#shes literally a child in the show whose got rights to be emotional at times and such

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Okay I really don't get the evil Maria Jackson memes on twitter rn, because how anyone watching Maria in S1-2 of SJA and saying she's evil, even jokingly???

#like 'the handsome child-free alan jackson' combined with the universe where maria was taken by the graske #and even joking she was present at jan 6th implying shes a trump supporter/racist #plus comparing her to rani as a way to bring her down #and its just wha??? #shes literally a child in the show whose got rights to be emotional at times and such #like someone saying she wasnt mindful when invited into the house versus rani who was like??? #THEY WERE BEING ATTACKED BY THE BANE???? #I think i wouldnt be mindful either at the time! #hell some of these i feel arent even jokingy and its just why #worst character in SJA? nah in my opinion that went to chrissie jackson #plus someone using the joke of luke and maria locking kelsie in a room and not telling anyone that was made as evidence... #guys it was an actual joke on where kelsey went in actual reality the ending of the ep confirms shes fine and shit

[inklore]

sweet serial killer

premise: it doesn’t matter if he’s killing you or you're killing someone else. you’re putty in his hands right now, and you’re both fucked. 

pairing: ethan landry x (f)reader

word count: 1.7k

contents: piv, more psychotic feelings than anything, choking, mentions of knife and blood play, murders, dirty talk, stalking, au since this is not in correlation with the film, pain kink.

note: this is my first time writing for this little fucked up curly q even though i have drafts upon drafts of ideas for him, which i'll gladly write if ya'll want more.

haunted hoedown day three.

You should be surprised. 

You should be pissed. 

Scared. 

Running for your life.

Something. Anything.

Other than standing in front of a murderer, your knuckles curling around the edge of the dresser your ass is pushed against. Your excelled heart rate pounding in your ears the closer he steps to you, leaving no room for you to breathe without touching him. Without smelling him. Stealing each other's air. 

Your eyes should be mapping out a quick exit. Coming up with a plan to get the hell out of here. Not looking into his. Not seeing the deep hue of nothingness that is abnormal to see in a sane person's eyes. The dilation of pupils letting you know that he’s got a plan either way. No matter how you take what he just told you.

“I’m ghostface.” 

The darkness in his eyes tells you you can run, but you won’t get far. You can tell someone, but we both know you won’t because I see you.

It’s why you haven’t moved. Why an escape is the last thing on your mind. Because your eyes are casting that same darkness right back at him. 

“You don’t have to pretend with me.” 

His words are like a fire engulfing you, more dangerous than the performance of normality you constantly put on. The sweet, rich girl whose parents gave her a free ride to college, who dote on her like a prized show pony because she’s the perfect child—the perfect daughter. 

The one thing in their lives they didn’t screw up. 

Being born screwed up and hiding it well, no fault of their own.

Known psychopaths rarely get what they want. They might, for a little while. But the lavishes never last. There's always more you need, more you want. And there are only so many people in this world who will give you what you want out of fear. 

Fear leads to trouble. Fear leads to getting caught. Turned in. Turned upon.

Hidden psychopaths, however, have an advantage. A perfected way of being that makes them seem like the nicest people you’ve ever met. The person you can run to. Trust. Count on. The person you wish you could be. 

That’s how you get what you want. 

That’s how you make the high of deceiving, hurting, and killing last. 

And if rich parents who like to hire nannies have taught you anything, it's that it is very easy to pretend. To perfect this little act. To be perceived as loving and being able to love when really all you want to do is gouge the person next to you’s eyes out. 

You have a system. A routine. You never let your crown slip. You never let anyone see you for what you truly are. You’d lose everything. Lavishes gone. That control you have gone. 

You didn’t care about being loved or feared. 

Feelings meant nothing to you. 

But watching the emotions of pain enacted on someone's face when you caused it? Nothing compared to it.

Besides, maybe the way Ethan is looking at you right now. 

The look someone gets when they look into a mirror and like the monster they see looking back at them. 

Part of you should have known. Should have seen this coming with the way his eyes were always already on yours when you looked his way in class. Or that night you caught him following you around campus, but you pretended you didn’t see him—much like the night he caught you red handed, literally, with blood staining your nails, and your pre-rehearsed explanation only making his eyes grow wider and fill with darkness, he quickly smiled away. 

And the nail that should have been pounded into the coffin when your roommate got attacked and all Ghostface did was wave his shiny little knife in your face, a gloved hand around your throat, and then disappeared down the fire escape. And the next day, when everyone was making your skin crawl from sympathy hugs and the fake tears that were glossing your eyes, Ethan had only given you dark looks from across the courtyard. 

Brows low and casting a shadow over his eyes in class. 

You should have known then. 

You’re usually so much better at reading people, trying to understand their normality to copy it. Use it against them.

But Ethan wasn’t normal. That much was clear. 

“I didn’t think you had it in you,” he chuckles under his breath as he shrugs, “this perfect little daddies girl, the girl everyone wants to sleep with, is crazy.” A slow smile lifts the corner of his mouth, “so many nights I’ve followed you, and you’ve kept your facade going. Even when no one was watching. Until the night I ran into you in the hall, the night I knew. I could see it written all over your face.” 

He leans in closer, his curls ghosting over your forehead. His voice a whisper, “but you’re not very good at hiding your messes, so I did it for you. I saved us both the trouble. You getting caught and me—well, Ghostface—taking credit for a kill so messy. And when I gave you my little present, that pesky roommate of yours gone, I could see it in your eyes. That trust. That you would have been happy with me either killing you or fucking you.” 

Your breath halts in your lungs, burning the back of your throat from the noise you let out when Ethan grabs it. Squeezing just enough to make it hard to swallow and to make that growing hunger move past your belly and throb between your legs. 

“Which is it now? Do you want to be fucked or killed?” 

Your lips try to form words, but the hand around your throat mingled with that perfected crown falling and shattering to the ground has your darkness making itself known more than just in the fire that’s so clearly burning in your eyes—the gasps that sound like weak whimpers, the warmth of your body against Ethan’s, the way your insides feel like molten lava when you consider both objectives—your mind is clouded with a pleasure you’ve only ever felt when you’ve watched the agony of pain fade out someone's light completely, your nails smelling of copper for days after.

If Ethan pulled out his knife right now and put it to your throat, you’d come before he made the first cut.

And as he says, “if I went downstairs and grabbed one of your fans and brought them up here and slit their throat for you, would you like that? Would you prefer that instead?” 

Your body shivers from his words, from the free hand that's running down your hip to the apex of your inner thigh—your sorry excuse for a skirt giving him more than enough access to press his thumb to the growing wet patch on the outside of your underwear. The pad of his finger pressing in and adding just the right amount of pressure to your aching clit to make your eyes flutter. 

“Or is it your insides you want me to see?” 

The involuntary whimper of his name, the motion of your hips trying to rub yourself against the miniscule touch between your legs, his last words, and the accuracy of it all are the finality for both of you. 

The thing that finally lets you both know that it doesn’t matter if he’s killing you, or you’re killing someone else, or blood is spilt for you, you’re putty in his hands right now, and you’re both fucked. 

So when his lips come down on yours, it’s hard and rough and lacking any sort of passion. 

Any sort of fake pleasure you’ve always had to give to past lovers. 

There's nothing fake about the heat inside of you. The sauna of depravity that Ethan is pulling out of you—devouring it with bloody teeth that match your own hunger. Your own fucked up way of getting off. Of feeling something. 

When Ethan starts to descend to his knees, leaving a trail of bites along your neck that feel too hard and imprinting to not be a personal vendetta of anger, of want, of a need to make you feel pain, to want it from him—you stop him. 

Yanking his curls so hard, he’s hissing against your mouth. Your fingers move in a flash of pushed away fabric, buttons, and zippers to free him and wrap a hand around his cock. Giving it a couple pumps. Watching the way his mouth parts and his lips curl in pleasure when you tighten and twist around the head. 

Wordlessly telling him what you want when you turn away, pushing your ass out for him as you bend yourself over the dresser. 

If you didn’t have him inside of you one way or another, you know you’d lose your patience. Know that darkness would simmer away into something worse, something that would leave the both of you in more agony than pleasure. 

You needed him. 

And by the sound Ethan makes when he thrusts into you—hard, without warning—you know he needs you too. Know that he’s probably gotten off to the thought of you bloodied and underneath him, his knife pressed to your throat, threatening to make you bleed if you didn’t let him come inside of you. If you didn’t let him lick the wounds he wants to create against your flesh. 

The pace he sets is rough. 

Harsh against your body that rubs against the rigid edge of the dresser. His nails dig into your hips as he pulls you back onto him, as he grabs the back of your neck, digging his fingers into your skull. 

The palm that snakes around to your neck pulls you up and against his front, putting your body at a new angle that has your muscles stretching in pain and making your eyes roll back. The noises of pleasure and pain like a fucked up hymn. 

“That night I was in your apartment, your life in my hands, do you know how much self control I had to have to not slice this pretty throat?” His teeth graze against the skin below your ear, his own groans and hitches of breath making you feel lightheaded. “To not make you bleed and spread it against my cock and make you jerk it off. Make you use your mouth to lick me clean.”

It’s those words and the lack of air his palm is allowing your lungs to intake that make you come. That has the gasp falling from your mouth sounding like something dying, something begging for life. 

Portraying the opposite of his words. Of why you’re coming. Of why the rush has you going lax against him and smiling. 

#ethan landry x you #ethan landry smut #ethan landry x reader #ethan landry x y/n #jack champion x reader #scream smut #ethan landry imagine #ethan landry #ghostface smut #ethan landry one shot #ethan landry fanfiction #ethan landry fic #hauntedhoedown

[itsclydebitches]

The narrative H/C potential of switching Cazador and Orin’s kidnappings is just delicious to me. Instead of Astarion’s siblings waking him up and giving the party the chance to defend him, the player arrives back at camp (or finishes a long rest if Astarion is currently in your party) to discover that he’s just gone. No note, no sign of a struggle, nothing. Insert any hand wave-y means of abducting Astarion quietly here. The point is that this would wreck him.

Not just because he’s now back in the clutches of Cazador (though that’s obvious), but because you’re not coming for him. See, having Orin as your kidnapper is actually one of the more reassuring options, despite her murder-happy disposition. Even if she nabs a struggling character like Gale who might believe they’re unworthy of rescue for any number of reasons, Orin is one of the few baddies you simply have to engage with. Significantly, knowledge of that necessity is baked into the actual story-world. We see fighting her as a gameplay mechanic—defeat three mini bosses to reach the final boss—but that structure still exists as a Save The World quest for your party. No stone, no victory. No Orin, no stone. Ergo, they’re fighting Orin. So whoever is kidnapped knows that the party will show up eventually, even if it’s not for them. That’s it’s own wonderful, angsty assumption—“You came because it was the right thing to do, not because you care about me. My rescue was always a byproduct of saving the people who truly deserve it”—but at least there’s still reassurance in knowing you’ll see them again. All the kidnapped member has to do is not piss off Orin in the meantime and hope the party doesn’t die along the way. Not stellar odds, admittedly, but are they really any worse than what they’ve been dealing with all along?

Getting kidnapped by Cazador on the other hand... oh boy. He’s a missable boss, both mechanically and narratively. Who’s worried about him when there’s a fucking Netherbrain threatening all of Faerûn? Sure, sure, your Tav might have spent their journey helping every idiot with suitably convincing puppy-dog eyes, but Astarion is very much not a refugee tiefling/snake-threatened child/shadow-cursed hero/etc. He’s a chaotic, caustic bitch whose trauma is expressed more through biting fury than soft bouts of crying. Not only is he (in his own mind) not the sort of person people go out of their way to save, but would you even know where to begin? Depending on your approval rating you might still be iffy about Astarion’s past, as well as this upcoming ritual. Has Tav met any of the siblings yet? Do they know that Cazador’s Ascension would pose a threat to all of Baldur’s Gate? Do they have any means of finding the entrance to his palace without a former resident in the party (or convenient map marker)? Now, toss in the fact that, depending on how many long rests you’ve done, the party has only been traveling together for a matter of days/weeks. They know one another deeply (yay trauma bonding) but once separated that timeframe feels pretty insignificant, particularly to someone who has existed for over 200 years. Even if you’re romancing Astarion and he has more reason to believe that this short period of time was emotionally meaningful, he’s still admitted to manipulating you, to molding your emotions to best ensure his protection... but protection never extended to this.

Besides, Astarion has literally been here before. No heroes rescued him across two centuries of enslavement. Why would they rescue him now?

Except, it’s far worse this time around, isn’t it? Cazador isn’t merely his abuser, he’s now set to become an all-powerful vampire whose hold will truly be unbreakable. Astarion isn’t merely a slave to one individual, he’s now got a ticking time bomb in the form of a parasite set to enslave him to another. (And isn’t that something to chew on: him cursing the fact that the artifact’s protection still extends to him. At least as a Mind Flayer he wouldn’t feel anymore, would have a chance to fight back.) This time around Astarion isn’t just another beloved “child” of Cazador’s, he’s uniquely gifted in his ability to walk in the sun and resist commands. The hells only know what Cazador will make him do with that newfound power if he survives the ritual— or how Cazador will ensure Astarion’s continued “loyalty” while he does it. Worst of all though... now Astarion has had a chance to see what life could be like. Freedom. Agency. People who love him despite all the reasons they shouldn’t. Whoever said, “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” was a fucking fool. It’s so much worse to go backwards, to have lost not merely the life you dreamed of, but also the ability to pretend you never needed it in the first place.

Imagine that Astarion. Picture how broken he would be.

Now imagine the party kicking down Cazador’s door. The look on Astarion’s face when he realizes that despite the danger, the practical hurtles, the bigger stakes at play, the fact that it’s him... they came anyway.

#BG3 #Baldur's Gate 3 #Astarion

[bestworstcase]

Your post about Yang and Tai’s advice just showed up on my dash and 1) I love this show and 2) it really hit me how I didn’t really question Tai in that moment? He’s her dad, the adult to her child, and he was right about what He was talking about in the tournament specifically but not all of Yang. The idea that your parents can hurt you while trying to help you, how their love can take on an unfair or unhelpful shape. Wah. But also it had me thinking. Yang has yet to tackle her emotional side of all of this and still acted in self sacrifice to save Ruby. What’s the best way for her to address this? No one has ever mentioned it before in show so would the girls talking about it be the realizing or is it something she needs to see on her own? Or a combo of both. Yang telling Ruby she wanted her to be safe and maybe Ruby or Blake getting upset bc “what does me being safe have to do with me losing you? Nothing is worth losing you not even me?” I need this volume in my eyes so badly

😭 one of my FAVORITE things about rwby is how it just… lets characters be wrong. a lot of stories you’ll get this thing of—a character lies or voices a misunderstanding and the narrative almost immediately does something to signal that the statement is false, if not having another character jump in to correct them then rushing to a scene that establishes unambiguously what the truth is, or even just flagging liars by making a point of how suspicious they are. right? how many times have you read a story or watched a tv show and known within a matter of pages or minutes at most that a character just lied to you?

but rwby doesn’t do that! the characters make mistakes, jump to erroneous conclusions, hold preconceived notions that distort their perspectives of the present, and even outright LIE and the narrative just lets that happen without commentary—rwby shows an *enormous* degree of respect for its audience, an enormous amount of trust that its viewers care enough about the story to pay attention and really engage with it. and because it’s written with that trust it’s able to just embrace complexity and nuance and characters being wrong and stuff like that. idk i just think it makes the story feel really *welcoming* in a way—like, the narrative isn’t trying to hold our hands and tell us what we should think, it’s inviting us to think for ourselves.

not to get like sappy or anything gkgdjf

but god yeah. yang’s v9 arc!

the nature of void wonderland makes concrete speculation tricky—i’m pretty confident about the basic emotional and thematic trajectories i foresee, but there are so many unknown variables in this wholly new and bizarre setting that when it gets down to the question of WHAT will happen HOW it will occur is kind of just taking shots in the dark. we’ve already got emotion-reactive weather and talking mice who knows what other weird shit could happen.

that said, any time you stick a character whose biggest problem involves emotional repression into a setting where their feelings are literalized into the environment… i mean. lmao. it’s hard to bury your feelings when they’re literally bursting out of you to influence the weather, right? so i anticipate that playing some role in both ruby’s and yang’s arcs—they’re both very bad at articulating their unwanted emotions, ruby because she feels so much pressure to be the perfect leader and yang because deep down she doesn’t believe in her own innate worth, but now they’re in a place that is, literally, going to articulate their unwanted emotions *for* them.

(as a metaphor for how bottling up your feelings just makes them build up until they explode out whether you like it or not, this is of course very fun.)

the OTHER thing—with yang specifically—is that there has, in fact, been a major arc about a character falling into self-sacrificing/self-destructive habits, bleeding herself dry for the sake of protecting the world until her friend confronted her about it, showed her how counterproductive it was to exhaust herself, and begged her to take better care of herself. i am of course talking about blake in volume two—and in THAT arc, YANG was the character who saw this type of behavior for the damaging exercise in futility that it ultimately is and pulled blake out of her self-destructive spiral.

there’s a deep hypocrisy in what yang is doing to herself now, because as we saw in v2 this self-sacrificing bullshit is NOT something yang tolerates or supports when she sees it in people she cares about. she knows it’s harmful. she knows it’s not safe. and when she’s in a state of better mental health, like she was during the beacon arc, she’s even able to recognize that tendency in herself and make the conscious, deliberate choice to restrain it.

blake knows that, because she was on the receiving end of yang giving her exactly the kind of talk yang needs to hear now. so i think blake is gonna be coming at this problem not just from a perspective of having just seen yang fall to her apparent death after bodily shielding ruby from an attack, but also from a perspective of knowing that she just needs to get yang to connect the dots between, well, setting herself on fire for other people in both the literal and figurative sense and the kind of single-minded self-destructive behavior that they talked about in burning the candle. like, if blake can get yang to see that burying her feelings and never asking for support because she’s so focused on supporting her friends is the *same* as putting ruby in a wagon and walking through the woods for miles until she’s too exhausted to scream when the grimm attack because she’s so focused on finding her mom… it doesn’t feel the same to yang, because the former arises from a selfless desire to protect others whereas the latter arose from a self-centered desire to find her mother, but it is the same, because both are just yang sacrificing her own well-being for the sake of a goal she gives greater importance than herself.

i do think that—while obviously RWB are all gonna feel some way about yang sacrificing herself to shield ruby—the arc as a whole probably won’t focus very closely on That Specific sacrificial act, because:

1. if blake or weiss had spotted neo, or if neo had gone for yang and ruby had seen her, there’s not a single doubt in my mind that any of them would have reacted any differently than yang did: rushing forward as fast as they can to save their teammate from getting stabbed in the back. (see also, weiss shoving ruby clear of cinder’s explosion later in the same fight and getting her aura broken in the process.) for yang, that action was part of a larger pattern of self-sacrificial behavior, but in that specific situation, in the heat of the moment, she just did what *any* of them would have done.

2. because of the first point, making that specific action the central focus gives yang something of an out: instead of being a conversation about how yang thinks she ALWAYS needs to be the one supporting them because she doesn’t feel DESERVING of their support in turn, it becomes a conversation about “well what would YOU have done? she was going to stab ruby! it’s not like i wanted her to kill me instead, i just wanted to protect my sister!”—and she’d be right, because taken in isolation yang really didn’t do anything wrong by getting between neo and ruby. it sucks that it happened too fast for yang to deflect the attack itself, sure, but in essence she saw an adversary sneaking up to stab ruby while ruby was focused on cinder and moved to intervene.

and while yang’s underlying mindset likely influenced how she intervened—using her body to shield ruby vs trying to tackle neo, or tackle ruby so the attack would miss them both—the act of intervention itself was the only right thing to do. the deeper problem, the thing that really needs addressing, is that underlying mindset, which expresses itself in yang’s ready willingness to take hits so her teammates don’t have to but also, far more critically, manifests as yang disregarding her own emotional needs for the sake of being the strong one, the shoulder to cry on, the supportive rock everyone else can rely on. so i figure RWB will be more focused on “we are here for you, we WANT to be here for you, please let us be here for you” than on like prosecuting the details of one specific incident.

and meanwhile yang has all this pent-up emotional junk she’s been drowning in since v4 that got exacerbated by her unsatisfying confrontations with raven in v5—resentment, anger, grief for the relationship with the mom she wishes raven could have been, frustration with herself for not being good enough for raven to stay, feeling helpless after a lifetime of wanting this confrontation and then getting the answers she wanted and it changing absolutely nothing, so forth—that has hitherto only bubbled up as flashes of intense anger at acceptable available targets (ozpin in v6, salem in v8) but is prime for a major eruption if she keeps trying to stamp it down. my guess is that we’re going to see yang become a lot more emotionally volatile in v9 as all this *stuff* she’s been keeping dammed up starts to spring leaks.

