#i hate this move but you best believe that i’ll eat up whatever narrative they craft out of this

[oneblckcoffee]

and here we thought netflix lost their main character but in fact they got the most fucked up insane storyline of all time i hope the producers are popping bottles you really couldn’t write this

[tsukiihime]

Heartbreak (Bakugou x Reader), (Shinsou x Reader) Part 2

The second part to the fic I wrote, this will probably be my last post for another week since I have school to catch up on. Enjoy!

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: Angst, a bit more fluff on Shinsou’s end, drinking

Taglist: @sugarandsoft

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

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It’s three in the morning, and Bakugou can’t sleep.

He’s beyond pissed at himself for staying up this late, but he can’t help it - he’s been in bed since nine and he can’t get you out of his mind. He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about you since you stormed out of the apartment. He regrets not chasing after you, he loathes himself for being such a dick and he hates himself for even letting his stupid agency dictate his personal life. He wants to tell you so bad that you’re wrong, that beating Deku doesn’t mean a damn thing to him if it means he has to lose you. He wants to hear your voice so bad it hurts. He knows you’ll be going to Shinsou - you always do when you have a bad fight. He knows you’ll be safe there, but he feels like such a fool. He let you walk out in the rain on your own. What a hero he turned out to be. 

Bakugou spends the night alternating between flipping through the endless channels on the living room TV and staring at the ceiling. Every time he closes his eyes he sees your face - anger boiling your blood, disbelief painting your features as he fights with you, tears staining your cheeks. He feels sick to his stomach imagining you walking in the cold as you leave the apartment, sniffling as you make your way out in the rain. He wants to call you to explain himself.

But he doesn’t. His pride won’t let him.

It’s his pride that makes him trudge out to bars with Denki, Mina, and Sero the next day after you leave - he needs alcohol in his system to numb himself from the thought of you. Anyone will do if it warms his bed and makes your face disappear for even a second. God, he never thought he would be so hung up on you. He downs beer after beer, dances with woman after woman. Names and faces blur together as a cacophony of voices plays in his head. 

He ends up taking someone home that night - he couldn’t remember her even if he tried. He takes her back to the apartment you shared and pushes her onto the bed you shared. He kisses her collarbone and up her neck, but he’s aiming for your favorite spots instead of hers. The image of you overlaps with her, and he sees your figure beneath him instead of some stranger. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s his broken heart playing tricks on him.

He kisses her, imagining it’s your scent he’s breathing in rather than the vanilla and booze she smells of. He pictures your arms wrapping around his neck, your lips on his. She says his name, like honey on her lips, whispers it into his ear. And if he tries hard enough, he can twist her voice in his head to sound like you.

“Katsuki, I love you.” He hears it over and over, sees your smile and hears your laugh. “Katsuki, I love you.”

He makes her leave after that. She’s upset but he is too - an argument ensures and she storms out, leaving behind her underwear in her hurry to leave. 

He doesn’t notice. He’s too busy thinking of you.

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It’s been three weeks since your breakup with Bakugou. 

The news stations and gossip websites have been flooded with reports of Camie and Katsuki - neither have said anything about their relationship and the speculation of if they are or aren’t a couple is driving everyone wild. Thankfully, the people who were leaving awful comments have long since left you alone, prompting you to turn your Instagram to private and changing your username so they can’t find you easily. 

You’ve been avoiding social media like the plague, ignoring all television interviews that involve either Bakugou or Camie - you’ve learned your lesson from the night of the Hero Rankings. But you’re only human after all, and the one time your curiosity got the better of you, you dove into the comments on a tabloid’s website to see what the public was saying.

It doesn’t escape your notice that the comments are much kinder - it ranges from well wishes to remarks about how they wish they could replace Bakugou or Camie in the relationship. No one mentions you, which you are grateful for. You know the media thrives off of drama and rumors, so you’re content to have been forgotten about in this narrative. 

Shinsou’s been treating you like normal - another thing you’re grateful for. He is kind without being overbearing, and he gives you distance while also being there for you when you need it. You’ve migrated from sleeping on the couch to crashing in his bed, and more often than not you fall asleep to the smell of his body wash as you lay on his chest. 

You wonder what Bakugou would say if he saw you. He knew how close you and Shinsou were and still are, but anyone could think that you and the purple haired man were lovers. Here you are, getting upset at your ex-boyfriend for having a woman over two days after the breakup, when you are falling asleep in the arms of another man - even if he is your best friend. You wonder if that makes you a hypocrite. Your emotions are in chaos, all jumbled and confused. You miss physical intimacy and a part of you wonders if you’re just using Shinsou as a replacement. “It’s better to sift through these feelings when I’m calmer”, you think to yourself, “I’ll come back to it when I’m in a better place.”

Otherwise, you’ve been steadily making your way back to a normal life - work, school, and your personal life all seem to be peaceful and you’re content in a way you hadn’t been for a long time with Bakugou. Of course, the wounds of the breakup are still healing, but you’re doing a lot better from three weeks ago, when you couldn’t even bring yourself to get out of bed. Shinsou has been making sure that you eat properly and that you take care of yourself. Now that you’re out of that post breakup funk, he notices that you’re cheerful and upbeat - a good sign that you’re slowly recovering from your heartbreak.

Today, you’re home alone while Shinsou patrols the city - he’s promised to pick up dinner on his way home so you don’t have to cook. He’s looking forward to tonight - you’ve finished all of your school work for the weekend and you’re off from work until Monday. He’s eager to come home to you, he’s turned down his coworkers invitations to drink so he can spend the weekend with you. He’s picked up food from your favorite Mexican restaurant, and he’s stopped at the grocery store to get your favorite flavor of ice cream - the one that’s almost always sold out. 

He arrives home to see you lazing about the house - you’re laying on your back on the couch, holding your pastel Animal Crossing Edition Switch with a bag of chips resting on the table next to you. Your eyebrows are furrowed together as you focus on beating the shit out of a boss in Cuphead - a game you and Shinsou spent hours playing when it came out trying to pass the incredibly difficult levels. You’re wearing Shinsou’s favorite hoodie again - you might as well claim it as your own already you wear it so much - and your fuzzy cat print socks match with a fluffy cat ear headband that keeps your hair out of your face. Your face is recently washed and slightly pink, and he can smell your favorite coconut body wash from where he’s standing. He waits until you lose the stage (let's face it - there’s no way you’re beating that damn clown boss without his help) and he makes his way over to you, leaning over to look down at you as you exhale in annoyance at your loss. 

“Hey there, I got dinner. Also nabbed some dessert for you - ready to watch nothing but ghost stories for the rest of the night?” You stretch out your arms and legs, groaning as you move to stand from the couch. 

“Only if you promise to sleep next to me until I see sunlight again.” You hate ghost stories - you can handle scary movies about murderers and clowns but you don’t mess with ghosts. The only reason you’re watching tonight is because you know it’s Shinsou’s favorite and he always watches your nature documentaries even though you know deep down he probably doesn’t enjoy them as much as you do. You saunter over to the kitchen, and prop yourself on the counter facing Shinsou as you pull a taco to your mouth. “Ugh, even though the Exorcist was made like 50 years ago it still gives me the creeps. I can’t believe,” you take a moment to drink some water, “that you can watch her crawl backwards down the stairs and not piss your pants.” Shinsou lowly chuckles, giving a teasing smile as he unwraps his burrito.

“It’s ‘cause I’m not a chicken.” You roll your eyes and snort. 

“Whatever Mindjack. Not everyone can be as fearless as you.” He smirks as you swing your legs, turning your full attention to the taco you have in front of you. “Hurry up and finish so we can do a facemask before our movie marathon. You didn’t forget about that did you?” 

“‘Course not. You wouldn’t let me forget even if I tried, since you’re such a nagger.” You pout, hopping off the counter to wash your hands. Shinsou spends a bit too much time admiring how small you look wearing his hoodie - enveloped in something that belongs to him makes him swell with pride even if it’s wrong of him to think so. He wonders when he started to feel this way towards you, when his love changed from a close friend to an admirer. When he remembers his life, you are always there with him. By his side like a part of his body, always around when important events pass by, always by his side when the going gets tough. It’s not as if he’s always been pining for you - he’s brought other girlfriends around before even if the romance fizzles out before long - but recently he’s noticed you in a different light. Your bedhead and your sleeping face are just as cute to him as when you have your hair done and makeup on. Bringing other men over was never a problem, you’re his best friend and your happiness was always the first priority. But now, he finds himself annoyed at the mere mention of possible partners. You have no shortage of those - you’ve always been able to draw people to you as nerdy as you are - and the green vines of jealousy wrap around his heart every time someone gives you a gift on Valentine’s Day or someone asks you out for a coffee. You usually turn them down since you have so much to focus on, work and school makes you a busy woman after all. But he can’t help but be irritated at the stares you get in public sometimes - as beautiful as you are, you would think that you’d notice the way others look at you. He’s always loved you, but now he feels this once platonic love changing into pure romance, he aches for you like he’s never had before - longing for your touches, your hugs, your feather light kisses on his forehead when he’s having a tough day. The guilt he feels every time he holds you close like he did when you were kids, when you lay your head on his chest and he plays with your hair. To you, it’s still the action of a best friend, but to him it’s something he’d do for a lover. And yet, you’re oblivious, as dense as a rock but he loves that part too. How infuriatingly adorable you are sometimes. 

“‘Toooooshi~”, You wave your hand in his face as he comes back to reality. You raise an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”

“Never better.” Your arms cross as you stare at him, suspicious that he’s hiding something from you. 

“You ready? I got everything set up.” He nods, and you turn to walk towards his bedroom.

Shinsou’s room is quite neat, a black bed in the corner next to ceiling to floor windows that gives a pretty good view of the city. He scored a good location in spite of his modest salary - he’s in it for the heroism and the good deeds, not the money. He may not make as much as Bakugou, Todoroki, or Deku, but he does alright. His capture weapon and artificial vocal cords mask rest atop his bookshelf, populated with picture books of you and him in your younger days, as well as a Polaroid camera you left with him when he went off to U.A and you stayed in Saitama. Next to the parts of his Hero costume is a picture of you and him on a trip to the beach - one he treasures above all else. In it, he holds you bridal style as you both smile from ear to ear at the camera. You’re practically glowing, wearing a bright yellow bikini set with a see through beach coverup wrapped around your hips, sunglasses resting atop your head. Shinsou recalls how you nagged him to actually swim with you, and you pretty much forced him to wear those green swim shorts - this picture was before he decided to run with you in his arms to the water. 

He sees your presence everywhere he looks in his room. After he reassured you that you weren’t a burden, you’ve basically turned his home into your home as well. The bottom half of his bookshelf is claimed as yours - it’s filled with your favorite stories, and your collection of Switch games is stacked next to the shelf neatly. Your laptop rests on his bed (you were no doubt doing homework before you got distracted and started playing Cuphead before he got home) with your Geology textbook open and notebooks filled with notes and highlighted phrases. Your clothes have been hung up in his closet, with your makeup and perfumes taking over three-fourths of his bathroom counter. If anyone else came to visit, they’d think you two were an item.

But alas, you two are not.

You push your schoolwork and computer aside to make room for you and Hitoshi, making your way towards the bathroom to grab a basket of skin care products and face masks. Shinsou knows how much you care about your skin - and by extension his skin - and he watches as you walk from here to there gathering what you need. You turn to him with a huge grin on your face as you hold up a matching cat headband in the color black, something you picked up from the store before you came home last week. He sighs, but turns around anyways to allow you to pull his lavender hair back into a loose ponytail and place the cat headband on his head before turning back to face you. 

He looks so silly wearing it, but for you, he’ll do anything. You grab your phone and open the front camera, sticking your tongue out while grabbing Shinsou’s face, squishing his cheeks as he makes an annoyed face at the camera. After taking the photo, you upload it to your now private Instagram and send the picture to Shinsou who does the same. He’s always been a private man, so you don’t worry about the public getting a hold of the photos and trying to make a story out of your life like with Bakugou. 

Tossing your phone aside, you motion for Hitoshi to turn towards you, propping yourself up on your knees in front of him as he sits cross legged. You giggle as he looks back at you, reaching to grab a jar of your favorite moisturizer and opening it. The smell is familiar to him - you always smell like it at night when you watch TV while sitting next to him in the living room. You start to apply the product to his face, careful to keep it out of his eyes and mouth. “You need to take better care of your skin ‘Toshi.”

“I know. I’ve been putting sunscreen on like you’ve asked.” He’s not lying, it’s become a part of his routine ever since you suggested it. 

“Good. You better be taking the time to eat properly at work too. I know you’re sleeping normally again since I’ve been here, so I won’t lecture you on that.” You glance at his arms, covered in scattered scars from run ins with villains. 

Most people look at heroes as an invincible force, unstoppable like All Might. Others may see Mindjack, but you just see Hitoshi Shinsou, your partner in crime.

“Thank you Hitoshi...for everything.” You blurt it out before you can stop yourself.

“I didn’t know this facemask meant so much to you.” You punch him in the shoulder as he laughs.

“‘Toshi, I’m serious. Look at all you’ve done for me. You let me crash here, listen to me complain, make sure I’m okay...without you, I probably would still be lying in bed all depressed.” You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. “I have to say it before I never get the chance to. You may be Mindjack, a hero, but you’re still Hitoshi to me. You do so much for me and you put your life on the line for others every day. I watch you and I’m proud of the boy who proved everyone wrong when they said you had a villain’s quirk. You being here for me after everything with Bakugou and always being there for me growing up makes me realize how much you mean to me. You’re my hero, ‘Toshi. But I need you to stay safe. Look at all your scars...” You pull back from the hug and grab his arms, running your fingers over his scarred skin. You’ve always known Shinsou’s job is dangerous - he’s a hero after all, he saves people. But he’s also your best friend. He’s a selfless man, a kind man. 

You love Shinsou. You truly do, he is someone you can never lose. To lose him would be to lose a part of you.

He says nothing in response, so you continue. “Remember that time you fought that villain in the subway? All the news stations said that the tunnel was going to collapse and I just felt like my heart was going to burst. I saw you getting trapped and I felt like…”

You trail off, feeling the familiar sting of tears as you hold them back. Hitoshi gazes at you, lilac eyes boring into your own. “I felt like my whole world was ending. When you came out alright I thought I would faint. I was so scared ‘Toshi… scared you wouldn’t come back. I don’t want to lose you.” Shinsou grabs your cheeks, gently moving his hands so you face him. He wipes a tear from your eye. 

“I’ll always come back to you.” You close your eyes, and press your forehead to his.

“You better. I’ll be waiting.”

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Bakugou wants to be anywhere else but here. 

He’s at Kirishima’s apartment - he’s been dragged out of his house by Mina and Kaminari for a night of drinking, with Sero and Jirou also coming along for the ride. The blonde would rather be in bed, wallowing in his misery, but his friends won’t let him stay inside. So he pouts in the corner, arms crossed and a permanent scowl painting his features. Kirishima gives him a knowing smile, and mouths “I’m sorry”. Bakugou clicks his tongue and looks away, grabbing his phone in order to distract himself from all the noise. 

He would rather die than admit it, but he’s been looking for your Instagram ever since you left. You must’ve unfollowed him or even blocked him - he can’t find a trace of you anywhere. He hates this pathetic side of him, one that makes him seem like a stalker, but he has to know you’re okay. If his pride won’t let him call you, then he needs to know you’re okay.

To his surprise, you pop up on his feed. He immediately inspects the photo of you, and breathes a sigh of relief to see your face. Your tongue is sticking out all playful, beaming as you hold Hitoshi’s face for the photo. You’re wearing that cat headband you always use when washing your face, and he can tell you’re almost ready for bed. He smiles solemnly, vermilion eyes staring at you, so far away.

He notices you’re wearing one of Shinsou’s hoodies and his blood boils at the thought - he knows you are friends but he hates the idea of anyone else having you - although he shouldn’t be one to talk after bringing home that girl from the club. He hates himself for doing it. He stares at your face before standing, saying a curt “I’ll be back” before making his way to the balcony. His friend’s voices fade as he stands outside overlooking the city, and he makes sure the coast is clear before dialing your number.

Fuck his pride. He has to hear your voice. 

[fktonofwhatnow]

The Rhys/Tamlin 180 in ACOMAF makes me mad! Like there’s wasted potential there, even if Rhys is endgame. The concept of after the happily ever after is actually pretty cool. There’s real potential in looking at how Tamlin and Feyre deal with the trauma of Amarantha. Having two people realized they’re not right together while still respecting each other is a more adult take than “surprise, Tamlin sux now”, and allows for Feyre to actually make real choices and grow. What's your ACOMAF rewrite?

