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lovely-angst · 3 years

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break ups and break ins

a/n: i didn't have any motivation to continue writing so it stayed in my drafts for forever. it's a super messy fic im not super proud of tbh i wanted to scrap it but i got so far lol

genre: angst to fluff

pairing: hawks x reader

summary: you and hawks break up, but someone breaks in?

word count: 3.7k+

09.16.21

"come on, stop being so sensitive," hawks groans with an eye roll as you gawk at him. "you think i'm being sensitive because I'm hurt that you're out there flirting with other girls while we are in a relationship?"

you scoff in disbelief before tears form in your eyes, "i can't believe you right now, keigo."

hawks' brows knit as he stares at you bewildered, "i've already told you that it's just an act i have to out up because of the commission. i can't let them figure out i have a romantic relationship with someone. you don't know what they would do or could do."

"but that doesn't mean you can flirt around with no boundaries!" your voice comes out loud as your arms flail out in front of you, tears streaming down your face, "do you know how much it hurts to see you on television sweet-talking every girl out there when you're my boyfriend? i thought you would respect what we have..."

"(name), just admit you're just jealous of the fangirls and leave it at that," hawks closes his eyes, shaking his head in frustration, "honestly, they appreciate me so much more than you do."

your eyes widen in shock as you feel your heart shattering into tiny pieces so small you aren't sure if you could piece it back up.

"keigo, i love you for who you are—not because you're hawks," your voice now small and laced with hurt. "if you can't see the reason why i am so upset, i think it's best if we end it."

hawks' eyes quickly glance to yours before they look away just as quick, "i think that's what's best too," he whispers, causing your brows to furrow in sadness as you purse your lips tightly.

taking a step forward, you wrap your arms around your now ex-boyfriend, taking in his comforting arms and smell, "thanks for everything." a heavy sigh left from his lips before he nuzzled into you, "can i hold you in bed one last time?"

words died in your throat as you felt the tears sting your eyes once more. a nod was your only reply as hawks lifted the two of you up with his large wings, carrying you into the bedroom.

no words were exchanged as the two of you allowed your quiet breaths to mingle together in silence.

your heart was still achey from the fresh break-up as your cries and tears quietly filled the air. your nose and eyes red and raw from all the wiping you had done—the tissues around you as proof.

"hey, come on. you can't keep living like this and expect to get better," mirko says and she stands infront of you with a small smile. "how about we watch something to distract your mind?" she suggests as she turns around to pick up the controller to turn the television screen on.

"hawks, being the number two hero must be so taxing! how do you do it?"

hawks gives that big bright smile you've always loved, "my fans always give me motivation to do my best! i love you my babybirds!"

"oh shit-" mirko quickly turns the television screen off before she turns over to you, watching as your lips quiver before you break out in another crying session.

"rumi," you whine, muffled behind your tissues, "he doesn't care for me at all!" letting out a sigh, she walks over and places a comforting hand on your hair before running her hand through your locks, "hey, don't say that. hawks' cared for you a lot. break-ups happen, but don't let it keep you like this. let's go out and have some fun today, yeah?"

your teary eyes glance up at her before you let out sigh, "okay."

but to your surprise, a quick hour later here you were on a chair getting your makeup done professionally as mirko sat on the couch, munching away on a carrot. "rumi? why am i getting my makeup done professionally?"

"my makeup artist is good at what she does when she beats my face with makeup for those hero galas. i thought it would make you feel better getting your makeup done professionally before we go out and explore the city a bit," she finishes, taking another crunchy bite of her carrot.

a small, "oh" leaves your lips before your attention focuses back on the lipstick that gently glided across your lips. "there, all done. you look great!" the makeup artist cheers as she hands you a mirror.

your eyes sparkled once you saw your reflection—you had never felt so pretty before!

"are you ready to go out now?" mirko asks with a smile as she stands from her seat. you couldn't help the small, yet excited, smile, "yeah."

your words had been on repeat in hawks' mind.

you were upset because of how he was treating his fans—flirting with his fans as you put it. it was a constant argument the two of you had and frankly, he was getting tired of it. why you couldn't understand where he was coming from?

he didn't want to break up because of something so trivial, but it seemed like a break up was the only option. but it was fine, his fans kept him going; or that's what he thought was keeping him going.

"hawks! we love you!" his fans cried as he landed down in front of them, his handsome smile swooning everyone lucky enough to get their eye on him. "thanks birdies! i'm always happy to have your support!"

"can i have a picture?" "sign my shirt for me!" "you're the best hero!"

fans; something he enjoyed about being a hero. everywhere he went, they were there to offer him their love and support which he appreciated and loved!

but there often came days when he just wanted to stay cooped in his apartment. away from the world and away from the hero hawks. he simply wanted to escape and enjoy being keigo for a little while.

maintaining a facade took a lot away from him. it was tiring, exhausting even, trying to keep up with how fast his mind was going. a million different things happening at once and hawks had to be able to solve them. a little much for a single guy, don't 'cha think?

landing in at his balcony, hawks let out a heavy sigh as he was finally done with another tiring day of being the number two hero. thankfully, he had the next day off to do, well, nothing.

staring at the dark apartment with a an empty look, hawks let out a groan of exhaustion before unlocking the door and stepping in.

it was quiet, extra quiet these days. since he had gone to living by himself again.

after removing his hero gear, hawks walked into the kitchen and frowned at his lack of food in the fridge. usually, you were always there to greet him with a smile and a hearty dinner after a hard day at work.

well, that didn't matter anymore because you two had broken up, hawks mentally responded to his thoughts.

it seemed like tonight was one of those nights he really missed you.

you made this place feel like home and the more he thought about it, you were his home. he was safe with you and it was okay to let hawks go for the night and just be keigo. you loved him as he came, his flaws and everything. even the emotional baggage!

letting out an exhausted sigh, hawks closed his empty fridge before making his way towards his bed, plopping down with a grunt. "i'll just get a bigger breakfast tomorrow," he noted, pulling out his phone to catch up on his social media for the night.

hawks wasn't expecting to see much on his social media, he's too busy to be checking these sorts of things. today though, he was a little extra bored at home—until he saw a photo of you that mirko shared.

hawks quickly sat up in disbelief. hawks was genuinely confused. you had always been super pretty, but you were extra pretty in this picture. was it because you were no longer his? his eyes glanced over you in the photo for many long minutes as he took in your beauty. you looked so ethereal.

hawks was so thankful for mirko, he would have never stumbled across this photo of you.

the more he smiled at the photo, the more his heart ached. if only he just listened to you more and tried to find a solution to this problem, you would still be with him, in his arms. he was a fool to let you go because he didn't understand your pain. especially when you were always there for him when you couldn't understand his pain.

hawks found himself pulling up that photo of you whenever the days were tough. it never failed to bring a smile to his lips.

until mirko deleted the post.

he should've saved it when he had the chance, hawks thought as he let out a groan upon finding no picture. but, maybe mirko still had it on her phone? thankfully, there was a top five hero meeting that day which meant he could ask mirko about the picture.

hawks sat impatiently in his chair as he drummed his finger against his thigh, counting down the minutes until the meeting would conclude. it must've been distracting, because mirko approached him first after the meeting.

"hey birdbrain, what's up with you? you looked distracted during the meeting," mirko questioned walking up to the winged hero. hawks perked up slightly, before giving her a smile, "hmm? nah, just sick of meetings, wanted to get out." mirko eyed him curiously, "if you say so."

"i saw that picture you posted of (name)," he commented, "you two were hanging out?"

"huh? oh, this picture?" pulling up the picture on her phone, she showed him the photo before pulling away to hawks' dismay. "yeah, we went out. it was about time too! (name) seemed to be enjoying herself, so i'm glad i got to capture that."

hawks couldn't help the smile on his lips knowing that you were happy and could enjoy yourself. he really just wanted you to be happy, even if that wasn't with him.

"if you wanted the photo, you could've just asked," mirko smirks, causing hawks to duck his head down in embarrassment. "but even if you ask, im not giving it to you." Hawks turned his head brows furrowed and confused, slightly offended, "why would you even suggest it then?"

"not sure, maybe it'll be a way to encourage you to find a way to get it."

mirko had an interesting way of talking, hawks thought as he continued on with his patrol. it seemed like she was hinting at more than what she was saying, but he wasn't really interested in solving puzzles when he was busy being the number 2 hero.

and boy, was he busy busy.

it felt as if all the villains knew hawks would be out on patrol today, using that to their advatange by stiring up so much more trouble than on a typical day—not that he couldn't handle it, it was just more work that he would have hoped to do that day.

from the sky, he could see a crowd forming below on the streets as they cheered him on for another successful capture. hawks let out an exhausted sigh, but floated down to greet his fans nonetheless. there even happened to be press.

"hawks! you were amazing out there!" "great work! i can always count on you!" "you looked so attractive fighting those villains!"

hawks lifted up his visor and gave the fans a handsome grin, causing a chorus of squeals. hawks glanced at one of the fans near him lips curled in a smirk, mouth ready to open and say a few lines that would send arrows straight to the heart when he subconsciously stopped himself.

closing his mouth, he gave her a gentle smile before a soft reply came out, "thank you for supporting me."

it was weird of him to respond to fans in such fashion, but your words were stuck in the back of his head. he wished he could have acted this way before you two broke it off, it would have saved a lot of heartache.

hawks hoped you would notice his change. and unbeknownst to him, you had.

your eyes were glued to the television that aired the news that also happened to feature your ex-boyfriend, hawks. your heart felt fuzzy as you watched him, he seemed different...more down to earth?

"your eyes haven't left the tv since hawks appeared," mirko comments causing you to avert your eyes embarrassed. "i was just interested in the news for today, that's all," you tried but knew mirko wouldn't buy into your lie.

"yeah, okay. keep telling yourself that," she chuckles as she she sits down beside you. "so, whats going on in that head of yours now?"

"he's different now, rumi," you state, eyes drifting back to the screen. "he's talking to his fans like they're fans." your shoulders slump sadly, "i wish he was like this when we were together...i guess he really doesn't care about me after all."

mirko lets out a grunt as she listens to your moping. turning towards her, you notice her adjusting her purple thigh high socks to sit snugly against her upper thighs, "you have patrol this evening?"

"yep, my turn for an evening patrol. they're not that bad, more bad guys come out at night," she jokes with chuckle but you don't find it funny. "i know you can easily beat them, but that doesn't mean i worry any less for you," you sigh. "stay safe please."

"will do, cry baby," she jokes once more causing you to angrily pout, "i'm not a cry baby!" "says the one crying over hawks. bye!" and with that she quickly leaves out the door before you could throw a pillow at her.

rolling your eyes playfully, you walk over toward the bedroom you shared with mirko. you had a nice futon on the floor beside of her bed that surprisingly was very comfy. organizing her room a bit and folding her clothes she tossed around, you tried to busy yourself until she came back.

which was surprisingly short.

you heard the main door swing open before hearing her move around the living room and kitchen. she must've forgotten something, you thought to yourself as you made your way toward the bedroom door you had previously closed behind you.

"rumi? did you forget something?" you ask as you open the door, just to find yourself staring at the stranger in the apartment who donned a black ski mask with some sort of weapon in their hand. unfortunately your voice had caught their attention and their head quickly turned toward you before bolting it down the hallway for you.

screaming, you quickly shut the door and locked it before the thief could get in. the rattle of the doorknob causes you to let out another shriek as you looked around for a way to protect yourself and to escape.

the only solution that came to your mind was to block the door with whatever heavy furniture mirko had on her room which consisted of her bed, a desk and her clothes drawers. you did your best to block the door, but it was proving to be not enough.

"open the door and i won't hurt you miss," the voice called out and you felt your stomach twist from their words.

you scurried around to look for your phone and thankfully found it amongst this chaos and your body went on auto-pilot and dialed the first person that came to your mind whenever you were in danger.

your shaky hand brought your phone to your ear as you ran into the furthest corner of her room. your free hand covering your trembling lips. please pick up.

"hello? (name)?"

"keigo please help me," you cried quietly so the person on the other side couldn't hear you, but the desperation in your voice was clear as day for hawks. "(name)? whats happening? where are you?" his voice was now firm and laced with worry as you began to sob in through the phone.

"i'm at mirko's and she just left for patrol but someone broke in and i hid myself in her room. i'm so scared, please come quick." and right after he heard you squeak in fear from the unidentified noises through your phone.

"i'm coming right now," you could hear the power his wings had as he lift himself into the sky, "does she have any windows you can exit from?" glancing behind you, you took a mental note that her windows were large enough for you to escape through—the only problem was mirko lived on the tenth floor.

squeezing your eyes shut, you nodded even though hawks could not see you, "yeah, but she doesn't have any escape ladders and i'm on the tenth floor." hawks cursed under his breath on the other side, "just hold on, i'm almost there."

clutching onto your phone, you jumped when the barricade you made against the door was getting tossed around from the force of the stranger on the other side trying to break in. scrambling around, you quickly unlocked the window before opening it, allowing the wind to flow in.

with another jolt from the door all of your barricades flew from the door, leaving it vulnerable. you knew the door would fall with his next move, so with trembling hands, you maneuvered your body outside the window, letting your bottom sit on the window frame.

from a distance, you could hear someone calling out your name. when you narrowed your eyes to focus, all of the stress left your body as you watched them shoot towards you. hawks had come to your rescue!

but hawks wasn't close enough.

the door behind you broke allowing the stranger into the room and before they could grab a hold of you, you jumped.

"(name)!"

as your body free fell down towards the earth, hawks used his wings to give himself one strong push forward before folding his wings tightly behind his back to gain speed to reach you.

reaching his arms out, he caught you in time before shooting back up towards the sky, "that was so stupid of you!" you shouted loudly against the wind, "what if i wasn't there in time?"

glancing up at him, you gave him a small smile, "i just knew you'd get to me in time ."

"agh, more paperwork i have to fill out!" mirko groans as she walks around her messy apartment after hawks and her had caught the suspect and had cops take care of him. as she walked away into her bedroom with a line of curses, you quietly turned over towards hawks who had his back facing you. he was on call with the commission.

"yep, i'll get that finished tomorrow," ending his call and stuffing his phone in his pocket, he turns around to find you staring at him. his cheeks flush slightly from the sudden eye contact, but he managed to compose himself. "are you doing alright? that must've been quite the terrifying experience."

"yeah, thanks for picking up. you were the first person i thought to call," you confess and he perks up. "oh yeah?"

"you've always kept me safe and i just really needed you when i was in danger. so thanks," giving him a smile he mirrors you. "of course, anything for you."

your heart flutters from his words, but you slightly turn yourself away, glancing down. you two were no longer dating, so there was no need to get butterflies over him again. "well, thanks again. you must have a busy day tomorrow."

"do you buy any chance still have that photo of you when you were out with mirko?" hawks asks suddenly causing you to glance up at him. "you know, when you two went out a couple weeks ago? you were all dolled up and honestly, just super pretty?" hawks says boldly with a sheepish grin.

"why are you asking?"

"send it my way."

you gawked at him, "you want me to send you a picture of me? we're not dating anymore, that would be weird!" hawks could only shrug, "okay, that's simple then. let's go on a date." you gawked even further, "what is going on inside of that bird brain? all this for a photo?"

"i want to be the one who takes those photos of you. i want to be the reason you get all dolled up. i know i messed up, (name). i've been changing the way i talk to my fans because i understand how i hurt you. could you give me another chance to make it better? i promise i will treat you the way you deserve to be treated."

this was coming too suddenly, your wounds were just starting to heal.

"you...you don't mean that, hawks," you say dejectedly as you back up to sit on mirko's couch. "i'm scared."

"he means it you know?" mirko pops out of the hallway suddenly and stands with her arms crossed against her chest as she stares at the two of you. "he's been asking me for that picture nonstop since he saw it online."

"but he really does love you still, (name) and i know you still love him too. go ahead and give it another shot, i'll be here to kick him to the curb if he does anything bad to you." she encourages, making you glance back towards hawks.

"promise?" your eyes are sparkly from the tears that had glossed over your eyes and hawks gives you a confident nod, "promise. i'll pick you up at six tomorrow?"

you couldn't help your growing smile, "yeah, i'll be waiting."

- e x t r a -

as hawks flew off towards his apartment, the notification ding of his phone went off causing him to take a look. you had sent him a text!

opening the message his eyes widen from the photo you sent, it was the cute pic of you all dolled up!

"i'm so in love!" he shouts loudly in the sky.

