddie doesn’t dare face you because he knows exactly what kind of look his remark is going to earn him. “It’s been thirty seconds, I’m sure King Steve is just fine. You heard him, he’s a certified lifeguard.” He mockingly emphasizes with hand quotes as if to say “big whoop.”

Eddie is the only one who can’t grasp the gravity of what’s happening right now. He’s unable to wrap his head around what you’ve gone through with your friends over the past two years. He has a general idea because you’ve tried to explain everything to him before, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Dustin attempted to translate the circumstances through the lens of D&D but Eddie couldn’t piece it together.

He spends so much of his free time in fictional worlds that he creates. Each realm is accompanied by sketches of fantastical creatures with a myriad of thorough narratives. Despite seeing the forces at hand with his own eyes, he can’t fathom that this is reality.

Seconds tick by with the lapping waves of Lover’s Lake. It’s nearing two minutes since Steve left. Robin nudges your leg as a silent ask for you to sit still, but It’s difficult to stop fidgeting.

Eddie wraps his arms around you and guides you to his shoulder. He buries his nose in your hair and basks in the familiar scent of your shampoo. “You’re alright.”

You may be okay though he’s doubtful that Steve is. Eddie not only saw Chrissy and Patrick levitate, but he heard their limbs snap like twigs with every contortion. At this rate anything is possible.

In addition to the traumatic shit he’s witnessed, Eddie isn’t exactly in tip-top shape. He hasn’t gotten a good night's rest in days, nor has he had a proper meal. He’s beyond miserable, and yet, he’s prioritizing your needs. He can’t do much given the situation at hand, but Eddie is doing his best to help you feel safe.

Eddie’s supportive words duke it out with your perturbed thoughts. His attempt is insufficient but it calms your nerves a little. Much to your dismay, your heart rate spikes with each bated breath that you take.

Robin remains focused on the navigation device, watching it spin endlessly in reaction to the gate below. Nancy is counting the seconds on her wristwatch. They haven’t spoken since Steve took the dive. The chirping of the crickets and frogs off in the distance fails to saturate the quiet.

Because you’ve been asked not to bounce your leg, you opt for picking at the shredded denim of Eddie’s jeans instead. To distract yourself further, you zero in on the rise and fall of his chest beneath the tattered Hellfire Club tee. Your focus is disrupted by a harsh gasp and splashing.

Upon seeing that Steve is alive, your muscles are freed of tension but your stomach is in knots nonetheless. “Did you find it?”

“Yeah, it’s down there.” Steve pants as his lungs struggle to expand. His tight grip on the ridge of the boat causes it to dip. Nancy slicks back the soaked hair that’s plastered to his forehead and they share a look of unease.

Robin is less worried. “Is it a snack-sized gate?” She chirps curiously.

Steve tries to catch his breath. Beads fall from his hair and trickle down his face. “No, no. It’s pretty damn big.”

A beat passes while everyone digests his findings and it conjures varying images in all of your minds. Suddenly, Steve is tugged down. Though not hard enough to rip his hands from the rim of the boat, it’s enough to spook him. Steve peers over his shoulder and just as his eyes meet yours, he’s abruptly yanked under.

A cacophony of his name sounds off. You and Nancy lean over and look down as if you’d be able to see anything. Robin is appropriately panicked now.

Eddie shouts and points to where Steve disappeared. “What the hell was that, man?!”

Nancy doesn’t hesitate to forgo a discussion and jumps in after him. Robin is close behind, less gracefully but just as hastily.

Eddie is too busy cussing to realize that you’re taking off your jacket. When he notices, his heart drops. “Woah woah woah, what do you think you’re doing? You’re not going down there.”

“Yes I am, he needs me!” You steady yourself near the ledge. With a deep breath, you mentally prepare for the drastic contrast between the sticky summer air and the cold lake.

Eddie grabs your hand firmly. “Absolutely not! You’re staying here with me. We don’t even know what we’re messing with!” He attempts to draw you closer but you don’t budge.

You turn to face Eddie and your gaze trails from where your hands are joined until your glassy eyes meet his widened ones. “Whatever it is, it has Steve and it’ll kill him.”

Bewildered is the only way to describe the look on Eddie’s face. He doesn’t care about Steve, he cares about you. Eddie is so fucking exhausted and the tide of adrenaline is wearing him thin.

After everything you and your friends have been through, there’s an inseparable bond and you vowed to fend for them by all means necessary. For the number of times that Steve has saved your life, you owe him this much.

The tremble of Eddie’s grasp is unmistakable. You stroke his fingers with your thumb to comfort him. “Stay here and wait here for me. I love you.” You pack your lungs with as much air as they’ll allow and let go of his hand.

When you leap off of the boat, Eddie reaches to grab you but he doesn’t act fast enough. He paces with short strides to work up the courage to go after you. “God dammit, this is such bullshit!” After pulling an exaggerated inhale through his mouth, he jumps into the lake.

After climbing through the sticky crimson fissure at the bottom of the lake, you manage to recover in good time from holding your breath. You take in the new surroundings but you’re unable to ignore how irritated your eyes are from the mossy water.

Smoke-like fog hangs in the air with such humidity that it’s as though you’re still underwater. The air smells like rotten wood and white ash floats to the ground from the fire in the sky that roars behind the dense clouds. Another crack of blazed lightning strikes mere seconds after the last and is followed by booming thunder. The area is rather desolate, bearing little to dampen the thunder’s ferocity.

The distant echo of struggling gets your attention. Despite being nearly 50 feet away, you bolt to Robin and Nancy’s assistance. You snatch up an oar that you spot by the vine-wrapped boat. Robin stomps on the tail of the demobat that’s strangling Steve. Nancy bludgeons it with all of her might and you swat away the two that are flying overhead with the objective of getting a taste of Steve.

Your shoulders pop with each swing of the oar. It’s as though the curse words that are tumbling from your lips are fueling you to whack the flesh-eating demons. Nancy and Robin are making equally as much noise with their grunting and shouting.

Meanwhile, Eddie floats above the gate. He’s stunned by the appearance of the glowing portal. He wasn’t sure what to expect but this wasn’t what he’d pictured. Though time is ticking and he doesn’t have long to inspect it because the tightness in his chest is rapidly worsening. He paddles forward and crawls through the gate.

One of the demobats swoops close enough that you’re able to snag it and impale it with the broken end of your oar. In doing so, you slam it to the ground and relish the way it’s squealing and flapping its wings.

Eddie heaves dramatically but in his defense, he can’t recall the last time he went swimming so his lungs are far from used to the pressure.

These creatures are damn hard to kill, but Nancy and Robin finally slay the demobat that had Steve in a chokehold. He stumbles to his knees and releases a heart-rending wheeze. You’re all relieved that Steve is unscathed. He’s beyond grateful to have fearless pals because he’d certainly be bat food by now if you hadn’t come to his rescue.

The environment is momentarily quiet so the four of you pause to catch your breath. The strenuous exertion produces a pang in your side. Just as your breathing is nearly restored, a slimy tail snakes around your throat like a noose. Before you can process it, you’re being hoisted up and slammed back down onto the cracked earth. A shriek escapes you before the tail tautens like a boa constrictor, effectively obstructing your airway. Eddie scrambles to his feet. He sprints faster than he’s ever run in his life.

Your friends’ reactions are delayed compared to Eddie’s due to being caught off guard but he has plenty of ground to cover. Of the three bats circling overhead, one of them descends from the sky and lands beside you. It latches onto your leg by sinking its razor-sharp teeth into the meat of your calf. A scream bubbles from your throat but it has nowhere to go.

With her blood-spattered oar, Nancy stabs at the demobat that’s choking you to death. The tail around your neck won’t let up. You claw at it but your fingernails are no match for the leathery skin. Simultaneously, you’re struggling to shake the other bat off by flailing but to no avail.

Steve grabs ahold of the tail belonging to the bat feasting on your leg. Although he’s far too weak to be of much help, Steve is giving it his all. Robin swings her oar to keep the last remaining creature at bay. Every time it flies closer to get a piece of you, Robin cracks it with the paddle as if she’s batting for a home run.

Your lungs are no longer receiving oxygen and deprivation of it causes black spots to bloom in your vision. It’s occurring to you that this is how you’re going to die. With that realization, the strength to flail and claw leaves your body, causing your limbs to go limp.

Eddie arrives just in time. He snags your abandoned weapon off the ground on his way to you. All of the pent-up fear and suffering from the last few days pours out of him in the form of a battle cry while he impales the head of the bat that has your neck. The demobat’s hellish grip releases and your airway is freed of the compression.

Steve and Nancy successfully detach the other bat from your leg, though it takes a bit of your flesh with it. Robin scans the area to make certain that the coast is clear. Luckily, the sky is free of any winged threats for the time being.

Before today, Eddie thought the idea of slaying monsters was thrilling but he feels differently now that he knows what it’s like.

Everyone surrounds you and Eddie falls to his knees. As he lifts your head, he can feel major swelling in the spot where your skull had hit the ground after being thrown down. “Baby, can you hear me?”

You lay stationary as your body acclimates to the renewed supply of oxygen. Your brain kicks into gear and your eyelids open a sliver. The low-lit environment looks smudged and out of focus. The rings around your throat are pronounced as blood fills the area. Now that you’re conscious, your vision is the first of your five senses to fully return. You see Eddie hovering over you. “Am I okay?” You ask breathily.

“Yeah, you’re okay. You’re gonna be just fine.” He reassures while stroking your cheekbone with his dirtied thumb. Eddie is struggling to catch his breath but he’s far more troubled by the state that you’re in.

“I wanna go home,” You whimper with a wobbly lower lip. You blink away the tears that are pooling at your lash line, afraid of losing sight of Eddie.

His heart cracks in half because he’s always been protective of you. Eddie’s biggest fear has come to fruition. For the duration of your relationship, a specific worry loomed over him. He constantly feared that something bad would happen to you for simply being associated with him and that’s exactly what happened. You got dragged into this mess to defend his name.

Screeching and yapping from behind the clouds indicates that another swarm of demobats is growing near.

Steve urges, “We gotta get out of here. It’s not safe.” He surmises that the bats are being drawn by the scent of the fresh blood trickling from the punctures in your calf.

Eddie lifts you off of the ground bridal style and frowns at your grimace of pain. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” He shifts your position in his arms so that your head rests comfortably against his shoulder.

After trudging through the leafless woods for quite some time, the group collectively agrees that this spot should be out of harm’s way. Eddie gently sets you down and props you up against the trunk of a fallen tree. He remains crouched and cradles your face in his palms. Eddie takes note of the swelling that spans your head and neck. Just as he turns to disclose this to the others, he’s startled by an ear-splitting yelp.

You throw your head back and squeeze your eyes shut. Eddie scans your expression in puzzlement. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

Robin’s voice cracks, “Uh, guys?” She points at your leg.

Eddie peers over his shoulder and his eyes follow Robin’s finger. He failed to notice the damage done by the other demobat when all hell broke loose. He thinks he understands why you’re in so much discomfort until there’s movement beneath your skin. You scream in agony and it’s a noise that none of your friends have ever heard you make.

Eddie loses his balance and falls on his ass. “What the fuck?!” He looks to Steve and Nancy for an answer but they’re speechless. Their stares are locked on the bulge inside of your oozing gash.

A roar of thunder weaves through the bare woods that you find yourselves in the heart of. The invasive crawling causes you to writhe.

Nancy kneels on the other side of you. She inspects your wound with her bottom lip between her teeth. “We have to get it out.”

Steve scoffs, “How exactly are we gonna do that, Nance?”

Eddie reveals a pocket knife. He holds it out and Steve takes it. Steve flicks the blade out to see what he’s working with.

Robin is quick to shut down the proposal. “Nu-uh, no way. This isn’t Operation, you can’t dig that thing out of her!”

“We don’t have any other options.” Nancy looks at Robin and then at you. “It can’t stay in there.”

Robin turns her back to the amateur surgery that’s about to unfold. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Both of Eddie’s hands caress your feverish cheeks. “Alright, sweetheart. I need you to sit still.”

“No-” you sob and fist at the material of your saturated shirt. “I can’t do it.”

While tracing the curvature of your jaw with the pad of his thumb, Eddie’s eyes look back and forth between yours. “We’ll get it out as quickly as we can. It’ll be over before you know it.” The sweetest sadness is swimming in your eyes and it makes his stomach churn. You’re so beautiful even when you’re shaking like a leaf.

“But I’m scared.” Your admission is laced with a quaking whine and your eyes have turned into puddles.

Eddie takes your hand and he interlocks his fingers with yours. “I know, baby. You gotta be my brave girl. I need you to do that for me.” With his free hand, he takes the skull handkerchief from his back pocket and folds it multiple times. Eddie taps on your chin, “Open, please.”

After hesitantly eyeing the cloth, you comply and open your mouth. “Bite down,” Eddie instructs and situates it between your teeth when you do so. Your mewl of protest is deadened.

“You’ve got this.” He kisses your forehead and strokes your hair with both hands. To block your line of sight, Eddie leans forward and tilts your head so you have nowhere else to look except at him. “Keep your eyes on me.”

The stillness of the creature is making Nancy and Steve nervous. She nudges Steve with her shoulder. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Steve clears his throat and adjusts the small knife in his unsteady grip. He takes two incredibly deep breaths and mutters, “Here goes nothing.” Steve presses the tip of the blade into the raw and inflamed skin.

Your wailing is effectively muffled by the handkerchief and it saves your tongue from being bitten off. You reflexively try to yank your leg away but Nancy holds it securely in place. Blood starts to drip faster as Steve sinks the blade deeper, aiming for the subtle squirming.

The deeper he goes, the more difficult it becomes for you to sit still. Your shoulders fly forward but Eddie guides you to lay back. His hand is starting to tingle from how hard you’re squeezing it. Your brain is so overwhelmed by the misery that you don’t taste the lake water on the hankie.

“I’m so sorry,” Steve says under his breath. He’s fighting the urge to look away from the blood staining his hand.

All of the moaning and bawling drowns out the ravenous screeching coming from afar. Eddie is trying to remain calm but his voice wavers. “He’s almost done. Just a little longer, sweetheart.”

You’re praying to god that this is nearly over, you're not sure how much more you can take. Your pupils disappear behind your eyelids as the hot tears roll down your cheeks and settle coldly in your ears. The portion of the handkerchief that’s hanging out of your mouth catches the transparent stream running from your nose.

The tip of the knife hits an incredibly sore spot and you scream through the tears. Adrenaline is doing nothing to stunt the pain. Your teeth could shatter from how hard you’re biting down on the wad of material. Eddie’s heart is shattering with every sound you make but he’s doing his best to soothe you.

Nancy is having a tough time keeping your leg in place and her grip is borderline bruising. Steve is on the verge of giving up but he spots a black tail and promptly rips it out. The squealing creature is flung aside. As soon as it hits the ground, Robin stomps it to death.

Steve tosses the knife and applies pressure to your calf with two hands. “Shit! Nance, a little help here?”

Your elevated heart rate is causing blood to gush out of your profoundly opened wound. Nancy tears off the bottom of her sweater and ties it tightly around your leg as a makeshift bandage.

Eddie pets your hair with one hand and removes the handkerchief from your mouth with the other. “You did amazing,” Eddie’s voice is broken because he’s close to tears from watching you go through all of this. “You were so strong for me, princess. Thank you.”

An excruciating ache pierces your jaw but it pales in comparison to the rest of your body. Your friends’ voices liquefy and sound as if they’re calling to you from the end of a tunnel.

Nancy applies firm pressure to your leg while Steve is preoccupied with talking Robin out of her rabies meltdown.

The air is so muggy that it’s causing you to sweat. Your body is swarmed with shuddering from the wet clothes clinging to your skin as well as from the major blood loss. Suddenly, you feel drowsy. “Is it bad?” You crane your neck to look down at your leg but your vision has gone blurry.

Eddie guides your gaze back to his face. He doesn’t want you to know how bad of shape you’re in. “You’re not bleeding that much-” He glances over his shoulder and holds his breath from seeing the concerning amount of blood you’ve lost.

The cream-colored knit is now scarlet and the blood is transferring to Nancy’s hands. You’re unable to form another sentence due to consciousness slipping through your fingertips. You can sense Eddie’s touch but it feels the way a whisper sounds. Unable to fight the weariness any longer, your eyelids droop and your chin drops to your clavicle.

“Hey- stay with me.” Eddie taps your cheek three times. “Don’t fall asleep! C’mon, talk to me.”

Your lashes flutter once but you can’t keep your eyes open or hold your head up. The reply he receives from you is nothing more than unintelligible mumbling.

“We’re leaving right now,” Eddie announces while scooping you into his arms again. He kisses your forehead and speaks with his lips against your skin. “I��m taking you home, baby.”

