#even though given the context it was extremely obvious that it was bow as in archery

[its-nanse]

Half assed translations make me so upset, you don't understand.

I don't enjoy jokes and metaphors explained to me in scholia, when the pun works in our language just fine... if you hadn't went out of your way to find an obscure synonym that doesn't work...

[47crayons]

so, you want to write a musician?

about me: i play viola and have experience in symphony orchestras, string orchestras, string quartets (+ a few other small ensembles), and solo performances. i've done some light composition, and have friends/family who play other instruments. while my musical history is extensive, by no means do i know everything or speak for everyone.

this guide will focus on classical music/how to portray classical musicians and things that aren't as easily researched.

quick overview of instruments in a typical symphony orchestra

upper strings (violin, viola), lower strings (cello, (double) bass; i've seen viola included here too, but it's more commonly classified as upper strings)

strings also technically includes harp and piano

woodwinds (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon)

depending on instrumentation, they may also have piccolo, english horn, bass clarinet, contrabassoon

saxophones are not traditionally in symphony orchestras due to it being a relative newer instrument! but this is changing because more contemporary composes are including sax parts

brass (trumpet, trombone, bass trombone, tuba, euphonium)

percussion (depends heavily on instrumentation, but common instruments are bass drum, timpani, snare, crash cymbal, xylophone, marimba)

some things you should research

where the hands are supposed to go!! i'd recommend you look at pictures of professionals in orchestra settings (ny phil, cso, berlin phil are all top tier). some musicians *coughs at yoyo ma* have less than perfect posture when they're performing solos (for the same reasons famous authors can break "rules")

necessary equipment including reeds, rockstops, different kinds of sticks/mallets, rosin, mouth pieces for whatever instrument you're writing

common misconceptions

loose/photocopied sheet music is not aesthetic—it's annoying and impossible to keep organized. folders and binders are fairly common especially when managing multiple ensembles.

original copies are often expensive and required to perform a piece (legally) for profit or otherwise (though i know a few people who have bent this rule)

not all performers are good composers (i myself have very little formal music theory training), but many composers have performance histories.

not all musicians can sing.

perfect pitch is both a blessing and a curse. notes can be slightly lower/higher but in tune with the context of the piece, which drives people with perfect pitch insane.

having perfect pitch does not guarantee someone will be a prodigy, and people don't need perfect pitch to be a talented musician.

drama in ensembles does exist, but it rarely gets in the way of rehearsal. same thing goes for good friends: if your characters have even a shred of common sense, they aren't going to be talking/messing around during rehearsal.

instruments (especially good ones) are extremely expensive. people very rarely store instruments on the wall or other displays for fear of falling.

instruments are very picky and require tuning every time. every time! it doesn't take long anyway. temperature and humidity can and will make instruments go out of tune or damage your instrument if not properly stored.

some people listen exclusively to classical music, but in my experience, that's definitely not the majority

like with anything, most musicians struggle with self doubt at one point or another.

musician culture

getting excited when we hear a piece we recognize

getting frustrated because we can't remember the name of the piece (after all, no lyrics to search)

being horrified when a non-musician actor is playing a musician. yes, we notice. yes, it's obvious.

if people are joking, it's likely to be about: violas (a quick search for "viola jokes" will tell you all you need to know) or trumpets (a reputation for being overly loud, playing and not)

putting stickers (places they toured, their orchestra, or just purely decorative) on cases is common, but not for everyone. same goes for pictures (of family, past concerts, or anything) on the inside.

scrambling for a pencil when the conductor says to mark something. pencils are a musicians best friend :D

asking (and forgetting) how to split double stops/two parts at the same time. sometimes one stand partner will play the top while the other plays the bottom, and sometimes this is split stand by stand.

this has NEVER resulted in a sexual top/bottom joke. please just. don't. also no g string jokes. it's just unrealistic.

awaiting the obligatory "it's one week before our concert, and you sound like this?!" lecture

not talking about music 100% of the time!!! they have lives outside of music (most of them, at least /j). especially to close friends, music is probably not going to be a conversation topic unless something is out of the ordinary (high stress, something funny from rehearsal, etc.)

bragging/talking about how often they practice is generally not welcomed. great, but other people don't need to hear it!

stages are hot and bright. there's no way a performer can see someone in the audience with the possible exception of the first row.

practicing

three words for you: love. hate. relationship.

slow practice (like really slow lots of people recommend half speed; good for focusing on the right notes, tone, phrasing, smooth transitions)

metronome practice (while playing, it's not annoying at all! it's helpful and requires a lot of focus; when NOT playing, it's annoying and loud because it needs to be heard over the playing)

drone practice (having a machine/website/another person play one note in the background; good for tuning and scales)

and too many more for me to detail

auditions

ensembles may have entrance auditions to determine who gets in and seating auditions to determine placement within the section.

adrenaline does not make us play better; it just makes us make mistakes. and then thinking about those mistakes causes more mistakes.

some instruments, especially those with less repertoire, have common excerpts that come up frequently (i can think of one in particular that i've played for three separate auditions this year).

stopping/starting over is not recommended ever, but if you do, it has to be 10x better. most audition judges aren't looking for perfection!! they want to see how your character can keep going after messing up.

sight reading (being given new music, having ~30 seconds to look at it, being asked to play) is never perfect. i don't care how talented your character is; if they think they nailed it, they aren't experienced enough to see all the phrasing/dynamics that they didn't incorporate. no one gets sight reading perfect!!!

perhaps most importantly, musicians are not all the same! they enjoy it for a number of different reasons and have diverse and interesting lives outside of music!!! more information about specific instrument groups under the cut :)

strings

callouses. with the exception of pianists, most string players (and especially professional ones) have callouses where they press down/pluck the strings. i also have one on my right thumb where i hold my bow. cellists and bassists might have them on their left thumb from playing higher notes in thumb position.

hickeys are also fairly common, though only some people get them. upper strings will get these by under their left jaw. cellists may have one from the wooden body resting on their sternum. some people (including hilary hahn and many many others) use a cloth for comfort and to prevent hickeys.

few people want a hickey, but it might suit a character who is constantly trying to prove themselves.

our fingers do not "glide" anywhere. you can get cuts/"string-burns" from pressing down too hard when shifting. cuts like those are the only reason someone's fingers will bleed, and it's rarer than you think.

upper strings are more prone to back/neck problems from the way they hold their instruments on one side. see also: shoulder pain.

finger cramps happen. they aren't too common, but most if not all strings have experienced at least one.

pianos require tuning every few years or else the chords will be out of tune. few pianists can tune their own instrument because of how complicated it is.

piano parts/accompaniments will have so. many. pages. a page turner may sit on the right of the pianist to turn the page.

woodwinds & brass

spit. so much spit. some instruments clean afterwards with a cloth; others have a spit valve which is as gross as it sounds.

proper embouchure, or how a musician uses the muscles in their face/lips, is tiring, and people actually get strong cheek muscles. they can also easily turn red, but it varies based on a person's facial complexion. see also: good lung capacity.

flute and piccolo are not dainty. piccolo requires as much air as a tuba. an old teacher of mine almost passed out playing piccolo when she was in college.

flutes and piccolos are high, but often not shrill depending on the level of the ensemble.

reeds last a few weeks (less if your character plays for hours a day) and can be expensive to buy.

keys and valves can get sticky especially on older instruments which can result in the wrong note or bad tone.

saxes, clarinets, flutes are more likely to "honk" on low notes.

oboes are more likely to feel "wispy" on high notes.

articulation comes from the tongue, especially for brass instruments, and conductors may ask for "tah" "pah" or "wah" sounds depending on the style of the piece.

percussion

callouses from the friction between hands and sticks/mallets.

there are so many types of sticks and mallets!!! make sure to take a look at what materials are good for what instruments/sounds.

cymbals, triangle, and bass drum are not easy to play, even though they look simple.

percussionists with the exception of timpani may play more than one instrument during a piece, and they're constantly moving around in the back during their rests.

percussion instruments are too expensive for most people to have everything they ever play. practice pads are very common in place of these instruments.

ability to play one instrument doesn't translate to different instruments. for example, many percussionists don't have experience playing set/drum set.

some of the things detailed here are heavily glossed over, so if you have any questions, i'd always be happy to talk about it with you; i may not have answers, but i will try to help as best i can!!!

since you read this far, have my favorite viola joke.

what's the difference between a violist and a large pizza?

a large pizza can feed a family of four :)

tagging some people who showed interest: @writing-is-a-martial-art @ashen-crest @kg-willie @owilder

[mizunetzu]

Heyo!! Can I request a Kuroo x male reader, where yn goes to give him a love letter one day, but he sees him with his new girlfriend??? And he’s like-sad and he tears up the note and he moves on??? But then one day kuroo asks to talk to him, and he confesses to reader, but since reader already moved on he doesn’t accept??? Angsty ending if you will 💔💔💔 thank you, Mr. Mizunetzu !!

Hi paola ily paola hee hee

——————

Kuroo x reader - you did once...

⚠️Warnings - Kuroo gets a gf, angst, not so much of a good ending?

Pronouns- male, he/him

You can find part two here!

——————

“(Y/n), can I talk to you real quick?”

(Y/n) looked up from adjusting his loose kneepad, and wiped a bead of sweat rolling off his face. He turned his head to his teammates still on their diving punishment, and looked back at Kuroo. They just lost to another school again, but he got his punishment done rather early. “Mm? Okay..?”

He rose to his feet, following Kuroo out the gym door. The walk to a secluded place far, far away from the main gym was silent and awkward, not to mention suspicious. If Kuroo wasn’t one of his good friends, he would’ve thought he was about to be kidnapped. Or murdered.

Eventually, they stopped where the fenced pathway met the grass. Kuroo stopped ominously, further proving (Y/n’s) ‘serial killer’ theory. He turned around, facing (Y/n), and leaned on the railing.

(Y/n) stiffly held his hands behind his back. “So...” he rocked on his heels, trying to seem as casual as possible. “...what did you...need...?”

He was met with no response. Kuroo, instead, gripped the railing tighter, his knuckles turning a pale white. His eyes were downcast and he was sweating like crazy. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

(Y/n) stepped forward and crouched down, so he could see Kuroos face behind the mop that was his hair. He rested his palms on his knees, trying to decide what to say.

“...I...think your hair looks nice...today...”

If it’s one thing he hates, it’s awkward silence. Not to mention the suspense of waiting on someone to say someone possibly life changing. I mean, why else should he drag him out miles away from the gym during training camp?

“Uh-If we don’t hurry up, we’re gonna miss our next match-“

“I need to get something off my chest.”

(Y/n’s) throat closed up. It was simple. The secluded area, Kuroo flushed face, fiddling and chipping the rust off the railing. He didn’t know how he didn’t see it before. He’s been in this situation plenty of times, with girls he can’t even remember the face of. But oh how much he’d love to be in this situation a few months ago.

————

‘Just do it. just do it. God, just do it. Worse comes to worse, he’s straight. It’s not like he’s the type of person to de-friend someone because they like them!’

(Y/n) gripped the white envelope behind his back harshly, crinkling it on the corners. It had a red, heart shaped sticker on the seal flap, with the words ‘To Tetsu’ written in dark pink across the back.

Both Karasuno and Nekoma were bidding their new friends goodbye, all scattered across the parking lot of Karasuno. (Y/n) paced around awkwardly, looking for Kuroo’s familiar mop of black, messy hair. He was nervous, to say the least. Very nervous.

“Ne, Kenma,” (Y/n) placed a sweaty palm on Kenmas handheld game, pushing it down lightly and forcing him to look up.

“Mm.”

“Have...have you seen Tetsurou? I need to give him something.”

Kenma hummed in acknowledgment, and nudged his head to the side. Sure enough, Kuroo was there, off in the distance and talking to someone he couldn’t make out. His back was facing towards them, and his hand was on his hip. (Y/n’s) heart pounded even more.

“Th..an..k...y-you...” (Y/n) gave a lopsided, very stressed out smile, and limped his way over to Kuroo. Kenmas eyes were drawn to the extremely obvious love-letter being wrinkled by (Y/n’s) sweaty hands. He pursed his lips.

He then looked up to the petite girl chatting with Kuroo. It wasn’t visible in (Y/n’s) line of sight, but it was to Kenma. He almost felt kind of bad.

(Y/n) stopped dead behind Kuroo, his eyes fixated on the ground as he ran through his memorized confession for the millionth time that day. He tapped on his shoulder, keeping the letter flush against his back with his other hand.

Kuroo turned around, and that was when his eyes landed on the brown-haired girl wearing an obviously oversized Nekoma jacket. From context of the scene, (Y/n) supposed it was Kuroo’s. He gripped the letter tighter.

The girl walked forward and extended her hand out. Her bubbly aura practically suffocated (Y/n). “Hi! You must be ‘(Y/n)’. Tetsu was just talking about you! You two are like—buddy buddies right?”

‘Tetsu.’ That was (Y/n’s) nickname for him. Only he got to call him ‘Tetsu’...and who gave her the right to call him by his first name?

(Y/n) glanced at Kuroo. Kuroo shoved his hands into his pocket and grinned. It wasn’t his usual shit-eater smirk, rather a genuine, lovesick dopey smile. A smile (Y/n’s) never seen before, not directed at him at least. It was a sight he wanted to burn into his mind, but at the same time, he wanted to slap that smile right off his face.

“(Y/n), this is Yumi-chan. She’s our new manager.”

Kuroo stepped behind Yumimite, and draped his arms around her dainty shoulders.

“She’s also my new girlfriend~”

“Oh-hush it, you!” Yumimite turned around and berated Kuroo with small punches, earning a playful chuckled from the Kuroo. (Y/n’s) grip on the wrinkled letter loosened.

“...ahaha! Congrats..! When...when did you two get together?” If (Y/n) was good at anything, he was good at pretending to be interested in something. Maybe he should’ve joined the drama club instead of the volleyball club.

“Mm. We got together just last week. She gave me a love letter.” Kuroo patted the girl on her head, ruffling her neat brown hair and making her blush red. It looked like it felt nice. He wondered how it would feel to have Kuroo’s undivided attention, to be pat on the head like a blushing schoolgirl. To be a small, pretty girl next to Kuroo, to have the ability to call him ‘his’. All his nervousness simmered away, replaced by a strange ache of numb.

“Well, that’s awesome dude! Honestly, I don’t know how you managed to snag a girlfriend before me...” (Y/n) slouched dramatically, quickly hooking the letter in the waistband of his volleyball shorts and tugging his shirt over it. “Especially such a cutie like her! I’m (L/n), by the way...”

Kuroo chuckled, slinging an arm around Yumimite. “Don’t go flirting with my girl now. You have plenty of girls practically throwing their panties at you.”

‘Yeah...but I’m gay, Tetsurou. For you no doubt! I-I love you-!’

(Y/n) almost wanted to yell that out. And he almost did. But he chose instead to keep silent and laugh in response.

(Y/n) bowed slightly. “Anyway, it was nice meeting you. I just wanted to say hi to Tets-uh, Kuroo...”

Kuroo tilted his head at the use of his last name, but brushed it off when Yumi hooked her arm in his. The couple bid their goodbyes, as they turned around and walked off. (Y/n) followed suite, turning around robotically and marching off.

Once he was a good enough distance away, he stopped behind a trash can and fished the letter out from his sweaty back.

He watched as the big pink words ‘To Tetsu’ bled and distort with every falling teardrop rolling down his cheeks. The water expanded and smudged the ink lighter and lighter until the words were practically indecipherable. You couldn’t tell it was a love letter anymore. Especially because (Y/n) ripped and trashed it up til it was a pile of pink and white paper shreds.

He tossed the stray flakes of soggy paper into the trash bin, watching as it fluttered and twirled tauntingly down the trash can. He quietly scrubbed at his red hot face, probably soaking his shirt with his salty tears. He rested his hands on the edges of the bin.

“Okay...” (Y/n) stretched up, spitting onto the concrete. “I...wonder...if my favorite ramen place is open...”

Strangely he didn’t feel devastated, or heartbroken at all. He just felt sort of numb. He didn’t feel the need to blast heartbreak music and cry out on his bed for hours on end. In fact, he was glad. Albeit a bit raw, and maybe a bit tired, but glad.

He got closure for the confusing feelings bubbling down his throat ever since he’d met Kuroo Tetsurou. He got his answer, and even if it wasn’t the preferred one, it was something.

The recovery process was easier than most people would think. It only took a couple long days to get him back to his prime condition. It was a given, since (Y/n) had so much other things to be worrying about. Midterms, volleyball practice, his friends. It’s a given that he would move on the things that was no longer on his priority list.

And Kuroo Tetsurou was no exception.

——

It was kind of pathetic to see such a high strung man like Kuroo so shaky and nervous. Though, he felt the same way three months ago, spending the whole golden week perfecting a letter he never got to read. What a hypocrite he was.

(Y/n) cleared his throat. “So...what did you wanna say?”

“I-just,” Kuroo swallowed thickly. “Ah-I...give me a second...”

“Okay, take you time, Kuroo~” he stood back up to his full height, and leaned on the rail across from him. It was obvious they weren’t gonna get anywhere. “So...hows ‘Yumi-chan’ doing?”

“Ah. We broke up. She’s gay. She has a girlfriend now.”

