#but i'm also so devastated to let new plans end. it truly has made me so happy to meet you all through this story
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chapter ten, boyfriend, girlfriend? taglist: @taking-a-footnote-in-your-life, @lostwonderwall, @lomlolivia, @sturniolomads, @kylespencersvocalcords, @stxrniqlo, @sophialimass, @loonielol, @siriusfahey, @getbillzoned, @kjd55, @ceceswriting, @dancingintheedark, @yoongoboongo, reach out to be added :-)
new plans, matt sturniolo smau synopsis: coming home for the holidays has its perks; you get to see your childhood best friends again, you get to spend the holidays with the people you’ve always loved, and the list goes on. of course, it also had its cons— you have to face your best friend, matt, the one that you’re madly in love with and have been in love with since you were merely thirteen. little do you know, though, that he’s dealing with the same mixed emotions of you and the holidays; biting his nails as he waits for you to knock on his front door.
previous ♡ end. | m.list © iluvmatt, 2022.
#nick just wanted to take all the credit although at one point in a previous chapter he said 'we' and i respect him for that!#but here we are#at the end of something i've put my entire heart into.#i'm so excited to make more stories for you all and i hope the ending wasn't too bad.#i hate ending things so i just wanted to make it lighthearted#like with chris and his jokes; the litany of bickering#and of course matt and y/n being sappy!!#who knows; maybe i'll write about their relationship at some point based on this au.#but thank you all for staying and following me through this journey.#i should have named the last chapter 'confessions' but i'm also nitpicking myself SO! maybe that's why i'm overthinking#but i'm also so devastated to let new plans end. it truly has made me so happy to meet you all through this story#i hope my new pieces keep us together.#thank you all for giving me this opportunity and being here#i love you all.#matt sturniolo x reader#matthew sturniolo#matt sturniolo#matt sturniolo x you#matthew sturniolo fic#matt sturniolo smau#matt sturniolo fanfic#sturniolo triplets#sturniolo#sturniolo triplets smau#nick sturniolo#nicolas sturniolo#chris sturniolo#christopher sturniolo#sturniolo triplets fic
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I love Baldur's Gate and the Dark Urge and all -
And the idea of the Dark Urge redeeming themselves after a lifetime of horror by literally choosing to die and go to purgatory forever is really amazing. In fact, it's why I'm so dedicated to the Dark Urge as a character.
The idea of a villain losing their memory, becoming a hero, and then realizing that they need to die not just once, but twice to truly DESERVE their redemption is honestly brilliant.
But.
But.
Withers revives you way too fucking fast.
You literally die...and then Withers instantly brings you back.
In fact, it takes him fucking longer to revive your COMPANIONS than you, and your companions dying and being revived at camp aren't even part of the story, it's just you fucking something up and not wanting to waste a revive scroll.
Withers bringing you back instantly comes across as like, oh, so dying for your morals, being a true hero in the end, a martyr, defeating the villain, which is you...it's totally negated.
You died for about twenty seconds.
I've known people who died for longer on the operating table.
Where is my lover crying and clutching my body?
Where are my friends, all looking devastated, because they're all gotten to know me and root for me and truly care about me after I've done ALL THIS for them???
So that they could be safe from me?
Where is the emotion?
He brings you back and then your companions have a single line that's essentially just, "good job buddy."
Karlach says something like, I'm proud of you and Wyll says I'll drink in your name or whatever.
And Astarion has a really obnoxious line about how this means you aren't going to attack him anymore...and it's like... okay.
Cool.
So you guys are totally unphased by the fact that you just watched me die...but I suppose death doesn't mean shit in this game, since you have Withers to constantly bring you back.
Cool.
So then what? Nothing matters?
It's just frustrating because I know it's the cut content curse. They had more planned for Orin and the Dark Urge and Bhaal...but it just feels so underwhelming.
I think BG3's primary flaw comes in the fact that they wanted to build this richly crafted narrative, while also accounting for player choice. And they did a magnificent job of adding SO MANY extra scenes and alternate interactions, to the point where I'm still finding new shit, after like 800 hours of playing...
But the tradeoff is that the character stories...fall really flat, because they want so desperately for a Tav to be the main character, and no one else.
The Dark Urge especially suffers from this, because they made them a murder hobo in one ending, and basically just a Tav in the other ending.
As soon as you are brought back by Withers, you might as well just be a Tav. It has no bearing on anything anymore.
And that's such a shame.
I just wish it had some weight. The Dark Urge has spent their entire life ending lives... it should be beautiful, that they would end their own life to atone...their last victim, would be themselves, as they always knew...but for different reasons-
oh wait, withers is here.
cool, i'm back, guys, let's go to arby's and celebrate.
i just think the game should legitimately make you think you died, at least until a long rest or two.
force the squad to go on without you, make someone else your fourth member.
THEN withers can come to you, maybe in some kind of new Jerrgal-form, so you know he's Jergal for sure, and then reveal he was secretly a retired god.
And honestly, that makes Withers a far more interesting character too. To give him this huge hero moment, and have him say, no, this will not stand. I know he HAS that moment, but it's so rushed.
Let the player breathe on it. Let them FREAK OUT. Can you imagine how much stir it would've created, if Dark Urge players LEGIT thought they were dead permanently?
That would've given their sacrifice real weight.
But Larian was scared, probably, of players being upset that their characters are dead, even though that kind of sacrifice is literally the most heroic thing you could do in the game, besides become a damn mindflayer.
So some sacrifice! You sacrificed ten seconds of your life, and your companions barely care.
Alright. Fine.
I'll just be over here writing your story for you!
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Not to dwell on the fanservice issues since I also cannot engage with that part of BL for similar reasons, but I am truly concerned that the industry still doesn't have a way for brand pairs to end without causing massive harm to the actors, both personally and professionally. Sometimes I think we've made massive strides in fanservice, but then I see all the massive brand pairs currently in existence and how companies have not figured out how to let these actors move beyond them. I'll try to avoid using specific names, but there are some HUGE brands at GMMTV right now that one day might want to branch beyond BL . And we have seen how the breakup of a certain GMMTV pair caused fan devastation, harassment of a new actor, and frankly something that isn't talked about enough - actors now have to contend with a loss in job stability and probably income. Sure, their personal fans and casual viewers (me) won't care - but I am not paying money to go to their fan meetings or brand events or their concerts, and those pair fans won't either. And companies seem to just be sticking their head in the sand and hoping they can recruit the next big thing before a pillar explodes.
Even in a less controversial moment, it was just announced that a pair is ending as one needs a health break. And, thank god he's getting one. But it's also insane that their careers are going to have to undergo fundamental changes and potentially job losses (aside from dealing with angry and heartbroken fans, of which I've seen many) because they might have new onscreen partners.
I can only think of a handful of examples (I'm specifically thinking Max and Tul but there are others I'm sure) where actors have been mostly able to end their specific brand partnership (or move to other projects) without imploding the BL universe. But in those cases, I never get the impression it's because the company has a well thought out safety plan that they've discussed with the actors to minimize the impact on their careers and move them in a new direction. It seems like the lucky few have great working relationships with their co-stars and are basically able to leverage either their personal friendship or stellar working relationship to put the brand pair out to pasture with very gentle hands.
There's other issues about fanservice that really grinds my gears, but in light of the fact I believe some pairs will be ending soon, this has really made me extra angry. It feels like company negligence is going to stab some of these actors in the back when they feel like it's time to fly the nest. And fans are enabling their poor behavior.
This is all a very valid worry and one that I definitely share. Fan's response to actor pairs breaking is extreme and the ones who are really dating are even worse. I think of MewGulf every single time and the vitriolic response that people had to them and it's just... so scary, honestly.
I still see people on the some of these shorts and posts lamenting an actor pair that did one show together and never planned on doing another and people expressing how heartbreaking it is that they're not still together and just... yeah.
And having no plan for ending these pairings and their careers after does absolutely trap these actors in a portion of their career until or unless they're willing to give it all up in order to move on to something new. Which is not how it should be! Fanservice is meant to be fun and compliment to the shows, a fiction for the viewers that they enjoy, not the end all be all of an actor's career.
And there are just... there are so many actors that, right now, if they announced that they weren't dating... they would be destroyed. Utterly. Completely and totally and people would be rending their clothing and screaming about true love and it just scares me.
Fanservice has a place but I think there has to a pull back on them.
I, admittedly, don't know much about pairs that have moved apart in the longterm but I've seen people still mad about short term ones and making up longform fictional excuses for them not being able to work together but still being in love and it's just... it's wild. It's scary. They are actors! Acting! I promise!
I don't trust anything until or unless they're not working together anymore. They have to not be working on any shows together before I'll believe anything because look at what the shipping gets them. The dedicated fans, the hugely defensive fanbase, people so loyal that they will look for any sign they're in love and buy every single fanmeeting ticket, music event ticket or piece of merch based on their relationship.
Truly wild.
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Baby, It's Cold Outside (Taehyung x OC)
Summary: Something's up with Taehyung. Despite her best efforts, Dilara can't help but be curious.
Pairing: Taehyung x OC
Genre: Angst and something else
Word count: 6.5 K
Rating: 18+
Warnings: language, themes, mentions of heartbreak, infidelity, online hate
A/N: It's cold, and writing this made me feel just a little warmer. I wasn't planning on releasing this so soon but it's the end of the year and I'm feeling a lot of gratitude in general, including for my readers - so this one's for you lot. Hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a wonderful New Year :)
This fic begins a couple of days after The Reason.
Tagging: @bbl32 @quarter-life-crisis2 @meirkive @dreaming-with-happiness @kflixnet (drop a message if you want to be added)
Listen to: "ocean eyes" by billie eilish
taehyung masterlist | main masterlist
The subtle shift after Dilara’s confession is… well, subtle. She doesn’t notice it at first, mostly because Taehyung continues to keep his distance from her like she’d asked. She can’t tell if he’s told the others anything because they don’t act any differently around her. No, the change is in Dilara, in her behaviour. It doesn’t become clear to her until she hears him laugh one day in the kitchen and her heart skips a beat, and she realises that she’s stopped leaving the room the moment he comes in.
