#i AM saying the way he presents it is Bad and Unnatural

[doom-dreaming]

my favorite denning-ism is when he stops in the middle of a paragraph to give the readers a taste of the wikipedia research he did

[milesluvbot]

the strength challenge

pairing: e!1610 miles morales x afro latina reader

summary: after scrolling mindlessly on tiktok, you insist on getting your boyfriend into doing another trend with you, not knowing it would end up a bit more intimate than expected.

warnings: fluff!!! + suggestive content

a/n: enjoy!! <33 i did use google translate so apologies for any bad spanish. + this vid was the inspo for the one shot:

guapa/guapo : pretty/handsome

reina/rey : queen/king

“Miles, please, let’s do it!” You suggest to Miles, a wide smile plastered on your face. Your head sprung up from his chest, forcing Miles to detach his fingers from your head full of coils, and now you were facing him with the best puppy eyes you could possibly make. You were both resting in his room for an hour or so, both scrolling through TikTok mindlessly, as your head laid on his chest and his arm was sprawled over your waist. You were content, but that feeling slowly dissipated as your boyfriend kept telling you the one word you hate the most; No.

“Nope, nah, no. And don’t give me those eyes.” He replies, a ghost of a smile present on his countenance. He lets out a sigh at your persistence, and readjusts himself on the bed so you were both facing each other. Unbeknownst to you, his reluctance to partake in this challenge was mainly so you wouldn't gain any suspicions about where his unnatural strength came from, as he wasn't ready for that conversation just yet.

“What eyes, guapo?” Now this was more than intentional. You knew flattery was the way into anyone's heart, and this was especially applicable to the boy in front of you. You see a small smirk grow on Miles’ face, making you feel all giddy inside. (That’s the impact his smile had on you.) You scoot from the other side of the bed and approach Miles with your eyes closed, in the hopes he’ll do what you want.

As hoped, he did what you wanted and pressed a kiss onto your glossed lips. Just as he was about to pull away, you place your hand upon his face and kiss deeper, taking him for surprise. You hum into the kiss, ensuring all your thoughts and pleads were communicated. You break apart from him, with his hand still planted on the side of your face. You flutter your lashes to seal the deal, glancing from his lips to his beautiful brown eyes.

“A’ight fine. Show me the thing.” He says enervated, entirely changing his approach after your kiss. You grin, celebrating your victory with a shrill squeal. You sit beside him, your head on his shoulder and his arm draped over yours. You show the TikTok, as you both see the couple attempt different moves to test their strength.

“Ahora puedes llevarme como la reina que soy.” (Now you can carry me like the queen that I am.) You state, booping the tip of Miles’ nose, making him shake his head and chuckle. 

“And I’m your rey? ¿Sí? ” He questions, tilting his head to the side, staring directly into you. You roll your eyes and you plan to ignore him but Miles insists on you vocally agreeing. He cups your face warmly, getting you to look at him. You burst into a fit of laughter, your head bobbing in his hands as you spread your contagious laugh. Miles starts to laugh too, after seeing you become overcome by giggling. 

Once you finally gain composure, you breathe out a response. “Yes! Yes, Miles you are. Now can we do the challenge?” Miles nods, as he tells you to pull up the video to decide which movies to recreate. You both decided on a push up and a hip thrust to begin with.

“I can’t even do a regular push up, what makes you think I can do one with you on my back? Are you trying to kill off your girl already?” You exclaim dramatically, regretting your decision to  suggest this. Miles smiles widely, clearly very excited. Too excited.

You get into the plank position, feet shoulder width apart and your head hung low. You tried to mentally prepare yourself, but nothing could prepare you for the weight that was literally put onto your shoulders. Your body hits his bedroom floor, absolutely failing at staying upright, let alone doing a press up.

“Miles! Chill!” You groan out (whilst smiling to yourself), rubbing the knees that collided against the floor.

“My bad. I’m sorry guapa.” He replies, giving you multiple pecks on your mouth and both kneecaps. You begin laughing to yourself at the sheer stupidity of the situation, and Miles follows suit. 

“Boy, don’t laugh too hard because I don’t think you’ll do that much better!” You comment, catching Miles' attention. His eyebrow raises at that comment, and a smile appears on his face once again.

“Bet. Get on top of me then.” He instructs and gets into position, as he fights down a laugh after realising how that sounds.

“Not like that-”

“Honestly, I don’t mind either way.” You state nonchalantly, making Miles get all bashful and awkward. A side of him that you’ve always loved.

You climb onto Miles, putting all of your weight onto him. You even cross your legs on his back and you still couldn’t detect any falters in strength or a little wobble. He presses down into the ground and comes back up to his original position with ease, multiple times. You furrow your eyebrows, thinking this can’t be the same scrawny boy you fell in love with. You hop off his back, and he jumps up, brushing his hands off. You furrow your eyebrow as bewilderment is plastered all over your face.

“Wh-”

“Gym!” He blurts out quickly. Miles clears his voice, regaining his cool. “Gym. Been going for a couple months, been meaning to tell you.” He answers, a quivering smirk present on his face. You mouth out an ‘okay’ and move onto the next movement, the hip thrust.

Miles offers to go first, still feeling slightly guilty for your little knee incident. He sits back down on the floor, resting his back against his bed frame. You realise this pose is a bit more intimate than a push up and you shyly smile to yourself. You sit down on Miles’ lap, suddenly getting in extremely close proximity to Miles. Your breath flutters against his lashes and you can practically see every speck on his face, from his chestnut irises to the pattern of his eyebrow hairs. You wrap your hands behind his neck as his hands are carefully placed on your waist, his fingers tapping into your skin out of habit.

“Well don’t forget the challenge now, Morales.” 

His eyes were focused on everywhere but your eyes, avoiding eye contact with you as if it’s the plague. You laugh to yourself quietly. Miles finally completes the hip thrust, lifting you up and putting you down with such ease and stability. None of you move. Your heads inch closer, ghosting each other's lips.

“Y/N, I-”

Before you know it, the door to Miles’ room whips open, revealing Mrs. Morales standing there with a laundry basket full of clothes.

“Miles, I thought I told you to leave this door-”

You and Miles look up, jaws wide open at this surprise appearance, wincing in embarrassment. You understand how this looks to Rio, seeing her son underneath his girlfriend as she straddles him. It looks that way, but it truly isn’t. You think. You quickly get up from Miles, and shift away from him as much as you possibly could. The levels of embarrassment squashes you whole, wishing for yourself to be anywhere but here. 

“-open. This door is supposed to be open.” Rio says after giving Miles an extremely stern look. 

“It's not-”

“I’m so so sor-”

“Just come and eat, Miles. Y/N, are you staying for dinner?” Rio questions, pinching her nose bridge in annoyance. You could practically hear the lecture Miles was about to get. And as for yourself, you’re lucky that you’re her favourite, or else this would’ve ended very differently.

“No it’s okay, thank you. I need to head home anyway. Thanks.” You respond quickly, not trying to stay any longer in the tense atmosphere. You quickly grab the stuff that was within arms reach and exit Miles room.

“Bye, Miles.” You say flurried, before giving an extremely ‘I’m so sorry about everything’ glance to Rio.  She nods in approval, before crossing her arms and facing her son.

Miles was dead.

[evieelyzabethh]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐧𝐞𝐝

pairing(s): spike x demon!reader

summary: watching the man you love fawn over someone else is always hard, especially when you know you could love him better.

warnings: angst with a happy ending, later seasons Spike, soft Spike, the reader is a demon so old that no one knows your name and they call you Honey.

Spike was an actor, but William was a poet. This was easy to tell when watching Spike act as if he wasn't in love with Buffy. William would've written her a sonnet, presented her with a rose and some ridiculously expensive necklace. The image of a stone glittering around her neck would've inspired dozens of lines of prose, enough to keep her image alive in those fateful moments when she wasn't there to be looked upon. Spike looked. He watched. He stalked. It was his bad boy persona, the leather jacket hiding the heart that still beat out of his chest. Some things never changed.

This new apocalypse had changed something, though, that and the fact that Buffy had now come back from the dead a second time. You thought it would make her more formidable. A cockroach. Through apocalypse after apocalypse, thick and thin, even death, she was never really gone. Whether she was crawling, suffering, or drowning, she always came back. You liked Buffy, you were friends, or whatever she called the unhumans she hung around who wasn't dating her or one of her friends.

She kept you at an arms width ever since she found you back before her first death. In a bottle or a vase, something old and dusty that tipped over in the library and through smoke you materialized. You didn't remember much; you didn't remember anything. The collection of you took days, like assembling some million and one pieced puzzle. Pieces were lost along the way, Giles bet that somewhere between your brain being assembled and your bones hardening that your memory slipped through the cracks of the old hardwood flooring and was lost to the Hell Mouth beneath. He also said that if the memory was so heavy it sank, it wasn't worth remembering anyways.

This being said, it made since that she wasn't immediately open to letting you in and you were fine with that. You didn't know how to exist otherwise. Feelings were also lost on you, along with your name, and breathing, and speaking. You read a lot, after being placed in Giles' care, you only ever were in the school library or his personal library in his apartment, and being born again, you now had a broken vocabulary of unnatural and old English.

It was Willow who named you Honey. She told you hot tea helped with the healing vocal cords and that honey would hopefully act as a sticky cement so they would stay together. Lots of honey was what you consumed until your presence became synonymous with honey and then that became your name. Remembering to breath came soon after, it made your human company that much more relaxed around you. That and the fact that because you were so broken, you weren't deemed a threat.

Feelings came crashing after the fact.

Angelus' return took a toll on Buffy and Spikes appearance began your ascension. You had read classics before; Giles didn't exactly keep copies of Dr. Seuss or even Baum. It was all Bronte, Shelly, or Austen. Writers who taught you that humans love and to love is human and you didn't understand at all not until

"And who might you be, love?"

What are you wasn't the question and he called you "love". Could you be called love, was that something you could be. With how much honey you consumed, you probably were part honey, but even outside of that, when the humans introduce themselves, they say "I am..." so you said "I am Honey" to fit in.

But he called you Love.

You didn't doubt Willow, but you wondered if being Honey was a mistake, if being love was an option. To be love would mean to have love and how did one do that.

"I am Honey." you replied. 3 words that didn't even scratch the surface of what you wanted to say. Maybe speech was more lost on you than you thought.

A lot of time had passed since then. A few apocalypses, a more modern and appropriate speech pattern, plenty of feelings and more importantly, the knowledge that feelings couldn't be shared.

Being so far removed from everyone else made it easy to notice things that they didn't. You noticed her push him away. You had heard him confess. You had become friends after a while, and there were many moments when you would be in his crypt talking to him in between bottles of wine and blood, pigs' blood after he became aware of his feelings. He told you about her, he raved about her bravery, he retold her jokes. The affect she had on him was palpable, impossible to ignore. His lips spoke of Buffy, he cried tears that reflected Buffy, even when he looked at you, he was looking for pieces of Buffy. That was the only explanation for why he would look at you for so long. You weren't a genius, you weren't even a poet, but you knew better than to delude yourself. And yet

He looked at you.

He watched you. He saw you. He perceived you; and it was so beautiful.

He also told you of Dru. She would have moments of clarity when she would revert to the ghost of who she was before Angelus drove her insane. Moments when she would look at the stars, not because she was seeing things, but because she was looking at them. Like the haze of one thousand years had cleared and she was looking at the stars, not shiny shards of glass wedged in a rocky ceiling. She stopped echoing wishes, and she made them. He even told you her favorite wish. She wanted a pretty dress to go to a pretty ball. It was so normal and human. She wanted to exist and be a girl in her own time again, like it used to be. Maybe she also wanted to be human.

Sometimes, if you found the strength in you to stomach it, you liked to think he looked at you like how she used to look at the stars. Like Buffy was his pipe dream and you were what he really wanted.

It wasn't a stretch of the imagination. She was a slayer, and he was a vampire. She is a pipe dream. She was the false stars of shattered glass, she was dangerous to him, she would hurt him. She has hurt him.

Every time he told her he loved her, she told him no. A step worse than rejection, she denied he even could love her. Demons weren't capable of love; he was experiencing obsession. He wanted to own her, to take her, ravish her and leave her a husk of who she used to be then toss her when the infatuation faded. He didn't need to, she already was. Death did that to her, she didn't need Spike to finish the job. And obsession. If what Spike felt towards her was obsession, then what the hell was she feeling.

This all lead to today. An old show playing on the boxy television, sitting on a newly stolen couch, occasionally passing a bowl of popcorn between the two of you. The show was a cheesy vampire comedy where the main character had finally cornered the terrifying "Dracula" and staked him with a cartoonishly large stake. "Blood squirted everywhere, coating the main character with what was probably corn syrup, chocolate syrup, and red food dye.

"That is totally unrealistic. Us vampires don't bleed, and he would've seen that stake from a mile away." he said while tossing a handful of popcorn at the screen.

"I doubt they had a way to turn him to dust back in like the 40's." he scoffed at your nonchalance.

"This is ridiculous. Us vampires need better representation on the telly, they're makin' us look like bumbling idiots." you can' help but laugh at his dramatics. In his rage, his hair had fallen out of place. It wasn't gelled like it usually was, a mistake he'll probably rectify in a few hours when the sun goes down.

"I didn't know you took such pride in being a vampire." He dramatically jumps to face you, a disgusted look on his face.

"Of bloody course I do. Why on Earth would I want to be human."

"Maybe Buffy would like you if you were human." For anyone else it would've been a low blow, but he lets you slide. That and the fact that beneath the mocking tone you took, you didn't laugh at it all that much.

"Would you want to be human, love?" There it is again. You should be used to it by now, but you still every time you hear it from him. Maybe because when it comes from him you want it. You had been on dates with other guys, some of whom confessed to you. The Scoobies told you they loved you multiple times before, even better, they all meant it and the feeling is mutual. Why is it still so much different with him.

"I don't know, I think it could be nice. I think life would be easier." He smiled.

"Why? You're not a vampire, you can frolic in the sun as much as you'd like." you shake your head.

"That's not it." What could it be? Spike wasn't often confused, as a matter of fact he was extremely self-assured, but he couldn't figure out what you were missing out on. He'd much rather be in you position than to remember every sin he's ever committed. You got the immortality and the powers with none of the guilt that comes with it.

"If I was human, I wouldn't be nearly as confused. I'd know more, I guess."

"But what if you never lost your memory? Knowing things wouldn't be an issue." If only knowing your name was the knowledge you were seeking.

"Knowing things wouldn't be an issue but there are some uniquely human things I can't experience because I'm not a human."