#hawks #hawks x reader #hawks x you #mha x reader #my hero academia x reader #bnha #bnha x reader #boku no hero academia x reader #keigo x reader #takami keigo x reader #keigo takami x reader

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ohhthereuare · 3 years

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cannot believe we’re back to shipping wars in the year of our lord 2021 but with the overwhelmingly stupid cancel culture and moral police on every corner making it almost impossible to simply enjoy stuff these days I had to chime in my 5 kruge cents or else I’d choke

nobody gives a flying fuck about who you ship and neither should you because this is very rarely up to you. it’s like a god-chosen enlightenment, a sudden rush of serotonin that mysteriously dictates what’s gonna rock your boat from now on. that is great. grab that wheel and get on with it.

you don’t have to justify any of that. and I wish it was clear enough but apparently it still isn’t that villains are called villains for a reason and murder is murder no matter the motive. we know. trust me we do. but I guess that’s half the charm of a work of fiction that a character can be interesting despite its flaws. hell most of the time it’s interesting thanks to its flaws. when you say you like them it doesn’t mean you run to justify their sins and therefor imply these new moral conclusions to your everyday life and real people in it. it just means that this particular fictional creature makes your brain go happy. be them a ball of sunshine or a ball of darkness. you’ll enjoy their actions in a specific media and then get on with your life as an intelligent, morally responsible member of a society that will definitely not go on a killing spree because a fictional guy in a cool cape that doesn’t even exist did so in a story.

now getting that lengthy introduction out of the way I cannot believe that people cannot engage in an intellectually stimulating critical thinking discourse (that back in the day we just called meta) without criticizing every thing or else apparently they’ll go to literal hell. the Darkling is overall a bad guy and Mal is overall a good guy. that’s what the story it built upon. then again both of them are grey to some extent as people are because they are people. they have thoughts and desires and justify themselves because they believe in a greater good that sometimes they personally created. there’s no reason to compare the Darkling who’s straight-up a millenium-old murderer who just happens to be very charismatic and sexy to Mal who’s more human and the mistakes he makes are less of the murderous nature and as it unfortunately happens he’s just more plain. I’d be happy with Alina ending with either of them, knowing full well that there would be good and bad sides to either of the endings. even if the positive outcome of Alina ending up with the bad guy was only a sense of aesthetic fulfillment. that is all. I can say I see and understand the manipulation and the toxicity and still enjoy a power couple dressed in black cloaks the same way I’d enjoy childhood sweethearts leading a safe and quite life. whatever rocks my boat.

if we look at Leigh Bardugo’s work in a simple, quite superficial way then yes it is the question of black and white, good and bad. but it’s more than that and it’s one of the many reasons why it’s one of my favorite books series ever (let’s not go all JKR on her because as I’ve seen some of you do because apart from obvious situations no creator of anything should to held to impossibly pure moral standards making their work morally flawless because it’s based on their own personal experience and it’s impossible to stop some of it from seeping into the work itself even if you personally might find it problematic but they’re human just like you and me and I cannot believe I even have to type this rn). now I’m not wasting my time writing this essay and you reading it to stir up a ship war and I am NOT here as a darklina shipper because in the end I was quite happy with malina getting their happily ever after. but I cannot STAND this sudden wave of frantic justification and of hate towards it because it’s all missing the point.

the Darkling is a villain. the Darkling is a human being (to some extent). the Darkling is the bad character but he’s more grey than black and it’s Alina’s own opinion. THAT’s what’s so interesting about their relationship. he hurt her and the people she loved and hurt people she didn’t even know only to pin the blame on her to guilt trip her to do his bidding. we know it’s toxic and manipulative. Alina knows that too. she hates him and fears him and at times would kill him without hesitation. but she also comes back to him and can’t help but marvel and his beauty and genuinely sheds a tear when he falls. it’s hard to say whether she loves him to some extent, I think even she wasn’t sure and felt quite guilty about it. there’s was a strange pull she couldn’t deny, a wicked sense of understanding that could not be matched by anyone else. despite their chemistry she couldn’t overlook the murder part and that’s who she chose. that’s also who she became because if she had accepted his offer and went down that powerful path we would have been given a completely different story with Alina being a different character. it’s that magic of fiction that lets you explore such extremes but it still is just fiction. it’s okay to type lengthy essays about it to pick it apart and examine with interest but there’s very little point to criticize something so obvious or defend the impossible.

now still on the topic of the Darkling that’s what I love about the show. how Ben Barnes looked for the human parts in him (which is also literally his job as an actor to find parts of the character that he could sympathize with idk why are y’all so surprised and scandalized and y’all better leave my man Ben alone). parts that might have been lonely and misunderstood because that’s how the Darkling saw himself. he had to justify his own actions somehow because he believed he was right. a bad villain is bad by nature. a good villain makes you question whether he’s really bad, makes you justify his villainous actions with him. showing the Darkling express real emotions towards Alina, hope for their shared future, tears in his eyes as she turns her back on him just made him that much more interesting and multidimensional as a great character should be. a great character can still be a murderer. a murderer can still be a great character. it has nothing to do with them being a good person. but it doesn’t erase the toxic behaviors just by being sexy the same way that toxic behaviors have a hard time erasing the sexy part and if you find it sexy in fiction that’s great go on reblogging passionate darklina gifsets and if you can’t stand it even on paper that’s fine too enjoy your heartwarming malina handholding posts. fill in your “rip to alina but I’m different” preferable scenario and let it bring you joy.

Leigh Bardugo is a great author. Ben Barnes is a great actor. actually all the actors are great actors and they did a marvelous job of bringing our beloved characters to life and we cannot even imagine the burden of responsibility they must have felt. let’s try to be less negative and more grateful for a really well-done book adaptation and surround ourselves with people that share our likes and dislikes in a respectful and positive manner and hopefully not foolishly trust that people can tell the good from the bad in real life and still enjoy both in a work of fiction.

#shadow and bone #sab #shadow and bone netflix #the darkling #general kirigan #leigh bardugo #darklina #spoilers #sab spoilers

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swaps55 · 3 years

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Eulogia

With MELE imminent, sharing a scene I wrote a long time ago, in which Kaidan Alenko mourns Ashley Williams after Virmire, and discovers he isn’t mourning alone.

From here.

The cargo bay was quiet when the elevator doors opened. Most of the crew had dispersed to the Citadel, leaving Kaidan mercifully alone in the cavernous space. Slowly he made his way towards the lockers, the scar tissue and healing sinews in his abdomen like a knot that someone had doused with gasoline and set on fire.

But still healing.

(This is it. This is how I’m going to die.)

Kaidan exhaled.

If he closed his eyes he could still see the numbers in his HUD, always hovering right above zero, a perpetuating terminus never quite reached, never quite avoided.

When he reached the lockers he stopped, hand halfway to the one marked, Williams, A.

If he went by the book this should be Gladstone’s job. There was no reason it shouldn’t be Gladstone’s job.

(You know it’s the right choice.)

But it wasn’t Gladstone’s job.

The click of the locker door echoed loud enough that he flinched before drawing in a deep breath and pulling it all the way open. She hadn’t lied about her uniforms. Every shirt hung crisp and straight on its hanger, in sharp contrast to the chaotic pile of belongings tossed heedlessly on the ground below it. The pile was so impressive he was actually afraid to take anything out, for fear it would cause an outright avalanche. In spite of himself he shook his head and smiled a little.

“Somehow this is exactly what I expected from you,” he said under his breath. He heard a creak behind him and whipped his head around, heart rate thudding as though he expected to find her peering over his shoulder, arms crossed, eyebrow raised. A flush crept up the back of his neck.

Of course there was nothing. Ashley was dead.

His gripped the locker door until his knuckles whitened, leaned his forehead briefly against it. The metal felt cool and hard against his skin. He swallowed once. Twice.

Eventually he straightened with a sigh, tugging at his uniform and rolling his shoulder, as though he could somehow shake Ashley off like working out a crick in his neck. By the time his fingers brushed the cloth of her fatigues their subtle quiver had been swallowed up by the hard-earned discipline he’d practiced so diligently ever since Jump Zero.

(Kaidan Alenko. Always looking for the sure thing. Everything needs to be perfectly defined and spelled out for you, doesn’t it? Sometimes the unknown can be a little exciting, too.)

A static spark stung his finger as he emptied the hangers. He jerked his hand back, muttering, used to the burn, never the timing. Slowly he reached back in, painstakingly folding each shirt with precision he hadn’t employed since Basic.

(You find a wrinkle in my uniform and I’ll clean your pistol for a month.)

He made each crease razor sharp. Not a wrinkle to be found.

Once the clothing had been stored, he began taking apart the pile she had accumulated in her locker. Datapads with poetry. She liked Cummings and Yeats, Plath and Elizabeth Bishop. He remembered Joker saying something about Heinlein. Kaidan hadn’t intended to look through them, but shortly he found himself cross-legged on the floor, skimming through lines and verses. It was easy to tell her favorites – she’d annotated them heavily. Underlined phrases, personal reflections. In some cases she’d made notes that he didn’t understand, such as the one beside a line from a poem by Elizabeth Browning that simply read, Josh, and in parenthesis (the little shit).

She also had a copy of the Bible, which gave him pause. It wasn’t a datapad either but an actual book, pages dog-eared, corners bent and turned down, small makeshift bookmarks such as scraps of paper, paper clips, even a hair tie, sticking out at all angles. Like the datapads it was covered in notes, but all of these handwritten, in scripts of multiple hands. Some tiny and neat, others broad and flowing. Though he didn’t think he’d ever seen a sample of Ashley’s handwriting he immediately found one he thought had to be hers – small but hurried, with the occasional loopy flourish. It tended to start out neat, but quickly deteriorated when her hand couldn’t keep up with her thoughts, until it was nearly illegible.

The inside cover contained four handwritten paragraphs, each in a different script that he recognized from the subsequent pages. Each a note from parent to child, passing the heirloom on with messages of faith and love. Four generations of Williams, right there on one page.

Kaidan ran his fingers across the script, tracing the shallow grooves the pen made against the paper. General David Williams, of Shanxi infamy, bequeathing it to his son Matthew Williams, with a note.

Our faith is our legacy. We keep to it and carry on, no matter the cost. And when that task is difficult, remember those who’ve walked a harder road with lesser reward. We are blessed. I am blessed. Because I have you.

Serviceman Williams then wrote to his daughter, There’s a great wide universe out there waiting for you. I hope you explore it to the fullest. If you ever get lost, look here and see if you can’t find your way. Remember, kiddo. Ad aspera per astra.

Kaidan’s hands loosened, allowing the book’s spine to droop. A few pages whispered past his thumb. The hair tie bookmark fell out, ghosting to the floor without fanfare.

He snatched it up with a hot flash of guilt and held it aloft. What page did it come from? What place had he lost? How important had it been?

He didn’t know.

There was so much he didn’t know. So much he’d never learn.

He stared at the hair tie. Nothing more than a simple strip of dark blue elastic, still twined with a few strands of long, dark brown hair. She probably had a few dozen just like it. She’d worn two in her hair, at all times. One to pull it back into a ponytail, one to wrap around the thick twist of her bun and secure it in place. Usually she kept a third around her wrist, just for emergencies.

But they were never enough to hold back those few stubborn, errant strands that inevitably pulled free to waft about her face.

Moisture burned the corner of his eyes. His fingers curled around the small token, and he put his newly formed fist to his mouth to stifle the sound brewing in his throat. One choked sob got through before he swallowed the rest back, chest aching from the effort. He wicked a thumb across his eyes, hastily tucked the hair tie back between the pages and set the book aside.

This wasn’t his. The grief and memories trapped within the Bible’s covers were for her family, not for him.

But it shouldn’t be for anyone. It should be his things exposed to the harsh light of the cargo bay, meticulously sorted and stored, itemized on a manifest and marked for shipping back to Vancouver, care of Marc and Lora Alenko.

His throat tightened, hitching breath loud against the silent backdrop of the cargo bay. Not even the sound of the engines to provide some white noise.

Nothing like this would be found among his own belongings. He spoke to his folks a couple of times a year. Hadn’t been back to Vancouver in almost three. When he did it tended to be strained small talk and careful avoidance of anything to do with the mutated eezo nodes lurking under his skin. He’d actually thought running off to the Alliance might help. Follow in his father’s footstep. Give them something in common. That, of course, and he’d had nowhere else to go.

Would his own family have mourned him the way Ashley Williams’ would mourn her?

Would she?

Stop.

He raked a hand through his hair, fingers eventually coming to rest against his forehead. His head felt heavy. Too heavy to hold up, like a lead weight.

(They’re more important. We’re as good as dead up here anyway.)

He wondered who would inherit the Bible now that Ashley was gone. One of her sisters, maybe. Sisters who probably had yet to learn about what had happened down on Virmire.

(Kaidan, what the hell are you doing?)

(This bomb is going off! No matter what.)

No matter what. 0.00. He’d been ready for it. Ready for anything. Except Shepard’s hand, grabbing him by the arm.

Further down in the pile he found smaller items. Toiletries. A stuffed hanar, of all things. A bottle of liquor she must have picked up on Noveria.

(Just for the record, I’d look damn good in a dress.)

He swallowed against a lump in his throat, chest constricting. He could see her so clearly, standing at the railing in Port Hanshan, alternating between slouching and gripping the rail with her hands and leaning back on her heels.

(I’m not most people.)

No. She hadn’t been.

He found some packing material for the liquor. It was scotch, an asari brand, maybe purchased to share with Liara. Why it hadn’t been drunk he couldn’t say. Maybe she just ran out of time.

Next was a holo album containing a few photos. People he didn’t recognize. A woman that looked too much like her not to be her mother. A young girl with a grin he recognized from those brief moments in the comm room. Before…

Stop!

Kaidan put the holo aside, then rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. Took a deep breath in. Let it out slow. Clamped his eyes shut. For a moment, everything shook. His hands. The air in his lungs. His skin felt hot, but prickled with gooseflesh.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Eventually he opened his eyes. Went back to the pile. Finish it, marine. Don’t leave her hanging.

In all her possessions were scant, just what she’d been able to obtain or accumulate since they’d picked her up on Eden Prime. In fact, how the Bible and holo album had even managed to catch up with her struck him as a bit of a mystery.

But when he got to the bottom of the pile his hand froze, mouth dry as a shock of white hot cold strummed the length of his spine, numbness dulling his fingers until they felt thick and clumsy.

It shouldn’t have surprised him. After all, she’d died in her combat gear. Not her fatigues. Of course they would be here.

This time no amount of discipline could overcome his shaking hands as he picked one up and turned it over in his palms.

A neon green boot with matching laces, so bright they nearly glowed in the dim light of the cargo bay.

His gut clenched, chest so tight he couldn’t breathe, the edges of his vision blurring until something hot and wet spilled over onto his cheeks.

(Come on.)

(Whoa, where are we going? Anderson said to wait here.)

(Come on, LT. Think we’ll ever get to poke around here again? Live a little.)

Only he hadn’t. She’d been right there. Right there. And he hadn’t.

(Tell me you haven’t thought about this.)

(Thinking’s not the same as doing. Maybe, once all this is behind us…)

He dropped the boot, back slamming against the lockers as he buried his head in his hands, the grief that he’d stored down deep in his chest ever since that timer reached zero breaching the damn in a flood of hot tears. He wept himself hollow, hot, swollen and aching, exhaustion creeping in until he felt it laying heavily over his skin, behind his eyes, in the pit of his stomach. Then he just sat silent, eyes red and heavy, arms resting on his knees.

A hulking shape appeared above him. Had he not felt so drained he might have cared more about discovering he hadn’t been alone after all. But when Wrex’s red, horny crest came into view he met the krogan’s fierce stare without shame. Whatever the krogan had to say, he was beyond giving a damn.

“She was a warrior worth mourning,” Wrex said.

Kaidan straightened his posture with mild surprise, but said nothing.

“Shepard chose his companions well. Even those I at first didn’t give him credit for.” He offered a scaly hand, which Kaidan accepted warily. Wrex hauled him effortlessly to his feet, and gave him a brusque nod.

“You are krantt.”

Kaidan wasn’t sure how to respond, but Wrex saved him the trouble by ambling away without further comment. The krogan had been nearly invisible since their return from Virmire. After finding him here Kaidan wasn’t even sure if he’d even left the ship.

He hadn’t considered the possibility that a krogan might mourn a human soldier. But Ashley…had that effect on people.

With a wipe of his eyes Kaidan began piling Ashley’s things into a crate. Once the locker was empty he sealed it, then closed the crate up as well and entered it into the ship’s inventory for the requisitions offer to offload and send to her family. By the time he finished, his grief had been replaced by grim, dogged resolve.

We’re coming for you, Saren. May God help you, you bastard.

#mass effect #kaidan alenko #ashley williams #ashley x kaidan #not quite willenko #but almost #my fic #me legendary countdown #i'm so used to writing in present tense #that reading my own stuff in past tense is WEIRD

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colormeyondublue · 3 years

Text

Chapter 13: Welcome Back

Chapter 12 Here Chapter 14 Here

Later that morning, after a good long snuggle session, you finish packing for your trip. You find yourself back in your office with Yondu so you can lock everything up before you leave. Kraglin is the only one with a key to anything, but the captain wants to be sure no one can get in your office to snoop around.

He wanders over to your desk to make sure the drawers are locked, and he finds something odd in the top drawer. “Whatssis?” he asks, picking up the notebook and flipping through some pages.

You gasp and quickly pull the notebook from his hands. “Nothing! It’s nothing. Just some doodles and notes. Nothing important.”

“Notes about what? Doodles? Why can’t I see it – huh?" He presses.

“It’s just nothing important. Doesn’t matter.” You turn to stuff it in your bag and hope he lets it go. You’ll never admit it, but you’re a little embarrassed. These notes and doodles were from when you first starting falling for Yondu, and they were kinda dorky. Little planets, stars, hearts and Yondu’s arrow piercing through a larger heart was scribbled all over various pages. You even started writing his name in cursive on some of the pages.

“Uh, no. Hand it over missy. No secrets 'tween us.”

You reluctantly hand him the notebook and hope like hell he won’t taunt you for it.

“I dunno what yer worried about. It’s just little shapes and planets and stars on here. And an arrow? What’s this stuff on the side?” Yondu points to the cursive writing on the page he is referring to.

Of course! Yondu can’t read English cursive handwriting!

“You mean you can’t read that?”

“Those are letters?! No, I can’t read that. It ain’t like no language I’ve ever seen.”

“Yondu, it’s called cursive, or script. It’s a form of English Terran writing. I learned it when I was really young. I love writing this way, it’s really relaxing.”

“Okay, so whatsit say?”

“That’s your name. Those are planets and stars, that’s your arrow, and those are little hearts. Your arrow is going through that heart like Cupid’s arrow. I think I actually doodled some of this the night I went to the bar with you for Geff’s birthday.”

“What’s a Cupid?” He asks.

“Oh, Cupid is…well, he’s Roman. It’s a long story involving Terran history. Basically, it’s symbolic of love. If Cupid, an ancient Roman deity, shoots you through the heart with his arrow, the first person you see after he shoots you is the one you fall in love with. It’s totally a myth, but that myth goes back thousands of years. When you fall in love with someone, people will sometimes say – ‘you must have been shot by Cupid’s arrow!’ Kinda silly when you think about it.”

“So ya drew all this ‘cause you were thinkin’ about me?” He continues to flip through the pages, and each one is a little different than the last.

“Well…yeah. I did. But this was all before I had the guts to come out about how I felt. So, I poured it all into my notes. I never thought you’d find it.”