[thegeminisage]

tng update time and oooooh am i ever mad about it. tonight we watched "hero worship" and "violations."

hero worship: i wanted to like this episode. but, firstly, it's just yet more evidence why children should not be on starships. this has been bothering me the entire time i've watched this fucking show. i hope there aren't any kids on voyager or whatever because this is literally fucking killing me

secondly, i felt really weird about everyone just...going along with this kid's idea that he was an android. i feel like there's a way to be lenient of his trauma without reinforcing the delusion or whatever sorry ik that's not how you're supposed to say it. it just didn't seem like solid therapeutical practice is all. i will admit there was also some secondhand embarrassment watching this kid's impersonation of data but i think it COULD have been cute (which seems to be what they were going for) with a better execution

i DEFINITELY think data's interactions with him should have been supervised too, not because i don't love and trust data wholly but because he has this way of missing certain emotional cues. and while that isn't a problem in day-to-day life, like, that's just the way he is and i resent anyone who would make him feel like it's a bad way to be/there's something wrong with him because he is PERFECT the way he is!!! for someone who is so vulnerable i think that data could accidentally do harm where it isn't intended (almost did a couple of times!), and data wouldn't be happy about that either because of course it would never be his intention. like i LOVE episodes where we just throw data into the deep end and let him figure it out, i love watching him go, but this is a child whose entire family/ship just DIED HORRIBLY who thinks he is responsible for the event. im not saying dont let data be his buddy data deserves so many buddies im just saying give data some INSTRUCTIONS at least. for both their sakes

anyway it was mid at best. it had a few good moments but ultimately not enough to salvage it for me

violations:

okay wait hold on i feel like i need to start a brand new text block for violations. you're only allowed 4000 characters per paragraph and i have stuff to say. i have Things To Get Off My Chest. please picture steam pouring from my fucking ears right now

actually forget the bullet list i don't need a bullet list this is not a normal liveblog Post. do you know every day i see threads on r*ddit and sometimes even tags here on tunglr dot edu about how people don't like tos because it's sexist. thats all well and fine and good. tos IS sexist. ARE WE SAYING TNG IS BETTER?????

tasha yar and the rape gangs. the naked time: 2! where both women got turned into insatiable sex object. deanna's impromptu and nonconsensual pregnancy. tasha's impregnantion by rape and her death at the hands of her rapist. that time they filmed deanna's feet. beverly crusher for all of season 1 having absolutely no personality outside of being a mother. lwaxana troi getting gang raped by ferengi for laughs. genuinely uhura on tos in the fucking 1960s got treated better than deanna troi on tng in the 1990s. yes tos has extremely bad moments sexism wise. JUSTICE for janice fucking rand. but truly how can you be as sexist against women when they aen't there. meanwhile, tng has women in every goddamn episode and all it takes is for one bad writer to

actually you know what is so funny. gene roddenberry and two women are credited with writing this episode. ALL of them are going to hell, gene roddenberry especially. i hate hate hate HATE his rape fetish. justice for janice rand AND tasha yar AND DEANNA TROI!

the thing about this episode is, it could have been good. there were good parts about it. for example: worf's joke about being probed. they knew what they were doing and it was hilarious. deanna getting to talk about her overbearing mother. riker's little speech to deanna when she was in the coma with literal tears in his eyes and this is a WHOLE separate rant but

my problem with tng is that you don't see them care about each other. we're TOLD that they care about each other. they SAY, "oh, x is worried about [character who's in danger this week]." but we almost never SEE them act it out. every once in awhile riker gets weirdly protective of picard, and worf seems kind of protective of everyone which i like, and picard also does a good righteous rage on behalf of others, but i don't usually get to SEE it. like when wesley goes missing or whatever he and his mom don't always immediately rush into each others arms on their reunion. when deanna passes out you don't always see riker abandon what he's doing and rush to her side. nobody asks "are you okay?" with genuine concern. and even when we DO get for example geordi driving himself crazy wondering what went wrong over data's fake death we don't get any follow-through - there's no reunion between geordi and data at the end the way there would be for kirk and spock.

BUT RIKER AT THE HOSPITAL BED. ohhh i was eating. it was so good. he wasn't even saying anything of merit but just the SIGHT of her passed out like that had him almost in tears. riker, who is the epitome of good humor and dealing with space horrors with laughter. IN TEARS. it was so good. a true show instead of tell moment. and in THIS fucking episode

my issue is: they had three on screen rape scenes. the first rape scene was extremely long. like they couldn't show anything explicit because this is 90s tv but it was VERY VERY LONG so it hardly seems to matter. and THAT was bad enough. but then they made us watch it AGAIN when he planted his dad's face in the memory and A THIRD TIME when he was like "ugh she's being so sweet to me even though i raped her i can't NOT rape her again." like at least that time she was able to hit him and get away but it feels like a hollow victory when he's already gotten away with it TWICE, AND!!! when worf had to come in and save her anyway at the end.

it was doubly horrible that he got away with the crime SO WELL that nobody suspected him - like, picard is out here asking deanna to let him into her mind a second time and she GOT RAPED. A SECOND TIME. deanna is like oh yeah you can come in! and it could have been a compelling mystery and plot twist to be like OH IT'S THE DAD but really it's the son except we SAW HIM DO IT the first time. there wasn't even any mystery to solve or anyone to suspect, he wasn't misdirecting US, we just got to watch him successfully misdirect this poor stupid naive trusting WOMAN

also, the thing about deanna's attack being a rape scene while riker's was someone dying under his command and beverly's was IDing her husband's dead body is that for riker and bev these are REAL THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THEM. deanna never got raped by riker. like, he wouldn't do that and they wouldn't still be as close and comfortable with one another if he had. (i am mad on his behalf TWICE now that they left it open whether or not he committed that particular crime when every other piece of evidence says he wouldn't. the guy is not a closet serial rapist and leaving the endings open to be edgy is extremely poor form.) like, they literally JUST made deanna's attack a rape scene to sexualize her and feed roddenberry's fetish and HE'S DEAD. HE WAS DEAD WHEN THIS AIRED. HE CAN'T JERK OFF TO IT ANYMORE

they didn't even explain why that guy kept leaving people in comas. deanna i get because he was stalking her and wanted to fuck her but why riker? why beverly? that made it MORE suspicious. why all those other people on the other planets? was he raping every single one of them? how did he plan to keep going after he'd framed his dad for his crimes?

and it COULD HAVE BEEN GOOD. beverly's thing with IDing her husband's body was fun and terrifying. deanna could have gotten a memory that spoke to character development instead of being sexualized like this. in fact i think it was lowkey a pussy move not to deal with any of riker's close encounters because of the two of them riker is the one who has actually been raped! "someone died under my command" is generic and lame. but the way the telepathy worked was cool, the plot twist could have been cool, you could have felt real betrayal from liking this dude if he hadn't been all evil smiles from the beginning. and they dropped the ball SO HARD. and i could forgive them for doing that! i have given tng so many benefits of the doubt! BUT THREE RAPE SCENES IN 45 MINUTES?

the worst part is, there was no emotional resolution. they had that guy say the word rape out loud and then the credits rolled. deanna and riker didn't speak one word to each other. she was never like, i know you didn't actually rape me like that's not what happened. no one was like, beverly go have a hot drink and call your son. there's NO EMOTIONAL FOLLOWTHROUGH ON THIS SHOW. tos was guilty of that sometimes too but this level of it is fucking unreal

tng enjoyers im sorry for my meanie posts earlier. love who you love etc etc. i'm just. baffled. HOW IS THIS BETTER THAN TOS. at least what happened to janice rand (and uhura one time) was over quickly and didn't replay three FUCKING times!!! "tos is too/more sexist" I AM TURNING MY BRAIN INSIDE OUT TO TRY AND UNDERSTAND THIS FUCKING STATEMENT

#truly put the women back on the top shelf until you can treat them like they deserve. back to the boys club im begging you #sorry. i'm done now #personal #star trek blogging #tng lb #rape tw #uhhhh normally i say what we're watching tomorrow but i forgot already. and also idc <3 #justice for deanna fucking troi.

[danwhobrowses]

Rings of Power - Episodes 7, 8 and Full Season Review

So now we reach the end, the Rings of Power had its final two episodes, so it's time to see if it finished on a bang or a whimper as it attempts to push a renewal

Spoilers for the episodes

So episode 7 was fine, a bit on the safe side at times but still solid, leading into the finale which was much better and definitely felt like a finale, not perfect of course but I wasn't disappointed with the finale. Still, there were some ups and some downs, and since it's the season finale I'll split it into the two episodes and then the full season.

Episodes 7 & 8

Let's get the chronologically first negative out of the way: you cannot survive a pyroclastic flow. That thing spits out of the same place the lava does; it is not like a fog, it is a thick wave of molten hot gases like carbon and sulfur, and smoke particles whose very touch would sear your flesh. Pompeii exists as proof of that, the fact that Galadriel et al wake up just with a blanket of ash on them is laughably fictitious.

As usual, Galadriel remained problematic to the end. Episode's 7 mini-adventure with Theo perhaps didn't have the effect it intended, Galadriel has had plenty of time, chances and people telling her that she's blinded by rage to only now admit she's being a hypocrite to a person who has no context, also suddenly Celeborn does exist and allegedly died (he could come back sure, but it'd have to be one hell of an explanation) to push the romantic tension with Halbrand. Also it seemed again Un-Galadriel even Warrior Galadriel to go 'we could still make one of you yet' to a child asking if he's a soldier, the answer is supposed to be no. By the finale my annoyance rose by the fact that they have her find out Halbrand is Sauron but then decide to tell nobody! The only one she protects is herself with this information, and it's annoying that they have her suggest three rings instead, she literally just came in right at the end of this whole process. We also got another lingering slow-mo horse riding scene, which fails to capture to same energy and essence the movies did.

Griping ensued with Halbrand aka Sauron. I am relieved that Halbrand is Sauron, but I hate the way we went about it. Of course Amazon would choose the most fanfic-baiting option with the whole 'be my queen' shit, really opening Pandora's Box for the whole 'enemies to lovers' bandwagon to take over and consume expectations for the next season. Frankly I also don't like that Halbrand up and said he was Sauron, sure we needed a way to introduce him to Celebrimbor but also keep him from making the Elven rings, but I don't see why we couldn't have simply had him introduce himself as Annatar Lord of Gifts instead. Simply recover, inspire Celebrimbor, be confronted by Galadriel to reveal himself as a Maia and then depart on good terms to 'lead' the Southlands pretending it to be his new purpose Galadriel put him on while also revealing to unaware viewers that he is indeed Sauron.

A small and rare Harfoots gripe exists also in these episodes, mainly of the group that comes looking for the Stranger. Goldie going with the group didn't feel quite right, given that Largo had been considered the adventurous one and gives the big hopeful speech, feel like he earned a spot on the travelling party more. Sadoc dying perhaps could've been more emotive if he had a greater role in the Harfoots plot too.

As for the Dwarven storyline, Elrond claiming he intentionally lost the Dwarven challenge didn't sit right with me, he could be lying but I think there's more stock in him losing because it showed limitations for elves and strength for Dwarves. Awakening the Balrog early for an Episode 7 stinger which doesn't get picked up on in the finale was cheap as well, Durin's Bane isn't supposed to awaken this early anyway, sometimes there's a little too much wink and nudging, such as using on-screen text to change the Southlands to 'Mordor', you could just say it without being cheesy.

My last gripe does have to come with the absence of plot points in the finale too. It's all well and good having Isildur's sister look into the Palantir and off-screen convince Númenor to assemble a fleet, but what about Isildur? We know he's not dead so why are we lingering on it? Same can be said for the unsatisfactory conclusion of Durin being disowned, Arondir, Theo and Bronwyn not finding their new settlement, and perhaps an explanation on how the Elven rings will help all Elves and not just the 3 ringbearers? I know the finale has a time limit but the Númenor plot did have an open ending on episode 7 enough for its episode 8 stuff to have been saved for Season 2.

On the positives side, the strongest plots remained strong. Durin and Elrond's plot still remains the most emotive and compassionate of the series, while the Harfoots storyline remains the most hopeful and joyful.

King Durin and Largo stood out in episode 7 with their contrasting speeches, but speeches that hit home to define the very gestalt of their races. Now that we're safe in knowing that bondage slim shady isn't Sauron, the power move on burning the caravans - after the Stranger had brought a harvest but sent away because Dilly walked towards the crackling tree like a moron - was still impressive while also showing that it's effortless for them.

I was going to be negative about Númenor, given that Elendil was quick to forsake the land he would later rule for the kingdom of men, but episode 8 did turn me around with him deciding to persevere. Isildur's absence was noticed in 8 but Míriel at least got some more stuff to do now that she's a blinded Queen, the fact that a fleet meets their return does look to better push forward the plotline of Men who would become of the Dúnedain.

Keeping Bronwyn and Arondir's status until Theo finds out was a clever move though, because you carry the same uncertainty to a nice payoff. Nice is an optimal word too in juxtaposition to House of the Dragon, where if it were that show, both would've ended up dead. That being said, it is worth praising the show for not shying from showing the graphic injuries sustained.

The Sauron misdirect worked perfectly for Episode 8, making us think it's the Stranger first while being blatant about Halbrand. While earlier I did say I'd be upset if the Stranger was Gandalf, I've come around a bit on it, the actor is doing pretty well to be charming and witty like Gandalf now that he speaks full sentences. Halbrand meanwhile was the perfect option to be Sauron out of the candidates, handsome and tricky, with a way of putting intent into others' minds without them knowing, while I do dislike that we outed him early and that Galadriel knows (which also makes her temptation of the ring dumber since she would've known not to be burned twice by him) we at least have a positive direction to take. The Sauron eye motif when forging the 3 rings did not go unnoticed too.

I liked the Magic Battle as well, it was an improvement of the Gandalf vs Saruman wirework fight of Fellowship, but it at least felt like magic against the pre-wraiths (can't be the actual wraiths since the Nazgul were the nine kings). And as much as I dislike Galadriel, her giving up her brother's dagger to get the materials to forge the rings was a clever piece of symbolism.

Overall Season

In the end the Rings of Power was never going to match to neither book nor movie, but I am at least glad that I gave it a go. It's not perfect, but it's not the worst thing I've seen either.

On the overall negative side I think I hated Galadriel's plot the most because it was overkill on 'this is our marketable strong woman main character' whereby Galadriel acts out of character and yet continues to get vindicated in the long run. It's not Clark's acting though that's the problem, it's simply the writing; personally I think this whole plot would've worked better if Galadriel was instead an original content elven warrior searching for revenge and vindicated less, I would not have made her the poster girl either, since she mainly achieved that in Name Value, whereas Elrond, the Stranger or Nori seem the more organic choices. A similar change would be to not say that Elrond is a 'politician', just let him be a captain of the guard for Gil Galad - who could also use more character than a 1990s RPG Quest Giver with only 3 expressions - and then the plot needn't change. I would've cut the Balrog too and perhaps improved the Theo plot, while giving Adar much more threat and screentime given that we don't see him fight AT ALL, the pre-wraiths could've shown up a little earlier too as well as some more screentime for Celebrimbor given how key he is to forging the rings, as well as some conclusive tidbits for Arondir's group and Isildur surviving. And of course I'd swap the Sauron reveal for the aforementioned Annatar stuff.

But on the positive we had excellent work from Elrond and Durin, as well as the charming nature of the Harfoots and the Stranger. Elrond's actor exudes a somewhat Ewan McGregor Obi-Wan charisma that continues to impress me, and Durin's emotional scenes really hit the right notes in enriching the bond the two have. With the Harfoots we also get a positive message of hope, companionship and nurture, with enough adventure to advance it's plot but enough mileage to go further. Honestly, it surprised me how much love Galadriel's plot got and how much vitriol the Harfoots plot got on social media, given how I felt quite the opposite. The growing guessing game of Who is Sauron was a great little hook for the plot, with a solid payoff on who it was in the end. We were treated to some fantastic scenery too, with each area standing out so you knew what plot you were following, some great music as well (Khazad-Dum and White Leaves remain my favourites) and a solid ending.

So yeah, I'll be watching season 2.

#the rings of power #rings of power #lotr rings of power #rings of power spoilers #lotr rop #trop #galadriel #halbrand #sauron #celebrimbor #prince durin #durin iv #nori brandyfoot #poppy proudfellow #the stranger #sadoc burrows #trop spoilers #isildur #adar #queen regent miriel #elendil #rop spoilers #arondir #bronwyn #theo #morfydd clark #lenny henry #robert aramayo #charlie vickers #markella kevanagh

[c-is-for-circinate]

Like, is the gist "Real life pedophilia/incest/rape is bad, and stories saying these things are good are bad, but including these topics in a story isn't inherently bad, so the people being like 'hey, maybe Ao3 shouldn't have so much kiddie porn there's an entire category called "Underage"' are just overreacting and making things worse?" Because it feels like you're saying, "your negative reaction to this stuff is valid, but also you're annoying and prudish and bad and really you aren't valid."

So here’s the thing: it really does not sound like you're asking this question because you want my answer, it sounds like you want to be angry with me and have a fight. And fair enough! I'm not terribly interested in a fight, but apparently this is my day to dive into this topic as thoughtfully and honestly as I can be. Maybe I'll say something you haven't already heard from other people before. Maybe not! Only you, anonymous asker, know that.

To begin with, you got part of the gist right. Real life rape (including child abuse/child sexual abuse as well as incest) is bad. Stories about rape, about underage sex, and about incest, are stories.

They're stories. They're pixels on a screen. They're not real. Whether they claim that rape is good, or bad, or sexy, or melodramatic, or life-destroying, or a normal Tuesday afternoon. They're stories.

And having a negative reaction to them is valid. Stories can stir up powerful emotions in people. It is absolutely, 100%, fair and valid and even normal for there to be certain tropes, plot elements, events, and kinds of content that make you upset and that you never want to see in a story you read, ever. You don't have to want to read about sex. You don't have to want to read any of it. That doesn't make you bad.

There are tropes, plot elements, events, and kinds of content that upset me. There are stories I won't read. The same is true of literally everyone else I know. Even though I know the stories aren't real. Even though I know the things happening in them are happening to fictional characters, who do not exist, who I cannot protect and who also cannot be harmed because they're not real. Even then, I can be made sad and scared and upset and hurt by reading those stories. And that is okay and that is valid and I am not bad or wrong for being upset about the story I've read, and neither are you.

But that doesn't mean the story doesn't have value to somebody else. That doesn't mean the story isn't important to somebody else.

What I see most often coming from antis, possibly even including yourself, is an overwhelming desire to protect. They want to keep themselves and others--possibly people they know, possibly hypothetical people they may never meet--safe from being hurt by these stories. And that desire to protect, also, is normal. It's even admirable! The problem, though, the thing that does more harm than good, is when that desire to protect drives people to lash out against things that matter to other people.

There is a difference between actual rape and stories about rape. There is a difference between a story that could theoretically hurt somebody, someday (which is all stories, always), and a story that hurts you personally. And there is a difference between a story that hurts you personally, and a story that is inherently poisonous to everyone who touches it.

We know--absolutely, scientifically, incontrovertibly--that stories about rape do not make people rapists. Yes, even the stories where the rape is there to be sexy. Even stories where the person being raped is a child. Even then. Fiction is not the same thing as normalization; again, there are far smarter people who have written far more extensively on that topic than I, and next time I come across something that goes more into detail on this point I promise I will reblog it. If this really is the thing you're afraid of, I may not be the right person to convince you that this is an unfounded fear, but I know someone out there can elaborate on it.

(Unfounded, which is not the same thing as invalid. My mother's claustrophobia is unfounded; it flares up in many situations where there's no physical threat whatsoever, where she has plenty of space to move and air to breathe. It's still real. It still chokes her. It's still valid, she is not bad or broken to feel that way, and she still can't drive through certain tunnels. The fear is real. But the thing she's afraid of can't physically hurt her, and that is worth knowing in terms of how she deals with it.)

We know, absolutely, scientifically, and incontrovertibly, that stories about rape and many, many, many other things can hurt and even traumatize their readers. Even though the situation you're reacting to is not real and you receive no physical injury, you can still be hurt by it. The key word there, though, is readers. The fact that the horror genre is out there terrifying people who enjoy being terrified for fun does not damage me unless I do something stupid and try listening to the Magnus Archives again and end up tense and miserable and paranoid for the rest of the week. The fact that guacamole is apparently delicious to everybody else in the world does not hurt me unless I do something stupid and order the wrong thing at a restaurant, and end up itchy and miserable with a little trouble breathing for the rest of the night.

The fact that there are, yes, tens of thousands of fics on AO3 in which characters under the age of 18 have sex? It can't hurt you. Those fics do not hurt you by existing. They can only hurt you if you read them. They can only hurt anyone who reads them. That's why there is an 'Underage' tag--and it's worth noting, 'Underage' is a warning, not a category. Nobody wants you to get hurt reading the wrong fic, any more than the sushi chef wants my throat to swell up because I ordered something with avocado. Literally nobody wants that.

The flip side, of course, is that you hating each and every one of those fics individually and as a group doesn't actually hurt me, or anyone else who writes, reads, or enjoys them. By itself. You can hate anything you like, and fic writers can write anything they like, and it all comes out in the end, more or less. Except.

Except that reading fic is always, entirely, 100% opt-in, and online harassment isn't even opt-out. Some antis have a nasty habit of going after writers whose content they don't like; climbing into inboxes and comments sections, calling those writers nasty names, throwing around cruelties and aggression and insults. I know that's not the same thing as simply disliking a genre, or even passively disagreeing with its existence (although disliking a genre and disagreeing with its right to exist are also very different things). I know not all antis do that. I don't know you, anon, but based on the speed and aggressiveness of this response to my last post, I can't help but wonder if you would do that.

And that does hurt people. Just like it might hurt you if someone threw a bunch of content that makes you uncomfortable into your inbox. Including the harasser, actually--because getting into fights with strangers on the internet about things that make you angry, sad, defensive, and upset isn't good for anybody. Including both you and me.

Anyway, after yet another lengthy ramble, let's get the tl;dr response to your ask here: nobody is ever bad or wrong for disliking certain content in their stories, no matter what that content is. You and your emotions are valid. The "overreacting and making things worse" part isn't about what you feel, but what you do with it. Constantly engaging with places where the thing that upsets you will probably show up, even to argue and try to fight it, will make things worse in the sense that now you're spending way more time thinking about this thing that makes you upset and angry, thereby leaving you more upset and angry. Getting together with a bunch of your upset, angry friends to make your feelings everybody else's problem? Makes fandom a more toxic place for everyone else involved.

Don't read stuff that's going to hurt you. Don't make other people read stuff that's going to hurt them. That's the whole thing, really.

#Anonymous #asked and answered #rape cw #incest cw #discourse #anti discourse day

[tarysande]

Oh no, I've been thinking.

Okay, I can't stop thinking about something ending-related. I don't know this for certain, but based on previous statements and such, it feels like the writers were always aiming for a bittersweet ending. Like, no matter what else happened or how the story evolved, come hell (lol) or high water, that ending couldn't just be happy. For reasons. I guess.

Now, I don't mind a bittersweet ending ... if it makes sense for the ending to be bittersweet.