"Like what?" Being human at one point was interesting, it was so ingrained in Spike he couldn't imagine what it would be like for feelings to not be second nature. He never needed to understand them, feeling them was more than enough.

"I don't know because I'm not human. I don't know what I'm missing, but I'm missing something." Quit beating around the bush.

"What if you didn't need to be human and it just fell out?"

"What is so bad about being human that it fell out."

"Trust me, as a former human myself, there is plenty to hate about being human. They're puny and pathetic." He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the couch along then struck a match against a loose plank of wood. Bringing it to his lips, he inhaled the smoke and blew it away from your face, but the breeze from an open (broken) window whisked it towards your face anyway.

"But is that because you were human, or because you are you?" His gaze hardened at how quick the answer came.

"You think I was pathetic?" The fallen embers came onto his pants, but he paid them no mind.

"You think you used to be pathetic." Though this was true, a part of him felt offended. Even stranger, he didn't know which part.

"Because I was. I was human and emotional and a bloody mess, because I was human. Demons don't feel anything which is far better than feeling and getting hurt."

"But you aren't demon enough to know what it means to feel nothing!" You weren't a demon to him, though. It would've been easy for him to forget that you weren't one of those pesky humans had it not been for your distinctly not human scent. It was like whisky, rich and old and expensive. Too expensive to break open and drink because it grew more valuable with time. He'd do anything for you not to go to waste.

"And if you want to feel so badly, you can't possibly be that much of a demon!" To waste you would for you to be human. They're too fragile. They die. Spike longed to be a demon because at his core, he was a coward. He didn't want to die. Judging by how much you yearned to be human, you feared loneliness more.

"Why do you love Buffy so much." Ah, the point.

Spike was many things. A bastard, one of those British nancy boys, a coward, a freak. A thing he prided himself the most on was his intellect. He was insightful, he could be emotionally intelligent when he wanted to be. This was the important part.

A part of him knew his best friend loved him. A part he profusely ignored because he was only emotionally intelligent when he wanted to be. He could admit that he was intellectual and intelligent and at times wise, he believed those to be self-evident truths, cornerstones of his Spikeism. He's the brooding, yet insightful, bad boy with a heart of gold who does the right thing when it conveniences him. He's an actor and this was the character he's had centuries to build, and he'd be damned it cracked because then he'd be proving that he was never anything more than William "The Bloody Bad Poet".

Maybe self-hatred was the root of it. The inescapable need- no instinct, to kick himself in the ass at any possible opportunity, was why he ignored you. It had to be some sick penchant for pain, or the belief that he wasn't deserving of good things, because if you were nothing else, you were good to him which meant you deserved better than him.

But altruism doesn't fit into the paradigm of Spike. Altruism is William's thing which made this so much more horrifying. William loved you. Spike loving you meant nothing because he didn't really mean it. The stage kisses and the dramatized sex scenes were suffocatingly filled with false passion, more passion than humanly possible. Spike loved hard, William loved deeply, and both loved you. It couldn't be undone, but it could be forgotten.

"I don't know." Those 3 words didn't even begin to scratch the surface of why he "loved" her.

"But all I know of love comes from you, I learned it from you, and you don't know why you love her?" You wanted to cry, and you hated it. If you could take it back, you would. You wished you had shut your mouth and watched the stupid show that was still playing as you had this argument.

"Love isn't something you explain." He put distance between the two of you, standing up and walking away from the couch in search for a bottle of alcohol. He wasn't planning on you following him, following closer than the tail of his leather duster.

You threw the alcohol before his hand even grazed it, smashing it against the concrete walls of his crypt. Positioning yourself between himself and the makeshift table that used to be a grave, you stood your ground. Blinking back tears because the second water hit that cement you were done for.

"Then show me. That's how I learned before." He clenched then unclenched his jaw. Buffy was all over him, but you were inside of him. The air he breathed, the blood in his veins, the force making his heart beat was you and it always had been. "Show me."

He was scared.

"What if you don't understand." He was stalling. For too long he hadn't been allowed to have anything. Dru was never his because Angelus had ingrained his way into her very being. Buffy was never realistic, and even if she was, she was human. One day she'd die, and he'd move on long before that date anyways. You were so attainable, and you were willing to be his. What if he fucked up. He has, right in front of him, sharing breaths mere inches from each other, everything he had ever wanted, and he didn't even have to fight for it. Handed to him on a silver platter was the key to the universe, but he could find a way to fuck it up. He always did.

"You don't know that." He held your head in his hands, rubbing his thumb over your cheek. His world in the palm of his hands. What if he dropped it.

"You love me?"

"I didn't even know what love was before I met you." You whispered it and he shattered. He kissed you, as if he could pull the sound from your lips so that your confession him that could replay forever in his mind. Like he was sealing some sort of promise so you couldn't take it back.

"I love you." He said in between kisses. "I love you so much it hurts." He kissed you on the forehead." I love you so much it makes me feel alive again." He kissed you on your right cheek, "Longed for you like the sun and cherished you like the stars, I love you.", then on the left.

He looked you in the eyes before kissing you again. As if he wouldn't be there to say it again, as if you could somehow forget it, he said it once more.

"I love you."

[queerstudiesnatural]

dean walks into cas' room one night when he's had enough of pacing in his own room and bursts out "why?"

cas looks up from his book, looks at dean with his eyebrows furrowed and says, "i don't think that was a full sentence."

dean rolls his eyes then shrugs because cas is kinda right, and tries again. "why do you love me?"

cas leans back against the wall behind his bed, which he is sitting on with his legs straight out in front of him, and says quietly, "i've already told you why. do you really need me to give you that whole speech again?" in a tone indicating that he doesn't particularly want to but that he will, if asked.

"no, i mean, how?" dean says. "how can you love me? how can you look past... why don't you... i mean, all i do is mess things up. i'm not good with people, i'm always angry, i- i've caused more than one apocalyptic event. i yell all the time, and i push people away, and i've hurt you so many times, and i- i just don't get it. i don't understand why you don't see that."

"i do see it," cas says calmly. he tilts his head to the side, looking for his words. "i do see all of these things. you are not a perfect man, dean. you can be quite frustrating sometimes. but how much of a hypocrite would i be if i held that against you? i have messed up too, perhaps more than you. i am not good with people either. i have pushed you away many times, not only hurting you, but myself as well. i have stubbornly clung to my need to fix things on my own when i should have trusted you. and you've managed to forgive me every time. can you not see how i can do the same?"

dean's mouth opens and closes a few times, then he says, "but you always had a good reason. you've always been good."

"so have you, dean. every mistake you've made was in an attempt to help someone else. me, on several occasions. you are not the consequences of your actions, dean. you are the intentions behind your actions." after a pause, he adds, "i would say this is why i love you, but i don't think it is. i don't love you because you're good. i love the bad, too. i don't have a reason to love you, i just do."

dean looks at his angel, sitting awkwardly on his unmade bed, his discarded book laying open next to him, its pages folded at an unnatural angle against the mattress, and thinks, it doesn't matter. none of it matters. maybe it did once, maybe it will again. but right now, nothing matters but the joy he feels at having cas here and safe and casually going through his t-shirts any time he needs a change of clothes.

he walks up to the bed and lies down next to cas, his head on cas' stomach, his arms around his waist. "thank you," he whispers, a tear sneaking its way down his nose. "thank you."

he feels a hand land gently on the top of his head, fingers carding through his hair, slowly massaging circles into his scalp. the hand moves in small motions until it reaches his temple, his cheekbone, the hollow of his cheek. it wipes away the tears on dean's skin, and dean only cries harder at the tenderness of it. he grabs the hand and folds cas' arm around him. he intertwines his fingers with cas', taking his time to feel all the points of contact between them. his lips find the back of cas' hand, and with his eyes closed, he says, "i can't quite believe i get to have this yet. i don't know if i will ever truly believe it. but i love you too. i wasn't sure before because, well. i'm me. i'm not good at putting things into words. but i know now. i love you and i'm happier when you're here. i'd like you to stay with me. uh, if you want to, that is. if you want to stay with me then i'm all yours. forever."

he hears a sniff as cas' hand squeezes around his. "yes, dean. that would be nice."

dean falls asleep soon after that, unbothered by nightmares, and when he wakes up a full eight hours later, cas is still warm against him, their hands still intertwined, and in his own heart he feels the noticeable absence of the ever-present flutter of fear.

[sunonyoreface]

He Knows - Simon “Ghost” Riley Pt. 15

An: Took a bit of a break to work on my school stuff, thanks for your patience and understanding! If you can't tell from this chapter, I really missed Soap. Lots of angst to come ;)

Hi there, this is a series about Simon Riley from COD. This series does not follow any of the established plots or timelines from the games. While I use the names of some characters, they are different from the ones in COD.

Summary: You’re held captive by 141 for reasons unknown.

Word count: 3700

Pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x Reader

Warnings: 18+, nsfw, angst, military setting, explicit language, graphic depictions of violence, use of guns.

Soap’s arm brushes against mine as we make our way to an unexpected meeting called by Captain Price. He’s the only stability I have right now. My joints feel weak and unnatural as they carry me through the corridor.

As soon as Ghost landed the helicopter in Ludza, I was ushered off and escorted to a solitary room somewhere deep within the base by a group of men I didn’t recognize. That was yesterday. This morning I’d never been so relieved to see Soap.

He says something along the lines of “It's been dunky's since I last saw ya,” and while I don’t have the slightest idea what he means, I’m just glad it’s him.

His right forearm is wrapped in gauze and looks like it’s supposed to be in a sling. Maybe it was in one for a day or so before he grew irritated from the lack of mobility and tore it off. I don’t know if the new injury is from his previous mission or the attack by the Ultranationalists, but I’m smarter than to ask about it right away.

“So, why did Price call a meeting?” I ask.

“Not sure, but it’s important enough for my whole schedule to change,” There’s something different about his voice.  I’m not sure if he’s annoyed or relieved. Maybe neither. Maybe he’s almost as concerned as I am.

The part of the building we’re in is underground. Most of the base is. It’s an eerie feeling knowing that if something went wrong, we’d be trapped down here. But this base is newer and better equipped than the last one. I get the impression that they use Latvia as their main base because it’s closer to Russia. Closer to the Ultranationalists. But I can only speculate. Maybe this is nothing compared to their other compounds.

I can’t stop thinking about Simon – Ghost – I don’t know what to call him. It’s like the names belong to two different people and I never know which one I’m about to encounter. One is reluctantly vulnerable, damaged, caring, and tender. He yearns for more. While the other… is, something else entirely. Ghost is cold and industrial, the perfect killing machine whose all stoicism and no emotional interference. There’s an indifference present with Ghost: he’s witnessed and partaken in so much violence, so much heartbreaking cruelty that every other human emotion is out of reach. They are two sides of the same coin.

I toss a quarter in my mind and pray it lands on tails. I catch it in one hand and flip it onto my palm. Soap opens the office door as I reveal its face: heads.

Dark eyes peer out from behind that damn skull mask. He stands just beside the entrance while Price leans against a table. The only thing on its surface is a clunky, black laptop.

“Sir,” Soap nods to each of them as I duck my head and follow in behind him. The last time this happened, everything changed forever.

“Sit down, y/n,” I know it’s going to be bad when Price skips the small talk. I feel my blood pressure rising. My neck is warm and my cheeks flush. I sit on the foldable chair directly in front of him. The brim of his hat dips as he looks down at me, still leaning against the table. Soap takes his place at the other side of the door opposite Ghost. Their eyes on me heighten my anxiety. “Take a breath darling, you look about ready to fall over.”

A weak, nervous laugh bubbles from my chest. I try and relax my shoulders but I think we both know this is as good as it’s going to get.

“I’d like to thank you for alerting us to the Ultranationalist’s plan, it greatly improved our reaction time. Probably saved some lives,” Price says, but in my mind drifts to the others that were lost as a consequence. “But for our sake, I need to know everything that prisoner told you.”

So I tell him. I like Price and he’s always been decent toward me, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared of him. Ghost didn’t plan this thing alone. He’s had a hand in everything I’ve endured and has less of an inclination than Ghost to trust me. I don’t know a lot about the English military, but I know his rank means something. He holds power. If he wanted me to disappear, I would without a trace.

As I talk about the things the prisoner said I hear a few grumbles behind me from Soap. I look predominantly at Price but cast a few glances at Ghost who breaks eye contact every time. His actions are far from reassuring.

“Fucking knew there was a mole,” Soap’s voice is bitter with distaste. Ghost shifts as he casts a warning glare in his direction. My mouth feels dry after talking so much.

“Not now, Sergeant,” Price cautions him. This is the kind of discussion I can’t hear. For all they know I’m the mole.

“Sorry, sir.”

“Y/n there’s one other matter we need to discuss,” his attention turns to me. I feel Ghost’s eyes intensify as he watches my reactions. Did he say anything? My heart skips a beat. The inside of my cheek throbs as I nervously bite down on the flesh. Surely he wouldn’t. Right? But their bond runs much deeper than anything he and I had for that single night. When it comes down to me or Price, Ghost would choose him a thousand times over.

Maybe he did say something. What happens then?

I look from Ghost who refuses to make eye contact to Price who won’t look away. He knows.

“It has to do with information discussed at the safe house,” breathing becomes incredibly difficult. My hands clench into fists. Deny everything. Nothing happened. Nothing.

“Okay,” I sound guilty. I sound treasonous. Ready to be put down by a firing squad.

“Lieutenant Riley said you expressed an interest in viewing our tapes of several Ultranationalist attacks,” Relief washes over me as my shoulders sink into the chair. Ghost didn’t tell him. “Specifically the ones involving your father.”

My eyes lock onto Price. His words spin around in my head and part of me refuses to believe I heard him correctly.

“My father?” Swallowing feels impossible. My throat is sandpaper the whole way down. My head is light and a sudden gust of wind could blow me away like a tumbleweed.

“Affirmative,” he uncrosses his arms to brace his hands along the table. “I have them here,” he tilts his head, motioning to the laptop. I look between him and Ghost who finally makes eye contact with me. He wasn’t lying. There really are videos.

My head starts to shake. “I don’t-“

“It’ll make what I have to say next a lot easier,” Price interrupts. What he has to say next? What’s next? What’s worse than this? How could watching my own flesh and blood commit a heinous crime make whatever he is going to say easier? My stomach turns.

“Okay,” I mumble. My hands are being forced. I don’t want to see whatever footage he has.

“Right then,” He moves away from the table to log onto the computer. Already pulled up, ready to play, is surveillance footage of an Ultranationalist attack. “This was in France. Nine months ago. At a soup kitchen.”

