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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Star Trek Doctors, Ranked By Crankiness

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This Star Trek: Lower Decks article contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 3.

In the very first filmed episode of Star Trek: The Original Series — “The Cage” — Captain Pike drinks itty-bitty martinis with the Enterprise’s chief physician, Dr. Boyce (John Hoyt.) And although it remains to be seen if we’ll be seeing Boyce in Stranger New Worlds, the tradition of the cranky — but wise — Starfleet doctor was started right there. After Boyce and Piper, Star Trek set the standard for cranky, wise-cracking doctors in space with the introduction of Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy; as played by the wonderful DeForest Kelley.

While Kelley passed away in 1999, the spirit of Bones lives on. Not just in the Karl Urban version of Bones in the reboot films, but also in the foul-mouthed, utterly hilarious Catian medical officer, Dr. T’ana (Gillian Vigman) on Star Trek: Lower Decks. In the most recent episode of Lower Decks, “Mugato, Gumato,” T’ana demonstrated some next-level crankiness, as she avoided her own physical examination, something Bones had to prod Kirk to do all the time, including his first-ever filmed episode, “The Corbomite Maneuver.” But is Bones actually still the crankiest Star Trek doctor? Has T’ana dethroned him?

The only way to find out is to rank all the Trek doctors from least cranky to most cranky, and find out who is the hardest to please, and as a result, possibly the doctor we paradoxically love the most.

(Note: With some exceptions, we’ve excluded characters who were Starfleet doctors who weren’t regular recurring characters. This is why Dr. Selar from TNG isn’t on this list, even though as a Vulcan, she’s inherently cranky.)

10. Dr. Tracy Pollard (Discovery)

The least cranky doctor on this list is easily Dr. Pollard on Star Trek: Discovery. This woman even puts up with Georgiou, a dictator from an alternate universe who wants to die. As played by the fantastic Raven Daudu, it’s very possible Dr. Pollard is the best doctor on this list. She also may never be recognized as such, because she’s really even-tempered, kind and way too busy saving people’s lives to complain.

9. Dr. Phlox (Enterprise)

Phlox isn’t just one of the nicest Star Trek doctors ever, he’s actively one of the most likable characters in the entire franchise. Played charmingly by John Billingsley in all four seasons of Enterprise, Phlox projected a childlike curiosity of the universe combined with a ton of knowledge and wisdom of having seen more of the quadrant than most of the other characters. Phlox is also, perhaps, the most tolerant Star Trek doctor, insofar as he never pushes his cultural views onto others, even though, in some episodes, like “Dear, Doctor,” he’s torn apart by his own set of ethics. Oh, and he saved the life of Porthos, Captain Archer’s dog in “A Night in Skybay,” AND while doing so, managed to make a joke that Porthos would develop lizard-chameleon powers in the process. That’s bedside manner!

8. Dr. Hugh Culber (Discovery)

Who doesn’t love this guy? Since Season 1 of Discovery, Culber has put up with shit from everyone, and very rarely has he snapped. Yes, in Season 2, after coming back from the dead, he was pretty pissed off at everyone. But, as he said in Season 3, “My murderer and I are good now!” In episodes like “Su’kal” and “Die Trying,” Culber is one of the kindest and simultaneously most practical Star Trek doctors of all time. He doesn’t lie to anyone, but he does know how to make you feel better. Out of all the Discovery regulars, Culber feels cut from the same cloth as someone like Deanna Troi or Guinan. He’s smart, insightful and empathic.

7. Dr. Beverly Crusher (The Next Generation)

Crusher certainly has the ability to sass her patients, but she’s basically a nice person. Whenever Crusher freaks out on anyone it’s always because she’s either in love with a ghost that lives in a candle (“Sub Rosa”), her feelings are being manipulated by a nearby Vulcan (“Sarek”) or Jean-Luc is messing around with her emotions. (All of The Next Generation.) Crusher suffers the fools she works with, but she does it with grace and dignity. That said, you kind of know she hates certain people in certain moments, which can probably just be attributed to Gates McFadden’s flawless talent.

6. Emil, Rios’ EMH (Star Trek: Picard)

Rios has a lot of cranky holograms in Season 1 of Picard, but his medical hologram is not even close to being the most difficult of all of them. In fact, he’s pretty cordigal, and reasonable, which is odd considering the situation he’s in. Clearly, among the holograms on the La Sirena, Emil is one of the most well-adjusted. You wouldn’t want him as your primary physician in real life, and because he’s basically connected to the personality of Rios the possibility that he might become super cranky is certainly there. But, so far, he’s right on the line.

5. Dr. Julian Bashir (Deep Space Nine)

Okay, we’re crossing over into slightly cranky territory here. Bashir began his journey on DS9 as a cocky jerk, which isn’t the same as the kind of crankiness we’re talking about here. The Bones-style of crankiness is the kind of crank we can get down with. Bashir’s off-putting personality was — at first — not something anyone admired or liked. That said, as Alexander Siddig evolved the character, Bashir didn’t become more cranky, but he did develop righteous indignation. When Bashir got his indignant buzz on in episodes like “Past Tense,” or “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges,” he was really at his best. To be clear, Bashir isn’t a nice doctor, and this is where we cross the threshold.

4. Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Star Trek: The Original Series)

Although he set the standard for crankiness, in the entire canon of Trek, Bones is somehow not the most cranky Star Trek doctor. The reasons for this are threefold: First, there are three characters on this list who are much crankiner than him. Second, Bones is actually a sweetheart deep down, and demonstrates his love for Spock over and over again, despite his terrible, terrible comments. Finally, Bones can’t be the crankiest doctor on this list because Dax heavily implied in “Trials and Tribble-ations,” that one of her previous hosts — Emony Dax — totally hooked-up with him. For some reason, this detail makes it seem like he’s a lot nicer than he comes across. And again, The Search for Spock exists.

3. Dr. Katherine Pulaski (The Next Generation)

In 1988, Pulaski would have easily been number one on this list. She mispronounces Data’s name, doesn’t feel bad about it, and proceeds to kind of make everyone else on the ship feel awful. Pulaski is a pretty good doctor, and not remotely a bad person, but she’s pretty damn cranky. The brilliant Diane Muldar plays Pulaski like someone who has been transferred to a job she doesn’t really want, which is sort of amazing considering at this point, Roddenberry didn’t want Starfleet characters to have interpersonal conflict.

In “The Icarus Factor ” (which the latest Lower Decks also referenced) Pulaski also thinks Riker’s deadbeat dad is hot and tells Riker this point blank when he’s reminding her that his dad is the worst. This alone gives her deeply strange tastes, and makes her super cranky and weird AF. Don’t mess with Pulaksi! If you talk about how your friend is mean, she might throw it in your face and say she likes them better than you anyway!

2. Dr. T’ana (Lower Decks)

Okay. So Dr. T’ana is almost the most cranky Star Trek doctor ever. Combining the best qualities of Bones, with that weird go-shove-it-vibe from Pulaksi, Gillian Vigman turns it all up to 11. It helps that T’ana is a cat-person (I.E. the Catian species) but her crankiness is more than that. She’s kind of sadistic, and isn’t afraid to use boulders to knock “strange energies” out of people when the time comes. T’ana is sort of burnt-out, but also, is kind of unflappable too. Like, you get the sense that she’s sick of all this space sickness stuff, but she’s got too much proffensionality to say she can’t do something. The secret crankiness of Dr. T’ana is that seemingly she can fix anything that is wrong with anyone. But, she’s going to make fun of them for it, and get pissed off if you look at her the wrong way.

That said, like Bones, you get the sense that none of it is personal. Which is what makes her Starfleet all the way.

1. The EMH (Voyager)

Robert Picardo’s Emergency Medical Hologram is the best cranky Star Trek doctor. There are many reasons for this. His arrogance. His constant complaining. The fact that he has good reason to complain, considering he’s a hologram that has to do other people’s bidding. But the reason that tops all other reasons is the way that Picardo can make his crankiness clear with the simple inflection of his voice. It’s not what he says. It’s how he says it. And if you need proof, all you have to do is go back to the very first Voyager episode ever, “Caretaker.” When the Doctor has to start triage on the wounded crew, he asks somebody to hand him a tricorder. He looks at it, and realizes it’s not the right kind of tricorder, and hands it back and says “medical tricorder.” The amount of venom in this comment cannot be communicated in print. The way Picardo says medical tricorder is so dismissive and frustrated, that he basically created a new level of crankiness with one single utterance.

T’ana may be creeping up the EMH from behind, but this cranky crown will be hard to swipe. Especially from a hologram.

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Lower Decks airs new episodes on Thursdays on Paramount+.

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marvels-writings · 5 years ago

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Livewire (2)

Part 1

Request: Hey:) I absolutely love this blog. Your imagines are entertaining to read. Can I request a Carol x R? Endgame/post endgame (hate/love) scenario: Everyone is trying to deal w/ their grief, Carol always seems to target R when lashing out/or acting cocky/arrogant. R remains infuriatingly calm & ignores her or responds in genuinely friendly manner but says things that fluster/get under Carol's skin. After they win, Carol eventually realizes that while R drives her crazy, she is crazy about her ;)

Extra: Hey! regarding the Carol x R request in which Carol lashes out at the R a lot during Endgame events, just want to add: R-when being yelled/screamed at responds in a polite/friendly manner, their response either leaves others speechless/makes them want to scream in rage/frustration, not because their response was insulting, but because it was said in that calm friendly manner= basically this person does not feel provoked/threatened in the slightest by the other person's anger or rage lol.

A/N: this part was mainly inspired from a prompt that I read on pinterest maybe a year ago and it popped into my head yesterday so it inspired this entire part. I promise I’ll get back to the request soon.

“Someone’s pissed off.” you commented from your spot on the couch as Carol came in, completely drenched in sweat as she swatted hair out of her eyes.

“My hair got in my face and it’s just so much of a hassle.” She groaned, plopping down next to you on the couch. After the incident with her blasting you a few days back, she was mostly quieter and actively trying to be better. You noticed, and appreciated it a lot.

“I can cut it if you want.” You offered, Carol looked as if you’d just offered her a planet.

“You know how to cut hair?” Carol asked, crossing her legs and facing you, you pulled your book down and looked at her, nodding.

“I did a bit of work experience at a salon before life got weirder.” You answered, Carol opened her mouth to ask you but you cut her off. “Take a shower first, you’re making the ship smell like a sweaty gym.”

Carol rolled her eyes and got up, smacking your good arm lightly for the comment, you giggled but got back to your book.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

“Cut it.” Carol groaned, sitting on the couch in front of you with her hair dried after 20 minutes with the blow drier, you’ve never seen it poofier, you couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m serious, please?”

“Since you’re asking so nicely.” You commented, and got up to get the scissors from the kitchen and a large cloth from your bedroom.

You put the cloth around her neck and told her to sit on one of the stools near the dining table, she complied, sitting in a relaxed pose as she skimmed the book you had been reading. It was one of your favorites as a teenager, Titan by Ben Bova.

“You know this is actual bullshit right?” She asked, the book still on her lap as she read and you came back with everything you needed, including a small comb. You even switched on a bluetooth speaker you’d gotten from Earth and let your favorite music play on it.

“Then why are you reading it.” You reached to take it away but Carol pulled it away from your grasp.

“I don’t have anything else to do.” Carol answered, you rolled your eyes, pondering how to cut it.

“How short do you want it cut?” You asked, Carol raised both her hands, pulling lightly at her hair until she showed you she wanted it cut so it was only about 3-4 inches long. “That short?”

“It’s too much of a hassle.” Carol complained, reading your book.

“Alright stop whining, you’re gonna be reading for some time.” You replied, starting with trimming her hair first.

