#Also blocking people has nothing to do with me being high or mighty | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kumacyy · 3 years

Note

Hi if it’s ok with you can you do one with Gojo x reader where the reader is a strict glasses teacher also at the school who looks gloomy and keeps to themselves mainly but after work one day he runs into them and he find out that they are actually beautiful looking and laid back, with a punk-styled look, piercings and tattoos? I’ve been reading Horimiya lately so it influence this ask.

Different

Ofc I would be more than happy though I'm quite unfamiliar with Horimiya in unfamiliar I ment I still haven't watched the anime

But I did do some research and watched a few clips of Horimiya and I think I got the gist of it and I hope you like it

I'm assuming that the reader is going to be Gender neutral

Unedited

Gojo, Satoru x Teacher! Reader

wc:2k

"Oya?" Gojo mumbled to himself curiously seeing an unknown person walking aimlessly around the school grounds. He was about to approach you that is until the school principal appeared and talked to them. They seem to be agreeing on something of course being the nosy manchild that he is. He interrupted their little conversation with a smug grin. "Whose this? Yaga?" He questioned while looking at you analyzing every detail he sees on your appearance.

Your big beautiful e/n eyes covered by your prescription glasses and your long and sharp nose to your plump lips and your long h/c hair. You were indeed beautiful/handsome "Y/n L/n" you said putting your hand out for him to shake. "Gojo, Satoru" he said taking your hand instead of shaking it like he should he instead kissed your hand "A pleasure to meet ya" he added while winking.

You just looked at him dumbfounded by his flirtation acts and quickly changed into your usual expression. "Pleasure is all mine." you said slipping your hand out of his and gave him a little bow "I would be the new 2nd year teacher." You said with not even showing any ounce of emotion. 'It's like having another Nanami' he thought.

"Well I shall get going and meet my new students it was nice knowing you Gojo-San." You said and started to head to the 2nd year dorms.

1 Month later

A month has passed you got used to everything that happens which consists of Gojo annoying you 24/7 and actually being friends with Nanami. You had been looking after the 2nd years and yes you have met Yuuta he just recently left to go overseas. Let's just say you got attached to them and vise versa to you. Heck You're practically a mother to them. And you recently heard that there are 2 new 1st years and one of them is actually sukuna's vessel.

You were of course curious so you went to talk to Gojo asking of you could join them in picking up the 3rd 1st year. "Oya? You want to come with me? What did I do to be blessed by your presence~" he said teasingly well that's what you thought but in reality he had been interested in you ever since you met. Call it a little crush he always wanted to get your attention wether it was negative or not he still wanted your attention. He was desperate I mean could you blame him you're a god sent.

Your appearance alone made him like you plus you graduated overseas so you're practically multilingual. You were strict but not too strict wherein you would embarass your own students, no you'll just tell them what's right and that they shouldn't do it again. You were soft at some point well you were particularly soft for Megumi and Maki hearing about their past made you pity them. And you also admire them at how strong they were for living through it.

"I just want to meet the 2 new 2st years and sukuna's vessel don't assume stupid things gojo-san" you said ignoring what hi said. "You know y/n-chan you should start calling me sotaru ya know? We've bonded so much from the past month" he said looking serious for once "bonded? More like annoy me" you said giving him a glance and you saw his grin falter a little "But I'll think about it sotaru" You added mumbling the last part.

He immediately brightened when he heard you say his first name and started grinning like an idiot. "Oh and yea you can come with me picking the 3rd 1st year up tomorrow morning at Morioka station" He said happily and left probably going to the first year's dorm.

Time Skip to tomorrow morning

You have arrived at Morioka station alittle early because some Manchild didn't tell you what the time of the pick up is so you explored the place a little. That is until you saw a familiar black spiky hair talking to a boy with pinkish hair and red Hood. You approach them immediately "Megumi!" You called out to him.

"y/n-sensei what are you doing here" he questioned you "I wanted to meet the vessel and the new 1st years" you said and looked at the boy with pinkish hair "is it you?" You added he nodded immediately "Hai! My name is Itadori, Yuji and my type is someone like Jennifer Lawrence!" He introduced himself while bowing you gave him a little nod "it's nice to meet you ita-" you said but got rudely interrupted by the Manchild.

"Sorry for the wait!" "Oh-!" "Y/n-chan you came!! And itadori you wore it" he said 'is it just me or he sounded happier at y/n than itadori/me' both Megumi and itadori thought "Sensei why is my uniform different from megumi's?" Yuji questioned "oh that's because you can hand in requests for the uniforms" Gojo replied "oh but I didn't request anything" Yuji said

"oh that's because I did it I just thought it would look good" Gojo said "oh- what happened to the uniforms I sent you?" He questioned "so it was you" you said " yes! So why didn't you use it?" He asked confirming your thought and with that you glared at him "I burned them" you said

"Huh?! Why??" He whined "who even in the right mind would even wear those" you said referring to the clothes he sent you well don't bother you don't wanna know. "You're disgusting Gojo" you said making a face (ya know like tanjiro's face to zenitsu) after seeing your expression he immediately stopped and started pounting "what happened to Sotaru?" He mumbled to himself hearing you call him by his last name.

"What a child" you and megumi thought. Then you saw a girl wearing what looks like the jujutsu tech uniform "that must be the 3rd 1st year." You mumbled "hey! Over here!" Gojo called out to her which conformed your assumption. And also attracted multiple unwanted attention many complimenting gojo which boosted his ego and made him happy and some talking about how you look good which made his expression falter.

Then after that you all went to a public locker (is that what it's called I'm not sure) where you put money in it to lock it. To put her luggage in and you all started introduce yourselves "the name's kugisaki Nobara" she said "you're lucky to hang out with a girl like me!" She added "I'm yuji itadori and I'm from sendai." He said 'what a hick. Probably a kid who ate his boogers as a kid.' Nobara thought "Megumi Fushiguro" he said 'Just his name? I hate guys who are all high and mighty. I bet he likes terrorizing seagulls by lighting them on fire or something.' Nobara thought then sighed.

"She just looked at us and sighed!" Yuji said then you stepped out behind gojo because he was in front of you (yeah you're short here hehehhehe) "Sorry I was blocked by someone" you said then glared at gojo "My name is Y/n L/n the 2nd year teacher of jujutsu tech" you said putting your hand out to shake "it's nice to meet you." You added "finally someone reliable." Nobara said

"Well! Let's do it a tour of Tokyo!" Gojo stated you and megumi had the same reaction nothing because one thing's for sure and that is he's just going to trick them while the other 2 however immediately fell for it. They started arguing not that you cared it doesn't really matter "we're going to Roppongi!" Gojo said

And that caught your attention you never been to roppongi before and let's just say Gojo noticed that he may be interacting with the 2 excited 1st years but his eyes and attention is all you looks like he is starting to fall in love.

Your Hopes of actually going to roppongi was crushed immediately and same goes with the 2 1st years when you all went to an eerie building that has a curse in it. It was actually a test for the new 1st year to see how "crazy she is" gojo quoted. And after that you all went to eat and went back to the dorms.

Skip to a day later

It was all normal and fine after the meet up no problems happened throughout the day. Well that is until you found out that a certain 1st year just died you were shocked of course. Yesterday he was just fine so you were currently wondering around Tokyo to clear your mind it was raining so it made you calmer most people think that a clear day is calmer you thought otherwise you always preferred staying indoors so you liked the rain.

You were currently wearing your usual clothing when going out, you know like shirt and shorts or something and since you weren't in school you could freely wear your piercings. Well you can wear your piercings in school you just preferred not to you don't want your students to get a piercing because of you, you'd be angry with yourself if that happens.

While walking around you saw a familiar gravity defying white hair and iconic blindfold who looked awfully dejected. From about a few meters from you who looked like getting soaked in rain (just imagine that he isn't using infinity) so you immediately went to his rescue and shielded him from the rain with your umbrella. He immediately looked at the reason why the rain stopped and was shocked that it turns out to be you in casual clothes and wearing piercings.

You looked beautiful/handsome before this just made your beauty skyrocketed to a thousand and he was now more interested in you. The way you have multiple ear piercings and that it's attached to both your ear without looking way too tacky is great and your lip piercing drives him to a frenzy especially when he saw your tongue piercing he just wants to drag you to his house and just do it.

You looked absolutely stunning. And it shocked him even more when you asked him to come with you to your apartment. He of course agreed because who wouldn't want to be alone with their crush I know I wont .

So once you guys went inside your apartment you immediately went straight to the bathroom to bring him a towel to dry off and extra clothes from your brother (If you don't have a brother just imagine you do in this bcs he needs clothes TT) who used to live here and hot coco to keep him warm. He was of course shocked to see that you have mens clothing and thought you have a boyfriend which saddens him but it wouldn't hurt to ask now would it? So he did ask.

"Whose clothes are these" he asked while sitting down on the sofa in front of the TV. Hoping it wasn't from your boyfriend "they were from my brother who used to live with me now he's living with his boyfriend" you said " he was quite a big man I think you guys have the same height so I thought it might fit you" you Added he let out a relieved sigh knowing you're still single. Then it clicked why have you been shutting down all his shots in trying to pursue you.

"Why do you always turn me down?" He asked which made you flinch "I-" you started thinking of a good answer to him "I'm afraid of commitment" you said while looking down (same gurl🤧🤧) "I had a bad past when it comes to relationships it always ends with them cheating me so I try to avoid it." You added "I can change that" he said looking at you holding your hands "I like you I really do" he said eagerly "I like you too" you mumbled he of course heard it "what? What did you just say?" He said trying to know if he wasn't hearing things "I-I said I like your hands" you stuttered and getting flustered.

"Oh..." he said dejected when you saw his expression you immediately felt guilty and left you didn't know how to handle emotions very well so you left to make dinner. He felt sad that you denied it instead of telling him the truth he couldn't blame you you were afraid of course but he wouldn't let that stop him he just grew more confident because of what you said earlier. After making dinner you went to check on him "um do you wanna join me for dinner?" You asked him " it'd be nice to have some company when eating for once." You added

"Yea sure why not" he agreed after dinner you guided him to the door and said your good byes "uh bye" he said about to leave but you stopped him by holding his hand which got his attention. And made him look at you and let's just say he was shocked when you pecked his lips and said "I like you too" then slammed your door to his hitting his face and ran to the kitchen to do the dishes.

To be continued...

Hey guys if you want a part 2 just message me maybe I might even make it a smut one.

So I hope you like it and I still do requests it came a little later than usual but it's because I got sick all of a sudden.

So thank you for reading!!!

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hanibalistic · 3 years

Text

#8A4961 | BANG CHAN.

genre | werewolf au, questionable fluff

word count | 2016

warning | mention of injury, mention of poison

the pocket knife in your hand was bloodied with the werewolf hunter's blood, but all you could do as you run the opposite direction from where you were once walking toward was to pray that the wounded hunter, and his friends, did not catch a glimpse of your face.

chan has shifted to his wolf form shortly after the bullet poked through his chest. despite his strong resistance to losing control, whenever emergencies arise, such as being exposed by hunters in a local bar during a quiet drink, even a mighty alpha like him would take precaution and howl to the moon for strength.

chan had no idea where those men came from. he has never seen the likes of them, and he thought he knew all of his enemies already. were those new people? if they were, why have there not been any words spread between packs about this? this is no ordinary matter, this is about a hunting group, a common enemy—he would know if someone new came along.

you made a lucky stab to the closest man when you found out they meant harm, then you jumped off the wooden stool and raced out the bar with chan, who bolted the door to the bar with the heavy, decorative logs placed just outside as a waiting area.

you two did not make it far before a whimper left chan. you paused immediately at the pitiful noise and you turned around to find him barely standing on four paws, wheezing and whimpering with slow, heavy breaths.

widening your eyes when he fell to the side, you rushed toward him, sliding across the snow in the process. you knelt next to him. your weak hands were unable to lift his body when you wanted to examine his wounds, so you resulted in shifting through his furs carefully to find the bullet hole.

you knew there was nothing you could do, there was nothing you knew how to do. staying with seungmin, a beta your age who specializes in herbs and medicine, has taught you nothing about dealing with injuries. but if you could just take a look, you could access how severe it is and plan from there.

"ah–found it!" you brightened up when you found a trace of veins, but as quickly as your smile came, as quickly as it went. that was not the bullet wound, those strong veins were the aftermath of it—the aftermath of a poisoned bullet.

to kill an alpha, a simple bullet would never be enough, not even when he takes it to the heart.

even though you never understood why the killing was not necessary; people are so afraid of potential threats, it is almost stupid, especially when dealing with it causes more loss than letting it be.

"okay, it's okay, let's just... let's find a place to hide and rest," you huffed out quietly, looking around the foggy, snowy forest with furrowed brows, trying to find a way out.

your heart dropped when you found lanterns flashing at a distance.

the hunters were already here.

you saw chan's eyes shift downward, his ears flapping gently. he must have heard the sound of footsteps, or he sniffed out their malicious scent from all the way over there. either way, he was not happy with their approach, and he showed it by letting out a tantrum-like huff.

"it's going to be fine," you told him, but you were more so trying to comfort yourself when you realized chan may soon lose the complete ability to stay conscious and you would be left alone in a foreign tree maze. you slid your hands under his body and struggled to tuck him upwards. "come on, just try to stand, please."

chan complied with your request. he moved slowly, his legs bending and his feet anchored on the ground. he whimpered again when he added pressure to stand, and he fell almost immediately after his attempt. you barely caught him, and your yelp turned the lantern lights toward you.

he gruffed out when he heard the footsteps quicken toward you. he could hear their conversations: talking about your whereabouts, talking about the werewolf in a man's disguise, talking about his faceless companion who could be a potential liability, talking about taking the alpha's weakness.

his gaze sharpened. evidence kept being added to his theory. the fact that he has never seen nor heard of these hunters only proved that they could be sent through a rival pack who deliberately hid the information from them. now, with all this weakness talk? it only reinforced his theory.

chan looked away from the lantern lights to you. your frightened expression made his heart clench—the same expression you held when he found you hiding in your small closet after you got chased down the block and had your apartment door kicked open. the fact that he has to see it again made him fume with anger, and he couldn't think of much else but this: nobody takes you. absolutely nobody takes you, no matter what.

he already killed those who tried once, he will not hesitate to do it again.

"i am so sorry, but please just endure it a little more," you said, mistaking the nudging of his leg as a sign of pain spreading. turning to the approaching light, your breath quickened and you cursed.

think fast, think fast! do something!

you had refused to train to learn how to fight better, and you were unable to participate in meetings of private pack matters. you knew nothing about farming, or hunting for food, or cooking and knitting. you were practically useless, to be harsh, but because of chan, you still have a spot in the pack, a home.

you still stayed with chan's pack despite being traditionally unwelcomed as a human. for what reason, you never knew. some suspected that you may be the alpha's mate, or because chan was just being more generous than usual.

either way, everyone has treated you politely at best, some friendlier and more docile than others. you still have a place to sleep and food to eat. you were still alive right now. and it was all because of chan. he doesn't seem to like you, but he kept you safe nonetheless.

the least you could do was think of a plan. you owe it to him to not panic.

"i–i got something! just move a little for me, chan, please?" you said as you tugged at his torso and attempted to drag him with you. "just to the tree here, really close, please?"

he huffed questioningly but complied. he didn't stand to walk, he wasn't able to. his heightened senses could feel the silver poison spreading through his veins, burning and burning to weaken his system.

all he could do was dig his claws into the ground and drag his body as you pull onto him. it took three big strides for you two to arrive at a snow-covered tree. when you two were there, you immediately took off your jacket and draped it over him.

chan grumbled in protest when you pulled him toward your chest. you snuggled him against you, covering his wound and making it appear as if you were just someone sitting under a tree with a sleeping wolf.

"this is going to work," you muttered to yourself, "we are going to be okay."

the swaying of the lantern sounded—the noise of a door creaking, the sound of a high-pitched rusty gear. the circle light expanded until they were blinding your eyes. it moved away with a creak of the rusty lantern and standing before you was the hunter you remember you nicked with your blade, holding a shotgun in his hand.

"hello? did you need some help?" you asked first, attempting to establish an upper hand in the situation.

it was possible that your face was not discovered at the bar, and there was also a possibility that chan was only known in his human form. you could pass off as a normal residence in this area who is friends with a wolf, that was all.

"this forest is pretty big, it is very easy to get lost," you said with a laugh. "i learned it the hard way."

the hunter raised his brow, suspicious but not backing down yet. he tilted his head, nudging it to the side. "really? i suppose you know how to navigate through it, then?"

you shook your head calmly, a hand sifting through chan's fur. "no, but my friend here does."

"a friend?" he questioned, glaring to the side when his friends snickered under their breath in disbelief. "a wolf is hardly a friend."

"only if you fail to domesticate it."

chan deadpanned quietly. he knew better than to protest loudly at such a thin-ice situation. but please, him? an alpha? being domesticated? what a joke!

"what are you doing here?" ignoring your remark, the hunter asked, to which you sneered gently and sighed.

"i asked you first," you said. "do you need help? this is a big forest."

chan twitched beneath your jacket. you spared him no glance but ran a hand through his fur to soothe him. tilting your head, you flashed an impatient look, urging someone to talk.

"we are... we are looking for two people. one of them a man with–"

"didn't see them. i was sleeping," you interrupted.

"uhm, we followed a trail of footprints and they lead us right to you," he said, gesturing toward the ground where the footprints stopped right at where you two left off.

you raised a brow then, your heart palpitating strongly. but you took a short look at the snowy ground and you relaxed. pulling chan's warm body against you, you slumped closer to the ground and faked a yawn.

"look at the prints, sir," you muttered, "do they look like they came from two people, or one person and one wolf?"

"you guys walked into the wrong forest, sir," you said after a plop of silence. "there are only me and the wolves here."

the man lightly dropped his hand. you raised a fair point, unfortunately for them. despite his suspicion, capturing you both on the spot would be a bad look for them. not to mention, this area is known to have normal wolves littering around befriending humans—more people would believe in your faux innocence than their werewolf story.

"alright then," he voiced, deciding to call the hunt off now. "still, you should be cautious around wolves. they are loyal only to their own, and you are not their own, if you understand what i mean."

chan eyed up at the men. there was a low growl in his throat, the hostility spreading through his instinct to protect your rightful place in the pack, as well as to protest their assumption that you will ever be hurt by his hands.

you kept silent as they took their leave. your mind lingered at the hunter's words, realizing that a part of you knew you thought of what he said before he told you. you could not possibly be considered as their own, after all.

"chan..." you called, "when will i outgrow my welcome in the pack...?"

he shifted, a whimper leaving his lips. his healing ability is ultimately weaker in his human form, but he felt that if he stayed in his wolf form to maintain as much health as he could, he would miss an opportunity to make you feel better. sometimes words do speak louder than action, especially when the action is unclear and ambiguous to the receiver.

“no...”

steam flowed upwards when chan shifted back to his human form. his clothes were long gone since they got torn apart after his shift. pressing his head to your shoulder to mask the pain in his chest, he huffed, “no.”

that was not a yes or no question, but you understood.

“okay,” you said. “let’s get you home now.”

chan nodded weakly. however you planned to do that, he has no idea.

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peach-the-owl · 3 years

Text

Rescued

Part 2 of Taken

Child of the Nein (Mighty Nein & Child!Reader)

I really hope this turned out as well as I imagined it to

Jester

You were honestly surprised to see your old caretaker again after so long, ever since that scuffle near Nicodranas you never did know what happened to them when they disappeared, forgetting about those worries when you met Jester not too long after. Yet here they were, after accidentally wandering away from Jester they come out of nowhere and whisk you off to who knows where, and they seemed to be in a hurry about it too. Throughout their little road trip you hoped that every turn or small stop would reveal Jester waiting to rescue you along with the rest of the Nein, sadly this wasn’t the case. Had you bothered to pay proper attention you’d know which city you were approaching but being dragged off the cart and through a variety of underground tunnels didn’t really help pinpoint things for you. You finally stop but at this point you'd decided to just keeping your eyes to the ground trying not to let fear take control over you.

"Alright! Here they are, just like I’d promised." Your caretaker, though now you scoff at the idea of this person ever caring for you, roughly pulls you forward into view, you keep your eyes on the ground. "Sooo… everything should be settled now, right? My debts payed and I’m free to go?" There’s a silence that feels like it lasts an eternity before a new voice, one you recognized speaks.