I critique stories for a living. I'm literally taking a break from the developmental edit of someone's novel to write this post. And the persistent thought that bugs me about the Rory setup is that it is so artificial. Time travel is a pain in the narrative ass. Time travel suddenly introduced in the sixth season of a show that has never touched on time travel? As an editor, I probably would've pointed out that time travel for the purpose of angst, especially time travel without rules that make sense ("I don't know anything about time travel! Except I do know you have to take the most painful path!"), seemingly introduced as a final ploy to make that bittersweet ending work ... well, to me, it breaks the narrative contract they established with the audience. Your audience is going to be confused. An editor's job is to alert the writer to any potential confusion so it can be fixed before the story goes to print, etc. Confused audiences get mad, annoyed, frustrated. They feel hurt. They put down the book and don't pick it up again. Usually, writers don't want that. But they're so close to their work that they need a completely outside perspective to say, "Hey, I'm not sure you realize this, but..."

I mean, I keep referring to Rory as "deus ex daughter" because in literary terms, she is a blatant deus ex machina. Rory is the god in the machine of the Bittersweet Ending.

Now, I loved a lot of S6. I did. My overall feeling about the season is not negative. But ... I can't stop thinking about why the things I didn't like REALLY didn't work for me.

I loved the emotional growth we saw in Lucifer and Chloe facilitated by the question of parenting and parental love. I did. And I would have loved to see a lot of those notes hit not with an angel kid out of nowhere ... but with the daughter already in the picture. Especially because it would have circumvented the icky idea that a child has to be one's flesh and blood to induce such feelings. I also understand that coronavirus and Scarlett's age and schedule made this difficult. But I just can't swallow that the only way to wrap up the story of this show--a show about found family, non-traditional family, friendship, connection, FREE WILL, love in all its many shapes and forms and colors ... was to introduce a brand new character via a device (time travel) that fails to make sense almost every time it's used, no matter the medium. (And then had only that brand new character be there when her mother died. Don't even get me started. Ugh.)

If time travel was always going to be on the table, couldn't we have found a more plausible way to use it with the characters we already knew, loved, and had spent four or five seasons with? A time-travelling older Trixie, say? If you're going to use the impossible device, just ... twist it another way to make it work.

Okay. Okay. So, leaving Trixie aside for now just like the show did, let's say we leave everything about the season the same, even Rory. Do you know what ending makes more narrative sense?

Future Rory sacrificing herself by NOT forcing Lucifer to make a cruel and impossible "choice" so the baby that might have been her grows up with a family that loves her. Chloe's already pregnant. That's not going to be undone. And this nonsense of a "closed time loop" falls apart if you side-eye it for even a few seconds. The Rory who came from the future never exists except in the memories of those she met when she came back from that future. Chloe and Lucifer lose that daughter even as they gain the new one whose existence is not a tool of unrelenting fate because wow this show has always been about free will what the heck happened there yikes. And a choice made under the duress Chloe and Lucifer were under, forced out of them, and forcing them to "choose" a life apart for *handwave* Reasons has nothing to do with free will. A "choice" made at gunpoint is not a real choice. Future Rory basically bullied them into ensuring she got to exist--something, quite frankly, neither her parents would have done.

Instead, how much more appropriately bittersweet is it if Chloe and Lucifer lose that child while gaining one who, because of that angry time-travelling version, will never suffer as she did.

Also as an editor: the groundwork for my version is already laid, by the way. It should have been Rory learning about the importance of free will over fate. The importance of personal sacrifice. The importance of not thinking your young self knows best ... because experience and therapy will help rid you of that self-centered world view. That's the contract the writers made with us with this show. And Chloe and Lucifer have already BEEN THERE AND DONE THAT. (See: the end of S4.)

Furthermore, this season finally HAD Chloe and Lucifer DEAL WITH the only thing that actually would have contributed to a narrative, characterization-based reason for Lucifer to disappear: His history of running and his putting Chloe on a pedestal. Once they really talked that out, his "disappearance" became a Rory-induced trauma of inexplicable fate that flies in the face of all the progress Lucifer made over six seasons. (I would rather have had more of that and less of mysterious disappearing oh no plot.)

And I'm sorry, the "Once you get to Hell you're going to work 24/7" excuse given for why Lucifer won't be around and why he can't make time for Chloe until she's DEAD(????!???) is ... it's lame. If AMENADIEL AS GOD can make time for his kid's birthday party, I refuse to believe Lucifer can't work out some Hell/Earth-work/life balance. Never mind that in the show about partnerships, the Bittersweet Ending just ... destroyed it. Chloe was planning on being God's consultant; she could have helped Lucifer solve Hell's Trauma Mysteries (it's what she did with Jimmy, setting up that yeah, Lucifer could do it alone like he accidentally did with Lee, but doing it with HIS TRUTHSEEKING PARTNER would be more effective). Just as Lucifer could have continued helping HER solve some of the problems within "that corrupt little organization" of hers.

tl;dr: I think the writers fixated so completely on their version of Bittersweet that they missed all the foreshadowing, groundwork, and clues that were right there, already built into the story, poised for a different kind of ending than the one they once imagined. That's why so many parts of it feel almost-but-not-quite right and why these aspects are so off-putting. That's why it's just not ... organic. It's something squeezed into a box it grew out of ages ago.

Ironically, certain elements of this season involved the writers insisting on the FATE they decided long ago instead of letting the story and the characters have the FREE WILL to choose a different, more fitting, more organic ending--one that had long-since evolved past that original flavor of Bittersweet.

#lucifer on netflix #lucifer morningstar #chloe decker #trixie espinoza #aurora morningstar #deckerstar #lucifer meta #lucifer thoughts #lucifer spoilers #lucifer s6 #lucifer s6 spoilers #lucifer critical #i criticize from a place of love #i really do

[justfandomwritings]

By The Norns (Part One - Soulmate!Loki)

Pairing: Loki x Reader, Soulmates AU

Word count: 2.1k

Warnings: Nobody was harmed in any way in the making of this story... but there was some arson.

Summary: She wasn’t a goddess. She wasn’t even an elf or a dwarf. She was a mortal, a Midgardian, a human. To Odin, she was a curse. To Loki, she was a second chance.

Notes: Don’t worry. Despite what the chapter and the description may make you think anyone whose read my stories before will know I am not a fan of soulmate aus that take away the character’s choice. This chapter is set up. Stick with me on this. I promise. Posted in honor of @muna1412​ being very excited at the prospect of another soulmate au.

This is not related to Loyalty in any way... I just have an unhealthy obsession with Soulmate aus. 

Fate was a funny, fickle thing. Loki knew that much. After all, he’d met her. 

Them, to be more precise. The Norns.

Urdr, Skuld, and Verdandi were their names: Past, Present, and Future, as they should be known.

It was they who watered the tree, and they who grew its leaves. The task fell to the Norns to write, shape, create, and control the fate of every being under the branches of Yggdrasil. 

A poor, dwarven craftsman working on the surface of Nidavellir, a beautiful, golden elf living on a hill in Alfheim, a meager, puny human scurrying around the surface of Midgard. It was they who made the dwarf rich, who killed the elf in his sleep, who let the human sow the land. They did not exchange the gold; they did not wield the dagger; they did not draw the plow. But it was by their hand, by their grace and mercy, that the worlds turned, that life waxed and waned, that the Realms drew breath. 

Every birth was through their will. Every death was by their hand, and everything in between was because they decided it would be so.

All fell under the gaze of the Norns. The kitchen cook, Andhrimnir, who served the Aesir’s table at night, owed everything to the Norns. They allowed his birth into Asgard. They raised him above the station of a lowly tavern boy. They gifted him the family he cradled so dearly to his chest.

Odin, King of the Nine Realms, Protector of Asgard, owed everything to the Norns. He was born by their choice. He survived a thousand battles because they said he would do so. He married Frigga because they put her on his path. His sons… 

Well, one of his sons.

Loki knew the exact moment Odin stopped looking at him as a son, the exact moment Odin chose Thor over him, the exact moment Odin turned his back on him, the exact moment his father marked him disappointment.

It was, like all things, the doing of the Fates. The Norns.

Fates were theirs to command from the highest branches of Yggdrasil down to its very roots. From king to beggar, slave to master, aristocrat to pauper, farmer to merchant, sailor to soldier. From Loki to her. She was their doing.

Love was an inevitable part of life. Not even the Norns, with all of the power of the gods and then some, could stop that. Humans, Aesir, Elves, Vanir, the sentient beings of the Nine Realms felt an overwhelming urge towards emotion, and one of the strongest, one of the most inevitable, was love.

They couldn’t stop it, but they could direct it.

It fell under the purview of Fate to decide who one loved. People, god and mortal alike, fell in and out of love all the time. 

Sometimes, though, every now and then, the Norns would reach down and touch two beings. The Norns would take two souls in two bodies and braid them together, weave them together, mold them together, as if they were one.

Those who knew magic well, those like Loki, could see them, watch them, doing this. 

They could see Urdr floating, invisible amongst them, deciding the pair. They could see Skuld, plucking up their souls. They could see Verdandi tying them together.

Loki watched them when they took his soul.

“Mother, Mother,” Loki tugged on his other’s silk skirts and pointed up into the rafters of the Grand Hall. “What’s that?”

Frigga followed her son’s gaze and gasped. Magic was not her proficiency, though what little she had she wielded well. She had enough to see the Norns, floating ghostlike in the air over her younger son. She had enough to see his soul in their hands, and another at their side. 

In the old days, before that fateful night, it was considered an honor to be chosen by the Norns. It was a guarantee of a great, powerful destiny in the future. It was a promise of passion, understanding, and respect on the horizon. It was the mark of one who would know true love. 

The Midgardians called them soulmates. The Aesir called them the destined. 

“The Norns have touched Loki,” Frigga whispered to Odin at her side. “They are gifting him a match.”

“With who?” Odin asked because he could not see them for himself.

Frigga squinted in the direction of the apparitions tying together Loki’s future. “I cannot tell. She appears to be…” Frigga’s eyes whipped around to Odin, “Midgardian.”

Odin turned up his nose and sniffed.

Midgard. The word, the world, that had sentenced Loki to a lifetime of second best. 

His ‘destined’, his ‘soulmate’, his curse.

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It was centuries before the soul tied to Loki’s found the body it would spend its own life in.

(Y/n), her parents named her. 

They weren’t sure why they named her that. When asked, they said they saw the name once in a book. Or was it on the tv? Or in a dream? 

Neither could really remember. All they knew was that, as she grew, the name suited her perfectly. Almost as if fate itself had chosen it for her.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For centuries, millennia even, her soul had been lingering on the edges of reality, existing but not quite feeling. She floated through time and space, following the ties that bound her to existence, waiting.

By the time her soul entered her body on Earth, she had existed longer  than any other Midgardian ever had or would in all of history. She had lingered for years just out of reach of one of the most powerful beings on Asgard, her soulmate. Lifetimes had passed her by in the blink of an eye, and though she didn’t remember any of them, they remembered her.

Her soul hovered above its mate, basking in the magic that dissipated into the air around him like smoke. She breathed it in, soaked it in, drew it in.

In many ways, even subconsciously, she showed her age, her mate.

Even as a baby, she never woke her mother up screaming, to the jealousy of her mom’s friends. She was the model toddler, even through her terrible twos. She almost never cried and rarely threw temper tantrums. They called her a prodigy when she started speaking in full sentences before time doctors even expected her to be learning her first words, and they called her a genius when she learned to read full children’s books while other kids were still struggling through their first alphabet flashcards. Even though she ran around playing in the mud or splashing in puddles, somehow her clothes were always pristine. She taught herself faster than the teachers could and skipped two grades in elementary school alone. She was suspiciously charismatic for such a little girl and made, literally, hundreds of dollars off her lemonade stand. She listened to a family speaking another language in the store once and ran up to them to answer a question they had; when her parents asked her how she’d learned to understand or say that in another language, she had no idea what they were talking about and seemingly hadn’t even realized she’d done it. 

And yet there were other things, darker things. 

When she was born, the nurses didn’t question the little shock of static that jolted through them as they held her. No one commented how, in the right light, the baby’s eyes could look terrifyingly aware. She lied as easily as she breathed and almost never got caught. A girl made fun of her friend's hair once at school, and that night ended up being rushed to the hospital by her parents with all the signs of a heart attack in a five year old child. She liked having things her way, and even when her parents refused her, they always found themselves oddly compelled to do whatever it was anyways. She had an affinity for snakes that often found her letting them in the house. The pranks she pulled on her little brother sometimes got out of hand and often resulted in loud crashes and screams, though by the time any adult arrived nothing ever seemed broken. Her father used to joke that she must be some kind of shape shifter because he swore that, from day to day, her eye would change their color. Sometimes, when he looked in them, he swore they weren’t his daughters, but when he blinked and looked back they always returned to normal. 

Most of it was written off as the simple oddities of a child or exaggerations of first time parents. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Superheroes did not exist when (Y/n) was a child. 

It would be another decade before Tony Stark would stand on a stage and proclaim before the world, “I am Iron Man.” It would be even longer still before Peter Parker would put on a red and blue jumpsuit and call himself, ‘Spiderman’. Bruce Banner hadn’t even begun his research into the serum that would be his ultimate undoing. Dr. Stephen Strange was finishing up med school. Thor hadn’t made his presence known. Wanda had just been born. Hawkeye and Black Widow were still assassins working in the shadows. No one outside Wakanda had ever heard of the Black Panther. Vision hadn’t been built yet, and Captain America had been dead for decades. 

Even if they did exist, it wouldn’t have helped (Y/n). Most of them weren’t born super. Most of them became so by lab experiments or radioactive insects or training or technology. 

In the world (Y/n) grew up in, there were no superheroes. And if there were no superheroes... then what was she? 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She was 12. 

It was her big day. 

Not her birthday, she didn’t particularly care about birthdays. Something about them just felt off to her. When she turned 11, she asked her mom if she could have two of those candles that were shaped like the actual numbers, and she’d put them pressed against each other on top of the cake. She ran around all day telling everyone she was 1,111. Some people laughed, but mostly to humor her.

That was why she hadn’t had a birthday party when she turned 12. She didn’t like people fake laughing. It felt like lying. She didn’t particularly mind lying herself, but she hated thinking that people were lying to her. Especially because she could always tell when they were. 

No, instead, she had this. The Science Fair.

She’d won first prize the night before. She knew she had because one of the judges had told her she’d won.

That morning, they would be handing out the awards, and she was so excited for everyone else to know the secret, to know that she was the best, even better than the older kids in her class.

The judges were walking up on stage, and any moment, once they got past the category winners they were going to call her name.

“In third place we have Jesse Martin with his project in the biology category!” 

A cheer went up that, judging by the pitch, absolutely must have been from Jesse’s mom. The other parents in the room clapped while Jesse ran towards the stage, turning red in the cheeks from his family’s overzealous encouragement. 

“Congratulations, son,” the Dean smiled as he bent down to shake the boy’s hand. The mike picked up a small bit of Jesse’s anxious thanks before he ran to join the line of winners.

“And in second place we have, (Y/n)! With her wonderful….” 

Second place. 

But Mr. Sellers, the science teacher had told her she won. 

Was he lying? Did he honestly think second place was winning? Was he just saying that to shut her up? Or was he being mean? Did he want to laugh at her when his real favorite won? 

The parents were cheering her, including her own. Her father was nudging her towards the stage, but she didn’t at all appreciate the gesture.

No. They told her she was going to win. 

Her face screwed up in pain, and she balled her hands into fists.

At the back of the room something exploded. 

A scream went out. 

“Fire!” Someone shouted. “Fire!”

The poster boards up and down the hall were catching fire. It jumped easily from paper to paper. It didn’t help that there was no smoke, for some odd reason. That the sprinklers, that the fire alarm, didn’t turn on.

Someone grabbed (Y/n) by the waist. Her father no doubt. 

(Y/n) barely noticed. She was still upset staring at the trophy on the stage over his shoulder. 

Slowly, before her eyes, it began to melt.

She smiled. Good. If she couldn’t have it, no one could.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

“She caused the fire.” He whispered, staring down at the floor in front of him with glassy eyes. 

“Wayne, that’s crazy; you know it is.” 

“I saw it with my own eyes, Elle. She clenched her first and suddenly Christina Danvers poster exploded. She gets second, and the first place project explodes the moment she throws a fit?”

“Our daughter doesn’t throw fits.”

“Not normally, but she did today. She was about to, and then everything caught fire.”

“Wayne, you can’t be serious about this right now.”

“She was smiling.” He whispered. “When everything burned down, she was smiling.”

(Y/n) listened silently from the hallway as her parents talked.

She loved to eavesdrop on her parents late night. They never knew she was there. It was another one of those odd coincidences of her life that (Y/n) was the only person in the house who never made the steps creak when she walked up and down the stairs. 

She was old enough to know what they were saying, what they were implying. It should’ve bothered her more than it did.

(Y/n) walked back upstairs, silent as the grave, and opened her closet.

She needed the duffle bag her father kept tucked away in the top of her closet, but she was nowhere near tall enough to reach it. As the door slid open, the bag teetered on the edge of the wire shelf and fell to the floor. 

“How convenient,” (Y/n) mumbled to herself. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey Kid,” The man shouted at her out the window of his semi-truck. “What’re you doin’ out here at night? It ain’t safe!” 

(Y/n) shrugged. “Not safe at home either.” 

The man gave her an understanding look. 

(Y/n) watched him carefully as he opened the door of his rig and offered her a hand. 

Her mother had always told her not to talk to strangers, but (Y/n) had found she could always tell what people wanted. Besides, she was pretty sure she was a greater danger to them than they were to her. 

“Where ya’ headed?” The man asked.

“West.”

“I can take ya’ as far as Texas.” He offered. 

(Y/n) hopped off the curb and grabbed the man’s offered hand, hauling herself up into the passenger seat. 

She didn’t know where she was going or why she was going there. But something inside of her told her she had somewhere to be.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next Time On.... Part Two

Thank you very much for reading! I hope you all enjoyed. I have just come back from a hiatus and a great deal of why I went on said hiatus was the stress of managing ‘added features’ for lack of a better expression. I like writing. I don’t like formatting or managing the blog side of things. 

As such, no taglists. Please don’t ask me to be on a taglist. Keeping track of it stresses me out too much. I don’t feel like doing it. I don’t appreciate being pressured into doing it. In the olden days of tumblr, people used to follow each other, and I promise you that feature still works. If you follow me you will see part two when it’s posted. 

#loki x reader #loki odinson x reader #Loki Laufeyson x Reader #loki soulmate au #loki soulmate #soulmate loki #loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki x reader soulmate #marvel imagines #loki imagines #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #marvel one shot #loki one shot #loki oneshot #mcu fanfiction #avengers fanfiction

[taggingtim]

Why I love Pre-Boot Tim Drake and why the Reboot has ruined him

I love Tim Drake.  He is my favorite comic book character of all time.  I’ve been really upset the past few days about what DC has been doing with him lately, and I thought it would be cathartic for me to write something up about it.  (No, this isn’t a rant about Tim being bi/gay; it’s a much larger problem than that. But I’ll get to that in a bit.) Bear with me for a bit of history, first.

When I was a kid I loved the Batman Animated Series.  I know this will lose me a lot of internet cred, but I always preferred the fourth season. In particular, I loved Tim Drake. He was fun and funny and I absolutely adored him.  I used to beg my mom to take me to the mall so I could buy issues of Gotham Adventures. For my birthday one year my parents got me a subscription to the comic, and I was blown away by the idea that I could have comics MAILED to my HOUSE.

Around middle school I started collecting Marvel comics, mostly X-men stuff.  I loved them, but when I started college I quit the hobby for financial reasons.

 Fast forward a few years, and I felt I was financially stable enough to start buying comics again. Rather than going back to Marvel, I decided to give Batman comics a chance.  I had no idea where to start, and when I found out my beloved Tim had his own comic series, I thought it was a perfect entry point into the Batman universe. I bought the complete series from a local comic shop and dove in.

 Tim’s Robin series was exactly what I was looking for in a comic.  He was very different from little Timmy Todd from BtAS, but I loved him. I built the rest of my comic collection around him, grabbing up every book that he was featured in, from Young Justice to Teen Titans to Batman, Detective Comics, Nightwing, Red Robin, and many others.  I have random books from series like The Demon just because Tim was in them.

 So why did I like Tim so much?  What about this character made me so excited for more?  I found in Tim something that I had never seen in a comic book before: character growth.  Somehow, though he was written by many different authors over many different years, Tim managed to have a character arc that is consistent and makes sense. Sure, there were a few small bumps along the way, but on the whole Tim has always stayed true to his character, and he’s developed in a way that the big name characters, like Batman, never can.

 When we’re first introduced to Tim, he’s a young teen who has been neglected by his parents growing up. He’s smart, healthy, and strong, but he lacks so much self confidence and has little sense of self worth.  Tim notices Bruce’s increasing violence as he grieves for the loss of his son, and Tim knows he needs to step in and help.  Batman needs a Robin.

 For most characters, this would be the part where Tim put himself forward for the job.  But he doesn’t.  He seeks out Dick Grayson and begs him to come home instead.  It’s only when Batman and Nightwing are in danger and there is literally no one else to help that Tim steps up and dons the cape. And once he does, he’s constantly plagued by self-doubt, terrified he will screw up and leave Batman worse than ever before.

 From there, Tim undergoes intense training.  He never begs to be in the spotlight, doesn’t push to go out on the streets before he’s ready.  His goal is to help Bruce as much as possible.

 Here’s where I started to fall in love with him.  All that self-doubt, the constant need to be useful?  That’s exactly what you would expect to see from a child whose parents had ignored and neglected him.  He finally has a parental figure who sees him, who values him, and Tim does everything he can to make himself worthy in the hopes that Bruce will keep him around.

 This is the first example of character consistency that we see with Tim.  And it continues.  When his mom dies and his dad is put in a coma, you see Tim struggle to come to terms with losing the people he loves, but never had a relationship with.  Tim almost never mentions his mom after her death, because she just wasn’t present in his life.  When his dad recovers and decides to stick around, Tim struggles to build a relationship with him.  He’s plagued with guilt because he’s finally found the father figure he needed in Bruce, but he thinks that he’s supposed to feel that way for Jack.  It’s a running undercurrent in their relationship that creates distance between them for years.

 This is already so long, so I’m going to try to summarize a bit more.  We get to watch Tim grow up.  We see his awkward relationship with his first girlfriend, Ariana.  He doesn’t know how to treat her; he’s never had the opportunity to observe a healthy relationship.  But he tries so, so hard.  All of Tim’s relationships are awkward, because he’s never had a model of a good one. Steph is a great match for him, because she’s very vocal about what she wants and needs, and she isn’t afraid to call Tim out when he messes up, which is exactly what Tim needs.

