#even if it exacerbates your own shame idk

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

There has been so much excellent discussion on my dash this morning, especially musing on the privacy vs secret thing, and once again thinking about how strange it must be to go from thinking “I must shrink myself and avoid public sightings for the sake of my sanity and personhood” to realizing that perhaps you are shrinking yourself in public specifically because the person you’re with doesn’t (or people you’re with don’t) want your personhood to infringe on their peace of mind 😵‍💫

[jackwolfes]

hello!! I love your writing and I was wondering if I could possibly request more t4t wesper? only if you want to write it ofc

hello!! thanks darling I'm glad you enjoy! idk why this fic went the way it did but enjoy some angsty sex 😅

(18+ and TW for gender dysphoria/past abuse)

This is the last time.

For real, this time, thinks Wylan, it won't happen again. 

Maybe this is the last time, but it's still happening now. 

“Ghezen.” 

Mortifyingly, Wylan’s voice cracks. The sigh still sinks out from between his lips with an undeniably heavy and scarily real sense of honesty. 

Jesper chuckles. “Flatterer.” 

His lips, soft and fucking perfect, dance over the thin cotton shirt covering Wylan's navel. And his hands, they— 

Wylan's eyes squeeze shut. It isn't fair, the way Jesper so summarily wrecks him every time they do this. Without even taking off his drawers, either, Saints. But — against all sense — they've done this enough that Jesper has gotten annoyingly good at turning Wylan's legs to jelly. 

Each time, it goes the same way. Each time, it goes like this: 

Jesper flirts. His tongue slides over his bottom lip in the Crow Club.  Sometimes he winks. The clamouring crowds push like nails against the back of Wylan's head, which he hates, but Jesper clearly loves it and Wylan, well, he loves Jesper. He loves that Jesper loves it, and the bright thrill in grey eyes that comes with a party. 

So when Jesper slides into a seat beside Wylan and starts to tease, fantastically earnest and a little bit drunk, Wylan flirts back. It's not always intentional, but too hard to resist. Jesper wants him, and Wylan wants— 

(Too much. He wants too much.)

But responding to each one of Jesper’s coy jibes with one of his own, Wylan basks in the attention like a greedy, lovestruck moron. That's who he is, after all. 

This is the last time. 

Wylan lies to himself. Every time, he lies. He's just being friendly. He doesn't care what your body looks like. He likes you. He loves— 

When their dance is done they do the same thing, each time, without fail. A drink bought and finished too quickly, a pacy climb up the stairs of the Crow Club. Jesper's bedroom door slammed behind Wylan and, usually, Wylan slammed against the bedroom door. His trousers buttons popped, Jesper's hand sliding into his drawers, mortification at the stickiness climbing up the back of Wylan's neck and exacerbated by that mocking chuckle. 

“Don't be shy,” Jesper whispers, most nights. 

Wylan buries his face in the crook of Jesper's throat, hiding, trying to pretend he doesn't get as wet at those words as he does. 

Some nights, Jesper keeps him there. Works off his trousers, spreads his legs, fucks him standing up against the door for anyone to hear. 

Tonight, he whispers, “I want to taste you.” 

Now Wylan is on his bed, legs parted, face bloody red. He drags a hand down his face, struggles to breathe. Jesper shoves the hem of his shirt up his stomach, then repeats the path his lips took earlier with his tongue. Wylan's back arches in startled, aroused surprise. A puff of laughter skates over his bare skin, and Wylan whimpers. 

The windows are open. However loud he shouts tonight, Wylan won't be the loudest thing the Ketterdam nights hear. The drunken clamor from the bar below bleeds into the bedroom. Shame drips past the shadows cast by Jesper's curtains. 

Spread out like this Wylan cannot help but feel Jesper's firm weight against his body. Jesper. Beautifully confident Jesper, beautiful Jesper, with four years on home-baked medicine that pitched his voice down an octave and mimicked the same sort that Wylan was promised by a father that paid to have him killed.

What use is there wasting money on the comfort of a defect? 

Wylan's fingers tangle in Jesper's coiled hair. His chest is tight, too tight. 

“Jesper— ah—” 

Between his legs, Jesper presses an open-mouthed kiss to the front of his drawers and moans like he likes the taste of the little damp spot Wylan can just about tell is soaking into the fabric.

Breathless, he gasps. His hips jump beneath Jesper's mouth. He can't breathe. 

This is the last time.

“Saints, Wylan!” 

A hand around his wrist jerks him upright. The room is spinning. He can’t— can't— 

Fingers at the buttons of his shirt come quickly, which is surprisingly rare. The fog in Wylan's head is too thick for him to fight through, although he wants to. He reaches for Jesper’s wrist, hand shaking, too slow to be any use. 

His shirt is open. The damage is done. 

“Saints.” A curse more foul follows. “How long have you been wearing these?”

The tips of Wylan's ears prickle. Black spots dance in his eyes. He refuses to look down at the bandages wound tightly around his chest. He can't. Although his lips move, trying to find an answer that doesn't prove how utterly useless he is, the only sound that comes out of his mouth is a reedy, shaking wheeze. 

He barely feels the shears slide between the bandages and his ribs, and doesn't watch Jesper cut. The second he does, Wylan shoves him away. Jesper catches himself on the mattress with an unsteady palm, watching Wylan hide himself again too closely.

Wylan crosses his arms tightly over his chest, both sides of his shirt covering skin with trembling fingers. He's going to be sick. 

“Wylan.” 

“Don't.” 

“Come on.” 

“It is none of your business, Jesper.”

“You made it my business when you passed out on me! You don't have anything to be ashamed about—” 

“Easy for you to say,” Wylan interrupts coldly. 

He looks meaningfully down at the trailing sides of Jesper's unbuttoned shirt. The twin scars cut across dark skin taunt Wylan, whispering unkindnesses. His anger is a snake around his ankle; bitterly violent, petty, unlikeable. Just like him. 

This is the last time. This time, he is sure. 

Jesper sighs, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. A knot of unshed tears tugs tighter in Wylan's chest. He gnaws at his lip, begging himself not to do something stupid like cry. 

“Listen,” Jesper says finally. “I can help find you something decent. Can't foot the bill, but maybe Kaz… I don't know. Just, stop with the bandages, before you break a rib.” 

Weakly, Wylan laughs. “You cut my last ones, anyway.” 

Jesper leans forward with a wink and that charming, beautiful grin; the one that makes Wylan feel foolish in the best possible way. His hand slides around the back of Wylan's neck, pulling him into a slow and heady kiss. The way he swipes his tongue over the swell of Wylan's bottom lip is so disarming that his shirt falls free from his tense grip. He takes hold of Jesper's, not caring about the way his own slides out over the expanse of his chest. 

And it stays that way for the rest of the night. Every touch of Jesper’s fingers — on his thighs — between his legs — inside him — sets him alight. He does not think about the ruddy flush seeping down the skin of his chest. 

Instead he sighs, keens, whimpers, and feels beautiful. Wylan blooms. He feels beautiful. Jesper does not look at Wylan's chest, but brings him to life. Wylan comes on Jesper's fingers with a fractured cry, muffling a sob against Jesper's mouth, and when he touches back, when he tries to prove his love with his tongue against Jesper's small swollen cock, Wylan feels beautiful. And when Jesper comes — when Wylan makes him come — when they lie in bed after — there is a certain, uncanny sort of happiness to it. 

“Last time in the bandages,” Jesper whispers against his mouth. “Promise?” 

Never has Wylan's chest felt lighter. Never has he wanted with such ferocity, but there is nowhere near as much pain. 

Faintly, but earnestly, he smiles and thinks: this is the last time. 

“Promise,” he whispers, and seals it with a kiss. 

[windor-truffle]

many thoughts head full they're only tangentially graces related but idk where else to vent:

I feel like I should have/did already know this about myself but holy shit I (and many others) am an absolute slut for the redemption-style ship trope, the ol' "I know you and I love you and that's why I can't let you deviate into this darker place I'm stopping you I'm saving you I'm helping you I'm bringing you back." and now I'm gonna ramble abt it because aaaaaaaaaa

I swear I've loved this trope for a while now but I think analyzing graces in part heightened my awareness of it until it hit a breaking point (w an ace attorney video of all things) and I realized that *all* of my favorite ships are this way 😅 Richard and Asbel fit it of course they're like the prototype of the simplest yet effective way to enact this: a pure-hearted protagonist who believes in his friends until the end but is willing to stand against them vs the love interest coerced (and in this case also outright possessed) into very obviously morally wrong actions by the exacerbation of a flaw but ultimately saved when they can put aside their pain and embrace the help that comes with companionship and makes that pain bearable. Paragons that cling on to hope even if it makes them seem naive or causes them to get hurt sometimes along the way are SO sexy and when that hope is rewarded with what they wanted, the redemption of someone who others thought to be beyond salvation, I the audience am also bursting into tears I don't care if it's cliche it's SO GOOD 😭

You know which other popular ship does this? Not hard to figure out I already mentioned Ace Attorney but yeah Phoenix Wright changed his whole career just because he heard that the hero who once stood up for him when no one else would was now a ruthless prosecutor and he had to find the truth of what had happened to his beloved childhood friend Miles Edgeworth (I've made the Richass comparison before and there's even an AA AU fic for graces but I haven't read it yet 😔). The AA fandom eats this gay ship up but how can you not 💜 Edgeworth being stopped in his tracks by this incessant bluffing optimistic man who stood fast against his selfishness (paraphrasing something Edgeworth literally says in JFA 😅) until he starts to question himself (because of some "unnecessary feelings") and eventually actually believes in himself after years of feeling guilt over a crime he thought he committed and shame of letting down the beliefs his supposed victim instilled him (the same beliefs that Phoenix is determined to bring out in him again) and ultimately leaves to figure out what his goal as a prosecutor really is then returns for my all-time favorite case Farewell and Turnabout and now it's Edgeworth's turn to say "I've learned what I stand for and the lengths to which I'd go to maintain it because you set me on this journey, now it seems it's your turn to walk this same path of doubt and discovery but don't worry I'll be right beside you, I'll walk it with you so you don't have fear going as far astray as I once did." Like. ;_;

But holdup I'm not done naming ships 'cause Fluri also does this to an extent. Yuri has to call out Flynn when it becomes apparent his blind trust in his mentor has made him complacent in the very crimes he sought to fix from within, and Flynn retorts by condemning the methods that Yuri has resorted to, the "dirtying of his hands," though I'd argue though that Yuri's double homicide is actually not a deviation from his morality but rather an extreme fulfillment of it. But it's still delightful though the way they have to pull each other back from the pitfalls of their own brands of justice, ie. entrusting too much power in fallable governments vs. appointing yourself the power to decide who gets to live or die. And like the previously mentioned ship, this pair works the best when they combine their different approaches (everything about how they infiltrate Ragou's manor is brilliant) because that way they can keep each other in check. It's almost like finding the balance in enacting justice is the theme of these games or something 😅

Last ship I wanna mention isn't even in canon but I can't resist the opportunity to plug my own (unfinished 😓) sormik fic "Falling Awake" because this is DEFINITELY what I was going for, a Mikleo threading the line of morality out of both despair and desperation to see their dream fulfilled even if the cost is steep, and a Sorey who struggles to reconcile whether this fallen seraph before him really is his friend or whether he can even be saved. A Mikleo who places the decision of whether to cross that line fully in Sorey's hands, trusting him to make the right call even as he begs him to let him do this, and a Sorey who can't let down the dreams of their past by allowing this particular tainted method to be its fulfillment. Everytime I work on it I start weeping even though I'm the one who wrote it 😅

Before I wrap this up though I wanna shoutout some variations of this trope, because it can obviously go a lot of different ways. I know V's rather fond of the more twisted love version in which instead of trying to bring their loved one back from the brink they jump off together, a la Kresnik Bros Bad End Best End 😁 In some ways I almost think this trope is "purer" because rather than trying to restore their beloved to what they think they should be (morally good) they embrace them as they are (amoral but kinda sexy bc of it 😂). True love lets the world burn 💜

Also worth mentioning is the delicious variation wherein the fallen party really was bad from the start, such as being a mole for an evil group, but caught feelings along the way and started wanting to be the kind of person the other seemed to think they already were. Dramatic irony is my fave and there's so much angst you can tease as the character evolves from "haha I'm deceiving them can't wait to betray them" to "shit I'm actually so much happier here with them but our relationship is built on a lie and when it comes out that I am a villain I will be undone and have nowhere to turn except from whence I came but I no longer want to be there." I feel like there's a lot of instances of this trope but the one that came to my mind first was Shadowhand Essek from Critical Role, there's the excellent Shadowgast ship of course but I like that he has this dynamic with the whole party who have been nothing but kind to him and inspire him to want a better life despite what he's done and what he's still trapped in.

Anyway, if anyone read this far first of all thank you 💜💜💜 I really have just been stuck in fandom ramble analysis mode for the past few days it's kinda insufferable but at least tumblr blogs are a good outlet for it 😅 And secondly uhhh if any of my impassioned ship/trope descriptions remind you of a particular media/ship lmk (I feel like Soriku might fit this but I never got that far into the series). I can't say I'll get to anything right away but if it's got this kinda vibe that's like catnip to me I'll happily stash the recommendation away for a future obsession someday 😅

[bisluthq]

https://x.com/aa_dreamgirl/status/1783461758528610751

See, no one is responsible for someone else’s mental health. As much as it sucks, someone facing mental health challenges *is* a valid reason to leave them, especially when it starts to affect your own mental health and/or when you might be exacerbating the problems rather than improving them. I brought up the rule I have re me dating people in recovery - I don’t. Point blank. Doesn’t make them bad people or either of us potentially bad partners, but that’s just not something I can deal with and not grow to resent or worse like inadvertently push them off the wagon. I’d be worried about them. I also can’t date anyone who either has an ED, is in recovery for one, or is just very focused on fitness/diet (even in a healthy way) because that’ll 100% be triggering to my own mental health and like push me into a Bad Place. Also personally like just… hectic mental health problems (intense anxiety/depression) trigger me as well because idk if I have anxiety but I have had MDD and I’ve been diagnosed with PDA so again just… not a good fit. No one is responsible for anyone else’s mental health and it’s weird that the internet shames that lol but I think it’s because most of us chronically online types have shit wrong with us lol so it feels mean to ourselves to have someone leave because of it. But like personally I’d rather the person go than be miserable and/or exacerbate my problems. It goes both ways. Just put your own oxygen mask on first.

[the-hopeless-haze]

He’ll reject my actions, but He will know my heart (Justified Sin Chapter 11)

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Warnings: talks of domestic violence, talks of the lost baby, talks of Dave's murder... suicidal ideation, slut-shaming, and derogatory names (not from Bruce obviously; he's my sweet babygirl and would never speak like that... but from a special surprise guest). also idk I love this chapter so much. love to go off about Catholicism like a nerd okay

Taglist: @pop-rocks-and-skittles @yesshewrites1 @deadflowerd @burninggracesandbridges @reggxe-a @ventila98 @grayce427 @leastlikelytoachieve @that-girl-named-alex @yuki235171 @cluelessnitwhit @thebruemanbatwayne @y-napotat @acatwriteshere​

Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.