"The 'special cargo' you mentioned was… this child?" You peek up from your position and are shocked to see that the person your caretaker was negotiating with was none other then the Gentleman. He didn’t look surprised to see you but you hoped that was just so he could keep up with his appearance, you look to him with pleading eyes hoping that he could help you and you think you see a slight change in his expression as he leans over to whisper to one of his associates. When he’s done they hurry off somewhere and he turns his attention back to you. "And you speak the truth when you say they don’t have other connections or family?"

"Goodness no, this little thing has never been with anyone else but myself the whole time." They reply with a laugh, making you scowl at them. The Gentleman narrows his eyes and their laughter dies down quickly, getting a more nervous look.

"I don’t take kindly to those who think they can get away with lying to me." He says in a threatening tone, then snaps his fingers and two large henchmen grab the caretaker firmly by both arms.

"No, wait wait! Please! I-I'm not lying, the kid hasn’t been with anyone else but me!" They stammer, trying to sound convincing.

"Then I’m sure you have a reasonable explanation as to how this child in your possession looks exactly like my… one of my subordinates kids, or should I let (y/n) explain themselves." At the mention of your name the caretakers face completely drains of colour as realization creeps in. The Gentleman, completely unfazed waves his hand and his bodyguard, Sorah, walks over and frees you of your bindings while the others who still had the caretaker in their grip drag them off with them kicking and screaming that they were cheated and begging for another chance.

"Thank you." You say in a hushed voice, rubbing at your wrists.

"I’ve got someone to inform Jester of your whereabouts. You’re free to wait here until you’re retrieved, just don’t make a mess." You nod and go sit at one of the tables, pulling out a little notebook Jester gave you and begin writing and drawing in it to help pass time…

"(Y/n)!" You look up from your drawing to see Jester bounding up to you, easily picking you up and twirls you around in a big hug that you are more then happy to return. "I was so worried about you. We tried to follow but you were already so far away I didn’t know if I’d find you again." She wipes a few tears away and places a kiss to your forehead, you just snuggle into her more. "Thank you for helping them dad. See you do care!" She turns her attention to the Gentleman who in return gives an exaggerated sigh and rubs at his temples.

"We’ve been over this already… but you’re welcome." The second part came out more as a mutter. The two of you happily wave, and you quickly pick up your notebook before Jester makes her way out of the bar with you securely in her arms.

Nott

You’re thrown into a pit very much against your will, the pit itself was 40 feet wide with you on one side and on the other side of it a snarling owlbear chained to a wall, though the chains didn't look like they’d hold for much longer. Oh why did you have to let the allure of sparkly things get the better of you?

"Ladies, gentlemen! Place your bets!" One of the hosts called to the crowd. "Our fierce killer Dezmo or the half pint!"

"What kinda dumb name is Dezmo?" You mutter to yourself. You don’t have a lot of time to think about it as a high pitched whistle rings in your ears, irritating them. By the looks of it the sound was irritating the owlbear too, as it thrashes and roars in aggravation, the chains give way and the owlbear instantly starts charging for you. Thinking fast you dart under the beast, which compared to your tiny size towers over you, and start looking for any sort of escape route or places to hide. The beast spins around and swats at you, you managing to just barely duck out of the way and the crowd goes crazy for it.

"Come on folks, if you’re really confident place your final bets now and let’s see if the half pint can keep up." They blow that stupid whistle again, further aggravating the owlbear as it try’s charging you again, the audience hoots and hollers over it. These people were awful cheering for a large monster to attack child, then again they probably saw you as a monster too which disheartened you to know you were nothing but entertainment for them. You’re struck by a heavy blow from the beast, crashing into a wall and left teetering on the verge of losing consciousness, the beast stalks forward, rears up for a final strike but it ends up screeching in pain instead. A familiar goblin mom steps in front of you as a barrier between the monster and yourself, hissing menacingly at the it. The owlbear try's rearing up again, this time more focused on Nott who shoots another bolt from her crossbow nailing the beast in the eye. Your picked up and handed to Jester by Yasha as she and Beau also enter the pit, the audience were surprisingly enthused by this, cheering for a good fight, the only people unamused by this were the hosts to the whole ordeal.

"Oi! What'd ya think you’re doin'! That was our money maker you just shot!" One calls down, they’re answered with a bolt lodging itself into their collarbone and they cry out in pain.

"That’s what you get for using a child to get your sick kicks!" Nott yells ferociously. With Yasha and Beau having made swift work to the owlbear, Nott climbs her way out of the pit, going over to Jester as she finishes using Cure Wounds on you. "Are you alright? Do you need me to carry you?" She asks, already taking you into her arms and placing kisses all over your face. You just wrap your arms around her neck and hide your face in her shoulder, she takes this as her sign to leave and with the others following not far behind walks through the crowd towards the exit.

"Oh yeah, we also called the local guard, they should be here any minute!" You hear Jester shout before you all hurry away.

Caleb

This strange woman had come out of nowhere, took you by the hand and walked off from where Caleb told you to wait without a word, you tried to pull away but her grip was firm as she tugged you along. She lead your unwilling self through alleys, stopping every now and again, waiting for areas to be less populated before heading off again.

"Where are we going? Where'd you even come from?" You been asking these questions several times but the woman would just ignore them.

"Hush now dear, if I let go you’ll try to run from mommy again. If you did that mommy would have a hard time finding you like the first time. Now be a good kid and stay close, we're going home." You knew for a fact this woman wasn’t your mother and this "home" she spoke of was not where you wanted to go. Using your head you tried to think if there was any spell you could use to free yourself of the woman’s iron grip, you try to reach for your little bag but the woman snatches it and slings it over her own shoulder. "No need for that, you can play when we make it to the boat." Wait… boat? Was she trying to get you off Wildemount?

"No I don’t want to leave! You’re not my mom, let me go I don’t want to go with you!" You try shouting to get someone’s attention.

"Oh you and your wild imagination, enough games, let’s go." She had a weirdly sweet voice but it only furthered your unease around her. You try thrashing, pulling and reaching for your bag multiple times but still the woman’s grip held firm as you were dragged to the docks. Fear started creeping in, you couldn’t free yourself from her steely grip and who knows where she’s trying to take you. Worst of all if you couldn’t get away you might never see Caleb or anyone ever again, that thought alone made you start to cry. "Oh, don’t cry dear, see we're almost home free." Up ahead was what you’d have to assume to be the boat she was talking about, you tried one more time to wriggle free of her grasp to no avail.

The woman’s steps come to a halt making you pause and also look up to see a wall of fire blaze across the docks, blocking entry to the boat. Your fears dying down when you see a rather angry Caleb march his way towards you, the rest of the Nein not far behind.

"You," Caleb raises an arm pointing at this woman, his voice coming out almost as a hiss. "Get your filthy hands off of my child."

"They’re not yours they’re mine! I will not let you take them from me!" Those who were on the ship must’ve worked or had some relation to this woman as they join her and get into an offensive stance. Before long a fight breaks out between the Nein and the ships crew and once again the woman tries to drag you along with her. "It’s alright dear, they won’t get you." Her sweet demeanour was breaking, getting more and more crazy every time she talked. You butt you head against her as a response making her loosen her grip, you try to bolt as far away from her as you could, calling out for Caleb as you do. There’s a sudden grip on the collar of your shirt and you're yanked back into the woman’s arms, her face full of fury.

"If I can’t have a child of my own… Then they won’t either!" The woman screeches like a psychopath and throws the both of you into the ocean, you shrieking in fear. There's the hard impact from the surface of the water followed by a feeling of figurative and literal sinking into the dark depths, you try and wriggle yourself free but this crazy woman refused to let go and with smaller lungs you weren’t sure how much longer you could keep this up before running out of air. As a last resort you take your chance and bite the woman’s arm as hard as you can, ending up drawing blood, her screams of pain muffled in the water but you’re able to break free of her grip, manage to grab your bag and kick her down farther as you try to swim for the surface. Flailing your legs and arms to propel yourself forward was harder then you thought, your cloths weighing you down quite a bit, but before you completely lose hope and air there’s a dulled splash and soon something grabs you, hauling you out of the water. You gasp for air again and cough up a bit of sea water noticing you’re soaring high in the sky, looking up over your shoulder at the giant, orange eagle and instantly know who it is, a smile placing itself on your face.

Having safely made it back to land you’re carefully placed down and shiver from the chilly ocean air that blew in, trying your best to squeeze out as much water from your cloths as possible. There’s a ruffling of feathers before you find yourself wrapped up by two large wings, the head of the giant bird nuzzling itself into you and helping warm you up again. You always like when Caleb polymorphed into animals, he was always more willing for cuddles that way, with that said, you wrap your arms around his neck as best you can and nuzzle him back with no arguments.

Caduceus

These people were heartless, taking "exotic specimens" to be sold or traded for their own selfish needs, you used to not be the only one occupying your little cell but the others didn’t stay long and you feared you’d be next. Of course being a druid meant you could use something like Wildshape to escape, and of course you would’ve loved to use it too had it not been for some sort of magic nullifying enchantment on the restraints you were shackled in. With no means of using magic to your disposal and no way to call for help with the gag in your mouth you resorted to try thrashing around, attempting to tug free of the shackles that chained you to a wall. All this lead to was having your wrists rubbed raw, still you fought through the pain praying they’d eventually give, the stinging feeling only getting worse and harder to ignore until you felt something warm and wet running down your arms. You're hesitant to look, but see that your insistent tugging caused the shackles to cut into your wrists making them start bleed, badly. You take in deep and slow breaths through your nose to keep yourself calm, seeing as you had no way to cast any healing spell in your situation you try not to panic and slow the blood flow as best as possible. Tears stream down your face, the pain wasn’t helping with your wrist this sensitive it only amplified the feeling of the shackles digging into them, and you were starting to feel lightheaded.

A commotion and the sounds of people fighting catch your ears whipping your head in the direction it was coming from, then instantly regret that choice at the dizziness it caused. You try to make a sound, only muffled noises getting passed the fabric covering your mouth but you persist hoping someone hears you. The fighting dies down as silence takes over, making you worry whoever was here had lost the battle or left, until the cell door opens and two familiar people step in, hurrying over to you. Caduceus helps to remove the rag over your mouth while Nott makes quick work of the shackles seeing the bloody mess on your wrists. The second your wrists are free you feel a gentle, soothing sensation spread over them looking down to watch the lichen cover up the cuts before crumpling away, leaving behind hairline scars. You gently rub at your wrists to help regain circulation in them before leaning your full weight into Caduceus with a soft sobs.

"Shhh, it’s going to be okay, I’m here." Caduceus hushes you, wrapping his arms around your smaller form in a secure embrace.

"They-they were gonna try and sell me away." You hiccup through your tears.

"It’s alright now, we took care of them, they won’t be taking anyone anymore." He calmly reassures, you give a small nod and cuddle yourself into his chest more. Finally feeling safe and secure you let yourself pass out from the exhaustion you’ve felt.

Fjord

You kicked and flailed in hopes of wiggling free from this thugs grasp on you, all this while screaming at the top of your lungs in the hopes that your cry’s of distress would be loud enough to alert the rest of your sleeping group. Sure your voice would be ruined for a while but that was a small sacrifice you were willing to make if it meant freedom.

"Oh would you shut up! Why haven’t you gagged them yet!?" This groups leader calls over his shoulder getting very agitated with you, good that means your plan was working.

"They won’t stop squirming."

"Then hold them still idiots!" The one that had you thrown over their shoulder try’s using his free hand to hold you down, you swing your head over and bite them without hesitation, they retract their hand and slightly loosen their grip just enough for you to move your arms, perfect. The other two goons come closer to try and restrain you better, you focus and when they’re close enough in range…

"Thunderwave!" You shout, using the newly gained mobility in your arms to flick your hands out and cast the spell. The two goons are knocked back and the one that was holding you is knocked to the ground releasing their grip in the process, a loud thunderous boom shakes through the trees, if that didn’t alert anyone you don’t know what would. Knowing you weren’t a match against 4 men at once you sprint in the direction you came as fast as possible, trying to stay close to the path while using the trees for extra cover. You take a second to catch your breath, all the screaming and shouting did a real number to your throat, it felt dry and it hurt to even attempt making a noise now.

"Keep searching, the brat couldn’t have gotten far!" You could hear the bandits approaching and go to make another run for it, but are caught and thrown harshly to the dirt path. In an attempt to push yourself off the ground you feel a foot press heavily against your back, pushing you into the jagged gravel. "Didn’t ya hear my warning?" They mockingly ask, pressing the cold steel of their blade against your neck. "I’m not against killing you kid." They slowly start to press the blade deeper into your neck, feeling it pierce the skin and draw blood. The feeling of the blade suddenly leaves you, but your left still bleeding and having a hard time controlling your breath from the panic of almost having your throat slit.

A calming sensation eases in and your breathing starts improving again, even the dryness in your throat feels a little better but you’re still not well enough to talk. You look up at Caduceus, being the one who healed you and give him a smile and a thumbs up, he returns the smile and ruffles your hair before helping you back on your feet properly. Fjord soon comes up to you and kneels down to your height, placing his hands on your shoulders, a heavy look of guilt on his face.

"Are you alright?" His voice wavered a little. You rub your neck a little as a ways to show it was sore but give a small nod. "Thank the Wildemother, I was so worried. I’m sorry I let this happen to you, I should’ve…" He trails off a bit, tightening his grip on your shoulders. You just lean forward and give him a hug, locking your arms around his neck as your body shakes a little from the whole encounter, he lets out a breath before returning the hug, securing his arms around you and lifting you up in the process. He then starts making his way back to camp, the rest of Nein in tow.

Beau

These ninjas, if you could even call them that, must’ve really underestimated their opponent, sure they were able to capture you but that was because they had numbers on their side while you were just one kid, that didn’t stop you from breaking free and taking them on. What did they even want with you anyways, you saw one drop a note by accident, did someone hire them? Either way you had to be careful the longer you took them on the more exhausted you were starting to feel. You go to land another hit on one of them when a sound you knew well hits your ears and makes you freeze on the spot, and suddenly feel helpless. That sound was the chime of a silver bell, not bronze or gold no particularly silver, you knew that chime all too well and you hated it and the effects it had on you. How did they even- you cut off your own thoughts at a terrifying realization… did your parents send them? Having lost focus you get socked in the jaw and lay limply on the ground, trying to process what was happening. You then hear pained grunts and look over to see Beau fighting off the enemies with some backup from Caleb and Caduceus. You push yourself off the ground but can’t make yourself do more them that, just watching the fight come to an end.

"No one messes with my kid." Beau growls angrily before making her way over to you. "You doing alright (y/n)? If you need any healing I can get Caduceus to check on you." You shake your head, a few stray tears escaping you which Beau defiantly didn’t miss. "Whoa! Hey, you sure you’re alright?" She asks with more concern now.

"I know who sent them." You speak just above a whisper, voice quivering as you do. An arm wraps around your shoulder as Beau joins in sitting next to you, finding yourself leaning into her side as she rubs your arm in a comforting way.

"Tell me who." She spoke with a serious tone, clearly ready to take down whoever caused you this type of grief.

"My parents." You look away from her and shrink a little into yourself.

"What? How can you tell?" She asks, surprised by this. You point over at the discarded bell left laying on the ground.

"Before they sent me away that was how they 'trained' me, they’d ring a bell whenever I’d misbehave… It was always a silver bell." You shift uncomfortably at the memories and feel Beau tighten her grip on you.

"Well, if they want you back so badly, they’re gonna have to pry you from my cold dead hands themselves." You look up at her in shock, she gives you a side smile. "You’re my student and technically my kid now too. Don’t think I’m gonna let 'The Man' take you that easily without a fight." You smile at this and she ruffles up your hair earning a small laugh from you too.

Yasha

It was terrifying to be without Yasha for this long with these dangerous brutes, what did they even want with you? It’s not like you could offer anything valuable to them or were they just doing this for their own sick kicks. You didn’t want to think too much on it, instead looking for any sort of opening to escape but finding nothing that wouldn’t lead to a confrontation. You could try and test your luck and just snap free of your binding, but it’s never faired well in the past and you didn’t want to end up on the end of a stake, that thought alone makes you shudder.

"Intruders are here!" You hear one shout as the others leave the room, this was your chance, now that they were distracted you easily snap out of the rope they’d tied you in and go to grab your weapon they left discarded on the floor, how rude of them. Being a sneaky as possible your make your way towards the exit and see the brutes fighting against the Mighty Nein. Yasha was facing off with the largest of the brutes well in a rage, screaming at them to tell her where you were. You weren’t sure how battle ready you were at the current time, but you wanted to help so gripping your sword in hand you charge at the brute from behind and take a large swing, slicing into the back of his knee. The brute roars in pain and does a wide sweep with his battle axe, you try to jump back but your earlier forward momentum makes you stagger and get hit by the blade, knocking you backwards by the sheer force.

You skid across the ground gripping tightly to your gut, slowly being surrounded by a puddle of your own blood, it was excruciating as you pitifully try to stop the heavy blood flow by holding your stomach tighter. You try to focus on staying conscious as an angry roar like thunder tears through the cave, you could only guess it to be Yasha having seen what just happened. It feels like an eternity before the pain slowly starts to disappear, the soft light of Jester's healing magic makes you blink open your eyes and look up at her, she gives you a smile and helps you to your feet. You wobble a little but catch yourself and walk back over to the group where you see them finish off the last of the brutes, Yasha taking a big swing bisecting them from the shoulder to their waist. When she looks over and sees you standing there she drops her weapon and runs to you, scooping you into her arms and lets out a few sobs.

"You had me so scared. I thought I lost you too." You grip tightly to her and just share in this sweet reunion.

"I’m sorry I scared you." You apologize, but she shakes her head.

"No, you have nothing to be sorry for, and you’re safe now that’s what matters." She breaths out, with a sigh of relief. She then carries you out of the cave and finally back together again you go to join up with the Mighty Nein.

Molly

Numb, that’s all you could feel right now was just numb, these Iron Shepherds had no mercy no matter the age and it showed from the various scars and bruises you received. You lay in the dingy cell they’d placed you in, if you could you would’ve taken this time to think back on your decisions that lead to this moment but you were just too mentally and physically drained to care anymore. As numb as you were everything still hurt, and you felt so exhausted, you just wanted this to end or for something to happen. So stuck in your own head the rest of the world was drowned out to you making you miss the sounds of footsteps and shouts ring throughout the hideout.

There’s a screeching sound of a cell door being opened, you curl in on yourself in a hopeless attempt to prepare for whatever beating may be coming your way. There’s no pain just a hand placing itself on your shoulder, you instinctually flinch away from the touch, they were playing cruel mind games with you now, they had to be, there was just no other explanation for someone trying to be so careful with you. Whoever it was they were persistent, gently taking you into their arms and lifting you up, feeling a strangely comforting warmth wash over you compared to the cold stone floor you were just laying on. They were whispering something you couldn’t quite catch but you try your best to focus and listen.

"Everything’s gonna be alright now love, I promise. They’re not going to hurt you anymore." There voice came out softly as you’re held in their protective grip. Slowly you regain more and more focus and finally notice the familiar colours of a very elaborate coat, feeling tears well up in your eyes at the relief that this wasn’t some cruel trick by your captors and was in fact reality. With the small amount of strength you still had you carefully raise your arms to return the embrace and start weeping uncontrollably, letting out all the tears you’d been holding back. Molly's grip on you tightens slightly, being careful to not hurt you as though you were fragile and could break at a moments notice. "We had ourselves a long day, haven’t we? Let’s get you out of this hellhole." With that he exits the dingy cell and carries you out of the Sour Nest.

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bloody-bee-tea · 4 years

Note

if you're still taking requests for november fics, could you write a fic where jc has social anxiety? maybe a modern au ... maybe he cries in public (which is Not good when you have social anxiety) if you decide to write this, thank you! :)

JC Love Month 2020 Day 8

Cliff

So not gonna lie, this totally got away from me, but I still give you JC with an almost debilitating social anxiety but the Nies are there for him yet again ;) Yes, I borrowed part of the plot from My Shy Boss, but I have only ever seen that one scene.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t know what‘s happening when Su She and Jin Zixun storm into his office and proceed to drag him out of it. He tries to tell them to stop, tries to break free, but they both have a very tight grip on him, and so all his struggles get Jiang Cheng nowhere.

There’s fear already settling into his gut and he doesn’t even want to think about what these two are going to do.

“You think you’re so high and mighty, sitting in your office all day, and never coming to presentations,” Su She sneers and Jin Zixun nods.

“Yeah, but guess what, pretty boy,” he says and then he laughs at his own joke.

Jiang Cheng thinks nothing about this is worth laughing about.

“Since you are always the one to make the presentations, you also get to hold it today! Isn’t that fun?” he wants to know and now Jiang Cheng struggles again.

