#if i don't specify that this is the beginning of my rewrite of this arc does it make it untrue

[whumpsical]

A Light in the Dark

contents: trafficking, captivity, forced romance, emotional manipulation, expIicit dubcon, intimate whumper, defiant whumpee

Jian spots an opportunity

November 2019

taglist!! @yet-another-heathen @much-ado-about-whumping @minerscanary

🌲🌲🌲 -> next (soon)

The sun was already setting over the mountain by the time Dickass Lee finally decided to start heading back to the house. Jian wasn’t at all sold on the idea that the loss of light had been a simple miscalculation. The hand-holding was already easier to tolerate in the growing dark.

The woods were still a foreign territory to him, and his fear went double without sunlight. He even found himself gripping Dickass Lee’s hand in return instead of his usual dissociation, making himself limp so that his arm was like a fabric leash, just an object for Dickass Lee to keep track of him by. And Dickass Lee must have noticed the shift, because he leaned close and affectionately bumped Jian’s shoulder with his own.

“Don’t be scared, Jian.”

“I’m not scared,” Jian said adamantly, simmering with annoyance at the man’s condescending tone. But he kept his hand tightly clasped, his palm beginning to sweat as his footing grew more unsure. “I just can’t see.”

Dickass Lee chuckled. “I know these woods very well. You can’t get lost when you’re out here with me.”

Jian rolled his eyes freely in the dark. He was already lost out here, as long as Dickass Lee was at his side.

Blue-black darkness fell quickly around them, and the temperature seemed to drop another twenty degrees. The light jacket wasn’t cutting it anymore. Jian doubted the simple miscalculation of that, too. When his shivers grew violent, Jian clenched his jaw and huddled close to Dickass Lee, despite the biting nausea. Dickass Lee let go of Jian’s hand and wrapped his heavy arm around Jian’s shoulders, keeping him warm and steady as they walked. Jian tried not to feel comforted, and for the first time in ages it wasn’t a challenge. His thoughts drifted to the tall tree behind the murder shack, to his brush with hypothermia. No, Jian couldn’t see this as anything other than more manipulation of the same kind. He didn’t know what exactly Dickass Lee wanted from him this time, but he knew he’d acquiesce without much of a fight, as long as that threat of cold hung over him.

Nighttime out here was dazzlingly noisy, much louder than in the city. Compared to the soft rumble of traffic, to drunk clubbers laughing their way to the next venue, even to the occasional nearby siren, the woods were downright chaotic. With a sound like TV static blasting through concert speakers, everything alive in the forest came together in an invisible choir around and above him. Jian swept the forest with his eyes, squinting to find any hint of suspicious movement to serve as proof of the vast network of insects which were obviously still thriving here in what felt like early winter, but all he saw was black.

Jian’s eyes felt dry and glassy from straining through the darkness when he noticed movement off to his left. He wouldn’t have seen it in the daylight. He almost stopped in his tracks, but bundled up so close to Dickass Lee, he just stumbled slightly and moved along. He couldn’t hear it behind the frenzied woods swallowing up any noise that wasn’t its own, but there was no mistaking the twin dots of yellow light that rose and flashed and diminished as the vehicle’s headlights turned towards him and away.

A car, a road, people. A way out.

Jian’s mind raced. The road was a long way from the house. It was hard to gauge distance over the hills and winding trodden paths, especially when he hadn't been paying that much attention, but it felt like maybe a mile or two. He’d walked this far already. How much further could he go, if he ran? At least to the side of the road, where he might just collapse and wait for another car to rumble by what a driver might at first take for a corpse. He’d probably have better luck playing dead than if he showed up to the road with his thumb out.

He’d imagined this plot of land as an endless mountain, even an isolated universe. There was no room for other people and their cars, no way for a public road to sneak through the little snowglobe he lived in with Dickass Lee. He tried to memorize the route they were taking, to feel the direction from which they’d come and keep it locked in his body, so that no matter where he started from, he’d know which way to turn once he finally got his chance to run.

Somehow, they made it back to the house. Even Dickass Lee had stumbled over fallen branches in the dark a few times, but he laughed it off with such ease that Jian couldn’t find any sadistic humor in it, instead feeling more tense the better Dickass Lee’s mood got.