Damn YALL ARE SPOILING ME WITH THE TAMLIN ASKS ☺️☺️ thank youuu for the ask @havenfable

THIS IS AGREAT POINT TOO WAIT WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT ALLOWING FEYRE TO ACTUALLY MAKE REAL DECISIONS !! YOUR BRAIN !! you guys are spectacular eat a cookie you have earned it 

Ok my thoughts are not quite coherent rn so I’ll try to make sense. I’ve tried writing this like 4 times and every time it just doesn’t work so bear with me here thank you I love you ok here we go. 

Ok I’m gonna start by saying that there is something to be said about Feyre as the narrator and her being an “unreliable” narrator of sorts. The story is about her, told from her perspective. I don’t expect her to have objective views of what happens around her. one thing I found interesting was that she said in conversations with people that she knew Tamlin was struggling, but when we would be listening to her internal monologue, when she thought of him it was mostly to blame him for not knowing she was struggling. (or if he did know, he didn't do anything about it) So like, same thing with the whole thing with Rhysand's mom and sister, we don't know what Tamlin thinks or feels about the situation because he doesn't talk about it and Feyre never asks. (But oh DAMN Sarah should not have given me room to speculate.) Like, UTM broke Feyre right, she tells us that much. Why are we not allowed to believe that it destroyed Tamlin too.

Here we are again, just like with Rhysand's family. I don't blame Feyre for literally needing help, and I do blame Tamlin for not helping her, but to a degree. I hated how the whole situation was handled like Tamlin was shit for not trying to help Feyre (even tho he was, just not in the way she needed), but then Feyre literally not lifting a single finger to try to help Tamlin is ok because he's a man and he can just suck it up and take it. ???? No ? That's not how we handle trauma? Like, my homeboy is fighting a losing battle against this shit and he's the one who's gotta fix everything for Feyre?

But like you said, just a tiny little bit of helpful communication would have done wonders. How about a lil, "hey you ok?" ???? LETS TALK ABOUT IT! Let's talk about how we're falling out of love, let's talk about what Tamlin experienced under the mountain, let's talk about what Feyre experienced under the mountain, let's talk about how maybe we were never good for each other and how we move on with our lives from that! POTENTIAL !! LETS HAVE THEM GROW "Surprise! Tamlin sucks now!" bitch how. Literally how. How did this happen. How did we get here. Tell me. I want to know SJm. Stop being a coward and tell me. You know what, I'll do it for you.

Damn this is about to be super duper long I'm so sorry. 

Alrighty guys once again, I love Tamlin with my whole chest, but I do put a hefty chunk of this on him. From what SJm tells us about Tamlin, he is a fearful individual. His responses to fear are either to freeze or to explode. Both extremes hurt people around him. His actions hurt people, and his lack of action hurts people. Also, for as often as he says the word sorry, he doesn't really show any signs of change or improvement. While I understand that yes , changing your behavior is hard, especially if you're not getting help and don't know how, Tamlin still could have tried a little more, pushed just a little harder, and yes, he could have been better.

But Tamlin is scared. He's scared of things outside of his control, he's scared of change, he's scared of people he loves leaving him or getting hurt. I'm willing to bet he's scared of himself, and rightfully so. He lashes out and it only ever hurts people. I can't believe he's blind to it. When he destroys the study, he's clearly afraid he hurt Feyre.

(i think I’m gonna do my acomaf rewrite headcanons in a different post, every time I try to write them here it doesn’t flow oooof lemme know if thats something you want ahahah I could talk about this shit forever) 

And like, being subject to someone else's fear is stifling. I don't blame Feyre for getting the hell out of there.

BUT AT THE SAME TIME, I know I've said this before: in my opinion, Tamlin has the best depiction of trauma in the whole fucking series. PTSD is a bitch and Tamlin is losing to it. The thing I loathed about acomaf/the beginning of Acowar is how Tamlin isn't given help and then treated like an absolute asshole for it. SJm could have done so much if she had Tamlin learn to ask for help. We can't all just have a Rhysand who knows every thought we have. Sometimes we have to ask for help, as much as we don't want to. That would have done wonders for Tamlin's character arc. And I think that he should have leaned heavily on Lucien for that.

Now look, Lucien deserves a lifetime of free chiropractor visits to relieve the soreness from carrying the entire series solely by himself on his own back. If I'm the one to pay for that for him, so be it. I would do anything for this man.

Lucien deserved so much better than to be bulldozed by the narrative. I refuse to believe that he would let Tamlin use him as a doormat. Lucien deserved to tell Tamlin off on his behavior ok. Lucien deserved a fucking backbone that he had all of acotar and then SJm decided that he was the character who got to suffer for the decisions of every other characters so they didn't have to. Stupid. (At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Rhysand's cum from having sky sex with Feyre fell directly on Luciens face. That's how much SJm likes pummelling him)

Lucien deserves to be strong and tough and emotionally available, especially for Tamlin. I don't think he deserves to be abused by his best friend. I've read fics that make Tamlin like this jackass who's not sad at all that Amarantha forced him to whip his best friend. Are you fucking kidding me. I feel like if Tamlin was going to cling like hell to someone through all of the shit before, during and after UTM, it should be lucien. But no SJm needs us to know Tamlin is a bad guy now. He hurts everyone with no remorse!!! What a villain!!! That was a sin.

Acomaf deserved to be two people talking about how maybe this relationship wasn't going to work out. This book deserved to be Tamlin getting up the courage to as Lucien for help. This book deserved to be Lucien always telling Tamlin that he would be there for him and us getting to watch the two of them overcoming their hardships together. This book deserved to be Feyre choosing her own path, choosing her own family, choosing to live her life as she wanted.

But nah. Rhysand's got a fat cock and uhhh y'all need to like it more than y'all like Tamlin's dick. Also Rhysand is a feminsisist. So suck it.

(If this book was really about giving Feyre a choice, SJm would let her make actual decisions that actually impacted herself and the story instead of just having Rhysand give her two extremes with one of them being obviously the right choice and then tell her whatever she wanted to do was her choice. Feminism.)

Did any of that make any sense. Any at all. No? Yeah I didn't think so anyways I've spent like a week on this I'm tired and I wanted to get it out there. Acomaf was a mess but at least it wasn't Acowar hahahahaha

[nightswithkookmin]

I loveeeee the way ur brain works and i like all ur posts and love reading them. Its Jimin day today and i wont lie that i am feeling a bit sad about whole JK not posting on JM bday because he was getting active on Social media again and i thought its because of JM bday coming soon but i hope they are happy and JM had a blast celebrating his bday.. it annoys me how other ship( u know which ship) is happy and making fun about this situation and calling Jikook bond fake and nonexsistant. 1/2

Ahhhhhh this topic!

Also me:

Packing my bags off these shipping streets. Jk don disgrace us. Lol. Kidding. If more than anything today has solidified my faith in JK and Jikook and while y'all are jumping ship imma hold the fort. Hashtag Jikook for life!

I've been receiving a lot of questions about this, about JK not posting for JM's birthday and I haven't answered any of them because- well I passed out. So...

Anywho,

Jk didn't post true, but have you thought about what it would have meant for him and JM if he had posted?

Now I see a lot of people running through the ship streets shouting Jikook broke up, something was off between them, Jikook was never real, jikook this- Jikook that- y'all need to calm your horses or I swear to God!

I mean I am down for all that wild gossip and angst but I think y'all is tripping.

Do I think they are in a bad place, HELL NO. Do I think they are not real? HELL NO! Do I think JK don lost his minds? ABSOLUTELY.

Lol

No but seriously, I'm fascinated by all of this. I'm in pain, can't process shit but when it comes to Jikook I'm always intrigued and fascinated by them.

I'm mostly fascinated by why JK pulled a 5/8, geared up for JM's birthday but then posts crickets on Jimin's birthday as you've said.

Is it me or does this whole thing feel like the tattoo girl scandal all over again? Lmho.

Up until now, I've avoided addressing Asks about Jikook coming out, JK proposing and stuff like that because those territories are a bit tricky for me- to speculate on those, I find I'd have to speculate on whether marriage is something both of Jikook want, whether both of Jikook want to come out but these are conversations I don't think y'all are ready for with me.

Not when I believe one of them, if you've been following my train of thoughts you'd know which, is not ready to make such commitments, joking about marriage and shit- yes, that tiny man. Lol.

I mean the backlash I get for the tamer things I share on here- chilee, y'all is about to eat me up for this. Here goes nothing. Mama pray for me.

I have said, late 2018 to the middle of 2019 is one of the moments I sincerely felt JK was going to 'out' Jikook just based on the way he was moving through that era until that impromptu hiatus and the following scandal.

Out Jikook as in OUT Jikook- I've told y'all Jikook have been asserting themselves against eachother. JK has been asserting himself and part of that self assertion ties in with his sexuality. He is tired of hiding. He's been tired since 2016- trouble this one.

Do I think JM is ready to come out- No. He doesn't want to come out but he doesn't want to hide hide either. Dude just want to stay in that glass closet.

Throughout my posts, I've speculated this has been a huge part of their on and off dynamics since November last year. Jk coming off too strong, JM asking for space- yall know don't make me repeat myself.

November 2019 up until today is also one such periods I felt JK was going to out Jikook, inspite of all the ups and downs they've experienced this season.

JK scares me to be honest with you. I keep saying people are looking at him wrong. Hell, people are looking at Jikook dynamics wrong I feel.

All the times Jikook have almost been accidentally outed, who's been the most terrified? It's not JK.

Jimin's face when RM said JK sneaks into JM's bed at night, his face when they walked into JK's room on Bon V and saw the cameras. I have an entire dissertation on this on my wall please get with it. Lol

Whatever silent protest JK's been on since JM's birthday last year- Not gonna lie, I felt JK was not posting for the others so he could post on JM's birthday this year as a way of coming out with him? You know, make a bold statement like he's done over the years? I'm delusional but also dead serious.

Each time I feel JK's come close to this pivotal moment, something's happened. I swear Jikook is taking years off my life- I'm exhausted.

Why is he trying to out their relationship on his own and not do that with the consent of Jimin? I'm gonna pray to God, y'all can read my mind with everything I have been saying since my posts because this is cutting it too close for me- and I'm exhausted so maybe another post next time.

Like I've said, I really believe they are in a good place this time around. Y'all know me, I don't shy from angst, I'd say if I felt there's been something off with them since they fixed whatever they were going through early half of the year.

The only tension I've sensed between them lately was on day two of the online concert when JM got a little too excited with trying to sell the sexual tension fantasy in his other ships and JK didn't look like he was happy about.

Later during the curtain call you could see dude cold stoning JM resulting in JM doing what he does best in such instances- clinging on to JK for their life. Lol.

He vanished from Namjoon's side real quick to take the bow next to JK but JK- Y'all check that moment out for yourself, see what I'm talking about.

Is that why he didn't wish Jimin a happy birthday? I don't think so. I think he put a lot of thought and preparation towards this moment to make something like this undo all of that- that is if my suspicions about what he was trying to do this year is right.

Jimin gone wake up married one of these days he won't know what hit him! Lmho.

It is why, I don't buy this whole he didn't post for the others which is why he didn't post for Jimin narrative. When have you known Jk to care about things like these?

The man literally got a birthday present for Jimin gave it to him in the presence of some of the members without doing same for them. Singling JM out like this is nothing new to him. He has done so consistently over the years to let this deter him.

The question y'all should be asking is why he didn't post for the others in the first place. They are all friends and posting for eachother's birthdays is a long standing tradition in BTS so why is he breaking from this culture all of a sudden?

Is he rebelling? Is he protesting? What is he trying to do? Right?

This moment has been building up since last year after JM's birthday and I honestly believed he was going to go through with it- hell I bought a wedding dress and shit- Jikook you son of bish!

I have said the company is giving them much room to be themselves, RM isn't breathing down their necks, JM looked like he was finally committed- everything looked great between them in my opinion except perhaps for the growing tensions between JK, V and Namjoon- If you've been paying any attention to their recent Twitter war.

I hate speculating based on nothing, so I'm just going to point out to you my observations without drawing conclusions- I'll share my thoughts on what these moments means when I've had more content to peruse and analyze from now- but for now you can make of it what you will:

1. JK starts a count down on Twitter, JM responds and continues the countdown.

Now I clocked, the moment JK posted this on the 5th that he had something up his sleeves with regards to Jimin which I shared with y'all. He was going for a 5/8/13 it's not news now.

2. After Jimin posts day 4 for the countdown, who ever was going to post after him was going to have to post day 3 to continue the countdown right? But Tae posts a V-cut instead breaking that chain.

Now I remember joking about this moment with a friend, rolling my eyes exclaiming, here they go again! V is trying to sabotage JK yet again, and he'd turn around and ask why their friendship is dwindling. The pettiness and passive aggressiveness of it all!

That moment reminded me of when he called JK out for attempting to eyefuck JM through the viewfinder in the Dynamite MV reaction video. Remember that? Same energy to me.

They do shit like this and their shippers will not take note but will turn around and act surprised when we say Taekook ain't all that- rolling my eyes.

3. Hobi continues the countdown with day 3 and RM posts something random the next day but I think it was to neutralize the Taekook shenanigans. Neutralizing is what RM does best- we been knew.

4. Jk posts his Savage Love cover on the 8th and equally doesn't partake in the countdown he himself initiated because- Savage.

5. Suga posts day 2. RM and Jin posts day 1 and Tae posts D-Day on the D day to promote the concert. Yadda yadda yadda.

Now I didn't think much of this moment to be honest- i merely took a mental note of it for future reference, and was paying close attention to their interactions at the concert- which we will talk about soon..

I didn't make much of this bit until VJoonKook became a hold out on Jimin's birthday. They were the last three to post, two of whom ended up not posting at all for Jimin"s birthday- fucking traitors.

It was at this point I felt compelled to put on my tinfoil hat. And reevaluate the situation.

Why were these three people the same trio engaged in that little squabble just a few days ago on the timeline? I wondered.

It felt as if Taekook were engaged in a Russian Roulette racing the clock while Joonie stood by waiting to neutralize whatever shit those two were going to pull on the timeline.

Call me delusional but I felt JK was going to post, Tae was going to try to one up him with a ridiculous post or counter his post- V and his fucking VMin agenda! Lmho

RM was going to end up mirroring whatever JK was going to post to neutralize it as per usual- leave me alone. I said I'm delusional. Let me be. Lol.

There's just a lot going on all at once and it's easy to lose sight of subtle moments like these when they happen.

Like Jimin saying he would be on VLive soon, which first of all- yay!

Y'all know I've been keeping my eyes on the app, most especially how the members are going to use it post IPO, post Soop- I have a lot of questions; will they be monitored like they were in May? Will they be able to have intimate interactions with the fans like before?

Y'all know my theory about Jikook and the VLive stuff so I'll leave it there.

Now as for what this moment here means, I think it's a humbling experience for all of us but mostly for Jimin-JK you sonova bish! Lol

Jimin is the one who loves to flex his bond and relationship with JK, he loves to show off their relationship. He is the one who's been called all sorts of names under the sun just because of his relationship with JK- even if they are friends.

None of the members have suffered and paid a price for their relationship with JK the way Jimin has throughout the years. It is why I hate it when people compare the others to him. Even if it placates you and lessens your insecurities please don't.

I'm not pressed about no ship wars. Hell, I often start one myself- what? fun.

I'm worried for Jimin mostly.

I think JK more than anyone knows how this looks. Which is why I really don't think this is what he was aiming for all along. To make Jimin look this way- again not to say JM is better than the others he didn't post for.

I don't know what's going on with JK now but I am not about to tell you this moment is nothing. It is not nothing.

I know people want to console themselves with the whole my partner don't gotta show off on social media on my birthday to show he loves me- please shut up. Or may be don't. Y'all con shippers confound me.

This is Jikook here, showing is an integral part of their dynamics. Isn't that why people call them a fanservice ship? Because they show so much? Because they do so much?

Jikook like to show off their bond, they like claiming eachother, they like reassuring eachother and I'm sorry but Park Jimin's father set such high standards for his son's birthday for anyone who claim they love him to pull stunts like this. Do y'all know Jikook at all?! I have to ask.

Jimin loves to be treated like he is different and special. It's his love language. We know this, BTS knows this, JK knows this- don't make excuses for JK if at the very least you can't see what he was trying to do here.

Even if you don't think they are a couple they are best friends- at the bare minimum. It doesn't take more than a few seconds to login and wish a friend a happy birthday- Hobi made four and he is not dating Jimin. Just saying.

You can't yell Jikook show us a lot hence there's no need for wild theories and assumptions and bully people who come up with wild theories and then in the same breath say they don't have to openly show us they care about eachother for them to be real- Y'all are going to ship by faith now? Chileee.

I have said JK likes to retract and conceal and only shows what he chooses to show and this was his choice. It's as simple as that. He chose not to post.

He didn't do it because of no damn other members.