Price clicks play and I watch the scene unfold below. A group of armed men dressed as soldiers enter a packed building with people in line for food and sitting at rows of tables. The camera catches the back of their heads. Sewn to their shoulders is the identifying patch underneath the Russian flag. They line the walls and a staff member starts to approach just as they open fire on the crowd. Two minutes of chaos ensue until every single person is riddled with bullet holes. I feel the bile creep up the back of my throat as I sit there completely stunned at what I’m witnessing. It can’t be real. It can’t be.

As the dust dies down, the line of men turns to exit the building. It’s now the camera narrows in on their faces. Their unmasked faces. Not a single man is trying to hide his identity. No. They’re proud of what they just did. I recognize him immediately, even at a distance and in a uniform completely unfamiliar to me. The man leading the group is undeniably my father.

Devastation snags my jaw like a left hook and I feel my face start to crumple under the pressure. What the fuck. It’s real. It’s too real. The first tear falls and I quickly wipe it away, but I know they saw. I can’t stop my head from shaking. I can’t believe he would do something like that. The same man who raised me. Who I thought was so kind.

“Next one also took place in France. South this time,” Price’s voice remains calm. I feel ashamed. I feel dirty from his actions.

I watch three more videos of similar attacks. In the final one, there’s a closeup of the men involved. It’s the first time I’ve seen my father with a beard, but it’s still him through and through. My own flesh and blood. How could a man do something so horrifying? How could he justify his actions?

My stomach turns and I fight the urge to throw up. Full-body tremors take over my weak frame. I wrap my arms around myself in a small attempt to find comfort. I hate the fact that they see me in such a state. I’ve never felt so vulnerable in front of a group of people before. Let alone a group actively hunting down my family. If I can even call him that.

I wish I was back in that cabin, wrapped in Simon’s arms. He’s known this whole time. He tried to warn me.  If only I knew how bad it was going to get.

“It’s a lot,” Price starts. “Which is why I’m going to let you sleep on my next question.”

I nod, still staring at the floor.

“Will you help us lure him out?” I should’ve seen this coming. That’s what this has all been about. Using me to get to my father, maybe even Makarov. Ghost said so himself. But now they want me directly involved. Why?

“I don’t know,” I mumble.

“Think about it,” Price’s answer is short and to the point. He’ll give me time, but his patience is limited.

“Will you kill him?” my voice wavers. It’s a brave question, but I’m not brave enough for Price’s answer.

“That’s up to him,” his voice is resolute. The ambiguity of his answer is anything but reassuring. “That’ll be all for now. We’ll reconvene in the morning. Soap, she’s to stay in her quarters for the rest of the day.”

“Yes sir,” I feel his good arm on my upper back guiding me out of the room before I even realize what’s going on. In the hall, his hand rubs reassuring circles between my shoulder blades. “Do ya want food?”

“No,” I sniffle. I need to get it together before we pass the cafeteria full of men. “Thanks,” I mutter through a deep breath as I wipe my eyes for the last time. I find myself leaning into his touch. There’s a softness to Soap that’s too easy to get attached to.

My eyes are swollen, but at least I’ve stopped crying. Exhaustion seeps into my joints. Just walking feels strenuous.

“Still on babysitting duty, Suds?” a vaguely familiar voice taunts from across the room. A blond man in full gear leans against the entrance to the dining hall. He’s speaking to Soap, but his eyes never leave me. Chills run down my spine.

“Shut up ya fucking latrine queen, I don’t have time for your shite right now,” Soap shifts to my other side, placing some distance between myself and this man. He urges me to walk with a gentle hand but my feet start to slow.

“You know,” suddenly his voice doesn’t sound so vague. It’s the same man from the transportation van. The one who made crude comments toward us. The same one Ghost shut up by pulling rank. “Rumor has it you knew about the ambush.” The man raises his hand to point at me. Guilt swells in my chest.

There are only the three of us in the hall connecting the offices, cafeteria, and sleeping quarters, yet I’m afraid someone else will hear his accusations.

“Friday shouldn’t have gone down like that,” any previous teasing tone is gone. There’s real anger behind his words. “Our men died because of you,” I freeze at his words. The overwhelming feeling in my chest starts to spill over. Death follows me everywhere. He’s right. They died because of me. Others are still in the infirmary. Because of me.

Does he see my father when he looks at me? Is that what they all see? A contorted excuse for a human, twisted to the extent even mirrors don’t recognize?

Overwhelming anxiety and despair push me to the edge. I feel the tears threaten to fall again. I can’t let him see me cry. I won’t give him the satisfaction.

My feet take off sprinting down the closest hall, toward the sleeping quarters. My heart thunders in my ears, drowning out the sound of Soap calling after me. I don’t care. I need to get away from here. They blame me. They all blame me.

The empty corridor is lined with doors that blur as I run past them. Each leads to a room with a single twin bed. But no one’s here. Downtime isn’t for another while. I don’t know where I’m going. Anywhere. It doesn’t matter I just need to get away. Panic and adrenaline course through my veins. Tears cloud my vision and I can barely see.

When I hit the black object, It initially feels like a wall: hard and unmovable. But then his arms constrict around my torso, trapping me against his chest. I try and push off him which causes his grip to tighten even more. My mind flashes back to that night he held my arm so hard it bruised.

“How did you-”

“Where’s Soap?” Ghost’s unmistakable voice thunders in my ear. He sounds pissed. I blink away the newest tears. My emotions feel scrambled. His fingers press into my flesh. Ghost knows he has me. He doesn’t need to be this rough.

“Simon, you’re hurting me,” my throat is sore as my voice cracks.

His breathing falters and immediately the pressure is lifted. Ghost’s hands clench into fists at his side. I don’t know who he’s angry with anymore. Me, Soap, or himself? Part of me still fears him. Of what he’s capable of. Despite it, I don’t step away. I missed the heat of his chest seeping into my own. I want to feel the tenderness he’s capable of.

He sighs, collecting himself for another moment before speaking again. “Why are you running in the halls by yourself?” Ghost’s voice is significantly softer, but I don’t miss the urgency still present. A large hand brushes down my arm. It’s the only comfort I’ll get for days.

“I left him,” I mumble, refusing to make eye contact.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I lie. The huff of his chest tells me he knows I’m lying. But there’s no time for him to push further. Feet thunder down the hall as the thick Scottish accent echoes off the walls.

“For fucks sake y/n,” Soap is audibly annoyed, but it’s only surface deep. “You can’t just run off.”

“Sorry,” the words tumble from my mouth. I hate this. I hate all the attention. All the expectations. Having to be on my best behaviour. The lack of freedom. All of it.

“What happened,” Ghost inches away from me as he turns his attention to Soap.

“I took care of it,” his thick words jumble together when he’s out of breath, but Ghost is used to it. What does he mean by “took care of it?”

“Is this something I have to tell Price?”

“Nah, shouldn’t be a problem again,” there’s a slyness to his tone. Soap tucks his hands into the side of his vest and it's now that I notice the red swelling at his knuckles. I watch Ghost’s eyes flicker down to the same spot.

“Right then,” he looks between the two of us. “I need to talk to you later,” Soap nods, seemingly already on the same page. Ghost casts one last glance my way before taking off. Conflict brews in the eyes beneath the skull mask. We need to talk. Question is, when? There’s a strange expression furrowed between Soap’s brows as he watches the interaction. One almost of suspicion.

I get an entire room to myself. I feel spoiled by this most basic accommodation. A twin bed, dresser, toilet, and sink. Like a luxurious jail cell. No windows. Not this deep underground. But at least there’s privacy. Tired feet drag their way toward the mattress.

Soap leans against the doorframe, bright blue eyes closely following my figure.

“What happened out there?” his voice is soft as he reaches for the door, slowly pulling it closed behind him. My eyes flicker from his to the swollen knuckles wrapped around the handle. My brain is foggy. His actions are slightly ambiguous. Does he mean today? Or at the safe house? The door silently latches into place as he blocks the only exit. What does he know?

“Out where?” I force myself to maintain eye contact. My hands nervously fist the comforter.

“The safe house,” Soap’s head tilts as he examines my reaction.

People are quick to dismiss Soap because of his openness towards others. He’s kind and doesn’t expect anything in return. There’s no hidden ulterior motive behind his actions. Johnny is simply a good person. And I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t done the same thing.

But his kindness, his ability to connect with others makes him better at reading people than the rest of the task force. Next to Ghost, Soap is who you have to be so damn careful around. He’s been right there beside Ghost for more interrogations than I can count. But they’re not always bloody and violent. Sometimes they’re soft. Sometimes they’re done by someone you thought you could trust. The right interrogator will caress your cheek and wipe your tears as they coax exactly what they need from your swollen lips. Soap knows exactly how to get information from different types of people. He is dangerous. I can’t let my guard slip around him. He’ll know.

“What do you mean?” I ask, crawling further onto the bed to rest against the wall. I need to stay composed. For a moment I was certain Ghost didn’t tell Price, but I didn’t even consider Soap. They’re closer than anyone else on the task force. Their secrets have to run deep. Chances are he could know already but wants me to confirm it. Or Ghost lied to him and he caught on. What if my story doesn’t match his?

“He’s barely spoken a word since you returned. Something’s up,” Soap steps away from the door, cautiously closing in on the distance between him and the bed. I scan his face just as carefully as he does mine. But I lack the years of experience and training that he has. All I have is my gut. And right now I don’t know what’s the truth and what’s a lie.

“Nothing happened,” I attempt, but it’s apparent my words don’t take when Soap starts to shake his head.

“I don’t wanna do that with ya,” his voice is reserved as he crosses his arms. Nerves start to crawl their way back up my spine. Every part of me feels on edge.

“He was angry I didn’t say anything about the Ultranationalists before the attack,” I mirror him, folding my arms across my chest. It’s true. Just not the whole truth.

I watch as he processes my words. As his eyes narrow and his brows pull closer together. Soap’s sharp jaw angles down as he considers his next words. Something is eating away at him.

“Did he do anything?” I don’t hide the confusion stemming from his quiet words. What would he do? Why is that the first thing that comes to his mind?

“No,” It slips from my mouth in a rush, but I catch myself. “Well, we fought, but that’s it.” The sigh that escapes his chest is heavy and his stance remains closed off. I don’t know if he buys it. “It’s fine. Really. Soap I’m sick of talking about this. I know I fucked up. Every damn thing I do out here is a fuck up. Can we just leave it at that? Please?” I quickly wipe at the stray tear that escapes.

“Don’t talk like that lass,” Soap’s shoulders soften as he uncrosses his arms. His feet risk another step forward, but then he stops. Something about his expression is pained. His hand twitches at his side like he wants to reach out and comfort me. My mind drifts to how it would feel to have his strong arms wrapped around my frame, how safe it would feel…

Soap reigns himself in. He knows he’s tiptoeing the line of his assigned duties.

“Can I get you anything from the cafeteria?” He retreats into safer territory.

“No,” I sniffle. “Thanks.”

The heavy Steel-toed boots thud along the floor. “I’ll drop off a plate,” Soap says as he closes the door behind him. The loud clank of the lock rattles throughout the room. The fog clouding my thoughts mutes the aching betrayal throughout my body, eventually lulling me to sleep.

My father planned the murder of hundreds of people. Innocent people. Mothers and children. Refugees trying to build a better life for themselves. Vulnerable civilians unable to stand up for themselves. All for what? Political gain? What kind of a sick bastard views mass murder as a tool for power? I can’t believe I’ve been so clueless. Maybe he does deserve to die. Maybe we both do.

I don’t notice the plate of food sitting on the empty dresser the next time the door opens. Something else snags my attention.

My sleepy eyes narrow in on the dark, ominous shadow looming in the corner of my room.

Someone is here.

Pt 16:

[mlb-a-rewrite]

Chat Noir is Adrien

That seems pretty obvious, they are literally the same person. Honestly, I don’t know if this was ever a point of contention in the fandom because I’ve never been, like, properly in the fandom but I remembered hearing about this a while ago and thought I talk about it in regard to my Rewrite :)

Adrien and Chat Noir are the same person, again, obviously, but they act very differently from one another, particularly in the show. Adrien is always polite and carefully spoken while Chat Noir says anything and everything. They act like different people, but they aren’t.

I think every person goes through an identity crisis in their life. Mine has been ongoing but it was pretty bad a few years ago. I felt very lonely because I didn’t have anyone who knew me, but that begged the question, Who am I?

Depending on the situation I act differently. I make different jokes around family than I do around friends. I speak and act differently at work than I do in my house and at school I behave entirely differently, but all of these are me.

At school, I am naturally quieter and more withdrawn. It would be unnatural, not authentic if I were to be super outgoing and sociable. That is me.

But with friends, I make crass jokes and laugh about dumb shit. I instigate conversations and go out of my way to spend time with them. That is also me.

Neither of these versions of me are facades, they are all me, but reacting to different situations. I don’t particularly enjoy school so I go into low power mode, but when I do happen to enjoy a topic or have a friend in the same class then I am more invested. I am fluid and changing and all different “versions” of me are still me.

To apply this to a fictional teenage superhero, Adrien acts a certain way at school, and as time progresses he gets more comfortable in the “version” of him he is at school and settles into it. When he transforms and becomes Chat Noir, another “version” of him surfaces. One isn’t more valid or authentic than another; Adrien is simply adapting to his circumstances.

One minor issue (yes it’s only minor this time around) I have with the show is that they never show bleedover between the different “versions” of Adrien. I may be wrong, but I believe they do with Marinette early on where they show her gain confidence as Ladybug and that transfers over to her as Marinette, but they never do anything like that with Adrien.

Going back to my example from before, in class, I am typically quieter and more withdrawn, but if I have a friend in that class or was just talking to my friends before I went to class, that may change and I end up being more talkative and involved. If something bad happens in my personal life, I will be unfocused and tired in class. These different “versions” of myself are all connected and they bleed together, they impact one another.

As a whole, I think the show should look into this more. Or, if they don’t want to dive into that, they just ignore it entirely, but a lot of the show’s main struggles are with the heroes, Marinette in particular, dealing with having “two lives” that are at odds with each other. It would make that struggle more interesting if they dove into how they personally struggle with this outside of just being stressed, you know?

In my rewrite, I’m not planning on diving into this in great detail, but I want to make sure that the connection is present. I see how changes in one “version” of a character impact the others. 

When Adrien gets his miraculous and becomes Chat Noir, he suddenly has unlimited freedom and gets to experience something new. As a result, he starts to discover himself more in this newfound freedom and realizes he likes making jokes and goofing off but that he likes to do so because it makes the people around him smile. 

