#( the problem is he's such a deeply emotional person he finds himself getting attached despite his best efforts to keep a distance )

[erabundus]

never  let  yourself  love  anything!  (  never  let  yourself  be  loved!  )  violently  repress  the  inevitable  demise  of  what  slips  stubbornly  through  the  cracks!  who  said  coping  needed  to  be  HARD?

[i-ship-everybody]

Leo Valdez x Male reader

You and Leo spend the morning in bed together. Warnings: grinding, underage

~

You huff and stretch as your boyfriend Leo presses his warm body to your back. It was mid August, and much too hot (even in the early morning) for him to be pressing himself against you like this.

Usually, you were always cold during the winter, which was one of the few occasions Leo’s fever-like body temperature came in handy. Other than times like that, you had to deal with your very touchy boyfriend draping his unbearably hot body onto you. Most days, especially during summer months, the heat of him against you made you angry and snappy.

But as you got to know and observe Leo more and more, as your relationship progressed, you’d kept your discomfort to yourself.

You saw how the rest of the 7 treated Leo, as if he was a helpful pet to be entertained. Sure they didn’t mean it, but you saw how being the seventh wheel affected him. You thought of how it must feel to only be conversed with when something needed fixing or to constantly be getting scolded for something that was simply your personality.

Leo made plenty of jokes, not all of them funny, and some at the worst moments. In the end it was just how Leo expressed himself. Humour and mischief was how the son of Hephaestus coped, the limp jokes and snide remarks truly the only way he could process and move pass his difficulties.

It frustrates you sometimes, how can it not? But you didn’t chastise him for it, it was purely how he was, how could you demand he change himself for anyone?

Besides, you were not the easiest to deal with, you were well aware that you carried a bitter attitude with you throughout the day. Leo often comparing you to a vicious cat. You knew you were too cold, too detached. You kept to yourself and that included your thoughts, feelings and problems. Yet Leo never faulted you for it, he had courted you despite your cold demeanour that seemed to only get colder the more you two got close. He had pursued you and your relationship even when you had simply stared at him with furrowed brows and a frown when he had first approached you.

It had been a couple weeks since Leo, Piper and Jason had returned from their quest to save Hera. By now most of the camp had been made aware of the plans to build a warship, which brought more attention to the new delinquent, son of Hephaestus. Leo Valdez, short, Latino, brunette and loud. From what you’ve heard he was the first child of the god of forgery and fire to have control over fire in decades. You hadn’t even met him yet, but gods believe that you heard him everywhere you went.

He was just that loud.

The first time he had approached him you, it had been when you were enjoying some kebab by the fire on a Friday night. The day had been full of swimming, archery and cleaning the bloody knees of the younger kids. Who, for some reason seemed attached to you despite your constant sour expression that had rested on your face so deeply and constantly that you now had permanent furrow lines in between your brows. Your siblings, nearly as grumpy as you, always laughed at the permanent sign of displeasure on your face.

It didn’t bother you, not like most things did. You find the lines amusing, a forever sign of your recurring frustration with people and life. Leo hated them, did his best to smooth them out. Late at night, side by side, with his rough thumbs on your brows is perhaps the only time you feel yourself relax.

That night as you stared at the fire he had suddenly come over and sat beside you. You were aware he was going to do it, you took pleasure in watching others, trying to guess their thoughts, emotions and next move. He had been watching you with a stupid expression on his face for days now, his mouth hanging open as he stared at you had been a slight cause of anger in you. Gapping mouthed people pissed you off, but most things did.

He twisted his fingers and bounced his leg beside you, you continued eating your kabab as you watch his face turn redder and his embarrassment grow.

How funny, you thought. Staring at him through the side of your eye, amusement rising as you watch this stranger try to gather the courage to say something. You couldn’t be bothered to give him the gift of starting a conversation or doing really anything to lessen the tension he was so obviously feeling.

Most people say that you’re a bad person, you guess that the fact that you don’t care might prove them right. At least you only took slight pleasure in uncomfortable social interaction, your sister, Clarisse went out of her way to antagonize people. You much preferred to stand silently and watch people dig themselves into a grave caused by their own decisions to be so easily affected by stumbles in human interactions. Human nature fascinates you, the study of the mind and its behaviour was one of the few things that caught your attention and made you feel more than numb blankness and detached anger.

None of your siblings were like you, they were all so animated, while you were almost devoid of all emotion but the ones strong enough to push to the surface. Hate, disgust, anger, shock, the occasional burst of happiness when the sun is particularly sunny and the birds more birdy. When you were terribly fond of the people you surrounded yourself with, but those moments were rare.

You definitely had your fathers unquenchable thirst for conflict, though you preferred a different path they the rest of the ares cabin. Preferred to watch as humans made their own conflict, as was human nature.

Your thoughts were rudely interrupted by Leo clearing his throat.

You pursed your lips slightly, the only sign of emotion you displayed. He had managed to twitch in silence for nearly five whole minutes. Impressive.

“Soo” Leo failed to start a conversation, “ the kebabs are good,huh?”

You stared at him for a second, enough to see him start to wonder if you were gonna answer him.

How could I make this more interesting…

“No, they’re inedible.”

His eyebrows raise. Leo’s eyes flicker to the spot where the kebab had left grease stains on the paper plate, then to the stick where you had done your best to bite even the smallest bits of meat off. Just as Leo’s eyes flicker to your eyes, then your mouth, to your chin, to the plate and then back towards your mouth you felt dread settle atop you.

Right where he was staring at your chin, you could now feel the crumbs of food you had somehow missed. Anger trickled into your veines as you resisted the urge to whip it away. You’d look even stupider if you did that, you settled to leave it there and act as if your face was spotless.

“Oh yeah, heard they used a new recipe” he stammered.

You nodded with impatience, hopeful to get this over with quickly.

“You know you look really familiar” he continued, seemingly refusing to get detoured.

“Do I?” Your eyebrows raised from where they had been furrowed. Maybe Leo might be interesting after all.

“Yeah, yeah!”

He was nodding, confidence coming back to him in small bursts.

“We take a class together dont we?” No, you didn’t.

“We have chemistry!”

Leo flashed you a slightly charming, deranged grin. That line had been so horribly bad that you needed a minute to process, while doing so you noticed the smears of oil he had on his face. His usual spring curls were sticking up and fluffed out on every side of his head. He had smudges of purple under his eyes and his pupils were blown wide with lack of sleep. He looked psychotic and dangerous, he carried a mad scientist type of energy. Some far away part of you realizes he’s attractive, maybe a little short, but cute.

You bite the insides of your cheeks to keep your lips from twitching. “There are no chemistry classes at camp half-blood.”

“Oh yeah, right. Why would they need it,anyways? With all the chemistry in between us?” You tilt your head at Leo, he was somehow charming.

“We have chemistry?”

“Yes, sir! Of course, can’t you feel it?” He’s excited now, his shoulders moving as he speaks, hair jumping with his voice.

“I must have missed it.” Where is he going with this?

“You have to be really not paying attention then! How can’t you feel the insane energy between us, I study mechanics and even I haven’t seen anything as strong as this.”

“And what it this strong thing?” Your intrigued, you try not to be but his every sentence has you only waiting for more. Leo draws his words out and speaks his sentences so quickly you never know what’s gonna come out next, he could say anything.

“The power of our attraction, the energy between us is so insanely powerful that it might throw the earth of its course, crashing into the sun if we weren’t careful.”

A slight huff of laughter forced itself past your lips, unwanted and certainly unwelcome. You couldn’t help it, his massive exaggerations and manner of speaking delighted you with its

absurdity.

Leo’s eyes shined and his mouth was stretched in a wide smile that looked almost painful, he had gotten you to show him more than unconcerned indifference.

You returned back to the land of the living as Leo made a whining sound, hands pushing the blanket away from you. Calloused fingers hell bent on being the only thing touching your body. Forcing you away from thoughts of the day you met.

Every morning he woke up desperate for attention, Leo would attach himself to you, follow you into the washrooms, drag his hands down your torso all the while trying to convince both of you that a day in bed would be better spent.

You were just waiting for the convincing to start.

Leo opened his mouth just as you sat up from your lying position, body overheating from the combination of Leo and the sleep warm sheets.

“Oh no, mi amor” he whined “stay with me.”

He pulled himself up to follow you, leaning hot chest onto back. “I know you don’t want to get up either, come on ,baby. Let’s stay in bed, there’s not much to do today, let me do you today.”

You huffed, turning towards him. After all these months you still had no idea what would come tumbling out of his mouth, what would come running out of his shop with forks for legs (that one experiment gone wrong he had done last month).

Leo’s hair was delectably mused, cheeks warm with sleep and eyes glazed as well. He was so gorgeous in the mornings you had to stop yourself from eating him.

You had been planing to go to the washroom, but Leo looked so gorgeous when he woke up that you contemplated on whether spending the day ravishing him or completing your duty’s would be better.

Why not both.

Leo grinned and threw his fist up in triumph when you crawled back into the bed. He soon grew silent, his breathing stopped as you continued crawling towards him. Gods, you loved flustering him. He looked the best with your thighs straddling his hips, hands gripping all he could reach.

You reach him and drag your hands up his body, pushing him down by the shoulders. Leo whines and grabs for you to come closer to him, you gently shrug his hands away.

“Shhh, patience Leo”

“Nono, no time for patience…”he mumbled, but never finished his train of thought as you had started to lavish kisses to his lovely, warm stomach.

You hummed and Leo’s hands started racking through your hair, tugging and massaging. You continued to drop kisses all over his torso, dragging your lips from spot to spot. Letting the wet inside of your mouth trail along his skin, leaving shiny lines on his skin.

You continued kissing for a few more minutes, finding your way up to his neck, then jaw and back down just as he had been turning his head to steal a kiss. You couldn’t help but laugh as he huffed at the rejection when you turned your attention back towards his neck. Leo started whining and moving his hips against you, but quit the whining as you bit gently on his collarbone. He shivered and stoped his movement.

You knew he was sensitive there, not because of sensual reasons, no. Leo had confessed to you one night that he had a fear of someone breaking his collarbones simply by applying enough pressure. It was an odd fear, one you liked to poke at. You thought it might be because his collarbones, like most of his bones, were so protruding that it bothered him.

You left a couple more kissed onto his check, sucked a hickey above his peck and then raised your head to look him in the eye.

He was flushed, Leo’s eyes were black and watching you sharply. His lips were wet from biting and licking them in his efforts to stay quiet. Leo’s pouty, red lips looked delicious to you, you raised into your elbows above him then leaned down to taste them.

You hum as you press your lips to his, his bottom lip in between yours, your top lip in between his. You push harder against Leo as he sucks on your lips.

You exchange a couple more kisses, always pulling back when he tries to open his mouth.

Leo’s arms have been gliding all along your body, leaving hot trails of delight along your skin. He stops them at your hips and grabs them hard, pulling you down onto him with a solide thud.

He mumbles happily, and you feel his hands start to grope your ass. It seemed to be his favourite pastime. Whenever he could, whenever you let him, he’d hug you from the front while letting his hands explore all along your back. Reaching up to grip your neck and pull at your hair, trailing his nails down your back, grabbing your hips so hard and pushing his thumbs into your hips bones, then finally sliding down and grabbing a nice handful of your ass. Sometimes he would grab you so hard and so suddenly that you felt a shriek rise in your throat. You held it in, if you didn’t you’d be forced to kill everyone in the vicinity that had heard it, your dear Leo included.

Leo continued to push and press at your ass, you keep giving his little pecks. Soon he grew frustrated with the lack of tongue and decided to push his hands into your pjs bottoms to get his hands on your bare skin.

You tensed as you felt him garb hard at you ass.

“Ouch, Leo”

He laughed, “Aww do I grab you too hard, baby?”

You huffed at his teasing tone, gods he pissed you off. It turned you on.

You grinded your body deeper into his, making sure to press your hips down onto where he was hard for you.

“Yeah, that’s more like it. Let me fuck you, please, kiss me, touch me. Anything, do anything to me, just do something.” Leo begged, teasing making him more impatient than he had woke up.

“Anything?”

Leo nodded viciously, you gave him a deep kiss. He opens his mouth as your tongue pushes against his lips, you drag your tongue across his bottom lip then glide it along his. Leo groans as you gently suck onto his tongue, he loved it when you did that.

As you two continued violently making out, his hands stayed on your ass and you slowly started to push your hips onto his. You adjusted the way you straddled him so that your ass was more planted on his dick than your own was. His hands move to your waist, where his hands settle hot and tight. Leo whines a couple words out in Spanish against your lips, most likely swears, as you start pushing your ass into his hips. You start up a steady rhythm, moving back and forth against him. Leo pants into your mouth, kissing skills gone once he starts receiving pleasure from some other end. Still you drop little chaste kisses onto his face and lips.

Your hips kept moving as your lips trail from his mouth to his check, over his nose, to his other cheek then finally return to his pouty mouth. Leo grips at your hips desperately, trying to pull you down harder and buck up I to you at the same time. You fasten your pace and move onto kissing under his ear. You focus on trying to suck the darkest hickey into that spot, as dark as you can get it. Just as he starts whining louder, a sign that he’s close, you latch onto his neck.

Leo’s whining and moaning out loud, moving and bucking under you. Legs, arms and just about everything twitching uncontrollably once he’s on the edge. You had your lips suctioned below his ear, sucking hard and ass moving hard against Leo’s hips.

Ever since you had started dating, his loudness and submissiveness had always been a place of shock for you. You have never met someone that had wanted to be taken control of, but also get their cock ridding at the same time. Truth be told, as loud as he was speaking level, you did not expect him to match it in the bedroom. Somehow he was even louder, your first real make out he had been making all these sounds, huffing and groaning into your mouth. You had thought it was simply because he was a virgin and he would soon grow out of it as he grew used to pleasure. But no, he even seemed to get louder the more experienced you two got.

It by no means bothered you, but Leo had had to built a hidden treehouse in the forest. When he had first told you about it, you had pictured a ratty old thing, with rotting wood. But no, this man had built the two of you a beautiful, cabin, with a somehow functional washroom. The treehouse, was one whole room, with exception of the washroom, you came up from the ladder into a cosy living room. Red and brown furniture and carpets decorated the floor. Further into the room, the bedroom was separated by a curtain, that pulled back to a queen size bed and two bedside tables with the washroom to the right of the room.

When Leo had shown you it, and explained that he was tired of your or his siblings interrupting you. You had took a minute to laugh, something he wouldn’t get used used to. Because, Leo was truly the horniest person you’ve ever met. Ever since you touched him for the first time he was desperate for you at all times after that. Only him would build a whole house just to run away and fuck in.

Leo spasmed under you, his arms gripping your arms, the bedding then alternating between them. He tossed and turned under you, face a delicious red. He was breathing heavily and his eyes looked truly desperate and glazed. He reached his hands in between your body’s, stoping your movements which drew a desperate cry from him. He grasped the band of his boxer shorts and pulled them down till his cock sprang free. Red and hard, Leo immediately put his hands on your back and pushed you back down. He let out the deepest groan, with his hands gripping the blanket and his eyes stuck to the wood roof when you started up again.

Your thighs were started to hurt and you remembered why you trained legs so much, so you could last long ridding your whiny little boyfriend.

Why you trained so hard, you didn’t know. Since, Leo usually didn’t last this long. Most people are unhappy when their boyfriend comes so quickly, but it only makes you proud. You enjoy making him come multiple times, till his face is as wet as his dick.

“Ah, ah ah ah- fuck, yeah, yeah, justo ahí, mi amor.” Leo panted, his breaths coming out in little moans that were rising in volume.

He was close.

You felt his bare dick twitch onto your ass, his hips were going wild. Buckling in every direction.

Finally, Leo went rigid, hands tight on your back, his whole body arched up into you. His face was contorted into a stiff, open-mouthed expression, and then you felt the warm spurt of his pleasure on your bottom. His back fell back into the bed with a sign, harsh breaths still forcing themselves out of his body.

You lifted your leg over him, shushed him when he let out a mewl and settled beside him. You propped yourself up on your elbow and brushed your free hand through his sweaty curls. His eyes were blinking up at you through long lashes.

“Good?”

“Yeah, so good” Leo smiled and the started laughing.

At first soft huffs of laughter, then his overbearing joy at being alive erupted from his chest through his mouth in loud burst of laughter. It was so happy, so bright and alive, so contagious that you couldn’t help it. You might have laughed a bit with him.

Thought you quickly smoothed a hand over your mouth in effort to stop the laughter and salvage your reputation. Leo caught the movement, his mind more familiar with your habits and quirks than you were, he laughed harder at the sight of your failed concealment.

He apparently found it so funny, that he lifted his hand to point at you. His finger. Right in your face.

The move was so ridiculous and childish that you laughed harder, truly deep laughs. You dropped yourself onto him, pushing his finger out of your face.

It continued on like that for a little bit, till it calmed down into deep breathing. Your face pressed onto his neck and your limbs intertwined like vital veins. Your connection together so crucial that your lives would end should it be severed.

Leo turned to you, shifting so he could look you in the eye. He was smiling, lips spread in a comical closed-lipped smile. You had enough control of your faculties that you did not smile back, simply stared back into his eyes with little to no expression.

He signed happily.

“I love when you do that.”

“Do what? Stare into your soul and frighten you deeply?” You pose, intrigued by where this was going, your eyebrows fury as always. How others viewed you always fascinated you.

“No no, it doesn’t scare me. I love it, you can just look at me and don’t feel like you need to put on something of act.. like some fake face, fake smile. So many people do that.”

You hummed, prompting him further.

“You can just look at me.”

“… and that’s nice sometimes, you don’t look at me to chastise me, or give me a disapproving look. You look at me just to look at me.” Leo finished, eyes searching for a response.

You didn’t answer for a bit, he didn’t exactly want a response. He just wanted what he’d said to by acknowledged, so you did that for him.

You brought up a shoulder, “Well, you are rather lovely to look at.”

A laugh ripped itself from Leo’s chest, he rose a hand to his warm cheek, ecstatic.

“Gods, I love you.”

“And, I you.”

[k-s-morgan]

I just wanted to say that I just finished WHGTB and I love everything so much, that fic ended with me crying during the last chapter, I never thought that tomarry would become one of my ships fav but here I am!

Second ask: Hi again, I was wondering if you had read these two works and your opinion on them, Either must die at the hand of the other by Metalomagnetic and Train no Nowhere, the latter is my fav de tomarry I have many scenes etched forever in my mind!

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

Hello! Thank you so much, I'm thrilled you liked the ending! I myself fell for Tomarry pretty late. I was mostly interested in Snape/Harry and Voldemort/Bellatrix. Took me ages to figure out which ship would give me double satisfaction :D

I did read both fics you mentioned! Spoilers ahead.

Either Must Die at the Hand of the Other is a very… interesting story. It's beautifully written, deeply engaging, with detailed and fascinating character development, and yet I ended up finding it frustrating and unsatisfying on a personal level, through no fault of the author. What amazed me most was that I realized it too late. Usually, I figure out whether the story works for me quickly - if it doesn't, I stop reading. Here, I was in love; I read without stopping for the entire day, discarding my work and my own writing… only to reach Voldemort's POV and understand that I'm not going to get what I wanted.

Believe me, this is not a negative review. Either Must Die at the Hand of the Other is brilliant. Mind-blowingly so. The author is fantastically talented - they made me love the majority of the story even despite it featuring a child, which I normally don't like (and a child herself too, she was lovely); and while yes, I ended up frustrated, I can only admire such skills and vision. I cannot question any of the writer's choices - everything makes sense. Everything is believable. It's just, I prefer to read mutual romances, and this wasn't one.

I thought Voldemort would fall in love with Harry back and he never did. He felt fond of him, he felt some affection and attraction, but that's it. He expressed more emotions for Bella, and this, too, makes perfect sense. He idolized her because she is dead; he felt stronger for her because she was actually giving him what he liked and put him first. She never questioned him, never sided against him, was fiercely, mindlessly loyal. Harry wasn't - he argued, he fought, he refused to free him. Voldemort hated this, so it's surprising that he got attached to Harry at all.

The author did a genius move by breaking a pattern: most people who start reading yet another Harrymort or Tomarry expect that both characters will fall in love. It didn't happen here. And this is actually realistic - I can see the events of this story taking place after DH (minus the epilogue): I can absolutely believe that Harry would be this broken; I can absolutely believe that Voldemort, upon survival, would be this cold and incapable of love. But I just don't like it, and through Harry's POV, I thought Voldemort feels more than he really did. The ending crippled me: it's sort of happy, but also not really. It's a tragedy, and this is the rare case where I would prefer Harry to die or just find the strength to leave and start anew because he locked himself in a relationship with a man who will never love him the way he wants and needs.

I'm sure those who don't have the same problem and expectations as me will love this story because it's grand, captivating, and very engaging. It evoked a lot of feelings in me, to the point where I spent a whole day discussing and arguing about it with myself, voicing my frustrations and immediately refuting them :D

Train no Nowhere is among my favorites! I love it to bits and consider it one of the best works in the fandom. If it ever gets complete, I'll throw a party :D I love how completely clueless Voldemort is when it comes to emotions; Harry, with his mind and gifts, is extraordinary. I adore him. Their banter is brilliant from start to finish, and this story has one of the most impressive Triwizard Tournament tasks I've ever seen. Every time I re-read it, I'm absorbed, I can't get enough. Voldemort arguing with a 11 yo kid will forever be hilarious, and watching how Harry grows and matures is such a detailed journey that I always feel like I undertake it by his side.

[juliabohemian]

oh dear

I have noticed a number of posts circulating which imply that ANY character being mean to Loki EVER and for ANY reason = abuse.

I will admit that I initially felt mostly irritation at what appeared, on the surface, to constitute such a complete and utter lack of critical thinking. What I’ve realized, though, is that people who make such posts definitely believe what they are saying. And like everything people do and say, there’s a deeper reason for it. The fact is, traumatized characters attract traumatized fans. And not all of those fans are in a good place, emotionally. And those people are perfectly valid, even if the conclusions they draw are not.

When it comes to fiction, good characters are complex. That means they are conflicted and flawed. They make mistakes. They lash out when they are afraid or hurting. They sometimes hurt other characters. Loki fits that bill very well. It’s one of the reasons he is so popular. Not just with traumatized people, but with people in general. He’s relatable.

The problem comes when fans relate to fictional characters, but really aren’t conscious of why, because they aren’t all that conscious of themselves. They haven’t done a whole lot of self-reflection. Maybe because they aren’t ready, because their trauma is too fresh. Or maybe they are still living in crisis and don’t have the freedom to self-reflect. Those possibilities are all valid.

But very often, when a person goes through trauma and doesn’t have the luxury (and yes, it is a luxury) of working through it, their reasoning skills can become flawed as a result. Trauma, especially childhood trauma, tends to have a negative effect on our ability to socialize and form intimate relationships, because it damages our ability to interpret the intentions of others. We call this hostile attribution bias.

The problem with hostile attribution bias, is that it makes it difficult to tell when people genuinely mean you harm. If a person’s words, actions, or facial expressions are ambiguous in any way, they will be interpreted as being hostile in nature. This keeps one on the offensive, constantly, always anticipating the next blow. Very often, no such blow is coming. But it doesn’t matter. Fear is real, and the experience of it is real.

It stands to reason that someone who struggles to interpret the intentions of real-life people would also experience the same difficulty with fictional characters. For instance, fans who identify with Loki because they perceive him as being a victim will have a hard time seeing him as anything else. Thus, anyone who harms Loki in any way is just further proof that the universe is against him and always will be.

This is referred to as an external locus of control. It means that a person sees life as something that is happening TO them, and that they are powerless to affect the outcome. It’s also important to note that people with this mentality struggle deeply to heal from their trauma. They are stuck in a sort of Groundhog Day scenario, living the same thing out over and over again. Because of their flawed perception, everything that happens to them feels like an extension of that initial trauma.

So, it would make perfect sense that a person with a history of trauma, who suffers from attribution bias, and who has an external locus of control, would be extremely uncomfortable watching anything bad happen to Loki. In fact, it would probably be traumatic for them.

