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adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction · 7 months

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Who Moved My Cheese? - an overly long tear down review

I want to talk about a book that always seems to be hanging around in a high position on lists of bestselling business books, or appearing on recommended reading lists for business. It's currently number 6 in Amazon UK's rankings of Business Life books: Who Moved My Cheese by Dr Spencer Johnson.

I was recommended this book by a coworker more than a decade ago and since I read it back then, it has stuck with me mainly because I felt a vague irritation at it. A little while ago, I was clearing out my bookshelves and decided it was time to re-read it and examine my feelings in more detail. Hence this review tearing it apart, which is probably going to end up being as many words as the key part of the book.

I don't really disagree with the book's core message. The idea at the heart of the book is a decent one and if you just gave me the middle section of the book to read, I would probably be perfectly fine with it and agree that it's a useful metaphor that some people would probably get value from. But the book doesn't just give you that middle section. It seems to be full of a sense of its own importance, as though it's the greatest piece of advice you will ever hear, relevant to everyone on the planet and utterly life-changing. That's the aspect of the book that I disagree with - not the main message, but in the way it implies that the message is universal and vital.

The first few pages of the book are filled with what I'm calling fluff. There is a two-page section titled The "Who Moved My Cheese" Phenomena! Complete with exclamation mark. This talks about how this idea helped Johnson deal with a difficult change in his life, how his friends said it helped them and one encouraged him to write it down. There's a mention of how quickly it became an international bestseller and how people all around the world found it helped their businesses, careers, health, and marriages.

All of this talking about the value is tempered by a paragraph saying that critics can't understand how people find it valuable. There is a response from that author that it is, "how you interpret it and apply it to your own situation that gives it value." And, yeah, I can get behind this as an idea. If a reader finds it applies to their situation, and they find it useful, great. Good for them. If the author had followed this up with something about us finding value in different places, or that different people have different circumstances so whether it applies will depend, anything like that, I probably would be okay with this bit of the book. Even if the author had just stopped at that sentence, it would have been acceptable. But this bit wraps up with this sentence: "Hopefully the way you interpret the story of Who Moved My Cheese? and put it into action in your life will help you find and enjoy the "New Cheese" you deserve."

This reads to me like the author is saying that if you don't find this useful, it's not because there was a problem with the book or that it just wasn't applicable to your situation - no. It was because you interpreted it badly.

Now maybe I'm being unfair here but given some of the things that are said later on, it does feel like Johnson is saying that if you don't get anything out of the book, it's on you for reading it wrong.

Anyway, moving on, we get a page of quotes about how amazing the book is, and then we get to the prologue.

The prologue is written by Dr Kenneth Blanchard, the friend who encouraged Johnson to write this book. It talks about how he heard Johnson tell the story and how he thought it was really helpful. The Cheese in the book is a metaphor for whatever it is you happen to want - money, freedom, success in your job, a better relationship, whatever. It's supposed to be applicable universally to anything someone might want to achieve. He talks about how this story can change lives and gives an example of someone he knew who was going through changes they were upset with at work, but who heard this story and changed his attitude and was rewarded for that positive attitude. The rest of the prologue is a mixture of him continuing to sing its praises and giving a brief summary of the different sections of the book.

The hype is maybe a touch over the top but you get that sometimes in prologues. Someone will be asked to write an introduction to the book and big it up, so there's nothing too outrageous here, just a continuation of the promise that this book will be amazing and life-changing.

Now we get to the framing device. A group of friends are having a reunion and talking about how much their lives have changed. One of them, Michael, says he heard this great story and changed his behaviour because of it, and everything got better, and how he told other people and loads of them changed for the better because of it.

"However there were a few people who said they got nothing out of it. They either knew the lessons and were already living them, or, more commonly, they thought they already knew everything and didn't want to learn."

Again we get this assumption that the story is applicable to everyone. If you don't gain anything from the book it's because you either already embody what it's trying to teach, or you just don't want to learn because you already think you know everything. The idea that the book might not fit everyone's circumstances just doesn't seem to occur to Johnson. This is why I called out the quote from earlier - the desire to blame the reader if they don't find the book useful is repeated here. In the book, Michael says that the people who don't learn from the story are like one of the characters in it - the one that refuses to change no matter what.

This intro section is only three pages long and it's mostly weirdly awkward dialogue. It's clear from reading it that Johnson is used to writing business books not fiction. The bit that really made me cringe was when Michael gave the title of the story and the group all laugh and one says he likes it already, and I'm reading this thing thinking, "Can you just stop praising your own story every other sentence and get on with telling it?"

Finally we get to the main story.

The story of Who Moved My Cheese is a simple parable about characters in a maze. You have two mice, called Sniff and Scurry, and two little people called Hem and Haw. The little people are like humans, but tiny so they can live in the maze with the mice. These characters are apparently supposed to represent different aspects of ourselves, but at other points in the book, the characters in the framing device talk about some people being like one or other of these characters, so I'm not sure the author was entirely clear about the analogy. Anyway, these characters live in the maze and they run around hunting for cheese.

The different characters have different approaches, with the mice just acting on instinct and the little people being more thoughtful, but they all spend their days hunting for cheese until they find Cheese Station C, where there is an abundant source. The mice stay prepared, ready to start hunting in the maze again if they need to, but the two little people settle down and get out of shape and lazy, feeling entitled to their cheese and sure that it will last forever.

As you can probably guess from the title of the book, the cheese doesn't stay forever. They get to the station one day and the cheese is gone. The mice just get on with it and go back out into the maze to hunt for cheese and they eventually find a wonderful new source of new cheese at Cheese Station N, but the two little people stay behind, angry and upset, waiting for the cheese to come back. They get hungrier and hungrier waiting for the status quo to come back, Haw because he's scared of going back into the maze and failing to find cheese, and Hem because he feels like he deserves that cheese and it should come back and if he stays right here, everything will be alright in the end.

Eventually, Haw decides he has to accept that things have changed and he goes back into the maze. A large chunk of the story is him wandering the maze, thinking to himself, and writing various life lessons on the wall. He has various realisations, like looking back and noting that the supply of cheese had been diminishing for a while and starting to smell bad and maybe if he'd been paying attention, he would have seen the change coming and not been so caught off guard by it. This bit of the story drags a little bit. It's still pretty short, but it could have been trimmed significantly without losing anything of substance. I wondered if Johnson padded this out and included things like the framing device of the reunion to make the whole thing long enough to sell as a book without people feeling like they were being cheated. This is pure speculation, but the whole book is less than a hundred pages long, in large print, with things like the important lessons each getting their own page. It does feel like he was desperately trying to fill up the space to make the print run worth it.

In the end, as expected Haw makes it to Cheese Station N and finds the new cheese and the mice and he's happy, but now he's learned his lesson and he'll be on the lookout for change and be prepared to go and hunt for newer cheese the next time something like this happens.

If the book just had this middle bit, I'd be fine with it. It's a simple parable talking about the fact that change is inevitable and you should react to it in a way that's productive instead of trying to pretend it's not happening. There's a summary of the life lessons at the end of the little story and it's things like monitor the situation and anticipate it so you can adapt quickly and that's pretty decent business advice. There's one bit about how you should enjoy the change and treat it like an adventure and learn to laugh at yourself and I can see where Johnson is coming from with this. Sometimes life sucks, but you can still try to look on the bright side and savour good moments when they come to help get you through it.

I didn't think the way this particular piece of advice was presented in the story was handled particularly well. Haw starts seeing his hunt for cheese in the maze as an exciting adventure - even while he is still starving because he hasn't found any yet. He's smiling and laughing at himself and having a good time rolling with the change - while his situation is terrible. It rings false to me. I can see how this could be interpreted as "look for the good in bad situations" but I can also see how it might be interpreted as, "You should have a positive attitude even when everything has changed for the worse or being miserable is your own fault." I can see the message Johnson is trying to give but I think it was presented in a really clunky way.

Still, you end up with a okay little story which tells a simple parable with some lessons that can be applied to real life.

So why am I writing this long tear down of this book?

Well, that's because of the final part.

We come back to the framing device and Michael telling the story to his friends. They decide that they should all meet up and have a discussion about what the story means and how it could apply to their lives. We're back to the clunkily written dialogue as the characters all discuss how wonderfully the story can be used to explain aspects of their own experiences. There's one example of someone whose department was closing down and the guy didn't want to see it so he didn't listen when people tried to talk to him about other opportunities, and someone else related it to having to close down stores in their business.

I think it weakens the story that you have to spell it out to the reader to make them see what it means. It's like the author is going, "Here's how a metaphor works," in the most patronising way possible.

But then you get someone saying he made everyone in his company read the book and say which character they were, and how they had to confront the Hems and the Haws and convince them to change and fired some of them. That whole scenario rang false, because Hem is so clearly presented as the bad guy in the story, he's the one you don't want to be like. I can't imagine that anyone would be given this book by their boss and say, "Oh, I'm definitely Hem," when asked which character they relate to. No one would say, "I'm the character we're all supposed to not be."

The characters keep talking about how wonderful change can be, and how when they were upset with a change it all worked out for the best in the end. They all agree about how wonderful the story is and how they're going to share it with their friends and families. You get one of the characters saying this: "It works best, of course, when everyone in your organization knows the story."

This feels like the author reaching out of the page to tell you to buy a copy for everyone you work with. There are several bits in this section that feel like the author doing a sales pitch to middle management to convince them to buy a hundred copies to give out at a corporate training event. It's more of the author aggrandising about how amazing his own book is and how applicable it is to everyone, and how everyone you know should read it because it will change their outlook on life. The book acts like it's the most important book you will ever read. And it's just not as special as it makes itself out to be.

If you read the story in the middle and you get something from it, wonderful. Good for you. But there are a lot of scenarios that the book doesn't touch on. It tries to simplify all possible situations and scenarios and ways of behaving down to these four characters in this extremely simplified situation, but in simplifying things down, it misses out on nuance and the millions of different real life scenarios that don't nicely map onto its little world of mice and cheese.

Here are some stories that don't fit this analogy.

I'm going to get a little personal and talk about my mum. My mum used to work as a biochemist, working in the research labs for a pharmaceutical company, running early tests to try and find out if various chemicals or compounds would be effective at treating diseases and other medical conditions. When it comes to creating a new drug, there are loads of stages, starting with simulations on computers and theoretical research, then trying things out in labs on cells and tissue samples, all the way through to various scales of human trials to see if the drug actually works to cure whatever it's intended for and/or has horrible side effects.

My mum worked doing those early lab trials and she really enjoyed her work. She found it interesting and intellectually stimulating. She liked that the work she was doing might help save lives. Before she worked for the pharmaceutical company, she worked in labs at a university also doing medical research. This was the work she wanted to do.

Then the company she worked for sold off its research arm and there were a load of people made redundant and she lost the job she loved in the lab. She got moved to a different area of the company and ended up transitioning into an IT job. For the rest of her working career up until she retired, she worked in an IT job. She found the job okay. It wasn't terrible, it had some good aspects to it and some bad aspects. There were coworkers she was really good friends with and co-workers she didn't really get on with. The job paid well enough and there were things she enjoyed about it, but it wasn't what she loved.

Someone moved her cheese and she went off into the maze and found some new cheese, just like the book says you should, but the cheese she found wasn't as good as the cheese she'd lost. The book tries to convince you that when you come out the other side of the change things will be better than they were before, and maybe sometimes they will be, but not always. Sometimes you have to compromise. Change is inevitable, sure, and you should adapt with it and make the best of the situation, but you're not always going to find that what you get at the end of the process is magically better than what you had before because the world just doesn't work that way.

Then let's look at the character of Hem. This is the character who's clearly framed to be the bad example in the book. We don't get a definitive answer of what happened to him because he gets left behind, but the implication is that he starved to death waiting for his cheese to be returned. When the cheese disappears in the middle of the story, he insists that it will come back and stays where he is.

You can see examples in the real world where companies tried to stick with the old way of doing things despite change that was going on and paid for it. Blockbuster Video was driven out of business by the rise in streaming services, and companies that depending on film photography paid the price for ignoring the rise of digital cameras. But sometimes a setback really is temporary.

In 2010, there was a massive volcanic eruption in Iceland that sent huge amounts of ash into the atmosphere and massively disrupted air travel. Several countries had to close their airspace because planes couldn't cope with the ash clouds. For a couple of months, fights continued to get cancelled or delayed. If we imagine an owner of a tour company in Iceland during those two months, this would be dreadful. No one would be flying into Iceland - at the heart of the problem - and so there would be no tourists buying tickets for the tours. In our metaphor, the cheese at the cheese station would have disappeared - and unlike the example in the book, it wouldn't have been possible to see this coming and prepare for the change. Also unlike the book, the attitude of, "If we just wait, the cheese will come back," is probably the correct one. Those couple of months were probably terrible if you worked in the tourism industry or had a shop in an airport or something like that, but the problem was a temporary one that righted itself. The position of the character Hem of staying where he was and waiting the problem out sometimes is the sensible approach.

If you owned a tour company and decided to throw it all in and set up a new business doing something completely different, you probably wouldn't have finished writing your business plan by the time the air cleared and planes were flying again.

The book is also extremely optimistic about change being achievable for everyone. You just need to put on your running shoes and head out into the maze and everything will turn out alright. But what about the mice that starve in the maze unable to find cheese through no fault of their own?

In the real world, there are people who find their cheese taken away. They lose their job because of something outside of their control, or there's a disaster which destroys their home, or they have a major health crisis - or all three at once. If they end up living out of their car, with their savings wiped out, and no fixed address to put on the job applications, you can't just say "keep looking for the opportunity." This is especially true for people who face discrimination.

