#it feels Fundamentally wrong when i see her drawn Like That its not even in a selfshipping way it just feels Uncanny

[bananararama-hasmoved]

Every time I see SM fan art where Ele is drawn like an anime girltwink w huge boobs I want to reach over the screen and Obliterate Op. My girl is NOT a One Piece girlie why did so many ppl draw her like that

[atoriv-art]

What's your favorite Nejigaa headcanon?

love when i get these so i get to ramble. thank you so much

well i started to be fond of them as a pairing from the idea of neji finding some solace from his clan issues in suna! he initially started going there as just as extra protection sent by konoha for gaara in whatever diplomatic business he might be on, but eventually gaara starts requesting him specifically because

it gives neji some space from konoha as he knows it stresses him out, and gaara post-chunin exams is someone who really wants to offer others a helping hand when he can

he's fond of him :3 there's some brief panels in chunin exams where you see gaara appearing to be a bit fixated on neji (like he got fixated on sasuke, just to a much lesser extent) and i think that would morph into fondness as he chills out and no longer sees people whose anger he relates to as 'prey', so to speak!

the whole 'you almost killed my teammate' thing wouldn't just go away immediately even if gaara Is friendly with lee, imo neji is the type of person to hold onto those grudges even if lee himself might not, but he's also someone who is very easy to disarm with like... honesty and empathy. and as much as gaara is stone-faced, he is also very much someone who has a lot of both! his Tone initially rubs neji the wrong way because it's just So unfiltered, but it also gets to him because it's impossible to dispute gaara's sincerity when he puts everything so bluntly, yknow? and as someone who grew up hiding or otherwise obscuring many of his true feelings (majorly by necessity, but later on also out of sheer habit), it's a trait that neji finds very very admirable — its part of why i like him with sasuke too, i think neji is drawn to people who are very openly themselves, people whose ideals are impossible to ignore

this got so long (as youd expect.) and definitely strayed from the initial ask so here's a read-more <3

neji fusses over him a lot id say, he comes to think of gaara as a very noble person — someone with power and who is trying to make the world a better place with that power — and he gets protective over people he considers so fundamentally Good. i think it's nice for gaara to have someone like that around (esp divorced from his past, a bond that he's managed to build on his own by his own merits) and it gives him a lot of fondness for neji in return :)

a lot of their rs progression is this back and forth of finding out like, how much the other Feels and how gentle the other can be when not forced into situations that bring out the worst out of them.. i Love the idea of gaara's disposition softening up (being more outwardly sweet, more playful) a lot as he grows closer to people, it's why i like drawing him being so affectionate even though he's so introverted... i think the contrast is cute :-)

i'm also super fond of the thought of them unpacking some of their family troubles together lmao, i think it'd especially be good for gaara as he has a lot to retroactively think about once he's not on survival mode 24/7 and he might benefit from a detached third party as a listening ear — his siblings have their own baggage attached to their father, their mother, and their uncle, after all. and well if anyone knows what it's like to have a complicated family history it's neji :P

also as a bonus. imo temari+kankuro would get along with neji (…after a bit. everyone involved here is a bit of an asshole but that's part of their charm ok.) but kankuro treats him like he's his secret extra sibling. meaning he really likes the guy but also meaning he will not know peace under their roof. they argue about anything and everything

hinata and gaara also get along pretty well despite gaaras Past. mostly because i think hinata should be friends with every autism boy there is (shino. sai. etc) but also because i think the thought of her being like "i know he used to be a serial killer but let's hear him out people can change 🥺 he's so sweet he likes plants" is really funny

[kiki-shortsnout]

You know, people say that IronStrange is a sad ship because they're clearly "right person, wrong time". But I think our ship is sailing on tears because Tony and Stephen are "right person, not enough time".

Can you use this as a prompt? If you're not busy? Or if you feel like it? Thank you 🥺

Of course I can use it as a prompt! What I came up with is a little but sad though!

Warnings: Mention of a terminal illness. (Nothing specific)

***

Smoothing out the collar of his shirt, Stephen checked his reflection in the mirror, picking up the bouquet of flowers he’d placed down on his desk. Taking a deep breath and checking his reflection once again, he practiced his smile before he left his bedroom.

He’d done this walk thousands of times without thinking about it too much. The Sanctum corridors were part of the background of his life, the setting blending into all the other memories he had of it. Today was different though, today he took his time to look at everything as he walked.

One of the cabinets was missing a ceramic incense burner that Stephen had always secretly hated. It was meant to ward off evil spirits and the like, but it had always given Stephen the eerie feeling of being watched. Tony had bumped into the cabinet by accident, leaving an indent in the wall that Stephen now brushed his fingers over. The accident had destroyed the gruesome thing, and Tony had replaced it with a sculpture of his own, a miniature Iron Man figurine.

‘That will stop the evil spirits dead in their tracks.’

His clutch on his flowers faltered as he looked down at the figurine, a few petals fluttering down to the floor.

Stephen could feel his resolve wavering, and he bowed his head, gritting his teeth against the burning in his eyes. The onslaught of his emotions raged in the confines of his mind, scratching and biting at his barely held together resolve. Why was this happening?

No, this wasn’t about him, this was about Tony, and he wasn’t going to let his arrogance invade now, not today. Clearing his throat, he refused to allow himself to feel anything else but this cheerful façade he’d constructed for the day.

Tony was sat in his armchair among the artifacts, talking to the Cloak about something inane. The Cloak’s collar twitched up, indicating it had realized Stephen was nearby, but it didn’t move from beside Tony, still giving him its full attention.

He was having a good day, which was why he’d suggested to Stephen they do this. A simple date, just the two of them. Stephen allowed himself to watch Tony for a moment, just listening to the sound of his voice and not the meaning of his words.

There were things he took for granted in his life, things that were constant, never faltering, his reality built upon them. Perched in his chair and talking to the Cloak, that was a fundamental part of Stephen’s life, not just a person he spent time with. He was as integral to Stephen as the air he breathed, the halls he walked down, the tea he drank.

There wasn’t a Stephen Strange without Tony Stark.

He couldn’t fathom a reality where Tony wasn’t in it.

Who else could he call douchebag and mean it as a form of endearment? Who would understand behind the snark and the sarcasm was genuine concern when Stephen spoke? No one else spoke the language they used with each other, their lexicon developed from their love and time spent together.

Shoving the feelings down, he ignored them, imagining stamping them into submission. He wasn’t going to do this now, not now, later, he would break later, now he would be there for Tony, give him the day he wanted.

‘Afternoon sweetheart, sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, but Wong would just not shut up about some trivial illness he thinks he has now,’ Stephen said as he strode over to Tony, offering him the flowers.

‘I thought it was common knowledge that if you have a friend who used to be a doctor, you’re supposed to ask them to look at everything,’ Tony answered, leaning up to accept Stephen’s kiss.

‘I brought you some lilies-’

‘Hot rod red, just the way I like them!’ Tony burst out, reaching with grabby hands. Making sure his touch was delicate, Stephen helped guide his hands to the bouquet, ignoring how skeletal they were, the paper thinness of skin and how he could see the spiderweb of indigo veins beneath.

One of the strongest men in the universe, Earth’s defender was now reduced to this.

‘Peter told me they symbolize passion and romantic love, but I looked it up and they can also symbolize hard work.’

‘You trying to imply I’m not working hard enough or something, asshole?’ Tony mock growled, inhaling the scent of the flowers.

This was one of life’s crueler twists of fate, a final screw you to Stephen.

You still think there will be no consequences, Strange? No price to pay? We broke our rules. Just like her. The bill comes due. Always! The words ricocheted around his brain, plastering themselves over and over inside his skull, branding themselves on the back of Stephen’s eyelids, motes of red against the darkness.

He’d thought by saving Tony when he defeated Thanos he’d been doing the right thing. He’d forced his magic to comply, warping the very fabric of space and time to save Tony, to heal his charred body, his damaged brain. At the time he told himself that he was doing it not because he himself had fallen for the man in the millions of lifetimes he’d glimpsed of Tony, but because of Pepper and Morgan, the family he deserved to have.

Stephen had tried to stay away from Tony after that, hadn’t wanted to destroy a happy family, but Tony had been drawn to him, just as he had been to Tony. His relationship with Pepper had come to an end, an amicable end, there was too much love and memories between them for it not to be. Even then, Stephen had waited months, held Tony at arm’s length to make sure he was ready for this relationship.

Months they could’ve had together.

As a doctor, he knew what Tony’s diagnosis meant, knew that no matter what miracles the hospital performed that this was always going to be terminal. He wanted to fix this, dear God how he wanted to fix it. He didn’t want Morgan growing up without a father, didn’t…couldn’t imagine life without Tony, how he was meant to go on without him.

This had been the price of his arrogance. He had saved Tony’s life by breaking the natural law, and this was how it had demanded payment.

He brought Tony’s hand to his mouth, brushing a kiss against the delicate skin.

Love stories were not always about the everlasting love, the stretching of years before you. Sometimes it was as short as finding the right person and not having enough time.

‘I know, Stephen, I feel it too,’ Tony said, leaning his forehead against Stephen’s. ‘You promised me one day. One day without treatments, hospital appointments, being prodded.’

‘I did, and I meant it, sweetheart. What did you have in mind? We’ll do anything you want to do. I could portal us to the beach? Or another country?’ Stephen asked, offering his arm to help Tony up, and passing the flowers over to the Cloak.

‘Let’s go for a walk in Central Park, take an aimless meander,’ Tony told him.

‘An aimless meander? Since when don’t you have a plan in mind? A thousand different things that you want to do?’ Stephen teased as they walked down the Sanctum stairs, the Cloak waiting at the bottom for them both, attaching itself to Tony’s shoulders to help carry some of his weight.

