#which would abide by the rules of her game. cause i said the truth first question. so im lying for the second. i actually wannasee her again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

faulty-writes · 3 years

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Can I request a Pro Hero! Deku x Pro Hero! Reader where reader is an undercover hero who can’t talk about her missions or the injuries from her missions because of confidentiality, and Deku himself doesn’t tell her that he goes to the hospital when he gets severely injured, and then it just spirals into an argument?

There were many heroes that inspired you, especially when you were attending U.A. Spending long hours figuring out your power moves and trying to be the top student. Not to mention the team training exercises you were put through. But one student, in particular, always managed to catch your eye.

The one who grew up to become the Pro Hero: Deku. However, you always tried to stay clear of interacting with other heroes, not because you felt lesser compared to them. But because of the line of work you had chosen, most wouldn’t risk becoming an underground hero.

In general, being a hero was considered dangerous work. The select few who made the choice to do underground or undercover work were admired and often sought out for their skills. But like with most things, there was a downside. One of the strict rules you had to abide by was confidentiality. Your missions, as well as your injuries, were to be kept under lock and key.

But most pro heroes tended to hide their injuries anyway. Either because of fear of ruining their public image or to not worry those that happened to be close to them. But either way, the truth cannot remain hidden forever, and such was the paranoid thought that haunted you every time you saw Izuku.

Since graduating, you two had grown close. Maybe too close, but even when you were off-duty and happened to spot the green-haired man. He’d always seem so keen on inviting you to lunch or some type of hangout, anywhere he could get some peace and quiet with you.

At first, you were hesitant. Too worried or paranoid that Izuku would pry into your personal life, you knew from your schooling days that Izuku tended to be overly interested in other people's lives and their inspiring stories which were usually tied to some injury or major event that changed them and their perspective as a hero.

But Izuku’s company was welcomed and it was nice to vent about a few things regarding your life. But that seemed to change the rare times Izuku spotted an injury on you, whether it was a simple bruise, or bandages surrounding a certain part of your body. While he never questioned it, you always feared he would.

But that never stopped you from continuing to spend time with him, which is why you found yourself at his apartment. He chose to remain living in the same building as his mother which you understood considering his close relationship with her and the fact his father spent long periods of time away from home.

It happened to be a rainy day and the droplets created an eerie echo as they hit the roof of the building. But you remained unphased as you sat on Izuku's couch, the clinking of ice almost drowning out the sound of the rain. You clenched your jaw as you moved your legs, such was not an easy task due to the fact you had gotten injured yet again during a mission.

The lengths some villains would go in order to keep a secret was amusing, especially when it came to underground fighting rings where illegal quirk enhancing drugs were used. But one had to be careful as these quirk enhancers came with a price, if ingested the user lost all rational thinking. Rendering them nothing but a violent, rage-filled opponent.

The villain you had faced was dangerous, their quirk allowing dense crystal-like spikes to grow from any part of their body. They had attempted to render you helpless by piercing your legs repeatedly, the sound of your flesh being torn and the bloody mess that followed was almost too much to think about.

But the fact you had refused to give up even as you laid on the ground, unable to run was somewhat admirable. In the end, if it hadn’t been for Best Jeanist and Hawks. You would have lost your life, you almost felt embarrassed that the previous generation of Pro Heroes had to save you.

It was almost like you were in school again, seeing how far you still had to climb. But luckily, your legs were 'stable' after a few operations and Recovery Girl’s efforts. But you had lost a lot of muscle, which meant you would be out of commission for a while or so was the recommendation. You knew as a hero such was unrealistic.

When you were on your feet, your legs shook and threatened to give out from underneath you. This forced you to sit or play a strategy game of leaning against furniture and walls in a way that wasn’t suspicious or drew attention to the fact you could end up on the floor at any moment.

“I hope I didn't put too much ice…” Izuku said as he took the seat next to you, the ice in question continued to float along the top of your glass. You looked at it a moment before nodding, “It’s fine. Thank you, Midoriya,” your fingers tightened around the glass before you brought it to your lips and took a sip.

The cool liquid flowed down your throat before you placed the glass on top of your thigh. You turned to look at Midoriya who returned your stare with a smile. “I’m glad,” he responded before he went to take a sip of his own drink. But, he paused when a subtle vibration coursed through the floor and shook the furniture.

The ice in your drink bounced, clinking together rapidly before the windows of Izuku’s apartment cracked and shattered. A cry escaped you and before you could properly react, you felt Izuku’s warm embrace. Your head pressed up against his chest and his arms wrapped around you, shielding you from the bits of glass that sprayed all over.

The air in the room grew cold and you could feel raindrops against your skin. The glass you had been previously holding was now shattered on the floor and you would have felt bad for involuntarily breaking it if not for the fact that Izuku leaned back up. His attention turning to the now shattered windows as the rainy wind dampened his hair, making the green strands stick to his forehead with ease.

He then scrambled to get up, leaving you on the couch with a surprised expression. Your fingers curled into the damp cushion you sat on while Izuku looked out one of the windows. His eyes narrowing as he witnessed a dark cloud of smoke through the rain, it looked like it was coming from one of the distant buildings.

His hand slowly folded into a fist and he turned to look at you. Immediately you recognized the expression in his eye which was only confirmed when he walked back over to you. “Come on,” he spoke urgently as he held his hand out and your body stiffened. You looked at that offered hand, watching as a few drops of rain slid off his palm.

Then you slowly glanced back at him, goosebumps beginning to rise across your skin. His hand flexed impatiently, “Uh…” you trailed off, unsure if you could actually get onto your feet properly. But you knew that wasn’t an excuse, you were a hero and you’d push yourself if you needed to.

You swallowed hard before reaching for his hand, his grip was just as urgent as his voice and he pulled you onto your feet. Of course, you weren't prepared for such a thing and a gasp escaped you. Now standing tall, your legs began to course with that familiar numb feeling.

You reached up to brush your bangs out of the way, allowing them to clump together with the rest of your dampened hair. “We have to take care of this situation, are you ready?” he questioned as he released his grip on your hand, flashing a determined smile your way. Your legs began to tremble and you hoped Izuku would continue to focus on your face rather than the fact you could collapse any moment.

Still, you nodded. Izuku returned it before stepping back. Creating enough distance between you two before tightening his fists and bending his arms. You watched that all too familiar quirk of his activate, green lightning-like streaks surrounding him. While interesting, your focus seemed to be elsewhere.

Mainly his shirt and the way the wet fabric clung to his arms, allowing the shape of his biceps to come to light. He turned to you, that smile of his growing before he took off. The backlash of wind ruffled your hair and caused you to bring your arms up in an attempt to shield yourself.

You looked out the shattered window with amazement as Izuku flew through the air. Then your legs finally gave out, making you land roughly on your knees among the broken pieces of glass on the floor and a soft growl escaped you. ‘Come on…’ you thought as you tried to push yourself up once more, reaching out for the coffee table in front of you.

However, the slippery surface made it hard to get a proper grip. ‘The city needs you!’ the words echoed in your head before you began to pull your body up. Legs shaking underneath your weight and your knees were faced inward.

But regardless, you slowly took a step forward. It seemed to take longer than it should have and your body was soaked by the time you reached the far end of the city. More explosions sounded and the ground beneath you shook violently causing you to fall to the cracked pavement which had several metal pipes sticking out of it.

You prayed there were no severed electrical wires laying about, you didn't feel like getting electrocuted. Regardless, you focused your attention away from the pavement when you saw a small shadow. Tilting your head up, you could see Izuku floating through the air. His shirt and pants ripped and a fair amount of dirt covered his person, but it ran down in thick lines thanks to the rain.

You could hear the chatter of civilians and turned your head, your heart sinking at the sight of their worried expressions. ‘What’s going on!?’ ‘Are you a hero!? Why aren’t you saving us!?’ Sometimes you hated how civilians would mock heroes and demand things from them. But still, it was your job to save them and you wouldn’t let them down...if you could help it.

“Please take appropriate action, the heroes will properly handle this situation,” you promised, though as usual you got some eye-rolls and muttered comments expressing doubt in your abilities. You tried your best to ignore them and started for the area you saw Izuku flying through, taking note of the destroyed and crumbled buildings.

Bits of shattered glass was everywhere and metal signs that once stood tall were bent in ways that weren’t entirely possible. You tried to ignore the way the rain seemed to create some odd rhythmic noise against the pieces of metal. But a voice cut through the white noise seconds later.

“Look out!” Izuku’s voice came and you felt the ground underneath you shake before a loud crack echoed. You tilted your head up, watching as part of a building slid out of place and began to hurtle down towards you. Casting a large shadow over the area you stood and you couldn’t move, your legs were too weak in their current state to maneuver the way they needed to.

The fact your body was shaking from the cold and your clothes were sticking to your body didn't help either. “Y/n!” this went unheard by you as you crossed your arms over your head, ready for the impact that could possibly end your life. However, you didn't feel it. Instead, it felt as though the wind were knocked out of you.

Someone’s arms came to wrap around your waist and the world blurred around you. However, the impact from the building hitting the ground sounded, and you were almost worried the noise would make your ears bleed. But the violent series of vibrations that came after was more of a concern.

It seemed the whole city shook, broken glass falling from the skyscrapers up above only to mix with the rain to create a dangerous shower that could cut one to pieces. You cried out when your back hit the ground causing your shirt to get ripped and bloody scrapes to appear on your skin.

You coughed before opening your eyes, a little dumbfounded as you realized what position you were in. Flat against the ground with Izuku above you, his hands placed on each side of you and he was looking directly at you. Droplets of rain fell from his hair and onto your face, and you couldn't help but notice the way those wet strands hung down to frame the sides of his face.

Yet his determined and angry glance distracted you more than anything and you noticed there was a faint amount of blood dripping from his forehead as well, but the rain was doing its best to wash it away creating nothing but bloody wet lines. “Deku…?” you questioned in a soft voice before noticing the state of his arm.

The shredded skin was oozing red which dripped down and soaked into the pavement below. Was that from pulling you out of the way? Did he get hurt as the building was coming down? The guilt made your stomach twist and you tried to reach out for him.

But Izuku’s head quickly turned to look over his shoulder and you had almost forgotten about the villain present until their voice came, ‘How nice, the poor little hero has to save his backup,’ you froze before leaning to the side in an attempt to get a look at the villain.

It seemed they had some type of muscle-enhancing quirk. While you were in slight awe-struck, Izuku stood on his feet. His back facing you so you wouldn't notice how his eyebrows slanted in anger. But you did take note of the way his fists tightened and shook slightly. For a moment, you thought back to how much he had grown as a hero.

He was making his way through the hero ranks at an amazing speed and showed his bravery almost every day. Pushing himself through every challenge, so why were you still on the ground? You needed to stand by the hero that inspired you and with that thought, you pressed your hands against the wet and uneven pavement.

Your feet slipped a few times and your legs struggled to find the strength to push the rest of your body back. You failed to notice Izuku briefly turn his head to look at you, but either way. You still hoped he wouldn't figure out what was wrong or why you were having trouble standing.

Though most heroes would know better than to look away from the villain they are facing off with, you weren’t so slow when it came to such a thing. Izuku was still looking at you and opened his mouth to speak, but you noticed the movement from behind him. The villain reeled their arm back, ready to cause more destruction and harm.

“Deku look out!” you screamed, it was almost ironic how this had turned into a shouting competition. However, your words seemed to do their job and Izuku's eyes widened as he quickly turned his head back. Having barely enough time to react as the villain brought their arm down against the already damaged pavement, which cracked like the glass pieces that were laying around.

Izuku quickly turned and you found yourself being scooped into his arms just before he kicked off the ground, the backlash of which collided with the villain's attack and created a large hole that swallowed the remaining buildings in the area, as well as the few cars that were parked along what was once the street.

Your eyes widened at the display, though the pouring rain made it difficult to see any details as well as the fact you were soaring through the sky with Izuku. Your arms securely wrapped around his neck while you cursed yourself for becoming a target, you were more of a burden on him at this point.

But you knew Izuku didn't care, he would save you over and over again. It was a hero's job, and when he finally landed on top of a building he gently put you down. But once again your legs didn't seem up to the task of holding you, and down you went.

"Ah!" Izuku held his hand out to you but both of you paused when you heard the villain's laugh echo through the rain. You knew that sound would haunt you for the rest of your life, but even so. A sense of anger suddenly washed over you. There was no way you’d let Izuku face this villain on his own.

But Izuku seemed to have already made up his mind, "Stay here," he instructed before he ran towards the railing of the building and jumped over it. Hurling himself towards the villain below. That's when you realized Izuku had placed you a good way's away from the danger, "Why did..." the answer was obvious, he wanted to protect you.

But you weren't meant for the sidelines and you slowly made your way to the edge of the rooftop. Watching as Izuku landed in front of the villain, “Why do you want to do this?!” he demanded, though you were unable to hear him as the rain drowned him out.

However, you found yourself clinging to the railing of the roof when the ground shook yet again. Izuku reeled his fist back and landed a hit on the villain causing him to slam into several buildings that were facing the opposite of you. One hand was covering your mouth as you watched them begin to fall.

Your other hand was still clasping onto the railing and you tried to push down your nerves when you felt those aftershocks grow more violent. Yet again the thought of not allowing Izuku to face this villain alone came to mind, and you struggled to get onto your feet which slipped against the rooftop flooring.

Damn, you should have worn shoes with more traction. However, you managed to get onto your knees and forced yourself to stand. You took a step closer to the edge, watching as the fight between Izuku and the villain continued.

More damage unraveling before your eyes, you knew if you could activate your quirk while the villain was in your range, you might have an advantage. You smiled at the thought and your attention was turned back to Izuku who was once more flying through the air, his muscles tightened and injuries visible.

“Deku!” you shouted, effectively catching his attention as he glanced down at you from above. You quickly wiped your face, a little annoyed at the rain at this point. “Bring him over here!” you screamed, “I can use my quirk on him!” Izuku while unsure of your plan, seemed to understand and nodded before landing against one of the broken buildings.

His legs bending before he kicked off of it at record speed. You lowered your eyebrows, a smirk coming to your face as you made your way to the center of the roof. Carefully balancing yourself on your shaky legs. One was placed behind you and the other, in front and bent at the knee.

You continued to feel those vibrations course through your bones and the loud echo of pieces of building crashing to the ground, the cries from both Izuku and the villain mixing into one. Izuku was bringing him to you, that much you could count on. Despite the fact, your quirk wasn't the most flashy.

But if used correctly, it could have a powerful effect on the world around your body. Similar to Nemuri Kayama, your body expelled a certain type of gas that affected your opponent's nervous system and rendered them unable to move. The vibrations continued to course through the building you stood on.

But you buckled your legs refusing to allow yourself to fall as you finally saw the villain coming into view. His bulky arms crossed as he fell through the air, Izuku following. Falling from above with his fist reeled back. You knew what he was doing, he was delivering the villain to you using one of his smash moves.

As his fist collided with those crossed arms, there was a massive backlash and a powerful gust of wind came. You knew the force building between the two was bound to send them both flying but you put your trust in Izuku, he'd do what you asked. With that thought, you brought your hands together.

Focusing on releasing your quirk, the thin dark-colored gas began floating around you forcing you to hold your breath. Like many quirks, yours had a drawback. In your case, your quirk could in turn have a negative effect on you. But over the years you had trained yourself to restrict your breathing long enough for you to get an advantage.

A loud sound rang through the air, violently shaking the city and almost bringing you back to your knees. This was followed by a large shadow casting over you, "Hm?" tilting your head, you watched as the villain descended from the sky and towards you. 'This will be tricky,' you thought as you took a few steps back.

Your movements coming to a halt when you hit the railing, which you were partly grateful for as you didn't want to plummet to the ground below. Your quirk continued to build, casting a cloud around you. This combined with the rain made it difficult to see when the villain came crashing through the roof.

But, the violent shake made your feet slip from underneath you and for a moment you almost opened your mouth. But you forced yourself to keep it closed by sinking your teeth into your bottom lip. You had no idea where Izuku was, but you slowly crawled over to the large hole and glanced down into the darkened building.

The only source of light seemed to be the sparking wires that were left behind as a result of the villain crashing through several floors. But you heard a faint groan which meant he was still alive and possibly unable to move due to the small trauma his body had just gone through.

Still, you smiled. ‘I’ve got you’ the words echo in your head before you stretched your arm out. Channeling your quirk into the building, allowing it to fill the open space quickly. As long as the villain inhaled it somehow, he would be rendered useless and no longer a threat. However, a piece of the roof broke underneath your hand and you found yourself falling forward.

"Ah!" you finally opened your mouth, a dull pain coursing through your bottom lip as you tried to regain your balance, your free hand swaying through the air trying to grab anything while your other was digging into the floor of the roof. In your frantic attempt to regain your balance, you ended up breathing in the gas from your quirk.

You managed to push your free hand against one of the metal beams that was sticking out and used what remained of your strength to push your body back. You fell onto your side and reached up to wrap one hand around your throat. Your eyes widened, though your quirk was no longer in use.

The gas around you continued to cloud your vision and you knew it was too late, you could feel your quirk's effect. Your body refusing to move from its position no matter how much you forced it to try. A soft growl escaped you as you laid next to the hole in the roof, praying that the same thing was happening to the villain as you were rather helpless at the moment.

However, from the corner of your eye. You noticed a figure land on the roof, but you couldn't make out their features. You prayed it was Izuku and not some accomplice of the villain. A silence filled the air before you spoke up, “Izuku?” you questioned as you heard the villain from down below give another groan.

Obviously, succumb to your quirk and realizing they couldn’t move. Yet, your attention or at least what you could give of it remained on the person behind you. “Y/n,” the silhouette spoke, and you immediately recognized the voice belonging to Izuku just as you thought.

“Thank you,” he said before kicking off the roof, leaving you bewildered and confused. “Izuku…?” you questioned again, wanting to hold your hand out but your quirk preventing you from doing so. The muscles in your body refusing to move, ‘He left me here like this?’ you questioned just as you heard sirens in the distance.

“Are you sure this as well as your actions are justified?” Tenya’s question cut through the air as he crossed his arms and looked at Izuku who remained lying in his hospital bed. Several bandage wraps covered his arms, legs, and feet. He narrowed his eyes on Tenya who, in turn, kept his stern expression.

“I understand withholding truth in fear of harming someone else, but Y/n is your friend are they not? I cannot agree with leaving them alone after they subdued the villain,” Tenya stated, his fingers tightening around his forearms. The tone of his voice was just as stern as the expression he wore and he opened his mouth to speak again when the familiar sound of a curtain being pulled back broke through the room.

He immediately glanced over his shoulder and Izuku curiously leaned to the side to see who it was. “Midoriya, Iida,” came Shouto’s voice as he stood there holding an oversized brown bag. “Todoroki-kun,” Izuku muttered as Tenya raised his hand and began chopping it through the air.

“It is wonderful to see you Todoroki, are you here to pay Midoriya a visit as well?” he questioned and Shouto looked at him with a questionable glance before turning to Izuku. “I brought the clothes you requested,” he said as he walked over and handed the green-haired boy the bag. “Thank you, Todoroki-kun,” came his response as he curiously glanced inside.

“You’re injured,” Shouto stated seconds after and Tenya let out a sigh. “The state of his injuries are a result of his rather reckless behavior, you are very lucky Y/n wasn’t seriously injured themself after you left!” he scolded yet again, his teeth clenched and hand continuing to move through the air as he walked over to stand by Shouto’s side. Shouto glanced at him, silently processing the information before he looked at Izuku.

“You left Y/n, where?” Izuku had only texted him to bring an extra set of clothes to the hospital. Beyond that, Shouto was left in the dark. Izuku took a deep breath and placed the bag aside, “I was sure what happened would be on the news,” he replied, his voice soft as he turned his head to look at Shouto who merely looked at the ceiling.

After a moment, he spoke, “I heard what happened downtown, a villain did some damage and two heroes took care of it. One of them was Y/n and the other had disappeared by the time they got there. That was you,” he stated as he looked back at Izuku.

“May I inquire as to why you don’t simply tell Y/n of the injuries you have suffered?” Tenya questioned and Shouto shrugged. “You got injured a lot at Yuuei,” he pointed out and Izuku frowned, he didn’t exactly enjoy recalling those memories.

“I...don’t want Y/n to worry, they are an underground hero after all,” he glanced to the side, his hands closing into fists. “I don’t...want them to worry about me, they have so much to take care of as is,” he said as he turned to look at Shouto and Tenya, but if only he knew the truth. While you had plenty to worry about, the hero commission always expected more from you.

In their eyes, an injury holding you back wasn’t a valid excuse and that’s why you found yourself slumped in a chair, your chest still giving a dull ache from the drawback of your quirk. ‘A hero who cannot stand on their feet is not what this society needs,’ a voice speaks and you knew there was no point in arguing. What they stated was the truth.

‘Do not make the mistake of revealing your injuries again, we chose you to exceed our expectations.’ you glanced down, your hands tightening in your lap. “Yes…” you replied, though you couldn’t help but feel a sense of guilt. To keep secrets was one thing but to hide your injuries from those you cared about?

You weren’t sure if you could do it, but your hero work was more important and with the weight of the world already on your shoulders. You knew you had to be strong. This became the dance between you and Izuku, fate bringing you together yet each one of you had to hide your scars.

But it seemed things got heated each and every time Izuku and yourself saw each other. You were quickly catching onto the fact he would disappear after the fight was over, more than likely because he was injured. In turn, he seemed to notice your lack of strength and hesitation in moving as you should.

Eventually, you decided to finally find out what Izuku was up to, why you always caught glimpses of bandage wrappings somewhere on his body, or the fact he’d sleep for hours on end whenever he had off. Was his body exhausted because he pushed himself too far or was it trying to heal any injuries?

You seemed to get your chance the day you heard that the hero 'Deku' was severely injured on a recent mission, but was expected to make a full recovery. Which normally would make anyone happy to hear, considering Deku was a well-loved hero. Almost as popular as his teacher, All Might.

But it only caused anger to surge through you, Izuku hadn't told you he was going on a mission. "Where is..." you glanced around, looking for your cell phone from your position on the couch. Eventually finding it between the cushions, you unlocked it to glance at your text messages. Nothing.

Your jaw clenched, you knew you had your reasons for keeping your injuries secret. You were an underground hero, someone who laid low on the charts for your own safety. But Izuku was a public hero. Adored and cherished. Why didn't he tell you that he was hurt? Had your assumptions been correct?

Had he been hurt in the past without your knowledge? You decided to find out yourself. “I do not believe it’s my place to say! Midoriya’s medical records and otherwise private injuries are strictly prohibited from other's knowledge and are only to be revealed upon Midoriya’s approval,” sometimes talking to Tenya was a headache, but speaking to Shouto was no better.

“I don’t know Midoriya’s physical state of being, why. Is something the matter?” did neither of them watch the news or did they simply not care when Izuku got injured? You thought about visiting the hospital, but you were worried that Izuku wouldn't allow guests to see him.

Then again, you couldn't just give up without trying. Despite your paranoid thoughts believing that Izuku was holding more than one secret from you. The information you wanted wouldn't reveal itself unless you went to see him and spoke face to face. Even if there was a possibility it could cause an argument between you.

Granted, you know Izuku often brought the more logical side to an argument, taking his feelings into account but not fully dependent on them while you were more emotional. Wanting to speak from your heart rather than your brain is part of the reason you found yourself walking into his hospital room.

You winced as you saw him lying there, wrappings all over his upper body and a cast around his left wrist. He seemed to have heard you and when he picked his head up, his eyes went wide. Or at least the one, there were several bruises across his face and his right eye was swollen.