Sure. But what if it was the opposite? Would Abel have been justified in killing Cain? Cain was evil and needed to be cast out by a righteous man to do God’s work for him. God left the building. It’s just a free-for-all, free will, free lives, no consequences. A cesspool. Gotham. Hit your wife. Kill the mayor. Nothing happens unless a vigilante takes you out.

Who’d be coming for Bruce’s neck in retaliation?

Corrupt. Opaque. Concealed. Never thought he was like one of those men, skeletons in his closet and his real face hidden behind a mask. Becoming what he hates in the name of being what the city “needs”.

He used to fool himself, that he was truly Vengeance and Bruce didn’t exist. But he does. Vengeance killed Dave but Bruce had the personal motivations to drive him to do so. He is both people and they are the same and he only wears the mask to rid himself of his wealth and his identity for the night. To be hidden. To be reckless, ruthless, and restless in his pursuits without people knowing who to tie them to.

It’s not about being a good person. Maybe it never was. It’s about being something bigger than himself, making Gotham habitable. Reducing fear in children’s eyes, children like him. Reducing harm. Not obliterating it. But a reduction.

If he had to harm others to do so… what was he really doing?

It’s not often Bruce seeks solace in the walls and painted glass windows of a church. It’s not ever, actually; the only times he can remember coming here is when his father was alive. Growing up briefly in a dual-religion household led to confusion only exacerbated by their premature deaths. Would a gracious, benevolent God let them be ripped from him, with no consequences for the murderers?

Alfred never saw it his place to educate Bruce on religious matters, so he grew up for better or for worse without much of an influence, though he did spend quite a bit of time in his father’s old study. Bibles were highlighted and annotated, and different theories that were postulated by Thomas. Bruce read through them in an attempt to understand the man he barely knew, but none of it made sense in the end, given what happened to him. What did he do that he deserved to meet that end? He married a Jewish woman. Perhaps he hoarded wealth to a selfish extent. But to die like that?

God had left Gotham. And Bruce feels like a shitty replacement. Just a man. Not a hero. Just a boy who had to sing this song of death and misery and revenge.

Bruce knew even less about his mother’s religion; she adapted more to Catholicism than Thomas was willing to concede to Judaism, although he vaguely remembers a menorah lit their last holiday season all alive. Her, though, she’d done even less to deserve it. Always giving, always kind, always in pain. Life was agony and never healing from trauma and mental illness and then it was over. Her identity was erased in death and one with the man she was married to.

Did it have to be that way? Why reduce a life to its negatives? Every news anchor seems to lament the deaths of the innocent and never focuses on the lives they had before it was taken.

They would do the same to Dave, not knowing that maybe, just maybe, he deserved the end he got. A sadistic motherfucker killed instead of enacting the killing. Turn it all on its head. Make a righteous man evil to make sure this evil man ceased breathing.

The church is quiet and reeks of incense, the woody smell piercing his nostrils as he walks in.

He half-expects the cross to fall off the wall at his presence.

Hail Mary. Full of Grace. Ave Maria. Everyone’s a sinner. Begging for forgiveness at the altar. Symbols for symbols for symbols to the point it doesn’t seem to stand for anything anymore.

Pray for us now. Pray for us at the hour of our death.

A-fucking-men.

He blesses himself with the holy water. The liquid doesn’t burn his flesh, it runneth over, off his skin. He still remembers how to do this, how he did it at his parents’ funeral. Right hand to god to the forehead. Bless the mind. In Nomine Patris. To the chest. Cleanse the heart. Et Filii. Left shoulder, the devil’s shoulder, brush him off but his influence still lingers. Et Spiritus. Right shoulder. One with God and Jesus now, but it doesn’t feel like it. Sancti. Nothing felt sanctified or holy when he did this decades ago. There’s no sanctity here now, either.

Nothing changes. Everything stays the same.

Hands come together now in prayer. A-fucking-men.

Pray for what? No one was listening.

But he came here to be heard.

He walks through the church, velvet carpeting beneath his feet, so much splendor and wealth here, but God said “make no idols of me” and yet statues and figurines of Jesus in his most vulnerable moments, nailed to the cross, are fixed to the walls.

He would be Risen again soon, in a month or so. Or at least symbolically. They’d have the kids making First Communion enact the Stations of the Cross, they’d sugarcoat it all and make it less violent than the story actually was.

Bruce would feel nothing like he always did and struggle to understand why.

Jesus wasn’t solving any problems. The weight of this city is on Bruce’s shoulders instead. Died for your sins and left the earth for good, checked out.

If Bruce was Jesus, he wouldn’t let himself die. He would stay.

You accused him of having a complex multiple times, especially in the suit, before you knew his identity. You always knew his delusions, though, regardless. Perhaps Jesus wouldn’t debase himself like Bruce did, give into the sins of the flesh, kill for love. But at least Bruce was staying and pushing himself and fighting the battles with the people he pledged to save.

Sacrilegious. Better than Jesus. Certainly not. That narcissism alone would earn him a spot right at Satan’s feet.

But maybe it wasn’t narcissism. It was a duty. A calling. To be better than Jesus? To do good even at the expense of doing evil to get there. Damning his own soul to save the pure.

The incense alone was going to give him a headache, never mind the thoughts racing through his mind.

Taking a deep breath, he walks behind the curtain.

“Vengeance. What do you have to say about it?” Bruce asks, sitting down in the confessional booth.

“‘Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord,” the priest quotes.

“Sure,” Bruce responds. “Sure. But he’s not avenging Gotham. Where’s his wrath when he we need it?”

Unless he is an agent for God and free will is an illusion and to rid the earth of Dave’s influence, to make a good man kill in his will, he had to learn to love first. Bruce. Batman. Vengeance. Acting out His wrath, doling it out so He doesn’t have to.

“Mm. Maybe it doesn’t appear to be as if he’s doing anything to you. But God works in mysterious ways. What have you done, child, that you believe requires forgiveness?”

“I hurt somebody because they hurt somebody I love,” he says simply, his sweaty hand burning a hole on his knee. He talks like he was explaining his actions to a child, mind-numbingly plain and vague.

“So you enacted revenge.”

“Yes.”

“What did you do, exactly?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he mutters. “I hurt them.”

“Hm. I can’t quite absolve of your sins if I don’t know what they are.”

“That’s what you do? Absolve me?”

“Are you sorry for the sins you’ve committed against another?”

Bruce hesitates for a moment, then says, “I wish it hadn’t come to that. But no. It was premeditated. It had to happen.”

"Sorrow is half the battle, my child."

"So I'm damned," Bruce says, letting out a mirthless chuckle.

"Why don't you tell me what you've done? It weighs on you heavily. I can sense it," the priest says.

"It was a crime."

"The state is not higher than God. Whatever you tell me... I cannot repeat to the authorities. It stays between you, myself, and God."

"Oh, well, that's bullshit," he mutters, leaning back against the wall. "Someone comes in here and tells you they hit their wife. What are you going to do? Send them on their way? Not tell the police? Anybody?"

"I pray."

"Lot of good that does."

"You have a lot of anger in your heart-"

"What you're telling me is bullshit."

"Did you hit your wife?"

"No," Bruce growls, ice running through his veins. "No. I would never fucking do that. I killed a man who did."

Again. No crosses fall from the walls. God was inactive and so were his perpetrators.

"Mm... my child. Vengeance has no place in our hearts," the priest says. "And you're not sorry for this?"

"No. But you can't fucking tell anybody, right?"

"No. I can't. I am bound by my sacraments. God already knows and he is the highest authority."

"God watched that man hit his wife day in and day out. Watched him push her, break her wrists, and give her black eyes. Watched him yell at her, scream at her. Watched him hold money over her head so she couldn't leave. Watched him take the baby out of her womb with a fucking coat hanger," he seethes, heart pounding. "He did nothing. No divine intervention."

"God granted us free will. He will atone for his sins in his death, as will you, unless you atone for them now."

"I'll never be sorry," Bruce snarls. "It wasn't something I wanted to do. It was something I needed to do. I took no joy in it. But it was necessary to buy her freedom."

"Do you think you can find it in yourself to want to do better?"

"Of course. I want to do better. I never... I never want that feeling again. That's why I'm here."

"Maybe in time, you will come to see the errors of your ways."

"I killed a bad man."

"You killed a man," the priest corrects.

"I think I'm... I think I'm done here," Bruce says, shaking his head. "I... I don't think I'm going to get anything out of this."

"Go to the altar. Pray the rosary at least one time. And please return when you are ready to feel sorrow."

Wordlessly, Bruce exits the booth, taking a rosary at the exit. Unsure why he does it, he steps up to the altar, the garish lights shining down nearly blinding him. He takes the rosary, blesses himself again. The sign of the cross. He needs the prayer book to remember them, I believe in God, the Father almighty ... lies. Bruce doesn't believe in anything but himself. And you.

Our Father. forgive the one who trespasses against you, for he is the one who’d risk eternal damnation for you, with you, even without you. Bruce's own words, twisting the sanctity of the prayer, making it fit his own crimes. Hail Mary, full of grace. Ave Maria. He feels nothing. Ave Maria. He feels nothing. Ave Maria.

A-fucking-men.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

“My husband, Dave Matteson, has been missing for over a month.”

Now, Bruce is sitting at the press conference, as far in the back as he could get. Stark contrast to the church he was in days earlier. It’s a sign of solidarity to you, and maybe he’s paying his respects to the dead here, too. It’s only fair, since he’s the reason you’re here at all, giving a eulogy to a man who beat the shit out of you for years. Being exorbitantly wealthy and well-known got him access to everything without any real questions, and sitting in this seat amongst journalists and politicians alike makes him feel beyond cheap.

You’re solemn and respectful, playing this role well like you played all of your roles for this man prior. Black knee-length dress, minimal makeup, gloved hands, you seem to be going for a Jackie O vibe. Fitting you should channel her now.

“I was in the hospital when I received the news he was missing after a brief illness. I wish I knew what had happened to him within those hours, but I was very ill. I just wish… I wish he reached out to me. It’s been weeks and I haven’t heard a word. I… I… this isn’t like him. I feel as though we should fear the worst. If he was out there, breathing, I feel as though I would feel him… and I… I don’t feel anything, anymore,” you say, wiping tears with your tissue. Your father is behind you, and he squeezes your shoulder comfortingly. It’s the first time Bruce has seen him, and he looks as harrowed and shaken as you do, if not more so. The familial resemblance is clear, here, not just in looks but somewhat in the way you hold yourself as well. He wonders vaguely how much he inherited from Alfred himself, how much isn’t inherited but learned.

“While I still have hope he might return and the case is far from closed,” you continue, swallowing thickly, “I do support the change in the office of mayorship to Don Mitchell Jr. While my husband’s shoes are not easy to fill, I feel as though Mr. Mitchell will do his utmost in the interim. Gotham is in good hands. Thank you.”

You step away from the podium and hug your father, tears streaming down your face as the cameras flash away. The paparazzi were definitely getting their money’s worth for the show you were putting on today.

Not that it was a show, entirely. You are grieving. Just not for the reasons they thought.

The “interim” mayor you introduced gets up to the podium next and speaks, but Bruce tunes him out. Just another run-of-the-mill, corrupt candidate. One out of a million.

Instead, he watches you.

You still didn’t look quite like yourself, but then again, maybe he never knew you, never knew who you were when you weren’t in constant fight or flight mode. He wonders if you told your father everything, or what you decided to tell him instead of the truth. He wonders if your father knows about your entanglement with himself.

The conference ends, and Bruce knows he shouldn’t linger and that you don’t want him here, but he can’t help but stay. For the refreshments, he rationalizes to himself, but there wasn’t alcohol here in the middle of the day and he knows he’s only staying to watch. Steady on the outskirts of your life.

So, he gets a cup of water and stands next to the wall, becoming one with it, ignoring questions and comments and keeping a stoic expression whenever the cameras flashed in his face. The paparazzi gave him a hard time getting in here. Maybe it’d be best to leave last.

You’re a couple feet away, now, separated from your father, receiving condolences from others with teary eyes. But then… Carmine Falcone comes up next to you and Bruce is on high alert. Ever since this man showed up bloody on his father’s doorstep, he didn’t like him. From what little he knew, he had ties to your husband as well. Whatever he had to say couldn’t be pleasant.

Crossing the room in a few strides, he steps closer to the two of you, hoping not to be seen by either of you. You notice him immediately, eyes widening at first and then setting into a glare. Falcone has his back turned to him, and you don’t say anything to alert him of his presence, so he stays close.

“Nice show you’re putting on, girl,” Falcone says. “Hm? Who taught you how to act so well?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, setting your shoulders back.

“Oh, but I think you do. No point acting with me, sweetheart. Where is he, really? In the floorboards?”

“I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Falcone,” you respond, trying to keep your voice level. “Please allow me to grieve in peace.”

“Grieve? I don’t believe he’s been pronounced dead. You seem to have given up all hope he’ll return though, eh? What did you do to him?”

“I was in the hospital when he went missing,” you mutter, looking down at your heels.

“You know how easy it is to get medical records forged, sweetheart? I could get them like that,” he says, snapping his fingers in front of your eyes, causing you to flinch. Bruce lunges forward but you recover quickly and set your eyes on him again, a piercing gaze that says “let me handle this” without the words. Fair enough. Although he fights against every cell on his body to do so, he grants you this. For now.

“Please. Let me be,” you say, meeting Falcone’s eyes again. “This is hard enough on me as it is.”

“Yeah. The guilt must eat at you, sweetheart. Since you don’t have access to his money yet, I might have a job for you. Pimps are hiring big for pretty whores like you—“

That’s enough. That's e-fucking-nough, Bruce decides. He knows you’ll hate him for it, hate him for causing a scene but he can’t in good faith listen to this man berate you for things he didn’t know fuck all about.

“Is there a problem here?” Bruce interjects, placing a not-so-friendly hand on Falcone’s shoulder.

“Well, look who’s coming to your defense, the prince of Gotham himself, eh?“

“I don’t need the help,” you say, pridefully.

“I don’t know. Big city for a little girl like you. Might need another rich man to pay your way for you or you really will end up a street girl,” Falcone snickers. “We know your father can’t afford your lifestyle, and that little diner won’t cut it.”

“I suggest you go somewhere else,” Bruce says through gritted teeth.

“Really, Bruce, I can handle myself,” you hiss.

“Oh, you two are on first name basis? Maybe Dave was right to be suspicious of you two. I always said, you know, no way poor little recluse Bruce could score you, but maybe you are just a slut for the money, hm?” Falcone sneers.

What Bruce does next he isn’t entirely sure if he’s proud of, but his fingers are tightening around the older man’s shoulder before he can stop himself, and he’s forcing him to walk backwards until his back is against the wall. The crowd dispersed to let them through, but they were quick to follow and hear what was said, tittering and gossiping - “I wonder if he’ll hit him” and “oh, am I glad I showed up today”.

“Hey, hey, easy, boy,” Falcone chuckles. “Remember. Your father wanted me to live.”

“Leave her alone,” he says softly but sternly, staring him down.

Falcone leans against him, his breath reeking of smoke and burnt coffee, and he whispers in his ear, “Yeah? Was her pussy worth it?”

Bruce can’t feel his fingers anymore with the strength at which he’s digging them into Falcone’s suit-clad shoulder. It’s worth it, though, worth putting the fear of god into these assholes. “I’m going to say it one more time. Leave. Her. Alone.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. I’ll make sure you’re not around the next time,” he laughs.