In a period of depression, there might be thousands and thousands of people out of work, all competing for the same jobs. Telling them that they should just keep looking, just keep hunting the maze for their cheese, makes it seem like it's entirely their fault if they don't succeed. If you don't find a job, you just weren't looking hard enough, you weren't trying hard enough. The book doesn't even consider that there might be people in the maze, trying and trying and trying, hunting for their cheese, but getting nowhere - because of bad luck, because of discrimination, because there are just more mice than cheese at that point in time.

And then there are the people who have a bad situation but aren't in a position to look for a better one. To borrow the book's analogy, let's imagine a mouse is at a really terrible cheese station that gives out a couple of crumbs a day. Those crumbs are just barely enough for the mouse to make it back to the cheese station the following and to get the next crumbs, but the mouse is hungry and exhausted and just doesn't have the energy to go and hunt through the maze for better cheese because it's barely surviving as it is and if it leaves, it will have nothing.

There are people who are in a horrible situation with a sucky job and the instinct is to say, "Well, go and find a better job then." But hunting for a new job, applying for it, interviewing it, all of that takes time and energy, and if you're living pay check to pay check, working long hours to make ends meet, you might not be able to do that. If taking time off work to go and interview for a new job you might not even get means you won't get enough money to pay the bills this week, are you going to take that chance all that often? No. Because the priority is immediate survival. This book acts like sitting around in a bad situation is a mistake you should learn to avoid, but sometimes it's less a case of sitting there and more a case of being trapped their by circumstance.

So, yeah, there are a few thoughts about scenarios the book doesn't even think about.

This book is a case of advice that is sometimes helpful being treated as universal. I'm sure there are plenty of people who find it useful. If you're one of them, I won't try to take it away from you. I just wish it was less over the top in terms of how it presents itself.

It feels like fairly middle class advice. And by that I mean it assumes that whoever is reading it has opportunities and can take the chance to change without risking the foundations of your life. It's easier to strike out and hunt for new opportunities if you're a highly-educated, healthy, cis, white guy rich some savings in the bank account than it would be for other people missing some or all of those privileges. "Try hard enough and you'll get what you want," is fair enough as advice but it ignores the people who try really, really hard but who have the deck stacked against them.

One of the pieces of advice is about not being afraid to go into the maze and look for new cheese. Don't be afraid to go out and look for new opportunities is easier advice to take if you have a safety net of savings to fall back on if it takes you a little while to find a new job, or if you have enough funds that you can move to a new city, or if you own the house you live in so you don't have to worry about being homeless if something goes wrong.

Most self-help or advice books are aimed at a specific audience. There is a particular group of people who will read them and find the advice useful, and that's perfectly normal. No advice is going to be appropriate to everyone's circumstance. I wouldn't have a problem with this book if the author accepted that fact and didn't try to promote the book as something perfect that everyone should read and that if you don't get anything out of it, well that's your fault because you're clearly too much like Hem and just don't want to change.

As I said at the beginning, if this book came without the aggrandising and the irritating framing narrative, I'd find it fine. I wouldn't love it, but I'd accept it as okay. As it is, I find it infuriating because it feels like the author is unaware that his experiences aren't universal and believes that everyone in the world who ever lived will have their life changed by his simplistic fairytale and mediocre business advice.

#book review #who moved my cheese

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quoththemaiden · 10 months

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I saw your tags in the poll comments and I had to jump into your ask box. If you want to reply to comments, don't be afraid to do it! People love nothing more than to interact with the author. People comment to express their love for your work, and I can promise nothing make them more happy than to have a reply from the author!!! It's a "my comment had been seen and made them happy, yeah!" feeling.

My tags, for context:

This poll is wild to me. Tumblr's interpretation of fanfic etiquette seems completely backwards from my internet upbringing.

Back on ff.net, where the number of reviews wasn't even a sortable field, it was still uncool for authors to respond to the reviews. Every fic would end with "Please R&R!!!" but actually interacting with reviewers was the kind of thing you were supposed to grow out of as you went from a socially clueless young teen to a socially competent older teen. Saying "That's exactly what I was going for!" or "Oooh just wait, you'll love it!" or "I'm so glad you liked it!" was really just patting yourself on the back for being awesome, and saying "No, you don't get it--" was too defensive. (Putting "I've been blown away by the response to this fic" in an A/N is sufficiently self-effacing if used sparingly, though.)

On AO3, looking at the comment section of a fic and seeing that an author has responded to every comment with "Thanks!!" or "❤️" feels similarly desperate to me--

--and not just cringey, but also vaguely unethical because it's artificially doubling the number of comments on a site that does allow sorting by comments. Like, let your fic stand on its own merits instead of trying to game the system with fake reviews.

But on Tumblr, there's those AO3 etiquette posts going around saying "kudos are for if you finish reading a fic; comments are for if you enjoyed it." And that just feels backwards. Shouldn't kudos be for if you enjoyed the fic enough that you think it should be boosted in the rankings so more people read it? Comments, on the other hand, are mandatory on every fic you read unless you can't find even a single good thing to say about it. (And you're still obligated to rack your brain a bit to see if you can at least pull out a "Wow, that was an interesting premise!" or "I really love this trope so thanks for writing this!" or "This was such a fun line!" and just try not to be too obvious about damning with faint praise.)

I've had authors respond to say, "Hey, sorry I haven't responded to your comments yet, but I've been reading them" and I'm always like... my dude, that's not how this economy works. You write fics and I leave comments. You don't have to write fics and respond to comments. Take a load off.

Obviously if I say something particularly insightful it's nice to hear the author's thoughts back, and I've had some cool conversations about their inspirations... and the friend I talk to literally every single day is someone where we both loved each other's fics 20 years ago and we got started talking because of it... so it's not like I think it's never okay to respond to a reviewer.

(And, frankly, a lot of my comments are a couple paragraphs long or I'm leaving a dozen comments in a short timespan, so it hasn't usually felt weird when authors do respond to me to comment on some highlights.)

It's just absolutely baffling to look at that poll and see that 88% of authors do or think they should respond to comments, so I'm clearly in the vast, vast minority.

It's absolutely, mind-bogglingly wild. And since it's purely a cultural thing, being in the minority means I'm wrong, and I need to come to grips with that. Like, I'm going to need to actively, consciously work on flipping my judgement-o-meter from "responding to comments is inappropriately clingy and must be actively avoided" to "responding to comments is good and expected" because the former is a social norm I internalized decades ago and now I need to go through the active work of completely flipping what's rude and what's polite -- which is a thing that happens all the time as we get older, of course, but it was a shock to encounter it here.

#9-to-1 implies it isn't even a relative thing like “it's rude for Americans to eat with their mouths open but fine for other cultures”#9-to-1 is OVERWHELMING and “no that's cringe and weird” wasn't even an OPTION on the poll #i'd say it's a generational divide but it isn't like the Tumblr userbase is young #so there has to have been some other kind of cultural shift in the decade i was away from fandom #so i guess i just need to get over it and get with the times #but it would definitely help if someone could explain what changed so i could internalize WHY responding to comments is now acceptable #like does it have something to do with the shift from “reviews” to “comments”?#like because it's socially unacceptable for movie producers to respond to movie reviewers but exchanging comments on social media is normal #or is it something else?#but the culture may well have changed a decade ago so who would even remember?#so i feel like any responses would be “saying 'thanks' to a compliment is polite”#which... yeah #but also no #because the author-reader relationship is fundamentally different since authors are providing a service #and readers are obligated to repay them with comments #so #argh #fanfiction #ao3 etiquette #ff.net etiquette #Am I so out of touch?.meme

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alatismeni-theitsa · 2 years

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https://patrochillesismyshit.tumblr.com/post/624094022526533632/i-absolutely-love-this-review

The way it's phrased I think this was said as a joke and it's very vague for me to address an issue with it. There is also some harmless fun in a post with people who want to see themselves represented and find some solace in Achilles not being "straight". I think the joke was not meant to be analyzed that much.

Now, I will talk a bit about it just because I haven't spoken about "the ship" in a long time and I want to have a recent reference. The tweet is just the cause, I am not addressing this specific tweet.

There is the phenomenon of modern people trying to put labels on ancient people who didn't use these labels (e.g. how we use the term "gay" may not have expressed homosexual men 2.000 years ago) which I caution against. We can't "reinterpret" ancient relationships with our modern lens and we should not. "Reinterpret" means "reinvent" or "changing how something is viewed". If you change it, it's not what it was anymore. If you don't like how the ancient story is told you can go read something else, what can I say 😂 We don't have an ancient "gayer" or a "more obvious" version, I am sorry!

I'd love representation as much as anyone, and I am against the erasure of "queer" identities from history but here we don't have enough evidence for the two being lovers except that they were two men very close to each other and had great love for each other, which makes them automatically gay.... if you live in the US Bible Zone.

Some people say "but look how devastated and angry Achilles was with Patroclus's death!" as if one can only feel these things only if their lover dies. If one loses a brother I suppose they feel... better than this? They are not devastated? Don't they refuse to eat? They don't want revenge against the one who killed their brother?

Greek culture encourages more affection than many northwest ones and I don't want us to also fall into the trap of "if you are too affectionate with your male friend you are obviously gay". Kissing on the mouth was also traditionally acceptable for Greek men to show kinship. So in this light, we are not sure what this type of affection meant 3.000 years ago.

We don't know too much about funerals and weddings of that time to draw a parallel to the case of Achilles and Patroclus. We know so little that two men having their bones mixed in the grave could be viewed as valid for two metaphorical brothers. Could they be a couple? Potentially! But we really don't know. I wouldn't have any issue if the original text said "aaand then they had sex" (or something somewhat indicative of a romantic or a sexual relationship). But the text doesn't say that so for me the most respectful I can be is "we don't know if they were a couple". We certainly know they were very close and we should be careful to not give them identities we are not sure they would claim for themselves.

It's true that ancient people also speculated and debated about their relationship. We can also speculate and debate about their relationship but I am a supporter of "work with what you have" (especially since we are 2.00 years more removed from the event) because playing the guessing game can steer you away to different stories and theories which might not have been what the older ancients had in mind.

I can acknowledge all the affection and love in the text and in case this made them lovers back then, then sure, no problem. I just don't know if it qualified to make them lovers based on everything I've read. For me, there is the basis to see them as brotherly friends. It's not that I don't want to see them as a couple! I actually would like us to have enough evidence to say that they were lovers! Buuut we don't have it.

And... what if I "reinterpret" Achilles as an aroace?? All the evidence is there for sure. All strong affection, all this connection, but no romance or sex. Maybe he didn't love anyone else romantically or sexually and he deemed brotherhood so high that he wanted his bones mixed with his best friend, whom he saw as a brother??

But well, the argument "the evidence is there" doesn't always work. Anyone can interpret anything to fit their own image. And if we start "reinterpreting" based on what we know today, we project our own wishes and modern ideas into the text and we lose focus of what the text shows us.

If one wants to have them in the back of their head like two gay men and another as asexuals or two trans men, fine! But we should all acknowledge this is only inside our heads and that the old texts can stand on their own. The text doesn't wait for my headcanon to be valid as it is.

#aaanyways sorry for the long text again #patrochilles #dont interact with the post negatively if it's not meant for you #i am not targeting anyone I just want to have a tag so I can find the post again if needed #achilles #also queer is not a slur #answered

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casliveblog · 8 months

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Custom Toonami Block Week 143 Rundown

Spy X Family: So despite being Bluey-level involved parents, apparently the neighbors are now suspicious of Loid because he’s out working late every night on Spy shit which it’s kinda funny because the show never shows us Loid or Yor doing their jobs all that much and somehow neither really gets in the way of their family façade but apparently Loid’s been out doing Spy shit this whole time and it’s one of those Fairly Oddparents retcons of ‘oh yeah it’s always been this way because that’s how it has to be for the plot/joke to work’. So yeah, despite being a walking zombie Loid plans an Aquarium trip for some fatherly-enforced family fun, honestly planning a trip and putting a lot of pressure on the family to ‘have fun or else’ is probably the most normal dad thing Loid’s done so far. I mean not that Loid can’t be a cheating husband with a double life AND take his family to the aquarium but people seem stupid so it’s probably fine. Loid gets another mission while at the aquarium and he has to… get info out of a penguin, that seems like the dumbest way to exchange info like can’t you just stick it in one of the statues or tanks or something holy shit why stick it inside an animal? Apparently Anya can read penguin minds too so that’s fucking dope but because they’re penguins it’s not much to read. Still Loid’s able to break in and get to the penguin she finds that looks suspicious and is it just me or does the Forger family seem kinda like Team Rocket in that they feel like they have an excellent set of skills to do several other jobs than the one they’re doing, like Loid could definitely retire and become a penguin wrangler. Anyway after some hiccups, Loid gets the penguin and Anya reverse-kidnaps herself to have Yor beat the shit out of the enemy spy so mission accomplished. There’s also a little skit of Anya giving her review of the house before being stopped before going in Loid or Yor’s rooms which is pretty cute, nice way to end off the first half of the season.