For about 20 minutes or so, Carol was able to ignore the feeling of your hands in her hair and your soft humming as you cut her hair. When you started to get closer to her scalp, it got harder to ignore. You’d finished trimming the top so it didn’t get in your way of cutting the sides.

“Um, do you have a razor or a trimmer of some sort?” You asked, leaning away and hoping she did.

“Should I?” Carol asked, absorbed in your book, finally able to focus on the words without your hands in her hair.

“It would make my life a lot easier.” You muttered, sighing and trimming the last few ends of the top of her head before gently brushing it away from the back.

Carol’s breath hitched when she felt your fingers gently comb your hair, she bit her lip and tried to keep focusing on the book. You took your hands away and squatted on Carol’s side, causing her to let go of her lip instantly, making sure you didn’t notice.

“Don’t move.” You said softly, focused on cutting her hair.

You put the comb right beside her head, capturing all of the hair longer than about a centimeter, then going to cut it off, trying not to touch Carol directly. For the most part it was working, but sometimes, your hand accidentally grazed her head or touched it directly while holding the comb, causing Carol to fluster a bit.

Soon enough, that side was done, you moved so you could cut the other side, doing the same procedure but a little neater, and touching Carol a bit less. You noticed Carol flipping the pages much slower than before and smiled a little before moving to the back of her head.

“This is gonna be a bit more tricky.” You muttered, dragging over another chair so you could sit.

You sighed and leaned forwards so you could see better, practically breathing on Carol’s neck. Carol clenched and unclenched her jaw when she felt your breath tickling her neck, she suppressed a shudder and flipped the page.

You did the same procedure as you did on the sides but on the back of her head, your breath on her neck as you barely touched her head. She could practically feel your voice as you hummed to the song that was playing. Carol’s jaw was clenched almost the entire time, your breath on her neck flustering her more than ever. You were just a friend to her, a really attractive friend who she practically lived with.

Finally, the back of her head was done, you pulled away, admiring your work before noticing half of the strands were still uneven.

“Almost done.” You commented, deciding to keep sitting while cutting the rest of her head.

This time, you gave up on using the comb and used your hands instead, deciding it was simpler. You gently put your hand on the back of her head, using it to even out the hair. Carol’s breath hitched and jaw clenched again when she felt your hands in her hair.

The next 10 minutes were pure torture for Carol, you noticed she hadn’t flipped a single page ever since you’d started using your hands instead of thecomb.

You shrugged, continuing to cut her hair, you couldn’t help but start singing when one of your favorites came on. Carol felt your voice and warm breath on her neck whenever you sang, her skin hypersensitive whenever you touched her, she stopped counting the amount of times she had taken a deep breath to try to calm herself.

Finally finished, and completely oblivious, you kneeled in front of Carol, trying to make sure the sides were even. You reached out with both hands and gently pulled on the hair on the sides, making sure it was even.

“Wha, what are you doing?” Carol asked softly, completely flustered as her jaw clenched again.

“Making sure it’s even,” You replied, repeating the motion on the sides of her head before going to the top. “Go back to my ‘bullshit’ book you’ve been reading for the past hour.”

Carol glanced at the clock, you were right, it had been an hour since you were making her impossibly flustered. You repeatedly ran your hands through her hair trying to make sure it was even.

You found one strand that wasn’t even And held it out on top of Carol’s head, almost like a unicorn horn. You smirked when you saw Carol get flustered but still hurried up with cutting her hair.

Finally satisfied with the work you did, you smiled, Carol looked amazing with the haircut, stunning actually. Still squatting in front of her, you started running your hands through it, trying to style it.

“Now what are you doing?” Carol muttered, trying to focus on the book, your warm hands running through her hair making it harder than ever.

“There.” You said, leaning back with a happy smile as you looked at her, the haircut looked great. You lifted up the mirror you had gotten and flipped it around to show her.

“Wow, this is really good,” Carol commented, running her own hands through it, it felt so light. She put the book on the side table and cocked her head to the side, measuring it. “Don’t you think it’s too short?”

“It looks perfect.” you answered, getting to your feet and untying the cloth as Carol got to her feet. Carol finally got enough courage and got over her blush and pecked you on the cheek before going to change.

“Thank you.” She said before heading off to change, hips swaying more than usual.

“Of, of course.” you stuttered, wondering if the gesture was friendly gesture or something else.

‘I've been pretending all my shots are blown

Cover my heart up never let it show’

Music played gently in the background as you cleaned up, overthinking everything that Carol just did, wondering if it meant something more.

Tag list: @capcarolsdanver, @versdan, @lesbian-girls-wayhaught, @lovebotlarson, @dhengkt, @5aftermidnight, @hstoria, @natasha-danvers, @veryfunnyal, @xxxtwilightaxelxxx let me know if you’d like to be in any of my tag lists!

Part 3

Part 4

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lordxgrinnyxboy · 4 years ago

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rewatching tgm for the umpteenth time: wifi's not working edition 1/?

ngl i've Never, In My LIFE, done any singing or acting outside of puppet shows when i was in like the 3rd grade but every time i watch TGM i'm more and more like "GOD i wanna be cast as Barkilphedro" and i don't even know why? like why would i want to be the greasy clown nasty? He has No Rights? I Don't Like Him Or Sympathize With Him At All? And Yet???? It must be a calling.

there's like. two barrels on the stage.

uggggggh i love Ensemble!Maskell and Ensemble!Obianyo they're both so pretty

FEEL SO LOW YOUR PULSE NEEDS CHECKING

ngl Barkilphedro has No Rights and he gets No Sympathy from me but i do feel sorry for him when he talks about his mother. also sucks for him that he wasted so much time hoping his loyalty to Clarence would pay off, only to get nothing but mockery in return. also also as 'comical' as the Erotic Breakfast Dance scene is played it's still...really gross and Not Okay. This dude's 100% culpable for his actions and he made his own choices and is absolutely slimy but it's like those bits in LotR when they talk about Bilbo pitying Gollum. idk i just kinda hate that ol' Barky let himself be twisted into such a wretched creature. He crossed the No Rights line the night he decided to carve up a kid's face tho and just kept right on going.

ensemble!maskell is so cute send help

it's the eye makeup and the lighting it's just. a really good look

ms. obianyo pls

just noticed Bark's little pose on "obsessed with the pursuit of beauty"

okay so i've seen some comments around about Clarence's "How do you keep your pecker up" remark and just thought i'd- dude's fingernails. wow they're so shiny. ahem -mention here that i've looked into this expression before and it's actually a term that i guess is mainly used in England or something and it's like nose = beak = 'pecker' as in birds which ‘peck’ things with their beaks. It's basically the same as "keep your chin up". Snufkin says it to Moomin. I mean with Clarence i wouldn't put it past him to mean it another way but also given where the show is set it makes sense he would use such a term.

ngl i want to Know about Angelica tho like. why is she Brutalized. why did Clarence send her awaey. i actually want to know about the whole family. I feel like it's a three separate moms situation but even if it's only two separate moms Where Are The Moms. did Clarence send Them awaey too? Did one or more of them Die? Were they Killed? oh god what if it's like in Light Princess and he actually Had (one of/)Them Executed. I think it's interesting that Clarence Lorded Dirry-Moir. we don't get to know about how he treated Josiana, but none of his kids even turn up to his funeral and the only one who talks about him at all only does so to denounce him.

also thinking about the differences yet similarities between the Green Box Family and the Royal Family but i can't articulate worth anything rn so i'll just *pins for later*

love Ensemble!Brisson

also ngl even if the whole Royal Introduction/Lords on Palace Hill bit isn't 100% literal it still paints a pretty clear picture of the kind of toxic and vapid society that's encouraged under Clarence's reign.

does 'bonnie prince' mean anything specific or

ugh i love Osric

wait i just noticed the stripies on dirry--moir's shirt. nice. i'd wear that.

not as much as i'd wear the heck out of Osric's coat though. actually his whole outfit. add Osric/Lord Trelaw to Roles I Wanna Be Cast For In The Timeline Where I Sing And Act

the face Dirry-Moir makes while Osric's getting started introducing the fair tho. he looks like a kid trying to fit in with a cool new friend group.

the way Mr Maskell sings "we have a huge collection of the crippled and the dabbed" tho it sounds like he's got a cold

i'm gonna need somebody to meet me irl just to do that lil dance that Dirry-Moir and Osric do after "If you've got the money/I've got the misery" it looks fun!

au where Mr. Maskell stays on stage through the end of Laughter is the Beast Medicine. i need to See him do the choreo for this part.

had a real cursed idea right here but no it's Too cursed

the look on Osric's face when Bark grabs his bad arm tho

this whole "imagine laughing without any cruelty at all" is such a weird bit tbh

have i already said that i love the whole look of the "the poor soul who stands before you" part like idk if it's the pose or what but Gwyn Looks Really Good In This Scene

okay but the way puppet!Gwyn holds out his hand toward his mom and then she goes to- hangon i can’t describe lemme see if separate post separate post

okay

ngl im real curious as to whether this bit on the pirate ship (idk why i’ve always defaulted to ‘pirates’ for these cats) actually happened or if Ursus fully made it up like we really Don’t get to Know how much of this has any basis in what really happened that night do we u-u

kay but the fact that Dea’s mom’s lying there with her eyes open and the way they emphasize her frozen-ness by having her arm stay up like. wow.

wait a minute is that Born Broken playing for lil baby Dea? i think it is.

yeah sing it hazlit

interesting how Ursus has little!Gwyn sing “they put blood in my nightmares” but also vow to find the man who cut him. which i mean singular ‘they’ is obviously a thing but as i doubt the intention was for Gwyn to have decided that whoever cut him must be a they/them man i just think it’s interesting that even the wording in the puppet show points to the fact that there was Someone Else There, even if it does then swerve back to a single perpetrator. But also it’s still accurate because while it was only one man who cut Gwyn’s face, it was both Barkilphedro and Ursus who contributed to putting blood in his nightmares.

honest question why is Mr. Maskell’s voice Like That like who gave him the right

love how puppet!Gwyn and puppeteer!Gwyn and later real!Gwyn all do that same little motion with their head on the word “disgrace”

OH HEY we’re at the part where Lon Don picks up NICE

add Mojo Puppeteer to my list of dream roles

wait ohmygod there’s this thing kind of hanging off the cart and i was squinting at it like “what is that” and then the cart turned around and i realize that’s the body that goes to the head-on-a-shelf ursus what the hell

wait so Dirry-Moir genuinely thinks Dea went blind from looking at Gwyn’s face but he also wants to see it? although granted Ursus said she went blind from “gazing too long” so maybe Dirry-Moir assumes he’ll be safe if it’s only a quick look. still. Concept: Post-Show Dirry-Moir having this tendency to Not Look At Gwyn very much until eventually either he explains why and somebody has to Tell Him, or maybe at some point he’s like “wait a minute. that was made up wasn’t it” and everyone has a bit of a laff

ngl i love the inside of the cart and how there’s like four, maybe five puppets, counting Beauty and Beast, and also some of the shadow puppets...all kinds of vials and bottles and what looks like painting supplies...what looks suspiciously like crimson lethe on the stove...looks like some cabinets and extra storage up very top. im curious about the layout since we only get to see one part of the cart at a time.

wait why’s the song called stars in the sky when does he say th- why isn’t it called “New World” or “dreams” or something why stars in the sky he doesn’t even say- does he say it in the reprise??? *skips ahead* NO?

does the Disney Chorus Say It??

THEY DON’T

WHY IS THE SONG CALLED STARS IN THE SKY? WHY HAVE I BEEN UNQUESTIONINGLY CALLING IT STARS IN THE- WHEN ARE STARS MENTIONED??