I don’t hate you. It’s not a huge insight, to be honest. If she’d hated him, truly hated him, she would’ve made sure he wouldn’t have the nerve to approach her at all, let alone stand all hauntingly and sexily right behind her as he murmured an apology in that deep, raspy voice that makes her feel some kind of way. It did look like news to him, if the confused look on his face was any indication. She remembers what Namjoon said: He was devastated about your break-up, of course, but seeing you so broken up about it changed everything.
Thinking about it doesn’t help, though. His apology is just that - an apology. She still doesn’t know how he feels about him or how he feels about her, irrespective of what Jimin and Namjoon might say. She doesn’t know if she forgives him and she definitely doesn't know what she wants after that. Dilara becomes increasingly aware of the fact that this PR activity is only until Japan, which is another month away. After that, he goes back to his life and she goes back to hers, and they only interact in the limited capacity of Red Bull driver and Red Bull ambassador. She tries not to think of it as a deadline.
Nurburgring is as cold as ever. It’s also as small as every other European town they’ve lived in so far, so it isn’t surprising that even though the house they’ve got has a gigantic backyard with a lake beyond it, all eight of them stay huddled inside, constantly cradling a mug of something hot in their hands. Therefore, it’s to her surprise when she comes out of her room after a hot shower to see nearly all the guys huddled in the kitchen, surreptitiously peering out the window.
Dilara frowns as she sidles up behind Jungkook, who immediately steps aside to give her space. She spots him immediately, of course; Kim Taehyung, looking like a painting even in slippers and joggers, sitting in the grass, face unreadable from the distance as he stares out at the frozen lake.
“Is that -” But as usual, Dilara can’t say his name. “What is he doing out there? He’ll get hypothermia.” She looks up at Jungkook, practically demanding an answer.
“Um…” He looks conflicted, looking to the older members as though asking for permission.
“Of course you can tell her,” says Jimin in an uncharacteristically low voice, continuing to look outside in worry.
Namjoon sighs. “His, uh, his sister graduated high school and - and he didn’t know,” he explains. “Then he called home and… well, I don’t know what happened after that.” He gestures to Taehyung outside. “He didn’t say anything. He’s been sitting out there ever since.”
This can’t be good. Even without knowing the whole story, Dilara feels her heart crack just a little bit. All through their short-lived relationship, he’d never really spoken much about his siblings. His parents, yes. His grandparents, a lot, with affection and sadness all put together. But the few times that he’d brought up his brother and sister at all, it mostly revolved around ancient childhood memories, pre-debut, because those were the only ones he said he had. When she’d once asked him what their relationship was like now, he’d taken a long time to answer before simply saying “Not much” and proceeding to shut down for the rest of the day.
Dilara had drawn basic conclusions of her own, resisting the urge to ask any of the others, but she’d never brought it up with him again. Now she remembers why. It’s familiar, this sort of worry spreading through her.
“Is he…” No, he’s not. Of course he’s not okay. She bites her lip and tries again. “Does he want to be left alone?”
A little distance away, Yoongi scoffs, not unkindly. “Not by you,” he says, too knowingly for her liking.
The next thing she knows, she’s walking across the backyard, clenching her fists in the cold. There’s no wind, thankfully, but she can see her breath when she exhales, pearly white, as she approaches the lone figure. She stops a few feet away from him.
Taehyung doesn’t even look up. “Jeoligayo, Jimin-ah,” he snaps, and she flinches. She forces herself to stay, though.
“Wrong alcoholic,” she says steadily, keeping her eyes trained on him as his head snaps up to look at her in shock.
“What are you -” He swallows, pushing his thick black glasses up his nose. “Why are you here?”
Dilara shrugs. “No reason. Can I sit?”
His eyes narrow. “I don’t need your pity,” he mutters flatly.
She frowns. “I’m not pitying you. I’m not even sure what’s wrong with you.”
“Oh, sure,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes and looking back at the lake. “You just happen to want to sit with me right now after avoiding me for weeks.”
Dilara huffs and rolls her eyes, even as hope bubbles in her stomach. This bickering, snapping, the sarcasm - this Taehyung she knows how to handle. This is her Taehyung, she thinks, before she nearly blanches. When on earth did she start thinking of him as her anything?
“You’re still here,” he states.
“Well done. Now can I sit here or not?”
“No.”
She raises her eyebrows. “You really want me to leave? Because I’ll do it.”
He turns back up to look at her, face smoother and stonier than ever. “Fine. Do it. Go.” His voice cracks on the last word.
As Dilara watches him turn back around, she makes up her mind. She knows he isn’t going to budge, even if he feels differently. He’s stubborn, and he’ll sit here all night if it means keeping his pride, lashing out at everyone the more hurt he is. It was like living with the grinch. A mean, petty, heartbroken and very handsome grinch. It’s unfortunate but true, so she shifts to his right and, keeping a decent five foot distance between them, drops to the ground and folds her legs.
Taehyung turns to look at her incredulously. “Seriously? Why did you ask if you’re going to do what you want anyway?”
“You don’t own the backyard,” she reminds him. “I can sit where I want. Why don’t you leave?”
“Because I was here first.”
“Fine, then stay there. I’m all the way over here,” she points out, gesturing to the distance as if it were a trench and not a short distance from where she can still smell his cologne. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
He scoffs again but doesn’t say anything, folding his arms across his chest. The situation feels familiar, but also different. Taehyung and Dilara, suppressed sadness, misdirected anger, and patience. Endless patience. Her heart gives a feeble jolt when she realises this is Monza, where she knew she’d be missing an iconic race on the calendar, where she was injured, where Taehyung drove her, waited for her, fed her and sat through her endless bitching because he knew she was hurting.
She knows the circumstances aren’t exactly the same. She hasn’t cheated on him, she hasn’t hurt him. But no matter what he’s done to her, this… this situation with his siblings isn’t about them at all. Just like Monza wasn’t about them.
Bracing herself for another snappy reaction, she scoots over next to him so their shoulders brush. He doesn’t disappoint.
“What are you doing?” he asks, although this time she detects more surprise than annoyance.
“It’s freezing,” she tells him, exhaling shakily to prove her point, “and I need some bodily warmth.” She waits for him to disagree or make some sarcastic comment, but when he doesn’t, she leans back against the rock and they sit together awkwardly.
It’s still not enough, though. Dilara knows Taehyung, despite her best efforts at pretending otherwise. He’s been vulnerable with her before and she knows what he needs. She remembers a year ago, on her last day in California: a fight, followed by making up with hours of sex, a shower, and sleep. The entire time, he hadn’t let go of her once.
Even at night, when they’d barely exchanged two words, he’d held her close, forehead pressed to her hair, breath warm against her shoulder as they silently prepared to separate yet again. Skinship, it seemed, made him feel better, secure, loved.
Conversely, in Monza, she needed space. He’d given it to her, even though she’d seen his hand reach out for hers multiple times before he’d suddenly remembered that he couldn’t take those liberties anymore. She can, though. She doesn’t think she’s wrong, and right now her heart aches too much for him to not at least try.
So, before she can change her mind, Dilara reaches over and slips her hand into his, and drops her head onto his shoulder. The moment her fingers touch the back of his hand, though, he flinches. She realises her hands must be freezing; they always are, whereas his are always warmer than usual, like now. M-m, under the shirt, she remembers whispering to him more than once, feeling him grin silently against her skin, knowing he loved it when she asked.
“Sorry,” she mutters, going to release his hand but before she can, Taehyung’s fingers tighten and he gently tugs, resting their clasped hands on his lap. Her heart races, especially when he brings his left hand on his lap as well and covers the back of hers, warming it.
They haven’t been this close physically since he’d helped her walk in Monza. He feels warm, comforting; she has to resist the urge to turn her head and inhale his scent. The familiar lotion and cologne smells like a home she’s moved out of. She wonders if she should ask him what happened, but a part of her feels like it’s none of her business.
He’s letting you sit here, isn’t he? Even if Dilara assumes Jimin and Namjoon’s theory is correct, that he does still feel the same way about her, this isn’t a topic he’s super forthcoming about. Still, her mind goes back to how Jimin had said Jungkook could definitely tell her, or how Yoongi was sure Taehyung didn’t want to be left alone by her. But she also doesn’t want him to push her away again. For once, she’s able to think about him without letting her anger or hurt get in the way, and it feels too rare and precious to disturb. She considers asking him softly if he wants to talk about it when he speaks.
“She doesn’t want me to come.” Taehyung’s voice is hoarse and shaky. She gathers he’s talking about his sister, that she doesn’t want him to come to her graduation… Dilara wants to sigh, mostly because she has no idea what to say. From the limited information she has about this, she knows his siblings don’t have the best relationship with him, from harbouring resentment for being away, to having no room for him in their lives.
He sniffles, and she feels lost, not knowing what to say or what comfort to offer. With her free hand, she grasps his arm and wraps her fingers around it, squeezing his lean bicep gently and rubbing her thumb on his sweater. Her heart hurts; she doesn’t like seeing him in pain. She never has. Even when they were together and he liked to be the one taking care of her, she started preferring it just because it was too hard the other way round. His bottom lip would quiver, his eyes would well up, the tip of his nose would go red and she’d be powerless to stop the pain.
They stay there for a while in the cold, sitting beside each other in the closest physical way in over half a year. Dilara’s mind drifts to their time in Japan; another cold weekend surrounded by the circus that was Formula 1 and BTS, while she and Taehyung shared their own private, intimate space, falling in love without even realising it. A cold breeze blows and she shivers.
“Are you cold?” Taehyung asks softly, turning his head slightly, probably to not disturb where hers is resting on his shoulder.
Dilara lifts her head up, though, and takes her hand off his arm. “Um… no,” she lies, not wanting this to end.
“You have goosebumps,” he murmurs, turning their clasped hands around so hers is on top and pushing back her sleeve a few inches above her wrist, as if to show her proof. He’s right; as his long fingers brush her skin, the bumps become even more pronounced.
Quickly pulling her sleeve back down, Dilara turns their hands over and pushes his sleeve up. “You have goosebumps, too,” she points out, a bit more defensively than she intended.
Taehyung chuckles quietly. “It’s not a competition.”
“Not a close one.” Her fingers touch something cold and when she moves her hands a bit, the dim moonlight brings a familiar ring into view, resting on his index finger. Her heart twists, and next to her, Taehyung stiffens.
Dilara tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and looks up at him. Their faces are incredibly close. “Will you be okay?” she asks softly.