Inuyasha: With last week’s revelation that the literal last jewel shard is at Inuyasha’s dad’s grave we spend a good portion of the episode going ‘wait how did that work again?’ given it was like, episode five we’re over a hundred episodes in at this point and unlike Naruto, Inuyasha doesn’t flash back to the same few key scenes every couple episodes despite being as absurdly long and filler-ridden. Inuyasha goes to find Myoga and Totosai to get him to yank the death portal out of his eye but they’re like ‘sorry bro, one way trip, gotta take it up with the guy who made it’ and it’s really funny because they really abuse the pearl in Yashahime and kinda plaster over it by throwing New Hosenki from this episode in there to be like ‘yeah I fixed it and made it better’ despite him saying in this episode it’d take him a hundred years to do it but I also vaguely recall Riku having some shenanigans on that front. Anyway Hakudoshi’s basically stringing Inuyasha along this whole episode and making it clear he has no fucking clue how to get into the afterlife and is teasing Inuyasha so he can do it first and Hakudoshi can pull an Ocarina of Time and be like ‘well since you opened the door for me’ and it’s really silly because Hakudoshi appears to Inuyasha and ONLY Inuyasha just to ‘neener neener neener, I’ll get to the grave first’ and then like two hours later sends Kagura to deliver a message about how to actually get there so Inuyasha does all the life-risking grunt work but like BITCH YOU JUST TALKED TO HIM AN HOUR AGO AND SAID NOTHING OF VALUE, YOU COULDN’T HAVE TOLD HIM THEN!? Like they don’t even play it smart and make it look like Kagura’s rebelling again and telling them something they shouldn’t know, she straight up says Hakudoshi told her to tell them this, so Hakudoshi’s just being an extra little albino bitch but he’s like eight days old at this point so I guess I have to cut him some slack.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Well Yusuke is definitely 100% dead forever and Hiei, Kurama and Kuwabara immediately power up to follow Sensui through the tunnel. Hiei blasts a Dragon of the Darkness Flame and it really just pushes Sensui into demon world but it does fucking obliterate every minor demon that was on its way so the tunnel is clear for the moment, also Kurama is apparently able to turn into Yoko as like a Super Saiyan form while keeping his own personality now so it just goes to show those two have not been taking a single fight in this arc seriously up until now. Meanwhile we catch up with the Koenmas, our usual Koenma basically spelling out Sensui’s plan to enrage everyone to chase him into demon world and have Kuwabara slice through the mosquito net barrier stopping the eldritch demons from coming out meanwhile King Yamma is mobilizing the Law & Order Special Demons Unit to go take care of some shit but he’s vague about what he means exactly. Meanwhile in the limbo world that proves Bleach really did steal everything from YYH, Kuwabara jokes about the grid pattern basically being a video game and Hiei who was just literally in a video game where they had to murder a child to get out tells him to shut the fuck up. They get to the big barrier and Sensui’s not a demon so he can run right through but because Hiei and Kurama are now Super Saiyan demons they got blocked, now Kuwbara either has to fight Sensui alone or slice up the barrier to let them through. Now there’s a couple things I like about this exchange: 1. They absolutely don’t have to continue the fight, they can actually just fucking walk away right now and Sensui’s kinda screwed like he can’t chase them or cut the barrier on his own, but nobody’s willing to just let Sensui go after he killed Yusuke. 2. When Kuwabara does cut through the barrier, unlike usual when he does something stupid, no one tells him to stop and I like to think that Hiei and especially Kurama are smart enough to know Sensui’s playing them but they’re not willing to back down at this point, even if it means making things on Earth a whole lot worse. 3. Kuwabara does have the option of being headstrong and self-sacrificing as usual and throw himself at Sensui and die senselessly while claiming he doesn’t need anybody’s help but he admits he can’t beat Sensui on his own and needs help from his friends and does the (relatively) more level-headed thing. So yeah, Sensui gets through to Demon World and checks ‘see the world of the creatures you thoughtlessly murdered’ off his bucket list and goes into his super ultimate armor form which is basically just ‘no’ the ability, you can’t be stronger than it, can’t break through it, just no. Like Hiei swallows the dragon and does his DBZ shit, Kurama does some kinda hell plant thing, notably Sensui does still have to dodge Kuwabara’s dimension sword so if they were able to pin him down and force that to hit him that might have worked but yeah everyone’s just kinda fucked at this point.

Jujutsu Kaisen: We get brief flashbacks of the adults making vague attempts to stop Yuji from charging in and of Junpei getting his Jellyfish Shikikami powers and then the fight is on. Yuji’s double punch shit does about as much to the jellyfish as Flats punching Spongebob but he’s able to maneuver around enough to be able to hit Junpei directly and for some reason the jellyfish’s poison doesn’t seem to affect him at all. After a round of beating the shit out of each other, Yuji gets Junpei calm enough to just fucking tell him what happened with his mom and shit and how Junpei’s basically like ‘people don’t have feelings because the alternative is the people who killed my mom are sociopaths and that’s harder to reconcile’ and Yuji gets the idea to recruit Junpei to be the late stage starter pack but before we can change the opening song too much Mahito jumps in and turns Junpei into a soul gremlin like a few seconds after he has the revelation that MAYBE the dude doing soul experiments in the sewer might be a bad guy. Yuji asks Sukuna to heal Junpei and Sukuna either can’t or won’t, he plays it off as a ‘oh watching you beg is a lot more fun than helping even for power’ but it’s most likely either he can’t heal other people or making a second pact would override the one he already made with Yuji which kinda flies in the face of Mahito’s plan and the plan further falls apart when Junpei apparently dies and Yuji gets SO fucking pissed that he PUNCHES MAHITO’S SOUL like I don’t quite understand the lingo of this show yet but getting so pissed you punch out someone’s soul is badass no matter how you slice it, it has something to do with the Yami Yugi thing Yuji and Sukuna have going but apparently Yuji can punch you so hard it literally hits your very soul and that’s freaking cool as hell. They fight for a while and it’s pretty neat because Yuji’s pissed/dumb enough to just facetank all of Mahito’s chimera shit and Mahito’s basically human silly putty so any damage doesn’t last too long. He tries to turn Yuji into a soul gremlin so he’ll have to ask Sukuna to reverse it but Sukuna stops him like ‘What the fuck you think you’re doing bro, get your dirty ass hands off my soul you franekstein motherfucker before I ram your soul so far up your ass…’ and before Mahito can properly counterattack Kento shows up and realizes Yuji has soul-punching powers so they’re gonna team up to fight this guy and that’ll be fun.

Chainsaw Man: It’s the finale and this one kinda caught me by surprise, like I thought I had two episodes left but apparently I lost count and this is it. After last week and the Ghost Devil nearly killing Aki, this time it’s decided it wants to play nice and gives him the cigarette Himeno told him he could have when he grew up and because he has no fear of the ghost devil anymore it legit can’t see him (though he also walks on it and presumably it can feel him so maybe it just wanted to die instead of being controlled by snake girl idk) He beheads it and before Snake Girl can get her snake on, Kobeni pops out of nowhere using her Sloppy Blowjob Devil powers and captures her. Denji and Power come up against a room full of zombies and Power charges right in and Denji’s just like ‘nope’ and steps back into the elevator which is probably good because the next floor has Katana Man on it. Katana Fucker is still pissed about Denji killing his grandpa which is like one of the few things Denji was NOT in the wrong about like not only did he not kill him till he was already a zombie but the dude blackmailed him all his life into indentured servitude, we’ve established that Denji’s a heartless asshole and Katana Man not wanting to even kill zombies confirms that’s not part of the Devil Man process but something innate to Denji’s character, but he was well within his rights to fucking murder that guy long before he did. Anyway the two fight and do their Spider-Man 2 train sequence and it’s cool and shit but Denji gets both his arms cut off when Katana Man starts doing his anime katana move because he has the power of god and anime on his side. They do the super awesome run past each other and slash deal where Denji says he’s gonna cut him down with his head blade but since Denji’s a lying sack of shit he pulls out his secret move, LEG CHAINSAWS and completely subverts the whole clash which is fun. Katana Boi wakes up chained to the train and I’m not entirely sure why he can’t just transform again but I guess he ran out of blood like Denji does and Denji and Aki take turns kicking him in the balls for killing Himeno which is insanely satisfying like there’s this weird kind of fusion between the ‘we won’t kill you, justice will be served’ and the sure juvenile joy of the nutshots that makes it very fun like it’s not even severe enough torture to be an ethical dilemma it’s just like ‘eh, it’ll make us feel a bit better’ and it is a nice bonding moment between Aki and Denji, even almost makes me forget that Katana Dude didn’t actually kill Himeno at all and they should be mad at Snake girl since she was the one that ate the Ghost Devil and invalidated the sacrifice in the first place (also did we ever get a reason for why Katana Man wouldn’t stay dead even under Aki’s ‘definitely kill you’ sword or was that just chalked up to ‘Devil Men basically can’t die, do not pass go do not collect $200’?). But yeah, everyone’s good, Makima says that the Gun Devil jewel shards they got from the bust gave them enough to track the Gun Devil, Snake Girl dies horrifically in front of Kobeni for maximum trauma and we get a cool montage of Denji, Power and Aki just enjoying running errands to close off the season. Also Denji has the dream he had from the beginning of the season about talking to Pochita from through a doorway which I’m guessing is his Naruto/Kurama seal place and if he opens it Pochita will take back over and drive Denji out.

So yeah, that’s the end of Season 1 for Chainsaw Man and I had a lot of fun and I want more but that’s it for now, dunno if I’ll figure out a new anime to watch for next week or just cut the block a little shorter, I’ll see how I feel when it gets closer.

Ranking of Kings: So we get a new opening and this opening song is actually how I first heard of this series and it does fucking slap so that’s cool. Bojji and Kage are still on their way to the castle and apparently Despa is on his way too but is a ways behind because, and I shit you not, his horse got too fat. Meanwhile Hilling is assaulting the gate and Sword Guy has trained Kirito Guard to become Crossbow Guy and help him infiltrate the castle to destroy the gate to the Underworld. Meanwhile Miranjo’s busted the Underworld Criminals out of prison and is just like ‘yeah go nuts I don’t give a fuck’ and they just like immediately kill her puppets but luckily she has Koro-sensei’s absolute defense mode so no one can smash her mirror. The majority of the episode is getting a feel for these criminal dudes and there are some that are just generic tough guys, one that seems to be more of a schemer and one that’s a fucking Dark Souls dude who cuts into Big Strong Guy #3 Kingbo’s tendons so he can’t hold his sword or stand and just acupunctures his back a bunch and lets him bleed out. This guy is Ouken and my working theory is that he has the same kind of training Bojji does where his fighting style targets vital points for disabling rather than crushing with strength only he went the dark murdery ‘disable and let your enemies bleed out’ route on his skill tree. They just kinda yeet Kingbo out of the castle and schemer guy takes over, Snake Guy tells the snakes to bury Kingbo but turns out he’s still alive which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone because I don’t think anyone who’s died during this series has actually stayed dead.

Vinland Saga: Askeladd runs his men fucking ragged to try and outrun Thorkell’s advancing army that outnumbers him five to one, sending for reinforcements while heading up the river with them hot on their trails. Bjorn confronts Askeladd about his uneasiness and Askeladd admits Canute’s kind of a downer considering if they win he’s supposed to be the King of England. However they’re able to get away from Thorkell using the English’s one eternal weakness: forgetting other countries exist. They escape to Wales, the red-headed stepchild of the United Kingdom where Askeladd has some contacts that are willing to escort Canute on the chance that when he becomes King of England he’ll stay the fuck out of their country. Like Canute seems like he’d keep his word but would it really be England if they minded their own business? Negotiations do not go well because Canute is, in clinical terms, a fucking pussy. Still they set off with Thorfinn acting as Canute’s personal bodyguard as they work to reunite with the rest of the army in the nearest fort. On the way Askeladd admits that despite claiming to be a great judge of character, having faith in people like Thors hasn’t really worked out for him so maybe someone he has absolutely no faith in like Canute is the change of pace the world needs. Before they can get too deep into navelgazing they’re immediately ambushed in the next town, some deity out there heard Askeladd reminiscing about Thors and fucking trapped him in the same archer high ground bullshit he used on him.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Spy X Family #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Jujutsu Kaisen #Chainsaw Man #Ranking of Kings #Vinland Saga

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null-whump · 2 years

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Project Echolocation - Part 1

You all have no idea how excited (and nervous) i am to finally be posting this. i really hope at least some of you enjoy the shift in genre from me, because this new story is super fun for me!

I'm kickstarting it with whumptober, but I'm not going to be posting every day in October; instead, I'm combining prompts so that I'll be posting every 2-3 days. Hopefully I'll be able to put out longer updates that way, and it'll also be less stress for me lmao.

as always, let me know if i forgot to tag/warn for anything, and if you want to be put on a tag list.

One last thing! I posted a little prologue for this story; it's not necessary to read to understand the story, but it's pretty short and can offer some context for a few characters.

this first updates fills whumptober prompts for days 1, 2, and 3;

Day 1: "This wasn't supposed to happen"

Day 2: Cornered/confrontation

Day 3: Gun to temple/"Say goodbye"

Warnings: blood/injury (discussed), hostage situation, vaguely(?) implied future torture

Word Count: 2,731

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

If you asked Sol when everything started going wrong, he would say it was the second he laid eyes on Cent – if that even was his real name. Things started going worse, he would say, when Cent opened his mouth for the first time. Sol figured that most people would scoff if he told them that, because there was no possible way he could have predicted all of this from their first interaction. Sol would then graciously point them toward his first official review of Cent, and then his second, and his third, so on and so forth. The point is, Sol always knew Cent was up to no good, and that didn’t just come from a disdain for the way the other man treated him.

