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youremyheaven · 6 months ago

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The Severity, Spirituality and Stoicism of Saturnians ✊🏼🧎‍♀️💁🏼‍♀️

I will be criticizing Saturnian men throughout this post, if you don't like that, stop reading right now <3

Saturn is the planet of karma, justice, discipline, and order. In Claire's video about Saturnian men, she observed that "in Saturnian men you will find an exact duality contained here in breaking rules and doing strange stunts, pranks and having outbursts etc but also paradoxically find themselves submitting to ideologies, cults, political parties, motivational affirmations etc"

I feel like I touched upon this a bit in my first post about Saturn and in this post I'd like to go into different manifestations of this tendency along with some other things I've observed with Saturnian men.

Timothee Chalamet, UBP Moon

Full disclosure, I've never liked him lmao,, I think the hype he gets is undeserved and 90% bc of the fact that there is a dearth of young charismatic actors in Hollywood.

But anywayyys, Timmy Tim first attracted controversy for working with Woody Allen even though he's since expressed regret for it or whatever,, then he received flak for having sex in a pool during the height of the pandemic and manyyyy blinds about him giving women chlamydia 💀💀started making the rounds and he was lowkey exposed for being a whore

Then last year he drew criticism for smoking indoors at a Beyonce concert (where smoking is prohibited) and he's literally talking to Kylie and blowing smoke ??? at the same time?? which is sooo filthy?? who tf does that??

His silence on the Armie Hammer issue and pretty much all issues lol have also been criticized. Everybody thought he'd be some woke liberal activist but he's just been dead quiet and pretty self absorbed the whole time. He loves to lap attention and give absolutely nothing in return to the community.

The thing with Saturn however is that, bad behaviour does not go unpunished. Timmy Tim has been getting A LOT of flak and the total rose tinted obsession people had with him is slowly fading (even tho he still has legions of fans). People are now starting to see his true colors.

But anyway, this is a very minor issue compared to all the other Saturnians I'm going to mention next.

Jeffrey Epstein, UBP Moon, Anuradha Rising

I'm assuming most of you are familiar with sex offender Epstein. He has trafficked thousands of underage girls over the course of decades and to satiate numerous high profile paedophiles.

He committed suicide while in prison. One thing about Saturn is that, if you stray, are immoral, unfair, undisciplined, corrupt, foul, evil etc it WILL punish you. The truth is Saturnians know deep down that what they're doing IS wrong, they're not like Moon dominants who are completely convinced their corrupt evil idea is a "good" one. Saturnians know full well what they're doing and they do it anyway and they suffer its consequences.

Inviting Saturn's wrath upon oneself is basically how these natives find "balance", they feel like they get away with too much and they're constantly pushing their limits to see how far they can go before this wrath comes for them.

Epstein had been doing this for decades without much consequence, working with extremely high profile people including politicians and royalty. Eventually, he was caught and the truth of his immorality was exposed for all to see AND he ended his own life.

Salvador Dali- UBP Moon

Dali was known for being an eccentric and a weirdo and you can say that the way he pushed his boundaries as an artist is a more "positive" manifestation of Saturnian individuals and their need to test limits.

However, Dali was also a pretty messed up guy

Dali admitted on several occasions to having sadomasochistic tendencies. As a child he enjoyed throwing himself down the stairs, explaining that “The pain was insignificant, the pleasure was immense”. Shockingly, he once pushed his childhood friend off of a 15-foot bridge – as his friend lay injured, Dali apparently sat calmly eating cherries.

Pleasure and pain seemed intimately entwined. Dali wanted both. One other childhood incident of note included a wounded bat. It was kept in Dali's washhouse hideaway and stayed there overnight. When Dali returned to it was being devoured by a mass of ants. He impulsively bit into the seething mass delirious with pleasure.

I had briefly mentioned how Saturnians tend to be sadomasochistic in my previous post about Saturn and these examples just confirm it further.

When he is an adolescent a girl falls desperately in love with him. He kisses and caresses her so as to excite her as much as possible, but refuses to go further. He resolves to keep this up for five years (he calls it his ‘five-year plan’), enjoying her humiliation and the sense of power it gives him. He frequently tells her that at the end of the five years he will desert her, and when the time comes he does so.

When he first meets his future wife, Gala, he is greatly tempted to push her off a precipice. He is aware that there is something that she wants him to do to her, and after their first kiss the confession is made:

I threw back Gala's head, pulling it by the hair, and trembling with complete hysteria, I commanded: ‘Now tell me what you want me to do with you! But tell me slowly, looking me in the eye, with the crudest, the most ferociously erotic words that can make both of us feel the greatest shame!’ Then Gala, transforming the last glimmer of her expression of pleasure into the hard light of her own tyranny, answered: ‘I want you to kill me!’

He is somewhat disappointed by this demand, since it is merely what he wanted to do already. He contemplates throwing her off the bell-tower of the Cathedral of Toledo, but refrains from doing so.

George Orwell once described Dali this way:

"The two qualities that Dali unquestionably possesses are a gift for drawing and an atrocious egoism."

Art historian and critic Brian Sewell has also claimed that Dali once asked him to lie naked in front of one of his sculptures and masturbate whilst he watched.

He was also obsessed with Hitler in a perverse way.

While the vast majority of the Surrealist group professed far-Left political leanings, Dali kept curiously quiet during his early career, before being kicked out of the group for being a Nazi sympathiser, which he denied. Dali went on to make artwork addressing the Hitler, including “The Enigma of Hitler” (above) and “Hitler Masturbating”, once detailing that he “often dreamed of Hitler as a woman” and that the Nazi dictator “turned [him] on”.

He was a big old fascist who also supported the Spanish dictator Franco which made Picasso stop talking to him for the rest of his life. Orwell who fought in the Spanish civil war called Dali a "disgusting human being".

At age six, Dalí writes in his autobiography, he pre-meditated a "terrible kick" to his three-year-old sister's head "as though it had been a ball." Not simply childish not-knowing-better, this baseless cruelty continued as Dalí got older.

Here is an article that says more about his shitty behaviour.

Here is another article about his fcked up relationship with his sister

Saturn never fails to punish tho. It will let you fck up but punishment is imminent.

Dali died in his 80s, almost penniless, completely alone, as he had driven all his friends off decades prior, his wife had already passed and he was seriously ill and bedridden. He used button to call his nurse and one day that button short circuited and set him/the bed on fire. He suffered second and third degree burns all over his body. He lived for another four years in severe pain before passing away.

Just because you go a whole lifetime avoiding punishment, does not mean it isn't coming. People who suffer in old age have it the worst because you suffer 100x more

Dali was a Saturn defying narcissistic, violent, abusive person and guess what Saturn did? It saved it all up for the very end and left him without any kind of mercy. Friendless, penniless, bedridden, in excruciating pain, FOR YEARS until he finally died.

Saturn punishes you/is a harsh teacher because it wants you to uphold the Saturnian qualities of virtue, justice, fairness, doing your duty etc, you may never see the rewards of your good actions, so it may feel like a waste of time to keep being so principled but if you decide to just do whatever and disobey, you best believe Saturn will come through with that wrath. You have to keep being virtuous and morally upright even if you don't see yourself being "rewarded" for it. No one may recognise your goodness but keep being good anyway.

Alexander Graham Bell, Venus in UBP in 2h, Saturn in Shatabhisha in 1h

He is the guy who invented the telephone but he was also a very controversial deaf educator in his time.

Bell's father was a teacher of the deaf. His method of teaching the deaf was coined "Visible Speech." Bell's mother was deaf/hearing impaired and he would often speak to her by placing his mouth close to her forehead, believing the vibrations from his voice would help her distinguish speech more clearly.

Although he married a deaf woman, a former speech pupil, Mabel Hubbard, Bell strongly opposed intermarriage among congenitally deaf people. Bell feared "contamination" of the human race by the propagation of deaf people even though most deaf people statistically are born to hearing parents.

Bell applied his study of eugenics to his goal of preventing the creation of a deaf race and presented his paper Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race to the National Academy of Sciences in 1883.4

Bell stated, "Those who believe as I do, that the production of a defective race of human beings would be a great calamity to the world, will examine carefully the causes that will lead to the intermarriage of the deaf with the object of applying a remedy."

In this paper, he proposed to reduce the number of the deaf by discouraging deaf-mute to deaf-mute marriages, advocating speech reading and articulation training for an oral-only method of education, removing the use of deaf teachers and sign language from the classroom.

Suggestions were made to enact legislation to prevent the intermarriage of deaf-mute people or forbidding marriage between families that have more than one deaf-mute member. His preventative strategies for deaf marriage included removing barriers to communication and interaction with the hearing world.

I feel like Saturnians often have a tendency to subconsciously make things harder for themselves and for others. Getting things easy is not Saturn's style. And this can manifest in sooooo many different ways. Bell grew up with a father who taught deaf people/children, his mother was deaf, he married a deaf woman YET he believed that they did not deserve to have separate schools that used communication tools specifically designed for them to make their lives easier. He spent his entire life working with deaf people but still somehow did not want things to be easier for them???

Steve Jobs, UBP moon

He had a pretty stellar reputation for being a major asshole. He was an extremely difficult person to work with and often terrorised his employees and was a toxic vile asshole to the women he dated.

Jobs was given up for adoption by his parents and later in life, he abandoned his girlfriend and baby after he got her pregnant.

His daughter Lisa later said that her mother felt uncomfortable leaving her with Steve alone after an incident in which he questioned and teased the then-nine-year-old Brennan-Jobs about her sexual attractions and proclivities.

Once, as Jobs groped his wife and pretended to be having sex with her, he demanded that Lisa stay in the room, calling it a "family moment."

It is well known that Steve Jobs was really good at conceptualizing things and coming up with ideas (touch screen phones, macbooks, iMacs etc) but he lacked the technical expertise to build anything. His partner, Steve Wozniak was the actual brains behind all of the creations to put it simply.

Early in his career, Jobs worked for the game developing company Atari who promised him a bonus of $5000 for developing a game called Breakout. Jobs did not have the know-how to execute this, so he made his friend Wozniak who worked at a different company stay up all night for 4 nights to design this whole ass game. He gave him $350 for it and told him he was giving him half of what the company paid him. Wozniak only found out much later that Steve basically stole his ideas, used him AND gave him a paltry sum as compensation.

Before Apple went public, Jobs refused to give any major shares to the many many developers and engineers who played a crucial role in pioneering the company. Wozniak gave those employees HIS shares so that they could make a profit when the company went public.

I'm not going to detail all the ways he tormented his employees and staff. You can google it.

Eventually, Saturn's karma started kicking in and Jobs was fired from the company he founded and for 10 years, he had to stay away from Apple. This experience humbled him a bit.

Apple really suffered in his absence and they brough him back in 1997 and we all know the kind of groundbreaking work he did in the next decade there. (hint: iphones, ipods etc)

In 2011, he found out he had terminal pancreatic cancer and resigned from his position and died 6 weeks later.

He refused to get surgery and chemo and chose "alternate treatments" until his disease had progressed so far that, there was no saving him.

He would eat a single thing and only that for weeks. Like apples. He'd eat only apples for three weeks. He was convinced that made him superior to everyone else and that it made him have no body odour, so he never showered either. This made it really hard for others to be around him.

Now back to his daughter, he was incredibly abusive to Lisa. She said she was forced to move home over 13 times before age seven as her mother struggled to pay the bills through a series of cleaning positions, while Jobs, then already a multi-millionaire, refused to help.

During one visit she innocently asked if she could be given his Porsche after learning the flashy vehicle had a scratch and needed to be replaced. His scowling response shocked Lisa, then aged seven.

“‘Absolutely not,’ he said in such a sour, biting way that I knew I’d made a mistake,” she remembers. “I understood that perhaps it wasn't true, the myth of the scratch: maybe he didn’t buy new ones. By that time I knew he was not generous with money, or food, or words; the idea of the Porsches had seemed like one glorious exception. I wished I could take it back. We pulled up to the house and he turned off the engine. Before I made a move to get out he turned to face me.

“‘You’re not getting anything,’” he said. “‘You understand? Nothing. You’re getting nothing.’ Did he mean about the car, something else, bigger? I didn’t know. His voice hurt—sharp, in my chest.” (an excerpt from her memoir 'Small Fry')

Saturn may delay punishment but it will punish and whether or not you learn from it, is up to you. Some individuals are not very malleable and they suffer the most. They make the same mistake over and over again and never learn. Steve died of any entirely preventable disease but he refused treatment. He was in excruciating pain towards his end and was completely bedridden. He expressed regret about not having gotten treatment sooner but :/

It's really scary how your karma catches up with you. Its the worst when it comes for you and leaves you with no time to remedy anything, so you just suffer agony knowing there is nothing you can do.

Woody Allen- Anuradha stellium (Sun, Mercury & Jupiter)

He molested his step daughter Dylan Farrow and is currently married to his former step daughter from the same marriage Soon Yi.

There has been a lot of misinformation regarding him molesting Dylan as a child even though the fact that he is literally married to one of his stepdaughters should be reason enough to suspect him

Allen had been in therapy for alleged inappropriate behavior toward Dylan with a child psychologist before the abuse allegation was presented to the authorities or made public. Mia Farrow had instructed her babysitters that Allen was never to be left alone with Dylan.

