#and it needs to be discussed more i think

[multific]

Quiet Comfort

Emperor Geta x Reader

Summary: After a long day, your husband returns to your arms. 

You watched the shadows dance on the walls of your chambers, the fire crackling softly as you got more and more sleepy. 

The room filled with the faint aroma of jasmine from the garden beyond your window. 

You had spent the evening waiting, knowing it would be late when Geta finally returned. 

But you were determined to wait for your husband.

He had spent the entire day in council, discussing matters of the empire with senators and advisors, it was a rather exhausting affair that always left him drained. Given how his brother's illness didn't allow him to even properly think at times. Which meant all of the pressure and responsibility shifted.

All eyes were on Geta.

At last, the heavy door creaked open, and Geta stepped inside. 

His golden dress gleamed in the firelight, and his expression was one of weariness. 

Yet when his eyes found yours, a flicker of relief softened his features along with a smile.

“Long day?” you asked gently, rising from your seat. You already knew the answer.

He gave a tired nod and closed the door behind him. 

“Too long,” he murmured, his voice low and rough.

You crossed the room to meet him, placing a hand on his arm. “Come, sit by the fire. You need to rest.” you spent the day attending to your duties as Empress. But now, you had to be a wife.

For a moment, he didn’t move his mind was filled he feared it might spill. Then, he allowed you to lead him to the cushioned bench by the hearth. He sat down heavily, the weight of the day still evident in his posture.

“Did the council reach a decision?” you asked, pouring him a cup of wine.

He accepted the cup with a sigh and took a long sip. 

“Barely. They argue over everything, even matters as simple as grain distribution. Sometimes, I wonder if they enjoy the sound of their own voices more than finding solutions.”

"And your brother?" you asked rather fearfully.

But as Geta looked at you, his eyes said it all. 

"Not a good day for him, unfortunately. But the senators drained me too much, I wanted to kill all of them."

You smiled softly, taking a seat beside him. 

“You always manage to keep your composure, though. That’s what makes you a good leader.”

He took another sip of the wine before setting the cup down. 

“Only because I have you to return to,” he said quietly. “You… ground me. Remind me of what truly matters.”

Your heart skipped a beat at his words, and you reached out to brush a strand of hair from his face. 

“And you remind me of the strength it takes to lead. I may not sit on council, but I see how much you care for your people.”

A faint smile tugged at his lips, and he leaned into your touch. 

“I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Luckily, you don’t have to find out,” you teased him with a smile.

Geta chuckled softly with a nod. 

He shifted, laying down on the bench and resting his head on your lap. You ran your fingers through his hair, feeling the tension slowly leave his body. For a while, neither of you spoke, happy to simply be in each other’s presence.

As the fire crackled and the night continued, Geta closed his eyes, his breathing growing slow and steady as he fell asleep. 

You leaned down, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“Rest now, My Love,” you whispered. “Tomorrow will be easier.”

And in that quiet moment, with the empire’s burdens left outside the door, all that was left was the love you shared.

And it was more than enough.

~Masterlist~

ˇAO3ˇ

Wattpad

/DO NOT TRANSLATE, STEAL OR REPOST ANY OF MY WORKS TO THIS OR OTHER PLATFORMS/

[djotime-allthetime]

Freaky Flashbacks

synopsis: you recall the gradual shift in your relationship with fred when prompted by questions at a panel promoting the movie.

wc: 13k+ (...)

warnings: rpf! reader is specified to be inexperienced! major plot point actually!

a/n: loads of backstory! and banter! and pedro and paul! and kissing!

i hope the format is as intuitive as i think it is, but just in case it isn't, italics means the start of a flashback and bold is the return to present day. feedback is writer's fuel!

cross posted on AO3

<<previous part

The energy in the green room was calm, easy. You sat perched on the arm of the couch next to Fred, laughing as Pedro recounted a story from a previous panel he’d spoken at. Fred’s forearm draped over your thigh, his thumb absentmindedly tracing small circles on your knee, as if he’d done it a hundred times before.

The casual physical affection felt normal now, expected even. No one batted an eye. Not Pedro, not Paul, not anyone in the room.

Ever since filming began, your relationship with Fred had only grown in comfort and familiarity. The closeness of your characters on screen slowly but surely translated to your friendship in real life. And then something more…

Late nights of practicing scenes together turned into deep talks and sharing secrets in the warm light of his trailer. Only a few months into filming, the two of you were attached at the hip. Inseparable. It became a running joke. If anyone asked where either of you was, the answer was always with the other. 

-

“Where’s Fred?” An assistant called out onto the crowded set one day. “He’s needed in hair and makeup!” 

“Where’s y/n meant to be right now?” Paul asked, barely looking up from the script in his lap. The young girl looked down at the clipboard in her hands, combing through the schedules and call sheets. Costume department, she concluded after a few moments of frantic shuffling. “Well, there’s your answer then.”

Pedro had laughed for days recounting the story, shaking his head at how predictable you and Fred had become.

-

“Are you excited?” Fred’s voice softened, meant only for you now despite the buzzing room. You lit up with a smile and a nod. You were incredibly excited. You had never been a guest at a panel before. “Nervous?”

“Not really,” you shook your head and shrugged. “Just more surprised, I think?” You mused aloud with a tilt of your head. In all honesty, you weren’t sure why you were invited to the panel at this convention today. 

You knew that your role wasn’t as impactful as people told you it was, they were just trying to be nice. You had less than ten lines in the whole film. Being invited to a panel discussing the complexities of the plot and the acting behind it was an honor! But a confusing one.

You had a sneaking suspicion that, somehow, Fred was behind it.

“Surprised?” Fred asked, his eyebrows rising and dipping in quick succession in that way that they do. “Why?”

“Just that—” You glanced around, as if gathering evidence. “Everyone here was pretty high up on that call list.” Fred’s brows furrowed even further this time and you knew what was coming.

“Don’t do that to yourself, y/n,” he almost whined. “You were a driving force—”

“I’m not tryna minimize my work, Fred.” You chuckled lightheartedly, cutting him off before he went on a tangent. He was always quick to pop any bubbles of self-doubt that formed in your brain, but this really wasn’t the case. “I know I worked hard on this movie. We both did.” You held his hand in yours. “But… Alexander wasn’t invited.” You pointed out with raised brows. Alexander had played Ravi in the movie, the healer in the Colosseum. “I’m pretty sure he had more lines than I did.”

“But you definitely had more screen time,” came Fred’s quick rebuttal. “Actually, that’s why I told them you should come—”

“I knew it!” You exclaimed in a whisper, making sure your conversation didn’t attract any attention. You were enjoying the private moment in the crowded room and there was no need for it to end so quickly. “I knew you did this!”

Fred’s grin tilted, eyes glinting with quiet defiance. “What? Am I supposed to feel bad for wanting people to notice how good you are?” He laughed. “You had almost as much screen time as anyone here, but nowhere near enough lines. So I told them that your insight into your character and the plot was just as interesting, if not more.”

“Does this count as nepotism?”

“Shut up!” Fred giggled, lightly punching your shoulder. “I just feel like— If I can help you get the recognition you deserve, why wouldn’t I?”

“Alright, thank you all for arriving on time.” A producer spoke up, seemingly appearing out of nowhere and putting an end to your conversation. You turned away from Fred to face her as she spoke, a smile still lingering on your face. 

“We’re gonna start calling you guys out now, one by one. It’s gonna be in the order your names are set up on the table, so you just come out and sit in the chair farthest from your entry. Does that make sense?” She asked, receiving a few nods. “Is everyone ready?” Another round of nods and yeses left the group, yours along with them.

“Don’t overthink it,” Fred whispered to you with a squeeze of your knee. “Just enjoy the moment.”

At that, you could hear the producer hype up the crowd for the cast’s arrival.

“That’s our cue.” Pedro got up from the couch with a clap of his hands. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Fred replied, standing up along with Pedro. “How about you, old man?”

“Creaky at the knees, but it’s alright.” Pedro teased, giving Fred a playful punch on the shoulder. That’s when you heard Pedro’s name called out into the microphone followed by the crowd’s roar in applause and cheers. “Later, losers!”

One by one the cast was called out, Fred’s name being the last one before yours. You breathed out a sigh of relief, grateful to be sitting next to him.

“y/n l/n!” Your name blasted through the speaker, signaling your cue to head out onto the stage. You walked out with a smile and a wave, the crowd cheering at your arrival. You sat down at the long table facing the audience, right there next to Fred. 

Your name was printed on a place card in front of you, spelled right and everything. With every passing day of working on this project, you felt more and more that you had finally found your place in the world.

The producer’s voice blurred into the background, distant and dull. Your focus drifted to the sea of faces ahead—posters with your name in big bright letters, shirts with your face printed on them. Some people were even dressed as your character from the movie. It was surreal.

The warmth of Fred’s hand on your knee tethered you back to the present. His steady gaze met yours, silently reminding you to breathe. He knew how overwhelming it could all be. And he knew what you were thinking, he could see it too. He was so proud of you. 

Fred squeezed your knee twice, a small act to show you that he saw you. To show you that he was there for you. And maybe, cockily, he was saying ‘I told you so’. That your presence was wanted here, not just by him. 

“We’ll get started with questions from the audience then.” The producer announced, motioning for a member of the crew to turn on the spotlight facing the crowd. When the light turned on, it illuminated a microphone on its stand in the middle aisle between all the chairs, and, with it, an incredibly long line of fans. Each with a vetted question, the producer assured.

Most questions were for Paul, though that wasn’t surprising. Many for Pedro and Denzel, as well. 

You listened and laughed along, enjoying the easy going nature of the conversation. A lot of the questions were based on the acting, which was a topic well loved by actors of course. But some, as expected, were about the on-set dynamics.

“What was your first impression of your castmates?” A teenage girl asked Paul.

This launched a chaotic answer, with multiple people joining in at once, talking over the other and laughing loudly. 

“We all know that I was absolutely terrified of Denzel at the beginning.” Paul laughed, patting Denzel, who was sitting next to him, on the back.

“So was I!” Joseph cracked up. “But I thought Fred was such a sweetheart.”

“Oh, yeah.” You nodded with him. “Fred was incredibly kind to me on my first day on set.”

“Kind?” Pedro questioned, eyebrows upturned in surprise. “Little asshole is what he was.”

“He saves the sweet stuff for her,” Paul chuckled.

“Yeah, well Pedro was an old man calling me short and she was a pretty girl who was lost.” Fred defended himself with his arms crossed, tone clearly kidding. The crowd’s laughter rose at the banter, even if it was obviously turned up for the panel. “Who would you help, huh?” 

-

It was your first day on set and your very skin was buzzing with how excited you were. Your schedule said that you should start your day in the hair and make up department, and you heard someone say that it was next to the crafts center. But you couldn’t find either of them for the life of you. And you should’ve been worried about being late for your very first appointment on the set, but you were just too enthralled with it all.

The set was beautiful! Malta, as a whole, was absolutely gorgeous, but the set was something else. It truly felt like you were transported back in time— if you ignored the cameras, speakers, and lights, of course. You had heard of Arthur Max’s work on other productions, and of course knew of his work on the first movie. But experiencing it first hand was almost an out of body experience. 

You knew that, when the time came, immersing yourself on the set would be a piece of cake. An actor’s dream really, that was what this type of set was.

“Uh, y/n?” Your name being called out from behind you caused you to spin around. “Oh, it is you.” The man’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Hi, I’m Fred.”

Fred Hechinger. You knew exactly who he was.

“I’m y/n.” You replied, stretching out a hand for him to shake. “But you already knew that.”

“Yeah, well from what I hear, we’re going to be exclusively working together.” Fred laughed as he shook your hand. “Had to do some research on my scene partner.”

“Glad I’m not the only one, then.” You chuckled.

When your manager told you of his secured position as Emperor Caracalla, you knew you wanted to look him up. Many other actors accepted the role before flaking for ‘scheduling issues’, so you were never sure who you were actually going to work with. But once Fred’s acceptance was confirmed, you went on a deep dive. You watched as many of his shows and movies as you could, his IMDb tab constantly open on your laptop.

“They were calling for you in hair and make up,” he said. “I offered to look for you and help you find the way.”

“How did you know I was lost?” You raised an eyebrow as you asked. You weren’t really lost, more so taking advantage of the lack of directions.

“Oh, I know you’re not lost.” Fred shook his head with furrowed brows as he folded his arms, faux seriousness painted his expression. Fred’s effortless confidence had an unexpected charm. It was magnetic. “But if I tell them it took me a while to find you, then we can admire the set for a bit longer.”

Your surprise melted into quiet laughter.

And just like that, you had made a friend.

-

Back on the panel stage, you leaned into the mic, smiling softly. “He gave me a tour.” You recalled. “And he vouched for me at hair and make up, because I was almost half an hour late.”

“On your first day?!” Paul questioned in astonishment, eyebrows raised to his hairline. “Ballsy move, y/n. I could never.” Paul tsked and shook his head at you in disappointment.

“Hey!” You called out in offence, throwing an arm up in Fred’s direction. “Blame Fred, he’s the bad influence here!”

“Entirely my fault.” Fred nodded with his hand raised. “I take full responsibility for corrupting the child.”

“Oh, shut up.” You rolled your eyes, but your smile betrayed you. “You’re like two minutes older than me.”

“Two minutes?! For your information,” Fred pointed at the crowd as he spoke now, “I am years older than her. Years!”

Another fan stepped up to the microphone, pulling you back to the task at hand. “Were there any funny on-set moments or inside jokes that made it into the movie? Or at least stayed with you afterwards?”

“Bless you.” Pedro whispered into the mic, causing a wave of giggles to pass through the rest of the line up.

“‘Bless you’ was a good one, I liked it.” Joseph smiled before bursting into laughter at a memory, sending Fred a look from across the table. "Tell them about the sword!"

Fred groans, but the memory sparks in your mind—the clang of metal and his ridiculous deadpan expression.

Connie lets out a loud laugh as she recalls the incident. “Fear me!” She clapped her hands together as she giggled. “Oh, it was hilarious!”

“Fear me,” echoes in your head, and suddenly you’re there again, barely holding back laughter on the set.

-

It was a late night, you were filming the scene where the emperors confront Acacius and Lucilla regarding their treachery. Ridley had instructed Joseph and Fred to make their reactions as dramatic as they saw fit, considering how fervid the scenario would make the twins.

You had been filming for hours at that point, the energy amongst you growing more chaotic with each take. Everything was funny to you now as the sleep deprivation finally hit.

During one of the takes, Fred jumped out of his seat on the throne and grabbed a prop sword from a nearby guard, as was written in the script. He was supposed to point it at Pedro and Connie, yelling about their punishments, as Joseph held him back. But, with each shake, you noticed how unstable the prop looked.

A loud clang echoed in the marble halls of the set. The sword had fallen right off of its handle.

No one said a word. Fred’s face scrunched up in confusion and anger. He stared at the broken hilt in his hand, then at Pedro. Without missing a beat, he raised it like a dagger. “Fear me.” He whispered menacingly, nose to nose with the older actor.

That’s it. Pedro snorted so loudly that the entire set erupted into laughter. You and Joseph were crying from laughing so hard. Denzel was chuckling into his hand, and Connie was leaning on Pedro to stay upright. 

“How dare you mock me?!” Fred shrieked, staying in character, even when it was clear the take was a lost cause, if only to keep making the rest of you laugh. “I am your emperor!”

“Alright, alright.” You hear Ridley’s voice call out, winding down from his own laughter. “One more time, then we’ll call it a night. Someone fix that sword, please!”

None of you ever let Fred live it down afterwards. 

Pedro would grab a toothpick from the crafts table and follow Fred around with it, a soft and dark ‘Fear me’ heard under his breath.

-

"Honestly, I thought Ridley would leave it in the movie." Fred shrugs, laughing it off. “If only someone didn’t break and ruin it all.” He sent a teasing look to Pedro out of the corner of his eyes.

You wipe a few tears from the corner of your eye as you catch your breath. “It wasn’t even that funny. We were just so tired.”

“It was like four in the morning, we were done.” Joseph explained to the crowd, still coming down from his giggles. 

“Anything would’ve been funny to us at the time.”

After the crowd’s volume slowly dwindled, another fan came up and asked about Denzel’s performance. Denzel spoke about how much he enjoyed the freedom Ridley allowed the actors in this movie. How exciting it all was. 

Afterwards, someone asked about how Joseph balanced working on multiple sets at a time. Pedro joked about Joseph being sought after and hard to find, always in a different part of the world. Joseph shot back at Pedro that they were always together anyways, considering how they both were working on ‘Fantastic Four’ together.

Another audience member asked Connie how it felt to come back to this movie after more than two decades. She talked at length about the differences and similarities the two sets had. How it was both nostalgic and new. 

Someone else stepped up to the mic and nervously waved to the cast after the laughter had died down. “My question is for Fred.” Fred perked up and smiled, nodding at her to continue. “How did you prepare for the emotionally vulnerable scenes you had as Caracalla while staying true to both his character and his sickness?”

“That’s a really good question.” Fred nodded, his arm coming up from your knee to rub at his shoulder. It was so incredibly endearing to you how he reacted to attention. “It was important, definitely. To make sure that you weren’t just seeing his sickness, but the true him under it all. And I think Caracalla, the man and not the sick emperor, really shined in those vulnerable moments.” His hands gesticulated wildly as he spoke and you were enamored the whole way through, not expecting them to motion to you next.  “But, at the end of the day, I think you just really have to trust your scene partner.” 

Fred looked at you with a shy but knowing smile, “It takes a lot of practice to be vulnerable in front of someone, even if it is just pretending. And y/n was always incredibly kind and supportive whenever I lacked that—that vulnerability—that powerlessness. It wasn’t that I lacked it, per se. It’s just a difficult thing to tap into. And she was always there to help me through it.”

Your eyes dropped downwards as you felt your chin dip towards your chest, your head tilting slightly to the side as a smile grew on your face. The crowd awed in response to both Fred’s words and your reaction.

Fred’s compliment sent your stomach twisting in knots. You glanced at him, his hand went back to its previous position, resting on your knee, steady and grounding. It reminded you of that quiet morning on set when everything between you shifted.

-

The set was calmer that morning than what you were used to. The haze of sleep still clung to the few crew members needed on set this early. They shuffled about quietly, setting up for the day's shoot. Fred sat on the edge of the prop bed, script in hand, shoulders slumped forward as he stared at the lines that refused to feel right. 

You were sitting on a couch a few feet away, observing him, script laying forgotten in your lap. His fingers absently tugged at his earlobe, a nervous habit you had come to recognize at this point in your friendship. He had been having difficulties with connecting with Caracalla’s childlike vulnerability. And it wasn’t because he didn’t know the lines—Fred knew them backwards and forwards. 

It was the emotion, the raw vulnerability of Caracalla crying like a child to Lovie about Geta, that he couldn’t quite reach.

You had been running lines all night, but he wasn’t performing it to his own incredibly high standards. So you had told him to get a good night’s rest and that you could practice some more in the morning before call time. You spent some time researching trust building exercises, because you were sure that Fred had it in him. He just had to trust you enough to let it rise to the surface.

After you watched him run through the scene a few more times with no progress, you got a look of determination in your eyes. “Alright!” You inhaled deeply and dropped your script onto the seat next to you. “How about we try something else?”

Fred’s head snapped up at your voice, the both of you having been silently in each other's company prior to your exclamation. “Like what?”

“Trust exercises!”

He blinked, unimpressed. "y/n, I really don't think—"

“Come on, it won’t hurt to try!” You insisted, knowing that he was worn down and everything felt useless. But you had faith in him. “For me?”