As Adrien, he makes the people around him smile not primarily through jokes, but by acts of service. He spends time with them and connects with them on an emotional level to support them. Adrien still makes jokes, but they aren’t his go-to as it is for Chat. Chat likes to connect emotionally with Ladybug, but can’t fully because of their secret identities.

Adrien and Chat Noir are the same person but just put names to that same person in different circumstances.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Any thoughts on Nanami and Wakaba? (not as a pairing, unless you see it, then I'm very interested)

I've been watching Utena with friends and we had constant fights about those two, because "She literally kills kittens, what's wrong with you" for Nanami (I am witch apologist) and "Why is she even here" for Wakaba (I am girl enjoyer)

Pfft.

I don't see it as a pairing though in the world of Utena anything's possible.

But I certainly have thoughts on the characters as well as the world of Utena itself that's perhaps worth bearing in mind.

Utena as a Show

Utena is one of my favorite shows to have ever been created. However, it's something I also sometimes hesitate to recommend. It not only deals with extremely dark themes (albeit in a non-graphic manner) from murder, sexual assault, grooming, to rampant incest but also doesn't do so in a way that the modern internet can in any way handle.

What do I mean?

Every character has something seriously wrong with them and makes awful and sometimes outright malicious decisions.

Utena, our heroine, the prince, we learn later has forgotten the reason she wished to become a prince as an adolescent and at first pursues the goal simply out of a desire to be noble and embody this idea of chivalry and nobility without actually knowing what these things are. Miki is alright enough save that he has that thing going on with his twin sister and covets Anthy without ever truly wishing to know her.

That's not even getting to Anthy who I can only state is very complicated.

It's not a show that people can watch if they're not comfortable with the idea that there is something horribly wrong with everyone. The good characters aren't always good, the bad characters sometimes have reason to be bad (and sometimes are just pure evil), and you might not even know who the fuck the good and bad characters are because it turns out breaking the world's shell was probably a good thing.

Compared to say Good Omens which has the complexity of a thimble and people are still upset that Aziraphale made the wrong choice at the end of series 2 there.

But back to your question.

Nanami

I love all the characters in Utena, but Nanami might just be one of my favorites in that she's the beautifully executed dark horse of the series.

Because it turns out she's the only one who's fucking sane.

We start out and Nanami is presented as Anime Mean Girl. Oh, she's that type, the pretty rich girl who's going to bully our romantic lead. Okay, Nanami, I will suffer through you. But then almost immediately this goes awry when nothing every goes Nanami's way. She's crushed by elephants, stalked by an eleven year old, and she... really really really likes her big brother.

And as we go on we see her at first as someone who's truly a villain, she murders kittens as you note, and that is fucked up but then by the end we find out that despite all prior indications she is the only person who does not want to sleep with her brother and thinks this is a madhouse.

She's fascinating and I love her.

But more on the kitten--I think Nanami is excellently portrayed as a little girl who is severely fucked up (in part by Ohtori and in part by life itself). She has an unnatural devotion to her brother, which he also enables throughout the series, and... something weird is going on with the parents (in other versions, namely the movie, it's worth noting that Touga turns out to have been abused by his father).

I don't know if I'd condemn or laud her but she's the character who's at first presented as the worst but then it turns out everyone is just as bad/worse than Nanami is and actually she lives in a madhouse.

Wakaba

I mean.

"Why is she even here?" is the point of Wakaba's whole character arc, which I'd argue is very vital to the storyline of the anime. That's why she's great.

Wakaba's that girl who is normal, she's just normal, and she wants to be special without there being anything special about her. She's nice and kind, but only to a certain degree, and she wants to be like Utena and all these shining brilliant people in her life.

She serves as the catalyst of the plot, in Utena first engaging in a duel, and yet is never involved further in the events. She desperately wants Saionji, to be special herself, and we see her rejecting a very kind boy who genuinely cares for her because of this. We learn that she's not as nice as we, e.g. Utena, had previously thought and that Utena has this quality that Utena herself doesn't understand and that others envy without her realizing it.

Wakaba's descent is when Utena first begins to realize she's failed as a friend, despite all her attempts to do right by Wakaba, and that she doesn't understand those around her as she's trapped in her own world/idea of chivalry (a foreshadowing for what happens with Anthy).

Wakaba helps act as a foil for Utena and is vital to help slowly reveal why Utena struggles and has to grow as a person in order to free Anthy (and why Utena is betrayed by Anthy without ever seeing a hint of it coming).

[yuseirra]

I really am trying to make sense of hikaru's character, and trying to bring everything I see of him and combine it together in a way that makes sense to form his character but it's actually impossible. I could manage to make sense of it somehow till 161, but I just cannot with what we learn out of him in 162, it has information that contradicts what's previously given to us and it's as if he has split personalities that cannot coexist...

The only way to make this understandable and could be thought of as consistent writing would be that he's ACTUALLY possessed, I'm serious, because what WAS that about him saying he does have fatherly feelings and the fact he funded for the movie, was willing to accept he'd be killed etc, I don't feel those were lies either, it DIDN'T have to be there. It's one of those information that no one would expect out of him so much and had been purposely given to us with intent. Those aren't usually lies because what's the point?; It's bad writing to just throw those info in to confuse the readers, it wasn't enacted in a way to be taken as a lie.

It wouldn't have been a problem if his appearance during the movie arc never existed, then he's perfectly coherent in regards to his previous portrayals, but I always felt that his portrayals in that arc would be fundamental to understand his character, his eyes didn't have the black stars in 154 in reaction to Ai's video either, so I was convinced the reactions he had towards Ai's video was so genuine.

I really want to ask the author if that's it for this one.

I really don't get it for this case, it's ACTUALLY impossible to integrate what's been shown of him as a single character, and it's not like the chapters have been spread out so far that it lead to a lack of consistency, it's been less than ten chapters since these events happened and he's drastically different that I just can't take him as the same person.

Except for the really, really base core of the character like his appearance and age and the fact that Ai is his most important person, it's like he's been completely taken over and shifted. It's so confusing, I really don't want to discard what I made out of his character from after what I saw from the movie arc, but I can't bring it together in a logical way of how things are in 161-162 if this is how he's supposed to go and it ISN'T AN ACT. Either this is bad writing(I'm sorry to say that towards another person's work but from a psychological standpoint, I really, really cannot comprehend what this is) or it's intentionally indicating that there is this outer force that's drastically shifted Kamiki's character in an unnatural way. But would it really BE this? In the case of the latter, Ai's wishes if helping him still makes sense because it'd indicate Hikaru really isn't himself and is influenced by the black stars or whatever. Honestly, that's the ONLY way it'd make sense for me for this character to be this way. It IS very out of character if we bring the movie arc portrayals into account. Does the writer know what they're doing with this character? They must, way better than me, but I'm not sure what they want to do with them because the work isn't mine.

I really really am trying to make do and make the best out of what I can of what's been presented in the source material, I always do, but it's INCREDIBLY confusing regarding this character. Right now... I may have to go with the idea that he's ACTUALLY possessed and not himself as bizzare and illogical that may be, or either disregard a huge chunk of the ideas that was set forth in the movie arc(but I am really convinced those were the truths when it comes to this character!!) It's both such a tough choice to make and I really need answers for this case. They don't give us proper answers when it comes to this character. What are they hiding?? I actually think he CAN really be possessed because, that's what the songs could be indicating and plus, that does let us see WHY Ai would request to help this guy out. It's not entirely out of his own will that he's acting wickedly, but under an influence, that's how he's "lost"... So is THIS it? Is THAT what the author is going for? Well for Hikaru's sake and for the sake of consistent writing I do hope this is the case because I can't understand him perfectly unless it's this!! Things just don't work out. I can't possibly portray him as well and it's so difficult, and I never had this happen to me, ever. It's like having a puzzle piece that's from a different set and struggling to fit it in, but it can't happen because it isn't supposed to be there in the first place.

I want to make the best of it, but that's what's happening to me right now.

[butchhamlet]

hi it's me again im the anon who dropped about 800 words about ocd hamlet a couple weeks ago (maybe longer, time has been weird for me lately).. it made me soo happy to see it resonated with you and with some other people who reblogged it as well!! i've been projecting on hamlet ever since i read it and it feels like every time i read it i learn more about him AND me... and ever since Symptoms showed up he's been even dearer to me and im just so glad people like my interpretation as well :)

i hope it's ok for me to do this again because i want to talk about what if lady macbeth has ocd also. and i know this is sort of well. dangerous if that's the right word because 1) lady macbeth IS the villain in her play even if i love her from the bottom of my heart and i support everything she does and ocd is already an incredibly stigmatised and misunderstood 2) hand washing is possibly THE most stereotyped compulsion that sort of epitomises this really warped view of ocd in the public consciousness. i personally do not have handwashing as a compulsion or really any physical compulsions that are direct responses to my intrusive thoughts so i will try to be really really careful when im talking about this. + other disclaimers: again while i have definitely experienced symptoms of ocd i do not know if i have it and i am NOT diagnosed + ocd experiences are different for everyone + you cannot diagnose a character because they are not real + this one is mostly projection and is more a frame of reading than it is an interpretation grounded in textual evidence (esp since i will be talking about the sleepwalking asleep a LOT and she is technically, well. sleeping.) so just. take everything with a pinch of salt and please let me know if i ever overstep!!

im mainly going to be drawing on experiences close to real event ocd even though i know that typically real event ocd is defined by the fact that the sufferer blows their past mistakes way out of proportion and/or question their memories, and i guess i cannot say that lady macbeth’s guilt is completely unjustified because uh. she did kill a man.! but i do think her behaviours after the murder reflects what i’ve seen people speak about online as well as some of the experiences i’ve had. 

guilt as illness

this is more general to the whole play i guess but i wanted to point out how the consequences of the macbeths’ regicide is absolutely portrayed as a disease. there’s a LOT of foreshadowing in lady macbeth’s advice to her husband in the immediate aftermath of their murder: she tells him not to “think / so brain sickly of things”, and says, “these deeds must not be thought / after these ways so, it will make us mad”. (2.ii) the doctor later alludes to “infected minds” (5.i) in relation to lady macbeth’s madness. the fact that the fixation on guilt is seen as an illness i think fits so well with ocd: whenever im having a bad day with intrusive thoughts and mental spirals it genuinely feels like there is something festering in my brain like a parasite feeding on anxiety. 

guilt is also so intrinsically linked to sleep in macbeth: famously macbeth comes out of the king’s chamber ranting about how he may “sleep no more; macbeth doth murder sleep”, and lady macbeth’s obsession pours out of her when she is sleeping (and this is exactly why a doctor is called). i would argue that fucked up sleep is somewhat presented as an illness in ‘macbeth’ too; or if not, at least unnatural. this idea is all over act 2 scene ii (right after macbeth commits the murder) but i think it’s best epitomised in act 3 scene iv: “you lack the season of all natures, sleep.” (lady macbeth) season as in both night-season and seasoning/preservative. so sleep is both a natural part of life, and something that keeps things the way nature or god intended. the doctor says too that disturbed sleep is “a great perturbation in nature” (5.i). nightmares are DEFINITELY depicted as illness: macbeth says that they “sleep / in the affliction of these terrible dreams / that shake us nightly” (3.ii)

insomnia is highly associated with ocd since the obsessions/compulsions prevent sleep and sleep deprivation increases the commonality AND duration of obsession. if a significant portion of your day is spent devoted to obsessions/compulsions, there’s a chance they may become assimilated into intrusive dreams, since dreams are generally regarded as a way that the brain processes memories. thus, we can see that the way guilt in ‘macbeth’ is linked to disturbed sleep parallels how ocd is linked to sleep disorders. so not only is guilt itself an illness in ‘macbeth’, it links to other disorders too

2. withdrawal from dialogue

lady macbeth stops being on equal footing in terms of number of lines with macbeth after the murder. from act 3 she really only responds briefly to what macbeth says, and she’s not even in act 4. i sort of see that as her being dragged under her spiralling thoughts and retreating further and further back into her mind. i know i definitely zone out a LOT more on days where im being absolutely bombarded by intrusive thoughts. she’s definitely disoriented by the begining of act 3:

nought’s had, all's spent, where our desire is got without content. ’tis safer to be that which we destroy, than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. (3.ii)

the whole soliloquy (if you can even call it that—it’s only 2 couplets) is riddled with paradoxes and confusing wording. her mind is completely scattered and it feels to me as if she’s just been arguing with herself. this might be reaching slightly (as if this entire post isnt kind of reaching already. sorry) but to me it kind of mirrors the absurd leaps of logic my intrusive thoughts and rumination can sometimes take: how can it be “safer” to be destroyed? how can “joy” be doubtful? it doesn’t make sense, and it’s confusing and frightening, but it feels absolutely real. (also note: as you’ve said before ocd is sometimes called the doubting disease. and lady macbeth calls her experience “doubtful”….

3. the mad scene

(disclaimer again i KNOW she is supposed to be asleep the entire time BUT i am going to. sort of. ignore that. sorry</3)

in the beginning of act 5 scene i, lady macbeth’s lady-in-waiting says,

since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed — yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

i’ve never experienced physical compulsions myself, but this sort of repeated, methodical act matches how i’ve seen people describe them. the doctor specifically calls them “actual performances”, which suggest, i think, something mechanical and dictated in some way; “perform” is definitely a word i’ve seen people use to descrive carrying out compulsions. (do correct me if i’m wrong!)

then let’s look at lady macbeth’s actual speech:

out, damned spot, out, I say. — one, two — why, then, 'tis time to do't. — hell is murky. — fie, lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard! what need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

the jumping around of her thoughts honestly feels exactly like my mind alternating between intrusive thoughts and desperately trying to justify why they aren’t true. she goes from reflecting on her debillitating guilt, to being anxious about going to hell, to replaying and checking her memories, to reassuring herself (and macbeth) that she won’t get caught, and then to thinking about her guilt again. it’s a rapid-fire, relentless cycle that continues throughout the scene. she’ll jump from reenacting a moment with her husband, to the obsessing over the blood on her hands, then back again. notably, in her address to macbeth, she never seems to be reenacting the exact same moment. she taunts him for his cowardice seemingly before the murder, then pleads with him, saying that “banquo cannot come out his grave”, then goes back to when they are fleeing the crime scene. i think this reflects the sort of distortion of memory that constant memory checking and ocd can cause. the moodswings and the flip-flopping between “everything’s fine” and “i’m going to hell” are also SO intense and honestly it’s exactly what it feels like on my worst days. 

in the entire scene, lady macbeth speaks in prose instead of verse: it’s obviously a sign of madness by itself, but i also think it reflects the complete loss of control she has over her thoughts and actions. in the beginning acts she is all about control: she demands “spirits / that tend on mortal thoughts” (1.v) to do her bidding, she tells macbeth to “leave all the rest to me” (1.v), and she tells him what to do at every moment. but at this point in the play she can’t stop the onslaught of regrets, guilt, and memories, and she can’t even control herself physically.

speaking of the elephant in the room: the excessive handwashing. i think of lady macbeth’s handwashing as less of a reaction to a genuine fear of contamination, but as something more akin to body-repetitive behaviours like skin-picking (dermatillomania) and hair-pulling (trichitillomania, which i think i have) which are associated with ocd.

i sort of headcanon lady macbeth to have absolutely horrible skin splits on her hands (<- this part is complete projection): and so following this interpretation, i think of her handwashing sort of as a form of self-flagellation because rubbing her hands continually will make the skin tear and bleed. (gore tw?) that, then, fits in with the blood on her hands: in her semi-conscious state she thinks it’s duncan’s, when it’s really hers.

i know that another common compulsion is counting: and lady macbeth does count (“one, two—’tis time to do it.”) one of the reasons people with ocd may count (and there are many reasons, this is not the be-all-end-all) is “attaching meaning to particular numbers where certain numbers will induce anxiety, while others will reduce anxiety. for example, if you assign special meaning to the number three, you might count your steps by threes, or lock and unlock your car three times before driving, or any variety of other action ruled by this magic number.” (<- quoted from nocd website)

i also know that repetition of words or phrases is another common compulsion. and these are lady macbeth's final lines:

to bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. come, come, come, come, give me your hand. what's done cannot be undone. — to bed, to bed, to bed.