‘Maybe I just want to spend time with you without any of life’s complications getting in the way,’ Tony countered.

Opening the front door for him, Stephen bowed at his waist, extending his hand in an exaggerated gesture. ‘Your wish is my command, douchebag.’ He hesitated for a moment, looking at the sky, the brilliance of the blue, the cotton candy spun clouds.

A perfect day for meandering.

[kinktae]

beyond the story: bitchin’

Hi friends! I hope you are all staying safe and healthy during these tough times! I really wanted to put something out there as a thank you to just how much support Bitchin’ got. You guys really are incredible. So, although this story has come to an end, I wanted to properly close the Bitchin’ chapter by giving you all a behind the scenes look at Bitchin’ and everything that went into writing it. This includes hidden easter eggs, backstories, alternative plot-lines, and a short drabble of the Bitchin’ cast 10 years after the story’s end.

Without further ado, please enjoy and thank you again for all your love. You have all of mine.

CHAPTER ONE – PARTNERS

Ah, yes, the start of this whole wild ride. I’ve always loved the whole nerd/popular person trope in fanfics, so it was only a matter of time before I tried my hand at it too. One thing I was adamant about was not making this a “popular person turns nerd hot/confident/better” fic as its kind of one of my least favorite cliches. With that in mind, and knowing that I was going to allude to TATBILB’s contract, I decided that I wanted Y/N to gain as much from the deal as Jungkook did. No blackmail, no just agreeing for the hell of it – Y/N was going to further herself and her dreams given the opportunity.

The beginning of the chapter is where the two are most separated and dissimilar throughout the whole story. It wasn’t that they were fundamentally different, it was that they approached life differently. Y/N was frustrated at how superficial Jungkook seemed, because she believes there is much more to life than just kicking your feet up and cracking jokes.

On the other hand, Jungkook didn’t understand why Y/N was so tense and on guard. To him, life was meant to enjoy and not take so seriously. Which makes sense, given that he grew up with minimal rules and minimal worries (bare minimum partners wassup !) 

“So, do we have a deal? Partners?” There was mischievous timber to his words, the kind that made you feel as if this would all later come back to bite you in the ass.

Pushing that pestering thought away, you took his hand into yours, holding his eyes as you gave it a firm shake.

“Partners.”

God, this bit. I knew from the minute I wrote it that I was writing the ending of bitchin’ along with it. I knew this was exactly how I was going to end this story, bc the word partners has multiple means right? In chapter 1, this meant business partners, but in the final chapter… it means life partners. Idk, I’m just still really happy with this writing decision :D

CHAPTER TWO – THE CONTRACT

Dearest Yara. We meet her in chapter two don’t we? Yara is completely based off of my irl best friend Yara who is a writer and who helped me A LOT with this story. She was my biggest supporter throughout figuring out this crazy plot. It was initially only about seven parts, but with her help I managed to bump it up to 10! Everybody say thank you Yaraaaa.

You were angry, that much was evident to her. Yara was sat in your shared dorm’s living room, a thick blanket engulfing her small frame. You briefly glanced towards the TV, it was tuned into MTV, the familiar music video of Every Breath You Take by The Police playing, before directing your glare back onto the copper-haired girl.

The song reference is a direct allusion to writer Yara’s fic, which is one of my favorite fics by her. She was actively writing it around the start of our friendship so it only felt right to pay respects to her. The introduction of her character felt necessary imo bc I wanted to make sure Y/N had a life outside Jungkook. Plus, I got to use the scenes between the two girls as a way to reference the music and culture scene. Yara is especially a fan of the powerful women in the music industry at the time, i.e., Madonna, Annie Lennox, Cyndi Laupner, etc.) Yara is a raging feminist and believer in sexual freedom and libery for women, we do in fact have to stan.

“How old do you think your sister is?”

“Hey, don’t sass me. For your information, Lyanna still has all her Care Bear tapes. She threw a hissy fit when my mom tried to give them away last Christmas.” Yara recalled.

Lyanna is one of writer Yara’s past pseudonyms. She always used to joke about how whenever she read it, it was confusing because there was Y/N, Yara and Lyanna, which were technically all her lolol.

FUNNY STORY ABOUT THE CONTRACT I INSERTED INTO THIS PICTURE… Twitter found it and made it into somewhat of a meme because no one knew it came from a fic rip. I was actually rly embarrassed and even wrote some posts about how much twitter scared me on my blog LMAO. but THEN weirdly enough, I actually stumbled upon a small community on twitter who actually found my fic and would TWEET ABOUT IT!!! LIKE REACTIONS TO EACH UPDATE!!! I wish I could go back in time and remember how giddy I was the first time I found a tweet about my fic. The fanfic community on twitter gave me a new love for the site (which I had previously had removed myself from because of its toxicity) and I have met so many wonderful people because of it. People even made themselves a little twitter group chat to talk about my fics, and now we are all friends! I miss posting a chapter of bitchin’ and refreshing my twitter feed as all my mutuals would post memes and live tweet their reactions. God that made me so fucking happy.

CHAPTER THREE – THE ROLLERSKATING DATE

I love the bickering in this chapter, because unlike the bickering in the first chapter, it’s actually less hostile and more playful. Y/N is slowly letting her guard down to the very persistently charming Jungkook.

“Woah. Family of six, huh? So you have siblings then.” He noted.

“Yep. Three.”

“Tell me about them.”

Looking up from where you were slipping on your second skate, you met Jungkook’s eyes, surprised to see genuine interest in them.

I actually originally had Y/N brush him off here. I was going to wait until the drunk party scene for Y/N to open up about her family and relationship with her sisters. But then I kind of thought to myself… Why? Y/N made peace with it and doesn’t hold onto those insecurities anymore. And objectively, Jungkook hasn’t proven himself to be a bad person so… I let Y/N open herself up to him.

“Then there’s the twins, Rosa and Lia.”

“Hold on. Twins? Wait… did they go to our high school?” Jungkook asked, his interest in this conversation doubled.

“Yep. They were two grades above us.” You confirmed.

“Oh shit, yeah, I remember your sisters, they were mad hot.” Jungkook let out a low whistle, before stiffening, flashing you an apologetic look. “Uh, in a totally non-meathead way.”

You offered the scared-looking boy a small smile, shaking your head.

Some of y’all notice but, Rosa and Lia are a blatant homage to my name: Roselia. ACTUALLY some form of my name can be found in every one of the rewind series fics, including upcoming ones. I’ll give a cookie to whoever can find every single mention hehe.

“I told you it was dumb.” You laughed nervously.

It wasn’t that you cared much about what Jungkook thought but you had a feeling a guy like him, who was popular and carefree, wouldn’t be able to sympathize in the way you would like him to.

“No, I’m just… surprised, that’s all.”

Jungkook certainly was surprised. You had built up quite the impression on him from the very moment you two met. It was hard to imagine that the girl who was so unapologetically herself was ever unsure or insecure.

Somehow, the idea tugged at his heart, as if he understood you more if only just a little.

From the get go, Jungkook was extremely drawn to just how confident and secure Y/N was in herself. I knew I wanted Y/N to be unapologetically sure of herself and in her abilities. Something I didn’t want, however, was for frat boy!jungkook’s only personality traits to be liking sex and being a cocky bastard (although I am a big consumer of that trope heh). Jungkook is actually canonly incredibly insecure. He lacks a real sense of self, which is why he is so desperate for Kiri back. His relationship with Kiri at that time was a big part of what he thought was himself. He has somewhat of low self esteem tbh which is why he’ll go back to a woman who treated him unfairly. That’s why he comes off the way he does in the first chapter and why Y/N thinks he has a big ego... he’s overcompensating. He finds it so endlessly fascinating that Y/N, in all her confident glory, was actually once super insecure. He admires her all the more once she opens up about her past.

“Oh, Rosa is an intern for our hometown’s newspaper but between you and me those assholes don’t even let her write. She does coffee and burger runs for men in charge. And Lia sells ice cream at the mall.”

“What about your brother?” Jungkook asked.

“He’s training to be a cop just like my dad.”

“And your mom?”

“She works at a convenience store.”

All their careers resemble people in the latest Stranger Things season (Nancy, Steve, Hopper, and Joyce). Fun Cameo there.

“What’s wrong?” You wondered, following his eyes.

“October 16th, 1985. 6:48PM.”

“Yes. That’s today’s date and time. What about it?” You pressed, growing confused.

“Remember it.” He warned.

“Why?”

“It’s when I fell in love with you.”

This iconic line I actually got from the real Jeon Jungkook himself. While Jungkook wasn’t actually in love with Y/N here, it certainly was a cute way for him to express his admiration for her.

OH HERE’S A FUN FACT: the hickey scene at the end of this chapter where JK and Y/N kiss for the first time was actually supposed to be Yara giving Y/N the hickey like the best friend she is. Ultimately I went with JK giving it for... smut purposes... ≖‿≖ 

CHAPTER FOUR – THE HALLOWEEN PARTY

The decision for Y/N to be Freddie Krueger came from me planning to be him for Halloween. And I was! JK as Glen Lantz just followed naturally. I’ve seen some great edits of him as the character. Truly chef’s kiss.

I really liked that Jungkook came over to the girl’s dorm to get ready. I didn’t want a scene where Y/N was thrown into a situation she was uncomfortable with which is how much Nerd At A Party Scene go so made sure Jungkook stayed by her side throughout the part, going out of his way to introducing her to the people he cared about.

Tae’s character came in when I realized I needed a way to actually put Y/N’s event in motion. He was the missing link and BOY did you guys eat his character right up huh. Love that for me.