Taehyung nods, eyes flickering with emotion. “Why did you -” He breaks off, looking away for a moment. “Thanks for… for this.”
She bites her lip. “You know this doesn’t change anything.” As she says it, she hears the disappointment in her own voice.
“I know,” he nods. “But thanks anyway.”
She nods slowly and, involuntarily, her gaze flickers to his mouth before she immediately brings it back up to look at him. He’s looking at her too meaningfully, with far too much tenderness and regret. Dilara’s aware that at least some of it is an aftereffect of an emotionally heavy evening with his family, but as their breaths condense in the air and mingle with each other, she finds she’s afraid to find out how much of it is for her.
This time, Taehyung’s eyes fall to her mouth before coming up to meet hers, a lot slower than she did. A strand of blond hair has escaped his cap and she imagines brushing it back, maybe lightly touching his face, tracing the contours of his cheekbones...
They’re about to kiss. She knows it. His eyes are half-lidded and his face is closer than it was a moment ago. Butterflies erupt in her stomach and she suddenly feels shy as his lips slowly approach hers… and she doesn’t back away.
They’re interrupted by footsteps, loud ones that jerk them out of their trance. She snaps up to see Jin and Jimin approaching them. “Gwaenchanayo?” Jin asks tentatively.
Suddenly realising they’re still holding hands, Dilara immediately lets go of Taehyung’s and stands up, brushing herself off. “Yeah, everything’s fine. He’s all yours,” she tells them before hurrying back inside.
---
Dilara doesn’t want to know what Taehyung’s reaction was to being interrupted. If she knows him, it was a mixture of annoyance at his friends, regret at not acting faster with her, and some amount of apprehension at how she will react later.
She doesn’t stick around to find out, though. The next morning, Qualifying day, Mick Schumacher and Max Verstappen pick her up from the house to go to the paddock together. She sees Mick standing outside the car, blond and beautiful, looking like a Disney prince as he smiles and waves to her. Behind him, Max scowls at his phone as he types something, looking up only to politely nod his head at someone behind her.
“Good luck today,” says Namjoon to all of them when she turns around to see him emerge with a book in his hand. He gives her a momentary look that seems too meaningful to be a coincidence, before smiling and waving as they leave.
BTS don’t come to the paddock today. Dilara isn’t sure, but she suspects they’re filming a Run episode and irrespective of what their PR arrangement is and the fact that she doesn’t understand Korean anyway, the staff would rather not have her around.
She does get good luck texts from Jimin, Seokjin and Hoseok, the latter also adding an additional line about watching out for this episode when it airs just to be entertained by what a bad mood Taehyung is in. It’s exasperating how temperamental he gets, but there’s also a secret pride that she can’t help but feel at the suspicion that his mood could be this bad because of the kiss that almost happened… and the cold shower she suspects he needed to take after it.
Dilara needed to, if she’s being fully honest. She didn’t because it was freezing, but later that night under the covers with the lights off, for the first time in weeks, she’d brought out of her suitcase a most loyal of travel companions. In the brave hope that the thick blankets would be enough to mask the sound of the vibrations, Dilara, for the first time in months, pictured her ex-boyfriend with no guilt or shame, the memory of how her stomach had fluttered at the thought of kissing him overpowering everything.
In hindsight, Dilara doesn’t know how she would’ve responded if he had kissed her. For that reason alone, she’s relieved they were interrupted. But the momentary warmth she’d felt with his body so close to hers had been unbearably stirring, his voice deep and husky as he murmured in the dark, their fingers intertwined, his slender hand still on her wrist, how his jaw tightened just a bit as he looked down at her mouth…
As expected, Qualifying is tough. The temperature is unbearable and no matter how many blankets the pit crew covers the tyres in, they just aren’t hot enough. Two pairs of cars crash into each other, while the remaining drivers just try to hang on and wrap up the least productive Qualifying session ever.
It’s not a good Qualifying for Dilara - but not because of her result. Max snags P3 and she finishes P4, a good result considering, despite a frustrating hour of being able to get no heat into her stupid tyres. A racing incident ends up ruining fan favourite Lando Norris’s Q3, though, and while she doesn’t think it’s her fault, he’s still in P10.
Dilara just knows her phone is going to blow up with hate from his fans. The post-Qualifying interview is terrible as well; she stutters and uses the wrong words that the anchor, Paul di Resta, immediately picks up on, and she overall ends up sounding rather defensive about the whole thing.
The debrief is shit, too, although not because of Christian or Helmut saying anything to her. They discuss her mistake but quickly move on to how they can spin it for tomorrow, with the constant question hanging over the team about how on earth they’re ever going to be able to race in such freezing conditions.
Mick and Max drop Dilara home after Quali, all three of them in relative silence which she’s thankful for. When she enters the house, it’s to the entire group in the living room and kitchen area, who conspicuously lower their voices at the sight of her. At first, she assumes they don’t want her to hear and she’s about to remind them that she doesn’t understand Korean. Then when she sees Jimin and Jungkook looking up at her from near the television with big, concerned eyes, it occurs to her that they might have seen Qualifying - and her interview after.
She doesn’t want to talk about it, though, with anyone. She silently waves in greeting and trudges to her room, shutting the door and heading straight for the shower. She turns the water to the hottest setting, welcoming the scalding water after a day of cold sweat and online hate.
It’s only after a long and elaborate moisturizing routine that Dilara realises she’s forgotten to pick up food from the track, meaning she has no dinner. Panic grips at her chest for a moment because she can’t not eat the night before a race, and the exhaustion makes her want to yell. Then, as if the universe has heard her and thrown her a bone, she smells something exquisite. She can’t tell what it is exactly, but it smells like soup and chicken curry, and her stomach rumbles in hunger.
Dilara puts her ear to the door, hearing nothing. It’s unheard of to have three or more members of BTS in a room and have this much silence, meaning it might just be safe to go out. Opening the door a crack and vaguely wondering why she’s being so dramatic, Dilara spots a lone Min Yoongi in the kitchen, quietly preparing dinner.
Her stomach rumbles again and she tries to count herself lucky that he, at least, will not probe her about today. The rest of her tries to gather the courage to actually step out of her room and open her mouth to ask him what she wants to. When she reaches the edge of the kitchen, she stops. If he’s seen her, he isn’t acknowledging it.
“Do you need some help?”
Yoongi looks up, hands still shaking some kind of powder into the pot on the stove. He frowns vaguely.
It’s not the reaction she was hoping for but it’s only then that she peers into the pot to see something vaguely orange bubbling away. Next to him, there’s a cutting board with two slabs of meat on it. “What are you making?” she asks curiously, frowning as she tries to place it.
He takes a moment before answering. “Dwaejigogi-jjigae.”
Dilara bites her lip. “Oh… I don’t - I don’t know what that is.”
He raises an eyebrow, now reaching for a cup of water. “You dated two Koreans and you don’t know what dwaejigogi-jjigae is?”
“Who’s the second? Chris?” she exclaims, thinking she might throw up. “God, no.”
“Not Chris,” says Yoongi calmly. “The other one, in Yeongam.”
Oh. Jaden. That’s even worse. “Oh,” she replies, not knowing what else to say. “How do you know about that?”
“The first one spotted you there,” he says wryly, a ghost of a smirk on his face.
So Taehyung had seen them snogging in the parking lot. She doesn’t know how to feel about that now. “Oh, yeah. Well… it didn’t really go anywhere,” she says vaguely. For some reason, she doesn’t want Yoongi to think she was at all serious about Jaden. She clears her throat. “So, do you need some help?”
Yoongi stares at her with narrowed eyes for a moment before turning his attention back to the pot. “Is this about what I said in Imola? Because it’s none of my business.”
“No, I know. I mean, it’s not - it’s not about that,” she says lamely, wishing she would stop stuttering. “I just… well, why don’t you want help?” she asks, changing tacks.
“It’s not that I don’t want it. It’s that apart from Jin hyung, you’re literally the first person in this house that’s ever offered to help out in the kitchen,” he explains, sounding fairly unbothered by the fact. “And I’ve been around these kids for too long not to get suspicious.”
Dilara isn’t sure how she feels about being lumped with the kids, although she guesses for Yoongi it’s only natural. It suddenly makes her feel like she'd rather tell him the truth. “I’m really hungry,” she blurts. “For - for home-cooked food.”
Yoongi raises his eyebrows. “You’re offering to help because you want food?”
She hesitates. “I mean, it’s not like an Oliver Twist kind of situation.”
“You didn’t think I’d give you food unless you helped?” He tilts his head as he looks back at her, looking curious. “Do you really think I’m that much of a dick?”
“No, of course not,” she replies hurriedly, realising what it must sound like. “I’m just… I’m not… I’m not really hanging out with you guys right now, so I guess I don’t think it’s fair if I… I mean, I should…” She trails off, now feeling truly embarrassed. It occurs to her that even if she does get food, she’ll probably have to sit with them while she eats it. “You know what? It’s - it’s fine, I’ll just order in.”
“From where?”
“From… wherever the other drivers are getting their food from,” she answers vaguely, knowing all of them have their trainers with them and suddenly missing Lexie more than ever.
Yoongi frowns, still looking more curious than anything else. “Why are you so nervous? Do I intimidate you?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
Dilara scoffs nervously. “Oh, that can’t be news to you.”
He cracks a smile. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
“Um, I don’t think I used the word afraid,” she clarifies before shrugging, looking down at her hands. “You’re like that older brother. The one you don’t want to disappoint.”
Yoongi chuckles quietly, without humour. “I don’t think you’re the one that disappointed me,” he admits wryly.
There’s an awkward silence. The idea that Yoongi could feel this strongly about her love life seems too foreign to consider. Dilara had never particularly got the impression that Yoongi really cared what she thought of him, but then again, he wouldn’t be the first member to surprise her.
Dilara remembers one of the few conversations they’ve ever had, just the two of them. He won’t hurt you. He’d more or less promised that, even though he had no business doing so. His response makes a little more sense when she thinks about that evening, sharing a taboo cigarette in Monterey and promising, to this day, to keep it between them.
“So do I really intimidate you, Lara?” Yoongi asks, gently pulling her out of her reverie.
Her heart skips a beat. “Oh… please don’t call me that,” she requests, shifting uncomfortably.
Yoongi looks amused. “Taehyung’s the only one who can call you that?”