So yes, maybe Sol didn’t predict this exact situation – their largest safe house under siege, all electronic communication rendered inoperable, and a 17-hostage situation playing out one floor below where Grim and Sol stood – but he had known that something like this would happen. If anyone bothered to listen to him, maybe they wouldn’t be in this mess.

“You mean if I had listened to you,” Grim said, and Sol realized he had spoken that last part out loud.

Sol must have been more annoyed than he first thought. He hadn’t slipped up and spoken aloud in public in years; not that there was anyone but Grim around to hear it. Better safe than sorry, though.

“Well, if you want to put it that way, then yes,” Sol signed. His left wrist protested the movements, and he prayed that it wasn’t sprained from the fall he had taken earlier. That would be just his luck.

Grim rolled his eyes. “Is now really the time? It’s not like I liked Cent any more than you did.”

Sol gave his partner a withering stare before signing again. “One of us actually had the power to do something about it.”

“There was no evidence beyond a bad feeling,” Grim hissed. “How many times do I have to apologize?”

“A couple more, at least.”

“You can have all the apologies you want when this situation has been dealt with.” Grim pulled out his pistol and began reloading it. “If we can stall them downstairs long enough for Nova to get our coms back online, then maybe we’ll hear from Alt about backup – but with the hostages we’ll have to be careful, and who knows how much enforcement they have on the way…if only we had access to the cameras, we would be able to plan this better.”

Sol didn’t interrupt, even though he knew that Grim’s worrying and strategizing wouldn’t be needed in the end. They both knew who Cent and his officers from the Union were really after, even if Grim didn’t want to admit it. Sol, at least, knew how this day would end, and it wasn’t going to be pretty for him. A small, desperate part of him whispered that maybe they could find another solution, but he had learned long ago that it was better not to cling to unrealistic hopes. It just made letting go of them harder.

“We need to get down there,” Grim said. “Maybe we can at least hear what’s going on, and if we can sneak up on them –”

Sol laid his hand on Grim’s arm, and shook his head when Grim looked at him, then moved his hand back to sign again.

“And what if we can’t? And someone gets killed?”

Grim’s eyes hardened. “I’m not going to let you hand yourself over without even trying to get out of this another way.”

Sol frowned, and his signs became sharper. “That was always the plan. I was always the plan – so that no one else would get hurt – or killed.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t –” Grim slammed his fist into the wall next to him, his words dissolving into an angry growl. He let out a shaky breath, and his eyes drilled holes into the concrete. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he whispered. “We weren’t supposed to…that was a last resort. We weren’t supposed to have to rely on it.”

Sol’s chest ached. He had anticipated how difficult this would be for himself – it wasn’t like he wanted to waltz into the Union’s arms and let them rip him apart – but he wasn’t as concerned about that, as with knowing how much this would hurt Grim. Sol knew that Grim would rather die than allow Sol to be taken; that he would gladly throw himself into any danger if it meant Sol was safe. But Sol wasn’t going to let that happen. Not when he could easily prevent it.

Sol stepped forward and raised his hand to brush against Grim’s face, where blood from a gash on his cheek had dried into a crimson trail. He lifted himself onto his toes so that he could kiss the taller man’s lips, savoring the feeling that he would miss for…a long time, to be sure.

When he broke away, Grim seized his hand, his gloves rough against Sol’s calloused palms.

“You don’t have to do this,” Grim said, pleaded.

Sol’s lips burned and his throat ached when he spoke, barely a whisper. “I know.” He slowly pulled his hand away from Grim’s hold so that he could sign, “I love you. I’ll be alright.”

Grim took a steadying breath and blinked furiously. “Alright.” His voice was hoarse. “Alright. Let’s get down there before Cent gets trigger happy.”

Sol allowed himself to be relieved that Grim wasn’t putting up too much of a fight against him. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to argue right now, and he suspected Grim felt the same. Grim led them downstairs, and Sol let him put all of his energy into deciding their route, and their course of action when they reached the coms room, where Cent and his forces were holed up. Even if it meant he didn’t have much to distract himself from his own impending doom.

‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ he scolded himself. ‘It’s not like they’re going to kill you. Not right away, at least.’ He winced. The alternative wasn’t much better.

He focused his thoughts on Grim instead. That was why he was doing this, after all. Because the Union wasn’t leaving here without something to show for their effort, and the plan, in the event of a situation like this, was for Sol to be the one taken. Ever since they started their operation, nearly a decade ago, that had always been the plan. Sol had had plenty of time to prepare for the inevitable.

Even so, he didn’t feel very prepared.

‘Come on, Speaker,’ he told himself. He and Grim prepared themselves to round the corner, where they would be face to face with the Union forces guarding the coms room. ‘Give them a show. That’s what you’re good at, after all.’

------

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite shadows,” Cent exclaimed as Sol and Grim were shoved into the room – at gunpoint, of course. “I don’t suppose either of you can tell me where to find the Speaker, or anyone of any importance, really.” He tilted his head and smiled, and Sol noted with annoyance that he didn’t appear to have a scratch on him. How he had managed to avoid that, Sol had no idea. Probably by hiding like a coward.

The guard behind Sol prodded between his shoulders with the barrel of his gun, and Sol stepped forward. Grim was still beside him, and Sol forced himself not to look at his partner; but he could feel the tension and anxiety from Grim’s presence either way. Cent was still talking, gesturing with his gun at the huddled group of hostages to his left.

“I really didn’t want to have to kill more people than necessary,” he was saying, his easy smirk revealing the lie. “But I do need results sooner rather than later. Hell, I don’t even know if the Speaker will care if I kill everyone in this building, but I have to start somewhere, right?” He raised his voice with his last sentence, and turned to the equipment set up in the back – the microphone and computers blinked back at him, a clear indication that they were broadcasting.

Everyone on base was probably listening – everyone who wasn’t being mobilized to come help, that it is. Nova and Alt were listening, that much Sol knew for sure, along with the rest of the Inner Circle.

Quite the audience.

Sol took a steadying breath.

“I was going to just move down the line,” Cent said, waving again towards the gathered prisoners, “but since you two are here, maybe I should start somewhere more personal. More gratifying for me, at least.” He met Sol’s eyes and raised his weapon, aiming right between Sol’s eyes. “Unless the Speaker wants to hand himself over before I pull the trigger.”

Sol kept his hands up and his face impassive, and spoke, for the first time in years, to someone other than the Inner Circle.

“As a matter of fact, he does.”

Sol allowed himself to enjoy the look of shock that crossed Cent’s face, and the muffled gasps and noises of astonishment from the others in the room. It was a small satisfaction, but it was there nonetheless. Sol took advantage of the silence to speak again.

“You want me, and no one else, isn’t that right? That’s what you were spouting over the radio two minutes ago anyway.” Sol’s mouth was dry, and his panic was encroaching on his mind. He forced himself to push past it, not allowing his nerves to affect his voice. “Well, are you going to arrest me? Or do you want me to prove I am who I say I am?” Sol smiled, and it was more genuine than he expected. “Should I recite my broadcast opening for you?”

Cent cut him off before he could begin, the words tingling in the back of his throat. “That won’t be necessary.” He had recovered his composure, and kept his gun trained on Sol. “I could recognize your voice anywhere, Speaker.” He shook his head. “I’ll give you credit, I never would have guessed it was you, hiding right in front of me this whole time.”

“I’d say the same about you,” Sol countered, “except that I always knew you couldn’t be trusted.” His smile didn’t waver, even though he knew that verbally attacking the man who was about to hold him at his mercy and currently was holding him at gunpoint wasn’t the smartest move. “You’re not as good an actor as you think you are.”

Cent didn’t seem bothered. “Good enough to achieve my goal, it seems.”

Sol didn’t have a response for that. It was true, after all. It didn’t matter though, because Sol knew that he would have the last laugh in the end. And Cent had no idea.

“Are you going to point that gun at me all day?” Sol asked. “Are we waiting for something before you haul me off to whatever humanitarian nightmare of a prison cell you have waiting for me?”

“Just savoring the moment,” Cent said. Lights flashed through the narrow windows near the ceiling, and he smiled. “Look at that, our ride is here. Perfect timing.” He lifted his free hand and beckoned to Sol. “Come closer, Speaker, since you’re making this so easy for us. Then we’ll see about letting the rest of them go.”

Sol heard a slight inhale from Grim, and knew that the man was struggling to hold his composure. Sol silently begged Grim to stay quiet, to not draw any attention to himself that might rouse suspicion from Cent. Sol needed to be the main focus, so that the rest of them could be safe.

He stepped forward, his hands still raised over his head, until he was only a step away from Cent, who hadn’t dropped his smile.

“You done with the theatrics yet?” Sol tipped his head to the side, hyper aware of the gun that was inches away from his temple. “Unless you want to stand here all day while we wait for our backup.”

Cent put his free hand behind his back and pulled out a pair of glowing handcuffs – Union designed and electrical, by the looks of it. “I didn’t realize you were so eager,” he said, and held out the cuffs. “Put those on and we’ll be on our way. I’ve certainly had my fill of this place.”

Sol thought of at least three different ways to make his disdain at being told to handcuff himself known, but kept them all to himself. The cuffs tingled against his wrists as he fastened them in front of him, a warning of the pain they could deliver should he try to escape. Not that he was planning to; but Sol wouldn’t put it past Cent to activate the cuffs anyway. The Union wasn’t exactly quiet about how much they disliked the infamous ‘Speaker’, after all.

It took a monumental effort not to turn his head to take one last look at Grim as Cent’s guards approached Sol from either side. Sol knew he wouldn’t be able to hold his composure if he saw Grim’s face, and he needed to save face as much as possible.

And he couldn’t bear to see the heartbreak on his partner’s face.

He needn’t have worried, as one of the guards produced a cloth which they secured over Sol’s eyes as a makeshift blindfold. A bit unnecessary, Sol thought, since they weren’t even in a Union Facility yet, but he didn’t say anything. He was quickly realizing that not saying anything was probably the smartest decision moving forward.

Stay quiet, and they wouldn’t have a reason to treat him worse than they were already planning to, right? Right. Sure.

Hands seized Sol’s arms and he was forced to move with them, wherever they were guiding – or rather, dragging – him to. A feeling like a vice settled around Sol’s chest as his feet stumbled over the uneven ground, signaling that they had made it outside. There was a ringing in his ears that he didn’t think was altogether caused by the whir of vehicles and crackle of military grade weaponry that was surely pointed at the building.

He forced himself to focus on breathing, because he wasn’t sure he would remember to breathe at all otherwise. He distantly wondered if they were being recorded. Surely they were; this was too big of an event for the Union to pass up the opportunity to capture it as a glorified, romanticized victory to be projected onto every citizen’s screen, yet another battle for them to twist to fit their propaganda.

But this time, there would be no Speaker to set the record straight. There would only be one side of the story.

Of course, Sol knew that the Inner Circle would come up with some broadcast to the public, or risk losing any tentative supporters they might have. But it wouldn’t be the same.

Sol’s foot hit something metal and he stumbled, hissing in pain. One of the guards behind him laughed shortly, then he was shoved into what he assumed was a vehicle. A hand on his shoulder pushed him to his knees, and his hands were pulled to the cold metal floor and restrained there. He felt cold metal close around his ankles, securing him completely to the floor.

There was shuffling and stomping around him, the sounds of guards seating themselves in the vehicles, and the hiss of static from their radios.

Sol suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable, and not because of the restraints. With the blindfold on, he realized he had no idea how many people were sitting within arm’s reach of him, what their faces looked like, how they were looking at him – it was discomforting, to say the least.

Out of all the noises Sol filtered out Cent’s voice, coming closer.

“…Have the official report delivered this evening. The most important thing is our results, of course. Project Echolocation was a success.” There was a clambering sound as Cent entered the vehicle and a dull thud indicated the door slamming shut. “Get moving,” he ordered, presumably to the driver. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

#whumptober2022 #no.1 #no.2 #no.3 #fic #OC #blood #hostages #capture #whump #my ocs: sol #my ocs: grim #my ocs: cent/dare

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fortheloveoflatinum · 1 year

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Spoiler-Free Review of Star Trek: Picard - Season 3 (from what I've seen so far)

First of all, this is a spoiler-free review of Star Trek: Picard because I have no spoilers to give you! I haven't watched a single episode, but I do watch three to four of the 'Star Trek: Picard: Spoilers for Such and Such an Episode' videos that come up in my recommended feed every Thursday. So I haven't seen a whole lot of it, but let me tell you - I've seen enough.

There will be slight spoilers for earlier seasons of Picard; this could not be avoided.

Second of all, allow me to apologize in advance if you've liked ST: Picard from the start. Or at all. This is probably not the post for you. You've been warned. Now on to the review.

⭐️⭐️/5 (Two stars out of five)

Why? Let me tell you why.

I wanted so badly to like Star Trek: Picard. From day one, I mean, not just now that it's nearly finished and people are still in bed avoiding spoilers for the episode that aired today, which happens to be the penultimate episode if I'm correct, which I might not be because I haven't been following along that closely.

I wanted to like it so badly it hurt. It was one of the only Treks I hadn't watched, being new. And I loved TNG. BTW: there *will* indeed be TNG spoilers but you should be fine so long as you've paid the cable bill sometime in the last 30 years.

TNG was, as most of us agree, utterly amazing!

And that final episode. Where Picard goes to his officers, who are in the midst of a poker game - and they all look vaguely uncomfortable for a moment - and he asks to join them. They relax. Someone, probably Riker, pulls up a chair from him. And Picard looks around the table and he says, "I should have done this a long time ago."