Another thing, the confrontation with Kiri was so hard to write guys, I reeaaaally struggle with girl conflict. GIRLS SHOULD SUPPORT GIRLS. However, not everyone gets along in real life so I went with Kiri being more along the lines of petty rather than outwardly a cunt to Y/N. Realistically, Kiri is popular and well liked among the greek life so being unkind to someone she hardly knows wouldn’t make sense. There’s definitely tension between these two but I tried my best to steer away from the typical cat fight/revenge porn/public humiliation trope most movies seem to follow.

CHAPTER FIVE – THE FIRST TIME

Introduction to Erik!!!! It was really important to me that Y/N had a life before Jungkook. That's why I wrote in Y/N having a fiancé. She’s not opposed to love, she just has reshifted her focus. She knows what she wants and is choosing to focus on that, which why when she realizes she’s falling for Kookie she’s so hesitant to admit it because she’s fallen down that road before. Even though Jungkook treats her with respect and acknowledges the parts of her she’s most proud of, she just isn’t willing to possibly give up her passions for love. Which is why she doesn’t immediately confess to him, even once she’s sure she loves him.

“I’m serious, nerd. You’re like… um… the sun!” Jungkook marveled, eyes growing full as the realization dawned on him.

“The sun?” You laughed.

“Yeah, like… you’re this bright, beautiful thing that seems like it’s here in front of me but is really light-years away.”

Jungkook was drunk, and although you were sure he was making more sense in his head, you couldn’t help but feel your face grow hot, unsure of how to react to his drunk analogy.

“You’re the sun, Y/N. You make the world turn for you. Never orbit for anyone else.”

And suddenly, you were kissing him, for no other reason other than you wanted to and that it felt like the right thing to do.

No real commentary here. Just love this bit. It’s probably my favorite interaction between them two ‧⁺◟( ᵒ̴̶̷̥́ ·̫ ᵒ̴̶̷̣̥̀ ) 

“Also… She’s, uh, currently dating Eunwoo.” You told Yara.

Your best friend blinked, silence falling over her.

“Yara?”

“Good for her.” She perked up almost forcibly. “Let her put up with his annoying ass.”

Yara could see the way your expression had turned dubious as if you didn’t believe her nonchalant act.

Yara turned up her nose defensively, “What?”

Ugh yes, some character development from Yara.... the flavor ! Yara (much like Y/N and JK) also struggles with love. She has a real fear of commitment and if far more comfortable with casual sex than relationships. She did develop actual feelings for Eunwoo, she just wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment so she cut him off. Fleed the scene if you will. Typical gemini smh my head.

"I don’t think the contract mentioned orgasms.” Jungkook smirked as you released his thumb.

“I say we let it slide.” You shrugged, leaning into him casually.

“You think?”

“Totally. Think of it as… a bonding activity.” You joked, resting your chin on his shoulder, peering up through your lashes.

“Damn, we’re really committed to this fake dating thing, huh.”

You laughed in the way that you hated, but Jungkook loved; it was loud and abrupt, but it genuine, and it was you.

“What can I say, I’m a method actor.” You sighed dramatically, causing Jungkook to grin before pressing a kiss to your nose, simply because he liked the way it always seemed to make you smile.

GOD THEY’RE SO WHIPPED FOR EACH OTHER ITS DISGUSTING!!!!!! I’m really happy I decided not to make sleeping together a big deal and I got a lot of feedback from you guys agreeing! I had a lot of fun with these two’s sex scenes knowing they could do it whenever they wanted.

CHAPTER SIX – THE STEM EVENT

I started the scene with smut BUT I wanted to point out that much of their time spent together is at Y/N dorm, Jungkook either napping, hanging out or doing work as Y/N would study like she always did. I liked the idea that Jungkook would get bored and would want attention from Y/N because she was so focused. Idk, I just wanted to write a love story about two people spending time together and figuring out how they fit in each other’s lives as opposed to some dramatic I mEeT HiM aNd mY LiFe bEcAmE cRaZy. There’s nothing wrong with that plot line, I just didn’t want that for these two dorks. I wanted Y/N to interact with JK’s scene and crowd but not give up her own which is why most days JK and her just lounged around in her dorm studying.

Also, I don’t know how the teacher/student roleplay made it into the smut, it just did, no further questions (ʃ⌣́_⌣́ƪ).

Then the event scene.

“You’re whipped, dude! Seriously.”

Jungkook felt his face go red, “Shut up, no, I’m not.”

“Hey, I’m not judging. I get it. That’s your girl.” Taehyung shrugged. Jungkook placed a hand on the fold up table in front of him, staring down at the information pamphlet you had worked so hard on.

“She’s just… so fucking driven and passionate about everything she does. Sometimes I look at her, and I’m just like… holy shit, what am I doing with a girl like her? I feel like she’s totally out of my league and being with me is holding her back but— I dunno, man. I just… really like her.” Jungkook revealed, voice growing small.

An unexpected wave of tenderness fell over the two boys, Taehyung throwing an arm over his little brother’s shoulder.

“I’m happy for you, bro.”

Jungkook didn’t know it just yet but dude was talking from the heart and, is in fact, totally whipped :’c

I loved the confrontation scene between the boys and Eunwoo because the boys standing up for Yara really did make everyone feel like a friend group, not just some character who happen to exist at the same time. It wasn’t just Y/N and Yara and one side and the boys on the other. They would all become friends, which is ideal to me. A boyfriend who likes your best friend and considers her a friend so you can all hang out??? Yes please.

Initially, irl Yara and I had noooo clue if Yara would end up with Eunwoo or not. That was actually the original goal actually. But after this chapter four, you guys made it ABUNDANTLY clear that you guys wanted to see Taeyara, despite the two never even meeting! Honestly, it wasn’t until this chapter was written that we decided for sure that Eunwoo was out of the picture for Yara. Part of me really wanted to keep Yara single, but irl Yara insisted on dick and frankly, she’s right. Bitchin’ Yara deserved a shot at love. She definitely has her own story outside of Bitchin’ and will experience a lot of growth in the future.

“God, I know. I do not miss that temper of his.” She chuckled, her words piquing your interest.

“Temper?”

“Oh, yeah. Have you seriously not experienced it yet? He’s got some gnarly anger issues. Not to mention all the lying…” Kiri paused suddenly, straightening up as she flashed you an apologetic look. “Yikes, I’m sorry. I totally should not be telling you this. I’m not trying to be that gross girl that shit talks her ex to his current girlfriend.”

Miss Kiri, Miss Kiri. She really acted up this chapter didn’t she. There was a lot of discussion about whether or not those things she said about Jungkook were true. Which was exactly what I wanted hehe. We come to find out that Kiri had definitely stretched the truth. She really is good at manipulation and understanding how people think and it’s why she is in the role that she is in. Messy queen.

CHAPTER SEVEN – THE ROOFTOP DATE

This entire chapter was inspired by High School Musical with Troy and Gabriella’s rooftop garden scenes. This was my shortest chapter and honestly, probably not my strongest. I definitely went into writing this with zero concept of what I actually wanted to happen. Usually when I write my chapters I have a 4k long outline of it beforehand that I go off of. Not this one though. I really just winged it and I tried my best to write a chapter that really showed off (dialogue wise) just how this couple bounces off each other. I do really like some of the banter they have in this chapter.

You had taken note a little wooden popsicle stick poking up from the soil of the yellow flowers. Acacias, they were marked. Pulling your knees up to your chest, you considered his words.

Yellow acacias stands the value of true friendship and can indicate a secret love! I thought that was very appropriate given these dummies' relationship.

“So, you probably know why I brought you here.”

You nodded.

“You’re proposing, right?”

“Yeah, I– oh, shut up.” He laughed, the serious mood shattering as you joined him.

Even though I knew they were going to have a semi serious talk, what with Y/N asking about what Kiri had told her, these two dufuses realistically are just too comfortable with each other to stay serious for too long.

“Hey, I said that out of frustration, I didn’t really mean it. I’m sure she’ll come crawling back soon.” You attempted to comfort him, hoping to sound sincere.

“Even if that’s true, I’m not entirely sure I want that anymore.”

“What?” You blinked. Jungkook shrugged.

“What about us?” He met your eyes, causing your breath to hitch.

“What about us?”

Jungkook stared at you for a moment, noting the way the timber in your voice had become higher pitched as if panicked.

MORE FUN FACTS LMFAO: I typically do this thing with unplanned chapters where I just go for it and write and usually it works out. But when I wrote this down I remember stopping and being like ??? WHY DID I JUST WRITE THAT ??? I don’t like deleting my writing so I had a serious think to myself about whether this was going to be the moment Jungkook confessed or not.

Canonly, I decided that Jungkook did in fact mean ‘us’ in a romantic sense, but because of the way you perceivably panicked at that possible meaning, he decided against taking the conversation in that direction, instead speaking about ‘us’ in a platonic sense. Poor kookie :(

“Stop. Listen to me, Jungkook, you’re a fucking great guy, okay? You’re charismatic and funny and care about your friends… sure, you almost ruined my event, but it was mostly to defend my best friend when Eunwoo got too pushy, right? You’re a good guy, meathead. I know I joke about your ego, but I really believe you’re capable of more than you think you are. Seriously, Kiri is so lucky to be the object of your affection.”

Jungkook watched the way the sun’s orange light kissed your face, a bittersweet feeling growing in his chest as he contemplated the object of his affection. Just a couple of months ago, he would have had no doubt about who held his heart, but as you held his stare, he found himself unsure and yet, entirely sure all the same.

“Jungkook? You okay?” You frowned, catching in the sadness in his eyes.

“Hm? Yeah, yeah. I just… realized something.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“…It doesn’t matter.” He smiled, the gesture hardly reaching his eyes.

It’s in this moment that Jungkook decides that there is no way you hold the same affection towards him that he does to you. He mistakes your words of comfort as you pushing him away. You are so kind and encouraging and Jungkook loves you so much that hearing you insist about him ending back up with Kiri hurts him so bad.