The honest answer, she realises only now, is yes. “He doesn’t call me that anymore,” she says evasively.
“You can caramelise the onions,” he says after a moment, gesturing to another chopping board with a pile of sliced onions on it.
“Oh,” she sighs, deflating slightly.
“What?”
Dilara swallows. “I don’t - I mean… I really think it would be better if you gave me something that didn’t involve cooking, per se. Like chopping or - or cleaning…?” she suggests nervously, embarrassed at putting her incompetence on display like this. ”I’m a disaster in the kitchen,” she confesses.
Yoongi observes me for a moment. “Not to make things awkward, but sometimes you and Taehyung make so much sense, it’s crazy.”
It’s not the first time she’s heard this. “Yeah…” she agrees dryly, “until it isn’t.”
“What happened when you two tried cooking together?”
Dilara chuckles in spite of herself. “We never tried.”
“Just as well,” he replies. “Probably saved a kitchen somewhere from burning down.”
“Probably.” She pauses. “We never really got around to doing stuff like that,” she says after a moment, and she can hear the underlying regret in her own voice at how short a time they’d had together.
“Here,” says Yoongi after a moment. She looks up to see him push a bowl filled with carrots, leeks and colourful bell peppers. “You can chop this.”
---
Dilara should sleep. She really should. But sleep evades her for some strange reason and after a series of silly decisions, she finds herself walking outside like a goddamn zombie on an unbelievably freezing night in Germany.
What she’s doing is ridiculously stupid. She could get hypothermia, her joints will be stiffer than ever, she could catch a cold or a fever, she will lose out on sleep, and being awake at this hour is guaranteed to stress her out even more than she already is. But her anxiety takes precedence over it tonight, and without Lexie, Chris and Fred to help her out of it, especially after a shitty Qualifying, she realises she’s rather badly equipped to handle it on her own.
Dilara is on the verge of opening her Twitter app and reading comments about her today. She does that sometimes; it’s sick, deliberately reading hate about oneself, especially from people who probably can’t even drive a goddamn stick, but she does it anyway so that, ironically, her anxiety reduces by turning into conviction that, yes, she is a terrible driver, she probably doesn’t deserve the Red Bull seat, that a little girl shouldn’t be racing with men, she probably is PMSing when she accidentally says the wrong thing on camera…
She wants to call Lexie. If she were to find out what Dilara is tempted to do, she would shut her down so quickly that she’d feel stupid for considering it in the first place.
Dilara’s thumb hovers over her phone screen, frozen. Lexie had messaged herself right after Quali but Dilara hadn’t wanted to talk just then. It matters not, because the next second, the phone is at Dilara’s ear and she hears ringing. It rings and rings, but eventually goes to voicemail. She closes her eyes; even the sound of Lexie’s voice on the outgoing message helps a bit.
Dilara needs familiarity. Comfort.
Taehyung had tried to talk to her earlier in the night. The moment Yoongi had finished cooking, she’d inhaled a small bowl of food while he called the others inside and by the time they’d finally trudged in, she was already washing her bowl and stacking it back in the cabinet. She’d also quietly volunteered to wash the dishes after, feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude to Yoongi, not realising that somehow, Taehyung was also on dish duty.
It was fine for a bit, silently washing and rinsing and wiping dishes side by side. Dilara could see him giving her lingering looks, each glance making it clear that he wanted to ask about Quali, until she finally asked him to quit it. He asked, sincerely, if she was okay, if she wanted to talk and she knew it was because of last night, but… giving him comfort was one thing. Taking it from him had the potential to spiral, especially when her feelings for him were getting more and more confusing by the day, so she had no choice but to forcefully decline.
When Taehyung tried again and reached for her hand in the warm soapy water in a presumably comforting gesture, Dilara yanked it back without thinking and, wiping her hands on the dishcloth, stalked away without a word. She doesn’t regret it, exactly; she’s still angry and she’s still hurt, and the last thing she wants to do is let him forget it.
“This is stupid,” she mutters, seeing her breath condense before her. She turns back towards the house and starts walking towards the front door when it opens. Startled, she halts to see Min Yoongi standing in the doorway, the porch light like a halo above his ice blue hair.
“What - what are you doing up so late?” Dilara asks him, genuinely bewildered. “It’s almost one am.”
“I could say the same to you,” he mutters, rubbing his eyes and sounding slightly disgruntled. He walks down the steps and stops a couple feet away from her, shoving his hands in the pocket of his oversized coat and shivering. “You know it’s freezing, right?”
“I - yes.”
“So… what are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” she asks, thoroughly confused.
“I saw you from my window,” he says shortly. “I thought I was imagining it but then you tried to kick a rock and missed, so I knew it was you.” Ignoring her mortification, Yoongi looks around at the foggy front yard. “So what is it? Is it about Qualifying?”
Dilara’s immediate instinct is to deny but when she doesn’t answer, he seems to take it as confirmation.
“Do you want to talk about it, then?” He sounds only mildly concerned, giving her enough room to decline if she wants. “It’s okay if you don’t,” he adds after a moment, “but at least come inside before you freeze to death.”
So they talk about it. Or rather, Dilara talks and Yoongi patiently listens. They sit near where she and Taehyung were last night, but the distance between them is much more respectable. Yoongi is way easier to talk to than she’d ever thought; even if there are things she mentions that he doesn’t understand, he listens, asking questions and letting her vent thoroughly.
“Can we not talk about this anymore?” she asks after she finishes talking about the last time she’d received online hate, all the way back in Spain this year when she was going through her heartbreak-induced slump.
“Okay.” Yoongi exhales before speaking. “For what it’s worth, the hate will never stop.”
Dilara doesn't look up. “Gee, thanks.”
He shrugs. “There’s always going to be someone, somewhere who thinks what you’re doing is shit,” he says in a matter-of-fact way. “There’s absolutely nothing you can do to make everyone happy. Not a thing.”
“I don’t care about making them happy,” she mutters. “It’s just unfair because they have no idea what it’s like in the car.”
“Exactly. They don’t. So their opinion means nothing, especially when it’s a troll halfway across the world that’s mad because you’re way further fulfilling your dreams than he is. Or she,” he adds thoughtfully.
“You don’t sound like this affects you at all,” she remarks after a moment, referring to the magnitude of hate she’s sure BTS probably gets. “Is all the anger reserved for Agust D?” she quips.
Yoongi grins, gummy smile flashing. “Something like that.”
“Maybe I should take up rapping.”
“You drive cars at ridiculous speeds. What’s a better outlet for your anger than that?”
He’s right, of course. In fact, it’s exactly what Chris Park would say. Save it for the track, D. She doesn’t have her support system here, but it occurs to her that she’s also not completely alone.
“Is he telling the truth?” Dilara asks suddenly, needing to find out.
“About what?” Yoongi doesn’t ask whom she’s referring to and for that she’s glad.
She shrugs. “Everything. Being sorry, making a mistake, the Jennie thing…” She trails off, swallowing. “How he feels…”
“I think so.” When she doesn’t respond, he sighs deeply, as if unable to believe he’s being dragged into this childish drama. “I mean, I’m sure he’s sorry and we know his thing with Jennie wasn’t real,” he elaborates, as though counting items off a shopping list. “She was nice but I don’t know who he was fooling trying to date her. As for how he feels…” He gives Dilara a sympathetic shrug. “That’s only upto you to decide.”
“But what do you think?” Dilara presses.
Yoongi looks slightly surprised that she wants his opinion this badly. “Well… I think he still cares about you. A lot, in fact. I think he’s still in love with you, although I think you’ll have to get him to admit that to you,” he continues, apparently not realising how her heart rams against her ribcage. “But I also didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to do what he did. Going by his actions today, though, I’d say he still really cares about you.”
Dilara says nothing, replaying his words. “Hang on,” she says slowly. “What actions today? Wait, Yoongi - did he ask you to talk to me tonight?” By the way he freezes momentarily, she knows she’s right. “You have got to be joking.”
“Why is that so bad?”
“It’s - it’s the principle of it.”
“What principle?”
“If I wanted to talk to him, I would’ve.”
“And you’re not. He knows that. He said it looked like you had a rough day and since you don’t have your friends here, you might need someone to talk to.” Yoongi shrugs. “Was he wrong?” When she doesn’t answer, he chuckles, gummy smile flashing once more. “Or was he totally right?”
“Shut up,” she mutters, making him snort. “And… no, he wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t totally right either,” she adds, although she doesn’t know what to back that up with.
Yoongi doesn’t even ask. “So stubborn,” he remarks softly, his eyes on the frozen lake.
“Well, do I at least have your word that you won’t tell him what we talked about?”
“Tell who?” he asks innocently.
Dilara gives him a look. “Jungkook’s boyfriend. Can I trust you?” she asks, even as he laughs.
“Of course you can,” he says easily, standing up and offering her a hand. “And, seriously, it’s almost two am. You should sleep.”
She doesn’t argue and takes his hand, trying not to stomp behind him as they walk back to the house. “The grass is really slippery, by the way.”
“What’s that now?”
Dilara stops a few steps behind him as they reach the porch. “You said you saw me kicking a rock and missing. It’s because the grass is really slippery.” She pauses, somewhat conscious of what she must be sounding like. “I don’t miss.”
Yoongi stares at her, his mouth twitching. “Noted,” he says finally, reaching for the door handle and twisting it. “Okay, did you know this locks from the inside?”
She blinks. “Are you telling me we’re locked out here -” She glances at her phone “- twelve hours before the German Grand Prix?”
“Don’t worry,” he says calmly, typing on his phone. “I’m messaging on the group chat. Someone or the other will be awake.” He waits for a moment before chuckling, a little disbelievingly. “Okay, I was right.”
Dilara regards him suspiciously as she hears soft footsteps from inside. “Who is it?”
“Jungkook’s boyfriend, who else?”
“Perfect,” she mutters, as the door swings open to reveal the aforementioned boyfriend, a black beanie over his hair, black glasses and - she realises with a slight shock - the black hoodie she’d returned to him earlier this year. Contrary to what Yoongi made it sound like, Taehyung doesn’t look like he was on the verge of sleep at all.
He asks Yoongi something in Korean, his eyes on Dilara, to which Yoongi murmurs a reply before clapping her on the shoulder and heading inside.