And I was perfectly content to imagine them sailing off into the light of others days. I didn't want a sequel. Especially a sequel where Picard has learned nothing from that seminal moment in his existence. I now read the scene completely different.

The Jean-Luc of ST: Picard never went back to play poker with his crew. Or maybe he did, for a while, but slowly, he lost touch with his bridge crew. They were reassigned. First Worf, then others. And then he lost Data, too. He became bitter and angry and he doesn't even realize until Season 3 that he isn't alone. That he was never alone.

The Jean-Luc Picard I knew and loved from TNG learned that lesson in "All Good Things..." but the Jean-Luc Picard I've seen on my screen recently took three bloody seasons to even come to a modicum of his senses.

Now, there are several redeeming graces in this season. The character dynamics, for one, are very well-plotted and well-played. There's a lot of tension here, and it actually works, unlike in earlier seasons.

And no one can deny that we have a cast of stellar actors who in all likelihood deserved a better show to act out.

Ah, and the nostalgia~! I wasn't ready to watch my heroes grow up and grow old, but well, here we are.

But. And this is a big but. We were promised two things by Star Trek: Picard, by virtue of the very name. We were promised a Trek. And Trek is dark, at times. Trek can be grungy. Trek can grapple with the horrors of conquest and colonialism and cosmic villains. But it's not hopeless, and it doesn't rob the characters of their agency. There's always something that can be done. Some way to pick oneself up and power through. Hopeless is the antithesis of Trek. And a lack of hope is exactly what I see Star Trek: Picard. The entire world - no, the entire galaxy - has lost hope.

We were also promised 'Picard,' but the character we get is unrecognizable as such. He was a realist who used to live in a world of eternal optimism. Now, he's a pessimist who lives in a galaxy where people are afraid of the unknown, immortal cosmic entities can die, and 'the final frontier' has once more become that of the human mind, which is ultimately limited.

Star Trek: Picard boldly went where very few people wanted to see it travel. And it went not with a bang, but with a whimper.

#star trek picard #picard #picard season 3 #st picard #star trek picard spoilers #star trek spoilers #just in case

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thatstudyblrontea · 2 years

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Hi! Just had a random thing pop into my brain and you were the first person I thought of who might be able to help me answer :)

I read a fair amount of books but lately I’ve come to the realisation that (mainly due to health reasons) that I don’t remember much about the book that I’ve been reading, doesn’t matter if I last finished a chapter five minutes ago I couldn’t tell you what I had read. I find that this reflects in how I leave ratings on Goodreads because unless I didn’t finish it or truly hated it I give everything four or five stars because I don’t remember much from it.

That was mostly just rambling 😅 what I’m here to ask is if you have any advice on things that I could track/make note of whilst I’m reading? So that that way I’m more connected with what I’m reading and not just going through the motions and forgetting everything about the book.

I think this makes sense?

Thank you in advance for any help :)

Hi!! I'm so glad you thought of me, I'll do my best to help you 🌼

I think taking notes while you read is a process you have to get used to – but this also means you'll get better with time, learning more about what you like in a book and what helps fetch back a particular memory. I'd suggest to reserve a notebook just for your book tracking, so that it's easier to revise, be it physical or digital. Start with the objective basics:

characters' names and particular traits: the protagonist's best friend briefly mentions that he had a complicated relationship with his mother when he was younger? Write that down: if the book is well written, it'll help you catch ulterior references as the story goes on, or explain some of his actions; if it isn't, it will make it easier to notice discrepancies in character arcs;

relationships: is that character a friend, or just an acquaintance of the protagonist? How does the relationship progress, do you notice subtle changes in the way they speak to each other? What could that mean to how the relationship will progress in the future? Writing down your hypothesis could help you remember these things even without having to look them up again. Try creating a timeline, if it suits you;

places, time, events, plot twists: this is self explanatory, but I'll try to expand on it. I personally often have a hard time remembering what time of the day the action is taking place at, which can change things a lot; writing that down could help you pick the story back up from where you left it, without having to go back, because sometimes you think mc is extremely clumsy, when the poor folk is running in 3am pitch black darkness, and you can't really blame them for tripping a few times. Maybe this is just me, but I hope you got the concept – if there's something you find important that you probably won't remember, like a vague mention of some background character dining that indicates it's almost nighttime, write it down.

Now, since you've also mentioned reviewing your books, I think it would help to write down your impressions and emotions as you go:

pace, flow, and language: has Chapter 3 finally picked up the pace? Was that long descriptive paragraph enjoyable, or unnecessary? Are the sentences too complex or long? Or are they so short you're having a hard time getting into the story?

empathy: is the protagonist likeable, can you sympathize with them? If not, is it because they're the kind of person you wouldn't hang out with, or because their actions and emotions aren't natural and human (if they're human) enough? Are their choices consistent? If not, do you think they're well-constructed flaws, or plot holes?

Wasn't sure about what you needed to hear, so I kind of threw a lot into the mix. I hope it was clear and exhaustive enough, let me know if it helped! ✨

#asks #answered ask #reading tips #reading notes #book notes #bookblr #books #tips #masterpost #long post

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tigger8900 · 3 months

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The Books I Didn't Review

I dropped the ball on book reviews in 2023. I'm not surprised. It was a rougher year than 2022, and I also dropped that particular ball then as well. It's hard for me to stay motivated, especially since when I get stressed out I simultaneously read more and want to write(including blogs) less. But this is a new year(I have realized, more than two weeks into it) and I can wipe this slate clean. Start with a book I'm very excited to review, and then...nothing! Empty pile!

So I'm going to do a very brief overview of some of the books I read in the last few months of 2023. Some stuff I read completely fell through the cracks, because it had to go back to the library and I just wasn't able to write up anything about it. Most of these are ones I'd tried to save though, because I was excited to make a record of them in the blog. So I'm disappointed in myself that I couldn't do as well as I'd hoped, but at the same time I recognize that I did as well as I could. Haven't ragequit my job. Still meeting the important bills. Am reading, and writing, and having weird-ass dreams about what if Beauty and the Beast were mutual beards. So it could be a lot worse. Let's see what happens when I give myself permission to start fresh.

Golden Boys, by Phil Stamper

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

Young adult gen fic. This is Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but with less 00s-era weirdness. Brotherhood of the super gay boys, as I deemed it in a work e-mail. I didn't expect to like this one, but I actually found myself incredibly invested in these boys' lives. I especially appreciated how their friendships were centered above all else, even in the cases where romance was also taking place. I intend to read the sequel if I can find time, because y'all I have *got* to know where these boys go next.

The Darkness Outside Us, by Eliot Schrefer

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Young adult science fiction. This is a love story, but not a traditional romance(even though it starts out looking like a straightforward enemies to lovers in space). High appeal to people who enjoy brainfucky sci-fi as well as gay romance, though if you come solely for the romance you're probably going to walk away disappointed, confused, and possibly vaguely traumatized. I'm so glad my coworker insisted I pick it up, because I never would have read this based on the cover.

Horse Barbie, by Geena Rocero

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Adult memoir. This is about a Filipino trans woman's experience in the pageant circuit in the Philippines as well as her time modeling in the US. I wasn't really into the performance-oriented segments, but I found it illuminating how she contrasted the US's legal acceptance(but social hostility) of trans identity with the Philippines' social acceptance(but legal hostility). Someone who's more into glamour/fashion might get more out of it than I did, but it's still a solid trans memoir even if you're not into that stuff.

Never Whistle at Night, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

Adult short stories. This is an anthology of "dark fiction," horror-adjacent, centering North American indigenous voices. Almost all of the two dozen~ stories were good or great, hitting a diverse selection of tones and content. I loved too many of them to list favorites. The stories might not be the type to make you check under the bed, but come prepared to be unsettled and disturbed.

Citadel, by C. M. Alongi

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

Adult science fiction. Featuring a nonverbal autistic protagonist, who seems to have been researched very thoroughly, this is a story about uncovering the truth about what happened long ago. My main gripe is that it ends rather suddenly, leaving me feeling like there's meant to be a sequel, but as far as I can tell there's no plans for that. But the story it told was fantastic, I just wish I knew where some of the loose ends and teased bits were going. Probably has strong crossover appeal to an older YA audience.

Blackouts, by Justin Torres

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Adult general fiction. Won the national book award this past year. Three and a half stars for the novel, bumped up to four for the excellent use of blackout poetry on found text throughout. It's about an inter-generational friendship between two gay men, one of whom is on his deathbed and gifts the other a selectively blacked-out copy of Sex Variants, a real publication from the 40s, as well as a selection of other photographs and artifacts. This is all characters and no plot. Highly recommend reading this in the print edition, as the best parts seem like they won't translate to audio.

Out There Screaming, edited by Jordan Peele

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Adult short stories. Horror-adjacent "dark fiction"(to borrow a phrase from a previous book) centering Black voices working in a variety of formats and genres. Picked this up for the names included(Nnedi Okorafor, Tananarive Due, N.K. Jemisin, Rebecca Roanhorse, P. Djèlí Clark, Tochi Onyebuchi, and of course Jordan Peele himself), but was happy to enjoy some of the other stories as well. My favorite story by an anticipated author was Clark's Hide & Seek(though it had stiff competition), and my favorite story by a new-to-me author was Nicole D. Sconiers's A Bird Sings by the Etching Tree.

The Possibilities, by Yael Goldstein-Love

⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

Adult speculative fiction. A new mom struggles with contradictory memories of whether or not her child survived the birth. Then he disappears, as if he'd never been, and she has to go find him. I haven't read/seen Everything Everywhere All At Once, but people keep bringing it up when I describe this book to them, so it must be similar! Heavy content warning for baby-related trauma. This is not the book for you if you're going through an anxious time with a pregnancy or young child!

The Future, by Naomi Alderman

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

Adult speculative fiction. In the near-future, tech bro CEOs have a plan for the end of the world. In the lead-up and as the plan deploys, we follow a survivalist blogger and a cult survivor who muses about the end of the world seen through the lens of god's wrath. A surprisingly hopeful pre-apocalyptic(the event itself happens roughly 3/4 of the way through) novel, with some sapphic shenanigans in the background. Funny coincidence: I finished this and handed it to my mom at the same time as she tried to hand me The Power by the same author. 😂

Us, by Sara Soler, translated by Silvia Perea Labayen

⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

Adult graphic novel memoir. Originally published in Spain, this is the story of Sara Soler's experience when her partner comes out as a trans woman. I read this hoping for more insight to their particular experience, especially when Soler mentioned early on that she discovered she was demisexual, but ultimately it reads as more of a primer to trans issues in general. No hate for that, it's just not what I was expecting. While this is marketed to adults, I think there's cross-appeal to teens who are interested in the subject matter. There was nothing that struck me as particularly scandalous, mostly a lot of swearing.

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piratesfromspace · 3 years

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Finance Management (Deckard Shaw/Reader)

Deckard Shaw (Fast & Furious) x Reader

Word count: 1.9k CW: mention of food & alcohol, smut

Female reader

Note: This short fic has been inspired by a friend of mine who created the character of the financial advisor of mister Shaw. Also there is not enough fics with Deckard Shaw so here we are.

Read on Ao3

MASTERLIST

“Mister Shaw, it’s me again, I’m so sorry but I really need you to call me back please. It’s important. Thank you.”

You let out a deep sigh as you hang up. Handling the finances of rich people is a lucrative and thrilling job, but damn it sometimes those clients of yours are annoying. Especially Mister Shaw.

First, he’s annoyingly busy and unreachable. Most powerful people are, but he can disappear for weeks on end without so much as sending an email.

Second, he’s also infuriatingly handsome and smart and funny. And he has an impeccable sense of style. He has nothing in common with the other clients of your firm, mainly old and boring men, whose only conversation subject is their money and how they hate their wives.

And finally, the worst thing about him is how good of a lover he is. You found out half a year ago, when you ended up in his bed after what should have been a regular business dinner. It was a mistake of course. One that could have cost you your career because it was a very serious breach of contract to sleep with a client.

You never told a soul, and you promised yourself to never do it again. But it was still hard to forget the feeling of him pressed against you, of his hands holding your waist, of his mouth between your thighs...

You try to focus again on your task and stretch your legs, kicking out your high heels. Feet bare on the soft carpet, you walk to the floor-to-ceiling window of your posh office, taking a second to admire the view, as the final rays of the sun disappear over the lake, and Geneva lights up under you. It’s breath-taking, really. But it also means you’re once again staying way too late at the office. Your assistant has gone home a couple hours ago, and your colleagues are either on vacation or on business trips, making you the only person on the building’s 7th floor. You still have a few things to finish so you plop on your leather chair and get back to work, hoping to make it home before 11pm.

That’s when you hear it: the familiar *ding* of the elevator’s door, at the end of the corridor. You tense immediately. You’re not waiting for anyone, and the security guards always use the stairs when completing their patrol.

Steps are coming down your way, and you grab your phone, ready to dial for the security team. And then you recognize his silhouette through the polished glass wall. There is a knock on your door before it opens to reveal Deckard Shaw himself. He’s wearing an expensive suit and an even more expensive watch, a very light stubble is highlighting his perfect jawbone and his deep grey eyes bear a mischievous glint. Handsome, as always.

“Mister Shaw…” you stammer.

“You know you can call me Deckard.” His stupidly sexy British accent and cocky smile will be the death of you.

He’s been in your office for two seconds and you already want to slap him in the face - or climb him like a tree, you can’t really decide.

“It’s quite late, Mister Shaw, you scared me. Anything I can do for you?” you insist on saying his family name, in a feeble attempt to maintain a professional façade.