He occupies a huge space in JMs life to not know what this moment says about him and his highly publicized relationship with Jimin- chileee, whatever did park Jimin do to you, JK?! Jesus Christ!

Havent heard of a betrayal this grand since the birth of Judas Iscariot- Judas is that you? Lmho.

I joke but I don't find this funny at all. Bless them.

It's one thing to not post for the others, but it's different for Jimin. And this is not to say the others don't matter to JK, they do. He's called them all family but then again he hasn't placed any one of them on a pedestal the way he's placed Jimin on a pedestal now has he? So we cannot assume Jimin means the same to him as the others mean to him.

Isn't that why we ship them?

Personally, I'm hurt by all of this. It hurts me that some people are going to use this as an excuse to tease and bully Jimin, call him a liar, call into question the years of friendship between Jikook, call into question any future interactions between them- I don cried my eyes out all day for Jimin but also for JK.

It hurts that I have to defend JK and Jikook to anyone. The task wasn't easy before all of this- not that anybody sent me. Who died and made me their spokesperson. Chileee

But please let's not dismiss this moment or belittle it. It's monumental- to me anyway.

JK was on to something I'm just curious to know what stopped him this time around. I want to know if he plans on not posting at all for anyone in the future. How long is he going to keep at it?

He's tried to out them twice. Will he do it again? How is he going to do it? What is Jimin going to do if indeed this is what JK had been planning, how is this going to affect their dynamics- I'm excited for their journey however it goes.

It's their journey unauthored. I'm just here to observe and report- and may uWu while I'm at it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, we gotta ask ourselves, had JK posted anything at all today knowing full well he hasn't posted at all for anyone in the group all year, that what would that have meant for their relationship? What message would that have sent?

While we lament about this moment, let's also take a minute to ponder over what this moment might have signified if JK had actually posted.

Everything he did in the days leading up to Jimin's birthday pointed to the fact he was definitely going to post. To me it felt he was gonna come out. He was. And if he had done it- my god!

JK isn't my favorite person right about now. He can go ahead and step on leggos. No kithes for him🙄

But I have faith in him. Always. He's consistently shown and proven his love and loyalty for Jimin through out the years. You don't nibble on a man's ear in front of sixty thousand people, to find posting a simple message on his birthday tedious. This is Jikook. If it feels wrong, it is wrong.

I wish I could tell yall, this moment means nothing, that JK not posting is not a big deal but I can't. This moment is everything.

Signed,

GOLDY

[pumpkinmaster999]

Heroes Walk in Dirt

By Jess Awh

At last call at the bar I am eight shots in, swing dancing with a broom while Sasha wipes the wood down. His face says he’s wondering how a mess like me can be trusted to clean shit up.

I tell him when I’m home I like to vacuum drunk. Drunk vacuuming is kinda like being on a swing: you blithely toss your body around the room in a tango with the vacuum, singing to yourself, forgetting certain corners. I sing the live recorded version of a John Prine song, “That’s the Way that the World Goes Round.” Sasha asks why live. The song’s got this line: “it’s a half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown,” I say, but on the live tape John Prine tells the crowd how a woman came up to him in San Fransisco once and asked him to play his song about the happy enchilada. She thought it went, “it’s a happy enchilada and you think you’re gonna drown.”

In my bedroom I take eight shots of Jim Beam and grab the expensive vacuum I bought at Costco with the different detachable heads which I call “my vacuum ingredients,” and I swing and sing to myself about the happy enchilada.

Sasha shrugs and scrubs the gun line. He says that that John Prine song has a verse where John Prine pretty much says it’s ok to beat your wife. It isn’t okay to beat your wife, I don’t sing that verse. I know it isn’t okay to beat your wife. My wood floors shine. I hate when dirt from the floor sticks to my feet as though it were all the world’s injustice.

I smoke in the tub and I swim in the Hudson, so in a way no bath I take is ever clean as a true baptism. I dislike the laundromat, so I wash clothes at home and hang them on the fire escape. In a nutshell, all I can do is try, I say, in a nutshell. Trying is what we do when succeeding eludes our sight. Sasha once came over after work and laid on my bed eating pistachios, setting the empty shells down on his chest. He’s been upset because his ex is about to marry a man she loves less just to get him a green card and have some kids. I’d never ask anyone or anything to change. I would’ve vacuumed his shirt, though.

I walk to the train to work like always and Lee is waiting outside the liquor store. For whatever reason, the liquor store people hired him seemingly just to stand outside and ask people how they’re doing as they go by. He’s hardly ever inside, and when he is he doesn’t seem to be doing anything. He doesn’t have any flyers to hand out. “What’s new, Lee?” “Oh, you know, new gangsters, new crackheads.” “Oh yeah? You look spiffy. I like the blazer.” “Ah, thanks, it’s gettin’ cold.” “Yep, yep.” “My birthday’s coming up.” I like that one because he always tells me what’s new with the block when I’m really asking what’s new with him. “Shit, when is it?” “The 26th.” “No way, I’m having a party that night. I’ll bring you a piece of cake or something.” We laugh. Lee is always in a clean black button down and black pants that are never wrinkly. He’s like a blackboard that got wiped down with a wet towel. I’m gonna bring him cake because he doesn’t expect me to. We live in this charmed narrative where we move one plant into the sun, or put a sardine out for one stray cat, or organize one shelf, and then the sky opens up so sunbeams land on our shoulders like we somehow answered a prayer God didn’t even say out loud. I read this story in American Girl Magazine when I was nine where they’re walking on the beach and they find hundreds of washed up starfish dying in the sun. The one girl says “we can’t save them all, it’s pointless” and the other starts throwing them in the water one by one. She goes “but we can at least save a few, and that still matters.”

I get to the bar and this guy I know is there drinking, Grant Barber. I tell Sasha I’m going to go hide in the basement and he knows what I mean. A couple summers ago when I was bartending in Chinatown I became friends with Grant Barber because he was living in the radio station. He’d listen to my show on the mail room speakers on Sundays and say things like “I’m glad you played Patsy Cline” or “I can tell you like the music, that’s why you’re such a good host.” Grant Barber has blue eyes like Santa’s eyes, and that’s why I started buying him lunch and letting him shower at my apartment. I’m a good person but I get starfished sometimes. So I served court papers to the squatter who’d forced him out of his place in BedStuy, I went with him to the notary and everything, but when the legal shit started to drag along and he was sending me messages like “I’m gonna kill myself today” and “why won’t you answer me, I’m going to die” I stopped replying. I couldn’t fix it any more for him, and what was I gonna do, sit there listening to a dude I barely knew threaten suicide because I ignored his Facebook DMs? He said he never asked me to “fix it,” just to be there, and then he said he was in love with me. I said this is too many starfish. Actually, I said nothing.

Grant Barber talked to Blaze Foley in Austin back in 1985. I believe that story because he never lied to me about anything else besides the killing himself. “Fuck, I love Blaze Foley, seriously?” Yeah, at this concert at The Outhouse where he was double billed with Townes Van Zandt. Townes played for an hour straight, and I was there with my girlfriend, they were waiting for Blaze to come onstage but no one could find him I guess. He came on and played one song, then left again. That night is the only time I talked to him ever even though I saw him twice or three times. I’ll never forget what he said…I went to the men’s room and he was there barreling through a fifth of whiskey…slouched over a urinal. It was just us two and for some reason I started rambling about how much I looked up to him, how his music moved me, and then he stared at me and said one sentence. He said, and he was slurring—it took him a whole long minute to say this—he said “my problem is that I can’t stop being funny.”

I was funny once, at a nude figure drawing session held by a local art club. They had offered me thirty bucks to play the guitar and sing my songs while the models posed and the artists sketched them. The room echoed like the inside of a drum and the floors were shiny. I sang things I had written and they mingled with the dust lit up by the window and hovering in the air. Afterwards a girl came up to me and said “I loved your lyrics, they were so funny!” And maybe they were funny, but I recoiled because I felt stung, because I had been admitting that I was weak, which is braver than most things I do. Blaze Foley got shot in the chest by his friend Concho January’s son. That’s how he died. He confronted Carey, the son, about stealing Concho January’s veteran pension and welfare checks, and a few days later Carey shot him. Blaze’s friends covered his coffin in duct tape because he never got starfished, he knew his strength even though he looked to be made of flesh. Sasha was uninvited to his ex’s wedding because Gavin (the new fiancé) hates him, and when he found out he said fine, I’m happy for you guys, then cried on my shoulder in the bar basement later.

I love Blaze Foley but I doubt I would’ve ever dated him because I bet his hair was dirty all the time. He has this song called “Sittin’ by the Side of the Road” that’s about being homeless and being fine with it, because what do you even need besides a guitar and a meal to eat? I need a sanctuary that I can control and retreat to. The best gift I’ve ever given a friend is an invitation to stay with me, to hide in my house with the vacuumed floors, out of New York, and feel clean. This is why I wouldn’t date Sasha: his apartment is an unheeded hodgepodge of once-important or still-important things not set in order, not categorized, not scrubbed with Clorox wipes. I wonder what service he’s out there doing that makes him forget about cleaning. He texts me that Grant Barber left the bar and I come upstairs, eyeing the balled-up napkins and brown leaves sprinkled on the ground as I walk to the front door. I will clean this up before anyone else has a chance to disregard it.

[wellthatjusthappend]

In your divorce au, what's jason and dick's son's name? also can we see a bit more interaction with the kid? also also could we have insecure jason being reminded of dick all over the place? sorta missing him but also being mad at him? Sorry I know that's a lot packed into one request... feel free to just answer the name part.

No worries! I like questions :) 

Their son is Thomas Grayson (Tommy for sort). I know that in canon he’s supposed to be Dick/Kori’s kid, but since he grows up to be the next Red Hood... potential and all, you know? For some reason I’ve found I have a thing about making brand new fan-babies. It’s fun, but it’s always a little distracting for me. 

But enough of that, on to the story!

It was weird as hell living in the manor again. 

Alfred had moved him into a suite in the guest wing that had an attached room for his son to sleep in. Jason would rather he had his own apartment in the city, but his funds had dwindled from years of not working and he didn’t think he could support them. He was less than thrilled about having to share a roof with Bruce again, even if their relationship had improved slightly since Tommy was born. Didn’t mean that he wasn’t a little pissed when Bruce started taking over and detailing out every aspect of his life after he moved out of he and Dick’s old place. 

It felt like he’d moved out of one controlling Alpha’s house to another’s. 

Still, Jason did his best not to pick fights with the man. He wasn’t dumb; he knew Bruce was one of the few reason’s he was hanging on to custody of his son.  

“Going to the zoo!” Tommy bounded in, “Hurry papá! Going to the zoo!”

“Tomorrow,” Jason ephized, helping getting shoes on his son’s feet, “We’re going to the zoo tomorrow.” 

“But you said one more sleep!” insisted Tommy, wiggling unhelpfully.

Ah, Jason realized his mistake. But...

“Did you sleep at nap time?”

“Yes!”

“Really? So if I go ask Alfred…”

“No!” 

“Hmm,” Jason grinned as he set the little boy on his feet, “early bedtime tonight?”

“Zoo tomorrow!” Tommy said flushing. 

“Zoo tomorrow,” Jason agreed. 

“Will daddy be there?” Tommy asked, and Jason felt like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach.

“No.”

“But daddy’s going to show me the elephants,” Tommy said blinking up at him without comprehension, “he promised.”

Jason wondered how long ago that was. 

“We’ll still go find the elephants,” Jason promised, “Maybe we can get elephant popcorn too.”

“Elephant popcorn!” Tommy cheered and Jason breathed out a sigh of relief. Sometimes Tommy got into a one track mind and could not be derailed. ‘Daddy’’s broken promise to show him the elephants still had the potential to be a full blown meltdown later on though. 

Jason sighed and trailed behind his son as the little boy tried to run “super super fast!” down the halls of the Manor. Every day his steps became less of awkward stomping steps and more confident strides. 

Even if he did still wipe out on the floor pretty regularly. 

“Cookies!” Tommy announced excitedly when they reached the kitchen. 

“Only if you eat all of your dinner, Master Tommy,” Alfred said sternly moving them out of reach.

“Why don’t you show Grandpa how good you can kick your ball outside?” Jason suggested, spotting Bruce peaking in the doorway. 

“Oh, I’d be happy to-” Bruce began, his eyes getting that misty edge they always got whenever Jason told Tommy to call him Grandpa. Jason himself sort of found it funny, even if Bruce had ever really been much of a father to him or Dick, but he wasn’t unaware of what it meant to the man that Jason would consider them all family now. 

“Lets go,Letsgo!” Tommy said tugging Bruce out the backdoor. 

“I can’t decide if you’re being kind or enjoy watching Master Bruce fail to keep up with a child’s exuberance,” Alfred said mildly as Jason joined him at the counter to help with dinner prep. 

“A little of both?” Jason snickered, keeping an eye on the two out the window, “Bruce is even worse with small children than Dickie-”

Jason cut himself off and looked away, swallowing thickly. 

“Have you given any more thought to Master Bruce’s suggestion of marriage counseling?” Alfred asked, kindly not commenting. 

“Yeah, no, still not happening,” Jason snorted as he chopped vegetables, “counseling is for people trying to fix shit. There’s no fixing us Alfie.”

“Perhaps not,” Alfred inclined his head, “but a counselor could help verify the situation and your case for custody.”

“Don’t lie, Bruce wants us back together again,” Jason grumbled, handing his veggies over for some meat to cut.

“Master Bruce wants the two of you- and your son- to be happy,” Alfred corrected, “he may not be the best example of clean communication, but he is not totally unaware of its importance.”

“Right, sure,” Jason scoffed, “even if I did go, what would the point? Just one more person to be charmed by Dick and take his side over mine.”

“Hmm, that sounds dangerously like self contempt, Master Jason.” Alfred said, scraping the remaining ingredients into a dish and shooing Jason off to the table. 

“It’s just a fact Alfie,” Jason shrugged.

“Hmm,” Alfred hummed non committedly as he finished seasoning the dish and placed it in the fridge. 

Outside, Tommy took a huge kick at one of his balls, missed, and fell flat on his back. Bruce fluttered about anxiously as the boy picked himself back up and went at it again. 

“Have you given someone the chance to hear your side of the story?”

“Nobody would listen,” Jason said with certainty, “Besides, I’ve been told I’m not the greatest with words. At least not the kind that don’t piss people off.” 

“Why don’t you try writing a letter or an essay?” Alfred suggested as he checked the heat on the oven. 

“Huh?” Jason frowned, finally looking away from where Tommy was now happily chucking balls at Bruce to watch him deflect them all with ease.

It’d been one Tommy’s favorite games to play with Dick if he came home before the boy’s bedtime. The acrobat could twist dramatically out of the way in all different crazy positions while the toddler giggled in delight- Jason didn’t want to think about that. Not when it was over for good. 

“You’ve expressed some difficulty in laying out your case because of how emotionally charged the situation is, and I must say I agree with you there. I’m afraid that continuing to repeat that Master Dick is a ‘useless fucking Alpha prick’ as your sole argument is not going to help you much. However, I recall some of your teachers speaking very highly of the strength of some of your writing in school,” Alfred said, “as such, it may be wise to play to your strengths.”

Jason shifted uncomfortably and focused on Tommy abandoning his game to chase a bird in the yard. Writing it out… while it was true that he’d always been better at that, it still felt kind of lame. People should be able to just look at their situation and see that Jason was right. 

“Lawyers can do a lot, but we need your side of the story to even begin to figure out what’s best for Tommy. Not overarching insults and accusations, but a narrative that will bring support onto your side,” Alfred said, “Whatever the best method for getting that out, be it writing or perhaps telling a recording, you need to think about what you want to say.” 

“Like anyone would choose me over the Golden Child, no matter what I say,” Jason growled.

“I think that once you stop believing that the whole world is against you, you may find more allies than you expect,” Alfred said tapping a paper on the table. 

“What’s this?” Jason frowned, pulling it closer. 

“Information about some open positions at Gotham’s Public Library. Miss Gordon dropped it off the other day,” Alfred said with a small smile. 

“But… I don’t understand?” Jason said weakly, still staring at the paper. 

“It seems that although Miss Gordon loves Master Dick dearly, she is sympathetic to your position,” Alfred said going back to his meal prep. 

That… sort of made sense. She had almost married Dick at one point too, only to call it off later. 

“Really think about it,” Alfred said kindly, “I know you would not be pursuing a divorce lightly. Really think about the reasons why you want one. If Master Dick came in the door right now saying he wanted to get back together and promised to change, what might be your response?”

“Hell no,” Jason croaked, “I’ll never forgive him. He went too far, I can’t- I’ll never forgive him,” 

“Then why don’t you write me the reasons why that is,” Alfred said, “pick your top 3 reasons and write a couple paragraphs each flushing them out.”