Ten minutes have passed since taking off in the direction of the trailer park. You’re wading in and out of consciousness. Ruby rivulets continue to trickle down the curvature of your leg, over your ankle, and soak into your socks.

Eddie’s arms begin to quiver and his back muscles feel strained from carrying you. His loud panting is getting under everyone’s skin.

Steve catches Eddie repeatedly adjusting you in his arms. “Dude, I can carry her if you’re getting tired.”

“No! I can do it.” There’s no chance that Eddie is going to jeopardize your safety by passing you to Steve. He’s going to tough it out because he can’t risk anything else happening to you.

Eddie’s clothes are drenched. The coarse wet denim vest rubs against the side of your face. His panting increases as he treks onward, though he tries to suppress it so that he can monitor your breathing.

Once you’ve all made it through the gate where Chrissy died, Eddie brings you to his bedroom. When he goes to lay you on his bed, his arms are so spent that they nearly give out.

Nancy and Robin guard the gaping hole in the ceiling by the front door. Eddie and Steve are standing in the hall just outside of the bedroom, but Eddie stays near the doorway so that he can keep an eye on you.

Steve sighs, “We need to get her to the hospital.”

Eddie shakes his head in disapproval. Not only is he being selfish but it’s extremely risky to deny you access to the medical attention that your injury requires. But after everything that’s happened, Eddie isn’t going to leave your side no matter what.

Steve rubs his forehead. “She’s in tough shape, she needs-”

“No! Are you crazy? I can’t go out there.” Eddie glances to check if you’ve woken but you haven’t moved nor made a peep.

“I’m not talking about you. I’ll take her and you can stay-”

“I said no, Steve!“ Eddie runs a hand through his curls. “I won’t let her out of my sight again, I could lose her.”

Eddie is distraught over what may no longer be. You had plans. You were going to turn the back of Eddie’s van into a liveable space and take a road trip you’ve both spent the past year saving up for.

He never mentioned it, but Eddie secretly daydreams of a youngster or two with his hair and your eyes running around the trailer. He’s never been someone who’s particularly fond of kids but the way that you love him makes him feel open to the idea. He’s thought about it enough that he knows what Star Wars or Lord of the Rings names he’d give them.

But if you don’t want children, that’s okay with him. All he wants is to be with you for as long as you’ll allow. The first day he saw you, that was it. You were the one he wanted until the very end and that hasn’t changed.

Steve sympathizes with Eddie’s apprehension. He crosses his arms and nods. “I’ll take a shot at patching her up. I learned a thing or two about first aid when I was a boy scout.”

Eddie is reluctant. He doesn’t want to trust anyone else with taking care of you but he has no clue how to help you himself. Your leg can’t be left as is. Because of this, Eddie agrees.

During the time that Steve spends rummaging through the bathroom and kitchen for supplies, Eddie struggles with your uncooperative limbs while he changes you out of your soggy clothes into dry ones. At the same time, he inspects you for other damage and he’s relieved that there’s nothing other than bruising and swelling.

You’re situated in the middle of his king-sized bed with your head resting on the pillows. Like a princess waiting to be awoken by true love’s kiss, your arms are positioned across your abdomen.

Eddie paces next to the bed, his patience is wearing thin.

“Okay, I think I found everything I need,” Steve says while double-checking the items.

Eddie stops in his tracks and examines everything that’s tucked under Steve’s arm. “Remind me why I’m trusting you to do this?”

Steve scoffs and uncaps the rubbing alcohol to sterilize the sewing needle. “Because to my knowledge, the most suturing you’ve ever done is putting weird patches on that vest. Relax, I know what I’m doing.” Under his breath, Steve adds, “I think.”

“Wow, you were a lifeguard, a boy scout, and captain of the swim team. What, were you a firefighter too? Or a secret agent?” Eddie cocks his head and crosses his arms. “You’re certainly not a one-trick pony.”

Already seated beside you, Steve rolls his eyes and threads the needle. Eddie sits on the other side and begins removing the tightly bound strip of Nancy’s sweater. He then places his hand on your thigh and rubs soothing shapes on your exposed skin. Even though you’re not awake, Eddie wants to comfort you regardless.

It’s impossible to not be nervous but Steve steadies his hand to the best of his ability. He works diligently and finishes by covering the area with an elastic bandage. Steve receives a look of appreciation from Eddie and he gives him a nod that translates to “don’t mention it.”

Steve has since left the room to give Eddie some privacy with you. Eddie gives a sponge bath to wash the sweat, lake water, and remnants of the Upside Down off of your skin. When he decides that you’re adequately clean, he lays down and watches over you. The past few days have been nothing short of a shit show and it feels incredible to finally be with you again. Feeling somewhat at peace for the first time in what seems like forever, Eddie drifts asleep.

It’s not long before you rouse. You’re immediately aware of the soreness racking your body. The rumble in your throat begins as a groan but swiftly turns into sobbing. The sound immediately alerts Eddie and he’s prepared to soothe you. “I know it hurts, I know. Breathe, baby. Deep breaths.” He takes you into his arms and you curl up to his chest.

You try to follow his guidance to breathe slowly but pain shoots through every inch of you with each expanse of your chest. Undoubtedly, your ribs are bruised from being thrown to the ground by the demobat. “I don’t feel good," You whine.

Eddie wipes away your tears although he’s crying too. ”Get some rest, sweetheart. You’re safe now. I’ll never let anything happen to you again, I promise.”

Reblogs are greatly appreciated! ♡

★My Masterlist

★Ko-fi ♡

tags: @nj01 @tlclick73

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ghostlygeto · 2 years

Text

Butterfly's Repose | Reiner Braun

warnings: reiner/reader, angsty?, takes place during hange's soup episode in s4, follows canon mostly, jean beating reiner up yk the deal. not proof read

notes: im really nervous about this please be nice to me lol. might be apart of a series kind of. based on this song kinda

word count: 1.6k

"You don't have to speak Don't need to talk to me Baby, I already know"

Despite knowing he would be there, it didn't make it any easier for you to see him. It didn't take a genius to know that you were no where close to being over your love for Reiner. Nor were you over his betrayal. But for some reason as soon as you laid your eyes on him it all slipped away. Every ounce of hurt he had caused you over the years had left and you found yourself wanting to reach out towards him.

"y/n," Connie's voice snapped you out of it, causing you to pull away from your thoughts. "Come help unload the horses," You knew Connie didn't need help unloading, that was a job he always insisted on doing by himself.

Once out of ear shot, he began questioning you. "You spaced out super hard when you saw him. Are you okay?" Connie would be one of the people to notice your attention being only on Reiner. He was one of the Scouts you felt closest to aside from Hange. Connie knew you better than almost any of the others with you. "Do you still love him?"

You paused, arms frozen in place with whatever items within them. What were you supposed to say? Yes, Connie. I do still love him. Even if he is a traitor that killed hundreds of our people.

Well, to be fair it seems like all of your friends were traitors now. It was hard to keep track of who was on what side. You were pretty sure everyone there was on the same side (except Yelena), but it felt impossible to really trust anyone aside Hange.

"I don't know," You shrugged, "Let's just get this stuff over there. I don't want to be out here any longer than we have to be." You stacked more things off the horse and into your arms before returning to the group, where Jean was yelling at Magath about which side was terrorizing which. It annoyed the hell out of you to hear Magath defend the actions of Marley, but you tried to remind yourself that he didn't know any different.

"Soup is done!" Hange smiled proudly, "I used a lot of potatoes so it would be extra filling. We all need as much energy as we can get for what's coming next.." They started pouring soup into bowls for everyone, encouraging Jean and Magath to stop fighting. "You know, food is the best way to bond with another person! Everyone understands food."

You could tell Hange was trying to lighten the mood, as they usually do. You could almost always count on them for that, they never wanted there to be tension. Though in the current situation you're in, you knew even Hange couldn't ease everyone's emotions.

。⋆。˚ ʚïɞ ˚。⋆。

Everyone had been silent for awhile. While enjoying the meal, and even now that you had all finished. The soup was long gone, leaving nothing overtop the fire to keep it calm. It was out of control, reminding you somewhat of your current situation. Despite that, the sounds and warmth of the crackling wood brought you comfort.

"Yelena, why don't you tell us the truth about yourself?" Pieck, well Cart Titan, spoke from behind the scary looking blonde woman. Her voice nearly made you jump from your skin. "Since you've been lying to us the whole time." Though Pieck herself is a beautiful woman, Cart is terrifying. You secretly wished she'd never speak while a titan.

"What? What are you talking about?" You asked, eyes darting between Magath, Pieck, and Yelena. What did they know that you few didn't?

"It took awhile but eventually we discovered that Yelena has been lying about where she came from. Why she wants what she wants. She's just a Marleyan. After she met Zeke she fabricated the story of her alleged home country."

"You want to speak truths?" Yelena held a straight face, but made heavy eye contact with you. "Jean. What was the name of your friend? Marco? Have you ever wondered what really happened to him?" Her face changed now, into that of a smug smirk. "Care to tell them, Annie?"

It felt like everyone's gaze shifted to her, where she looked uncomfortable. "I stole his ODM gear so he couldn't escape the titan. If I hadn't he would've-"

"I ordered Annie to do it. Marco heard a conversation between Bertolt and I, we couldn't let him live. Annie had no choice but to listen." Reiner interrupted her, attempting to save her from taking all the blame. "It's my fault Marco is dead."

You barely had time to blink before Jean had rushed over to Reiner, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and shoving him backwards. He got in numerous good punches and a few kicks before Connie was able to rip him off. Jean had really gotten Reiner, his face now bloodied and bruised. He didn't even try to fight back. It made you feel sick to your stomach.

"It's getting late. We need to rest." Hange put their hand on your shoulder and tried to take your attention away from the bloodied Reiner on the ground. "C'mon, y/n."

Jean shoved away from Connie, "I'm going over here. No one bother me." Everyone listened, no one wanted to piss him off more than he already was. Most of you knew Jean's temper and that trying to calm him down would just enrage him more. Leaving him alone was the best option for everyone.

It didn't take long for everyone to lay down and fall asleep. You could hear Hange's snores from the other side of the campsite. You were the only one still awake, because you couldn't stop staring at Reiner's body. He was still in the same place as before, but Gabi and Falco put a pillow under his head and blanket over his torso to keep him warm. If it weren't for the titan living within him, Jean would have killed him for sure.

"Go over there," Though he spoke softly, Armin's voice caused you to jump slightly, "He could probably use the company."

"I didn't realize you were still awake, I'm sorry." You went to lay down and cover yourself with your blanket before he stopped you.

"y/n, you should go talk to him." Armin lifted his head up, even in the darkness of the night you could see his blue eyes staring at you, "Even if he's asleep. Say what you need to, get it out."

You bit your lip for a second, hesitating. Should you? Maybe it would be beneficial to just get your emotions out there. Say them at him and then pretend nothing ever happened. Anything was better than letting them eat at you from the inside out. "Fine. You're right."

Armin laid his head back down as you quietly stood from your spot and tiptoed over to where Reiner was sleeping. He was pretty isolated as well, not even Gabi and Falco wanting to sleep close to him. Not that you could blame them, you wouldn't want to sleep next to someone that looks like a breathing corpse either.

"Hi, Rei," You whisper, sitting next to him. His eyes were closed and mouth open, soft breaths coming out. "I'm sorry about Jean, earlier. He really cared about Marco. Still has nightmares about him sometimes." Jean never confided much in you, but the two of you had somewhat bonded over the fact that nightmares became the regular after losing the one most important to you. Yours was a little different from his, though.

Reiner said nothing in return.

"Seeing you here was really hard. Really shocking. I was kind of hoping to never see you again," You let out a dry laugh, "But in a weird way I'm glad. To see you alive." You looked down at Reiner, still asleep. His face was almost back to normal, just his nose was in an abnormal position now. It made you upset with Jean to see Reiner so beat up, even if he did deserve it.

"I wish things could have been different for us," Your voice cracked slightly, putting your hand on his face. You felt the tears prick in your eyes, "Maybe we could have worked things out, y'know? Stuck by each other. God I would want that more than anything." You sniffled slightly, closing your eyes to try and prevent the tears from falling.

Reiner shifted next to you, attempting to open his eyes. "y/n..."

You felt your face heat up, how long had he been awake? How much of your little confession had he heard? "Shh, Reiner. Don't say anything okay? Just close your eyes and go back to sleep. You need to heal."

As much as Reiner wanted to protest, he didn't have the energy to do so. He wanted so desperately to tell you that he loves you. He never wanted to hurt you, and that he wishes things were different between you, too. If he could go back in time and never have confessed his true identity to Eren that day on the wall, he would do it. He would keep the secret until the Curse of Ymir would have taken his life.

But he couldn't get it out. His body didn't have the energy to say anything else. Rather, with barely open eyes, he simply moved his hand up to your face and wiped away your tears. The two of you knew each other so well, even after four years apart. The small gesture told you everything you needed to know in that moment.

"I know, Reiner," You told him, placing your hand on top of his. "Go back to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

#reiner braun #attack on titan #reiner braun angst #reiner #reiner x reader #shingeki no kyoujin #im really nervous to post this #butterfly’s repose #mine !!

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immobiliter · 7 months

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okay i'm safely home, so you know what that means: detailed thoughts on s4 of sex ed under the cut !!

alright so starting more generally first before i move onto individual characters, i agree with the consensus that this is the weakest season overall. it has some great individual storylines, but the really good stuff was hugely overshadowed by storylines that i did not care for whatsoever. there were way too many characters introduced for a show that nixed half of its original cast at the end of last season and that is on its final season - i did like abbi, roman & aisha, i think they were the only new characters who actually had a chance to shine, but i did not care for o whatsoever and there was waaay too much time dedicated to her rivalry with otis which went nowhere ( the teacher in the final ep during the vote who was like "this was a massive waste of time" like. such a mood lmao ). i liked molloy, he was fun and i wished we'd seen more of him, but idk it was just a weird choice to ditch half of the cast and then introduce all of these other characters in a final season and dedicate so much time to them when, ultimately, the audience cares about the characters who have already been there since the start. i also think this season they tried to address too many issues at once, meaning that it didn't have the time to really delve into most of them and give them the time they deserved - i think that's where the complaint comes from that it felt like a box ticking exercise by the end, where the writers were just ticking off a list of issues and not really giving any of it the substance or thought that had gone into previous seasons. it was just a bit of a mess as a cohesive story, imo

but moving onto the characters and starting with my darling aimee: she (and ruby) had the best arcs this season in my opinion. she was a delight as ever every time she was on screen and they continued to handle her healing arc soooo well. it was fun to see her without maeve and i will cling onto every single instance where she got to interact with other characters (like playing scabby queen with otis in the car while at the hospital, or jackson admonishing her for shopping while everyone looked for cal at the mall). as for her and isaac, i reaaaaally liked them together, they felt like one of the better pairings this season. my one real gripe is that, like a lot of the season, not enough time was dedicated to them and the two of them ending up in a relationship felt rushed. the whole point of the final episode of s3 was aimee dumping steve and figuring out some stuff on her own for the first time, and yet by the 3rd or 4th episode of s4 there were heavy romantic flags surrounding her and isaac and all of that seemed to be forgotten. i don't necessarily think this was out of character for her ( as i've said in meta before, the girl needs to do some work deconstructing her relationships with boys ), but the fact that it took until the final episode for aimee to talk to isaac about her intimacy issues... i didn't like that it came that late in the season ? when the two had their almost kiss, i thought the reason for aimee's hesitation would be a combination of the weirdness with maeve AND also her difficulties with intimacy that she had been originally struggling with while dating steve. i'm glad they DID address it eventually, but i just think with them wrapping up the show in this season, they were playing aimee & isaac's relationship development on x2 speed. i liked them together and i think eventually getting into another relationship is so key to aimee's ability to heal, but i personally would want it to be more slowburn than it actually was, which realistically wasn't possible in this season. also photographer aimee !! i was so close with fashion designer, so close. i'm counting that as a win

adam, again, no real notes, his arc was once again handled superbly and every single one of his scenes with michael hit really hard for me. i was initially very ://// when maureen and michael hooked up AGAIN but i'm so glad that the show allowed adam to react to it and that it became a catalyst for that final "i didn't like myself and therefore i made you feel small" conversation. ooooof that hit me like a freight train. my one complaint is that adam's story felt SO isolated from everything else. the fact that it was only during the funeral ep that adam actually got to share a screen with the other characters ( i'm glad that he and eric got a little bit of closure there ) made me so sad. ESPECIALLY as we see him watching that reality tv show with his mum and then see ruby watching the same show in the very next scene with her and otis. the two of them are still best friends, that is my canon. also horse girl adam was fun and i'm just so glad that we continued to see him thrive at something and figure out what he's good at.