Allen refused to take a polygraph administered by the Connecticut state police. Instead, he took one from someone hired by his legal team. The Connecticut state police refused to accept the test as evidence. The state attorney, Frank Maco, says that Mia was never asked to take a lie-detector test during the investigation.

(Here is a link to the full article)

But again, Saturn's karmic lessons come through. Numerous actors have refused to work with Allen, he has been publicly condemned, lost all his reputation during #MeToo Actors such as Greta Gerwig, Colin Firth, and Mira Sorvino have recently apologized for accepting roles in Allen’s films, while many of his most avid fans have turned against him.

Johnny Cash, Rahu in UBP in 1h

Johnny was a drug addict and very abusive to his first wife. He creepily pursued June Carter while he was still married and despite her rejecting him MANY times, he did not give up. She was in a financially unfortunate position and he gave her the opportunity of touring with him, which she had to take up to make ends meet and finally in front of a live audience, he proposes marriage to her and basically forces her to say yes.

They remained married for 50 years and died within a year of each other so idk if they had a happy marriage or a troubled one but the Saturnian persistence was coming thru.

Cash's whole life is super Saturnian. His career came to a standstill in the 70s after a stellar decade long run in the 1960s, all throughout which he was abusing drugs.

In the early 1980s, Cash had eye surgery, broke several ribs, and damaged a kneecap, all on separate occasions, and again became addicted to pills. He was hospitalized in 1983 with internal bleeding that almost killed him. Upon regaining strength, he checked into the Betty Ford Clinic and remained clean until his death.

In 1994, after a looooong period of zero hits and chart play. He collabed with Rick Rubin (the GOAT) and then released a number of successful albums until he passed away in 2003 and from 1997 onwards he had been struggling with autonomic neuropathy and was frequently hospitalized.

Its interesting to me how between 1954 to 1973, Cash was undergoing his Saturn mahadasha and this period brought him enormous success and also made him completely addicted to substances. In 1965, he started a forest fire that burned off 500 acres of forest land and killed 49 of the refuge's 53 endangered condors. When confronted about it, he said "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards".

From 1973-1990, he was undergoing his Mercury dasha, and this was a very low period in his career as he suffered major setbacks.

As he's sobering up at the Carter's family ranch, he's walking along a path. One of their ostriches is standing in the path. Well Cash thinks to himself "Hell if I'm moving" and tries to move it, so the bird starts trying to headbutt/peck at him, so he swings a punch at the bird, it responds by splitting his goddamn abdomen open with it's talon, from top to bottom. (he said the only thing that stopped the talon was it got stuck on his leather belt and couldn't go further). So he's laying on the ground, and grabs a branch (or an old fence post, can't remember) and starts beating it from the ground until it runs away.

Its interesting how his major highs in life were during his Saturn MD (He has Saturn in Uttarashada in 11h) and his biggest blows came during his Mercury MD (he does have Mercury in Shatabhisha in 12h 😬).

Mercury is not an inherently difficult dasha the way Saturn is. But what we sow, we shall reap. Saturn gives you 19 years to get your shit together and if you don't really learn during this period, it gets on your ass long after that. Jennie from Blackpink ended her Saturn MD in 2019 and some of her career's biggest moments have come since then but so have the controversies (she's currently in her Mercury MD) and it's as though the lingering after effects of the Saturn dasha really dictates how we experience our Mercury dasha.

Winston Churchill, Anuradha Sun

In 1943 in Bengal, over 3 million people died due to starvation and Churchill was directly responsible for this.

Churchill deliberately ordered the diversion of food from starving Indian civilians to well-supplied British soldiers and even to top up European stockpiles, meant for yet-to-be-liberated Greeks and Yugoslavs (all of this happened during WW2 for context)

He basically said, this is none of my business. Even though millions of Indian soldiers fought for the British during WW2 and were British subjects until India gained independence in 1947. Also btw India was the biggest contributor to the Empire's GDP. they looted and plundered us and left us to starve, basically.

In the book, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II, written by Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill was quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were “breeding like rabbits”, and asking how, if the shortages were so bad, Mahatma Gandhi was still alive. 😡🤬😠he was a racist imperialist pig to say the least.

Some people are Churchill defenders and genuinely believe that the Bengal famine was a necessary sacrifice to win the war, and that those who critiqued him were unfair and had little insight about WWII. Aka: the colonized are expendable in a war between essentially imperialist, genocidal and fascist states. And they can kiss my ass.

To Indians, Churchill is a Hitler-like figure and rightfully so.

"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

Winston Churchill to Peel commission in 1937.

Here is a thread that elaborates the many fcked up things he did.

When I talk about how cruel, brutal and callous Saturnian men can be, this is what I mean. Saturn restricts, limits and binds. This can easily mean Saturnians subject themselves and others to unnecessary rules, restrictions and limits.

Steve Jobs thought he was superior to others bc he only ate one type of food for weeks and months. Just because someone has discipline, does not automatically mean its good to have it. Free range parents can suck because they dont protect you or shelter you but disciplinarian parents also suck. Both Jupiter and Saturn struggle to learn "balance".

An unevolved Saturnian will be stingy af, very partial, biased and ill mannered. They act like cave men.

Churchill struggled with his mental health his whole life. He referred to it his “black dog:” fits of melancholia that followed Churchill throughout his life and often left him bedridden, suicidal and unshakably depressed for months at a time. It may sound cruel to say poor mental health is "karma" for his actions. (He also suffered 7 strokes and the final one, killed him). But the ways in which we are punished are often not materially obvious??? We may see terrible people thrive but often they are really suffering on the inside. Saturn often punishes by depriving you of peace of mind :/

Thomas Alva Edison, Anuradha Rising

In 1884, Nikola Tesla moved to New York City to meet Edison, who was famous for his low-voltage, direct-current electricity. Tesla believed the higher-voltage alternating current electricity was superior and suggested creating an AC-powered motor, but Edison claimed it was too dangerous. Instead, Edison promised the recent immigrant $50,000 (over $1 million today) if he could improve upon his DC generators, or “dynamos.”

After toiling for several months and making significant advances, he returned for his reward, only for Edison to say, “When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate an American joke.” Tesla quit—but the bullying didn’t stop there.

George Westinghouse had purchased Tesla’s patents and became the pioneering force behind AC power and its widespread implementation. Edison, who was ideologically and financially invested in his own DC power, began a publicity campaign against AC power. The campaign was ruthless; he wanted to prove that the high voltage of AC power was too dangerous for public use, so he and his cohorts began publicly electrocuting animals—stray dogs and cats, cattle and horses, and even, notoriously, “Topsy” the elephant. (you can hate me for pointing out how unevolved Saturnians abuse animals all you want but it will not stop it from being true<333)

The story gets worse. Edison was asked whether electrocution was a humane method of execution. In reply, he claimed that with Westinghouse’s AC power, it was indeed a humane and reliable execution. Westinghouse of course tried to prevent such an association, but Harold Brown, one of Edison’s employees, was hired by the state of New York to build the first electric chair. Obviously, he used AC power.

The execution—the first use of the electric chair—took place on August 6, 1890. AC power proved neither reliable nor humane. The first, 17-second-long charge failed to kill the man, an alleged axe murderer; after waiting for the generator to recharge and amping up the voltage, the next charge at last brought an end to the horrible, 8-minute long ordeal. Westinghouse, disgusted, reportedly said, “They would have done better with an axe.”

For his last two years, a series of ailments caused his health to decline even more until he lapsed into a coma and died at the age of 84.

Bo Burnham, Venus/Jupiter/Ketu in Pushya and Anuradha Rising

He does have a reputation for being a dick but I wanted to mention him because I think his sense of humour is VERY Saturnian. He has this tendency to humble his audience and its super Saturncoded to me. Like his whole shtick is serving you with a reality check in a slightly condescending way which is extremely Saturnian.

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He often makes "ironically" misogynistic jokes or whatever and its laced with that Saturnian bitterness except he's slightly self aware I guess.

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Aziz Ansari, Venus & Mars in UBP and Jupiter in Anuradha

Tbh other than the fact that his stand up comedy routines are hella lame, I dont really have much dirt on him.

However, he did sexually assault a woman in 2018 and nobody has heard much from him since tbh. I guess its an example of "instant karma".

Mads Mikkelsen, Anuradha Sun conjunct Ketu

Mads aka the man who made a career out of playing the bad guy

This isn't about Mads but about his most well known role, playing Hannibal Lecter.

Hannibal imo is very very Saturncoded

He is highly intelligent and cultured, with refined tastes and impeccable manners. He is deeply offended by rudeness, and often kills people who exhibit bad manners; according to the novel Hannibal, he "prefers to eat the rude". Hopkins described Lecter as the "Robin Hood of killers", who kills "the terminally rude".

Saturnians are either extremely refined or very unkempt. There is no in-between. You can always tell when someone has an imbalanced Saturn influence based on how disorderly, messy and chaotic they are.

In the novel Red Dragon, the protagonist, Will Graham, says that psychologists refer to Lecter as a sociopath "because they don't know what else to call him". Graham says "he has no remorse or guilt at all", and tortured animals as a child, (👀) but he does not exhibit any of the other criteria traditionally associated with sociopathy. Asked how he himself would describe Lecter, Graham responded, "he's a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell."

Hannibal embodies the disciplined, orderly conduct of an evolved Saturnian along with the cruelty and harshness of it.

Charlie Puth, Anuradha Sun & Mars

half of this guy's discography is about how he hates women from LA. He literally has one song called "Nothing But Trouble (Instagram Models)" and it's just about how instagram models make problems. He has another song called "L.A. Girls" about how women in LA are fungible. It's like yeah maybe instagram models do suck but no one made you date them???

These are lyrics from the song LA Girls:

"There was Nikki, Nicole, Tiffany, and Heather But there's only room for you in my world But you say that I changed like the east coast weather How the hell did I get caught up? Messin' with these LA girls"

When I tell you the Madonna-Whore complex runs DEEP with Saturnian men. They will fool around with you and think of YOU as "cheap" for doing so and fall for the girl who never gives it up. The double standards of Saturnians are 🤮🤢

They will get frisky and frivolous with you and judge you for it :/

Woody Harrelson, Pushya Sun, Anuradha Moon

When I think of unkempt Saturnians, I think Woody Harrelson lmao

While filming in London in 2002, Harrelson found himself at a bar when two women approached him. According to the actor, the women asked if he wanted to "take a walk on the wild side." To which Harrelson replied, "I guess I do." A third woman joined in the fun, and the foursome returned to Harrelson's accommodations and enjoyed what the outlet described as "whatever-happened-next." Unfortunately for the Rampart star, "a paparazzo was able to snap a photo that soon hit the tabloids." The worst part — his then-girlfriend and future-wife Laura Louie saw these photos in the press. This "led to a good bit of groveling on Harrelson's part," and the couple worked past the incident.

I think I have noticed about manyyyy Saturnian men is that they often have enabler wives who put up with their shit + encourage it. Steve Jobs' wife, Laurene Powell was like that. Steve was such a perfectionist that he did not even buy furniture for their house and yk what?? she was okay with that lol and they remained married until his death even though literally everybody who has ever known him describes him as an asshole.

Woody Allen's still married to Soon Yi who is also entirely defensive about him. Same goes for Harrelson's wife I guess. How on earth does someone work past a foursome??? wtf

"I used to go to bars and fight the guys I thought were bullies. I've got scars everywhere," he revealed to The Hollywood Reporter. His fighting ways continued even after becoming a famous actor. Like when he once punched a reporter and claimed he thought the photographer was a zombie.

Saturnians never beating the abusive rumours 😩

On a different note, I've noticed how many Saturnian musicians make sad boy music with a ✨spiritual essence ✨

Sufjan Stevens is a UBP Moon

This is from a 2015 interview:

"I still describe myself as a Christian, and my love of God and my relationship with God is fundamental, but its manifestations in my life and the practices of it are constantly changing. I find incredible freedom in my faith. Yes, the kingdom of Christianity and the Church has been one of the most destructive forces in history, and there are levels of bastardization of religious beliefs. But the unique thing about Christianity is that it is so amorphous and not reductive to culture or place or anything. It's extremely malleable."

Tamino, UBP Moon

He said in an interview:

"We like to look at religious texts from all over the world, [and] they always share a lot of similarities. That's not because they necessarily influenced each other, it's more that our inherent experience as humans comes out through storytelling. It's awesome. So that's something that's really interesting: the story that we need to tell. And the stories that we tell will always survive longest. I think it sort of gives them a higher truth, a metaphysical truth, which makes religion quite beautiful to me. You don't have to necessarily believe in every little thing that's described in a book. I'm not a practicing believer—not in the classical sense. But I do have faith. I think a lot of people have faith without realizing [it]. Even waking up and starting your day, we all have like these little acts of fate throughout our lives without even noticing."

Hozier- Anuradha Moon

Faith is a big theme in their work and their lives and I feel like they are some evolved Saturnian men who have embraced the stoic spirituality of Saturn and poured it into their creativity.

