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heliads · 7 months

Note

I’d like to request a modern day AU one-shot where Newt is Venom, the female reader is Spider-Woman and Newt’s girlfriend, and Janson is Carlton Drake. Newt fell off his bike when he was a kid and broke his leg, and the injury didn’t heal properly, so he walks with a limp. When Newt becomes Venom, the reader becomes Spider-Woman. I don’t have an explanation for how this works, but Newt’s injury disappears when Venom takes over and returns when he regains control.

accidentally got way too invested in the worldbuilding for this. if you guys want a part 2 lmk bc i would actually be interested

'wckd is good' - newt

masterlist / part 2

It’s no longer light out when you leave to save the world. There was a time during the lovely summer months when you could depart the relative safety of WCKD headquarters and still find yourself in the last vestiges of golden hour. It was easier to believe in the cause then, somehow, as if even the idea of a billowing honey-colored curtain of light could shine down on the blood you’ve shed and make it better, make it all better. No pain is too terrible if it is dragged out for a good cause.

Now that the days have veered past autumn and towards the start of winter, though, you no longer have the comfort of light to protect you. Your shifts are at night, always; no hero will be discovered and no rest will be yours. The moonlight, although sparkling, lacks the strength of sunlight in its ability to ease your conscience.

You knew this was coming, though, it happens every year. You were young when you decided you wanted to change the world, we all are. Only the naivete of youth lets you believe that you can do something about the terrors of the city around you. Once you grow up, you realize there’s no point and you stop trying.

While you’re young, though, you think there’s still a chance. That’s how they get you. That’s how WCKD got you, to be specific. They still have scientists and soldiers believing in that greater cause, but the heart of their crusade is carried on by the kids. They say that’s the way it’s always been. Perhaps it’s true. How would you know otherwise?

The secret is always kept pristine behind glass. WCKD said no boundaries, no lies, so they told you everything from the moment you joined. You were young and foolish; they said jump, you asked how high. It made perfect sense to you. There is a problem in this city, in this world. You could fix it. Why wouldn’t you?

You were one of the first to join. Teresa was the very first, if you’re going by technicalities. The two of you believe in it the most. Even when the others started having their doubts, when Thomas gave up his shield and ran away, when Minho let the civil war of heroes get in between himself and his desire to protect the world, you and Teresa were the ones who stuck with it.

It’s worth it now. It always has been. Times are getting darker, villains more treacherous. Mutants appear out of the woodwork like flies, and it’s your job to cut them off before they can grow too powerful. Every night, you stop mass robberies, save lives, confiscate stolen tech. The city walks a narrow line between peace and destruction. You’re there to keep winning the war.

That’s why you agreed to the experimentation in the first place. Admittedly, it wasn’t WCKD’s finest moment when they asked young teenagers to step into their labs for the greater glory of the world, but it’s worth it now. They injected you with radioactive spider venom and you were the best fit for the program, or so they tell you. If you were to guess, though, you’d say that you were the only subject who survived. Now, you get superhuman abilities and a cool moniker: Spider-Woman. Isn’t that worth the blood you shed in a pristine white cell?

Teresa was never a subject like you were. Instead, she was trained in the deadly arts as a Black Widow. The two of you are sent out on missions together, but not as often as you’d like. Instead, WCKD always seems to keep one of you behind while the other is out there in the world, supposedly for security reasons. If two of its finest soldiers were taken out in the same doomed-to-fail mission, who would carry on the cause?

No, it’s better if you do it alone. You saw Teresa today, at least, running through some surveillance footage from a few nights back. There’s a Right Arm stronghold somewhere nearby, you can tell because some of the inhumans you leave for dead have started disappearing before the WCKD research division can collect their bodies, but you just don’t know where they’re sent to. If you can cut off the head and do it cleanly this time, perhaps two more won’t grow back in its place.

That’s the WCKD rhetoric, at least. Do the job properly and you won’t have to do it again. Repeat trials are cumbersome, and often fail before they can reach their true potential. If you do what must be done, no matter the cost, everyone will benefit. Not just the city this time, but the country. The world, even. Crime and violence only strengthen in numbers. If you can purge this city of its sins, perhaps the rest will follow suit.

Darkness has its biggest stronghold here, though, which is why WCKD set up headquarters. It’s why you have a specific time of day to leave behind the white polished walls and piercing fluorescent lights of the WCKD facilities to go defend the night against itself.

Tonight begins like most others. You don your armor and take the elevator to the top floor of WCKD’s skyscraper. From there, you stand for a moment on the darkened roof, buffeted by the strong winds that only circulate when you’re this far removed from the streets below you, then dive off the edge in one simple motion.

You were scared of heights the first time you did this, as anyone would be when faced with the task of jumping from a skyscraper. Even though you knew you would be able to catch yourself, you’d never done it before so you weren’t one hundred percent certain. You’d asked to start off on a lower level so you could get a better feel for it. Instead of answering your plea, the head of your little operation, Dr. Ava Paige, pushed you from the roof herself. You can still remember how it felt, tumbling through the dark night sky, watching her foreboding silhouette disappear the further you dropped.

That night, you had learned to trust only yourself. You had also learned that WCKD wants what’s best for all of you, and even if you cannot see the silver lining at the moment, it’ll come to you eventually. As you fell, mind wracked with terror and betrayal, you first learned to do what has now become reflex: you flung out your arms and made a web.

Your web shooters work well, they always do. WCKD tech doesn’t fail. You don’t have to see the synthetic web latch onto the spire of a nearby building to know that it will be secure enough to hold your weight as you swing from one towering skyscraper to the next. It’s a far faster method of transportation than just walking, and it gives you a better view of what’s happening down below you while you’re at it.

Your brow furrows beneath the protective cover of your mask, looking for something, someone causing trouble– there, down an alley, a shadowy figure looms over a terrified couple. You disengage the web you’d been swinging from, hurtling towards the alley like a dart. You land easily on a nearby roof, rolling for a moment to disperse the energy of your impact before dropping neatly into the alley.

You wait a moment before stepping out from the shadows so you can best gauge the situation. The thing you’re fighting– it’s not a man, not really, although it stands on two broad, muscular legs and gestures at the mouth of the alley with a dark, clawed hand. It seems more like living tar, a roiling mass of shadow and ink somehow made muscular. It’s a monster, to put it plainly, and you kill monsters. You’ll kill this one.

You lunge out from the shadows, grabbing the couple around the waist and pulling them towards the entrance. They sob in relief when you’re in between them and the dark thing, and immediately start running once you put them down again.

Now that the innocents are safe, you turn back to the monster. Massive white eyes split its skull, and a long, blood red tongue peeks out from rows of jagged teeth. It stalks towards you, each footstep sounding like a crack of thunder, and says, in a grating tone like a thousand earthquakes, “I saved them already.”

You stare at it. The monster doesn’t attack, strangely enough. In fact, it comes to a stop once it’s a few paces away from you. It’s just looking at you, although it keeps twitching as if it would like to do more than just stand around.

“No, I did. I got them away from you.” You tell it.

You spit the last word out like a curse. You’re supposed to be emotionless while you do this, cutting away at the city’s lost souls with a surgeon’s unsympathetic precision, but WCKD taught you its prejudices early, and it’s a difficult habit to shake.