“Aw, I’m sorry. Though, good for her for snagging a girlfriend. No offense.” Kuroo mumbled out a ‘none taken.’ (Y/n) continued.

“Was that what you wanted to talk about? Her breaking up with you?”

“No! Actually, I broke up with her first. And it was...it was kinda mutual.” Kuroo sharply inhaled. “But it does have something to do with what I need to tell you.”

How could he be more obvious. (Y/n) forced a smile. It felt mandatory now. “Really? That’s interesting. Do tell.”

‘Please...Please don’t say it.’

“I broke up with her...because I had these...feelings.”

‘Please don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to read it. I don’t want to know it.’

“And you know how she’s gay? Well, I think I am too.”

‘No shit Sherlock. I don’t wanna hear it. You’ve been fiddling around with your hands like a schoolgirl. Stop it, so we can just be friends like we used to be. Don’t make it awkward. Don’t make me hear it. Please.’

“And...well...”

‘Don’t make me look at your crestfallen face when I say no. It’s too much for even me to handle. I don’t want to see that.’

(Y/n) knitted his eyes shut. A fierce shudder threatened to rattle him and cover Kuroo’s mouth, but he kept still, as difficult as it was. He braced for impact.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

There it was.

(Y/n) pursed his lips and let his smile finally drop. Kuroo looked up from his trained gaze on the ground, only to be met with (Y/n’s) pitiful expression. (Y/n) never saw his face go from hopeful and love struck to devastated and heartbroken so fast.

(Y/n) cleared his throat. He was going to lay him down gently if it was the last thing he did. “...uh.”

He never said it’d be easy, though.

“If it makes you feel better...I did like you once, Tetsurou.” He only used his full first name during important situations, as he switched to using his last name instead of his first a long time ago. A lump grew in Kuroo’s throat.

Kuroo jabbed at his chest exasperatedly. “T-then what’s the problem?! We both-“

“The problem is I don’t love you. Not anymore.” Kuroo fell silent. He was so prepared to do anything it took to win over (Y/n), but after standing in front of him now, it was clear. Watching as he looked down at him with a pitying expression that made his brain go numb. He would get no where if he tried.

“...a-anymore? You liked me before? When!? Why didn’t I know?!” Kuroo grasped fistfuls of his black hair, a cold sweat condensing on his forehead. He was so animatedly desperate it was kind of sad.

“Not too long ago. Though, you kept me waiting since forever. And I thought I could wait forever.” A sorry chuckle emitted from (Y/n’s) lips. “I watched you go though girlfriend after girlfriend, Tetsurou. You even introduced me to Yumimite when I was going to confess to you. How do you think that felt? Even I got tired of waiting.”

“You...you were...” Kuroo had never felt so helpless. (Y/n) shrugged.

“I would give you the love letter I wrote for you that day, but it’s in a trash can somewhere. Ripped to shreds. And I don’t remember the words I wrote. I’m sorry, Tetsurou.” (Y/n) sighed and patted Kuroo on the head.

“You missed your chance...”

Kuroo’s eyes stung, threatening to unleash hell, but he promised himself he wouldn’t cry. No matter what. Instead, he rubbed the back of his neck and stood back up.

“I never stood a chance, did i?” Kuroo chuckled. It was a sad chuckle, one that made (Y/n) want to cry aswell.

“That’s the sad part.” (Y/n) pressed his lips into a fine line, turning it into a smile conotated with pity.

“You did once.”

——————

Go sit there and stare at the wall in silence as you feel bad for Kuroo getting rejected by you. Go on, stare. Maybe then I’ll consider a part 2 (and if people comment or reblog asking for a part 2, hee hee.)

[puppyexpressions]

How To Read Dog Body Language

Dog body language involves a series of unique methods for communicating emotions and intentions. It can be quite different from how humans communicate.

A lot of canine communication consists of barks, whines, and growls, so it’s important to know what dog sounds mean. More often, though, dogs rely on nonverbal body language. That can lead to plenty of human-dog misunderstandings. Sometimes, dog body language is simply unfamiliar (after all, people don’t have tails). At other times, it’s in direct contrast with what that same signal means to a human, such as with yawning or looking away. To better communicate with your canine companion, learn some tips on reading dog body language.

Tail Wagging

Tail wagging seems like an obvious body language signal. If a dog’s tail is wagging, the dog is happy, right? Wrong. People misinterpret this signal all the time. All a wagging tail means is that the dog is emotionally aroused. It could be excitement, but it could be frustration or worse. To interpret the dog’s emotions and intentions, look at the speed and direction of the wag as well as the position of the tail.

Basically, the faster the wag, the more aroused the dog. Think about those long, slow, side-to-side tail sweeps your dog makes when greeting you — the type that wag the dog’s whole body. That’s a relaxed dog. A faster twitch-like wag indicates a higher level of arousal and possibly in a negative way. Think of a guard dog on alert.

The direction of the wag may hold clues as well. A recent study on tail-wagging showed that dogs tend to wag more to the right when they feel positive about something, like interacting with their owner. Tails wagged more to the left when dogs faced something negative. Then, there’s the helicopter tail wag where the dog’s tail spins in a circle. Without question, that’s a happy wag. You’ll usually see it when a dog is greeting a beloved person.

Finally, the position of the dog’s tail relative to the ground holds important clues about their emotional state. Essentially, the higher the tail, the more assertive the dog. Dogs with their tails pointing down to the ground or even tucked between their legs are feeling fear and stress. Dogs with their tails held up like a flag are feeling confident, perhaps even aggressive. Relaxed dogs hold their tails in a neutral position, but neutral depends on the breed. Some breeds, like Chow Chows, have tails that naturally curl over their backs whereas breeds like the Italian Greyhound have a very low neutral tail position. If you get to know your dog’s neutral tail position, you will more quickly recognize when their emotions have shifted.

Raised Hackles

When a dog’s hackles are raised, it means the hair along their back is standing up. Technically called piloerection, the fur can fluff up across the shoulders or down the back and all the way to the tail. This is a definite sign that the dog is aroused, but not necessarily in a negative way. The dog might be upset or stressed but could also be excited or intensely interested in something. It’s often an involuntary reaction, like goosebumps in people.

Posture

A dog’s weight distribution can tell a lot about mood and intention. Consider a cowering dog that is hunched toward the ground. That’s a sign of fear or stress. The dog may be trying to get away from something and the posture makes the dog appear smaller. In other words, it says, “I mean no harm.” The extreme of this posture is a dog that rolls onto their back exposing the belly. This may look like a dog soliciting a belly rub, and in a relaxed dog, it often is. But it can actually be a sign of considerable stress and anxiety. The dog may even urinate a little in appeasement.

The opposite posture is a dog with his or her weight shifted forward. This dog is trying to get closer to something. This might simply indicate the dog’s interest. But it could also indicate offensive intentions, particularly paired with other aggressive body language cues like a twitching tail held high. In this case, the dog is trying to appear larger.

An easy-to-read aspect of dog body language is the play bow. This is when dogs place their chest on the ground with their rump in the air. As the name implies, it’s used to initiate play with other dogs and even with people.

A less easily understood signal is the paw raise. In the pointing breeds like the English Setter, the paw raise is part of pointing behavior where the dog indicates nearby prey. But outside of this context, a raised paw often indicates a dog is uncertain about a situation or perhaps feels a bit insecure.

Facial Expressions

Dogs have similar facial features as people, but they don’t use them in the same way. Consider yawning. People yawn when they’re tired or bored, but dogs yawn when they’re stressed. Dogs use yawning to calm themselves in tense situations and to calm others, including their owners. She suggests yawning at your dog to provide comfort at stressful moments like a vet visit. But don’t be surprised if your dog yawns back. Just as yawning is contagious in people, dogs can “catch” yawns too.

Lip-licking is another bit of dog body language that people often misinterpret. Just like people, dogs will lick their lips after a delicious meal, but they will also do it when they feel anxious. Sometimes the tongue flick is so quick it’s tricky to notice. Your dog isn’t signaling a desire to lick your face, but rather discomfort with a given situation.

The most confusing facial expression is smiling. Yes, some dogs smile, and if you’re not familiar with the expression it can look terrifying. Usually, when dogs bare their teeth, it serves as a warning, as if they’re saying, “Look at my weapons.” It’s hard to mistake the aggressive intention of a snarl, especially when it’s paired with a menacing growl. The corners of the dog’s lips form the shape of a C and the front teeth are fully displayed.

Smiling dogs also display their front teeth, but the meaning is the complete opposite. Also known as a submissive grin, this expression is often found on a happy dog with a loose and wiggly posture. The dog’s overall attitude says, “Hello, I come in peace.”

Eyes

You can learn a lot about your dog’s internal state by looking at the eyes. First, a dog’s eyes can be soft or hard. Soft eyes have relaxed lids and sometimes look like the dog is squinting. They indicate the dog is calm or happy. The opposite is hard eyes where the eyes seem to go cold. These indicate a negative state of mind, and you’ll know them when you see them. The dog might be guarding a toy or feeling aggressive. A hard stare, where the dog looks intently at something, especially for a long time, usually signals a threat.

Eye contact is an important signal for dogs. Just as the hard stare can be a precursor to aggression, looking away is meant to calm a situation. When dogs feel stressed, they will pointedly look away and avoid eye contact. People often interpret this as their dog ignoring them or being stubborn, but the dog is expressing discomfort.

The whites of the eyes are another key indicator. Known as “whale eye”, when a dog shows the whites of the eyes, it’s a signal they are feeling anxious or stressed in a situation. You might see them when you make your dog uncomfortable, like when you pat your dog on the head, or when they’re afraid someone will steal a bone or toy.

Deciphering Dog Body Language

None of these dog body language signals act alone. They are all part of a package. So, when you read a dog’s communication, look at every signal the dog is using from the tail height to the eye shape. Your dog is “talking” to you all the time. If you learn what your dog is saying, you will develop a deeper bond of trust and respect. Plus, your newfound understanding of your dog’s emotional state will help you predict your dog’s behavior and prevent problems before they occur.

[winterscaptain]

caught out.

Aaron Hotchner x Gender Neutral Reader 

a/n: i am SO excited to share this installment with you! There are a few key developments in this chapter, so get excited! we fly through route 66 and in the blood in this part, and we might get a ring..... :)

an ajf fic that requires little to no context!

words: 5.3k warnings: canon-typical injury, medical setting, some really soft stuff

summary: foyet’s scars leave more than trauma in their wake, but aaron finds he has more to live for - a future, a life, a family. (au!october 2013)

masterlist | a joyful future masterlist | requests closed!

Before this moment, you’d never fully considered what it would be like for Aaron to die in front of you. You’d certainly come close before - between close calls with unsubs and a fair few stupid decisions, close calls weren’t unheard of by any means. But even in those moments, as scared as you were, there was always part of you that knew he’d be okay. A part of you that knew he’d come home to you. 

Right now, that knowledge is universally absent as he collapses out of nowhere in the conference room. 

“Aaron!” You shoot out of your chair and drop to the floor beside him, immediately reaching for his wrist. You’re relieved to find a pulse, albeit a weak one. You know you’re already crying, absolutely terrified. 

Somehow, you manage to look up at JJ, meeting her wide, scared blue eyes. “Call EMS. They’re in the building and faster than an ambulance.”

She snaps to, running to Aaron’s office for the direct line. 

“Hang in there, baby.” You wrap his hand in yours, and Derek helps you turn him over. Aaron’s halfway in your lap now, your body bowed over him. 

He stirs a little, and you shush him, brushing the hair off his forehead. His breath rattles in his chest, struggling, as he reaches for you. 

“Don’t leave me. Don’t you dare leave me.” You don’t realize you’re talking until Derek lays a hand on your shoulder. 

EMS arrives, and you’re not sure how much time has passed by the time they get him onto the gurney and down the stairs. You keep up with them for as long as you can before Anderson and Derek snag your arms, holding you back. 

Derek tugs you once, gently, by the wrist, and you fall into him. He’s already moving, guiding you to the elevators and down to the car. He repeats the same things, over and over, every minute or so, as you make the long journey to the hospital. 

“It’ll be okay, kiddo. He’s tough. Hotch isn’t going anywhere.”

+++

A doctor opens the doors, a clipboard in her hand. “Hotchner?”

You rise, approaching the doctor. “Yes?”

“Are you his next of kin?”

You nod, reaching for your wallet. 

The doctor smiles at your obvious agitation. “No need to show your credentials. Agent Hotchner is out of surgery and resting comfortably.”

“What happened?”

She sighs. “The scar tissue from his previous wounds tore, causing slow, but significant internal bleeding. It was touch and go on the table, but he’s a fighter. Something kept him here. Your attending will have more information for you once you’re settled with him.”

You swallow, trying to keep your throat clear as your eyes well up again. 

She presses a hand to your arm. “You can see him now. He was asking for you before we put him under.”

“Thank you.” 

When she disappears behind the doors again, you return to the chair you’d been glued to for the previous six hours. 

Dave stands with you as you gather your things. You look at him and he leans forward to kiss your cheek. “Take your time. We’ll be reachable. Let us know when he’s awake.” 

You nod. Pulling your phone out of your pocket, you mentally draft a text message to Jessica before sending it off. JJ let her know what happened after she called EMS, and she’s been standing by ever since. 

As a pair, you decided to keep things from Jack until you were certain of an outcome. No need to make him worry longer than necessary. 

4:27pm Aaron’s out of surgery. Not sure how long they’re keeping him. I’ll let you know when it’s a good time to bring Jack over. 

She replies right away. 

4:27pm. It never ends, does it? 4:28pm I’ll have my phone on me. Thank you. 4:28pm Love you. 

With a little tug at your lips, you reply. 

4:28pm Love you too. Kiss our boy for me. 

A little whoosh sounds as she replies. 

4:28pm Of course xx

You’re finally able to breathe when you see Aaron. Though he looks shockingly small in that big bed, hooked up to intimidating machinery, he is alive. 

Bar’s on the floor, today. 

He’s still out, like the doctor said, and probably would be for another few hours. You cross to his side - the one without the IV - and sit beside him. When you get there, you take his hand and press his palm to your forehead, leaning into him. Even among the sharp, antiseptic smell of the hospital, he smells like himself. 

His touch, as it always does, heals you from the inside out. You can feel your blood pressure drop, your heart rate slow. The warmth of his hand sinks into your head, your chest, letting you take deeper breaths that are far more satisfying. 

After you're sure he’s well and truly alive, you wrap his hand in both of your own and scoot your chair so you can drop your head against his pillow. Uncomfortable in the extreme, you close your eyes, happy for the weight of his hand in yours. 

+++

When Aaron wakes, he’s confronted with a few things that confuse him (the ache in his ribs and the pounding in his head, to name two) and a few that don’t (the smell of your skin, the familiar feeling of your fingers laced through his). He decides to address the less confusing elements first. 

He turns his head, a shockingly difficult maneuver, and finds you out like a light - your head on his pillow, your arm tucked under your face. Even in sleep, your brow pinches and your mouth draws a tense line. 

There’s an attempt to move his hand so he can touch your face, but you wake and startle before he even makes it a quarter inch. 

Your eyes meet his and you heave a sigh of relief. “Aaron.”

His lips pull at the corners. “Hi.” There’s a scrape in his voice, raw from disuse. 

You haul yourself up, bringing one of your hands to his face, mindful of his nasal cannula. “You scared the fuck out of me, you know that?”

“I’m sorry.” His sincerity breaks your heart, and he tries to sit up, but you shake your head, reaching for the remote. 

You prop him up a little and he reaches for you again. You meet him halfway, pressing your lips to his. 

He whispers against your lips. “I’m so sorry.” He leans back, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone. “Did they tell you what happened?”

You nod, your eyes still roaming over his face. “Well first of all, they lost you twice on the table, but before that, the scar tissue from your stab wounds tore and caused significant internal bleeding. They’re sure it was a slow bleed - over the course of hours, maybe days.” 

You swallow, and a fresh set of tears fall down your cheeks. It’s frustrating. 

“If you didn’t go down when you did, when you were awake, it’s possible you could have bled out in your sleep without even realizing it.”

You’re proud of yourself for getting through your thought, even if you were shaking toward the end. It’s close to unbearable to consider the possibility of waking beside him, finding him cold and unmoving beside you. The horror of it pushes at your eyes and a sob rips through your chest. 

For some reason, you apologize. 

He shakes his head, his brow crumpling. “Come here, honey. Come here.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. I -“

He shushes you and moves over, leaving space for you to shuffle onto the bed beside him. “You’re not gonna hurt me. Come here. I’m alright.” You tuck your face into his neck as his other arm wraps around you the best while attached to his IV. “You aren’t getting rid of me that easily.”

You kiss the skin you can reach, placing a hand over his heart. “I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart. So much.” 

One of his hands traces up and down your back, dancing in patterns you don’t have the brain space to follow, while the other covers yours on his chest. Soon enough, you’re asleep again. 

+++

When Dave comes back to check on you both, he finds you curled together - as much as you can be - in the hospital bed. Aaron’s cheek is smooshed against your head, his cannula knocked out of place, your leg hooked over one of his on top of the covers. Your hands are still clasped together over his chest, his IV easily accessible to the nurses that flutter in and out as the day passes. 