4. her death

in your ocd hamlet post, you talked about how hamlet’s death is almost peaceful in his “silence”, and how horatio, despite knowing all his flaws and obsessions, believes wholeheartedly in his salvation. (that honestly means the world to me, by the way, so thank you.) the macbeths went through EVERYTHING together: the planning, the crime itself, the aftermath—it’s clear from their dialogue that at the beginning of their sufferings they saw each other go through sleeplessness, nightmares, and obsession. but over the course of the play, they completely fall apart. (i think the last time macbeth uses “we” to refer to the two of them is to say “we’ll to sleep” and “we are yet but young in deed”, which is the most ironic thing ever.) macbeth’s only response to lady macbeth’s death is “she should have died hereafter.” i honestly don’t know what that means in terms of the ocd reading, or in comparison with horatio's reaction to hamlet's death. i'd love to know what you think.

thanks for bearing with me!! i’m a bit less confident in this reading than i am for ocd hamlet, and it’s more likely i’ll get something wrong about ocd in this one, but sorry i just wanted to unleash this somewhere i hope that’s okay and genuinely please tell me if i say anything wrong or insensitive! i also typed this over 3 hours and went over the text as if this was a homework essay.....? and it is now almost 2am so i’m sorry if this isn’t coherent. i hope you’re having a wonderful day :)

hi same anon here i forgot to put this in but. i listened to verdi macbeth opera mad scene una macchia è qui tuttora the whole time i was writing that thing in case anyone would like to know...... i love it so so much my favourite video recording is by sylvia sass on youtube https://youtu.be/tP59Ox8MdQ4?feature=shared&t=319 AND there are full productions of the opera on youtube as well. thank you so much for reading!!!!

YES.... YES..... YESSSSSSSSSS I LOVE AN OCD LADY MACBETH... IT'S ABOUT THE GUILT IT'S ABOUT THE REPETITION DOES EVERYONE HEAR ME? TODAY WE ARE DOING GUILT AND REPETITION

i have had similar thoughts about the sort of inherent trickiness of it (oh, the lady who washes her hands a lot has ocd? whoa, totally original thought that has nothing to do with pop culture perception of ocd) (and also she did kill a man). but you really said it all with that ksdhfdksnfdsn. i will pitch in that i DO have handwashing compulsions and tbh. i personally think lady macbeth ocd reading is a net win even if it does trail a little close to stereotypes because if you dig even slightly deeper than "haha handwashing" it allows for an examination of ocd not just as an action but also as a manifestation of guilt and illness. which is SO macbeth. the body politic is sick the government is sick!!! again im taking the words right out of your mouth here this ask whips ass

shaking your hand on conceiving of ocd as something parasitical. really feels like there is some Thing up there feeding on my brain. (also on intrusive thought dreams. fucked upppppp like man leave me alone)

AND ON THAT NOTE i feel like even if she is asleep it can still be ocd. i say this with no medical training whatsoever and this isn't, like, me asserting that people actually do compulsions while asleep, but on a narrative level, the emotional processes happening to her character are petty clear even if she's sleepwalking, right. once again no medical training whatsoever

the jumping around of her thoughts honestly feels exactly like my mind alternating between intrusive thoughts and desperately trying to justify why they aren’t true. [...] the moodswings and the flip-flopping between “everything’s fine” and “i’m going to hell” are also SO intense and honestly it’s exactly what it feels like on my worst days.

YEAH. YEAH. YEAH. the ugly intrusive thought -> self-reassurance -> self-reassurance makes it worse -> intrusive thought (harder and worse) spiral. and literally this is EXACTLY what it feels like. me when i accidentally say something rude and then i'm evil for three days. except she killed a man

i sort of headcanon lady macbeth to have absolutely horrible skin splits on her hands (<- this part is complete projection): and so following this interpretation, i think of her handwashing sort of as a form of self-flagellation because rubbing her hands continually will make the skin tear and bleed. (gore tw?) that, then, fits in with the blood on her hands: in her semi-conscious state she thinks it’s duncan’s, when it’s really hers.

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH. ON AN ANALYTICAL LEVEL AND A PERSONAL LEVEL. LITERALLY THE LEAPS I CAN DO IN MY BEAUTIFUL MIND TO BE LIKE WOW IM JUST LIKE LADY MACBETH (BLOOD ON MY HANDS). YOU N ME BROTHER

and re: her death and the macbeths splintering apart. that is honestly the most painful part of this play for me, as a lover of evil couples and also of their specific dynamic. the fact that they mesh so well at the beginning (i mean, they argue, there's friction, but they're clearly on the same page--they enter their first shared scene both thinking the same thing and a lot of their communication is in implication) and then they just. fragment. and i think with the OCD ladymac reading it's even worse, because the thing about OCD at least in my experience is that. at some point the people around you stop being able to understand what the fuck your problem is. even when they're trying really hard. because it doesn't make any sense! the compulsions don't make logical sense the self-flagellation doesn't make any sense none of it is SOLVING anything but it also does make sense, To You, on a level you cannot really explain to people that don't Get It*. and so like. the macbeths are already breaking apart because of their responses to the murder, and this is just one more thing coming between them. she is trapped in a cage in her brain that he cannot see.

*(i think not infrequently about the overlap between OCD and psychosis; i haven't experienced psychosis and obviously there are major differences, but i relate a lot to what psychotic people have said about, like, the ability to hold multiple contradictory truths at once. my compulsions will not actually stop disasters from happening, but they also will. you could maybe pull in something about macbeth's parallel loss of control + his hallucinations? but i'm not diagnosing macbeth with psychosis necessarily i'm just saying words).

anyway, anon, i am always extremely impressed by your dedication to writing out quotes and coming armed with evidence, and also your analysis fucking bangs. this is such a good ask i need to frame it on the wall your mind is huge. i hope you have a wonderful day as well :)

[petitelepus]

hello again can u please have a part 2 of the slave tengen x wife's x reader please you left me waking on eggs shelf (I can't spell)

Summary: Your slaves start giving birth and you call the doctor to come and help you and Tengen. While you wait, you talk and then you welcome the babies to the world.

Warnings: Pregnancy, Babies

A/N: Slave!AU, Demon Slaves, Gender Neutral Reader, Tengen Uzui, Makio, Suma, Hinatsuru

PART 1 - PART 2

The next 6 hours were maybe the most stressful ones you had ever experienced during your life and you had been an undercover cop in some bad places where being exposed would have certainly cost you your life.

The doctor you had on speed dial had come to your house at record time when you called her and told her that the two of your Demons had gone to labor at the same time.

Doctor Muta was the best in her field when it came to treating Demons of all sorts. She had helped when Hinatsuru had gone into labor and you also trusted her to treat Suma and Makio.

When you had called and told her there were 2 Demons giving birth, she had taken her husband with her who usually assisted her in the hospital.

Honestly, the doctor was a blessing because you knew nothing about giving birth. You had seen it on TV, but you were in no way qualified to help in it.

Tengen had woken up the moment you called the doctor and when the Doctor and her husband arrived he was protectively guarding his mates… But because Doctor Muta had helped Hinatsuru, Tengen knew he could trust the good doctor.

It wasn't easy to wait outside the bedroom where Suma and Makio were giving birth. You and Tengen were walking around each other as you waited. Time seemed to slow down and it felt like forever…

But then you heard crying and you both perked up and looked at the door. The said door opened and Doctor's husband peeked out, mask on his face so you couldn't see his smile.

"Congratulations! You got a healthy baby girl!" He said and you smiled excitedly. A girl! You looked at Tengen who looked amazed by the fact that he had a daughter.

"My daughter…" He murmured and the man nodded before he heard his wife call for him to come back and help her with the second baby.

"Just a second, you're about to become a dad again!" The husband laughed as he closed the door and you turned to look at the Demon beside you.

"You're doing very well Tengen," You told him and he nodded but couldn't exactly return your smile.

"I know, but…"

"But?"

"I'm worried…"

"Oh," You nodded, "Why?"

"Will I…" He swallowed, "Will I be able to keep them safe?"

"What do you mean?" You frowned a little, "You're fantastic mate and father!"

"Am I?" He looked at you, "I couldn't protect my wives when those men took us… Hell, if it weren't for you, they or our babies wouldn't have made it…"

"But that didn't happen," You reminded him, "You shouldn't worry about what might have happened because it didn't happen. Think about the present instead."

"What if…" His frown deepened as he thought about the worst-case scenarios that would have ensued if it hadn't been for you.

It felt unnatural to see such a confident Demon feel so… Uncertain. Tengen took great pride in his looks and strength, and how loving and dear his wives were to him. So seeing him look so afraid almost broke your heart.

"Tengen, you're forgetting that you aren't alone." You smiled as you gently patted his back, "You have Hinatsuru, Makio, and Suma and a fresh litter of babies that need you now. Your wives, no matter what, are there for you, and Hell, I'm here for you guys and your babies."

"I'm…" He swallowed as he looked at you, "And I'm thankful for that. That you saved us."

"It was the best thing I ever did." You said and as Tengen looked at you, he could tell you weren't lying or trying to sugarcoat anything.

The Demon was about to say something when you guys heard another cry coming and you both looked at the door excitedly… But no one came to tell you how the babies were doing.

You and the Demon were growing anxious and were about to knock on the door… When you heard the crying again, you both sighed in relief. Babies must have been alright.

The door opened and the Doctor's husband stepped out, taking off his mask and smiling ear to ear to you, "Congratulations! You got a girl and a healthy set of twins!"

"T-!" You and Tengen gasped, "Twins!?"

"Yes!" The man laughed, "Would you like to come and greet your babies?"

"I…" Tengen swallowed and automatically looked at you, "Can Master come also?"

"Of course!" The man nodded and you looked at the Demon, stunned, "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely," He nodded and the both of you stepped into the room, and as soon as you saw tired Suma and Makio, but no babies. Tengen rushed to his wives' side in record time.

"W- Where are the babies?" The Demon asked and Suma smiled tiredly, "Doctor is cleaning them."

The male let out a sigh of relief and then he looked at both of his wives so lovingly, your heart almost ached.

"You're amazing," He smiled, "Both of you and Hinatsuru."

"Thank you, dear," Makio smiled and Tengen returned the sweet gesture before he asked, "Which one is whose?"

"I got the girl and Makio got the boys," Suma replied and you could see how her husband's red eyes gleamed in joy, "You are all amazing. My amazing wives…!"

"Here comes the babies!" You all heard and turned to look to see Doctor Muta and her husband carry three small bundles in their arms. The Doctor handed a baby to Suma and her husband handed one to Makio and offered the third one to Tengen, "Would the proud daddy hold his baby?"

"With pride…" Tengen nodded as he accepted the baby wrapped in a nice fluffy blanket. You took a peek and noticed that the Suma's girl had her mother's dark hair while Makio's twin boys had their father's gorgeous silver hair, much like Hinatsuru's child had.

"They are gorgeous," You thought out loud quietly, and the Demons couldn't have been prouder. You were also proud of them and you felt honored to share this sweet and tender moment with them.

"Oh, officer, a word?" Doctor Muta asked for you and you stepped aside, but you were feeling wary, "What is it, are the babies alright?"

"Absolutely!" The good Doctor chuckled as she took her mask off and showed you that smile of hers, "Babies are wonderful, but just like with any Demon, make sure to keep them out of the sun, and until they get their teeth, they can nurse on their mother's milk."

"I see," You nodded as you registered this information given to you, "Thank you Doctor for all your help."

"Don't mention it!" She laughed, "Demons are interesting beings, aren't they? So versatile, strong, and yet they have their weaknesses."

"I understand," You nodded, "Please, send me the bill so I can pay you."

"Understood. I'll come and see the newborn and parents in a week."

"Thank you, Doctor," You smiled, "You were a huge help today!"

"Always a pleasure to help you!" She laughed as she picked her stuff, and husband before leaving. You smiled as you moved to join the fresh parents, but you noticed a movement by the room's entrance-!

"Is everything alright?"

It was Hinatsuru, holding her baby! You and Tengen gasped as you saw her and you immediately rushed to her, "Hinatsuru, what are you doing here?" You yelped as you helped her to sit down on the bed.

The fresh mother smiled as she looked at her fellow wives, husband, and their children. She smiled, "I couldn't stay away from my husband, wives, or our new babies."

"Tell me next time!" You pouted, but you couldn't stay mad when you saw all 4, no, all 8 of them together. They were so happy, a perfect family really.

You smiled as you reached for your phone and opened the camera, "Let's take some pictures of you guys for the album!"

"You have an album of us?"

"After this day, I will!" You grinned, excitedly "Alright, everybody, please look at the camera and smile!"

They smiled and that was the first picture of them in your first album out of many that would come as the years would pass. You smiled as you looked at the perfect picture, but then the Demons called you, "Master, come to the picture with us!"

"Me?" You blinked and they smiled, "You saved us and gave us a life. We consider you as part of our family."

"Ah…!" You nearly cried as you nodded and walked to them, turning the camera the other way and taking a picture of all 9 of you and your huge family together.