He rolled his eyes but a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Alright, fine.” You cheered quietly at his agreement. “What did you have in mind?”

You stood and moved to sit across from him, knees nearly brushing. "Eye contact. No talking, just hold my gaze. Nothing else."

“For how long?”

“As long as possible.”

He hesitated for a second but leaned in slightly, blue eyes locking onto yours. The silence stretched. At first, it was easy. The hours you'd spent together on set had built a quiet comfort between you. You were comfortable with each other now, as any pair of friends would be.

But slowly, the air around you shifted.

Had his eyes always been this blue? And so full of emotion? You wondered how you had never noticed these things about him before. The longer you looked, the more your chest tightened, like you were standing too close to the edge of a cliff. You swallowed hard.

Fred’s head tilted, his eyes scanning yours as if he were searching for something hidden beneath the surface. Then, without thinking, he lifted his hand and gently brushed his thumb along your cheek, swiping away an eyelash that had landed there. The touch was featherlight, but it sparked something within you. Something new.

You sucked in a breath, breaking the rhythm of your breathing and pulling Fred’s attention to your lips. 

He quickly pulled his hand away, clearing his throat. "Sorry. You had—uh—you had an eyelash."

You barely managed a nod, heat blooming beneath your skin. The air had changed so suddenly. It was sharp, tense, and neither of you knew how to break the spell.

More crew members were starting to file in, calling out names and times. The usual hustle and bustle on set was rising. Your name was called out from one side and Fred’s from another, instructions to go to wardrobe for you and hair and makeup for Fred.

“I—I should go.” Came Fred’s stuttered response as he slowly got up and backed away, his eyes now finding it difficult to stay on yours.

“Uh yeah, me too.” You nodded with pursed lips, just as awkward as he was.

That was different, you pondered as you walked away. You had never seen Fred in that light before. You had never reacted like that to his touch. This was entirely new territory for you. You liked Fred.

Oh no.

How predictable. Catching feelings for your on screen lover. You had to suppress the eye roll. This was something you had promised yourself you wouldn’t do once you got into the film industry.

But how could you resist? Fred was so kind and caring, so helpful and affectionate. His smile never failed to bring a similar one to your face. Now that you thought of it, you were a bit surprised it had taken you this long to notice. 

You had a crush on Fred.

And you were almost positive he didn’t see you in that way. 

This was horrible, you thought as you reached the wardrobe department. You were regretting everything. Not only was Fred no longer just a friend in your eyes, you were sure that you had ruined any chances of him getting this scene right after this. You groaned quietly to yourself as you changed into your costume in the dressing room. What a way to start the day.

But later, as the cameras rolled, Fred laid in your lap, perfectly in character. Something was different about him. He seemed more… open. More calm. When you softly carded your fingers through his hair to comfort Caracalla, Fred’s hand drifted to your cheek, his thumb brushing your skin without thinking. Almost in the same way he had that morning.

It wasn’t scripted. But you stayed in the scene, unflinching. You wiped away his tears as he moaned about his wretched brother and the empire he was forced to bear the weight of. He was delivering the scene perfectly. Almost like nothing unsavory had transpired between the two of you less than an hour ago.

Ridley, watching from behind the monitors, leaned forward. Eyes glued to the screen. Once the scene had played its course, he called it. "Cut!” His voice boomed through the speakers.

Fred carefully got up from your lap, though not straying far.

An assistant quickly came over with a walkie-talkie. Ridley’s voice broke through the static, fragmented but understandable. “Fred, that wasn't in the script."

Fred sat up quickly, already apologizing. "Sorry, it just—"

"I liked it. Let's run it again. Same way."

Your eyes flicked to Fred, wide in surprise. He liked it. Ridley liked it. Fred shared his own surprised smile with you.

He finally got it. That obstacle was overcome. And Ridley noticed. It was exciting to have your work appreciated in that way. And he had you to thank, even if you thought otherwise.

And, in the process, something had shifted between you.

-

Then someone asked Paul who his closest friends were on set, pulling you back to the present moment. 

“You want me to make enemies of my colleagues now, do you?” Paul chuckled nervously, garnering a laugh from the crowd. “No, in all seriousness, I made many great friendships on this set. Pedro, of course Denzel, Connie, all great mentors that I can call friends now, I think. But who I spent the most time with on set? That would probably be Fred. Fred and y/n, yeah. They’re a package deal, as well. So yeah, it was always us three.”

His answer takes you back to a pivotal moment you had with Paul on set. You knew from then that he had your back, in every situation. Even in matters where he had no stake, you knew you could trust him. 

-

The afternoon sun hung low in the sky over the ancient stone set, casting long shadows across the Colosseum replica. The usual hum of activity filled the air. You were sitting on Caracalla’s throne overlooking the arena, legs dangling off the edge as you scrolled absentmindedly through your phone.

Paul plopped down beside you with all the grace of a sack of potatoes.

“Easy!” You laughed. “What did the chair ever do to you?”

Paul leaned over slightly to peek at your screen, completely disregarding what you had said to him. “Who are you texting?”

“No one.” You locked your phone quickly.

Paul’s smirk deepened. “So it is someone.”

“No, Paul.” You shot him a look.

He tilted his head and grinned. “Oh, so it’s Fred.”

Your stomach flipped. “Paul!” you hissed, glancing around to make sure no one heard.

“Oh, come on!” Paul leaned back, arms stretched behind him. “When are you not texting Fred?”

You groaned as your palms covered your eyes in embarrassment. “It’s not—” you mumbled before smothering your face in your hands.

“Not what?” Paul teased, nudging your knee with his.

“It’s not a big deal.” You exhaled, peeking at him between your fingers. “We’re just friends. Don’t make it weird.”

Paul gave you a flat look.

“Friends?”

“Yes!”

He let out a disbelieving laugh. “Okay.” He shrugged, raising his hands in surrender. “Okay, whatever you say.”

“Thank you.” You breathed out in relief, glad he was letting it go.

After a short moment of silence, he spoke back up. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” He motioned to the air between the two of you with his pointer finger. 

“Paul—” You groaned, knowing exactly where he was going with this. 

“And I’d like to think that Fred and I are friends as well.” He leaned towards your side in his seat now, coming face to face with you. “I don’t take long walks with him on the lot, hand in hand. He’s not giving me his jacket when I’m cold. He didn’t let me braid his hair in the hair and makeup trailer.”

You glared at him. “That last one was one time.”

“Not the point.” Paul leaned closer. “He’s different with you.”

You bit your lip, looking away. “I don’t know… Fred’s—he’s sweet. He’s friendly. That’s just who he is!”

Paul raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, but he’s not that sweet or friendly with anyone else.”

You stayed quiet, fingers picking at a loose thread on the hem of your costume.

Paul’s tone softened. “Don’t sell yourself short, y/n.”

Your eyes flicked to his, hesitant but curious.

“You’re smart, talented, and funny. And let’s not pretend the Roman attire doesn’t suit you perfectly.” He gave you a playful nudge.

You laughed despite yourself. “Shut up.”

“I’m serious.” Paul’s grin changed into something more sincere. “Fred should consider himself lucky that you like him.”

Your cheeks burned.

“I just don’t want to—” You mumbled and trailed off. “Ugh, I don’t know. I don't want to make things weird between us.”

“You two are too stubborn for your own good. Someone’s gotta give.” Paul mumbled before raising his eyebrows at you. “You can’t yearn forever.” 

“Can’t I?”

His gaze softened as he took in your expression. “You really don’t see how he looks at you, do you?”

“What?” Your brows furrowed and you shot up in your seat. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Paul laughed in shock, pulling back and looking out onto the expanse of the set. “Wow.” He muttered to himself. “I can’t tell which of you is dumber.”

“Hey! I can still hear you!”

“Maybe put some of your other senses to use then, idiot!” Paul retorted as he got out of his seat, the speakers on set calling for him to go someplace or other. He walked away mumbling to himself, leaving you sitting there, staring after him, unsure of what to think anymore. 

-

“And I, of course, was chopped liver.” Joseph spoke solemnly to the crowd, dragging you out of your reminiscence. “Paul loved Pedro, Denzel, Connie, Fred, and y/n. But not poor old Joseph.” 

Paul stumbled over his words as he backtracked. “And Joseph! Of course, I was always with Joseph!” Paul cried, pleading with an unyielding Joseph. All a bit to keep everyone entertained, you knew.

“No, no, you can’t undo what’s been done.” Joseph shook his head dramatically at Paul as he motioned for the next person to step up to the microphone. “You have made an enemy tonight, Paul. I hope you’re happy.”

“My question is actually for Joseph.” The fan sheepishly spoke, sending Paul an illusionary apologetic smile.

“I have what you can never have, Paul. The love and affection of the general public.” Joseph deadpanned as he looked over at Paul before turning back to the girl at the microphone. “Go on, darling. What’s your question?” Joseph smirked as he looked away, leaving Paul rolling his eyes.

“Well, um, Paul and Pedro had extensive physical transformations they had to undergo to prepare for the role.” Joseph rolled his eyes in an exaggerated fashion at the mention of Paul, the joke still running. “What did you have to do to prepare for Geta?”

“Not much, actually.” Joseph snorted. “I got really interested in the history of it, but in comparison to Paul and Pedro? Yeah, we got off easy. Didn’t we, Fred? Just loads of eyeliner.”

“Yeah.” Fred laughed as he nodded. “Shaving and eyeliner was our morning routine for a few months.” The crowd, as well as the cast, laughed at Fred’s note. “Emperor Caracalla is clean shaven, but I’m not.” He chuckled, hand instinctively rubbing at his chin at the thought of his light beard. “So I had to shave almost everyday, but that was about it for me.” With a glance towards you, you knew exactly what he was thinking about.

-

It had been another late night in Fred’s trailer. You were curled up on his couch, legs tucked under you, as you watched Fred pace back and forth. He had been reviewing lines, occasionally muttering to himself, but you hadn’t been paying close attention, not until the soft scruff along his jaw caught the light.

Your eyes narrowed.

“Fred,” you called softly.

He paused, blinking at you. “Yeah?”

You tilted your head, lips twitching. “You’re getting a little...scruffy.”

Fred instinctively brought a hand to his chin, rubbing over the light stubble that had started to grow in. “Ah, shit.”

“What?” You asked, sitting up now.

“Sam’s out sick,” He explained. “Usually, they shave me every morning. I don’t know how I forgot about it today. Emily needs me to be clean shaven tomorrow.” He mumbled lightly, as if he was only thinking to himself out loud.

You pushed up from the couch, standing up and stretching your arms over your head. “Let me do it.”

Fred blinked. “What?” It was like he forgot you were here for a moment. Or, more accurately, he forgot that you were actively listening to his stream of consciousness. He didn’t expect you to offer to solve this non-issue for him. 

“Let me shave you,” you repeated, stepping closer. You gently grabbed his chin, feeling his rough hair between your fingers. You turned his face this way and that, appraising the work you’d have to do if he agreed. “I mean, you can say no if you don’t feel comfortable with your fate in my hands.”

He giggled, eyes softening as he watched you study his facial hair. “Is this another trust exercise?”

You smirked, eyes lighting up and looking back into his. “Maybe.”

Fred considered it for a moment, then shrugged. “Alright, Lovie. Have at it.”

The nickname sent a small spark through you, but you shook it off, hiding your grin as you gestured for him to follow you to the little bathroom in the corner of his trailer.

Fred settled on the closed toilet seat after you patted it, a silent command to sit down. He looked up at you with a mixture of amusement and curiosity. You rummaged through the small drawer under the sink, pulling out shaving cream and a razor.

“Fear me.” You whispered as you held aloft the blade, watching Fred roll his eyes at the reference.

“You better not botch this,” he teased, leaning back. He couldn’t help but admire you from this angle. The bathroom lighting highlighted your features so beautifully, though he was sure he’d think that of any lighting.

“It seems easy enough.” You shrugged as you squeezed a bit of shaving cream onto your fingers, rubbing your hands together before gently spreading it over his jaw. The cool foam made him shiver slightly.

Fred’s eyes got wide, his head frozen in your grasp. “You’re telling me you’ve never done this before?”

Your eyes sparkled as you raised your brows excitedly, grin wide. “I’m testing your limits. Is this one of them?”

You saw Fred’s eyes dance back and forth as he thought this through. It seemed the risks outweighed the cons, though not by much, because he nodded apprehensively. “Do your worst.” His eyes widened once more and then he winced. “That’s just a saying, please actually do your very best. Don’t hurt the money maker, alright?”

“Shut up,” you rolled your eyes with a snort. “I’ll be careful, don’t worry. Now hold still.”

Slowly, carefully, you dragged the blade along his jawline, your hand steady. Fred’s eyes flickered to yours, but he didn’t move. His breathing slowed, eyes dark and half-lidded as he watched you in silence.

The room felt smaller.

Your thumb gently tilted his chin, guiding him where you needed. His skin was warm beneath your touch.

“You’re doing well,” you murmured, focusing on the careful strokes of the razor.

“So are you,” Fred hummed. “You’re sure you’ve never done this before?”

“I’m that good, huh?” You chuckled, feeling him nod in response with the slightest dip of his chin in your palm. “Maybe I should go pro.”

“You’d leave all the glitz and glamour of being an actress and come shave my scruff every morning?” He asked, laughter lacing his words.

“You’re giving away Sam’s job that easy?” You raised your brows.

“To you? Of course.” He chuckled lightly. “Everything’s easy when it’s you.” The words slipped out, softer than he meant. The air thickened, and Fred’s eyes widened a fraction too late. The words weighed heavily in the space around you, stealing the breath from your lungs. Fred’s eyes flickered to yours at your silence. Whatever he said must’ve been the wrong thing to say, he thought, because your facial expression was unreadable to him. “I’m sor—”

“Everything’s easy when it’s you too, Fred.” You whispered back before he could complete his sentence. With one final swipe of the blade along his jaw, you stepped back from him and the moment. “There. All done.” 

-

You smiled to yourself at the memory, glancing back at Fred next to you. You preferred him with the facial hair, you concluded. 

“Who was the best mentor on set?” Someone else asked once they had their turn at the microphone, the question not directed towards anyone in particular. But Joseph took it upon himself to answer for someone else.

“I know who Fred’s gonna say.” Joseph whispered into the microphone, causing Fred to roll his eyes.

“It was me.” Pedro smirked, flexing his biceps and wiggling his eyebrows at Fred. “He can deny it all he wants, but I pushed that kid when he needed it. Didn’t I, Freddie?”

“You did.” Fred mumbled, a hint of a smile on the edge of his lips.

“Hell yeah, I did!” Pedro pumped his fist in the air. “Those stories are private, for Fred’s sake. But I’m a good mentor!”

“The best there is.” Fred confirmed, a slight blush colored his cheeks as he snuck a glance at you.

-

It had been a while since the moment Pedro cemented himself as Fred’s mentor in the younger actor’s eyes. He had learned a lot from him. Both as an actor and as a human being.

But something changed between Pedro and Fred one day. 

A day where you had been utterly exhausted. You were filming in a grand room, the scene depicting a party or gathering of some type, you couldn’t recall the details. Everything was as opulent as you would expect with the twin emperors, of course. 

You and Fred had been up all night, bingeing movie after movie, showing each other your favorites and analyzing every scene. When you saw him the next day on set, you were shocked at how awake he was. Everything felt like it was in slow motion for you. You had never been more appreciative of your lack of lines in this movie.

After a few takes of you blinking slowly in the background, Ridley had called for a break. Something wasn’t right with the focus on a few cameras and a monitor or two needed recalibrating. Technical issues that shouldn’t take too long to fix. An assistant director said the issue could take about half an hour to resolve, so you turned to Fred, a silent question in your eyes and a slight pout on your lips.

You and Fred cuddled often, but never outside of his trailer. Movie night was just an excuse for you to curl up in his arms at this point, though neither of you ever acknowledged that. 

But you were so tired, and the pillows on the couch were decorative and stiff. And Fred was right there. It would only be thirty minutes. Just a quick lie down.

Fred saw your face and knew exactly what you wanted from him. He leaned back into the couch and patted at his lap, giving you space to lie down. It didn’t even register to him that anyone would notice nor care. 

His hands instinctively went to brush his fingers through your hair, your nightly routine as of recently. With his cologne and his warmth enveloping you, as well as the soothing motion of his fingers against your scalp, it was less than five minutes later that you were snoozing away.

Pedro looked over and saw the two of you cozied up together and couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the scene. He had been trying to throw hints at Fred for weeks about the two of you. It was clear as day. But neither of you was brave enough to bring it up, fearing the other’s lack of reciprocation. If only you two could see what everyone else saw.

He shared a look with Paul, who was watching along with him. “Go talk some sense into him, Pascal.” Paul snickered lightly, giving Pedro a slight shove in your direction. 

“I’ll try my best, Mescal.” Pedro sighed. 

“Is she out?” He asked quietly once he had settled down beside Fred on the couch, not wanting to wake you up.

“Like a light.” Fred muttered, eyes never leaving your sleeping profile. “It’s my fault, really. Kept her up all night.”

“What did you watch this time?” Pedro smiled, knowing of the private movie nights held every evening in the trailer next to his.

“The Godfather.” Fred answered. “Actually, both of them.”

“The sequel is amazing.” Pedro nodded, but he wasn’t really engrossed in the conversation as much as he was in Fred. It was hard not to admire Fred as he admired you.

“Definitely.” Fred nodded, not even sparing Pedro a glance. The boy was in love and he didn’t even know it. But so were you, to be fair.

“She’s just as bad as you are, you know? Thinking too much, scared to say something first.” Pedro mused, eyeing you curled up in Fred’s lap. You never looked as comfortable as you did in Fred’s presence. Pedro leaned in and his voice dropped an octave. “You should tell her.”

“Huh?” Fred is finally pulled out of the trance you had unknowingly put him in, snapping up to look at Pedro for the first time since he sat down. “Tell her what?”

“I’m saying,” Pedro emphasized each word, “She’s just as oblivious as you are.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you should tell her how you feel!” Fred instinctively cupped his hand around your ear, guarding you from Pedro’s sudden laughter like it was second nature. You hadn’t even flinched, too deep in your slumber to notice. But Pedro did, he noticed Fred’s subtle protectiveness. It was sweet. And increasingly frustrating.

Fred scoffed, his cheeks glaringly crimson. “I think I’d prefer not risking those odds.”

“Buddy, trust me. Every single odd is in your favor.”

“Don’t quote the hunger games at me right now.” Fred rolled his eyes. 

Pedro frowned in frustration, leaning closer to Fred. “You really don’t see how gone she is for you?”

A few moments of silence pass between them. Fred’s eyes on you, and Pedro’s eyes on Fred’s lovesick expression. “...You really think she likes me back?”

“She’s not sleeping in my lap, is she?” Pedro smirked, standing back up. “Just think about it, would you?”

-

Fred buried his face in his hands to cover up his flushed cheeks. You shot him a concerned look, but he shook his head to ease your worries. You didn’t know about what had transpired between Fred and Pedro in the same way Fred didn’t know about what happened between you and Paul. And you both wanted to keep it that way. Too embarrassed that everyone else seemed to know of your affection for the other before you did.

“Did any unscripted scenes make it into the movie?” someone asked, pulling you back to the crowd once more.

You and Fred immediately glance back at each other with shy smiles.

Paul talked about the scene where he kissed Pedro’s forehead in the arena, even though it was technically cut. 

But then he turned to the rest of the table. “What about you, Fred?” He asked pointedly, noticing how you had looked at each other when the question was asked. “You had a scene they left in, didn’t you?”