A little smirk appears on his face as he marvels at the pages. He snaps the notebook closed and throws it back into the drawer before he locks it. “Let’s keep this safe here until we get back. Then I wanna bring it back ta our quarters so I can look at it whenever I want.”

~~~

The two of you pack up your belongings into the Warbird before you head out. Kraglin shows up in the docking bay to see you off. He greets you with a smile and a friendly hug.

“You better get back up here soon. The boys’ll miss ya too much.” Kraglin is only half joking. There is no doubt that there has been some worry among not just Yondu and Kraglin, but a few of the guys that you won’t come back, but no one has said anything. What you didn’t know, was that you really had made a big impact on the whole crew. Your outburst in the mess several weeks ago made the crew start thinking about who they are, what they stand for, and what they want out of life. Not that much has truly changed, but the seed was definitely planted thanks to you.

“Awww. What would you guys do without me?” You tease. You hug Kraglin back and Yondu tells you go ahead and get comfortable on board. He’s got something to discuss with Kraglin.

Yondu watches you step on the Warbird and he turns back to Kraglin. “Alright, so I’ve programmed our comms to have a little bit farther reach so I can still get ahold of ya if things go sour. I don’t think anything is gonna happen down there, but I wanna be careful. Terrans are s’damn touchy. Keep this on you at all times. Same goes fer me. If anythin’ fishy happens on board while I’m gone, you comm me and I’ll be up here quick as I can. I trust you and the boys to keep this place handled and I trust you to choose second in command while I’m not here.”

“Yessir. We’ve got it handled. Don’t worry about a thing. Go down there and make the most of it. We’ll be in touch if we need anything.” Kraglin pats Yondu on the back with a reassuring smirk. Yondu rolls his eyes and smirks back before boarding the ship.

Yondu sits next to you in his pilot chair and hits the ignition. Before long, you’re out of the docking bay of the Eclector, and off into open space. The two of you are silent for a few minutes until you hear Yondu speak up first.

“So – uh…I know yer really excited, and I know how much ya love yer Earth and yer family…but there’s somethin’ that’s been on my mind fer a while. I gotta just get it out there.” He hesitates for a moment while he programs the ship to auto pilot. “If we get there, and all goes well, and ya start feelin’ like ya wanna stay, I won’t hold it against ya. I know how much it all means to ya, and I won’t be mad atcha’ if you decide to stay with yer family.” He notices you start to protest, and he raises his hand so you let him finish. “Honey, you were kidnapped. You were stolen from yer home and yer family. You were sold and traded and bartered for like property. Ya got lucky when you escaped from the Skrull, and ya did pretty well fer yerself on Krylor. Yer a tough woman – you’ve proved that. I just wonder if being back home and with yer people won’t make ya wanna stay with ‘em.”

“Yondu, I understand your concern, but I am not leaving you. Ever. Yes, I love my family. Yes, I love my planet and everything that comes with it. But, after all I’ve been through I think I’ve realized that I love you more. My life has changed drastically over the past few years, and I don’t think I would change a thing that happened. Every single step I’ve taken since that morning by the river has brought me to you. Since finding you, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I don’t think anything can change that.”

Yondu just stares at you. The happiest she’s ever been? With me and that sleezy crew that calls 'emselves Ravagers? Even after what happened with Trenvik? He doesn’t say a word. Instead, he simply takes your hand and brings it to his lips. He then covers your hand with his, and sighs. You stand and walk to him. You carefully nestle yourself in his lap, snuggling your head into the crook of his neck. Yondu wraps his arms around you, and you feel him relax beneath you.

“How long until we approach the solar system?” You ask.

“It’ll be a couple hours until we reach that first little planet’s orbit, and then several more hours ‘til we close in on Terra’s atmosphere. The Warbirds thrusters are wide open, but it’s still a good distance. Gotta hand it ta ya Terran’s…ya’ll got a big solar system fer sure. Have ya even explored all of the planets here, or are they too far apart?”

“We know a lot about the other planets and their moons, but we haven’t visited them other than sending rovers to take videos and photos. They’re too far apart for what technology we have. Our rockets are super slow, and we burn through too much fuel. But, we do know a lot about the different atmospheres of each planet. We know their surface temperatures, and which ones might have had liquid water at some point. Not a single one is suitable for much life, but there is talk about the possibility of colonizing Mars.”

“Hmm.” He says simply. “Tell me somethin’ about Terra.”

“Like what?”

“Anything. What’s the first thing ya think of?”

“Hmm. Well…when I think of Earth, I think of the trees. I think about the forests, rivers, waterfalls, and wildlife. Sometimes humans forget that we aren’t the only ones who call Earth home, but I never forget. Each creature has value. From the tiniest bird in the sky, to the largest whale in the ocean. We are all connected, and we all have something to give.”

“What’s a whale?” he asks.

You simply giggle and rub his arm. “I’ll show you when we get there. Anything you wanna know, I’ll teach you. I can’t wait to show you everything.”

A few more hours go by with idle chit chat, and occasional comfortable silence. You tell him all about your home, the city you lived in, and what it was like growing up on Earth. You catch Yondu smiling at some of the stories you tell and he thinks your sister sounds annoying, but nice nonetheless. You begin to yawn and doze off a little in his lap. “Hey, why doncha’ go get some sleep in the bed back there. I’ll be fine up here – ain’t tired yet. We’ll be there before ya know it.”

“But I don’t wanna leave you all alone up here.” You say.

“It’s alright baby, I’ve flown a lot longer than this in my time. Go on now, getcha some sleep. I’ll be up here if ya need me.”

“Mmmmokay…I’m goin’, I’m goin’.” You mumble as he lifts you from his lap. He watches you make your way to the bedroom. Once you’ve closed the door, he picks up his comm off the control console and gets in touch with Kraglin to make sure all is in order back on the Eclector. Kraglin assures him that everything is fine, and the crew is content with their time off to just play games and drink as they please. Some have even taken to doing some odds and ends jobs to improve their cabins or M-Ships.

Before he knows it, he spots a little blue dot. The Warbird is closing in on your planet. He waits a few more hours before he decides to wake you. The closer the ship comes to Terra, he decides to engage the signal jammers so Terran communication systems and satellites can’t pick up any signals or sounds coming from the Warbird.

A while longer passes, and he heads back to the bedroom to wake you. There’s already a pretty good view of Earth out the front window, and he can’t wait to surprise you. You wake at the feeling of a large hand tapping you on the shoulder. You sit up and try to let your eyes adjust to the dimply lit room. Yondu has a very mischievous grin on his face.

“What’s going on? What are you up to?” You ask.

“Come here, there’s somethin’ you gotta see. But first, you gotta close yer eyes.” He insists.

“Close my eyes?”

“Do ya trust me?”

“Of course, I do!” You say with a smile.

“Well then c’mon! But keep yer eyes shut.”

You close your eyes and giggle lightly as you take his hand. Slowly, he guides you to the front of the ship where you can feel him position you in a specific spot.

“What are you up to, Yondu?”

“You’ll see, you’ll see. Okay…open.”

You open your eyes, and a gasp escapes your mouth before you have time to stifle it with your hand. Tears are immediately filling your eyes, and you can’t keep a few from falling. You shutter a little, and your breath is completely taken away. There it is. The oceans, the clouds, the beautiful green continents. Earth. After all this time, there it is. You can’t believe what you’re seeing, the beauty of your planet is stunning.

“Welcome back sweetheart.” Yondu says as he quietly presses a soft kiss to your temple.

#Yondu and The Secretary #Yondu Udonta #yondu x reader #marvel #marvel fan fiction #gotg fanfiction #gotg #ravager #centaurian #earth #fanfic

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scullydubois · 3 years

Text

that terror that keeps me brave: a sex education fic

hi, hello, now that I am riding high off the excitement of season three, i am finally gonna start publishing the sex education fic that I began writing in uhh...february! it primarily follows jean, maureen, and jakob as they deal with the ramifications of the season two finale. again, i started this months ago so it is not influenced by season three, and you can read it without watching that. it will focus on jean's pregnancy and maureen exploring her sexuality in the wake of her separation.

chapter one is under the cut! 1.5k, rated T. read it on ao3 here.

Jean taps her pen absentmindedly against her soft leather notebook, misery on the faces of the couple in front of her. It’s a classic story: the once-adoring wife who has seen the dream crumble in front of her and her unshaven husband. Jean’s eyes train on him as he squirms in his seat.

“So, to clarify, you experienced a nocturnal emission from a dream about your co-worker, and then when Cecelia asked what the dream was about, you told her the truth.”

The man nods. Jean shifts her focus to the woman.

“And now, Cecelia, you are mad at him because you believe that he cheated on you.”

“Yes,” the wife squeaks. “He got off on another woman! Am I supposed to be okay with that?”

Jean pulls her lips into a poorly drawn line. “But you don’t have any other evidence of his cheating, correct? You’re using this dream as the sole reason for your accusation?”

“The dream is the cheating, there doesn’t need to be nothing more.”

Jean glances at the woman over her glasses. “Let’s ask Brian, shall we?” She crosses her legs, turning her attention warmly toward the poor man. “Have you ever engaged in sexual intercourse or anything of the sort with this woman while you were awake?”

“No.” He shakes his head violently. “Never.”

“Would you ever do so?”

“No...Addison--that’s her name--is fine-looking, but I’m married and I love my wife. I would never do such a thing.”

Jean has seen her fair share of men who are bullshitting. Brian is not one. She closes her notebook. “See, Cecelia? You are the one he wants. Nocturnal emissions are involuntary physical responses to subconscious stimuli. Addison is Brian’s co-worker, which means he probably sees her quite often. This makes it more likely for her to turn up in his dreams. It’s neither an affront to you, nor a compliment to her.”

Cecelia pouts. “I just don’t feel right about it.”

Jean rests her glasses on the crown of her head. “This could easily have been you who had the dream about your co-worker, and what then? How would you feel if Brian were accusing you of something you couldn’t control?”

“I never have those nasty dreams,” Cecelia counters, scoffing. “Not even about my own husband.”

Jean can’t help but fight back a smirk. “Well, Cecelia, that may be an issue for another session.”

“Like hell it will be! I’m giving you money to tell me it’s okay for my husband to make love to another woman! What do I look like, a fool?”

Jean folds her hands over her lap. Nothing she hasn’t heard before.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Cecelia, but I’m glad you and Brian could come in and have this conversation today.” She exchanges a sympathetic look with Brian. “My ears are always open.”

“Thank you, Jean,” the man says, ushering his wife out of the office. “We’ll see you next time.”

And Jean’s sure they will, because they’ve had this exact session about five separate times. The only thing that ever changes is what woman features in Brian’s dream. Once, it was even Jean! Now that was a session. You’d think, by now, that Brian would just tell Cecelia that every dream is about her. The honest men are always the ones who can afford a little dishonesty.

This is what’s on Jean’s mind when she jaunts into the foyer and finds the most honest man she knows standing there like he’s waiting to be checked in. Grease streaks his clothes; he’s stopped by in between jobs.

“Jakob!” Her voice is taut and uncompromising.

“Jean!” His is cordial and languid. “That nice couple let me in, I hope it won’t be a problem.”

Jean shifts her weight onto one heel, stretching her free leg. “I have another session in a few minutes. You should go.”

“Such strict avoidance of an ex-partner is not healthy, you know. I’m sure they taught you that in therapy school.”

“And continuing to show up at your ex-partner’s home after they have indicated they do not wish to see you is called stalking.” Jean strides into the kitchen. His clunky footsteps follow her. “I didn’t need to go to ‘therapy school’ to learn that.”

“We didn’t have those kinds of laws in Sweden until very recently. It was viewed as an expression of fondness when I was growing up.”

“That’s a view universal to men around the world,” Jean retorts. “They can’t all be right.”

“I was let in here, remember?” Jakob points out. “I don’t believe that makes it possible to prosecute me for any crimes.”

“Well, if I see you grab a kitchen knife, I’m going to assume the worst.”

“If I touch a kitchen knife, you may arrest me.”

“Wonderful.” Jean starts the coffee pot and pulls her beloved honeycomb mug from the cabinet. Despite herself, she grabs another one and offers it to Jakob. “Coffee?”

“No thank you. I had my smoothie this morning.”

“Ah.” She should’ve known. She stands on her tip-toes to slide the rejected mug back on the shelf. When she turns around, her visitor is gone. This isn’t of particular concern to her, though it is rather strange.

She sets her mug beneath the coffee pot and lets it run. As the steamy liquid spews out, she surveys her kitchen. Following the trend of the day, curiosity gets the best of her. “Jakob?” she calls.

A familiar head pops out of the pantry. “You have not used your pan shelf.”

Jean takes her coffee and shuffles over. “No, I have not,” she confirms, mimicking his charmingly formal way of speaking.

“Is it not adequate?”

“I told you, I don’t need it.” She turns on her heel, gliding toward the table. “Now, can you get out of my pantry?”

With an amused smile on his face, Jakob slips out and shuts the door.

“How was the session?”

Jean casts a downward glance at him. “I’m not supposed to share--”

“My mistake.” Jakob sits down and settles his hands on the table, the epitome of patience. Jean feels a nagging tug in her stomach, and she can’t discern one potential cause from the other.

She sighs. Jakob’s eyes have always struck her as those belonging to a guard dog who’s sworn to protect. Their inability to deceive is a great comfort, and so different from most of the men she has known.

She presses the mug to her lips, drinking in the miracle roast that she has been meaning to cut back on. 200 milligrams per day, that’s the recommended maximum intake for expecting mothers. She’s keeping herself right at that.

It is hard to steel herself against Jakob when he looks at her with such genuine eyes, especially knowing that she can’t offer him the same.

She swallows her sip, sets the mug against the table. “Do you feel that a husband who’s having wet dreams about another woman is cheating?” She eyes Jakob like he’s one of her clients, someone she must pick apart.

Jakob eyes her in kind, deducing that this is not a trick, but an honest question. “Yes,” he responds in his frank tone. “That would be an emotional betrayal at least.”

Jean leans back in her chair. “Why do you say that?” She may as well have her notebook and pen in hand.

“Because he’s emotionally attached enough to this person to have those sorts of dreams.” It sounds completely sensible, Jean thinks, when he says it. And it makes her sound like a bitch for what she has to say, but a situation where she must leave her emotions out of the equation is exactly what she needs when it comes to him.

“Dreams occur in our subconscious, unbeknownst to our waking selves. We cannot plan them. And the physical response is involuntary. Nocturnal emissions happen without our intervention. He is neither choosing the subject of his dreams, nor is he choosing his sexual response to them. Therefore, no cheating is taking place.”

“So cheating is a choice then,” Jakob muses. The weight of this statement hangs between them. He searches Jean’s face for signs of apprehension.

She stiffens in her chair but holds firm. “Yes. It is.” She understands the implications of admitting this, and she hopes he does too. She has done him wrong, and the worst they can do is let it keep happening. Even this choice, though, does him wrong, and for that Jean is sorry.

The doorbell rings, no doubt the next sexual conundrum she must untangle. She slides her chair back, grabs her mug, and gives Jakob a look that’s almost apologetic.

He returns the look, his eyes both fire and ice. “Another pair whose relationship you will save.”

Jean breaks eye contact when she realizes he’s being serious, for that’s simply too sweet a thing for him to say. She walks him to the door, and it strikes her as all too familiar.

“Thank you for your help,” he utters when she opens the door to her clients. She sees what he’s doing and plays along.

“You’re welcome. See you next week.”

“Yes,” he says, fixated on her. “See you next week.”

#the title is from an audre lorde poem #pls pls let me know what you think #is the characterization okay? is it enjoyable? i wanna hear it all #sex education #jean milburn #jakob nyman #sex education fic #sex ed #sex ed fic #tttkmb #mine

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edourado · 3 years

Text

Driving on Clouds

It appears that I can simply no longer write. Thank you, anxiety.

This one was written in December, 2018. I was way too insecure to post anything Sense8, so it just sat there on my files until now.

It's short, but hopefully it will help me kick my writing back into gear.

With much, much love.

(Read it on AO3, if you prefer)

___________________________

When Wolfgang walked through the doors, he knew where to go. The doorman was told he was coming.

“Ah, yes, you’re expected”, he said from behind his station. “Go right ahead, sir. It is the penthouse.”

Yes, he knows.

Kala was not there, he knew that, too.

After Paris, they wanted to be together, and they were, in a way. But he had to go back to Berlin before joining them in Bombay.

Will had told him, and so had Riley. Visiting is great, visiting is essential, visiting is like breathing, but physical presence is unbeatable.

Today, though, of all days, she had to be on blockers.

Lito was a mess, both working on his movie and freaking out about it. Nomi was still wrapped up in her honeymoon, so things could get… Distracting. Sun was fighting a whole war of her own back in Seoul, trying to put order to her father’s company, dealing with her criminal brother, her lawyers, the media, politicians, her new relationship, her dog, her training. It was a lot. Capheus was a little bit in over his head with his campaign, he could get both overwhelmed and overwhelming. Will and Riley had a lot of shit to sort out, back in America and Iceland, but they were the easiest ones to deal with. Still, Will needed Kala’s attention often, that pesky heroin habit was not that easy to kick, his body was still recovering.

But she did have a job to do. And if she really wanted to regulate Rasal’s shipping protocols, she needed to focus. So did Rajan.

She had a meeting in the morning, he had one in the afternoon. Wolfgang's flight from Berlin had arrived sometime during lunch hour, and Rajan did send a car to pick him up, but neither he nor Kala were able to be there.

“Let me know when you get here”, she had told him before she took her blocker, sitting by his side on the plane - first class, thank you Rajan - while finishing her make-up before work. “Text me, or something.”

“Seems absurd”, he mused, admiring her figure in the pencil skirt she was wearing. “Having to text you.”

Kala smiled, turning to him after putting her hair in a high ponytail.

“I know. But I have to focus, this is important. I can’t risk having Lito doing his voice exercises while I’m in the middle of trying to convince the board to change their entire business practices. Capheus also has a meeting, can you imagine the mess?”

Wolfgang sat there, looking at her, wishing this flight would land already.

“Or you”, she went on, softer, and he felt his mouth curving in a smile, knowing what she meant. “Popping in without any clothes on.”

“I wouldn’t do that”, he said, lying, because he would.

“Right.”

She leaned in to kiss him and Will was right. It felt good, kissing her when she was not really there, but he had experienced her in the flesh already. He had kissed her for real, and they visited while doing it, that connection was something addicting.

“Hopefully you’ll be here when I’m done”, she said, leaning back to caress his face, all business again.

“Is that Wolfgang?” Rajan asked, walking into the bedroom, looking for something. “Is his flight on time?”

“Yes, it’s on schedule”, she replied, and Wolfgang watched as her husband walked around looking for something, a little frantic, and Kala asked what he needed, and he said he lost his briefcase, and she suggested he looked in the car, and he walked out again, stressed, talking about too many things to do at once.

Wolfgang had stayed with her until she had to walk in for her meeting, kissing her goodbye while she nodded to her assistant that she would be right there.

“See you in three hours.”

Blocker in, connection dissolved, he spent the rest of his flight alone.

Now, he rode the elevator to the penthouse he had never actually been in, but knew every inch of.

Rajan was in his office when he walked in, on the phone, and Wolfgang didn’t understand the language he spoke - another downside of not having the connection with Kala.

He looked serious when he looked up and saw him. Wolfgang dropped the bag from his shoulder and sat on the chair in front of the desk, frowning while Rajan seemed to argue with the person on the other end of the line.

“Everything ok?” He asked when the man hung up, a sigh escaping him.

Rajan got up, rubbing his hands on his face, and Wolfgang got up, too.

“Fine, yes. This Ajay thing, it’s more difficult than I anticipated. But no matter. How was your flight?”

A lot had happened in Paris. A lot. The hug they shared seemed, at the same time, appropriate and out of place.

