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itsclydebitches · 1 year

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 9 "A Place of Particular Concern"

Happy start of a new Volume, everyone! 🎉

Shaving off a little more than a month, it’s been two years since I was writing a RWBY Recap. Is that long enough to count as nostalgic? Definitely long enough to inspire a minor existential crisis on the passage of time, so how about we just collectively pretend it’s still 2013, yeah?

Of course, that would mean we were watching RWBY on YouTube and RT’s website, not... Crunchyroll. Listen, I’ll be real with you all and admit I know incredibly little about the site’s sketchy history which, from what I’ve gleaned lately, has led to a number of RWBY fans boycotting its use. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. However, I noted the two week free trial and decided to give that a go first, if only to make my life a little easier for the premiere. I’d planned to either shell out the 24-ish dollars necessary to watch the other eight episodes - which, honestly, isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, especially if we factor in my Starbucks addiction... - or don my parrot and eye-patch once I hit that two week mark.

So there was a plan!

This plan was a mistake.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that writing, “Wow, Crunchyroll’s website doesn’t work very well, does it?” maybe isn’t news to anyone else? I read that the new episode was supposed to drop at 9:30am. I then tried unsuccessfully to get it to load through 4:00pm. During this, while trying various avenues in the hopes of getting this video started, I noticed a Google link with a four hour timestamp, which would have put the release at around 11:00 my time, closer to what we’re used to.

Regardless of when it actually dropped, I was finally able to start watching at around 4:00pm. By which I mean I watched the first 17 seconds of the episode. Then it froze. I made it to the minute mark using a different browser. Then it froze again. I let things sit for a while and finally restarted my original vid, completing the episode without any additional problems, but by then I was more than a little frustrated.

Was it my internet? Crunchyroll? The will of the RWBY gods who don’t want me critiquing the hell out of this episode? Who can say, but I think I’ll be hoisting the flag sooner than intended.

“This is the story of a girl who had a lot of problems.”

If you’re thinking that this line sounds at all familiar, it’s because we’ve heard it before. Actually, the entirety of the first seven minutes is made up of our promo clips which, in a fourteen minute episode without opening and credits, is a lot. RWBY has been gone (in its canon state, anyway) for two years. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my impression of the Ruby PoV clip was that it was purely promotional material, not the start of our far-off Volume. So it was more than a little disappointing to finally get my hands on new content only to realize that half of it wasn’t new at all. We’d already seen it, discussed it, dissected it weeks, or even months ago. Combined with how much of our starter material was in our trailer (two emotional shots of Ruby I’ll be unpacking later) and how much the fandom was able to easily infer (Weiss and Blake are captured while trying to retrieve her weapon) it almost didn’t feel like a RWBY premiere at all. There is, almost literally, nothing new for the fandom to sink their teeth into. We knew they were in this Ever After place, we knew the basic plot of the first couple of episodes, we’ve seen glimpses of all the side characters... I’d actually argue that there’s more to analyze in the opening than the totality of our first episode.

Not that that's going to stop me from writing a shit ton about it, you know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

None of which bodes well and, frankly, this episode is enough of a mess that I can’t even take solace in RT executing the repetition well. Thus, I’m going to move fairly quickly (for me lol) through the first half of the episode, if only because I’ve already given my thoughts on it in other posts. So to recap within the recap:

Yang’s fall into the void and the ways in which this moment differs from the original animation is still a sore spot for me, especially given how the characters react (or rather, don’t) to finding her alive. While I commend RT for trying something different by giving us Ruby’s PoV, Lindsay’s acting grates here and the constant whimpers/gasps just highlight how much Ruby didn’t emote in the original version of the scene. Likewise, the halo of white around Ruby’s vision prior to falling proves that the writers were very aware of her silver eyes in that moment, yet inexplicably decided not to use them. As we’re seeing more and more lately, characters loose all their powers and strategic thinking the moment something needs to happen for the plot. Why craft a legitimate failure for the heroes when you could simply have them forget that their longest-running villain is in the city with them, or have Yang repeat a major mistake she’s supposedly outgrown, or have Ruby not use the one, unique ability that would save her from certain death?

As said, we know this old tune.

A detail I don't think I picked up on the first time around though is that Ruby is reaching desperately for Blake when they fall... and Blake just isn’t paying her any mind lol.

I mean I get it. Of course she’d be looking towards the villains/the bridges that represent safety, but given the non-relationship between Ruby and Blake, it struck me as funny that even when they’re “dying” together Blake barely seems to register Ruby’s presence. ‘I really look up to you!’ Yeah. Sure you do.

Ruby floats through the orange orbs of the void and, given that they show up in our opening, I hope we receive an explanation for what they are exactly. Perhaps the souls of other people who have fallen? Idk, I'm reaching. Neo shows up and fights in various disguises, blah blah blah. Ruby wakes on the beach to someone calling her name.

I feel like I asked this the first time around, but is anyone confident on whose voice that is? It almost sounds like Ruby’s own to me - perhaps heralding the split we saw in the trailer - but it could also be a repeat of Yang’s when she saved her? Honestly though, that second option feels too emotionally nuanced for what we got in the rest of this episode.

Right now, I’m inclined to ignore the voice until something actually comes of it. RWBY history has taught me that such minor mysteries may not last past the twenty minute mark.

As we saw in the released clip, we're immediately given some details of this strange land, including giant flora and twin suns. That’s... pretty tame. I’m of the opinion that if you’re going to do an Alice in Wonderland-inspired story, you’ve got two routes you can follow. The first (and for more satisfying option, I think) is to study the ways in which the original story functioned as a metaphor for the life of a child navigating an adult world and, similarly, use the weirdness of this land to impart some message. The second option (far easier, but still entertaining) is to really lean into the oddities, captivating your audience through the sheer WTF-ness of what you’ve put on screen, even if the strangeness isn’t actually representative of anything other than a "Well damn, that was weird" reaction.

Sadly, RWBY’s “A Place of Particular Concern” doesn’t seem to be achieving either. I mentioned when the trailer dropped that I don’t trust the story to say anything meaningful via its environments, but nor are the environments spectacular enough to engage us through novelty alone. Don’t get me wrong, I think the animators have achieved an impressive feat here, especially given the constraints and terrible working conditions we know they’ve faced before, but the oddness of the Ever After is mediocre at best. Oh look, small things like shells are now big. Real birds like the Dodo now come in flashier colors. A mouse talks!

...in a story where a main character is a cat girl.

Just like RWBY failed to distinguish how magic was different - and, ultimately, more shocking - than semblances, it’s now failing to inspire that sense of awe when our characters already hail from a pretty odd world. Sure, this is a different kind of odd, but the switch lacks any real punch. Compare RWBY’s Remnant/Ever After to Alice’s Normal World/Wonderland. She doesn’t have things like faunus and grimm, so something as relatively simple as a cat smiling unnerves her (and the reader). She doesn’t just see a slightly off bird, she finds out you now use them to play croquet. And she’s at the center of every oddity, experiencing these changes first-hand. Ruby sees a giant shell for a single shot. Alice becomes a giant and deals with the social horror of filling up someone’s house. I knew this was going to be a problem back when our clip dropped because despite being a separate realm supposedly governed by its own rules, we’ve still got a mouse terrified of cats. There’s this implication that the Ever After is oh so strange and horrifyingly unfamiliar... but then we immediately turn around and learn, no wait, most of what Ruby is encountering is familiar. At least enough to get by.

Ruby: “I should have known! I’ve seen plenty of cartoons!”

Volume 9 is playing it super safe with the Wonderland references and it’s really disheartening. If RWBY doesn’t have anything to say via this weirdness, I would have at least liked to see something truly weird.

To get back to the plot, Ruby immediately starts walking into the jungle and I - true story - groaned at the screen. Despite knowing it was coming! Because how can you have a character go through everything Ruby just did and not provide some reflection on it? This girl wakes up in a fantasy world after The Most Traumatic Fight Ever and waltzes off like an automaton following a coded directive. Where’s the shocked examination of her surroundings? Where’s the horrified, “Where am I? Did I die?” questioning? Where’s the post-fight panic where she desperately shouts for her teammates, begging someone to answer her? I literally can’t think of another instance in which a character goes through that much and then, literally, walks it off.

Later in the episode Ruby will inform Weiss and Blake that she spotted an overhang on the cliff and decided to try and get up there so she could survey her surroundings. It sure would have been nice to know about that while she was wandering. During the actual act of her travel I had no idea what Ruby was trying to accomplish other than, in true RWBY fashion, what I assumed was her most logical goal(s) - like finding her teammates. The kicker is that there are a ton of easy ways to keep the viewer informed despite lacking voice-overs. Let Ruby talk to herself as a way to self-sooth. Or use Little as a sounding board (why else is this mouse even here...) Show us a shot of Ruby spotting her target, taking a deep, fortifying breath, and going, “Okay... you can do this. Just make it to the cliff. One step at a time," a goal that’s ruined once her steps start going in circles. You can add a bit of character work by having Ruby remember Tai and Qrow’s training: always get a sense of your surroundings first. You can setup Ruby’s (presumably) Volume-long depression by having her just lie in the sand for a while, the suns passing overhead, staring at them listlessly, only moving when the surf starts hitting her mouth. Hell, is anyone even carrying their scrolls anymore? I don’t care how unlikely it is that it’ll work here, the first thing Ruby should do is whip that out and try to call her teammates.

Watching this moment in the context of the whole episode made it that much worse for me. It’s just so glaring how rushed this entire premiere was, with every logical reaction - to say nothing of the emotional beats necessary after that finale - getting brushed aside so that the team can get back together in under fifteen minutes. We’ve only got ten episodes, Ruby, so hurry it up. Go on, girl, give us nothing!

So we know the rest of this silliness, yeah? There’s the implication that a small amount of time has passed, an annoying dodo bird that must have been animated in later because Ruby doesn’t react to that either, a circular path of the jungle, and the soon to be named Little watching all this from a rock.

I want to emphasize that our first tonal emphasis here is humor. Having Ruby continually ending up in the same place, growing frustrated with cutsey voice acting, and the quick cuts of Little in various poses all function as lighthearted amusement for the audience... which is really fucking weird in a Volume following up on the trauma of last season. This is going to be an ongoing problem for the entirety of the episode and severely undermines the reveal that Penny has died (again). This is the exact thing RWDE folks have been worried about for literal years now, from the moment we realized we were getting a Wonderland-type world. I have little doubt that the fandom is right in saying that the rest of the Volume will likely get much darker than this (it almost always does nowadays), but that doesn’t matter because the damage has already been done. RWBY cannot continually flip-flop like this and expect its viewers to still buy into the serious moments. So many of us have lost faith in the writers’ abilities to treat these subjects respectfully and segueing from the (supposedly) fascist storyline that ends in horrific tragedy straight into, “What a whacky world, am I right? 🤪” is a damn good way to continually alienate viewers who want an emotional connection with this show.

Every time this criticism comes up there are other RWBY fans pushing back with the claim that a show - especially one that began so lighthearted and silly - simply can’t just be doom and gloom all the time. And you know what? They’re absolutely right. However, there are numerous ways to infuse comedy into your story without outright undermining the primary tone. Given that I’m reading it at the moment, I’d like to briefly use Kim Carnby’s Sweet Home as an example.

For those who are unaware, Sweet Home is a webtoon turned Netflix series that follows 18 year old Cha Hyun-soo after both his parents and sister die in a car accident. Given that he’s technically an adult, but without much financial support and already grappling with a deep depression, he moves into a rundown apartment complex and schedules his own suicide. Before he can go through with it though, a virus sweeps through the world, turning people into various kinds of monsters. These monsters - entertainingly creative - are modeled after whatever the infected person’s greatest desire is at the time of their turning, resulting in some benign beings... but much more hungry, violent, terrifying beasts. Thus, the story is centered around Cha Hyun-soo’s attempts to survive, the horrors found in his apartment complex, and the question of why he’s trying so hard to live when he’d already planned to die.

It’s dark, is what I’m getting at.

It also has moments like this:

And just a little while later:

Here, a generational divide infuses some much needed comedy into the story without detracting from the world’s overall tone (note too that Cha Hyun-soo remains looking stressed and anxious the whole time). It would be a problem if our depressed, terrified teenage suddenly started jumping like he’s having the time of his life (Weiss). It would be a problem if the entire first volume, which is meant to highlight the horror of this situation, was constantly peppered with lame jokes involving cutesy animals (the mice). If you’re going to add comedy, keep it subtle, relatable, and in this case bound to the characters’ internal monologue. By having them each compliment the other with age-appropriate comparisons that cause confusion, but without verbally acknowledging that confusion, the humor exists purely for the audience’s sake. The characters aren’t supposed to be laughing it up right now... so they don’t. The humor is for the reader alone, recognizing the miscommunication and enjoying it as an element separate from the dark tone of the characters’ world. Because this is the vibe of the scene directly before:

RWBY fails at this division. A lot. Like, that failure makes up the majority of this episode.

You know what? It’s easier to just keep a count going.

Little’s introduction is Ill-suited Comedy Example #1.

All of which means that when Ruby starts crying - and by that I mean a few sniffles and a single tear track - I have no investment in the moment. Even if the animation were close to what I’d expect after such a tragedy, its impact is obliterated by the, “Look! Cute mouse!” immediately proceeding and following it.

Also, love how Little has never seen a human before, is watching Ruby intently during this entire process... yet makes no effort to engage with her. I suppose I get it given the emphasis on how scared the mice are of predators, but from a character perspective it leaves something to be desired. In regards to Ruby not (yet) utilizing Little as a means of expressing her thoughts to the audience, our first Ever After character is just kinda... there. Ruby stumbles across them. (BTW, is they/them what the fandom is using for our first non-binary rep?) They only speak because they feel obligated to help Ruby after she retrieves the cheese. They come on this adventure because, by their own admission, they simply have nothing better to do. What’s the point of Little again? How are they serving the story? They don’t even lead Ruby to Blake and Weiss - she stumbles across them on her own while Little sleeps. In fact, it’s already a running gag that Little naps instead of doing anything useful. I wouldn’t care so much if RWBY weren’t already a show suffering from character bloat and an inability to manage that (because the former isn’t necessarily a problem on its own). Now that we’ve finally got the girls alone(-ish) and primed for some character development, I don’t want to squander it on stupid mouse jokes.

Given which: Little’s ‘Gimme The Cheese’ dance + accompanying sounds effects is Ill-Suited Comedy Example #2.

I mentioned the first time around that I am weak for a cute, animal companion. That remains true. Unfortunately, Little’s cuteness is only carrying them so far with me. Their negative impact on the narrative as a whole is, thus far, simply too much to fix with grabby motions and snot bubbles.

They ask the thematic, “What are you?” question and introduce a number of other theoretical ideas that, frankly, I doubt the Volume will capitalize on. Is your name your purpose? (Like Huntress Ruby Rose.) How does one "Little"? The team is “similar, but different.” Until the Volume actually does something with these questions, I’m inclined to read them as simple ‘nonsense’ language included to try and emulate Carroll’s style.

With Little planning to show Ruby her village (but doesn't actually succeed in that), we cut to Weiss and Blake traversing the jungle together. How did they find one another? No idea. Why did they find one another when Blake fell with Ruby? No idea. The story tries to bypass this by, as expected, leaning into the illogical nature of the world. If they somehow found each other, then they might be able to likewise find Blake’s weapon, despite the fact that it fell long after her. Honestly, this feels more like a very convenient plot device than an interesting characteristic of this world. Things happen so randomly here! Funny how that randomness seems to solely benefit the heroes.

Sidenote: I really like that Weiss says “Gambol Shroud” because the weapon names have felt only semi-canon for a very long time. Other than Ruby referring to Crescent Rose back in the first couple episodes, have we heard the names at all? I can’t recall off the top of my head, but regardless this makes for a nice moment between Weiss and Blake. It’s a small thing, but it helps sell the idea that they do actually know one another well.

The rest of the scene is... passable. Weiss has a “Blake... I’m really glad you’re okay” line and gets a “I’m really glad you are too” in response. This is one of those cases where I think fiction needs to deviate sharply from reality. Irl that’s probably exactly the kind of awkward, rushed line I’d give a close friend because I myself am awkward and struggle to verbalize my care for others (gift giving ftw!). But in fiction an exchange like that just comes across as wooden. “I’m really glad you’re okay,” says the girl who thought this friend had died and for real saw another friend get killed by a third like, an hour ago. Wow, what a reaction! This is also a case of RWBY’s animation acting as a constraint. As said earlier, I think the animators are doing the best they can under the circumstances, but better writing, time, and funds would likely lend itself to a more expressive reunion for all the girls. It also highlights how convenient the time-skip is. You can easily argue that these two cried and hugged and went through their Face Journeys when they first found one another. No need to rehash that though because it already happened off screen!

All of this is made worse for me by the fact that Blake says that if they’re fine, the others “might” be okay too. Might! That’s a loaded word choice with absolutely no follow up. Remember, this is the girl who was beside herself with anger and grief when Yang “died.” So glad to see that emotion carried over into the next Volume. I mean hell, give me a Blake who’s screaming at Weiss to just ditch her weapon. Why are they bothering with that when Yang is still missing?? Screw vines and mice, I’m going to go find my partner!