The tear tracks are still visible on your face, the exhaustion still pulling at your eyes. 

In all his years of knowing you, Dave had never seen you as distraught as you were when Aaron went down in the conference room. Up to that point, he thought you both somewhat invincible, even at your weakest. 

Though you both had your fair share of hospital stays over the years, none of them ever broke through that ceaseless calm that arced between you and Aaron. When you’re in the room together, there’s a pervasive comfort, almost moving as two halves of the same person at any given time, hardly capable of the wild panic he saw in your eyes this morning. 

Satisfied you’re both alright, he takes his leave. There is a case to solve, of course. 

+++

Jessica brings Jack over the next morning, and he’s quick to gingerly crawl into his father's lap, wrapping his arms around his neck. 

Jack says something you can’t hear, but Aaron’s response carries across the room in his low, murmuring baritone. 

“I’m okay, buddy. We’re alright. I’ll be home soon, and off work for a little while, so we’ll get to spend some time together.”

You meet Aaron’s eyes over Jack’s head before his flicker to Jess’s. He nods once, and holds Jack tight to him. 

When they part, Jack trots back to you and you rake your fingers through his hair, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. 

He looks up at you, and something passes between you. 

I’ll take care of him. He’ll come home safe to you, bud. 

Jack sighs and tucks into you, wrapping his arms around you. “I love you.” 

“I love you too, baby.” 

+++

“I saw Haley.” 

You look up at him, your chin propped on his shoulder. “What?”

“I saw Haley. We -” he laughs a little, with only the barest hint of a wince. “We were dressed like old Hollywood movie stars and we were in this...theatre.” He shakes his head a little and you know he thinks it’s absurd. 

“Don’t do that. Tell me. What did you see?”

He throws you a grateful look and continues. “She found me in the lobby and we went inside. Foyet was there too, but she wasn’t scared. They were almost friendly. It was...strange.” He squints, remembering. You gingerly place your hand on his chest, feeling the heat from his healing wounds. He places his hand over yours again, his thumb tracking back over the back of your knuckles. “There was this massive screen and she had popcorn...and then a bunch of little scenes from our,” his arm flexes around you, “life since she died started rolling. We talked - about Jack, about you, the way you are with him.”

He’s holding something back. “What did she say?”

“She said,” he swallows thickly, “that you’re good with him. She looked really happy watching you two together.”

You smile, but there’s an edge to it, something long-suffering and raw. “I’ll never be her, though.” You know he misses her and you know it’ll never be the same. But even then, you know you aren’t a replacement, either.  

Aaron closes his eyes and presses a desperate kiss to the top of your head. “You’re just what we need, sweetheart. You’re everything.”

You look at him and he looks at you. There’s something at work behind his eyes. You blink once, slowly. “What are you thinking about, over there?”

The thing playing in his eyes sneaks down to his mouth, dancing at the corners. “Marry me.”

A hysterical laugh leaves you, but there’s no anxiety in it, just disbelief. “What?”

“Marry me.”

He’s dead serious. Weirdly, that observation doesn’t send your heart racing like you thought it would. Nevertheless, you find yourself without speech. You open and close your mouth a couple times, struggling. 

Of course you’d talked about this before. You already lived together, already co-parented Jack with teamwork and consistency - almost every step accomplished completely out of the traditional order of things. There were moments where you brought him a beer or cashed in some favor or another in the bedroom and Aaron would say, “I could marry you, just for that,” but there was always a playfulness to it. You always told him you’d meet him in Vegas by way of response, only half-kidding. 

Marriage was always on the table, always the implication, but you always figured you’d get around to it later. It never seemed to be the right time and you’re happy right where you are, so it never mattered much. 

But here you are, suddenly sitting at the proverbial table, staring engagement in the face. 

Aaron Hotchner just asked me to marry him. 

Well, actually he told you to marry him.

True. I mean it’s not like he has to ask. He already knows the answer. 

So answer him, stupid!

He waits for you with an endless patience. There’s not a hint of concern or anxiety in his gaze - just a soft adoration you’ve seen thousands of times before. He knows what your answer will be. He always has. 

“Okay.”

Aaron snorts. “Okay?”

Your face breaks out into a grin. “Okay, Hotchner. I’ll marry you.” You shrug while he gingerly lets out another laugh. “I’m more than happy to be more than your quasi-spouse and Jack’s quasi-parent.” It’s obviously a joke and he mirrors your grin. “So...okay. Final answer.”

He shakes his head and presses a kiss to your forehead. “Do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Go into the back pocket of my go-bag and bring me what you find in there.”

You frown at him, but follow instructions, clambering off the bed. 

There’s a little, flatish box with the smallest of code-locks securing the lid in the pocket. It’s made of something reinforced, and it’s heavier than you anticipated. 

Returning to the bed, you sit on the edge, handing him the box. He adjusted while you were shuffling about, now sitting up almost all the way in the cocoon of pillows you built for him. 

With a sly smile, he rolls the code into the lock, and the box springs open. He turns it around toward you, and you’re confronted by a simple, gorgeous ring. 

You blink rapidly, your eyes shifting from the ring to Aaron, and back to the ring. 

“I bought this after I installed Derek as unit chief, four years ago. You rightfully tore into me after I pulled that stunt with that unsub, and I…” he trails off, thinking. 

You can tell he’s choosing his words carefully, picking around years and years of feelings. 

“I don’t know. I knew something I didn’t know, if that makes any sense at all. I knew it was yours, too, when I got it, but I didn’t acknowledge it even after I tucked it in my old go-bag for safe keeping and kept it there, ever since. The only time I didn’t have it with me was in Pakistan. I left it in a locked box in the office at home.” 

He laughs at himself, looking down at the cable-knit blanket over his legs. 

“I’m an idiot, and of course you set me to rights after Pakistan, and Haley told me I was still an idiot not fifteen hours ago. She said you’re the best thing that’s happened to our family, she misses you, and I’ll only be four years late if I ask you to marry me now.” He looks back at you with a little smile. “I love you. It’s not enough, but I love you.”

There’s nothing to say, so you just let him take the ring from the box and slip it in your finger. The silver shines against your skin, the tiny diamonds casting rainbows against the wall in the morning sunlight. 

It’s gorgeous. 

When it’s in place, you scoot closer to him. He takes your face in his hands and kisses you, smiling against your mouth. 

“Your flair for the dramatic never ceases to amaze me,” you say against his lips. You lean back, carding your fingers through the hair at his temples. “You couldn’t have proposed to me in the absence of a near death experience, could you?”

He shakes his head. “Where’s the fun in that?”

+++

Wearing your ring around the house feels right. Jack was, of course, in on the whole operation and was absolutely stoked when he saw the ring on your finger as you helped his father through the door. 

You take a few days off together before the next case. Much to your surprise, Aaron lets you help him as he recovers, taking it easy until all of his wounds close back up and his whole regimen of pain meds are almost completed. 

He’s home for a few more days while you return to the field. The team asks after him when you return, and you keep them abreast of his recovery without mentioning your change in status. 

“They’re gonna figure it out eventually,” Aaron said, putting his toothbrush back into his toiletry bag. 

You roll your eyes, throwing your pajama shirt over your head. It’ll likely be removed once you actually get into bed, but it’s the thought that counts. “Yeah, but I’d rather handle that when we’re not actively solving a murder without you, don’t you think?”

His brow quirks and his head tips the slightest bit - a concession. “Fair point.”

When you lean over to grab your jeans off the floor, the ring and chain slip out of your collar and hang down, swinging a little. It falls back against the center of your chest as you straighten, bouncing against your shirt with the lightest of clinking sounds. You find Aaron’s eyes on it when you look over at him and offer him a small smile. “Hey.”

He startles and his eyes jump to yours. 

“I love you.” 

A wide smile and an eye roll return your sentiment.

Wearing your ring on a chain seems like the best way to keep it safe in the field. Aaron doesn’t mind, and you like to have it close to your heart anyways. The indent it leaves in your skin when you remove your vest brings a smile to your face. 

“What’s with you?” JJ asks. “You’re all smiley.” 

You shrug. “I just feel good. It’s nice to have Aaron home and safe, you know?”

She nods, squeezing your shoulder. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” 

+++

When you get to the door with Aaron and Jack in tow, Penelope opens the door with a wide grin. “I didn’t think you were going to make it!” 

She wraps Aaron in a tight, but careful hug, presses a kiss to your cheek, and ruffles Jack’s hair. Her all-intents-and-purposes nephew jets past her, finding Henry and Spencer in the dining room playing cards together. 

“We were feeling up to it, and Jack’s friend offered to pick him up here for a last-minute sleepover, so we figured we’d come crash the party,” you tell her. 

She snags Aaron’s sleeve as she steps back into the house. “Oh, happy almost-birthday, sir.” You glance at Aaron with a suppressed smile, and he presses a finger to his lips. “I’ll keep it on the DL, don’t worry.” With another wide smile at the both of you, she ushers you into the house. “Alright everyone .” 

Emily rounds the corner to get Spencer, leaving the boys to play. You have your photo ready, as does Aaron (but he cheats - he always has his photo with him), when you all step up to the beautiful altar Penelope has set up in the middle of the living room. 

Penelope grabs a glass of wine with a fake eyeball in it for Aaron, and one with a fake ear floating in it for you. 

“Uh... I want to thank everybody for doing this with me,” Penelope smiles at you all, “and our altar's burning, and I just feel so blessed to have you all here. I will start. Uh…” She pulls a photo out of her dress. “This is my mom and dad. I miss them.” 

She places another photo, this time of a cat. “And this is my cat Simba with his usual bowl of soda pop. He's a weird cat.” Everyone laughs, and she passes it to JJ.

“Uh, ok. Well, uh, this is my sister Roslyn.” She sets a photo of her sister on the altar. The resemblance between them is uncanny. “Ros. She always dreamt that someday she'd live in Paris, so, um...it didn't happen, but I thought this would bring her some happiness.” Careful fingers drop an Eiffel Tower trinket beside the photo and it draws a little smile to your face. 

Dave steps up, pinning a photo of two smiling young men in Vietnam and two tickets on one of Penelope’s tiny easels. You recognize one of the men as a very young Dave. 

A much older Dave tells you the other man is, “Private First Class Darryl Jenson. We lost him during the Tet offensive.” 

Derek looks around, trying to get a better view. “What are the tickets?” 

“Opening day next season, Wrigley, right behind the home dugout. Jenson was a die hard Cubs fan.” 

“Sweet.” Derek claps Dave on the shoulder and you all direct your attention to Alex. 

“Um... My mom.” Alex places a photo of a smiling older woman next to Roslyn, propped up with a fountain pen. “She was the one who got me into crossword puzzles-- no erasing allowed-- which got me into linguistics.” She looks over at Spencer, who pulls two photos out of his pocket. 

“You said we could bring more than one, right?” 

Garcia nods vigorously. “Oh, yes. This is a come one, come all altar.” 

Aaron pulls you close, and you loop your pinkie through the belt loop at his hip. 

Spencer places a picture of Maeve near a red rose, and your heart breaks for him. He doesn’t say anything until he’s got the second of his photos ready in his hands. “Nikola Tesla. I figured he's probably been inventing things on the other side, so hopefully he'll bring something to us.” You smile as Spencer meets your eyes. 

I love you. 

He smiles a little back. Love you. 

Derek’s next. “I guess that's me. Ok. I brought... My pops.” He props a photo of his dad against a candle, keeping him secured with a cigar. “He was a cigar aficionado, big time.” He laughs a little, as do the rest of you. “And, actually, Rossi, he was also a huge Cubbies fan, so I was thinking maybe he and Private Jenson over there, maybe they could go to the game together.” 

Rossi smiles, and tips his glass to Mr. Morgan. “They can sort that out when they get here.” 

They look at you, and you slip the photo out of your back pocket with your right hand, keeping the other tucked against Aaron. “This is Jenny. Some of you know her as the late Director of NCIS, but she was a mentor of mine for the entire time I knew her. She was killed in the line of duty back in ‘08, protecting a friend.” You laugh a little. “Once, over lunch, she told me to chase what I wanted, to push hard, and advocate for myself.” You throw a glance at Hotch and he catches it with warm eyes. “The next day, I asked the SSA in charge of my NAT class to consider me for a unit placement to complete my case hours.” 

A little smile pulls at your lips. “I wouldn’t be at the BAU, I wouldn't have my life,” My Aaron, you add to yourself, “if it wasn’t for her.” You place her photo next to a candle on the other side of Roslyn. Jenny’s red hair and bright smile match the flame. 

Wordlessly, Aaron pulls the photo of Haley out of his wallet and places her beside Jenny while the team looks on with quiet eyes. He carefully places an opalescent barrette beside her. You recognize it from her box of jewelry - the same one that holds her engagement and wedding rings - that lives in his bedside drawer. 

He tucks you under his arm and kisses your temple. You rest your head against him, wrapping an arm around his waist under his sport coat, winding your fingers in his shirt. You’re wearing your ring, but nobody’s noticed it yet. 

Dave takes the proverbial stage again as he raises his glass. “Well, I guess this is proof positive that ancestry ain't all bad.” 

Garcia follows suit, raising her glass as you all share fond looks. “How about a toast to the... 30 or 40 of us?”

You all cheers, and drink to those in the room and out of it. Haley and Jenny smile back at you. You look at them both, for a moment, before meeting Aaron’s pensive gaze. The same thought floats through your head. 

These are the women that lead you to each other. These women built your future, your present. One to guide you to Aaron and the other to guide Aaron to you. 

It’s only when you absent-mindedly reach over JJ for a snack, after Aaron abandons you for Dave, that the levee breaks. 

“Oh my god.” 

Finally caught out. 

Instead of looking at you, her head whips up toward Aaron, who’s watching her with a smug smile on his face. Her mouth drops open and she grabs your hand, looking at the ring in the low light. It’s all happened within a split second, but Penelope is the next to catch on. 

“‘Oh my God’ what? What’s going on? What did I miss?” She turns, trotting over in her heels to see what JJ’s going on about. 

Her squeal almost deafens you, and you crane your neck to look over at Aaron, who’s taken refuge by the fireplace. 

With a squint, Asshole. 

What? His brows say. I’m just standing here. I didn’t do anything. He takes a sip of his wine and you roll your eyes. 

Help me!

You can see him snort. Not a chance. 

“I can’t believe you got engaged and nobody told me!” Penelope’s indignant shout carries across the room, and Derek’s the next to whip his head toward you. 

“What?” 

She turns toward him, her hands on her hips. “Hotch proposed and nobody said anything.” 

You bite back a smile as the rest of the team advances on you. Your hand seems to fall into everyone’s palm once or twice as they look at the ring. They all coo over it in one way or another before the information actually sinks in. 

“Wait, hold on.” As usual, JJ is the first to bring everyone back down to the ground. “When did this happen?” 

Two hands land on your waist, and you tilt your head, giving Aaron space as he slides his arms around you. “There’s nothing like a near-death experience to straighten your priorities, don’t you think?” 

Alex laughs. “Don’t tell me you proposed in the hospital.” 

You give her a yikes expression, and she huffs.

“C’mon Hotch. Really?”

He chuffs good-naturedly. “Like I said, I experienced a certain...clarity regarding the direction of our lives.” He squeezes you, and you laugh. “Don’t just jump on me for this, though. This one,” you know he’s gesturing to you with his chin, “just said ‘okay’ when I asked.” 

You twist around to glare at him. Traitor bastard. 

He looks way too smug. 

“No you didn’t,” JJ insists. “No you didn’t!” 

“Oh come on, Jayje. You left Will hanging for three years. You don’t have a single leg to stand on.” 

She rolls her eyes, but you know you’ve got her when Will steps up beside her and kisses her cheek. “Got you there, darlin’”

Rossi, of course, takes your face in his hands and plants two kisses on your cheeks and then does the same to Aaron while Derek pulls you to his chest. 

“I’m so happy for you,” he says. He looks over your shoulder at Aaron, still holding onto you. “Hotch, if you fuck this up, I’ll make your death look like an accident and cry at your funeral.” 

Aaron laughs, and you duck out from under Derek’s arm while they embrace with some manly back smacks. 

Alex gives you a hug, followed by Spencer, who offers you a quiet congratulations. Jack and Henry wander out after a few minutes, drawn by the commotion. Henry goes straight to his mom, while Jack runs to you. 

“Did you tell them?” He asks. 

You nod, running your fingers through his hair. Both Hotchner boys have the best hair - thick and soft - and it's nearly impossible to keep your hands out of it whenever one of them makes themselves available for head scratches. It also helps that they’ll do anything for head scratches. 

Win-win, by your standards. 

Dave taps a fork against his glass, getting the attention of everyone in the room. “We have much to celebrate tonight. Not only do we celebrate the lives of people no longer with us, we celebrate the love between two people who are.” He raises his glass. “To our past, to our present, to our future.” 

The rest of you toast, clinking your glasses together. A sense of something you can only describe as normal winds around you all as you drink and chat and laugh in Penelope’s living room. 

Aaron steps up beside you and kisses your temple. “Having a good time?”

“Mhmm.” You lean into him as he wraps his arms around you, pressing his chest to your back. “Really good time.” 