IS THE TITLE A REFERENCE TO THE FACT THAT URSUS IS ONE OF THE ONES WHO ASSISTED IN STRIPPING STARS FROM THE SKY? IDK BOSS IT FEELS KINDA WEAK TO ME

ugh i love ms obianyo

“to help them forget themselves” yeah that’s what you want him to do huh Ursus

“not now, Grinpayne”‘s a p curious line to include and only the fact that Gwyn’s still using his puppet!Gwyn voice while complaining is keeping me from being like “lol Gwyn’s lil rant was actually him breaking character and then Ursus just went with it like it was part of the show lol lol”

cutting here for length uwu Dea finishes the word ‘skies’ at exactly 30 minutes in which is nice bc i didn’t even have to interrupt her mid-word in order to pause for post-length.

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bleucolor · 5 years ago

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Last time I tried to post a giyushino fanfic and since i navigate myself through Tumblr like a boomer, I accidentally deleted my story. I felt like a whole ass clown but I'm feeling hopeful and I'm back with another prompt using the moon. This takes place in a modern AU where both Giyuu and Shinobu are teenagers. A random drabble for Giyushino which was inspired by being quarantined at home. Hope y'all enjoy and please do send some love 🥺👉👈

Moonlight and Sunrise

Giyuu and Shinobu were friends, however this fact was quite shocking to others due to their Light and Day personas. Tomioka Giyuu was a loner, he had like maybe 2 solid friends being Sabito and Makomo and the others were at max labeled as acquaintances. Shinobu wasn't the most popular one at their highschool but she was well known. She would always be seen alongside her two best friends, Sanemi the oversized delinquent who'd actually bite your head clear off and Uzui the player; who'd get girls left and right. With attention at both sides of the bay it'd be obvious that Shinobu would be well known around their school, being head of the pharmaceutical research club and still being an avid member of the fishing club and the flower arranging club gave Kochou quite the recognition around Kimestu Academy.

Giyuu happened to be in a different class than Sabito and Makomo to his demise thus forcing him to be the lonesome sheep he is. His classmates didn't bother much about him either and nor did he. To him, Kyojurou was too loud, Sanemi was too reckless and Iguro was too emo. He once even referred to Mitsuri as a horse girl to Sabito, but he later concluded that Kanroji was just a rare hybrid of a Taki girl or a hot cheeto girl and Himejima was that one person who believed in horoscopes too seriously, sometimes he'd do tarot readings for his other classmates which Giyuu honestly found quite cool. Whereas Shinobu was someone Giyuu would've honestly never associated in the first place and truthfully speaking their duo wouldn't even exist if Shinobu hadn't approached him first. Shinobu was more of a bully to Giyuu primarily but later Giyuu had opened up to her about how he thought of her as a close friend and that softened Shinobu's heart and strengthed their bond. Although Kyojurou was the smartest kid in the class; even securing his title as class president; Ubuyashiki sensei always made sure to pair up Shinobu and Giyuu together during class projects thus leading to frequent study sessions together. Towards the end of the year, Shinobu became the third person in the entirety of Kimetsu Academy to be close to Giyuu, the 1st and 2nd being Sabito and Makomo and 4th being a special freshman called Tanjiro.

Even though his classmates were rather annoying, Giyuu never did hate any of them. In fact it was hard for Giyuu to genuinely hate anybody in the first place but then there was this one person and that person was Shinobu's oh so charming boyfriend, Douma. Giyuu saw through his pretty boy personality when she first introduced him. He ranted about it to Sabito the very night, complaining about how he's all fake and it's all just a matter of time before that facade comes of. Sabito didn't miss a beat and told Giyuu to suggest a suitable partner for Shinobu instead, to which Giyuu had no answer to. And as per said prophecy it didn't take long for Shinobu to see Douma's true intentions and she decided a queen like her deserved better than this.

It was finally summer break and Giyuu and Shinobu had finally completed 12 painstaken years of schooling along with the others of course. Shinobu decided to host a little get together and hang out with the people she cared about one last time before they drifted apart into adulthood.

Giyuu reached the mall at about 8 pm and walked straight to the food court since Shinobu informed him that's where they would be. To his horror, Shinobu had invited a great deal of people, including those who didn't like him, example being his whole class. As always his presence was ignored by his classmates but thankfully amidst the groups of people, Giyuu noticed a particular red head named Sabito, aka his best friend. Sabito and Makomo were both invited too. Giyuu and Shinobu's friendship caused Shinobu to become good friends with Sabito as well, both of them developed a special bond while they both took turns into bullying poor Tomioka. Shinobu was sitting next to Kimetsu Academy's mascot boy, Inosuke, who looked way too soft for his harsh demeanor. Shinobu had a soft spot for this freshman. She had told Tomioka of how he filled the gap of her need of a younger brother. Unlike Tomioka, Shinobu had a lot of sisters; Kanae who was the eldest, Aoi was a year younger than Shinobu and then came Kanao who was 2 years younger than Shinobu, and lastly were the triplets, Naho, Sumi and Kiyo who were just middle schoolers. Inosuke was a bratty kid who'd frequently get into trouble for having a foul mouth but he was close to Tanjiro and weirdly Kochou's little sister, Kanao's best friend. The butterfly sisters loved having brutes as best friends for some reason, it didn't make sense but somehow worked out for them.

"Inosuke, promise you'll leave that nasty reputation behind."

"I ain't making any promises till you promise you'll send me 3 boxes of foreign chocolate every month." he crossed his arm and looked the other side.

Shinobu softly smiled at him, she was definitely going to miss this kid alot. "Alright Inosuke, I'll make sure to send you the latest ps4 games as well."

Inosuke's eyes lit up as he shook hands with Shinobu to confirm the deal. A subtle smile tugged at the corner of Giyuu's lips.

Giyuu went over to the table Sabito and Makomo were seated at and took a seat opposite to Sabito. It didn't take long for Shinobu to note his presence and she went over to their table and took a seat next to Giyuu. "Aww Tomioka-san, look this is a good farewell party for you, all your friends are here right Infront of you." she snorted.

Giyuu sent her a painful expression. Must she do this even on the day when he supposedly bids her farewell? "Tanjiro's not here though."

"So Kochou, did you get your acceptance letter?" Sabito tried desperately to break the awkward silence.

"oh yes I did, luckily I got into the university I wanted to. I'll be shifting to Canada a few months from now."

"That's so cool. Congrats!" Sabito sent her a beaming smile.

Giyuu was quiet, he was silently studying Shinobu, maybe this was the last time he was going to see her. She was wearing a Yellow ruffle top that was paired up with skinny ripped jeans and her 5 pound white filas, her hair was tied into a half ponytail; she looked cute. Alot of people would've assumed Giyuu's sense of fashion was probably as bland as his personality but surprisingly the guy had drip. He wore a plain black shirt paired up with dark denim jeans and chains to accessorise. Giyuu was an eboy. His sense of fashion honestly made him look quite intimidating but it added a spice to his laid back bland persona, maybe that's why Shinobu had taken an interest to him in the first place.

And almost too soon the party had came to an end as the clock struck 11 PM. Shinobu was probably tired of getting squeezed everytime she got hugged goodbye. One by one, everyone started to leave and before they knew it, a very ominous pair was left behind, and that pair being Giyuu and Shinobu.

"Sabito-kun is a very nice lad. You have great friends Tomioka-san." Shinobu complimented.

"He's nice because he walked Makomo home at 11pm?"

"Well yes, that's rather a very gentlemanly behavior. Don't you think so?"

"You know I've been doing that to you in every single one of our study dates right?" Giyuu raised an eyebrow, right now he seemed like a puppy wagging his tail to receive pats from its master.

Shinobu's cheeks flushed a pale shade of pink when Giyuu had referred to their study session as study dates mistakenly. It was just a slip of a tongue that's all. "My Tomioka-san, are you waiting for me to compliment you?"

"It's nice to hear you say something good about me once in a while Kochou." he pouted like a child.

"If that's what you want...then alright. Walk me home one last time Tomioka san."

"No." he blurted almost too bluntly causing Shinobu to frown almost too evidently. "I'll take you home on my bike instead, this time."

Shinobu was quite taken aback to his sudden kind gesture. Her stomach swelled up with a weird feeling. A mix of happiness with sadness that this was the first and last time she'd get to ride behind his bike.

Giyuu had disappeared for a split second into the parking lot leaving a timid Shinobu pondering. He did mention he really liked bikes. Weirdly as a highschooler, Shinobu always wanted to cruise behind a boy's motorcycle at least once during her high school years and well this was her chance. In 3 minutes Giyuu showed up in a Ducati xdiavel Infront of Shinobu. He patted on the seat next to him gesturing her to come take a seat behind him and so she did after admiring Giyuu and his totally hot ride. Not gonna lie his attire went really well with his bike, she almost felt like she was starring in some music video as they cruised into the dark streets.

Shinobu shrieked almost losing her grip as Giyuu hit a speed bump.

"Kochou." he called out to her, getting her attention.

"Hm?"

"Hold onto me, or you'll fall." his words left Shinobu all flustered and hot but she was quick to oblige, she didn't want any broken bones right before her flight. She also silently thanked the gods that it was too dark for Giyuu to make out her flushed red cheeks.

"Tomioka-san? When did you get this sweet thing?"

"It was a gift from my dad."

"But what if you have to move away for uni? What will happen to it then?"

"I'll take it with me, I haven't gotten a number plate for it yet so I'll just ship it using a ferry or something."

Shinobu wrapped her arms around his waist tightly. She wondered if she was the first girl to sit on his bike. She also wondered about the other girls who would eventually later sit on his bike.

"Kochou, are you in a hurry to go home?" Giyuu suddenly asked.

"Not really, mom and dad are staying at my grandparents' place in the country side and Nee-san just wants me to spend my last few days as free spirited teenager."

"Spend this night with me." he suddenly blurted.

"What?" she choked on her words. Giyuu had become way to daring these days, saying whatever he wanted and bruising poor Shinobu's heart with his choice of words.

"Come on, I wanna show you something." he reassured her in a soothing tone.

"Alright Tomioka-san, as long as you don't get us into trouble I'm good."

He soon parked into a quiet neighborhood. Jesus, this placed seemed abandoned for God's sake, what did he have to show her here? the grudge or babadook?

"Tomioka-san are you sure about this place." Shinobu sent him a nervous look as she tugged at the hem of his shirt.

Giyuu looked into her eyes as he held his hand out to her,"Trust me Kochou." and so she did. They now walked into this dark neighborhood, her tiny hand still enclasped with his large ones. Giyuu knew Shinobu wasn't a big fan of places like these. Places that screamed paranormal activity but the fact the she obliged quite quickly did make him realize how much she trusted him and deep down it made Tomioka Giyuu happy.

"isn't this place restricted or anything? Are we allowed to come here?" Shinobu asked almost too loudly.

Giyuu quickly covered her mouth with his large hands and pulled her into a dark alleyway. Shinobu was quite confused at his sudden antics. She sent him a raised eyebrow as he pinned her against a stone wall, his hand still covering her mouth and almost immediately a Patrol guard walked right past them on the streets. He quickly let go of her and pressed his index finger against his lips gesturing her to stay quiet. "it's alright as long as you don't get caught." he whispered to which she rolled her eyes. He held her hand once again and walked to the biggest house in the area, the house was 4 stories high and Giyuu seemed to have a weird tactic of slipping by the backdoor without getting noticed every time.

"So Tomioka-san, you wanted to show me an abandoned house. Very funny."

"They're not abandoned, they're on sale." He replied walking towards the kitchen.

Shinobu followed him precautiously, "And you're treating it like you own it."

"Only for a while." he replied as he took out 2 bottles of flavored milk. He handed Shinobu the strawberry flavored one knowing that was her favorite and kept the melon flavored one for himself.

"Tomioka-san what's the meaning of this?" she asked one last time, quite getting tired of his shit, really.

Giyuu didn't reply but held her hand as walked upstairs, practically forcing her to follow behind him. They soon reached the attic.