“... that sounds so stupid,” Jason said uncomfortably. 

“Indeed?”

“... not really, but I just-” Jason rubbed his face in his hands. He already hated the hot acid-like feeling that twisted in his stomach when he thought of Dick. He didn’t really want to dwell on that feeling much less put words to it. 

“I think this will be good for you,” Alfred said finally setting down a cup of Jason’s favorite tea before settling next to him, “You’ve never… expressed your displeasure verbally about some of the things happening in your home during your visits, but between the few things that were hinted at and some of Dick’s comments when he called, I’d say this is a whole lot more complicated than the story currently circulating.” 

“Why the fuck would I have to- say fucking anything when none of them are going to believe me anyway?” Jason grumbled, which was really the heart of the issue, “They never have before, why the fuck would they start now?”

“This pack has not always- or often, I’m afraid- done right by you, I believe in the end they will stand by you,” Alfred said, then after a pause, “Perhaps even Master Dick.”

“Hah, I’ll believe that when I see it,” Jason snorted, finally lifting his head,  “but thanks. I’ll give it a shot, even if it’s just for you Alfie.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

[youeverfeelcursed]

On the Narrative of Last of Us Part 2 (3/3)

So this should be the last part on the narrative but I’ll probably post more thoughts on characters, representation, maybe on some details of the gameplay that just made me wish I could design something like this and most likely a text on where do I think this franchise is going to. 

I will also check and fix the previous posts as I know there’s typos and some mismatched data and maybe some timelines confusing. Logically, it comes with posting at my 3am and working from memory and not notes. 

That said, lets just move onto what I hope is interesting enough for people to read these old woman’s ramblings. For anyone still reading, thank you very much for your attention, it’s been a while since I truly enjoyed analizing an art piece.

(Note: I’m marking this post for rechecking as I feel its a bit convoluted. I blame it being 4am.) 

We ended the previous Act 3 (Abby’s Act) with a overhead shot (or aerial if you prefer) of Ellie and Dina on different sides of the shot, close but separated with Ellie being bathed by a red light and both represented in a descending oblique line from Dina to Ellie. 

I find it a wonderful shot that represents Ellie’s story in few and simple details. 

(For those interested, the name in the screenshot is from MkIceAndFire a No commentary channel I follow, go check him out!) 

From here, we jump to what I called the respise intermission, a short part but full of important details for the understanding of the next and final act. 

Like a moth to the flame, or how living sometimes is harder than dying.

The next part of Ellie’s story is as bittersweet as the best coffee you’ll ever have. We find her reminiscencing over Joel’s watch on hers and Dina’s bedroom. Putting it away we get to finally hold in our arms the cutest potatoe I’ve ever seen: JJ! Jesus that child is cute. And it’s obvious that Ellie loves him with all her heart. 

During this time we get to explore the beautiful they both probably restored to live in, in which it specially caught my attention how Ellie surprinsingly gets a full room for herself, whereas Dina seems to have a small space in the living room , where the photo of her sister sits.

I loved this part so much but I could feel that something was wrong, and it is. If we read Ellie’s diary we find out that she’s having trouble sleeping and dealing with people, needing to hide and what’s most likely profound PTSD thats later shown with her breaking down after herding all the sheep. 

A detail that I found important is the fact that she breaks down while having JJ in her arms, which has to be removed by Dina in case she hurts him during her seizure. Because remember that for Ellie protecting those she cares for is very important, so, does she feel she can protect them now?

Stop for a minute and think of how hard is for nowadays soldier to treat PTSD even with psychological support and meds, and how many of those war survivors end commiting suicide anyway. Now imagine that same in a world where violence is constant - yes they live peacefully in the farm but do you really think they don’t have to deal with any straggler? - and there’s basically zero to none mental health support.

Thats where it is important to pay attention to the moment when Ellie is coming back from hunting, how she cleans her face and takes a deep breath and puts her mask on - an obvious referal to her words in her diary - just before going back to Dina and JJ. 

I mean this is not the face of a person fully happy, its the face of a person thats putting her best front but catastrophically failing her inner battle. 

Tommy’s visit manages to break any remainer of the mask she tried to maintain so hard. It is obvious how while he tells her how he found information about Abby that with every word she breaks a little bit more. The trembling, tight shut lips and her open wide eyes that look as hopeful as they look lost. 

If this were another world, one in which I believe Ellie could get help, I would have hated that she left. But she says it herself, she doesn’t sleep, she doesn’t eat, she has a full room for herself so she can have space and even so she leaves for long times alone. She’s not really living, she’s riding the waves as they come but never truly enjoying it because by now her trauma is so deep I would have been surprised that she stayed. 

Because when Tommy talks about Abby, she feels a light, a hope of being able to just pour all of this shit out of her. Abby is not even important anymore, shes just a barrier for Ellie for her own liberation from her demons. Or thats what she thinks. 

She truly does JJ and Dina, but she’s completely broken inside. She’s missing pieces and for her, this is a chance of regaining them. It’s not even about vengeance anymore, it’s about rest. An end. Closure. 

What comes around, goes around. Or how Santa Barbara was the so needed eye opening. 

I was truly happy to see Abby and Lev being kind of silly and well, happy. They are the example of how you can heal when you learn to forgive both yourself and others. A extreme image compared to what we’ll see from Abby next time.

Fast-forward to Ellie after leaving the Rattlers village. Look at Ellie, she’s slightly delirious - Abby, Abby, Abby, Abby... - completely battered, skinny, with a fucked up side, half limping and pulling through out of sheer desesperation. She needs to do this, because if she doesn’t everything she left behind - Dina, JJ, Jackson - will be for nothing. She says it herself in her diary, she cannot think of that. 

And it’s funny. It’s funny there she goes. She helps Abby down and follows both of them to two small boats where she makes a scranny and completely eaten up Abby battle with her in exchange of not hurting Lev. 

The battle is sad. Abby contrary to Ellie had started healing so she didn’t want to battle. But it’s sad, these two beautiful human beings battling against each other as shadows of what they used to be, eaten away by life, hate and stupid decisions. You just feel like being over it because by this point it just feels completely stupid to keep warring. 

And there, Ellie doesn’t kill Abby. We get a flashback of Joel playing the guitar that stops her from killing her. 

And it’s funny, it’s funny because without Ellie both Lev and Abby would be rotting in those pillars. She left her home to kill a woman and ends saving both their lives! Why would she do that? 

We end this Act 4 with Ellie alone, watching the last remains of her flame disappear into the nothing. Rock bottom. You cannot go down further. That’s what it means. She left her family, Tommy is crippled and kind of hates her, Jesse is death, Joel is death, Ryley is death.

 And yet she left Abby leave. But why? 

The answer to all this crazyness is in the last flashback of her and Joel and a few words that are thrown into the night. 

“I was supposed to die in that hospital. My life would’ve fucking mattered. But you took it from me!”

Purpose. 

Yes, purpose. A meaning to her life. A meaning that has been ripped from her hands multiples times in situations out of her control. Is this what she really wants? Her life to revolve around vengeance? Is this what she’s choosing? 

So for once, she decides for herself and she decides that no. She doesn’t want that path. It’s not enough anymore. 

Ellie was supposed to die with Riley, but she survived and found out that’s she’s immune. 

Ellie traveled from one side to another of USA to be the solution to humanity’s problem. To help create a vaccine, whatever the cost. She was ready for it, she was ok with it. But it was ripped from her and lied about it multiple times. 

Imagine thinking you’re immune but that it means absolutely nothing. After getting yourself mentally ready for whatever it would happen, you are told that you’re useless. That you cannot help. That you’re worthless. 

Worthless. 

She ends in Jackson, And learns she’s been betrayed by the person she trusted most, that she could have meant something instead of just living taking care of cows and patrolling. 

It was impossible for Ellie to remain the same even before Joel’s death. Because Ellie is a very complicated character made of survivor guilt, a need to have a purpose in life, too many personal loses and self hating. Not only that, but all of this happens during her adolescence, a time which is hard to deal already without all these traumas piling up. 

Joel’s killing is what makes the bomb explode. Suddenly she can do something, she can leave Jackson and she can revenge him. Again, purpose. She can feel alive because she’s got finally a direction. It’s just not the correct one, because we all know that hate is a terrible guide but for her, is the only guide amids the fog. 

Ellie is a character that has been lost from the moment she learned she could have helped humanity. Chasing Abby was literally the easy path to take to give some meaning to her life. 

When she was with her family at the ranch, I truly believe she wanted her purpose to be to protect her family, but it was something impossible for her to do in her condition. She tried hard, but she couldn’t do it. Her diary again sheds some light on these, on how she feels she has nothing else to give to them. 

We know that, if Joel hadn’t been killed, she could have healed given enough time. She could have forgotten him. She could have find a motivation in Jackson. But there’s so much you can push something until it completely breaks. 

I think that, at the end of the game, when she walks from the ranch she realizes she cannot keep going like this. That if she wants her life to mean something, she has to do it herself instead of just waiting for it to happen. And I feel I know which way she will take next and why. 

Although the ending might seem sad, I found it strangely positive. The circle comes to a end, the guitar that Joel cleaned in the first seconds of the game, is put down by an Ellie lacking two of her left hand fingers impossible, to play it again that way. It is an act of moving on, but not of forgetting. 

Of finally attaining peace of mind, and the chance of recovering herself. 

[angelfishreveal]

FRANKFURT UPDATE / DISORGANIZED RANT ABOUT TRUTH AND ART AND FASSBINDER

by Camille Clair

I spent the strict quarantine following my arrival in Frankfurt studying German in the mornings, and watching Fassbinder in the evenings. The time between morning and evening was spent...nervously. 

I watched so many Fassbinder films during my quarantine that I began to feel his cabinet of actors were my companions (quarpanions). We were all crying and grinning and swallowing our pills together. 

I am one of those people that believes that pain/discomfort/anxiety is necessary, important, a catalyst. That is one of the reasons I left, have left in the past, will leave again. Sometimes the next best life move involves ripping your heart out! Sometimes it isn’t quite so abrupt, and your heart will sizzle in the pan for months. You may even grow to cherish the sensation because it means you are working toward something. You may recognize your true self in that pain. And in that truth, your mission, which may, or may not be, your art. 

I do believe that, as an artist, you have to be a bit of a masochist. Your life is sustained via chopping yourself into bits, and, if you’re lucky, stowing those bits in the pockets of the wealthy, the devious. And though you may consider yourself an orthodox Marxist, this seems to be the only way to keep the axe swinging. I would never say aloud that I believe suffering produces great art, but I also must admit I understand the desire to drag oneself across shards of glass a la Chris Burden in Through The Night Softly. I relate to the impulse to bear it all. I want to be torn apart! For art. 

I don’t always want this, but fresh out of my Frankfurt quarantine - following a confounding summer in Los Angeles - I want this. I really, truly want to exhaust myself. 

Though Fassbinder himself may have been a bit amoral, he was, at the same time, so undeniably invested in all that is human. Many of Fassbinder’s characters seem to cave inward, unable to stand erect under the weight of the social, the political, the bureaucratic: the simultaneity, and responsibility of it all. Fassbinder’s characters give into their truth, or they parish. No time is wasted on the performance of goodness, because salvation was never in their cards to begin with. 

What I desire and revere most in art is truth. I want my “self” and my “art” to be inseparable, the same. I want my body to vanish in the company of my art. I don’t really want to exist. I repeat variations of a line from Reena Spaulings in my head all day long: Where does my (boyish, jaunty, smooth, freckle-dusted, foxy, stiff, screen-like) body end and a real event begin, for once? I do a little dance in the mirror. I have never been this alone. Some days I feel stiff with sorrow, so I remind myself that I am a character, and the director expects a performance, and then I stretch. 

Walking home in the rain, I envision Margit Carstensen waiting for me in my flat. I am her aloof lover. Or she is mine. I’ll fall through the door with a sigh, she’ll pour me a little glass of schnapps, and we’ll heartfully console one another. I sometimes play The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), which starts Carstensen, in the background while I go about my tasks. I speak my favorite of Petra’s lines back to her as part of my daily Deutsche practice. Maybe by Spring, I’ll have the entirety of her central monologue memorized. I love to fantasize about the spring, it’s become one of my favorite pastimes. It is possible to imagine nearly anything happening in the spring because real life has become so severely abstracted. 

I lament…

What is real? Now? And in hindsight, what was ever real? Is it, or was it, ever recognizable or is it just whatever you put into your head on a given day? I scroll through Contemporary Art Daily on acid and feel confused about what it is I am supposed to want. My eyes linger on words that used to resonate, and it stirs some sort of longing. I want it to be physical, I want to get dirty and injured in the process. I want to be so involved it’s disgusting. But for now, nearly everything I want is impossible. Maybe it's a symptom of the current situation, but I want to be overinvolved. I generally find most performance excruciating, but now I feel I would do anything for an audience. I desire an audience. 

I envy Fassbinder’s overinvolvement. In Beware of a Holy Whore (1971), a film about making a film, Fassbinder seems to play himself. He doesn’t play the director, he plays Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Often fussing around or yelling in the background, it’s unclear exactly what his role is in the production, but as a viewer one is intensely aware of him at all times. Upon first watch, I felt envious. I want to be present in that way, shrieking for the sake of, and within, my art. The ringleader, and also, the eager participant. In the opening scene of Germany in Autumn (1978), Fassbinder, dials a call, and says “Ich bin es Fassbinder” into the receiver. We know of course, who the man on the screen is, though we aren’t immediately sure who we are meant to recognize him as. 

In a 1997 eulogy for ArtForum, Gary Indiana writes, “what can you say about a fat, ugly sadomasochist who terrorized everyone around him, drove his lovers to suicide, drank two bottles of Rémy daily, popped innumerable pills while stuffing himself like a pig and died from an overdose at 37? [Fassbinder was]  a faithful mirror of an uglier world that has grown uglier since his death”. Fassbinder knew truth, and truth is as beautiful and precious, as it is vile. 

My sister, who is 17 and only just got drunk for the first time last week, told me she could never watch The Shining (1980)  knowing how much Shelly Duval was tormented in the making of it. I felt I couldn’t argue with her but I also wanted to argue with her. “So you will never watch what is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time?” 

“No,” she said. 

“Okay,” I said. 

Perhaps we are reaching an age in which you really cannot separate the art from the artist. Maybe it’s never actually been possible. But then again, there are so many things that seem to be art by mistake, and so many artists who die without recognition.

In the eulogy, Indiana goes on to say, “there is nothing you can say about Fassbinder that he hasn’t already said about himself”. This line again brings to mind Fassbinder in Beware of a Holy Whore, berating everyone in the vicinity, utterly repulsed by a multitude of things never made explicitly clear. Fassbinder lying dead in the train station after an overdose in Fox and his Friends (1975). Fassbinder lying dead, with a cigarette between his lips and notes for an upcoming film lying next to him, from an actual overdose. A parallel that reveals art is just as intertwined with death, as it is with life.

I realized this year that many of the artists I respect care a great deal about film, about drama. I have found solace in films, because I am alone nearly all of the time, and I don't know when I will see any of my cherished ones again. I am living vicariously through characters, beginning to think of myself as a character, which is admittedly therapeutic. I am the director. And I chose myself from a lineup of nervous red haired girls. I recognised myself at once, and thus, here I am. 

Some artists, or people!, are overly concerned with their own narrative. It can be irritating, indulgent, abject, but it’s convenient, and it may save your life. Though you’re never really alone you may feel really alone. Allein. Alleine... Sometimes there is nowhere to turn but toward yourself. And, once you begin to think of yourself as a character, you no longer bear the full responsibility of your being. You have been put in place to carry out the artistic vision. So, in a sense, all characters are artists, just as they are products of art. It’s reflexive, and Frankensteinian, in that way. 

Maybe as an experiment, try referring to your dismal flat as “the set”. 

Are you at home? 

I’m on set. 

Complain aloud, but to no one, about the uninspired refreshments. 

Stare longingly at everything. 

There is a misanthropic edge to many of Fassbinder’s films. A bleakness. It is often said that his work is about the fascism at play in interpersonal relationships. The fascism that blooms in all of our hearts.There are instances across Fassbinder’s filmography of, not only an awareness, but a patience, for all that is despicable. Human beings are weak, impressionable, they want to be liked but if it doesn’t work out, they’ll settle for being hated or feared. Often, Fassbinder will have a character do or say something that completely skews, if not, obliterates your previous impression of them. For example, in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), Emmi who is, up until this point, mostly redeemable, chooses Hitler’s favorite restaurant to celebrate her and Ali’s wedding, stating upon entry that she has “always wanted to go”.  In the scene that follows, she mispronounces the names of menu items, the server scoffs, and one can't help but feel a bit bad for her. Is her desire to eat at Hitler’s favorite spot purely aspirational, a misguided highbrow charade? Or is she a sympathetic fascist? This is another fault of the character, any character, their world view is often contrived, never holistic. 