 Big things happen to Tim. He’s stuck with Jean-Paul Valley, who slowly goes insane, leaving Tim to try to keep the city in one piece.  He’s infected with the Clench, a plague that sweeps over Gotham and kills everyone it touches, and barely escapes with his life. His girlfriend is sexually assaulted, leaving him to deal with the fallout.  His family moves out of Gotham, and he has to sneak back in during No Man’s Land to help.  His relationship with his dad has intense ups and downs, resulting in him being sent to boarding school, punished in a variety of ways, and generally caused a lot of trouble in his life.

 Then people start dying. Over the course of about a year in his life, Tim loses his girlfriend, his dad, a close friend, and his best friend, each of whom dies under tragic conditions.  Tim’s grief is intense, and he is understandably traumatized by the losses. We see fundamental changes in his character.  He changes his costume from something bright and cheerful to something darker that reflects his emotional state.  He’s more subdued, his adventures a little more serious.

 When Bruce first tries to adopt him, Tim literally creates an uncle and hires an actor to play him, just to avoid dealing with the situation.  Bruce has viewed Tim as a son for years, so to him the adoption is an obvious step.  For Tim, it feels like a betrayal of his father, and it takes a while before he’s ready to accept Bruce’s love, home, and a place in his family.  

 When Damian shows up on the scene, Tim really struggles with him, and not just because early Damian is a horrid brat who tries to kill Tim on multiple occasions.  Tim has always felt the need to earn his place with Bruce, and Damian constantly throws all of Tim’s biggest fears in his face—he’s not wanted or needed now that the “real” son is here, he’s not worthy of a place in the family, he’s not good enough.

 Tim tries to clone Conner, his best friend.  He’s lost so many people, and he’s desperate to get them back.  Conner was cloned to begin with and fully matured over a very short period of time; the technology clearly exists, so why can’t Tim use it to get his best friend back?  And if he can get Conner back, why not the others he’s lost?  He eventually gives up, but when he eventually gets access to a Lazarus Pit, he immediately wants to incorporate the waters into his process so he can revive his loved ones.  With Dick’s help, Tim eventually decides to let it go, but it’s such a poignant moment for the character.

 Then Bruce dies, and Dick takes Robin away.  Tim switches to the Red Robin persona as he travels the world, alone, trying to prove that he was right.  He has to deal with the trauma of losing another father, finds out that his girlfriend never died but let him hurt so much for so long.  His brother and the only close friend he has left both think his grief has overwhelmed his sense and that he’s gone crazy.  He’s utterly alone.

 The Red Robin series is such a great culmination for Tim.  He finds a place for himself as a hero, as a CEO.  He gets parts of his family back—Bruce, Steph, Bart, Conner.  He finally figures out who he wants to be and creates a place for himself.

 This overarching character development is what I love about Tim.  His many, many traumas impact his decisions, and you can clearly see how he changes over time as a result of them.  I didn’t even go into his development as a leader from his early fumbling with Young Justice to his strong leadership of the Teen Titans, or how his relationships with Conner, Bart, and Cassie develop so fluidly and realistically over the years.

 This is why I love Tim. Characters like Batman are static; nothing that happens to them will ever have a lasting impact, because in the end the character always returns to what they were.  Tim, on the other hand, has changed and developed A LOT since his initial appearance.  His growth has always been consistent and logical.

 When the reboot happened, all of that character growth was lost.  Tim was replaced with a jerk who betrayed his friends and cheated on his girlfriend.  DC has basically retconned all of this and tried to turn Tim back into who he was, but by taking away all of the things that have happened to him over the years, Tim has lost SO MUCH.

 I keep looking for my Tim in recent comics, and I just can’t find him.  It breaks my heart, because I love him so much, and it feels like he’s lost to me forever.  The most recent Young Justice comic series actually gave me hope; I felt like maybe, finally, someone was going to write Tim correctly.  He had his primary friendships back, his relationship with Steph was developing (even if they seem to have completely dropped all the development around Steph’s decision to let Tim think she was dead).  The actual book itself wasn’t fantastic, but it felt like they were headed in the right direction.

 Over the last few days, I read the Batman: Urban Legends books.  I actually read the Batman/Red Hood story first, which was fantastic.  I was really excited to read Tim’s story (though I already knew how it ended).  Jason’s character was handled so well, and he seemed to actually have some character development that will hopefully last.  I anticipated the same for Tim.

 But Tim’s story was awful. The plot was all over the place—kids are being kidnapped, so Tim has to join a pain cult to get them back?  He’s somehow helping Oracle with computer issues while simultaneously questioning witnesses?  He’s broken up with Steph, off camera, shortly after telling her how much he loves her, but Steph somehow thinks that they should have a caring relationship where Tim tells her what he’s feeling?  Bernard has somehow become a good enough fighter to stand side by side with Robin?  Tim STILL doesn’t have a code name?  Why is everyone suddenly hounding him about what he wants to do with his life?

 It’s just such a mess of a story.  If it didn’t end with Tim agreeing to go on a date with Bernard, no one would ever have even mentioned it.  There’s nothing particularly re-readable or enjoyable about it.

 I actually liked that they brought Bernard back. I really enjoyed him in the original Robin series. It’s been a while since I read that part of the series (I’m actually working my way back through it now).  I know Bernard always read as gay to me, yet somehow I felt like he was out of character in these books.

 And then, the climax of the story.  Tim is bi, or gay, or has at least agreed to go on a date with a boy.

 If this had happened in the pre-boot, when Tim was Red Robin and had an actual character arc, I honestly wouldn’t have had an issue with it.  I do think it would have needed a LOT more build up than it was given here.  Tim has always been a very introspective character, and we’ve been party to so much of his internal monologue over the years.  It seems very strange to me that such a huge thing just sneaks up on him out of nowhere when he’s never even thought about it before.

 But more than that, this story just feels like the final death blow for the Tim I loved.  The whole arc is about how Tim doesn’t know who he is or who he wants to be.  What will his hero name be?  Will he go to college?  What is he going to do with his life?  These are all great questions, and his answer to all of them is… date a boy?  

 Is this going to be his defining characteristic going forward?  From here will we just see Tim exploring and discovering his sexuality?  The Tim we have now doesn’t have a family, a team, a purpose, or even a code name.  Why was this the thing that DC decided to give us?  It feels like they wanted to make a gay Robin and decided it would be Tim because they didn’t know what else to do with him.

 It’s stupid, but I honestly feel like I’ve spent the past few days grieving the loss of a loved one. The Tim that DC is presenting now is just not the person that I knew.  Tim would never break up with Steph that abruptly for what he admits is no apparent reason.  He would never say “just call me Robin, since Damian’s out of town.”  Everything that I love about Tim seems to be gone, and in its place DC has given me a date with a boy.  

 Again, it’s not Tim being not-straight that I have an issue with.  I’ve never read the character that way, but it’s something I can live with. My issue is the way it was handled. Why not make Tim an actual person first, and then explore his sexuality?  Send him off to college!  He’s obviously thinking about it!  It’s the perfect opportunity to give him his own book.  He can move to a different city, choose a new name, and DC can introduce a whole new set of characters.  Figure out which parts of Tim’s backstory are still canon, and which have been dropped. Make him a person again, and then let him explore his sexuality.

 I know this post is all over the place, and I don’t have time right now to go back and edit it.  I just really needed an outlet for my frustration.  Right now it feels like there are so many people who are so excited about Tim being bi/gay, but they don’t know anything else about him.  I keep seeing people comment how DC has been “dropping hints for years!” with no evidence other than “he and Superboy were really close!”  I guess I’d just really like to have some dialogue with other people who are fans of Tim, rather than fans of Tim-as-bi/gay or fans of Tim-as-straight.

 Does anyone else feel this way?  I’d honestly like to have a dialogue about it with other long time fans.

#Tim Drake #Red Robin #this is a long one #pre-boot vs reboot #this formatting is a little weird #Batman: Urban Legends 6 #Batman: Urban Legends 5 #Batman: Urban Legends 4

[egcdeath]

checkmate

summary: you’ve always refused to lose, and love was no exception. (gone girl-ish au)

pairing(s): ransom drysdale x dark!reader, a special mystery guest ;) 

word count: 3.7k

warnings: 18+ because of heavy themes! faked death, framing of crimes, manipulation, alluding to sex, alluding to cheating, terrible relationship dynamic, very loose usage of the word crazy/psychotic, implied mention of self harm, brief choking & slapping (in a non sexual way lol), pregnancy trapping (idk if thats the right term), the reader is a very bad human being, overuse of italics  *please let me know if i’m missing any warnings!

author’s note: this is my 2nd submission for @stargazingfangirl18’s 5k soft dark challenge, i decided to make the reader dark >:) but ransom is also not a good person. I used these prompts: “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.” & The town golden *girl isn’t as sweet as everyone thinks.

this is definitely the most unhinged thing i’ve ever written, but blame @literate-lamb for making me write this because when i pitched this to her and said that i’d probably never write it, she enabled me. 

okay that's enough from me. join my taglist if you want :D

“I know women whose entire personas are woven from a benign mediocrity. Their lives are a list of shortcomings: the unappreciative boyfriend, the extra ten pounds, the dismissive boss, the conniving sister, the straying husband. I've always hovered above their stories, nodding in sympathy and thinking how foolish they are, these women, to let these things happen, how undisciplined. And now to be one of them! One of the women with the endless stories that make people nod sympathetically and think: Poor dumb bitch.” Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Your whole life, you’d considered yourself a competitive person. Constantly overcompensating for one thing or another, whether it was the chronic desire to achieve perfection that had been installed in you since you were a little girl, or your persistent internalized sense of inadequacy. You realized early on that it was much better for you to win than for you to lose, no matter the physical, emotional, or mental cost of the prize of perfection.

For the most part, this mindset worked out for you. You graduated as Valedictorian from your high school, neared the top of your graduating class at Harvard. God knew you earned it, all those tears you shed into overpriced textbooks, all the popping of unprescribed Adderall, and robbing yourself of the parties and social events that the rest of your peers gladly indulged in. 

You were just different, which was why you gained a job nearly immediately after your exit from school, quickly climbing to the top at the Blood Like Wine publishing company after only a few years of being there. 

And one night, at the party celebrating the release of A Thousand Knives when you laid your eyes on Hugh Ransom Drysdale, the grandson of your boss, you knew that you needed to have him. Rich, hot, a bit of an asshole. You deserved to finally complete your image, and that socialite flavored eye candy seemed to fit the part perfectly. Luckily for you, he was desperate. It only took a few tugs on your dress’ V-line, and a number of knowing smirks to find yourself being finger-banged in his family manor’s bathroom.

From there, you wormed your way into his life. Leaving belongings at his place as an excuse to come back, and offering booty calls in the middle of the night. Ransom must’ve been much more desperate than you originally thought, as it really only seemed to take one night of stroking his hair while he vented about his family to make him want to be with you. Men with mommy issues were always so easy. 

Except, he wasn’t that easy. The longer you got to know Ransom, the more fucked up you realized he really was. He had no boundaries at all, became jealous and enraged at the drop of a pin, and occasionally told you things that made the hairs on your arms rise. 

This of course all came to a head after the night of Harlan’s 85th birthday party. When the news broke of his tragic death, you’d immediately known it was the works of your Hugh. If your intuition wasn’t enough, his confession in the shower, where he’d demanded you take off your clothes to display that you were without a bug, certainly was. 

You were completely devastated. The man that you’d invested so much into for years had thrown both his and your reputations down the drain in just a matter of hours. Of course, you felt bad for Harlan too. He was a good guy (when he wasn’t instigating a family fight).

Still, you showed up during the funeral in your best mourning clothes and dawning your biggest crocodile tears. You rubbed Linda’s back while she mourned the loss of her father, and the new truth about her husband. You played dumb when interrogated by some Southern private investigator, even giving Ransom an airtight alibi. You testified on his behalf in court with enough conviction to grant you an Emmy. 

You’d gotten so far, devoted so much energy into him, that you simply refused to lose now. 

To your friends, you’d seemed to lead a near perfect life. Dream job, dreamy boyfriend, dream bank account, but it wasn’t enough. You wanted more, you just didn’t know what. 

It dawned on you while sipping mimosas at the country club, Ransom playing tennis with his friends just a few yards away from you while Danielle showed off her brand new engagement ring, a .59 Carat Asscher Diamond, that if you heard her speak of again, would probably make you lose your shit.

You zoned out as she droned on and on about the shape, and how Matt proposed to her in their own private room in one of the most exclusive Parisian restaurants, instead focusing on how you could find yourself in the same position as that airhead next to you. In all honesty, you couldn’t stand the idea that someone was doing better than you, let alone someone in your own social circle. Dani got all the bragging rights of being engaged to the heir of some tech giant, being the first in your friend group to get eloped, and worst of all, Matt wasn’t even making her sign a prenup. 

You blankly watched Ransom from afar, taking occasional sips from your sweet drink, while you thought of how you deserved all of that and more, and you were going to get it one way or another. 

——

It didn’t take much to come up with something, your first and most obvious plan being to simply ask Ransom when he was going to propose to you. Of course, this wasn’t the first time you’d tried to approach him about this subject, you just wondered if maybe this time things would be different.

Panting heavily after a rather rough night in bed, you rolled off of your boyfriend’s chest and gave him a messy, yet sincere kiss. You knew your man well, and if there was any time to pop the question, it was in his post-nut haze.

“Baby,” you said breathily, “I wanna ask you something.”

“Shoot,” he responded casually, glancing over at you. 

“When’re you gonna propose to me?” you hummed.

Ransom groaned and shook his head, rolling his eyes, “this is about Matt and Dani, huh?” he tutted, then extended a hand out to your warm cheeks so he could gently caress one with his thumb. “Thought we agreed marriage is just a piece of paper and it’s stupid.”

You huffed in response.

Of fucking course.

“I never said that,” you muttered, setting a hand on his broad chest. “Besides, it’ll be good if you get pissed and decide to like, kill your dad or something. Y’know, spouses don’t have to testify against each other in court.”

Ransom chuckled as if this whole thing was funny, like your feelings were some kind of sick joke to him. “You know my lawyers, babe. They could prove that bees don’t make honey. That bears don’t shit in the forest. I appreciate your attempt, though. This has been some really nice pillow talk.” 

“Whatever,” you muttered, pinching his nipple in retaliation before turning your back to him and yanking the blanket onto your side. 

You weren’t sure why you were so surprised that he was being stubborn, most of the time you felt like you were pulling teeth from the man. But that’s why you had a backup plan! You always had a backup plan. That’s what separated you from your boyfriend. Where Ransom was extemporized and impulsive, you were calculating and prudent. 

Although you devised your plan that very afternoon while watching your partner backhand small green balls, you were going to need some time to get everything in order, to prove Murphy and his stupid law wrong in making sure that everything that could go wrong wouldn’t. 

After all, love was a game. And you sure as hell weren’t losing to Hugh Drysdale. 

——

You sacrificed too much to have your plans ruined by some trust fund baby with impulsivity issues. You deserved your dream marriage, the stability you wished you had as a child. You wanted the white picket fence, and everything that came along with it. Your desire to be the best, to be perfect was what drove you to poke holes in every condom in the box, what led you to draw liters of your own blood in hopes of staging a fake crime scene, to buy a cheap getaway car and burner phone off of Craigslist, and reach out to a high school boyfriend who you knew was in a position as desperate as you. 

You planted seeds of doubt in your friends throughout the following weeks, feeding them lies about Ransom’s behavior, how you were afraid of telling him that you did in fact see two faint red lines on that damn plastic stick– only half of the statement truly being false–, telling them that he was behaving erratically lately.

It all was going without a hitch. Ransom didn’t seem to notice anything was off, despite your frequent visits to the bathroom and newfound affinity for true crime documentaries. 

You almost felt guilty, knowing the world of pain you were about to throw the man into. Granted, he deserved the pain. You were in a relationship with a genuinely terrible person, and that person had made a conscious effort not to commit to you. You tried to make this easy for him, give him a chance to say a few words to you and slide a ring on your finger, but no, he always seemed to take the hard route.

You slept like a baby the night before you were setting your plan in action. You made sure to uphold the facade of everything being fine, making Ransom a nice breakfast before sending him halfway across town to the hardware store with an oddly incriminating list.

Once he was out of the house, you hurried off to the fridge in the garage where you’d been keeping a small stash of your own blood. It wasn’t pretty, but it had to be done. You poured the blood throughout the kitchen, splattering bits of it on the counters and cupboards. You poorly cleaned the mess, just as he would.

You put your next move in motion, falsifying a home invasion. You tossed over a table and some chairs, throwing books and photos onto the floor, but left some aspects slightly untouched, like an upright picture frame to give yet another hint that things were not exactly what they appeared. 

You left a tiny blue post-it note on the nightstand of Ransom’s side of the bed, a quick and simple doodle of a ring along with the first initial of your name inked onto the tiny piece of paper. 

With that, you were off. Technically missing, soon-to-be presumed dead.

----

 The days following your disappearance had gone even better than you’d initially planned. Local news coverage had been all over you, search and rescue groups were assiduously looking for you, your parents had opened a tip line, and begged for you to get home safe on news segments. But the best part of it all was that Ransom had been briefly found himself in police custody, only to be released shortly thereafter. His past of an accused murder quickly made your disappearance even more of a national story, and you watched the whole thing unravel from the safety and comfort of your high school boyfriend, Andy Barber’s Newton home. 

Of course, you fed him the same lies you’d given to your friends, and seeing the rather lonely position he was in, he gladly let you stay with him. You were absolutely having a hay-day with it all, dedicating hours of your day to watching Ransom slowly unravel. Maybe it was a bit sadistic of you to enjoy torturing your partner so much, but he needed to learn his lesson. You deserved better. You needed Ransom to rise up to your level, allowing you to finally complete your image. To let you two appear to be the perfect couple. Really, this was all on him.

Andy, for the most part, had been a good host. He was gone for the majority of the day, dedicating himself to his work while you lounged around on his dangerously cozy couch. Around two weeks into your stay, you were sharing a box of pizza in the living room with your old lover when something interesting on the television caught your eye.

Ransom, broadcasted on CBS, being interviewed on your disappearance. 

You watched with wide eyes as Ransom begged for your return on national television. It was one thing seeing your mother plead for you to come back, the same woman who had installed such toxic behavior in you sob for your return, but Ransom. You’d never loved him more than in that moment.

“Hugh, if you could tell Y/N one thing, what would it be?” the interviewer asked.

Ransom turned, looking straight at the camera, directly into your soul, “Y/N, I love you so much. More than you’ll ever know. I need you to come back safely, to see you, to hold you again. I’d give anything in the world for that right now,” he looked down, a tear falling down his cheek. “I can’t live without you in my life, I-”

His sentence was cut off by Andy grabbing the remote, and turning off the TV. You turned your head and frowned deeply at him.

“Why’d you do that?” you asked with a bit of a pout.

“I just couldn’t stand listening to him talk about you like he hasn’t treated you like shit for the past few years. C’mon, let’s get ready for bed.”

Your blood boiled. Andy was once a means to an end, but now he was interfering. He was clearly much too selfish to see that you and Ransom were quite obviously soulmates. A match made in hell. 

You followed him to bed regardless, curling up on what had been your side of the bed for the past few days, and staring at the wall until Andy’s breaths moved from a soft and rhythmic pattern to loud snores. God, those snores were obnoxious. 

You slipped out of bed and to his dresser, grabbing two soft ties from the drawer, and daintily tying his wrists to each side of the bedpost.

“What‘re you doing?” he mumbled, instinctively yanking both of his wrists as he awoke.

“I’m going back home,” you whispered.

“You can’t be serious,” Andy huffed, tugging on the restraint attached to the headboard.

You shook your head, “I am.”

“I should’ve known. Why would you do something like this? Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in with the law?”

“Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in when the world finds out that you kidnapped me?” you retorted.

This threat seemed to wake him up right away, “what about this was kidnapping? I gave you a nice home, fed you, I didn’t even make a pass at you. I didn’t do shit to you,” he hissed. “You think I can’t prove that? I’m a lawyer, for god's sake!”

You nearly laughed, “Okay, Andy,” you paused for a moment, “As a lawyer, who do you think everyone’ll believe? Someone who the world was on a wild goose chase for in the last two weeks? Or the man with a family history of violence? Must I remind you that your father and your son have killed people?”

Andy shook his head, face pinched in sorrow at the mention of his deceased son, clearly a low blow. “You’re insane,” he muttered.

“Swear to god that you won’t tell a soul what happened here,” you leaned over him, getting right in his face. “Or I promise, Andrew Barber, I will ruin you. You’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars, or disbarred, or whatever the hell I decide to do with you. So keep your goddamn lips shut.” 

You pulled away and he solemnly nodded, not bothering to put up a fight. You loosened the fabric around his left wrist and walked out of the room. You picked up the keys to Andy’s Audi on your way out, checking the time as you adjusted the driver's seat. 

9:45 PM. Fatherhood really changed the man.

You pushed that thought aside and began your drive home, which turned out to be a surprisingly short trip. When you pulled up in front of your home, you were met with a slew of reporters outside of the house, along with a police car that seemed to be permanently camped there.

As you slowly got out of the car, a gasp, followed by a loud silence fell across the crowd. You limped for dramatic effect up the driveway as cameras followed you, and glanced back at them pathetically. From your peripheral view, you noticed the officers get out of their vehicle.

You finally got to your door, ringing the doorbell and waiting. You blinked harshly a few times, conjuring up the tears you needed to really make a spectacle of the event. After a few minutes, Ransom opened the door, eyes widening as he looked at you. He stepped out, and you wrapped him in as big of a hug as you could manage, genuinely missing his embrace. It was possible that you even let out a few real tears in the moment.

Your emotional embrace was interrupted by the man you recognized as Lieutenant Elliott, the same officer who’d been assigned to Harlan’s case. 

“Ma’am,” he began, only to be shut down by you. 

“Please, just let me be with my boyfriend,” you pleaded, crocodile tears streaming down your face as you spoke with the officer. You still needed time to get your story straight.