okay moving on to my other kid, jackson. what a weird season for him. i think it became clear about halfway through that the writers just had no idea what to do with him ( again ). the fact that his arc seemed to start with him questioning whether he was queer ( in what was a very strange scene between him and otis, i need to rewatch but it was odd ) before deciding no i'm actually straight, but then took a sudden sharp left turn into his health scare plot, which y'know, is an extremely valid issue to explore, but was then resolved and took another left turn into jackson discovering who his biological father was ?? as much as it was nice to see his mums again and get some context about their relationship and how they ended up bringing up jackson together, i just wish that the writers had picked one of these three things and stuck with it. the questioning plot didn't lead to him getting back together with cal, the health scare plot was Valid but again didn't really go anywhere other than to suddenly prompt jackson to want to know more about his family tree, and then that plot also got resolved stupidly quickly. with most of the other characters, their endings were neat enough that you could fill in the gaps about where their futures might end up. with jackson there was none of that, and honestly when you pair jackson's arc up with viv's arc, there was a perfect opportunity to make romantic jackson/viv canon but they blew it. the fact that jackson says in ep 2 or 3 that he doesn't think he can be in a casual relationship with someone, there has to be feelings involved, and then viv's controlling new bf continually emphasises that she spends so much time with jackson and tells him everything...... idk it's like the writers were signalling some romantic tension for them almost unintentionally ? it would have made perfect sense as a conclusion idk. i just think jackson & viv became so sidelined and unimportant this season aside from to illustrate their respective issues (the importance of checking for lumps/health scare and controlling/coercive behaviour in a relationship) that then didn't have enough time dedicated to them

eric my beloved. i looooooved his arc this season. it felt very similar to his s1 arc, especially to begin with, but maybe this is because his s1 arc is my fave but s4 just felt like the continuation of it ? also ncuti has enough charisma to pull anything off at this point, like it got Weird about 2/3 of the way through the season when he started having visions but ncuti really put everything into his performance. it was also sooooo nice to see eric making new queer friends and developing an identity/community outside of his friendship with otis. otis was basically a dick all season and i'll talk about it but i like that the otis/eric friendship was challenged this season.

ruby was also a standout this season. i hate that her entire arc became centred around otis and the writers basically used her to further otis & maeve and create yet more unnecessary Drama, but the way that they delved into her queen bitch origin story with o and the development that she continued to go through this season... she was such a highlight i love her so very much

i think that was the best ending maeve could have gotten, given the circumstances. i was already bored of otis & maeve by the second ep so you can imagine what i was like throughout all of their subsequent scenes together and it was a Mess but i'm so glad that she went back to america at the end of the season. it's what she deserved. i kinda hate that her america arc was broken up by her mum's death and there was the whole middle part of the season with her back in moordale, i still don't really know how i feel about any of that, but her speech to molloy in the final episode about how his feedback crushed her was soo good. i love her

ooof otis. i am someone who has always liked otis, even at his most unlikeable, but i just find it hilariously ironic that it's otis who requires more therapy than the rest of the other characters combined at this point, despite the fact that he is narratively centred as the story's therapist. that boy has SO MANY issues and they were all on full display this season. ruby & eric deserved better from him, as did maeve too tbh. i'm not really sure what the story was trying to achieve with him this season other than just to make him act like as much of a dick as possible at every opportunity. i did hate that o used otis's father against him during their debate, especially considering how sensitively the show has handled otis's dynamic with his father and how much he obsesses over not becoming like his dad. idk i just. were they intending to make otis the villain this season ? it was all very weird. i'm glad he made up with eric by the end but it was still a mess. likewise, i don't think the show really knew what to do with jean either this season ? i didn't care about her sister, there was waaaay too much time dedicated to her and in a final season it just felt super unnecessary. they tried to delve into the trauma of their childhoods but idk ?? it all just fell flat and i just did not care enough for it lmao

#* / be yourself. everyone else is taken ( ooc. )#don't click on the read more if you don't wanna be spoiled !!#i think i've covered everything i wanted to say but i'm extremely sleep deprived so i will no doubt have more thoughts as i rewatch lmao

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hepaidattention · 2 years

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the crazy things that have happened in One Tree Hill and I'm only in s4:

1) Brooke and Lucas got together twice. Like I'm serious that shocked me, he cheated on you honey. and then they got back together and she just lost feelings??? made no sense, the girl was very in love with him and then no love at all? confusion

2) Peyton literally trying to steal Brooke's (her best friend) boyfriend whom she loved not once, but twice

3) just the entire plot about Lucas and Nathan's dad literally just disowning Lucas despite him living in the same small town??? this baffles me like what. AND THEN the man tries to have a relationship with Lucas and Lucas literally just accepts so he can ruins his life I mean wow

4) how that man was elected mayor like how

5) Lucas's uncle literally raising him, his brother/Lucas's dad still living in the same town, and never once trying to be in Lucas's life until he was good at basketball

6) Lucas and Nathan pretending they didn't exist for like 15 years???? if I had a brother I'd say screw you dad I want a brother okay? like thank god they're close now but I would not have wasted so many years tormenting each other no ma'am

7) ummmm how about Keith being murdered by his own brother because his brother thought he tried to kill him but it was actually his ex wife

8) oh yeah right Nathan's mom attempting to murder his dad but failed cuz LUCAS saved that man's life and for what??? we all wanted him dead Lucas why do this to us

9) yes almost forgot Lucas having a heart condition that could kill him and his dad was just like 🤷🏻‍♀️ guess you're just gonna die because I won't pay for your meds anymore. and then Lucas stopped taking them so he could be better at BASKETBALL. what.

10) everyone determined that basketball will heal everything in that show and that its a supernatural gift or something

11) Peyton being an idiot and telling the world she has a brother named Derek even after seasons of her getting creepy stalker messages, and then proceeding to let a random guy into her life without any look into his history to make sure he was telling the truth, and then said guy attempting to murder her

12) lol Peyton having two dead moms and a half brother yet her adopted dad is never around for absolutely no reason??? the girl lives in that house all alone and honestly I never even see her in any other part of the house is there even furniture

13) everything with Josh like????? what? I never understood why they they wouldn't do like joint custody with the mother it made absolutely no sense and he just made life really hard for himself

14) where the hell are Brooke and Peytons parents???? this is illegal at this point like actual neglect

15) oh yeah um Nathan and Haley getting married at like 16 just because they could and Haleys parents just allowing it so they could go backpack around the world??? I'm sorry??

16) Haley getting an offer for a solo tour? at 16? with subpar music? and going on tour at 16 without even a guardian was legal somehow??? I guess once married you count as an independent but that girl was 100% still a child and how did she even get discovered in their small town with only one to two performances how

17) Nathan and Lucas have almost died too many times to count. Once you've been in not one, not two, but three car wrecks that almost killed you combined I just wouldn't drive anymore personally

18) the whole shooting that happened was crazy, especially how Peyton was technically the only one injured like the odds are pretty wild but the writers clearly hate her so

19) Brooke just teaching herself how to sew without even YouTube videos to help her, just all on her own, and then suddenly just making it big and selling clothes left and right.

that's all for now. will likely be continued because this shows on drugs I swear

#oth #one tree hill #just me #me and my ranting dont mind me #this is really just for me #gotta vent you know

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marlasomething · 1 year

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(my) Mag a Week Special Feature: Threatening Fluff

Hello there!

Here is the thing: I am participating in the "a mag a day" idea by @a-mag-a-day which is BRILLIANT and I decided to do "statement a week", rolling dice with the characters and fears that were ftw that week in the episodes I have listened. But, then, I thought...what if I made some special features for when each season finishes? And then the mid-seasons breaks camen and I thought...YEAH, THOSE TWO, VERY SHORT FLUFFY-ESQUE FICS! For this ones, I will roll to see who the main character is and what fear do they serve

For season three break (published already on S4 SHAME ON ME) I've gotten Georgie Barker as main character and as a The Dark avatar.

As usual, please do forgive my quick tipper and non-native speaker mistakes, Marla

Allons-y!

CW: the Dark very slight usual content, threatening behaviour that can be considered...moraly condenable

Also on AO3!

Georgie would never forget the moment in which Manuela Dominguez, a teacher assistant from some of those science degrees with extremely long names she made an explicit effort to forget held her hand as she faced Death in the most literal manner possible.

She was about to have the strongest existential crisis ever, to even forget how to be afraid, just in order to survive, as a mere copying mechanism that would change her life. Instead, a woman she had barely crossed a few words in the cafeteria brought her back to the rest of reality (all that escaped the staring corpse in front of her) and said, in a voice loud enough to anyone present to hear: “It doesn’t really matter, death or alive, none of us do matter. Isn’t that…liberating?”

And, see, any other day, Georgie would have likely punch anyone with such a take in the face (especially when they used the weakest moment of a person to mould their thoughts and believes as they wished), but, in that moment, believing it made her felt liberated from the impossible situation she had seen herself caught upon and the fear that was about to leave her body for good clung into this new purpose she could embrace.

She held Manuela’s hand closer and never completely let it go.

Everybody knew Mike Fairchild (born Crew, before being adopted after his childhood fortunate accident) was dating the guy who killed Leitner, Georgie’s ex’s step-sibling and the eldest of the kids the Victorian Asshole that now went by Elias Bouchard had adopted when he had seen the potential for serving the Beholding they had. Gerry and him were, actually, a rather cute couple (as even Gerry’s little brother and Georgie’s aforementioned ex, Jon, begrudgingly admitted).

However, that didn’t matter to Georgie Barker, that felt obliged, as an Avatar of one of the Fears that prayed on people rather similar to the ones The Vast did (at least, in their smallness in comparison to the rest of the World) and an actual friend of said Gerry, to threat the chaotic, little, for some reason a bit French-looking, scared man when she officially knew.

Of course, she counted with the help of The Admiral, that, as a cat influenced by The Beholding, The Dark and The Lonely (Peter loved the animal, much more than his in-and-out husband or even a teeny tiny more than The Tundra itself).

Mike, losing even more skin pigmentation after the attack , just nodded and, before he left after making clear he got the message of what would happen to him if Gerry got hurt by him by any means, he muttered:

“You are even worse than that Gertrude Robinson” to what she just shrugged and commented:

“Well, I think she would have made a better podcaster than me, having she chosen that path instead of reading to a bloody tape recorder”.

And left, she had a date with a certain Slaughter Avatar and she didn’t want to be late, even if the other woman didn’t like to taste new and spicy foods.

#magnuspod #a mag a day #a mag a week #tma #the magnus archives #alternate universe #the dark #dark avatar georgie barker #mike crew #mike crew/gerard keay #superavatar the admiral #the admiral #writing #fanfic

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erenoir · 3 years

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cry baby

“the assistant and the pharmacy girl”

previous chapter | chapter 3 | next chapter | series masterlist

after spending two weeks trying to distract yourself from eren, you finally confront a demon that’s been weighing on your shoulder with the push from your new unlikely companions.

💿 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚙𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚕𝚊

❥ genre: rockstar!eren, modern au, high school sweethearts to toxic lovers, love triangles, drama, dark, angst, nsfw

❥ chapter warnings: 18+ dark content, toxic relationships, vomiting, oral sex [m,] weed, light mentions of drug use, discussions of food/eating, MDNI

❥ featuring: s4!eren jaeger x f!reader

❥ word count: 5k

❥ series summary: you used to be the muse to his lyrics, the reason he sang, but give a sick man enough money and soon you’re a pawn in his addictive cycle of love and destruction. everyone loves cry baby, but eren loved you most. he loved you as much as he fucking hated you.

a/n: omg chapter 3... we're really in this now huh?

“Shit… fuck…”

The morning light slipped through the cracks of your curtains and blinded your murky vision. Each of your limbs remained stuck to your bed, you struggled to move them, every wiggle was met with a burning fire. Often your eyes were swollen in the mornings, a result of you crying yourself to sleep, cursing whatever god was up there for dealing you such unlucky cards. This was one of those mornings. A pain shot up your back as you fought to pull yourself out of bed, the comforter pooling around your hips. You stretched to one side and took in the view from your window, the streets bustling below you eight stories down. Then you stretched to the other to see the opposite side of your bed disturbed, the covers loose and the blanket crumbled. Shit…

Jean.

It’s been two weeks since he first popped into your apartment that day. Guess what? You’ve fucked nearly everyday since. Was it the same old numbing shit… yeah… but it was something. And for now you’d take something, anything to get your mind off of how sick you’ve been feeling since you last saw Eren. He probably gave you mono, that’s what you’ve convinced yourself. WebMD is a reliable source for self-diagnosing, right? Well first you thought it was the flu, but Jean didn’t catch anything after you puked in his mouth. Though mono is quite contagious as well, you conveniently glossed over that in your research, better known as the first Google search result you saw. The smell of bacon was aromatic in your room, rolling your eyes when you realized he was making you breakfast again. It’s not like you didn’t enjoy it, you just weren’t particularly fond of being coddled. Jean was more than attentive, he’s actually been the one pushing you to go to the doctor for the past week, since you weren’t exactly getting any better. Time and time again you’d tell him why you hated it in that sterile hellhole, the needles, the smell, the cold rooms, it’d take a lot more than nausea and a stomach bug to get you there.

“Hey… I made you some bacon and pancakes, okay?” Your head shot up to see Jean leaning on the doorframe, a timid smile on his face as he beckoned you to come eat. He hasn’t warmed up to you yet, still pushing his “Mr. Perfect” agenda on you. Or maybe that’s what you couldn’t understand, the idea of there being a guy that was actually just a good person was something foreign to you. You shielded your vision and threw the covers over your head as Jean pushed your curtains open, “Hey… it’s really good. I put chocolate chips in them. You need to eat… you-”

“Where did I have chocolate chips?” Your hoarse voice poked through your comforter.

“You didn’t. I went to the corner store… the one open 24 hours… that girl that works there is… she’s something right? I was afraid I’d looked at her the wrong way,” He laughed while sitting next to your lump of a body on the bed, pulling at the covers until your eyes poked through.

“Wouldn’t know, I’ve never been in there,” you jabbed, leaving him alone in the wrinkled sheets, trodding over to the kitchen. You shuddered as your bare feet hit the cold tiles, clanking through your cabinets to sift for a plate.

“Yeah… well… I also got you something for your stomach,” You watched as Jean opened his mouth like he was about to say something, watching him dispute internally as to whether or not he should say what he really wanted to. He looked at you with pleading eyes, begging you to not snap at him. You’d been so on edge lately and Jean could only walk on eggshells for so long before his skin started to rip. The two of you had yet to discuss what you guys actually were. Eren’s name never left your lips and truthfully you didn’t know if it was worth it or not, being that Jean never bothered to pry anyway. Digging up that situation would only hurt more, so until you were about to break at the seams, you’d suppress it.

“Go ahead Jean, say it. I should see a doc-”

“A doctor… yeah, but I’ve told you enough and I’ve only known you a few weeks and you’re an adult so-”

“Breathe… Jean,” you mumbled, your cheeks stuffed with warm dough and salty bacon.

“You’ll go if you want to. I was gonna say that the girl at the pharmacy said to come back if those meds don’t work… she said she might have what you need but to try that first,” he uttered hesitantly, his hands running over the cold countertops, “Coffee?”

You hummed and watched his tall figure fix you a cup, shaking two of the pills from the container into the palm of your hand. You let them sit on your tongue, swirling them around, the medicinal coating coming off with your saliva, before you sink them down your throat along with your coffee. Jean watched as you cut your pancakes, sipped your coffee, and wiped the grogginess out of your eyes. Though no matter how many times you wiped, the darkness that hid within them remained, something in you was unshakeable and it left you uneasy. Anyone that looked at you could tell that.

“So… how long until this shit works?” You asked as you shook the pill bottle in your hand, your fork in the other still jabbing at the last pieces of your breakfast. Jean nursed his coffee, holding the mug tightly between his hands, taking sips here and there while he leaned against the counter and watched you eat. He’d usually try to start a conversation on occasion, though you knew the real reason why he always stuck around until the morning was over was to make sure you’d actually eaten something. You’ve emptied the contents of your stomach so often that you weren’t even sure if there was any point in full meals anymore… you’d be seeing them in a few hours anyway.

“She said to give it an hour or so… it’s um- supposed to be fast-acting,” Jean said matter-of-factly, downing the last bit of his coffee. You swirled a piece of bacon around the streaks of syrup that coated your plate, watching him trip as he shoved his shoes on his feet and threw his jacket over his shoulders. Jean never did anything with the intention of being funny, but you couldn’t help but laugh at his mannerisms at times. In the past week you’ve learned the basics about Mr. Kirschtein. Well... for starters, you learned that his last name was Kirschtein. You spent the morning after the first time you slept with him sounding out his last name with your first.

“Kirsch- no.”

“Kirsch-tein.” “Kirsch-tein.”

“Ugh, ew… Kirschtein.”

