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mypoisonedvine · 4 years

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Double-Edged Sword: Capt. Syverson x Reader (Chapter 2)

(read the first chapter here)

Word Count: 5.5k (oh lordt I need to be stopped)

Taglist: @fantasygirlsuniverse @agniavateira @fcgrizi @stillreadingfantasy @itsjusttaralove @radaofrivia @p3nny4urth0ught5 @mary-ann84 @snatchedbylele @cheyentjj @maan24 @littlefreya

(emetophobia tw for this chapter)

You had no idea how you were going to survive meeting with him alone after this. Of course, you realized now that this was one of many reasons why what had happened was against the rules, but the realization came just a bit too late.

“Good morning, Captain,” you nodded.

“Call me Sy,” he requested.

“I’d rather not.”

“Alright, well, just know that every time you call me ‘Captain,’ it reminds me of the way you said it when you were bent over that desk,” he explained simply.

“Right,” you nodded. “So, Sy, tell me what you want to do with this mission.”

“You know what I want to do,” he shrugged, and for some reason your mind interpreted that very differently than he meant it. “Divide and conquer.”

“Of course,” you agreed. “I suppose that works.”

“I thought you hated that idea,” he recalled.

“But I really hate having to argue with you about it. Normally I’d fight harder for what I think is the best way. But I’m losing that motivation, suddenly.”

He gave you an over-dramatic pouty look, as if he was mocking you, and you frowned in return. “Aw, you don’t want to argue with me? Is the magic really gone so soon?”

You rolled your eyes. “The idea of any romantic sentiment between us is so outrageously implausible that it doesn’t even work in a sarcastic context.”

“Do you always talk like you’re readin’ an essay?” he frowned.

“You’re making fun of the way I talk?” you responded with an incredulous laugh. “You can’t see it, because it’s clear, but you’re currently sitting in a glass house. I would recommend against throwing stones.”

He laughed, and it sounded halfway between genuine amusement and mockery. “Were you up all night studying your vocab words, so you could better insult me?”

You know what I was doing last night, you instantly thought.

“Insulting you is so painfully easy. I don’t lose sleep over it, in fact, I bet I could do it in my sleep,” you said instead.

“I’m not sure you should be so proud of that. It’s like you go out of your way to make my life miserable,” he groaned.

You sighed, rubbing your temples in frustration. How had it only taken thirty seconds for the conversation to turn into mud-slinging once again? It seemed like no matter how hard you tried, you fell into this dynamic with him. Considering how it went last time, you wanted very much to end it here.

“I apologize. That’s not my intention,” you clarified. He seemed taken aback by that, clearly having prepared for another witty comeback (or at least, an attempt at one).

“Well,” he began, but then trailed off.

“Well?”

“Well, alright,” he finished.

“Well, alright, what?”

“Let’s discuss the mission,” he further explained, saying it as if it were obvious what he meant. You ignored the condescending tone and sat across from him at the table.

“Sit closer,” he offered.

“Not necessary,” you rebuffed.

He unrolled a map of the area for review, and it was incredibly small, so small that you couldn’t see it at all from your seat.

“You’re sure you don’t wanna come closer?”

You got up and moved, closer but still a seat apart from him. Suddenly you felt very aware of his presence-- not to say you somehow weren’t before, just that it was overpowering, that you felt like you could feel heat radiating off of him even though he wasn’t actually that close to you. You were also very aware of how large this room was, and how empty. It was just the two of you and a table, one clearly intended for larger conferences.

You had a somewhat civil discussion of the mission, but you were struggling to focus more than you possibly ever had before.

“You listenin’?” he prompted, and you jumped out of a daydream. The content of the daydream was irrelevant, of course, but it was thoroughly distracting.

“What? Um, yeah, sorry,” you mumbled.

“I’ve never been lost in thought about a mission before,” he chuckled.

“Well, it’s a complex issue…” you trailed off.

“What’s a complex issue?” he pressed.

“From which side to enter the compound,” you remembered.

“Almost had ya,” he frowned.

“I was paying attention,” you defended weakly.

His hand suddenly brushed against your waist and you jumped. You turned and realized he had leaned towards you, though you had no idea why.

“Don’t-” you began, and instantly he moved away.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, and you were a little surprised at the complete lack of sarcasm, and the apparent presence of guilt rather than guilt-tripping.

“It’s alright,” you soothed.

“Is it?” he asked with a slightly confused expression.

“It is. It shouldn’t be,” you smirked, “but it is.”

“That describes a lot of things these days.”

You decided not to investigate that topic.

“Anyways, the method of entry…” you redirected the conversation, and even that triggered some gutter-brained aspect of your psyche.

“Right, of course,” he nodded, turning back to the map.

The open-air “gym” (more like a bunch of random benches and assorted free weights, not much of a gym by your standards) was usually housed by only a few soldiers at a time, but as you walked by that afternoon, it was pretty busy. Getting closer you observed that nearly everyone was watching two guys- one Marine, one Army- do push-ups. Each group was cheering on their own, and you realized it was a competition of sorts. And nothing got you excited quite like a competition.

“I can’t, I’m out,” Private Jones, one of yours, weakly announced as he fell to the ground. The Marines booed and groaned but the Army soldiers cheered.

“How many was he at?” you asked one of the Marines.

“Just over a hundred,” he told you. You nodded in approval, even if he’d lost.

“Looks like Army takes the lead, again,” one of the soldiers announced to the crowd. “Next up, sit-ups.”

“There’s so few of us compared to them,” the Marine told you, “we are going to have to start sending in people who already competed.”

“I’m too tired, I don’t think I can go again,” Private Cooper sighed in exhaustion.

“There’s no way I can beat them at sit-ups, that was my weakest category at boot camp,” Private Jones added to the discussion.

“I can compete,” you offered. Everyone, including the Army guys, turned to you. “Are officers allowed in?”

The soldier you were supposed to go up against-- Private Hess, you were pretty sure was his name-- seemed incredulous.

“Fine by me,” he encouraged, clearly seeing it as a perfect opportunity since he was confident he would beat you.

“I need someone to hold my feet down,” you requested.

“I’ll do it,” you heard a Southern-twanged voice behind you, and lo and behold, there he was.

“I’m shocked you’re willing to help me,” you admitted.

“You’re going to get your ass handed to you,” Captain Syverson grinned, “and I want to see that up close.”

You and Hess laid on the ground a few feet apart, and the Captain took his spot in front of your legs, a hand on each boot. You hoped they were extra dirty just to spite him, but then again, he didn’t seem to mind getting dirty very much.

“Sy, you mind counting hers?” the apparent referee asked.

“Sure,” he grunted.

You saw Hess start so you did too, and the Captain counted them for you. You tried not to worry that he would miscount to try to set you back- you liked to think a guy like that believed in the sacred nature of exercise, even if he was a bastard.

It was weird to feel his touch on you, even through boots. It was much, much weirder that each time you sat up, your face was so close to his. Perhaps weirdest was how it made you feel to lay on your back and look up at him basically between your legs.

It was about 50 that you really started to feel it. At 100, the jeers of the crowd fell to silence as they watched closely for any signs of faltering. You heard Hess beside you, and he seemed to be staying pretty consistent, not even breathing that hard. Meanwhile, you were starting to remember why the requirements for men and women were different in this category.

150 was a turning point. You had a pretty good poker face, so everyone else seemed sure that the two of you were still neck-in-neck, but you knew Sy could see the cracks.

It must have been 200 that you heard yourself start to whimper and groan, while Hess was only just beginning to breathe heavily. You didn’t want to make noises of stress but at a certain point you had no choice.

You fell back to the ground at 237 and even though you were barely there a second, somehow the Captain figured out you were considering quitting.

“Keep going,” he whispered to you. You wanted to ask him why he was encouraging you but you didn’t want to give him away, since you could tell he hadn’t wanted anyone else to hear. You fought harder to keep pushing, though each time you came up was a little shakier, and accompanied with a louder noise of pain.

“Come on man, she’s about to quit,” you heard someone say to Hess.

“I don’t know, I’m starting to cramp up,” Hess told them in reply, and you almost laughed because you had been cramping up since 145.

You pushed through the pain and you were afraid your body would fail before your mind did, that you would reach the point of being physically unable to lift yourself. Your core muscles were so tired that pain began to radiate to your thighs and back, and you forced your eyes shut so you wouldn’t have to see your vision go spotty.

You tuned out all the noise except his voice counting. 263, 264, 265…

“I can’t,” you heard Hess groan.

“Come on, she’ll give out any minute!”

“Dude, it hurts!” he complained.

“You can take him,” Sy whispered to you.

“I know,” you whispered back.

It was 300 that he finally gave up.

“What the hell?! You were so close!” the Army boys protested.

“Fuck off,” he groaned as he stood up and pushed them away.

The Marines clapped and you smiled, falling back onto the ground and letting your arms rest.

Sy stood up, extending a hand to help you get up as well. You made a point of standing up without his assistance, even though your entire midsection was literally shaking. Thankfully it didn’t show through the loose-fitting fatigues. He looked like he had something to say, but apparently he didn’t, as you two just stood there in silence for a second.

“That was amazing, Major!” one of your Marines said, and you turned to him.

“Oh what? That was nothing,” you pshawed, even though you were beginning to feel dizzy and a bit nauseous.

In fact, you were suddenly feeling a lot nauseous. You made an excuse to get out of the conversation and slipped out of sight, finding a nearby building to duck behind. Instantly you fell on your knees and retched: you’d heard of this happening to poor enlisted at boot camp, where the constant movement of the abdominal muscles disturbed the stomach to the point of vomiting. Thankfully it wasn’t that severe, though you were very much looking forward to drinking some water and not moving for an hour or two.

Just as you wiped your mouth and stood up, there was Sy-- of course.

“Are you following me or something?” you asked him.

“I just came by to tell you you did a good job,” he explained, “but seems like it took a toll.”

“Sorry I’m not as strong as you expected,” you sighed.

“If you kept going long enough to lose your lunch on the ground… then you’re actually a lot stronger than I expected,” he disagreed.

You paused, not sure how to respond.

“What you think of me isn’t something I prioritize.”

“I know,” he replied. “I didn’t say that it was.”

“And yet, I’d guess that your caveman brain can’t comprehend that what I do has nothing to do with you,” you frowned.

He laughed and you fucking hated that. He never seemed to take you seriously, and he must have been able to tell how angry that made you.

“If you think that what you do has nothing to do with me,” he countered, “then you are much, much dumber than I expected.”

“You are so self-obsessed,” you groaned as you rolled your eyes.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” he shrugged, and walked away.

As you grabbed your tray of dinner and turned to face the mess hall, you suffered the same dilemma that you’d had basically every day since high school: is there anywhere I can sit?

You were never the sort of person who had a welcome seat at a table.

You saw room next to some of the women in your unit and figured it was the best you could do.

“Hey, I heard you out-crunched Hess today,” Private Feng greeted you, “congrats!”

“It was sit-ups, and he’s a pussy, but thanks,” you smirked. She smiled back.

The two Marines across from you were whispering to each other and giggling. “What are you two talking about?” you asked them as you sat down.

“Oh, nothing,” Private Gonzalez answered, but she couldn’t even keep a straight face and started blushing.

“The hell is this, summer camp?” you groaned. “Seriously, you two are Marines, not Girl Scouts.”

“Fine, fine,” the other-- Private Matthews-- relented, “we were talking about the hottest guys on base.”

“Maybe you actually are Girl Scouts,” you scowled.

“Stop being a Major and just be a woman for five seconds,” Gonzalez requested. Feng and Matthews seemed to react strongly to that, like they were afraid to get in trouble for speaking freely. You sighed, and motioned for them to continue the conversation.

“What do you think of Captain Syverson?” Matthews asked Gonzalez, but somehow you found yourself butting in.

“Syverson?!”

“Yeah, he’s totally sexy, right?” Matthews prompted.

“He’s totally an asshole,” you frowned, putting on a slightly-condescending impression of Matthews’ voice.

“Okay, yeah,” Gonzalez admitted, “but aside from that. I mean, look at him.”

“Aside from that? I’m supposed to just ignore his personality?”

“Honestly,” Matthews began, looking over to where Sy was sitting and looking at him with eyes that were hungry for a lot more than what was on her plate, “with a body like that, he doesn’t need a personality at all, let alone a good one.”

The other girls giggled but you felt an unfamiliar sensation burn under your skin. Jealousy? No, never.

“Don’t you agree?” she prompted you, and the girls looked to you for a response as if it were something deeply important.

“You didn’t hear it from me,” you whispered, leaning in so as not to be heard by others, “but I’m pretty sure he’s gay.”

The girls all sighed and slumped down, going back to their food with a lot less joy than they’d had before. You, meanwhile, enjoyed your food in silence.

Normally you were the sort of person who worked late into the night, but after such an exhausting day, you wanted to get back to your quarters and slip into bed as soon as humanly possible.

The one thing you probably hated most about deployment was the showers. Normally a hot shower sounds great, but when you keep in mind that the water for the showers was heated simply by the outside temperature, you realize that it’s not refreshing at all. Very rarely did you feel truly clean out here.

Your strategy was to let yourself air dry, something that only worked when you had a private bedroom which, thank the heavens, you did at this base.

Of course it’s when you’re naked and dripping all over the floor that there’s a loud knock at your door.

“Gimme a sec!” you shouted out, dashing to grab the nearest clothes-- a tank top and athletic shorts, more revealing than you would normally go for but significantly less revealing than nudity-- and throw them on.

You opened the door the second you were decent, and at this rate you weren’t even surprised to see him.

“Just can’t seem to shake you, can I?” you groaned. He looked at you with wide eyes.

“You look so different in civilian clothes,” he observed.

“It can’t be that different.” “I’m more flustered by this than seeing you naked,” he admitted.

“Is that an insult?” you asked.

“No,” he said quickly, and you nodded. “Can I come in?”

You honestly thought about saying no. He still hadn’t said why he was here. But the way he looked at you had apparently corroded your judgment. You stepped aside and he entered; you let the door shut behind him.

“You’re not wearing a bra,” he observed.

“Yeah, well, neither are you. And your tits are bigger than mine,” you smiled.

“Touche,” he chuckled.

“Can I… help you?” you prompted.

“You did a good job, earlier today,” he congratulated.

“You already mentioned that,” you pointed out.

“I shouldn’t have volunteered to hold your feet down,” he admitted. “The sounds you made were… distracting.”

“Shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to you,” you smirked, “you’d already heard me sound like that. Could’ve just searched your memory for it.” “Well, the memory is pretty distracting, too,” he smiled.

“Your poor attention span is not my problem, Capt- uh, Sy,” you mumbled nervously.

He stepped closer to you and you stepped back.

“Are you scared of me?” he asked.

“No,” you answered.

“Then why’re you runnin’ away?” he pressed. You wondered if he was being literal or metaphorical.

“I’m not running away,” you explained, “I just don’t want to make the same mistake twice.”

“I’m not so convinced it was a mistake,” he explained.

“You can’t- ugh, you are so…” You started over. “You can’t just keep being a shit to me 23 hours a day, and then suddenly decide you have some love-hate crush on me and expect me to spread my legs.”

He stepped forward again and you were forced to press against the wall. He leaned into you until you were pressed into the corner; It must have been a minute that you two just stood there in silence, his eyes scanning you with fierce intensity, and you looking back with what you hoped wasn’t the deer-in-the-headlights expression that you almost certainly had. His body against yours was such a strange and addictive feeling, and the short sleeves of his t-shirt made it hard to ignore the enormous arms that blocked you into the cramped space.

“You want me,” he said, and you couldn’t tell if it was a statement or just a deadpan question.

“Yes,” you agreed with a raspy voice, squirming against the wall.

“You need me to fuck you, right now,” he continued. You nodded. “Say it,” he demanded.

“Please fuck me,” you begged, swallowing nervously.

He weaved a hand into your hair, his thumb rubbing over your cheek. He leaned down to kiss you and you closed your eyes, but just a second later you felt him step back and his hand pull away.

You opened your eyes in confusion to find him grinning at you with crossed arms.

“Looks like I can,” he announced. Realization dawned, and quickly turned to fury. As always, it was all a part of some fucking game for him.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“So, so much,” he smiled.

“You get off on humiliating women, is that it?”

“Not women,” he corrected, “just you.”

“Well, congrats,” you frowned, “because you won! Nothing could be more humiliating than being attracted to you.”

“You know, I really only just wanted to take you down a peg because Marines always act so high n’ mighty,” he explained, finally looking a little frustrated which was comforting for your own anger. “I wasn’t planning on taking it this far. But it’s just too fun.”

You scoffed, but decided his backstory just didn’t add up.

“Hmm, I don’t think that’s it,” you announced, and he quirked an eyebrow in anticipation. “I think you have some horrible achy feelings, and you’re just trying to prove I need you as bad as you need me.”

He didn’t say anything, but his jaw clenched. You smiled.

“Well, newsflash, I don’t. You’re just some underclassman to me, a very out-of-character blip in my sexual history.”

He started to speak but you spoke over him.