If only.

Everything in this episode just rings so hollow to me. I mean, I expected that given RWBY’s track record, but this is a severe failure to me given the intensity of Volume 8. From Penny's death to destroying a Kingdom, the fate of their friends to lost Relics, we needed a stellar start to this emotional journey and we simply didn’t get it.

That includes Weiss dodging the question of what happened after Blake fell. I really enjoyed this on the surface, just not - as is so often the case - in the context of RWBY as a whole. Because what is Weiss doing here except keeping another secret? In her defense, it doesn’t last long and there’s a case to be made about how difficult it is to discuss such things, especially after they just happened, so as said, I think that’s a compelling situation to put her in. It’s just one that also happens to poke at a RWDE sore spot because we had such a strong anti-secret rhetoric for three Volumes. Thanks to that arc, my initial reaction is not, “Poor Weiss. Grappling with this traumatic event.” It’s “See, Weiss? See how hard it is to discuss something horrific that you went through? But oh, you and the others had no sympathy for Ozpin in that regard, so just get over it and spill the crucial information already. Snap, snap, keeping Blake informed is more important than your mental health.”

All of which isn’t even touching on how she explains the situation... but we’ll get to that.

So they have this exchange that’s passable in many regards and fails largely due to the problems RWBY has carried with it for years now. They stumble across Gambol Shroud and proceed to spend a while trying to cut the vines/reach it from a nearby tree. This is how Weiss cheers Blake on.

Weiss: “Yah! Woo!”

Example #3, folks.

Weiss’ completely inappropriate cheer-leading aside, the entire time I’m going, “How is this in any way a problem?” I know Blake has become the useless fighter who can’t take out a single grimm without Ruby’s help, and Weiss has forgotten everything except her summoning, but has the audience forgotten how these girls used to fight? Anyone recall this moment from their very first battle?

Oh no, a giant pile of vines! However will we get past this obstacle?😱

I don’t know, maybe just... jump? Or you could get a little more creative by summoning a clone and doing a cool person-tower move to reach the top? That’s definitely not me pulling from my love of Yu Yu Hakusho or anything.

TEAMWORK, BABY!

My point is that moments like this fall flat precisely because RWBY has spent so much time showing us the group’s extreme abilities. Remember that scenes like the Ace Ops fight hinge on their presumed excellence. This is a group that beat the best team in Atlas! But now they can’t even bypass a pile of vines? The downside of giving your characters great power is that you then have to continually come up with ways for them to still face challenging conflict. Some shows handle this rather badly (like Castiel not just blowing up every demon/mortal that opposes them) and some shows handle it rather well (we establish early on that despite technically having the power to get the crew out of sticky situations, Star Trek’s transporter is prone to glitches and interference from the weather). Basically, you can’t go, “These girls are brimming with power because that looks awesome in a fight! But oh, now they can’t use that power because... uh... because that would interfere with our lame gag?” There has to be a reason. And this is far from the first time RWBY has conveniently forgotten the characters’ abilities. I still cringe at Ruby hanging off the cliff during the Cordovin battle. It’s meant to be a dramatic moment wherein she faces great danger from a fall, but they tried to give that to the girl who can fly.

So this is just incredibly stupid to me. Bad enough that we have gags following the intensity of Volume 8, but RWBY hasn’t even put in the effort to make them good gags. This episode honestly feels like RWBY satire to me, more akin to a Chibi episode, or a YouTuber poking fun, than the content fans waited two years for.

Right as Blake reaches her weapon they learn that the vines were a trap and they move, ensnaring both girls. We knew that was going to occur from the trailer and I thought that this was just another aspect of the Ever After. The vegetation (a bit like Alice’s flowers) is alive, sentient, capable of helping or hurting you. That’s pretty cool and, as I mentioned in regards to the environment responding to Ruby’s emotions, could be utilized in fantastic ways for combat.

However, this isn’t actually the case. Apparently the mice have sprung this trap because... Blake is a cat?

Wait.

So let me get this straight. This village of mice - who have never seen a human before, but have definitely seen cats - assume that Blake is exactly the same because she has cat ears. Then they found her weapon before her, somehow realize it is her weapon (even though Blake has yet to even stand next to it within the Ever After), and set an elaborate trap so that they can be the “hunters” for once, instead of the prey. Blake happens to come along with another human, but who cares? Capture her too! What are they going to do with them then?

Uh... the only thing we know about these mice is that they spend the majority of their time foraging for food and they struggle greatly to get the cheese out of the ground, and this would certainly be a way to both feed the village and eliminate a presumed enemy, so...

You know what? Never mind. I’m not going there lol.

This is stupid and illogical, but not in a wacky Wonderland way. Also, anyone else a little uncomfortable with the mice calling her a cat and Blake just going with it? Is that the stance we’re going with after eight seasons of a civil rights movement? That a faunus girl and an animal are fundamentally interchangeable?😬

They could have used this moment to let Blake explain her identity to someone coming from a place of well-meaning ignorance but noooo, why would we have an interesting conversation with the mice when they can just cheer about cheese instead? “She pulled the cheese out of the ground ON HER OWN!” Little cries, causing another mouse to faint in shock.

Example #4

While all this is going on Ruby shows up because remember, the premiere is trying to get the group back together as quickly as humanly possible. Or magically possible, in this case. We get Ruby asking if Little is drooling on her - “Yuck” - before spotting the village of mice about to do presumably unspeakable things to her teammates. Remember the shot from the trailer where Ruby looks properly horrified and I wondered what could possibly be causing that reaction? Yeah. It’s just this.

Example #5. Sigh.

If you were hoping for a proper reunion between these three, keep hoping. We segue immediately into a practical explanation where Ruby explains, about five minutes too late, what she was trying to accomplish while wandering around the jungle. Little has her freak-out about Blake, explains Ruby’s magic cheese gathering skills to the others, and then decides to tag along to find Yang because, and I quote, “I don’t have anything to do yet.” For a hot second I thought this was going to lead into more information about mouse culture. You know, how Little has already admitted that they don’t have a name, how they equate names with a purpose, and therefore if they have nothing to do in their village yet because they’re so young, they’ll find a purpose by traveling with these humans. We might have even put off Little’s naming to this moment, having them or one of the girls come up with something appropriate to the task ahead: something like Guide, or even Friend (of Humans).

But no, apparently Little is tagging along just because they literally have nothing better to do? In the sense that they’re bored and why the hell not? It’s not exactly a compelling reason and, given that they’ve yet to provide any actual assistance to the girls, I’m continually questioning their place in the story. This is what critics mean when they say that time is wasted with Volume-specific side characters when we could be doing more, better work with the core team.

Case in point: Little says that they’ll be “your trusty guide!” and then the joke is that they’re immediately asleep again once the girls set out.

#6!

I do like the following scene though. As the trio follows a path that they’ve found, Weiss walks ahead with her back (obviously) facing Blake and Ruby. When Ruby likewise questions what happened after they fell, there’s this long pause where Weiss considers how to respond, not turning around. It’s a powerful little detail, refusing to show us, or the girls, her face. It leaves her expression up to interpretation while maintaining the impression that she’s hiding from her teammates, due to not knowing how to address their failure. Her insistence on finding Yang first just highlights that avoidance. Really, I think this moment works quite well and I wish the whole episode had been treated this seriously.

Just as Ruby is about to press the issue they hear a roar from nearby. Following it, they discover a creature that fans have already dubbed RWBY’s version of the Jabberwocky.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Bewared the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

Kudos to RWBY for trying here. It’s no secret that I think one of the best grimm lately have been The Apathy, so having another horror-leaning creature was a good decision in my opinion. Unfortunately, I like the idea more than the execution. The twitching motion of the Jabberwocky could have been creepy, but it doesn’t quite capture that feeling of unnatural otherness that makes your skin crawl. A problem with the animation, or something the engine itself just isn’t equipped to create? I’m not sure. Its voice is also a nice touch, with the exception that it’s really hard to understand once it starts yelling. At first I thought RWBY was leaning into the Jabberwocky’s origins. That is, using nonsense words like those from Carroll’s poem whose meaning is understood only in context. Now though, I think it’s just a badly voiced character? I’m not sure because Crunchyroll’s subtitles wouldn’t work for me (of course) and all I got was the “Searching. Stalking. Detecting.” in the beginning.

Which, you know, is an interesting bit of dialogue. RWBY has always straddled the line between fantasy and Sci-Fi, so I’m pleased to see some of the latter worming its way into the distinctly fantasy setting of the Ever After. The Jabberwocky sounds like an AI creation following a coded command. Out of everything this episode, I’m most eager to learn more about it.

Of course, we can’t learn anything now. Despite the fact that Yang stumbles out of the jungle, arm gone, throwing a rock at the Jabberwocky, and looking like she’s been through hell and back. Would you like to know what Yang experienced while on her own here? Or how she came across the Jabberwocky? What she might already know about it?

Would you like to see an actual battle in the combat show’s premiere?

Too bad.

The Jabberwocky just runs off and we get an... interesting reunion for the whole team. First off, Weiss just isn’t a part of this. Given that she’s not Yang’s sister or the Schrodinger girlfriend, she’s shuffled off to the side. Second, Ruby is greeted with a, “Dammit! You weren’t supposed to be here” which I really like. Rather than going the pure fluff route, the writing seems to consider the fact that Yang (as we’ll learn soon) thinks she may have died, so of course she’s horrified to see her little sister here too. This isn’t a joyful reunion for her, it's evidence that her (stupid) sacrifice was in vain. As always, I wish we could have explored that a little more - specifically this idea that Yang thought she was dead and was still trying to defend herself against hostile creatures - but a single line is all we’re given.

Ruby gets that soft smile of hers, kneels down, and says, “If you thought we wouldn’t have come for you then you must have forgotten who raised me.” Aww.

...wait.

Hold up.

The fuck??

First of all, that is NOT what happened. Ruby didn’t come looking for Yang, she lost to Cinder - DESPITE HAVING A UNIQUE ABILITY TO BEAT HER, I WILL CONTINUALLY ADD - and failed to rose-petal her way to safety. Wow, way to imply a heroic rescue that doesn’t exist, Ruby. Also, this simultaneously implies that if they had won the fight Ruby would have dove into the void afterwards to try and find Yang which... you know... I highly doubt. Just given her non-reaction to her sister “dying.” If there was going to be any rescue attempts, give me a Ruby who jumps after Yang as she’s falling and they both go in together.

So that’s a huge misrepresentation of events and then Ruby follows that up with, “you must have forgotten who raised me"? What exactly is that supposed to mean? Because a lot of people raised Ruby. Is it Tai, Summer, Qrow... or Yang herself? This almost feels bait-y to me, in the sense that the writers must know that mom!Yang has been a huge debate in the fandom for years, so they toss in this ambiguous line that could go either way. Is Ruby referring to her many capable, loving, adult guardians? Or her older sister that maybe, sorta “raised her” while their dad was recovering from the death of his wife? I don’t know, why don’t you all fight about it ;)

But no, let’s talk about the actual bait: bumblebee.

Now, for a long time I’ve refrained from calling Blake/Yang queerbaiting for the simple reason that I’ve expected the show to follow through with the romance in a way I don’t expect that from “real” queerbaiting. Remember, the word originates from a hard “No” on the queer front, that’s why it’s baiting and not a slow-burn towards representation. However, we’ve now entered an age of television where, yes, many couples do become canon, but only in the final hour when the writers don’t have to actually write a queer romance. That’s the modern from of queerbaiting and goddamn, is bumblebee fitting it to a T.

I know the fandom has some memory problems, but everyone recalls the surety that Yang and Blake’s romance would kickstart after Yang “died” right? That having Blake mourn her and then discover her alive would finally push her to go in for a kiss? We pictured a plot where the girls were separated for the first couple of episodes, still believing the others were gone, Blake stumbling across Yang in the Ever After, the confusion and shock and relief at finding her again, the kiss that would finally bring RWBY into 2023--

Yeah. There’s none of that.

I myself said that THIS was the time to do it. If you ever needed an excuse to get the queer couple together (which you don’t) then the reunion after one thinks the other has died is 100% the time to do it. Emotions will never be stronger! Inhibitions will never be lower! Don’t pass up such a golden opportunity!

They totally passed it up.

This reunion is just as generically ambiguous as all the others, right down to Yang hugging Blake with a tenderness that’s equal to what she’s given other characters:

Friends. This is all the same hug. There is nothing coded romantic in this reunion, not unless we want to claim that Yang is also romantically attracted to Ren, Weiss, and her sister.

I’ve already seen some fans talking about the importance of Blake initiating contact when before she always held back and yeah, sure, that can be read as character growth, but that’s the kind of minuscule step forward we needed years ago. Not now. Now we’re firmly in bait territory and need confirmation.

“But, Clyde, it’s just the start of the Volume. They could still kiss!”

I don’t care. RT had an opportunity and they squandered it. If there's a kiss, a confession, or whatever comes later in the Volume, it’s still more time that the show has spent in a will-they-won’t-they dance. I’m so sick of it. RWBY’s queer rep is atrocious and I find that to be particularly insulting in a show that’s praised for and celebrates its own diversity. I watch plenty of television with no queer rep at all, but I don’t give them the same kind of shit because they’re not pretending to be the Pinnacle of Queer Representation. If you’re going to claim that you have a queer main couple, then actually give us a queer main couple.

God I was actually so hopeful I’d be writing a, “We’ve finally confirmed it!” recap. It’s beyond frustrating at this point and I’m continually shocked at the fans who are celebrating that hug like they’ve been given a feast and not crumbs. If I were more emotionally invested in bumblebee as a ship - meaning, if I cared more about the relationship itself rather than how it functions as representation for RWBY - I’d be pissed as hell. Yang “died,” Blake lost her mind over it, we waited two years, and then you give us... that? If I were a hardcore bumblebee shipper I’d be writing about my extreme disappointment in RT, not my happiness that Yang touched Blake’s hair.

Actually no, I grew up in the age of no rep/the original queerbaiting, so really I’d be rolling my eyes at anyone who expected a canonical relationship and instead going off to write it myself as fic. I still believe very strongly that ships don’t need a canonical basis and in some ways fandom has limited itself by only writing about what’s canon, or “realistically” canon ([waves old man cane] “In my day we shipped characters who were never even on screen together!”), but I acknowledge that we’ve entered a new age of television. Viewers expect more. They should expect more and they should get it.

With the disappointing hug behind us, Yang observers that if they’re all here then things must have gone really badly up top. This finally pushes Weiss over the edge and she starts the not-crying that all the RWBY girls do, where she has wet eyes and a single tear track. “Penny,” she says. “Jaune tried to help... but she scarified herself...”

And by that you mean Jaune killed her? Weiss’ recounting of events makes it sound like her own stabbing by Cinder: Penny was hurt and Jaune tried to heal her, only this time it wasn’t enough. When in reality we’ve got Jaune giving up because his “I’ve had a human body for twenty minutes” patient says there’s no hope and then slitting her throat because Penny mistakenly believes all she can do with her life is give it up.

Again: what happened to telling your team everything? Where did the importance of context and the complete picture go? For a team that’s so furious when others provide incomplete or misleading information, they sure do that themselves a lot. We can add, “Weiss horribly mischaracterizes Penny’s death” to the “Yang is keeping the Spring Maiden a secret, twists all their failures into victories to win a fight with Ren, and Ruby straight up lied to Ironwood” list.

In another show I’d have more faith that this would come back to bite Weiss; that the girls will later learn the truth and express some actual emotion at her inability to keep them informed... but who am I kidding. This is RWBY. It’ll be forgotten - or retconned - by next episode.

Ruby faints at hearing that Penny has died (again) and man, I really want to like this moment because it’s definitely more of a reaction than I was expecting based on our post-Volume 3 writing. However, this is primarily used as a way to avoid Ruby’s reaction, wherein she wakes up some undetermined time later and is allowed to pretend to be fine, thereby jumping over any conversation/crying/actual emotion we might have seen from her. I know that Ruby will be grappling with this for the entire Volume - our intro proves as much - but it’s still disappointing that we don’t get to see Ruby grapple with her initial feelings because she was too busy being unconscious.

Also, anyone else frustrated that the same action used to depict horror and grief is used for a gag just a few minutes earlier? A mouse faints at the thought of someone being able to pull up cheese with a single tug! Ruby faints at the thought of her dear friend dying for a second time! This is why all that earlier humor messes with the more serious moments.

Our final scene once again fails to convince me that any of these characters love each other outside of the Grand Gestures delivered post-tragedy. No one is holding Ruby while she’s unconscious. No one has made her a makeshift pillow or blanket. Yang asks once if she’s alright - when she’s clearly not - and then just drops the subject when Ruby says yeah, she’s fine. None of them waited until she’d woken up to have this important conversation. After Weiss’ tears and Ruby’s faint, there are no reactions to Penny’s death. Do Blake and Yang care? Presumably not considering they never had a real relationship with her, but RWBY likely wants us to assume that their reactions exist off screen. Remember, given that we’re primarily following Ruby as our protagonist, her being unconscious means that we also skip over how everyone else reacts too. The viewer only gets to continue seeing the story when Ruby wakes up.