You learned that Jean was a dog person, and that if he was smart enough, he would’ve studied to become a veterinarian. The first time you sucked him off he made small talk with you about it to “make you feel comfortable.” His words- not yours. While your lips were wrapped around his cock, you found out that his favorite kind of dog was a golden retriever, that he didn’t mind cats, but he could only take them in moderation- whatever that meant, and that he would prefer to, “Adopt rather than shop- Oh fuck baby… yeah, right there!”

Once again, his words- not yours.

But, since Jean wasn’t smart enough- according to Jean standards, he studied business. My god, how fitting for you. He worked a job writing those cheesy greeting card slogans. You know… “I love you a latte!” or “I forgot to get you a gift so I got you this card.” Sometimes it was hard for you to get off on riding Jean’s cock, once you imagined him pitching a shitty idea for a tenth birthday card that you probably got for your younger cousin last year, for some reason your sex drive… just disappeared? Or it could’ve been that Jean thought it would also make for good “small talk,” as you rode him cowgirl style. It could’ve been that.

“Y-you know… fuck… I write greeting card slogans… I d-don’t think I’ve… shit baby… told you that!”

“Oh my god, fuck… J-Jean, that would be your job… god- oh!”

That last thing he said to you before you came around him was, “Life’s like a golden retriever, once you find it… you never want to let it go.”

That was the pitch he had to give later that day.

You told him it wasn’t very good so he left your apartment in a panic.

This morning, Jean left with one thing on his mind- you. He gave you an awkward wave and hesitantly pulled you in for a hug, though he’d kiss you on the forehead if he could, if only you weren’t such a myth of a woman to him. You let out a breathy laugh when Jean put an arm around your shoulder and pulled you in, if only you knew where you stood with him, perhaps you’d be daring enough to peck him on the lips, but Jean kept to himself and you knew that. There was no point in prying where nothing needed to be cracked.

“Have a good day at work…” You mumbled, the fact that you were speaking like a married couple in itself made you want to puke. The idea of getting bored… being held in one place couldn’t have sounded less appealing to you. With him, you'd be lucky if you ever knew what was going to come next and you loved it. He was rain in the middle of a drought, unexpected, unplanned, leaving you wanting more every time his water hit your skin. You absorbed him just as quickly as he came and went, and you’d sit and wait for more, it could’ve been months, days, even years… but when he came back he came like a storm. Torrential, heavy, giving you more than you could soak up, drowning you completely. He left you with enough to last you until the next time it rained… whenever the hell that would be.

“Thanks… take care of yourself alright?” Jean bid you farewell like it was the last time he’d see you. To be fair he could never really predict when the next time would be, often reaching for his phone before you reached for yours. You were Jean’s storm, dark and windy, watering him much more than he needed, but giving him enough to last until the next time you decided to rain again. You were Jean’s storm, whether you’d realize it or not, except when Jean drowned he hated it, and he did it silently. He’d let himself die under your hold before ever admitting that maybe your weather was just too much for him.

“Yeah, so it didn’t work…”

She looked at you analytically, leaning over the counter a bit to get a good look at your face, eyebrows pursing upon noticing the bags under your eyes. You were wearing a knit sweater that hung at the middle of your thighs, the ends of your- well Jean’s boxers peeking out from underneath. Taking a minute to decide how to respond to you, she took a drag of her cigarette, blowing the smoke in your face and watching your nose scrunch up.

“You’re smoking… in a pharmacy?” You asked the girl dressed in black plaid. Your eyes followed her pupils as they trailed to the back of her head, the whites of her eyes greeting you before she scoffed and tapped the end of her cigarette out on the counter.

“Did you get dressed in the dark?” She asked you back, the serious expression on her face unwavering. She folded her arms underneath her chest and leaned into you, the sound of her chewing gum smacking around inside her cheeks becoming louder with every inch towards your face. It looked like her makeup hadn’t been touched in days, waking up to just smother a new layer of black eyeshadow over the days past. Fishnet sleeves hiked up her arms, her fingers playing with the holes on her elbows as she tried to piece your puzzle together.

“Did I… what? I- no... Can you just get me that thing you said would work?” You snapped at her blunt comment, playing with the ends of your sweater as your eyes darted around the pharmacy, taking in every detail just to avoid making eye contact with the girl. Her tongue pushed at the inside of her cheek, waving her cigarette in the air in confusion. She didn’t know what the hell you were going on about.

“Have you been here before?”

“No but-”

“So then how the hell am I supposed to know what that thing is?”

Your eyes widened at her tone, before you brought a hand up to your forehead to massage your temples. The blue lights of the establishment along with the persistent sick feeling in your gut wasn’t exactly helping you think straight.

“My boy- um… my friend came in here this morning-”

“Oh! Greeting card guy?”

Has he told everyone that? Suddenly the look on her face turned into one of sympathy, her smirk dropping and her lips pulling into a thin line. She let out a deep breath as she put her cigarette out by rubbing it underneath the counter, unsure of what to do with her hands now as she awkwardly smoothed out her skirt. It was her turn to break eye contact, her fingers adjusting her raven hair into a ponytail as she bounced on her heels nervously. Her back turned to you as her hands hovered over the shelves behind her, stocked with over-the-counter medicine and first aid supplies. You raised an eyebrow in curiosity as you tried to peek over her shoulder, before she angled herself to where you couldn’t see what she was grabbing. She turned to you slowly, hiding whatever she just pulled off the shelves behind her back. With all color drained from her face and her breathing heavy, she began to ask you questions.

“Nausea, you said?”

“What- yeah?”

“Hallmark said you’ve been puking… like a shit ton?”

“Hallmark?”

“Sorry, greeting card guy- whatever-”

“Jean.”

“Okay, Jean- whatever…”

“Y-yes… I puked in his mouth.”

“Okay, ew? Cramps?”

“Always… I’m probably just getting my period but-”

“When are you supposed to get it?”

“My period? Well it was supposed to come last week… Okay doctor, what’s happening? Can I have the medicine so I can leave?”

She blinked at you with dead eyes, wondering if any bit of you was prepared to digest what she was about to imply. You’ve known each other for a whopping ten minutes, in fact, you didn’t even know each other’s names. To you, she was the pharmacy girl, with dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothing, and a seemingly dark personality. And to her, you were the bitch she was about to drop the biggest bomb on. You watched intently as she slid a pink box over the counter to you, your heart dropping as you read the big, white letters.

Rapid Detection Pregnancy Test.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“W-what? No way…”

“And the dad?”

No.

His dark hair flushed every other thought out of your brain, his green eyes all-consuming, haunting every corner in your head you tried to run to. Blood rushed the extremities of your body, fingers going numb, and face feeling cold as you raked your mind for any possible explanation. Backing away from the counter, the girl reached out to you, but the distance between the two of you grew with every second, her figure being sucked out of your vision as everything went static. It was that feeling again, the one where Jean tried to speak to you while you held your body under the water of your bathtub. Your ears were ringing and the only thing you could think about was this possibly being the start to the end of your life. That feeling in the pit of your stomach rose, and on the way up it prodded and poked at your insides, dragging its nails until you bled out all of the security you thought you had, though there was never much there to begin with. Your hand clutched over your mouth when you felt the pharmacy girl's hands grab your shoulders and push you to the back of the shop, seeing double as she took you down a dimly lit hallway and stuffed you into the employee bathroom.

“There… there… you’ll be fine?” She comforted you unconvincingly, she didn’t know if you’d be fine. All she could do was rub circles into your back awkwardly as your hands gripped the toilet seat and the vomit left your mouth, a scene that’s become far too familiar to you. Her eyes scanned the bathroom, groaning at the grimy walls and dirt caked in between the tiles. The sickly lighting flickered, the overwhelming stench of urine only provoking your stomach more. You felt your hand open and looked over at it with teary eyes and slimy lips as the girl stuck the pregnancy test in your hand.

Fucking hell-

“It’s better if you just know, you know?” That was the first ounce of warmth you’ve heard in her voice this whole time, up until this point you were just another customer she didn’t want to deal with. But as she looked at you hovering over the toilet seat, your bare knees against the wet floor, she felt it, a spark of sympathy. So she ran a hand over your head and made her way out of the bathroom, getting one last look at you before she closed the door.

“I’m Mikasa by the way, shout if you need anything.”

“Armin! Arminnnn! Ar-”

“Eren, what the fuck do you want now?”

“Shit man, just wanted someone to talk to…” Eren shot his assistant a telling grin, pushing his knees up to his chest so he could make his way to the couch. The blonde sat hesitantly, letting out a forced sigh as his body sank into the seat, his figure still tense as he side-eyed his childish boss. Eren let out a shaky laugh, coughing on the ring of smoke that left his lips before swatting it out of the air and nudging his joint to Armin, who declined with a simple hand up to Eren’s disappointed face. Eren slid his long legs across his lap, using Armin’s thighs as a footrest while he began to read off Eren’s schedule for the day, his words seething through gritted teeth. Armin didn’t like being Eren’s footrest, but the things he’d do for good pay. So he put up with Eren’s bullshit on the daily, which mostly consisted of him running off to go smoke something or fuck someone, and when he wasn’t doing either of those things he was asking Armin to go look at a certain someone’s socials.

“Alright Eren, so today at 3 you have that fitting for-”

“What do you think she’s doing right now,” Eren asked nonchalantly, eyeing Armin through another cloud of smoke.

“Who Eren?”

“You know who.”

Armin knew exactly who, he just liked to make Eren say it. The stubborn brunette paraded around so often, overriding his own emotions just to tell everyone how over you he was. But Eren liked Armin. He had fired many assistants before his trusted golden boy came around. The first got Eren’s coffee order wrong, the second told him he sounded great during a soundcheck, and when Eren listened to his vocals back, well… that assistant went home crying. The third kept calling him, “Mr. Jaeger,” he insisted it was too formal for someone like him. And the fourth didn’t do anything, Eren was just having a bad day.

But then came Armin. It was safe to say that Eren really never had a best friend other than you, he’d never allow himself to get so close. He wasn’t sure if Armin truly reciprocated his emotions but… the day Eren referred to him as his best friend, Armin just gave him a blank stare and said, “Thank you.” That was the most affection Eren received from anyone in his time in the music industry, so he whole-heartedly accepted and gave Armin a raise.

To which Armin made sure to say, “Thank you,” all the time, sometimes for nothing at all.

“Why don’t you call her and ask? How long has it been since you last talked?”

“Shit Armin… always the voice of reason,” Eren drawled, crossing one ankle over the other, “Just be fucking unreasonable for once man…” With his intelligence and ability to retain information… pointless or otherwise, Armin could’ve written a novel about you. He’d never even met you and yet he knew that you pulled the tomatoes off of everything, you hated to look at clocks when the minutes were at an odd number, and that you gave him the best head he's ever gotten. Eren said that of course, he said a lot of things, a lot of which was bullshit, but the rest was about you. And because Armin was Eren’s best friend, he only ever talked about you to him, for all everyone else knew was that Eren hated you and he ended things in a bloodbath. He smirked as he played with the joint between his teeth, watching his innocent counterpart formulate a way to be a reckless mess like he was. Fucking angel boy, Eren thought to himself, watching the gears turn in blondie’s brain.

“Be unreasonable… okay… you should definitely not call her? At least wait until we leave Paris, yeah?”

“I have to fucking call him…”

Those two fucking lines. There were two, right? Two pink lines that let you know just how fucked you were.

You were huddled in a corner of the bathroom with your knees tucked under your sweater, your body rocking back and forth as you waited the agonizing ten minutes. The dripping of the sink drove you up a wall, smacking a palm into your forehead repeatedly as you tried to shake yourself out of the daze you were in. You rose to your feet, unable to sit still as you awaited your demise. God, don’t think about a baby like that, you scolded yourself.

A fucking baby.

Every minute that passed you’d return to the sink and squint one eye open, flinging the test back into the ceramic bowl when you saw that nothing had appeared yet. You dived back to the floor and let your legs extend in front of you, knocking your head on the wall behind you in torture. What would you do with a baby? To say you were unprepared was an understatement, to say you didn’t want to tell Eren was an even bigger one. To nurture something, to let it grow inside of you, share your body and then bring it into the world was… permanent. It was forever and how could you commit to forever? How could you afford forever? It cost everything. You felt them, the tears, they were pricking at your eyes, begging to be freed but you wouldn’t let anything fall. This was a moment far too numbing for you to even feel anything. And as you got up to make another round to the sink, what you saw was what broke the dam, and the tears came running to greet your cheeks, and the pins came shooting to impale your chest, and you finally fucking felt something.

Those two fucking lines.

And there were two, bright pink and pigmented, they stared back at you and they laughed. After all, this was a happy moment, why wouldn’t they? You should be rejoicing, for you’ve been blessed with the gift of life. You’ve been kissed by an angel, another life sprouting inside of you, the seed of a man that hated you, germinating in your gut. You felt fucking disgusting. So you did what you’ve been doing for the past two weeks, though this time you understood why you were doing it and that made you hate doing it even more. You puked, hurled, you gave up everything inside of you and even harder this time, you wanted it all to end.

Mikasa stood outside of the bathroom door, where she had been for the past hour, and she listened to you cry. She listened to you wail and gasp and gag into the toilet. She listened to you scream into the ceiling. “Why?” Your voice broke. “Why the fuck is this happening?” Your voice bled. It bled fear, hatred, the bile that came up your throat scraping at the edges and watching as the skin bled pain and helplessness. You were helpless. And all Mikasa could do was stand guard and smoke her third cigarette until you finally opened the door.

“Mikasa…” Her head jerked to lean an ear up against the door, only to trip into the bathroom when you opened it. Her eyes blinked repeatedly, trying to take in the sight of you covered in dried vomit and tears.

“Isn’t this supposed to be a happy moment?” You laughed, though there wasn’t an ounce of joy within it. She watched as you flipped the pregnancy test between your fingers, your hands shaking under the sleeves of your sweater.

“Well… that depends… is it?” She held her hand out and motioned for you to hand her the stick, biting the inside of her cheek when she confirmed that yes, there were in fact two lines.

“Shit… is it?” She asked again, watching as you shook your head slowly, dropping to your knees before her.

It started raining again, Eren wasn’t even here and it started raining. You didn’t have an umbrella, a jacket, or shoes, you were naked in the storm. His storm. Unexpected. Unplanned. Unplanned. He didn’t even know, fuck him, he didn’t even know, your thoughts turned vicious. Your fists clenched as you knocked them against the doorway and cried, inhaling sharply, not realizing that you’d been holding your breath. You wiped a hand over your face and stared at Mikasa’s shoes on the floor in front of you. Your eyes trailed up her body until they met her face, as serious as ever as she took another drag of her cigarette. In your eyes she saw the last pieces of you flee, run to a better home, one filled with spirit, a lust for life, one that wanted to be where you were right now. You should be happy, right?

“So… who’s the dad?”

Eren’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, dropping his mouth as he guided the girl’s head up and down his length. “Fuck yeah… that’s it,” he whined as her lips worked around his cock, pushing her down until he hit the back of her throat. His fingers knotted in her hair while his other hand picked up his phone, the one that had been blaring for the past five minutes.

“Yeah?” He snapped at whoever it was calling him at a time like this. It’s been weeks since Eren got head, the last time was… well it was you. The silk linen of the bed tickled his skin, the breeze from his balcony that had a view of the Eiffel Tower igniting a trail of goosebumps down his spine. Eren was content, so who the fuck was calling him right now?

“Shit…” He moaned, teasing the silent caller on the other end, yanking the girl's head back and placing a wet kiss to her lips. “You’re my good luck charm,” another kiss, “Right before my show right?” and another, “Gonna do so good ‘cause of you…” He whispered into her neck, her long hair tickling his nose. Eren didn’t know who the fuck this girl was, he actually told the girl from yesterday the same exact thing. He felt his stomach churn at her obnoxious laugh, like nails on chalkboard as he showered her in forced compliments.

“Thank you for the necklace Eren…” She mewled as she sucked on his earlobe, grinding her hips into his cock, causing him to groan into the phone once more. She was just another distraction, one from the voices that constantly ripped into his being. The ones that couldn’t give less of a shit about him, the ones that loved him conditionally, as long as he could give them what they wanted. A distraction, that’s all anything ever was for him, and he picked up a new distraction to distract him from the last distraction. It kept going and going, a spiral, a hole, a deep one, until he couldn’t pull himself up. He created a world filled with so many distractions from his real life that he grew content suppressing his emotions with things like sex and drugs and more sex and more drugs, so why would he give that up? It felt fucking good and he couldn’t exactly snap his fingers and let it go. So for now Eren would continue to indulge his distractions, it would take something earth-shattering to ever get him to stop.

“Yeah yeah, you’re welcome um- baby… Hello? Can you fucking speak already?”

He snapped once more before the call dropped, the line going silent, the disconnect tone bellowing in his ear as he chucked his phone across the room in anger.