“I mean, good for you! You get to say you lived the fantasy, fucked a higher-ranking officer, had some wild desert sex. And me? Well,” you grinned, “I won’t say anything. Because you are just… humiliating.”

You saw the anger in his eyes and had to fight back the desire to laugh. The upper-hand was always shifting between you two, and even if you knew it was temporary, it felt really good to have it back.

He stormed up to you and grabbed you by the neckline of your top, pulling you into an intense, aggressive kiss. Your hands instantly flew to his hips as you pulled him closer by his belt.

Goodbye, upper-hand, you thought to yourself, it was fun while it lasted.

His hands roamed your body as if he’d been waiting a thousand years to touch you again even when it had only been less than a day. The two of you stumbled back until you sat on your bed, but he stayed standing and towered over you, having to bend down to keep from breaking the kiss.

One hand slipped down between your legs and even though it stayed outside your shorts, he still managed to find your clit instantly and press his fingers against it. You whimpered, the sound lost into the kiss, and the fingers just had to push the fabric of your shorts to slide over your clit. You were embarrassed at how wet you were, but somehow the embarrassment just made you feel even more aroused so it was a vicious cycle.

He pressed two fingers into you and you moaned, breaking the kiss.

“Humiliating?” he remembered. “You wish it was someone else doin’ this to you?”

“Not someone else,” you corrected, “anyone else.”

He growled and pressed his fingers deeper into you until you whimpered. His touch was rough but not painful, aggressive but not forceful, and it made you feel something you’d never felt before (or if you had, you’d forgotten).

“Get on your knees,” you commanded him. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t move. “Did I stutter?”

“Or what?” he asked.

“Get on your knees, or leave.”

He dropped instantly, kneeling on the floor in front of you. You sat back as he grabbed the waistband of your shorts and pulled them off. You spread your legs and he instantly dove into you.

“Oh, fuck,” you moaned, your head falling back. His tongue explored you and his hands gripped at your thighs to pull you closer. He moaned and grunted against your skin and the vibrations shot straight through you.

Your hand grabbed his head just as your hips bucked against his face, pushing his tongue deeper inside you.

“Yes,” you gasped. You felt him smile against you and his teeth grazed your clit sending jolts and shivers up your spine. “Oh, god, fuck,” you groaned.

A few guys had done this to you before, but none of them had done it with this much enthusiasm, certainly. He looked like he was having the time of his life down there-- he looked back up at you and your eyes met, and you wondered if you looked like you were having the time of your life, because you were.

His mouth worked you with such precision, taking you apart piece by piece with mastery and expertise, to the point that you couldn’t believe how well he knew your body already.

“I-I’m close,” you whimpered.

He glared at you as if to say ‘I know.’

You felt your legs start to shake but his hands gripped them to keep them still. Every sensation became so intense, too intense in the best possible way, and Sy showed no sign of stopping.

You weren’t sure if you came more than once, or if you just came for a really, really long time. What you were sure of, sadly was that this was going to make staying away from him so much harder.

His lips moved away from your clit and kissed the inside of your thighs. It was a disappointment and a relief simultaneously, somehow.

He slapped your leg suddenly-- not very hard, but hard enough that you yelped in surprise. He came up from kneeling and started to work on his belt. You just watched him as you tried to catch your breath, and involuntarily bit your lip as he freed his cock from his jeans.

“Want me to fuck you?” he asked in a low growl.

“Last time you asked that, it was a trick question,” you remembered, “so I’m a little hesitant to answer.”

“Alright,” he whispered as he leaned close, his breath warm against your ear, “I’m going to fuck you, Major. Would you like that?”

“Take your shirt off,” you demanded suddenly. He growled, leaning back and quickly pulling it over his head. You smiled.

“Are you done bossin’ me around?” he asked with a frown.

“Just fuck me,” you begged.

“Well, I can’t say no to that,” he grinned, roughly pulling your hips forward and kneeling on the bed between your legs. He used one hand to hold your face up, forcing you to look at him, as the other slid his cock into your folds. He pressed into you slowly, excruciatingly slowly, in fact, and you felt very self-conscious as he watched your face closely.

Even as you tried to suppress your reaction, you were sure you could feel every detail of him as he entered you and the effort was futile.

“You look beautiful like this,” he murmured, and you felt yourself blush.

“Like what?” you managed to ask through heavy breaths.

“Desperate.”

When he was fully inside you, you were confident there was none of you left to take, literally and metaphorically. The way your body accepted him with just enough ease that there was no pain, and yet he pushed you to your limits until your head began to spin… it felt like you were made for each other.

“Yeah,” he agreed, and you hadn’t realized you had said the last part aloud.

As he moved inside you, you started to process that it was all a little too slow, a little too… sensual for your tastes. Not to say you didn’t love it, because you did-- it was that you loved it too much, it made your heart ache in a way you preferred not to deal with at the moment.

“Faster, please,” you whimpered.

“No,” he sternly replied.

“Please,” you begged again. You tried to give him your best doe eyes and pouty lip, a face nobody could say no to.

“Say my name,” he demanded in reply.

You still had some shred of defiance left, apparently, because you were trying to make this less personal and here he was turning it into something it wasn’t.

“Make me,” you whispered.

His hand wrapped around your neck and you uselessly gasped for air, already feeling your face tingle from the lack of blood flow. He didn’t stay long though, pushing you back onto the bed and, finally, fucking you hard.

“Yes!” you yelped.

“Say my name,” he demanded again, grabbing your hips.

“Fuck you,” you growled. He probably realized that he was giving you what you wanted by punishing you for that, but he didn’t seem to mind, roughly rubbing his thumb against your clit.

“Oh god,” you groaned, arching your back.

"So fuckin' good," he groaned.

You felt your orgasm coming on way too quickly, even when you’d already gotten off when he ate you out.

“Say my name,” he asked one last time,

“Sy,” you moaned, “Sy, baby, don’t stop.”

You started to lean your head back but he grabbed your face and forced you to meet his gaze.

“You’d better look at me when I make you come,” he instructed.

You obeyed but it made it so much harder to keep from screaming which was rather inconvenient with enlisted sleeping not too far away.

“You’re so fuckin’ cute,” he announced, and the severity of his tone was mismatched with the sensitivity of his words, “and all mine.”

Your gut twisted in the most delicious way. “Yours,” you agreed fervently, “I’m yours, Sy.”

He smiled as if he was actually surprised, when you thought it had been pretty obvious.

"Sy, I- I'm gonna-" you stuttered.

"Come for me," he said darkly and you weren't sure if it was a command or if he was just finishing your sentence. Regardless, it was very effective.

You unintentionally held your breath and your orgasm hit you so hard that you feared you would pass out or something. Instead your entire body quivered and jerked and you made a noise you were confident that you had never made before in your whole life. He fucked into you as hard as ever, but leaned down, wrapping his arms around you and holding you close. Your nails dug into his shoulders but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Inside me,” you managed to beg through the haze of pleasure, “please come inside me.”

He growled and held you so tight that you couldn’t breathe very well but it was worth it as you felt him flex inside you and heard him moan-- not a grunt, not a sigh, but a true, proper moan, and it was the best thing you’d ever heard.

His movements slowed to a stop and you just listened to the sound of his breathing. He rolled off of you after a moment and you laid side by side, staring at the ceiling.

“Is this the part where you kick me out?” he asked quietly after a moment.

“I mean, it’s not like you can stay,” you replied. He sighed and sat up on the bed, and if you didn’t know better you’d say he looked dejected-- heartbroken, even. “But, you don’t have to leave right now,” you offered.

“That’s my reward? I don’t have to leave thirty seconds after we fuck?”

You swallowed. “I… I didn’t realize you wanted to stay.”

“I can take a hint, Major,” he frowned, looking back at you. “I’ll go.”

“No, Sy-” you began, and he relaxed a bit. “I just meant that you couldn’t stay the night. It’s just too risky, you know, we could get caught-”

“Right,” he nodded.

“But I don’t want you to leave,” you admitted.

He smiled and leaned down over you, brushing a hand through your hair.

“Do you want me to stay?” he pressed.

“Just for a while, we can just… talk,” you shrugged.

“Then say it,” he requested.

It wasn’t until that moment that you finally understood why he was always asking you to say that you wanted him aloud. You had just assumed it was a dominance thing, one more tool in his “ways to piss her off and make her feel like an idiot” kit. But you saw now that he was insecure, that he wouldn’t believe you wanted him unless you made it abundantly clear. Now, what would make a guy like him insecure, that was a mystery for another day.

“I want you to stay, Sy,” you said firmly. He kissed you, and it was oddly sweet, sort of domestic even. You had to force yourself not to tense up when you processed that this was a boyfriend/girlfriend sort of kiss, rather than a fuck-buddy kiss or an enemies-with-benefits kiss. You let your hand reach up and wrap around the back of his neck, pulling him in even more. Of course, that was the exact moment he decided to pull back.

“Don’t get greedy,” he scolded with a grin.

“Don’t get snarky,” you returned.

And when he kissed you again you felt that part of your brain screaming at you. This is a terrible idea, you can’t come back from this, all your relationships get fucked up.

But there was another part of you, perhaps your heart, that responded, at least this one can’t get fucked up, because it started fucked up.

#my writing #syverson x reader #captain syverson x reader #henry cavill x reader

357 notes · View notes

gayregis · 4 years

Note

wacky and definitely incorrect idea but,,,they killed off renfri in TWN because she'd take one look at duny and be like "ok thats a predator" (pavetta is 15?!?!)and unlike Netflix!geralt (who's very busy being mean and grunting and not talking to anyone)she'd actually get rid of him(Throw HIM off a ship, etc) before he had the opportunity to plot pavetta's murder an creepily gaze at ciri/ciri's potential for immense power

netflix nerfed themselves by controversially introducing a clear protagonist (Renfri) who's interesting and likeable and complex with a strong definable goal (revenge) and then immediately killing her off in favor of following the static antagonist (Netflix!Geralt) for the rest of the season. like interesting stylistic choice! I especially liked how they had him carry around her broach like a trophy!!! Totally not creepy to take something from the 18 yr old he could have avoided killing

uhhhhh i understand this take coming from solely the netflix show and seeing the witcher as a continuous story that’s like a bunch of episodes that fade into one another, but yeah, its a “wacky and definitely incorrect idea.”

renfri continuing to be a character in the rest of the series wouldn’t make sense for a number of reasons. to begin with, she is confined to her own story. understand that these are short stories that are meant to stand on their own to each have certain messages. the lesser evil and a question of price are different stories and renfri belongs to the lesser evil because to kill her was “the lesser evil.” she isn’t meant to be a character outside of this story because the short stories aren’t really meant to overlap. they each have their own specific cast of characters, setting(s), plot, and morals that define them. i think the best way to think of them are like fables or folk tales. if snow white suddenly showed up in another fairy tale, that wouldn’t make any sense. i’d be like, get out of here, this isn’t your story!

not to say that it wouldn’t be cool, i mean, i definitely think it would be cool if princess adda and vereena teamed up and kicked geralt’s ass back to kaedwen, but that would defeat the entire message of both of their stories.

in addition, i think you are misunderstanding renfri’s character (but this is just my opinion and interpretation of the lesser evil). renfri and stregobor are both bad people, they are both evil that geralt is forced to decide between. i see way too many netflix fans saying renfi is cool/hot/sexy/a good character solely because she is a woman that fights with a sword and kills people, when in the witcher there are many women that fight with swords and kill people and the fact that they are woman is not really something the witcher ever focuses on. i don’t think sapkowski thought of making “strong female characters” to impress an audience like lauren hissrich did, he wasn’t trying to appeal to a diverse demographic by having more diverse characters. thus, it’s not really any better when a woman has a sword than when a man has a sword in the witcher.

the sword is a burden. the sword kills, the sword is merciless. causing death with no feeling and no remorse is a bad thing, it is so horrific to geralt that it literally drove him to part with his daughter which he loved and adored and wanted desperately to raise, it drove him away from her because he was terrified that he would give this burden to her and thrust death and killing upon her. this is the message of the witcher, that to cause death is horrible. geralt was born into a profession that kills, he was raised and trained to kill, and he abhors this about himself, he loathes himself so viciously it annoys the absolute fuck out of anyone he’s around and they end up arguing with him that he needs to stop focusing on the fact that he’s a witcher and think about himself for himself. the fact of the matter is that

a woman with a sword killing people isn’t a revolutionary thing in the context of the witcher, it’s not intended to be a feminist statement or a “cool” or good thing to admire. in other pieces of media, it might be because that’s their messaging, but in the witcher, the gender of the swordwielder doesn’t matter, it’s about how they wield the sword. there are certainly badass women in the witcher that are cool and easily idealized and seen as role models because of how cool and powerful they are, but you have to understand why they are powerful. renfri has turned to banditry because she was scorned from her royal inheritance, she feels cheated by fate. she is hateful towards her past and has no reason to adhere to peace, she is blinded by revenge.

revenge is a very powerful and encompassing theme of the witcher. renfri is only one taste of it. revenge consumes another princess that later picks up the sword and turns to banditry out of desperation for something to rely upon and the feeling that she has been cheated by fate. she kills blindly because she is in pain. this is tragedy. this is sadness, cutting down innocents out of one’s own vicious pain is not an act to admire.

but on TV, “a girl has a sword” is such an incredibly revolutionary statement because everyone is starved for such a thing that they all become immediately thirsty to see more of this girl, more of her actions, even when she is not meant to be an ideal, not meant to be seen as something to emulate.

i think of the scene in baptism of fire when the rats arrive and begin to kill mercilessly, ciri runs men down. she ends up sparing one of the men, who saw such hatred and fury and pain in her eyes. when he returns home, he finds his own daughter trying to dress up like ciri, wearing her mother’s scarf tied around her neck and a stick tied to her back like a sword, because she thinks ciri falka and the rest of the rats are powerful and beautiful and wants to be like them, even when the girl she is dressed up as came a hair’s width close to slaying her father mercilessly in the street.

renfri is not a protagonist by any means. she is literally the antagonist of her own story. she’s a tragic character, her life was lost long before she gave geralt her ultimatum.

i think what is important to keep in mind here is that these were meant to be adaptations of books. books that were published 30 years ago. if lauren hissrich and the rest of the team had done their jobs correctly and successfully, they would have abided by what was written and not written their own fanfiction which detracted massively from the themes and meaning of what was written. i understand that you dislike netflix geralt (who doesn’t?) but had they actually stuck to the books which they were meant to be adapting, you would likely like him. he doesn’t waste his time grunting instead of speaking. but netflix didn’t “nerf themselves” by killing off renfri... that’s literally what happens in the books that they are adapting, and in the books it happens for a clearer reason driven by themes and messages that the story conveys to you (not just flashy gore).

i also understand wanting to kill duny because he is a 30 yo engaged to a 15 yo pavetta, but that is more of sapkowski’s effect on the story as he treats this and other situations of dating 15 yo girls completely normalized within the fantasy society he has created, which is his fault as an author and not a character flaw of the characters in-universe. they didn’t have a choice for that to be normalized in their society, they’re characters. it’s wrong, but you can retcon it if you choose. also i think the idea of killing duny is just amusing because if you kill him, you would not get the massacre of cintra, you would not get cahir, you would not get rience, stefan skellen, vilgefortz and thus leo bonhart, schirru and thus nightingale and fulko artevelde and angouleme, there would be no stygga, there would be no lodge of sorceresses, there would also likely be no thanedd coup. the entire conflict of the entire series would just be gone. so interesting idea but it wouldn’t make sense at all and would defeat the entire story

#like idk i guess you can have fun with this AU in your head but this isnt the kind of storyrevisionism that i like for the witcher #ask #anon #renfri #the witcher #the witcher netflix

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solitarystudies · 3 years

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The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires Review:

I read TSBCGTSV with @readerbookclub in October, and I had a lot of thoughts. They’re a little all over the place, so I’m trying to sort through them while writing this review (which probably explains why it’s so long). Just a warning, this review contains spoilers and a lot of them.

Looking back on the book, it’s very difficult for me to pinpoint how I felt about it. There were definitely parts that I took issue with, but at the same time, there were moments where it was exhilarating to read. And I’m not sure which of those should matter more.

Let’s start with the good stuff. The book is entertaining, really entertaining. It’s probably one of the most fun books I’ve read in a long time. The premise is crazy: a bunch of suburban women try to outsmart and outmaneuver a vampire for the sake of preserving their community. The way that the writer takes two completely unrelated worlds (suburban mum-hood and vampires) and mashes them together creates a wild rollercoaster of a story. You can tell from the beginning of the book (as early as the author’s note) that it’s going to be unique: “I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom. As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight.”

I usually struggle to read books in a short amount of time. My reading speed is pretty slow and I don’t have the best attention span. But I didn’t mind reading this book in big chunks (I read the majority of it in two days). There’s so much happening, and the jumping from one plot point to the next keeps you drawn.