They showered together. Dickass Lee urged Jian up to the bathroom with a playfulness that made Jian’s stomach flip. Without invitation, he helped Jian undress, taking every opportunity to run gently violating hands over every soft spot he came across in the process. Jian shivered, remembering the chill outside, and didn’t fight him. Eventually he stopped trying to use his own hands at all, letting Dickass Lee unravel him to the skin. He felt his expression slipping away to vacancy, and wished his brain could do the same.

He tried to disappear into the warmth of the shower, to focus on the earthy rosemary scent of the soap that Dickass Lee was lathering onto him. His movements slowed at Jian’s shoulders, rubbing small circles into the tightness he felt there.

“Jian, why are you so nervous?” Dickass Lee asked. His voice was sweet, caring. He brushed a soapy thumb across Jian’s jawline, his hand resting steadily on the side of his neck. It could’ve been adoringly. “Hey, I promise not to keep us out after dark again. Relax. We’re home now.”

Jian swallowed and nodded, shutting his eyes and taking an intentional breath to try and let go of the tension riddling his body, imagining it flowing down the drain. He imagined it clogging the pipes, a plumber being called in, driving a painted company van along that road through the woods.

A wet hand broke through the dark, Dickass Lee lifting Jian’s face to kiss him. All of that tension bubbled right back up, gray and stinking from the sewer, boiling hot at their feet, and Jian reflexively broke the kiss with a grimace and a violent turn of his head. He stood still for a moment, blinking away flashes of bright light and panting as the sick fumes died down.

“M’sorry,” he murmured quickly, before Dickass Lee could say anything about it.

“Hey, come on. You know I don’t want to threaten you. It’s alright.”

Jian recognized the threat for what it was. He bit back another flinch, sudden echoes of pain sparking across his thighs like a match striking over his skin, and leaned back into Dickass Lee’s touch, returning the kiss when it was offered again. He supposed he should be feeling grateful for the second chance.

Just one more night. He could do just one more night of this. He ran appeasing hands over Dickass Lee’s dripping chest and up around the back of his neck, pulling him deeper into the kiss. One more surrender, and tomorrow Jian would disappear from this mountainside universe, crash through the glass of the snowglobe and spill out into another world, soaking wet and wild-eyed.

Dickass Lee pulled back suddenly, smoothing a fingertip over his bottom lip, a sideways smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “That so, sweetheart?” he said in a darkly playful tone, teasing and a little bit impressed.

It took Jian a moment to realize what had happened. A moment later and he’d tugged Dickass Lee’s head down to bite him again, even harder, forging a path from the man’s lips to his jaw and down to his neck, dragging teeth over skin between each aggressive kiss.

It wasn’t long before they found themselves in the master bedroom, hair still dripping as Jian shoved Dickass Lee onto the bed, wasting no time in climbing on top of him to straddle his hips. The man’s proud fucking smile hadn’t faltered once, and Jian smothered it with another heated kiss, pinning Dickass Lee firmly to the mattress and pretending he could rip the man to shreds with the grip he had on his hair.

One more night. Why did it have to be a surrender? It wasn’t. Jian was taking his spoils of war, in a victory he just hadn’t technically earned quite yet.

Dickass Lee trawled strong hands up Jian’s thighs, his fingertips digging into the skin and snagging on short hairs as he went. Jian shuddered, and he was already grinding his hips against the warm body beneath his when those hands settled around his waist, their grip tightening along with a hitch in Dickass Lee’s breathing.

“Jesus, sweetheart,” Dickass Lee crooned breathlessly, adoring eyes flashing up at Jian, who straightened up to find more leverage and pressure. He raked dull fingernails over Dickass Lee’s torso, imagining rivers of the man’s blood in place of the little pink welts that surfaced instead. Jian’s hands faltered and froze as Dickass Lee’s began to wander downward, featherlight touches forcing out a desperate twitch and an equally as damning gasp and whimper.

Dickass Lee laughed at him softly, wistful affection clouding his face, one hand holding tight to Jian’s hip, keeping him from wriggling away while the other hand continued with gentle strokes. A sting of resentment sprang up in Jian’s core alongside the glow of pleasure, and he dug into Dickass Lee’s chest with his nails.

This wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to tear into Dickass Lee, to hurt him, to make him go along with whatever Jian bid, for once. And whether that meant beating him to a pulp or riding him until he was raw, Jian wanted to be the one calling the shots.

But Jian couldn’t help but react to the touch with exactly what the man was looking for, all but rutting into Dickass Lee’s hand, only held back by the firm grip on his right hip and his own fraught attempts to convince himself he didn’t also want this so badly.

“Someone’s in a mood tonight,” Dickass Lee said, his voice dropping to a rumble. The man’s unquestioned confidence radiated out from him like barbs that jabbed into Jian’s chest, making him sick with irritation and futile fury, despite the pleasure that he couldn’t deny or escape. “I wonder where that’s coming from. Was there something you wan--”

Shut up. Shut the fuck up.

Dickass Lee leaned down over him, taking his time, drawing out the agony in the slow roll of his hips over Jian’s ass, relishing in making him squirm even as Jian weathered through the shame of his impulsive attempt at retaliation. He nipped at Jian’s ear, breathing a fond chuckle when it made Jian’s hips twitch beneath him. Jian shut his eyes tight, breathing in little nervous shots through his nose and trying to hold back his moans.

Before he could think about it, Jian aimed a punch to Dickass Lee’s throat, his arm flying as if fueled by fire. He didn’t even get to make contact. With startling agility, Dickass Lee dropped off mid-sentence to intercept Jian’s fist, then snatched both of Jian’s arms and flipped him to his stomach with such unnerving efficiency that Jian barely had time to blink before he found himself suffocating facedown in the sheets, fighting off a wild rush of arousal as his arms were pinned behind him.

“That was cute,” Dickass Lee said, letting his lips brush against the sensitive shell of Jian’s ear. “But I’m sorry, sweetheart, it’s not going to happen. You understand, don’t you, baby?”

Jian shifted, trying to shrug his arms free, and got nowhere. He huffed out his frustration, mostly aimed at himself. Of course Dickass Lee had only been letting Jian toss him around. Of course Jian knew that. He cursed himself for getting caught up in the fantasy.

“I’m going to forgive you for that, Jian,” Dickass Lee said as he kissed a line down the back of Jian’s neck and between his shoulders, until he got to where he held Jian’s arms in that unforgiving grip. “Mainly because I’d rather just get back to where we left off. Are you going to behave yourself?”

One more night. One more surrender.

Breathlessly, through gritted teeth, “Yes.”

Dickass Lee hummed against Jian’s skin, pleased, finally letting go of Jian’s aching arms to press him more gently into the bed, one broad, steady hand on the nape of his neck and another caressing along the sides of his ribs. Of their own accord, Jian’s hips made eager little rocking motions into the mattress, and he had no way of stopping or concealing it, especially when Dickass Lee was doing about the same to him, teasing over his lower back.

“You’ll have to be good for me, Jian. No fighting this time. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

Jian arched his back, pushing his hips up and back, a mewling noise spilling out of him, only halfway unbidden. Fuck it. This was still his victory.

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

“Yes, Richard,” Jian said, his voice muffled into the sheets. He turned his face to the side, catching fresher air and glancing over his shoulder at Dickass Lee. “Fucking hell, please.”

Dickass Lee finally entered him, maddeningly gently at first, but it went on until Jian was begging at every desperate bid for a climax that Dickass Lee held just out of his reach. At some point a dull prong of actual pain started to build in his core like a lead weight in his stomach, growing with each new denial. By the time Dickass Lee finally allowed him to come, Jian had been sobbing for several rounds already.

His orgasm was blindingly bright, his vision going white as he wailed through it, and the last thing he remembered before passing out was a tender kiss on the cheek and Dickass Lee’s voice, soft between panting breaths.

“I knew you would, Jian. I knew you’d want me to.”

[practically-an-x-man]

2, 5, 13, 17, 25 for Star Wars?

Thank you!

Salty Ask List

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?*

Rose/Finn. Maybe it would be different if they actually followed through with it in the movies (or followed through with any of the pairings they tried to set up with Finn, really), but I'm more of a FinnPoe fan anyway and even in the movies I just saw him and Rose as a close but platonic bond.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

Honestly... Reylo. I didn't particularly like the ship to begin with, but I was definitely neutral about it. Didn't like it, didn't hate it, honestly didn't think about it too much. But with the whole fandom situation around it, with some people vehemently defending it and others abhorring it, it just soured whatever neutral opinion I had at first and now the whole thing is just gross to me.