And while their feelings and their experience of those feelings are 100% real, their perception of reality is not entirely accurate. In other words, what they think is happening is not necessarily what is happening.

Loki’s initial trauma, believe it or not, was just being abandoned as an infant. Even though he can’t remember it, that experience alone can result in lifelong emotional struggles. In real life, we refer to this as an attachment disorder. A person with an attachment disorder usually develops major issues with abandonment. They also suffer from (wait for it) attribution bias. And that bias absolutely affects their perception.

Loki’s next trauma was being raised in a dysfunctional family. Not only were they dysfunctional, but they weren’t a very good fit for Loki. Loki was a quiet, contemplative person. He was a thinker, an intellectual. He would rather read or do magic. So, not a good fit for Asgardian society. The combination of Loki’s initial trauma, with his inherent temperament, and his dysfunctional family is what led to the inevitable breakdown that is regarded as Loki’s “villain” arc. I’d like to point out that, in reality, such a person would have probably suffered a breakdown much sooner than that. Typically, prior to reaching adulthood.

Loki’s next trauma was encountering Thanos. Now, we have no idea exactly what happened between Loki and Thanos. We know only that it wasn’t good and that it resulted in Loki being absolutely terrified of him. Other than that, details are fuzzy. I think it’s fair to assume that whatever mistreatment Loki endured probably qualified as torture. Whether it was physical or psychological, we cannot know for sure.

While Loki’s Thanos-related trauma was NOT an extension of his family-related trauma, his decision to entangle himself with Thanos was a product of that trauma. By which I mean that his willingness to align himself with someone like Thanos came from a place of desperation, and a desire to prove himself to someone who he perceived as being qualified to validate him.

So, fast forward to the LOKI show. Our version of Loki never returned to Asgard in chains, was never told that it was his birthright to die, nor endured any gaslighting from Ragnarok-Thor. He never got his neck broken by Thanos. He never went through any of that. He arrived at the TVA, fresh off his failed attempt to take over planet Earth. He was all fired up and defensive, as anyone in his situation would probably be.

Now, here’s where we need to put our critical thinking caps on. Because, I hate to tell you this, folks...but unlike most of the Loki content we’ve gotten prior, this content is actually well written. It’s VERY well written. And while it might be tempting to respond to it with pure emotion, it is imperative that we don’t abandon all logic and reason. This show is not an extension of the gauntlet of trauma we’ve watched Loki endure since he first appeared on screen. The creative minds involved in this venture ALL care deeply about Loki’s character and want to see him succeed (whatever that means for him).

Enter Mobius. He’s a cog in a very big machine. He likes to think of himself as being more than that. He establishes a rapport with his boss in the hopes of distinguishing himself from his peers. His interest in his work is personal. He likes what he does.

From Mobius’ point of view, Loki is an asset. He has information that could help solve the bigger puzzle. But Mobius exists in a world that affords him access to multiple realities. He has probably met dozens of Lokis. And he has probably seen hundreds of people casually pruned or executed or reset. It’s just part of the world he happens to be in. And he doesn’t question it, because he has been brainwashed.

So, does Mobius attempt to manipulate Loki? Absolutely. Just another day at the office. And it works, because he knows Loki better than Loki knows himself, has studied him and other Lokis. And it’s hard not to be mad at Mobius for causing Loki pain. Especially when that is followed up by Loki eagerly taking Mobius up on his offer to help track down the other Loki variant.

I think some people might find Loki’s enthusiasm disconcerting. And there are certainly aspects of it that can be considered such. Loki, at his core, just wants to be told that he is doing a good job, that his contributions matter. That part of him is definitely a product of trauma. But is Loki motivated entirely by his trauma? Not really. Despite his manipulations, Mobius offers Loki the closest thing to warmth and compassion that he has seen for a while. Some of that is genuine and some of that is not. And faced with the reality that everything he knows is gone, Loki does what most people in his situation would do, he tries to be productive. He gets busy. He distracts himself. Because at the moment, little else is under his control.

Despite all of that, you simply cannot have compassion for Loki and none for Mobius. Because Mobius is a victim too. He was abducted from his own reality. He is living a lie. He is part of something that, upon deeper reflection, he realizes he doesn’t agree with. He is so very much like the Loki we first met in 2011. He is such a well-written and multi-faceted character, I thoroughly enjoy his on screen time with Loki.

But I understand that there are people who are not in a place, emotionally, where they can overlook such plot devices. And I sincerely hope that those eventually people find healing. In the meantime, let’s try to remember that this is a work of fiction. And unlike real-life trauma, when it becomes upsetting, we can turn it off and walk away.

[skipps-writes-for-gojo-satoru]

A short thread I found about Gojo's character that helps shine a light to how caring he is:

https://twitter.com/musikawu/status/1376984416485007363?s=19

Also, I actually just realized this recently after rewatching JJK that Gojo got super attached to Yuji really quickly. Gojo not only got very angry on his behalf but went out of his way to ask Nanami for help in caring for Yuji when he's supposed to be the strongest sorcerer. And at that time, Gojo made it clear to Nanami that he didn't ask him to do so due to Yuji's potential as a vessel. Gojo asked Nanami for this favor as an adult who wants to see the growth of a young man. Gojo was very precise in telling Nanami that he was looking not at Sukuna and Yuji's power, but at Yuji himself as not only an individual, but a child that needed nurturing and care. Before Yuji's death, Gojo had already even made preparations to have Yuta take care of Yuji cause he knew something might happen to him- even more development is that despite what Gojo says about himself, he's aware of his own flaws. What he appears to be on the outside is nothing like what he truly feels on the inside. He doesn't delude himself into narcissistic behavior that makes him unable to ask for help. He asks for help willingly and of his own accord- Yuta couldn't even fathom how the strongest sorcerer would face a problem he couldn't solve on his own, but Gojo does. Gojo is smart enough to know he needs to rely on others to move forward, and relying on someone means putting a certain amount of trust there. Gojo puts just as much faith in other people as he does himself, and the interesting part is that while it's more admirable to go out of your way to protect someone else, Gojo never brags about that. He only "brags" about things that will annoy the other person, but really he is only saying a commonly known "truth" in order to rile people up. It may sound like bragging- which it sort of is- but Gojo saying he's the strongest is not a lie. Him saying "I alone am the honoured one" is not necessarily a lie either. People don't call him the Strongest for nothing.

In fact, even more interestingly enough, besides Gojo, who includes Geto when people talk about the "strongest?" Despite being the definite "strongest," Gojo is the one who constantly says "We are the Strongest," not the other way around. He's also mature enough to recognize and point out other people's strengths, such as Mei Mei's, saying she is too strong to cry.

If Gojo truly was a narcissist, he would have mentioned everything else he's done for people, like stopping Megumi's sale to the Zenin clan and getting the Fushiguros financial aid. He could brag about being persuasive enough to save Yuji from execution or even saving Yuta from execution- Yuta becoming a special grade sorcerer soon after Gojo saved him is something you can easily brag about- but Gojo doesn't brag about his personal achievements at all- not in the way that demands respect from others, at least. Gojo only "brags" to tease others lightheartedly and to tick them off a little- and I don't think the demeaning things Gojo says to the higher ups can be used to show he's a narc because *many* people in Gojo's position would have said (and done) much, much worse things.

Also, when Yuji died, Gojo had become so emotional that even Shoko, who had been there since Gojo's youth, had commented on how unlike him it was. People irl really thought it was because Gojo couldn't use him as a weapon against the higher ups anymore, but reading how Gojo had told Nanami that he saw their relationship as an adult and a child makes me think differently. Something very important in the Light Novel is when Gojo tells Nanami that his students, because they are sorcerers, will soon have to "face the evil intentions of sh*tty humans." Not only sorcerers, but "every person has to bite into that bitterness, know what it means to give up, and pile up despairs to become an adult." People like Gojo and Nanami, Gojo had said, are capable of withstanding and releasing the "poison" that runs through the heart. However, the youngsters are more sensitive in that age, and "one poison could destroy their hearts" (I'm sure Gojo was thinking of Geto as he said this). That's why he wants to leave Yuji in the care of Nanami, "an adult who understands other people pain." Not that Gojo is unable to understand pain, but in the earlier events of the Light Novel as context, Gojo is faced with a mother who is mourning the loss of her child. While Nanami tries to gently comfort her and secretly find information on the cursed spirit at the same time using vague words, Gojo's words are straight forward and to the point, which startles the mother. It's not necessarily a bad things, however- Gojo's words had ended up allowing the mother to see her situation as it was without delusions, a tough love situation, so to speak, and the two were able to confirm their intel to be correct. It was Gojo who helped her to heal quicker by allowing her to realize her problem through his cutting words, but I'm sure Gojo realizes his "bad personality,"- which isn't really so bad in some cases- isn't for everyone. Gojo is very aware that people react negatively to his behavior, even if he is unable to understand just how deeply they despise him (*cough* Utahime) In that way, Gojo shows he cares very much for Yuji's mental growth, even in that short period of time, by entrusting his care to Nanami, who he comments would do a much better job than be could.

Therefore, I think Gojo might actually get attached to people more quickly than it might seem like. He also thinks very deeply and no matter how he acts, he's able to recognize others' strengths and acknowledge his own flaws- this is a key part of his character because he doesn't delude himself in his position as the Strongest. To those who think Gojo sees himself as a God, he is far from that behavior, and he is self aware enough to know that people need more to grow than just power and strength. Unfortunately, it seems most people either despise Gojo or are too enamoured by his looks to see past the surface of the more boisterous and childish part of his personality. That's likely the main reason he finds it hard to commit, too.

(More ranting 😭. There was this reddit post saying Gojo's narcissistic enough to be a more evil villain than Sukuna, that he would actually end up becoming the villain- like really??? And so many people really agreed that he's incapable of feeling true emotions that it's absurd. I really can't believe they even think Gojo has a God complex. Someone with a God complex, like most of the other disorders, wouldn't be able to admit their own flaws, let alone ask for help! The fact that Gojo even admits to having a "bad personality" is another tell against that. Sometimes I wonder if people are just projecting, but I also realize it's hard to differentiate between being an ENTP and being a sociopath because of how- on the surface- they seem so similar! But if you just dig a little deeper to look at their roots, they are so completely different it's a wonder how you'd get confused in the first place)

- 🤔

OH I COULDN'T AGREE MORE 🤔 anon here spitting FACTS. Yeah alot of people think gojo's a narcissist with huge ego but that ain't the case at all as explained above. I mean he was put on a pedestal since birth he gotta have some ego in that but that fact doesnt blind him. yeah sure he's the strongest but just one line "I'm the strongest" doesn't mean he's bragging it may sound like it but he's just stating facts he is indeed in fact the strongest in the jujutsu society. He knows he can't do everything on his own I mean why did he even become a teacher in the first place? Becuz he wants to make the next generation of jujutsu sorcerers stronger! No one asked him to do it he himself wanted to be a teacher even though at time he sucks at it.

He genuinely wants to do good not just for himself but for others as well. As interesting as the concept of Gojo becoming a villain it will never happen. Don't judge a damn book by it's cover even if it's a very attractive one hes just such an interesting character its shame most people don't see that.

[imthepunchlord]

Nino’s Best to Least

Marinette, Adrien, Alya, Kagami

Nino is a bit of a hard character to get down as, canon wise, he hardly gets any focus and you really got to pay attention to him to get a sense of his character together. What I’ve found is that, just as Alya and Adrien are similar, Nino and Marinette are actually similar too. Like Marinette, Nino is a character ruled by both his heart and his head. As seen with Alya and Adrien, when he loves, he loves deeply, and is always there with physical affection and support, whatever may be needed. Pixelator shows us he is diligent and helpful, not only taking over Adrien’s job but working on his homework at the same time. And Party Crasher shows us he can be an elaborate planner. And with all of these, we see that he is an incredibly passive character, one who likes to move at his own pace but can be quick to follow along. Similarly to Alya, he has his bouts of being oblivious to others or prioritizing his own wants more. And unlike the other 3 of this friend group, he himself isn’t really one to be in the thick of things or get direct with anyone or anything. He has his moments of standing his ground and is able to, but its not something he’s inclined to do often. With this, Nino has two best matches. 

NIno’s best are Peafowl and Butterfly. Both give him flexibility and options, Peafowl matches his preference to work as he wants to, Butterfly works off Nino’s strong sense of empathy and the connections he can easily form with others.

Starting with Peafowl, this works off Nino’s preference to move at his own pace and to play by his own rules. As a want to be a director, this sets him up to be a background role, directing others from a distance, and having a sense of control. With a power to create golems that serve out one purpose, this is the most ideal power for him as golems will do as he wants them to and offer him the control he wants. This also opens up a chance of creativity and exploring possibilities with his golems. This miraculous also isn’t a must be on the battlefield, which can allow Nino the chance to have as much distance from the heat of things as he likes, and can join in if he wishes. This probably fits his comfort zone most out of all 5. 

Growth wise, this can work on his danger response without overwhelming him, and by extension, his courage. Watching him in the background, when akumas show up, he’s typically the first to hide (Refleckta hiding behind Alya) or runaway (Animan). Anansi was his bravest moment, but it was also incredibly reckless and dangerous. The tricky thing about learning courage in this aspect is that he’s learning courage in the face of danger. You don’t exactly want to encourage someone getting brave with something dangerous that can hurt them or worse. You want them to be smart in how they address the danger without risking themselves as well. Peafowl allows his courage to grow while giving him that distance and means to provide help. And as his comfort and courage grow, he can involve himself more, but be smart and cautious in his approach. This also helps him address his biggest issue and flaw as a hero: his attachment. Seen in the s2 finale and in Zombizou, when Alya is knocked out, Nino had immediately given up despite both instances, he actually could’ve done more to help. This miraculous can help him put distance between himself and this strong attachment that has him fall apart when someone falls, and his golems by extension can help him with that. They’re not always going to work and there will be instances that they fail and are destroyed. In the wake of their fall, this can help Nino prepare for cases like these and become aware that there is more that he can do. 

With Duusu, I find that she’d probably be the best match for Nino out of the 5 kwamis. She has ideal differences to counter him but also enough similarities to work well: where he is passive, still, and calm, she’s incredibly animated, energetic, and expressive. And in terms of similarity, both are very affectionate and live by their feelings. Technically is a headcanon right now, but Duusu should be a very observant kwami, one who will catch Nino’s attention if he’s ever inconsiderate or oblivious with others. I also have a little headcanon that he calls her “Little Blue” instead of “Little dude/dudette”. 

Butterfly has a lot of the same appeals and matches that Peafowl has for Nino, but more works off his empathy and connection with others. As this is a miraculous about giving power to another, being supportive, and helping build people up, this is up Nino’s alley as someone who is very naturally a big supporter of others. We this with Adrien and Alya that he strongly works off being there for them. Butterfly works very well off this strength and aspect of him. And when watching Nino in the background, he’s actually second to Marinette in having the most friends, making him a very desirable social butterfly that is far more ready to reach out to others and be open to who he may get. And empathic and calm as he is, he’d be able to have people agree to be his champions readily, and allow them a chance to address the problem. And much like Peafowl, this offers flexibility in where Nino would like to be in the field. If he himself isn’t comfortable being there, he doesn’t have to be and can be allowed to join at his own pace. 

Growth wise, this miraculous can address his occasional issue of obliviousness. It’s not often, but Nino does have issues of noticing the discomfort of his friends (specifically Adrien around Lila and Chloe, he has offered both once a chance to help them hook up with Adrien). Being based around emotion and empathy, this can help him be more conscious of others and their emotional state. And the biggest appeal, this miraculous can help him with distance, also addressing his biggest flaw. A Butterfly needs to know when to back off and put distance between themselves at a situation. This distance can help Nino with his attachment issues, and not fall apart when his champions or allies fall, realize that he himself can do more if it comes to that. 

I see Noroo and Nino getting along very well, both appreciating a shared calm and gentle personality. Nooroo himself would be an observant kwami, and when he voices concerns, Nino I see listening readily. 

Nino’s second best are Fox and Turtle. Fox allows the distance and creativity to flourish. Turtle plays off Nino’s strength as a supporter and having his allies’ back. Despite these matches, their not so ideal. 

Fox allows the distance Nino wants, though it doesn’t allow that flexibility to join in if he really wants to, but chances are good that it may not come to that. Mirage can work off his creativity and elaborate planning, and can give him that desired practice to direct, put on a show and work his audience into believing what they see. The issue stems that Nino himself isn’t the cunning or manipulative sort. We can even see that he can be a little loose lips as Animan, he almost dropped that Alya told him about Marinette’s crush on Adrien (not cool Alya). It’s not entirely true to his character that we see him be underhanded, and the few times that he does something underhanded (change the script in Horrificator and threw a secret party in Party Crasher), it doesn’t take long for him to get caught. The lack of subtlety can be an issue with him as a Fox. Not to say he can’t pull it off, but things aren’t always going to work out when he tries to be crafty. Animan is another good example of this as he almost revealed to Marinette that Alya told him about her crush on Adrien until Alya had cut him off. And similarly to Alya (and by extension Adrien), there’s an issue with Lila, and the factor that Nino is easily led and manipulated by her. A solid Fox would catch onto Lila’s game, but Nino has yet to. 

Growth wise this can work on his observation skills as there are factors and issues that can go over his head (Adrien’s body behavior around Chloe and Lila). Fox can also have him work on subtlety and be smarter and sharper about how he goes about things. I don’t see him going full manipulator, but will have an edge of subtlety to him as he works with others. 

Nino would be another that’s easily led with Trixx, though I can see him having a few bouts of getting frustrated with the kwami. Trixx is the sort to be vague/beat around the bush as he wants his users to figure stuff out on their own with the smallest nudge in the right direction. Nino’s the sort that likes things to be more direct and clear. But Trixx ultimately will help Nino in catching details, and can work on Nino’s attachment issues. 

With Turtle, it matches Nino as someone who wants to be there for his friends and have their back. And it matches Nino in that he has capacity to stand his ground and be rooted in where he is, and can be willing to be in the heat of things (Lady Wifi easily standing up to Chloe, the entirety of Horrificator, and Anansi, going up to face the akuma). But those are far and few in between. It’s not a persistent trait to see in Nino that he is willing and ready to be in the heat of things. He can if he really wants to, but its not something he naturally prefers all the time, and this miraculous who is quite ready to be in the heat of things and brave the dangers. As such, this miraculous puts Nino where he’s not comfortable, and he has no means of naturally adjusting that comfort level as he’s essentially dropped into the middle of the ocean and expected to swim. And when watching Carapace closely, most of the time he is fumbling in battle (specifically the s2 finale) or hardly does nothing, like Anansi. You could probably cut out Carapace easily from Anansi. He never fights her himself and it's in the realm of possibility that Chat could turn his hand to Cataclysm the web. It is a possibility for him as he can stand his ground and he’s all for having the backs of his friends, but its not entirely an ideal match as it shoves him where he largely doesn’t want to be. 

Nino’s least fit is Bee. 

The Bee has the same issues as Turtle, plus being a more aggressive miraculous, and Nino himself is not the aggressive sort. He’s not one to go out of his way to approach and be on the offense. The most aggressive we ever see is him being snide and underhanded, but those are rarities. Another factor that Nino himself isn’t very involved in a lot, which is a tad ironic as he’s the 2nd to Marinette in having the most friends. He’s there to have other’s backs, but typically he involves himself when needed, not taking initiative. And this miraculous is more active, involved, and direct. Which are just all things Nino isn’t. 

Growth wise, this can help Nino step up as a leader and have him involve himself more with others and be more active in helping out; but that is something that’s going to take time. Especially in building enough courage to approach a volatile target to use Venom. It can be done, but I don’t see Nino pulling it off immediately with ease, especially as this power requires tact, subtlety, and acting quickly. He needs more time to process and prepare. Bee doesn’t offer up that time. 

And Pollen, assuming she’d treat Nino the same as other girls she’s being used by, I can see her interactions with Nino helping her grow. And if she has capacity to call out her humans, she can call out Nino when he’s being inconsiderate of others. I do want to say that I see him listening, but chances are also good that I can see him brushing her off when he’s in his rare uppity moods. 

Between Ladybug and Cat, Nino would do better with Ladybug. 

The biggest appeal is that this is a miraculous that requires distance and an elaborate planner, which for Nino is right up his alley as he rather not be in the heat of things and does like to take time to think things through. Biggest issue though is that this miraculous is going to require quick thinking and action. This will lead to some struggle near the start but I see him getting it down. 

Growth wise, this expands on his complex thinking, and can work on his observation skills as this needs a resourceful user who can use what’s around them. This can give Nino leadership practice as this requires giving other direction to assist with whatever plan is required. 

Tikki and Nino I do see butting heads occasionally but otherwise will be a very amiable pair. Tikki can be optimistic and affectionate, enough so that she can work off Nino’s friendly and easy goign nature quite well, and he himself works well off those who are more energetic and active than him. She will swiftly call things out when she sees issues and Nino will be conscious of these; but I don’t see him getting to a similar point as Marinette in accepting Tikki’s criticism as always right or correct., nor to that point to always consider others before himself. As much as others are the world to him, he still has a lot of consideration for his self and his own needs and wants. 

[spockandawe]

Hi....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? And why? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.

It’s absolutely no problem at all!! I don’t think I’ve been asked this before, but hey, I also have zero object permanence, so it keeps things fresh and new. And it’s interesting to see how my answers change over time! Lemme see, I think I’m going to go in reverse order, because I feel like then I’ll be doing the worst agonizing up front.

TGCF

Fifth favorite: YIN. YU. I know that he’s a minor character and him even making it onto the list is pretty solid performance, but I do feel guilty that he isn’t higher than this. He came out of nowhere in my first reading and punched me in the stomach with emotions. I find his sections so hard to read, and I was DEVASTATED when he died and BEYOND stoked to find out he was still alive in the extras. His story hurts so much! I am weak against characters who have relatively modest goals and still see them snatched away (see also: my next entry) and have to struggle on. I wish wish wish I had a way to see more of how he made his peace with things after being thrown out of heaven, and the nature of the (distant) relationship with Hua Cheng and what happens with Quan Yizhen now that he died in his arms, and still came back anyways, my god!

.

Fourth favorite:  He Xuannnnnn. I have a hard time articulating particulars, but. I love him a lot. I love a character with a grudge, with a deep, painful grudge, where the grudge is hurting him almost as much as it’s hurting the people around him, and setting the grudge aside would also hurt, and then what has any of this been for-- I've used this metaphor for other characters, but I don’t care if I’m overusing it, because I love it. He feels like a character caught in a thorn bush, where simply being there... hurts, but trying to escape or move in any ways is going to hurt worse, and there’s no path forward that doesn’t involve pain. And like... I don’t love the way he hurt Shi Qingxuan (who didn’t quite make this list adfasgdafsd I’M SORRY) but I wouldn’t have liked to see him swallow back down all that pain and set aside everything that happened to his family and fiancee either! I’m always, always soft for characters who have no good path forward and who grit their teeth and set out anyways.

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Third favorite: MU QING!!!!!!!!!! I have done... extensive screaming about him. And I love him veryvery much. I can already tell that this list is going to have a lot of mean boys on it, and like... no regrets. Especially since this is one of my FAVORITE flavors, an unapologetic mean boy who is rarely (but sometimes!) soft for the people around him, and who regularly tries to do decently by people, but who consistently gets shat upon and misunderstood and accused of acting in bad faith. I screamed when he and Xie Lian finally got to talk their friendship out in the book. I also screamed when I realized how immediately after Xie Lian’s return he started looking out for him again, and how sincerely, despite his horrible attitude about it. I still want to write more fic for him so badly. I love him so much.

.