The monster, however, doesn’t take kindly to being insulted. “Already saved them. You only took the credit.”

It gestures back towards the alley behind it with one massive hand. You follow the direction with your eyes to see the slumped forms of what appear to be gang members. You recognize their faces from a news broadcast a few days ago; the police have been unsuccessful in tracking them down despite a warrant being out for their arrests regarding a string of murders. They must have been ready to add that couple to their list of victims, but this thing got in the way of that.

You stare back at it, confused. “If you saved that couple, why were they screaming?”

This time, when the monster speaks, it sounds a little less monstrous and more almost like a young man. “I tend to be a little frightening. I’m sure you can understand.”

You draw back, one hand on your belt. You can use your webs to attack and defend, obviously, but WCKD policy states that killing is best done cleanly. That would involve the guns and knives they ply you with before every patrol. “I understand how this usually goes.”

The monster leans towards you, bleached-white eyes leering. “Are you going to kill me, Agent? You’re one of those fanatics from WCKD, aren’t you? That’s what you all usually do. Are you going to kill me without even bothering to ask why I saved them? Or who I am?”

You meet its gaze coolly, but on the inside, your entire mind is at war. This is not the way it’s supposed to go. You’re meant to eliminate a threat and move on. This is a monster. It doesn’t get more simple than that. Except– except usually, the shadowy demon creatures don’t save lives like you do. Except they usually don’t try to appeal to your morality, because most, including you, assume it’s already gone.

“Fine,” you say slowly, “Who are you? Answer quickly and honestly, it’ll be better for you.”

It makes a sound that could be a laugh, but it’s broken over with a deep roaring sound, almost as if there are two creatures laughing at you right now, a human and a monster. They’re not entirely in unison, not anymore, which gives you the impression that they could be separated.

And, before your eyes, the inky blackness starts to peel away just a little bit, revealing a boy’s face within the monster’s skull. It’s supporting him, you realize, giving him strength and power. Only half of his face is visible right now, and when he speaks, you can see a normal human mouth moving on one side, grotesquely parodied on the other with that horrific fanged mouth.

“If I give myself away, you’ll kill me, won’t you?” He asks. “Isn’t that what WCKD’s toy soldiers do best?”

You scowl at him. “Depends on if you make me.”

“Well,” the boy says frankly, “I don’t want to die. Let your conscience be clear for a second and don’t shoot me in the head, now, will you?”

You nod once, before you can stop yourself, and he seems to take this as a good sign. The rest of the shadow pulls away from him, and then it’s all gone and there is a blond boy standing in front of you, idly brushing dust off of his hands as if he’d been taking off a heavy coat instead of a monstrous shield.

“Who are you?” You ask weakly.

The boy grins. “Name’s Newt. Though I’m assuming you’ll find that out soon enough. WCKD’s always particularly good at their research, aren’t they?”

You narrow your eyes. “How would you know?”

His smile slips, gone in an instant. His eyes go unsettlingly dark, and you realize that, although he may have taken the monster away, that doesn’t mean it’s not inside him still. “I had a friend, once. His name was Alby, and you took him from us. He was only eighteen, and WCKD decided he should die because he committed the grave sin of not entirely being like the rest of you. You hunted him down and slaughtered him. We never even had a body to bury.”

Newt stalks forward as he says it. You’ve faced down far more intimidating threats, but you can’t help inching back in the face of this boy’s fury. You can handle someone trying to kill you, or a thug shooting at your head, but Newt’s grief is a far more palpable weapon than anything before it.

“Did you know him?” Newt asks in a harsh, shuddering whisper, “Were you there when he died?”

“No,” you whisper, and you couldn’t be more grateful for the truth. “That was someone else. Really, it was. They told me about it afterwards.”

Specifically, Teresa had. You remember the ways her hands didn’t stop shaking for hours afterwards. She’d hidden in a corner of the WCKD base, and you only found her because you had the benefit of years of friendship telling you where to look. When you stumbled upon her, she was curled up into a tight ball, repeating as a whispered mantra, “WCKD is good,” as if saying the torturous phrase even one more time might make it true.

Afterwards, though, Teresa was more focused than you’d ever seen her. She was determined to make the ends worth the bloody, bloody means. Anything for the city, or so she’d tell you. Anything for the world.

“It wasn’t me,” you repeat. “But you haven’t always been like this, have you? The monster. It came afterwards.”

Newt nods, a tight and barely controlled jerk of the head. “I needed help. I found Venom.”

“Venom,” you whisper cautiously. Black ink flashes across Newt’s eyes all of a sudden, disappearing through his veins just as quickly. It makes you flinch. He seems almost glad of it.

“I wanted a way to keep the rest of us alive. Venom makes me strong. It’s in me. It is me.” Newt’s words grow in intensity until he’s almost shouting.

Shouting you can handle, though. It’s easy to break down the pieces of Newt’s argument like that. He’s furious that your organization is responsible for the deaths of his friends. He’s taking it out on you because you have their logo on your shoulder, because you were going to kill him like the rest. Are you now, though? How can you murder this boy like the rest?

Newt must see the war going on in your head, because he smiles again, sickeningly slow. “Are you going to do it? Are you going to kill me? I don’t even know your name, but you know mine. Are you going to shoot me before you tell anyone who you are?”

“Y/N,” you force out through lips pressed thin.

His smile grows lighter. “Y/N. Pretty name. Pretty girl.”

Is it madness to call your would-be killer a pretty girl? Is it madness to let a monster into your skin, to embrace it like this? Is madness thinking that you have ever had any other choice but this.

“I don’t want to,” you murmur, “Kill you.” The killing is the worst part. Always has been. You lack Teresa’s stomach for it. That’s why they made you the lab rat. WCKD knew they had to rearrange at least a few of your parts to make you more willing to complete the tasks they assigned you, and it still didn’t even work all the way.

Newt considers this for a second, his head tilted to the side, then holds out a hand. The contrast of his pale skin against the darkness of the alleyway seems to stand out to you like a neon sign. “You don’t have to do it. You can still leave them, you know.”

This makes a thousand walls slam down in your head. “I can’t,” you grit out, the product of years of trying, “There are too many people they could hurt. I can never leave, Newt. Never.”

Something almost like pity touches his eyes. You decide you hate it. “You know,” he says softly, “That is the worst part of the monster, I think. I asked for it. It might not leave me if I tell it to, but in the beginning, it only came for me because I wanted it. You know what that’s like.”

“I do,” you tell him.

Newt nods. Smiles again. You’ve stopped seeing the flash of his teeth as a terrible thing. The likelihood that he could sink them into the soft skin of your neck before you even had the chance to blink is alluring. It does not seem like as much of an undeserved punishment as before.

“You can always find me,” he tells you. “If you need help, you can find me. I have friends, good ones. They could get you out of there. We can pull you out. It’s never too late.”

This makes you draw back in earnest. “It’s already too late.”

You want to scream it at him. There is no going back for you, not now. Not after all you’ve done. Newt has the luxury of thinking he can fight back. For those of you on the inside, though, the only way any of you will be freed from the burden of your work is when it finally kills you. Teresa knows that. Even Dr. Ava Paige knows it. You will all shoulder the mantle of your twisted crusade until it drags you under.