“Thanks,” she mutters to Taehyung, moving to follow Yoongi, when Taehyung stops her by grabbing the edge of her sleeve.
“Are you okay?” he asks softly, eyes bigger than ever.
Dilara wants to roll her eyes and tell him that she knows he asked Yoongi to talk to her, but she doesn’t know what purpose that would serve. So after a moment’s hesitation, she nods, gently taking back her hand and going into her room.
—
Thank you for reading. Don't forget to drop a review :)
#taehyung x oc#taehyung x reader#taehyung x fanfic#btswritingcafe#thebtswritersclub#btshoneyhive#bangtaninn#bangtanbathhouse#bangtanwhq#kvanity#bangtanoasis#wkcnet#taehyung angst#taehyung fluff#bts v fanfic#bts v angst
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nateee, natteeeeee, your pirate!joe fic has DEVASTATED me with endless possibilities floating around through my lil gremlin brain so i feel it's only fair to subject you to them: first concept: pirate joe, mermaid nicky. do i need to say more??? do i?? second concept: prince/royalty joe and pirate nicky. the forbidden LOVERS of it all. im picturing a scene where nicky perhaps rescues joe (not that joe isn't perfectly capable on his own) and nicky says "i'm a pirate, not a monster" AHHHhhhH???HHH
I need you all to witness the absolute glory that Abby here has been leaving in my inbox. Under a cut because it’s long but trust me folks, this is worth every second.
Abby, this is a delight and I thank you so much for sharing it with me. My inbox has been a happy place the last couple days!
Behold, All, Abby’s excellent brain tinkerings:
im not done!!! im not done!! theres still Thoughts jumbling around like marbles in a jar in the hands of a very energetic toddler! this is kinda going off the idea of prince/royalty joe and pirate nicky but its set in canonverse and they're undercover and they have to keep up the appearances of who they're supposed to be (and not liking the other) but them having secret rendezvous and finding the whole situation... amusing. also maybe trying to get the other to break character for funsies idk im having perhaps... TOO MANY IDEA? okay okay okay okay runaway prince turned pirate joe. i dont know what nicky's vibe is in this au but one thought is - mermaid? (im perhaps.. too much of a fan of mermaid nicky concept idk) i guess nicky could also be a prince in this situation? or a pirate? idk im just thinking about runaway prince turned pirate joe. like with no one knowing that pirate joe is actually prince yusuf and vice versa. wait wai twai ti wajit i have idea (runaway prince joe turned pirate) maybe nicky is like... sent to find prince yusuf? and in his journeys he stumbles across pirate joe. maybe there's rumors that Pirate!Joe killed prince yusuf? maybe nicky confronts joe and joe just tilts his head and gives nicky a coy smile saying 'oh, the prince isn't dead... but i can promise you won't find him if you kill me.' okay so just to draw it out a bit of a picture. nicky has his sword at joe's throat at this point, like the sword tip just under joe's chin y'know the whole gay holding ur enemy at swordpoint shebang. but joe is unfazed by this, he speaks the whole 'prince yusuf isn't dead' bit and theres a smirk on his lips and confidence in his eyes. maybe nicky demands that he tell him where the prince is. maybe its at this point that joe says 'i can promise if you kill me you'll never find him' okay hold on let me just: Nicky has Joe at swordpoint, a surprise attack perhaps. Joe: "While this isn't my first encounter with a devilishly handsome man holding me at swordpoint, i must say this is the first time i don't know /why/" Nicky narrows his eyes, "You killed Prince Yusuf. I was sent to seek justice for his death." "Oh... well, while I'm honored, truly, but I'm afraid there is not justice to seek. Prince Yusuf isn't dead." Nicolò (i know i used nicky previously but i like the vibe of nicolò so im using that now) manages to narrow his eyes at Joe even more, of course all logic is telling him not to believe this pirate, but there is this (extremely repressed) part of him that /believes/ Joe. And that's when Joe, maybe sensing or seeing the hesitation in Nicolò's eyes, tilts his head and speaks again, "Kill me if you wish, but I can promise if you do so, you will never find the justice you seek, you will /never/ find your Prince- and it will be /you/ who is as good as his killer." Nicolò stands there silently for a bit, his expression blank, and finally he speaks, his voice quiet, "And if I don't kill you?" And Joe's grin widens almost instantaneously. (thats all i've like thought out exact scene wise but maybe joe says smth like "you'll just have to find out" okay so like i said i dont have exact thoughts but like, basically, joe ends up taking nicolò on a wild goose chase to find the prince. maybe he has a plan, or more likely, he's winging it with his quick wit and charm alone. i know he certainly doesn't /plan/ to reveal to nicolò that /he/ is in fact the prince (as nicolò's new goal/plan has become "rescuing" the prince and returning him to his home) but well... lets just say things dont really follow... Any Plans in the end so they go on a wild goose chase together, and slowly, slowly they fall. and idk what really happens but im just picturing there being situations where joe could... so easily ditch nicolò, but he finds himself stalling in those situations. maybe joe slowly teaches nicolò pirate-y things. maybe nicolò secretly begins hoping they /never/ find the prince. if it means he gets to stay with joe. idk. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk. Additional Points:
okay okay so one thought i haven't been able to stop thinking about in this prince turned pirate au is andy and quynh. now my frist thought was like mermaid quynh but i think thats just gonna be another au im gonna have to think about but i think the concept i really like for this au is pirate andy & quynh, they are the ones who helped joe get to where he is as a pirate (and perhaps they are the only people who know the truth about joe?) and yeah, co-pirates andy & quynh i'm just really picturing andy and quynh running into joe and nicky when joe is "leading nicky to the prince" and them just,,, raising their eyebrows at joe like "to the Prince? the PRINCE?" and at this point joe and nicky have fallen for each other but refuse to admit it or anything and andy & quynh See RIGHT through joe but joe INSISTS he has everything under control and he Has A Plan so they ultimately leave him alone in the end but they KNOW... they KNOW Some Gems Abby Included: “Hold on I gotta eat” (There was a pause in asks here) “Okay, I’ve put on pirate music LETS GO” (After part 8) “Okay this is the last part.” (Sends two more parts) Abby, from the absolute bottom of my heart thank you for this. I’d be happy to expand it into a thing of some sort (a fic) down the road, and take these incredible notes with me. You made me laugh out loud multiple times and the little notes you put in just made it better. I encourage this entirely and thank you so much. This is absolutely fantastic. I’m honoured to have been the one you’ve shared this with.
#the old guard#ask#asks#answered asks#answering asks#abby's pirate joe runaway prince mermaid nicky vibing au#but lets just call it abby's pirate au for now#this is AMAZING and I am giggling as I publish it#this is absolutely great and I love it#kaysanova#fic ideas#fanfic#fic tinkerings#other peoples writing#guys please look upon this epicness#joe and nicky#nickyxjoe#moonlightandromache
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I want to know ALL about Wu Xie embarrassing time traveler!Li Cu!!! ✨✨ I'm also v intrigued by Nie Huisang death death death
(Also, Cross you have so many wips; I read in awe. And to think I thought I had a lot of star wars fix-it ideas! I only have anything at all written down for two of them!)
(this refers to the WIP tag game I completed a few days ago!)
Wu Xie being EMBARRASSING & Li Cu Time Travel:
I’ve got a series of interconnected oneshots planned where Li Cu just- accidentally hops back in time to every drama/book and helps out the Iron Triangle. and it’s more like LI CU embarrassing WU XIE haha
I thought it’d be HILARIOUS if Li Cu got to see how Wu Xie (UR MY DAD BOOGIE WOOGIE WOOGIE) is so YOUNG and STUPID and EMBARRASSING when he’s young!! Wu Xie making (ACTUALLY) innocent doe eyes at an emo Xiao Ge?? GROSS. Wu Xie accidentally (DELIBERATELY?) setting off multiple traps in a tomb?? Li Cu is 10000/10 going to RECORD THIS on his phone and bring it BACK to the future and make fun of Wu Xie FOREVER. Also!!! There are SO MANY SNAKES in Ultimate Note!! And?? Conveniently?? Li Cu has a lil’ snake buddy?? MAYBE HE COULD HELP???
I basically want Li Cu being the Actual Competent One and the baby Iron Triangle floundering. Mostly Wu Xie. I want Wu Xie floundering. I also want Wu Xie SO EMBARRASSED when Li Cu hops back to his own time.
li cu: DAD UR AN IDIOT
wu xie: i DONT WANT TO RELIVE IT PLS AND THANK
li cu: nO!! U ARE GOING TO SUFFER!! UR SO STUPID u set off FIVE TRAPS
wu xie: i hate you
li cu: no u don’t u just told me u loved and appreciated me for saving ur life like ten minutes ago. there were tears in your eyes. actually they were streaming down ur face. u might have been hugging my leg and sobbing
wu xie: tHAT WAS SIXTEEN YEARS AGO FOR ME OK i am an OLD MAN
Nie Huaisang death death death:
I think it’s hilarious that you picked out one of the resurrective immortality fics considering we were JUST talking about the old guard hahaha. This one I actually have a good chunk written so far, so here is a long snippet near the beginning. Context is that Nie Huaisang’s mother is VERY pregnant and she’s riding through the mountains to visit her family before she gives birth. WARNINGS for gore (kinda??) and child death and just- DEATH in general:
There are beasts in the mountains. Ravenous, born of fury and blood, more ragged spirit than flesh. Their claws are jagged and broken and their maws drip with sizzling saliva. They have roamed the mountains for years and years, and have only grown more enraged, voracious.
The Nie Clan have always harnessed the butchery of their past. Binding rage and ruin to themselves, channeling it through their hearts and into their swords until they are one and the same. Until it feeds upon their flesh and their spirit, gnawing on their bones, carving out a little space for itself between brittle ribs. Until, one bloody piece at a time, it consumes them whole.
The Nie Clan’s power is also the source of their doom, and these beasts who roam and know only hate hate hate are Nie-furen’s doom, as well.
They descend upon the Nie in the dead of night, a roiling mass of snapping teeth and furious howls. There is blood, screaming, desperate flashes of Dao magic and heavy blades. But there are too many and it is not enough.
But the mighty Phoenix of the West has always been filled with unmatched fury and she is full of new life and about to burst. She will not let her child die here today. Not before he can breathe sweet fresh air and keen that first high cry. Not before his father can cradle him in his arms and his older brother can plant a kiss on his forehead.