In one interview, Hozier described Quakerism as a doctrine which taught him during childhood “to look for the God in each person” and “the spark of the divine that’s in every individual.” In particular, Hozier seeks this spark in his lover.

Its interesting to me how all 3 of them use religious metaphors often to speak of love because the ultimate form of love is devotion and Saturnians who have transcended the grips of limitations imposed by Saturn understand this more than anybody. They know what its like to love like their life depends on it.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pushya Sun

Many Saturnians love to talk about working hard and kicking ass. Arnold is one of them, although I will say his preachiness comes from his Punarvasu stellium lmao

Arnold is a good example of a man who has worked very very hard and abided by every Saturnian principle to climb the ladder to the top. Yet he cheated on his wife with his housekeeper. He however did not deny paternity of the son he fathered with her. He has also expressed his regret about cheating and how he lost his marriage.

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Kim Kardashian, UBP Moon

She came under fire for her comments about "get your ass up and do the work" but honestly it's just Saturnian tough love

Kim is a good example of someone who has turned every single setback into a career opportunity. She is a true hustler. Obviously she's extremely privileged yada yada yada but she was Paris Hilton's assistant at one point and was at the bottom of the ladder. In 20 years she's built a fortune for herself and her family. Like, if it were Kourtney in Kim's place 🤡they wouldn't be where they are rn. Kim is a worker and its hard to deny that.

Rose- UBP Moon

In her interview with Vogue Australia, she said:

“I ended up fighting for my life, training for my life. Because I couldn’t accept the fact that I’d just be cut and sent back, so I had no time to slack off. I remember I took every minute and every second to work on my craft so that I [could] make it,”

“When I got [to Korea], I was like, ‘This is quite intense,’” she said of the early period of training. “I notice[d] that there [were] 12 other girls who had been training day and night for about five years. And I had just gotten there.” She feared that if she didn’t catch up to the other she would be cut and sent back to Australia, where she’d already told her school friends that she was dropping out to work on her music. "

“I [had] left and I didn’t want to fly back [to Australia] without having achieved anything,” she said of her worry at the time. “And I think it was a good drive. Just the fact that I had flown all the way from Australia gave me more strength [and] determination to strive.”

Hardworking Saturnians ✊🏼🙏🏼🧎‍♀️making the most of that Saturnian determination and reaping its rewards OOF

#vedic astro notes #sidereal astrology #astrology observations #astrology notes #nakshatras #vedic astrology #astro notes #astrology #astro observations #astroblr #saturn #anuradha #uttarabhadrapada #pushya #Youtube

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patricia-taxxon · 1 year ago

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So, I watched that response stream that DeadwingDork made about my furry boinking video, here it is if you're curious.

youtube

By some accounts, this gentleman seems like he means well, with regards to pronouns he pulls the "when in doubt, they/them" gambit, which is partway there. If he finds this, I'll politely let him know I don't use they, just she & it. Thanks!

I have good reason to believe he began this journey in good faith, but over the course of the video he slowly gives up being charitable, and it's very frustrating to watch. There's a few key moments of miscommunication I noticed that I'd like to clear up.

DeadwingDork and I got off on the wrong foot very early on, and part of that's my fault. I start the video openly lusting after Garth Alphandomega, and this put him on edge. This might be an ideological difference we can't get past, he says that Garth is "Just a wolf" when I personally think he's quite different from a wolf. After that, I do the joke where I say "If the opportunity presented itself I would fuck my-" and cut to The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe, but he didn't have the context to understand what I'm saying by cutting to that album in particular, so he thought I was jokingly saying I would fuck my dog. He spends the rest of the stream with that initial impression of me lusting after what he perceives as literal animals, it's kinda the initial rock that starts the avalanche and closes him off from understanding basically anything that I'm saying, until the end, where he's convinced I've just spent 43 minutes coming out as a zoophile.

This might just be a difference in artistic philosophy, like he interprets Alpha & Omega to be about wolves whereas I interpret it as being about people through the aesthetic lens of wolves. Metaphor isn't just for abstract art movies, after all. Garth walks on 4 legs, but he has enough obvious persistent human-like traits both visually and behaviorally for me to understand him as a person delivered via wolf. For the same reason, he is disturbed by my lusting for Shoukichi Pompoko, because he interprets that movie as literally being about tanuki. I think this the main reason the concept of a character being "simultaneously human and inhuman" completely whiffed on him. He skimmed over my segment on how Leo can be both a wolf and hispanic & didn't understand the relevance, because I don't think that contradiction can be resolved in his head.

The most frustrating part of this stream is the way he clearly picks up on a lot of the overarching subtext that I'm putting down, but by that point in the video he doesn't have enough faith in me to interpret it as being put there intentionally. He treats the connection between my special-ed dog training and my current animal identity as an unintentional self-report, when it isn't. There's this *maddening* segment where I talk about Pom Poko for the first time, and he... honestly quite accurately picks apart the picture I'm illustrating about alienation, but he handwaves it away in favor of his horrible mangling of the exact literal sentence I am saying at that moment.

He says:

"There's clearly a story here, but it's being buried. There's a lot of stuff that's leading towards... 'oh, you watched this movie and this movie and your parents did this and your fuckin' teachers did this, and that's why this is happening.' That's like the fuckin' undertones of this video, [but] the main takeaway is supposed to be that this movie... I dunno, makes you f.. is supposed to feel like how fuckin' animal people feel like they're... whatever, I don't, I don't... whatever."

He grabs at the subtext, the story I'm obviously telling with the surface level anecdote of my experience seeing Pom Poko when I was young. I say obviously, because he and his chat both understood it. But then he discards that, assumes it was unintended, and importantly, he doesn't have a good answer for what I'm actually saying divorced from that. Because... what's even left after you remove the subtextual story I'm telling with this anecdote? The anecdote itself? Of course he's empty handed.

Other notes:

He can't decide whether I'm an over zealous recruiter trying to call everything furry, or that I'm a gatekeeper trying to force robust definitions of 'furry' into the general lexicon. This isn't very important, it's just kind of funny.

He is dismissive of me saying I won't report news if my only source is Kiwifarms, but he doesn't really give a good reason for it. I am having trouble summarizing his argument for why I should have referenced a website whose users doxxed me. He hilariously suggests that I should negotiate with them to have my address taken down, as long as I'm not a "lolcow" about it. I'll be charitable and say that I don't think he's thought this through very much.

He hates that I "compare autistic people to animals," when that really just doesn't mean anything on its own. A comparison is a comparison, a follower of mine pointed out to me they could say that trans people are like cockroaches & it could either mean they are doggedly resilient in the face of harsh circumstances or that they are pests that need to be exterminated. I meant something specific by using an animal metaphor to describe my autistic identity, and it transcends the literal reading of "calling autistic people animals."

He derisively calls Echo a "gay furry sex game" when it simply is not. I'll forgive him for this because he hasn't played it, but Echo isn't porn, it's a horror game. There's sex in it, and it has the framework of a dating game, but it is far from the main appeal. I'm not saying this to elevate Echo above the degrading label of "porn," because Adastra is definitely porn and it's almost as good, just not as easily recommendable to outsiders.

He thinks its commendable that Sean Booth bought my album, which is nice.

Overall, I don't think DeadwingDork is outwardly hateful, but he is quite gullible. He accepts hate speech at face value and buys into narratives useful for hate movements. There's echos of trans groomer panic, that old "you're the reason people are transphobic" chestnut, and of course, using Kiwifarms as a news source. He said he came into the video knowing nothing about me and had no reason to be approaching me in bad faith, but he clearly doesn't trust me enough to think the main rhetorical thrust of the video was intentional.

bad stream lol

#mini essay #long post #cilantromixture #Youtube

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dandylovesturtles · 1 year ago

Text

Sidelined AU Info Post

Alright, I guess we're doing this

CWs: mentions of internalized ableism, struggles with mental health

Timeline:

all of S1 is the same as in canon up until End Game

however, after Splinter turns over the helmet to Draxum, Draxum does not put on the armor, but chooses to put Leo inside instead, realizing that whoever goes in will probably have something horrible happen to them. that's detailed in this fic

unlike Draxum, who gets spit out of the armor immediately, Leo ends up trapped inside. from Leo's perspective, he is only vaguely aware of what's happening outside (it's a bit sunken place-ish, with him seeing snatches of events like through a grainy television), and he has only small amounts of influence over what the armor does

once Feral Shredder is on the loose, he pretty immediately starts destroying the Hidden City. Draxum realizes that he has inadvertently released a great evil on his people, the exact opposite of what he wanted, and he turns to the Hamatos to help him stop it. obviously they don't want to work with Draxum, but they have to get Leo back so they take the help

it takes them two days, during which the Shredder moves up to start terrorizing New York as well, but eventually they get him subdued. I'm not 100% on what goes down yet or whether Big Mama gets involved (I'm leaning toward not), but Leo fighting from the inside is a big help

Leo is removed from the armor and is in really bad physical shape; meanwhile the Shredder is subdued for now. in the immediate aftermath, the Foot Clan manages to get ahold of the Shredder and take off with him

he's too weak to do anything immediately but he is very much a Looming Threat the family is aware of

Draxum leaves for awhile at this point because none of them want him around and seeing Leo in the aftermath did wake him up to "oh yeah that's just a kid and I did that to him," also he's feeling real bad about that whole "accidentally almost destroying the yokai and also maybe the world" thing

meanwhile, Leo is severely weakened, but there's not anything that the family can do to hasten his recovery. they can only get him hooked up to an IV for fluids and nutrients and wait

it takes Leo a few days to become fully lucid again; during that time he tries to fight anyone around him off or sometimes pushes his family away to "protect" them

eventually Leo does regain lucidity, he tells everyone he's fine but he's Super Depressed. he's also lost his mystic powers completely.

Splinter also retreats a bit at this point, because he feels guilt for handing the helmet over to Draxum instead of trying to find a different way to rescue his boys, which isn't a great thing for him to do but his mental health is also not doing very well (someone get these guys some therapy)

in the meantime the bros and April manage the best they can, they all have different approaches but I'll go into detail about that in the next section

there's no treatment for Leo's condition outside the most boring one: time, exercise, and diet. unsurprisingly he hates this

Healing Bad Times abound, as shown in this fic

eventually the boys have to go out on a mission again. Leo, feeling useless, listens in on the comms from the lair, and ends up catching something the other boys' missed, meaning he's able to save them from a trap or something idk exactly what the point is he makes himself useful

this opens up a new path for Leo, one his brothers very heavily encourage

with a new goal in mind, Leo starts taking a lot better care of himself, actually following his physical therapy routine, spending time gaining new skills, and accepting help in the form of mobility aids. his physical and mental health both start making big improvements

this also helps his dad's mental health, everyone is doing better even if things aren't perfect

Donnie builds Leo a command center modeled after the bridge of Jupiter Jim's ship, he absolutely loves it. whenever the boys+April are on missions, Leo is in his command center helping from the background

eventually Leo has gotten to the point where he has enough strength for day to day life most of the time, he still isn't fighting baddies on rooftops but he can get to a store and back without collapsing on a good day and that's pretty good!

the Foot Clan has been a much bigger threat in this version of S2 and it's clear they're up to something big

of course right when Leo is starting to feel stable and happy again, that's when they launch their final attack

a lot of the finale events go down similarly to how they do in canon, minus Battle Nexus New York. they get Karai back but then she dies, Shredder destroys their home (including Leo's command center :c ), everything is Bad

Leo gets his mystic powers back the same way his brothers do, though he needs a little bit of an extra helping nudge from April/Karai, since he didn't think that was a thing he could still do

everyone getting their mystic powers is emotional but it's especially emotional for Leo. he didn't even know what ninpo was before today, but he knew after the Shredder it was like some part of his soul got locked away, and now that he can feel it again he finally feels whole

it gives him a burst of adrenaline so he can participate in the fight, though he doesn't do much of the actual battling, instead getting his bros where they need to be for the big hits (I mean this is basically what he does anyway haha)

it takes Donnie exactly .02 seconds to figure out how to use his own mystic powers to support Leo physically so that helps

after this, Leo becomes a more constant part of the team in the field, though he still primarily works as support and only gets into direct fights when he feels like he has to

instead of being made leader like in canon, Leo and Raph become co-leaders. Leo's own leadership abilities have improved massively, but Raph has more experience in the field, so having the two of them working together means they cover each other's blind spots, and the division of labor is less stressful for both of them

since Leo's already been through his character development and this tension is gone the movie events play out totally differently but I haven't gotten that far yet lol. I'm sure the apocalypse still happens somehow, though, I'd hate to lose Casey Jr

happy ending whooo

Relationships

Raph

Raph feels a lot of guilt about what happened to Leo; he was supposed to protect his little brothers and he didn't, and now one of them has permanent physical disabilities as a result. add to that it was Raph's idea to be heroes in the first place and yeah... he's not doing great

because of this guilt, Raph's instinct is to essentially baby Leo - he wants to take care of his every need as soon as it arises. this makes Leo feel stifled and infantilized, and drives a wedge in their relationship (the same one Raph is driving between himself and Mikey, in fact)

his and Donnie's distinctly different approaches to the situation also mean that they get into arguments often and can't really deal with being around each other, leaving Raph feeling isolated at the start (and thus pouring more attention and effort into Leo, which compounds the problem)