But you are still unsure about your feelings and genuinely believe that's still what Jungkook wants. You’re just being a supportive friend!! :( It isn’t until the end of this chapter when Y/N has her talk with Yara that she realizes, oh man, she’s in deep.

CHAPTER EIGHT – THE MISTAKE

BLAH. This chapter is so BLAH, you know? Having to write this chapter was SO HARD. I texted irl Yara complaining about how much I hated having to put my characters through this and that I wanted to just end the story on chapter 7 and keep them happy forever. BUT ALAS! I had planned for this to happen from the start.

You tasted like the mint of your favorite brand of toothpaste. He imagined if he had caught you any later then the mint would have been accompanied by the taste of coffee, knowing the way you rarely started a day without a cup.

God, he had missed the taste of you.

What you guys didn’t see is Jungkook spending the night with Kiri, and immediately kicking her out, freaking out as the weight of guilt washed over him. He knew he had done nothing wrong, that you weren’t his real girlfriend, and that getting back together with Kiri was exactly what he had signed up for. It was what he should’ve wanted. But it wasn't… because you were what he wanted. And that was exactly what he was going to tell you as he marched over to your apartment.

But he panicked. His mind already decided that your answer to him would be no– that you didn’t feel the same. So he kissed you. He had you in the only way he was allowed to. He was selfish and impulsive and so incredibly scared that he ended up hurting the person he loved the most.

Initially though, I had Jungkook get back together with Kiri, not that he slept with her right before sleeping with Y/N. But I decided TEEHEE let me just make everything erupt into flames. However, I didn’t realize just how angry with Jungkook you guys would get. I remember thinking DAMMIT WAS THAT TOO SCANDALOUS?? I knew I was going to have to work hard for Jungkook to redeem himself to my readers.

“She wants to get back together.” Jungkook swallowed dryly, eyes wavering between yours as if to gauge your reaction.

“…Oh.”

You shook your head.

“I mean, wow! That’s… That’s great!” You smiled, something tearing apart inside you as the words left your lips.

“Y/N–”

“Seriously! This means it worked, right? This is exactly what you wanted to happen.” You enthused, turning your head so that he couldn’t see the way your eyes had welled up.

Jungkook’s heart was pounding in his ears, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around you.

“Yeah… yeah, no, you’re right. We did it.” He replied monotonously.

GOD THIS PART IS SO UNBELIEVABLY FRUSTRATING! JUST ADMIT YOU LOVE EACH OTHER YOU MORONS! This entire situation is so convoluted because there's so much information missing and not being expressed, I seriously want to ring my own neck rereading this bit.

“Are you mad?” He called out cautiously, a heavy feeling falling onto his chest.

“Why would I be mad?” You quipped back sharply, causing Jungkook to flinch. He shifted in his seat uncomfortably.

“I just thought… I mean we’ve been fooling around a lot lately, so I didn’t know if—”

“If what? I had feelings for you?” You scoffed. “Please, as if I’d ever fall for you.”

And there it was— everything Jungkook already knew but had been so afraid to hear. Of course, you didn’t feel for him what he felt for you. How could he have expected anything different?

IDIOTS!!! THEY'RE BOTH IDIOTS!!! I don't know how y'all put up with this for so long. Forgive me.

CHAPTER NINE – THE BREAK

Okay I actually love this chapter. And for many reasons. Let me break down the three scenes for you guys.

Scene one: Kiri confrontation

Kiri is definitely an opposing antagonist. She is constantly working against Y/N because of their interests directly conflicting. BUT. I would argue that the biggest antagonist to this story is the inner ones – Y/N and Jungkook's lack of ability to admit their feelings constantly holding them both back from their happy ending. That being said, a confrontation scene between Y/N and Kiri was MUCH needed. While I suppose I can understand why Kiri doesn't like Y/N, that doesn't change the fact that she has been disrespectful and catty. So miss Y/N had to put Miss Kiri in her place (•̀ᴗ•́)

Scene two: Yara and Tae at the library

Fanservice. That is all. LMFAOOO y'all reallllyyy wanted it to happen and who am I to deny my people what they want. It was really fun getting to explore my side characters and develop them through interactions outside the two main characters. IRL Yara also mentioned giving bitchin’ Yara and Tae their own chapter as a joke and I was like LOL BET. I fully was going to but then I got the idea for the next scene and was like ahh ok maybe not the whole chapter.

Scene three: Meeting with Erik

So. This was a SUPER last minute decision. Like, it wasn’t until I was writing this chapter that I planned on Erik making an appearance. I saw a tweet with someone saying their bitchin theories and they mentioned Erik appearing out of nowhere and I was like,,, HOLD ON!!!! That could be kind of spicy ≖‿≖ 

I knew for a fact JK was NOT going to be forgiven in this chapter; I needed a way to lay the situation out between the two dorks without trying to seem like I was trying to sway my audience in a way that didn't make sense to the story. Y/N was rightfully angry. But she wasn't only angry about the timing of the sex. She was angry that Jungkook went back to Kiri at all and there was no way she was going to admit that. So who better to lay it all out than calculated, unbiased third party Erik. He deserved some character development after all.

I also liked the idea that Y/N had, in theory, “romantic options.” Losing Jungkook didn’t mean the end of her life. Having my female lead stand on her own was very important to me.

CHAPTER TEN – THE END

RIGHT OF THE BAT I needed Jungkook to suffer. So that whole scene where he tries to interact with his old group only for his presence to make everything awkward MMMM yes, sweet revenge on my part.

You were surprised. His hair was no longer shaggy and long like you remembered it. Instead, it had been freshly cut, looking healthy and neatly styled for the first time since you met Jungkook.

THE WAY SO MANY PEOPLE COMMENTED ON THIS LINE “but Y/N liked it long?!?”  IS SO FUNNNYyyyy. So let me clarify a thing. Jungkook had always wanted to cut his hair right. The only reason he didn’t was because Y/N told him not to. With Y/N no longer in the picture to convince him out of it, he cut his hair. That’s really all there is to it skfjsjf.

You know, I had written this part around the time I had just finished up the third ch believe it or not. And it was COMPLETELY different. I had it planned that Yara and Y/N ignored him throughout class and Yara had gone back after the bell rang to go verbally assault JK. And as the two hashed it out, only then was that when Jungkook would realize that he liked Y/N after Yara literally spelled it out for him.

“You like her, dumbass!” Was what I had written Yara saying. I really had written him in denial for ten chapters, I was a whole sociopath (╥﹏╥). But ultimately, I decided that Jungkook came to that conclusion on his own and the decision to apologize to Y/N would have been made over winter break.

“You said Kiri came over asking for you back, yet you still came over and slept with me the next day. Even though the two of you had sex the night before. Do you understand how that makes me feel?”

“I’m—”

“Like garbage!" You emphasized, the white paint of the door somehow irritating you further. "I felt like I was something you threw away and picked back up whenever you felt like getting your dick wet.”

Your chest was rising and falling rapidly, and you tried your hardest to not let your emotions get the best of you.

“Not to mention to everyone else, it looks like you cheated on me. Which makes me look like a fucking idiot." You scoffed.

Jungkook said nothing in reply, which somehow made it easier to say all you should have said that day in your room.

“It just sucks to realize that someone you once cared about sees you as nothing more than a toy. It fucking sucks.”

Man :( writing this hurt my heart. I really, really, love bitchin!y/n and writing her hurting freaking stinks. But she had to speak her mind. She deserves the chance to get everything off her chest with the way Jungkook hurt her.

Your heart and mind were in constant paradox, torn between wanting him back and wanting him to know just how much he had hurt you. Your mind ultimately won the battle, of course, but as Jungkook stood just a few inches of drywood apart pouring his heart out, it was hard to say which major organ was responsible for your next words.

The creak of the door being pushed open sent Jungkook's eyes wide, revealing your hesitant form. You had your arms crossed over your chest as if to guard the contents inside of it.

You looked like an angel underneath the bathroom's blue fluorescent lights, beautiful and lovely, a stark contrast from your next crushing sentence.

“I slept with Erik.”

Hehe. Ofc my girl Y/N had to have a rebound!!! She knows that life goes on. However, as I wrote in, she definitely regretted it. It was kind of the same situation that Jungkook was in where he pursued something just because it was familiar and a distraction and not because he really wanted it. Both Y/N and Jungkook are flawed characters but that’s okay! If anything, Y/N’s mistake of sleeping with Erik is what allows her to forgive Jungkook. Knowing first hand how complicated their entire relationship really was.

“I don’t need you… but I don’t think I want a life without you.” You finished shyly.

Your eyes were locked with his when suddenly a small noise escaped him, eyes pulling away from yours as his head moved to attempt to hide the way his eyes had grown wet.

I got this line from one of my best friends after her ex broke up with her. It made me physically sad and really sympathize with her so I quickly wrote it down into my notes app to save for later LMAOOOO. Knowing that you are your own person and life will inevitably go on after losing someone, but that your heart still wants and is pleading for the one person you can’t have. SO SAD. I’m happy I got to use this line in one of my fics.

The note Jungkook wrote Y/N,,, imagine him not being able to sleep one night over winter break so he just writes down everything he should have told Y/N while he still had the chance…. I’ll for real cry dude, he’s so cute. Also, the line about him buying you fluffy Halloween socks for Christmas went over people’s heads I think but HECK I THOUGHT THAT WAS SO FUNNY AND SWEET (because Y/N bought Christmas socks when it was Halloween teehee).

"Are you two dorks done crying?" Yara’s voice rang out suddenly, causing both of you to jump apart.

"Yara, you creep! Privacy, dude! Ever try knocking?" You sniffed, wiping at your face hurriedly.

"What? Like you were peeing with Jungkook in the bathroom? Please." She waved you off, walking back into the living room to give you two some privacy. She did say Jungkook had 15 minutes before she’d have to come back in after all. "Anyway, Tae will be over in 10 minutes for the Saved By The Bell marathon that’s on so you guys are more than welcomed to join." She called out from her newly seated position on the couch.