Fassbinder is the Postwar German filmmaker - generally considered the “catalyst of the New German Cinema movement”. In his films, World War II is often alluded to / background / partial context / a shadow, but it is never the subject, or the main event. A character’s idiosyncrasies, or disturbances, could be attributed to the wartimes, but often, their faults seem too deeply intertwined with their truths. But of course they’ve always had a tremor, a temper. Many of Fassbinder’s characters have a hard edge, or have suffered immense loss. They are either in, or narrowly escaping, crisis. 

In Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), Franz Bieberkopf, a rampant dilettante, oscillates between political affiliations. When we first meet Bieberkopf, fresh out of prison, he is a bit of an anarchist, sympathizing with soldiers and workers above all. As the series progresses, Bieberkopf is revealed to be immensely impressionable, confused, vindictive. He exhibits symptoms of several political philosophies, albeit meekly. Bieberkopf even briefly wears a Nazi armband, which, when questioned about, he is unable to defend, and from thereon, is never seen wearing it again. Franz Bieberkopf is similar to Tony Soprano in that way. Selfish, gruff, deeply flawed, indubitably human. Tony Soprano bites into a meatball sub and sauce dribbles onto his shirt and you forget, momentarily, that he's a bigot, because he’s the protagonist. And it is the job of the protagonist to represent a spectrum of human strength, and fallibility. It is arguably better, or more redeemable, to be overtly, rather than covertly, self-serving because then at least one is operating in defense of their own truth.

Truth is constructed daily and could easily be mistaken for anything but. Truth is nearly impossible to represent, and harder still to recognize. Truth is a fallacy, and thus, very lonely. Still, it must be guarded, I have been listening to The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as I walk around Frankfurt which, in all honesty, fertilizes the melodrama blooming in my heart. Werther is bitterly alone, consoling himself via drawn out descriptions of his loneliness. “I am proud of my heart alone”, he says, “it is the sole source of everything, all our strength, happiness and misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own”. 

I am alone in Frankfurt, but I have my heart.  

[boobtubedude]

Reposting my original “Lost” series finale review

(Originally posted May 23, 2010, on Zap2It. RIP, Zap2It.)

So here’s the deal: this will not be a complete recap of the series finale of “Lost.” To try to make complete and coherent sense of what just dropped our way would be 1) impossible, and 2) be a disgrace to what just happened. Because what just happened isn’t something you instantly react to, but rather mull over during the course of a few days, weeks, months, or years. After all, that was the final episode. We have all the time in the world to think about its implications until we “move on.”

And yes, I use the phrase “move on” specifically due to the use of the phrase by Christian Shephard in the sideways universe, which we know now to be real only in the emotional sense of the world. All throughout the season, the producers of the show have assured us that what happens over there had stakes and meanings, and this is still completely true in the most basic of senses. Neither the pro-epilogue camp nor the pro-Island timeline had it exactly right, even though both camps had valid perspectives to bring to the table and pieces of the puzzle in hand. What “Lost” brought instead was a third perspective, one that nobody really saw and one that I bet made a core section of its audience completely and utterly insane with anger.

Looking at the finale from a perspective of mythology isn’t the best way to go about it. (I started to jot down “So who put the stone in the devil cave in the first place?” before slapping myself silly.) Looking at the finale from a perspective of plot probably isn’t the best ay, either. (Waaaaay too much time spent on getting Ajira 316 up and running again, especially considering the sideways resolution. And there are enough holes in the overall plot as a whole to dig a few dozen wells down towards the light inside all of us.) But looking at it from an emotional perspective, I thought the finale was a masterpiece.

In a sense, “The End” was a love letter from the show to itself and, hopefully, to the audience as well. But it didn’t pay off donkey wheels and Dharma Initiatives but the core characters of the show themselves. The sideways universe did offer a second chance, but not in the way that those that saw the sideways world as a chance to live their lives free from the Island. Instead, it offered each character a tremendous grace note, one felt both by the characters but also the audience at home. When these people “flashed” to their Island lives, they didn’t flash to epic moments in Island history: they flashed to empty jars of peanut butter and freshly picked flowers and all the small moments that make up a relationship.

If the show had to get one of three aforementioned elements right (character, mythology, plot), then it absolutely focused on the right one. As of this moment, writing in the immediate aftermath of what I just saw, I could care less about what happened to Kate and Company once they left the Island. The point of the show seems to be that what you do is less important than the meaning behind what you do. And moreover, if you live those lives in the correct manner, then the specifics are null and void. In the end, you arrive at the same destination. (In Richard’s case, you arrive there with newly graying hair, and the chance to actually buy the eyeliner you’ve long been accused of using.)

Now, let’s talk about that sideways destination itself. If put on the spot, here’s what I think we’re supposed to take away from it: As Island Protector, Hurley envisioned a way to give a gift back to those with whom he shared his time on the Island. Mother had her style, Jacob had his style, and Jack had his extremely interim style. But placing Hurley in ultimate charge of the Island? Brilliant, and not just because I predicted this last Fall and am happy I got at least SOMETHING right.

He’s the absolute perfect person to take the Island from what it was (something to be protected) into what it should be (something to be shared). In a show full of selfish people, Hurley is the epitome of unselfishness. Go back to the pilot episode: he’s distributing food on the first night (including a double dose for Claire, eating for two at the time). In “Everybody Hates Hugo,” he once again institutes a massive redistribution of foodstuffs. In both the Island timeline and sideways one, he uses wealth as a means to help others, giving away his cash rather than hang onto it. So having him established as the final Protector of the Island that we see (though, I imagine, not the final one by any means) worked for me.

What I imagine did not work for a LOT of you is the fact that we’ve spent one-half of the final season of the show watching events that would have been solved in “LA X” had Haley Joel Osment been on the flight. It’s a feeling that I have sensed coming for a while: the sideways world was doing such a damn good job of providing emotionally resonant moments that it eventually turned into an overwhelming attractive option for both the characters and the viewers. In fact, it turns out that the major players had absolutely no problem moving on once they made their emotional connections/breakthroughs, and instead willingly moved onto whatever lies on the other side of that white light.

As such, I look at the sideways world now as something created by Hurley (with Ben’s help) as a stopping ground for all major players in the “Lost” universe to meet at once, irrespective of when or how they died. As Christian says, there is no “now” over there. Time is just a relative construct created by people who are used to seeing events progress in a linear manner. What does Hurley ever want? For his friends to be happy! So what does he do? Well, he doesn’t build a golf course, he builds a space for them to somehow connect after shuffling off their mortal coil and all end up getting the moments of happiness that eluded them, making connections that had been previously missed, and getting forgiveness once thought impossible. They don’t have to be alive to have these things matter once achieved in the sideways universe, which is why I was behind the ultimate explanation 100%.

In the end, electromagnetism had nothing to do with the sideways world. There was no Faustian bargain between Eloise Hawking and The Man in Black. I’ve spent the second half of the season (ever since “Happily Ever After”) arguing that theory, and I’m delighted to be wrong. Why? It’s easier to buy “Hurley’s gift” as a reason as opposed to trying to throw Schroedinger’s cat as a reason for the sideways world. And that “gift” yielded scene after scene in the sideways world that reminded us all why we care so much about this show: its characters. I’m sure everyone had their particular favorites: for now, I’m putting Sawyer/Juliet in the pole position with Charlie/Claire as a surprising second. I’ll take scenes like this over lengthy exposition of the true nature of the glowing cave any day.

It’s obviously easy to say, “Well, the characters are happy, so we should be happy.” But clearly it’s not that simple. After all, these characters are fictional, constructs of the writing staff, whom I am sure went into hiding knowing that there would not only be questions but flaming torches/pitchforks aimed their way once this episode dropped. If we didn’t care about these characters, then there wouldn’t be such anger. Either you read interviews and now feel deceived, or you’re generally displeased that our characters are all dead. I’m not going to tut-tut you from that perspective, since it’s your perspective and you’re totally welcome to it.

To me, anything in the sideways world ended up being something of a bonus, both a meta-level and a narrative level. The show didn’t do the one thing I prayed it wouldn’t: negate the sacrifices and deaths on the Island timeline for some sort of reboot/do over in the sideways timeline. So, we got to see really interesting combinations and remixes of existing characters in unusual settings, with those settings driven by a combination of subconscious psychological desires and latent psychological holdups. (Kate sees herself as the innocent victim, rather than an actual killer, but is still on the run. Sawyer fashions himself a do-gooder, but is still unable to shake the memory of his parents. Jack invents a domestic life he never had, inserting a new body in his life in the form of a son to replace the father he could never find.)

On a character level, the sideways world allowed these characters the chance to let go in ways that they were unable to do in their actual lives. To fault the show for creating such a space when we have so often lamented the unfairness or abruptness of their deaths seems a bit hypocritical to me. For example, let’s take Sun/Jin. Many howled when they died, unable to believe two seasons apart boiled down to one episode; many others noted that it didn’t move them, due to the couple being alive in the sideways world. Turns out, the sideways world gave them another chance to “be together,” as the latter group suspected, but also honoring the sacrifice that tore up the former. I’d love to call this win/win, but I’m not sure I’d get many takers on this.

Let’s take another example: John Locke. Here’s a man that died a potentially pitiful death in “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham,” only to have his life honored and vindicated in the finale. Without inspiring Jack, the good doctor doesn’t return to the Island, and never becomes Protector, and never stops The Man in Black, and never passes off the torch to Hurley who in turn creates a special world in which Locke not only gets to have the relationship with Jack they never had on the Island, but also gets to forgive his murderer. I could give a flying fig about the other people on the outrigger if I get payoffs such as this instead.

And, as many of us suspected, the show closed on a familiar image, in a familiar place. Some might find fault with the heart of the Island being so near the place where the show started, but if The Island has taught us anything, it’s that looking and seeing are two different things. Charlie couldn’t “see” his guitar until he chose to give up his drugs. The cave is no different: Jack couldn’t see it until he was ready to see it. That’s the work he had to do all along. By bookending the series around a man opening up his eyes to the unknown and closing them as a man who learned what it meant to truly live, “Lost” encapsulated its’ primary thematic concern: what it means to live and learn through other people. They lived together, and none of them died alone. Not in the end. Perfect.

I’ve tried to thematically address the biggest issues/ideas of tonight’s episode. I realize I am short on specifics, but I also realize that there’s probably a huge need on your part to talk about this episode as quickly as possible. So I’m going to end things here, but know that this is just the beginning. Over at Zap2it’s Guide to Lost, we’re going to spend all week looking back at this episode, and by extension, the series itself. Next week, we’ll be continuing our look back at this ambitious, epic, emotional, imperfect, messy, glorious, unique show. I look forward to hearing your comments below, and I look forward to continuing the discussion with you further over on the blog throughout the week.

[fairycosmos]

hey i’m super sry 2 bother ive just been struggling and i know u understand how i feel..i’ve never been this bad in my life. i feel so stupid agonizing over smth like my physical appearance but my reflection genuinely makes me nauseous and throws me into a breakdown each time i see it. i cant help but feel like id much rather kill myself than spend the rest of my miserable existence being so revolting and grotesque. i hate being conventionally unattrctive- going out in public is just the worst:(

hey angellll i'm sorry 2 hear you're dealing w this rn. you're not bothering me either, it's cool. :(( also i got your other anon and don't worry, i didn't think you were calling me ugly djekdkekk,, but i mean i AM lol. and i can definitely relate to feeling viscerally disgusting in your own skin......you're not over exaggerating, i promise. you are always going to have the right to feel a certain way about something that seems to dictate so much of your life. countless women are going through it. i struggle with this every single day myself and i honestly don't have all of the answers of even half of them, unfortunately. and sometimes nothing can calm me down from the shame i feel about being who i am, but here are a few thoughts/ideas that soothe me and may soothe you if you allow them to:

1. our perception of beauty is always being manipulated. they keep moving the goal posts and narrowing the standards to get us to chase these totally false ideals, purely because it makes money. that's it. they plant the insecurity, market a fake 'solution', and profit. when we look in the mirror a life time of conditioning looks back at us and the only way to get around it is to be consistently aware of that fact. once you begin examining and questioning why certain features are seen as attractive and others aren't, you realize that none of it really holds any ground. it has very little to do with our bodies, and everything to do with controlling them. it's all the result of a never ending advertisment, and engaging with it for too long is certainly going to exhaust you and fuck up your self perception. the way you see yourself is not as accurate as you think.

2. we are all going to be old and therefore conventionally unattractive someday any way. a defining factor of this game they force us to play is that we will never win. due to circumstance, or time, or just cause we're human. seems like for women we're not allowed to reach a day over 40 without being ridiculed for it. but i really do believe that getting older affords a certain amount of freedom. when you get to that point in your life, you're going to know yourself so much more than you do at the moment. your perspective WILL be different. you're not going to be basing your worth off of how you look because you'll have lived what you're capable of, and it's so much more than.......appearing a certain way for a moment in time. curating a life worth living pales in comparison to looking flawless. and i know it seems like you can't do that because you feel so gross, but you can - insecurity doesn't have to stop you from putting your best foot forward. you are worthy because you're here. you deserve to live because you are alive. at the end of the day, you don't have to like yourself, but you have to like BEING yourself. you have to learn how to enjoy your hobbies and opportunities more than you hate your skin or your face or whatever.

3. your body is here to experience and relate with the tangible world. it is the vessel with which you are able to walk, talk, love, eat, play, and enjoy. it is very very unconcerned with being palatable to the masses. ultimately, that is not what you exist for. it always comes back to that, no matter how much the world demands a performance of you - you don't have to give one. even if the so called audience doesn't like it. it takes time to truly accept that, i still can't. but working on neutralising the self is key. if you can't love yourself, just acknowledge yourself. these are my hands that allow me to create. these are my eyes that allow me to see. they are doing their job. they are okay. they can't be right or wrong. they just are.

4. self destructive thoughts are always over dramatic, always temporary, and often entirely untrue. it's ok to experience those urges, but do your best to find the line between having them and acting on them. it's alright if it takes a while to learn how. as long as you're attempting. that's all that matters.

5. try to consciously practice healthier thinking patterns on a daily basis. realistically consider how you judge others and why you're being so harsh on yourself when you would never act like that towards anyone else. understand that your energy, your presence, the way you smile and comfort and work, what you can give and receive - all of that is more important to pretty much everyone, than how you look. after a while, especially when you love or care for someone, their appearance becomes a total secondary characteristic. nobody is worrying that much over these self perceived flaws you're so stuck on, as much as you are. if they do take the time to mull on you, it's more likely they think something simplistic such as: oh there's that girl who lent me her homework or who always wears cool shirts, or whatever. they're too busy stressing about themselves.

6. attempt to build your own confidence. this is another thing i can't grasp either but. basically. you are going to be you for the rest of your life and that is a fact. the only realize you think it's a bad thing at the moment is because that's how you've been taught to feel. but you can unlearn, you can let go of what hurts. and that starts with accepting what you can't change and controlling what you can - your self esteem, your internal narrative, how you take care of your body and mind. even engaging in small, seemingly dumb exercises like pointing out three things you like about yourself in the mirror, can make a difference. you have all of the time in the world to learn how to be friends with yourself. but you might as well start now. baby steps are good. if you hide, spend half an hour outside, even once a week. get used to the discomfort. treat yourself. let it all contradict. growth is totally inevitable.

unfortunately, there's no all encompassing answer. you can know all of this logically and still feel Bad. and you're obviously allowed to be frustrated, to cry and break down, to have moments where you just feel entirely overwhelmed with self hatred - i can't figure out how to stop them, and i think they will remain with us for a while. maybe the goal is to just to cope with them in a decent way and not to prevent them all together. but those episodes are not an excuse to take your own life, ever. i can't think of a bigger fucking tragedy than the world losing you before you even had the chance to attempt living by an alternative narrative. you deserve so much better. i can't stress it enough. you have a whole open future just waiting for you, a healthy body to see it all with - it's going to be beautiful, it's going to surprise you even when you think you're a totally hopeless case. you're not. that's just another lie. your humanity is never going to depend on your physicality and anyone who can't accept that can fuck off!!! anyway i hope you know that there are genuinely so many resources available if you feel like this is getting Too much to handle by yourself. you're honestly not alone and if this is having a big impact on your overall stability then you're totally entitled to professional or medical support. it doesn't have to be a big deal. suicidal thoughts are not normal and there are people who will enable you to dissect and overcome them, you just have to make the initial choice to reach out. even if your brain is screaming otherwise. whether it's through school or a hotline or your doctor - communication WILL put your pain in perspective eventually, in turn lessening it. please consider it. even if takes you your whole lifetime to appreciate yourself, the fact that you're here and trying and navigating this shitty world is more than good enough. i'll be rooting for you from a place of total understanding until the end of time. please take and let me know if you need a friend. i'll be here.