He can’t hold a presentation. There’s a reason he’s in the most tucked away office, only working on preparing presentations and overseeing the paperwork and it’s because Jiang Cheng cannot speak to people.

Or in front of them.

“No—let go—,” he tries, but of course neither Su She nor Jin Zixun are listening to him.

It seems like his attempts to stop them only make them laugh more.

They are dragging him towards the conference room and Jiang Cheng goes ice cold with his panic.

He can’t be in front of these people. They will look at him and they will expect him to speak and when he doesn’t they will start to whisper and try to talk to him and Jiang Cheng cannot do this.

“Don’t,” he whispers, struggling in their grasp again, but the conference room is coming closer and closer, and Jiang Cheng’s heart is beating way too fast to be healthy.

“Have fun, pretty boy,” Jin Zixun tells him as he pushes the hood of Jiang Cheng’s pullover off his head and then they push him into the room.

Jiang Cheng stumbles over his feet but he eventually comes to a stop, right at the front of the table, and Jiang Cheng maybe should have simply let himself faceplant into the floor.

It would probably have been less humiliating than this.

There is another man at the front, who hands Jiang Cheng a microphone and Jiang Cheng accepts it out of reflex more than anything. His eyes are fixed on Su Shen and Jin Zixun who sat down in the sea of people by now and it’s only then that it hits Jiang Cheng how huge the room is.

And just how many people are staring at him.

He thinks he makes a surprised—or panicked—noise but he can’t actually hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears and for a split second Jiang Cheng thinks he’ll simply faint.

He doesn’t, sadly, and the people keep staring at him.

Someone started the presentation behind him, Jiang Cheng is dimly aware of that, and he thinks he’s supposed to speak, supposed to explain what the graphs and numbers mean, but Jiang Cheng can only stare at the mass of people in front of him.

“You should start,” the person who handed him the microphone says, and Jiang Cheng startles so badly he almost drops it.

“I—” he starts, but he can’t form words, can’t bring his tongue to do what he wants and even the thoughts in his head are all jumbled up.

“Give the presentation!” Su She yells and Jiang Cheng hones in on him, because at least he’s a familiar face in the sea of unknown people.

It doesn’t help much with calming down, because Su She is the reason he’s in this position in the first place and the other people are starting to mutter now, so Jiang Cheng drags his eyes away from him.

He’s shaking all over, his hand tightly clutched around the microphone and it feels like he’s dangling over a cliff, seconds away from falling, and at the moment the microphone is the only thing that stops him from falling.

“I—the com—I’m—” Jiang Cheng tries, but he can’t even finish half of his words, and he knows they wouldn’t come out in the right order either and now people are openly talking about him.

Someone is even pointing a finger at him and Jiang Cheng’s whole vision goes black for a moment. He can barely breathe, his breath coming in short and rapid gasps and he knows this is only going to accelerate the panic attack, but he can’t stop himself, can’t stop himself from shaking or stuttering, either, and he hears his father’s voice in his mind, telling him how stupid he is, how useless if he can’t even speak properly, and Jiang Cheng feels hot mortification slice through him when a tear rolls down his cheek.

He wants to run away, wants to get out of this room, but he’s rooted to the spot and he doesn’t know which way safety lies at all.

The voices in the room get louder and louder and Jiang Cheng thinks the moderator is saying something—probably urging Jiang Cheng to speak—but Jiang Cheng’s eyes dart through the room and he sees all eyes on him, knows that everyone is looking and talking and that it’s all about him because he’s the centre of attention and it’s all too much.

The tears are flowing more freely now, only adding to Jiang Cheng’s panic but he can’t seem to stop, can’t even seem to raise his hand to wipe them off, and it’s only when he tries that he realizes he was still holding on to the microphone, because it falls to the floor with a loud, discordant noise.

It only adds to the chaos and panic in Jiang Cheng and he thinks he might just throw up, here in front of everyone, when someone suddenly blocks his view.

Blocks Jiang Cheng from everyone else’s view, really, because the man is towering over him and he’s wide enough to act as a cover as well.

“Breathe,” a voice tells him and Jiang Cheng sucks in a breath purely because the man told him to but it doesn’t seem like he’s satisfied because he instructs him to breathe again and again, his voice calm and measured, the time between his orders always the same.

It takes embarrassingly long before Jiang Cheng can manage to breathe on his own, but as soon as he does, the man ushers him out of the room, without another word to the assembled people. Jiang Cheng catches one last look at Su She and Jin Zixun before he leaves the room and their smug expressions makes him want to throw up on them but even the thought of stepping back into the room has Jiang Cheng hyperventilating again.

“Breathe,” the man reminds him again, one large hand on his back and Jiang Cheng sucks in a breath through his teeth.

“Good,” the man praises him and then leads him into another huge room, though this one is blissfully empty.

Jiang Cheng sees a couch inside the office and his feet carry him towards it without his conscious thought but when he reaches it he crouches down in front of it instead of sitting down on it, and he presses his forehead to the cushions.

His heart is still racing, and there are still tears in his eyes, the panic tightly gripping his heart and stomach and mind, and Jiang Cheng wants to do nothing more than go home and curl up under his blanket.

“What do you need?” the man suddenly asks him, startling Jiang Cheng badly, because he had honestly forgotten that he wasn’t alone, and any resemblance of calm leaves him in an instant.

“Shhh, it’s okay, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the man immediately says, clearly picking up on the fact that Jiang Cheng is spiralling again and he takes a few steps back.

But then he seems to come to a conclusion because instead of backing further away, he suddenly marches up at Jiang Cheng and before Jiang Cheng can scramble to get out of the way—he doubts he could have made it, with how his legs feel—the man hauls Jiang Cheng up.

Jiang Cheng barely has time to think before the man pulls him close, pressing Jiang Cheng’s face into his shoulder and resting a grounding hand at the back of Jiang Cheng’s neck.

“It’s okay, just breathe,” the man says again, and by now Jiang Cheng realizes that he should recognize that voice, but his mind is still too foggy to continue that thought.

Jiang Cheng hates being in the presence of people he doesn’t know well, hates being the centre of attention, and even though he clearly is both of these things right now, their position allows him to pretend that he’s not.

It’s a very comfortable position to be in; he can’t actually see anything and the hand at his nape is the perfect weight to keep him in the present.

Jiang Cheng wonders if he can book this man to follow him around to do this every time Jiang Cheng has a meltdown.

He stays where he is for longer than is maybe necessary, but Jiang Cheng knows that as soon as the man lets go of him there will be questions he has to answer, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t know if he can.

He’s not just a mess in front of multiple people; usually just one is enough to tie his tongue and make him skirt the edge of a breakdown.

“Will you be alright if I let go of you?” the man suddenly asks and Jiang Cheng jerks, but his reaction is not as bad as it was before.

“No,” he says after a moment of deliberation and the man squeezes his neck in acknowledgement and then simply let’s Jiang Cheng compose himself in peace.

It takes long—longer than it has in quite some time—before Jiang Cheng feels ready to move away from the man.

When he finally does he really wishes he wouldn’t have, because that’s Nie Mingjue.

That’s the CEO of the company Jiang Cheng works for, and he’s pretty sure with the display he just put on, he’s going to be out of a job soon enough.

Especially if Nie Mingjue was in the conference room to see his complete meltdown.

“I’m Nie Mingjue,” the man introduces himself, startling a laugh out of Jiang Cheng who slaps a hand over his mouth.

“You know that,” Nie Mingjue says with a small smile and Jiang Cheng nods.

“My—I’m—Jiang Cheng,” Jiang Cheng finally just presses out when his words continue to fail him and Nie Mingjue nods at him.

“I know that, actually,” he tells Jiang Cheng who goes white at that.

If Nie Mingjue knows who he is it can only be because someone had a complaint about him or because the work he does is so bad that Jiang Cheng is about to be fired.

“It’s not what you think,” Nie Mingjue reassures him. “The work you do is excellent. That’s why I know who you are.”

Jiang Cheng’s mind is spinning like crazy because none of this makes any sense, least of all Nie Mingjue praising him for his work, and he doesn’t know how to react to it either.

“Are you feeling better? Is there anything I can do?” Nie Mingjue asks, and Jiang Cheng forces himself to get it together.

It’s already shameful enough that he can’t keep it together in front of people; making his boss realize just what a mess he is, is not going to help him any.

“I’m alright,” Jiang Cheng says, glad when his voice holds out and his thoughts don’t come out all mangled up and Nie Mingjue gives him a very doubtful look.

“My little brother used to react like that in face of other people as well. I know you’re not okay,” Nie Mingjue says and Jiang Cheng flinches.

Used to. Which means Nie Mingjue’s brother eventually grew out of it, very much unlike Jiang Cheng.

“I see,” he whispers, shame curling in his gut again, because he never managed to overcome his fear like Nie Mingjue’s brother did.

“Stop it,” Nie Mingjue chastises him and when Jiang Cheng flinches he puts his hand on his neck again.

Jiang Cheng instantly relaxes.

“My brother has years of therapy behind him and he had a very good support system, that made sure he didn’t get into situations like this unsupervised. I’m guessing you had neither, especially given the fact that you’re working for me, instead of your father.”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes burn again, because no. His father never thought it would be worth it to send Jiang Cheng to therapy, seeing as he somehow still managed to function in every-day life and even got a degree, and while Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian were always sympathetic, they had their own life and struggles, so they couldn’t support Jiang Cheng as much as he needed.

“He said I can’t lead the company, if I’m being like that,” Jiang Cheng whispers. “And he claimed he didn’t have another job for me either.”

“So you had Lan Xichen put in a word with me,” Nie Mingjue nods and Jiang Cheng shrugs awkwardly.

“I know I wouldn’t have made it through a job interview. Xichen promised that I would be judged based on my work once I got in.”

“And you are,” Nie Mingjue says. “The work you do is excellent.”

Jiang Cheng doubts that, because he’s only working behind the scenes, doing the paperwork no one else wants to do, he knows that, but it’s still nice to hear it.

“The work you do is important,” Nie Mingjue says as if he can read Jiang Cheng’s mind, and by now Jiang Cheng is inclined to believe that, however fantastical it sounds because no one has been able to read Jiang Cheng like this in a long time.

“It’s unloved work, yes, but mostly because everyone I had in that position before found it too difficult. I didn’t hear that complaint from you, yet.”

“Because it’s not,” Jiang Cheng whispers.

Sure, it’s a lot of work, but it’s not that difficult once you understand the workings of the company, and Jiang Cheng finds himself with hours to spare more often than not.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Nie Mingjue says and takes his hand back, much to Jiang Cheng’s dismay.

“I’m sorry I butchered the presentation today,” Jiang Cheng says, because he’s uncomfortable with the praise he’s getting.

Mostly because he’s not used to that, but Jiang Cheng pushes that thought away.

“It wasn’t your presentation to give,” Nie Mingjue says and he seems angry now. “Weren’t Jin Zixun and Su She supposed to give it?”

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng nods. “But they thought since I prepared it, it would only be fair if I gave it too. They are tired of doing my work for me, apparently,” Jiang Cheng whispers and waits for Nie Mingjue’s judgement on that.

“And I am tired of them acting like that,” Nie Mingjue says and rubs a hand over his face. “That’s harassment of a colleague and it’s more than enough reason to finally fire them.”

“Finally?” Jiang Cheng dares to ask.

“I’ve been looking for a reason to fire them for a while now,” Nie Mingjue says with a shrug. “But while they are shit at their job, they are excellent at covering their tracks, so I didn’t have sufficient reason yet. This finally gives it to me.”

“Ah, I see,” Jiang Cheng says with a wince, because it hasn’t been them who covered their tracks.

That was all Jiang Cheng. And maybe it’s time he admits to that.

“I—it’s not them,” he says and when Nie Mingjue’s eyes fall on him the so familiar panic starts to build in his chest again.

“Breathe,” Nie Mingjue says instantly and Jiang Cheng does.

It helps.

“I have been covering their tracks for them,” he admits once his breath regulates again and Nie Mingjue fixes him with a glare.

“What?”

“They said they would make me talk to people,” Jiang Cheng says and shrinks in on himself again. “They did this today, because I refused to fix their mistake last time,” he then whispers and Nie Mingjue slams a hand down on the table.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says immediately afterwards, clearly having noticed Jiang Cheng’s flinch. “What absolute shit-stains,” he mutters and reaches for his phone, before he hesitates. “If I call my brother here, will you be alright?” he wants to know and Jiang Cheng hesitates, but in the end he nods.

It’s not quite as bad with fewer people around and if it’s the brother who suffered the same, then he at least will understand.

“Huaisang is so going to love raining hell on them,” Nie Mingjue says and makes the call.

Nie Huaisang, it turns out, loves nothing more than to rain hell on them.

Jiang Cheng tries to make himself very small on the couch where he finally took a seat, but of course Nie Huaisang notices him the second he comes in, but he doesn’t pay him much attention, seemingly too excited to get rid of Su She and Jin Zixun.

It’s only when they have finalized their plans—with no input from Jiang Cheng at all—that Nie Huaisang turns towards him.

“And who might you be?” Nie Huaisang asks him and Nie Mingjue puts a hand to his shoulder.

“He exposed them today,” Nie Mingjue tells him. “Be gentle, he has social anxiety just like you.”

“Oh, I see,” Nie Huaisang says, suddenly a lot more relaxed than before, but Jiang Cheng stiffens when he bounds over. “What therapist do you go to?”

“None,” Jiang Cheng forces himself to say and he wants the couch to swallow him when Nie Huaisang simply blinks at him.

“Da-ge,” he then says and Nie Mingjue sighs.

“I know, Huaisang.”

“Okay,” Nie Huaisang nods, and plops down next to Jiang Cheng, who has no idea what just happened. “We’re going to recommend you to my therapist,” Nie Huaisang says and Jiang Cheng stares at him.

“What?”

“If you’re just like me then it’s a really bad case, right? You can’t go on like this. We’re going to get you the help you deserve,” Nie Huaisang decides and then smiles sheepishly when Nie Mingjue pointedly clears his throat.

“I mean, if you want to. We’re going to help you if you want to.”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes dart over to Nie Mingjue who nods encouragingly at him and it never before occurred to Jiang Cheng that this is something that requires professional help.

His father always made it sound like if he can’t deal with it by himself, then that’s just because he’s too weak to overcome this.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t know at all what to do with the support he’s being given right now.

“Whoever you’re thinking about, I’m going to kill them for you,” Nie Huaisang cheerfully says, because clearly everyone in this room can read him now. “Well, I’m going to have da-ge kill them for you, but, semantics.”

“Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue chides him but it startles a laugh out of Jiang Cheng.

He hasn’t laughed in front of others for way too long, he knows that, and he’s surprised by his own reaction.

But something about being around the Nie brothers makes it feel easy.

“Okay,” he agrees, and he leaves it entirely open to what he agrees.

Going by the wide smile on Nie Huaisang’s face, he picked up on that almost immediately.

“We’re going to keep him,” Nie Huaisang decides and Jiang Cheng would object to ‘being kept’ but no one bothered to even like him in a long time—his condition not making it easy, Jiang Cheng knows that, but still—and so he can’t find it in him to complain about that.

“Of course,” Nie Mingjue says, as if there has never been any doubt about that, and it settles something in Jiang Cheng.

Maybe here it doesn’t matter that he can’t string two coherent sentences together. Maybe here, he will be accepted for who he is.

Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!

#bt writes #jclovemonth2020 #the untamed #mdzs #jiang cheng #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #modern au #hurt/comfort #social anxiety #panic attack #support #mistypluie

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reddie-is-my-life · 3 years

Text

I’m not sure if any of the people that follow me are even active anymore but its been a couple of years since i posted on this account. I’ve written a couple things throughout the time that I actually posted on this account which is what this post is about. I was scrolling through my wips and turns out I have a not completed fic that could really be considered a drabble. Anyways, I wanted to post it just to say i did. You don’t have to read it. Or you can. Its up to you. I wrote this in 2018 so if you do decide to read it don’t be harsh. Thank you.

The thrum of the music under his feet guides him further into the pack of bodies grinding against each other. The smell of sweat, weed and alcohol curls around him making his nose scrunch up from distaste, the further he walks into the house. Someone in the crowd bumps into him slamming their shoulder into him, making him stumble slightly before someone reaches out to steady him. He decides to not acknowledge the hand considering the owner of said hand is the one to blame for his presence at the party. The same hand leads him into the open kitchen where all the liquor is lined up on the counter.

“Come on Eddie, I know you don’t wanna be here but at least don’t look like a 5 year-old that got their favorite toy taken away from them,” Bill pouts already reaching for the bottle of whiskey.

“Oh, I’m sorry for being so petulant. I should’ve realized that it was hurting your feelings Billy. I also didn’t realize that your favorite toy was a party filled with people that don’t care who sees them wasted and filled with idiocy ,” Eddie snaps back.

Bill only raises his shot of whiskey in the direction of the other boy before tipping it back. Swallowing he takes a moment before he responds, “You seem snarkier than usual, something up?” this time he takes a step closer as if it’ll block the dark room, loud music, and the dozens of people surrounding them.

Even if Eddie wanted to talk about it, he sure as hell would never hold a heart to heart conversation with Bill in front of so many people. Instead he shakes his head and reaches for the cooler filled to the brim with beers. Expertly popping the cap off with his car keys he turns to Bill again finally meeting his expectant eyes, “It’s nothing, I just have a small headache is all,” it wasn’t a complete lie, he did feel the beginning fingers of a migraine graze his head. Ignoring it he decides to change the subject before the other man decided to pry more, “So what’s the deal with this guy? He’s got a pretty nice house to be someone of the middle working class.”

It was true after all, no one with decent money income could afford a sleek looking chandelier hanging in the middle of what looked to be the living room. The couches seemingly pushed next to the walls giving more space for people to grind against each other. The couches were filled with people either shotgunning or just full on making out. The sound system though, playing songs that made him skeptical about the type of music the host listened to, seemed mighty expensive even from his vantage point in the kitchen. The place itself was big, the open kitchen looking out into the living room and what seemed to be a room with a pool table, leading into a hallway Eddie was sure was a couple bedrooms. He wondered if the rest of the place would look just as expensive as the part that was filled with people. Maybe he would sneak away and explore the rest of the house if Bill got caught up with someone else.

Bill nods his head in agreement, “Yeah, it is a pretty damn good house. The guy that invited me here, Ben,” he takes a second as if remembering the man. And if he’d be damned he thinks Bill is blushing lightly ,”he’s, uh, best friends with the host. Said he was a radio host or something and he had his own show even. He also said he would be here but I haven’t seen him yet,” he looks around the room but it’s no use due to how smokey and dark the whole house is.

Looking at his friend more closely he realizes that he is indeed blushing like some schoolgirl with her crush instead of a 25 year old man. He wonders when Bill met this so-called Ben and when he had formed his crush. But more importantly he wonders why in the world Bill never even mentioned him to him. Eddie was surely privy to this information, he was his best friend after all. Perhaps Bill finds you annoying now. Maybe Bill doesn’t even want to be friends with you but is too nice to tell you directly so he brought you to the party you didn’t want to go to so you would leave him. Perhaps Bill finally sees you for who you really are. You dirty-, “Hey Bill, do you happen to have a crush on this Ben fellow?”

“Uh, w-w-why wouldd you say that Ed-d-die?” Bill's stutter comes out clearly, making him flustered and proving his hidden secret. Instead of coming clean he reaches for his third shot. Swallowing it cleanly only slightly wincing he takes a look around the dark room again as if someone will appear and save him any second from the questions Eddie is surely going to press him with.

Eddie moves to the side when someone comes up behind to get something to drink but pulls Bill right along with him. Deciding to at least ask, without intention of harm he opens his mouth, “Come on, Bill. You don’t need to lie. I am your best friend for a reason. You can tell me these types of things,” he laughs ruefully at that, “actually technically you can tell me anything, that’s what comes with being best friends. A small dumb crush definitely falls in that category.”

Bill winces at that and a sad glint fills his eyes along with disappointment but before he can answer him someone calls his name out. He turns along with Eddie to meet a guy smiling and walking towards them, “What’s up, Big Bill? What are you doing huddling next to the drinks? Don’t you know this is a party?” Eddie watches the man come closer and notices how Bill lit up with excitement as soon as he recognizes him. So this must be Ben. He would let out an appreciative whistle if the man weren’t so close and Bill wasn’t so infatuated with him. The man - Ben - was handsome as hell. His light colored hair was styled to look as if he hadn’t done anything with it but it wasn’t a lazy look, it looked rather sophisticated. The beard that adorned his face looked sharp and regal, complimented even by the small scar that lay on the corner of his top lip. God damn, a scar has never looked so right. His build was leaning towards gruffer and broader. His arms seemed to bulge even from Eddie’s vantage point. It was all on top of legs fit into jeans that seemed to only highlight the fact that his arms weren’t the only thing taken care of. Though the man would look intimidating with a face and a body like that but his eyes were kind and his tone was playful.