Letting go, he makes sure to shove him back against the wall a little more forcefully than necessary, and then he pushes past the reporters, the cameras, looking for you, but you were gone, you were nowhere within his line of vision.

Your father comes over to him, putting an arm around his shoulder and walking him over to a corner. “Some scene you caused,” he says after shoving a paparazzi away that followed the two of them.

“Yeah,” Bruce mutters. “I couldn’t listen to the vile shit coming out of his mouth. Just… just tell her I’m sorry. Okay? Can you do that? I’ll see myself out now. Don’t worry.”

“She went out around the back if you want to catch her.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “She wants to talk to me?”

“Well, no,” he answers, smiling wryly. “But I think you should try. I… I want to say. Thank you. Thank you for loving my daughter through… all of that. I had no idea things were that bad. I… I loved Dave and it breaks my heart to think my daughter thought I loved him more than her. To think… to think she wouldn’t come to me? All this time… I…”

“She told you?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?” Bruce asks, anxiety running through his veins.

“She didn’t tell me what happened to him, but from the scene you just pulled, I think I can put it together,” he whispers. “Good for you. I would’ve done the same thing if I’d known.”

“I’m going… I’m going to go talk to her now,” Bruce says awkwardly, feeling sick and needing the fresh air regardless. He didn’t know what felt worse, the people justifying it to him or the fact that you still didn’t forgive him for it. So many people complicit in this crime, or in favor of it and yet the person he did it for… left him. And he knows why. He knows. You need the time alone and he should grant it to you and going to talk to you right now is on the list of stupid shit he’s done, for sure, but he does need to apologize at the very least.

Once he’s sure he’s slithered along the wall enough that he’s lost the cameras, he heads out of the building, the frigid February air cooling his skin down some. Walking along the perimeter of the building, he sees you, pacing in your heels, headphones blasting music so loud he could hear it when he got close enough to you.

“Hey,” he says gently, reaching out for your shoulder, a soft, feather light touch. Proof that he is, in fact, capable of restraint.

You startle, and turn to face him, shutting your music off and furrowing your brow at him. “I cannot fucking believe you. You just had to make a scene, didn’t you? Jesus Christ,” you snap. “We aren’t together, Bruce. We aren’t fucking together. And even if we were you can’t… you can’t fucking do that. You can’t. You can’t kill every single person who wrongs me, Bruce. I can’t fucking live like that.”

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t going to kill him, Christ. He shouldn’t be talking to you like that. He wasn’t going to leave you alone—“

“I know him, Bruce, fuck off. I’ve dealt with him the entire fucking time I was married to Dave and let me tell you, he’s the least of everyone’s problems. He’s just a fucking asshole. That’s it. He’s all talk but he’s harmless.”

“I don’t know if I can agree with that.”

“No, right, because every man who talks to me now, this is the shit you’re going to pull? I can’t… how fucking dumb are you? You killed him. You. And you’re making a scene at this fucking thing?”

“Shh.”

“What? You worried fucking Falcone will hear you through the walls? Jesus Christ, Bruce. Fuck off. Seriously. I cannot believe you made a fucking scene like that. Now Falcone’s going to go and tell fucking everybody who will listen that I’m fucking Bruce Wayne and—“

“You were. It’s not like he’s fucking lying.”

“Right. Well, maybe I didn’t want everybody to know. Jesus.”

“Why? Are you embarrassed of me? Huh?”

“Shut the fuck up, Bruce, and stop thinking with your dick for two seconds,” you growl, walking closer to him. “Seriously. Fuck you. I was fucking married to the most conservative man in this fucking city and you think it’s a fucking good look for me if the whole fucking city thinks I fucked you while I was married to him, and then he fucking died on top of it? Jesus fucking Christ. Why don’t I just suck you off in public? Right? Give them another show. Yeah?”

“Listen. Your feelings are justified—“

“That’s the other fucking thing, too, I keep going over in my head, right? Are you going to kill every fucking man who beats their wife? Are you? I fucking don’t think so and I… I can’t handle that. I can’t handle being… I can’t handle being loved that much. Fuck. I can’t. It’s… it’s too much,” you say, backing away from him.

“But I do. I do love you that much,” he says quietly, reaching out for your hand. “I’d do it again. I’d die for you—“

“Bruce. Love me less, then. Love me less,” you say, looking up at him pleadingly.

“I can’t,” he whispers, rubbing his thumb over your hand, aching for more contact, aching to reach out and hug you and press you to his chest and breathe in your perfume and kiss you and make you feel good again, press his body into yours, make you remember how you loved him, too.

“I… I can’t. I can’t do this. Fuck. I can’t. I need to… I need to leave Gotham. I thought I could do this, I thought… but I… I… fuck. I can’t do this.”

“You can. And you will. This is your city. His memory shouldn’t drive you out of your home.”

“It’s not him, Bruce, it’s you,” you say, blinking tears out of your eyes. “I told you I needed space and you pull this shit?”

“It’s almost been a month. You haven’t even called me. It’s like you cut me off, like you don’t want anything to do with me,” he says, his voice cracking, breaking like glass shattering on the pavement.

“I told you I needed space, Bruce.”

“Okay,” he says, letting go of your hand, keeping his hand out by his waist. “Okay. I’ll leave.”

Leaving was the last thing he wanted to do. He’s never known what it was like to miss people who are still alive; grieving for the living. It’s a different kind of ache, a gnawing pain every time he reaches for the phone and doesn’t call you, every time he sees articles about you in the newspaper, every time he reminisces about the good times the two of you have had, every time he drives by the diner. Still out there but so unattainable.

“You’re not leaving,” you say, drawing him out of his reverie, and he had stayed, staring at you, at your face in the sun, at the way you changed, at the way you held yourself now, shoulders straight back instead of cowered down.

You aren’t terrified of being alive anymore.

He did the right thing.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I just… I don’t know when I’ll see you again. I’m trying to make this last.”

“Bruce….”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too,” you say, looking up at him, your eyes squinting a little in the sunlight. “I don’t expect you to wait for me to be ready. I don’t.”

“What are you… what are you talking about?”

“I still need more time.”

“Okay. And I said I would be here.”

“I don’t expect you to wait, Bruce.”

“Why? Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because. I’m a mess, Bruce. I… I was inpatient," you say, frazzled. "My therapist committed me. I was… I had a plan. I was going to… never mind. It doesn’t matter what I was going to do. That’s why I didn’t call you. I… I didn’t want you to worry or try to visit me or… whatever. I just got out. Two days ago. And then they dragged me to this shit.”

“I’m glad you got help. But you can always talk to me.”

“But I can’t… I’m still not stable, Bruce.”

“Then… okay. I can wait.”

“But you want a family. You want a wife and kids and I can’t do that. Not now, maybe not ever.”

“I only wanted that with you,” he says gently. “I only wanted that because it was you. I never thought I would get any of these things before I met you.”

“I took them away.”

“You didn’t get rid of the baby. He did.”

“I should have told you. I should have been more careful,” you say, looking down.

Testing out boundaries, he brings his hand to your cheek, brushing hair behind your ear. You raise your head and you don’t push him away, in fact, you lean into his hand. The two of you stay like that for a few moments until Bruce whispers, “You can’t blame yourself for this. Okay? You can’t keep carrying around this guilt. I’m upset just like you are that we didn’t get to know this baby and raise them and love them. But it wasn’t your fault.”

“I knew it wasn’t wasn’t safe. I knew that,” you say, lip trembling. “I knew trying to get out would be hard enough without being pregnant, too.”

“Okay. But you did what you did. It’s over. I forgive you. I was never going to hold it against you,” Bruce tells you.

“Every time I look at you I just… I feel like I killed part of you. What if they looked like you and—“

“Shh. Shh,” he says, cutting you off. Taking his hand from your cheek, he wraps his arms around you, pulling you into his chest. “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s over. He’s gone.”

“Yeah. But you… to do that, to kill him, to end his life? What goes through your head, Bruce? I just don’t get it.”

“To protect the woman I love and my future family. Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe it’s antithetical to whatever I’m trying to do as Batman. It was because I love you.”

“Right,” you say, pulling away from his embrace. You cross your arms over your chest. “Murder out of love, justified, because you love me more than you hate him? I don’t know.”

“Aren’t you happy he’s gone? Aren’t you happy you don’t have to go home and be afraid of what mood he’ll be in? Aren’t you better off?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes. But not at this price.”

“You’re not paying anything.”

“I… I corrupted you. I made you like this, like me. You were so… innocent, before. Pure. And I… I fucked you and made a child with you that I got killed and you killed somebody for me. I damned you to hell with me.”

“Well, we better make the most of this, then,” he says, shrugging. “We’ve got a long eternity of hellfire ahead of us.”

You laugh in spite of yourself, always in favor of dark humor. “Right. Live it up before the eons-long barbecue.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Do you believe in any of that anyway?” you ask.

“I don’t know. But I’m not basing my decisions on the place I might go after I die. I’m basing my decisions based on the consequences they’ll have on the people and the city I care about. What I know exists.”

“How logical."

"I went to confessional," he admits. "I felt nothing."

You roll your eyes. "Maybe actual therapy?"

"A therapist could report me to the authorities, though," he points out. "But I see your point."

"You don't have to tell them everything, obviously. But I think you should go."

"Okay. Whatever you want. I just... I just want you back. I'm trying so hard not to be pushy about this because I know what you asked for but I miss you and-"

Your lips are on his and your hand is in his hair and you are so close to him and he forgets everything - the words that were going to come out of his mouth, what he was doing here at this building - all mush. He kisses you back, pulling your body closer to his than you already were, relishing in the feel of your mouth on his again, remembering the first time you kissed when you took him by surprise and how you were doing it again and you'd do it again and again.

God be damned.

"You still love me?" he asks quietly, holding on to your healed wrist after you pull away from his mouth.

"Who said I stopped?" you respond. "But fuck. That's why I said I needed space. I can't be around you."

"We can... we can heal from this together. We don't need to be separated."

"I need to live alone, Bruce. I do. We're not starting this cohabited. My dad is taking me to look at apartments tomorrow."

"Can we still... can we still talk, then? Can I call you?" he asks.

"I'll call you. Okay? Just... I still need time."

"Okay."

"I love you, Bruce," you say, and it's the first time he's heard those words in over a month, enough to bring the prickles of tears to his eyes. "You just have to let me do this."

"I killed to let you do this. I'm okay," he says. "I love you, too."

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

[greensaplinggrace]

So you mentioned in another post that you have some strong thoughts on Baghra, especially about how the story frames her as one of the good guys. I would love to hear about it.

@youremotionallystablefriend: I would love to hear you rant about Baghra if you feel like it (and haven’t already)! Personally I don’t think she gets enough constructive critique in the fandom for being the one that brought Aleks up and for the way she treated her pupils and especially Alina :/

Anon: Hello! I love your thoughts on the grisha books. I'm actually interested to hear your take on Baghra

@misku-nimfa: If you are up for it, I would love to read your thoughts on Baghra or your full critique of society in the Grishaverse. Your analysis is really well structured and interesting! ^.^

Anon: Hi! I saw your recent post and was wondering if you'd share more of your thoughts on Baghra?

---

Hello everyone! I was honestly very surprised to see so many people interested in my thoughts on Baghra? I'll share what I can, but please know that this is by no means a full breakdown of her character! It’s just some Thoughts I’ve had, and they’re mostly centered around show Baghra because that’s how I was first introduced to her character. Although IMO book Baghra might actually be even worse.

I’d like to preface this by saying that many of my issues with the treatment of Baghra as a character in fandom come from the wild double standard there seems to be regarding her and the Darkling. Darkling Antis and a vast majority of the people in this fandom who don’t like his character have a disturbing habit of absolutely ripping into the Darkling for all of his faults and then turning around and treating Baghra as some sort of pristine mother figure for the exact same shit.

They’ll talk about how badass she is, how strong she is, how they sympathize with her past (although they’ll continue to dehumanize the Darkling and refuse to sympathize with his own past) and sympathize with the fact that she has to deal with the Darkling (who’s always referred to as a monster she must corral or control, as if he is inhumane and beastly. These particular comments always take on the very distinct tone of victim blaming as well). They’ll laud her for all of these “powerful girlboss” moments as if they aren’t carbon copies of the Darkling’s own behavior - as if they aren’t things Baghra herself taught him. Which is why this is the wildest double standard of all to me, because every horrible action they praise Baghra for is something she taught the Darkling, and something they cannot stand to see in him as well.

It’s as if there’s a disconnect between their consumption of the literature when it comes to the two characters, and I’m of the opinion that it’s largely because Baghra is a woman and a mother and therefore infantilized in the fandom quite a bit. In fact, Bardugo herself often infantilizes many of her female characters in her writing. This is mostly through the process of excusing their terrible deeds, not allowing them to do anything remotely dark, or brushing any morally grey actions under the rug without ever touching upon them. Which puts me in the strange position of knowing I’m supposed to sympathize with Baghra for having to deal with the monster she’s created, and instead feeling resentful of the fact that this bitter woman is held up as this wise old strict teacher instead of the abusive mentor/mother she should have been.

Now, here’s what I said to make so many of you send me asks:

Last note, in reference to your first line, and also probably a pretty unpopular opinion. I do not like Baghra. And it legit has nothing to do with the Darkling or with Alina, I just don't like her "I'm going to hit you and berate you and emotionally abuse you and manipulate you and act like the good guy at the end of it" vibe she's got going on. At least Aleksander is acknowledged as the villain within the narrative. Idk wtf Baghra is on but it's absolutely wild to me that people aren't more critical of her actions. Which is, rather fortunately for you, another rant I will save for another post if anybody ever wants to hear it lol. (but like kudos to Baghra's actress. I loved the character as a character, I just don't like the way she's framed as a good guy. Weird. Uncomfortable. She literally set bees on the kids she was teaching).

This basically summarizes most of my thoughts on Baghra as a character and how she’s portrayed. I touched on it a bit above, but the way she’s able to get away with so much and not suffer under heavier critique is honestly baffling to me. There should be a lot more criticism of her out there in the fandom. This is the woman who abused her students and neglected her son. Although to be honest I don’t even know how to quite describe the emotionally neglectful yet unhealthily codependent bond she fostered in him from a young age. IMO, Baghra’s behavior around Aleksander is creepy, and I know she has a history that makes it more understandable, but it’s still incredibly disconcerting to witness.

But let’s get back on track! First of all, her students. Whom she physically, emotionally, and mentally abuses. She’s derisive, she’s insulting, she’s belittling. She works hard to strip them of any self confidence they may have. She uses pain as a means of triggering powers. And the strict teacher excuse doesn’t fly. The “it’s only a training method!” excuse is even worse. This is literal abuse she’s heaping on her students and it’s wretched.

The first thing she does to Alina when they first meet is insult her. Then she hits her. Then she kicks her out.

Second time they interact is a montage. Baghra hits Alina multiple times. She shames her. And then when Alina actually calls a light she tells her it’s not nearly enough, effectively wiping the smile off of her face and every sign of self confidence that had been building. Then we see the door to Baghra’s hut shut in Alina’s face. So now she has been bruised, battered, berated, stripped of all self confidence, and then banished again. As training methods go, this is not only entirely ineffective, but it’s also just abusive.

Then we get this interaction between Alina and her friends:

Marie: One time, Baghra released a hive of bees on me. Nadia: Worst part is, it worked. Marie: It really did. I could summon at will after that.