Second favorite: Xie Lian! What a good boy! The best boy! He’s so sweet and gentle, but also the best fightboy this world has ever seen, and also so gently snarky with the people he loves! I just... really love me some traumatized characters who have trouble recognizing that they can be Loved, and I’m not going to write this whole essay right now, but I think in some ways, he’s the most... passive about his romance, out of all the leads? Shen Qingqiu is aggressively oblivious, but Xie Lian kind of gently shrugs off the idea that he might be Hua Cheng’s special someone, until he finally gets hit with the cluestick. I generally shy away from the idea of a character “earning” love, but he’s maybe the mxtx character who moves me most with ‘you deserve to be loved’

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Most favorite: Hua Cheng. HUA CHENG. Oh my god, gotta love this boy. Gotta love this devotion. I love a mean boy who is soft for one person, and he EMBODIES it. I mean, I love Shen Jiu, but he barely manages to do the soft thing at all, while Hua Cheng is over here like ‘if I could only be the stone beneath your feet--’ It’s hard to talk about him separately from Xie Lian, because they’re a unit in my head more than just about any other characters on this list are. I don’t want to get this list to get out of control, so I’m not going to scream for too long, but... I could just watch him go forever. I want to write him forever, and that’s a huge aspect of what draws me to some characters.

MDZS

Oh god, I think I lied, I think this book is going to be hardest. Making these choices is AGONIZING.

Fifth favorite: .....Lan Wangji. Oh god, I feel bad about how low he is. But this story is just packed SO full of wonderful characters, and I’m already consumed with guilt over all the characters who aren’t going to make it. I don’t love them less! But my love for characters in this particular story is very evenly distributed. And I think that Wang Yibo’s acting is possibly scoring points with me that the book might not have earned all by itself. Microexpressions and subtle body language add SO MUCH to a character with such flat affect, and I would be drawn to such a closed-off character anyways, but it really helps. And I love, like... the combined subtlety and intensity of his relationships. It’s not that subtle once you know what to look for, and the brother/sworn brother network makes for varying degrees of how much other characters understand of the things he chooses not to explicitly express, and it gives a really interesting character to the way he interacts with the people around him. Also, love me a man with intense separation anxiety.

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Fourth favorite: Jiang Yanli? I think it has to be Jiang Yanli, but these rankings are hard. So. I just talked about how much I enjoy the flat affect and closed off nature of Lan Wangji? Well, guess what, I also love it when m’girl is just very GENUINELY AND OPENLY an absolute sweetheart of a person, and I love the contrast between her genuinely kind nature and the uncomfortable pressure that her family’s dynamics put on her to start parenting at a very young age. It’s not necessarily a happy situation, but she adores her brothers so much and they adore her so much! And it’s... a very understated element of the story, but after her parents died, her baby brothers went off to war, and one wreaked havoc as a straightforward commander and one of them disappeared for months and returned as a creepy-ass zombie puppeteer. And she STILL dotes on them like before, despite knowing what they’re capable of. Like, yes, Wei Wuxian just raised an army of corpses and forced a man to eat himself, but I shall still boop him on the nose and feed him Soup. How can I not adore energy like that?

.

Third favorite: Wei Wuxian, I think. I do adore him a lot. He gives me some of the same vibes that make me ache most with Xie Lian, where he is trying his best, and is struggling to hold on in the face of lots of suffering, and I find it really interesting that when the suffering peaked, Xie Lian was forced go on because he couldn’t die, while Wei Wuxian... expired. That line about ‘he thought that no matter how large the world was, there was still no place for him’ always sticks with me, and hurts me deeply. Xie Lian had most of his personal attachments stripped away, and was left to wander on his own, while Wei Wuxian still had a number of strong connections left, but abruptly exited life. And that informs their respective trauma so interestingly! The way Wei Wuxian bounces between high energy chaos and drained exhaustion is really fascinating to me, and was the thread that held me attached to the book through a very confusing beginning. And I’m still very drawn to how intensely he loves, whether it’s Xiao Zhan’s fantastic acting, or it’s him busting out with how much he wants Lan Wangji in the middle of the Guanyin Temple scene. He’s a fantastic character, honestly, I don’t think such a convoluted book would have held together very well without a protagonist this strong.

.

Second favorite: Xue Yang :X Look, he’s a good boy and I love him. Who among us hasn’t done a few mass murders that we are completely unrepentant about, but that we would really like to keep hidden from our current boyfriend, actually? Anyways, as always, love me an angry boy who makes terrible decisions for understandable reasons. And I do love a character who is consumed by agonized ragrets (see my next entry), but I DO also love me a character who has no regrets at all and doesn’t even have much interest in trying to justify himself to anyone else around him. Just look at that confidence! Look at him go!!

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Most favorite: Jiang... Cheng....... I knew he and Xue Yang were going to be at the top, but those were the only parts of this list that were easy. I mean. Love a self-sabotaging angryboy who is also super super sad and keeps hurting himself in his own confusion. And while I love the romantic thread in all of the mxtx books, the agonized family thread in mdzs is one of my favorite parts, and something that I don’t really see echoed in any of the other stories. I need ten million jc+wwx reconciliations, at LEAST. He’s so sad! And so angry! And I want to see him becoming less of that thing, and for Jin Ling and Wei Wuxian to demonstrate very firmly how much they love him, because they do. I am invested in his happiness in a way that goes far and beyond any of the other non-main characters, haha

SVSSS

Fifth favorite: Tianlang-jun. I think? Oh god, but moshang. THIS IS REALLY HARD, I HATE THIS ;-; But especially since writing my fic, Tianlang-jun has really won me over. And like, he already hurt me good in the novel, just thinking about how he was an innocent young guy, just! Trying to have a girlfriend! And instead got trapped in sensory deprivation, body-rotting-hell for twenty years, when he didn’t do anything wrong!!! He suffered, so much! And I live for his intensely strained relationship with Luo Binghe, because it’s! Perfectly understandable and painful, from both of their perspectives! And he wants to hate humans so badly, but in the end, when he’s told that Su Xiyan never betrayed him, he starts helplessly asking the people around him, ‘really? is it really true?’ and then in the end he loses the only family member he has left who cares about him, and it’s just! Everything is terrible! I have a su xiyan au brewing in my head because I can’t stand it! Someone just give this man a loving partner!!!

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Fourth favorite: Shen Qingqiu. But... moshang??? Goddammit. Anyways, this dumbass. I find him so endearing, in his dumbassery. I sometimes get a bit frustrated with Wei Wuxian for being oblivious, and Shen Qingqiu is just asking for me to react the same way, but I... don’t, for the most part? Because he thinks he has good information, and he’s slow to react to a changing playing field, and I still haven’t read another transmigration novel that strikes the same balance of hypercompetence and intense incompetence :ppp It’s a funny book, and he’s a funny character! And I really vibe with him, in most parts of the story, which covers a pretty darn wide emotional spectrum. Plus, the running internal commentary is choice.

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Third favorite: Liu Qingge. Look, I’m a woman of simple needs, and sometimes I just need a high-quality fightboy who clearly cares deeply and is absolute garbage at expressing his emotions. I can’t articulate it much better than that. I absolutely howl at the succubus extra, when Shen Qingqiu is talking to Madam Meiyin about his future partner, and Liu Qingge is like ‘oh my god, sHE IS CLEARLY DESCRIBING ME’ and Shen Qingqiu is like ‘haha, liu-shidi, i thought you thought this was stuupidddddddd’. They’re both so dumb. I love them so much. But stupidity plus war god fighting energy has a narrow lead over stupidity and internal commentary track.

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Second favorite: SHEN JIU. GOD. I’m still arguing with myself over whether he should go first, but Luo Binghe hurts me consistently through the whole entire story, so I think he wins. Shen Jiu just stabs me in the heart at strategic moments. This is it. My ideal mean boy who is soft for one (1) person, and who BOTH does unconscionable things for terrible reasons (someone just. give him a pile of girls to teach, it will be much more pleasant for everyone involved), and who ALSO gets blamed for things he didn’t do even when he tries to act in good faith. It is the best of all painful worlds. And even at the end, when he has a powerful person who wants desperately to protect him, he still tries his hardest to shove that person away, to keep him safe. I’ve got like four aus where he gets to live. I’m so invested in this character, I love him so much.

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Most favorite: Luo Binghe. He was.... made for me............ Like, the overwhelming amounts of childhood angst were baked in by Shang Qinghua, but the in-story pain and suffering is PRECISELY my jam. I love a character with separation anxiety! I love a character with massive anxieties over being unwanted! Over nobody ever, EVER just choosing him! I love a character struggling with the idea that the person he loves most in the world thinks that he’s intrinsically Disgusting! I love the kind of stubborn determination that leads him to preserve a corpse for five years, desperately hoping for a way to revive it, constantly cooking fresh food, in case, in case he someday wakes up. The way Hua Cheng loves is overpowering, but he’s had time to like... learn to be mellow when he needs to be. Luo Binghe doesn’t have a chill bone in his body, and if he’s acting chill, it’s probably because he’s done some mental math and decided that being more clingy right now will probably get him pushed away harder. I love the combination of manipulative tendencies and a very, very genuine fear of rejection and being unwanted. There is nothing I don’t love about Luo Binghe, including his worst decisions. I love him so so much.

[agent-cupcake]

So happy you but up the headcanons! All of them are gems and I love them so much. Rereading the Dimitri and Felix rivalry hc made me want to ask for claude and yuri rivalry, but dark of course because both of these boys are sane and logical and would move on if they both caught feelings for you and weren't attached to you by a dark obession lol.

Sorry, I know you asked for love rivalry but I simply could not help myself and got a little carried away with seeing the so-called rivalry to his inevitable conclusion :3c

~Not that it’s probably necessary, but I had to consider the timeline for this. A rivalry between them wouldn’t fit in the events of the game because of Claude’s ambition, but he leaves the country in most endings. My solutions would be to have Claude split his time between Fódlan and Almyra as a politically active prince such as in his solo ending or to propose that Yuri would spend a lot of time in Almyra. Reasons for this could be that he went in aid of his good friend and military commander Balthus (Yuri would make for an awfully good royally sanctioned spy) or that he’s abusing the newfound system of open-market international trade for his criminal enterprise. Either way, Claude is powerful Almyran royalty and Yuri is a shady figure of the underworld. Not too unlike a story I’ve written, but this is separate from that. None of this really matters, ultimately, but whatever I like to think of how this would work out.

~Both men are powerful and ambitious. Both of them are emotionally isolated despite (or because of) their positions. They’re friends, or at least on friendly terms so there’d be a lot of overlap in social circles. And, really, they are quite similar so it’s plausible that they’d go for the same type.  

~I’ve since changed my stance on reasons why Claude might develop a fixation on someone. He is concerned with the intrinsic value of a person. He values the thoughts, feelings, and especially the perception of people he is close with. Claude is also a loner, a fundamentally lonesome person who wishes to be seen and loved on his own merits despite the guard he puts up and the social games he plays. Not to say I entirely retcon my previous opinion, but I focused too hard on the idea that he would need to dehumanize you by zeroing in on utilitarian usefulness rather than be driven to darker feelings by his fear of being alone and need to find a connection.

~This all goes for Yuri too, although it’s easier for me to imagine Yuri getting his authentic feelings twisted up and dark. Yuri’s circumstances were somewhat similar to Claude’s, except that he was shown genuine affection by his mother and the old man. Therefore, he knows what it is to lose that. He learned early on what it is to have people die because of him, to shoulder the burden of guilt that comes with such profound loss. Yuri’s scarred by a brutal, painful upbringing where “love” was a commodity to be traded in for favors (even by his mother) and genuine, honest relationships became nearly impossible to comprehend. If he met you and developed those true, affectionate feelings, if he found a so-called light in the darkness, maybe it’d make sense that he’d do everything he could to keep it from losing it.

~Their similarities in this instance would work out for this scenario. Somebody useful to them, somebody authentic enough to appeal to their deeply ingrained sense of loneliness, somebody clever or interesting or fun… There’s a lot of reasons they could develop unhealthy feelings for you born out of an innocently platonic friendship.

~And it would have to be platonic on both counts. Yuri and Claude are too self-aware for them to make a move if you made a choice early on. Or, I don’t think it’d become as big of a production because they wouldn’t have emotionally invested so much in you. Leading them both on unintentionally just by having a normal human friendship is kinda sad but also kinda funny.

~They’d know that you were close with the other. Of course they would. Maybe it would hurt, but neither would express that feeling to you. Claude would ask pointed (but not direct) questions about your feelings and dazzle you with grand overtures. Yuri would work the seductive and sweet angle, trying to win your heart the old fashioned way. But, you know, with more uncomfortable subtext and innuendo.   

~Something that has not changed is my opinion that Claude would be obsessive about his darker feelings. Not on a consistent, all the time basis, but more like a hobby. A puzzle he couldn’t solve, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. He’d search for all of the pieces of you in the hopes that the final picture would allow him to understand his increasingly dangerous feelings. Claude’s not stupid, he’s really self aware. Enough to feel guilt, enough to recognize that what he’s doing isn’t right, and enough to justify himself out of the responsibility of doing amoral things for the right reasons.

~Yuri, on the other hand, wouldn’t be so… aggressive about it. He’d want you to come to him, to return to him again and again to prove to himself that what he feels isn’t wrong, to ingratiate himself into your life in a way that validated everything he felt for you and put you on more equal footing. He’d internalize everything a lot more, feel a lot of guilt about the intensity of his feelings, but he’d find ways to keep you close. Or, for you to keep him close.

~Don’t get me wrong, though, you wouldn’t get so much of a glimpse of this weaker, more vulnerable Yuri. He’d go the opposite direction of his guilt or doubt, wearing an impenetrable smiling, sarcastic, playful mask. My main point is that I see him as being more emotionally wrecked by having these dark feelings due to his self hatred. I also think Yuri would be more generally sensitive to unhealthy romance dynamics, especially if it became physical at all. 

~In an interestingly twisted way, Yuri hypocritically recognizing Claude’s behavior as being dangerous would encourage him to be more proactive about his own feelings and feel less guilty about doing so. Being the protective type rather than the obsessive really just fits Yuri so much better, although I see it as one ultimately leading to the other.

~It’s not about winning. They’d be competing, clearly battling against each other for you in a way that would not only be creepily objectifying, but also emotionally strenuous, but they’d keep on insisting that it wouldn’t be about winning. They’d just want you to be happy, to be safe. They both would just want what’s best for you. And what is best for you? Just ask them.

~Claude’s argument: Yuri’s lifestyle is dangerous. He’s a good guy, Claude really does trust him, buuuuut he’s not exactly the type of man you’d be safe with, you know?

~Yuri’s argument: Claude’s not treating you right. He’s obviously manipulating you, how could you possibly miss that? You deserve better, don’t you agree?

~But in the same breath they���d both insist that if you didn’t want to be with them romantically, that would be fine. They both, truly and unselfishly, would just want you to be happy. Just want to stay close with you. Veeeeeery unselfishly. 

~Their interactions with each other would be amazingly fake and aloof. Making small talk and smiling all the while vying for your attention in a nearly juvenile tug-of-war. Still, I don’t think, even through all of this, that they’d dislike each other. It’s not about winning, right? It’s not a game, right?

~Okay, so, I know the whole thing with scenarios like this is an inability to face rejection, but if you were to chose Yuri over Claude or vice versa, that’s where it would end. Committing yourself to one of them still wouldn’t work out super well because that’s the nature of giving into such dark and unhealthy feelings, but it would no longer be a rivalry.

~Let me propose, then, that you would eventually reject both of them. At first, the whole thing would have been so fun and so nice. Getting all of this attention from two powerful and attractive guys would be exciting. You’d feel so lucky, they’re both charming and friendly and kind. But then things would have gotten more intense and there’s this weird love triangle that is incredibly trite and uncomfortable and you wouldn’t have wanted to hurt either of them so it’s better to just leave it, right?

~Yuri would be more likely to use his personal feelings as a tactic of manipulation, I think. Worse, he probably wouldn’t see it that way. He knows, he truly knows, how dangerous and terrible the world could be and he’d do anything to shield you from it and his feelings would reflect that. Granted, if he felt you weren’t getting it, I don’t think Yuri would exactly be above veiled threats or bludgeoning you with fear tactics and even a dash of shame for how you’d played with both their hearts.

~Claude would do his best to convince you that you didn’t actually want to go. You didn’t have to chose either of them, but you couldn’t leave, either. That was way too dramatic. Besides… wasn’t it a little selfish? This was where you were needed, he relied on you. He trusted you. Sure, Claude’s a visionary, but what does that vision matter if the one who he shares his dreams with is gone?

~Maybe that wouldn’t work, though. Long term, it probably wouldn’t. I mentioned before that they wouldn’t hate each other, so if it came down to actually losing you, why not work together?

~Love triangles are for chumps, invest in a horribly unhealthy three person dynamic with possible kidnap and very overt tones of mental and emotional manipulation.

~That would solve all the the problems, wouldn’t it? Why would you try and leave them after they made so many compromises for you? Really, would you be that ungrateful and callous? They would both care about you so much, love you, even. Yuri and Claude would be trying to make it work despite the fact that it came down to essentially a tie in this bizarre game, why couldn’t you do your part? Landing such attractive and powerful guys, having them lay their hearts at your feet, you’d have to be a really terrible and selfish person to reject that. Not that you’d be given a lot of choice, but the devils in the details and if you fought them on this, it probably wouldn’t end up very pretty for you.

~Not saying either of them would hurt you. Physically, I mean. Probably. 

~In some ways, the compromise would make the guilt easier for them to bear. The fact that they were also being forced to deal with something they wouldn’t necessarily want to would be a leveling ground for them to justify any of your unhappiness with the situation. Like, it was all an equal amount of compromise to make things work for all three of you. 

~Claude would know how much Yuri meant to you and feel like the fact that he hadn’t taken that away from you absolved him of a lot of the responsibility of the other things he’d taken from you. Plus, Claude’s a distracted guy who’d lose track of things sometimes, always getting caught up in whatever project he was working on at the time, so he’d know that you wouldn’t be lonely during those times.

~Yuri would see Claude as being, in many ways, a better person than him. More out of a horrible sense of self perception than fact. So Yuri could have his piece of you with the recognition that Claude was there to balance the worst parts of himself and make you happy in ways this dark, twisty version of Yuri might not think he could.

~I don’t think that either Yuri or Claude would ever truly get along because of how similar they are and the fact that they both kinda lost to the other but I also don’t think that would be a huge issue. Their verbal sparring would be entertaining, honestly. 

[thran-duils]

From All Sides (P.4)

Title: From All Sides (Part Four) Summary: Fem!Reader x Dark!Pirate Tony. Tony is obsessed with a certain barmaid at port and showers her with gifts to try to bring her to his bed. She is resistant to his advances, her eyes elsewhere, specifically on her coworker, the cook. Although, that love is unrequited and always will be. The reader is forced into close quarters with Tony unexpectedly and sailing the sea, she slowly bends to his will. And he plans to give her all the affection he can to make sure she stays. Words: 2,420 Warnings (for the whole fic): Eventual smut, violence, angst, possessive behavior Warnings (for this chapter): Tony displays some homophobia

Part Three || Part Five || Masterpost (mobile) || Fanfic masterpost

He was right, your head hurt the next morning. He tried to shake you awake and you whined, pulling the blanket over your head. Tony chuckled which only served to make you more upset about feeling sick.

Tony laid a soft kiss on your temple through the blanket, and said, “I’ll leave you be then, love. I will make sure some water is sent in. And some bread. Don’t leave the quarters without me. I don’t want you getting snatched up. Without me, you’ll look like fair game.”

You grumbled in response, and he gave you another kiss through the blanket before crawling out of bed.

<><><>

Walking down the dock towards the stairs to go up into the kitchens, Tony was greeted with Bucky and Steve sitting. He altered course and came out onto the overlook with them. Steve held out a piece of bread and Tony waved him off.

“I was heading in to get myself breakfast. And Y/N some bread.”

“So, she’s not feeling great?” Bucky questioned, taking a swig of water from his mug.

“No.”

“And did you…” Steve asked expectantly, trailing off. His raised brows indicated exactly what he was asking.

Tony sighed and shrugged, “Persistence pays off.”

“Jesus Christ, finally. Now you can stop whining about her going to bed alone,” Steve muttered, taking a big bite of his potatoes. “Even if it was only for a night that she obliged you.”

“Watch it,” Tony muttered, and Steve merely shrugged in response.

“She’s finnicky.”

“Not anymore,” Tony responded.

Bucky rose his brows, “At least you hope so.”

“I’ll make sure of it. She’s going to stay on the ship with me.” Steve and Bucky exchanged a look and Tony demanded, “What?”

“The men may not like that…” Bucky pointed out.

Tony waved them off, “They’ll get used to it. She’ll be a sight for sore eyes. Not that any of them will be allowed to touch her but I won’t toss anyone overboard for merely looking at her. In fact, I’ll be happy she is being admired and knowing she is mine.”

“Unless she gets back home and finds that guy,” Bucky commented, and Steve shot him a pissed off look at the mention of him. Bucky noticed both Tony and Steve glaring at him and he demanded, “What? You know it’s true! He was pining! And—”

“And what?” Tony snapped.

Bucky seemed to lose a little bit of steam seeing how adversarial Tony was. “Well, he seemed persistent.”

Grinding his teeth, Tony stepped closer, and he said, “That’s not a problem anymore.” Bucky furrowed his brow and Tony said in explanation as he pulled out his pipe, “Boy isn’t among the living anymore.

Realization washed across Bucky’s face.

“Why did you kill him?” Bucky asked, incredulous.

“I didn’t want him alive,” Tony responded simply, striking up his match.

“That’s fair,” Steve said.

“How is that fair?” Bucky snapped. “What if Y/N finds out? Or Peter for that matter? They were friends!”

“They won’t? Who is going to tell them? Dead men tell no tales,” Tony responded, lighting up his pipe.

“You didn’t have to shoot him,” Bucky muttered.

“Who says I shot him?” Tony asked, cocking an eyebrow and Bucky merely narrowed his eyes unimpressed. Tony smirked around his pipe before inhaling deeply. He blew the smoke rings out and shrugged. “I see smooth sailing in front of me because of that gunshot.”

<><><>

The ship stayed docked and you only left the room on the island to go grab food in the evening. You barely kept the stew down and Tony rubbed your back. You scowled at him, and he only smirked before going back to his own bowl. That night, he left you alone, letting you rest.

The next morning you woke up to him holding you close underneath the blankets. He felt you stir and he burrowed his mouth to your neck, kissing you gently. You smiled as you stretched before pressing back on him. He took the invitation and ground himself into your ass.

“If you’re going to do something, do it. Don’t tease,” you murmured, turning your head to meet his eyes. A salacious grin came over his face.

Tony lifted your leg and entered swiftly, leaving the two of you breathless and dozing off to sleep again for the second time.

Later in the day, you woke up and found the bed empty. You sat up, the blanket falling to your waist as you searched the room groggily. He was not there. You got yourself ready quickly and left the room, despite his warning yesterday not to.

Thankfully, you found Bucky before anyone else and he intercepted you.

“He’s fishing.”

“Fishing?” you asked disbelieving.

Bucky nodded, “He enjoys it. Plus, it helps feed the island.”

“Anything to keep his feet off the land,” you commented in a sigh, as your eyes were drawn out towards the water.

Bucky gave your shoulder a squeeze and said, “You’ll like it later when you get some bass to eat later, yeah? I’m sure he’ll bring one specifically for you.”

<><><>

You accepted Tony’s offer for a dinner on the beach. As Bucky predicted, Tony had brought a fish specifically back for you and he was roasting it over the firepit on the sand. He had brought a bottle with him, and you having recovered, you were indulging again. The fish was good and filled you up along with the vegetables he had used in the pan as well.

Sitting on the log, you stared into the fire. Tony passed you the bottle and you took a long swig.

“I believe I was promised earrings if I came to your cabin,” you commented lightly.

Tony laughed at that and said, “I know where they are.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, they’re locked away. I was saving them.”

“For?” you pressed, passing the bottle back to him.

He shrugged, “Like I told you. You had to come to my cabin to get them.”