You wouldn't be surprised if he had a few teeth missing as well. "Oh," he said with an awkward chuckle, "Y/n, how are you?" you closed the door behind you and slowly walked over to his bedside, "I have something...to ask," you began and Izuku seemed confused by your words.

"What is it?" he replied as you pulled over a chair and took a seat. A deep breath sounded as you tried to calm the butterflies in your stomach. No matter how much you tried to convince yourself everything would be alright. You knew the possibility of your question starting an argument was evident.

Your hands were folded in your lap and silence filled the air apart from the gentle beeping from Izuku's heart monitor. “It's...important,” you turned your head, “Sort of…” you muttered under your breath before turning back to look at Izuku who seemed to squirm in his bed, almost like he was trying to get comfortable.

Then he turned to look at you, “Is this about what happened a few weeks ago?” he questioned before he glanced away, a present frown on his lips and you clenched your jaw. You hadn’t expected Izuku to do what he did and while it had bothered you, it wasn’t what you wanted to talk about.

So you shook your head, “It’s...well that incident, I didn’t appreciate how you left me. That’s not like you,” Izuku never ran away from a challenge, or at least you believed. You watched as his body tensed up, clearly uncomfortable with the fact that you had brought up what he had done.

His throat tightened and he knew that an apology wouldn’t fix anything and neither would pointing out things that could possibly work in his defense. Instead, he took a deep breath. “You were having trouble standing that day,” he said, his voice somewhat flat before he averted his gaze once more, staring at the white sheet that covered his legs.

However, you were surprised by his words. Your eyes widened and a small tremble coursed through your body. “What?” you replied, almost wanting to play dumb. “I noticed it,” he said, his voice sounding stern as he turned back to look at you. Even in a hospital gown, Izuku could look intimidating when he wanted to.

His eyes holding a hint of anger that honestly surprised you. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt that day? I wouldn’t have forced you to-” you held your hands up, “Whoa,” you said, trying to hold back the desire to tell Izuku it wasn’t any of his business what happened to you.

“I never asked for anyone’s hand to hold,” you said, a small hiss coming from your words before you reached over and grabbed his injured wrist. Forcing his arm up as your nails dug into his cast. “I should be asking why I see bandage wraps on your body, you try to hide them.” you frowned and released his arm.

“Why are you hiding things from me?” you questioned, clearly hurt considering you thought Izuku trusted you. You watched as he clenched his jaw and a gasp escaped you when he jerked his arm back though you no longer had a grip on it. Then a soft growl came which yet again surprised you.

But not as much as when he began to move, "Izuku!" you scolded or at least tried to as he forced his body to turn so his legs were now draped over the side of the hospital bed and you noticed that his legs had deep cuts in them. The skin slightly inflamed but otherwise healing fine.

You then noticed how his hands were clenched, flexing ever so slightly, and for a moment you were afraid he’d lose control and try to stand up or run. “I’ve been documenting you,” he said and to most outsiders, this would sound creepy. But since you met Izuku, he had always scribbled things down in his notebook.

Documenting how other’s used their quirks as well as any super moves they had and their fighting style. But, you felt like you needed to ask anyway. “Documenting me?” you rose your seat, taking a few steps away from Izuku. “Your power and movements slow when you’re injured,” you almost felt like rolling your eyes.

Was Izuku just pointing out the obvious? You placed your hands on your hips. “Yeah, and?” you urged him to continue but ended up taking another step back when he looked at you and slowly began to slide off the bed. Luckily the wires that attached him to the heart monitor made him stop short.

“You’ve slowed down three times within the last two months,” he stated before reaching into his hospital gown and pulling off the adhesive pads that kept him attached to the monitor. You shivered as the sound of the flatline came and you half expected the nurses to come rushing into the room.

But instead, Izuku continued to walk forward, in turn, making you walk back until you hit the wall. Another gasp came when you turned and realized that you may have trapped yourself. You clenched your jaw, silently cursing before you turned back to notice Izuku just inches from you.

It was a strange feeling, having someone like Izuku tower over you. With your hands flat against the wall, you looked up at him. The fierce expression in your eye indicated you weren’t going to back down. “Are you saying I’m keeping secrets from you?” the question left your lips with another hiss, and you hoped that Izuku got the message you didn’t want to continue playing this game.

“Like you are from me,” you added, that certain bold tone to your voice seemed to strike a nerve in Izuku and a soft growl rumbled in his throat. “I’m not-” he insisted before you shoved your finger in his face, “You are!” you exclaimed before your hands reached out to push against his chest.

He looked shocked at the contact and stepped away. You knew you shouldn't be abusing an injured person. But seconds later, you heard his teeth scraping together. A burning sensation began to grow in his stomach, more than likely dying to scream out everything he felt. “T-To protect you-” a snarl left your lips and you pushed off the wall, daring to invade his space once more.

“Protect me from what?!” you demanded as you stomped your foot against the floor. “You keep things from me and wonder why I have to keep things hidden from you in return!?” you questioned as you pointed your finger at him yet again before crossing your arms over your chest, this was escalating with every minute that passed.

But, it was clear the two of you needed to set things straight. Izuku's eyebrows were furrowed together now and he reached up to thread his fingers through his hair. “I...I don’t try to hide anything from you,” he stated. “You’re just so busy with your undercover work and then you get hurt and act like everything is alright!” much like you, Izuku’s foot came down to smack against the floor.

A loud thud echoing as a result and you stumbled back, looking at him with a shocked expression. Didn't that hurt with his injuries? Granted, you knew more than anyone it took a lot for Izuku to get angry and the fact that his anger was directed at you instead of a villain was new territory.

But you couldn’t back down. “That’s not okay!” he exclaimed before clenching his jaw and his gaze went to the floor, recalling Tenya's words from the last time he was in the hospital. Maybe he was correct, his actions weren’t justified but neither was yours. He reached over, violently taking hold of your hands and a soft hiss sounded from you when he squeezed them.

“Izuku!” you exclaimed as you took a step back and tried to pull away. But of course, this did very little. “I care about you...and you care about everyone else but yourself!” he continued and you paused in your movements looking at him with wide eyes before another growl escaped.

“So do you! The same thing you did at Yuuei, you’re doing now! You hurt yourself and you think covering it up is going to solve it! And you never tell anyone!” you snapped before leaning back when Izuku suddenly invaded your space. You could feel the warmth of his breath and take in his bruised face.

“Those injuries are from your missions aren’t they?” your jaw was hanging open and you cursed yourself for the way your cheeks slowly rose in temperature. You glanced away, your anger slowly fading into a sense of sadness. “I can’t tell you,” the hero commission wasn’t forgiving, “Why?” Izuku questioned as he once again squeezed your hands.

“My missions are...confidential. Including what happens to the people that participate in them," a pained expression was on your face and it didn’t go unnoticed by Izuku. He opened his mouth to speak, but you interrupted him.

“Do you try to handle those injuries on your own? Is that why you don’t tell me!?” your voice echoed through the room and Izuku took a deep breath before releasing your hands. You were almost hurt when he took a step back, but you were quick to follow. Taking a step forward with your hands now clenched by your sides.

“Or do you go to the hospital and not tell me? I tried speaking to Todoroki and Iida, but they didn’t tell me anything. Was that a clue?” a frustrated sigh left Izuku before he turned his back to you, pressing his hand to his forehead. He was debating about telling you the truth, he knew this argument would continue regardless and despite the fact, you couldn’t tell him anything.

Maybe he was in the wrong, a hero doesn’t lie or withhold the truth. They also understood that sometimes missions were kept secret in order to keep society in running order. “I go to the hospital so I don’t make you worry,” he stated as he slowly turned to look at you from over his shoulder and your anger yet again faded when you noticed the smile on his face.

“You...don’t want to make me worry?” you repeated and tried to ignore the small amount of guilt that washed over you as you stood there. Silence now filling the air as you glanced down, slapping your hands against your thighs. “Why would you think that’s right?” you questioned, your voice soft but still held a certain tone to it.

“Because I care about you,” he repeated, that’s the answer that kept coming back. Because he cared because he didn’t want you to worry. Part of you understood that, considering Izuku seemed to be the center of attention when he was attending U.A. But this was different. You took another step forward, raising your hand.

“You care about me,” you said as you pointed to him, “and you don’t want me to worry about you,” Izuku nodded and you slapped your thighs once again. “Do you think that’s going to stop me from doing it anyway?” you questioned as you approached him and poked his chest.

He reached up to grab your hand and pressed it down, you could faintly feel his heartbeat. “You keep your injuries secret because you have to, but same as you. I don’t think I...I’ll stop caring about you,” your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt and you glanced away.

“So…” you began, “how are we going to solve this?” you questioned, it was clear you two wanted to hide your injuries for one reason or another. “Be honest?” Izuku suggested, “I can’t be honest if I’m under strict orders,” you replied and another moment of silence filled the air before Izuku stepped forward and placed his hand on your hip.

You welcomed the contact, “Will you tell me when you’re hurt?” you glanced down, that was a hard question to answer. He was asking if you were willing to defy the rules that bound you, many heroes bent the rules for one reason or another.

But usually, it was in the context of being able to save someone else or others. Not between close friends who decided it was a good idea to try and hide their pain from each other. You swallowed, opening your mouth to answer. “Can you keep it a secret?” you hoped you wouldn’t regret asking him that question, but you watched as a smile came to his face.

“Yeah, I can if...if it’s you,” he replied, allowing his thumb to stroke across your knuckles, oh right. He was still holding your hand. “I’ll tell you when I need extra help because of an injury, if you tell me when you’re going to the hospital for yours,” that sounded like a fair deal, despite the fact that Izuku looked surprised for a moment.

Then he dropped your hand and a moment later, you felt both of his arms came up to wrap around you. Though you had hugged Izuku before, this felt a tad different. “Deal,” he said, and a small sense of relief filled you as you returned his hug. At least this was one less secret you had to keep.

#izuku x reader #midoriya x reader #bnha x reader

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ichika27 · 4 years

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Mairimashita! Iruma-kun ep 23

And we’re at the finale! I’d save the rest of the words for later.

Oh and they brought back the intro that I think they had in the first episode. They stopped doing the intro a few episodes ago so this was a surprise.

The first half is basically a slice-of-life set of scenes of Iruma waking up, going to school and studying. I didn’t take much photos for this except for a few below.

Aww! They’re really friends now I’m glad about that. I mean after all this time of Kerori getting mad at Iruma cause of misunderstandings, at least now they’re talking properly.

He’s also still playing demon dodgeball which is nice cause it’s one of the first things he really worked hard on and made him feel very accomplished. I’m happy he didn’t stop even after their game back then was over.

And he’s also still doing manga readings which would probably take forever. I mean have you seen the shelf? That thing’s got hundreds of volumes. How many filler chapters does it have?

Anyways, Ameri thinks the female rival in the story had a cool line ‘Everyone’s got a secret.’ which suddenly gave her an epiphany...

She’s so close! She’s really smart but she didn’t have it in her to ask Iruma directly if her hunch is right. Wonder what she’d think if she knew the truth though?

Iruma also got an epiphany later. This is the exact point of this entire episode and he just noticed lol.

He was really bothered by this cause it made him think of his stay here and what he should do now. It made his friends worry so Clara suggested they cook food for him to cheer him up!

Picture of these two doing their best! Sadly for Asmodeus, Clara’s cookbook is kinda... hard to understand? The instructions are very ‘Clara’-like haha. This resulted in an argument between the two.

Not that important but Clara insulted Asmodeus’ fashion sense to which he had to tell her the clothes are expensive and custom made. That said, I’ve never been able to ask but has thought about the question of ‘Why are the teachers letting him wear a custom outfit instead of the school uniform?’. I know his family is powerful and rich and all but I don’t think the rule-abiding and serious Kalego-sensei would permit this exemption unless there’s a reason. But I guess we’ll never know.

Sorry, Clara but I think that looks good on him.

Let the Shokugeki begin!!

lol a lot of people in the chat we’re making Food Wars jokes. These two couldn’t get to an agreement and decided to just cook separately and compete at which one Iruma would like best. (the cooking, of course, not the person cause Iruma loves them both hehe)

As expected, Clara’s is kinda out of the ordinary. She thinks there’s something missing so her mom tells her the best ingredient to add is ‘love’ (of course).

And so the Valac family gives us one last musical before the season ends!

Azz’s cooking is wonderful but he thinks it’s not good enough as he knew Clara would probably make something unexpected. Glad he’s not underestimating her despite the insults she told her earlier. Although all of those were probably the result of annoyance.

I-is the fish crying?! That makes me so uncomfortable. I don’t stare at the fishes eyes when buying some from the market cause of that.

It’s a good suggestion from the butler but Azz doesn’t like fishes it seems. it’s dirty apparently. He’s still gonna do it though... for Iruma-sama! He pokes the fish relentlessly and I dunno how he did it but he was able to make something.

Also, the yt chat made lots of jokes about the current virus cause of Azz’s face mask but I don’t know if I should say it so I’d just leave this here...

They pulled an all-nighter for this. Reminds me of when I was in school and we had to do a thesis instead. It was horrible. They did it though!

It looks the same lol. Azz went all out and really is trying to compete against Clara since he made his out-of-the-ordinary, too.

The fish is still crying by the way. It’s uncomfortable eating anything with a face and that thing is still crying. Ugh... I’m sorry fishy, it’s for Iruma-sama.

The fish looks sadder than the above photos. (;-;)

Oh, and Iruma figured out that the two dishes are better together due to both Azz and Clara feeding him at the same time.

Awwww~ they’re friends again and shared a fist bump! They did it and their cooking made Iruma happy which was their goal in the first place. Like the dishes that are better when combined, Iruma’s school life is better when he has these two together.

And so Iruma figures that he really likes it here and would make sure he gets to stay with his friends. The demon world isn’t so bad.

The ending theme this time is the school hymn. There were shots of some scenes in the episodes past and there were a few ones which is what some of the characters are currently doing. These ones above caught my eyes.

-It’s sad that the secret room is empty now. The stuff inside were probably confiscated after the batra party incident.

-Kiriwo-senpai!! It’s been a while since I saw him so this was nice. He doesn’t look too bad even though he’s locked up currently. Hope to see him again someday.

-They framed the photo they took at the festival. Aww! A family photo Iruma could be happy looking at.

And the last shot of the main trio together.

They’re also sitting in front of the large door with a ton of locks. I guess this is the end...

Wait-

What’s this? What’s this?! ‘Someday’, the narrator says...

Season 2 confirmed?? Please?!

I was actually hoping we got one more episode before the end but I guess this is the finale. it was so much fun and it was better than I expected when I decided to watch the series. I liked all the characters and the story wasn’t as complicated as other anime coming out lately but it was refreshing to see. As everyone else pointed out, this one felt as if it should’ve come out many years ago as it’s got the same feels as the anime series coming out back in the early 2000′s. Definitely felt like I was brought back to my childhood.

They never changed the OP and ED the entire season and both are so good and such bangers. I’d miss listening to them. Hope if they made another season (I hope they make another season!) that the new songs could be as good or are even better than these ones cause they already set the bar high.

I’d miss this show. I keep making these stupid commentary posts every week for fun and to let out my anime fangirling feelings for it and this is the last one. I’d miss making these every week. To all of you who actually read through all these from the very first Iruma-kun post I made up until this last one, thank you so much! I never thought anyone would read them much less enjoy them.

If another... no, when the next season comes out, I hope I can make these things again cause it was fun. So, let’s all see each other and Iruma and his friends again when that time comes?

#Mairimashita! Iruma-kun #welcome to demon school iruma-kun #anime #sana_post #i hope we see them again someday ~devi!#<3

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askthedespairkids · 4 years

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Judgement of Self

*The monitor turns on* Ah...looks like you all figured out the “truth”, huh?

So, you admit it then. We’re all just being used as a means to an end.

If you wanna put it that way, sure....so?

So?! We figured out your game!

And I congratulate you on that....but what exactly does it change? You guys are still here, participating in the game.

Wh...

Speaking of which, it’s time to announce the results of the final vote! The person who got the most votes and will be choosing the final victim is...Takumi Hijirihara.

.............

.....Hijirihara-kun....

.....you gonna stay on the line for this one, Komaeda? I think you’ll want to.

................

Taking into account the truth of the Judgement Game, Komaeda wants people who’ll take revenge on the victims...with that in mind...he probably wants me to pick you, Akamatsu.

M-me?!

‘Cause that Harukawa chick’s a revenge-type.

Glad you brought that up. Hey, Komaeda...any particular reason you wanted those specific people for this plan?

I simply picked the best candidates to create hope with. People like Harukawa-san fitted what I wanted perfectly.

Got it. Then I’ve made my decision.

Th-that easily....?!

Komaeda wanted to leave it up to me, so I’ll give him what he oh-so wanted....

I pick Maki Harukawa.

......huh?

W-wait a second! M-Maki-chan?!

Chill out. He won’t do it.

.............

We already established that Komaeda cares about his plan more than anything else....but the thing with this particular round is that the rules he gave us were pretty vague. He told us to pick someone to die, but he never said they had to be someone in the group.

What is this...? A joke? You really think I’ll accept an answer like that?

Do you have a choice? This is your game. If you don’t abide by your own rules, what’s the point? Unless you plan on suddenly changing the rules up just because there wan an inconvenience?

...............you talk pretty confidently for someone that stands as a normal among Ultimates.

Screw talent. Grant my answer or end the game.

....he’s right. You gave people power over our lives...and now you’re gonna complain when you get an answer after giving us the power? Is that what a game-master does?

Unless you wanna come down here and substitute one of us yourself?!

Which you won’t. We’re too valuable. You wanted half of us alive for a reason. If it didn’t matter who died, you wouldn’t have set up this game in the first place, you would have just killed us all.

Then....even saying he’d kill all of us was a lie....

And we fell for it, like idiots.

Oi, Komaeda....I ain’t gonna fuckin’ forgive you for what happened here! To Sakakura, and Hiro, and definitely for Chabashira...

Come on then, Komaeda. See your game through!

...................

....Takumi Hijirihara...you have the audacity to do something at this level without a talent...that’s....that’s....

Amazing! Ahahahahahah!!

Wow, to think such a shocking turn of events would occur because of someone like you! You must have been destined to be an Ultimate in the future with that kind of mind!

No way. Someone like me isn’t at an Ultimate level for anything...don’t lump me in with something just to make yourself feel better.

......interesting. You really are interesting, Hijirihara-kun....

I really am in a tight spot right now, huh...? I can’t kill Harukawa-san...but I can’t break my rules either...you did exactly as asked so I can’t even fairly take over choosing the final victim...

......*sigh*...I guess I really have to choice.

Fine. You all win. *The shutters behind them open up*

W....we won....

This is really frustrating. To be so close to the outcome I wanted...just my luck, huh...? We reached an ending where no side won.

We managed to save one life....that’s enough of a win.

..........

Until next time, Samidare-san...*the monitor turns off*

Like hell he’s gettin’ away, we gotta-

Ugh....*She collapses to the group*

T-Tsumiki-san! *She rushes to her side*

I w-w-was s-so scared....! Uuu....uuuuu....!

....is it over?

....for now.

#The Judgement Arc #Nagito Komaeda #Mondo Oowada #Yui Samidare #Takumi Hijirihara #Kaede Akamatsu #Mikan Tsumiki #DR

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mimikoflamemaker · 4 years

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Witcher OC Ask Meme �� Neve

In the spirit of @oxenfurt-archives January Theme “Something Ends and Something Begins” and introductory ask meme for Neve. Neve is my disaster child and I love her, however it took me literal years to create her – I was fan of the books before the games came out, but it was the Witcher 3 that finally gave me the ground I could work on comfortably. Let’s see what came out of it.

(ask meme by @mollumaukerie)

1. What is your OC’s name? Do they have a fake moniker or a nom de guerre?

Neve. Which means “snow” and pertains to her being born in the depths of the winter. Her mother never bothered to give her a more meaningful name and just chose the first thing that came to mind. Her father was never there to begin with.

Though later, that name came to correspond quite well with her cold and distrustful nature.

Due to her profession she uses plenty of fake name and back stories, sometimes thinking them up on the spot.

2. How old are they, and where do they fit in terms of current events in the Witcher universe? Have they aged naturally or through magical means?

It would be fair to just say that she isn’t sure as her exact birth date was never recorded. The action of the game takes place in 1272 and she is about a hundred years old at the time, which means she was born anywhere between 1172-1175 so around the same time as Yennefer.

Being told from the very young age that she is a product of crossbreeding and therefore not a full blooded elf, she was at the time, a little surprised by her apparent longevity, but after a while the thought faded into the background. Maybe she was just lucky in taking more after her mother. Maybe her mother never told her the truth about the birth father. It didn’t matter - she was busy with the real issues like surviving in the world that hated her for the way she was born.

Visually, she looks anything between twenty five and thirty five depending on who you ask.

3. Where do they come from? Did they grow up wealthy, well-off, or poor?

Neve comes from Blue Mountains – being born into the scoia’tael commando, meant that she moved a lot as soon as she was capable of following her elders. So she doesn’t really know where exactly she comes from, so when asked she usually says, that she is from Ban Ard – when she is feeling safe and honest enough to tell the thing closest to the truth.

Growing up like that meant no permanent place to live and more often than not, hunger. She was quickly thought to fend for herself, because as much as the children were considered precious by the elves and taken care of to the best of their abilities, Neve never tasted a proper, parental love, so she took the matter in her own hands as soon as she could, trying to at least be useful if she couldn’t be loved.

4. Do they have a family? Are they on good or bad terms with them?

Rhoenna – neve’s mother, she was a hunter and a regular fighter in the commando. She doesn’t know who her father is or where he might be now and she really doesn’t care. Her mother certainly never cared about her going as far as telling the girl that she was unwanted and a mistake. As a child, she did feel hurt by such treatment, but she learned to fend for herself on her own. And years had faded that memories to the point of not caring. Why would she care for people that never bothered to care for her? Besides, her mother was dead. And if her father was a human like she claimed he was most certainly dead as well.

5. What kind of personality do they have? How do they handle strong emotions of anger, grief, fear, etc?

Neve keeps a carefully crafted image of herself that she put up for others and molds depending on her needs. Most often given her line of work, she chooses to show confidence and competence, not shying away from showing of her various skills if necessary. She tends to be brash and a bit arrogant at times – a no-nonsense type of person that seen enough of life and doesn’t have the time of people’s bullshit.

That said, she doesn’t handle emotion well, even if it mostly reflects in her mental state. She has so much insecurities she hides from the world fearing that they might give others a way to exploit her, that any instance of feeling any sort of distress could be the tipping point for her. Therefore she tries her hardest to keep her feelings on the leash. But there are cracks if someone bothers to look.

She would often go with anger if she has to let off some steam. Anger is the easiest to handle. Violence can give her the momentary satisfaction, making her feel powerful. It is also the best way to assert dominance in some cases, especially when you are a woman surrounded by men most of the time.

Anger is probably the only emotion she allows to take over – and an emotion that often serves as the replacement for other things she feels.

6. Do they wear their heart on their sleeve or play their cards close to the chest?

She doesn’t really know the meaning of the word “honesty”. Is that even a thing? Neve chooses what she tells to whom, choosing lies over truth most of the time. She lies to get herself a better job, she lies to wiggle herself into the graces of powerful people and she lies to get herself out of trouble. But she also builds bits and pieces of truth into her lies. And she really knows how to lie – she is capable of making anybody believe her – maybe except for those capable of reading minds.

There is really no way of telling when she lies and when she tells the truth, which makes most people wary of her. And causes some problems, because if she decides to actually be honest for once, more often than not people don’t believe her.