*sorry if this didn't help. the other day i was having an Episode and nothing anyone said could've changed how absolutely disgusting i felt. sometimes it's like that. but this will always be here for you to look back on when you're in a more fair and objective state of mind.

[dysphoric-dumbass13]

All of the bookish asks. I hate you. And your stupid fucking face. Im so tired dude i stayed up ridiculously late to finish that

Hey I stayed up ridiculously late to finish mine too. Well not ridiculously late because me and then I couldn't fall asleep anyways but whatever. And you literally love me you jackass.

1. (what book did you last finish? when was that?) Willingly? Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli, in July. For school? Of Mice And Men. I didn’t care that much, and I forgot to finish A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I still finished my project fine without any issue whatsoever and should get at least a B, if not an A. But whatever.

2. (what are you currently reading?) The Odyssey, for school. But also I’m like ¾ of the way through What If It’s Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli. (what book are you planning to read next?) Well for English it will have to be A Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass by Fredrick Douglass, Night by Elie Wiesel, Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, or Lord of the Flies by William Golding. However, I really want to read The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. And I’m also trying to get a hold of the Harry Potter books because I haven’t read them since I was 7, and I was a compulsive moron so I read them out of order based on length and the title. I did that a lot.

3. (what was the last book you added to your tbr?) I don’t fully know what it means by that, but I’ll give this a try. The last thing I remember actively seeking out that I need to read again (for writing purposes, and the fact that I’m a nerdy bastard) was the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.

4. (which book did you last re-read?) Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli, I loved it so much that I read it twice in one month. I also re-read Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli twice before moving to the former.

5. (which was the last book you really, really loved?) Again, Leah on the Offbeat. I loved that book so much oh my god.

6. (what was/were the last books you bought?) I actually bought 3 books in September (after I got all my books for English), which were Leah on the Offbeat, Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda, and The Song of Achilles.

7. (paperback or hardcover? why?) Paperback. The hurt less to hold while reading, and they’re cheaper so I can buy more of them. But I do love a hardcover book if the cover is really intricate and beautiful.

8. (ya, na, or adult? why?) Idk. To me it doesn’t matter all that much as long as it’s a good book. I really like anything that isn’t racist, sexist, super heteronormative, transphobic, or hating of any particular religion (except like if it’s vaguely poking fun at catholicism and christianity because we deserve it)

9. (sci-fi or fantasy? why?) Fantasy. God I just fucking LOVE fantasy. I wrote a 20,000-word oneshot that was of the fantasy genre. I just love it too much.

10. (classic or modern? why?) Idk. Doesn’t really matter, again, as long as it isn’t racist, transphobic, against a religious group, or too heteronormative.

12. (political memoirs or comedic memoirs?) Idk man. But I hate politics in every way, shape, and form, so I’m gonna go with comedic memoirs.

13. (name a book with a really bad movie/tv adaptation) Um………. idk. I’m gonna go with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire simply because of the fact that they cut so much out and, sorry not sorry, if the whole series was written by someone not transphobic, homophobic, and antisemitic it would be better. It’s great, but it could be so much better.

14. (name a book where the movie/tv adaptation was actually better than the original) Again idk. I’m gonna say The Princess Bride because that movie is so fucking good guys.

15. (what book changed your life?) I know it’s not technically a book book, but Unknown Colors by Gabriels_Wings on Wattpad. It got me into reading again and that’s only benefitted me so far (except for distracting me from homework, but who cares).

16. (if you could bring three books to a deserted island, which would they be and why?) Well, obviously, Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda and Leah on the Offbeat (ok I’m gonna some up with abbreviations now, LotO for the latter and SvtHA for the former), and the last spot would be between The Song of Achilles and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein. Because they’re good books. And I’m gonna end up dying on said island and I need my gay fix with me.

17. (if you owned a bookshop what would you call it?) Oof, that’s hard. Probably….. Narnia. And it would be a very gay place with beanbags and a small coffee shop inside and it would be like this one place my mom went to all the time where you could buy a book and if you wanted to you could bring it back and they’d buy it back for slightly less than you bought it for. It was a great place. And my bookshop would be amazing.

18. (which character from a book is the most like you?) Toughie. I’m gonna go with… Blaise Zabini from Harry Potter or Abby Suso from SvtHA and LotO. Because Blaise is very gay and sassy (idk if he actually is in the books but hey, fanfiction) and Abby is a bi disaster and relatable af.

19. (which character from a book is the least like you?) Idk. Hannah Abbott? Because she’s a Hufflepuff? Idk man.

20. (best summer read?) LotO.

21. (best winter read?) Been a while since I actually remember reading a book in winter. I remember when I was in 5th grade I really loved reading Where The Mountain Meets The Moon by Grace Lin. That was good. But I think The Hobbit would be good too.

22. (pro or anti e-readers? why?) Pro, it makes reading at random places so much easier. Plus, I can then read gay fanfic at my christian grandparents’ houses.

23. (bookdepository or amazon?) I’ve never used Book Depository, but I looked it up (omg Kass you aren’t going to believe it, I googled something on my own!) and it seems smaller and cooler because it’s just books. So I’m gonna go with that one.

24. (do you prefer to buy books online or in a bookshop?) In a bookshop without a doubt, you can browse for hours. I love bookshops

25. (if you could be a character in a book for just one day, who would you be and why? bonus: any specific day in the story?) Simon Spier. From SvtHA. On the day of the carnival fair thing. Because zqawxsedcrfvtgbyhnujmikolplomiknujybhtvgrfcedxwszqa

26. (if you could be a character in a book for their entire life, who would you be and why?) Again Simon Spier. Because infdjfcdncewhfiubdkjcnsoawehfwedscnsaoufgrwiofbv cisahcsoainh

27. (if you could change one thing about mainstream literature, what would you change?) NO. MORE. DISCRIMINATION! And I swear to god people, quit idolizing authors who are racist or sexist or transphobic or homophobic or against certain religions or anything else because I swear they don’t deserve it! No more discrimination in the media guys.

28. (how many books have you read so far this year?) A lot. Idk the actual amount but a lot. Especially if we’re counting fanfic.

29. (how do you sort your shelves?) I don’t actually own enough books to sort lol. But I assume I would sort them alphabetically by author. And if I had a ton of books, I’d sort them further into genres.

30. (who’s your favorite author?) Becky Albertalli.

31. (who’s your favorite contemporary author?) Idk. I’m not that smart, I don’t put authors into genre categories.

32. (who’s your favorite fantasy author?) See above.

33. (who’s your favorite sci-fi author?) See above.

34. (list 5 otps) Oh god, here I go. Pansmione (Pansy Parkinson x Hermione Granger from Harry Potter), Wolfstar (Remus Lupin x Sirius Black from Harry Potter), Sabriel (Sam Winchester x Gabriel from Supernatural), Johnlock (John Watson x Sherlock from Sherlock), and Merthur (Merlin x Arthur Pendragon from Merlin).

35. (name a book you consider to be terribly underrated) What If It’s Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli.

36. (name a book you consider to be terribly overrated) Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck.

37. (how many books are actually in your bookshelf/shelves right now?) 19, including a book I accidentally stole from my 7th grade LA teacher (sorry), and a college workbook I stole from my dad on lifesaving first aid for heart problems. + 1 movie (Love, Simon), 5 comic books, and an adult coloring book because why not. I also have 2 full boxes downstairs full of kids books (about half of which I've never read or have any interest in reading) from when I moved.

38. (what language do you most often read in?) English because I’m a dumb bitch and don’t know other languages well enough. I might be able to stumble through a kid’s book in French, and I could read a basic novel in Spanish.

39. (name one of your favorite childhood books) Goodnight Moon was one of my favorites. I also was obsessed with Where The Mountain Meets The Moon by Grace Lin, and when I was about 5 my mom would read The Hobbit to my brother and I when she got home from work if she was working a half day, or she wasn’t held up too late on a normal day. Ah, some actually decent childhood memories.

40. (name one of your favorite books from your teenage years) SvtHA.

41. (do you own a library card? How often do you use it?) Yeah, and decently often.

42. (which was the best book you had to read in school?) The Outsiders. In 7th grade.

43. (are you the kind of person who reads several books at once or the kind of person who can only read one book at a time?) Multiple at once. I kind of have to if I want to read for fun while I’m in school.

44. (do you like to listen to music when you read?) Honestly, my mind is like an iPod I can’t fully control, I was laying in my bed half asleep singing What I Got yesterday morning for no reason, so I don’t have a choice. There’s more of a choice if I’m listening to music, so yes.

45. (what is your favorite thing to eat when you read?) Nothing? I don’t really like to eat when I’m reading, unless I’m reading on my phone and then it doesn’t really matter. But when I'm reading I usually forget to eat.

46. (what is your favorite thing to drink when you read?) Tea. Without a doubt. If I’m not too lazy to make it, that is.

47. (what do you do to get out of a reading slump?) Well, I do one of two things. I either try to convince Kass (@eyeforaneye-toothforatooth) to write something for me, or I’ll write (because I know I have to read over it a bajillion times, and I write too much for anyone’s good)

48. (where is your favorite place to read?) In my mind palace. I have a little place in my mind palace that I go when I’m reading or writing, and it changes. Sometimes it’s in a cottage at night with the only light a fireplace that I’m sitting in front of, sometimes it’s leaned against a tree. Three of my favorites are leaning against a cherry blossom tree looking out at a river, on a beanbag in a cozy, quiet bookshop/library, and on a beach in Roatan, Honduras. Other than that, it’s curled up on my UFO couch in my front living room, in front of the gigantic window.

49. (when is your favorite time to read?) It actually depends on the season. In the summer, always because I don’t want to go outside because it’s too hot. In the winter it’s during the evening. Spring it’s early in the morning. Fall it’s around sunset.

50. (why do you love to read?) Because you’re taking yourself and delving into a different universe, where nothing you know exists and only what you’re reading does. It takes me away from the world and all of my struggles, and puts me somewhere where that doesn’t exist. It’s refreshing. I hate you too

[thefudge]

Harry Potter question, do you or did you ever ship Hermione x Tom. Hermione x Snape. Hermione x Lucius. ? (I'm a Hermione fan lol)

aaaah this is a tough one, but super interesting (and i like her too!)

so here we go 

(after the cut cuz this got looooong)

in short, i dabbled in all of them to various degrees 

hermione/tom - in theory, i should like this pairing a lot, but i have a lot of issues with the way they are written together; aka they’re either portrayed as incredibly beautiful genius sex gods, or hermione is weak and constantly thwarted by tom’s sexy moves. there is some good fic out there that explores what it would actually be like if these two had to butt heads, but it’s hard for me to find this dynamic written the way i feel it, which is very solipsistic of me i know lol. it’s also a tough ship to get right, imo. because tom/voldemort has no reason to be that impressed with hermione. yes, she is brilliant and cunning, but i think tom is faaar more fascinated by emotions than intellect, ironically. he has a slew of talented wizards and witches around him, but he doesn’t care a fig about them. meanwhile, he’s constantly cursing harry’s resilience and humanity because he craves it. he’s more drawn to folks who thrive on unconditional love. it’s reaaaally hilarious when u think about it. but i don’t hate it? i just think it’s a tough ship to get right. i was into it in high school, but i shipped tom/ginny more because ginny has no business impressing him ahahahah

hermione/snape - once upon a long-ass time i was definitely taken with this ship because it used to be the It Ship in the olden days. if you were around circa 2003-2004 on livejournal and ffnet and schnoogle? HOO MAN, this was where you found the BEST angst and smut, hands down. i think we all had a snamione phase, it’s like part of growing up. the older i got, tho, i just…got bored with it, which is super sad! i think maybe it’s the fact that you can’t take this pairing into many directions. it’s mostly about hermione “healing” snape and giving him a second chance to repair the damage with lily. oh, and snape also empowers her intellectually. mmmkay. that’s nice. yawn. i mean! it’s great! but….yawn? listen, hermione is brilliant, but can we quit it with making everything about her intellect? 90% of snamione fics are about him helping her win the nobel prize or some shit like that, i swear to god, you got fics with titles like “Euclidean geometry and the arithmancy algorithm” or whatever, and it’s mostly these two nerding out and saving the world with their massive intellect. and that’s rly cool! i’m so glad there’s a space for that!  but….can we…take a break from all that studying? my 15 yo self felt like i should be doing homework when i read about how hermione was breaking her back trying to prove to snape how goddamn proficient she was, sweating and toiling over her cauldron. it’s almost like saying “if you don’t exhaust yourself intellectually, you’re not worthy of snape”. and that was a real bummer. also, in a lot of those fics hermione and snape were super shitty to the poor idiots who did not understand their super complicated invented algebra. a lot of needless ron bashing too. ANYWAY. this ship will always have a place in my heart but it’s too stagnant for me and doesn’t take me anywhere new. (i do remember a great old fic where hermione developed an eating disorder because she was exhausting herself intellectually, trying to be absolutely perfect, and snape actually helped her return to her goddamn senses and made her take a break, lol that was one of my faves tbh)

hermione/lucius - ha okay, ironically the ship i like the most in this line-up. back in the day, fanfic for this pairing was kiiiind of cringey since it involved a super angsty lucius who had to torture a slave!hermione and get her to accept voldemort as her lord and saviour… eh. it was messy and little of it was actually nuanced and good, sorry folks. but!! this ship has matured together with its dedicated writers and it has weirdly become one of the more nuanced hermione pairings out there. i think once the dust settled on this series, big ships like dramione and snamione dried up a little bit, while the smaller ones flourished. so i’ve seen rly cool takes on lucius malfoy post-series as an older guy who fucked up his life and his family and has to reckon with that, especially since he was never committed to the cause like bella, but his pride would never let him ask help from the order. lumione (?) is also a slightly more relaxed ship cuz u dont have lucius making her work on quadratic equations for fuck’s sake (lookin at u, severus) and he also wouldnt overwhelm her with his sexy evil plans (lookin at u, tom). like he wouldn’t expect sooo fucking much of her, you know?  though ofc there would be sniping and antagonism and blood prejudice etc so there’s a lot to unpack. but fanon-wise? yeah, this ship wins lol 

in general, the more i look back, the more i think that all of these ships just put too much fucking pressure on hermione to be this be-all and end-all of the harry potter universe, especially in terms of brains. as someone who was constantly insecure about intellectual prowess growing up, to have to read hundreds of fanfics where she was constantly humiliated and put to the test by these “brilliant” men felt really disheartening to me. i enjoyed some of it, but a lot of hermione fics left me exhausted. hermione had to do so much emotional and intellectual labor just to be allowed to touch a mediocre dick? SPARE ME lol. 

and i realized a lot of the girls/women writing those stories were “hermione’s” too, or obviously identified as such (me included). and they must have believed that they too could only be worthy of a dude’s attention if they became the next marie curie. it’s like “if i work hard enough, i’ll be the equal of the pretty, bubbly girl”. cuz this is the really whack, misogynist, self-defeatist narrative a lot of us were raised on. and it showed in the goddamn hermione fics where she can only squeeze a tiny bit of pleasure if she works herself to the bone.

fuck that. 

so yeah, this kind of makes me ambivalent about many of these big ol’ ships and whether, if we want them to move forward, we should change our optic about what hermione represents to a lot of us 

lol sorry this got away from me  

[thunderheadfred]

Why I Love Spike But Also Hate Him A Lot: an unsolicited essay by me

OR: Why I personally relate to blood-sucking poseurs OR: dude what if I ever got high enough to rewrite season six?

(under a cut because this goes on for a while. also discourse frightens me)

Okay. I’m like twenty years late. But I’ve been rewatching BtVS s5 during my latest depression spiral and wandering against my better judgement into the Spuffy fic verse. Disclaimer that my grasp of the series’ larger canon is meh at best, and frankly I don’t care.

As usual, I have too many thoughts.

Spike is, hands-down, my favorite character on this show. Maybe one of my favorite characters, period. He’s just... good to watch. But listen. Secret poet or no, he was never an inherently good person. Meek and shy does not equal Buffy’s equal. I squirm at this apparently massively popular canon interpretation of his human character as some kind of adorable perfect cherub, as if William the Dipshit Poet is somehow preferable to Spike the Complicated Murderer or like, we should just automatically assume that cute shy white people who lived in 1880 London are default Lawful Good when in fact... ahahaa haaaa YIKES COLONIALISM?