[punkeccentricenigma]

I recently found your blog and I must say I LOVE YOUR WORK!! It’s so amazing!! /gen!! I was wondering if you could do some Donnie x transmasc reader headcanons please?? No pressure, but if you do ty!!

Relationship status: It can be read as romantic or platonic

TW: Some grammatical errors because english is not my first language.

Author's note: THANK YOU SO MUCH! I was afraid that my writing style and language barrier were taking away good aspects from my work, so I'm glad that you like it!

!!Before reading, I'd like to clarify that I am not a transmasculine person myself, and I am not deeply knowledgeable about this part of the LGBT+ community. My knowledge is based on many articles I found and people I know from internet. So, if I have written something incorrectly or inaccurately, please feel free to correct me in the comments!!

◇Support and Understanding: I think, besides April, Donnie might be your biggest supporter.

◇However, in the beginning, he might have been… a bit startled.

◇Absolutely not in a bad way! It's just that he wasn't quite prepared for such an act of trust towards him. He even considered himself too eccentric (lmao) for something like this.

◇Despite a somewhat insensitive initial response, as soon as you left, he started researching extensively about being a transmasculine person.

◇Of course, Donnie was aware of what trans topic means and some groups under that, but he really wanted to make an effort and not mess up anything, coming off as a total idiot. (I love the headcanon that he's bisexual and non-binary <3).

◇Expect a full PowerPoint presentation on the big screen in their living room the next day. (Please praise him even if you know everything, he gave up his evil plans to take over the world, or at least improve Microsoft, just for you. Plus, he's not very good at understanding your feelings towards you, like your concerns about your body, etc., so you'll have to literally tell him and what he could do).

◇Don has no problem with your pronouns, whether they are more feminine, masculine, or non-personal. However you want to be called, he will respect it, BA! He will even correct anyone who gets it wrong. Leo: "You know, (incorrect pronoun) did something amazing!" BOING! Donnie: "SCOFF! As usual, my idiotic brother, [Y.N] uses [Correct Pronouns]. Say it again, and you'll become my next guinea pig in my lab." Leo: "D:"

◇Donatello is not good with words of support, so his main strength is giving you his more masculine, unused clothes. And you have to admit, he has perfect style! (But never, ever touch his purple hoodie, he'll cut your hands off/j).

◇He also with April helped pick out the right binder for you. However, if somehow each one caused too much discomfort, he personally took it upon himself to make one for you.

◇Giving gifts is one of his strong suits in platonic or romantic relationships.

◇Therefore, thanks to Raph's help (my next personal headcanon is that Raphie is talented in sewing clothes), he managed to achieve this goal.

◇When it comes to testosterone injections, Donatello will gladly take care of it!

◇His laboratory is spotless; not even hospitals can compete with such a gleaming environment.

◇However, if you feel more comfortable doing it at home, Donnie will initially be as stubborn as a mule, but then he'll go along with your choice.

◇But for each visit, he will disinfect everything, and when I say everything, I mean everything. Your health is the most important thing for him :D

◇I have a feeling he might joke about transmasculine things with you a bit, but in the way friends usually do. He absolutely wouldn't want to offend you, so before saying anything, he'll ask you or check on public forums if it's okay.

◇It's his duty to accompany you to pride parades. HE WANTS TO SUPPORT YOU AS MUCH AS HE CAN! (Even though he's not a fan of such large crowds.) "Hey, [Y.N]…" his voice was currently unnaturally quiet, causing you to look at him immediately from your phone. "Hm? What's wrong, D?" "I'm proud of you."

◇Donatello would like someone to say that they're proud of him, so he thought it would be worth mentioning to you as well.

◇However, he didn't expect that despite many people around, you would start crying and hug him.

◇Of course, he returned the hug.

[mimisempai]

My brave angel

Summary

That morning, Aziraphale wasn't expecting a visit from Gabriel. And as memories flood back, he realizes it may be time to confront the former archangel about his behavior with him over the centuries. With the help of his demon, of course.

Notes

Watching S1 and S2 again, I realized in the present time alone how many times Aziraphale is belittled by Gabriel and the archangels. And I realized that, in fact, he had suffered millennia of this behavior. And he's still the angel we know... This is my little revenge on his behalf.

On Ao3

Rating G -  1808 words

Aziraphale opened the door to the bookshop, and as he was about to close it on him, he stopped. He had just felt the sudden appearance of a supernatural presence entering the area.

He turned, gasped, and dropped the books he was holding.

Across the street, in front of Nina's cafe, stood Gabriel.

Gabriel. In his fancy suit. Just like old times.

"Angel?"

Aziraphale didn't answer, standing motionless.

Crowley called again, walking toward him until he saw what had made the Angel react the way he did.

The demon also gasped when he saw Gabriel, who had seen them through the window, waving his hand in a cheerful greeting.

But Crowley immediately ignored him and, out of protective instinct, stood in front of Aziraphale.

"Angel. Listen to me. He's not the fucking Archangel Gabriel anymore. You hear me. He can't hurt you."

When he got no answer, he turned and saw that his angel was deep in thought. So he gently took his hands and said, "Angel, you don't have to meet him. You set the terms. All you have to do is say the word, and I'll send him on his way to Alpha Centauri without going past 'go'."

Aziraphale could hear Crowley's reassuring voice, could feel his hands gently holding his own, but he could do nothing against the memories that came flooding back. Millennia of belittlement. Thousands of years of believing himself to be less than nothing.

"My informant suggests that the demon...Crowley may be involved." 

Aziraphale tried not to show emotion at the mention of the demon's name as Gabriel continued, " You need to keep him under observation, without letting him know, of course, that's what you're doing."

Aziraphale nodded and tried to answer in a confident voice, "I know, yes. I've been on Earth doing this -since the beginning."

Gabriel replied in a tone that didn't hide his irony, "So has Crowley. It's a miracle he hasn't spotted you yet."

Once again, Gabriel managed to make Aziraphale understand that he was an incompetent idiot, but without saying the words, of course.

**********

Aziraphale was reporting to the 4 archangels,“I am proud to say that on a very real level, the Antichrist child is now being influenced towards the light.”

Gabriel applauded somewhat unnaturally, followed by the other three, saying, “Very commendable, Aziraphale. Excellent work, as usual.”

Archangel Michael added in an equally condescending voice,“But, Aziraphale, we will be most understanding when you fail. After all, wars are to be won. Not avoided.”

Aziraphale retorted, “But I won't fail. I mean, that would be bad.”

Gabriel stepped forward and said with a haughty smile, “Aziraphale, what you're doing is praiseworthy, but obviously doomed to failure.”

Aziraphale once again felt nothing more than a speck of dust on Gabriel's fine suit, which he brushed away with a flick of his hand as he added, "Still, as the Almighty likes to say, 'Climb every mountain,'" then he was gone, and Sandalphon continued, "Ford every stream.

Doomed to fail. 

Of course.

**********

“Lose the gut”

“You think to much.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Aziraphale, maybe you should just keep your mouth shut.”

“Keep up.”

Memories looped through Aziraphale's mind, unstoppable. Centuries of veiled insults. Centuries of condescension. 

"Angel!"

Aziraphale opened his eyes to see Crowley's worried expression.

Seeing that he had opened his eyes, the demon's expression softened and he asked him gently, "Are you with me?"

Aziraphale nodded before dropping his head onto the demon's shoulder as he wrapped his arms around him. Crowley asked him softly, still concerned, "Hey, Angel, are you okay?"

Aziraphale replied in a slightly shaky voice, "Not really. But I will be." 

Crowley grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back a little to meet his gaze before saying gently, "Angel, the choice is yours. You can either talk to him and have some closure, or you can just refuse to see him. But whatever you decide, I'm with you, I've got your back.”

Crowley's last words were all Aziraphale needed to make his decision. This was different from all the previous encounters he'd had with Gabriel. He was no longer alone. He had someone with him who loved and cherished him. He'd made up his mind.

The angel said in a clear, determined voice, "I will meet him."

Crowley asked in a slightly concerned voice, "Are you sure?"

Aziraphale nodded and answered, "Absolutely. It's time to get this over with."

The demon, seeing his determination, stepped aside to let him pass before following suit, his hand on the angel's small back in a reassuring pressure into which Aziraphale leaned lightly.

He crossed the street with a confident stride until he stood in front of Gabriel.

He said simply, "Gabriel."

The former archangel, an affable smile on his lips, exclaimed, "Aziraphale, my fr..."

Aziraphale shook his head, interrupting him, "No. We've never been friends, and we probably never will be. Maybe when you were Jim, because you had no memory of how you behaved with me, but now that you have your memory back, even though you may have changed, I can't forget. Gabriel, you behaved awfully to me, you and your... colleagues. For a long time, so long, I was so convinced that I wasn't worth much that I would go out of my way for the slightest praise, for the slightest gratification. Only to be put in my place again and again. No matter what I did. So that in the end I'd come to believe that I was no one and that whatever I did would never be enough. But that's changed. I don't care about your approval or heaven's approval anymore. I know who I am and what I'm worth, thanks to people who love and appreciate me for who I am."

Aziraphale felt Crowley's hand press a little more against his lower back. His silent support.

He continued, "Anything to add?"

Gabriel, looking sheepish, said quietly, "I would like to say something, but only to you."

Crowley stepped forward and said, "I'll stay with him."

Aziraphale put a reassuring hand on his arm and said gently, "Wait for me in the shop, my dear, please."

Crowley asked him in a worried tone, "Are you sure, Angel?"

Aziraphale nodded and looked him in the eye, "Absolutely," then remembering the last time he had gone off alone with someone and it almost separated them, he added gently, "Don't worry, it's not Metatron. I'll come back to you."

Crowley looked at him in silence for a few moments before nodding and walking away.

"So you and him...?" asked Gabriel.

Aziraphale replied curtly, "It's none of your business. Say what you have to say."

Gabriel coughed, clapped his hands and said, "Very well. Actually, it does concern Crowley. He's very... protective of you. He hasn't hesitated to threaten me several times if anything happens to you, and while I'm surprised at his virulence, it's rather nice that you have a guardian angel in your corner..."

Aziraphale interrupted, "You don't get it, he's not my guardian angel, he's not a practical tool or whatever you imagine him to be in your narrow mind. He's worth more than all of you put together. He has more morality and respect in his little finger than all the archangels in heaven. And most of all, I don't need a guardian angel, I'm not weak. I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but they came from within. They were always there. And he was the one who revealed them to me. And you know what? I don't feel like justifying or explaining anything anymore. As far as I'm concerned, we have nothing more to say to each other. Goodbye, Gabriel."

Aziraphale didn't wait for an answer and turned on his heel, walking briskly to the bookshop in a hurry to find Crowley. As he stepped through the door and closed it behind him, he realized what had just happened and let out a long sigh.

He looked down at his hands and saw that they were trembling slightly, reminding him of the strain he had been under throughout the meeting. He felt the tremors begin to spread throughout his body when suddenly Crowley's hands came to rest on his shoulders, causing him to turn around and immediately calm down.

Aziraphale looked up at the demon and said in a shaking voice, as if he couldn't believe it, "I did it."

Crowley took his face in his hands and said softly, "Yes, angel, you did it."

Aziraphale went on, "I told him."

Crowley nodded, "Yes, my brave angel, you told him everything."

Aziraphale's throat tightened as he struggled to articulate, "I... this is huge... I've finally said it all. I said it."

He didn't notice the tears in his eyes until Crowley wiped them away with his thumbs. The demon said softly, "My so fucking brave angel, come here."

Crowley wrapped his arms around the angel, pressing him against his chest, and in response, Aziraphale wrapped his arms around the demon, burying his face in his neck. The angel swallowed several times, trying to hold back the sobs rising from his throat.

Crowley whispered into his hair, "Let them come, angel. It will be all right. Let go. I'll catch you."

Aziraphale still managed to articulate, "L- like always. You're always the one who catches me."

Crowley replied through his hair, "You know I like that."

The angel let out a little laugh that sounded more like a hiccup, and it was like a dam broke as the laughter turned into a cry.

Crowley held him tighter and whispered, "Yes, angel, that's it. Let go," and every sob that came out tore at his heart for his angel. But he also knew it was necessary, long overdue, so he supported him, encouraged him, comforted him, until the Angel's tears had dried. Eventually, Crowley had managed to pull him onto the sofa where they now sat, Aziraphale nestled against his chest as Crowley gently stroked his hair.

Aziraphale murmured softly, "Sorry about your shirt." 

A slight chuckle answered him, "Nothing magic can't fix," then his expression turned serious as he grabbed the Angel's chin to look at him and asked quietly, "The important thing is, are you okay?"

Aziraphale nodded slowly and replied, "Surprisingly, I'm fine," then added, "Thanks for being there to catch me."

Crowley murmured softly, "Always, Angel, always. That's what we do, isn't it? Catching each other up." 

Aziraphale agreed, and a smile slowly formed on his lips. Crowley, seeing this, smiled back and said, his voice full of adoration, "I'm so damn proud of you."

He leaned his head forward and pressed his lips to his angel's in a tender kiss that told better than words the pride, and most of all, the love he felt for him at that very moment.

_________

Still not beta'd

Still not my native language

Still hoping you'll enjoy this story  🥰

Still thanking you for bearing with me 😝

Ineffable Growing Love series : here (After season 2)

Ineffable Husbands masterlist : here (Before season 2)

[mariana-oconnor]

The Boscombe Valley Mystery pt 1

We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid brought in a telegram.

Watson's back living with his wife at this point. I assume he means Mary and he's not got married again without mentioning it.

'Have just been wired for from the west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy. Shall be glad if you will come with me. Air and scenery perfect.'

The word 'tragedy' does not fill me with optimism. But I suppose maybe if the tragic part is already out of the way before the story even starts, this might be less tragic than some of the others (Greek Interpreter, I'm looking at you).

But the airy tone and positivity here 'Air and scenery perfect' is such a wonderful juxtaposition with 'tragedy'. Hey Watson, want to investigate a horrible death? It's a beautiful part of the country.'

"What do you say, dear?" said my wife, looking across at me. "Will you go?" "I really don't know what to say. I have a fairly long list at present." "Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you. You have been looking a little pale lately. I think that the change would do you good, and you are always so interested in Mr Sherlock Holmes's cases." "I should be ungrateful if I were not, seeing what I gained through one of them," I answered.

Yeah, Mary wants him out of the house. But Watson doesn't seem enamored of the idea.