My favorite thing about this book was by far the horror. This was one of the first horror books I’ve ever read, and I realized that the genre’s really fun. When I looked Grady Hendrix up afterwards, I was not at all shocked to see that he mainly writes horror. The guy’s good at it! Many of the scary scenes really stuck with me. I loved how gruesome it was when the rats started attacking or when Patricia opened the suitcase to find a human face staring back at her. I also felt that the gruesome end to James Harris was beautifully done, especially this part:

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, and gave a bloody grin. “I’m leaving you all a present. Just wait until your friend Slick gets ripe.”

He started to giggle and Mrs. Greene crunched her knife through his windpipe and she and Maryellen gripped him by the hair and pulled off his head with a loud pop.

I still can’t get over how badass it was to shut him up like that. Those kinds of moments were the highlight of the novel for me.

What made me realize how good Grady Hendrix was at creating tension was how paranoid I had become. After Patricia had been backstabbed by literally everyone, I started to become just as paranoid as her. Every time that James Harris was mentioned, I was worried that he’d done something again. I have notes scattered across the latter half of the book such as: “He’s gonna kill the kid, isn’t he?” or “Please be a dream.” I think that’s a testament to the writer’s skill in the genre. I also found it really jarring to see how everyone’s attitude towards Patricia made her second-guess herself. The loss in confidence and assuredness was done very well.

But now, it’s time to talk about the bad stuff. Because while there were moments where I felt deeply invested in the story, there were also moments where I was very frustrated with the writer. Most of this frustration was targeted at the way the writer tried to include social commentary in the book. Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, I’m all for books talking about social issues. In fact, I would argue that good social/political commentary is what distinguishes a good book from a memorable one. But at the same time, it’s better to leave out the commentary than do it badly. And in my opinion, in TSBCGTSV, Grady Hendrix did it badly.

Throughout the whole book, the message of women empowerment is everywhere. And as a feminist, I would typically enjoy that. But not in this case. If you want to talk about an issue, I expect to learn something from the way you, as a writer, present it. I’m looking for a new perspective or unique approach. I also expect it to be somewhat subtle, the message should be there, but the reader should be encouraged to make sense of it for themselves. I didn’t find any of that in TSBCGTSV. Instead, I was met with very cliché approaches to sexism and gender inequality. To me, it felt like Grady Hendrix presented these ideas in a superficial way and very in-your-face too. I did initially include some examples to show why I felt this way, but upon re-reading it, my criticism seemed a little too harsh. I’d rather not take quotes out of context and nitpick phrases/sentences that I didn’t like. This should be enough to express the gist of my thoughts, and more than that seems cruel.

Having said that, it’s important to recognize that there were instances where the messages of sexism and racism were done quite well. The police’s response to Destiny’s abuse is one such example and the scene where the men turned their backs on the book club was another. But these moments were typically outnumbered by less effective attempts at talking about these issues.

Putting that aside, there were other weaknesses with the story. One of the main issues is plot holes, or more accurately, plot inconsistencies. main thing is that James Harris is defeated very easily. From what we’d seen earlier, the guy not only has superpowers (the thing with the rats) but he also appears to have superhuman strength (the way Slick describes the assault makes it seem that way). But all that is nowhere to be found in the end, and no explanation is offered for his sudden weakness either. I didn’t mind this too much because I was too done with James Harris at that point and wanted him gone, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was a plot weakness.

There were also some scenes that really annoyed me. I think the one that angered me the most has to be when Patricia goes to Harris at the end. It seemed like a very odd plot point for me, but it was worse than just that. The scene makes almost no sense. And the best way to explain why is for me to retell it to you from my perspective:

Here’s what happens. Patricia finds James Harris raping (?) her underage daughter, and decides something has to be done. After meeting with her book club, they all come to the conclusion that she has to let him do the exact same thing to her (which is weird, but let’s ignore that). So she goes over to his house all dressed up, talks about her hips for a bit, and then tells him she wants him. The guy bursts into laughter and asks her ‘Do you think I’m an idiot? I’m an immortal being, Patricia, I see through your stupid plan.’ She gets frightened and proceeds to ramble on about her self-pity for the next few minutes. For some unknown reason, James Harris is no longer the intelligent immortal being he was five minutes ago. Suddenly he’s none the wiser to her plan and says ‘Sure, I’ll sleep with you’. While he’s heading upstairs, she somehow is able to walk over to the front door, undo the hatch and join Harris again without him even noticing.

My version might not be as poetic, but when you look at the events, it genuinely makes no sense. How does Harris go from this:

“You must think,” he said, gasping for air, “that I’m the stupidest person you’ve ever met. You come here, all dolled up like a hooker, and give me this breathless story about how you want me to make you one of the bad people? How did you get to be so arrogant? Patricia the genius, and the rest of us are just a bunch of fools?”

To then doing the exact thing he was mocking, within the span of mere minutes. That whole chapter really annoyed me.

So overall, I feel very conflicted about this book. While it was exciting and fun, it was also very frustrating and at times sloppy. I was constantly torn between liking the story and hating it. I guess for a book like this, the answer is that it’s in between. I think I gave it a rating of two stars, but 2.5 would probably be more accurate. Exactly half, not quite one way or the other.

If this review is a little too strongly-worded, my apologies. I tried not to be too harsh, but I didn’t do a perfect job. This was just a reflection of my thoughts, and I understand that many people probably felt differently :)

#book review #the southern book club's guide to slaying vampires #readerbookclub #tsbcgtsv #grady hendrix #long post #like super long post

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secondfromtheright · 4 years

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Fandom Racism

I’m not active on social media. But though I don’t use it, I do have this. I’m a terrible, unreliable tumblr user and I apologise for that (it took me way too many password tries to get back on here). I’d rather have been able to post something on my AO3 to any and all of my readers but my option is here instead.

I’m not a good person for this message – I am white, and I am not American. Seek black voices on this subject, please. I’m not tagging this because it’s really just aimed to anybody who already may still follow me on here. To use, but not overstep my lone social media platform. Because I can’t say nothing. I just can’t. You’ve all been so supportive and lovely to me in response to my fics and I’d like to think you’re all as decent in life to understand there are many things that we as white people do not and cannot understand regarding racism and that we need to do better.

So, this is aimed directly to my fandom readers – white fandom readers. From a white fandom writer. Some racism in fandom that I’m aware of, and I implore you all to become aware of too, if you aren’t already.

And again, please research black and brown voices on this matter. Voices that can speak to this so much more than mine, that can give better understanding, that can correct where I’m wrong, that can fill in what I’ve missed, that can communicate pain and hurt that I cannot know.

I get ‘ship and let ship’ and all, but there are major, glaring red flags that scream both personal and structural racism, conscious and unconscious, in fandom and ship conversation that should make you stop arguing, sit up and think about the shit you’re saying or reading.

This goes ten-fold for any fandom you are involved in that has a black love interest in canon that your ship and/or your fandom dismisses.

“They don’t have chemistry.”

Old ass racist trope that is about erasing romantic roles of people of colour. It perpetuates the idea that POC are not loveable, or desirable, especially to white people and especially in relationships (rather than just sex).

Anything that talks of black male characters as “evil” or “creepy” or “untrustworthy” or “weird” or “intimidating” or “aggressive” or “there’s just something I don’t like.”

It is continuing the 400+ year old bullshit premise that black men are dangerous – the ultimate justifying-white-fear-excuse to target and kill black man, then and now, because ‘they were a threat’.

When most of the ship verses ship debate is talk of tearing down a character of colour.

If someone is so confident in their white ship, why the need to tear down and hate another character? Keep it to your ship and only your ship. If the COC is a canonical love interest, especially one that existed before you started shipping your ship, question yourself and/or those shipping.

Black female characters criticised as “irrational” or “angry” or “manly” or “slut.” Or, consistently praised only as “badass” or “fierce” or “strong” or “sassy.”

These are all major examples of misogynoir tropes that strip black women of their humanity, boxing them into one of numerous roles that do not allow them to be multifaceted, feeling people.

ANY negative shit about black hair, especially natural, and especially of black female characters.

Just fucking don’t. Don’t say it, don’t encourage it, seriously side-eye anyone doing it. Whites have no idea what that experience is, nor the effects of generations of products that only appeal to white consumerism and define whiteness as the definition of ‘beauty’. It a low, racist belittling of someone.

When a character of colour has an insulting nickname within a fandom.

It dehumanises them. Actively and purposely. That simple. If you’ve never been involved or really aware of BLM protests or movement before, you must at least now recognise the chants of “Say their name.” Someone’s name matters, especially with history of slavery. Do not remove a black character’s name because you feel they threaten your ship. It reinforces white supremacy in even the most basic of society.

Any kind of discussion or mention that hopes for or encourages violence and hurt against black characters, including rooting for their death. Especially anything with a group, anything that involves dogs, anything that involves white people in power.

It’s the history of racism, it is about maintaining a white supremacist society and it retraumatises black audiences.

If you or a fandom member have multiple ships but not a one of them includes someone of colour.

Question that shit. Seriously. If there’s a banner on a tumblr or a YouTube with loads of videos that has a bunch of only white characters, ask yourself why. What are you watching? What are you reading? Are there leading black and brown characters, black and brown voices, in what you’re consuming?

Don’t let yourself fall into thinking white people get to decide the definition of racism. Don’t let yourself think you know everything, even if you know the full dysfunctional and dramatic history of your fandom.

Understand that words and phrasing used has a whole history, and context. All of it. Microaggressions, tropes, coded language, connotations, dog whistles. Understand that just because you may not have known the history, it is no less relevant, or prevalent in the real lives of people of colour. More so, the fact that you can go about your life ignorant to it is evidence of your – our – privilege. And on this one I’ll add, especially if you’re not American. Learn real history – both American and your own country’s part in racism and slavery. Fandoms are global – recognise who you are interacting with.

Fandoms are tricky, often toxic as shit on a multiple fronts, I get it. Not everything within fandoms with characters of colour is simplistically only about race, but a lot of it is and none of us live in a vacuum. Don’t act like we do. Everything we say and do has a whole load of history and context behind it and we don’t get to cherry-pick.

If you say (or want to say) any response to the noted conversational points that sounds like

“So I can’t have an opinion now?” “I’m not racist but…” “I know black people and they said something else.” “I don’t care about/see skin colour.” “I didn’t say anything about race.” “Why are you bringing race into it?” “It’s just hating white people.” “That’s just how the character is written.”

Stop.

And seriously challenge yourself to be better, to listen more, to question and learn the origins and hurt behind such phrasing and what you may really be putting out, even if you didn’t realise it.

Because all that instinct that makes you want to push back, that has you wanting to dismiss the criticism and shut down a conversation that makes you uncomfortable and drives you to defend yourself – that is your privilege screaming because suddenly you are not the centre of everything. White discomfort. You have to recognise that instinct, and move past it. It takes continuous work. You don’t have to be perfect on racial understanding overnight – and please don’t get so terrified at such a prospect to the point of closing up and shutting down and doing nothing – but we do all need understand more and do more than we currently think we do and are.

I’m not trying to shame people, or even guilt people (not yet, anyway). But as a white person, you – we – need to start taking more responsibility for what we involve ourselves in, and what we don’t stand against.

I don’t care how good you believe you are (and maybe you are) or how many people of colour are in your life. If you are a white, you have a privilege – we - have a privilege. And whether you seek it or not, whether you’re conscious of it or not, you – we – benefit from that privilege because it is embedded in every part of society that we live day to day. And we do so at the expense of black lives.

I encourage everyone to be as involved in the movement as possible, but if you can’t attend protests, if there are COVID 19 concerns, if you don’t have the resources to donate or be in physical presence, and if you are not in a position to call out your friends and family, please, for the love of god please, at least do it in fandom. It’s a social circle that as we know, can take up a lot of our lives and our interactions. Challenge your friends in fandom – challenge yourself, if any of those phrases are in a space in which you inhabit.

Learn.

It is not the responsibility of people of colour to educate whites who suddenly realise the extent of racism, or worse, that there’s structural racism at all. But you can educate yourself, and you need to. Read black and brown experiences, listen to black and brown activists and academics. Hell, even read white antiracist voices as well if that helps you understand. If numbers are better communicators for you, look at data, whether on wealth disparity, environmental disparity, health disparity, educational disparity, justice disparity. Listen, absorb, push past your white privilege instinct that makes you uncomfortable, be driven by empathy and compassion and instead learn.

Learn history, learn data, learn what a black family has to talk about that you don’t. Learn about white fear and white grievance and white comfort and white discomfort and why they cannot be placated to. Learn to understand many forms of racism, systemic and institutional, overt and casual, personal and interpersonal. Learn to understand what privilege looks in real life, from a missed job opportunity to fear of a whole community every time they leave the house. Learn the extreme examples as well as the subtle, daily embedded. Learn to recognise the tropes and language. Learn about collective grief and trauma. Learn the psychology of looting from generationally oppressed view. Learn about the generations of violence against non-violent protest. Learn their names.

And act.

As a white person, you – we – can never really understand, but we can do a lot to try to. And we can be part of changing things. And frankly, we have to be. Racism is a white people problem; one that projects onto people of colour.

And especially to those who consider themselves any kind of liberal, those who think they can recognise misogyny or ageism or homophobia and problematic behaviour elsewhere – you have to step up on racism. And you can’t stop at the examples of obvious lack of humanity that are impossible to miss - go deeper.

And I’m asking you to not dismiss any racist language and behaviour within fandom on the basis of “It’s just a character, it’s not real.” Media and the depiction of black and brown lives is too often the only real relation to black and brown lives that a white someone has. It is a huge part of reinforcing white supremacy in society – it always has been.

If fans of colour in your fandom are telling you something is offensive, something is hurtful, something is racist, listen to them. Allow yourself to be challenged, uncomfortable and corrected. Because Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter.

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are-you-jungood · 4 years

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Hoodie Chapter 2

Shownu X Reader

Author’s Note:

Ya’ll can re-blog, just please don’t re-post somewhere else! If you do, at least credit me (please and thank you)!

Brief recap:

Putting your sandwich down, you fish the tomato off of your shirt only to be greeted with a giant red and yellow stain. Knowing full well no dry napkin would fix the damage that had been done here, you sprinted to the nearest bathroom, making sure the few people who were still in the office weren’t looking as you did so. Once in the restroom, you took the shirt off, leaving you in a tank top, and sat about scrubbing that disgustingly yellow stain into oblivion. Just as you were squeezing out the last bits of water from your shirt, you heard the door swing open and slam shut with a lock.

Whirling around to see what was going on, you came face to face with someone you knew all too well.

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“Hyunwoo...” you breathed out, not totally sure if who you were seeing was real.

You gave him a quick once over, not totally displeased with what you were seeing. He still had that same handsome face of his, but his muscles had definitely gotten bigger since the last time you saw him. They were practically bulging out of his suit jacket. Not that you were paying attention. As you continued to look at him, you suddenly remembered where you were.

“Uh... why are you in the women’s restroom?”

He glanced quickly at you and then away as his face flushed a little. He put his hand up to rub the back of his head nervously and replied, “Well... this is actually the men’s bathroom, so... do you think you can put your shirt on first? It’s a little... distracting?”

Your face flushed with horror as you realized that in your haste to get that stain out of your shirt you ran to the nearest bathroom, which happened to be the men’s. Not only were you in the men’s restroom, you were in the men’s restroom, practically topless, and locked in with your ex-boyfriend from college.

Scrambling to put your soaking wet shirt on, you turned your back to Hyunwoo.

“So...uh... How have you been?” he asked so awkwardly while staring up at the ceiling tiles that you couldn’t help but feel a twinge of that old fondness light up in you again. You laughed and replied, “Well, I’ve been better. I’m not normally in the habit of getting locked in the men’s restroom with my exes.”

“Right...”

Buttoning the last button on your shirt, you turned back towards Hyunwoo and asked in a laughing tone, “So, what brings you here?”

He finally drug his eyes away from the ceiling long enough to look you in the eyes.

“Well, today’s my first day here as a statistics analyst. I was being given a tour by our manager when this one lady in the accounting office started feeling up my biceps, so I ran in here to get away for a bit.”

“Ah, I see you met Linda.”

At this, our eyes met and we couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

“Now that I’ve told mine, why don’t you tell yours. Why are you in the men’s restroom dressed like that?”

“Well, me and a pastrami sandwich had a fight and the sandwich won, so I went to clean my shirt and didn’t realize I was in the men’s room until you showed up.”

“Well, I’m glad it was me and not some random guy.”

Realizing what his declaration sounded like, his face turned a slight shade of pink that you couldn’t help but find slightly endearing as he tried to backtrack his previous statement.

“I’m glad it was you too, Hyun. I know things didn’t end amicably between us back then, but I wanted to let you know that I don’t blame you for how things ended, we just weren’t ready for that kind of commitment. I hope we can be kind to each other from now on.”

“I agree.”

He looked at you with an expression you couldn’t quite decipher before his usual relaxed smile made a reappearance on his face.

“Do you think part of that kindness can include you saving me from Linda next time, too? I’m not sure I can escape every time without your help.”

You smiled and nodded your head as you made your way to the door to leave. As you reached for the handle, Hyunwoo gently grabbed your arm and turned you around. Your pulse immediately sped up at the contact and you couldn’t help but have a flashback to the last time he touched you like this (although that was in a much different context).

He looked nervously at the ground before speaking.