7. What is their moral compass like? Do they abide the law, an organizational creed, or their own moral code?

Neve follows her own moral code, which can seem convoluted to the people around her, because she is just as likely to kick the beggar in the teeth as she is to shower them with money. She herself says that she only cares about whatever she wants to do at the moment, but she isn’t a complete chaos. She does abide the law when her safety and survival depends on it. She is ready to fit herself within the rules and regulations of let’s say the army for the same reason. But she is not afraid to toss it all to wind if she feels the need to. Because above all else, she craves her freedom – even if she knows that people like her cannot really be truly free. So she settles for whatever short instances of it she can catch.

8. Are there certain traits they value? Honour, integrity? Or do they feel such things aren’t necessary to live true to oneself?

Neve values adaptability, competence, versatility… the traits of a survivor and traits that can be useful in any way to her or her goal. She doesn’t care much about the personality of the people she surrounds herself with as long as they can get the job done or they are giving her the sense of safety. She isn’t all that fond about so called “higher values” thinking them all either a smoke screen, hiding the more sinister things or an utter bullshit fed to children through tales so they wouldn’t vex their parents.

The instances where those things turned out to somehow be true were just an exception from the general rule and nothing more.

9. What is their presence like? How are they perceived through posture, gait, and demeanour?

Much like with her personality, most things Neve’s appear to be is a carefully crafted image, build for the sake of fooling the world around her. To enforce the personality she wants people so see. So she moves with grace and easy confidence, head held high in spite of her pointy ears. She wears armour and weapon and makes sure that people understand quickly that those are not for show. But is she needs to be flirty, she is going to lean over and unbutton a few buttons more. She becomes what the situation needs her to be – like a chameleon.

10. What drives them? Do they have high ambitions or none at all?

Survival. Survival is what drives her from the early childhood. The will to live. And the desire to show the middle finger to the world that hates her. Does she has any higher ambitions? Not really – she knows that someone for her social standing is worth little more than a dirt. Maybe if she was born a mage, she would be able to forge a different fate for herself. But she was not born a mage.

[Part 1]

#of monsters and men #witcher oc #the witcher oc #oxenfurt-archives #neve #january theme: something ends and something begins

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randombtsprincessa · 5 years

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Absinthe || 6

Author: Randombtsprincessa

Characters: Jung Hoseok x Reader

Chapters: 01 02 03 04 05

Warning: Explicit Smut Scene Ahead!

If there was one thing that Hoseok was, it was persistent. The date after the ice rink was spent in lavishly courting me. He took me on a small picnic near the hillside, took me on a library date, and to a small Chinese restaurant where we spent the time trading stories.

It was a fortnight later that he brought me to his and Yoongi’s shared apartment. It was stark, almost cold. The only sign of warmth was in the kitchen. We sat on his couch eating ice cream and watching movies as he began to ask me more of my private life. It almost felt like an interrogation.

“What about you?” I asked finally.

“What about me?” he asked.

“Tell me about your life. We only ever talk about me. What about your parents?” I asked.

There was a pause as Hoseok stared at the screen. The atmosphere tensed as I watched his gaze sharpen and his jaw clench.

“My parents are dead, Y/N.” he spat out finally.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t kill them.” He said.

“I can still convey a sentiment.”

He let out a scoff and I turned to him in alarm as he straightened up. “You wouldn’t need to if you hadn’t asked.” He turned to look at me. “Don’t ask about my life, Y/N. I don’t like talking about myself for a reason.” His eyes were cold as they bored in mine.

For a moment, I was back in my class, the first time I’d seen him playing back…his aura was dangerous, hiding secrets and dripping with mystery.

“Ok,” I said softly, looking back at the movie, wrapping my fingers around each other.

His eyes softened and he wrapped an arm around me again. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just…I’ve done a few things to survive that are not something you’d…understand. Please, let’s just leave it at that.”

I nodded and from then on, every topic of conversation was me and I never dared breach my boyfriend’s boundary again.

Her lips tasted of her usual vanilla chap stick as his lips wrapped warmly around them. Her hands buried in his hair, he himself tangled his own fingers in the long strands of her mane.

Just as he felt her tongue brush against his top lips, a small pang went through his chest.

It felt uncomfortably like guilt so he backed away, putting on a mischievous smile on his face as he watched her huff. “What, did you want more, Princess?” he asked but she smirked right back.

“Oh, we wouldn’t want you getting uncomfortable, would we?” she asked.

Hoseok laughed, trying to hide the strain in his vocals as she bid him goodbye, shutting his car door gently behind her as she slipped inside her house.

With a whirr of smooth wheels, he quickly pulled out of her mansion gates. He always tried to not linger, not to show his face too much in case one of them caught him about. It wouldn’t end well for him.

He sighed as he glanced at his rearview mirror, watching the Y/L/N estate grow smaller.

His mind drifted to the dossier he’d been allotted on both her and her father, wondering if his added notes could be cause for concern.

They were both loving people. It was clear that Mr. Y/L/N loved his daughter very much, having gone to so much trouble to protect her from people who would take advantage of her. People exactly like him.

Thing was, there was no one like him. He operated silently and even if people saw his face they would never put him up to what happened to them later. He was always given a while to disappear before the Master brought about his real goal.

This was the only mission he was running where he had more of a risk of recognition but till now he had not seen them about again and he was glad about it. Not only would the mission be in trouble so would Y/N.

When he entered their shared apartment, Hoseok knew Yoongi was lying in wait. He sighed, switching on the lights, illuminating a cold gazed Yoongi on the armchair, legs and arms crossed.

“Yeah Yoongi, you totally pull off the Godfather look. Very suave and creepy,” he commented drily, kicking off his shoes and dropping in the opposite chair.

He didn’t answer, which was cause enough for concern.

“We have another appraisal tomorrow. With the clients,” Yoongi said before getting up and leaving for his bedroom, leaving Hoseok to grind his teeth in worry and anger.

This was not going to go well.

Hoseok drummed his fingers on the polished wood impatiently, his fingernails tapping out an erratic rhythm that he knew was irritating Yoongi but at that moment he just didn’t care.

He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be sitting in the darkened conference room with his partner next to him, in a suit that cost more than the damn table he was sitting at.

He wasn’t surprised at that particular thought. He hated appraisals and this was one more than he had ever attended in his entire career.

What he was surprised at was the fact that he would rather be with the one person who was the source of this misery. He would rather be watching a movie with her or maybe have an ice cream sitting at the park.

His fingers stuttered in his pursuit of mindless tandem.

That was exactly when the door flung open and a bunch of men walked in, each looking disgruntled. Hoseok and Yoongi exchanged a glance, finally standing up with the entrance of their boss.

The Master was in a similar suit as Yoongi and Hoseok, waving a hand to indicate for them to take their seats. He didn’t seem concerned much about this appraisal. Maybe because Hoseok had already weaved his way into Y/N’s life. He was just waiting for him to finish his job now.

“So,” he began first and the first man to Hoseok’s right burst out.

“It’s been months! We’re losing too much money!” He spluttered.

The Master raised an eyebrow. “I see; well, you have already fulfilled your side of the payment so I have no problems. After that, the fact that your business is losing profits is no concern of mine. You need signatures from Y/N Y/L/N and that is all I am to give you.” He said.

“Where are those signatures though? Your best man here is riding about as that silver spoon’s boy toy and we’re the ones suffering!”

Hoseok turned his head to the right, fixing the stout man with an unnerving glare. The man met his gaze, his cheeks flushing at the obvious displeasure in Hoseok’s eyes and looked away.

“That’s what he does and Hoseok’s work has a hundred percent success rating, unlike your down trodden and backward business. Since you’re our clients, we’ll be polite but if you insult my employees and our methods again,”

He didn’t have to complete the threat.

The clients stood up one by one. “If we don’t have results by the end of this week,” one of them said slowly, trailing off as he looked at his co conspirators.

“I will be happy to let you go.” The Master smiled pleasantly.

“With full refund,” the first man said.

“Which is definitely not possible,” The Master said.

There were protests immediately as the boss leaned back in his plush leather chair. “The money has already been invested; if you would like to take it up with law, I will be happy to provide a statement that you came to a law abiding establishment with plans to kidnap the daughter of the man who pays most of their salaries.”

The protests died down as the clients reluctantly filed out.

After the conference room emptied, the smile faded off the Master’s face.

“Hoseok, you should go tend to Miss Y/L/N,” he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. Even as Hoseok rushed out, the Master reached out and gripped Yoongi’s wrist as he made to follow his friend.

“Sit; I want to have a word.”

“Let’s play something,” I suggested bored finally, dropping my pen on my book. I spun in my chair to look at Hoseok who was lounging in his bed with no care, watching the small flat screen mounted on his wall. He glanced at me once before diverting his attention back to the screen.

“Don’t you have studying to do?”

“I’ll be leaving in a few days anyway, besides I’m sure I won’t need,” I turned to read the title of the book, “Etiquette and Concierge Management in this life time. I already got through all that in France.” I slammed the book shut, smiling as I clambered onto the bed.

His position didn’t change, one arm curled under his head with legs bent, one leg tapping out a beat as he watched the news.

“What’s so interesting about that channel?” I asked.

He shrugged, “It’s nice to stay in the loop.”

“Hoseok, please,” I whined.

He sighed in annoyance, sitting up and turning the volume down on the news channel.

“Why do you want to play something? Can’t we watch a movie?” he asked.

I bit my lip. “That’s all we do, Hoseok. I want to do something different.”

He stared at me for a bit before sighing again, this time one of resignation. “What do you want to play?”

“Truth or Dare,”

His eyes lit up with confusion. “Truth or Dare…?” he asked again, making sure he heard me right. I nodded and he groaned and dropped his head. “What are you, seven?”

I just giggled at his worn out expression. To be honest, I was only playing the game hoping he’d pick truth and I would get to quiz in – discreetly of course – on his life.

“Fine, you go first.”

“Hang on; we need rules, don’t we?” I asked.

He raised his head slowly to look at me, a smirk breaking out on his gorgeous face. “Rules…? Oh baby, what fun is a game if there are rules involved?”

I shrugged. “Ok, truth,”

“Have you ever thought about the first time we kissed?”

I paused, looking at him with a frown. “Um…why would I?”

“So, you’ve never thought about it? It wasn’t worthy to be thought about, was it?” his voice dipped.

“That…that’s not what I meant, I mean. I just had a lot of things on my plate.”

“Hmm,” he reached up to place his thumb along his lower lip, attracting my eyes to it. “Would you like to brush up your memory?”

“That’s more than one question. It’s my turn.” I said quickly.

He swept his hand in a ‘go on’ gesture. “I pick Dare,”

Damn it.

“Um, dance with no music on,” I said, eager to get him to move through his dare so he could pick truth next time.

His face fell but he stood up obediently, seeming as eager to get it over with. He bopped his head, swaying his body to the left then right, snapping his fingers before doing a spin and flopping back down. “Your turn,”

“Truth,”

Hoseok pouted. “Come on, you’re boring me with this game,” he chastised and I rolled my eyes.

“Fine; Dare.”

“Kiss me,”

I pursed my lips, leaning forward to give him a peck on the cheek but at the last moment he turned his head, letting our lips crash together.

It was less messy than our first kiss, lips moving almost synchronized as he raised his hand to cup my face, bringing me in closer to him.

I moved away from him, watching his eyes flutter open; his pupils dilated and playful.

“I have a better game for us to play.” He said.

“What would that be?”

He smirked, “Too hot,”

I backed away, my turn to raise my eyebrows. “Are you serious? What are you, fifteen?” I asked, mocking him in the same tone.

“Come on,” his voice dropped seductively. “Let’s see how resistible you find me, shall we Princess?”

I huffed, reaching out to pull him in by the collar.

He reciprocated the action enthusiastically, grinning against my lips, even chuckling as I delved into his laughing mouth, making sure to keep my hands off of his skin as he placed his own firmly on the mattress to keep his off mine.

Soon the light din of the new channel faded into silence as the sounds of slight intakes of breath, soft pants and lips smacking against lips filled the room.

He broke away suddenly, his eyes smoldering as he looked at me, almost warring with some thought. “Fuck it,” he said finally before reaching out and grabbing my shoulders and smashing our lips together again, a deep grunt falling from his lips as he nibbled harshly on my bottom lip.

“Wait, wait,” I said backing away from him. “What about Yoongi?”

“He’s out, won’t be back till tomorrow,” Hoseok said, lunging forward to capture my lips as his hands slipped in slowly under my shirt, his fingers licking up my skin, barely touching, the feather light pressure of his cool pads against my increasingly heating skin raising goose bumps in its wake.

I shivered as he finally reached the back of bra before he pulled away to pull his own shirt off.

I sucked in a breath as my eyes trailed down the smooth, toned torso. He smiled at my stare, grabbing my hand and placing it on his sternum, just under this throat before dropping his hand, encouraging me to move with his eyes.

Slowly, licking my lips, I trailed my hand down the centre of his chest, the tips of my fingernails gently raking at the flicker of happy trail leading into his tight black jeans which showcased his long legs.

He jumped at the sensation, eyes rising to look at me with hot desire. His hair was ruffled, falling and darkening his eyes as his nostrils flared. His hands were soon on my own chest, unbuttoning the crimson blouse with hasty and nimble fingers.

He pushed the two free flaps of fabric aside, his body already reaching up on his knees to tower over me, devouring me with his eyes.

“Damn,” he said, his index finger running against the strap of my bra before sliding and flicking it off my shoulder before his mouth clamped down on the delicate skin. My back arched into his warmth as his teeth gently sunk in while his tongue laved over the sting, leaving a wet trail right up to the edge of my ear.

His hand moved the other strap down roughly, making the cup slide down from one breast just until the nipple was barely visible. He let go of my neck with a last suck, looking down at the almost exposed mound before looking into my eyes. Slowly, very slowly, he bent down, neck craning as his warm tongue swiped against the skin, before his two fingers hooked into the front clasp of the expensive bra, unsnapping it with ease.

His nose nudged down to the hardened nipple and his mouth engulfed it, sucking long and hard on it. I keened, a loud moan erupting from my throat as his other hand came up to my other breast, his thumb pressing into the bud, rotating the digit, small pricks of tantalizing pleasure running to the centre of my body.

He was leaning over me, pressing his weight into me and my hands reached out desperately to get some traction and my fingers hooked into his waistband, nails digging in just around his hip bones.

He grunted again, the suction on my breast vanishing as he looked down at my hands.

He looked up at me with an inflamed expression on his flushed face as he reached down and undid his belt, the dull clang of the buckle unhooking making heat pool slowly down my stomach and abdomen.

He unbuttoned and unzipped his pants just enough for the band of the Balenciaga brief to peek through. “Go ahead, baby, easy access,” he smiled as he returned his lips to mine as I hooked my fingers into his underwear, pulling it away from his skin before letting it snap back against the sensitive skin around his pelvis.

“Fuck,” he growled, breaking away and pushing the shirt and bra off my body as his arm hooked around my waist, pulling my lower half closer to his as laid me down on the bed.

As I stared up at him, I smiled slowly, watching lust pool into the darkness of his eyes as he glanced down at my fingers still on his waist.

“So, are you going to undress me or what?” he asked.

I blinked at how suddenly he was foregoing his dominance and I smirked, more than willing to pick up the gauntlet.

I pushed him to sit up before yanking down the skinny jeans he was wearing. He kicked it off all the way off the bed before he reached for mine. I swatted his hands off, taking the jeans off on my own.

“You wanted me to undress us, didn’t you?” I cooed, rolling over so that Hoseok was on his back, looking up at me with a hint of amazement as his lips quirked with amusement.

I slowly let my weight press just shy of his growing bulge, the silk cotton cool around my thighs as I grinded at an excruciating pace, torturing both him and me.

“Goddamn it, Y/N. Sit on it,” he ordered, hands curving around the edge of my ass, trying to physically pull me onto his clothed cock.

“You wish,” I giggled before running the nail of my index fingers right into the boxer, teasing the skin just at the beginning of his member. “Jesus,” his head buried right into the pillows as he felt the wetness seep from me onto his leg.

“Want me to ride you?” I asked mirroring his smirk as his eyes hardened just slightly.

“How about you sit on my face first?”

I paused just a second before starting the roll of my hips again. He was just trying to get back control and while I desperately wanted to give it to him, I knew he wouldn’t let me live it down for a long time.

“You…fucking…wish,” I growled back, pulling the boxers down to his thighs, trapping them as I sat on his shins, grinning up at him. “Y/N,” he said in warning but I ignored the warning as I captured just the tip in my mouth, sucking on it with the same hard drags that he had employed on my nipple.

His back arched as I let it pop back out and nibbled down the length with my lips sheathing my teeth, playing with the skin near his balls. “I see France agreed with you,” he let out a breathy laugh, rubbing his hands down his face before hiking himself up on his elbow while his free hand went to my hair, stroking it back.

“Look at me,” he said, his voice low and husky and I shot him a smug look, making a show of slurping around the member, making it push against my cheek and he groaned deep in his throat. I moaned right back, creating vibrations around his length while using my nails to draw patterns around the flushed delicate skin.

“Do it again,” he growled and I giggled, pulling away from his cock to give him a coy look while innocently scratching a trail down his hips.

“Shit,”

“Do you have a condom?” I asked. His eyes flew up to me, a wildness growing in them. “I’m clean. What about you?” he asked, his voice laced with frustration.

“I got a shot just last week, should be good for three more months,” I said.

Without another word, his hand was wrapped around the back of my neck, pulling me up to kiss him, his tongue delving against mine to taste himself. I finally sat on his cock resting rigid on his stomach, rolling my hips to coat him with my slick and he maneuvered himself straight as I sunk down on it.

Hoseok let his head fall back as his girth went deeper into me and with a downward thrust he nestled inside me to the hilt.

“Fuck,” we both muttered then laughed as his head dropped back, lips raw from biting it, a feverish look on his face.

“Move, Y/N,” he said and I began to grind down at the same slow pace as before but he let out a complaining moan at that, moving his own hips to rush at me.

“Shh,” I pressed down against his chest, increasing my pace till my eyes closed at the burning heat setting aflame in my lower stomach, pulsing and tightening, just waiting to burst at the seams.

“Yes, yes, Princess, you feel so good,” he whispered as he gripped onto my waist, fingers digging into the skin, surely leaving bruises as he bounced me faster on himself.

Sweat dripped down his forehead, our chests shining with the thin sheen as he brought one hand to rake his trimmed nails into the valley between my breasts.

“Play with them,” he said, his eyes fixed on them and I teasing pressed them closer and he let out a low whimper, before he sat up and pushed me back flat on the mattress.

He threw my legs over his shoulders before ramming harder into me, setting a bruising pace. He reached down, his thumb pressing onto my engorged clit as his eyes fixed on mine, watching me climb up to my high.

“Come for me, Princess. Let go,” he panted and I dug my nails into his forearms, cries of his name spilling out as his own eyes closed, muttered praises worded as he chased his own high.

His mouth fell open, before he was pulling out, hand wrapping around his base to jerk himself hard and fast. His eyebrows were scrunched; breaths coming out in harsh pants before with a deep resonating groan erupted from deep within his chest.

His head thrown back his expression cleared out as his hot seed spilled over my core.

His hand shot out to catch his weight as he looked into my eyes, something playing behind his eyes as he leaned in and very gently placed a kiss on my forehead.

Yoongi watched with narrowed eyes as his best friend and partner leaned forward, one hand braced on a locker as he captured Y/L/N’s lips in a kiss, watching her reciprocate with a heady sigh.

His eyes widened.

He might not be a field worker per say but he was so familiar with Hoseok’s work by now that he could recognize his tells from miles and this one particular tell was the easiest to differentiate.

He’s done it. He’d slept with her, taken the relationship to the next level, and established a form of bond that women so easily believed to be one of commitment. He was so close to his goal.

Something was off though…

Maybe it was the way he didn’t pull away from the kiss quickly…teasing and leaving the victim wanting more. No, he pressed in, before finally breaking away, his eyes soft and a gentle smile of his mouth.

Yoongi’s eyes narrowed again as he marched forward, latching onto Hoseok’s arm harshly.

Y/N and he both jolted, looking at him with wide, surprised eyes before he gritted out, “I need to talk to him,” and dragged him away with him.

“What the hell, Yoongi?” Hoseok grumbled when they were near the student lounge.

“Do you have feelings for Y/N Y/L/N?” he asked bluntly.

Hoseok paused before raising his eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t act dumb with me, Hobi. Do you fucking like her or not?”

There was a pause in which Hoseok glared balefully at his handler. “What will you do if I say no?”

Yoongi shrugged. “Obviously, let you get on with your work.”

“And if I say yes…?”

“Follow protocol,”

“You mean you’re going to get me off the case and get someone else? No way in hell,” Hoseok crossed his arms.

Yoongi pursed his lips, “So, what’s the answer?”

“I don’t like her, which is exactly why I will not let you get one of the others anywhere near her.”

Yoongi sighed, pinching his nose bridge, “Hobi, be practical; I can tell you like her, you’re compromised. If the Master finds out,”

“He won’t because there’s nothing to find.”

“I’m on your side, buddy. You get yourself the girl but the clients…”

“The clients can leave as they please. They want her signature. I will get them her damn signature. They will get a share in her company and they will kiss our ass but no way am I letting someone like Wang get anywhere near her. I’m fine Yoongi. Someone like Y/N Y/L/N isn’t going to get me to settle, no matter how good a lay she is.”

With that he spun on his heel and strutted off.

Even as Yoongi hurried to keep up with his long legged stride, two boys stared at each other just around the hallway bend, stunned into silence.

“What the fuck?” Jungkook cursed.

Taehyung shook his head, too shocked to even say anything.

They looked down at their shoes before looking back at each other before nodding solemnly.

Y/N needed to know.

#jhope smut #jhope angst #jhope fanfic #bts smut #bts angst #bts fanfic #bts #jhope #jung hoseok #absinthe

28 notes · View notes

sweet-xoxo-thatcares · 3 years

Text

Idk, maybe I'm just scared. Scared of what you'll be afterwards.

Will you still laugh at my dad jokes?

Will you still wanna cuddle with me in your bed?

Will you be with me, no matter what happens?

No matter, if I decide to move somewhere else to explore?

Will you change so much, that I won't even recognize you?

Will you still say "mhmm" to me, when you know I'm just kidding?

Will you still let me hug you and kiss you just one last time?

And squeeze me tight, tighter till where my lungs collapse, like you never wanna see me leave again. Like you'll never let me go. Like you'll arrest me if I try to move on from you?

Lol, its hard for me to just stop, even when I texted goodbye I thought it would be easier than to just say it to your face, because I would hate for you to reject me to my face, when I didn't even wanna leave. I didn't want you to see me bleed like that and still hurt me for even wanting a goodbye kiss.

We hadn't even gotten the chance to do so many things, but I feared the end. Because I had the say and the power, and I didn't.

Your baby and your marriage plan, doesn't include me. I guess I was just supposed to move in as your closest convenience, whenever ayunna didn't want you to touch her, kiss her, hold her at night, or just listen to you and calm your cold heart when you had your insomnia moments?

I can't just be girl #2. You didn't even wanna claim me. You didn't see a commitment with me working. I was just some young, overpleasing, chick, who was your friend, and an always available sex toy or cold substitute to sit there to watch movies with you because ayunna was working in the next room, not giving you enough attention.