He takes a second to catch on to the nickname and is soon distracted by that rather than the man standing across from him, “Big Bill?” he whispers quietly turning to face Bill.

Before he can say anything about the nickname he receives a hearty laugh from Ben. Facing him again he waits for his answer, “Ah, you haven’t met Richie yet then. He gives everyone a nickname. Or at least everyone he likes. I’m Ben or Haystack,” He says extending a hand to shake.

Though Eddie finds it strange to shake hands as if in a business setting instead of a raging party he shakes his hand, “Eddie or Eddie.”

Though it wasn’t a joke, Ben still lets out a smile at his response. His brown eyes twinkle before turning to Bill. He goes to touch him before seeming to think better of it and turns to Eddie again, “You wouldn’t mind if I took Bill from you would you? At least for just a little bit.”

Raising his eyebrows he shakes his head, “No, no, not at all. You guys should go dance.”

Bill clears his throat before responding, though Eddie sees right through it. Almost as an afterthought it comes to him that Bill usually clears his throat when he plans on what to say without having to worry about his stuttering. Guess Ben makes him nervous, “You sure Eddie? I can stay if you want,” but from the way he was looking at the other man he doubted that it was something he wanted to do.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll go find something to do. Maybe even find the host to tell him how shit his beer is,” he cracks a smile at that, urging his friend to leave him in the kitchen and dance with the handsome devil that clearly seemed interested in him too.

“Alright, just give me a second,” he tips his head back taking the shot in his hand before turning and taking another one. He shakes his shoulder at it and turns to face the other two, “Alright, let’s go dance.”

Eddie almost expects a high pitched giggle from his friend for a second by the way he grins so widely. He makes no reaction outwards but inwardly he’s utterly confused. Bill wouldn’t be acting this way if it was just a small crush. He wonders when Bill met Ben once again before he notices that his friend has turned his head looking at him briefly making Eddie smile and pumping a fist in the air before he turns around once again saying something in Ben's ear that makes the bigger man face him smiling widely. He lets out a quiet sigh, confused as to when Ben had made an appearance in Bill's life enough that he would look like - funnily enough - he was given his favorite toy.

Before he figures out what he wants to do while he waits for Bill to come back - if he even comes back - his eye catches on someone walking up to the counter looking more than enough wasted that he feared that the second they got their hands on another drink they would puke all over Eddie’s shoes. Deciding not to even chance the thought of it or at best try to hold a conversation with them he walks towards the pool table. Sidling up to a corner of the pool table he takes into account the people surrounding it. Most seem pretty similar to each other making commentary on the play going on in front of them. Yet, he focuses on one of the players, while most people around the table - hell even the other player - are more drunk than not, he seems perfectly sober.

His moves are crisper than the other guy who is moving around slowly. He watches as the small bun on the man's head bounces around a little as he jumps up and down from seeming excited on his clear victory. His actions lead to a couple curls coming out and framing his face. Eddie looks at him closer and notices that the man has a shocking color of blue eyes that pair nicely with his sharp cheekbones and jaw. Strangely he remembers Ben and thinks how complete opposites these two are. While this stranger is just as attractive as Ben he falls on the opposite spectrum. Pool table guy has such a pale color of skin he kinda looks like a ghost in the soft lighting hanging above the table. The light casts shadows on his face making him seem sharp and cold, while his electric blue eyes set off a vibe of mysteriousness making him that much more intriguing to Eddie.

As he finishes off his beer he watches as the handsome stranger takes the final shot landing him the victory that was obvious as soon as Eddie walked over to the table. He watches in something close to amusement as he celebrates around the table before bringing the other player closer and clapping him on the back. The only response he gets from the drunk player is a couple grunts in disdain with the occasional mutter that the game was unfair and he demanded a rematch. Handsome stranger only chuckled in response before letting him go. And suddenly driven by who knows what force Eddie spoke up, “I’ll do the rematch for him, considering it wasn’t a fair match between a drunk man and a sober one.”

Both men turn to look at him but he focuses on the blue eyes of the handsome man. They seem to stare at each other for eternity before the other man breaks the silence by breaking into a smirk, “It wasn’t my idea to play the match. It might actually be an unfair match to me considering I had to drag it out way more due to consideration of this poor drunk man, isn’t that right, Zach?”

The drunk fool- Zach, didn’t let out a reply instead opting to slump further into the chair he had let himself fall into. It seemed to Eddie that he was getting ready to fall asleep in the chair. The host surely must care about the random people falling asleep in his property. He turned his attention back to the other man before cocking an eyebrow. With a small jerk he silently questioned if he would take him up on his offer. Said stranger only seems to smirk even more before heading to one side of the table.

As Eddie grabs his pool stick the stranger talks to him again, “So, cutie what’s the name to the face?”

“Don’t call me that and it's Eddie. And you would be?”

“Richie Tozier at your service. Seriously though, anything you want,” he finishes with a wink. A fucking wink, how cheesy could this guy get? God could only do so much for someone Eddie supposed, good looks, bad personality.

Eddie scoffed instead of deeming him a response. Setting the balls into place he felt as Richie watched him. Looking up at him he met his gaze allowing only the smallest bit of discomfort set into him before he spoke again, “So, do you not drink?”

If Eddie hadn’t been watching his reaction closely he wouldn’t have noticed how Richie’s smirk faltered for a second before righting itself quickly. Only faint curiosity crossed his mind soon fading away because even though he was intrigued in Richie he didn’t want to actually get involved in anything with him where he would care about him in any way. Richie seemed to ponder the question for a second before answering, “I do drink, just didn’t feel like drinking yet, plus weed is sufficient enough to last until I decide I want a drink,” he shrugs.

Only raising his eyebrows slightly he gestures for Richie to begin the game. He watches as the other walks around the table before setting the white ball down. Just as he’s about to lean down to perfect his shot he looks at Eddie, “What about you Ed’s? I saw you put the beer bottle away but I doubt that you’re drunk.”

He observes as Richie lines up his shot before deciding to respond, “Again, my name is Eddie, if you already forgot. E-d-d-i-e. And secondly, I don’t really enjoy the idea of me passing out on an uncomfortable wooden chair next to a pool table surrounded by people I don’t know,” he pointedly looked at Zach quickly passed out on the chair already.

“Mmm, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we.”

Lining up his shot, Eddie hums low in his throat right before the balls fall into the pocket. The game continues as the silence covers them like a fog. The small clinking of balls against each other along with the loud music playing from the living room do nothing to hide the hot gaze of both men as they move around each other. Brief touches of hands, shoulders and hips go throughout the game with the occasional smirk thrown at each other. Eddie though usually not one to find interest in a random stranger that quickly can’t help but feel curious toward the curly haired man. As the game comes to a close, Eddie sinks the final shot winning but only allowing himself a small humpf of victory before looking at Richie.

Even though they’ve basically been eye fucking each other the whole entire game Richie places his hand on the small of Eddie’s back steering him towards the drinks, “I think i need a drink,” Richie offers offhandedly.

Eddie silently watches as Richie makes up a concoction of tequila with orange juice stirring it slightly before tipping it back. Slightly covered in sweat Richie’s neck shines faintly under the faint light filtering from the small light on top of the stovetop. Watching as his Adam's apple bobs as he swallows, Eddie also swallows along with him suddenly hit with a dry throat. He reaches for the whiskey Bill had been drinking earlier before pouring up a shot. Taking it straight, he tries to clear his thoughts so he won’t end up in bed with the man that’s staring at him currently. That’s not how it works dumbass, you should definitely not be drinking alcohol.

He swallows.

“Holy shit, Ed’s didn’t know you had it in you. I would’ve thought you would go for another weak beer,” Richie smirks.

“Shut up prick, you don’t know shit about me.”

“Maybe so, but by tonight I’m hoping I’ll know a couple more things about you,” and once again he winks but instead of making Eddie's eyes roll it makes his stomach turn in excitement.

“Sure pal, whatever you say,” he deflects.

Richie only laughs in reply before pouring up four more shots and gestures to two of them looking at Eddie pointedly. Eddie lets out a scoff before stepping closer and taking one into his hand. He makes eye contact as he tips it back and if the eyes aren’t deceiving him Richie’s eyes darken a shade. He smirks before bringing the shot glass back to the countertop, “So?”

Richie lets out a dark chuckle before taking both shots one after another. The only reaction of the burn is a slight twitch in the corner of his eye before he stares at Eddie in amusement. Eddie takes the remaining shot before heading over to the group of bodies grinding against each other. He briefly glances behind his shoulder making sure the other man still has his attention directed towards him.

And that’s it. Thanks.

#Reddie #it 2019 #it 2017 #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #stanley uris #mike hanlon #bill denbrough

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sunfoxfic · 3 years

Note

Uhhh so you are one of the very few people out here who is comfortable with the Senti Adrien theory and first of all, Thank you so much, your posts help me when I am feeling really down.

I just saw someone saying that the Senti-Adrien theorists were very defensive of the theory and that we are actually harassing those who don't like the theory and I really don't think I agree??

Like right when ephemeral aired, as far as what I experienced, compared to the number of posts saying he was a senti, there were Gazillion posts repeating the same reasons why he couldn't be one?? Like some of those who dislike the theory are quite paranoid at times lol

I mean I do understand why they may hate the theory, why it makes them uncomfortable and that is totally valid. Really really valid and it's perfectly okay. However the way they are behaving about it is not really...pleasant for one thing:(

Now I am really nervous about the theory becoming canon because in both the ways, the fandom response would be really unpleasant. For A. If the theory doesn't come true, things won't really be bad but the people who didn't like the theory may salt on those who were pro-sentiAdrien. Not to mention how some of the "extreme" theorists may react badly too. Then B. If it does become canon, Those who didn't like the theory would RIOT and cue the salt wave! I can't even imagine:( I really wish things weren't this tense here. I used to be someone who detested the theory previously. But now, I find really really intriguing and therapeutic for some reason. Fandom is a place for silly theories, and even if we don't like a theory, of course people are free am really nervous about the theory becoming canon because in both the ways, the fandom response would be really unpleasant.

Hugs, anon. I'm here with you.

Whether there's people harassing anti-sentiAdrien folks over the theory is honestly not something I know about, but I would not be surprised if some people were being harassed. More likely, I think there's a lot of heated discourse, some of which is uncivil, and that's getting labelled as harassment -- which it isn't. What I say about that to people on both sides of the discourse: Learn to vaguepost. You will get almost nothing out of directly responding to someone who disagrees with you, especially if you can't keep it civil. Tag properly, block tags you don't want to see, and block people you don't want to see.

(I use tags #sentimonster adrien agreste, #sentimonster adrien theory, #adrien agreste is a sentimonster, and #sentimonster discourse, though I only picked that last one up when I started @yourfavisasentimonster. I've also seen #sentimonster adrien and #sentiadrien, so be wary of those.)

But I'd like to point out that simply being against the theory does not make you a bad person. I follow blogs who have voiced disdain for the theory, and that's fine! But you're right, fandom is for silly theories, so regardless of whether the theory actually has a leg to stand on, it shouldn't be treated as public enemy no. 1. And that's the issue -- when a blog starts saying that Adrien isn't a sentimonster and anyone who believes that theory is a bad person and/or lacks critical reading skills, there's the issue.

I don't necessarily believe the sentiAdrien theory have. More and more I'm leaning toward it, but I still think there's a high chance that Félix is the sentimonster, and in a lot of ways I think that would be more interesting. What I've been vocal about is people's right to theorize without being called abuse apologists and or unintelligent.

I think that whatever happens, there's going to be fandom outcry. If he's confirmed a sentimonster, some people are going to denounce canon and call it a terrible decision and try to ruin the fun for everyone else. There will be people high and mighty about it too -- the earliest sentimonster Adrien theories come from when the episode Ladybug was released, and however poorly people react to it now, at least the theory is given legitimacy that it was not given then.

At the same time, if all of the evidence in favor of the theory somehow ends up going nowhere, people who were/are against the theory are going to be really high and mighty about it. At least if it's confirmed as true, people against the theory will have the knowledge that the theorists aren't worse than canon, but if it's not true, then the take that the theory is abuse apologism will get worse.

As for why the theory is therapeutic... for me, I love fantasy as a genre, and I've always felt better after seeing my trauma integrated into the worldbuilding of stories. I like seeing characters go through similar emotions as I do but for fantastical reasons -- it makes me feel assured that my trauma isn't to be ignored or overlooked, that it is just as important as any of the good things about me and my past. I think for many people that's how the sentiAdrien theory is -- if he's a sentimonster, the abuse he went through is just as integrated into the story as his superhero status. Some people would prefer the abuse he went through to be non-magical in nature because seeing his autonomy being stripped away in such certain terms is uncomfortable and evocative of not-so-good emotions, but that's not a universal truth for everyone who relates to Adrien and what he's been through.

I'm getting weary of the discourse too, anon. I think I'm gonna back off from doing anything that's likely to cause a fight -- I'll keep making content about it, of course, but I'm gonna block some tags (and maybe some people) and stop interacting with the theory in ways that necessitate I tag my posts with #ml fandom salt.

And for people on all sides of the debate: This is a theory. This is a cartoon. Please take care of yourself and don't let it impact you more than you need. If you have to stop watching Miraculous or interacting with the theory, that's fine, and it wasn't a waste of time to be here. Don't give into the sunk cost fallacy when it's coming in direct opposition to your headspace. Take care of yourself, please.

#sentimonster adrien agreste #adrien is a sentimonster #sentimonster adrien theory #sentimonster discourse #asks answered #anonymous

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schrijverr · 3 years

Text

I Have a Heart Condition, You Dick

Tony lets it slip to Steve that he has a heart condition.

Steve wants to make sure Tony is okay and not needlessly hurting, but Tony thinks Steve is babying him and thinks him incapable of taking care of himself. They talk it out.

On AO3.

Ships: none, could be interpreted as pre-slash Steve/Tony

Warnings: mentions of medical condition

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It started when Clint dropped out of a vent behind the obviously tired genius, who was waiting for a desperately needed cup of coffee, and said: “Boo.”

Tony jumped in the air as he startled violently and clutched his chest as he exclaimed: “Jesus fucking Christ, Birdbrain, you can’t do that! I have a heart condition, you dick!”

Steve had been enjoying his breakfast when the spectacle occurred and looked up in alarm as he asked: “You have a heart condition?”

“I have a heart condition? I have- are you fucking serious, Steve?” Tony ranted, “What do you think this is, a fancy night light?” he tapped his reactor harshly, then saw the faces of Steve and Clint, with a disbelieving voice he said: “Oh my God, you two didn’t know I have a heart condition.”

“That’s important information, you idiot. I could have killed you,” Clint sounded distressed.

“Blah, blah, it was mostly a hyperbole,” Tony waved his concerns away, “I thought it was in my file, granted I did delete a lot about the arc reactor, so maybe it was unclear. Hmm, that would explain why Agent threatened to tase me.”

“Tony, a heart condition is nothing to joke about,” Steve said, looking at Tony intently in the hope his message got across.

In turn Tony only rolled his eyes: “I am aware, Capsicle. Might surprise you, but I’ve actually been living with it for a few years, I know my limits and I’m not going to be a liability out there. Trust me, geez.”

“That’s not what I-”

“Spare me the lecture, Spangles,” Tony got his coffee and left the two there.

Steve looked at Clint and said: “I swear that’s not what I meant with that.”

“I could have killed him,” Clint merely repeated, still distressed.

“No, you couldn- well, maybe, but I don’t think so. Tony will need more than a small scare to take him out,” Steve assured him.

“How would you know?” it was obvious that Clint didn’t believe him.

“Because I used to have one, Clint,” Steve smirked, “A lot of people seemed to forget I was a little squirt from Brooklyn with a list of medical issues longer than army paperwork.”

Clint looked him up and down with distrust, before seeming to take his word for it. Though he did vow to be more careful around his favorite snark buddy and it seemed Steve had decided to do the same, because after that things were different.

Not bad different.

Not even obviously different.

Just different.

It was mostly Steve, though. Clint only started to announce himself when he entered a room Tony was already in and made sure not to scare the man too much.

Steve on the other hand researched foods that were good and bad for heart conditions and made sure to only cook with the good kind for Tony. He also remembered the unpleasant sensations of when his heart was beating too fast from before the serum and made sure Tony didn’t have to do anything too straining and checked in on him during battle. On top of that he started to nag Tony, that was not what Steve called it of course, Steve called it making sure he didn’t overwork himself and died of stress, but same difference.

And Tony noticed.

Of course, he did he wasn’t stupid. He was the opposite of stupid, actually. Though it did take him a while to add it all up.

It had started with a sandwich, which doesn’t sound that dramatic and it wasn’t either, honestly. Just one day, Steve knocked on his shop’s window and held up a plate. He’d done this before of course, but this particular sandwhich would be the start of getting Tony to eat regularly.

Tony had been down there for nearly three full days, living off granola bars, smoothies and coffee, so he merely appreciated the food as he waved Steve in. Snatching the sandwich up, he asked: “What brings you here, Cap?”

“Nothing much,” Steve shrugged, “Just hadn’t seen you in a while, figured you’d be neglecting to eat down here.”

“All I’m hearing is blah blah blah, Stevie,” Tony grinned, there was usually a lecture attached to food offerings, which he allowed because food, “You’ll be talking differently when you see these fire resistant suits I’m making for the squishy members.”

“Fire resistant?” Steve questioned.

Tony lit up: “See, I knew you’d see my wa-”

“Is that safe?” Steve ruined it.

“Is it- He asks if it’s safe. I’m making it, of course it’ll be safe,” Tony said indignantly.

“No, that’s not- I trust your engineering skills, just not your self preservation,” Steve clarified, “How are testing it? Is that safe?”

Tony blinked a few times, not expecting that response. No one had really cared how safe he was before, if he got the results.Then he laughed and deflected: “Steve, Stevie, Capsicle, Star Spangled Man With A Plan, I’m never safe,” Steve looked like he was about to interrupt, “But – and the buts make it important – but I am also never stupid.”

He was well aware that that was a lie and JARVIS had many tapes to prove it, but Steve didn’t have to know that.

“Are you sure?” Steve checked.

“Yeah, Cap, sure,” Tony assured him, “I’ll be as safe as humanly possible.”

“That sounds fake,” Steve eyed him suspiciously.

“And that is your cue to go, thanks for the food,” Tony shoved him out the workshop with a small wave, leaving him stunned for a second, “JARVIS, lock down, don’t let Mr. Health & Safety back in here.”

“Sir, do you think that is wise?”

“I do think that, I also think that a community college would be happy to have you, buddy,” Tony snarked.

“Tony. Tony,” Steve tapped on the glass when Tony didn’t respond, “Stark.”

“What?”

“Don’t do anything too stupid. And rest.”

“Whatever, Mom,” Tony rolled his eyes and got back to work.

It was little things like that which started to add up. They had already been happening, since Steve was unable to let anyone ruin their health in peace, but now their frequency increased.

Then it happened more overtly during battle, Tony had lost his suit and was running down a street, hoping to not get eaten by mutant rats, which was just iew.

His breathing was coming kind of ragged and it was uncomfortable, but he was managing. He still had a gauntlet and determination since he wasn’t going to admit to anyone that he’d been practically useless by some rats.

“Iron Man, status update,” Steve’s voice crackled over the coms.

“Down- Town- Chased-” Tony heaved, firing his repulsors, “No- Suit- Got- Three- Here- Handling- handling it.”

“Thor, get Iron Man out of there,” Steve ordered.

Tony wanted to protest, but he was too out of breath to do so and a small guilty part of him was glad the God of Thunder was coming his way, because- fuck.

He was nearly being chowed down by a rat when Thor appeared and came down with a mighty swing that decapitated the rat. Tony weakly raised a hand and wheezed: “Thanks, Thunderstruck.”

“No problem, Shieldbrother Stark. Are you alright?” Thor bellowed, dealing with the leftover rats in the alleyway.

“I- I’m fine,” Tony said.

Steve injected over the coms: “Get him to a high place out of the fight, Thor. Then head to the Hulk.”

“Aye, Captain,” Thor said, cutting off Tony’s protest of how he was still able to fight as he dropped Tony on top of a building before flying off.

“I know you’re still able to fight, Tony,” Steve sounded tired, “It’s just not a smart idea and we have it handled. Get started on prep for clean up in you want to help.”