There’s music playing - one of Dave’s playlists - and you sway back and forth, only loosely connected to the beat. You tip your head back, letting your weight rest in his arms for just a moment before remembering he’s still healing, pulling away from him all at on

You can feel him pull you back toward him. “I’m fine, honey. Relax.” After a moment, you do, melting back into him. You almost feel silly for pulling away from him. If you’ve learned anything in the years you’ve known Aaron, he’s anything but fragile. 

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[cosmicjoke]

Alright, so onto chapter 2 of “No Regrets”.  

I want to talk a little about these opening panels, when Levi, Furlan and Isabel are being driven to HQ by carriage.  They seem unimportant, but I think they’re actually really important in understanding Levi’s psychology going into this new situation they’re all in.

We see the interior of the carriage, with Levi and the other two, along with an escort from the SC.  Furlan and Isabel are both looking out the window of the carriage, and in particular, Isabel seems incredibly excited and in awe of the passing view.  She’s stood up, with her face pressed to the window.  And in the next panel, we see her looking at a little girl with her mother, dressed nicely and holding a doll.  This really encapsulates everything Isabel herself has probably never had.  A reliable mother to take care of her, fancy clothes and toys to play with.  Essentially, an actual childhood.  We see Isabel’s face in the window, and her mouth is open in wonder, her eyes wide.  Like she can’t believe what she’s seeing.  It emphasizes the depravation and lack of privilege she’s endured all her life.  Meanwhile, by contrast, Levi sits there with his head bowed down, ignoring the passing scenery, looking deeply unhappy, even depressed.  When he does look up though, he sees Isabel looking out the window, and on the close up shot of him, he’s got an almost thoughtful expression, if still extremely dour.  No doubt, Levi is feeling uneasy and uncertain about the situation they’ve all gotten themselves into here, but I’m also sure that he’s unable to ignore the bubbling over excitement of Isabel, her obvious joy in being, at last, on the surface.  I’ll get more into this later in the post, when we see Levi really considering his friends and their dreams, and how it influences and dictates his own decisions.

But first lets talk a little about Erwin and his role in all of this.

Now at the time this series came out, Erwin’s actual, motivating reasons for doing what he does weren’t yet known, so it’s interesting to read into his actions in this story with that context.  I have no doubt that Erwin really DOES care about humanity, and wants to fight for it, and its salvation.  But as we come to learn from the main series, he places his own dream of proving his father right about the existence of human’s beyond the walls above what’s best for humanity, and it puts his actions in this story into an interesting, if harsher light.

No doubt, Erwin is a master manipulator.  He plays both sides expertly against the middle in this story, and I’ll get more into it by the end, when his actual plan is revealed to Levi.  But what I don’t see often discussed is how, exactly, Erwin got all the parts moving in the direction he wanted, to obtain a specific outcome, and how he pretty ruthlessly uses so many people as pawns to do so.  It’s obvious from the context of what we later learn in the story that Erwin first spread a rumor about having evidence against Lovof stealing funds in order to force him into tipping his hand by trying to make a preemptive move.  What I see people miss all the time, or at least, fail to discuss, is how Erwin also, at the same time, made it public knowledge within the Capital, that he would be going after a group of thugs in the Underground who had shown exceptional skill using ODM gear, and that he would be making contact with them as soon as possible to try and enlist them into military service, and how Erwin made these plans public specifically to encourage Lobov into seeking out Levi and his friends for the exact purpose of both implicating Lobov in a crime, and gaining Levi’s and his friends strength for the SC.  One, by hiring a group of criminals to steal from Erwin and attempt to assassinate him, so he could use that as leverage in case he wasn’t able to obtain proof of Lobov’s further criminal activities, thus having two means of getting rid of one of the SC’s biggest threats, and at the same time, also manage to score for the SC the exceptional skill of Levi and his friends through forced enlistment.  He even says to Zackely at one point “I intend to make use of anyone who has even the smallest potential during this expedition.”.  Erwin manipulated and had control of this entire scenario from the start, and from behind these scenes moved all of these people exactly how he wanted to, to achieve his goals.  That’s pretty impressive, but also pretty scary.  Well, I’ll talk more about all of that when we get to it later on.

Back to Levi and his friends though.

We see them arrive at the SC HQ, and a really important conversation happens between Levi and Furlan.  

Furlan seems like he’s almost bitten off more than he can chew here, beginning to express his concern to Levi about what joining the SC actually means, before Levi cuts him off, telling him he’s got no intention of enlisting, and that he only agreed to come along so that he could get closer to Erwin and then kill him.  I think Levi genuinely felt murderous towards Erwin at this point, and really means what he says here, at least about killing him.  Though given the end of chapter 1, with the significant look shared between Levi and Furlan, and Levi’s begrudging acceptance of Erwin’s offer, it’s obvious that Levi also agreed to come because that’s what Furlan wanted him to do, to give them the opportunity they needed.  Levi’s just feeling incredibly emotional here, I think, with the way Erwin treated all of them hot on his mind.  Furlan tries to implore Levi to forget about killing Erwin, that it isn’t necessary anymore because of his own plan, and the almost certainty that Lobov and his people won’t ever try to make contact with them again.  He tells Levi, if he just listens to him and follows his plan, “I know it’ll work.  Trust me, Levi.”  Furlan asking him to trust him pulls a meaningful look from Levi, seeming to break through Levi’s angry insistence on killing Erwin.  This is where the manga improved on Levi’s characterization and motivation by leaps and bounds over the visual novel, because in the next few panels, we see Levi walking away, with Furlan calling after him, concerned, but we get to see Levi’s inner thoughts, and he’s remembering specifically Furlan insisting to him that “one day, we’ll get outta this trash heap and live up above.”  We see Levi thinking about Furlan’s hopes and dreams in these panels, and he has a saddened, and guilt-ridden look on his face, like he feels bad about having dismissed Furlan’s plans back there in favor of his own plans for revenge.  We didn’t get any of this in the visual novel, instead the text there making Levi look like he refused to consider anyones position but his own in this whole situation.  But here, Levi is clearly concerned with and considering Furlan’s desires.  

We go into a flashback then, with Furlan explaining to Levi his plans, telling him that “nothing’s gone according to plan... But with you here we’ll really be able to raise hell.”  Furlan’s trying to explain to Levi that since he now has Levi’s strength to rely on, they can actually get something done once they get into the Survey Corps.  It almost seems like Furlan’s been planning on trying something like this, or at least, had some sort of loose plan about getting to the surface, even before he met Levi.  It’s obviously something he’s been dreaming about for a long time.

Then Isabel comes back, and she’s been roughed up and assaulted, and we learn from Furlan asking her if she went to see those “low-life scumbags again?” that this has obviously happened to her before, that she’s been associating with some bad people and it’s gotten her hurt.  She denies it and lies about having just tripped, but clearly neither Levi or Furlan are buying that.  Levi asks Isabel what happened to her hair, and Isabel reacts badly, running away and hiding in her room.  We get a close up of Levi holding a knife in his hands, foreshadowing his own intentions.  Later that night, Furlan hears Isabel crying in her room, and her chanting to herself over and over that she’s going to “kill you”, presumably meaning the men that hurt her earlier.  Furlan stands there lamenting that he thinks both Levi and Isabel are going “mad”, and that all they can think about is dragging everyone else down to where they are.  He’s obviously terrified that he’s going to lose both his friends to the savagery and ruthlessness of the Underground, that both of them are going to end up becoming lost to their own anger and pain.  He starts to say “That’s why I...” before Levi suddenly comes back in, holding a bloody knife, clearly having returned from exacting revenge on the men who hurt Isabel.  Furlan asks Levi “Did you kill them...?”, and Levi doesn’t answer, but we see a completely resigned, even sad look on his face.  This of course is the world Levi comes from.  It’s the world he was raised in.  A world of kill or be killed.  Levi must have figured, if he didn’t go out and kill those men that had hurt Isabel now, then someday, they would end up going too far with her, and kill her instead.  But Furlan clearly doesn’t understand, and doesn’t relate to that kind of mindset, despite coming from the Underground too.  Of course, Furlan wasn’t raised by Kenny the Ripper either.  This is how Levi was taught to deal with his problems, and Furlan can only see him spiraling into an abyss from which he fears Levi won’t return.

We cut back to the present then, and Levi is sitting up on the roof of the SC HQ, again remembering Furlan’s words about “This is our chance.  Trust me.”.  Getting to the surface and finding better lives for themselves is Furlan’s dream.  The fact that Levi keeps remembering it, keeps remembering Furlan insisting and pushing the idea of the possibility of living on the surface, shows that this is probably something he would talk about all the time with Levi, trying to get him to agree to it, to believe in it.  Once again, Levi is contemplating the hopes and dreams of his friends.  We get another close up of him holding a knife, and it represents, I think, his struggle between his desire for revenge against Erwin, and his desire to help Furlan realize what, to Levi, is probably an unrealistic goal.

We then get Furlan and Isabel joining Levi, commenting on how beautiful the night sky is, and asking Levi how he could keep it to himself.  Levi snips testily at Furlan that him and Isabel are so loud, that he’d be too irritated to get any killing done, and then Furlan looking clearly unsettled by the remark.  But it’s obvious, given the context of the previous panels of Levi’s thinking about Furlan’s dream, that Levi is just being peevish and saying things out of frustration and confusion.  He doesn’t really mean what he says here.  He’s taking his frustration out on Furlan by saying what he knows will upset him the most.  What this also tells us is that Levi is very much aware of how bothered Furlan is by Levi’s willingness to kill.  He isn’t at all oblivious to it, and given his resigned, saddened expression after coming back from killing the men who assaulted Isabel, I would say Levi even understands Furlan’s dismay.  That’s a glimpse at Levi’s famous compassion.

The next panels show the three of them bonding, sitting together and admiring the night sky.  Isabel asks Levi if the stars are as pretty as where he used to live.  I’m just going to chalk the mistake in continuity here up to this manga coming out before, I believe, Levi’s backstory of being born in a brothel in the Underground was established by Isayama.  Regardless of this mistake, this is an important moment between the three of them.  You can see the awe and wonder they all feel, looking up and seeing the sky fully for what has to be the first time in all their lives.  Remember, all three of them have lived literally underground their entire lives, with little to no sunlight, stagnant, stale air, hideously unclean living conditions, etc...  It must be overwhelming to them , just to see nature in all its splendor like that.  It’s after sharing this moment together that Levi tells Furlan that he’s decided he won’t kill Erwin for now.  He looks at him and says “I’m going to trust you.”.  And Furlan smiles at him, clearly happy and relieved.  This scene is really important, because we’re seeing Levi choose Furlan’s dream over his own desire for revenge.  We see Levi place Furlan’s desires over his own, which is totally in line with how Levi is in the main AoT storyline.  He decides his revenge can wait, that it’s not as important as helping Furlan achieve his goals.  What’s particularly remarkable about this, I think, is that it doesn’t appear that Levi ever dreamed of going to the surface himself, and likely that he never even considered it a possibility.  So just like Levi fights, later on, for a world without fear and violence, for humanity’s salvation, even as all his life experiences tell him it likely isn’t possible, we see the Levi doing the same here, deciding to fight for his friend’s dream, even as to him, it seems unrealistic.  It’s obviously a pivotal moment too, when Levi tells him he’s going to trust him, because this ties in hugely with the theme which applies so much to Levi throughout the whole series, of never knowing if it’s better to rely on himself solely, to trust himself, or to trust and rely on his friends and their capabilities.  Levi chooses, here, to trust in his friends, and that will obviously have it’s own ramifications down the line.  Again, this is an area in which the manga improves radically over the visual novel, which had no instances whatsoever of Levi struggling with the question of the choices we make, which is absurd, since it’s one of the driving factors behind who Levi is, and how he ultimately came to see the world as he does.  It was precisely this struggle between choices, between trying to choose correctly, giving so much thought and effort to our choices, and still sometimes coming out wrong, that shaped Levi into being able to accept his lack of control and instead of regretting it, using it to keep fighting.  

Anyway, I’ll get to chapter 3 tomorrow.  

[quickspinner]

Sneak Peek - The Magic of You

This is pretty rough because I’m still in the middle of writing it and I’m only posting it so I can say @bloody-no-kissu​ here’s a preview of your Secret Santa fic! Sorry it’s taking so long but the story got away from me, so this is really only a snippet. 

Bloody asked for fantasy AUs but we all know how much she likes Nagas so I decided to go that route, just...a little differently. Love to @verfound and @motherofwoofers; there’s echoes of Winters and Heart Scales here but it was less that I was inspired by you guys (though you are always inspiring) and more that I had this idea and then was like ‘how do I do this without completely ripping off Ver and MW’) 😆 So there’s probably some similarities but hopefully I’m not stepping on your toes too much. 💜

Anyway, I present this chunk from the middle of the beginning without context, and  you’ll have to wait to see the rest. MWAHAHAHAHA.

He seemed restless today. He didn’t sit on her rock and play. He picked up the little cake she had left for him, but merely set it down again, dropped his pack and his instrument in a pile next to the rock, and walked restlessly around the meadow.

Marinette drew back in alarm when he passed close to the trees concealing her, but he passed her without even looking in her direction, clearly agitated. Frowning, Marinette followed him at a safe distance, keeping hidden in the trees. The minstrel-mage passed the ring of trees that marked the edge of her meadow and over to the cliff beyond, where he stood, looking pensively out over the forest below. 

He shouldn’t walk so close to the cliff, Marinette fretted as she watched from the edge of the trees. It was hard to tell from this side but that overhang wasn’t as sturdy as it looked, and it had rained only a few days ago— 

Even as she thought it, she felt the vibration in the earth, and heard the grinding of earth and loose rocks.

She didn’t even think. She just moved.

***

It all happened so fast that it was over before Luka understood what was happening. There was a rumble and a rush and he was falling, and then excruciating pain in his arm that tore a scream of agony from his throat. 

There was a rush of earth past him, below him, and his legs were dangling in midair; he was dangling, hanging only by the arm that hurt so very, very much. Luka looked up—and for a moment he forgot everything else in his shock. Everything else that happened was a blur, but he would remember the face above him for the rest of his life, he was sure. A woman’s face, pale with fear, fangs peeking from parted lips and blue, slit-pupiled eyes wide with fright. Midnight blue hair tumbled forward over strong shoulders, and one clawed hand gripped the edge of the cliff. 

The other, he realized, was the source of the pain in his arm. Understanding came to him; the cliff had given way beneath him and this woman—creature—being had stopped him from falling, but her long claws had plunged into his wrist. Blood streamed down his arm and dripped on the rocks below. Luka gasped as he looked down. His good hand scrabbled at the cliffside, but he had no claws to grip with, and his fingers crumbled the earth and slid off the rock where he grabbed at it. He kicked his feet, but that made his savior yelp, increased the pain in his arm, and he didn’t find any purchase, so he stilled, gasping and dizzy from the pain.  

Luka cried out in pain and surprise when the grip on his wrist tightened, but he bit down on it as he looked back up. The woman—creature—being above him shifted her body a little more, bracing her free arm on an intact part of the cliff, and then heaved, pulling back from the cliff edge and dragging Luka along with her.

It hurt—oh, it hurt, so much that his vision went black for a moment—but Luka was enough in possession of his senses now to realize that he was dangling over a drop that would surely kill him, so he muffled his cries as best he could, and tried not to thrash too much. 

It felt like an eternity before she pulled him up high enough that he could see over the cliff and grab (uselessly) at the grassy top. He almost slipped off again in surprise when he got a full look at his savior. It had been obvious even in his confused state that she was not human, but he was unprepared to find that somewhere around her waist, her human torso tapered into the body of a gigantic serpent. Naga, some part of his brain supplied. No, female, so...nagi. 

She pulled him up a little farther, and when his shoulders had cleared the top of the cliff, she curled a loop of her tail—body? Around in front of him. “Hold on to me,” she told him, indicating that he should wrap his arms around her serpent body. He did so, clumsily and not very effectively with his wounded arm, but it was enough to keep him secure while she leaned down over the cliff edge again and grabbed his belt on either side of his waist with both hands, using it to haul him the rest of the way over the cliff.

That was not particularly comfortable either, but preferable to more claws in his flesh, and regardless, he was back on solid ground. He crawled on his elbows a little father from the cliff edge and collapsed, panting. After a moment he rolled on his side to look at the nagi. 

She was panting too, and her slit pupils had blown wide in her frightened face. Her expression was stricken as she stared at his blood on her hand, painting the long claws that had pierced his flesh. 

Luka rolled over and got to his knees. It made him dizzy—he’d probably lost a lot of blood. He put his undamaged hand quickly over the wound and began to sing, his voice quick and tight with pain but true. The undamaged hand glowed, and so did the wound. His savior shifted beside him, but Luka had no attention to spare for anything but the healing; it was not a magic that came easily to him, and it was difficult enough to concentrate past the pain and the fear of losing the use of his hand. 

It took longer than it would have taken his sister, but he was able to complete the healing, and when he flexed his hand he found that he had full motion and sensation. He still felt weak and shaky with blood loss and reaction, but all of that would pass. Luka breathed a sigh of relief and turned a smile up at the being who had saved his life. 

“Thank you,” he said warmly. 

She made a distressed sound, still holding her bloodstained hand out as if it didn’t belong to her.  