But you never wanted me to get too comfortable when you would treat me like a gf, fuck me like a freak, and then kick me out to the friend zone after your mind was made up; you didn't see a future with me. But ayunna made sense to you. While you played me like a game, like a toy that she use and beat up with her words too, she got off on it, you emotionally and verbally abusing me that way. It was a show to her, allll about entertaining it. Entertaining her, making it seem like there's nothing going on outside the bedroom, and rejecting me in front of her face, on your phone, our conversations....because she was watching and listening to everything we said to each other. Tryna control me and you, against each other like we were friend dolls. She got off in her amusement, to see that even I wasn't better than her. Cause she was proud to dominate us. She liked the idea of me getting close to her, offered me to have sex with her, cause she knew if I took that chance...it would've burned our relationship and she would have won the battle. Cause you can't say no to Ayunna in her own game. And she keeps talking to me as if I'm alll in the wrong. When she doesn't even see that she's treating us like we're her two kids who's supposed to do what she says and have sex only when she wants us to. There was no democracy. Just you guys and your tyranny ring of fire. I was supposed to just bow down, keep my head low, and don't say anything to piss her off. That's what you taught me to do Jay. You taught me to behave, so it would be easier for her to accept me into ya'll bdsm lifestyle. A mother with two switches. And you taught me that if I fight her or debate with her, there was consequences.

I'm not scared of her anymore, that's why the last time I called, I was still in shock about you changing, but I said she was a pain in the ass for that very reason. And no, I don't think her head is screwed on just right, because you taught her it was ok for her to control us like that for so long. Always defending her and taking her side, when you couldn't even see how unfair this was for me, and I was supposed to just take it? And that you was just gonna leave me, because of her, because of us? Yea fuck that, I'm not shutting my power to speak, to vote, the right to say no and defend myself for no fucking body.

You were the worst kind of friend and that made me see you differently. Because only a punk, a chump, a coward would say some shit like that to me. No man, should ever have to object themselves to that kind of level of control, just to get married to someone and have a family. And on top of that, abuse, neglect, reject and emotionally harm the intimate partners that you decide to bring into this. No woman should have to go through that just to be with you. And you pressured me and stressed me out, just so you could betray me and my heart over and over again. You're not my soulmate.

And I wish you would just get out of my head. Out of my memories, my photos, the movies I watch, the foods I've eaten, the drinks that I take, my whole fucking world still is assaulted by you, Jay.

Cause I can never forget you. You were my first. My first caregiver, didn't care about me. And was left alone with no aftercare as a little. Damn near created a split personality, cause you thought the hurt didn't matter and acted like it was gross just to even want to be hugged or kissed by you. You wiped the chapstick I had on my lips like I was your worst kisser in the whole wide world, and it was our first fucking kiss. You always pushed me away, if I made one mistake, which is really not....just you not wanting me to my lips to stick out a certain way or me have sucked your clit too hard and it was my first time ever engaging in oral on pussy. You were a total freak and a sex perfectionist. You probably like it the exact same way each and every time or you get uncontrollable anxious if you don't feel like you can control me. Truth is, you can't. So fuck it. I'm a dom, not a little. You tried to make me someone I wasn't, because you were afraid of what I could do without a leash. You didn't want ayunna to know either. You didn't wanna take no chances. Cause I'm stronger than you.

Never take or trust the labels that people put on you. You don't have to abide by the rules. That's what you taught me when I met you.

Your game, it's over. You and her, you don't get to control me, bully me, harass me, and torture me/confuse me for fun anymore. You don't get to laugh or get high off my pain anymore. You're sick, sadists. Go heal. Go pray. Don't beat nobody else down today.

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easyhairstylesbest · 3 years

Text

Dylan Farrow Would Like to Reintroduce Herself

Coat, Max Mara.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY VALERIE CHIANG

Scouring the fantasy section of her favorite bookstore near the Connecticut farm where she grew up, Dylan Farrow would pick out anything that “promised me dragons,” she says. She loved the fire and destruction of mythical beasts; conspiracy theories involving families plotting against their own kin; and the way women, children, and other small creatures wielded magical powers that made them stronger in those make-believe worlds than they were in our own. “I think it started out as an escape route,” she says. “For any fans of fantasy, whether they’re in my position or not, it’s fun escapism, a way to step outside of yourself and your problems, and, I don’t know, think about dragons for a while.” She pauses to clarify: “I’m not trying to escape who I am—I’m fine with who I am. I mean, it’s taken me a while to get here, but I can say with [some] degree of certainty that I’m okay.”

Still, the first time we talked, late last year, it hadn’t quite sunk in for her that she had her own debut young adult fantasy fiction novel, Hush, on bookshelves like the ones she’d perused as a teenager. In a lot of ways, the release of Hush has served as a debut for the 35-year-old author as well, in her new life as a full-time writer and working mother, defined by no one but herself. After all, for most of her life, Dylan has been known mostly in relation to the salacious scandals that have swirled around her famous family. She became a public figure not by choice, but rather because she was Mia Farrow’s daughter, or Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Ronan Farrow’s sister. “I don’t feel like I have a father,” she says, but at one point her father was Woody Allen, Mia’s boyfriend of about a decade, who’d adopted Dylan as a child. Later, of course, Allen would go on to have an affair with, and then marry, her sister, Soon-Yi Previn. “There’s no support group for people whose sisters marry their fathers,” she says. “Or is he my brother-in-law? And is she my stepmom? I’ve got to joke about it!”

Dylan playing dress-up with Mia in the early 1990s.

Courtesy of Dylan Farrow

Then there’s the other scandal that she’ll likely never fully escape, now the subject of an HBO investigative documentary series, Allen v. Farrow. In 1992, when Dylan was seven—the same year the Soon-Yi affair blew up—she told her mother that Allen had taken her into an attic crawl space and sexually molested her, as Mia would testify in the ensuing custody battle. It was part of a pattern that Dylan later said went on for as long as she could remember, of Allen getting into bed with her wearing only his underwear, or putting his head in her naked lap. The custody fight was vicious and tore their family apart, estranged Allen from most of his children permanently, and became such a public tabloid spectacle that Dylan remembers having to be sneaked out of the back of her New York City apartment building with a blanket over her head so she could get to school without being snapped by the paparazzi. She still has PTSD from the ordeal.

A report by the Yale-New Haven Hospital Child Sexual Abuse Clinic, whose methods the judge in the custody case questioned as unreliable, concluded that Dylan was not sexually abused and that Dylan was either disturbed and made it up or had been manipulated by her mother. The judge gave Mia full custody, finding that the testimony proved “that Mr. Allen’s behavior toward Dylan was grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect her.” Allen appealed, but the appellate court agreed with the trial judge’s custody ruling. Although it gave more weight to the Yale-New Haven report, the appeals court found that the overall evidence, while “inconclusive,” “suggest[ed] that the abuse did occur.” New York State child welfare investigators later announced that they’d found no credible evidence of abuse. Several months after the custody decision was announced, a Connecticut state’s attorney announced that he had probable cause to criminally charge Allen but was declining to file charges to spare Dylan the trauma of a court appearance. Criminal charges have never been filed against Allen in the matter, and he continues to maintain his innocence. (Allen declined a request to comment for this article, but he has vociferously and repeatedly denied having molested her, and has pointed to investigations that cleared him of wrongdoing.)

“Believe it or not, the stuff that I wrote about in that essay does not encompass the entirety of my existence.”

If you know Dylan’s name now, though, it’s probably because in 2014, well before the #MeToo movement, she wrote a New York Times essay about that abuse, calling out Hollywood actors and asking whether they’d be so quick to celebrate Allen’s work had their own daughter been “led into an attic” by him. It wasn’t until her brother Ronan helped expose the misdeeds of Harvey Weinstein that Dylan’s accusations were given much credence. Dylan had emerged from obscurity to become a staunch advocate for survivors of sexual assault. But now she’s ready to emerge from that as simply a writer. “Believe it or not, the stuff that I wrote about in that essay does not encompass the entirety of my existence,” she says. “It’s a small part of 35 years of living.”

In fact, Dylan isn’t even Dylan Farrow’s name anymore. When she was eight, she changed it to a name she prefers to keep private, in order to psychologically distance herself from the events of those tumultuous years. But she’s been using Dylan as a sort of pen name, starting with the 2014 essay, to avoid confusion given that Dylan is the name in all the court documents. Among close friends and family, though, she says, “No one’s called me Dylan since I was 10.”

“I’m not trying to escape who I am. I’m fine with who I am”, says Dylan. “I mean, it’s taken me a while to get here, but I can say with some degree of certainty that I’m okay.”

VALERIE CHIANG

Reading Hush, it’s impossible not to see Dylan’s story in its themes. The book centers on Shae, a girl who is dealing with a lot and doesn’t really have time for boys. She’s “short but strong,” Dylan says, and she’s also doggedly determined to ferret out the truth—even as adults tell her it’s all in her head. The world she’s living in is falling apart, stricken by drought and a pandemic that Dylan swears she dreamed up well before 2020. A despotic leadership class wields magic to spread fake news, earn tithes, and control the populace. The written word, the people are told, will kill them; the pandemic spreads through ink. And it is only in trying to solve the murder of someone she loves that Shae finds out that she, too, can wield magic. But can she learn how to use it fast enough, when the truth is slipping away and she’s being gaslighted by powerful forces, causing her to question what she knows? Dylan says that of course the themes are partially based on her life, but readers shouldn’t try to draw too many direct parallels. “As I keep having to assert,” she says, “I do know the difference between fiction and reality.”

Fantasy writers like “Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L’Engle, and Susan Cooper were all a big deal in our house,” Ronan says, adding that his older sister also “had an abiding love of anime.”

COURTESY OF DYLAN FARROW

After being awarded custody in 1993, Mia moved her large family, filled with biological and adopted children, many of them with disabilities, from Manhattan to their country house in Connecticut. Mia was determined to give the kids “the real farm experience,” Dylan says. They had horses, chickens, goats, and a cow who got lonely and tried having sex with everything, including one of the Farrow siblings’ wheelchairs. “It was a busy, noisy life full of children and animals,” Mia says.

Dylan now maintains a happy pandemic pod with her own family on that same farm, 88 acres with hiking and horse trails and a lake. She’s calling via Zoom from a home office with nothing but greenery and sunlight outside her window. Dylan, her husband (she asked that his name not be published), her four-year-old daughter Evangeline (whose name is already all over Mia’s Instagram), their pug Luna, and their English bulldog Nova stay in one house. Her brother Fletcher, who works in tech, and his wife and two daughters live in another. Their mother has a third. When we talked, Ronan and his fiancé, Jon Lovett of Pod Save America, had recently joined them from the West Coast and were staying with Mia.

Dylan’s earliest exposure to fantasy, she says, was a bedtime ritual of her mom reading The Hobbit to the kids. “My mom, I sometimes forget, is actually a really talented actress,” she says. “So she would read the bejesus out of this book, and it was the most epic thing I had ever heard. My mom would narrate and do all the voices. To this day, her rendition of Gollum is like canon tome.” At around age 11, Dylan wrote stories to read aloud to her younger siblings. “She kept them so enthralled,” Mia says. Ronan, two years her junior, says they both read a lot growing up. “Great women writers of fantasy loomed large for both of us—Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L’Engle, and Susan Cooper were all a big deal in our house,” he says. “Dylan had an abiding love of anime, which I only dabbled in.” (Dylan says she also had an abiding love of Lance Bass of *NSync.)

Dylan casts a spell on her brother Ronan, whom she calls “one of the most important people in my life.”

Courtesy of Dylan Farrow

“I loved to play make-believe with Ronan,”Dylan says. “We’d play dress-up, and I’d sometimes let him play Barbies with me, if I was feeling charitable.” They collected pewter Dungeons & Dragons figurines and created a civilization for them. “We developed some pretty elaborate lore,” Ronan says. In her teenage years, Dylan wrote and illustrated a Game of Thrones–style novel, clocking in at “530-something” pages, that she says “was not fit for human consumption.” Its audience of one was her little sister, Quincy. There were dragons. The main character was an elf. There was a war. Some of it took place in space. “Every concept and every crazy notion I needed to express got chucked into the pot, and it went in a million directions and it was garbage,” she says. “I mean, my sister loves it to this day. She still talks about it.” Back then, as an author, Dylan felt supremely confident. “If I thought it was bad, I wouldn’t have written 500 pages,” she says, laughing.

The court hearings of Dylan’s childhood were, in many ways, a prosecution of her so-called “overactive” imagination. She’d described being in the attic with the “dead heads”—“which was literally because I didn’t know the word for mannequin,” she says. “I knew that people thought that I was using my imagination to tell lies,” she continues, but somehow that never affected her desire to write. Nor did Allen being a famous writer influence her in any way, “although it’s probably the reason I never wrote about New York and jazz and May–December romances,” she says.

In her senior year at Bard College, where she was majoring in art and Asian studies, Dylan decided to sign up for an online dating site associated with The Onion. This was in 2007, well before Tinder, “when dinosaurs roamed the Earth,” she says. At first, she wasn’t having much luck. “I signed up and there was, like, an influx of fifty-somethings being like, ‘Age ain’t nothing but a number, right?’ ” she says. “I’m like, ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree.’ ” Then she came across this “adorable” recent graduate living in New York City who described himself as a geek. “So I did the thing I’ve never done before or since, and I sent him a message and flirted with the guy,” she says. “I said, ‘You didn’t mention you were a cute geek.’ Winky-face emoji. I’m turning bright red telling you this.”

They met up at Grand Central Terminal and got pie and coffee, and the conversation never stopped flowing. After graduation, she moved in with him in New York. “He tried to kick me out,”she says. “He told me, ‘You’re finally independent. You should have the experience of having your own place, paying your own rent.’ I’m like,‘That’s really responsible of you, but that sounds like a lot of work.’ ” Dylan got a job as a production assistant at CNN, working the phones and the copy machine at the Nancy Grace show, mainly so she could continue to crash with her boyfriend. She was eventually laid off. “Journalism, it turns out, wasn’t for me. Wrong member of my family,” she says. When her boyfriend got a job offer he couldn’t turn down in South Florida and asked her to join him, she agreed. “In the back of my head, I’m thinking, ‘Well, I’d better get an engagement ring out of this,’ ” she says. And she did. They’ve been together for 14 years, married for 10.

Dylan has been writing stories to entertain her younger siblings since age 11. “She kept them so enthralled,” Mia says.

VALERIE CHIANG

Dylan spent the following six years in Broward County, living a relatively normal life. She worked for a weight-loss center, and later found a job as a graphic designer. Back at home, she’d write fantasy stories well into the early hours. “That was where I was finding my happy place,” she says. “I sat down with my husband at one point and I said, ‘Look, I spend every morning sitting in my car giving myself this pep talk, like, Today is going to be over at some point. And I can’t live like this.’ ” She did some soul-searching and realized she wanted to become a full-time writer. “My husband was like, ‘Okay, this is important to you. We’ll make it work.’ He’s a champ.”

So she sat down and wrote a novel. Not Hush, but a “casserole” of ideas. “It was about necromancers, set in a Spanish Inquisition–like setting,” she says. “It was maybe a little anti-religion; they were heretics.” Her protagonist was too old for YA, but the story didn’t exactly work for a broader fantasy audience either. “I wound up learning a lot about, you know, what sort of book gets picked up by publishers,” she says, laughing.

Around 2014, Dylan and her husband decided to move back northeast to Connecticut. Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine had come out to critical praise the previous year, garnering two Golden Globe and three Academy Award nominations, including Best Original Screenplay for Allen. The sexual assault allegation, the custody battle, and leaving Manhattan had all happened in 1992 and 1993. Dylan had started fourth grade in Connecticut, thinking she’d never have to worry about any of it again, except for the rare occasions when her mom went to court. “I sort of treated it as out of sight, out of mind, and I did that for about 20 years,” she says. “But then he was up for an Academy Award, and no one cared.

We were in the process of relocating, and I snapped and went crazy and the essay happened.” When she told someone close to her that she was thinking about speaking out, he said, “Well, why? Nobody cares.” When she told her therapist that “maybe this is something, someday, you know, nebulously, abstractly I’m considering,” he told her that it was a terrible idea and she’d undo all the progress she’d made.“Obviously, I didn’t listen to those people,” she says. “The thing is, in a lot of ways, they were wrong. But in a lot of [other] ways, they were right. In 2014, nobody really did give a crap. And I did undo all the progress I’d made.”

The essay caused a stir, but Allen kept his Academy Award nomination, and the star of Blue Jasmine, Cate Blanchett, won the Oscar for Best Actress. Meanwhile, Dylan had opened Pandora’s box. “I had to develop an entirely new skill set with different coping mechanisms based around having spoken out and the aftermath of that,” she says. “The difference was, I was doing this on my own terms.” She still struggles at times, “but on the whole, it does feel healthier to cope with it on that level rather than just ignore it. I think it’s also more helpful to the people in my life: my husband, my family, my friends. They know what’s going on now. I’m not just freaking out because I saw some random movie poster. There’s a method to the madness.”

Mia, Ronan, and Dylan in Connecticut, in 2016.

Courtesy of Dylan Farrow

Mia can see a huge difference. “She’s evolved from being a shy child to being much more assertive. And a lot of it has to do with coming out with her personal story and feeling less like a victim,” she says. “I do know that as a mother, my job, among other jobs, is and always has been to support her in whatever she needs. I’ve stood by her all these years, and I will continue to do so.”

Dylan has only seen three of Allen’s movies: 1973’s Sleeper (“As a kid, I think it was framed as, ‘Do you want to see Daddy eat a rubber glove?’ and I was like, ‘Oh yeah!’ ”) and two others, Alice and The Purple Rose of Cairo, neither of which Allen appears in onscreen. According to IMDb, Dylan appears in Alice, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and New York Stories, “which is really trippy,” she says, “because I don’t remember being in them.” For her Alice appearance, she visited her mom on set, ran up to hug her and say “hi,” and then ran off. She remembers the moment, but not being filmed. She also remembers being at the circus with two kids who kept putting their Cracker Jack in her popcorn. Years later, when she saw the movie, she realized she was watching herself. “It was weird, like seeing my memory, but with different people,” she says.

Triggers are all around her, and whether they’ll set her off depends on how she is doing emotionally that day. She’ll freeze up if she’s scrolling through a news feed and sees a face with thick glasses, or if she overhears jazz music. In the past, such things could leave her curled up in a fetal position. During a 2018 TV interview with Gayle King, Dylan burst out crying after being shown a recording of Allen denying the allegation. It hasn’t gotten better overnight—“It’s a process,” she says—but Dylan has been steadily improving since speaking out. “I try to take the mindset that I have a 100 percent success rate of getting through every single one of the panic attacks I’ve ever had; none of them have killed me.” In some ways, she says, it’s been a blessing to be Evangeline’s mother in this fraught time, to have to care for a small child and to know she has to hold it together for her. “My top priority is obviously making sure that my daughter is always safe, healthy, and loved,” she says. Asked what she says when others assert that Allen was just acting as a doting father, Dylan replies: “Let him watch your kid.”

It still baffles her when Allen’s fans come after her on Twitter, saying she’s lying. “This is something that I’m literally telling you happened to me. Who are you to say, ‘No, it didn’t’? I was there, you weren’t. Go away.” Still, it’s amazing to her that some people peddle the idea that her mother brainwashed her to believe she was molested and also to have PTSD from it—something she says Mia would have needed “military-grade torture equipment” to pull off. “It’s crazy that for some people, the idea that I was brainwashed is somehow easier to swallow than child sexual abuse,” she says.

“I guess I’m just way more vindictive than anybody gave me credit for,” Dylan says. “And I say that because it’s not entirely a bad thing. Vindictive women can get stuff done.”

VALERIE CHIANG

Dylan didn’t tell her mother and Ronan that she was going to write the essay until she already knew she was going to publish it. “I kind of wanted to wait until there were no take-backsies before I really discussed it with them, because I wasn’t sure how they were going to react,” she says. It was the first time she’d told Ronan what had happened in detail. “And he started crying, which I didn’t really expect,” she says. “He’s not super sentimental.” Even for Ronan, #MeToo warrior that he is now, there was a period of adjustment, of separating the family desire to put the past behind them with his sister’s need to expose her wounds in order to heal them. They talked often and at length, and in 2016, when Allen’s film Café Society was opening the Cannes Film Festival, Ronan wrote his own essay supporting his sister’s claims for The Hollywood Reporter. It was loud and splashy, and dominated all the press for Allen’s film. And in its own way, it led to Ronan chasing down the stories of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults. “Dylan was absolutely a voice of conscience on this issue,” Ronan said by email. “I learned a lot, watching her come forward with her story, and maintain it consistently, year after year—even when I and others around her weren’t sure it was worth the blowback.”

“Without Ronan’s support, I probably would’ve felt completely adrift,” Dylan says. “He’s one of the most important people in my life.” What she didn’t realize was just how important those conversations would be to her brother and others, through his work.

“I thought he was just, like, calling me. It wasn’t until I read his book that I realized I was actually having this huge impact on him.” It bothered her, though, that her essay from 2014 “was kind of brushed off and ignored or sidelined or outright stomped into the dust,” but when her brother said the exact same thing two years later, suddenly people’s ears perked up. “I got salty at Ronan, because I was like, ‘Do people really need a white man to say the exact same thing to get people to listen?’ ”

So in 2017, in the wake of #MeToo, she wrote a second incendiary essay, this time for the Los Angeles Times, which questioned how all these men could be taken to task, but Woody Allen was still making movies. “[At age seven,] I wasn’t, obviously, given a platform, and I was not in an emotional state to take advantage of a platform. I was literally a child,” she says. “And it’s easy when you are a white man with a considerable amount of clout, power, and wealth to silence a voice like that, pin the blame on my mom, and spin the story for 20-plus years.” The good thing, though, is that Dylan has begun to recognize her own power. “I guess I’m just way more vindictive than anybody gave me credit for,” she says. “And I say that because it’s not entirely a bad thing. Vindictive women can get stuff done.”

“I never thought I would be writing about a dystopia in a climate where that would feel relatable.”

In the end, Hush hasn’t been an escape route for Dylan, but rather a way forward out of the darkness that has clouded her existence for so long. After her first novel about the necromancers failed to find a publisher, she decided to start over, “drawing on the themes and ideas that I was seeing percolating in the world around me,” she says. In 2018, as now, fake news and propaganda were hot topics, as was a general distrust of the system. “I never thought I would be writing about a dystopia in a climate where that would feel relatable,” she says. When Mia read it, she saw her daughter in Shae. “I see Dylan’s courage against monstrous thoughts and monstrous people and powerful foes,” she says. “Being disbelieved is part of the assault.” While she says she can’t speak for her daughter, Mia thinks that in writing the book, Dylan was able to reckon with her past in a way that was “bearable,” by creating a story “which is and isn’t about her.”

Hush

Dylan Farrow bookshop.org

$17.47

As of mid-January, Dylan was nearly finished writing the sequel to Hush, with only half of the final chapter and the epilogue to go. She’s found that it’s progressing faster and is more enjoyable this time around, because she no longer has the terror of being a debut novelist who, before this, “was a known quantity for something very specific—and something with a lot of morbid curiosity around it.”

She knows that curiosity will always be there. “I can’t completely disentangle myself from it,” she says. And the publicity for this book has meant a lot of “talking about the thing that I like least in the world. It’s always going to be the elephant in the room.” But no amount of fear can take away the pleasure of holding her book in her hands, and knowing that someone else might happen across it at a bookstore and take it off the shelf. Her simple hope is that “somebody will read it and connect to it and enjoy it and maybe not take it so seriously.”

Jada Yuan Jada Yuan circumnavigated the globe in 2018 as the inaugural 52 Places Traveler for the New York Times. Before that, she spent over a decade at New York Magazine and its websites as a contributing editor and culture features writer, where she profiled Stevie Nicks, Ava Duvernay, and Bill Murray, among others.