Tony grumbled something, but didn’t comment further. He wasn’t in the mood to pick a fight right now and overall fighting didn’t sound very appealing. Steve wouldn’t lie about needing him and he’d done quite enough today.

It was only after that that Tony began to suspect something was up.

He first realized the visits to make sure he rested and ate had become more common. Then, when Steve asked about his schedule, he realized that had become a thing lately, before he noticed the food and added it to the most recent check up in battle.

Steve was babying him.

Once he had made that conclusion, he started to rewind to when it started to see what on earth he had said to make the other man think he was incapable of handling himself. It hit him when he went to grab some coffee and saw that Steve had left a bag decaf for him last time he was here.

“That motherfucker,” Tony said.

“Sir, I do not th-”

“Mute,” Tony didn’t want to listen to that right now. He had confessed a small weakness once and immediately Steve had jumped on it to treat him like less, he didn’t want to hear excuses for him, least of all from his own AI, his JARVIS.

He let the anger built up, he usually wasn’t one for not poking someone’s buttons when they had pissed him off, but he was smart enough to realize that a big fight between them would be bad for the team.

Because no matter how he spun it, they both kept everyone alive through communicating. Tony could see what needed to be done and Steve could strategatize a plan on the fly that completed that goal.

They needed to work together.

Naturally when Tony was pissed at someone, he didn’t want to communicatewith them, which was a minor detail he had forgotten in his grand master plan of ignoring.

His anger only grew each time he blocked Steve entrance from his workshop, denied his requests for his schedule or sparring or when the man wanted to know how he was doing. JARVIS wasn’t any help either and after too many times of trying to talk to him, Tony had ordered him to stop talking about Steve or his health for that matter.

When after two weeks of ignoring everyone – including his own body – the call to assemble went off, Tony suited up, despite the tension. He wasn’t letting New York be in peril when he could stop it, just because Steve thought he was too weak.

Steve would eat his words, or his motherhenning in this case. Tony wasn’t fragile, nor did he need special treatment.

The battle with the squid-robot-type creatures could be described as a proper disaster.

If Steve said go right, Tony would go left. If asked for imput, Tony would just do what he calculated to be right without saying a thing. If someone talked, Tony blasted music.

Sure, his moves worked and if anyone needed air support, he would show up out of nowhere, but he was being unnecessarily reckless.

He didn’t stay when the battle was over, just shooting off to the Tower on his own, giving everyone the cold shoulder. They walked into the Quinjet as Clint frowned: “What did we even do? Did any of you piss him off?”

“No, he just started shutting me out two weeks ago,” Steve said miserably, “From one day to the next I wasn’t allowed into the ‘shop anymore, I have no clue what I did. I didn’t even think it was this bad until now.”

“Well, you better go talk it out, Captain,” Natasha said, “Because that was a disaster.”

Steve sighed: “I will, but let’s just direct clean up for now. Everyone, you did good, let’s get some rest, alright?”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Clint saluted lazily from where he had collapsed onto the Quinjet pilot seat in exhaustion.

Tony naturally avoided all attempts at communication again afterwards, until it came to a head. Steve had ben asking permission to enter the workshop for the past few days, never yielding any success, so he was trying a different method: “Tony, please come out of the ‘shop, I made food. Just come and eat something.”

“JARVIS why am I hearing Captain America in my workshop?” Tony asked icely.

“You stated – and I quote – “I do not wish to see Captain America or anyone unless the world is ending and they’re all on the brink of death” end quote. There was nothing about hearing, Sir,” he replied.

“J, remind me to donate you to the local High School,” Tony huffed.

“Noted, Sir,” JARVIS said, “Though I would advise to take up Steve’s offer on food. You have been here for 71 hours Sir and have not eaten in 21.”

“Blah, blah, I’m sure I have an energy bar somewhere around here,” Tony waved him away, “If I eat that, will you leave me alone?”

“I would, Sir, however, your emergency supplies have run out,” the AI informed him.

Tony cursed, he was kind of hungry now that JARVIS had mentioned it, but he didn’t want to admit weakness and eat Steve’s food.

In the end hunger won out and Tony mopily made his way to the kitchen.

It seemed like the whole team was there, each as surprised as him that he actually heeded their call for food. Tony would never admit it, but the loneliness had been setting in and getting yelled at and belittled sounded better than being by himself. He’d realized that the moment he’d heard Steve’s voice.

Steve smiled and handed him the plate: “Tony!” the smile faded when he took in the engineer’s state, but Tony ignored that in favor of taking the plate.

It was fish with veggies and nuts.

Health food.

Helps-gainst-a-heart-condition-food.

Fuck this.

Tony snapped, he was tired and hungry and had been beating himself up for weeks for allowing himself to show weakness, knowing what could happen. And now here it was, being shoved in his face yet again.

He just didn’t have the energy for this.

“What the fuck is this supposed to mean?” he demanded angrily.

Steve frowned: “I don’t understand.”

“Oh sure, play dumb, Captain Perfect,” Tony spat.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tony,” Steve sounded frustrated, “Talk to me about what’s bothering you.”

“Like you’re not perfectly aware of that.”

The rest of the team was watching the argument like a tennis match, no one daring to interrupt the two, but all wanting to know how it ended.

“I am not aware of it, okay,” Steve threw his hands up, “I try to help and all I get is this attitude back. What am I doing wrong?”

“The healthy food, the constant checking up during missions, the benching me during straining stuff, the forcing me to sleep, you knew my goddamn schedule at some point, Rogers,” Tony told him, “I don’t need to be babied, I don’t need your coddling. I tell you one thing – just one – and you jump on it immediately. So, shove off, Mr. Pinnacle of Human Perfection or whatever. Just for once believe that I know what I’m fucking doing.”

Steve connected the dots to Clint scaring Tony all those months ago and sighed. Of course Tony would think that Steve was smothering him unnecessarily.

“Tony, I’m not babying you,” he started, “That was at least not my intention, I just wanted to keep you alive for as long as possible.”

“Because you think I can’t do that on my own,” Tony filled in the nonexistant blank, “Newsflash, I’ve been keeping myself for a long time already.”

“I don’t think you’re incapable, goddammit Tony, just fucking listen to me,” Steve yelled, everyone shocked by the cursing, “I care about you, you’re my teammate, the closest thing to family I have left. I just don’t want you to suffer needlessly, okay. I know how much it sucks and if I can help in the little ways, you can bet your ass that I will.”

Tony opened and closed his mouth while thinking of an answer. People caring for him was a bit new and he didn’t know how to accept that at face value, so instead he grumbled: “How would you even know it sucks.”

Steve smiled, he knew Tony wasn’t trying to be difficult, then answered: “I know for everyone else it is a long while ago, but from my perspective I was running around with countless health problems, including a heart condition, just a few years ago.”

“Oh…” Tony said, remembering the file he’d read on Steve, how stupid to let that slip his mind, “I- uhm, well, I guess that can be a reason.”

“Drop it in the hat of forgive and forget?” Steve held out his hand for Tony to shake.

He shook the hand and shrugged: “Might as well,” he was just glad he hadn’t fucked this up, that they didn’t think him weak.

“I for one am glad mom and dad made up,” Clint commented, finally breaking the silence the rest of the team had held while Steve and Tony made up.

“For that comment, you’re grounded, young man,” Tony said with an eyeroll.

“Resent that statement,” Clint shot back, “Especially coming from someone who’s swaying with hunger and exhaustion. Just eat your damn food and take a nap, Stark, then you can talk about grounding.”

Tony just flipped him the bird as he attacked his food with vigor while the rest started up all sorts of conversations around him.