“About your shirt... I remember how much you hate not looking your best in public, so why don’t you let me let you borrow one of the extra dress shirts I brought with me?”

You blink in slight surprise, taken aback by his offer. Most of your exes weren’t this sweet to you after a break up, but this is Hyunwoo we’re talking about (and it has been years).

“I mean... Sure, yeah, I’d appreciate it a lot.”

He smiled, took off his jacket, and handed it to you. Your mind was racing as you tried to tell yourself that this was a perfectly normal situation to be in. That Hyunwoo was only doing this because he was a gentleman and not because he had any lingering feelings or ulterior motives (right?).

“I figured you could use it to cover up while you follow me to my desk. I don’t really want to leave you here.”

He gestured to the not so clean men’s bathroom and looked at you expectantly. You shrugged on his jacket, and tried oh so hard not to think about how good the cologne that clung to it smelled and how it brought back a flood of memories from the past you’ve tried to move on from.

You trailed behind Hyunwoo as he led you to his desk in a dank corner of the Analytics department (entry-level positions are never glamorous). As he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk, you could see at least three identical shirts stacked one on top of the other inside. He grabbed one and handed it to you.

He noticed where you were looking and explained, “I keep my backup shirts in here just in case I sweat through the one I’m wearing.”

You laughed a little and said fondly, “You haven’t changed a bit, Hyun. I remember when you would keep an extra shirt in your car just in case you were too sweaty after your shift at work. It always made laundry day interesting.”

That same odd expression from before flitted across his face before he smiled and said, “Yeah, I still do that, actually. It comes in handy sometimes, but it is a pain in the butt having to wash all of my clothes so much.”

You smiled at that, oddly finding that you didn’t totally want this conversation to end. However, you happened to glance at the clock on the wall and discovered you only had a few minutes left before your lunch break was over. You took Hyunwoo’s jacket from your shoulders and handed it back to him. He laid it over his desk chair and turned to you.

“Well, thank you for the back up shirt. I’ll bring it back to you tomorrow.”

He smiled shyly and said okay. With this, you walked away and made a b-line for the women’s restroom. You flung yourself into a stall, and tried to catch your breath as tears suddenly threatened to spill from your eyes. God, you thought you were over this man, so why do you feel this way seeing him like this? Why does it hurt so much to see him doing this well. Why does he have to be so damn sweet? This shouldn’t be happening.

In an attempt to clear your head, you focused on unbuttoning your stained, half-dried shirt. You took it off and began buttoning Hyunwoo’s slightly wrinkled, but clean, shirt up. You tucked the bottom of it into your skirt and rolled up the cuffs to make it seem like it’s not your built ex-boyfriends shirt. After you splashing a little water on your face and collecting your thoughts, you walked back out of the restroom and headed straight to your desk to dump your sandwich in the trash and curse it for putting you in this situation.

You were dead tired from throwing yourself into your work by the time Minhyuk started packing up to leave.

“Are you coming out drinking with us tonight?”

You were half tempted to decline because of how exhausted you were, but you figured one beer wouldn’t hurt too much.

“Sure! Who else is going?”

“Hoseok, Kihyun Yoo and Hyungwon Chae from marketing, Jooheon Lee and Changkyun Im from the Analytics department. A bunch of girls from accounting are tagging along as well.”

This was great news! These boys knew how to have fun, so you were sure to get your mind off of things for a while. You just had to get this last report done and you were free for the evening.

“Okay, I’ll meet you guys there. I have a few things I need to finish up before I leave for the day.”

“Okay, but don’t take too long. Last person there has to buy everyone a round of shots!”

With that, Minhyuk wiggle danced his way out of the office, singing to himself on the way. You had a feeling tonight was going to be interesting, but nothing could’ve prepared you for what was going to happen next.

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vernonfielding · 4 years

Text

The lies, the secrets

Story No. 3 of my Season 7 Countdown Project! Also: I’m still taking prompts for future missing scene fics.

Summary: “My time undercover in the mafia was actually kind of lame. I mean, I wanted it to be badass, but I'm good at computers, so I mostly just helped them switch over from AOL.”

The story of how Jake became the mafia’s IT guy. Takes place during Undercover. (Read on AO3.)

What he doesn’t tell any of them, after he’s back, is that going undercover with the mafia is mostly just- really lonely.

Jake spends most of the first week alone in the crappy one-bedroom the FBI hooked him up with in Bushwick, waiting for one of the Ianuccis to get in touch. At night he lies awake on his mattress on the floor, mustard-yellow streetlight glaring through the grimy bedroom windows, and thinks that he’s already failed his assignment, that he couldn’t pass himself off as a disgraced cop for even one night. (The irony does not escape him.)

Then a guy calls Jake’s burner at 3 in the afternoon on the sixth day, and he introduces himself as Derek and says he’s downstairs. It’s now or never. Jakes takes a deep breath and blows it out hard, then steels himself and heads down. By the end of the week, he’s got a pierced ear and a gold-chain necklace and a cigar burn on the back of his neck, just below the collar of his new silk shirt. Years ago, before he’d gotten into the Academy, Jake had thought about getting a tattoo (“yippee ki yay” in calligraphy, very classy) in that spot and he’s grateful now that Gina talked him out of it. The burn was an initiation, and it didn’t hurt as much as he’d thought it would, but the scab is itchy and sometimes when he thinks of the smell of it he gets a little nauseated.

Leo Iannuci sends him out with Derek on a couple of jobs – mostly picking up cash from people they’re extorting from, but sometimes they’re the ones making the threats and Jake hates that part, hates it so much. Derek’s a nice guy, an Academy dropout who seems to shed his tough-guy attitude with his velour jacket every time they leave a bodega or laundromat or some other business where he’s had to smack someone around. Derek always does the hitting, never makes Jake do it, and Jake can’t decide if it’s because he likes the violence or if he just senses that Jake really, really doesn’t.

Either way, he’s grateful, and he has to keep himself from feeling too much fondness for Derek just because he protects Jake from the dirty work. Jake’s gotten that talk from the FBI: It’s natural to think you’re making friends, making connections, they’d said. But you’re not. Don’t ever forget that. Jake is always, always on his own.

About a month in, Jake is at Leo’s penthouse in Flushing, reeking of cologne that one of the Sals had doused him in while another Sal held him down, when Leo swears loudly and slaps the side of his computer, a rickety old desktop with a fan that sounds like it’s working triple-time.

“Motherfucker, it won’t let me fucking update!” Leo slams his fist down on top of the harddrive.

Jake looks around the room but everyone else suddenly seems to have important business on their phones, so he approaches Leo and says, “What’s the problem?”

Leo snarls at the computer. “I had to add some new clients to the ledger and now this son of a bitch won’t save the changes.”

Le’s “clients” could mean extortion victims or dirty cops or assassins-for-hire or any or all of the above. Jake hasn’t seen the ledger yet – he wasn’t actually sure there was one before this moment.

“You want some help?” he says, casually.

Leo finally turns his glare to Jake, staring him down long enough that Jake has to fight to keep from shifting on his feet and curling his hands into fists. “You any good with this shit?” Leo says.

Jake shrugs. “Yeah, I know computers.”

“All right, have at it,” Leo says, and gets up from the desk.

Jake sits, and Leo grips his shoulders, sudden and fast, fingers digging hard enough to bruise. And then just as suddenly he’s let go. He stays behind Jake, though, watching him click through open windows to find the source of the problem. It doesn’t take long.

“You’re using AOL,” Jake says. His voice sounds a little strangled to his own ears.

“Yeah, I guess,” Leo says. “So what?”

“So that’s your problem,” Jake says.

Jake’s definitely not an expert at computers, but he’s always had an affinity for the basics and it only takes him a few minutes to fix the immediate problem – an outdated file type that the desktop won’t recognize anymore. Jake saves the document, which, infuriatingly, is a table someone made in Microsoft Works. It’s so horrifically formatted that Jake can’t help but imagine the devastating stroke that Amy would suffer if she even knew it existed. She would seriously start bleeding out of her eyes.

Later that night, Jake smokes his first full cigar and convinces Leo to let him move all of their documents to a Google drive. By the end of his first full month undercover, Jake’s become the mob’s IT guy. It’s exactly as dope as it sounds. (It’s not remotely dope.)

+++

It takes him a couple of weeks to transfer everything to the cloud; he has to carefully rebuild all of the ledgers in proper spreadsheets. Leo assigns one of the Sals to keep an eye on him, but after the first hour Sal gets bored and retires to the couch to play Kwazy Cupcakes on his phone (the sound effects touch off a profound homesickness that Jake tries his best to ignore). So Jake has no trouble copying the ledgers onto a thumb drive that he later passes on to his handler. It’s almost all the evidence they need. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for the FBI to get its teams in place, to mark the right time and place to take down the biggest targets.

Jake does a few more jobs with Derek, and he just misses getting sent on a drug run that ends in a shootout and two of Iannuci’s guys in the hospital (Jake was back at Leo’s penthouse trying to figure out why his computer suddenly refused to talk to his printer). He knows he’s dodging literal bullets, but that doesn’t mean he sleeps well at night, or that his nervous system doesn’t light up like a Christmas tree every time someone racks a gun near him (which is pretty much all the time – mafia guys love cleaning their weapons).

Jake ends up giving a seminar to half a dozen Iannuci men (plus two women) on file encryption and two-step authentication and he feels a little guilty for teaching the mob how to evade hackers – some of whom will surely be cops – but weirdly, he’s starting to get bored, and he figures none of them are going to remember any of his lessons anyway.

The night before Marco and Angie’s wedding, Jake gets super drunk with a bunch of the guys and he sings “The Longest Time” with Derek, slopping rye whiskey all over their polyester shirts. The next day Jake’s going home. But that night, for the first time in 62 days, he forgets to be lonely.

End Notes:

Title is from Feed the Beast (Bash Brothers).

I know there is a lot of mafia-Jake fic, and that this take is not like the others. But I always thought Jake’s comment to Pimento about what he really did undercover was interesting and worth exploring. I don’t think it means the job wasn’t dangerous or super stressful for Jake, though my version is probably less so than some of the more violent takes some writers have offered (which are just as valid!).

I couldn’t decide if this story should be considered a missing scene for Undercover or Adrian Pimento. It fit better here for obvious reasons, but the revelation is in the later episode. But really, it doesn’t actually matter.

My darling beta @fezzle wisely pointed out that Jake the Computer Wizard doesn’t exactly fit with what we learn about him in Ticking Clocks. My solution/answer to this is that Jake is actually pretty good with day-to-day computer stuff (there’s quite a bit of evidence of this in canon – or at least, evidence that he’s not BAD with computers), but hacking-level stuff is way over his head. That’s why he starts Ticking Clocks full of bluster with the so-called security expert and then eventually has to admit he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Unfortunately, what he actually says is “I don’t know anything about computers.” That could be the writers just forgetting their own canon, but I choose to believe that it actually fits just fine with Jake’s “I’m good at computers” in Adrian Pimento. It’s all about context!

#b99 fic #b99 season 7 countdown project #missing scene #undercover #jake peralta #mafia jake

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ghostofviperwrites · 4 years

Text

Curiosity

Pairing: Kazuchika Okada/FC

Category: Suggestive

Warnings: Talk of bdsm elements, dungeon play, whippings, brief mention of smut

“What is the dungeon?” As soon as the words were out you slapped your hand over your mouth unable to believe you had just voiced them aloud. There was no taking them back now as you found yourself the center of attention from not only the men whose conversation you had been eavesdropping on, but from your boyfriend Kazuchika Okada. You hadn’t meant to listen in on their conversation. You were bored and somehow had tuned into their discussion while Kazu was deep in conversation with Gedo. You certainly never intended to bring attention to the fact you were listening in, but now your words hung heavy in the air and you couldn’t retract them. You felt like a fly caught in a spider’s web as Los Ingobernables stared at you in continuing silence making you shift uncomfortably.

Feeling a tug on your arm you pulled your gaze away turning to face Kazu who looked anything but pleased.

“What are you doing?” He hissed looking around your shoulder to glare at LIJ who were still eyeing you with speculation.

“I’m sorry,” You said quietly. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“Why are you listening to them anyways? I told you to stay away from them. They’re bad news.” Kazu said.

“Well you were ignoring me.” You said hotly, crossing your arms over your chest and raising your chin stubbornly. “I couldn’t help but tune in to their conversation rather than listen to you and Gedo talk about how great you are for the thousandth time.” You smirked triumphantly as Kazu scowled and rolled his eyes before rising to his feet. Chuckling quietly you followed after him, but were unable to stop yourself from looking back over your shoulder, curiosity still burning as your question went unanswered. They were still staring at you, causing you to stumble and resolutely turn away, quickening your stride to match Kazu’s as he led you out of the cafeteria area and towards the Chaos locker room.

As much as you tried over the next few weeks you couldn’t forget that conversation. It was driving you crazy wondering what exactly this “dungeon” that LIJ was talking about was. At first you thought it was some type of club, given the context of the conversation with Naito urging Evil to take his date to the dungeon. But a search on the internet didn’t bring up anything but a bunch of BDSM videos. Videos that you had hesitantly clicked on, unable to ignore your curiosity. Now you felt flushed every time you thought of LIJ and the dungeon, becoming almost desperate to know what it was they were talking about and if it had any correlation to those naughty videos.

You would admit to being rather sheltered growing up. Coming from a wealthy family your parents had been a bit overprotective with their only daughter. Aside from a couple of high school and college romances Kazu was your first serious relationship. The two of you had been introduced through your families and at encouragement from both sides had finally settled into a relationship. Things were going quite well. The two of you were rather compatible and things were comfortable. At least they had been up until that day. Lately you found yourself faking it with Kazu and running off to your computer as soon as he had fallen asleep. Those videos you had found had awakened a yearning in you for something more. You were too hesitant to bring it up to Kazu, so instead you brought yourself to completion watching women being used in the basest of ways.

For the first time since that day you were back on the road with Kazu, finding yourself alone wandering the backstage area as you waited for Kazu to finish his seemingly never ending commitments. Stepping through the cafeteria entrance you pulled up short as you saw them. At least three of them: Naito, Hiromu Takahashi and Bushi were seated at a table in the back corner huddled together and paying no attention to the goings on around them.

You nearly screamed when a heavy hand landed on your shoulder, freezing as you saw Evil leaning to your ear in your peripheral vision.

“Still curious about the dungeon little one?” Evil asked his breath hot against your skin as you trembled under his hand.

“No.” You said after a brief silence. “It was just a simple question. Not exactly a burning curiosity.”

“Liar.” Evil chuckled in your ear. “You think I can’t recognize someone who is yearning? I know exactly what you need.” He removed his hand and brushed past you. “Go on and continue in your denial. I’m sure Okada knows where to find me when you can’t resist anymore.”

You spun on your heel and rushed down the hallways towards the sanctuary of the Chaos locker room. The encounter with Evil had left you shaken; and aroused. Hiding in the corner away from the other members of the stable you buried your head in your hands brushing off their questions of concerns pleading a headache. So they left you alone, allowing you ponder Evil’s words. Why would he think you would ever come to him? Just because you had some fantasies didn’t mean a thing. That made you wonder how he knew what thoughts you were having. Were you that obvious? You couldn’t be. You hadn’t seen them since that day. He was just guessing. There was no way he could know what you were doing late at night. You next thought was wondering why on earth Evil thought you would ever involve Kazu. The way he had spoken made it seem like a foregone conclusion that you would involve Kazu.

For the rest of the day you couldn’t get it out of your head and you knew Kazu could tell something was bothering you, but he didn’t push. Then it dragged on. Days and weeks later. You hated that Evil was right. You were yearning. Every day it was getting stronger. You were sneaking away to watch videos and read stories. Finding it harder to orgasm through regular sex with Kazu. You could hardly find it within yourself to even pretend with Kazu anymore. You were obsessed and he noticed.

Laying underneath Kazu as he thrust into you, your mind once again wandered as you imagined how it would feel to have a paddle on your bare skin. How a whip would feel flaying your flesh. Your nipples ached to have clamps attached to them. Your pussy pulsed begging for a harsh slap. You didn’t even notice Kazu had stopped moving until suddenly he wasn’t on top of you anymore. Startled you sat up, looking to him in confusion as he paced in agitation.

“What is going on Y/N?” Kazu asked in frustration. “For weeks now you’ve barely been with me.”

“I…” You couldn’t even voice a denial. Kazu was right. You had checked out on him weeks ago. “I’m sorry. You’re right.” Your head hung low as you pulled the sheets up over your nude body.

“Why?” He asked. “What have I done?”

“You haven’t done anything Kazu!” You hurried to reassure him, dropping the sheet and crawling to the edge of the bed, yours hands reaching to clasp his. “It’s me. All me. I can’t let it go.”

“Let what go?” Kazu asked, brow crinkling in confusion.

“The dungeon.” You said. “I cannot begin to tell you how much I wish I could forget it. But ever since that day I’ve been curious. I looked up what a dungeon was and I want to experience it.”