“Just give us the night, Lieutenant. We’ll come in first thing tomorrow morning,” Ransom added, furrowing his brows at the officer that he’d come into contact with far too many times. 

He looked to his partner, who shrugged, then to you, “enjoy your night.”

Cameras flashed around you as civilians, journalists, and newscasters alike attempted to catch your attention. You grabbed Ransom’s hand and dramatically pulled him inside, insincerely attempting to hide your face by ducking and covering half of your face with your arm. 

As soon as you were in the privacy of your own home, Ransom threw you against a wall. 

“Why. The fuck. Would you pull a stunt like that,” he hissed through gritted teeth, eyes wild, and a hand around your throat. 

You whimpered as he tightened his grip, rage clearly flowing through his system uncontrollably.

“Do you know what you did to me? You almost had me thrown in fucking jail. Do you understand that?”

You nodded weakly, “Ran,” you whispered, “the baby,” you glanced down at your stomach.

He paused, dropping his grip on your neck and staring at you in awe, “no…” 

You nodded again. 

“How…? You told me you were on the pill… You- you made me use protection…”

“Surprise?” you said weakly. 

“You’re a psychotic bitch.”

“I’m your psychotic bitch. And no child of mine will be born out of wedlock,” you taunted. 

“That’s what this is about?” Ransom laughed manically. “You did this all because I won’t fucking marry you?”

You didn’t even have to respond.

“I should send you to the loony bin right fucking now.”

“What happened to all those things you said to me on TV?”

“You’re fucking delusional. I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. And you will. I’ve had to put up with you and your stupid little antics for way too long. How do you think I felt when you killed your own grandfather?”

Ransom scoffed, throwing his hands up in exasperation, “you are so fucked up.”

“I’m the fucked up one? You killed your own blood in cold blood! You’re unhinged!” 

“You faked your own death for attention, and got pregnant while doing it! Is that baby even mine?”

“The fuck are you trying to say, Hugh?”

“I asked if it’s even mine.”

“Really. You’re accusing me of cheating on you. That’s rich considering Mia, Layla, and whoever the fuck else. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m being ridiculous? You couldn’t have a normal adult conversation with me!”

“Are you kidding me? I asked you time after time to marry me and it was always some bullshit excuse!” you wagged a finger in his face as you spoke. “Oh, commitment scares me, oh, marriage is just a piece of paper, oh-“ you mocked his voice in a deeper tone before you were cut off by the sting of his hand against your cheek.

“Can you shut the hell up?” he growled at you as you held your own cheek, before you reached out and slapped him back, “I can’t believe that I’m stuck with such a deranged bitch for the rest of my life.”

“Maybe work on your vows a little, dear. I don’t think that those words are as charming to me as they’d be to the rest of our family and friends.”

“You can’t be serious,” he groaned.

“But I am,” you hummed, rubbing your cheek softly once again. “Look at how fast your life fell apart without me here. How quickly the public turned on you. Imagine how upset they’d be if you left me. I love you, Ran. I really do. You and I are perfect for each other, can’t you see that now?”

Ransom took a step away from you, pacing slowly in front of you. He ran a stressed hand through his hair, and took a long and drawn out breath, clearly at a loss for words.

“So when should we have the wedding? I’ve always wanted a Spring wedding, and I know it’s a little short notice, but I don’t want to be showing too much in my wedding dress,” you grabbed Ransom’s bicep gently, as if you were just having a regular old day with him, as if you hadn’t been choked and slapped moments ago. “But we can make it work. We always make it work, right?”

Your now fiancé stared vacantly at the wall ahead of him, giving you a slow, empty nod of agreement. 

“It’s settled then,” you smirked. “I’ll start looking at venues. You find me a nice ring, okay Honey? One that puts all those other bitches’ rings to shame,” you sighed pleasantly to yourself, “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.”

You pressed a soft kiss to his cheek before hurrying up the stairs and into your bedroom. You heard a distant shriek of  “fuck,” from Ransom, but you truly could not care less. 

You hopped into bed, grabbing your laptop from its charger and promptly opening it. You couldn’t help but to smile at your own reflection on the empty black screen. This wasn’t how you imagined your engagement, but you did the impossible. You tied yourself down to Hugh Ransom Drysdale, he went down kicking in screaming, and you were likely in for a lifetime of cheating and resentment, but you did it nonetheless. 

You finally won.  

#ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x you #dark!reader #ransom drysdale x dark!reader #ransom thrombey x reader #ransom thrombey x you #knives out #knives out fanfic #siris5ksoftdarkchallenge

[jayoctodot]

The Silent Patient vs The Maidens

I will start by saying that I understand the appeal of these novels as page-turners. They are easy to read and if you want a twisty reveal at the end, you will probably be entertained and satisfied. That being said, I am SO CONFUSED by the near-universal adoration of The Silent Patient and the reasonably positive reception of The Maidens. The weaknesses of the two are strikingly similar, as well, which doesn’t give me much hope of seeing improvement from this guy, though I am intrigued to see whether he keeps repeating the same (apparently successful!!) patterns. These books were at least super fun to hate.

(For context, I read The Maidens for a bookclub I'm in, because several of the members had read and loved The Silent Patient, and one of them gave me a copy of the latter to read on my own time. I loathed The Maidens and then read The SP for comparative purposes. And because I'm a masochist, apparently.)

SPOILER WARNING! Do not read on unless you've finished both books (or unless you care not for spoilers). Sorry if it gets a bit shouty.

Here are the similar weaknesses I noticed in both:

PSEUDO-PSYCHOLOGY

-> Weirdly similar “group therapy” scenes early on where a cartoonishly unstable patient arrives late, disrupts the meeting by throwing something into the middle of the circle, and is asked to join the group after the therapist(s) speechify on the importance of boundaries (HA! None of these therapists would know an appropriate boundary if it kicked them in the ass) and debate whether to “allow” the patient to join. Both scenes are so transparent in their design to establish the credibility/legitimacy of the narrators as therapists, but instead both Theo and Mariana come off as super patronizing. The protagonists are less and less believable as therapists at the stories progress (though at least Theo’s incompetence is explained away by the “twist” at the end; Mariana, on the other hand, is confronted in the opening pages of the novel by a patient who has self-harmed PRETTY extensively, and rather than ensure he get proper medical attention, she essentially throws him a first aid kit and tosses him out the door so she can pour herself a glass of wine and call her niece... and it devolves from there).

-> Ongoing insistence throughout the narrative that one’s childhood trauma entirely explains the warped/dysfunctional way a character behaves or views the world, which is why the books go out of their way to give EVERY potentially violent character a traumatic childhood; when Theo insists that no one ever became an abuser who hadn’t been abused themselves, I wanted to throw the book across the room. (That is a MYTH, SIR. GET OUT OF HERE WITH YOUR ARMCHAIR PSYCHOLOGY.)

-> Female murderers whose pathology boils down to “history of depression” and “traumatized by a male loved one/family member.” Because, as we all know, depression + abuse = murderer!

-> The “therapy” depicted in both books is laughable and so so unrealistic, mostly because neither narrators function as therapists so much as incompetent detectives, obsessively pursuing a case they have no place pursuing (or skill to pursue - both just happen across every clue mostly by way of clunky conversation with all the people who can provide precisely the snippet of info to send them along to the next person, and the next… until all is revealed in a tired, cliched “twist”). Their constant Psych 101 asides were so tiresome and weirdly dated (also, the constant harping on countertransference got so ridiculous that at one point during "therapy" Theo literally attributes his headache and a particular emotion he feels to Alicia, as though the contents of her head are being broadcast directly into his mind... and I'm PRETTY SURE that's not how it works???)

CHARACTERS

-> Psychotherapist narrators with abusive fathers and pretensions of being Sherlock Holmes, which results in both characters crossing ALL KINDS of ethical lines as they invade the personal lives of everyone even tangentially connected to their cases (and, in Theo's case, violate all kinds of patient confidentiality. Yeah, yeah, by the end, that's the least of his offenses, but before you get there, it's baffling that NO ONE is calling him out on this).

-> All female characters are either elderly with hilariously bad advice, monstrous hulking brutes, or beautiful bitches (except for ~MARIANA~, who is Bella Swan-esque in her unawareness of her own attractiveness, despite multiple men trying to get with her almost immediately after meeting her. I'm so tired of beautiful female characters being oblivious to their own hotness. Are we meant to believe all mirrors and male attention have escaped their notice? If it’s to make them “relatable,” this tactic really fails with me).

-> All characters of color are shallow, cartoonish side characters, and most of them are depicted as unsympathetic minor antagonists (the Sikh Chief Inspector in The Maidens continuously drinks tea from an ever-present thermos, and his only other notable characteristic is his instant dislike of Mariana, whom he VERY RIGHTLY warns to stay out of the investigation that she is VERY MUCH compromising… the Caribbean manager of the Grove is universally disliked by her staff for enforcing stricter safety regulations at the bafflingly poorly run mental institution, because HOW DARE SHE. There's a very clear vibe that we're supposed to dislike these characters and share the protagonists' indignation, but honestly Sangha/Stephanie were completely in the right for trying to shut down their wildly inappropriate investigations).

-> "Working class" characters (or basically anyone excluded from the comfortably upper-crust, educated main cadre of characters) are few and far between in both stories, but when they show up, he depicts them as such caricatures. We got Elsie the pathologically lying housekeeper in the Maidens, who is enticed to share her bullshit with cake, and then a TOOTHLESS LEPRECHAUN DEALING DRUGS UNDER A BRIDGE in the SP. I kid you not, a man described as having the body of a child, the face of Father Time, and no front teeth, emerges from beneath a bridge and offers to sell Theo some "grass." I was dyinggg.

-> There are no characters to root for. Anywhere. Partly because they’re all so thinly drawn — and because we’re clearly supposed to view almost ALL of them as potential suspects, so they’re ALL weird, creepy, or incompetent in some way.

-> The flimsiest of flimsy motives, both for the narrators and the murderers. Theo fully would have gotten away with his involvement in the murder if he hadn't gone out of his way to work at the Grove and "treat" Alicia and his justification for doing so is pretty weak; his rapid descent into stalking and murder fantasy and his random ass decision to "expose" Alicia's husband as a cheater with a spur-of-the-moment home invasion and staged attempted homicide is ONLY justified if the reader hand waves it away as WELP, HE'S CRAZY, I GUESS (after all, he DID have an abusive father and a history of mental illness, and in Michaelides novels, that's ALL YOU NEED to become a violent psycho). I guess we're lucky Mariana didn't also start dropping bodies (because the logic of his fictional universe says she should definitely be a murderer by now... maybe that'll be his Maidens sequel?). But she especially had NO reason to randomly turn detective - and she kept trying to justify it by saying she needed to re-enter the world or that Sebastian would want her to (??), even though she had no background in criminal psychology... or even a particular fondness for mysteries (really, I would've accepted ANYTHING to explain her dogged obsession with the case. WHY were Sebastian and Zoe so certain she would insert herself into the investigation just because one of Zoe's friends was the first victim? WHY?). As for Zoe and Alicia, their motives are mere suggestions: they were both abused and manipulated, and voila! Slippery slope to murder.

WRITING STYLE

-> Incessant allusions to Greek tragedy and myth, apparently to provide a sophisticated gloss over the bare-bones writing style, which opts more for telling than showing and frequently indulges in hilariously bizarre analogies. Credit where credit is due — the references to Greek myth are less clunky in the SP, and I liked learning about the Alcestis play/myth, which I hadn’t heard of before - but OMG the entire characterization of Fosca, who we are meant to believe is a professor of Greek tragedy at one of the most respected universities on the planet, is just absurd. His "lecture" on the liminal in Greek tragedy is essentially the Wikipedia page on the Eleusinian Mysteries capped off with some Hallmark-card carpe diem crap. The lecture hall responds with raucous applause, clearly never having heard such vague genius bullshit before.

-> Super clunky and amateurish narrative device of interludes written by another character; Sebastian’s letter reads like a mashup of Dexter monologues and Clarice’s memory of the screaming sheep, but by FAR the worse offender is Alicia’s diary, where we’re supposed to believe she painstakingly recorded ENTIRE CONVERSATIONS, BEAT-BY-BEAT DIALOGUE, even when she’s just been DRUGGED TO THE GILLS with morphine and has mere moments of consciousness left… and even before that, she literally takes the time to write “He's trying the windows and doors! ...Someone’s inside! Someone’s inside the house! ETC ETC” when she thinks her stalker has broken in downstairs. WHO DOES THAT?)

-> Speaking of dialogue, the dialogue is so bad. Based on his bio, Michaelides got a degree in screenwriting, which makes his terrible dialogue even more baffling.

-> HILARIOUSLY rendered voyeur scenes where the narrators spy on couples having sex. Such unintentionally awkward descriptions. First we had Kathy’s climax sounds through the trees and then the bowler hat carefully placed on a tombstone before the gatekeeper plows a student. Again, I died.

PLOT/"TWIST"

-> The CONSTANT red herrings make for such an exhausting read. Michaelides drops anvils with almost every character that are so obviously meant to designate them as suspects in our minds. There is absolutely no subtlety in his misdirections.

-> The “crossover” scene between the SP and The Maidens makes no sense - when in the timeline does Mariana’s story overlap with Theo’s? They confer just before Theo starts working at the Grove, obviously (though Mariana appears to be the one who alerts Theo to the job opening there? Whereas in the SP, Theo has been obsessively tracking Alicia since the murder and had already planned to apply to work there?), but then are we supposed to believe that while Theo has been psychotically pursuing his warped quest to “help” Alicia, he’s also been diligently treating Zoe, so invested in her case that he repeatedly reaches out to Mariana to get her to visit Zoe and even writes Mariana a lengthy letter to convince her to do so??? And then a couple days after The Maidens ends, Theo is arrested???

-> But the thing I really did hate the most is how Michaelides treats his female murderers (who are both also victims themselves) as mere means to deploy a “twist”; there’s no moment spared to encourage our sympathy for Zoe, who was groomed and manipulated by the only trusted father figure in her life, and even after spending a decent amount of time getting to know Alicia via her ridiculous diary, where it’s so apparent that she’s been demeaned, objectified, manipulated, gaslit, and/or used by EVERY man in her life, she’s sent packing to spend the rest of her days in a coma… HOW much more satisfying would it have been for her to succeed in exposing Theo and reclaiming her voice? But no, she basically rolls over when he comes to finish her off (SPEAKING OF — ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE THERE ARE NO SECURITY CAMERAS IN THIS INSTITUTE FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE????), writes one last diary entry, and drifts off forever. And then a couple pages of nothing later, the story is over. GOODNIGHT, ALICIA!

Both books kept me rolling throughout (by which I mean eye-rolling but also rotfl). Maybe I will check out his next effort — I’m morbidly curious what he’ll turn out. It does leave me wondering whether I should give up on thriller novels entirely, though. Are many of the weaknesses of these novels just characteristic of the genre? Maybe I'm just holding these books to unfair standards? I'm mostly only familiar with thriller films — many of which I think are amazing — but maybe you can get away with more in a film than you can in a novel.

...I really only intended to write a handful of bullet points, but more and more kept coming to mind as I wrote, to the point where subheadings became necessary. Whoopsie.

#the maidens #the silent patient #book review #alex michaelides #thrillers #books

[itsclydebitches]

The post about how characters don't connect to the setting is one of the reasons why the beginning of V7 frustrated me so much. James gives this plan of telling the world about Salem, Weiss rightfully points out their will be panic everywhere and NO ONE connects that with the very real fear that this plan could put all their families in danger. Nor does anyone get excited about the Amity project potentially allowing them to call home. Ruby's been away for A YEAR. Doesn't she miss her dad at all?

Exactly! This isn't a bad faith criticism where we're demanding the show do a ton of emotional work that there just isn't time for in the fighting focused plot; a claim that it's awful because it's not functioning as one genre (like a drama, soap opera, etc.) over another (action/adventure, fantasy, sci-fi)... I mean we get nothing in regards to this issue. Not even crumbs. And these connections are, supposedly, at the very heart of the "trust love" narrative. I think it's easy for people to forget what happens between volumes — especially given the "Only the latest volume is canon" mentality — but we literally had Ironwood announce to Ruby that he'd need to use his army to keep the grimm attacks at bay once the Salem secret was revealed and then a volume later Ruby reveals the Salem secret (along with a whole lot else that is scary, horrifying, and generally negative-emotion educing) after she's cut all ties with Ironwood and his army is fully engaged in keeping Salem at bay. There is no discussion, let along concern and worry, about how many people she just got killed for an announcement that the show has failed to justify. Why is telling the world about Salem worth the casualties it will cause? What is the world going to do against the immortal witch? Ruby doesn't know. That's her whole dilemma this volume: wanting easy answers and then crumbling when she can't think of any. Problem is, she endangered the whole world before admitting, "Oh, I have no idea how to stop all this awfulness."

I mean, I understand on an emotional level why the hypocrisy of Ruby's lies and secrets don't land because most people in the fandom dislike, or outright hate, Ozpin. That's really going to color any reading there, when suddenly the beloved hero is mirroring someone you despise — you'll do whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to keep them separate. But Ruby has no evil contrast here. This is all her. We watch her make a decision that she knows will endanger the entire world, including her loved ones, and it's never even raised as a concern. The same way no one raises concerns about going to Vacuo. Yes, supposedly escaping was the only option available (I say "supposedly" because the plot did a terrible job of convincing us that evacuation was still necessary with Salem currently exploded and it having been established that she's only after the Relic on Atlas), and in a crisis situation they aren't necessarily thinking about long-term survival (that's my own stance regarding Ironwood's desire to rise high: he's not thinking about how to live there indefinitely, just how to survive the next few hours), but why send them to the Kingdom they know Salem will attack next? The Crown is hidden. You have the Lamp and the Staff. You know Salem is after all the Relics, so of course she's going to Vacuo. And so you dump however many refugees there, in the city she's gunning for next, intentionally setting up the next Fall of Atlas? Yeah, we all know it's because structurally the story hasn't been to Vacuo yet, but in-world it makes the characters look incredibly stupid. Why dump an entire Kingdom's worth of people in the most hostile environment, with the most wary citizens, a place you know the Big Bad is heading to next, when you could instead split them up and send them to safer Kingdoms that aren't currently in Salem's path? "Oh, it's because Vacuo still has huntsmen and they need huntsmen to combat all the grimm." There wouldn't be a massive grimm problem is Ruby hadn't told the whole world about Salem!

And this problem of not thinking through actions in a way that demonstrates real care for the world is just compounded over and over on a personal level. It's the same way Ruby doesn't care about what happened to Qrow until she hopes he can fix everything. The same way she doesn't react to Yang "dying." The same way Yang didn't mention Summer for five volumes. The same way Jaune, Yang, and Nora rejected Ren until he fell in line. The same way Blake is trying to inspire Ruby when they've barely exchanged a handful of sentences since Beacon. The same way, as you say, no one has made mention of the family they've left behind, let alone considered how building a communications tower might be a way of reconnecting with them, especially when at least two of them — Ruby and Oscar — left completely out of the blue. Are they presented as caring about how that inevitably hurt their care givers? Nah. The fandom gives Tai so little slack, but at least the story showed him watching Ruby's message and being upset at the danger she's in. When was the last time the girls mentioned Tai?

... have they mentioned him since they left home?

The show has done a terrible job in the last couple of years of showing that these characters actually care for one another, beyond a superficial level, especially when all the cute friendship moments that function as filler are obliterated the moment one of them disagrees about something (see: Ren). There's no sense of place and little sense of real family, from Weiss doing multiple 180s with Whitley, to Blake being the only one who reacts to Yang's "death." It all rings so hollow. I'm supposed to believe that Ruby is still the one to inspire the world towards unity when she, at the point of her speech, still hasn't even tried to reconcile with Ozpin, has been betraying Ironwood this whole time, insta-turned on the Ace Ops for trying to make her face consequences for the crimes she knows she committed, fought her way into the kingdom because she didn't like the peaceful solution Cordovin offered (send Weiss), hasn't made mention of her father, collapsed over hearing her mother's name only to get over it seconds later, at this point in the volume barely interacts with her sister, and is leading a team whose attitude ranges from "Glares at Marrow for daring to suggest she works with anyone other than Yang" and "Points a weapon at her baby brother because she, apparently, can't even manage to work with a minor civilian family member." This is the team who is going to inspire Remnant to unify against Salem, the group who keeps not unifying with everyone they need to work with? There is a serious disconnect here. You can't tell the audience to "trust love" while failing to show basic love and support among the cast, and you can't try to make Ruby the poster child for unity when she has, since Volume 6, has consistently failed to unify with anyone: not Cordovin, not Qrow until he agreed to stop questioning her, not Ozpin, not Ironwood, not the Ace Ops, not even Robyn considering that was all Yang and Blake. Ruby's struggle right now is an inability to work with people who don't agree with her 100%, her biggest flaw is an all or nothing attitude, and the writing is failing to see how that might just be a problem when she's telling everyone else to put their differences aside to work together. Having Ruby actually try to connect with people more, worry about them, express love for them, etc. — both family and allies — would at least help soften this issue, but without it her characterization has severely tanked in terms of the compassion the show wants us to believe is still there.

#rwby #rwde #salt #mymetas

[scripttorture]

One of the central characters in a fantasy story I'm writing has torture as part of her backstory. She was captured by an evil race, and one individual in particular put her through a "training" regime designed to turn her into a useful/trustworthy slave. Specifically the goals of the training were:

- destroy her sense of self / agency

- overwrite her ingrained response of healing herself when injured (she has magical healing powers)

- an affectionate or worshipful disposition towards her captors

- immediate obedience to any command

I feel like both physical and psychological torture / mental conditioning are probably appropriate, though I'm leaning away from including sexual abuse. I honestly don't know much about torture at all and the only things that come to mind as producing a result similar to what I'm looking for are the Game of Thrones torture sequence and the use of obdience collars in the Codex Alera book series. The latter is very interesting to me because it is a magical device that inflicts pain in reaction to disobedience but also inflicts pleasure to reward obedience.

I guess I'm just wondering if you have any advice for what kinds of methods would be good to include in a process designed to produce obedience, rather than torture for its own sake or to extract information, as well as if there are any common pitfalls I should try to avoid in writing about such a thing.