“Kala wanted to know when you arrived right away.”

Wolfgang nodded, and explained. “My phone died.”

Rajan walked them to the living room, to pour them a drink before he needed to leave.

“She is still in her meeting, anyway.”

They sat and talked about life, normal things, Felix and Fuchs and Berlin and the kingdoms. Rajan told him what he could about the investigation, his worries and reservations, and shared the part he didn’t burden Kala with, about feeling anxious about their - and especially her - safety.

“If I can help…” Wolfgang offered, not sure if he could, but willing to, anyway. Rajan smiled, not quite cold but not as warm as he normally did. Worried. He looked a bit thinner, and had bags under his eyes.

“Make yourself at home”, he said, getting up to go to work. “You must be very tired. Rest, eat something. She will be here before me.”

Wolfgang nodded and reached his arm out to grab Rajan by the front of his shirt, pulling him down until they were, quite literally, face to face.

Wolfgang understood that this was all very new to Rajan still. Including this level of intimacy with another man - even after Paris. So the kiss he collected was a chaste one. Slow, careful, a touch of lips, nothing more.

Sure enough, Rajan blinked at him when he let him go, but smiled, a bit awkward, but sincere.

“We’ll all have dinner, yes?”

Nodding, Wolfgang let him go and watched as Kala’s husband walked away.

Alone in the apartment, he looked at his watch: one, maybe two hours until she was here.

.:.

The blocker wore off while she was in the car, and she helped Capheus with his tie, updating him on the progress she was making with the company and the shipment policies. She wished him good luck with his own meeting, and then she was alone with her driver again.

“Hello, my wife” Rajan had greeted her when she walked into her office and found him waiting for her. They talked about work for a few minutes, because she didn’t want to immediately ask what she wanted to ask. But he could read it on her face.

“He is here”, he said. “His phone died, that’s why you didn’t get a text message. But he is waiting for you.”

She kissed him before she hurried out, grateful all over again for how incredible he was being about this.

Ganesha had not failed her. Her husband was, truly, a gift.

She felt the water around her when she crossed the threshold. He was swimming, and she should have guessed that was where she was going to find him.

That pool was, after all, for him. Always has been, her decision to get his place more than a little influenced by it.

Still. Seeing him actually here, even if he had visited it so many times before, was incredible.

Kala watched as he did his laps, the afternoon sun glowing against the water.

His wet fingers caressed her arms while she watched him swim, and she took her shoes off before stepping to the edge of the pool, his lips on her face as he swam back to her.

Her skirt soaked quickly when she sat down, her legs in the water, and Kala wanted to sigh in happiness when his hands, his actual hands, touched her calves, fingers running up to her knees and caressing her thighs.

He was here, she could touch him, and she did, but they visited, and that connection ran through them like electricity and honey, alive, a current of presence that threatened to lift her up into the air.

Her fingers in his face were his on her own, running up to his hair, her hair, her fingers, his fingers, his face, hers, they’re here.

They’re here.

Wolfgang pulled her into the pool with him, and she giggled and he smiled, her clothes soaking, neither of them caring.

She was all wrapped around him, finally, she felt she could breathe again,

“I missed you”, she said against his lips while he gently pulled her hair tie off, and Kala was honestly losing track if it was his hand or her hand doing it.

Who cares, at this point.

“Me too”, he said before kissing her, finally, open and soft and hungry and devoted, a few weeks without him and she had been left yearning, even if hardly one night went by without him in her bed - Rajan couldn’t possibly know how many times he was actually kissing him instead of her, no matter how honest she tried to be and how hard she tried to explain.

He removed her clothes and they sat by the edge of the pool, soaked, and they were alone while he explored her and she clung to him in the water, thank goodness. This was their moment, and she wanted it to be just for them.

After lunch, however, they were in bed and he had told her he liked the wind coming in through the window, he was on top of her and she had her legs around him, and then there were four people, two in Bombay and two in Chicago, four people that understood the connection between two sensates in love within their cluster, she felt Riley’s lips and Will’s hands, Wolfgang, Wolfgang, Wolfgang, two places at once, four people, lips on her neck, the echo of a kiss that followed the real thing, his tongue against hers, his hand pressing so hard on her hip, she had missed him so much, Wolfgang, she would never go back, she would never give this up, she would never let go of him, Wolfgang-

Thank God for gravity.

#I miss this show every fucking day of my life #lately especially #Sense8 #kala rasal #kala dandekar #wolfgang bogdanow #rajan rasal #kalagang #I actually don't mind the throuple one bit #but I PREFER the two of them #*sigh*#anyway #here goes nothing #writing #drabble #fluff #so much fluff

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local-triggerhead · 3 years

Text

[Theory/Analysis] The Motives of Each Eugenicist

Wow, look at me rising from the graves and dusting off this account after 800 years like it's nothing. Your Trigger hype beast is back baby, if any of you still remember me.

This post contains spoilers for both Gridman and Dynazenon.

Ahem. I want to make this post to gather my thoughts and better understand the antagonists of the show, as they aren't heavily featured and explored like Akane. It's just my own analysis based on what I can observe in the show, so some parts would be more vague and generate different interpretations. This analysis may seem obvious to some and not so much to others, but I hope it'll offer some clarity regardless. Tl;dr at the bottom.

The General Motive

It's pretty much given in the show. The Kaiju Eugenicists wanted to destroy humanity and create a world where themselves and kaiju can live and be accepted. They believe that the world is a better place as you're no longer being tied down by human bonds, granting you unrestricted freedom beyond even the laws of physics. This is their shared goal. However, each of them have separated purposes and things they want to achieve along with this.

Onija

Let's start with the 2 more obvious cases. Onija clearly stated what he wanted to do - kill all humans. How many times did he yell this out? It's kind of shoved-in-your-face. No other Eugenicists expressed this desire as strongly as he did. At the base level, he simply wanted to live. He was brutally killed once and was determined to not let it happen again no matter what. This is why "I thought I was dead" was a constant running joke. It's also why Onija had a deep personal grudge towards Gauma and humans, who were the cause of his death 5000 years ago.

Juuga

Juuga had a deep admiration for Gauma and looked up to him. Unlike Onija, he didn't wish to oppose Gauma, but to make an alliance instead. When the Eugenicists first appeared, Juuga said:

It's clear from this line that he wanted things to be the way it was 5000 years ago, where they were a group of friends working towards the same goal. He missed and yearned for that carefree time. The original Eugenicist group was the most important thing to him. You can see that he never fought with any other Eugenicists, but remained calm and passive towards them at all times. This attitude only extended towards the Eugenicists, as he had no qualms about killing anyone else for his goal, including the Dynazenon crew.

Even when Mujina stole Dyna Striker, the first thing that came to his mind was using it to negotiate with Gauma and get him back.

Mujina

These last 2 Eugenicists are slightly more complicated to pick apart, as they process things more internally.

At first, Mujina was very indecisive and didn't buy much into this kaiju thing. All she wanted was to finish it quickly so she could leave. She was lost in life and just followed the other Eugenicists around because she had no directions of her own. Then Mujina found Koyomi, someone who also didn't have anything going for himself and just plainly a loser in his life. He was someone she could feel related to. Mujina's attitude supposedly changed after she was tackled by Koyomi, but I believe this just pissed her off and only played a part in her personality shift. The other cause, I think, was Sizumu's encouragement, where she "realized that kaiju is all [she has] got" and that she had to take responsibility for her actions.

Koyomi came to play a major role in episode 11, when Mujina witnessed him starting to look for a job. The only person who she could feel related to was unaffected by the aftermath of the kaiju and moving forward with ease. Meanwhile, Mujina, who had just found her purpose in life, lost it once again and was now completely stuck, as the future where the Eugenicists could live and be accepted was destroyed. When facing such a crisis, one would seek to put the blame on something for all of their problems, and Koyomi just happened to be the perfect target.

Sizumu

Toughest one to crack here, but I'll shoot my best shot. In the beginning, he opposed the Dynazenon crew the least among the Eugenicists. He suggested against killing them, had the most interaction with Yomogi and Yume, and suggested Mujina to return Dyna Striker for seemingly no reasons at all. His main reason for not killing Team Dynazenon was to see more kaiju, and getting close to Yomogi and Yume was for his kaiju to absorb their emotions. However, I believe there was another underlying reason that tied his actions together. He was looking for an alliance.

Contrary to Juuga, the alliance he was looking for didn't only include Gauma, but Team Dynazenon as a whole. To understand why he searched for this, we must first look at what he was. He had an ability that allowed him to hear kaiju voices, which gave him a much deeper understanding of kaiju compared to the other Eugenicists. Due to this, while the others more or less thought of kaiju as a mean to create a world where they can live and be accepted, Sizumu would consider kaiju as his own kind, so much so that he had a severe disconnection with humans. He distanced himself away from even the Eugenicists, almost as if he only tagged along because they shared the same basic goal.

He didn't seek to understand humans, but instead for humans to understand kaiju. His goal was to create a world where not only the Eugenicists were accepted, but kaiju themselves were accepted. He believed that the world was better off like this, because, from his perspective, kaiju could liberate people from human bonds and offer them unlimited freedom. To me, this is rather hypocritical as he never understood why people tied themselves to these bonds in the first place, so he wasn't in a position to say what was better and what wasn't.

Sizumu was the only Eugenicist to mention this kaiju power and express his distaste towards human bonds. He explained this very early on to Yomogi and Yume, and why did he do this, you may ask? Why, to help them understand his views and create an opening for a potential alliance, of course. If his only purpose was to absorb their emotions, then that's quite a lot of unnecessary effort to make himself look friendly and approachable to an uncanny degree, especially when being "friendly and approachable" wasn't his forte. No, he was testing the water to see if he could get them on his side.

Then came an unexpected opportunity for him to determine once and for all if Team Dynazenon can understand and accept kaiju. He let a failed kaiju run free and distracted the Eugenicists away from it (with a tactic he learned from Chise) to see what the Dynazenon crew would do. Some people said that it's to test if any of them were kaiju user, and while that's possible, I think it's a little unlikely. Sizumu only observed them at 2 instances, first was when they started the search for the kaiju, the second was when their beam destroyed the kaiju. Unless the kaiju voices could tell him, there would be no way for Sizumu to know if any of them used Instance Domination, until the very end when Yomogi used it on him. The likelier hypothesis would be: he saw them searching for the kaiju > he saw the kaiju being killed > he surmised that kaiju couldn't exist peacefully with Team Dynazenon, and didn't seem to be particularly happy about it.

From then on, Sizumu decided that they couldn't be his allies thus no longer approached Yomogi or Yume. It seems that he arrived to this final conclusion:

And this is where the series itself left off. Kaiju simply can't co-exist with humans. They are irregulars to the human society. Furthermore, the freedom that they offer can't be allowed to exist as running away from society and real human connections is wrong, even if reality is ugly and difficult to face. This is what make the series similar to Gridman. However, unlike Akane, the antagonists of Dynazenon failed to realized this and didn't get their happy ending.

(A detail that I'd like to mention is that Sizumu was silent during the entire final battle in contrast to the other Eugenicists who were pumping themselves up. It was like he was saying, "Didn't want to do this but I guess you left me with no choice". Though silence can mean anything so it's not a concrete evidence.)

TL;DR and Final Words

This is so much longer than I thought and I really apologize for it. I just don't want to make anyone do logical leaps when reading this post.

Tl;dr:

- Onija wanted to live and had a grudge towards Gauma and humans for causing his death.

- Juuga wanted Gauma to join them again and for things to be back the way it was 5000 years ago. He cared for nothing outside of the Eugenicists group.

- Munija wanted a purpose, found one, then lost it again. She envied Koyomi for regaining his sense of purpose and moving forward with his life.

- Sizumu wanted humans to understand kaiju and a world where kaiju can set humans free from their bonds. Initially considered an alliance with Team Dynazenon, but concluded that them (and people in general) couldn't understand kaiju after all.

- Final message of the show: Go touch some grass and talk to humans you fucking weebs.

Misc

When using Instance Domination, the palms of the Eugenicists always face towards the kaiju. The only exception is the last battle where Sizumu's palm faced towards himself, indicating that the kaiju was inside him. I believe that it was located at the center of his chest, where he shot out that weird magical light beam. Just a small thing I find interesting.

If we want to take it a step further, I believe the seed inside him had already grown into a kaiju, but it was still relatively small until he used Instance Domination on it. Eerie, huh?

And this is more of the theory territory and leaving the analysis, but this could possibly be why he was able to hear kaiju voices. Chise was able to understand Goldburn and translated for him at the end, so maybe having a kaiju inside of you would allow you to understand other kaiju somehow? If this is the case, he would probably have had the kaiju inside of him since 5000 years ago.

There's also this big brain moment from a 4chan user. The resemblance between Yume and Juuga is kinda uncanny considering they're both obsessed with the past.

That's it boys. I'm gonna crawl back into my hole until next century, or until Trigger drops Edgerunners. 8/10 show, VERY underrated gem. Trigger won't stop saving anime.

This post but on Reddit:

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feirceangel · 3 years

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Imagine | A Baby? (David)

Imagine David having to raise you.

Requested by @Davidsmate24 on Wattpad.

The night started as normal, the boys hanging around the boardwalk until they grew hungry. So, they tracked down a few unsuspecting people and feasted.

Of course, something unexpected happened.

When David was about to attack a woman, she screamed, "No, Y/n! Don't hurt her!"

David, naturally, paid her outburst no mind and drained her of blood.

Then, he heard a cry.

A baby's cry.

This was not good. The Lost Boys never hurt children: it was just an unspoken rule. David frowned as he investigated the noise.

He discovered a babe wrapped in a soft f/c blanket lying by a bunch of bags on the ground. This must be the 'Y/n' that the lady was screaming about.

Paul, Marko, and Dwayne come beside him and stare down at the child.

"What are we gonna do?" Marko asks, tilting his head.

David cusses, "I have no idea."

Long story short, they took you in and began raising you as their own.

It wasn't easy for them to get accustomed to you.

David stares at the screaming kid with irritation etched into his features. "What the hell is wrong with it?!"

At his tone, she begins to cry out again, louder this time. He runs a gloved hand through his hair and breathes out heavily.

Dwayne speaks up, "Maybe she's hungry?"

"Marko, food," David demands.

Marko frowns, "What do babies eat?"

"I don't know, think of something!" David growls, sending the younger vampire scampering away.

The child watches the curly blond leave before wailing again.

"Ugh, make it stop!" He seethes, glaring at the nuisance.

"Maybe pick it up?" Paul suggests.

David curls his lip, "No way. You hold it."

"Hey, it's not my responsibility."

"Why is it my responsibility?"

"Because you killed its mom."

Dwayne intervenes, "Can you stop calling her an it? She has a name."

"What was it again?"

Dwayne sighs, "Y/n."

"Oh right."

David, having enough of the crying, finally bends down and scoops the child into his arms.

To everyone's surprise, Y/n stops crying.

Marko walks in, holding up a bag, "I found some baby food!"

"Finally," David sighs, and hands the kid over to Marko and Dwayne. Although he'd never admit it, he actually liked holding the baby in his arms.

Eventually, you grew into a cute toddler. Marko and Paul loved playing with you and teaching you knew things, like how to speak and walk and draw, while Dwayne was determined to teach you the alphabet and simple math.

David was like the overseer, and somehow your favourite out of all the boys. He would read to you and show you cool 'magic' tricks and tuck you into bed each morning.

The boys all grew attached to you, and loved you as much as they would have their own flesh and blood.

When you discovered that the boys were vampires, you were unaffected, having not understood what vampires were in the first place. They told you when you were younger, so that it wouldn't be such a shock.

They told you that you could turn when you were eighteen, which seemed so far away at the time.

Currently, at seventeen years of age, you've become a bit of a rebel. Therefore, it's been harder for the boys to keep you out of trouble.

You sneak out during the middle of the day to explore Santa Carla without the boys watching your every move. You've even been hanging around the comic book shop much to the annoyance of David.

He's become so protective of you, demanding that you stop seeing Edgar and Alan, claiming that they're 'dangerous'.

You can understand where he's coming from, seeing as the Frog brothers are determined self proclaimed vampire hunters. The fact that you're going to turn into a vampire in a few months would make them hate you.

David hates waking up to find you missing, although you always leave notes to tell him where you are.

Paul and Marko usually feed your rebellious side, being the fun uncles of the group. Dwayne is more of the calm, but still cool, uncle.

David, on the other hand, is your father figure, having taken up the mantle when he 'found' you on the beach.

You even call him 'dad' sometimes.

In the best sense, you and the Lost Boys make a tightly knit family, willing to do anything for each other.

You enter the comic book shop with a smile, sunlight pouring in after you. Edgar and Alan look up from the books in their hands to return the smile.

"Hey, guys, what's up?"

Alan crosses his arms and leans against the counter, "Not much. It's been quiet lately."

"No vampires?" You tease, a sly smirk forming on your lips. Deep inside, you're terrified that one day they'll find what they've been looking for.

If they did find out the Lost Boys' secret, there's no doubt that they would try something foolish.

You really don't want that to happen.

Edgar glares at you, "Not yet, but we're ready."

"I know that. You and your crosses and garlic."

Alan adds, "Don't forget the holy water."

You roll your eyes, but cringe on the inside. Holy water is the only thing that can actually harm the boys, apart from sunlight.

Relax, they have no clue.

Sitting on the counter next to Alan, you look at the fading sunlight. You snuck out before sunset to throw off the Frog's suspicion, just in case.

"What are you doing tonight, Y/n?"

You turn to Alan and shrug, "No idea. Probably just hang around here, if that's okay?"

"Got nothing better to do?" Edgar questions.

"Jeez, now that I think of it, I've got dinner with the Queen! How could I forget that?" You laugh, "What do you think, Eddie?"

Alan suggests, "We could always go to that concert, close up shop early.

"Ooh, yes! I wanted to catch that concert! It's gonna be awesome!"

You look to Edgar with wide puppy dog eyes, "C'mon, what'd you say?"

He doesn't say anything, simply sighs and nods. You laugh in victory and leap up, "Let's go, losers!"

The concert is amazing!

You've been to a bunch of different concerts before, but never with the Frog brothers. They kinda just stand there and maybe nod along, but it's nice to be with friends.

In the distance, you hear motorcycles revving.

Crap. I hope they don't ruin everything.

You nudge Edgar, "We should head back."

"Why?" He frowns in confusion.

"It's nothing, let's just go."

You push through the crowd on your way to the shop. As you break free from the swarm of people, a different group blocks your way.

An angry David leads them.

"Oh, uh, heya Pops," you mumble, looking downwards. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Where were you?" He asks.

"Out."

"I know that, I want to know where you were."

You gulp. Technically, you're not supposed to be hanging around the Frog brothers.

"I was around. I went to the concert."

Just then, two familiar brothers arrive behind you, "These guys bothering you?"

"No-" you start to say, but a glare from David silences you.

"The Frogs," the head vampire growls with a smile.

This is not good

"Why are you hanging around my daughter?" He takes a drag from his cigarette.