I had low expectations for the Volume 8 follow up, but overall this is pretty bad even by my nonexistent standards. It’s not that the premiere doesn’t give us any worthwhile moments, it’s that none of them are capitalized on. They just sit, unexplored, or outright undermined by what the rest of the episode has produced.

It’s disappointing, to say the least. As are our final lines. Yang admits that she thought she was dead, but there’s no time to let her or the others explore that. We hear a throwaway line that her arm was stolen - which relies a lot on the viewer having seen the trailer to understand how and why that happened, at least until next episode. And then Blake follows a bit of light shining through to them, parting some of the vines to look out across the entirety of Ever After.

“I know how this sounds, but... I think we’re in a fairy tale.”

Our final line, folks! Is there anyone else that would have preferred ending on Ruby’s faint? Feels more dramatic and would have let the fandom theorize a bunch before she wakes up next episode (even if then, inevitably, there would have been disappointment that nothing was done with it). Really, I get why they want to end on the shot of Ever After, but all I could think was, how in the world did you come to that conclusion, Blake? Given that this is a world based off of a real fairy tale and not the fairy tales that exist in Remnant. I would 100% buy a character from our world recognizing that they’re in a place similar to Wonderland, but nothing we’ve seen here reflects the tales of Remnant.

Well no, there is one thing, but it exists in the opening. Blake’s been reading the script again.

So let’s unpack that, shall we?

(Sorry, I need to slam all the important opening screenshots together because tumblr won't let me upload any more images boooo).

Our first shot is of Jaune! 🤦‍♀️

Really? That’s the beginning of every episode’s opening? Jaune crying with his broken, bloody sword? Hmm, I wonder if the character imposing on the girls’ team journey will be important this Volume. We also get another shot of him with a clock motif, making me wonder if the theories about him having (somehow) spent longer in the Ever After will prove to be true.

This initial shot is paired with Neo looking sad, presumably over Roman’s death and her continued failure to avenge him. She appears in the trailer a fair bit which, alongside the Jabberwocky, is the thing I’m most excited for. I’m glad that, at least based on this, it doesn’t look like they’re going to squander her role as a villain here. We see Neo drinking her tea with a fantastic smirk, surrounded by a group of shadowy antagonists.

A huge list of one-off baddies, or the various looks she’ll be adopting to mess with the characters? I’m hoping for the latter, especially since some fans think that one of the silhouettes looks like Jacques. However, I do question whether she can actually pull something like that off. I love the idea of Neo manipulating the group, especially in a Volume hosting a grief arc, especially in a place that, as far as they know, might contain their dead loved ones. For a brief moment I even questioned if that other Ruby we see in the trailer was Neo. The problem is I’m pretty sure she speaks and, thus, it’s very difficult for a villain to pretend to be an ally for more than a few seconds when she’s mute. Combine that with the fact that Ruby knows Neo is here and that all just kinda... falls apart. Which is unfortunate because I would have loved to see a Neo using the Ever After’s impossibilities and her own semblance to mess with the heroes. Still, a final shot at the end appears to show everything stemming from Neo, which makes me think she’s going to be the major antagonistic force this Volume and/or gains control of the Ever After somehow. Fitting, for a woman with control over illusions.

Whether Neo makes much use of her semblance or not, I hope we don’t have another 8+ characters to introduce because there’s already Little, the other mice, the cat, racoon, the forge lady, the knight (same person?), the Red Queen, the creature hiding in the leaves, the caterpillar, the Jabberwocky, and this new girl. People get why that’s a lot to manage, right? Especially in a story with four main protagonists, with two others thrown into the void with them. I get that they don’t want the Ever After to be a wasteland, but RWBY continually has a problem with side characters eating up the time and focus. Then they’re left behind and that work feels wasted. Why spend a Volume developing Little (or Ilia, Sun, Neptune, etc.) just to drop them? This bloated cast means it’s a bit of a relief that Volume 9 doesn’t seem to be trying to jump between here and Vacuo, but damn. Three years to find out what’s happening with the others? The growing chance that there will be a time skip and that the girls will come back to find all these ongoing problems resolved off screen: We somehow rescued all the people from the desert! Ren and Nora are officially together! Winter has long gotten used to her powers! Oscar merged while you were gone and now we don’t have to worry about Ozpin anymore!

Not looking forward to it.

Out of all these new characters, the most important is the young girl. My current theory is that she’s the girl from “The Girl Who Fell Through the World,” with perhaps our opening line - “This is the story of a girl who had a lot of problems” - being the first line of her tale. We know due to Ozpin that many of Remnant’s fairy tales are based on true events, so it would make sense if that one came about after a young woman literally fell into a different world. We see her arrive on the beach before Crescent Rose shows up, implying that she’s been there a long time, and there are some implications that she’s a rather powerful figure now: she leads the group through the various environments (with Ruby lagging farther and farther behind. Perhaps the introduction of a new team leader will increase her feelings of inferiority and failure?), she appears right before an evil copy of Ruby turns around (love that grin), and she's in a painting with another, shadowed figure behind her. Despite the fact that we already have this reference (short of) it gives me Ozma/Tip vibes, wherein the original Wizard of Oz books Ozma is turned into a boy named Tip in an effort to keep her hidden.

Regardless of her role, I have the feeling this girl will end up being more of an antagonist than an ally; a representation of the ways Ever After can twist a long-term resident and likely a foil to Ruby (the true leader) and Jaune (someone who will overcome the world’s allure and return with the girls).

There are a number of other thematically significant shots throughout the opening. All the girls are shown in their various outfits, smiling or smirking, but Ruby grows sadder and her most recent counterpart hides in her cloak, facing away from the viewer.

Her tears - more than we’ve seen her actually cry in the show, I'd like to point out - transforms into Crescent Rose.

The girls try to navigate an impossible maze where the Ruby copy shows up, they run up the tree before being blown back (falling remains relevant then), the girls are once again gloriously saturated in their colors (even if Weiss is still more blue than white), and I really like the shot of Ruby falling past the rabbit. Actually, I like the painted style of that fall far more than I like the look of the rest of the Volume.

However, what interests me the most about this intro is a series of images that may well be connected: two streaks of blue falling through the sky, a massive explosion that engulfs the life tree, and the burning of a book of fairy tales.

Look, I don’t care how awful the gods actually are, especially when RWBY has done nothing to explore that. I don’t care if this is one of their realms and the heroes need to take drastic measures to escape it.

You are NOT going to have the girls destroy a whole-ass world after they destroyed a Kingdom, right?

Right?

On that thoroughly optimistic note, let’s end with a miscellaneous section because we are nearly 10k in and this poor recap needs to be put to bed. (As do I.)

Thanks for reading! :)

Misc. Observations

I enjoyed the little detail of Ruby wringing out her cloak as she surveyed the jungle. Nice job remembering she just came out of the water.

I didn’t enjoy the actual shot of the landscape though. I totally get that there’s wonky perspective stuff going on given how far back the ‘camera’ is, but am I the only one who thinks the jungle looks WAY too small in that opening scene?

I definitely mentioned this the first time I examined our promo clip (and briefly above), but I wonder if the weather here is influenced by emotion, given that the rain appears to start and stop when Ruby cries. I want to say “No” now just because this already isn’t consistent - there’s no rain when Weiss cries, you’d think we’d see some kind of weather influence when Ruby faints - but a part of me is hopeful just because it’s such a cool concept. Especially for a combat show where terrain can make-or-break a battle. As we’ve seen, each little bit of Ever After seems to function differently - Ruby doesn’t hit another patch of repeating jungle, for example - so maybe this is something that will return sporadically?

This is definitely me being nitpicky and petty, but you’ve gotta love that, other than the repeat dialogue of Volume 8 and the faint shouts of “Ruby!” our first words of the Volume are, “Now if only you could help me.” I don’t begrudge anyone help, certainly not the protagonist of a story that wants to be centered around unification, but Ruby has struggled with agency so much I can’t help but roll my eyes a little. Yes, why would we write our protagonist figuring out how to help herself when the random mouse she stumbles across can do it instead? And then, you know, not actually do anything, allowing the protagonist to instead just stumble on what she wants, rather than actively retrieving it.

So you know how Little not-so-subtly mentions that an easy way to get on their village’s good side is to bring more of that cheese? Surely then when we next see Ruby she’ll be animated carrying a couple of those cheeses as a bribe? Spoiler: she's not.

Anyone else feeling iffy about Blake’s description of Yang? The one where she refers to Yang as the scary looking one? As someone who has been frustrated with Yang’s lack of anger management the last couple of Volumes, I’m not a big fan of her “scariness” being played as a cute character quirk.

Ruby remembers right before the non-battle starts that she’s without Crescent Rose. Funny how she didn’t appear to notice its absence before, or go looking for her precious weapon like Blake did. (Seriously, I know I’ve said this a hundred times by now, but the girls’ reactions to landing here and everything they’ve lost are nonexistent.) This also highlights how useless most of the girls are without a weapon in hand. Didn’t we have a mini-arc back in Volume 5 about them learning hand-to-hand? Wasn’t that specifically labeled as Ruby’s flaw? Now it crops back up and she just hangs back, scared? Once again I'm asking what the point of any of that was if we're not going to see the development. Something something only the most recent Volume is canon.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

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burstanddecay · 1 year

Text

petals in a storm

And if you asked me to, if you asked me, I would lose it all.

Pairing: Benny Miller x (OC) F!Reader Summary: Benny tries to tell you something by sharing a ritual that's a daily occurance for him. If that doesn't work, he's got another trick up his sleeve. Wordcount: 3.2K Contains/Warning: Angst, (passive) suicide ideations, existential dread/crisis talk, mental health issues. A/N: I'm not a boxer, nor am I into MMA. I tried to do as much research as was needed, but things might've slipped through the cracks or been stretched to fit the narrative. Part three of Cold Is The Night

The fluorescent lights make a slight humming noise as they flicker to life, speckles of dust floating through the air as Benny holds the door open for you. You cautiously enter, hesitant as you wait for him to take the lead, not sure what to make of the situation or what to do with yourself.

“C’mon,” he gently says as he places a hand in the middle of your back, putting pressure there as he guides you forward. “We gotta grab some stuff, and I’m gonna find you a shirt. You’ll get hot in the sweater.”

You look down at the sweater you’re wearing, at your jeans and the boots, shuffling your feet across the vinyl floor. He sees you look and gives a soft smile.

“The jeans are fine for what we’re gonna do. We’ll take off our shoes, it’s better to feel the floor.”

His voice is firm, not giving you any room for questions or protests, but is kind beneath it. You haven’t heard him use it before, but immediately know where to place it: he started teaching a self defence class for women a while ago. A big shift from his usual crowd of personal training and beating the lights out of fully grown men, but it seems to suit him, the way he lights up when he talks about it speaking volumes.

His hand disappears from your back as he walks past you, around a corner, disappearing out of sight. You’re not sure if you’re supposed to follow or not, so you take two small steps forward, looking around you as you do.

You’ve heard him talk about this place before, but for some reason you never had a reason to be here. He never explicitly stated he didn’t want you here, it just never happened, causing a wave of guilt to crash against you as you take in your surroundings.

“I just realised you’ve never been here before,” he calls out, his voice somewhat muffled by distance and faint rummaging. “Which y’know. Kinda weird.” His voice becomes clearer as he turns back around the corner, a shirt in his hands. “Since you’ve been in most places in my life. Here.”

You take the shirt from his hands, immediately recognising it when you catch a glimpse of the print on the front. You’ve seen him wear it before—just not in a while. He mostly stopped wearing it after he came back from South America, favouring other shirts and button ups over this one.

He rarely speaks of the trip. None of them do, the haunted looks and lack of Tom in their midst speaking volumes. It’s gotten better over time, but time heals all wounds is a fucking lie. You know that, Benny knows that, Will, Frankie, Santiago all know that.

Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Time is a trickster god and you better pray it’s on your side during your lifetime.

“Thank you,” you say. “I was just thinking the same, actually.”

“Just need to grab some other stuff and I’ll show you where we’re going. Put the shirt on, I’ll be right back.”

He turns around and disappears around a corner, leaving you alone with the shirt in your hands. You carefully place it on a nearby table, peeling your sweater off before pulling the shirt over your head. It’s littered with holes along the hemline, the fabric softened and faded by time. The corners of your mouth tick up as you gently run your hands over the fabric, chest full of something you can’t quite place.

“Looking good,” Benny pipes up behind you. “That shirt always looked better on you than it ever did on me.”

You roll your eyes at the statement. It’s a very Benny thing to throw compliments around: it comes as naturally as breathing to him, something you envy at times. You turn around to face him, finding him leaned against a support beam, arms crossed as he watches you with a half smile.

“C’mon. I’ll show you around another time.” He jerks his head to the side, to a room just outside your view. “We’ve got stuff to do.”

Anxiety gnaws at you as you follow him across the room, through the door he holds open for you. You look around as you enter, taking in the wall-to-wall mirrors on one side, the wooden bar stretching across its length, the loose bits of equipment placed in various nooks and corners.

“This used to be a ballet studio,” Benny explains from behind you, closing the door behind him and pulling his boots off. “They moved into a bigger space, so we put the mats down, but left the mirrors.” He shifts his weight on his socked feet, looking at you in the mirror. He seems anxious, which in turn makes you anxious. A part of you revels in the sensation: where most feelings no longer really seem to exist, this is something you can feel.

“C’mere,” he says, lowering himself into a kneeling position, patting the mat in front of him. “Come sit with me.”

You take a breath, kicking your boots off and leaving them next to Benny’s before sinking down to the floor in front of him.

It’s intimate in a way that’s both familiar and unfamiliar: it’s not like you haven’t been this close to him before, but at the same time, you really haven’t.

You haven’t let him close in ways that mattered.

“We said five minutes at a time,” he says. “We’ve made it through…” he moves his hand where it rests on his knee, looking at the watch on his left wrist. “At least ten of those since we left the bar.”

You want to tell him it’s easier to make it through those minutes when you’re not alone, when there’s other people’s voices to fill the growing void, other people’s joy, giddiness, frustrations. You want to say it feels as if something is flooding your bloodstream and slowly numbing your senses, leaving you to navigate the world by depending on others.

You want to say that the only thing making you feel even slightly alive is him, but you can’t do that to him. You can’t burden him with that, with keeping another person upright.

He fought his battles. The mental ones, the physical ones and everything in between: he already fought his war.

He doesn’t deserve to fight someone else’s, too. Not again.

So, you say nothing.

Instead, you pick at your cuticles, ignoring the sting as you pull at the already raw skin with your fingernails.

“So,” Benny starts, producing a handful of fabric from his pocket, letting it slide through his hands. “Normally when you box, you wrap your hands.” He reaches out, holding an upturned palm stretched out in front you. “Or you wear gloves, but I prefer wrapping. May I?”

You nod silently and place your hand in his, the callouses on his palm oddly comforting against your soft skin. He turns your hand, so that your palm faces up, the movement gentle, as if he’d break something if he wasn’t careful enough.

“Our hands are made up of dozens of tiny bones, essentially just held together by some flesh and tendons,” he continues, placing the strap in your palm before he starts wrapping it around your hand. “And sure, you can just throw a punch, but it puts a lot of stress on those bones. When you don’t know better, you’d think that the wrapping is there to protect your knuckles, right? Because that’s what we see in media. Bloody knuckles, held up in front of our faces.”

“I can do this all day,” you mumble under your breath, the imagine of pre-serum Steve Rogers immediately jumping to mind.

“Right,” he smiles. “The truth is, we have to protect our hands by allowing the impact of that punch to be better distributed,” he explains, wrapping the fabric back and forth between your fingers, essentially creating a glove out of a single strap of fabric. “That single punch puts a lot of stress on just the top bones, the ones that stick out the most,” his fingers lightly tap your knuckles. “Which we don’t want. That causes tears in the bone at the first punch, if you throw it hard enough.”

His touch is featherlight as he continuous to wrap the fabric around your hand, weaving it through your fingers with ease. It goes automatically, as if it’s as easy as brushing your teeth. You suppose it is, to him. It’s something he does most days, after all.

He finishes up the first hand and opens and closes his fingers as a way of saying to hand over your other hand, which you wordlessly do.

You know better than to just see this as wrapping your hands. You know damn well what he’s trying to say.

“We don’t just want to protect the knuckles, we want to protect the full hand, all those little bones. We want to make sure we don’t wreck ourselves trying to come out on top. So instead, we make sure there is something keeping those loose things tightly together and allow them to weather the circumstances they’re being put through. Because when the knuckles are bloody, when that surface is cracked, you already know you’ve done damage that beyond a quick fix. When in reality, it’s… mostly preventable.”

He finishes wrapping your second hand, and motions for your other hand, turning both of them back and forth to check his work.

“Do you do this every game?” you ask softly, admiring how quick and efficient he was with something that you would’ve redone at least three times.

He nods in reply. “Every game, most practises.”