“You needed to see me.” it’s more a comment than a question, and you’re suddenly reminded of the dozen of unanswered phone calls you made trying to reach him.

“Yes… yes, that’s right, but honestly you could have called tomorrow morning.”

“I’d rather see you in person.” he answers, looking you straight in the eyes. You can feel yourself blushing under his gaze. “Wanted to make sure you’re alright. You’re working too much you know.” he says with a soft smile, as his eyes drift down to your sore bare feet and then to the discarded heels under your desk.

What a condescending prick, you think. But at the same time, he’s right and his care seems somewhat genuine. It will not make you forget you almost lost your job because of him though.

“How did you know I was still here tonight?” you purposely redirect the attention on him, rather than you.

“Well, let’s say I would not leave the woman in charge of my assets without any... supervision.”

“Is that a polite way to say you’ve been spying on me?” you retort dryly.

“Oh I love when you’re getting all angry and snobbish, your French accent is even cuter.”

You’re gonna murder him. You really really want to tell him to go fuck himself, but he’s the one responsible for a very generous part of your paycheck, so you have to keep quiet.

“I would be more comfortable if we keep our conversation strictly professional, Mister Shaw.”

“Everything you want, dear.”

-----

“Mmph, fu-ck... Deckard, don’t stop”

The professional attitude has been long forgotten, since Deckard has pulled you onto his lap on the velvet couch of his presidential suite at the Four Seasons hotel, where you were supposed to only review the important documents he needed to see. But when the room service had brought a very nice bottle of Scotch, you knew you were screwed. You could not refuse a drink, and the warmth of alcohol combined with the warmth of his hand slightly brushing against your thigh had overcome all your resolve.

You are now sprawled on the king-size bed, moaning his name as Deckard Shaw is destroying your sanity very methodically. One foot on the floor, one leg bent on the edge of the bed, he’s pounding into you, holding your hip with one hand, and circling your clit with the other. His pace is calculated, not too fast so you can feel every inch of him, but not too slow so your nerves don’t have any respite, and it’s driving you crazy. Hands tangled in the dark silk sheets beneath you, you try to catch your breath to no avail.

“I won’t stop darling. Not until I can feel you coming again all over me.” His voice is like heavy honey, dripping all over your senses, drowning you in sweet and sinful promises.

You want to close your eyes to focus on the overwhelming feelings, but the view in front of you is too good to be missed. He looks like some demi-god, bathed in the subdued light of the room, broad and muscular chest, abs perfectly drawn. What is his job again? You vaguely remember him talking about serving a few years in the military when he was younger, but he is still definitely hitting the gym on a regular basis.

His muscles flex when he brings you down on his thick cock a little more sharply than before, and you keen as he hits that perfect spot inside of you. You can feel your orgasm build again, and so can he.

“You’re close, princess, aren’t you?”

You mewl in response and he chuckles darkly, keeping up with his ruthless assault on your most sensitive parts. He angles his fingers just a bit differently on your clit, and keeps thrusting into you, stretching you so perfectly you can’t remember the last time someone fucked you this good - wait , actually you can, it was a few months ago and it was by mister Deckard “annoyingly perfect” Shaw.

“Come on, I know you want to, I’ll keep going until you give me one more anyway princess…”

And that's it. You’re gone. Back arching off the bed, you come hard, harder than the first time, clenching around him. You barely hear him hiss in pleasure as you spasm helplessly on the soft sheets, the silk feeling almost cool against your burning skin.

----

“Good morning darling."

You open an eye, natural light is flooding the room, as is the delicious smell of fresh coffee and tea. At the foot of the bed, you spot a room service trolley loaded with breakfast treats and through the open door of the bathroom, you can see Deckard is looking at you in the mirror reflection while buttoning a crisp white shirt.

"Your tea is ready. Black, no milk, right?”

He's right and it's annoying because is there anything this man messes up?

"What time is it?" You ask, suddenly remembering you have a busy schedule today.

"You have 27 minutes to eat and get ready, so I can drop you off at your office in time for your first call of the day."

He knows about your tea preferences and your professional agenda, of course he does , he was not joking when mentioning the whole "spying-on-you" situation, or "supervision" as he liked to call it. He needs to stop it, but you decide to keep this discussion for another day.

You stretch, and rise to put on the hotel bathrobe, sighing at the thought of having to wear the same clothes as yesterday. Last you saw them, they were scattered on the floor all over the room and your underwear were positively ruined.

"The concierge was very helpful this morning, thanks to him I got you a few clothes delivered for today." Deckard adds as he pours himself a cup of coffee from the cart and gestures to the leather armchair where a couple of bags doning logos of luxury brands are perched.

You make your way to the packages, and open the first one to reveal a sophisticated dress, fitted and sexy, but not too much that it would be inappropriate as office wear. The second bag is a thoughtful selection of high end make-up products. And the last one contains a gorgeous set of lacy lingerie, nothing too raunchy but sexy nonetheless. Of course everything is in the right size.

"Thank you..." you whisper, a little stunned. The assortment must have cost him a couple grands at the very least - not that he can't afford it because you're well placed to be sure he can, but still, he did not have to do this.

You have to suppress a smile, because damn he's being annoyingly perfect once more, but you don't want to give him the satisfaction to reveal he was right when promising you could stay the night instead of going home and still look fresh for your day at work.

"I was thinking, I'm free tonight, so maybe we can finally review those documents, you know the ones you were supposed to show me before you jumped on me on the couch last night?" Deckard states as he bites in an apple in front of the window, casually looking at lake Geneva glinting in the bright morning sun.

You blush unwillingly, struggling to find a reply that would save you from admitting you had failed at enforcing your usual work ethic.

"I'm kidding dear!" He barks in a laugh. "I know enough to trust you on this venture, you have my approval to go on with the investment." He continues more seriously.

You open your mouth to answer but he's quicker.

"I'm not kidding about being free though, so what about dinner and then we can see where this takes us…"

When you don't answer immediately, he turns to look at you. Maybe he's realizing the situation can be awkward and precarious for you since you're technically working for him.

"You can say no, I won't take any offense." He adds without irony.

"Yes..." You finally answer, tip toeing toward him until you can snatch the apple he was eating from him. He protests but you shush him.

"...Yes, I would like this very much..."

As he starts to protest again, you take a big bite from the fruit with a knowing smile.

"...but only for dinner. Nothing more."

"You'll be the death of me." Deckard says, falsely irritated, his voice dropping lower.

"At least the feeling is mutual, mister Shaw ..."

#deckard shaw #deckard shaw x reader #female reader #fast and furious #hobbs and shaw #deckard shaw fanfiction #hobbs and shaw fanfiction #deckard shaw / reader #jason statham #jason statham imagine #smut #hobbs and shaw smut #deckard shaw reader insert #fast and furious fanfiction

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raifenlf · 3 years

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Why Loki’s Sylvie Is A Mary Sue

So I am firmly in the camp that Sylvie on the Loki series was/is a Mary Sue. The last episode made me feel better and like maybe the show was doing a thing where they were faking you out that she was a Mary Sue only to show she was actually sort of a bad guy and I liked that. But all the recent interviews make me think the show wants to go back to her being a Mary Sue.

But I feel like when I call her out for being a Mary Sue people tell me what are you talking about, she’s not a Mary Sue, bad things happen to her, etc. But that doesn’t actually make her not a Mary Sue.

Also, before we start, I know some people find Mary Sue sexist. But I personally use the term for guys and girls. I don’t use the term to belittle women. I use the term to criticize a poorly written character.

And I know Mary Sue is often used to describe fanfic characters. But to me, this series is kind of like a fanfic because the writers took a character who had been in canon MCU material for ten years and then created characters around that character. So, I kind of review it like I would a fanfic. It’s very different than if the writers had created a brand new show with all of their own new characters.

Anyway, if you are not totally familiar with the Mary Sue term, then check this out:

I know the term Mary Sue probably means different things to different people. But I have always used these guidelines when I write my own fanfic to make sure my characters never come off as a Mary Sue.

This article really gives you a full scale of what a Mary Sue is. If you start reading it, you’ll immediately see why Sylvie is. But I’m going to take out the parts that most fit Sylvie just to highlight why I believe she is a Mary Sue. I apologize for this being so long.

Mary Sue Character Traits

Personality

Erm... what personality? The typical Mary Sue doesn't have one per se, because she isn't meant to be a character; rather, she's an entity by which the author makes cool stuff happen.

I feel like that is Sylvie in a nutshell. She doesn’t have a personality. I feel like even though she ate screentime, I still don’t really know her at all. The writers love to say she’s badass. That’s not a personality.

Sometimes when I am writing stories for fun and creating new characters, I like to take surveys as my fictional characters. Like the kind of surveys you’d see in a magazine, like personality types, what’s your dating style, etc. I figure if I don’t know what my character would do in any of those situations, then I need to keep working on my character. And if I was trying to fill out a survey pretending I was Sylvie I would have no idea what to answer because she doesn’t have a personality. She’s just “cool”.

What little personality a Mary Sue has isn't as important as how other characters react to it. No matter how shy or socially awkward Mary Sue is supposed to be, other characters will be inexplicably drawn to her

This is so Sylvie. Loki falls in love with her...why, exactly? He falls in love with her in the big Nexus event moment...why? Because she had a tough childhood? Mobius spends like two seconds with her in a car and goes from hating her to saying she’s his favorite Loki. For. No. Particular. Reason.

She's extremely persuasive; everyone finds her opinions to be better than their own

She enchants Hunter B-15 and then immediately Hunter B-15 makes it her whole entire life mission to back Sylvie up.

And occasionally she'll be a complete asshole...This can manifest itself in several ways...The author wants to write a badass but doesn't know how. This leads to a character who mistreats everyone around her and is never called out on her abrasive, casually abusive behavior.

Sylvie talked down to Loki and treated him like garbage for all of episode three, but it was never portrayed as a bad thing and we never got any impression Sylvie later felt bad for the way she treated Loki

The author doesn't know how to hold back the character, meaning that she will succeed at practically everything. This means that when she encounters rules or authority figures who would otherwise prevent her from doing what she wants to do, she rolls right through them (and they praise her for her "boldness" in defying regulations). If a bad guy is violent and aggressive, she can beat him by being more violent and aggressive (with all that entails). It's impossible for her to go overboard because she's protected by Protagonist-Centered Morality.

Sylvie is shown as a kid to immediately be able to grab a Tempad and run away. And she can kick ass way better than Loki, for no known reason. She is always able to fight back against the TVA when they attack her. And she can kill lots of innocent TVA agents but it’s okay because TVA bad, Sylvie good.

Skills

She will always be superior to the canon characters, regardless of what canon has established they can do or whether it makes any sense.

Whose skill was needed to defeat Alioth? Sylvie’s. Of course. Sylvie needed to teach Loki her skills in order for him to succeed (!). And again, she is literally called the superior Loki.

Relatedly, there's no effort to her skills. She never actually trains or learns anything to become more powerful; she just wins the Super Power Lottery, or is a freakish natural learner, or is just Inexplicably Awesome

We’re told Sylvie literally taught herself magic. She literally taught herself to enchant people. That. Makes. No. Sense. Like, I have so many questions. Like, why would it even occur to her to teach herself that? And how???????????? This is really lazy writing.

Canon Character Relationships

Mary Sue is often designed to hook up with another character, often as a form of Wish Fulfillment. This isn't that bad in and of itself (okay, it is kinda weird), but Mary Sue accomplishes this without any sense of realism. She just grabs her lover's attention straight away, and their relationship will never face any obstacles or tension; it's true love from the start and nothing else. The biggest giveaway is if the love interest is explicitly the author's favorite character, and she essentially "cures" him of all the angst that ails him (at the expense of his characterization).

Yeah, so...this one should be pretty obvious to anyone who watched the show. Loki literally falls in love with Sylvie immediately, and then he suddenly turns from “villain” to “hero” just because of loving her. And this was definitely at the expense of his characterization. And Loki just knows he falls in love with her. There’s not even any moments of hmm what do I feel for this person? It’s just true love, immediately.

She will be related to a canon character in some way. This (marginally) helps explain such phenomena as her being a Copy Cat Sue and other characters accepting her so easily.

Sylvie is a Loki variant. They use this to help explain why Loki is drawn to her and why their falling in love immediately “makes sense”.

Most characters give her more heed than they normally would. The good guys never stop praising her

Seriously, it was so over the top and OOC for Loki to gush over her. He literally tells her she’s amazing. They don’t even make it subtle.

Characters' previously established personalities change in reaction to her. Proud, arrogant gimps suddenly acknowledge her superiority in everything. Reckless youths will listen to all her advice. Responsible leaders will defer to her instead. Villains will obsess with her to the detriment of all else. Extremely competent characters will become stumbling buffoons who require her help to do anything. Sweet, mild-mannered characters whom the author doesn't like turn evil and insult her. They all become unnaturally focused on her in some way.

Again, Loki’s whole personality changed in reaction to her. He became a buffoon who needed her help to enchant the Alioth because of course he couldn’t do anything without her! Hunter B-15 goes from doing whatever the TVA said to fighting the TVA just because of Sylvie.

Story Elements

Mary Sue is without exception a single-person Spotlight-Stealing Squad. The entire story hinges on her existence; if you removed her, there would be no story.

Sylvie undoubtedly drove the whole story this season. It all became about HER meeting the TVA heads because of HER trauma. Loki’s life was only saved at the beginning because the TVA was trying to capture HER. And SHE was the one who started the whole multiverse (!).