And Watson being cute with his wife is such a weird thing to see here. In fact this entire exchange is strange. We don't usually have Mary on the page, and the fact that they're here having a nice chat over breakfast and Watson's flirting like 'of course I'm interested in Sherlock's cases, they're how I met you.' He's being quite smooth here. Gonna give him that.

But Mary absolutely wants him to get out from under her feet for a bit. And he doesn't take a lot of persuading, but more than I anticipated.

It's kind of nice to see this little slice of domesticity between them.

We had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of papers which Holmes had brought with him.

An entire carriage to yourself? On a train in the UK? Wow. Excuse me while I try to imagine this...

"Have you heard anything of the case?" he asked. "Not a word. I have not seen a paper for some days."

How the turns table!

Watson, not reading the paper? Unthinkable!

"The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home. In this case, however, they have established a very serious case against the son of the murdered man."

So we have a dead man and a son convicted of his murder. And Holmes is once again saying that boring crimes are more difficult to solve.

"The men had known each other in the colonies, so that it was not unnatural that when they came to settle down they should do so as near each other as possible."

I'm not the only one getting vibes, here, right?

"One was an old woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was William Crowder, a game-keeper in the employ of Mr Turner."

I am instantly suspicious of this old woman. Who is she? What was she doing there? What's her name? How is she connected?

Watch her just be a random bystander who happened to be taking a walk.

"A girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the woods picking flowers."

Moran, you say?

It is not looking good for young Mr McCarthy, I have to say. But do we trust Patience Moran who heard some bad language and went running to snitch to her mother.

"There are several people in the neighbourhood, however, and among them Miss Turner, the daughter of the neighbouring landowner, who believe in his innocence, and who have retained Lestrade, whom you may recollect in connection with 'A Study in Scarlet', to work out the case in his interest."

Is that a whiff of romance I smell in the air?

And Lestrade! Hi Lestrade. Good to have you back.

"...in this season you shave by the sunlight; but since your shaving is less and less complete as we get farther back on the left side, until it becomes positively slovenly as we get round the angle of the jaw, it is surely very clear that that side is less illuminated than the other. I could not imagine a man of your habits looking at himself in an equal light and being satisfied with such a result. I only quote this as a trivial example of observation and inference."

Watson, you look a right mess. Oh, I'm only saying this to demonstrate my observational brilliance.

Lol. This is not objective, Holmes. You use the word 'slovenly'. You know what you're doing. Although I cannot deny that after some of Watson's descriptions of perfectly nice people, he kind of deserves this a bit.

I also feel like maybe this is the sort of thing a spouse is supposed to mention. Like 'James, dear. Your beard is a good quarter inch longer on the left side than the right. Maybe you should check that?'

"On the inspector of constabulary informing him that he was a prisoner, he remarked that he was not surprised to hear it, and that it was no more than his deserts."

Omg I've been spelling deserts wrong in this context for my entire life. Wtf. I mean, it makes sense because 'what I deserve', 'my deserts'. But I've only ever heard the one s word pronounced as dezert, not dizert so I just assumed. Wow.

"He appeared to be much surprised at seeing me and asked me rather roughly what I was doing there. A conversation ensued which led to high words and almost to blows, for my father was a man of a very violent temper."

Methinks the man was waiting for someone else and did not want his son around to see the meeting.

"He mumbled a few words, but I could only catch some allusion to a rat."

Was it a giant rat, perhaps from overseas? Say... Sumatra?

"It is really impossible for me to tell you. I can assure you that it has nothing to do with the sad tragedy which followed."

I always get so annoyed when people say this in mysteries. Like, my dude, if you don't know who killed him and you don't know why then you have no idea if it was related to your argument or not. Maybe someone overheard/saw your argument and went up to argue with him about the very same thing. You cannot know. Either you don't know why your father was killed or you do know why your father was killed, you cannot have it both ways.

"The Coroner: 'I understand that the cry of "Cooee" was a common signal between you and your father?' "Witness: 'It was.' "The Coroner: 'How was it, then, that he uttered it before he saw you, and before he even knew that you had returned from Bristol?'"

I mean... it's not exactly a top secret password? It's not like 'The fourth hawk hunts the night fox on the road to Atlantis'. It's a word. That is used in a certain context. Being used in that context. Unless coo-ee wasn't a phrase until after this?

OK, researching it has brought me dangerously close to spoilers, but I scrolled back up quickly enough that all I saw was the name of the story.

But apparently it's a Native Australian term originally, which I feel will be relevant because the two really good friends have come over from Australia. The wiki article says that it wasn't unknown in London in 1852 which is significantly before this story was written and set, but maybe it would be strange in a rural context. BUT if the guy is Australian why would he only use it with his son?

He was talking to his 'friend' from Australia.

Is this going to be a 'they're not really friends, they just know each others secrets' kind of situation?

"'Yet I have a vague impression that as I ran forward something lay upon the ground to the left of me. It seemed to me to be something grey in colour, a coat of some sort, or a plaid perhaps. When I rose from my father I looked round for it, but it was gone.'"

Weird to see the word 'plaid' here as I've never heard an English person use it, I don't think. But it doesn't seem to be being used to describe a pattern, but a specific item here. Which research tells me could be the full kilt with the bit over the shoulder and everything - that would be a strange thing to be lying around in the grass - or it's a type of jacket... so it's just another way of saying coat?

Now we have a mysterious missing piece of grey fabric that may or may not have been a coat. Implying that the younger Mr McCarthy missed a whole ass person while he was cradling his father's dead body. Not that I can blame him for that.

Though I suppose it could have been a dog or an animal of some sort that grabbed the item.

"Both you and the coroner have been at some pains," said he, "to single out the very strongest points in the young man's favour. Don't you see that you alternately give him credit for having too much imagination and too little?"

Like I said before, you can't have it both ways, Watson.

But I like Holmes's point: it's both too weird and too useless for him to have made it up. If you're going to make up a story, you make it believable and relevant to your innocence.

"And now here is my pocket Petrarch, and not another word shall I say of this case until we are on the scene of action."

Reading time now. Shhh, Watson!

[unohanabbygirl]

Okay but that anon was onto something with that fmbh au. Luke announcing to court “I am no maid and so I must marry one.” Thinking he’s forcing Viserys and the courts hand at breaking the betrothal because he must now marry a woman (ie Rhaena). Only to have Otto and Alicent conspire otherwise. This au would be so angsty because Aemond would be forced to reconcile with seeing his grandfather and mother commodify his body the same way they were about to use Luke’s. This au being even spicier because it’s got more f&b Alicent which means her evil stepmother vibes will all be directed towards Aemond instead of Luke when a child is still not produced from their union. I’ve seen a lot of fics where Luke has been on the receiving end of Alicent’s anger and misogyny, but to see Aemond experience it after being told his whole life to be masculine and hide his body. Being told that it was unnatural and that the Hightowers were the morally upright stock compared to the blacks, only for one court session to see his family change gears and tell him to wear a dress and spread his legs. This au would be really interesting because I think while Aemond and Luke would still hold a lot of anger for each other, Aemond wouldn’t have his family to support him when he bitches about Luke. Instead, it would be necessary for his well being to stay at Driftmark with Luke because Luke doesn’t say shit when Aemond dresses with masculine presenting clothing. His only safe space is with the person whose actions lead to this situation in the first place (and in an usual Aemond style he refuses to realize that his treatment of Luke is what lead to Luke being desperate enough to announce he wasn’t a virgin). And of course Aemond would refuse to have any sex other than being on the bottom because his fear of failure is so ingrained in his personality. He’s so starkly confronted with the fact that it was never about morals for his family when it came to Rhaenyra and her ilk, it was about power and whatever route got them to the throne, including whatever way to use his body was most convenient to get Hightower green on the Velaryon sigil.

I love this idea sm because it forces Aemond to reconcile with how disastrous and downright gross and degrading his mother’s actions in her and Otto’s pursuit of power is. He’s always seen her logic as morally right and a no brainer in a sense that duty needs to be done regardless. However it’s very easy for him to feel that way since he’s not the one being forced to give over his body in such a life changing way by acting as nothing more than a walking womb with constant expectations of birthing male heirs, or at least in this instance heirs that will grow to fit in with Westeros idea of traditional masculinity in both looks and self-expression. Even with Helaena, though he sympathizes with her for the way Aegon treats her and the children he can see why the marriage and her having those children so young was “necessary” Actually being put into a position where he’s the one being made to pursue that role would flip his idea of everything, including his mother upside down.

Alicent knows how much Aemond values his masculinity, loves the thrill of fighting and pushes away from anything having to do with his biology. It’s so bad that she didn’t even know he got his first period until years after it first began, and even when she found out Alicent didn’t acknowledge it. Just tellings Measter’s to make sure they kept up with administering the tea for his pain before retreating back into her little bubble. So for her to do a complete 180 and starting telling him of how to go about pleasing Lucerys so that he’ll give him a child, talking about his moon blood, urging him into dresses, barring him from swords and striping Aemond of everything that makes him who he is while attempting to create a proper bride who Luke will lust over is enough to stunt him into a panic attack.

Suddenly his mother is telling him ways to act docile and feminine, more of an order than a suggestion at that. Snapping at him when he attempts to wear breeches and quickly angers whenever he hesitates to fall in line. Even Cole acts differently around him when just yesterday he was treated no differently from any other respected man. Finally coming to see how awful this box women have been forced into since day one truly is. Can finally see everything they’ve put Rhaenyra through isn’t because shes a spoiled whore but for being a woman who dared lived as she pleased in what few ways she could. And now he’s being treated the same. Now he’s the one who’s hearing whispers that something’s either wrong with him or his womb since Lucerys hasn’t put a babe in him yet.

His body is being treated as property. Something to be used no different from how he would’ve used Luke’s own in the name of the very duty which is destroying him brick by brick.

I feel that Luke’s company and living on Driftmark overall which used to be a place filled with so much trauma becomes his own safe haven is so life changing. Luke doesn’t care if he trains or wears masculine clothes whereas his own mother and grandfather do. Luke doesn’t bother him by asking for sex (Aemond’s actually the one who tries to initiate as Otto’s demands are playing on that fear of failing) Luke doesn’t just treat him like a man but as an actual person rather than something he owns, better than his own family. A true nightmare come to life.

But the hard part about this is that he can’t see why Luke sees him the way he does. Too blind to understand that how he likely would’ve treated Luke is why he’s now in this position at all. After all, Luke revealed he wasn’t a virgin for shits and giggles, but as a way to avoid a pain filled future.

[aarons-corner]

I’ve had an idea these past few days for a fic and an OC to go along with this fic.

Christian Bobby Brown x Satanist male OC has been on my mind lately. It’s like angel x demon, light x darkness.

My idea is that the OC (still coming up with a name) is new to school and openly presents as a Satanist and possibly practices witchcraft (no this OC isn’t based off me shut up Bobby is literally my brother in on of my DRs).

Bobby takes this in the WORST WAY possible as a good little devout christian boy and starts casting out OC in the name of Jesus Christ and the holy father. OC literally laughs at him and hits him with the ‘you think I’m afraid of your sky daddy?’

They continue to make fun of each other’s religions for a while, and then realize it’s wrong after OC reveals that Bobby has been misinterpreting satanism the whole time. They apologize and start to become friends.

OC gives Bobby cute little anti anxiety spells and they exchange bibles to learn more about each other’s religion. OC helps Bobby prepare for Bible competitions where they have to name certain verses n stuff like that.

Eventually they realize just bc they got off to a bad start doesn’t mean that they can’t be best friends. But then Bobby starts feeling romantically attracted to OC, which, of course, is against his religion(and his family and pastor, or so he thought) and he has a panic.

He isolates from OC to try to get rid of these so called ‘sinful’ thoughts. He begins questioning his faith, and OC. He thinks maybe OC cursed him or something to give him these thoughts and it’s really the devil. He has a panic attack and the intrusive thoughts win.

He plans to send HIMSELF to conversion camp to deal with these feelings. But before he gets his parents to sign the paper work, he for real decides to drop off some mother fucking holy water at OCs door with a note. Basically saying that his feelings are unnatural and he knows he’s been cursed by either him or the devil himself and must be fixed. He admits to being in love with OC and wishes that he’ll find god since it’ll be best for both of them.

Now, Bobby then goes home and goes to his parents in tears with the papers to send him to conversion camp. His parents look hurt and ask him why he would ever want to go somewhere like that? Bobby is confused as he thought homosexuality was sinful. His parents hug him and reassure what he’s feeling is okay and he has not been cursed and it’s not the devil.

Even his pastor supports him. His church is very supportive of the LGBTQ+ community and Bobby didn’t know this until now. He realizes his feelings for OC are real, and decides to apologize. He rushes to OCs house where he sees OC holding his Bible and reading the note with tears in his eyes. He apologizes and the two hold each other for a long time.

Eventually they both admit to their feelings and know that religion will not hold them back from their very real feelings. They kiss, and it’s all a happy ending. OC goes to church with Bobby once in a while to support him, and Bobby goes with OC to protests started by satanists for equal rights. All turns out well.

Now for the question, do I abandon all my promised requests and current Johnny Lawrence x Male OC book for this and risk another unfinished fic?! Or do I trust how motivated I am for writing this story and do it?! Pls I need help😭

[elenjaxx]

“Building a Character” Stanislavski.

(como siempre, la traducción al español después del gif separador):

To many theatre fans, Stanislavski is the maximum authority. I don’t think so because I feel that his students and his students’ students are way better than him. However, we cannot forget his ideas are the origin of many theater rules. Besides, he says we don’t need to follow his truth, but be our truth, so he gets an A on propper thinking. Stanislavski had a therapist complex or maybe theater has always been therapy?

As in many of his books, the techniques he shows are presented through the eyes of his (invented) students when they start rehearsing for Tortsov (his alter ego) while listening to his madness. Therefore, we follow Kostya’s point of view throughout the chapters:

Towards a Physical Characterization

My favourite thing of this chapter was when I was reading it, since I found strength to fight many fears of that time. I had just started my training in textual interpretation and voice over, but sadly we were on the middle of the pandemic, when we could go outside but… not that much, you know. Back then, the masking thing made me sad, because I thought many beautiful emotions were lost in the process. However, I am so thankful for my acting training and this book, since “the eyes hold all of your personality” (33) as Stanislavski says, as my teacher said and now as I say.

The general content of this chapter is quite interesting as well. By observing the world, you can build the external characterization. Your experiences, or your friends’, or even observing a painting. The only rule is that when you are observing you must never loose your inner self (37). To sum up, observe the world and use it to your own profit, but never became a copy of somebody else. Sounds cool.