“You want to go to a dungeon?” Kazu asked his mind trying to grasp what you were saying. “Baby, I want to give you what you need, but I don’t even know where to start. I’ve never done anything like that. I could seriously hurt you. Let alone where to find a dungeon to use.”

“Evil has one.” You blurted without thinking. “I mean Evil said you knew where to find him if I was ready to stop fighting it.”

“Of course he did.” Kazu chuckled sardonically. “I’m sure he’s ready to jump right in to help out.”

“Please Kazu?” You begged. “I need this. I can’t let go until I’ve experienced it. To see if it’s something I’m interested in. Maybe Evil will let you borrow the dungeon. And you could do some research to learn how not to hurt me.”

Kazu stepped away from you and resumed his pacing, his face tight in concentration as he thought for several tense moments.

“I suppose we could try. I just don’t know if I’m comfortable doing those things.” He said. With cries of appreciation you threw yourself at Kazu hugging him tightly and pulling him back into the bed.

The next few days were a bit strained while Kazu thought of the best way to approach Evil about using his dungeon. Finally the two of you stood outside the LIJ locker room door waiting for a response to your knock.

The door pulled open slowly, Hiromu barely holding it open a crack as he peered through, narrowing his eyes as he saw you and Kazu standing there. The door shut in your faces without a word and you dejectedly turned to walk away only to stop when the door reopened to reveal a sliver of Hiromu’s face again.

“Evil-san says I should invite you in.” Hiromu said. “Naito-san is not so sure.” You fidgeted behind Kazu as Hiromu pinned you in his gaze, seemingly looking through Kazu to you. “Evil-san thinks you are here to see him. Is he correct?”

“He’s right.” Kazu said shortly, his temper starting to flare at Hiromu’s games.

“I’m not talking to you Okada.” Hiromu snapped. “I’m talking to Y/N-chan. Are you here to ask Evil for something?” He looked at you with a slight smirk which widened into a full blown grin as you slowly nodded. “Then you may enter.” Stepping back from the door, Hiromu opened it barely wide enough for you and Kazu to enter one by one, the door quickly shutting behind you. Almost immediately upon entering you ran into Kazu’s back as he stopped taking in the scene before him. Peaking around him your mouth fell open as you saw what was happening, one naked girl on her knees in front of Naito sucking his cock as if her life depended on it, while stroking Bushi’s dick with her free hand. Another was on Evil’s lap grinding on his cock through his pants while her mouth was sucking on his neck. Pulling her from him by the hair Evil pushed her from his lap.

“Go play with Hiromu,” Evil commanded. You watched with wide eyes as she immediately got to her feet and hurried over to Hiromu, climbing on his lap and kissing him deeply. You gasped as a naked Sanada walked out from the shower area and headed straight towards the girl with Hiromu, his hands grabbing her hips and pulling her off his lap while Hiromu pulled out his cock for her to suck while Sanada pushed into her pussy.

“Make it quick.” Evil said to Okada. “As you can see I’m busy.”

“Do we really have to do this here? With this going on?” Okada asked waving his hand around the locker room, distaste clear on his face.

“Yes we do.” Evil said with a small smile.

“You know why we’re here.” Okada said flatly. “Y/N is interested in trying something new. I need to borrow your dungeon.”

“No.” Evil said flatly, his smile dropping.

“No? Why?” You asked unable to keep quiet as you saw your fantasy slipping away.

“I don’t let just anyone in my dungeon. And I certainly don’t let anyone in there by themselves.” Evil said. “You think I’m going to let some inexperienced newbie play with my toys?” He sneered. “Not happening.”

“So what? You need to be there?” Okada asked. “You want to watch?”

“No. But you can watch.” Evil said.

“You are out of your mind if you think I’m letting you touch her!” Okada shouted. “She’s mine.”

“Obviously you can’t give her what she needs or you wouldn’t be here right now.” Evil pointed out. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You could seriously hurt her. You love her, you wouldn’t want that. I’m willing to play with her. And I’m willing to let you keep a close watch. But you will not be participating and you will not interfere.” Kazu’s shoulders slumped in defeat as he could see the logic in Evil’s words.

Your eyes darted between Evil and Kazu as you tried to follow along with what Evil was proposing. You saw Kazu look at you with resignation, questions in his eyes. Realizing what he was asking you lowered your head, trying to think with everything going on around you. Were you willing to let another man touch you like that? Just to fulfill a fantasy.

“What about sex?” You asked quietly, unable to look up from the floor. You didn’t want to commit to anything without knowing what it fully entailed.

“Of course I’m going to fuck you.” Evil said bluntly. “I’m not doing this and getting nothing in return. I do you a favor, you do me a favor. That’s how it works.”

You looked up to Kazu, this time you were the one with questions in your eyes as you tried to read what he was thinking.

“It’s up to you.” Kazu said with a short nod. “I want you to get what you need and if that’s the only way then I’m okay with it.”

Swallowing past your nerves you looked over to Evil and voiced your agreement.

“I’ll let you know when.” Evil said rising to his feet. “Now get the hell out of our locker room.” Kazu ushered you towards the door as you looked over your shoulder catching Evil stripping naked as he approached Naito and Bushi.

Once out of the locker room, you heaved a sigh of relief. You felt much lighter now than an agreement had been reached. As Kazu held your hand and led you back to the Chaos locker room you could only hope that price wasn’t going to cost you your relationship.

#okada fanfic #okada imagine #njpw fanfic #Wrestling Fanfic #mywriting #ghostofviperwrites

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janiedean · 5 years

Note

Why do you think the SW fandom is so knee-deep in SJ Calvinism? Because I understand wanting representation or being upset because a movie didn’t fulfill your expectations, but the “if you don’t ship X you’re racist” “if you don’t stan Y you’re bigoted” and the harassment over a disappointing movie is surprising just because of how pervasive it is. I was trying to find some St*rmpilot blogs to follow and the amount of hate is Yikes, especially the hate for Rose and the stans of a Certain Ship

eeeeeeh I think it’s because ep. 7 came out at the height of the... well, reaping the seeds the social justice calvinism had sown since 2014 so to speak? I mean, SW is hardly the one fandom where it happened (*cough* voltron and SU *cough*) but as SW is way broader in audience than those other shows that certainly didn’t help, but like, if you think on it, since 2013-ish (but I think before as well, I mean, I’ve been here since 2011 and already when I got here I felt like something was going very wrong when it came to politics-in-fandom-attitude), basically people on tumblr have progressively, when it came to fandoms:

pushed the idea that you have to over-analyze everything you consume through political lens;

pushed the idea that what you like and how you like it also has to be pushed through political lens and what you like says things about who you are as a person or your political leanings;

pushed the idea that if you care for something *problematic* just because you like it you’re excusing it;

pushed the idea that if you were problematic once you can’t ever not be problematic, you can’t change your mind and you can’t learn also because ‘it’s not my job to educate you’ so people either learn themselves or idek what but again, calvinism.

now obviously those politics are tumblr-politics which are also US centric like woah and are also high-school petty like woah, and since more or less then people have:

continuously other-ed lgbt people from *straight*/heterosexual people pushing a narrative where straight = bad and therefore putting it before anything automatically makes it a valid insult which added to the above means that if you ship het you’re already problematic regardless of whether you’re straight or not (and if you are.. lol);

pushed the performative feminism of Doom TM that says men and women should be equal but is like, an excuse to shit on men and on women who like men (see the rampant biphobia around and the whole ‘straight girls are so stupid if they’re into men they should try women’ discourse);

pushed the US terminology when it comes to the POC discourse, in the sense that everything works on the US-centered context where white people = white anglosaxon protestant, poc = everything else without realizing that in the rest of the world white does not equal wasp, that poc = black people only in most of europe (and no one who’s actually black or not white who lives in africa or asia and so on would describe themselves as poc because why the hell would you when your skin color/ethinicity is the norm where you live?), which also goes with the whole white passing debate which where I live would not exist but in that context is a mess because again, oscar i*saac is schroedinger’s poc (as in, he’s poc automatically for american standards because he’s latin-american but like he has the same skin tone as my mother and my mother in italy is white same as 90% of us, which means endless confusion) and assumed that all of us have to accept that terminology/context regardless of whether it’s valid in our countries;

kept on progressively putting minorities against each other in an endless loop of WHO HAS IT WORST/oppression olympics;

kept on progressively split hairs on issues that aren’t exactly, like, that important if there’s more urgent stuff to deal with because 90% of the activism here is performative;

made the 180° turn for which headcanons and shit are seen as, like, doing representation instead of, you know, supporting what rep is there never mind when people decide *one* ship is the right one and if another is canonized and it’s rep it gets thoroughly ignored;

pushed on a mindset for which if something isn’t perfect at the get-go then it’s canceled.

and so on.

like, all of that shit has been continuously not criticized because criticizing it especially if you don’t belong to a minority means that you’re out of line/discussing things that don’t concern you, but if you’re a minority and you criticize it then it’s suddenly YOU BETRAYED OUR CAUSE *INSERT SLUR HERE ABOUT PANDERING TO THE MAJORITY*, and the result exploded in toxic af fandoms, but like... if you look at the issues of the SW sequel trilogy fandom it’s all of that in a nutshell because:

k/ylo ren is automatically the worst because he’s white (horrible), a man (even worse), not canonically attractive (I didn’t touch on that topic bc I’m honestly not up for it mentally but lmao that counts too) and presumably heterosexual (or well, no one said he’s not but you know, since he’s a white dude on the bad side [supposedly] then we don’t give him the benefit of the doubt that he might be bi), so if you like ky/lo ren or relate to him you’re automatically problematic;

shipping re/ylo because automatically problematic because it’s a *straight* (evil) ship made of two white people (when there’s options to ship them both with people that aren’t white, so IT’S RACIST), they have an age gap (BAD BECAUSE POWER IMBALANCE) and it’s enemies to lovers, so it’s a context where people who don’t conceive redemption or that people can become better are basically crying problematic all the time, and the fact that people decided it’s *abusive* when it has like nothing that can equate it to a really abusive relationship says all;

ky/lux being the most popular slash ship immediately means that it’s the fault of the horrible straight (white) women fetishizing the (white) men on the dark side (when it’s most likely because for a while ky/lux was literally the only side of that fandom where people were chill/there wasn’t wank every other moment);

st/ormpilot has been declared The Right Ship because it’s two non-white men and it’s not straight which automatically turns into what I said before about hating other ships that would be rep anyway and feeds into the lowkey oppression olympics racism, because like if finn/rose becomes canon it’s still a mixed/biracial ship because he’s black and she’s asian....... except that it’s not the right ship for people who decided that finn has to be either with rey or poe (and guess what rey is white and poe is... schroedinger’s poc because oscar isaac in europe wouldn’t pass for *poc*), which to me has stank of lowkey racism since tlj came out because sorry but if ‘finn deserves better than rose’ or ‘finn should be with rey because if he doesn’t get rey then it’s unfair’ and the various other bullshit I read on the topic basically says that the white woman is *worthier* than the asian woman or that rose is a downgrade from rey which is fucking bullshit, rose isn’t even a bad character all the contrary. and that’s for the het side of it, but like then it’s not as good as stormpilot because it’s a straight ship (NOOOO THEY MADE FINN STRAIGHT/THEY’RE NOT MAKING THEM GAY THIS IS SUCH BULLSHIT = stuff I legit saw on the tag) and ngl I’m 100% sure that the fact that daisy is Standard Attractive and kelly marie t/ran is lovely but doesn't conform to the usual beauty standard western-viewers apply on asian women did play a role in there, but: what did I say before? the slash ship is automatically better than the het ship never mind that they’re both biracial and rose is actually a rep (asian girls who don’t adhere to stereotypical body shapes - and like, the rep for all body types and shapes should be valid for all women, not just white) that isn’t exactly popular especially in mainstream cinema, so people should be happy.... but since rose is Not A Dude and Not Rey and Not The Right Kind Of Representation For That Crowd, automatically rose is a shit character and deserves to be viciously hated on. and this is a thing done by people who most likely then turn on the other side and talk shit about horrible straight women who hate the only female character for getting in the way of their slash ship without realizing that their rose hate is exactly that. and of course since sto/rmpilot is the two good guys, if you ship that then you also have to hate re/ylo because how can you, a person who ships The Good Ship On The Light Side, support such a problematic enemies to lovers thing? yeah, right, hahaha.

this also tbqh also pairs up with how on tumblr people only recognize mental health issues/abuse victims when the narrative suits them - like, being a bad victim automatically means you lose sympathy and mental health issues are only valid if you aren’t ***privileged*** otherwise why would you have them, which shows transparently in how a lot of people absolutely deny that ky/lo ren is a) an abuse victim, b) obviously mentally ill however it is that he deals with it, but no, he has to be The Most Horrible In Existence Because Otherwise We Should Have Empathy For A Bad Guy Who Also Might Get Redeemed And Redemption Is Not Happening Ever Because Bad People Don’t Deserve it.

like, all of the issues sw sequel trilogy has when it comes to the fandom are direct consequences of the nonsensical social justice calvinism climate on tumblr dot com that no one took care to put a stop to since 2013 and of its ridiculous oppression olympics and pitting people against each other and that was my take. cheers.

(ps: I also ship sto/rmpilot like woah and it’s my otp but there’s a reason why I unfollowed most SP blogs I followed and why I don’t go into the tag anymore - I’m not here for the anti-rose racism dressed up as performative wokeness, I’m not here to get lectured about as a white person I fetishize poc gay men if I ship it - yes I read that too - and I’m not here to read a bunch of meta about how re/ylo is a bad ship and blah blah blah, so yeah. I feel you.) (pps: ky/lo ren isn’t even my favorite character and I care relatively but gdi the way the fandom approaches him is honestly mindboggling in that sense, and I don’t mean people who actually dislike him because fair reasons, I mean people who can’t recognize his abuse victim status and the precarious status of his mental health. like, not all abuse victims and mentally ill people are the right victim or come from the right background and you can be cool motive still murder and still recognize that he’s like that because he has issues, not because he was drawn that way. /bye)

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #i said my piece bye #reylo for ts #kylo ren for ts #sw wank for ts #i don't mean ppl shouldn't be uncomfortable with re/ylo or ky/lo btw #but like........... this level of vitriol is ridiculous #and the rose hate is dumb af #bye *shrug*#social justice calvinism #the first person whining about straight people feeling left out as last time this happened #is getting automatically blocked bye #Anonymous #ask post

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nomoreemails · 5 years

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why aren’t we all talking about how bad it feels to be alive

Sometimes, when I’m on drugs, I have a great time and can watch a whole season of Planet Earth and be totally ecstatic about sloths, or lie on the ground in the dark joyfully listening to a really bad album on repeat. But recently, more often than not, I’ll think one single solitary thought about climate change or mass shootings or U.S. imperialism or the opioid crisis or the state-sanctioned obesity in the Pacific Islands and spiral until I’m thinking about all of those things at once and having a complete fucking meltdown. I’ve also developed pretty bad insomnia since moving to New York. You can probably guess why.

I’ve finally come to accept that I mostly hate living here. There are a lot of reasons, chiefly among them that everyone here is obsessed with developing a brand and also that in most cases I would rather individually pull 30 hairs out of my head than try to get from point A to point B. But living here also forces you to face the reality of the United States, which is that economic and social mobility are a lie. Cities like this are sites of two class tiers, one for the “knowledge class,” college-educated people who work in fields like engineering, writing, business, policy, etc — for whom upwards mobility actually is attainable — and then the other sector that performs service work for them.

Obviously there’s some overlap (if I hear one more Brooklynite who works in publishing and went to an Ivy League lament their second restaurant job they need to pay the bills, I’ll scream), but if you’ve ever lived in a major U.S. city you’ve probably observed this too. Every day I watch my Twitter feed (mostly white, liberal, college-educated folks who also work in journalism) wring their hands over Amazon warehouse conditions and taxi driver suicides and wage theft at the hands of the gig economy, and then we all go home and open packages delivered Amazon workers, take Ubers because they’re cheaper, get food delivered by some guy who almost died five times trying to bike to your place and then gets his tips stolen by his employer. I don’t think it makes you a bad person to use these services. But, personally, every time I think about how boundlessly I have exploited labor invisible to me for the sake of minor conveniences, I want to stab myself in the face. Does everyone else feel like that?

All this to say — I feel suffocated, on a daily basis, by all the ways that I’m complicit no matter what I do. I’m overwhelmed by everything all the time. It’s hard to respond to texts or be present in my relationships when so much of what’s on my mind is so abjectly wretched, especially when the source has little to do with me and my choices (which my friends can advise me upon) and everything to do with the external world (which they can’t).

A few days ago I posted something to my Instagram story in the middle of the night, after hours of staring at my ceiling in the dark. Against a black background, it read: “Do u ever get super stoned and end up on the most depressing rabbit hole imaginable on wikipedia and cry and lie in bed awake thinking that all of human modernity was a mistake and that u wish we could all just die off immediately in a mass extinction? 🌟it’s great🌟”. This seemed to hit a nerve among my friends: within minutes, one responded with that laughing-but-also-crying emoji; another said “tbh yeah,” another said, with utmost sincerity, “every time, which is why I can’t get stoned anymore.”