Luka wrapped his now-healed but still bloody fingers gently around hers. “A broken neck would have been much harder to fix,” he told her gently. “And so I thank you. I had rather lose the use of my hand than my life.” He smiled, tilting his head a little to look up into her face. “And as I have lost neither, there is no need for guilt or grief.” He unhooked his waterskin from his belt, and pulled out the stopper with his teeth. He took her hand again and poured the water over it, rinsing away his blood from both their hands. He would have rinsed her scales too where he had clung to her, but he feared that might be offensive, so he offered her the skin and let her do it herself. 

Some of the tension left her, and she sat back a little, sinking slightly onto her...tail-body. Luka tried not to let his glance become a stare. “Forgive me,” he said, tearing his eyes away and forcing them back up to hers, snake-slitted but so very, very blue. “I’ve never met a nagi before, and I don’t know your customs, so I hope it isn’t very rude to ask your name?” 

She smiled a little, the hint of fangs peeping from between her lips before she caught herself  and tightened the smile to hide them. “It is customary to give yours first, since this is my home,” she said, and Luka was vaguely surprised to hear only a hint of hissing on the sibilants. Prejudice, he scolded himself. 

“I do it gladly. My name is Luka.” He put a hand over his heart and bowed slightly. 

Her hand fluttered uncertainly to her chest, and she did the same, dipping slightly awkwardly as she swayed forward on her serpent half rather than bending at the waist as he had. “I am Marinette,” she told him, and then she blushed—a very human reaction that gave Luka an odd little thrill. “I have been listening to your music.” 

“Ah,” Luka nodded in understanding. “It is your song I have been hearing, coming to visit me,” he grinned, and Marinette’s blush deepened. Her tail shifted to coil beneath her, and he glanced down without meaning to, but caught himself quickly. Even so, something about motion spoke of discomfort, and he thought back to the fluctuations in her song when he’d spoken to her in the past. Without the trance he heard only faint echoes of her melody, but he thought he was embarrassing her. “I’m very happy to finally meet you. Thank you for the gifts.” 

Marinette looked away, the fingers of her clawed hands playing nervously across the scales of her tail like a maiden might twist her hands in her lap. “I only wanted to thank you, for your music. It’s...beautiful. I’ve loved hearing you play.”

“I’ve enjoyed having the company,” he told her honestly, and smiled at her look of surprise. “I always play better with an audience, even a shy one.” 

Marinette blushed and covered her face with her hands. Luka found himself reaching to touch her before he thought the better of it. Her arm felt very solid under his hand, but also very human. “Don’t be embarrassed. I truly did enjoy your presence, and I’m not offended that you chose to stay secret. The world is not a safe place, and you didn’t know me.”

“I did know you,” she said quickly, peeking out from her fingers—a sweet, childlike gesture, he would have thought it, though those deadly sharp claws were at odds with the image. “At least, I felt like I did, eventually. I haven’t been afraid of you for a long time.” 

“I shouldn’t think you’d be frightened of much,” Luka teased, tugging a hand away from her face and turning it so her claws shone in the light. “You’re very strong, for which I’m extremely grateful.” He winked at her, and she giggled. 

“You shouldn’t have gone so close to the cliff, especially if it’s rained recently,” she admonished, rising up slightly as her tail uncoiled from beneath her. Before he could blink it shot out like a whip, striking the edge of the cliff. A chunk of earth crumbled beneath the blow and he could hear the rocks rattle down the other side. “It’s not safe. It erodes underneath when the storms come, and then the edge is unstable.” She pointed at the pale purple flowers growing in the grass. “You shouldn’t go beyond where the asters grow.” 

Luka saw now, what he hadn’t before, that they formed a boundary that followed the curve of the cliff, but left a good size border. “I consider myself warned for the future,” Luka observed, shivering a little. Marinette moved closer to him, a hand hovering near his cheek.

“You’re so pale,” she fretted.

Luka sighed, and tried to stand. He swayed and Marinette had to catch him—gently, this time, keeping her claws from his skin. He smiled gratefully at her. “I need my gittern,” he told her, and she slipped under his arm, pressing against his side. She raised her body up to a height comfortable for him, and then helped him back towards the meadow.

They found his gittern and pack where he’d left it. Marinette helped him sit on the rock and recline against it as he usually did. She wound around the rock, and hovered over him, pressing his instrument into his hands, her expression still worried. 

“I need to deep trance,” he told her, closing his eyes as he set shaking fingers to the strings. “I can sense you in trance as I did before, but I won’t have attention to speak.” 

Marinette nodded slowly. “Do as you must,” she said, sinking back a little and folding her hands across the bend in her tail that would have been a human lap. “I want you to be well. I want to be sure I haven’t harmed you badly.” 

Luka chuckled. “Lady, you saved my life.” He opened his eyes and turned his head to look into hers. “And whatever harm I have taken from it, I consider it a price well paid to have met you at last.”

[mewtwo24]

Lucifer I want to hold ur hand

So like...I wrote this eons ago before all the Belphie chapters happened, but I’m still really proud of it? It’s like shortly after Lucifer goes coco-nuts at the end of chapter...12? I think? I came into the game a little late, and then the story took off and this became more of an au given the context

Under a cut bc it is a l o n g boi, as per usual, a little shorter than 2000 words. This is purely fluff hurt/comfort, nothing too heavy or that requires warnings. The MC in this is named Joanna.

Enjoy!

“I don’t know if I’ll ever begin to understand...”

Lucifer’s voice was so quiet, she could only barely make out what he was saying. Her mind was still foggy, still struggling to think beyond the dull ache.

“I never know whether to be impressed by your audacity, or find it foolish. Are all humans like you?” There was a slight huff, something akin to a chuckle--though the prospect made her more sure she was dreaming. His voice was never that tender, and most certainly never so self-effacing. “Perhaps that was a foolish question.” 

He didn’t specify whether that was because it was a good kind of obvious, or a bad kind. And she was too afraid to ask him to clarify--too certain his voice would disappear forever. The last time they had spoken he was beyond furious with her; it was the reason she was on what seemed to be some kind of medical bed. It couldn’t have been her room. Her room didn’t smell like bleach and sterilized dust.

“I know you’re awake, Joanna.” 

Her eyes shot open to find him smiling deviously to her left, hand intercepting the forearm that had instinctively leapt to her defense. She was surprised to find that his grip was gentle; only enough to stop her from hurting either of them.

“That’s one way to say good evening,” he released her arm after checking to make sure her IV was undisturbed. “But I truly wouldn’t have you any other way. Your courage has always been captivating.” 

She assessed him carefully--she wasn’t so delirious that she didn’t realize precisely who it was that landed her in what looked to be a human hospital. The throbbing in her head was no accident, and neither was the ache in her shoulders.

“I suppose I deserve that look.” His brows furrowed, “And I owe Belphegor much for deflecting the majority of my attack. Please, rest assured that I have no intention of directing violence towards you ever again. You have my word.” She could detect no slumbering threat in his gaze, no riddle in the firm line of his mouth. He was serious as serious could be--the most sober demon she had ever met. Her eyes widened when he bowed in that reverent way he always did in the company of the higher ranking demons, onyx hair cascading over his eyes. 

“I imagine Diavolo has already expressed his disappointment.” She laughed when his lips pursed and his shoulders stiffened, a clear sign she was probably right. “I don’t see any need to make you feel worse. Though, I would like it if there could be fewer threats in our exchanges.”

When he straightened he remained ramrod tense, as if he wasn’t sure what to say next. He didn't like being indebted to people, and he liked failing even less. 

And yet, despite everything, she didn’t want him to go. He was the first person to try to ease her worries in this realm--had given her enough information to protect herself, regardless of the situation's tenuous balance. As much as their final confrontation was about his struggle to let go of his haughtiness, it was also about the feelings they had been harboring for each other. She liked him--loved him, even--well aware of all the reasons she shouldn’t.

For all his attempts at guarded distance, he had offered her a great deal of freedom and care in this foreign realm. She knew he was trying, he had simply been a otherworldly being for a very long time; she imagined she had caused quite the uproar in defying him. But somebody had to. If there was one thing she’d learned in life, nothing good came of being entirely untouchable.

“Pull up a chair--that is, if I’m not keeping you from anything.”

Surprise flitted across his face, and it was a wonderful thing to see his honest reaction for a change. Was it because he felt safe with her, or because they were alone? She half-expected him to retreat in favor of making sure Diavolo’s requests weren’t neglected in the time he spent looking after her. For all his insistence of her lowly status, she was sure he felt a great deal of guilt and responsibility for the harm he’d inflicted. 

Despite his considerable strength, he fumbled getting the chair to cross the distance to the bed. She withheld laughter behind a sympathetic smile. Was that a bit of color on his cheeks? He didn’t say anything for a while, eyes trained on the bed.

“Lucifer?” She reached out to touch his pale hand, surprised to find it cool to the touch. Had he been eating properly since the fallout? She hadn't realized what she'd done until after the fact--he had held her hand when she'd revealed she was scared what seemed like hours ago.

“You can’t love somebody and control them at the same time.” He eventually murmured, staring at the hand that was on top of his own. It was entire minutes later that his gaze rose, “I was only just beginning to understand what that meant when you first told me. And perhaps I still don’t understand--not the way humans do.”

Slowly, he raised her hand up to his lips, eyes never leaving hers. “Make a pact with me.” The warmth of his lips and the gentle cycle of his breath against her skin made heat gather in her cheeks. “I want to learn more about this human way of loving.”

“What makes you think I want to make a pact with you? I thought demons couldn’t change.”

She could see him wilt the slightest bit after a spark of indignation, his eyes averted as he lowered her hand. She couldn’t help teasing him a bit--after all the trouble he’d given her to confess his feelings, it was a small price. “For the longest time, it was what I believed. But now I see that it was short-sighted, and self-indulgent.” He sighed. “It was precisely the reason that Belphegor became so cross with me--and Satan, as well. I was so desperate to look after them, to make sure what happened to--" he shook his head. "...would never happen again. I stopped seeing things clearly.”

“And what makes you so sure fear won’t rule you again?” Her eyes were clear; not condemning, but vigilant. She was willing to give him a chance, but he needed to prove that he had learned something from all of this. 

“I’m not.”

“Not?”

“I’m not at all certain. Demons are just as fallible--if not more so--as a result of their strength, their base extremity. I cannot promise that which I cannot foresee.”

When she began to withdraw her hand, his fingers tightened around hers before she could slip away. “But I intend to minimize that concern as much as I can. I imagine under your short leash, things will cease before they ever get to that point again.”

She relaxed when she found his carnelian eyes softly aglow, adoring as they landed on her. It was one thing to hope for such an outcome--it was another thing entirely to see it come to fruition. 

"I'm stubborn."

"As am I."

"I'm a strict instructor."

This earned her a wicked smile. "I should hope so."

"...I'm also mortal, Lucifer."

"And I intend to make you deliriously happy for all the years you will grace this realm. So long as you permit it--it doesn't change a thing."

Her eyes were getting misty. "Are you sure you want somebody as nosy and forthright as me?"

Both of his hands covered hers and he leaned forward--so confident--and stopped a hairsbreadth from her lips. 

"Do you want this, Joanna, as I do? All the good and bad that are to come with it?"

She hadn't been imagining things at all, passion burning in eyes that smoldered to a darker crimson. "More than anything," she breathed. 

His lips found hers shortly after that, gossamer but enough to leave his taste tingling on the surface when he retreated. She had a hard time trying to describe it; she wasn't sure if it was the lingering concussion or the otherworldliness. He reminded her of sunlight in winter, a warmth that tingles and heats you to the very core, her toes curling. He also reminded her of the bonfires--evergreen fueled--that emitted a smoky, spicy aroma into the air. Even the hint of sweetness from roasting marshmallows was there. 

"I am Lucifer, Avatar of Pride. I pledge myself to you, Joanna, that we may be bound by an unbreakable pact." 

She felt the rush that always accompanied bonding to powerful demons, her entire body going rigid with the influx of magic. One of his hands rose to stroke her cheek, and she felt the flicker of their new connection echo from the depths of her bones. 

“That was--”

“Disgusting, Lucifer, what the hell! Haven’t I told the lot of you before she’s my girl? Paws off!”

They both turned to see that Mammon had barged into the room without knocking or alerting anyone, as per usual. Asmodeus and Satan were following close behind with a tired look, though there were signs of delighted amusement in their gazes.

“It’s about time.”

“I’ll say--all that unresolved sexual tension was stressing me out!”

“I’m hungry, isn’t there a single place in the human realm that sells Devildom food, Joanna?”

“Can we hurry this up? I’ve got merch to pick up--they’re going to close soon!”

“Must the lot of you create an uproar everywhere we go--this is a human hospital, keep your voices down!” Lucifer snapped, scowling.

“Joaaaaaaannaaaaaaaa, how could you leave us alone with this grouch for three whole days--ow! What, did you want to put me in a hospital too!?” 

She grimaced at the familiar crack with which a pair of gloved hands struck Mammon’s head. Through their pact she could feel the flickering simmer of remorse in the depths of Lucifer’s heart, and she relaxed back into the bed. He felt a lot more than he let on. 

“Did the doctors tell you anything about my condition?”

“They were baffled in regards to your condition. We told them you, ah, fell down a staircase. They figured it was likely the product of head trauma, but they’ve been watching pretty closely…”

“I see,” she nodded towards Satan.

Lucifer rose from her bedside, not looking any of them directly in the eye. “I’ll see to it that they release you as soon as possible. I trust three days is an adequate recovery period.”

He strode out of the room, silence deafening. She counted to three in her head, wait for it…

“I can’t believe that weenie! We set everything up perfectly and this is how he confesses!”

“Joanna he was beside himself for days, are you part witch?”

“And he says I’m obsessed with Ruri-chan...”

Satan was the one to take a seat at the end of the bed as they chortled and jeered, shaking his head. “I know it may not seem like it, but we really were worried. We’re glad you came back to us.”

“Thanks Satan,” she smiled back easily, “Glad to be back.”

[luminescentauthor]

Enami Amiya Information

For Amiya’s character profile and pictures, click here! I recommend reading that first for context on Amiya.

Perpetually 110% done with the disaster lesbians she calls friends

Futaba: I know right??? They’re awful

Amiya: just because you’re better than them doesn’t mean you aren’t terrible, Futaba-san. I’ve seen you with Kaoruko-san.

Futaba: *sputtering*

Grew up in America with her moms, moved to Japan at the start of her first year in high school (the start of Karen and crew’s second year).

Her name means “Night rain” -- I didn’t choose her name with any meaning in mind, that’s just what I found when I looked it up. However, it is fitting.

Chronic insomniac, cause un-diagnosed. She takes about two hours and a half to fall asleep on average. Her doctors in America said it might be RLS, a weird case of fibromyalgia, or a lack of the neurotransmitters required to put the body to sleep. Might be something else entirely. In any case, Amiya can’t sleep unless she’s physically exhausted, and has as such adopted a habit of over-working herself and exercising at weird hours.

Japanese is her third language after English and French (both of which she speaks fluently) and she struggles with it quite a bit. Add that to starting the school year two weeks late, and Amiya is having a really hard time making friends in her year. While she has long spoken Japanese at a conversational level, she’s not good enough to use it day in and day out. This goes double for when she’s tired or sleep-deprived. And she’s usually sleep-deprived.

In acting, Amiya is extremely expressive in her face and voice. It’s something about her that gets noted a lot.

Amiya has high trust for her instincts and will immediately leap backwards if she meets someone like Michiru. She’s also dealt with her fair share of two-faced folks, and is utterly unafraid to call them out.

Blunt as they come and swears way too much in all 3 languages

When she decided she like someone, she calls them by their first name or a nickname.

She mostly wears sweatshirts, leather jackets, ripped jeans, and converse. Telling her to “act like a girl” will get you punched in the face faster than anything else in your life.

Always wears a simple black band choker that sort of be seen in one of the images in the post linked above. Usually wears stud earrings in black, blue, or silver, but sometimes goes red, white, gold, or purple. Wears smaller silver studs with her school uniform.

Speaking of which, she has what can only be a chronic inability to wear her uniform right??? She usually doesn’t do up the top button of her shirt, the bow is 95% of the time undone and draped around her neck like bow ties sometimes are, and no one knows where she left her jacket. Shirt sleeves are often rolled up to her elbows. Always wears her choker, too. Absolute refusal to wear the uniform shoes, instead shoes like Toms or some neutral colored semi-formal looking sneakers.

(The uniforms shoes actually hurt her feet, and when she explains on day #1 that she doesn’t think she can perform her best if forced to wear shoes that hurt her feet, the teachers agree and make an exception. AmiyaRelief.jpg. So the shoes were never against the rules because Amiya addressed that issue with the teachers as soon as she realized there was a problem.)

Still, she gets punished for wearing her uniform wrong. For. Months. Until the teachers tell her that if she doesn’t wear it right she can’t transfer up, and she merely blinks at them and carries on doing what she does as always, and they officially give up when she transfers because as it turns out, the principal does not care if Amiya wears her uniform wrong sometimes, she’s moving Amiya up a class anyway.