Dressing a Character

Kostya panics when his group has to prepare a masquerade. He doesn’t know how to dress, what makeup he shall use, nothing. He doesn’t know who he wants to be. The beauty of this chapter appears when he gets out of that loop and lets go. He becomes an external observer of himself and most importantly he enjoys playing with dresses, makeup, etc until he finally builds up his character. Dressing the character up becomes such a natural activity because he becomes his character, but he doesn’t lose himself in the process. In other words, you can find the character in one of your truths. That is why it is so important to get to know yourself. That is why theater is so addictive. It's a wonderful search

Characters and Types

The best of this chapter is Torstov sassiness. Think about it for a second: how would you play an old character? Cracked back and glasses on their big noses, right? And an aristocrat? Egocentric and haughty. Right?

Okay but, is that deep enough? Those ideas are only cliches, they don’t hold the essence of the character and are not individualized (60). You need to dig deep down to find the real meaning of each character. So, forget about archetypes, since they feel like insults.

Besides, he mocks some actors that think they don’t need to prepare because their characterizations are just their own charm (54), although he also reminds us that it is beautiful to show our features, good or bad, not hide them behind a handsome image (65). Why I understood from this is that the mask we use on stage (whether tangible or mental) is nothing else but a tool to explore our long forgotten emotions. Kostya, for instance, was able to play “The Critic”. He is not grumpy nor arrogant, but we all feel those emotions sometimes, and throughout that character he had the opportunity to explore them from outside.

Making the Body Expressive

No gesture in acting is accidental (84) and that is the key of this chapter. Torstov gives the example of ballet dancers. They adopt unnatural postures trying to find beauty. However, that is not acting. It has to be natural and it has to make sense.

On the other hand, he encourages us to explore other disciplines to take care of our body. From ballet itself, learning how to use the fifth position or learning the bar splits can actually relocate your hips and improve your equilibrium, etc. Same for everything else really: strength exercises for your control and equilibrium, cardio for your resistance and breathing and finally a healthy diet and somehow abundant to give you enough energy for the day. In other words, your body is your instrument, not only in acting but also in life. To the extent of your possibilities, take care of it!

Plasticity of Motion

The author decides to mock us directly: we don’t know how to walk! (93). Well, he is right though. I have uneven hips and flat feet, of course I don’t know how to walk! But nobody really knows, as funny as it might sound, because nobody really cares. However, while acting, every movement has its reaction towards another movement, forever. Torstov makes his students imagine a mercury ball running through their bodies, thus they have to keep it away from the ground. It reminds me of tai chi, it would be nice to practice it a little!

Restraint and control

Emotions do not always need to be fully expressed. In fact, restrained emotions are quite normal. For example, if someone is immersed in a terrifying drama, something out of their control, tears are going to drown them, their voice is going to crack or they might even get paralized. After time, they find a way to express themselves.

Diction and Singing

This chapter analyses the qualities of vowels and consonants, and demonstrates the use of singing to explore and expand the vocal range. I will definitely explore this in other posts.

Tone and pauses

Key to this chapter is the importance of subtext in the delivery of lines. For instance, the word “love” might mean nothing to a non english speaker, but fuelled with emotion, used in a precise context, its meaning is endless, and they do not even need to know the language to understand it.

Funnily enough, this is very much related to the dramatic pause, and that reminds me of the best example…

Accentuation: the expressive word

Torstov emphasizes that reproducing a text or transmitting an emotion are not the main goals of an actor. Those words and emotions must provoke something, or nothing you’ll do would ever make sense. He advices to talk to the eyes, not to the ears of our scene partner. And that, outside fancy explanations, is a great tip if you are working on stage. You need to know how to react to your partner, whatever happens.

Perspective in character building

When a character is in development, there are two points of view: one of the character an one of the actor. This is crucial to understand. The actor knows what is going to happen with the character, but the character cannot know its future. Even though their actions move them towards the final goal and thus the actor must remember that future accordingly, the actor cannot allow the character to move knowing what is going to happen next. It wouldn’t be realistic.

Tempo and rhythm in movement

No comments on this section since I am going to develop these ideas further in other posts.

Speech tempo and rhythm

No comments on this section since I am going to develop these ideas further in other posts. (To be honest, I actually got bored, but shhh)

Stage Charm

My favourite part of this chapter was the difference between two types of people on this dramatic world: The pretty ones and the hidden ones. I think we can sum up the first with that typical “never meet your idols” thing. An actor of this short can do whatever they like, even being a bad actor. Their charm is in what they are selling to their fans, not the character they are playing. And when their physical beauty fades or their true intentions are shown, fans get truly disappointed. The second one is not the goal of a good actor either. They can be charming with masks and makeups and amazing dresses and more, but what remains underneath of it all?

Towards an Ethic for Theater

I created a list before with the general advice from this chapter and some more I want to add, but here is a summary: respect, respect and respect. Respect your peers, the text, the final goal, the techs, the audience, the punctuality, the half broken chair. EVERYTHING.

From the conscious to the unconscious. + Advice.

Those two kinda sum up the whole book. The last one seems to be gathering all the main ideas but the one before is quite interesting: Torstov asks his students to organize his teachings in a hierarchical order. Careful, it is a tricky question!

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What do you think it is the most important teaching?

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“Construcción del Personaje” Stanislavski.

Para muchos fanáticos del teatro, Stanislavski es la autoridad. Yo no lo creo así, ya que tengo la sensación de que sus estudiantes, y los estudiantes de sus estudiantes, le dan mil vueltas. Pero no podemos dudar que es el orígen de muchas reglas en el mundo del teatro. Además, él mismo dice que no hay que decir su verdad, sino nuestra verdad, y se lleva un diez por mi parte. ¿Stainislavski tenía complejo de psicólogo o es que en realidad el teatro siempre ha sido terapia?.

Como en la mayoría de sus libros, las técnicas e ideas que nos propone las descubrimos siguiendo la historia de sus estudiantes (inventados) cuando van a los ensayos de Tortsov (su alterego) y escuchan sus locuras. Seguimos por tanto los pensamientos de Kostya por cada uno de estos capítulos:

Hacia una caracterización física

Lo que más me gustó de este capítulo fueron las circunstancias en las que lo leí, porque el libro me hizo aprender a enfrentarme a ellas. Había comenzado mis estudios de interpretación textual poco después de que abrieran las puertas con la pandemia, cuando todavía existía gente preocupada de verdad que usaba mascarillas de verdad. Por aquel entonces, me ponía un poco triste, porque se escondían gestos y emociones preciosas tras las mascarillas, así que agradezco cada día el haber empezado a estudiar interpretación en esta época. “Los ojos pueden expresar toda la personalidad” (33), dice Stanislavski, y dice mi profe, y ahora también lo digo yo.

El contenido general del capítulo es también bastante interesante. La caracterización externa de los personajes se hace observando el mundo. Se extrae de tu experiencia vital, o la de tus amigos, o incluso la extraes observando un cuadro. La única condición es que cuando se esté llevando esa investigación externa, no perdamos nuestro yo interior (37). En resumen, observa el mundo y utilízalo en tu beneficio pero no seas una copia. Suena bien.

Vistiendo un personaje

Aquí Kostya se desespera cuando el grupo tiene que preparar una mascarada. No sabe qué llevar, con qué maquillarse, ni nada. No sabe quién quiere ser. Lo bonito de este capítulo es cuando sale del bucle de la desesperación y se deja llevar. Se convierte en un observador externo de sí mismo y lo más importante, disfruta jugando con los disfraces, maquillajes, etc, hasta que construye su personaje. Vestirlo se convierte en un ejercicio muy natural ya que es una simbiosis con él, pero sin perderse. En otras palabras, sacas al personaje de una de tus verdades. Por eso es tan importante conocerse a uno mismo. Y por eso mucha gente se engancha al teatro. Es una búsqueda preciosa.

Personajes y tipos

Lo mejor sin duda de este capítulo es esa pequeña bofetada que Torstov da a los lectores. Pensad por un momento: ¿cómo interpretaríais a un anciano? Con la espalda corvada o las gafas en la nariz. ¿Y a un aristócrata? Altanero y egocéntrico, ¿a que sí?

Bien, ¿y qué profundidad tiene eso? Son sólo clichés, no contienen la esencia del personaje ni están individualizados (60). Hay que escarbar mucho más para encontrar la verdadera definición de cada personaje. Olvidémonos de arquetipos, eso resulta insultante.

Además, también tiene para los personajes que somos nosotros mismos. Regaña a algunos actores, que no sienten la necesidad de preparar caracterizaciones porque adaptan sus papeles a su atractivo personal (54), pero nos recuerda que lo verdaderamente bonito es mostrar nuestros rasgos, buenos y malos, sin ocultarnos detrás de una imagen (65). Lo que yo entiendo de esto es que la máscara que nos pongamos en escena (sea real o una caracterización más mental), no es más que una herramienta para ayudarnos a explorar algunas de nuestras emociones más olvidadas. Kostya, por ejemplo, pudo sacar al “crítico”. Él no es arrogante ni gruñón, pero todos tenemos esas emociones en algún momento, y la caracterización del personaje le permitió explorarlas desde dentro y observarlas desde fuera.

Haciendo el cuerpo expresivo

Al actuar no debe hacerse ningún gesto porque sí (84), esa es la clave del capítulo. Pone por ejemplo a los bailarines de ballet. Adoptan posturas poco naturales intentando buscar una gran belleza. Sin embargo, eso no es actuar. Tiene que ser natural, sí, pero tiene que tener sentido.

Por otro lado, nos anima a explorar varias disciplinas para cuidar nuestro cuerpo. Del ballet mismo, por ejemplo, aprender a andar en quintas o hacer los splits en barra ayudan a colocar la cadera, proporcionan equilibrio, etc. Lo mismo para todo lo demás, hacer entrenamientos de fuerza ayudan al control y al equilibrio; los de cardio mejoran tu resistencia y educan tu respiración; y finalmente una dieta sana y medianamente abundante nos proporciona la energía que necesitamos. En otras palabras, el cuerpo es el instrumento del actor. Y, por mi parte, creo que deberíamos añadir aquí que el cuerpo es el instrumento de todo el mundo. Hasta donde podamos llegar, debemos cuidarlo.

Plasticidad de movimiento

Aquí el autor decide burlarse de todos nosotros. ¡¡No sabemos andar!! (93). No lo niego. Tengo la cadera desigual y los pies planos, claro que no sé andar!!! La gracia es que nadie sabe, porque nadie se fija. Pero, al actuar, cada movimiento tiene una reacción hacia otro movimiento, de forma infinita. Torstov hace que sus estudiantes imaginen jugar con una bola de mercurio, imaginando que la pasan por todo su cuerpo. Esto me recordó a alguna técnica del Tai Chi, y creo que sería interesante que todos pudiéramos practicarlo.

Restricción y control

Las emociones no siempre tienen que expresarse en su totalidad. De hecho, el contenerlas es lo más humano del mundo. Uno de los ejemplos que pone es cuando alguien está inmerso en un drama aterrorizador, algo que escapa a su control. Las lágrimas ahogan, su voz se quiebra, incluso puede quedarse paralizada. Con el paso del tiempo, va encontrando un espacio para soltar esas emociones fuertes hasta encontrar la calma para hablar de ellas.

Dicción y canto

Este capítulo analiza los rasgos de las vocales y las consonantes, y demuestra que aprender a cantar nos ayuda a mejorar nuestras aptitudes vocales. Sin duda, será algo que explorar en próximas entradas.

Entonaciones y pausas

La clave de este capítulo es la importancia del subtexto al reproducir el guión. Por ejemplo, la palabra "amor" puede no significar nada para una persona que no entienda español, pero si se llena de emoción, si se usa en el momento justo, su significado es infinito, y no necesitan saber esa lengua para entenderlo.

Curiosamente, puede ser lo más divertido de actuar, ya que está intrínsecamente relacionado con la pausa dramática, y no se me ocurre un mejor ejemplo que...

Acentuación: la palabra expresiva

En este capítulo, Torstov insiste en que reproducir el texto o transmitir una emoción no son los objetivos de un actor. Esas palabras y esas emociones deben provocar un efecto, o nada de lo que haga tendrá sentido. Aconseja hablar no al oído, sino al ojo de nuestro compañero en escena. Y esto, fuera de las explicaciones sobre efectos o no efectos, me parece un consejo CLAVE si estás en el teatro. Hay que saber reaccionar a lo que haga tu compañero, pase lo que pase.

Perspectiva en la construcción del personaje

Al irse desarrollando un personaje tenemos dos perspectivas: la del propio personaje y la del actor. Esto es crucial. El actor sabe lo que va a pasar con el personaje, pero el personaje no debe saber su futuro. Si bien es verdad que cada acción lo va a llevar a su objetivo y por tanto el actor debe recordar su futuro, no puede dejar que el personaje se mueva sabiendo exactamente lo que va a pasar. No sería realista.

Tempo – Ritmo en movimiento

Me temo que no voy a decir mucho de esta sección, ya que pretendo hacer contenidos con mayor profundidad sobre este tema.

Tempo del habla – Ritmo

Me temo que no voy a decir mucho de esta sección, ya que pretendo hacer contenidos con mayor profundidad sobre este tema. (Para seros sincera, en realidad me aburrí un poquito, pero shhh).

El Atractivo Escénico

Lo que más me ha gustado de este capítulo es la diferencia que hace entre dos tipos de personas embarcadas en el mundo escénico: Los guapis y los fachaditas. Creo que el primero se puede resumir con un “nunca conozcas a tus ídolos”. Un actor de este tipo puede permitirse de todo, incluso ser un mal actor. Su carisma está en el personaje que ellos venden a sus admiradores, no el personaje de la obra. Y cuando se acaba su belleza física, o cuando salen a la luz sus verdaderas intenciones, sus fans se dan de bruces con la decepción. Por otro lado, el segundo tampoco es el objetivo de un buen actor. Los que utilizan las fachadas pueden ejercer un gran magnetismo escénico entre kilos de maquillaje y pelucas, pero es importante ver lo que hay debajo también.

Hacia una Ética Teatral

Aunque dedicaré una entrada exclusiva con una lista de consejos sacados de aquí y otros que añadiré, os resumo: respeto, respeto, respeto. Respeto a tus compañeros, al texto, al superobjetivo, a los técnicos, a tu público, a la puntualidad, a la butaca medio rota. A TODO.

A través del consciente y hacia el inconsciente. + Pautas.

Junto los dos porque siento que van de la mano. El último parece un resumen de lo aprendido, pero el ante penúltimo es interesantísimo: Torstov propone a sus estudiantes jerarquizar todas las pautas que les ha dado. Atención, ¡tiene trampa!

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