Dylan Farrow Would Like to Reintroduce Herself

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jbuffyangel · 7 years

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Against The Ropes: Arrow 6x02 Review (Tribute)

Arrow delivers another strong episode with “Tribute.” We are on a roll! As I've said, I enjoy Oliver most when he’s up against the ropes and punching his way out. In “Tribute” Oliver is fighting against three heavy weights: Samandra, William and Anatoly. He’s not the only one backed into a corner though. John Diggle is too.

Let’s dig in...

Oliver Queen

Oliver doesn’t always have to punch his way out of a problem. He is an intelligent man with a knack for strategic thinking. The photo of Oliver as the Green Arrow puts him in that frame of mind, which is always enjoyable to watch. He also needs a worthy advisary for this cat and mouse game to be any fun, which is what Agent Watson (FBI!!!!!) brings to the table.

However, I don't think Oliver anticipated the emotional fallout from this photograph. It leads to some very interesting conversations with William, and if you can believe it, Rene. By adding William to the mix, "Tribute" suddenly becomes more about Oliver protecting his son from the consequences of being the Green Arrow rather than himself.

Source: olivergifs

Oliver handles the press with all the schmooze and charm of Tony Stark, but this is DC and not Marvel. We aren't dropping that name. No sir. There are rules about that.

Source:queensarrow

Everybody knows what a huge Batman fan I am, so yes I absolutely squealed at the mention of the Caped Crusader,

but now Arrow opened the door. The image of Bruce Wayne hanging out in Star City, drinking a beer with Oliver while talking dead parents and vigilante-ing is one I so desperately need.

All wishful thinking aside, Oliver's point (and Stephen's line) have a logical point. Any photo can be doctored. A photo doesn't prove anything. Unless the photo actually does prove something, such as this, but that's just details. Keep on dancing Oliver!

Agent Watson is not buying Oliver's charm. She absolutely believes he is the Green Arrow. I mean... the scruff and handsome cleft chin are evidence enough.

The dodge and weave is something that's been missing since Quentin discovered Oliver's identity. These scenes with Watson feel very reminiscent of Season 1. I also appreciate that Arrow didn't ignore the history between Quentin and Oliver. There is no emotional baggage with Watson like there was with Lance. Quentin's rage over Sara certainly put Oliver in his crosshairs, but Watson isn't Lance. There's no messy history with Oliver. It makes her investigation simpler. This is just about the Green Arrow.

Source:queensarrow

Things come to a head when Watson wants to start issuing subpoenas - including one for William. It leads to an interesting confrontation with Oliver. In Season 1, Oliver would have pretended to be the lazy, playboy, billionaire's son. A man too stupid and too selfish to be The Hood.

Source @olliequeengifs

Oliver has to change his tactics because his public image has changed.

Now, he's the mayor. He's a man who cares deeply for his city, but does so within the confines of the law. Oliver comes dressed in a crispy grey suit. He is the perfect image of a law abiding citizen. This "image" Oliver is presenting to Agent Watson is much closer to who Oliver Queen truly is. Yet, the charming slickness of the playboy remains. Only now Oliver isn't too stupid or selfish to save the city. He's simply too busy already saving it. During the day. As mayor.

Oliver tells Agent Watson he is an open book - except when it comes to William. Oliver is warm, accommodating and gracious. Until he's not.

“If I really am the man you think I am, how far do you think such a man would go to keep his son from being scrutinized?”

It's a not so subtle threat. Oliver's voice starts off light, a charming little smile playing on his lips, but by the end his voice drops to that familiar lower octave. His smile disappears and he fixes a steely gaze on Agent Watson. He may be dressed as Oliver Queen, but the Green Arrow is in the room too. Neither the suit or the hood is playing. Not when it comes to William. If there was ever a scene in which Oliver perfectly walks the tightrope of his two selves - this is it.

Source: olivergifs

Proof that the photograph is doctored arises just in time (thanks Felicity and Curtis!).

It takes care of the immediate Agent Watson problem, although not for good. However, this photograph unearthed some long latent fears within William. Fears that will not be solved with quick thinking tech.

William is beaten up by some much larger eighth graders who apparently lack cognitive thinking skills of any kind. At first Oliver is met with a stony silence when he presses William about what happened. (He gets that from you Oliver). Eventually William cracks though and tells Oliver what happened.

Source: arrowsource

The older kids were teasing William about Oliver "not being there for him" and being the Green Arrow.

Now, someone is gonna have to walk me around this logic bend cause... WTF? How is Oliver being the Green Arrow mean he's not there for William as his father? You know what? I'm just gonna stop. Bullies never make sense.

The first thing Oliver tells William is to go for the nose.

Source: arrowsource

YEAH BABY!

This is the Green Arrow parenting I want to see. Anytime anyone messes with my kid I want to tear their head off. We are sympatico Oliver.

Obviously, we want kids to work through their differences. No need to @ me about the importance of children working through their differences without violence. It's also important for a child to defend themselves when being attacked, especially if you are Oliver Queen's son. This is Oliver's world. We saw real parenting confidence in him for the first time. He knows how to handle these types of situations. Oliver teaching William strategy and how to throw a punch is equally as important as math homework in this world.

However, the physical challenges William are the easy problems. It's the emotional ones that are the humdingers for Oliver. William is angry with Oliver for ditching him in the limo to go Green Arrow. Sometimes I want to punch The Flash too William. I RELATE KID.

Source: westallenolicitygifs

What a heartbreaking line.

William has gone from a kid who believed so absolutely in the power of The Flash and the Green Arrow to save lives. However, when it mattered the most nobody could save his mother. Not even the Green Arrow. It brings the much larger issues going on inside William to the surface.

Oliver: I will always come back.

William: Just like my mom?

He’s got ya there Oliver.

Most children do not worry about their parents dying. In their eyes we are invincible. We are immortal. Until we are not. Children only worry about their parents dying when they are given a reason to.

William has been given more than enough reasons to worry. His mother is dead and his father goes out, night after night, to fight the worst criminals the world has ever seen. Samantha's death is enough to make William fear losing his father, even if Oliver was a mailman,

However, William shows real self awareness when he tells Oliver the fear he carries is worse because his father willfully throws himself into life or death situations. The circumstances surrounding Samantha's death were out of her control. William understands that on some level and that's scary enough. It’s different with Oliver. Every time he leaves the house William fears losing him. However, Oliver’s extracurricular activities magnify that fear ten fold and with good reason.

Oliver tries to reassure William that he has everything under control. That he can handle any bad guy thrown at him.

*whistling*

William: What if you can't? I'll be alone. I'll have nobody.

There it is. What I suspected William is truly afraid of because of course that's what he is afraid of. William argues Oliver can't understand the fear and pain he carries, but he's wrong. Oliver does understand all too well.

Source:olivergifs

The image William paints, the one of being all alone, is one his father has lived. Oliver is an orphan. Yes, he may have been older, but Oliver understands the pain and loneliness William feels and fears. He would do anything to protect William from it.

Oliver makes William a promise. However, it is William's response to it that is so astounding.

Source: westallenolicitygifs

Oliver is not God. William knows his father is just trying to reassure him, but this promise is not in Oliver's control. Oliver cannot bend circumstances to his will. He is not invincible. He is not immortal. It's an inescapable truth that comes with losing a parent.

It leads to a beautiful scene with... RENE???

The description of 6x02 said Oliver goes to a surprising source for parenting advice and boy were they right. Rene can be off putting and downright offensive, but he can also be really funny and gentle. It's in these softer moments with the character that I like him best. One of my chief complaints with Arrow is that, despite having a large cast, the same characters interact all the time. An emotional moment between these two characters is a nice change of pace from their usual sardonic banter.

Oliver: I’ve never lied to my kid before.

The truth is - William is right. Every time Oliver is in the field he may not come back. No one has to tell Oliver Queen about the risks of being the Green Arrow. He absolutely understands and accepts them. If he wasn't willing to sacrifice his life then he wouldn't be out there in the first place.

The problem is Oliver is not only responsible for himself now. In some ways, it's the same reasons Oliver feared being in a relationship with Felicity.

He didn't want her to be a target or put her life in danger. Life as the Green Arrow would always interfere with life as Oliver Queen. However, Felicity is a grown woman who can make her own decisions. She's also perfectly capable of taking care of herself. William is none of those things. For the first time, Oliver has someone who is truly dependent on him. So, the question becomes - what is Oliver willing to sacrifice for his child? What is he willing to do to make William feel safe and secure?

The first step is to only make William promises Oliver can keep. Rene is right. Little white lies are often a necessary parenting tool, but no parent can promise their child they'll always come home. Especially not to a child who lost a mother. When William lost his mother he lost his tether. Now he's just floating, listless and afraid. Oliver needs to give William a new tether.

Oliver admits he was wrong. Stephen Amell does such a wonderful job in this scene showing how much it physically pains Oliver to say those words, especially to his son.

Source:arrowsource

HA! Raisa giving William insider tips about Oliver is my lifeblood.

The first promise Oliver makes is:

“I am going to do everything in my power forever to make sure you don't end up in this world alone. I know you think that isn't up to me and that's a fair and smart point, which is why I think I've found so that maybe it can be.”

This promise contains some very interesting phrasing. On the surface it seems like Oliver is hanging up the hood, which by the end of the episode, is exactly what he does. However, the show is called Arrow. He's not hanging up the hood forever. So, how does Oliver keep this promise to William if he puts on the hood again?

I am going to do everything in my power forever to make sure you don't end up in this world alone.

The Season 6 theme is family. The family you are born into and the family you build. Oliver built a family after he lost his parents. He combated the pain and loneliness with love and friendship. Some of that family includes blood,

but a lot of it doesn't.

He needs to combat the fear, pain and loneliness in William the same way - with love and friendship. Oliver needs to build a family that extends beyond just the two of them. So, no matter what happens to Oliver, William knows he will always be loved, he will always be taken care of and he will never be alone. The more Oliver folds William into the family he built the less fearful his son will be. Oliver can never replace William's mother, but he can help William find security in this new tether.

Now, don't go freaking out on me that Oliver Queen is going to die. That's not the point of this. This isn't foreshadowing of Oliver's death. I don’t belive that’s where we are headed. We danced that dance in Season 3.

Oliver doesn't fear death. He fears life. The challenge of his hero's story is in living - not dying. However, Arrow has to address the dangers of vigilantism and the realities of parenting. Arrow is pushing Oliver down the road of a big and beautiful life. One filled with meaning, purpose, love, friends and children. I wonder what’s one way Oliver can expand his family. Hmmm...

But first, William must feel secure with his father before he's ready to expand beyond Oliver. So, this time away from the Green Arrow is incredibly important.

It is not forever though. Eventually, William will come to the decision every person who loves Oliver Queen arrives at. He will learn the Green Arrow is a vital part of who his father is and tell Oliver to suit up again. Essentially, William will join Team Arrow. Maybe he won't be out on the street fighting (not yet anyway), but there are other ways to help. For William, it will be sharing his father with the city. Is that a lot to ask of a ten year old boy? Yes, but that's the point. Selflessness often requires some kind of sacrifice. After all, William is Oliver Queen's son.

John Diggle

What happened to John on Lian Yu is finally revealed!

Source: dctvpoc

Yes, he caught shrapnel in his shoulder. Yes, it caused nerve damage. Plus 20 points to everyone who guessed correctly. Minus 100 to every entertainment website reviewer who said it was only mental.

However, I was not expecting it to be DEGENARATIVE. You mean it's going to get WORSE?

Minus 100,000 points to everyone because we all lose when John Diggle is in pain.

John is still refusing to fire his gun, because ya know, aim is important. In his defense, Diggle is pretty handy without the gun too. However, Dinah remains concerned. She feels John is compromised out in the field, which puts lives at risk. Dinah wants John to tell Oliver the truth. Diggle wants Dinah to quit bugging him about it.

It's not until Dinah is nearly choked to death that Diggle decides she's right. Diggle needed the gun to save Dinah's life, but he couldn't trust his aim. Not unlike what we saw with Rene last week. Dinah is able to save herself (FOR I AM WOMAN HERE MY ROAR), but John cannot ignore the potential threats to his teammates lives.

So... Rene was almost killed last week when Diggle couldn't fire his gun. However, it's not until DINAH is almost killed that John decides to fess up. Make what you will of that. I’m not saying there’s romance going on right now. I just found it interesting.

Diggle is firm in his decision to tell Oliver the truth right up until Oliver asks him to be the Green Arrow. There's a moment earlier in "Tribute" when Dinah asks John if he's okay. Diggle immediately starts talking about Oliver and the microscope he's under.

This frames Diggle's mindset perfectly. For six years, Diggle has put Oliver first. John has been there every step of the way helping Oliver with the challenges he's faced, his moral compass and his emotional evolution. This mission, and being Oliver's best friend, has given John a sense of purpose too. John isn't good at putting himself first, which is exactly what this type of injury requires.

There is only one man Oliver would entrust the city to: John Diggle.

Source: smoak-and-mirrors

What Oliver is asking of John is an enormous undertaking. Diggle also knows what the hood and this mission means to Oliver. The only way Oliver is able to walk away is because he knows he's leaving the team and city in good hands. Perhaps, even better hands.

John keeps quiet about the nerve damage because he doesn't want to let Oliver down. He knows William needs Oliver more than ever. John wants to give Oliver time with his son the same way Oliver wanted to give Diggle time with his daughter.

Diggle says nothing, so Oliver can walk away. He's putting Oliver Queen first because that's all John Diggle knows how to do. It's also what Oliver would do for him. These two are bromance goals y'all.

There's some serious logistical issues here. If Diggle isn't capable of being in the field as Spartan then he sure isn't as Green Arrow either. How shooting a bow and arrow/crossbow is any easier than a gun is beyond me.

Arrow better come prepared with a sciencey answer or else I'm calling shenanigans. Regardless, we get a "John Diggle as Green Arrow" centric episode next week and I AM HERE FOR IT.

Felicity Smoak

AND THUS FELICITY SMOAK'S COMPANY IS BORN. We've waited a long time for this my friends.

Felicity spends most of "Tribute" trying to help Oliver wriggle out of this photograph disaster and talking employment with Curtis.

Source: sharingmyworld

Yes, that's right. Arrow finally addresses how everyone makes a living.

No you are not living in a parallel dimension. This is still earth. One can only surmise from this scene that the impossible can happen.

Curtis lets it slip that he's been doing a little coding on the side, because he didn't take a dime from Paul in the divorce. Yeah, Paul was a physical therapist. They make pretty good money. That tracks. Also, their divorce was finalized? Damn those go quick when you don't have kids. Yeesh.

Felicity's Palmer Tech severance is starting to dry up which feels like the truest thing Arrow has ever said because do you know how expensive her clothes are? I DO. I SHOP FOR THEM. THEY ARE INSANE.

She wants Curtis to toss her some of his side coding business. To Curtis' credit, he does say the coding he's doing is a waste of Felicity's talent.

Felicity ultimately agrees and instead of coding beneath her skill set or working in the dreaded Tech Village again, she decides to go into business for herself - with Curtis as her partner. Felicity wants to team up and make more cool stuff.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

Her absolute insistence that her name comes first throughout the episode, however, is my spirit animal.

Source: felicitysmoakedit

Felicity is 100% Jobs.

I'm not annoyed Felicity is teaming with Curtis. We knew it was coming. However, my one complaint is it seems like Arrow is constantly trying to give Curtis something to do. Since when does a Felicity Smoak algorithm not work?

Source: oliverxfelicity

Arrow needs to avoid the trap of dumbing Felicity down so Curtis can contribute. They need to push their separate talents merging into one great idea, rather than Curtis "fixing" something Felicity made.

That said, I am really excited this storyline is finally getting off the ground. Perhaps, Felicity and Curtis' first invention can be something to treat degenerative nerve damage.

Olicity

Not a lot of Olicity in "Tribute," but never fear. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Felicity is obviously extremely worried about Oliver.

Source:westallenolicitygifs

Bae is trouble and she is NOT having it. She insists Oliver LAWYER UP, but he doesn't want to look like he has anything to hide.

Agent Watson: Do you know the kind of person who says that?

Oliver: No.

Agent Wilson: The kind that needs a lawyer.

I've watched enough crime shows to know this is absolutely true. I guess I’m done with the book learnin’.

There's a couple "so married" moments too.

Source:westallenolicitygifs

Felicity signals Curtis to veer closure to the hour mark versus 30 days for the completion of the photograph analysis to ease Oliver's stress. Then, when Oliver questions whether or not Felicity sent them to the correct location we get this gem of interaction.

Source: oliverxfelicity

Felicity:

Don’t question the wifey, Oliver.

It's a little moment, but I loved when Felicity told Curtis that before the photograph her biggest worry was finding another job. It wasn't her relationship with Oliver or William. It's just another little signal that Felicity and Oliver are on the same page. Everything will fall into place when the time is right.

However, the best is a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment.

Barry was in the speed force for the last six months. He wouldn’t have been able to give Wiliam that backpack. So... isn’t it more likely FELICITY did? Just a subtle way she can show William she cares without overwhelming him. She’s watching from the sidelines waiting for the right time to go in.

I don’t care if I’m wrong. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED. I decided.

Anatoly

Anatoly is back and he's a lean, mean, killing machine. He's been outed by the Bratva for being too soft due to his friendship with Oliver. He's out to prove he's anything but. I'm almost as upset over Anatoly and Oliver's break up as I was over Olicity's.

Anatoly puts a bullet in his hostage right in front Oliver. HARSH. However, Oliver is not able to return Anatoly's kill or be killed sentiment. One reason is because of what he learned from Adrian Chase. The other is because Oliver still cares for Anatoly. He doesn't want to kill him and Anatoly knows it. This will add an interesting push/pull layer between the two characters.

It seems like Anatoly is still adhering to some kind of code, insisting he's still an honorable man. He didn't release the photo of the Green Arrow. That wouldn't be playing fair. Which, of course, begs the question who did? (My money is on Cayden James since Felicity's algorithm was stumped at first).

Anatoly reflects on his honor and what he will and won't do. It is a bone chilling conversation. This is no longer the warm Russian mobster we loved. What replaced is a stone cold killer who is not so subtlety threatening Oliver's son. This version of Anatoly is a stranger to us. Even to Oliver. It's one of the reasons I believe Oliver hangs up the hood. When Anatoly pulls that trigger he makes it clear to Oliver that he's willing to go all the way. Oliver cannot say the same. However, half the fun will be watching Oliver try to find another way that stops short of killing his old friend.

Stray Thoughts

New title card. Every character gets their own symbol.

The final three are Felicity, Diggle and Oliver. Their symbols spell OTA. As it should be. Arrow knows how important OTA is. Source arrowsource

Dinah has mastered the withering stare.

"I told Zoe she was made from a cloud." My husband starts taking notes.

Rene saying he's a feminist is oddly hilarious.

Not to be nitpicky but Oliver has lied to William before. He didn’t tell William he was his father or the Green Arrow.

Thanks @callistawolf for her brillant heavyweight analogy

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me. 6x02 episode gifs credited.

#arrow #oliver queen #john diggle #felicity smoak #olicity #oliver and william #arrow 6x02 #arrow reviews #season 6 episode review #arrow spoilers

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leightaylorwrites · 6 years

Text

Leigh Dissects YA fiction: Fallen Kingdoms (Chapter Seven- Chapter Ten)

Chapter Seven - Auranos

Sigh… I thought we’d at least get a break from Cleo by heading back to Magnus but I guess that was foolish of me to hope.

No one knew why, but Cleo guessed her sister had fallen in love with someone else.

The gender-neutral “someone” makes me hope for a single lesbian in this story. It’s another foolish hope.

Emilia had never so much as cast a flirtatious glance at any of the men in the palace [...]

LET EMILIA BE GAY 2K18

His parents didn’t approve of smoking inside the house. Aron might be arrogant and confident, but he was still seventeen and had to abide by his parents' rules until his next birthday-unless he wanted to move out ahead of schedule. And Cleo knew without a doubt that he didn’t want that sort of responsibility, financial or otherwise.

I’m sorry when did I leave this YA high fantasy and enter a teen drama on the CW? This entire part is a mess of modern-ness and should have been cut.

Aron: [I’m not sorry for killing him lol I kind of liked it too]

Cleo: How can you sound so calm about this?

Aron: Would you rather I lie and say I have nightmares too? Would that ease your own guilt?

Cleo: I want the truth.

Aron: And that’s what I’ve given you.

I get that Aron is a horrible creepy killer, but he has a point. He IS honest. When the villain makes more sense than your heroine, there’s an issue.

When he smiled, the look was equally menacing and enticing. “I will find you.”

YA authors stop writing scary love interests challenge.

Chapter Eight - Limeros

“Naughty girl.”

She ignored the flush that immediately heated her cheeks.She wasn’t being naughty; she was being inquisitive.

And I’m being disgusted. So not only does Magnus have the hots for his adoptive sister, Lucia blushes when he calls her “naughty.” Clace are BOTH unemployed.

“Cleiona’s also the name of the youngest Auranian princess,” Magnus mused. “Never really thought about it before. Same age as you are, right? Nearly to the day?”

I have… questions. First, how does he know Cleo’s exact birthday? Two, it’s likely going to come into play later that they are at most a few days apart but how does that work with Lucia? How does Magnus know her day of birth? We find out later Sabina (the lady from the prologue) brought Lucia to the palace as an infant but it wasn’t the day she was born so how would Sabina know her birthday? Even if she had a vision on the baby’s day of birth or something like that, how did Lucia survive without being breastfed? I need answers.

Magnus: One of grace and beauty, my sister, with a multitude of suitors at her beck and call. Forced to be siblings with a scarred monster like me.

Lucia: As if that scar makes you a monster. You can’t be blind to how girls look at you-I even see maids here in the castle wistfully watch you pass, even if you never notice them. They all think you’re devastatingly handsome. And your scar only makes you more… intriguing.

If you think plain hetero splooging is bad, just wait until you see plain hetero incest splooging!

“[Tomas] was cut down as a spoiled lord tried to show off in front of a princess - Princess Cleiona [...] The two watched Tomas Agallon’s young life bleed from him in front of his own family.They didn’t feel sorry for the pain they caused that family and all Paelsia.”

I mean… it’s true. Too bad the evil king is saying this and therefore the reader is supposed to disagree with him and know that Cleo the Super Special White Girl can’t do anything wrong ever but still. He’s right.

The words were acid on his tongue as jealousy flashed through him like a bolt of lightning. “But [Lucia] isn’t interested in walks around the palace grounds. Not with, well… not with you.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

Magnus forced a tense look on his face as if he’d said too much and now felt guilty. “It’s really none of my business.”

[...]

“It’s just that she’s mentioned you to me [...] And she made it clear that if you ever stopped by, you should not be encouraged any further. She means no offense, of course. But… her interests in a potential suitor lie elsewhere.”

In case incest splooging wasn’t enough to make me hate this character, he’s entered Rowboat’s, well, boat. Territorial pricks are not cute @ YA authors.

Magnus had no patience for anyone who would be manipulated so easily. If the boy was truly interested in Lucia, he should be able to stand up to any adversity, including an overprotective older brother.

But you literally just told this kid Lucia SAID she doesn’t want him. If he’s taking your word as truth, that’s not him being manipulated, it’s him believing you because why would a prince lie to him about this? He’s not doing anything wrong by respecting what he believes are Lucia’s wishes??? He has more respect for her than you do?? Why do people like Magnus??

“I wouldn’t hesitate to say you were lying.” He took her arm in his and squeezed it until she flinched. A flicker of fear went through her pale eyes. “Who do you think the king would believe? His son and heir? Or a kitchen maid?”

Amia swallowed hard. “I apologize, my prince. I would never say such a thing.”

“Smart girl.”

So… Magnus is literally physically abusing and threatening his casual hookup and people stan??

There was no Limerian law that stated that pure royal blood was necessary for the position. Even the son of a whore could become king.