You turn and vanish back into the shadows before Newt can stop you. You wait for a moment, crouched on the rooftop out of his sight, and listen to the even rhythm of his breathing before finally turning away again. This is the first time you leave him. Somewhere inside your head, within the last vestiges of pinkish matter that still belong to you, a voice whispers back: It won’t be the last.

requested by @thornyrose463, i hope you enjoy!

maze runner tags: @rogueanschel, @ellobruv, @retvenkos, @mayfieldss, @hiya-itsamber, @gods-fools-heroes, @hope92100, @23victoria, @w1shes43, @imwaysthelastchoice, @fadedver

all tags list: @wordsarelife

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mystic-writings · 20 days

Text

remember the nights | chapter eleven — o, atlas, pt. i

WORD COUNT — 2,154

WARNINGS — angst, depression

NOTES — god this chapter just. ugh. (also sorry for the late post i forgot to queue it last night)

previous chapter | masterlist | next chapter

You haven’t been able to look Thomas in the eye for almost a month.

It’s been just a few days short of three weeks, and you were finally in the classic, snowy December that you’d waited all year for. The snow had begun to fall the day after the party and had let up very little since, as though the weather was linked to your mood.

Before you’d moved, you wondered exactly what Woodstock would look like during the holiday season — covered in snow, twinkling under the moonlight and lit up in color with decorations on every house. You were correct, of course, and despite its beauty, you didn’t have the energy nor the emotion to properly admire the town for all the beauty it displayed under the constant cover of snow.

While the morning of the first snow was hard, it hadn’t gotten any better. You woke up that morning and went through your usual motions, the ache in your chest feeling like a gaping void that swallowed up all of your happiness. Your first decision that day was to let it consume you, but after you cried all over again after folding up Newt’s jacket and tucking it away in your closet, you knew that feeling it all the time would only make things worse for you. Especially when you realized that if Newt was serious about what he said, it was almost a certainty that the jacket would never leave its place in your closet.

After that, a constant cold — and even colder silence — seemed to blanket the house in the same way the snow did. Because not only could you not look Thomas in the eye without feeling a surge of anger, but you couldn’t stand speaking to him, either. For the first few days, he tried his best to talk to you, to explain himself, but once he realized you were serious about not talking to him anymore, he gave up.

Maggie and your dad seemed okay, and you were thankful that their relationship wasn’t as altered by the change in yours and Thomas’, but the concern that rolled off of them in waves when you were in their presence was so strong that you could barely be around them, too.

Chuck was the only person who didn’t treat you any differently than he did before. He still persisted, inviting you into his room to play video games or watching movies on your laptop in your room. He was an entirely welcome presence in your life, and a very welcome distraction to whatever thoughts were lingering in your mind. The silence within the house was growing to be suffocating, and if it weren’t for Chuck, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. He was the only person in the world right now who didn’t look at you with that gleam of pity in his eyes, and for that, you were thankful.

You did your best to ignore the lingering thoughts in your mind. Thinking about what happened — and all the possibilities of what was happening to everyone else after, or what else could have happened instead — just made that aching void worse. Because the group that had once welcomed you with open arms, the one that had so quickly become your family, was shattered. And it was partly your fault.

Thomas and Teresa stuck with one another, that much was expected. Newt, as he’d said, wandered off on his own, opting to spend all his free time with Frypan. Brenda, though, was determined to not leave your side. She had been one of the many front row witnesses at the party, and had reminded you several times that she believes both boys were at fault and overreacted, whereas you didn’t deserve any of what happened.

Minho and Gally, ever the peacekeepers, had spent the past few weeks on a rotating schedule of spending their time with each of you separately. Sonya and Harriet did the same every so often, but aside from Sonya coming over every once in a while and reminding you that she was on your side, they had gone off on their own, too.

You stopped sitting beside Newt in chemistry class. Brenda had forced Clint, the boy who used to be her lab partner, to switch seats with you. It gave you a little peace of mind, sitting across the classroom from him. But it made the ache worse, too. You still saw him at his locker every day, though. And there was no way you could get around that.

Despite the sudden temperature drop, you stopped going to school with Thomas and Teresa. You’d either walk, occasionally take your dad’s car, or ride with Brenda on the days she risked driving her beat up, barely road safe, 90s Dodge Neon to school — without snow tires. Anything was better than stewing in the obvious tension between the three of you.

Everything felt like too much. You could barely manage with the aching pressure of your emotions, of processing and living with what happened — but lately, you were being pressured into college applications, figuring out what you wanted to do for your entire future, and it was all too much to handle.

At first, Brenda tried taking you to Mickey’s one Friday evening to see if it would help to take your mind off things, but you could barely stomach walking through the door. Frypan spotted you through the order window, and you saw the pity flash through his eyes — and within seconds, Newt had walked out of the bathroom, and you knew you wouldn’t be stepping foot back in the diner anytime soon. You were just lucky enough that he didn’t see you before you left, because you wouldn’t have known what to do if he did.

She’d ordered it for you once, too, a few days after that evening. You appreciated that she was trying, but no matter how much you wanted it to work, it didn’t. The bitter taste of regret burned your throat as you swallowed each bite, and it reminded you of Newt, of the willow tree and how you were able to trust him so quickly to tell him about your childhood, and him to do the same.

All it did was remind you of how Newt was the first person you were able to talk about your mom to since Amina and Fernanda. About how you told him things you hadn’t even told them.

With every day that passed, you wished more and more that you could get rid of every painful reminder — which seemed to be embedded in everything that surrounded you, into the very fiber of your being — and to get over it. But you couldn’t. You wanted desperately to move back to the city, to the floor-to-ceiling windows you grew up with. To have sleepovers with Amina and Fernanda again, to eat frozen yogurt with them and throw pieces of pizza to the pigeons in the park again. To go back to before you ever crossed Woodstock’s town line, so you could forget you ever knew the boy called Newt.

So you could relieve yourself of the constant heartache.

But, like most things in life, there was nothing you could do to change how things were now, let alone go back to when things were better. All you could do was live with it, bear the pain and hope that, someday, you could let go of it, or forget about it. That you could get back to how things used to be, or build a new version of it, at least.

Sitting at the kitchen table, in the dead of morning, you appreciated the quiet that settled over the house. It was different to the suffocating blanket that covered everyone during meals; it was peaceful.

You were wide awake despite it being dawn on a Saturday, but you just couldn’t sleep. With your laptop and an ocean of papers in front of you, you decided it was the perfect time to drown in college applications.

Even though you were entirely clueless on what you wanted to do with your life after high school, you were sure that college applications were a must. It was the one thing that was enforced constantly throughout your time at school, so they had to be important, right? Besides, you could always figure out what to do after you got accepted somewhere, right?

You lifted your ballerina mug — practically filled to the brim with coffee — to your lips as the sound of feet shuffling down the stairs caught your attention. Looking over your shoulder, you spotted your dad turning from the stairs into the kitchen, sporting some of the worst bedhead you’d ever seen.

“Whatcha doin’?” He asked, voice gravelly from lack of use.