Raph dealing with his own guilt and trying to find the balance between helping Leo while also respecting his need for independence, boundaries, and dignity is a big part of his journey in the AU, and it also improves his relationship with Mikey and Donnie as he gets better at those skills

Donnie

Donnie is not dealing well with the fact that there's nothing to fix. they can only be patient and work incrementally to improve Leo's condition

he distracts himself by putting all his energy into making the lair accessible for Leo, building him mobility aids and doing everything he can to help

he also has a hard time understanding why Leo won't do the things that will help him (at first), because doesn't he just want things to go back to normal? doesn't he want to help himself? why won't he just do what he obviously has to do, Donnie does not understand

Leo is deep in denial at first, and he feels like he breaks down and starts doing physical therapy and using mobility aids and doing basically any of the things that will help him, that means it's not going to magically get better, it's going to take time and effort and it will probably never be fixed, just improved, and he hates that so much he's choosing to treat this like a temporary cold or flu that will blow over any day now

Donnie doesn't understand that so he takes Leo's refusal as a rejection and animosity abounds!

breakdowns and admissions of feelings will eventually happen

Donnie and Leo together come to grips with the idea that there is no fixing this and there is no return to how things were before but they can work toward a new normal that's just as good

Mikey

this one is a little bit too big for Dr. Delicate Touch and Dr. Feelings

Mikey tries, but he is just a kid, and with their dad emotionally retreating too there's just too many feelings for him to deal with on his own

he's gonna play family therapist until he breaks

he's frustrated because he can see what each of his brothers need to do to feel better but they just! won't! they won't do it, and he doesn't know how to make them

he's really stressed

it's Mikey that realizes that Leo needs goals to work toward to get himself motivated to take care of himself, and it's Mikey who pushes the hardest for Leo's new role in the team

sometimes Mikey will challenge Leo to something silly, like who can make the most throws of a paper ball into a trash can, just to push Leo into exercising

he finds other little ways to help the others too, but he still can't solve the big problems on his own

meltdown ensues

Mikey has to learn to take care of himself, too, while the others have to learn they can't lean so hard on him for all their emotional problems

April

the only one holding on around here. it helps that she doesn't actually have to live in the powderkeg

takes a rationally minded approach to all these problems, kind of functioning like family therapist along with Mikey but in a healthier and more controlled way

helps get them resources from above ground

Leo opens up the most about his feelings about his physical condition to her first, because she strikes the best balance between being a sympathetic ear without coddling him

she's also stressed, but she has an outside support network so she's handling it better

Splinter

fully blames himself for what happened to Leo and has a hard time getting over it

depression in full swing

it means he can't easily get out of bed to help his kids, but then he feels bad because he isn't helping them, which worsens the depression, which makes it hard to get out of bed... a vicious cycle

when Leo starts working on his condition he gets a pact out of his dad that they will both work on being healthier together

maybe they manage to find an actual therapist eventually idk lol

either way, Splinter and Leo grumpily sitting over their plate of broccoli and then Leo says "bet I can eat more pieces than you" and it's on son

he's trying his best

Leo's Condition

Leo came out of the armor severely dehydrated and malnourished, even more so than any person should realistically be after two days; just keeping him from dying of the dehydration was the most immediate struggle

the main issue is that Leo's life force, mystic abilities included, were basically sucked out, leaving his body catastrophically physically weak

his muscle mass can come back with time and diet

the bigger problems are the bone density and chronic fatigue. while Leo can improve these, they'll never be back to where they were before the Dark Armor

his reduced bone density means he has to be careful doing anything physical because the chance he can break a bone is much higher than average, and he stands to suffer more from that break than the average person

he'll eventually get to where he can go through his day-to-day life just fine most days, and can even do some of the physical things he enjoyed before, he just has to be careful and know his limits. he'll never be pulling the 1440 off the halfpipe again, but he can still skateboard as long as he's careful.

even when recovered (as much as he can be), he has bad days and days when the fatigue is really strong. how Leo feels on a bad day is up in the air; sometimes he's at peace with it and generally cheerful, happy to be around his family even if he spends most of the time in his chair or on the couch dozing in and out. other days the depression rears its ugly head and he can get a bit nasty and bitter again. his family is much more patient with him on days like that than he is with himself.

in the beginning Leo also has brain fog and sensitivity to light and sound. these clear up over time, especially once Leo starts making more effort to exercise his brain. he starts reading a lot more and doing puzzles, especially things like sudoku and word puzzles, which helps a lot. thankfully these changes aren't permanent

his inner ears were also damaged a bit, this also heals up largely on its own, sometimes he still has difficulties hearing his brothers if they're whispering or far away but it's not so bad he needs assistance

Leo's Devices

Wheelchair

this is obviously the one Donnie had the most fun building and it shows. this baby is tricked out. Leo also likes to suggest improvements often, some for actual functionality but many just because he thinks it would be cool (like neon lights on the spokes)

it is blue obviously. do you even need me to tell you that?

it's fully electronic but Leo can also wheel it around freely if he wishes. Leo likes to wheel himself when he has the energy because it's good exercise he doesn't have to go out of his way for and he just likes feeling like he's moving himself under his own power. but when he's not feeling up to it he just drives it with the electronic controls instead

it has handles that extend and retract. being allowed to touch the handles is a major sign of Leo's trust and initially it's only for his bros + April + Splinter. Leo hates being moved when he doesn't actually ask to be moved, and he also hates being tipped backwards so his fam knows not to do it even as a joke (and it's so heavy that tipping him is kind of hard, anyway). someone touching the handles or messing around with them without permission gets you immediate backlash from protective siblings

that said Leo has them extended often so he can hang things off them, even though Donnie constantly gripes that that is not their intended purpose!

Sr Hueso is another person who gets handle-touching-privileges pretty fast, and he's also the one Leo asks to move him most often because he thinks it's really funny. he hams it up every time. Hueso is exasperated but does it anyway

(if Hueso adds a few extra wheelchair-accessible tables to Run of the Mill no one has to know)

the chair can also be moved by S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. this is mostly just for emergency situations, or times when the chair is somewhere Leo is not. Shelldon is a very good boy who does not move the chair without Leo's permission.

it has a billion storage spaces and little hidey holes and it can sync with Leo's phone to play music and it also has a charge port for his phone and yeah basically anything Leo and Donnie can come up with goes into this thing. it's a behemoth

Donnie also made Leo a lighter-weight chair with fewer features that he most often uses when he's good using his walker/cane/braces but wants to clear a larger distance first, and eventually Donnie makes him an athletic wheelchair so he can play games like wheelchair basketball

Walker

the walker is also blue but there's nothing particularly special about it

Leo hates using it because it feels like an old person thing. even if realistically he knows there are plenty of reasons people use them, including his own situation, culture is culture and it makes him feel bad no matter what rationality states

so basically once he doesn't have to use it he doesn't

as they all get more comfortable with Leo's situation and he starts openly using humor to cope, jokes about Leo's chair and cane become pretty commonplace in the fam (all good-natured of course). they know the walker is too much of a sore spot though, and poking fun at it is the fastest way to get Leo to do something stupid, so no one does. it's better to just pretend it's not there

Crutches/Canes

he eventually ends up with a variety of these, with different levels of support depending on what he's needing on a given day.

some of the canes are more fashionable than others. this is important to him.

Leo pretty much always has one of these on hand just in case, even on days where he feels alright to walk on his own

he is not afraid to bonk a brother with a cane or crutch but he does so knowing they are free to retaliate

Leg Braces

Leo doesn't need these every day but they're a pretty standard part of his wardrobe at this point

they start out plain but get increasingly elaborately decorated as time goes on because he, Donnie, and Mikey can't help themselves

like the walker, the braces are in the "don't make fun of" zone, though Leo is happy to get positive comments about them and doesn't really need their presence ignored

Other Mobility Aids

Leo has a variety of things to help with his loss of grip strength, difficulties bending over, tremors, etc. all of them are either made by Donnie or ethically "acquired" by April

he drives everyone crazy by leaving them in random places and then forgetting where they are. Donnie starts installing locator tags on everything they give Leo

jokes about these are fine, Leo makes them often himself and has silly names for all of them (this also drives Donnie crazy)

#rottmnt #sidelined au #phew #can't believe it lol I don't need more AUs but here we are #also I do not have any mobility disabilities myself #a lot of this comes from experiences with family + research #however feel free to correct me if I've misrepresented anything!#I do want to be respectful #it's why it's important for me to stress the name of the AU is based on Leo's own feelings (and how he overcomes them)#and not intended as an outward judgement on his situation or abilities

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ghost-proofbaby · 11 months ago

Text

SO SCARLET (IT WAS MAROON)

CHAPTER SIX: IS IT OVER NOW?

LET'S FAST FORWARD TO THREE HUNDRED TAKEOUT COFFEES LATER, I SEE YOUR PROFILE AND YOUR SMILE ON UNSUSPECTING WAITERS.

☆ pairings: rockstar!eddie munson x fem!reader

☆ warnings: no use of y/n, strong language, angst, minors dni

☆ WC: 5.8K+

☆ A/N: if i could put the entirety of the lyrics to this song on here, i would. it's! their! song! (side note: these idiots need to start making progress before i tear my hair out i mean it. they make me think about jumping off of very tall somethings)

thank you to my love @hellfire--cult for the divider!

masterlist

The coffeeshop that Eddie chooses isn’t one you’re familiar with. It’s smaller, more hidden, tucked away in an unsuspecting corner and disguised from prying eyes.

It wouldn’t have been your first choice, but you’re sure his thought process on choosing public locations differs from yours now. One wrong move, and he’s sure to end up on the cover of another magazine. Actually, one wrong breath, and the public eye probably eats him alive.

He’d sort of brought that upon himself, building up such a polarizing reputation all by his own hands.

“Ever been before?” he asks as the two of you stand in line, the scent of espresso burning your nose and the hiss of steam wands cutting straight through the soft chatter of fellow patrons.

You only shake your head. No words to ease his clear anxiety as you watch him shift his weight between his two feet and his hands dig deep into his pockets.

“It’s pretty good,” he continues to ramble, looking up at the menu rather than you, “They’ve got decent hot coffee, and their lattes aren’t too bad. I like the vanilla one best, which is probably boring but-”

“Eddie,” you interrupt him sternly, “What happened to not talking?”

He scoffs a little, finally turning to look at you. “We aren’t seated yet. Once we get a table, I swear, my lips are sealed.”

You highly doubt that.

It’s torture being this close to him for this long. The accidental bumps of his elbow against your shoulder that send you jumping from the contact. The way you nearly stepped on his foot when you’d shuffled out of the way for someone, and your apology got tangled on your tongue when he’d reached out to steady you. In small moments, when he’s too busy glancing nervously around the cafe, you spare him longer looks. Since he first came tumbling back into your life a mere week ago, you’d been staunch on your stance that he had changed beyond measure. But here, out at a coffee shop with just the two of you present along with all his nervousness, you can see glimpses of something familiar beneath the surface. The way he bites his lip, the way he fiddles with his rings, how he’s occasionally humming tunes beneath his breath as he avoids eye contact with you – you hate it. You hate every aspect of it, and all the painful nostalgia it stirs within you.

It reminds you of your first date with him, back in Hawkins. All the confidence he’d exuded at that Halloween party you’d met him at had disappeared the moment he got you alone sober. As if he had felt the weight of what this would become from day one, as if he knew just how much of both your future’s rested in one stupid date.

You almost get lost in the memories before it’s your turn to order at the counter.

“Just a vanilla latte, please.”

You can see his small smile out of the corner of your eye. A small trace of triumph is clear as day as you order the exact thing he just said was his favorite. It wasn’t intentional, but there’s no use trying to convince him of that.

It’s just a coincidence, you try to convince yourself. It just sounded good after he brought it up.

“I’ll have the same,” he tells the barista behind the counter, moving to pull out his wallet.

On your first date with him, you had bickered endlessly about who would pay. And you nearly do it again – you nearly reach out a hand to stop him and insist you could pay for your own coffee on instinct.

It would be so easy to let history repeat itself, to watch your greatest hits reinvent themselves at this moment. Maybe, this time around, the two of you can get it right.

You don’t move a single muscle as he hands over his card.

He murmurs out a soft thank you when it’s returned to him with a receipt, and you’re already turned to scout out a table to sit at.

There’s plentiful booths, a few high-tops by the front windows. There’s even half booths lining one wall of the cafe. If you were out on your own, all of these choices would be perfect. You’d take a seat at any of the tables and be content, especially the high-tops that offered the perfect opportunity for people watching between work.

You choose a table in one of the back corners. Somewhere darker, and far from everyone else in the building. Somewhere hidden.

“Here?” he questions, hesitating behind you as you drop your bag down beside one of the chairs.

“Something wrong with this table?” you ask over your shoulder, hand gripping on the back of the chair as if it could ground you.