The training itself won't be in the book, but I need to be familiar with it for backstory purposes because later in the story this character encounters her torturer again, and is subjected to some further abuse before she finally overcomes her fear and kills him.

Alright well I’m going to be straight up with you: the scenario you’ve presented is a very common torture apologist trope. It’s incredibly unrealistic. And it’s unrealistic in ways that support torture by claiming it can be ‘useful’.

 Which probably means that you’re new to the blog and haven’t heard me give this talk before. That’s OK, we all learn sometime and it’s not my intention to shame you for the fact you’re not as obsessed with this stuff as I am or couldn’t afford to shell out for the books.

 Torture does not produce obedience. The best evidence we have right now suggests it encourages active resistance.

 If you got a lot of your inspiration from Game of Thrones then frankly I’m not surprised you came up with apologia. The torture in that series is incredibly badly handled. And a big part of the point of running this blog is that most people are getting their information on torture from shows like that. Which happens because the research is inaccessible and hasn’t been popularised the way fictional tropes (sometimes fictional tropes literally started by torturers) have been popularised.

 The important thing is what you choose to do now.

 I’m going to break down the problems here and make some suggestions for what you could do instead.

 Firstly: there is no torture or abuse that will guarantee obedience. Pain does not make people meek or compliant or willing to follow commands.

 Torture survivors are not broken.

 They are not ‘controlled’ by their torturers and the suggestion that they are is used in the real world to bar real survivors from treatment. It is also used to bar them from entering safe countries and to argue that they shouldn’t be allowed visas or passports.

 The best statistics we have for any sort of compliance under torture come from analysis of historical French data where torture was used to try and force confessions (something we know torture can sometimes do).

 The ‘success’ rate averaged at 10%. Under torture 90% of people will not comply long enough to sign their name.

 Secondly: torture does not and can not ‘make’ a victim feel ‘worshipful’ towards their torturer. The suggestion is kind of like asking if someone can tap dance immediately after removing the bones from their legs.

 Torturers have no control over a victim’s emotions. They have no control over their symptoms. They have no control over their beliefs.

 And there is no such thing as a torture that can change someone’s mind in a way torturers can control.

 Once again, this fictional trope is used by politicians and the media to justify marginalising real torture survivors.

 I have read hundreds, possibly thousands, of accounts from torture survivors. I’ve read historic and modern accounts. I’ve read accounts from all sort of people from all over the globe. I have never seen a survivor say anything positive about their torturers. I have never seen anything close to toleration.

 A lot of survivors are blisteringly angry at their torturers. A lot of them feel overwhelming levels of spite and some report literally putting themselves at risk of death in order to spite their torturers. And yes, a lot of them are afraid too. None of these emotions are mutually exclusive.

 Affection is impossible. We are not wired that way.

 Thirdly: I understand that ‘evil races’ are a long standing fantasy trope but it would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention the racism inherent in that idea. That some people are ‘born bad’.

 I’d strongly suggest you look up the Black, Indian and First Nations people that I know are on this site critiquing these kinds of fantasy tropes. Because they will be able to explain it better then I can.

 Fourthly: the term ‘psychological torture’ is a pretty common dog whistle for torture apologia.

 Most of the time tortures that people dub ‘psychological’ are things with real, physical effects that lead to lasting injury and death. They just don’t tend to leave obvious external scars. I use Rejali’s term ‘clean torture’ for these techniques. Researchers distinguish them from scarring tortures because they are harder to detect and prove in court.

 The majority of survivors today will have experienced clean torture. They will have no obvious physical scars. But they will still be disabled. They’re ‘just’ less likely to see any form of justice for it.

 Fifthly: torture is a terrible training method because it decreases a person’s ability to learn.

 Torture causes memory problems. It also often causes lasting physical injuries that make performing basic tasks more difficult. And it causes a lot of serious psychological problems which make performing basic tasks more difficult.

 A trained person who was never tortured will always out perform someone whose training involved torture.

 I probably sound quite angry here.

 I write fantasy and I also write about torture a lot. But I can’t imagine that it’s just flavour for a fantasy world or some artefact of the past. Torture is a real, present threat in the country that I grew up in. If I was to return now I could, literally, be tortured and executed.

 If you want to include torture in your world, in your story then you are committing to telling someone else’s story. You are representing an incredibly marginalised group of people and you are presenting that representation to a third group, one that has never had contact with real torture survivors.

 Are you comfortable with the idea of telling your peers that survivors are still controlled by ‘the enemy’? That they’re passive? That they don’t have the capacity to make their own decisions?

 Are you comfortable knowing that the popularity of this message keeps millions of genocide survivors in refugee camps, blocked from citizenship, aid and safety?

 I understand feeling attached to a story and a character. And I understand that this information is hard to find. Hell I’m probably going to end up with the only English copy of one of the pivotal textbooks because I’m shelling out to get it translated.

 You say you want to write a torture survivor. With respect I don’t think you know what a torture survivor looks like.

 I think the most helpful, and kindest, thing I can do here is describe what torture does to people. Because I can’t tell you whether that’s something you want to write. I could try and rebuild this scenario for you (and if you decide you’re interested in that after reading all of this and all the links then I suggest looking through the blog tags for ICURE, torture as training, Black Widow and Overwatch.) But I think you need to decide whether you actually want to write a torture survivor first.

 Here’s a post on the most common torture apologia tropes.

 Here’s the post on the types of memory problems torture commonly causes. I strongly recommend picking at least one.

 Remember that this would never go away. Improvement and recovery in torture survivors means learning to live with symptoms. The symptoms themselves are permanent.

 It’s a hundred different alarms set up on their phone to try and make up for the forgetfulness that makes them miss appointments. It’s the little bottle of perfume in their pocket to bring themselves back to reality when they get intrusive memories at work.

 Here’s a post on the other common symptoms.

 You want something in the range of 3-5 of those, though more are likely if your character is held for years. Each of them should be severe. Every single symptom should have a large, negative, impact on the character’s daily life.

 Do you know anyone with chronic pain? It warps their world. Work can become impossible. Basic household tasks like getting dressed, cooking, cleaning the dishes are done through gritted teeth or not at all. Hobbies and ‘fun’ activities dwindle as they struggle to find a way to do them that doesn’t hurt. Interaction with other people, even loved ones, can easily become barbed.

 Because the pain makes everything more difficult. It means everything takes more energy, more effort. Which means that things fall by the wayside, whether that’s by a pile of mouldering dishes in the sink or snapping at a child. It means tears and the social judgement that follows them. It means the world narrowing as it gets harder to go out.

 Do you see what I mean? Every part of life.

 That’s an example for one symptom. You need to work out at least four. Then figure out how they interact. Then figure out what the character can do to make her life better.

 With chronic pain that can mean painkillers but it’s always more then that. It’s re-learning how to do things; how to put on trousers without aggravating the bad knee, how to sew with one hand. It means learning to cut down on what they do and it means learning a new sort of flexibility; accepting that there are days when the pain is too much.

 It can mean having the same conversation about disability over and over again. With family, with friends, with colleagues. ‘I can’t do that.’ ‘I can do that sometimes but not always.’ ‘That will hurt me.’ ‘I can’t use that chair.’ ‘I can’t get my arms that high above my shoulders.’ ‘I need help with this.’

 And that sometimes means learning a kind of patience that is really barely held back rage. Or perhaps I’m projecting a little with this last one.

 If you’ve never met a torture survivor, if you’ve never looked at a survivor’s work, then all this is difficult. You’re trying to imagine something from first principals with nothing to fall back on.

 So let’s bring some survivors into the discussion here. Some reality.

 Who’s listened to Fela? How about Bobi Wine?

 Fela Kuti was the father of modern Afro beats music. He was tortured multiple times and during one attack, which destroyed his home, his mother was murdered by the military. When he got out of jail Fela marched her funeral procession past the biggest barracks in Nigeria’s biggest city. He wrote two songs about this attack and he doubled down on his opposition to the military government.

 Fela’s music started causing riots.

 You can read what I have to say about him here. You can listen to his music on youtube.

 Here’s an interview with Bobi Wine, which was conducted shortly after he was tortured in Uganda. He talked about how he was determined to go back and continue fighting. Which he did. He even ran against the president.

 I’ve also got a short piece on Searle who was a cartoonist captured by the Japanese during World War 2. His drawings of what happened in To the Kwai and Back are worth seeing. Especially if you want to write atrocities on this scale. They will show you the scale and how to focus on the small, human elements despite that overwhelming scale.

 Alleg’s The Question is pretty much a must, it’s one of the most thorough accounts from the Franco-Algerian war.

 Monroe’s A Darkling Plain is also a must, it’s a series of interviews with survivors of various different conflicts and atrocities. Some are torture survivors. Some are not. It is essential reading because it shows the variety in survivors as well as giving a sense of their lives beyond the symptoms.

 Finally Amnesty International has literally hundreds of interviews and studies available for free online.

 The most important decision for any story with regards to torture is whether it should be there at all.

 So much of this topic is intimidating and so much of it is difficult to write. Not just in the ‘oh this is horribly effecting’ sense but in the ‘I have twelve things to juggle in this simple scene’ sense.

 Ask yourself what torture adds to this character and this story. What does this backstory actually give this character?

 Because if the point is to have her vulnerable and then ultimately triumphing violently over her attackers I don’t think you want a torture scenario. You could get the same thing from a bad guy trying to drug her and having the kidnapping fail when she fights him off, clumsy but effective nonetheless.

 And she could still come out of something like that traumatised.

 Right now I really don’t see this adding anything but torture apologia to your story.

 Handling torture well in a story means accepting that it can’t be the same story without it. It means watching the characters and narrative warp under the weight of it. It means lasting effects, for all the characters and for the world itself.

 I believe you are capable of writing that if you want to, pet. But this ain’t it.

Edit: I’m having trouble seeing the beginning of the answer here. Can anyone let me know if there are formatting issues again please? The first word in the htmal is ‘Alright’ but what I’m seeing on tumblr starts 8 paragraphs in.

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

#songsprite #writing advice #tw torture #tw racism #torture apologia #fantasy ask #torture does not work #torture survivors are not broken #resistance to torture #torturers are not omnipotent #antagonism towards torturers #so called psychological torture #clean torture #attitudes towards torture survivors #attitudes towards clean tortures #torture and memory #writing survivors #writing symptoms #writing torture #you don't need torture to traumatise your character

[hardskz]

a penny for your thoughts.

pairing — han jisung x female! reader

genre — trope inversion of the soulmate au, college au, enemies to lovers, angst and fluff-ish, smut; oral, possessiveness kink, praise kink, safe word, size kink, first time

synopsis — life isn’t easy when you belong to the 1% of the world population that has a soulmate, know who your soulmate is and happen to be utterly in love with said soulmate’s best friend. alternatively, jisung can hear all of your unfiltered thoughts and has heard enough of your horny fantasies to the point where he wants to throw up, so he takes matters in his own hands. 

note — i think i’m gonna cry this work is my 11k word BABY i’ve never been THIS invested over a fic. this is purely self-indulgent and an emotional rollercoaster ride if you ask me. this fic is all over the place it’s chaotic and i apologize in advance for many italics you are welcome i hope you CRY and SUFFER with me because completing this bitch was a midlife crisis in itself. that being said, i appreciate any form of constructive criticism so pls go ahead and rip my baby apart sdkjl

“You’re staring again,” Hyunjin notes. Seungmin and Jeongin stifle a burst of laughter while Felix, whose head is resting on Hyunjin’s lap, sends you a look that resembles Candace from Phineas and Ferb whenever she finds her brothers creating some whacky futuristic shit, laughs like a madman and then resumes to call her mother with an ear-splitting MOOOM! because she’s so certain that her brothers are busted this time.

“Am not,” you huff as you tear your eyes away from the guy just sitting a little bit farther away from you, basking in the warm glow of the sun. Today he’s sitting in the perfect angle, giving you the best view on his side profile. His signature cap is perched right on top of his head but even then, you can see how his eyes brighten up and how the corners of his lips tug upwards as he laughs at his friend’s joke.

“You’re a worse case than the Mary Sue protagonist of every romance anime ever.” Seungmin snorts before he playfully nudges your side with his shoe. “Just say you want Seo Changbin to bang you and go.”

“Hey! We have a child present!” Hyunjin chastises, to which Jeongin rolls his eyes.

“I’m not a child. We’re all in fucking college.”

“Fine, not a child then. The baby has been corrupted! Don’t swear, it sounds so wrong coming from you!”

“Shut up. It’s called freedom of speech!”

“It’s ‘shut up Hyung’ to you!”

Felix groans in distress and is probably rethinking his life choices. Seriously, what does Felix, resident hopeless romantic, see in Hyunjin? Sure, he’s good-looking and a great friend when he’s not bitching around or hovering over the nearest trash can after taking too many shots. But a romantic? Please, Hyunjin can’t even eat without making a mess out of his shirt.

“I don’t want him to bang me,” you mutter and receive a collective ‘yeah sure’ look. “Fine, I don’t want him to bang me only. He’s nice,” you retort before your eyes flit back to him for a millisecond. By now, Changbin has put his hands on the grass and is leaning back, enjoying the sunlight while listening halfheartedly to the other guy blabbering.

“And hot. We get it. Now get dicked,” Seungmin deadpans, earning flabbergasted looks from everyone and a smack from Hyunjin.

“Show a little more empathy, you dickwad. She’s whipped.”

“Anyway—“ Felix sits up, earning a pout from Hyunjin but he blatantly ignores it, and directs the conversation back to the previous topic before the other two bump heads, “(y/n), you have his number. You’re not strangers, so why don’t you just make a move?”

You glance at him with horror in your eyes. “What do you expect me to do? Ring him up and ask him to hang out with me because I find him cute?”

“Uh, duh? Last time I checked, that’s how you ask someone out.”

“Absolutely not.”

“New idea.” Seungmin butts in. “Why don’t you ask Han Jisung—“

“No.”

“Agreed.” Hyunjin shoots you a nod of approval before Seungmin can start yet another interrogation about your bitter hatred towards Jisung. Jisung, who happens to be said friend of Changbin that is laughing beside him right now. “He must think he’s so much better than us because he’s hanging out with the senior geniuses of the music production major. Then again, Seo Changbin and Bang Chan are on a different level than us commoners.”

“Speaking of Chan,” you quickly say to steer the conversation away from the personification of everything you hate. “Where is he? It’s so weird seeing the trio incomplete.”

This time, Jeongin chimes in. “Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Chan and that one language major — you know, the one who collapsed a while back?” When all he’s met with are clueless faces, Jeongin sighs. “Seriously, you guys should keep up with campus news. I swear, everyone and their mothers already know by now. But anyway, they’re soulmates. It’s also the reason why Chan has been pulled out of the boxing team until the end of the semester and had to cancel their training camp as soon as she broke down.”

Felix does a double-take. “But Chan’s the ace of the boxing club!”

“It is what it is.” Jeongin stretches his legs out, shrugging. “What else is to expect when you have the proximity link and need to be around your soulmate within a certain distance unless you want death?”

“Poor guy. Must be a smack in the face for him, now that he’s got a soulmate and happens to have the worst link one could have.” Seungmin says.

“The tattoos are worse though.” Hyunjin fires back. “I mean, you’re literally born with a tattoo of your soulmate’s name and then grow up knowing that you have one? And even if you never meet them, you won’t have better chances with others if you want some romance. Who in their right mind wants to have a lover who’s got someone else’s name tattooed on them since birth?”

“No one.” You chuckle. “Absolutely no one.”

In another lifetime, another universe, you and Jisung would probably be on better terms. He’s sunshine on legs and looks decent from an objective point of view.

In another lifetime, another universe, you’d like to believe you’re childhood friends and have been neighbors ever since your first shit in your diapers. Perhaps you would be clowned from being inseparable once in a while, but you’d go with it and then shrug it off as if it was nothing.

In another lifetime, another universe, you’d like to believe that being soulmates doesn’t equal the downfall of two people. Sure, the fact that people are bound to each other and the danger of growing too dependent on that person remains, but it probably won’t be so frowned upon. Probably. Hopefully.

However, as much as you want to twist it, another lifetime is not this lifetime, the reality.

In reality, you and Jisung are only neighbors because the universe has some kind of inexplicable hatred towards you. Seriously, you must’ve done something wrong in your previous life to be punished in this one. And because the universe has sadistic tendencies and loves to make you suffer, the laws of the universe are just as equally fucked up.

The concept of soulmates is a lot of things, but most of all, it’s a mystery. There are endless possibilities for soulmate links, not all of them discovered. And unlike popular belief, soulmates do not have to necessarily share the same link. So voilà, even more fuckery from the universe.

There’s only one reason that justifies your wholehearted, unfiltered hatred towards Han Jisung. Well, only one reason that seems justified in this lifetime.

The tattoo is simple; just fine black characters under your collarbone that are nicely hidden under high-cut shirts.

But the fact that it’s his name tattooed on you since birth remains.

“Let me crash here for the night.”

“No.”

“Let me crash here for the night, please.”

“My answer is still no.”

The exasperation is plastered on Jisung’s face as he tries to keep his temper in check. Truth be told, it’s damn satisfying seeing him wanting to rip your head off but refraining to do so. Perhaps you’re enjoying this more than you expected at one o’clock in the morning. For the past five minutes, Jisung has been asking you to let him stay over for the night. You’d save him out of his misery and help a neighbor out who locked himself out of his apartment at this hour — well, if he wasn’t Han Jisung.

By now, he’s growing more impatient with every further rejection. “Oh come on, all my friends live on the other side of town and you can’t expect me to ask the old grandma next door! At this rate, I’m gonna freeze to death overnight!”

“Then go break a window or something,” you deadpan, ignoring the dramatic hand gestures he’s making to accentuate his words.

“The fuck? I’m not going to break into my own place.”

Not wanting to draw out the pointless conversation any longer, you’re about to slam the door shut when he blocks your action with his foot. “C’mon, just this one night. Please.”

He’s not budging anytime soon. His bullheadedness reminds you of Seungmin, who always tries to get Hyunjin wasted whenever you attend those Greek frat parties. Seungmin, who always succeeds in getting Hyunjin wasted, followed by Hyunjin hugging a bucket for the next few hours as he tries to get over the hangover. With a defeated sigh, you gesture Jisung to come inside and don’t wait for him until he’s taken his shoes off at the entryway.

“Look, I know you don’t like me—“

“Well, ‘don’t like’ is putting it very lightly—” you scoff once he’s caught up to you in the living room. It’s not exactly spacious; the couch takes up most of the room and college assignments are spread all over the minuscule coffee table.

“You could at least treat me like a decent human being.”

That statement is enough to get your ears flaming. You whip your head in his direction, voice getting louder. “How can I when your existence is making my life worse than it already is! And I mean it literally! Just seeing your name whenever I look at myself through the mirror sickens me!”

“Stop acting like you’re the only victim here.” Jisung snaps back in the same manner. If there was a little bit of etiquette in the first place, it has all vanished now. “I’m not having it easier when all I hear from you is the dozen ways you want Changbin to fuck you dumb!”

You freeze.

“Cat got your tongue? It’s already bad enough that you have those kinds of thoughts about my best friend every single day.”

“But I thought— y-you had the proximity link?!” This has to be a joke. A very bad one at that. His proximity link is the very sole reason why you lived next to him. His soulmate link is the only reason why you’ve been stuck together like glue since you could walk.

Jisung taps his foot impatiently, running his hand through his hair. “That’s what I thought too until I started hearing things that nobody said around me. First, it was just a few thoughts every other day, but now you’re like an annoying radio that I can’t switch off.”

“Why didn’t you tell me then? I would’ve—“

“Stopped fantasizing about Changbin’s dick? And then you would’ve jumped to the next person. I don’t care if you like him or not, it’s none of my business. Changbin’s hot, anyone with eyes can tell. Besides, it’s not like you have a chance anyway…”

You feel your blood boiling at his underlying message and cross your arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jisung doesn’t bat an eyelash and says in a mocking tone as if stating the obvious. “No doubt that Changbin will make you feel good. But could you return the favor?”

That’s a low blow. Even for Jisung, that’s a low blow.

“I get that you’ve got a dirty mind. But those are just fantasies. Could you really execute them just the way you had in your head? You don’t even have experience in the first place.”

“If I sucked you off right now, you wouldn’t even be able to speak properly!” God knows what went over you when you countered. At this point, rage has taken over your brain and you don’t even realize what you just said right away. Not that it matters anyway; all you see is red.

Jisung just raises a brow, clearly unimpressed by your outburst. “Prove it,” he challenges casually and then flops himself onto the couch, legs spread wide. It’s an open invitation. “Go ahead, make me see reason with your oh so mind-blowing skills.”

The only thing you’re able to do physically is gape at him. He is joking, right? As if he actually means it—

“I knew it. Shameless in your head but too flustered to say it out loud, let alone following up with your bold statements.”

That seals the deal. You’re fuelled by anger and the desire to prove him wrong as you drop on your knees and are on eye level with his crotch. However, your spirit dissolves the longer you silently stare and realize that you have no fucking clue on what to do. Jisung is painfully aware of that too.

“I’m more terrified than turned on seeing your angry face.” He lets out an exasperated sigh before he pulls you up and directs you to sit on his lap. “Obviously it’s not working when neither of us is in the mood. You gotta get in the mood first,” he mutters, hands settling on your hips.

The look in his eyes is more composed now, but you can tell he’s being observant. As if you have clues written all over your face, he keeps you under his stern gaze. Then his eyes droop lower to your lips and he slowly leans forward.

Not even a second later, you firmly plant your hands on his shoulder and push him back. “No lips.”

If Jisung is judgemental about your sudden stunt, he doesn’t comment on it. “Anything else, your royal majesty?”

You’re too tired to react to his mockery and roll your eyes. “No marks.”

“I can work with that,” he mumbles more to himself rather to you. Then he leans forward again and buries his face in the crook of your neck. Surprised by his actions and new to the unfamiliar sensation, you tense up. Jisung seems to take notice of that too.

“Relax,” he orders, rubbing circles on your hips to help you loosen up.