Shinobu was a little taken aback seeing all the clutter of furnite up there. Giyuu pulled up the glass window revealing a beautiful full moon night, how come Shinobu didn't notice that before? And then Tomioka started doing something stupid, which was climbing out of the attic window. Shinobu quickly grabbed his arm as a result of an involuntary reflex, "Are you stupid, do you want to die?"

Giyu was now standing on the roof of a 4 story house with a nerve wrecked Shinobu holding his arm. "Trust me Kochou." he spoke holding out his hand to her.

She shifted her gaze from his moonlit eyes to his hand. Did she trust him with her life? Yes, yes she did. She placed her hand on his and he carefully helped her outside. "Tomioka-san I don't see any point in all of thi-" Shinobu was cut off with the picturesque view of the moon and its bright stars right Infront of her.

Giyuu took a seat next to her, observing the view alongside her. He slowly sipped his melon drink while Shinobu quietly enjoyed her strawberry drink. His gaze shifted from the scenic beauty Infront of him to the other scenic beauty next to him (im a little gay for Shinobu sorry) and there she was Kochou Shinobu, the stars reflected in her eyes as she absent-mindedly stared into the sky being lost in her own void and Giyuu just watched her, she looked even cuter now.

It didn't take long for Shinobu to catch him staring which almost made him choke his drink.

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

"Yeah." he replied after his coughing fits died down. He decided to lay down and enjoy the beauty the night had to offer and Shinobu copied him, laying down next to him. Giyuu had quickly slid his arm towards Shinobu, allowing her to rest her huge head on his arm.

"Tomioka-san." she called out to him making his gaze lock with hers.

"Hm?"

"Thank you. I needed this."

He sent her a soft smile as he tucked behind a strand of her hair behind her ear, "You're welcome."

"You know Tomioka-san, since you've been craving compliments I guess I'll finally give you one." Giyuu softly observed her, wondering what she'd say. "If i were to describe you to a person Tomioka-san. This scenery would suffice."

"Hm?" he raised an eyebrow, "How so?"

"It kinda matches with your personality you know, It's as quiet and mysterious as the night but nevertheless if you observe closely it has all this beauty to offer." she smiled at him, and this time it hurt him. It made him feel weird. It didn't take long for Giyuu's cheeks to be flushed red under the silver moonlight. Giyuu couldn't reply to this, heck he couldn't even force any words through his mouth. Shinobu smiled and gazed back at the stars once again. She was hit a wave of familiarity, this was her and Giyuu's relationship, it was a bit complicated but it was a bit too beautiful to lose. She started to feel her stomach coil in sadness realising this was the last possible memory she'd spend with Giyuu or maybe they could meet up during the holiday seasons and have remakes of adventurous nights like these.

"Tomioka-san, did you get your acceptance letter?"

"Yeah I did."

"Where are you going?" she wasn't facing him, she didn't want him to see her sad expression.

"Same place you are." Giyuu tried his best not to smile while he said that.

Shinobu quickly turned to him in surprise, "That's a horrible joke, Tomioka-san."

"I'm not." he said, pulling out his phone from his pocket and scrolling through his email to show her his proof. And to Shinobu's surprise there it was, and it was legit. Shinobu was quiet, this was what she wanted but in was a bit too much for her to take in all at once.

"Thank God, now I don't have to worry about you not having friends and getting left alone." she snapped back almost too quickly,

"Shut up."

The air was light and heavy at the same time, Shinobu was a bit too happy to be falling asleep but it didn't take her long to doze off in Giyuu's arms, or on Giyuu's arms. Ouch.

He mentally cursed himself for suddenly exhibiting simp behavior, but today was Shinobu's day and he just had to oblige even though he had to sacrifice his arm.

It didn't take long for Giyuu to doze off alongside Shinobu. Falling asleep under a star-filled sky did have a romantic touch to it.

Giyuu was the first to wake up as the sun slowly started to rise amongst the clouds, creating a magnificent hue of purple and orange. Thankfully Shinobu had shifted from laying on his arm to laying on his chest instead which was definitely more comfortable, but surely Shinobu wouldn't be able to sleep long against his chest with his heart pounding like that.

Giyuu took a moment to appreciate a sleepy Shinobu alongside the beautiful sunrise. Her sun-kissed face was just art in its own form. If Giyuu was anywhere as skilled as Sabito in art, he'd use this masterpiece lying beside him as a prompt and then that's when it hit him. Shinobu basked in the golden rays of sunlight, Shinobu was the golden sunrise in early mornings and if Giyuu were to describe her to someone he'd say something along the lines of; "Shinobu you're the morning sunrise. You're annoying but your presence brings warmth." he whispered softly patting her head. And as most cliché scenes this was no different, much to Giyuu's ill fate, Shinobu was seemingly awake the whole time, and she heard every bit of that.

"That's quite harsh Tomioka-san, but I'll take it." she replied causing a frantic Giyuu's heart rate to sky rocket.

With the sun out, Giyuu and Shinobu realised they better be getting home now since they both had guardians to explain their whereabouts to. It didn't take long for them to pack up and reach Shinobu's house. They shared a small hug on Shinobu's front porch along with Shinobu thanking him for giving her an unforgettable journey. This was a nice end to her highschool life. With a wide grin plastered over her face Shinobu walked into her house to 5 very amused and interested sisters.

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violethowler · 5 years ago

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Whenever a post talking about why fandom should focus more on non-romantic relationships cross my dash, I always feel uncomfortable. Only a few present legitimate arguments instead of trying to win a ship war, and I’m still leery of reblogging those because they act as if the problem they’re talking about can be solved if only people could be less obsessed with shipping. It kind of annoys me because it feels like they’re completely overlooking the fact that fandom is not a monolith in favor of watering the issues down to a simple “shipping bad”.

I can’t speak for what the people posting these takes have experienced, but most of the people I know in fandom are entirely capable of enjoying fandom through a story’s non-romantic relationships and shipping their favorite romantic pairings at the same time. Shocking, I know. In my experience the reason shipping seems to dominate fandom discussions is primarily been because on sites like Tumblr and Twitter where controversy and arguments generate more user engagement, shipping tends to be the easiest thing to start an argument over. It’s hard to stir the pot over people enjoying Found Family or some other non-romantic character dynamic, but it’s almost guaranteed that there will be assholes who will send you hate mail and harassment if they don’t like the pairing you ship. And a lot of shippers respond to that by waving their shipping flag higher. They start talking about their ships more as a “fuck you” to the bullies who tell them to choke and die for shipping a different pairing.

And the most alienating thing to me, as a bisexual man in fandom, is when posts complaining about shipping zero in on queer ships and talk about the importance of representing emotionally intimate platonic friendships between men in fiction. Because only three times in as many years have I seen anyone bring up that talking point and actually present legitimate issues. Every other person I’ve seen talk about it has been using that phrase as a weapon against queer fans. And every single one of them is accompanied by comments like:

“Why does everything have to be gay?”

“They’re not gay”

“Stop making it gay”

“Please don’t make it gay”

And other variations of this sentiment.

My own fandom experience with conversations about “platonic male friendship” in fiction has been with assholes trying to win a ship war between an M/M pairing and M/F one. And the majority of the shippers of the M/M pairing in my two biggest fandoms that have these kinds of ship wars are queer people who look at the relationship between these two characters and see echoes of our own experiences. Yet rarely have my mutuals in one of those fandoms been able to go more than a couple of weeks without someone trying to bully us for not interpreting the story the CorrectTM way. I know that everyone likes to think that fandom is completely accepting of queer people, but fandom is basically a bunch of smaller communities in a trenchcoat. Not every fandom is the same, and some are aggressively heteronormative at best, or openly homophobic at worst.

In fandoms that draw lots of people from outside of the usual tumblr demographics, it’s taken as a given that a guy and a girl will inevitably get together with little or no buildup written into the story, yet the suggestion that two guys whose relationship receives so much focus in the story that their female love interests feel like cardboard cutouts might be or become a couple is met with laughter and scorn. In some fandoms the creator even mentioning a desire to include queer characters in future stories is met with cries of “Forced Diversity!” and “Pandering to SJWs”, as if no creator ever willingly chooses to write queer characters or relationships.

Fans who see and want those relationships to be romantic are told again and again that it will never happen. That we’re reaching for something that isn’t there. That any subtext we see only exists because the creator is from a different, non-western culture where physical and emotional intimacy between platonic friends is more common. That the M/F ship is the story’s inevitable endgame and the creator is just a shitty writer who doesn’t understand romance. That even if by random chance the queer subtext was intentional, the corporate executives would never allow it to be made explicit.

Back in March, one asshole spammed the ship tag on Twitter for my current OTP with the same screenshot of the fandom’s most popular M/F ship, and after his account was reported for spam, tweeted that one of the characters in the M/M ship, the deuteragonist of the story, should be killed off because, in this asshole’s words “he’s useless and only queer people like him.” When another fan of the M/F ship called him out, the asshole accused them of “siding with the f**s.”

The fact that so many people have proven incapable of talking about “platonic male friendship” in fiction without also insisting that the character must be cisgender and heterosexual sends a message to queer fans like me that “platonic friendship between men” is something reserved for straight cis men only. That there is no place for us to see ourselves in the stories we love even if it wasn’t the creator’s intention. That we should be happy with what little crumbs that mainstream entertainment chooses to give us. That any part of a story where we feel seen is never anything more than an accident. That people like me are not welcome in fandoms where the story didn’t include us from the start.

I’m not saying people can’t be critical of trends in fandom, but those who are need to be mindful of the fact that fandom doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Every trend and attitude in fandom is a reaction to something happening to people either in real life or elsewhere in fandom. Not everyone’s experiences are universal, and there are still fandoms where queer people have to deal with heteronormative double standards and homophobic bashing toward our ships. If people want to have a nuanced conversation about ways to make everyone’s fandom experiences more positive and welcoming, the bigger picture needs to be acknowledged instead of acting like shipping itself is the problem.

#shipping discourse #personal experience #personal anecdote #my thoughts #fandom is complicated

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nostalgicbts · 7 years ago

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Public Love | Jaebum

Just a short imagine I wrote while I was bored and wanted to post it :)))) This is not edited or proofread, so I’m sorry if there’s any mistakes. I know this is kind of a ‘basic’ topic but I really wanted to write about it so, here you go:)

Warnings: None :)

Word Count: 2196

He sat in front of you as he waited for his coffee. You were so excited to see him. He just got out of the airport and happened to see you in the coffee shop you usually did your school work at. You wanted so badly to hug and kiss him. But you couldn’t. You were in public.

His management doesn’t allow him to go public with you. He’s begged his manager many time over the past three years to finally let him be able to hold your hand in public and take you out on a date. Let him walk around with you. But he always just got the answer “After this comeback” to receive “Not yet, ask again next year”. One of the other managers finally explained to him that they wanted to keep the image going for the boys. Wanted to keep them single to the public to ‘keep their fans’. They explained that if one of them had a girlfriend, some fans will stop supporting, causing future albums and comebacks to go to shit. When the other boys stated they didn’t care and wanted to see their leader happy, they refused to listen, keeping Jaebum on close watch. Making sure he didn’t leak any information. That’s why you’re a secret.

Or not so much. To the public eye, and to his fans, you were just his best friend. Close to the other members but his best friend. Knowing him since before his debut, everyone knew you. Fans asking about you on his Vlives or in person, answering questions about you in interviews or to other idols to clear things up, which always broke his heart and just wanted to yell she’s the love of my life! Some fans even openly shipped you two. Telling you that they want you guys together when they saw you out and about. Everyone knew you, just not the way he wanted you to be known as.