“I mean… not really,” you turn and look at him over your shoulder, “It’s just kind of dark back here, and you used to like sitting by windows-”

Your throat tightens at it – the acknowledgement that he remembers. That he can recall anything from the past, of you, of your time spent together. Part of you had been convinced he’d taken a sledgehammer to the past, shattered it into something unrecognizable and abandoned it altogether.

He hadn’t. It should have been obvious, but he hadn’t.

“Maybe I’ve changed,” you cut in, gaze unwavering as you dare him to challenge you on the fact, “Besides, I don’t want to be distracted while I work.”

You won’t lose this game; whatever he’s currently playing at, you can’t afford to lose. You are not the girl he remembers, and he is not the man you’ve mourned for two years. Both of you, it seems, need that reminder.

He joins you at the shadowy table without another word.

You take to setting up your laptop and notebook, powering up your devices as you flip back open to your pages of contacts and physical notes already taken. Your eyes refuse to find his the entire time as you log in, as you open up to that damn refusal from the latest venue, as you sigh harshly out your nose at that bitter reminder of failure.

When they call your names for the lattes, he’s up and retrieving them without you even asking him to.

In your short time alone at the table, you lean forward to rest your forehead on the palms of your hands. It’s exhausting – being around him, pretending like you wouldn’t have enjoyed the view out the window, facing the reality that his mess had once again become yours. Every inch of your skin prickles with the need to run. And yet you don’t. You could have told him no, easily turned down his offer for coffee. But you didn’t, so now, you’ll live with the consequences.

“One vanilla latte,” Eddie appears, setting down that takeout cup of coffee down in front of you before he takes his seat, “I didn’t know if you’d want any extra sugars, but if you do, I can grab them-”

“Thanks,” you interrupt blandly, lifting your head from your hands as you watch him sit down his own coffee. You really, really didn’t want to hear him ramble anymore.

Didn’t want to ponder how it’s almost as endearing as the first day you met him. Didn’t want to think about how each syllable that falls from his lips strikes something deep in you, something stained and something yearning for erasure of a past both of you can’t change now. Didn’t want to keep caving so damn easily.

You are meant to be furious. You have every right to be; he left first, he stopped loving you first, he broke this first. You’ve had two years to gather up all your grief and all your anger, package it nicely with a bow on top, and that is what you should be handing over to him right now. Not forgiveness, not understanding. Certainly not endearment.

Something in your chest still shudders at the sight of his wince when he tries to sip the hot latte too soon, effectively burning his lip and tongue.

“So, you come here often?”

What the hell happened to not talking?

It’s not him to blame – it’s you. The words tumble out embarrassingly quickly. You had a plan, why weren’t you following the plan? Get a free coffee, get a break from the office, maybe manage to have some sort of breakthrough while away from that stuffy building. You weren’t supposed to be talking to him.

And he knows it. Damn it, does he know it as his lips curl at their corners ever so slightly, “Yeah. It’s convenient, nice and close to the studio.”

Where the fuck had all his rambles disappeared to? What are you supposed to do with such a short, such a normal response?

“Right,” you nod, acting as though the location of his studio would be common knowledge to you, “Right, no, of course. It’s good to have a convenient coffee place.”

He leans back in his chair, nervousness misting away and some sort of confidence creeping in instead. Fuck him.

“Do you have one around here?”

He’s testing the waters, seeing just how much conversation you’ll allow. The threshold should be none. Zilch. A resounding absolutely not.

“I usually stop by the Starbucks closest to my apartment.”

So much for that.

“Starbucks?” he crinkles his nose, and dear Lord, you need to look away. Save yourself the heartbreak, because those wrinkles are almost a replica map of the ones you remember back in Hawkins when he’d make faces at you across the Hideout when someone would approach him with boring conversation he wanted no part in. The same disgust, the same silent conversation between you transpiring, “I thought you were always a coffee snob. Hated that shit.”

You had been. When he had known you, you had hated that subpar commercial coffee.

“Like I said,” you swallow hard, looking down to your keyboard, realizing the conversation needed to end, “People change.”

Did you change, though? You still hated the taste of your morning coffee, cringed at either the burnt bitterness or overwhelming sweetness you could never find peaceful equilibrium between. A thousand different orders, a thousand different experiments, and you still had yet to find anything that satisfied your caffeine cravings.

Kind of like how you window-shopped at the bars. How you’d look over various men that Romina pointed out, and only shake your head before picking out something wrong with them. Something that wasn’t to your usual taste, something that wasn’t him.

You finally take a sip of your latte as Eddie nods, muttering a soft, “Guess so.”

It’s perfect. The latte isn’t too sweet, isn’t too bitter. It’s exactly what you’ve been searching for these last two years.

“They have really good muffins,” Eddie continues on, mimicking you by taking another sip of his drink. This time, he doesn’t burn his mouth, “Cinnamon rolls, too.”

The small talk is nearly killing you. You should go silent on him, begin to work on figuring out the venue situation. But you watch the way he fiddles with the sleeves of his leather jacket and can’t help but remember the old one with safety pins holding together the sleeves. Finally, you cave outwardly.

“What kind of venue do you want?”

It’s not small talk, but it’s not personal talk. It’s just you swallowing your pride, and shocking yourself by reaching out for the help everyone has pestered you with offering the last week.

“What?” Eddie’s eyes widen, no longer rubbing the fabric between his fingertips.

“The venue for the party,” you elaborate, “What are you looking for in it? Small? Big? Private? Rooftop? I’ve tried asking Matt, and he’s given me nothing to work off of.”

Eddie slowly lifts his hands to lay on the tabletop, watching you with such careful eyes that you can see all the lack of trust in them. “Does it… matter?”

You scoff, and before your brain or heart can warn you against it, you’re scooting your chair around the table to be closer to Eddie. You pull your laptop along with you, shifting it so that both of you can see the screen as you bring up your list of options. A colorful spreadsheet: rejections highlighted in a muted red, the ones you haven’t heard back from highlighted in soft orange, the ones you’re unsure of and haven’t even sent out queries regarding highlighted in a nearly transparent yellow.

Only one is highlighted in a pastel green. The one with a rooftop option, as well as several downstairs rooms. The one you thought seemed the most like Eddie.

“Yes, it matters a fuck ton,” you explain, pointing at a random line as his eyes dart about your impressive display, “The ones in red are ones that already rejected me, but most are larger venues you’ve played in the past. By the way, why have you destroyed so many green rooms?”

“I get bored,” he flatly replies, leaning in with squinted eyes, “What does that yellow mean?”

“Those are ones I’m unsure about. Either too big, too small, or too exclusive.”

“And orange?”

“I sent out an email, and haven’t heard back.”

“And…” he pauses as he reaches that venue, “And green? Why’s there only one green?”

It occurs to you he’s the first person to not turn their nose up at your extensive organization. Everyone else had thought it was stupid, wasteful, to spend so much time on the spreadsheet. No one had asked you to explain the color system before, usually hardly glancing at the screen before brushing you off.

No one had even questioned the green line yet.

“Green is the one I think…” you trail off, unsure of why you’re so afraid to admit the meaning. You sort of feel foolish; that terrible imposter syndrome managing to creep up on you as you doubt your judgment, “It’s the one I think might be the best fit. It probably isn’t, I don’t know. Honestly, I can take it off the list-”

“Show me the venue.”

“I really don’t-”

He interrupts you by saying your name sternly, looking away from the screen to glance at you with raised eyebrows, “Just show me. It can’t be any worse than…” he looks back over the list, letting out a snort, “Jesus, Webster Hall? Yeah, they’re not letting us come back any time soon.”

“What did you do to them?” you ask, too curious for your own good. Most of the venues wouldn’t divulge the messy details, only staunchly say no and promise they had their reasons once you mentioned Corroded Coffin.

“I’ll tell you if you show me the green venue.”

He knows he’s won when you finally click onto the still open tabs. You’d opened the hyperlink for every single different room, ranging from the large main one to the petty small one on a rooftop. You start with the largest room, and Eddie eagerly drinks in the details on the page.

He whistles softly, only loud enough for you to hear, “Quite the venue.”

“This is just the first room.”

He looks at you, clearly shocked, subtly nodding for you to click through the rest of the tabs. His reaction is fairly consistent as you show each new room, new capacity, new option. You can see the way his face lights up – you had been right.

Your judgment was correct. You hadn’t been an idiot, shouldn’t have doubted yourself. It almost makes you feel as if there’s still a chance that you still know him. Somewhere deep down, beneath your layers of stained armor and his layers of reckless defenses, you still know him.

“It’s… good,” he says softly after reading over that final tab you had opened, “Like, really good.”

You exhale in relief, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he leans back in his chair, “I don’t think we’ve ever played that venue before, either, so… no wrecked green room to hold over my head.”

You should stay on track and focus; you are making progress. After a week of hopelessness, you were finally not feeling like an absolute failure. Better to keep the train moving forward than to halt right now.

And yet, your mind picks up on that green room comment again, and you can’t help it – all your focus flies out the window.

“Why do you fuck up all those green rooms? And don’t just say you were bored,” you ask, curling your hands around your still warm cup of coffee, “I mean, I get it – the rockstar image or whatever – but isn’t it… isn’t it more trouble than it’s worth when it comes to scheduling tours?”

He shakes his head softly, curls tumbling over tense shoulders, “Definitely not for the rockstar image.”

“Then why?” you turn your head, ignore the screen, focus on him. On his scruff and the bags under his eyes, on the cracks in his chapped lips.

On that distinct look overtaking his face that says you overstepped.

“Forget it,” you weakly say, taking back your words to the best of your abilities without being able to pull them back onto your tongue, tuck them back into that box of anger and grief, and curiosity now, apparently. “I guess it doesn’t really matter. Either way, it’s good that these guys have nothing against you, right?”

“They still might,” Eddie shrugs, sucking his bottom lip in between his teeth, “Word travels fast between venues.”

He says it so sadly, it’s hard to think of a proper response. You know he brought it upon himself. There’s no room for sympathy at this table, in this cafe.

But it still only adds to your motivation to do this job, and do it well. A parting gift to Eddie; a way to silently swallow the pride leftover from a messy breakup, and apologize for the way you’d left without a trace. Right then and right there, you decide that’s what this has to become. For your peace of mind, and possibly for his.

“You want a rooftop,” you don’t phrase it as a question, but as a statement as you yank your laptop closer to you, fingers flying over the keyboard, “A rooftop with a nice view, that’s what your email said.”

“I mean, that’d be nice-”

“You all want an open bar,” you add, continuing to type loudly enough a few people glance back towards the dark corner. You pay them no mind, your determination taking over, “And it needs to be smaller than your normal shows according to Matt. That doesn’t mean we have to limit venues by capacity – we could just limit ticket sales.”

Eddie’s mouth falls open ever so slightly, watching you in awe as you start a new document. Making a checklist of just what was possible. No more spreadsheets littered with reminders of rejections, of what you weren’t sure you could get for the band. It would be nice to have a list of the venues you couldn’t contact now, but there was no need to let their names glare at you every time you reviewed your plans.

“We need a top three for venues. What are your top three?”

You finally pause your clacking to look at him. Still stunned, still under the spell of watching you come to life.

It used to be this way back in Hawkins, too. Whenever you took over on a school project, or a new gig for Corroded Coffin. You could do this. You would do this.

“I don’t-” Eddie starts, before taking a deep breath, “The only venues I really know by name are the ones I can’t perform at. The ones that banned me.”

“Awesome,” he shrinks back a little at that, almost in disbelief, but it was awesome. Not that he’d gotten banned, but that you had somewhere to start, “Send me that list. Type it up on your phone right now, and send it.”

“To your email?” he questions, already doing as you’d commanded of him.

You consider it. Your email was already overflowing with work related notions, and brimming with those goddamn rejections you had yet to delete and move past.

Personal email was out of the question. You only checked it for coupons from your favorite online shops and notifications from your mother’s Facebook.

You snatch his phone out of his palm, and don’t look up at him until you navigate to the contacts app, hit the small plus sign, type in the magic number that you don’t check to see if he actually deleted two years ago. You just assume he did.

Your number.

“Text it to me,” you instruct him as you pass the phone back. His hand still hovers where it’d been when you’d taken the cell phone, as if he’s frozen. “Now, please.”

You don’t care if it’s stupid to do, it’s necessary. He’ll probably just delete it once you finish this final favor, this final gift to him to send him off and out of your life for good.

“O-Okay,” he stutters, and not even a minute later, your phone buzzes with a text.

You flip it over, keep it angled so Eddie can’t see the screen.

New text from ROCKSTAR ♡ !

He may have deleted your contact, but you’d never deleted his.

You’d tried to, make no mistake. Spent plenty of late hours staring at that haunted number, even tried to backspace it away a few times. But every time your thumb would hover over the delete button, your hands would shake and knuckles would ache. Every time you’d manage to fully backspace the number away, it was no use; you still knew it by heart, still retyped it and saved it as if nothing had ever changed. There had been a short week of having his number blocked, but you’d given up, unblocked it then sometimes still sat and waited for another round of calls from him begging for a chance to just talk.