Do not get Amiya started on her hair she won’t shut up for an hour. She hates hair maintenance and her naturally wavy hair is very prone to tangling and very disinclined towards detangling. She owns like fifty different hair products and hates it. She’s constantly threatening to get an undercut and just be done with it. Futaba suggests getting a cut like her own, but some reason Amiya’s brain is dead set on Long Or Undercut. (She just doesn’t like bobs that much, dude.)

Amiya can’t get along with her fellow Seisho first years to save her life. Frankly, Amiya struggles with people in general, since she’s blunt and has a penchant for getting into fights. Combine that with a language barrier and the fact that she joined the class two weeks in (due to personal life problems; see the fourth to last bullet point under “The Parents!”), and, well, Amiya has basically no friends.

Then she meets Claudine, who speaks fluent French -- which Amiya also speaks! Amiya is so relieved she’s much more inclined towards being friendly than usual, and Claudine is hardly the type to be deterred by a prickly personality anyway (she eats lunch with Maya, guys.)

Claudine eventually finds out that Amiya eats all alone and either tells Maya she’s going to eat with a friend or vanishes without explanation, depending on how prideful she’s feeling. Maya is probably confused the first time this happens, goes to eat with their other friends the second, but as it starts happening with more and more frequency, she eventually confronts Claudine about it. (Amiya has told Claudine to go eat with her friends. Claudine ignored her.) Claudine probably first tells Maya it’s none of her business, but when pressed, says that she’s spending time with a friend who eats alone. She introduces the two and they take to eating lunch all three of them.

Then Claudine learns that Amiya’s first language is English, and introduces her to Hikari.

Amiya has maybe never been so happy in her life, because suddenly she has people around to translate for her when her brain shorts out on her and gives her the wrong language. She can always provide English or French, if not both, it’s Japanese that she struggles with.

When Amiya has to ask Hikari to translate because both French and Japanese are failing, at first Hikari seems indifferent, but she soon starts doing this small affectionate smile whenever Amiya asks for help. It’s pretty obvious she has a growing soft spot for her.

They don’t seem like they’d be friends, but soon enough they get along like a house on fire. They can often be seen whispering to each other in English and giggling. (It is usually memes and/or Amiya giving Hikari a hard time for being a disaster lesbian.)

Amiya, Claudine, and Maya just start eating lunch with the rest of the main nine. Amiya is happy for the first time in a while.

Seisho does a cross-year session and given what Amiya is like, the second years are kind of surprised that she seems to shrink in on herself on the stage? However: they’re doing improv. (Languagebarrierfear.jpg) Amiya explains that later with a sigh. Probably doesn’t eat lunch with the squad that day though, and has to be hunted down in order for the explanation to be gotten.

Anyway during a second cross-year session Amiya has memorized the script and the meaning so knows what she’s doing. And they’re astounded by the difference, because Amiya is clearly very skilled. She’s the kind of actress who projects the kind of confidence that comes from years of practice and being on stage, and her body, in particular, is very expressive.

The second session is after Amiya has already made a decision: she wants to transfer to the 99th class. Because she already knows the material in her current classes, she doesn’t have any friends, and she think she’ll do better with the help of people who she likes and can help her translate.

When she approaches her parents to ask them to talk to the school board, they have an extensive conversation about what this means for Amiya. Amiya is aware that it means a lot of work, but points out that the teacher is covering points that Amiya already knows - her problem is Japanese.

Amiya transfer up to the 99th class after her mom, an alum, speaks with the school board and she covers the material. See, Amiya, being a chronic insomniac and a chronic troublemaker, is unafraid of picking the locks on the training rooms for the purpose of practicing for longer than most people. (They eventually just give her keys when she asks for them.) She also stays up late covering academic material. Since she has no friends in her year, she also doesn’t socialize a lot.

Like mentioned in the bullet point about her insomnia, Amiya doesn’t sleep much, and sleeps best when physically exhausted. If she’s going to spend two hours staring at the ceiling if she doesn’t exercise, she’d much rather be productive. This is the main thing that enables Amiya’s transfer -- she overworks herself. That, plus the fact that her mom is a famous actress and alum.

By the time she transfers, Amiya has finally gotten the hang of Japanese and grown confident in it and she just clicks. Suddenly everyone in the 99th class understands why Amiya had no fear of being subpar in acting despite struggling with Japanese. She’s not just good -- she’s spectacular, an absolute glory to watch. Her voice has completely changed, rising and falling, incredibly expressive, and -- oh, is this what she was like before she had to change languages? 

Claudine had thought to look up Amiya’s old performances, and a fair number were recorded, so there were clips online, and she had undeniably had far more confidence in them, but Claudine didn’t understand English fluently, and in Japanese, it’s even better. She’s stunned. Everyone is. Also very impressed.

Amiya first joins the revues shortly after joining the 99th class. She’s had one or two, probably, when she has one against Nana, who is warned to be cautious by Maya. Nana brushes the warning off, and this is... a mistake.

Amiya’s movements are not what any of them are used to. Amiya, unlike the rest of them, is trained with a literal, actual sword, and has been fencing since she was pretty little (see the “Parents” section for more.) Nana is ambidextrous, and Amiya is less so but her sheer skill makes up for it and more.

(In this, Nana fights with her anime weapon. Double katana, rather than a katana and wakizashi set, as she does in the stage plays. I don’t care. I watched the anime first; deal with it. I gave Amiya the same weapon without knowing that’s what Nana fought with.)

Amiya kind of blindsides Nana with her different fighting style, and wins. See, most stage girls put drama > fighting skill. Amiya, on the other hand does not; one of her moms is a casual martial artist, the other is a professional fencer, and Amiya is feisty and gets detention for getting into fights all the time — she’s gotten better about that since coming to Japan, but she’s still got a lot of experience. Amiya is efficient and cutting with her movements, and does not bother swinging her sword around needlessly when she’s fighting (though she does twirl it around a lot when she’s not engaged.) She’s still a stage girl, and sings and dances extremely well, but she’s a stage girl who can and will kick your ass in the street with her bare hands, and, well, her origins in fighting are very clear.

The Giraffe is mildly displeased. Amiya tells the Giraffe in no uncertain terms where he can stick his displeasure. 

Claudine doesn’t stop laughing for a solid fifteen minutes.

LOTS more info below the cut!

Relationships:

One of Amiya’s closest friends is Siegfeld third year Takayama Naoko, who only ever goes by Nao. She belongs to @revueofblue​!

Amiya is Nao’s entire common sense and Nao is the only thing stopping Amiya from self-destructing, because Amiya has terrible coping mechanisms. 

Nao: CrypticSmile.jpg

Amiya: You Stop That Right Now

But hurt one of them and the other one will come for you, no questions asked.

“Amiya-chan not sleeping for two days and trying to fight everyone who enters your vicinity is not how you cope with emotional distress?”

“Nao-san I really wish I could sleep but in case you’ve forgotten: I’M INSOMNIAC.”

“Okay yeah but that doesn’t make what you’re doing any less stupid-”

Her closest Seisho friends, in order of closeness, are Claudine, Maya, Hikari, Futaba, Junna, Mahiru, Karen, Nana, and Kaoruko.

She has a sister-like relationship with both Claudine and, later, Maya.

She and Hikari mostly bond over making fun of Americans because Amiya might be American but she is totally down for clowning them (I say, as an American who’s favorite pastime is making fun of my idiot country.)

She and Futaba get along like a house on fire once Amiya transfers up. They both excel at fight scenes, are blunt, and have no patience left for putting up with the disaster lesbians they call friends.

Amiya’s first inter-school friend is Rui! She’s super curious about kendō. Rui, on the other hand, is quite interested in western athletic fencing. Mei Fan soon joins them. They basically bond over “we’re first years who want to fight things”

Still, a lot of other first years are intimidated by her, because she skipped up a year. At one of the most prestigious performance academies in the country.

Rui, however, is having none of this, and drags her to meet Yuyuko and crew

Doesn’t super get along with Yachiyo. Really doesn’t like Michiru.

Everyone, upon seeing Amiya hiss and jump back from Michiru: What.

Amiya: she has Bad Vibes okay????

There are year-group meetings among the four main schools’ revue-involved students. Amiya is kind of a member of neither the first or second years. Rui and Mei Fan are the ones who drag her to the first year group.

Tamao is actually the one who takes her to the second year group. (Her own second years just like. Aren’t used to thinking of her as a second year. Junna, after Amiya shows up hiding behind Tamao, feels awful and takes it upon herself to make Amiya comfortable.)

Amiya tends to stick to the first years after they decide they like her and need not be intimidated, though, since she’s uncomfortable with Michiru and prefers folks her own age.

Fumi takes an immediate liking to Amiya. You want blunt? You got it. Lots of folks don’t like Amiya because they don’t like being smacked in the face with the brutal truth, and Amiya is smart, observant, and unafraid to tell it like it is.

Fumi, on the other hand, takes one look at this girl who gets into fights three times a month and has no filter and goes, “Oh I like this one Tamao can we keep her”

This ends up backfiring a bit because Amiya takes one look at her relationship with Shiori and goes “What the fuck were you thinking? Just reconnect with her? The longer you put it off the worse it’s going to be. you’re just running away. It’s one thing to leave a toxic environment like Siegfeld, and another to avoid your problems.”

(And Fumi can admit in hindsight that she maybe kind of sort of needed to hear it.)

Not super close with anyone from Frontier. All of them are pretty happy-go-lucky and Amiya is very... not. Has a very amiable relationship with Misora though, they get along quite well until Aruru crashes their conversation, and then it’s chaos. Good chaos, though.

Fighting Style:

Weapons: Stormbringers, daishō (katana and wakizashi set). Unnamed tantō (knife that is technically a sword with about an 18 cm [7″] blade) strapped to her thigh, hidden under her skirt.

Note: Banana uses a daishō in the stage play and I’m pretty sure in the game as well; however, since I watched the anime first, I’m familiar with her sword that splits into two swords. I did not intentionally give Amiya the same weapon.

She wears her katana on her back and her wakizashi at her left hip. Learning how to draw it with her left hand was a process. (Traditionally, they are both worn at the left hip.)

She doesn’t use sheaths. There’s two holds on her back, one for just below the handle and one for the point; the wakizashi is only held in place by partial sheath that covers the six inches of the blade right below the handle. How she hasn’t killed herself yet is a mystery. (At first, she actually did use sheaths, but they kept getting in her way.)

ReLive! Position: Front-line attacker. Sits just behind the tanks and specializes in dishing out high damage to a single opponent.

Amiya, being trained in fencing from a young age by her professional fencer mother, has done it on the side of acting for most of her life; she only dropped it when she moved to Japan. And she was never a star fencer, she wouldn’t get first at tournaments, but she was consistently up there in the top ten. She competed in saber.

When cornered or nervous in a revue, she will often drop into a traditional athletic fencing stance. Then she’ll shift out of it, because you’re holding a katana, Amiya, not a saber-

(Note that tournaments often overlapped with plays and tech week and this got really tough really quickly. Add this to the summers and holidays Amiya spent overseas in France or Japan with family, and committing to fencing was hard. This is sad, actually, because Amiya could have been a stellar fencer, and she really likes the sport.)

Amiya has since adapted that skill to traditional Japanese weapons. While the moves and fighting style are totally different, the instincts she’s built up are not gone. And Amiya has found ways to transfer a lot of her skills; her style is an nontraditional blend of the Western fencing sport and the Japanese tradition of sword-work. This makes her a tough opponent, because you aren’t going to find that mix in stage girls often. The only one who handles it well is Hikari, who competed against Western stage girls before.

Amiya also learned martial arts, mostly for the purpose of exercise and self-defense. She’s never really trained formally, but since other mom does martial arts pretty seriously, she learned from her. Amiya later adapts her bad coping mechanism of “punch things/people” into “practice marital arts with breathing exercises.” Takes it up formally in addition to school at some point during the year she starts doing revues, for the sake of her mental health. She finds the repetition of practice calming. She doesn’t even go “hey this will make me a better fighter,” but then it does, so.

Did I make her OP?

Maybe.

She mostly uses the skill for foot sweeps with close-range opponents.

As mentioned above, she also got in fights WAY too much back in America (and has scars to prove it, mostly on her hands but a couple others too) and while she’s gotten better about that since coming to Japan, she still has street-fighting skills.

She’s most dangerous as a one-on-one opponent. If you want to take her down, you need to outnumber her, and even then she is still a very dangerous opponent. Her dual swords permit her to take down multiple low-level opponents pretty quickly.

You also do not want to be a short-range fighter when you’re up against Amiya. You would much rather be like, Junna or Aruru or Yachiyo.

If Amiya is stuck at long range from you, she’s mildly screwed, but Amiya is more than capable of dodging projectiles, so it’s just a matter of “can you take Amiya down faster than she can reach you” and while that’s actually a pretty decent opening assuming you keep moving, it’s not a massive one.

Amiya is also just like “No one ever said I couldn’t just yank your button off with my hand. Who cares if it isn’t poetic? I still win.” And given that most stage girls don’t have that attitude, it tends to catch people off guard.

Physically, she’s all wiry muscle. She’s very strong, even though you wouldn’t immediately know if you were just looking at her. She can lift a fair amount of weight.

She’s not very fast as a whole, but she doesn’t need to be, because her sword work is. Have you ever watched a fencing match? They’re as fast as bats out of hell. It’s impossible to follow with the naked eye.

It’s not innate speed; it’s skill, pure and simple. She’s not the type who can dart in and out of a fray with a knife. It’s a matter of hand and footwork. Her speed comes from the efficiency of her movements. A single twirl of the wrist allows you to dodge your opponent’s parry and get in a successful hit, and the like.

(I’m not a serious fencer. I fenced for maybe four months some three years ago before dropping it due a combination of lack of interest, asthma, and the fact that I pulled this one muscle in my left leg some three times. Still, I do know the basics.)

Regarding the tantō: Amiya only draws her knife when she’s been disarmed of both swords. There is an explanation for Amiya carrying a second weapon. It’s actually her mother’s old revue weapon, though Amiya doesn’t know that. It has three main purposes:

One, she’s been disarmed and needs a surprise attack to take off the opponent’s coat while they’re gloating. I will not name who she does this to, but it’s the first time anyone finds out that Amiya is the only stage girl who gets a secondary weapon in addition to her main. (Since dual-wielded weapons count as the same primary weapon.) 

Two, surprise throwing weapon. She takes off one or two people’s coats this way by just yeeting it at them with deadly accuracy from across the stage. Also yeets it at the Giraffe at least once. (Amiya can and will strangle that Giraffe one day. Maya is down to help.)

Three, defense. Amiya can draw her tantō faster than even her wakizashi, and can use it to block most attacks; as physically fit as most stage girls are, most of them don’t lift weights because some stigma about “putting on muscle.” Amiya has no such qualms, and definitely lifts weights. By putting one hand on the handle and the other on the flat of the blade (as Karen does a few times in the anime), she can block most attacks by making sure the weapons collide where she wants them to and by using her strength advantage. This obviously goes double if Amiya’s been disarmed and needs to get her swords back.

The Parents!

Amiya’s French-American mom (who she just calls “mom” in English) is named Kyrielle; her Japanese mom (aka “okaa-chan”) is named Hoshiko

Amiya’s moms are the best

Kyrielle means “poetess” (French name)

Hoshiko means “star” (Japanese name)

When Amiya was two, her moms moved from Japan to America for a number of reasons. One, Kyrielle had lived in Japan for a couple years but had decided to pursue fencing at the professional level and wanted to do it in a country where she had citizenship (fair). Two, to live with Kyrielle’s family, as they were very young when they had Amiya, and needed financial support. While Hoshiko’s family was willing to provide, Kyrielle’s family simply had more money.

Kyrielle’s father was not happy to hear that his daughter a) was in a relationship with a woman and b) was in a relationship with a pregnant woman. Kyrielle’s mother, Elayna, responded by physically punching him when he started on a homophic rant and getting a divorce.

Elayna is a retired actress; her name means “shining light”

Kyrielle has a younger twin named Chlarinda, also an actress, who lives in Paris. Chlarinda means bright, clear, dazzling, and intense.

Hoshiko is a talented actress and Seisho alum; she moved to America to pursue a career in Hollywood. She does martial arts in her free time, and all her own stunts until recently (“I’m getting old, Amiya, that’s why.”)

Kyrielle is a recently-retired professional fencer. She went to the Olympics three times, the most recent time being about a year ago. She’s planning on opening a fencing studio soon. They’re both 34. They were 18/19-ish when Amiya was born. Like I said. Very young.

Pursing active careers that require a lot of travel in addition to raising a child was hard, but both of them say it was more than worth it. Still, Amiya often spent summers with family in France (since Chlarinda lives there) or California (where Hoshiko’s older brother lives with his family, since he works in the tech industry and met his American partner while living in Santa Clara.) They both try really hard to have an active part in Amiya’s life, but like... transitioning to dorms is not hard for Amiya. Actually, since Kyrielle has retired, she gets to see her a lot more.

Despite having spent infant-hood in Japan and spending a lot of time around her Japanese relatives, Amiya’s Japanese is still kind of sub-par. This is mostly accidental. Her parents mostly spoke English to her to help her learn the language in their new country, and most of her relatives speak English, so there was never any need for her to speak fluent Japanese (though she has long since spoken it at a conversational level.) 