Mary Sue is The Chosen One, even if the setting already has one. There are many ways she can accomplish this: she can be a Sailor Earth type who "shares" the position with the canon hero; she may be vaguely "destined to help the destined one fulfill their destiny" (i.e. do all the work except the final blow so that the prophecy is still technically correct); or the canon hero may be revealed to be a Fake Ultimate Hero all along. Being the Chosen One doesn't necessarily involve her being a God-Mode Sue, especially as authors become aware of the phenomenon and try to avoid it, but it does make her critically important to the world and allows her to continue stealing the spotlight without the "god mode" label.

HWR wanted Sylvie to come with Loki in the end, like she was chosen all along right alongside Loki. Like one of the most important characters in the entire MCU is now this character who we only met a few episodes ago.

Most Sues have an unusually Dark and Troubled Past. It's often used to create a Sympathetic Sue, but any type of Sue can have one

They tell us, over and over, how hard Sylvie’s life was because she was kidnapped by the TVA in order to create sympathy for her.

She almost never does anything wrong. In the rare instance that she does, it's usually; (a) a way for the author to disclaim her being a Mary Sue by introducing a single imperfection (that has no bearing on anything anyway), and (b) designed to show her smarts by making her feel instant remorse, and she'll be Easily Forgiven anyway:

So this one hopefully will not come true, as a lot can change between now and when the show is taped. But if the show goes on the way the behind the scenes team is talking, Sylvie immediately felt remorse for betraying Loki, and Loki has already forgiven her and is desperately looking for her. Ugh.

Alternatively, she is more than capable of doing something wrong, be it in general moral terms or something that goes against whatever code she abides by, and she maybe even frequently does so, but don't expect the other characters or the narrative to ever acknowledge or comment on it in any real capacity. If the other characters do call her out, expect them to be treated like they're the problem for daring to criticize her at all.

Mobius calls her out for killing people, but Sylvie immediately says he’s a bad person and then Mobius agrees, because, of course.

She will often suffer from Special Snowflake Syndrome; i.e., she has a trait or backstory that sets her apart from her group or race.

She is the only female Loki, thus making her the special one among all the Lokis in episode five.

Presentation

In visual media, the camera just can't stop staring at her.

The camera would follow her in fight scenes rather than Loki.

Mary Sue Tropes

Okay, so there are specific Mary Sue tropes that Sylvie is. One of those is Copy Cat Sue, which I think was referenced before.

Copy Cat Sue

A lot of fanfic writers...start to write something because of their passion for this character, but they find something about the character that doesn't mesh well. Maybe they're the wrong gender or are otherwise not close enough to the author's expectations...In any case, rather than put them through the Possession Sue process, they just get a Clone-O-Matic™ and out pops a Copy Cat Sue...the character might be intended as a replacement for the canon character, but without whatever icky traits the author hates. They'll then rob the spotlight, prove the canon character to be unworthy of his/her position, and either relegate the character to obsolescence or, perhaps, even remove them entirely.

Sylvie is basically a clone of Loki, she is a variant. But she absolutely robbed the spotlight of Loki’s, and they literally call her the superior Loki. I mean, they are literally not even being subtle about this. And there was a feeling by myself (and a lot of other viewers) that Sylvie might ultimately replace Loki in the MCU.

Black Hole Sue

Much like a black hole, this is a Mary Sue who "sucks in" the plot and characters to her. Characters will behave outside their personalities, logic will be defied, and rules will be broken for her sake.

Sylvie really does suck up all the plot and Loki definitely behaves outside of his personality just to fit the Sylvie show.

Jerk Sue

A Mary Sue who is mean or maybe even cruel, but are still treated as an ideal person.

Once again, Sylvie is basically a jerk all of episode three, but you’ve got Loki falling over himself to call her amazing in just the next episode.

Relationship Sue

A Mary Sue who exists to be the perfect mate for a specific character...this character has everything in the plot conspiring to enforce this One True Pairing...in Fanfiction, they are the perfect beloved of a canon character.

They literally have Mobius speculate that Loki falling in love with Sylvie is so extraordinary that it causes an entire Nexus event, that’s how huge this One True Pairing is (!). And Sylvie is the love interest of Loki, the only character who had been around before the beginning of the series

TLDR: Sylvie has all the tropes of a classic Mary Sue character. So calling Sylvie a Mary Sue isn’t being sexist or just randomly hating on the character. If you use common Mary Sue characteristics to examine the character, she just has too many of these characteristics to ignore.

#loki negativity #antisylvie #loki critical #loki criticism #antisylkie

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thornedrose44 · 3 years

Note

Supercorp prompt-

Lena takes an art class to de-stress and Kara is the nude model. Awkward semi- naked flirting ensues.

(A/N: So, I put my own twist on this (hope that’s okay), I made Lena a teacher just because I liked the idea of Lena having to keep her lack of chill under control and be professional in front of a class funny - though this fic went down just a really light, fluffy route which I hadn’t expected when I started it.)

Read on AO3

It had been going well, the first term had passed with only a few missteps and one trip to the emergency room - though, the Dean had told her that Zach had yet to make it through a single class without some sort of accident and had been preemptively banned from taking Chemistry classes for fear of taking out an entire graduation class.

Lena had never expected to return to her alma mater as a lecturer but the stars had aligned at just the right time. The youngest Luthor had reached a stage in her career where she had finally proven her adoptive mother wrong about not finding success as an artist and had made enough money that she need never paint another picture in her life again. The lack of necessity and the return to a more Luthor-esque lifestyle - galas, fancy balls and paid talks - had subsequently impacted her inspiration. She needed a change. A return to her roots and some sort of stability without losing her ability to make a personal impact with her work.

Her mentor - J’onn - was stepping down from the art department and had recommended her as his replacement; National City University had jumped at the chance of the world renowned Lena Luthor taking up a teaching position there.

She was now a third of the way through the school year, settled comfortably into her new role, and absolutely loving it. Her spark was back, and she was enjoying being in one place surrounded by her old friends. She was reconnecting with skills and techniques she hadn’t touched in years whilst simultaneously giving advice and encouragement to students that reminded her of herself when Lillian had cut her off to force her into attending business school and abandoning her dreams. She was finally able to return the kindness J’onn had given her all those years ago to the next generation of artists.

It was the second term that Lena experienced her first set of real nerves.

Lena had an artistic weak spot, an achilles heel that she had been able to keep out of her signature artistic style but she would now be forced to confront.

Life drawing.

It had been her lowest scoring class by a mile and she had avoided the advanced elective classes like the plague. Lena knew practice made perfect but she’d never had enough interest to develop her skills. Her interest had always lied more in natural landscape beauty - J’onn had said her true inspiration lied with trying to recreate her childhood memories of Ireland: emerald rolling hills, rocky cliffs, dense forests ensconced by a mystical fog that lended her artwork a fantastical element that she was now known for.

The problem lied in Lena’s lack of interest in people.

She had never really seen the ‘art’ in them.

Kelly, Sam and Andrea had spent hours over evening drinks psycho-analysing just why that might be, their two favourite theories were Lena’s family (the loss of her mother and the general unpleasantness of the Luthors) or Lena’s truly terrible dating history (their favourite topic of conversation due to the sheer number of embarrassing stories it elicited).

Lena refused to acknowledge the accuracy of both theories.

It was therefore with a sense of dread that Lena prepared for the first Life Model Drawing class that Tuesday afternoon. The one small silver lining was that she didn’t need to arrange a model - she had vague memories of J’onn trying to entice volunteers and grumbling under his breath about some of the less than pleasant eager volunteers. J’onn had a list of regular volunteers that he had accrued over the years that were reliable and just liked to help out - most of them older with an appreciation for the arts and more time on their hands than they knew what to do with. The University admin team had organised everything and simply told her to expect a Kara Danvers at the studio some time before the class.

Lena had finished prepping the studio well in advance, reviewed the relevant techniques for most of the morning and even phoned J’onn for a much needed pep talk over lunch. She had just convinced herself that everything might be okay, that she just might be able to do this, when the most beautiful woman Lena had ever laid eyes on burst into the studio.

A toned body that glinted with a light sheen of sweat barely covered by a white v-neck tucked in at the front of a pair of dark jeans that merely brought all of Lena’s attention to the bronze belt buckle that locked away a thousand dirty thoughts. Glorious golden ringlet curls bounced up and down as the woman stumbled to a sudden stop as the most piercing blue eyes imaginable behind thick glasses locked with Lena’s green ones.

“Hi, I’m Kara!” The goddess announced, swallowing thickly and stumbling forward in her hefty black boots as she extended out a hand for Lena to take.

Lena only reached out due to years of Luthor training that had ingrained politeness into her muscle memory - her brain still not firing on all cylinders at the sight of the woman in front of her. Kara’s warm palm connected with Lena’s, long fingers curling gently yet firmly around the edge of her hand and sending arcs of lightning through Lena’s body and causing her breath to stutter.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting for me for too long.” Kara continued, a bright apologetic smile lighting up her entire face and grinding whatever gears were still turning Lena’s mind to a dead - permanent - halt. “I try to always get here early to help set-up but the interview I was conducting overran - I’m a journalist, by the way - and then my bike - motorbike that is -” Lena’s mind caught on the motorbike and turned it round over and over and over again, “didn’t start and… I’m rambling. Oh, golly! I mean heck, I mean sorry.” Kara huffed, cheeks filling with air before releasing into an adorable pout. “Sorry.”

It was then that Lena realised two things.

One, it was her turn to say something and there had now been at least ten prolonged seconds of silence as they stared into each other’s eyes.

And two, they were still holding hands because that’s what it was now, it most definitely could not be considered a handshake.

“Umm… hi…” Lena choked out whilst simultaneously jerking her hand back to her side, hoping the somewhat stifling heat of the studio would hide the red blush perfusing her cheeks. “Lena. I’m Lena, that is…”

“Hi.” Kara murmured, smiling soft and sweet at her causing Lena’s heart to flip and melt and dance and do a million impossible things all at once.

“Hi.” Lena repeated dumbly - so dumbly.

“I should…” Kara chuckled, hands miming grabbing the edge of her t-shirt and lifting it up, “You know?”

Oh, god the goddess is going to undress, Lena’s brain screamed in gay at herself.

“Yeah, definitely do that.” Lena encouraged with a flap of her hand towards the centre of the studio where a solitary illuminated stool awaited. “Do you need anything? Is the lighting okay? Stool… umm… sturdy?”

Kara grinned at her, blue eyes barely sparing a glance at the studio’s set-up, “Looks perfect.”

“Great.” Lena cheered, jerking her thumb over at her desk in the corner where she had prepped her teaching materials, “I’ll… uh… be over there.”

“And I’ll be right here.” Kara shot back with a cheeky wink as she walked over to the stool, a towel awaiting her to provide suitable covering until the class had settled, shucking her white shirt over her head and revealing back muscles that would star in Lena’s fantasies for the foreseeable future.

“Yep.” Lena popped, taking a deep breath and trying to work out if she should be murmuring a thank you to God or screaming a desperate why me.

***

The class had gone well - except for the long periods where her brain shutdown whenever she studied the play of shadows across Kara’s defined musculature. She managed to cover it quite well by making it seem like she was just assessing her students’ work closely, analysing their line work and shading rather than going through an extended gay crisis that eclipsed seeing boobs for the first time in college.

Kara, on the other hand, was a consummate professional, holding a steady pose throughout and utterly unfazed by the concentrated gazes on her - though, Lena could have sworn that she caught deep blue eyes tracking her movements round the half-circle every now and again.

“So, you’re experienced doing this?” Lena asked, once the last student had departed and Kara was finishing re-tying her sturdy boots back up.

“Taking my clothes off?” Kara chuckled, shooting the teacher an amused smirk, getting to her feet and strolling easily over to where Lena was examining the product of her class’ efforts.

Lena faltered, “I meant-”

“I’m just teasing.” Kara reassured, reaching out to squeeze Lena’s forearm in a half-apology that Lena could have sworn burnt Kara’s hand print into her skin, “I’ve done this for a while now. I did an interview with J’onn a few years ago and his model bailed at the last minute and I was here already and…” Kara shrugged casually like stepping in was the obvious thing to do, like kindness was the only option - which Lena didn’t doubt for a second was something Kara genuinely believed. “I like helping out where I can. And I just kept coming back…” Kara explained, clasping her hands behind her back as she took a tentative step closer to Lena, “I was never really sure why until-”

“Hey, babe, you ready to go?”

Lena’s head snapped round to see Andrea strolling through the doorway, eyes fixed on her phone utterly oblivious to the moment she had just trampled all over. Lena wasn’t sure whether Andrea was naturally such a good cockblock or if she practiced at it - regardless of either option Lena’s sexlife had vanished into thin air since she’d returned to living in the same city as Andrea. (Not that Lena thought that her and Kara were heading that way but Lena had been enjoying the hope of it at least).

“Andrea, you’re early for the first time in.... well, ever…” Lena snarked, rolling her eyes before glancing over to Kara, only to find the blonde had taken a large step away from her and her expression was far more neutral and guarded than it had been only moments before.

“Wait, we weren’t meeting at 4?” Andrea frowned, still not bothering to look up.

“Ah, so you’re not early, you’re over an hour late.” Lena remarked.

“God, you’re such a drama queen…” Andrea sighed, finally lifting her gaze from her phone, her eyes immediately alighting on Kara with undisguised interest. “And who is this?”

“Andrea, this is Kara the model for our life drawing classes.” Lena introduced taking a protective step in front of the blonde, an action that did not go unnoticed by the other two occupants in the room. “Kara, this is my supposed best friend who is regularly trying to lose that title.”