That rage within her swells. It devours her spirit and bleeds out her eyes as she screams screams screams- a raging beacon of power and brutality and every ancestor’s grief.
She slaughters everything in her path.
When she comes to, she is soaked in blood and there is pain in her belly and an ache behind her eyes and in every breath- but she is alive. She lies amidst the ruins of her people and the lingering darkness of vanquished spirits and Shan Xifeng—
She goes into labour.
It is long and hard, lasting through the night into the bloody dawn and beyond. She manages to crawl to the edge of their encampment but no further. She twists into a curl of agony and cries into the clouded sky.
Her son is born on the cusp of evening, just as the sun slides behind dark, ragged peaks. He is born soft and warm and silent.
Shan Xifeng cradles him in quaking hands. Cups his cheek to her breast. His tiny head is blood-streaked like his mother. Blood-streaked like her friends and family around her.
It is an irony that on one of the most important days of her life, she is surrounded by her loved ones and yet they are all dead.
“Little one,” she murmurs, and tilts his limp head. “Little one, please.”
But he is silent as the dead around her and that grief swells again in her breast. It gnaws on her ribs and scrabbles at her throat and she is shaking shaking shaking.
“No,” she spits. “No! He has done nothing wrong! Nothing! Does he not deserve his first breath? His first cry? Does he not deserve the family that awaits him?!”
She screams into the sky and tastes blood between her teeth. “Take me instead! I beg of you! Please let him live! I would give my life! Every single one of them, so that he may live!”
Her sword quakes along with that dark raging thing within her and she clutches her dead son close.
Then—
The faint, elegant curve of a fan in the corner of her eye. The shift of cloth, the echo of a breath. The glimmering of ethereal gold and silver, like someone has spun the stars and sun above into delicate thread.
Summoned, like a beast to blood.
“All of them?”
Shan Xifeng knows better than to face an unknowable thing and so she bows as low as her broken body will allow. She stares into the bloodied dirt and breathes in dust and rasps, “Yes.”
“Hm.” A flicker of a stretching smile, coy, with a hint of sharp teeth. She does not see the fathomless dark behind those stark white teeth, a gaping void of ravenous benevolence. It is hidden behind the flare of the fan. “Do you understand what you ask for?”
“I do,” she says without hesitation.
The grin widens, lips scarlet and dark against bone-white skin. “Then I shall grant your wish.”
A shift of cloth, then a cool hand cups Nie-furen’s cheek, guiding her up. Her eyes flicker open and she sees what no mortal has ever seen, and then that fan whispers against her cheek and blood-red lips press against hers and the last thing she feels is her golden core trembling spasming dying as life is pulled from her breath- all the lives she has ever lived, the one she lives now, and every life she could have ever lived.
Shan Xifeng falls into the bloodied dirt beneath, still clutching her dead son to her breast. And then there is no one left living in that small clearing.
Pale, bony fingers trace a delicate line through the blood that lingers upon her cheek. It is still wet and useful. Stained fingers press against scarlet lips and the life held between stark white teeth is breathed anew into that blood.
Carefully, bone-thin fingers trace a deliberate character upon the newborn child’s left cheek. The blood shines, brilliant and devastating, before fading back into a gruesome name across pale skin. Slowly, the child begins to twitch, brows wrinkling in displeasure, before a high keening wail escapes tiny lips as the child take its first breath.
“Your mother does not know what she’s doomed you to.”
A day later, travelers upon the road hear a faint keening noise not far from their wagon. When they find the clearing, they gag and retch. When they find the weak, whining child clutched in his dead mother’s arms, they shake their heads and then stare at the crest emblazoned upon the woman’s clothes.
Two days after that, the child is delivered to Nie-zongzhu’s disbelieving arms.
“No,” he says, violent spirit quaking deep within him. “No. It- it is not true.”
The traveler ducks his head and clasps his hands in a bow. “I’m sorry, Zongzhu. We were not able to take the bodies with us. You’ll have to send someone to check, but…it was the crest of your house. And…” he hesitates, then nods to his companion who stumbles up and offers a sword.
Not just any sword. A dao.
Shan Xifeng’s dao.
Feng.
“No,” Nie-zongzhu cries, falling to his knees.
“I-I’m so sorry,” the traveler stutters. “I am so, so sorry, Nie-zongzhu.”
Nie-zongzhu sobs, clutching his newborn child to his chest. “Little one,” he weeps. “Oh, little one. At least life is kind enough to have spared you.”
“Yong,” the traveler blurts.
Nie-zongzhu stares uncomprehendingly, tears running hot down his cheeks.
“It- it was written upon his cheek in- in blood. I- I think that is what his mother named him. She must have done it with her dying breath. She must have wanted you to know. He did not enter this world nameless.”
“Yong,” Nie-zongzhu echoes, trembling. “It- it is a good name, for my brave little boy.” He cups his son’s cheek and sobs. “Brave like- like his mother,” he murmurs, voice thin and quaking. “She named you well.”
And perhaps it is bravery that made Shan Xifeng give up the chance to ever be reborn. Perhaps it is bravery that saved her son’s life.
But it was all a mother’s wretched love, and Shan Xifeng did not write the character for brave upon her son’s cheek.
No, it was not Yong for bravery, but Yong for eternal.
And it is not his mother who wrote it.
Perhaps it is bravery that saved her son, but is the curse of eternity really a kindness?
No, no Shan Xifeng did not truly understand what she asked for.
But Nie Yong soon would.
The next section starts with:
The second time Nie Yong dies, he doesn’t even realize it.
He is four years old.
and the third section starts with:
The third time Nie Yong dies, his Adie kills him.
He is nine years old.
It’s basically an Angst Fest with a happy ending bc...I just need a happy ending Always. I just REALLY love resurrective immortality and I love making my favourite characters Suffer :)
I hope these were fun and satisfying to read!!
♪(゚▽^*)ノ⌒☆
(also omg NO it’s a CURSE!!! I WISH I could just finish SOMETHING!! ANYTHING!! OMG!!! I am so envious you’ve managed to restrain yourself to a few!! Also!! I am SUPER excited to find out more about your fix-its!!! :D)
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I had an arguably obvious realization dawn on me and now I'm in my feelings. if Arthur hadn't tasked Sadie with getting Abigail to safety, she would've followed him to the grave (or saved him, who knows?) and there wouldn't have been any stopping her. I think Arthur knew that in the end and had her keep her promise to get the Marstons out, making it impossible for her to chase death beside him. Thoughts?
Wrapping this into another Ask of “You make the scenario of Sadie coming back to bury Arthur and instead rescuing him easy to believe but why do you think it was Charles who said he came back to bury him in the Epilogue? What happened that it wasn’t Sadie?”~~~~~~~~~~~~~I think Arthur knew that, and he didn’t want her to die alongside him. He very visibly is trying to get her and Abigail to go, even as he’s saying goodbye, and he knows the charge of protecting a (presumably widowed) Abigail and a (presumably fatherless) Jack is one of the few things that can hold her back from a suicide run with him. He respects and trusts her enough, as one of the people now dearest to him, to protect some of the others who are also dearest to him, and that says a lot about their relationship. It also says a lot that he's unwilling to let her possibly die beside him. He knows the pain she’s in, but he has to believe that unlike him, with this likely fatal disease, that she can and should live That somehow, she’s strong enough to carry on, to find the best in herself again. He doesn’t realize how much he means to her and how much this loss will devastate her, as we see in the Epilogue.Like I remarked with Javier, her sticking with him till the end might have changed things, although I think Javier and Arthur vs Micah and Dutch would have been a more powerful standoff that might have gotten through to Dutch. Sadie’s a fucking badass gurl, but she’s new to the gang, and like it or not, Javier standing there would probably command more respect (despite, you know, Sadie actually leading the gang for a while there.)As to why it didn’t play that way in canon, I think what happened is a matter of timing. In Sunrise I have Sadie, Tilly, Abigail and Jack wait overnight at Copperhead Landing to make some plans, and ride when it’s light out. That could easily have gone the other way with Sadie and Abigail getting there, and getting the hell of Dodge a lot sooner with Jack and Tilly rather than risk Pinkertons catching up with them there. John’s shrewd, and knowing they almost definitely wouldn’t go to St. Denis to catch the train, found them on the way to or actually in Rhodes the next morning. It was an easier call for Sadie to make to go back for Arthur’s body when it was a couple hours to Beaver Hollow and beyond. From Rhodes, it’s a lot longer ride, and I think the weight of the situation settled on her harder. She’d already started to accept the numb reality of Arthur being dead, whereas in the middle of the night, she still had enough anger and determination to made that short ride back, risk being caught by Pinkertons, and do the right thing by him. In the canon scenario, she let the others get on the train, and just headed west without much of a plan. She just couldn’t face a long ride going back to see another man she cared about so much lying there dead. He wouldn’t let her stay with him, so he wouldn’t want her to see that, right? Though I think it kills her that she didn’t bury Jake, and didn’t bury Arthur either. And FWIW, though I’ve remarked he didn’t die of TB given he was still fit enough to fight Micah and instead passed out from hypoxia and exhaustion, yes, I do think he would have been dead by morning from hypothermia. Peacefully, at least. So Sadie going back at that point, she really would have been burying him.I don’t think Charles had the chance to make the potential save on Arthur’s life. Not that the willingness absolutely wouldn’t be there, like there is in Sunrise to help take care of him in those first days when he’s in truly terrible shape. But he just doesn’t have that slim but golden critical opportunity that Sadie does of being within easy striking distance, and knowing exactly what the hell happened and when. He’s at Wapiti, doesn’t know what’s going on with the gang, and is focused on the tribe’s welfare. Which is right and proper and what Arthur wanted for him, but given he’s totally out of that loop, and would have no reason to go to Beaver Hollow at all, let alone that night, it places him outside that small window of being able to possibly save Arthur’s life. So Charles coming back to bury him in that case is fitting and lovely and so poignant about the trust they have--John may be stressed hard as Arthur’s brother, but Charles clearly is his brother as well by the end of Chapter 6. And it says a lot that he came back, maybe all the way from Canada, to bury him (and Susan) once he heard.