Later he would get lectured anyway about not taking care of himself, but afterwards he would get pulled into a hug and maybe the next time Steve bothered him with food or sleeping a bit. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be that much of a bother anyway.

~~~~~~~~

DISCLAIMER:

God, I am not a medical person, please for the love of God and everything that is Holy to you: DO NOT and I repeat, DO NOT take anything in this fic as a fact without checking.

#RR writing #MCU #Marvel #Avengers #2012 Avengers #with AA and EMH spice #Tony Stark #Iron Man #Steve Rogers #Captain America #Steve & Tony #Iron Man & Captain America #Arc Reactor

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himboskywalker · 4 years

Note

Tag, cause you’re kinda the big sister in the obikin fandom, I felt it’d be appropriate to come to you. I got on tumblr just now and was shocked to find a dinluke blog I follow, posted a “i wish every obikin shipper a great fuck off” meme with the tags being very aggressive towards obikin shippers like “block me bitch” and the like. I proceeded to go to their blog to do just that after unfollowing them. And saw that their most recent reblog (from shocker: another aggressive anti obikin blog replying to a polite anon asking why they hate obikin) and their tags on the reblog said they want to study us on why we ship a 9 year old with a 25 year old? Like already your view on why we ship them is skewed so obviously you won’t get it. Anyway, I unfollowed and blocked them. But I just felt disappointed with their hostility and wanted to talk to you about it :(

It is extremely frustrating and I’ve been through the exact same thing and while we know they’re full of shit it’s still such a frustration. Not just blatant ship hate,but also purposeful misinformation over dynamics are things I don’t have any patience for. You can absolutely not ship things and not wish to see that content without being an anti and there’s just no reason for some high and mighty moral pedistal for liking only uwu “pure” ships and then shitting all over ones you believe make a person morally abhorant for liking just because you have no critical thinking skills nor can tell fact from fiction. I have also unfollowed several dinluke blogs for the same problem,and several well known “big” Star Wars blogs on here for the same reason.

A person has absolutely every right to not like Obikin for any number of reasons,but the moment a person gets all morally righteous over it is the moment I block without hesitation. It’s the exact same brand os moral right wing policing just by teenagers who love to brandish the word pedophilia and have no actual conception of what that is. So sure anyone can hate obikin but the moment someone goes on a foaming mouthed rampage about obikin shippers being pedophiles because we “ship a 9 year old with a 25 year old” is purposefully being a fucking moron and combative with zero brain cells processing behind it. It takes zero critical thinking to make the connection that it’s an adult ship and nobody is fucking shipping child Anakin with people. It’s the same problem in other fandoms when characters have an age jump in the canon and people lose their minds over shippers...as if people and characters don’t grow up and people can’t ship the character only as an adult????

But chin up dear it’s just a special brand of feral stupidity that there’s no stopping and will never go away. People just love a moral high ground and love to use zero critical thinking skills. You just block and move on with your life because those aren’t the kinds of individuals you can have an open dialogue with. They’ve already made up their minds and their extreme hatred to brandish so the best weapon to deal with that sort is blatant indifference to them. I don’t care about antis,their opinions mean absolutely nothing to me and I literally couldn’t care less. Once you adopt that opinion they’re a lot easier to deal with and they make fun to roll your eyes at. Don’t let random people on the internet make you feel like a bad person for liking a ship. What is shitty is when you threaten in real life people over wanting fictional characters to kiss and for whatever reason that bit is the part they think they have justification for. Unfortunately this is a part of fandom we will always have to deal with,and I think it’s become more pervasive with the modern internet movement of moral policing culture and “wokeness.” I see it on TikTok all the time,young people just blindly finding everything problematic without stopping for two seconds to actually find nuance or depth to topics that they would prefer to just label as black or white because saying I’m a good person for saying you’re a bad person makes you feel good and is a lot easier than seeking understanding and aiming to learn.

#fandom #antis #obikin #anons #star wars

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

Can you do 60 for indruck, NSFW? Thank you so much! Love your work!

Here it is! I set it in the same world as this sternclay fill. Credit to @bellafarallones for playing in this space on discord. Apollo is from my Super hero AU

“All I’m sayin is it seems mighty unfair to me that one fella gets a handler-assistant type deal and the rest of us don’t.” Duck crosses his arms as Ned fiddles with the pen on his desk.

“You’re not wrong, dear boy, but Apollo was in high demand from the higher ups-”

“Because he’s a shallow dipshit with a mean streak who’ll be good for ratings?”

“Precisely. He demanded in his contract that we allow his twin to continue his work as his photographer and assistant. He has over a million followers on Instagram, so those photos will be a boost to the show. Just try to get along for the camera’s?”

“His brother ain’t even on camera.” Duck mutters.

“I meant with Apollo.”

Duck shrugs, defeated, “sure thing, Ned.”

As he walks back to the main house, he mulls over the fact that the twin (Indrid, he thinks that’s the guys name) bugs him more than Apollo does. Apollo is vain, mean, and selfish, but at least that gets him things, even makes sense for the kind of show they’re on. Indrid gains nothing by helping him out here. Except protection from the bully, which Duck finds to be the worst kind of cowardice. Hopefully Vincent, this season’s bachelor, will see through the “influencer” and send him packing ASAP.

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

Four weeks in, and this is exactly what Duck was worried about. Not only is Indrid hovering around his brother like a nervous moth (excet when cameras are near, at which point he ducks out of frame), he’s doing fucking nothing to reign him in.

A few frontrunners are starting to emerge, and with that claws are coming out. Barclay, a chef and all around nice guy, is the target of choice. Nico and Josh both took bites out of him this morning. But Apollo sunk his teeth in like a dog on a fox, calling him, among other things, a pathetic, six-foot puppy dog who no man would ever want. The cook left noticeably teary eyed. Duck was about to block the cameras from following when Joseph beat him to it. Which is weird, because he thought Joe couldn’t stand Barclay. Apollo flounces off, but Duck corners Indrid where he’s been stoically watching his brother be a raging asshole.

“What the fuck man?”

‘Wrong twin.” Indrid says flatly, indicating his silver hair, tied back in a half-bun. His dark roots are showing and his eyebrows are black, unlike Apollo’s immaculate blonde dye job and bleached brows.

“Nope, right one. You’re his handler, cant’ you fuckin intervene when he’s doin’ shit like that? Or are you just here to let him hurt whoever he feels like?”

Indrid fixes him with a bitter smile, “If there were a way to make my brother be kind or, indeed, see others as people, don’t you think I’d have found it and used it everyday since?”

“I-”

“You people have no idea how much I’m already doing. I kept him from going after you yesterday by reminding him he looks ugly when he yells on camera. And if nothing else console yourself with the fact you all have only to deal with him for a few months. Some of us have endured twenty-eight years of it.”

With that, he turns and stalks from the room. As he leaves, Duck can’t shake the thought that his black denim jacket and worn jeans fit him better than Apollo’s designer ones ever could.

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

Indrid understands why there’s so much alcohol on set, but he can’t partake (too bitter) and it makes Apollo even harder to handle than usual. Which is why Indrid is out on the grounds at ten p.m, intending to hide from his brother until dawn.

At six weeks in, fan favorites are getting more established and Indrid, needing to predict Apollo’s mood in order to do his job, is keeping a close eye on them. His twin is well-liked for being snarky and hot, though he suspects the large number of contestants means there have been limited chances for his unpleasant side to be showcased. Joseph is another, because of course he is, movie-star handsome with an interesting past. Barclay is beloved for the very things that the other contestants torment him for. And Duck? Duck is quickly becoming the one people think Vincent will choose.

Indrid thinks they’re right. He’s charming in an understated way, funny, and while Apollo needles him for his “dad bod,” Indrid and Vincent have both noticed the muscles in his arms. Who gives a damn about flat abs? Indrid would much rather have something soft to rest his head on while those green eyes look lovingly down at him. His crush on Duck is useless, persistent, and must be hidden from Apollo at all costs.

His foot catches something solid and he tumbles over the obstacle to land ass-first on the lawn.

“Ow.” He glares at the object. The object turns out to be Duck Newton, who's obviously drunk as he sits up.

“Sorry man, thought no one’d come out here. Oh it’s you, it's, uh, fuck, fuck c'mon” he snaps his fingers as he searches his thoughts, “It's cute Apollo!”

“Indrid.” Surely Duck didn’t mean to use that adjective. Right?

“No, I’m Duck?”

He snickers, “No, I meant I’m Indrid.”

“Ohhh, right. You're Indrid. I'm Duck. That's the big dipper” He points at the sky. Indrid follows the line and grins, delighted.”

“It is!”

“Uhhuh. C'mere, can show you more.” Duck pats the spot beside him and lays back. Indrid scoots closer and reclines as well, making appreciative sounds each time Duck shows him a constellation.

As they’re studying the sky, the other man whispers, “Can I tell you a secret? I, I think Joe’n Barclay are into each other now."

“The way they look at each other is not exactly subtle.”

‘“Heh, yeah.” he links his hands across his belly, “I think they're in love. You ever been in love?”

“No.” He sighs, not wanting to dwell on that pile of baggage, “You?”

“Nope. And, uh, don’t, don’t tell anyone but I don't think I am with Vincent. Maybe I could be? Does that make me a bad person? He's nice, think he likes me a lot but, I, I dunno.”

“Not being in love with someone doesn’t make you a bad person. No more than loving someone does.”

Indrid is hard to surprise; years of getting out ahead of his brother and father taught him how to see things coming. But nothing could prepare him for Duck rolling to hide his face against Indrid’s chest. Not knowing what else to do, he pats his back, notices a woodsy scent tingling his nose.

“You smell good.” He winces; that was too creepy, now Duck will pull the comforting bulk of his body away.

“Thanks. I bought a bunch of cologne when I realized I was actually going to be a contestant. News clothes too. Thought it would give me an edge but...I dunno, can't compete with a guy like your brother.”

“Join the club.” Indrid reaches up to toy with a lock of Duck’s black hair, expecting Duck to bat him away. Instead, he sighs and turns his head to give Indrid better access.

“You could compete with ‘im. You're cuter. Nicer too.”

“Oh. Ah. Thank you.”

Duck’s fidgets with the mothman pin on Indrid’s jacket, “You wanna cuddle?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No one cuddles with me. And we ain’t allowed to cuddle Vincent yet.” He looks up, lips pouting just enough to be charming.

Indrid let’s a purr enter his voice, “That’s a shame. I’m happy to cuddle.”

Duck rolls more of his body onto Indrid, resolutely nestling his head under his chin and tangling their legs together. His hands stay on Indrid’s chest and shoulders, though he’s now drunkenly petting Indrid’s collarbone, making him shiver. He expends four months worth of daring in a second, wrapping his arms around the curves of Duck’s torso. When Duck’s fingers brush skin instead of shirt, Indrid whimpers, then bites his lip and prays it went unnoticed.

“You don’t get cuddled much either, do you?” Duck murmurs thoughtfully.

“No.”

“Damn shame, you’re real good at it. Can cuddle me any time.”

Indrid “mmhmms” knowing the promise is like the stars; bright and comforting in the darkness, but ultimately beyond his reach.

Three day later, he drops his guard; Apollo’s been on his good behavior since Vincent’s been spending more time with him. You’d think Indrid would learn by now that all his venom has to go somewhere.

He’s huddled down in the rec room trying not to cry; it’s pathetic enough that he let such childish insults get to him, but to cry over them would confirm everything his brother said.

“Indrid? You, uh, you okay?” Duck’s reflection in the darkened T.V approaches his own.

“I'm fine.” It’s the same inflection he’s used hundreds of times, but Duck sits down on the couch all the same.

“Do you, uh, need a hug?’

“No.” He replies a hair too quickly.

“Do you want one?”

“......Badly.”

Duck opens his arms and Indrid shifts on the cushions, doing his best to curl his long limbs so they’ll fit in his embrace. The shorter man notices, concern flashing on his face.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Okay. You, uh, wanna hear the most exciting news of the day?” He waits for Indrid to nod, “there was a cougar sightin’ in the foothills near here!”

“That is both very exciting and alarming.”

“Doubt it’d go after folks, they try to steer clear of people. We don’t have ‘em back home, but you learn what to do when you’re also learnin how to deal with bears.”

“How does one deal with a bear? Other than buying them a drink.”

Duck snorts, relaxes further into the couch, “Depends on how soon you see ‘em…”

They emerge two hours later, and Indrid is so engrossed in their conversation about hiking incidents that he runs smack into a camera man. While he’s apologizing profusely, Duck guffaws, steadies him, and leads him off in search of somewhere to watch the sunset.

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

“Oooh, ooh, look, sea lions!” Indrid points to the distant wharf.

“Good eye. Man, those fuckers are big. Glad none of ‘em were in the water when we did that fuckin cliff dive.”

“I for one would pay good money to see my brother chased by a sea lion.”

Duck chuckles, pops the tab on his WhiteClaw. They’re having dinner on the beach, a gourmet spread meant to encourage them to show off their pallets. Indrid took Barclay’s recommendation and ordered the whole, grilled snapper, which he assumed he’d be eating alone; Vincent’s attention has been on Duck ever since he went swimming this morning. Duck seems to be enjoying it, but come dinner time he demurred (“gotta let some of the other fellas have a chance”) and brought his basket of fried oysters over to join Indrid on the sand.

“Speakin of your brother, kinda surprised he didn't make any digs at this whole, uh, situation.” Duck gestures to the torso Indrid is currently aching to lick droplets of saltwater from. To subdue the craving, he licks salt from his fingers before replying.

“I, ah, the last time he tried to, I reminded him of all the pictures I have of him eating. He hates to be seen eating. Most of the time.” He tilts his head towards his twin, who’s chowing down next to Vincent without a care for the cameras. Indrid sets his hand on the warm sand, “I’ve been trying to, well, reign him in as you suggested. Or at least make him think twice about his choices.”

(Indrid omits the part where he’s most likely to risk it if Duck is the one with the target on his back).

Duck sets his hand down beside Indrid’s, brushes sand from the side of it with a calloused thumb, “Mighty good of you. But, uh, think I mighta read things wrong that day. You gotta handle him how you think best. Just, uh, just promise me you won’t sacrifice your own well-bein’ for my sake, or anyone else’s. We’re all grown-ass men; we can handle it.”

“I promise.” He lies.

The other man leans back on his hands, green eyes drifting across the waves. Indrid would gladly sit in silence the rest of the night, it’s so easy to be comfortable in the lull when it’s Duck filling the space beside him.

Eventually, the ranger murmurs, “It’s so fuckin breathtaking. The ocean, I mean. Maybe if you live on a coast you get used to it but man, it is somethin;.”

“More so than the forest?”

Duck smiles, “It’s like apples and oranges. Monongahela got its own charms; you’d have a blast takin pictures and drawin there, believe me. If, uh, if Apollo and I both make it to the final four, uh, maybe we could take a few hours durin’ my hometown visit and I could show you my favorite spot.

Indrid imagines the two of them beneath the trees, walking hand in hand.

“I’d like that.”

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

“You know you’re just a distraction, right?”

Indrid doesn’t look at his brother, just flips the page in his book, “I doubt that. You’ve said, often, that I’m too off-putting to be interesting.”

“Not when there’s competition for someone superior; Duck knows he might not win. You’re his back-up if he doesn’t, and a way to kill time until the end. Once Vincent sends him home, which he most definitely will, he’ll keep you around until something better comes along.”

“Don’t act like you know him.” Indrid hisses, looking up just in time to see something scurrying behind the triumph on Apollo’s face: fear.

So, his brother has a new weakness. He’ll tuck that away for later; this is shaping up to be an unpleasant conversation, but not one requiring quite that degree of weapon.

“You should thank me. If I weren’t so captivating, Vincent would spend all his time with Duck. Then you’d be without any attention at all. Even Duck’s taste isn’t that abysmal.” He grins his several thousand dollar smile, “he and Vincent are probably laughing about it right now.”

Indrid stands, crosses the tiny room, “Shut up, Apollo.”

Then he slams the door. There’s a yelp, followed by “you hit my nose, you pathetic excuse for a man, ow, open this door this instant I’m not done with you!”

He flicks the lock and sits back on the bed. There’s a tin of sensory putty on his nightstand and he opens it, playing with it between his fingers. Duck brought it for him after a museum date with Vincent. The image of him not only thinking of Indrid when he saw something, but then buying it for him just to see him smile makes him want to grin and hide his face in a pillow like a teenager who just got asked to prom.

But maybe this date is going differently.

Indrid squeezes the putty, repeats the mantra he’s had since he was a child, “Apollo always lies. Apollo always lies.”

Eventually, he’s calm enough to work on some tattoo commissions, is coloring away when there’s a knock on the door. A secret knock Duck invented as a goof. Throwing open the door reveals the shorter man wearing a suit jacket and an exhausted expression. Indrid gestures to the bed, shuts and locks the door as Duck slumps on the mattress and sets his head in his hands.

“Whelp, that was a shit-show.”

“What happened?” Indrid sits cross-legged beside him.

“Vincent went in for a kiss and I, uh, I turned him down. I mean, he took it well because he’s a sweet guy but I, I feel like shit.”

“There’s no shame in not wanting to kiss just yet.”

“That ain’t the problem. I, I wanna kiss someone on this set, but it ain’t him. Indrid” he looks up, green eyes watery, “Indrid, I think I’m fallin in love with you.”

“Oh. I, are you sure-”

“The whole night, and I mean the whole fuckin night, I was thinkin about you. Thought how nice the trip to the botanical gardens would be with you there to point out color combos and get excited about butterflies. Wanted to hold your hand over dinner. Fuck, when they brought out the dessert menu all I could think was how fun it’d be to order one of each thing to surprise you so you’d do that thing you do with your hands when you’re real excited.” Duck turns, sets his hands on Indrid’s shoulders, “‘Drid, if you don’t want this, I’ll back off but-”

Indrid cuts him off with a kiss, let’s strong arms pull him down to the bed and presses as close to Duck as he can, as if any space between them might be a way for the universe to push them apart.

“Than fuck” Duck pants, cupping his face, “wait, fuck, what do we do now? I can’t string poor Vincent on.”

“We’ll get them to let you out of your contract. It can’t be that hard, right?”

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

“Absolutely not” Ned shakes his head, “dropping out of the show is out of the question.”

“But that ain’t fair to any of us. Can we at least tell Vincent the truth?”

“No, it needs to look as if he naturally decided not to choose you. If not, we could be accused of manipulating results; the last time that happened, the ratings tanked for that season and the next. And my predecessor was fired.”

Duck looks at Indrid, “Guess I’ll just...pull back? That way Vincent won’t have a reason to choose me and’ll let me go soon.”

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

“Droppin out is outta the question, huh?” Duck mutters to Indrid as they watch Barclay and Joseph walk off holding hands, the host eagerly asking them questions as they go.

“I suppose he didn’t drop so much as sprint.” Indrid glances at the rose in Duck’s hand, “congratulations on making the final...well, final three now.”

“Thanks? Guess Apollo’s pretty happy about it too.”

“Yes, but his ego needs no stroking.” Indrid smiles, “maybe this means you’ll get to show me the woods?”

“I hope so. Huh. What are they gonna do with the rest of us when it’s not our turn for the hometown visit?”

The answer turns out to be: drag everyone to each hometown. Because they no longer have Joe’s trip to do, Ned decided they needed more scenes of the contestants exploring where their competitors came from.

Kepler is first, and tonight is the night Duck’s been dreading. His romantic, home-town date that everyone expects to end with at least some kissing. He manages to make it through dinner, even enjoys showing Vincent the down-town he spent years roaming. But as they start down the river walk for a romantic stroll, his heart is trying to smash its way out of his ribs.

“It’s alright, you know.” Vincent stops, guiding Duck to face him, “the fact you want to be with Indrid.”

“I, uh, fuck, I, I don’t not know, uh, fuck-” he closes his eyes, “how’d you know?”

“I’m more observant than I get credit for.” Vincent brushes his cheek, “I’ve had a hunch for weeks now, but I kept you around because I liked having you here, even if I suspected it wasn’t going to end with us together. I’m very fond of you, Duck. You deserve someone who makes you happy. I promise I’ll send you home this next rose ceremony”

“Christ” Duck chuckles, “you’re a hell of a guy too, Vince. I hope whoever you pick treats you right. I, uh, can I, should we…?”

Vincent plants a chaste kiss on his cheek, then smiles, “go get him.”

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

“Any twos?”

“No. Go fish.”

Apollo grumbles as he takes another card. Given Duck and Vincent are on their date, neither he nor Indrid is having a good night. Before Indrid can make his ask, his twin says, “How do you get people to like you?”

“Why do you care? You’ve made it this far, so obviously Vincent likes you a great deal”

“I don’t just mean him. I, I mean, I want him to like me. To want me. But I suspect he’d like me better if other people did.”

Indrid idly taps his cards, “I suggest you stop acting like our father.”

“I’m nothing like him!” Apollo squawks.

“Oh, but you are. Everything he taught us you still hold as true; you’re just the newest version of men like him. Self-absorbed. Cruel. Shallow. I’m amazed you’ve gotten this far with Vincent, given that the age difference means you’d be caring for him in his old age.”

“I, I can care for him. I will!”

“Apollo, I wouldn’t trust you to care for a potted plant.” He sets his cards down.

“At least I’m not a-”

“Ambitionless deviant who has to ride his brother’s coattails to survive?”

“Wha--how-”

“Like I said; you’re just like him. Down to your insults.” Indrid stands, “I’m going to bed. I suggest you do the same.”

His brother remains speechless--a rare state for him--as he closes the door and heads for his room. He doubts Duck will do anything on the date (hell, the two of them have only been able to steal some kisses now and then), but the whole charade has him feeling low.

There are far more cameras in the rented house than there were a few hours ago. Which means the rest of the crew is back. Does that also mean…

“Hey, sugar. I was just lookin for you.”

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

Duck’s glad his door is open, because otherwise Indrid would have smashed it to pieces dragging them both through it. He’d only gotten out the barest explanation before the taller man was kissing his face and tugging at his clothes, purring “mine” over and over again.

“Yep, all yours.” He shuts the door as Indrid mouths at his neck, “which also means you’re all mine.” He yanks Indrid’s black sweater up and over his head, sends the matching t-shirt after it a moment later. Indrid whines, fumbling with Duck’s dress shirt, and he gets an idea.

“Uh uh, only good boys who show me why they deserve it get to feel me up.”

Indrid groans into his shoulder, fisting the fabric of his jacket “What constitutes good behavior in this instance?”

“One sec, don’t go nowhere.” He starts to step past him, pauses to grips his chin and pull him into another kiss, “and no peekin.”

As he digs through his bag for the strap on he brought just in case, he keeps an eye on Indrid to be sure he’s following the directions. The taller man’s fingers twitch, but his head stays still. God, Duck is going to memorize the shape of each of the tattoos decorating his skin with his mouth.

“You did real good.” He slips around Indrid once more, resting his back on the wall. Indrid notices the new bulge in his pants and thuds to his knees.

“May I?”

“You better.”

Indrid undoes the button of his fly. Then he looks at Duck over the rim of his glasses as he takes the zipper between his teeth and pulls it down. When the black silicone of the strap breaks free, Indrid cocks his head as if unsure of his options. Duck doesn’t really have a plan--he just wants to be with him, to make him feel good and show him just what weeks of pent-up desire have done to him--but he’s starting to regret that choice.

Indrid flicks hair from his face and wraps his lips around the head of the cock experimentally. He hums, sucking on it a moment, then pulls back blushing, “This is going to sound strange but, ah, I, I really like that. It’s such a lovely texture on my tongue, it’s, it’s almost soothing to suck.”

“Guess you better keep suckin it then, huh?” Duck runs the fingers of his right hand through Indrid’s hair.

“Is that really alright? It can’t feel like much on your end.”

“Don’t mean it ain’t fun to watch. But, uh” he touches the edge of Indrid’s red glasses, “it okay if I take these off?”

Indrid nods and Duck slides them free, tucks them into his breast pocket for safekeeping as Indrid draws the cock into his mouth again. He focuses on the head at first, humming and moaning as it bumps his cheek. Then Duck sees him swallow and relax the muscles of his jaw as he presses closer. Little puffs of breath tickle Duck’s skin as Indrid gets most of the cock in his mouth, cheeks hollowing and head bobbing as he sucks. Hungry noises burlbe up his throat, and the more he lets himself go the messier he becomes, spit coating his lips and eyes fluttering closed in bliss.

“Okay, I lied.”

Brown eyes shoot him a disbelieving look.

“This ain’t fun. This is one of the hottest fuckin things I’ve ever seen.”

Indrid wiggles happily on his knees, left hand dropping to rubs his own cock through his jeans.

“Needy little thing, gotta have somethin down your throat and around your dick at the same time.”

“MMMhhmmm” Indrid purrs, the picture of filthy perfection.

“If, if you swallow the whole thing, I’ll let you finger-fuck me.”

Both hands fly to his thighs with an excited moan. Indrid’s brow crinkles with determination as he slowly, carefully brings his lips to the base of the toy. Duck groans out “good boy” and shoves his pants down, Indrid helping to drag them to his ankles. Indrid keeps his left hand on Duck’s hip while the right hovers below his folds. Duck takes it, the toy making the angle a bit awkward, and guides it against him.

“Start with one.”

Indrid nods, moans reverently as he obeys. Duck curses, looks down to find Indrid watching him attentively. Duck is going to wreck him. Then he’s going to cuddle him to sleep and wonder at the fact he got this lucky.

“You’re doin’ great, sugar. Promise I’ll tell you if you need to adjustOH, ohyeah” he lets his head rest against the chipped white of the door, “that’s the spot. Fuck it, add one more, Ahfuck, yeah, those artists fingers are fuckin perfect for this.”

Another purr and then a sharp, choked noise. Duck looks down, realizing he rolled his hips without meaning to. Before he can apologize, Indrid grips his thigh and shakes his head.

“You like that?”

“Mmhhmmm” Indrid traces a heart on his belly.

“You’ll pull off you need to?”

“Mhmmmm.” Indrid curls his fingers as his stretched lips manage to grin.

“Fuck!” Duck giggles, “okay, if my darlin wants his face fucked, that’s what he’ll get.” He keeps a hand on Indrid’s shoulder as he lets loose, grunts and curses mingling with the increasingly wet moans of his cock claiming Indrid’s throat. Soon he’s out of words, too busy with the sight of himself forcing Indrid’s lips apart as he tightens around his fingers. Handjobs are a toss-up for him most days; sometimes they work, other times he can’t cum from them at all. It turns out what makes it very easy to do so is-