He didn’t mean for the first time you guys saw each other, after two and a half long months, to be in public. Since you lived barely a mile away from the airport, he decided to walk to your house, get some fresh air. He saw you in the coffee shop and couldn’t wait another minute longer. Two and a half months was long enough. He walked in, very quickly let me tell you, almost tripping on his feet. When you looked up from your textbook and notes, about to make sure the clumsy person was okay, you froze looking into those soft brown eyes you’ve only been able to see through your small phone lately. You quickly got up, forgetting where you were and that you needed to keep your cool, knowing some fans or even paparazzi must’ve followed him. He gave you a sad smile, before walking the rest of the distance and hugging you lightly.

What he really wanted to do was hug you so tightly, you’d turn red and your bones would hurt. He wanted to twirl you around to hear that soft giggle he lives so much. He wanted to kiss those lips he loves and misses so much. He wanted to not let go. But he had to. Because you were in public.

After the moment where he inhaled your scent, something he hadn’t realized he missed until then, he hesitantly pulled away. He pointed to your seat and you sat down while he went to order a drink. You shuffled to put your stuff away, dropping a few things, but you didn’t care. Your boyfriend of three years was here.

And that’s what led up to now. You guys sat across each other, studying each other. His brown hair, messy from his hoody. His brown eyes slightly swollen and his two little moles right below his eyebrow. His slightly chapped lips that he’s licked a few times in the past minute. His eyes staring at your features, taking in your appearance. Your lips red and swollen from biting them in concentration so much. Your hair down and in its natural state. You eyes red from your lack of sleep.

He opens his mouth to speak but his cut off by the middle aged women bringing his coffee. “Here you go young man.” She kindly smiles as she sat the coffee down. She turns to you, her smile still bright. “You want your regular, sweetie?”

“Yes please, thank you Evelyn.” You smile as she nods and walks away. When she’s out of sight you finally look back to your boyfriend who’s been staring at you the whole time. You smile shyly, your cheeks heating up.

“With how long we’ve been together, you’d think you wouldn’t blush because of me anymore.” He smiles softly as he takes a sip of his steaming coffee.

“People say if you still have that effect on your significant other, that’s how you know they’re in love.” you shrug and leaning your elbow onto the table, chin on your palm.

He raises an eyebrow as his smile becomes wider, eyeing you. “So you’re in love? With who?”

“Just some guy. Super cute and tries to act like he’s not super soft when he really his. I miss him lots.”

“Then why don’t you do something about it?” He challenges as he leans back into his eat, arms crossed over his chest.

“Because we’re in public and we’d both probably get our heads chopped off if I do something about it.”

His smile drops slightly with your statement. He knew it was a joke, but he also knew how much it hurt you to be kept a secret. He knew deep down you were hurting with that statement, slight hate towards his job for not letting you guys be together publicly. But he also knew that you wouldn’t ever complain about it, because you knew it was his dream job. And you loved him too much to make him choose.

He sighs and leans forward, his arms crossed on the table. He looks up into your soft eyes that glow with the light that shines above you both. He looks at your smooth skin and flushed cheeks. “I’m sorry I put you through this crap, baby girl. I didn’t mean for me to surprise you here. I was walking to your place and saw you and I just couldn’t wait. Even though I basically am since I can’t even fucking touch you after waiting so damn long. I tried talking to them aga-”

“Babe, it’s fine. I’m glad you came here. As long as I get to see you, I’m okay.” You smile softly as you look up in time for the coffee and thank her quietly before looking back to Jaebum. “How long are you back for?”

“Three months. Maybe even longer. We’re just going to be preparing for a comeback.” He nods as he takes another sip of his coffee.

“I’m really happy you’re back.”

And you were. You weren’t unhappy with Jaebum at all. You loved him with all your heart and wouldn’t change that if you could. You did hate the fact that you could’t kiss him and if you could, you’d run away right now. You’d run away to a cabin in the woods where you;d be all alone. Just the two of you forever, you two in a little cabin watching the sun set and rise every day. You’d spend the day with just the two of you, walk around without anyone seeing and having to be cautious of everything you did around him. You wanted to have a normal relationship so badly it hurt. But you loved him too much, and if he was happy, you were happy. He’d never know how bad this hurt you to not be able to have a normal relationship with the man you loved since you were eighteen years old. You’ve wanted to gloat to people about you’re relationship and brag about how you found the perfect man in your childhood best friend. But you couldn’t.

“I know this hurts you Y/N. I know it does but you don’t want to say anything because you’re the most selfless person I’ve ever met. I want you to talk to me about it.”

“Jae, stop. Not here.” You mumble. The cafe is nearly empty except for another couple by the window in the front. The workers talking and not paying attention to the two of you.

“I want you to tell me how much you hate it. How much this hurts not just me but you too. Tell me how you want me to fix this. I hate seeing the way your eyes get glossy whenever we’re in public because we have to act like we haven’t been in love for the past three years. I want nothing more than to wipe those emotions away but I need you to talk to me. Don’t worry about me or about the fans or my job. Worry about yourself and talk-”

“Fine, Jaebum! I hate sitting here across from you and having to act like you mean nothing more than a friend to me. I hate how I have to act like this doesn’t bother me that I can’t kiss you or hug you more than ten seconds after I have’t seen you for nearly three months. I hate that your management basically controls our relationship and I hate that to the public eye I’m just some friend. I want people to know how much I love you. But I can’t do that.”

He stares into your watery eyes and licks his lips. His eyes forming tears he wish weren’t caused because of his job. “Baby girl, I wish nothing more than to be able to kiss you right now. Or anywhere for that matter. I don’t want to have to hide our relationship either baby. I -”

“It’s not your fault Jae.” You sigh and grab your bag. “I’m going to start heading home. You coming?” You ask him as you stand up and trudge your bag onto your shoulder.

Jaebum bites his lip and nods. He knows you don’t like to talk about this. Especially not in public where you guys can’t comfort each other. He sighs as he gets up. You were already out of the door, walking slowly by the window, waiting to hear the door open and close before continuing to walk to your house.

You’re about to cross the street when you feel someone tug on your arm pulling you back about a foot. You turn around expecting to see Jaebum’s worried face, thinking you were about to walk in front of a car.

But no. You were met with the soft lips of your boyfriend’s, smacking into yours. You gasp a bit before kissing him back, your hands flying to his face. His hands lay on your waist and he brings you closer. You hear gasps and squeals come from across the street or in the coffee shop. The sound of clicks and flashes coming from across the street are what pulled you back to reality. You pull away from him with a gasp, your hands now on his shoulder. His eyes widen as he takes in your appearance. “Jae...” You whisper as you stare into his eyes. He smiles softly at you and kisses your nose.

“I’m not hiding you anymore. I’m not going to let this hurt us anymore. It’s my relationship and I just kissed you in front of a bunch of paps who followed me from the airport, so there’s no going back on it now.” He shrugs and his smile widens as he pulls you closer, your body flush against his as he wraps his arms rund your body. Finally holding you the way he wanted. Finally kissing you after so long.

“Did you know-”

He nods before you can finish, interrupting you with a kiss. “ I heard them behind me when I was walking, When you walked out of the shop I saw them again and needed to do this.”

“Your managers and the boys-”

“The boys will understand. They’ve been encouraging me to do this the past two weeks when they found out I was surprising you. As for the management.” He shrugs and looks across the street, smiling and waving at the fans who squealed and waved. “They’ll have to deal with it. I don’t know what they’ll do. But until then, I want to hang out with the love of my life and cuddle her. I want to make up for the lost time. I’m with you. I love you. You mean the world to me and I can’t lose you.”

You smile brightly and pull him into a tight hug. “You were never going to lose me.”

He pulls away and grabs you hand. “Now let’s get away from them. I want to be alone with you.”

You smile brightly as he runs with you trailing behind him. You hear the girls yell for him and you. Yelling that they love you. He laughs and looks back at you. Happy because you’re in public.

09.06.17

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anotheruserwithnoname · 7 years ago

Text

New thoughts on The Orville and Star Trek Discovery

This post contains spoilers on both series up to “Cupid’s Dagger” for The Orville and “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” for Discovery. As I’ll probably get wordy, I’ll throw in a page break.

Before the break, though, the tl;dr is The Orville continues to be great (though this week’s episode is a bit controversial to some); meanwhile, approximately three episodes ago, Discovery finally became, for me anyway, proper Star Trek. And the renewal of both series is a cause for celebration.

I’ll start with Star Trek Discovery. Up to and including “Choose Your Pain”, the episode that reintroduced Harry Mudd, I was starting to lose hope in Discovery. It was too dark, too unlikeable, the characters were not gelling either as a team or as TV heroes, the Klingon subplot was - save for some unexpected in-show shipping of two Klingons - dull as an economics textbook. It was fading. And I speak as someone who gave both Voyager and Enterprise more than a year each to find their voice. The “icing on the cake” was having two characters unnecessarily utter the F-word for no other apparent reason than to justify the episode TV-MA rating. I was already saying to people that I gave it two more weeks and then I was probably done.

And then came “Lethe” and something great happened. It felt almost like having Stamets and Tilly drop F-bombs caused the show and its writers to snap to attention and snap out of whatever TV-MA/streaming cliches rut they’d fallen into. Maybe hearing two people in Starfleet uniforms make like Malcolm Tucker made them realize they’d taken things too far. Because all of a sudden we began a run of episodes that truly felt like Star Trek, the characters snapped into place as a team and as TV heroes, the plots were interesting, Michael dropped the woe is me routine (for the most part) and even the Klingon stuff became less boring. OK, the tech is still too advanced, the Klingons look awful, and there are a few other problems, some of which (like the fact it’s a prequel) cannot be fixed ... but the show felt like Trek, finally.

“Lethe” gave us some valuable insight into Sarek and Michael’s backstory. And while I still wonder how they’ll reconcile not having any past reference to Spock having an adopted sister (maybe Sybok will show up and whisk her away somewhere), and the new abilities related to the mind meld are coming close to deus ex machina territory, it still seemed to work. Having Canadian actress Mia Kirschner as Amanda - who resembles both a young Jane Wyatt as well as Abramsverse Amanda Winona Ryder - was a bonus and I hope we see her again.

Then came my favourite episode so far, “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”. Hopefully this episode will silence those Discovery fans who keep harping about The Orville borrowing/stealing/revisiting storylines and concepts from Trek considering this episode was basically a remake of the classic TNG tale “Cause and Effect” with a touch of Battlestar Galactica 2004′s “33″ tossed in for good measure - and even hints of Doctor Who’s “Heaven Sent”. And it works. Stamets finally became a character I enjoyed watching, and Tyler also became more interesting. Some are complaining about him and Michael becoming an item but, again, this is Star Trek and while TOS never went there, all the other shows had on-board romances. The time loop was intelligently played and out and Rainn Wilson was terrific as Mudd though I hope his cold-blooded killings early in the episode were done with his assumption that time would reset and everyone would be fine - I’m OK with Wilson playing Mudd as a darker character (so far he’s been the best part about Discovery), but making Mudd a cold-blooded murderer crosses the line. It’s also a shame they couldn’t put Mudd in the title of this or the Choose Your Pain episode, as that’s always been a bit of a tradition in the franchise, but they obviously didn’t want to give the surprise of his appearance away.

“Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” was not as much fun as the last two, but it gave us some valuable character development for Saru, making him less of an Odo clone. And the subplot where the female Klingon operative teams up with and then appears to betray Admiral Cornwell was interesting. I think there’s more there than we think. By the way, I’ve been a fan of Jayne Brook since she was in WIOU back in 1990 so I’m glad to see her on this show. I hope they don’t kill her character off.

So, yeah, Discovery suddenly got good three weeks ago (and to be fair, “Choose Your Pain” was a good episode too; they just didn’t need to have the juvenile swearing; I was reminded how in one of Torchwood’s first episodes they had Jack announce he was taking a pee mainly because that was something they couldn’t do in Doctor Who. It just served to cement some folk’s negative first impressions). If it keeps on going this way, it’s going to become appointment viewing for me.