You sighed, looking back at the ominous spread of papers and glaringly bright computer screen. “College applications,”

Your dad nodded and came to stand at your right side, now holding his own cup of coffee. “Where were you thinking of going?”

“Not sure anymore,” you shrugged, picking up a piece of paper and skimming over it. “Maybe Syracuse? They’ve got good programs.”

“I thought your friends—the girls, I mean—were gonna go to NYU together? What about that?”

“That was when I could do everything from the condo, and I didn’t have to worry about paying for accommodation.” You told him. “But that doesn’t really matter anymore, since I’d have to pay for some sort of dormitory no matter where I go, now.”

Your dad took a sip of his coffee before placing a hand on your shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry about any of that, kiddo. We can cover it no matter where you go, okay? Hell, if you wanna run off to Australia for school, we can cover that, too. Just pick somewhere that you’re gonna enjoy, okay? Do what makes you happy.”

You smiled and looked up at your dad, ignoring the slight build of tears along your waterline. “Thanks, dad.”

“Don’t worry, kiddo. We’ve got this.” He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, squeezed your shoulder one last time, and headed to his office to finish up some of the projects he’d been working on.

Even with Brenda at your side at practically every hour of the day, making dozens of attempts to distract you with whatever came to her mind, school never felt as lonely as it did now. Everyone else still ate their lunches in the cafeteria, but you and Brenda started eating in the computer lab with some of her more casual friends. Thomas and Teresa still took their spots at the main table, but Newt and Frypan began occupying a small corner space by the windows.

You’d stopped participating in all of your classes almost immediately after the party, and you were sure that word of what happened had gotten to everyone in the school by now — and what little amount of people didn’t know could likely see that something was wrong — but you didn’t have enough energy left at the end of the day to care that much about it.

You were lucky in your old school, with class sizes large enough and teachers stretched thin enough that not participating was something you were easily able to get away with if you wanted to, but in a school this small, you were practically out in the open. Your teachers were forgiving enough to let you keep your head down most of the time, except for Mr. Henley. It seemed that his failing marriage made him apathetic to everything in the universe, and utterly horrible at his job.

It all just felt like too much. Everything took too much effort, too much energy. Energy you just didn’t seem to have, even if you have been sleeping ten hours every night.

You didn’t even have enough energy to focus on doing your homework anymore. Instead, you’d opted for clearing the snow off the roof in front of your window sitting there for hours every single night, staring up at the night sky until your fingers went numb and dried tears made your cheeks feel like ice.

But every time you came back inside, you passed by your desk and everything on it. The wall behind it, covered with Fernanda’s drawings, sticky notes scrawled with reminders from months ago, and the photo strip from the mall.

You could barely stand to look at it.

No matter what you did, somehow, everything around you had become a reminder. A reminder of what you had, of what you lost, and of what could’ve been. And every time you remembered, it felt like you’d become Atlas, bearing the weight of the world, of a thousand mistakes that you didn’t even make, on your tired, aching shoulders.

And there was nothing you wouldn’t give to let someone else take over.

series taglist: @heliads @ghostofscarley @badbatch-simp24 @virginia-peters @third-broparcelicito @lamolaine @yes-fangirl-things (open!)

#remember the nights #newt x reader #newt tmr x reader #newt x you #newt x y/n #newt series #newt tmr series #newt angst #newt fluff #the maze runner fanfiction #the maze runner x reader #au fic #high school au

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justwearthegoddamncardigan · 1 year

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You're my favourite - Part 2

Read Part 1 here

Newt x deaf! gender neutral!reader

Set a few days after Part 1

Warnings: canon typical violence, language

"Chicken?" signs Frypan, pointing at the dinner options.

"You learnt sign?" you ask incredulously.

He nods, grinning. "Minho taught me a little."

You turn to Minho, who's standing beside you smirking proudly. "Thought it'd be nice to have more signers 'round the Glade."

"You're my favourite," you sign to him, smiling. "You too," you sign to Frypan.

You grab your food and slide into the bench across from Newt, who's already sitting there with Thomas and Teresa.

It's only been a few days since you somehow survived the Maze, but a klunk ton of stuff has gone down. Teresa arrived, Alby was cured, etc.

But, the main thing on your mind is actually just a small shift in the boy sitting across from you.

Namely, Newt seems to have been pulling closer to you. It feels silly, like nothing actually happened, but you've just... noticed more. The two of you always gravitated toward each other before the whole stuck-in-the-Maze night, but you think he was shaken by what happened, and started sticking closer as a result.

Like; on the morning after your first night back, you'd woken up to find him sleeping on the ground beside your hammock. The next night you wordlessly swapped to one of the bed-mat-things and slept on that instead of your hammock. You chose a bigger one so he'd have space to lie with you, and you'd slept together since that first night, lying back to back. You never cuddled or slept particularly close, but you still felt like something changed.

Still, that's not the current issue.

You stand from the table as you realise something's wrong.

"What's going on?" asks Thomas. Newt interprets in sign, cause it's now way too dark to lipread. Hell, you can barely even see his hands.

"The doors, they aren't closing," says Winston worriedly.

You gather up with the rest of the boys, some of them holding flame-lit torches up to the open Maze doors.

Suddenly, you feel a rumble in the ground, and the rest of the Gladers flinch. Casting your gaze around warily, you watch as more doors start to open around the Glade. Thomas starts to direct the others around, tensions mounting by the second.

Then you freeze.

A familiar pounding feeling vibrates through the ground. At the same time, the Gladers around you turn to the doors.

Then Thomas yells something, and everything descends into chaos.

Newt grabs your arm and you stumble forward, running blindly into the crop fields.

You feel a slash of wind as a Griever tail whips in and grabs one of the Gladers, and your heartrate doubles as you sprint faster. You grab Newt as he trips on his bad leg, and run in towards Chuck, who's waving frantically from the doorway to the Homestead. The other Gladers run in and the door slams closed behind you.

The entire building shakes as the Griever moves, and Newt's grip on your wrist becomes borderline bone-crushing. You blink rapidly, trying to adjust your eyes to the dark indoors in the absence of the moonlight and torches. The only thing you can feel is your own breath stuttering through your lungs as you dart your gaze around, unable to make out where the Griever is.

You can't see, you can't hear; you're completely senseless save for the hand around your wrist. You feel your heart hammering in your chest as terror floods over you.

Then a Griever tail spears in through the roof, and you feel something crash into you.

You let out a scream before you realise it's not Griever metal; it's a warm body. Newt shoves you down, shielding you as the Griever plucks Alby out like a ragdoll.

Teresa grabs for Thomas as he rushes out of the hut in reckless abandon, but the Grievers have retreated back into the Maze.

You stumble out on shaky legs, crumpling down as the world tilts.

Your breath comes in short inhales and you wrap yourself into a ball, staring straight ahead through blurry eyes and just focusing on the torches outside.

Light. You can see. But you couldn't see in there. Couldn't sense a single thing.

Distantly you notice some commotion between Gally and Thomas. You ignore it.

You vaguely see Newt crouching down in front of you, signing frantically. He takes your hand and places it on his chest.

"Breathe. It's okay."

You slowly come back to yourself, breaths evening out.