Fred chuckled nervously, scratching behind his ear. “Yeah, a few made it in. But… you probably mean when I called her ‘Lovie,’ right?” The crowd roars in response and Fred’s ears turn pink as he tugs at them. “Yeah, about that…”

-

Fred had started calling you Lovie after that day he was having difficulties with that one scene. He hadn’t even realized when it started, but now, it was just second nature.

Today was the day you would be filming a scene you were dreading. The day Caracalla, the sick emperor you had spent months embodying a devotion to, would die. And you were taking it hard. You had somehow made a place for him in your heart. 

Fred thought it was sweet how your affections grew for his character. He assured you that he understood, working on a long term project like this always leaves an imprint on actors. 

The filming schedule on set didn’t rely on the order of the scenes, but more on the availability of certain sets and certain crew members. So even though this was nowhere near the last scene you had to film with Fred as Caracalla, nor was filming coming to an end anytime soon, you were filming Fred’s last scene in the movie.

The wardrobe department was a maze of fabric and armor, with soft R&B muffling through a nearby speaker, someone no doubt wanting to lighten the atmosphere in the stuffy warehouse. 

You sat hunched in a chair, eyes locked on the hem of your sweater, fingers twisting the fabric. You and Fred were waiting together to be given your costumes for the day.

It all felt so much heavier than you expected.

“You okay?”

Fred’s voice was gentle, but you didn’t lift your head. You just let out a quiet, shaky laugh.

“I’m being ridiculous.”

He came to crouch in front of you, elbows on his knees, watching you carefully. “No, you’re not.”

You sighed, pressing your palms to your face. “I’m getting emotional over the death of a villain in a movie.”

Fred’s head tilted. “Hey, we both know he wasn’t really a villain.” His voice carried a soft laugh with it.

Your lips twitched upward. “He was just misunderstood.”

“And syphilitic.”

You let out a wet laugh, wiping your face. “Yeah, and that.”

Fred grinned, but his eyes didn’t leave yours. Slowly, he stood and offered his hand. “Dance with me, Lovie.”

You blinked at him.

“What?”

“Come on,” he urged softly, fingers still outstretched.

The nickname barely registered in your mind. It wasn’t the first time he’d used it, but it felt different now, like a natural extension of you.

You slipped your hand into his, letting him pull you to your feet.

Fred’s palms settled at your waist, hesitant at first. But when you leaned in, looping your arms around his neck, his grip tightened, like letting go wasn’t an option. You swayed together, slow and easy, surrounded by walls of costumes and muffled music.

“How dumb is this?” you whispered, though the corners of your mouth lifted.

“It’s not dumb, Lovie.” Fred shook his head slightly, his hand gently smoothing over your hair. “Nothing you do is dumb.”

The nickname lingered in the air.

You exhaled, resting your forehead against his collarbone.

“I’d take care of him so well,” you murmured, only slightly serious.

Fred let out a soft chuckle, his breath warming the top of your head.

“You did, Lovie,” he whispered back. “You did take care of him.”

And later, when you filmed the scene, the two of you covered in fake blood and silks, you couldn’t differentiate your character’s tears from your own. It all felt like the end of something. It felt like mourning.

When Fred said ‘Lovie’ instead of ‘My love’ as he wilted in your arms, you didn’t even register the deviation in the script. Only when it was over, when Ridley’s voice crackled through one of the hand held radios, did it hit you.

“Beautiful. Keep calling her that, Fred.” Ridley commended. “Lovie. Should’ve thought of that myself.”

-

“So what he means to say,” you spoke to the crowd, “is that my dramatics fundamentally affected the movie.”

“She was actually so sad,” Fred frowned, “It was heartbreaking. It was an honest mistake, though. Calling her ‘Lovie’.”

“But did you tell them where it came from?” Connie asked, teasingly looking at Fred.

“We uh—” He chuckled bashfully. “y/n and I called her character ‘Lovie’, because it was hard to workshop a character with no name.”

“And then ‘Lovie’ stopped being the character’s nickname,” Pedro chimed in with further explanation, “And it started being y/n’s.”

“I thought it was so sweet.” Connie sighed. “And it suits her so well.” 

“Ridley loved it, too.” Denzel joined. “I heard him grumbling over the radio. Something about how he didn’t think of it before.”

“No one cried when Fred cut off my head, though.” Joseph shrugged with a shake of his head. “Take from that what you will.”

“Actually, I did.” You corrected him with a smirk. “Don’t underestimate my propensity to get emotional when it comes to film.”

“Did you?” Joseph perked up, leaning forwards to look at you across the table. “Did she really?” He asked Fred, like he was the authority on all things true about you.

“Oh yeah.” Fred nodded. “And the scene where Caracalla asks where his brother is. Inconsolable. Sad movies are her weakness. You should’ve seen her when we watched ‘My Girl’.”

“Don’t bring that up right now.” You closed your eyes and shook your head solemnly, raising a palm in Fred’s direction. “He wasn’t wearing his goddamn glasses, Freddie.”

“It’s alright, Lovie,” Fred chuckled, speaking away from the microphone as he leaned closer to you. His voice dropped lower, only for you to hear. “We’ll watch a happy one tonight. Non-negotiable.”

You nodded at him, a smile growing on your face. Fred never failed to make you feel special, like you were a priority to him. Your choices always came above his, no matter how hard you insisted. It was so easy to love him.

“And our final question to wrap up the panel—”

“Make it a good one!” Pedro called into the microphone, a laugh rippling among the crowd in response.

“Come on up, don’t be shy.” The producer smiled at the young girl last in line to ask a question. “What did you want to ask the cast, honey?”

“What was your first kiss like?”

An ‘aw’ passed through the crowd as well as the cast on a stage. But a slight sweat began to coat your palms. You had been admiring Fred and his kindness only a moment ago. So tranquil, almost like you weren’t sitting in front of a crowd of hundreds of people. But this one question sent a shock of electricity up your spine. You were an actress, you reminded yourself. They wouldn’t know if you told the truth or not, would they? 

You heard Paul mention a school dance, and Pedro talked about a pool party during summer break. Denzel mentioned his wife, Connie spoke briefly of a night in Paris when she was a teenager. Joseph and Fred had similar stories, a stage kiss for a school play and a local production. 

When your turn came, you stuttered over your words. It didn’t feel like you had enough time to make something up, at least not something believable. “I guess—uh—technically, it was on screen.”

“Technically?” Joseph asked, confused. 

“Yeah,” You swallowed as heat bloomed across your cheeks. Your lips were upturned ever so slightly as you recalled that day. “My scene partner offered to practice with me before filming. It was much sweeter than it sounds.” You laughed before letting out a sigh. “It’s a memory I’ll cherish forever.”

-

It was the night before you would film your first intimate scene with Fred. The two of you were sitting on his couch, scripts open but long forgotten. The quiet of the trailer is filled with the faint hum of the air conditioning and the occasional rustle of pages as one of you shifts. You could feel Fred’s presence next to you, close enough that your knees brush when either of you adjusts your position.

“I don’t think Caracalla’s ever had anyone look at him the way Lovie does,” Fred mused, breaking the silence. His voice is soft, contemplative, like he’s voicing a thought meant only for himself.

You glanced at him, your heart skipping at the sincerity in his tone. “What do you mean?”

He leaned back, running a hand through his hair, his blue eyes drifting toward the ceiling as if searching for the right words. “It’s like… even through the haze of his sickness and his trauma, he’s desperate to be seen. And she’s the only one who really does that for him. He doesn’t know how to love, not really, but he tries in his own way.” His gaze shifted to yours, a small, delicate frown tugging at his lips. “It’s tragic really.”

Your chest tightened at the vulnerability in his expression, the way he’s peeling back a layer of himself in his explanation. “I think Lovie sees that too,” you said softly, barely above a whisper. “And maybe that’s why she stays.”

Fred’s smile faltered, his brows furrowing as he studies you. “You think she chooses to stay?”

“I think…” You paused as you pondered. “I think she’s grown to love him somehow, through this strange, abusive, co-dependent… thing they’ve got going on. And she’s choosing to stay. What you do with love is a choice,” you replied, your voice tinged with something wistful and raw. “Not everyone handles it as carefully as they should.”

The air between you shifted, growing heavier, thicker, as the weight of your words lingered. 

It didn’t feel like you were talking about your character’s anymore. Fred’s eyes didn’t leave yours after you spoke, and you suddenly realized how close he was sitting. His knee brushed yours again, and this time, neither of you moved away.

“Does it scare you?” he asked, his voice impossibly quiet.

You swallowed hard, your heart pounding against your ribs. “What?”

“Getting it wrong,” he said, his gaze searching for something telling in your eyes. “Love, I mean.”

You felt the heat rise in your cheeks, but you held his gaze, unable to look away. “Yeah,” you admitted, your voice barely audible. “It does scare me, I suppose.”

Fred nodded, a flicker of understanding passed over his face. “Me too.”

There was a beat of silence, and then, without thinking, Fred reached out, his hand brushed against yours where it rested on the cushion between you. His touch was light, almost tentative, but it sent a jolt through you.

“I guess that’s why it’s easier on set,” he murmured, his thumb grazing your knuckles. “You get to pretend, just for a little while, that you know what you’re doing.”

You laughed softly, but it caught in your throat when you saw the way he was looking at you—like you were the only thing in the room worth noticing.

“Fred…” you started, your voice trailing off as his fingers curled gently around yours. “Can I tell you something?”

“Anything.”

“I’m nervous about tomorrow.” You confessed, eyes falling down to your lap.

“I know.” He replied. 

You furrowed your brows and lifted your head to look at him questioningly. “You know?”

“Yeah y/n, of course I know.” Fred smiled softly, reassuringly, “I think I would be a bad friend if I couldn’t tell that you were nervous. And I’ve seen your filmography, I know you haven’t done this sort of thing before.”

You didn’t know if it was a relief or not that he thought you were only nervous about the shoot. 

“Uh, yeah,” you nodded, eyes flickering downwards. “Never for a project, no.” You hoped he wouldn’t catch the half truth. Or maybe you hoped that he would. You weren’t sure how you felt about all of this.

You liked Fred. You knew this about yourself now. And sometimes, you think that maybe, just maybe, he might like you back. Paul never failed to seize an opportunity to tell you that, of course. But you were too scared to make a fool of yourself. And, selfishly, you didn’t want to lose what you had with Fred. But now, things were progressing. 

Fred was going to be your first kiss.

And that would be hard to overcome. Especially when you already liked him so much. You were afraid that you would imprint on him like a duckling, never seeing anyone else in the same light. And then what would you do?

“y/n?” Fred asked, his eyebrows knitted together in concern. “Are you alright?” You hummed in response, eyes still unfocused. “Do you wanna do a trust exercise or something?”

“What?” You questioned, finally pulling yourself back to the moment.

“For tomorrow?” Fred explained, raising his eyebrows as he spoke. “To help you feel better about it?”

You thought about it for a moment before nodding. This might be just what you need. It was so helpful with Fred that last time, and hopefully it could be for you as well. “You wanna do the eye contact one?”

“How about another one?” Fred asked, leaning back against the back of the couch.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Tell me a secret.”

“What?” You balked. “What kind of exercise is that?”

“A secret for a secret.” Fred shrugged. “How about I start?” You nodded, though apprehensively. “I’m nervous for tomorrow, too.”

“Are you really?” You raised a brow at him. “‘Cause if your secret’s just a lie to make me feel better, then you’re cheating.”

Fred giggled and shook his head. “No, I really am.”

“Why?” You tilted your head inquisitively at him.

“Nope, I already told you my secret.” He pursed his lips and shook his head again. “Now it’s your turn.”

You shifted uncomfortably, tucking your legs beneath you on the couch, the script forgotten in your lap. Fred’s gentle, observant gaze had a way of making you feel bare in a way that wasn’t unsettling, but intimate—like he could read every thought you tried to hide.

“I guess it’s not just in front of the camera,” you admitted softly, fiddling with the corner of a page. The confession felt inevitable, like it had been lingering between the two of you for weeks, just waiting for a moment like this to surface. “I mean… I haven’t done this before. Any of it. Not just on screen.”

Fred's eyes softened as he sat up slightly, resting his forearms on his knees, his focus entirely on you. “You mean you—you’ve never been kissed before?” His voice was quiet, not prying but careful, like he didn’t want to scare you away.

You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak.

For a moment, Fred didn’t respond. He simply watched you, and you could feel the weight of his attention, not heavy or oppressive. His brows furrowed slightly as if he were choosing his next words carefully.

“That’s… okay, you know,” he said finally. There was no pity in his tone, only a steady reassurance. “I know how intimidating this can be, even for people who’ve done it before.”

“It’s just—” you sighed, leaning back into the couch, exasperated with yourself. “It’s not that I think I can’t do it. I know I can, or at least I hope I can. I just don’t want to look ridiculous. I want it to look real.”

Fred smiled faintly, his head tilting as he considered your words. “It’s admirable, you know?” You hummed in question at him. “The fact that you’re sacrificing your first kiss for the production.”

“It’s embarrassing is what it is.” You rolled your eyes with a snort. 

“What?” He gasped quietly, the air still feeling ever so delicate between the two of you. “You're giving it away for Sir Ridley Scott! He’d be honored if he knew, I think.”

“He’d be confused if he knew.” You corrected him. “An actress in her early twenties who hasn’t been kissed before. I think I could apply to the Guinness book of world records.”

“Hey, come on.” He shook his head at you sympathetically. “You’re not breaking any records, trust me. There’s no deadline for this kind of thing.” He shifted closer as he spoke, his hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck in that familiar gesture you’d come to recognize as a sign of his sincerity, “But…I could help—only if you want.”

Your heart skipped. “Help?”

He nodded. “I mean… if it makes you feel more comfortable, we could—” he paused, exhaling as if second-guessing himself. “I could be your first kiss. Just to take some of the pressure off tomorrow. It’s not a big deal. Only if you’re okay with it, of course.”

The room felt impossibly quiet, save for the distant hum of the trailer’s air conditioning. You swallowed, your pulse thrumming in your ears. It wasn’t just the offer that stunned you—it was the ease in Fred’s voice, the way he treated it like something simple. Just Fred, offering to help you in whatever way he could. It was so sweet. He was always so sweet to you. But you couldn’t. Not like this

You felt the heat rise in your cheeks, but you inevitably shook your head. “That’s really sweet of you, Fred. But I think I want my first real kiss to be with someone who actually really likes me, not a pity kiss from my scene partner. Tomorrow doesn’t count if I don’t count it. It’s fine, really. I was just in my head about it—”

Fred laughed before he could stop himself, interrupting your rambling. “You really are oblivious, aren’t you?”

“What?” You asked dumbly, not expecting him to say something like that after your vulnerable confession.

“Why do you think I’m nervous about tomorrow?” He asked incredulously, another laugh escaping him. “It’s because I actually really like you, y/n!”

Oh.

It was like someone knocked the wind out of you. 

You had hoped that he liked you back, maybe even thought it might be a possibility in the back of your mind, but to hear him say those words out loud? You were speechless. It was like a dream come true. All those months of pining for him, all that yearning, was reciprocated this whole time. 

“y/n,” Fred murmured, his voice low, soothing. “Can I be your first real kiss? Please?” He parroted your words back to you once more, breathlessly. You felt the blood rush into your head.

You managed a weak nod, barely able to meet his gaze. He waited a beat, letting the moment settle before he leaned in, his hand lifting to cup the side of your face. His touch was featherlight, his thumb tracing slow circles against your cheekbone. The intimacy of the gesture almost unraveled you.

Fred's lips brushed yours tentatively, the kiss soft and unhurried. His movements were gentle yet assured, he understood that this was new for you and he didn’t mind guiding you through it. His other hand found your waist, steadying you, and you felt yourself melting into him.

As the kiss deepened, Fred’s grip on your waist tightened subtly, anchoring you as he shifted. Without breaking contact, he eased you forward, guiding you into his lap until you straddled him, your knees on either side of his hips and your hands resting tentatively against his shoulders. His fingers flexed against your hips, drawing you closer until there was barely any space left between you.

Your lungs felt tight as Fred pulled away just enough to rest his forehead against yours. His breath fanned over your lips and his hands lingered against your waist, sending butterflies crashing into each other in your stomach. You weren’t sure how long you stayed like that—long enough for the rapid beat of your heart to settle into something softer, steadier.

“Was that okay?” Fred asked softly, his voice just above a whisper.

You nodded before opening your eyes to meet his gaze. There was something tender in the way he looked at you, and it made the words on the tip of your tongue feel less terrifying.

“Can we… do it again?” The question slipped out before you could stop it, and your stomach flipped as you realized how vulnerable you sounded.

Fred's lips quirked into a soft smile as his hand slid up, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah,” he murmured, a soft laugh coloring his words as he brushed his nose against yours. “Yeah, we can do it again. As many times as you want.”

His lips found yours once more, and this time, there was no hesitation. Fred kissed you with more certainty, his hands firm as they traced the curve of your back, pulling you closer still. You could feel his quiet desire in the way he held you, the way his fingers flexed when you deepened the kiss.

You were glad that confession made its way out before you could stop it.

The next morning, you woke up with a strange mix of nerves and excitement bubbling beneath your skin. 

The day was finally here. 

The scene you’d been dreading—and quietly anticipating—was actually happening. But unlike the restless nights leading up to it, you felt more prepared. More steady.

You had filmed a few suggestive scenes with Fred before. As a syphilitic emperor, Caracalla had the propensity to be very comfortable and open in his desires. But you weren’t asked to be nude for any of those scenes, unlike this one. The complexity of not even speaking, yet being so exposed on screen was a little difficult to wrap your head around. 

This scene was supposed to depict you and Caracalla in the privacy of his lavish quarters when Joseph as Geta barges in and angrily informs his brother of Acacius and Lucilla's betrayal. You and Fred were to be undressed and only covered by sheets from the waist down. 

Clara, the intimacy coordinator, had explained that Fred would be leaned back in bed, propped up by a few pillows, while you sat in his lap. The scene would open with a close up shot of the two of you kissing gently, the camera slowly pulling back with you as you leaned back. Your lower bodies would be covered with various messy sheets, depicting the long night the characters had already had before the intrusion.

The scene was much more than physical, it was also meant to show the characters’ co-dependent nature. Even when his concubine was on him, he needed his hands to be on her, both showing his dominance and control over her as well as his reluctance to pull away.

Fred’s kiss lingered in the back of your mind like a warm ember, small but constant. While you still felt the nerves creep in when you thought about today’s shoot, there was a quiet confidence blooming alongside them.

When you arrived on set, you noticed immediately how different the atmosphere felt. The crew was smaller, the lighting dimmer—intentional choices to provide you with a layer of privacy. 

Clara was already on set, organizing the sheets and setting up the space. She glanced your way, smiling comfortingly, but she didn’t say anything. She knew of your apprehension and had been worried about you. But she noticed something new in you today. Maybe there was a shift in your energy or a slight lift in your posture, she wasn’t sure. Either way, she kept her observations to herself.

Fred was already there, standing near the bed where the scene would take place with Joseph. He smiled the second he saw you, that familiar softness in his expression grounding you more than anything else could.

“Morning,” he greeted, voice low and calm.

“Morning,” you replied, a shy tight lipped smile on your face as you stepped closer to him. Joseph greeted you but was quickly ushered away to his mark behind the door, not giving him enough time to notice the change between you and Fred. 

Clara approached you and spoke with her usual calm authority, a roll of skin-safe tape in hand. “Alright, let’s get these sheets secured,” she said, gesturing for you to adjust your robe.

But you stopped her with a small, assured smile. “I don’t think we’ll need the tape today.” Last night’s events forged a confidence deep within you. You knew your team had your back. You knew Fred had your back. 