“Mikasa, I can’t fucking do it.”

taglist: @hoe4abbacchio @didiyogo @hannie2kay @attackonmyheart @whenshefelloutofspite @https-gassen @mikiminaccch @l6ffys @jollyshark @lindayeager @peter-pan-princess @levipie @levisknucklesandwich @idagalina @spoiledmilkmotel @khaoticsstuff @mooniereh @dreamsdarlin @okhotel @butterfliesroses @ackermanscumslut @leviskata @sad-horchata @unicornlover25 @frogfqiry @shatteredaura @wrzesiennn @jellyfishpalace @bsstories ♥︎

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nonbinarykai · 3 years

Text

Okay you know what, I’ve held this back far enough

Why I hate canon Kailor sm

Tw:// misogyny ment, incest ment

Im not gonna tag Kailor on this for obvious reasons plus this is kinda a long post, I don’t mind fanon Kailor mostly because tbh I don’t think it’s really a big thing and most I have seen of it is fine. Don’t read this if you like Kailor and don’t want to hear it bashed

Okay listen, s4 is my favorite season out of all ninjago, but if theres one thing I hate about it the most is Kailor. This ship has always been really annoying to me throughout the show, and I’ve hinted towards that in my blog. But why?

1. It’s basically jaya redone

Kailor brings nothing new or interesting to the table because honestly? It’s literally just the same dynamic as jaya. Socially awkward guy simps for usually unimpressed girl until she eventually caves in and they start dating.

Not only has this already been done before with jaya, but is also completely out of character for Kai to do.

While I admit seeing Kai as a flustered dork is kinda funny, once you realize the context of the situation that they’re in it’s pretty clear that Kai would never actually do this.

Reminder: Kai JUST found out his dead friend is alive and is forced to recognsizle with friends in order to get him back

Usually when Kai is presented in a situation like this, what he normally does is set himself dead first on the task at hand and usually ignores any distractions. He’s mostly distance and seemingly uncaring

((note this is after Zane died and Kai ran away from the ninja because of cole and jays bickering, knowing him he wouldn’t be the most excited to be back. His arc should have revolved around coming to terms with lost friendships due to death or distance but that never happens)).

What Kai DOESNT do is immediately fall head over heels for a girl he JUST meet to the point where even when he sees his DEAD FRIEND ALIVE AND WELL he completely ignores that for a girl he meet less then a week ago

This is something JAY would do, not KAI, Kai is a loyal friend who do anything to save his friends, he cherishes them and would fight god to help them with anything they need, he doesn’t forget them for someone new

It also does skylor unjustice as well, but we’ll get there when we get there

2. It adds nothing to the characters and is otherwise never mention again

You know how bad you fuck up a relationship if the best aspect of it is how it’s rarely on screen

Even considering the fact Kailor is just jayas dynamic, the connection between skylor and Kai feels completely non existent or one sided

Most of Kailor revolves around Kai simping for skylor

They have no common interests, common goals, they rarely actually talk outside of lloyds plan to overthrow chen

The whole relationship feels forced every time it’s brought up because of how disconnected they both are to eachother, Kai only likes skylor because she’s hot and that’s it, nothing else about her is actually interesting to Kai in anyway ((again sort out of character for him in this situation))

Skylor and Kai don’t form any genuine bond with eachother, it feels hallow and empty

Let’s compare this to lava, wait no that would be to easy, let’s compare this to pixane

Pixal and Zane both genuinely like and respect eachother, they both share bonds outside of being robots, they both care about eachother enough to know when they’re uncomfortable or need help

Kailor is barely mentioned past s4 and most of it in s4 is Kai being a creep

Oh yeah let’s get to that

3. It’s really really creepy

Im sorry I don’t find incest jokes funny ninjago, it’s just really uncomfortable and creepy

Hopefully this goes without saying but Kai thinking skylor is hot, figuring out they might be related and no longer finding her hot, and then finding out they aren’t and thinking she’s hot is really weird and creepy

Not to mention scenes like, Kai looking into her room without her knowledge or consent

Or Kai fighting people for her when it’s not necessary

Or him trying to impress her everytime he sees her

This isn’t cute or funny, it’s gross, privacy invading, and overall just very creepy and uncomfortable and most definitely not healthy

Again, this is REALLY out of character for Kai, Kai knows when to back off and respect people’s privacy

Literally the season before this he didn’t get involved in the love triangle probably because he knew that would make Nya’s situation worse

So for him to suddenly become this privacy evading perv is so grossly out of character for him and makes the whole relationship feel off and unhealthy

And finally

4. The whole thing is misogynistic

During this entire thing skylor doesn’t get a choice in the show once, she follows the commands of her dad before Kai tells her not to like her dad and follows his lead.

She doesn’t come to disliking her dad by her own thought, she was told to by Kai

She doesn’t get to do anything that SHE actually wants to do until LITERALLY the VERY END

She’s told by guys around her what she should do constantly, even without her being a love interest that’s just screams misogynistic to me ((Afab speaking anyways))

Everything about her character, down to the way she talks, who she’s allied with, and even sometimes how she looks is determined by male characters

Conclusion

If canon ships were shrek movies then kailor is easily shrek the third, a constant tired unfunny mess that caused everyone to think that these ships were shit ((to be fair Jaya is kinda bad to but at least it tired to get better))

There’s nothing redeeming about it to me, every time it’s viewed in a romantic setting it makes me groan or upset

What’s even more frustrating is how people constantly say lava can’t be canon because of it

Im going to go on a side tangent so you can just skip this part as it doesn’t add any actual substance to my argument

But it’s so frustrating to see people say that

Cole and Kai have had a much healthier relationship and would be a lot better for there characters

But no, this stupid misogynistic creepy ship where one side isn’t even consententing to it half the time is the one that has to stay canon because “it’s what the creators intended”

Lava isn’t the superior possibly canon relationship because it’s gay, it’s superior because it’s closer to a healthy working relationship in show then kailor has been ((fanon lava and kailor doesn’t count here because they’re isn’t any better fanon ship, Im just talking about in show))

But no it can’t be canon and it’s unfair for people to want it to be canon because tommy created this rlly shitty straight relationship for Kai instead

TLDR; fuck kailor

#ninjago #kai smith #ninjago kai #long post

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twin-books · 2 years

Note

👀 plagg (or all kwami, if there's not a lot to say abt him)

Thanks for the ask, anon! And I'm glad you said all the other kwamis so I can knock those all out. But firstly let's just talk Plagg. I still love Plagg. He's my favorite kwami to draw and I very much love cats but I also have my own little black cat. Hilariously, she also tries to eat everything in sight and is obsessed with dairy products. Ironically not cheese. (I am also pretty sure she has a crush on Chat Noir. Shh... don't tell her he's just a human kid in a cat costume). Anyway, so yes, I'm a bit bias. But also he actually helps his kid and when he doesn't it isn't wildly out of character like it is with Tikki. He's also funny which is super great. Also, let's take a moment to appreciate his English VA specifically because that guy goes hard when he voices characters. Max Mittleton is a gift, a treasure. Anyway, he's fun. And his friendship with Adrien is to die for. He also tends to be the character that basically speaks for the audience and I love those characters. XD He's a stupidly adorable, irresponsible but loving, little kitty who I adore. I hated what they did to him in the NY Special because Plagg was pretty much the only character improving and they just went and threw that all away but now in s4 they love to act like that never happened but I remember... :' D So, since there's 19 kwamis (20 if you count Liiri 21 if you count that one kwami in Shanghai which I don't because I didn't get to know them), I'll be rating each kwami out of 20. So Plagg gets a 19/20. Not perfect but I still love the little man. Now let's talk about the other kwamis... You could probably hear me sighing from here. Tikki used to be my favorite kwami (next to Nooroo) but I don't care for her at all now. Especially after Dearest Family. She's now extremely unhelpful, encourages Marinette's bad choices, and apparently can't control herself at all when she gets hangry. Also, yet another adult figure in Marinette's life who has the downfall of hangry for some dumb reason. She's also no longer any fun to draw anymore because I cannot figure out how to properly draw her and make her look more like a ladybug while still keeping the show's style. Still, I hold season 1 Tikki very close to my heart and she's at least not stupidly annoying so... 10/20. Nooroo. I freaking hate his English voice. I don't remember his French one if I ever heard it but hopefully it's better? He also deserved antennas and prettier wings. Anyway, I know he technically hasn't gotten much focus but I do still really like him. Despite his kind of ugly design I still got a stuffed Nooroo and a Nooroo keychain as well as that huge Nooroo sticker. I really like Nooroo. He's kind of my favorite kwami and I feel very bad for him (especially since in the future he is still subjected to the same dumb, horrible fate because I guess the writers hate him :' D). But despite he's my favorite, Plagg is still obviously better so it wouldn't be fair to rate him above Plagg... 15/20. Wayzz was ruined just like Tikki. I miss season 1 Wayzz so much. He's honestly just a 9/20 because his supremely stupid decision to crawl on the ground to try and see Master Fu still makes me laugh at how dumb it was. He's annoying now like most of the kwamis. His dumb little antenna still annoys the heck out of me too because it in no way relates to a turtle and you can't even argue it's a kwami thing since some of the kwamis still don't have those things. Plus his is absurdly thick compared to the others... but he looks so dumb when you draw him without it and that drives me insane. Trixx is okay. 10/20 for them as well. They're freaking annoying but they look better than Wayzz and Nooroo and they're still kind of fun to watch. Plus, Trixx's relationship with Alya I hold very close to my heart. Pollen has no personality really and I actually preferred her concept where she didn't really have pupils or irises. I liked it so much I can only remember her like that even though she's not like that. She also got very annoying like the rest of the kwamis. 5/20 for probably being one of the

least annoying ones... Dusuu is super cute. Haven't seen much of him but he's super precious. (I call the kwamis by the gender I was kind of introduced to them as even if it wasn't the majority choice except Dusuu who I just think should be male because he's designed after a male peacock. Yes, the English dub made me very bitter. I really like animals. XD) I feel super bad for him too and I find him a bit more fun than Nooroo (sadly). I also like that he shifts emotions so drastically. Also his design is perfect and I love drawing him (though I do wish the bird kwamis got like real wings but I know that's hard in CGI so I won't blame them. I also tend to dial up his design a bit by giving him eyelash dots because I can). 17/20. Fluff was fun upon their first introduction. I was also partial to them because of the pastel blue and the time travel. And when I was a child bunnies used to be my favorite animal. I like drawing them with a Wonderlandiful kind of vibe (yes I stole that word from Ever After High and no I'm not sorry). As much as I'm not really a huge fan of the bunny being so heavily modeled after the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland (especially since that was arguably the more down to earth character compared to the rest of them) I still can't say I hate it. They're super fun to draw. Stupidly annoying now though. 9/20. Xuppu is okay? I barely really got to know him. I really need to rewatch Party Crasher in English to truly get it. He's stupidly annoying now though and I really don't like monkeys and apes all that much... I actually have a fear of apes and so that has kind of turned me away from monkeys too, to the point I kind of got them mixed up because my fear made me not really educate myself on that whole animal family. But he's super cute at least and I think kind of funny? Still, s4 really ruined the kwamis for me so... 5/20. Kaalki is a cool idea but I'm afraid I'm just not a fan of the whole pompous thing. I also think it's supremely weird she didn't go to like Chloe or Lila or something? I give them props for trying. Too bad she was ruined in s4 too. 5/20. Mullo had no real personality, or nothing I can remember. They also just became annoying in season 4 but they're at least kind of cute. 1/20. Sass was kind of fun. I find him to be chaotic evil and hilarious. I also kind of like his design. S4 almost ruined him but then went back and made him a tad better again so he gets to sit in 10/20 with Tikki. Longg is pretty much the same as Mullo but I like his design a bit less. I also think something went wrong with his CGI model? Props for finally being a kwami that's actually opposite the gender of his holder in the English dub. 1/20. Liiri means nothing to me but I can at least appreciate she has a decent design where she actually looks like her animal and was kind of cute. 1/20. Alright, as for the rest of them... they supremely annoy me. I can't believe they ruined the kwamis for me. I used to adore those little guys. RIP my love for the kwamis. -20/20 for all of them. I wish Marinette kept them locked in the box since that makes infinitely more sense especially since they all love to be absolute toddlers who disobey her and screw her over constantly. Also, the rooster looks more like a goldfish. There, now you can't unsee it. Thanks for the ask, anon. Hopefully that was an okay answer. I hope you're having a wonderful day, afternoon, evening, night, or whatever time it is where you are. <3 Send Me a Miraculous Character

#ml salt #kwami salt #tikki salt #plagg sugar #i love Nooroo so much #rip kwamis being likable #what a bunch of tiny jerks #ask me anything #anon ask #send me a miraculous character #my opinion #opinion #TB's opinion #ml spoilers #just in case #the rooster is actually a goldfish and you can't change my mind #ask meme #I literally have no idea why it did that separate paragraph thing at the end of my bit of Pollen #but it's annoying the heck out of me and I can't freaking fix it.

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inevitably-johnlocked · 3 years

Text

Hugs, Cuddles & Kisses Pt. 6

Hi , do you got any fluffy johnlock with cuddling

(submitted by here-4-tha-ship)

Anonymous asked: hiii got any johnlock fics where sherlock wants a hug but he feels embarrassed to ask john? thank you sm <3

—–

Hi Lovelies!! I sure do! And enough to do a new list too!! So thank you, people don’t ask for this enough these days hahhah! Hope you enjoy!!

See also:

Hugs & Cuddles and Tooth-Rotting Fluff (Pt. 2)

Hugs & Cuddles Pt. 2 /…/

…/ Hugs, Cuddles & Kisses Pt. 3 /…

Hugs, Cuddles & Kisses Pt. 4

Hugs, Cuddles & Kisses Pt. 5

A Better Fate Than Wisdom by flawedamythyst (G, 1,339 w., 1 Ch. || First Kiss, John’s Sexuality Crisis, Pining Sherlock, Happy Ending, Fluff) – Nearly four hours pass between their first kiss and their second.

Evermore by SosoHolmesWatson (G, 2,068 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4, 5-Year-Old Rosie, Love Confessions, Song Fic, Parentlock, Oblivious John, Pining Sherlock, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Disney Songs, Beauty and the Beast) – For the past years, John and Sherlock have lived at Baker Street again, raising Rosie together--as friends and nothing more. Ever since the little girl has watched her first Disney movie, she is obsessed with princesses. When John comes home one day, he finds his friend and his daughter in the middle of a reenactment of her current favourite. Part 1 of Made of Music

Living Musical by VeeTheRee (G, 4,149 w. 1 Ch. || Est. Rel., Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Hobbies, Summer, Song Fic, POV Sherlock, Painting, Play Fighting, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Love Declarations, Hair Petting, Promise of Forever) – A one-shot of John and Sherlock being domestic during summer. There is paint, fluff, and music from Imagine Dragons, namely from the album 'Speak To Me', specific song in this one-shot is 'Living Musical'. Part 1 of the Happy Fluffy Johnlock Time series

Date Night by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 4,451 w., 1 Ch. || Anxious / Worried Sherlock, Caring John, Schmoopy Fluff, Fidget Cube, Baking / Cooking, Date Night, Established Relationship, POV Sherlock Holmes, Understanding John, Grumpy Sherlock, John’s Bum, Kisses, Hugs, Domestic Fluff, Touching, Hair Petting, Light Humour) – It's John and Sherlock's first Date Night as an official couple and Sherlock needs it to be PERFECT. Mrs Hudson helps. Part 7 of I-J's Tumblr Ficlet Collection

To be loved by Strange_johnlock (E, 12,436 w., 8 Ch. || Post S3, Established Relationship, First Person POV Sherlock, Pet Names, Soft Sherlock, Mild ADHD, Protective John, Captain Watson, Body Appreciation, Bottomlock, Rough Sex, Travelling for Holidays, Introspection, Sherlock Loves John So Much It Hurts) – John is so deeply integrated into the work, both as my conductor of light, and as a great shot with a vicious right hook who tackles men -and women- no matter their size all in my defense. He protects me with all he can without question, and this loyalty is surely more than I deserve. Or: Sherlock is counting his blessings.

There's So Much Labour Just in Breathing Lately by Susan (E, 12,708 w., 1 Ch. || Post-TRF / Mentions of S3 Events, Romance, Angst, Grief/Mourning, Grieving John, Mutual Pining, Meddling Mycroft, Therapy, Ambiguous Hopeful Ending, Infidelity) – The dreams he hated most – the ones that left him a sweating, shaking mess when he woke – were the ones in which Sherlock was just Sherlock. Laughing or drinking tea. Sitting across the table from him at Angelo’s eating pasta. Trailing his open hand behind him on the way to the bedroom. “C’mon, John. I’m about to have my way with you.”

holding steady by darcylindbergh (E, 12,724 w., 4 Ch. || Post S4, Love Confessions, First Kiss, Growing Old, Gone Fishing, Mood without Plot, Soft Sherlock, Caring Sherlock, POV John Third Person, Anxious Sherlock, First Kiss / Time, Touching, Feeling Old, Sherlock Worship, Crying Sherlock, Cuddles, Comforting, Introspection, Retirement, Hand Holding, Forehead Kisses, Caring John, Bed Sharing, Emotional Love Making) – Sitting on a thick wool blanket at the end of a rickety dock side-by-side, legs dangling over the edge, a styrofoam container of wet, dark dirt between them, they’re fishing. John knows what this is about. This is about finally figuring it out.