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How affected would Nuada be if his sister Nuala had the iron malady. Also if that happened, how do you think that would affect Nuada's plans through out the film? You got this! Continue working hard online and offline and I'm sure things will work out! Have a frabjous day!
Okay first of all I just want to saythat you get 1,000 positive karma points for even mentioning my own fictionalillness that I came up with in your ask? Like wut? Thank you for payingattention and even caring about my little brain children? You’re awesome? =)
And again, sorry for this taking a ridiculousamount of time for me to finally answer, but I wanted to really give it somethought and not just write a tiny thing. Today is the first day I’ve had bothtime and motivation to write in like a week.
Also omg, I am trying to muddlethrough these last couple months of work but both my jobs are kicking my assright now. Mid-May, they both will end, and then I’m off until the end of June,so I just need to make it that far, heh.
Now let’s get down to business. XD
If you are reading this and you’re newto this blog or you just haven’t ever heard anything about the Iron Malady, it’s a fictional illness Icreated for one of my literary worlds. I made it more to deal with theissue of high or forest type elves being taken as prisoners of war by humans orsubterranean elves and placed in cells, or to deal with how they feel when theyare very far from home, away from their home forest, not in a forest, or areotherwise around a lot of human technology and civilization. Building on the common headcanon in a numberof fandoms that elves’ emotions are so potent as to have the ability to directlyaffect their longterm mental and physical health, the Iron Malady is an illnessthat arises from the intense feeling of hopelessness or dread that all thatthey have known is lost, that they will never see their home again, or that theworld is changing around them too fast for them to handle. A feeling of beingleft behind, becoming obsolete, or “homesick” for times and places they feelthey can never recapture. That’s a veryquick and general synopsis, but for those who wish to read more, I will directyou to this post where I describe itin more detail, discuss symptoms and stages of disease progression, and discussremedies to ease suffering and/or cure it.
So… how Nuada would react to Nualagetting the Iron Malady would depend upon whether their soul bond would conferthe illness onto him as well. I feellike if she was laid up with the Iron Malady, Nuada would be too, or at leasthe wouldn’t be far behind her. This is for two reasons: 1) they are physicallylinked, so all physical symptoms would be experienced by Nuada in real-time, 2)he would feel her emotions through the bonds, and the very definition of theIron Malady is that it’s brought about by intense feelings of sadness, grief,and hopelessness… which I think would massively affect him, and 3) just knowingshe had that illness would devastate him because I headcanon that that’s whatthe twins’ mother died of, and also just because he would know if Nuala hasthat illness that she must be suffering very badly emotionally. So my veryshort answer would be that he would become ill too, and without anyone to takecare of him, he would die, so both twins would die. If he returned to hispeople and got help, he could be in recovery for weeks if not months, so allother plans of his would be delayed by that amount of time.
Of course, having said all of that,that even assumes Nuala can get theIron Malady, which I believe she can’t. It begins as an emotional illness, afeeling of intense dread, grief,sadness, etc., and Nuala seems incapable of that sort of emotion. (Disclaimer: Iwill insert at this time for those of you who were just like whaaaaaat? at thatstatement that I am not a fan of Nuala and I tend to have very harsh andpessimistic views of her. If you like her, I do not mean any insult and you arefree to love her if you want. Just take what I say within the context that Ihave a rather low opinions of her as a person haha.) I am not certain exactly the reason why she has a flat affect most ofthe time with regard to the fate of her people, but it has to be one of thesethree:
1) She doesn’t care. It could be possible that Nuala really just doesn’t care whether elves fade or not.If I wanted to be really mean and wallow in my pessimistic views of her, Imight want to say this, but I actually believe this is the least probable causeof her apparent apathy.
2) She can’tcare. It could be, and I think this isentirely likely, that Nuala has just been alive long enough, has seen enoughsuffering, has felt enough pain, and has pondered this subject long enough thateverything has… well… kinda… broken her brain a bit, heh. Not to say she’scrazy or anything, she’s not. But just in the sense of… sometimes you feel somuch that you redline and end up not emoting at all? Does that make sense toyou all? Like if everyone is pushing and trying to get through a doorway but theyall get jammed, then nobody gets through. What if her mind is the door and heremotions are the people pushing to get through? If she could emote, it would bevolatile and explosive, just like Nuada, but she can’t anymore.
3) She’s too wise to care. This sounds nasty, but it really isn’t. Truewisdom is seeing the big picture. It’s stepping outside of yourself, yoursituation, away from material things, away from trivial everyday things, andseeing the grander scheme of everything. Often times when one reaches truewisdom or enlightenment or whatever you want to call it, it involves not onlyan understanding of the greater picture and a detachment from personal desires,but also patience and compassion for others. This results in an enlightenedperson viewing strife and war and suffering as if they are watching TV. Notthat it isn’t real, not in that sense… but as if they are outside lookingin. They don’t place themselves in the situation or empathize, but rather theypractice patient compassion. What’s the difference? Empathy is when I identifywith what you’re going through because I’ve been through it myself or Iunderstand what it must be making you feel, and that makes me either sad foryou or really want to help you. I become personally emotionally involved inyour suffering. Patient compassion is very calmly looking at someone who issuffering and saying, this is difficult for you but you will get through it,and I understand that until you do, you will be upset and not yourself. It’sattributing all suffering to want, desire, and a lack of getting what you wantas far as the material here and now. It’s looking at someone who is in a rageand very calmly saying, I understand that this angers you, and I recognize thatyou are not wise enough to know that this too shall pass. I understand that itwill take time for you to work through this, and that until then, you may beunfit to live with.
I think it is very likely that Nualahas this very serene, wise, enlightened way of looking at the world. It rendersher not really able to get overly excited about much, because to be excited,upset, angry, etc., you have to be invested emotionally. She is an observer,watching life but not overly participating in it except in a few ways she feelsfurthers or maintains the greater good. Nuada and Nuala truly are yin and yang,for she is temperance, patience, understanding, and long-term, and Nuada isvolatility, impulsiveness, intolerance, and short-term. But I feel that that’sbecause Nuada never removed himself from the emotional equation. He’s allowedhimself to feel centuries of injustice, death, loss, and degradation of hispeople, and that has done very damaging things to his mind. Nuala may seem likea whole and better person on the surface, but that is because she has declinedto become emotionally invested in her people’s struggle, which I find shameful.But… it would protect her from falling victim to the Iron Malady.
Alright, SO… Now that we’ve gottenthat out of the way, IF… Nuada did not immediately come down with the IronMalady just by association with Nuala and IF… Nuala was actually capable offalling into the emotional valley that gives rise to the illness… now what?
In the HellboyII universe, I say the Iron Malady arose in elves who feared that their wayof life was falling apart, that it would fall apart forever, and that theywould fade. That despairover their situation of having to live underground, or seeing the humansoverpopulate and all of that, gave rise to this wasting illness that, even whenproperly treated, some simply do not recover from. Nuala and Nuada’s mother wasa kind, loving, and gentle soul, but she was also a fragile one, and she wasnot able to recover. Nuala… I believe would recover with the proper treatment,but that’s anybody’s guess. But even if we’re going to say that Nuada wasn’tphysically affected by the illness, he would still be aware that she had it.Actually, you could argue that he might be able to stop if before it happens,if he really wanted to, because he would be able to sense her emotionally goingdown that path long before it manifests itself in illness. He’s used to beingshunned and shut out by his sister, but if he felt real sadness from her? Ifshe reached out to him for help? You can bet your ass he’d be there for her.
So… I do not ship Nuala and Nuadaromantically or sexually. Yes, I know it’s canon. Yes, I don’t care. XD Butjust because my Nuada isn’t in lovewith Nuala does not mean he doesn’t love her. He loves her like a sister,certainly, and like anyone bonded to someone by their soul for the whole of his life would be. Nuada and Nuala do not have a traditional sense of self because of thisbond. They may exist apart from each other, but never knowing anythingother than feeling each other’s joy, pain, illness, sadness, happiness, wounds,etc. as their own… makes for a bondthat really can’t have any clear labels. That’s part of the reason why Nuada isso angry with and resentful of Nuala, because shunning him is like shunning apart of herself and like denying him a part of himself. It’s as if Nuada was awart on her finger and she decided to, quite literally, cut him off. But…having said that… because of the nature of this bond and Nuada’s own very openand emotional nature, there is no way for him to cut her off completely. So if she came down with something like theIron Malady, all bets would be off at that point. Fights wouldn’t matter.Differences wouldn’t matter. Insults, slights, grudges, bones to pick, none ofthat would matter to him anymore. All that would matter is being there for herand seeing her get well again. He’d worry about the rest later.
His plans for the humans would absolutely takea back seat to being there for his sister.He would return to the “palace,” assuming this is happening before he killsBalor, and would stay there with his sister until she was well again, and basicallywould not accept no for an answer. It isn’t like he would forget about what hewanted to do as far as assembling the crown, gaining the Golden Army, or exterminatinghumans, but rather his sister’s life and well-being would supersede all of thatin his mind. I can’t say that he would be surprised necessarily if she was toget the Iron Malady, but it would only strengthen his anger for humans. He’s alreadypissed off that they killed his mother, the way he sees it, but now his sisteris ill? Hell no.
Also, on a very basic and selfishsense, he would realize that if he doesn’tmake sure Nuala is cared for in a suitable manner and she dies, he would diealong with her. So if he ever intends on going through with his plan, heneeds to make sure he’s alive to do it. I can see this creating an even widerrift between Nuada and Balor, simply because he resents his father for hismother’s death. He feels he did nothing to save her, or at the very least, didnot provide her with enough support in life to prevent the illness fromhappening. Nuada would make sure the same thing doesn’t happen with Nuala.
He would make sure that Nuala was notjust feeling better but had been feeling better for some time before herevisited his plan again. This isn’t like a… take two Advil and call me in themorning sort of illness, heh. It takes weeks or months for a person to recover,and even after they do, they are prone to relapse if they are not taught how tobetter manage their depression or are not left with enough of a support system.I suppose if Nuala really wanted to discourage Nuada from his plans, the bestway would be to tell him that she needed him to stay with her in order toprevent a relapse. But that would assume he’d believe such a thing, heh.