Kyrielle lived in Japan as a foreign exchange student during high school, which is when she met and fell for Hoshiko. The two eventually started a secret relationship after a lot of pursuit on Kyrielle’s behalf, because Hoshiko was pretty afraid of homophobia and her family disapproving (her family, as it turns out, was confused and surprised but overall chill with it.)

Hoshiko’s father got very ill shortly before our story begins, and Hoshiko went to go stay with him, leaving Kyrielle and Amiya in America. Kyrielle and Amiya eventually followed after a lot of lengthy conversations between all three of them about Amiya’s education and social life, but Amiya was drawn to the idea of an acting-focused school, which isn’t a huge thing in the States. (She hadn’t realized how big the language barrier would be.)

Kyrielle now lives in an apartment in Tokyo, and Hoshiko is there most of the time, but takes frequent trips to check on her parents. They’re roughly a half hour commute from Amiya, so she usually visits them on weekends.

Hoshiko is looking into getting jobs in Japanese film. The moms have agreed on one thing very strongly: they are not uprooting Amiya’s life again.

Especially not since Amiya has found what she struggled to find even back in America: real, true friends, in Claudine and Maya. Claudine actually comes over for dinner with the moms quite a few times. Maybe all three of them give her a hard time about her Big Lesbian Crush on Maya and how she needs to woman up and confess.

Let’s be real: Claudine is just an Enami now. They’re kind of her third family after the school squad and her bio family.

Regarding the two moms thing: 

Amiya is actually their Entire Biological Child. When she asked about it when she was a toddler, she was hastily told some story about an experimental procedure.

We’re waiting for the day when Amiya thinks on it again for so much as a tenth of a second and goes “wAIT-”

”Wait, but how do two women have a biological daughter???” you may ask. Well, one of them is a former stage girl. Stage girls can interact with giraffes and wacky shit. Make the rest up yourself.

(No but there is actually a story there, and a long one, but not for today.)

But for a little hint: Like I said, they were 18/19 when Amiya was born. They wanted a child, but it was sort of... crazy. All happened at once.

[pintsizeddeepthoughts]

Tell Me a Story: The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

Year Published: 1985

Country: Canada

WARNING: Contains major spoilers for both The Handmaid’s Tale and American Gods

Epilogues are curious creatures. In mystery novels, they often harbor reveals and final puzzle pieces; romances might discuss happily ever afters, tying up that last loose string in a pretty bow. They are sources of comfort and closure. However, on occasion, an epilogue can make you see a story in a completely different way, which can either ruin or reveal. I got to thinking about this when I read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. In that novel, during the epilogue the protagonist Shadow Moon is vacationing in Iceland and is met there by the Icelandic version of the god Odin. This Odin is almost a 180 degree opposite of the American version of Odin we knew throughout the entire book. This puts the nature of gods and religion in America in stark relief, essentially lighting up the entire landscape of the novel at the last possible second. It’s jarring and discombobulating and feels like a rug is being pulled out from under the reader’s feet. An author’s theme should not be so well hidden that it requires what I call a “frying pan to the face moment”. The author is unsure whether their reader “gets it”, so they double down in an obvious way. It shows distrust in the reader.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood does a much better job of using the epilogue as both narrative explanation and a chance to deepen her themes. Of the many often incendiary themes found in The Handmaid’s Tale, one that burns deepest is the casual cruelty of men. Not people – men. Atwood shows this primarily through their dismissiveness. The Commander, although understanding the danger he puts Offred in, dismisses it in favor of obtaining his pleasure. Her husband Luke, after Offred’s money is frozen, dismisses her worries. The Commander’s wife, Serena, mimics this, associating the power with the ability to dismiss the concerns of those she considers beneath them. This theme is reinforced in the epilogue, a metacommentary on the world of Gilead from the point of view future historians.

This is where Atwood’s epilogue shines. She skewers the moral equivocating of the historians who ask their audience to not judge the inhabitants of Gilead. They cite trends and forces, that the rulers of Gilead were trying to solve problems; that they may have been extreme, but we need to sympathetic. Atwood is having none of it. Given the context of the novel, she trusts her audience to decipher the historian’s action and attitudes. They are generally skeptical of the story of Offred, trying to find a way to discredit it and, subsequently, all the women who experienced what she experienced. Even though in this epilogue Gilead is long gone, the same attitudes and dismissiveness of women strongly lingers.

I did have my issues with The Handmaid’s Tale, although they are mostly criticisms born of personal taste. The writing style is extremely literary, which each sentence perfectly placed like hammer blows. The epilogue makes it clear that Offred is dictating this into a tape and once that knowledge is know, the writing style makes much more sense. It’s something I wish had been hinted at earlier so I hadn’t been left feeling cold by Atwood’s diction and grammar. Again, these are stylistic quibbles tied to personal taste. However, she excels at tone, maintaining Offred’s steely anger and determination throughout. As much as we are intrigued by the world, Atwood does not get sidetracked with intrigue. This is Offred’s story and Atwood wants us to see it, feel it, and understand the bitterness of being a woman in a world that is, unfortunately, not that far from our own.

[secretgamergirl]

Isolation

You don’t want to read this post, it’s just me wallowing in self-pity.

I’m not presently suicidal. If I were suicidal, I’d be ineligible for a lot of trans related things, and more importantly, I just left the house for the weekend, so my cat is being extra clingy and reminding me how much it would be upset if I ever left and didn’t come back.

I have, however, completely given up any hope of ever being happy, or feeling safe, or having a job, or someone I can trust, or not bringing pain and misery to the people I do care about.

Looking back over the archives of this blog, I see a post from a year and a half ago which oddly enough, I also titled Isolation. Reading back over that, it’s pretty informative about what I’m dealing with tonight, and I’m at a point where I can fill some of those blanks in from that.

There is some guy named Gabe who leads some little clique (sometimes referred to as “the tankies” or “the anime communists”) whose collective hobby is making up ridiculous rumors about trans people, spreading them to people with a weird willingness to tear down “fake progressives,” and continuing to stalk and harass targets for years afterward and targeting anyone else who comes to their defense. Recently someone wrote a nice article explaining that whole mess, and I think, lately, they’re enough of a known quantity it minimizes the harm they can do.

At the time they targeted me, this little group was untouchable. When people talked about them at all, it was always in guarded whispers and vague references with the implication that powerful people defended them, and I was personally urged never to speak about them by Zoe Quinn. At the time that had me particularly horrified about how powerful they apparently were because Zoe wouldn’t say that about any other hate group, and my personal opinion of Zoe was entirely too high for the thought to ever cross my mind that Zoe might be one of the “powerful people” defending them.

I absolutely panicked at the time, partly because the attack itself was quite effective, with hundreds if not thousands of people in my professional and hobby circles hearing some vague third hand account that I was bad news and should be blocked, which is how it always goes with this group. The actual accusations are patently ridiculous in context- someone gets painted as a violent anti-feminist for muttering about TERFs, or islamophobic for saying Trump’s nazi ties concern them more than hypothetical hawkishness from other candidates. In my case, it was some ridiculous story where I’m a racist cop from Brazil using coded phrases to attack some random woman I’d never heard of. Those full versions though get truncated down when they start spreading. “She’s anti-feminist.” “She’s islamophobic.” “She’s racist.” And the rumors are spread amongst people with no close connection to the target, generally.

What mainly concerned me at the time though was Zoe Quinn’s reaction when I found myself getting blackballed left and right and asked for advice. Lots of “I have friends on both sides of this,” and “I don’t want to get involved.” In hindsight, the obvious meaning here is “I don’t want to alienate my troll friends by defending you against their obviously baseless slander” which is pretty inexcusable from the public face of an organization whose mission statement was helping people deal with exactly that sort of attack. From my viewpoint at the time though, it was so much worse. My impression was that there was some version of the absurd rumor floating around about me having it out for some random woman and spearheading attacks on her was so convincing that my most trusted friend and confidant at the time not only believed it, but was too scared of me lashing out to even discuss it.

That lead to me attempting suicide on multiple occasions, particularly as Zoe encouraged more mutual friends not to talk to me, shut me out of my only support network at the time, and made it overtly clear I wasn't entitled to so much as a sympathetic ear when I was later targeted by Jesse Singal and Randi Harper when they came out as deeply transphobic.

I didn't even start to piece together the more mundane version of things until early this year, when my routine private conversations with other people driven to the brink of suicide by mass harassment campaigns showed me how many other people I know were terrified that Zoe had completely cut them off on asking for help dealing with attacks from the same nasty little clique, all of whom had also been downright worshipful of Zoe to the point where Zoe not believing them made them feel like nobody would.

I've finally mostly come to terms with all that. Someone I thought was a really good friend I could always trust wasn't. OK. And a ton of people I've never even talked to think I'm some kind of monster because some creeps spread ridiculous rumors, and people always forget the specifics when they here someone's a bad person but that they heard it tends to stick, so no matter how much those people get exposed discredited it won't matter for their victims. OK. People always say though that these sorts of things help you work out who your real friends are though, because they stick with you. But that isn't true.

Recently I wrote something touching on some of this. I really didn't want to. I was fine with working out who else got hurt the way I did and helping them cope quietly, and not publicly expose any ugliness. But then Zoe went and publicly posted something about hanging out with her super great friend Randi Harper, and a couple dozen people suddenly see the person who gaslit them into suicide attempts by pretending mass harassment campaigns weren't happening and disappearing from their lives, publicly endorsing someone who actively attacked them and took out a damn hit from reddit nazis, so people started saying things about it, and getting discredited, and getting attacked. And since these are all severely marginalized people whose lives were destroyed by all of this, and nobody believes them, I stood up and laid the cards out on some of what I've been carrying around for the last two years. And more people I didn't realize had been hurt like this came out of the woodwork to thank me for letting them know they weren't the only ones suffering like this, so I think that was the right call, but obviously a ton of other people didn't want to learn about this and walked out of my life.

And so did people who already knew all this. In that earlier blog post from a year and a half ago, I mentioned a point when "I was considering suicide, and only two people in the entire world bothered to say anything." One of those two people is someone I was extremely close to. We'd talk about serious dark stuff in their life, we've both talked each other off ledges, they personally witnessed a lot of what left me such a mess, and they were the only person to even attempt to pick up some of the pieces and clear the air about ridicious rumors about me. Less than an hour after I posted that storify, they severed all ties with me, blocking me in everything we'd ever used to talk, all without a single word. Other people who'd heard what I'd been through at the time, just without the names, and offered support, turned on me viciously once they had names. A friend without any onnection to anyone else involved just bowed out of my life because I suddenly didn't seem like someone to be associating with.

Then a professional bigot highlighted the whole thing and spun it as some new ridiculous attack, and more people let me know they hated me, and when I finally thought it was over, I went somewhere public, and ran into people I hadn't talked to, who made it clear they don't like me, and I came home to more sudden wordless blocks, and comments about not being welcome places. It never stops and any time I try to speak up it only ever gets worse. Nobody believes me, even when I can prove I'm telling the truth. It's better for everyone to denounce me than risk hurting the reputation of people who have wronged me I guess, and even at the best of times I don't know if I've ever even really had a fairweather friend. There's people who say consoling things when I'm losing it, but I can count on one hand how many times anyone has ever just spontaneously asked me to come see a movie, or paid me a visit, or introduced to their other friends, or just checked up on me since it had been a while.

And when there is someone who seems to kind of like me, I can't ever trust it, because people I thought were the best friends I'd ever had have stabbed me in the back without a second thought, and my own parents don't even like me. All I really have is this cat who's sitting on my lap licking tears off me, and I don't think there's anything I can do that will ever change that.

[almajonesnjna]

Don’t Teach Your Boys to “Respect Women.”

When men say they “respect women”, or women say they teach their sons to “respect women,” I cringe.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe we need to teach men how to treat women, but I’m not at all convinced that the concept of “respecting women” is a meaningful way to do so, because the word “respect” is completely subjective.

For example, I’ve been on many dates with good men who were brought up to respect women by practicing a kind of old fashioned chivalry that makes me want to scream. Even though I explicitly express that this is not how I like to be treated, they’re completely convinced that this is the “right way to treat women,” and can’t stop.

To me, this is the ultimate patronizing disrespect, because it says “I know better thanyou how you need to be treated.” Put simply, if a woman asks a man to stop opening doors and pulling out chairs, it is NOT more respectful for him to ignore her wishes and do so anyway.

I also know plenty of decent men whose definition of respecting women doesn’t keep them from talking over me, giving me unsolicited and patronizing advice, playing “devil’s advocate” to my lived experience, or feeling that they’re just being “objective” when they poke holes in my opinions– perhaps because they were taught that respecting a woman means never hitting or threatening her, so none of the above behaviors fall into a problematic category in their minds.

Clearly, the concept of “respecting women” means something completely different to each of us, which is why it’s kind of a useless concept. 

Not to mention the fact that in my book, any rule that involves deciding how to treat a woman based on the fact that she is a woman will never feel like respect, because it’s inherently conditional and derivative.

Now, listen. You might love being treated “like a lady,” or if you are a man you might love “treating your woman right” in a way that is specific to her sex or gender. That’s fine, of course. I believe each of us gets to decide how we want to be treated, and then teach the people in our lives to treat us accordingly so that we may each be happy.

But regardless of how you like to be treated or treat others, it’s worth unpacking what “respecting women” actually means.

What kind of treatment from men makes you feel most respected? And do we need a unique and specific code for how one half of the population respects the other half? (If so, why? I’m genuinely curious.)

More importantly, what does it mean to respect a person, in general?

The interesting thing about respect is that it is naturally context-dependent. What we consider “respectful behavior” varies based on the relationship between two people, and the social norms which inform what kind of treatment go along with that relationship.

For example, what is considered “respectful behavior” would be very different if you were talking to a homeless person versus the CEO of a major company.

Your relative position of perceived power being lower or higher dictates that giving the homeless person $5 and making eye contact with a smile might feel like a generous act of respect, while such a moment could actually feel really rude if you did it to the CEO. In order to demonstrate appropriate “respect” to the CEO you might need to go waaaay above and beyond such “basic” respect, by researching her company in advance and preparing a list of ways to offer value.

Put another way, peasants show respect to their kings by bowing and graveling and offering gifts, while kings show respect to their peasants by not killing them.

This contextual nature of respect is why I challenge the idea of teaching boys and men to respect women. The power dynamic of the relationship will always dictate what an appropriate display of “respect” looks like, and gender is a relevant factor to who has the power in a relationship.

Ever notice that we never talk about “respecting men”?

Given our history of gender inequality, women respecting men is as obvious as peasants respecting the king. It’s the default, it’s historically enforceable by punishment and violence, and we all know how to do it.

But men respecting women?

That feels sort of like a cute bonus, like the king respecting his peasants.

It’s not so much about letting women thrive as autonomous individuals, as it is about permitting women to have certain basic rights. If a king shows his peasants respect by smiling at them, not stealing their crops, and not killing them, everyone is supposed to be grateful to his generosity right?

Likewise, many little boys are taught to not to hit or rape women, not to “talk back” to their mothers, and not to lie or cheat. 

All of this is good, but it’s barely scratching the surface of what it means to respect someone. Unfortunately, it’s often where the conversation stops when it comes to men respecting women.

Personally it seems to be that this context for respecting women allows men to feel generous when they let women talk, have opinions, express sexual freedom, and rise to success (especially women they’re not attracted to!) because anything above not physically hurting her is kind of a bonus, as far as respect goes.

This gendered context is part of the reason why a woman who says “women deserve respect!” is often met with resistance from people who say “but we already give you respect!” What they really mean is “we already give you the kind/quantity of respect that feels appropriate for your station in life.”

It’s extremely difficult to identify disrespect in action when it occurs to people we view as inferior, or as deserving of less respect, or a different kind of respect, so when they speak up about feeling disrespected, we often label them as greedy, uppity, entitled, or audacious for daring to ask for more than they deserve.

Does that make sense?

Without considering the context of the relationship and power dynamic though, the topic of respecting women will always be incomplete at best, and damaging at worst.

Thoughts? <3

Jessi

The post Don’t Teach Your Boys to “Respect Women.” appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2ufwQCw

[ruthellisneda]

Don’t Teach Your Boys to “Respect Women.”

When men say they “respect women”, or women say they teach their sons to “respect women,” I cringe.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe we need to teach men how to treat women, but I’m not at all convinced that the concept of “respecting women” is a meaningful way to do so, because the word “respect” is completely subjective.

For example, I’ve been on many dates with good men who were brought up to respect women by practicing a kind of old fashioned chivalry that makes me want to scream. Even though I explicitly express that this is not how I like to be treated, they’re completely convinced that this is the “right way to treat women,” and can’t stop.

To me, this is the ultimate patronizing disrespect, because it says “I know better thanyou how you need to be treated.” Put simply, if a woman asks a man to stop opening doors and pulling out chairs, it is NOT more respectful for him to ignore her wishes and do so anyway.

I also know plenty of decent men whose definition of respecting women doesn’t keep them from talking over me, giving me unsolicited and patronizing advice, playing “devil’s advocate” to my lived experience, or feeling that they’re just being “objective” when they poke holes in my opinions– perhaps because they were taught that respecting a woman means never hitting or threatening her, so none of the above behaviors fall into a problematic category in their minds.