Well, that’s easier said than done. It’s already bad enough that you’re gradually exposing yourself as the complete amateur you are, and out of all people who could’ve been the first to do any form of sexual advances on you, it just had to be Jisung. Perhaps you shouldn’t have rejected that one kid in high school who was the only one who ever had a crush on you. Even if that kid wasn’t your type and not a serious commitment anyway, maybe you would’ve at least some sort of experience with dick.

“A-ah—“ your breath hitches when he nips on the patch below your earlobe. He smiles against your skin as if he just made some scientific discovery and swipes his tongue on the same spot, eager to make you squirm. Not wanting to slip up anymore, you clamp your mouth shut with a hand.

“Let me hear you, baby. Just relax, I got you.” When the fuck did his voice start to sound lower and raspier? Where did ‘baby’ come from? All rationality and resistance leave your body when he wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you closer to him.

The cologne of musk lingers strong on him, almost intoxicating even, and you can’t form a cohesive thought anymore. The only things you are painfully aware of are an arm forcing your chest flush against his and his hot breath all over your neck.

You’re so far gone that you fail to notice that you’ve started grinding on his lap. Jisung moans softly into your neck as he encourages you to move with his hands.

“On your knees, baby,” he whispers after a while. A rush of disappointment runs through your veins once he detaches his lips from you and slides you off his lap, but all of that is forgotten once you see the prominent bulge in his pants.

Right. There’s a reason why you ended up in this predicament in the first place.

Jisung urges you to touch him with a simple nudge. “C’mon, baby. Take it off.”

You don’t waste time discarding his sweatpants. Just when you’re about to tug his underwear off, you notice the wet patch on the fabric. A surge of mischief washes over you as you boldly cupped his hard-on over his boxers, causing an obscenely loud moan from him.

He flinches, definitely not expecting that brashness from you, and throws his head back. “S-stop teasing me already and take that goddamn thing off or God help me what I’m going to do if you push my buttons.”

That. That was a threat. That dealt much more damage to you than you like to admit.

As much as you want to watch him break and see if he’d make his threats come true, you decide against your feelings and hook your fingers under the waistband and tug the fabric down in one swift motion. A groan leaves Jisung as his cock, fully hard and leaking precum, is exposed to the cold air. He’s certainly above average; on the longer side probably, and you’re conflicted on whether to think fuck, I want him in my mouth right now or fuck, how on earth is that supposed to fit into my mouth?!

You don’t get far with your inner conflict when a hand grabs a fistful of your hair and slowly urges you closer. The next thing you know, something is tapping your lips and before you fully register it, the tip of Jisung’s cock lies heavy on your tongue.

You carefully look up and meet Jisung’s hooded eyes. His shirt has ridden up a bit and flashes just a little bit of his toned stomach. That’s just enough of an indicator to see that Jisung is holding himself back, in case his irregular breathing hasn’t been a dead giveaway.

Jisung opens his mouth, about to say something, when you give an experimental suck on his dick. “Do something— f-fuck, a little more, baby.”

That’s enough to build your confidence up. You slowly take in more of his dick, sucking carefully and making sure to cover your teeth. The rest that doesn’t fit in your mouth is barely covered with your hands, and you messily try to coordinate your hands, switching between rubbing the base of his dick to cupping his balls.

“Mmh, use more pressure,” Jisung whispers, not trusting the stability of his voice when you fondle with his balls. A groan leaves him when you suck harder on his cock and switch back to swirling your tongue around. For a total beginner, you are holding yourself up better than he expected. Fuck.

“Focus on the tip fir— hhh- aa-ah...” His brain blacks out for a moment when you swirl your tongue around his tip and dare an experimental hum, the vibrations going straight down to his dick. The grip on your hair loosens, but it’s still firm enough to experience a sharp tug. “You’re doing good baby. So good.”

The combination of his sounds, the decent taste of precum on your tongue and the way his adam’s apple bops is enough to send you into sensory overload. You notice the way Jisung tenses his thighs, as to keep them still. You’re about to pull out completely to prevent your drool from getting on your face. However, before you get the chance to complain, he forces his length back on you that it grazes the back of your throat, nearly making you choke.

“Fuck, I— I’m gonna— s-soon—“ he hisses and you take it as a sign to speed up. At this point, your jaw hurts and a mixture of drool and precum drips down your chin. It’s borderline disgusting if you think about it, but the delectable sounds leaving Jisung compensates for it.

He sharply tugs on your hair, ordering you to pull off, but you slap his hand away. “I’m going to spill in your mouth if you don’t pull off right now—“ Jisung chokes on his words when you interrupt him with a hum as if to say so what? It doesn’t help that you’re looking up at him with teary eyes and a lot of conviction, even though you’re visibly struggling to keep half of his dick in your mouth.

When he cums, it’s accompanied but drawn out moans, and you forcing yourself to swallow the horrible texture. It’s not horrible per se, but you’d gladly refuse to swallow a second time if you were given the choice.

Jisung looks down at you with flushed cheeks and is about to wipe off the drool or cum or whatever liquid is staining your bottom lip, but you quickly block his hand. “I’ll clean up by myself.”

For a minuscule second, he looks defeated; he looks borderline disappointed, but before you can pinpoint his feelings for sure, his expression changes. “But what about you?” he asks, eyes raking down your body and stopping at the waistband of your pants.

“I’ll deal with it on my own.” You shrug, avoiding his eyes. All of sudden, you find it hard to breathe in the room as the realization settles into your brain. You just sucked off Jisung. Jisung, out of all fucking people.

“You sure?” Your eyes flit to him who looks like he’s been observing you the entire time. His breathing has calmed down, his lips look a little bit plumper than before and his hair sticks out in all different directions. Looking at his current state makes you feel sick, and your undying hatred for him starts growing again. It’s your fault that he looks so fucked out and—

Why the fuck did you even do that?

“Yes. Now stop asking before I change my mind and kick you out.”

Before he can have the last word, you turn on your heels and rush into your bedroom, ignoring the fact that your underwear is practically drenched.

You wake up to the smell of pancakes emerging from the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

“I’m making breakfast?” Jisung throws you a questioning look and then plates the last batch of pancakes from the pan. “It’s the least I can do after you were friendly enough to let me crash on the couch.”

Your eyes wander to the countertop to the two plates stacked with pancakes. Jisung finishes up the second plate and hands it out to you.

You stare dumbly at the plate. It’s too early for your brain to mouth filter to work, so the first thing you spit out is, “How do I know you didn’t poison it?”

“Are you fucking serious—“ Jisung squeezes his eyes shut, mutters something inaudible under his breath before he puts on the fakest smile he can muster. “I can take a bite if you really insist.”

“Give me that plate.” You point to the other plate on the counter. Presentation-wise, it looks the same as the one Jisung is offering you, minus the visible steam.

“There. Wanna switch again or can I finally eat?” he scoffs when you walk past him to get cutlery and sit at the dining table; it’s essentially a round wooden table where one of the legs is about to break. Two plates and a pitcher at most take up the entire surface. You really should consider buying a new table, but you have better things to spend on rather than that.

From your peripheral vision, you see Jisung rolling his eyes. Perhaps you were making an entire unnecessary circus, critically cutting through the pancake and inspecting each and every side before stuffing it in your mouth. But again, in your defense, it’s too early in the morning to show basic etiquette towards him out of all people.

You have to admit that visually, the pancakes look good. What you didn’t expect were the pancakes to taste just how they look. It looks like you couldn’t contain your surprise in you, judging by the amused smirk that finds its way onto Jisung’s face as he claims the chair across from you.

“As if you could actually cook,” you splutter because there’s no fucking way you are giving him that satisfaction of the day.

However, it seems to bemuse him even more. “You literally eat this every day and know the recipe by heart. With the excessive number of times you recite the ingredients a day, obviously, something got stuck in my brain,” he explains while cutting through his own portion.

The rest of breakfast is spent in silence. You both finish at the same time and while you’re washing the dishes, he’s stayed put in the chair, mindlessly checking something on his phone.

“You didn’t have to cook, you know. You could’ve just left.” you start. It’s already awkward enough that he’s still here. Bloody hell, you should’ve just waited with the plates and ushered him out of your place instead of just getting away as fast as possible from the table. Now that you think about it, this was probably the only time you two were somewhat amicable at such proximity. (Even if you didn’t talk at all. Still, it’s progress.)

He drops his phone on the table with a soft ‘bang’. “It’s the least I could do. Besides, I was starving too.”

“In other words, you’re taking advantage of my fridge?”

“Exactly.”

Just as you’re drying your hands, he’s about to leave. “I’ll get going, lecture’s starting in a few. And, uh, thanks for letting me stay here.”

You just shoot him a weird look. “You already thanked me once. How often do you wanna repeat yourself?”

Jisung rolls his eyes. “Fine, next time I’ll just leave without a word then.”

It’s when he’s finally out of the door that his last words sink in.

“Yo, I have pics of sweaty Changbin in a jersey. How much do you wanna pay for those gems?”

You nearly choke on air. “What the fuck?” Really, that’s the only appropriate reaction.

“Hyunjin, this needs more context.” Felix looks like he’s seriously second-guessing his taste in men before shaking it off with a sigh and elaborates. “He’s been trying to find out some scoop about Chan for the campus blog and caught him in his angry boxer mode and Changbin was also there assisting him. Hey, did you know that Chan doesn’t tape his hands before punching the bag? Fuck, that’s so intimidating but so hot at the same time—“

“Yah! I’m your boyfriend! How can you say that in front of me?!”

Changbin. Changbin in a jersey. Changbin in a jersey and drenched in sweat. And Hyunjin seriously has HQ pictures of that Changbin.

It really, absolutely shouldn’t have been the first thing that crossed your mind, but the idea of that Changbin — bonus if he still has anger pent up in him — barging into your place and instantly throwing you on the bed—

“I’m not a perverted creep who’s gonna buy pictures of him that he doesn’t even know exist. Besides, isn’t that a violation of his rights? He never consented to those pics. This is college, you’re only working for the campus blog, not fucking Dispatch.” you deadpan.

“So you don’t even want to take a sneak peek at a picture?”

“No.”

You barely stepped a foot into your apartment when Jisung storms out of his own place and stops in front of you. “You fucking liar.”

“Excuse me? What the— hmph!”

The next thing you know, Jisung forces his way into your hallway, slams the door shut and crowds you against it. His face is invading your personal space, eyes enraged and jaw locked. Even though his anger is far from justified as you haven’t glanced at him ever since he stayed over, a tiny part of you believes that you pissed him off for good. It's not the first time you witness him angry. However, it's the first time you witness him look as if someone murdered his family and was trying to get revenge.

“I thought you took care of it yourself!”

“Took care of what?”

“Did you already forget that I can read your mind?!”

You scrunch your nose, trying to connect the dots in his words. It doesn't take long for you to realize that there’s no point in trying. A frustrated groan leaves you. “Why are you getting so riled up? I just breathed and you stormed into my place!”

“‘Bullshit. You weren’t just breathing,” he snaps, and you flinch when his hand lands a few inches beside your face with a loud pang. “You were thinking of Changbin again! And I mean that in the thousand sex positions and locations you want him to bang you kind of thinking! And also—“

“Also what?”

“I know you’ve been pent up for days. Seriously, why don’t you just get off like every other sane human being?”

His brutal delivery leaves you flabbergasted. How the fuck does he know that? No. No. No. He doesn’t know. He can’t. Just because he can read your mind doesn’t mean that you didn’t pleasure yourself after giving him that blowjob. Jisung’s probably bluffing — he has to be bluffing.

“W-why should I answer you?” you stutter. Suddenly the walls look much more interesting. When was the last time you painted the walls? Maybe it’s time to switch things up—

“Are you really about to get all cocky with me? Give me a break.” Jisung chews on his bottom lip after little deliberation. “You wanna know why? Because one of my best friends is going through a hard time that can utterly destroy his entire future thanks to the fucking universe! If that isn’t stressful as it is, I also see and hear all kinds of things you want Changbin to do to you. And your fantasies are also affecting me.”

You stare at him as if he sprouted eight new legs. “So you’ve also been…?”

“Sexually frustrated? Fuck yes. And it’s all your fault. So take responsibility and do something against it before I do.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“So what if I am?”

A cold shiver runs down your spine once you meet his stone-cold gaze. Frustration is displayed all over his features, from his labored breaths to the raised brow. He’s not playing mind games this time, he’s actually frustrated.

There are a billion red flags, a billion blinking signs saying NO DON’T YOU EVEN THINK OF DOING THIS! DON’T BE A FUCKING IDIOT in your mind. There are so many countless reasons why you should listen to your head, but the way Jisung is lusting after you is terrifyingly attractive.

You don’t trust your voice to respond verbally. Instead, you look down at your trembling hand and tug at the hem of his shirt. It’s just then when you also realize that your thighs are clenched. Fuck.

Jisung takes the hint. In the blink of an eye, he’s yanking you to your room, kicks the door shut with a loud ‘thud’, and manhandles you on the bed. You’re too stunned to react, and gulp when he hovers over you and strips off his jacket, leaving him in a white shirt that doesn’t hide his toned arms.

“Use the color system, alright? Green when everything is alright, yellow when you want me to slow down, and red when you want me to stop for good?” he asks.

“I know what the color system is,” you mutter, tearing your eyes away from him.

“That’s not an answer to my question.” he presses.

“Fine, color system it is. There! Happy? Now get on with it—“

Jisung pins your wrists above your head vigorously. “You don’t call the shots here. I do.”

Your stomach swoops. You really should’ve listened to your brain. This Jisung isn’t comparable with the Jisung you sucked off a few days ago. That Jisung was cocky — he’s always cocky, what are you even saying — but he still gave you room to breathe. This Jisung is downright scary.

“Good thing for you, I know exactly what you want me to do—” he starts sinisterly as his thigh settles firmly between your legs, pressing up against your clothed core. You suddenly regret wearing a skirt. “—and trust me baby, even if I couldn’t read your mind, I would do all those things because that’s what I plan on doing to you regardless.”

The look he gives you should be illegal. He shouldn’t be in the position to look down at you, as if he’s the king and has free reign over the consequences you are about to bear. Your head suddenly feels dizzy, and it’s way too hot in the room. It’s as if your bedroom has morphed into some vacuum as you’re desperately trying to breathe. Your system ceases to function once he presses his thigh even harder on your cunt, and all you manage to make is a pathetic whimper.

A menacing grin makes its way to his face. He’s clearly thriving on this ego-boost and continues to grind his thigh on you until your hips start to sway along. It seems like you found your voice again once he leans down and nibbles on your neck. Your moans are barely audible at first, but they slowly turn into drawn out mewls and labored breaths.

Your eyes snap open when he suddenly retreats his thigh and holds your hip in a vice grip, stopping you from moving. “W-what the fuck? Why did you stop?”

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

“Huh?” You squint at him. “But you can read my mind!”

“I want you to say it out loud.”

There’s no way in the universe that you’ll do that. You’ll gladly wipe off that shit-eating grin out of his face whether he likes it or not, but with his hold on your wrists, that is deemed impossible.

You should say something out loud though. Yellow. That would save you from the humiliation. You could regain at least an ounce of control, not feel so pathetic anymore. It’s a simple word, just two syllables, six letters. The tables can be turned to your advantage. It’s easy.

You don’t.

“You’re embarrassed, aren’t you? You can’t say all those filthy thoughts in your head out loud because you’re ashamed, huh? Not when you love feeling so powerless, subject to anything I do to you. Face it baby, just admit that you’re a needy little bitch who wants to get off on my fingers so bad, and I’ll give you what you want,” Jisung growls in between hot, wet kisses he leaves on your neck.

“I—“ you whimper after some difficulties, “I’m your needy little bitch w-who wants to get off on your fingers.”

Jisung’s head pipes up, his face just hovering a couple of inches away from yours. With that little distance between you, you know it’s not a trick of the light and that his eyes are blown up with hunger, hunger, and more hunger. "Not just any bitch, but mine? Do you like it when I call you mine?"

You nod. From there on, it’s a chain reaction.

He wastes no time slipping his fingers past your panties, mindlessly trailing along your folds. You throw your head back in pleasure, bucking your hips into his touch. A cry leaves you the moment he slips a finger inside you, his thumb simultaneously flicking your clit. It’s sensory overload, rendering your rationality to a standstill.

Your utter downfall is marked once Jisung adds a second finger, never slowing down. He groans at the way you clench around him like a maniac, and the sounds he makes send jolts all over your body. You’re writhing under his grasp at this point, overstimulated by everything yet at the same time, you feel your arousal slowly fading.

“Does my baby feel good? Are you close?” Jisung asks, nipping on your earlobe.

“I don’t know,” you whisper.

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?”

The pit in your stomach grows. You’ve never experienced claustrophobia, but right now, it’s like everything’s suffocating you. “A-as in I don’t fucking know!” you exclaim shakily.

Jisung stops his movements. The weight on your wrists is lifted, and he looks at you, face unreadable. “(y/n), color. What’s your color?”

“Green. It’s just...” your trail off, avoiding his eyes.

“Just...?”

“I’ve never come before,” you confess in defeat. You really can’t believe that Jisung out of all people is the one to make the call of judgment. “I mean it! I’ve tried getting myself off but I never managed to... so cut me some fucking slack because I’m trying my best here and am still new to everything!”

Jisung stays silent. He stares at you in… confusion? disbelief? You really have no clue how to read his expression. Something negative for sure, though. He’s Satan’s spawn, for fuck’s sake. He’s probably thinking twice about going down on you, thinking about the gravity of a mistake he’s dealing with this time. He just has no clue how to articulate his irritation—

“You’re so cute, fucking hell,” he whispers.

You do a double-take. What? What did he say?

A small chuckle escapes his lips. As if he doesn’t mind. Wait. He doesn’t mind. “I’ll take good care of you. Trust me on this,” he says.

“That’s a little late coming from you, your fingers are literally up my vagi— h-ha-aah—“

“Just shut up and let me do the work.” Jisung rolls his eyes as he works you up again, fingers moving at a slower pace this time. Within minutes, he’s reduced you into a panting, stuttering mess. “You look so tiny and helpless underneath me. How adorable,” he coos, to which you just whine.

“Yeah? You like it when I call you tiny? Like it when your tight cunt already feels stuffed with just two fingers? Maybe we should stretch it to a third one, think you can handle that?” he presses on. That’s when he rams his fingers into a particular spot, making you arch your back. A knowing smile makes its way onto his lips. “Found it.”

“N-no, fuck— t-too much—” you babble, but he continues to abuse your sweet spot without remorse.

An unfamiliar pressure builds up in your abdomen, threatening to burst. Your whines grow louder, breaths shallower. You squeeze your eyes shut as you thrust your hips into his hand, desperate for more friction. “Jisung, I think I’m gonna—”

“Oh no, not like this,” he growls. “Keep your eyes open. I want you to look at me when you cum. So you’ll remember that it was me who made you cum for the first time. It’s me who’s making you feel good.”

That is easier said than done. You manage to open your eyes, though with a lot of difficulties. Scratch that, your eyes are barely open. Jisung is a blurry image, and you’re unable to register everything he says, the sound of his fingers squelching in your heat blaring in your ears.

You deem it fucking impossible to keep your eyes open when your orgasm hits you hard, body spasming from the sensation. But you keep on trying, keep forcing to set your eyes on him.

It’s all worth it though when the reward you get is a proud smile on his face, as well as streams of praises coming from his mouth.

It’s a continuous pattern that goes as follows:

1. You spend your days glued to your friends.

2. At least one of them (usually, it’s Seungmin) preaches how you should get your shit together and ask Changbin out.

3. Somehow, Changbin manages to leave a strong presence in your fantasies and you end up daydreaming about a scenario that stars him, you and a bed (if you’re feeling more daring, any other kind of surface or object he could pound you into.)

4. Jisung notices and forces the horniness out of your system.

5. You tell yourself that it’s the last time Jisung has such control over you.

And then the cycle repeats.

But here’s the thing: you find yourself doing no. 5 you with less conviction the more it happens. No. 5 is a formality at this point. You don’t know when you went the wrong path, but are you really in a position to complain? Jisung is good with you, he’s good with his fingers, even better with his mouth.

But then there’s this side of Jisung after he’s ruined you. He knows what you want to eat after you’re all cleaned up, knows what show you want to watch, knows if you want to just drop dead in bed or need someone to force you to finish your uni assignments. In short: Jisung is good. If you ever said that out loud and someone caught wind of it, they might assume that you liked him.

But Changbin. You like Changbin. You like Changbin you like Changbin you like Changbin—

You like Changbin, right?

“You’ve been looking at me as if I had the word CLOWN written over my forehead. Do I have something on my face or what?” you cross your arms and are met with your friends quickly averting their eyes from you.

Felix is the first one to break the silence. “Is that a new dress?”

“Not really. I recently found it when I cleared out my closet and decided to give it one more try. Why—“ you pause, and your expression turns grim once it dawns on you. “I look ridiculous in this, don’t I?”

“Yeah.”

“No!”

“You look like a clown.”

“Seungmin-Hyung, did you really just???”

If your crippling self-esteem hadn’t reached its all-time low before, then it definitely did now. “Geez, thanks,” you deadpan.

Jeongin is panicking, trying to provide some damage control as Felix snaps at Hyunjin and Seungmin. “Nobody cares about your two cents!”

“Well, but she asked for our opinion!”

“Nobody cares about your honest two cents!”

“Let’s just have lunch at the burger place and talk about this later, Hyung!”

You’re still dazed, chuckling dryly like those cartoon characters usually do when their soul leaves their body after someone dragged them. The entire situation is downright sad to witness. Is this a sign that your period is coming soon? That’s it! That probably explains why you’re acting so uncharacteristically sensitive today—

“The dress suits you, (y/n). You should wear it more often,” Changbin says.

“Hah?” you flinch and you’re sure your soul actually left your body when you turn to face Changbin smiling genuinely at you. Out of your periphery, you see Jisung and Chan behind him, but that’s not the point.

What? The? Fuck? Did he really just? Did Changbin just… compliment you?

You don’t realize how long you’ve dumbly stared at him until Jeongin nudges you. “Uhhhh, thanks!” you squeak out, cringing at how your voice just went up by an octave. You can feel Jeongin facepalming internally at your response, but you don’t blame him; you’d most likely do the same.