On The Fence by BeautifulFiction (T, 13,770 w., 1 Ch. || Fencing, Case Fic, First Kiss, Insecure John, Pining John, Hug, Greg Finds Out) – The murder of the King's College fencing champion leads to revelations about Sherlock's past. Will it be the point that tips them from friends to lovers, or will they remain on the fence?

The shape of the world around us by Salambo06 (E, 15,058 w., 5 Ch. || Lumberjack John / Botanist Sherlock, Different First Meeting, John Has a Beard, Light Case Fic, Flirting, First Kiss / Time, Masturbation, Love at First Sight, Horny Sherlock, John’s Bum, Bottomlock, Tenderness, Virgin Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Shy Sherlock, Sexual Fantasies) – Looking through the bush, Sherlock felt his heartbeat quicken as a man passed in front of him. Sherlock frowned, trying to get a closer look despite the bush. The man was wearing a red plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows, and Sherlock couldn't take his eyes off the man’s arms. Muscular, slightly tanned with golden hairs along his forearms. For some unknown reason, Sherlock found himself imagining them around his waist, holding him tightly. Closing his eyes for the briefest second, Sherlock shook his head. Opening his eyes and looking back to where the man stood only a moment prior, he found himself alone. Great, now his only chance to find his way back to town was gone. “Why are you wearing a suit?”

A Hooligans’ Game Played By Gentlemen by scullyseviltwin (E, 15,213 w., 1 Ch. || First Time, Rugby as Foreplay, Porn with Lots of Plot, John POV, Ogling, Body Appreciation, Cranky Sherlock, Slow Burn, Bed Sharing, Cuddling, Touching, Heavy Petting, Blow Job, Botttomlock) – In which John wants to get back in shape, does so, joins a rugby league and has sex with Sherlock Holmes. In that order.

Division by MrsNoggin (E, 19,542 w., 11 Ch. || Coffee Shop AU || First Kiss/Time, Fluff, Barista Sherlock, Clingy Sherlock, POV John, John’s Limp, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Sleepy Cuddles, Sensuality, Touching, Virgin Sherlock, Insecure John) – John likes mysteries. And every morning he dips into the local independent coffee bar with his newspaper and ponders another... one Sherlock Holmes.

Deck the Halls by itsalwaysyou_jw (T, 31,018 w., 24 Ch. || Advent Fic / Multiple One-Shots, Assorted Tags) – One Johnlock ficlet for every day leading up to Christmas. Who is ready for pining, first kisses, established Johnlock, and everything in between? This collection of stand-alone ficlets will have it all.

Lucifer's Gardens by ampersand_ch (E, 32,679 w., 12 Ch. || GERMAN VERSION || Romance, Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Murder, Poison / Drugging, Mystery, John Undercover, Academic Club, Therapy, Rituals, Jungian Archetypes, Doctors & Physicians, Grief/Mourning, Esotericism, Hospitals, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, John Falls In Love With Another Man, Jealous Sherlock, Crying, Doctor John, Hand Holding, First Kiss/Time, Mysticism, Hugging, Touching) – John goes undercover for an investigation as a favour to Lestrade in a village in Suffolk. The events surrounding the case awaken deep-seated fears in Sherlock. While John begins to come to a realisation of what he needs in Lucifer's Gardens, Sherlock tries to find a way to reach John – in more ways than one.

Isosceles by SilentAuror (E, 56,609 w., 7 Ch. || Post-S4, POV John, Original Male Character / Sherlock Dates Another Man, Love Triangle, Jealous John, Virgin Sherlock, Sexual Coaching, Angst, Romance, Domesticity, Unrequited Feelings, Miscommunication, First Kiss/Time, For a Case, Friends With Benefits, Bottomlock, Love Confessions, Spooning) – After solving a case for a major celebrity, Sherlock gets himself asked out. When John asks, he discovers that Sherlock has no intention of going, at least not until John agrees to coach him through whatever he might need to know for his date...

Lunar Landscapes by J_Baillier (M, 57,046 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || S3/TAB Fix-It, Slow Burn Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Drugs, Pain, Medical, Injury, Sherlock Whump, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Romance, Secrets, Tragedy, Trauma, BAMF John, Doctor!John, Drug Addict Sherlock, Injured Sherlock, Grieving John, Idiots In Love, Protective John, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Sherlock is a Mess, Medical Realism) – An accident forces John to face the fact that Sherlock's downward spiral had started long before his flight to exile even left the tarmac.

Gold Rush by ShirleyCarlton (E, 71,783 w., 17 Ch. || Post S3 / No Mary, Friends to Lovers, Mentions of Past Sexual Abuse, First Kiss, Case Fic, Slow Burn, Alternating POV, Switchlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Marriage Proposal, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abduction, Anxious/Insecure Sherlock, Miscommunication, Emotional Lovemaking) – John has divorced Mary and pops round to 221B one evening to find Sherlock in the middle of a case. As Sherlock tries to find the identity of a young woman’s stalker, John realises he can no longer deny his feelings for Sherlock – which then, to their befuddlement, turn out to be mutual. Shy kisses and tentative embraces ensue. But will Sherlock be able to cast off a shadow from his past that he thinks might prevent John from wanting to stay?

Against the Rest of the World by SilentAuror (E, 151,714 w., 20 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Hiatus Fic, POV First Person Sherlock, Present Tense, First Kiss/Time, Big Brother Mycroft, Escaping from Capture, Soft Sherlock, Toplock, Insecurity, Infidelity, Travelling, Introspection, Pining Sherlock, Depression, Fantasies, Yearning for the Past, PTSD Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation) – Sherlock has been away from London for nine hundred and twelve days and counting, and has no idea what sort of reception to expect when he finally returns.

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #hugs and cuddles #my fic recs #fluff fics #submission

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vickyvicarious · 3 years

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Parker: "Teach me to like stuff."

Okay, so. I have some thoughts about The French Connection Job's Parker+Eliot subplot. And I think I wanna approach it separately, scene by scene from each of their perspectives, because we have a couple different things going on here. It's still a little more of a Parker meta than an Eliot meta, but I have enough to talk about on both sides, and they're connected enough not to be in separate metas, that I am going to do it this way.

Also going to put this under a cut because it gets long.

Parker

This whole subplot comes on the heels of the last episode, in which there was a lot of banter throughout about Hardison and Parker's dates, and him wanting to branch out into other things than just bungee jumping or whatever. We have seen hints of this throughout S5 so far, even though we're only a few episodes in at this point. They went on a world tour that was pretty much just jumping off of stuff, Hardison said something about them figuring things out. We saw a cute domestic scene of the aftermath of them watching a movie together, except Parker 'fell asleep again' and missed most of it, and Hardison eventually went off to work on his laptop. Parker tried to comfort him last episode about dust mites and ended up freaking him out instead. She talked about how she liked fire and Hardison complained she was missing the point of his offer for a candlelit picnic. They did end on a very romantic note with her still making the effort to make it happen but getting rained out, and him recognizing her effort and listening to him, and projecting the stars around the dark room then having the picnic inside. They are clearly very happy together and both making the effort to meet in the middle, but there are still some disconnects. Which makes sense this early on anyway, but it's not out of place for Parker to start getting worried about her limited interests here given the context of them contrasting Hardison's more widespread interests.

Starting right off the bat - there's a picture limit so I can't show these early moments, but throughout the first part of the episode we see Parker looking visibly upset/pensive. Hardison notices and asks her what's wrong, but is immediately distracted by his package arriving, and then the team gets into the briefing and he doesn't get to talk to her again. (Sidenote that this is pretty OOC for Hardison, and I have to assume he would at the very least come back to her later, but they were clearly trying to get Parker talking with someone else this episode and apparently couldn't come up with a better way to do it. His writing outside of the kitchen stuff was kinda off this whole episode anyway, what with the whole tip thing.) She was about to open up to him, however, which is important. There's also a scene shortly afterwards where she confides in Nate, again after he notices her being upset and asks what's bothering her. She claims everyone but her has 'a thing', and names a few of them. He asks her what she thinks when she sees Michelangelo's David, and when her answer is an immediate assessment of how it's guarded and what she'd have to do to steal it, he kind of hesitates and then goes right back to running the con. He basically gives up on helping her with this once it becomes clear that a quick sentence or two isn't gonna cut it.

So after those brief, unhelpful conversations, that's when she makes a move. She was responding to others before, but this time she comes up to Eliot, clearly nervous. And she asks him to help her feel something.

(I find it very interesting that she doesn't ask Sophie. Sophie is the person who she would usually go to for something like this, after all. But, aside from this being an Eliot-centric episode and just like them sidelining Hardison's possible assistance earlier the writers want Parker to talk with Eliot not Sophie, I think there are maybe a couple reasons why she might go to him here. First, just distance. Eliot is right downstairs, meanwhile at the moment Sophie is however far across town at her theater. Certainly not saying she wouldn't go to Sophie eventually, but maybe that's why not first. Second, she and Eliot have an understanding, one that's been explicitly acknowledged since the start of S4. They are similar in a way entirely unlike the rest of the crew. So while Sophie may understand emotions best, Eliot is the one most likely to know what Parker is talking about when she says she just isn't feeling anything. Which by the way I'm gonna get more into later on. Thirdly they're in love but that's not actually relevant here since all of the team love one another.)

Eliot

On Eliot's side, she approaches him when he's busy in the kitchen. This whole job is stirring up a lot of old feelings in him right from the start. Toby was someone who 'kept him from falling all the way down', and Eliot is deeply concerned for him. At the same time, the way they are running this con is allowing Eliot to take on the role of teacher. Even though his students aren't anything like the eager students Toby has just had taken away from him, Eliot wants so badly to take advantage of this opportunity to teach them - maybe even all the more because they're resistant. He's being given a very rare opportunity to indulge his belief that food is life and to share it on a larger scale. To use the knife to create, not just destroy. Leverage often walks a line between doing both (taking down the bad guys and helping people) but Eliot doesn't often just straight up get to just do the 'creating' part. (I mean, he loves the destruction too, he genuinely loves beating people up and taking down bad guys, but this is a rarer pleasure.) So he's pretty preoccupied with that at first, and initially dismisses Parker just like the other two guys did.

But when she just looks quietly disappointed at his response, he goes still and watches her. We cut away from them here so we don't see his actual response, but it's immediately clear that he's realizing this is actually something deeply important to Parker, and well worth his time.

On to the next part of this scene below.

[Eliot sets a dish down in front of Parker]

Parker: "...It's just food."

Eliot: "It's not just food! Alright, some people could look at it and just see food, but not me. I see art. When I'm in the kitchen I'm, I'm creating something outta nothing, you know what I mean? And sometimes I crush it, sometimes it's crap, but either way - it makes me feel something."

Parker: "Feel what?"

Eliot: "Just... feel."

Parker: [murmuring] "Feel... okay." [looks down at the food and hesitates]

Eliot: "You know, I didn't feel anything for a long time. Then Toby taught me how to cook, and after he did, I started to feel stuff again. That's why I share it through my food - this is my art. This is my art, Parker." [Parker nods, looking worried] "It's like lettin' a stranger in your head, just for a second. And you allow them to feel what you're feeling." [pause] "Look again." [he pushes the plate a little closer to her. Parker takes a deep breath and slowly sets her elbows down on the counter as she stares down at the plate. Eliot watches her closely.]

Parker

At this point I want to talk a little about what Parker means when she says "feel something" and talks about "having a thing." Because we've seen her have interests outside of straightforward thievery before. Sure, most of her hobbies revolves around stealing - casing local banks for fun, for example. But she clearly has a deep love for Christmas and for chocolate. So why doesn't she count those kinds of things as 'feeling something'?

I think it comes down to what Eliot's talking about here. It's a sense of art. Not even necessarily making it yourself, although that certainly applies. Parker likes sweet things like chocolate and donuts, but although she really really likes them they don't make her feel any truly deep emotion. It's more tactile than anything else, just a pleasant flavor. Her love of Christmas isn't the same either in her eyes because it's not uniquely hers. It's something she loves to celebrate but she can't do so all year round, and plenty of other people like Christmas too. This one comes a lot closer, because it definitely seems to be tied up more in community and family for her than something like enjoying chocolate and piñatas, but it still doesn't belong to her in the same way that cooking does to Eliot or theater does to Sophie. And while theoretically her love of base jumping and so on could maybe count, it is still so tied up in her thieving that it doesn't feel separate. She's really good at drawing but only thinks of it as a useful skill, not a creative outlet - this is similar to that.

She has been branching out into a lot of new experiences and emotions lately, and while she's struck out deep into uncharted waters with her relationship with Hardison, once there she's only seeing more and more things that she just... doesn't get. She loves spending time with him, and enjoys what they do together, but she doesn't understand all of those things. Not on a deeper level. She wants to feel that sense of connection to something, wants to feel deeply emotionally moved by something.

And honestly? I think she's way up in her head about it. I'm not trying to dismiss her struggle here at all, but I do think she is stressing herself out about having something uniquely her own. About having a huge interest that speaks so strongly to her personally. And those are amazing to have, but it's really not necessary. She doesn't need a strong secondary passion so much as she needs to let go of trying so hard to force herself into something.

And what's happening in this scene in particular is that Parker is trying so so hard to force herself to feel something. It's evident in her face throughout the whole scene, in her body language. And she is so terrified that it's not going to work that honestly, I'm not surprised at all that it doesn't.

Eliot

On Eliot's side of this scene, he feels like he recognizes where Parker is. This entire job has him remembering how it was to feel nothing. Her phrasing got to him deeply. He wants to reach out and teach her to see something more, just like Toby taught him.

He knew a bit about how to cook before Toby. But it was only seeing Toby's passion that struck something in him, that awoke a part of himself he might've never known before. For Eliot specifically, cooking being an art isn't just something he likes. It's something that brings him hope.

Eliot doesn't believe in redemption. But he believes in actions. And what Toby did, by teaching him to cook, was to teach him that his actions can be good. That he can create, not just destroy. That all is not lost - not 'for' him necessarily, so much as 'in' him. There is a deep empty place inside himself that he can enter so so easily. The difficulty is crawling back out again. Cooking was his rope out of there. He still finds it difficult to express his emotions very often, particularly verbally, but when he makes someone a meal he puts a part of himself into it. And yet doing so doesn't take anything from him, it just adds more.

This is all very vague and figurative and may make no sense, but the takeaway I want to have is that Eliot is opening up to Parker on a very deep level here. He feels like he recognizes what she's talking about, and it was a very bad place for him. (Again, I don't think she is quite that badly off at this point in canon, but I digress.) And while making food allows him to feel that he is demonstrating his love for someone, that he is sharing a part of himself with them, he recognizes that she isn't receiving that. What she's getting, is just a plate of food. Tasty food maybe, but nothing more than that. And so Eliot verbalizes everything to her in a way he rarely does.

And then he keeps trying. This scene obviously doesn't end up making her feel something, and we don't get to see the immediate aftermath of that, but we can glean a little about how they feel based on their reactions. And Eliot is deeply determined to help Parker feel something from his food. He insists that she play the food critic; even speaks directly to her and reminds her to consider what they talked about.

In the restaurant, we start out with Parker dutifully playing her role but feeling nothing much beyond just the role. Eliot checks in with Parker, she acknowledges that the food is good but doesn't make her feel anything, and he makes improvements based on her feedback. Then something abruptly changes.

Parker: "I can taste garlic, and mushrooms... and something else that makes me feel different."

Hardison: "Wait, was that for me, cause I-I don't get it."

Parker: "No, it's the food. I get it." [smiles] "I feel something."

Parker: "Mmm! These black noodles are amazing!

Eliot: "Parker, it's tagliolini nero con gamberi."

Parker: "Mmm." [eats a huge forkful] "Mmm. Mmmm. These are really good."

Parker

What just happened here? Last we saw from Parker, she'd failed to feel something from the meal Eliot made especially for her in the brewpub, and she was clearly disheartened. She felt it as a failure, very much in the sense of a disappointment. She didn't want to try again, didn't think it would work, and tried to protest when Eliot said she would be the food critic. Even once she got to the restaurant, nothing was happening for her.

The difference wasn't in the flavor of the food. The moment Parker started to feel something was right after she said she felt nothing and Eliot, instead of being disappointed or giving up, took it as a challenge. He changed his recipe, he improved it specifically to better reach out to her. He kept trying.