I included this scene with Yara because things were getting too serious for my liking ngl. Plus the idea that the four of them would all come together at the end for a much needed reunion made my happy bitchin heart soar.

Jungkook let out a laugh, his palm finding your cheek, eyes locked on your lips. You were preening for his kiss, mouth parting slightly as you anticipated it.

“Partners?”

The question took you by surprise, eyes widening at your not so pretend lover.

Idiot.

“Partners.” You smiled softly, eyes shiny and brimming with tears as he kissed you for what must have been the millionth time, but still somehow felt like the first.

UGH I LOVE THEM I REALLY DO. I was so happy with how this final scene came out :( They’re partners, they really are I miss these boneheads.

AND NOW, I PRESENT THE CANON FUTURE OF THE BITCHIN UNIVERSE...

10 YEARS LATER

Let’s be honest, Jungkook popped the question the day of graduation, he can’t imagine a life in which you wouldn’t be beside him

You said yes (shocker)

Cue Jungkook being the most wonderful partner and respecting your wish to finish your residency program before having the wedding

You absolutely kick ass at being a neonatal surgeon

Also, Jungkook started a film company! It’s small but he loves what he does and works with colleges and helps out the film majors with resources and equipment <3

SO IT'S THE DAY OF YOUR WEDDING RIGHT

Yara and your sisters are helping you get ready, with your best friend as the ever so reassuring maid of honor

And by that I mean you’re as calm as a cucumber and Yara is one wrong move away from having a stroke

“Y/N… Don’t freak out....The catering company put in two orders of shrimp instead of chicken and steak.”

“Yara, it’s okay.”

“NO ITS NOT???? THIS IS YOUR WEDDING DAY AND YOU’RE GETTING CRUSTACEANS.”

Y/N making Yara take a seat and practice some breathing exercises so she doesn’t upset the baby

Oh yeah, Yara is 10 weeks pregnant

Taehyung is the dad lol

Yara and Taehyung have been together ever since that day at the library hehe <3

They moved in together and adopted a cat and everything (sweet boy Tae wanted a dog but Yara’s afraid of dogs and Tae would do anything for that woman so Yeontan the cat it is)

Yara refuses to put a label on their relationship even after all this time, and Tae doesn’t ask for one. They’re happy and dedicated to each other and don’t feel the need to put pressure on something that’s already so perfect

Yara is actually violently in love with Tae but still scoffs when Y/N tries to bring it up

“Oh my god, you’re so in love with him”

“Huh??? you must be sick or something. Get well soon, damn :/”

Yara likes to come up with different labels for Taehyung every time she has to introduce him. Among her favorites are roommate, rent sharer, baby daddy and penis lender

Speaking of Taehyung, he’d have a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder as he tries to calm down the panicking groom to be

“JK, breathe.”

“What if she doesn’t show up? What if she doesn’t want to marry me? What if I pressured her into this and— and I’ve freaked her out and now she hates me?”

“Dude, you guys have been engaged for eight years. She’s had her opportunity to run. She’ll show up.”

Taehyung scruffing up the younger man’s hair reassuringly, which only flusters him more because DAMMIT he wants to look perfect for you and now his hair is messed up >:(

(You like him no matter what his hair looks like though)

Jungkook literally swallowing down a sob as you walk down the aisle and he lays his eyes on you for the first time

You having a dumb smile on your face the entire walk over because your husband to be is crying and you haven’t even exchanged vows yet

The entire audience going all sobby when you finally do exchange vows because they’re so beautiful and real

The ten years together has not been easy— from financial struggles as you tried to support yourself through med school, to personal conflicts when Jungkook wanted to start a family already

But you guys figured it out

You always do

He’s your person. And you are his.

Y/N’s sisters Rosa and Lia are a WRECK— even your dad is tearing up

Your family loves Jungkook and have been counting down the days until you guys married, let’s be honest

“You may now kiss the bride.”

Jungkook punching the air with a “FINALLY!” before kissing the hell out of you

The cutting of the cake inevitably turning into a food fight

The shrimp entrees turning out to be pretty damn good

Yara catching the bouquet and wagging her brows at Taehyung suggestively

Jungkook pulling you aside to take photos of you outside the venue because you look so so pretty and he loves the way you smile when he’s the one behind the camera

The party is in full session, your siblings tearing up the dance floor like the extroverts they are

You and Jungkook are sat at the head of the room, hands intertwined underneath the table as you watch a tired and painfully sober Yara swing her bare feet onto Taehyung’s lap, requesting a foot rub

Watching your pregnant best friend and her lover together, you turned towards your own, smile impossibly wide

“What?”

“Let’s have a baby.” You’d grin, so stupid happy

Jungkook’s eyes going round and immediately jumping up from his seat because god that’s all he’s ever wanted

Being tugged out the room by a giddy Jungkook, one of your heels flinging off somewhere behind you.

“What’s happening? Where are we going?!”

The two of you find yourself in a storage room somewhere on the hotel floor

“Jeon Jungkook, what the hell—“

His mouth find yourself, kissing you in a way that couldn’t at the altar

You kissed him back without questions, arms wrapping around the man you now called your husband

“I love you.” He’d sigh into your neck, his hot breath causing you to shiver

“I love you too.”

“Let’s make a baby.”

“Yeah let’s— wait, right here? Right now?!”

Jungkook merely nodding as his mouth found the exposed skin of your chest

“Meathead, we can’t just ditch our wedding to have sex!”

“Why not? We did our marital duties. Now it’s our guests' job to get embarrassingly drunk and make a fool of themselves on the dance floor. No one will even miss us.”

“Isn’t baby making what our honeymoon is for?”

“Screw that. I’ve done my waiting. Let’s start our family, nerd.”

Jungkook kissing your protests silent before you inevitably give in and let him take you right there and then, your wedding dress hung around your hips

Husband and wife coming together with shaky breaths and hushed moans as they promise the rest of their lives to each other, making every argument, struggle or moment of uncertainty leading up to now totally worth it

Walk of shame back into the party with nervous hair fixing from you and a proud grin from Jungkook

Yara figuring out exactly why you two had sneaked off to, flashing the newly weds a knowing smirk

The night of your wedding, Jungkook surprises you with a present

You unwrap it in confusion, only to see that it’s a glass frame and inside of it is the wrinkled and worn out lined paper the two of you had scribbled on many many years ago

Jungkook hangs up the contract right above your bed as per your request, smiling as he does and jumping on him the moment he puts down the hammer bc dammit it you’re too heckin excited to make love with your sentimental loser of a husband

And yes, by the next month, you are pregnant and incredibly happy

And of course, your daughter and Yara’s son grow up to be best friends, not a family holiday passing by where they aren’t told the story of the totally bitchin’ way both set of their parents got together

[exmortia]

Shadowgast soulmate ficlet: Found Familiars

Essek/Caleb soulmate AU where a wizard’s familiar manifests from a fragment of their soul, but if they have a soulmate, the familiar comes from their soulmate’s soul instead. Regular D&D familiar mechanics don’t apply here except for pocket dimension poofing and un-poofing. Rated T for someone almost dying.

Like every student at the Soltryce Academy, the time finally comes when Bren learns how to summon a familiar.

It’s a week-long elective course he wasn’t planning on taking yet, preferring to focus his current semester on the fundamentals of magic, but Eadwulf is the first of their friend group to enroll, and he walks into the dorms next week with a raven perched on his shoulder. It becomes a nearly permanent addition to his friend, large and jet-black, with a deceptively strong beak and eyes filled with confidence and intelligence. Eadwulf spends the next few days answering the same standard question from their peers and teachers - “no, it’s mine.”

Astrid borrows Eadwulf’s notes on the spell and summons her own familiar not long after, a razor-eyed falcon that never stops scanning their surroundings and quietly observing anyone within range. Bren is only a little disappointed when she says “it’s mine, I can tell.” He knows, like everyone else, that soulmates are rare.

Soon it’s his turn, and his friends are making good-natured jokes about what form his familiar will take. They’re hoping for another bird just for the irony of it. “Maybe an owl,” Astrid says with a smile. They make bets. Eadwulf puts ten silver on a songbird, and Astrid puts twenty on a bird of prey.

Bren performs the ritual that night in the privacy of his room. As the incense drifts into the air, he secretly hopes for a feline companion, like the one he knew in childhood. Something soft and warm, curled up in his lap and welcoming him back to his room after a long day of classes. He keeps his eyes closed until the spell completes. 

When he looks down, there’s an unexpected shape on his desk, like a scarf dropped lengthwise into a pile. Then it begins to move, glinting with iridescent color in the candlelight as its body slides and shifts on itself, and then he recognizes the creature when a rounded head emerges, tongue flicking out to taste the air in his direction. 

“A snake?” he whispers to himself, confused and disappointed. Where he’d hoped for fur (or even feathers in retrospect), he sees shiny black scales like an inkspill across his desk where the light doesn’t hit. There are no emotions in its tapered face and round, lidless eyes. When the initial shock wears off, he takes a moment to focus and reach for his connection with it, hoping that what he finds is a reflection of himself, just like what his friends have, but what greets him is a feeling so new and foreign that he can’t lie to himself anymore.

Bren dismisses the familiar in a moment of panicked shame. He spends the night agonizing over what he’ll say to his friends and what their reactions will be. “It’s not mine,” he whispers to himself, dreading the moment when he’ll say it to them in person tomorrow. “I don’t know whose it is, but it isn’t mine.”

“You have a soulmate,” Astrid will say with a small, tight smile, the words neutral on the surface, but there’s a guarded expression in her eyes. Bren can only nod in reply, feeling like he’s wronged her somehow, as Eadwulf inspects the coiled snake presented to them in Bren’s outstretched hands.