“But…” you start, letting the sentence die off when you don’t know how to word your thoughts.

“But?” he asks, letting go of your hands.

“Isn’t a thing that by continuously breaking the bone, you strengthen it?”

He lets out a low sigh, leaning back on his heels. “Well, no. You just… stop feeling it eventually. There’s debates of whether or not breaking bones repeatedly improves bone density, but I think it’s bullshit, personally.” He smirks, the first time since leaving the bar that there isn’t a hint of sadness woven into his features.

The sight of it breaks your heart, echoing the sentiment that seems to engrain itself deeper and deeper into your heart with each passing moment: Ben Miller doesn’t deserve your mess.

“I don’t think we should have to continuously break ourselves to come out better in the end.”

And there it is. Laid out in front you, word for word. He doesn’t look at you, instead leaving the words to float in the air as he wraps his own hands, the movement much faster and less deliberate.

He doesn’t push, not for an answer, not for a reaction, but instead finished up his own wraps and shifts in his position.

“Copy me.”

You don’t question him, not sure if you’re afraid of what will follow if you do or if you just don’t have the mental capacity to do so. He continues to stretch, the movements reminiscent of yoga poses, almost cat-like in their fluidity.

The silence between you is neither here nor there, and the minutes pass evenly as your muscles protest slightly at the stretches they’re being exposed to. Across from you, Benny seems to be wrapping up the warm-up, and he returns to his initial position, sat on his knees, before rising completely off the ground and reaching his hand out towards you.

You take it and let him pull you off the ground, resisting the urge to dust down your jeans, and shift on your feet as you wait for him to make the next move. This is his territory: you’re not sure what’s expected of you.

The answer catches you off guard.

“Hit me.”

“Wha— I… No?” you frown, eyeing the blond stood a mere two steps away from you. The light in this room is bright and unkind, the kind that reminds you of frustrated tears over jeans that wouldn’t come up over your thighs even though they’re a size bigger than you’d normally wear. You’ve avoiding looking at the mirrors because of it, but looking at Benny, it highlights all the things that burrowed their way into your heart. The golden hue of his hair, the way his moustache never quite fills in above his cupid’s bow, the fact that his lashes are two tints darker than his hair.

“C’mon,” he urges. He holds up one hand, tapping it with the other. “Right there. With all you’ve got.”

“I’m not going to hit you!” you whisper-shout in return, as if it was the most outrageous thing he could’ve suggested. It was, in a way. You just expected a punching bag. The unalive, hanging-from-the-ceiling-on-a-chain kind. Not a living, breathing one.

He cracks a smile, and lowers his hands, taking a step forward and grabbing your wrists. You eye him with suspicion but let him move your arms until they’re in the position he wanted them. Elbows tucked to your sides, knuckles facing the sky. His hands move to your hips, and you fight the kneejerk reaction of shying away from his hands there, instead biting your cheek as he puts pressure to get you to move.

It takes him a few seconds to position you, but he seems content when he takes a step back.

“Thumbs go over your knuckles, never tucked inside.”

“I know. I’m—” You bite back the I’m not stupid that’s threatening to come out, not wanting to be rude. “I know,” you repeat quietly.

“Good. Now hit me.”

You drop your hands. “I’m not going to hit you!”

“Hit me.”

“No.”

“Hit me.”

Your jaw ticks as you meet his unfaltering gaze. “I don’t want to hit you.”

He shrugs. “Don’t care. Hit me.”

“I’m not going to hit you, Benny.”

“Why not? It’s not like I don’t get punched on a weekly basis.”

“Because I don’t want to.” Hurt you, your brain finishes. Too bad it’s too late for that.

“You won’t.”

You stiffen. Did you say that out loud?

“You won’t say it, but I know you’re thinking it. You won’t hurt me.”

You feel the corners of your mouth turn downwards, in a way that got you the comparison to Florence Pugh more than once already. You hate it when that happens: not so much the comparison, but rather what followed when you actually felt that movement on your face when it wasn’t on purpose. It meant the stinging feeling in your nose wasn’t far off, the tightening of your jaw and wet feeling of tears threatening to fall lurking not far behind it.

At that point, it takes a mild breeze for the dam to fully burst.

“You’re not gonna hurt me.”

“No.” The word comes out tight, already a brisk sound on its own but now amplified by the fight going on in your head. You stagger a step backwards, your chest rising and falling faster than it should. “I don’t—I’m not—”

“Look at me.”

You feverishly shake your head, avoiding his gaze at all costs as you roughly paw at your face, getting rid of the tears that made their way down without your permission.

“Peach, look at me.”

You take another step back backwards, putting distance between yourself and Benny, forcing yourself to take a deep breath. It ends up rattling through your chest, shaky in a way that reminds you of how it felt to cry when you were a kid.

You vaguely hear him call your name again, but it gets drowned out by the feeling crowding your chest. You both feel infinitely small and like you could burst out of your skin at the same time.

“Maisie.”

It’s like your struck by lightning, tearstained eyes immediately snapping to the man stood a few feet away.

He hasn’t called you by your actual name in years. Not even in letters you exchanged when he was deployed, or when he introduced you to Santi, Frankie, or even Will. Not even the one year he took you home to celebrate Christmas with his family.

He hasn’t used your name, your actual name in at least seven years, and by doing so, it feels like he shattered the windows, blew straight through the walls you put up.

By using your name, he took away the one barrier you had managed to maintain when everything else crumbled apart around you.

As you’re bolted to the floor, he closes the distance between you, his movements slow and deliberate as if you’re a deer he’s trying not to startle.

“I know,” he says, the calluses on his palm rough against your cheek as he holds your head between his hands, forcing you to look at him. “I know you think this is yours to bear, but I am here.” It comes out fierce, heated without any anger behind it. “I am here, and I want to carry it with you.”

You open your mouth to protest, shaking your head as much as his grip allows it, but he gives a gentle squeeze.

“I have the space to carry some of that burden, and I will do anything, and I mean anything, so you won’t buckle under it.” His jaw is tense and his eyes glisten in the fluorescent light. “Anything.”

“I can’t ask that,” you whisper, wrapping your fingers around his wrists.

“You’re not asking. And even if you were, I’d—I’d run into a fucking burning building. I’d run through a wildfire, I would sit with you through the night, I would hold you when it all becomes too much. I’d fight your inner demons with my bare fucking hands, I just need you to let me.”

For a moment, just a moment, time stops.

“Please.”

The word comes out broken, small, as if this was the most pain he has ever been exposed to.

You don’t have it in you to fight it anymore. It tumbles out before you can stop yourself.

“I’m not scared of dying, and that scares me so much I don’t know how to breathe some days. It just seems like an option that’s there, like getting a coffee or reading a book, and it terrifies me. There are days that’s all I feel like is waiting in the future, but I can’t put you through that, because I love you. I can’t make you give a eulogy at yet another funeral, and the reason why is wholly selfish, too, because I love you, and I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you. I know you don’t—”

“You don’t get to decide for me.”

You open and close your mouth, panic flooding your system as you realise what you just said.

“You’re right. I don’t want to bury you, I don’t want to give a eulogy at your funeral. I don’t want to do those things, because I want to live a life with you. I don’t want that to end before it even got a chance to start. So for the love of fucking god, Maisie, let me hold it. Let me carry that burden with you.”

#benny miller x oc #benny miller x reader #benny miller angst #triple frontier fanfic #triple frontier fanfiction #benny miller #benny miller x f!reader

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carryonmywaywardcaptain · 8 months

Note

@cosicas-cuquis I know I’m like a month late on this, but I. LOVE. YOUUUUUU.

Full disclosure, I was kind of in my feels about my birthday this year, having a very lonely existential crisis about crossing over into a new decade. 😅 I did pop on here to see if you remembered (because, historically, you have for years and it blows my mind) and I can’t tell you how much it meant to me! ❤️💖 I’ve always admired getting to see how many people you share your light with on here, and I think all the little personal details—like remembering birthdays or bombarding our inboxes with purposeful gifs of the obscenely attractive characters/celebs we adore—speak volumes to what a generous, thoughtful, and genuine human you are. I hope you never doubt the difference those seemingly small gestures mean to others.

Anywho, sorry it took me so long to get around to thanking you properly! I hope you know how rare, wonderful, and appreciated you are! Because you deserve a lil rant to tell you again 💁‍♀️

#Paula is da bomb #I’m but a lowly internet friend #but you always make me feel loved and valued #thank you for being you #tumblr buds #someday I hope I’m on here consistently again

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attheexactlyrighttimeandplace · 2 years

Text

I was tagged by @wvnjo to talk about the things that bring me comfort. Thank you lovely friend💗

Comfort movie? My Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki. All the films of Studio Ghibli speak to me on a spiritual level, but this one clears my soul of any negative feelings in a way that never has been matched by any other work of art. The aesthetic, the music, the slow pace and Miyazaki's philosophic principles that made Nature takes over the film and runs away with it, are endless source of calm and relaxation.

Comfort food? Chocolate first and second. In third place, pizza. Ice Cream and Sushi are favorites too but pure gluttony in my case.

Comfort clothing? Since I've gained weight, during summer and hot days it's mostly long sleeveless colorful dresses, with light cotton scarves if i'm outside.

Comfort song? Anything sang by Nina Simone. Her voice is the most soothing thing created by God on this Earth. During difficult days, listening to Feeling Good is mandatory.

Comfort book? Any volume of the Complete Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. I relate a lot to Charlie Brown and his little friends that never grew old and mature, and live in a perpetual existential crisis. The simplicity of the drawing and the situations brings me back to the summer holidays during my childhood at my grandparents house, when time seemed to stop.

Comfort game? The question is probably about video games, but I'm at heart a fan of board games because i never got to play them when i was a child (it wasn't in my parents culture). Now i play all the times with my nephews and my nieces : Scrabble, Cluedo, card games, Monopoly, all the classics as long as it's fun.

Tagging @teainthegarden @twoflower888 @ibrividi @musicboxmemories

#ask games #wvnjo

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reidjumpers · 3 years

Text

Ok but imagine friendship with The BAU

You get invited into all of the girl’s nights out with the girls. JJ would definitely act like a mother hen at first, being the designated driver despite the fact that most of the time Will ended up picking everyone up and driving them home. She will become a lot more relaxed after a drink or two and batshit crazy when she is drunk that you have to sit down and gape the first time you witness it. She always complained and regretted it the next day and swore she would never be that drunk again.

I imagine that Emily is the type of best friend that will listen to your crazy ideas you propose when you get bored. She will sends you half amused and half exasperated look before Ok, you know what, that sounds only half bad let’s fucking do it and JJ will sprint so fast every time those words were coming from either of you and WHAT ARE YOU GUYS UP TO THIS TIME????

Garcia is nothing but a sweetheart, she is the main person who aid you and Emily’s stupid decisions and crazy ideas and turn blind eye every time someone asking who the fuck did this. A lot of times she is actually the mastermind behind all of the crazy shenanigan you guys up to. JJ will supervise but didn’t really put enough effort to really stop you and Emily to do it. She secretly finds it amusing but refuses to encourage bad behavior.

Garcia will also be the type of friend who does sweet things to you, buys you the best gifts on your birthday, and will bake your favorite cookies when she notices you’re a little down or after coming back from a particularly hard case. She offers the warmest and best hugs and somehow always finds the best place to spend the girl’s night out. Literally, like, Garcia how the hell you find this place with a great discount

Friendship with Morgan will be brother-like one honestly. He is such a sweet, annoying older brother who will tease you and poke you at any chance he gets and he somehow always has a lot of occasions to do that. He also gives the best brotherly advice, especially when you randomly experience an existential crisis and did I really leave any impact in this world and he would take you on a long drive just to talk about it. When a date went wrong he is on speed dial and would suspiciously break numerous laws just to pick you up from the restaurant although he never admits it. Whenever you get paired on a case and have to drive together, you guys would do a carpool karaoke session just to diffuse the tension (and nauseating fear of any inevitable peril awaiting) and “Oh my god Morgan you like Taylor Swift?” and he gives you a look and says “Who the hell doesn’t? Turn the volume up, I like this one.”

Hotch will be the exasperated father-slash-bother figure to you. He will give you narrow eyes and a suspicious look that says what are you up to this time but not-so-secretly find it amusing and like Garcia he will turn a blind eye whenever he can. Sometimes when the day is slow and only filled with paperworks he will go out of his office and send you a look and ask “Are you seriously playing paper toss in the bullpen right now?” and you were so ready to be given a pep talk about office professionality and all and he just gave you a rare smile and said “that’s a really bad aim.” He sometimes get absolutely concerned but overall unfazed whenever you and Emily up for something, most of the time when he is too tired to deal with it he just pretend nothing happened

Rossi is that one fun and a little drunk uncle who secretly feeds his niece candies behind the parent’s back, except he is giving you chances to do shits and will keep his mouth shut. He likes to feed everyone homemade pasta and you made a secret deal with him to exchange recipes. You will tell him some of your few homemade recipes from your grandmother and he will happily give you his family recipes too. He somehow treats the whole ordeal like a secret and illegal transaction and speaks like it is one that Hotch was concerned about for a little while.

Well, with Spencer, (since this blog is about romancing him so in this narrative we’ll also be romancing him), before you guys were dating, you guys were really good friends too. You would go to him and ask him randomly about book recommendations and he would lit up and give you a long ass list about a must-read book and where to find them. You’d listen to him rambling and sometimes gently tell him to slow down. I didn’t catch your words and you’d introduce him to Ghibli Movies and he would love Spirited Away the most. You also made him watch reality tv shows and he couldn’t really understand why you found it amusing but he dutifully watched it. You secretly aided him in his prank war with Morgan but absolutely no one knew and you boldly told everyone (but him) that Morgan and Reid’s prank war is none of your business.

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ezrasarm · 3 years

Text

Coming Out As Asexual/Aspec

Pairings: Javier Pena x reader, Marcus Pike x reader, Din Djarin x reader, Ezra x reader, Frankie Morales x reader

Word count: 2.3K (oops)

Warnings: discussions of sexuality, depictions of main characters as Aspec

A/n: I apologize these were meant to be head canons and a few of them wound up turning into mini fics. I would like to thank @dishonouringmycow for supplying many ideas and helping me concoct these for you and @kiss-evans for her insight as well. These were a lot of fun to write! We’ve written these HCs in hopes that they will be inclusive and relatable to most ace/demi-/greysexual folks and anyone in between. We hope you like them!

[masterlist]

Javier Peña

Telling Javi is a little tricky.

Given the time period, and the fact that asexuality was hardly a word let alone a widely accepted concept, Javier didn’t stand a chance when you went about explaining to him your “unconventional” relationship with sexual attraction.

You didn’t even fully understand it yourself at that point which is why you were terrified when you felt you owed him an explanation for turning him down.

You and Javi had been dancing around each other since pretty much the moment you landed in Bogata.

You knew you cared about him more than the average coworker and Steve didn’t hesitate to tease either of you mercilessly for it with every chance he got.

But there was a reason you had been avoiding acting on those feelings you harboured for him and a reason you were so terrified when he reciprocated them.

Silence overwhelms the small stakeout vehicle when you tell him.

He doesn’t get it.

“Oh.”

The disappointment that pours off of him is palpable.

This really wasn’t the reaction he was expecting to the heartfelt confession he had mustered up the courage for only moments ago.

“Javi,” You sigh, “It’s not like that. It’s not personal. I don’t feel attracted to anyone that way.” You reiterate but he still seems convinced that this is just an elaborate attempt to spare his feelings.

“You don’t have to do that, you know? You don’t have to let me down easy.”

“That’s not what this is. I really just don’t operate that way.”

You had seen the girls coming and going from his apartment across the hall. You knew how he chose to blow off steam after stressful days at work and you knew you couldn’t keep up with that.

“I don’t think I can be there for you like you want me to.”

It takes a moment for it to dawn on him what you mean and you think he finally takes the hint when another ‘oh’ escapes him.

“I don’t need-“ He starts up but cuts himself off when you give him a pointed look.

“I really, really wanted this to work.” He says after what feels like hours of you discussing all the reasons you would wind up resenting each other if you went down that path. All the fears you had of starting something up with him.

“Me too.” You hum solemnly when you deflate to lean into his side and rest your head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

He’s quick to shake his head and whisper a quiet “Don’t apologize.” When he wraps an arm around you and places a kiss to the top of your head.

You both walk away from that stakeout with heavy hearts but lighter shoulders and although it takes some time to heal you learn to show how much you care about each other in different ways.

Now he slings an arm around your shoulders when you’re getting unwanted attention on a night out.

You stay up drinking with him so he doesn’t have to brood alone after a particularly tiring day.

Soft touches and reassuring words come easier between you two.

Most importantly you’re both happy and you haven’t lost each other.

Marcus Pike

Marcus is a little less clueless.

He knows Asexuality exists and has a vague sense of what it is, he just doesn’t know a whole lot about it.

There’s not much pressure when you tell him.

It comes as a bit of a disclaimer early in your relationship and you try not to make a big deal of it. You just want to make sure that he’s aware as your relationship progresses.