And yeah, maybe the bone broth helped it taste better. But that wasn't the point, not really. The point is that Parker had gotten herself stuck in a hole, trapped herself in this cycle of not understanding how things make you feel and then believing that she just couldn't. She wanted something of her own and she didn't have it and she didn't immediately get anyone else's thing either, and that was it. She just wasn't capable. She was other. This is an old old fear of Parkers, dating back to Archie or even before. Something in her just isn't capable of being like other people. She wasn't worthy of being in Archie's real family, and she's not able to feel passion for anything outside of stealing. (Setting aside the fact that she loves her team, that all she needed was the right family. That you don't have to be a creator to feel passion, and you don't need to be passionate about any particular thing in order to feel deeply and find beauty in the world.) Parker has empathized deeply with people, has felt so intensely before and is constantly trying to learn more and new ways to be. But because she is noticing her teams' passions now, she has this ideal that she wants to reach, and none of that is good enough for her. She doesn't even know exactly what her ideal involves, but she can't get to it.

But when Eliot doesn't give up, that gets to her. If he views his food as sharing himself with others, Parker finally gets what he's been trying to give all along. It's all about him trying again and again, changing his approach to match her better. That's what she feels, that's what she enjoys.

And once she starts, the floodgates open. She loves the black noodles. She is so happy, she is relieved. There was this huge resistance that she couldn't get past before, but Eliot persisting helped her to break past that and now that she is out of her head about it she can enjoy the food in a way she never has before. Because she feels his love for her in it.

Eliot

Eliot is trying so hard to connect to Parker. It's not really different from what I said in the last Eliot section, and basically the same as what I just said in that Parker section, but I want to emphasize a little more just how much this is about love on his end.

Eliot loves Parker. He loves her, and he wants so much to help her. It doesn't honestly matter that he does this with food, except for the fact that food is what matters so deeply to Eliot himself. He can't reach out to her in the same way through any other medium. And we don't get to see his reaction to Parker's moment of realization. But I think it would be such a deep sense of joy. This is as fulfilling for Eliot as it is for Parker. It's exactly what Eliot has been hoping for this whole episode, to teach someone else to see food in the same way he does. It doesn't matter if it only lasts for a moment or a single meal. That's enough. He has been the support Parker needed through this time of self-doubt. And it is all the more meaningful to him because this isn't just a random student, this is Parker.

He told her he loves her through his food, again and again, and she eventually felt it. She understood. That must mean so much to him.

I wanna end with one more brief note on Parker. Does she get her own "thing" this episode? No. No she does not, and this scene shows us that. Parker is not suddenly interested in food or cooking. The importance of that meal was purely derived from Eliot on the other end of it, focused on her and trying his best to reach out to her.

And I don't think this is something only Eliot could have done for her either, not really. The difference between him and the others this episode is mostly in persistence. However, it's also about her mentality. Hardison has built/done things for Parker before and she felt them just as deeply - but the context was different. She wasn't looking for a sense of beauty or art in the world at large then, and so even though she felt the love in the gift just as much, it didn't make her feel like she could find that kind of emotion in other things. She just wasn't looking for it. Also, it was made easier for Eliot to reach out because there's that connection Parker has with him, that understanding that they are on the same level somehow. She doesn't feel that with Hardison - and she loves him all the more for him being different from her, but he also I think can intimidate her with how good and open he is, with how much he can feel in so many different directions. It's part of why she got so worried about herself not being able to do so this episode.

Like, the team has scolded Nate for not having a life or interests of his own outside the job not too terribly long ago! And Parker has had her own joys before! But she isn't seeing that this episode, too caught up in this fear about not having her own 'thing', not feeling anything that way. So while anyone could have helped her through this, it was easiest for her to let Eliot do so + for him to understand what she needed from him. (Hardison in particular was rudely robbed the opportunity, but they all love and support her and could have reached her. Not to detract from Eliot doing so, but also I don't wanna sound like no other method of reaching out would've worked.)

But as soon as she feels something once with Eliot's help, that relaxes those fears. And then Parker is free to look in other places. She remembers Nate's comment about art, and maybe even tells him what she plans based on him knowing where she is at the end of the episode. And then she goes to visit this statue. In her own way which means breaking in, but without any goal of taking it. She just goes to look at the art. And she feels something again.

Parker doesn't gain some big passion at the end of this episode. She doesn't need to. She never did. She just learns how to let herself relax from that restrictive frame of mind. To simply be in the moment and enjoy things for the sake of what they are. To feel - not really in any way she was incapable of before, but intentionally now. It's a quiet victory, in the end. It doesn't mean she's going to get a new hobby or change her lifestyle at all really. But she's let go of a fear and is now intentionally seeking out new connections with the world beyond her once-limited parameters.

#leverage #leverage meta #parker #eliot spencer #my meta #ugggggh why did this get so long?! i just wanted to jot down a few thoughts!#hopefully it's coherent #i'm like half-asleep at this point which probably accounts for the length since i ramble on when i'm tired. and also hopefully for anything #that doesn't make sense

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asleepinawell · 3 years

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hiii not sure if it’s okay to ask a poi question but here it goes - i recall seeing you expressing (at least some level of) discontent with what Harold has done on the show (to root, to shaw and all those hypocritical decisions throughout). would you like to share more about your thoughts on this character? tks

always okay to ask poi questions. since the fandom is pretty small these days i was going to put my answer under a read more line so people could ignore it more easily if it’s a subject that bothers them but apparently you can’t add read more lines in ask answers? thanks tumblr! so if this is a topic that annoys anyone, please, just skip it. also, while some of this is facts or based on facts a lot of stuff is obviously my opinion and therefore not canon and not the only opinion etc etc.

in general, i wasn’t crazy about the way harold treated any of the other characters (with the exception of john who he had a pretty great relationship with). for root, there was the refusal to call her root, which i found very gross and uncomfortable (like, in general you should respect what people ask to be called, but also it was linked to the traumatic death of her childhood friend and he absolutely knew that so fuck that shit). he even said something along the lines of 'john reese is what you prefer to be called' to john right in the first episode? he was okay with using reese's fake name, but not hers because he made her identity into a power game.

he also tended to be..hmm, patronizing is the wrong word (and lbr root was extremely patronizing to everyone) but more that he treated her like ‘rehabilitating’ her was his pet project or something. i mean one thing that always struck me was his ‘what happened to you’ line in bad code and then the subsequent decision to put her in a mental institution instead of, you know, jail, which is where every other perp they ran into tended to go. he saw her as broken and flawed and in need of his help which, to me, came off as hypocritical and belittling.

also, putting someone in a psychiatric institution where they get pumped full of drugs when they don’t need to be? really fucked up! even if you argue root needed therapy/was depressed whatever, that’s not what they were treating her for. they were treating her for ‘delusions’ and ‘hearing voices’ which were...real things. like, the machine was speaking to her. harold knew that. he let her get put on all sorts of medication and put in solitary confinement and oh yes also her doctor was a really fucked up dude, something harold could easily have dug up if he’d bothered. also the whole ‘killing off a woman to advance a man’s character development thing’ is, uh, a bad trope. to put it mildly. i could write a lot more about his shit with root but let’s move on.

in some ways, his attitude towards shaw bothers me most. he consistently treats her like she’s violent and unhinged because she has aspd and despite the large amount of evidence to the contrary. she is, in fact, the most cool and controlled member of the team (not counting carter) and the least likely to go off half-cocked. shaw does play into this, but mostly only with harold and only through her words, not her actions. she knows what he thinks of her. when she’s captured by samaritan, harold gives up on her very quickly in a way he would never have done for john (and probably not for root either at that point). shaw’s reaction to sim!harold in 6741 of ‘did you even look for me’ says a lot about what she thinks he thinks of her. his whole ‘binary moral compass’ line to her is also, uh, heavily projecting. shaw and carter had the strongest moral compasses of the group. by a long shot.

moving on to the machine. so first and foremost, if you’re creating a sentient being, whether that’s having a kid or making a self-aware AI, you don’t create something with the intention of locking it up and ignoring it forever. (and he was creating her for the bush/cheney administration???? who TM pointed out was terrible if he somehow had managed to miss that. root called them something like the worst people imaginable and she wasn’t exaggerating). was it too dangerous to let TM be free from the get go? maybe! but then don’t fucking make an AI you think can destroy the world, buddy. there are a lot of reasons he made TM and none of them make this acceptable to me. once TM had clearly proven to be not a threat and trying to help he continued to ignore her and act like she was dangerous.

harold always needed very badly to feel like he had the moral high ground and not be the person who made a bad decision, which yes, is probably partly due to the trauma from what happened to nathan but that doesn’t make it okay when being paralyzed by being unable to make a decision got people killed. more than once! also, most of his morals got tossed out when they weren’t convenient. wouldn’t kill the senator to save the world because killing is bad! next episode he’s like if anything happens to grace kill all of them. cool story, still murder.

i wanna conclude this rant by talking about harold as a character vs harold as a person. meaning, harold as a fictional character who is used as a narrative device in a story as opposed to harold himself without the context of him being fictional. i don’t mind characters who say and do things i dislike. it’s very important to have characters you dislike as people imo. feels like an understatement. but lambet, for example, is a slimy asshole. the story is aware of this. he gets an ending a slimy asshole deserves. harold has a lot of flaws, and causes a lot of damage, gets his friends killed, and his stubborn refusal to budge on his arbitrary moral high ground lets samaritan take over and almost makes team machine lose. he gets a happy ending. with the woman he lied to (and caused a lot of pain and grief by lying to). root ends up dead, shaw gets tortured and fights her way back for root only to have her die which is kind of handwaved as ‘well she has tm with root’s voice good enough’, and john, after having rediscovered his will to live and have a life in the end of s4 goes right back to his whole dying for someone else thing. only harold gets the happy ending.

the show was actually pretty good at highlighting harold’s flaws and making them interesting, and then it kind of forgot that at the end in terms of story outcome. like, if harold had suffered enough to get a happy ending, then why didn’t anyone else get one? so my annoyance was with the narrative’s failure to satisfactorily conclude the characters’ arcs. (and for the record, i’m not one of the people who think he should have died. i don’t think it would have served a point. also death doesn’t equal redemption to me).

so, yeah, not a fan of him. don’t write him in my fics since my dislike would take time and focus away from writing about the people i do like. would probably be less bitter if they’d ended the show better. i was 300k words fic level of bitter. there was some post i saw going around recently about how if your found family show doesn’t end up with your found family together then you’ve kind of missed the whole point of found family and yeah, that.

#mp #asks #poi meta #don't send me hate messages or comments about this #i will just block you without responding #too tired for fandom discourse #i said at the beginning don't read if it'll bug you #so if you did anyway #that's on you #Anonymous

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mc-critical · 3 years

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your analysis of selim? i think he's hated way more than he deserves. hating him for valid reasons is fine but telling that he's gonna be such a bad sultan is really stupid [and especially because only now do they bring out history & say selim was bad which is historically inaccurate as well]. out of all of suleyman's sons, it was only mustafa who was loved by all & talented [show only cuz apparently mehmet was also extremely talented & selim wasn't a bad sultan] enough for the throne. bayezid was extremely hotheaded and you can't tell me that a prince who can't control his emotions, especially in front of state officials, will be a good sultan. everyone tells selim was extremely selfish & the instigator of all their fights, when they were younger & older. siblings are always like that?? mustafa obviously wasn't like that because he was way older than mehmet, mihrimah, selim, bayezid & cihangir to get into stupid fights w/ them. mehmet & mihrimah had frequent & annoying arguments because they were closer in age. selim & bayezid had frequent fights because they were closer in age. this is a thing with many siblings; the elder provoking the younger & the younger disrespecting the elder. why do people point out their sibling fights as evidence for selim's personality? i feel sorry for bayezid as a kid but i feel less remorse for him as he's older. i don't say he deserves execution, especially at the hands of his own father, but he did rebel against his father's order & then proceeded to flee to another empire; like, the punishment for that is execution, what did he expect after rebelling? i feel extremely sorry for all his sons though, they didn't deserve this fate when they were just victims of their father's rebellion. also, unpopular opinion but bayezid is lowkey overrated pls don't cancel me i love him but he's annoying at times like all characters & no one really acknowledges it back to selim, he was honestly very underrated. he was really slandered in the series and he didn't have any real support w/ him until nurbanu & sokollu. although hurrem did vouch for him to go to manisa, it was literally only because he was 'peaceful' [we can read that as untalented as well] and no harm would reach him because he wasn't a threat [i actually really liked this plan of hurrem's, tough & clever; only if she was actually supported in this]. even mihrimah, till the end, is quite unfair to him. he had a problem w/ alcohol & people telling him to just stop? like, it doesn't work that way? people have to suffer so much in order to stop their addictions & they're actually restricted from their addictions; selim was a prince, no one around him could restrict him [his parents could but they weren't w/ him in his provinces]. he did become politically active w/ nurbanu's growing ambitions & he took smarter, more cunning & dirtier measures than bayezid to win the throne. the battle for the throne was bloody; resorting to honour like mustafa did was obviously not the best decision & people insult selim for being cunning enough [or being influenced by cunning people] to win the throne. let's also keep in mind that selim didn't even have much of an interest for the throne until manisa & nurbanu. i also like his relationship w/ nurbanu. it paralleled suleyman & hurrem's w/ the concubine arcs but selim did end up being monogamous to her in the show. their chemistry was fantastic [props to engin & merve for their acting] and although i don't really enjoy the 'a woman makes a man strong & influences him in everything; good or evil' kind of take, i did enjoy their relationship [he also sometimes looked at her like she was this ethereal type miracle, appropriately so w/ her courage]. i like what the show did w/ bayezid's execution a lot, the whole scene was such a wonderful cinematic experience; the music, bayezid's agonizing screams, his sons falling one by one, selim crying because he didn't want it to end up this way, bayezid falling & his screams ceasing, selim's heartbroken face because he was always a soft person & he always loved bayezid;

ahh, what a scene, so much love for it. anyway, that's just my opinion; i think he's hated way more than he deserves, especially in comparison to other characters & he's actually one of my most favourite characters from s4 [but i honestly love all characters w/ their good & bad, mc has many complex characters & i live for it]. what do you think about selim? sorry if you got annoyed at the long ask, i can get really heated when talking about selim [especially in reference to his historical figure], hope you don't mind if❤ [if it is annoying i'll stop it]

(okay, I'll talk strictly about the show, since I don't feel like delving deep into historical waters. There is still stuff we don't know for sure and I do want to keep the line between show and history in my head, except for the similar themes.)

While he isn't particularly my favorite character, I appreciate MC Selim and he is a very interesting subject when it comes to analyzing him. I'm actually amazed with what the show did with him in the span of a season (and something, counting some S02B and S03B moments) - he was one of the most fleshed out characters in S04 and we could get a clear picture as to why he does what he does.

Some people consider his debut to be an insult, for it immediately showed some of his weaknesses, putting him in a bad light right out of the gate. But all I can see in this debut is a showcase of his predicament of the prince no one sees as a capable heir of the throne. It’s as if he sleeps with women and drinks as a coping mechanism he’s delved into, with Mihrimah having to do effort to snap him out of it. The Selim we see in the beginning of S04 is a hopeless person. He doesn’t have dreams and ambitions, it’s as if he’s a already a lost cause and he has no one to truly support him. Even Hürrem wanted to send him to Manisa not because she deemed him as worthy, but to use him as a shield in order to deceive her enemies and protect the actual favorite. That may seem like a clever plan, but in actuality, it failed spectacularly - not only did her enemies not get confused for a second and didn’t attack Selim at all, but she forgot to tell Bayezid why she did it and made Selim confused to the point of demotivation, because none of his brothers were truly happy with this decision and they were all opposing it, directly and indirectly. And while he may not show it that much, because of his more composed and pragmatic nature, Selim is sensitive to the opinions of his brothers and the people around him and their prevailing disapproval may be a part of why he became so different than the rest. It’s like no one wanted to get to know him.

Nurbanu’s entrance in Selim’s life is very cathartic in this aspect, for she actually worked with him and gave him the needed motivation and ambition to fight, awaking sides of him that were dormant for a long time. And yes, I do think that Selim’s pragmatism is something he always had, if the whole arrow incident in S03B where he sabotaged Bayezid’s arrow, which caused him to lose is any indication.