So, everyone else does feel like this? Is any of this normal? How is anyone expected to be functional under the system of exploitation designed hundreds of years ago by a bunch of megalomaniacal men who created the self-destructing dystopia we live in? Every day I trudge to work, sit at my desk, read the news, wonder why I bothered to get out of bed. Am I actually, I don’t know, clinically depressed and anxious, or am I just experiencing run-of-the-mill side effects of living under the circumstances we do?

For many of my peers and me, it feels especially cursed to be in in our early twenties right now. On top of everything else….. our personal lives suck, by definition, and nothing we care about matters. Why try to improve your work situation (in which you’re likely getting underpaid in a position you’re overqualified for, or being treated like a weasel, or maybe both), pay off your student debt, learn anything about personal finances, figure out what you want to do with your life, have any long-term dreams at all when there’s a very real possibility you’ll die suddenly in a shooting or slowly, excruciatingly, with climate change?

I used to despair over other things, like: whether to choose an easy, comfortable lifestyle by becoming an engineer, or going another route. If working any job at all would inevitably compromise my principles, one way or another. Whether I felt authenticity and fulfillment in my relationships. The yearning for community and belonging. The moral backing of my day-to-day actions, or lack thereof. (And also, obviously: whether to buy those shoes, what to do with my eyebrows, if I was gaining weight, if I was losing weight.)

I still think about most of those things, but now it feels luxurious to agonize over interior minutiae, to ignore the larger existential scarcity of participating in a society and a world in decline.

I find it frankly insane that in the span of one hour I can think such thoughts as “if Tobin Heath and Christen Press aren’t secretly married I’ll kill myself” and “I wonder how much money is in my 401(k)” and also, as I survey the absurd amount of trash my household has generated in two days, “what’s the point of existing if all I do is put permanent garbage on this planet?” I mean, I’m not even going to see whatever’s in my 401(k) until the year 2060 — what am I expecting, to have a totally normal and chill retirement because the world in 2060 will be totally normal and chill? I’m not even really expecting to be alive in 2060. What’s the point of plotting out my trajectory, financial and otherwise, for even the next ten years, much less 40, when pretty soon we’re all probably going to be living in bunkers eating cockroach jelly as we watch artificial projections of polar bears and sequoias?

Being alive right now kind of feels like experiencing the churning annihilation of stability, of beauty, of moral purpose, of all the things I’ve believed since childhood I would live my life pursuing.

On an ethical basis, I want to resist cynicism, keep myself from acclimating to the barrage of atrocities brought upon by the Trump era, stay despairing, stay angry. On a practical basis, I also want to remain functional. It’s an impossible psychological position to straddle, like giving myself a black eye every night to remind myself to feel pain while doing a job that fully depends on my having an unbruised face. When, for example, another mass shooting happens, I almost feel myself having an out-of-body experience, knowing that it never stops being sickening and astonishing but also that it has become common, unremarkable, and that to be able to get out of bed and go to work and blandly say good when someone blandly asks how are you and see my friends and talk about anything other than how awful everything is, I have to be able to raise my own misery bar. But that, of course, only adds to the cycle. It’s almost worse to know you’re capable of adjusting.

Recently I logged back into Tumblr for the first time in years, just to see how things are over here. One post read, no context necessary, “looking for a group of 5 to 7 women who will sit on the floor and wail with me in grief.” Another: “why are we still here? just to suffer? every day i get emails.”

Why are we still here? Just to suffer, beg hot celebrities to dismember us, try our best to ignore the cognitive dissonance of our constant warring desires to live ethically and also to enjoy our lives, both impossible? Every day I get emails; every day I want to reply, just once, I am not going to uphold my responsibilities because we live in a ravaged world. I feel sick with anxiety pretty much all the time. Do you, too?

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cbk1000 · 6 years

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I just read the most profoundly disturbing thing I have ever beheld with my own two fucking eyes, and I need to rant about it. You guys can’t help me process it any better, but at least we can all join together in a mighty chorus of ‘what the ACTUAL fuck??’

This is not a funny post lamenting another weird creature/human atrocity that I delved from the darkest depths of Amazon, this is a situation where I’m putting the rest of this rant under a cut because I’m going to include large chunks of text that romanticizes child molestation.

You have been warned. Do not read on if you can’t stand that sort of content.

So, if you’ve been following this blog for a while, then you’ve seen me gleefully lampooning the batshit romances of an author called Mary Anne Graham. This is the author of pee hole fingering fame and that one time a man’s top ho killed herself using a wooden paddle she had carved into the exact likeness of his penis because he was having too much gay sex with his boyfriend and neglecting his harem. There are always anatomical oopsies galore (including a man having two different openings to his anus) and general wtfery that’s usually absolutely hysterical.

I picked up her new book on Kindle Unlimited a while back, read most of it, guffawed my way through it as usual, and then forgot about it for a bit while I read other books that understand metaphors actually have to make sense and melting eyes do not denote desperate infatuation, but rather some kind of deadly disease. I went back to it today deciding I’d push through it to the end, since my Kindle said there were only twenty minutes left to the end of the book.

What a fucking mistake that was.

This book was full of the usual hilarious dipshittery until the last few minutes, when it suddenly took the most disturbing turn I’ve ever seen. I’m going to post the synopsis so you understand the basic premise of the story, and then I’ll summarize the scene leading up to what I’m going to copy and paste, so you understand the context.

Synopsis: Russian gypsy Prince Vladimir Batalova didn’t await meeting his soul mate. He’d known her for years. She was the daughter of Tobar, the gypsy who married Vlad’s mother and saved her from her abusive marriage. Vlad’s noble father abhorred the youngest son produced by his idiotic marriage to a dirty gypsy. Tobar accepted Vlad, treating him as family, equal to his own son, Nic, and his daughter, Mala. Vlad returned Tobar’s affection and considered Nic his brother, but Mala? He’d never felt brotherly about Mala. Vlad spent years dreading the letter that would tell him of Mala’s marriage to a fine gypsy lad. Instead of a letter, he got Tobar and Nic delivering Mala to London to save her from certain ravishment. They asked Vlad to fulfill his mother’s dying wish: that Mala be brought to him to enter society and find a husband. Now, Vlad must turn the gypsy he loved into a debutante, find her a husband and have her under his roof, within touching distance. Even with the help of all his friends, the sixth sense he shared with his buddy, Boz, and some faerie magic, Vlad knew he could never find a happily ever after. His forever was forbidden unless he convinced Mala that the bond they had shared wasn’t the one they should share – and that taking each other was worth losing the family they both adored.

So, they wind up getting married under English law, everyone is happy, everything is shiny, etc., and then Mala is suddenly carried off by an unknown horseman. Vlad figures out that it’s her brother and that he’s taken her back to their encampment, so he and some of his friends hightail it over there to get her back. Turns out Mala is not willing to go because she has convinced herself that because he didn’t perform a Romani wedding with her, he means to throw her aside and vanish eventually, just like he did when she was younger (shortly after meeting one another and becoming family, he suddenly up and took off and never explained why). He says it’s because he’s a demon or some shit, and the reader is suddenly made aware that he has this deep dark secret connected to why he ran away years ago, though at no point prior to this does the narration mention that something ugly is gnawing at his conscience. (Conveniently, it explains that the secret is so terrible even he forgot about it. But then he remembers it well enough to make a very detailed confession of something that happened years ago.)

Mala tells him that she will not return with him unless he confesses this secret and she can judge whether or not he truly loves her and will be faithful to her for all time.

So he does: ‘”I swear to you that I’m no deviant. I’ve never had a sexual interest in children. Never. Well, never until you were twelve and I came to meet your Papa and attend his wedding to my mother. Mother introduced us and my heart stopped. I froze and don’t even recall if I spoke. Then you ran up to give me a hug in welcome and my most private part unfroze with a vengeance.”

He paused for breath and to give her a chance to kick him and run away--but when she did neither, he continued. “I was horrified at myself, but helpless against the force of my response. Through the ceremony I positioned myself behind a small shrub of a convenient height and vowed not to so much as look at you. Course, I couldn’t look at anyone or anything else. When the women began dancing around the couple after the vows, I watched your budding breasts jiggle when you kicked and imagined myself...,”

A noise in the background halted his words, and he jumped ahead. “That night, around the fire, Tobar gave an amazing, emotional speech, where he said that in marrying my mother, he acquired another son. My blood father hated me for existing as I was a living reminder of his unpardonable lapse of judgment in wedding a damned gypsy. Your father accepted me, Russian blood and all. I couldn’t repay his affection by lusting after my step-sister. I left that night and vowed to stay away until whatever demon that had possessed me was evicted.

He then muses over the following two months, which were apparently filled with a bunch of orgies. He begs Mala not to push him to tell her about this part, because she doesn’t need to know everything. Also, apparently becoming a ‘nude buffet centerpiece that any party guest could stroke or taste or lick or nibble’ is much worse than sexually assaulting a child that her father entrusted to you for protection after welcoming you into his family. Mala agrees not to push him on the orgy stuff, and he continues:

“I thought it possible that I’d exaggerated the event in my mind. I returned about two and a half months after we first met, vowing to treat you as a younger sister. I kept my vow until I spotted you as I rode in, strolling in an area secluded from the caravan by a stand of trees. You were flirting with a lad a couple of years older. He brushed your hair back and tilted up your chin for a kiss he never got. I leapt off my galloping stallion, stormed over and told the brash bastard that if he so much as looked at you again, I’d geld him. I was jealous as hell.”

“You were?” Mala asked. “I thought you were acting like an enraged big brother.”

“No,” Vlad said. “Hell, no. Despite my every vow and intention, my love, I have never, for a single second, felt like your brother. My obsession with you grew worse, and more obvious. Your father says he saw it and so did Nic, but neither of them had a clue how low I’d sink, how evil I’d become. I kept myself mostly under control that visit, save for a few brush ups with some of the other fellows who had dreams and intentions that I destroyed rather ruthlessly. It was my next visit when my demon overthrew my will. That’s when the true evil started.”

“That’s nonsense,” Mala said.

“No, it’s not,” Vlad said. “All I can say in my defense is that the first time was accidental. I was away from the tribe, fishing and trying to clear my head and cool my loins. I succeeded only in aggravating the fish. After I packed up my gear, I strolled in the woods for a bit. A splash and a giggle drew my attention, and I stalked to a stand of trees and dense brush and peered through. ‘Twas you, dressed only in sunlight and your golden skin. You were bathing. Your youth, my supposed honor and morality, all of it commanded me to leave and give you privacy. I didn’t. After that, every night, at every campsite, I did it again and again.”

Mala blinked. “You watched me bathe? And the other girls as well?”

“There were other girls?” Vlad asked. “There are no other girls, Mala. There are no other women.”

He steeled himself and continued. “And yes, I watched you, but I did more. I pleasured myself as I watched. I invaded your privacy and desecrated it. I reviled myself for it then and every moment since then. I ordered myself to stop but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I’d leave so I’d have to stop, but I could not stay away. Then came my worst transgression. One winter’s night, your father and brother left with the other men to scout and liberate some horses. They asked me to sleep inside the vardo with you. I tried to do the right thing and made myself a separate pallet, but you complained of the cold. It took pitifully little for me to join you in your cozy nest. You cuddled up to my back innocently, for warmth.”

Vlad paused and closed his eyes, but she made a noise of protest so he looked at her again. “My flesh felt every sweet inch of you, and I ate it up like a starving man at a banquet. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep. When I awoke, our positions had reversed. You’d turned over and I spooned you. My arm lay around your waist, but I moved it up until your breasts rested upon it. I jiggled them, slightly, imitating the way I watched them move whenever you danced. You didn’t wake, and I recalled your father and brother’s jokes about how deeply you slept. So I cupped your breasts through your gown, teasing your nipples to pert fullness that I couldn’t see.”

“Oh my Great Duck,” Mala said. “I thought I dreamed that. You turned me over, and climbed atop me, didn’t you?”

“To my everlasting damnation, I did,” Vlad said. “I hiked up your gown and positioned myself against your feminine mound. I moved your gown off your shoulders to uncover your breasts. I sucked you and humped you like an animal until I found the most shameful, the most splendid release of my life. I was beyond disgusted with myself, so I got up, cleaned up, and went outside to build a fire or kindle it or something.”

He goes on to say that he afterwards fled and “signed on to crew a ship leaving for America. I needed an ocean’s distance to keep me away else i’d return and likely do something even worse.”

So, he has just confessed that when she was a child, he took advantage of the fact that he was a trusted family member to peep on her while she was bathing and wank to the sight of it, and then sexually assaulted her while she was sleeping. This confession, btw, takes place in front of her dad and older brother. She probably is disgusted and horribly upset and they kill him with their bare hands, right?

Nope. The whole purpose of this scene was for the heroine’s insecurities to be soothed and for her to realise that the hero has wanted her and only her all along:

Mala watched shame and love battle in Vlad’s eyes and recognized it as the expression she’d seen there for years. She hadn’t understood it then, but she understood it and him now. ‘Twas with effort that she managed not to dance as she said, “Ask me again.”

He then asks her to marry him once more, her dad and brother are like, “Yay! Let’s get this gypsy wedding on the road”, they have a Romani ceremony, and then the book ends with this scene:

Vlad drew her close for a kiss, but paused to ask, “Do you finally understand that I’ve loved you since the moment we met, that I’ve never willingly spent a second apart from you, and that I will hold you in my arms, my heart and my life until eternity ends?”

Mala was crying too hard to answer, so she nodded as he took her lips with tender intent, feeding her back happy tears, flavored with a taste of forever.

I’m going to fucking DESTROY this thing in a review. I cannot fucking believe a functioning adult actually wrote this as part of a romantic happily-ever-after. This lady likes to talk about how her characters are all a ‘little batty’ because they’re just so in love and it’s all a bit tongue-in-cheek--no, you unbelievably stupid fucking asshole, they are not ‘a little batty’, they are literally child rapists. Confessing to your bride that you were obsessed with her when she was a CHILD and that you FUCKING MOLESTED HER IN HER SLEEP is not a goddamn HAPPY ENDING!!!!!!!!!!!!

#i'm fucking incensed #i don't even know how to process this #what the unholy fuck is wrong with this woman #how the fuck could you think this is romantic???#this is the book that makes fifty shades look completely well-adjusted

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tessatechaitea · 4 years

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Cerebus #2 (1978)

Is this the one where Cerebus becomes so obsessed with feeding coins into this devil thing to receive slips of paper with his future on them that he becomes unable to make any decisions at all?

Deni's essay on the inside cover of Issue #2 mostly just points out that comic books are weird and dumb and the fans are huge nerds. She ends it saying, "Comics is a crazy business, but you know something? I wouldn't want to be anyplace else. That is if I had a choice." Six years later, her choice was to get the fuck out of her marriage with Dave Sim. Although she still published comics at her new company Renegade Press. I'm not sure what she did after she closed up shop on that sometime around 1989, I think. Maybe she realized she did have a choice and somehow got the fuck away from comic books. I am not frantically trying to find her phone number on the Internet right now asking her how she did it. I'm too busy re-reading all of my old comic books, most of which I didn't even like the first time. Dave Sim's essay about Cerebus #2 printed in the Swords of Cerebus compilation is a bloodcurdling breath of honesty. Unless I meant refreshing? Is refreshing or bloodcurdling the description used to entice people to buy gum?

You should probably figure out how to enlarge this on whatever crutch of a device you're reading this on so that you can read it because it's entertaining.

As a reader, you instinctively realize that most artists hate drawing the boring stuff in the background. Those that fill the scene in with lots of nice little details are probably a joy to work with but they're also probably insane when you realize the deadlines they're under and they can't help drawing a fiddly little tea service on an antique hutch next to a couple of exotic potted plants. You know, things that will probably need to be drawn repeatedly across several panels from different angles! But what I hadn't really thought about was how the writer part of Dave Sim was initially so lazy about writing humorous stories and dialogue. When I think of Cerebus, it's the funny moments and hilarious character interactions which I think of first. Or maybe second. The first thing I think of is Sandman Roach sucking himself off with his weird Sandman mask. I guess the main thing I learned from Sim's introduction is that I'm not going to be reading a funny issue now. Not that the first issue was terribly funny. It was much like Sim writes in this one, really. The comedy comes across in the first few pages as the readers yuck it up over a tough aardvark chopping off hands and threatening bartenders (the bartender's line where he changes up his "I won't serve you. You're a...guest! And I serve guests at their table" was probably the best line of the first issue). The rest is so solidly Conan invading a wizard's tower that you're not expecting any jokes. Although Sim tries to lighten the mood by making the wizard a bit of a bumbling, aging middle-management type who just seems tired of having his work space invaded by thieves. The narrator opens this issue describing some of Cerebus's travels since the end of the last issue. In that blurb, we get the first hints of the geography of Estarcion.

At some point, we'll get a map. But it won't matter much since most of issues 26-110 or so take place in the city-state of Iest (hell, maybe 90% of Cerebus takes place in Iest up until Guys).

Do we ever find out any more about the Blood Wars? I don't think so. Remember, a lot of the early issues are setting a sword and sorcery mood. Sim will revisit some of the characters and places in these first 25 issues but only sparingly and usually in new contexts, thus making the overall story seem more layered and fully fleshed out than it initially was.