Marcus, ever the sweet and compassionate boyfriend is attentive and understanding as you speak.

The words that seem to stick out in his mind come at the only point when the slightest bit of doubt weens it’s way into your voice, “I just wanted to make sure that that’s- that I’m enough for you.”

His heart stops and he’s overcome by a feeling of both shock and sorrow that you could ever think such a thing of yourself.

“Of course. Of course, you’re enough.”

“You’re more than enough. You’re… you’re everything.”

What you don’t see is the way that after this conversation he finds himself wracking up more and more questions that he’s too scared to ask you. Not because he’s afraid of the answer but because he doesn’t want to overstep or make you uncomfortable.

So naturally, he turns to the next best thing.

The internet.

What he fails to realize is how broad a spectrum of asexuality there is and all he gets is more and more confused.

Marcus accidentally develops a following on Aspec Reddit forums for trying to ask people questions and them all just going “aww, Hun” at this poor clueless bean and swooning over how much he cares about you.

Despite the enthusiasm and volume of their responses, they don’t really add much clarity beyond “Hey, maybe you should ask your SO”

Instead, he runs around treating you like glass while he tries to buck up the courage to actually talk to you about it until on a movie night as he awkwardly tries to contort himself around you so he’s cuddling you… without touching you, you finally snap.

“Marcus! What is going on?”

That’s when he finally and rather sheepishly admits that he wants you to tell him more about your sexuality.

“Oh.”

You pause the movie and give him your full attention as you try and talk him through as much as you’re able to explain until suddenly you’re stuck for an answer and you look up at him with rather watery eyes as you admit you have no idea and suddenly you’re the one having the existential crisis.

“Oh, oh no. It’s alright, we can figure it out together! Shhh, it’s all fine. Please don’t cry! Reddit didn’t tell me this would happen!”

“Who-ddit?”

Din Djarin

Coming out to Din is rather anticlimactic.

He doesn’t have much to say beyond “Okay.”

You’re a little confused at first.

That went… too well.

It’s a while later when he brings it up again that you begin to realize why.

There’s no hesitation or taboo, he’s quite straight forward when he asks why you were so nervous.

At first, you’re not so sure what to say. Wasn’t that kind of obvious?

“Not everyone takes it so well.” You shrug thinking back to past relationships where your partners seemed to expect you to give them more than you were willing to.

You could practically see the gears turning behind his visor and it’s only now that you connect the dots and his reaction from before seems to add up.

To him, that was the norm.

It makes sense the more you think about it.

In all the time you had spent travelling with him, all the objectively beautiful women, men and everyone else in between that had crossed your paths, all the slurs that had been thrown at him by drunkards in cantinas about how he fucks with all that armour on, all the rather compromising situations you had found yourself in with him before and you had never caught his gaze wander or heard him express any indication of interest in yourself or anyone in that way.

You had always put it down to his creed. As far as you were aware such things were forbidden for people of his faith but you’re left with an odd sense of comfort as you realized that wasn’t the case.

Perhaps this was his strange little way of letting you know you weren’t alone.

Ezra

When you met Ezra you were prepared for the worst.

A guy as cocky and loquacious as him and you just trying to keep your head down in the busy bar and enjoy your drink in peace after a rough day.

You didn’t have high hopes when he swung into the booth across from you and started down whatever elaborate story he had decided would impress you enough to get you into bed.

“It’s my missing appendage, isn’t it?” he asks when you quite clearly don’t bite.

He’s already moving to leave you be when your eyebrows knit together in confusion and your eyes blow wide as you’re hit with a sudden wave of guilt.

You had grown used to deflecting advances like this but something about the way he said it, the bold, charismatic man suddenly looking like a kicked puppy made your guts churn.

You didn’t normally give an explanation, you didn’t feel you owed anyone that, especially not a stranger and yet here you were.

“What? No! No, I actually think you’re very good looking and charming and all those things people look for in a partner, I’m just not particularly one for casual hookups.” You say looking around the room where you now felt wildly out of place with just about all of its inhabitants presumably looking to get laid or trying to forget someone they couldn’t do so with.

“...Or any hookups really.” You correct yourself and watch as the disappointed look on his face morphs into a glint of curiosity.

“You a uh- a spade?” He asks resettling into the booth, an oblivious smile settling on his cheeks when you laugh at him.

You spend until last-call deeply enthralled in conversation and comforted by one another’s company.

That’s all either of you were here for in the first place, to feel a little less lonely.

You’re only pried apart by the closing of the bar, the nag of sleep hot on your heels and the promise that this wouldn’t be the last you saw of each other.

Frankie Morales

Frankie knew you were asexual.

You had told him before, he just didn’t entirely understand what that meant until much later on.

He seemed familiar with the term but his knowledge of the concept didn’t seem to extend beyond a basic definition.

Frankie’s first wife was his first for a lot of things. First girlfriend, first kiss, first love, first lover, first breakup.

He took the divorce pretty hard, as anyone would.

They’d gotten married so young, before he was deployed, that the guys had never seen him single before and neither had he really.

It took a long time for him to recover and by then he was content. ‘not in a particularly big rush to start down the relationship path and get hurt again’ is how he had phrased it to you once in confidence.

But another factor that he failed to recognize fully at the time was that he just hadn’t found anyone he was interested in in that way.

He’d tried going on a couple of dates but none of them clicked and it just left him feeling more alone.

It was after Tom died, almost five years after his divorce that the guys finally called him on it.

At first they just assumed the way he had been acting was about Tom and in a sense it was, Tom was the only one who had been through a divorce before, he was the only one who really understood and talked him through it when the going got tough.

Will was the one to put the pieces together and realize that the issue wasn’t Tom so much as Frankie getting more and more tired of being on his own.

His intentions were well meaning. They were just trying to help.

All they wanted was to see him happy but the more the boys seemed to try and set him up, the more resistance they were met with and even Frankie couldn’t figure out why until he was sat, venting to you about it one night.

“How did you know you were ace?” He blurts out suddenly and you’re a little lost for words, you weren’t really expecting this conversation to go this way but it was obviously something he had been considering for a while.

“Sorry that wasn’t a fair question,” He says when he notices you’re struggling, “I just- they keep trying to set me up with, who I’m sure are some really great people, but it’s all on this little tiny screen and all you see are a couple photos and maybe a blurb if you’re lucky and there’s just no…”

“Connection?” You suggest. Those big puppy eyes shoot up to you from where they were fixed on the counter in front of him and he gives you a slight nod.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He sighs and your heart breaks a little looking at him like that before you round the counter and pull him into a hug. “I’ve felt attraction before but I look at the guys and it feels like it takes so much more for me to get to that point than them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” You assure him gently, brushing your fingers through his hair when you pull away to give him a reassuring smile. “Sounds like you could be on the asexuality spectrum.”

“There’s a spectrum?”

[masterlist]

Permanent Taglist: @agirllovespancakes @chaoticspaceidiot @engineeredfiction @pedropascalito @dreamgirl-67 @wickedfrsgrl @hillarymurray4 @din-damn-djarin @yespolkadotkitty @wille-zarr @oloreaa @browneyes-djarin @marydjarin @roxypeanut @opheliaelysia @cryptkeepersoul @prxtty-boah @aliciaxglasgow @elena-myth @theocatkov @bioticgoddess @edencherries @kandomeresbitch @mrsparknuts @hayley-the-comet @rachelxwayne @thirstworldproblemss @andriecastana @justanotherblonde23

Pedro Boys Taglist: @theravenreads @mrschiltoncat @seasonschange-butpeopledont @dishonouringmycow @deafspaceperson

#javier peña x reader #din djarin x reader #frankie morales x reader #marcus pike x reader #ezra (prospect) x reader #frankie catfish morales x reader #ace!reader #asexual!reader #demi!reader #demisexual!reader #greysexual!reader #graysexual!reader #frankie Morales x demi!reader

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bow-x-reader · 3 years

Note

Can I ask for a comfort scenario with Albedo, Xiao, and Kaeya with an s/o whose going through an existential crisis? There has been a lot of change recently in my life and I don't really know who I am or what I want anymore 🙃

oh dear, i understand... what a horrid feeling that is, one i sympathize with. i do hope these scenarios bring you comfort, and please do not hesitate to send me a message if you need an ear to bend 💚

word count: 555

warnings: slight existentialism, angst

~°.• ☆

understanding people is difficult for the alchemist. their moods, their preferences, their behaviours… all fascinating to observe, but hard to wrap his head around, so he didn't care to.

you, however, are an odd exception. albedo could never take his eyes off you the day you began your help with his research. he found you much more than just interesting, and in spending more time with you, he came to understand his own feelings towards you: love.

so when he found you at your desk with your head in your hands, he felt concerned, but he didn't know how to show it on his face.

" good… morning? " his tone hitched up with the unsure statement, and you couldn't hold back a bitter laugh.

" if only, if only. " you reply.

albedo's brows furrow, and he takes his sketchbook from his desk slowly. you were sassy at times, but this feels off. distant. cold like snow. it was dreadful to the blonde. clearing his throat, his head tilts away, and he casts his gaze out the window.

" if you wish to discuss the circumstances, i am all ears, " he says in a soft drawl. " though, i find i am not good with words of comfort. "

you sigh and rest your chin on your fist, staring at him while your legs cross. you watch as he pulls up a chair and sits across from you, charcoal in hand, sketchbook in his lap, ready to take notes. you choke back a scoff and rustle your own hair in frustration.

" i didn't know you were a therapist, too. alright then. "

and so you start. you talk about the ungodly detachment you feel from the world. from yourself. your body doesn't feel like yours. you don't feel yours. nothing is right and it makes your head spin. you want answers but there are none in sight and you don't know where to look.

as you speak, albedo scribbles notes in his sketchbook, nodding along and occasionally asking a question for clarification. it's frustrating, yes, but you know deep down that it's how he's trying to understand, in his own special way. the sentiment is a little reassuring in the end.

by the time you finish, he's still writing, and you fidget nervously in your seat. you worry he'll be upset with you, though you don't know why. he's never been upset with you before.

you snap from your thoughts when he stands and sets his materials down on his chair, walking around the desk to stand before you. you give him a confused look before he takes your face into his hands and presses your foreheads together. the sudden affection catches you off guard, but you feel oddly grounded by the action, so you close your eyes and gently put your hands over his.

" it's alright to be confused sometimes, my dear, " he says and kisses the tip of your nose. " but if you would like reassurance of your being, perhaps we could run some tests to see? "

you can't help but snort out a laugh. a pointless suggestion, but so naively precious that it warms your heart. it just lets you know he truly does care, and if you mean so much to him, then maybe you do exist. you're here, with albedo, and he won't let you forget it.

~°.• ☆

word count: 388

warnings: mentions of alcohol, slight existentialism, angst

~°.• ☆

" oh, kaeya, i can't take it! "

the cavalry captain jolts as you hit your hands on the desk, shaking your head and holding it afterwards. he walks over from the bookshelf he stood at to wrap his arms around you, shushing you under his breath and rocking you.

kaeya is always quick to use his body to comfort you, but you don't want just his touch. you want to hear his voice. you want to hear him say your name and affirm who you are. who are you? do you know? does he know? you let out a soft cry and try to hit the desk again, but he takes hold of your wrists, kissing your knuckles.

" don't just spoil me, " you whine, and he bats his eyelashes at you before tilting his head. " talk to me. "

" is that what you want? "

" hell if i know, kaeya! "

he shushes you again, carefully and sweetly, and he lets go of your hands. one finger tilts your head up into a gentle kiss and you try to enjoy it, but it doesn't feel real. nothing does.

you push yourself up and out of your chair, and kaeya wastes no time wrapping around your waist. you whine wordlessly at this, and try to push him off, but he buries his face in the cook of your neck with a whimper of his own. sighing, you lean against him and cross your arms.

" i'm sorry, [y/n], " he sighs himself now. " i love you so much, but i don't know how to help. do you want a drink? i find it easier to open up when i can't think straight. "

a horrible idea, really. you can never tell right from left when drunk, but kaeya has told you before that you talk often when drunk, so he probably doesn't know any better. you turn your head to kiss his temple, but still reach a hand up to gently tug his hair. he grunts and gives you a sad look, but it fades into worry when he sees the tears in your eyes.

" can you say that again? " you ask shakily.

he understands immediately.

" i love you. "

" say my name… "

" i love you, [y/n]. my [y/n]. my one and only. "

" that's how you can help. don't stop, please. "

" anything for you. "

~°.• ☆

word count: 352

warnings: slight existentialism, angst

~°.• ☆

it isn't rare for you to visit wangshu inn, seeing as it was the one place you could consistently find your lover, but this is the first time xiao had seen you so upset upon his summoning.

your face tinted red with frustration, eyes shimmering with unshed tears. you saw him beginning to get upset and figure he thinks someone has hurt you, but the only one hurting you is yourself… right? you let out a broken sob and your arms fly around xiao's waist catching him off guard as he puts his hands on your shoulders.

" what happened? are you hurt? " his tone is flat, but you can tell there's hints of concern sprinkled in, and you squeeze him close to you.

" i don't know! " you cry out, and he barely flinches at the volume.

you struggle to vocalize your feelings, between choking on tears and not knowing just how to word your thoughts. it feels like your brain is floating in the stars, picked apart and scattered all over to match the glimmering array.

yet xiao seems to understand, and his arms slowly wrap around your shoulders, pulling you against his chest. he runs a hand through your hair and scratches your scalp, other hand rubbing gentle circles on your skin. the precious touches threaten to draw out more tears and you nearly pull away, humiliated, but xiao sinks to his knees and takes you with him, adjusting so you sit in his lap.

" let it out, " his voice is barely above a whisper, but you hear it loud and clear in the night despite the blood rushing in your ears. " i'm here, [y/n]. we're here. "

and so you do. you shake and cry for what feels like hours, and the yaksha holds your through it the whole time.

afterwards, you still don't have yourself in one piece, but he assures you that he'll come when called again. you ask him to stay the night with you at the inn, and with slight hesitance, he agrees, only to ensure your safety.

and that's all you could ask of him.

#♡~ stories!#genshin impact #x reader #albedo #kaeya #xiao #existentialism #angst

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wordacrosstime · 2 years

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The Man Who Died

[The Man Who Died. By Antti Tuomainen. Translated by David Hackston. Orenda Books Ltd. 10 October 2017. 300 pages. Paperback. ISBN 9781910633847 (publication details thanks to Orenda Books Ltd]

I am partially Finnish – 25%, to be precise, through my mother’s side of the family. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to cherish this part of my heritage more and more, as I realize how unusual it is relative to many other ethnicities. I do not speak Finnish, but I enjoy learning about the various idiosyncrasies of the language, the people, the culture, and the nation of Finland. The volume under review here was a gift from my sister, who knows how much I appreciate the Finnish zeitgeist.

This offering from Antti Tuomainen actually represents a departure for the author, who is known as one of the premier exponents of what’s known as Scandinavian noir fiction. The book is a murder mystery with a twist (more on that in a moment). Stylistically, one is reminded of Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson or Peter Høeg. But Tuomainen injects considerable dark humor into his narrative, something none of the aforementioned authors broker in – their works dwell under a slate-grey sky, while this book basks at times in the Finnish summer and at times in its reflected glow.

At the heart of the story is Jaakko Kaunismaa, an entrepreneur in exotic mushrooms living in the (fictional) town of Hamina in southeastern Finland. The narrative is told in first-person style, giving us access to Jaakko’s unique insights and ruminations. Now for that twist: Jaakko is actually murdered. At the outset of the novel, he learns that he has been systematically poisoned by a person or persons unknown using a sophisticated toxin or toxins that the doctors cannot identify. The only thing the medical professionals know for sure is that Jaakko is a dead man walking. He may have days, weeks, or months to live – there is no consensus. No antidote or organ transplant can save him; he’s too far gone.

Cue the existential crisis of the lifetime (literally!) for our hero. As with the film, DOA (either the 1949 film starring Edmund O’Brien or the 1988 remake starring Dennis Quaid), this leaves the protagonist with a limited amount of time and energy to try and figure out who has murdered him and why. It could be his energetic but wayward wife Taina. It could be the principal mechanic and general dogs-body at the mushroom plant Petri. It could be his product drying expert Olli. Or it could be a new faction that has arrived on the Hamina mushroom scene in the person of three nemeses Asko, Sami and Tomi. Others figure in the absurdist tableaux as well. Jaakko’s trajectory through the story features encounters with a samurai sword, a dogged Lieutenant Columbo-style police detective named Tikkanen, shadowy Japanese clients of the exotic mushroom business, and Jaakko’s own increasingly fevered imagination. Tuomainen’s descriptive skill puts the story on cinematic footing; every misadventure and incident plays out fully in the reader’s mind. In the end it is almost irrelevant who poisoned Jaakko – justice has been rendered to a number of the principals in the drama, sometimes in the most tragicomic fashion possible.

After reading this, I am seriously tempted to look into Tuomainen’s other work, knowing full well that he is not a murder-mystery writer at heart. Just his peculiar and oblique view of life is enough to pique my interest. But even if you’re only a mystery fan, this will still be the book for you. Enjoy the ride, but strap in tight – it’s a bumpy one!