Edgar and Alan freeze. They hadn't known about you're fatherly attachment to David.

"Daughter?" Edgar asks disbelievingly.

He nods.

They look to you and you nod, "Yeah, this is my adopted dad, David. David, you know Edgar and Alan."

"You're one of them!" Edgar accuses. He's been suspecting the Lost Boys of being murderous vampires for some time.

"No!" At your outburst, David frowns dangerously. "I mean, kind of. I don't know," you try to explain.

Alan scoffs and starts to walk away, "Don't bother coming back to the shop. You're not welcome."

Your heart breaks as they leave.

Tears fall from your face as Marko wraps you in a warm embrace, "It's okay, kid."

"It's not okay!" You yell, wrenching away from them.

You run to the beach, away from it all. The silence is a welcomed experience. You turn when you sense a presence.

"David, why did you do that?!"

"You have to realize that they don't care about you! You know what they'd do if they knew for a fact that you were raised by vampires?! They'd kill you, Y/n. This is for the best."

You hate to admit it, but he's right. You hate it when he's right.

He hands you a cigarette and lights it for you, "I'm sorry, hun. I know you wanted to be their friend."

"They're the only ones who wanted anything to do with me."

"Not true," David chastises, "Marko, Paul, and Dwayne love hanging with you."

"It's not the same."

He sighs heavily, "You're right. We're your family: we're never gonna run away like that, no matter what."

You hiccup, trying to stop the tears. He draws you close and hugs you, "Love you, sweetie."

"Love you too, dad."

#the lost boys #80s movies #x reader #vampire #David #female reader #reader insert #fanfic #lost boys #frogs #Alan #Edgar

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1000generations · 3 years

Text

Thank you for the tag @little-lightning-lavellan and @rosella-writes!

This is from a story in which Fen'Asha Lavellan, in a desperate attempt to stop Solas from destroying Thedas as we know it, transports him to another world. Our world.

It's been a WIP for... 6 years. 😅 There is like... 200,000+ words of this self-indulgent nonsense. It needs so much reworking it's daunting. lol

This scene is from Solas and Fen'Asha exploring McDonald's...

Fen’Asha put her lips to the straw. She wanted to taste what he was tasting, wanted to partake in his world. She was bold enough to walk the Fade, confront dragons, defeat Corypheus. Plus, she was used to tea.

”Vhenan?” asked Solas, reaching out for Fen’Asha as she began coughing.

She shivered slightly, the coughs still plaguing her throat. The sweetness was shocking, as was the cold. “Shit.”

A woman from the table next to her shot her a glare.

“What is it?” asked Solas.

“It is so strange,” said Fen’Asha. “I have never had tea like this before…”

“Yes,” he said. “Most curious.”

She tinkered with her straw, raising it up and down in the lid of her cup and finding that it made an interestingly musical noise. She shook her head.

“Many things in this world are not as they seem,” said Solas. He dabbed a fry in Fen’Asha’s Sweet and Sour Sauce and pondered it.

“What do you mean?”

“Your tea is not tea,” said Solas. “The People’s Courtis not court.”

She nodded, letting go of her musical straw.

“Yet many things are real,” said Solas. “The news depicts real events, albeit with a unique point of view.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, picking up a fry.

“It appears that there is always something at the root of a viewpoint,” he said. “Some kind of interest. For the most part, this is translucent and I presume most anyone could see through the many smokescreens. And yet, I am not so sure.”

“They seem happy enough,” said Fen’Asha.

“They are being influenced,” said Solas. “To what degree they allow it is the question. It seems clear they are involved in their own manipulation to some degree, as this world does not behave in a way that would be considered sympathetic to its own survival. They ruin large swaths of their habitats, they commit horrendous crimes against one another for trivial reasons…”

“That does not sound unlike Thedas. The Blight…”

“A worthy example,” said Solas. “Many were not willing to see the Blight as a threat. Others preferred the comfort of their ignorance and concocted many alternatives to actual events. Just like here.”

She nodded.

“That is why it is important to remain vigilant,” said Solas. “With so much dishonesty, it can be easy to go astray. And it can be easy to want to go astray, especially if reality is painful.”

“I have never opted for what was comfortable,” said Fen’Asha. “Clearly.”

Solas nodded. “This is certainly true. Our path to here could not have been easy.”

“Nothing about this has been easy,” she said. “It has taken a great deal of time to come to peace with everything that happened. And even now, I’m not even close to being there.”

“You are uncertain about me?”

She nodded.

“There were – there are – reasons for my reluctance. I could not and cannot reveal the entirety of my plans because you would try to stop me," He paused, considering her. "I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She sighed. “I am sitting here in a restaurant with you. You want to destroy Thedas, our world, and I’m sipping some silly drink like nothing’s wrong with that. We had sex, shared a bed. We make small-talk. We go for walks, make plans for a future like we’re some stupid couple. Nothing about this makes sense and no, Sloane, nothing about this has been easy. It won’t ever be easy, Sloane.”

Solas made a face as a small child shrieked nearby. He turned to see the culprit racing away through a set of glass doors with an enraged adult chasing behind in a yellow coat.

“And yet what can I do?” she continued. “I’m here in this strange land, like you keep saying. I’m here with you whether I like it or not.”

“I see,” said Solas.

“You hold out hope that you’re going to get back to Thedas to finish what you started,” she said. “I hold out hope that I’ll be able to stop you from doing that. I can’t pretend that’s not happening.”

“I appreciate you speaking plainly, Vhenan.”

“I’m glad,” she said. “Because I have questions.”

“I am sure you do.”

“Why me?” she said.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” he said.

“You are older than Arlathan?”

He sighed.

“And you are thousands of years old,” she said. “So why me? Why did you love me? My life is a flash for you, an inconsequential blip. You have lived so long. I have lived for mere minutes in contrast. I am…a fly.”

“That is a crude analogy,” he said.

“And you’re Fen’Harel. My god. Why would I think you would love me? Knowing everything…”

“I was never a god,” said Solas. “But that was what you wanted, what you expected. Your heart was always destined to break if it became entangled with mine.”

“So?”

“So I had already broken your heart once as Solas,” he said. “I had no desire to do so again.”

“But that is my burden, my pain. The choice is not yours.”

“My duty would always tear us apart, Fen’Asha,” he said. “It was because of me that you could not hold the gift of immortality. If there is a Maker in this world or the others, surely the Maker is laughing at me.”

“I think the Maker is laughing at both of us,” she said.

“At least as Fen’Harel, I could be near you,” he said.

“But you could have said…”

“We are moving in circles,” Solas said. “I tried to reduce my feelings. I knew what we had would only lead to lathbora viran, but you called for me and I answered. Like I always will.”

“You can’t keep…”

“I was selfish then. I am selfish now,” he said. “As Solas, as Fen’Harel, as Sloane.”

She sighed.

“I had hoped to assuage any temptation,” he said. “But reality crashed through. Our reality. When I learned of the Qunari plot at the Exalted Council, I had to act. And now, my mistakes must be rectified. There is no other way.”

“There always is another way,” she said.

“There should never have been a Veil. My life…much of it…seems to be a series of mistakes.”

“You would take so much to fix your error? You would insist the rest of us pay the price for your compensation?”

“There are other things at stake,” said Solas. “It is not so simple. The lyrium. The Blight. It matters little now I am here.”

“Thank the Maker for small mercies.”

He looked at her and for a moment irritation seemed to flicker across his face. He amended it into a tentative grin, then looked away as his eyebrows lowered.

“I will always try to stop you,” she said.

“I know,” said Solas. “But Thedas must be left behind for the time being.”

She nodded.

“And my desire for you…”

“You will leave that behind, too,” she said.

“No,” he said. He reached across the table for her hands. “No.”

“It’s not a good idea,” she said.

“You have doubts?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Then I wish to rectify that,” he said.

“Do you have doubts about me?”

“Not for a moment.”

“You haven’t made this easy,” she said. “Little of this makes sense.” She looked at a fry.

“I know,” he said. “But love defies explanation.”

“My mother said it was a gift…”

“Yes,” said Solas. “A choice. The reasons I choose to love you are…I simply want to. As you wanted to love me at one time. It is desire.”

“Love is more than desire,” she said deliberately.

“But desire is at the core. You can remove the love from desire, but you cannot remove the desire from love.”

“You are wise, Sloane,” she said after a pause.

“Even wisdom has limits,” said Solas.

Fen’Asha agreed, sipped her iced tea. She was getting used to the awful sweetness, to the way the drink cut into the corners of her mouth and made her tongue feel rough.

“For all the desire I felt for you,” continued Solas, “I subjected you to cruelty because of my selfishness. I never should have persisted in my desires. I should have fled sooner.”

“That’s one thing you do not understand,” she said. “I wouldn’t have traded in any of my moments with you. Even the painful ones. Because they were moments with you.”

“You could’ve been with someone, grown old with someone, had a family…” he said.

“I do not share the same wishes,” said Fen’Asha. “My family was you. Sera. Dagna. The Inquisition.”

“You did not desire children?”

She shook her head.

“But Hightown…?”

“You saw me in Kirkwall?”

Solas nodded. “I saw you through the eyes of the children, saw your kindness at the orphanage. Saw your insurrection in the faces of the nobles as they cursed you for bringing such a place to Hightown in the first place.”

Fen’Asha felt a chill. She had used Varric’s gift to her in Kirkwall, a mansion in the grandiloquent neighbourhood of Hightown, as an orphanage for the disadvantaged. She’d hired staff and enticed the right nobles, but that didn’t mean everyone took to the idea well. She thought back to the children in Thedas, wondered how they were doing.

“Some of the children saw it as a palace, a fairytale unwinding beneath their feet,” continued Solas. “Others saw dark corners and sinister hallways, not yet able to shed the horrors of their pasts. But in all of them, you were beautiful, an angel, bright as the sun.”

“More members of my family.”

Solas smiled warmly. “You would make a wonderful mother.”

“In the minds of many,” she said. “But it is not my choice in this life.”

He looked down.

“I am happy, Solas,” she said. “I do not wish for the same things as others, that’s all. I don’t want to be pitied because I don’t desire a family of my own. I am a Red Jenny. I was the Inquisitor. I was…yours. I served my clan. For a young elf from nowhere, for a nomad…it has been an incredible life.”

“It has.”

“And you were a huge part of that,” said Fen’Asha. Her fries were cold. “You still are.”

“You may be but a shooting star in my universe, a fleeting moment,” said Solas. “But you have made a permanent impression.”

She warmed. She wanted to touch him, feel him near. She wanted to reach across the table, wanted to kiss him with the mothers and fathers and children of this Edmonton watching. She didn’t care where she was as long as she was with him. She knew he would be the end of her. She knew she would be the end of him. She knew it hardly mattered now. She knew it was a horrible idea.

“I will always cherish you, Vhenan,” said Solas. “I will always love you.”

She was in his arms on his side of the table. She was sitting on his lap and he was caressing her back. She was cradling his face under his hood, under his necessary subterfuge against the misunderstandings of this world. She was breathing as he touched her hair, felt through its tresses. She closed her eyes as she kissed him.

He held her tight.

“I love you, Vhenas,” she said. “Always. Anywhere.”

I have no one in particular to tag. But I love to see what people are working on in the fandom if they care to share. 😊

#Someday might actually put aside time to work on this fic properly idk #dragon age fanfiction WIP #wip wednesday #1000generations posts #maker only knows

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bensonsballerz · 3 years

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hello tumblr, im going to list down all my taichi fujisaki headcanons, including backstory stuff and post thh stuff! he’s one of my top three fave danganronpa characters ;w; hope yall enjoy!!

BACKSTORY + UP UNTIL UDG

taichi grew up an only child and had both parents in his life. the first couple years of his life (up until maybe 5th grade) were good! they cared for him and loved him, but things began to go downhill

taichis father is a traditional person (man has to be strong yada yada yada) but taichi wasnt turning out like that. thus, his father began to resent him. not only that, but his parents began to get busy and start working more and more, ultimately neglecting him in the process

taichi was bullied and didnt have many friends or none at all both in middle and high school. he was shy, nerdy, fidgety, timid, etc

in high school he was still all these things, but he also began to become more angry, depressed, and extremely anxious. to curb this, he began smoking cigarettes

around this time tho, in high school (or college), he meets takaaki ishimaru and hiroko hagakure. they all become good friends

in college, he was still struggling with bad anxiety and his smoking habits. fortunately he wasnt bullied very much anymore

he explored his sexuality his first year too, and pushes away the realization he is bisexual with a female preference

later on, he meets his future wife whose name i havent picked out. im thinking chiaki tho, cuz it’d be cute

she helps him overcome his smoking problem and helps him be less anxious

things are looking up! but then some bombshells drop: his father has died from cancer, and his fiance (or wife, id like to think he proposed in college too!) is pregnant

of course its scary and nervewracking, but fortunately its their last year of university, and they overcome it together. soon, they have their first and only child, the beloved chihiro fujisaki!

taichi is a very good and loving parent. he swears up and down to never be like his parents, and to make sure chihiro is loved and knows that they are loved

however, he can be very nervous and cautious. if overwhelmed he freezes up, which isnt good for a parent really especially for a baby (his wife loves him but can get frustrated at this)

it breaks his heart when he sees chihiro getting bullied. it hits home. he tries to encourage them not to let the bullies get to them (although taichi is still dealing with the internalized idea that he must be a strong man with no feelings)

when chihiro becomes a woman, taichi is a bit confused and upset. whether its with the headcanon of chihiro being transfem or the story of them doing it to escape bullying, taichi feels guilty because he sees chihiro doing this solely to escape the bullying. in taichi’s eyes, he sees it as changing yourself to be more palatable to the bullies

however, after doing some research and thinking about it, he later on accepts chihiros wishes because he just wants them to be happy. he does his best to be supportive and understanding!

when chihiro gets accepted into hopes peak, oh my god he is so proud and so happy for them!! (and maybe a bit jealous too since he supposedly wasnt good enough in high school)

he misses them while they are at school (id assume they have dorms) and he tries to be there and chat whenever he can, embarrassing chihiro (taichi doesnt mind, he’s actually kinda glad because its normal behavior for a teen)

taichi loves their friends too! he was a bit wary of mondo and leon but came to appreciate them. he’s also super stoked kiyotaka and chihiro are bonding! (bc taka is takaaki’s kid)

soon, though, the tragedy began to bubble up. taichi was simply walking to work (or maybe getting in his car) one day when he was kidnapped, supposedly taken to the same apartment complex as komaru. he’s completely terrified and is worried sick about chihiro and his wife, since he has no ideas about their whereabouts. he’s even too afraid to cause a ruckus or try to escape, out of fear of being hurt or killed. he mulls over the last thing he said to chihiro and his wife over and over, just wishing he could have said more and hoping they’re alive…

aaand thats about it for the backstory portion! im getting tired, but im not gonna stop here!! ill post soon what happened after his injury, reacting to chihiros death, etc

i hope you guys liked it!! sorry its such a long post tho, i might break it up later

#taichi fujisaki #fujisaki taichi #chihiro fujisaki #fujisaki chihiro #takaaki ishimaru #ishimaru takaaki #hiroko hagakure #hagakure hiroko #danganronpa #danganronpa ultra despair girls #danganronpa udg #ultra despair girls #udg #dr #dr udg #dr ultra despair girls

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whereflowersbloom · 4 years

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Sleepless night

The desperate and loud yells and screams were all that Raven could hear as she ran out of the safehouse that she had been occupying after suddenly fainting in the middle of the fight, completely drained for overusing her powers. They did not see it coming, no one did, more powerful and deadly enemies showing up after the battle against Trigon and then Darkseid. Damian had given her his word to meet here there after, taking care of some damage control in the east side of Jump city. No one expected this to happen. She pushed her way through masses of people in the dark and crumbling streets, only to look down at Damian’s bleeding body, lifeless on the ice cold streets.

“Damian...” Raven barely breathed, kneeling down next to him and picking his head up, cradling it in her lap, brushing the hair out of his face, a single trail of blood dripping from his mouth. No, no, this couldn’t be happening, she used her powers to heal him, bring him back but nothing happened. She tried again. Nothing. His whole body was rigged and pale, his hand cupping his side where blood spilled through his fingers. “Damian, you can’t leave me. Your promised me you would always come back to me.”

“We have to finish decorating the new apartment, and you can yell at Jon and Conner for messing around while painting the guest’s room.” Raven whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. But he did not move. He could not move. She begged urgently to Azar for him to open his clear green eyes. She did not feel any emotions or anything at all coming from him. Her insufferable and kind-heated Damian. Civilians flooded around them, everyone straining to see what had happened, mothers covering their children’s eyes and pulling them away from the silent madness. Someone came up to Raven and put his hand over hers, she didn’t bother to identify the person. She did not care, her lover’s body lying cold and stiff in her arms. Gently, they pulled him from her as she started to really grasp what had happened. Once she felt that he was no longer in her arms, she looked around frantically yelling. “No, no, no. Wait! Damian!”

“Raven wake up!” She heard a voice exclaim as a hand fell against her upper arm and shook her lightly.

Raven’s eyes shot open, trembling, startled beyond speech for a heartbeat, she feels a little more disoriented than usual as she comes to, blinking through the dark of the bedroom. Her chest feels tight and her lungs feel a little bit like they’re burning, like she can’t take air in fast enough, until her violet eyes find Damian’s stunningly brilliant emerald eyes wide with alarm, with worry, concern for her, lingering just above her, snapping her out of her daze. She sucks in a sharp breath, sputtering, lungs fluttering in relief. He was here, safe and alive.

“It was a nightmare, beloved. It’s alright.” Damian whispered comforting words next to her small ear, his calloused thumb brushing a tear from the corner of her eye, his lips a gentle press against her temple.

Raven dug her nails into Damian’s skin with how tightly she clings onto him and this truth, he’s alive with her and Trigon can’t harm him, and felt her lover’s skin beneath her palms solid and warm and very real. If it hurts him, he doesn’t let her know. He doesn’t even flinch or groan. He simply drew her to his exposed tanned chest and kissed the top of her head, her temple, her rosy and soft cheek, murmuring words she can’t quite catch in another language, though the comfort her all the same. His presence was calming and he was all Raven ever wanted, someone who accepted her despite her quirks, mistakes, a tormented and deeply flawed being. No, Damian could see beyond that, he saw right through her, strengths, virtues, compassion, the things that made her Raven. There was no judgment between them. She let the depth of his love for her, the sincere and profound emotions sink into her body. She glanced down the bed, her eyes adjusted to the darkness of their room, and took in the way the covers and sheets are tangled around her calves. She felt as if she’d been frozen in her dream, unable to do anything but fall into that agony, chaos, that world where her Damian wasn’t breathing. She didn’t want to imagine it again. It’s obvious her body had been frantic. She can’t remember ever moving around so much in her sleep before.

“Raven.” he breathed, his strong muscular arms tightening around her as he began to casually trace circles on her back. “I wasn’t sure if I should’ve woken you.”

She nodded slightly, her heart beating wildly in her chest. “I’m glad you did.” She felt trapped in that vivid and terrifying nightmare. Useless, unable to do anything to save the most important person in her life. She can’t bring herself to say explain it, the horrors of her dreams, the fear of losing him oermamnentiy, but she knows Damian understands her, anyway. He had a natural way to interpret her body language, every move, gesture, he knew her like no other. Words weren’t necessary.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Damian offered with such love and tenderness, his eyes wrinkle at the corner, intense eyes studying her reaction,and then he dropped his lips to her forehead. Raven shook her head and reached over to Damian’s shoulder, running a lazy finger down the smooth hot flesh. Damian shuddered momentarily, eyes shuttering closed and open again. “I could use a distraction.” And Damian narrowed his eyes, green eyes darkening, catching the suggestive hint in her words. “Oh, I know a very specific way that could be of help.”