Magnus is being all emo over the fact that Tobias could be king someday, a problem which is easily solved by Magnus killing Tobias. This doesn’t happen, but I think I’ve found the problem with all these series that try so hard to be the YA version of Game of Thrones/ASOIAF: nobody has the balls to write how these conflicts would actually play out in a real political setting. YA does have to be toned down in comparison to adult fiction but when you tone things down so much that they make no sense, it doesn’t work at all.

Blood sacrifice? How deeply savage.

Can’t tell if I’m tired of the word savage being used in this book (it’s used at least 20 times in reference to Paelsia) or if I’m tired of it in general (thanks stan twitter).

The king swiftly moved behind the boy, pulled his head back, and slashed the blade across his throat. Tobias’s eyes went wide and his hands came up automatically to his neck. Blood squirted out from between his fingers. He collapsed to the ground.

I’m DONE. We got half a page about Tobias being a threat to the throne for Magnus and instead of seeing them battle it out, or Tobias team up with an enemy later on, or anything that might give some payoff to the fact that Magnus has a secret half-brother, he’s sacrificed a few pages after his main introduction. Do you see what I mean now about YA fantasy writers holding back?

Chapter Nine - Auranos

I DON’T CARE, WHERE IS JONAS

“It’s unfortunate about Princess Emilia, though. So, so sad she isn’t well enough to attend.”

We get it. She’s dying. You’ve reminded us like four times already.

[...] Emilia’s most recently finished painting, a study of the night sky.

Subtle foreshadowing isn’t subtle enough for me.

That [her marriage] was solely a political choice sounded so cold, so analytical.

Does Cleo… not know what politics are? Does she not understand that royal arranged marriages happen all the time? Does she not realize she’s a princess? Why is she so dumb??

“You do know [Nic] is madly in love with you, right?”

Dammit. We came so close to having that platonic relationship but we can’t have a young man in this series not want to splooge over Cleo. It’s the first book and Cleo already has three love interests for this series. Alien Trashryver is worried.

Emilia: “I fell in love with someone else [...] I’ve never felt such love as I felt for him.”

DOUBLE DAMMIT.

Despite being named for the goddess, Cleo wasn’t invested in religion [.]

Isn’t being named after a religious deity frowned upon? I know in some religions you can be named after a minor figure - such as Christians with the archangels. But you can’t name your child God. Cleo being named after the primary person in the religion seems wrong.

But how else would we know she’s a Super Special Magical White Girl if she didn’t have a name far beyond what she deserves?

Her sister had been in love with a guard who’d died two months ago. “It was Theon’s father, wasn’t it?”

Isn’t he like… old??

Her sister had been in love with the king’s bodyguard who’d been thrown from his horse to his death. A tragedy.

That is verbatim from the book and I can’t stop laughing. This bitch said “a tragedy,” I’m CRYING.

Emilia was always the rock - comforting Cleo when she was upset over [some petty stuff] or the loss of her innocence to Aron.

“You’re the same as you were yesterday and the day before,” she’d soothed. “Nothing has changed. Not really. Forget what troubles you. Regret nothing, but learn from any mistakes you make. Tomorrow will be a brighter day, I promise.”

If you think things are cool because HEY we’ve got a YA heroine who isn’t a virgin, we later find out Cleo was drunk when this happened and therefore is an assault victim. The book never acknowledges the later, but instead has Emilia tell Cleo to learn from her mistakes and that nothing has changed. Feminist YA at its peak, y’all.

“You can’t. You’re to be the queen one day. If you die, that means it’ll be me. Trust me, Emilia, that would be a very bad thing. I would make a terrible queen.”

I mean, yeah I agree that Cleo would be a shitty queen but I’m more annoyed at how these five sentences are written.

Emilia: “There’s no one out there spying on us through the eyes of birds, hoping for clues of where to find the Kindred.”

Cleo: “I’ve never believed in such nonsense.”

Btw, Cleo said earlier she thought the birds were watching her. Consistency is hard, I guess.

[Theon] shook his head. “I knew my father cared about someone, but he wouldn’t say who it was. I figured he was involved with a married woman. Now I know.”

So Cleo’s boyfriend is her sister’s dead husband’s son… Cleo’s love interest is her nephew. He’s her step-nephew, but her nephew nonetheless.

Chapter Ten - Limeros (this time with the bird dude)

[...] to see his bird friend, Phaedra, perched on the branch next to him.

Now, I could give this book points if the whole point was that the western world was meant to be Greece, while Mystica is a mix of Italy and Spain. But the existence of Paelsia with its North African/Asian/Roman setting messes it all up.

All [Lucia] would see when she looked at him was a golden hawk. For some reason, this realization pained him.

So we can’t have lgbt+ romances or poc romances but Cleo the Super Special Magical White Girl can get three+ love interests and Lucia can get two love interests - her adoptive brother and a dude who can turn into a bird. White authors, man. White authors…

One thing I do like about this Ioannes dude is that his chapters are short, leaving little room for bullshit. However, they make me go back to Magnus and Cleo sooner than I want.

#leigh reads it #leigh dissects ya #falling kingdoms review

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ramrodd · 4 years

Text

Is the Christian Bible correct?

Quora Moderation has censored this commentary for offending their IT sensibilities and questioning their collective omniscence

COMMENTARY:

Additional Dialogue with Ross Whittle

Nope. There is nothing about the bible that is correct. It is a collection of ancient myths. Some people, such as yourself, are desperate to cling to faith, and thus take outrageous leaps to overlook this and find some truth- in your case “perceptive doctrine’. from this, It seems you take something you believe is good- capitalisms- and then interpret something ELSE you like- the bible- to reflect that. The fact the Jesus teachings are far more socialist than capitolist is irrelevant to you. You will see things as you wish them to be.

When confronted with this, you will retreat to another typical Theist trope- you will ignore answers that contradict you, and simply re-ask the question as if it has not been asked.

I’ve outlined a few of the multitude of instances where the bible reflects huge immorality. You simply display a total LACK of morality, so I understand you cannot comprehend this. Perhaps if it had been YOUR family killed in a religiously inspired massacre, you might feel differently.

I don’t agree there IS a “perspective doctrine” as you outlined- it seems a complete distortion of what little in the bible might be redeemable- it, for instance, in no way reflects “do unto others.

You are example of someone who can be completely without morals while claiming morality, so you are a living embodiment of my claim.

Tom Wilson: Well, unlike you and Dick Harfield, I’m not making any moral claims for myself: I’m not in a position to judge. Nor do I claim to be a person of faith: I know The One and have had a working relationship with the Holy Spirit since 1954.

Knowledge and faith are not the same same thing.

You haven’t confronted me with anything novel nor enlightening. As I have said from the get-go, I get the gist of your complaint, which you have just recapitulated on the basis that you expect to be able to beat me into submission with your puny dialectic, and I’m bored with it.

The Bible is divine literature. It’s complexity is infinite and, like the Lotus, blossoms eternallly to the humble pilgrim, but is manifestly unavailable to those who refuse to submit to its pulse.

As far as holocaust, I know what that is. I’m an Army brat. I lived in Europe as a child at a time in Germany just past the moment when a loaf of bread could get you a blowjob in Berlin. I’ve been to Hitler’s bunker in East Berlin when the godless commie cocksuckers were in charge and I’ve been to their magnicent cemetary for the Soviet cucumbers who died taking Berlin. It’s a vast park, like something out of the English estates of Downton Abbey, only emphasizing the the horizon with a huge sculture of Yaweh, Queen of Battle rising from a small hill that rises above the tree line. The Soviets call her “Rodino” or “Mother Russia” but she is the feminine aspect of The One described in Revelation 4.2. It’s one of the secrets of the Torah, the actual ontology of God abiding in the narrative.

The cemetary had a long, broad Paris-style side walk up to the sculpture and on the right were 10 or 12 mass graves that held 10,000 soviet soldiers as I remember. I’ve been to Verdun where one of the memorials is a marble shelter 25 - 30 metres long that keeps the elements from a row of rifles with bayonets sticking out of the ground, waiting for the signal to go over the top and unto the attack when the trench collapsed on the soldiers who were issued those rifles. “To Keep and To Bear” means something to me so outside your prissy little League of Nations existence that it may as well be a Sanskrit quotation at the beginning of a T. S. Eliot play about cats.

“Pearls before swine” comes to mind with every sentence of every one of your responses. If I wasn’t satisfied with writing for my own amusement, I wouldn’t waste my time in your useless attempts at resembling critical thinking and dialectical competence.

The fact that you are appalled at the slaughter in the bible means that you accept the historicity of the Bible and, consequently, the existence of The One. I was raised to matriculate at the US Army Command and General Staff College in the fullness of time, beginning in 1952. Since then, I’ve been to Verdun and Vietnam. If I had stayed in the Army and retired as a general, I would have caused 100,000 casualties learning my trade. Killing is an essential element of the Clauswitz Paradox.

Jesus. of the Gospel of Mark, provides the Christian model for the sworn servant leader of the American republic and Cornelius, the centurion featured in Acts X, provides the Roman model for the sworn servant leader of the American republic.

The centurion is not a myth. S/he represents a profound military innovation that became an essential element of the trajectory of the Roman empire for 500 years. The difference between Real Warfare and True Warfare is the difference between the Samurai and the Centurion. The Samurai is. literally, a creature of the mythos while the Centurion is a creature of the rule of law.

I was raised by centurions to be a centurion. It was a conscious aspiration of mine as a vision quest from 1962 until I got to Vietnam in 1970.

I was confirmed as a Christian in the Chapel of the Centurion at about the same time, 1962 or so, but I already had a working relationship with the Holy Spirit before that moment. I literally saw myself preparing to go forth as a knight in the white armor of the Crusade marching as to war. As I say, I have knowledge of the one, and, at the same time, I developed a deep faith in the training I was getting as a soldier from ROTC until Jungle Training in Panama before.

In Vietnam, I was confronted by an existential dilemma that required me to make a choice between continuing to believe in myself or in the US Army. It was a no brainer. I lost faith in myself. I still knew Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but not in my own moral compass. So, I left the Army.

So, all your representations of moral superiority are totally wasted on me, no matter how secure you may feel in Bart Ehrman’s apostasy. My opinion is that his whole “Born Again” conceit was phony from the get-go: he just did it high school because all the popular girls were doing it and he wants to be popular. And he built a career as an Evangelical pastor flogging the Pro-Life heresy until he went to Princeton and met Dale Martin, a gay Christian professor who flirts with apostasy because it makes his New Testament History and Literature course at Yale popular and Bart realized he could be even more popular at Chapel Hill by going full apostate and it’s working as well as Jared Kushner’s crypto-Nazi business plan he acquired from Robert Murdoch.

And you’re just another mongrel baying in that ant-theist evangelical imperative. I’m not writing for you. I am witnessing for combat veterans totally mystified by what they have discovered about the American civilian culture since they left the spiritually cloistered cacoon of the infantry squad. They are coming from an ecology where the violence of the Bible was part of their job description to an environment dominated by people like you and the IT folks in Quora Moderation whose entire concept of the violence in the Bible is circumscribed by the boundaries of video games defined by the League of Justice and Gal Gadot.

The Book of Job, the oldest book in the Bible, establishes the reality that you cannot unknow God once you have encounted God. That’s why my opinion is that Bart Ehrman is a phony: he either never has encountered God in his “Born Again” mode or did and has found it profitable to deny God.

Free Will isn’t just a theological construct: it is structural to the human psyche. God cannot violate individual sovereignty, morally (that is, intellectually): the individual must voluntarily expand his or her boundaries beyond the personal wisdom, which is to say, beyond the finite horizon of trust into the mind of God.

The whole purpose of the Bible is enlarge the population of humanity which has exercised their personal Free Will to come to know The One. The only unforgivable sin is to deny the Holy Spirit because it is a sin against the self, a form of suicide, to not embrace the personal responsiblility for their own Free Will and project their intellectual boundaries beyond the box of needless ignorance and frightened atheism.

I first read Marx in 1962, when I was 15, on the basis that it is essential to understand your enemy. As a prospective career Army officer like Alexander Vindman, the Soviets were my enemy and I read Marx to learn how to strike to kill the enemy, like the mongoose studies the cobra. So, when someone like you is determined to display his ignorance of the economics of the Bible as a dialectical gambit, it’s usually not worth the effort to help you lift the burden of your ignorance. I mean, the only difference between a Bernie Sanders groupie and a MAGA hat forever Trumper is the object of their affections.

Marxism is based on the same fallacy as the 18th Amendment. Our entire strategy in Vietnam was based on this fatal flaw in the Soviet system. Because of Vietnam, the Soviet Union no longer exists.

However, it is important to understand that Vietnam came down to a contest between Marxism and the Harvard Business Model and Marxism won precisely because people like Robert MacNamara agreed with your economic model.

Currently, Donald John Trump* is running America the way Robert MacNamara ran Vietnam. Strictly speaking, there is no one in the Old Testament like Donald John Trump*. King David comes close, but all those oriental despots were the law: Donald John Trump* just operates above the law, the basis of his lie, cheat and steal “Art of the Deal” crime family business model. He is trying hard to become the law, like an oriental despot, or Stalin. with the help of Moscow Mitch and Bill Barr, but he, Donald John Trump*, isn’t an oriental despot of the Old Testament.

He is more like Nero in the context of the New Testament. Cornelius, the centurion featured in Acts X, was part of the Xth Legion stationed in Caesarea that participated in the investment and reduction of Jerusalem anticipated by Revelation. Our annual calendar is based on this existentially certain moment which anchors events around 70 because the number is numerologically significant figure of speech in the literature of the BIble. According to Richard Carrier. the dates on all your checks are based on mytholog, because the year 70 wouldn’t exist if the Cross hadn’t happened in 33 and the Cross in 33 wouldn’t have become a pivotal moment in history if the Romans had not been witness to the moment of Resurrection. The Gospel According to Mark is a military report from the front in Palestine to the Emperor in Rome, via Theophilus in the Preaetorian Guard, based on contemporary intelligence records and the debriefing of Peter from inside the Jesus insurgency, aka “the Christians”, Roman soldier slang for the Jewish cult that emerged from the Resurrection.

It isn’t so much that your dialectic produces a puny argument: it’s that your anti-theism requires a willing suspension of disbelief Job was totally incapable of attaining and, if Job, who was Righteousness, itself, couldn’t do it, who am I to attempt the same self-delusion.

I make no claims of morality. The purpose of the Bible is epistemological and the purpose of epistemology is moral clarity.

I’ll settle for that.

*(impeached)

0 notes

discordandglory-blog · 7 years

Text

Consolidation || Callum and Cat

Callum and Cat discuss the finer points over a meal at a Touch of Class.

Cat sat waiting for Callum. She was in her usual seat, a bottle of Malbec and Pinot Grigio had been waiting for her and she had helped herself to the red. The table was on the edge of the terrace, giving the occupants of it a beautiful view over the lake. Yet all Cat could think about was how just a few days ago they had been fighting an inferno a few kilometers from here. However, she was determined that this meeting go well. She had chosen a secluded spot where no one would overhear their conversation. She had even dressed to impress, where a sheer black dress that hugged all the right places and showed off all the correct parts. As Callum arrived, she rose from her chair to greet him, he had to lean down for her to kiss both of his cheeks -- much like the French did. “Callum,” she cooed, “I’m pleased you could make it, sit, have a drink.”

Callum had received the invitation from Cat whilst doing a drill with his Cohort. Even after a devastating fire, life at Camp had to go on. Being invited to dinner with Cat had intrigued him, why would the Centurion of the First Cohort and a member of the Cult summon him to dinner? Nonetheless, he had decided to accept her invitation. He arrived at the said meeting place, the restaurant, A Touch of Class, and notified the host that he would be joining the Karavarda party. He had chosen to wear one of the only suits he had, which consisted of maroon trousers, a plain white button up shirts, no tie, and a navy blazer. He greeted her and then took his seat, unbuttoning his blazer as he sat. “Of course I would make it. I always have time for a fellow Centurion.” He replied, with his signature smirk on his face. He poured himself a class, and held it up, swirling the wine inside. “What can I do for you, miss Karavarda?” He didn’t normal address people with such a formal tone, but the energy of the restaurant had influenced him to do so.

Smirking at his address of her, Cat couldn’t help but reply in kind. “Well Mr Hayes, aside from joining me for one of the best meals in New Rome, there were a few things that I’d like to discuss with you in private. Believe it or not I’ve been taking a keen interest in your activities for a while.” She sipped at her wine and analysed him. He was dressed appropriately which was always a relief, and he seemed to understand what it meant for him to have been invited here. Yet at the same time there was something about the son of Cupid’s personality that set her on edge. He was too good at what he did sometimes and that worried her. She could play this game with all of the centurions and she wasn’t convinced that many of them would be able to play along with her. However Callum had the potential to make or break this situation, it was important that she won him over. “So, if you’re interested, I think that there is a lot that we could do to benefit one another.”

Callum uncharacteristically hadn’t taken a sip of the wine yet, not because he didn’t trust Cat, but rather that he wanted to stay sober for most of the conversation. He knew who Cat was, and by what Jax had told him, and with what he had seen with his own eyes, he knew that she was definitely a force to be reckoned with. This had made him a bit anxious about what the meeting would be about at first, causing him to think back on all the acts of mischief he had done in the last month that might have upset her. But when she said that there was something that they could both benefit from, Callum dismissed his list of things that he might have done wrong and instead, started making a new list of things Cat had in mind. “I am interested.” He said after a short pause, giving her a quizzical look. He thought back on how useless he was during the fire, thus concluding that the only thing that Cat could benefit from in a partnership with him, were his specific abilities. “But what could you benefit from having me involved?”

Of course he was interested. Cat didn’t need to be a genius to see that even before he had admitted it. She could read people and she had been taught to notice these things. Her father had been grooming her for something like this for years and this was almost second nature. “I know you’re a member of the cult, I know you’re a son of Cupid and I know what you can do. I don’t plan on remaining a centurion forever, but to get anywhere in this city then I’ll need some help.” She bit her lip gently, watching the wine in her glass for a moment as she considered what next to say. She was about to continue when they were interrupted by a waiter who had come to take their food order. Glancing at the menu, she shooed him away and asked him to return soon before continuing. “However, that can wait, have whatever you like, the meal’s already paid for, even if you say no, at least you can still enjoy a meal here. The waiting list is seven months right now, though it fluctuates of course.”

As soon as the words ‘I don’t plan on remaining a centurion forever’ left her mouth, a grin replaced his quizzical look. Callum watched her facial expressions, seeing that she had more to say, but was interrupted by the waiter. He sat up straight and picked up the menu, slowly paging through it. “You know, I can’t be bought.” He hummed. “I’m not materialistic, so none of that would interest me, and neither would food. However, I won’t say no to a free meal that isn’t from the camp's kitchen.” He respected Cat, for the powerful woman she is. He knew that she had great passion for this city and the people in it. If she asked him to help her climb the ladder, he would probably do it for nothing in return but respect. “On that note,” He looked over at her, making eye contact, “I don’t know what you’re going to say next, but whatever it is, I’m in.”

Raising an eyebrow gently. Cat made a note of Callum’s mistake. She’d never have committed to something without knowing what it was that she had committed to. As the waiter return, she ordered herself a steak with salad and rice, she couldn’t abide by deep fat fried potatoes, even if they insisted on calling them fries. Waiting for Callum to order, she watched the waitress stride away. “Well that was easier than I thought it would be, although I wasn’t planning on buying you, it is good to know that your loyalty doesn’t have a price. All I will say to you, is that if you stick with me, then you won’t be climbing the ladder alone, you’ll be given access to resources that you could have never even dreamed off and I’ll provide you with anything you need.” She shrugged. “The truth is that if we’re careful we’ll be able to rule New Rome without anyone even noticing it, I just need you to trust me and I need assurances of your loyalty.” She sipped her wine cautiously before waiting for Callum’s reply.

Callum looked over the menu, which was pointless as he had no idea what half the meals were. He always ordered the same meal, regardless of where he went. It was a meal that he and his mom used to get together. He ordered a cheeseburger without fries. The burger bun was enough carbs on it’s own. He listened to what she had to offer him and nodded. He liked what he heard. He felt that this city had so much more potential that the senate wasn’t accessing. He also felt that a lot of the resources were being wasted on people that didn’t belong there. He knew Cat to be a woman that knows how to take charge, and that when she wants something, she gets it, one way or another. “The reason I said that I’m in without you telling me what it was, is because I know you to be someone that strives for greatness. I assumed that it would be something along these lines. You have no need to worry about my loyalty, I fully trust that you have this city’s best intention in mind. This is why I will help you, because this city is my home too, and I believe that you , miss Karavarda, have the passion and strength to turn it into something so great, that it would make history. “ He raised his glass and made a cheers with the air.

Raising perfect eyebrows, Cat listened carefully to Callum’s proposal. He could see her obvious worth. So why couldn’t her father? She pushed that thought away as they waited for their food to arrive. “Well it is always nice to receive a compliment like that. But you’re not wrong, I will make this city great again. I promise that you’ve got nothing to worry about. However words mean nothing, actions are what will prove whether you are truly loyal, so I want you to swear your loyalty on the river Styx and then we can really get started.” Twisting her hair through her fingers, she waited to see Callum’s reaction. “You don’t have to decide now, but once you have decided I won’t take a different decision.” She waited for his response, knowing that this could be the start of something great. However they were once more interrupted by the waiter, bringing them their meals. Picking up her knife, Cat slowly began to cut into the steak.

At the suggestion of swearing on the river Styx, Callum hesitated. He thought about all the things this could lead to and what the oath would force him to do. All he had to do, was swear his loyalty to her, did that mean that he had to follow out every order she gave him, or did it just mean that he couldn’t work against her? He watched as the waiter placed the burger in front of him, but refrained from eating just yet. He watched as Cat cut into her steak, still working everything out in his head. Would he ever want to be disloyal? Finally, he had made a decision. He picked up his knife and fork, and cut into his burger, which was weird as he normally ate burgers with his hands, but he felt that this wasn’t an acceptable place to do so. Before he placed the piece of burger in his mouth, he swore, “ I, Callum Rey Haynes, swear on the river Styx, loyalty to Cat Karavarda, as long as she does her utmost best to make this city a better place and follow the terms that we agree on in the following conversation.” He ended the oath by biting down on his fork and dragging it through his teeth, purposefully making a scraping noise. “Does that work for you?”

Smiling gently, Cat bit into her first mouthful of steak as Callum made the oath. She wasn’t sure if the steak was extra good, or maybe it was knowing that without much effort she had just made an ally and a friend, yet regardless she was all but convinced that the piece of steak that she had just enjoyed was more tender and juicy than any that she had ever tasted. She allow silence to hang in the air, chewing on the steak before swallowing. She sampled the wine before smiling gently and nodding. “Well, now that that is out of the way, we’re free to enjoy the rest of the evening. I’ll contact you when I need you Callum, but for the moment we will have to remain focussed on the senate house and its re-construction, that must be the priority right now.”

Callum, who had now almost completely devoured the burger, nodded in agreement. At the mention of the senate house reconstruction, he remembered something that he had been thinking about lately. “When it comes to the re-construction of the senate house, it would probably be in our best interest that we ensure a roman is placed in charge of the reconstruction, and not Annabeth.” He stated, washing down his now finished burger with the last of his wine. “However, I look forward to working with you in the future.” His smirk returned. He had become quite serious during the conversation, and now that the formalities were out of the way, he felt a lot more like himself.