You always seemed to have one foot in the door, one foot out with Eddie. Always stained, never cleaned of him.

It didn’t matter. After these next three months, you’d delete it. You told yourself you would, for real this time. You’d erase him, properly let him go until you forgot the sound of his voice and couldn’t even recall the first three digits of his phone number. You would. You had to.

You flip the phone back over and face it down on the table, looking up at him, forcing a polite smile. It kills you – it startles him.

“Alright, Mr. Rescue Party. Shall we begin?”

—

You never return to the office.

Hours later, when the sun was setting and the table was littered with empty coffee cups bought by Eddie to continue to fuel the two of you, you receive an email from Lydia.

Leaving and locking up the office now. Hope the meeting with your client went well. See you tomorrow.

You blink rapidly at the message, hardly being able to process the time. It was nearly seven.

“Okay, so, that venue was a no-go,” Eddie says as he approaches the table again, finally stepping back inside from calling your green venue. The two of you had decided it was time to stop sending off emails that could be easily ignored – you were tracking down numbers and calling them directly, now. Forcing them to give an answer then and there rather than putting you off for weeks, “I was right about word traveling between those assholes- What’s wrong?”

He stops just before he pulls out his chair, leaning down with his forearms pressed into the back of the seat when he notices your expression of shock.

It had been easy, too easy, to waste away the hours with Eddie. And, sure, the main distraction had been planning and putting everything into action. Eddie had narrowed down his top three venues, you had found a few businesses that would service an open bar and had begun to gather quotes. But it hadn’t all been business.

Small things had slipped in. A short conversation had been had about the best bars in town when you’d begun that side quest, Eddie admitting which bars in town let him frequent them while offering the most privacy (not many, unsurprisingly) and you’d listed a few of the clubs your coworkers liked to frequent. No overlap to be found. But then, there had been the joking after Eddie called one of his other top three venues and put them on speaker, allowing you to hear the way the owner chewed Eddie out for the time he’d caused chaos at a show that wasn’t even his own. The moment the owner hung up, Eddie had made a face, somewhere between embarrassment and irritation, until you’d finally spoken up and mocked one of the last things the owner had said before the dial tone.

“Don’t you ever call here again,” you’d jokingly mimicked in a deep and comical voice, wagging a finger in Eddie’s direction in fake scolding.

It hadn’t even been that funny. But the two of you had still descended into giggles like two children, until tears pricked the corners of your eyes and your stomach ached just a little bit.

Small moments. Small exchanges. Things that were personal, things you wouldn’t have done with a normal client. Things that had a full day slipping away from you quietly in the darkest corner of a coffee shop you never even knew existed mere blocks from your work.

“It’s seven, Eddie,” you tell him as if he should be just as taken back. He hardly blinks an eye, “We’ve been here seven hours.”

“And?” the creases between his brows finally smooth, standing back up straight, “We’ve been getting shit done, and we’ve been paying customers the entire time. I don’t see the issue.”

The issue is the way you made work not feel like work.

The issue was the cycle you had been fearing, avoiding, and falling victim to ever since he’d been waiting for you in that conference room that very first day. Every time Eddie would inch back into your vision, whether right before you as he was now or in the form of emails you’d find yourself reading over before bed, you were forgetting the anger. It kept feeling like a time machine, sending you right back to that very first night. Before the fame, before the hurt.

You have no idea how you’ll manage to keep this to just a parting gift.

“I just…” your words fall short, because he’s technically right, “I didn’t realize we’d been here that long.”

Eddie takes his seat with a nonchalant shrug, “Easy to lose track of time when you’re actually getting shit done,” he stops, blanches at his words as he stares at you as if he thinks he’s just insulted you, “Wait, I- No, I just mean- I don’t mean you weren’t getting things done before. I swear.”

You’re not offended in the slightest, “I know. But to be fair, I really wasn’t. I’m sorry for doubting how helpful you’d be when you showed up earlier today.”

“Don’t do that.”

“What? Apologize?”

“No, discredit yourself,” he stresses. And you hadn’t noticed it, but your two chairs had seemingly grown closer over the hours as his knee bumps your thigh, “You… I’m not an easy client. You were handed a shit deal, plus Matt really wasn’t giving you anything to work with. I wasn’t giving you anything to work with.”

“I’m working for the entire band,” you remind him, remind yourself.

All it does is remind you of even more people you miss. Gareth, who was the little brother you never had back in Hawkins. Jeff, who had been one of your closest confidants. Craig, who would’ve answered your phone calls even in the dead of night. All friends you gave up when you walked out on Eddie. You always forget that – you didn’t just leave behind one person, you left behind an entire life.

Eddie’s phone buzzes, and he makes no move to grab it, “Have they been helpful?”

You stare at the phone, waiting for him to reach out. He doesn’t.

“Sort of.”

Another buzz. Another unanswered message Eddie clearly has no interest in responding to.

“Sort of? What did they ask for in their lists?”

Another buzz. Finally, you break free of whatever conversation Eddie’s trying to have, and lean forward to grab his phone and pass it to him, “You need to check that. What if it’s Matt?”

Eddie doesn’t glance at the phone, only crosses his arms, effectively tucking the phone out of your sight as well, “He can wait. What did the other guys ask for?”

You can hear the next buzz, more muffled against his t-shirt and beneath his jacket.

“Eddie.”

“Sugar.”

He knows the nickname is a weapon against you. He uses it more deliberately this time, not letting it just slip out as it had at the office.

“Open bar, fuzzy robes, normal things,” you finally spit out, trying to not let the echo of him calling you that name to worm into your brain and begin to rot you away, “Now, check your phone. Please.”

This time, when the phone buzzes, Eddie removes it from being trapped beneath his armpit and actually looks at the screen. You know immediately you were right; his face falls as he reads over the missed messages, all his teasing fading and that air of light-hearted arrogance being sucked out of the space between you two.

You don’t need to ask, but you do anyways, “Rockstar duty calls?”

He looks up rapidly, mouth already forming the word no, but you shake your head to stop his lie.

It’s fine. It’s entirely acceptable that other people need his attention, that he has other affairs to tend to. You had gotten used to it when the two of you were dating and he first made his big break, you shouldn’t expect a change now when you were nothing more than a stranger working for him. It shouldn’t sting, and you shouldn’t feel a small fraction of you hopeful that he’ll be defiant and insist on ignoring those duties.

Today was only ever meant to be one cup of coffee. The fact that you two had lost track, fumbled and turned one cup into four, was only a blip.

“I get it,” you say, sinking back into your chair. And you did, you really did. It was easier now to understand than it was back then, back when this very type of situation started the domino effect that was the beginning of the end, “You should go if they need you. You are a rockstar, after all.”

It’s a hard sentiment to say without a trace of bitterness, but you manage. He’s a rockstar. All his hopes, all his dreams, have finally come true. He gets to breathe, he gets to be rowdy, he gets to hear crowds scream back all those lyrics you’d watched him write in his bedroom back in Hawkins. He got everything he wished for.

You should be happy for him. If this arrangement is going to work, you have to be happy for him.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks you as he shoves his phone into the pocket of his jeans, standing and beginning to gather empty coffee cups.

“Work,” you shrug, crossing your arms as you glare at the laptop, already feeling preemptive frustration at the thought of picking up where you’ve left off today, alone.

It’s not just because you want Eddie to join you on the project. It’s not Eddie’s help that you specifically want. It’s just nice to have someone to help shoulder the load with you, right?

“At the office?”

“That’s where I usually work, yes.”

“Come to my place instead.”

Time almost freezes. He’s standing there, nearly all of the empty latte cups balanced in his arms, and looking at you as if he hadn’t just asked the most insane possible thing of you.

“Eddie,” you speak softly, carefully, as your arms drop from your chest, “I don’t think that Lydia would be okay with that-”

“I’m a client,” he points out, “Besides, you’ve been stressed about this project, and I like to think I helped with that today.”

He did. God, he did.

“Just think about it,” he’s nearly begging. Beneath the lowlights of this cafe, features dancing with the reflection of some Christmas lights pinned up to line the top of the wall as they cast an aesthetic glow of gold over the surroundings, Eddie Munson is begging for your time, “You have my number. Think it over tonight, and just text me if you decide you want to. I can send over my address.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Probably not,” at least he’s being honest. But quickly, it becomes apparent he’s misinterpreted you as he continues on, “You’re probably going to get photographed by paparazzi when you show up if you’re not careful, and if they figure out you’re there to see me, you’ll probably end up on the cover of some lowlife magazine-”

“That’s not the part I’m concerned with,” you lament, finally choosing to stand now. The last thing on your mind is publicity, or cameras, or magazines, “I mean, I don’t think it’s a good idea to make this,” you motion your arms between the two of you, “A habit.”

His face falls ever so slightly. A soft drop of his eyebrows, a gentle pinch of his lips. You swear, you watch him nearly drop one of the coffee cups before he regains composure, “It won’t be. It’s… It’s just work, yeah?”

Just work. Just a project. Just one final parting gift. This is nothing more than a source of closure for the two of you, a slamming of the door on that chapter of your life where the boy standing before you was your end-all, be-all. He’s right – it’s just work.

Your voice hardly comes out a whisper, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll think about it,” it takes everything in you to level your words, to keep them from shaking, “I’ll ask Lydia, and I’ll let you know.”

A slow smile spreads across his face, and you can’t ignore the way it puts the glimmering lights on the ceiling to shame. No shade of gold, no twinkling reflection on the windows overlooking the busy street, can compare to the knife his hopeful smile strikes in you. It’s the type of smile that aches, that resonates, that haunts.

It’s the kind of smile that tells you you’re going to bleed for this, no matter how much you resist.

“Cool,” he nods, finally taking a few steps back, “I’ll see you tomorrow then, maybe?”

The kind of smile that tells you the bloodstain is never going to wash out, whether this is all just for work or not.

“See you tomorrow, Eddie.”

The idea of closure is about as tangible as smoke and mirrors as he leaves you alone in the dark corner of the coffee shop. It almost hurts as much as it did the first time he walked out to be a rockstar.

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#my writing #ghost's writing #maroon #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fic #eddie munson angst #rockstar eddie munson #will she go to his place the next day? will something happen at his apartment? will i go insane by the end of writing this fic? who knows !#certainly not me #as the writer it is not my place to know these things #i am just a vessel for my visions #they frustrate me endlessly #as always #if it ain't good do not tell me #this is burning slower than i expected #wah

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delopsia · 1 year ago

Text

Thinking about all the things Rhett had to deal with while growing up on the Abbott ranch and how his world tips on its head when you come into his life.

He's forever conscious of how Perry was born out of love, and he was born because Royal realized that it would be cheaper to have his kids working than it was to hire help. Poor Cecelia was so blindsided by her baby fever that she didn't realize why Royal went back on his "I only want one kid" statement until after Royal hauled five-year-old Rhett out to work on the ranch for the third day in a row. An entire two years younger than Perry had been when he started working.

And the problem with Royal, is that arguing with him only makes him dig his heels into the dirt, refusing to sway on his decision.

Most of the kids in his school worked and had their responsibilities to help keep the household running, but Rhett was the only one who had to do his homework on the bus because otherwise, he wouldn't have time to do it until he went to bed. Just like he was the only kid to miss every single field trip, because why should he go to the zoo with his class when he could be working with Royal?

He doesn't understand why his dad snaps at him for crying over his injuries but soon comes a time when he doesn't care about the bruises littering his arms. Gets annoyed when Perry cries about crushing his hand. Nothing's broken; there's no reason to get worked up over it.

That exact thinking keeps him quiet the first time he gets hurt bullriding. So focused on chasing the same small-town glory as his father that he doesn't mind the sprained ankle. Getting on again and again because, for a few fleeting seconds, the crowd cheers his name, and the sound of their applause is the thing he's grown to crave.

There was some point when the workload in the house started shifting. When Perry was starting to reach the end of his high school days, started to fight a little harder against Royal's iron fist. And with an explosive temper that nearly dulls Royal's, it only made sense that he started getting his way. Enjoying days off, weekends spent touring colleges, and venturing out into the real world, because of how his explosive demeanor always devolved into threats that shook his momma to her core.

But one less pair of hands on the ranch meant that the others had to take on more work, and with Royal's old bull riding injuries coming back to bite him, Rhett was the only one capable of taking it on. But just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Hiring just one ranch hand would have made all the difference, but the prospect of losing money is something Royal's always disagreed with. Slowly, Rhett's work days grow longer. Dinner time no longer makes the end of his work, having to go back out to finish up while everyone else showers and settles in for the night. Waking up before school to get a head start on chores, hoping he'll be done early tonight.

It never happens. Where he finds free time, Royal finds things he could be doing, and Rhett starts learning that lying about needing to do store runs is the only way he'll get a break.

The way Royal refused to let him and Perry have cellphones until they turned eighteen and could buy them with their own money. The result of a privilege revoked after a thirteen-year-old Perry got caught on his phone at two in the morning ended with a smashed phone and a brutal reminder of where the eldest son gets his anger from.