The first issue set the mood with Cerebus bouncing around on the back of a horse as he pulled into town; this one sets a slightly different tone.

Notice how Cerebus has two swords in this picture? I think Dave remembers that at some point in the future and comments (either through The Judge or through Sim's guest appearance itself) on how Cerebus losing one messes up his future or something. It's also possible I'm remembering that wrong! But I'm pretty sure we get a short history of Cerebus's accessories and their import (his helmet, the necklace, his swords). Cerebus is captured by the Boreleans who decide to sell him to a freak show in Gurann. I don't know where Gurann is. I also don't know where Borelea is. Or Tansubal. Or Estarcion. In response to the Chieftain's plans, Cerebus curses him in Paranian. I also don't know where Parania is. Cerebus's curse is "Comne ye tama stet fegria!" It translates roughly to "You can shove the freak show up your asshole." What I'm saying is that we all now sort of know the Paranian word for asshole. It's probably "fegria." Doing a Google search of the word "fegria" and "cerebus" resulted in a blog from 2017 which planned to do a critical review of every issue of Cerebus. It made it three issues. But in glancing over the blog, I noticed a quote that was footnoted as being by Tim Kreider in an essay from The Comic Journal #301. I fucking love Tim Kreider and now I need to get my hands on that issue. Anybody have a copy they want to send me?! Before Dave Sim gets to the part of the story without any jokes, he makes this classic joke when Cerebus battles to prove himself worthy of joining the Boreleans.

Ha ha! Look at how funny the little aardvark guy looks!

Two issues in and we already see how Dave is using the fantasy setting to satire real life. Previously, he showed how easily the powerful, entrenched wizard was defeated because he was just a blowhard hiding behind illusions which made him seem more powerful than he really was. Here, we see a couple of guys quickly reworking sacred traditions on the fly to cater to their current needs. Maybe they're just jokes but they tell the story of who this young Dave Sim probably was: an atheist with a mistrust of authority, status quo, and almost certainly mainstream comic book publishers. Just wait until that young Dave Sim suddenly isn't atheist any more and has decided he's the authority of everything! Boy do those issues suck dog turds that were turded out of dogs who sucked on dog turds. I'm specifically thinking about the Latter Days explication of Genesis as a story about a lying female god's power struggle with the real, upright male God. At least I think that's what was happening. I might have slept through 85% of time I was reading it. Cerebus wins the knife fight with an unorthodox yet apparently known well enough to be dreaded Earth Pig move.

So dreaded that I don't think Cerebus ever uses it again. Granted, his snout gets much shorter and less effective as the series goes on.

I'm sorry I scanned that panel because the really good joke comes immediately on the next page where the Chieftain is all, "You're from the South so you probably have a moral code against killing an unarmed combatant which means sacred tradition will..." at which point he's interrupted by Cerebus stabbing Klog in the face. Cerebus's moral and ethical code are pretty animalistic. Probably because he's an animal? Although you can't argue with some of his wisdom when he becomes Pope. I mean, "One less mouth to feed is one less mouth to feed," is some thoughtful shit, especially after you've just thrown a baby fifty yards. Cerebus spends two days marching with the Boreleans before the army is overrun by an army of ensorcelled men. Cerebus understands magic enough to completely mistrust it so instead of fighting, he slides down a snowy cliff to escape. That was the part of the story where Dave Sim's writing persona was all, "I can't be funny any more. Let's put Cerebus in a hole where he has to deal with something serious." So now it's basically a new story. If I remember the Conan books I read when I was younger, the narrative structure isn't too far off from those. The books just seemed like a bunch of scenes that didn't really have any plot thread connecting them. Probably because they were just a bunch of short stories from pulp magazines shoved together in book form. What? You expect me to actually do research on a memory from my past instead of just speculating?! How not lazy do you think I am?! As Cerebus wanders the dark caves under the ice, he remembers an old legend about The Eye of Terim guarded by the Demon Khem lying underground in Borelea. Could this be the place?! Could he be walking into deadly danger? Or extravagant riches?! Did Dave Sim forget that Tarim was spelled with an "a" which birthed Terim later because he wouldn't admit to a mistake? Did this duality of Tarim and Terim cause him to believe the religions of The People of the Book were infected with the same duality? And when did he decide the split was down gender lines?! That last question was a rhetorical question but also one that can be answered: he made that decision when he was interviewing mothers and daughters for his story "Mothers & Daughters." At that time, he realized women he didn't want to fuck were vapid and uninteresting. His conclusion was that this was an issue with women and not an issue of self. I guess his reasoning was "I don't want to fuck men but I find them interesting therefore women must not be interesting!" Don't worry! According to Dave, that's not a sexist conclusion. It's a completely rational one because he's a man and he came to it.

Cerebus climbing down a pillar of faces, descending deep into the Earth. Later, he'll do the exact opposite. I don't mean to suggest it means anything! It's just a nice callforward!

This is only the second issue and Dave is already using the comic medium for all its worth. The pillar remains static so he's able to split the image into panels which then allocate separate time intervals. You can tell he's a long time fan of comics. We learn that the Eye of Terim is the "most precious of the five spheres of the Gods." So now we know there are five spheres of the Gods. What are they for? Where are they? Will Cerebus pursue more of them? Or will he just be told about them later when he goes into outer space? Probably that last one. Cerebus does utter an oath to Tarim so Dave probably finally remembered how he originally spelled it but only after inking the previous pages. Remember the essay from last issue that you didn't read? He described his process of fully completing each page before moving on to the next one. So now he's got a problem! The better solution would probably be to fix the previous errors. But that's a solution that takes more work. An easier solution is to suddenly decide that there are two confusing Gods with pretty much the same name only they're pronounced differently. How are they pronounced? I don't fucking know. Comic books aren't audio! Look, I'm a cynical dick! It's entirely possible that Dave Sim had already decided that Terim was the name of God in the North and Tarim was the name of God in the South and that was what caused so much strife. I could give Dave the benefit of the doubt on this. I suppose I will although it's less fun to believe Dave knew what he was doing than to pretend he's made tons of stupid mistakes.

It turns out the Eye of Terim was actually a succubus trying to trap prey.

Maybe Dave Sim is a genius who, from Issue #2, was already working toward his "Mothers & Daughters" themes and his Tangent essay! Here we see a woman lying in wait to steal Cerebus's soul and tempt him from his righteous path of reason! I'd say this is technically the first female character in Cerebus and it's kind of ideologically on point with the rest of the series! Also, we learn aardvarks don't have souls. I think that's the really important bit. I can't leave this bit yet! Look at how the encounter is worded: "For the first time in centuries a prey has broken the succubus' spell -- has seen it in its original form." It's as if Dave is saying, "See? I'm the first guy to have noticed that these hot women aren't just hot women! They're traps! I mean Cerebus was the first to see it!" And as the succubus becomes unable to destroy Cerebus's mind and reason and rationality, it becomes desperate. It becomes emotional! It screams and rants and raves! Wow. I didn't think I'd have to deal with Dave Sim's philosophy about the Marxist/feminist/homosexual axis for at least another hundred and fifty issues! Maybe I should just pretend I'm reading too deeply into what's basically a Dungeons & Dragons encounter. Cerebus tumbles in the dark and awakens lying in the snow next to the Eye of Terim, now just a plain iron sphere. He notices he's amid the dead of the battle and realizes the ensorcelled men were victims of the succubus who have now been freed. I guess the succubus died when it tried to suck the soul of a soulless creature*. *Necromancer's Compendium. Page 63. Maybe this story was how Dave Sim eventually saw his magnum opus: he was Cerebus trying to free the minds of all the other men who were ensorcelled by women! You might not agree with his message but if he had it since Issue #2 and continued on to Issue #300, you can probably maybe say at least one small, positive word about his sticktoitiveness. That's a hard word to spell. I'm going to write and draw three hundred issues of a comic book about how difficult it was to spell that and then the trauma of knowing it was spelled right but Spellcheck insisting that it's not. I'm reading the bi-weekly version of Issue #2 so along with the Aardvark Comment letters page is this note from Dave:

So even when he was an atheist, he had the guilt of a religious person.

In one of Dave Sim's fake letters, he brings up how the plot of Issue #1 was quite similar to Robert E. Howard's Conan story, "Tower of the Elephant." So Dave Sim uses a fake name to call himself out on borrowing bits of a previous story? He also answers the accusation by saying, "Yeah, I read it a long time ago so I guess some of that stuff stuck in my head." I guess this is something Dave and I have in common: we often have lengthy conversations with pretend people about our flaws. Dave also asks himself why Cerebus always swears by Clovis. Apparently that was the pen name of his wife Deni's brother. Mystery solved! Hopefully in a future letter, Dave will explain why he has Terim and Tarim! Cerebus #2 Rating: B. Another solid B in that the art is still that of a somewhat better than amateur artist and the writing is consistent enough to be memorable in places and not Ann Nocenti confusing in all the others. Grade B praise indeed! My main feeling when rereading the early Cerebus stories from the first 25 issues is that I'm eagerly anticipating "High Society" and the introduction of The Regency Elf. I also look forward to the day Gerhard arrives and the backgrounds become gorgeous works of almost certainly intense labor.

#Cerebus #Dave Sim

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gonebyionnalee · 7 years

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this is a big longass (i’m talking more than 2000 words) serious post so sorry mobile users and content warning for child sexual abuse etc

okay so for context i don’t know how many people were active in the same communities as me 3? 4/5? years ago on here but long story short there was a trans woman called whitney (mentioning she’s trans because it becomes relevant later since i want to talk about why the trans community at large is terrible with this kind of subject) who was well known and popular, to cut to the point she turned out to be a pedophile who groomed multiple underaged people (mostly women and trans men) like between 13 - 15 as a grownass adult and sexually harassed a few other people of various (including legal) ages. also had rape allegations attached to her name which obviously you can’t quantify with facebook chat screenshots but you know not going to suddenly get flakey about rape charges against somebody who is quite literally grooming children

her url was purplefridge and the medium for getting her expunged from the community was callout posts because let’s be real if you have concrete evidence that somebody has attempted to groom/molest you and they’re active on tumblr, you’re going to post about it on tumblr. i’ve had to do that, multiple people have had to do that on here, in a self governing online community that is largely how things are going to happen. if people want to see the posts just go into tagged/purplefridge but also somebody for whatever reason posted a dick in that tag years ago so um you know. look out for that

and in moments after that largely she joked about it and tried to cover her ass by telling people (notably people i’m friends with) that it wasn’t that bad but after the like 4th or 5th post she hightailed it, deleted her blog and sent multiple people (talking in the 10′s and 20′s here) the same copypaste cookie cutter apology and in the years after that she managed to continue life as normal on twitter, still active in the soundcloud/furry/trans communities as if nothing had happened and cultivating social clout like a normal human with the @ polistae

i’d wanted to tell people in the past (2ish years ago) that she was that person, and just because somebody seemingly isn’t doing that now, doesn’t mean they aren’t a rapist and child abuser. the event is a large black mark on my brain and despite never having been in direct contact with her (mutual friends is how we knew each other and while i was underaged at the time she didn’t groom me), the feeling of having to cut people out of your life because, for whatever reason, they decided to remain friends with somebody who is quite literally once again a rapist and child abuser because “i have hope she’ll change” or “she told me it wasn’t that bad” or “i want to keep an eye on her” is quite literally vomit enduing. whenever i tried tweeting about it i felt like my head was going to explode (i did tell her to kill herself in traffic at one point though which was gratifying). like when people know incredibly personal things about you and your history with child sexual violence and rape during your teenage years, yeah, that hurts lol

and for whatever reason the topic of her existing and being a piece of shit came up semi recently (this week), a friend of mine linked to the posts on here for context and we had a back and forth in the replies (as she did with other people who were there and had to deal with it) and it gets a few notes from people who are disgusted (you know like any human with basic morals would be) then flash forward a few days later some hack furry soundcloud musician who makes DJ paypal ripoffs is screenshotting our tweets and encouraging people to dogpile us because we’re ~problematic~ or whatever (for context i did make a joke about soundcloud trannies but literally if you’re focusing your energy on a trans woman saying a word that she’s allowed to use and unbothered by the literal rapist you are clearly, utterly, brain dead) and then gets in my mentions and starts accusing me of a multitude of different things as to why i’m talking about something i happened to see somebody else talking about it like i suddenly made the decision to bring up something from four years ago for fun like. literally not expunging the energy with a limit of 280 characters or less having to coddle a grown adult man who needs to be told that “rape and child abuse is bad and not something that stops being abhorrent after 4 years”

and while not directly interacting with me, i had to see tweets from various people calling it “bringing up past drama” and the whole deluge into people changing and it being outright lies etc

and it’s just

like i really can’t fucking stand how idiotic some people are about this subject which i guess is why i’m writing the nihon shoki of child sex abusers here. like people calling things like this purely because it happened through tumblr as a medium “callout culture” like no fucking shit they made a giant post about it, it’s the fastest way to get somebody out of a community with hard evidence. 13 - 15 year olds coming forward about being literally groomed by a pedophile is in no way comparable to people making posts about people doing things they personally find objectionable. like, literally if somebody is a rapist and child sex abuser to boot, why would it stop being a relevant fact about them after 4 years? why shouldn’t it be public knowledge be it tumblr post or not? i don’t see you calling for the abolition of sex offenders registers so why are you harassing people for bringing up the fact that somebody just migrated communities and tried to obscure the fact she is, again, quite literally a rapist and a pedophile

and like i mentioned before in the first paragraph that’s about 3 miles away now, there’s a specific problem with this in LGBT online communities (not gonna talk about furries because let’s be real as a community they’re responsible for god not talking to us anymore) specifically transgender. like i see so much of this stuff from trans women specifically defending other trans women because they believe they’re infallible except only when confronted by other trans women. like i remember a while ago i think it was aquila talking about sexual harassment from a trans woman and some bitch tried to accuse her of “contributing to the stereotype that trans women are sex abusers perpetrated by cis people” like ????

it’s impossible to have a serious discussion about sex abuse and assault in the trans community because, at large, the community has a problem with sanctimonious white women who’re only friends with other sanctimonious white women (i’m mentioning race despite being white myself because i mean it like a lot of them are racist even if they don’t know it and talk too much about things they shouldn’t but do anyway because they think being trans puts them at the very bottom of some kind of hypothetical social ladder). like somebody comes forward with a story about sexual harassment from a specific person who happens to be trans and you get a bunch of Those People talking about them perpetuating stereotypes despite this being a literal event that happened to them

same with the whitney thing like we (small friend group of mine) were talking about it in our group chat and then some trans woman who was apart of it just up and leaves and today, we see he having a laugh and a jape with her like she didn’t find out hours before that the person she’s friends with is a rapist.

firsthand i’ve seen a lot of things from trans women who think that they’re untouchable because they have the label of “trans woman” and fall back on that as a get out of jail free card like they can’t be racist or classist or even themselves be criticised for sexual misconduct

and the sexual misconduct thing is literally perpetuated like a normal thing like all of those posts that get circulated around about how all trans women flirt with each other and share nudes like, no, if i don’t know you and you try to talk to me like that you’re a creep and need to fuck off. like a lot of my friends who’re trans women have experiences with people they don’t know trying to share nudes or outright start aggressively flirting

like i’m aware this is kind of all over the place towards the end and it might be hard to understand if you’re not apart of the trans community or you’re trans and haven’t experiences this yourself firsthand or been told by others about similar things but, really as a community we have a problem with allowing people who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about lead discussions about identity politics and also thinking that people who’re sexual harasses ranging from “just doesn’t know what appropriateness is” to “preys on minors” to “literal rapist” walk free and interact with people like a normal human because of weird belies that only other trans women are allowed to confront other trans women about things they do (and also as much as i hate to say it some people like the people on mine and my friends cases the other day, just don’t care and consider anybody bringing stuff up from the past or because it happened on tumblr drama-whores or whatever)

like another example is during the whole dog mom escapade (yes the woman who wanted to fuck dogs and her girlfriend who dated somebody in the past who fucked a dog, and regularly interacted with her gf’s blog about wanting to fuck dogs) i had people try to accuse me of using her trans status to get people to (heh) dogpile on her and somebody go on a “you shouldn’t bring this stuff up to a crowd of largely cis people because people have a habit of persecuting minorities moreso than people with privilege and people might mock her for being trans!” rant at me to which i just responded with “i don’t care”. like she wants to fuck dogs nobody cares if she has a dick or not they just want her away from them because she wants to fuck dogs. this isn’t complex.

like, again as a community, we really need to do better. and outside of that back to the original epoch of this longass post, what the fuck is wrong with people (both cis and trans) who’re willing to excuse literal rape and child sexual abuse because it happened a while ago or because they have some perverse sense of loyalty to an online friend

and again sorry to kind of just. write a herculean passage of text and i know the stuff about the trans community failing in regards to that in mine and others experiences maybe might be hard to follow if you aren’t aware of what i’m talking about (maybe? we’ll see) but yeah i’ve had this on my mind for a while. having to see people excuse that kind of shit and outright try to start drama with you and others is, obviously, very strenuous

idk i feel being gay/trans exposes you to a lot of angels but also a lot of terrible people, online communities that’re self governed can go to shit incredibly fast if somebody with enough social notoriety is crafty enough (case in point monetizeyourcat) and enough people are willing to take their side for whatever obtuse reasons

also i checked there’s literally around 2000 words here so again thank you if you read the whole thing and i’m sorry for the really fucking grim subject matter that seems to crop up a fucking lot in online communities, but again, lot of thoughts, this is a way to expunge them from my head so i can go play dangan ronpa without having a literal dark cloud over me. blessed thursdays everyone <3

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secretgamergirl · 7 years

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Let’s Talk a Little About “Rule 63″

As you may recall from back when I had that thing about “TG” manga, or that other thing about Forced Feminization porn, any attempt at trying to find anything relevant to trans people is going to lead you to some sort of fetish or other, and actual trans people tend to end up having complicated relationships with those. Today, let’s talk a little about Rule 63.