#f&gwriting #para #p: callum #chatzy para #consolidation

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workingontruth · 5 years

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PART 2 of 7: The Gospel (in Full)…Introductory Thoughts Continued

April 7, 2019

In this second-half introduction to my 5-Part Gospel premise, I want to be clear that this series of ruminations on what I’m calling The Gospel In Full stems from my own life-long tendency to view the Gospel as the pronouncement and resulting acceptance of the message that brings any seeking individual into a personal relationship with God.

QUESTION: Is the Gospel merely “the pronouncement and resulting acceptance of the message of Jesus for salvation?”

In so much as this has been my mental picture of the Gospel, what I’m trying to do here is flesh out how it is that this euangelion (Greek for good news) involves not only the pathway to new life in Christ, and one’s wholehearted reception of such news which literally translates a soul-life (the real “you”) into a new birth in Christ, but that it’s message also necessarily comprises an entirely new way of thinking and living in this life as reborn children of God (2 Cor. 5:17, John 3:3, 1 Jn. 5:4, I Pet. 5:3).

I know this is not new a new idea for most of us who have lived in fellowship with Jesus for many years - nor for those who have been well-discipled into Christ.

“Of course,” we would say, “the Gospel has ongoing implications.”

But I am wanting to work this through for many sitting in our churches today who are yet to understand the demands and blessings that await the believer who unconditionally surrenders his or her life, and all that used to be theirs, into the hands of the God they claim to have come to know through Jesus Christ. I’m wanting to answer the question, “What does THAT look like?”

I’m wanting to answer the question, “Now that I have, by faith, personally embraced the good news of Jesus’ sacrifice on my behalf for the forgiveness of my sins (and sin nature - which is very important to understand as different than what I have done that displeases God...see chapters 42-46 in Set Free: A Lifelong Christian's Overdue Discovery), how is this spiritual makeover on the inside supposed to effect my day-to-day life on the outside?”

“Now that I have, by faith, personally embraced the good news of Jesus’ sacrifice on my behalf for the forgiveness of my sins, how is this spiritual makeover on the inside supposed to effect my day-to-day life on the outside?”

The good news of the Gospel is that its “good-ness” comes, to a great degree, to our earthside man in its living out - now! The Gospel’s effect is not only for the next life–something securing our future, but is intended to become an absolute game-changer in the here and now. It is intended to cause a “letting go” of our entire list of priorities - all we have...all we are and ever hoped to be. The effect of the Gospel is to have us live into a completely new and very real citizenship - one characterized by an entirely new allegiance.

“The Gospel is intended to become an absolute game-changer in the here and now!”

So, through this Gospel In Full idea, I am emphasizing the idea that the Gospel is intended to increasingly set us free and bring us previously unimaginable purpose and deep satisfaction as we mature into our newness in this life.

Now to many of you who are leaders in biblically-based, evangelical churches and who are living into ever-increasing personal fellowship with Jesus as you walk with the Living God, it may seem silly for me to even have to say that the ongoing good news of The Gospel is as important as what happened at the very moment of saving faith. You would even tell me that a life not bearing the marks of obedience, a life not living consultively with the Holy Spirit in ways which contrast the secularist society in which we live, would be a life in which you would question whether such an individual had really even given him/herself over to Christ.

But my great concern is that far too many of our churches today are filled with secularist-living Christians who are somehow learning to speak religiously, but are living mostly like the world in their daily decisions, and possess a thorough inability to exchange the emotional and social preferences of their old Adam for what should be a wholly new nature in Christ.

Instead of turning out wonderfully selfless, beautifully broken and surrendered believers who are loving others in all walks of life into relationship with God, living daily in the light of the truths of the Word of God which set men free from their many sinlaiden bondages, we are turning out social activists who are letting the emotions of their lost culture continue to rule in their hearts.

Instead, we have increasing numbers of equivocating (at best) Christians who are unwilling to live into their new lives in Christ because they don’t like what it means to live in the light.

Instead, we have Christians living from offense to offense, loving the affections of the world more than their love for God.

Instead, we have immature Christians who, instead of being discipled into their newness, are rather learning to bring disrepute to the Body of Christ via social media as they attempt to hoist their secular, godless perspectives onto their brothers in Christ.

Instead, we are turning out Christians who do not understand the most basic character qualities of God while, themselves, living terribly confused and duped by the counterfeit love of this world.

Do enough church-attending Christians understand that their lives in Christ are truly ones set free from the bondage of this world’s duplicity? Are we discipling believers into understanding that their lives are now expected (and demanded by God) to take a very different tack as they journey on in something much more than a “new found religion?”

If I were to point to what I believe to be the core challenge for discipleship today, it would be that we are not sufficiently engaging new believers in a theological education of their newness. Said another way, we aren’t helping Christians escape the worldview of their old, secular nature in exchange for the completely new worldview of one who has been recreated into a new, spiritual nature – into the absolute newness a change of citizenship brings!

What it comes down to is that many Christians lack a truly Christian worldview.

We cannot fault new believers for this.

And without looking back onto what has not been done well, I want to help bring a catalyst onto the scene of action to help facilitate within new believers an accurate understanding of the extent of their newness resulting from their astounding position in Christ. Without such a download of the foundational elements for a Christian worldview, secularism is what’s left. This secularism, then, is the only lens through which we can view the world and our position within it.

NOTE: By secularism, and this is very important to understand, I’m not talking about heathenism. Rather, secularism is merely our proclivity to continue living with the eyesight, through the lens of, our human sufficiency and knowledge, not identifying the supernatural or spiritual realities ever-present around us.

As a result, so far as our practical living goes, our abiding comes mostly from the confidences our human cognitions bring to the scene of action. Secularism is viewing the world without an entrustment into the supernatural. And so, we accept the Gospel as the Good News of salvation, but then attempt to live out our Christianity owning little more than our familiar, secular worldview.

And herein lies a great danger:

This secular worldview/mentality shuts down the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives, displaces our dependence upon God with the self-reliance that understandably typified our old nature, and generally turns our Christianity into a religion no different than any other–in terms of its ability to be lived out.

So, because we lack a truly Christian worldview and secularism is what’s left, it’s through secularism’s impotency that most believers attempt to live out their new lives as Christians. And, except in brief fits and starts, it does not work. In this state, many new believers come to a place where their experience tells them that Christianity “just doesn’t work.” And they’re right; without having been sufficiently educated in their new identity as a reborn creation in Christ, they are left unarmed to live into the truth of their new citizenry against a very calculating and ruthless enemy - the prince of this world.

Said another way, it seems to me that far too many First World Christians (for lack of a better descriptor) are ones who have “stepped across the line of faith” by the grace of God, having honestly put their faith in the power and authority of the cross, but are then unable to discharge that same supernatural authority into their daily lives as followers of Jesus. Most are so dominated by their western culture (secularism), that their old secularism is still their dominant worldview.

This is the huge challenge we have ahead of us as ones who desire to disciple new believers today.

This is why I believe our paramount priority must first come in helping new believers identify with their new creation, understand their new heritage, and successfully employ their newness as they live into their new life!

The only way to begin escaping the secularistic worldview is to help believers understand how they became a new creation and how that newness of life and citizenry has trumped and triumphed over the secularism of their old, now dead, nature (Romans 6:4, Galatians 2:20 for starters). Only as we help Christians identify more so with their new life than their old will they escape the limitations, fears and worries characterized by their old Adam and their secular worldview. Reckoning upon what is true of us helps us live into it.

Now with those ruminations behind us, and returning to the purpose of the upcoming five-entry theme which attempts to broaden our understanding of the good news of Gospel, here’s the rub; if we do not live into our intended newness of life as a Christ-follower, and are not being discipled (taught) into our new identity as a child of the Living God, then the “good news” of the Gospel replicates itself as little more than the formal arrangement that brought us to the starting line of faith – i.e. a one-time decision that saved us from an eternity separated from God. Given this limited outlook on our new spirituality, we continually point back to “the Gospel” as the great news from God that brought about the forgiveness of our sins. Therefore, many of the further implications of our rebirth, like the fact that we have also been restored from our sin nature, aren’t even there to take hold of.

From this vantage point, it’s almost as if to say,

“Ah, the Gospel! The good news which had the power to bring me from death to life.”

But this kind of reflection upon and gratitude for “the Gospel” is mostly for the moment of our conversion–when we asked God to forgive us for our sinful condition, without hope of heaven or a future relationship with God for eternity.

And so, we wipe our brow as if to say,

“Whew, I’m so glad I’m saved from hell now. I’m so glad my life is on a new trajectory. Heaven awaits! And until that time, I even have hope that the next life will be all that this life just cannot deliver upon.”

And in so doing, we have missed the great supernatural, ongoing purpose and impact of the Gospel! In so doing, we miss the part that actually represents the courageous, day-to-day walk alongside God in the power and authority of his life in us. In so doing, we entirely miss the intended, ongoing impact of the Gospel upon our lives in the here and now.

Not helping things much is the honestly commendable rush we gain as evangelicals when helping people cross the line of faith into Christ. For truly, and I am being completely sincere here and without sarcasm, there is little better in this life than witnessing a man or woman in that surrendering, Spirit-enabled moment when a soul is brought back into relationship with its creator, the living God. Oh, to witness the inbreaking of the supernatural God into a human life is such sweet victory! But because this is such an upper, we continue to focus the overwhelming majority of our time and creativity on helping to set the table for this initial transaction with God. Mind you, I’m not saying this should lessen one bit!

But I challenge you to show me a church that extends their level of creative, evangelistic fervor equally into their discipleship practices, pressing new believers onward into the continuing journey of becoming–of living into their new creation in Christ as citizens of heaven.

I’m afraid new babes in Christ too frequently perceive that their first steps are to discipline themselves in the direction of new spiritual practices and behavioral expectations–such as Bible reading and church attendance. But in so doing, are we really just introducing them to religiosity–to the “stuff” of Christendom? To the bondage of the law which Jesus came to erradicate?

Though we wouldn’t sit them down and say it in these exact words, I wonder if new Christians “see our actions” which might convey (though we don’t mean to), “It’s time to start changing our behavior so as to get in line with the restrictions and recommendations of the Bible.”

Of course, we definitely wouldn’t say it that way, but that doesn’t mean our newly born believers aren’t hearing it that way–in what we recommend they now do.

Now don’t mistake what I’m saying. I’m not saying that living out the Christian life isn’t good. I’m just saying that the motive and source of strength from which we “do the doing” is the key to living the Christian life. And that if we focus on the who we are in Christ as a first step in the Christian life, if we acquaint ourselves intimately with the story of our new Life, then our lives will organically reflect our new identity without having to ever work our way into pleasing God.

I think for most of us who grew up in the church, we grew up thinking of the Gospel only as Christianity’s entry point. We thought of the Gospel as the prayer you prayed to accept Jesus into your life - the diving board off of which you plunge into your Christianity. And so we primarily believed that the Gospel was a message for people on the outside - without Christ. Because once you’ve experienced the Gospel, you move on from it, right? Once you’ve taken the plunge, then you need to move on from that point, right? And so Christian growth from that point on consists of doing things like getting to know new bible facts, and mastering new Christian principles like the 5 principles for having a better marriage, and 3 steps to being a good church member, and 4 ways to get along with annoying people, and endless numbers of things to do!

And so it’s as if we think that after you receive the Gospel, if you become more busy ... busy at church - you’re always there when it’s time to volunteer, busy in your community, busy in your neighborhood, busy at the food pantry, busy being the world’s change agent...the busier you became, the better Christian you are.

In fact, you may be under the impression that good Christians are tired Christians. And every time you go to a seminar or faithfully attend a sermon series, you learn more about what real Christians DO. Real Christians go on missions trips, they care for the poor, they get involved in adoption, they’re in accountability groups and small groups ... in other words, Christianity becomes a terribly wearisome TASK of a terribly demanding task master.

And, for me, over the course of decades, I finally came to realize that no matter how busy I was pleasing God, serving, doing, my heart...my HEART, wasn’t really changing in significant ways. If anything, all of my doing, over years and years was having the opposite effect on my heart. When we become weary of all the doing, it becomes easy to almost resent God. Here we are, God, putting it all on the line! Look at everything we’re doing, and teaching others to do - and we’re worn out! This Christian thing is HARD, God. I thought your yolk was easy and your burden light!

And we begin to feel this way because we are trying to DO Christianity without living in the ongoing nature and intended ongoing purposes of the Gospel - in FULL, not just in part.

I’m afraid in many of our churches, an emphasis on what to do precedes a full understanding of what has most thoroughly already been done. And so as a result, we’re trying to live Christianity in task mode rather than living it with the supernatural strength and vision that comes from a heart that is overflowing with a personal and subjective experience, strengthened by the ongoing goodness of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit of God enlivened within us.

Here is my belief:

If new believers first grasp who they are as full-blown citizens of a new heritage, and how the architecture or composition of their new life came about outside of themselves, then they will, more often than not, do the important growth practices of discipleship and the “becoming” stuff in an almost irrepresible manner - out from a place of heartfelt gratitude–out of their love for God and exceeding gratitude for who they have become! Theirs will become a relentless obedience from the heart once they’ve experienced the jaw-dropping and bedrock foundations of their rebirth through Christ. And in such a place, I think we would see more believers who would sooner walk any road, deny themselves any sin or seek any spiritual accountability than to quench their new-found and intimate fellowship with the living God.

But without this Spirit-driven understanding of their new nature, their doing can too easily become the perceived next steps of the Good News, going forward. And what had begun to germinate as a seed of a love relationship with God is quickly snuffed out by the expectations of behavior.

I think we too often we get the cart of behavior before the horse of knowledge.

Put another way, the emphasis must not be on the doing, but on the relationship. Once relationship is thoroughly, scripturally established, the doing becomes an act of eager, almost compulsory obedience (which is vastly different than an emphasis on behavior).

We do not want new believers to perceive the following:

“Okay, that commitment behind me, it’s time to buckle down and learn about how I’m supposed to live this Christian life. Let’s. Do. This.”

And without ever intending to do so, I’m concerned that is what we are conveying. And we call this discipleship!

[Insert: That said, I am thankful beyond words that some churches are committing themselves to incredibly exciting discipleship initiatives! Grace Church in Noblesville, Indiana has been one such bright spot. Northview Church in Carmel, Indiana is another whose leadership is becoming steadfastly committed to the importance of discipling believers into surrendered followers of Jesus. But what I’m angling for, and what I’m hoping to encourage is a kind of “state of the union” learning that should kick off every believer’s understanding of his new life…and this also for many who, like myself, have lived with Jesus as Savior for decades.]

But this aforementioned and all too common “buckling down” doesn’t sound like good news to me! Instead, it sounds like going back to school–ugh! And it has in its root the ramping up of our SELF-discipline …falling back upon the tendencies of the old man. And all of this “buckling down” demonstrates a terrible misunderstanding of our new life and the source of our power, not to mention a bad reflection upon the nature and character of God. In firstly ramping up our learnings about how to now behave as a Christian, we take a supernatural understanding of the life-giving and freeing transaction of our salvation right out of the frame.

Rather, I believe our first objective must be to help new Christians grasp the incredible, supernatural “why” and “how” of the miracle of the new life into which they have just entered!

So, yes, I would say that the Gospel is intended to change everything about us–but from the inside out. And the new believer needs to understand in what and whom lay their moment-by-moment victories as they grow into their new wineskin (just a bit of Matthew chapter 9 Christianese there).

But we don’t take the time right out of the gate to help them understand the new wineskin into which the Spirit has been poured!

Do we think a beginner’s course in theology is too much for our new babes? If so, I disagree. I believe it must be the starting point of our discipleship.

And a complete worldview swap out that such focused instruction can bring is a great thing–it is the ongoing “good news” of the Gospel! The effect of the acceptance of the Good News is a new identity–a glorious setting free of the God-ordained purpose for a life brought back into unity with its Creator!

So, this is why I want to convey that my request of God to “forgive me” is really only the initial stage of the Gospel. It is stage 1 of 5. But what a glorious stage it is! It is the stage that literally translates us from death to life, and releases us from the continual search for fulfillment in this life.

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elesianne · 7 years

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A Silmarillion fanfic

Summary: A private discussion with the king of Nargothrond goes awry in a way Curufin didn't anticipate.

Length: ~2,100 words , Rating: Teenage audiences & up

Warnings: A bit of mild violence and blood. Blood is even in the title this time. (For some reason I have to warn for blood for half my fics this week... who to be concerned about, me or these characters?)

Characters in the story: Curufin, Finrod, Celegorm

Some keywords: drama in Nargothrond, unresolved tension (political and otherwise), Curufin being Curufin

A/N: My starting point for this fic was that prior to Beren's arrival in Nargothrond, Curufin and Celegorm were mostly good guests and allies to Finrod (this much is canon) but that they didn't always find it very easy. (AO3 link.)

This is Gen on the surface but if you are severely allergic to slash it might be best to give this fic a miss.

Crowns and sons, gold and blood

Curufin waits by the door of the council chamber while other advisors and commanders file out, a handful staying behind to exchange a few words with the king. Curufin curbs his impatience and maintains an impassive expression, for it suits him to wait the longest and speak with Finrod in private.

Curufin's blood is just as royal as Finrod's, if not more, though he wears a slender circlet instead of a crown. He has no intention of joining the ranks of his cousin's fawning hangers-on, and he spares those no glance when they leave the room, his eyes on the king who is alone at last. With a final glance at the papers before him, Finrod leaves his place at the head of the long table and walks over to Curufin with an enquiring look.

'I would talk with you in private, cousin', Curufin says. Cousin, not my lord or your highness or your majesty, for there are no titles between them. It was the first challenge Curufin posed to Finrod when he arrived with his brother and their people, homeless and weary from hardship and loss. Curufin and Celegorm were landless lords seeking help from Finrod the great king, yet from the day of their arrival they have addressed him only as cousin.

Finrod has given no indication of requiring or even desiring a title from Curufin, then or now.

'If it does not displease you, may we walk together to my chambers and speak there?' he asks Curufin. 'I have spent a long day in this room, and I am heartily sick of the sight of it.'

Curufin's gaze flickers to the beautifully carven walls and painted ceiling but only for a moment before it returns to Finrod, golden and glittering in his finery and regalia. 'It does not displease me.'

They walk along long corridors, high halls and wide stairways to Finrod's apartments, the silence between them broken only in the beginning by Finrod asking whether it is the last, contentious point raised in the meeting that Curufin wishes to discuss. Curufin answers that it is, and that is all that is said before they reach Finrod's rooms.

Curufin cannot help but think once again of how Finrod seems fully content with how things are, with Curufin and his brother and son and their people staying in Nargothrond as his guests, Finrod receiving advice and aid from the sons of Fëanor. Finrod's generosity appears to extend even to not begrudging the influence they have come to wield among his own people.

Curufin is the one who cannot be content with how things lie. He is restless, and he cannot help envying all that Finrod possesses that Celegorm and Curufin, princes of the first house of the Noldor, have lost.

Finrod doesn't take Curufin to his formal reception room, leading him instead his private sitting room, and he doesn't bother to summon a servant but instead goes around the sumptuously decorated room lighting candles himself. Curufin doesn't offer to help. He stands by the door and watches the warm candlelight add another layer of gilt to his cousin's hair.

The blue-glowing lampstones his father invented are more practical, but Curufin must admit that sometimes candles are more appealing. Finrod lights unnecessarily, ridiculously many of them until the whole room glows softly, and the king most brightly of all the golden things.

'Do not think that I do not appreciate your admiration, but I must say, there are times when I think you spend too little time thinking about your wife and too much time looking at me', says Finrod serenely as he returns to Curufin, laying down the last candle on a low cupboard beside the door.

Curufin is taken aback but hastens to hide it behind his practised mask of mocking amusement, and to answer Finrod with equal frankness and equanimity. 'Why would I think of my wife when she wants nothing to do with me, and is half a world away besides?'

'Ah.' A beatific smile. 'Do forgive me, I forgot that you did not part on the best of terms. The memory of it must pain you.'

Amazement at how wrong he has been fills Curufin's mind, for it seems that Finrod is not as content with Curufin's presence and behaviour as he has appeared to be, and that he has not lost the Noldorin fire that in their youth used to simmer in him, deep beneath the surface but still there.

This pleases Curufin greatly; a Finrod offering to trade barbs is a much more tolerable Finrod than one who seems nothing but gentle and wise and serene.

'The memory of my wife pains me no more than the memory of your sweetheart refusing to come with you must pain you', he answers, with a decidedly less beneficent smile than his cousin's. He doesn't like to speak of his wife, not even to think of her, in truth. But Finrod need not know that.

He is pleased to see that his words have the desired effect: Finrod flushes and appears discombobulated. You should not play this game with me, cousin, Curufin thinks, smiling more widely, for you are a novice at it and I a master.

'We were not married', replies Finrod defensively.

'Oh, but that is no excuse. You were betrothed, and even for the law-abiding Vanyar, there was no law against getting married quickly and then coming to Beleriand together. Just think of it. Had Amárië come with you, you might have your own son ruling by your side instead of that milksop boy of your brother's. Would that not be lovely?'

'It might be. Then again, fathers and sons do not always live in harmony, do they? And it can be a cause of great grief for the father.'

Finrod bows his head of gold and removes his crown, a plain, simple thing compared to the magnificent necklace that adorns his throat. He sets it down on the cupboard next to the candle with a careless motion; as the crown clatters down, for a moment its smooth golden surface reflects the single flame and turns into a sea of fire.

Running a hand through the long fall of his hair, his composure restored now while Curufin seethes, the king continues, 'I am sorry to have seen a rift developing between you and Celebrimbor lately. Perhaps it will console you to know that I have given him much good advice concerning you.'

They are standing quite close to each other now; Finrod's eyes are on Curufin's, calm on furious. Curufin takes a step closer and Finrod doesn't back away; Curufin lunges, grabs him by the necklace and pushes him against the door.

Blue eyes showing nothing but mild curiosity, Finrod doesn't fight back or shout out to the guards just outside the door.

'I think that you spend too much time with my son', Curufin says, trying not to notice how warm the jewels and gold are and how soft is his cousin's skin under his fingers.

'Or perhaps you spend too little.'

Curufin tightens his hold, and a single drop of blood appears on the fine throat amidst the gemstones and the gold.

'It seems that there are sharp points in the works of the Naugrim', he observes. Finrod is perfectly motionless now, though he still doesn't look scared.

Hit me, curse me, push me away, pull me closer – do anything other than look at me with such dispassion, Curufin exhorts in his mind.

'Few things are beautiful without any hard or dangerous edges', Finrod replies, and Curufin cannot help but agree. After all, it seems that even Finrod is not without them.

It makes him all the more fascinating to Curufin. He picks up the drop of blood on his fingertip and tells Finrod that red suits him. 'You should wear it more it often.'

'Red suits you too', Finrod says and raises a hand to stroke the scarlet silk of Curufin's sleeve close to where Curufin's fingers still hold their tight grip on the Nauglamír. 'Which is fortunate for you, since you would wear it anyway in memory of your father. Finrod the Faithful I have been called, but you were far more faithful to your father than I to mine.'

Finrod slides his hand to Curufin's, not to pull it away but in a touch as soft as a lover's; Curufin lets go of him suddenly, and Finrod takes a step to the side, slowly enough to imbue it with his innate grace and make it look like he's still not trying to escape though he has every reason to.

'You still are faithful to Fëanáro, are you not, Atarinkë? As much as you can be, things being as they are.'

Curufin realises that Finrod only stepped away to land the final blow from a safe distance, his words armed with the language of their youth.

Curufin has no answer to give but for a look of anger and hatred.

'I think it best that we postpone our discussion until tomorrow, don't you?' Finrod asks, and one of his hands flits to his throat and the faint bruises forming there. He draws it away quickly, but it has already revealed that his absolute calm is only a facade.