Changbin just smiles before he turns away to get to his next class, tugging Jisung and Chan with him.

Nevermind. Wearing this dress was the best decision you’ve made in your entire college career. The way you suddenly beam almost gives Felix whiplash — it’s obvious in the way he stares at you as if he ended up watching a comedy instead of the melodrama he was expecting. Hyunjin seems just as flabberghasted, Jeongin is still cringing from the secondhand embarrassment, and Seungmin just grins.

“Ah, so lover boy is the reason, I see.”

You roll your eyes at him. “Oh my god, just shut up, Seungmin.”

Jisung is eating you out with such fervor that has you sobbing and thrashing around. He’s merciless in every literal sense, keeping your hips planted on the couch with his hands to the point where veins are bulging out, and lapping up your juices with his tongue, continuing even though you already came. He only pulls away, lips glistening in your release, once you tug on his hair despite his orders to not do that.

“Already spent now? But baby, we just started.” he pouts. “Or is it because it’s me? Would you defy if Changbin was the one eating you out?”

You stare at him with blown out eyes. Why the fuck is he bringing up Changbin now? The words hang heavy in your throat and are threatening to burst, but the death stare he delivers stops you from doing so.

Something’s not right.

“Don’t tell me... you’re wet again because I just mentioned Changbin. Changbin this, Changbin that, huh? It’s always only Changbin, Changbin, Changbin. And I thought I was doing you good all along,” he rages, making you flinch. He can be terrifying when he wants to be, but this time, he seems completely out of it. “You know what? I’m fucking done with holding back. You’re mine, got it?”

With that, he dives back into your cunt, sucking harshly on your clit as he slides a finger in you. You try to pry him off, but his weight is restraining you to the sofa.

“Jisung, it hurts— ouch—“ Panic starts to rise in you when he finally detaches himself from your nub, but instead, moves down to your thighs and starts sucking on the skin with a force much harder than you’re used from him. “What are you doing? S-stop—!”

“You’re mine, you’re supposed to be mine. I am literally written on your skin. So why can’t you just wish to be with me? Do I have to mark you up so that you’ll finally get it?”

It hurts. It hurts. Once you feel teeth on your skin, you burst into tears. “Red, Jisung, red!”

As if it was the spell to break the cast, Jisung finally snaps out of it. His features break once his eyes meet yours. Regret sticks onto him like a second skin, and he slightly moves his hand in an attempt to reach out to you. Your muscles react faster though, and you instinctively pull your legs towards yourself and shy away from him. The way his face drops by another layer of remorse tugs at your heartstrings, but the impending fear overpowers everything else you’re feeling.

“What’s going on? What went over you?” you ask.

Jisung’s breath is shaky. He feverishly opens his mouth several times, but no sound is coming out. He’s struggling to find the right words, maybe trying to find a somewhat reasonable justification for his behavior. In the end, he lets out a defeated sigh. “I can’t do this anymore without having feelings—” his voice is weak and vulnerable and you’ve never witnessed him break down like this before, “—I like you. I like you the way you like Changbin. I just...”

Silence.

“Leave,” you whisper, but in this silence, your voice rings out loud and clear. This is… too much weight for your heart to carry.

Jisung complies. He grabs his belongings from the floor, slips on his shirt, and leaves with his head hung low. His footsteps grow more and more distant, but then he stops.

“Are you really in love with Changbin?” His voice cracks.

You don’t muster up the courage to face him. “Just read my mind.”

It’s silent again. Too overwhelming. You’re waiting for yet another outburst of him, waiting for his “I want you to say it out loud”, because that’s how the conversation always goes.

The last thing you hear is the front door falling in its lock with a soft click.

You like Changbin. You like Changbin you like Changbin you like Changbin you like—

You like him, right?

Things have changed.

You and Jisung haven’t crossed paths ever since, not even passed each other by in the hallways. It’s weird since you’ve grown used to seeing him every day outside of your apartment complex. You’ve never really acknowledged each other’s presence with a wave or something in the sorts; it was just a second where your eyes met, and then your days went on.

That being said, you run into Changbin quite frequently. If you ever exchanged words, it’s nothing more than friendly small talk and the one or other compliment about his music. Talking to Changbin is nice; he makes you smile.

You know a little bit more about Changbin now, like his favorite ice cream flavor or the fact that he has a pokemon plushie named Gyu. It’s cute, and you chuckle when you think about how you’d pay good money for that information a few weeks ago.

Changbin is nice, and there’s nothing more to the story.

The chaotic quartett you call your friends however, doesn’t seem to buy it. They are loud and nosey and have eyes, so it was set in stone that they’d tease you about it sooner or later. It’s all fun and games, and you played along with it at first, because that’s how you guys are. But as time went on, when the banter became so repetitive and blown out of proportion to the point where they have made clowning you about your small interactions with Changbin the pinnacle of their entertainment, you’ve begun to be fed up by it.

“Will you finally stop bringing him up in an indecent manner every single lunch break? Or even better, stop bringing him up altogether?” You snap, which shocks everyone at the table because you never snap.

Nobody has time to react as you quickly stomp away to grab some fresh air. You mutter out every curse under the sun, not intending to let your anger take over you this much. You’ve only made it past the door when Felix catches up to you, placing a hand over your shoulder.

“(y/n), what’s the matter? Clearly, something’s bothering you. And I know it’s not because of just Seungmin.” Concern is woven in his smooth voice.

You have to admit, it was a smart and calculated move from your friends to send Felix your way. He’s always been the compassionate one out of your little friend group. Like a pillar, he’s the one who keeps you all grounded (and he’s the one to drive your asses back home after the wild Alpha Beta Gamma frat parties).

“I don’t like Changbin that way, I realized. So it’d be very much appreciated if you asses didn’t allude to that every time,” you huff.

Felix sends you an understanding smile. “We can work that out. You know that Hyunjin and Seungmin in particular can be insensitive and sometimes don’t realize they’ve taken things too far..”

“Fine, but that’s not the main thing that’s eating me up alive, Felix.” you sigh. The words seem to flow out of your mouth like a waterfall. “I’ve realized I’ve never really liked Changbin. Okay, fine, he was just a crush I had but I don’t like him.”

He nods slowly, his brain processing your ramble. “So you like someone else.”

“Yes. And I don’t know how to fix it because we got into a huge fight.”

“Talk to them. That’s the only thing left to do.” His response is immediate, and he says it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Every relationship has its ups and downs, and if you want to be committed, you have to fight for it. If you were made for one another, you’ll make it.”

The last part makes you laugh internally. If only he knew.

“Let me guess, you expect me to barge into his place to sort things out,” you say.

Felix gives you the look of judgment. “I mean, you could also show some human decency and text him in advance so he’s also prepared. But that works fine too.”

Come to think of it, you’ve never been to Jisung’s apartment. That’s about to change when you knock on his door sometime in the evening, shortly after sunset.

Jisung’s face immediately drops once he opens the door. “What are you doing here?” His voice is soft, drenched in regret.

It’s not that his appearance has reached rock bottom. He still takes good care of himself; however, you pick up the dark circles under his eyes and his complexion seems a little paler. Not sickeningly pale, but in a sense that he hasn’t seen the light of day for a few consecutive days.

You shift your weight on one leg and fiddle with your fingers. “Can we talk?”

Jisung gulps. “Yeah, sure,” he mumbles after a moment of hesitation before inviting you in.

“I’ve thought a long time about this. Everything, really,” you start awkwardly as soon as you’re both standing stiffly in his living room. “I, um…”

You cringe inwardly as your voice trails off. Truth be told, you’ve rehearsed what you wanted to say many times a few hours ago. Even wrote down the entire speech. Then threw the draft away, only to compose a new one. And then again and again and again. After what felt like an eternity, you had polished your final speech and memorized it from top to bottom, even making sure that your flow sounded natural. But now that this is the real deal, your mind goes blank. Of course, of fucking course, your illiterate brain had to give up on you in the situation that mattered the most.

Jisung purses his lips. “Do you want something to drink first? No need to rush—”

“I don’t like Changbin!” you blurt out. Jisung stares at you in confusion. “I mean, I used to like Changbin — I still do, he’s a nice guy! Don’t get me wrong — but that’s all he is. He’s… nice. I like him, as a friendly guy. I had a crush on him, but now it’s just, uh, like. Platonic! Yeah, platonic.”

Despite him nodding slowly, you know that he is still lost. You would be too if you were on the receiving end of this painfully clumsy delivery.

You give yourself a mental slap as you take a deep breath. It can’t get any worse than this. Definitely impossible. You’ve already proven to him how bad your public speaking skills are. Might as well get over it with the bluntest words. “I miss you. And not because of the sexual things we did, but everything else. I miss you coming over, miss the movie night, and all that. I miss you, Jisung.”

He stares at you silently. Your eyes search his face for any sign of emotion, and for one too many times, Jisung is impossible to read. Okay, perhaps you did manage to tell him what you wanted to tell him even worse than whatever the fuck your initial attempt was.

But then his blank armor cracks. Little by little, his eyes soften, disbelief and remorse on display for you to see. Jisung is looking at you as if his world has fallen apart even more. He’s looking at you as if he’s clinging to the last threads of reason, trying to make sense of the situation. He’s looking at you with eyes that could hold stars behind them, stars that were supposed to burn out yet shine brighter than the universe.

“How can you say that? I hurt you. I made you cry! I was being a selfish asshole who put out his anger on you!” he exclaims, voice breaking towards the end. Pain clouds his red eyes, and he’s fighting to keep the tears at bay.

You slowly prod closer to him, testing the waters. He doesn’t react once, not even when you stand directly in front of him. Not even when you gently place your hands on a shoulder each. Not until you say, “It’s alright. I’m alright. No hard feelings.”

That’s his breaking point. Tears stream down his face, while quiet hiccups jump out of his throat. “How can you be so nice to me?” His sobs are muffled as he eases into your touch, hiding his face in the crook of your neck. Instinctively, he wraps his arms around your waist, clinging onto you as if you’re his lifeline.

The answer is simple, you say to yourself, as you thread a hand in his hair. “We’re soulmates.”

The weight of the words hangs in the air, shattering the previous tension and all the worries in your heart. It’s liberating, finally being able to say it out loud without feeling like an abnormality for saying those words with happiness. You’re soulmates. You’re soulmates, and that’s okay.

Jisung’s sobs resound throughout the room, and so do his countless, tiny yeah, we are’s. You need a moment before you register the wetness on your face. It feels like an eternity standing in his warm embrace, even after there are no more tears left to cry.

“Can I kiss you?” Your voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, but Jisung catches it. two fingers gently lift your chin so that you’re facing him. You almost melt when your eyes meet, his gaze filled with adoration that makes you want to burst at the seams.

“Yeah. I’d love that.” Jisung smiles.

It costs you your willpower to tear your eyes away from him before they flutter down to his lips. Despite his bottom lip being a little cracked, they look inviting and you wonder what they taste like. You expect him to nudge you, expect him to tell you to hurry up and do something because you’re pretty sure you’re staring at his lips for far too long.

He doesn’t. The grip on your chin is loose as if to tell you to take your time and go at your own pace. But the longer you wait, the more reluctance builds up. It’s a lot of power he’s given you; hell, it’s the first time he hands the reigns to you.

“Can you… uhm… I’ve never done this before, so yeah…” you look at him with a crooked smile.

The breathless chuckle that leaves him sounds like music to your ears. Jisung moves his hand to the back of your neck before closing the distance between you.

The kiss is short and sweet, but that alone suffices to make the butterflies in your stomach burst. The faint taste of coke lingers on him, and before you know it, you’re kissing again. Jisung’s lips are like an addiction, reeling you back in for another one. Somewhere along the way, the kisses change. Innocent presses of lips are long forgotten, replaced by teeth playfully tugging on your bottom lip, and Jisung kissing you deeper to the point where he steals all oxygen out of your lungs.

Your hands slide down his chest, tugging on his shirt. Startled by your bold actions, he pulls away, but you catch him back into another liplock that leaves the two of you breathless. All you can think of clearly is Jisung Jisung Jisung—

This time he forces himself away from you. Gasping for air, he places his forehead on yours. “If we go farther than this, then I don’t know if I can control myself.” His warning is barely above a whisper.

“Then don’t,” you whisper back.

That’s all the reassurance he needs before leading you to his bedroom, all the whilst latching onto your lips once more. He doesn’t let go of you until your back hits the soft mattress and he’s on top of you. Warm, slightly calloused hands trail from your cheeks to the hem of your shirt.

“Color?”

“Green,” you respond, smiling up at him. The sun has long vanished at the horizon, replaced by the dim moon and stars. Despite only a little light surging past the blinds into the room, you can see Jisung’s features crystal clear. The endearing smile is cast into the back of your mind, so is the delicacy in his touch, fingertips lightly grazing your skin as he sheds all your clothes off until you’re left in your underwear. After hearing your complaints, he discards his own clothes with an amused glint in his eyes.

Jisung takes his time pounding every single detail of your features into his memory. His hands roam all over your body, inciting goosebumps. You lean into his touch with a sigh and flit your gaze to him once he stops on a particular spot.

The look on his face is unreadable, but the hesitation in his voice speaks for itself.  “Does this bug you?” he asks, uncertainty laced in it as he runs his finger over each character of his name that’s inked under your collarbone. You shake your head with a hum that turns into a soft moan once he leaves kisses on the spots his finger burned before, one for each letter. Eventually, his actions spiral out to sucking lovebites and rutting his bulge against your heat, enticing louder whines out of you. Your vision morphs into blurriness as you move your hips in sync with his, locking your arms around his neck to pull him even closer to you.

“(y/n), baby…” Jisung heaves for air, “Is it okay if I…?.”

“Please,” you mewl, “want you inside me.” Your desperation must’ve shone through your tone, as Jisung presses a loving kiss on your forehead before he reaches over to the nightstand for a condom, grinning like a lovesick idiot.  

In books and movies, this is the part where the virgin would reach peak nervousness. Too many fears would be inhabiting their mind; the fear of pain, fear of not fulfilling their partner’s needs, fear of the entire situation, essentially. Whatever they depict in those books and movies, it doesn’t match up with the warmth and want pumping in your veins. Even after Jisung slipped your and his underwear off and slid the condom on his leaking cock, there’s no sign of fear bubbling in you. It’s rather the opposite; you nudge him to finally slide into you.

“So impatient,” he tuts playfully, and because he can’t help being a bit sadistic, he teases your dripping entrance with the tip of his cock. Tears begin to form in your eyes from the frustration of clenching around nothing. You feel like crying for good once he slowly pushes into you. The stretch feels unfamiliar and completely different than what you’re used to from his fingers, but it’s not unpleasant as you throw your head back. While you’re adjusting to his girth, Jisung observes your every expression, faltering whenever you scrunch your eyes shut. 

“You still there?” he asks in hushed tones, caressing your cheek.

In awe about his concern, you nod. “I’m fine. It’s just… new. I’ve never done this, but I guess you already figured that out.” It takes you a moment to catch your breath, and then you give him the green light to continue.

The way Jisung has your hands firmly against the bed lacks the usual roughness; he isn’t gripping your wrists as if he’s about to cut off your blood circulation. This time, he has intertwined his fingers with yours as if he doesn’t ever want to let go of you. A firework of colors and stars is all you see as he thrusts into slow and deep and with all the passion he has to offer. His lips don’t leave space for a breather either; he kisses you with so much fervor that it swallows your heart up whole. At that instant, you realize that he’s claimed your heart and isn’t going to give that up any time soon. You don’t mind, because you know that you’ve committed the same crime.

It’s not long after until you feel the orgasm building up. Jisung brings one hand down to flick your clit, and just like that, you unravel beneath him. His own release follows suit, a muffled groan coming from his lips as he spills into the condom.

It’s quiet for a moment, no words spoken between you except for harsh breathing. Eventually, Jisung slides his softening dick out of you and disappears for a moment to clean up, returning with a damp towel for you to freshen up a little, as well as a glass of water.

“I think I won’t be able to walk tomorrow,” you say after you gulped down the drink in one go, voice devoid of emotion. A laugh leaves Jisung. The way you deliver it is so casual as if he didn’t just have his dick in you minutes before. “Also, isn’t this the part where we should cuddle?”

“So bossy, your royal majesty.” He even takes a bow before he climbs back on the bed, pulling the covers over your bodies, and scooting up to you. He says something else, but you don’t register what exactly. All you care about is being wrapped in his warm embrace. The stench of sweat isn’t prominent on him anymore. Instead, it’s a huge cloud of Axe overpowering your senses. You would complain, but you’re too blissed out to bother.

Jisung must’ve noticed at a certain point that you’ve wandered to daydream paradise. “You’ve been quiet for a while. A penny for your thoughts.”

“But you can read my mind.”

“I want you to say it out loud.” His answer comes like a shot while his hand is brushing through your hair. “That, and your thoughts are too jumbled and my head is going to malfunction if I try to decode everything running in your head right now.”

The corners of your lips quirk upwards. “I’m just thinking about how we did everything in the wrong order. It’s just now that we kissed, before that I only sucked you off or something. We’re so fucked up.”

“If you word it that way, we definitely didn’t follow the book.” Jisung laughs in agreement. The vibrations from his chest causes you to bubble up in warmth.

“I don’t mind, though. That’s not the point. I’m happy.” You don’t have to look up to know that his eyes lit up. “Jisung, I’m happy that you’re mine.”

The hold around your waist tightens, and you feel a soft kiss being pressed on top of your head. “And I’m happy that you’re mine.”

In another lifetime, another universe, you probably wouldn’t have to go through these struggles. Society would normalize having someone that completes you. You wouldn’t go through countless stages of denial, countless stages of frustration, and countless stages of doubt.

In another lifetime, another universe, you potentially could’ve been on even worse terms. Just like in those cyberpunk movies, maybe you two would be enemies, one fighting alongside the government, the other assisting the villain who tries to overthrow the system. Star-crossed lovers, that’s what you two would be dubbed as.

In another lifetime, another univer—

No need to fantasize about what could be. The only lifetime that matters is this lifetime, this universe, your reality. In reality, people like you live in hiding. In reality, society is doubtful towards people with soulmates. In reality, people like you are destined for a tragedy. It’s taken you a long time to wrap it around your head.

That’s alright though. You’re alright. You’ll always be alright. The universe might have not played in your favor in this lifetime, but you still found each other. Perhaps, the universe will be more forgiving towards you in your next lifetime. Or the one after. Who knows? Whatever happens, at least you know you have one person you’re bound to meet wherever you are, whenever you are. One person who won’t ever let go of you. One person you won’t ever let go of.

“Yeah, I’m yours.”

#i'm never writing a oneshot again this is too stressful for my heart #stray kids smut #skz smut #han jisung smut #jisung smut #stray kids dark hours #dom!jisung #sub!reader #jijiri.txt #smut.mine #i winged the ending so pls go easy on me dlskjflkjsa

[mlwritingprompts]

Submitted Prompt:

Edited a bit for clarity, some more details added, and a bit added to the end because, well, Mind Cleansing is Bad™ lol.

Stoneheart AU showing just why you don't throw overpowered abilities like time travel and turning emotions into literal superpowered beings in a show with a supposed plot. (especially one whose single solitary plot you plan to drag out for seven seasons!)

Canon-typical nonsensical setting, except it actually crashes on itself the moment logic comes to existence. (I just have to say this is a hilarious sentence)

Neopronouns used: char/chars/charself

Character death: Gabriel.

------

Gabriel stood in his cave, smirking evilly as he felt the negative emotions of Ivan, as he prepared to start causing mayhem in the city to force the Ladybug and the Black Cat holders to appear.

He sent the butterfly towards the child, enjoying the moment, when suddenly, out of nowhere, a sound like the shattering of glass came to existence behind him.

He only got a second to be shocked and turn around before he found himself thrown into the wall, with a hand gripping him by the neck.

"Wha-!" He gasped out.

As he looked, he saw the figure that was pinning him to the wall.

It was a figure covered in a red and blue armor with a yin-yang symbol where the figure's abdomen supposedly was, a mask covering chars face, with glowing yellow eyes that seemed to be boring holes into Gabriel's eyes from the intensity of their light. It was like staring into twin suns compressed down into someone's eyes.

Large wings were behind the figure's back, glowing with many colors that seemed like they could only come from a dream. The shape of the wings was dreamlike too, Gabriel couldn't figure out what they looked like, only that they were there.

The figure spoke, chars voice flat and indefinable, giving nothing away. "Gabriel Agreste, by the authority given to us, Not-Equal, by the kwami, you will pay for your crimes of abusing people and kwami alike, and so will the many versions of you that I will catch."

The voice was strict and showed nothing about the mysterious figure's identity to Gabriel as he tried to escape and yelled to be released.

Not-Equal ignored his demands and simply ripped off his miraculous before killing him with a simple twist of his neck, no drama needed.

Char looked down at Gabriel's body for a moment before char stretched out chars hand, and a fan appeared in a flash of light. Char took a single feather, and imbued it with magical power, so that a new being was created...

...A being that will force people to be unable to even think about abusing their power and purposely harming others, and to enjoy helping people whenever possible.

This was chars plan, to create a being like this for every timeline char visited, again and again until all versions of the universe were under chars protection.

The amok looked at char before leaving to do their job, as Not-Equal seemingly looked towards something only char could see.

That was not wrong though, knowing chars history.

-

How long had char existed? One year? Two? A few millenia?

Char couldn't exactly remember every event that happened in the long life char had, but one thing was clear to char:

Char had been known by many names and identities; Tikki, Plagg, Duusuu, Nooroo, Wayzz, and many more.

The only identity char could feel a sense of uniqueness and nostalgia for though, was the identity of a previously little girl that hated being neglected by her mother in a foreign city where a terrorist brainwashed people into becoming his minions, before she ended up fusing with the kwami into what was now a single entity known to charself as Not-Equal.

Char doesn't want people to feel the sensation of abandonment and sadness that girl felt, even if it required to destroy the very concept of free will from every timeline that has, is, and will ever exist.

Because of course, forcing people to be unable to harm others must be a good thing, right?

That is what char thinks, and so, that is the mission char has given charself...

#submission #neopronouns in action #char/chars/charself #miraculous ladybug #ml writing prompts #Show!Miraculous #Show!Marinette #Show!Adrien