If the term doesn’t ring a bell, one of the oldest jokes in internet culture is the concept of this list of rules governing what can be found on the internet. Most famous of course being Rule 34- “If it exists, there’s porn of it.” Next most famous though is Rule 63, defined either as “If it exists, someone has drawn it as a cute girl,” or “every character has been drawn as the opposite gender.” Honestly I don’t know of any other rules even existing, they’re just arbitrarily chosen numbers by ancient internet jokesmiths who thought it’d be funnier to suggest a super long list. For these purposes I’m looking more at that second definition.

Not too long ago, there was an incident where someone had drawn the all-male cast of a new game as women, which lead to the artist getting rather savagely attacked. Another trans woman wrote an article about this that I found upsetting on a number of levels. I didn’t want to call public attention to it at the time, since the artist in question was still heavily under fire, and the author of the article was taking a fair amount of heat for handling things rather irresponsibly. It’s been long enough now though that I’m fairly certain I can address the harmful impact of that article in the abstract without causing anyone any problems.

The implication was made, and elaborated upon at length, that the very notion of any artist ever drawing any Rule 63 art was deeply offensive to trans people, and I’ve since seen a whole lot of cis people, trying to be good trans allies, repeating this and admonishing artists accordingly.

I have a huge problem with that, because the reality is that Rule 63 art is pretty deeply meaningful and developmentally important to a not at all insignificant number of trans people.

If you talk to enough trans people, you’ll often see us referring to our past selves and/or clearly closeted trans people as “eggs.” See, when you’re a trans woman, you don’t suddenly decide “I’m a woman now!” You always were, and after you accept that and embrace it, looking back on your life up to that point it’s painfully obvious you always were, and you generally feel like a total idiot for not making the connection sooner (and obviously this also applies to trans men, and to non-binary people but I’m sticking with women for the moment for expediency’s sake).

That period before you accept and embrace your actual gender is what we call “being an egg,” or “egg mode,” both because it’s a nice metaphor for the effects of dysphoria (socially isolated/living in this dark emotional void/unable to really start living your life), and because “hatching” out of “egg mode” tends to start with a little crack forming in how you look at yourself, and it doesn’t take a lot of poking at that crack before the realization sets in that you aren’t just “really in touch with your feminine side” or “curious” or whatever, but you’re trans, and once you allow yourself to seriously hold the thought “I’m actually a woman” the whole shell of self-denial breaks apart and there’s no going back.

All of this though is contingent on that first crack forming. Something needs to come along and give you a reason to start envisioning yourself, at least in some limited hypothetical context, as a woman, and realizing how much more comfortable you feel. And generally, that requires some kind of outside catalyst.

(Quick aside, transphobes love hearing things like that and extrapolating that if egg-mode trans people can be sheltered from any such catalysts, it will prevent them from “becoming trans” and spare them a tortured existence. This ignores the fact that it’s being in egg-mode that leaves us incapable of real happiness or meaningful connections in life, and incredibly prone to suicide, while after coming out and transitioning the only issues we have to contend with are bigots like them doing everything they can to hurt us, and it’s STILL worth it.)

Rule 63 art is, of course, one of the more common catalysts for this sort of revelation. Others of course include things like Ranma 1/2, the obligatory gender flip/body swap episode of any given sci-fi or fantasy show, talking to an actual trans person for any length of time, creating a character for an RPG/short story/etc. So for instance, let’s say you’re really into Harry Potter, and you come across some nicely drawn piece of fan art where Harry’s a girl (or where Hermione’s a guy). You look at that, you reconsider how the story would differ in that case. If you’re the sort to project yourself into the role of one of these characters you’re now thinking of how that would be different for you, and there’s your crack. Even better if it’s the protagonist of a videogame you’re playing, where you think of that character as “you.” I mean, a big part of why the original Metroid is near and dear to a lot of trans women’s hearts is that your big reward for finishing it is playing through again with the knowledge that that’s a woman you’ve been projecting yourself onto the whole time. So you can see how it’s helpful to have a variety of art like this floating around.

On the other side of the coin, let’s say you’re an eggy eggy trans girl who hasn’t started to hatch yet. Somewhere on your computer you have a folder with about a gig of paintings you’ve come across of Link and Ramza and and Vash the Stampede rendered as women, that really speak to you in some powerful way, but you haven’t figured out why that is. Now you see a bunch of people talking about how art like that is super exploitative and harmful to trans women, a demographic whose feelings you really care about, again, for reasons you can’t quite articulate yet. Well, this is scandalous and shameful isn’t it! That big pile of art you’ve been hoarding is apparently sick and wrong and some kind of fetish porn! Now you hate yourself even more, so it’s time to repress some feelings and delay some revelations and be more miserable than ever.

(And yes, I do realize that a significant amount of Rule 63 art floating around absolutely is created as fetish porn, and there absolutely are some trans people who really aren’t fans, but connecting with a piece of art and learning about yourself is way more important than what motivated an artist or what makes a random stranger roll their eyes due to their own personal issues.)

Plus very often, Rule 63 art is drawn by trans people, struggling to make a living by selling art in the sort of alt-culture communities other trans people, particularly those still in egg mode, frequent. It’s a healthy way to expand people’s perceptions so they don’t get it into their heads that, say, The Doctor must always be a man, and sometimes makes younger trans kids realize things about themselves. I have several friends who make a living like that, honestly.

Keep that in mind if I add some visual aids to this later.

#trans #rule 63

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sankta-arya · 7 years

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Not All That Glitters Is Gold (3)

Jon is on a mission, but love is the death of duty… The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives…

Inspired by the Undercover Lover theory. I gave you a fair warning and I’ll tag it as well, so if you continue reading and don’t like the story, that’s your own responsibility.

His words wound her, he can see it in her eyes. She does love him, or at least she loves the man she imagines him to be. And he recognises something he's only seen a glint of a couple of times, a desire to be loved which makes her more human, more likeable. It only causes him to hate himself more than he already does, but he can't allow that to bother him. I'm the shield that guards the realms of men.

Arya lets her hand rest on Needle, hidden away in the shadowy corner of Sansa's solar. The two women facing each other on opposite sides of the desk seem to have forgotten her presence there. She tilts her head, studying the Dragon Queen's delicate features, her alabaster skin, her bright violet eyes and her intricately braided silver hair. She resembles a drawing of Visenya Targaryen Arya once saw in a book, except smaller and softer.

It's almost as if Daenerys is wearing someone else's face, Arya muses. This dainty, pretty creature in front of her doesn't match the fierce and fiery rage inside that is only visible in her eyes.

Arya was so excited when she first heard Jon was bringing Daenerys back to Winterfell. Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains. But she's not part of the pack, and Sansa is. Arya knows her sister no longer wants a knight to protect or save her - she can take care of herself - but she's ready, just in case.

Sansa sits down, folding her hands. "Would you please tell me what this is about, Your Grace? I have a lot of work to do."

Daenerys glares down at her. "I want the Kingslayer."

Sansa looks up at her calmly. "I don't understand why this matter has suddenly become so urgent, to be honest. You have a truce with the Lannisters."

"And Cersei broke that truce!"

"But Ser Jaime hasn't," Sansa points out. "He betrayed the woman he loved his entire life to honour your agreement. That ought to mean something to you."

Arya doesn't like the Kingslayer's presence here. He killed Jory. She doesn't like the Imp being here either. The Lannisters shouldn't be allowed inside these walls, but if she can tolerate one brother for Jon, she can tolerate the other for Sansa. And for Brienne.

She cornered him after Sansa retreated inside with their uncle Edmure. "What are you doing here?" she asked him, staring him dead in the eye. The easy, smug smile slipped from his face and he acknowledged her with a nod. "You and your sister are my last chance at honour, My Lady."

"I'm not a lady," she corrected him, still holding his gaze. There was no lie in his explanation. It was as honest as the oath he'd sworn to Sansa. "I believe you," she told him eventually. "But that doesn't mean I can forget what you've done. If you betray us, I'll kill you myself."

Daenerys jerks her head to the left, clenching her fists. "That doesn't change the fact that Cersei betrayed us. What kind of Queen am I if I'm just going to let that pass? We had an agreement, but that's become void. I want justice for this betrayal and I want justice for my father."

Justice? Or revenge? It's a desire Arya knows all too well. A thirst that demands to be quelled, but its satisfaction is fleeting and often only leaves one feeling more empty. At least Arya has her family to fill that hole inside of her, what does Daenerys have?

"I have suffered at the Lannister's hands. I lost my Mother, my Father and two brothers because of them," Sansa answers after a short pause. "Ser Jaime is not innocent in those matters and neither is Lord Tyrion."

Daenerys opens her mouth, but Sansa holds up a hand to silence her. "I want a great many things, Your Grace. And I'm sure if circumstances were different, my bannermen would be at my door this very moment to demand both brothers' heads. But what we want doesn't matter right now. Politics must wait. When the war is over, we can talk again."

"And yet here you sit calling yourself Queen."

Arya can't pretend it doesn't hurt. She had to escape the Hall when all those lords turned their backs on Jon. "You're a bunch of bloody traitors," she wanted to scream at them. "He's only trying to save all you buggering idiots!"

Instead she quietly slipped from her chair and left, her tongue bloody from biting it too hard, but at night when she lay in her bed, trying to fight back the traitor tears, Lord Manderly's words played over and over in her mind.

"Your Father and trueborn brothers died for the North," he told Jon. "My son died for the Young Wolf's cause. All of us here have lost fathers or brothers or sons, or even mothers and sisters. They died for the North, and you gave it away as if it was nothing. How can you expect us to still follow you after that?"

She knows Jon understands that. He isn't stupid. Yet he still bent the knee to Daenerys. Because he loves her, if the rumours are true. And they must be true. He hasn't talked to Arya in weeks. Sansa cried herself to sleep last night after they met in the Godswood. Bran keeps saying he needs to speak with Jon, yet he never does. So it must be true, Jon loves Daenerys, and he loves her more than he loves them.

Perhaps it's their own fault. Who could love the dark, broken things they've become? Jon's tried, he was so happy when he first saw her, she could tell, but he must have realized she's not his little sister anymore. It must be so much easier to love the beautiful and powerful Dragon Queen.

She blinks to bring herself back to the present, finding the two Queens still facing each other.

Sansa is not fazed by Daenerys' accusation. "The only reason I accepted the crown is because I can't afford the Northern lords fighting a war amongst themselves with the army of the dead approaching," she states in a pleasant voice. "Northern independence is another matter we can discuss after the war has ended."

Daenerys purses her lips. "Fair enough," she concedes. "But then I demand you give me the Kingslayer as compensation, Lady Stark."

Sansa rises to her full length to tower over the other woman, regarding her with an icy glare, chin tilted up. "Need I remind you you are a guest in my home, Lady Targaryen?" she asks, enunciating all the words coolly and slowly. "You do not make demands of me here. Ser Jaime is my sworn sword and I will not use his life as a gambling tool in pointless negotiations. I've entertained this discussion long enough for my brother's sake and out of respect for our alliance, but this conversation is over."

Daenerys turns around and leaves, slamming the door behind her. Sansa slumps back in her seat and Arya emerges from her corner to squeeze her sister's shoulder. I hope she's worth it, Jon.

***

Daenerys storms into his chambers without knocking. Someone has woken the dragon. Jon can see it in her eyes, that gleam of madness that made him flinch the first time he witnessed it. He takes a deep breath, bracing himself.

"I'm leaving," she informs him.

He wasn't expecting that. He shakes his head as he approaches her, frowning. "What? Why?"

"Your sister refused to give me the Kingslayer!"

He clenches his jaw. He doesn't want to think of Sansa and Jaime Lannister in the same context. He's not sure how to answer, so he remains silent.

She closes the distance between them, raging on: "I summoned her and she had the nerve to send me a note, kindly inviting me to discuss matters in her solar!"

He has to suppress a smile. Of course Sansa would use the rules of propriety to assert her authority. "She didn't mean to offend you," he says softly, taking her hand. "If roles were reversed and we were still at Dragonstone, she'd extend you the proper courtesy and answer your summons. Sansa just likes doing things by the rules. She's Queen and Winterfell is her seat. This is her home, so-"

Daenerys pulls her hand away and narrows her eyes at him. "Yes, she reminded me of that as well. She betrayed you, stole your bannermen and usurped your throne! Doesn't that bother you?"

Out of the two of us, Sansa is not the usurper. That was me. "There was no throne to usurp," he reminds her. "I bent the knee, remember?"

"Technicalities," she scoffs.

If that's true, then why did I even bother? He takes a deep breath and cups her cheek, feeling her relax slightly under his touch. "Dany, please, listen to me," he implores her. "Sansa is not your enemy."

For a moment her eyes soften, but then her mouth becomes a hard line. "But Cersei is. I talked to Tyrion earlier. His brother told him she's bringing sellswords from Essos. I can't let her do that."

He releases her and can't stop his nostrils from flaring. "You can't leave now! You promised!"

"That was before Cersei betrayed us!"

If only Jaime Lannister had stayed with his sister. Why did he choose to leave Cersei now, after all these years of doing her bidding without questioning? Why did he have to come here and distract Daenerys with the idea of her precious throne being threatened? He sighs and looks down, taking her hand again, noting how small and fragile it looks in his own larger one. He's disgusted with himself for what he's about to do, but he has no choice.

He glances up and he knows there's sadness in his eyes. "Don't you love me, Daenerys Stormborn? Don't you care about my family and my people?"

She licks her lips and collects herself, pulling her hand away. "Your people don't want me. They prefer her."

He closes his eyes, flexing his sword hand before meeting her gaze. "If you leave now, you're only proving them right."

She nods. "I'll stay," she says, before turning around. She pauses at the door. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

She twists around to search his face. "If it came down to it, and you had to choose between me and her, what would you do?"

For a couple of moments he can only gape at her. Are you truly asking me to choose between you and my family? It's not a question he wants to answer. He shouldn't have to choose at all.

"It won't come to that," he assures her.

She tilts her head, a curious curl to her lips that can't possibly be a smile. "What if it does?"

He flexes his hand again. "It won't."

When the door clicks shut, he sinks down on his bed, planting his elbows on his knees and rubbing his face with both hands. He's already changed his clothes, but he needs to get back out again. If he can't find someone willing to spar, he'll let off some steam by hacking a training dummy to shreds.

He opens the door to find Arya leaning against the opposite wall, eyes focused on him.

He offers her a cautious smile. "I was starting to wonder whether you still lived here."

"That's because you spend so much time with her, stupid," she tells him, rolling her eyes in the direction in which Daenerys must have left.

Not you as well now, he groans internally. "Do-" he swallows a small lump in his throat. "Do you hate me, little sister?"

She shakes her head, smiling. "You're an idiot."

He's not sure whether she's talking to herself or addressing him.

Suddenly she's embracing him, her skinny arms closing so abruptly and tightly around his middle it knocks the breath out of him. "I could never hate you, big brother," she murmurs into the leather covering his chest.

She releases him and smirks. "Where you off to?"

"Training yard."

"Good, I'll bet you a gold dragon I can kick your arse into the dirt."

He laughs as they turn around the corner. It feels good. He can't tell how long it's been since he laughed out loud.

"You can talk to me, you know," Arya suddenly offers.

He purses his lips. "I can't."

"You talk to Sansa."

I try. "That's different."

"How?"

He's not sure how to explain it. The bond he's come to share with Sansa is so different from the one he has with Arya. He can't quite put it into words. Besides, he's done enough talking for today. "She's better at it than we are."

She chuckles. "True."

As they enter the courtyard, he sees Sam emerging from the kennels. He feels his face stretching into a smile again and lifts his hand to wave at his friend, but Sam freezes when he meets his eyes. Before Jon can react, he's whirled around and scurried off into the opposite direction.

"What's wrong with him?" he wonders aloud.

Arya shrugs and makes a dismissive sound. "Come on. It's getting dark, I don't want you complaining I cheated by putting you at a disadvantage."

He shakes his head at her odd comment, but decides to let it go.

#jonsa #my fic #undercover lover #some j0nerys #not all that glitters is gold

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