Kevin Gillette

Words Across Time

29 March 2022

wordsacrosstime

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scepticiismresources · 3 years

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“the house in the cerulean sea” sentence starters

“And how often do you – er, you know? Make things float?”

“Sometimes, we can’t always control the... gifts we’re given. And it’s not ncessarily the fault of those with said gifts.”

“It’s never polite to revel in the suffering of others.”

“Put on your pajamas and that old record player of yours and dance around the living room as you do.”

“I’m not even sure if I’m here.”

“Sounds like quite the existential crisis. Perhaps consider having it somewhere else.”

“You’ll probably end up murdered. Crime is on the rise, you know.”

“You act like you’ve never – Say, have you never seen the ocean before?”

“Do you often speak without saying anything at all?”

“I thought you would be much younger.”

“You’re smarter than you look.”

“Hate is a waste of time. I’m far too busy to hate anything.”

“You’re trespassing, and you should leave before I bury you here in my garden.”

“I’ve never buried anyone before. It would be a learning experience for the both of us.”

“Do you often greet your guests with threads of death and destruction?”

“They didn’t tell you what you were walking into, did they?”

“I think you’ll find the impossible is more accessible here than you were led to believe.”

“I am but paper. Brittle and thin.”

“Your observation skills are astounding.”

“Death is wonderful to music. It makes the singers sound like ghosts.”

“I hope you’re going to do the right thing.”

“You’re going to get us all viciously murdered if you keep talking.”

“The only thing that smells foul here is [name].”

“Good job not dying!”

“I don’t know how to be anyone but who I already am.”

“Men are stupid creatures.”

“All I want you to do is come home.”

“I like dead things. I would still like you if you were dead. Maybe even more.”

“I can tell you when you’re going to die.”

“You should probably get out more if that impressed you.”

“How am I supposed to dig up dead bodies without my shovel?”

“Why didn’t I know this? What else has been kept from me?”

“We absolutely cannot push her down and steal it.”

“It’s funny, right? That there’s so much hope even when it doesn’t seem like it.”

“He’s not dead. I didn’t think that would make [name] too happy, so I let him keep his insides on the inside.”

“I want to be just like you when I grow up.”

“If I wanted to, I could have exploded him with the power of my mind.”

“We don’t melt people’s organs. It’s not polite.”

“When you’re constantly in the dark, time gets... slippery.”

“You make me feel like I’m burning up from the inside out.”

“And what a lovely person you are.”

“Do you really think so little of me?”

“It’s better if I don’t tell you. It’ll only make you worry.”

“Staring death in the face is vastly overrated.”

“I never want to be an adult. It sounds boring.”

“I know I will miss you.”

“I thought you died or something.”

“I told you once I don’t like being disappointed, and you are very close to disappointing me.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes volume is needed to get through thick skulls.”

“What on earth are you wearing?”

“I might have done something... illegal?”

“Did you do something I should be aware of?”

#sentence starters #literature starters

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hauntedfurydreamer · 2 years

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My 5 must-read books:

1: A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

From the moment we meet Alex and his three droogs in the Korova milk bar, drinking moloko with vellocet or synthemesc and wondering whether to chat up the devotchkas at the counter or tolchock some old veck in an alley, it’s clear that normal novelistic conventions do not apply. Anthony Burgess’s slim volume about a violent near-future where aversion therapy is used on feral youth who speak Nadsat and commit rape and murder, is a dystopian masterpiece.

---

2: Dracula, Bram Stoker

Whatever passed between Irish theatre manager Bram Stoker and the Hungarian traveller and writer Ármin Vámbéry when they met in London and talked of the Carpathian Mountains, it incubated in the Gothic imagination of Stoker into a work that has had an incalculable influence on Western culture. It’s not hard to read the Count as a shadowy sexual figure surprising straitlaced Victorian England in their beds, but in Stoker’s hands he’s also bloody creepy.

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3. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

n the post-Napoleonic era, Edmond Dantès, a young sailor from Marseilles, is poised to become captain of his own ship and to marry his beloved. But spiteful enemies provoke his arrest, condemning him to lifelong imprisonment. Then Edmond’s sole companion in prison reveals his secret plan of escape and a letter with directions to hidden riches on the island of Monte Cristo—a treasure trove that will eventually fund Edmund’s dream of creating a new identity for himself: the mysterious and powerful Count of Monte Cristo.

In The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas employed all the elements of compelling drama—suspense, intrigue, love, vengeance, rousing adventure, and the triumph of good over evil—that contribute to this classic story’s irresistible and timeless appeal.

---

4: The Trial, Franz Kafka

“Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K…” So begins Kafka’s nightmarish tale of a man trapped in an unfathomable bureaucratic process after being arrested by two agents from an unidentified office for a crime they’re not allowed to tell him about. Foreshadowing the antisemitism of Nazi-occupied Europe, as well as the methods of the Stasi, KGB, and StB, it’s an unsettling, at times bewildering, tale with chilling resonance.

---

5: War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

At its core War and Peace is a book about people trying to find their footing in a world being turned upside down by war, social and political change, and spiritual confusion. The existential angst of Tolstoy and his characters is entirely familiar to those of us living at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and his novel has important things to say to us in this moment. Over and over again the book shows how moments of crisis can either shut us down or open us up, helping us to tap into our deepest reservoirs of strength and creativity.

---

#movies #writing #ya books #old books #habits #reading #long reads #read in 2021 #bookworm #bookish #book quotes #booknerd #bookaddict

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autopotion · 3 years

Note

5, 6, 9

5: A popular series/game you just can’t get into no matter how much you try?

i'm just like @catiuapavel re: pokemon. i played it a bunch as a kid, but these days none of the games can hold my interest, i find the premise extremely boring. battling and catching cute animals just doesn't keep my attention for the sheer length of those games. it's also the kind of thing i wish i was into, because It's Huge, but i also don't feel like i'm missing out because i've got other things i can be into. i felt some FOMO when pokemon go was a huge thing, but that's mostly because i didn't even have a smart phone then, so i couldn't have played even if i wanted to (which i did, just so i could play with friends)

6: A game that’s changed you the most?

this is a tough question. i'm nixing any games from my childhood because i don't feel like they "changed" me as much as they established my interests/character. (who was i when i was five years old? a five-year-old.) so final fantasy tactics is out, because that one is more amy-defining than it is amy-changing (though i feel like i've grown into it and continue to find things to love about it, twenty fucking years later). i'm actually gonna answer this question in phases.

high school: final fantasy ix. i like ffvii better, but that's mostly nostalgia; like other people who have mentioned this already, ffix's narrative has an extraordinarily unique relationship with death that completely changed how i feel about it as a person, and what it means to face it. it gave me like a baby existential crisis, but a good one.

university: i technically played assassin's creed games first, but i feel like getting into skyrim was the number one game-changer for me (lol). an entire world of video games that weren't just linear, tightly controlled rpgs or relaxing & simple adventure-platformers opened up to me after i mastered skyrim. skyrim was the game that got me from "gamer who only plays one specific genre" to "gamer who is willing to experiment and play with all kinds of different genres." the open world and real-time combat was so huge and terrifying to me when i first played it, but because skyrim is easy (relatively speaking, like it's easy for its genre) i was able to get over some fears and learn some new video game skills that have stayed with me since.

post-university: good lord but dragon age. it was the gay romances that drew me in and kept me there, i'd never experienced anything like it before in video games. i loved the date mechanics of ffvii, but dating aeris as cloud was different than dating aeris as me / as a woman, and dragon age like... as sad as it sounds, it offered the chance to play as a lesbian, which was really exhilarating the first go-round. it's still mind-boggling to me that people play it and do like... all the straight person romances. why???

recently: i'm still stewing over it but i think outer wilds is really one of the best games ever made and, like ffix, also has an extremely unique, refreshing, and also kind of terrifying approach to life & death, and i'm obsessed with it. i'll be chewing on this game for a long, long time, it's without peer tbh.

secondarily tales of the abyss has now surpassed a vast majority of jrpg titles i hold dear to my heart, like i'm talking most of the final fantasies, so that was fun to play. ALSO has a very good relationship with existence & with death, though imo it's more depressing than ffix (but like, worthwhile depressing)

sorry about the length of this question lol. it's hard to answer. i'm sure i will find another game somewhere down the line that will change me again, too.

9: A game you turn your volume off every time you play it?

i hate turning off the volume on video games!! the audio experience is CRUCIAL to my experience of playing a game. like i'm obsessed with footsteps sounds, for instance, those tiny audio details can drastically alter a game for me. i don't like to listen to or do anything else while playing games, i like to be focused in on what i'm doing. the only exceptions to this are if i'm doing something extraordinarily repetitive, like level grinding, and i'm getting tired of the battle music, so i'll put on a podcast or listen to music or something. but in general i prefer to be deeply engaged in the audio experience of playing a game

#officecyborg #quiznaibus #thanks beloved

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werenotacoupleyesyouare · 3 years

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Starling and The Fool’s friendship: why it failed

An analysis of two different ways to love

Okay I know I’m already on Ship of Destiny but I still can’t get out of my head the amazing duo that is Starling and the Fool.

They are both serious, goal oriented, competent people, but the moment they are left alone together they turn into basically preschoolers.

Like, take Starling, tragic backstory, big dreams, incredible talent and someone who’s never without a plan. She could outsmart anyone if she set her mind to it, and to be honest Fitz would have never gotten to the mountains if it wasn’t for her. But as soon as she meets the Fool, all of that flies out the window. They can’t stand each other, to a point where it becomes absolutely hilarious. Fitz of course gets caught in the middle of it, and even he can tell there is something weird going on between them. When he arrives to the mountains, Fitz has the first glimpse of the Fool’s life outside of him. They have built a life for themself in that village, and a pretty successful one too, despite dealing with mourning a friend and the huge prophet-existential-crisis that came along with it. The Fool is such a tragic character, I’m not even halfway through the books but the way they deal with the burden of being a prophet and knowing that their life doesn’t belong to them but to their quest, already speaks volumes. But even with all that on their shoulders, the Fool turns into a mean eith-grader as soon as Starling is in their field of view. These two bring out the teenager in each other, which is something neither of them had ever experienced before. Both Starling and the Fool have been forced to grow up too fast, one because of trauma and responsibility, the other for their life purpose (edit: just finished tawny man. Also trauma!), but they still never had a time to be stupid and careless. That’s why I think they were so drawn to one another, because even if through annoyance and rivalry, they recognized they could share something they never had.

Even if it’s through Fitz’s eyes, during the journey up the Skill road, we see Starling and the Fool grow closer, their dynamic developing from a rivalry to a reluctant friendship to becoming each other’s shoulder to cry on.

That’s where the trouble starts.

To fully understand the breach in their friendship, one needs to understand that Starling and the Fool are complete foils in the way they love and care for people.

Starling’s trauma led her to base her whole self worth on how desirable she is. She craves immediate intimacy and codependency in relationships, otherwise she’s afraid people will just leave her behind or take advantage of her. She needs to control people’s perception of her, she needs to know she can use their desire and attraction to her, need be. That’s why she’s so upset when Fitz rejects her initially, even though she has no real feelings for him.

On the other hand, the Fool is convinced that they can’t let themself become too close to people, because they know they will have to leave them eventually. They try to keep themself closed off, often masking their feelings with humor and insults, and even though they make an awful job of it, because as we’ve seen they become quickly attached to anyone who shows them any bit of affection, they keep this outlook of not being allowed to care for anyone otherwise they’ll end up hurting them. Really the only person the Fool is allowed to fully care for because they know they’ll spend their whole life with him is Fitz as he is the Catalyst to their Prophet. That is a huge factor in the Fool’s feelings for Fitz, because the one time they’re allowed to care for someone with no restraints, they instantly become dependent on them, and almost drown in the amount of love they allow themself to feel. Part of me always thinks that the Fool has so much love inside of them, and since they can’t put it anywhere they give it all to Fitz. (And they’re convinced that even the one person who they’re allowed to love will never love them the same way... ouch)

So while Starling cannot take part in a casual friendship and instead demands instant intimacy, the Fool gets scared easily and closes themself off.

This is why their friendship falls apart, two opposite extremes meet and clash, leaving no room for an actual relationship.

Starling responds to this rejection by undermining the Fool and getting closer to Fitz, with whom she believes she has more chances of keeping the control she so needs. This is a huge deal for her and the Fool, because Fitz had never been part of their little bubble. He was a topic they shared, multiple times we can see them teasing each other over how much they care for the man, but he had never been part of that little circle. Starling decides to burst that bubble because the air inside had become too uncomfortable for her to breathe in, and the Fool takes advantage of that to further close themself off as well. Fitz goes from being something the two of them had in common to a weapon to use against each other, so when the Fool tells Starling to go to him at the end of Assassin’s Quest, knowing perfectly that she has no real feelings for him and that she only really gave off that idea because it had become “their thing”, it completely shatters what they had once shared.

Starling and the Fool found in each other something they needed, but their friendship was doomed to fail from the start.

#realm of the elderlings #realm of the elderlings meta #rote fool #rote beloved #rote the fool #the fool #starling birdsong #rote starling #the farseer trilogy #analysis #assassin’s quest #fitzchivalry farseer #beloved #rote #greta reads

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grace-lost-in-space · 3 years

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Therapy - “What a Dum-Dum”

With anxious hands, I clutch the letter to my professor which my therapist asked me to write last week. I did it. I was brave—or at least that is what people often call me. The dictionary defines B-R-A-V-E as: ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage. Courage? There is that word again, creeping up from the pits of my stomach into the back of my throat. I can almost say it, but not quite. My entire life has been spent preparing to endure danger or pain—it is what I do best. I am best defined by that very sentence. Perhaps my mom should have been more creative in naming me.

I take a deep breath before using all of my energy to open the door to the lobby of my therapist’s office. Doing so forces my body to immediately retaliate with a loud wheeze. When people tell me to “take a deep breath”, they often forget that I have asthma and a dangerously low BMI, so this so-called simple therapeutic technique wreaks havoc on my body but, like the rule-follower that I am, I do it anyway. The door lets out a loud squeal as I concentrate all of my weight on pulling it open. A kind of foreshadowing, perhaps, of what is about to take place.

“Hi, Grace. I’ll let Legs know you’re here.” I hear from behind the reception desk. Ms. Rita recites the exact same line every Monday and Wednesday. I smile—although, I have no idea if it is visible through my mask. I respond by waving politely because I have not truly spoken in 11 months. Through the dizziness which insists on accompanying me to each and every appointment, I make my way to my usual chair and I sit. I begin counting soon after and I get to 137 before my therapist arrives in the entryway and says “Grace.” After one year together, I still only know her by her shoes and her voice. As I stand unsteadily, I wonder about this trend with social workers wearing riding boots. Is this an unwritten rule of their ethical code? Is there some sort of advertisement during NASW conferences? “Invest in THESE fine leather boots and you won’t BELIEVE how much progress YOUR clients will make! Order now for $10 off. You may qualify for an additional discount if you have feathered hair. Offer not available in Alaska and Hawaii.” I make a mental note that I must research this more and find an answer because it is a common theme of every social worker who has walked into and out of my life. Cue “these boots are made for walkin’…” lyrics. I stop myself before it gets too cheesy.

I walk slowly behind her and after what feels like an hour, I make my way into her dimly lit office and find solace in my usual black leather chair. Although it squeaks, it has been faithful for the past twelve months and it has seen me through many meltdowns, remaining sturdy as I hide behind it. Like clockwork, it squeaks as I sit down and I decide to give it grace since, after all, it has been the most consistent thing in my life for the past year. My feeding tube pump begins to beep, signaling a low battery, so I take out my charger and begrudgingly plug myself into the nearest outlet. “So, Grace,” she starts “how are you? Did you write the letter to Dr. W?” I respond by shoving the now crinkled papers into her lap, happy to rid myself of the trauma that haunts the wide-ruled pages.

Legs and I sit in silence (see what I did there?) as she reads the letter which took me three days to write. I look to my right, at the dusty mahogany brown bookshelf which is adorned with a mixture of exactly 42 stuffed animals, toys, and action figures—my doing, of course. There was a day where an exhausted Legs decided it would be best for me to organize the shelves rather than doing any sort of processing—so I did just that and, in doing so, ruined a perfectly good pair of fishnet tights. But, I digress.

After what feels like a less than sufficient amount of time to read this trauma-filled nightmare of a letter, she hands it back to me and says “Okay. Here you go. You can do whatever you want with it.” I look at her god-awful work boots as if I am looking into her eyes and I express obvious confusion. In true selective mutism fashion, I remain silent but my facial expression speaks volumes. I hastily shove the letter back at her and write on my note pad “you keep it.” I wait. What am I waiting for? That is a great question and one which Legs is also clearly eager to know the answer to. “So, how is pumping going?” She asks. Again, I glare at the hideous riding boots, wholly confused. Did I just spend three days writing this letter and disclosing mounds of trauma for her to read it and hand it back to me with no intention of processing it? Yes. Yes, I did.