Clara paused, blinking at you as if processing your words. Her sharp gaze flickered briefly to Fred, who stood a few feet away, his hands stuffed into his robe pockets. 

He tilted his head at your words, his brows furrowing slightly as he stepped closer. “You sure?” His voice was low, warm with concern.

You nodded, holding his gaze. “Yeah, I feel more confident now.”

Clara smirked faintly, a flicker of understanding in her expression, but she didn’t press. Fred’s gesture was subtle but telling. “Alright, just let me know if anything changes.” She said with a sense of finality before stepping away to oversee the set. 

Fred watched her retreat, then turned back to you with a concerned glint in his eye. He brushed your arm lightly to grab your attention. “You really don’t want the tape?” Fred asked again, his tone tinged with genuine care.

“Yeah,” You nodded with determination. “I can do it.”

He studied you for a beat longer, as if making sure you weren’t pushing yourself too hard, then smiled softly. “I’m proud of you.” 

“You helped.” You confessed in a whisper, a smile curling your lips upward.

“Yeah?” He asked in surprise, his grin only grew wider when you nodded in confirmation. “Glad I could be of service. We could sneak off and practice some more, if you’d like-”

“Fred!” You cut him off before he could say anymore, scandalised yet amused all the same. “You’re horrible!”

“And you’re cute, Lovie.” He smirked as an assistant pulled him away, cutting your conversation short. 

Another assistant pulled you forward as well, telling you to get into place so they could adjust the lighting based on your position. Fred smiled encouragingly at you from the bed he was laying in as you approached. An assistant helped you get into position, straddling Fred’s lap with your knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his hips. The position wasn’t unlike how you had found yourself last night in Fred’s trailer. With a quick glance into Fred’s eyes, you knew he was thinking the same thing.

The makeup artists fluttered around you, dabbing at your skin with soft brushes, unknowingly keeping the moment from becoming too intimate. The lighting crew adjusted their angles, the soft glow from overhead casting shadows that added depth to the space.

Fred’s hands found your waist instinctively, his thumbs brushing circles against the fabric of your robe. His touch was grounding, steady, and it calmed the last bit of tension lingering in your chest.

“You okay?” he asked, low enough that only you could hear.

You met his gaze, but your eyes kept drifting lower, to his lips. The memory of yesterday was still present at the forefront of your mind, your pulse quickened at the thought of doing it again.

Fred noticed immediately, a small chuckle escaping him. “You’re adorable.” He repeated his sentiment from earlier.

“I’m just—” You flushed, embarrassed at being caught. You were unable to find the words to explain the giddy excitement stirring in you. “I guess I’m excited to start.”

Fred’s smirk deepened, but he didn’t push it, not wanting to tease you any further. “Good.” His grip on your waist tightened subtly, the weight of his hands calming you.

As the cameras rolled, Fred’s lips found yours, his kiss was steady and deliberate, his hands guiding you gently as your body pressed closer to his. You pulled away from him when you heard your cue, the camera nearest to you swooshing in the air as it moved backwards. Soon enough, you heard the loud bang of the bedroom doors bursting open. You startled in Fred’s lap, the reaction a mix of yours and Lovie’s. For a brief moment, you weren’t acting on a set. It was just the two of you before Joseph barged in. 

Fred cradled you against his chest, covering your exposed form from Geta, like the scene called for. You couldn’t hear what Joseph was saying over the loud heartbeat in your ears, but you knew what the script expected of you and when. Fred’s warm skin and chest hair brushed against your arms as you huddled close to him. It was intoxicating. 

After the first take, you gently pulled back and shifted Fred’s position. “Keep your hands here,” you instructed, placing his hands firmly on your hips in view of the camera. “To show that he’s in control.”

“Okay,” he nodded, always open to your ideas. “You should try leaning into me more,” he added, his hands guiding your hips to tilt forward. “It makes it look like he’s really keeping her there.”

You furrowed your brows as you digested his notes. “Alright. Should I put more weight into it?”

“Yeah, exactly.” He nodded in encouragement. “Don’t hold back, I’ve got you.”

The next take felt even more intense. Fred’s hands pressed into your waist with more dominance. And you fell into him, relinquishing control, matching the energy you’d both discussed.

Between takes, he was quick to adjust the sheets, shielding you with practiced ease. Each touch lingered longer than necessary, his fingers brushing against your bare skin beneath the fabric, and every time you glanced up at him, his eyes held the same quiet intensity and kindness.

Joseph and Clara shared looks after each run through, the two of them noticing the shift in dynamic between the two of you.

“They’re different today.” Joseph whispered to Clara. 

“They’re more in sync.” Clara tilted her head as she observed the two of you. “Almost like…”

“Almost like they’ve been practicing.” Joseph smirked.

“About damn time, if you ask me.” Clara huffed, though amused all the same.

-

All these months later, and the memory was still fresh in your mind. And apparently, in someone else’s as well. “y/n?” Joseph’s voice broke the quiet hum of the green room. You were standing at the tea station, carefully deliberating over how much sugar and milk to add to your cup when he approached, his tone unusually hesitant. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” You didn’t look up, focused on swirling the tea in your cup. “As long as it’s not about my sugar-to-milk ratio, because I’ll have you know, it’s perfect.”

Joseph chuckled softly, scratching the back of his neck. “No, it’s not that. It’s… uh…” He hesitated, searching for the right words. “You can totally tell me to fuck off and mind my own business if you don’t want to answer.”

“I gotta hear the question first, Joseph,” you replied with a playful smile, still not turning to face him. “But I promise I won’t be offended.”

He took a deep breath. “Was Fred your first kiss?”

Your hand froze mid-air over the sugar tin, the question catching you off guard. You finally glanced up at him, eyebrows raised. “What makes you think that?”

“It’s just…” Joseph shifted uncomfortably, his usual confidence replaced with something softer. “What you said back there—on stage—about cherishing the memory forever. It sounded a lot like you were talking about Fred.” He looked down at the tea he was fixing, his words careful, almost shy. “And honestly, it reminded me of that day on set.”

“What day?”

“When we filmed the scene in Caracalla’s bedroom.” His eyes flicked back to yours, searching for confirmation. “You and Fred were… different that day. There was this energy between you two, like something had changed. I thought maybe you’d finally, you know, come to your senses about each other, but what you said on stage—it made me wonder.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, hiding the small smile tugging at your lips. “Well, you’re not entirely wrong.” You added a splash of milk to your tea. “We did come to our senses that day.”

Joseph’s eyebrows shot up, his curiosity piqued. “And… was he—you know…?”

You glanced at him, tilting your head in mock thought. “While I appreciate your sudden foray into investigative journalism,” you teased, “I think the answer to that question is classified.”

Before Joseph could reply, Paul’s voice cut through the moment. “Or…” he started, strolling toward you with an infuriating smirk. “The answer is a three-letter word.”

“Fuck off, Paul!” you shot back, your laughter bubbling up as you grabbed your cup of tea.

Joseph groaned, shaking his head at Paul. “You’re relentless.”

“And mean,” you added with a grin as you turned to head toward Fred, who had just entered the room and only caught the tail end of the conversation. He gave you an inquisitive look as he draped his arm over your shoulders.

“What are we cussing Paul out for this time?” Fred asked, his voice light and teasing. He leaned down, pretending to whisper conspiratorially, “What’d he do?”

“He’s mean,” you said with a giggle, your words laced with amusement. “Are you ready to leave?”

Fred nodded. “Yeah, the car’s waiting out back.”

“You’re leaving already?” Paul’s mock-pout followed you as you grabbed your bag.

“We’re literally seeing you guys at dinner in, what, two hours?” you shot back, rolling your eyes.

“And tomorrow morning,” Fred added, steering you toward the door. “Hopefully you’ll survive without us until then.”

As you walked out, Joseph’s amused voice reached you. “For the record, I’m still rooting for that classified answer.”

Fred glanced down at you, his brow raised. “What’s he talking about?”

“It’s nothing,” you said, stifling a laugh. “They’re just being nosy.”

Fred didn’t push, his signature crooked grin tugging at his lips as he leaned closer, his voice warm against your ear. “Well, whatever it is, I’m on your side.”

As always, you thought, smiling softly to yourself.

As you stepped out into the cool evening air, Fred’s arm still draped over your shoulders, you couldn’t help but glance up at him. The way he fit so effortlessly into your life—his steady presence, his quiet reassurances—made you wonder how you ever doubted his feelings for you. Looking back now, it seemed almost ridiculous. Every glance, every touch, every word had been there all along, waiting for you to notice.

“Ready?” he asked softly, opening the car door for you and offering you a hand.

You nodded, a quiet laugh escaping your lips at his antics. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

How could you not be, when everything he did made it so easy to fall for him?

[elbiotipo]

its more than a bit of a leap to get from "Society has gained benefits from colonialism and we dont acknowledge that enough" to "every author whose writing is informed by their surroundings and what part of society they grew up in is complicit in imperialism and has blood on their hands"

It's not that you, personally, individually, are an imperialist with blood in your hands. It's a fact that so many of the commodities the first world enjoys are a result of colonialism and imperialism. This is invisibilized, and this is also expressed in fiction, as discussed here, where the products exist, but not the lands or the people who make them don't. It's also so widespread that in genre fantasy, temperate climates (and cultures from temperate places) are considered the default. This might not be a blood-stained crime, but it still reflects something I think this is worth talking about.

and personally i think that i would get bored of a book if it felt the need to justify the existence of every item in it. Like, if ever single drink, metal, architectural style idiomatic phrase, ect... has to have a page dedicated to explaining where it came from then that book is going to be stupidly long and a plot spread untenably thin

That's your personal opinion. Those are the best kind of books actually. Tolkien added entire appendixes on linguistics and starts his novel with a study of the Hobbits, Dune has in-depth explanations of Arrakis' ecology and history. The two also have plots so thick people spend years studying them.

Also, nobody is "demanding" anything here. I'm just a guy on the internet.

👀

[zenruu]

A Needlessly Thorough Analysis of What Hardening Actually Means for Alistair

You can also read this analysis in a Google Doc if you find that format more palatable: here.

(I do recommend desktop for the comfiest viewing in either case, but both should be serviceable.)

Disclaimer: If critical discussion of a character’s feelings, motivations, and reactions to certain in-game choices could be personally upsetting to you, maybe don’t read this. None of this analysis is me judging you/your choices as a player, I am simply looking through the lens of Alistair’s characterization and the in-universe consequences of choices. Of course this analysis will be colored by my own bias, it’s inevitable. I can’t realistically include every potentially relevant line of dialogue, but I’m always happy to discuss if you think there’s something crucial I left out.

Hardened Alistair is often described as learning to stand up for himself and becoming more assertive, but why? Is it an accurate assessment? Even Alistair himself reacts to the hardening dialogue by saying he’s going to start thinking for himself and looking out for himself more, so surely it’s true… right?

To the contrary, I would actually argue that hardened Alistair tends to put others before himself more than unhardened Alistair. Let’s start by looking at how he becomes hardened.

The Hardening Process

After meeting Goldanna, Alistair is understandably devastated to find that the family he’s been dreaming of his whole life is not what he had hoped. He’s just been yelled at and turned away by the sister he’s never met, the only family he’s ever had a chance of knowing. He’s lost his hope at finding that sense of connection and belonging he’s always been looking for.

If the Warden wants to harden Alistair, they need to tell him, “Everyone is out for themselves. You should learn that.”

The message being sent is basically: suck it up, move on, grow up. This is the way the world is. Stop being so idealistic.

The message Alistair seems to receive, however, is a bit more complicated. In the follow-up conversation after meeting Goldanna, Alistair tells you that his takeaway from the hardening dialogue was that he needs to look out for himself more. This is, obviously, perfectly in line with the common belief that hardened Alistair is more assertive and more willing to stand up for himself.

But is that the reality that we see reflected in hardened Alistair’s choices?

Pre-hardening, Alistair tells you many times that he feels like no one cares what he wants; he believes it’s unfair and openly complains about it. Hardened Alistair, however, knows that no one cares what he wants and he accepts that as the way things are and must be. Unhardened Alistair will freely say he doesn’t want to be king and fights against it until he can fight it no more, while hardened Alistair will accept it, even going as far as to say he wants it.

Why would he change so suddenly from saying it’s his worst nightmare to saying he wants it? Does he mean it fully? Is this truly him seeking to fulfill his own wants and meet his own needs?

What actually changes if he’s hardened?

he is seemingly less reluctant about becoming king

if romanced, he will agree to a threesome with Isabela

he will agree to make you his mistress if you push the topic

if not married to Anora and chosen to fight Loghain, he will execute Loghain and take the throne

if not chosen to fight Loghain, he will insist on being made king

if married to Anora, he will become king instead of being exiled if Loghain is spared (Alistair will still leave your party, however)

he will approve of executing Jowan in Redcliffe

With the idea of “hardened Alistair putting his own wants/needs first” in mind let’s break them down one by one:

Note: some lines of dialogue have flags for “hardened”/“changed”, alternatively referred to as Alistair’s motivation being changed from “good to glory” or “Alistair 2”. These all refer to the hardening mechanic. The screenshots do have text that’s a bit small, because I wanted to be sure that I included the flags that show when lines are exclusive to hardened Alistair.

Less reluctance about becoming king

All along he’s said he doesn’t want it. You could potentially make a case that he didn’t truly feel that way and was only saying it because he’s insecure (which he is), but I don’t find this to be a terribly compelling argument. 

This is hardened Alistair’s response to being told he would be a good king after he’s decided to sacrifice himself. There are several lines like this that I feel contradict the theory that unhardened Alistair only says he doesn’t want to be king because he’s insecure in his abilities. It’s not that his insecurities are not a factor, it’s that hardening him doesn’t get rid of those things, meaning that this factor alone would not change his attitude about accepting potential kingship. In fact, he still believes that realistically Anora is better suited.

I’d argue that someone who has consistently said one thing without fail and is now only changing the tune after basically being told to shut up and grow up may not be expressing their truest desires. He is going along with what Eamon is telling him, with what the Warden is telling him, with what he’s told is his duty and responsibility. For the greater good, not for himself.

And you might be saying that can’t be true, hardened Alistair says he wants to be king!

Personally, I’d argue that Alistair saying he wants to be king is much the same as your average person saying they want a job. Do most people want to go to work every day? No, not really, but you have to because it’s just what you need to do. So when asked, you’d say you want a job. Of course you would, because you have to have one. But removed from that necessity, would you still say the same? Likely not. I believe the same holds true for Alistair. If he wasn’t being told at every turn that him being king is what must be done, he wouldn’t feel a need to bow to that.

Hardened Alistair confidently wanting to be king is often accepted as plain fact, when it’s really not so cut and dry. We can dig into some of his dialogue and really look at his feelings on the matter.

Hardened Alistair is saying he wants to be king. Even he’s surprised by it. But what is the context of this line? He’s about to sacrifice himself. He believes that his sacrifice–not living to rule–is the single best thing he can do as king.

But is it pure happiness and willingness, or is it a man simply trying to make the best of a situation he’s locked into? I vote for the latter.

I often see the argument that having a Warden queen would make him happier with the idea of being king, but by all evidence it really doesn’t seem to be the case. Here is his response to the Warden confirming that she does want to be queen. Alistair still doesn’t like the idea of ruling. This isn’t a line exclusive to hardened Alistair, he will always have this line available.

“I wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for you” … “you owe me” … Even hardened, Alistair seems to see being king as something negative being thrust upon him. A punishment, perhaps? What would his response be to being told that being king is not a punishment?

On the surface, he agrees, but take a look at that VO comment for his actual feelings on it. He does consider it a punishment. This is indeed a line for hardened Alistair, as it occurs during the mistress conversation, which is a hardened Alistair exclusive.

Even if hardened, Alistair would prefer to stay a Warden if he can.

And if you don’t make hardened Alistair king? He’s grateful. Happy. Happier.

Agreeing to a threesome

Unhardened or hardened, he will push back when you suggest this. However, only hardened Alistair will relent and agree to it. Unhardened Alistair will simply refuse. Which one sounds more like someone standing up for his own wants?

This is the path the conversation goes if Alistair is hardened. His initial refusal and discomfort with the situation remains, but if you tell him to go along, he will.

He is, regardless, clearly not as comfortable with the situation as one should be. It certainly isn’t the kind of enthusiastic consent one would look for when asking someone to engage in a particular sex act. But he had fun, so it’s okay, right?

Well… did he have fun? Isabela jokes about borrowing him in the future and it seems quite clear that he isn’t interested in a repeat occurrence. Not only is he not interested, he’s awkward, uncomfortable. “Oh, but he makes a joke about wet frocks right after this!” He does. But it’s Alistair. He’s constantly making jokes to mask his discomfort.

Agreeing to making the Warden his mistress

Again, he will push back on this at first, only relenting if he’s hardened and you push the issue. If unhardened, he’ll stand by his original statement that he feels it would be wrong. Is he just saying he believes it’s wrong, or is that what he truly believes? Based on what we know of Alistair, I’d say it’s far more likely that he truly does find the idea of making the Warden his mistress to be disrespectful both to the Warden and to his wife, and that he is somewhat disregarding his own beliefs on that to bend to the Warden’s insistence that he take a mistress.

Whether he’s marrying Anora or not, his views on the matter are the same. He intends to be loyal to whoever he marries, and he knows he cannot do so if he continues the relationship with the Warden.

It’s clear that he finds the entire idea distasteful.

Much like the threesome, you do have to press him to get him to agree. He’s quite set in his beliefs on the matter, but he will acquiesce if the Warden pushes it.

Insisting on becoming king in the context of dealing with Loghain

These are the choices where I’d say there is potentially a case to be made that Alistair is making the decision he wants to make. However, I wouldn’t say that the decision being made is that he wants to be king. I would argue that becoming king is simply a means to an end to give him the power to get revenge in the way he wants.

In the first potential scenario here, Alistair will insist on being made king if he is not chosen to fight Loghain. Why? He wants Loghain dead, and he isn’t being given the choice to make that happen. He wants the power to make that choice, all else be damned.

Here you can see that hardened Alistair insists on taking the throne while making it abundantly clear that the reason for doing so is to take care of Loghain in the manner he wants.

Unhardened Alistair does the same. Why? Because the motivation remains the same whether he’s hardened or not. Unhardened Alistair simply hasn’t become so resigned as to pretend he’s any less displeased with it than he is.

In the second potential scenario, Alistair is chosen to fight Loghain and kills him. He finally achieves the goal he’s been working towards all along: getting his revenge on Loghain. He’s running on that high when Eamon immediately suggests he take the throne, he says yes, he’ll do it. There’s not really anything to break down dialogue-wise in this scenario, as his acceptance of the throne is the exact same dialogue as it would be in any other case. He simply says he accepts when it’s proposed.

Is it what he truly wants? Maybe. You could make a case for it. However, I interpret it more as running on that adrenaline high, feeling powerful and not fully thinking it over in the moment.

Accepting being king & marrying Anora if Loghain is spared

Alistair has been tunnel visioned on getting his revenge on Loghain the entire time, and this is the only circumstance in which sparing Loghain will not result in Alistair leaving and becoming a drunk. He both accepts marrying Anora (which he isn’t happy about) and sparing Loghain (which is very counter to his wishes).

He doesn’t like Anora and doesn’t want to marry her, but he does anyway. Hardened Alistair knows that marrying Anora is politically advantageous and prioritizes that over his personal desire to enact his vengeance, though he makes it clear to the Warden that his personal feelings on the matter have absolutely not changed.

Hardened Alistair goes along with marrying Anora after Loghain is spared and leaves the party, unhappy with the Warden’s choice to spare Loghain. If this line alone didn’t make his displeasure clear enough, there’s also this one:

He refers to the Warden’s actions as a betrayal. He’s obviously not happy.