Damian breathed deeply while her hand was placed to the back of his head to pull him closer and in the next second his devilishly sweet mouth was covering hers. It started out as a careful slow kiss, testing the waters, and they continued kissing lazily. Her lover licked her lower lip and she opened her mouth to let him in and ran her hand through his dark thick hair as the kiss grew more passionate. Raven completely forgot about the bad dream before and she knew she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

Opening her mouth and allowing him permission to kiss her deeply. When he bit her lip lightly she let out a moan filled with desire, and that seemed to send him into overdrive and suddenly he shifted and he was on top of her. His hands slowly cradled her face to align it better so he could access her mouth at just the right angle and then they continued to her neck and slowly, oh so deliciously slowly, moved down her sides to the bottom of her nightgown. They disappeared under it and her skin was on fire. Every inch of the skin he touched felt as if it was on fire and they had only started kissing. But every single time it was that way with Damian, night clothes were discarded on the floor of the room, they’re really in the way of their nocturnal activity. Damian continued his slow, torturous path, gently sucking at her neck, moving to nibble at her delicate sensitive ear. Raven’s soft whimpers and gentle scratches along his sides and back drove Damian crazy. He gasped out against her skin.

“You’re so beautiful.” He rasped huskily, his voice filled with need for her. He took one pink nipple, completely hardened by then, in his mouth and sucked on it. One of his hands caressed her flat stomach while he settled the other on her lower back to hold her in place. As if she could move, she was passed with hunger for his touch.

Raven threw her head back, her dark locks covering her narrow back and he gripped firmly them with the hand on her back. His tongue flicked over her pulse on her neck while still holding her in place by her hair. He grazed her flushed skin with his white teeth and heat pooled between her legs. He knew the effect he had on her. Long gone was the shyness of their inexperience the first times they made love.

Damian slowly ran a rough hand down Raven’s smooth stomach until he came to rest between her pale and gorgeous thighs. The first brush of his fingers over the folds of her sex makes her jump, so brief that she thinks it had maybe been an accident. Until two fingers are pressing against her again in purposeful strokes, parting her sex. Her lips fall open in a soft moan as his mouth skims over her pulse, sucking at it gently at first, then a little harder. His fingertips find her little bundle of nerves with ease and he teases it in slow circles, her hips starting to rock against his hand as she moans louder.

“Quiet, my love.” he shushed gently, playfully smirking into her neck as he dipped his skilled long fingers lower, lower, finding her entrance. “Someone will hear you.” But she didn’t care, she wanted his fingers, mouth, everything he had to offer exploring her every part. He slipped his fingers between her folds, massaging her centre while his mouth roamed her chest and down to her navel. He quickly slid a finger inside her and Raven gasped out at the fullness. Yes, oh Azar, that was exactly what she needed.

Her mouth opened to blissfully receive his fully, and their tongues danced and teased each other. Raven felt the building in her core and she bit down on Damian’s full swollen lip, her legs shaking but her hips gyrating against her partner’s expert fingers. He curls his fingers, quickly finding a rhythm that makes her vision eyes haze over and Raven can almost feel the orgasm crashing through her body, when all of a sudden. She sensed it, someone coming.

She can just barely hear light footsteps coming down the hallway, towards their room, she’s only just pressed her face into the crook of Damian’s neck when they heard repeated and gentle knocking at the wooden door. “OH FOR FUCKS SAKE.” Someone exclaimed in shock.

“Shit. fuck, sorry.” The recognizable familiar voice of Jon Kent muttered, muffled through the wall. Though they must have been half-hidden in the sheets of their enormous bed from the bedroom door at this angle, she knows there’s no mistake that Jon indeed saw something she shouldn’t have with his X-rays vision, considering the whirlwind of emotions coming from him. “I heard someone screaming and though maybe...” he began to explain obviously nervous, stuttering over his words. “I’m sorry Dami and Raven....Goodnight.” He sounded so embarrassed and perhaps a bit disturbed. They would have an extremely awkward conversation tomorrow at breakfast.

“Dude, explain tomorrow, they are obviously busy.” Jaime interrupted politely, unexpectedly surprising Damian and Raven, Jaime immediately dragged a traumatized Jon back to his room, who kept apologizing until they were down the hallway.. Shit. Damian pinched the bridge of his nose in defeat. Fucking Kryptonian abilities. First thing in the morning tomorrow, he would soundproof their bedroom and make proper arrangements for their apartment to be ready and have everything they required installed before the end of the month.

Damian and Raven exchange looks, not sure how they would face their teammates tomorrow. It was nothing new they were in a romantic relationship, but so far their friends respected the privacy of their intimacy. When Raven finds her voice, it’s breathless and heavy, thick with the discomfort of being caught and excitement of their sexual activity before they were abruptly interrupted. “I think we’ve traumatized the entire Tower.”

“They’ll get used to it, beloved.” Damian mumbled, frowning at the thought of Jon opening his big mouth to let anyone know what he had seen tonight. He would have a word with him when Raven wasn’t around. He sighed and his muscles relaxed, his hands traveling the magnificent curves of his girlfriend, and aspiring the intoxicating lavender essence of her hair, pressing a kiss over her temple, against her forehead, until he finds her lips again.

She looked up at him, the full weight of her love, her undeniable and undying desire, her devotion to him shining through her beautifully stunning violet eyes. Her lips instantly curl into a warm and genuine smile, happiness. It was real. This was her reality and Damian was part of her life. This was only the begging of their life together.

Another short one shot 🙈🙈🙈🙈

@xaphrin @andthendk @chromium7sky @ravenfan1242

#damirae #demon birds #damian wayne #raven roth #jon kent #jaime reyes #teen titans #donna troy #conner kent #garfiend logan #robrae #oneshot #smut and angst #domestic fluff #nightmares #dc fandom #dc universe #robin #writing

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uservillanelle · 4 years

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Killing Eve ― 3x04 (Review)

Last episode was... something else for me. Episode 3 will ALWAYS have a special place in my heart because of Villaneve’s kiss and all that, but this episode. It has to be my favorite this season and if they keep up like that... not only will we have a PERFECT season, but it will be impossible for me to pick a favorite episode. I’ve watched it probably close to 10 times already and I’m not going to wait any longer. We have bunch of stuff to discuss! So let’s start!! (This will be a LONG review, so I apologize in advance lol!)

The Titles

It’s so interesting that they chose this season to experiment with episodes. Back in episode 2 we had the very first additional credits sequence which I, personally, liked a lot. However, maybe they didn’t like it as much? Since they didn’t use it anymore. I wonder why they haven’t placed the credits sequence in the premiere instead? It would still be unpredictable gesture, so I’m still wondering about it.

ANYWAYS! By titles, I meant the NAME titles this episode. The past two seasons we were used to having titles that indicate the names of PLACES e.g. RUSSIA, LONDON, TUSCANY ect. They are still doing that, in different way, the letters are smaller now and they use this interesting “blinds” effect that the letters appear and move like blinds would if we opened/closed them? Really nice touch, I must say. It’s something different, something we haven’t really seen before in the show.

Now the names. I’ve read a couple of people saying something like “why the name titles? we obviously know who the person is? so what’s the point of that?!” I found that quite funny lol! I mean, YES, we know exactly who they are but that’s not the reason why they’re using those name titles. Name titles, in this case, are to show us WHO the show is focusing on for the time being. That also means that the normal sequence of events will be disrupted since there won’t be any scenes switching between different characters. For some reason I felt like something like this happened before but then I remembered that something like this was used in another show called Dare Me! That’s why it felt so familliar and Killing Eve is exploring that type of narrative and honestly, I dig it. Yeah, it might get confusing for some people, having to bounce back and forth between the timeline and the events, but it’s perfect for those of us who has a sharp eye for details. It’s for the viewers who analyse and put pieces together. It’s exactly what Eve is doing at the end of the day with all the kills, isn’t it? So thinking about it, makes it all even more fascinating. Damn. I’m REALLY falling for the show... aren’t I?

The titles makes it SOO much easier for me to write these reviews as they basically tell which character they are focusing on right now and that’s what I did in my reviews lmao! I’ll just follow the characters in the episode so I’m sure you guys will be able to catch up with me with no problems!

Niko

So... THE MUSTACHE IS GONE.

I didn’t see it coming. The way they released all those trailers/sneak peeks featuring Niko made it seem like he was finally getting his fresh start and like, I had a feeling we might even get an episode fully focused on him and maybe Eve or something? So, that’s how well they mix things up. My mind, yet again, has been BLOWN.

Before we talk about the elephant in the room, I just want to say that Niko was a good person. I might not have been a huge fan of him, but I felt IT. Speaking of fans, I think it’s normal to NOT like him because he is playing the boring husband type and obviously he stands between Villaneve. But other than that, he IS a good, ordinary person. It’s a fact and Eve knows it. Niko keeps Eve grounded, safe, STABLE. He is all those things she found boring before in season 1 and didn’t appreciate enough I feel, because she was too used to them as all of us are.

He gets to play the part of a normal, ordinary man who got scared when he found out that his wife is chasing an assassin, who soon enough possibly murdered Eve’s colleague and a dear friend. Yet, it didn’t seem to slow Eve down nor did she notice any of the red flags in front of her face that straight up screamed DANGER. I think most of us would’ve reacted to things like that the way Niko did. Yes, we would’ve been a boring man/woman who the viewers hate, because they crave for danger and psychotic obssession filled with hatred and lust and a LOT of craziness. It’s what we crave now, watching the show and WAITING for Villaneve to happen.

This morning I’ve been watching a few of reactions of the episode and I got to explore different perspectives of people reacting to the same thing. I love that. I want to know what other people see in things, you know? And so... one of the people made a point about KE writers killing off whoever they want, probably to surprise the viewers as they probably don’t know how else to drive the story. Meaning that Kenny or Niko didn’t have to die. But that’s the whole point... one thing is to claim that they are doing whatever they want with the show, but another is to actually COME UP with ideas for a decent, I mean.. not even decent, AN AMAZING plot that people would be shocked and amazed by at the same time. You can only go this far without having to touch any of the main characters, you know? There comes a time when you have to make big, serious choices in terms of the story and this season Suzanne is GOING FOR IT. Like I mentioned in my previous post here, the first two seasons were amazing, but it only NOW feels like things are getting real. Suzanne took over and she’s getting shit done. She’s taking this responsibility and making huge important choices that will shift the main plot AND Villaneve in certain direction and so far it’s going sooo smoothly and brilliantly.

I mean, yes, Niko deserves to start over and have a nice life but the moment Villanelle found out about Eve... Niko’s fate was decided for him whether he liked it or not. And having him simply disappear from Eve’s life AND from the show as if nothing... I’d see it as waste of character’s potential. So instead of not having Niko around but have HIM affect the story in such a profound way, I think killing him off was a great idea. This way... his character gains so much more meaning and it helps to drive the main story forward, but most importantly it will change and affect Eve in ways we have never seen before. So, I think I’ve read somewhere that Owen McDonnell (Niko) wanted his character to go out with a bang, and he truly did. Yes, it was a very brutal, shocking death but it was definitely a very strong one.

Now, the soundtracks STRIKE yet again. I’m talking about Niko’s soundtrack, Dear Diary by The Moody Blues is soo well fitting for his character while showing him trying to start over with his life. It carries this... sort of bittersweet feeling, but at the same time it’s so... freeing? And the lyrics speak his story without Niko having to say anything at all.

“ Woke up too late. Wasn't where I should have been For goodness sake, what's happening to me?”

Yeah, he WOKE UP a bit too late and realized that the life he had wasn’t really for him anymore.

“So many people by the score Rushing around as senselessly They don't notice there's people like me”

And we basically see him drive through the town and watch people going with their lives and not really notice him for who he is now, for what he had to go through. Probably none of them had to go through so much trauma and had their lives in danger the way Niko has.

“If they weren't so blind, then surely they'd see There's a much better way for them to be”

Perfect description for Niko the previous two seasons. Now that he’s “woken up” I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought that way. Again, this show picks the soundtracks for a reason and I’m not sure if in first two seasons the songs described and spoke instead of characters, but this season they are really going for it.

Eve

Oh boy, where do we start?

So... from now on Eve spends her nights at Bitter Pill office. I mean, after being shot by a crazy assassin girlfriend, who, found out where Eve’s living now, it’s more than understandable for her to NOT want to stay in her apartment any longer. But staying in the office is not the best idea either. I mean, she still can go back to her apartment to clean up and all that? Guess not this day. Which happens to be her BIRTHDAY. I was convinced that Villanelle sent her the cake of a bus was only to remind her off their mindblowing kiss, because let’s remember back in 1x04 Villanelle had just murdered Bill and threw a birthday party to Konstantin. And it wasn’t his birthday. Yes, she tried to get on his good side, but I really thought this would be yet another example of Villanelle’s behavior. Turns out.. it IS Eve’s birthday... and my mind is blown yet again. I NEED to know what day is her birthday. Like, seriously?! And.. Niko hasn’t messaged her despite it being her birthday. Like.. you two have huge issues still, but hello? It’s your wife’s birthday... or maybe he forgot? But here is Villanelle not forgetting about Eve’s special day... and the fact that it’s a goddamn bus... WE GET IT, VILLANELLE, YOU’RE A HOPELESS ROMANTIC.

Before the cake arrives, we have a scene of Eve cleaning up in the bathroom, checking out her bruise and then the moment with Bear. Everything made total sense. Eve brushing her teeth, smelling herself, probably aware that she’s in desperate need for a shower, then again smelling her hair until Bear points it out for her. Yes, SMELL is the reoccuring theme in Killing Eve. So that was alright. Everything was going smoothly UNTIL Bear spotted the UNDERWEAR. Now, I did some digging to find a confirmation that it indeed was underwear and not some random piece of clothing or whatever... and in one of the recaps online they did say it was underwear. My question is... WHY? Why did they include THAT specific bit? The fact that Eve needs a shower was established more than ONCE, out loud and through a solo scene in the bathroom. So it got me thinking... and by thinking, I almost immediately got an idea... If it’s still not clear for you, let me remind you just how the last episode ended... with Eve sitting on her bed listening to Villanelle’s recording with her eyes closed. And now... the underwear being spotted and throwin in a bin and all the smell? Okay, I’m so going to say it now. Eve masterbated while listening to Villanelle’s voice. Okay. To me it happened and the underwear bit is a confirmation of that. And if that’s not the case... please let me know because I NEED to know what the hell did that bit mean. But until someone does that... I already know what happened and I’m happy with it.

Now the cake moment. So not only does Villanelle know where Eve’s apartment is but where she works?! This gurl is putting some EFFORT for her girlfriend and on top of that buying a very expensive cake which Eve threw off the rooftop moments later. The reason for that is.. Villanelle. Duh. I was completely mesmerized by that scene. Again, THE SOUNDTRACK. I love, love, LOVE this score that was playing during the scene. It’s probably another new addition to Unloved album, but if anyone has seen it somewhere or has a link, please let me know!! The lyrics do all the work in this scene too...

“Set me free”

It all started in season 1 episode 7 when Villanelle told Agniya that she’s free to go and do whatever she wanted to. She replied with “I don’t want to be free” so she was killed off. Now, Being FREE has been mentioned SEVERAL times this episode. Including the lyrics in the soundtrack AND Sandra Oh talking about Eve trying to FREE herself from the Twelve and basically from the life she has been living before. Such a huge theme for Killing Eve. What does it mean for Eve to be free? Is it the same thing as it is for Villanelle? Again, in the scene with the accountant’s wife, Bertha, Villanelle tells her “You’re free now. You can be whoever you want.” and the other replies only with “But.. I don’t want to be free”. What an iconic parallel. So, for Villanelle, being free is being alone, as it seems. And in this case Eve is desperately clinging to Niko because she, like Bertha, doesn’t want to be free. Or more like.. she THINKS she doesn’t want to be free. So all those small gifts coming from Villanelle including the cake tells Eve that she CAN be set free. And.. as we can see from how the episode eneded.. Eve is now finally FREE.

She opens the box soo carefully, not knowing what to expect from Villanelle and then sees the cake. Immediatelly gets flashbacks to their moment in the bus and how they fought and most importantly, KISSED. And next thing you know... we see how a gush of air blows in her face with the sound of someones BREATH. The sound of it is soo familiar. We know exactly who it is. Villanelle, breathing in Eve’s face. And for a second she closes her eyes. Gives into it... into Villanelle but then something shifts, the struggle within her continues to take over and she grabs the cake once she gets emotional and throws it off the roof. Only to instantly regret it afterwards. The complexity of this scene and of Eve’s character is just.. on one hand she hates feeling like this now that she knows she has feelings for Villanelle, but on the other hand she likes it... she admits it and a part of her just wants to give in. We saw the same thing, only reversed feelings, in previous episode. She finally gave in and kissed Villanelle only to headbutt her right after, once she realized what she did and how WRONG it’s supposed to be. Here, she gives in for a moment.. closes her eyes and then realizes how fucked up that is and what a terrible person and WIFE she must be so she throws it off and THEN the feelings for Villanelle comes back... I just have to say.. I’M LOVING THIS! I hope that at the end of the season Eve WILL fully accept her feelings for Villanelle and become new version of herself, new version of Eve who is FREE. And I can’t wait to see what kind of person will independent Eve be like.

Next. Eve and Jamie. I’ve seen pictures of them in Jamie’s house and I did NOT like that atll. I still have a feeling something might happen between them and god, do I hope I’m wrong. But that scene as they were just chilling in his living room was so great for Eve because she needed someone to have this frank conversation with. She has been focusing on herself lately so much that she didn’t think other people did mistakes or terrible things like she did until Jamie proved her wrong. FINALLY we are getting some information about the dude. Even if it’s not pretty. At least it’s the truth. Eve really needed to hear it and especailly the ‘choices’ part. Someone had to remind her that SHE is in control of her own life and it all depends on the choices she makes at the end of the day.

Speaking of choices, as soon as Eve gets a reply from Niko, she gets hopeful and goes even as far as to meet him. I appreciate that she is putting so much effort in trying to fix things between her and Niko, but at the same time I feel she’s only doing this for herself... meaning, that she doesn’t want to lose the person that keeps her somewhat SANE still and used to ground her. And in the middle of this, she gets so distracted with this thing with Niko, she doesn’t even realize that it’s not actually Niko who’s messaging her and really, I don’t blame her for not realizing it, I, myself, the first time watching didn’t catch the sight of Dasha in the beginning and yeah I was also played like Eve. But this is where I noticed a nice similarity/parallel between Eve and Villanelle. Eve’s all distracted with Niko and desperate to patch things up, she’s not realizing how someone else might be manipulating/using her. DASHA is doing exactly that. And she does the same thing with Villanelle at the same time. Now, Villanelle is all about family this season, whenever she hears about family, suddenly she’s distracted and the same is with power. I mean.. is she really that naive to trust Dasha again? It looks like Villanelle believes everything Dasha tells her, or almost everything. And so Dasha gets to manipulate her into doing what she wants her to do.