“Well, I have done that. Were there strings attached that you did not inform me of? I still have the necklace on!” you asked, smiling. You showed him, pulling it out from your dress. You knew he had seen it. Of course he had. He had taken you in his bed with it twice now, the one thing you had not taken off to lay with him.

Tony shrugged again. “Stay. And I’ll give them to you on our wedding day.”

You laughed but then saw he was looking at you offended. Oh. He was serious.

Brushing the intensity of the moment off, you exhaled deeply, dramatically. “Well, when we see fit to settle down, I suppose I’ll get them.”

Tony said nothing and you hated the uncomfortable silence. You cleared your throat and scooted closer, getting his attention.

“We should go back. Back to my home. So… I can see.”

Tony was unconvinced from the mention of it. Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I can handle it. Whatever happened.”

“I don’t think it is wise.”

“It matters not what it wise. It’s what I want.”

Tony was adamant, “No.”

You scooted away from him, and he noticed that. His eyes followed your movement and saw your hands planted firmly as you glowered at him. Good. He could see how serious you were about this.

“So, you’re refusing to take me back?”

“You escaped there. You were held down there,” Tony argued. “You don’t… need to go back.”

You straightened up and asked, “’Escaped’? I liked it there!”

Tony was accusative now, aggressive. “Do you want to go back for him?”

“Who?”

“Adam.”

You stared him down, matching his fiery gaze.

“That’s what your afraid of? Competition?” Disgust washed across his features and you pressed on before he could interrupt. “No, Tony. It’s not for him.”

“Then what for?”

It was either the liquid courage or wanting to be honest, or possibly a combination of both, but you were honest. “Eloise.”

It felt good to proclaim she was worth something. Even to someone as jealous of your affection like him. With him, the impact would be different. You hoped. If you proclaimed your love for Eloise to him, it was safer than anyone else. And he understood desire. Hell, he had been trying for you for so long. To return to port just for one person, he had to understand that.

But immediately you saw it had been lost on him and now you were to be floundering until you explicitly explained it.

“You’re worried she got taken?” Tony asked, trying to understand. That only made it clear he was clueless about your unrequited love.

Tears stung your eyes, and you squeezed your hands between your thighs. The waves crashed, filling the space between before you inhaled sharply and said, “I mean, yes. That is a very big concern. She could have been harmed. Taken… raped.” You met his gaze, and he was waiting, like he sensed you needed to say more. And you did. You swallowed and whispered, “I loved her. So much. And I knew she was never going to love me back. But it was okay pretending.”

Tony looked like he had been slapped. And that is when you realized you had made a mistake in confessing this to him. He would not be understanding like you hoped he would have been. Why did you think that?

Still you tried to play it off, using emotion.

You shrugged in return, bringing a hand up to wipe at your eyes. “It was at home at port. We worked together. We were close… I dreaded the day some man would come steal her away.”

Still Tony said nothing, and you turned your eyes to him. He was staring at you with such intensity, frozen in the moment. But only for so long.

“So, she was the reason,” Tony finally said. You furrowed your brow at his tone. He took another swig of his rum. He suddenly gave a scornful laugh, shaking his head. “The whole time, I thought it was all those men chasing after you. That you liked playing games—” Your mouth fell open at that remark in shock. “—And keeping your options open. But you already had your heart set. On a woman, no less.”

You shifted and said desperately, “I did not think you would judge—"

Tony cut in swiftly, roughly. His tone could cut glass.

“And on someone who would never appease you or return the affection. You set yourself to doom. And for what? So, both of us could suffer?”

You realized he was making this about him and his feelings. And that ignited anger quickly. “Tony, that’s not fair!”

“I never stood a chance if you were already dead set on staying sorrowful forever.” He scoffed, standing up, your eyes following him. He stared down at you, stumbling a little in his movement as he threw an arm out. “Looks like we had both anchored ourselves to misery and unfortunately for me, it was unknowingly because you returned my flirtations constantly. Dragged me along.” He pointed at you and sneered, “You’re selfish!”

You stood up with him and you said forcibly, “I am not! Yes, I flirted back because I do like you! But do you think I wanted to hang my hat on someone who was notorious for sleeping around?” Tony gave you an incredulous look, but you pressed on. “And for someone who spent most of his time at sea? What? You just wanted me to wait around for you whenever you thought it appropriate to grace me with your presence?”

Tony stepped closer, a finger in your face. “If you would have given yourself to me, I would have brought you aboard or made home—”

You interrupted with a shrill laugh and his jaw set in offense. “You? Make home? Don’t make me laugh.”

“For you? Yes! I would have!”

“Will you now?” you asked, still lightly laughing.

Tony was serious when he said, “If you would only ask it.”

You shrugged sheepishly. “I will not.” He scoffed and began to turn away, but you raised your voice, catching his attention again. “Because as heartfelt as you feel right now – and it may be genuine – you would get bored. You’re married to the sea. You would never be married to me.” You gestured between the two of you. “You and I are meant for the bed and that’s it. There won’t be long term affection. At least on your end.”

“So, I’m the problem?” Tony snapped. You nodded and he bit his cheeks, turning away from you. He used his arm holding the bottle to wipe at his mouth, staring out at the ocean. You swayed on the spot, feeling the alcohol running through your veins. When he turned around again, he almost lost his footing in the sand and you moved to steady him, but he waved you off, stopping you in your tracks. “You never even gave me a chance to prove myself, Y/N! I’m so glad you’re such an expert on what you think you know about me when you never cared to even ask! I would kill you for! I did kill for you! Or have you forgotten that? Or do you just not care?”

He got even closer, and his breath was hot. “I would kill hundreds of men to keep you safe. Just to make sure you were there for me at the end of that bloody trail! And you’re so fucking ungrateful about it! I should just leave you here. Let you simmer on that! Be passed around between the pirates coming through! Cause you obviously don’t give a shit about who you open your legs to! Might as well get paid for it! And at least I’ll still know where to find you. I’ll have coin ready!” He leaned in close and hissed, “If you won’t have me fully, then I’ll just keep you at another port to visit just like before!”

You gasped, hurt, as he turned away from you. He left as quickly as he could, trudging through the sand until he found the rocks again.

“Drew me in and drowned me! Temptress! This whole damn time! And here I thought sirens were only on the sea!” he shouted over his shoulder.