“‘Drid, fuck, fuck, sugar, yeah, right there, rightthererightthere ohfuckyeah.” He cums, jerking his hips hard enough to punch a new, high sound from Indrid’s throat. The other man pulls off, rests his cheek on Duck’s belly with shuddery, satisfied sighs.

“Y’know” Duck unbuttons his shirt from the bottom up so Indrid can more easily nuzzle the skin there, “I had this whole plan where I was gonna fuck you with this and then ride your face to cum.”

“I’m not opposed.” Indrid grins, bouncing a bit.

“Yeah, but I’ve only got one in me tonight. So” He tosses the shirt away, pulls off the harness as Indrid nibbles his hips, “if you wanna cum, you’re gonna have to do all the work.”

An edge enters his smile, “I can manage that.”

Duck hits the floor with a whump, Indrid trapping him on his back and climbing atop him, all the while kissing him with abandon.

“May I fuck you?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Condom?”

“Dop kit, bathroom, aw come back.”

“Patience, sweetheart” Indrid blows him a kiss, returns a few moments later doing an inelegant dance to kick his jeans and boxers away, “got one!”

“Good, now get back down here before I-AHfuck!” Indrid is on him and in him so fast it knocks his breath away.

“Before what? You’re not going anywhere, you’re mine, alllllll mine.” He drags kisses across Duck’s cheek, then bites his chapped lip as he looks down at him, “right?”

“You know it, nnng, fuck, that’s it sugar, be a good boy and cum for me. Fuck, darlin, wanted this so bad.” He locks his fingers into silver hair to keep Indrid in kissing distance as the other man whimpers, thrusts shallow and rabbity.

“Want you too, so much, I’ll be worth it, I swear, I’ll be good, I’ll, I’ll make you so happy.”

Duck rests their foreheads together, “You already do.”

There’s a high, gasping moan, almost like a chirp, and Indrid rides out his orgasm in drawn-out rolls of his hips. Then he collapses, laughing, on Duck’s chest.

“I, I’m sorry, I just never thought I’d get this. Someone wanting me. Choosing me.”

“I mean, I went on a T.V show to find love, so I know a little somethin about that fear. But I also know findin you is better than anythin I ever imagined.”

“Likewise.” Indrid nestles closer, one hand reaching out to hold Duck’s where it’s flopped on the rug.

“...You realize this means there’s a fifty-fifty chance your brother will win.”

Indrid shrugs, lifts his head to smile at Duck, “I leave that to Vincent. I already got my prize.”

#indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #bachelor au #meet ugly

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littleabriel-blog · 3 years

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My Problem with Loki

Loki is a character beloved by many people. He has been for a decade now, although some people who read comics before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a thing were fans of him long before the first Thor came out. Over the years since his appearance in that movie the character has gone through a lot of changes, evolving from a villain to an anti-hero both in the MCU and in the comics, the latter even killing off his original incarnation to reincarnate him in a younger body resembling Tom Hiddleston in the hopes that the comics could capitalize on his popularity in order to sell more books. That move, unfortunately, did not bear fruit, with Loki’s solo series being canceled after only five issues. However, Loki remained popular in the movies, so much so that when he was killed off in Infinity War, people were pissed.

As a result of his enduring popularity, Kevin Feige and company decided to give Loki his own solo series on Disney+ when the decision was made to create a string of MCU tie-in shows to supplement the movies, and boost subscription numbers to Disney’s new streaming service. Fans of the character rejoiced. Finally, our favorite character was going to be in the spotlight, and not be merely a supporting character for Thor and hopefully not a butt monkey for the Avengers like he was in the third act of the movie of the same name. WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier had previously had well-received and successful debuts on that same platform, and it was hoped that Loki would do the same. Loki turned out to be the most successful of the Disney+ MCU shows that have come out so far, scoring highest in the ratings. As of this writing, it holds a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.5 on IMDb.

Those numbers, however, don’t reflect the entire audience and there were a lot of people who were not altogether happy with the product we received. Many people who had been hardcore fans of Loki since Tom Hiddleston first put on the horned helmet were not pleased, myself included.

The show wasn’t all bad. It did set up the multiverse, introduced Kang, introduced Mobius. The special effects were outstanding, a lot of the gags were hilarious, and we did get some character development from Loki before the spotlight fell away from him and he became all about panting after the real main character...more on that in a few.

So many things, however, were wrong.

If you liked the show, thought it was perfect, and were a fan of the romance, that’s perfectly fine. There is no such thing as a wrong opinion on a work of fiction. Everyone has their interpretations, everyone has their likes and dislikes, and there is nothing wrong with liking the show. There is also nothing wrong with not liking the show. This is a concept that people on both sides of the debate fail to understand, and I have witnessed flame wars, harassment from individuals on both sides, harassment of creators on social media from both sides, and various bits of biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other assorted types of phobias on display. I have seen people accuse people who have different opinions on the show than them of “not being a true Loki fan” and stating that people who have certain interpretations of the character don’t “truly know Loki”.

I’m not here to do that, and I assure you, if you liked the show, that’s fine. You’re allowed to. I’m allowed to not like it, and I’m allowed to explained why I didn’t like it just as you’re allowed to explain why you did. As long as both of us are being respectful, expressing an opinion is good. There is expressing an opinion and offering constructive criticism, however, and then there is namecalling, trolling, and having a tantrum and accusing someone of being “aggressive” when they don’t share the same opinion you do.

There is a huge difference between saying “I find the character of Sylvie to be problematic, and here is why” and “I think fans of Sylvie are sick and need therapy”, and people need to learn the difference between the two. Unfortunately, you have people who have become very protective of their favorite characters and tend to take any criticism leveled at said characters personally. It’s basically “You don’t like them? Well then you don’t like me, and since you don’t like me, I don’t like you.” Which is, frankly, a dangerous mentality to have. We are talking about fictional characters, not real people, and there is no need to jump to the defense of someone who does not exist. It is those people who tend to demonstrate that they have unstable personalities and immaturity, and they are the ones I have started blocking on Twitter because, being an adult woman, I don’t have the patience to deal with immature nonsense like that.

So, if you read this and then decide you want to hunt me down to give me a piece of your mind, tell me that I’m not a “true” fan of Loki, and accuse me of whatever, don’t bother. This piece isn’t here for that. It’s here because I wanted to compile my thoughts and feelings in a way that would better for me to articulate. It’s more or less a venting mechanism, purely for my benefit. If someone else gets something out of it, fine. If the creators of the show happen to see it, which is very unlikely because A) I’m not exactly going to push it onto them on their social media to get them to read it and B) they already get bombarded with tons of opinions on the show on a daily basis and aren’t going to care about one more voice added to the mix, even one who has basically compiled a novel, then alright.

And it is a novel, because I have a lot to say about Loki. I have been a huge fan of the character since long before Tom Hiddleston began playing him. My first encounter with Marvel’s Loki came in the form of the X-Men comics, specifically The Asgardian Wars run. It’s available in trade, and you should check it out. I read that run when I was around 10 years old, and I enjoyed Loki as the bad guy in the two stories that make up the collection. The first has him creating a special wish fountain that has a monkey’s paw effect in that it imbues mortals with special gifts and powers, and has the potential to make Earth a better place, but at the cost of killing every magical person and being on Earth. The X-Men and Alpha Flight find out about this after a plane piloted by the wife of one of the X-Men happens to crash in the general location the fountain is located. The two teams go to investigate, Shaman and Snowbird who are both magical beings begin dying, it’s discovered Loki created the fountain in order to score brownie points with The Ones Who Sit Above In Shadow (a pantheon of deities who are basically the Gods to the Asgardians), and after a lengthy battle Loki is defeated, he shuts down the fountain under pressure from The Ones, and slinks back to Asgard with tail between his legs.

In the second story, set after the heroes of Earth had helped Asgard defeat Surtur, Loki’s attention is caught by Storm, who at the time was depowered. He kidnaps her and brings her to Asgard intending to use her to replace Thor as the Goddess of the Storm, and use her as a pawn to, what else, conquer Asgard and seize the throne.

I really enjoyed Loki then, and felt sorry that he never appeared in any other X-Men story, not even in an issue of the New Mutants, and that team boasted an actual Valkyrie (Danielle Moonstar) as one of its members. I was a kid at the time and read pretty much exclusively X-Men since those were the books my father purchased for me. I never felt right about asking him for other books since we were a family with money struggles and I didn’t want to be more of a burden by requesting Thor or Avengers comics--that, and I just didn’t find Thor or the Avengers all that interesting at the time, a sentiment shared by a lot of people until the first Iron Man made us actually care about Tony Stark. I wouldn’t have an opportunity to start reading more comics featuring Loki until I was an adult and able to visit comic book stores on my own. I read several runs that featured him as a character, including Ragnarok, the Broxton, OK run where Loki first appeared as a woman, Dark Reign, and finally Siege. I also went back and read Walt Simonson’s legendary run on The Mighty Thor, which I highly recommend.

Suffice it to say, I’ve been a fan of the character for a long time, and in fact when Tom Hiddleston was cast in the role for Thor, I remember thinking that he was too young. But then I figured it was Hollywood, of course they’re going to deage Loki so that he appears closer in age to his adopted brother in contrast to the comics pre-Siege where Loki was often drawn to look like he was as old as Odin and therefore could be Thor’s uncle or even father as opposed to brother.

Over the years I grew to enjoy the MCU’s version of the character, enjoy Tom Hiddleston in the role, and like most other people was greatly saddened by his death in Infinity War. Like other fans, I looked forward to his solo series and had high hopes for it. Hopes that were, unfortunately, dashed.

It Was Rushed

In the MCU, it took Loki years to go from troubled young god, to villain, to ambivalent ally, to anti-hero, to hero. Literally, years. Months had passed between the end of Thor and the beginning of Avengers during which Loki endured who-knows-what at the hands of Thanos. We don’t know exactly what still. The Loki series didn’t answer that, I guess because they didn’t want to devote precious screentime to an interesting backstory for what was supposed to be the main character when they could focus on something else instead. That something else will be elaborated on.

In Episode 1, Loki is still the villain from Avengers, something he would have remained as into The Dark World. It would take him being in Asgard’s prisons for a year and then him accidentally getting his adopted mother Frigga killed in order for him to begin to do a heel-face turn. From this, we can clearly see that a transition from ax-crazy bad guy to anti-hero is not going to happen overnight. For this person I shall call Ragnarok Loki, it was a process that took time. He suffered a complete mental breakdown while in Asgard’s prison, a fragile emotional state that was compounded by the anger and massive guilt he felt at Frigga’s death.

Even after that, he still hadn’t completely abandoned his villainous ways. At the end of The Dark World we find out that after faking his supposed death earlier in the movie, Loki has assumed Odin’s form and taken his place on Asgard’s throne. In Ragnarok, Loki is still sitting on the throne in Odin’s form, and shows no indication at all that he feels any remorse for giving his adopted father amnesia, stripping away his magic, and abandoning him on Earth to whatever fate he might meet. Loki remains a selfish bastard throughout Ragnarok until the third act, after Thor had treated him to a taste of his own medicine by sticking a taser on him and then giving him a speech about becoming predictable and complacent.

Loki’s arc was one that spanned four movies and six years, since in-universe there were a couple of years between The Dark World and Ragnarok. That meant that his character development took actual time and was realistic. It was one of the things that drew people to the character, the fact that he had a very relatable and believable redemption arc.

Compare that to Episode 1. In less than a day he goes from being the Loki that we saw in Avengers, batshit crazy, selfish, callous, and untrusting, to making personal confessions to a man he had just met only a couple hours previously and agreeing to help the organization that had arrested, stripped, imprisoned, tried, and almost executed him.

What?

I will give the show this: In Episode 2, he shows that he’s still up to his old tricks when he feeds Mobius and the agents all that horsecrap about how a Loki works in the Ren Faire tent, and then revealing that he plans to take over the TVA when he confronts his variant in the futuristic Wal-Mart. The weeping confession to Mobius, that I can’t really get over. How do you go from haughty, arrogant, and “trust is for children and dogs”, to “I don’t enjoy hurting people” in just a couple of hours? The show never indicated that it was a manipulation tactic on Loki’s part. Instead, we were basically told to believe that they became friends just that fast. That emotionally stunted and closed-off Loki made a connection with another person in a matter of hours. Makes sense. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mobius and feel he makes a good foil for Loki. I hope to see more of him in the future. I just have a tough time finding their friendship all that believable.

This would not be the only relationship in the show that happened too fast that we were forced to just buy, which leads me to Sylvie.

She’s the variant that the TVA had been hunting, that Mobius recruited Loki to help capture. And while I normally hate it when people ascribe a certain label onto a new female character because reasons (ones that are usually misogynistic), I think it fits rather well in Sylvie’s case.

Enter The Mary Sue

Mary Sue is a term that gets thrown around a lot. To sum up the meaning in very simple terms, it refers to a character who is too perfect to be believable. Mary Sues are often author-self inserts in fiction, they’re usually the love interest for at least one male hero and it’s usually the male hero the author will admit to having a crush on, their scenes usually are presented much more descriptively than those of the other characters, the story will revolve around them often at the expense of the development and plots for the other characters of the story, and they’re presented as beautiful, powerful, intelligent, beautiful, special, strong, beautiful, and desirable. Yes, beautiful is on the list more than once, and it’s deliberate.

The term comes from an old Star Trek parody fanfic, and while it is usually applied to original characters in fan fiction, the term has been used to describe characters in canon media as well. Some examples of characters who have been described as Mary Sues would include Bella from the Twilight books, Felicity from the show Arrow, Jaenelle Angelline from Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewel novels, Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood, Rey from the last Star Wars trilogy, and Jean Grey from the X-Men comics. Note I do not necessarily agree that those characters are Mary Sues, I have merely heard these characters referred to as Mary Sues, and when I look at them objectively I can kind of see where the accusations come from. Some other terms that can apply are Creator’s Pet and of course Author Self-Insert. Not all Mary Sues are Author Self-Inserts, but a lot of them are. Also, not all characters who can be labeled Mary Sues are female, though they often are. The male version of a Mary Sue is called a Marty Stu, and a couple of characters I’ve seen get ascribed that label include Harry Potter, Daemon Sadi from Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewel novels, Edward from Twilight, and Red Hulk from Marvel Comics. Even Batman and Wolverine haven’t been immune from the Marty Stu stamp, although you can argue that it does apply in their cases especially depending on who’s writing them. Sometimes it is painfully obvious they are author self-inserts...the aforementioned Bella is a good example. Others, you can only speculate on. And while there are theories going around that Sylvie is someone’s self-insert, we don’t have definitive proof of that.

There are good arguments, however, for her being labeled a Mary Sue and Creator’s Pet.

First are her powers. In the show we are told that Sylvie taught herself magic, especially her ability to “enchant”, the power to get into the minds of others and manipulate them. The fact that she taught herself would indicate that her education and skill in using magic should be lacking, right? She should not be as good as, say, someone who learned magic from his foster mother who herself was taught by Asgardian witches?

Yet in the show, Sylvie not only runs circles around Loki magically wise, she even teaches him a few tricks. This is startlingly in contrast to the comics. Loki’s Sylvie is partially based on the character Sylvie Lushton from the Young Avengers, a bad guy who was once a normal girl whom Loki imbued with powers before his death at the hands of the Sentry during the events of 2010’s Siege storyline. In the comics, Loki not only gave Sylvie her powers, but he was the one who taught her how to use them. Now, of course things in the MCU are not going to follow the way things are in the comics. MCU Loki is nowhere near as old as comics Loki and has so far not demonstrated the ability to give other beings powers. And MCU Sylvie is a composite of Sylvie Lushton and Lady Loki, which is also problematic, but we’ll get to that.

But the point is that Sylvie had no training. Her magic is some improvised slapped-together stuff that at best she picked up here and there and at worst she just pulled out of her ass. Now, knowing that, we’re supposed to buy that she can mop the floor magically wise with someone who was formally trained by a sorceress? And that furthermore, she can school him as well?

To make up for her lack of experience and knowledge, Loki is nerfed. Power wise and intellectually wise, he is nerfed. In Thor and Avengers Loki is smart, well-spoken, and a master manipulator. At one point he is able to turn all of the Avengers against one another, and while his magic has never been anywhere near the level it was at in the comics pre-Siege (after his resurrection, he was powered down and is currently nowhere near the powerhouse he had been prior to 2011) he was able to pull off some impressive displays of skill nonetheless. Shape shifting, illusion casting, it was a good repertoire.

In Episode 3, however...well, he does use teleportation to some impressive affect during his fight with Sylvie, but he still doesn’t get the upperhand. And he should. Loki is a better trained fighter, better trained in sorcery, and realistically should have at the least managed to incapacitate his variant. He doesn’t however, because the moment he meets Sylvie his IQ drops about 20 points. He falls easily for her tricks, makes laughable plans, gets drunk and draws too much attention when he knows that is a bad idea, and manages to get them both stuck on a moon that will soon be dust courtesy of the rogue planet about to crash into it. Loki has made some blunders in the various MCU movies he’s been in, mostly due to his own arrogance and tendency to underestimate his foes, but he’s not that stupid. In fact, in The Dark World he screams at Thor and calls him an idiot for drawing attention to themselves by hijacking an elven ship and crashing into every column and statue within a fifty-foot radius.

Where exactly is that smart, calculating, more careful Loki we know from the films? He’s been transformed and dumbed down, in an attempt to prop Sylvie up. It’s a tired trope, making the male character a dumbass in order to make the female character look good. Well, I should say male-presenting and female-presenting characters in this case, but their supposed gender fluidity really is not represented well and it’s completely contradicted later on, but we’ll get to that.

Anyway, making the male character stupid in order to make the female character look better by comparison is not empowering. It’s insulting. It implies that women are not smart or capable enough to meet men on equal footing, that the only way we can shine is not by virtue of our own strengths, but merely by making us look better than the men.

She doesn’t just outshine Loki intellectually and power wise, she outshines him period. The show from Episode 3 on becomes about Sylvie. She is the show’s main focus, and Loki? He’s relegated to the role of supporting character in the series that’s named after him. Supporting character, and love interest. From Episode 3 on, the show might as well be called Sylvie.

Now, some people will say that since Sylvie is a Loki, the show was indeed focusing on Loki. The problem is, the show is very inconsistent as to whether or not Sylvie really is a Loki or a different person entirely. I will explain more later, but the writers seem to change Sylvie’s identity to suit whatever narrative they want to present to the audience, including the pre-Pixar Disney romance they foist upon us.

The Romance, and why some find it gross

One major characteristic of the Mary Sue is that she always draws the romantic and sexual interest of the main male character, who may or may not be a Marty Stu himself. Oftentimes he’s not, and Loki does not fit the criteria of a Marty Stu by any stretch of the imagination. These romances always happen fast with little to no buildup. There is no what writers of romance call “slow burn”, it’s just throw Mary at the male character, hook them up, and get the audience to buy it. Basically, it’s reminiscent of the romance stories in the Classical Era Disney animated films. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella all fall madly in love with their princes within minutes of meeting them. There’s no getting to know each other, there is no preamble, there is no slow courtship, no real drama to speak of. It’s basically Love At First Sight or True Love. This trend continues even into the Disney Renaissance. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel is willing to make a deal with a witch to give up her fins for a prince she hasn’t even spoken to yet. He doesn’t even know she exists, and she leaves her home and family behind, gives up her voice, all for a mere shot at hooking up with him.

That’s not love, that’s lust. That’s hormones overruling your brain, and it’s an insulting trope, one that feminists have railed against for years. Disney has made a little progress. The movie Frozen took the mickey out of the Love At First Sight/True Love trope with the song “Love Is An Open Door” and the prince Anna wanting to marry turning out to be a major sleazebag who just wants to use her, but we still only have three Disney princesses (Elsa, Moana, and Merida) who have never had love interests and two (Anna and Rapunzel) whose love stories come close to being slow burns, out of 12 official Princesses. There’s still a long way to go, and boy is there a major step backwards in Loki.

In Episode 3, Loki fights Sylvie and they end up on Lamentis 1. Sylvie spends a good portion of the time insulting and trying to kill Loki, and Loki finds himself having to defend himself from her. That changes once they get on the train going to the Arc. After sneaking aboard the train using a disguise and a flimsy story, the two Lokis sit in a booth, where Loki proceeds to drink champagne. It is then that, out of nowhere, the conversation shifts from how Sylvie learned her powers to the topic of love.

Why? Why would you bring that up in conversation with someone who was doing her best to kill you a couple hours prior?

Then Loki makes things worse by asking Sylvie if she has a beau waiting for her. Why? It doesn’t make sense. The two of you are at each other’s throats, she’s done her best to kill you, neither of you trusts the other, and, completely out of left field, you decide to basically ask “So...are you single?”

Now, enemies to lovers is a trope that can work when done right. Typically, it’s a very subtle, slow progression that the audience witnesses over time in a novel, movie or television series. Weeks and even months will go by in the narrative during which the two people go from wanting each other dead to developing feelings for one another. There’s usually a “will they, won’t they period” that lasts for some time that’s full of teases and flirting before the couple does hook up and gives the audience the resolution. Done in this way, enemies to lovers can work.

This...this is not the right way to do enemies to lovers. Within a couple of hours Loki and Sylvie go from hatred and doing their damnedest to stabbing one another in the backs, to having a connection that causes a nexus event?

By the way, that nexus event makes no sense. In Episode 2, it is established that it is impossible to create a nexus event in an apocalypse. It is why Sylvie was able to avoid capture by the TVA for so long. In fact, just minutes prior to the two of them almost dying in Episode 4, Sylvie flat-out says that she figured out that she needed to hide in apocalypses because she discovered she didn’t create a nexus event when she hid in them.

Now the two of them are able to create a nexus event in the midst of an apocalypse? Why? Their “connection” isn’t going to lead to any consequences...they were about to die. No one else need never have known about the “moment” the two of them shared. It’s very confusing and the only purpose it really serves is to paint Loki and Sylvie as soulmates, which doesn’t make sense in the context of the show. The concept of soulmates is that for every person, there is someone out there they are predestined to be with. Loki is a show that, at the core of it, is about rejecting predestination and embracing free will. In that context, the idea of soulmates is ludicrous and contradictory to the message that we make our own destiny. This is why True Love is unrealistic, and I hate to break it to you romantics out there, but Love At First sight does not exist.

Infatuation At First Sight exists, but that is not Love, no matter what your hormones are telling you. Love takes time to evolve, and it takes work to maintain. It sure as hell doesn’t happen after less than 12 hours of knowing each other, during which a huge chunk of time was devoted to trying to manipulate, outsmart, and murder the person you’re supposedly in love with. No one falls in love in less than 12 hours, period, unless it’s a Classical Era Disney animated movie. They basically turned Loki into a big Disney Romance trope. I have a very hard time buying that Loki, who we have established is emotionally stunted and closed off, would form a love connection in just a few hours, especially with someone who was doing her best to murder him in that timespan.

That is not the only reason this relationship is problematic. The term “Selfcest” has been thrown around, and a lot of defenders of this particular ship claim that the term was very recently made up in social media for the sole purpose of badmouthing this particular romance. That is not the case. Selfcest is a term that has existed among fiction writers for years, it’s just that more people have recently become aware of it thanks to this show. The trope has been used and referred to in various works of fiction, especially in fantasy and science fiction where cloning, alternative universes, and magic occur. A lot of the insults I get from people who can’t stand that I don’t like the romance basically go along the lines of saying selfcest doesn’t exist. No, it doesn’t...in reality. But this isn’t reality, is it? It’s fiction. It’s a fictional world where such a thing could be possible, and even in works where it’s not possible it’s often alluded to.

In A Song Of Ice And Fire, we have the infamous twincest relationship going on between Cersei and Jamie Lannister, and it is heavily implied that sleeping with her brother is the closest that Cersei can get to banging herself and that is why she does it. Jamie is basically everything she feels she should have been and was denied due to being born a woman. In fact, in later books when he reunites with her after having been away from King’s Landing for over a year, during which time he’s grown a beard and shaved his head, Cersei no longer finds him as attractive since they no longer look as much alike.

And with advances in cloning, selfcest might be possible in the future. We already have sex robots, and people with money are capable of making those robots look like themselves. There is nothing stopping them from doing it.

