#Imagine needing to have a child just to mold it into someone as bitter an messed up as you

[brick-van-dyke]

Interesting thing to note here, I've had situations where I've gone without food and, no, my autism still exists. It doesn't go away when I "need" it to. That's not how it works, not for me, or for any other autistic person in less fortunate situations.

Tbh there's so much entitled, racist, ableist and classist bs in this comment in the screenshot that I just... freaking can't. The implication that "third world countries" (a term that's really out dated) don't have disabled people because "well they wouldn't survive" as if that's the goal??? The norm?? What said person in this screenshot thinks should be viewed by most people? There's this implication that if your child isn't 1) starving and 2) as bitter towards he world as you then you've somehow failed as a parent and tbh I think that's what really pisses me off here.

Disabled people exist in the Global South and at least there's a culture of actually giving a shit about the elderly and sick, unlike in the west with the competitive consumerist idea of leaving people to die including your own freaking children.

Anyway sorry for the rant I'm just pissed off at this comment specifically and how insufferable and bitter this person probably is irl. Hope the step on a Lego fr and I hope their kid is able to get away from said person. And yeah, basically yes autistic people exist everywhere, not just in the west.

"Oh but parents do have a right to control what their children eat. What if they just want to eat candy for every meal?"

Most parents can't even distinguish between random whims and autism dietary limitations and end up saying shit like this and starving their disabled children.

[shorkbrian]

tonight... I’m very sad about Shouto.

(I saw some poetry that's it) (No NSFW. Abusive relationship mention)

About how he knew love, and knew softness, and then was violently torn away from that bit of his life.

His mother was kind, and beautiful, but then turned ugly with rage, pouring out her hatred both literally and figuratively.

The wreckage, the damage after the deed had been done, how horrified she must have been. But you can’t hold trust after it’s broken. There’s always that voice in the back of your mind that whispers “What if they hurt you again?”

From then, his relationship with his mother, the source of gentle and kind, grew strained. Shouto still loved her, yes, but he doesn’t know how to live with her.

His father, a wretched man, with tunnel vision and a thirst for success, whether it be his own, or his son’s. A father who didn’t know the meaning of rest, who didn’t know when to stop, who didn’t know how to pull his punches in training, how didn’t even try to learn.

Shouto had to be strong.

Shouto had to be silent.

There’s no need for talking when you’re alone in your room, exhausted, burned, aching. No need for conversation at dinner, while your father steams over the disappointment of your abilities, your siblings cowering under his presence. 

Why even try to engage during training, when idle chatter would earn a hand across the face and a violent reprimand. Heros are silent, heroes were strong.

His parents taught him grief. It’s a deep sorrow, a forlorn ache in your bones that settles and sticks. You can’t wash it away, not with kind words, nor gentle touches. The time for those has wilted and died.

Shouto knows silence better, finds it easier to sit back and observe, to remove, too detach. Pain hurts less if you imagine it being inflicted on someone else, as if your body wasn’t your own.

UA happened, and he became a young man, learned what friends were, why these people were nice to him, concerned about his wellbeing. Some of them expressed genuine feelings of happiness when they were around him, or at least, seemed to tolerate his presence.

The grief was buried a bit, but still visible.

Shouto was still young, and his emotions were confusing, hard too bear. Easier to let them simmer where they always had, kept under lock and key where he never had to look at them. Let them rot and mold and seep with negative fumes from his bitter thoughts.

He was able to achieve his father’s goal, become a top hero, the perfect man. Fire and ice, a deadly combination of skill and talent, fierce and foreboding.

Fame, money, it was easy to come by, but never held any real value. There was nothing Shouto could find to fill his void, his unconscious searching to finding a home. Home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling, and it’s one that the young man hadn’t felt since he was a child. Even then, home was always filled with pain, fire, yelling and hatred and burning fear.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself. Is this all there is to life?

Shouto has everything he could ever need, anything he could ever want. Yet it all feels empty, hollow, like his heart, his soul. Nothing there, just an ache and a pain that won’t go away no matter what remedies are tried.

A soft soul, you are, willing to work with the man as he recovers from injuries he sustains fighting. His own personal physical therapist, throughly vetted and then hired by his agency.

You help the pro-hero’s body heal, retrain muscles, strengthen resolve and facilitate a healthier headspace. Shouto’s never been a particularly talkative person, and neither are you, so it works. 

Talking with you isn’t a chore, a pain. The only pain he feels when he’s with you is from his body, muscles protesting as they’re worked to the limit. You’re a person that’s safe, that Shouto can let his guard down around. You’re there to help.

Shouto reads one day about how love feels. How it’s warm, and comforting. You don’t know what to say to the other person at first, clammy palms, nervous thoughts. 

Your heart might beat faster, your mouth might get dry. It feels like a rush and your cheeks warm when you think about your love, a deep bond of intimacy. Love is patient, love is kind.

Shouto thinks he���s in love with you.

Maybe love is also all-consuming too, because Shouto feels overwhelmed when he’s with you. He doesn’t know what to do, how to act. You feel like the sun on his cheek in the morning, as it streams through the curtains, illuminating the room, beating back the dark.

The sun blinds him at first, and it’s all he can think about, no bad thoughts or dark memories plaguing his mind.

It’s easy to get caught up in that feeling.

Being with you, with your gentle demeanor and easy personality, is like coming home. You’re what he wants, and Shouto is enamored.

A confession is made, and accepted, and there is a reason for living in this world.

But home to Shouto isn’t bright, and comforting, and soothing.

It’s always been tinged with bloody issues, like the striking of a cheek, a raised voice, overbearing rules, regulations that were enforced down to the letter.

There’s no breaking the cycle, the cycle of pain and despair. A loving relationship turns sour as Shouto can’t reel himself back from his upbringing, from his programming.

He must always be in control, ready for all scenarios, poised and ready for an attack. Shouto needs to know what’s going on, at all times, and he dictates what will be going on, so he can better adapt for the situation. 

Words are said, subtle jabs and digs that feel heavy on his tongue, leave a bad taste in his mouth. But he’s insecure, afraid. What if you try to leave him? If you don’t think you’re good enough for that, maybe he can convince you to stay.

But Shouto would never truly hurt you.

The man wants to grow old with you, be as unflinching together as the sun and the moon, always in rhythm, always together. He shouts at you one day, after he finds you crying. You’d found the engagement ring he had been planning to propose with.

It’s a privilege to grow old with someone, to love them until the very end.

Don’t be so ungrateful.

He may shout now and then, or grab your wrist too tightly, squeeze your hand with more force than intended; use an implied threat of his quirk to keep you in line... But it’s all out of love.

If love is the driving force of our world, then it’s justified.

No, Shouto could never hurt you. That’s what he always says. He’s too soft when it comes to you, when it comes to the look in your eyes that always appears when you’ve done something wrong. You could break his heart, rip it out with icy fingers, and Shouto would still feel it beating for you, ecstatic at being held in your hand.

[plush-rabbit]

Faded Vermillion

Word Count: 2.5K

A/N: I hope I did this well! I think I've only written for Hawks like a handful of times- two of which I like while the others I’m like ahh,,, words so I hope you enjoy this! (Hawks is super interesting but Twice(ಥ﹏ಥ))

Keigo has eyes closed and the room is scented in mahogany, deep and musky that fills his senses and makes his head hurt. It’s heavy and strong, makes his eyes burn and even long after the candle has been snuffed out. The smoke once thick had waved across the room and now it has thinned and now a faint scent of the past lingers.

You’ve been growing more agitated, cracking at your knuckles, flapping your hands side to side with a grimace on your face, rolling your shoulders constantly, hissing when the stutter and pull, the muscles tight and painful from hours hunched over doing who knows what. You don’t seem to tell him- you’re quieter around him, biting your bottom lip and tugging on your hair, keeping your lips sealed about your latest project. All he knows is that you need help carrying certain metals and shopping alone for other supplies. It goes on for many days, minutes bleeding into hours as he lays on the couch, resting on his stomach, chin tucked above his arms and he’s alone in the shared home, waiting for you to return.

There’s an ugly thought in Keigo’s mind- a thought that started off as something as a whisper but with each second spent away from you, it grows louder and louder, making him clamp his palms over his ears, feeling as if blood will pool and seep between his fingers and he’s on the ground, kneeling and crying and alone. He’s alone and the thoughts keep screaming that you’re with someone else- that you aren’t with him because you’ve lost interest. He no longer has his wings; he can no longer protect you and he is no longer worthy of being loved by you.

He’s on the ground with aching knees, knees that dig into the floors and hurt him, hands that crush the sides of his head and he thinks he’s crying, that he’s close to it at least, and his back will twitch, muscles spasming and he’ll wait for the red curtain to fall, to conceal him and let him regain his composure but the cool air of the shared home still chills him, brushing lightly at his soft hair and he realizes that he’s out in the open. He’s kneeled on your kitchen floor, eyes that grow wide with frantic panic only to settle when he hears the door click open. And then the next thing he knows, he’s in your arms, hands rubbing under his shirt as you call out his name, as you whisper lovingly into his ear, “Keigo.”

“Keigo,” you whisper, rubbing your head along the side of his, “Keigo, what happened? Are you okay?”

He’s in your arms. You cradle him, peck under his eyes and he can feel your hands flutter where his wings used to be, where they would adorn him and flutter. He feels silly. He feels like a child whose toy was lost, the comfort object that was misplaced, stolen from his embrace and tossed into a crevice. But he isn’t a child. He’s a man who lost his quirk and feared that you would leave him. He nuzzles into your shoulder, letting his hands run over your back, down the space where his wings would be, between his shoulder blades and he presses his hands down, fingers kneading into the muscles that lay under your skin and clothes.

“You’ve been stressed lately,” he mutters, tilting his head and his lips brush over your neck, feeling the pulse quicken under his lips. “Working yourself down to the bone.” You snort and he smiles softly, gaze softening, brows furrowing into a pained expression. “You free tonight? I was thinking we could have a date night.” He shudders when your fingers graze against scarring that juts puts his blades, curving down his spine and leaving him in chills. “Here, obviously. I don’t-”

“I’d love to Keigo,” you whisper, pulling away from him, hands leaving the warmth of his back and coming to cradle his face. “Do you want to cook or-”

“Cook.” He smiles sweetly and pecks at your nose. “I’ve missed your cooking, you know.” He rises with a grunt, knees aching and legs heavy and extends a hand out to you, giving you a perfect grin, playful and overly sweet as you take his hand, wrapping your hand around his and stumbling into his chest when he pulls you up. “I’ll even help,” he coos, brows rising and grin widening into something that stretches too wide.

Your laugh is warm against him and he swallows nervously, his pulse quickening for a second until it’s controlled, and his arms wrap around you, tensing and squeezing your frame against him. “Okay,” you nod, your hands at his side. “Look and see what we have while I put my supplies away and then we can start cooking.” You pull away from him and his chest aches, lungs that have been stolen of all oxygen, and all he can do is smile. Your hands slide and pat him lovingly on the chest. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

-

Dinner is a mess. Or the attempt at dinner was a mess. He doesn’t know what happened. He doubts you do either. The smell of burnt food is in the air, the fire alarm still rings in his head and you’re on the couch, head in hands and back and chest heaving, and he can feel a pit in his stomach open and consume everything that he is.

You messed up. Left the food on for too long and now it burns and he stands alone in the kitchen. It was a simple mistake, one that you freaked out over. Once where your muscles tensed and jaw clenched and you let out a grunt and smacked your hand on the counter. You huffed and your face burned. He joked about it, trying to lighten the mood, but it came off flat, too forced and you picked up on it. He could hear the wheezing breaths that you made, the hands that twitched at your sides and eyes that began to turn glassy and he reached out to you, hand raised and then he felt it. A sharp pain that burned a hole in his scars, and spread outward, burning and tingling his skin, leaving him flinching and pressing his palm over the pink tinged scar, the fabric of his shirt scratching and prickling his skin. You stare at him with eyes that shine with fear, your breaths coming to a stop and then you left to sit on the couch and wallow in your shame.

He comes up to you with soft steps, hands fiddled and he sits next to you in silence. “The new project is certainly taking a toll, huh?” There’s no point to beat around the bush, to act coy until you decide to open up.

“It could be different reasons,” you say defiantly. He raises a thick brow and you’re quick to explain. “Long day. Long week. Bad day. Bad-”

“What’s the project?” He blinks slowly at the ground, letting his eyes come to a close. “I know you like things to be perfect but it’s giving you this much stress then-” He hears you take in a sharp breath and he stops talking.

“I’m making you new wings.” His heart stops, a quick second and his mind goes blank. He’s entirely numb, shoulder poised and his eyes are wide as they stare at you. “I-”

He shakes his head. “There’s no reason to-”

Your elbows rest on your thighs, hand knotted together where your chin rests and you stare at the dark screen, reflection peering into yours and your brows furrow, a frown tugging on your lips, mouth moving to form soundless words. “You miss your wings,” you voice softly. It isn’t a question; it’s a statement. One that you know well, one that is undoubtedly true. “I just-” you sniffle and he can’t look at you. “I just wanted to make you feel better but no matter what I did-” you take a deep breath and a shiver runs down his spine- “they always came out wrong,” you hiss. “They aren’t your wings. They’re like these awful-” your head tilts and lowers- “godforsaken replicas. They aren’t like yours.” He is unable to speak. His throat tightens and there’s a lump that makes it impossible to get a word out. “I just wanted to make you feel better but no matter how I look at them, they just aren’t yours.”

He licks at his lips, mouth parting open and closing, repeating the process but all it does is make him feel at a loss. Sad, golden eyes look at the floor, his hands in view with palms up and calloused fingers that curl and twitch involuntarily. He can’t deny your statement. He can’t even deny it to himself- he’s never dared to try, he just avoided it, did everything he could to take his mind off of his scarred back. He wished that he would start to bloom again, that feathers would appear and he would be able to take you flying again and hear the frightful, breathless laugh that filled the sky no matter how many times he took you for a ride.

“I do,” he admits and there’s a horrible gnawing at his throat to shut up, to close his mouth and just hold you- to say anything else as a distraction so he doesn’t have to face what he lost. He swallows the lump and he admits his truth. “I- I was wanted because of my quirk. I uh,” he chuckles and it comes out bitter, poison in his tongue that makes tears spring in his eyes, “I’m a- I was a dog on a leash. I- fuck,” he breathes out, laughing softly. “This is a lot harder than what I imagined. I uh,” he groans and he keeps his gaze fixated on the edge of a picture- one of you and him, vermillion serving as the background, solid and whole- he can feel a phantom flutter, ghosts of feathers that twitch and, that still stay still and hold their composure. “I don’t know how to word it,” he confesses, voice light and empty. “I just, I know that I miss my wings but-” his eyes dart to the screen where he sees you, faint trail marks- miniscule to the untrained eyes- decorate your face- “I’m not ready to talk about.” He watches as your shoulder slump in obvious disappointment. “Not now at least,” he says in a strained voice, “too fresh of a wound, you know.”

The emptiness is too much. He can’t say the words- even he hasn’t said them to himself. His back, once adorned by wings that were under his control, under a control where he was wanted, praised and molded, wings that had never belonged to him, wings that were sought after only to be controlled, have now been plucked. His back, once with vermillion wings that could touch the sun, have been ripped, they’ve been torn from his skin, burned and yanked, forced to their extent and he is now bare. His back is scarred, ornate scars that twist at the flesh, marking it in a lighter color, deepening his skin into a darker shade, scars that still burn with the pain, scars that sometimes make him forget that his wings are gone. He is bare. He misses his wings. He misses everything that came with them. The admiration, the love, the want. He is no longer wanted, thrown away like an old toy by the Commission. And he wants to tell you his fears. How he fears that one day you’ll cast him aside, how you’ll look at him and the hugs that hold him together will turn into a goodbye hug where he’ll have to see you part ways with him because he wasn’t enough. He can’t lose you. He won’t allow himself to tell you goodbye. He knows deep in his mind and heart that you would never cast him aside, that you’ll hold on to him until he’s breaking at the seams and even then, you’ll stitch him together- he’s seen you do it with old stuffed animal from your past, hands that remain still as you sew back your loved possession. As you fix what was once broken.

“I don’t want to be a project,” Keigo mutters. And his golden eyes meet yours, gold that has melted and now catches on his eyelashes makes everything just a bit too blurry for his liking. “I- I don’t want to be fixed- I just- I want to know that,” he struggles to have the words leave his throat, “I want to know that you won’t leave me.” He can’t handle it if you leave him. He has your love, he can’t have it taken away. He doesn’t have to be fixed, he just has to know that you’re still going to be there. That’s all he wants. “That’s what I want.” He’s been given free will before, been allowed to have choices that he’s wanted to make, but now, as he sits, body light, and eyes heavy, he wants to make one more choice, a choice that means more than you or him will ever know. He knows it’s selfish, he’s aware that neither of you can predict what can come, but he wants to pretend, wants to live in a fantasy that you won’t leave him.

“No more wings,” you breathe under your breath. He nods, shakily and sure of himself. “Keigo,” you call to him, hands reaching towards his and memories flash in his mind- hands that keep themselves open, that fist and close, that tug on black fabric and pound at the ground, that reach towards him with malicious intent and he stops breathing, sucks in a deep breath and exhales shakily as you cup his face and slide to the back his neck and he’s hiding himself on the crook of your neck, hands that fist the back of your shirt and he clings onto you, holding you tight like a lifeline, fear on his mind that if he were to let you go, you’d leave him.

His breath stutters as you slip your hands under his back, fingertips ghosting above and feeling the muscles twitch and strain. He whines and closes his eyes when you land on his scars that have healed. You run your hands over the soft tissue, soothing over the jagged repairs, the smoother lines a gentle brush under your fingertips, and they are asymmetrical. They do not mimic each other, they are different, no one line matching, pink and deeper hues running and coloring his back and he’s tender, holding onto you as you touch and ghost over where his wings once were. His scars are divine, etched into his skin in intricate lines, meeting and twisting into shapes that are touched lovingly so, without pity or the faint trace of disgust, touched with love and acceptance, softly and sweet and his name on your tongue is sweet and intoxicating.

[tuffduff]

We Still Have Time (Axl Rose x Reader)

Pairing: modern!Axl x younger!Reader

Words: 2,068

Request: @whisperess33​ “I love your oneshots sooo much! ����❤💞 Do you take requests? If so: can I request a modern!Axl oneshot, where he's been in a relationship with a younger girl for at least a year, and they end up having the 'kid talk' after seeing a toddler/kid backstage, where Axl wonders if his chance to be a dad really has passed him by and the girl reassures him and says she'd really like at least one baby but didn't dare to ask because she thought he didn't want and says he'd make a great dad? Thanks 🥰🥰🥰”

A/N: Can I just say...I think about Axl with children all the time...every time I see Axl in a picture with a small child, my heart HURTS. I can just imagine he would be a wonderful, supportive father. Lowkey, maybe I’ll do a GNR preference one day about having your first child together. I hope y’all enjoy! (PIC NOT MINE)

“From what I could see, there were already a lot of people out there.” Axl was telling you from where you were having a little moment backstage in the hallway. Guns N’ Roses were headlining a rather large outdoor music festival that evening. You found yourself smiling at the light surprise that colored his tone. “It’s hot out there.”