“Oh, best friend?” Kara repeated; the familiar brightness from before returning to her expression as she looked excitedly between the two friends.

“Yes.” Lena answered, smiling shyly at Kara and immediately forgetting Andrea’s existence, let alone presence in the room.

“That’s great.” Kara grinned, blushing a light pink a second later as her hands fidgeted with her keys, “I mean… ummm…. That you have a best friend. My sister is my best friend, though I have other friends. I just mean that… friends are cool.”

Lena laughed lightly at Kara’s ramble, leaning closer towards the blonde without realising until Andrea appeared at her shoulder looking far too pleased with herself.

“Kara,” Andrea greeted, holding out a hand for the blonde to shake (Lena was comforted to see their handshake was quick, almost professional in comparison to the lingering touch Kara and Lena had shared earlier). “The pleasure is all mine.” Andrea declared, winking surreptitiously at the teacher - Lena instantly dreaded the upcoming girl’s night.

“Nice to meet you.” Kara replied friendly and sincere, before smiling softly at Lena and muttering a hopeful, “I’ll see you next week?”

“I’ll be here.” Lena reassured, watching as Kara nodded farewell to Andrea and departed, waving on her way out.

“Well…” Andrea murmured mischievously.

“Don’t.” Lena said sharply, holding up a finger to deter whatever torment Andrea had brewing. “Not a word. Not a single word.”

“Ooookay.” Andrea lied.

***

“You okay?” Lena asked tentatively, watching as Kara sluggishly slung her bag over her shoulder the pep to her step nowhere near as present as it had been last week.

They hadn’t had a chance to talk before the class even though Kara arrived much earlier to help set-up - Lena had been helping a student struggling with deadlines and a sudden crisis of confidence which prevented them from interacting. Despite being occupied, Lena had seen the fatigue weighing heavily on the reporter, saw how her impeccable posture dropped and how her students added weary lines to her expression in their artwork.

“I think you fell asleep on that stool for ten minutes at some point.” Lena murmured, brow creasing in concern.

“Pfft… what?” Kara reassured with a light-hearted wave of her hand. “Impossible.”

Lena arched an unimpressed eyebrow, “You snore. Quite loudly.”

“Oh…” Kara pouted guiltily, rubbing at the back of her neck, “My sister is going through a rough patch and I stayed up late with her last night.”

Lena’s amusement drained away to be replaced with soft, supportive care, “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s doing better.” Kara replied, blue eyes twinkling at Lena’s inquiry that had them both ducking their heads coyly and sharing furtive glances. “I should get going.” Kara coughed out, though she made no move to leave.

“Or…” Lena began hesitantly, heart fluttering in her chest, “we could go for coffee? You should probably have a coffee before driving,” Lena rationalised, nervously stepping back from the blatant romantic line she was toeing, “you know for safety…”

“For safety.” Kara repeated carefully, blue eyes glowing with warmth, “That sounds wonderful.”

***

It didn’t take them long at all to settle into a comfortable routine.

Kara came early to the life model classes, helping set-up the room as they talked about the students' progress and what Lena was going to make the focus of the class. During the class itself, Lena no longer needed to flit as regularly between her students, they had learned the basic techniques enough to practise for themselves, now only requiring light guidance which allowed Lena time to either do some marking or her own art. Kara posed perfectly throughout, though Lena was becoming more and more aware of Kara’s still gaze on her as the weeks passed by.

After class, it was now custom for them to grab a coffee and go for a long walk around the university campus as they talked about everything and nothing. They would have been building towards a strong friendship if it wasn’t for the lingering touches, blatant flirts, blushes and wandering gazes.

Lena wasn’t overly sure why they hadn’t crossed that line, made that final move, but she found she didn’t particularly mind the wait. She was convinced that they had both decided that the journey was making the destination all the more desirable.

It became abundantly apparent, though, that Kara thought differently if their conversation after the class midway through the term was anything to go by.

“So do you not like my body?” Kara asked, quick and fearful, eyes looking down at the sketch Lena had done during class of a vase of flowers in the corner rather than of the readily available model.

“What?” Lena muttered in disbelief looking up sharply from her desk to see Kara paling considerably having clearly not intended to ask the question that she had blurted out.

“I… uh…” Kara squeaked, mouth opening and closing rapidly, before lifting her bare wrist up with a jerky motion and whistling in exaggerated surprise, “Wow, look at the time. I’m late for… uh… this thing. Work thing. Interview! That’s a work thing.”

And just like that she was gone - Lena wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a Kara shaped hole in the studio wall with how fast she disappeared - leaving Lena with a sinking, twisty feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her she might have lost more than her regular coffee with Kara over that one interaction.

***

Lena had Kara’s phone number and they had taken to texting throughout the day; however, since Kara’s panicked question - which probably revealed some deep vulnerability in the blonde - there had been complete and total radio silence. No memes, no cute animal pics, no sweet check ins… Lena’s phone remained silent when it once vibrated with life.

Lena wanted to text or call Kara the second she had left the studio but Lena didn’t feel like this was a conversation they could have over text, so she waited impatiently for them to be face to face again, counting down the days until the next class.

Lena even took to repeatedly checking in with the admin office to confirm that Kara hadn’t pulled out of modelling; reaching the stage where Jess, the most senior admin in the team, had taken to emailing her every couple of hours to reassure her that Kara still hadn’t cancelled.

When Kara appeared, nervously stepping into the art room, fingers playing with the hem of her shirt, it was like Lena could finally breathe easy again. The fear and loss eeking away in an instant, giving Lena the necessary courage to stride forward and bare herself in a way that Kara had been doing every week without Lena fully realising.

“I don’t like drawing people.” Lena announced, shoving her hands into her pockets to resist the temptation to reach out to the other woman as the blonde blinked at her in surprise, listening intently. “It’s kind of a thing with me.” Lena winced, pushing down all the reasons for why that is. “When I draw something I… kind of let whatever it is into me, let it consume me and it… stays with me for a long time after that. It’s why I draw what I draw. I draw my home because it's a part of me already. Drawing someone means carrying them with me and… that’s scary for me.” Lena breathed, glancing at the blonde to see soft understanding in blue eyes. “I just wanted you to know it’s not you.”

Kara nodded, shuffling closer and dipping her head so that she could whisper into the still space between them, “Thank you.”

“Right,” Lena murmured, swallowing thickly before jerking a thumb over her shoulder, “I should-”

“Do you want to get dinner?” Kara inquired earnestly causing Lena to freeze in hopeful surprise. “After class, that is?”

“Um… Yes.” Lena replied, nodding her head eagerly.

“Awesome.” Kara grinned brightly.

***

Kara took her to a tucked away italian restaurant that was one of National City’s hidden gems. The food was outstanding and the company was even better.

It wasn’t a date, but it wasn’t just friends going out for dinner either.

Lena would call it a test-run but that would imply that Lena wasn't already one hundred percent certain that she wanted an actual date with Kara. It was more of a date-appetiser if Lena was going to call it anything, a taste to build interest before the real thing.

Once they had finished their food, Kara didn’t hesitate to interlace their fingers as they went for an evening stroll around a nearby park, both wishing to prolong their time together.

“Can I see your art?” Kara requested; they had been sitting on a bench in front of a lit-up fountain for the last twenty minutes or so in comfortable silence. Lena had expressed an interest in sketching the fountain and Kara hadn’t hesitated to find them a seat and encourage Lena’s desire without complaint, occupying herself with people-watching in the meantime.

“I’m pretty sure the images are all over the internet.” Lena replied drolly.

“Yeah, I know it’s just…” Lena’s pencil froze in it’s movements finally noticing how hard Kara was trying to act casual, “what you said about it being a part of you, I thought-”

“You want me to show it to you…” Lena inferred, setting her pencil down and closing her handy sketchbook in an instant.

“It’s stupid, I’ll-” Kara laughed awkwardly, shaking her head in an attempt to brush over the request like it wasn’t a big deal

“I don’t have many pieces here in National City,” Lena said thoughtfully, getting to her feet and holding out a hand for Kara, “but I have some works in progress that I can show you… if you want that is?”

“I would love that.” Kara beamed, jumping to her feet as Lena tugged her back towards her campus studio, already picking out her favourite pieces in her mind that she wanted to share with the blonde.

***

Lena and Kara’s ‘friendship’ continued to blossom into something neither could have anticipated that day Kara sprinted into the studio all those weeks ago. The weekly class they shared was now always followed by dinner, taking it in turns to share their favourite cuisines and restaurants. They had also grown beyond only seeing each other on their allotted class day, sharing lunches and movie nights and spontaneous coffees as they learned each other's schedule and needs.

Lena read all of Kara’s articles and spent many an evening asking countless questions about the background to each of them. Likewise, Kara would appear for coffee with one of Lena’s artworks saved in her phone, burning with curiosity about what had inspired it.

Time spent with Kara flew by and, before Lena knew it, it was the final class prior to spring break. Her last class with Kara until the next school year and Lena was finally ready.

She had finally figured it out.

Why she had waited.

Why she had yet to seize the numerous opportunities to transition her relationship with Kara into a romantic one.

It was because she knew.

She knew from the second that she had taken Kara’s hand in hers when they first met that this was it. That Kara was it.

And that was, and still is, terrifying.

When they had first met, Lena hadn’t been ready for Kara. Hadn’t been ready for everything that Kara represented and would come to mean. She had needed the time, the time to lower her guard, to trust and hope.

And now, she was ready and she knew exactly how to let Kara know.

The class came to an end with Lena giving her students a quick speech on how proud of their progress she was and wishing them a good spring break. Kara lingered behind as was now custom, helping Lena tidy up the area before they headed out together.

“Kara?” Lena called out nervously, sweaty palms rubbing against her black denim covered thighs as her heart beat thunderously in her chest. “I was wondering…” Lena began, clearing her throat as Kara stopped what she was doing to give Lena her undivided attention. “Can I… can I draw you?”

Kara’s brow instantly furrowed in confusion, “I thought-”

“Yeah…” Lena laughed shyly, staring into deep blue eyes, practically begging for Kara to understand what she was really saying. “Can I?” Lena repeated.

Kara pursed her lips thoughtfully as she studied Lena’s expression - it was then Lena realised that Kara understood exactly why they had been waiting. Kara wasn’t replying because she wanted to check that Lena was sure, was giving Lena a chance to delay, was saying - without really saying it - that she could wait longer.

Lena didn’t take the escape Kara offered, instead she lifted her head higher and arched an eyebrow at the blonde.

A thousand-watt smile of excitement took up residence on Kara’s face as she nodded eagerly, “Of course.”

“Clothes on.” Lena clarified - she had promised herself that the first time she truly studied Kara’s body it would be in a setting where touching would not break any professional standards.

***

Lena had Kara sit opposite her in her private studio, their knees pressed tightly against one another providing a warm point of contact to keep them grounded. Lena’s gaze flickered from her sketchpad to Kara’s features; occasionally, she would reach out to adjust a lock of golden hair so it caught the light. Kara, meanwhile, had an ever constant soft smile that didn’t diminish for the entirety of the session even as she was forced to rein in her boundless curiosity to stop herself from sneaking a peek at Lena’s sketch until it was ready to be revealed.

Lena only drew Kara’s head because, though, she had spent countless hours in the presence of Kara’s naked body over the course of the last few weeks - when Lena thought of Kara (really thought about her in the way that made her heart skip), it wasn’t her abs or her biceps that Lena pictured (though she did think about them regularly when she was in her bed alone at night).

It was Kara’s eyes that Lena thought about most.

How they were so bright and hopeful whilst simultaneously melancholic and lost.

There were whole galaxies in those blue eyes and Lena knew that she could spend the rest of her life drawing them and never get bored, nor get them exactly right.

“What do you think?” Lena asked, slowly turning her sketchbook round for Kara to see.

It wasn’t finished. It was mere line work that would require further detailing but it was a good start and she hoped Kara could see its potential like she did with everything else in the world - like she did with Lena.

“It’s…” Kara began, licking her lips as she pulled the sketchbook closer to her chest like it was something treasured and infinitely rare. “It's incredible.” Kara breathed, the sincerity of her words undeniable due to how they were accompanied by a watery film to her blue eyes.

“I like your body.” Lena whispered, shattering the companionable silence they had drifted into as Kara admired Lena’s artistry.

“W-w-what?” Kara stammered, head jerking up at the out-of-the-blue declaration.

Lena reached out for the sketchbook, lifting it out of Kara’s hand and placing it on the nearby table so that she could take Kara’s hands in hers.

“You asked if I liked your body a while ago,” Lena reminded the blonde, “and I just thought you should know that I do. I really, really do. I mean really.” Lena emphasised, glancing appreciatively down at Kara’s body prompting the blonde to blush a pleased pink. “But it's more than just that. It’s become more than that. Talking after class, getting coffee, going for dinner… it's the best part of my week. You’re the best part of my week.”

“Lena-” Kara began, her mouth suddenly snapping shut as her jaw clenched and her chin lifted in determination. Blue eyes studied Lena for a long moment and all Lena could do was hold her breath and wait.

Lena made Kara wait weeks, she could therefore wait the stretched seconds that Kara needed in return without complaint

Kara got confidently to her feet, tugging Lena up with her, squeezing their hands once before releasing her so that she could reach up to tenderly cup Lena’s face. “I’m going to kiss you now.” Kara declared, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Thank fu-” Lena sighed gratefully, cut off from offering up her thanks by Kara’s perfect lips sliding over hers.

#supercorp #supercorp fic #supercorp prompt

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