I look back to the bookshelf and re-count each and every item which remains beautifully organized if I do say so myself. I follow the rules again and force a deep breath before writing “Why did he do it? Why did he pick me? Why did he do this to me?” Almost immediately, she shoots back with “because it made him happy. He liked it.” I decide instantly that another deep breath is necessary and I question my insanity because surely no therapist would say what she just said to me. I remain still—a defense mechanism which I have learned is often useless. Continued silence looms over both of us like the beginning of a funnel cloud—eerily still but preparing to invoke chaos—until she asks “Why do you read Harry Potter books and watch the movies?” More silence. I begin to question how those boots do not yet have holes in them from my hazel laser pointers. She finally answers her own question, as my pen remains frozen in my hand. “Because you like it. It makes you happy.”

My mouth gapes open which, thankfully, is hidden behind my Peppa Pig mask. I glance over to my right at the wall from which my feeding tube pump is getting its power. I realize that in order to run, I will first have to unplug myself which would surely be anticlimactic if I were to be so unlucky as to tangle the cord or trip over it. Unplugging yourself from the wall and leaving a therapy session seems simple enough but when you are accident prone and have a history of falling into bushes and rolling down hills, you learn to be cautious and question everything. I look around the room. No bushes. No hills. Only me and Legs and those atrocious riding boots. I stare down at my platform converse shoes. I wonder to myself why I choose to wear these shoes each week. These shoes are not optimal for running and I am a runner, or at least I am categorized as such in dusty medical charts which exist somewhere in what I imagine to be a damp basement of a two-star hospital. I make a mental note to never wear platform shoes to therapy again.

As I continue with my silent existential crisis, Legs takes an early exit ramp and asks about the sucker from our last session—the one she handed me on my way out the door during my last session. “Did you practice eating the sucker?” She asks. I nod and smile, with tears beginning to form in my eyes. When I cry, my eyes turn from hazel to green. It is an easy task to recognize when I have been crying. I wonder if Legs has noticed this. She turns slightly to her right and reaches into her candy dish which sits on another dusty brown table. She grabs a pineapple flavored sucker and holds it up in front of my face. “Here” she insists. Pineapple? Are there creatures that enjoy pineapple flavored Dum-Dums? And, furthermore, why are they called Dum-Dums? Who chose that name? Who thought, “Aha! We shall call these…Dum-Dums”? Again, I digress.

“You don’t want to be weird, right? You told me you don’t want to be called weird. It would be normal to eat a sucker. Normal people eat suckers.” Enticed by the idea of being called “normal,” (a rare occurrence in my world), I oblige. After 27 seconds, I manage to unwrap the sucker and put it against my lips. “Just eat it.” She says. Once again, I glare at The Boots. I manage to put the sucker—in all its sugary, pineapple glory—in my mouth and leave it there for exactly three seconds before the sensation becomes too much to handle. I smile as a steady stream of warm tears flows down my cheeks. I consider this progress, since it is the longest I have ever been able to keep a sucker in my mouth. My smile grows wider as I recognize this small victory and I feel truly proud of myself.

“Eh…that was…okay…I guess. But it wasn’t a good job. You could just eat it but you won’t. When you eat the whole thing, that will be a good job.” She says. I immediately break into a full fledged sob and I wonder just how green my eyes must be at this point. I sob, and I sob, and I sob. It feels as though the tears are endless. My Peppa mask is now heavy from absorbing tears and snot. This must be attractive.

And, at that moment, I manage to stutter over a word. “L_____.” If you are new to this circus, L is my previous therapist and a fellow boot-wearing social worker. “What?” Legs asks, obviously confused.

My sobs grow louder. My brain wants to tell her that she is acting like L but my mouth refuses to function properly. I manage a hurried glance at my pump charger and I consider making a now-or-never break for it. I somehow sputter three words like a lemon on a used car lot. “Please…be…nice.” I say. It takes exactly 14.5 seconds for me to vocalize these three words but, again, it is progress.

“I can’t understand what you’re saying but you are doing a good job with your words” Legs promises.

Still sobbing, I try again. “L______.” I stutter on the L but it comes out clearly.

“What?” She asks.

“Mean” I say, choking back tears.

“Did you say mean?” She asks.

I nod for “yes.”

“Well, I’ve got another patient, so I guess—“ she starts.

I interrupt her by yanking my pump charger out of the wall. I do so without proper planning and I let out a loud cry. I am not typically a loud crier. I am quite proficient in the art of “quiet tears.” Enduring many, many nights of various people hurting me has taught me to improve upon this skill. I try my very best to stop drowning in my own tears. I can feel it happening the same way it happened with L.

And I run. And I run. And I run.

Because I AM good at something: running.

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ellewritesathing · 4 years

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(Un)Requited - I.L. II

Summary: Isaac Lahey had gone through many twists and turns in his life, but none of them compared to the whiplash he got when you asked him to tutor you. With a few weeks until the end of the semester and the big dance coming up, he’s hoping to figure out a way to ask you to go with him before it’s too late.

Masterlist Prev. | Part 2

Word-count: 3.3k+

A/N: i’m sorry for taking forever to update this but!! here we are!! i hope you guys enjoy it!! 💕💕

“Life coaching?” Derek repeated, looking up from his book for the first time all morning. He hadn’t interrupted Isaac once or shown any sign that he was listening, and then all he said was two words.

Isaac tried to be offended by his tone, but honestly, the idea was a little ridiculous. He couldn’t blame Derek for thinking it was a dumb idea, especially after hearing thousands of dumb ideas from Erica and Boyd over the years.

“Yes. Life coaching,” Isaac said, folding his hands neatly in his lap.

“I think it’ll be good for him,” Erica said, grabbing an apple off the table. She started cutting it with a knife as she spoke, “I mean, it’s obvious that his life is in shambles.”

“Hey!” Isaac said defensively. It was true but she didn’t need to say it.

Erica shrugged and offered him a slice of her apple.

“Yeah, that was a little harsh,” Boyd said as he slid his oatmeal bowl away from him. Isaac was going to thank him but then he continued, “It’s only obvious to us because we live with him.”

“Hey!” Isaac whined.

Erica laughed and ate a slice of her apple, talking through her full mouth and offering cut pieces to Boyd. Their lighthearted bickering soon devolved into a fight, with threats of claws coming out and knowing comments about what would happen when the other slept. Isaac tried to be cool and calm about it, but Erica knew exactly how to push his buttons.

“Look, it doesn’t matter what you guys think anyway,” Isaac said eventually, arms crossed over his chest and breakfast untouched. “I’m doing it.”

Before Erica could snap at him, Derek got up and drew all the attention to himself. “Is it going to interfere with our plans?”

“No,” Isaac answered immediately. At least he didn’t think it would.

“Then do it…” Derek locked eyes with Isaac over an empty bowl of cereal that he was clearing away “-quietly.”

Isaac figured he must have pulled a face because all three of them started laughing and Derek was telling him to lighten up and that he was making a joke. He had to pretty wound up if Derek I-Never-Smile Hale was telling him to lighten up, but Isaac picked up what he meant: Isaac could spend all the time he wanted with you, but his duty to his pack came first.

Like you would ever want to get close enough to him to interfere with the pack, but a guy could dream.

---

The week could not have possibly gone by any slower, but eventually it ended and all Isaac had to do was wait it out until Monday ended (which took forever). Then it would be Tuesday. Then he could talk to you again, because then it would be the first of hopefully many tutoring sessions.

The fact that Isaac planned all this out was kind of embarrassing - and he knew he could never plan enough when it came to you because you made him act like an even bigger idiot than he already was - but is it so bad that he wanted to be prepared? That he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of you?

Now that he was sitting next to you, though, Isaac realized that he would never be prepared for you and he would never not embarrass himself. You were sitting next to him, looking like you just stepped out of a magazine shoot to boost literacy in teens; hands covered in ink, messy eraser shavings on the ends of your sweater, and deep lines of concentration on your face. And he couldn’t stop staring. It was embarrassing.

“I’m not getting it,” you said in a quiet voice. You sighed and sat back in your seat, clearly frustrated. “I’ll just marry up. I hear trophy wives never need to do algebra.”

Isaac laughed. “You’re not gonna be a trophy wife,” he said. He thought that would make you feel better but you raised an eyebrow at him. “Uh, I mean, of course you’ll be a trophy wife. You’re really hot- I mean. Anyone who ends up with you will be- I just meant that, you know, you’ll get this. You don’t have to-”

Now it was your turn to laugh. And though he panicked at first, your laugh eased all of Isaac’s worries and he relaxed into his seat … until you put your hand on his arm and sat up. You looked at him with kind eyes and made his heart beat out of his chest. “Show me again?” you asked with a smile.

“Yeah, sure,” Isaac said once he started breathing again. “Okay, so-” he took the pencil out of your hand “-The problem you have is that you don’t carry over your coefficients. See? Like this.”

When Isaac stole a glance at you out of the corner of his eye, you were biting your lip as you stared at his messy handwriting. Logically, he understood that you were trying to figure out the problem but irrationally he was cursing out his dad for breaking his hand because he was wasting too much time drawing comics. His handwriting had never recovered and he was convinced that you were staring at it and not the numbers on the page.

“Okay, coefficients. Got it,” you said with a small nod after a few seconds that felt like lifetimes. “And I add them?”

“No. Multiply.”

“Huh.” You got so quiet that Isaac could hear you breathing. He could do that before thanks to his super-senses, anyway, but you were so close now. It was different. It made him more flustered when you were inches away.

You reached over his arm for the hand that was holding the pencil and Isaac almost passed out. Were you trying to hold his hand? No, you were writing something. Should he let go? What was the protocol for this?

“Like this?” you asked when you were done, not noticing his existential crisis.

“Uh…” Isaac looked down and pretended to pay attention. Your handwriting looked perfect, but then again everything you did was perfect to him. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s perfect!”

“I did it?” you asked, frowning at the page. Isaac laughed and nodded, mumbling something encouraging that he didn’t pay attention to. “I did it!” You let go of his hand and lifted both of your hands in the air in surprise. It was adorable. You were adorable.

“You did it,” Isaac smiled. He sat up straighter and started flipping to another section in the textbook. “Ready to tackle something new?”

“No.” The words came out a little too fast and Isaac smiled at you again. “I just mean … I should practice this some more before we go on, right? Just to make sure.”

Isaac closed the book and shrugged lightly as he leaned back in his chair. “If that’s what you want, then sure.”

You laughed slightly at him and pushed some hair behind your ear. “You’re so sweet, Isaac. Thanks for this.”

“Yeah, of course,” Isaac said. His voice had dropped to a quieter volume and you held his gaze for a few seconds. He wasn’t sure what he did but it felt like time slowed down for that split second. Isaac would have given anything to know what you were thinking.

You spent the next fifteen minutes doing practice problems, and Isaac spent that time trying to focus on his English assignment - a task made undoubtedly more difficult whenever your knee accidentally brushed his leg. Who cared about Hamlet and his mommy issues when you were right there?

“Okay! Done!”

You beamed as you slid the piece of paper over to him. Your smile fell as Isaac started checking your answers, but he could have told you that you had nothing to worry about. Even if every answer was wrong, you’d get it eventually.

After checking them all, Isaac looked up at you and smiled at how anxious you were. You were biting your lip and your eyes were double the size as you waited for him to give his verdict.

“You’re going to be putting me out of business soon,” Isaac said, looking back down at the paper and sliding it over to you.

You laughed again and Isaac felt his heart melt in his chest. He’d be dead by the time finals week came around.

“Speaking of business,” you said as you let out a breath after filing the practise questions. You shifted in your chair to look at him, drumming your fingers on the table lightly. “When do you want to get together for me to teach you about girls?”

Your tone was playful but there was something in your voice that Isaac couldn’t place. That uncertainty, coupled with the fact that he’d forgotten that he asked you to do that, resulted in Isaac staring at you with wide eyes and a stumped expression.

He realised he had to say something so Isaac sputtered out the first words that came to his mind. “Friday? After school?”

“Don’t you have lacrosse practice then?” you asked. Isaac frowned slightly; he didn’t know that you knew he was on the team.

“Oh, right. That,” Isaac said awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. You laughed again and Isaac used that time to think of something to say. The weekend felt too far away to suggest it. Even if it was just a day later than Friday.

“I’ll tell you what,” you said with a smile as you started packing away your things. “I’ll sit in the stands while you practice. You can check my homework when you’re done. And then we can go to my place to talk things through. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Isaac exhaled. He couldn’t believe this was working or that you offered to sit through his lacrosse practise and then spend the rest of the afternoon with him.

“Perfect,” you smiled. You got up and shouldered your backpack, throwing a smile at him over your shoulder. “See you at practice, Lahey.”

God, did you just wink at him?

Isaac watched you walk away, and - once he deemed the distance to be enough - he slumped down in his chair and groaned. He was in way over his head. And he was only digging himself deeper. How was he going to get through practice without taking a ball to the face if he knew you were watching?

---

Lacrosse practice was going surprisingly well considering that Isaac had a heart attack every time he looked at the stands and saw you cheering him on instead of doing your homework. At least, Isaac thought it was going well until he saw the look on Coach’s face.

“Lahey! What the hell has gotten into you?”

The whole team was jogging back to the bench to be dismissed, and Isaac didn’t think he was that bad during the practice to warrant getting called out. Greenberg sucked way more than he did and Stiles can’t play for shit.

“Uh, I had something different for breakfast?” Isaac said uncertainly, turning his lacrosse stick over on itself as he spoke.

Coach looked at him like he was insane. Worse, actually: like he was Greenberg. But then he said, “Well, whatever that was you better keep eating it! You hear me? You were great out there!”

“I was?”

“This is why I’m not nice to any of you.” There was that glare again as Coach pointed his finger accusingly at Isaac. He shook his head and threw his arm in the direction of the locker rooms. “Hit the showers! You all stink!”

Isaac started heading that way when he saw you running down the bleachers with a notebook in your hands. His heart beat faster than when he thought Coach was going to kick him off the team.

“You were great!” You were beaming at him again. “I think. I know more about algebra than I do lacrosse.”

Isaac laughed. “Well, maybe I could show you how to play sometime,” he said with a small smile. He felt strangely at ease now that you were next to him.

“I’d like that,” you smiled, voice quiet again but still smiling. “Uh, do you want to check this before or after you shower?”

“I can do it now.” Isaac sat on the bench and read through your practice problems. “You missed a few but most of them are good. Solid B- work.”

"B-?” you repeated.

Isaac’s heart spiked. Was he supposed to lie to get you to like him? Was he supposed to just say everything was right?

“That’s great!” You took the notebook and pencil, staring at the ones Isaac had marked wrong. You didn’t even look up at him when you spoke next. “Go shower, I’ll be right here when you’re done!”

Though Isaac was confused and a little distrusting while he showered and changed, he still felt good about the interaction. It was the first time you two had spoken and he hadn’t stuttered - that was a start.

True to your words, you were sitting on the team bench when Isaac came out. You'd swapped the algebra homework for a book in the time he was gone and you didn't seem to notice him until he was right next to you.

“Pride and Prejudice,” Isaac said after reading over your shoulder. “The one with Keira Knightley is my favourite.”

“Mine too.” You looked up at him with a smile and closed the book. Your cheeks looked slightly flushed, but that was probably from all the sun and nothing he’d done. It was gone an instant anyway. “Are you ready to go?”

Isaac nodded and you got up, shouldering your bag. He picked up the notebook that was lying next to your bag and held onto it as the two of you walked towards your car.

“You carry my books, you’re smart, and like Pride and Prejudice?” you asked, nudging him with your elbow and giving him a smile. “Why do you need me to impress your dream girl? You seem like a real catch to me already.”

Isaac didn't know how to respond so he laughed and scratched the back of his head, mumbling something about not being so sure about that. He was quiet for most of the drive to your house, just stealing glimpses of you as you hummed along to the radio and giving you a quick thank you for giving him a ride when you stopped in the driveway.

He stayed a few steps behind you as you walked up to the front door and unlocked it. You let him in and dropped your bag inside, shaking off your jacket and kicking off your shoes. You said he could do the same, if he was comfortable, and flashed him another heart-stopping smile.

“I’ve just gotta feed Max,” you said. “Do you want something from the kitchen?”

“Just some water,” Isaac said politely.

“Sure thing.”

You motioned for him to follow and he did. Isaac watched as you filled up a bowl with dog food, and no sooner had you set it down had an Australian shepherd come bounding around the corner and into your leg.

“Hey, buddy,” you laughed, rubbing his back. “This is Isaac. He’s gonna be hanging around for a bit, okay? Hey, you’re not allergic to animals, right? It’s probably a little late to ask.”

“Me? Oh, uh, no. Don’t worry about it.” Isaac smiled and bent down to stick his hand out but Max didn’t like that. He barked and you jumped.

“Max!” You reprimanded him and tugged on his collar to keep him close to you. “Buddy, come on. Isaac’s a friend.”

Max simmered down so, after apologizing a few times and offering to take him to the yard, you turned to grab some glasses from the cupboard and Isaac decided to make his move. The only way to get Max to cut it out was to show him who he really was. So, while your back was turned, Isaac flashed his bright yellow eyes at the dog and watched his demeanor change.