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

You didn't specify a character so... this is probably evident from all my writing in the Star Wars fandom, but I think Hux had so much lost potential as a character. I mean, the books give him so much backstory that could have been really well-utilized (bastard child, abusive father, raised into military success, etc.) and then just... wasn't brought up- I mean, hell- they don't even say his first name in any of the movies! And I think the whole spy plotline was arguably a better setup for a redemption arc than Kylo Ren's was (since it couldn't be excused by the Force or romance, if he wanted redemption he'd have to genuinely work for it and it could've been such a good premise), not to mention Domhnall Gleeson is an incredibly skilled actor who could have done so much with the character if they'd actually gone into that deeper backstory and difficult choices...

This is getting long. Point being, I think they created a lot of genuinely interesting characters at the start of the franchise, and every single one of them began to trickle off as the writing got worse, but I think Hux is one of the characters that flies under the radar in that regard.

17. Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

I mean, most of Bolts and Blasters is literally my fix-it/rewrite of the Rise of Skywalker movie, so that's a pretty good example of what I'd change and how I'd change it. I'd like to think I did a pretty decent job with it.

25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

See above ^

[festeringfae]

The dual settings of Yellowjackets really highlight for me how even well-written media centered on depicting women as complex, multifaceted people struggle with imagining or depicting scenarios where women's emotional struggles are not based on their relationship to men.

In the comic that inspired the Bechdel-Wallace test, Wallace's expy specifies that the last movie she was able to see was Aliens. That means, the last circumstance she knows of where a movie believed it was plausible that two named women would talk about something other than a man is a situation as dire-- and unrelatable-- as being attacked by an intergalactic space monster. In Yellowjackets, it takes an all-girls team, a plane crash, AND a supernatural threat to provide enough justification to imagine interpersonal dynamics between girls that don't solely revolve around boys.

And even then, when the girls become women in the "normal" world of 2021, the show seems unable to think of ways to move the narrative forward or progress the women's characterization without disproportionate focus on their relationships with men.

Obviously, many women have multiple, very important relationships with men in their lives. I have no issue with depicting that, and Yellowjackets depicts it in more honest and dynamic ways than most other media. That's why I'm using it to make my point: even with the best, this still happens. And even as someone annoyed by it, it still takes me one episode into season 2 to even notice it.

At the beginning of season 1, the first time we meet Natalie, she reveals that she thinks the motivation behind her self-destructive tendencies is that when she left the wilderness, she "lost her purpose," and implies that she thinks she's found it again. Based on the context we're given, we can perhaps assume this purpose is to hunt down whoever sent her the threatening postcard. Which, yes, she does focus on doing for the rest of the season-- but that purpose becomes convoluted very quickly with her mourning & needing to know what happened to Travis. That's a real, frequently occurring dynamic outside of fiction, and it really is related to the overall plot, so I don't mind it much. I mind goth freak Kevin Tan is conveniently a cop, but not much more, and like some parts of it for similar reasons related to exploring the complex messiness of grief. I mention these instances primarily because of their small piece of an overall pattern.

A pattern maybe best exemplified with Shauna. Now, Shauna's narrative subverts and inverts a lot of sexist tropes, and I give credit to it for that. A teen boy is given next to no personality because he exists only as a catalyst to analyze the relationship between a friendship between two girls. A manic pixie boy is fridged by Shauna for her womanpain and to progress her narrative. Her husband actually loves her despite her moral depravity. I love all that!

But when I look at the Adam arc from the perspective of someone who doesn't know what greater purpose it might serve in the narrative beyond S2E1, it's inclusion and construction really makes me marvel at how easily we, as audience members, are limited in imaging women having relationships outside of men. Because while yes, Jeff dealing with loan sharks is played for laughs, and realism is not an innate virtue in entertainment (especially in fantasy/horror)...if it turns out the only function of Adam's existence was to have Shauna accidentally murder someone/create further distance between her and Callie, would it not make more sense for that character to be...literally anyone besides a guy weirdly unfazed by being rear-ended, who inexplicably has no interest in promoting the art he rents an entire studio to regularly create, and who also doesn't come up on Google as a staff member at an autoshop for some reason?