All that was left was the sound of waves as you watched him go up the path.

~~~

Marvel tags: @coconutqueen21 @undecidedsworld @holl2712 @agustdowney  @biiskuitx @buttercupfangirl

[dreamii-yume]

Ohh Queen Yume you've opened the floodgates!! Which guys would be head over heels over a gorgeous, kind sensei!MC?? Who would feel conflicted about their feelings and who are shameless enough to try to pursue her?

“Tell the guards to open up...THE GATES~”

EVERYONE (΄◉◞౪◟◉｀) fight me with this one, Darlings.

Everyone would be up our Darling Sensei’s ass, I BET YOU MY LIFE SUPPORT. The better question at this point would be asking which wouldn’t be attracted to a beautiful Sensei lol

Riddle would act as if it’s the end of the world as falling in love with a teacher is a huge violation of many rules. Though he sometimes slips up with little gestures that makes him stutter and blush uncharacteristically, he can hide his emotions very well. He will try to kill these forbidden feelings, but doing so just breaks his heart. He secretly wants you to come and save him, recognizing him like he does withyou.

Deuce would be ashamed for falling in love with a teacher, how can he tell his mother about this? He came here to become a model student, not to become so attached to his own instructor. He tries to hide as much as he can but he’s a blushing mess with just the slightest attention from you, anyone could instantly tell what’s up. It’s just a matter of time before Sensei herself realized this precious boy’s feelings.

Jack is conflicted. Why was he feeling this way towards his teacher out of all people available? I see him as someone who fully respects you, he’ll be less violent and even if you haven’t noticed, you already got him perfectly tamed. He’ll keep his feelings for himself and wouldn’t ever plan to tell anyone. Though people have been noticing how slightly protective he’s being with you, of course he’ll violently deny them all. But sometimes it can’t be helped, his own tail would involuntary sway back and forth so excitedly if you go as far as to graze him.

Sebek doesn’t seem to like it, poor boy is just really confused. He should already be dedicated to his young master, he doesn’t need these silly feelings to add to his plate! You’re a teacher! You’re a person that he should respect and pay attention to for knowledge but instead, he’s disgusted at the way you haunt his dreams every night! He can’t believe he’s already falling in love with a human like you! Stop making him feel all giddy on the inside, it’s some sort of spell, isn’t it!?

Poor Idia just can’t take a break, can he? When he’s already stuck in a school full of self-centered brats, how dare you come and knock at his closed-off, introverted heart? He knew these kinds of scenarios from all the dating sims he’ve played but never in his life had he thought that he will find himself in the same situation. That being said, he’s still anxious to come and talk to you personally, his tablet was one way but even that doesn’t feel enough. He might really be going crazy as he starts to want to go outside just to meet you...

Silver can’t seem to put two and two together, he couldn’t quite figure out why his heart was beating so fast for his Darling Sensei. He would ask his father for any explanation but wouldn’t get anything out of it but a simple chuckle. That’s fine, something tells him that he wouldn’t be able to trust his advices anyway. Whatever it is, he’s quite fond of it and he doesn’t seem to care much, he does become really sad when you’re away though.

As we already established, Ace can be quite shameless when it comes to his feelings. He won’t outright say what he feels for you, but he’ll constantly flirt and tease you when he has the chance. Don’t be surprised when you begin to notice him actually trying to cope a feel or looking up your skirt because that’s just him. Also, be careful, he’s very prone to using dirty handed tricks to capture your attention.

Leona is another shameless one, he doesn’t care about status, if he sees a prey, it’s just natural for him to bite from the neck, right? What’s wrong with being a little older? He’s not even that young compared to these useless herbivore, he’s the best that you can get. It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that your class might just be the only class that Leona wouldn’t skip. Mainly because he might miss some exclusive view of you, like when your skirt would hitch up every time you bend over to grab something. He wouldn’t hesitate to grope either, that ass is just too tempting not to bite to at least once.

Floyd is difficult to deal with, since he’s likely the most shameless one out of the bunch. He doesn’t care about you being a teacher, Sensei is Sensei regardless! He’ll bother you at every opportunity he gets and at every place he sees you at. He’ll make excuses to meet you up, even going as far as to skip class just so you could take the effort and search for him. It bothers you a little that this particular student of yours constantly keeps asking questions about your lectures even if he always seems to already know the answer.

I’d say Malleus would also be shameless but he doesn’t actually realize that he’s being one. Forgive him for acting so strangely possessive and clingy around you, following you everywhere like a lost baby animal. It’s just that he’s not familiar with having romantic feelings with someone, let alone a mere human. He doesn’t see anything special in your role as a teacher, he had lived much, much longer than you after all.

Lilia is amused, to think that someone as wise as him had actually fallen in love with someone who was supposed to be his ‘teacher’. Never in his long life had he found himself in this kind of situation, it’s interesting! It’s not like it’s a problem anyway, you are nothing more than a child compared to his actual age, you’re just a mortal teaching him stuff that he already knew. But it doesn’t hurt to take advantage of his youthful appearance now, does it? Lilia’s excited to know where this relationship can go.

Sometimes, Trey and Jamil just doesn’t feel like a student to you. Being a lot more mature than the other students, you just can’t help but to rely on them for a lot of things. Maybe that’s probably why you’ll never notice how deeply in love these two are with you, they’re just that good when it comes to hiding emotions. They’ll give subtle hints here and there and Trey, most likely, might even flirt with you at some point but you’ll be so familiar with him by now that you wouldn’t even mind. I’d say Trey’s a bit on the shameless side, but not in a way that makes him clingy while Jamil is the type to just keep quiet but secretly and skillfully making moves.

Cater is categorized as shameless when it comes to expressing his feelings, but when Darling’s a teacher, things becomes a little...complicated. Don’t get him wrong, he’ll be the same as always, so talkative and energetic around you, even calling out for you with a cute nickname. He’ll even flirt like you’re the same age as him but he would always make it seem like a joke. If you’re a teacher, he’ll also be very careful about posting something about you in his Magicam, he knows how this works anyway. One word out that you’re becoming too close with a particular student, you’ll risk losing your job. Cater doesn’t want that happening anytime soon, but just know that he can make it happen too if he absolutely needs to. Until then, it’s all good and dandy!

Ruggie wouldn’t be guilty nor conflicted about his feelings, but he wouldn’t be as shameless as to scream out his feelings to everyone around him. No, only an idiot will do that and it’s embarrassing so, no thank you. Instead, he can play the long game, he’s a patient guy despite how he looks. Besides, he’s used to these kinds of stuff by now so it’s not that much different~! Expect many coincidences with him in it though!

Azul appears to be very calm on the inside, always helping you out whenever you need him without asking for anything in return. That’s what he is, a simp a gracious student ready to help his dear teacher out any time! But that’s what you think, in reality, he’s just desperately trying to earn your favor by being your “Yes-man”. He believes that if he became the goodest boy in your eyes, you’ll be able to love him as much as he does with you. Although, just expect a few tears and tantrums when he doesn’t get his way though.

Jade is so different from his brother that it surprises you that they’re even twins in the first place. He respects your boundaries, even if he wanted nothing more than to become as shameless as his other half. He’s very active when it comes to your lessons too, always paying attention with the greatest interest. He even serves you tea as refreshments and helps you with work if he feels as if you’re overworking yourself. He’s not really the type to care whether you’re a teacher, “I wonder~?” He’ll be very vague about it if anyone dares to ask but if you look closely, that smile says it all.

Kalim wouldn’t be able to recognize his feelings for a really long time. He’ll think it’s just normal to feel this way, for his heart to beat this fast, for his face to heat up, for thoughts of you to flow through his head even at night. But when he does, all those times he shamelessly clung to you and talked to you will come back to attack him all at once. He’ll actually lower down his affection levels because he was told that liking a teacher is bad and it might actually cost you your job. But it’s so difficult! It wouldn’t hurt to spend...a little more time with you, would it!?

Vil thinks it’s stupid of him and of you. He thinks he’s stupid for falling in love with someone like you, his own teacher, it’s unbelievable how low his standards had become. But at the same time, he thinks you’re stupid for not being able to understand why he fell in love with you in the first place too. Despite the salt of falling in love with someone like you of all people, it doesn’t change the fact the he’ll keep on striving to become the best for you. He wants you to notice him, notice his improvements, and make you feel how lucky you are for catching his attention, so would you try and look at him in a different way for once?

Rook just loves anyone and anything, does he? Everything is beautiful in his eyes and yet, there was something about you that shines the brightest amongst all others. There should be no shame in expressing his feelings, he’ll shout it out loud to world. His eccentric personality is working against his favor too, even if honestly and openly admitted his feelings towards you with everyone, no one will actually take it seriously. But what others perceives to be true isn’t always true, Darling.

I’m not quite sure where to put Epel in all of this, something’s telling me that he would be on the shameless side only if he’s willing to show his much more aggressive side. However, I can imagine him being worried to show that side to you, since you were already put under the impression that he’s a dainty, gentle boy. Although he doesn’t like being treated like he’s the most fragile thing of all people, he can’t deny the attention he gets from you whenever he’s acting like this. Epel doesn’t really seem to care if you’re a teacher in all of this, he knew that it’s not good but he’s determined. Once he graduates, he’ll definitely make a move on you so, just you wait...!

Before I knew it, I made something for every character holy shi- my teacher kink is terrifying.

Also, yes, Darlings! Yume changed her usename from “amai-no-yume” to “dreamii-yume”! ( ＾∀＾) To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect to like posting sins in tumblr this much ヽ(；▽；) So I ended picking such a half-ass username! But now, I decided to change it to something hopefully cuter and more appropriate! ( ´ ▽ ` )

Nice to meet you again, Darlings~!

[ironmandeficiency]

beach please

pairing: rex / reader / cody

word count: 6166

summary: once the war ended, you retreated to scarif for much-needed time to recenter yourself. rex and cody worry when you don’t answer your comms for days and leave coruscant to find you, fearing the worst. turns out you’ve just been drinking and partying, now sporting two new tattoos.

a/n: the self-created duke of scarif is jimmy buffett & i was inspired by his song “margaritaville” & “beach please” by kevin fowler. 

canon changes: everyone listened to fives abt the chips & palps was discovered to be a sith lord. the clones were given human rights, a generously low locked-in rent if they lived on coruscant, and as much back pay as the republic could afford (not much but better than nothing).

“master y/l/n, there’s still so much to be done-”

“and you can have someone else do it. you must not be capable of recognizing the importance of reevaluating the way we interpret the code, or else this conversation wouldn’t be occurring.”

obi-wan blanched at the barely tamed fury radiating from your force signature. this was the second time in less than a year that he felt something so raging from your force signature, the time before this meeting being the aftermath of umbara. before the nightmare that was the siege on the shadow planet, it had been decades since you were angry enough about something to raise your voice to the council. it took a very great transgression to ignite your anger into something scathing and this meeting was doing exactly that.

the council was meeting to discuss the senate’s plans to have the jedi spearhead efforts to repair the galaxy and quell the revolts in areas that still wanted to continue the war. palpatine was manipulating both sides and if it weren’t for fives and kix, the republic would have been none the wiser when chancellor palpatine executed the order to have the clones murder their jedi.

“how are we going to guide the galaxy through the changing times if we’re unable to reevaluate our own beliefs and how the war impacted them? so many of our padawans were raised in this war, far different than how they should have been brought up.” your mind drifted to ahsoka and late-night conversations spent trying to make sense of the reality of war and how she’d been nothing but a soldier since she left the temple at fourteen. “the senate is not our responsibility nor our lead authority. we were their pawns once and despite seeing the consequences on geonosis, we let ourselves get wrapped in politics. think of what we lost because of it.”

eeth koth was deeply disturbed by your entire demeanor as well as the words spilling from your lips. if there was ever a jedi that made you want to leave the order, he’d be it. douchebag. “our duty is to the galaxy, to maintain peace! you can’t expect us to sit back and do nothing when people are struggling!”

obi-wan shared your sentiment but strived for more unity than polarization within the meeting. “but aren’t we struggling just as much as the rest of the galaxy? time must be allotted for us to heal the wounds of war before we’ll be able to successfully help others that are suffering, if that’s what’s agreed upon.” a few jedi nodded their agreement, masters plo and gallia among them. shaak looks close to being convinced but seems to still be hesitant to comment on her opinion.

“in order to help the galaxy, we must help ourselves. our emotions must be looked into with more than just the intent to throw them away at a moment’s notice. knowing why we feel the things we do can help us with far more than just our connection to the force.”

this was an idea that obi-wan has spent many years struggling with but it took the end of the war to guide him into believing that emotions aren’t the enemy, it’s how they’re utilized that counts. he explained this concept to his fellow council members and it was a sentiment you agreed with immensely.

saese scoffs at the mere idea of doing more with emotions besides dispelling them into the force. “that sounds a lot like allowing your emotions to cloud your judgement, master kenobi, something your lineage is quite popular for-” oh he crossed the line. saese was not about to talk shit about your creche mate and closest friend or his lineage and get away with it.

“no need to pardon my language, master, but it sounds a lot like you’re allowing your own emotional shortcomings and the bantha fodder you call intelligence to cloud your judgement.”

even mace was stunned at the verbal jab that came from your seat. kit had been mid-drink and it took him several seconds to recover from the way he choked on his water. you were normally calm and collected, a voice of reason amid the chaos. this time, however, you were at your limit. this was your cue to leave.

mace spoke up as you neared the door. “y/l/n, where do you think you’re going?”

“i’m going to heal and allow myself to enjoy the peace we gave nearly everything to obtain. if you want to join me, feel free to let me know.”

your robes billowed out behind you as the council meeting dissolved into chaos. you were convinced that if your seat was close enough to master yoda’s that you’d be sporting a few new gimer stick bruises. thank the force for the little things.

later that evening, you boarded your personal ship and set the coordinates for scarif. that was the perfect place to go as a jedi that didn’t want to be found by anyone that they didn’t fully trust. who would think to find a monk on a planet filled with booze, sex, and other carnal pleasures? a few comms were sent telling the recipients that you were going on vacation and to call if you were needed, giving them a new private commlink and vague hints at where you’d be.

scarif, here i come.

“she hasn’t commed us in nearly a week! what reason is there to not worry?”

“rex, she would have called us if there was something wrong.”

“you know as well as i do that there are still radical seppies trying to keep the war going. the kidnapping of a jedi would surely be cause to fight!”

cody sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. he conceded that you ignoring their comms was highly unusual, yes, but you weren’t the type to throw yourself heedlessly into danger like some of the other jetti they knew (cough cough, skywalker and kenobi). “no one in their right mind is going to think to look for a jedi on scarif, the place is too carefree and without a permanent stuck up its shebs.”

rex knew there was a valid point to the statement. he vaguely recollects general kenobi’s mild yet humorous complaints about the “uncivilized, booze-blooded” inhabitants of the beach planet. general skywalker’s only problem with scarif, it seems, was the fact there was sand nearly everywhere, the drunks and constant parties posing no issue to the younger jedi. the reason for his disdain of sand was never expanded upon.

“i’m still going to look for her, feel free to come with.” they were free men who had no one to report to, no one telling them where they could go or when to eat and sleep, so of course rex was going to look for you. with this newfound freedom cody and rex moved into a middle-level apartment together, nothing too fancy but quite a contrast to their former living spaces under the gar.

rex chose to join the police force on coruscant and quickly climbed the ranks, excelling in every task thrown at him. he was a force to be reckoned with, crime rates dropping rapidly within his first month.

cody hasn’t made a new career choice yet, the commander still trying to find his own path. he had tried his hand on the police force but he quickly realized it wasn’t his cup of tea and left rex to it. he’s helping with groceries and other living costs with his back pay despite rex’s protests for him to put it to better use (what better use is there for credits than helping you survive day to day? that’s what they’re made for).

they were given a ship by general skywalker -anakin, rex’s mind supplied; he had corrected them many times about not using the rank- that the man had modified himself because he “wouldn’t want any friends of mine flying around the galaxy in a piece of junk.” apparently any sort of ship/speeder/droid/anything not built and/or modified by the man was inferior in nearly every imaginable way. it was a kind and meaningful gesture that anakin was willing to go to such lengths to protect them, no matter how unnecessary. the war was over after all, there was no need to have blaster attachments on their civilian speeder.

“like i’m gonna leave you to your own devices, di’kut. of course i’m going with.”

“you better hurry and pack, i’m planning on leaving no later than 1800.”

sitting in the reclined beach chair with two margaritas, you haven’t enjoyed yourself this much in a long time. the togrutan brother and sister you met soon after your arrival had become dear friends in your two months on scarif, the three of you becoming a trio commonly seen hitting the best parties all over the planet. miek wasn’t as much of a party animal in comparison to his sister briel who was known for her wild drunken antics.

you had been there and lived in your small ship for a total of two days before they offered you a place with them. no one lived alone on scarif, they said, and it would be wrong to let you continue to be deprived of the peace the waters brought when it was lulling you to sleep.

meeting the duke of scarif during your first week planetside was quite an exhilarating experience, to put it briefly. duke buffett was an older man with hair as white as the sands he loved to party on day and night, one hand perpetually occupied by a drink and a guitar strapped to his back. he was known to play and sing during the parties he attended, his carefree attitude evident in his voice.

although no one would have guessed by looking at him, he was a fierce conservationist who would either have his guards fight anyone caught littering or, if drunk enough, would fight them himself. you’ve held him back a time or two when he clearly wasn’t in shape to do said fighting and helped ease the situation back to a fun normal.

now you weren’t a heavy drinker by any means, but your tolerance was better than most because of your connection to the force.  this made you a favorite drinking buddy to many of the planet’s permanent inhabitants and tourists. of these numbers was the duke himself whom you would sometimes humor by opening drinks with your lightsaber. it was a splendid game that won you diplomatic immunity (apparently he can do that) on the planet after two weeks of jedi party tricks and fight-preventing.

time had become even more of a social construct than you had believed it to be before the war. there were parties going on at all hours of the day and night and the concept of solitude was forgotten. everyone here extended a hand to each other, friend or not-yet friend (there were no strangers on scarif, just friends you haven’t made yet). what little pain felt was carried by all until it was so faint that it seemed to heal itself. the waters healed, you had no doubt in your mind.

the sun was high in the sky when the ship landed next to yours behind your current residence. you were, of course, not home to know where it landed but you did see said ship flying overhead as you relaxed on a blanket next to briel and miek. maybe they were lost, but you had confidence that someone on the island would help them in what they need. this was the way of scarif, after all.

you were distracted by the drinks in both of your hands, alternating sips between the two. you were outfitted in a flowy summer dress that had ridden up a smidge too high while you were lounging on a reclined beach chair. briel was rubbing - lotion? sunscreen? - something on your exposed thighs as you relaxed, enjoying the way the breeze felt on the moisturized skin.

this was the best decision you’ve ever made, coming to scarif. eventually you were going to leave, yeah, but that was a problem for future you. for now, you were going to enjoy the endless sunshine and copious amounts of alcohol that aided in your relaxation.

they had seen the docking bay protruding into the sky like a gundark among loth-cats and decided instantly that you weren’t going to be there. you had told them ages ago that the vibes (you used that word a lot to describe force things to them) that came from industrial buildings bothered you terribly. something along the lines of wearing on your psyche, if they remembered correctly. instead, they flew a little lower than they probably should have to search the ground for where you landed your ship.

it took longer than they would have liked it to, but your ship was eventually found behind a medium-sized hut not too far from one of the many beaches. cody found just the right angle to land next to it and not hurt either shuttle, not trusting rex to touch the controls (his vod was a terrible pilot).

both men decided that even if scarif was a peaceful planet, they still didn’t know what to expect, so they equipped themselves with their blasters and lower armor before leaving their ship. first order of business: check to see if you were in your ship. if you weren’t, they could cross that bridge when they got there.

just as they were beginning to open the ramp, a man emerged from the hut and began to storm their way. he was togrutan, with yellow skin and lavender stripes on his lekku and montrals.

“hey! you two! what’s your business with that shuttle?” he sounded like he was ready to fight them about the ship, which worried the brothers, but he slowed his advance when he noticed the two blasters pointed in his direction. good, this guy wasn’t a complete di’kut.

cody was the first to lower his weapon, quick to take the diplomatic approach. rex followed suit but didn’t soften the intimidating stare he threw at the man. there was a reason your ship was there and they were going to stop at nothing to find out why. “we’re looking for a friend of ours, she hasn’t answered our comms in over a week and we were worried, it isn’t like her to not reply. last we talked to her she was here on scarif.”

the togrutan paused for a moment, inspecting the appearances of the men (clones, his mind told him, the telltale armor and near identical faces hiding nothing) in front of him.

the blond had an air of confidence about him, an almost dangerous sort of confidence. his armor was painted with a shade of blue that was pleasantly similar to the waters he just returned from, pieces of it chipped from what he supposed were rough times in battle. his jaw was set, hand hovering above where he holstered his weapon seconds before.

he didn’t appear to be bloodthirsty, just protective; who he wanted to protect, however, was still a mystery. there was a passion in his eyes that wasn’t even mildly held back. he seemed to be skilled in channeling that passion into his every thought, every action. with a note to himself to not get on this man’s bad side, he switched his focus on the blond’s companion.

miek’s gaze shifted to the other clone and quickly decided that he liked this one better. there was an extremely intimidating scar along the side of his face, yet this one seemed far less willing to shoot him on sight. he still has a grit and presence about him that told miek that this one wouldn’t hesitate to fuck your shit up if need be, but he had tact (thank the stars one of the clones had a sense of discretion).

he could tell that this one had some sort of authority over the blond, clearly serving as a high percentage of the other’s common sense. miek’s mind, after analyzing the men thoroughly, gives names for the men before they introduce themselves. “you must be the famed rex and cody! come, i’ll take you to the shoreline!”

he gestured for them to follow him and was genuinely shocked when instead of doing as he suggested, he was tackled to the ground. miek spit away everything that had gotten into his mouth, unable to move when one of the men pinned him down. this was officially miek’s worst day in over a decade.

he caught a glimpse of marigold stripes on leg armor just over his shoulder, confirming the identity of the man on top of him as rex. “how do you know our names?!” rex’s voice sent a shiver down miek’s spine (the blaster against his back also helped in that), and the togrutan reaffirmed his choice in his favorite clone: not rex.

“i’ve heard stories about you two! from y/n! i’m assuming you’re here about y/n, right?” the blaster was removed from his back and a little bit of the weight was taken off him. he must be saying something right. “she’s been staying with my sister and i, and i promise you she’s perfectly safe!” rex moves his weight completely off him now, allowing miek to stand back up but not move more than a few feet away from him.

“where is she?” cody’s voice was hauntingly low, nothing about him betraying his tension except for the hard glare felt like lasers. he had the same desire, same yearning to protect someone - that someone miek now knew was you - and it burned brighter than a hundred suns.

“last i saw her was thirty minutes ago on the shore with briel, my sister. i can take you to them if you would kindly not threaten to shoot me again. my name is miek, and i would say it was a pleasure to meet you both but then i’d be making myself a liar.” he had no idea where that bit of snark at the end came from but it seemed to sway the clones to his favor. why it did, he had no clue, but at least he wasn’t getting shot.

they walked silently for a few minutes, the two troopers beginning to slightly admire the view while keeping eyes on miek. it was a beautiful planet, there was no denying that. you were surely enjoying yourself in the sunshine, always finding a little bit of time to bask in the nature of whatever planet you ended up on during the war.

it was strange to cody, not feeling eyes on him as he walked with rex on the beach. when he would accompany general ke- obi-wan on trips to the temple or into the streets of coruscant, he constantly felt the eyes of many on him. they would be expressing curiosity, shock, disdain, or something in between, and cody could feel every bit of it. here, it seemed, no one cared that he was a clone. no one was leering at him for walking too close to them or for just breathing the same air as them. cody was blissfully able to blend with the people here and he loved it.

he was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice when miek had come to a stop in front of a small cluster of reclinable chairs. a large umbrella provided the area with a patch of shade and a smidge of reprieve from the sun’s blistering heat.

“see? she’s perfectly fine.” miek’s voice broke their precious silence. “i’m assuming you both can find your own way back to your ship, so i’ll be headed off.” miek left them quite quickly and rex guessed (with a bit more amusement than was warranted) that it was because he nearly shot the man on more than one occasion minutes earlier.

“cody! rex! when did you two get here?”

a familiar voice drew their attention and it took them a second longer than it should have for them to realize that yes, you were the one lounging in front of them as if it’s all you’ve ever done in your life. you were extremely relaxed and your posture conveyed your state perfectly, two margaritas perched in loose hands, both half-empty. an ivory summer dress flowed loosely around you, the front hiked a bit too high for the men to keep their imaginations under control. that wasn’t even acknowledging the neckline of your dress (or lack thereof) that made their throats a bit dry and minds slip into the gutter.

rex and cody cleared their heads after indulging the images for a second, the latter clearing his throat before replying, “just a few minutes ago. you haven’t answered our comms in over a week. rex had the idea to come and visit to see how you were doing, so here we are.”

that was really sweet of them to check up on you, you thought with a smile. you felt a bit guilty about not answering their comms. normally you were careful to reply to theirs and every other message you received soon after getting it, but as stated earlier, time has become a social construct that didn’t really matter while on scarif. you gestured for them to sit, and they took the open chair to your left. they didn’t bother laying back, just sitting shoulder to shoulder in the same chair with their eyes on you.

offering them both half-drank margaritas was a subconscious action on your part that surprised you. what shocked you even more was the fact they accepted the drinks with soft, fond smiles. kriff you missed them, how you’ve been able to go this long without seeing them was beyond you.

you smiled warmly as you introduced your boys to briel, who was smirking a bit too widely than would be deemed safe (you didn’t notice this, seeing as you were too busy drinking in the sight of your boys and the way the sunlight made their eyes glow). her eyes drifted to your thighs as she put in very little effort to hide a laugh. dark clone trooper eyes decided to see what was so amusing to the togruta, and they choked on whatever words they were contemplating.

on your thighs were rex and cody, left and right respectively. or, more accurately, on your thighs were six-inch tattoos of rex and cody.

both men were in quite show-offy poses, appearing to have the intent to make them look like pin-ups. the lower half of their armor was equipped but they were shirtless, faint details of scars and sweat appearing to glisten in imaginary sunlight.

cody’s face was set in a smolder the likes of which would send half the women in the galaxy into puddles at the commander’s feet. his dc-15a was held aloft in his right hand while his left arm was holding his helmet in place in the crook of his hip. his left foot was stepping on a small heap of droids which brought his knee up a bit, and he was facing the inked rex on the opposite thigh.

rex’s wild smile could catch the soggiest piece of kindling alight with the allure and charm it held. his eyes were sparkling with a pleasant mirth not often seen in the man. both hands wielded his trusted dc-17’s, the right blaster pointed at the droids under cody’s foot while the left was pointed in the air, blaster bolts coming out of both. his helmet was under his right foot, jaig eyes almost peering into your soul and welding marks visible from his customization of the phase 2 helmet.

commander and captain are both beginning to flush at the art in front of them. they were flattered to see drawings of themselves look so dashing, and seeing it on your body roused feelings they had spent years repressing. their biggest question now was whether their likenesses on your body translated into something more on your end.

“nice to finally meet my friend’s muses,” briel quips, “it’s hard to get her to talk about something that isn’t you two when she’s plastered.” she pauses a moment, thinking of her next words and chuckling to herself. “she’s barely spent three consecutive days completely sober since she got here, which means that you two are almost all she talks about.”

this deepened the heat in their cheeks as you playfully swatted at briel’s shoulder. “that is not true!” a moment of silence. “wait, what day is it? that miiiight make a difference.”

rex chortles at the admission. “glad to see you enjoying yourself, cyare. but kix would be enraged to hear that you’ve been drinking nearly every day for two months, and we can’t exactly blame him.” he grinned as he took an experimental sip of the drink you gave him. it was stronger than he expected, but it had an underlying sweetness not often found in margaritas. he liked it.

sitting up, your dress covered your ink as you expertly drank from the margarita in cody’s hand while he still held it. the commander sent you a soft glare, wondering why you didn’t just get a new drink but enjoying the moment nonetheless. “kix shmix, his face isn’t on my thigh so i don’t really care what he has to say right now.” you lean toward cody and rex before whispering, “you didn’t bring him, did you?”