Max let out a small whimper before padding over and curling up around Isaac’s feet.

“See, buddy, I knew you’d like him,” you said happily when you turned to find Isaac and Max. You handed Isaac his water and crouched to pet Max. Looking up at Isaac, you said, “I’m so sorry. Max is usually never like that with strangers.”

Isaac smiled, relieved that you didn’t suspect anything. “Yeah, no worries. We’re all good now.”

“Yeah, you are.” You smiled at him again and rubbed Max one last time before standing up and getting ready to walk out of the kitchen. “I was thinking we could just go to my room and talk for today?”

“You, uh- your room?” Isaac repeated, immediately reverting back to being nervous. He knew you obviously didn’t mean anything by it, but still. Erica and Cora were the only girls whose rooms he’d ever been in, and they both tried to kill him before he made it two feet in the door.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep the door open,” you said with a mischievous smile and Isaac mentally slapped himself for being so awkward. Then you added while the two of you were walking, “Plus, it’s not like anyone else is home,” and he tripped up the stairs.

Luckily you didn’t say anything about his literal and figurative misstep.

Isaac figured if he could just stop his heart from beating out of his chest, he might actually have a shot at pulling this off. That is, until he walked into your room and saw possibly the biggest, fluffiest, and angriest cat he’d ever seen. If Max had been a challenge, this cat would be a near impossible feat to get over.

Isaac hovered at the door, not taking his eyes off the cat. “You have a cat?”

“Oh, yeah.” You set your glass down and walked over to the bed, scooping up the ball of fluff. The cat made an upset sounding noise at being woken up, but started purring as soon as it realised it was in your arms. Jesus, that thing had to be bigger than your entire torso. “This is Magnus. I got him when Alex went off to college.”

“Oh.”

“You wanna pet him?” you asked, pulling increasingly adorable faces at the cat. You laughed when Magnus bonked his head into yours. “He’s a little grumpier than Max but he’ll warm up to you just the same.”

“Uh, sure,” Isaac lied. He reached out a tentative hand and Magnus swatted it away, claws and all. He made a low growling noise and leapt out of your arms.

“Ow!” You winced as Magnus jumped, clearly not expecting the abrupt motion. “Oh, my god, Isaac. Are you okay?”

You reached for Isaac’s hand and he almost blacked out. The jolt of electricity that started where your fingers grazed his hand and spread through the rest of his body surprised him. You were holding his hand in both of yours, inspecting it gently.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I don’t think he got me,” Isaac said quietly. You were so focused that speaking any louder felt wrong.

It also felt wrong to lie to you. Technically, Magnus had scratched him but it wasn’t deep so, in the seconds it took you to process what happened, the scratch had healed. Isaac was perfectly fine now.

You were still frowning at his hand, though, and Isaac worried he’d done something to mess it all up, that you could somehow sense he was lying.

“Hey,” Isaac said gently, turning his hand around so he was the one holding your hand. Aside from the minor cardiac attack it caused, it felt good. Meant to be. “I’m fine. Promise.”

“I could’ve sworn he scratched you,” you said, equally gentle and quiet. You shook your head and laughed under your breath. “You think I’m crazy now, don’t you?”

“There is literally nothing you could tell me that would make me think you’re crazy,” Isaac laughed. If you knew half the stuff he’d seen since joining Derek’s pack …

You gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand before pulling away. “So, you wanna get started?”

Part 3

Tagged: @ietss @lettherebelovex

#isaac lahey #teen wolf #isaac lahey imagine #isaac lahey fanfiction #isaac lahey x reader #(un)requited

130 notes · View notes

skinks · 4 years

Note

I would just like to say Bongo Smugglers killed me. I’m sitting in class giggling thinking about a Losers movie night where they have a dramatic showing of the movie. Audra and Richie are less embarrassed then they should be. It becomes an annual tradition to play a bongo smugglers™️ drinking game at Christmas.

AHH this is amazing, I just shoved two words together that I thought were funny and suddenly it’s this whole ugly 2002 sex comedy fully formed in my head. Glad it killed you during class. And yeah, they’re definitely not embarrassed, everyone’s heckling the writing and the early 2000s fashion more than anything else anyway.

Richie happily provides commentary the whole way through even though he’s only in the sex scene, waving his tortilla chip in Eddie’s face because he’s got his arm around his shoulder, hugging him close into Richie’s side. Eddie keeps snapping bites at it so often that Richie just ends up hand feeding him chips.

“Aaaaaaand... that’s the first time I touched a boob, right there!“

“Glad to help,” Audra winks.

“The exact moment I realized I was totally lying to myself. I’m having an entire existential sexuality crisis right there on camera, but can you tell? Does my fratty façade crack an inch?”

“I could tell, because you spent fifteen minutes before the scene pacing around set and chanting you can do this, you can do this, don’t throw up, you like girls, but not too much, because you don’t get paid if you pop a boner, c’mon Richard, c’mon—”

“Like I said,” Richie shouts, over all his stupid friends laughing at him, “no one can tell, ‘cus I’m a pro—”

“You call yourself Richard during pep talks?” Stan’s grinning at him sharp-beaked, like a vulture. Has Richie seen him blink even once since he came back from the dead? Not sure, not sure, make note to ask Patty to spy.

Onscreen Audra is shimmying down her low-rise stone-wash boot-cut jeans, boots with the fur, the whole club was in fact lookin’ at her. What the fuck was anyone thinking back then? Richie privately blames the Bush administration, and continues.

“You’re a great scene partner, Audra-my-deah, and I respect you for cougaring not one but two of our little balding Brady Bunch here, but you were kinda the reason I figured out I’m gay. Like, big time gay. Well, the second reason.” He rubs tortilla-salt fingers through Eddie’s hair and feels his stomach go fuzzy when Eddie kinda thrums out a low noise against him. Oh, he’s purring. Some deep down part of Richie’s caveman psyche, lodged right in the hungry reptilian nub of his central brain wants to bear-hug Eddie to a pulp, wants to Lenny him like a mouse until they both stop breathing at the same exact moment from the pressure.

Yeesh, dark!

He smooches one of Eddie’s Easter Island eyebrows instead, keeps his lips mushed there. Smooches again. “Biiiiiiig time.”

“My wife,” Bill whips around from his seat on the floor at Richie’s feet, cheeks bulging with wontons, “my wife did not cougar me.”

Eddie shushes him. Everyone else is exchanging Looks, including Audra, because she totally did cougar Bill. Good for her!

“My wife,” Richie mimics, all sing-song and bugling. “Who the fuck are you, Borat?” Eddie snorts, hard. “Turn around and watch me make sweet love to ya woman, Bill.”

Onscreen Richie is struggling out of a giant hockey jersey at the sight of Onscreen Audra’s nubile charms. Everything is lit terribly, to a Smash Mouth deep cut.

“Oh man, check out that figure.” Richie whistles at himself, twenty-six years old with muscles like long ropes. “These were the pre-gut days. Even though my diet was just Adderall and instant ramen.”

“I like your gut,” Eddie murmurs, squidging at it with the hand not shoved up the back of Richie’s shirt. He’s already looking pretty tipsy, because he told everyone loudly and at length that he’d have to be what he deemed, shithouse drunk, to cope with whatever 90 minute dick jokeathon he was about to endure for the sake of two minutes of Richie-ass. “You’re hotter than him.”

Richie preens. “I am him, dude.”

Eddie’s hand lands clumsy on his cheek, pulling Richie’s attention away from his own foregrounded bare ass and Onscreen Audra’s shocked expression, to face him. Eddie’s all unfocused, flushed in the cheeks. “You’re both hot. Him and you, I’d fuck you both. I’d let both of you fuck me at once.”

“Um,” says Ben. Mike keeps slorping up noodles, but his eyes are saucering at Bill’s giant TV.

“Hhohkaaay,” Richie breathes.

“Is this when you saw it, Audra?” Bev asks. She waggles her eyebrows at them from the muscular nook of Ben’s arms. “The famous Tower of Tozier? You mentioned in the group chat.”

“What group chat,” Richie croaks, wrenching his eyes from the sight of Eddie’s slick tongue pulsing gently against his lower lip, hanging open like he wants Richie to see inside his mouth. Yowza-yowza-yowza, this is so much better than movie-nights back in the 90s. “I never saw anything about that? And I monitor you all on WhatsApp twenty-four-sevs. I literally have nothing better to do while Eddie’s working.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Beverly dismisses him with a flick of her wrist.

Audra is nodding vigorously while Onscreen Audra tilts her head comically far to the right. “That’s when I saw it,” she says. “They couldn’t find a modesty sock that fit you, Richie, remember? I didn’t have to fake that reaction. And that’s with them blasting the A/C on high so my nips would poke through my shirt.” She nudges Eddie’s shin gently and stage-whispers, “Well done.”

Eddie growls hot miso breath into Richie’s neck. Snarls, really. That’s the only word for it. Richie’s not embarrassed—he’s been telling people about his donkey schlong for years, not his fault nobody ever believes him. It’s a boy who cried wolf situation, perhaps, if the boy was actually telling the truth every time and just wanted to brag to everyone about seeing a really big, thick wolf.

“Honey,” Bill says, visibly distressed, “this is already weird enough for me, please don’t say nips.”

“Nips, nips, nips.” Audra tickles into Bill’s ribs, and Richie joins in the chant, they all do. It’s a hailstorm of sesame toast raining on Big Bill’s protesting head. “Stiff nips! Stiff nips!”

“Shut up, I’m, uh’wanna see Rich fuck!” Eddie roars, wrestling the couch cushions for the remote and stabbing the volume obscenely loud.

Moans fill the air. Rice sprays from Mike’s mouth, between his hasty fingers. Patty is laughing so hard into Stan’s shoulder Richie would be kinda worried about her, if he wasn’t so distracted by the way Eddie’s leaning forward, hand on Richie’s thigh and eyes locked to Onscreen Richie’s bare bucking hips. He remembers this part horrible and clear, preserved behind glass in his mind like the embarrassing ninth grade school photo his mom still won’t remove from the mantelpiece. Braces like train tracks and his eyes squinted up small and moleish because his mom said she wanted to see his handsome face without his glasses for once. Eddie laughed at it for five whole minutes the first time Richie brought him up to visit mom and dad as his—as his, at last, before snapping a careful picture of the photo with his phone and muttering, so cute.

It’s the noises.

“This was the day I learned women really can, uh, fake orgasms,” Richie says. He coughs. Eddie’s fingers tighten on his thigh and he looks back at Richie over his shoulder, eyes all drunk and dark and dilated like a shark’s to the backdrop of Onscreen Richie and Audra’s plastic din. Richie’s head thumps dizzily, sliding his hand secret under Eddie’s shirt to the damp small of his back, watching his neck go pink. This, now this is familiar from 90s movie nights, how sweaty they’d get, tangled together like pocketed earbuds the longer the VHS spun. Always on the same couch by unspoken agreement, kicking and left to do so by the others, like the clubhouse hammock flirting was more RichieandEddie status quo than behaviour tethered to any one location. Feeling your heartbeat in your ears and everywhere your limbs are shoved between another sapling boy-body, and the couch.

Richie can see exactly what Eddie’s thinking, in that darkness. That’s not how you sound in bed with me.

“This is revolting,” says Stan, mildly, but Richie holds up his hand like a stop sign, pulled roughly back to the present.

“Wait, wait, here comes my line!”

“Thought you said it was a non-speaking—”

The camera cuts from Onscreen Audra’s bouncing breasts to Onscreen Richie’s slack-jawed face, his ill-conceived soul patch. He was asked to remove his glasses for the scene, he remembers, and was glad of it, feeling useless and young and stupid and exposed enough already just by virtue of needing the money, he didn’t need to see this perfectly nice and reasonable actress pity him for not even knowing how to pretend at being with a woman. Onscreen Richie tilts his chin up, and Bill’s entire rec room holds its breath. There will be bruises on Richie’s thigh tomorrow.

A grunt, a groan. An unsubtle trumpet fanfare musical cue on the soundtrack, but hey, neither of them ever claimed Bongo Smugglers was a masterpiece. “¡Ay, chihuahua!”

Richie throws his arms up in triumph. “All my own improv, folks! And they kept it in the final cut!”

Eruption. He’s pelted with howls of disgust and prawn crackers. Eddie grabs one of his arms and just shakes him, ragdolls Richie’s laughing body around until he tips over and sprawls into Eddie’s lap, shielded from assault. Eddie chews his insistent teeth into Richie’s shoulder, and finally, the scene ends with Onscreen Richie leaping a naked escape from Onscreen Audra’s balcony.

“Worst,” Eddie mumbles against Richie’s nape. “Worst thing’ve ever seening m’life.”

He’s so drunk, sweet thing. Richie sits back up, still wheezing. He rests his cheek on Eddie’s shoulder and gazes starrily up at his plastered little face. Steel-cut jaw softened with laughter and stubble, un-gelled hair curling around like a chestnut lamb’s. “Worst ever-ever?”

“No,” Eddie says plainly, and that’s true, “but it’s up there. Woulda rented the shit out of this at Blockbuster.”

Richie flings his leg over Eddie’s knees, kicking Bill in the process. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, gathering up all Richie’s loose ends in a big circling cuddle. “Every week. Woulda worn it out. Broke the disc.”

“Got your ‘Lil ‘Busters membership card revoked for being a creep.”

“Worth it.”

“Aw, Eddie-baby.”

“Would you two stop, you’re making the rest of us look bad,” Bev says, smiling fondly. The movie’s moved on, and none of them are really paying attention now that the main event’s over, but everyone’s still coming down, dismounting from belly-laughter and landing ankle-deep in giggles. “That was inspired.”

“He made me laugh so hard on that take,” Audra sighs, leaning against Bill. “I remember thinking, shame he’s a closet-case. I always knew you were a good guy under all that fake stand-up.” She rolls her head back on her neck to look at Richie, upside down. “D’you remember right after, too?”

“Ah,” says Richie, tensing up. Eddie must feel it, because he makes a lowing noise of concern and turns the volume down.

“What you did to those guys?”

“Ahaha, uh.” Richie struggles to sit upright with hot embarrassment tugging at his stomach. “They don’t need to—Audra, it’s not, anyone would’ve done the same—”

“No, actually, you were the only one who ever did,” Audra says, sharp-eyed, and Richie remembers that too. How much surer and in control of herself she was than him, even back then, when they were both just simple bottom-feeders on L.A.’s sludgy floor.

“What happened?” Patty asks. They’re all looking. Richie stares at the wall beside the TV’s garish over-saturation, scratches at the back of his neck, until Eddie takes his hand softly back to hold in his.

“I was pretty much always the only woman on set,” Audra explains. “Par for the course on a movie like that, it was whatever. It’s nothing like real sex, obviously, you have to stop and wait for lighting changes, new set-ups and stuff, you’re surrounded by crew. But you’re the only ones naked, and pretending to fuck, right? It can be a little.” She pulls a face, tilts her palm back and forth. “Degrading.”

Richie snorts, humorlessly.

“Anyway, that scene wrapped and they called cut, and a few of the guys in the crew said some stuff. About me. The director ignored it, the producer ignored it. I was used to it,” Audra says. Richie can see the edge of Bill’s jaw clench and re-clench like a fist as he watches his wife speak. Audra smiles widely, then, and jerks a thumb at Richie. “But this guy?”

They’re grinning, they’re all grinning, because they know him. Richie squirms under it. He can feel blood pounding behind his ears, across the surface of his scalp in pulsing waves of embarrassed heat, because it’s one thing to spend your life running your big fat Trashmouth to distract the bullies’ attention onto you, but it’s another for people to treat you like some kinda hero for it. Like it’s not just something friends do.

Bev’s eyes go all emerald-shiny with delight, like the quarry in sunlight. She covers her mouth. “Oh, Richie.”

“Knocked the first one out cold,” Audra crows. “You tried your best after that. It was three against one and he had a black eye before the rest of us could separate them, but he had the element of surprise at first. I mean, he flew at them, if you can imagine it—you’re what, six-one, six-two?”

Eddie’s trembling ever-so-slightly against him. Richie screws his eyes shut. “Six-two.”

“No wonder the asshole shit himself, you came at him all six-foot-two naked inches, pissed as hell, with a massive—”

“Alright!” Richie yelps, because if there’s anything more embarrassing than his brief Bongo Smugglers cameo, it’s the fact that he left set that day with a black eye and no money. Who cares. His closest friends are alive and they’re cheering, and Eddie is shoving himself into Richie’s lap just like it’s movie night in 1991 but with 100% more enthusiastic frenching, seating his drunk ass in Richie’s startled hands and hissing god, you’re such a crazy dumbass, I love you so much, Richie, even back then with that soul-patch I’d have loved you so much, god, sexy, Rich, wanna see you with a black eye, can I give you one, can you give me one, Richie, I’m gonna fuck you so good for this later, ay chihuahua—!

#long post #once again i did not mean to write over 2k about fake sex comedy Bongo Smugglers (2002) when i started answering this message #reddie #ficlet #bongo smugglers

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