Then, still on edge a bit, you jump again as something brushes you from behind.

Minho immediately drops down with you and Newt, hands flying as he apologises.

"Shit, I'm so sorry Y/n."

You blink in surprise, distracted suddenly, and grab his hands to stop him.

"What did you just call me?"

He hesitates, looking as confused as you are.

Then he signs it again. The first letter of your name formed with his right hand, which he brings to brush against his left shoulder.

Your face splits into a wide grin.

"Is that my sign name?"

You've got a scar on your shoulder from before coming to the Maze; maybe past-you made a name out of it.

"Holy shit," says Minho out loud.

"Show it again," signs Newt excitedly.

You watch Minho's hand form the movement once more.

It's your name. Your personal sign name, not the fingerspelled version. Your own chosen name.

"We must have known each other before," you sign. "And you just did it automatically."

"Do you know my name then? Or Newt's?" asks Minho.

You barely have to think before you make an 'M' and touch it to your cheek twice. "Minho." The motion feels oddly familiar in your hands.

"Holy fuck," he signs, and you laugh giddily.

"What's the" Newt taps his cheek "from?"

"I think it's dimples," you reply.

Minho grins in response, putting said dimples on full display.

"I don't have yours," you sign to Newt, somehow feeling like you've betrayed him. "Maybe we didn't know each other."

He shakes his head, smiling. "Doesn't matter. I know you now. You can give me a name later, if you want."

You pull him into an excited hug, your joy cancelling out your earlier fear for a bit.

"You're my favourite," you sign to Newt.

"What about me?" signs Minho, with an indignant expression.

"You're my favourite too," you sign.

Then Newt's face darkens, and the happiness between the three of you quickly dissipates as you see Thomas fall, a Griever stinger clutched in his hand. What now?

⭒----⭒

The guy introduces himself as Janson.

You're all exhausted after escaping the Maze and watching both Chuck and Gally die, so you're barely paying attention as he directs you to a room full of bunk beds.

You collapse into the nearest one and sleep for hours.

When you wake, you go out to the cafeteria where your friends are sitting and eating.

"Who are all these people?" you sign.

"We weren't the only Maze," explains Minho. He introduces a couple of new guys who are sitting at the table, speaking while simultaneously signing for you.

"You're deaf?" asks one of them - Jake.

You nod.

"And you survived your shithole? Damn. I remember hearing about a deaf guy in another group. Didn't make it past the monster attacks near the end of the Maze."

Jake shakes his head. "You must be pretty strong though," he says, giving you a grin.

"Yep, pretty shuckin' strong," you sign with a smirk.

Minho interprets for you and the guys at the table laugh.

"So, what happens from here?" you ask.

"There's a safe place, some kind of farm. They take a few people at a time," replies another guy, Trevor.

Jake points to a bench behind him, where a slouched boy sits. "He's been here the longest, almost a week. Heard his Maze was just girls."

"Some guys have all the luck," sighs Trevor.

"You guys are lucky too though," says Jake jokingly. "Got a couple lookers." He winks at you and sends you a playful grin.

You laugh along and feel your cheeks turn pink.

Look, you know they're just joking around, but it's nice to be recognised.

"Nah, I think you mean Minho," you respond, grinning.

You lipread and snort as Minho gives a highly inaccurate and self-flattering translation.

Then you turn to Newt, expecting him to be laughing too, but you're surprised to see a stormy expression, directed at Jake.

⭒----⭒

"Oi, what's up with you?" Minho catches Newt after dinner.

You're off hitting the showers with the rest of the group, leaving Newt and Minho in the dorm alone.

"What do you mean," Newt says flatly.

"Come on man, you've been acting up since the start of dinner, don't think no one noticed you staring daggers at- ohh."

Minho turns to Newt with what can only be called a shit eating grin.

"What," Newt snaps irritably.

"Finally realised other people have eyes too, did ya?" Minho smirks, absolutely radiating smugness.

"What the shuck are you on about."

The door swings open and Thomas steps in, hair still dripping wet.

"Who is on about shucking what?"

"Just Newt being an pissed at pretty much everything during dinner."

Thomas pauses, towel bunched over his hair. "...is this about Y/n?"

"Obviously," says Minho.

Thomas nods. "Yeah, dude. Jealous you is not fun you."

"Wha- jealous?" Newt splutters. "There wasn't anything to be jealous about!"

"Exactly," comments Thomas. "But you were still jealous over literally nothing. Shuck, I forgot my- hang on, I'll be back."

He leaves and Newt flops backward on his bed, groaning.

"Look, whatever you're trying to say... There's nothing going on between me and Y/n."

"But there is." Minho hops onto Newt's bed, getting a pillow to the face in response.

"You and Y/n have been crushing on each other forever. It's so obvious the rest of us literally had an agreement to leave you two alone."

"An agreement? You shanks talked about this?"

"Well, unspoken, really. Look, Y/n's hot. And cool, and a great shuckin' person. Anyone would be into them. But we all knew it was only ever gonna be you for them."

Minho sends Newt a teasing grin. "But being here with other people is a reality check huh?"

Newt sits up. "So, you're saying they only like me at all cause you all stepped away?"

"What?" It's Minho's turn to be surprised. "No, dude, no. I just mean seeing other people interested in them is a sign. Make your move now."

"You just said there was an agreement not to get between us. What, did you all just feel bad for me?"

"No! Shucking hell. No. Forget the agreement, that was nothing. I was just saying no one would hit on Y/n, or whichever dumb shank did would be shucking embarrassed 'cause Y/n only likes you.

"Stop ruining my fun by being sad," says Minho, voice light, tossing the pillow back at Newt.

"I do like them," says Newt, flopping down again.

"Yeah, and they like you too," says Minho. "But neither of you has the guts to do anything about it."

There's a silence, before Newt looks up at Minho. "I think they like you," he says quietly. "Not me."

Minho lets out a brief laugh. "Are you serious?"

Then, "Oh, you're serious. Newt, trust me on this. They like you. Y/n and I are friends. I love them, but platonically. Very platonic."

"You just said they're hot. And they said you were attractive."

"Hey, friends can think friends are hot."

Thomas walks in again. "Hell yeah," he agrees instantly. "Both of you are cute as fuck."

Minho sends Thomas a grin, before crouching on the floor beside Newt's bed, looking him in the eye. "Y/n likes you. Only you. Whatever doubt you have in that thick skull of yours is wrong.

"So get off your ass and tell 'em how you feel."

Thomas gives a thumbs up in support. "Go on, then," he says, jerking his chin towards the door.

Newt stands, then sits back down on his bed.

"Not gonna ambush them in the shower," he mutters awkwardly.

Minho snorts loudly.

Then, "Honestly not the worst idea." He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Another pillow missile is launched at Minho's head, with Thomas cackling in the background.

⭒----⭒

Newt doesn't ambush you in the shower, but he does come find you after he's had one himself.

He pulls you aside, looking oddly nervous as he asks you to go for a walk.

He seems to be psyching himself up for something, so you wait patiently instead of pushing him.

It gives you time to look at him, which you'll take any day.

He turns to you at the end of the hallway, hair wet and looking all kinds of cute in his freshly showered state. Shuck, you're absolutely smitten.