Which is fucking horrifying and not talked about nearly enough. That goes beyond hitting your students. Baghra used a fear tactic on a young girl to activate her powers. She literally tortured Marie to make her powers work.

Alina throughout this conversation is looking very disheartened. She’s lacking in any self confidence and the comment about the bees has clearly affected her. For someone who’s first words to Alina were “Everyone believes that you are the one. Come back when you believe it too,”  Baghra doesn’t exactly seem keen on Alina actually believing she’s the one. If she did, she wouldn’t be stripping her of every positive emotion associated with sun summoning.

Let’s not forget that Baghra demeans Alina multiple times for her status as an orphan. How she utilizes what she knows of Alina’s emotional weaknesses to provoke her and discourage her and make her angry.

And then Baghra drugs her without consent. To take advantage of any information Alina gives her in that state. To use the way Alina reacts for her own ends.

Because why else would she say this?:

Alina: We planned to run away together. Baghra: You had plans. Perhaps he never did, because where is he now?

Which is, strangely enough, the same sense of isolation and separation from Mal and her past that Aleksander is attempting to foster. Weird how mother and son are both using the same manipulation tactics.

In fact, why does Baghra never tell Alina about the letters until she’s already engaged with Aleksander? Baghra must have known he was taking them. Alina talks about it enough. Baghra must have known he was isolating her from Mal. How could she not, when it’s revealed later that she has spies in the Little Palace collecting information on him? How could she not, when she knows he’s the villain from the beginning - when she knows he’s manipulating Alina?

Baghra knows, and yet she keeps the same lies Aleksander does and furthermore uses that information to make Alina feel even more isolated and weak. Baghra literally just piggy-backs on Aleksander’s manipulation and then exacerbates it. She wants Alina to feel no attachments to her past because she wants to use Alina as well. But for some reason, because this manipulation and treatment of Alina as some sort of tool is done by the woman who opposes the Darkling, it’s suddenly okay. As if it still isn’t the same terrible shit but with a different perpetrator. I mean damn, at least Aleksander feels something for Alina. Baghra’s just cold.

So, point by point. Baghra mentions how Mal doesn’t care for Alina, she mentions Alina’s failings constantly, she mentions Alina being an orphan, she constantly hits her, she guilts Alina about orphans dying, she works to instill a sense of isolation from her friends and her family.

And when Alina finally comes to Baghra, having decided to abandon her attachments to her past and her attachments to Mal, the words that ring in her head are Baghra's words - “needing anyone else is weak.”  Which is honestly just a horrible sentiment in general, but an even worse one when considering how hard these people are working to detach Alina from anybody who can help her or give her an outside perspective.

Strangely, it’s also similar to this line:

The problem with wanting, is that it makes us weak.

...which is spoken by Baghra’s son. You know, the Darkling? Our big bad villain? The one Baghra raised?

Which gives me the impression that Baghra’s teaching methods with her students are really not that far off from the teaching methods she used on him as he was growing up. It’s a horrifying thought, and leads into my problems with her relationship with Aleksander.

First of all, show wise. What the fuck.

Aleksander: They’re punishing us for being Grisha. Baghra: Punishing you. You made him afraid. Now he wants you to fear him. Aleksander: I won a war for him. Baghra: And in doing so, started a war on us.

I get that she’s trying to convey how the king feels here, but it still feels incredibly victim blamey from a narrative standpoint. It isn’t Aleksander’s fault the king fears him when he used his powers under the King’s banner to help him win a war. Aleksander trusted this man who betrayed him and then betrayed his people, and we get a line from his mother, entirely unsympathetic, talking about how it’s his fault all of these people are dying.

Baghra: Where’s the girl, your healer? Aleksander: Dead. She died because of me. Baghra: She died because they always do. They’re not as strong as you and me.

Baghra’s use of the term ‘girl’ and ‘healer' here instead of Luda is pretty telling. She either doesn’t like Luda or doesn’t care for her. Either way, this is the woman her son loves, and Baghra talks about her so dispassionately. Then he comments on Luda’s death and there’s no reaction except to say that they always do.

Like, her son is literally broken up over here. Grieving. Desperate. Run ragged. Caged and hunted. Feeling guilty as hell. Mind running through a million different ways he could possibly save all of these people. And Baghra offers him nothing except a paltry “people die, get over it, we’re better than that, she didn’t matter anyway.”

Honestly, how is Aleksander even still functioning at this point? He has no support system and he’s working against a king and his army to protect a group of civilians he could easily abandon to save himself. The sheer amount of responsibility and mental strain keeping track of a group alone entails is already monstrous, but adding in every other factor? The recent death of Luda, the fact that they’re cornered and they’ve been hunted down while fleeing across the land, the fact that he was just a couple hours ago forced to his knees and entirely at these men’s mercy, begging for Luda’s life. And here his mother is, if anything a negative support system. Offering no other ideas, telling him to give up hope, not even offering the barest smidgeon of emotional support as he grieves, putting everything on his shoulders.

It pisses me the fuck off.

Aleksander: You’re the one who taught me how to kill, mother. Their blood is on your hands as much as mine.  Baghra: I taught you so you could protect yourself. Not them.

Once more, Baghra highlights how he needs to protect himself. How he should abandon the people he’s protecting. How he shouldn't help others and only ever himself. Once more, she says it’s my way or the high way. There’s zero effort to work with him. Zero effort to sympathize or compromise. She’s constantly pushing him to take the one option she knows he won’t take. The hell did she think was going to happen?

Also, Baghra taught him how to kill. Not necessarily great parenting, but understandable given the circumstances of his upbringing. But the level to which she takes it is honestly concerning. Like, look no further than this woman to see where Aleksander got it from lol.

Baghra also forbids him from using Merzost. Which is great and all, she gets to claim the moral high ground. But she doesn’t offer a single alternative except to flee and let everybody die. There was legitimately no other option to Merzost except for torture and death. If there was, Baghra sure as hell didn’t help Aleksander come up with one. Aleksander, who - by the way - is in no fit emotional state to be making any kind of decision right now.

So anyways, that’s just my tv show grief regarding Baghra, and it’s not even really all of it. I don’t want to make this an hour long read though lmao. But I’ll go over a few other things.

First of all, Baghra’s whole “We’re the only two that matter. We have to do whatever we can to protect ourselves,” mentality is one that she actively touts to Aleksander on a regular basis when he’s incredibly young. It’s honestly a wonder he grows up to care about other people at all. But the mentality itself is something Aleksander still heavily internalized in regards to protecting himself and those he deems worthy at any cost.

There’s a moment in the books when Aleksander is attacked and nearly drowned by some kids who wanted his bones (one of which was a close friend of his). He uses the cut in self defense and then blames the nearby Otkazat’sya village. Baghra knows he’s lying, and yet she allows an entire village to get slaughtered for harming him. This is a disproportionately violent act that Baghra approves of, and Aleksander as a kid is definitely internalizing that mindset.

Also, Baghra’s behavior around Aleksander has always been weirdly possessive and controlling. Especially when it comes to the people he loves. Her actions often come across as her trying to isolate him in order to keep him by her side, even when the relationships he has are clearly intimate. Which... is especially strange for a mother to be doing to her son.

She was also an extremely emotionally neglectful mother. Based on the show and what I gathered from her actions there, I’m actually half convinced she was physically abusive as well, in that “I think I’m being a stern, good parent figure when in reality I’m actually harming my child” kind of way. She fosters codependence with her son and then refuses to provide for any of his emotional needs. She drives it into his head that everybody dies, that he’ll always be alone, that love is useless and power is everything. She denies him the opportunity to be soft and works to harden him at a young age. She tells him he must never allow people to touch him, except she doesn’t work to supplement those physical needs in any way. She essentially abuses him.

Honestly, I could go on. But in reality the simple fact is that I just don’t like her. I think she’s a hypocrite. I think she’s abusive. I think she’s a terrible mentor and an even worse mother. And I think the fandom and the books are willing to brush aside so many of her faults simply because she opposes the Darkling.

I’m sorry if this isn’t what you guys were looking for! It sounds like a lot of you wanted a more of a sophisticated breakdown, but my thoughts on Baghra come with a heap of emotional baggage lol. It feels weird to say this now, but I actually do like the character as a character, I just,,, don’t like her in every other aspect. My feelings on Baghra are just a bit personal, to be honest. But hopefully this was at least comprehensible??

[supremeinlilac]

Count  (NSFW)

Pairing: Pre Apocalype!Wilhemina x Fem!Reader

Word count: 3125

Warnings: Caning, bondage, slight degradation(?), just filth I guess

A/N: This is my first time writing anything nsfw (i wrote it before mirror, mirror), so please let me know if there’s anything I can do to improve it. I’m a whore for constructive criticism :)

Tag list idk?: @extraordinarilycelestrial

Anger bubbled through your body as you trampled through the gate at the front of the house you shared with Mina. The porch lights were on, meaning she was already home, despite having left work about an hour after you to catch up with work in the quiet of her office . Jeff and Mutt had been at you all day, chipping away at your patience as you tried your hardest to ignore their stares and inappropriate comments and complete the report you were currently working on.

They had continued even after your polite remark insinuating that you had a lot of work starting to catch up to you, and that they had caught you at the worst possible moment. Mocking and teasing “oooooohs” followed you when you finally slammed your hands firmly onto your desks and asked through gritted teeth that they let you be.

Usually you would relax with Wilhemina over lunch and bitch to her about them and their intolerable attitudes, but today she had been extremely busy as well and kept her office door locked the whole day, much to your disappointment. You found your lunch with a hastily scribbled note that read: when your periods finished, I’ll help relieve that tension you have going on,, J which you scrunched up and tossed in the general direction of the bin, huffing and clenching your jaw to stop yourself from marching over to where the pair of them were sat, mouths set in smug grins watching you from across the room, and slapping one of them across their faces.

To top off all that shit, your car had broken down 10 minutes away from your house on the drive back, which was a 30-minute walk back in the biting wind. Without, unsurprisingly at this point, your coat, which you’d left in the office in your haste to leave. You had no choice but to do just that as your phone decided that today would be the day it would give up on life and refuse to turn on.

Long story short, you’d had just about enough.

You dropped your keys trying to find the right one that would open the front door. You audibly exhaled in a loud impatient groan, wanting nothing more than to collapse onto your bed and lie there until the anger dissipated. Slamming the door closed behind you and throwing your bag down beside the coat rack, you ran your fingers through your hair before stomping up the stairs, ignoring the call Wilhemina gave you from the kitchen.

Flopping down on the bed, you released a long yell that was muffled by the pillows your face was buried in. Still feeling anger after the first yell fell short, you allowed yourself a second scream, hands in your hair now, bunching at the scalp, so unbelievably pissed off that you failed to notice the door click softly closed behind you.

“And just what do you think you are doing?” her voice cut through the silence which now hung in the bedroom, making you jump but remain in the same position, now sulking at your unfortune of the past 8 hours. “Where have you been?” she spoke again, ignoring your lack of response at her first question. Her fingers drummed impatiently on her cane, which was clutched tightly between her two hands; her lips drawn tightly together as she rigidly stood and observed you on the bed.

You decided in that moment that you needed something to take your mind off the day you’d just had, so you clenched your jaw shut and closed your eyes, smirking into the pillow. You knew what you were doing to the older woman stood by the door, but you were in one of your moods, and feeling far to stubborn to give her the satisfaction of your submission.

Wilhemina’s eyes narrowed as she slowly advanced towards the bed, cane tapping threateningly. “Don’t you dare be bratty with me Y/N, don’t think I won’t punish you simply because you’ve had a bad day. Now I’ll give you one more chance to tell me what has got you so annoyed”. You slowly turned around from your position on the bed, a heat settling in your stomach at her tone as you faced her, legs crossed and an innocent smile on your face as you remained silent.

She didn’t even give you time to be surprised, a single yelp escaping your mouth as she lurched forward, gripping your jaw in her hand bruisingly and forcing your head up to look at her. She wore a smirk that made the heat fall straight to your centre, making you overly aware of the throbbing now between your legs. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you pet” her thumb brushed your lower lip and you eagerly took it into your mouth, suckling on it and watching her eyes with your own. Removing it, she wiped it off on your cheek before tutting loudly, “take your clothes off; leave your panties on”.

Your brattiness now long forgotten, you scrambled off the bed in your haste to please the woman before you. The incessant tapping of her cane spurred on your actions, clothes discarded as you stumbled around before standing patiently beside her, arms by your side, the cold of the room prickling your skin as you shivered under her gaze.

She leisurely walked around your fidgeting form, nails dragging across the skin of shoulder behind her before she stopped behind you. You fought the urge to turn to face her, feeling her breath lingering on your shoulder. She deliberately smoothed her flat palms up and down your arms, chuckling at the involuntary reaction your body has at her touch. Leaning forwards and bringing your earlobe between her teeth, she pulled slightly and you couldn’t help the soft moan that left your lips at her action.

As soon as her touch came, it was gone. “Bend over the edge of the bed, hands behind your back.” She commanded, her tone leaving no room for argument on your part, as you did as she requested, sinking to your knees and lowering your torso onto the bed, your bottom up in the air. You felt something smooth and cold slip round your wrists, a ribbon most likely, and restrain your wrists tightly together. Her movements paused, allowing you to test the bonds which failed to give when you tried to escape them.

“Is that okay babygirl?” she checked, stroking your cheek lovingly waiting for your response. When you gave her the go ahead, nodding and letting out a breathy “yes”, she allowed herself to slip back into dominance. Pacing back and forth, she allowed you to suffer in the anticipation for a while, until you whimpered and fidgeted where you lay. “I’m going to give you 10 spanks” she paused, her smirk growing watching you tense, “with my cane. And you’re going to count for me.”

Your eyes widened in surprise and slight fear; she’s never used her cane on you before, only ever using it as a threat when you were pushing your luck and being too bratty for her liking. You couldn’t lie, the thought had also aroused you to no end, being punished with the very thing she relied on so heavily; but you knew Mina was never soft with her punishments. “But you’ve never used the ca-” she cut you off quickly, not in the mood for any backchat now she’d made up her mind what you deserved.

“Do I need to gag you baby? Or are you going to be a good girl for me and be quiet?”

Her sweet, mocking tone made you squirm under her gaze, you shook your head against the sheets. You didn’t want to exacerbate your punishment further, not that you ever held your bratty attitude long when in her commanding presence. Mina smiled, she loved that you so quickly fell in line for her, allowing her as much of the control and power she seeked.

“No, we couldn’t have you gagged could we? Then I wouldn’t be able to hear you counting little one. You will count for me won’t you?” you whimpered, eyes finding hers over your shoulder as she closed in. “I always loose count otherwise, and I’d hate to have to start again” she drawled, the corner of her mouth twitching as she raised her chin, eyes not leaving yours.

“I’ll count” you gasped, her hands coolly massaging your shoulders, drawing out the suspense of the impending caning. She knew full well what she was doing, confident that her patience could hold out extensively, all while you would get impossibly worked up and needy.

“Good girl.” Patting your shoulder, she withdrew her hands and returned behind you, out of your line of vision.

She brought the cane down onto the skin where your thigh met the curve of your ass, your body jolting forward unexpectedly, and you gasped at the feeling, which at first felt hot, blood rushing to the site before the twinge of pain kicked in. “One” you spoke confidently, cheeks flushed as you found yourself eager for her to bring the cane down on you again.