Unhardened Alistair, however, stands his ground and refuses.

Approving of executing Jowan

Another case of a changed tune to go along with what the Warden is doing. Unhardened Alistair actively disapproves of the Warden executing Jowan. We could assume that hardened Alistair is just more pragmatic, or perhaps simply more willing to accept it when the Warden tells him this is what must be done.

There is no Alistair specific dialogue to look at here, just the approval points, so it’s really just a matter of looking at what we know of him and the situation. I would say in general Alistair values life and values mercy. Are there exceptions? Yes. Loghain, for example, whose crimes Alistair has judged worthy of death. Clearly unhardened Alistair does not feel that way about Jowan. Hardened Alistair though? He approves of his execution, but is it because he personally thinks it’s best or is it because he accepts the Warden’s judgment?

I would argue that it’s the latter primarily because it’s completely in line with everything else we’ve seen from hardened Alistair. There really are just no solid cases of hardened Alistair asserting his own will when compared to unhardened Alistair, so I don’t see this case as being any different.

In Review

In each case of behaviors changed by hardening Alistair, we see him putting his own wants and needs on the backburner in favor of an externally imposed sense of duty or to bend to another’s will because he accepts that his personal feelings are irrelevant. I’d go as far as to say that hardening is really a misnomer, because what we’re really looking at would be better called resignation.

I actually didn’t include every single line I found of hardened Alistair expressing the sentiments I’ve laid out in this analysis because I didn’t want it to be too long, but there is more in the game. Now I will get into less concrete analysis and a bit more of an explanation of my own personal opinions on hardening.

Aside from looking at what hardening actually means for Alistair, we can also question its necessity. Do you need to do it if you want to do certain things in Origins (threesome, mistress ending, etc.)? Yes. But I often see people argue that hardening Alistair is necessary for him to grow or mature as a person, and I completely disagree.

My personal opinion is that hardening Alistair is neither necessary nor kind.

In terms of helping Alistair to grow as a person, I maintain that Alistair will become more naturally “hardened”, or more accurately, he will mature on his own if you give him the chance to do so. Why do I say so? Look at Alistair in Inquisition. That is not the same idealistic young man we see in Origins, and this remains true regardless of hardening status. Whether it’s Warden Alistair or King Alistair, he’s clearly grown and changed.

Sure, you can mod the game to make the hardening dialogue more palatable, but that’s an entirely different discussion. As is, you’re required to essentially kick him when he’s down, and I simply do not find it to be necessary for his own personal development.

If it’s not already completely obvious by me doing all of this in the first place, I really, really love Alistair. Of course I’m quite settled and happy as an unhardened Warden Alistair truther, but I’m always happy to discuss and debate. I’m very interested in any thoughts you might have, whether you agree with my assessment or not (as long as you’re nice).

Thank you for reading my (almost sickeningly thorough) little analysis if you made it this far!

As a treat (or unhardened Warden Ali propaganda depending on your perspective), here's my Warden, miss Neria Surana with her very happy unhardened Warden husband:

[mulloey]

unwelcome • pt 2

read part one here

stepdad!mingyu x fem!reader

words: 3.8k

warnings: this is pretty fucked up. stepfather relationship, infidelity, mingyu n u are not good people rly, brat/brat tamer dynamics, mean hard dom!mingyu, daddy kink, dirty talk, punishment, pussy slapping, gyu refers to you as ‘daughter’ and himself as ‘father’ in a sexual context a couple times, not really dubcon but there’s certainly a power imbalance, breeding, pregnancy mention, heavy degradation, choking etc. this is pretty intense.

you’ve been appropriately warned of the content of this fic and are solely responsible for what you consume. don’t like, don’t read. hate is blocked.

-

it’s been a week since the incident in the kitchen— since mingyu had finally snapped, since you felt his firm hands and long fingers restraining and touching you as he pleased. since the event that you thought would have changed everything with your stepfather. except it hasn’t.

mingyu has said nothing about what transpired that day, and neither have you. you tried to, once, but a hand around your neck and whispered warning that “that wasn’t what you thought it was” had shut you down quickly. he’s still strict, but it’s from a distance now— he doesn’t scold or reprimand you, but nor does he praise or really interact with you in any way. you never thought you would, but you miss it. you miss him.

your mother is gone, again. she seems to have picked up on the energy shift in the house over the past week and, like you, doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. so she’s chosen to stay away, assuming that whatever’s going on will resolve itself as it always does. you had hoped it would too— except mingyu won’t let you get near him.

today you’ve been mulling it over; holed up in your room with your blanket around your shoulders. you’d gone down earlier to grab a piece of toast; you’d felt your stepfather’s eyes on you the whole time you were in the kitchen, but you paid him no mind, grabbing your toast and quickly retreating back upstairs without a word. you wish you hadn’t heard his sigh of relief when you walked away.

you can’t live like this anymore, you know that. whatever thick, immobilizing tension is separating you two, pulling at one and pushing at the other, needs to break. and you will break it, even if just to have back the annoying, obnoxious man you used to hate. it’s better than… whatever this is.

you discuss it at length with your best friend, pearl, over drinks at your favourite bar downtown. she’s the only one you could turn to with something like this— the only one you can trust not to judge you. not that you don’t deserve to be judged; you’ve done an awful thing, after all. you’ve allowed your mother’s husband to touch and finger you. you’ve not just helped him to betray your mother, but you’ve betrayed her yourself.

you’re past that now, though. you’ll make it up to her later. and if mingyu’s willing to do that to his own step daughter then clearly he’s not the right man for your mom anyway. it doesn’t make you feel a whole lot better.

but pearl doesn’t judge you; she never does. you’ve known each other since you were babies, for one, but more importantly, she has (to your annoyance), been saying from the start how utterly delectable your new stepfather is. if anything, she’s probably annoyed she didn’t get to fuck him first.

she listens silently and thoughtfully as you run her through the events of last week, tapping her manicured nails against the wood of the table. by the time you finish, a sly, knowing smile has reached her face.

“isn’t it obvious?” she asks.

you hesitate, confused. “isn’t what obvious?”

“what you need to do,” she says. “to fix this.”

“not to me,” you say. “i mean, i need to fuck him, i think. but i can’t do that when he barely even talks to me now.”

she shrugs, twirling the little cocktail umbrella between her fingers. “so make him jealous.”

“what?”

“piss him off, y/n,” she says. “bring someone home and let him see that you’re moving on. i guarantee you he won’t like it.”

you slump back in your seat, thinking for a moment. it’s a good plan— if it goes right. if it goes wrong, well… you doubt anything could be worse than this. “okay,” you say. “i’ll do that.”

it takes two more days to find the nerve to bring home a boy from your campus. you were careful to choose someone you wouldn’t have to interact with after today if it all went catastrophically wrong, which means the TA in your thesis group who makes eyes at you from across the room is off the table (sorry, wonwoo), but who you’ve seen and interacted with enough that it won’t seem weird when you invite them home with you.

you have no real intentions with joshua, but he’s nice enough, around your age and very horny, so you figure he’ll do fine; indeed, he can barely keep his hands off you as you walk into the house and accidentally-on-purpose make your presence known with a loud laugh. his wandering hands only leave you when your stepfather rounds the corner into the lobby.

he’s dressed in his pyjamas still, and he looks tired and irritated until he spots the boy next to you— and the non-existent, certainly non-platonic gap between you. in an instant he’s awake and the irritation is gone, replaced with anger. his palms twitch at his side, desperate to break the calm demeanor that he’s hanging onto by a thread. little slut.

“what’s going on here?” he asks. he tries to keep his voice cool and leveled but the resulting sound is low and dangerous, like a predator about to strike.

joshua swallows and you feel him tensing up nervously beside you. whether it’s to calm him down or to provoke mingyu further, you're not sure, but you grab his hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. joshua relaxes slightly, and mingyu’s eyes narrow.

“hi,” joshua finally says. “i’m jo–”

“i don’t give a rat's ass who you are,” mingyu says sharply. “tell me what you’re doing here and what your hands are doing on my daughter, now.”

joshua’s eyes widen and he seems to shrink further into himself, wishing he was anywhere else. “look, man,” he says, “i don’t want any trouble. we were just gonna hang out.”

“yeah?” mingyu asks. “not anymore. plans changed, i’m afraid. we’re busy this evening.”

“oh yeah?” you challenge. “busy with what?”

mingyu says nothing, just raises a cool eyebrow at you with a blank expression. you feel joshua’s gaze flicker between the two of you in confusion and discomfort.

clearly, he wants nothing to do with this. you don’t blame him; and he’s served his purpose anyway. you’ll make it up to him another day. buy him a coffee or something. doesn’t really matter right now.

“i’m just gonna go,” he mutters. he catches your eye as he walks past, face contorted half in sympathy and half in fear— fear for you, it seems. if only he knew that you’re halfway to getting exactly what you wanted.

“see you around, josh,” you say, but your eyes are already locked with your stepfather.

the door slams shut and he’s on you instantly, hand on your neck as you’re shoved harshly against the wall. the impact is so sharp and sudden that it sends the small painting hung up next to you crashing down, but neither of you notice; not when you’re looking at him with such lust and he’s looking at you with such ire. you could cut the tension between you with a knife, but even then, you’re not sure if it would break. the tiny gap between his face and yours and the heavy breathing as he looks you up and down is electrifying like nothing you’ve ever felt before.

“min—”

“shut up,” he says. “i’ve had it with you.” his voice is almost shaking with rage and he stares at you for a moment before his large hand impacts the side of your face. you shriek in pain and surprise, reaching to clutch your stinging cheek but he grabs your wrist with the hand that had just slapped you, holding it firmly above your head.

“fucking slut,” he says. “parading your little boy toy through my house as if i wouldn’t know what you’re doing. debasing yourself like a cheap whore. is that what you thought i wanted?”

your mouth opens and closes, lost for words. you both know the answer but you don’t want to say it. he shakes his head, chuckling dryly.

“no, it’s not,” he says. “because you never cared or even thought about what i might want. only ever thought about yourself, didn’t you?”

you feel yourself shrink under his gaze and the venom of his words and he smiles briefly. his eyes roam your body, lingering on your chest that rises and falls with your heavy, panicked breathing. fuck, he’s practically drunk on the power he has over you right now.

his grip on your neck tightens momentarily— just enough to remind you of how small and breakable you are under his grip. “too fucking cock drunk to think about anything else,” he says lowly. “fuck. i should‘ve made your friend stay so i could fuck you in front of him, shouldn’t i? teach you both a lesson.”

his words hit you in the stomach, knots of arousal twisting in your gut. you know he sees the way your thighs clench together at the image. “i…” you trail off; you have nothing to say. he knows it too. he lifts his hand from your neck to stroke your cheek with a surprising tenderness.

“pretty thing,” he mutters. “my little girl.” he’s silent for a moment, eyes raking over your face, so small and fragile in his strong hands. his grip tightens, squeezing your jaw. “apologise,” he says.

you frown, confused. “for what?”

he snorts like it’s obvious. “provoking me, for one,” he says. “using that poor boy to get a rise out of me. and being a rude, bratty little girl simply because i wasn’t giving you enough attention.”

you roll your eyes before you can think it through and he’s quick to react, his hand slapping you again before returning to your neck. “no respect,” he mutters. “you obviously need an attitude adjustment. and that’s exactly what daddy’s gonna give you.”

you bite your lip to stop yourself from moaning at the name he’s given himself, but it’s no use. your stepfather is far too tuned in, far too in control, to let anything slip past him. his lips curl into a thin, sneering smile. “liked that, did you?” he asks. “you like being fucked by your fucking father?”

“mingyu,” you whine. your face burns at the humiliation of not just his words, but the truth of them— mingyu is your stepfather. he’s married to your mother. and you’d do anything to have your hands on his dick right now.

“no,” he says. “you don’t get to call me that. if you could act like a mature fucking adult then maybe i’d let you but you can’t, can you? you’ve been a little fucking brat since i met you and it’s about time i treated you like one.”

there’s a fire in his eyes you haven’t seen since that day in the kitchen, only now it burns both brighter and darker than before. as he finally releases his grip of you against the wall, only to drag you by the hair through to the living room, you get the feeling you’re about to see mingyu in a way even the episode in the kitchen couldn’t have clued you into.

he shoves you down, watching you stumble to the floor with a surprised shriek. you sit yourself up, leaning on your hands as you stare up at him where he towers above you— tall, imposing, and terrifying.

he’s silent, watching you closely before he sighs and walks over to sit himself down on the couch. “come here.”

your legs are shaking as you struggle to pull yourself up from the floor. his jaw twitches, fists clenching. you’ve never looked so pathetic, never felt so humiliated and you still have all your clothes on. he reaches out to pull you towards him and you stumble forwards until you land on his lap— over his lap. you feel your short skirt flip up over your ass from the sudden motion, exposing your black lace panties. he chuckles, grabbing one of your ass cheeks and squeezing it firmly. your breath hitches.

“mm,” hums appreciatively. “this is how i like to see you, daughter mine. bent over and ready to submit.”

you squirm, thighs clenching at the low timbre of his voice; the deepening of it as he calls you his daughter. jesus. this is so fucked up.

his finger trails the inside of your thigh, stopping just short of your pussy. he fingers at the hem of your panties, right next to your pussy, watching the way you react to his touch as he teases the edge of your underwear like he’s inspecting it. he sees the wetness seeping through the black fabric and chuckles. “that desperate, baby?” he asks.

you say nothing, still processing the situation you find yourself in and he slaps your ass harshly, making you jolt. “answer,” he says darkly. “or i’ll just spank you and send you to bed without release. is that what you want, little girl?”

“no,” you gasp, shaking your head fervently. you won’t deny it; the idea of being spanked by mingyu, not for sex, not for foreplay, but solely for punishment, is embarrassingly tantalising. but you’ve been waiting too long to have him touch you like this again and if you don’t get to feel his dick inside you tonight you might actually go insane. “no, i don’t,” you say.

he laughs, pinching the sensitive skin of your thigh and rubbing the red mark soothingly. “look at you,” he chuckles. “so bratty and disrespectful but so quick to submit once i use a bit of force. can’t believe i wasted my time on your mother when i had this little kitten here waiting for me.”

his words are like cold water as they wash over you— your mother. this isn’t just your stepfather— this is your mother’s husband. this is the man she loves and relies on, who swore to be hers for the rest of his life. and you’re bent over his lap and trying desperately not to grind against his thick, strong thigh. you’re the worst daughter ever.

and if you weren’t before, you certainly are when you mewl out a desperate, “please, daddy, fuck me.”

“hm,” he says. “such good manners, i’m almost tempted.” his finger trails along your panties before finally sliding over your covered pussy. you gasp, squirming again when he ghosts over your clit. he presses down a little, enough to make you pulse slightly, then lets go. “what a shame you had to be such a brat.”

you make a noise of confusion, craning your head around to see mingyu sliding your panties down to your ankles, exposing you fully to him with your skirt by now halfway up your back. you catch his gaze and he raises an eyebrow. “turn around,” he says. “i’m gonna teach you how to fucking act around me.”

swallowing, you obey, turning around to bury your head in the pillows of the couch. you feel him raise the thigh you’re bent over, giving him easier access. you close your eyes, bracing for the first hit against your ass. you’re ready for it, you think— what you’re not ready for, is for him to suddenly tilt you forwards and start slapping your pussy instead.

the first strike makes you shriek and he gives you no time to recover before continuing. your pussy is far more sensitive than your ass, not to mention dripping, but he hits you with the same brute strength he’d used on your ass and face. the pain is white hot and searing and you hear the impact of each slap; and the wet, squelching sound of his hand against fluid gushing from you. strings of cream are connecting to his hand, following it each time he pulls away to wind up for another hit. you feel him hardening beneath you and adjust yourself a little without realising, trying to grind against his cock subconsciously. he grabs your waist to tug you back into place and delivers an extra hard swat right on your clit.

it’s so painful and so arousing that you don’t even notice when it’s over. not until he’s pulled you off his lap and pressed his leaking cock against his entrance do you finally realise what’s happening. he’s going to fuck you. finally.

he leans over where you’ve found yourself on all fours on the couch, lips pressing against your ear. “ask me to fuck you, baby,” he whispers. you gasp as he rubs himself against you and he chuckles. “c’mon, filthy girl. ask me nicely.”

“p-please,” you stutter. all your nerves are on fire and pushing against your skin, senses heightened as he slowly starts to push into you. “more,” he groans.

“daddy,” you gasp. his hands are on your waist as he guides himself into you, moaning at the way you sob his name. “fuck,” he grunts.

when he finally gets in all the way it’s overwhelming; mingyu is huge, beyond huge, and you’ve never been this full before. you feel him pressing against your cervix even without moving yet there’s none of the pain or discomfort that someone of his size would usually bring. it feels right. like you were made to take him and he was made to take you.

he starts moving without a word; slow thrusts that get faster and harder until he’s completely pounding you, fucking into you desperately like a wild animal. he sounds like one, too; you both do, yelling and grunting as you pushing yourselves deeper into the other. his grip on your waist is bruising but comfortable and you sink into it, lost in pleasure.

you chant his name on repeat — “daddy, daddy, daddy” — the only word that comes to you as he fucks you open. he leans over you, pressing his face into the back of your neck and kissing down the top of your back before straightening up again, angling himself to go deeper.

“you love this, don’t you?” he spits. “love being whored out by your stepfather. is that why you moved back home? to make yourself available to me?”

you groan at his words, clenching around him. you both know that’s not true, but it may as well be— you certainly won’t be moving back out again anytime soon now. you want to stay with him, be available for him— a waiting hole for him to use. fuck, you're depraved, but so is he; he groans when you say it out loud, thrusting harder. “that’s right,” he grunts. “just a hole f’me. just a fuck toy for your daddy, yeah?”

you choke, crying out when he slams into you again. you reach your arms back, trying to touch him and he grabs them, folding them against your back and holding you down.

“i knew it,” he laughs. “knew from the moment i met you that you just needed some dick. knew it had to be mine, fuck.”

“yes,” you gasp. “yours, yours, gyu, has to be yours.” you’re babbling and delirious now and he’s fucking high on it. he presses more of his weight onto you, trapping you beneath him— as if you’d ever want to get away.

“good girl,” he whispers. “i’m gonna fuck you every fucking day. every time that bitch leaves the house you’re gonna come and fucking present yourself to me, understand? gonna come offer up your holes to daddy.”

“yes,” you whine. “always, daddy.”

“i’m never fucking your mother again,” he says. “i’ve got this perfect little pussy now instead and it’s all mine.”

by now the sensations of his dick slamming into you have become a constant rhythm, allowing you to cling to it as you go dumber and dumber on his cock. you could stay like this forever; split open and abused while he spits filth into your ear; but you can tell from the clenching of your pussy and the throbbing of his cock that you’re both close to the edge. he grunts, grabbing your hair to pull your head backwards and pressing a kiss to the back of your neck. “good girl,” he says, movements speeding up. “i’m gonna cum in you. gonna put a fucking kid in you. you want that?”

you know mingyu knows you’re on birth control; he’s seen the pills you keep in the medicine cabinet and heard you discuss your prescription with your mother. but fuck, the idea of him getting you pregnant, your own stepfather knocking you up, is so twisted and exhilarating that it propels you towards your orgasm. you feel yourself releasing over his dick, drenching the couch and he makes a noise of delight. “didn’t know you squirted, baby,” he moans. “that’s so fucking perfect, god.”