He lifts his hands. "I wanted to tell you something," he signs, biting his lip nervously. Not looking at his lips.

"What's up?" you ask, keeping your eyes on his.

"I- " he stops, looking up with a frustrated expression.

You raise your eyebrows at him.

"We have to go back to the rooms, they just played a message over the speakers," he explains.

"Oh. What were you going to say though?" Your heart skips a beat. Was he about to say he likes you?

He shakes his head. "I'll tell you later, let's head back."

You send him a confused look, but start back towards the room without protest.

⭒----⭒

So, it kind of failed.

Newt had planned to confess his feelings the next day instead, but later that night Thomas had barged in from the vents of all places, yelling about WCKD and trying to tie the door closed.

You'd all escaped, grabbing Teresa and the new guy Aris and running into the Scorch.

Any romantic plans had flown out the window.

Right now, you're all grabbing supplies to get ready to find Thomas' mountain people.

You duck behind a tattered curtain to change your clothes, and when you walk out Teresa's found some more torches.

"Thank you," you sign gratefully.

Most of the group has realised your fear of the darkness since, you know, it means losing your most reliable sense.

She shines a torch towards her face so you can lipread, laughing lightly as she sees how weird it looks in a mirror.

"We took out a bunch of batteries so we don't have to carry so many around," she says.

"Genius," you say out loud, not really minding speaking for her.

You flip your torch up at your face and send her a smile. "You're my favourite, T."

She smiles back at you.

"Hey, mind if I talk to Y/n for a sec?" Newt walks in, slightly out of your field of vision.

Teresa turns to you, raising an eyebrow, then grins and leaves.

You're confused for a second, before you see Newt and realise he must have said something to her.

You set a torch on a shelf so you don't have to hold it while signing.

"Hey," you sign.

Newt smiles, then flinches and turns abruptly.

You step closer worriedly, tapping his shoulder.

"What's happening?"

"Thomas and Minho," he signs, fear evident in his rushed movements. He uses Minho's sign name and just a 'TO' for Thomas.

"We've gotta go," he tells you.

You quickly grab the torch and zip up your bag, running after him.

He signs messily with one hand, translating as he shouts something at Frypan.

You squint your eyes as you see something at the end of the corridor.

Two people... being chased. Holy shucking-

"Run," Newt signs the one word before grabbing you and taking off, Thomas and Minho catching up behind.

You sprint up the escalators as those things start gaining on you.

Aris beats one of them with a bat as Thomas shoves another off of Newt.

At the next set of escalators you and Minho accidentally split off at the top, running right as the others go left.

"Shit," signs Minho. "Go around! We'll meet you!" he calls at the others, still signing at the same time.

The Cranks block the centre, and you lock eyes with Newt across the path just briefly.

Then you turn to Minho. "Come on Y/n," he signs as you both edge away from the Cranks. "We're Runners."

A Crank's mouth opens wide in what must be a loud screech, then it moves to chase you and Minho.

You turn and sprint, rounding the corner of the mall. You have to get back to the group.

"Here!" you shout to Minho, finding a path to cut through.

You see the group a little way ahead and below you, ducking under a building.

You watch as Newt turns, gaze flicking around desperately, before being pulled down by Frypan.

You and Minho sprint through another hallway, then down some stairs to get to the ground level, nearer to the group.

"Can you still hear them? The Cranks?" you ask.

"It's quieter," he signs. "We're gonna make it."

You get to the building the others went under and duck in too.

You and Minho start calling out for them, until Minho turns and you someone waving a flashlight.

You let out a relieved sigh and run towards them.

"Thank fuck," says Thomas, meeting both of you halfway and grabbing Minho into a hug.

Newt runs towards you, and you collide into each other as he hugs you tightly.

You break apart, laughing breathlessly.

"Never again," he signs one-handedly, the other arm wrapped around your waist. "Never again."

"Never again," you agree, smiling.

You both still for a moment, staring at each other.

Then you surge forward to claim his lips in a passionate kiss.

He kisses back immediately, tightening his arms around you as you thread your fingers through his hair.

You pull away slowly, both grinning like idiots.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting for that," he signs. "I've been trying to-"

"I know," you sign, smiling.

Newt rolls his eyes at something over your shoulder, and you turn to see the others cheering and clapping obnoxiously.

You tap his shoulder to get his attention (although you always have it).

"You're my favourite," you sign.

The Gladers: just escaped crazy zombie things which are clearly noise-sensitive

Also the Gladers: cheer loudly for their friends who finally kissed

Anyway this one was so fun to write, thank you so much for the original prompt @heydorotheabettyjames.

So, it's definitely been a while, sorry about that! I had a fic that went badly and I burnt so much time trying to fix it. If you see a slightly dodgy fic out soon, that's the one I was working on.

Quick explanation for the 'you're my favourite' stuff. I saw it in a movie once years ago and always thought it was the cutest character trait, so I wanted to put it in my writing.

Hope you enjoyed this one ❤❤❤

#the maze runner #tmr newt #newt x you #newt x reader #tmr newt x reader #my writing

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how-to-be-a-tree · 11 months

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"I'm a mosaic of everyone I've ever loved" - @viridianmasquerade

And

Little/ Black/ Chiron, Moonlight (2016)

Juan, Teresa and Kevin's impact on Chiron, visually struck me during the glimpses of his life in Atlanta,

Let it be his accessories

Let it be his use of words

Let it be his kindness

And I'm NOT OKAY at all!!

#moonlight 2016 #one beautiful movie #moonlight #kimuona

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telomeke · 1 year

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MOONLIGHT CHICKEN – THE THEME SONG

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I think everybody must already know this by now, but just in case – Moonlight Chicken is a series that leans heavily into the Thai-Chinese experience (cultural markers abound – chicken rice, the names like Wen and Li Ming, the joss sticks and offerings, mooncakes and the Mid-Autumn Festival, the temple with its red Chinese characters, so many others).

The reasons are multiple I think; ostensibly this is Director Aof's homage to his childhood in Pattaya (if I'm not mistaken that is, I think I read it somewhere on Reddit?) and if it was a Thai-Chinese childhood then yes it makes sense. But it also dovetails nicely with Thailand's efforts to market its cultural offerings (of which BL is one) to the giant East Asian market, while potentially attracting even more visitors for the important tourism sector.

Anyway, this partly explains why the theme song is sung NOT IN THAI but in Mandarin Chinese. And it's significant for a couple of reasons.

The first – the song is titled "The Moon Represents My Heart" (月亮代表我的心/yuè liang dài biǎo wǒ de xīn), and it is a perfect fit for all the lunar-themed references in this series (or maybe it was their start point? 🤔).

But there's more – the song (originally popularized by the late Teresa Teng in the 1970s) was given an LGBTQ+ twist by the late, great Leslie Cheung when he publicly came out and sang this love song to his partner in a 1997 concert:

Because of this, in some Chinese-majority areas (I'm thinking Taiwan and Hong Kong, not sure about Singapore) the song has now become an iconic queer love song. And this is why Mile and Apo also sang it during the Taipei leg of the KinnPorsche World Tour (Taiwan being the first state in Asia to legalize gay marriage).