I'm not trying to rewrite the show, but go with me for a minute here: why was I, as an audience member, willing to suspend my disbelief for all of that at the end of last season, even as I raised an eyebrow at it seeming a bit unnecessarily convoluted? Why did the writers imagination go to money troubles= mob= misunderstanding= deus ex machina boyfriend = callie strain + stabbing the wrong person, before it went to money troubles= moving back in with in-laws= callie strain + stabbing the wrong person?

Again, I'm not trying to rewrite the show, and I think the psychosexual element of young Shauna/Jeff/Jackie completely justifies the narrative wanting to give her an affair outside of that dynamic to explore. My point of contention is mostly with myself, and a larger pattern in media. How many shows and movies would sooner introduce loan sharks & manic pixie deus ex machinas before it considered a subplot entirely focused on the dynamic between a mother or mother-and-law and a 40-something daughter or daughter in-law, and how it impacts their respective relationships with a teenage [grand]daughter? Why did "thinking the judgmental, overbearing old lady whose house you live in might have stolen your journals & snitched to the cops, but turns out she didn't so you killed her for nothing & yr husband and daughter are gonna find out" not occur to me as an alternative possibility for the length of the entire season break?

Moreover, why is every conflict within Taissa and Simone's marriage centered around Sammy, with little to no commentary about their relationship outside of motherhood and the campaign? I don't think Sammy's gender is relevant here-- but Simone's is. While I don't believe it makes sense the show to give Simone POV scenes (although, credit where due, it does in the S1 finale), none of her scenes with Taissa characterize her outside of her roles as The Good Wife or The Good Mother. The most Taissa has to say about Simone in a confessional manner to Shauna is that she lacks the It Factor of Van-- characterization as vague as it is disposable. There's no divorcing this dynamic with Simone from the show's anti-Black colorism (the only other deep-skinned Black woman or girl we've seen is a JV whose name I can't recall and who I didn't see in the cabin during S2E1). It must be acknowledge that when media asks, "who can be the Black Best Friend to a Black Girl?", the answer a lot of media comes up with is "an even darker girl" (see also: JV and young Taissa). That being said, I think this dynamic exists in tandem with Simone and Taissa being More Than Friends. Since Simone can't know about the details of the plane crash or the supernatural elements going on, the writers would have to actually consider what two adult Black women who don't appear to have any men in their professional or personal lives talk about. The only answers we are given is: child, and a campaign that, by definition, has only been going on for much less time than their relationship. What else exists between them? We don't know, and my point is, it's horrifying how infrequently it seems to occur to people to ask. We know Jeff sells sofas and likes Sports Center. We don't even know what kind of apology present Simone would like, because it doesn't even occur to either Taissa or the writers to bring her one along with Sammy's.

Finally, Misty. If you've read this far, 1) thank you, holy crap, and 2) you might be thinking "what about Misty! Adult Misty's narrative isn't tied to any man!" And you're right, no matter what ends up happening with Elijah Wood's character down the line (although I will admit to a bit of anticipatory side-eyeing.) I have no issue so far with the Young Misty and Coach Ben stuff in terms of her focusing on him, and I'm not sure if Adult Misty ever says more than 2 lines to a man in season 1. But frankly, while I don't think this specific show should play this specific character any differently, there IS a broad pattern, I think, of shows looking at an adult, single woman with no kids, and deciding that her plotline therefore must be that she's ✨Crazy✨ in a quirky, endearing way that is as intentionally ironic as it is legitimately frightening. There is a vague backstory to provide even vaguer explanation for Why She's Like This, but never anything concrete or broad enough where you could picture years of therapy having any kind of effect. She's the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Dark Reprise).

Again, I'm saying none of this to shit on Yellowjackets, or even ask them to change anything (except the colorist misogynoir: That's Gotta Go.) What I'm wondering is, if it takes a show as good at portraying women and girls as Yellowjackets is to get me to even CONSIDER such basic possibilities-- what would TV and film look like if less fantasy-based projects also considered exploring the POV of women over age 30, who talk to other women over age 30, about their relationship with each other?