“daddy,” you moan. “mingyu.” you’ve gone limp on his dick now, fucked out and exhausted but you’re smart enough to recognise that this stops when he’s finished. he’s almost there, though, you can tell; his grip on your tightens, moans getting louder until he spits out a “clench, slut,” and releases into you the moment you obey.

he collapses on top of you once he’s done, face pressed into your back. you’re both filthy; covered in sweat and cum and drool but you don’t care. you’ve never felt so satisfied in your fucking life.

mingyu pulls you into his arms and you relax into his hold, breathing deeply against his chest. it’s perfect peace, utter bliss— while it lasts. minutes later he jumps up, looking panicked.

you stare up at him in confusion. “mingyu?”

“your mother’s coming back,” he says. your stomach drops. “in 30 fucking minutes.”

panic takes over and you force yourself to your feet; it’s dizzying and disorients you for a moment, but mingyu is quick to catch you when you stumble, helping you steady yourself before he releases you. mercifully, most of the mess is on the two of you; the couch is pretty much clean. mingyu orders you into the shower and you obey, scrubbing away all the evidence of what you’ve just done. you hear him run past your room a few minutes later, and when you emerge, you’re both clean and in your pyjama. only the way he looks at you as you walk downstairs together gives away what’s happened.

your mother looks tired when she walks through the door, but smiles sweetly when she spots her husband and daughter waiting in the kitchen for her. she plants a long, wet kiss on mingyu’s lips and you feel your stomach twist in envy. looking away, you turn back to see his eyes on you, dark and scrutinising as your mother sits down at the table.

“how are my loves?” she asks. you smile weakly at her, wracked with guilt but at the same time wishing she would just get the fuck out so you can fuck her husband again.

mingyu puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it fondly, but his eyes never leave you as he speaks.

“we’re perfect.”

-

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[deliciousangelfestival]

Change of Heart - 2 | Bucky

Character: Bucky x Female! Reader

Theme: Angst, tragedy, romance.

Summary: The interviewer asked her a provocative question:

“If you were offered a million dollars, would you leave your partner?”

Without hesitation, she replied with a smirk, “Give me one dollar, and I’ll leave him this second.”

True to her word, she walked away, leaving the man stunned and searching for answers. Now, he’s desperately trying to find her, grappling with the haunting question—why would she leave him so easily?

And is there more to her departure than a single dollar could ever explain?

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 ,-

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By the way, I publish my book Arrogant Ex-Husband and Dad, I Can't Let You Go by Alina C. Bing on Kindle.

Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Leave a comment and Reblog, please. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ❤️

“Fine,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck in frustration. He knew there was no point in pushing further. Grace was like a fortress, guarding whatever secrets you had entrusted her with. Talking to her felt futile, like arguing with a wall that refused to crack.

“I won’t press you for more answers,” he said, his voice softening, though the tension lingered in his tone. “At least tell me this—is she in trouble? Is someone trying to hurt her or threaten her?” His jaw tightened as he spoke, his concern leaking through despite his best effort to remain composed.

Grace hesitated before answering. “No,” she replied firmly, her gaze unwavering.

A part of Bucky felt a wave of relief at her reassurance. If Grace said you weren’t in danger, then maybe you were safe. But another part of him sank deeper into confusion and sadness. For two years, you had been his constant, his safe harbor.

You weren’t just his wife on paper; you had been someone he could rely on, someone who listened to him without judgment. Now, the thought that you might be facing something he had overlooked made him feel hollow.

Had he missed something? Overlooked a sign? The thought gnawed at him as he stood there in silence. You had always been a good listener, absorbing his worries and frustrations like a sponge. Better than any therapist he’d ever paid for. In fact, since marrying you, he had stopped going to therapy altogether.

But then it hit him. You’d rarely opened up about your own life. He couldn’t even recall the last time you shared anything personal. Was that his failure? Not listening to you when you needed him most? His chest tightened with guilt as he realized that the contract, which was supposed to ensure mutual understanding, might have become a barrier instead of a bridge.

Before he could say anything else, his phone buzzed, breaking his train of thought. He glanced at the screen and saw the agency’s number.

“Mr. Barnes, it’s about the arrangement,” the voice on the other end said.

“What is it?” His tone was curt, impatient.

“Your wife has decided not to renew the contract.”

He gritted his teeth. “I know that already.”

“Yes, sir,” the voice continued, cautiously. “But she also returned the money you gave her.”

Bucky froze, his grip on the phone tightening. “What?”

“She left it with us. I’m sorry for the way this unfolded, Mr. Barnes. If you have time, we’d like to meet and discuss this in person.”

He clenched his jaw. “I’ll think about it.”

“Understood. One more thing—Miss L/N left a message. She wanted you to know that she’s sorry.”

Bucky ended the call without a word. His mind was racing, a cacophony of thoughts and emotions he couldn’t untangle.

As he turned to leave, Grace finally broke her silence. “She told me to tell you not to look for her,” she said, her voice low but resolute.

Her words landed like a punch to his gut. He turned back to face her, his expression a mixture of disbelief and sorrow. His fists clenched at his sides, and for a moment, he didn’t say anything.

“Don’t look for her,” Grace repeated, softer this time, as if trying to ease the blow.

Bucky’s lips parted, but no words came out. He swallowed hard, his throat tight. Without another word, he turned and walked away, her parting message crushing him with every step.

🌸🌸🌸🌸

The matchmaking agency didn’t have an official name. To the outside world, it appeared to be an upscale wedding organizer. But beneath the surface, it operated a discreet business, catering to an elite clientele. The agency specialized in PR, celebrity pairings, and finding partners for those seeking unconventional marriages.

To join this matchmaking service, clients paid exorbitant fees, a cost justified by the agency’s ironclad guarantee of success and confidentiality. This exclusivity made it accessible only to the wealthiest 1%. For most clients, love wasn’t a priority. Many were too jaded, too broken, or simply unwilling to risk their hearts again, yet they craved the semblance of companionship.

Companionship didn’t necessarily mean intimacy. Some sought emotional connections without physical ties, while others wanted a blend of friendship and trust. In essence, the agency sold what its clients desired most: a reliable partner tailored to their needs.

That’s where Bucky came in. He wasn’t looking for love. He needed someone he could trust, someone who fit seamlessly into his life. You had checked every box. You charmed his parents and, more importantly, his grandfather—a critical seal of approval.

Now, Bucky sat in the CEO’s office of the agency, his jaw set and his posture rigid. The room was sleek and modern, dominated by a white sofa where both of them sat. He accepted the black tea she offered but barely touched it.

The CEO, a sharp-eyed woman in her late forties, sat across from him, her demeanor professional but empathetic. She had started this agency after her own marriage fell apart. Betrayed by her husband’s infidelity and weary of meaningless dates, she realized she wasn’t alone. Many shared her frustration with traditional relationships. That realization had birthed her unique matchmaking business.

She leaned forward slightly, her expression neutral but observant. “Thank you for making time to meet with me, Mr. Barnes,” she began.

Bucky’s voice was clipped. “Do you know what she did?”

“Yes,” the CEO replied calmly. “She came here yesterday and asked me to give you these.” She placed two envelopes on the table between them.

“This one contains the check for the money she received. She’s returning it to you. The other is a letter she wanted you to have.”

Bucky’s gaze dropped to the envelopes. They were unassuming, just thin paper, yet they felt heavier than the multimillion-dollar contracts he signed daily. He hesitated, his fingers brushing over the edges. Despite his composed exterior, uncertainty gnawed at him.

“Would you like me to open them for you?” the CEO asked gently.

“No, thank you.” His voice was firm, though his hand trembled slightly as he picked up the envelopes.

Slowly, he opened the first one. Inside was a check for the exact amount you’d received when signing the contract—$2 million for two years.

His chest tightened. So that damn $1 was enough to make you leave? Why?

Didn’t you say the money was meant to help you break free from your parents’ control? You wanted to save it to open a café, to buy a boat, to carve out a life of your own.

With a deep breath, he opened the second envelope. This was the one you had specifically instructed to be given to him. He unfolded the paper, hoping for answers, for clarity.

Instead, there was only one sentence:

“It’s not you. It’s me.”

Bucky scoffed, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. His grip on the paper tightened as his jaw clenched. What kind of joke is this? Of all people, he never thought he’d be the one on the receiving end of such a cliché. And didn’t everyone know? The person who said those words was usually the one placing blame.

So it is me. I’m the reason you left.

He pressed a hand to his forehead, closing his eyes as the weight of realization settled over him. He thought back to the countless times you’d listened to him, your quiet understanding, your patience. Had he ever done the same for you? Had he missed the signs that you were unhappy?

He cleared his throat, breaking the silence. “Did you see her face yesterday?” he asked, his voice low but steady.

“Yes,” the CEO replied, her expression unreadable.

“What did you see? Was she sad? Angry? Happy?”

The CEO took a moment before answering. “I sensed relief when she handed me the check.”

Bucky’s shoulders tensed, his chest constricting at her words. Relief? Was that all you felt after two years together?

“But,” she continued, her voice softening, “when she gave me the letter for you, I saw regret in her eyes.”

Bucky froze, those five words—I saw regret in her eyes—hitting him like a punch to the gut. He swallowed hard, his gaze dropping to the letter still clutched in his hand.

If you regretted it, why did you leave? Why didn’t you say anything? Was it really so unbearable to stay?

His thoughts spiraled as he sat there, motionless, staring at the remnants of what he thought was a stable arrangement. The unanswered questions twisted in his mind, leaving a hollow ache in their wake.

“Forgive my frankness, Mr. Barnes,” the CEO began, her tone professional yet slightly playful. “Since you’re officially single now, would you like me to add you back to the list?”

Bucky’s eyes darkened, and his jaw tightened as he leveled a cold glare at her. “Marriage is the last thing on my mind.”

The CEO nodded, her smile faint and understanding. “Of course. I apologize for asking.”

Bucky stood, adjusting his suit jacket with deliberate movements, signaling the end of the conversation. He turned to leave, but the CEO rose to her feet and extended her hand toward him.

“It’s been a privilege having you as our client, Mr. Barnes,” she said with a polite smile. “I hope our paths cross again.”

He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly as he regarded her. After a brief hesitation, he reached out and shook her hand, his grip firm but curt. “This is the last time I’ll be here.”

Her smile didn’t falter, remaining calm and composed. “Safe travels, Mr. Barnes. And thank you for using our services.”

Bucky released her hand without another word, his expression unreadable as he turned on his heel and strode toward the exit. His footsteps echoed in the quiet, elegant office, a stark reminder that this chapter of his life was closing for good.

🌸🌸🌸🌸

Bucky slid into the backseat of his car, running a hand through his hair in frustration. The driver glanced at him through the rearview mirror, hesitant but professional. “Where to, Mr. Barnes?”

Bucky exhaled sharply, leaning back against the seat. “To Grandpa’s house.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the car wove through the streets, Bucky stared out the window, lost in thought. His mind wandered to his grandfather, Paul—stubborn, sharp-tongued, and annoyingly perceptive. He wondered if the old man already knew you had left or if he was still blissfully unaware.

Ever since you met his family, you’d formed an immediate bond with Paul. The connection between you two had been almost effortless. You once told Bucky that, having never known your own grandparents, you’d always yearned for an elder figure in your life.

For Paul, who often clashed with Bucky during their 20-minute tolerance window, you were a revelation. You brought out a side of him Bucky rarely saw—a livelier, softer version of the strict, commanding patriarch. Paul saw in you the granddaughter he’d always wished for: someone who called him, visited him, and actually listened to his long-winded stories.

Yet even that bond hadn’t been enough to make you stay.

When the car pulled up to the grand estate, Bucky stepped out and made his way inside, his movements tense and deliberate. He headed toward Paul’s study, where the old man often spent his afternoons.

Pushing open the door, he paused. Paul sat in his wheelchair by the fireplace, glasses perched on his nose, reading a letter. The firelight cast warm hues across the room, highlighting the lined face of a man who had lived through decades of triumphs and disappointments.

Before Bucky could announce his presence, Paul’s voice broke the silence.

“She left, didn’t she?” The elder’s tone was heavy, filled with resignation. He crumpled the letter in his hands and tossed it into the flames, watching as it curled into ash.

Bucky froze, guilt knotting in his chest. “She… she said goodbye to you?”

Paul didn’t look up. “And about the agency.”

Bucky’s stomach dropped. His mind raced, scrambling for an explanation. Did Grandpa know everything?

“Grandpa, I can explain—”

“Shut up, you stupid boy!” Paul snapped, his voice rising with a force that belied his age. His hand moved to his chest as if to steady himself. “You fooled me twice, Bucky. Twice! First, you made me believe your marriage was real. Then, you made me believe I finally had a granddaughter.”

Bucky instinctively stepped closer, his hand resting gently on Paul’s shoulder, his other moving to massage the elder’s chest. “I’m sorry, Grandpa. I—”

Paul shook him off, his eyes blazing with disappointment. “And don’t get me started on that ridiculous matchmaking agency. It’s absurd! What happened to normal relationships? Real love?”

Bucky swallowed hard, his throat dry.

Paul’s voice cracked, the anger giving way to heartbreak. “You broke this old man’s heart, Bucky. I thought… I thought I could finally go in peace, knowing you had a wife. A good girl by your side. But now…”

He saw it with his own eyes—that Bucky and you were a perfect match. Turns out, it was all a lie. It broke him.

“Tell me,” Paul said, his voice trembling with a mix of anger and desperation, “does she mean anything to you? Or was it just a contract?”

Bucky hesitated, the weight of the question pressing down on him. He opened his mouth but no words came out.

Paul’s eyes narrowed, his disappointment deepening. “You know what? She was right to leave you for a single dollar.”

The words hit Bucky like a slap. His fists clenched at his sides, his jaw tightening. Everyone seemed to blame him for your departure—Grace, the agency, and now his own grandfather. What did I do that was so wrong?

He finally snapped. “If she didn’t mean anything to me, would I have walked out of a $100 billion meeting to go ask where she is?”

It hurt even more because he had lost his best friend. A wife was just a word to him, but a best friend? Yes. Yes, you were. You meant a lot to him, and to his grandfather as well. And you just left without a proper goodbye, as if he didn’t deserve one. He needed answers.

He even skipped a meeting worth billions of dollars. For him to miss it means you are worth more than billions to him.

Paul’s eyes widened, his expression shifting from anger to realization.

“Then what are you doing here?” Paul barked, his voice regaining its edge. “Go find her!”

Bucky stood, stunned into silence.

“Don’t come back until you’ve found her!” Paul continued, pointing toward the door. “And forget about the company. It can survive without you. She’s the one you need to fix this with.”

Bucky nodded stiffly, his expression a mix of determination and frustration. Without another word, he turned and strode out of the study, leaving Paul alone by the fire.

🌸🌸🌸🌸

As Bucky stepped out of his grandfather’s house, the weight of the conversation still hanging over him, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration before answering.

"Sir," came the voice of his head of security.

Bucky sighed, exhaustion creeping into his bones. "Tell me at least some good news," he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"We found her."

The words hit him like a jolt of electricity. His pulse quickened, and for the first time in what felt like ages, a flicker of hope lit in his chest.

Bucky straightened up, his posture shifting from defeat to determination. "Where is she?" His voice was sharper now, his body leaning forward, eager for any hint of where you might be.

This was the news he’d been waiting for, the answer he desperately needed.

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[flock-of-cassowaries]

I was compelled to watch the 2001 Hannibal film at a social gathering in high school, and I hated it.

I did not like the brain-eating scene. I did not like it, Sam I am.

One could say that, 23 years later, I’m still mad at everyone involved (in making, distributing, and choosing the movie) for the fact that that imagery is in my head.

(That’s right, Anthony Hopkins, j’accuse. And no, Julianne Moore, as much as I’ve loved a lot of your other work, you’re not off the fucking hook either. That was bullshit. UPSETTING BULLSHIT I DID NOT NEED IN MY BRAIN I AM SO MAD ABOUT THIS.)

…and then I watched NBC Hannibal, and, while I hated thay fucking cannibal on the first go-round*, that angular ball of outraged floof (who can’t make real friends because of his compulsive masking and absolutely pathological coping mechanisms [killing people]) somehow wormed his way into my mind palace.

I blame Mads Mikkelsen for this. And tumblr. This site is like, the chief incubator for hannibrainworms.

* Serious discussion of why I hated Hannibal Lecter on the fist watch-through below the cut. Cw for domestic violence.

1. Killing people is pretty fucking rude; get wrecked, hypocrite.

2. More seriously, killing Abigail in front of Will, in order to hurt him, is some straight-up ‘not-uncommon abusive partner in the real world’ shit, and honestly… that’s very uncomfortable to me.

TBH, I think that even if your cis male dark romance lead is gonna kill and eat people… like… maybe you shouldn’t write him to kill someone’s child as an emotional manipulation tactic.

Like, there aren’t a lot of suave, sexy cannibals running around eating the rude, but there are a lot of real men who control their partners by threatening to kill their children and/or pets.

And if the abuse victims on the receiving end of those threats aren’t able to admit to them self that those threats are fucking Kill Bill siren-warning signs, the chance that those victims won’t get their children, pets, and themselves out of that living situation before serious harm comes to them is greatly increased.

I know very well how easy it is to ignore / rationalize serious abuse, and how people who grow up in abusive situations sometimes use popular media as a reference for how real relationships work (I know I did, as a teenager).

I’ve been more fortunate than a lot of women / non-men - the only physical abuse I suffered was from my father - but it makes me really uncomfortable to see fictional media kind of muddy the waters about stuff that can easily become fatal if the victim misinterprets the level of danger they’re in.

Watching NBC ‘Hannibal’

Expectation: Hannibal Lecter? I’ve heard of him from that scary movie I never watched because I was too scared to. He’s like a super evil villain right? Bad guy, bad evil dude, right there. Hope they stop him. 

Reality: *wild sobbing* Oh God Hannibal my precious confused angular ball of outraged floof, it’s OK baby, I know feelings are scary, feelings *are* scary, love is so hard, love is so so hard, LOOKIT YOUR LITTLE FACE AND YOUR HAIR ALSO, it’s OK, I’m sure he’ll love you back eventually, HANG IN THERE HONEY *flails at TV*

[politicalprof]

So it turns out that for much of my academic career I focused on the question of how conservatives rationalize "loving the Constitution" and "backing the blue" while endorsing the anti-government militia and, more recently, the Jan 6th insurrectionists. QAnon and the Proud Boys stand on similar grounds.

My focus was on the political right, so I am NOT arguing leftists aren't inconsistent hypocrites; I'm just discussing right wingers because that's what I focused on.

Elevator pitch version? Conservatives and radicals have a picture in their heads of the "real" Constitution and the "real" legitimate powers of government that -- to turn a phrase -- trumps the *actual* Constitution and the legitimate *actual* powers of government. Since they know the "real" Constitution and powers of government, they are free to reject abuses of them (as they define abuse). The 14th amendment is illegitimate because it isn't the "real" Constitution. So birthright citizenship is unconstitutional. And the officers at the Capitol on January 6th needed to be gotten out of the way to protect the "real" Constitution.

Admittedly, it was a long elevator ride. But I think I'm pretty much right.

[the-clock-of-the-time-dragon]

[Wicked Act II spoilers]

[edited for tone and clarity of purpose, apologies for initial crudeness and frustration]

Okay, obviously I'm biased, but I'm gonna need the Fiyeraba shippers to please set a lot of your people straight about some things. I've seen way too many people trying to say that Glinda is just a selfish bimbo and that Fiyero is a virtuous and selfless figure more worthy of Elphaba's love. I'll set aside for now the idea of "worthiness" in this context. But let's start off with Fiyero joining the Wizard. Hoo boy...