Gotta mention the teddy bear Eve found in one of Jamie’s rooms she’s staying at. Literally the previous night Villanelle sent her a teddy bear with recording and even here... at some strangers house she finds a teddy bear. Seems like she can’t get away from Villanelle no matter how much she tries. “What do you want from me?” She’s asking Villanelle because she clearly isn’t leaving her alone.

The last scene with Eve witnessing Niko’s death... all I can say is GIVE SANDRA OH A GODDAMN EMMY ALREADY!!! Her seeing Niko suddenly being stabbed with a fucking pitchfork in the neck forced her to freeze and stare in terror and that chuckle of disbelief that followed afterwards.. as if saying “am I dreaming? Is this really happening? It can’t be” because Kenny JUST died... what are the fucking odds someone just stabbed Niko in front of her eyes?! I would lose my SHIT... and Sandra expressed it so beautifully... her slowly approaching the scene but then has that massive lump in her throat and she can’t breath and next second she’s losing her balance and falling to her knees in complete defeat and just stares at his body... powerless to do anything about it. This scene and the scene where Konstantin tells Villanelle that Eve is alive.. these two scenes HAVE to bring Jodie and Sandra EMMY’S because thats ART of acting and pure talent and I can’t imagine them NOT getting the awards they deserve. And they deserve EVERY single one.

So there is literally NO ONE left for Eve. Bill’s long gone, Kenny as well, now Niko. I think that will be the last straw for Eve. I really don’t know how she will be able to come back from this or.. keep going. She’ll have to do it to avenge the people she loved. But she really has no one except Villanelle now. And I think.. yeah, Villanelle will also only have Eve when she’s done with her “family” and realizes that Konstantin/Dasha were playing her and Eve all over again.

Konstantin

You’re in some DEEP shit, mister.

Question time. Why Konstantin went to visit Irina? What was the point of doing so? Was it only so he could ask about the German car that his wife’s boyfriend owns? Or was it purely on Irina’s part? Because the conversation they had proved once more that Konstantin is NOT fooling anyone. Everybody knows he’s working for himself. Eve pointed it out during Kenny’s funeral, then Villanelle with “You’re full of shit” and now Irina, paralleling Villanelle by saying “you’re full of shit” and walking off. This girl has grown so much and she’s soo mature already and smart and a fucking badass! I missed her. And by putting her father in his place she mentioned ending up “dead” .. you know what that sounds like to me? FORESHADOWING. It is exactly that, isn’t it? For Irina to straight up tell him his future if he doesn’t stop whatever he’s doing. And I guess he won’t stop.. or will he?

So... was it him who stole those 6 millions? I thought it was Sergei... but it kind of seemed like someone set him up. Was it Konstantin? Because when he went to visit Bertha and she mentioned about how her husband worked out who took the money... and Konstantin’s face during that scene... he is literally shitting his pants lol! That makes me believe he had something to do with this and he defintitely has... but what exactly did he do? And now that Bertha knows about the email and some information about it, Konstantin doesnt hesitate to reach out to Villanelle to ask her to get rid of the accountants wife only to save his own arse. Once again.

Next up: Konstantin’s relationship with his DAUGHTERS. Am I the only one who sees that Konstantin is treating Irina AND Villanelle the same way?! They basically have the same dynamic. Both Irina and Villanelle curse at Konstantin, have their small tantrums with him and can put him in his place. And both of them have already done so. And let’s not forget... the producers ALSO call Villanelle and Irina his DAUGHTERS so it’s confirmed. Everybody knows it. And recently I saw a BTS video of this latest episode about Konstantin and hearing Jodie then say “then there’s Konstantin’s REAL daughter” and then there’s dramatic close up on Villanelle LMAO! The jealousy and the way they edited it... damn. Okay, let’s just agree Villanelle is Konstantin’s daughter.

Now, did he visit Geraldine?! Because when we saw Carolyn drive back home, she saw Konstantin walking from the same direction her place is located. And her daughter was home at the time... so did Geraldine lie about Konstantin not visiting her and being there or she didn’t even know when Konstantin sneaked inside? I’m getting really suspicious now.

Villanelle

GO AWAY, HICCUPS

Villanelle? Listening to MUSIC? What did I miss? Back in season 1 she was interested only in national anthems. Now she’s listening to other kind of music?! Music to me is EVERYTHING, it’s a massive escape, it’s something that helps me get through every day and it evokes FEELINGS. It is associated with feelings so much and what does it say about Villanelle? That she has FEELINGS. The layers are slowly being peeled off her as Oksana is coming out and I can’t wait for the next episode. I’ll write another small analysis/discussion about Oksana and Villanell soon as I feel this deserves a separate discussion.Going back to the topic of music, at the end of the episode Villanelle arrives HOME and is wearing headphones indicating that she probably was listening to music on her way there. I’m sensing BIG changes. Villanelle is truly progressing and developing and we are getting to witness it!

Okay. the part we all have been waiting for. THE HICCUPS. The very first time they start is EXACTLY after Konstantin mentions “FAMILY” Villanelle is really invested in her family now and was in previous episode so now knowing that Konstantin found them probaly quickened her breathing and she got nervous/excited. The hiccups are involuntary contractions. You can’t control it. And at the same time they tend to be constant. We have never seen Villanelle have them before. And they only start after she hears “FAMILY”. This reminds me of a scene in 1x02 where Konstantin tells Villanelle Eve’s name for the first time and then suddenly the champagne’s bottle pops. It’s a sign. And the hiccups seemed to stop for a short period of time, right until Bertha approaches Villanelle and tells her that she wants to be a FAMILY and hugs her. Seconds later hiccups come back. The concept of FAMILY must be very foreign to Villanelle. It’s something she never really had and so now learning about her family, something so unknown to her, is affecting her body. And the way I see it... the hiccups are like a constant reminder to her, that yes, she never had family and that she’s finally interested to find that family again. So the hiccups symbolize the LOSS of something she never had. In this case, her family. Because we see her get off the train at the end of the episode and she reaches out to touch her neck. This scene for me has so many different meanings it’s sooo fascinating? And one of the meanings, probably the main one, is that she reaches out to her neck once she realizes that hiccups are finally gone. And that is exactly when she’s back at HOME. Back where her FAMILY is. So it’s like... she’s no longer alone, the void from before has been filled because she found her family now.

Now, the very first time I watched the episode and that last scene.. I was like “shit, did she, by any chance, feel Niko’s pain?!” I mean that’s IMPOSSIBLE. Because Niko has just been stabbed in the neck with pitchfork and yeah it just occured to me. But then... I realized that maybe it’s not Niko’s pain she’s feeling but EVE’S. We see Eve freeze and struggle to breathe and have lump in her throat and that’s when Villanelle stops having her hiccups and she has this MOMENT. Almost the same moment as Eve had when she felt Villanelle’s BREATH on her face.The connection thesr two have... I mean.. VILLANEVE IS ENDGAME, OKAY?!

We got a tiny problem now. Dasha FRAMED Villanelle. It got me thinking.. this is basically a betrayal. And could that mean.. that maybe Dasha did something similar to Villanelle in the past? Like, framed her with some kill? Could it be that huge thing that happened between the two of them? I hope we will find out at some point this season. And I mean.. the way Dasha killed Niko is NOT Villanelle’s style at all. Villanelle had PLENTY of chances to kill Niko herself and she didn’t because she knew well enough that if she hurts Niko, Eve will never forgive her for that. So she didn’t. But Eve doesn’t know that. She wasn’t a part of that conversation Villanelle had with Niko and Gemma. What Eve does know... is Villanelle’s handwriting. The iconic “Sorry Baby” should be a perfect example. Let’s not forget the postcard Villanelle sent to Eve in Amsterdam. Yes, Carolyn took it, but maybe... she’ll give it to Eve once she knows what happened? I mean there is NO way Eve will believe that crappy note is Villanelle’s. Not even her handwriting. Plus... if Villanelle wanted to kill Niko, I don’t think she would’ve done it in front of her eyes. And even if she did... I think she would have wanted Eve to SEE her do it. At the end of the day, Villanelle wants Eve to know about each and every kill she does. And Niko wouldn’t be an exception. She’d leave a PERSONAL note/message for Eve. What did Dasha leave?! “Still Got It”? Really bitch? Is that a note to Eve or Villanelle? If it’s to Villanelle... you just prepared your grave, Dasha. I can only imagine Eve finding out it was Dasha and ending up killing her to avenge her husband. And Villanelle being there to gladly assist her with everything she needs.

Carolyn

Never thought frog sounds could be this relaxing

She’s still dealing with Kenny’s death. In her own way. I mean, I understand Geraldine completely when she confronts her mom and basically tells her that she wants them to talk about Kenny’s death. If I was in her place, I would want to talk about it too. But Carolyn doesn’t seem to operate in that way. Plus, she dropped the line “there are things you don’t tell me, that are for quite different reasons” and she means it about Konstantin. She saw him leave her house. Geraldine said nothing about it. So... is she working with Konstantin now? What’s happening?

The dynamic between Carolyn and Konstantin though. Both of them are double agents and ready to betray one another at any given time despite knowing each other for YEARS. One minute they are working together as they were in season 2, then now Konstantin is doing his own thing, and even maaybe going behind Carolyn’s back with her own DAUGHTER?! I don’t believe this. I don’t think Geraldine knows about him visiting the house.. or does she?!

She comes back home, lies down and turns on frog sounds to relax herself while grabbing a pillow to press against her own face. Makes me wonder if she did it because she kept on repeating that she MISSES Kenny’s smell, but why would that pillow smell like him? So maybe she only wants to run away from the world and shut off by grabbing the pillow? Though for a moment or two I really got worried she might be suffocating herself lol! Careful with grief, Carolyn!

Dasha

The old hag of the hour.

You fucked up, Dasha. BIG TIME. But before we get into the killing, I have to mention the scene where she meets the Lady of the Twelve. That’s what I will call her from now on. So, she’s either a keeper, or someone higher. I don’t think she is one of the Twelve, but she might be very close to them. Probably an assistant or something? Because she obviously has the power to HANDLE the HANDLERS. In this case, Dasha. I mean, I only saw her once and I already have the hotts for this lady, but she’s one of the bad guys and... WHEN DID THAT STOP ME BEFORE? I’m literally in love with a psychotic assassin LOL!

Can I just point out the fact that the Twelve KNOW about VILLANEVE??? Apparently they have spies EVERYWHERE, like Eve said back in season 1 episode 3. “They are completely invisible and they could be literally everywhere”. That explains someone spotted Villanelle going around London, buying expensive ass perfume only to visit and fight with her girlfriend. And the Twelve know it. That’s a HUGE thing. They are treating it like a huge thing and they do not like Villanelle chasing Eve. That makes me think... so why would Konstantin let Villanelle know that Eve is alive if he is also working for the Twelve?! The same is with Carolyn and Eve!! Like?? Who is working for who now and who is betraying who?! I need explanations and QUICK!

Now Dasha proposing she can kill Eve... is this yet another foreshadowing moment? I know, the lady told her NOT to do it, but I have a feeling Dasha will try to hurt Eve at some point... and I hope Eve will be ready for it. As much as I would LOVE for Villanelle to save Eve.. I want Eve to handle Dasha by herself and take her revenge. I want dark!Eve at the end of this season. Am I asking for too much?! She already killed once. Might as well do it twice lol!

So Dasha is supposed to “drive a wedge” between Eve and Villanelle. And when I realized Dasha stole Niko’s phone and was texting Eve to come to him... my first thought was “Okay, so is Dasha really trying to bring Eve and Niko back together?!?” But that is complete NONSENSE! I mean, I don’t think even a professional therapist will be able to bring them back together OR let alone recommend them to try to fix their marriage so how in the HELL would Dasha do it? It didn’t make sense.. but how else can she really fuck up Villaneve? Apprently by getting rid of Niko!! Dasha, sweetie... you ONLY BROUGHT THEM CLOSER BY ELIMINATING THE ONLY OBVIOUS OBSTACLE IN THEIR WAY!!! The hell was she thinking?! Does she really believe Eve will fall for her bullshit? Or does she expect Eve to find out it was HER and that’s when Dasha gets to kill Eve?! I don’t think she’s that smart. Either way... Dasha is done. I can totally see her dying this season, or possibly somehow magically escaping but I doubt it. Eve and Villanelle will deal with this bitch and it will be SOO delicious to watch them get their revenge.

Overall Thoughts

JESUS. This was a LONG ass review. I honestly apologize, but if you reached this point, THANK YOU SO MUCH!! You’re all amazing for spending your time reading my nonsense lol! It’s just that this episode had soo many great things worth discussing and so many symbols and meanings that make the show so complex and fascinating and god... I could talk about it for hours. I probably spend around 3-4 hours writing this so yeah, the proof that I have a serious fixation lol!

But like I said.. this episode is my favorite this season. Perfect. I can only imagine how great the next 4 episodes will be. Also, can’t believe we are already halfway into the season. It’s crazy how quick the time flies!

And as always, if you have any thoughts/reactions/predictions you’d like to share don’t be afraid to message me or drop in my askbox!! I’m always up for discussing things like that!!

#ke spoilers #killing eve #villanelle #jodie comer #eve polastri #sandra oh #villaneve #ke s3 #ke 3x04 #ke review*#ke*#ke 3x04 review #this shit is LONG™#creation

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dallonm-archive · 3 years

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thank you @bookphobe!!! <333 the post was getting a lil long so i thought i’d just make my own [also i got way too into this]

rules: look back on your work, both past and present, finished and unfinished. what are five to ten narrative elements or tropes that continuously pop up in your work? tag as many people as the number of tropes you listed.

detached narrators and “the fishbowl”

i don’t know how to exactly explain it but!!! we will try!!! so detached narrators is pretty simple: characters who feel detached from the reality they know they are apart of. i wouldn’t call this the same as not being an emotional participant or a character simply being an observer because whilst there is a lot of observation of others [i.e. picking up on seemingly random details in the world, people watching], there’s this relationship between the character and what they observe where they feel very intensely about the fact that they are Different to everyone else and are experiencing reality in this unique, often unsettling way - these observations are an attempt to ground themselves in a reality that they feel detached from. i definitely did not invent this idea at all but i like to use the term “the fishbowl” because it creates a sense of being apart of this reality but also living in your own separated version of it, and being able to observe but not experience it the way others do. felix is a Pioneer of this and dotty goes through almost a reverse of this where she retreats into a “fishbowl” experience of the world to cope with everything going on in her life

high and “glowy” realism

this goes hand in hand with the first one because narrators who have a unique perception of reality in and otherwise realistic setting are often going to create a narrative that is very unique and intense with its presentation of reality. also all my characters are either mentally ill or neurodivergent or both and i feel like this is a classic trait of both of those things like...,,sometimes i will go outside and feel way too intensely about the colour of the sky LMAO

“glowy” realism as a term probably doesn’t help anybody but myself but to me it’s like. the stepping stone from realism to high realism/dream realism. i’ve been playing with this idea ever since i wrote tabby because tabby doesn’t feel like high realism but it doesn’t feel like reality, it feels like reality with this “glow” that only the narrator seems to be aware of. so reality becomes this layered thing were our perception of it depends on the narrator and their mental/emotional state, they could easily perceive reality as simply reality or they could see it with this glow and the more you’re aware of the glow the brighter it becomes, like slowly injecting a dreamlike state into the character’s perception until they can’t distinguish when reality became high reality. i played around with this a lot in tabby, where the glow kind of reels the narrator into this dreamlike perception of reality to the point where he can’t distinguish the real world from his perception of it, and ends up doing things that he otherwise wouldn’t do because he assumes there’ll be no consequence, which causes the glow to shatter and suddenly he’s back in reality with this mess he doesn’t know how to clean up. this isn’t something i’ve really intentionally played with before but it was very fun! very unsettling! this is a really helpful term to develop in CM too because we bounce between reality and high reality a lot with characters perceptions so having this middle ground is really helpful - it sort of traps the character because it eases them into this glowy perception of reality and then we turn up the saturation and it goes from 0 to 100 real quick

mirrors & parallels

this is something i tried to stop myself from doing but......I Can’t and I Don’t Want To. as a literature student one of my favourite things is realising two things subtly mirror/parallel each other and i’m always like idk if the author intended on this but i’m screaming nonetheless!!! CM plays with mirrors and parallels a lot but it also delves deeper into like, Are These Two Things That Parallel Really Separate? and exploring the middle ground between them.

"plotless” plots

fuck plot all my homies hate plot. i think especially recently this is relevant because i’ve seen so many “must my story have a plot? can they not sit and contemplate whilst the sun seeps into their face?” posts on my dash i finally was like. wait. but i don’t need a plot in the traditional sense. i think it’s difficult to explain because of course the story has a plot but like. it’s not about the plot. CM is literally just a snapshot of a significant year in the characters lives. they are just existing and we’re watching. i used to stress so much about what happens next and what the story is actually about that i just don’t have the energy to lmao, me and my characters are just floating in our hazy and mellow litfic bubble and we are having a great time

chosen family

this is basically found family but i call it chosen family because i like the emphasis on choice. i don’t really see a difference between chosen and found family i just prefer to call it chosen family mainly because of CM, where dotty and felix don’t “find” each other but they choose to be family, not because they are blood related but because they want to be in each others lives that way

navigating and understanding trauma

this one should not come as a shock. trauma is such an inherent part of my life it’s difficult to not write in a similar way with my characters - their trauma never reflects my own but to me it’s one of the fundamental aspects of being humans and i love exploring the different ways it can manifest in a person and the relationship they have with it

what the hell is form

it’s funny because when i look back at my first attempts at novels i really thought i had to write everything in a very static, traditional storytelling style and that there was one way to tell a story but i always,,,,gravitated away from that LMAO. in my first novel, there were multiple chapters just called “interlude I”/”interlude II” etc that were random vignettes of flashbacks, scenes separate from the action, Characters Going Through It. anyway i was really writing a plot driven novel and was like “damn i really love these interlude chapters the most that aren’t about the actual plot...hope this doesn’t awaken anything in me”

now that i embrace the simple writing technique of doing whatever i want, i pretty much will go to experimenting with form the second i get bored of the way i’m telling a story. it keeps it fun! keeps it exciting! cm is also the perfect playground to explore experimental form because there’s not much of a “story” to tell. there are a lot of moments where it does benefit from traditional storytelling but the wider structure of the book isn’t a traditional storytelling structure so like, we can have some list, some prose poetry, some vignette chapters, as a treat. there’s a chapter i’m actually really hyped to write that combines script/prose to play with what a camera sees and what it doesn’t see like when i tell you i am HYPED!!!

tagging @aetherwrites @coffeeandcalligraphy @bijouxs @shaelinwrites @radiomacbeth @kitblogsthings [no pressure ofc]