She paused, allowing the anticipation to hang heavily in the air as she ran a single finger slowly down your spine, revelling in how your body shivered under her light touch. She waited just long enough for your guard to come down and you to let out a small breath of relief, before swinging her cane back down onto your cheeks, wood biting at the skin as you let out a yelp of surprise.

Your voice was more raspy this time, the number spoken quickly, your arms straining against their confines, aching to soothe the skin that were now hot where she had landed the strikes. After the third hit, you couldn’t help the shame that ebbed at your mind that you were involuntarily enjoying Wilhemina punishing you; almost as much as she was turned on by the power you allowed her to hold over you. The coupled feeling of both pain and pleasure sent sparks of electricity through your body, as if suddenly being lit by a flickering flame.

Four and five came down on your skin in the exact same place as the third, catching the raw line that marred the skin of your butt and eliciting a hiss from your lips. You counted, voice smaller now as you bit your lip to avoid unwarranted sounds from escaping. The sixth hit was the hardest so far, and your hips bucked backwards involuntarily, not going unnoticed by the older woman who’s eyes darkened and a smirk graced her lips. You weren’t expecting your girlfriend to use such force; or the fact that this was turning you on more than you ever thought it would. Your vision was starting to cloud at the sensation, mind hazy as you focused on the deep throb between your legs.

Her nails digging slightly into the tender flesh of your ass was the only reminder you needed, choking out a strangled “six” before returning to biting the sheets beneath your head. All you could concentrate on was the feeling of yourself trickling shamelessly down the inside of your thigh, praying to god that Mina couldn’t see how this was affecting you. “That was your last warning sweetheart” she cooed, cool palms soothing the sore flesh beneath them in slow rubs.

The final four strikes came in quick succession, Mina not even giving you time to compose yourself in between the hits. This meant you subconsciously let out a low moan at the force of her last cane strike, which was considerably harder than the rest, sending your body forward further into the bed.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you” she scoffed, and you could practically hear the smirk that adorned her features. She ran two fingers up the length of your inner thigh, collecting the juices and holding them up to the light. You bit the sheets between your teeth at her actions, suppressing a moan that threatened to bubble from your throat at her mocking tone.

At the lack of a response, Wilhemina quickly brought her open palm sharply down on your thigh, the sting pulling goosebumps up along the length of your bare back, nipples rubbing uncomfortably against the sheets as you squirmed. She fisted the hair at the nape of your neck tightly, pulling so your ear was aligned with her mouth, her hot breath tickling the shell of your ear as she spoke.

“When I ask you a question, I expect a response baby girl” she drawled, voice low and raspy, making you shiver and let out a shaky breath. “You know I don’t like disobedient little girls now do I?”. You shook your head quickly, eyes screwed shut as her voice went straight to your core, making you squirm in her grasp. She tugged again, warningly. “No god- No Ms Venable, I’ll be a good girl I promise” you spluttered out, moan catching in your throat as she relaxed her grip on your hair, bringing her hand round to your throat, squeezing experimentally.

“It’s a bit late for that- don’t you think little one?” her fingers flexed against your throat, feeling the muscles contract as you swallowed deeply at the feeling. “But since you were such a good girl and took your punishment so well for me, I think I could give you what you want”, you nodded desperately, tears in your eyes as a result of the pain and pleasure of the caning. “Please” you squeaked, no longer caring how needy you sounded to the older woman, only wanting her to give you what you wanted so badly.

Her eyes darkened with lust, pressing the slick fingers to your lips as you gladly took them in, circling them with your tongue as you moaned, the taste of your own arousal on her fingers made you physically ache for her touch, you were now too sensitive to do more than fight the urge to rub your thighs together to relieve the pressure that had built up there. She withdrew her fingers teasingly, coaxing you to turn onto your back while she hovered herself over your fidgeting body, arms either side of your head, propping herself up.

Capturing your lips in a heated kiss, her teeth nipping and pulling at your bottom lip harshly, as she allowed her fingernails to slowly rake down your stomach, red scores in their wake. A sigh left your lips as she grazed over your core, body reacting involuntarily with your hips bucking up to meet her hand.

“You’re dripping wet for me.” She drawled, voice low and dripping with arousal as she taunted you. “My little slut getting so worked up while being punished, tsk tsk tsk” she tutted as you groaned at her words, heat flooding to your core.

She trailed two fingers through your folds, collecting your arousal before slipping them into you slowly. Allowing you to adjust to her fingers inside, she kissed along the curve of your jaw, sucking a deep bruise on the underside of it, starting to pull her fingers back out of you and setting herself a quick pace that had you whimpering beneath her.

You bit you lip to quieten the breathy moans you were releasing at her fingers curling inside you with each thrust, and the feeling of Wilhemina’s hot breath on the delicate skin of your neck. “You don’t need to be quiet, little one. I want to hear your sweet little noises.”

You let your head fell back on the pillow, eyes fluttering shut as Wilhemina brought her thumb to circle your clit, adding pressure causing you to jerk up into her and let out a loud moan of pleasure. She quickened her pace inside you, adding another finger and hissing as you clenched around her fingers. “God you’re so tight” she husked in your ear, nipping at the lobe and trailing bites down to the swell of your breast.

You gasped at the feeling of her teeth grazing the hard bud of your nipple, tweaking it between her teeth. You arched your back into her touch. She sucked on your nipple, tongue swirling the bud and pulling back to blow cold air onto the sensitive skin.

She flicked again at your clit, smirking against your other breast at the way your body shivered under her, a little squeak falling from your lips, breathing becoming laboured.

“I’m gunna- oh god- Please, please can I come Mina” you moaned, feeling the familiar wave of an orgasm creeping up on you, tension knotted deep in the pit of your stomach. Her face left the swollen nipple she’d been biting and returned to hover over your face.

“Come for me baby.”

Her fingers continued to stroke against your insides as the orgasm ripped through your body, clenching around the fingers buried inside you, eliciting mewls to drip like liquid from your open lips. The waves kept intensifying as Wilhemina persisted; drawing your orgasm out for as long as she could to prolong the pleasure that rippled through your trembling body.

She let you catch your breath, still trembling beside her after the powerful orgasm she’d given you. Taking the fingers she’d withdrawn from your centre into her mouth, keeping eye contact with you as you let another moan escape your lips at the sight of her tongue circling the digits. Hand coming to curl behind your neck and bringing you towards her for a gentle kiss, allowing you to suck the lingering taste of your arousal off her tongue.

Her nails lightly scratched the skin of your scalp, prompting goosebumps to prickle over your skin despite the sheen of sweat you now wore. “Now baby girl. What are you going to do the next time you have a bad day and get all annoyed?” You whimpered, anytime she used an authoritative voice or questioned you like this making you weak with arousal.

“Answer me.”

“Not be a brat and – oh” you gasped as her hand found your throat, fingers flexing and squeezing in warning. “And tell you why I’m annoyed” you blurted out, cheeks flushed pink at the control the older woman had over your body.

“Good girl.” She patted your jaw twice, smiling, before moving to lie back against the cushions next to you. “Because you know that I can make you forget all about your bad day don’t you honey?” you nodded at her, eyes glazed over in admiration at how she could unravel you with only her words and make you forget whatever was on your mind.

“Now come here and apologise to me properly”

[andsheoverthinks]

mere words cannot express my longing for closeness...

this is an unpopular opinion most likely, but i truly believe the 'self-love' 'self-help' 'bad bitch' 'girlboss' movement of the late 2000s and the 2010s has contributed in a large part to the general misery of young people.

idk about you but it personally FUCKED ME UP big time.

i was at a point, during the ebb and flow of depression over my (very recent) teen years, where i didn't feel like i deserved to have feelings.

i used to do this thing i called 'five minutes of self-pity' where i would allow myself five minutes per day to break down and etc.

i pathologised my longing for closeness and intimacy with other human beings, which exacerbated my loneliness because i found my loneliness shameful.

it got to a point where i repressed my sexuality (even though i am cishet and thus 'socially acceptable'), partially because being a black girl and having a skin condition (atopic dermatitis), i didn't feel like i deserved to have sexual or romantic feelings due to not reaching what i believed was the acceptable level of attractiveness, and feeling rejected even though i had never actually expressed feelings towards anyone.

and then i realised that a lot of my depression came from these feelings of social rejection (partially because i was bullied for years as a kid), and, being a neuro major, i learned that humans are social animals and my overwhelming desire for closeness and acceptance was normal.

it was healthy.

love (platonic, romantic, familial, what have you) and belonging is our primary need once our survival need is fulfilled. hunger for love is no less necessary than hunger for food. of course i hated myself, the way i was living, suppressing my very basic needs.

recently, i've been doing this thing where i allow myself to have feelings (lol). i allowed myself to have romantic and sexual feelings for a friend and asked them out. it didn't work out, and i let myself wallow in self-pity. i cried myself to sleep. i miss them so much it hurts. i still listen to their favourite songs to feel close to them and reminisce about the times we spent together and that's okay, that's not clingy or pathetic or weird. i will grow around the little holes people i love leave in me, and i will always cherish them. they will always be beloved.

recently i've been doing this thing where i hug my friends, and spend time with them, and reach out to them, and i've stopped trying to be 'happy on my own' all the time because i've tried that, i've tried sitting alone in cafes and museums and riverbanks but the memories are so much more precious with the people whom you love.

all this, though honest, feels empty still; for mere words cannot express my longing for closeness, and that is a fact that i am no longer ashamed of.

anyway, hoping that if this reaches someone like me -- your longing for closeness is not trivial, or pathetic, okay? your brain needs love to function well as much as it needs glucose and cholesterol :P

[judeharoldvich]

Idk if im too late but I wish to talk about thg and tbosas with someone, just finished the last one recently

HELL YEAH I've been listening to the audiobook again recently and i have a lot of thoughts on snow's feelings about Lucy Gray so ur getting an essay. Heads up for some Heavy Discussion of manipulation, power imbalances and death mentions. My immediate thought when I read Snow's revelation of jealousy toward her was: 'oh for fuck's sake, ANOTHER straight love story? and this time one half of it is a future WAR CRIMINAL?' but since finishing it last June I've obviously changed my tune because. It's SUCH a good analogue for the way the Capitol in the present day of the original trilogy treat the district tributes, which itself is a metaphor for the way the privileged treat the underprivileged in our society. What I mean by that is, from the very first reference of Lucy Gray as the 'district twelve girl', she is referenced as 'belonging' to Coriolanus. Coriolanus is already kind of a P.O.S before then, but this seed is immediately planted in his head that confirms that Lucy Gray is a Thing that he can Own, which is a big deal in a society that places so much emphasis on status symbols. Although Coriolanus's behaviour appears charitable and empathetic to someone like Sejanus, who projects his own guilt and empathy for the tributes and shame about being a Mentor onto Coriolanus and his treatment of Lucy Gray, Coriolanus in fact never stops seeing Lucy Gray as his property. Even his schoolboy crush on her feels... materialistic. It's not that he's fallen for her as a person, it's that he's become attached to her as a possession the way one might become sentimental over, say, an ornate compact with powder in it that smells like your mother.

While Billy Taupe is also apparently a shitbag from the context we gather from Lucy Gray, I wouldn't be surprised if his feelings for Lucy Gray were more genuinely romantic than Coriolanus's. I think in Billy Taupe's case, the feelings were still possessive (evident in the way he believes he can just take her back when he wants to) but because they began on equal footing he could have also developed more genuine, tender feelings alongside that. The power dynamic inherent in Coriolanus and Lucy Gray's relationship supersedes any genuine sentiment they have for one another, because it is ultimately tainted by the fact that Lucy Gray is essentially a prisoner and Coriolanus is just a kind of inappropriate counsellor. This isn't to mention the age gap -- which, while being only 2 years, is exacerbated by this already present power dynamic, because Lucy Gray is significantly more emotionally vulnerable given her position in contrast to Coriolanus.

At every stage, their relationship is imbalanced, inappropriate and very much unhealthy, which is why my immediate reaction to its introduction in the story was 'ew, what the fuck?' but that's the POINT!!! It isn't the same as Katniss and Peeta or Katniss and Gale -- relationships that had their own issues but were nowhere near as imbalanced as Lucy Gray and Coriolanus. Coriolanus met Lucy Gray when he was her mentor in the games, where he began an inappropriate relationship with her -- which, while LG expressed reciprocal feelings for Coriolanus, you could very well argue she was somewhat cornered into as he had such power over her situation. Imagine if Lucy Gray had rejected Snow, with his fragile ego -- he might not have thrown a full-blown tantrum, but it might been enough to cause him to change his mind about her as he does in the forest at the end. Then, he reunites with Lucy Gray when he is part of the peacekeepers -- an analogue for the police force -- whose duties include carrying out and overseeing hangings of the people in her town.

At no point does Coriolanus ever truly meet Lucy Gray at her level, either emotionally or status-wise -- until their final hours together. And it is only when they are finally equal, when they are toughing it out in the forest together, that Coriolanus feels himself relinquish the power he once had over Lucy Gray, and THAT is exactly when he begins to doubt his feelings for her, ultimately rationalising that she was secretly a terrible person all along. It was never love. It was never even truly a crush -- it was a power trip. And as soon as that power dissipated, so did the feelings. The way you could apply this to our reality is in how people in positions of privilege treat disadvantaged groups or individuals like property or pieces in their political game. Rather than demonstrating genuine empathy for the people being mistreated and oppressed, these people take advantage of their positions of power, turn others' suffering into entertainment, or even pit people against one another to serve their own agenda (that agenda often being to divert attention and energy away from themselves, so they can continue to exploit the people they're manipulating). Coriolanus represents the mindset of these kinds of people, as he goes from viewing Lucy Gray as a chess piece in his game of climbing the social ladder and winning the prize needed to send him to college, to viewing her as personal property that he can exert power over to make him feel in control, to viewing her as just another one of the 'district scum', which is the result of Gaul's and the Capitol at large's conditioning to pit the citizens of the capitol against the districts so they don't think to use their own collective power to overthrow the oppressive government.

[whetstonefires]

mcu ethics bad

The thing is that, while I was angry at Tony during Age of Ultron, particularly when he rode over Bruce’s compunctions about building a giant combat super-robot and pressured him into the project like a very very bad friend who happened to also be wrong...

...and when he equipped Hulkbuster armor and fought the Hulk in the middle of a city rather than attempting de-escalation or attempting to haul the Hulk out into the giant adjacent desert....

(And my suspension of disbelief snapped like a frayed cable when he brought down a skyscraper that had had no time to be evacuated on a street full of fleeing people and the only reason we were given to believe he hadn’t just cold-bloodedly created massive civilian casualties was that he told his AI to find the impossible magic angle where doing this wouldn’t kill anyone...)

While I was angry with him then, and unspeakably relieved that he recognized his own damage and retired at the end, haha psych, I was revolted by him during Civil War.

It’s supposed to make us sympathize with a character more, spending so much time with them, getting into their heads, being shown their emotional drives and reactions to things, and we spent so much time with Tony during that film, understanding his point of view. And...I did understand him. He’s not complicated. I even sympathized with his emotional state.