Clearly, the concept of “respecting women” means something completely different to each of us, which is why it’s kind of a useless concept. 

Not to mention the fact that in my book, any rule that involves deciding how to treat a woman based on the fact that she is a woman will never feel like respect, because it’s inherently conditional and derivative.

Now, listen. You might love being treated “like a lady,” or if you are a man you might love “treating your woman right” in a way that is specific to her sex or gender. That’s fine, of course. I believe each of us gets to decide how we want to be treated, and then teach the people in our lives to treat us accordingly so that we may each be happy.

But regardless of how you like to be treated or treat others, it’s worth unpacking what “respecting women” actually means.

What kind of treatment from men makes you feel most respected? And do we need a unique and specific code for how one half of the population respects the other half? (If so, why? I’m genuinely curious.)

More importantly, what does it mean to respect a person, in general?

The interesting thing about respect is that it is naturally context-dependent. What we consider “respectful behavior” varies based on the relationship between two people, and the social norms which inform what kind of treatment go along with that relationship.

For example, what is considered “respectful behavior” would be very different if you were talking to a homeless person versus the CEO of a major company.

Your relative position of perceived power being lower or higher dictates that giving the homeless person $5 and making eye contact with a smile might feel like a generous act of respect, while such a moment could actually feel really rude if you did it to the CEO. In order to demonstrate appropriate “respect” to the CEO you might need to go waaaay above and beyond such “basic” respect, by researching her company in advance and preparing a list of ways to offer value.

Put another way, peasants show respect to their kings by bowing and graveling and offering gifts, while kings show respect to their peasants by not killing them.

This contextual nature of respect is why I challenge the idea of teaching boys and men to respect women. The power dynamic of the relationship will always dictate what an appropriate display of “respect” looks like, and gender is a relevant factor to who has the power in a relationship.

Ever notice that we never talk about “respecting men”?

Given our history of gender inequality, women respecting men is as obvious as peasants respecting the king. It’s the default, it’s historically enforceable by punishment and violence, and we all know how to do it.

But men respecting women?

That feels sort of like a cute bonus, like the king respecting his peasants.

It’s not so much about letting women thrive as autonomous individuals, as it is about permitting women to have certain basic rights. If a king shows his peasants respect by smiling at them, not stealing their crops, and not killing them, everyone is supposed to be grateful to his generosity right?

Likewise, many little boys are taught to not to hit or rape women, not to “talk back” to their mothers, and not to lie or cheat. 

All of this is good, but it’s barely scratching the surface of what it means to respect someone. Unfortunately, it’s often where the conversation stops when it comes to men respecting women.

Personally it seems to be that this context for respecting women allows men to feel generous when they let women talk, have opinions, express sexual freedom, and rise to success (especially women they’re not attracted to!) because anything above not physically hurting her is kind of a bonus, as far as respect goes.

This gendered context is part of the reason why a woman who says “women deserve respect!” is often met with resistance from people who say “but we already give you respect!” What they really mean is “we already give you the kind/quantity of respect that feels appropriate for your station in life.”

It’s extremely difficult to identify disrespect in action when it occurs to people we view as inferior, or as deserving of less respect, or a different kind of respect, so when they speak up about feeling disrespected, we often label them as greedy, uppity, entitled, or audacious for daring to ask for more than they deserve.

Does that make sense?

Without considering the context of the relationship and power dynamic though, the topic of respecting women will always be incomplete at best, and damaging at worst.

Thoughts? <3

Jessi

The post Don’t Teach Your Boys to “Respect Women.” appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2ufwQCw

[joshuabradleyn]

Don’t Teach Your Boys to “Respect Women.”

When men say they “respect women”, or women say they teach their sons to “respect women,” I cringe.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe we need to teach men how to treat women, but I’m not at all convinced that the concept of “respecting women” is a meaningful way to do so, because the word “respect” is completely subjective.

For example, I’ve been on many dates with good men who were brought up to respect women by practicing a kind of old fashioned chivalry that makes me want to scream. Even though I explicitly express that this is not how I like to be treated, they’re completely convinced that this is the “right way to treat women,” and can’t stop.

To me, this is the ultimate patronizing disrespect, because it says “I know better thanyou how you need to be treated.” Put simply, if a woman asks a man to stop opening doors and pulling out chairs, it is NOT more respectful for him to ignore her wishes and do so anyway.

I also know plenty of decent men whose definition of respecting women doesn’t keep them from talking over me, giving me unsolicited and patronizing advice, playing “devil’s advocate” to my lived experience, or feeling that they’re just being “objective” when they poke holes in my opinions– perhaps because they were taught that respecting a woman means never hitting or threatening her, so none of the above behaviors fall into a problematic category in their minds.

Clearly, the concept of “respecting women” means something completely different to each of us, which is why it’s kind of a useless concept. 

Not to mention the fact that in my book, any rule that involves deciding how to treat a woman based on the fact that she is a woman will never feel like respect, because it’s inherently conditional and derivative.

Now, listen. You might love being treated “like a lady,” or if you are a man you might love “treating your woman right” in a way that is specific to her sex or gender. That’s fine, of course. I believe each of us gets to decide how we want to be treated, and then teach the people in our lives to treat us accordingly so that we may each be happy.

But regardless of how you like to be treated or treat others, it’s worth unpacking what “respecting women” actually means.

What kind of treatment from men makes you feel most respected? And do we need a unique and specific code for how one half of the population respects the other half? (If so, why? I’m genuinely curious.)

More importantly, what does it mean to respect a person, in general?

The interesting thing about respect is that it is naturally context-dependent. What we consider “respectful behavior” varies based on the relationship between two people, and the social norms which inform what kind of treatment go along with that relationship.

For example, what is considered “respectful behavior” would be very different if you were talking to a homeless person versus the CEO of a major company.

Your relative position of perceived power being lower or higher dictates that giving the homeless person $5 and making eye contact with a smile might feel like a generous act of respect, while such a moment could actually feel really rude if you did it to the CEO. In order to demonstrate appropriate “respect” to the CEO you might need to go waaaay above and beyond such “basic” respect, by researching her company in advance and preparing a list of ways to offer value.

Put another way, peasants show respect to their kings by bowing and graveling and offering gifts, while kings show respect to their peasants by not killing them.

This contextual nature of respect is why I challenge the idea of teaching boys and men to respect women. The power dynamic of the relationship will always dictate what an appropriate display of “respect” looks like, and gender is a relevant factor to who has the power in a relationship.

Ever notice that we never talk about “respecting men”?

Given our history of gender inequality, women respecting men is as obvious as peasants respecting the king. It’s the default, it’s historically enforceable by punishment and violence, and we all know how to do it.

But men respecting women?

That feels sort of like a cute bonus, like the king respecting his peasants.

It’s not so much about letting women thrive as autonomous individuals, as it is about permitting women to have certain basic rights. If a king shows his peasants respect by smiling at them, not stealing their crops, and not killing them, everyone is supposed to be grateful to his generosity right?

Likewise, many little boys are taught to not to hit or rape women, not to “talk back” to their mothers, and not to lie or cheat. 

All of this is good, but it’s barely scratching the surface of what it means to respect someone. Unfortunately, it’s often where the conversation stops when it comes to men respecting women.

Personally it seems to be that this context for respecting women allows men to feel generous when they let women talk, have opinions, express sexual freedom, and rise to success (especially women they’re not attracted to!) because anything above not physically hurting her is kind of a bonus, as far as respect goes.

This gendered context is part of the reason why a woman who says “women deserve respect!” is often met with resistance from people who say “but we already give you respect!” What they really mean is “we already give you the kind/quantity of respect that feels appropriate for your station in life.”

It’s extremely difficult to identify disrespect in action when it occurs to people we view as inferior, or as deserving of less respect, or a different kind of respect, so when they speak up about feeling disrespected, we often label them as greedy, uppity, entitled, or audacious for daring to ask for more than they deserve.

Does that make sense?

Without considering the context of the relationship and power dynamic though, the topic of respecting women will always be incomplete at best, and damaging at worst.

Thoughts? <3

Jessi

The post Don’t Teach Your Boys to “Respect Women.” appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2ufwQCw

[albertcaldwellne]

Don’t Teach Your Boys to “Respect Women.”

When men say they “respect women”, or women say they teach their sons to “respect women,” I cringe.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe we need to teach men how to treat women, but I’m not at all convinced that the concept of “respecting women” is a meaningful way to do so, because the word “respect” is completely subjective.

For example, I’ve been on many dates with good men who were brought up to respect women by practicing a kind of old fashioned chivalry that makes me want to scream. Even though I explicitly express that this is not how I like to be treated, they’re completely convinced that this is the “right way to treat women,” and can’t stop.

To me, this is the ultimate patronizing disrespect, because it says “I know better thanyou how you need to be treated.” Put simply, if a woman asks a man to stop opening doors and pulling out chairs, it is NOT more respectful for him to ignore her wishes and do so anyway.

I also know plenty of decent men whose definition of respecting women doesn’t keep them from talking over me, giving me unsolicited and patronizing advice, playing “devil’s advocate” to my lived experience, or feeling that they’re just being “objective” when they poke holes in my opinions– perhaps because they were taught that respecting a woman means never hitting or threatening her, so none of the above behaviors fall into a problematic category in their minds.

Clearly, the concept of “respecting women” means something completely different to each of us, which is why it’s kind of a useless concept. 

Not to mention the fact that in my book, any rule that involves deciding how to treat a woman based on the fact that she is a woman will never feel like respect, because it’s inherently conditional and derivative.

Now, listen. You might love being treated “like a lady,” or if you are a man you might love “treating your woman right” in a way that is specific to her sex or gender. That’s fine, of course. I believe each of us gets to decide how we want to be treated, and then teach the people in our lives to treat us accordingly so that we may each be happy.

But regardless of how you like to be treated or treat others, it’s worth unpacking what “respecting women” actually means.

What kind of treatment from men makes you feel most respected? And do we need a unique and specific code for how one half of the population respects the other half? (If so, why? I’m genuinely curious.)

More importantly, what does it mean to respect a person, in general?

The interesting thing about respect is that it is naturally context-dependent. What we consider “respectful behavior” varies based on the relationship between two people, and the social norms which inform what kind of treatment go along with that relationship.

For example, what is considered “respectful behavior” would be very different if you were talking to a homeless person versus the CEO of a major company.

Your relative position of perceived power being lower or higher dictates that giving the homeless person $5 and making eye contact with a smile might feel like a generous act of respect, while such a moment could actually feel really rude if you did it to the CEO. In order to demonstrate appropriate “respect” to the CEO you might need to go waaaay above and beyond such “basic” respect, by researching her company in advance and preparing a list of ways to offer value.

Put another way, peasants show respect to their kings by bowing and graveling and offering gifts, while kings show respect to their peasants by not killing them.

This contextual nature of respect is why I challenge the idea of teaching boys and men to respect women. The power dynamic of the relationship will always dictate what an appropriate display of “respect” looks like, and gender is a relevant factor to who has the power in a relationship.

Ever notice that we never talk about “respecting men”?

Given our history of gender inequality, women respecting men is as obvious as peasants respecting the king. It’s the default, it’s historically enforceable by punishment and violence, and we all know how to do it.

But men respecting women?

That feels sort of like a cute bonus, like the king respecting his peasants.

It’s not so much about letting women thrive as autonomous individuals, as it is about permitting women to have certain basic rights. If a king shows his peasants respect by smiling at them, not stealing their crops, and not killing them, everyone is supposed to be grateful to his generosity right?

Likewise, many little boys are taught to not to hit or rape women, not to “talk back” to their mothers, and not to lie or cheat. 

All of this is good, but it’s barely scratching the surface of what it means to respect someone. Unfortunately, it’s often where the conversation stops when it comes to men respecting women.

Personally it seems to be that this context for respecting women allows men to feel generous when they let women talk, have opinions, express sexual freedom, and rise to success (especially women they’re not attracted to!) because anything above not physically hurting her is kind of a bonus, as far as respect goes.

This gendered context is part of the reason why a woman who says “women deserve respect!” is often met with resistance from people who say “but we already give you respect!” What they really mean is “we already give you the kind/quantity of respect that feels appropriate for your station in life.”

It’s extremely difficult to identify disrespect in action when it occurs to people we view as inferior, or as deserving of less respect, or a different kind of respect, so when they speak up about feeling disrespected, we often label them as greedy, uppity, entitled, or audacious for daring to ask for more than they deserve.

Does that make sense?

Without considering the context of the relationship and power dynamic though, the topic of respecting women will always be incomplete at best, and damaging at worst.

Thoughts? <3

Jessi

The post Don’t Teach Your Boys to “Respect Women.” appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2ufwQCw

[neilmillerne]

Don’t Teach Your Boys to “Respect Women.”

When men say they “respect women”, or women say they teach their sons to “respect women,” I cringe.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe we need to teach men how to treat women, but I’m not at all convinced that the concept of “respecting women” is a meaningful way to do so, because the word “respect” is completely subjective.

For example, I’ve been on many dates with good men who were brought up to respect women by practicing a kind of old fashioned chivalry that makes me want to scream. Even though I explicitly express that this is not how I like to be treated, they’re completely convinced that this is the “right way to treat women,” and can’t stop.

To me, this is the ultimate patronizing disrespect, because it says “I know better thanyou how you need to be treated.” Put simply, if a woman asks a man to stop opening doors and pulling out chairs, it is NOT more respectful for him to ignore her wishes and do so anyway.

I also know plenty of decent men whose definition of respecting women doesn’t keep them from talking over me, giving me unsolicited and patronizing advice, playing “devil’s advocate” to my lived experience, or feeling that they’re just being “objective” when they poke holes in my opinions– perhaps because they were taught that respecting a woman means never hitting or threatening her, so none of the above behaviors fall into a problematic category in their minds.

Clearly, the concept of “respecting women” means something completely different to each of us, which is why it’s kind of a useless concept. 

Not to mention the fact that in my book, any rule that involves deciding how to treat a woman based on the fact that she is a woman will never feel like respect, because it’s inherently conditional and derivative.

Now, listen. You might love being treated “like a lady,” or if you are a man you might love “treating your woman right” in a way that is specific to her sex or gender. That’s fine, of course. I believe each of us gets to decide how we want to be treated, and then teach the people in our lives to treat us accordingly so that we may each be happy.

But regardless of how you like to be treated or treat others, it’s worth unpacking what “respecting women” actually means.

What kind of treatment from men makes you feel most respected? And do we need a unique and specific code for how one half of the population respects the other half? (If so, why? I’m genuinely curious.)

More importantly, what does it mean to respect a person, in general?

The interesting thing about respect is that it is naturally context-dependent. What we consider “respectful behavior” varies based on the relationship between two people, and the social norms which inform what kind of treatment go along with that relationship.

For example, what is considered “respectful behavior” would be very different if you were talking to a homeless person versus the CEO of a major company.

Your relative position of perceived power being lower or higher dictates that giving the homeless person $5 and making eye contact with a smile might feel like a generous act of respect, while such a moment could actually feel really rude if you did it to the CEO. In order to demonstrate appropriate “respect” to the CEO you might need to go waaaay above and beyond such “basic” respect, by researching her company in advance and preparing a list of ways to offer value.

Put another way, peasants show respect to their kings by bowing and graveling and offering gifts, while kings show respect to their peasants by not killing them.

This contextual nature of respect is why I challenge the idea of teaching boys and men to respect women. The power dynamic of the relationship will always dictate what an appropriate display of “respect” looks like, and gender is a relevant factor to who has the power in a relationship.

Ever notice that we never talk about “respecting men”?

Given our history of gender inequality, women respecting men is as obvious as peasants respecting the king. It’s the default, it’s historically enforceable by punishment and violence, and we all know how to do it.

But men respecting women?

That feels sort of like a cute bonus, like the king respecting his peasants.

It’s not so much about letting women thrive as autonomous individuals, as it is about permitting women to have certain basic rights. If a king shows his peasants respect by smiling at them, not stealing their crops, and not killing them, everyone is supposed to be grateful to his generosity right?

Likewise, many little boys are taught to not to hit or rape women, not to “talk back” to their mothers, and not to lie or cheat. 

All of this is good, but it’s barely scratching the surface of what it means to respect someone. Unfortunately, it’s often where the conversation stops when it comes to men respecting women.

Personally it seems to be that this context for respecting women allows men to feel generous when they let women talk, have opinions, express sexual freedom, and rise to success (especially women they’re not attracted to!) because anything above not physically hurting her is kind of a bonus, as far as respect goes.

This gendered context is part of the reason why a woman who says “women deserve respect!” is often met with resistance from people who say “but we already give you respect!” What they really mean is “we already give you the kind/quantity of respect that feels appropriate for your station in life.”

It’s extremely difficult to identify disrespect in action when it occurs to people we view as inferior, or as deserving of less respect, or a different kind of respect, so when they speak up about feeling disrespected, we often label them as greedy, uppity, entitled, or audacious for daring to ask for more than they deserve.

Does that make sense?

Without considering the context of the relationship and power dynamic though, the topic of respecting women will always be incomplete at best, and damaging at worst.

Thoughts? <3

Jessi

The post Don’t Teach Your Boys to “Respect Women.” appeared first on Jessi Kneeland.

https://ift.tt/2ufwQCw