Yes, he was initially somewhat less tolerant of the propaganda against Elphaba than Glinda was; yes, he was secretly trying to find her so he could run away with her or whatever. But honey: those facts DO NOT fully absolve his actions as the Wizard's top officer, or selfish recklessness throughout Act II. I see so many popular threads and posts romanticizing and whitewashing with "oh but he didn't REALLY join the Wizard, he just pretended so he could try to get to Elphie! It's all for love, and he sacrificed everything for her!" As if the literal captain of the literally fascist forces responsible for the oppression of Animals wasn't equally responsible for said oppression?? Hello? Fiyero really didn't think of seeking out Elphaba in ANY other way that DIDN'T involve becoming *checks notes*... the trusted leader of the troops committing all the abuses she's fighting against in the first place???? Like it's cool and all that he helped with Brrr, and it's all well and good that he planned on betraying the Wizard as soon as he found Elphaba (which took literal years, so I guess we're left to assume he was prepared to just keep doing fascism indefinitely if she didn't show up????), but uh... it's kind of concerning to how eager some of you are to make excuses for this dude volunteering as the head of the Ozian Gestapo??? smdh

He didn't accomplish anything from it either, by the way — like yeah, we get it, he did everything he did whilst silently fantasizing about running away with the Witch he was being paid to hunt. Fine. But I can't be the only one who doesn't buy that as an actual excuse???? Like, guys: nobody forced him to join the fascist army — even with crazy ulterior motives. He wasn't coerced into it; it wasn't his only choice or anything. Searching for Elphaba did not somehow compel him to go and volunteer to follow (or to give!) orders in the name of the dictator who was trying to have her assassinated the entire time. He could have just not done all that. (Genuinely so curious how the second film plans on covering that material tbh)

Glinda made several questionable decisions that can be (and have been) debated, but she is still very unambiguously a victim. Her position in the Wizard's regime was foisted upon her. There are things we can discuss, but I find that many folks need reminding that Glinda would undoubtedly have been disposed of (or worse) if she failed to make herself useful. I mean hell: she wasn't even supposed to meet the Wizard in the first place — she was only there because of Elphie. If she'd tried to resist, it would have immediately gotten her labeled the Witch's accomplice. As soon as she'd chosen not to get on the broom, her fate was out of her hands, and all available options were varying degrees of horrible.

That's not the case with Fiyero. He went to the Wizard all on his own; no one ever cornered or forced him into it. Thinking Animals are people, and having a crush on Elphaba, simply did not stop him from carrying out the regime's orders — for years. It's not clear exactly how long he's been captain at the start of Act II, but the clear implication is that he's been a soldier for most of the time skip. I've seen Fiyeraba accounts with headcanons about him acting as a double agent, secretly doing stuff to help Animals — and that's a great idea, it would indeed serve to make a lot of his actions way more palatable — but until we actually get to SEE some of that (maybe they'll add it for the movie version of Act II; we'll have to see), there is nothing in the story to suggest that. He certainly didn't do a damn thing for all those Animals who were enslaved and caged in the Wizard's palace — and we don't see a single other Animal outside of there in Act II, so as far as we know Fiyero has participated over those years in the near-total removal of Animals from Ozian society. In the name of "finding Elphaba". Not fighting for her cause. Just finding HER. For HIMSELF.

It's fine to have a ship you like, obviously — and there is genuinely a lot to like about Fiyeraba, I don't dislike the idea of them as a couple or as friends — but come on guys: please stop those out there idealizing Fiyero as somehow a clear "morally-superior" alternative to Glinda, lol. The dude had power, access, and opportunities, for years, that he could have wielded in any number of really selfless, revolutionary ways. He didn't. And I propose (apparently controversially): he simply didn't want to. And that — at the end of the day — is (much as some would like to deny it) true to his character. He always WANTED to be self-absorbed and shallow, and all his actions are consistent with that. Elphaba saw depth and discontentment in him, yes: but (and I cannot stress this enough) when given the chance, he channeled that in the wrong direction. He didn't confront that and become a better person — for the most part he just displaced and projected it onto Elphaba as an object of obsession, and put on an even thicker pretense than before.

All his actions — regardless of the complexity he has deep down — are those of a man who never gives one fuck about anything or anyone, except (kinda sorta) Elphaba. But even then: at no time does the care he has for her seem to extend to caring about any of her wants or needs outside of sexual validation from him, or how she might feel about his actions, or indeed the impacts of those actions upon her, her cause, or anyone or anything else. I don't think it should be all that controversial to say: he doesn't think through the wider repercussions of anything he does — thoughtlessness is just one of his core character traits. He doesn't think ahead or see meaning in anything outside of what can temporarily excite him, in the moment. I think people place a little too much weight on Elphaba clocking him with regard to his internal pain, and seem to expect (understandably of course) that she is not only right, but moreover that he will grow from that in a positive direction, based on her influence.

But he doesn't. If anything, we get a surprising inverse: he pretty much proves her wrong. Not to say he didn't have hidden depth and all that, like she said: but his hypothetical heart of gold proves not to really amount to much in practice. He doesn't grow out of his shallowness and his self-centeredness: he grows into it in a way that he hadn't quite yet in school. Where once he was only masking an internal listlessness, after he's been cracked open by Elphaba he decides to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow, not just coasting by. He performs in new ways — as a soldier, eventually as a "fiancé", etc. — but by Act II we meet a Fiyero who has staked the last remaining shred of humanity in him on the vain pursuit of the only object of his desire that has ever been unavailable to him, and firmly chosen to say to hell with everyone and everything else.

When put to the test, Fiyero sacrifices Glinda, the Animals, and all else that Elphaba actually cared about, to pursue his own unresolved crush from college. Mostly to get in her pants, really — as harsh as I'm sure that sounds. But let me be frank: that is literally all he ever accomplishes in the show. He gives her dick one time, and one of his castles, and that's it. That's the culmination of his years trying to find her — years in which he actively worked as one of the stormtroopers (or even the one commanding them) committing untold crimes against Animalkind (who, again, it seems have been all but erased from Oz by Act II): y'know, the very crimes Elphaba sacrificed her life to try and stop????? He spent the most important time of his life — of his own free will — being a fascist soldier, but he "did it for her" somehow, so according to some, it's perfectly fine. Heroic, even. Yikes??

But let's make something very clear (since my original version of this post caught a lot of flak, including slurs and other rudeness):

I like Fiyero. I find his role extremely interesting (I could do a whole dissertation on him, but I'm especially a fan of the way his proving Elphaba's assessment of him wrong presents a fascinating parallel and contrast with Glinda, which I think is lost on a lot of people). But PLEASE stop with all the misguided Glinda slander and idealization of Fiyero. By all means, thirst! But don't give me all this bullshit about him deserving Elphaba more, or being super deep, or being really principled or noble or whatever else. He does have layers, and quite intriguing ones, but his insides are straw — he isn't meant to have some deep, overwrought emotional core or motivations; he has passions that he acts upon when given the chance. That's it. And that's fine. Actually kind of refreshing in a story rooted in simple children's fantasy but rife with intensely complicated personalities. Fiyero makes it his mission to represent denial of depth and embrace of raw, spontaneous desire — and I for one love that, and wish others appreciated it.

And in all seriousness, shipping wars aside: by the end of the story, it's Glinda who is ultimately vindicated, and has — for all her faults — made the necessary choices to fulfill Elphaba's wishes, bring down the regime, etc. And all that despite herself. She's miserable: not just because of the mistakes she made, but because of her correct moves as well. Fiyero is simply not — and could never be — that person. And that's okay! Like I said: I am not anti-Fiyero. Fiyero's willingness to throw it all away for the sake of sheer, overriding passion is a huge part of what people like about him, of course — and it's an obvious factor in the attraction between him and Elphaba, because she has her own flavor of that impulse as well — but I'd actually argue that it's not romantic, it's his fatal flaw. And thematically that's fantastic! But I just don't believe that it somehow means he "deserves Elphaba more" because he "gave up his life for her" or whatever. In part because NOBODY truly "deserves" Elphie tbh, not 100% (and I question anybody who claims otherwise), but ultimately because I don't accept the idea that his fleeting acts of passion make up for all the shit leading up to them (or even proceeding after them tbh). At least Glinda managed to do what Elphaba always wanted in the end — but I would die on this hill even if Gelphie didn't exist.

You don't have to agree with my analysis of Fiyero and his choices, relationships, etc. — that's fine. What isn't fine is trying to portray Glinda as some kind of spineless traitor whore for the Wizard and Fiyero as a conscientious hero who earned Elphie through self-sacrifice. That's just not the story that was written. It's WAY messier and more interesting than that.

[venti-tangents]

General Rafayel Relationship Headcanons

F!MC, no use of Y/N. These are based on my interpretation of the text in Love and Deepspace

sfw

1. His works contains traces of his MC almost everywhere. Rafayel is known for not drawing humans, but that doesn’t stop him form incorporating his lover in everything he creates. Those who look closely will find the flow of the painted ocean to be similar to the flow of her hair, the colours of the fish lifted directly from her wardrobe—Rafayel’s devotion is clear in his paintings, for all to see.

Intertidal zone reveled a lot about how Raf gets inspiration for his craft—and how much of it comes form his MC (sometimes to the point where it concerns him)

2. He wants be around his lover at all times. They don’t have to be talking, touching or even directly interacting—just her presence is enough for him.

3. Cuddliest boyfriend on the planet. I think it takes a bit for his super cuddly side to come out, but when it does, he is almost always attached to his MC. He’s addicted to her warmth, and loves how soft she feels in his arms. Perhaps a small, yet ever growing part of him feels as though she will never forget him again, so long as he can keep her in his arms.

I just know that the MC and Rafayel are most annoying couple you know, if the recent event stories are anything to go by lol. They’re all over each other all the time

Abyssal Chaos gave us rafmc cuddling in front of a window, Tailwag Obsession gave us rafmc cuddling on the floor with a cat by their side, the list goes on and on

4. Banter never ends with this guy. No matter how long him and his MC have been together. On the other hand, long, philosophical discussions are also common place.

5. Raf can canonically sense his MC’s emotions. I read him to be incredibly emotionally mature, and knowing of what his MC needs, and how to provide it to her.

In many of his 4 star audio cards, Raf is shown taking care of MC emotionally. He pulls back when she needs quiet (Rainbow Strokes), is pushy when she’s hesitant, is reassuring when she feels insecure (flowery words). He pulls her out of the house when she’s down(sparkling traces), he lulls her to sleep when she needs him to (sleep aid, memory replay)

6. On the flip side, I think Rafayel loves to be pampered. He melts so easily when his MC provides him with reassuring words and actions (Omniscient perception, intertidal zone, sea god event story).

7. This is a bit of an underdeveloped thought in my head, but Rafayel has a rather possessive side, as shown in his most recent stories. The lumarian words he uses to describe his feelings for the MC literally translates to “You’re mine,” and he talks a lot about leaving his “mark” or “colour” on her.

I think he also likes being claimed by the MC—he wants her to possess him just as much as he possesses her. I wonder if part of this comes from his fear of taking too much from the MC, wanting too much from her, so her being possessive over him calms those fears

nsfw

1. I used to think of Raf as a switch top, but as I learned more about him, I would say he’s mostly a vanilla (no power exchange) verse (tops and bottoms/ gives and receives).

In other words, I think him and his MC don’t really exchange power in their dynamic outside of the sea god - devout follower bond. I think they’re very back and forth about giving and receiving, leading and following in almost every interaction they have.

When him and his MC do decide to play with power dynamics in bed, I think he leans towards taking the dominant role; as much as I love subby Raf, I can’t recall a time in the game where he *truly* summits to MC (in the context of bdsm dynamics). Even when the MC attempts to take control, he flips the dynamic the second she falters. Even when she ties him up (ie. Tipsy Invitation, Promised Wildfire), he makes demands of her in a way that goes further then provocation.

I’ve spoken on this before, back when gem affection came out, but I think Rafayel gets off on “turning the tables” on his lover. Very siren like of him

2. Body worship. He’s absolutely enamored with his lover’s body, obsessed with every part of it. He’ll leave kisses everywhere, so that even if his lover forgets him, her body will never forget his touch

On the other hand, he would love to have his body worshiped too. He wants his lover’s touch *everywhere*, to the point where he finds himself feeling the ghost of her lips all over his body long after their last encounter. In the moment, it serves as a reminder of her obsession with him, that his devotion is reciprocated. He is a god after all—what’s the job of a devout follower if not to worship her god.

3. Scent Kink. He’s OBSESSED with how his lover smells.

4. The biggest tease to ever tease. Off the top of my head, I think of fiery undercuts, but he’s a huge tease in all of his cards

5. I read Rafayel as an incredibly passionate lover. I think to him, intimacy is sacred—it’s not just pleasure to him, but rather him and his lover surrendering themselves to one another. It’s deeply romantic to him, and an exercise in trust

[snakesafraidtodie]

Danny stops mid rant once he realizes that Bruce Wayne is looking at him like he's crazy. "Ehh... never mind. It's just been a rough week. Ignore everything that I said. Obviously I'm alive. I'm just... uh, saying what my parents expect I'd say. Because they think I'm dead."

"You're used to indulging their delusions." Bruce stated, more than asked.

Danny sighed. "Look. I'm really sorry about them. But did you have to publish the name of the dead boy you thought was your son? Even if it's not me, that's gotta be some sort of privacy violation. Did you get permission from the family of the dead Danny?"

"...I'm sorry, I don't know how the body's identity got released to the press." Bruce had a genuine look of guilt on his face. "But you're right. That information should never have hit the news."

"Well, I guess it's not your fault then." Danny shrugged. "Um. This is a long shot, but do you know how to get in contact with Batman?"

"..."

"It's just, now that they're convinced you have my body- my parents... are kinda single-minded? And I wouldn't put B&E to steal what they think is the remains of their son past them. So. I wanna talk to Batman. To discuss how best to handle their brand of... them-ness. They're a lot, but they're good people! And they're grieving me, as misplaced as it is."

--------

The Fentons want a dead body that doesn't exist.

The Waynes want to keep their cover and not blow their identities. (No, Tim. You are not allowed to clone Daniel to make a fake corpse for his parents.)

Danny wants his parents to accept that he's both dead and alive and stop harassing a rich fruitloop for the corpse of a rando kid he mistook for his son. And he'd like to get that without having to out his identity to more people, but at this point it seems unlikely.

So.

When Bruce Wayne agreed to set up a meeting for him with Batman, Danny decided to tell the truth. Because who could he trust with it if not a fellow hero?

------

Ok. Batman was way more intimidating in person. The mass of shadows stared him down. Danny didn't know how to break the silence.

Luckily the Dark Knight took mercy. "Wayne told me you wanted to discuss your parents' potential future actions."

"R-right. Um. Yeah. Ok." Danny took a deep breath to quit his rambling and get to the point. "So. Some background info. Mom and Dad are ecto-biologists and ghost hunters. They spent their career inventing tech that runs on ectoplasm and publishing papers on the evils of post-human-consciousness. Their magnum opus was a portal to a theoretical dimension of ecto and ghosts. They built it in our basement. And."

Danny let the rings of transformation form. He began to float and at Batman's tensing, crossed his arms and legs to appear smaller. He looked away. "It killed me. Kinda. I am dead, but not. I'm a ghost, but I'm alive. I didn't tell them when it happened. They're ghost hunters, y'know? I grew up hearing the evils of my kind. But then the other Danny Fenton was announced dead, and they figured I was a ghost anyway."

Danny set his feet on the ground and turned human. "So I told them the truth, that I'm both, that I've been protecting Amity from the ghosts coming through the portal as the hero Phantom. But. Well, I don't know how much Mr. Wayne told you, but they're convinced I'm fully dead. They want me to move on. That's why they want the body."

Danny clutched at his hair in frustration. "And. I can't convince them otherwise! I don't- this reveal is already going so much better than I could've hoped. They're already rethinking their 'all ghosts are evil' stance. But. I can't keep living with them. They think I'm DEAD, Batman! That I'm haunting them or something. I can't do that to them! I can't make them believe me-!"

Large hands wrapped around Danny's own to gently uncurl the fingers fisted in his hair. "What do you need, Danny?"

Danny sniffed. His hands still held in Batman's own, Danny ducked his head, turning to self consciously wipe his face on his sleeve. "I don't know." He said in a tiny voice. "I want them to get better."

"..."

"Everyone always said they were mad scientists, growing up. I- I don't want them to- to end up at Arkham. But I can't convince them anymore. They need, like, a professional. But it will only work if the professional knows what's actually going on, and that means revealing my secret identity to more people, end even if there is someone trustworthy, I'll still need someplace to stay while we're doing this fucked up supernatural family therapy. So maybe I just gotta... fake my death. Let them move on. Wayne can tell them the other Danny got cremated already or something. And I'll... go... somewhere."

Danny pulled his hands out of Batman's grasp and stood up straight. "Yeah. Ok. Batman, will you help put Danny Fenton to rest once and for all?"

It's a Terrible Cover Story, Really :/

DP x DC AU where, when trying to make a cover story for why Jason is suddenly legally alive again, Bruce (and the rest of the fam) come up with a story that they had found the body of a child that looked just like 15 year old Jason after he had gone missing and went straight into greif stricken panic and assumed to worst! Jason had come back to them later (let's say he's 22/23 here) after recovering from amnesia, and DNA tests confirmed it's him. They claim they exhumed the body and had the DNA tested and it came back (and they make this name up, completely believing that, since enough people have similar names, this won't come back to bite them) as Danny Fenton.

It's plastered all over the news and it makes it's way back to Jack and Maddie fast: who are now completely convinced their son died on a breif trip they took to Gotham 7 years ago and came back as a ghost who just didn't know he was dead. When they try to bring up the topic with Danny, as gently as they could, they wind up learning that he's Phantom and start to think it's a split personality type deal. One is their son trying to greave his own death and failing because he thinks he's still alive, and the other is their son trying to live up to them as ghost hunters and trying to be the hero his kid self must have thought they were. They're torn up and grief stricken and try contacting Bruce about retrieving their sons body.

Bruce is freaking out because he thinks he just convinced people who may have been looking for their son for years that their kid is dead (and maybe he is! Oh god!) And Amity Park nonsense is keeping him from finding anything about the (half) living Danny, now attending community college.

Jack and Maddie are freaking out because they don't want to let go of their son, but also this can't be healthy for any of them or for Danny's soul, he needs to move on and they need time to rethink everything they've ever thought about ghosts to grieve.

And Danny's freaking out because he thinks Brucie Wayne, ditz extraordinaire (unless his kids are involved), clueless to a fault, Brucie, somehow figured out he was a ghost and outed him to his parents???? Not cool man!

[frankendykes-monster]

Six people have burned themselves at Virginia’s infamous supermax Red Onion State Prison since the start of the year, the state’s Department of Corrections confirmed in an email to The Appeal. A Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) spokesperson said the men used “improvised devices that were created by tampering with electrical outlets.” Four incidents occurred on or after September 1. The agency said it tracks incidents of self-harm but does not make reports on those incidents publicly available. “To be clear, these inmates did not set themselves on fire or self-immolate,” she wrote. “They were treated for electrical burns at the Department’s secure medical facility at the VCU Medical Center and cleared to return to the facility. All six inmates have been referred to mental health staff for treatment.” For more than two decades, civil rights attorneys, human rights advocates, and prisoners have documented the horrific conditions at Red Onion, which sits in rural Western Virginia near the Kentucky border. According to a 2018 lawsuit, one man allegedly hallucinated and spoke with his dead parents while kept in solitary for more than 12 years. In another case, a man isolated for over 600 days started to speak in numbers, lost more than 30 pounds, and signed his name with a series of random letters. The DOC settled both lawsuits. In October, incarcerated journalist Kevin “Rashid” Johnson broke the self-harm story for Prison Radio, reporting that men had burned themselves in a “desperate attempt” to be transferred outside of the prison. The news outlet posted an audio recording by Ekong Eshiet, one of the men who allegedly burned himself. Eshiet said staff discriminate against him because of “my race, my last name, or my religion.” “I don’t mind setting myself on fire again,” Eshiet said on the recording. “This time, I would set my whole body on fire before I have to stay up here and do the rest of my time up here.”