But in the context of his actions, throughout the film, I gazed into that understanding the way I did into Kylo Ren’s face in the seconds after he first unmasked. I see you, I know you, everything you are is written here, and the lines of your shame and self-revulsion are so thick upon you, and you should be ashamed but your self-destruction does not expiate or justify one jot of the harm you do.

Because everything Tony did in Civil War came from a place of selfishness. He was selfish all throughout that movie down to his very spine.

And selfishness isn’t itself necessarily bad--you need a little, to get through life, you have the right to your own portion of it. Your boundaries and your needs. But the type of selfishness that is forcing other people pay dearly for your emotional comfort and sense of control: no.

That is tyranny. That is not acceptable.

And you know how I know he was being selfish? Because his motive for pushing the Sokovia Accords was his personal guilt for the destruction of Sokovia.

But the Accords didn’t address that at all! They were tangential to the issue! None of the terms of the Accords would have saved Sokovia--in fact, the existence of them could easily have prevented the evacuation and harm-reduction the Avengers managed there, without saving a single soul.

The Ultron crisis was something Tony did, not as Iron Man but as Tony Stark, with Bruce Banner’s help, and which Wanda as criminal fugitive later helped exacerbate, and which all the other Avengers were involved in only to mitigate harm.

Legislation, or...treaties, idk, the UN isn’t actually empowered to pass laws so who knows what this thing was...aimed at preventing another Sokovia would mandate constant ethical oversight of billionaire science man’s mad science. At the very least! He never has to run things by ethics boards because he’s self-funded, at the very least let’s invent a mechanism to make up for that.

That would address the actual Sokovia issue, both in terms of risks and in terms of Tony’s personal guilt feelings.

But no one suggests that! It’s not even on the table! Because no one, certainly not any government, can tell Tony Stark what to do unless he lets them, that’s been a clear matter of record since Iron Man 2.

And because no one writing this legal instrument of whatever description was actually motivated by wanting to avoid another Sokovia, or even another ‘Wanda tries to neutralize a suicide bomber but merely gives him a different, smaller victim pool’ incident.

They didn’t care! They blatantly didn’t care! The entire thing was a ghoulish use of the dead to gain enough political leverage over the Avengers to put a leash on them!

(Which might not be a bad thing in principle, everything needs its checks, but when the last quasi-governmental organization you worked for turned out to be Nazis who were only prevented from staging a mass slaughter of undesireables by the skin of your teeth, I think you’re well within your rights to be very choosy about who you agree to obey, and to be firmly against pledging your honor to follow people whose first move was dishonest coercive tactics.

Actually you’re well within your rights to demand to negotiate the terms of even a much less sweeping contract, even without the Nazis. The whole approach to this thing stank to high heaven.

The fact that it was written by the UN like a treaty, expected to be signed by private individuals like a contract, and then enforced like a law except not because 1) laws are for everyone 2) if you break a law you get a trial not extrajudicial incarceration and 3) being pressured to consent to a restriction and then punished for refusing consent is hypocritical circular logic and in fact police corruption at its finest, all continues to show it was a bullshit nonsense franken-document.)

The whole movie is people ghoulishly using the dead to manipulate Tony into making bad decisions in response to his emotional pain. That’s. The plot of the film.

Then Zemo staged T’Chaka’s assassination and framed Bucky for it to raise the tension, ramp up the pressure, and prevent any sitting-down and talking reasonably through this, which might have allowed for the recognition of how extremely bullshit the entire concept was.

Tony was being used. Tony was a tool of bad people for most of that movie, and while Zemo banked on using his wrath for it, the politicos were leaning on his guilt.

And there’s honestly little I hold in deeper scorn than going out and hurting other people to assuage your own guilt and treating this as having the moral high ground. No. You don’t have the moral high ground on account of your guilt motivation. You have it if the actions you took were just, or at least could reasonably be assumed to have been so at the time.

And Tony fucking knew they weren’t. He didn’t even last to the end of the movie before recognizing that he’d been manipulated and fucked up, and doubling back.

That he then walked into a different manipulation, turned on a dime, and had to be stopped from doing a murder doesn’t unwrite that.

And it drives me nuts that people will say Tony was acting out of principle while Steve was acting out of personal attachment. Because sure, the Bucky thing was important, was the reason he was walking forward against all opposition instead of standing still to argue, but it wasn’t the reason Steve said no, while...

Tony wasn’t acting out of principle. Tony isn’t...very good at having principles. That’s not even a criticism or condemnation, it’s just how he functions. Since Iron Man he’s been substituting good intentions and emotional investment, which has worked out to varying degrees. It works best for huge, difficult, very straightforward decisions like ‘ride the nuke through the portal and save my hometown.’ It works less well for nuanced situations.

Tony was, as usual, acting out of emotion. And some awful shitheads who’d figured out where his levers were had calculated how to jiggle his emotion switches in the right places to make him do exactly what they wanted.

And you can tell he wasn’t acting out of principle because, for example, someone who was trying to get the superhero community under outside control for the sake of harm mitigation...

...well, firstly wouldn’t have chosen to stage a massive battle? But it’s possible someone in the UN specifically told him to do that, and in theory they at the very least signed off on it, presumably for its PR value of making Captain America look deranged and violent since it’s a deranged decision from every other angle, so yay, he can pass that responsibility up the chain and not have to angst about it, as promised.

But I was going to say would not have approached a minor who (this timeline takes pains to show us) had no prior experience of battle or even, somehow, serious violent crime, to recruit him to go be a government child soldier on another continent, without his guardian’s knowledge or consent. There were overtones of blackmail in Tony’s approach, before it turned out Peter was such a big fan he didn’t need that. What the fuck frankly.

That is not the action of someone who wants to start doing things by the letter, scaling the violence down, keeping within the law and putting the power of decisionmaking in other people’s hands because he’s realized he can’t trust his own.

And frankly even if he did act like that I wouldn’t necessarily support his choices, in particular his snap decision to behave coercively toward other Avengers with vastly less social power and security than he has.

And that’s the other thing! Everything about ‘Tony + Accords BFFs’ rings so hollow because he has never thought rules applied to him, and he knows perfectly well the entire time he’s fighting to force this surrender of agency down other people’s throats that he is going to be practically immune.

This man was technically a terrorist, proabably the most prolific single terrorist in world history until his rogue android exceeded his body count, but he was immune to prosecution because he was in tight with the United States military-industrial complex and basically untouchable due to his status within capitalism, and pursuing their international goals anyway. In the time between Iron Man and Iron Man II he was basically a one-man upgrade of the US drone program, and so good at it that the crest of blood he carved through the Middle East allowed him to announce he had ‘privatized world peace.’

(You are never going to get a world peace worth anything on the basis of a giant flying gun, okay.)

He went to war as a private individual, against non-state actors who were not directly threatening him, which is very much defined as ‘mass murder’ in all domestic and international law, and the US army in response sued him for control of his weapon. And lost! Lost.

No one attempted to press charges. No one. Because Tony Stark is above all that. And he knows it.

And like. I’m willing to accept the mass murder under the heading of ‘superheroing’ within the terms of this setting! Even if, after his vengeance rampage on his specific kidnappers, this violence was kept strictly off-screen for a reason. I did that! I bent that far! Genre convention!

But this history is kind of vitally important to any analysis of what he thought he was doing, and what he actually was doing, when he decided to become the iron gauntlet of the Sokovia Accords.

The currently active member of the Avengers who needed muzzling most was very manifestly Iron Man, and he knew even as he jammed the muzzle on all his comrades to make himself feel better that it would affect him the least, even if he didn’t finally retire for real this time. You don’t force Tony Stark. Not if you want anything out of it but blown up. You persuade him.

And once you have...oh, look at what he can do.

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

I had a whole list of stuff I liked about Supergirl Ep. 6x07 “Fear Knot” typed out and then accidentally hit the keyboard command for ‘select all’ and THEN accidentally hit ‘b’ so.

A list! That will...be much shorter than the original! Because I’m very tired and don’t wanna type it up all over again! XD

Spoilers!

Okay, rapid fire highlights, HERE WE GO!

Space Dad was the true MVP here! Just wonderful J’onn content throughout.

The Danvers Sisters hug! I wanted exactly one thing from this episode and that was it. 

Interesting BTS info revealed about the hug: Originally, it was supposed to be the main trio (Kara, J’onn, Alex) but they trimmed it down for time so it ended up being just a Danvers Sisters moment AND, AND! Chyler’s ‘I got you,’ such a LOVELY callback to the Pilot, was ad-libbed!

Fine. Just. Make me feel feelings, show. Geez.

The Tower is a MARTIAN SPACESHIP!

Alex, re: the Tower reveal - “I love Martian technology.”

Same, Alex. Same.

 The ENTIRE* GANG OF SUPERFRIENDS got meaty character bits that build on all of the stuff introduced in earlier episodes! 

*Save for M’gann, but I appreciated they at least had a line about how she was staying behind to hold down the fort. 

Anyways, back to character stuff, in particular! We see Kelly grapple with feeling out of her depth as the lone ‘normal’ one in a group of heroes/vigilantes, introduced in...was it 6x03? AND we see the set-up for GUARDIAN, WOO!

The thing I love about the Guardian mantle, for James and as we’ll no doubt see for Kelly, is that it’s about protecting people; their weapon of choice isn’t really a weapon at all, but a shield.

:D

J’onn and Alex’s stuff more directly ties into how they’ve been handling the ‘save Kara’ mission

Obviously Alex’s fears in particular speak to the larger, ongoing stuff about how so much of Alex’s identity is wrapped up in protecting Kara, but this mini-arc of seven episodes has sort of...laser focused that? A little?

This made a lot more sense in the first draft I swear. XD

And J’onn gets to come full circle with successfully completing the mission by being both a dad AND a strategic leader.

And then poor Nia is still struggling with insecurities regarding her dreaming powers, a thread that looks like it’ll carry over into the next set of episodes.

BRAINY AND THE BALLOONS????

J’onn:

The Lena portion...occurred!

Not really gonna comment on it beyond the very good sci-fi references they packed in there. Of course, we have the Alien 3 reference (which I've opted not to include b/c it’s a pretty gross image that could be upsetting if you’re not expecting it? Also I’m sure it’s all over twitter.)

But the Kelpie also had an Abyss vibe, IMO:

J’onn’s Space Dad montage was EXCELLENT.

J’onn: “NOT TODAY SATAN”

Oh, also, the red Phantom eyes and in-synch talking in Kelly’s fear vision was very creepy.

The different pairings of various characters was cool! I really liked Brainy and Kelly chatting.

And then poor Kara! 

AT HER LOWEST!

WITHOUT HOPE!

FEELING LIKE A DANGER AND A BURDEN TO HER LOVED ONES!

Oh, that meaty character work, we LOVE. TO. SEE. IT.

And shock of all shocks, it is PAPA ZOR?!?!?! WHO SNAPS HER OUT OF IT!??!?!?!

BUT! Papa Zor-El is only able to snap Kara out of it because HE HIMSELF was snapped out of his funk by Kara!

And like. I’ve seen the complaint that this relationship has not been built up enough for us to really care but...IDK. I’m a sucker for the moment where he like, gently touches her face and delivers that hope speech and

GUH! FEEEEEELINGS!!!!

And you know what? I’m glad. That Kara’s dad is not The Worst in this particular adaptation.

I mean. He’s done some incredibly sketchy things still, but. Not quite ‘experimenting on your own child, sending her to a foreign planet WITHOUT ANY CLOTHES and brainwashing her into murdering her cousin’ levels, you know?

“That’s my family. They’re really here.”

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

And then the hug! THE HUG! It’s so quick but it’s so good and I can’t WAIT. UNTIL AUGUST 24th! 

I also love that we got a teaser of the next episode?! That was awesome and wholly unexpected.

(OFFICE SHENANIGANS! AAHHHH LOOKS SO GOOD!)

Oh, also, Nyxly (Nixly??) lives! And catches a ride to Earth Prime, which I’m sure will go over well. XD

As always, some OVERALL THOUGHTS!

ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR DAVID! An interesting but no doubt tricky episode to direct! It came together so nicely, though, and had some genuinely neat set-ups in terms of how they used the cast and set.

(Also round of applause for Chyler’s episode last week, totally forgot to give her props in my list. FOR SHAME. For shame.)

In terms of season 6 thus far as a whole...I’ve just really liked this front half, here.

The Supergirl folks have had to work around some incredibly challenging extenuating circumstances during the final season of their show--I mean. They didn’t have their LEAD ACTRESS until several months into filming! DURING A PANDEMIC!

And while...yeah, I’ll admit I found some of the exposition in various episodes to be. Trying? And still pretty packed because they’re juggling so many characters...that they’ve managed to have such nice character bits throughout is just. GOOD. IT’S VERY GOOD. I LIKE IT A LOT.

As I mentioned above, this mini-arc of seven episodes has done such a solid job of setting up and developing internal conflicts for the characters that are exacerbated by the external conflict that is Kara’s absence. Like, everything is pretty tight! And connected! There’s such a good through-line EVEN WITH the two time travel episodes!

(And, okay, I’ll indulge in one targeted bit of ‘c’mon fandom, really?’ - I’ve already seen complaints of, ‘I thought this show was about SUPERGIRL’ re: this particular episode and like...did you miss? The whole previous episode? That was such a nice Kara showcase? And I say again: LEAD ACTRESS. WAS UNAVAILABLE. AND HAD TO PLAY CATCH-UP. ALSO, PANDEMIC.)  

(And in fact, the whole Phantom Zone plot has been a BRILLIANT bit of efficient storytelling--you not only have an in-universe reason for your lack of a lead, but also, it creates this space for the other characters to really miss Kara.

I guess the way I would describe it is like...going back to Kara’s original death in Crisis--yeah, it sucked that she died, but the entire DC Universe came together to talk about how heroic and great she was. And in a final season? Of a show called Supergirl? If you can’t have your lead on screen, the NEXT BEST THING is to have the character’s presence really felt via the OTHER characters.

With stuff like, having her inspire them! And reflecting on what she means to them, as a friend and family member!

...Again, this made more sense in the original draft? XD)

...Anyways.

My only nitpicks: I miss Will! But understand why he hasn’t been around, from a story standpoint. Also, the dialogue in some of the earliest episodes didn’t always...gel? But these last three in particular have been much improved in that regard.

IDK if I’ll keep these li’l positivity lists going throughout the remainder of the last batch of episodes--the move to Tuesday night has been tough. XD But either way, SUPER (ha, ha) excited for the back half!

[notebook-13]

Shigaraki • Development

Backstory

(Note: Tenko was Shigaraki’s childhood name.)

First things first: Shigaraki’s backstory is probably meant as an allegory. The house his father built is a microcosm of society, his father Kotaro represents people with power, Tenko represents people without it, and the other family members are bystanders. The power imbalance and communal emphasis on harmony enables Kotaro to take out his baggage on Tenko while Tenko is required to repress his. Resistance, even if it’s minor, causes Tenko to be shunned and beggared, as Kotaro locks Tenko out of the house in the backyard, in the dark, unfed, without even a roof over his head.

Edit: @codenamesazanka​ has an excellent reading of this allegory!

Theirs is a household that prioritizes unity and a façade of happy domesticity over Tenko’s wellbeing. His mom and grandparents treat him gently, reject him kindly, and refuse to admit to him just how terribly Kotaro treats him. Though the three adults understand that Kotaro is the problem (they criticize him in private or cry out futile protests during an incident), they are unwilling to disrespect Kotaro to Tenko’s face. Doing so would mean facing their victim and owning up to their own culpability, too.