The Orville, meanwhile, continues to go from strength to strength. After the surprisingly grim “Krill”, we had “Majority Rule”, which tweaked today’s knee-jerk “like-dislike” culture. (Don’t let that stop you from clicking that little heart at the bottom of this article, though! 😂) I’ve heard people compare it to Black Mirror. Having never seen Black Mirror, my comparison is actually more towards The Outer Limits. It raised some interesting questions and right after watching the episode a friend sent me a video of Katy Perry doing an “apology tour” type TV appearance for some indiscretion of hers, much like LaMarr has to do in the episode. I enjoyed seeing the crew in (sort of) modern day outfits, too.

Then we had “Into the Fold”, a great spotlight episode for Penny Johnson Jerald (formerly Kassidy Yates on DS9) with the surprising reveal that she’s a single mom raising her two boys on board the Orville. The fact we’ve already been introduced to the concept of families on board a starship both with Bortus and his husband - and in TNG before that - makes it less of an ass-pull than such a sudden introduction might usually appear. And it works really well as a character builder for Isaac as he becomes the boys’ surrogate father when Dr. Finn goes missing. I have some issues with Dr. Finn’s rather violent escape (I don’t think shooting the guy was justified) but the episode holds together well otherwise.

Last night’s episode, “Cupid’s Dagger,” was the first overtly comic episode of the series, and it rubbed a few people the wrong way. The same way comedic episodes of TNG and DS9 often did. (Two decades of brain bleach have yet to wipe away the memory of Quark’s head superimposed atop a woman’s lingerie-clad body. 😱) There are also those who questioned the wisdom of an episode about a Deltan-like race that causes anyone who comes in contact with them to become sexually infatuated airing during a time when so many people are accusing or being accused of sexual misconduct and assault. I won’t go into those arguments. I’ll just say the episode was a very strong character building episode once again which gave some closure to the scene in the pilot where Kelly cheats on Ed, while raising more questions. We also saw some resolution to the Finn and Yaphit relationship (uh ... yeah ... I’ll just leave that with a “no comment”), some great Alara moments, and an interesting resolution to the episode’s B-plot involving preventing a war. We also get to enjoy the first appearance by one of Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy co-stars, as Mike Henry appears in a very funny running gag about an alien who wants to start piping elevator muzak into the Orville’s turbolifts.

Next week’s Orville is looking to be another dramatic one, and if the promo images that have been released are anything to go by, it might be an Alara-centric story, and more Halston Sage is never a bad thing.

---

So basically where I sit now is that The Orville is still amazing, a lot of fun, and still gives off classic Trek vibes with a little modern edginess, though “Cupid’s Dagger” probably pushes the show as far as I’d like it to go in terms of the comedy. Discovery, meanwhile, appears to have undergone some sort of slight internal reboot/reset after its initial set of episodes. Which is good because I want to be able to enjoy both shows, both for the remainder of their first seasons, and into next fall, too.

As a side note, it’s been announced that a book on the making of The Orville is going to be published in January 2018: The World of the Orville by Jeff Bond.

A North American DVD release for Season 1 of The Orville has also been indicated on Amazon, though no date has been announced yet. I’m assuming sometime early 2018, though with Season 1 ending in early December there’s always a chance they might try to sneak in a release for Christmas.

As for Discovery, a novel based on the show is already out in Canada and the US and IDW is gearing up to start publishing a spin-off comic or two. No word on a DVD/Blu-ray release. Being a streaming series doesn’t disqualify it from physical release (Netflix issues most of its shows on DVD eventually, with House of Cards and Orange is the New Black usually coming out within months of their release - though I wouldn’t be marking any calendar dates re: House of Cards at the moment) but I wouldn’t expect to see anything until at least fall 2018 assuming they release the complete Season 1 at once.

#the orville #star trek discovery

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thelifelessbookofhope · 8 years ago

Text

honest thoughts on ACOWAR

In this post, I am going to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly. I have no intention whatsoever to drag SJM – I’ll be forever thankful that she brought these amazing characters and this beautiful, touching story to my life. I do think, though, that we as a fandom can still love and appreciate something but recognize its flaws and address them through POSITIVE, constructive criticism. This is what this post is about.

1. MOR

Some people have pointed out that Mor coming out as bi was OOC. I disagree because I think there is no way we can judge these things based on personality alone, if you know anything about sexuality you’ll agree that these are very different matters – but I do think that Mor’s description of being bi didn’t hit home, and that’s okay because SJM herself is not bi so that would be a hard scene for her to write and at least she is putting some effort into it.

2. DIVERSITY

Sarah clearly outdid herself in this one. Her other books do not address color as openly and as diversely as this one, and she went out of her way to make sure that we knew the courts were composed of people of very different ethnicities/sexualities. I saw people complaining that she didn’t describe facial features that define race such as nose etc so that we could get a better picture of what they look like, but again, she is trying and to her credit, she doesn’t describe the facial features of the white characters as much either except for the eyes, that she always seems to focus on. So here’s to progress.

3. RHYS

Okay, I have a problem with Rhysand’s character in this book – where is the male that we fell in love with in ACOMAF? I still loved him, of course, but gone was his strength along with his wittiness. He didn’t display an inch of the most-powerful-High-Lord-in-Prythian part of him, and his relationship with Feyre became all about him giving everything to her instead of them being the healthy, balanced couple that supported but also challenged each other whenever needed like we saw in ACOMAF.

4. SMUT

No, I do not think the smut was unnecessary. I think this is a series for adults – as opposed to Throne of Glass, which didn’t need smut in my opinion – and sex is a daily part of the lives of the characters. The scenes could have been more well played out though, because sometimes they did feel just like rushed filling scenes. Which brings me to my next point.

5. THE BOOK WAS RUSHED

Yes, it was. The ending most of all. The angst and the pain that developed these characters and that made us love them from the start weren’t well addressed, and that made it all seem superficial sometimes if compared to the depth to which they were explored in ACOMAF. It felt like she just wanted to end things already, so she didn’t explore the complexity of how affected they were by everything that was going on.

6. FEYRE

Do you really, honestly believe that the Feyre who crossed an entire forest and hunted and killed every single one of Hybern’s soldiers who dared put a hand on Rhys would have shunned away from battle beside him? I get that maybe in ideal conditions, where Rhys wasn’t fighting, she probably would have chosen not to either. But with him out there, there isn’t a chance in hell she would have stood on the sidelines and watched. For fuck’s sake, girl, it went against every single one of your instincts that roared in that forest during ACOMAF. She wouldn’t have watched idly by while her mate and friends went to the front lines themselves, she would have wanted to be there beside them. At least, the Feyre that we met in ACOMAF would. It honestly was a fucking letdown to me. I was waiting for her to kill some Hybern soldiers, I was craving it – for her to stand her own, to put herself out there. It was the fucking character development that she deserved, to fly with Ilyrian legions as Rhysand’s mate, as his EQUAL. Everything had been building towards this, for her to be beside him in every single sense. That was the fucking Nephelle philosophy that she deserved, not fucking Tamlin stepping in to save her in his useless redemption arc. That's what bothered me the most in this book.

7. FEYRE’S FATHER

I’ve seen some people complain that Feyre’s dad showing up with the ships in the end felt like a cop-out, and I have to disagree. It surprised me that it turned out like this because I honestly thought he was going to be used by her enemies since he had been mysteriously gone for too long, but it was the best kind of surprise – it fit his character development and it made me cry my eyes out and clutch at my chest in the worst/best possible ways.

8.NESSIAN

I loved their dynamics. I mean I truly, fucking loved it and if SJM doesn’t give them an entire series of their own I will certainly feel wronged because OH. MY. GOD. she had me so invested in them.

9. OVERALL

It was a good book. It WAS, though it felt rushed and lacked sincere reflections and didn’t have half the pull and depth of ACOMAF. But trilogies, as a rule, are really hard to wrap up and Sarah has been listening to the fandom – that much is obvious, since she went out of her way to please us in aspects that were commonly discussed online, like the diversity thing. She’s trying, and I’m still her faithful reader because her books make me feel the most wonderful things and despite her flaws – which we all have – she creates real, raw characters and worlds that will forever live in my heart. So let’s acknowledge things for what they actually are, instead of just bashing her and being unnecessarily negative towards a person who brought us something so precious. We should be kissing her feet, honestly.

#don't hate appreciate #acowar #acowar spoilers #a court of wings and ruin #sjmaas #sjm books #feysand

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b0blegum · 8 years ago

Text

10th

Author: b0blegum

Pairing: Lim Changkyun x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Status: COMPLETED.

Part: One-Shot

Words: 2247

Summary: 10 times are more than enough to drive him crazy.

A/N this is just a side writing (i literally wrote this at 3am in the morning, fml) before i posted the last chapter of RAHASIA. Hope you guys enjoy the first fluff i’ve ever written ♡

Your dorm was as quiet as usual. Only the dimmed sound of a running tv show accompanied you cooking your dinner. You stole a glance over the tv that you set parallel to your mini kitchen every time you had the chance.

As you began to put the chicken that you had marinated for an hour before to the crippling hot pan, you heard someone knocking on your door. After turning down the heat two levels lower, you made your way down the hall to the door.

"How many times i have told you to ring the bell, Changkyun. It is there for a reason." You mumbled as soon as you met the familiar face. "Oh and anyway, i don't think i invited anyone for dinner tonight." You were about to close the door but he was fast enough to slip his foot between the door and its frame.

"You owe me an explanation." He let himself in. You rolled your eyes in annoyance. You knew what was this all about; your blind date that he set up.

"I'm cooking right now. Will you take the responsibility if i burn my cooking and don't have dinner tonight just to give you a so called explanation?" You closed the door behind you and made your way back to your kitchen while he put himself in comfort in your couch, his eyes glued to you.

"Don't worry. I'll wait." He crossed his legs and grabbed the remote tv. Changing into the channel he desired.

"Why are you so annoying." You whispered.

"I heard that."

"Fuck you, Changkyun."

"Heard that too."

You both were currently under the same roof but none of you initiated to start a conversation. At least until you finally finished with your cooking. Without caring about the presentation of the dish— in which it won't be judged with Gordon Ramsay anyway, you stuffed everything into your plate and bring it together with you to the couch where Changkyun sat for awhile.

"Start." He commanded.

"What the heck, Changkyun. I'm going to eat now." You rolled your eyes while he lulled back his head and groaned in annoyance.

"Okay. Right after you finished that ugly looking chicken, tell me your best excuse." He closed his eyes and crossed his hands on his chest.

You didn't give him any answer for that, instead you starting to eat your dinner quietly while watching a random tv show.

Changkyun stole a glance of you every time he opened his eyes a bit, just to make sure you're not going to run away. "It has to be a better excuse this time. I'm sick of that same excuses you gave me everytime."

This time, you lost your patience. You put your plate on the table harshly, made the fork jumped and made a clinking sound, the same goes with the guy beside you. Your hand reached for a glass of water that you have prepared before and drink it bottoms up.

"Changkyun, honestly. What kind of excuses are you expecting me to say?" You shifted yourself to meet his gaze.

"I don't know. You tell me. This is the tenth times i set you up with a guy." He shrugged.

"But did i freaking ask you to do that? No!" You fought back.

"You didn't, but can you even remember when was the last time you dated? It was four years ago, (y/n)!" He washed his face with his palms in frustration.

"So?"

"That was why i set you up, but you always ended up saying you still can't make a commitment with a guy. What kind of bullshit is that." He scoffed with a smirk.

"Bullshit?" You scoffed him back. "Changkyun. You were there when he broke up with me and you, my bestfriend, know so well what he did to me and now you're telling me that my reason is utter bullshit?"