“I’m sure it will come in handy,” he declares, trying to soothe Bren’s worries the only way he knows how. Astrid agrees, and the tension passes as they walk to their first class of the day. Bren considers dismissing his familiar again, but then he looks longingly at the companions perched on his friends and carefully tucks the serpent into the neck of his shirt beneath his robe. Its cool weight settles across his shoulders, the movement a slow, shifting pressure that feels good in the summer heat and even better when he’s working through a difficult assignment later.

Bren doesn’t find out until a few weeks later that his familiar is dangerous. An altercation with another classmate leads to him being shoved against a wall, the other boy’s grip twisted into the front of his robe with one hand while the other pulls back for a swing at Bren’s face, and suddenly there’s a blur of motion and the boy is stumbling back with a pair of tiny red dots on his chin. He almost dies right there on the floor, lips blue and foaming at the mouth, before one of the professors is drawn to the shouting of gathered students. Bren is instructed, under threat of expulsion, to keep his familiar dismissed while in the presence of others.

Ten years ago and hundreds of miles away, Essek Thelyss stands in his laboratory, blinking incredulously at the small, furry creature that has manifested in front of him. The trouble with being a wizard of a long-lived race who can’t summon a familiar is that you don’t know whether your soulmate has already died or just hasn’t been born yet. Essek didn’t think he needed a familiar, particularly, but he’d gotten into the habit of trying the spell once every few years when he remembered, partly because it stung to be an accomplished wizard who couldn’t summon one, and also because he secretly hoped that his soulmate, the one chosen for him by The Weave itself, had not already departed this world.

He’d lost count of the attempts, but it was somewhere between twenty and twenty-three when the spell finally worked, much to his surprise. His new familiar, with its striped orange fur and long tail curled neatly around its legs, sat on his ritual table and looked back at him with eyes that glinted in the low, ambient light. ‘My soulmate is alive out there,’ Essek thought with a relief he would never admit to, reaching out to stroke the cat’s soft fur as it stretched and began exploring the table, then his workbench, and then anywhere it could possibly get into.

In his youth, Essek had hoped for a more suitable familiar - something that could blend in, yet contribute to his image as a formidable spellcaster, like a snake or a spider, but he’d grown accustomed to not having one. His new feline companion becomes a sort of household pet. It’s not physically affectionate beyond the occasional rub against his legs. Mostly, it prefers to sit elsewhere in the room and watch him work from a distance. When he trances, it patrolls the halls and kills any small, unfortunate animal that dares enter his home. He wonders about the sort of person his soulmate might be, to have their soul reflected in this mindful, intelligent, and often ruthless creature.

One night, a little over ten years after he first summoned his familiar, Essek returns from his work at the Lucid Bastion and begins going about his routine, only to find that his familiar is nowhere to be found. He wonders if something has happened to make it decorporealize, like accidentally toppling a heavy object onto itself (unlikely), or maybe it had gotten outside somehow and didn’t care to return yet (a common recurring event). His familiar had changed over the past few months, becoming even more standoffish and less receptive to physical touch than before, so Essek doesn’t worry about its absence until the following day, when his familiar is still nowhere to be found. Before using his components to repeat the summoning ritual, he decides to make a quick search of his tower, and there, crouched in the furthest corner beneath a display cabinet in an unused room, his familiar stares back at him with wide, unblinking eyes. 

When Essek reaches for his companion, its sudden, piercing, feline scream sends him pitching backwards in shock, until he’s on the floor and his familiar has left behind a series of long scratch marks where it fled. Essek is shaken for the few moments he sits there, confused, and then later, deeply concerned for someone he’s never met before. 

This state of mind becomes normal for Essek over the next eleven years. His familiar is a ghost, hiding and wedging itself under furniture and bursting from its hiding spot in a terrified, screaming bolt of fur and claws when Essek unknowingly gets too close. Sometimes he goes weeks without catching sight of it, but Essek finds himself too sentimental to dismiss his former companion. He fears for the source of his familiar’s soul fragment, whoever this person is, and whatever it was that must have happened to them to cause this.

Hundreds of miles away and a few months later, Bren, now Caleb, accepts a torn-off piece of stolen bread from his new goblin companion, and hundreds of miles away, Essek’s familiar creeps out from beneath the workbench in his lab and slinks out of the room, but not before making brief eye contact with Essek, who stares back in disbelief with a set of alchemical reagents forgotten in his hands. 

A few weeks later, after being roughed up and chased out of town again, Caleb remembers his silent protector from his school days, and Nott watches with fascination as a black snake appears in Caleb’s hands with a snap of his fingers. Nott’s fascination turns to concern as he spends a long moment staring at it, drowning in the memory of those days at the academy before he and his friends caught Trent Ikithon’s eye. Later that evening, Nott asks to hold his familiar, and Caleb worries for a moment, but it allows itself to be handed over, and Nott must constantly adjust her grip as its body moves and slips between her fingers. 

“I think he prefers his master,” she says kindly, and although Caleb hadn’t cared to gender his familiar, the pronoun rings true somehow. Caleb accepts the snake from her and tucks it back into the neck of his coat where its cool, comforting weight helps quiet his intrusive thoughts.

It takes a few more months before Essek can run his fingers through his familiar’s striped fur again. Progress has been slow, but steady, and Essek is relieved not just for his familiar, but for the unnamed soul attached to it. 

Things eventually return to the way they were before, and then continue to change. His familiar becomes his shadow, dutifully following him into every room of his tower. Where before it would perch out of arm’s reach to watch him work, now it walks across the paperwork on his desk and jumps into his lap and demands attention, before it’ll curl up and allow him to keep working. It’s an adjustment compared to what he’s used to, but there’s a weight lifted from his shoulders when he thinks about his soulmate now. At least, most of the time. His familiar refuses to leave his home and still vanishes for hours when he gets visitors, even when they remain on his doorstep and converse with him briefly through the open door.

The day comes when a group of strangers walk into the Lucid Bastion. Even among the chaos that follows, Essek’s attention is drawn, inexplicably, to one of their group - a surprisingly well-spoken human with copper-colored hair and pink, freckled skin, covered in mud and Luxon knows what else. 

Caleb, dressed in nothing but leather straps, had dismissed his snake familiar out of necessity back in Asarius. When the situation in the Bright Queen’s throne room eventually dies down, his attention is drawn to a figure sitting near the dias, imposing in equal measure to the other high-ranking drow around them, but something about this individual catches his attention and keeps it indefinitely. 

Later, when he and the Nein are free to wander Rosohna, Caleb decides not to risk going about with his venomous, spring-coiled companion for now, just in case there’s a misunderstanding with the locals or the guards. 

Essek has his work cut out for him, and these new people don’t stay strangers for long. Despite his frustration at their behavior (often disrespectful and almost always culturally inappropriate), he finds himself responding eagerly to their requests for help when needed. When he sees them, his attention is always drawn first to their wizard, Caleb Widogast, and when he teaches Caleb that first dunamantic spell, it’s a challenge to monitor Caleb’s attention to the correct page of Essek’s spellbook, rather than Caleb himself. Everything about this human man, from the way he murmurs to himself while he works, to how he wrings his hands together during tense conversations, to the purely unexpected talent and raw power in the spells he demonstrates, has captivated Essek over the time he’s spent with these newcomers.

Caleb quietly scolds himself whenever the Shadowhand catches him staring. He’s not accustomed to being around dark elves, and even after the novelty wears off, something about their assigned handler, his new and unexpectedly generous teacher in the dunamantic arts, is drawing his attention and thoughts like an arcane compulsion. Caleb carefully keeps this to himself, not wanting to jeopardize their tenuous position in Roshona or the Shadowhand’s willingness to share his knowledge.

Eventually, as the weeks pass and their relationship with Essek grows out of familiarity and Jester’s brute force method of making friends, the Nein are invited to the Shadowhand’s tower for breakfast and the promise of some collaborative spellwork.

Caleb is regrettably late to the event as he makes a detour to find spell supplies, not wanting to impose on their host any more than necessary. When he arrives, there’s an awkward, semi-private moment where Essek answers the door and greets him. Then he’s led further inside where the others are gathered around a large table, and there’s a weird sort of prickling in the back of his mind as he enters the room. Fjord and Beau are talking and leaning against the table while the others are seated in a small group on the opposite side, except for Jester who is kneeling on the floor and talking to someone or something in a high-pitched voice.

A moment later, Jester makes a sad sound and watches Essek’s familiar slip out from under her hands to go trotting across the floor towards its master, or so she thinks. The cat’s gait breaks into a run, and she gasps as Caleb suddenly falls to his knees, his expression that of a mother who’s been searching all day for their missing child as the cat jumps into his arms. Essek’s familiar must be super friendly with other wizards, she thinks, until she sees the startled look on their host’s face. ‘This is the first time in many years that my familiar has not hidden itself from visitors,’ she remembers him saying as they arrived at the tower, and then he coaxed the cat towards them after she asked if she could pet it, which it accepted with mild, friendly interest. Now Caleb is clutching at its orange striped fur as it rubs against his face over and over again, purring loud enough for everyone to hear, and she’s not sure, but it looks like he might be crying a little.

Caleb carefully stands with the cat cradled in one arm, its outstretched paws making biscuits in the air. He reaches out towards Essek, and there’s a small flash of arcane magic before Caleb’s serpentine familiar appears there, balanced in a tight knot of coils in his upturned hand. Essek stares at it, motionless, until the snake begins to move, its body quickly sliding away from its master and into the space between Essek and Caleb, apparently not caring if it falls before it’s caught. 

Essek reaches out with both hands to meet the snake’s trajectory, and soon the familiar is wrapped around Essek’s forearm, coiled tightly in place like a permanent fixture. Essek lifts his arm and stares into its eyes, carefully running his fingers across the black, iridescent scales with a gentle reverence.