So, throughout Shigaraki’s backstory, Horikoshi intersperses black panels with increasing grains of white. This references Shigaraki’s “wound in his heart.”

The first black panel appears when Tenko is crying to his mom, Nao, about his dad; the second appears when he is similarly comforted by his grandparents.

After an episode with Kotaro, Nao hesitantly asks Tenko if he still wants to be a hero.

Nao: “Tenko…do you…still want to be a hero?” Tenko: “Yup. Because like, nobody wanted to play with Mikkun and Tomo. So I said, ‘Let’s play together!’ And we played heroes, and it was super fun. And then Mikkun said, ‘You should be All Might, Ten.’ And I was nice and played with them even though they don’t have any friends.”

It’s hard to follow Tenko’s five-year-old’s logic here, but the gist seems like Tenko wants to be a good person who makes people less lonely, and he thinks heroes do that. The implication, then, could be that Tenko is lonely, and his admiration for heroes compensates for what’s missing in his family (a hero).

What’s also significant is that Tenko noticed Mikkun and Tomo were suffering, and instead of ignoring it or playing along like everyone else, he did something about it. What he emphasizes isn’t, “we played heroes and fought bad guys, it was really cool”; he emphasizes that he was kind, that he helped kids who were lonely. This isn’t a kid who wants to be a hero because heroes are strong.

Also worth noting that in bnha, p much every kid wants to be a hero. By forbidding Tenko from even playing, Kotaro draws a line between Tenko and his classmates: Tenko is not one of them. He’s not allowed to dream he’ll be a hero like everyone else. In a society overflowing with heroes (and with adulation of heroes), Tenko can’t be one of them nor admire them.

^^ the first “wound” panel is the black middle one

When Nao tells Tenko that “it’s hard to be a hero,” especially right after hesitantly asking him if he still wanted to be one, Tenko understands that she’s discouraging him—similar to how Inko apologized to little Deku when he asked her if he could become a hero without a quirk.

When Nao tells Tenko it’s difficult, she’s essentially repeating what Kotaro says (“being a hero will cause him nothing but trouble”). By siding with Kotaro, she tells Tenko that he can’t become who he wants to be. He must conform to authority and let Kotaro determine his life. What he wants and feels don’t matter. Kotaro is right.

The wound begins to open.

Similarly, his grandparents offer him empty comfort because they, too, believe in presenting a unified front. The kids aren’t allowed to be aware that there’s conflict between the grown-ups: rules are rules, instructions from your seniors are absolute, social harmony (and by extension, social hierarchy) has to be maintained. Tenko himself is the troublesome one—he’s the one who needs to be comforted, who keeps breaking rules, who can’t pretend everything is okay the same way everyone else can.

The wound opens further.

The initial wound and its exacerbation are both brought on by his mom and grandparents, not by Kotaro directly. Why? Because it’s the permissiveness of the adults that socializes Tenko in how to react to Kotaro. Kotaro’s abuse is too much for a five-year-old to process, so he trusts the other grown-ups in his life to understand it and tell him how to feel about it/what to do about it.

What they tell Tenko, implicitly, is that his pain doesn’t matter enough to do anything about, and it’s his fault it exists. Underneath, he recognizes this and resents them for it. They might not actively participate in Kotaro’s abuse, but they actively support him by trying to wipe away the consequences without any accountability for the problems. They shift blame to other people (Kotaro, Tenko) without owning up to their own role in the proceedings, so that they can pretend life is good and think of themselves as good people who don’t make trouble.

Tenko has a related “wound” associated directly with Kotaro.

((When Kotaro approaches Tenko to begin smacking him…))

The “itch.”

Tenko is five years old, and kids that young aren’t known for their emotional intelligence. This is his little-kid way of trying to describe his negative emotions: agitation, anguish, panic, frustration, aggression, resentment, desperation, (thwarted) hope, and so on.

Tenko scratches himself frantically because he doesn’t know how else to react to the things he’s feeling, and he doesn’t know how else to react because nobody is trying to help him sort through them. He’s only been told to suppress them. Plus, in adulthood, Shigaraki scratches himself when he’s stressed about something, so it makes sense for this ~allergy~ to be the origin.

I dunno why Tenko fixates on his face—his eyes, specifically…maybe out of shame? maybe because his face and eyes are what express his uncomfortable feelings, and/or because his eyes are what he uses to fruitlessly beg for help? or maybe the eyes out of a desire for blindness, to not see what’s in front of him the way everybody else pretends not to see?

(The irony, ofc, is that Kotaro is accusing Tenko of wanting to hurt their family, when in fact Kotaro is the one hurting their family.

Judging by how Nao and her parents approach Kotaro after the fact and tell him that they will leave if he hits the children again, I don’t think it was common for Kotaro to smack Tenko like this.

Also, this is the first time Tenko is shown scratching his neck: when his thoughts are crying out, help me!)

Tenko isn’t begging mercy from Kotaro, which says leagues about their relationship. Instead, he’s begging for interference from the rest of the family, for someone to stand up for him, to challenge the public humiliation Tenko regularly endures as Kotaro’s scapegoat. Nobody does, of course, like always.

It takes a few hours, locked out of the house, for the trauma to set in.

The wound gets worse…but this time it’s different.

For one, it’s accompanied by dialogue, not narration, and “everyone” is centered right in the core of his rage. The second (iffier) difference is that this time the wound and the itch coincide. In the previous situations, he’s either scratching himself or the wound is deepening. This is the first time Horikoshi depicts the two occurring simultaneously, and it’s this moment that his quirk fully awakens.

Tenko kills his dog and begins to have a panic attack. His emotions are choking him; the only way he can ask for help is to reach out to his sister, finally, in the way he didn’t dare to reach out while Kotaro was smacking him.

I’ve seen people suggest his voice fails as a side-effect of his quirk, but I think it’s trauma-related, not physical. For one, he still describes it as an “itch,” and for two, once he processes his trauma and decides that killing his family wasn’t a tragedy, Shigaraki’s characteristic squiggly speech bubbles are replaced by average speech bubbles.

This is consistent, so, his vocal problem was solved emotionally. So maybe his quirk was reacting to his emotions and placing pressure on his vocal chords? But idk, seems to me it was a psychosomatic problem.

Either way, he kills his sister as she runs away, and her scream attracts his mom and grandparents.

Then comes the fourth panel.

(For context, the narration refers to how his negative feelings towards his mom and grandparents accumulated.)

The whiteness is gushing forth, and it surges when Tenko sees his mom staring at him with terror, unable to summon a reassuring smile or any words of comfort for him.

The noises catch Kotaro’s attention. He pokes his head into the hall and walks through the empty house until he spots the open door to the backyard.

(Tenko has now transitioned to mainly scratching his neck instead of his face.)

Tenko reaches out to someone for the final time, and his (deadly) hand is rejected—smashed away, really.

Kotaro’s life is in danger, he’s shocked by the deaths of his family, he panics, and he reacts cruelly.

The tipping point is what happens afterwards.

Kotaro is surprised and horrified by what he’s done. But, like always, he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge to Tenko his wrongdoing. Instead, he reacts by doubling down and asserting his authority.

“Mommy, why does Father say no all the time? Does he hate me?!”

I’m not sure quite what Kotaro is doing here. At first I thought he was smacking Tenko, the way he did earlier that day, but that blob in the lower right panel is part of the background, not his hand in motion. So instead, it looks like Kotaro is holding out his hand in a “stop, stand back, stay away from me” gesture, or maybe to literally push Tenko away. (Have to wait on the anime, I guess.)

Regardless, Kotaro tells Tenko “no” for the last time. The immediate blame, the dearth of kindness or sympathy, the reaching out to him—someone’s trying to save him!—only to deny him…it evokes their history. Tenko is already in the midst of a meltdown, and now he snaps.

I hate bringing up real-world examples when thinking about stuff like bnha, so I hope this will be the only time I ever do it, but I’m powerfully reminded of a gun violence incident in Mississippi where a nine-year-old kid and his thirteen-year-old sister got into an argument over a video game controller, and the boy retrieved their parents’ gun from another room and shot her.

It’s ludicrous to think he had any meaningful concept of what he was doing, and, regardless of how Shigaraki interprets his past, the same holds for Tenko. Just because Tenko had a good “reason” to want Kotaro dead doesn’t imply he had a meaningful grasp of what he was doing. He killed Kotaro because he was a kid with access to a deadly weapon, and there’s a reason kids aren’t trusted with those.

But it is meaningful that Shigaraki struggles to make the distinction between aggression and murderous intent. AfO deliberately trains Shigaraki to adopt this warped mindset by telling him that his bad feelings, his “itch,” are equivalent to bloodlust. Realistically, there’re plenty of ways to relieve negative emotion, but Shigaraki has been taught exactly one outlet: destruction. So, he doesn’t realize that his murderousness is a product of nurture, not nature. (Also, lol, “murderousness” is a real word!)

Anyways, for the first time, Tenko experiences catharsis for the negative emotions that have built up his whole life. A fluke of fate enabled him to subvert the established power dynamic, and the destruction of the house encapsulates the collapse of their family’s hierarchy. He still doesn’t understand what he’s done.

By the next morning, it’s begun to sink in. He ran away from the house and then wanders the streets, too consumed by guilt to speak, and he’s ignored by everyone. When someone finally pays attention and seems willing to help him…

He smiles, happy that someone is finally going to help him. But his dirty, creepy smile scares the old lady off.

(reminds me of his early design.)

To him, it’s like people can see what he’s done, and that’s why nobody will help him or even acknowledge him. Notice the lower left corner: the blackness and white grains, spilling over from his wound.

The itch returns, and the scratching and the wound overlap again. It’s hard to say whether the wound is reacting to the old lady in general, or if it’s tied to the narration line “being punished.”

It occurs when Tenko simultaneously wants to be saved but also thinks he doesn’t deserve it, that everyone can see how bad he is and knows he doesn’t deserve help.

What did Shigaraki learn from this?

Social harmony is forged by repressing conflict, not by resolving it. This happens at his expense, purposefully.

“This is the house my father built.” Creation, construction, building, making walls, making rules, making—these are bad, and they’re performed by the people with authority and power. These things happen for other people, not for his sake.

He’s not important enough to be helped / not worthy of it, and he resents that.

Origin of his self-loathing.

Other notes:

The “itch” is something he can find temporary catharsis for (through violence), and Shigaraki thinks the itch might have gone away if someone had just helped him. The “wound” is not something that ever alleviates or that he suggests could have gone away.

The wound’s origin is from the complicity of his family to Kotaro, not from Kotaro himself.

It’s interesting that his dream to destroy society is a reenactment of his destruction of his family/house, even though killing “everyone” the first time devastated him.

He switched from mostly scratching his face to mostly scratching his throat.

Both these are sites where emotion is expressed.

Hands are another site of expression, and he later develops his fascination with his family’s hands and uses his own hands for destruction.

Activating decay seems to have hugely worsened the scarring around his eyes. He says that he thought the “itch” had gone away, so it’s unlikely he was scratching himself overnight…so I think his quirk had the side-effect of exacerbating his scars? If decay made the skin around his eyes hurt, that could relate to why he switched to mostly scratching his throat.

Even as a kid, Tenko had a certain amount of pride/dignity, enough to blame others for mistreating him instead of blaming purely himself.

Tenko admired heroes partly because his family lacked one, but when he discovers Nana…? Now someone inside the family (inside the house) was a hero, so the rules were different than what he thought?

Upbringing by AfO

When Tenko killed “everyone,” that included himself. All that’s left of him afterwards is an empty shell. He doesn’t even seem to remember what he’s done.

But AfO is willing to extend a hand and touch Tenko.

He’s willing to acknowledge Tenko’s pain, something nobody else was or is, at the moment in his life when Tenko feels he least deserves sympathy.

Now, obviously it’s hella suspicious that AfO already knows Tenko’s name, knows what he’s done, and procures his family’s hands, but Shigaraki doesn’t seem to question it. Tenko’s arms dangle there, limp, as AfO embraces him and tears stream down his face. And, ofc, AfO echoes All Might’s motto.

AfO takes Tenko in and tells him he’ll be his master from now on. Then…

Tenko viscerally remembers what he’s done, and his immediate reaction is to scratch himself, puke, and then seize the severed hands, gathering them up and cradling them close to him. It’s probably then that Tenko discovers the feeling that Shigaraki describes—of feeling violently ill but somehow at peace, too. (“When a person’s life starts spiraling, what’s the one thing they want? Comfort.”) There’s way too much to unpack here, so, moving on.

The “purpose” that AfO alludes to is the destruction of society/the status quo.

While Tenko is huddled on the ground, cradling the hands, AfO continues.

AfO’s the first person willing to talk to him about his itch as emotional instead of as an allergy. He tells Tenko point-blank that he cannot control his impulses and that his release must take the form of destruction.

This moment baffles me. AfO openly admits that Tenko’s feelings will fade…if left be. As far as we see, he doesn’t explain to Tenko why it’s important that those feelings never fade, why emptying himself of his pain is a bad thing. But even after being told time would heal him, Tenko keeps the hands close to him—and I don’t think he was just doing what AfO wanted.

This panel is also interesting because it definitely makes it look like Tenko’s wound is glowing, like it’s a light in the dark. Also, AfO’s dialogue nearly obscures the early panel of the wound…hm.

Regardless, AfO implies that those feelings are the most important thing Tenko has, and he should keep them close. It’s not specified if AfO told him to wear his family.

Later, Tenko’s wandering on the streets (his hands aren’t with him) when he encounters a duo of thugs, who beat and mock him. At first, Tenko lurches to fight back, but…

I think these are more “wound” panels: the blackness with white grains. He backs down, even though his rage doesn’t dissipate.

When he returns home, AfO encourages him to embrace his feelings instead of holding them back. Tenko literally writhes on the floor from the force of his “itch,” going all out as he wallows in his overwhelming feelings.

AfO tells Tenko that ethics were invented in order to suppress people and that Tenko’s emotions are more important than anything else. Tenko responds by reiterating what AfO told him: he wants to destroy those thugs, and he can’t control this urge to destroy. He goes as far as to disintegrate one of Kotaro’s hands, even though not too long ago he clung onto it.

But, later, he wears his family’s hands for the first time.

Wearing them clearly affects Tenko adversely—he’s struggling to breathe properly, and he’s entirely slumped over. But these hands, and these feelings, are the only things he has left, the only things he knows, and he won’t leave them behind.

He encounters the same duo of thugs and kills them.

His wound again. Formless, but with a sense of shifting and movement. Undiminished, even if the itch is alleviated. Or, maybe this panel is supposed to indicate a deterioration, like the wound gets even worse after the murders?

Observing the event, Ujiko remarks that he’d thought Tenko had lost his memories. I think he’s commenting on how Tenko is wearing the hands despite not remembering who they’re from? 

AfO comments…

Tenko restrains quirk subconsciously, limiting its disintegration to just what he’s directly touching, which makes it seem like he’s afraid of his quirk and feels guilt/self-loathing for it. He’s aware that his quirk is connected to the things he feels, maybe even blames his quirk in some way for making him feel this way.