It brings a rush of satisfaction to Curufin, and he is able to summon a smile, bright and joyless. 'I agree, my lord.' It easy to grant Finrod the title at this moment when it cannot sound like anything but mockery.

Finrod nods, and another drop of blood appears on his throat and stains a golden curlicue of the necklace, drawing Curufin's eye.

Finrod's next words make his gaze snap back to the king's face in fury.

'Goodnight, Curufinwë. Give Tyelperinquar my regards if by chance you happen to see him before I do.'

A heartbeat passes in tense silence, and then Curufin turns and leaves without a word.

I should never have gone to his rooms, Curufin tells himself when he makes his way to his own chambers. If I spoke with him only in public places, something like that could not happen.

He is not entirely pleased with this thought, nor is he pleased to find his brother in his room.

'I see you've returned from the scouting trip', he says irritably and strips off the heavy overrobe and rich jewellery that are the trappings of the court and now chafe him, though most of the time he quite enjoys their splendour.

Lounging in front of the fire petting his huge hound, Celegorm grins at Curufin. 'I see you haven't missed me.'

'You missed a council meeting today.'

'I doubt there was anything that required my contribution in particular. Or was there?'

'No.' Curufin thinks of the plans he still needs to discuss with Finrod, then pushes those thoughts aside. 'Did you see Celebrimbor on your way in?'

'No, I didn't.' Celegorm stretches luxuriously, looking like a big dog himself lying on the bearskin before the fireplace. Curufin eyes with distaste the muddy foot and paw prints leading there.

'I take it you haven't seen him today, then', Celegorm states when he finishes his stretching.

'I didn't go to the forges today. I haven't seen him for days, actually. I've been busy working with our cousin.' Curufin takes a seat in a comfortable chair and thinks of what he should have said to Finrod before he left. Leaving the last word to someone else never pleases him.

'You shouldn't let him get to you like that', Celegorm says. His posture is still relaxed and his scratching of Huan's ears seems absent-minded, but his pale eyes are watchful.

'It's that damned serenity of his, how he maintains it even when provoked. I know it is childish, but it makes me want to test the limits of his patience…'

Curufin knows that Celegorm will never rebuke him for being less than diplomatic so it is not so difficult to confess things like this to his brother, though he would not speak thus to anyone else.

He is surprised to see a mild grin of amusement appear on Celegorm's fair face. Celegorm says wryly, 'I meant your son. But it applies to Finrod as well, I suppose. Don't let him get under your skin.'

Curufin shakes his head. 'I'll keep enough of a distance from now on that he can't.'

He says no more and Celegorm doesn't ask, but his gaze dwells on his brother for a long while, curious and assessing.

Curufin doesn't notice it. He stares into the fire and the yellow-red flames remind him of blood on gold, of the flame of a candle reflected on a crown laid aside so carelessly.

A/N: If Curufin's attitude to Finrod and his equanimity reminded some regular readers of mine of Curufin's behaviour in the early chapters of Sparks fly out, well, what can I say? He has a type. (Not that this story is necessarily connected to Sparks fly out and other stories where Netyarë appears. You can decide for yourselves whether she is the wife Curufin doesn't like to think about.)

I always appreciate feedback and hearing readers' thoughts on my fics! Comments on AO3 are very welcome.

#feanorianweek #i enjoy writing about curufin so much #he's my guilty pleasure favourite #curufin #finrod #celegorm #silmarillion fanfiction #tolkien fanfiction #silmarillion #tolkien #crowns and sons & gold and blood #my fics #elesianne's fics

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robotnik-mun · 7 years

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Robotnik Retrospective Part Four: All the Little People

And here we are, once again, to take time out of your life to discuss an outmoded variation of villain from a series of children’s video games! Are you lucky or what?

Heh, but I digress. Welcome to the fourth installment of the retrospective! Last time around we finally stopped beating around the bush to take an in-depth look at the doctor himself, analyzing his actions and observing his demonstrated personality and traits, taking a deeper look into what makes him tick. One thing though that was missing from that analysis was arguably one of the biggest parts of his character- Sonic the Hedgehog himself.

Well, I can safely say to you that that was a deliberate ommission- given how goddamn enormous that post already was, I felt it best to make this a separate section entirely, covering not only his relationship with Sonic the Hedgehog but with the other Freedom Fighters and taking a look at how that not only enhances his character, but their’s as well.

Let’s get rolling.

One of the great truths of fiction is that every great hero needs a great villain. Great villains provide a challenge to overcome, a threat to be beaten, a danger to address- they’re the great facilitators of change and growth within a story, plus, they help to keep things interesting. How they go about this is as myriad as the stories that they appear in- some threats are obvious and direct, some are insidious and hidden. At the end of the day though, all of them are part of what makes a hero (or if you want to be more flexible, a protagonist) great and what helps make their stories so compelling.

In short? Great heroes need great villains, and that’s what helps to make them great. What a lot of people don’t consider though is that the opposite is just as true. Stories are often just as much about the villains as they are the heroes, showing them as they try their damndest to defeat the hero and make their own ambitions come together, and what makes them impressive in turn is their ability to continually challenge the heroes as they do. A story where the villain always wins effortlessly is every bit as boring and unreadable as a story where the hero always effortlessly manages to win, with an extra dosage of unbearable given that villains have a tendency to do awful awful things to boot. Villains are every bit as enhanced by their heroes as heroes are by their villains.

It is with that conceit that I move onto this aspect of Robotnik and his being, which is probably the one that I love most of all- his relationship with the other characters, and what his presence brings out in them and compels them to do because of it.

Naturally, first and foremost among all that is Sonic the Hedgehog.

Sonic and Eggman’s rivalry is one of the most iconic of video games, and with good reason. Both thematically and visually the two are stark opposites- Sonic is a young, athletic, short blue hedgehog who prefers to settle problems with his own physical abilities and has many friends, while Eggman is a tall, fat old man dressed in red who eschews friendship and uses his brains to do things, expressed through the endless machines that he builds. Sonic lives and fights for freedom, whether it is his own or the freedom of others, while Eggman cheerfully enslaves others to power his machines and seeks to rebuild the world in his own image. Sufficed to say there’s a reason why those two are such an iconic pair- even in the classic era before either of them had a voice or detailed mannerisms to express, they’re able to play off each other in such a fundamental way that even just relying on visuals and pantomime there is something about them that just resonates so well.

As with everything else in this setting, SatAM takes the pre-existing conflict and spins it in a different direction to what was presented in the games or in the early Adventures series. Whereas in the games Robotnik was an obstacle to overcome and in Adventures Robotnik was a nemesis to harangue, harass and humiliate ala Looney Tunes, in SaTAM Robotnik was a deadly threat and menace that needed to be thwarted for the good of everyone and everything. In my opinion it was a fitting dynamic- Sonic is said to personify freedom as a character after all, and who better to oppose a champion of freedom than a corrupt, tyrannical authority figure striving to *destroy* freedom once and for all?

Naturally, this meant that Sonic was still the same daring, cocky, reckless but ultimately brave and heroic individual that he had been in the last iteration of things, but here there was a slight difference- uniquely for any Sonic series out there, there was a new dimension to the conflict here, an element that had never been present in any of the past depictions of Sonic and his fight with Robotnik. For here it is established that for all the jokes and insults that Sonic saw fit to hurl time and again at Robotnik, beneath it all... Sonic is very, very much afraid of Robotnik and what will happen if he should ever fail.

Despite what his attitude might suggest, Sonic in this series is very, very much aware of what’s at stake and what will become of his friends and family would Robotnik ever manage to defeat him once and for all and uncover Knothole. In “Sonic’s Nightmare” we get a glimpse of what terrifies Sonic the most- it is a devastating scene of his innermost fears, his speed being robbed from him while Robotnik manages to capture Sally. He is unable to reach her and is forced to watch as she is roboticized before his very eyes, haunted by her last words as she demands to know where he was when the brains were handed out. This dream haunts him deeply throughout the subsequent episode as events from the dream seem to leave the impression that the dream was in fact a premonition, and Sonic has to actively fight through the panic and overcome the terror to save his friends and ensure that this vision does not come to pass.

Naturally he succeeds with flying colors, but the fact remains that, no matter how reckless he gets and no matter how lightly he seems to take the doctor, everything he does to fight the guy is tinged by this fear. In fact, it would be pretty safe to say that one of the reasons he displays such constant confidence and defiance is not unlike the same reason Spider-Man does- it helps to cover for the very real, very abiding fear and doubt that Sonic feels and helps him to carry through against Robotnik, which in turn helps others by showing them to not be scared enough to fight.

It helps that we are shown precisely why Sonic fears Robotnik and hates him so. Sonic didn’t just lose his only family to the Roboticizer- he personally witnessed it happened and very nearly wound up suffering the same fate, and over the course of the series we are treated to more than one occurrence of other Freedom Fighters who never made it back- Cat in “Sonic Boom” is taken away and never seen again. A pair of Freedom Fighters in the opening of Blast to the Past are immediately captured and Roboticized and in ‘Game Guy’ he fails to rescue Ari from the Void. Then of course there is Bunnie, a constant reminder of what will happen to everything he cares about if he should fail, to say nothing of the pain that her condition causes her. One of the great writing conceits of this show is that few victories are ever utterly complete- in Sonic Racer, Sonic doesn’t get to win the race even as the side mission being pulled while Robotnik’s attention is on him goes off. In Sonic Boom, information about King Acorn is acquired, but Cat is lost. Sonic twice restores his Uncle Chuck to free will, but in both occasions has to lose him- first to when the liberation wears off, and secondly when Chuck is forced to live away and do spy work in Robotropolis, something he must continue to do even after his cover is blown in “Spy-Hog”. As well as the fact that at the end of the day, Sonic cannot really avenge everyone who is victimized by the doctor, nor can he always have a clean victory, particularly since no matter what, at the end of the day Robotnik still manages to rule the world. It’s a daunting thing to face day in and day out, yet still, Sonic gets up, goes out, and gives his all to push back Robotnik’s conquest, even if it is only by centimeters. It makes Sonic all the more admirable that even as the dread of what might be picks at him, he continues to soldier on and do his best, despite the danger and despite the odds being against him.

It is what helps me to truly appreciate this particular iteration of Sonic, which in turn helps feed into my love of Sonic in general- things are not easy for him, nor is he totally un-phased by what he’s up against. He’s been put through a lot thanks to the doctor, owing every terrible thing that has happened to him in his life thanks to the guy. His lost home, his lost family, friends lost or mutilated by the doctor’s actions, it is safe to say that Sonic is decidedly *not* fond of Robotnik. Several times over the course of the series he expresses happiness at the idea of Robotnik being dead and disappointment over Robotnik’s continued survival. When not joking about the guy, he has nothing but scorn and contempt for Robotnik, and he has plenty of reason for both. His playfulness in encounters with Robotnik take on a harsher tinge, done deliberately to piss off and undermine the aura of menace and control the doctor projects, because he is keenly aware that Robotnik is the biggest, baddest guy on the planet... and because of that, he knows the best way to get at the guy is by refusing to acknowledge that fact when fighting him, reducing him to a subject of laughs rather than terror.

For all this? Robotnik hates Sonic right back, and fittingly, he allows that hatred to consume him utterly, and this in turn is how Sonic manages to enhance Robotnik’s character- by giving him a very, very palpable weakness.

One of the great defining characteristics of Robotnik is his hatred. Hatred of others, hatred of the world around him, but more so than anything else, Robotnik is driven and controlled by his utter and complete hatred of Sonic and Sonic alone. This makes a great deal of sense when you consider where he is coming from- for ten years Robotnik has managed to reign supreme over the world, and any opposition that he encountered before Sonic and company was clearly not enough to stop him. Then comes along Sonic- a mouthy little teenager who, despite everything, is able not only halt Robotnik’s operations, but escape punishment time and again. Robotnik is a scientific genius, a former military leader who managed to win a war and who later managed to conquer an entire planet. Yet no matter what Robotnik does... no matter how close he gets, no matter what he does, Sonic always seems to slip through his otherwise ironclad grip.

Worse than that, Sonic is eventually revealed to have been the one to cost him his arm. This creates a parallel to the famous, destructive hatred that Captain Ahab reserved for Moby Dick, having lost ships and his leg to the great White Whale. Whereas Ahab had the White Whale, Robotnik has a Blue Hedgehog, and his pursuit of his prey over the course of the series fittingly leads to his own inevitable defeat. Over the course of the 2nd Season of SatAM, Robotnik’s hatred for Sonic reaches such an extent that it begins to spiral out of his control- this is the season where Robotnik doesn’t just want to kill or roboticize Sonic, but to utterly and completely humiliate him in the process, to break him in order to avenge his wounded ego. Some criticize this season for overplaying his hatred of Sonic and making him fall into the ‘BondVillain’ pitfall (as ‘Game Guy’ so illustrated), but I would counter that this is a very natural development for Robotnik as the continued victories of the Freedom Fighters and Sonic in particular begins to take a toll on his sanity. In particular, his focus on Sonic to the exclusion of everything else makes it clear that for as much as Sonic is legitimately involved in dismantling his plans, Robotnik has turned Sonic into a scapegoat for *all* of his failures, bringing his hateful obsession to murderous new heights.

Even before the second season though it was pretty clear that Robotnik’s hatred for Sonic went above and beyond ordinary. Each time he spoke of ‘the hedgehog’ he did so with a very potent amount of venom, and one incident in particular makes it clear that when it comes to Sonic, Robotnik’s hatred has always been self-destructive. There’s a spectacular scene in “Sonic’s Nightmare” towards the end- Robotnik and Snively are in his ship, in stealth mode, having narrowly escaped the destruction of a blimp designed to induce acid rain- don’t laugh, it’s a perfectly valid tactic for a man whose enemies live in the forest and who desires a lifeless world of machines. Sonic and Co cannot see them, but they are in a perfect position to attack. Robotnik readies a missile, but is then informed by Snively that the damage they’ve taken is too much, and if he fires the weapon there’s a good chance that they’ll go down too.

Faced with the decision between killing Sonic once and for all or saving his own life, Robotnik is given pause.

His finger hovers over the button, his hand shaking. It’s not a rash decision he’s making, but one where he clearly is weighing the pro’s and cons. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, he pushes the button. Thankfully for Sonic (and probably Robotnik and Snively), the circuits fuse, and the window of opportunity closes, forcing them both to return to Robotropolis, but the fact remains that Robotnik hates Sonic so much that he would willingly risk his own death if it meant Sonic were to die as well. He would *gleefully* shoot himself in the foot, provided that the bullet came out the other end and killed Sonic as well. It’s a beautiful and terrifying demonstration of the depths that he’ll go to kill Sonic, as well as a convincing display of how Sonic truly is his greatest weakness, more than setting his downward spiral during Season 2 as his desire for vengeance begins to go out of control.

In this, Robotnik is strengthened as a character, because he is given a very identifiable weakness that drives him to commit believable mistakes, and by the same token, Sonic’s own character is better off for it due to the very personal nature of his conflict with Robotnik and the struggle that Robotnik has made out of his life. Struggle drives conflict, and it makes Sonic’s victories all the better for it.

Ah, but it is not Sonic alone who ‘benefits’ from Robotnik’s presence! Others in the cast are similarly impacted, and for the better.

Enter Princess Sally.

Sally’s entire situation in life is incredibly tragic once you sit down and think about it. She was born a princess and destined for an easy life with a loving father... and in a flash, it was all taken away from her. Her home, her father, her future, all of it stolen by a man her father trusted- who she trusted. Forced to live in hiding while the madman who betrayed her father and stole her life turned the world into an industrial hellhole, Sally was able to rise against the circumstances and lead her friends in a nearly hopeless guerilla war against a seemingly unstoppable foe. She may be called a ‘princess’, but she is aware of how little meaning her title has- she is not a leader because of her blood but because of her actions. She leads missions into the city- a city her family founded and ruled for centuries, now twisted and corrupted into a blighted, lifeless mechanism designed to create endless robots and consume everything. She does this in person, risking life and limb along with her friends, whom she has known since childhood, fellow survivors all of them, time and again going into that nightmarish place for the sake of her people. For the sake of the kingdom that no longer exists.

She’s not even eighteen years old, and it wears on her something awful. Losing her kingdom, losing her father, having to watch out not only for her friends lives but the lives of everyone in Knothole, constantly planning and strategizing and hoping that this time isn’t the time where it all goes wrong. All the while having to be strong, and cool and calm and collected for the sake of her people, because she is their leader and alongside Sonic, she is a symbol of hope- of a possible return to better days. Leadership is her privilege and her burden, and it’s all she can do to not buckle under it on those days when things go wrong- and they happen. In ‘Blast to the Past Part 1‘ we open with such a failure, and her reaction afterward. The kind of stress this girl has been put under is unimaginable. She’s only sixteen.

And what of Bunnie?

Bunnie is a walking reminder of what will happen if the Freedom Fighters fail. Generally she is a cheerful and upbeat person, but even that doesn’t stop her from hating what she has become... what Robotnik nearly turned her into. Every time she looks in a mirror she gets to remember what Robotnik did to her and the fact that her chances at a normal life were dashed some time ago. At the same time she has not given into the despair despite how much she hates what she has become- she has instead learned to empower herself, taking what Robotnik did to her and turning it against him, using her abilities to fight his empire and make him pay for what he did to her and to everyone else.

So it goes with all the other Freedom Fighters- Tails is an orphan, a child being raised by children forced to take on the role of adults and who do their best to give him a normal childhood in the most horrible of times imaginable. Rotor must try his hardest to be there for his friends as an inventor and as someone to talk to when they need it. Dulcy hasn’t seen another of her kind in years. Antoine lives in terror because he can never felt safe again. Even in the minor characters it shows- everyone is in hiding, everyone has lost something or something to lose. Everything the heroes have been through has been because of Robotnik. Because of what he did... because of what he is doing.

Every life stolen...

Every moment of despair...

Every family torn apart..

Every child orphaned...

Every dream broken...

Every natural wonder desecrated...

Every civilization destroyed...

Every scar inflicted...

...all of it leads back to one man. To Robotnik. His deeds and the consequences of those actions reverberate throughout the entire series and at every level. He is an enemy who is everywhere, who controls virtually everything around the heroes. The world is dying by inches as he consumes more and more of it. The heroes do not have access to the same resources as he- everything they have is scrounged from his leftovers, and they must do everything they can to maintain their hiding places. Knothole is shown to have parts that break down, and Lower Mobius lives in constant dread of its energy source burning out. This is what Robotnik has done to the heroes. This is the position he has put them all in.

This is what makes their triumphs so amazing.

For against those odds, against everything that Robotnik has ever done to them, the heroes collectively continue to go out time and again to fight against Robotnik. To show that that will not simply lay down and wait for him to take them to the Roboticizer or for his SwatBots to exterminate them. They will rise up against the tyrant, rise up against him despite how badly the odds skew against them, and each time they will make him pay a little more for what he has done as they reclaim their lives, inch by inch and yard by yard. They maintain hope against him, against everything they maintain hope. The heroes of this show are collectively made all the more impressive for it, all the more heroic, for the simple fact that they fight back as hard as they do. Even Antoine is stronger for this- for as clumsy and constantly terrified as he is, he still goes back into Robotropolis over and over again to do his part. Even with everything that is flawed and imperfect about him, he is still brave enough to set foot in that horrible. Can any of you say you would do the same?

Robotnik is what makes Sonic and the others so great as heroes, because he takes so much from them and takes so much *out* of them when trying to fight back, that it makes their victories all the more meaningful even if they are not always as straightforward as we might like- and that’s perhaps what I like most about this iteration of Robotnik, because he helps so much in making me like Sonic and Sally and everyone else.

It isn’t just his interactions with the heroes though that make Robotnik more whole. There is of course the matter of the OTHER evildoers in this series.

Snively’s relationship is one that fascinates me most because of how much is implied in it. Snively initially debuted as a fairly typical Evil Lackey, though one marked by a fair amount of abuse from his employer. What gave him distinction though was what was revealed about his precise relationship with Robotnik- that he was the man’s nephew and that once upon a time, Snively admired and trusted him. The idea that Robotnik would so callously manipulate, use and abuse someone who once adored him is easily one of the most personally despicable things that Robotnik has done, and at once it makes you hate him more and pity Snively on an entirely new level, beyond what even his wretched status as Robotnik’s assistant/stress ball would make you feel.

Robotnik’s interactions with Snively are fascinating for the fact that while Robotnik enjoys belittling, insulting and hurting him... he does not treat Snively with absolute content. He entrusts his nephew to oversee important tasks and on occasion even listens to him. This would seem to indicate that for all the open contempt he has for Snively, he is at least aware that Snively is not an idiot (much as he enjoys calling him that). Snively in the meantime is shown to resent his position more and more, becoming defiant and catty in the second season. It makes sense given Robotnik’s own deterioration in that season, and the simple fact that Snively is surely aware that he is living on borrowed time. The world that Robotnik is creating would have no room for Snively, and if Robotnik were to ever win it would mean the end of Snively eventually. In time Robotnik would get bored of his screams and Roboticize him as well. Robotnik is able to grant Snivley his greatest moment in the series- surviving Doomsday despite being left to die, and emerging from the rubble to claim his seemingly fallen Uncle’s empire.

Cluck is another relationship I rather like, because of how typical it seems until you consider the implications.

It’s a real shame Cluck was chucked for the second season, as I really did enjoy her. At first glance she would seem to be the only thing in creation that Robotnik actually cares about, for he treats her with far greater affection than he does his own nephew. That impression only lasts until you realize why he’s so affectionate- she’s ultimately just another projection for his bloated egomania. Her entire existence is basically Robotnik going ‘Oh hey, nature? That thing you made? I made it better. So there!’. Robotnik doesn’t love Cluck because of anything genuine, he loves her because she is just another thing he can look at and admire himself for the brilliance he displayed in creating her. That’s how I see it anyway. Again, it’s a real shame she wasn’ kept around, but oh well. Point of order, I see Cluck was a brilliant testament to the raging ocean of self-centered narcissism that is Robotnik, and I love her for it.

You know what? I even like his relationship with Naugus.

Bet you weren’t expecting that, eh? Bet you were expecting me to rail against the fact that there’s something that utterly breaks down Robotnik’s aura and demeanor of unshakable and utter evil. Well I got news for you- I do in fact enjoy the fact that Robotnik is *petrified* of Naugus. He has every reason to be, having endured the sorcerer’s tortures back in the old days when he was assisting him with his experiments within the Void. It provides a humanizing element to Robotnik- a reminder that for all the evil he does and all the terror he inflicts, Robotnik is still a man, and like most men there is something he is afraid of. I appreciate that quality because it implies a limitation to eventually be overcome and conquered. It represents a chance to grow and develop into something more, and it helps to establish that Robotnik is not invincible. These are important things for a character to have, I feel, and so I actually enjoy that Naugus can bring such start and total fright to the Big Round Guy. Characters who are totally without fear tend to come off as boring, irritating or just plain stupid, to say nothing of suspense-breaking.

And with that, I conclude this portion of the analysis. Sufficed to say, while I like Robotnik on his own terms, the thing that really makes him shine in my eyes is not him and him alone, but rather what he does to others and what he brings out in the other characters. It’s a symbiotic relationship in my mind, the way that Robotnik is able to enhance them and how they do the same for him, and it’s a big part of what made this show so compelling to begin with. I love a good villain- even more than that, I love when a good villain has an even better hero to challenge and thwart him, especially when things are made difficult for the hero because of the villain.

Next time around, we will take a look at the others who were made in the image of SatAM Robotnik... and in doing so, tackle a rather sizeable elephant in the room. See you next time, boys and girls!

#Sonic the Hedgehog #SatAM #Dr. Robotnik #Analysis

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