“He’s yours,” Caleb chokes out in joyful tears, knowing but not caring that his friends are watching with a combination of amusement and concerned looks. “I always wondered, but I never dared hope . . .” Caleb clears his throat as Essek stares at him, the drow’s expression hard to read. “He, uh, likes to be up high, around your neck, where he can, um . . . he’s v-venomous by the way. I had to learn that. From experience. But he is a good snake, a very good snake,” Caleb insists as more tears threaten to wet his face. In Caleb’s arms, his new familiar trills and then purrs louder, satisfied, when he bends down to nuzzle his face into its wonderful, beautiful orange fur.

Essek makes a quick decision not to ask about what happened to his feline familiar over that eleven-year period. Maybe later when they’re comfortable and alone. For now, he admires his snake companion, the subtle magical thread of connection between master and familiar already transitioned, painlessly, from old to new. He feels whole and complete, and not just from finding his true familiar. Essek’s affection is quiet and immeasurable as he meets Caleb’s overjoyed grin with his own soft smile.

“Thank you for this,” is all Essek can say without his voice breaking. Later, after Caleb’s friends have staged a friendly interrogation about what happened and what it means for two wizards to exchange familiars (and after he’s taken Caleb’s advice and tucked his new companion into the neck of his robe where it fits perfectly), he’ll take Caleb upstairs, his former familiar dutifully following its new master, and spend a few hours alone with his soulmate. At the end of trading stories about their lives and hardships and hopes for the future, he’ll hold the human’s face in his hands and take the first step towards sealing their bond with a kiss.

[cardentist]

I know this is Beyond late to the party, it’s been years since I first started simmering on it, but I was reminded of it a bit ago and I think it’s gonna chew a hole in my brain if I don’t find a way to do something with it

the broadway version of be more chill is an adaptation of an adaptation, the rework of the script and the music and the differences in performance choice gives it a Very different tone despite largely being the same story on paper. and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing ! I’d say it’s mostly a give and take, with some things working better and some things working worse between versions and your mileage with both mostly being down to taste.

I loved the passion that clearly went into it, I was interested in the new way the dynamics played off of each other, and I was drawn into the new additions to the score and how it explored and expanded upon a different side of jeremy. I was waiting for the new version to grow on me, to give me the same inspiration that the new jersey production gave me (or rather, a different flavor that I could treasure just as much), and it just. never happened.

I’ve sat on this for a Very long time, I want to like the broadway version, I was Happy to see it given another chance. but my problem isn’t with the music or even with it being Different, my problem is that I think they fundamentally changed the protagonist Without changing the story around him, which creates problems with how the story comes across and sits with you.

the new jersey version worked, for me, because jeremy was fundamentally a good person before the squip influenced him, and he never really stopped being that person. he’d hurt people and he made mistakes, but when you see him make up with christine and michael by the end you’re left with the impression that they’re already set on the path to a healthy relationship with each other. they have things to work on, conversations that need to be had, but you can Believe in the happy ending that it wants you to buy into.

and part of this is achieved by leaving things up to the imagination, by keeping jeremy Simple but implying more by presenting him as a real person. jeremy doesn’t Want to be popular he wants to be happy, but he trusts the authority figure that tells him that it knows what’s best for him more than he does. it’s this level of innocence that makes him genuinely likeable despite what he ends up doing.

the broadway version sought to explore jeremy in more depth, to explore the feelings of self hatred and isolation, the themes of depression and anxiety, in more explicit terms, they complicated jeremy heere. this isn’t in itself a bad thing, I really like “loser geek whatever” as a song, but it shifted the balance in what made the ending work. a moment that used to be jeremy asserting to the audience that he’s never Wanted to be important, that he never wanted popularity or fame, but that he’s giving in to the lead of something else because he’s been convinced that it’s what’ll make him happy is now a ballad that asserts that it’s what jeremy thinks he Deserves.

don’t get me wrong, this new version of jeremy isn’t an inherently bad person, he isn’t even necessarily a fundamentally Different person. they’re both steeped in self hatred and isolation, broadway jeremy Is new jersey jeremy at his core, but broadway jeremy has pointed that inward turmoil Outward. he thinks of himself as the problem, that there’s something wrong with him and always has been, but at the same time he’s actively trying to convince himself that he wants what the squip is offering him because he’s Owed it.

this isn’t a problem on its own, I really vibe with “loser geek or whatever,” it has some Very poignant lines that gel with what jeremy’s always been even with the shift happening with his mindset here, but it’s unfortunately not a change that exists in a vacuum.

I could pick apart the whole musical and lay out all of the differences, but the change that’s prevented me from being able to enjoy the broadway version is “the pitiful children,” on a musical level but most importantly on a story and characterization level.

jeremy’s change in mindset in the broadway version Very Unfortunately leans into the entitled nerd boy trope, which didn’t necessarily have to detract from it (in my opinion, the charm of be more chill in general is how its characters are all tropes presented as real people, who are likeable because of how Human they are. you slowly grow into them the more you realize this), but the pitiful children just shifts jeremy Too Far into that trope in a way that the story never really recovers from.

the original version was the squip’s villain song where he took jeremy pointing out flaws with his actions (letting people get hurt despite having been able to help them and meddling in jeremy’s life in a way that made his relationships Worse) and convinced him that the problem was other people’s free will. he did this not by appealing to jeremy’s own desires, but by presenting other people the way that the squip had been presenting jeremy to Himself this entire time.

jeremy is a character that hates himself, that was so eager to find a way to “get better” because he sees everything that’s happened to him as being tied to some inherent flaw with who he is. the squip took this and reinforced it, convinced jeremy that he’s completely worthless without him, all while presenting himself as a savior figure to jeremy that was going to “fix” him. the pitiful children is the squip insisting that all people are like that, that all people are fundamentally broken and unhappy but that they can be Saved. jeremy going along with the squip here is presented as being tied to both his own self hatred And his desire to help people. the squip took advantage of his Kindness and that colors our interpretation of him as a person.

the broadway version of this scene is, a shell. it’s a mistake. in some ways it’s built on that same basis, it exists On Top Of what it used to be, but it paints jeremy completely differently. it is, quite literally, jeremy putting christine’s agency under his own desires. Now instead of the squip playing at jeremy’s self hatred, it’s convincing jeremy that christine doesn’t want to date him because there’s something wrong with Her Specifically, and the rest of the school is just kind of tacked onto it. it’s jeremy choosing his own desire to date christine Over her freewill while pushing everyone else’s fate to the side (when he knows that they’re Also going to get zombiefied in the process).

it’s a weaker villain song in general, the storybeat of convincing someone that humanity is fundamentally flawed but can be “fixed” is far more chilling than convincing someone that the girl they like is fundamentally flawed because they won’t date them. but it also just changes jeremy’s relationship to christine in a way that can Never be addressed because Jeremy’s the only character that knows it happened and it’s never a conversation that they have together.

it’s even worse in the live version (as opposed to the cast recording) because jeremy is an Active role in the broadway version when he’d had a passive role in the original. in the new jersey version jenna approaches jeremy, opening up about her own unhappiness after he asks her how she feels, the squip tells him that he can help her and Then jeremy gives her a squip. jeremy Watches her immediately become more lively and happy, with her joining the song and dance to convince him that this is the right thing. in the broadway performance jeremy approaches Her, he offers her a squip of his own accord and he brushes her off after she opens up to him in response. it’s no longer a beat reinforcing that the squip is taking advantage of his kindness, but him Openly Dismissing someone else’s suffering while he’s focused on getting what he wants. he’s dancing and singing along with the squip.

both versions of jeremy were manipulated, both versions of jeremy were stripped of their agency, but only one of them had a true villain arc. but their endings are the same. broadway jeremy isn’t an unsalvageable person, he Can grow and get better and I do think that he’s in the right direction for it. but he and christine are Not ready for a relationship, he’s Not at an ending point for his character growth. he did choose her agency in the end, but the fact that it was ever a question for him makes the saccharine tone of the ending feel Wrong in a way that I’ve never been able to move on from. 

broadway jeremy was complicated in a way that made him less likeable as a person but the Ending wasn’t made to accommodate this. the big flashy showdown Worked in the original Because it never convinced us that jeremy wasn’t a kind person. he needed a wake up call and time to heal, broadway jeremy needs therapy. (granted, new jersey jeremy Also needs therapy for the Definite ptsd that he has, but that’s a separate issue).

the broadway version opens a conversation that it wasn’t interested in closing, they left their happy storybook ending for a story that Needed a serious confrontation that challenged their protagonist not just on the fact that they were Wrong but on the fundamental flaws with how they treated and thought of other people. it wasn’t necessarily jeremy’s Fault but he needed more solid character growth than what he was given and it’s a weaker story for it.

I think if the pitiful children had been left largely the same I might’ve been able to grow to like the broadway version and all of its differences, but it’s just the Weaker version as is and it Needed to push the changes harder than it did if it was really committed to this change in direction.

[coldgoldlazarus]

So I had a thought just now, and it's understandable that the connection hasn't been directly drawn since one of the people involved has been absent for the past few Volumes, but can we talk about the parallels between Raven and Ironwood? But before I get into that, I also want to talk about Qrow.

So, we know Qrow was raised by the Branwen Tribe. It's been implied that that upbringing was a deeply unpleasant and possibly abusive one, and know that he was shunned for his Bad Luck semblance - however, the latter statement comes directly from Qrow himself, who is somewhat of a biased source as far as discussions of his semblance goes. At any rate, miserable childhood, he sees the tribe for thieves and murderers, and went on to become part of Ozpin's inner circle to do something better with his life. (Actually now that I think about it that's kind of a parallel in its own way with Winter and May, but that's a whole other discussion) The important part I'm getting at here, is that he internalized all the possible abuse and shunning, placing the blame on his semblance to give meaning to why he was treated that way; the problem is with him, he was mistreated because of some aspect of himself that was wrong. Obviously, that's incorrect and harmful to himself, but the slight upside is that for all that he's cynically realist about the world, he's also got a more positive outlook overall, believing it's possible to make a difference, but at the cost of his own self-esteem.