all three of them guffawed at the question, you joining their laughter solely because of how happy the joy radiating from your boys’ force signatures made you.

calling them your boys had become second nature after mere months of fighting beside them. you spent an inane amount of time with them during planning and actual combat, and were just as much their general as their actual generals were (despite you not carrying the honorific). any free time was spent with one or the other if available, but if they were both occupied you would make your way toward the barracks and join a few games of sabacc.

there were nights you’d spend in the barracks with either battalion (depends on which group you were assigned to at the time) and be welcomed there as if you were a fellow clone. they taught you to play sabacc and you enjoyed playing with them despite the fact you had the most rotten luck with the game.

winning didn’t carry any weight when you were able to spend time with rex and cody, shamelessly basking in the way they always seemed to have some sort of physical contact with you every moment possible. when rex and/or cody returned from whatever responsibilities held them earlier, the men were quick to relinquish them a seat next to you with a sly grin.

their vode noticed the affection shared for the jedi on sabacc night number two and didn’t hesitate to spread word of it around to the rest of their battalions and beyond. on the nights you accompanied them on trips to 79’s, men under rex and cody both (read: fives and boil) made sure that the rest of their brothers and the occasional civvie knew that you three were off-limits to anyone but each other. you were their jetti & they were your captain and commander, no one would get between that even if it wasn’t decided among those in question.

“nah, he’s kept his head in his work. he just got his civvie medical license, started his own private practice on naboo.” rex was extremely happy for his brother, although it was strange to not see him nearly every day. it took a while before he was used to the lack of vode around him at all moments, but cody has been a massive help with that transition.

cody nodded before adding onto his brother’s statement. “and besides, we’re not that cruel, cyar’ika.” you grinned at the endearing tone, choosing that moment to snag another drink from the glass in cody’s hand. he swatted at your hand gently but didn’t put up a fight otherwise, just smiling at how carefree you’d become.

during their comms you did sound at peace, and the times where you’d appear via hologram to him your posture was less rigid than it was during wartime. scarif was good for you, cody knew this. the knowledge of your happiness, however, couldn’t prevent selfish thoughts from returning to the front of his mind. thoughts of you leaving scarif with him and rex, lighting up their apartment better than the sun with nothing but a smile were pipe dreams he indulged in when nightmares of war caught up to him.

“y’know,” you began, “no one would ever tell me what that word really meant.” the men froze, trying to play it off. they were saved only by the fact you kept talking. “none of the men ever gave me a straight answer, just saying that it was something you say to someone you trusted. i even asked duchess satine about it when i was on mandalore. she asked who was using the word and when i told her it was you two, she just grinned like a tooka with a rat tail hanging from its mouth.”

duchess satine was most definitely going to be receiving a gift in the near future.

briel chose that moment to speak for the first time in a while, crossing her arms behind her head. “i’ve never been to mandalore nor heard a lick of what i’m guessing is its native language, but you’d have to be a fool to not guess its meaning by now.” her words were directed at you but they made the men sputter.

“what is that supposed to mean, brie?”

“seriously? please tell me you’re kidding.”

briel was absolutely incredulous. how could a member of the highly revered jedi order, known for the wisdom of its members, not read between the lines? they were giving her plenty to work with in terms of evidence of their affections that they weren’t hiding very well, how did you not know?!

silence followed her words and she came to the startling realization that you were, in fact, not kidding. “look at them, these two adore you! they followed you here like stray tookas when you didn’t comm them enough.” the men didn’t even bother looking offended as they were called out by the togruta. they were scared you’d be disgruntled at the blatant show of care for you but briel wasn’t done. “sithspit y/n, you got tattoos of them because you said you missed them so much!”

hold on, rewind, what did she just say?!

“you… missed us?” rex’s voice was softer than anyone had heard it be in a long time. part of him aches to throw his drink over his shoulder and take you into his arms with no regard to the outside world, yet he restrains himself. this could very well be a trap, an illusion or extremely detailed dream the likes of which he’s never experienced.

then again, how would that explain his mind creating a taste for something he’s never had before?

he concluded that this was indeed real, and he very well could do exactly as his heart desires if he let go for just a moment, just long enough for the contents of his glass to seep into the sand and his calloused hands to roam your exposed skin.

but he also remembers long talks with his ori’vod about their mutual affections for you. how selfish and uncaring it would be for him to try and keep you to himself after spending so many nights lamenting with cody about the way you made them both feel more human. the way you tethered them to sanity when the war threatened to dispose of what little control they had over themselves or their fates, the softness of your fingers intertwined with theirs whenever you had the chance. both men would contemplate the way you’d taste as you downed several shots at 79’s or cups of the contraband moonshine brewed by the men, wondering how much would be the alcohol and how much would be you and wishing that they could find out.

it would be a betrayal far greater and even more despicable than that of palpatine and the republic, and rex didn’t think he could handle losing the respect of his ori’vod no matter what was given in return. not even you.

the togruta woman officially lost the last speck of patience she held for the clueless, lovesick trio, groaning that she gave up as she left them to their own devices.

you were confused. why would you not miss them? did those years of fighting next to them and caring about them and loving them not translate to the idea of missing them when they were gone? yeah you were a little tipsy when you got your tattoos, but that didn’t change the facts as to why you got them: you wanted cody and rex by your side and moments spent without them were moments spent unhappy. they were your boys, the two reasons you kept fighting in that cursed war instead of returning to the temple with your tail between your legs at the first sign of combat.

cody downed his margarita with a solid gulp before taking your right hand in both of his, face twisted almost identically to his brother’s while processing the information you presented. he marveled in the familiar grooves and calluses from battle that were beginning to soften, thoroughly enjoying the fact he didn’t have to hide anything from you or the rest of the galaxy about the love - cody was sure now that this was indeed love - he held for you and you alone.

“is that true, cyar’ika?” cody’s voice was sickeningly hopeful. he’s never allowed himself to hope, knowing that diving too deep into desire could lead to consequences tantamount to death. hearing you stumble over your words as you admitted to loving him, loving him and rex both in the same capacity, cracked the last mask of stoicism he had in his reserves. his mouth was smiling but his eyes were wet, and anyone who didn’t know him would think the man was karking mad.

you weren’t as focused on your boys as you would have been any other moment, too busy trying to figure out what you said for cody to ask about and oh. holy shit, i said all of that out loud. then, a brief moment of clarity. i said every bit of that, but they’re not leaving. they’re instead moving closer, taking my hands in theirs and then- “have i ever lied to either of you?” your heart once again overpowered your brain, taking over your vocal chords and bringing voice to your thoughts.

rex nestled his glass into the sand before going to his knees in front of you, eyes sparkling from both the scarif sun and unshed tears. “you could never, ner’jetti.” he rested his chin on your knee not blocked by cody, his subconscious deciding to nuzzle his head into the hand that had come up to his face.

within seconds, the clunky armor had taken to the sand. they didn’t startle at the sudden exposure to just their bottom blacks because they could feel the soft humming of the force around them, knowing that it was merely you making them more comfortable. you were pulling them toward you and into your reclined chair, rex’s chin in one hand and cody’s hands in the other. they were quick to take a hint, immediately moving to either side of you to lay on their sides, facing their jetti with soft smiles.

rex made quick work of wrapping an arm around your waist, face burying itself into the crook of your neck as best he could. he inhaled your scent, the familiar ozone that came with the force mingling wonderfully with scarif’s ocean water and the tropical drinks you’ve been keeping yourself busy with.

cody tangled one hand into your hair, fingers softly moving as he rested his other arm slightly above his brother’s. the hand touching your waist softly stroked your side as he let his eyes drift closed, the force wrapped around him like a blanket of protection.

no one spoke of love in the hours you spent wrapped in each other’s arms in that uncomfortable-for-three-people chair. the admissions and conveyance of all the love held between the three of you was saved for the privacy of their ship. cody and rex worshiped you and you did the same for them, no one allowing there to be a single doubt as to where your hearts belong.

[witchiswriting]

A Not So Merry Christmas Chapter 4

Summary: Another plan is made up for Negan

Warnings: Language, Angst

Pairings: Negan x Lucille (OC)

Author’s Note:  This is really short but consider this as a bottle chapter. You won't know what is going to hit you in the next one.

‘’You really fucked him up.’’ Simon sighed, looking directly at the woman in front of him.

‘’Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. He just needed this wake-up call.’’ The woman said with a calm tone. Despite the cold weather she was wearing a little sun dress without shivering at all.

Simon chuckled slightly, ‘’ Do you really think this is going to make him realize what he does have in front of him? He seemed pretty destroyed when I told him the news. What if he just gives up?’’ He asked with a serious undertone. He was scared for his friend. It was too much for Negan to handle.

The woman with dark hair wasn’t pleased with that question. Of course, that was a possibility that could very much happen, but she chose to dread this thought. ‘’If he fails this time then that’s it. I can’t always pick up after him.’’ She said nonchalantly.

Simon regarded the woman. She almost tricked him to believe that she doesn’t give a fuck but the light in her eyes whenever she mentioned Negan was enough to convince him otherwise.

‘’You still love him, don’t you? That’s why you’re trying this hard.’’ Simon questioned.

‘’ I guess I never stopped loving him but you’re wrong.’’ The woman spoke with mischief in her voice. Clearly, she was enjoying herself.

‘’ Then what is it? Why are you trying this hard? And don’t get me wrong but I think Negan will always be Negan and won’t learn from his mistakes. Plus, the death of the woman he loves is going to make him more miserable than he already is, and we all know how Negan deals with his problems.’’ Simon sighed. It was no lie that whenever he has an emotional trouble, Negan chooses to drown himself with women and booze. Sex is the only way for him to feel nothing. He has always liked to use people for his own benefit. This time, the woman stood up angrily. The flames were almost visible in her eyes.

‘’ If he refuses to change and learn from his mistakes then it’s his choice and he’s going to live in this hell I’ve created for him for the rest of his life. I’m not trying to protect him nor save him. My mission is something you can’t even guess, Simon and no, there’s no way I’m explaining this to you.’’ She said with a determined undertone. The danger was obvious in her voice.

Simon thought, did he ever know this woman? He used to be friends with her, and she was full of love and kindness back then but now she’s nothing but thorns and poison. ‘’ You got to go back to him. I bet he’s not doing very well right now.’’ The woman ordered.

Without saying anything else Simon stood and descended to Negan’s room.

He could hear the glass shattering and Negan roaring loudly. He really was in pain, Simon let himself in without knocking. Negan was a mess, his hair was tousled, eyes were bloodshot, and he was standing in the middle of the room with a photograph of him and Lilith together in his hands. He was caressing the picture. ‘’ Did I cause this, Simon?’’ He asked with a hoarse tone. His tears were running down on his cheeks. Simon looked at his best friend. He wanted to be there for him and say that it wasn’t his fault but if he does this, he knows that she’d be furious with him and her being furious is not a good thing.

‘’ I hate to say that but— ‘’ he got interrupted by a roaring Negan.

‘’ Goddamn it! Just tell me already! I fucking caused this, right?! She’s gone because of me!’’ He started crying loudly. This pain was unbearable for him. There’s no reason for him to be alive if his girl is dead because of him.

Simon took a step closer to Negan, touching his shoulder to calm him down. ‘’I’m sorry, but yes boss you partially caused it.’’

Simon couldn’t find the courage in him to tell his friend how he caused his lover’s death. It was too cruel for his taste. Sure, Negan was an asshole, everyone knows it but even he wouldn’t deserve this mess.

He’s been watching Negan tearing apart in front of him for days and wondered how much longer he could bear to see his friend like this, but he also knows if he tries to make things better for Negan Lucille would be furious. Honestly, Simon doesn’t want to face that woman’s wrath. Somehow, she became crueller after she died.

Negan’s whole world crumbled down, not only he destroyed the person he loved most in his real life he also caused her death in this fucked up dimension. He lost everything but also knows he couldn’t go back and make things right. He’s trapped in this hell hole for eternity.

Though this was just the beginning. Negan won’t know what’s going to hit him once it’s done. Lucille hoped this is going to make him realize he can be happy, and he has value even if he has fucked up, pun intended. She knew this was probably the cruellest thing she has ever done, and most would say she hates the man’s gut, on the contrary she still cared for him, but she also cared for someone else. When she’s signed to be that person’s guardian angel, she didn’t think things would come to this. At first, she didn’t understand why she’s chosen as some girl’s guardian angel. In her logic guardian angels must be attached to the person they protect. Little did she know it’s going to be related with the only person she loved deeply.

When Negan fucked the redhead in that bar’s bathroom Lucille was furious. Her fury became visible in her eyes. She thought Negan would try to be better, her death must have taught him that, she was naïve.

After that particular event Lucille started holding a grudge against Negan, of course she still had feelings for him, but she was also accustomed to like Lilith. That girl was something else, she wouldn’t stick around like Lucille did.

Lilith won’t be the only agony Negan is going to go through. There is someone else he also needs to deal with, and Simon knew that his friend will totally lose it if he didn’t before.

‘’ Boss, I know this is not the perfect time, but you must visit the cells. The prick doesn’t listen to us and tried to escape again.’’

There we go again.

@negans-network​ @buttercandy16​

[yoonia]

About Time // Part 18

Character: Jungkook x reader / Jimin x reader (feat. BTS)

↳ Type/Genre/words | Angst, Fluff, Alternate Universe (Time Travel!au/Time Leap!au, Soulmate!au), Mature/+18 only / 12k words

↳ Prompts | “What if you find your soulmate… at the wrong time?” - Lauren Kate, Passion

↳ Summary | Be careful for what you wish for, because you may never know how to deal with them once it comes true. What would you do when your wish for a second chance actually came true? But was it really a fulfilled wish? Too many questions lie when it actually happened. Were they real memories? Or perhaps a part of a past life? Was it only a dream all along? Will everything be different this time?

↳ Warnings | this chapter contains smut scenes: involving oral sex (f receiving), finger fucking (f receiving), explicit mature scene, mentions of cancer, (probably) inaccurate medical and law terms

↳ ⤎ Previous Chapter | Series Index: About Time | Next Chapter ⇢

Song Companion | Forgive Me - City & Colour

—First life. St. Vincent’s Hospital, year 2027—

Everything was a complete blur that night.

The sight of Jimin fainting right before my eyes and my screams for help still felt unreal. It still felt like I was dreaming and I was watching from far away as the nurses and the resident doctor came in to aid him. I barely remembered how I got back into my room, as the shock and the exhaustion from my late-night trip had also gotten me attached to a ventilator system by the end of all that drama so I could breathe easier. I almost didn’t remember having an attack, even if it felt like my whole chest was crushed by a loaded truck when I failed to breathe.

When I woke up two days after, as I found myself with a breathing mask covering my face, lying on the bed inside the ICU instead of my regular room, and finding my pissed off brother standing on the side of my bed, I knew that none of it was a dream.

“________,” Hoseok quickly rushed to my side when I tried to move and reaching up to pull the mask away. A few grunts escaped me when I tried to speak. “______, don’t!”

I stopped, looking at him with wide eyes. “What the hell were you thinking?” he began chastising me, his voice breaking down the more he spoke. “You should have known better than making a whole trip down the halls with your condition and without any observation. What were you trying to do?”

My hand fell to my side.

I wanted to ask him about what had happened. I wanted to ask about Jimin and how they had found me. But mostly, as I looked into his red-rimmed eyes, I wanted to apologise for making him worried. He had been swamped with cases to deal with in his office and for him to leave his work for me had only meant that things had gotten serious.

Hoseok reached for my hand and gripped tightly. “Don’t you ever do that to me again. You hear me?” I could not say anything with the mask on, so I did the next best thing and nodded my head. I had to shut my eyes when the small movement made my head spin.

“I know you’re worried about Jimin,” he added, surprising me when he brought him up before I could say anything. “But for now, let’s focus on you first. Take a good rest and recover so we can find out what happened, okay?”

Blinking away the tears in my eyes, I nodded my head once again. My head spun, and this time, I no longer fought it as I fell back to my long sleep.

It did not take only hours for me to wake up and recover as if nothing had happened, but days. I could not even process what day it was when they replaced my breathing mask with a smaller tube and cut me off from half of the machines they had activated since the night I was placed in the intensive care unit. All I knew was that I felt like a new person after having the longest sleep in my life, and even better when I found Jimin waiting next to me when I woke up.

I was still in the ICU. But that was not the only thing I noticed.

The curtain next to my bed was wide open, while the bed behind it was empty. Jimin was sitting between me and that bed, and attached to him were cables, linking him to the machines from that corner of the room.

He had been placed right beside me the whole time.

How long had he been there? How long had he known that we were side by side this entire time?

And how long had he been awake?

The question ran like waves inside my head but no words came out. All I did was lay still on my bed, looking at his face as if he would disappear anytime I blinked my eyes. I did blink. He did not fade away like some imaginary figure appearing on my line of sight. Instead, he smiled and reached out for my hand.

His skin was ghostly pale and he looked terribly exhausted. But as I looked down on our entwined hands, I noticed that I was nearly just as pale as he was, as if the crimson shade of blood had left my skin while I was out.

“Hey,” he whispered, pulling my eyes back to him.

“Hey,” I answered with croaked voice, and he instantly reached out to help me drink. That was when I noticed something else. His hand was shaking as he held out the glass and straw for me to take.

“Good to see you looking better.”

“I was worried about you.”

Both of us spoke at the same time and we both chuckled. “Have you been watching me sleep?” I asked him, smiling when shades of pink returned to his cheeks.

“You know how much I love watching you sleep.”

I was still too weak to move around, but it did not stop me from resting sideways so I could take a better look at him. His words hit me hard inside my chest and I realised how much I missed him. Being apart from him was painful. More painful than I had ever thought it would be. And the thought of me losing him—

“I saw you that night,” I whispered when things began to come back. When I remembered what I saw. “Jimin—all that blood, what—” I choked out, while he tried to avoid looking into my eyes. “What is going on? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“_________,” he started, only to stop himself and close his eyes.

“It wasn’t the first time I saw you coughing blood,” I said, the words came tumbling out of my lips when I suddenly remembered the night he fell after fighting with Jungkook. When I remembered the blood spilling out of his lips and how I kept finding bloody tissues once or twice when he was not looking. “It wasn’t just because of Jungkook’s attack, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t. But it had gotten worse after I got hit that night,” he finally admitted with remorse filling his words.

“What are you not telling me?” I asked him. Fear lacing my words.

I knew I would never like what he was going to say. I hated it even more to think that he couldn’t be honest with me. That he had been hiding something from me and I had failed to notice.

“I’ve told you everything that has been going on with me. You could have shared these things with me, Jimin. Or—is there any reason why you feel like you can’t talk to me about it?

“No, it’s not that,” he quickly explained. When I looked up to his face, there was some kind of guilt appearing in his gaze. “It’s just that—there is something that I haven’t been able to tell you, because I just wanted to be with you without anything shadowing us and you would chastise me for pushing myself too hard. And I can’t let you deal with my problem when you have so much to deal with.”

“What is it?”

“My condition has been getting worse for a while now,” he sighed. His shoulders sagging in defeat as he finally began to spill out everything he had kept to himself. “______, while you were out, I had my final test run.”

He tightened his grip on my hand and stared deeply into my eyes. There were no words spoken, yet the silence was enough to let me know that it was bad. Really bad. The way his jaw twitched and his eyes began to glisten with remorseful tears said it all.

“No,” I said to him, wishing that I could shut my ears so I would not hear anything. Shaking my head, I begged and hoped that he would not be saying things I knew he was trying to say, things I refused to accept. “Don’t say it—”

Jimin took both my hands in his when I began pulling away, refusing to believe that this was happening. “There is nothing they could do. It has spread too much, and—”

“No!” I leapt from the bed despite the pain in my body and wrapped my arms around him, holding him close. I always had this feeling that he was disappearing and that had been the reason why I had always kept him close, why I had always had the urge to touch him, to hold him, and now he was telling me that he really was going to disappear from my life, just when I finally began to love again. When I began to love him.

“I can’t lose you, Jimin. Tell me you’re not going to leave me.”

He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tighter against his chest while I felt his cheek pressing into my thinning hair. I could feel his soft breath falling on my neck, but he said nothing. He made no promises, knowing that he had no idea whether or not he would be able to fulfil them.

All he ever did was hold me, letting me feel his racing heartbeat to let me know that he was real, that he was still there at that moment to be with me and that he was holding to every bit of hope that was left for us.

When the next day arrived and the visiting hours were up, Jungkook finally came to see me.

I was still in the ICU for my final observation and it surprised me to see him being allowed inside, until I finally remembered—that he was still my husband.

The memory of our last conversation still left a bitter taste on my tongue and a tight feeling inside my chest. That was why I have failed to acknowledge the distraught look he carried, nor the dark bags under his eyes that would have let me know that he had not been taking care of himself like he should have been.

“It took you long enough to come out of your hiding and come back,” I said, keeping my voice steady. After meeting my brother-in-law, I knew that we needed to properly talk without fighting, without getting too emotional that we ended up hurting each other instead of getting all the answers we needed. The last thing I needed was getting all riled up and getting worse because of it when all I wanted was to get out of here.

Yet when he gave me no answers and had only stared at me with a longing gaze, I was reminded of all those times in the past when he would run away when we had a problem and how I would end up finding out where—or who—he was running to, and I just couldn’t help myself.

“Why did you come back, Jungkook?” I asked him, still keeping my voice calm even when my chest felt constricted. There was no denying that the pull between us was still there, though not as strong as how it used to be. But the hurt he caused me was also present, just as strongly as how it had always been. “Has the woman you chose as your distraction this time bore you to death already? Have you gotten enough of her that you sought for me again?”

My accusation caught him off guard that he visibly winced. I almost regretted ever saying something when the look of hurt and disappointment came out strongly in his eyes.

“There was no woman. I just—needed some time, and some space, to think clearly. Since I, obviously, can’t do that whenever I am near you. Not when it comes to losing you,” he finally said, stuttering a bit and had his voice cracking. “They called me when you got into ICU, the night you fainted. I tried to come here as fast as I could.”

I opened my mouth to speak. But he stopped me. His hands reached out to me, only to stop at the edge of the bed.

“But that’s not the only reason why I’m here,” he told me, keeping his eyes on me and his hands clutched on top of the cold sheets. “I’m here to make it right. I’m here to say that I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you through and for everything I said the last time we spoke. I came here to ask for your forgiveness. But most of all, to have your permission for me to stay.”

My jaw almost dropped to the floor at what he had just said to me.

“Are you serious?” I scoffed, though he gave me nothing, not even a change of expression. In fact, he gave me a look which said that he was nervous yet still determined to get what he wanted.

“Why are you doing this, Jungkook?” I asked him, genuinely wondering if he really was being such a hard-ass about letting me go. “Why are you only fighting now? There is nothing left here, Jungkook. I am nothing but a shell of the person you loved and married.”

When he said nothing, I kept on talking, letting all the words I had wanted to say since the day we last argued to come out so he could hear me out. “You have broken me. You left me broken into pieces again, and again, and left me behind to fix it on my own. So I kept fixing, and fixing, until there was nothing left to fix and I don’t even know who I was anymore other than a pile of dust you have left rotting on the ground.”

My tears fell as I spoke, but I held myself steady. I could see the hurt in his eyes which mirrored mine, regret coming out strongly as he did nothing but listen.

“The last time we talked, you asked me if I had chosen him, why I had chosen Jimin over you,” I said, my voice coming out as a whisper while his jaw twitched with emotions. “I’ve chosen to be with him because he didn’t come into my life to patch my broken pieces. He came into my life when he was just as broken as I was and since then he has been the one bringing me back to life. To love. So if you’re doing—whatever it is you are plotting to do to get me back, then the answer is no, Jungkook. There is no way for me to come back, because there is nothing left of my old self that had once loved you. That part of me is gone.”

Speaking up like that was exhausting that I wanted nothing more than to just slump back into the bed and to give in to sleep once more. But I braced myself, ready to face any argument that may come from him, knowing that he would never back down so easily.

But he surprised me once again when he released a deep sigh and his shoulder fell in defeat. Then I watched how his hands loosened up before he spoke.

“I know that. And you’re right. There is nothing for us to come back to,” he said, clenching his jaw as if those words were too painful to speak of. “But that doesn’t stop me from loving you and wanting to make things right for you.”

“Jungkook—”

Without giving me any chance to argue, he reached down to his briefcase and pulled out a folder. The familiar-looking folder which I had received from Hoseok and left for him to sign.

“That’s—that’s what I’ve been doing while I was away,” he told me as he handed the folder gently into my hands.

His hands were shaking and so did his breath when he began to explain.

“I have signed the papers and had the court finalise our divorce. I have also arranged everything to make it easier for you in the future. I’ve had arranged for our house to be sold so you can have enough funds for your treatments and enough savings so you could—” he choked out a sob and stopped to take a deep breath, “—so you could find a place to live in and move on. I wanted to leave the house for you, but I know it wouldn’t be right if you want a fresh start.”

His lips twitched and I could tell what he was meaning to say but couldn’t. He would never dare to say his name, but at least he was beginning to accept the fact that we could no longer be.

Jungkook looked into my eyes when he continued to speak, the determined look in his eyes returning to him with every word he said.

“I’ve let you down and made you feel lonely even when we were together. I have given you too much pain and all the burden to fight for both of us while I gave up on us so easily, while I was acting like a coward and would run away each time trouble gets in the way. I’m going to change that and make up for all of my mistakes.”

I was lost for words. This turn of event was completely unexpected. I was ready to fight when I had thought he would fight back harder. But I was wrong.

Then I was kept in more silence when he kept talking, finally letting me know what he really wanted from me.

“In exchange for—everything, I won’t be greedy to ask for more, only for your forgiveness and that you would let me be here to support you,” he said to me without ever looking away. The pain in his eyes was palpable and I could tell how hard it was for him to tell me all of this. But I was not ready to hear what he asked of me next.

“Even if I can’t have you in my life as my wife, at least let me be here for you. Allow me to stay by your side. As a friend.”

—Present life. Jimin’s Apartment, year 2017—

A comfortable warmth was enveloping me just as I was slowly waking up in the morning.

I could feel sunlight streaming through the windows, but that was not the one which had me feeling so pleasant and safe. An arm was wrapped around my middle, together with the strong chest that was pressed against me and the warm skin under my palm, I was completely engulfed by his comfort.

With a slow stretch to relax my tired limbs, my eyes began to flutter open. They were still heavy with sleep, but I could still see Jimin’s face right in front of me. We were lying side by side, facing each other, and he was already awakened. His eyes watching me closely, though his face gave nothing away to let me know what he was thinking.

“Have you been watching me sleeping?” I groggily asked him as I slowly shut my eyes again, still unwilling to wake up and walk away from this warmth. When he gave me no answer, I blinked my eyes open, still finding him staring at me the same way.

A moment passed, and his gaze softened. Then a lazy smile grew slowly on his face. “You know how much I love watching you sleep,” he whispered while brushing a finger up my cheek. “You always look so peaceful, so innocent, like one small touch could break you apart and you will disappear from me.”

Reaching up, I cupped my hand on his cheek and kissed his jaw. “I will never disappear from you, Jimin.”

I could never.

Unless you disappear from me first. Again.

Jimin’s eyes were downcast as I continued nipping at his jaw, holding myself back from reaching to his lips when I had just woken up. But then he looked up, looking straight into my eyes, taking in my expression before he lowered his head and captured my mouth in his.

It started as a gentle kiss at first, his lips moved languidly against mine, before he deepened it and it became a lazy make out session.

His tongue darted out and I could feel it grazing at the seam of my lips, so I parted them for him. He took the opportunity to taste my mouth, drinking me in, then he pushed himself up and shifted us both together until I was beneath him.

“I want you so bad,” he murmured against my lips, while my chest fluttered, as if there were a thousand butterflies flying inside me from how much I wanted him and knowing that he wanted me the same way.

“I want you too, Jimin,” I told him between each kiss we gave each other.