I actually think the reason Spike is “more human” than other vampires (in the weird, contradictory Buffy soul-canon) is exactly because William was not Pure, he was a Pratt. Sweet? I guess. Loves his mum? He’s got that going for him. But that guy?? Is not Buffy’s long-lost true love, not a weepy ghost to be shoved into Spike’s Billy Idol cosplay bod at the last minute. In a show that, at its best, tries to give us a protagonist who fundamentally believes we must always make the choice to keep living mindfully, accountably, and with purpose... we get a love interest who is... Spike. A guy who, until the very end of his arc, acts as though he has zero fucking free will. Even though, through a combo of deliciously fun and inconsistent writing, Spike is apparently the only vampire in the Buffyverse who does.

I’ll get to that but first, let’s accept for a minute that Free Will + Buffy = good, and people who roll over and say “I had no choice” + Buffy = Mr. Pointy. This counts for her friends too, (*coughWILLOWcough*) and it’s one of the reasons I love the show despite its many textual problems. As a character piece, it’s great. People fail to take accountability for their behavior all the time. It’s an extraordinarily human flaw, one that rarely equals automatically evil, and I love that it can bite characters on the side of good, too. But that’s not the point of this, oh shit!

Okay. William, cute glasses aside, has no free will. He didn’t even sign up for the vampire thing, he just wanted to get felt up by a pretty girl who saw him cry and didn’t laugh at him. At every point, he was an immature, weak-willed, naive dreamer type who wanted nothing more than to be validated by his shitty friends. The vampirism made him a killer, yeah. But it also inadvertently gave a cowardly nobody a lot of good qualities. Now he’s a weirdly observant, relentlessly optimistic, fun-loving, sexually secure Cool Guy who gave up poetry for punk... but still tries too hard to impress his shitty friends. Basically, being a vampire made this guy a happier-but-still-undeniably-crappy version of himself, especially... considering all the murder. 

But now, let us transparently and metaphorically link cartoonish Vamp!Murder to addiction. Because wow, death in BtVS is either a manipulative authorial gut-punch or a dumb joke, and either way, it’s almost impossible to take seriously in this show, so let’s not.

How to make a remorseless bloodsucking fiend out of of “boo hoo I’m a bad writer and I wish some jerks thought I was cool?” Ha ha you can’t!  Turns out you basically recreate my early twenties but with more murder. Spike is a socially-dependent ADHD art school reject on a century-long avoidance bender. He’s a codependent, moon-eyed boyfriend who learns how to aggressively project not caring while caring Far Too Much, all while clinging to aesthetic as an identity. ALTHOUGH let us not deny that he 100% enjoyed all the killing - wtf so much killing - because for vampires, killing equals pleasure, and charming, “happy” addicts always justify the comforts of their vices. He talks the talk cuz fitting in is his whole deal, but he’s not actually in it for chaos and destruction or any high-falutin’ evil reason, or even really for eating delicious ladies but because, in the end, it feels good and the only girlfriend he’s ever had thinks eating people is cool. Even his whole (gorgeous, splendid to watch) episode-long speech about killing two slayers was written more for Buffy’s character arc than his; we don’t really know why he killed the slayers other than like, “Because they had a death wish I guess. Side note: it was fun.”

There wasn’t much legitimately vengeful or hateful stuff in sad little William for demon!Spike to work with, and apparently William’s soul-or-whatever moved about twelve inches over his left shoulder and stayed there, occasionally poking him for the next hundred years. So it should shock no one that he immediately switches sides when a) his girlfriend dumps him, b) his addiction suddenly hurts, and c) it’s time to impress a new friend group.

I get that Spike’s whole soul-getting between s6 and s7 has been interpreted in fanon as a grand romantic sacrifice (ehhhhhhhhhhhh) and I get why that’s tempting, but the show itself bungled that up way bad and I just can’t get behind it. R*pe idiocy aside, making it ultimately all about Buffy just kinda cheapens what could have been a really fucking powerful redemption arc, one that would have led to a far more satisfying love story. Especially from Buffy’s perspective. 

Okay listen.

We have a guy who has been playing the “duh, Vampire!” card for a century, pleasure-seeking and self-centered, pandering to various peer groups, murderous or otherwise, a happy addict, impervious to change. So when finally, after a HUNDRED SODDING YEARS of being a soulless, hilarious dick, Spike has consequences shoved into his gray matter by the government, he doesn’t change. At all. He just starts obsessing over another woman, doing what he thinks she wants. A woman he thinks will give him new pleasures, a new, perpetually fine status quo. But this woman is Buffy, whose identity is rock solid even though her life is constantly full of challenge and change and choices. She “rewards” Spike only when he makes willful, selfless decisions. And the rewards aren’t romantic, either. Not early on. Even in canon, she keeps rejecting him over and over again, for crystal clear reasons. Thank god. Because when he accepts that she’ll never have him, but still does the hard stuff anyway, he’s unwittingly starting to change. It’s not just Buffy. Buffy demands real personhood. Independence. Identity. Choice. 

Uh oh. She’s gotten to him, then. Though it starts out selfish, he still makes a CHOICE. Quite literally, he takes on the pain of self-improvement - first by embracing the consequences of his chip, later by going on his fancy sparkly soul quest. Buffy is the catalyst, no doubt, because once a poet always a poet and girls are pretty, but Spike’s path to improvement (if not redemption) was already there, laid out nice and neat. His narrative low point, the lightbulb moment that makes him want a soul again, should never have come out of a season of terrible backsliding, culminating in the shower scene we all regret.

It should have been The Gift. 

Death isn’t Buffy’s gift. It’s love. And not that simpering, easy kind of love that just says, “there there,” but the hard, truthful love that makes you want to keep getting that goddamn rock from the bottom of the hill. Yes, Spike’s arc should still be about Buffy, it’s Buffy’s show, but it should have been more about the hole she left behind. Not just in Spike but in the world. 

What’s left? This latest and greatest group of people who have so far RIGHTLY rejected a demon whose sole motivator seems to be comfort. And maybe when these particular people hit rock bottom, they have enough wisdom to see a monster down in the dark and recognize themselves. Maybe Dawn (whose humanizing effect on Spike has been nearly as important as his obsession with Buffy) shows him that rare, rare thing called Validation. And oh god, he realizes he’s never actually moved beyond trying to sell effulgence to Cecily Whatsherface, that he’s been sitting on his own grave for a hundred years, waiting for someone to coddle and fix him, and now the only woman who might have, the best woman, literally the one girl chosen one above all others... is gone. This would be a good time to die. 

Or...

...maybe there is no magic soul cave, maybe he tries to end it and makes the CHOICE not to. Chooses to stay and help, because what else is there? Then BAM! it just slams back into him in a way that hurts like you can’t even believe, because admitting how bad you’ve fucked up is the most painful moment of a lifetime and I’ve lived it and I wish I’d had a hellmouth to jump into, but the Scoobies pull him back, and he takes care of Dawn until life seems to have some meaning again, then Buffy comes out of the earth traumatized and broken and no one is better equipped to help her than a recovering Spike, not because he’s magically her rock but because he’s also learning how to roll his own rock and keep on climbing, because Camus ruined us all for metaphors...

THE END

Anyway. As a recovering addict and toxic person who has been struggling a lot recently... who wants to improve and be able to give more to the people I love, Spike has an arc that just like... cuts me deep, man. Especially because of what should have been.

[elizabethtarington]

Closure

I wanted to write a piece on a post break up situation that some people can go through. A lot of times anything can happen where both parties are to blame, sometimes it’s just one person in the relationship who is to blame. Sometimes we internalize it and other times...not so much. Sometimes we bounce back like nothing happened. Sometimes we just completely break down and it’s been years since we’ve let go of the past. 

I also wanted to write more about a companion type AI in the future, mostly because my husband and I both think it will be one of the big revolutionary tech pieces that we’ll have in the next 100-200 years. The concept of an AI living in your head, helping with your personal life while simultaneously growing up with you seems almost the most anti-apocalyptic way to have an AI. I am also kind of tired of the narrative where an evil AI takes over the world. This was kind of my solution/interpretation of how it might go.

Pairing: Reader x Internal AI Warning: Post-break up, mentions of depression, therapy, meditation, self care.  Word Count:2150

There was never a time when you didn’t have your companion AI’s voice in your head. It was installed when you were young and you had given it different names and identities over the years to suit your wants or desires. At one point you had named it Mister Bun-Bun, its voice taking on an almost goofy clown like speech pattern. Then it became Selene, a soothing and airy voice that calmed your nerves once you hit your teen years. But since high school, your companion had become and stayed Taylor. You liked its name. It went with Taylor’s androgynous voice, a mixture of equal parts male and female blending seamlessly into one that you couldn’t even tell the two apart.

Growing up with Taylor was what most would consider a typical experience. It was the voice in your head that let you know when you were feeling intense emotions and give suggestions based on what you liked and didn’t like. More often than not, Taylor was constantly reminding you to drink more water or that eating potato chips was an unwise decision for a meal substitute.

Your own personal assistant. One that didn’t judge you. Didn’t do anything to hurt you or call you hurtful names. Didn’t cheat on you with some young new thing that looked like a doppelganger of you.

“You’re thinking about him again.” Taylor’s voice spoke softly, interrupting your thoughts as you stared blankly ahead.

“That’s kind of what happens when I’m trying to meditate.”

“The doctor said the point of meditation was to clear your mind. You are reminiscing and then you started to think about-”

“Yes, I know. Thank you, Taylor.” You huffed, shifting your weight from side to side as you sat in the silence of your home. “Maybe if I had some white noise in the background, it might help.”

“I shall turn on the OceanScapes soundtrack with the volume at 20 percent.”

“Thank you, Taylor.”

You tried closing your eyes again, straightening your back with your hands resting in your lap. The soothing sounds of waves crashing against rocks filled your head. One deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

For a moment it was working, you were blanking your mind, letting any lingering emotions or thoughts fade away, but as soon as you heard a knock at your door, you gave up.

“Turn it off, Taylor. I’ll try again later.” You stood, stretching as you walked to the door.

“Shall I turn on the alternative station?”

“No. Just the quiet is fine.”

Opening the door, you were greeted by a drone with a package. It spoke your name and asked you to sign before giving you the small box. You knew what it was and had been waiting all day for your medication to be dropped off. Your doctor had given you a new prescription to help cope with your depression. Coupled with therapy once a week, you were starting to feel a little bit better since the inevitable break up.

It was still hard. All of it. You had moved to a new place, unable to stay in what you had considered your home for a long time despite the fact that he left first. Four years of being with someone and you just couldn’t bear staying in the apartment you had once shared. Now, a year later and you still had boxes that needed to be unpacked. Still had a hard time getting out of bed, brushing your teeth or washing your hair.

The therapy was helping. You had to be retaught how to take care of yourself and you couldn’t imagine doing it on your own without Taylor. The companion AI was always able to coax you out of bed, always explaining that while it was hard, you’d feel better by taking care of yourself.

Often while you showered and got ready for the day, even if it meant only changing into clean pajamas, Taylor would use the house’s robotics system and cook you an adequate breakfast. Usually egg whites with toast and a fruit smoothie that Taylor put any vitamins you were lacking. You would eat it down, never complaining as Taylor only informed you of basic news, careful not to telling you anything remotely depressing. It knew your mood would tank and you would head back to bed, not crawling out until the next day.

It all helped. The anti-depressants. Therapy. But mostly, Taylor helped, you thought to yourself as you opened the package, taking out your new prescription

“You don’t do yourself enough credit, you know.”

You stared down at the label on the bottle, double checking everything, “Well, I’m sure I’d just be sleeping in bed for the rest of my life.”

“You’d get up eventually, it might just take some more time.”

“Probably longer. Much longer for sure.”

“Since meditation wasn’t doing anything for you, should we tackle another box?”

You glanced to the corner of the living room, seeing your pile of boxes that was substantially smaller than last month, or the month before that, “Yeah. I should.”

“Remember, you can stop at any time.”

“I know.” You set the bottle down on the counter and did your best not to drag your feet across the room. “Just one box, right? I can do that.”

You mentally counted the boxes, only seeing five left. You swallowed nervously, knowing that these last boxes were very likely going to contain pictures or mementos that would bring back a flood of memories. Cautiously, you looked at each of the labels. The word decorations scrawled in your handwriting was on every one of them.

“For the next time, perhaps labeling them more specifically might be helpful. I will make a note on your behalf.”

“Thanks, Taylor.”

You did your best not be sarcastic or rude as you took the box on the top. Carrying it to the coffee table and setting it down, you couldn’t help but wonder if you chose the wrong box. You bit your lip and folded your arms closely to your body, before glancing back at the pile once more.

“The chances of grabbing a box that has things in relation to him is very likely regardless of box. However, this box is smaller than the others, so it should be easier to deal with than the others.” Taylor’s voice didn’t urge you forward as you turned your attention back to the box in front of you, “Remember, you can stop whenever you’d like. This is a big step and while it’s good that you’re trying to move on, be patient with yourself. If it’s too much, why don’t you go tidy up your bedroom and do some laundry instead.”

You closed your eyes and took a breath, “I want to try. I need to move on and the only way to do that is to actually look at this stuff.”

“Okay, you can do this. I believe in you.”

You laughed, feeling your muscles relax as you opened your eyes and reached for the box. It was smaller. But just because it was small didn’t mean that whatever was inside would hurt less. You knew the very opposite was often true.

Wasting no time, you peeled the tape away and opened the top, stopping to breathe and stare up at the ceiling. Finally, you worked up the nerve and looked inside. You stared down blankly unsure of what to feel as you saw several mementos from him. Pictures. Stuffed animals. Trinkets and movie stubs. You had put it all into a small box, tossed it angrily, not caring if anything got busted.

Sure enough two picture frames were broken with glass scattered across the bottom of the box, bits and pieces caught in the fur of the stuffies. You frowned down at the box, for a moment not daring to breath as you held it in your chest until finally the burning sensation caught you. Exhale. Inhale.

You weren’t sure how you would react. You had imagined throwing the box. Crying. Screaming. But as you stared down at the contents of the box you sunk down into a chair, cradling the box against your chest.

“Is this everything, Taylor?” You asked, tenderly picking up a picture.

“Yes.”

“You knew it was this box, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

Careful to avoid any glass, you picked up memento after memento, each one bringing back a different memory. A different emotion to linger and burn into your heart. Some flaring you up with happiness, others with laughter, some with sadness. But as you stared at the entirety of your past relationship you found yourself hit with a realization.

“It wasn’t all bad.”

“I don’t believe so, but I think that perhaps you two were a less than perfect fit.”

“You’re right. We were very different in many aspects. I thought that perhaps maybe the idea of opposites attract suited us, but I don’t think I realized just how opposite we were.” You paused, looking at a couple of movie stubs, “He always wanted to hang around with other people—always wanted to go out, and I just hated it. I always had a miserable time and I didn’t like his friends either. We’d always come home with me being overly exhausted and cranky. Why didn’t I just tell him I didn’t want that? Why did I compromise so much when I clearly didn’t want to?”

“You liked him and you wanted him to like and appreciate you and the sacrifices you made for him.”

“That’s—really stupid.” You chuckled, shaking your head as you tossed the movie stubs back into the box. “I should have just done what I wanted and stayed home. He could have easily gone out without me. It’s not like we needed to be joined at the hip.”

“Indeed, you did not.”

“Still—it wasn’t always bad. He still did a lot for me—for us.”

“He did, but he still should have broke it off instead of cheating.” Taylor reminded.

“I agree. We both should have ended it earlier. I wasn’t happy after the second year. I was stressed with college and just couldn’t handle balancing a relationship and the schoolwork. Then my internship happened and I was just beyond miserable.” You paused, picking up a different picture, pulling it from it’s broken frame, “He must have been unhappy too.”

A smiling couple from the not so distant past smiled up at you. It was taken during a party that your friend had dragged you to and where you met him. He was average, but he made you laugh at the party and saved you from what could have been a potentially embarrassing situation when someone passed you the karaoke mic. He sang offbeat and out of tune with the song, making it seem like you were a normal singer by anyone’s standards.

“It wasn’t all bad.” You murmured, touching his smiling face as you smirked only pulling them back as an idea struck you, “We have a fire pit in the back, right?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Is there a burn ordinance in effect right now?”

“Nope.”

“I’m thinking I just get rid of this stuff. There’s no need to unpack it and put it anywhere.”

“I agree.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes. The fire stick is in the drawer opposite of the oven. I suggest we do it now before the winds pick up later today.”

Tossing the mementos back into the box, you carried it into the kitchen, finding the fire stick with little problem. Feeling a strange and almost foreign sense of giddiness, you walked outside and found the stone pit undisturbed. You placed the box in the middle and lit the edges of the box before stepping back to watch it burn.

“You planned this didn’t you?”

“It was your doctor and her companion AI’s idea actually. I just happened to agree with them.”

You stood back, folding your arms as a small smile rose from the corners of your mouth, “Most people do this right away after getting jilted.”

“I’d say about 50 percent would do this right away. The other 50 percent would do what you did.”

“Blame myself, squash down my feelings until I could barely function as a person, only now reaching a point where closure might be attainable?”