It's not just any old song – it fits the themes of this show perfectly, and I'm hopeful that other aspects of Moonlight Chicken will also show that they came about from the same deliberate and deeply thoughtful approach to the creative process.

Can't wait for the next episode! 💖

#moonlight chicken #the moon represents my heart #moonlight chicken theme #YouTube

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izzysillyhandsy · 4 months

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Look what I found at my parent's house over Christmas! Proof I was always into pirates 🏴‍☠️.

This little book is from approximately 1990, with real photos and everything! I was about 12 back then and my sister 7.

My sister's bed is the pirate ship here, with an all-female crew. Teresa in the blue dress is captain, and Peggy in the green skirt is 1st mate.

"The following photos are from the play PIRATES!" "Anne on the way to Teresa's pirate ship. Let the adventure begin!"

As far as I remember, Anne was from a workhouse and really poor. This was her last chance.

"Everyday life on the pirate ship."

Look at the detail! Tara's the scribe, there's cooking, cleaning, treasure, provisions and a large comfy bed in the background. I've always loved the pan because it looks so used and realistic. Teresa's blue dress was specifically bought because it looks so piratey. The rest of the crew is dressed according to their status/back story.

"Hostile pirates under the command of Captain Jim enter Teresa's ship! Peggy comes down from the crows nest and knocks Tom to the ground with her feet. Tara falls to the floor screaming."

I think we didn't really like Tara. And Peggy is a perfect 1st mate, strangling the attacker with her skirt.

"Jim threatens Teresa with a club but Anne rescues her with the pan. And Jeany counters Ken's attack with a casual Judo grip."

Finally, it's Anne's moment to shine! And Jeany was always effortlessly cool.

"Teresa's crew has won. Slowly, the girls are starting to make friends with the hostages." "Here we see a romance under the moonlight. Ken and Jeany ❤!"

Yeah, of course there has to be romance in the end 😅. You might have noticed that male crew members have no shirts. It's the pirate way.

"Teresa and Jim have also fallen in love. But the next excitement is already waiting! Thanks to a treasure map, men and women have to search for the treasure together... and they finally find it in the form of gold and jewels!!! THE END"

What's going on in that last picture? Where are the men? We'll never know. Love the little spotlight on the map though!

I really hope this was interesting for someone, to me it feels like a historic document - almost 35 years old!

My sister and I were so thrilled to find this again... and I remembered how long it took us to get everything just right for the photos - our pirates kept falling over. And then the 1 week wait for developing...

Also, I'm tagging this OFMD - there are some parallels, I swear!

#ofmd #barbie #1990s #pirates on the high beds #this was one of the best plays we did #the story went on for weeks!

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ravenkilgore · 6 months

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Diaspora's Marking Identity: Moonlight (2016)

Moonlight (2016), directed by Barry Jenkins, tells the story of a young Black man named Chiron, who is growing up in Liberty City, a predominantly Black, very impoverished neighborhood in Miami. The film is divided into three parts, each focusing on a different stage of Chiron's life, from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood. This structure allows the film to successfully explore all of the defining moments in Chiron's life, and show how is youth shaped him as the adult we see in part III. Throughout the film, Chiron struggles to understand or come to terms with his identity, sexuality, and place in a community that is plagued with drugs, violence, and homophobia. The film embarks on a journey that explores themes of masculinity, sexuality, and belonging, all while attesting to the Black queer experience through Chiron. Moonlight examines the transition of Black boyhood to manhood, and how the effect of the cultural and political factors of ones environment can have on the development of identity.

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Part of what makes Moonlight such a unique film is its narrative structure, which is split up into three parts, or three phases in Chiron’s life. The first part, "Little," introduces us to a young Chiron, who is struggling to find his place in the world. His mother is neglectful, and has an increasingly worsening drug addiction. He is taken under the wing of a drug dealer named Juan and his girlfriend, Teresa, who become a kind of surrogate family for him. In the second part, "Chiron," we see Chiron as a teenager, grappling with his sexuality and trying to navigate the rough streets of Miami. The third part, "Black," finds Chiron as an adult, now going by the name "Black." He is a drug dealer like Juan, but has a hardened exterior and seems to have cut himself off from his past.

Through focusing on the pivotal stages of Chiron's life, Moonlight aims to highlight the trajectory of a Black gay mans life, and how the intersectionality of race, sexuality, and socioeconomic factors can impact it. Though the film is set in the present day, it highlights the generational struggles of African American's that have had lasting effects on Black communities in the US. Chiron, or, Little, has a fear of water in part I, something that is supposed to be a historical fear in the Black community, due to lack of opportunity and limited resources. In Part I, there is a scene when Juan is teaching Little how to swim. As he gets in the water, Little looks at his hands that have gotten wet, indicating his unfamiliarity to the experience of being in the water. Though uncomfortable at first, Juan urges Little to relax, and holds him as he bobs in the water. This scene represents a reconciliation with, and breaking free of generational traumas that have kept Little, and other Black boys like him repressed.

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After Juan teaches Little to swim, he tells him a story from his childhood of a woman told him, “In moonlight… Black boys look blue." (20:31). This is the first mentioning of the color blue, which will serve as a motif that represents peace and tranquility throughout the film. In this scene, Chiron is in the comforting presence of Juan, and his feeling of peace is represented through the blue water that surrounds and engulfs him. Juan also connects the color blue to the skin of Black boys, alluding to the fact that peace and tranquility can be found in their their shared Blackness, that becomes blue under the moonlight.

The ocean, acting as the most vast display of the color blue, is very powerful force within the film. The most defining moments in Chiron's life have happened in the presence of the ocean, one being his learning how to swim, the other being one of his two only sexual encounters, with his childhood friend, Kevin. Kevin first appears in Part I, and acts as Chiron's only companion. As the film moves into part II, we see the extreme bullying that Chiron is subjected to. Kevin is the only person who is nice to Chiron, and we soon start to notice that the two share more than a friendship. As Chiron and Kevin sit on the beach together, under the moonlight, Kevin says “sometimes, round the way where we live, you catch this same breeze. It come through the hood and it’s like everything stops for a second ‘cause everybody just wanna feel it” (52:32), to which Chiron responds: "And it’s like all you can hear is your own heartbeat, right?”. In this moment, both of the boys seem to recognize a shared sense of tranquility amongst their community upon feeling even just the breeze of the ocean. The ocean has the power to temporarily relieve the hardships and generational bondages that suppress Black youth in a place like Liberty city.

At the end of Part II, Chiron's bully forces Kevin to beat up Chiron. Left feeling humiliated, and betrayed by the only person who understood him, who he identified with, Chiron was at his breaking point. When Part III begins, we see Chiron, now going by the name "Black". He has moved states, displays an impressively fit physique, and seems to have cut off all ties to his past. His new persona is a direct reflection of his lived experiences and generational traumas that were characterized by his community. This is a common tactic adopted by many Black people who do not fit into their respective communities - to harden themselves from the outside world in order to protect and ignore their unhealed internal wounds. In a society that upholds a rigid definition of Black masculinity, it is often easier to conform to that standard, rather than attempt to be queer in a system that has worked against queerness for generations.