Jimin pressed his body on me as he slowly moved lower, his lips trailed down my jaw and my legs spread apart for him. His crotch had somehow ended right at the apex of my thighs and both of us shared a soft moan as we pressed against each other.

I had only been wearing an oversized shirt which he had gotten for me before I went to bed last night and a pair of flimsy cotton panties underneath to sleep. So right at that moment, as he pressed his lower region against mine, I could feel everything. Most of all, it was the hardness that had formed at his crotch and how it twitched as he brushed himself against my center that had gotten my whole body reacting to him, every nerve ending in my body coming awake instantly.

“Jimin—” I gasped out his name when I suddenly felt a pulse began to build up right at my center, exactly where his bulge was rubbing against. “I know I told you that I wanted to wait, but—” I groaned, stopping briefly only to spread my legs wider and pushed up against him, wanting to feel more. “What if I don’t want to wait anymore?”

My words must have ignited something in him because he released a low groan, the sound vibrated through his chest and I could feel his heartbeat pacing fast. “Don’t say things that are going to mess up my mind. It’s going to be a long day today and I won’t be seeing you until much later tonight,” he pleaded to me as he began kissing me harder.

“I’m just telling you the truth. I’m ready for more, Jimin,” I chuckled softly against his lips and he suddenly froze.

Jimin pulled himself away from me so he could look at my face. He watched me closely, his eyes searching for something on my face which might be able to tell him that I was probably joking. But whatever it was that he saw in my eyes had probably said things differently, because his jaw fell open and he carefully asked me,

“Are you serious?”

Nodding my head, I chewed on my lips and said, “Yes. I’ve been waiting for a long time, Jimin.”

Too long.

“I want you and I don’t want to wait any longer.”

Jimin’s eyes darkened and I could easily tell where his mind had gone to. I pressed my palm over his chest and felt his heartbeat, his breath was caught for a moment when our eyes met, still completely bewildered to hear my confession, but he was quick to shake himself out of it.

Leaning down, he captured my lips again. This time, the kiss grew instantly deeper and it held a promise as he pushed his tongue in, letting me suck him before he pulled out and bit my lips gently.

“Tonight,” he said to me as he pulled back, pressing his forehead against mine as he made his promise. The desire and the love coming from his eyes were clear when he looked at me. “Why don’t we go out, have a date with me tonight and we’ll see how things go from there.”

“Okay,” I immediately answered him without any second thought. Meanwhile, his eyes widened, clearly wasn’t expecting to have me agree so easily.

“Okay?” he asked me, still not sure that he was hearing me right. “Are you sure? Like—completely sure about this? I’m just making sure you’re not just saying this for me, or—”

Biting my lips just as I felt a smile growing on my face, I nodded to answer before he could continue rambling on. “I’ve never been more sure about anything else in my whole life,” I told him, cupping his face in my hands. “I want you,” I added, while I bucked my hips upward, brushing my heat against the covered bulge that had suddenly felt harder and heavier now after we started this talk.

The move I made earned a deep groan coming from him. “Great, I’m going to be thinking about this all day,” he whined as he buried his face on my neck.

“I’m sorry,” I chuckled.

“Don’t be,” he said, and I shuddered when I felt his lips pressing against the nape of my neck, kissing me at the most sensitive part of my skin. “Because I have a way to make sure that you will also be thinking of me the whole day,” he quickly added while kissing his way down my throat.

Gently, yet still somehow doing it feverishly, he trailed his kisses down my neck to the mounds of my breasts while his hands reached down. His palms ran down the curves of my body, feeling me up from my waist to my hips, before finding the hem of my shirt.

I had ditched my bra when I changed into my sleeping attire last night since I was already too exhausted and it was so hot, and now I was paying the price.

As Jimin bunched up the hem of my shirt, the fabric became tighter against my body. The shirt kept rubbing against my pert nipples, which had grown hard from the sultry kisses Jimin was giving me and from the heat that his touches had ignited on me. My nipples had grown so sensitive that I couldn’t help but release a series of moans into his mouth when he returned to kiss my lips again, my body kept shuddering as the delightful sparks of pleasure rushed up and down my body to each time my own shirt rubbed up against me.

Jimin slipped his hands under my shirt, stopping at my waist. Distracting me with his kisses, his lips kept sucking and nipping at mine, his hands caught the waistband of my panties and gently peeled them off of me.

He continued climbing down on me, lips trailing kisses down south over the shirt I was wearing, stopping briefly to take my covered nipples into his mouth, sucking on them one at a time while his hands worked on stripping my lower region.

Sitting back, he pulled away from me so he could roll my panties down my legs while watching my chest rising and falling. I caught him smiling, licking his lips as he looked down between my legs and climbed down to take his position between them.

Placing his hands on my knees, he looked up to me as he was spreading them wide for him. He licked his lips and lowered his head between my legs, never looking away even for a second as he did.

My clit throbbed against the morning air, the heat between my folds increased rapidly as he slowly moved his lips on the inside of my thighs, kissing and nipping the skin until I was shaking in his hold. His warm breath fell against my soaked folds once he was finally right there where I needed him the most. His lips grazed at my nether lips, kissing my folds before his tongue flicked across it, moving from my soaking slit and up to find my clit, making me gasp at the touch.

In one quick movement, he thrust his fingers inside of me, moving slowly and gently as he knew that I had never done this before. Not in this lifetime. His lips closed over my clit, sucking and licking, switching between each ministration until I was gasping with both pleasure and pain.

“Fuck, baby—you’re so wet,” he groaned against my core. “I can feel you getting tighter. Does this feel good, babe? Am I hurting you?”

I opened my mouth to answer, yet the only thing I could register to give him was a few cries. So I moved my head, shaking left and right over the pillows, letting him know that I was not in any kind of pain and begging him not to stop.

Judging from his deep chuckle, I knew that he understood what I wanted—no, needed. And his lips latched back on to me. “Good,” he murmured against my folds. “Because I want to make you come. I want to taste you on my tongue and have you think about how good it would be when I finally take you tonight.”

Removing his fingers, he replaced them with his warm tongue and entered my pulsing walls. He kept thrusting his tongue inside me while his nose kept rubbing against my clit. The friction he was making was mind-blowing and I was beginning to lose control. He must have sensed it, because he held me down, gripping the inside of my thighs to keep me spread apart for him while keeping me from kicking my legs around him.

As the pleasure kept rising, my muscles coiling tight at the center, he growled and pressed harder against my heat. He knew I was close and he was not going to stop until I finally reached it.

“Yes, that’s it, baby,” he groaned. I had my eyes closed and my body arched upward on the bed, my hands clutching tight at the sheets, and I could feel the heat of his gaze on me, watching me closely as I unraveled under his touch. Planting the heels of my foot into the bed, I rolled my hips against his mouth to chase it all, the rush that was climbing up my body so fiercely.

“Let go, baby. Let go for me.”

With one last thrust of his tongue and a circling motion made by his thumb around my clit, I finally exploded, being thrust not so gently over the edge until I released and erupted on his mouth and gentle fingers. My orgasm came so intensely, delightful sparks of pleasure rushing through my body like never before. I kept screaming out his name and continued rocking my hips against his mouth until the last remnants of my orgasm finally subsided.

Breathing hard, I laid there on the bed until Jimin began climbing his way up. I watched him as he licked and wiped his mouth clean from my release, a satisfied grin took over his face when he saw just how sated I was.

Then he leaned down, pressing his lips on me for a gentle kiss, while I breathlessly returned it only to taste myself in his tongue.

“You taste so sweet, baby. Just like cherries. I think I’ve found my new favourite dessert.,” he whispered against my lips, while his hands ran down my body, gently soothing me while my body was still shuddering and spasming after my climax.

I hummed softly against his lips, my heart was pounding hard but it was something that he said to me that left a painful pang inside my chest. “So—not like the cough syrup?” I asked him while looking into his eyes.

“No, nothing like that,” he chuckled and pulled back, looking down on me with his intense gaze when he added, “More like the sweetest dessert a guy could ever have. Like those cherry pies I like so much. I will never get over this taste. Ever.”

Reaching up to him, I placed a hand on the back of his neck and pulled him back in for a kiss. A deeper one, moulding our lips together while whispering to him, “I sure hope you won’t.”

—Present life. Blue Smoker’s Pub, year 2017—

[06.49 PM] To Jimin: Hey there, busy boy. Are we still on tonight?

[06.51 PM] From Jimin: Tonight? Oh, the date. Yes, of course.

[06.53 PM] To Jimin: What? Did you forget about me already? :(

[06.56 PM] From Jimin: Of course not, baby. How could I ever?

[06.57 PM] From Jimin: I can’t stop thinking about you

[06.58 PM] To Jimin: Me too

[06.59 PM] To Jimin: Miss you already :(

[07.01 PM] From Jimin: Miss you too. Are you on your way to see Tae?

[07.04 PM] To Jimin: Yeah. I’ll be waiting for you there. If that’s okay.

[07.06 PM] From Jimin: Good. I’ll be there to pick you up once you’re done. Just remember, tonight, you are mine.

“Let me guess. You must be texting my cousin.”

Startled, I snapped my head to see Jisoo in the driver’s seat, giving me a knowing smile as she glanced at my way while she continued driving.

“Is it really that obvious?” I asked her, making her laugh instead.

“It really is when you have that dreamy look in your eyes while you’re typing on the phone. And you barely raised your head to make sure you wouldn’t miss a thing. Tell me if there is any other time when you would normally reply to a message so quickly the way you do with Jimin.”

I chewed my lips, realising that she was absolutely right. I was not the type of person who would keep my phone in my hand 24/7, but I would always have a hard time looking away from the device when it had to do with Jimin.

“Sorry, I hope you don’t mind me being extra busy with your cousin,” I said to her with a grin.

Jisoo only shrugged. “It’s fine. I love seeing the two of you happy. You both mean a lot to me and it makes me happy when you guys are.”

“Awww, that’s so sweet of you,” I teased her while leaning my head against her shoulder and she laughed even harder.

“You better stop that right now before I drive this car into a tree!”

My head fell back as I laughed and I leaned back in my seat. “Is it weird to have your roommate dating your cousin though?”

Jisoo creased her eyebrows for a moment before shaking her head. “Not really. And it’s almost-ex-roommate, by the way. You’re practically never there,” she said before pouting playfully to tease me.

“Sorry about that, I never meant to leave you hanging all by yourself in the dorm room.”

“It’s fine,” she waved at me. “Since you’re halfway of moving in with Jimin, it makes me think about Jiwon’s offer of finding a place together.”

At the mention of Jisoo’s boyfriend, I watched how her eyes glimmered with excitement and suddenly felt happy for her. The two of them had been dating since forever. They met during freshman years, and Jiwon had done all he could to get her attention until the day she agreed to start seeing him. Not that he had any hard time to attract Jisoo in the first place. He had entered our university through a scholarship after he had won multiple lacrosse tournaments in high school, yet he never acted like other jocks or frat boys and had been taking his study so seriously that even I had started to admire the boy.

But he also moved fast.

Since he was done with the lifestyle he had gotten from living in his frat house, Jiwon had decided to step out of it and began his search for an apartment. The only problem was that he had persuaded Jisoo to move in with him. With me rarely being in the dorm, it gave him more reason to coax Jisoo into giving in.

“Have you given it a thought? About moving in?”

Jisoo sighed without looking away from the road. “I have. I know we’ve been dating for a while now but I still think it’s too early to do something like that and I’d feel like a freeloader if he pays for everything.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Ah, so that’s why you insisted to come with me today for that part-time job interview.”

“Yep,” she grinned. “I figured if I could find a way to afford it, I won’t feel so guilty if I finally agree to move out of the dorm. Especially when he still insists on buying us a lodge instead of getting an apartment.”

Smiling to myself, I couldn’t help but agree with her. I knew I would feel the same if Jimin should ever bring up anything about living together, though thankfully, he hadn’t.

And the job interview I had just gotten out of really had nothing to do with making future plannings or saving up for anything serious like that. Not for me.

I was determined to take any chances that I could have to do everything that my past self had missed out on, and one of the things that I had found out about that part of me was the fact that I had never had a chance to enjoy college life the way I wanted. I could see myself partying in those memories, though it had somehow become something I didn’t miss. Finishing my studies at the university had become my first focus after knowing that it was my first failure. Then I found out that I had always wanted to have a part-time job to make me feel more independent than how I used to be then.

I had been doing small jobs since the second year, tutoring other students in my class and from the year below me between classes. But when Taehyung had told me that there was an opening at the coffee shop where he used to work at, I had to try and come for the interview. Then Jisoo tagged along after I told her about it, yet I didn’t exactly know why she suddenly became interested in finding side jobs until now.

The interview had lasted a bit longer than expected when the manager sat down with us to have a friendly chat to get to know us after the interview was over. Which was why I had Jisoo with me now, giving me a ride to the pub where I was supposed to meet Taehyung before my date with Jimin later.

My phone chimed as another message came in and I instantly looked down, hoping that it would be Jimin.

“Is it him again? Are you guys still texting even if you’re meeting up with him in about an hour?”

I chuckled. “No, it’s Taehyung. He texted to let me know that he’ll be a bit late,” I answered while I texted my response. Then my mind came back to Jimin and I couldn’t help but sigh. “I know I’ve spent so much time with Jimin but I can’t help but miss him already. And it’s only been a day without him.”

I had to resist placing a palm over my chest when I felt how true those words were. Jimin was right when he said that today was going to be a long day.

With both of us having classes the whole day, all packed with long lectures and assignments as it was almost time for finals, then added with Jimin’s dance practice at the end of the day and the interview, I had to go by the whole day without seeing him. Yet he had made good of his promise of giving me something to think about while we were apart. His kisses and the way he brought me to climax this morning still remained in my thoughts that I could barely focus on my lectures. Then each time I would let the thought of him stray away from my mind, he would be there to remind me of his presence through texts and calls, making sure that I wouldn’t run away before our date tonight.

Not that I ever could.

The only thing that I didn’t exactly expect to happen this night was that I would have to split my time tonight between seeing him and dealing with a few other things at the same time. I had made a promise to meet Taehyung right before the date, and while I was at it, I was going to meet the one other person who I probably shouldn’t be searching for after I had been avoiding him for weeks.

“Are you sure you don’t want to hang out with us for a while?” I asked Jisoo as she was dropping me off in front of the pub.

Shaking her head, Jisoo looked over at the digital clock showing up on her dashboard. “I should probably go now and pick-up Jiwon at his practice. The boy is expecting me and I know he’d skip dinner if I’m not there soon.”

Jisoo talked about his boyfriend’s clinginess while rolling her eyes, while I only laughed a little. “Alright then, say hi to your boyfriend for me.”

“And tell that cousin of mine to play nice or I’ll whoop his ass myself,” she said with a wink.

I stayed outside a while longer and watched her drive away until her headlights faded out in the streets before I walked into the pub. The place opened since 5 PM, serving dinner buffet early in the night before the drinking crowd would start coming in, and it was almost packed already when I got in.

I sent a quick text to Taehyung to tell him that I was already at the pub and told him to take his time. Then I looked around the pub as I looked for an empty seat, eyes searching through the crowd before stopping at the stage where one of the staff was setting things up for tonight’s musical performance.

The last time I met up with Taehyung was when I asked him to hand me the notes that he still had with him, added with a few tapes of our old conversations which he had recorded years ago when I was still in the hospital and later when I was recuperating. I had spent a few days digging through our chat logs and the diaries, only to find something interesting. And I couldn’t wait to show them all to him.

There was another reason why I asked him to come to the pub instead of meeting up someplace quiet. I wanted Taehyung to know about him. To be able to see that the person we had been talking about was real.

Although just as I finally stepped into the pub, I began to have doubts about my plans for tonight. I just realised then that I had no clue if Jungkook would be here tonight. I had no knowledge of his schedules and it had been a couple of weeks since I had last seen him.

But then, just as I was beginning to ask myself if I had completely lost my mind for wanting to see him, he suddenly appeared, as if fate answered my questions and doubts for me.

My heart started beating faster when I saw Jungkook stepping onto the stage. I watched him as he placed his acoustic guitar down and helped the staff with the other equipments while my legs were rooted on the spot, unable to decide whether I should stay or run away.

He still had yet to notice me there, watching, completely entranced at his movements for a moment before I snapped myself and began to walk further into the pub. I let him finish his work as I finally sat down on one of the empty booths not too far the stage. As I finally settled down on the seat, placing my bag of notes next to me, I looked back up to the stage to find him already looking at me. His eyes were wide, looking both surprised and amused for finding me there. Then his lips slowly formed into a lazy grin, and I began to question my decision of coming here.

A waitress came to my table, unknowingly coming to my rescue by distracting me from Jungkook. I took my time to order my drink, even though I could still feel the heat of his gaze on me. As the waitress made her way to the bar, I kept my eyes down, holding back the urge to raise my head so I could see him on the stage.

Except that he was no longer there.

I turned my eyes to look down o the floor, unwilling to let myself be caught searching for him, until I saw a pair of black boots stopping right beside me.

“Hey, didn’t expect to see you here tonight,” I heard his voice, and there was no way I could pretend I didn’t see him now that he was here.

Taking a deep breath, I finally looked up to him. The moment I saw his eyes, I was surprised to see the mixture of emotions he was showing me then. There was relief, sadness, and fear in his gaze, and another look which I couldn’t decipher before his gaze softened when it flickered to the empty seat in front of me.

“Can I sit with you?”

I nodded my head. “Sure.”

Jungkook licked his lips as he sat down, looking terribly nervous for a moment that he could barely meet my eyes. Neither of us made any move or effort to start talking, until the waitress returned with my order of drink, a glass of rum and coke, then the ice between us broke when Jungkook released a heavy breath when she walked away.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he finally said, looking at me.

“So have I,” I said in return, biting my tongue when I expected him to call me out for disappearing. Though I couldn’t also tell if he had made any effort of trying to see me at the dorms either.

“About that day—” he started, and a hint of regret came over his eyes for a brief moment before he blinked and it was gone. “I shouldn’t have kissed you without warning. I must have surprised you. For that, I’m sorry. Although I’m not completely sorry that I did.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him, only to have him giving me a look which could hardly tell me what he was thinking about. So I decided to be blunt instead. “Why did you kiss me? And why did you run?”

Jungkook rubbed a hand over his face and took a deep breath. “Do you want to hear an honest answer?”

Do I? — I wondered.

I hesitated for a moment. As much as I would like to hear his reasons, how much would I know it wouldn’t be something that I never wished to hear?

“Yes,” I ended up saying. “Of course, I want to.”

Jungkook smiled and tilted his head a little. “I kissed you because I wanted to,” he simply said, as if it wasn’t a big deal at all. As if it was something that I should have known about already. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first day I saw you.”

I opened and closed my mouth, so caught off guard that I had nothing to say to that. My chest clenched from the way he was looking at me when he said those words, when the intensity of his gaze was pressuring me that I could hardly breathe.

“Then why did you run instead of saying anything?”

A glimpse of regret flashed through his gaze and he looked away, blinking his eyes until it vanished. “Because I wasn’t—I mean, I—” he stopped himself and exhaled a deep breath. “You were not the only one who was caught off guard.”

He turned to look at me again and gave me a rueful smile, a hint of sadness appearing in his eyes when he finally explained, “I ran because I was angry at myself and afraid, because it wasn’t meant to happen that way. I’ve pictured kissing you, telling you how I feel, and I have made an elaborate plan on doing it. But that day, when you spent the entire afternoon with me, when you were there, listening to all the things I shared with you—actually listened—and looking at me just like how I wanted you to look at me, I couldn’t resist it. I felt this pull that was so strong inside me that the only thing I wanted was to get closer, to touch you, to kiss you.”

His lips twisted into a tight smile and he leaned over the table. “I know you feel it too. Because there has to be a reason why—”

Once again, he stopped himself without explaining any further and left me wondering.

“I’m sorry,” he continued, still looking at me while a wave of emotions came flooding through his gaze. “I’m sorry that I kissed you and touched you without permission. I’m sorry for invading your personal space and for being such a jackass about it. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not that way.”

Giving him a wry smile, I nodded and said, “In a way, you did apologise right before you ran away. So you’re pretty much forgiven on that part.”

Jungkook gave a sheepish smile at that, probably embarrassed at the memory of that day. “Thanks.”

A beat of silence came between us, and I looked away to pass the awkward moment growing on the table to glance at the first singer who was testing the microphone. She began playing a soft tune, a mellow song from the 90s which I had recognised as one of the regular songs that would always be requested by the pub’s patrons during nights like this one.

When I turned to look at Jungkook again, I found him still looking at me. Though it felt more as if he was looking through me with his deep penetrating gaze, searching for something beyond what he was seeing at the moment.

“I like you, ______. I really do. I felt it when we first met and it had never changed ever since,” he spoke softly over the song, sounding so sincere that it left me stunned and speechless. Especially when his face pinched with pain when he added, “I just didn’t think you’d have a boyfriend already when I found you.”

Again, he stole my words. I had no idea how to respond to that. “You’ve been a good friend, Jungkook,” was the only thing I could say, somehow earning a sad smile from him when he heard it.

“Really? How would you know that? We’ve only met a few times and talked for almost less, so how could you tell that I could be a good friend?”

I looked at him in the eyes and asked him in return, “Then tell me how could you tell that you like me that much even if we haven’t known each other for longer than what you had insinuated?”

For a moment, I was expecting to see him flustered for having me throwing his words back on him. What I didn’t expect to hear was hearing him saying his conviction so firmly,

“Because I do like you that much.”

The soft hum of the singer’s voice singing on the stage came between us when neither of us said a thing. The intensity of his gaze suddenly felt like it was too much for me to handle, while his words kept spinning in my head.

“I could be your friend. If that’s what you really want from me, or what you need me to be at this moment,” he finally spoke after a while, as if he was answering the unspoken questions I had in my head for me, surprising me with it.

But before I ever had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, he quickly added, “But I’m not going to back down from trying.”

My jaw fell slack, and I lost my words yet again.

“And I will be here, always. So whenever you decide to let him go or when you finally realise that you and your sweet lover aren’t meant to be together, I’ll be there for you,” he said, growing more and more firm and emotional the more he spoke before stopping all so suddenly. His eyes moved away just as he was about to speak some more, flickering away from my face to look over my shoulder. He seemed surprised for the briefest of moments, a crease was formed on his eyebrows, before his gaze softened with recognition, which turned into a mix of confusion and anger.

They were all gone in a second when he looked at me again. “You’re staying for the show, right? I’ll be playing a song just for you. Enjoy your night, ______.”

He pushed himself off of his seat without waiting for my answer, only giving me one last promise before he walked away. “All I want for you is to be happy. And I’m the one who knows how to make sure of it.”

I was completely at lost for words, too stunned to react or to move that all I could do was watch his retreating back as he walked towards the backstage area. Everything around me felt like they were covered in a haze, the sounds became white noise while all movements stilled as my heartbeat continued to pound and my mind continued to reel over everything he just said to me. I was too lost in my shock that I didn’t notice someone coming into my booth until his voice startled me.

“Is that him?”

My head snapped around to find Taehyung standing right beside me. Only that he was not looking at me as he asked me the question. He was looking straight at Jungkook’s back until the sight of him disappeared, blending in with the crowd lounging around the stage.

“Yeah,” I muttered softly. “That’s him. That was Jungkook.”

“Were you talking to him just now?” he asked, still not looking at me. And now I was stunned at the hostility in his tone of voice as he regarded Jungkook, even when the guy was no longer on sight.

“I was. I just wanted to clear out some misunderstandings,” I told him, wincing when I couldn’t even believe my own words.

Taehyung said nothing for a while and only sighed. “Right,” he muttered, just as the tension on his body slowly dissipated. He finally turned to look at me then and took a seat, choosing a different chair from the one Jungkook had been sitting on.

I let him take his time to order drinks—an apple daiquiri for himself, since he had started to detest the taste of beer after having a beer meltdown during a party last semester, and a refill of rum and coke for me—while I took my time to settle down my thoughts. There was nothing I could do to wipe away the feeling that Jungkook had ignited in me through his words, from his solid promises and the look in his eyes when he bared himself for me.

“What did you talk about?” Taehyung spoke after taking a sip of his sweet drink, an odd choice for a male if a person didn’t know him as much as I did.

“Like I said, we were clearing out some misunderstanding,” I said, lifting my glass to hide my lips and stop myself from telling him about the confession that Jungkook had just thrown at me. Taehyung had already spent the last few weeks being mad at Jungkook after I had told him about the kiss. He didn’t need to know that Jungkook was thinking way more than just giving me a friendly kiss. “He’s different.”

“That’s not what I was asking. But who am I to judge a person I know nothing about?” Taehyung calmly said, though it still felt like a stab right to my chest.

For some reason, it got me feeling spiteful about it. Enough to turn things against him and asked, “Is he different?”

Taehyung raised his eyebrows. “Namjoon?” he questioned me, possibly already guessing that I was trying to put the spotlight on him so I could reign his anger down, and to stop him from making me feel guilty.

“I’m not sure yet. But you know what I think about these things. About fate. I know that you are the one re-living things. But it doesn’t mean I’m not going to change a few things myself,” he said with a low voice, looking down on his glass with wonder in his eyes. Then his lips twisted into a wry grin. “He’s still a hunk, though.”

His comment made me laugh and the tension between us faded.

Looking at my best friend, I suddenly felt glad that I had made a few changes in our lives already even from the very first beginning. I kept looking back to the memories I had of our past lives, our past relationship, and had been relieved that one of the first steps I took in order to make a difference and to fix things was to lay things out in the open.

In the past, Taehyung had been so selfless that he kept putting me first above himself. In order to protect me and my heart, he hid behind his imaginary closet and masked his own identity, which in the end, had led him to hide his problems away from me while I was dealing with mine. He kept his secrets so well, letting me dwell in my own life problems and be blinded to all the misery and pain that he had to go through while he was also fighting to protect me from getting hurt.

That was the reason for our fallout, that I looked past his hurt because I was so engrossed in my own pain that I failed to see him through his secrets. The secrets that wouldn’t have been revealed until years later, when he found himself entangled in a jumbled mess caused by a certain someone. And that someone was the handsome, sweet-talking senior who Taehyung had been infatuated and had a relationship with in secret without ever having been able to tell me about it.

That was the first change I made. I confronted his secrets the same week I revealed my suspicion that I had woken up after living in the future. He probably wouldn’t have truly believed me if I didn’t expose him of his secrets then.

“Alright, enough talk about life-ruining, troublemaking males,” he said, giving out an exasperated sigh and turned his attention to the bag which I had placed on the empty seat beside me.

“So, what do we know about those?” he asked me, pointing on the stack of notebooks peeking from the top of my tote bag. “Still a bit weird to be talking about this in such a place. We’re supposed to be filling this table with glasses of drinks and bottles of beer instead of books. People will only have to take one look at us looking through these and wonder how the hell the pub has changed into a place for study groups.”

“The library was closed,” I said, raising my brows at him, before I then admitted, “And I wanted you to see him.”

Taehyung scoffed. “Fine. I’m looking. I don’t know what I’m looking at,” he looked around lazily without showing any interest to even try to find him.

“Taehyung,” I sighed.

“Forgive me for being a bit biased, ______. But your memories weren’t exactly all sunshine and rainbows when they came to that guy,” he said, before he stopped and made a face when he remembered something. “Well, not always.”

I nodded solemnly, and decided to change the topic once again since Jungkook was not on sight anyway. Not after he had left his seat earlier. “About the notebook—” I started, holding the tote bag down on the chair before I could begin showing the notes that I had brought with me.

“Don’t hate me on this—” I said cautiously while pointing a finger at him, “—but I tore up the pages.”

He looked at me incredulously and hissed, “You did what?”

I pulled one book out of the bag, showing him how I had torn apart the pages, rearranging it as how I thought they should look like. “I arranged them to show a proper timeline out of the memories and dreams that seemed to link to one another. This one is pretty much from what I remember of one lifetime. Taken from sometime in the past—or future, depends on how you’re seeing it.”

I pulled out another and placed it on the table. “This one is the second.”

“Wait—” Taehyung stopped, looking back and forth between the two notebooks and began to flip through the pages. His eyes widened when he saw what he had found. I knew that he could tell what this all meant but he asked anyway. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“That you were right,” I said. “This didn’t happen to me just once. Taehyung, I had gone through this a couple of times. Not just once, like I had thought before. These recurring dreams and jumbled memories didn’t come to me from one past lifetime. They’re different lifetimes, different periods—” I told him, before m voice few small, “—with almost the same outcome.”