A rule that was forced to be overturned when Rhett was sixteen. All because something in the west pasture spooked his horse; she'd run him clean over in her attempt to get away from it, and he never saw her coming. He still doesn't remember hitting the ground, but he does recall the splitting ache in his skull when his eyes finally reopened.

With no cell phone, he had no way to call for help, forced to limp home on foot. He didn't get home until after dusk because Royal had written his absence off as teenage rebellion. A hospital visit later, Cecelia went behind her husband's back to buy new phones for both of her boys, but even the justification of keeping her boys safe wasn't enough for Royal. Because Rhett had made it home and was fine at the end of the day.

Then Rhett's eighteen, and he's just barely maintained his grades to graduate. He's got it in his head that he's going to move out, get out of this stuffy old town, and pave his own way, doing something, anything. But now Perry and Rebecca are moving into the house with their daughter, and Rhett's being asked to put off his plans until they get settled in.

He's nineteen when he gives up on trying to leave because something always needs him to stay home a little longer. He's twenty when he figures out why Royal drinks so much beer, gets hooked on the way the bitter liquid makes the ache in his shoulders disappear, and for the first time in a while, he's happy. Because you can't remember your sorrows when you're drunk.

Rhett's twenty-one when he can start wandering into bars, and he's twenty-one when he learns that there's a group of girls who come to rodeos, hoping to catch a steamy night with a bull rider, no strings attached. It's strange to kiss a girl you don't know the name of, waking up alone in a hotel bed with hardly any memory of what happened the night before. But for a few splitting seconds, he doesn't feel so alone in this big world, and he's clinging to it with every fiber of his being.

Until that's not enough, either. The scream of the crowd, the electric touch of those pretty girls that cheer his name, no longer make his days easier. Beer quits chasing away the pain in his joints, the prescription painkiller for an old injury in his wrist had might as well be candy, and he can only escape it by blacking out. He doesn't remember getting that DUI, but Officer Joy tells him that he was muttering about how Royal wanted him to chase down a cow that broke through the fence. He's in such rough shape that she intentionally forgets to discharge him, hoping the day of rest will do something to get rid of the bags under his eyes.

She isn't quite sure what to think when she learns that he's practically been running the Abbott ranch for the past few years. Royal always fails to mention his youngest son when he brags about his ranch.

Then you come along.

A fresh new face, one of the only people to move into Wabang rather than out of it because your new job led you all the way out here. It was Sherrif Joy who suggested you visit the Amelia County rodeo once or twice, and you'd only gone because there was nothing else to do. Rhett didn't notice you until Joy came to congratulate him on his ride, with you glued to her side. He hasn't stumbled through a hello in years, but he can hardly get it out of his mouth.

Your face sticks in his head while he works, and God, he doesn't even know your name, but his heart is jumping in his chest when you run into him at the store, time and time again. Until he finally cracks and starts a conversation with you while waiting in line, and somehow that ends in the two of you standing in the parking lot, talking until the store closes. An invitation to get drinks turns into dinner dates, and he's got something to look forward to again.

All of a sudden, you're massaging his overworked hands and cradling his scruffy face like he's made of glass. Whispering about how he needs rest and deserves all the love you shower him with, and he's not sure what to make of that. Can never figure out why his eyes water that first time he lays his head on your chest, listening to the pitter-patter of your heart while you play with his hair.

His momma is the only one whose ever done that; she stopped when he was fourteen.

He doesn't know how to tell you that he loves you. Those words choke in his throat every time he tries to utter them, stifling him into a painful silence that he can't escape. Instead, he does the only thing he knows how to do.

He works.

Replaces the busted locks in your doors, changes the oil in your car, he builds the porch you say you wanted, and he tinkers away at the little household annoyances. You want a fence? He's got it; he just needs to get up earlier to have time to build it. You're telling him that he doesn't have to do all these things for you, but work is the only thing he knows how to do. If he stops, then what else can he give you?

He doesn't understand what you see in him; he's not as energetic and fun as those other rodeo guys who eye you up every time they see you. They have more money, they're stronger, don't have the aches and pains of an old man, and they haven't got the reputation of being the town casanova.

He doesn't understand how you look at him like he's something precious—some priceless thing that deserves the world and more. There will come a day when you realize you deserve better, more than he could ever hope to give you, and he knows it'll break him, but he lets you love on him anyway. Because a few months spent with you is the best thing he could ever ask for, even if you walk away in the end.

But you're not walking away. Fuck, he's probably given you more opportunities than the Lord can count, but for some reason, you stay. And you're spending your first Christmas together, he's buying you too many sweets for Valentine's Day and he's spoiling you on your birthday, only to get confused when you surprise him with cake on his own birthday. Can't remember the last time he blew out candles, only realizes he was supposed to make a wish three days later.

Selfishly, he wishes that you'll be with him forever.

You're taking him to the zoo for one of your dates, and for the first time in his life, he's looking back at a tiger, and it's so, so different from the pictures. There are otters, bears, cheetahs, and wait, wait! Why are there goats in a zoo? Hasn't everyone met a goat before? What's so special about these ones? And how the fuck are giraffes so tall?

Royal says the red-panda plush Rhett hauls home is a waste of money. He could have saved that money to invest in land or a future, but all Rhett can think of is how, when he squeezes it to his chest at night, he can almost deceive himself into thinking it's you instead.

But then comes that big argument; he forgets what its about midway through, because he's realized that this is it. This is when you realize that he can't give you what you deserve. He can't blame you, but that still doesn't stop him from breaking when you walk out to your car.

He doesn't know what the hell to think when he realizes you're in the room with him. Couldn't hear the squeal of the door over the choked noises coming from his own mouth, eyes so clouded with tears that he can't even see you. But he can feel your arms around him, and he doesn't want to hug you out of fear of this being a dream. Yet you're still there, and you're not promising you're never leaving him, and he doesn't understand. He doesn't understand. And it scares him so bad that he shakes with it.

You don't know if you'll ever be able to let go of him because he clings to you with this fear that you've never seen before. Words aren't enough to convince his broken heart that you're not going anywhere, and for the first time since you met him, he talks. Spills every fear and thought he's ever had through his hiccups, confirms your suspicions of how much he hurts, and unveils the sources of his insecurities.

Your big cowboy falls asleep with his face buried in your neck, and he's still there when you wake up. It's the third time he's stayed in bed and didn't go to work, but it's the first time he's chosen to stay. Usually, it's a physical injury that forces him to stay down, but this is an injury you can't see. A fracture in who he is, broken after a lifetime of increasing pressure that he never stood a chance against.

He follows you into the kitchen, no longer trying to conceal the limp in his left foot as he tries his best to help you cook breakfast. You don't know where his appetite came from, but you've never seen him meekly ask if he can make himself more fried eggs.

It's only after that he remembers the argument about how you got a job offer that would take you a few states away. Out of Wyoming and away from him. But it's your dream job, and it hurts to see Rhett's bottom lip wobble as he weakly tells you to go for it. Dreams come first, after all.

Like many things, he doesn't know what to think when you tell him your dream has changed. You want him to come with you. Leave this flyover town, find a job that doesn't ask the world of him, and share a cute little house with you somewhere in the countryside. He doesn't get why you'd want it with him, but fuck if that isn't the one thing he's always wanted.

Royal thinks that Rhett's lighter attitude is because of his recent decision to move in with you. Cecelia already knows what Rhett's up to without needing to be told.

It takes a year for you to move. Just after you lock your front door for the last time, Cecelia's car appears in the driveway. Neither of you can figure out how she knew you two were moving out today, but she's brought a box of things that her youngest deserves to have. Pictures, his first belt buckle, that first cellphone that got drowned in the kitchen sink, and a freshly knitted blanket. A housewarming gift. She says it's good luck for a couple to have one and to not hesitate to call if you need anything.

That blanket sits on the back of the couch in your new living room. Rhett only curls up with it when he's feeling homesick, which had might as well be the entirety of the first six months in this new house. He finds a job at a local ranch, is lucky enough to have his beloved horse shipped out to stay there, and slowly, his true colors start to bleed through.

Or maybe they were always there, simply dulled by the exhaustion that once seemed to permanently sit in his weary bones.

Because his smile reaches his eyes more often, and his prescription painkillers have long since expired. His body a touch softer, the result of a rediscovered appetite, and he reaches for you more than he does a can of beer. Gripings about his father are replaced by laughter that echoes down the hall. He's still got that limp, but he chases you up the stairs quicker than he used to. Those gaudy belt buckles never leave, and never do you. Always there when he comes home from work, ready to meet him for his favorite welcome-home kiss.

Rhett will never be the son Royal asked for, but he will always be the man you've dreamed of.

And he's more than enough.

#rhett abbott #outer range #rhett abbott x reader #delgato's warmups #delgato's thinking #tw food #tw alcohol

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iwoulddothingstothisman · 5 months ago

Text

Figuring out

"Sam, Sam."

"Psst, Sam"

"What Dean?"

"I think I love him."

"That's great he loves you too, go back to sleep."

"I don't think I can."

"Then for fuck sake, shut up," Sam grunted and turned over on his shitty motel bed to face away from Dean's bed.

"Then shut up," Dean mocked under his breath, "bitch." He flopped back down onto the pillow only to stare up at the celling he had just enough light from the freeway to see.

Not four hours later the sound of wings fluttering reefed both boys from their sleep. Dean jolted up knife already in hand only to see Cas, his Cas maybe even, standing at the foot off his bed looking for all the world like a lost child.

"Cas, not that it's not good to see you, but why are you here, it's like five in the morning," Dean grunted while rubbing his eyes with the hand not holding his knife.

"I wanted to see you, though waking you was not intentional." His head was tilted a little to the side, an adorable pout on his lips. Thank god for the dark room or Cas would've seen the blush creeping up his neck.

"Well I'm up now, what d'ya want for breakfast, Sam?" Dean asked while swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

"Whatever they have, salad-wise," Sam said, snuggling deeper into the covers.

"Naturally." Dean put his knife onto the bedside table so it was within Sam's reach if need be then trundled his way into the bathroom after grabbing the same jeans he wore yesterday and his only clean shirt.

He came back out, did up his boots and grabbed the keys for Baby.

"C'mon Cas, we'll let Sammy get his beauty rest," He said while walking past the Angel who followed a half step behind Dean

The drive to the diner was thankfully uneventful, no vampires trying to slash their tyres and no women in white trying to seduce them.

The diner was even more dull. The standard traffic of office monkeys that hate their life but can't bring themselves to end it and early morning joggers who think they're different for getting oat milk and tweeting about it on their aggressively nature themed blog that calls to the end for all farming. The only stand-outish part of it all was the cashier. A woman in her maybe late 20's by Dean's guess with bright blue hair, a pro-Palestine hat that said 'from the river to the sea' with the Palestinian flag under it and a full cyber-sigilism tattoo sleeve.

Dean had been so busy studying her appearance that he hadn't even noticed the line had moved enough that it was their turn to order.

"So what will you and your boyfriend be having today?" She asked with a tinge of an Aussie accent and Dean faltered.

"We- uh- he's- we're ah not together." He stumbled to get his words out.

"Sorry mate, what can I get ya?" She asked again, this time her accent came through thicker.

"I'll just get a bacon and egg muffin with a coffee, black, two sugars please and, do you guys do a Caesar salad?"

"We do, yeah."

"The largest one of those I can get, to go please." He passed her the money and pocketed his change before walking over to the table furthest from the door.

"It is odd that she thought we were together," Cas stated. Dean almost choked.

"Yeah, yeah it is." dean replied praying to a god he knew didn't care that Cas would drop it, of course, God doesn't care so Cas did no such thing.

"I wonder what it is about us that made her think that, I've been told that I 'look the type' whatever that means, maybe that was it."

"Yeah, yeah I guess you do." Dean paused for a second but kept talking before Cas could open his mouth. "Cas can I talk to you for a second?" He asked.

"You already are." Cas said, tilting his.

"Not the point, the bible doesn't say anything about being gay is a sin, right?" Dean asked.

"Not the original one, no. Why?"

"Because I think I love you." He rushed out.

"Yes, I love you too, I believe." Cas said, making Dean chuckle and shake his head.

"No Cas, I'm IN love with you."

"Oh well in that case then I too, am in love with you, perhaps not in the exact same way that a human might be, but rest assured I have loved you since I pulled you from perdition." Cas admitted with a soft smile.

Dean's tunnel vision on Cas was broken when the same cashier set their food on the table between then with just enough force to almost startle Dean out of his seat.

"Have a good one," she said before speed walking away back to the counter where a chef was relentlessly ringing the bell.

"Come, we'll continue this in the car." Cas said while getting up and grabbing the bag.

Cas was waiting next to the passenger door when Dean finally pried himself from his seat in the diner. He swiftly unlocked Baby and jumped in to start the car. Cas wasn't half a second behind him and had the door closed before Baby had started.

"Did you mean in when you said you've loved me since you pulled me from hell."

"Of course, why else would I say it?"

"Then why, why, didn't you say anything?" Dean exclaimed.

"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

"Good grief Cas." Was all Dean said before grabbing Cas by the lapels of his coat and kissing him. He pulled back a second later only to be pulled straight back in by Cas' hand in his hair.