“I’m surprised you were paying attention during that session.” Taylor chuckled in your head.

“I pay attention, whether I believe it or not is a different story.” You paused watching as the fire reached the stuffed animal, singeing the plastic fur. “This is kind of therapeutic for now. I don’t imagine tomorrow is going to feel like this, or even later tonight. But right now it feels good.”

“It will get better, I promise.”

You smiled and nodded, “I believe you’re right, Taylor. I believe you are right.” 

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[heartofsnark]

Get To Know The Writer

I was tagged by the lovely @lin-ful, just so you know. You’re another writer who I follow on my personal account and who’s work I’ve loved since before I started writing for the kbtbb fandom. 

1. It’s the end of the world (?). You don’t feel fine. You need to burn books to stay warm. Which book off of your shelf burns first?

Bye-bye textbooks. I actually don’t have a lot of narrative books on my shelves. While I was an avid reader, I was also a poor kid, now I’m a poor adult who acts like a kid; character development! So, the public library was a good friend. I really love my for fun books I do own, so textbooks go first. 

2. If your writing could convey a message that you think desperately needs to be heard, what would be it?

Uh, I think the biggest thing I think I can effectively communicate that those in the fanfic writing community could use is that, this is suppose to be fun. I know for me personally; it can feel really easy to get caught up in writing what pleases others, trying to meet perceived expectations, trying to force yourself to be productive, or whatever. Validation and praise is incredible, one compliment can make your entire day,  but if you lose sight of what makes writing fun for you, is it really worth it in the end? So, write what you want and don’t get to caught up in what gets the most notes. If there’s passion behind what you’re doing, you’ll find the people who appreciate it.

3. Has an OC ever said something that surprised you? 

Yeah, as strange as that is to say since it is an original character and I control them. I am a bit of a write by the seat of your pants kind of person, my plots has changed literally paragraphs into the work. So, sometimes I’m caught off guard by the things I write.

4. Do you collect things writing or reading related? Something that supplements your ~process~? 

I am an office/school supply hoarder. I love writing on paper, before I move things to my computer. I have way too many pens, notebooks, sticky notes, binders; literally the second I get my refund money for college, I am go to the office supply sections. I even have one of those little desk organizers and it’s overflowed. I also have a cat shaped sticky note holder.

5. A celebrity author you admire loves one of your books and their praise will appear in the next edition. Now they’ve written a new book, but… it wasn’t your cup of tea. Their publisher wants a blurb about it. Do you tell the truth, or manufacture polite praise? 

I’m not about to rain on anyone’s parade. Like, have you seen my writing? Who the hell am I to shit on anyone else’s work. I also prefer honesty. If it was like 0/10, I could not find a single positive, I would just tell them I couldn’t write the blurb, get someone else. Otherwise, I would just find the positives. Even if the plot isn’t my particular jam; are the characters good, is the dialogue good, does it flow well, etc.

6. BOOM, MAGIC! You are sucked into one of your worlds. The only way to break the spell is to convince at least three OCs that you are their creator and the creator of their world. How would you try to do it?

Who says, I want to break the spell? Ever thought about that? Uh, but legit, it depends on which oc/mc. I’m gonna break the prompt a bit and have 3 MC’s/OC’s from 3 different worlds. Because they’re my favorites.

Regan, my Supernatural OC, would be the easiest to convince hands down. Just by virtue of her being from the Supernatural universe. I would tell her and she’d just be like, “Yeah, fucking probably.” Nothing surprises her at this point. There is literally a plot like this with Chuck in SPN. She’d just throw her hands up in the air and say fuck it.

Haejin, my Mystic Messenger MC, would tell me she believes me even though she wouldn’t; just to get rid of me. I would have to legit, recount her entire backstory to her, then she would just be too freaked out. Like, depending on at what point in her story she’d be at, she’s like asking Jumin for bodyguards. My OC would put a restraining order out against me, if needed. 

Tsuneko, my Kissed by The Baddest Bidder MC, would not be having any of it. She’d just be like; “I don’t have the time or energy for this; did the bidders put you up for this? I’m gonna kill them.” She’d be over it and if I kept bugging her; she’d probably threaten me or call security. I’d probably end up having to convince the bidders to convince her; I’d go for Baba, because the rest of them would be mean.

7. You’re stuck having one of your original villains over for dinner. How does it go?

I don’t think I have a lot of original villains, I tend to use the villains of whatever world I’m writing for. There was Camael, an angel villain within my  not written Supernatural  fic world, which angels don’t eat. So, I doubt she’d come over for dinner.

If it’s okay for me use canon villains. I apparently have a thing for blonde cult leaders. 

Rika is a horrific human being; but she’s a pretty lady, have you seen her bad end in V’s route? Dear god, she flusters me. I could listen to her ramble about paradise, I’ll tune her out and look at her pretty face. Then ask Jumin to send his police forces/security out to arrest her. Never tell V and Yoosung, how much I was attracted to their abusive ex and cousin. I have a fear kink, so villains get to me, I don’t think I would act on it in the reality, but it’s a temptation.

Within KBTBB, Mamoru would hate me forever, but, Aida isn’t a bad looking man. Obviously, he’s a bad man, but he’s easy on the eyes. Again, listen to crazy cult ramblings, make fear kink related goo goo eyes. Then call Mamoru to come get him, before I make a terrible decision. I don’t know why this became me thirsting over cult leaders, but here we are.

8. Has writing benefited you in any way?

Definitely, writing has benefited me. I’ve met people through it, I’ve gained confidence through people’s positivity, I’ve gotten to vent and express some of my issues. I think literally any writer will tell you writing benefits them, otherwise they wouldn’t be a writer.

9. You discover that whatever you write about comes to pass/becomes reality. After securing your own comfort, what do you write?

All financial problems for me and my family are solved, first thing. Not necessarily rich, but enough to always be secure and enjoy life. Second, I become thinner and prettier, cause while it shouldn’t be confidence, is often tied to physical appearance and mine is awful. Third, I  instantly have my masters degree in social work, I have a job I am happy and secure in that still gives me enough time to write and enjoy my hobbies. Last, all of my biases come into existence and I get to be at the center of the best poly-amorous relationship in the history of the universe.

10. Chosen pen name? 

My blog username….? I don’t really call myself anything special. I’ve said what my actual name is on here, I think you guys know my name. Do you all know my name? It’s on my about page, but that can’t be trusted, cause hellsite. I don’t really care that much about what you all call me. You can call me by my first name (It’s Mariah), you can call me by some variation of my username/url, call me fuckface for all I care; what do you want to call me? Go for it, unless it’s something really fucked up and troubling, I doubt I’ll care. I like to think that despite my borderline crippling anxiety disorder, I’m a pretty chill person.

Tagging: Whoever wants to do it? Like, if you haven’t done it yet and want to, go for it.

[fae-fucker]

Shatter Me: Chapter 10-11

Chapter 10

Last time we were in this heck hole of a book, Adam had been revealed to be a soldier and we were introduced to Warner Bros., the resident sexy bad boy who has offered Juliette a job as his personal weapon. 

Adam leads Juliette through some hallways and she’s like totally hot for him still.

I feel him shift in the darkness and soon his body is too close so disarmingly close to mine. His hand is on my lower back and he’s guiding me through the corridors toward an unknown destination. Every inch of my skin is blushing. I have to hold myself upright to keep from falling backward into his arms.

“I’m 100% convinced this man wants to kill me but hotdamn I’d still tap that.”

I can’t even start explaining how much sense this all just makes, you know?

I’m painfully excited but I haven’t felt natural light on my skin in so long I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it.

This is why people hate first person narration. Fucking look at this garbage.

The air hits me first.

It’s my phantom fist.

Juliette is in awe of all the outside that she’s feeling right now before Adam stuffs her into a tank. A TANK. She also mentions soldiers looking at them and I have to wonder what kind of facility this actually is.

They drive off and Juliette angsts about how shitty everything is and how the world is dead. We also get more information -- if you can call it that -- about how the Reestablishment came into power and became the Establishment, if you will.

I remember there were rules. No more dangerous imaginations, no more prescription medications. A new generation comprised of only healthy individuals would sustain us. The sick must be locked away. The old must be discarded. The troubled must be given up to the asylums. Only the strong should survive.

Ok, so this sounds like good ole fascism right there, so this could theoretically be a thing (because it kind of is right now). It’s got that proper us-vs-them mentality that’s at the core of most authoritarian governments. But then Tahereh gets greedy:

No more stupid languages and stupid stories and stupid paintings placed above stupid mantels. No more Christmas, no more Hanukkah, no more Ramadan and Diwali. No talk of religion, of belief, of personal convictions. Personal convictions were what nearly killed us all, is what they said.

This is just dumb. People in power often use religion to justify their toxic views, and I’m having a hard time seeing humanity (which has gone to war over religion over and over again) giving up all of their religions just because some dingdongs claimed it would help.

Now, I’m not shitting on religious people here, I’m just stating the facts that I do not see humanity accepting this new hardcore atheist government that says that being a person with beliefs and convictions is bad.

Usually dictatorships and authoritarian governments are based on an us-vs-them mentality. The people in power pick a target that they label as “other” and create propaganda to “unite” the people against a common “threat”. “Our” group is presented as strong, righteous, and good to reinforce the love for their own group while strengthening the hate for the “other”.

Forcing the population to war against ... itself? Convincing a population that they’re all terrible to the point where they’ll all just go “yeah I guess we are, please control us”? I don’t see it. Many YA dystopias are based on this idea and I honestly don’t see how this could ever work. 

A potential leader telling you that you’re the best, better than that guy over there, let’s go kill him? That clearly works on a population. A potential leader telling you that you suck and that you should give them the power over you so they can fix you? That’s suspicious as fuck. This sounds more like a cult than a government, and sure, cult tactics do work, but cults target very specific individuals that they slowly groom into accepting their views, and they’re often small as a result of this and the fact that they isolate their members from society. Doing this to a whole population? Nah.

I think this kind of is a side-effect of YA authors being afraid of taking a side? You don’t wanna write about a nasty white dude taking power and making everyone believe that everyone other than a white dude is a piece of dirt because that might upset the white dudes, so you just kind of write governments that are weirdly diverse but are “evil” because they hate ... humanity in general? And we’re all humans, so clearly we’ll think they’re evil! Easy! 

This is also why YA dystopias often create worlds that are super hardcore and oppressive, but conveniently never racist or misogynistic or homophobic, so they’re somehow more advanced than we are when it comes to equality but also more barbaric. *insert I’m not [thing], I hate everyone equally joke here*

And I get it. Writing about real-life oppression mirrored in a fake world is hard and icky and uncomfortable. But if you’ve set out to write a proper dystopia and you end up with this, you do kind of cheapen it all by making your dark-haired white girl oppressed because of her cool superpower/rebel spirit while the government is made up of a diverse cast of bad guys who are all bad because the narrative said so.

I think I went off on a tangent. What I’m trying to say is: people take elements from 1984 even though the parts they take from it don’t make any dingdang sense in the context of their worlds.

Anyway, Juliette tells us that there is, in fact, an underground rebel movement that’s waiting for the right moment to strike. I don’t know how she knows that and I don’t know why they’re waiting, but whatever.

We pull up to a structure 10 times larger than the asylum and suspiciously central to civilization. From the outside it looks like a bland building, inconspicuous in every way but its size, gray steel slabs comprising 4 flat walls, windows cracked and slammed into the 15 stories. It’s bleak and bears no marking, no insignia, no proof of its true identity. 

Political headquarters camouflaged among the masses.

How bad is this camouflage that Juliette, who presumably has never been inside, is able to figure out what it is? I can’t accept the idea that she’s supposed to be super insightful, for obvious reasons. 

Chapter 11

Dirty money is dripping from the walls, a year’s supply of food wasted on marble floors, hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical aid poured into fancy furniture and Persian rugs. I feel the artificial heat pouring in through air vents and think of children screaming for clean water. I squint through crystal chandeliers and hear mothers begging for mercy. I see a superficial world existing in the midst of a terrorizing reality and I can’t move.

[...]

They filled our world with weapons aimed at our foreheads and smiled as they shot 16 candles right through our future. They killed those strong enough to fight back and locked up the freaks who failed to live up to their utopian expectations.

Ok so um. I see the point you’re trying to make here and I agree that rich people are the devil and that we should eat them, but in this world that you’ve created, this kind of makes no sense.

How ... How exactly are they “stealing” or “wasting” money if they’re in charge of the economy and the production of everything? Who exactly are they stealing from if they’ve murdered most of the population anyway? Are they paying people to have those Persian rugs made? Isn’t it more logical to assume they’ve just taken stuff that has already existed, since nobody else was using it? 

Like, you have real-life examples of how politicians and corporations get rich, and this ... this isn’t one of those ways. You don’t blast a population to death and then start producing wealth out of nowhere. New wealth doesn’t just magically appear once you’ve stolen “everything” from the population.

You know for someone who was complaining about how evil the eestablishment are for taking away art and fancy things, she sure doesn’t want any of this art or fancy things. The Reestablishment was also established (hueh) to promote a “simple” lifestyle, and yeah, usually dictatorships do that to the population while they live like kings, but Juliette hasn’t noted this hypocrisy yet, she’s just cringing at the fancy things so far.

Let’s hope she does.

Whatever. Juliette is all disgusted with the luxury around her and sees blood all over (See because she thinks people have been sacrificed to Big Corporate for all this fancy stuff. It’s poetic you see because poor people have uuuuh died for all this stuff and all that.), so much so that she has a breakdown.

I’m in the air. I’m a bag of feathers in [Adam’s] arms and he’s breaking through soldiers crowding around for a glimpse of the commotion and for a moment I don’t want to care that I shouldn’t want this so much. I want to forget that I’m supposed to hate him, that he betrayed me, that he’s working for the same people who are trying to destroy the very little that’s left of humanity and my face is buried in the soft material of his shirt and my cheek is pressed against his chest and he smells like strength and courage and the world drowning in rain. I don’t want him to ever ever ever ever let go of my body. I wish I could touch his skin, I wish there were no barriers between us.

Ok so first you get all upset over how these guys are evil for having all this stuff, and the next second you’re creaming yourself about how you totally wanna bang this dude you don’t know and who you’re convinced wants to kill or otherwise hurt you?

Makes that whole previous freakout seem a bit cheap now, dontcha think?

Juliette begs Adam to kill her because she just can’t handle how horny she is for him how rich and evil these people are, but he’s like naw dawg, can’t kill the protagonist in a trilogy this early. 

Adam takes her to a room and Juliette complains about how pretty and luxurious it is.

Listen. I don’t care how strong her ess-joo spirit is. Girl has been locked up in a cell all alone for 200+ days. Justice for the poor should be at the very back of her head, not her main concern. She should be shitting herself with joy right now.

“Please don’t let go of me put me down,” I tell him.

Tahereh ... sweetie. You can’t do this in dialogue. That’s not ... that’s not how anything works. Did she actually say this and then quickly correct herself? I should be enchanted by this riveting dialogue, not be taken out of the experience trying to figure out if this girl has two voices like she’s possessed by Pazuzu.

Juliette asks Adam to leave her alone, which he says isn’t an option, since Warner Bros. considers her a threat and has thus decided that Adam must watch her at all times. Which means he’ll be moving in.

Yikes. I know it’s all a (rather fanfiction-y) setup for their “romance”, but still, how creepy and uncomfortable is that?

I want to hate him and judge him and scream forever but I’m failing because all I see is an 8-year-old boy who doesn’t remember that he used to be the kindest person I ever knew.

Yeah, can’t wait until he’s suddenly written to be super evil so Warner Bros. can swoop in and save you. 

And, really? “I know he’ll be invading my privacy for who knows how long and I’m pretty sure he wants me harm or at least wouldn’t mind inflicting it if ordered, but he was a nice kid back in school, so I can’t bring myself to hate him!” Great.

Adam tells her that she has to change into less icky clothes and says that there’s a bathroom. 

I see a door connected to the room and I’m suddenly curious. I’ve heard stories about people with bathrooms in their bedrooms. I guess they’re not exactly in the bedroom, but they’re close enough.

1) This narration is completely OOC for Juliette, and also really dumb.

2) So we went from “fuck all this rich people crap!!” to “ooh, my own bathroom? sweet!!” Consistency who?

 Adam says that there are no cameras in the bathroom, which means that there are cameras in the bedroom. Juliette is only mildly concerned with this.

Adam says that Warner Bros. will be expecting her for dinner, and then goes to show her how the stuff in the bathroom works. 

He then acts a bit weird, looking around and putting his finger to his lips to tell her to be quiet, and Juliette assumes he’s about to rape her and wishes she could kill herself.

He of course isn’t and leaves when he realizes why she’s freaking out.

So uh. This suddenly got dark.