It’s ironic that Tenko feels free while he’s being throttled and restrained by the hands of his relatives.

lol AfO gives away the game a bit, here. He tells Tenko to do whatever he wants and not hold back, and then praises Tenko for “holding back” his tears. He just wants Tenko to have no way to vent his feelings except violence. Also, the fact that Tenko is “holding back” his quirk…hmm.

Again, too much here to unpack rn, so, moving on.

AfO gives Tenko the hands of the thugs he killed, plus one hand of unknown origin to replace the hand of Kotaro’s that Tenko destroyed. Shigaraki describes the gift as soothing to his battered body, and he felt reborn. AfO gives him the name Shigaraki Tomura ad implicitly positions himself as Shigaraki’s dad by telling Shigaraki that “Shigaraki” is his surname.

What did Shigaraki learn from this?

Morals are illusionary, merely a tool used to suppress people without power in order to make things easier for people who do have power.

His “itch” means bloodlust, and he can’t control it.

He should just do what he wants (except crying, apparently), or else he’ll just suffer indefinitely.

Rejection of a society he had no hand in making and no place to belong in.

Other notes:

Even without remembering his aggression towards Kotaro, it’s Kotaro’s hand he shows the biggest fixation on.

Shigaraki has three “ailments”: the itch (the agitation he feels from bad things), the wound (the “rage” and “frustration” he feels from bystander apathy), and the nausea he feels when he wears the hands (self-loathing?).

Or maybe the nausea is part of the wound?

More on the wound?

I wonder when Horikoshi decided on how to visualize Shigaraki’s pain, and if he uses it as a pattern in bnha.

I’ve noticed a few panels that remind me of Shigaraki’s wound, especially that amorphous panel after he kills those thugs, but it’s hard to tell if the backgrounds are just atmospheric or if there is actually an attempt to connect these moments thematically.

Here are a few that I noticed.

I’m going to keep an eye out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: here’s another one. This is the most definite example so far: it occurs in ch250, post-Shigaraki’s flashbacks, and the distinct circle doesn’t produce an atmosphere the way the previous ^^ panels do. 

^^ it’s worth mentioning that this appears during Fuyumi’s narration, detailing how Natsuo is the only one in the family who can’t move forward, ie, he’s experiencing social pressure to conform and validate Endeavor similar to how Tenko felt pressure to conform to Kotaro’s authority.

And then this next one, I’m pretty unsure about, but I’ll include it in case:

[blandacheadcanons]

Let’s talk about AC: Odyssey

Overall, the game was a 7/10. I liked it, primarily because it’s shiny new content and because i get to play as a woman for the whole game (and Kassandra hnngggnng) but there were some issues which, for me, undercut the emotion of the whole thing, especially the ending.

spoilers and bitching below, proceed at your own risk

An ADHD dream and nightmare

in general, the way i played Black Flag, Origins, and Odyssey was tantamount to “Okay, gotta go to - squirrel!”

Now, that problem (not really much of a problem but y’know) starts with me. I have ADHD, so I’m already prone to being unfocused in my game play. But it doesn’t help that the map is littered with side missions, collectibles, and shiny things.

That, on it’s own, is not much of an issue. So it’s a bloated game; that just means there’s more to love. and I do love this game. however, the overwhelming amount of side missions and the fact that you’re practically required to play them in order to level up enough, means that the game loses its focus.

in Black Flag, this was somewhat remedied by the fact you’re never really under-leveled, so much as under-prepared. In Origins, it was offset by the intensely emotional story and clear motivations. In Odyssey, neither of those things were present.

Breaking the game

Throughout its life as a series, Assassin’s Creed has done something few other games have done: justified the fact that it’s a video game. We, the player, play as Desmond/Layla/whomever, who is playing through the memories of the historical character. The Animus can essentially take a puzzle and build the edges and group the pieces by color, but it still needs a human to put the pieces in place. the puzzle - the memory - itself cannot be changed.

Now, in Odyssey, there is no more justification. Yes, I’m talking about the choice mechanic.

This aspect of the game just... breaks everything we know about the series. the way the animus works. the way we play the game. the lore went from decently put together to flat out incoherent.

I love Kassandra. and I love that she’s the canon character. but if female leads for some reason come at the cost of consistent story-telling, i’ll take the consistent lore.

Way too big

traveling takes for-fucking-ever. Look, Ubisoft, I know people loved the naval portions of your games. but that’s not an excuse to make everything fucking HUGE and spread out over a dozen islands. If you must have such a huge game, give us fast travel to an island right away. restrict it however else you like, but for FUCKS SAKE.

Clash of the Titans (and the original premise for this series)

from AC1 to AC: Black Flag, each game has been defined by its historical setting. It was the Crusade Game, the Renaissance Game, the Victorian Game...

Origins began to lay the framework for a more mythology-based portion of the series.

Well, Origins walked so that Odyssey could fly by it on a motorcycle. Throughout the game, i wasn’t about the historical figures i would meet. I was wondering where and how the mythology would be making an appearance.

On its own, this is not a bad thing. It also makes sense, given that Ubisoft seems to be shifting to the Isu for plot in the wake of Juno’s death.

It is, however, still rather jarring. It also doesn’t look like we’ll be getting more of the historical thing because AC: Ragnorak is looking like the next game.

I love mythology as much as the next person, but...I don’t even know what to say.

The Ending

the aforementioned lack of focus and emotional intensity led to a...lackluster ending. I went for the best ending where Kassandra saves Alexios and the family is reunited.

Alexios’s heel-face turn seemed so sudden. Like he’s furious up until he touches Leonidas’s spear, and he suddenly sees the light? I’m not saying that it can’t happen, but in a game brimming with mythology and magic, this was the thing that strained my suspension of disbelief.

And this was right after Kleon shot him in the back, too. but is it ever brought up? is his faith in the cult shaken by the fact that one of his “family” just tried to kill him? does Kassandra use it as evidence that the cult is using him?

nope. not once. not even a little bit.

And these are just some nitpicks, but for me, both Alexios’s subpar voice acting and Kassandra’s quiver disappearing (idk if that was a common thing or just my game) undercut the emotion of the scene.

cutscenes are not the time for errors like this, people!

too short

As much as I complain about a bloated game, the main storyline was way too short. If you play only the main story line, you’ll probably have uncovered about half the map. maybe less. Why do i care about the map? I don’t. But i do care about an underdeveloped story.

Maybe there was more plot that ended up on the cutting room floor, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether the game was slashed to ribbons or wasn’t there in the first place. We got a game that was too short.

The lack of length also exacerbates the tone problem. Had we had a longer story with more Deimos/PC interaction where cracks appear in Deimos’s armor, and he maybe even does something uncharacteristically charitable (out of more than pure shock), i could then buy his behavior on Taygetos as a last-ditch effort to maintain his self image in the face of his shifting world view.

If we’d had cutscenes like Syndicate where we could see a few moments from Alexios’s perspective, I could understand how that world view shifts and how the cult treats him.

but instead, we get an exponential graph of Alexios’s development. and it’s a damn shame.

Loss of Identity

for every AC game, there’s a million video essays laying out the problems with it. And in every one of those essays, there’s a line to the effect of “this game doesn’t feel like an Assassin’s Creed game.”

Previously, i was always of the school of thought that were was no “feel” of an AC game. the nature of the games is to change, in big ways and small ways, between games. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But now, if you had me play this game and then AC1 and told me they were in the same series, i would never fucking believe you. The already thin common threads between games has been completely broken, even more so by going back in time. Origins had a similar problem, but it at least referenced the rest of the series with the hidden blade and the establishment of the Assassin Order. the only things “Assassin’s Creed” about Odyssey are the Isu and the title.

Other Nitpicks

Layla does not get out of the Animus nearly enough. I know most people hate the modern day line, but i like the break from all the historical action.

not calling Deimos Alexios/Kassandra in the subtitles. I know it was probably easier on the devs but just imagine the feels if the name changed when Deimos was being more vulnerable/letting his compassion show.

Kassandra can full-on see Atlantis and a Sphinx and still be amazed by every mythological creature that crosses her path.

people move way too much in dialogue cutscenes

animation and cgi are becoming so real that it’s creepy again

i appreciate the move to Actual Eagle’s Vision, but leave it in these games. I don’t want to get to the middle ages and be seeing out of a raven within a century of Atair’s Color Coding Eagle Vision. That’s not how evolution works.

While cool, the introduction of literally magical armor and weapons further proves that this isn’t a historical series anymore.

There is barely a stealth mechanic in this game, and when it’s used, it’s just used to pick people off before we’re noticed, not to avoid being noticed.

in a world where there are mercenaries and those mercenaries have to kill each other either for money or just to move up in rankings, mercenaries killing each other should not be illegal. if i try to fight one more mercenary and end up getting killed by the swarm of soldiers that just pony up out of no where, i swear to God...

why are soldiers acting as cops anyway doesn’t Athens have real, actual cops or equivalent

I think Ubisoft finally remembered they were rated M in Origins and Odyssey but it honestly just makes it harder to play around my parents

That’s as much as i can think of off the top of my head if i can think of more i’ll add it

[fairycosmos]

oof i hate to dump this on you but me and a close guy friend fooled around before he left for college. it was a lot of fun and my first time doing something like that but my brain is convincing me that i’m a dirty gross slut and he thinks so too. which i KNOW he doesn’t bc he’s super awesome but it keeps nagging at the back of my mind and idk what to do :(( we didn’t even have sex just did other stuff but like i feel horrible even though it was fun and i enjoyed it aaaaaa

hey, i'm sorry to hear that your brain isn't being kind to you. i think it's ok to acknowledge uncontrollable emotions, to let them naturally occur and recede, while still periodically reminding yourself of the logical reality. you don't have to block out the feelings, you just have to try to be self compassionate as you come to terms with what can't be changed. it could just be that, since this was your first time doing stuff, your brain is simply overwhelmed and doesn't know how to make sense of things. if you're already quite an insecure person, periods of stress or change may exacerbate your self hating mentality - as a coping mechanism, or a punishment. if you don't have any past trauma, and you were comfortable and happy in the moment, then it must be an underlying issue that was already there to begin with. this sort of thing often reveals the relationship we have with ourselves, and working on that first and foremost is v important. even in small ways, such as using self affirmations and reaching out when you know you need support. also maybe try examining why you equate sexual activity with dirtiness or shame? i know that idea is often pushed onto women but it truly holds no ground. it is an age old oppressive rehtoric, nothing more. might take a while to begin unlearning it but that's ok, it's a process. fooling around is just about feeling good and having fun with someone else, it isn't a reflection of your worth as a human being. and it's not going to impact any other areas of your life if you're using protection and taking care of yourself. look, if your friend had a one night stand, would it dictate your perception of her? of course not, right? you just have to attempt to apply the same mindset to yourself. even if it's not always successful, when you feel yourself slipping - remember that you did nothing wrong, and that this misplaced sense of guilt WILL fade as you grow n become more accustomed to enjoying sexual activity. i know you probably already know all of this on a rational level, so i guess the next step would be confronting your own insecurities, and trying your best to implement healthy thinking patterns and mechanisms into your every day life. i promise it's not always going to feel this intense. i went through something somewhat similar once, and now i just look at the whole thing through a lens of acceptance and detachment. just have to give yourself the tools and the chance to get to that point. i'll be rooting for you n sending a lot of love, i know it's all so difficult. take it one step at a time, and focus on what you need in this moment to feel better in the future. let me know if you need a friend or someone to talk to, i'll be here dude 💕

[tsume-awase]

// 🍍🍑🍎🍓🍐 ik that's like half the meme but listen... mitsubachi's gonna find some helpful anonymous notes later

k R Y S T A L GHIKDBHJLGKUHJANFLIKVNJLIKNJ SIL IS ABOUT TO BECOME EVEN DEADER I S2G

🍍- What’s your muse/s secretly turned on by?

...see I want to say praise but there’s already such a like. concrete definition of a praise kink that i don’t think is really for him?? i guess i’d say probably...validation?? he struggles SO much with feeling like he’s not allowed to feel vulnerable, and its really REALLY exacerbated with sex. he associates a lot of those feelings with being bad or weak or shameful, ESPECIALLY since he’s...pretty inclined towards submissiveness (which he thinks is BAD!! not that submissive people are bad but they ARE WHEN ITS HIM!!! he makes no sense). he’s embarrassed and ashamed of himself for wanting things, so having a lot of confirmation and reassurance that it’s completely fine to want that sort of thing, and that he’s loved and accepted and not at all lessened by his wants and needs. 

...A lot of that is pretty nonsexual honestly but it’s important in this context because hoooly shit once it gets made clear to him that being physically and emotionally intimate and needy isn’t just okay, but actively desirable his brain just kind of explodes? The idea of someone wanting this facet of himself he’s hated for so long kind is BAFFLING but also like. It kind of wrecks him, and fills him with this relief and warmth and validation that it’s okay to not ALWAYS like being in control of stuff. As a result if you lay on the praise, lay on the gentle encouragement and validation and tell him just how much you want him, he’ll be actively stifling the urge to squirm tbh

🍑- What lengths are your muse/s willing to go, to please their partner?

this one’s a bit tricky! there are some things that just...because of the emotional baggage kamakiri’s been saddled with it’s just REALLY difficult to do in the bedroom, so if there’s some...tragic clash of kinks that might not end up too good tbqh. but just in a general sense he’s very attentive--i CAN NOT STRESS ENOUGH how meaningful it is for him to trust someone in that light, and the ensuing MONSOON of adoration that elicits is more than enough to make him QUITE eager to please.

y-you know. in his own. relatively dignified way;;. once he’s more comfortable with sex in general he’s...like. REALLY affectionate? it’s weird thinking about his normal behavior but good lord he’s romantic as hell in bed he is FULL OF LOVE. 

🍎- What’s the best way to tease your muse?

answered here~

🍓- Would your muse ever use toys on themselves?

.... y e a h. 

if its modernverse, certainly. he’s a little less...weird about sex in that situation, so once he swallows his pride he’ll probably...idk have something discreet and subtle to get him off now and then. and if he’s in a relationship, well...he’ll be fucking mortified initially but that kind of “definitely-also-horny” mortified so it all works out quite nicely

in canon uh...i dont think they’d have anything like that available to him? there’s oils and stuff for lube but i feel like that’s probably the best you can do in ol’ ninjatown. if the opportunity arose? i honestly don’t know, he’d certainly be tempted DEEP DOWN but would he ever actually indulge? it’s a mystery. 

🍐- Would your muse ever use toys on someone else?

sure! as long as it was something his partner wanted, he’s fine with that stuff tbh. 

...this one was so much more straightforward lmao 

[venusianmystique]

Like yeah Chloe’s video was a little cringey but like we all post cringe shit once in a while and we should definitely give her some grace for that. Idk like I sympathize with her because I’m experiencing that same thing too where I’m like trying to explore my sexuality and sensuality. But there’s this push back from people. Like there’s just this sense that you’re not supposed to own your own body and love it. I feel like a lot of young black women/femmes experience that. The combination of being black and experiencing misogyny just exacerbated the feeling of people dictating what you should do with your body and how you should present yourself. And it connects to the idea of how black women/femmes are sexualized and desexualized in that other people are allowed to sexualize your body but you’re not supposed to claim ownership of your sexuality. And also the whole idea of responsibility politics connects to the topic too (I just don’t have the energy to explain why rn) It’s just weird how older black women who also experience the same thing when they were our age and even at their current age are like the loudest when it comes to slut shaming.