The food was cool by the time they got back to the motel and Sam had packed all of his stuff and some of Dean's

"Good to see you two are still alive, I was about to send out a search party." He said with a knowing smirk.

"Shut up, bitch."

"Whatever, jerk."

Sure they still had a lot to work out, especially when it came to Dean's issues but they took the first step and that's what really matter.

With that thought Dean ate his cold muffin with a small smile on his face.

This is my first time posting something original (on this blog) and I'm super nervous. Please let me know if you find any egregious mistakes and I hope you liked it.

#destiel pride #destiel #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel

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dr-spencer-reids-queen · 1 year ago

Text

F is for Fun

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~400

Warnings: none

Summary: You buy something that will make chores a lot more fun.

Square Filled: help with chores for @fluffbingo

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

It’s finally here! You run to the door with an excited look on your face, passing by your boyfriend who is playing chess by himself at the table. You slide with your socks on for the last couple of feet which makes you almost crash into the front door.

“Whoa, slow down. What’s going on?” Spencer asks and pauses his game.

“It’s here!”

“What’s here?”

You open the door and grab the package that’s at the foot of the door.

“Something that will make chores a helluva lot more fun,” you giggle. You take it to the kitchen and use a steak knife to open the package. Inside are shoes with mops on the bottom so that when you’re mopping the floor, you can do it with your feet. “I even got you a pair!”

“You’re a child.”

“You love me.”

“Yeah, I do,” he chuckles.

“We can slide around to music and have fun! You know I hate mopping.”

“I know, that’s why I do it.”

“Well, now you don’t have to do it alone.”

Every Sunday is clean day in your apartment, so when Sunday comes around, you get the opportunity to wear the mop shoes. You move the furniture out of the way while Spencer sweeps the floor clean of any dust or debris. When he’s done, you splash the cleaner all over the floor so that it leaves a thin layer on the ground. You and Spencer put on your mop shoes to use on the ground.

“Ready?” you grin.

“Go for it,” he laughs.

You take off running and slide on the floor, but you didn’t realize just how slippery it would be. You lose control of your balance and speed and end up crashing into the couch. When you start laughing, Spencer knows you’re not in any pain.

“Are you okay?”

“Never better!” you laugh. “Your turn!”

Spencer does the exact same thing as you in hopes he’ll get a different result. You get up just in time for Spencer to come crashing into you, causing you both to fall back onto the couch in a fit of giggles.

“This was a bad idea,” he smiles.

“It makes for a more fun cleaning day.” You kiss him quickly and stand up to try again. “I bet you can’t catch me.”

You try to run away from him even though you keep slipping. Spencer gets up and tries to chase after you but isn’t too successful.

You’re right, this does make for a more fun cleaning day.

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fan fic #spencer reid fan fiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fiction #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds #criminal minds fluff #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fanfiction #cm #cm fluff #cm fanfic #cm fanfiction

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miraculouslbcnreactions · 2 months ago

Note

Something something about Zoe admitting that she used to lie to make a friend's and end up losing them because of it.

Where do I ever hear of it?

Oh, right! Lila!

Before Chameleon Lila is just simply a liar, even Adrien(?) reasoned maybe it's because she want to fit in.

Funny how Marinette end up antagonize her while welcoming Zoe heartily and the only difference between them is only one of them has a crush on Adrien. Guess which one that Marinette made enemies of?

I agree that Zoe's backstory is similar to Lila's canon story, but you haven't given a fair assessment of the differences in their introductory episodes. It's not even necessarily fair to call them the same character. Zoe's lying is presented as her acting different to try to fit in. She's not telling major lies about her life to make herself stand out. The worst we get is stuff like this:

Chloé: (closes the door) Since your father isn't here, you'll use mine! If you become my sister, of course. Rule number two: you need a minion. Where's yours? Zoé: Uhhh, I left them…in New York!

Which is still enough to understandably turn someone off to Zoe, but it doesn't make her a Lila clone. Let's look at why that is.

Lila's intro has her actively coming up with very extreme lies that aren't about fitting it. They're about making her stand out! She doesn't want to be part of the crowd. She wants to be worshiped. Here are some quotes from the start of Volpina to give the flavor of lies we see from Lila:

Rose: Can you believe Lila knows Prince Ali? She even flew in his private jet with him! Chloé: Why did Jagged Stone write a song about Lila when he could've written it about me? Nino: Lila knows all of the Hollywood directors. She promised she'd mention me to Steven Basielberg himself! Marinette: (rushes back to Alya's side) Lila? Alya: Yeah, she just started at our school! (points to Lila, who's on the second floor of the school with Adrien) She even gave me an exclusive interview for the Ladyblog, 'cause Ladybug saved her life once! Watch! (shows Marinette the video of Lila on her blog)

It's worth noting that this exchange makes Marinette feel jealous and threatened, but she doesn't hate Lila. She's just afraid that Adrien will fall for the cool new girl. This leads her to follow Lila and Adrien into the school library where we get this:

Lila: So you've got a little soft spot for the bug, huh? Adrien: Me? Oh, no! Not at all! (The book cart moves closer to them, but is unnoticed.) Lila: You know I actually happen to be very close friends with Ladybug. (Adrien and Marinette both gasp.) Adrien: Really?!

This is where Marinette's hatred comes from and it's justified. This scene would play the exact same way no matter who Lila was talking to. Someone is using Marinette's name to get close to people. That would upset most of us. We also get this moment at the end of that same scene:

Adrien:(gets an alert from his phone) I gotta go! I've got a lesson in 58 seconds. (Lila causes Adrien to drop his bag on the floor) Lila: So, the park? (pushes the superhero book on the floor away from Adrien's bag with her foot) Adrien: Uh sure! (runs out) Lila:(picks up the book) A vixen superheroine? Hmm, interesting... (leaves the library) Tikki: Marinette! Marinette: I know. I gotta talk to Adrien before he meets up with Lila in the park. He needs to know that she's a total thief.

Once again, Marinette's feelings are extremely justified. Lila stole Adrien's book and will go on to toss it in the trash, showing that she never meant to return it, probably to avoid the risk of him thinking that she took it. These are two incredibly negative things for someone to witness and they're basically Marinette's first impression of Lila! Meanwhile, this was Marinette and Zoe's first interaction:

Marinette: Sorry I got held up here! (bumps into Zoé) Sabine: Is everyone all right? Marinette: Sorry, sorry, sorry! Zoé: It's totally okay, but maybe I should be asking if you're okay. That was quite a fall!

Very different. Not enough to justify Marinette trusting Zoe, but Marinette's hatred of Chloe combined with this initial good first impression are arguably enough for Marinette to be willing to hear Zoe out and give her a chance to prove herself. It's easy to be rude to service workers and Zoe wasn't, so I can see why Marinette would believe that Zoe isn't a manipulative monster especially since Zoe does apologize and promise to explain herself pretty quickly after the scene where she's rude to Marinette and Co:

(Zoé, sitting at the end of Chloé's bed, gets a text message as Chloé continues to search for shoes. She sees it is a message from Marinette, and reads.) Marinette: (voiceover) I can tell something is keeping you from being yourself. If it's Chloé, we can talk about it tonight, if you want. You're still welcome to come to the Barge. (Zoé texts Marinette back.) Zoé: (internal voiceover as she types) Sorry. I'll explain tonight. (sends the message, Marinette's picture and name pops up as she does)

It would be better if Zoe instigated this text exchange, but I don't hate this scene. I just think it's rushed and that Marinette should come across as more cautious about Zoe after everything that happened at the end of the last season. Marinette's actions here and conviction about her initial judgement of Zoe would make a lot more sense if they came in an earlier season, but this is a formula show, so that's probably playing a part in the awkwardness. Marinette isn't allowed to become more guarded, I guess...

If we go back to looking at Volpina, we find a very different type of story. After Marinette's terrible first impression of Lila, she watches the aforementioned Ladyblog interview off screen and gains even more reasons for her to be justifiably pissed at Lila, further cementing that bad first impression:

Ladybug: (sarcastically) Well hey Lila! How's it going? Long time no see. I saw your interview on the Ladyblog, awesome job. (puts her foot on the bench between Lila and Adrien, and leans closer to Lila) Oh sure! I remember our instant connection when I saved your life and we've been really good friends ever since! Practically BFF's! Uh actually, when did I save your life again, Lila? I don't recall. Oh yes! Of course, now I remember. Never! And we're not friends either! (to Adrien) Miss Show-Off here was trying to impress you and everyone around her.

We learn here that Lila didn't just claim that she was saved by Ladybug, which is honestly a pretty minor lie. Instead, she's once again claiming that they're close friends! Take out the Adrien complication and Marinette would still quickly start to hate Lila because Lila is using her name left and right and that's not okay! It's also not a minor thing.

The show is a little unclear about how seriously society takes the Ladyblog, but it's serious enough for Alya to be treated as an authority who is invited on talk shows as we saw in Prime Queen

Nadja: Don't be bemused, it's just the news! Hi, I'm Nadja Chamack, and this is Side by Side. Today, I'm joined by Alya Césiare, who created the Ladyblog! Together, we'll be looking back over Cat Noir and Ladybug's greatest feats.

The Ladyblog is also the resource that Felix uses to research the miraculous. So it's fair to say that the Ladyblog is not an unknown news source. At the very least, it's being treated as a true authority on all things Ladybug and Alya is getting serious public attention, which means that Lila's little interview is probably going to be treated seriously by a significant portion of society since it's coming from the Ladyblog.

Ladybug would be well within her rights to have Alya publish a retraction. In fact, it's super weird that Ladybug didn't do that and is one of the many reasons why I hate Volpina. The episode completely justifies almost everything Marinette does and then tries to present her actions as being in the wrong by having Adrien chastise her:

Adrien:(to Lila, who is crying) So I guess you aren't the descendant of a superhero either? Ladybug: She's more like a super liar. Lila: How dare you?! Adrien: Wait! Lila! (Lila runs away) Hey, what was that all about? Uh, I mean, weren't you kinda harsh with her? Ladybug: I...I don't put up with lies, especially when they're about me. (yo-yos away)

Which does eventually lead to Ladybug apologizing to Lila:

Ladybug: I... totally overreacted and... never should've spoken to you like that. I'm sorry.

No you didn't overreact! Writers, why are you telling kids that it's wrong to confront people who are lying about you? How should the Lila problem have been addressed if confronting her is wrong? It's not like she stops lying after this or like the show treats her as a minor threat. She's literally the new main villain and her eventual outing to the class is way more dramatic than this, so how was Marinette in the wrong here? Why did the writers have Adrien chastise her?

I've seen people justify Adrien's reaction here as him viewing Lila like a gossip rag spreading lies. To be fair, that's a valid way to make his actions make sense. The best course of action for the lies in those things IS to ignore them because no one with a brain is going to treat a gossip rag as a credible source.

However, the Ladyblog is not treated like a gossip rag and Lila wasn't just spreading rumors for quick cash. She was actively manipulating Adrien and has claimed authority via a reputable news outlet. The appropriate response to that kind of misinformation IS a retraction. It IS appropriate for Ladybug to do something here. If anything, Ladybug was being quite tame! She had a mostly private confrontation with Lila and then let the matter died for some reason. If it were me, I'd be telling the world that I don't know this woman and to not believe a word she says!

If anyone should have learned a lesson in this episode, it's Adrien. He needed to learn the difference between gossip rag lies and lies that you actually need to address, which is frankly a good lesson for a sheltered teen celebrity to learn! It makes sense that he wouldn't know what to do here, but the show treats this as him being in the right and I hate it! Him guilting Ladybug into staying quiet is why Lila is able to maintain her power for 4 more seasons.

Alya could also stand to learn a lesson on checking her sources. It's not like she never runs into Ladybug. Just hold off on posting the interview for a few days.

Circling back to the original ask: if Lila was telling the kind of minor lies that we see from Zoe, then I'd agree that this was a case of hypocrisy, but that's not what we see. It's also why I never really bought the whole, "Lila is just tying to fit in" excuse. Those are not the sort of lies you tell if you're trying to fit in! They're way too extreme!

While I'm not a fan of Zoe's character, her initial lies match the story she tells about wanting to fit in. Lila, on the other hand, feels like someone with an agenda. What that agenda is I do not know, but she clearly has one and she's had it from day one. It's really not weird that Marinette came to hate Lila while she was willing to give Zoe a second chance. The characters were set up in a way where that is an understandable response for her character even if you remove Adrien from the equation.

There are many episodes that make Marinette look terrible. Neither of these make that list. The only questionable thing Marinette does is follow Adrien and Lila into a public library and listen in on their conversation. I'm not going to call that good behavior, but it's hard to be too critical when it's clearly only there because the writers needed Marinette to overhear the lies to kick off the rest of the episode. I personally would have just had Marinette be in the library already and accidentally overhear her alter ego's name, leading her to listen in, but that's not drastically different than what we actually got so it's hard for me to get too worked up over the writers going the dramatic route. That's what they always do. The show relies heavily on absurdity so it make sense for Marinette overhearing the conversation to be done in the most absurd way possible.

#ml writing critical #ml writing salt #lila salt #Marinette defense squad

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