But those are like… ultimate “I getthe Army and then I dead the humans so hard” plans. What about other supportingplans along the way? There are a fewthat I think would be either put off or nixed entirely if Nuala was sick withthe Iron Malady…
He wouldn’t kill Balor. Perhaps that whole thing might have gonedifferently if Nuala hadn’t been there to give consent for Balor’s death decreein the first place, but if she had the Iron Malady, Nuada would right suspectthat killing their father wasn’t what would bring Nuala out of her sadness. Infact, that would only exacerbate it tenfold.
He wouldn’t use the forest god in the way hedid. If anything, he might have brought itto Nuala first and shown her look, one of these still exists and I’m incubatingit, to make her happy. Not… “and then I’m going to use it to kill the hoomins,”haha… but just… “look, there is hope yet.” Maybe the poor forest god would havehad a better ending (or beginning?) and a much deeper meaning if it had beenused in that way. Great. I just gave myself a sad.
He wouldn’t care as much as Abe trying to makemoves on Nuala. Nuada doesn’tlike Abe for a lot of reasons, and he doesn’t think he is worthy of his sister,but… just like with Balor, now is not the time to attack someone she clearlycares for. For the sake of her recovery, I could see Nuada allowing Abe tovisit her. Supervised visits, ofcourse. XD
Nuada’s biggest problem during this timethough, would be not falling victim to it himself. Seeing his sister with the same illness hismother died from would take Nuada to a very rough place in his mind, and Ireally think it would be difficult for him to not fall into a depressionhimself. He would most likely want to stay in her room, sleep by her beside,basically never leave her. He would start regretting things he said and did toher, would start wishing they had been on better terms, all of that. So therewould be a great deal of regret and guilt involved in addition to just thesadness of seeing someone he loves laid up like that. So I think he’d be luckyif he remained entirely healthy himself during this time.
But yeah, that’s my 2 cents… of 5dollars, since this was long as hell, haha… but I hope I answered everythingwell enough! Thank you for sending thisin!
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Frustrated to my core.
As I mentioned my partner got a promotion. We are stoked. We feel it's finally our time to get out on our own. We were first told end of December. I have never been more excited. But "construction delays" have pushed it back and now there really hasn't been a definitive answer. He something about February or March. Alright. Fine. I can wait. Ain't have any other choice. But for the people out there. I mentioned his mom. She's been staying with us and it's been maybe a month and so far it has been ok. I don't feel comfortable in my own home. I have to watch what I say, what I do. Even feel I have to control my facial expressions around her because she has claimed that I "smirk" at her. I don't. I am constantly on edge when she is around. I plan how I am going to say hello to her or good bye. Or if I don't say those things I fret and freak out about if she's gonna get mad and blow up. If I am in the kitchen, the bathroom, wherever and she walks into our bedroom and she's still in there when I want to come back I either wait til she comes out. Or I start to walk in and she's still there. I don't know if I'm allowed to come into my own bedroom. It's 100 % anxiety inducing. It's like walking on eggshells. You never know what will make her angry. I have this pit in my gut and it feels terrible. And I want to cry. The worst thing is having to keep this all to myself. My partner has acknowledged that she has issues. Hell he has his own issues with her. But at the end of the day that's his mom. And it's hard to express my frustrations, I have before but on one hand I don't want him to feel like I don't know. Bad? Because this isnt his fault. And he is just such a good person. I'm just so tired of feeling this way. And now today my mom called me while I am at work and told me his mom got upset with her again for staring and went on for hours. Which she has the tendency to do. But she also told me that she wants to come stay with us. Which I knew was you know a possibility and before we let her back a probability. But now it just feels so frustrating because. Its not our own place then. We don't/won't have the privacy I want and need. I still will be dealing with the same issues. The same uncomfortable feeling just in a new place. I was really really hoping that you know she would just move into our old bedroom and we could truly be on our own. Everyone would be set. She would have a roof, and food, shelter. But we would be on our own. It's my dream. Finally we were getting somewhere. We made it. We were gonna be on our own. Then maybe he would quit playing and make me a wife and a mother. But it feels like we will never get there and that's devastating to me. All i want is to be married to my best friend and raise our child together. But he expressed that it wasn't gonna happen until we are out on our own and that's not gonna happen until we are 40. And by then I'll be too old to have a child and my dreams will be crushed. This is absolutely terrible. And I am on lunch at work. I have to go back in to work and pretend I'm okay. And I have to go home to my partner and pretend I'm not dying inside. Yeah yeah I know. I am being dramatic. I'm just venting. But this is our life. This is my happiness. If she comes. She ain't never leaving. We will never get married. I won't be a wife and a mother. Which I was meant for. I was born to take care of, to nurture. Have I been that bad of a person? To not get what I so desperately want? Need even? Now I'm depressed. I thought venting would make me feel better but I feel worse. Hooray.
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If Hobbit asks are unwelcome, feel free to ignore this, but I have enjoyed your Tolkein literary analyses and would greatly appreciate your insight on something. You might've heard of Saphroneth's "Saruman of Many Devices" fic; I'm fiddling around with a similar conceit that puts modern-armed Uruks in the Hobbit. How would Smaug react to new things? For that matter, how is Smaug written?
This is such a delightful question! It makes me feel like pulling out my notes from the rest of my LotR re-read and finish up at least Books III and IV in some kind of public way. Caveat here: I haven’t read The Hobbit in full in several years, so I may edit this post in a bit to abridge my thoughts.
OKAY SO. I had to do a bit of digging and thinking before I came around to the idea of modern-armed orcs of any kind, but gun-toting Uruks finally kind of makes sense to me. I wonder, though, to what extent Saruman’s creations are truly new, or if everything he does is just kind of a rip-off of Sauron+Morgoth’s best work. If that’s the case, I think we’d end up with a Smaug who was able to associate Uruks with Guns to some other thing he’d come across. But, because that’s less interesting (and because we already have an example of that in his treatment of Bilbo as something-almost-but-not-quite-a-dwarf), let’s assume that Saruman has actually hit the jackpot on a truly devious and new thing, and Smaug has no point of reference.
The Smaug we get in “Inside Information” is frightening because of how clever he is, but because our narrator knows the end of the story and is easing us along to it, we know, as Bilbo does not, that “there was a lot [in Bilbo’s self-description] which Smaug did not understand at all [...] but he thought he understood enough, and he chuckled in his wicked inside” (208 in the edition in front of me). Here we have the image of someone who is used to being the cleverest person in the room, who has endless patience for riddling, and who enjoys the thrill of figuring out a puzzle, especially when the puzzle-poser thinks themselves cleverer than he. As it turns out, he does understand a fair deal, both about the situation (fourteen dwarves are back; Lake-town is involved) and about the nature of its players (Bilbo is unsure whether he can really trust Thorin & Co., or the Lake-men, or himself).
Smaug has “rather an overwhelming personality,” and he knows how to use it to his advantage one-on-one, as well as, well, when he’s wreaking all sorts of fun and fiery mayhem. But he is also susceptible to flattery, as are most people who fancy themselves the smartest person in the room, and who are used to their devastating personalities rather crushing their interlocutors into quivering reverence.
He’s quick to take offense, and quick to lash out, all characteristics of particularly, shall we say, choleric dispositions. But he doesn’t often let his temper get in the way of his ability to plan and plot; he is cunning not simply because he intuits the answers to problems and sees connections without having to be told, but because he is able to allow the chill of rationality to temper his fire. He sneaks up on the dwarves at the end of the chapter in question, and only Bilbo’s quite rational caution saves them from a rather chaotic barbecue. When he doesn’t manage to catch them, foiled by the fear he too-readily instilled, his anger gets the better of him; “revenge is a dish that is best served cold” is the kind of maxim he just wouldn’t get.
In many respects, Tolkien writes him like a fire: swift, controlled only to a point, indiscriminate in destruction. He is much more clever than a fire, but he does trust his own judgement rather too well. Like all clever people, he dislikes being wrong, and when he finds himself wrong about where Thorin & Co. have made their egress, he needs to smash something. Also like clever people, when he finds the people of Esgaroth, led by the inimitable Bard, fighting against him, he gets even angrier. Don’t these people know that I’m right?! I must confess to thinking the same myself; the idea that someone would give me battle (on an intellectual, not a town-burning front, to clarify) is an affront.
So, how would a clever person, used to being the cleverest, with a short fuse and more than a bit of an ego, respond to something completely outside of their wheelhouse?
I think, for starters, with questions. Not the kind that would make him seem ignorant! No, he would carefully observe, and ask the kind of leading questions that get Bilbo to reveal far more than he means to. If you read “Inside Information,” you’ll see just how little Smaug actually says, and just how much he is able to cobble together from what little Bilbo tells him. He’d start with the obvious, get the Uruks/Saruman (although let’s be real, Saruman on the front lines? Ha!) talking about themselves with questions directed toward things he can already guess; numbers, for instance, species, the materials of these new-fangled weapons, etc. Then he’d apply just enough pressure to turn the conversation toward his areas of ignorance, give them just enough rope to hang themselves, as the saying goes.
He’d probably come to a conclusion that was about 80% right within a few minutes, and from there he’d probably start to perform the party trick of telling the unknown guests what he has guessed about them, because his pride couldn’t allow it to go unsaid. He would do this whether they came with an offer of alliance or an attempt to, y’know, oust him from the mountain.
Now, what if Smaug’s first encounter with Fighting Uruk GIs was in a battlefield? Then, we’d have something a little different. I suspect we’d have a Smaug full of rage at the NERVE of people using fire against him, on top of his utter disgust at the idea of people coming against him at all. We’d get a physical attempt to overpower rather than a mental one, but with the same motivation: Smaug knows he’s the best (well, the best that’s left, and the fact that he’s the one that’s left says something about how clever he is, or at least it does to him), and he wants other people to know it, too. Like many clever/far too ripped people, he is plagued with the worry that is he is clever/far too ripped in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, was he really clever/far too ripped?
Finally, even though Saruman on the front lines is about as likely as...anyway, a very unlikely thing, it would be utterly delightful to have two people who are used to being the cleverest person in the room in a room together, each getting increasingly irritated as the other refuses steadfastly to acknowledge their intellectual superiority. One of them would have to turn to a physical attack. I think this is likely to be the case even if your narrative demands that they be allies, perhaps even more so.
#tolkien#lit#dragons#awkward when you identify with a genocidal jewellery-obsessed worm#now think about what JRRT wants to accomplish with this too-clever person!#blastfarmer
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