"Oh my God." He murmured before letting a deep sigh.

"I'm done with the explanation. You can get out now." You stood up and gestured him to leave your dorm.

"(Y/n),"

"You wanted to hear the reason, did you not? I gave you. So get out." He brushed his hair back and walked past you. Dragging his feet to the door and get out by himself.

This isn't the first fight between you and your bestfriend over this blind date thing. One time, you both ended up not talking to each other for a week before a mutual friend of you both finally fed up with you two not letting a single word when you, Changkyun and her were eating at the same table. But it was always like that, you and Changkyun often fought over a smallest thing possible like when he purposely entered a wrong passcode lock to your phone or when you forgot to tell the barista not to put a whip cream onto his coffee, but in the end you both always find a way back to each other.

You flipped the paper in front of you every time the professor changed the slide. You were trying so hard to concentrate because today is exactly a week before the semester exam and this subject is the one that you can't pass unless you study your ass off for it.

"(Y/n)," your best friend in this major a.k.a the mutual friend, elbowed you. "You haven't made up with Changkyun?" She asked in whisper as she rolled the pen between her fingers.

"Nope. Don't find the reason for why should i." You took a note from what the professor just said.

"It has been a month! Are you crazy?"

"I am not. He is." You answered without any expression on your face.

"You both really have the hardest head in this world."

You stopped writing. Suddenly you were curious of what Changkyun is doing. Yes, you haven't talked to him for almost a month now and every time you and him passed each other, you two did not even bother to look like you both never knew each other before but it actually already two weeks since you've never crossed pathways in either your dorm or campus, but to put it in a simple way, you missed him.

After a good 90 minutes, the professor ended his lecture and wished you all good luck for the exam.

"I'm going to see him tomorrow with his friends. Are you coming?" Her words made you narrowed your eyes as you both walked out from the classroom.

"See him? Are you guys having a party or something? Because if it is, i won't come."

"I know you're crazy but i can't believe you're this crazy, (y/n)." She looked at you in disbelief, even stopped her steps just to said that to you.

"What? Why stopping?" You asked after you were one step away from her.

"He was sick, (y/n)." She still threw the same look at you. "He was hospitalized a week ago, but he just got back yesterday, so we were coming to see him tomorrow." Slowly your look become soften and you mouthed a 'what?'

"He... is... is he home now?" You stuttered.

"From what i heard, yes."

"Shit." You left her. She called your name couple of times but you ignored and you immediately ran to his dorm. Now you got the answer why you hadn't seen him.

You slid your card at the dorm's entrance door and headed to the lift. Pushing the button more than you've ever done to make the elevator comes faster.

You pushed his floor number after you got in and you never felt as worried as this before. Actually you're not just worried, you're sorry too.

Now here you are. In front of his door which have the number 553 written next to it and an sticker written "I'm not home, don't bother to knock" glued below.

You pushed the bell twice before he finally pulled the door opened.

"Changkyun..." You scanned him from head to toe. He looked like a complete mess. Crumpled white tee under a grey hoodie and a very messy hair that looks like that typical just woke up hair but it was almost five pm now so he must have been on his bed the whole day. His face was pale and his lips were chapped.

"Hi, (y/n)." He greeted. His voice was hoarse but weaker than usual.

"Are you... okay?" You finally asked him. He chuckled.

"I don't think you'd come here if i was okay." Well, he got a point. "Come on in." You stepped in as soon as he opened the door wider. Your eyes scanned his dorm. It was also a mess. Untouched dishes, clothes hanged here and there, books laying on his low table and there, you found his medications, laying beside a glass of water.

"Changkyun, i'm sorry." You turned around to him. He just stood there, nodded with his hands in his Nike shorts' pocket. "I didn't know you were... hospitalized." You hesitated.

"I just had a high fever and fatigued, but it was nothing. I’m okay now." He smiled.

"Really?" You put your hands on his forehead for a bit. "But you still look pale and..." You stuffed your hand into your bag, trying to find the your lipbalm before you immediately put it on his lips. It was the strawberry lipbalm that he likes, the one you always got teased at because it has this weird princess-y picture on the packaging but he always ended up stealing it from you and use it.

He smiled as you swatches it on his lips and slowly take your hand away and pulled you in for a hug.

"I missed you, (y/n)." He whispered as he brushed your hair gently. Him brushing your hair is not a new thing, but brushing it gently is. "If i knew we would not to talk to each other for this long, i'd never set you up on that stupid date."

"Changkyun," you let go of his hug. He looked at you asking why. "Don't hug me." You looked down. Remembering all the skin ships he shared with you until now. He loves skin ship too much when it's with you. Messing with your hair, pinching your cheeks, clinging onto your arms, circling his arms around your shoulder or just playing with your palms every time he got bored, acting like he's reading it. To be honest, you like it, you really like it but while he does it because he was simply comfortable with you, you enjoy it because you like him.

"(Y/n)," he chuckled. "Why so sudden?"

"I don't like it, Changkyun." You lied.

"You don't? Wait, i don't get it. We do it so often but you never complained before. Why now?" He rested his arms on his waist.

"It's not the hug..." you said in a low voice. "It's... how you hug me." You both became silence. You weren't sure what you're going to do now and if confessing it at this time was right or you just spilled a gas on a not yet extinguished fire that would made you both not talking anymore forever.

"(Y/n), is that the real reason why you always gave up the blind dates?" He caught you after a couple of minutes of silence.

You didn't give him any single sign of yes nor a direct answer but you guessed he found out. He was right, your reason for giving up all the blind dates because you're still scared of a commitment is complete bullshit but the real reason is even more than a bullshit.

He sighed. You looked up to him. His eyes never left you, looking at you softly and soon his lips turned, creating a smile that you always love to see.

He pulled you in for another hug. This time he buried his head for a couple of second in your neck.

"It took you ten blind dates to finally confessed that." He hugged you even tighter. You were still confused by his words and hesitated to hug him back. "I'm actually tired setting all those stupid dates for you, (y/n)." He let you go from his hug. Putting a strand of your hair behind your ears. "It took me ten times controlling myself not to clap my hands happy ever time you said that bullshit reason and it also took me ten times trying not to be jealous every time you went out with those guys."

You could feel your cheek blushed crimson red.

"I love you, (y/n)." He pulled you in for a kiss. A soft, gentle kiss that you were longing for for years. This time you were sure what you have to do. You kissed him back, following his rhythm. His hands slowly climbing up to your neck, pulling you even closer into a deeper kiss. He pushed you slowly until he managed to pin you on a wall with his lips still sealed to yours. He controlled himself not to let lust interfere your kiss.

His gentle kissed didn't become aggressive nor giving you a clue that he wants you in bed, now. No, he didn't want that. He just wanted to tell you that he shared the same feelings with you all these years.

"Can i finally say that you are mine now?" He asked you with a sincere smile. You gave him back the same gaze he threw you as a sign of a 'yes' before he pulled you in again for another kiss.

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elizabethrobertajones · 8 years ago

Note

I recently came across this blog that was very anti Dean/destiel. This was apparently because Dean supposedly was "an abusive person". Particularly towards Cas. Personally, I ship it, like.. a lot, but I scrolled down and I have to say that I read some valid points on that blog. Dean really treats him like shit sometimes and like, I could in some way understand why they thought of dean/cas's relationship like that. What's your opinion on this, like, do you think of Dean as abusive towards Cas?

If it was a Cas blog, those are all valid points, and you just let that go no matter how much you might stan for Dean :P Treat it as a free exercise in being zen towards your fellow humans and not thinking shit at them. Cas stans have been through enough, I was in fandom in season 10, I remember watching that despair >.>

(On the other hand there are some people who hate every aspect of the show at this point and are just completely fatigued with caring about it and may have a “Cas deserves better” line - but also hate 99% of everything that happens on screen so much that every aspect of the show is problematic garbage, which, of course, includes Destiel being an abusive trainwreck of a ship before you get to the fans romanticising every punch they throw at each other while gobbling up the queerbaiting and so on and so on)

There are some anti blogs that talk up it being abusive and whether they actually don’t ship it for that reason or not is a lot more blurry and (you can guess by the company they seem to keep) they might have got there via just finding something to “disprove” the ship or to justify hating it. In that case, long angry posts about why it’s so terrible are pretty much loudly agreeing with each other, and maybe hoping someone who ships it will stumble on the post and be convinced their ship is bad and they should feel bad. These same people will argue the ship is homophobic and its fans are homophobic, as well as abuse apologists, racist, whatever, because making a ship out to be unethical is a great way to subtly conduct a ship war while giving yourself high ground. It’s why when stuff like the cucumber water debate blew up, they were accusing us of being homophobic and saying drinking vegetable water made you gay, as if we are the racist uncle who thinks wearing a pink shirt means you’re a “pansy” or something, and that this line of homophobic reasoning is why we think Dean is gay and that they don’t stereotype people.

And there are people who genuinely don’t like the ship whatever angle they approach it because they feel it’s abusive in the sort of way where again you just respect that it makes them feel that way because it upsets or triggers them.

I’m now sure I sound like the next thing out of my mouth is going to be “so I guess Destiel is abusive then” but it’s a big fandom and different groups of people have different versions of the story :P

Lots of rambling about this under the cut:

When I was still fairly new to the fandom I stumbled on a Sam blog that was arguing with a great many examples of how Dean was abusive and of course sympathising with Sam in every fight and turning pretty much every interaction between them into a microaggression. I just wondered how you live like that and still watch the show? Like, if I found something so problematic I couldn’t even watch the 2 main characters who are onscreen all the time interact without getting upset every time one of the opens their mouth, I would just stop watching it. I *have* watched stuff where I then stopped watching because the characters pissed me off.

(I think this show has a secret magic formula to make you extremely over-invested in the characters to the point it’s like fictional character crack, and I may only stop writing meta for this show when I figure it out, take the secret with me, and go write a ton of novels with characters you’re similarly loyal too :P)

Anyway. There’s tons of people who don’t think Sam is abusive to Dean or Dean is abusive to Sam, and after I spent a day or so feeling really weird and uncomfortable about liking Dean so much when he was apparently awful I realised it had never affected the way I watched the show before, and that it had never troubled me about it either, because I never saw it that way.

When *I* thought about it, I thought Sam was very resilient, loved his brother, and had his clear boundaries, such as stomping off in 7x06 when he found out about Dean killing Amy or in season 9 after discovering the Gadreel thing, setting down very clear rules with Dean about where he stood after Dean crossed the line, and that clearly to Sam, he knows his own self, and 99% of the time, he’s fine with what Dean does in the grander scheme. Maybe they have fights and Sam is upset or angry with him for a while but in general if Sam thought he was being mistreated, he’s shown he can identify that for himself and get out and look after his own interest, and return when he and Dean can reach an understanding and have grown as characters from it. (I think altogether too much debate about characters treats them as if they have never grown when we see them learn and change all the time and are quantifiably different from how they started)

I think season 10 was the only time it crossed too far into really seeming a bit too domestic violence-y because of course Dean with the Mark of Cain had an ancient brother killing curse and Sam was still living under the same roof trying to help him, after being nearly murdered under said roof already once that year. But it was all extremely dark and fucked up for everyone, so unless I was stanning Sam, again it wouldn’t upset me any more than any other character’s messed up part in that arc, especially as Sam had his own part in being portrayed in a really negative light, and it seemed like Carver just wanted us to hate both of them at times.

Anyway by the time I ever read anyone complaining about how Destiel was abusive I’d already had to realise through thinking about that (and I read that before season 10 aired) that how we read characters and their behaviour to each other is as subjective as anything else on this show.