{I don’t think that the quarrels Selim and Bayezid had when they were little are so much indicators of Selim’s personality as they are foreshadowing of their future conflict. Right, these quarrels are normal for siblings and Mehmet and Mihrimah also fought like that (heck, even little Mehmet and Mustafa had a fight once in S01 and that fight was used as the conflict of the remainder of that one episode), but they weren’t as frequent as the ones of Selim and Bayezid. I don’t know, it’s just the atmosphere of these scenes was different and hinted at something more. It could be because we know the historical events and we could see every tiniest bit of early sibling rivalry between them as build-up, but still, I always felt there just was something else. Like the whole arrow incident I mentioned, a presumably harmless little situation gains a whole other meaning later on. It sets up neatly Süleiman’s opinions of both of them (his reaction to apparent disobedience and the making of a scene by someone he doesn’t expect to, by which I mean Bayezid), Hürrem’s retroactive ignorance of a possible bigger enmity and the roots of the whole conflict. It’s not Selim deciding to sabotage Bayezid’s performance as a last resort, maybe knowing that he surely won’t do better than his brother (doing a pretty typical ,,prank’’ for a little, naughty kid) that is exemplary of his cunning later, it’s his validation and him getting away with it that eventually becomes it, just like how he ends up getting away with stuff in the next season. Selim definetly isn’t the instigator of all the fights, especially because Bayezid, thanks to his more impulsive nature, is much more likely to start a fight in the first place and contrasts to Selim’s overall better composure. Provokations among them were mutual and both were consistently throwing darts at each other, one after another. Their conflict is a very nuanced issue: while people try to play right and wrong, both sides were at fault one way or another. The conflict between them is mostly caused by insensitivity, favoritism and ignorance and the desperation of both to try to prove themselves to their parents and win their support, at the end of the day. Why did they always calm down in front of their mother? Not only because of their joint respect for her, but also because of these same attempts to earn her support. Even Bayezid, who obviously had to be sure of her support, wasn’t completely certain of it after Hurrem turned it on Selim for a while. Selim, on the other hand, obviously never felt her support, it’s like something was missing right from the start. Combine that with their completely opposing personalities and the whole system encouraging competition for the throne and there you have the inevitable ultimate conclusion. That’s why I also love the set-up, the pay-off and the aftermath of Bayezid’s execution. It may be historically inaccurate that Selim, not Süleiman, executed Bayezid, but when you think about it, it was the most logical thing that could’ve happened, ending their conflict with a heart-wrenching bow. I love the scene of the execution itself, too - the action, the dialogue, the direction, the character moments, the themes... I don’t know whether Selim loved Bayezid by that point, per say, after all they went through, but it was clear that he knew that he had to do it, that it couldn’t have ended any other way, but he was broken over it. He was aware that it was, ultimately, a sin, which would continue haunting him. He couldn’t catch a break afterwards, he couldn’t stop. All was solved, but at what cost?}

I love his dynamic with Nurbanu - they balanced each other off so well, their chemistry was amazing, such a power couple. Nurbanu’s biggest contribution is hiding some of his flaws and mobilizing him to fight. Her cold pragmatism ,,grounds’’ Selim’s softer side, she’s there to always remind him of the stakes of the game and to shut off the last ounces of his vulnerabilities after Hurrem died. He sure is influenced by her, but that doesn’t mean that he blindly takes her word for everything - he is always ready to call her out when necessary and assure her that there are lines she shouldn’t cross. Despite of her pleas, he kept having affairs with other women (that is honestly a trend with all the men of the show, but still..), he got mad at her after what happened to Huricihan and most notably, after he found out that she possibly stole his mother’s ring. A part of why their dynamic works so well is precisely this strenght of character and their awesome compatibility.

I have heard affirmations that Selim doesn’t care about Mustafa, which... simply isn’t true? While they have the least scenes together and Selim is the one that considers him most as a rival and his most dangerous competitor for the throne (which would explain his startled reaction after Musti saved him from the janissary), it’s precisely Mustafa’s death that is the turning point of his character arc. He was upping his game slowly but surely and before then, but he didn’t do much in terms of attacks. Neither Selim, nor Nurbanu once considered attacking Mustafa, the supposed biggest danger to them, which I find respectable and admirable. The bomb with the death drops and then every hope about a fair game is abandoned. Selim gets the realization that being honorable won’t work. The only way to win is bend the system and play dirty. There’s no time for sitting around or looking nice. And even though Nurbanu realized this, too, as well as Selim, Nurbanu was always more inclined to act this way than him and now the righteousness of her methods were only getting confirmed. It was Selim that had to reach this end. Discovering that he is no longer allowed to show any kind of weakness. Every chance that appears on the horizon, he’ll take it. That brings him to his first true dirty plan - the trap he set through the fake Mustafa rebellion.

Speaking of which, the worst deed of Selim’s for me is connected to that rebellion. I know I may be very biased in this regard, since it affects my personal favorite character and isn’t as recalled as others, but I hated when, in Selim and Sokollu’s attempts to wash their hands from the pulled off stunt, Sokollu, his man, told SS that Mahidevran was giving money to the rebellion. Okay, it’s not said outright whether is this directly tied to Selim or it was something Sokollu himself came up with out of desperation or something (though it was hinted that both thought something through in a scene where both were saying that they should come clean out of this all somehow) and it’s not outrightly confirmed whether Mahidevran gave the money or not (I highly doubt she did it; not only because it would destroy her whole S04 arc and she would become, well... MCK Gulbahar, but also because after the messenger told her of her alleged blame in E129, her eyes widened in surprise.), but all it does is be the only explicit case where Selim indeed looks bad, for his proposal to return Mahidevran in the castle doesn’t seem to stem from genuine guilt and remorse, but rather a late and empty attempt to placate his own conscience. Oh, not to mention (for the upteenth time, sorry in advance) how the scene back in E58 where Hurrem tells Mahidevran that her kids will be there taking care for her when she’s alone, which was treated as some big foreshadowing in the show, as well, by both the voice of the S02B narrative and the fandom alike, loses its value even more with that framing, because Selim and Sokollu themselves brought her to this state in the first place!!! Despite it making sense anyway, it’s still such a disservice to Selim as a person both inside and outside of the writing.

One aspect of Selim’s pragmatism I find most interesting is his ability to turn his enemies into allies, knowing exactly how to amass them and get them on his side, be it through giving them more money and promising them the world. These alliances are all opportunistic in nature and may not be as loyal as those of Mustafa’s or of Mustafa’s people (like Atmaca) with Bayezid, but I think Selim knows this and wants to keep them steady enough for the common goal. As for what kind of a padisah he’ll be.... I believe that state matters would be the least of his concerns, since he was shown to not care so much about them, compared to his other brothers (but then again, the show itself doesn’t put the political capability of the princes at center stage - their personal virtues are always the determining factor of what makes a good padisah and what doesn’t, more of a psychological outlook, if you will.) and he perhaps won’t plan as many campaigns or conquer as many territories, maybe he won’t be that successful at all, but his cunning would bring him advantage in front of his people, he will be at least a bit careful of who he’s choosing and won’t simply lose it in front of everyone, compared to Bayezid’s impulsive temper.

[I love Bayezid as a character, but the shadier aspects of his personality sure tend to be overlooked. While his anger is directed mainly at Selim and Suleiman, it often reaches such extremes to the point it becomes destructive and affects everyone. He doesn’t deserve his execution at all and most of his actions stem from a very sympathetic place, given how SS never truly gave him a chance and he went on the inevitable path, because he, just like Selim, realized that honor won’t work in this war, but took the opposite approach from Mustafa, direct rebellion. And predictably, both approaches didn’t work since Bayezid, too, was taken advantage of. While he didn’t get justice, the lead-up to his execution is a character arc of his and there are many reasons and events linking it all together and showing us why it took place the way it did.]

Selim’s dynamic with Suleiman is proof of how you can be presumably favored, but you have to work to get there. The reasons Suleiman favored him are very telling and sad and we see that he also doesn’t favor him because of any and all capabilities he may have, but because of his self-imposed distorted view of loyalty Selim has to do a lot to preserve, actually. He constantly has to make it so it looks like he’s loyal and obedient and doesn’t work behind his back. He doesn’t get the fullest appreciation from his father, as well, and I certainly feel it impacts him, in a way.

I agree that Mihrimah could be unfair to Selim. They weren’t that close and she had this open preference to Bayezid. Most annoyingly is when, in their confrontation in E139, which highlights even more their parallel sins, Mihrimah doesn’t seem to face that sin of hers when Selim calls her out on it. She has a reason to deeply resent him after what he did to Bayezid, but was offended when he reminded her of the crime she also committed. More solidarity on that front would be a bit better, at least a hint of like recognizing like even for a moment. (but maybe then her scene with Mahidevran later wouldn’t be as impactful? Huh.)

And lastly, about his drinking - Nurbanu tried to restrict him, but it’s true that such habits aren’t easy to give up on, especially knowing how his drinking is a coping mechanism as much as it is something he enjoys. He knows he shouldn’t do it, he’s told he shouldn’t do it, but he can’t help it. He doesn’t drink when he’s planning or scheming, but he keeps on doing it more and more with every problematic action of his. It’s an attempt to supress his otherwise strong conscience to the max, seeing how after his brother’s execution he apparently always took a drink when he was alone at night, fighting an inner conflict with himself. I don’t think there was a way he could stop doing it permanently in the show. It was a part of who he was, unfortunately or not.

#magnificent century #muhteşem yüzyıl #muhtesem yuzyil #sehzade selim #ask #mihrimah-sultan-can-rail-me

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just-a-fangirl13 · 3 years

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Why s5 *might* be the season MacRiley happens

Okay so...Hear me out! I'm not crazy I promise!!

Firstly, after 5x03 (and probably 5x04) it may seem very unlikely that MacRiley could ever happen. But I thought of a few reasons why they might actually happen by the end of s5 after all.... (it gets a lil long winded and kinda complicated but just stick with me till the end!)

1. All the MacRiley moments including the ones in 5x03.

[this Mac smile could not be an accident or something that slipped through both production and post-production right?! that in itself is a whole reason!]

Every Macriley moment we have ever had- whether it's the hugs, Riley saving Mac, Mac saving Riley, the ultimate show of loyalty when Riley went after Mac during Codex or even just the looks exchanged between the two- to any outsider it would seem pretty obvious that they are dating or at least in love. Keep in mind the writers would have written each of those scenes and Lucas and Tristan have acted them out with a specific build up in mind aka MacRiley.(think about the date episode: Riley just got dumped but was still thinking about how Mac might be hungry. She didnt have to do that. She could have just shown up at his place..) I mean how can they write two people so perfectly in sync and so perfect for each other and not have them end up together? It would just be a waste of all that tension and slow burn. (not to mention all the hugs and glances)

2. They know we exist.

The MacRiley fam is very active on twitter with the writers and while they were writing 5x01 they knew we were around. They know we are a huge group. They would not want to risk pissing 90% of the fandom off by not making MacRiley endgame.

[P.S.yes 5x03 was a bait and switch but if you were paying attention you would have noticed that neither Lucas not Tristan live tweeted or hyped up the episode. They knew we would probably hate it so they didnt publicise it too much! so in the future if you have doubts about the episode being a MacRiley one just check their stories or posts on twitter/intstagram]

3. Yes 5x03 happened.

I really think it was an episode they HAD to write. Ok so after 4x13 they had 7 more episodes planned and were filming 4x20 (aka the finale) when the pandemic struck. So they have these 6 episodes but no finale for it. [Idk if anyone else has noticed but in 5x01 there were clearly some parts cut out. For example the conversation between Desi and Riley towards the end seemed a bit jilted. Riley asking Desi to forgive her but Desi replied with yeah we are cool (still no apology ofc) I feel like something happened during that which ended up getting cut out so it could fit with the final story.]

This makes me think that they have rewritten a few bits to tie into the new finale episode. In 5x03 when Mac asked Desi to come fishing with him which was clearly something very personal to him she was like no do better.. then we see Mac's disappointed expression. She could have easily said okay but maybe not for our first date? Or its not really my thing? Or just about anything else rather than laughing in his face like that. Eventhough MD is together they still arent compatible. Mac’s final words in 5x03 was him being desperate. I truly think he is so broken and lost that Desi is the only safe thing left, the only thing he feels like he can fix right now. Once he finds himself again and heals...then it's going to hit him like a pile of bricks!!

4. But Riley doesn't have feelings anymore...WELL doesnt she?

When it comes to Mac, Riley is always in denial. We saw it in s4 when she tells Bozer not to make her say it. I think s5 will show her finally accepting it. Finally accepting that she is in love with her best friend and that it definitely isnt Codex adrenaline because she caught the feels when Codex wasnt even around. While Mac's arc would include realising he and Desi are never going to work and that he is unhappy and that RILEY is the one for him.

[why else would they give Riley feelings for Mac? Something has to come of it.]

5. The slow burn rule.[this point is a lil complicated]

Now season 5 is rumoured to have 13 episodes. So here’s what I think: If MacGyver follows the pattern that most shows do when it comes to slow burns, then technically MacRIley should have happened at the end of season 4. But since the season got cut short and they didnt get to air/finish their final episode the writers had to improvise.

From what I know, 4x19 which is 5x04 for us is the episode where Mac meets Desi’s parents and 4x20 was supposed to be the finale that was left unfinished.(they are definitely moving the timeline ahead if a pre finale episode is suddenly a mid season one.) There might have been a 4x21 or 4x22 but I haven't heard anything about those....EVER.

So what I think they have decided to do instead is extend the MD storyline a bit longer just so they dont end up scrapping all their s4 episodes where they would be together and write a new finale that ties everything together, aka MacRiley.

If you think about episode counts, s4 and s5 together would have 26 episodes which is a how long a normal season runs. Basically what im trying to say is if we follow the ‘slow burns end by s4’ and take season 5 as an extension of 4 then MacRiley should get together in the season 5 finale or maybe the episode just before. (IM REALLY TRYING TO GET SOME LOGIC INTO THIS)

This would be a typical TV thing too where the couple finds out about each other’s feelings while the main arc of the show is also at its peak, which perfectly sets up a future season where fans are hyped but still has a satisfying ending.

6. So what about MacDesi?

So far the macgyver writers have given us characters we love. Think of every character on the show apart from maybe Desi... Mac, Riley, Bozer, Jack, Matty, Leanna, Samantha, Russ and even Murdoc. WE LOVE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. So then why is Desi such a strange character? I think shes purposely been written as an opposite to Mac or even Riley (I get she’s supposed to kinda replace Jack but Jack is really irreplaceable).

It's not necessarily a bad thing its just not a great thing to do or have great execution. People have said things like Desi is a badass and shouldnt have to apologise or say I love you back to her boyfriend because she is a strong woman...I'm sorry but your opinion of who a strong woman is, is EXTREMELY skewed. A strong woman is someone who can make mistakes and when she does, she is ‘strong’ enough to own up to it, she is loyal and fierce and also caring while being a badass who can take down bad guys. And for GODS SAKE, RILEY DAVIS IS A STRONG WOMAN...people have called her mushy and feminine on twitter and I'm just very confused by that.....

Anyways before I go off on a rant, it seems like Desi is intentionally being written this way. Every opportunity they get to redeem her and make her more relatable or just a better person they just dont take it. While Rileys character arc is one of the best I've ever seen. Either its intentional or they’ve forgotten how to write characters...which is worrisome but ill give them the benefit of the doubt.

The writers also know we dont like Desi. The amount of times we've tagged them in the toxic posts or pointed out problematic things we can be sure they've seen at least half of those. So theres no way they dont know. RIGHT?

So why then is MD still a thing you may ask??

Well for one they cant break them up again off screen because of those unreleased s4 episodes. (not to mention the other parts of the audience who arent as invested in mac’s love life would probably be very confused.)

Secondly Mac has to be the one to pull the plug, not Desi. 4x13 made it seem like Desi was the annoyed one not Mac. He apologised to her which meant he wanted to fix things.

Thirdly, they are opening the chpt one last time before they permanently close it. MD is going to be a stark contrast to macriley(it already is in every way possible). Every issue Mac and Desi had can be used to show how amazing macriley really is as two people who arent even dating yet.

Fourthly, MD being together is a sort of commentary on Macs mental health as well. We can see how happy he is with Riley but around Desi he becomes some one else. If the writers are doing this on purpose or subconsciously still remains to be seen.

And Yes keeping MD around for a few more episodes seems like a necessary risk right now but I have a feeling its going to be worth it later.

[I know we have had like 4 desi entered episodes already but I really think 5x04 will be the last of it since 5x05 is the Jack episode and 5x06 is Mac+Riley+Bozer episode with no mention of Desi at all!]

The writers know we are a dedicated bunch and they know that once MD breaks up for the last time the entire fandom will be waiting and watching. That's when the show will be at its peak. That will be the perfect moment to bring in MacRiley’s arc to a new start!

Congrats if you stuck with me through this whole thing! if you agree/disgaree with any of these or have other reasons why they could be endgame in s5 let me know!!

#MacGyver #Angus MacGyver #macgyvercbs #Riley davis #macriley #cbs #macxriley #macriley is endgame #otp #wilt bozer #Matilda webber #Lucas till #Tristin Mays #cbsmacgyer #russ taylor #macisback #macgyver season 5

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