“And? Do you not realize how many people would brave the heat or hail or snow or rain or whatever just to see Guns N’ Roses?” You scolded him affectionately, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder with your hand. He raised his hand to rest over yours briefly.

“Well, maybe. But the weather was saying it could reach temps of...” you watched Axl’s gaze shift away from yours and zero in on something behind your ankles. “...hey little guy. Are you lost?” Axl’s voice had softened considerably, into a tone of voice you had never heard him use before.

You turned around, expecting to see a stray cat, or maybe even a lost dog. You were almost taken aback at the sight of a small boy, no older than four. He was sniffling, his hand pressed against his nose, his eyes flickering about. Axl moved around you and knelt down, still a good distance from the boy. “Hey, buddy, where did you come from?”

The boy now focused his dizzied gaze on Axl’s, his eyes widening almost in uneasiness. “Hey, it’s okay. I won’t hurt ya.” Axl crept forward a little, but the little boy shrank back a half-step. You wanted to help, but something made you hold back and watch Axl, who you had never seen interact with children except for when he would say hello to his band mate’s. Never a child this small. You watched as doubt clouded Axl’s eyes suddenly at the sight of the child shrinking back. It was as if Axl could understand something in the boy’s body language. Axl put his outstretched hand down and the boy seemed to relax a little.

“It’s okay, little guy. I can help you. Where are you parents, huh?”

“...I-I don’t know.” The little boy finally stuttered out. He looked at Axl hesitantly again before he walked closer on his own accord to where Axl was still kneeling. He placed both of his tiny hands on Axl’s knee as though he needed to steady himself and looked around, his expression breaking. “I can’t find her.”

“Okay. I can help you find your mommy. What does she look like?” Axl asked gently, simply watching the little boy who rested against his knee. Before he could give an answer, he began to cry. Your heart ached and you looked around desperately for anyone close by. “Hey, shh, it’s okay. You’re gonna be alright,” Axl shushed.

The boy threw himself at Axl, wrapping his small arms around his neck and curling his body closer to Axl. Axl was stiff for a moment before he cradled the boy gently in his arms and stood with him, now letting him cry onto his shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay,” Axl kept cooing, his hand smoothing rhythmic circles on the boy’s back. “Hey, you wanna see something cool?” The boy sniffled, his cries momentarily stopping as he pulled back to look at Axl with half-heartedly curiosity. Axl was pulling off a ring from his pinkie. “See that? Here, you hold it. What color is that?”

“B-Black.”

“That’s right. It’s called an onyx.” The boy didn’t reply as he stroked the gemstone with his tiny finger. His tears were momentarily halted, too enraptured with his new objection of fascination.

“Oh, thank God!” At that moment, a woman came barreling around the corner, voice frantic and eyes wild. She was dressed in a crew member shirt, but you had never seen her before. “There you are, Ben!”

“Mommy!” The boy cried now, outstretching his arms. Axl placed him on the ground where he ran a few paces before he was quickly scooped up by his mother. She locked him in a vice grip and suddenly seemed to notice the company she was in; her face practically paled as she looked at Axl.

“I’m so sorry, I turned my back for two seconds; normally his dad watches him but my husband got a new job and we’re still trying to figure out scheduling and there was a conflict—I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I’m so—.”

“What’s your name?”

“…Erica.” Axl stuck his hand out, to which Erica had to shift Ben in her arms to accept.

“Erica, if you need any help at all, at the next few shows or in the coming weeks, please let me know. Any kind of accommodations that would help you out with things.” Axl calmly interrupted her apology. She seemed too stunned to even reply.

“...That’s...thank you. Thank you, so much. I’ll keep that in mind.” You were swelling with pride.

“He’s a very beautiful boy.” You finally commented, reaching out to brush Ben’s sandy colored hair from his eyes. He laughed a little now, his still-wet eyes now shining.

“He takes after his father.” Erica replied, finally looking relaxed. Her words created a picture in your head, an image of a strawberry blonde boy with gentle eyes that you cradled in your arms. When you glanced over at Axl, he was already watching you, reflecting the same smile you saw in your head. “Oh, hey—that’s not yours. Why don’t go give it back, baby?” Erica said as she noticed Axl’s ring still in Ben’s hand.

“No, no. He can keep it. Maybe he can grow into it.” Axl replied coolly. “I think he likes it.”

“Oh, no I couldn’t.” Erica said, looking from the ring and Axl in disbelief. You could tell what she was thinking; that ring cost a pretty penny.

“Please.” Axl insisted.

After that incident, Axl was pretty quiet, and you knew him well enough not to poke or prod. He would always come to you when he was ready with his fleshed-out thoughts, when he was ready to have a conversation. It wasn’t until after the show when you were riding back to the hotel in a limo, just the two of you, that Axl finally broke his silence.

“I can’t believe I got that kid to stop crying.” You glanced over at him, listening to the quiet marvel in his voice.

“Children are really hard to figure out,” you agreed. “Especially when they’re younger. They have all these feelings and thoughts, but such short life experience. I’m sure it’s overwhelming in their little heads. And people don’t take the time to try and understand that.” Axl was nodding his head to your words.

You made a mental note that this was not territory you had ever explored together. This was not conversation you had ever navigated. It wasn’t even a conversation you ever thought you would have.

“They’re really something. They’re just this little world, all inside them, and you have to be so careful, because you’re helping them mold themselves.” He paused, a small smile growing on his lips. “They’re pretty adorable too. Sometimes it blows my mind to look out into the crowds and see little kids on their parent’s shoulders, you know. But sometimes too, it’s almost like this...reminder.”

“What do you mean?” You asked, listening to the way his voice dropped off.

“I’ve been doing this for so long, Y/N.” He admitted quietly after a moment. “The people who were our age that got into us in the beginning, they’ve gone and started their own families now. It’s more than one generation listening to us. And then Duff and Slash have kids too.” He seemed to be connecting all of it together, his eyes staring down at the rings on his finger and the one finger where one was missing. “Sometimes it just makes me wonder if…maybe I’m too late. I missed the train.”

“Too late? Axl, of course not.” You told him, scooting closer to him in the limo, waiting for him to look at you. It was as if he couldn’t.

“Duff and Slash’s kids are already older now.”

“And Mick Jagger is still having babies.” Axl snorted a little. “Axl...I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry, darling?” He asked, now turning his head to look at you with haste.

“Because I never even thought to ask if this was something you wanted. Because it was never a deal-breaker to me. I just, wrongly assumed it was something you didn’t want. And I didn’t want to make you feel like that was a bad thing.” He looked between your eyes for a long moment.

“I used to think about it more, when I was younger. Figured it would happen. When it didn’t...I let it go for a while. And then with you, sometimes the thought would come back. But I figured…” he trailed off with an almost bitter chuckle, his eyes flickering away from yours down to your hands resting in your lap. He grabbed your left hand and began idly rotating your wedding ring around your finger.

“You figured…?” You prompted gently.

“I just figured you thought I was too old to start a family. And sometimes, the thought would eat me up. Before we got married, it was like I was waiting for the day where you would come and tell me we needed to have that talk. That you wanted someone that could give you the one thing I can’t.”

“Ax, I want you, first and foremost. Always. And I was content with the fact that maybe you just didn’t want to start a family, which is exactly why I never even bothered to ask.”

“But do you?” Axl asked you, his hand now slipping in yours. His voice was grave, his eyes were boring into your soul, as if he were searching for the answer himself. He demanded your truth, expecting no less from you, always.

“I do.” You admitted in a whisper, the image of little strawberry blonde duplicate of Axl entering your head again. You had never wanted anything more. “I don’t think it’s too late, Ax. And for the record, I think you would make an amazing father.”

Axl’s eyes rounded, as though he hadn’t expected your compliment. Then, a ridiculously bright beam appeared on his face, like a rainbow peeking out of rain clouds. It illuminated the whole limo and you could feel yourself smiling back, smiling so big it hurt.

Axl wrapped an arm around your shoulders and pulled you closer to him so that he could press a kiss to your temple. “What do you want, then? A boy, or a girl?”

“I don’t care. I just hope they look just like you.” You admitted. Axl chuckled a little.

“Do you have names that you like?” Before you could even answer, Axl continued. “I don’t want them to have some cookie-cutter name. They’re gonna be special. I want them to always know they have their own thoughts and beliefs and impact on this world. We can easily turn one of the spare bedrooms into a nursery, the one closest to ours. It gets a lot of sunlight too. We would have to put up safeguards around the house. I’ll get a college fund set up—”

“Ax, slow down.” You giggled, leaning into his shoulder. It was as if a floodgate had been opened and you were absolutely giddy. “First, we have to have the baby before we can send them to college.” He laughed a little too.

“You’re right. Well…I guess we better get started.” You laughed with him, nearly consumed by the emotions swirling in your heart; love, lust, joy, bliss. They were all fighting to reign supreme, but you let them coexist, as they always did with Axl.

“You’re gonna be the best father.” You repeated the loudest thought ringing in your head. Axl then rested his spare hand on your stomach lightly, as though he were already getting ahead of himself again.

“You’re already the greatest woman in my life. Our baby is gonna have one great woman to look up to.” This was a new side of Axl that you never could have imagined. Your entire future now looked different. And somehow, you were still finding avenues to fall even deeper in love with him. Together, you were going to discover parenthood together.

[rudysrings]

Happier - JJ x reader

Just a lil songifc based on Ed Sheeran’s Happier

Summary: JJ didn’t mean for things to end the way they did between you two. If he’s being honest, he didn’t mean for things to end at all. He can’t help the longing when he sees you’ve moved on. At the same time, he can’t deny that you look better, happier.

Warnings: I’m such a sucker for angst jiokdfnijhwuerfhi I’m sorry…

Walking down 29th and Park I saw you in another's arms Only a month we've been apart You look happier, you do

The HMS Pogue was docked and JJ walked towards the Wreck, where his friends were waiting. It had been a long day of surfing, fishing, and drinking and he was just about ready to collapse after some good food.

He flicked his lighter, tossing it around in his hands as he walked up the street. He stopped short when he caught sight of a ghost. He swallowed tightly, trying to push down the feeling of his stomach rising to his throat at the sight of you. Of course, that was just his luck. The moment he managed to get you off his mind through pure exhaustion and hunger, he had to see you. The part that made him want to yak the empty contents of his stomach, however, was seeing you tucked into the arms of a guy. He was tall. Taller than JJ, maybe. He was blonde and smoking a joint.

He smiled inwardly. Guess you had a type, after all.

He didn’t want to admit it, but you looked more content, your shoulders relaxed, your hair down and a slow, unhurried pace in your step.

Taking in a shaky breath, JJ shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts and continued walking.

Saw you walk inside a bar He said something to make you laugh I saw that both your smiles were twice as wide as ours Yeah, you look happier, you do

Imagine his surprise when he saw the guy you were with open the door to the Wreck, gesturing overtly for you to enter before him, even bowing theatrically. You giggled, but obliged, walking through.

JJ wrinkled his nose, deciding that the guy’s name must have been Kyle. He just looked it. Kyle. God damn it, Kyle, why’d you have to steal my girl?

What he did next made JJ shake in his boots. Kyle followed you inside, his hands reaching for your hips as he ducked into your neck, whispering something in your ear.

JJ swallowed thickly, raising his hand to slightly rub his chest through the cotton of his shirt, feeling an uncomfortable stinging sensation in his heart. It didn’t stop the ache.

You laughed and JJ felt like he was back at the bar where you sang gigs here and there, your laughter as you interacted with the audience his favorite filler. Your laughter was always generous. You were never shy to smile at a passerby or chuckle at his lame innuendos. And whenever you did completely let out that contagious, musical laugh of yours, bubbling up and out of your mouth like it was meant to be freed, JJ knew that he’d do anything to keep you just like that. Happy. The kind of candid happy that you rarely saw in anyone older than 10. That was his favorite thing about you, JJ decided, how you were still a child in the ways that mattered.

The part that killed him, however, was he couldn’t remember when you’d last smiled at him that big, the way you were smiling at fucking Kyle.

Ain't nobody hurt you like I hurt you But ain't nobody love you like I do Promise that I will not take it personal, baby If you're moving on with someone new

JJ quickly tugged his hair, scrunching his face in anger before relaxing, walking through the doors behind you. Cool as a cucumber. Sure.

He made sure not to look at you, trying to swallow the memory of the last time you had talked to him.

You weren’t one for yelling. It wasn’t in your nature. Maybe it was because of your family life which molded you into someone who couldn’t stand to yell, maybe it was that it not only hurt the other person but you as well.

That’s why it shook him so much when you yelled at him. JJ knew he hadn’t been doing right by you. He knew he had been reckless. He knew he wasn’t there when you needed him the most. He knew he was hurting you. What he didn’t know, was that while he was losing his mind trying to make his way back to you, you were giving up the fight.

“I can’t do this anymore, JJ!” You screamed, pushing at his shoulders.

“Why not? Because I can’t always be there? Because I like a little adventure in my life?” He glared at you, not able to stop the words he would regret saying. “You know my life style, Y/N! I can’t be your little bitch for the rest of my life. I want to live! If you won’t let me do that then…”

You leaned in, raising an eyebrow in challenge. “Then? Then what, JJ? You’ll find someone else who will?”

“—wha—”

“Then I’ll find someone else who’ll be my little bitch. It’s better than having a self-destructive asshole for a boyfriend.”

JJ saw the instant regret in your eyes, but your pride had taken enough of a beating from his words for you to apologize. You approached him carefully. “Are you saying…are you saying this is it?” He asked, terrified now.

You smiled sadly. “It doesn’t look like we have another choice.”

“We always have a choice!” He refused.

You nodded. “Right, and you never chose me.”

All he remembered after that were his tears and mumbled apologies, his pleas to the air as you had already said goodbye and left. Left him.

'Cause baby you look happier, you do My friends told me one day I'll feel it too And until then I'll smile to hide the truth But I know I was happier with you

JJ found the rest of the pogues at their usual table in the back and they greeted him heartily, John B slapping his back playfully as he sat down.

“You leave anything for me or has everything been shoved into your maw already?” JJ asked with a fake smile on his face.

Kiara handed him some food and he thanked her, but he couldn’t bring himself to eat it, instead pulling out a joint, hoping he could then blame the redness in his eyes on the weed.

Pope slapped it out of his hand, scolding him. “Bro, you know you can’t do that in here.”

JJ’s shoulders slumped and he looked at Pope with absolute surrender, a pleading look on his face as he asked quietly, “Please, man. I just—” His eyes flicked over to where you were sat with Kyle, trying to braid his hair.

The pogues turned to JJ’s line of sight, seeing you and understanding completely.

“Oh,” Pope said simply.

John B ruffled JJ’s hair, trying to comfort him in the few ways he knew how. “Hey, man. You’re better off without her, alright?”

Kiara scoffed at that, probably knowing as much as JJ did that you were the best thing that ever happened to him.

Pope squeezed JJ’s shoulder. “You’ll find someone who makes you happy.”

JJ shrugged, nodding and giving his friends a tight smile. “Yeah, you’re right.” His lies tasted bitter in his mouth for the first time. It felt wrong to even say that he could be happy without you when he knew that he had never been happier than when he was with you.

Sat in the corner of the room Everything's reminding me of you Nursing an empty bottle and telling myself you're happier Aren't you?

The rest of the pogues had left for a late night surf, JJ giving the excuse that he was exhausted and would meet them at the Chateau later.

They left reluctantly, knowing JJ was bound to torture himself some more by watching you and your new boyfriend Kyle, which ironically enough, was apparently his name. Kiara had confirmed.

JJ had an empty beer bottle in his hand, rolling the neck of it between his fingers every now and then, putting it to his lips just to have something to do as he lost himself in the memories.

You hated this beer. It was always too watery, you had said.

I know that there's others that deserve you But my darling, I am still in love with you

JJ saw Kyle take care of you, wrap his jacket around your arms, press a kiss to your forehead as you smiled.

Maybe Kyle was good for you. JJ had never deserved you anyways. When Kyle leaned down to kiss you carefully, JJ was glad that he was sat in the corner of the room, out of sight from the two of you because he couldn’t help the tears that sprung to his eyes, his hand coming up against his mouth as he tried to physically force the whimper down his throat. He finally tore his eyes away from the two of you, not sure if he could take the sight of you two macking on each other right there in front of him.

He quickly flicked away his tears with his fingers. Fuck, he was still so in love with you. The feeling hadn’t dimmed after a month and he didn’t think it was going to dim in another month, in another year, maybe never in this life.

JJ smashed the bottle against the trash can as he threw it out, the violent action only releasing some of his aggression.

He pulled his lighter out again, looking back up to see you staring right at him, probably startled by the sound of the bottle breaking.

I knew one day you'd fall for someone new But if he breaks your heart like lovers do Just know that I'll be waiting here for you

A soft expression settled over your face. You looked guilty…and sad. JJ didn’t want to dwell on the thought too much, because false hope would most definitely destroy him. But the look in your eyes reminded JJ that he would always wait for you. There was never going to be anyone else; that, he was sure of.

He watched as you pushed Kyle away, saying something harsh to him. Kyle rolled his eyes but didn’t respond. You stood up and walked away from Kyle, towards JJ.

JJ straightened, trying to discreetly make sure there weren’t any more tears on his face. That was the last thing he needed, the last piece of his dignity. Not only was he watching you with your new guy while all alone, but he was crying? Just perfect.

You stopped just a few feet shy of him, crossing your arms over your chest, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear.

The look in your eyes gave him hope, hope he tried so hard to stomp out. “Hey,” You said.

After hearing your voice after so long, watching his name roll sweetly off of your lips, JJ didn’t trust his own voice, simply raising his eyebrows in greeting.

You played with one of the many bracelets on you wrist, a habit you had picked up from him, actually. You bit your lip, before saying. “I miss you, J.”

And JJ thought he could finally breathe again.

[marta-bee]

More Mary Thoughts

@wizardlysherlok replied to this post on AGRA/Agra parallels in Doyle-cannon and BBC-canon:

it feels like if AGRA was empty of full, it wouldn’t be right for john neither way: if it was full, it would the the great betrayal and also the “she wasn’t supposed to be like that”, the wife who lied immensely to her husband and(for god sakes) shot his bf. If it was empty it wouldn’t work either because it was boring and the same life john was trying to scape because it was making him unhappy...conclusion : Mary does not work for john in every way 

Ooh, a chance to talk about Mary generally! I’ve apparently got just enough codeine still in my system, and it’s close enough to the witching hour, that this seems like a fun topic rather than the don’t-poke-the-bear dread that usually falls on me when I speak her name in this fandom. Here’s hoping I don’t regret this come tomorrow.

Even in Doyle canon, I never particularly liked Mary’s story, which is meant as a judgment on Doyle and not some fictional woman. She’s clearly introduced because Watson --being a romantic-- needs a romantic partner, and for a whole host of historical reasons Doyle felt like it needed to be a woman. Any woman would do, apparently. And even without getting into issues of whether this is akin to queerbaiting, it also just makes for a very boring character IMO. Mary is the equivalent of a Bond girl : more saintly than sex-appeal, perhaps, but who only really exists as an object the male characters get to react against. There’s precious little of Mary specifically that makes any difference to SIGN.

I do like some of the grace notes Doyle gives her in later stories. I think there’s a reference in one of the stories that she had a reputation for being both kind and clever and women from her neighborhood came to her to help them solve their little problems, a sort of more everyday vision of Sherlock Holmes. But at least in SIGN she’s a walking trope and frustratingly little more. 

I think the Granada series was wise to leave her out almost entirely. (She only appears in the movie version of SIGN, and there is only a client.) She just would have been a distraction to the story they were trying to tell. In the RDJ/Jude Law movies she’s actually brilliantly done, somehow challenging and supporting their relationship at the same time. She’s also witty and daring and would not seem at all out of place in a Jane Austen novel with all that witty back-and-foth, and all three of them have this great chemistry. If ever there was an adaptation that screamed both Johnlock and Johnlockary (and of course Warstan), it’s this one.

Goodness, we need more fanfic about Kelly Reilly’s Mary. I need to write her again. She’s brilliant.

Which brings us to the BBC. I’m going to be very brave and say my biggest problem with her isn’t that she wedged herself into John’s and Sherlock’s relationship and somehow came away with the right to dictate its terms, even posthumously. It’s not even that she lied to her husband and manipulated him, endangering him and their child in the process; or that she shot Sherlock, or was an assassin who apparently went mercenary. All of that could be really interesting if done well! And really, I can think of storylines that would actually justify quite a lot of that. Even shooting, even killing Sherlock, even not being apologetic about it after the fact- I could write a story where that character made sense as a romantic opposite to John. I actually got about 10,000 words into one attempt, though I never finished or published it because the fandom was pretty toxic to anyone interested in a more shades-of-grey ersion of Mary at the time.

No, what really drives me up the wall with BBC’s version of Mary is they don’t really settle on any one version of her. Actually in each of the five episodes she appears in, there’s this radically different version of who she are and what motivates her: supportive friend; bride; sociopath assassin; government agent; martyr. The most sympathetic take on that I can give is that Sherlock himself is trying to figure her out and can’t make sense of her so keeps trying one mold after another. But whatever the intent, the effect is that Mary’s just ridiculously muddled for me, and I never really connected to her because I didn’t understand her. I’m not sure the show-runners did either. Seeing what Moffat in particular did with women characters in Doctor Who makes me think he genuinely struggles to find them interesting if they aren’t really... extra, for lack of a better word. John and Sherlock, being men, had their BAMF moments but also a psychology that actually made sense along somewhat normal terms; Mary had to be a super-sekrit assassin, and a rogue that was targeted by a media mogul, and the hero who saved Holmes and then did it again from beyond the grave. All of which would have been fine if it actually came from a coherent characterization. But BBC’s Mary was all BAMF and stunning reveals and little to no coherence that made that make sense, so her character never really developed any kind of a reality for me. My brain couldn’t make sense of her, so my heart never latched on either. In the end I was just left confused and frustrated

Even all these years later! I still don’t know what to make of her, and that’s just bad writing. I would love to have a Mary who lied from start to finish with John “Trust Issues” Watson, or who shot Sherlock to the chest where it somehow made sense. That could be fascinating. It’s not what we got, though; at least it’s not what I was able to get out of the show.

Here’s another thing that would be fascinating, and I’d really love to see in some adaptation; even this one, though I don’t think we’ll get it. Mary Morstan in 1895 makes some sort of sense even with a suspiciously close friendship between Holmes and Watson, because male friendships operated in a very different realm than heterosexual marriages did. There were different kinds of intimacies in that time, I think. But when you bring the characters into the modern world, it eems like a super-close friendship like Holmes and Watson seem to have, one that seem to emotionally resemble marriage even if there’s no physical/sexual component, would be a challenge to what any self-respecting modern woman would tolerate from her husband. I don’t mean because it makes John gay, and of course married people can have friends, but there’s something about John and Sherlock that in the modern world strays damned close to emotional infidelity. 

I mean, how can you have that without either weakening the relationship between John and Sherlock, or making Mary cuckolded in some sense? Now throw into the mix in this particular adaptation, even before Mary, John and Sherlock had a ... unique relationship. John would date and have sex (or not), Sherlock would be stuck in seemingly perpetual celibacy, but if Sherlock dared to date (and I think this would be true for a man as well as a woman) John goes into a disbelieving jealous rage. This strikes me as not normal male friendship, though it’s not romantic or sexual either. It’s queerplatonic af on Sherlock’s side, increasingly stretching the bounds of what can be called “platonic”, and for John, it’s kind of a monodirectional monogamy in at least an emotional sense. I mean, the man went and got married, but we all saw his reaction when Sherlock dared to (seemingly) date someone else.

Now throw a modern woman into that mix, trying to marry and start a family with one half of a duo in that truly fucked-up dynamic. Imagine what it would be like for her to exist in that world. You can imagine polyamory of some variety, or jealousy, or a very altered view from what the mainstream imagnes are the expectations of married life, or whatever spin you like to put on it. 

I guarantee you -- if done well -- it would be fascinating. And I’d very much like to see it. Or read it, or something. If you want to make that woman as much of a danger junkie as John, as much of a skilled, professional killer, wehther on the government’s payroll or a disillusioned former agent who refused to follow orders and was forced to “branch out” or even just a true psychopath who was utterly self-motivated and ruthless but still wanted to protect John or at least what John represented to her? 

Well, that could be fascinating, too. Even more so. There’s just one catch: you’ve got to actually tell the story. They never seemed to get around to that, and I think I’m still more than a bit bitter.

..... And apparently I’m rambling. Thanks for allowing me to talk about her a bit. I’ll shut up now. :-)

[birdsandspades]

I Was Never Good at Waiting (Sugawara X Reader) Chapter 5

- It was your last year in highschool, everything had been going smoothly until you got assigned the new teacher. Sugawara Koushi was handsome, maybe too handsome for his own good. Be he wasn't flirting with you right, teachers shouldn't do that....I guess we will see where this year goes.

Word Count - 3,093

----

You started off Wednesday pretty excited, the relationship that was blooming with Sugawara was enough alone to make you skip the entire way to school. 

“You're peppy today.” Hiroto smiled as you danced around him. 

“What's got you so chipper?” Yua was looking over you with concern. “Did something bite you last night? Are you going through changes? Is your new super power mood swings?” She lifted your arm, examining it for marks.

“I don’t know, I guess i’m just excited for class.” You glared, ripping your arm out of her hands.

“Yeah she's definitely caught something.” Hiroto laughed as Yua wiggled her eyebrows.

“It wouldn’t happen to be…” She leaned in close to you, hands resting on your shoulders. “for Yoshiki hmm?” She turned you towards the boy waiting by your classroom door.

He waved as you made eye contact before making his way towards you. “Hey, I went to buy apple juice this morning and an extra one fell out. I figured I would bring it to you!” His smile was soft, sweet even as he handed you the extra carton.

“Thank you.” You took the juice, turned it over in your hand before offering him a smile.

“Well I'm gonna go to class, but enjoy it!” He smiled at your friends, waving a goodbye before walking off down the hallway. 

You knew it was silly, Yoshiki was an absolute catch. He was a star athlete, incredibly handsome, smart, and funny. He had caught plenty of girls' interests, but just not yours.

Your eyes were instead fixed on the man sitting at the front of the classroom. His attention was turned to a small brown book in his hands. Reaching for the coffee mug beside him you watched as his lips molded to the hard ceramic, pulling away you noticed the residual shine leftover from the chapstick he had put on prior. He thumbed to the next page before gently sliding his reading glasses back up the bridge of his nose. 

Seeing him was enough to make your heart tremble. It was a crazy thought, that you liked your teacher, maybe even going as far as to call him your crush. It was wrong, you didn’t doubt that. You tried to push the thoughts away, you probably could have tried harder now that you thought about it. It had only been two day, two whole days with him in your life. It would have been easy to ignore those stupid feelings, to be friendly and go about the year. Soon enough you would graduate and you would never see him again. You could live with that, it would eventually have become a silly story to tell your friends.

“Remember Sugawara-sensei? Yeah I had a huge crush on him, how silly right?” They would laugh, you would laugh, it would end with that. 

It would have ended like that, but he had given you some semblance of hope last night.

Your mind burned with the feeling of his hand cupping your face, you wished you had leaned into the warmth of it while it lasted. It kept you up all night. The thoughts of every little insignificant thing he had done, the small words, the quick looks, the tiny details. Those alone were enough for you to at least explore the dynamics between you two further. 

“Good morning Sugawara-sensei.” You chirped as you made your way to his desk. You waited for him to peak up at you, those soft hazel eyes showing through his long lashes. 

“Good morning L/N-san, did you finish your homework?” He kept his eyes on his book as he flipped to the next page. 

Your classmates made their ways to their respected seats as the morning bells rang. You looked around in confusion as everyone quieted down, leaving you standing at the side of his desk. 

He handed you the roll call sheet and closed his book. “Take the attendance please.” His gaze set behind you as he made his way to the chalkboard to write down the morning meeting points. 

You ticked off the names of the present students before setting the papers on top of his closed book.“It’s on the desk sensei.” You lingered next to the desk, grasking at the opportunity to see his smile.

“Ok, go take your seat now.” He had turned around now, eyes glazing over you as he looked around the room. 

“Maybe he’s having a rough day.” You pondered as you took your seat. 

The class period continued the same, his usually vibrant outlook on life had faded for the day. 

You waited your turn for college counseling as he called up your classmates one at a time. You were usually the last to be called in these instances. You carried your father's english surname as opposed to the rest of your class who spelled their names in classic kanji, because of this you were always listed last. You watched his last student walk back to their desk and you knew your name was next. You gathered your materials and waited for your name to be called, instead he disappeared into his office leaving you without an ounce of his time. 

Soon the bell rang, and the next teacher walked into the classroom.“ He must have left out his office door, it must be a busy day for him.”  You grasped at reasons for the stark chance of attitude, anything to push down the slow aching building in your chest.

By the time he returned for your science period his attitude had changed. His bright and sunny demeanor shined though as he answered questions and wrote the day's notes on the board. You would have sworn you imagined the morning if he hadn’t avoided your eyes the entire class as well. 

Soon the day ended and classroom cleaning started. As the last students left for the day you made your way to his office door. You knocked lightly and waited for an invitation.

“Come in.” His voice was barely audible from the other side.

You turned the knob and stepped inside, closing the door slightly as you walked to his desk. “Hi sensei, how was your day?” You smiled, teetering on your heels.

Sugawara didn’t answer, instead he typed out something on his computer. His fingers angrily digging into the space bar as he worked.

 “Um, well we didn’t have time for my college counseling so I figured I would see if you were free now?” Your rocking stopped as his face dropped.

“I didn’t feel we needed it today. Did you apply for any scholarships last night like I suggested?” He again looked past you to the clock on the wall.

“No senpai, you had told me you would make me a list of ones to look into. So I want to wait for you to…” You chewed at your lip nervously, unsure why he was so upset with you.

His eyes flicked to you as his brow furrowed. “I think you're fully capable of looking for yourself.” He looked back to his computer, glaring at the screen. “It's time for you to go to practice, I don’t have time today to explain to your coach why you're late again.” He spat out the last word, his eyes focused on his hands.

You were taken aback by his brashness. The indifference was one thing, but to be so openly bitter was another. You left without another word, slamming his door behind you. You were on the verge of tears as you walked to practice. You didn’t have a reason to be so openly upset at him, he was nice now he wasn't. It was your own fault for getting so attached to him, someone you hardly knew. 

----

During the next two week his attitude only got worse. He was openly hostile with you in class, going as far as to ignore your questions entirely. If you persisted to ask him he would simply tell you to pay better attention to his teachings the first time. 

Tutoring lessons were just as disma. He would set you down in the classroom alone with your work while he remained in his office. At the end of the lessons you would simply hand in your extra work for him to grade and leave on your desk the following morning. 

Because of this you stopped showing up. What's the point of missing extra practice to do work by yourself, he wasn’t even answering your questions at this point. He didn’t even bother to talk to you about them in class. He clearly didn’t care one way or the other. Today was the third tutoring session you had chosen to skip, opting to take the extra time to practice with your team instead. 

You were halfway through practice when the gym door opened. The thick metal echoing around the gym as it shut.

“Sugawara, did you decide to come back to practice with us after all?” Irihata glanced at him before continuing the digging exercises. 

“No, I need to see F/N L/N.” His glare rested on you as he motioned for you to come over to him.

You gathered your bags and jogged over to him , shrugging at your confused team member. You stopped in front of him, tilting your head. “You need me sensei?” 

He placed a hand on your shoulder, tightening his grip as he walked you out of the gym and to the classroom. Once inside he slid the door shut and turned to face you, his soft features hardened as his eyes fell on yours. “Three days, you've wasted three days of my time having me wait for you to show up for your tutoring sessions. Why are you not showing up?” 

You met his glare, upset by his uncalled for attitude. “Because you're not helping me with any of my work sensei, I felt like it was a waste of both of our time.” You spat the honorific at him, right now he didn’t deserve your respect. 

“Do you not know how to communicate with me? Do you think I wanted to use my free time to tutor you in a subject I'm not even teaching you?” He threw his hands up, gritting his teeth. 

 You looked away, clenching your fists. You couldn’t hold his heated gaze any longer, the hot anger was slowly dissolving into something harder to control.

“Answer me L/N.” He was stern, like a parent reprimanding a child.

“I didn’t want to talk to you sensei! You ignore me everytime I do so what's the point?”Trying to find a release for whatever was bubbling up you dug your nails into your soft palm. 

“Are you a child? Did no one teach you to use your words?” Sugawara was now yelling, he couldn’t hold back his frustration any longer. 

“A child? You're the one who is acting like a child sensei! You were so nice when I met you, and…” You choked on a sob, fighting with words you wanted to say. “and, in the nurse's office…” You couldn’t finish the statement. “But now you're so rude! You ignore me all day, you won’t help me with my classwork, you treat me like i'm stupid in front of the class when I ask a question. If anyone is acting like a child it's you!” Everything boiled over as hot tears rolled down your cheeks. “What was the point if you were just going to lead me on like that?” Your voice was nothing more than a whisper, stuck deep in your throat.

You gathered your belongings and left, you had nothing left to say. Your anger was spent, you felt stupid and irrational for even indulging in your feelings for him. He was right, you were childish. Only a kid would get a crush on their teacher.

You slammed the door behind you, walking down the empty hallway. 

He had wanted to go after you, explain to you why he had to act the way he did. He wanted to tell you how he felt, how he had been interested in you for so long. But it was no longer his place.

When he had seen you at the coffee shop months ago, he was taken aback. You were perfect. His friends had urged him to ask for your number, it was after all the sixth time he had dragged them to the shop that summer just so he could see you again.

He had at one point built up enough courage to talk to you. His intentions set on asking you on a date. But when he made his way to the counter and he saw your smile, directed only at him for the first time. He froze, you were so close to him, yet you felt miles apart. He knew words could bridge the gap.

 “Can I have a napkin?” How stupid, he had his chance and that's what he said. 

He went back a few more times, hoping to pluck up that same courage. He had even written out his name and number on a piece of paper beforehand. But you didn’t come back. 

Imagine his surprise to see you sitting in his class on his first day of school. 

“A fucking high school student, she's a fucking high school student?” It could have been the worst day of his life, but when he saw that smile again. Well he knew he was screwed, absolutely whipped for you. 

He could wait it out until you graduated, it was only a school year after all. But you were so sweet to him, the chemistry just happened. He had given up on the hope of waiting that day in the nurse's office. 

You were so small and fragile, crying over a nosebleed. He couldn't help himself, he just had to touch you, to comfort you, so he did. Your face fit so perfectly into his palm, he wished he could  have held you longer, but it was wrong and he knew it. Oikawa only confirmed that feeling. 

What would everyone think, a student dating her teacher. The ridicule would go on well into your adulthood, and he didn’t want to cause that kind of pain for you.  

So he tried to ignore you, and the feelings. He knew how hard it was going to be. All it would take was one look and he knew he would crumble. But this, this wasn’t what he expected. 

Today, today was the worst day of his life, he had made you cry. Not in a silly way, the look on your face was proof enough that those tears were different. The nurse’s office tears were soft, gentle, leaving your eyes puffy. But these were harsh. Leaving hot, red trails down your cheeks as they left your eyes. He had hurt you.

----

It was hard to get out of bed the next day for the both of you. 

You woke up with swollen eyes and a throbbing headache. You contemplated skipping school all together, but what would you tell Yua. Hiroto wouldn’t pry, it wasn’t in his nature. But Yua, she would kick down your door if you didn’t show up, she had done it once before. 

You walked in as the bell rang, avoiding Sugawara’s sullen eyes. 

He was a clean and proper gentleman. He prided himself in his well kept appearance, but today, well he was a wreck. His eyes were dark and sunken in, his usual suit switched for much more comfortable clothing. His appearance seemed rushed, as if he had decided last minute to get ready (which he had, but the school couldn’t find him a substitute). 

When the bell rang you sondered up to the front of the class and picked up the attendance, avoiding his frame as you turned around. It didn’t matter, he couldn’t bring himself to look up at you even if he tried. 

You kept your distance from each other throughout the day, and when you did interact it was brief and to the point. 

Your friends were concerned but didn’t pry, instead they opted to show you silent love and affection. Yua and Hiroto had only seen you like this once. You had confessed to a boy during sixth year , but he had told you how he was looking for a prettier girl. It had broken your heart, the lasting pain ruining your self esteem well into your second year. They knew you would talk about it when you were ready, you just needed time.

Sugawara on the other hand only got teasing remarks from his coworkers. They were only interested in the details regarding the “crazy” night he had had, laughing about how he could have hid it better. Asking him for advice on where to find a girl for themselves. 

The day progressed on and before long the final bell rang and he found himself inside his office grading papers. A soft knock pulled him from his thoughts. “Come in.” He busied himself as the door opened. 

“Sensei, can you open the hallway closet, I need to put up the brooms...” You stood in the doorway, not wanting to fully enter the room.

His eyes rapidly met your own as he perked up at your voice. His heart sank again as he watched you back away from the door.

You held his gaze, nervously playing with the frayed threading of your skirt.“Sensei?”You questioned again a little louder causing him to stand up suddenly. 

He grabbed the closet keys and followed you out of the office.“Did everyone already leave?” He asked as you gathered the brooms. He reached out a hand to help you, retracting it as you gripped onto the handles tightly.

“Yes sensei.” You were walking briskly, causing him to rush to keep up with your pace. 

He unlocked the door, opening it for you as you walked in to put the brooms up. He watched you exit again, walking past him with the same hurried pace.

He followed you back to the room, watching you pack up your belongings before heading for the door.“ F/N…” He stopped you, opening his mouth slightly.

You turned around with your hand on the door, waiting.

The words he needed were lost. He searched your eyes for the right response, he needed something to grasp at.

You gave him a stiff smile before sliding the door open. You walked out, closing the door behind you. He took too long.

----

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

----

[aiyassalt]

Honestly, I greatly dislike Sansa (both her book and show counterparts), but there are times when I read pro-Sansa posts and theories, I feel pity for her.

No, not because I think the show “butchered” her. As mega-ringsandthings-world pointed out, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for Sansa to become what she is in S8. GRRM created her to be the black sheep of the family who clashes and causes trouble for other family members. This is the same girl who snitched on her dad to the woman who ordered her wolf killed so that she can get Joffrey’s dick hand in marriage and become Queen. This is the same girl who dismissed Jory’s death because his replacement is much more handsome. This is the same girl who is currently in on the plan to slowly poison her epileptic and orphaned cousin and covers up the truth about his mother’s death so that she can get the Vale. So, it’s totally possible for Sansa grow from an extremely spoiled, self-centered snobby brat who throws family members and allies under a bus for power and prestige to a manipulative yet gullible, traumatized, bitter, self-centered woman who screws over family members and allies for power.

No, I feel pity for Sansa because, out of her own universe, in fandom, she has few people in her corner. The only people who seem to appreciate her for what she is are only a handful of Sansa stans and Sansa haters/critics like me. Like many fans have brilliantly pointed out, many Sansa stans’ investment in Sansa has less to do with them genuinely finding her character and/or storyline interesting, but more so that she serves as a self-insert and they project traits and storylines they find desirable for her.  For all her fans’ claims of how they love her so much because she’s so feminine, non-magical, and not a physical badass (of course, annoying “subtle” digs at Jon, Arya, and Dany), the posts that incorrectly summarize Sansa’s traits, fanfics that have Sansa wielding a sword, bows and arrows, the posts theorizing that she will receive/warg Nymeria or Dany’s dragons, raise Arya’s or Dany’s kids, become the YMBQ and posts by Sansa stans getting pouty that not everyone think Sansa’s destined to become the next ruler of the North, Queen of the 7K, and/or YMBQ prove opposite. I would dare to say that Sansa stans dislike, nay, hate canon!Sansa and her actual storyline. And quite frankly, I don’t blame them.

Sansa’s not one of the Main Five; she’s just a main character. She’s also supposed to be the female equivalent of the Everyman character who serves as a window for the readers into how the courtly culture of this medieval fantasy-esque setting is rife with corruption and cruelty hiding beneath the thin and glittery veneer of courtly values and luxury. Her arc has nothing to do with rulership and leadership. Her beginning chapters cement her as a thoughtless, self-centered, vain, classist brat with low pockets of empathy for anyone who isn’t attractive and/or highborn and disturbingly parallels with young!Cersei’s beginnings. She isn’t super intelligent, observant, kind, or clever, especially compared to other characters. She’s easily one of the most conformist and classist characters in the series and doesn’t give much thought as to how she will improve her life and the lives of others. She’s incredibly passive and her passiveness becomes more apparent compared to other characters. Her accomplishments are unremarkable and look even more so compared to what other characters (especially to the Main Five) achieve. Romance-wise, her love life looks rather dismal and far from the stuff of wish-fulfillment for many Sansa stans who think like AGOT!Sansa. None of the male characters she interacts with (Joffery, Sandor, Tyrion, Littlefinger, Sweetrobin, Harry, etc) exactly fit the mold of the Prince Charming trope in terms of looks and/or personality meanwhile other female characters seem to get “better pickings” of potential male love interests. Hell, even in the sphere of beauty standards, Sansa’s good looks don’t make her exactly unique. Also, the books clearly and frequently subvert the Beauty Is Never Tarnished trope and have many formerly beautiful women temporarily or permanently lose their looks. So, there might be chance that Sansa might undergo an event that slightly or greatly disfigures her. Finally, regarding acquisition of power, again, what Sansa gets, and how she acquires it will pale in comparison to what other characters. Contrary to the show, Sansa is not going to become Queen of the North. If Sansa does acquire a title, it will most likely be Lady of the Vale and it will be through killing/endangering her epileptic cousin. Jon, Dany and/or Arya, on the other hand, will likely play integral roles in the War for the Dawn, contenders for Kingship/Queenship of the North or the Iron Throne, and will gain their power through charisma, dedication, sheer will and determination, compassion, and hard work.

So yeah, I can see how and why many Sansa stans go out of their way to take anything and everything from other characters to give to their so-called “favorite”. I can see why they insist on pro-Sansa revisionist spins that erase Sansa’s flaws as well as any responsibility, agency, and blame she owns for any wrongs she commits. Sansa is not at all an easy or likable character to root for.

And yet, despite all that I said…it’s completely fine that she is all those things. Yes, I, someone who greatly dislikes Sansa, is saying this. There’s nothing wrong with Sansa starting off as a passive, classist, and snobby bully with little empathy and not much intelligence and she becomes…well, less of a bully at least.  It’s completely fine her arc has nothing to do with ruling or leading and is all about her just learning to be less shallow and appreciate what she initially had. It’s completely fine she doesn’t end up as Queen of the North or the Seven Kingdoms, doesn’t take Cersei down, doesn’t end up with fAegon, etc. There’s nothing wrong (other than the child poisoning deal…) with Sansa acquiring the Vale. It’s a rich region and its culture is more suitable to Sansa’s personality, tastes, and arc.

What I find frustrating and saddening is that Sansa fans have no problem finger-wagging at Dany, Arya, and Jon fans how it’s fine and even “beautiful” if our faves don’t get happy endings or enjoy perks typical of their fairy tale archetypes. Yet these same Sansa fans seem to empathically refuse to apply the same thinking to their own fave and (again, based on their actions) seem to desperately wish Sansa was something more than a snobby and classist rich mean girl with no magical abilities, charisma, or a big heart full of empathy and compassion. This might be just my thinking, but if you truly like and appreciate a character, then you would not feel the need to bash other characters to prop her/him/they up only to turn around blatantly steal other traits and storylines from the characters you bash because truthfully, you find fave’s personality traits and their arc grating and unsatisfactory.

So, that’s what I mean when I say I feel occasional pity for Sansa: because she has very few fans who genuinely like and appreciate her. Hell, I even feel more pity for Sansa when I think about her fans because I suspect a lot of her so-called “fans” will turn on her if none of their theories and headcanons are validated. I can only imagine what will happen if Sansa dies and never takes Cersei and/or Dany down or is never crowned QiTN or simply becomes Lady of the Vale. Or she ends up with the “wrong” guy or ends up single or with a random noble who isn’t as high-ranking and/or handsome as they would like.

[ignigcna]

𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒔.

FULL NAME  :  Daenerys Targaryen APPELLATION(S)  :  Daeny, Stormborn, Khaleesi, The Unburnt, The Silver Queen AGE  :  36 Years Old BIRTHDATE  :  April 20th, 1984 ZODIAC  :  Aries

GENDER  :  Cis Female ETHNICITY  :  Caucasian  RELIGION :  Agnostic

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION  :   Hetero SEXUAL ORIENTATION  :  Bi-Curious RELATIONSHIP STATUS  :  Widowed, Involved

MAFIA ALLEGIANCE  :  Targaryen POSITION  :  Pakhan DAY JOB  :  Businesswoman / Entrepreneur ( CEO of Khalasar Conglomerate, The Dragonpit, and various other ventures ) FINANCIAL STATUS  :  Inherited and Illegal Wealth

𝑷𝒉𝒚𝒔𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝑨𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆.

FACE CLAIM  :  Katheryn Winnick HEIGHT :  5′6″ PHYSICAL BUILD  :  Curvy EYE COLOUR   :  Vivid Blue  HAIR COLOUR :  Pale blonde, with golden lowlights

𝑭𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒚.

FATHER  :  Aerys Targeryen ( † ) MOTHER  :  Rhaella Targaryen SIBLINGS  :  Rhaegar, Shaena ( † ), Daeron ( † ), Aegon ( † ), Jaehaerys ( † ), and Viserys Targaryen EXTENDED RELATIONS  :  

SISTER-IN-LAW  :  Elia Martell

NIECE & NEPHEW  :  Rhaenys and Aegon Targaryen

SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S)  :  

HUSBAND  :  Khal Drogo ( † )

LOVER  :  Daario Naharis

CHILDREN  :  Rhaego Drogo Targaryen ( † ), Kovarro Drogon Targaryen ( Adopted Son ) HOUSEHOLD PET(S)  :  A Horse named Silver

𝑭𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒔.

COLOUR  :  Crimson, Charcoal, Black WEATHER  :  Spring FOOD  :  Stroganoff BEVERAGE  :  Cabernet Sauvignon, Scotch,  TIME OF DAY  :  Sunrise

𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚.

HOBBIES  :  Reading ( usually epics, classics, and non-fiction ) MBTI TYPE :  INTJ ( The Architect ) ENNEAGRAM TYPE  :  Type 8 ( The Challenger )

𝑩𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅.

tw: passive mention of abuse, death of a child, and murder.

Born in the golden age of the Targaryen rule over King’s Landing, she was the youngest and only surviving daughter of Aerys and Rhaella Targaryen. Her name came with privilege, and the great burden of sin to bare alongside the rest of her family. As a young girl Daeny could hardly stomach the violence and death that was so quintessential to the life of a mobsters daughter, she learned young that there were no good men in their world, and least of all her brutal and abusive father or her brothers. A fact only proven when her father promised her at the age of fifteen to a man whose tales of brutality were famous all the way from Essos a city far from King’s Landing, a city which he solely ruled with his brunt force and mountains of wealth. Her father’s decision meant she would have to live a life away from the only people she found comfort and safety with, all for the promise of power. Little did she know that power would benefit her more than anyone else far in the future.

Rhaegar was the pride of the Targaryens, and he ascended to the metaphorical throne when Daeny was barely old enough to understand the weight of such a responsibility, she remembered her brother being kind to her, but little else considering he was never around, always busy with the family business. She does however bitterly remember her pleading with Rhaegar to speak to their father on her behalf to change his decision in regards to her marriage to Drogo, but his only response being they all must play their part. Her brother had broken her heart that day, she never made another plea to anyone. Three years later she departed for Essos believing that was the last she’d seen of Kings Landing. She heard of her brother’s scandal only a few short months later, and she couldn’t help the bitterness at the thought that he had not done his part. While she knew she should’ve felt sorrow over the dismantling of her families’ rule over the city, she had always seen it as broken, this was only the chink that dealt the final blow.

Khal Drogo was a man that intimidated her from the start, seven years older than her when she was fifteen that age difference had felt too vast to bridge, she couldn’t imagine what a life with him would look like. Though his age was the slightest of factors considering his reputation even at the age of twenty two was that of a ruthless, merciless killer, at least in their world. To everyone else he was an ambitious and trailblazing young man who has just taken over his father’s legacy, Khalasar Conglomerate a company that generated revenue in the billions providing jobs for hundreds of thousands, with a foothold in nearly every continent. Daenerys had expected someone void of emotion and empathy, much like her own father the one person who truly scared her. Though she learned nearly right away after their marriage that yes he was everything she imagined but so much more. The side of him she saw wasn’t the side the rest of the world got, how could they when power and fear mattered so much to them all.

He was kind to her, gentle even, they took their time to get to know one another before they truly began to life as husband and wife. He had no queries with her desire to go to college and work alongside him to expand Khalasar Conglomerate and their reign over Essos. Two years into their marriage when a woman abandoned a young child at their door, his child from an affair many years ago it truly tested their relationship. Though by that point she’d grown to love and trust her husband, she couldn’t be angry with him for someone he’d been with long before he’d even met her. Having Kovarro around took some getting used to but she bonded with him soon enough. Daenerys was happier than she’d ever imagined she could be in her arranged marriage, and two years later she gave birth to Rhaego, and that happiness multiplied tenfold. By this time she’d established herself as a force to be reckoned with in Essos no less capable that her husband, in fact with her at the helm he decided to step away from K.C to focus on expanding the reach of his influence beyond Essos. Together they spoke of plans to reclaim her families lost prestige, though her perfectly crafted world came crashing down two years later when Khal was killed, poisoned anf there was nothing she could do after exhausting every last avenue but watch him suffer and die a slow and painful death. Nothing but end his pain, taking the last of his breathes with her own hands.

In the wake of her husband’s death, there was no room to crumble or to show any hint of weakness not when the vultures circled in hopes of claiming everything Khal had accomplished, everything they had accomplished together from her. Thus, she was given another blow. Returning home one evening to find her home up in flames along with her child. She heeded no warnings when she grabbed one of the firefighters masks right out of his hands and rushed inside to save her baby. She emerged from the flames unburnt with a charred bundle in her hands, the heat of the flames having already dried her tears. No one would see her tears, she would not allow it. They’d sought to set her world on fire so she would crumble alongside the brick and mortar, never to rise again. However they had forgotten that she was Daenerys Stormborn, the Dragon’s Daughter. Within her she had the same spirit of greatness, and capability to wreak the same devastation as the magnificent creatures her family paid patronage to.

Daenerys allowed herself a few year to carefully plot her return to King’s Landing, as well as to settle her affairs in Essos, those loyal to Khal remained loyal to her for which she was grateful. It meant that not only would she have a financial backing but also the added manpower to take back King’s Landing. Daenerys doesn’t just want to return to the tentative peace they’d had before her brother’s fall from grace, no she wants absolute control, to break the mold and shape it to her liking. Since her return she’s been swift to take power, even if it meant snatching it from her own brother’s grasp, allowing him to be her Lieutenant is more or less to appease any further turmoil. Elia on the other hand she has more fate in, at least in her council. Daenerys had always respected her as much as she did her brother, however, she’s never allowed herself to put her complete trust in Elia and by extension her children simply because she can’t be certain that she’d ever be willing to stand against the Martell’s if needed. If there is anyone whom she does trust blindly in is her family of choice, Kovarro whose never disappointed her, who has his father’s spirit and strength having filled the hole in her heart that Rhaego’s death had left. 

𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔.

JORAH, DAARIO, MISSANDEI  :  WCs can be found here.

KOVARRO  :  Sending in the WC soon.

Platonic

A FRIEND FROM THE PAST  :  Her closest friend growing up they stayed in touch in the beginning of her move to Essos, though with time that changed. However, since her return to King’s Landing they’ve been able to bridge the distance once again. ( 0 / 1 )

POLITICAL FRIENDSHIP  :  Friends for the sake of mutual benefit. Could just as easily stab one another in the back, or become true allies. ( 0 / ? )

Romantic

WE WERE JUST KIDS WHEN WE FELL IN LOVE  :  Someone she knew and secretly dated as a teenager, her first love. They lost contact after her move to Essos, and haven’t cross paths since. ( 0 / 1 )

Antagonistic

A BITTER ENEMY FROM THE START  :  Someone she didn’t like from the moment she met them, that dislike has persisted and grown since. Now they are a clear hurdle in her path to glory. ( 0 / 1 )

[austenholls]

Purple-Hued Night

LOCATION → huntington beach, ca

TIME FRAME → friday night, june 18th, 2027 | 11:00 - 11:47 PM 

NOTES →  written on discord.  winnie & austen chat in the hot tub while sharing a bottle of lukewarm Jameson - about austen’s muse, winnie’s dancing, and caring about what people think. 

TAGGING → @austenholls & @songwheein

Austen 

[ Austen, bottle of Jameson in her hand, shimmies out of her shorts to reveal her red swimsuit bottoms. This night feels weird, it isn't how she wanted it to go, but by now she's somewhere between tipsy and drunk and her barely there high from earlier has dissipated. She slips into the hot tub, eyes attempting to avoid the view of the bonfire. She reaches out to snatch her phone that has spilled from the pockets of her discarded shorts and quickly plays a playlist - the first song being How Will I Know by Whitney Houston ] "There's a boy I know, he's the one I dream of, looks into my eyes, takes me to the clouds above, mmm-hmm," [ She sings softly before pressing the Jameson bottle to her lips, bobbing her head to the music. Eyes peer to her left and spot Winnie, her free hand lifts in beckoning wave. ]

Winnie

[ Clearly the first half hour or so of the bonfire had lured her into a false sense of security that they could all suck it up and get along. She herself hadn’t been involved in any of the drama, but there had been plenty. It had been easy enough to slip away to the deck when she was ready for her exit, but the night had been too perfect to abandon just yet. Cool, ocean breeze, purply black skies. When music breaks the din, she turns to look and finds Austen looking back at her, she can’t help but smile. It’s been nice spending a little time with her as adults. ] There’s nothing sadder than drinking alone, y’know.

Austen

[ She can't tell if there's pity or if it's just the truth. She nods for Winnie to come join, bottom lip worried between her teeth ] Then make me less sad.

Winnie

[ She crosses the deck to the edge of the hot tub, peering down at Austen. The music makes her bare feet tap almost unconsciously. ] Are you sad? [ It only takes her a second or two to fully accept the invite, slipping out of her shorts and cropped tee until she’s stepping and then sitting into the water in her underwear. She reaches out for the bottle. ] Hand it over, sad bitch.

Austen

[ Eyes dart to the slight foot tap and then back to the blonde's eyes. ] A little. Maybe. [ She's too drunk to deny it. Also too drunk to deny herself the joy of watching the thing dancer gracefully step out of her clothes. A sloppy drink is taken before handing over the handle. ] Tell me the secret, happy bitch. Ice blue aura. How are you always so collected?

Winnie

[ She snorts softly before taking a quick swig. God, that’s rank straight. ] I’ve always been conflict-avoidant. [ Eyes roll a little. ] I also care a lot less these days. But I’m not always zen, contrary to what you might think. Clearly I’m a very good actress in addition to being a very good dancer. I’m one singing voice away from being a triple threat, damn.

Austen

[ There's no shame in the fact that she doesn't care how gross the alcohol is. ] Wait -  [ a pause as she points at Winnie. ] Are you saying you /can't/ sing?

Winnie

[ Blonde head turns to meet Austen’s eyes with a raised brow. ] Why do you think I /can/ sing?

Austen

[ Tilts her head, both brows raised ] You were like so good at literally everything in high school. Am I supposed to think otherwise? [ asks with a laugh, holding her hand out and making a grabbing motion at the bottle of liquor ]

Winnie

[ Gladly hands it over, then finally ducks under the water to wet her hair, using both hands to slick it back after she resurfaces. Leans back against the wall of the hot tub. ] I’m a passable singer, I guess. Enough for me to lay something on a track until I can get one of my much better friends to sing it for me.

Austen

[ slips a hand around the bottle, opting to set it aside rather than cloud her mind anymore ] So maybe you are a triple threat. Dancing, Acting, Music ability in some way. Not everyone is so lucky. [ shrugs, looking to the blonde ] You say you care a lot less these days. What's that mean?

Winnie

[ Thin shoulders rise and fall. ] It sounds so douchey, but I just don’t care. If someone doesn’t like me, I’ll find someone else that will. If someone doesn’t believe in me, I believe in myself. [ She’s quiet for a second or two, thoughtful. ] I guess it’s easy to not care as much about other people if I sacrificed what my parents think of me to be happy. If I’m not going to let them stop me, why would I let anyone else? [ Another pause. ] Music helps. A lot. [ She turns her head, looking at Austen curiously. ] Art’s always helped you, right?

Austen

[ Blinks at the other girl - was that real? She's met people who feel that way, but is it ever actually true that you just don't care what people thing? Seems farfetched. ] I.. [ She wonders if she left behind what her mother - Hannah - thought of her, then maybe she'd be freer to care less, too. ] Seems like you've got it all figured out. I can't imagine not caring. [ A dry, possibly bitter, laugh leaves her lips ] Used to. Haven't been able to get much out recently.

Winnie

[ She can’t help but laugh. ] I’m not enough of an asshole to think I’ve got anything figured out— let alone all of it. But I promised myself after... Kennedy— everything— that I was going to stop being happy the way other people wanted me to. I was sick of meeting those expectations. [ She’s quiet after Austen’s explanation about her art slump. Visual art’s never been her strong suit, but she knows how much it hurts to be creatively frustrated. After a moment or two— ] Have you done anything new lately?

Austen

I mean, you seem like you've got it all down. Happy in LA, new look, new you. I feel like the only thing that I've figured out is that I look terrible as a brunette and I am still a child at heart. [ shrugs, looking up at the sky as she leaned back into the hot tub's jets ]  That's what high school was about for you then? Pleasing the parents and fitting into their mold? [ she asks, though she sort of always knew that. there's part of her that can't help but cling to who they all were back then ] Like in general or a new medium? I've been doodling a lot, but nothing that makes me want to finish... I.. [ pauses, looking over at Winnie ] Maybe I'm kind of scared that I'm not good at it anymore.

Winnie

You can’t be ‘not good’ at it anymore. That’s not how it works. [ Art is art is art is art. ] I mean I could break both my legs tomorrow and be objectively ruined, but what you do? That doesn’t just get lost unless /you/ forget it. [ She tips her head to one side, thinking. ] I mean in general. Go somewhere new. Listen to something new. Watch something new. Fuck someone new. Eat something new. Sometimes routine smothers our art, y’know? [ She sinks down into the water a bit. ] Maybe you should do something new, even if you’re bad at it.

Austen

[ She knows Winnie is right - that's why the laugh that escapes her is somewhat exasperated. ] I went to Portland. I fucked a bunch of new people there. Ate a lot of weird new Asian foods... But yeah. I think... there's something stuck inside of me and I'm... [ Talking this much about herself felt weird. This felt weird. ] Maybe I should do something new. [ Caves and agrees, smiling a little before laughing again ] Do you ever get blocked dance or music wise?

Winnie

Sure, yeah. It happens, and it sucks. [ She flicks a little bit of water at Austen— just enough to skim off the surface. ] Here. We’ll have an example. Doesn’t have to work, but it’s worth a shot. Close your eyes.

Austen

[ Flinches when the water comes her direction, furrowing her brow ] Oh, god. This feels like some weird ass hippie bullshit is about to happen. [ Laughs, closing her eyes and settling in - the alcohol is pushing her to trust Winnie a little more than she usually would ]

Winnie

[ Laughing. ] I’m definitely not the hippie of this group. [ She leans out of the water to wipe her hand on her shorts and retrieve her phone. Scrolling through it, she finds the song she wants to play and sets it on the deck between their heads. ] You’re not going to understand what she’s saying, but that’s not important, right? Just trying something new. See if it even gets half a wheel turning in that ginger head. [ She plays 보라빛 밤 on her phone and sits back. It’s a song she’s vibed to for a long time. It makes her think of colors and feelings and she, personally, finds it really emotive— inspiring. She doubts Austen will take nearly anything as much from it as she does. But maybe the language barrier will actually help. Maybe she’s thinking too damn much. ]

Austen

[ smirks ] Now I'm curious who you think /is/ the hippie. [ lets the silence settle, eyebrow raising over closed eyes as she hears the song begin. it's clearly Korean - she can tell that much, but shes never been into K-Pop. She's assuming that's what this is, at least. The music has a strong beat, an identity that's bouncy and she can tell that this is definitely something people can dance to. Austen listens to sad music, slow music when she paints - so Winnie isn't wrong. This is new. She gently moves her hips beneath the water, her head bobbing to the chorus. When it ends, she opens her eyes, looking to Winnie. ] Can you play it again?

Winnie

[ If she tried to pretend she hadn’t been running the entire choreo to herself while the song played, she’d be lyyyyyying. Sunmi is a queen, and Winnie will worship. The grin that splits her face when Austen asks her to play it again is straight devilish. Shit eating. ] You wanna know what it’s called?

Austen

[ Eyes blink a few times as she sees Winnie's grin, her own smile growing ] Sure... I can't say I won't butcher it. But I was just starting to feel something. I need to hear it again. [ She motions quickly with a hand, water flicking off of it ]

Winnie

Purple-hued night. [ That’s her favorite part. Everything about the song /feels/ purple. It’s such good production. She presses play again. ]

Austen

[ There's a shiver that hits her spine - her mind paints an entire piece in her mind before she gets it onto a canvas or paper. Varied hues of purple would mesh perfectly with what she was seeing the first time she listened. As the song plays again, this time the piece lights up in her head in color, the smile on her face unavoidable. Maybe Winnie was right. Maybe new things would spark her muse... just like this. ] [ The music stops again and a drunken Austen finds Winnie's hand underneath the water ] Will you send this to me? I... thanks, Win. [ her voice is soft in a whisper ]

Winnie

[ Again it's like muscle memory to thread their fingers together. Austen's hands are bigger than her own, but they're thin and slight. Winnie squeezes gently. She's still smiling, but it's a little softer now. She nods. ] Don't thank me. Thank Sunmi. [ She winks. ] But yeah of course I'll send it to you.

Austen

[ Austen returns the squeezed hand, an easy laugh escaping her ] Would it be your dream to dance with her? [ Keeps her hand comfortably in Winnie's. It feels like this past week has bonded them in some way. Maybe because they're both some sort of artist ] I don't listen to K-Pop usually.

Winnie

[ She reaches for the bottle of liquor and takes a sip, coughing quietly. ] I'd love to dance with a lot of kpop artists, to be honest. A lot of artists in general. The few times I've done tours or even one-off gigs with people in LA have been so fucking fun.

Austen

[ Releases Winnie's hand in favor of running it through her hair ] I feel like you're going to have to show me some of your tik toks or something because as much as I know you're good at everything... Like... bitch, prove it.

Winnie

[ Winnie scoffs, loudly, and pads her way across the hot tub to sit directly opposite Austen. She drapes her arms along the outer edge and leans back, languidly extending her legs, one reaching out of the water in a pose before she brings it down to splash the water the other girl's way. ] My tiktok isn't hard to find, ass.

Austen

[ She watches the other girl, a brow raising as the other girl's graceful limbs very particularly moved through the air. She's about to speak again when water comes flooding her way - there's just a loud, joyful laugh that leaves her as she wipes off her eyes ] Oh, sorry, I don't go scrounging tik tok for my super smart, always had a booked schedule friend from high school. [ Easily shoves some water Winnie's way, hoping to get her back just a bit ]

Winnie

[ She blows a raspberry, rolling her eyes in response. ] You must've had some other friend back then because I was never super smart. Sure you don't mean Shiloh? [ A beat. ] Maybe she does have a tiktok. [ Leaning forward more into the water. ] I promise you, I'm that good. Whether you find my account or not.

Austen

I mean... like comparing anyone to me - they're super smart. It's not like I fucking read your report card, my man. [ she laughs ] I'm gonna find the account and you're probably like allstar level good. Don't reduce your talent. [ leans forward, matching Winnie's stance ] Or is this an LA thing? Where people pretend like they're not good just to get more praise?

Winnie

[ That gets a loud bark of laughter. ] The last thing /anyone/ gets in LA is praise. [ This time when she splashes Austen with water, it's much gentler. Half-hearted. ] Let me know when you find it. And let me know when you paint something. I wanna see it. First, even.

Austen

[ It feels nice to be around Winnie - like she's less pressure than the rest of the group for some reason. Which is odd considering they'd just talked about the thing that felt the most full of pressure - her art. ] First? [ A soft hum vibrates against her lips. ] Will do. I can make that promise. I can also promise I will be up until all hours of the night finding Winnie Song on tiktok.

Winnie

[ She lifts two fingers to her brow, saluting. ] There are worse ways to go to sleep than knowing there's another girl out there watching my videos all night long. [ A grin. ]

Austen

I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one. [ Austen smirks, her buzz beginning to fade a little and the idea of warm Jameson makes her shudder. She stands, clumsily stepping out of the hot tub - if there are ever two opposites in movement, it's these two - except on skates ] Hey. [ she turns to Winnie after grabbing a towel from a nearby chair ] Could you help me set up a tiktok? I feel like my roller skating could at least get some sort of attention on there...

Winnie

[ She holds up a hand, thumb up. ] You got it, dude. [ Head tips to one side, appraisingly. ]

Austen

[ She nods, though tiktok seems like a heavy investment of time. The redhead gently dries off her legs and torso before wrapping the towel around her waist. ] I'm gonna grab something new to drink, maybe change. Don't have too much fun without me. [ She chuckles, picking up the Jameson and her clothes before waving a quick had to Winnie. She tiptoes toward the back entrance, humming the song from before. Maybe she'd get something out onto canvas or paper soon. ]

[garden-uprooted]

“One body, two souls” (( god I can't imagine there being any personality that'd be worse to fuse Spinel's with than Dom's and vice versa and I MUST hear what your take on what that Hell Fusion would be like is omfggggggggggg ))

Send “One body, two souls” to see what I think the fusion of our muses would be like // Still Accepting!

Gemstone Name & Reasoning: Mookaite (yes I KNOW there’s no reason the gem would change since Spinel’s the only Gem in the fusion, but finding the gemstone for the fusion is half the fun, shut up-) 

Okay so I KNOW the name sounds weird, but I NEEDED a specific feel for the fusion to fully WORK, y’know? Their fusion would lack ANY sort of Spinel’s typical restraint; a completely wild free spirit. I needed a gemstone that encouraged the release of inhibitions and made you set your sights on things that you’d previously held yourself back from. 

“Embrace your wanderlust and let Mookaite be your spiritual compass, pointing you in the direction of adventure. Awaken your true potential with the energy of this stone, and pursue the passions you’ve put on hold. The willpower that mookaite stimulates in your solar plexus and root chakras will rouse in you a desire to explore new activities. Its exciting, yet comforting energy makes for a great travel companion for those on a solo journey.”

I would go into more detail, but in order to properly do that, I’d need to jump onto the next section uwu… 

Personality:

OKAY. I HAVE SO MANY FUCKIN’ THOUGHTS ON THIS MESS WHOM I ALREADY IMMEDIATELY ADORE 

Okay okay okay, SO. Obviously they’re a pretty toxic fusion. This should go without saying- two chaotic energies in ONE body?? 

… But it ISN’T because Spinel and Lord D DON’T get along, oh no..

It’s BECAUSE they get along so SWIMMINGLY. 

Spinel is naturally impulsive and reckless, sometimes, due to Trauma TM, and also just because she’s Like That, but she HAS self-restraint. She can tell (most of the time) when she’s gone too far with something. And Lord D, while not nearly AS hyperactive as Spinel (but ABSOLUTELY is also an ADHD mess), has undoubted patience and self-control, as well. 

They’re “bouncing off of the walls” off the shits chaos lesbians, but they both know how to reign themselves in. 

While fused as Mookaite, however?

That ALL goes out of the window.

They FEED into each other’s boundless thoughts- they ENCOURAGE each other’s deepest darkest carnal desires ALL in the name of 

FUN. 

Spinel is a people-pleaser, above all. She’s LITERALLY an entertainer, and she ADORES her job/”life purpose”. She won’t hesitate to change herself or mold herself into what others want/expect her to be so long as she looks up to and wants to impress said person. 

And DING DING DING, Lord Dominator fits that criteria. Spinel gladly falls into the more submissive role in their fusion- letting Lord D pull the strings from the back (AKA, the Front). 

A little confusing? Don’t worry, I’ll clear that up a little later down the line. 

For now, let’s just say that Mookaite is THE definition of discord and madness. She practically BATHES in the tears of others- RELISHES in pained cries as she tramples over (or SLASHES through) people. Jokes? Japes? Cruel pranks? Snarky remarks? Low blows to people’s self-esteem via honing in on their weaknesses and using it against them? 

You want it, Mookaite’s got it all! There are absolutely NO remnants of Spinel’s kindness or compassion to be had. It’s all overshadowed by the desire to be ACTIVE and to MOVE and to spend all of her child-like ENERGY (that has practically no limit to it, so long as they’re fused together). 

She’s INTELLIGENT, though. SCARILY so. A force that you DO. NOT. WANT. To reckon with. If she WANTS something, she GETS it. There is no escape, so don’t even bother hiding or running. 

A MASTER manipulator and strategist, as well as wild party animal and unrestrained force of destruction. She’ll gladly restrain herself long enough to string people along- only for the SWEET sweet eventual payment of said person’s bitter tears as they either have their heart, or their spine broken. 

…However… I WILL say that, SHOULD Mookaite ever encounter someone that Spinel KNOWS (and thus most likely automatically CARES about), and the Dom part of them goes “OH, someone to hurt/”prank”!!!”, Spinel WILL go “Wait wait wait, but- but they’re my FRIEND, I’m not gonna-??” 

It’s SO MUCH more DIFFICULT for Spinel to vent our her feelings/frustrations on someone who ISN’T a complete stranger to her. All of that empathy and WANT to be somebody’s very best friend never VANISHED. It just got restrained. 

The SECOND Mookaite tries to/decides to ATTACK/HURT, say, someone like STEVEN, Spinel takes full control and unfuses at once.

Physical Appearance:

Oh, they want to make sure they can at LEAST tower over most humans they encounter. I’d IMAGINE Dom is around 5′7″, and Spinel just barely naturally reaches 5′3″ in her current form (I headcanon she WAS 5′0″ or so before Pink left her- height is intimidating), and so Mookaite is looking to be around 6′5″ to possibly JUST shy of being 7′0″. Of course, they can stretch, still, so their natural standing height isn’t all THAT important. 

Remember how I described their personality earlier, though? What with Spinel playing the more subservient role while Dom takes the reigns? Yeah, that’s coming back into play here, baybey!!! 

While Mookaite takes on Dom’s slender and athletic physique and generally uses her body as a base, their face resembles Spinel’s the most. At first glance, SPINEL would seem like the dominant in the fusion, actually. 

However, in spite of that, Spinel’s loud and proud presence in Mookaite is only representative of her and Dom’s RELATIONSHIP. Dominator is Spinel’s enabler- turning her from a loose canon to one fully loaded and ready to fire; the consequences be damned. 

So, in actuality, Dom is still, naturally, the dominant. Spinel is just her willing (?) puppet to enact out their obscene horrors. 

Their hair is styled almost exactly like Dom’s- except it’s colored like Spinel’s, and it’s an absolute jagged frizzy mess. It kinda looks like they took a pair of scissors and tried to style it themselves, to be honest; but it’s stylish in the “manic pixie dream girl” way, if you know what I mean? 

Dom’s white hair shows in white streaks throughout. Mooktaite’s entire color scheme is themed around blacks, dark magentas/reds, deep browns, oranges, and yellows, to boot; drawing inspiration from the gemstone, Mookaite, itself, and Dominator’s attire. 

They keep Spinel’s poofy bottom, but it acts more like short shorts that flow seamlessly into Dom’s split dress; which is masterfully torn and tattered just at the knees. They also keep Spinel’s gloves- they just gain a more ragged look, as well, and are styled after Dom’s elbow-length ones. 

Say bye bye to Spinel’s fuckign clown shoes, tho, they’re Dom’s sneakers, now. RIP clown shoes. Ye shall be missed. 

Mookaite’s eyes are Forever Swirly And Crazed. It makes her look like she downed ten espresso shots in one sitting and went back to the coffee shop for more. Her mascara is also There, but it’s X2. 

It’s ALWAYS running down her face- yes, actually running down her chin and dripping right off. An endless supply of messy, drippy mascara that LOOKS like they’ve been crying in it for five hours, but 

HAHA!

Mookaite doesn’t CRY! 

On the outside. 

Oh, also, did I mention the fact that they have extra limbs? Typically it’s only just two arms and two legs, but as an extra “HEY, WATCH THIS, AND ALSO FUCK YOU!!!” they can sprout another pair of arms from their back at will. And yes it makes sickening cracking sounds, because Dominator has bones that CAN make those sounds. 

Does it ACTUALLY hurt her to do, though? 

Eh. Your choice. 

Oh oh oh and NATURALLY they have sharp, shark-like teeth. Why??? Would they NOT???? Bruh they’re fuckin off the wall, they’re demonic as all hell and so basically I Love Them 

…. Oh, and uh…. Sarah Stiles’ Spinel’s New Yorker accent that tends to be more of an undertone, than anything..? 

It’s fully pronounced in Mookaite. High pitched, squeaky, psychotic Betty Boop hours, folks.

Combat: 

My fingers hurt but you know how Spinel has her scythe, Suzie? And Dom can control magma and ice/frost? AND you know how they BOTH can stretch and extend their limbs/Dom is super flexible? 

Now, I’m not saying crazy fast contortionist that can wreck you from like twenty feet away, but- okay I totally am.

Something tells me Mookaite would be MUCH more a fan of hands-on fighting, though. Sure she COULD either suit up or use Dom’s powers and Spinel’s elasticity to one-hit KO their opponent, but where’s the FUN in THAT? 

And thus where Suzie comes in. 

Mookaite is a brick POWERHOUSE- chaotic demented laughter all the while while she SLASHES through her enemies; twirling through the air and jumping on top of/off of their shoulders or heads. She’s a bratty gamer girl about it the whole time, too; mocking her adversaries for being “too slow” or “not putting up enough of a fight/challenge”. 

She’s ALWAYS looking for fights and worthy opponents- swinging Suzie around like the huge scythe is a baton and not a VERY deadly weapon. She treats her like a prized cane half the time; preferring to have her fully activated and ready to go at the drop of a hat. 

[ofchunja]

ahh hello my angels !! so i’ve been eyeing this group for quite a bit, and i couldn’t resist so here i am ! i’m jada, and this is my first child here - na chunja ! she’s the lead vocal & maknae of primera, and an overall handful ! some of her friends call her ambitious, confident, and versatile, but those of less favorable opinions say she’s vein, manipulative, & stubborn ! i’ll leave that up for you to decide, though. if you want to know more about her, click here for her profile. truth be told i’m a bit unprepared so that’s all i have for now, but if you’d look under the cut there’s some wanted connections & info !

from seoul, south korea !! gangnam specifically.

she’s always lived comfortably, not chaebol level or anything, but she’s in the upper middle class & has never really struggled, per se ?

originally had dreams to be a cosmetologist, but and eventually create her own makeup line ! beauty’s always been super important to her & she wanted to get into the field.

all that being said, being an idol has never really been everything for her ?? she had alternate career paths, stable income, all that. so that’s where her entitled mindset comes from ! but let’s back up for a minute, back to predebut chunja !

was a lot more naive & bubbly back in the day ! she never imagined she’d get anywhere near the fame she has now, always that she’d just be “the girl who could sing” to her classmates once they’d graduated and that was that. 

but while out shopping with some friends at 16, she was street scouted and asked to audition for so!ar entertainment !! was super ecstatic but confused because like - why did her goofing off with friends scream “idol material ??”

it was only after auditioning that she realized it must have been based on visuals, because while she was confident in her abilities, she saw toooons of other auditions better than hers who didn’t get picked since they didn’t fit the “idol mold”. this was the start of her hate for the industry lmao !

trainee life is what really started reaching her toward the person she is now though ! going into it she was very optimistic, friendly to everyone, & just excited, but she soon learned that training was a dog eat dog type of thing ! to go up, you had to be a little ruthless, and that’s just what she did, started getting more and more competitive.

and then debut came !! she hadn’t been expecting to primera to get anywhere as big as they did. in all honesty, she’d expected to flop like the groups before them had ! once she realized that wasn’t the case though, she started getting veery comfortable in the spotlight.

quickly developed the spoiled princess mindset !! being the maknae of the nation’s girl group, she got used to all the doting & became very vein

while she’s always loved the baby image, a part of her wants to step out of it and be taken more seriously as an artist nowadays !!

she’s also been in the industry for a whole, so she’s seen all the ins and outs, including how corrupt it can be ! honestly she’s so tired of the sexualizing, favoritism, crazy rules, and pointless scandals ! it was exciting when she was younger, but she’s getting to be a true adult now and simply doesn’t have the time for any of it. even amongst primera, she’s aware a lot of groups like impulse didn’t get the shine they deserve because of public favoritism towards primera and she just doesn’t think it’s okay at all !

also she doesn’t like the fact that there’s so much emphasis on visage in the industry, especially since lots of idols seem to be deemed talentless visuals & she just feels like hard work is far more important ! essentially she’s like yes i’m pretty but that’s not that important

and that brings me to my next point - remember i said being an idol wasn’t everthing to her ?? well that still applies ! at this point she’s basically like “you can’t hurt me” & doesn’t take company threats too seriously so she doesn’t have a problem speaking up on things as best she can within contract binds !

actually, she’s been more and more interested in going solo, especially when news about sora leaving broke out. as she’s grown to be more independent, she’s become more interested in more meaningful music & wants to perform things personal to her, and honestly is just tired of the same pop love songs.

alternately, she really just wants to live a normal life nowadays, but that isn’t feasible at all. if she settled down somewhere & tried going to cosmetology school, she knows dispatch would still be watching her everywhere she goes and things can’t quite ever be the same, which is why she’s so frustrated !

buuut she’s also scared of being a flop so !! hasn’t !!

anyway she has two major nicknames among fans - baby empress, because she’s soft in the face but has powerful & commanding vocals ! and cheonsa chunja, which basically translates to angelic chunja because of her gentle features !

as primera’s grown to be the most senior group relevant on the market, she worries they’re moving towards obscurity and soon will lose fan’s interest. she’s spent a decade of her life having fame handed to her on a silver platter,  and isn’t quite sure how to handle things when that’s no longer the case.

in terms of personality, she’s kind of turned into a humblebragger, and just lets fame get to her head !! she knows what she wants & gets very upset when it’s not given to her, and simply wants things her way !! baby star syndrome everyone

also very confident & a little cocky !! it transfers well on stage because stage presence is what she’s best at, yet offstage it can be a little offputting !! like dear god if your muse comes up to her looking for some advice or something she will go into a whole rant about how they paved the way she’s the main reason why i-

bold !! very bold, and unapologetic. she’s romantic, likes to drink, party, all that, and isn’t afraid to say any of it !! also a confident bisexual yet is constantly screaming her affections for girls !! 

along with that - she’s not very good with commitment but !! if she likes you, she will do anything to get you, and that’s just that !

there’s two sides of her - the one she has around people way younger than her, where she’s a little nurturing and puts on the “all-knowing sunbae” facade !! but those around her age / older who’ve known her for a while get the goofier, more transparent side, more like how she was back in the day !

she can do the primera choreography fairly well, but never ask her to do anything outside of it !! she’ll just fail horribly. thank god her charisma is here to save her !!

but she does claim she’s the best rapper out of the vocalist and while i don’t believe it ?? she refuses to take no for an answer !

totally irrelevant but she’s got a black pomeranian, theo, who is her true son !! she doesn’t stop posting or talking about him !!

this is just getting ... way too long ?? i expected it but didn’t want it to happen ! sigh, anyways onto the wanted connections !!

wanted connections !!

give her a bitter exes plot please ?? she’s very vengeful & jealous, so maybe that could somehow transfer and give us something interesting !

childhood / best friends ! someone she’s really genuine around & they know everything there is to know about each other ! 

enemies / competition, a vocalist who’s equally cocky as chunja ! maybe they get compared a lot which created this tension ?

give her one of the younger idols / trainees to be initially annoyed by but begins to adore & want to baby !! 

someone co-parent theo with her lmao !! he needs more love !!

classic drinking buddies !! 

honestly she needs that one partner in crime who just shit talks the industry with her 24 / 7 PLEASE give this to me !!

i’ll think of more soon, she’s getting an official plots page in a bit anyways so !!

[tjkiahgb]

Episode Recap: 2.24, “We're on Cloud Ten”

Boy, we’re really getting a lot of Andi and Bex cold opens.

This episode, Andi tries to make Bex coffee, but it’s bad, so Bex uses it to kill a plant. Andi intends to make Bex coffee every morning from now on. If I’m Bex, I’m making a heavy investment in flavored creamer. There’s no coffee so bad it can’t be fixed by dumping half a canister of hazelnut creamer into it.

Over at The Spoon, Buffy and Cyrus eat lunch. Cyrus works in an old planner. Buffy wants to know what it is and Cyrus says it’s a “philo-stax.”

And I’m thinking, “Hmmm, that’s interesting. Never heard of that before. Let me Google that.” And it turns out Google’s never heard about it before either.

I’ve tried like a dozen different spellings, too, in case the closed caption was wrong. (philostacks, filostax, filostacks, file-o-stacks - like a stack of files? Nothing makes sense anymore.) I have no idea what Cyrus is talking about. It seems like he’s invented a word so he doesn’t have to call his notebook a planner.

(Edit: A brilliant anon came through with some knowledge.)

Why is Cyrus using this thing and not a phone, Buffy wonders. It’s a good question which Cyrus never answers.

Amber brings food out to Cyrus and Buffy. She’s warm and fuzzy with Cyrus and surprisingly cold towards Buffy. I really didn’t know those two were in a feud, but, well, there you have it...

Buffy wants to know why Cyrus is being friendly with mean people again. First TJ, now Amber.

Cyrus thinks it’s unhealthy to hold on to such animosity, which is a good point, but then he makes a pun, saying they should call it Amber-mosity, which is awful. How can he be so wise and so foolish at the same time? Thus is the duality of man, I suppose.

Outside of Cloud 10, Bex and Andi hand out pamphlets about the new business. Bex tries out some potential slogans.

Maybe don’t do that. Feel free to pull back and give your slogan some more consideration. You don’t think “Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz. Oh, what a relief it is.” was an improv, do you?

The two head back inside where a potential customer asks them if this is a place to get makeovers and Andi says yes, but in two weeks when they open.

I guess I’m not entirely sure what they’re doing here. You want to promote the business before it opens, fine. Set up on the sidewalk and hand out your free samples and water bottles and pamphlets.

But why are you inviting customers in to walk around a mostly empty store that’s still filled with tools and such?

Why do you want people to see this? Ladders out. Paint rollers everywhere. There are probably loose nails lying around just waiting to get stepped on by someone. Exposed wiring waiting to zap someone.

“Yes, it’s an awful, unfinished mess now -- you know, when we’re making our ever-important first impression on you, the customer -- but just imagine what it’ll be like to get your makeup done here in a couple weeks, when it will probably be much nicer!”

You think this is enticing people? You want people to see your potential paint schemes and your unused wood molding and your... power generator? I don’t know what that is in the bottom left corner, but I will say, I guess it does put me in the mood to come back in a fortnight and get my hair done.

On the plus side...

Oooooh, they got the arches! Just like in the diorama! They look great.

Anyway, enough about interior design.

Celia is in a funk because Ham is on another continent somewhere. Bex wishes for a way to snap her out of it and, as if on cue, Bowie magically appears holding flowers. Bowie and flowers? That’s like catnip for Celia.

Bowie makes Celia feel much better, at least temporarily.

As the sneak preview of Cloud 10 continues, Buffy and Cyrus aggressively make themselves over.

Jonah stops by to ask Andi her feelings on trampolines. She is pro-trampolines.

Cyrus and Buffy walk by in the background and all I can think of is what kind of impression it’s going to make on potential customers out on the sidewalk when two children step out of Cloud 10 looking like they just left a European nightclub.

“What the hell is happening in there?”

Jonah invites Andi on a date to trampoline nirvana.

Bowie asks Celia if she’s heard from Ham and she says he sent her a bowl.

Andi tells Bex that Jonah’s taking her on a date. Bex gets excited that Andi’s moving on to that portion of their relationship. Then she tells Bowie to get him excited, too. Bowie determines that he must be there when Jonah shows up so he can be a stern father figure, you know, as you do.

So later, as promised, when Jonah shows up to pick up Andi, Bowie stares him down menacingly.

Which, it’s great that you want to play father figure dress-up, but you are well aware that this small child in front of you is a little ball of anxiety. You’re the one who desperately tried to help him deal with it! Why are you attempting to make him uncomfortable now?

Thankfully, Andi comes in and pulls Jonah away from this before he can start to panic and they leave.

Bex asks Bowie to stick around and make her lunch. And how could he refuse an offer like that?

Jonah and Andi head to trampoline nirvana and just... trampoline the day away.

They jump into a big foam pit and Jonah asks Andi how she’s so good at the art of the trampoline and Andi says everyone’s good at trampolining. Pfft. Tell that to the kid in my high school who tried to do a backflip and broke his neck and then the ambulance had to come and take him away and he had to graduate in a neck brace. I’m sure he’d love to hear your theories on the ease of trampolining!

Jonah and Andi are having a great time and Andi starts thinking about what they could do for their 2nd date next weekend, but Jonah can’t do next weekend. And the weekend after that? Also a no.

See, Jonah’s going to film Shaz-- er, he’s going to camp. For eight weeks. Starting tomorrow.

Andi needs to process this and she leaves Jonah in the foam pit of shame.

Jonah tells Andi he decided to go to camp a few days ago. He tells her about how he failed to make the Ultimate team but then he heard about this frisbee camp and thinks it can improve his game so he can make the next team.

I’m trying to figure out the timeline again and my brain is starting to leak. I should know better than to go down this road, but... it seems like Summer now? I mean, doesn’t it sort of have to be? Jonah can’t really be leaving in the middle of the school year to go to frisbee camp, right? That can’t be allowed as an excused absence. And frankly, it’s negligent parenting. But Andi was just planning dates only for the coming weekends, like they’re still in school. Also, everyone is sort of dressed like it’s Summer now, too, even though last episode -- which was like, a couple of days ago? -- everyone was dressed like it was very much still Winter (or a brutal cold early Spring). It’s like they live in the Twilight Zone. Time doesn’t exist in this town. This isn’t like trying to narrow it down to specific dates, or even weeks, anymore. I legitimately can’t tell you what month this is even supposed to be. I’m going to let it go, though. One, because it’s hurting my head, and two, because I have bigger complaints.

(Hey, to the anon who asked me why I was angry after the last episode: brace yourself, son. You ain’t seen nothing yet...)

Namely...

FRISBEE CAMP?! EIGHT WEEKS OF FRISBEE CAMP?! Who are the con artists who are putting this on? You can learn everything you need to know about frisbee in an hour and a half! Can you throw a frisbee? Can you run? Do you have enough basic motor function to catch a disc that’s floating softly through the air? Congratulations. You’ve mastered the frisbee. I can’t deal with this. I can’t! Jonah and a bunch of other kids going out into the woods, to a secluded spot by a lake to just throw frisbees at each other and say things like “Gnar gnar catch, brah!” What are you doing in week three? What could you possibly be doing in week three? Setting the frisbees on fire? Blindfolded frisbee catching? By week five, there’s no way you aren’t digging into nonsense metaphysical frisbee concepts, like, “Can one become the frisbee they seek to catch? Let us meditate on this.” There are master’s degree programs that don’t go on for this long. Frisbee camp goes maybe a week. A week! And that’s if you include like, some talent shows or something else to fill the time. But TWO MONTHS?! TWO DAMN MONTHS! I’m dying. And not like, crying laughing face emoji dying. I’m dying. This has broken me and I’m dying. TWO MONTH FRISBEE CAMP IN THE WOODS! Lord help me!

Anyway, Andi hears about Jonah’s frisbee camp plan and says it makes sense.

I politely disagree.

Andi’s mostly just sad about this whole time apart thing.

At Cyrus’s house, Buffy shows up. She thinks she’s there to play a game with Cyrus, like the one they used to play where they made up crazy phobias like Cyrus’s one about puppets. Cyrus says that’s a real thing. I’m with him. You know why they call it ventriloquism? Because it sounds much nicer and more quaint than calling it what it really is: using witchcraft to make inanimate objects speak.

But that’s not really the game they’re playing. The game they’re really playing is “Surprise Amber.”

Bowie and Bex hang out at her place and watch TV. Honestly, who says Bex and Bowie need to get married? They’ve already moved to the “Watch Netflix on the couch all day” portion of their relationship. That’s considered common-law marriage in a lot of places.

Jonah and Andi return home. Or at least to Andi Shack. Andi’s in need of some late night stress crafting. The two are very sad they’re going to be apart. The show seems even sadder about it than they are. This scene is being played like Jonah’s getting shipped out to the Eastern Front.

My dearest Andi.

Morale is low. Some fellow soldiers and I have taken to throwing around a decommissioned land mine and pretending it’s a frisbee just to pass the time. The Winter is bitter cold and the Germans are closing in on our position. I fear this may be my last correspondence for some time. Things at this moment, by my humble estimation, are most certainly not, docious magocious.

Give my fondest regards to the family, and don’t forget to feed Gus. He’s helpless without me

With warmest regards and love,

-Jonah “Weird Yearbook Picture” Beck.

Andi heads into Andi Shack and is scared by Celia, who’s doing well.

Sorry, did I say well? She’s doing... welp. Just... welp.

Celia was feeling lonely in the house without Ham, so she opted instead to sleep in the small, uninsulated shack in her backyard. Celia tells Andi there’s no need to worry, but I don’t know that I would say no need. Celia’s having trouble sleeping since Ham left. Andi feels like she, too, will have trouble sleeping because of Jonah leaving. The two very sweetly console each other over their missing beaus.

At Cyrus’s house, Cyrus completes his transformation into his parents and holds a therapy session between Amber and Buffy. It takes most people 40-something years to become their parents. Cyrus did it by 13. Every teen’s dream!

Also, it’s nighttime now, so he’s kept these two trapped in this room for several hours. That must have been fun.

Cyrus wants to help the two become friends. He first asks Buffy how Amber has wronged her. Buffy talks about what Amber has done to Andi, but Cyrus wants to know how Amber has wronged Buffy, which... Buffy can’t think of anything. Cyrus asks Amber the same, and Amber doesn’t like Buffy because Buffy doesn’t like her. Cyrus feels they are holding on to their dislike of each other and that feeds their dislike of each other. This reasoning is... let’s say, shaky?

But then Cyrus flips out and starts looking for his file-o-stacks to write down something and Buffy and Amber just start roasting him for it and begin to bond. No better way to grow close to someone than coming together to make fun of the person who was trying to help you. Cyrus says pencil and they lose it.

So, maybe Cyrus isn’t a full blown therapist yet.

At Bex’s, Bex has fallen asleep on Bowie’s lap. He tries to sneak out without waking her. He sets her head down on a pillow, and checks to see if she’s really sleeping, then says, “I love you.”

It’s a sweet moment, but also, dude, weren’t you just in another serious relationship like a day ago? Guy moves fast.

Bowie leaves. Well, first he pretends to leave to see if Bex was awake, but she’s too smart to fall for that and doesn’t move even though she’s awake. So then he actually leaves. And I’m not sure he locks the door behind him. Careless.

The next day, Andi tells Bex about her date. She says her relationship is like a Dr. Seuss book. Brightly colored and often nonsensical? Here, I’ve got a Dr. Seuss rhyme for you:

One fish,

two fish,

red fish,

JONAH’S GOING TO FRISBEE CAMP FOR TWO MONTHS! WHAT?!

Andi and Bex talk about things they could do to hang out together. Andi talks about going to Adrenaline City. Bex says they could go tubing or she could marry Bowie. Andi asks if that’s before of after tubing. And Bex asks Andi if she heard her. Andi wants to know if she’s being serious. I’d like to know more about going tubing, though. Please answer if the proposal will be before or after tubing. Please.

Bex confirms she’s going to marry Bowie. Andi freaks out but then asks if Bowie proposed without her there. Bex says no, she’s going to do the proposing this time. Then the two freak out together and do bee-yah bee-yah bee-yah bee-yah bee-yah bee-yah starfish! from like way back in season 1?

I’m amazed they still remembered that choreography.

[sidhewrites]

Coriander Chapter 3

Previous Installment found here. Approx 2100 words. Feel free to send Asks or Messages about what’s written or anything you’re curious about.

ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF KNITTELNAU, just beyond the farmland, wildflowers covered the earth like a blanket and filled the air with perfume and pollen so thick that it gave everything a soft look. Tiny creeks crossed the landscape, and calm lakes reflected the sky above. It was the favorite spot of many a townsperson, Coriander included. Rarely did midday not see at least two or three groups of friends sitting among the blooms, braiding petals into each other’s hair, weaving them into crowns, or simply enjoying the scent while chatting.

Coriander, however, sat alone in the sunlight, a basket of plucked herbs set beside her. She had an hour before Bestina’s social ended and her mother’s friends friends went home, which left plenty of time to sit among the milkweed and chervil, collecting the flowers in her skirt before taking down her hair and braiding them in among her brown locks. She hummed to herself, thinking about whether or not to bring some of the flowers home for teas or for salves, but if memory served, she had done that just last week. They surely had enough left that Coriander could bring home only what was needed.

Then again, if Bestina saw the flowers in Coriander’s hair, doubtless she’d want a few blooms herself.

Before she could come to a decision however, Coriander gained a signing partner. A male voice harmonized with her notes, and soft fingers touched her shoulder. She recoiled instantly, heart in her throat, already breathing heavy at the scare as she gaped at none other than Jasper himself.

“Sylph’s graces, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “You all right?”

Coriander’s ears burned. Intention meant nothing – she’d be scared either way. “It’s fine,” she said, forcing herself to calm down. She returned to her sitting position and gathered up the flowers she had picked. Jasper’s gloved hands entered her vision as he helped, which earned him a mumbled, “Thank you.”

As he plucked the loose flowers around Coriander’s knees, he explained himself: “Miss Olive told me this was the best place to spend an afternoon while poring over my maps.” He smirked. “I was also told there would be some beautiful women out here, too.”

The blush travelled from her ears to cover her entire face, and she froze with wide eyes. He did not mean her…did he?

Jasper was laughing again before she knew it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. You have to stop taking everything so seriously.”

As her embarrassment drained away, indignation welled up to replace it. Of course he didn’t mean it that way, but he didn’t have to be so rude about it. Coriander kept her eyes down on the ground, but she didn’t realize she was scowling until Jasper stopped smiling.

“Hey – I’m sorry. I’m sorry, all right? I really didn’t mean to upset you like that. I won’t make that joke again.”

Unable to stay angry at anyone who seemed truly sincere, Coriander nodded, pressing her lips together and going back to work with her hair. She didn’t know whether she was beautiful or not, nor did she care. All she asked of anyone was that they not mock her. Simple as that. And if it came in the form of being left alone, then so be it. Coriander wasn’t any good at having friends anyway.

“If it helps at all, I have no intentions towards you, Miss Tippit. I’m not inclined to such feelings towards women overall.”

“Can I help?”

She looked up to Jasper’s mossy eyes, searching for a hint of joke and finding none. But that didn’t quell her suspicions. Why would he want to help? What was he planning? Nevertheless, she couldn’t think of a good reason to say no to him, and settled for nodding reluctantly.

Jasper didn’t move towards her. He furrowed his brow, pursed his lips. “You can say no,” he said. “You do know that, right?”

“No, it’s…that is, I mean, it’s fine. I don’t mind.” Coriander glanced at Jasper, just long enough to see his expression as he studied her face. He wasn’t happy, and he wasn’t sure of…of something. She shrank back and returned to braiding her hair, tensing in anticipation of Jasper' rough hands taking her hair.

But he never did. She got finished one braid and then another before glancing back over. He had relaxed and removed his gloves, but went about his own business without pushing her one way or the other. A faint, grateful little smile made its way to her lips as she watched him pluck flowers for himself. She half expected him to pocket the flowers before he sat upright and pulled a lock of his own long blue-black hair into a braid held in place by a sprig of chervil.

He grinned when he caught her looking.

Coriander blushed.

Jasper laughed again.

A few quiet moments passed pleasantly. Jasper hummed to himself as he inspected each flower before deciding whether to pick it or not. The song wasn’t something Coriander was familiar with, but it was pleasant nonetheless. She didn’t feel comfortable enough to go back to singing herself, but she was not entirely nervous to say the least.

“Do you know what the flowers mean?”

Coriander looked up. Jasper, now reclined, had taken to twirling a delicate white and pink flower between his fingers. His brows furrowed, contemplative. He was asking in earnest, she assumed, and gave a nod. “That’s coriander – the one I’m named after. It’s usually used in bouquets to mean lust, but it also means hidden worth or concealed merit, or…something like that. It’s my mother’s favorite flower, anyway, and its leaves make a good spice.”

Jasper perked up, propping himself up on his elbow to look at Coriander as she turned back to her own flowers. She had sounded almost confident for a moment before fading away again. He had never met someone so frightened of the world. Jasper vowed to himself that he would make her laugh before he left town if it killed him.

“Can I eat it?” He held it up but waited until she nodded, all too clearly confused, before he popped it into his mouth, made a face, and decided -- “You said the leaves are a spice, didn’t you.”

Coriander nodded again.

“That makes sense. What about this?” He lifted up a lovely purple bloom.

“Pennyroyal mint. It’s warding flower. If you put it in your shoes, it’ll protect you from tired feet on your travels. It also keeps fleas and colds away.”

“Can I eat it?”

“Mm-hm. It’s bitter, though.”

Jasper did just that. He made a face, but pulled through, chewing on the leaves and swallowing. When he was done, he grinned like he had just won a tournament.

Coriander shook her head, but not without affection.

“And this one?”

“Hyacinth. It’s poisonous.”

Jasper had the flower half in his mouth already by the time Coriander spoke. He blanched, and set it aside, feigning confidence. “Excellent. I’ll save it for my enemies.”

“You have enemies?” she asked, sincere and concerned.

“No, no. Well. I hope not anyway. Not if it makes you worry like that.”

Jasper went down the line of flowers and herbs nearest him, pointing out the prettiest and most pungent ones first before moving on to the less noteworthy ones. Coriander’s hesitation faded as she labelled plant after plant, not entirely sure why an adventurer was so curious about the language of flowers, but happy to explain nonetheless. Finally, Jasper held up a little yellow-green flower, humble and plain.

“This one makes me think of you” he said, not unkindly.

“That’s ivy. Fate’s flower.”

“Fate has a flower?”

“Yeah, everyone knows…or used to know that, I suppose. It’s in a lot of the older Sanctuary song books nobody reads anymore.”

“Sing it to me?” He batted his long lashes at her with a grin.

“Um—“

“I’m joking,” Jasper interrupted. “You can just tell me the story.”

“Oh, right, of course, um.” Coriander shifted, fiddling with a lock of her hair. “Before the Sylph left this world for Hyla Lea, Fate told her she would, um…well, she’d suffer, basically, at the hands of elves. The people of her kingdom – of Gaelgallah would overthrow her for power. And she asked Fate to do everything in their power to protect her, to stop this from happening, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. You know, he can only know things, he can’t change them.

“So the elves rose up and the Sylph suffered for a hundred years, and she hated Fate for it. She told him to find something to make it up to her, so he did. He looked all over the land and came back with a single ivy flower. He knelt before her and said…” She paused, trying to remember the words properly. “Nothing in this world can undo what has been done… but still I give you my life, my love, and my listening ears...or something rather like that.”

A gentle silence fell. Coriander mulled over the song and the meaning, and the history of the two deities that had lead up to Fate’s eternal love. Jasper, meanwhile, watched her think, mulling over Coriander herself. She mumbled like a frightened child until she forgot herself, at which point she enunciated, elucidated, spoke like a poet. Why? What had molded her into the creature she was today?

“How did you learn all this?” he asked. “Your parents?”

She shook her head, still half lost in thought. “My ma doesn’t want me to learn things like this. It’s not useful.”

“Not useful?” Jasper sat up fully. “It’s history! What could be more useful?”

She scoffed with a defeated smile. “Cooking. Cleaning. Knowing which herbs are bitter healers and which are sweet poisons.”

“She wants you to be a housewife.”

“Oh, no.” Coriander shook her head. “Not in the least. She doesn’t want me marrying anyone – especially not while she’s suffering.”

“Suffering?”

“She’s ill – or at least relatively weak compared to how she was when I was a child. After my father died, she was never quite the same, and she needs someone to take care of her. I can’t imagine what’d happen if she was left alone.”

“So you cook and clean and categorize her herbs? Is that it?”

“Oh, I don’t cook.”

“Really.”

She shrugged. “Ma says that I’d have better luck pocketing clouds than I would boiling water.”

Jasper pulled a face.

“She’s an excellent cook herself!” Coriander rushed to get the words out. “Absolutely the best food I’ve ever eaten in my life. If I had any hope whatsoever, she’d teach me everything she knows. You should try it sometime.”

“All right. I will,” he decided.

“You will – will what?”

“I’ll try your mother’s cooking.”

“Um—!” Had she invited him? Coriander stammered, mentally replaying their conversation. It did sound like an invitation, didn’t it? She wasn’t sure if she should clarify or properly invite him, and the confusion tore the words from her mouth as she gaped openly at Jasper.

“Well, strange as it may sound, I certainly wouldn’t protest to a home cooked meal, you know. The inkeep barely adds anything to the broth and I leave for the wild and untamed countryside all too soon, cooking rabbit without seasoning and boiling rock soup to sate my rumbling appetite.” He swooned, but gave up the act in seconds under Coriander’s concerned gawking in order to laugh, and then made himself calm down before continuing. “If it’s alright with you, of course,” he insisted gently. “I wouldn’t dare impose, especially if I misunderstood.”

She pressed her lips together, knowing full well the ramifications of bringing unwanted company home. Her mother would rant and rave for at least an hour, and then stew quietly the rest of the night, shooting Coriander wicked glances whenever she walked by.

But it was Cresce custom to welcome in travelers to one’s home. To feed and shelter them for three days at least, and Jasper would only be there for a few hours. She could surely make a case for having him stop by for dinner, right? He seemed so sincere, and she was had never been good at saying no. And … well, she didn’t exactly dislike having him around. In the end, Coriander nodded, and Jasper’s smile brightened once more.

“Let’s get the rest of your herbs and head out. I don’t want to wait another minute.”

Coriander was not looking forward to supper.

[destiniesfic]

29 Hux POV in TSverse, pretty please? Cherry on top being undertones of Reylux?

kyloslightsabertwirl said: For Becca 😏 14 + Hux

Remember those one-word prompts from a while back? I was sitting on these ones until after TS 19. Uhh warnings follow for talk of sexual acts, prostitution, sadism of dubious consent, something about restraints in there, a brief child abuse reference, allusions to torture? And just generally Hux being not a good dude. :/

14. bitter + 29. preparation | now on AO3

Is there such a thing, Armitage Hux wonders, as a well-reputed house of ill-repute? Certainly, there is no good name for one. “Brothel” is the most straightforward term, and as these things go it’s fairly neutral, although not quite complimentary. One would think that those who deal in the galaxy’s oldest trade would have found a way to rebrand by now.

Then again, perhaps it’s best to be straightforward. Clients know why they’re here and what they’re paying for. Everything else is just trappings. But trappings do matter, Hux muses as he waits in these rented chambers, one arm draped over the back over the low sofa upon which he reclines. The receiving room’s furnishings are simple yet elegant, as is his preference. The upholstery is dark to hide stains. The name of this place doesn’t matter. It is an undiscovered gem, the best whorehouse in the Unknown Regions, and although one would think competition isn’t stiff outside the boundaries of mapped space, the industry underwent a rapid expansion as the First Order swelled into being and colonized all they saw.

Hux sips his tartine tea from the thermos he himself brought, having declined a servant droid’s offer of food and drink. He pays well for discretion, extra because these sessions are always exacting on the staff, even more to ensure that these rooms go unused by anyone else and are thoroughly cleaned prior to his arrival, and more on top of that, for security. Even so, one never knows when a servant or an ally will choose to stab one in the back.

In a roundabout way, that’s why Hux is here. Recent events have left him with troublesome thoughts, and he knows that the longer he ignores them, the more persistent and intrusive they’ll become. Best to find an outlet, and quickly, before they become truly distracting.

As such, his demands are a bit more specific today, different from his norm. The madame here knows his usual tastes: human, naturally blonde, no unnatural markings on the skin, some extra flesh, but only in the right places, and sturdy, durable. No fun for anyone if it ends too soon. But this time he made contact a few days in advance to ensure the madame would have someone on hand that suits his current preferences. Hux doesn’t care whether she finds willing recruits or buys her workers from slavers, as long as he gets his way.

And he always gets his way.

Before long, there is a gentle rap at the chamber doors. Hux takes one last bitter sip from his thermos, then sets it on a side table. “Enter,” he calls.

The door slides aside, and a young woman enters, wearing a cream-colored synthsilk robe and some visible signs of nervousness. Hux is both irritated that she seems willing to fold so early, and pleased to see that she’s very close to his specifications. She allows the door to close behind her and begins to approach him, opening her mouth to no doubt introduce herself, with some coquettish pseudonym. He holds up a hand, to stop her.

“You know who I am,” he says.

The girl closes her mouth. Good, that’s good. No use standing there gawping. But she looks unsure about how to answer the question, and while Hux understands her trepidation given the recent political upheavals, he doesn’t want to waste time. “Honesty,” he directs.

She nods. “Yes, sir. I do.”

Hux wrinkles his nose, slightly. The accent is wrong. His fault for not including that in his list of demands. He’ll just have to ensure she speaks as little as possible.

Not an unpleasant voice, though. A robust, resonant alto. He wonders how it’ll sound when she screams.

He indicates the hexagonal rug in the center of the room. “Stand over there,” he says, his voice tight. “Where I can look at you.”

To her credit, the girl doesn’t hesitate. She walks right to the center of the rug and stands there with her arms at her side, watching him. There is a slight spark of intelligence in those brown eyes, one that Hux is pleased to see. The girl’s nervousness had worried him, but this one is no broken slaver’s pet. And her appearance is about right: early twenties, deep brown hair, delicate features, slender with narrow hips. Hux stands to get a better look, hands behind his back, circling her as a predator might stalk its prey. The girl’s eyes track him, and she begins to turn to follow his progress, but a slight shake of his head is all the instruction she needs to jerk back to face forward. Good girl.

As Hux examines her from behind, he allows two fingers to trace a line from one scapula to the other over the silken fabric of her robe. Were he a creature entirely of logic and reason, he’d say that he merely has to go through these motions every once in awhile to sate a primal biological urge. But while he prizes himself on his ability to analyze, to calculate, to strategize, he never makes that claim, because he knows it’s not quite true.

He does so enjoy himself.

“Take this off,” he tells her.

She does, a little slower than he’d like. She’s still pulling the sash free of its bow when he comes back around to her front. But something must give away his impatience, because she quickly sheds the robe once she sees his face. There is nothing underneath.

Hux sighs, pleased. It is, of course, easier to note what is wrong than what’s right. Her shade is two shades too dark, and she is that shade all over, not paler in the places she kept covered while working for years in a desert. No faint freckles smattering her shoulder, the bridge of her nose. But oh, so very much is right. The curve of her ass, the wiry muscles on her arms, the tight abdominal core. He lays a gloved hand on it and then slides his hand up to cup one of her small breasts, run his thumb contemplatively over the hardening bud of her nipple. And as he does, he says, “Look at me, now.”

She’s half a head shorter than him, and her eyes first find his mouth, drawn in a narrow smile, before meeting his eyes. That little spark is still there, although she tries to hide it behind coy fluttering eyelashes, and Hux thinks she may not want him to see her true feelings. Her little body, stripped of all hair save that on her head, is tense with nervousness, and there’s a hint of reluctance to thin mouth. Unsurprising. Even if she’s a new arrival at this particular brothel, she would have heard stories. She would know what she’s in for.

Or she would think she does.

“You know who I am, pet,” Hux says, his voice a little breathy with anticipation. “You know what to call me.”

The girl’s throat bobs with her swallow. She says, “Yes, Supreme Leader.”

Hux can’t help but shiver at that. Had he been feeling particularly indulgent, he might have hired another player to watch them from that sofa, restrained, to growl and hiss and huff when Hux touches the girl, to wail, later, when he strikes her. But that’s what imagination is for, and Hux’s is up to the task. Besides, any playacting would fall woefully short of the real thing.

He so badly wants to order her to kneel, to kneel before her Supreme Leader, to feel that pretty little mouth wrapped around his cock, but— it has to wait. He hasn’t broken her yet. He jerks his head at the next room, the bedchamber, just on the other side of a curtain. “Get on the bed,” he says. “You’ll find a spreader bar. Secure your ankles and wait for me.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” the girl says again, dutifully.

Just before she vanishes through the curtain, he says, “Oh, and no more of that talk now. Not until you’ve had more than you can bear and want to stop. Do you understand?”

The girl hesitates, and then she says, “I do.”

“Good.”

Then she is out of sight, and Hux takes a minute to collect himself before returning to her. He is not wearing his uniform — he won’t sully it with this — but he still wears a number of layers, stiff and formal, and he has to undo his jacket to access his belt, slip it free of the loops of his trousers. He keeps his gloves on, and relishes the whisper-crack of leather on leather as he slides his belt over his palm, noting the perfect shine of the buckle. It’s a rudimentary tool, as these things go, but classic, and there’s a reason for that. There was a point in Armitage Hux’s young life where he found himself on the receiving end of such lashings. His father— well, who could say what his father had meant, in truth? Perhaps he meant to teach Hux obedience. He had taught him something else, instead.

Hux much prefers doling out punishment to taking it.

Torture is an art, one Hux studied and improved as he rose through the First Order’s ranks. Kylo Ren, for all his mysticism-fueled rages, is an amateur. Ren would use a bludgeon when what’s required is a scalpel. And so Hux does wonder, as he slides the belt over his palm, how Ren managed to bend Rey to him in so short a time. Oh, Ren loves the girl, true, but he’s an idiot with no idea how to handle that. Hux has no doubt that Rey’s first few days aboard the Conquest II were thoroughly unpleasant. Even so, Ren had somehow managed to coax loyalty out of her.

Or perhaps she believes she loves him back.

Revolting.

But what is bent may yet be unbent, and bent again. Rey will learn. He’ll break her, first, until she’s past the point of crying or begging, until she’s been molded to fit him. Then she’ll praise him, respect his proper title, thank him for freeing her of delusions, as she should. Yes, the day will come when Hux takes everything from Kylo Ren, and Rey is no exception.

The girl in the other room will play that role, and she will do for now. After all, this night serves a dual purpose: preparation and satisfaction. He would like to think he will only need one or two such sessions before these fantasies abate.

But he knows that’s not quite true, either.

[saferincages]

(you might say we are encouraged to love)

I received an ask requesting I make this response its own post in full (which of course I don’t mind doing!) so here it is:

An anon in the original post asked why, “Anakin/Vader is seen as interesting for women,” and that could be a bit of a loaded question, but I think there’s a definite rationale behind it. The way it was phrased made me think of a post I saw which addressed the fundamental split between Anakin and Vader as seen by certain audiences, why Anakin is treated by many derisively because there’s an element of the “heroine’s journey” that happens in relation to his arc and the struggles he goes through. It’s here and it’s really interesting in its entirety. “The constant barrage of degradation and trauma and unfairness of a system that benefits at your expense and refuses to validate you for it. And some of that he might have been able to reconcile by “growing up,” the same way a lot of us learn to come to terms with social fuckery, but Anakin doesn’t get the space to do that. He gets a giant bundle of unaddressed trauma and psychological issues and handed a kind of ambiguous destiny about needing to save the entire universe.” <- Imagine the burden of that, and they put it on a child and then give him zero structure to cope with it.

I’m also going to add this comment from that post because I think it’s worthwhile to note: if someone makes you angry and you show anger with your very own face you are weak, you have lost face, you have shown yourself vain and driven by a selfish, animal, irrational, feminine urge to defend yourself; but if you show anger without a face, if you show it unpersonally (the less it’s connected to direct accusation or a specific ill), especially in order to execute a role, then you suddenly appear to be the one in the position of strength, because you can no longer be directly accused of selfishness. The more you can cloak anger in the guise of necessity, the more you meet the societal expectation to be dispassionate, rational, always controlled - the more justification and legitimacy and power to you, even though this mode of anger is often more destructive than the first. This dynamic, assuming it exists as I’ve hypothesized it, is why I think Anakin codes as feminine to many, while Vader appeals to a certain masculine ideal.

Basically, the gist of it is that the emotional turmoil, the trauma, the way he’s exploited for his talents or what he can provide others, the way his agency is stripped repeatedly from him again and again tends to not be the way “male” hero journeys are told. It’s feminine coding (unfortunately) for those themes to be explored. For those emotions to be plumbed and portrayed with a substantive sense of sorrow and helplessness in the central male hero - it is not the “macho” standard. Why they thought they’d get a macho, unyielding masculine power trip from Anakin Skywalker remains a mystery to me, this is the same series where its original hero, Luke (who is his son! of course there were going to be essential parallels and contrasts between them), purposefully throws his weapon away and refuses to fight, and is characterized by his capacity for intrinsic compassion rather than any outer physical strength (even Han is much less of a “macho” guy than dudebros tend to make him out to be - not only because he’s unmistakably the person in distress who has to be rescued from capture in ROTJ, he has a lot of interesting facets that break down that ‘scoundrel’ stereotype, but I digress other than to say I love the OT, and the subtle distinctions in Luke, Leia, and Han that make them break the molds of expectation). SW fundamentally rejected toxic masculinity and the suppression of emotions from its inception, Luke’s loving triumph and role as redeemer only happens because he refuses to listen when he’s told to give up on his friends or on his belief that there’s good in his father, his softness is his ultimate strength. Anakin was never going to be some epitome of tough masculinity, and George Lucas knew exactly what he was doing crafting him in that way. The audiences who wanted Bad Seed Anakin from the beginning didn’t know how to reconcile this sensitive, kind-hearted, exceedingly bright kid, with their spawn of the Dark Side notions, and I think, unfortunately, far too many then either rejected him completely or refused to understand what the central points in his characterization are about.

The fact that this narratively would have made no sense (if Anakin had been “born bad,” then there would have been no miraculously surviving glimpse of light for Luke to save - I’ve said this before, but imagine how profoundly essential to his true self that goodness had to be for it to even exist any more at that point, after all he’d suffered, after all he’d done. the OT tells us more than once what a good man Anakin Skywalker was, it’s part of what makes the father reveal as powerful as it is - if we hadn’t heard the fragments of stories about Luke’s father, it wouldn’t be nearly as shocking, but we KNOW he was a hero, an admirable man, a good friend). I can’t fathom how tricky telling the prequels had to have been to that extent - the audience knows what will happen in the end, it’s a foregone conclusion, we know he will fall, we know Vader will be created, we know the Empire will rise (though that would have happened even if Anakin had remained in the light, which is a whole other discussion). So the question became, who is this person? What influenced him? What shaped his destiny? And that ended up being a far more complex and morally fraught and stirringly emotional story than just “badass Jedi becomes badass Sith lord.”

That talented, highly intelligent boy is taken in by the Jedi after he has already developed independent thought and very intricate emotional dimension - the argument that he’s “too old” to be trained is because he’s not malleable enough to be indoctrinated the way Jedi usually treat the children they take. They may blame this on his attachment to Shmi, but she’s not the problem (if anything, had they not been so unfeeling and rigid, and had they freed her and allowed her to at least stay in contact with her son while he was training because it was a special case - they’re the ones who stick that “Chosen One” mantle on him, you’re telling me they couldn’t make an exception? but no, because they put that weight on him and then never help him carry it and constantly undermine it and question and mistrust him - Anakin would have been stronger in his training, and he would never have fallen to the Dark Side at all. There are so many moments, over and over, where his fall could have been averted, and everyone fails him to the bitter end, when he fails himself). 

And so he is traumatized, due to years of abuse and difficulties as a slave, due to having to leave his mother behind because the Jedi would not free her, due to being told to repress his emotions over and over again when he is, at his core, an intuitive and perceptively empathetic person (he wants to uphold that central tenet of his training - “compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi’s life”), yet he’s made to feel he is broken/wrong/constantly insufficient. He’s wounded by abandonment issues and lack of validation and the human connection/affection he craved, and he develops an (understandable) angry streak, he’s socially awkward due to the specific constraints/isolation of a Jedi’s life and due to the fact that they tried to stamp out what made him uniquely himself, which makes him continually conflicted with a never-ending pulse of anxiety (see absolutely ANY moment where he breaks down emotionally, and you’ll see him say something to the effect of “I’m a Jedi, I know I’m better than than this,” “I’m a Jedi, I’m not supposed to want [whatever very basic human thing he wants, because they make him feel like he can’t even ask for or accept scraps of decency]” - they fracture his sense of his own humanity, Padme tries to validate those feelings but that Code is a constant stumbling block in his mind). He is troubled by fear and the constant press of grief (I would argue he has PTSD at the very least), and all around he’s met by mistrust and sabotage. 

Male heroes shouldn’t be treated as infallible in their own narratives (none of them are that, as no character of whatever gender/origin is, as none of us are), but at the very least we usually see them treated with respect by others. Anakin often gets no such luxury. He’s treated the way we frequently see women treated, and that treatment comes from the same rotten core - the idea that emotions are weak, that expressing them makes you lesser, that crying is a sign of deficiency, that fragility of any kind cannot be tolerated. Anakin is even the hopeless romantic in this situation - Padme, while gracious and warmhearted, is much more pragmatic and tries to reason her way out of her blossoming love for him until she’s of the belief that it doesn’t matter anyway because they’re about to die, and she wants him to know the truth before they do. (I’d also like to note that the closest people to him all speak their love aloud when they’re at the point of death - Shmi when he finds her bound and tortured with the Tuskens, Padme in the Arena, Obi-Wan watching him burn on Mustafar, and how unbearably sad is that? even though his mother had said it before, even though he got to hear it many times again from Padme - and it’s her last entreaty to him - we shouldn’t be pushed to the brink of death to express it). Anakin is the one gazing at her dreamily and tearing up about it and professing earnest, dramatic love in front of the fireplace (idc what anyone says about the dialogue, the way he expresses himself is entirely sincere, it’s the rawness of that sincerity that I think makes people uncomfortable bc it’s unexpected), she’s the one who talks about living in reality. She, too, has been taught to guard and temper her emotions from her time as a child queen and the years she’s spent navigating the murky political waters of the Senate, but she’s become adept at it, unlike Anakin. If anything, they’re the only person the other has with whom they can be truly genuine and unafraid of exposing the recesses of their hearts, they’re the only safe place the other has, it’s no wonder they give themselves over to that, and the fact that they do is beautiful, it’s not wrong (which I have more cohesive thoughts on here and it was the underlying thesis of my heart poured into the super long playlist for them too /linking all the things). They see the joy and spirit in the other that no one else ever sees, and they make a home there.

Anakin becomes an esteemed general not only because he’s awesome in battle and strong in the Force and a gifted pilot and a skilled leader (all of which are true), but because he shows those around him respect, and great care. So, yet again, there’s a subversion of what might have been expected. No one is expendable to him. He views the Clone troops as individual human beings. He mourns their losses (many of the Jedi, with their no attachments rhetoric, allow the Clones to be used without much hesitation or thought for their status as sentient beings born and bred and programmed to die in war, but Anakin was a slave. He comprehends their status more than anyone else could). Anakin is a celebrated hero to the public, and in private is being chewed up by fear and uncertainty. Anakin is devoted to and completely in love with his wife, but has to keep it a secret. Anakin still craves freedom that even being a Jedi has not afforded him, because of their rigor. Anakin still desperately has to scrape for even the bare minimum of approval from the authority figures around him - even his closest mentor and friend, Obi-Wan, while they are irrevocably bonded and care for each other in a myriad of important ways, often doesn’t understand him and dismisses his feelings, refuses to advocate for/stand up for him when he needs it, or tells him to calm down. I’m surprised they never tell him he’s being hysterical when he gets upset, but the connotation of being told to “calm down” when angry or sorrowful or frustrated is something most women can identify with all too well. His desperate desire to protect Padme as everything begins to curl and smoke and turn to ash around him has a very clear nurturing aspect to it underneath the layers of terror and frustration and building paranoia - all he really wants is to be able to protect and care for his family, all he hopes is to save them and have a life with them away from all the war and the political in-fighting and the stifling Order. He’d quit right that second but he needs help due to his nightmares, and no one is willing to give it to him. (Except, ostensibly, Palpatine, who has been grooming him and deftly manipulating him and warping his perceptions since he was a child, all under the guise of magnanimous, almost paternal, care. Palpatine is brilliant in his machinations, perfectly cunning in his evil. He knows exactly how to slip in and break people, and he plays Anakin to the furthest extreme. I’m not saying Anakin doesn’t have choices, he does, and he makes the worst possible ones, but Palpatine pulls the strings in a way that makes him feel that he has no agency - and in truth, he does have very little agency throughout every step of his arc, marrying Padme and loving her in spite of the rules is one of the only independent choices he ever makes that isn’t an order, a demand, a fulfilling of duty - and Palpatine poises himself as the answer to all the problems, if Anakin does as he’s told. He’s been hard-wired to take orders for too long. He is so damaged by this point, and so distrusting - Hayden said something once about how Anakin is still very naive in ROTS, even after what he’s been through in the war, he’s still so young and unknowing about many things, and then his naivete is shattered by complete and utter disillusionment, and that shock is terrible and incomprehensible for him, so he clings to the one source of power he’s given, and it’s catastrophic). He is haunted by grief and impeded by fear of loss, and it drags him into an abyss. We watch all of this happen with bated breath, we see everyone fail him, we see every moment where he could have been helped, we see every path he could take if only he had the ability to stand up for himself and had been given the tools to cope with his psychological and emotional baggage, we see that he very nearly turns back, up until the death knell at the end. We know it’s coming from the moment they land on Tatooine and meet him and decide to make him a Jedi. We know, and we still hope for it to turn out differently. We know, and it still breaks our hearts.

I don’t want to make blanket statements about typical male viewers vs. typical female viewers, that’s too dismissive of a stance to take, but on a seemingly wider scale, I don’t think many of the former (especially the ones who were either older fans or who were teenagers themselves at the time) were as interested in political nuance and a tale of abiding love and a young man burdened with more than should ever have been put on his shoulders. Since the question was basically “why does he appeal to women,” (and not just cishet women) I imagine that the answer to that varies greatly depending on any one perceptive outlook, but has a similar core in each case of us wishing we could help change the outcome, even though we know we can’t, and of wanting to understand his actions and his pain, wanting to see his positive choices and his goodness validated, wanting to see him learn healthy strategies, wanting to see his love flourish, wanting to see him freed from the shackles he drags with him, from childhood to Jedi to Vader. The crush of the standards of society and expectation on him may speak to many. He is never liberated (until his final moments of free breath). His choices are either taken or horrifically tainted. His voice is drowned out by those more powerful around him. His talents and intelligence go largely unrecognized. His good, expansive heart is treated like a hindrance. The depth of his empathy and love is underestimated - and that, in the end, is important, because that underestimation, ending with Palpatine, becomes the Dark Side’s ultimate downfall and undoing. Vader may literally pick up an electric Palpatine and throw him down a reactor shaft, but that physical action is the final answer to a much more complete emotional and spiritual journey. He throws him down and the chains go with the slave master, and for the first time, certainly since before he lost Padme, his heart is unfettered, his love is reciprocated, and he is offered a true voice, a moment of his true self, a sliver of forgiveness, before being embraced again by the transcendence of the light. It is his act of rebellion, it is his own personal revolution, his final blow in the war. The entirety of the arc hinges upon him in that moment, Luke has been valorous and immeasurably valuable, but he’s done all he can do - the final choice is Anakin’s (and it’s such an interesting case because where else have we ever been able to fear and appreciate a villain, and then totally transform and re-contextualize him?). He is in that moment, indeed, the Chosen One.

All these facets are fascinating to watch unfold if you’re willing to be open-minded and heartfelt and sympathetic to the journey, if you’re willing to dig into the complex depth of his pathos.

I remember seeing AOTC as a teenager, and my love was Padme, she was where I was invested, I identified with her, I loved her kindness and her bravery and her sense of honor and justice, I loved that her femininity did not in any way diminish her and was an asset, I loved that, while she takes charge and has the fortitude to rush headlong to the rescue, while she can fight and tote a gun and blast a droid army as well as anyone, her superpowers are her intellect and her giving heart and gentle spirit. I totally get why Anakin holds onto the thread of hope she gives to him for all of those years, and why he falls in love with her as he does, but since I felt a lot of the story through her eyes, I understood why she was drawn to and fell in love with him, too. He’s dynamic and a bit reckless, he’s courageous, but he’s vulnerable and needs support, he’s deeply troubled but also radiantly ebullient at times (the scene in the meadow where she’s so touched by the carefree joy he exhibits, how it delights her and takes her aback, because she’s almost forgotten what it is to feel that, she’s almost forgotten other people could, and here he is, warm and teasing and spirited), he is often guileless, especially with her, he’s fervent and loving in a way she’s never seen or experienced, and that love is given with abandon to her. Who…wouldn’t fall in love with that? It’s a gravitational pull. AOTC impacted me in certain other personal ways as well, I was trying to understand some nascent hollows of grief (Anakin losing his mother as he does was very affecting and heartwrenching for me, at the time I’d lost my grandfather to whom I was quite close, and I’m also really close to my own mom, so his woe had an echo to me), but that vision that I specifically had of their love, the way I interpreted it (which I may not have had words for at the time, but I certainly had the emotional response) was a dear and formative thing.

I talked about this here, but to rephrase/reiterate, by the time ROTS came out, my life had shifted completely on its axis. I was still young, but my much dreamier teenage self was being beaten down and consumed by illness, and I was angry. Anger is not a natural emotion for me (guilt and self-blame tend to be where I bury anger), and I really didn’t know what to do with it. Everything felt unfair and uncertain, like there was no ground at all to stand on. I hurt all the time, literally and figuratively, I was in constant pain. I was lonely and frightened and sleep deprived and often had nightmares (this is still kind of true lol, as is the physical pain part). Padme was still my heart and touchstone - as she remains so to this day in this story - but suddenly I understood Anakin in a much more profound way, one I’ve held onto because he’s important to me and I love him. I felt his rage, his anguish, his desire to do something, anything, to somehow change or influence the situation, to rectify his nightmares, to cling to whatever might make a difference, might save him from being drowned in the dark and from losing everything that made him who he was as a person. Seeing him try and knowing he would fail was devastating, but also…relatable, in an abstract way (obviously not the violent parts, but thematically, I felt some measure of what it was to scramble up a foundation that is disappearing beneath you, that your expectations and dreams of what your life would be can vanish in disintegrating increments). All I wanted was for someone to help rescue him, because all I wanted was for someone to help rescue me. All I wanted was the hope that things could turn around - and there is hope in ROTS, despite the unending terror and tragedy, it’s never entirely gone, because Star Wars exists as a universe with the blazing stars of hope and love ever ignited at its center - but still, it was a very personally rooted emotional exploration for me, and I only started to deal with my own floundering anger when I saw how it might consume the true and loving and softer parts of me if I didn’t hold it back. (A few years later, I went through this again in an even worse way, and the source of that rage and despair was someone I cared for, and once I got through the worst bleak ugliness of it, there were a couple of stories I returned to in an attempt to gain newfound solace and comprehension, and Anakin and Padme were in there. My compassionate, hopeful heart was being torn by that fury, and I clawed my way back up from the brink of it because I knew I could die, not even necessarily figuratively, it was…a bad time, if I didn’t find my way out. Anakin’s story is a tragedy and a fable and a kind of warning - we should not deny or suppress our emotions or our authenticity, but we also cannot let it destroy us - and then ultimately his lesson is restorative, too, that we never lose the essential part of our souls, that we must allow ourselves to feel. Balance indeed). 

As consistent and transparent as my love for Padme has always been, my Anakin emotions are actually so close and personal that I intentionally avoided ever exposing them for actual years, it’s like…basically in the past month that I’ve ever been truly honest about it on Tumblr, because exposing that felt like too much, but I don’t really care about keeping it quiet any more, and that’s very cathartic. 

I myself am an incredibly emotional person, and I don’t believe that Anakin’s emotions are negative qualities, which I meant to underscore. In fact, his open emotions are an exquisite part of him, and it’s the Jedi who are wrong for trying to stamp that out, when his emotional abilities are part of what define him in his inherent goodness and his intellect and strength. He has an undying heart. For he and Luke both to stand as male heroes who represent such depth of feeling is really special, and vital to the story. Anakin is the most acutely human character in many respects, in his foibles and his inner strengths, in his losses and his longings and his ultimate return to his true self - that’s why we feel for him, that’s why we ache and fear for him, that’s why we rejoice for him in the end.

Other people could speak to the Vader part of it much better than I can, Vader’s an amazing and very interesting villain (the fact that, as Vader, Anakin is much more adhered to the Jedi code and way of thinking than he ever was as an actual Jedi, for example - he has an order to him, he is much more dispassionate, he is very adamant about the power of the Force - is endlessly intriguing, because he’s such a contradiction). I use this term for a different character, but I’m going to apply it here - Anakin is a poem of opposites. He is a center that can serve as either sun or black hole. He is a manifestation of love and light and heroism, he is a figure of imposing power and cold rage. He’s the meadow and the volcano. The question then becomes, how expansive are we? When we’re filled with the contradicting aspects of ourselves, how do we make them whole without falling apart? When we do fail, can we ever do anything to fix it? And the answers again will vary by individual, but to my mind - we’re infinite, and thus infinitely capable of, at any point, embracing our light, even if we’ve forgotten to have faith in it, and while we may not be able to fix every mistake or right every wrong, we can make a better choice and alter the path. The smallest of our actions can ripple and extend and are more incandescent than we know. That’s what he does, against all expectation. In the end, he is an archetype not only of a hero (be that fallen or chosen or divine), but of a wayward traveler come home, a heart rekindled, a soul set free to emerge victorious in the transcendent light.

In the final resonance of that story for me personally, I love him for being a representation of that journey, that no matter how long it takes to get there, how arduous it is - that things we lose can be found again, that with the decided act of compassion, pure, redemptive love can be held onto, that the light persists and that, even when it flickers most dimly, refuses to be extinguished, and can at any point illuminate not only ourselves, but can shine brightly enough to match the stars in the universe.

I hope this is at all cogent, here’s a gif for your patience ♥