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Chiron/Black receives a call from Kevin, which prompts him to revisit his childhood home and confront his past. After the two meet up after so many years, they share another intimate moment together. The final scene of the film is of Chiron as Little, standing on the shore, under the moonlight. Ending the film like this takes us back to Juan's story, and his implication of innate peace that is found through the connection of Black boys to the moon, which simultaneously controls the movement of the ocean. This represents the confrontation with his past that Chiron needed to move forward, and the unhealed traumas of his inner child finally being at peace, which can literally be seen reflected on his face through the moonlight that makes Black boys look blue.

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Questions:

How do the elements of moonlight and the ocean work to enrich Chiron's story? Can you think of other movies that use nature as a motif?

What does the movie imply about cultural identity, and its relationship to one's geographic location?

How do the intersections of race, sexuality, and social strata shape the reflection of ones identity? Does Moonlight provide an accurate representation of this?

#oxyfilmidentity

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lurkingteapot · 9 months

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5 Songs Tag - Queer Asian Live Action Shows Edition

@troubled-mind put this together, and @plantsarepeopletoo tagged me.

When you get this, list 5 songs from the Asian QL shows that you actually listen to. 🎶 They do not have to be custom-made for the series. 🎶 Non-western tracks only. Let's support Asian music and languages! 🎶 Feel free to tag anyone who may be interested in participating. 🎶 Add #5qls tag to your post for others to find the new favourites!

I should probably preface this with the fact that I … don't really listen to music. I mean. I do? but only when I'm learning a language, obsessed for other reasons (songs connected to a shows I love, etc), or trying to drown out other noise out. I don't even have a spotify account.

That said, here are a few songs I've listened to often enough that I can sing along to them by now or even know them by heart. This selection ended up kind of sappy, lots of ballads … l do listen to rock and hip hop, too! but those don't feature that heavily in the shows as much, unless it's Tilly Birds and while I LOVE Tilly Birds, I figure everyone already knows them.

SO.

1. 邓丽君《月亮代表我的心》 (Teresa Teng "The Moon represents my heart")

This is a bit of an odd one – I'd known it for 12 years at the point Moonlight Chicken unveiled it as a theme song, because it's a CLASSIC. I cannot make claims about whether it's a song every Chinese person knows, but it's definitely one of those songs every person who learned Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language in the past 50 years knows. It's heartfelt. It's devastatingly simple. It's an evergreen. I love it to bits.

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2. 25hours ไม่เคย (Never)

This doesn't actually make an appearance as more as a mention: Pat suggests it as a song to play for the Christmas concert in one of the flashbacks to Pat and Pran's high school days in Bad Buddy. I was (still am, arguably) obsessed with the show, so I sought it out, and it hit me like a freight train, because ouch. This was the first Thai song I learned to sing by heart, and I love it lots, still.

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3. 宇多田ヒカル「Prisoner of Love」 (Utada Hikaru)

Since we're talking queer shows in general, I get to include this! "Prisoner of Love" is the theme song to one of my all-time favourite shows, "Last Friends" (2008). It's also a really lovely one for karaoke.

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4. Q Flure กันและกัน (Each Other)

THE Love of Siam song. Stuck with me. I prefer the version in the movie, but dang, this is still powerful as all get out.

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5. Billkin กีดกัน (Skyline)

The entire soundtrack to ITSAY and IPYTM is FIRE, but I had to go with the OG classic here. First song I tried to copy the lyrics out for in Thai. The Chinese version is also gorgeous.

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If you've made it this far, consider yourself tagged and let me know if you do this? :D

#5qls #ask meme #music #thai pop #mandopop #jpop #the Formula 17 soundtrack also slapped #and there's SO MUCH anime I could list #but I'm sticking with live action and things I've watched or re-watched within the past three years #my nonsense

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29daffodils · 2 months

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9 Fandom Peeps to Get to Know Better

Augghh I love these games! thank you for tagging me Mickey 🥺🌸(@thisautistic)

3 Ships You Like :

1. Yohan/Moogyeong from The Shape of Your Love (manhwa by Park Nodeok)

this is my ultimate OTP. i never had OTPs before them. they'll be my rise and fall. but yeah, anyway. they. my boys.

2. Vegas/Pete from KinnPorsche The Series

they had me by the throat even before i knew kpts existed and just, well. then i watched kpts and found them and they were everything i hoped for and more. a lot of it is also because vegas and i are very much alike without the mass murder aspect 😂

3. Alan/Gaipa from Moonlight Chicken

listen, MLC is like, the best thing i've watched in a while and alangaipa gave me what i had been craving since yohan/moogyeong c. 2019 : a small rare/ghost ship with barely any screentime but that hooked people in worldwide. firstkhao's acting was just bonus. alangaipa represent everything that i want from my own life. i couldn't not love them.

First Ship Ever :

Kanata/Miyu from Da!Da!Da!

oh, these two. i was head over heels in love with them. i shipped them even when i didn't know that shipping existed or what it meant, when we didn't even have anime on TV besides the broadcast on SONY at 5pm sometimes. i just wanted them in love and happy and raising a kid together. ugh i miss them.

Last Song You Heard :

The Moon Represents My Heart, by the Moonlight Chicken cast! God do I love this song so much! It fits all the ships so well! The lyrics are gold! (I also recently found that this is a cover of the OG by Teresa Teng and that's even more beautiful??)

(also, this has been helping me visualize and write a lot of sand/ray, surprisingly enough.)

Favorite Childhood Book :

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

ahhh, well, this is embarassing. i didn't have a favourite book until adulthood actually. and it's my only favourite (as in something i've read time and again). i don't think i'll ever find another book like this one. this is it for me. nothing can ever top this. (yes, I'm very picky about my favourites lmao)

Currently Reading :

i found out this fic exists because of twitter discourse lmao, and I'm not even a dramione fan, i'll probably never read another work, but goddamn, the writing was stellar. lived up to all that hype. good stuff. (I'm almost at the end so wish me luck!)

Currently Watching :

Our Dining Table

no offence to those who love this, i loved the manga when i read it years ago, but lord was i bored to death even on the second trial at watching this lol. I'm soldiering on though, i'll get through this!

Currently Consuming :

Thai BLs

uhh... not sure what answer this demands actually, so, uhhh... lots of thai BL i guess? that's really what i've been consuming lately. i had never watched thai BLs before KPTS in 2023 so it's eye opening, they've gotten better ( i tried once before , quite a while back when a friend recommended, and i found it ridiculous so i never thought i'd actually ever watch any again lol, mostly because i never was a fan of live action BL dramas in general)

Currently Craving :

💵💵💵💵

well, i'll be honest here, money is vital and that's what I'm craving lol, i gotta feed myself and my cats and pay a 50k laptop repair bill that my company thrust on me even though it's not my fault it's damaged. anyway, essentially I'm experiencing financial doom among other unfortunate events, so here's your chance to commission a fic or donate at my KOFI so...... haha.

alright, this was super fun! I'm tagging @skyfish7 @semantics-error @justfionn @boyslovecorner @peachym00 @lilitblaukatz @ae-azile

(please feel free to ignore if you're feeling up to it!)

#tag game #my posts #source : 29daffodils

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