Last year, six prisoners at Red Onion State Prison, a supermax facility on the state’s rural west side, intentionally burned themselves, prompting scrutiny of the prison from lawmakers and the public. But rather than address the conditions that may have led to such desperate measures, emails obtained by The Appeal show that corrections staff discussed how best to punish those who’d self-immolated. In the documents, which were obtained through a public records request and partially redacted, staff members discussed how to deter further incidents of self-harm. Suggestions included charging prisoners thousands of dollars for medical care and criminally prosecuting them. “I believe on Monday, we pull policy and start charging the inmates thousands of dollars for the hospital and medical treatment,” Red Onion’s chief of security wrote in September. “Once we iron through this, we can send the word through the inmate population that they’re going to be changed [sic] thousands for their medical due to intentional manipulation. Just my thoughts on how to prevent this kind of behavior.” One of the recipients, Assistant Warden Dwayne Turner, voiced his approval. “Yeah, sounds good,” he wrote. “But, the first thing we need to figure out is why? Do they think they will get transferred? If so, we need to make sure they don’t…. obviously they think they can gain something from doing that. We need to make sure they know they won’t gain anything….but making them pay money is good too[.]” The minimum wage for incarcerated workers in Virginia starts at $0.27 an hour. Local media outlet VPM News reported that Turner was promoted to assistant warden after he was accused of choking a restrained prisoner. Turner did not respond to The Appeal’s request for comment.

[plaidos]

do you really think radical feminism is unsalvageable from a transfeminist perspective? i've been reading a lot of Talia Bhatt's writing lately, and it really reminds me of a lot of the stuff you've talked about on your blog; i find her argument that allowing TERF ideology to subsume the entirety of second-wave feminist theory is throwing out the baby with the bathwater to be incredibly compelling. a theory which centers patriarchy to be the radix of gendered violence and oppression, which is uncompromising and does not give into liberal feminist ideas about womanhood being a "meaningless category," gender liberation involving essentially defining trans women out of existence, etc, seems sorely needed at a moment where liberal feminism has vaguely hand-waved in trans rights specifically in order to prioritize trans *men* and valorize masculinity while continuing to abjectly marginalize transfems, and i find Bhatt's total rejection of white cis TERF co-option of radical feminism and reclamation for the new wave of transfeminist thought to fit that need. anyway that's not intended to ask you to argue with me or anything, i'm just as interested in hearing why you disagree as i am in hearing if you do agree, and i'm not looking to convince you or be convinced either way! i've just been thinking about this a lot lately since stumbling across her (honestly incredible) theory on third-sexing and getting introduced to the concept through that, i'm still working through my thoughts on it and looking for more to read both on it and in opposition to it, and the discussion on radical feminism prompted me to see if you had any thoughts; no worries if not.

yeah i mean @taliabhattwrites and i are literally mutuals on here even so i would hope im not jsut totally denigrating her incredibly insightful & groundbreaking commentaries on the subject when i criticise the second wave haha!

like i don’t know if i have/would say “radical feminism is unsalvageable” because im not even sure what that would mean right? like radical feminism isn’t a concrete object that we can literally build/tear down but yes of course there is almost always worth in reading feminist history & perspectives even those that we fundamentally disagree with because as you said there is a lot to be gleaned from the theories & works & histories.

im honestly not sure where you’ve gotten the impression that like i would just throw out “the baby with the bathwater” so to speak because to be honest i’ve been trying to be pretty careful about not just dismissing all radical feminism as fundamentally transmisogynistic specifically because of the incredible value i’ve found in Talia’s approach

[frownyalfred]

👉 👈 ok but Kryptonian!Lord Clark needing a liaison for Earth so that a good partnership can be made with them and the last few residents from Krypton (earth knows that tho they may be lowered in numbers, Krypton could with minimal effort take over Earth)

In comes Bruce who does not have political ties, nor positions as an Earth spokesperson; but is still one of the richest men and thus well known "celebrities" of Earth, everyone knows of him, so thru some mal-intended BS from his company executives, they nominate him to be Earth's liaison with Krypton.

And Bruce takes it on the chin, and knows that while he may not be experienced in the political field - yet - but he knows how to charm and work a room, knows how to sway people to get them to agree to a deal even if they end up losing on a benefit. He adapts to Kryptonian language as much as he can, he attends meetings and learns customs. He gains secret access to things because they think he's not intuned to their mannerisms. They too think he's a vapid celebrity, just a pretty face.

Then he begins to shadow Clark, who knows this man is more than he seems. He too learns Bruce's mannerisms, he learns to distinguish his smiles from fake and genuine. (It's only genuine when he FaceTimes his kids on Earth, and his father? Butler? as well).

They begin to meet outside of meetings and presentations, Bruce translating Clark's presentations in English for Earth as well as other languages , and soon a friendship blooms.

But as Clark gets more and more political power, when his Uncle Jor-El is killed, he begins to trust those around him a little less and depends on Bruce more. His uncle's campaign don't like that. So they arrange for Clark to seek out a partner for marriage, to distract him from "the thing from earth", and they both learn that /that/ friendship feeling ran a little deeper, now that they know for sure they can't be more.

They still meet up, they still are friends, then Steppenwolf wants in on the Earth discussions, says he's here on behalf of Darkseid, to be friends. He's offering deals that Kryptonians, Earth, and others are interested in.

But Bruce advises against it. He knows this won't end well. Clark knows Bruce wouldn't advise against it if he didn't have a reason (and he doesn't trust Steppenwolf either), but now there was an assassination attempt on him, and they failed, but somehow it is linked to Earth and this rock they have in a supply.

So now they go threaten Clark's "fiancée" but they're escorted to safety but thats what they planned and go after Bruce instead. Bruce is bewildered because why him? He has no power over Clark and Krypton, so he's a mute point. Meanwhile Clark is going a bit berserk because... No. Not Bruce. Anyone but /him/.

Bruce is rescued but he almost didn't make it, and Clark lays the cape/shawl of the house of El on his recovery pod and those around him understand that Steppenwolf messed up bad. That this was a step too far, and Clark is red eyed, mad, impassive like his late uncle, and it's found out some of his own party made a deal with Steppenwolf (Bruce was investigating and Clark found his notes).

So Clark breaks off the deal with Steppenwolf and becomes a Liaison himself for Earth and Krypton but not as it was before but as one entity and when Bruce recovers, Clark asks him to be his partner now in marriage, not just work.

Just, Bruce wearing his colors and Kryptonian uniform /clothing , keeping him healthy and helping him recover while also symbolizing a union unlike before. (His company executives are eating their words, when he returns to earth, still in the uniform, a lot powerful than before).

(Sorry ran on a tangent from you Kryptonian uniform, clothing post of the El cape/shawl protecting Bruce but failing when kryptonite is brandished and used to pierce Bruce's body. It won't poison him like a Kryptonian body would fall to but a projectile with force will still harm a human body, you know?)

I feel like I just read a whole Superbat big bang and I’m in love. I love the way Kryptonian houses/symbols/clothing play into all of this. I love Kal losing it over Bruce. Ahhh!!!

[doberbutts]

Of course- and thanks for the excellent discussion :]

I did think of another one- I don't remember the exact context but again regarding the abortion debate, there was a talk show that invited a bunch of trans people to discuss reproductive rights. But... because they (the cis men and women running the show) had only reached out to trans *women*, the second they got to the abortion and pregnancy care section, basically all of the trans women present went "well idk why you didn't reach out to trans men, that's more their court than ours".

To be clear I do not blame these trans women because from the sound of it, the fault was purely on the cis people who in an attempt to be progressive excluded a huge section of trans people who are directly affected by lack of access to abortion. They spoke out in solidarity to ask why none of the producers had thought that maybe asking a bunch of perisex trans women on their thoughts on abortion was probably not the correct option. They are not my enemies in this.

(To be clear, Cox is also not my enemy. She spoke poorly, was corrected, and took ownership for her mistake and apologized. That's enough for me.)

But the situation still happened- trans men were excluded from a conversation that directly affects us, while trans people who are not affected were included.

And, to be clear, there was recently a YouTube channel in trouble for this in reverse. Plenty of information about testosterone HRT from trans men, and absolutely zero trans women included in the estrogen HRT discussion. This is a problem that unfortunately continues to happen where the (often cisgender!) people having these conversations will then not include the very demographic that absolutely needs to be included.

It's like they see "transgender" and just assume that we all know each other's lives and wants and needs without actually thinking about it logically. It's lazy. And it causes immense amounts of harm to vulnerable people.

I also think that when I see people demanding a *unique* oppression, that they are asking for something impossible and also are very much misunderstanding intersectionality in the first place.

I don't believe any oppression is truly unique. I do think there are faces of oppression that change with the demographic, but more likely than not you as Oppressed Group X have way more in common with Oppressed Group Y than you might think.

But also, Crenshaw's original paper on intersectionality discussed a specific context: black women being skipped over for hire where black men and white women were both getting hired, making that specific context unique to the intersection of black womanhood.

People get skipped over for jobs they are more than qualified for all the time. Even within the paper itself, there is discussion about this happening to black men and white women at other companies, just that this specific company was excluding specifically black women from its pool of candidates due to their specific bias against black women.

Experiencing workplace discrimination and hiring discrimination is not at all unique to black women. The *context* was. It was not "just racism" because black men were being hired, and it was not "just misogyny" because white women were getting hired. It was the intersection of both that resulted in black women being excluded.

When a trans man states that he is being removed from, say, a reproductive rights conversation and it's happening specifically because he is a trans man, what's meant shouldn't be that no one else struggles with reproductive rights. It means that it's not happening to the cis women who are actively leading the conversation, nor is it happening to the cis men who are pitching in. It is, however, happening to anyone with a uterus who is deemed as too "gender devient" to count: trans men, trans women, intersex people, and nonbinary people. Albeit, for different reasons, and the face of which changes depending on the demographic of the person receiving it.

But the conversation around reproductive rights is also one that must include disability, must include race, must include sexuality, must include class, must include age, because these things also have a direct effect on discrimination within the medical field and whether someone truly has access to the autonomy needed to make reproductive choices of their own without others choosing for them.

Similar to how we can understand the context provided in Crenshaw's coining of intersectionality to examine how black women specifically were experiencing something that neither black men nor white women were victim to within that specific example, so too must we understand that these are contextual and circumstantial conversations that will not always be truly unique.

After all, black men and white women do both get rejected for jobs on account of race and gender. Cis women and other marginalized genders frequently must battle for their right to make their own reproductive choices.

But when someone says "this happened to me due to the combination of my race and my gender", we must understand that likely the combination, the intersection, created a unique scenario that cannot be understood by only examining a single piece of that person's identity. So, too, must we understand the same when someone says "this happened due to the combination of my transness and my gender".

So when I see a challenge to name something unique from someone also flinging around the "learn intersectionality" phrase at those who are trying to describe the things that happened to them that hurt them, all I can think is that clearly that person does not understand interaectionality. Nor have they ever actually read the words of the woman who coined it. She's still alive. Her TED talks are on YouTube. Many of her essays are online for free.

Finally, I must remind these people that Crenshaw is not the woman who coined misogynoir, and while both Crenshaw's and Bailey's theories do work in conversation with each other, being discussed by different people does mean there is not a 1-to-1 basis to compare them to. There will be disagreements and inconsistencies between the two because they are two different people.

[unsolicited-opinions]

On recent far-left attacks on the Anti-Defamation League

Before we start:

- I think the ADL is wrong about Musk's salutes.

- I think the ADL's Israel advocacy sometimes comes into conflict with their mission in the diaspora. I think their methodologies for data collection and reporting need improvement.

- I think that the ADL is flawed, imperfect and does much more good than harm.

---

Christopher Hitchens put into words what academics used to live by:

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence".

The burden of proof is on those making the claim, and the claims of droptheadl.org aren't supported with primary sources or evidence.

For example:

To support its claims about the ADL and SNCC, droptheadl.org offers a link, presenting it as a citation.

This is a link to a Google Books entry. There's no actual text, no citation, no chapter, no page, just the claim that somewhere in this 300-page book exists proof of the ADL denouncing SNCC as racist.

However, that's not in the book. Chapter two talks about this incident in detail, so I read it.

In reaponse to a SNCC newsletter (this is what a primary source looks like!) containing many factual errors about Israel,

...Morris Abram, president of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), summed up their outrage: “Anti-Semitism is anti-Semitism whether it comes from the Ku Klux Klan or from extremist Negro groups

[For those who haven't studied the era: at this point, "Negro" was still the word which the black community preferred. The transition to widespread identification as 'black' got going in the 60s and finished in the 70s. The use of the word 'Negro' here is not a slur. I state this in advance because I know how the illiberal left weilds its willful ignorance]

...

Abram was also careful to echo what the ADL had said: that SNCC’s article put it in the same anti-Israeli trench as the Arab world and the Soviet Union.

That's verifiably, unquestionably true. That's the position SNCC took, because that's where they got their information.

Droptheadl.org lied. This book doesn't say what they claim it says, which is why they didn't quote it or offer a specific citation. Why let facts get in the way of the narrative which makes them feel good about themselves?

The book, which I recommend reading, isn't about the ADL. It's a scholarly examination of the relationships between the wars the Arab world launched on Israel and the US Civil Rights Movement. This requires much discussion of the impact on the complex relationships between black communities and Jewish communities in the US in the context of their views on Israel and Palestine.

It's fascinating. Here's another excerpt illustrating why many Jews saw SNCC as taking an antisemitic turn:

One day in May of 1967, [Stokely] Carmichael and [H. Rap] Brown were in Alabama chatting with Donald Jelinek, a lawyer who worked with SNCC.

Jelinek, who was Jewish, expressed his positive feelings about Israel and his concerns about the Jewish state’s situation in that tension-filled month as war clouds were on the horizon in the Middle East.

“So it was a shock to me,” Jelinek later recounted, “when my SNCC friends mildly indicated support for the Arabs.” Mildly stated or not, their sentiments prompted Jelinek to reply, “But they may wipe out and destroy Israel.”

Carmichael adroitly changed the subject with some humor, and the men began laughing.

Jelinek thereafter overheard Brown quietly singing to himself, “arms for the Arabs, sneakers for the Jews.” When Jelinek asked him what that song meant, an embarrassed Brown explained that he had learned the song as a student in Louisiana. It implied that the Israelis would need sneakers (tennis shoes) to run from the Arabs, who were armed with weapons from abroad.

My qualms with this, my disappointment in and disagreement with both Carmichael and Brown doesn't make me a racist. It doesn't make the AJC or the ADL racist and it doesn't make Jelinek, the Jewish lawyer working with SNCC, a racist or a poor ally.

Zionism is the belief that Jews should have self-determination in their homeland.

Nazism was the belief that racially superior Aryans own the world, should be organized through fascist methods, and that the genocide of the Jewish people was explicitly required because they were the source of all evil and the obstacle to progress.

These are not the same. Suggesting they are the same, as Carmichael did, is morally and intellectually bankrupt. Pointing this out doesn't make me a racist. It makes me literate.

I still own a copy of Carmichael's book, Black Power. Carmichael (who later changed his name to Kwame Ture) was a complex person. Like every other historical figure, he was neither a saint nor a demon.

I can admire a lot about the Black Panthers without falsely claiming that nothing they ever did or said was troubling, poorly reasoned, or bigoted. The world is more complex than that.

There are no saints. Learn this important truth and use it to guide your understanding of the world around you. There are no saints.

Gandhi, for instance, was a great leader for Indian self-rule and a visionary of nonviolent protest. He was also a racist as a young man who said black people "...are troublesome, very dirty and live like animals." Read about his work in South Africa. He was also really weird about sex and slept naked with his grand niece, which we rightly recognize today as sexual abuse. He wasn't a saint or a demon, he was a person.

People are complex and flawed. If you want to understand people, history, and movements, wrap your head around this as keep it with you: People and their movements are complex and flawed.

But the depth of reasoning I see from the illiberal left is "ADL criticized SNCC, so they're Nazis."

No, child. The world is much, much more complex than that. Why did you go to college if you weren't going to learn anything there?

My 14yo is right. US leftists (not liberals, leftists) are allergic to nuance and discard the facts contradicting any narrative which makes them feel good about themselves.

Selah

Deep breath in, slow breath out.

The book is really delves into some of the factors contributing to the deteriorating relationship at the time between Jewish Americans and Black Americans. It points to this essay by James Baldwin, titled "Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White." I urge you to read it, it is a fascinating artifact of its time and place.

And this:

Jews had long advocated for black liberation by, for example, playing a role in the foundation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. Jewish support for blacks was well known; as early as February of 1942, the American Jewish Committee published a study titled “Jewish Contribution to Negro Welfare.” Having experienced the sting of anti-Semitism, many Jews believed they were fighting in the same trench against discrimination alongside African Americans. When the civil rights struggle grew to become a mass movement in the 1950s and early 1960s, Jewish moral and financial support was crucial, and Jews were disproportionately well-represented among those whites who lent their support to the cause. Jewish financial contributions to civil rights groups were also significant. Jews even were the subject of criticism from some southern whites for the high-profile role they played in helping blacks win their freedom. All this compounded a sense of betrayal by SNCC that was felt by many Jewish Americans.

It should not be surprising or taken as racist that Jews objected to SNCC's advocacy against Israel's existence and I maintain that any call for Israel to be destroyed is innately, inarguably antisemitic. No other nation endures calls for its destruction. Just the Jewish one.

There was unquestionably tension between SNCC and the entire spectrum of non-black Americans who supported SNCC when SNCC ejected non-black members. From our perspective, decades removed, I can understand both why SNCC members narrowly voted for this AND why non-black members of SNCC were hurt and disillusioned. All of those perspectives were (and are) valid.

When I was an undergrad studying African American Political Thought, we discussed these tensions head-on, using primary sources, and evaluated them dispassionately.

We concluded that there are no villains in this story. SNCC got a bunch of facts wrong about Israel, their staunch Jewish allies were profoundly disappointed, saw hypocrisy in SNCC's position, and said so.

I think that far left Americans overlaid their feelings about a domestic struggle on a foreign one where they don't fit...and then discarded the facts and the complexity which got in the way of a satisfying narrative which made them feel like the good guys instead of forcing them to grapple with an uncomfortably complex reality.

I think that's what the illiberal left still does. It doesn't like complexity, it doesn't like academic rigor, it likes stories it can tell itself about its moral purity and discards facts, complexity, or rigor which threaten their view of themselves as saviors.

The world is complex. People are complex. Movements are complex. Organizations are complex. History is complex. Justice is complex.

The ADL isn't perfect, its leaders haven't been and are not saints or tzadikim, but the good they do for all Americans radically outweighs their failings and I'm going to keep supporting them while yelling at them to do better.

If you're an ADL hater and have any actual evidence and primary sources on racism from the ADL, I really want to see it, because this weak sauce from droptheadl.org doesn't make the case the illiberal left thinks it makes. And they'd know that if they had learned anything in college about how scholarship works and how arguments are constructed.

The illiberal left perhaps forgets how the ADL responded when Trump called for requiring American Muslims to register.

“If one day Muslim Americans will be forced to register their identities, then that is the day that this proud Jew will register as a Muslim. ”

- ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt