#anyway I think they are still so deeply and viscerally in love with each other that it’s killing them both

[angyo]

I unironically love csm 167. Not for horny, but because it's so fucked up on so many layers and if it follows up on even 1 of those layers of fuckery it's gonna be explosive.

Denji:

He's already been sexually assaulted so many times. Every time he has a dream it gets monkey's pawed into fucking him up worse. He doesn't know what he wants. Deep down he just wants to be loved and be able to trust that if he puts his soul into the hands of another person it won't get crushed. But his love for aki and power was used to break him. His love for reze and makima betrayed. His love for nayuta and the dogs used to goad him into violence. Everyone he opens his heart to either dies or uses him, so all he has left is this hope that sex gives him the love he so deeply needs without the commitment that makes it dangerous. He thinks getting his rocks off might give him the same love he needs without the possibility of having it stolen from him. An orgasm is an orgasm, even if the other person immediately betrays you you still got "love" in a far more transactional and solid sense.

But that's not how it works. Post-orgasm is a very vulnerable time, especially if it's from a high tension surprise hand job (rape) in a backalley. It's his last dream that hasn't been ruined yet and it happened after a castration attempt and will likely end with Asa looking at him like a disgusting monster and vomiting on the ground.

Yoru:

Of course the war devil can't process love. She and Asa share a body and swap a lot of emotions but they're still different people and when something they now feel strongly goes so directly against all of their lives experience they'll react in unpredictable and possibly dangerous ways, ESPECIALLY war. Yoru got the memory of the first kiss meaning asa probably got it too. Asa's not stable, she's so desperately lonely this revelation that denji never stood her up must've felt so relieving. But yoru was in charge when asa got this flood of emotion. War isn't about love or compromise, it's about stealing from the weak and kind, asserting absolute authority, and a lot of rape and pillaging. Of course when faced with such a human and kind emotion as love war doesn't care about anything but satiating the most immediately available impulse in a way that asserts her "superiority" and leaving before she'd have to actually confront the emotional turmoil she caused.

Asa:

Oh she's fucked. Just like denji she is desperately lonely and always has love ripped away from her in the cruelest ways. But unlike him, she just pretends she doesn't need it and tries to feel superior so she doesn't have to feel the real depth of her loneliness. Yet she can't help but love anyway, and every time she falls into the trap of caring it dissolves all of her defenses and when it's betrayed it breaks her core. She is sex-repulsed, which is understandable for a teenager and possibly a sign of asexuality but thematically can be tied to her fear of opening her heart to damage. There's a difference between finding it disgusting on a reasonable level and being so viscerally disgusted by the thought it can drag you into hell. Sex is vulnerable. Your expose a lot of really sensitive organs to each other and stimulate hormones that make you open yourself up and expose yourself to risks like stds. When it feels like all her vulnerabilities get hammered against her of course she'd be scared of such a vulnerable act.

And now she's got cum on the only hand she has left, denji's spit in her mouth, and the lingering feeling of his dick on her, again, ONLY REMAINING HAND. And he's going to need aftercare, and really substantial care because she just sexually assaulted him and he doesn't know she's 2 different people. He's either gonna be so immediately depressed by the anticlimax of his first time he starts isolating or so desperate for this sex to be the time it finally means love he clings to her but it's gonna be terrifying to her because yoru took her subconscious vulnerability and externalized it to hurt the guy she just realized might be the only person to actually give a shit right now. She loves him and as soon as she lets that emotion wash over her it gets used to melt him into a puddle of desperation and vulnerability right in her arm that is so far beyond anything she can emotionally handle it could make him hate her forever. The only one who ever gave a shit and in the span of a couple minutes her body has been used to deconstruct him into a million little pieces she couldn't possibly put back together.

Not to mention the fact that in assaulting denji yoru also sexually assaulted Asa but denji doesn't know that. They both need immediate calming that isn't going to happen.

And she can't run away from yoru. The girl who assaulted her, exploited every vulnerability she has, and ruined her only chance is in her head. Even if denji realizes his worth and runs away asa is still stuck. Her assaulter is in her head, and the only hand she has left is covered in jizz.

[strawhatsoraya]

hi sunshine! how are you? hope everything’s good and you’re doing fine! sorry if I might sound too cheesy but I absolutely adore the way you write, everything you post I eat it up immediately and the fact that you do this for free? you’re a gift, so I was wondering if you’d like to write this scenario (exclusively if you’re comfortable and interested in doing so) it’s NSFW for shanks with a F!reader (there is just something about him that is so damn attractive) and it’s about her being maybe part of the crew or another pirate (your choice), we know his crew and him are not particularly interested in treasures and money, and I would think the one they have are obtained similarly to what the strawhats do and not by raiding cities, and I would imagine shanks to not be interested in jewelry so he lets his crew take what they want for themselves with the only exception that he always calls dibs on the most gorgeous necklace he can find, the crew knows this and it’s cause he absolutely LOVES to adorn her simply cause he adores her and gift giving is one of his love languages, what they don’t know it’s that what he loves even more is fucking her while she’s wearing nothing but that necklace. that’s it, oh bonus point if you make him like madly, deeply viscerally in love cause I think that man would be the kindest of partners.

Have a wonderful day and do not feel pressured to write this if you simply don’t enjoy it <3

I'm not even going to attempt an apology because there is no apology that could justify me letting this be in my inbox for 7 months. LMAO. I simply just have not been writing as much as I was. I'm hoping to correct that. Please know that it wasn't that I didn't like this idea. I was and am obsessed with it. I'm just mentally unwell~~ lmao.

ANYWAY. HERE IT IS. idk if you're still on tumblr, or long gone, but either way I had fun writing this. Thank you for sending this great idea months and months ago.

SHANKS X FEM READER / NSFW word count: 6.5k (i know i know, but what can I say, it's shanks) content warnings: nudity (duh lol), vaginal penetration, biting, scratching, there's some shower shenanigans, unprotected sex (they are pirates and live dangerously), pretty straightforward, have at it. A SUMMARY: nope.

The truth was, he should have let you go a long time ago. Let you fall to the bottom of the ocean along with all the ships he had sunk, with all the drowned men he had no sympathy for. He should let you go, but you are like the ghost of his arm. On hot humid nights, he wakes up with an itch on a forearm he can’t scratch so he tosses in bed, dreams of you–of the hand he can’t touch you with.

Shanks never cared about treasure, not even in his early youth. He was happier watching his men divvy the spoils among themselves. He’d take their laughter as reward, watch the joy in their faces and know that he had conquered more than just another pirate, more than just another adventure. He had conquered life itself. 

Yet, he thought derisively, he could not conquer you.

But he knew what swayed you. He knew the light in your eyes that’d shine like beacons at the sight of jewels. How broadly you smiled while counting gold coins. He adored that undeniable air of superiority that’d keep your shoulders high when he’d slip ornate gaudy rings over each of your long tapered fingers. Shanks loved the sight of your delicate neck draped in gold chains, although he thought nothing beat the sight of his own fingers wrapped around it.

He hid his obsessions behind his smile. Some that he wasn’t proud of, but then, there was you, sitting on the edge of your bed, smooth legs crossed neatly over each other; his pride hanging by a thread on the curve of your cheek.

Not that he’d ever tell you.

The din outside the bedroom is loud, as it’s bound to be. Two pirate crews getting together, one being mostly composed of men while the other women, was surely to have interesting results. You ignore the shouting, and the cussing, the laughter and the start of badly played music accompanied by badly sung party songs. After all, it wasn’t often you were honored by Shank’s presence. You needed to make sure to take it all in.

Your dark eyes size him up, from the top of his flaming red hair, to the bottom of his feet–sandal clad and characteristic of his blase persona. His size alone was enough to intimidate most but you had him moaning in your ear too many times to count to let the broadness of his shoulders deter you. 

“Fancy seeing you in these waters,” you find the words to speak. They are heavy on your tongue, and sound annoyingly childish to your ears. You hide the urge to grimace by widening your smile. Shanks had the power to make you feel like a schoolgirl; unsure, and giggly and absolutely stir crazy about him. You shake your leg repeatedly, as you toss your hair over your shoulder, your curls suddenly feel suffocating around your heated neck. 

“Did you miss me so much you had to go out of your way?” Your voice is strained and high pitched. You hate it. You want to claw your throat out, but he smiles at you knowingly–as if he could read every stupid thought in your head and suddenly, you want to claw his face out instead. “You shouldn’t have.”

You try to sound light and airy, teasing–maybe even condescending, but your voice is still off. It brings heat to your face. You try to hide your embarrassment by laughing, and turning your head. You cover the lower half of your mouth, and glare at the nearest clothing rack. On it are the latest additions to your wardrobe, expensive silks and slinky low cut attire; everything you could think of that he’d like and never seen on you.

“Is it so hard to believe?” he asks you, his tone friendly and warm. You swallow thickly, unspoken confessions sticking dangerously to the walls of your throat. You think you’re choking. You think you’ll die then, and he stabs the wooden stake right through your heart when he speaks next: “We’re friends after all. Of course I’d miss you.”

That word bleeds into you. It spreads like ice, like venom throughout your being. Friends, because that was the only option among pirates. Friends, because the other choice was enemies–and could two enemies ever fuck like you and him? You suck your teeth and cross and uncross your legs. You adjust your seated position on the bed, while the crowd outside your bedroom continues to get louder. Although you’re avoiding his gaze, you feel it skim over your skin. You feel fire over the slope of your exposed shoulders, feel it over the swell of your breasts. 

Friends did not look at each other the way he did. 

“Well,” you interrupt his thoughts. Shanks blinks as he watches you uncross your legs again. He is mesmerized by the size of your plush thighs. His fingers twitch as he reigns in the impulse to reach out, to grasp one of them tightly. You stand up abruptly. “You have shitty timing, as usual.”

Shanks blinks, before he laughs with a soft shake of his head. “Really?” he asks and points his thumb behind him at the door. “With the party going outside I thought this was as good a time as ever.” 

He approaches you, and you immediately stiffen. Shanks tries not to laugh. In place, he snorts quietly through his nose. His hand reaches for one of your hips. His strong fingers dig into flesh as he brings you flush against him. 

“Come on, Doll,” he murmurs against your cheek. His breath is scalding against your brown skin. It’s like being kissed by the sun. You smell sake in his breath, almost taste the sweetness of it. “I sailed a long way to see you. Don’t you think our reunion should be a little sweeter?”

The slap against his chest is enough to stagger him backwards. You slip out of his space, trying to find your dignity along with your breath. Inside your chest, your heart runs at a neck-breaking pace. 

“Estúpido,” you hiss at him, hands immediately going to your heated cheeks. “I’m not candy. You expect too much,” you tell him, turning your face to raise a brow. You try to read his expression over your shoulder. His hand slips into the pocket of his trousers. “Especially when you come back empty handed.”

“You think so lowly of me,” he complains although he smiles. His hand rummages in his pockets. You hear the clinking of a metal, and your body turns around completely before you can help it. “When have I ever come back empty handed?” As his last words reach you, he pulls out a gold necklace from his pocket. You immediately count eight amethysts beads in various sizes. Wrapped around the necklace is a fine woven chain with gold spears that dangle from the base. 

You approach him, and reach gently with one hand. As you hold a golden spear on your fingers you see the sconce light of your bedroom catch on the tiny little diamonds embedded within. Shanks grins down at you. He sees that light in your eyes and feels a fire in his belly. It breathes life into him. 

“You should have started with that,” you quip, your plush lips pursed together. He is sorely tempted to grab your face and kiss you. He almost puts up a fight. His hand grips your cheeks together, and he lands a noisy peck on your mouth. You resist, so he comes back for seconds and thirds. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” he laughs as you slip away from his grasp, taking the necklace with you. You make a big show of wiping your mouth on the back of your hand. “Oh, see?” he gestures at you, with his brows scrunched up together. “Now you’re just trying to hurt me.”

“You’re a brute,” you snap, tossing your head again, finding your frizzed out curls currently insufferable. It was hair wash day, and Shanks was getting in the way. “Have you even showered?”

At the interrogation, Shank’s gaze shifts from your face to your body. It lingers momentarily on your breasts, before he drags them slowly back up, leaving you breathless. You hiccup. 

“I–” you start, and your bottom lip quivers. Heat pushes you down to the ground, tethering you to the fire in Shanks’ eyes–one that is threatening to quickly consume you. “I was going to shower when you got here. That’s what I meant–”

Shanks steals your thoughts, and your common sense. He invades your space, his hand easily finding the comfort of the small of your back. He rests it there on the top of your ample backside. Sneakily, or at least he thinks so, he squeezes the top of one ass cheek. 

“Is this your way of asking me for help?” He leans forward to press his forehead against yours. “Let me help you. I’m very good at it.” You think, it should humble you, the way he’s lowered himself enough to reach your height. You think, surely, this should be enough, mean enough. That you should not crave what he cannot give; false forevers and promises written in fool’s gold. 

But you’d be a shit pirate if you didn’t dream at least every now and then.

You turn away wordlessly, and he follows quietly behind you. Inside the bathroom, he shadows your movements, his hand placed lightly over yours as you remove your clothing, and you drop the necklace over the pile of clothes. There’s a feral hunger lurking inside you, wanting you to tear his clothes off but you push past it and into the shower. You can’t see him, but you feel him grinning behind you, feel his predatory gaze sizing up your naked body. You close your eyes under the warm water coming out of the shower head, letting it soak your hair and body while you hear Shank’s clothing drop to the floor behind you.

Cleansing your body becomes a complicated task when Shanks is involved. He swears he’s helping as he slips a soapy hand between your legs. You bite your lip as his callouses brush against the sensitive skin of one inner thigh. 

“I have two hands,” you hiss as you swat his hand away. You hear a sharp inhale behind you, and his breathy laughter hot against the back of your neck. 

“All you do is try to hurt me,” he murmurs dramatically. His mouth grazes against your skin, the prickle of his facial hair against the sensitive spot behind one ear is enough to elicit goosebumps all over your body. “Are you showing off that you have two and I only have one?”

You stammer despite yourself. If you could take it all back you could. You hope the steam rising in the shower is enough to hide the color blooming on your cheeks. You turn around and fall into his embrace. Water ripples down the grooves of his chest muscles. They skimper along every ridge of his abdomen. Your hands slither smoothly over them, taking in every inch, and memorizing them until you could see it clearly behind your eyelids. 

“No,” you admit at last. Your hands are on his neck, as you pull him down gently towards your face. “I know you do enough damage with one hand as it is.”

You press your lips against his hoping this would be enough to shut him up. His hand feels like fire on your lower back. He brings you closer to him, pressing you against his pelvis. You feel his cock stir and grow harder against the softness of your lower belly. If there is any doubt left in you, Shanks takes care of it by slipping his tongue inside your mouth. The kiss is feverish, and messy. A slippery sense that is only heightened by the hot water sliding down your face and his. You bury your fingers in his flame colored hair, pulling him even closer against you.

Kissing you like this was clouding his senses. Being a captain of his own crew, placed him in the position of making most of the decisions. Something about the way you touched him, kissed him, looked at him–always made him want to relinquish control.  Still, he preferred to have you in bed, where he could have you at his mercy. Your mouth was hot against his neck, as you lowered your hands over his body. Shanks bites down on his lower lip, as your fingers wrap themselves around the girth of his cock. 

His hand shoots out to grab a handful of your wet curls. 

“Now who’s the one doing damage?” he asks in a whispered growl. 

You look up as he tugs on your hair, and almost wish you hadn't. His swollen lips, the ones you had passionately kissed as if you’d never get to taste him again, made him look disheveled and broken. That paired with the clouded look in his eyes, the heaviness on his eyelids, the slight flush on his cheeks was making your heart ache.

You press your lips together tightly, seeking control.

Your stroke is treacherously slow. You squeeze tightly, enjoying the feel of his thickness inside your hands. His lashes flutter close, and you watch him tilt his face up, watch the water drops slide down the expanse of his thick neck. You continue to stroke the thickness of his shaft, every now and then twisting your hand around the tip of his flushed cock just to hear his breathing hitch–to pretend you have some semblance of control. 

“Feels so good,” a mumbled confession tumbles off his lips. You feel it swim around your head, blurring your vision. It slithers around you, touches you where no man has touched you before. “Keep going. Don’t stop.”

The heat between your legs becomes increasingly hard to ignore. You feel your heart pulsing at the center of you, as an undeniable wetness covers your folds. You reach out with one hand to cup his balls gently. When he murmurs your name, lips parted in silent ecstasy, you know you have to walk away first. 

You remove your hands, but not before dropping a kiss on the middle of his hard and muscular chest. 

“Wait–” he protests, trying to catch you. His large hand touches your cheek but you still turn away.

Water drips to the floor as you leave the shower. You ignore the towels nearby. Instead, you bend over well aware that Shanks was watching your every move. He watches the roundness of your ass intently as you bend over, and he gets a peek of that luscious center of you–that pussy he just can’t get enough of. When you stand up, the necklace is dangling from your slender fingers. He moves towards you, water dripping from his hair and his body to the floor. He reaches out for the necklace but you move quickly away from him.

“You’re being so difficult today,” he observes with amusement. “Not that you’ve ever been easy.”

He has to admit, you were very skilled at putting on jewelry all on your own. Still, he wished he had the privilege this time. Shanks would just have to get his reward in another form. Your naked silhouette walking away from him was surely close to divinity, in his opinion. The way your hips swayed with each step towards the bed was making him dizzy. He watches you even as you climb on the bed, slowly, naked ass in the air drawing him closer. 

He gives in to temptation. As he is prone to do with your companionship. When you turn around, dropping on the bed on your back, you inhale sharply at the look in his eyes; two burning fires determined to consume you.

Shanks moves with purpose. You had always admired the way he’d move so quickly in such a large body, barely making a sound before he would strike. There’s a sense of urgency that touches you gingerly at the base of your neck. Once again, you feel goosebumps scatter across your body.

“I think I’m very easy to deal with, actually,” you counter belatedly. “The picture of angelic behavior. How dare you.” He was making you nervous as he just waited there–kneeling at the edge of the bed. You tried to regulate your breathing as you laid your head on the ample amount of pillows you insisted on having on your bed. Shanks taught it a nuisance so you continued. You’d do anything to get under his skin–and stay there.

Shanks laughs at you as he starts to move. He slithers towards you like a large predatory feline, dark eyes and flaming mane of hair. The muscles of his shoulders ripple with his movements, and you feel your mouth water at the sight. You lick your lips, and swallow loudly. He must have heard you, you think with embarrassment, as a smirk stretches his lips.

“I dare,” he drawls, dragging out his syllables. He slides next to you, sliding his hand over the softness of your belly. “Because I’m the only one who would. You should be grateful,” he continues. You bite down on your lip, careful not to make a sound but your body is a traitor and shivers under the roughness of his hand. “That I’m such a devoted friend.”

There was that damn word again. There is a lump in your throat, bitter, and difficult to swallow. It almost chokes you to death as you push it down.

“Go to hell, Shanks. I don’t need friends like you.”

His laughter wounds you more than it should. You should expect this behavior from him. It was always the same. You parried his honeyed words with sharp remarks. A frail attempt at defending yourself and pretending you had no feelings for this Emperor of the Sea. He acted as if nothing you could say could hurt him, stop him, change his mind.

“Is that right?” he murmurs, his hand drawing slow large circles over your belly. Your legs move on their own. Your brows draw together as they slide apart, knees bending as you wiggle on the silk of your bedsheets. 

“Mmhmm,” you reply. Your response is weak, you know, but your breathing was becoming more ragged the more he touched you. Your heart speeds up when he leans over to drag his mouth against the skin under your belly. You grit your teeth when he bites that same space of flesh gently. “That’s right. I don’t need you, Red-Haired Shanks,” you hiss through clenched teeth. Your hand is in his hair, fingers tangling in crimson locks. “I don’t–” You gasp, thoughts interrupted as Shanks journey moves lower to your pelvis. He kisses one hip, and then the other.

“You were saying?” he asks, a low chuckle dying on the crook of your inner thigh. You close your eyes tightly as the feeling of his hot tongue dips closer towards the center of you. 

He pulls away, grabbing your wrist to untangle your fingers from his hair, as he sits next to you on the edge of the bed. This position makes you feel vulnerable–naked and laying on your back, as he sits up, looking down on you with your wrist still in his hand, both his feet on the floor; grounded.

Yet you couldn’t bring yourself to stop floating up in the sky. The sight of him above you, smirking down at  you victorious made you crave him all the more. 

“I don’t need you to need me either,” Shanks says as he brings your wrist to his lips. He kisses the inside of your wrist gently; once, twice. “As long as you want me. That’s good enough for me.” He pauses to drag his tongue over the inside of your palm. Shanks eyes look down at you, away from where he is pressing your fingers against his mouth. They linger momentarily on your neck, and on the necklace, on your exposed breasts. “The way I want you,” he confesses in a low voice, before dragging his wide tongue up your index finger and plopping it into his mouth.

He sucks on it noisily, and slowly, holding eye contact. You feel close to combusting. Fury, or lust, you’re not sure. All you know is heat, all consuming, scorching, blinding heat. You force your hand out of his grasp, and use it to squeeze his face between your fingers. 

“Shanks!” you hiss, breathing barely regulated. He watches you quietly, eyes dipping occasionally to your heaving chest. He loved the way the necklace looked over your breasts, the way the gold caught the light; how beautiful your skin shone underneath. A smirk begins to form, so you tighten your grip. “How much longer are you going to drag this out?”

There’s a touch of remorse in the back of his mouth; barely sour enough to make him grimace. He looks away from your pleading eyes to your neck, adorned lavishly in the necklace he had brought you. You looked so beautiful and vulnerable. He supposed it was time he did something about that.

“I thought you liked this game,” he mumbles with squished cheeks. Shanks holds your wrist again and pulls until you let him go. His fingers tangle with yours, and he lowers it against the  bed by your head. Your fingers twitch, unfamiliar with this form of intimacy from him. Shanks' face draws closer to yours. You smell his sweet breath, and try not to count every freckle and sun spot on his cheeks like some kind of sentimental idiot. 

“Enough,” you say. Your voice is whiny. You loathe it. “I’ve had enough. You brute. You insensitive–” Shanks cuts you off with a searing kiss. His mouth is forceful against yours. You mumble protests, unwilling to give up control entirely. His hand squeezes yours tighter as he pushes back, nipping at your bottom lip. 

His tongue runs along your bottom lip, your back arches and you finally give in. You wrap your free arm around his shoulders to hold him close to you, savoring in the feel of his tongue inside your mouth. He brushes his tongue against yours, saliva coating both your lips until shiny. He moves to drop light kisses along the shape of your jaw. His next route of conquest is your neck, and you wince at his greediness–the way he’s sucking without a care in the world, as if he wants nothing more than to mar your skin for everyone to see what he has done.

He moves quickly, releasing your hand. You gasp when Shanks adjusts himself behind you in bed, face immediately burying itself on the side of your neck.

“Stay still, Doll,” he mumbles against your ear. Another shiver takes over your body when he takes your earlobe in his mouth. “I’m just trying to get a good feel for you. It’s been so long, after all.” He murmurs all of this against your ear, his breath hot and moist making you hyper aware of all his movements; the way his chest pushes against your back, how he lets go of the breast he was kneading to allow his thick fingers to traverse lightly over the side of your torso.

He continues until he is over your hip. He moves against your ass, pressing his erection against you. You hum lightly, enjoying the feeling of him–how thick and large he seems. There’s a ridiculous sense of pride swelling inside you for being the reason for his arousal; you, of all the seas he has traveled and conquered, it is you at this moment and no one else. His hand hovers over one ass cheek before he’s gripping it, gently massaging and spreading you open.

A brow rises high on your forehead. Before you can question him, Shanks makes a decisive move. He slides his cock between your ass cheeks, thrusting his hips gently to stroke himself between them. His breath comes out in puffs against the back of your neck with every slow thrust. You feel his precum smearing itself on your crack. It is a strange sensation, and you are ashamed to acknowledge how aroused you are at feeling him in a place he’s never explored before.

“Shanks,” you breathe out shakily. “Is this enough for you?”

He doesn’t answer you immediately, caught up in the lewd sight of his cock sandwiched in your voluminous and juicy ass. His breathing is ragged, chest burning from repressed lust. Seeing you–being with you–was not a common occurrence. The last thing he wanted to do was rush through this and forget to touch you, kiss you, in a spot he had planned–in a way he had fantasized about over and over.

“For now,” he grunts against your shoulder, biting and licking soon after. “Just give me a moment. I’ll take care of you too.”

You press your head back against him, exposing your neck to him. Shanks takes the invitation wordlessly, kissing and biting up your neck as he continues to slide his cock between your cheeks. His moans are soft, barely audible, but you feel the rumbling in his chest against your back every time he does. It makes you hotter, wetter. You sigh, desperate to feel him towards the center of you. You bring his hand around to your waist, slowly sliding his hand up your belly until it reaches the bottom of one breast. 

Shanks smiles against your shoulder, where he bites down once more, eliciting a moan from you. “I know, Doll,” he mumbles, reaching for your breast as you had wordlessly requested. “You need more, don’t you? Always so needy. Always needing more,” his breath is hotter than your skin at the moment. It bounces off of it, as he twists your nipple between calloused fingers. You bite back another moan. “You’re never satisfied, but what can I say?” He pulls at your nipple harshly, making you cry out. “That’s what I like about you.”

He slips out from between your cheeks. You start to protest when he releases your breast. Shanks sucks his teeth, trying to silence you. 

“I said I’d take care of you, sweetheart,” he mumbles against your ear, using his hand to lift one of your thick thighs. “You need to trust me more.” You help him without thinking, keeping your legs open while he slips his cock between them. His hardness is pressed against your soaking pussy. Your folds are slippery against his length. You hear him grunt softly against your ear, his breathing irregular as he stays very still. You chuckle, aware that he’s stalling–buying himself time.

Shanks loved a long game. He hated to cut things short.

Yet, like you, sometimes he was impatient. He moves shortly after, thrusting between your legs. It starts slow enough, his breath coming in short puffs hot against your ear. You reach behind you to grasp his hip. He rocks into you as you gasp, enjoying how thick he felt against your pussy, how the tip of his cock–mushroom tipped and meaty–would rub against your clit just right at certain angles. You reach further back, twisting your body, to grab a handful of his hard ass.

“Come on,” you goad him, finding it hard to think much less speak. “Touch me where it feels good.” Shanks laughs against your shoulder, and bites down over a blooming bruise. Your moan is high pitched as you try to reign it back. Although the party seems to continue outside the room, you don’t want to run the risk of your own crew hearing you moan. 

“Don’t hold back,” he tells you, licking the teeth marks he left behind on your brown skin. “I’ve come a long way, you know. The least you can do is let me hear you fall apart.”

You grit your teeth, as heat wraps itself around your head. Your eyes sting from embarrassment, and what’s worse, is that you feel yourself dripping all over his cock, coating it in your arousal. You’re well aware he feels it too. It can be the only reason he picks up the speed, a throaty laugh echoing in the room. 

In an effort to even out the playing field, you reach between your legs and grab the tip of his cock. You hear him gasp next to your ear as you guide his tip to your clit.

“I said here,” you repeat, rocking your hips so you can rub your clit against the tip of his cock. “This is where I want to feel you.” Your toes curl at the sensation, at how pleasure seeps deep into you, tightening with intensity at every rock of your hips. Shanks stills his movements, and presses his pelvis tightly against your ass. Your whines drive him to the brink of madness. He feels them inside him, tightening around him, pulling at his navel filling him with pleasure. His eyes shut close as he lets you take control–or lose it, he’s not sure. You seem delirious as you chase your orgasm, rocking on his cock as if your life depended on it.

Your juices coat his shaft, and he feels them slip lower, trickling down his balls. He pulls you even closer with his arm wrapped tightly around your waist.

“Go on, Doll,” he encourages you, his voice low and seductive as it breaks through your higher pitched moans. “Take it if you think it belongs to you. Take what you think is yours.”

You gasp as your ecstasy builds, your back arching as your hips stutter. You lose rhythm but it doesn’t matter, your orgasm swallows you whole. You reach out behind you blindly, your nails digging into his hair, scratching his scalp. You hear Shanks hiss as you cry out. He bites the top of your ear, and follows it down to your earlobe, to lose himself inside the crook of your neck, nuzzling your skin past the necklace. There’s plenty of reminders there–ones he had carefully left behind, but he figures a few more could never hurt. After all, you’re apart so often, he fears you’d soon forget how it feels to be desired and consumed by his affections.

You’re panting, barely coming down from your orgasm when you feel Shanks moving between your legs. His fingers rifle through your folds, enjoying the silky sensation of your cum around his fingers. You mumble something he can’t quite grasp as he tentatively inserts a finger inside you.

“Shanks!” you cry out, panting, eyes barely focused. “Hang on. Gimme a second.” He chuckles next to your ear, curving his finger slightly; searching. You bite your lip to keep from whimpering.

“I gave you plenty of seconds,” he says softly, playfully–as if he was singing. “You had your fun. I want to have some too.” You tremble in his embrace as he inserts another finger, and starts scissoring them inside you. You know he’d be annoyed, as you stay as quiet as possible, but you want to hear the way his fingers squelch when they go in and out of you. You want to hear him panting, the little soft moans that puff past his swollen lips. You want to feel him digging into your ass with his hips, feel his leaky cock on your skin.

“You’re doing it again,” he chastises as he pulls his fingers out. You gasp at the empty feeling, immediately craving him as soon as he’s gone. “I guess my fingers aren’t enough, huh?”

You swallow thickly, and move your hips testily, wiggling your ass against his erection. The look you give him over your shoulder is seductive enough to threaten to blow his head wide open. 

“If you know that then why don’t you hurry up and put it in?” you mumble breathlessly. You’re breathing so loudly, Shanks swears he can hear you panting inside his head; over and over. “Or do I need to help you with that too?”

Shanks resists the urge to laugh. He scoffs instead, a tinge of embarrassment weighing heavily on his face. He didn’t need your help period when it came down to pleasing you. Your assumption was daring, and insulting. Perhaps he should teach you a lesson–a good one–before he leaves again. Shanks uses his free hand to guide his cock towards your entrance. He swirls the tip around your opening, watching gleefully as you wiggle your hips, trying to get him to slip inside you.

“Impatient as usual,” he remarks, a broad grin as he avoids your entrance again, choosing to slide his tip up and down between your folds instead. “Good things come to those who wait. Ever heard of it?”

“Your English sayings mean nothing to me,” you mumble, despite understanding fully well what he was saying. You turn your head, trying to glare at him over your shoulder as best as you could while he was still busy teasing you with his cock. You shiver as you speak: “What about ‘el que tiene tienda que la atienda’? Ever heard of that one?”

Shanks chuckles again, kissing your ear, and your temple. He lets his mouth linger there as he presses his tip against your entrance. You breathe in a gasp, full to the brim with expectation.

“You’re right, never heard of it,” he mumbles against your skin as he pushes forward, sinking into you slowly. You moan softly, it rumbles at the bottom of your throat, and drops into the pit of your belly where it starts a fire. “You should teach me more. What does it mean?”

Your brain can barely comprehend his words. All you can think of, all you feel, is Shanks cock moving inside you, you feel his body behind yours, his strong arm wrapping around your waist. All you can smell is his breath on your skin, all you can feel is the heat his kisses leave behind.

“So?” he asks you again, moving his hips slowly as he lets you adjust around his girth. “You won’t tell me?” Your gasp is ragged, little jitters shaking your body with pleasure. Shanks was no small man, and this was not even close to your first time with him, but he always took you by surprise. Not that you’d ever back down and admit defeat.

“Gimme a sec,” you spit through clenched teeth. He begins thrusting into you, picking up the pace without another word. His pelvis slaps into your ass, making a loud sound as skin hits skin. His balls feel heavy against your swollen pussy. “I said–gimme a damn…” You moan loudly, and press your head against his chest. Shanks smiles and cranes his neck to kiss your cheek. 

“Take your time,” he grunts in between thrusts. You shut your eyes tightly, trying to keep from crying out but as usual, he reaches deep inside you, to the spongy spot that makes you fall apart. You gasp loudly, pants becoming closer and closer together. Shanks slides his hand from your belly to your breast. He grips it tightly, kneading, as he sucks on your neck, his fingers expertly finding your perky nipples.

They were already sore and sensitive from his earlier teasing, now, you could barely resist him.

You cry out, feeling control slip right past your fingers. 

“W-wait!” you beg, kicking your legs impulsively. Shanks lets go of your breast to pin it down, as he continues fucking you from behind. He squeezes your legs together, creating an even tighter sensation as he thrusts in and out of you. You whimper, and shake, eyes unfocused as pleasure pools at the center of you. Your pussy throbs and aches. Shanks can’t help but grin at the way your pussy squelches every time he moves. You’re dripping so much he feels your sweet juices down to his balls. 

“I’ve been waiting,” he says through gritted teeth but you don’t respond. He looks over at your face quickly, and realizes with glee that you won’t be telling him anything soon. Your hair still wet, is disheveled and tangled, partially sticking to your flushed face. Your cheeks glow under the scone lights, brown and warm and enticing. Your eyes are blown wide, lips glossy and swollen from all the kissing. On your neck and chest he can see bruises blooming already, only made all the prettier by the necklace hanging from your neck and over your breasts.

You look devoured, glorified and an absolute mess. Just the way he likes you. 

“Are you gonna cum for me?” he asks you, his breath scalding against your cheek. His hand is clamped tightly on your thigh, keeping your legs tightly together. “You’ll cum for me, right, Doll? After all, I came all the way here to see your pretty face. To give you one of the necklaces you love so much. To give you all of this,” he says with a violent thrust. “Because I know how much you love it.”

You reach behind you blindly, savagely, your arm grasping his upper arm. You scratch his skin with your nails as you continuously cry out, the tip of his cock hitting your cervix almost painfully. You reach out again, his hip, his ass, a part of his shoulder. You know you’re not being kind, your nails digging deep to leave your mark, but you have lost your grip on reason.

You cry out his name when you cum, twisting, and shivering under his embrace. Shanks holds you tightly, not stopping his hips. He continues to fuck into you, grunting louder and louder. He moans your name against your neck, as you feel him stiffen. His hips stutter, as he spills into you, losing sense of rhythm. Your body is too sore, and your mind too fuzzy for you to care about him cumming inside you. 

Normally, you’d chew him out for it, but you had lost your fight the moment he shoved his cock in your pussy.

“Hey,” he drawls, licking the shell of your ear. You shudder, eyes fluttering close as your body feels heavier and heavier. You could fall asleep right there, if you really wanted to, covered in his scent, full of his cum and so spent. “You haven’t told me yet what it means.”

You somehow find the strength to laugh lightly. 

“It means if you’re not here to fuck me, somebody else will be,” you reply, looking up over your shoulder at him with heavy lidded eyes. Shanks gasps dramatically and drops a gentle kiss on the tip of your nose.

“See? All you try to do is hurt me,” he whispers with a crooked smile. You reach up with one hand to cup his cheek and bring him closer to your mouth. You rest your lips just over his.

“And you like it too,” you tell him before kissing him once more.

[isabelpsaroslunnen]

My best friend and I have been watching Star Trek: The Original Series for months, mostly because we're both sometimes busy and can't coordinate, but he does adore Star Trek (it is hard to overstate how much, except with regard to Picard) and even though I'm a TNG kid, I am almost always having a great time with it.

Overall: I love the stage-y Pepto-Bismol meets bisexual flag aesthetic of so much of the show, the actual bisexual vibes of so many characters (unintentionally? allegedly? I guess?), the effects that have aged remarkably well almost as much as the ones that have aged terribly, but are part of its charm, and of course, many of the characters. And I definitely have enjoyed the mixture of cheesy silliness with deeply earnest aspirations towards transcending its own era, even though it falls short (I'm an early modernist; I have a high tolerance for works that are ultimately of their times, but visibly trying to cut through the miasma of their eras' norms).

Anyway, some thoughts on each episode I've seen thus far!

[It's every episode up to "Metamorphosis", so there are a lot.]

1— "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - a pretty solid way to start the experience for me, and I see the religious skepticism has been baked in from very early, even though it's obviously still finding its footing at this point. I actually enjoyed seeing the wobbly character dynamics and world-building as it's figuring itself out.

2— "The Man Trap" - I really enjoyed this one! Despite some fundamental silliness, there's an interesting mix of horror and pathos (I support the salt vampire!).

3— "Charlie X" - a mixture of "oh God, poor Janice" (an impression that will repeat often) and an interesting take on the interaction of power and youthful masculinity. Charlie's outrage at his desires being stymied by literally anything or anyone at any time feels unfortunately timely, as does his petty vindictiveness against ... um, every woman ever, and Kirk's entirely correct lecture about it. I also found something particularly intriguing in the contrast between Charlie's admiration of Kirk's form of masculinity and how viscerally threatened he is by Spock.

4— "The Naked Time" - I adored this episode with zero irony. I particularly loved the revelation that Spock is ashamed of his feelings for Kirk (......) and the guilt he feels over his emotional distance from his mother combined with his understanding of how isolated she must feel in Vulcan culture. But I also laughed through the entire rest of the episode. Just a great time.

5— "The Enemy Within" - oh, hella yikes take on, uh, the inherent need for a good leader to have an anxious, violent, rapist side to his personality kept under control by a fearless, but vacillating and cerebral other side. (The premise seems even more egregious after "The Galileo Seven" makes a whole episode out of the idea that Spock's intellectual discipline and reserve undermine his leadership capabilities unless he behaves in a way that can be seen as fitting into human emotional norms.) I did cackle over the space dog fluffy alien creature and its evil twin, but poor Janice x100 :(

6— "Mudd's Women" - easily the worst episode to date, good God. Quite apart from "I guess sometimes you just have to be complicit in sex trafficking carried out by a lovable scamp who definitely hasn't gotten the post-capitalism newsletter" and the godawful ending, I am baffled by everyone on the Enterprise acting like they've never seen a beautiful woman. None of Mudd's women can hold a candle to Uhura (who I think isn't even in this episode?) and women getting obsessed by eternal beauty and devoting themselves to unappealing men is a tiresome aspect of ST that I wish had stopped here. Or never shown up at all.

7— "What Are Little Girls Made Of" - ah, the iconic phallic stalagmite! Nice to have context. I appreciate how smart and resourceful Kirk ends up being here. I liked Shatner's performance as the Kirk clone (he's actually been good in all the various Evil Kirk performances I've seen thus far), too. But I also really liked Spock's entirely justified annoyance at Kirk using racial slurs to communicate IT'S NOT ME.

8— "Miri" - this one is unfortunately dragged down by Kirk using his femme fatale allure with a girl framed as barely pubescent even if the actress was technically an adult. He's clearly not remotely attracted to her and working to save his crew, but it's still really unpleasant to watch, especially with a very young-looking actress. That said, the disease is creepy as hell, and it's a great McCoy episode. I was pretty fascinated as well by the concept of a drastically protracted childhood where the horror is not being trapped in the body of a child, but of actually remaining a child for enormous lengths of time.

9— "Dagger of the Mind" - this one would have been pretty mediocre, in all honesty, if not for the existence of Helen Noel. Helen is staggeringly beautiful, yes, but she is also better than everyone else in this episode, even my usual fave Spock. I like Kirk a lot and I still don't know what she sees in him.

10— "The Corbomite Maneuver" - it's a fun episode with some very good lines, but a bit like cotton candy.

11— "The Menagerie" - I had heard about this one, but didn't know all the details! The show-within-the-show only slightly strains credulity, and the plot is certainly more compelling than SNW (sorry to SNW fans; I watched a few episodes and it was fine, but too polished and heterosexual to feel like a true prequel to the boundary-pushing Candyland of TOS).

12— "The Conscience of the King" - this one was a bit over-theatrical in the most literal way, but I still really enjoyed it. The episode provides a genuinely fascinating backstory for Kirk, revealing that in his youth, he was a survivor of a terrible atrocity (and from what else we've heard, it seems he was moved elsewhere and became a bullied nerd for awhile before finding his true calling in space). The "real" villain of the episode doesn't really work for me, but doesn't need to, because her villainy is vastly and rightly overshadowed by the atrocity.

13— "Balance of Terror" - I can't describe this episode any other way: it fucking rules. This is maybe my favorite Star Trek episode that I can remember ever seeing. The revelation of the Vulcan-Romulan kinship is super compelling, and the intensity to this episode's take on the frequent Spock vs the Microaggressions subplot feels entirely organic and believable.

14— "Shore Leave" - fine, but rather a letdown after the glory of the previous one. The back rub early in the episode is as hilariously unsubtle as reported, and Spock's emphatic indifference to the sexbot ladies is, hmm, interesting. Otherwise, it is silly, entertaining-enough ST ephemera for me. I like these episodes existing as part of ST as a whole, but also don't feel especially invested in most individual cases of it. And God, Kirk's youthful nemesis Finnegan is so incredibly obnoxious and his little jig motif is so awful that (given "The Naked Time") I'm starting to wonder what gripe Star Trek has with Irish people.

15— "The Galileo Seven" - you know how I said that Spock vs the Microaggressions is a frequent subplot in these episodes? This one is "what if that was just the whole episode?" It's not terrible, but it's not terribly interesting, either, and the implications are pretty gross if you think about them.

16— "The Squire of Gothos" - I guessed the reveal a bit early in this one, but not in a way that made me feel like it was super obvious. The hints were there if you were paying attention, so it was rewarding to figure it out, but not obvious. Spock's speech about intellectual discipline and power really speaks to me right now, by the way.

17— "Arena" - the Gorn finally appear! Or a Gorn, anyway, and it's kind of wild that the 1967 episode's twist is that the real villain is colonialism, not the Gorn at all. Yet in 2020s Star Trek ... well, anyway, it's a good episode despite the incredibly dated monster effects.

18— "Tomorrow is Yesterday" - time travelllllll hell yeah, and it's quite a decent plot.

19— "Court Martial" - this one was tense and interesting, though I don't have much to say about it apart from really liking the lawyers.

20— "The Return of the Archons" - this was actually very effective, quiet terror for me (maybe extra for me as a queer person raised Mormon, lol). I think it also has one of the better instances of Kirk Fries A Machine With Logic.

21— "Space Seed" - an absolutely fascinating villain alongside absolutely dire gender politics. I did like seeing Khan for the first time.

22— "A Taste of Armageddon" - this had a very interesting war game concept, but I don't remember much about the episode beyond the concept tbh. It was fine.

23— "This Side of Paradise" - this one was interesting, especially given the allure of the "paradise" for Spock specifically (also for everyone else, but there's something especially bitter about whatshername's total indifference to his consent, and yet how complicated his feelings end up being about the whole thing). Kirk's fixation on his authority!!!!! in this episode feels unappealing and rather strange, but I didn't think it was really all about authority and The Human Need For Struggle(TM) that ST will keep returning to (don't like that aspect, though!).

24— "The Devil in the Dark" - an excellent episode IMO, including the incredibly dated rock alien special effects. Wouldn't have it any other way! I honestly appreciate how often the reveal in TOS has been that a scary "monster" is just some innocent person from another species getting screwed over by human ignorance and colonizing.

25— "Errand of Mercy" - Kirk is a patronizing asshole in this episode, can't lie, but given that he's being very obviously paralleled with the Klingon officer, it serves a function that's at least interesting. I'd like if that aspect of his personality went somewhere a bit more cohesively, but I'd rather have the episodic yet forwards propulsion of TOS as a whole, so it's okay.

26— "The Alternative Factor" - this has an interesting concept, but I remember thinking that it was forcing a bunch of usually competent people to make some very stupid decisions (though, tangentially, the fact that this is a change from the norm is at least something: I really enjoy that TOS in general avoids my beloathèd "our protagonists are the protagonists of the entire setting and every other character is an NPC who lacks moral vision and competence independent of the protagonists' influence"). I will say that the repetition of the alternate-universe effect is honestly pretty bad even when I'm grading on a 60s curve.

27— "The City on the Edge of Forever" - this is a very compelling, tightly-written episode that does good character work for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, even if its underlying premise is a bit challenging to buy at points. I always enjoy getting to see McCoy's medical ethos at play, as we do here. Spock's jealousy is also amusingly transparent against all the high drama.

28— "Operation -- Annihilate!" - this is a hilarious title for a pretty good episode, actually. I enjoyed it and especially enjoyed Leonard Nimoy's performance as Spock here. It's not like I ever don't, but it did some substantial heavy lifting.

29— "Amok Time" - so it turns out, the Spock/Kirk fans have not been exaggerating all these years. I didn't think it was likely they had, just given what I've seen this far, but damn. This is a fantastic episode, it's got interesting world-building for Vulcan, it's incredibly homoerotic even by TOS standards, and despite my fondness for Spock and Kirk, goodforher.jpeg with respect to T'Pring. If Vulcan men don't want their childhood brides plotting their deaths, maybe they should legalize divorce! Just a thought.

30— "Who Mourns for Adonais" - so this episode relies on "actually, every broadly appropriated cultural detail from an exotic distant land was just given to its people by ancient aliens," only this time, it's targeting Greeks! It does get details about ancient Greek culture and religion very wrong, if anyone was wondering. In any case, I guess Star Trek's weird issues with "ethnic whites" is not only with the Irish, though given that my father's background is specifically Greco-Irish, it feels like a weird personal attack. That aside, while "ancient aliens did it all!!!" was not as much of a thing at the time as now, Greek people were definitely more racialized in the USA then, so the use of the trope here was not as trivial as I think it can "read" to modern audiences, esp in the USA.

Apollo's actor does a good job with some hard dialogue, I will say, but I really wish Carolyn had just been playing along and biding her time rather than obviously being a silly female swayed by flattery of her beauty and delusions of vicarious power. Kirk's speech to her is good, but really dragged down by how bad the writing for her is. I did like Kirk's "actually, I'm a strict monotheist" retort to Apollo, though. I know Kirk's characterization eventually goes down a different route, but given the heavy involvement of Jewish people including Shatner in Star Trek (despite Roddenberry's antisemitism), and the historical use of the Greek and Roman pantheons in the oppression of Jewish communities, Kirk's indignation at the idea of worshipping any other god feels apropos.

31— "The Changeling" - Jim Kirk DESTROYS another implacable machine foe with LOGIC!!!! I can just imagine the YouTube series now. Seriously, though, it's fine and a drastic improvement from the previous episode, and I always enjoy a solid ST:TOS episode while I'm watching it. But it was not exceptional IMO.

32— "Mirror, Mirror" - YESSSSS I TOO GET TO EXPERIENCE THE MIRROR UNIVERSE. I loved this episode, honestly. The Mirror Universe is terrible, but super fun both in concept and execution. I love the competence of the prime universe team in the brief cut to them immediately clocking Mirror Kirk's group as imposters (though I did want more from Mirror Uhura who is just kind of there, though...). I love Mirror Spock being this warped but recognizable version of the character. I love the concept of Mirror Kirk being the perpetrator of war crimes exactly like Kirk's formative trauma back in "The Conscience of the King." I love the evil cutthroat BDSM space Byzantines vibes of the Terran Empire (is there an unimaginably decadent and deadly Byzantine Empire in the history of the Mirror Universe? I hope so. We deserve it after "Who Mourns for Adonais" tbh).

33— "The Apple" - this is a pretty fun one. The protagonists as the sort of serpent of this "Edenic" garden, coupled with the awful god creature is super entertaining, and it works well enough despite the show's erratic approach to religion.

34— "The Doomsday Machine" - damn, the commander in this episode is such an asshole. He's clearly meant to be, though, and his Ahab campaign turning out to not be entirely in vain at least makes it seem like there's a point to spending so much time on him being the worst.

35— "The Catspaw" - by coincidence, my best friend and I ended up watching this not far into November, just a few days after Halloween. About five minutes in, I said to him, "Is it just me, or is that castle clearly just Spirit Halloween?" He delightedly said, "This planet is Spirit Halloween!"

There's a bit of racial essentialism about ALL HUMANS that would be uncomfortable if it were not so patently ridiculous. The idea is that human beings have a basic racial fear of cats that the tiny aliens exploit—yes, "cats" in this episode refers mainly to the human fear of the house cat, aka the most successful and beloved domestic species on Earth, not lions or even cougars. The alien terrorizes the cast by taking the shape of a fluffy black house cat of varying sizes, but never any other kind of cat. This concept is hilarious, just to be clear. I enjoyed every moment. Even a super-large house cat is just even more friend-shaped floof to your basic human, let's be real, so the deadly threat is impossible to take seriously even before the giant house cat is revealed to be an incredibly horny alien lady with illusion powers (this persona is also an illusion, but the horniness is real). But are not all cats at some level horny alien ladies with illusion powers? I feel pretty sure that Star Trek thinks so.

36— "I, Mudd" - and the award for Most Improved Character has got to go to Harry Mudd. My bff and I actually had a great time with this episode, in part because the entire cast seem to be having a great time with it. I especially loved the twist with Uhura seeming to fall to the womanly weakness of desiring eternal beauty and the easy life only for it to be a trick. Mudd is still a sleaze, but a much funner one to watch this time, and we've just started quoting Spock's "He didn't pay the royalties" at random moments. The stereotypical nagging wife is what it is, but I'm grading Mudd episodes on an extra curve.

37— "Metamorphosis" - and at least, we've reached the most recent episode I've seen, so my impressions of this one are much more fresh. Somehow, I had no idea we first met Zefram Cochrane in TOS and not in First Contact. Also, wow, the actors for him and for the Commissioner are really attractive—not quirky 60s attractive, either. Cochrane reminds me vaguely of Henry Cavill and the Commissioner is simply gorgeous despite the blinding color scheme of her costume.

The gender essentialism sure is something at this point, I've got to say, when the characters are blandly agreeing that of course a sentient electric cloud must have a fundamental gender that you can kind of tell by the color scheme. Uh huh, but it is genuinely interesting that Cochrane clearly cares about the cloud and tries to protect her from our heroes until he realizes she loves him, but is so affronted at the idea of the cloud being in love with him and his (very obviously sexualized) communion and companionship with her being part of that.

He projects his revulsion primarily onto Spock (Spock vs the Microaggressions strikes again!), but literally everyone finds his attitude narrow-minded and weird. The feeling is kind of like if you met an idolized long-dead relative only for them to use a homophobic slur you've never even heard of.

The resolution of this little drama comes from the cloud bodysnatching the dying Commissioner, a young woman who longs to be loved by anyone at all after a life of being a loveless career woman. She is, to be clear, a career woman whose job is all about preventing warfare and who is deeply stressed about it, which seems a kind of love to me. But she is mostly framed just as this super abrasive, loveless career woman because it's TOS (and they eventually conclude that any woman could do her job and they'll just find a different one to stop the war).

Anyway, all this results in the somehow-female cloud fusing with what remains of the Commissioner's consciousness, curing her body of some fatal disease. Now that the cloud is fused with an actual (hot) human woman, Cochrane is totally chill with her love for him, and decides he can have a very strange threesome love her after all, and they'll live out these bodies' natural lives together until they both die (since she lost her electric cloud powers of healing and immortality when she bodysnatched the Commissioner, I gather). It feels weird and low-grade shitty on his part, although I like his actor's performance, because it makes it so clear that his aversion was only about appearances.

I think the cloud should have moved onto someone who would appreciate her devotion and restorative powers, like, say, the dying Commissioner lady who actually has this whole speech about how badly she longs to be loved and how she doesn't get why Cochrane is being such a baby about the adoration of a cloud. Look, I'm just saying the cloud could be bi and deserves someone who would appreciate her.

I know this was never going to happen on a nationally syndicated show in 1967, but I think it would make more narrative sense and be much more satisfying! Cochrane would love space adventures 150 years in the future—he was thrilled and excited about the idea of seeing the reality of the Federation and alliances with other species! And the Commissioner would appreciate a cloud girlfriend and immortality so much more than him. Hire me, Paramount.

[thebisexualmandalorian]

Inviting controversy by asking a controversial question which you may feel free to ignore but. Thoughts on Karen Traviss' Star Wars books, from the old EU? I assume you've got Opinions

BOY DO I

I'll probably forget to include everything, but I've gone on an hour long Rant before and I'll do it again lmao

Okay, so the good. There is good in these books and I'll drag it out with teeth and claws if I have to.

I love Kal Skirata. You can crucify me for that if you want to, but as a daddy issues having bitch, I want him to be my dad. He's a wonderfully flawed character, and he owns up to those flaws. He's made mistakes and he's grown and he knows he isn't perfect but by god, he'll try for his boys. He fights tooth and nail to protect them from what he can, and what he can't, he'll go through hell with them (literally, I can't remember the exact wording, but it's said in Hard Contact I believe, that any training he puts his men through, he does it himself first). He's overprotective because there's so much he can't protect them from, and it's clear that he loves them with all his heart.

The clone and GAR and Mando culture building. This is a grayer area for me because there is a lot of internalized bullshit KT is dealing with that I'll talk about later, but! We wouldn't have nearly the background we do for these cultures without her books. I love most of what she did with it, from the military worldbuilding to the Mandalorian culture and the different facets of it we see through the eyes of different characters. And the language! Mando'a isn't a heavily developed conlang, but the tools are there, and it makes sense within the world. And we have music! We have songs.

I love the characters. There are gray areas, no one is perfect, and they all get down and dirty when things call for it. They love each other deeply and make good and bad decisions, they're realistic. The relationships are tender and gentle, and I love the interactions between everyone, the loyalty and the devotion, and the overarching feeling of grief because we know how this ends.

The clones! I love them! They are wonderful and well developed, and I love hearing their thoughts on everything, and their bond with one another and those around them. I'm not coherent about this one because I think about them for five seconds and start making high pitched noises like an overexcited dog.

The descriptions are so deliciously visceral, and I love reading them.

The bad:

Another unpopular opinion: I loathe Vau. Hate him utterly. He's a good character but a deeply horrible man, and this might be my trauma talking but it's my opinion and I'll die on this goddamn hill. He's verbally and physically abusive, and sees absolutely no consequences (or even reproach) for it in the narrative, aside from Kal breaking his nose, and he deserved so much worse than that.

The misogyny. Oh, Karen honey. That internalized misogyny got you good, huh? The blatant way she treats Etain and Besany through the mouths of other characters is... oof. There's a little bit of reversal, but it's still pretty bad. Even though they're "not like other girls," it's pretty obvious that Karen has a lot of issues with womanhood. It was the 2000s, so I'll let some of it be with the caveat that the 2000s were pretty damn misogynistic in general, but goddamn. Also, on that note, she seems to be fighting herself on whether Mandos have a gender neutral society or not? Like, she'll say on one page that there's no difference between men and women, and then go on to say that men go out and fight but women stay to guard the home and raise the kids. I am putting my head in my hands.

On a related note, Karen is the Jedi who hurt you in the room with us right now? Why do you hate the Jedi so damn much? It doesn't make any sense in the story and it doesn't make sense on a metatextual level. Bro, are you good?

Anyway! Yes! I have many opinions about this book series and I'm sure I forgot to cover everything! Please feel free to ask more questions!

[entamewitchlulu]

reading a book for work reasons (long story short we're reading stuff from different genres to like. study the genre deeply for better reader's advisory) and it's a romance and i'm just. I always think "oh i like romance! Romance is nice! I write all kinds of romance and think about it all the time!"

But then you put a mainstream romance book in front of me and i'm just like

ranting under the cut because i need to get it out of me and my enjoyment is not the point so i have to go back to reading this with an eye for genre rather than reading as a reader anyway

the man is an asshole. why are so many men in romance stories assholes. is this like, sexy? am i too lesbian for this?

like this book is what people think you mean in the mainstream when you say 'enemies-to-lovers' but to me enemies-to-lovers should mean that both individuals have their own causes that threaten each other and have some massive stakes involved and someone may or may not be attempted murdered by the other. this story, on the other hand, is just two catty adults who never progressed past middle school snarking at each other because of a miscommunication that someone has lasted THREE YEARS already. i'm a chapter and a half in and i'm exhausted. how do you spend that much time around each other and let a miscommunication go on that long before you finally figure something out.

but generally i just don't. i don't like mean love interests. maybe it's just me. i physically cannot wrap my head around the idea of continually feeling any attraction to someone you hate so viscerally. Like sure, aesthetically you can still understand they look nice but to constantly be mooning over the eyelashes of a guy who's guts you hate, who actively makes you feel as though you are being put down constantly (even if you're misinterpreting him?)? I don't understand how attraction could begin there. it doesn't compute to me.

again this is most likely a me problem. i was the kind of person who was obsessed with Masago in Tokyo Mew Mew after all, maybe it's just a preference for soft guys, but i feel like i don't see many soft guys in mainstream romance. maybe i'm not looking hard enough.

the circumstances are just so......stupid. i'm not going to get into the details i don't want to name and shame the book because i KNOW this is a ME problem and that plenty of people love this stuff and more power to them!! but i think the way the two characters end up stuck together for long enough to ""fall in love"" is so stupid and convoluted and no one would ever act this way in real life.

also there's a gay cousin who is like, a walking stereotype of the gay best friend and i cringed the second he walked into the scene. made me feel somewhat insulted and i'm not even a gay man.

anyway. i'm just. tired. i don't wanna read this book but i gotta.

[crimsonkingart]

I'll talk about my personal experiences, I'll put the triggers "psychological abuse", "cancer" and "Binge Eating Disorder".

Feel free to not read. As always my english sucks because is not my first lenguage.

In the fact, sometimes, family relationships suck.

In my experience I had a horrible relationship with my brother.

I'll give some examples, my brother was homophobic and racist, I'm bisexual (and gender fluid) so sometimes he insulted me for that reason.

My brother contributed to my binge eating disorder, he called me "fatty shit" or he said "you suck".

(Just for information, italian is more vulgar of english, often offensive words in italian are worst of the translation in english. Anyway.)

And, argh, this is the worst part, when I was younger (around 13/14) he touched my breasts. It only happened once, so I can't objectively say if he was attracted to me because I was little.

The funny thing? He and I had a good relationship before I was 13.

Having a horrible brother in my teenager era led me to develop an interest in the "responsible older brother" trope.

I love reading fan fiction where the characters love each other deeply, have a brotherly relationship and protect each other.

But what about the sphere of human relations in reality? I consider my friends my family, I consider my friends like sisters and brothers, and I often fall in love with them, (sometimes it's romantically sometimes it's sex attraction), but it's always a total and profound love. I would tear my heart out for them, because I know how important it is to have deep bonds between friends.

This year my brother died, for cancer, but the incredible thing is that: at his funeral I met people who loved him and thought only good things about him.

Now when I think about my brother it's like... I have a piece of a puzzle that doesn't fit with the others.

One of his friends, his bestfriend, they were like brothers, told me that he always talked about me and that he loved me. The worst thing? His friend is sincere, his friend really thinks my brother loved me, but he doesn't know that my brother was an asshole with me.

My brother, when he was in the same room with me, didn't even talk to me, except to insult. It's just so strange have memories so different from other people about him.

When I was a little girl my brother adored me, he played with me for hours and we slept in the same bed. I have good memories from my childhood.

Then he distanced himself and the relationship got worse.

I love my brother, because I have childhood memories in which he was a caring brother, and I hate him deeply because he contributed to destroying my self-esteem and bullying me like a pro.

(He destroyed half of it, the other half it's fault because "school bullying". I avoid the details, there is no need now.)

I was afraid of him, he hit me and... I can describe him as a kind of bomb. Most of the time he was mean with words, but he could explode, he could lose his temper and I thought, if he doesn't do it today, he will in a month.

Or this, I was constantly afraid that he would judge me when I ate. And I still have this fear. I'm afraid that he could "come back" and judge again.

And I know that objectively he can't, but I have this fear so visceral.

When I fight with my friends or I break up a friendship I feel like I lost someone who was the love of my life.

Because mu connection with them is very deep.

In real life we are driven by trauma, pain, negative experiences and positive experiences. Reducing families to just "friendship" is completely ignoring the complexity of the human soul and boundaries.

forcing every character into romance or found family ruins character discussion imo

[ssaalexblake]

The thing about the twissy arc for me is that i actually really love it as a Tragedy? It is trying to be a tragedy and it is completely successful at what it is attempting. The characters Want to reconcile, be friends (i would make some comment about Love here but the ghost of missy would hunt me down), but it Doesn’t Work. Because of things both of them do, ideals both of them hold, because of things done in the past, they are prevented from getting what they want and it is sad and it’s tragic and then them both dying alone in the dirt hurts in a punch in the gut kind of way because they were so close to going out, hand in unlovable hand, side by side, but instead die alone. It’s sad! It was trying to be heart-breaking and sad and it worked. 

And I mean, if you don’t like tragedy stories, fine, whatever floats your boat, but it IS a tragedy either way. 

So the idea that 13 and Dhawan are an insult to that arc and that the story following is disrespectful to them because spydoc are the realistic nasty fallout to said tragedy IRKS me so much. Twissy was a tragedy, making it Untragic by ignoring the end of the story is what would be disrespectful to what i personally consider to be a hauntingly tragic story of trying and wanting and ultimately failing anyway. 

The ultimate disrespect would be ruining the tragedy. This isn’t a ‘actually they lived happily ever after after a few road bumps’ story, it’s a ‘there was love here and it Mattered but ultimately didn’t change a thing’ story. 

Dhawan!master alludes to the events of twissy as a way to dig at 13 a fair number of times in what has been very few appearances. He has weaponised his own pain, correctly deducing that it Also hurts the Doctor as much. He’s not wrong. Of all the outside things going on in S12 with the lore, it’s a pretty consistent thread between their interactions that he will allude to being Bad and Irredeemable to hurt her for ever trying (because he knows she cares), and she’ll goad him and rage back in response and try and hurt him like he hurt her and she scores her own hits by knowing him too well as well. It’s nasty and brutal and it works because they are so deeply hurt by what happened with Twissy as a base line for everything else. 

It’s just that twissy is written All over spydoc, without Twissy their Intense and Visceral rage does not make sense, even. They are both hurting even Before you consider the plot events of s12. They are both still hurting actively because they are poorly coping with how their previous story ended. Mostly, if they’d written it to be anything Other than an absolute clusterfuck it would be a case of ‘why are you ignoring what happened last time they saw each other???’. 

The doctor thinks the master abandoned them to die alone and that their decades worth of help was just some scheme to use to stay alive, probably, they Definitely did not know Missy intended to shank Simm and go back to 12 no matter how comforting a concept that is. The master is severely traumatised by being both the victim and perpetrator of a murder/suicide simultaneously. The fact that that event was entirely the result of the doctor’s influence over them and that in s12 they find out the doctor Also influences them on a genetic level, too adds to the mess of trauma. 

Twissy’s a tragedy, it was trying to be one and succeeded. It was tragic alone as a secular event, but if you track what the events of their arc do to their next regenerations it makes it More tragic, which is what it Should do. It should not defang the story from before, it should bolster it. Spydoc being violent and angry and horrifying makes that twissy came So So close all the more tragic. 

The insult would be to make the tragedy Less tragic. 

[colorisbyshe]

everyone always talks about sasunaru this sasunaru that but i do not understand what the premise is. can you sell me on it

Sasuke and Naruto are hard to explain without really getting into the full premise of Naruto, so without those details I don't know if I'd actually be selling them well

But I think Sasuke and Naruto are a great embodiment of all the ways trying to find love when you feel deeply alone and betrayed by the world can go right and can wrong.

When the story of Naruto begins, they are both orphaned boys and while that isn't relatable to most people on a literal level, symbolically it just means that... they are alone, hurting, unsupported. Unloved in any way that matters.

Sasuke had a family and lost them all. And Naruto never had anyone. So, there's already this tension of "Is it better to have loved and lost (Sasuke) than to have never loved at all (Naruto)?"

And we kind of see how that blossoms in their individual narratives.

Naruto is so, so desperate for love, a thing he has never had and has never been hurt by, and strives to prove himself to anyone who will take him in the hopes that one day, someone will love him. And Sasuke is so deeply afraid of love and bonds because he grew up enveloped in this warmth and then he's been left in the cold, abandoned by the system and just left with cloying and fake "love" and pity.

They are the same but also so very different. And so, instead of immediately fitting together, they clash. Naruto chases the warmth of friendship and Sasuke resists because what if he's hurt again? His own brother murdered his clan, how can he trust anyone else? And Naruto takes the rejection personally because it's always been personal for him--he grew up not just alone, but hated. Mocked for who he is and for things out of his control.

And Naruto has had a taste of love now--the manga starts with a teacher finally defending him and taking him in--and so the sting of being rejected is finally in contrast with what he knows he could have.

So, they're set up to never quite work but... Sasuke fails at isolating himself. He cares in spite of himself. And now he's willing to die for Naruto, sacrificing himself without knowing he'll actually get to live in the end.

He takes a blow meant for Naruto and begs him to live, leaving his own dreams of vengeance behind. It’s a miracle he survives anyways but he was truly ready to die for the first speck of warmth he’s had in his life since his family died.

And the rest of the manga is just the fallout of Sasuke realizing he can still love people after he's lost everything and him running away from that. And Naruto not letting him.

Because he knows how much it hurts to be shut out and doesn't want Sasuke to hurt like that.

The manga itself veers away from these themes as a central focus but it remains the central point of their entire story together and most of Sasuke's arc.

The value of love... the risk of love... the fear of love... and how love can only be healing if you're willing to risk love being corrosive.

So much of their story can be about loving the wrong people or the right people at the wrong time and how it's worth it anyways.

It's about accepting love when you feel unlovable.

And many stories explore these themes but I think Sasuke and Naruto do it so exceptionally well because the stakes are so much higher and they are allowed to genuinely hurt each other in very visceral ways but it feels so much like the way clawing for a person who is shutting you out does, relatable to more real life pain.

They beat each other black and blue but also briefly hold hands to use ninja magic to continue their attacks. They blow each other's arms off but the blood pools into a heart shape and in light headed, blood-loss wonder Naruto asks if they're in heaven together.

It’s all the way love shouldn't be but sometimes can feel like when you are in the thick of trauma and figuring yourself out and it's not healthy but it's trying so hard to be, they just don't know how to love without hurting themselves.

And it's just...

It's this stupid fucking manga about child soldiers that forgets that having children fight wars is BAD and fucks up its own messages and retcons important lore and completely forgets what it's doing

but you get to the end of it... and Naruto and Sasuke still love each other despite the entire world telling them they should've given up on it all. And... despite all the pain, they're better for that love.

They made each other better.

And I’ve just never read another story capable of showing these highs and lows within a relationship with the relationship still feeling equal and still having so much potential. Where all the pain ends up being worth it. And it is!

Best love story of all time.

[rcksmith]

Spring breeze part.4 — Spencer Reid

Icon by @obiwansjedi

Part.1 Part.2 Part.3

Sumarry: After the breakup, Spencer and the Reader follow different paths and lives. But, after 8 years, Gideon's death brings an avalanche of emotions, putting the two face to face again in a reencounter that could break their hearts again — season 10 —

Couple: Spencer Reid /Gideon's daughter!reader.

Warnings: mention of death, mention of violence, death of the father, depressive thoughts, murder, crying, swearing, a lot of anguish, mention of love, fluff (but it has a very fluff too, I'm not a monster)

Word count: 5k.

A/N: This is the most sad chapter that has, I promise that the next will be very cute.💖

I saw Gideon's death episode again to make it as faithful as possible for you guys. I used the original Criminal Minds chronology too, being 8 years from Gideon's last appearance until his death.

English is not my first language, so I so sorry if have a mistake.

Let me know if you want to be added for a taglist for a specific fandom (Criminal Minds, The Umbrella Academy, Riverdale, Roman Godfrey, or all)

Requests are open. Love you ❤️

— — — — —

Hunting bandits. Save people. Improve the world a little bit every day. Those were the three things Spencer believed it was worth to be at BAU. It was worth fighting for, holding on, staying sleepless for days, being haunted by murderers by day and nightmares at night. For what it was worth looking at the abyss, even when it looks to you

Reid could deal with human perversion, with the thousand and one ways to practice heinous crimes, the sowing of evil and cruelty. He could cope with constantly being inside insane minds, learning his whys and mechanisms. He could take it. He put up with it day after day, case after case. He endured being tortured, stay being held at gunpoint, having a piece of his essence plucked with red-hot iron month after month. Spencer knew he could handle it.

But he couldn't handle death. Goodbye. It shattered his soul far more than difficult cases, pushed his own sanity to the limit. Perhaps burying his feelings as deeply as possible was just a method of delaying the wave that would drown him at one time or another. Inevitably.

Each farewell took a piece of Reid away. His father, his mother, Ellie, you, Gideon, JJ, were just a few of the people who left, living their lives elsewhere. But what about those who died? The victims, the children, Hayley, Maeve, Emily (even if only for a short time) and so many others. These took much more than a piece of him. Maybe costu his whole soul.

Spencer felt himself harden over the years, the cases, loss after loss, day after loss. He felt the purity of his own heart slip through his fingers like sand, the faith in humanity to be put to the test. Sometimes even faith in himself.

Was that the price to pay for that job? Being constantly vulnerable? See his life and the lives of the people his loved most at gunpoint?

It was worth?

Maeve's death shook him more than any other, sucking all the pink glow from his world, leaving him with only the cold feeling of hopelessness. A very deep void. It took a long time for memories of she not to hurt like red-hot iron, for his breathing not to be heavy. It took a long time to be happy again.

And when Spencer felt healed from the deepest wounds, the most visceral pains, he was hit again. Deeply. If Maeve's death was a wave that brought him down, Gideon's death was the tsunami that destroyed him.

“It's Gideon.” Hotch's voice confirmed the fear of everyone in that cottage.

Then Spencer felt shattered. Torn apart. Torn like a rag doll and placed on the fire. He wanted to scream, to scream so loudly that he would never regain his voice. He wanted to break something, destroy some, run away.

But run away from whom? From what? That pain or himself? If Spencer had been able to tear off his own skin at that time and be someone else, he would not have hesitated. Not having dropped to his knees in that cottage was a miracle, because Spencer no longer knew what was holding him upright.

Jason Gideon, in many ways, was all that Spencer had. He knew that they took different paths and traveled different roads, living different lives, but he believed that they always end up on the same, even one they was old. Spencer was sure that if he was dying on his knees, Gideon would be to rescue him. For all those 8 years, it was extremely comforting to think that Gideon was out there, living life, finding the hope he had in college, finding the brilliance the world had.

And Reid knew that Jason had you. And you had Gideon. That was the most soothing and comforting thought. No matter what, he knew that you would take care of Jason, just like he would take care of you. But now... now Spencer's world had dissolved in the air. Like a sandcastle knocked over by the wind.

And the pain was surreal.

When he realized, he had left the room, close to the... body. If he could, Spencer would have moved away from himself. How would he take it? One more death, another psychopath. How many other people he love will are died at the hands of the work he did every day?

The answer to all of these questions was frightening, and Spencer wasn't sure if wanted them.

The trip to the coroner was the worst Reid had ever done, talking about the body was the worst conversation he had ever had. And when Morgan put his hand on his shoulder and said that he couldn't close himself now, that they were going to get that son of a bitch, all Spencer wanted to say was that he couldn't take it anymore. That he couldn't breathe. The emptiness was too oppressive. So much visceral pain.

But that was not what Spencer said. He just clung to the only lifeguard in the middle of the rough and deserted sea: justice. Gideon deserve it.

Reid doesn't know how he managed to get back to the Gideon’s house, how he managed to hear Hotch and Rossi talking about what could have happened. But he was there, standing, by some miracle.

“Do you know who might want to have done this?” Hotch asked Stephen, who had arrived, his eyes red from the crying he struggled to hold.

“No. I know he had a list of things he wanted to do before he died... That's how we came back to speak, one of the things was to get back in touch.” His voice was so reminiscent of Gideon's that it was stabbed in the heart of Reid.

“Didn't he talk about being chased? Feeling anything strange?” Rossi commented.

Reid watched Stephen's expressions carefully, first because he reminded Gideon a lot, and second because he looked for any clues in his reactions.

Stephen took a second to think before saying: “No, but we both don't keep in touch daily, you know?” He swallowed a sob, probably with regret, but then his eyes lit up with some information: “'But Y/n surely know, they both spoke to each other every day, if my father was thinking differently, surely she know.”

The mention of your name hit Reid with a very different wave. Bringing a very different feeling than it should. At that moment, he felt himself holding the air.

For a second, a lapse of consciousness, Spencer had not connected any of this with your physical presence. The notion that you were Gideon's daughter was obvious but, for some reason, Spencer didn't think about the fact that you were going to be there. That you would share the same air with him again, the same place...

“We will have to call her, bring her here to see if something has been left, or taken. If there is anything important on the scene.” It was Hotch.

“I called her as soon as you guys called me.” Stephen said “She arrived from California the day before yesterday, my father and she were going to travel.” He tried to swallow the crying, his eyes trembling.

"And you weren't going?" Rossi added.

“I have a son and a wife.” He gave a smile broken by the sadness of the mourning “They would stop by before I go… Y/n was going to tell me the news, since our schedules hardly match much, she works as an astronomer in…”

“Caltech.” Spencer completed, without even realizing it, like a thought out loud.

“Yea.” Stephen agreed.

Spencer felt a chill go from head to toe, and another ton of feelings were thrown at his back. The reality that he was going to see you again hit him hard. Like an arrow. Suddenly, Reid wanted to get out of there. Run as far as possible.

He couldn't see you. He had no ability to deal with those feelings now. Not now, when his life was so overwhelmed with emotions for Gideon’s death that he still hadn't dealt Not when you aroused the feeling of... hope. Spencer can’t could hope, of any kind. Not for them to be taken from him with visceral force. Reid was already hurt enough for handling another fall.

“... But I don't think it's a good idea for my sister to be here, anyway.” Stephen continued to speak.

Rossi and Hotch frowned: “Why?”

“They were very connected. Seeing this scene is not going to do her any good...” he sobs this time “Y/n is not like me… she is sentimental, emotional. ”

“As long as you're trying to stay calm, she'll be the opposite.” Hotch completed.

“I just don't want my sister to suffer anymore and...”

But it was too late for Stephen to complete. It was too much for Spencer to escape. It was too late to be born again, in a different life.

A gray car moved forward on the stone road, at too high a speed not to have washed several road fines. That was so much typical of you who hurt Spencer's heart pieces more than he thought possible. More than he thought he could feel at the time. You were always so wild at the wheel. But Reid didn't have time to finish a thought, not even Rossi, Hotch, Morgan who was with them or even Stephen. Because car brutally stopped it, the door opened and…

And it was as if the sun came out from behind the clouds after years. As if summer had finally come after decades of overwhelming winter. In a burst, everything you've ever represented for Spencer has come back for him once again. And he felt the same thing that he felt when he first saw you, 8 years ago. And he was catatonic.

You got out of the car in a very hurried and desperate way. And as much as there were tears in your eyes and redness in cheeks, Spencer has never seen anyone so beautiful. Your hair was longer, in a brighter shade, maybe you had dyed it. Your features were more lyrical and beautiful, and Reid thought that the passage of time had no effect on you. While he considered himself just less clumsy over the years, you proved to be blooming like Romania's most superb rose.

“DAD!” But that was when your desperate voice brought Reid's consciousness back to earth.

You weren't calling your brother, you weren't asking why, you weren't in mourning. You were in denial. Disbelieving. You called out to your father, with the certainty that he would show up. And the despair in your eyes hurt Reid more than being shot.

But before the agents could do anything, you were running towards the house and Stephen ran towards you, taking you in his arms, trying to keep you from getting inside.

“LET ME GO, STEPHEN!” You struggled, trying to get rid of your brother's arms, your hair messing with the wind, tears streaming down your eyes. “They are wrong! It's not our father! Let me fucking go! DAD!”

“Y/n” Stephen had a broken heart in his eyes, some tears streaming down his eyes “You need to calm down before you get in there !”

“LET ME GO!” Yours sobs broke the hearts of the four agents over there “DAD!” You was cryng out, almost like a prayer, in a desperate call.

"He's gone, Y/n.” Your brother kept his arms stronger in you, trying to contain you while you struggle in trying to break free and go inside the house, under the illusion that you would find your father there.

“NO!” Now your crying was continuous “I spoke to him yesterday! It's not him, Stephen!” Then your brother turned you to him, holding you tight, and you melted into a visseral pain “It can't be him!”

“I know...” he sobbed, looking at you with the same shared pain “I know...”

So you gave yourself up to a painful, loud and desperate crying, the kind that won't let you breathe. And, unlike Reid, you fallen down. Your knees found the stone and grass floor, your hands clasped on Stephen's shirt, who knelt on the floor with you, delivered the pain you both shared.

You knew what your father's risks were in working in such a dangerous profession. Expose yourself to constant and frightening danger. You always knew about the risks, you just tried to ignore them all your life, sinking your fears about your father not coming home at night. Then, when he let the BAU, that fear dissipated. You felt a colossal weight being lifted off your shoulders, like tons of lead, and you let go of a fear so great that you didn't even know you had it.

For 8 years you thought that the chances of him not coming home were over, that the chances of seeing him the next day had increased dramatically. For 8 years you two traveled together, stopping at every type of diner for milkshake, chocolate ice cream and mint - his favorites - For 8 years you had your best friend, the only thing you knew you had in the world. You always knew that if you were drowning in the ocean, it would be your father who would give his lungs for you to breathe.

You didn't see a life without Gideon.

For you, you were crying for hours in what one day was your father's backyard, totally devastated, but for the rest of the world it was a matter of minutes.

Your sobs were so loud and real that Hotch and Rossi caught themselves with watery eyes, perfectly understanding the pain you were going through, the devastation. The two had lost many people, many of them being essential pieces to be able to continue breathing. Many of them felt wounds that would never heal.

But it was Rossi who approached you, the pain at the top of his throat, his mind wandering the day Gideon said he was going to have a little girl. Unlike Stephen, Rossi never saw you in person, but the sparkle in Jason's eyes whenever he talked about you, or with you on the phone, was enough to know that you were one of the essential pieces to keep breathing.

“Hi, my name is Rossi.” He knelt in front of you and your face went towards him, your cheeks and nose as red as your eyes.

“M-my dad talked about you."” You were still sobbing, slowly letting go of Stephen's shirt.

"Good things, I hope.” The two of you laughed like a sigh, and soon the pain returned to your eyes in a visseral way. “I know this is not fair, and I know it is asking too much, but I need you to go inside and try to find something out of place. Something that whoever did this to your father may have taken or left. ”

You closed your eyes in pain, tears streaming as you sobbed. Your hands, trembling and cold, went to your face, perhaps trying to hide from reality, perhaps wiping away tears. Maybe both. When you looked back at Rossi again, you saw the pain in his eyes too.

"I don't know if I can do it.” You admitted, your voice shaking.

"I know.” Rossi took his hand to yours, squeezing comfortingly “But only you can help us now, help other daughters not lose their father to the same killer. Being inside in the house can bring information that is in your subconscious. I promise you will make it, we will all be here with you.”

His handshake got stronger, and it reminded you of your father. That should have been the same way he comforted the victims' relatives, the way he was supposed to act with people.

'Everyone is somebody's son.' That's what Gideon said. It hit you like an atomic bomb. And, for a moment, you thought it was possible to die of sadness.

You squeezed Rossi's hand tightly, as if you were looking for courage. When you opened eyes again, you gave a weak nod. Carefully, as if any sudden movement is capable of causing you more pain, you stood up, your legs wobbly, your heart bleeding, sadness clouding your vision. Rossi put his hand behind your back, in a way to make sure him were there, as an anchorage in reality that would not let you get lost in the valley of sadness and pain.

As you walked up to the house, you didn't see the other agents, you didn't see the trees, the cars. At that time, you didn't even know what color the sky was anymore. It was like a suspended moment, when the world is in slow motion, the hemisphere is terrified. The sadness was palpable in the breeze, in the way that the rays of the sun did not reach the ground. The whole land looked like mourning.

As soon as you stepped inside the house, the smell of home and Gideon hit your nose, and you felt your face tighten in an expression of pure pain. You didn't notice the agents coming in behind you, you didn't notice Penelope and JJ. You just saw the furniture, the decor, his stuff. As if Gideon had just left for the market and was going to come back.

Everything was in was there. Minus the most important thing: him.

You did not notice when Rossi left you, you did not notice who approached. Everything was in a haze of pain.

But that's when you saw the strong blood marks on the floor, stuck to the wood with possession. A cold shiver as sighed from death ricocheted through your entire body, bristling all over your skin. In a burst, like the bursting of a violin string, the mist dissipated, the state of tupor burst, and reality hit you with overwhelming force.

And then the plug fell.

Jason Gideon had died.

You fell again, barely noticing the sobs and loud crying starting to come out again, the most desperate and painful in you life. But this time the arms that took you were different, bringing with you sensations that you haven't felt in a long time. That a long time ago you forgot that you could feel.

They were long, thin, and contained a vigor hidden beneath the thin facade. The smell of his presence was… heaven. That feeling was your anchorage on the high seas, in the valley of despair, and you clung to him for fear of drowning, of not finding your way back home.

You didn't have to see it to know who it was.

You turned to the arms that took you, now Spencer kneels with you on the floor, and you cried in a way that you never cried before, with a visseral pain. Your hands went to the brown cardigan he wore, closing there as if the fabric was your only chance for salvation.

So you looked at the immensity of the his brown irises.

"He was the only thing I had, Spen.” You sobbed loudly with the crying, gently swaying his coat, your voice utterly torn.

Spencer felt his eyes sting, his throat lock and the remains of what was his heart ache in a hideous way.

“I know.” He felt a tear run down his left cheek, his hands on your arms.

At this time, the two of you supported each other. Gideon meant a lot to you two. An irreplaceable role in yours life. And Spencer knew that was what you were talking about when you said:

"He was the only thing we both had.” You closed your eyes, your hands still firmly on his coat, your heart pounding.

But this time Spencer's voice was just as broken when he said: “I know.”

Then he hugged you.He hugged you for everything. He hugged you because it was a pain that only you two could understand. He hugged you because you needed it, and because he needed too.

Jason Gideon had a special connection with you two, a connection that only the two of you had ever experienced. Each relationship with Gideon was different, special in different ways, but only the two of you had him as a protector, mentor, a much more paternal and confidant figure. He was the kind of person you could leave your life in his hands, the kind who would teach you the secret of the worlds, show you what goodness was and at the same time strength. And you two had that.

You stained Reid's coat with tears, and Reid stained you with the strong smell he had. He stepped far enough away to be able to see your face perfectly, at a considerable distance, and, against everything he had ever done before with anyone, he took your face in his hands, his eyes fixed on your in pain shared.

“We will catch how did it.” Reid assured you, as if he had tattooed this words on your skin. You closed your eyes in pain, but he brought you back “Hey, keep looking at me."

So you did it. Because you would always follow Spencer. To hell if he asked.

"Don't take your eyes off mine, okay?” His voice was so sweet, so gentle, and you couldn't have done anything but agree. “When was the last time you spoke to Gideon?”

“Yesterday.” You replied “We were going to travel to the beach today, I took a vacation from work.”

“Was he at home when you two talked?”

The team looked at each other, with several questions in those look.

You denied it, the hiccup now because of the shortness of breath you had because of the crying.

“He stopped at Roanoke for...” and that's when you seemed to remember something.

Your eyes widened softly, your lips trembled, and you let out a stammering sigh as you try to remember something very important.

“What do you remember?” Spencer stroked your cheeks with his thumbs, trying to calm the beating of your heart that went back to being frantic and making you focus on the question, not the sea of ​​emotions you felt.

“He…” was when your eyes fluttered before meeting Reid's again. “He said he saw a woman on the news who was found dead. And ... and that he had to make sure of one thing ”

Rossi looked at Hotch, who gave an attentive and objective expression.

“Did he tell you why?” His eyes closed again and you sobbed. Reid moved closer, bringing your face back in his direction again “Look at me, Y/n.”

As soon as you did, he gave you a gentle smile, but contained all the pain in the world. He understood what you were felling.

“Why was he interested in the case?” He changed the question.

“I-it was something about...” you searched in your mind “Girl named Tara. I don’t know. He mentioned about a blue butterfly tattoo on her ankle as well, and that it was something to do with a… a case or something.”

“1978” Rossi interrupted and everyone looked at him “Gideon and I worked on a case in 1978, the suspect was never caught and Tara was a teenager who we thought had been kidnapped by him. The killer left dead birds in the hands of the victims ”

“But he didn't mention birds and...” That's when your eyes, fluttering, darted around the room and you stopped abruptly.

Spencer turned his attention to you again, seeing that you were staring somewhere. His hands slowly left your face and he asked:

“What?”

“The board.” You pointed to your father's board, which had a beautiful brown bird.

“Does say anything to you?” Rossi turned his attention to you.

You shook your head, your body too exhausted to go to the painting and examine it.

“He shot the board.” You looked at the agents “My father loved that painting, he never would have done that. Even though my father is stunned, he has the best aim I have ever seen.”

“The devil is in the details." Rossi went to the pinting and, after two seconds, turned to the team and said “I already know who did this.”

You let out a gigantic sigh of relief as the agents split up to continue the case, speaking so fast that you couldn't keep up.

“I helped?” You looked at Spencer, tears still shining in your eyes.

He smiled and nodded “Very.”

But when he got up, you took his hand, making Reid turn his attention back to you again, a questioning look on his face.

“You're going to get it, aren't you?” The sob invaded your voice "Promise me that you will catch him, Spen."

Reid took his hand in your, giving you a strong, comforting squeeze before saying:

"I will. I promise.”

And then he left, along with the other agents.

- - -

You thought you knew what pain was, the loss, the tightness in the heart. You thought that your many relationship breakdowns showed you what it was like to suffer. But you have never been so wrong. None of that compared to how you were now, to what you felt.

You would trade that feeling for anything in the world.

This was terrible. A cold, coercive, brutal and cruel feeling. As if you were at the bottom of a black ocean, unable to breathe, falling deeper and deeper, consumed by the overwhelming cold of the water.

It was impossible to say in words how you felt. But if it were you had to define it in one word you would say: pain. A pain that bends you, a pain that makes you want to scream, that pierces your lungs so that it is not possible to breathe, but that even so, you fight for air.

It was pain at its rawest, most brutal, sharp and atrocious like a dagger blade. You would go through Dante's hells for eternity instead of living one day with that pain.

Since Spencer and the agents went after the person in charge, you have sat on the steps of the front door, watching the nature, the shaking of the trees, but your attention was so far, far away. Perhaps unattainable.

Gideon always loved watching the seasons go by, and in that moment, you wondered if looking at the same thing he looked at every day would make you feel close to him. Feel with him. It had only been three days since you last saw him, when he picked you up at the airport, but you felt like you were past three lives. How would you go without it? How were you able to think of living without it?

You pulled your knees up against your chest, hugging your legs, the metallic, atrocious and icy taste of devastation stuck to yours in your mouth. The trees shook hard, forcing the birds to fly away, but you didn't feel cold. You were not feeling the cold breeze hit your body, nor were your muscles contracting in exhaustion from the hard wood of the steps you were sitting on.

The hunger, the cold, the heat or the craving could not reach you, as if the pain had paralyzed all your system. Probably your soul.

You didn't see when Stephen put father's blanket over your shoulders, nor did you hear his sobs for seeing you so devastated. But you smelled Gideon, and the warmth of the blanket was like having his arms around you again. Then the rest of the water in your body found its way to your eyes and crying was as automatic as breathing.

You were clinging to Spencer taking the son of a bitch who did it, trying to chase away any other thoughts that weren't about that. You didn't want to think about what would happen after he was caught. Which meant his capture for you. It would bring justice to Gideon, honoring his name, his life, but it wouldn't bring him back. What was taken from you would not be repaired, regardless of the end of that damned man.

When he was caught, you would have nothing else to focus on instead.

You don't know how long you stayed there. Hours? Days? The those peach and gold tones in the sky is from dusk or the dawn of a new day?

You had lost track of time, as if your watch had stopped since the time Gideon died.

The sound of cars on the road was the only thing that pulled you out of your fucking valley, and as soon as the black SUVs stopped, you stood up as if you had been waiting your whole life for that moment. The blanket fell from your shoulders, heart accelerated at an alarming rate, and for a second, everything was gone from your mind.

Rossi was the first to get out of the car, but yours eyes darted to Reid. You wanted to run, ask what had happened, listen to the answers. But you were paralyzed in place. Afraid of the truth, of reality.

What would become of you after that news?

Spencer came towards you without hesitation, and you couldn't take your eyes off him for a second. He didn't say anything, nor did he explain anything. It was not needed. The way he reached out his hand and placed your father's rings in your palm were enough answers.

Your whole body shook and you looked at Reid with more emotions than askers.

"He is dead." He told you, and it made you fall down again.

But this time you fell into his hugging, clinging to him in despair. There were many meanings in that embrace: gratitude, relief, fear, pain and grief. And Spencer hugged you back in the same way.

You two stayed that way for a while, even when the agents went to talk to Stephen, even when Garcia and JJ left the house, even when the cold wind hit you both.

“Thanks." You heard yourself say it, and Spencer shook his head, signaling that it wasn't necessary, and the two of you moved away.

So you went to Rossi, and hugged him too. In that second, Rossi could feel Gideon in that hug, and it took a second to not cry.

“Your father was a great man." He told you when the two of you walked away, and you agreed on a sad smile.

"He was." You looked down at the rings in your hand, staying a second there before turning to the agents and saying: “You guys are going to the funeral, aren't you? I ... my dad would like it w-very much.”

"Of course." Rossi guaranteed it.

As they walked away and went back to the car, heading for their own houses, your eyes met Spencer's and he whispered in the air to you:

“I will see you at the funeral."

You nodded, giving you a sad, grateful smile. And while everyone was leaving and you were looking at the rings in your hand again, you had a feeling that your story with Spencer had just started over.

A/n: I also lost a very important person to death, and for everyone who went through it too, I mean that no one is alone! My message box is open if you need anything! Love you❤️

Tagged @gublersuvula

@peculiarinsomniac

@measure-in-pain

@nobutalsoyes

🍒 @misshale21

[transexualpirate]

im being so normal about this. anyways let's go to episode five aka second to last

first of, straight up, what do you MEAN "YEAR ONE"? HOW LONG ARE THEY GONNA STAY IN THIS FUCKING TRAIN HANG ON

is this happening parallel to the other siblings or does timeline travelling not count time. im asking because i want to know if klaus is still buried alive IM SO WORRIED ABOUT HIM IS HE EVER GONNA CATCH A BREAK? HE'S BEEN ABUSED BY HIS PATERNAL FIGURE, TRAINED AS A CHILD SOLDIER, HAUNTED BY GHOSTS, TORTURED, FOUGHT IN A WAR, FOUGHT ADDICTION AND HOMELESSNESS, SURVIVED THE APOCALYPSE LIKE THREE OR FOUR TIMES IDK IVE LOST COUNT AND NOW HE'S BEING ESSENTIALLY TORTURED AGAIN

meanwhile five and lila are. in a fucking train

i just saw the name of the episode BACK. THE FUCK. UP. HOW LONG?

squints. is this gonna be their excuse to make lila/five a thing. it better not be.

y e a r t h r e e .

i dont like the way they're looking at each other. I DON'T LIKE THE WAY THEY'RE LOOKING ST EACH OTHER.

they're shaving five because aidan can't grow a beard because he's not even 20 yet

are they eating rotten pig meat? wait that has a name. pig meat i mean. that's pork right

Y E A R F I V E .

NOOOOOOO DON'T LOOK AT EACH OTHER LIKE THAT STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOOOOOO DON'T CUDDLE TO SLEEP. noOOOOOO

YEAR SIX ......

KLAUUSSSSDNNNNFNFNNFNRNFNFNRN FFCUKKKKKK

"please don't leave me please don't leave me" what if i killed myself

"why is this happening to me" DUCKINGBFHH.G HELL

viktor and reginald petty fighting over the song i love viktor so much beat his ass boy

kill this old white guy. please. ive never asked you for anything before. just kill him it would be so easy

im glad they're sort of addressing viktor's trauma at least lol

reginald's car plate says hermes lol

wow lots of dead birds for some reason. were birds more affected than other animals ?

this situation is very reversed to season one when it comes to ben and viktor lol. i mean with the "my traumatized brother is accidentally and unknowingly causing the apocalypse and what im seeing and feeling cannot be trusted and i will lash out and claim my siblings just can't stand it that im finally happy"

I HATE REGINALDDDDDDDDD

i cant believe diego and luther are falling for this it's honestly sad. like im not used to cringing but it was hard holding it back just now. no offense but damn.

i can't believe luther is being the voice of reason in this............

six years five months and two days and they haven't fucked so i think we're in the clear. they're just good friends and im happy for them. i mean except for the whole stuck outside of your own timeline thing but im glad they're getting along. :)

"she's the lock and he's the key" hmmmhmfjf i deeply dislike the imagery this evoked in me.

KLAAUUUUDJHDDSSSSDBDBDNNDNDNFJFJJRJRJDNNDFUUUUUUUUUUUUUCJJJJJJJJJKKKK

GHOST DOG GHOST DOG GHOST DOG GHOST DOG GHOST DOG GHOST DOG GHOST DOG GHOST IM GONNA CRY

COME ON THUNDERBOLT YOU CAN DO ITTTTT

allison is kind of scary i hope she kills those guys

claire looking at her mom like :O she can do that ????

allison seeing the sort of place he visits :(

ALLISON NO YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE TO HELP OH NOOOOOO

the fucks a ballbuster

holy shit do not let claire in a place like this oh my god

YESSS CLAIREEEEEEEEEEEEE FUCK YESH FUCK YEAH FUCK YEAH im sorry claire had to see this but im also so happy it happened :)

im sorry but i don't really see diego as a family guy ngl i just don't think this is a good arc for him. but idk

oh he learned punjabi that's so cute. he knows at least three languages then i like that

I DON'T LIKE THE ROMANTIC SONG. WHY ARE THEY PLAYING A ROMANTIC SONG

"when the snow comes" YOU'LL BE OUT OF THERE WHEN THE SNOW COMES SWEETIE!!!!!!!!! YOU WILL NOT STAY THERE LONG RIGHT. RIGHT???????? RIGHT!!!!??????????

WHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYY ARE YOU TWO HOLDING EACH OTHER

am i the only one viscerally disgusted by this please don't do this pleasepleasepleaseplease

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is so uncomfortable im going to cry i don't even want to look at them

EEEUUUHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGEGG

gene's hair is braided lol

i can't believe luther is being mildly competent damn

nnneeeeevvermind. forget i said anything

i think he can beat them in a fight. my money's in luther

i was right :)

monkey man wearing a g string in the cia building

"were you giving ribbons a lap dance" "kinda?"

why are their clothes so easily tearable . not that im complaining. im really not. at all

WHERE DID THE CAT COME FROM?

ouchie. that was brutal the thing with the stapler m inspired by five huh. and luther is Still wearing a g string while diego is shirtless. because of course he is. of course they are

JIGGLY TITTIES

OMG LUTHER AND DIEGO BONDING!!!!!!! RARE BUT GORGEOUS SIGHT

stop showing me five/lila and show me klaus . pplease .. .

she's his dolores this time and i hate it. like a lot. almost as much as i hate reginald. not as much but almost as much

DON'T FUCKING CALL HER LOVE EEEEWWWWWWWWWWW

BROTHER EUGHHHH

and i thought luther/allison was bad...

nOOOOOOO BAD CHOICE TELL HER TELL HER TELL HER WHY AREN'T YOU TELLING HER YOU FOUND A WAY OUT IM GOING TO CRY PLEASE TELL HER

how many times has klaus died and came back i wonder

"nobody's coming for you"

omg did he make thunderbolt corporeal or at least audible? because that's cool as fuck

"claire bear" what if i cried for three hours nonstop

"y-you came back for me"

he's sobbing and im sobbing with him

thunderbolt is my favorite character and i stand by it

lila is absolutely correct. this ISN'T real. NONE OF IT IS REAL. it's just SURVIVAL.

viktor's powers used to be blueish white now they're the color of fire....... very cool very interesting

i don't CARE that reginald was marginally decent ONCE i still hate all versions of him forever. i cannot stress enough how much i dont give a shit. i will hate him forever and ever PERIOD.

what kind of freaky ass fitting room is this ive never seen this before

why is she ecloding if ben looks normal?

OHHHH SO THATS ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS'S GUY'S ROLE

OR. JEAN'S ROLE ????? HANG ON

OKAY I WOULD LIKE AN EXPLANATION PLEASE IF POSSIBLE

she's like supernatural's shapeshifters

she? he. they¿ it. it?

WHAT IS THIS HOW THE EPISODE ENDS??? NOT COOL

SPOILERS AHEAD first impressions of s4 (aka the last season) of tua no i haven't finished the episode yet but i wanna talk

what do you MEAN there's only six episodes im going HAM

luther is a stripper now. that's great. i love that for him. i love him. not so easy now is it luther. space little boy. i love this stupid stupid man he's trying so hard

BEN WAS IN JAIL FOR SCAMMING PEOPLE OH MY GOD oh my god oh my god??????? BELOVED,

"u n c l e k l a u s"

klaus is staying with allison and claire and he's paranoid now the poor thing.... i love him so much....... he's so worried about his nephew....... babye............

he's scared of CIGARETTES now. Okay.

JEROME?????

you could pick ANY name you wanted and you landed on JEROME???????

"and i was involved in the kennedy assassination" "speak your truth"

"your faith in me is undeserving" that's the klaus i know and love now go to therapy please

they All should be in therapy, really

"he's germaphobic now. and incredibly sober"

klaus&claire is the duo i didn't know i needed but now i cant live without. look at them go. they're family.

ALLISON IS VAPING NOW?????

"STONED"? WEED PEN???? ALLISON IS THAT A WEED PEN

WHAT HAPPENED

[simplyclockwork]

I love what you did with Sherlock stuck in the window frame. Sherlock trying to be arch and aloof still but a bit defeated and John caring and meeting Sherlock’s needs. I’d love to have a fic that is John shaving Sherlock (out of some sort of medical necessity) but it leads to intimacy or the promise of intimacy in the future. I know John shaving Sherlock has been done before, but I’m sure your take on it would add hugely to the greater good!

Hey anon! Thanks so much for your patience. I've finally filled this prompt. You can read it below the page break or on Ao3 here!

Please feel free to send future prompts anytime as long as you don't mind waiting a while for the fill.

Thank you :)

---

“Stop fidgeting,” John snapped as Sherlock wriggled for the umpteenth time under his ministrations.

Sherlock stopped with a huff. “I need to check on my experiment,” he protested, though he remained perfectly still. “You’re taking too long, John. You shave like a man who has never handled a blade before.”

“I may have handled a gun far more than a blade, but that doesn’t mean I won’t accidentally lop off your ear if you don’t sit bloody well still!” John gripped Sherlock’s shoulder and pressed him more firmly into the kitchen chair. “Lord above, are there snakes in your pants?”

“Hurry up, John!” Sherlock snarled, squirming once more.

John, trying valiantly to keep Sherlock from slitting his own throat on the razor pressed against the vulnerable expanse of his skin, jerked the blade back. “Christ, Sherlock, stop moving! The sooner you shut up and sit still, the sooner this will be over with.” He shot a baleful glare at the cluttered surface of their kitchen table. “What kind of experiment are you doing with one working hand — non-dominant, might I add — anyway?”

“One surely beyond your simple mind,” Sherlock replied peevishly, making John roll his eyes.

“You and your miserable mood can both sod off,” John grumbled, biting back harsher words and making a concerted effort to soften his reprimand.

Sherlock had been absolutely horrid ever since he’d broken nearly every bone in his dominant hand in a brawl with a murder suspect. The man had slammed his foot down on Sherlock’s hand when Sherlock slipped on the rain-wet street during their tussle. Recovery had been a slow and painful process as the splinted hand turned alarming shades of black and blue while the bones and tendons healed. John couldn’t honestly blame Sherlock for his mood, but that didn’t make him easier to deal with. He struggled with even the most basic tasks, leaving John to support him in mundane functions. It had begun to wear on them both — Sherlock far more than John as he took repeated blows to his independence — bringing out Sherlock’s nastier side.

Which brought them to that morning, to John’s day off from the surgery. He'd been woken just shy of six am by a petulant Sherlock, who had insisted that his stubble had grown far too coarse to abide any longer. He’d stood — loomed, more like — over John as John blinked the sleep from his eyes and watched Sherlock scratch agitatedly at his stubbly jaw, chin and cheeks. Now, here they were, with John making a valiant effort to shave Sherlock’s face while Sherlock squirmed with the force of five hundred angry snakes.

“Do I really have to do this with a straight razor?” John asked for the fifth time, already knowing Sherlock’s answer before it was bit out through bared teeth.

“Disposable razors are a farce,” Sherlock said, muscles flexing under his damp skin as his jaw clenched. “I require a closer shave, which is only possible with a straight razor.”

“Yeah, yeah,” John sighed, just as he had the four times before. “I know. Well, if you want me to do this, then you need to bloody well sit fucking still so I don’t cut your throat. Not even you would enjoy that murder.”

Sherlock muttered something that John missed.

“What?”

“I said, it would be manslaughter, not murder,” Sherlock snapped. “It’s only murder when it is premeditated.”

John pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger, struggling not to lose the tenuous hold he still retained on his temper. “Who says it wouldn’t be premeditated?” John prayed for patience and opened his eyes again. “Stop clenching your teeth,” he ordered, smoothing his fingertips over Sherlock’s tense jaw. Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath and tensed more, making John sigh. “You’re impossible.”

“Just shave my face, John,” Sherlock muttered, some of the aggression mysteriously gone from his voice as he closed his eyes.

John shrugged and smoothed more shaving cream where his first application had dried. Sliding his fingers into Sherlock’s curls, John gently tilted his head back over the table and bent to set the razor against Sherlock’s skin. As he did, the sharp edge brushing Sherlock’s neck, Sherlock swallowed, making his throat bob beneath the blade. John paused warily, eyes fixed on the subtle motion. It seemed deeply vulnerable to him, inspiring an unexpected surge of protectiveness that caught him off guard.

He was still reeling with it when Sherlock cracked open one eye and squinted at him. “Something wrong?”

Did John imagine it, or did Sherlock’s voice sound strained? He studied the familiar face, searching for clues. But Sherlock had closed both eyes again, his expression perfectly blank.

“I haven’t got all day, John,” he reminded him sharply, though his voice lacked its earlier bite.

“Right,” John said, clearing his throat. He shook his head, banishing the strange feelings. “Of course. Wouldn’t want to keep you from your incredibly important tinkering.”

“Experiment, John,” Sherlock corrected him, the corner of his mouth twitching upward despite his admonishment.

“Mhm.” John refocused, his feelings of confusion somewhat settled by the familiar cant of their banter. He hesitated over Sherlock’s throat and decided to start somewhere else. Setting the blade at the top of Sherlock’s cheek, John carefully drew the razor’s edge through the shaving cream. It was much fancier than his own brand, which came in a can and looked more like whipping cream than shaving material. Predictably, Sherlock’s came from a bar, complete with a rounded brush to spread the lather. It smelled like pine and explained some of what John had come to think of as Sherlock’s natural scent.

Reigning in his wandering thoughts, his brow furrowed, John wiped the blade clean and set it back to Sherlock’s skin. He cleared a strip next to the first, pausing only when his left hand gave a slight twitch. John cursed his intermittent tremour silently, retracing the same area to erase the few spots he’d missed. A stubborn fleck of dried lather remained in his path, and John reached out to smooth it away with his thumb. Sherlock’s cheek twitched at the touch. John paused, thumb resting on Sherlock’s skin, when he saw that Sherlock’s eyes were open. Half-open, to be exact, with dark silver peeking out beneath his long, lowered lashes.

Something about that gaze froze John in place, the moment stretching out until he broke free with a quiet, awkward cough. Ducking his head to clean the blade again, John bought himself time, fussing with the flannel until he looked up again and saw that Sherlock’s eyes were closed once more. A relieved sigh escaped him before he could bite it back, and John was glad to see Sherlock didn’t react or comment on the sound.

He returned to his task with far more care, gritting his teeth at even the idea of his hand twitching. The rest of the foam disappeared gradually beneath John’s determined hand, revealing more and more of Sherlock’s damp, freshly-shaven face. Sherlock sat mostly still throughout, finally settled, his expression oddly peaceful. If not for the occasional shifting of his legs — crossing and uncrossing at the thigh whenever John paused to wipe the blade clean — he might have been a statue.

“Aright,” John finally said once Sherlock’s face was clear. “Just your throat left. Make sure not to move.”

“I’m not a toddler,” Sherlock grumbled, frowning at John’s incredulous laugh. He didn’t bother to reply, and John hoped that meant he would do as bid.

Taking a deep, calming breath, John braced a hand on the chair back, trying to find the right angle. It was awkward, and he reconsidered. After a moment of hesitation, he shook off his anxiety and cupped Sherlock’s jaw at the hinge. Sherlock’s eyes flew open at the contact, clearly startled, his lips parting around a small gasp. To John’s immense relief, he held still otherwise.

John chose to ignore the odd reaction, gently tilting Sherlock’s head back and to the side as he maneuvered the blade up the side of Sherlock’s throat. John did so with great care, tongue caught between his teeth, scared of slipping. All the while, he could feel Sherlock’s gaze on him, a burning point of scrutiny that John struggled not to squirm beneath. Instead, he wiped the blade and tilted Sherlock’s head again, repeating the movement.

Sherlock was silent as the grave throughout. The only sounds in the kitchen were his loud breathing and the slick, rasping scrape of the blade as it scored stubble from skin. The moment held a strange intimacy, like the two of them existed in a bubble, removed from the world with only each other for contact.

John was starting to think he might be going mad before he slid his hand to the nape of Sherlock’s neck and cupped the base of his skull to tilt his head back. As he did so, Sherlock’s eyes fluttered shut, and his throat jumped with an audible swallow. Startled, John’s grip tightened momentarily in the damp curls caught beneath his fingers, and Sherlock jolted with a quiet groan. The reaction was so visceral that John froze, staring down at Sherlock’s upturned face. His eyes were tightly shut, face screwed up in a grimace that looked strangely close to horrified.

“Sherlock?” John asked quietly, confused. Sherlock didn’t answer, just remained stiff and still. Under his hand, John thought he could feel a slight, constant tremour rippling through Sherlock. Brow furrowed, he studied Sherlock’s tightly wound body, gaze pausing on Sherlock’s legs, crossed together in a vice grip at the thigh. Was Sherlock…? No, that couldn’t be it. Surely John was misreading the situation. “Are you alright?” he prompted, and Sherlock sucked in a loud, shaky breath.

“I’m excellent, John,” he said in a strained voice, still with his eyes closed. “Are you nearly finished?”

“Just about,” John replied, trying and failing to shake off his growing suspicion. Clearly, Sherlock didn’t want to draw attention to whatever was happening to him. John could respect that. He’d had massages before. Some touches felt unexpectedly nice, and things happened with one’s body that one couldn’t always control. It was perfectly natural — though John had never thought of Sherlock as someone who felt ‘natural’ urges.

“Relax,” he said, waiting for Sherlock to stop clenching his jaw and facial muscles. It took a moment before everything slowly eased. However, Sherlock’s lower body remained steel-tense, and John could still feel those minute tremours beneath his hand. But Sherlock didn’t speak, keeping his eyes shut, so John didn’t comment on it.

Instead, he returned to the task at hand. Gently tugging at Sherlock’s curls to tilt his head back, John exposed the underside of Sherlock’s throat and jaw as he angled the blade at the edge of the lather. With the heel of his hand pressed against Sherlock’s skin to steady his grip, John felt the subtle twitch of muscle underneath as Sherlock swallowed again, his breath catching. Rather than let that strange, slight stutter catch him off guard again, John swiped the blade up, taking the last of the lather with it in one smooth, rasping stroke.

Then, following some instinct John couldn’t name, he set aside the blade and laid his hand over the freshly-shaved skin. Sherlock gasped at the contact, blood rushing into his face and darkening his pale cheeks. The touch was light, John’s fingers barely brushing the blade-reddened skin, but Sherlock’s response was like a man run through with an electric current, his body jolting from head to toe.

John held perfectly still, waiting to see what Sherlock might do, expecting him to pull away and rush off back to his experiment. But he did neither, sitting perfectly still — save for the tiny shivers twitching through his body — under John’s touch.

Emboldened by that silent faith, John swept his fingertips down the strip of skin he’d just shaved, feeling goosebumps rise in the wake of his caress. Sherlock’s shiver increased, the colour infusing his face darkening to a deeper, tantalizing flush. John watched, enchanted, as Sherlock’s eyebrows drew together, then upward and back down as a myriad of complex expressions flitted across his face. He turned his hand, cupping the side of Sherlock’s neck, tracing the rough line of Sherlock’s bobbing throat with the pad of his thumb, just to see what would happen.

Sherlock’s lips parted around a sigh that sounded both startled and strained, the tension in his face first intensifying, then easing slowly, as John repeated the motion. He stroked Sherlock’s throat in slow, smooth passes, his work-roughened skin catching briefly on the damp terrain. Under his fingertips, pressed below Sherlock’s jaw, John felt the soft vibration of Sherlock’s whimper, voiced from deep within his throat.

“Never realized you were so sensitive,” John murmured, awed and hardly noticing the blurred lines of their friendship passing them both by. Sherlock seemed even less cognizant of the change, head tilted back as he pressed into John’s touch, offering and baring his throat in a shocking display of trust.

It was that which nearly undid John entirely. But what erased the last of his hesitation was Sherlock’s eyelids fluttering open to reveal his darkened gaze. His pupils were blown wide, almost erasing the silvery shade of his irises.

“John,” he croaked in a voice as jagged as broken glass. His head was tilted back far enough that it nearly rested on the table behind him, the science equipment scattered over the surface seemingly forgotten for the moment.

The sound of his name, spoken with such desperation, cleared the last of John’s confusion. He let go of the last remnants of his denial, of his enforced blindness of how Sherlock was reacting to him. Because he was reacting to John, that much was clear, and there was no mistaking the meaning of that reaction.

Without speaking or wasting time on words, John cupped Sherlock’s face in his hands and bent down to brush their lips together. It was a bare ghost of contact, a tentative drifting of mouths, but Sherlock’s response was definite. He groaned and surged upward, his uninjured hand tangling in John’s hair and pulling him closer. Their noses bumped clumsily, Sherlock’s teeth scraping John’s bottom lip before their mouths slotted together in a fierce kiss. It was sloppy, turning even more so when Sherlock’s lips parted, and his tongue darted out.

John responded in kind, tasting Sherlock’s eager gasp as their tongues met. Sherlock panted against his mouth, the sound desperate and rushing in John’s ears. They kissed until their need for air grew too great, some uncounted seconds that broke as John turned his face to suck in a loud inhale, his lungs burning. Sherlock gasped in sympathy against his cheek before turning John’s face back to his to reclaim his mouth in another kiss. There was the sharp drag of teeth again, the sleek, hot press of tongue and lips, and Sherlock’s hand sliding out of John’s hair, down his nape to his broad shoulders. His splinted hand hovered, ineffective, just in front of John’s chest.

“Sherlock,” John murmured, forcing himself to think through the fog of arousal quickly obscuring his thoughts. “Sherlock, wait.”

They broke apart at once, Sherlock jerking his head back. His eyes were wide, pupils huge, his face twisting into an expression of watchful uncertainty. John — who realized he had, at some point, settled onto Sherlock’s spread thighs — blinked at that expression. Something very close to fear flickered in Sherlock’s blackened gaze, prompting a soft tsk from John.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, reaching out to smooth a tangled curl back from Sherlock’s forehead. “Everything is fine.”

Some of the tension in Sherlock’s rigid body — though not all — eased. “Is it?” he asked, his typically cultured voice turned rough. Less smooth velvet, more gravel. John thought he could get used to that change.

“Absolutely,” John murmured, offering a crooked smile. “Absolutely fine. But maybe we should, ah, slow down?”

Sherlock blinked up at him, hands settled on John’s waist, his forehead creased with a puzzled frown. “Why?”

John tilted his head and chuckled. “Well… I mean, we’ve only just had our first kiss. Are you sure you want to rush into things?”

A quiet scoff escaped Sherlock’s full lips. “We’ve lived together for several years, John. You’ve seen me naked a multitude of times—”

“Helping you shower and go to the loo when you’re injured isn’t really the same as an intimate relationship,” John interrupted, amused.

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. “Semantics. Unimportant.” He sobered, his eyes darkening as his pupils widened again. “The facts are simple: I’ve wanted you for a very long time, John Watson. Now that you’ve realized it, I see no need to place restrictions on our feelings.” His eyes narrowed, eyebrows dropping into another frown. “Unless that’s not what you want?”

“Not what I said,” John said with an indulgent smile. Trust Sherlock to approach something like feelings with utter rationality, even as the apparent sign of his arousal pressed against the backs of John’s thighs. “I just never knew until now that you felt this way. It’s… well, it’s a bit of a surprise.”

Another scoff from Sherlock. “It’s not my fault that you’re a rather oblivious person, John. Now,” he said, voice clipped and to the point, “are you going to kiss me again? Or must we continue to talk all this out when I’d much rather show you how I feel?”

John stared at him, taken aback by the bluntness, before he tilted his head back and let out a loud, shocked laugh. “Oh, you’re going to be a handful, aren’t you?”

A gleam entered Sherlock’s pale eyes, lighting his face with mischievous promise. “I most certainly do plan for there to be handfuls of something, John. Rest assured.” He squeezed John’s backside with his un-splinted hand in a demonstration, prompting a startled but pleased wiggle from John.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” John said with a grin, then bent his head to meet Sherlock’s upturned mouth.

[dreamingsnowflake2013]

Not your typical prince! Kataoka Issei is too cool and strong for the princess carry! How awesome that Issei literally does almost exactly what his grandma described in episode 2 - he went to rescue Hayame and ended up grabbing a plum (Hayame). LOL! 

What is it even called anyway? The potato sack carry, the neanderthal carry or the steal-a-bride carry? Also, what is Yoshitora feeding him? He literally needs only one arm to pick Hayame up and one shoulder to carry her (people usually use both in this type of carry) like she weighs nothing! He really weren’t kidding when he told her he had been holding back on his strength around her the whole time.

It’s such an awesome scene not merely highlighting the contrast betwen the two brothers but also showing Issei’s jealousy and possesiveness of Hayame and how he has actually matured in expressing them in a more controlled but still singular manner. 

Issei's been traumatized ever since he saw Seigo carry Hayame back in episode 2 so now, he doesn't hesitate to whisk her away Issei style.

I love how Maeda Gordon and Takanori Iwata are able to channel each other because Seigo and Issei are such a fascinating mix of similarities and contrasts caused by them being brothers and their different life experience - for instance, you can catch a glimpse of Seigo's stoicism from that bridal carry scene in Issei’s expression while Issei’s pain from that time is now mirrored in Seigo’s eyes.

It’s Seigo who is left watching on the sidelines helplessly and as Issei has calmed down and has better control of his emotions and temper, it makes sense that he would resemble his older brother a little more as he gradually matures. And matured he has!

Hayame actually expects Issei to carry her like Seigo did but he completely surprises her and turns her world upside down, both literally and figuratively. Seriously, no one can accuse Issei of being predictable.

Honestly, I half-expected him to throw a grenade back at Seigo with his free hand and walk away from the explosion when he was walking away in that epic slow motion with Hayame on his shoulder and that determined, manliness-personified expression on his face.

This whole moment is huge and life-altering for Issei because he finally throws away his doubts, hesitation and shyness to become this new version of himself, transforming into a man over night, like a little ugly duckling turning into a swan - so manly, cool, self-assured and oozing the natural charisma he has always possessed but which used to be dimmed by his anger and cynicism. Even his stubborness turns into unyielding determination. 

From the moment he arrives and finds Hayame’s been with Seigo the whole time, he never gets angry or violent, instead he thinks only about her, worried sick what might have happened to her and feeling relieved and grateful nothing has. It doesn’t matter how she was saved, the most imporant thing for him is that she is alright, dirty and bruised, but alright. He looks at her with so much concern, care and affection that are so plain for everyone to see, Hayame had to be blind not to notice it.

She is so happy to see him and touched to learn he has been searching for her, combing through the forest and worried for her the whole time (once again, the similarity between the brothers is striking - 10 years ago, Seigo was waiting for Hayame for hours and searched for her for days when she didn’t come for their date until he found her). She is also sad and apologizes for broking they promise to watch fireworks together and making him worried. He adorably admonishes her like a parent would a little child, feigning annoyance and tenderly squeezing her head but he never truly blames her. They are so freaking healthy and precious, it’s insane!

It’s a such a fleeting moment but Seigo actually calls Hayame by her name when he offers to help her to the car and Issei notices it all - his brother calling her name, his outstretched hand reaching out to her - but he doesn’t protest nor does he try to stop her. In that moment, he leaves Hayame the choice to decide who she truly wants. 

However, when she flatly refuses Seigo, Issei doesn’t hesitate for another second and immediately steps in to catch her when she stumbles and takes her hand, preventing her fall, and the mere touch affects Hayame profoundly. 

He informs Seigo he is the one who’ll be taking her home because he is the one she has chosen and hasn’t refused. 

It’s actually the very first throwback to that scene to episode 2 when Seigo asked Issei whether he came to the ryokan because of Hayame and Issei was too immature, stubborn and afraid to admit the truth, making him regret it ever since - not standing up for his feelings and not being the one to carry Hayame home.

And then Issei finally calls Hayame by her given name for the first time because he can't bear Seigo does and because he has guessed something must have happened between them. It’s the final straw for him. 

He is done with plans and strategies, he is done with being careful and tiptoeing around her in fear he may scare her with his feelings. He decides it’s time for a full frontal attack because, let’s face it, Issei has always been the kind  of guy who expressed himself better with actions, acted first and explained himself later. Using her name without honorifics is extremely intimate, even lovers with age difference may use them so Issei tries hard to erase the distance between them created by their age and openly defines their relationship as an intimate one. It’s not as huge for Seigo to call her ‘Hayame’ because they are basically the same age and used to pretty much date, but for Issei to call her like that has momentous significance.

Hayame has such a visceral reaction to hearing Issei call her by her given name, without any honorifics, for the first time. It echoes Issei’s own when she used his name at the park. It stuns her and makes her flushed which is the complete opposite of how she reacted when Seigo called her by her name for the first time. 

She had been dreaming about him for 10 years and he never called her by it back then because they didn’t share names so one would expect her to be affected by it deeply; however, while she was shocked to meet him after the years, when he actually called her by her name for the first time directly she barely noticed it.

[sup-hoes-its-me]

A Hero (Shinsou x Reader)

A/N: okay so shinsou is such a cool character, kinda relatable tbh, so here we go. Friends to lovers, lots of fluff, cuteness. It took a lot of strength to take a break from writing my fav bakugo lol.

tw: you almost get assaulted

word count: 4400

Part One/ Part Two/ Part Three

So technically, Y/N wasn’t related to the Bakugos at all. She was the orphaned child of a family friend, who died a horrific hero’s death when she was only a couple years old. Without any other relatives in the area to adopt her, Y/N’s mother’s best friend took in the two year old, despite the trouble of raising two toddlers being quite daunting. Yet, her quirk wasn’t very dangerous nor special like Katsuki, so she wasn’t hard to manage in that area. Just a shy little girl, confused at the transition after the loss of her parents.

Y/N was never very strong willed like her new family. She was passive, the perfect representation of type B personality. Dependent, reliant, and fearful of adversity. The only reason she was never mercilessly bullied in her primary days was a result of her “brother’s” unrelenting defensiveness. He was an asshole, very much so, but he never let anyone pick fun at the girl. Not only did he kinda, sorta love her unconditionally as a silbing should, but his mother would murder him for not standing up for her.

But when they both got into U.A, suddenly the two weren’t equals anymore, nor would he always be by her side to watch out for her. Y/N was left behind in class C, while he soared into the top hero course. Y/N was support for the soon-to-be pros, not that she minded. The girl knew how weak she was, and unless she had a change of heart and decided to work harder on her quirk, she would never be able to succeed. She wasn’t motivated like those in Class A. Y/N never wanted the responsibility of being so good people relied on her, civilians putting all their faith into her. It was nerve wracking.

On the first day of class, Y/n said goodbye to her parents and walked to class with her brother. He carried both their bags, one on each shoulder, eyes staring straight ahead, brows furrowed with irritation as per usual. She kept her hands clasped behind her back, wandering slowly next to him, head hung. 

She was scared, admittedly. This school was huge and so prestigious. How could she ever compare to the others there? It was impossible.

“Stop being such a baby.”

“Katsuki-”

“You’re gonna be fine, and you know it. You’re more powerful than those losers anyway, if only you tried,” he grunted, turning the corner to see dozens of other students in their uniforms walking around and entering the school. She bit her lip and sighed, wringing her fingers out of nervousness. “Seriously, don’t make yourself out to be a weakling. People will target you if you do.”

She paused, not taking another step as she confessed, “I know what I should do, it’s just putting that ideal into practice that gets me everytime.” 

Time was running close to class starting, and he rolled his eyes down to her slightly quivering form. Handing her her bag, he told her calmly, “Listen, if anyone bothers you, I’m two doors down anyway. Just call me right after class if something happens, got it?” With a nod, he patted her on the head and walked away to the main entrance. 

Her eyes drew up the high building, taking in all the shiny windows and the huge shape of an H made out of the numerous floors. This place was bigger than she had ever imagined, and that only scared her more. Yeah, it was bigger because it housed a lot of students who needed room to exercise their quirks, plus they were a very wealthy institution. 

She had to tell herself that just because the building was scary certainly did not mean that the people inside were just as bad.

So she held her head a bit higher and walked through the crowds of students. She tried to remember where the counselor told her her classroom was, so she didn’t embarrass herself by getting lost on her first day. 

Yet, that was exactly what she did. The school was just too big, and she was too anxious about her first day to think properly. So, with tears gathering in her eyes, she watched at the time ticked by on the clock. Her nightmares were filled with this scenario. Showing up late on her first day and everyone in the class laughing at her. 

“Are you lost?” a voice deep and smooth spoke up behind her, and she jumped a couple inches in the air, placing a hand over her heart after it started to rapidly beat with shock.

She turned her head, brushing her loose hairs from her eyes. He stared down at her with an almost bored expression, just as his voice had sounded. He was tall, and very purple. Dark undereyes, wild violet hair in every direction. She didn’t really know what to think of him other than he was unique, dare she even say attractive in a strange way. He looked older than her, probably 16 or 17 even, based off his height and old soul aura he radiated. One thing she did notice about him though, was he felt gentle, passive and even a bit dismissive. It wasn’t the least bit intimidating, and she relaxed. 

“Yeah…” she mumbled, a bit embarrassed.

He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “Seems we’re in the same boat.”

“Where are you headed?”

“Class 1-C,” he hummed, beginning to walk forward again. She told him meekly that she was going to the same class, and he raised a brow. “Really? What’s your quirk?”

“My quirk is kinda lame.”

A small smile crept at the edge of his lip, her embarrassment and shy attitude amusing him. “And what would that be?”

“Well, it’s kinda weird so don’t make fun of it. I can um- well, my blood is highly basic and burns any skin issue it touches,” the girl mumbled sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck. Her cheeks burned so much she felt like she had a fever. This is why she never liked to talk about her quirk. It was just plain absurd and kinda disgusting. Every time she used her quirk she had to slice her skin and sprinkle blood everywhere. “But, like, it does so much damage to me to lose blood that often I can rarely use my quirk.”

He nodded. “That’s definitely strange, you’re right,” he stated bluntly, and her heart stopped beating for a moment. “But useful. Really don’t know why you’d be embarrassed about it. Just because you don’t have endurance doesn’t mean strategy and technique can’t make up for that.”

Y/N caught up to him, walking at his side now although his strides were longer and harder to keep up with. She looked up to him, feeling a bit at ease seeing as he wasn’t rude about her quirk. “What’s your quirk?”

He didn’t miss a beat, his gruff voice sounding bitter and angry with his next words, “Something I’d rather not talk about. Don’t want you to spread rumors and lies about me.” 

She had never heard someone so visceral about their own quirk. It couldn’t be that terrible, not to mention she wasn’t rude like the people he must have encountered before. She felt a pang in her chest, knowing that this reaction was no doubt from prior experience being hurt. 

With a short shake of her head, she replied, “It’s okay, if you don’t tell me, but I wouldn’t judge you for your quirk, and definitely not gossip about it. I don’t have the social skills to do that kind of thing.” She laughed awkwardly. The bell rang overhead, signalling the beginning of the first period. They were officially late. “Oh, crap. We better hurry.”

“For what? We’re already late, doesn’t matter if it’s by a minute or ten.”

“I-I don’t know about that one.”

As they entered the stairwell to head up the stairs, he turned to her and paused, staring into her eyes deeply. She blinked, seeing so much purple looking in her direction. Quickly, she averted her gaze, and tucked her hands behind her back out of nervous habit. 

“I’ll tell you about my quirk if you promise me one thing.”

She opened her mouth to agree but then shook her head. Don’t just make promises to strangers, Y/N, so stupid. “Um, depends on the promise.”

He took a deep breath, never taking his eyes off of her own averted ones. Waves of pain radiated from his form, hitting her square in the chest. “Just don’t call me a monster or shit like that.” And that was the moment she felt her entire heart crumble in her chest for this boy she had just met. He expected her to think of him like a monster for something as silly as his quirk? She wanted to cry for him, being as sensitive as she was. 

“I promise.”

He started walking up the stairs again, done with his intense observation of her face, except it felt to her like he was examining a portion of her soul, her compassion. It seems he saw something he liked in her. 

“My quirk is brainwashing, or mind control, if you want to call it that.”

Her eyes widened at the words, not believing that someone so powerful was right beside her, in the same class as her even. “Like, what do you do?’

“If a person verbally responds to me, I then have complete control over anything they do.”

“That is so sick,” she whispered under her breath, but he still heard her. His brows quirked up, and he gazed down at her.”Sorry, I just think that’s a really amazing quirk.” She smiled sheepishly, her eyes reaching his. He almost had to look away once he saw the sparkle of excitement and admiration in her gaze. Those emotions were directed towards him…

As they walked past a classroom, a loud voice called from inside the room. “Bakugo Y/N and Shinsou Hitoshi. I believe you’re late to my class.”

She rushed into the classroom in front of him and he followed. They conveniently were directed to the back of the classroom, two seats directly next to each other. She took a seat in hers and he slumped down in his, rolling his eyes at the glare the teacher had given him. 

He looked over at the girl beside him, who he now knew as Bakugo Y/N. She peeked over at him, and a small smile grew on her soft lips, the bit of sparkle still present in her gaze towards him. He smothered down the urge to smile back, just lifted the corner of his lip in return. 

Shinsou wasn’t exactly interested in making friends. He didn’t need them. This girl, though, he wouldn’t mind if she stuck around.

______________________________________

“So, uh, Y/N, do you need someone to walk you home?” Shinsou asked as they shuffled out of the nearly empty classroom save for a few stragglers. “Not that you aren’t capable of walking yourself home, it’s just that-”

“It’s fine. And actually someone already walks home with me, so no.”

He cringed, feeling awkward now. He shouldn’t have been so forward with this impending friendship. They had just met, she probably didn’t want some weirdo knowing where she lived either. “Oh, gotcha.”

“In fact, there he is,” she smiled, waving to a particularly angry blond walking down the hall with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his sagging pants. Shinsou cringed even harder at this point, not expecting her to already have a guy walking her home. She probably didn’t have much room for another good guy friend in her life, he thought, obviously overthinking things. “Katsuki! How was class?”

He frowned, shaking his head. “Deku made a fool of himself as usual, but it wasn’t awful,” the boy replied as his eyes slid from his sister to the daunting guy beside her. “Who’s this?”

“This is my new friend, Shinsou. He helped me find the classroom this morning since we’re in the same class.” Katsuki blinked in surprise, definitely not expecting his shy little sister to already have made a friend. It took her years of middle school just to have a few close acquaintances. 

“I gotta get going. My mom is expecting me home soon,” Shinsou told the girl, even if he was lying. He could go home at any time he wanted, he just didn’t want to feel awkward anymore. This guy was obviously close to her, and was giving him the evil eye for a minute now. Possessive much?

“Wait, before you go, let me introduce you to my brother.”

“Brother?’ he asked aloud. They didn’t look alike, like, at all. Nor did their personalities seem to resemble each other in any way.

“This is my brother Katsuki. He’s a class 1-A hot shot.” A pang of relief turned his stomach.

“Yeah, uh, nice to meet you.”

The blond rolled his eyes, gruffly brushing off the purple haired boy’s greeting.“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Y/N, are you ready to go?”

Y/N sighed, waving softly to Shinsou, a smile ever present on her lips when she looked at him. She mouthed as she walked away, ‘sorry’, and he just waved. 

Maybe he was a creep for watching her as she left, waiting for her to turn a corner before he let out a breath of air. All he knew was that he felt as if he was sucked in a trance. His heart felt heavy in his chest, as if it were about to explode. The feelings were so foreign but pleasant, some of the best he had ever experienced.

It just felt so good to see someone’s warm smile directed at him, not an ounce of malice behind a guise.

Yeah…He really, really liked her. 

_____________________________

The pair were friends. Honestly, Y/N was the only person you could get him to admit, albeit begrudgingly, that she was his friend. They trained together, and he assisted her a lot with her quirk. There were times when they were training alone and she lost too much blood that she would pass out and he would carry her to the infirmary. Time and time again though, teachers told him in private to monitor her. It was unhealthy to constantly lose pints of blood, and she wouldn’t be able to do it on the daily even if she wanted to. Since he and her brother were the only people she truly listened to and appreciated advice from, Shinsou recognized it as a sort of duty to take care of her.

Yet, with a bit more encouragement at the new school from dozens of teachers and other students, she actually improved on her quirk quite a lot. It wasn’t as if she had a useless quirk; it was very powerful in fact. She could burn directly through someone’s skin and the bone if enough blood was spilled. Therefore, the quirk could only be exercised in moderation.

For the first time in his life, someone actually trusted him. Not once did he consider using his quirk on her. Not only was she perfect on her own, but if he betrayed her trust like that, he might lose his closest friend. She was kind, but he wasn’t sure where her limits lied.

“Are you sure you’re okay walking home alone?” he asked his friend, who sat beside him packing up her books. Katsuki was out for the day with the flu, so she would be walking back home alone. He was kinda worried about her. She never walked by herself, always having the protection of her brother. 

But she was a strong girl. There was nothing to worry about. He had seen her fight and she was definitely capable. It was just overthinking that sent his anxiety through the roof.

“Yes, I’m totally fine,” she laughed, finding his concern humorous. “You live in the opposite direction. I’m not gonna make you walk me 20 blocks out of your way.”

Although he nodded in understanding, he definitely did not agree. He would walk all over the city for her if she needed him to. Still, when it came time to part ways on the sidewalk, they waved and went in opposite directions. It was only after five excruciatingly long minutes that the lanky boy turned and started walking in the direction of her home. Even though he shouldn’t have, and easily could have texted her, he wanted to make sure she made it home. He knew the general direction of her house, and if he walked moderately fast, he could catch up to her. 

So what if she didn’t want him walking an extra 30 minutes? If that made her annoyed, so be it.

Y/N walked slowly down the street as she usually did, her feet tapping lightly against the sidewalk. If she were being honest, she was a bit disappointed in herself for refusing Shinsou’s offer to walk her home. They would have a lot more time to talk in person before the weekend, and she never wanted to miss a beat with him. 

Maybe it was stupid of her to be so attached but she thought of him as her best friend, practically the only true one she ever had. Dozens of people came and went from her life, but this friendship felt so special. It would last a long time she thought, and hopefully she was right.

Unfortunately, she was too lost in her own dreamy thoughts to notice someone standing right at the edge of the alley she walked by in a particularly deserted area of town. A hand reached and snatched up her arm swiftly, yanking her into the darkness of the alley and covering her mouth with his other grimey hand before she could make a sound.

Her back hit the cold wall behind her, feeling the rough bricks scratch her shoulder blades through her uniform. Her wrist felt like it was on fire, burning from the harsh grip of the snatcher. Using his knee, he pinned her other hand to the wall at her side,  completely immobilizing her. She could have used her quirk, if she was able to produce some sort of blood-pouring injury, only she was trapped.

“Don’t fucking scream, you hear me?”

He removed his hand from her mouth for a moment to reach for his pocket, and as he did so, she let out the loudest scream she possibly could. Just as the sound came from her mouth, a cold object pressed against her throat and her heart stopped beating in her chest from sheer terror. 

To think she was a hero in training at U.A., and she couldn’t even defend herself from a quirkless criminal on the street. She felt like crying, feeling a knife against her throat, wrists held down. If only she was just a little smarter or a little stronger; anything to get her out his mess. The air was tense and heavy, and she could barely get a breath in without feeling the bitterness of the blade against her skin. 

She prayed, closing her eyes and letting the hot tears drip down her cheeks. If only someone would come and help. All Might was always there to help people, wasn’t he? Where was he? She couldn’t hope for her brother to back her up as he was sick at home, and she definitely couldn’t text Shinsou to come get her. Her phone was tucked safely in her backpack where she couldn’t dream of reaching.

God, she was hopeless. 

The thug opened his mouth to say something else no doubt cruel or vulgar, but just as the first syllable fell from his chapped lips, a shocked voice echoed down the alleyway.

“Y/N?”

Her eyes widened at the voice, relief running throughout her entire body. 

“Dumb punk, kid, just run off now.”

“No.”

“You don’t want to mess with-”

That reply was all it took for Shinsou to take control. The thug felt all control of his body lost in the air and a sort of tenseness to take over. “Drop the knife,” the student commanded, and the man indeed dropped the rusty knife to the ground, a metallic clang rang out in the darkness. “Now back away.” And so he did. 

Tha man sputtered, not knowing what was happening to his body or why he was doing these things. His face turned a bright shade of red and he threw a dirty glare at Shinsou Hitoshi, hating him with every sense of the word for making him look this pathetic. 

“Now stand still right there like the piece of shit you are. Move, and I will kill you,” he said calmly. Before turning to Y/N. “I’ll be right back with someone to help. I saw an officer go into the coffee shop across the street.” 

When he left, she inched away from the man, watching as he couldn’t do more than just stand there and look completely bewildered. A mind control quirk definitely wasn’t something you see everyday. Plus, he probably was facing the realization that he would be arrested and sent to jail to get his ass kicked by quirk users there.

He came back with a couple officers and pointed out the situation, explaining what he saw when he came to the alley. They asked Y/N for a quick statement and she just reaffirmed what Shinsou had told them and added how she was walking home alone and he grabbed her when no one was looking. And so they took him away, thanking the kids for helping catch the guy, who apparently had tried to assault and rob other women in the area recently.

That was a close call, the closest one she’d ever encountered actually. 

As they exited the alleyway, she felt sick to her stomach from what had happened, stress filling up her chest and threatening to burst out in the form of tears, only she composed herself the best she could to be strong. There really was no need to be strong. Shinsou was her friend. He was kind and brave and very intelligent, but most importantly he was kind to her. If she cried, he wouldn’t shame her. But she still felt the pressure to keep them from falling. “Shinsou-”

“I’m so glad I turned around to follow you. I swear, it’s almost like I knew something bad was going to happen, I just knew it,” he mumbled more to himself than her, really. He looked down at her finally, his eyes searching hers for any sign of distress. She looked terribly shaken up, but no tears were falling. “Are you okay? Did that guy hurt you or anything?”

“No, nothing else happened,” she told him. “I-I can’t believe you came to save me. I’m so grateful, I don’t even know what to say. I felt so helpless back there without my quirk at disposal.”

“It’s okay. It’s over now, and you’re alright. That’s all I could really hope for.” He looked down the street and then back to her, flashing a weak grin. “You wouldn’t mind if I walked you home from here, would you?” he asked, to which she silently shook her head. So, he began walking and she followed very closely behind, so close that he could feel her arm brushing against his. He figured she was scared enough, a little bit of  friendly comfort was going to help her out. She obviously didn’t want to speak, too shocked to say anything much.

After a minute or two of walking, he felt her hand slip its way sneakily into his own, tightly grabbing on as if he was going to yank it away from her. Although he could feel how shaky her hand was, it was so warm and soft against his cold and rough hands. Her fingers fit perfectly between his own. It was sappy of him to think, but jeez, it felt like those hands were meant to interlock. It just felt so fucking good. 

He shoved down those selfish feelings. Y/N was just attacked, and he was thinking about how he felt. He shook his head subconsciously, knowing that he was being rude. She was holding his hand because she desperately needed to feel safe and comfortable, not because it necessarily felt nice. She would probably hold the hand of any random dude that saved her like that. Jesus, Shinsou, so dumb. Get a damn grip, you sap.

He squeezed her hand back reassuringly. He wasn’t sure what she was feeling, but he hoped he was helping.

Her house was relatively close to the spot she was grabbed, so it was a short walk. Part of him wished it had been longer so he could have spent more time with her hand held in his. As they stopped at her doorstep, she dropped his hand and went to grab the strap of her bookbag anxiously, eyes hidden from his view. 

“Shinsou, thank you for stepping in back there. I really can’t tell you enough how much I appreciate that.”

With a wave of his hand absentmindedly, he brushed off her praise and thanks. “Don’t thank me. Anyone would have done the same, you know.” he didn’t feel like he deserves any thanks. He barely did shit back there except say a few words, and she was thanking him. Anyone would have done the same. He wasn’t special. He wouldn’t be special with the quirk he possessed. 

But god, the way she looked at him in that way, adoration and admiration staring into his eyes, completely entranced with him; it made him feel invincible, like he was on top of the world for a lifetime. He would never forget the shine in her beautiful e/c eyes in that moment, he swore it. That was a memory he’d hate to lose.

“I-I know- It’s just that…well…” Her words trailed off into silence before he felt her reach up abruptly to wrap her arms around his shoulders, falling to rest against him. He caught his balance last second, not expecting that of all things. Her head rested snuggly in the meet of his shoulder and neck, hot breath tickling his skin there. He tensed at the sudden embrace, but nevertheless wrapped his arms around her shoulders, bringing her closer. He could feel her shaking once again, and her rapid heartbeat pounded against his quickening one.

“Hitoshi,” she whispered, “You are my hero.”

Shivers ran down his spine at those simple five words, laced together by the most angelic voice he’d heard before.

That took his breath right from his lungs. He was her hero. A real hero. That was all he wanted in his life, to show people that he could be someone’s savior. The feeling of the one person he cared for more than anything saying those words to him. The feeling was unbelievable.

She pulled away after a silent moment, and waved to him gently, taking a step up to the entrance of her house. “I’ll see you on Monday, okay?” she said sheepishly, feeling something weird herself after that hug. Her skin felt all warm and gooey, like she was going to fall apart at any moment or her knees would collapse beneath her.

“Y/N, if you need anything, you know you can call me night or day, I don’t care,” he called after her. “I swear, anything for you, Y/N.”

“Thank you, Shinsou-kun.” 

“Bye, Y/N.”

“Bye.”

“You’ll call me sometime, right? So I can make sure you’re feeling better?”

“If you want.”

“Of course.”

“Okay. I promise I’ll call.”

“Yeah, well, bye then.”

“Yeah, bye-bye.”

She shut the door finally, catching the eye of her brother immediately.

Katsuki stood in the living room of their home, sipping some soup with a spoon, blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He raised a brow when she peered over at him, obviously having seen what happened outside through the front window. “What was that about, Y/N? Care to explain why that boy was all over you?”

“Shut up, Katsuki.”

He grunted, rolling his eyes at her reply. “Hey, I’m just worried for you. You can’t trust teenage boys. Take it from me since I am one. ”His voice was quite hoarse from the sore throat he had that morning, and he sounded like a frog whenever he spoke. How could she possibly take him seriously? 

“He’s just my friend. You really don’t have to lecture me on anything,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Sure, sure.”

She waved off how annoying he was, and walked down the hall to her room. When she shut the door behind her, she finally felt herself heat up with embarrassment. Shinsou Hitoshi held her hand the whole way home. He saved her like the glorious hero he always wanted to be. The feeling of relief she felt when she heard him enter the alleyway and call for her, it made her heart melt. She would definitely take up his offer and call him over the weekend, just to hear his soothing voice in her ear. Just hearing him, or even thinking about him made a smile grow on her cheeks. 

She wasn’t sure what she felt for him. If it was simply a friendship or if her attachments were growing into something more.

Y/N just really, really liked him.

_____________ 

 Part two coming later this week. Should it be angst or fluff? I’m torn

[bangtanblurbs]

young forever

song: young forever by BTS

first experience: strangely enough i have a very visceral memory of when forever young dropped. it was during finals week of my final year in undergrad. the song released on a sunday in the wee hours (or perhaps a monday? - days tend to run together during finals week). i didn’t have many assignments due that year since my course load was light and i was really just coasting into grad school the year afterwards (at the same institution i attend for undergrad). i remember logging onto youtube and catching the video as it premiered. i was stunned. HYYH pt. 1 and HYYH pt. 2 were heavenly to me, so of course young forever was greatly anticipated for me - the aesthetics, continuation of the story, and also simply getting new bangtan music. the cotton candy color pallet loaded onto my phone screen, and RM’s beautiful voice can through my earphones... i was immediately in love. 

every member looked completely stunning. the message i got from the video was... incredibly powerful. the maze. the lyrics. all of it resonated with me, a young woman -- 22 years old -- soon to turn another corner in life. i sat in my dorm room preparing for a busy week, as i was the RA in my dormitory and needed to help my students move out that week... as i prepared for my graduation and transition into my next step in life... i was also shipping out to macau, china for the summer in a few weeks so i geared up for that. this video dropping was almost a breath of fresh air from everything going on. i was able to really sit and enjoy it, but also reflect on my past, present, and the future to come. 

feelings: well, i have quite a lot. as someone who has been chronically obsessed with the story of peter pan since age seven, i’d say that youth is something i value - perhaps a bit too much. what’s interesting though is young forever isn’t necessarily about youth in the rawest sense... it’s also about dreams, reaching the point in your life where you’re happy, with yourself, your circumstances, ultimately your place in life. which i suppose most people equate that with youth, the innocence and naivety of it all. for me, thinking about forever young is kind of about that anxiety we carry as we get younger - have a made good use of my youth? did i squander it, getting caught up in the day to day or bogged down by my demons? the worry that our youth is our prime and when it’s gone, where do we go next? retire? it’s kind of funny thinking about this now as I’m 27 instead of 22. do i feel any older? no, not really - i feel the same. the same energy, the same zeal for life. do i look back on the days when i was younger and think that my youth is gone? no. for me - youth - it’s a state of mind. it’s an ethos, a way of proceeding forwards in my life. i didn’t always think this way - perhaps that was wrapped up in my anxiety about getting older. i used to lament my birthday each passing year - god turning 23 felt the absolute worst for some reason. it’s funny now though - how i almost feel younger, lighter, now than i did. youth should be a feeling of unburdened peace right? ideally it would seem so - but the reality in our world today... youth is pain. youth is struggling. youth is stumbling through the dark and trying to figure out who the hell you are, who the hell you want to be. i still feel like i’m stuck in that place, that place of wonder - of reaching out, exploring, experiencing... i feel as naïve as ever despite the pain that courses through some of my life. 

so back to young forever - how does the song make me feel? it makes me feel at home. at peace. forever we can carry our youth, forever we can approach our lives with childish curiosity, with the energy to follow our dreams, with a dedication to our passion, and an and endless realization that change is the only constant in our lives. despite the ups and downs that might come with living with this mindset - i wouldn’t want to live any other way. what’s the point of continuing to grind hard every day in the cruel systems our society has built if we can’t at least say we did it with voracious appetite to experience fully our surroundings, emotions, and imaginations?

personal connection: it’s rather hard for me to nail down all of my personal connections to young forever. as i mentioned, i have a really strong connection to the story of peter pan. i’ll briefly explain why and how that plays in here - but i must warn you... if you’re uncomfortable with strangers oversharing on the internet, perhaps this isn’t the blog for you to read. i’m quite comfortable bearing my soul to people i don’t know. for some reason vulnerability has never been something i’ve struggled with - perhaps it’s the naivety i love about myself. anyways... here we go.

when i was 17 my best friend passed away from cancer. it was relatively quick. just a summer we spent together gossiping in a hospital room, machines beeping while we tried our very best just to giggle about boys and lament our torturous IB courses. i’d known her nearly my whole life. meeting in second grade - and bonding quickly over a love for the whimsy of peter pan’s story. we’d gush on the playground about flying away to neverland - where we could do whatever we wanted. explore, sing, fly. but she was gone then. gone far too soon. frozen in a youthful state in my mind. her passing is still the hardest thing i’ve ever been through in my life, and i’ve been through some scary shit. immediately when i hard young forever i thought about her. i thought about how she lived. she was fearless. the bravest and strongest person i ever knew, and still to this day, have ever known. knowing her - experiencing her soul - it changed me. once she passed away i had to be strong, my classmates looked to me as their rock, my parents forbid me to cry, everyone pushed me into adulthood way too quickly. i was just a seventeen year old girl. i was having a crisis - i wanted nothing more than to speak to my best friend as i navigated choosing my next steps after high school. but she wasn’t there, and i wasn’t allowed to feel. i was terrified. my youth was gone. nothing seemed fun anymore. youth became pain as i looked around at my peers who were back to normal in a matter of weeks. giggling with one another, moving along with life. i became a robot. quickly i threw myself into school work. i was already a high achieving student but i climbed higher. i worked harder. i had decided that for the life she couldn’t live, i would live it for her. i’d go to the best college i could, i’d do all the things i never dreamed i could. i’d do it for her. but i wasn’t living. i had let my youth go. i was fading away. just a shell. 

it’s funny. or perhaps it’s not. young forever is a comfort song. a comfort song with some incredible darkness in it. the anxiety in namjoon’s verse, yoongi’s speaking to hiding feelings - pushing forward despite what he carries, hoseok’s verse about letting himself go and just giving what he has to keep pushing. their words - that’s how i felt. the song dropped around four years after my friend’s passing. i needed it before then. although perhaps it wouldn’t have “saved me” because music doesn’t save, music gives us the strength and comfort we need to save ourselves (i’m not a fan of taking way my own agency in MY story), it might have offered me a light in an increasingly blurry world. 

a year prior to the song’s release i’d spent a summer in china. my life changed there. i lived with seven incredibly bright middle school girls. that experience, i never thought it would start to heal me the way it did. they were under immense pressure (the education system in china is total bullshit)... and they told me “caroline, youth is pain. it’s not beautiful. it’s a period where we struggle the most.” i’d never heard this. the typical western perspective is that youth is “the most beautiful part of life” - it’s where you fall in love, it’s where you get hurt and you pick yourself up, it’s where you find yourself, you feel invincible. but that’s just it - it’s also where you can get incredibly lost (like the maze in the video). not all of us experience youth without pain. this perspective helped me to heal. i wasn’t so alone - i wasn’t squandering my youth, sure - i was treading water - but that was okay. i could cry. i could feel. and so, at this point i began to write my own story again. rather than living for someone else, i decided to throw the book out the window, to pick myself and run like hell towards what i wanted. to accept the freefall of life. that’s youth. that’s the most beautiful part of life. the part where you free yourself from whatever chains society has on you. youth is only associated with being a child because that who should be the most free. when truly youth, youth is that period in your life when you learn to live for yourself, your dreams. dream, hope, keep going. don’t fucking stop.

so this brings us to 2016. i was weeks away from a new journey abroad when young forever dropped. i was doing better. life felt lighter. i still had a long way to go, but some things i’d gotten right. i gained confidence, i navigated my interpersonal relationships with more poise. etc etc. going to china the second time, it changed me more. i did things on my own i’d never dreamed of doing. crossing multiple national borders, making friends with people i couldn’t communicate with. i opened my heart to it all. and i fell in love with myself. for the first time. i fell in love with how completely i embraced my freedom and coupled it with my drive, my passions. that is what young forever is about. it’s about the struggle but the continued commitment to the state of mind that once you’re free - once you embraced that childlike state of being - you can achieve so much happiness. 

which brings us to now - how do i connect to the song now? much in the same way that i did before. carrying these emotions connected to this song so deeply into adulthood has been incredibly touching. i’ve matured with bangtan. from 2015 to now. i’ve only grown in how i embrace my youth. sure, i have to conform at times, play the adult, but the motto “dream, hope, keep going.” that’s what i live by. nothing can change that for me now. i’m still fucking lost, but i’m running like hell. i have my setbacks, my demons, my challenges, but i’ve never been so fucking free. that’s young forever for me. thank you for reading my story. 

song breakdown:

musically: something i truly love about young forever is that it’s really atypical in how it flows musically and the entire structure of the song. it’s creativity run wild - it’s a story and build. and i love that. it starts off slow, soft, with a sweet sadness. the highlight isn’t the backing track, it’s the honey rap voices. it’s absolutely perfect. understated and building. with each new voice that comes in the beat speeds up. it’s like running. which is fitting. because the story in the song is that of bangtan. the lyrics say it, the boys are worried - worried about how well they’ve done, when they’ll stop gaining success, concerned that all of this life will end, wondering who they are in this - the performance the journey. they are quite literally running towards their dreams. we see this in the song lyrically. 

once the chorus comes, we need an increased speed in the beat and the song picks up with the chanting of the mantra. “forever, we are young.” us together, bangtan and ARMY. the song fades into the beautiful clapping beat, the refrains of dream, hope, keep going. musically the song is beautifully understated in a way that can only draw out the listeners’ emotions and highlight the charged encouraging lyrics. the story here is clear and only more illuminated by the musical choices. 

vocally: young forever is such a treat. it’s a rap heavy song, but not in a way that takes away from the beautiful second half of the song which is full of beautiful vocal line refrains and ad libs. it’s a chant song. a comfort song. and perhaps that’s why it’s stuck with me for all these years as one of my ultimate favorite BTS songs. 

when the song begins we are greet by namjoon’s beautiful low rap register. he delivers the rap melodically slow. you can appreciate the way his voice carries emotion and the tempo of the beginning story, of the emotional journey the song embarks upon. following namjoon’s beautiful voice is yoongi. who assumes a slower rap style initially. he has a few parts where he treats us to shout rapping as well - which give us kind of a pleading emotion - we can hear his lament for the pressure placed upon him as he stands in the spotlight. finally, rapline is rounded out by hoseok - i’m gonna say it - this is one of hoseok’s best slow verses. he offers his usual spicy tone, giving the trap style endings to each line. the emotion hits it’s peak with the punch tones and hoseok’s strong committment to his lines expressing his desires, his drive. 

the second half of the song is dominated by the beautiful tones of vocal line. taehyung leads us into the chorus with his beautiful deep register, followed by jungkook’s high tones. the juxtaposition of their voices coupled by jin and backed by jimin’s beautiful melodies is absolutely stunning. rapline takes turns coming in with the refrain “dream, hope, keep going.” all of this mixed together is simply stunning. it’s like hope in vocal form. we have the low and the highs, the singing voices and the speaking refrains. most devastatingly is jimin’s forever ever ever - piercing the background of the song. highlighting the longing - the conviction - to youth - the spirit of it, the beauty of it. the chant portion of the song is also what makes this song so devastating to hear live. everyone comes in, blends together and makes the message resonate completely. 

lyrically: here. we. go. a DEEP DIVE. i think firstly, it’s important to start with the fact that we have a song, young forever, that was released as the epilogue to two devastating HYYH albums. HYYH was the epitome of youth themed albums. it encapsulated everything we associate typically with youth. love songs, songs about pain, songs about healing, songs about not being enough, songs about our dreams, songs about being lonely... it’s all there. both the beauty of youth and the beautiful pain of youth dominate HYYH pt. 1 and HYYH pt. 2. then, those messages, those themes, were sealed with epilogue: young forever. why? well, my feeling is this is bangtan’s way of leaving us with the reality that youth isn’t something that’s fleeting. it’s not an age or state in time. it’s something we carry within. it’s how we approach the things we confront in our lives, how we live and move forward through adversity towards our passions and dreams. 

now - with that out of the way it’s time to dissect some lyrics. there’s quite a lot here in the three rap verses so i truly hope to do them justice. 

namjoon’s verse starts like a story, “the curtain falls” the end of a performance, often used as metaphor for the end of a certain point in one’s life. “the curtain falls and i’m out of breath / i get mixed feelings as i breathe out” clearly the chapter that’s closing for him has been an exhausting one, but he’s not sure about moving forward even though now he has the time to finally reflect and see what he wants next. to me, this speaks directly to where bangtan was at this point in their career. they’d been through the bullshit - the trainee days, the ridicule, the exclusion from the typical korean music system... they’d made it. I NEED U had one awards, RUN did as well, 2016 bangtan had begun to see the fruit of their labor pay off - but with that, what’s next. where do they climb next? what’s to come? there’s that feeling of unease for namjoon. “did I make any mistakes today? / how did the audience seem?” are the next lines, bringing in that sense of reflection. even though now he can breathe - he worries, what’s his impact, how do people feel about what he’s given them, did he have shortcomings? these thoughts flood in and set the mood for the next steps forward. these questions only become more as the pressure continues. the next and final three lines of namjoon’s verse group well together and offer us much more hope that the foreboding in the start of the verse: “i’m happy with who i’ve become / that i can make someone scream with joy / still excited from the performance.” the peace in these final lines, it’s kind of like the rest of the song - starting with the hardship, the unease, what must or has been overcome - mellowing out to realization that things will keep going on. namjoon is at peace with where is at the end of this chapter, he is glad he can stand on this stage bringing smiles to faces, and finally - the buzz of just being able to do music, that remains with him through all of the constant pressure. something about these lines, they’re beautiful.

just like that, yoongi’s verse begins. he provides the same metaphor to the listener. he is standing on an empty stage. the performance is over. the chapter is closing. HYYH is becoming the past for BTS. the struggles, will they be over too as they move forward with their progressing careers? “i stand on the empty stage while holding onto an aftertaste that will not linger for long” he begins - he knows that the high of this moment, the place they’ve reached in this time... it can’t be forever, the emotions of it all are beginning to fade into something else. he then moves on to offer some more insight into how he feels about that unknown of moving on: “while standing on this empty stage, i become afraid of this unpleasant emptiness.” this line seems telling to me - yoongi is someone that gets a lot from recognition, achievement, sharing his works with others. leaving the stage, moving away from this performance moment... it’s hard on him... he feels empty, his moment, his purpose - they’re over... at least for now. the anxiety seeps in. “within my suffocating feelings / on top of my life’s line” he starts to try and explain deeper his emotions, suffocation, a feeling of panic, likely anxiety or pressure induced. what’s next? will it demand more? he’s on top of his life’s line - he feels like he’s reaching his peak, not knowing where to go next, plateau? down? yoongi then lodges into almost a picture perfect description of what society can make us do in moments of pressure where we are feeling anxiety or panic - “without a reason, i forcibly act that i am fine / this isn’t the first time, i better get used to it” he’s going to put on a strong face, suppress how he really feels because at some point there could be another audience, he remains on the stage even if the curtains have closed. he forces himself to do so, and it’s a habitual thing for him. it sounds like truly this is habitual for yoongi - really needing to mask his fear, his panic, his anxiety for the sake of those watching. it tears me up, because it seems like he also knows that this will continue in his future. and the he realizes that keeping the mask on, it’s not something he’s able to do or perhaps interested in doing “i try to hide it, but i can’t.” the final lines of his verse leave us with some unease - they’re unclear - but perhaps they’re speaking to the fact that performing won’t be his forever... “when the heat of the show cools down / i leave the empty seats behind,” so at some point -- the excitement, the hype, it will be gone... those who want to see him, they’ll be gone too, and he’ll move on to what is next. or perhaps this could allude to the fact that the pressure of those watching goes away and he will finally feel comfortable? there’s a lot here. a lot left up and open.

and finally we round out rapline with hoseok’s verse - which leads us into the chorus and refrains. the first three lines of hoseok’s part go hand in hand with one another - they’re a natural progress of coping with one’s emotions and situation: “trying to comfort myself / i tell myself the world can’t be perfect / i start to let myself go.” the chapter is closing and hoseok is trying to tell himself, it’ll be okay. almost like listening to the song young forever - seeking comfort. a home. realizing that things aren’t always going to go his way, he can’t have this moment forever, and sometimes things are going to be ups and downs... the final line is perhaps the most startling, letting oneself go. realizing that there’s some pieces of yourself that are okay to let go, whatever is holding you back, keeping you stuck, sometimes we need to shed that to go forward with the youthful exploration that keeps life invigorating and exciting. or perhaps hoseok is thinking about the day in which he will let “j-hope” go and just be hoseok, without a stage in the traditional sense. “the thundering applause, i can’t own it forever” he moves on saying that this life won’t be his forever, at some point he will need to move on - realize that this moment is down, lose himself to it, and see what is next. yet - even with this knowledge hoseok continues “i tell myself, so shameless / raise your voice higher” it seems that there’s a conflict he’s facing - letting this moment go or screaming as loud as he can to hold onto it, and shamelessly so - letting go of all the constructed norms for how he should behave. perhaps, holding onto his YOUTH even as he grows older in age and should grow away from a youthful mentality. he is raising his voice and hopefully pushing forwards, perhaps just away from this stage and onto an even larger one. it seems this is the case “even if the attention isn’t forever, i’ll keep singing” he states. he will hold onto his passion, keep moving forwards with his music, his voice, his connection to whatever it is that wants to be connected to him - because this is his very soul and being. finally - hoseok closes out his verse “as today’s me, i want eternity / forever, i want to be young.” it seems that hoseok is choosing to be who he is at this moment, his youthful self, as long as he goes on. he will leave this version of himself, this beautiful, loving, hopeful version of himself as his mark on the earth for eternity. 

moving into the chorus we have the iconic title line “forever we are young” which to me, it’s about taking youth forward with you in all that you do. taking your passion, your drive, your love, your hope -- pouring it into all that you do and not letting the outside spoil you and take that from you. keeping your passions and running towards them. that’s the core of the message in young forever. 

jungkook then croons “under the flower petals raining down / i run, so lost in this maze” bringing us to think about how seasons change - flower petals can fall because of their abundance but also because they we are moving into winter. either way, the analogy of flowers is hopeful to me. blossoms on trees - the return in time. not the same blossoms, but just as beautiful as the previous ones. perhaps he’s speaking to the fact that the blossoms are falling now as the chapter is ending - which leads into the feeling of lost, of being in a maze... but the reality is, the flowers will come again. the can come again. so long as they keep running - there’s a chance for this beautiful moment to happen once again. that’s youth. perhaps you have your ups and downs, your moments in the sun (your spring days) and your cold days... but keep running, keep your energy, dream, hope, keep going. and you can return. 

jin then offers the other refrain “even when i fall and hurt myself / i endlessly run toward my dream.” THIS is youth. this is it. that almost stupid attitude of not recognizing when you’re down and out... not recognizing when perhaps you should stop. turning up the energy at your weakest point even when authority is telling you to let it go. this is the essence of youthful hope and energy. even if they’ve failed, even at their lowest point, they’re cementing that they won’t stop until they achieve their dreams. once again. dream. hope. keep going. just keep fucking going. 

finally the other refrain that is repeated throughout the chorus: dream. hope. forward. forward. is the direct translation. but, many would say it’s dream. hope. keep going. this is youth. our dreams, childish and pure. our hope, what we pour into ourselves, what we surround ourselves with - the light that keeps us going. and then constantly moving forward continuing even when our odds look bad. this shit resonates. bangtan did it. they dreamed, 7 boys at a small company. they hoped, holding onto one another, working hard, baby steps forward. they kept going. no matter the ridicule, the setbacks, they pushed forward. these words - they mean the world to me as i’ve pushed through shit in my life. i’m only where i am today because i, by some miracle, internalized this youthful mantra. allowing myself to dream, those moments of hope, pushing forward no matter what. that’s youth. that’s young forever. 

performance: well this is shaping up to be quite a long post. i want to discuss both the MV and how live performances typically proceed. i’ve also attached to this post my personal video of young forever at the HYYH: the epilogue tour in macau. sorry for my screaming in advance. 

MV: the MV is really interesting for the HYYH universe, although the same could be said for save me, which is technically in the universe... BUT the fact that the MV steps away from the storylines and almost takes us into the minds of the characters bangtan is playing is an interesting choice. we start off the video with the boys in a chain-linked fence maze, wandering around, and flashbacks for each of there characters. the overall aesthetic of the video fits with the lyrics and these feelings of uncertainty... the feeling of being lost... wandering from phase to phase in life. early on we see a scene of yoongi burning photos from the HYYH era - truly this song is about death to the past a new beginnings, overcoming the past but moving forward with the pieces of you that are important. the highlighting of the text “꿈 희망 전진 전진” or dream, hope, keep going - making it the mantra of the song. keep moving, keep running. almost it seems like the characters are running away from their demons as well. the members running off into the sunset together? it’s all about endings. new beginnings. but taking them on with determination and an attitude of childlike awe, glee, dreams, and determination. 

performance: we’ve all seen the iconic wembley performance. we’ve probably all cried over it more than once. maybe it’s your comfort video? maybe it’s secretly mine (ha!). i can tell you, experiencing this song live... there’s really nothing like it. it’s understated. there’s no dance. nothing like that. 

in the performances - namjoon appears alone in a starlight stage with the lyrics scrawling on a screen behind him. the lights are all dark, deep blue tones everywhere, it feels dreamy. the entire crowd is brought into a dream like state. it’s fitting, its absolutely fitting and incredibly stunning. yoongi then appears to namjoon’s left and hoseok to his right to be spotlighted for their respective verses. the emotion is everywhere. the song is even more incredible with a live band. you cannot imagine it. the chorus arrives with a change in vibe, a beautiful sunset is projected and the vocal line appears from the floor. all of the members stand shoulder to shoulder and belt the chorus and refrain. and you would not believe how devastatingly beautiful it is to hear ARMY shouting along. forever we are young. kkum, huimang, jeonjin, jeonjin. shouting together. again and again. clapping with one another. waving ARMY bombs. it’s completely emotional. i cried. i cried on the strangers next to me, that didn’t speak my language. there is nothing like it. 

i must also note, the concert i was at we were all distributed lightsticks and banners with 꿈 희망 전진 전진 written on them. this song has been important since it released. it’s the core of bangtan’s rise. it is so important to these boys. and to many of us fans as well.

now - a word about what happened at wembley. bangtan had no idea that ARMY would sing young forever TO them. at WEMBLEY. fans who likely do not speak korean. chanting their mantra to them “kkum, huimang, jeonjin, jeonjin” and singing “foreverrrrr we are younnnnng” and saying they will keep going. they will walk their journey towards their dreams. something about that, it’s incredibly toughing. you and i cannot imagine how that must have felt for bangtan. the moment must have been completely surreal. one of the world’s largest stages, playing one of the most meaningful songs of their careers - a song meant to memorialize their climb to fame, their accomplishments, their youth that they likely felt the LOST during this climb to where they are now. jimin himself said that night “this song. wow. this song helped me a lot when things were really hard.” young forever means so very much to bangtan. it always has. and their fans chose that very song. we chose that song (rather we were there or not). it’s our mantra too. whatever we go through, we are on this journey, and we are not alone. we are not alone. we can muster the strength to carry on with that same youthful zeal for life. watching that video... it’s moving. it’s completely incredible. to be a part of this journey... just wow. 

tl;dr: in conclusion... young forever is one of the BTS songs that has the most touching meanings, and it came at a very delicate time in their career. a time when they were finally getting the recognition they deserved and sought for a long time. a time when they were pivoting from “young” to “young adult.” a time when they likely struggled with a loss of their youth. all of this... it’s powerful because it’s not alien for those of us normal people. we all feel this. i’ve felt it as i’ve gone through tough shit and came out the other side changed, only to have to find my way through the maze and back to myself. youth and being young, it’s a state of mind. i think bangtan sincerely know and believe this. that’s what makes the song and the message it carries so incredibly powerful. so meaningful to us all. thanks for reading yet again. 

[bettydice]

I didn’t expect you to be lonely (too)

Xicheng, Modern AU, JC&WWX reconciliation, E-Rated

[Read on AO3]

Chapter 8

On Thursday, they meet in front of the park where they first kissed. Lan Xichen greets him with a smile, gratefully accepting the tea Jiang Cheng had bought for him at the café. Jiang Cheng went with a plain black coffee today, himself. Since they’re not ‘dating’, he doesn’t have to pretend his coffee orders are interesting, which is a stupid thought he shouldn’t have had in the first place anyway. Today, they should just do whatever they want and whatever they’re comfortable with.

For once, it’s not raining. The sun bathes everything in a golden glow and the air is crisp and clear. They walk hand in hand, sipping their hot beverages. They don’t talk much, simply enjoy this lovely autumn day together. Jiang Cheng isn’t used to taking walks without a purpose or a destination. He likes it, a lot. Likes just looking. Likes spending time with someone without the need to fill the silence with words. Well, and he likes Lan Xichen. A lot.

Once they’ve circled the park twice, they walk back to Lan Xichen’s apartment, where Jiang Cheng attends to the duties he has as someone who was ‘claimed’ by a bunny. Lan Xichen gives him some treats he can spoil Cloud with while petting her thoroughly, while Lan Xichen (spends some time with Jade). They keep sitting on the floor even after the bunnies have lost interest in their services and hopped away to explore the territory under the coffee table. The sun is shining through the window, perfectly illuminating a square for them to sit in. Lan Xichen leans back on his hands and closes his eyes, basking in the warmth. He looks deeply content and so fucking beautiful, it’s almost painful.

Jiang Cheng feels the overwhelming urge to touch him. He’d like to run a finger over the bridge of Lan Xichen’s nose, his lips, down his neck. Wants to know what Lan Xichen’s smile feels like. Wants to caress the strong line of his jaw. He’s not quite sure why, and he’s sure Lan Xichen would be weirded out if he actually did it, so he doesn’t. Instead, he contents himself with simply looking. Traces the contours of Lan Xichen’s face with his eyes, not his fingers.

Naturally, Lan Xichen opens his eyes the exact moment Jiang Cheng’s eyes lovingly follow the soft curve of his upper lip. He flushes, but before the full force of his embarrassment can hit him, Lan Xichen scoots closer, gently pulls him closer by his neck, and kisses him.

Jiang Cheng touches him then, lifts one hand and cradles Lan Xichen’s face. Strokes his thumb across his jaw, his cheek. And that’s when he does feel it, feels Lan Xichen’s lips pull into a smile against Jiang Cheng’s mouth, feels his cheek move under his thumb. He wants to -

The doorbell rings.

Lan Xichen immediately lets go of him and sits up straight. Jiang Cheng would like to give whoever interrupted them a few choice words. Lan Xichen looks confused for a second, then looks at his watch and … seems to suppress a curse. “I… did not realise it was so late already. That’s… that’s my brother, we’re having dinner together…”

“Ah, okay… Oh!” Jiang Cheng sits up, wants to follow Lan Xichen, who jumps to his feet, smoothing out his clothes. “Should I…?” What should he do? Hide in the bathroom? Jump down from the balcony? Which is a ridiculous thought. They’re not some kind of dirty secret… The instinct to hide is there anyway.

“Oh, no… just stay here with the bunnies.” Lan Xichen squeezes his shoulder and rushes out of the room. “Don’t worry!”

Don’t worry? Unlikely. And indeed, his brain immediately comes up with a fuckton of worries: Lan Xichen’s brother! He doesn’t know they’re together! But he probably knows who Jiang Cheng is! And only knows bad things about Jiang Cheng, because whatever Wei Wuxian told him can’t be good! What if he doesn’t like Jiang Cheng and then Lan Xichen can’t be with him anymore? What if -

His panic spiral gets interrupted by Cloud, who lovingly gnaws on his finger. Clearly a demand for more pets. He immediately takes her back in his lap, grateful for the interruption.

He can hear Lan Xichen open the door. It’s not too late to go hide somewhere. Maybe he could squeeze himself under the couch.

“Wangji! You’re early!”

Granted, Jiang Cheng may be a little paranoid right now, but Lan Xichen sounds breathless, the kind of breathless people are in dramas when they try to pretend they do not have their secret lover over in front of their strict mother who’d frown upon pre-marital relations.

“I’m two minutes late.” Oh no, oh fuck, this is going to be a disaster. Lan Wangji’s voice is calm and doesn’t carry any particular emotion, certainly no anger or criticism, but... it makes Jiang Cheng feel like he did something wrong.

Lan Xichen laughs, clearly nervous. A beat of silence.

“You have a visitor?” Right, his shoes. He’s definitely seen this exact scenario in a drama before.

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry, I forgot the time.”

“You said you didn’t have to work today.” Lan Wangji’s voice hasn’t changed at all, but Jiang Cheng still winces in sympathy.

“Well… it’s not work.”

“I see.”

More silence. Jiang Cheng wishes he could see their facial expressions, because their voices don’t tell him how things are going. He can only make assumptions, which is… not helpful. Jiang Cheng begins calculating whether he would survive a jump from the balcony. It’s possible he’d just break a leg. That’d be fine, he can handle a broken leg.

“Should I… leave?”

“Oh, no! Sorry, please come in!” Lan Xichen sounds… a tad too bright to be natural.

The door closes. Presumably after Lan Wangji has fully come in.

“This is for you. And this is from Wei Ying. Happy Birthday.”

“Thank you! That’s very kind.”

Wait, what? What… Birthday? Wei Wuxian is giving Lan Xichen birthday presents via Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng didn’t even know it was his birthday! Today!? Why didn’t he know? Did Lan Xichen mention it? He doesn’t think so!!!??? But he wanted to meet today? Maybe he did mention it and Jiang Cheng didn’t notice???

There’s movement in the hallway and Jiang Cheng jumps to his feet, clutching Cloud to his body like a grumpy security blanket.

Just when he has the thought “What am I doing, I should put Cloud down so I can greet Lan Wangji properly”, Lan Xichen returns to the living room. His brother enters behind him.

Even if he hadn’t known that they’re related, he’d have suspected it. Lan Wangji is just as tall and handsome, but in a more… distant way. Even though Lan Wangji’s face is as carefully blank as his voice, Jiang Cheng immediately feels judged. His eyes rest on Jiang Cheng only for a second, before turning to his brother, waiting for an introduction.

“Wangji, this is Jiang Wanyin, he’s-”

“Jiang Wanyin?” Lan Wangji turns the full force of his gaze to Jiang Cheng. He should’ve jumped off the balcony. “You’re Jiang Cheng.”

Not a question. A judgement.

“Uh… yes. Nice to meet you.” Jiang Cheng forces himself to smile but Lan Wangji… does not seem pleased at all to meet him. If looks could kill, Jiang Cheng would already be dead and coming back as a ghost to haunt Lan Wangji, because what the fuck! Lan Wangji looks as though he wants to fucking deck him! He’s carrying a bunny, he can’t get punched right now!

Lan Wangji manages to hold back his bloodlust and within seconds, his face is back to being completely expressionless. He turns to his brother and says, no, spits out: “Jiang Cheng?”

Woooooooooooow, okay. That was clearly ‘Jiang Cheng is the guy you’ve been meeting? Of all the people in the world? I expected better from you, brother, and demand you throw him out right this instant.’

“Wangji…” Lan Xichen frowns at his brother. Has Jiang Cheng ever seen him frown before?

The brothers have a silent conversation for a few seconds that ends with Lan Xichen sighing and Lan Wangji turning around and stalking towards Jiang Cheng. Fuck, he’s going to get punched in the fucking face.

He does not get punched. Instead, Lan Wangji takes Cloud away from Jiang Cheng and carries her out on the balcony.

What the actual fuck? According to this guy, Jiang Cheng is not good enough for Wei Wuxian, Lan Xichen or a bunny. And this guy is Lan Xichen’s brother. This is… not going great!

Jiang Cheng turns toward Lan Xichen with an incredulous expression. Lan Xichen has stepped closer, so he can put his hand on Jiang Cheng’s arm.

“I’m sorry. Wangji just… needs a little time to process.” He smiles, though it’s a strained one, and inclines his head in apology.

Jiang Cheng is not optimistic that 'time to process' will help get rid of the visceral dislike in Lan Wangji’s eyes, but well… they don't know each other. It’s possible this is how Lan Wangji looks at everyone he meets. Doubtful, but... He gives Lan Xichen a - probably unconvincing - smile.

“This is really not how I wanted this to go. I’m sorry.” Lan Xichen sighs and drops his hand. He looks so unhappy... He should never be unhappy, especially not on his fucking birthday! Jiang Cheng tries to get his shit together and make his smile more convincing. He takes Lan Xichen’s hand and squeezes it. Before he can convince Lan Xichen that this situation is in fact all Jiang Cheng’s fault, Lan Wangji returns. His frosty gaze falls on their linked hands. Lan Xichen tightens his grip instead of letting go, Jiang Cheng tries to not look surprised.

“Wangji, would you like some tea?”

Lan Wangji looks at his brother, hesitates for a second, nods, then picks up Jade and carries her out to the balcony as well.

“Does he think I’m going to fucking steal them, or what?” Jiang Cheng mutters under his breath.

Lan Xichen huffs a laugh. “No, it’s just… They’re his bunnies and you’re a stranger.”

“Mhm. And he hates me.”

“He doesn’t, don’t worry.”

“Well, he definitely wants to punch me.”

“But he won’t.”

Lan Xichen smiles, no, smirks at him and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes, even though he has to laugh. He also wants to kiss Lan Xichen, but Lan Wangji returns from his bunny rescue mission and Jiang Cheng likes Lan Xichen more than he wants to irritate Lan Wangji.

Five minutes later, they’re sitting around the couch table for the most awkward teatime Jiang Cheng has attended in a long time. Lan Wangji has taken to not looking at him at all, which is somehow even more offensive than his “how dare you touch my bunnies with your dirty hands” looks.

Lan Xichen, who has so far unsuccessfully tried to get a conversation going, sets down his teacup maybe a bit more forcefully than necessary and looks at his brother, jaw set with determination. “So-”

“Did you order already? It’s almost half past six, we don’t want to eat too late.”

“I put in the order this morning already, the food will be here in about ten minutes.” Lan Xichen actually sounds irritated. It’s a polite kind of irritation, but still.

“Will he be joining us?” Lan Wangji says, of course without looking at Jiang Cheng.

Honestly? Fuck this dude! Jiang Cheng sets down his cup as well and gives Lan Wangji his best fake smile. “Actually, I’ll be leaving now. I still have some work to do for class tomorrow.”

He doesn’t. Well, he does, but he wasn’t planning on doing it. But staying here seems like a very bad idea. Lan Xichen opens his mouth, clearly wants to protest, but Jiang Cheng gets up before he can say anything. Lan Wangji gets up as well and nods goodbye to a spot on the wall above Jiang Cheng’s left shoulder. Lan Xichen gives him an exasperated look, then accompanies Jiang Cheng to the door.

Jiang Cheng does his best to appear relaxed and unbothered by asshole brothers who hate him while putting on his jacket and shoes. Going by the look on Lan Xichen’s face, he didn’t fully succeed. Jiang Cheng smiles extra hard as he reaches for his scarf, but Lan Xichen grabs it first.

He wraps the scarf around Jiang Cheng’s neck, worry pulling his eyebrows together. "I'm sorry, this is not-"

"It's okay, don't worry." Jiang Cheng rests his hands on Lan Xichen’s and tries to smile the way his sister would. "You should have a nice dinner with your brother and not worry about anything."

"He's not… " Lan Xichen starts, then stops, obviously at a loss as to what exactly his brother isn’t. Hostile? A bit of an asshole? Full of hatred towards Jiang Cheng and only partially justified to feel that way? “I hope you have a nice evening, too. You shouldn’t worry either.”

Still unlikely, but Jiang Cheng gives him a reassuring nod. Lan Xichen seems to be content with that, because the smile finally returns to his face and he tucks in the ends of Jiang Cheng’s scarf before letting go.

After saying goodbye, Jiang Cheng turns around to leave, but then remembers he almost forgot something very, very important. He turns around again, leans forward, rests his hand on Lan Xichen’s chest and kisses his cheek. “Happy birthday.”

Lan Xichen exhales softly, surprised. Then he smiles at Jiang Cheng, warmly, his whole face lighting up. Ah… this definitely helps dispel some of his worries. “Thank you.”

Jiang Cheng very intently tries not to think of anything until he gets home. He takes off his shoes and jacket. Takes off the scarf and carefully hangs it up. He sits down on his couch, checks his phone for messages. There aren’t any. Alright. Then...

What the fuck? What the fuck was that? Why does Lan Xichen’s brother hate him? Jiang Cheng didn’t even do anything yet, isn’t it too early to hate him? What… what did Wei Wuxian tell him? It must have been bad, for Lan Wangji to react so strongly. Is he currently telling those things to Lan Xichen? Is he telling him to stop seeing Jiang Cheng?

His mind conjures an image of Lan Wangji taking away Lan Xichen from him like he did with Cloud and carrying him out to the balcony. Despite everything, he has to laugh, though it sounds slightly hysterical. Why is family so… Why is family?

He lies down on the couch and looks at his phone. He opens Wei Wuxian’s Selfie Of The Day and studies it intently, as though it hides the answer to his questions. But there are no answers to be gained, it’s just a picture of Wei Wuxian’s face. He’s smiling, but it’s a very standard Wei Wuxian smile. The background is blurry, so there’s nothing to analyze there.

Wei Wuxian, do you really hate me?

Just a few days ago, Jiang Cheng had arrived at a very different conclusion, was getting comfortable with the idea of contacting his brother, was feeling hopeful...

But Lan Wangji had looked at him so coldly.

Fuck this shit. He’s going to stop thinking about it, it’s not like that has ever helped him.

Jiang Cheng scours his kitchen for food and ends up eating a bag of chips for dinner. (Some kind of weird novelty flavour that has a very fishy aftertaste -- he should stop buying things just because they’re on sale.) He's still hungry after, so he makes some ramen.

Tomorrow, he should really go out and buy proper groceries. He distracts himself by making a very elaborate shopping list and planning his meals for the next few days. It's highly unlikely he’ll actually follow through on this, but at least he’s considering it.

While trying to think of something else he can distract himself with, he remembers the stuff for uni and decides to forget about it again immediately. Instead, he starts cleaning his kitchen.

Sadly, there’s not much to clean, the rest of his flat is pretty tidy, too (except for Wei Wuxian’s room, which he will not enter). When did he turn into a tidy person? He can’t remember the last time he looked around his flat and thought ‘what a mess’, which used to be a weekly occurrence.

… Maybe this is connected to him feeling a strong urge to clean whenever he sits down to do something for his degree. Maybe.

With nothing left to clean, he returns to the couch with his laptop in hand. Somehow, he gets sucked into watching a bunch of videos by a vet explaining how to best care for different pets. He only intended to watch the bunny videos, but suddenly it’s an hour later and he’s watching “10 Things You Should Consider Before Getting A Pet Snake”.

Suddenly, his phone rings. His sister is the only one who calls him, but it's 9 p.m., and she never calls so late. Unless it’s an emergency?

He almost falls from the couch trying to grab his phone without getting up.

It's Lan Xichen.

"Hello?" Jiang Cheng sits upright, trying to sound like he spent the past few hours doing something productive.

"Wanyin, hello, it's me, Lan Xichen."

"Yes… Hello. Is… everything okay?" Why is he calling him? It’s probably bad news, right? He is going to break up with him. His brother convinced him that Jiang Cheng is the worst, and-

"I'm sorry, it's too late to be calling you isn't it? I should have sent a message first. I can call you tomorrow-"

"No, it's okay! Don't worry, I go to bed pretty late. Is something the matter? Did… the dinner with your brother not go well?"

"Oh, it was nice! Well, mostly. I was just worried about you. I feel bad about how that all went down. You must’ve been very taken aback. I hope you don’t think-”

"It's really not your fault! It just was bad timing. And you would’ve told your brother earlier, if it wasn’t for me and the whole Wei Wuxian situation. I understand why your brother was so…” Well, he can sort of understand it. He still thinks ripping Cloud out of his hands was an asshole move!

"Wangji was just surprised. And, well, he likes Wei Wuxian a lot. And, hm… he’s very protective. Of us both.”

"I understand. Wei Wuxian must have told him that I’m... told him what happened, so of course he dislikes me. He would not want someone like me to be with you." Jiang Cheng had not meant to put it so bluntly, but it’s too late to take it back now. He squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for Lan Xichen to confirm this.

“Ah… You must be worried about what exactly Wei Wuxian told my brother,” Lan Xichen says softly.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t reply to that, which seems to be answer enough. Lan Xichen’s next words are urgent, almost rushed.

“It’s not what you think, Wanyin. Wangji knew about the situation, but it seems Wei Wuxian prefers not to talk about it. And he seems to think it’s his fault, which Wangji disagrees with, and that’s why he was so… Don’t take this as a sign your brother wouldn’t want to see you. If anything, this is even more reason for you to talk to him!”

Jiang Cheng really doesn’t know what to say. He didn’t expect these words at all. This is quite different from how calmly Lan Xichen reacted after Jiang Cheng had poured out his heart about the Wei Wuxian situation.

“I… You’re right, I was worried about that. I’ll try to… maybe just forget this happened. I’m sure the next time I meet your brother, he’ll even let me hold Cloud for a few minutes.”

He said that to lighten the mood, to make Lan Xichen laugh, but it’s quiet on the other end. Did he sound like he didn’t mean it? Was his tone sarcastic or bitter?

“Are you… really okay?” For some reason, Jiang Cheng has to think about Lan Xichen in the café, pale and with shaking hands.

At the other end of the line, Lan Xichen draws in a deep breath. “Yes, of course, sorry… You… I... “ He takes another deep breath, then gives an embarrassed laugh. “I think I managed to talk myself into a little anxiety spiral in the past twenty minutes. You’re… you’re not mad at me, right?”

“What? Why would I be mad at you? What the fuck?!” Jiang Cheng gives his phone an incredulous look. “If anything, you should be mad at me!”

“Of course not! But ah… I don’t know. I had the thought maybe you were displeased about how you had to meet Wangji without warning… “ Before Jiang Cheng can protest, Lan Xichen continues, almost stumbling over his words, as though they’re leaving his mouth without his permission. “Which was my mistake, I forgot the time, or I could’ve just told you he was coming for dinner but I didn’t because in my mind that meant telling you it was my birthday, which I didn’t want, because I didn’t want you to feel like you had to buy a present or had to spend time with me, even if maybe you didn’t have time or weren’t feeling up to it anymore or…”

Jiang Cheng, who is very familiar with a brain that goes on tangents like that, tries to channel his sister’s best understanding-and-loving-but-firm voice. “Xichen-ge… I’m not mad at you. Not at all. I had a great time with you this afternoon and while meeting your brother was, uhm, quite the experience, it didn’t fill me with more doubts and worries than I manage to give myself every other day.”

“...Okay. Thank you.” Lan Xichen laughs again, a little less embarrassed this time. “Ah, I was calling you to reassure you, not the other way around.”

“You did though! You were right, I was actually spending the evening actively avoiding thinking about that stuff, because I knew I’d just freak myself out.” Jiang Cheng wishes he could hold his hand, hug him, just… look at his face to see whether he’s feeling better. “Was I able to reassure you, though?”

“Mhm, yes.” A short pause. “Do you… could we maybe switch to a video call? If you don’t want-”

“Yeah, sure!” Jiang Cheng immediately pulls back his shoulders, runs a hand through his hair and smoothes his shirt, before holding his phone in front of him and switching to video. Lan Xichen’s face appears on the screen, smiling. Jiang Cheng smiles, too. “Hey.”

“Hello.” Lan Xichen gives a cute little wave, Jiang Cheng returns the wave and they both have to laugh. Then they just look at each other without saying anything, smiling. Eventually, Jiang Cheng relaxes and the nervous energy seems to have left Lan Xichen as well, as far as he can tell.

"Happy birthday again."

"Thank you."

"I hope it was a good day? Despite…" Jiang Cheng grimaces and wiggles his fingers.

"Yes, it was! I… am also perfectly capable to give myself worries all by myself, every other day. So this is just business as usual."

"WYou can call me the next time it happens, too,"Jiang Cheng says without thinking. He cringes. "Well, if it would help."

"Seeing your face always makes me feel better," Lan Xichen says with a completely straight face. What the fuck? Since it's a video call, Lan Xichen can see Jiang Cheng's dumbfounded face. He chuckles. "I mean it, Wanyin."

"Well, if you like it so much, you should let me do something for your birthday," Jiang Cheng sputters. That doesn't really make sense, but what Lan Xichen is saying isn't making sense either. "From now on, you better tell me about any birthdays you have, or anything else you want to celebrate!"

Lan Xichen nods, clearly amused. "Alright. Though I promise, I only have this one birthday."

"Even more reason to celebrate it properly," Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes, but smiles. "Okay, do you have time this Saturday? We can go somewhere nice, or if you don't want to go out, I can cook you a nice dinner here."

Lan Xichen widens his eyes in surprise. "Oh! Yes, Saturday works. I'd… I'd love that."

"Good! It's a date then! Well, a not-date… whatever!"

Lan Xichen looks at him for a second with a soft smile. Then, the smile deepens. "I do really like your face very much."

Jiang Cheng frowns at the camera and is glad it isn't really picking up that he's blushing.He’s never been known for being able to graciously accept compliments, so instead he replies with a needlessly aggressive-sounding: “Good, because you’ll be seeing it a lot!”

Lan Xichen doesn’t even look surprised this time, he simply starts laughing and Jiang Cheng soon joins him.

They talk a lot that evening. Lan Xichen tells him about what they had for dinner and the presents he received today. Apparently Wei Wuxian drew him a picture of the bunnies surrounded by plants, which is really sweet if he ignores the weird feeling squirming in his chest when he thinks about Wei Wuxian giving presents to Lan Xichen, his probably-boyfriend.

They talk until Jiang Cheng - now lying on his side on the couch, phone propped up on the coffee table - feels his eyes begin to droop. On the other end, Lan Xichen has to yawn and they finally end the call at 10:30 p.m.

When Jiang Cheng falls asleep that night, he does so with the utmost certainty that he’s deeply in love with Lan Xichen. And still utterly terrified of talking to his brother. But the first is larger and more important than the latter.

[rayofspades]

How to Write a Horror Story: The Magnus Archives

This post is kinda weird since most tumblr fandom content is based on the assumption that Everyone Has Seen The Thing, but since this is a transcript of a video essay, it’s more broad. 

I might link the video in a reblog since, you know, tumblr doesn’t like links.

Anyways, here’s the post:

Hello Jon, apologies for the decep-

I’ve seen a lot of mystery shows in my day, and some supernatural shows, and the common thread between them is that they kind of...fall apart as they go on. 

Obviously, this is a generalization and I haven’t seen every mystery show or every paranormal show, but it’s a pretty common problem. 

At this point in pop culture criticism, it’s basically common knowledge that these shows fall apart due to a lack of planning. If a mystery series is making shit up as it goes along while trying to surprise the audience, it’s going to stop making sense at some point. And if an episodic paranormal show is constantly trying to up the stakes, eventually it’s going to become absolutely ridiculous and stretch the audience’s suspension of disbelief past a breaking point. 

Other people have already talked about this stuff to death, but today I want to talk about a paranormal mystery show that actually succeeds at what it set out to do.  

The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonny Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newall. It ran from 2016 to 2021 and it’s...really really good. It’s an episodic horror story, taking place at the fictional Magnus Institute where the head archivist reads various statements about people’s encounters with supernatural entities. It’s got it all; scary stories, mystery, an overarching plot, office comedy, office romance, office tragedy, a villain that’s making straight men everywhere question their sexuality, and an overall really solid structure. 

If you listen to the Q+As put out by the writer and director, you’ll hear them talk about how they planned the series from the beginning, setting up the layout for each season. Some things were definitely changed throughout the actual writing process; that’s just inevitable and necessary when you’re working on a long running show, but in a general sense, they knew where they were going. But, writing a good story doesn’t just involve knowing where you’re going; it’s about executing whatever plan you have effectively. And I think the execution of The Magnus Archives is pretty brilliant, so I want to talk about it. 

And for the record, I said “brilliant,” not “perfect.” I do have a lot of criticisms of this show, and I’m definitely going to talk about those too, because honestly? Even the problems with this show are interesting in their own right. 

Ok, let’s go. 

Oh, spoilers by the way. For the whole plot. Whole thing. 

Part 1: Horror and Mystery 

Ok, so The Magnus Archives has two separate plots going on: the episodic stories that can be listened to individually, and the underlying meta plot. The former is where most of the mystery storytelling takes place, and it’s a really engaging mystery. It’s starts off slow, and almost undetectable at first. The main character, Jon, also known as The Archivist, is just reading out old scary stories that people have delivered to the Magnus Institute. Stuff like; a college student sees a ghostly inhuman figure asking for a cigarette, a woman’s fiancé dies and she finds herself trapped in an empty graveyard, there’s this goth kid who apparently murdered his mother and then skinned her? But she’s kind of still alive? What the f*ck? Hope we never see that kid again. Also, this “Jurgen Lietner” guy wrote a bunch of cursed books and Jon knows about this? Are more books gonna come up? And then you’re like, wait is the goth kid who killed that burn victim the same goth kid who killed his mom like 8 episodes ago? Holy shit the family of that girl’s dead fiancé FUNDS THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE? Did this famous youtuber meet one of the missing people from episode one? The goth kid is back and he’s looking for Leitner books? The name “Michael” has come up like 6 times? Are they all the same guy? I just—who the f*ck is Jurgen Leitner? 

So yeah, as you can see, a lot of these stories connect in cool ways, and I’ve only mentioned like, 0.2 percent of all of those connections. Furthermore, these stories are told out of chronological order, and sometimes the same scenario appears in more than one statement, told from different perspectives. This asymmetrical storytelling and odd doling out of information creates a mystery that’s really interesting. It also makes for a great re-listen, since you can retroactively see what elements were set up before you even realized that they were going to come back.  

The audio format contributes to this too; you can’t just see that the table from episode three matches the pattern on the box in episode eight. You have to pick up on clues that were mentioned and pay attention to what people are describing, and it’s highly rewarding when the pieces all start to fit together. 

There is a bit of a downside to this though. Technically The Magnus Archives is a horror story first and a mystery second, and these two elements can mesh in weird ways. 

The horror is element is really strong. Each story is completely different, sometimes focusing on psychological horror, body horror, or supernatural versions of more primal fears like heights, darkness, enclosed spaces, etc. Basically, if you’re afraid of anything, there will be at least one episode of The Magnus Archives that gets under your skin. 

Jonny Sims can really sell his stories through both his writing and acting. He plays Jon, by the way, and plagiarized his own birth certificate for the character name. (For future reference, Jonny is the actor, Jon is the character). Overall, he’s really good at writing prose, and each narrator has a very distinct voice even though the large majority of the stories are being read by one character/actor.  

Obviously not every episode is a bull’s eye. Sometimes it’s due to the subjectivity when it comes to what you as an audience member are scared of, and occasionally it’s just weird writing decisions. I’m thinking specifically of episode 21 where the line “the sky ate him” is said, and it is the worst line in the entire show. The whole goddamn show. That’s it. That’s the number one worst line. 

But still, overall, the horror storytelling is incredibly solid, and some episodes even gave me brand new fears, like the unholy isolation of being in space, or the concept that someone you love could be replaced by someone completely different without you noticing.  

But here’s the thing; 

A lot of good horror is based on the absence of explanation. Most of the episodes that gave me the most visceral reactions of genuine terror come from the first two seasons, because that’s when the audience has the least amount of information. 

For example, in episode two, a really terrifying coffin is introduced. It’s creepy, it reacts very strangely to water for some reason, and appears to compel people to try opening it. By the end of the episode, the audience never finds out what’s in that coffin and that is a good thing. That is a huge part of what made that episode so unnerving.  

And then a few seasons later, we do find out what’s in the coffin, and to be fair the answer is both very creative and very scary, but it also takes a lot of the punch out of episode two. 

 No matter how f*cked up your thing is, it’s not going to compare to whatever the audience can conjure up in their own mind after such a creepy set up. This problem isn’t just stuck in this one scenario either; there are a lot of early episodes that, while still good, seem a lot less creepy in hindsight after you learn more about the scenario. 

I don’t think it’s bad writing, but I do think it’s a double-edged sword. Jonny Sims even mentions this sort of issue in the first Q+A. 

But yeah, to sum up; the narration is good, the ideas are creative, and seeing the mystery unfurl itself is deeply compelling. And for the record, the mystery elements aren’t of the Sherlock Holmes variety. It’s less about finding out who did the thing, and more about discovering how all of these individual points are intricately connected, pulling on each other as they move. Woven together like a... oh shit what’s the word? Gah, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Ah, whatever, I’m sure it’s not like a running motif or anything.  

Part 2: Stakes 

One of the main reasons I stopped watching Supernatural is that it devolves into complete f*cking nonsense. At the end of season five, the boys literally defeat the devil, and then the show...keeps going? Which would be fine. It’s also, largely, an episodic show, so if they have more creative ideas, they could definitely keep going with it. In fact, there are some post season five episodes that I thought were pretty good. But as they kept trying to outdo themselves with Bigger Bads, it got kind of difficult to suspend my disbelief. And the final nail in the coffin for me was the end of season nine, when Crowly basically points out to the audience that the main characters keep dying and coming back to life, so there are no stakes. The most-badest bad guy can always be defeated because some new Thing can just come out of left-field, and dying isn’t even on the table as a threat since people have tons of ways of coming back to life. 

The Magnus Archives, while being a show based in the supernatural, notably doesn’t bring anyone back to life, even though some very beloved characters die. I say “notably,” because in the season three Q+A, Jonny even says, “We make a point not to bring people back from the dead in Magnus, I know it sometimes feels like that, but we are very careful to never actually resurrect anyone.” 

Upon listening to this I said “oh my god, these guys are the only writers left who at least kind of know what they’re doing.”  

Also, as far as plot progression goes, The Magnus Archives is lowkey structurally perfect in the way the threats escalate in the underlying plot; both in terms of destruction and power and in terms of emotional consequences. Season one starts off with one major threat that’s dealt with by the end of the season, season two reveals the main villain, season three lays out the grander forces at play, season four ends the world, and season five is about un-ending the world. The difference between season one and season five is vast, but how we got there makes perfect sense. 

As for the emotional stakes, let’s talk about themes and characters. 

Part 3: Themes and Characters 

At the very end of season two, it’s revealed that the supernatural happenings in the Magnus universe are the result of entities far beyond our understanding. Since their existence is so fundamentally different from what we can comprehend, they interact with the world through cursed items, creatures, and humans who have dedicated themselves to an entity.  

A lot of people read this as a metaphor for late-stage capitalism, and I am one of those people. A bunch of faceless entities exploiting humans through means of dehumanization and causing people to suffer because it feeds them seems like an appropriate metaphor. 

While we’re on this topic, I do want to talk about Elias, since he’s the main villain of the entire series and also one of my favorite villains of all time. The Magnus Archives is a series that deals with a lot of moral questions and has a lot of characters who do morally questionable things, so one might assume that the villain of said series is, you know, morally ambiguous and sympathetic to some extent despite being “the bad guy.” 

Nope! No stops, full bastard. It’s great. 

He falls under what I’ve deemed the “unbeatable boss” archetype. He just doesn’t tolerate insubordination or resistance, and that combined with his lack of empathy means that anyone who crosses him is either killed or brought to heel. His power set is cool too. On the surface the ability to see out of any eye and read minds sounds useful, but not deal breaking, but the way he uses that power to manipulate people and anticipate threats...yeah, it makes him kind of impossible to beat.  

He’s just...so evil and he loves being evil and every single f*cking thing he does pisses me off and makes me want to kill him. It’s. Great. 

Anyways, I think Elias’s role as the central antagonist is what makes the capitalist reading so common. He’s the head of the institute, he��s wealthy, he’s powerful, and he dehumanizes people in ways that are both brutal and chillingly indifferent. He seems like an appropriate stand in through that lens. 

I also love how voice actor Ben Meredith plays him like’s he’s trying to seduce the audience.  

With all of that said, I wouldn’t call this the critique of capitalism a direct allegory or anything; in much looser terms, this could be a metaphor for any power structure that exploits humans. Organized religion or cults might be even more on the nose, considering there’s a lot of mentions of rituals and worship within the show. 

But if we boil it down to its barest aspects and focus on the avatar characters, The Magnus Archives is a series about people becoming monsters. Or, at the very least, becoming worse versions of themselves. That can mean a lot of things to different people in a metaphorical sense; the tense relationship between desperation and morality, the eagerness to please at the cost of one’s own mental health, the psychological traumas that lead people down dark paths, and how personal choices can still be dictated and manipulated by outside influences. It’s kind of heavy stuff, but put into a digestible package through the show’s abstractions. 

Well, for the most part.  

There’s some debate as to whether or not Daisy’s arc was handled tastefully. While her demise and Basira’s character arc were clearly meant to condemn police brutality and the deeply corrupt system that allows it to foster, it’s still a weird subject to discuss in such a fantastical context, and there is a strange sympathy for the devil angle that can get kind of uncomfortable for some listeners.  

Okay, stepping back from that for a bit, let’s talk about Jon and how he fits into this whole “people becoming corrupted” thing. 

Jon has one of my favourite brands of character arc, which is one based in deterioration alongside growth. The most obvious way this takes form is his departure from humanity as his relationship with the Eye drives him to psychologically harm others, and he finds himself sympathizing more and more with the people he was afraid of, stating in episode 152 that anyone listening to his recordings might compare him to the other avatars that have had their minds and morals twisted. 

Over the course of the series, he is repeatedly traumatized and the show makes a point that he is being both physically and emotionally scarred. These happenings are what drive his motivation for revenge in season five, and he even states that revenge is making him a worse person. As a character he’s constantly berating himself and his own monstrousness, much to Martin’s dismay.  

That’s why the finale destroys me in the best way. Upon seeing that Jon has betrayed him and basically given himself over to the Eye, Martin asks “how much of you is even left?” And when Jon tries to reassure him that he’s still himself, Martin’s response is “how would you even know?” This cuts through me every time. Up until this point, Martin had consistently stood up for Jon and Jon’s humanity, even in the face of Tim’s doubt, Basira’s mistrust, Elias being cryptic, and Jon’s own self-hatred. This is the ultimate breaking point, the point where even Martin, the love of Jon’s life, doesn’t really recognize him. It’s brutal. Because at the end of the day, Jon is still himself; he’s a deeply broken person trying to make the right decisions.  

We’ll come back to the finale later, but for now I want to talk about the romance. 

Jon’s emotional growth throughout the series is largely tied into Martin. Martin’s the first person that Jon really opens up to, and this later grows into trust which then turns into a genuine emotional connection.  On the flip side, Martin’s growth in season four is largely tied into Jon. Martin starts season four basically waiting to die, but Jon’s return gives him a reason to keep living, and he’s later able to recognize his own value outside of the pure utility of ‘you need to set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.’ Both of them give each other reason to push onward despite everything becoming more and more hopeless.  

It’s a good romance. I wish the two had had a few more scenes together before the culmination, but it is built up over the course of four seasons and comes together in an utterly fantastic confession.  

And yeah, the scene with Martin and Jon in the Lonely is cheesy as hell, but it is the highest quality of cheese. These are some gourmet nachos.  

Umm, also kind of stating the obvious here, but it’s also pretty cool that the main character in this horror story falls in love with another man. You don’t see that a lot, and it’s cool that no one even makes a big deal out of it. It’s just a normal romance, but with two guys. It’s nice. 

So, they go to Scottland, they hang out, they’re in love, Jonalias starts the apocalypse through Jon, the world ends, and season five starts! 

...Let’s talk about season five! 

Part 4: Season 5 

At the very start of this post, I said that supernatural mysteries tend to get worse as they go along, and I am deeply sad to report that I don’t think that The Magnus Archives is an exception. It just goes downhill in a very different way than its ilk. 

And, so we’re clear, I don’t think season five totally tanks or becomes unlistenable, it’s just, in my opinion, notably worse than the rest of the show. 

As discussed earlier, it doesn’t fall apart due to a lack of planning; everything still makes sense, but the presentation has changed drastically. The episodic statements are no longer scary stories, but more like slam poems about the various hellscapes that Jon and Martin are trekking through. Honestly if these were published in a book of slam poetry, I would probably think they slapped pretty hard. I genuinely believe that Jonny Sims is a good writer, but as a podcast a lot of these statements just made me zone out. There’s at least four that I don’t even slightly remember. Myself and many others have noted that they just...aren’t scary, unless there’s a specific episode that really gets under your skin due to a certain fear or phobia. 

To quote my friend, “it’s harder to feel a solid impact when the setting is literally divorced from reality. People would either go numb or insane to the point where their fears become unrelatable.” 

And, to be honest, I think that this same surreal odyssey set up could have worked with a slight shift in narration. Two stand out episodes for me were “Strung Out” and “Wonderland.” Both of them show the tormented target actively trying to resist and interact with their tormenter, instead of just trying to escape or live through their situation. “Strung Out” is also more of character study; you learn about Francis’s life before the apocalypse through their interaction with the Web hellscape. Meanwhile “Wonderland” is just...f*cked, and you get to see Jon take the perspective of first-person Bad Guy throughout the whole thing, which is its own level of disturbing. 

But the majority of episodes feel so abstract that I kind of forget the people trapped in them are supposed to be characters and not just concepts, so it’s harder to feel their dread and pain. 

But I’m still here for the metaplot, the drama, and the romance. And when that’s good, it’s great! I think the final handful of episodes are really solid in that regard. 

Buuuuuuut... 

A decent chunk of season five is dedicated to the “kill bill” plot. Jon discovers he has the power to smite people, and while at first, he’s embarrassed about this, since he actively enjoyed killing Not!Sasha, Martin is super into it! He’s encouraging Jon to murder people.  

This is actually the set up for a really good arc. As Jon gets more and more into his own avenging angel persona, Martin could get more and more disturbed by it so by the time they get to London, Martin could be really upset that Jon is so willing to wreak his own divine justice by killing or torturing all of the avatars. 

And this does kind of happen. We do reach this end state, and it makes for a good final conflict, but the way we got here was borderline nonsense. Thematic gibberish, if you will. 

Throughout the journey, Martin is clearly motived by a sense of justice; these people are bad, and so they should die. Whereas Jon is clearly more motivated by revenge; he only goes after the avatars that hurt him personally. At one point, Jon admits that maybe all of this killing isn’t making anything better, but just making him worse. Martin apologizes for egging him on, Jon absolves him by saying he started it, and then Martin’s like “I’ll keep my apology then.” This is the second worst line in the entire series, right after “the sky ate him.” And it’s close. 

But it kind of feels like we’re back at square one. Jon is back to being ashamed of killing and Martin is still keen on his justice stance, but now just less pushy about it. The arc is basically half resolved at this point. 

But then it doesn’t matter, because Jon kills Helen anyway. So, Jon’s back on his revenge/justice thing. Then what was the point of his earlier revelation? Why have that if it’s not going to matter and the conflict that was escalating still culminates with Jon leaning into the avenging angel stuff, and Martin being disturbed by it? It just makes both of them look like huge hypocrites! I f*cking hate it when they’re in the tunnels and Martin says “you weren’t meant to enjoy it this much,” regarding Jon’s smiting. Where did this come from?! Why didn’t you say this earlier? Third worst line in the series. 

And yeah, I’ll say it; the boys fight too much in this season. I loved their romance up to season five, and their cute moments and more lowkey serious discussions are still good in this season, but God, they fight so much. And I’m not saying couples can’t have fights or tension, that’s just realistic and also stories need conflict to be interesting. Jonny Sims is on the record saying that balancing a healthy romance with the stress of a literal apocalypse was a priority, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s well balanced.  I’m just saying that sometimes it feels like they don’t even like each other and it really started to grate on me. 

Maybe it would have been better if the beginning of this season was dedicated to charming romance at first, so we as an audience could better appreciate how strong their love is and how it’s truly being tested. But obviously that was never on the table— 

ALEX NO. 

So, yeah, I have a lot of problems with season. I think it’s the worst one by far, even though there is a lot of it I still enjoy, including the ending. 

As I mentioned before, the moment where Martin confronts Jon in the panopticon absolutely kills me, and Jon’s reaction kills me even harder. Throughout the season, Jon had largely been motivated by revenge, martyrdom, and the subconscious call of the Eye, and all three of those factors led him to his position as the pupil. He’s getting revenge against the powers, sacrificing his humanity to get rid of the Fears, and taking his place as wearer of the watcher’s crown. But all of this gets thrown out the window when he realizes that Martin is going to die. And not only is Martin going to die, Martin is going to die specifically because he loves Jon and refuses to leave Jon alone to die horribly. Martin had always been an underlying motivation for Jon, his “reason” as stated in episode 167, but now love as a motivator has come to the forefront, and Jon can no longer go through with his plan because of it. But at this point in the series, they’re both utterly doomed, and Jon concludes that the only possible chance they have of surviving, however unlikely, would be to sever the pupil of the eye, technically killing Jon, but maybe, just maybe, allowing them to escape with the Fears. Whether that’s meant to be literal or more ethereal is left unclear. Hell, maybe Jon’s just making it up completely and creating his own potential happy ending. It’s a pretty potent ending in emotional terms; Jon has to release the Fears and Martin has to kill Jon, and those are the two things they were dead set on not doing.  

The Web, arguably the real main antagonist, basically won, and their manipulation of Jon worked. The destruction spread, and there is kind of a bleak underlying tone to that. 

But at least this ending has some semblance of hope to it. I’m not saying that releasing the Fears was objectively the correct moral decision; the entire point of the dilemma is that there was no objectively correct moral decision. But, while Jon’s solution does have merit, it was also the most hopeless. I think dramatically, any one of the choices on the table could have worked if the writing was well executed, but thematically this one seemed like the perfect combination of grim and optimistic. Like, all of the evils that plague humanity can’t just be defeated forever and things could get worse, but maybe not. Maybe everything works out... 

So yeah, The Magnus Archives...is a podcast. And it’s a really good podcast. Great, even. I can complain about season five all I want, but regardless of how that worked out, you can tell throughout the entire show that the people working on it were trying to tell a genuinely excellent story. 

It’s good. Go listen to it. Even though I spoiled the entire thing and if you’re still here, you’ve probably already listened to it. Listen to it again.