#i had too much fun with this.......can you tell i am a Lit Major(TM) and also pretentious and insufferable <3 #i had to physically stop myself i could talk about way more

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allthebest20 · 3 years

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Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

8/10. A joy to read and a great debut novel. I think the author has even better work ahead of her. The characters are complex and unique, and the book explores modernity, pain, and generational spirituality in a very readable style. I couldn’t help but make assumptions about the author as I read the book: definitely Nigerian, definitely a cook, definitely spent time in London and Canada, definitely queer, definitely raised in the Church, but also definitely spiritual. The authenticity with which she writes, especially in regards to being queer in the modern world and the cultures of different places, is what makes this book great. The story dances between the gruesome details of reality in the twenty-first century and romanticized views of youth and love. It raises a lot of questions in me about the international class system, wealth, and privilege.

The only real complaint that I have is around one of the main plot points: the rape of Kehinde when she is 12. While this is a turning point in all their lives, I feel as though it is also simultaneously underappreciated, as if the author choose this event simply because it was one of the worst things she could think of. I think this is a common pit fall for authors. A lot of traumatic things happen to this family: Kambi, the mother, is very mental ill, Banji, the twin’s beloved father, is murdered, Taiye, the queer twin, struggles with her own mental health. Yet, the rape is regarded as the primary Bad Thing and all the other traumatic events are hardly discussed. I appreciate how the author takes some time, maybe 1 chapter, to discuss Kehinde’s relationship to sex and her body. Yet, Kehinde’s life seems to be mostly unaffected by this event, except in the way she punishes her family with her silence. She is in a healthy relationship. She does not abuse alcohol or drugs. She has a successful career. Ultimately, it’s not a book about overcoming childhood sexual abuse. It’s a book about mending a family after years of pain, resentment, distance, and silence. I almost feel as though the book could have been stronger if it focused more on the effects of Banji’s death and Kambi’s violence and depression on the twins. Ultimately, though, sexual abuse is just a thing that happens to a lot of kids, and perhaps it serves a purpose to write a book where it happens, it’s horrible, but it doesn’t need to be put under a magnifying glass. It just reverberates.

This book could have been about a lot of things. When I picked it off the shelf at the library, I barely read the entire description, immediately caught by the spiritual nature of Kambi’s being and the brief mention of “reckless hedonism.” I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Taiye was a lesbian, and I saw a lot of myself in her: the serial string of intense relationships, always slated to go nowhere, the indulgence in food and weed and dancing and occasionally other drugs, the loneliness and missing family but not being able to connect with them, the exploration of religion and spirituality and non-monogamy, seeing and feeling things you don’t know are real. I feel like a lot of modern young adults live like Taiye does, unsure what to look for except comfort. I love how the author mentioned the chaotic draw of dating apps. I love how Taiye is a stoner. I love how Taiye loves organic butter and fair trade chocolate and cooking extravagant meals for anyone who will eat it. I LOVE how the author includes recipes for what Taiye is cooking. Although I probably won’t use those recipes, I did want to cook what Taiye was cooking, and it reads just like my brain reads when I am absorbed in a culinary project. This book could have been more about what it means to be a lesbian, but it only barely describes her formative romantic and sexual experiences. The author details the first time Taiye calls her self gay out loud and has queer sex, but this is long after she has had gay feelings and gay experiences. The author does not explore Taiye’s inner turmoil, and it is unclear if Taiye struggles at all with her sexuality in the long term.

I also like how the book explores mental illness. It doesn’t shy away from both the good and the bad parts. It doesn’t shame medication use. It explores the spiritual powers of those who’s brains work differently. Kambi’s voice explores suicide in an interesting way: both from the frequent pull of the voices, asking Kambi to escape the pain of living, and Kambi’s own knowledge that she wants to remain here with her family. Although I have perhaps 0 hard examples of mental illness being spiritual, I still want to believe that those who hear voices, who see things, who feel things, are connected to the spiritual in a way that those who live entirely in reality are not. This book explores one such case. I also found it interesting how Taiye inherits some of Kambi’s crazy (struggles to speak as a young child, depressed, sleep walks) and some of Kambi’s magic (draws people to her, sees and hears beyond). This make Taiye feel closer to her mom as she ages, while Kehinde remains unsure. This book could have been more about generational mental illness and the pain and distance it causes, but instead the author focuses on the magic of it all. It asks, quietly, if the girls should be mad at their mother, can they be mad at her? From the outside, Kehinde knows that Kambi is respoinsible for the scar on Taiye’s face, but yet we, the audience, know that Kambi had to do this to prevent Taiye from killing the rapist, Uncle Earnest. Does Kehinde know this? How can she understand? In a family, we have no choice but to forgive and let live if we cannot understand, or else remain alienated. This is the underlying message of the book.

The book has a complicated timeline: the main story line follows the events of a six month period in which the three main characters are united again in Lagos, after over a decade apart. Slowly, in tangents, the three characters’ backstory is explained.

The book features a few key locations:

Nigeria (specifically Abeokuta, where Kambirinachi is born, Ife, where she spends her youth, and Lagos, where she raises her family),

London (where the twins were born and where Taiye lived for 9 years during and after university),

and Canada (Kehinde lives in Montreal since attending university there and Taiye lives in Halifax after London).

I’ve never been to Nigeria or London, but I love the way the author writes the dialogue and the characters from each place. I cannot say if they are accurate, but they have a clear and unique voice, not homogeneous but also representative of those place-based qualities that unite an area. The characters give me a glimpse into what it feels like to be Nigerian abroad vs. Nigerian at home. She rarely writes about interpersonal incidents of racism: the characters are mostly well liked, treated nicely by the people in their life, given opportunities. I think that contributes to the feeling of romanticism in the story. Racism is discussed on a more systematic level: they have problems at the airport, Taiye learns about the history of racism in Canada. As someone who has been to Canada, knows about the history of Canada, and lives very close to Canada, I enjoyed hearing about Taiye learning about Canada’s dark side, something that is so rarely discussed by the general public. However, for those of us who are interested, the evidence is everywhere. The history is just waiting to be explored by anyone who is interested in looking just slightly beyond the state-issued textbooks. I thought the way the author wrote about Canada was really authentic, which convinces me that the way she writes about London and Nigeria must also be accurate. What it must be like to be Ekwuyasi, so intimately familiar with places so far apart.

There was one line in the book that really stuck with me: as Taiye is traveling home, she passes through the busy streets of Lagos, crowded with street children, and she is reminded of her privilege in a very visual way, something she doesn’t get in Canada or London. This is the view the West wants us to have of Africa: a whole continent made of dirty huts and begging children on busy urban roads. Yes, poverty looks different in Nigeria than it does in Canada, but that doesn’t mean that everyone in Nigeria is somehow poorer. In fact, this family has a beautiful compound and a trust fund. Despite having a trust fund, Taiye still makes decisions on a strict budget and denies herself luxuries to save money, the way I do. I don’t really know a lot of people with trust funds, so I can’t tell if this is an international thing or if there are American kids who act like this. It kind of annoyed me when Taiye wrote to the culinary program saying she didn’t have enough to pay for the program, when in reality she just didn’t want to dip into her trust fund. I don’t know if there were limited spots/funds available for people who couldn’t afford to pay full price, but I hate when rich people forget what it means to actually not have money. Being cheap and being poor are two different things, often way more opposing than people think. Rich people are often the ones who know how to exploit the system to get what they want for less, while the poor are left with less connections and less time to work it.

Still, I refrain from delivering too harsh judgement on Taiye. I do not know the size of the trust fund. I know their family home was a gift, so perhaps the fund is to be saved for medical emergencies and property taxes. I’m not sure how insurance or taxes work in Nigeria, although I know the government is very unstable. How did they pay for international university? Did that come from the trust fund? The whole plot line has me thinking a lot about wealth and class on an international level. While I grew up comfortably, I often felt like my family was poor because of how rich everyone in our town was. I wonder what it would have been like to grow up in a compound and see homeless children often, but also ingest international media that cast your entire country as poor and to know your government is unstable.

All in all, the book touches on many of the central issues of modern life While it only brushes the surfaces of these topics, it had me thinking for days and wanting to know more. Perhaps I will search out an some Nigerian autobiographies / memoirs in the future.

#book #fiction #francesca ekwuyasi #butter honey pig bread #cooking #nigeria #lagos #canada #london #halifax #twins #queer #family #spiritual #religion #wealth #class #mental illness #mental health

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bestworstcase · 4 years

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farran rewatches tangled: before ever after, pt 1

(01:50-05:00)

i’ve been wanting to do a full, start-to-finish episode-by-episode rewatch of the series for a good long while now with a focus on just... picking apart every episode to see what there is to see and well. i somewhat optimistically planned to do one post per episode but i... i was a fool.

as a set of... basic guiding principles here i 1) am going to evaluate the text of each episode on its own merits, 2) without taking into account authorial intent or extratextual creator statements, and 3) yeeting the phrase “it’s a disney princess cartoon, it isn’t that deep” out of my brain.*

(*except in the case of Cartoon Physics, which must simply be accepted in the same way that the existence of unbreakable magical hair is accepted.)

the first thing i want to talk about with before ever after is the way it establishes the characters of rapunzel and eugene and how it sets up the development of the new dream relationship for the rest of the show during the introductory sequence.

before ever after does this thing a couple of times where it frames a character or scenario in such a way as to lead the viewer to expect one thing, only to reveal more information or additional context that significantly shifts our understanding. and these are interesting moments to examine, because of what they can say subtextually about the characters involved.

consider the opening.

once the introductory narration is done, we’re thrown into a chase scene that is structured to trick us into thinking that the stakes are much higher than they truly are—the tense, dramatic scoring, in particular, prime the viewer to assume that the situation is serious.

look at this establishing shot. it grounds us in a location—we can see corona in the background—and sets a specific mood. rapunzel, eugene, max, and fidella all look serious and determined; meanwhile their pursuers are obscured in shadow, making them appear far more threatening than they really are.

rapunzel’s seemingly genuine fear of being caught (“they’re gaining on us!” and “there’s more of them!”) strengthens this first impression, as does the fact that the pursuers continue to be obscured in shadow even when they, realistically speaking, shouldn’t be, as in this shot where the pursuing guards are galloping in full sunlight but still too darkly lit (and distant) for us to make out any identifying details:

but now that we’ve had a few seconds for this impression to “set,” the show begins to dismantle it. rapunzel and eugene exchange a little playful banter, part ways, rapunzel glances back over her shoulder, and...

for the first time, we get a good look at one of their pursuers—and it’s a coronan guard. at this point, the tone of the chase shifts; the score becomes less tense and more adventuresome, beats of comedy are introduced with eugene’s log jump and rapunzel’s bunny crossing, and we end on this shot:

a bright, welcoming meadow opening up out of the more rugged / forested terrain of the chase. rapunzel gallops on into the nice-looking wilderness beyond, while eugene turns around to get in a last, witty one-liner in.

now on the one hand... this is a fun way to ease us into the action of the story with an attention-grabbing but low-stakes chase sequence, while establishing the playful dynamic in the new dream relationship. but! i argue that this whole chase scene, and the subsequent scene with rapunzel and eugene on the wall, is in fact a microcosm of the core conflict within the new dream relationship: to wit, that eugene is content and ready to settle down, rapunzel very much is not, and they are not yet ready to reconcile that difference with each other.

how so? well,

#1: the shifting of the viewer’s understanding of this chase reflects both sides of the new dream perspective on palace life.

in rapunzel’s view, being corona’s princess—a role here represented by the royal guard—is a frightening, suffocating job, one she struggles to reconcile with and longs to escape. her distress at the idea of being “captured” before they reach the wall—and having to return to the palace for the welcoming ceremony, as we learn shortly—is real, not because the guards pose a real threat but because she’s running away from them to get a break from the princess responsibilities that are drowning her.

eugene, on the other hand, is having a grand time. he banters, he grins, he mocks his pursuing guards, because to him, there are no stakes here. he enjoys living in the palace with no more bounties or convictions hanging* over his head, and he’s more interested in pausing to crack a joke at the captain’s expense than in winning the race to the outer wall—which in rapunzel’s mind is a representation of freedom.

(*heh.)

so as viewers, the first impression we’re given of this chase scene is more in line with what rapunzel is feeling, and then shifts to reveal eugene’s perspective, which is more in line with objective reality (they’re racing the guardsmen to the outer wall, and nobody is going to get hurt) rather than rapunzel’s internal feelings (of fleeing to escape the intense pressure on her shoulders, even just for a little while).

#2: and this, in turn, shows us precisely how far apart rapunzel’s feelings and eugene’s feelings about their present situation are.

these are two people who love each other very much but are on completely different planets emotionally. eugene is content and relaxed, rapunzel is antsy and stressed out. they get along on a superficial level and enjoy each other’s company, but there is a huge disconnect lurking just beneath the surface that neither of them is yet aware of.

the scene on the wall drives this message home.

we see the pure delight on rapunzel’s face when she reaches the wall...

...which intensifies as she climbs onto it and sees what waits for her on the other side...

...and the camera swings around to show us this gorgeous view of a lush, vibrant landscape pulling us into the sunrise. rapunzel heaves a longing sigh and tension falls out of her shoulders as she soaks in the view.

this moment evokes the same mood as rapunzel’s early scenes in tangled, when she looks out of her tower window at the beautiful world outside.

notice even the echoes of the tower landscape in the landscape outside of corona in the series: the lines of the cliffs on the left side of both shots are the same, and the colors of the wildflowers in the series landscape echo the colors of the flowers kept on the windowsill of rapunzel’s tower (here’s a better screencap of those, for comparison’s sake:)

anyway, the point of all this is to establish that rapunzel, despite having been freed from her tower, still feels trapped in her present circumstances. seeing the lanterns and finding her true family didn’t cure her restlessness but has instead intensified her wanderlust, and she once again finds herself in the position of sitting inside a wall and staring out at the world she isn’t allowed to explore.

the key difference in the series is that, where eugene’s role in the film was to help rapunzel escape her tower and seek out her dreams in the wider world...

...in the series, he has become an anchor tethering rapunzel to her life in the palace, and we see this illustrated symbolically when his interruption is what pulls rapunzel away from the view beyond the walls.

now, this is a wonderful shift, because it doesn’t grow out of any arbitrary or out-of-character behavior in eugene but is, rather, an artifact of their changed circumstances. eugene still values rapunzel’s freedom and happiness just as much as he did in the film, but he’s oblivious to how stifled and trapped rapunzel feels within the coronan walls, and he’s oblivious because, a) rapunzel hasn’t told him, and b) he’s having a great time living in the lap of luxury with zero responsibilities, and c) that blinds him to the amount of pressure that is being put on rapunzel’s shoulders. he isn’t in tune with what rapunzel is feeling or why, and that damages his ability to act as a source of support for her in this stressful transitional time in her life.

this is the core conflict of their relationship, not just in before ever after, but over the course of the entire show. which is brilliant! it is so realistic for somebody like eugene—a 23-year-old man who has lived an exciting, adventurous life while cultivating a self-absorbed, devil-may-care attitude and is now ready to settle down and live a nice, peaceful, happily-boring married life with the woman he loves—to have this kind of incompatibility with somebody like rapunzel—an 18-year-old woman who has been sheltered and abused her entire life and who is only just beginning to figure out who she is and what she wants and is absolutely not ready to settle down and spend the rest of her life staying put and doing the same things every single day. they’re at completely different stages of their lives! of course there’s a tremendous gap between their expectations and desires within the context of their relationship and of course this causes problems as soon as this mismatch in priorities rises to the surface!

as a final note, as this scene on the wall wraps up, it introduces something that is... something of a recurring theme in before ever after, namely that things keep interrupting new dream kisses before they can happen.

in this case, it’s the captain—having caught up with rapunzel and eugene—telling them their little game is over and that it’s time for rapunzel to hustle back to the palace so she won’t miss the welcoming ceremony. this is another important beat in establishing the basic interpersonal conflict here; it’s not just that the kiss is interrupted, but that the kiss is interrupted by a manifestation of the strict requirements of rapunzel’s role as princess, which at the end of the day is what’s pulling rapunzel and eugene apart. i will talk about this more once i get to the proposal, but suffice it to say for now that the very same force that is stifling rapunzel and making her long for escape is what ruins this little romantic new dream moment, and that gets directly at the core of the conflict here.

rapunzel has all these factors weighing her down and making her uncomfortable in her position inside corona, and none of them have anything to do with eugene, but they still create this stress on her relationship with eugene, because—due to his own comfort, his own readiness to settle down, and his current lack of empathy for rapunzel’s situation*—he’s blind to how unhappy rapunzel is in their current situation, and that makes hamstrings his ability to provide the emotional support she needs right now.

(*something i will talk about more in my next segment; for now, the tl;dr here is even though eugene loves rapunzel deeply, and even though she drastically changed his outlook on life in a matter of days, it takes much longer for habits of personality to change, and in before ever after eugene is still very deeply entrenched in his self-absorbed flynn rider persona. the core of his character growth over the course of the series is his journey of growing out of that persona as he becomes more emotionally open and less content to laze about enjoying his luxuries every day.)

TO CONCLUDE: i love the opening sequence of before ever after because it is a microcosm of the interpersonal conflict within the new dream relationship. it establishes very neatly and succinctly that the love rapunzel and eugene have for each other, though genuine and deep, is not enough, and that they have serious work to do in bridging the gaps between them in order for the relationship to become lasting and strong. the journey of new dream over the course of the series is one from this starting position of fragility and miscommunication hidden just beneath the surface to the end point of two people who are in tune with each other and understand each other perfectly, and all of that is built on the foundation set down in these first few minutes of the very first episode.

#rta #tts #farran rewatches tangled

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