For the next hour, we kept our head down, our backs hunching over the table as we flipped through the notebooks. I showed him everything that I had found during the late nights I spent putting all the pieces back together until every puzzle pieces that had once made no sense to us were finally falling into place.

Gathering up what I could find and remember, I told him everything that I knew had come from my true memories, all that came merely as dreams and failed hopes. I showed him everything that had happened to me. To us. And everything that I had lost.

“If I don’t play my cards right, I will lose him again,” I muttered softly, both to myself and to him, when on each and every piece of the memory I gathered had shown only one thing.

That no matter what I had done, no matter what path I had chosen, I would only have Jimin slipping away from me in the end.

“What are you planning to do now?”

“What can I do?” I whined, suddenly feeling desperate and helpless. “I’d like to believe that I have done something right but what could possibly guarantee that it will make any difference?”

Taehyung gritted his jaw as he looked back and forth between those notes and my face. He reached out, closing the book I was holding and looked straight into my eyes. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to do what’s right,” I answered him with a small voice. I suddenly felt as if there was a hole underneath my feet and there would be nothing to stop me from falling under, no matter what path I would choose. But then, I remembered Jimin’s smile, Jimin’s kisses, the way he made me feel safe and loved and how much my heart swelled and filled with warmth with just the thought of him. I pressed a palm over my chest, knowing that I could never survive to live a life without him. Not after what I had gone through.

“Just the thought of losing Jimin makes my chest hurt.”

Taehyung leaned forward, forcing me to look at him in the eyes. “Which one do you feel stronger—the love you have for him, or the fear of losing him?”

His words had me stunned, and I found myself unable to answer that all I could do was look at him in despair.

Just then, the sound of an acoustic guitar came on to the speaker, followed by the sweet voice that had my stomach churning and my heart beating in a way that hurt. I looked over to the stage, meeting Jungkook’s eyes as he began singing his tune—

’I’ll cross my heart and hope to die

Before I have the chance to lie

To you, my dear, who I wish no harm

But I know in the end this will turn out wrong

See I’ve been known to fall in love

But sometimes love just is not enough

And my heart will stray before too long

So please forgive me for when I sing this song’

Taehyung left the pub first before Jimin ever got here. Though he didn’t leave without giving me his last words—telling me to take my time and reminding me that perhaps the answer didn’t lie in the past, but in the present.

His words got me thinking deeper about our talk. So deep that it had me rooted in my seat long after we had cleared out the table from all the notes and Taehyung was probably long gone.

I was still in a daze when Jimin finally came, finding me still sitting there and looking at nothing when he wrapped an arm around me.

“Babe? Hey—” Jimin called me gently when I still didn’t respond to him. The moment I realised it, he had lowered his head and leaned closer, a concerned look covered his face when I met his eyes. “Is everything okay? I called your name and you didn’t even hear me.”

My eyes grew wide. “Oh—I’m sorry, I just,” I turned away, drinking the remaining drink to try and dislodge the thick lump that was growing in my throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you worried. I just spent an hour talking to Taehyung, and after having a long day, I think my mind went all over the place that I didn’t realise—”

“Hey,” he stopped me by tipping at my chin and laid a kiss on my cheek. Then a deep frown formed on his face as he took in the sight of me, noticing my rattled state before I even began feeling it. “It’s alright. Are you tired? Maybe we should just go home.”

“No!” I nearly jumped on his lap to stop him, but clutched the lapels of his jacket instead. His ability to catch on with my moods were both a blessing and a curse and I hated that he could see my agitation. “Please, don’t. I’ve been waiting all day to spend the night with you. I know that you’ve planned the night already and I’d hate to ruin it,” I pleaded with a pout. I really meant what I said. I had been expecting to go on this date with him and the last thing I wanted was to have my emotions getting in the way.

Jimin’s frown slowly turned into relief and he gave me a warm smile. “I’ve been waiting to be alone with you as well. And I’ve made plans for us that would make you happy. But we’ll only go if you really mean it and if you’re really okay,” he said, smiling as he leaned closer to me.

“I do mean it, Jimin,” I whispered to him as I met him halfway so he could gently kiss my lips, my hands clutching on his jacket to hold on tightly.

The moment our lips touched, my whole body melted into a puddle. Every sense in my body came alive, and even the shadows clouding my mind faded until everything else came clear. The kiss made me yearn for more that I pressed into him, returning his kiss until I could feel his smile growing against my lips. His tongue grazed at my upper lip and I let him in, my palm rested on his chest to feel his heartbeat and it coaxed me to give in to him further.

Yet I caught myself before the kiss grew too deep, as the rational part of me reminded me of where we were.

“Wow,” he breathed out as we pulled apart, pressing our foreheads together as we both took deep breaths. “Okay, then. I guess our date is still on, huh?” he chuckled. “Should we get out of here? The place is packed and we need to get going so we won’t be out too late.”

“Yeah,” I answered him breathlessly, still trying to reign my heart to stop beating so hard.

Jimin kissed my forehead one last time before he pulled me up from my seat. Hand in hand, we made our way out of the pub, slipping through the growing patrons who were dancing to the music and standing between tables until we finally made it to the front exit.

But then he suddenly stopped just before the exit, when somebody came into our path, blocking our way.

I looked up just as Jimin tightened his grip on my hand and pulled me back. His gaze looked murderous as he stared straight into our intruder, which was no other than Jungkook. Meanwhile, Jungkook only stood there, glancing briefly at me before he returned Jimin’s threatening gaze with his smug smile.

“So we meet again,” Jungkook said, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes looked down to find our entangled hand and I could see it when his jaw twitched with anger. A glimpse of hurt and jealousy flashed through his gaze before he looked at Jimin and his fiery gaze returned.

Jimin forced a smile, but I could feel the tension rising between them as their gazes stayed firmly on each other. Even if I could not see it, I could feel by how Jimin was tightening his hold on my hand and how the tension came out rolling from his whole body. “And so we have,” he finally said to Jungkook, clenching his jaw briefly before he started to speak again. “It seems that no matter where I go, you will always come around and show up unannounced, getting in my way.”

What?

Jungkook sneered and stood tall in front of Jimin. “There’s where you’re wrong. She came to me. Maybe it’s time you realise that no matter what happens, she’ll bound to find me and there is nothing you could do to stop her from running back to me.”

I looked back and forth between Jungkook and Jimin, completely aghast at the sudden rise of aggression and hostility coming from them. And neither of them was showing any sign of backing down. Meanwhile, my throat was clogged, all words and reaction were stuck inside me as I was left questioning to myself,

What the hell is going on?

And what the hell did he mean by that?

—  © 2020 Yoonia, all rights reserved. reposting/modifying of any kind is not allowed. translations are not allowed.

[offbeatcappuccino]

Do You Like Brahms ?: The Significance of Traumerei and Widmung

I am an impatient woman. This quality of mine is exactly why I can no longer watch American tv shows because I simply do not have the patience to watch past a season. This exact quality is what makes it incredibly difficult for me to watch on-going kdramas. I operate by a simple policy: If I cannot binge watch a kdrama over a weekend, then I most probably will not be watching it. However, Do You Like Brahms? was a notable exception to this rule. Despite juggling three lab courses, an internship, and a tutoring gig, I somehow managed to tune into Do You Like Brahms? every Monday and Tuesday and believe when I say that I watched every episode three times. I would first watch the clips that SBS uploaded for each episode before watching the unsubtitled version, and then, I would end my evenings with the complete English subtitled version. I was practically obsessed with the show, even though the show was in many ways imperfect. However, when it came to writing the review, I felt like the original review I wrote didn’t give me room to completely analyze the show to my heart’s content. In this post, I want to focus on the roles of Traumerei and Widmung as motifs reinforced throughout the plot.

The first time that Chae Song Ah and Park Joon Young have a real conversation is when they are both waiting for their respective friend at the airport and Joon Young asks Song Ah what she had to do to land the internship at Kyunghoo Cultural Foundation and Song Ah explains that she designed a concerto surrounding Clara, Schuman, and Brahms and Joon Young asks if the theme of her concert was unattainable love to which Song Ah responds that it was instead a story of three friends. She then asks Joon Young the titular question, “Do you like Brahms” , to which Joon Young resolutely responds no and we soon discover . This brief conversation speaks volumes for the current state of Joon Young and Song Ah’s lives. Though it may not be apparent, unattainable love and friendship are really the same sides of the same coin as both Joon Young and Song Ah are stuck in love triangles. Joon Young has feelings for Jung Kyung, but knows that a relationship between them can never materialize because their friend Hyeon Ho is deeply in love with Jung Kyung. Similarly, Song Ah harbors feelings for Dong Yoon, but conceals them because of his relationship with her friend Min Sung. For both of these individuals, what they conceive as “love” is unattainable, but it is ultimately sacrificed for the necessity of friendship. 

Perhaps no one grapples with this notion more than Joon Young because he is immediately forced to confront the mess of Jung Kyung wanting to break off things with Hyeon Ho to be with him right when he starts to take the initiative to move on from her. He knows that pursuing a relationship with Jung Kyung will ultimately be one that brings pain, but he’s a man struggling with  feelings of lingering attachment. We see that in how he plays “Traumerei” by Schuman as a warm-up before his practice and it also happens to be Jung Kyung’s favorite song. In many ways, Traumerei is a symbolic representation of the ties that needs to be cut and we start to see him do that when he pursues a friendship and ultimately a romantic relationship with Song Ah. 

When Joon Young and Song Ah enter into a relationship, there are already many underlying problems that threaten its foundation. For Joon Young, he cannot completely remove Jung Kyung or successfully establish boundaries that stop her from feeling like she’s entitled to his personal and professional life because of her problematic clinginess. Song Ah, who already suffers from serious self esteem issues regarding her ability as a violinist, constantly compares herself to Jung Kyung ( a violin prodigy) and questions if someone like her can really date the “great” Joon Young. For both, Traumerei really is a song that encapsulates their insecurities and we see the song make a reappearance right when it seems like Joon Young and Song Ah’s relationship is heading towards a train wreck. When Song Ah discovers that Joon Young played Traumerei, things spiral into chaos and we see them break up because Song Ah realizes that this relationship can no longer superficially exist when they cannot be honest about each others’ feelings. 

However, just when the audience starts to get the idea that this tale may become one about “the one that got away, we see our characters thrive individually and reunite, giving us a sweet satisfying end to a drama that elicited a plethora of emotions. Song Ah finally comes to terms with the fact that her emotional relationship with the violin has changed. The violin has no longer become something that she loves but a source of immense burden as playing violin has forced her to navigate a toxic clout-focused environment. Instead, she chooses to pursue a profession in concert and event planning so she could continue to love classical music for simply being music. Jung Kyung realizes that her efforts to win back Joon Young are meaningless and futile, and Joon Young finally speaks up for himself by confessing his love for Song Ah. Its a pleasant surprise when he expresses this through his performance of Widmung, which moves Song Ah to tears and pushes her to reciprocate Joon Young’s feelings. I find this scene especially beautiful because a piece by Schuman that symbolized so much heartbreak for the both of them was replaced by another piece by Schumann that symbolizes hope and love. While Traumerei means dream, Widmung means dedication and the transition from one song to the other symbolizes the growth of Joon Young and Song Ah. In the beginning of Do You Like Brahms, the idea of achieving true contentment was in many ways treated as an unattainable dream by Joon Young and Song Ah. Joon Young constantly put others before himself and Song Ah constantly felt unworthy. However, at the end, by choosing to dedicate themselves to a relationship founded on reciprocity and love, they are able to face their inner turmoil and purse what truly makes them feel happy.

[the-blue-fairie]

Whenever I talk about how Frozen 2 feels more individualistically-minded and Frozen 1 feels more communally-minded, I always feel self-conscious and feel like I have to explain myself. Because, on one level, Frozen 2 is very communally-minded and in a beautiful way - and I don’t want to discount that. It’s a story about coming together, of finding commonality and connection, with the communities of Arendelle and the Northuldra both united by love by the end.

But at the same time, Frozen 2 is very much focused on the the individual interiority of its characters - so that the individual interiority comes to the forefront. The main characters tend to process their emotions in a more individualistic fashion in Frozen 2 instead of talking things out among themselves. When I Am Older, Lost in the Woods, Show Yourself, and The Next Right Thing aren’t solely individualistic, of course. To a degree, they all express how each member of the main cast connects with their loved ones and the world around them. But they all do so at points when the individual singer is separate from the family group.

What I love about the first Frozen and the shorts is that we see the family group interacting with each other, connecting with each other, and healing together.

We see Anna and Elsa reconnecting after years of isolation and it feels like a relief because it is a relief. Their interaction helps them both, helps both sisters who have gone through distinct but entwined traumas.

We see Anna and Kristoff working together to fight off the wolves. We see their rapport, their chemistry, their spark. We see what a great team they make.

We see the positive impact of Anna reaching out to Elsa. While the For the First Time in Forever may end in Elsa’s panic, there are so many moments that show Elsa softening, putting aside the walls she has erected all her life in moments of purest love... moments where Anna’s words reach Elsa. At the same time, we see Anna’s understanding and her love. While the sisters may have opposing positions at this point, we see them reaching out to each other, communicating with each other. It’s a step forward - and that step forward comes from their opening up to one another and beginning to talk things out.

We see Olaf helping Anna and, in the process of her rescue, the two talk about their feelings and perspectives and both Anna and Olaf grow from the experience.

We admittedly don’t see much of Elsa and Kristoff’s interactions, but what we see is cute and gives room for some lovely expansion in future.

Watching all these scenes, I latched on deeply onto the idea of this little group as a found family coming together - with particular emphasis on together because Frozen makes a recurring theme of isolation and the pain it causes. Anna’s loneliness, Elsa’s loneliness, even Kristoff’s loneliness in that he spends so much time in the mountains with Sven - aloof from other people (though he has his troll-family, who took him in when it was just “him and Sven.”) And Olaf - born a few hours ago but wanting to know more, wanting to engross himself in the world and engage with it, engage with everyone. And I immediately wanted to see more of this little family working together - because the narrative starts with them all in varying degrees of isolation and they find each other and the narrative ends with them all skating together as a family and ahhhh the found family feels.

I wanted to see how this family interacted together, how they talked together, how they solved problems with one another, how they connected with one another. 

And Frozen 2′s answer to how they do all that is that... in a crisis, they each solve things individually and the narrative just happens to work out that they all come together in the end. 

The narrative structure of Frozen 2 privileges processing one’s emotions in isolation despite having a support network around you.

Kristoff needs to be left behind for Lost in the Woods to have its weight.

Elsa needs to be on her own during Show Yourself because it’s all about her inner journey.

Anna needs to be alone for The Next Right Thing because it’s all about what you do with everyone, everything, and every hope gone.

Even When I Am Older is set up as Olaf on his own and thinking to himself.

When everyone tries to talk to each other, they are met with walls - Elsa not telling Anna about the Voice, Anna leaving Kristoff behind, Elsa leaving Anna and Olaf behind. How will this family interact together?  With miscommunication, uncertainty, and doubt, until those last few minutes.

Now, I know people are going to rush to point out, “But Liza, isn’t discussing miscommunication and conflict between individuals with different identities important?”

Yes, of course. But Frozen 2 never really discusses the roots of the miscommunication or meditates on the characters’ differing perspectives - especially with regards to the sisters because that conflict is born of the trauma of the childhood separation and Frozen 2, as I’ve discussed already, refuses to have the sisters talk together about the shared trauma of the childhood separation even though it would be really healthy for them to talk it out together. (Some have pointed out that Frozen 2 has Elsa and Anna directly address the trauma of the separation in their individual responses to it and references to it in their individual songs - but that only proves my point about Frozen 2 being more individually-minded.)

The neatest resolution comes for Kristoff and Anna with her apology and his, “My love is not fragile.” In spite of the fact that the conclusion of all the narrative threads at F2 feel somewhat abrupt, that’s a beautiful little moment. Does it really ruminate on everything that Anna has been going through? Not exactly, but it gives her affirmation and that’s lovely.

But that’s the thing. The abruptness of the conclusions really show in Frozen 2. They’re not even bad conclusions - in many cases, they’re good conclusions - but we can’t pause to have Elsa and Anna talk together about their shared traumas, however healthy and beneficial that would be for them, the film has to end, and end quickly. 

And that quickness is how we get things like, “A bridge has two sides... and mother had two daughters,” which signifies that Elsa and Anna are both the Fifth Spirit but because it’s so oblique and we have to jump the the next resolution of a plot thread, it doesn’t hit the way it should - if the amount of people who consider simply Elsa the Fifth Spirit is anything to go by.

The abruptness means that the discussion of miscommunication and character conflicts and everything else at the end feels shallower than it should. Like the Fifth Spirit reveal, it doesn’t land as well as it might have.

The movie clearly wants to focus on how miscommunication, uncertainty, and doubt impacts this family group and how they nonetheless overcome it and persevere together, and that’s good, don’t mistake me - but by spending so little time on the “overcoming it and persevering together” part, the film undercuts its ultimate goal. 

I know people are still going to come to me and say, “But Liza, those last few minutes undermine your whole point! Because it does show the family coming together, united to help each other!”

I’d argue that Elsa is a bit disconnected from the group and it’s unclear how much she knows after unfreezing and all that kind of exposes the haphazardness of the “together” message, but hey, she communed with the spirits so now she’s up to speed... and that’s still not the main cast interacting together as they work in common cause, that’s Elsa suddenly getting information and going to act on that information but it’s okay because it all works out in the end and we can happily assume that Elsa can process everything to do with her own unfreezing, Anna’s choice, the spirits’ decision, her own emotions after being back in the world, Anna’s devastating emotions, and everything else within the span of moments because we need to tie everything up neatly even if it doesn’t give the emotions we have painstakingly crafted time to breathe.

There’s that oft-quoted philosophy from Don Bluth that, if you attach a happy ending, you’ll be able to explore many mature and intense themes. That philosophy only goes too far, because sometimes the aftermath of that pain needs to be explored in more depth. Because when it comes to trauma, there are... aftershocks...

Moreover - and I realize this next thing is just... personal on my part - I don’t think the focus on individualism works particularly well with Elsa’s arc in Frozen 2. That no doubt sounds completely insane because Let it Go is the most iconic Elsa moment and Elsa’s arc in Frozen 2 is a personal journey of self-understanding, but here’s the thing. The ending of Elsa’s arc in Frozen 2 hinges on community even when the meat of Elsa’s arc doesn’t focus on it. When Elsa chooses to stay in the Forest, it just... makes me want to see more of her interacting with the Northuldra throughout the film. It makes me want to see Elsa connecting with the Northuldra, learning their customs, feeling more and more at home there.

But the film doesn’t give me that.

The film puts the focus on Elsa’s individual inward journey but doesn’t balance it out with Elsa connecting to the people she eventually decides to find a new home amongst. Yes, she connects with them in Ahtohallan - but in an abstract sense. Disconnected from actual physical interactions with people.

And I know this is personal, but I don’t think that was the right direction to go in for Elsa - the little girl who spent years of her life alone and terrified of interacting with others. I want to see her interacting with people, connecting with people, broadening her horizons. 

And the end of the film sort of gives me that, but it gives me that without ever actually showing Elsa spending a great deal of time with the Northuldra. The closest I get to that before the film’s end is her short scene with Honeymaren and her brief interactions with Yelena. All of which are unfortunately fleeting and not the focus of Elsa’s arc.

Which is a shame because the ending would feel more earned with more of a communal focus and it would also give characters of color more screentime.

And, as I’ve said before, it’s always great to give characters of color more screentime. I know the film is more “about” Elsa’s inner journey than it is about the Northuldra - but the narrative would be made better by enriching the Northuldra’s presence in Elsa’s journey. 

[bookspined]

❝ that’s all history is after all: scar tissue. ❞

{ cis-man, he/him }  huh, who’s FROY GUTIERREZ? no, you’re mistaken, that’s actually SCORPIUS MALFOY. he is a TWENTY-TWO year old PUREBLOOD wizard who is A HEALING APPRENTICE. he is known for being CAPTIOUS, RETICENT, FACETIOUS, DISMISSIVE, and DRAMATIC but also RESOURCEFUL, CONSCIENTIOUS, FERVENT, INNOVATIVE, and OBSERVANT, so that must be why he always reminds me of the song IN DREAMS BY BEN HOWARD. i hear he is aligned with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, so be sure to keep an eye on him. { merry, 24, gmt, she/they }

CHARACTER PARALLELS: Amy Santiago (B99), Claire Temple (Daredevil), Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place), Giles (Buffy TVS), Michelle Jones (MCU), Simon Tam (Firefly), Elizabeth Swan (PoTC), Spock (Star Trek), Clarke Griffin (The 100), Harley Keener (MCU), Gregory House (House) suggested honorable mention Gizmo (Gremlins) 

pinterest [blood, medical imagery tw]

wanted connection ideas

Full Name: Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy Gender/Pronouns: Cis man | he/him Age: Twenty-three Birthdate: January 20th Parents: Draco Lucius Malfoy & Astoria Céline Malfoy (née Greengrass) [Not biologically Astoria’s due to her health, if you ever point this out he’ll flay your eyeballs] Siblings: N/A. Birth place: St. Mungo’s Hospital, England Height: 5’11” Weight: 56 kg Sexual/Romantic Orientation: Demiromantic Bisexual Nationality: British Body Alterations/Marks: A ragged diamond shape scar at the base of his throat.

Blood Status: Pureblood Hogwarts House: Slytherin Wand Arm: Right Pet: His pet toad, Jarvis, recently passed away. Patronus: Arctic Fox Wand: 11 2/3 inches, Willow, Supple, Dragon Heartstring.

Willow is an uncommon wand wood with healing power, I have noted that the ideal owner for a willow wand often has some (usually unwarranted) insecurity, however well they may try and hide it. While many confident customers insist on trying a willow wand (attracted by their handsome appearance and well-founded reputation for enabling advanced, non-verbal magic) my willow wands have consistently selected those of greatest potential, rather than those who feel they have little to learn. It has always been a proverb in my family that he who has furthest to travel will go fastest with willow.

Personality Traits: Brilliance, innovative, empathetic, individuality, openness, social consciousness, inventive, logical, practical skills and self assertion; lack of attachment to people outside his circle and the “real world,” over-intellectualizing of the emotions, dismissive, anxious, crotchety tempered, facetious, rigid, prone to self-isolation, intellectual arrogance, and stubborn. Zodiac Sign: Aquarius/Capricorn Cusp Moral Alignment: Neutral Good Core values: Loyalty, Knowledge, Hope Four temperaments: Melancholic  

HOGWARTS HOUSE ANALYSIS

Slytherin Primary and a Burned Ravenclaw Secondary.

Slytherin Primaries prioritize their own selves and loved ones first. Slytherins don’t feel guilty or selfish about this– they feel righteous and moral. The most important thing is to look after your own. Abandoning or hurting one of your own is the worst thing you can do.

A Burned Ravenclaw Secondary might want to be skilled, curious, and prepared, but they feel like they are (or like people think they are) limited, clumsy, or inconstant. Gathering knowledge, hobbies, skills, or tools is the right way to achieve their goals, but Burned Ravenclaws know that’s not going to work within their capabilities. So they take other paths and use other tools– maybe a Gryffindor’s bluntness, a Slytherin’s flexibility, or a Hufflepuff’s slow and steady dedication.

You may have a Hufflepuff Secondary Model.

Hufflepuff is the House of grit, reliability, and determination, and Hufflepuffs use those values to help live, act, and succeed. If you model Hufflepuff Secondary, you also value these things and like to live by them. You like to be hardworking, dedicated, and consistent– but you wouldn’t feel guilty for abandoning those values in the service of other, higher priorities. If there’s another, easier way to get what you want– you’d take it. You think hard work provides valuable rewards– and those rewards are why you work. The work doesn’t have persuasive value in itself.

Despite his very best resistance he’s always been pretty empathetic in nature, he tries to rule his emotions as well as he can but fails more often than not. He was always one of those toddlers that if another kid started crying he’d be right along with them, not because he wanted attention but because he just couldn’t not. A bit of a crybaby, has researched how to magically seal up his tear ducts. Obviously managed to keep the family’s flair for the dramatic there as well. After a few years he leant into the sarcastic vague-snobbishness to hide the core of overwhelming anxiety.

Just managed to scrape through his schooling with nearly all top grades, this isn’t really due to him being a model student. He has always accrued information with a voracious appetite. Any knowledge he could find, even if most people would consider it entirely useless. His mind clicks into that place? You can’t keep him away. However, when there is not an immediate stir of interest on his approach to a topic he has to fight with himself tooth and nail to carry on. 

Predictably found exam season highly stressful, was never open about it but was quietly competitive and silently smug over his good grades. Could comprehend well above his reading level from an early age and would often look into experimental research and complicated magic but found himself lost in OWL level History of Magic when chapter upon chapter lay ahead of him about something that didn’t catch his interest. Some people he beat just to spite cause he hates them. It worked, whatever.

Tends toward introversion and finds himself tired sometimes quite easily by a large amount of social interaction. Witty and big-mouthed when he feels comfortable or is in the presence of those that embolden him and very likely to get flustered and snap at people when things are becoming a bit too much. Especially if he feels however unjustly that someone is blocking his escape. Has matured slightly in this since leaving school but it happens still, he’s just anxious. Quite fickle and can at the drop of a hat decide that he’s done with you for the day once his Give Me Attention Meter is maxed. Could be an absolute bloody brat when he felt like it but feels he has grown out of it, which he mostly has.

Always been very, very aware of many people’s distrust of him and his family, he used to sneer and play it up if anyone tried to bring up his dad and go on the offensive but was genuinely affected quite deeply by it all. In his early school years, despite his weakness to the cold, he constantly had his sleeves rolled up to the elbow so that his blank forearm was bared as a statement to just about everyone. I am not marked, I never will be. Now he’s older he has more of a handle on things and can be diplomatic in situations where people are clearly discomforted by his presence and his family history.

Even though the war culminated far earlier in this verse I imagine Scor would have had to have been relatively sheltered as a child if not for how emotionally sensitive and prone to periods of ill-health he was, it was definitely for his own safety. He is still the grandson of a known high-ranking Death Eater and that made him a media target and put one on his back for anyone else that might happen to be watching. 

Never produced much of a talent for offensive magic and wouldn’t resort to those methods unless he had literally no other choice, not a front line fighter by any means. His talents with strategy, potion-making, healing and his perseverance with defensive magic are what define him to the Order. While everyone kind of knows who he hung out with at school and who his friends are he is deliberately very mischievous with releasing rumours and misleading people. He deliberately keeps his cards very close to his chest so most people don’t know that he is aligned with anyone, he usually uses glamours or a scarf to conceal his identity if he has to. 

While he is knowledgeable about healing and anatomy, he is the WORST at taking care of himself. The literal embodiment of Healers make the worst patients, tends to forgo sleep and basic bodily needs if he’s locked into what he’s focusing on. Sometimes needs reminders to sleep and eat, like a child. 

Healing is the most satisfying part of his life and he would never give it up, he likes to experiment as he has a fascination with magic and muggle science and where they might intersect. A fucking nerd honestly. While he thinks he’s being fairly subtle about it a large part of his academic life has been doused in research into blood maledictions, for obvious reasons. He does his best not to flutter too obviously around his Mum. She is capable and ten times stronger than he is. 

Lives in a small studio flat in Diagon Alley that is mostly stacks of books and makeshift shelves.

the stillness of the world the moment you take the first step into fresh snow, cashmere and fine wool, the pearlescence of dreamless sleep draught, the scratch of a quill on parchment, faintly tremoring fingers, a shiver up your spine in a warm room, the exhilaration of a problem solved, a thunderous grey overcast sky, the bite of a stitching charm, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, petrichor, the burn in your eyes before a well of tears.

Always had somewhat fragile health tending toward sickly. Hands are never warm, his existence is an endless heat seeking mission. 

Went to one Slug Club meeting and used his time to verbally berate and or challenge most of the contacts in attendance, he was not asked to return. 

Potions Club, Charms Club, used to sometimes be willing to be dragged to Dueling Club but didn’t enjoy himself. 

Plays quite a bit of chess.

Bruises like a fucking peach and scars so easily.

Views quidditch as a good fly spoiled. 

Is a very skilled pianist almost entirely due to his Grandmother’s tutelage. 

Surprisingly great with children/toddlers/babies, no one including himself expected this, he mostly feared them beforehand. 

Bit of a mummy’s boy in that he practically GLOWS when people talk of Astoria’s achievements. 

When he has time off from healing he will have chipped black nail varnish on. 

Highly intelligent but rarely manages to match a pair of socks, chews his quills but no one else’s. 

While very eloquent and well spoken, he is markedly less posh than when he first arrived at Hogwarts.

When he isn’t prone to bouts of insomnia he can take a nap pretty much anywhere. He was once found in a tree after several frantic hours search.

[ CREDIT : CHARACTER PSD template by @karmahelper (defunct url) I tried to find a current social this week by messaging around but couldn’t find anything unfortunately. Forgot to copy this over from the google doc! ]