If we really, deeply care about Dean, Cas can be seen as abusive - that alley scene in 5x18 put people off because Cas attacked Dean pretty much out of personal anger when he could have just knocked him out with a touch and dragged his sorry butt home, and it made Cas seem cold and cruel to Dean, that he could turn on him like that and not care. Season 6 gives no respite to make Cas seem nice again, and then he goes and breaks Sam’s wall. By 7x17 when he comes back and Dean is all teary eyed about it and has the trenchcoat still you’re like why do you even fucking care, Dean? All he’s ever done is hurt you and Sam and break the world! and Dean’s suddenly in this position where he seems strung along loving someone who has only ever hurt them and been cold to them and his investment seems greater than Cas’s. And then as the story goes on, Cas’s attempts to redeem himself and apologise come across cold and calculating or emotionally manipulative and self-serving and yikes we’ve made it halfway through Carver era and Cas hasn’t done one single thing to earn Dean’s love or to seem truly selfless about his own. (I can’t be bothered to keep strawmanning this but honestly I have seen people who hate Cas argue the latter part, and people who never started shipping Destiel argue the first half about season 5 & 6 and why it never made sense to them)

I think it’s a violent, awful show where people do violent, awful things to each other. Sam and Dean already mutually did enough shit to make it easy to argue either was abusive to the other before Cas was around (eugh, extreme Dean girls hating Sam always feels like such a betrayal but they say some shocking stuff about Sam and how much of a useless whiny leech on Dean he is >.>) and Cas showed up also angry and a creature of violence, built in their exact mould, and they all kicked off from there.

At some point you’ve excused enough of this interpersonal violence and overblown emotional drama (which lends itself to manipulation and grand statements about betrayal or whatever) to watch the show and root for the characters and keep with them for up to 12 years and if you still LIKE the show and the characters, then you may have to consider when and how stuff would be abusive and be aware of not romanticising it, but you can still watch it and enjoy it and NOT find it abusive for your own take on it.

(I tag all discussion of Destiel crypt scene/mirrors of said scene, as “crypt scenes for ts” including gifsets that use their busted up faces in passing, for that reason, so people who find it abusive can selectively avoid it, and as a reminder to self that people see it that way and never to let myself think that these depictions of love breaking through violence are unproblematic. It’s an inherently problematic trope, and saying oh they were controlled by something else and it was romantic that they managed not to kill each other, is just too close to excusing someone who ACTUALLY hits someone and then saying, oh, but they managed to stop themselves from hurting them any more than they did and put down their fists after a while because they LOVE them. And the trope has been used 2 times with Cas and once with Dean so this isn’t saying either of them is more abusive than the other (especially as 10x22 was by far the most shocking, and, as I said about Sam, the Mark of Cain had been a domestic abuse metaphor the whole time))

But - and here’s the big but to literally everything above: if you still LIKE the characters and enjoy their relationship and it DOESN’T upset you too much to watch and you acknowledge where it can be seen as abusive but these things haven’t put you off, then there’s nothing harmful about either shipping them, OR saying you DON’T THINK THE SHIP IS ABUSIVE. And genuinely not thinking it is, overall.

I don’t, and for the same reason I explained about Dean not abusing Sam, especially that Cas still has agency and that his whole story has been about choosing the Winchesters over an INFINITELY more abusive family that HAS done all that shit to him and he’s been struggling to leave including the whole split loyalty still loving for them despite how much they hurt him thing and always being sucked back in despite how he must know by now angel stuff ALWAYS ends with him being hurt and angels dying. Picking Dean as his family over them seems a no-brainer.

For one thing, I don’t feel like there’s any malice in their day-to-day interactions, and that while Dean can be rough and rude to Cas, he doesn’t do it to exert control over him, JUST out of cruelty, or anything else abusive, just a pattern of “when Dean is sad or angry he will say insensitive and horrible things to the people around him” - because he’s human and messed up and angry/miserable (pick your week) and doesn’t think he even deserves their love half the time when he’s really trying to drive people off (his side of 5x18 :P). Your reaction to this pattern might depend on how you’ve been treated in the past and if it rings unfortunately too close to actual abuse to you, but without that trigger I think it is not impossible to read it as not aimed to control or emotionally manipulate the people around him, but normal expressions of emotion, with no intent to harm, and if you read the reactions of the people around him, no lasting damage to them as if his actions were abusive (e.g. Sam doesn’t get flinchy when Dean drinks or gets angry, as if emulating someone raised by a violent drunk; Cas doesn’t react when Dean yells at him but unless he’s in a very bad place for other reasons, gives shit right back to Dean and stands up for himself)

For another, Dean against Sam with the Mark was 100x worse than he ever was to Cas. 9x22 at the end showed a huge difference in how he treated them, and I don’t think that was putting on a nice face for Cas - I think that was meant to convey the Mark twisting Dean up AGAINST Sam and showing that he’d been poisoned against him, but it hadn’t affected how Dean felt about Cas, because he is not his brother, and the curse therefore doesn’t affect them. In the end he did attack Cas, and it’s their absolute low point, but it took a season and a half to hollow Dean out that far, as part of an episode showing in every way that we’d lost all parts of Dean that were good, while Dean took like 15 episodes from Mark of Cain to chasing Sam with a hammer. (And, of course, demon!Dean still retained parts of what made Dean good, making him at least complex, though obviously not “good” any more - Dean in 10x22 was genuinely more evil, empty and broken than when he was a demon, to compare Dean choosing to kill the kid with Dean selectively choosing to kill Lester because he thought his wife didn’t deserve it, never mind all his angsty moping and still deciding what he was and so on, suggesting he was struggling to let go of those last human parts.) Anyway, I didn’t think Dean had any sustained aggression against Cas and the arc was way more about a threat to Sam from Dean - as late as 10x20 Dean was still retaining his humanity and struggling to help Cas and do nice things on his behalf and play cute with Claire, while the season in general kept Cas away from Dean and I think that was a good idea in hindsight, because it both facilitated Dean’s descent (Cas keeps him on the level) and meant Cas didn’t have to take the brunt of Dean’s Mark-related dickishness. Aka, avoiding including Cas properly in any sort of sustained domestic abuse arc with Dean. In 10x18 they play happy families with Charlie, and it’s a fleeting GOOD thing with nice family dynamics. 10x21 laid it on thick that Sam was alone with someone who could swing around to violence and made it clear it was a domestic abuse metaphor between them. (Which, again, in Dean’s defence for THIS relationship, was a metaphor for one season, and I don’t think reflective on how he treats Sam normally, at all.)

As for Dean’s general behaviour, you have to forgive incident by incident on the assumption that Dean isn’t holding up a sustained campaign of abuse against Cas, but considers him an equal but who he often has GENUINE grievances against (and also that Cas is not a woobie and can take it - we may see him hurt a lot but he remains resilient). In season 6, Cas is shifty and won’t come to help them - you could argue Dean’s feeling entitled to that, but he’s upset because Cas is supposed to be a friend and his responses are underwhelming, and, importantly, Dean doesn’t feel like Cas is sharing when he WANTS to help. Dean can tell something’s up but Cas won’t even get into a real conversation with it, and wouldn’t have let Dean help anyway. So he’s pissed off at the start and gets MORE pissed off along the season, so he snaps at Cas and wheedles him to come help not because he feels like Cas is only good to help, but he’s fed up with Cas not coming, being weird, and being unhelpful, when they’re SUPPOSED to be friends.

I don’t even know how to explain how Dean acts towards Cas in season 7 if someone doesn’t get that the repercussions of Cas breaking Sam’s wall aren’t still clear in Dean’s mind, and he can’t talk to Cas about it because he’s never quite himself and ready to have the talk about these consequences. (I mean he sort of can at the end of the season but they’re aggressively not listening to each other even while trying to communicate) When Dean snaps at Cas, he’s frustrated, and angry and missing his friend, and upset on Sam’s behalf and it’s a mess, he’s not just yelling “no one cares that you’re broken” because he wants to hurt Cas. HE cares. He’s so fucked up about it that the entire end of the season rests on him reconciling with Cas, and so they need to show him unable to do that first… There’s more to it than just collecting a moment of Dean yelling at Cas or that bit where he throws the board game on the floor despite how it looks. They’re in the middle of the fight and Cas has as much of his part of it as Dean does, though he’s in a vulnerable state and Dean’s approaching him with anger, Cas knows Dean’s the injured party - this is the arc that starts with “I’ll find some way to redeem myself to you” - and it’s totally fucked up but this is how it plays out with Dean’s reactions to Cas’s avoidance and consuming guilt that won’t even let him face the problem head on until the very last moment. Dean approaches Cas gently, Cas finally makes a gesture to help and in this way their last conversation when they go collect Baby puts them back on EQUAL footing. And before that they were unequal but from both directions - Cas was broken/had no memory, but also Cas had the burden to make it right with Dean and he wasn’t making that move. He fixes Sam, which is the huge important step one, but after that he is “only playing sorry” and the argument goes BOTH ways with the need to reconcile, which means all the pissiness is fair game, NOT Dean being cruel to Cas and kicking him while he’s down…

I suppose I could keep on rationalising stuff they do forever but these are the examples I see the most when reading about it, and I just don’t feel in MY interpretation of it, that Dean has ANY cruelty to Cas, or even a sustained threat to him. That’s not to minimise that Cas took a LOT of beatings over recent times and ended up feeling depressed and alone and with PTSD and so on, but I read this as a carelessness that Dean desperately would not want to inflict on Cas if he knew and understood (and therefore could have reached out to him properly), and that at every opportunity when he even partially understands he reaches out and cares for Cas (like 8x08 and “talk to me” or many of the less dramatic heart to hearts where he tries to understand Cas or to reassure or comfort him about stuff, as well as generally attempting to apologise - I think he apologises 3 times for kicking Cas out the Bunker, though he can only truly repent after telling the whole truth, it ate him up and he WANTED it to not be this way and felt it was out of his control because from the last scene of 9x01 when Gadreel suddenly declares Sam can’t know, Dean immediately loses any control he thought he had over what happens next)…

Anyway, people are ALWAYS going to have opinions or still ship it but think some of my arguments don’t work and some of these examples were abusive but it won’t stop them shipping based on a more ideal version of the relationship, even divorcing from canon altogether and shipping the AU perfect version of the ship where it can always be happy and they never have the issues they do in canon. Some people will ship it because they LIKE that element of it, for one reason or another, and there will be people who write fic embracing really dark elements.

When it comes to reading what others have to say about ANYTHING you like, you have to decide for yourself how much it affects how you see it, and you have to remember people are coming at everything with their personal biases and feelings. You CAN argue Destiel is abusive - you can probably argue most ships are, especially ones with canon interaction, and especially LOTS of canon interaction because tropes like lying and manipulation (even gentle lies and manipulation) are rife in fiction. Writers make characters fight for drama, and once they do, someone’s going to find supporting the characters together is inherently problematic and awful.

If you make it this far in canon and HAVEN’T found the ship abusive in YOUR reading of it and based on YOUR emotional reactions to everything that happened on screen so far, then you are probably safe to keep shipping it at least on YOUR terms.

However, I would listen to what people say and make up your own mind just because if they’re bringing up things that are genuinely unsettling, you should probably work out if you support that or not, and if you ship at a safe remove (e.g. “the crypt scene etc were abusive and I don’t like it but generally I find the ship okay and they’ve made attempts to mend that and aren’t continuing in that behaviour so I can still ship them in canon but don’t want to see anything romanticising the bad bits” or “I find the things they’ve done in canon unsettling enough I would rather ship them in fanon and try to enjoy what they do in canon just for the good bits like when they hold hands” or whatever). As long as you are respectful to other people and understand WHY they see things the way they do, and don’t try and tell people who are genuinely hurt that things AREN’T hurtful.

(I’m not saying you would, but there are arguments in fandom I really don’t think we should be having as arguments, and this is one of them :P)

#Asks #abuse cw

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