Knowing all of this, the argument of “selfcest doesn’t exist!” falls flat. And it especially falls flat when you’re referring to a fictional universe where a large purple man once killed off half the population of said universe with a snap of his fingers, where scientists turn into giant green monsters, the Norse gods not only exist but regularly interact with people on Earth, and there’s such a thing as a Sorcerer Supreme.

As I have said, the show has been rather inconsistent in stating what exactly Sylvie’s identity is. One moment, we are told Sylvie is a Loki and that she and Loki are the same person. Mobius says it, Kang says it multiple times, Judge Renslayer says it, the director and the writers state it in interviews. But then in the next breath, they contradict it by saying that she’s not a Loki, she’s Sylvie and a different person.

You can’t have it both ways. Which is it? Either she’s a Loki, or she’s not. The narrative is very confusing and it changes depending on how they want us to see Sylvie, especially in relation to her romance with Loki. It’s so much easier to avoid the selfcest/incest accusations when you can say they are different people. But then they say they’re the same person. Make up your minds!

Since the show first established that Sylvie is a Loki, I’m going with that. Especially since we saw a bit of her backstory. She grew up in Asgard as a member of the royal family, which means she had Odin as a father, Frigga as mother, and Thor as brother. She may or may not have the same DNA as Loki. We never got confirmation either way, and there are people who argue that they don’t to which I have to ask: How do you know? The show never tells us! “Oh, well, there’s Alligator Loki, are you going to say he has the same DNA as well?” Well, we are never told how exactly Alligator Loki came to be. Is he actually an alligator, or is he Loki who somehow got permanently stuck when he shapeshifted? People tend to forget that he can do that. Ragnarok established that he can turn into a snake, and a deleted scene actually had the childhood story go that Loki turned into a rug to cover a hole in the ground and then dumped Thor into it. There is the scene where Doctor Strange drops Loki through a portal, and Thor is left poking at a business card, and it is clear that for a moment he thinks that Loki turned into that. We know Loki can shapeshift, so Alligator Loki can very well have the same DNA. We just don’t know, because the show never explains it for the same reason the show cut out the scenes with Throg fighting Loki...to devote more screentime to Sylki.

Even if they don’t have the same DNA, it’s still established that they are the same person, they have the same family, they’re both the God/dess of Mischief, and even Sylvie herself acknowledges that she is a Loki despite the fact that she changed her name. So selfcest very much applies here, and a good argument can be made that selfcest is the ultimate in incest...after all, there isn’t anyone else you’re more related to than yourself. It is very understandable, therefore, that a lot of people would be very, very uncomfortable with such a relationship. Having the same DNA would merely be the icing on the very gross cake.

Furthermore, just because selfcest does not exist in reality does not mean someone can’t find the concept distasteful. “It’s not real!” “It’s just fiction!” Yes, and people are allowed to have their own feelings and opinions on fiction. If they find the idea of selfcest hard to stomach, that’s their prerogative and you really have no right to tell them they are wrong for feeling that way. They should not have to justify to anyone why they feel that way either. No one owes you an explanation for why they find real world incest or cannibalism distasteful, so they don’t owe you an explanation for this.

“Well, of course Loki would fall for himself...he’s a narcissist!” Is he though? Is he really? Having dealt with my fair share of narcissists in my life, I have to wonder if the fans who say that, along with the writers, know what a narcissist really is.

Is Loki a narcissist?

Bringing up Cersei Lannister again, the novels she appears in establishes that she is an extreme narcissist. She sleeps with her twin brother because it’s the closest she can come to sleeping with herself, and she desires to do that because she is a narcissist. A narcissist is someone whose personality is defined by an inflated sense of self-importance, troubled relationships, lack of empathy for others, and an excessive deep-seated need for attention and admiration. It’s a very simplistic definition, and there are plenty of YouTube videos devoted to delving into narcissists into more depth, as well as videos on how to cope with the aftermath of abuse at the hands of narcissists. Narcissists are so devoted to themselves that they ignore the needs and the feelings of those in their lives, which often results in abusive behavior. There are entire support groups that exist for victims of narcissists.

At first glance, one can see why some might consider Loki a narcissist. He does engage in some pretty selfish behavior, he goes to great lengths to get attention, his relationships to his family are indeed fraught with drama, and he seems to have a pretty overinflated ego. He even goes so far as to write a play featuring himself as the central character, and build a giant golden statue of himself after taking over Asgard in the guise of Odin. But really, is his ego truly that big? Or he is overcompensating for his self-hatred and self-disgust?

Loki suffered quite the emotional blow when he found out his true heritage, a revelation that shook him to his very core. Of course, his relationship with his father suffered as a result...the man lied to him for his entire life. Their relationship really was not that great even before that since Odin found it easier to relate to Thor, who was more like him in personality, than to Loki, who was more cerebral and quieter. Loki’s relationship to Frigga fared much better. He’s quick to forgive her involvement in covering up the truth about his parentage, and it is obvious that they are close. Even his relationship with Thor prior to the events of the movie is not all that bad, the two brothers are affectionate and playful, and when Loki interrupts Thor’s coronation, it’s not just for the sake of creating trouble, but to postpone Thor taking the crown for another little while because he is not fit to rule. At the time Thor had yet to go through his character development arc on Earth and he was still an overly arrogant, bloodthirsty, elitist douchebag, so Loki really had a good point.

A true narcissist would have done what Loki did just for the sake of making life difficult for Thor. Also, he would have done it because he wanted the throne. Loki states repeatedly that he never wanted to rule. A true narcissist would have been all smiles about taking the throne instead of being reluctant about it as Loki was when Frigga handed him Gungnir.

Throughout the films, and in the first episode of the series, we see that Loki does indeed love his family and is capable of feeling guilt over the things that he does to them, intentionally or not. Narcissists typically don’t feel remorse. As far as they are concerned, they are perfect and can do no wrong, so they have nothing to feel bad about. If they hurt you, it’s because you deserved it. You shouldn’t have provoked their ire.

Loki feels bad for getting Frigga killed, and then later on Odin. Then he is in tears when Odin dies, and later at the mere thought of never seeing Thor again when the two brothers talk in an elevator on Sakaar. Those are not the actions of someone who is incapable of loving anyone but himself, as I’ve seen so many people claim about him. And the fact that he sacrificed himself to save his brother also kind of kills the whole “narcissist” narrative.

In Episode 1, Loki breaks down and confesses to Mobius that he doesn’t like hurting people. He does it because it’s part of the façade, and admits that he sees himself as weak. A few episodes later, he admits to a memory illusion Sif that he craves attention “because I’m a narcissist” and admits to being afraid of being alone. That is far more self-reflection than a typical narcissist is capable of in my experience. As I said, narcissists tend to think they are perfect. A true narcissist would never admit to having any flaws, and sure as hell would never admit that they are a narcissist. As far as the true narcissist is concerned, if you find them flawed in any way, that’s on you. The narcissist has no need for self-reflection because they honestly see nothing wrong with themselves, and believe that they don’t need to change...it’s everyone else who does.

A good real-life example from my past is a former friend I’ll call D. D was a self-proclaimed brat who was quite proud of the fact that she could be difficult to be in a relationship with and tended to go through men like tissue paper. She was demanding, self-centered, extremely jealous, manipulative, and prone to wild mood swings. She could and did go from zero to insane at the drop of a hat. In the time I knew her, she left a string of burnt guys behind, and according to her it was because they just weren’t man enough to handle her. She also left behind a string of broken former friends, to the point where there really needed to be a support group for former friends of D who suddenly had her turn them into Public Enemy Number 1 when they either started taking attention away from D, or...well, that was it really. As I said, she was a very jealous person and had a chronic need to be the center of attention, especially if there were men around. Anyway, instead of working on herself to become less self-involved, self-absorbed, and more empathetic, she double downed on her abrasiveness and constant need for attention until she finally wore the poor man down and he either ghosted her or outright dumped her. She never broke up with them, preferring to keep them around for as long as they were willing in order to toy with them as a cat does with a mouse. I tried to talk to her about her horrible behavior, but instead of taking my constructive criticism and maybe using it to make some needed changes, she completely turned on me and did her best to make my life hell until I finally cut her out of it. I learned two things: Narcissists don’t want help because they don’t feel they need it and they are never going to change as a result, and never, ever try to confront a narcissist. It’ll only end badly.

A more famous example? Former US President Donald Trump. I won’t get into that, because really all you need to do is perform a quick Google search to see what all he’s done and witness his narcissism on full display. But really, place him side by side with Loki. Do you see any similarities at all? Maybe on the surface, but when you go deeper...no. Loki is not a narcissist. He’s capable of deep self-reflection, owns his faults, is capable of loving others, and feels remorse. I would argue that anyone who says he is a narcissist, either does not know the character, or hasn’t ever actually dealt with a narcissist in real life, to which I can only say: Lucky you.

I honestly would argue that calling Loki a narcissist is actually doing a disservice to victims of abuse from actual narcissists.

What about Sylvie? Well, in contrast to Loki who does show remorse while Mobius is playing that “This Is Your Life” reel for him, Sylvie shows no remorse or regret. She knows that the TVA agents she kills are as much victims as she is. They are innocent variants who were kidnapped from Earth and forced to work for the TVA after having their memories wiped. She knows this, yet the first time we see her she burns a bunch of TVA agents alive, and she just stands there watching as they scream in agony. In the next episode she says right out that she’s “having some fun” while possessing the body of C-90 and murdering more agents. She is not at all sorry about doing what she did, and we’re supposed to be understanding since she was kidnapped as a child. Okay, but the entire TVA didn’t do that. The agents she kills didn’t personally kidnap her. The only one we see who was directly involved in that is Renslayer. Sylvie “did what she had to do”, fine. But she doesn’t feel bad about it, at all. The flashback to her as a child takes great pains to try to show us what a good person she is when she cries out “Help him!” as another prisoner is being beaten, but I guess she grew out of it.

We don’t know if Sylvie has any other narcissistic traits besides lack of remorse because, well, the show really doesn’t do much to show her personality. Other than killing people, trying to kill Loki, and then flirting with Loki, we just don’t really see much to her. It’s another trait of a Mary Sue. Mary Sues often have bland, one-dimensional personalities. After all, their only purpose is usually to serve as love interests for one or more male characters. Mary Sues break the “show, don’t tell” rule by having the other characters verbally inform us about their traits, usually while singing their praises, but we don’t actually see those traits in the Mary Sue herself.

Loki calls Sylvie “amazing”, but how amazing is she, really? She kills people she knows are victims, she endangers the timeline just to sneak into the TVA, and then she kills Kang despite knowing that there is a very good chance that doing so could unleash something far, far worse than him. Then again, it doesn’t have to make sense when you’re pushing an unwanted and unasked for romance on an audience who was expecting a scifi show, not a romance.

I have spoken in a few places about this. Romance is fine, but in a show that blatantly places itself in the scifi genre, it really should only be the background, not center stage. When I expressed this opinion, I got accused of being dismissive of an essential part of the human experience. Well, first of all, congratulations: You just invalidated the existence of people on the asexual and aromantic spectrums, not to mention people who are celibate by choice. Second, that is why we have the romance genre. To tell stories centered around romance. I like romance, I read romance novels, and I sometimes write romantic fiction. But there are some places where it just is not appropriate.

There are people who say that adding romance makes things more interesting. Nope, in those cases it’s just a smokescreen, something used to hide plot holes and distract us from just how empty the story really is. Writers like to say that if you need a romance to make things more interesting, then you really don’t have much of a story in the first place. And sadly, Loki does have some plot holes. The nexus event on Lamentis is a good example, and the romance is definitely used to distract us from that. People were so focused on “oh wow, they’re having a moment, they’re soulmates!” that they didn’t think “waitaminute...didn’t they say that nexus events can’t occur in apocalypses?”

We really did not need a romance in Loki. Period. It was unnecessary, it was distracting, a lot of people found it disturbing, and it actively hurt a marginalized group.

Loki Is A Queer Icon!...maybe

I am not going to say that the relationship between Loki and Sylvie is not a bisexual one. A bisexual relationship is a bisexual relationship regardless of whether or not the person the bisexual person is with is the opposite sex. Saying otherwise is biphobic. Biphobic people in both the straight and the queer communities have been excluding bisexual people who happen to be in opposite sex relationships for years because apparently one stops being bisexual once they get into a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. This is horseshit. I’ve been in relationships with CIS men, did I stop being attracted to other men, women, nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, and other genderqueer people? No. No, I didn’t, because while I was entangled, I was not dead. Heterosexual people don’t stop being attracted to other members of the opposite sex when they are in relationships, it’s no different with queer people.

So, stop saying that Loki and Sylvie are not a bisexual relationship. You’re not doing us any favors at all, and in fact you’re only helping the biphobes who want to kick us out of Pride and other queer spaces for daring to date members of the opposite sex.

I will address the “Bit of both” line however. In Episode 3, Loki has that response to Sylvie’s questioning about whether there had been any would-be princesses or princes in his life. Again, a conversation that comes out of nowhere. She stated outright that she didn’t trust him, clearly wanted him dead, and now she’s asking if he’s single. Whatever.

Anyway, people went nuts when Loki answered “A bit of both”. It was confirmation that Loki was bisexual, it was celebrated on social media...and it is really biphobic and Kate Herron, who is bisexual herself, really should have known better.

Biphobic people have long tried to sow division between the bi and trans communities (unsurprisingly, biphobia and transphobia tend to go hand-in-hand) by saying that the concept of being bisexual is transphobic. “Bi” means two, ergo bisexual people are only attracted to two genders, specifically CIS men and CIS women. It never occurs to anyone that the “two genders” a bisexual person could be attracted to could be, say, women (and yes, I include trans women in that, since they are in fact women, get over it) and non-binary people, or agender and gender-fluid people, it’s always CIS men and CIS women. This despite the fact that the definition of bisexual has been “attraction to more than one gender” since long before the Bisexual Manifesto was put out in 1990.

Some people have tried to remedy this by adopting the moniker of “pansexual” instead, which A) is basically reinforcing what biphobes are saying about bisexuals and creating even more division and B) doesn’t just mean “attraction to trans people as well, I’m not transphobic, I promise!” “Pansexual” is not interchangeable with “bisexual”. Pansexual is attraction to all genders. Bisexual means attraction to more than one gender, but not necessarily to all genders. You can have a bisexual person, for instance, who is attracted to all genders except for men. If you are attracted to more than one gender, but not to all genders, you are bisexual, and labeling yourself pansexual is lying and basically caving in to the biphobes.

I’m not trying to police what people call themselves...if you want to use the two terms interchangeably, if you want to call yourself bisexual, or pansexual, it’s fine. But just evaluate the reasons why. Are you calling yourself pansexual because you really think you can be, or are you just calling yourself that out of fear of being labeled transphobic? The latter, in my opinion, is not a really good reason, and it only helps deliver the biphobic message that bisexual people are transphobic.

So, by saying “a bit of both”, Loki is really helping to reinforce that biphobic assertion that bisexual people are attracted just to CIS men and CIS women. It’s disappointing, but it is Disney so I suppose that is the best we can expect for now. It just shows that Disney really has a long way to go.

What’s more problematic is the supposed genderfluid representation. Now, I am a CIS woman. As such, I feel unqualified to really say that the representation is shitty and fluidphobic. However, if I’m not qualified to say that it is, then Kate Herron and the writers are unqualified to say that it isn’t. Rule of thumb: If members of a marginalized group are telling you that you did a poor job of representing them and that you are being transphobic or fluidphobic, instead of ignoring and dismissing their concerns like a good portion of the population already does, it’s a really good idea to listen to what they are saying and learn how you can do better.

There have been some genderfluid and trans people who expressed that they liked the show, and good for them. But I have seen a lot of very valid criticisms and concerns from genderfluid and trans people about the representation on the show, and I think they really should be listened to. Kate, you and I are queer, but we are still CIS women. Ergo, we have no say in whether or not the way you attempted to present Loki’s gender fluidity is transphobic. If genderfluid people say it’s fluidphobic or trans people say it’s transphobic, then it is indeed fluidphobic/transphobic. To say otherwise is gaslighting a marginalized community who already faces gaslighting on a daily basis.

I will touch on a couple of things.

First, in Episode 5, Loki asks a bunch of his variants if they have ever encountered a female version of themselves, a question that is met with varying levels of incredulousness and even disgust. If Loki was truly genderfluid, this question wouldn’t have been asked. Genderfluid means the person shifts genders along the spectrum. Loki does this in the comics. Comicbook Loki switches between masculine and feminine presenting on the drop of a dime, especially in his current incarnation. Loki in the MCU we are told is also genderfluid, and should also be able to hop along the gender spectrum on a whim. There should not be a “female variant” therefore, since they are all the same gender. There could be a female presenting variant, but that is not the same thing. They would still be all genderfluid in that case. Also, Sylvie’s nexus event would not have been “being born the Goddess of Mischief”. Okay, the show never actually says that is the nexus event that led to her being arrested, but it heavily implies it. If Sylvie is a Loki, and as a Loki is genderfluid, her being the “Goddess” of Mischief should never have been an issue since they can change genders anyway.

Second, making Lady Loki a separate person is problematic. A lot of genderfluid people felt that this move invalidated their identity by basically showing that the same person cannot indeed be different genders along the spectrum. I don’t feel I’m totally qualified to really get into this. I will just say that if you’re going to write a genderfluid character, maybe at least get an actual genderfluid person to advise in the writing room.

Third, there is a transphobic movement called trans exclusionary radical feminism. You might have heard of it. Unfortunately, it is a very widespread movement that has done a lot of harm to the trans community, successfully blocking funding to organizations that help trans people, blocking laws that would benefit trans people, and the movement includes celebrities like Graham Linehan and JK Rowling.

One of the weapons they like to use against trans women is the concept of “autogynephilia”. It is basically the sexual fetish of becoming aroused from thinking of oneself as a woman. Many, many of these transphobic “feminists” love to say that trans women are merely men who have this particular sexual fetish.

It’s bullshit of course. Maybe there is a small segment of the male population that has that fetish, but trans women are not included in that. For trans women, things like dressing as women, changing their names, having state and federal issued IDs that say they are female, and being able to use the restrooms and change rooms that match the gender they actually are as opposed to the one they were assigned at birth is not a matter of sexual arousal. It’s a matter of making their external realities match their internal ones. It’s a matter of validation of their identities as women. Sexual gratification has nothing to do with it.

Now, Loki is not trans, but genderfluid people do tend to fall under the trans umbrella. We have Loki, a supposedly genderfluid individual and masculine presenting, falling head over heels in love with a feminine presenting version of himself. Maybe it’s just me, but it just seems like a form of autogynephilia to me.

Way to go, Kate...you just gave the TERFs more ammo.

One more note: At one point, Kate tweeted a list of the different Loki emojis, and “jokingly” included #FiretruckLoki with an emoji of a firetruck. Kate, you do realize that a “joke” transphobes love to harp on is that they can identify as an attack helicopter, right?

It’s his way of learning self-love!

That is not how you learn self-love.

First, the people who are making this argument often contradict themselves by then saying that Sylvie is a different person. Again, make up your minds. Either Sylvie is the same person as Loki, or she’s not. You can’t have it both ways, and you can’t continue to change the narrative to fit whatever it is you want to shove down the audience’s throats.

Second, romantic love and self-love are two different things entirely. Loki isn’t feeling self-love with Sylvie, he’s feeling romantic love. That’s not learning self-love. That's narcissism, and it’s character regression in his case. He’s supposed to be evolving past being a self-centered, egotistical shitweasel, and falling in love with a variant of himself makes him, as Mobius put it, “a seismic narcissist”. It’s not character development.

Third, this argument tends to come in the same breath as saying that Loki is a narcissist so of course he would fall for a variant of himself. If Loki is a narcissist though, why would he need to learn self-love? Narcissists already love themselves, that is the very definition of the word. If Loki needs to learn self-love, that would imply that he actually hates himself, which is the opposite of narcissism. Again, the writers and the fans who make these arguments when they feel the need to defend this relationship need to make up their minds. Either he’s a narcissist and therefore already loves himself too much, or he hates himself and needs to learn to love himself. It’s once again changing the narrative to fill a plothole.

Fourth, the whole learning self-love and trust narrative is completely thrown out the window in Episode 6 when Sylvie decides to toy with Loki’s emotions, using his feelings for her against him by kissing him as a distraction so she could grab Kang’s temp pad and toss Loki back to the TVA. To Sylvie, her revenge was more important than the bond she had with him. The move basically set Loki’s progress back several steps. What little progress he made anyway.

TL:DR, is there hope for Season 2?

Whew, this went on for a while, didn’t it? Told you I had a lot to say.

As I have said, if you liked the first season of Loki and think I am completely full of shit, that’s fine and it’s your prerogative. More power to you.

But, and this is a huge but, that does not give you the right to harass and bully people who did not like it.

I have witnessed horrible things from both sides of the now split Loki fandom on social media. Harassment and even death threats towards the creators. Telling people who don’t like the Loki and Sylvie relationship that they need to drink bleach. Homophobic attacks. Gatekeeping.

There’s constructive criticism and sharing your opinions, and then there is...this.

Both sides need to chill.

Anyway.

Even though Kate Herron has left the show, Michael Waldron is still the showrunner and as such I am not altogether optimistic for Season 2. I would like to see more emphasis on Loki himself for that season. Yes, it’s a novel thought, wanting a show that is called Loki to actually be about Loki, but here we are.

I would like to see actual character development in Loki rather than the old “true love transforms bad boy and conquers all” trope. There is a reason Disney has started to abandon that trope in their animated movies. They’ve been getting dragged about it for decades.

If Sylvie must return, there needs to be some actual consistency surrounding her character. The show needs to decide if she is a Loki or not and stick with whichever one they decide. And seriously, no more romance. Frankly, after what she pulled in Episode 6, I will be severely disappointed if the writers have Loki crawling back to her. That would make him pathetic, and Loki deserves better.

Really, Loki does not need a romance, period. He’s too emotionally immature, he has a lot of character growth to go through, and a romance would do nothing but be a distraction and an impediment to that growth. Anyone who got married too young can confirm that it is important to learn more about yourself and figure yourself out before you even think of getting involved with another person, who should not be your whole world. The Loki and Sylvie romance was reminding me of Classic Disney in another not-good way in that the two of them, especially on Loki’s side, were starting to revolve around one another and that does not make for a healthy relationship. Again, turning Loki into a Disney Prince (or, seeing as how he’s supposed to be genderfluid, Princess). Stop it.

Again, the romance was a smokescreen. It was a distraction from just how thin the plot was. Please, for the love of G-d, give more focus to the actual plot.

Do some research and talk to some psychologists for healthy ways Loki can “learn self-love" and develop as a character. If Ragnarok Loki can do it without relying on a romance with a variant with himself, then surely TVA Loki can pull it off.

Speaking of talking to people, listen to the concerns of the trans and genderfluid fans. Listen, talk to them, maybe get a couple in the writer’s room. CIS people should not write genderfluid people, and this season is a good example of why.

Please remember that Loki is not an idiot. Yes, he has pulled some fast ones and hasn’t been the greatest planner, but he is not downright stupid like he was in season 1.

And...really that’s all I have. As I have said, this thesis really wasn’t about making suggestions to the creators because I seriously doubt they will ever even see this. This was more less me screaming into the void, venting because I was that upset about what I saw as character assassination happening to one of my favorite characters. Keeping all of this in was proving to be bad for my blood pressure.

I am attached to the character, have been for years. Loki is just one character in the MCU who I love, who I want to see done right. I had been looking forward to his solo series for a very long time, and the disappointment I felt was something that I just couldn’t keep in. I kept my mouth shut when they killed off Tony Stark for no reason other than that Ronnie Downey, Jr. didn't want to renew his contract. I didn’t say anything at the Russo Brothers’ “happy ending” for Steve Rogers, even though I feel it made no sense and is a massive plot hole.

What they did to Loki, however...I couldn’t keep silent.

#loki series negativity #anti sylki

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