Like I said, Qrow is a biased source when it comes to the ways his semblance has impacted his life, and based on that I feel like it's safe to assume that in this chicken-or-the-egg problem, he was mistreated by the bandits first, regardless of his semblance. And that brings us to Raven.

Same tribe, same upbringing. Most likely? Same abuse too. But her Semblance was completely different, if she even unlocked it yet at that point (I half wonder if it developed in a response to Qrow needing help, or later, in response to STRQ as a whole) so there was no easy scapegoat there. So instead, she externalized her trauma, and decided that life as a whole was just Like That. The world was Hard and Cold no matter what, so you have to become Hard and Cold yourself to survive.

But then she went to Beacon and met Summer and Tai, and slowly warmed up to them, and started to think maybe, just maybe it wasn't all like this. And again, her own semblance is all about her positive bonds with others, which lends credence to the idea that she does have a heart underneath it all. But then things went bad again, or she learned about Salem's immortal, unkillable nature, and it reconfirmed her worst beliefs, and she returned to the tribe with the mindset of Might Makes Right taking over all her choices again.

And well now, doesn't that sound familiar? Even if we don't exactly know all the details of Ironwood's own childhood, there's a fair amount that can be inferred just based on the context of his place of origin. He likely had a reasonably cushy upper-middle-class upbringing in Atlas without much notable happening - which influences how he's nice, but more than a little out of touch, when he's in a positive frame of mind (and don't get me wrong, his treatment of Mantle even before his spiral hit the Event Horizon was uncomfortably dictator-y, but the narrative at that point still framed him as a more-or-less sympathetic, if not entirely trustworthy, person who lacked the perspective of what the lower class was going through - pretty apt for the majority of Atlas citizens seen in V8C7

But also, based on his own semblance, the tattered and half-metal shape his body is in, and stray comments he made during earlier volumes, (like his discussion of battlefield hallucinations in V3C8) once he got to the military, he went through rough times, to say the least, and then on top of that learned about Salem, even if not the full extent of her threat, and externalized that. So while his fundamental approach is more positive overall, he's still basically arrived at a similar conclusion as Raven, with some caveats. The world outside the kingdoms is Hard and Cold, and you have to become Hard and Cold to survive. The difference being, until the end of Volume 7, he still believes he can make a difference, and be a hero and defeat the evil lurking out there. The methodology, though, is definitely the same; Might Makes Right, even if for him it's tempered by his cushier past. So he's in this weird in-between state for most of his career, more kind than Raven to be sure, but in a lot of ways carrying a lot of the same toxic beliefs about strength. Then the Fall of Beacon starts his downward spiral, with all of his militant strength completely invalidated or turned against him, with Cinder's calling-card that he misattributes to Salem as extra salt in the wound. Then in Volume 7, the quadruple-whammy of the revelation of Watts's plan, the reveal of Salem's immortality, Cinder triggering his PTSD with a callback to the Fall, and then Salem herself calling in to say she's on her way. Much like with Raven in the past, it all serves to reinforce his worst beliefs and habits, and with Mettle on top of that, his spiral hits terminal velocity. In essence, a parallel to Raven leaving to become the head of the Tribe. And like Raven, he basically gives up on trying to fight Salem, changing course to planning to save Atlas and Atlas alone ("Which 'we' are you referring to?" From V4C4 comes to mind) and then figuring out what to do afterward once he thinks he's safely out of Salem's reach.

In both cases, they deny their own agency in the belief that the threat is too overwhelming, and the only way to handle it is by denying their own compassionate side and becoming Hard Men Who Make Hard Decisions. So that's how they got here. Next question is, where are they headed?

In different circumstances, could Ironwood be redeemed? I mean, one of the big possible themes that others have pointed out is that redemption isn't something deserved, it's earned by actively choosing to do good, regardless of past actions. So in that sense, I do think that Ironwood isn't beyond saving. (though again, he would have a lot to answer for even aside from what he's done since the V7 finale. Same goes for Raven, though; it tends to get overlooked, but even aside from her shitty parenting and helping Cinder with the attack on Haven, she has entire villages' worth of blood on her hands. In both cases, again, their possible redemption isn't something deserved, but earned.) However, the presence of Mettle actively reinforcing his worst habits, and the huge crisis situation that is the ongoing Fall of Atlas, means that unless he survives the end of the volume somehow, I don't think a change of course is likely to happen, and all signs point to him dying by the time Volume 8 is through. If he does live, though, it would take both a major wake-up call about the consequences of his actions, and a much lower-stakes situation where he can reflect on his actions and realize he was wrong, for further progress to be made, especially with Mettle still there as an internal roadblock.

However, Raven has already had both of those - the massive cathartic callout post from Yang at the end of Volume 5, and if we assume she's stayed in Patch since then, plenty of time to think things over. Of course, the latter part is still uncertain, and she could also have doubled down and gone back to the tribe again, but there's really no sure indication either way. Point is, she's further along in her arc than Ironwood is, and where he may well wind up getting cut down before he has the chance to fix his shit, she's at a prime crossroads to finally start unlearning her skewed worldview and make some Good Decisions™ again.

Also, since I discussed Qrow way earlier, I want to wrap back around to him. Again, for a long time, in contrast to both Raven and Ironwood, he internalized his struggles and blamed his semblance. Ruby's been slowly pushing back against that notion, and Clover, as much as he was a cop and all, did genuinely start to help a little bit as well, until his death. And while it's easy to say that said death has just reset Qrow's development, I think we're already seeing a difference in his brief handful of scenes in V8; particularly the line "We're going to kill the man who put us here." Regardless of whether he's referring to Ironwood or Tyrian or both, the point is, he's finally starting to externalize his trauma. He's blaming himself too, of course, because this is still Qrow, but more for his own misjudgements during the fight than on just his bad luck. It's a start, at least. Like Raven, I hope this means he's coming to a more balanced perspective from the other direction, neither pinning the blame wholly on himself or the world around him, and accepting his own agency as well as the responsibility of outside factors beyond his control. It'll be interesting to see how that progresses given he's also at risk of falling into a completely new flaw, which given RWBY's stance on revenge could also go badly for him, but for now, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

[mariaiscrafting]

You know, what think I like when you are critical of a content creator is that you know how to separate a fact from especulation, unlike a blog out there that took especulation as facts.

Example, that night when we were critical of Karl, or any instance you have discussed about him, a lot of anons were saying that he gave them clout chaser vibes to them, and despite your opinion, you expressed that those were only especulation and not the truth, and to keep that in mind. That's good critical thinking.

But this blog had some similar anons, saying that he only is friends with the Feral Boys gro clout- In fact, they said the Feral Boys were only in it to benefit from clout and money. And they took it as a truth. I know you instance on them is neutral, but come one, they are friends. All of them. Karl isn't friends with them for clout. Like today Karl was playing golf with salad gang plus Sapnap and George at first and then Quackity and Dream joined bc they had spared time and it all devolved into typical chaos (Poor Corpse and Tina and Brook, had to endure those children lol/lh /j). Like, the stream wasn't planned with the 5/5 yet they joined, missing Karl and just having fun.

Idk, I guess that blog's superiority (They were a SBI focused blog) just irritated me. It's as if they were putting both groups at each other as if those streamers aren't friends or close. They were singing prayers of one while shunning the other based from especulation. Criticissism is fine, in fact recommended to be critical of your interests, but taking rumors as facts to base your crit is yikes. It's as if I wanted to crit SBI and base it only of "Philza hanging only with people younger than him is kinda weird ngl.." or "Sbi doesn't care about Tommy cuz he joined late" like that dumb Tumblr post did or some fuckers in Twitter imply.

The main reason I take so much care to separate speculation from evidence-backed theories and confirmed truths is because I feel like that separation is what distinguishes us from mcyttwt the most. One of the main reasons for mcyttwt's toxicity, imo - for its relentless cancelling of everyone, for its bandwagon campaigns - is that people oftentimes criticize and defend based on their personal feelings rather than rationale or evidence.

For example, I complain a lot about Dream stans on here, but you know the reason I didn't stop watching Dream directly after the cheating scandal broke loose, even though I thought he cheated? Because of mcytblr Dream stans. Mcytblr Dream stans engaged with me in discussion, both publicly and in DMs, about the cheating scandal, and even those who eventually came to the conclusion that Dream didn't cheat accepted the facts and statistics they were given and kept a healthy skepticism throughout the process. On Twitter, Dream stans were defending him before he even made a video following up to the mods' initial accusations because they felt that Dream wasn't the kind of guy to lie or cheat. They were replying to screenshots of statistical analyses from subreddits and to articles from mathematicians and staticians with extremely reactionary responses because of that feeling, which they believed in so adamantly, they had accepted it as fact. The thing is, to believe that Dream didn't cheat in the face of all the statistical and rhetorical evidence to the contrary is, in itself, speculative. Usually we think of speculation as a baseless theory that something is a positive truth- that is to say, that something did happen. But speculation also applies to those theories of someone not having done something, when the opposite has been nearly proven to be true.

For this same reason, I chose not to ignore the anti-technotwt threads with screenshots of Techno's old tweets in them. For me to have simply ignored these screenshots and continued supposing that Techno never expressed bigoted beliefs and/or currently doesn't would have been speculative on my part, and to boot, blatantly wrong, given the evidence to the contrary.

People in this fandom, and in all RPF/RPF-adjacent fandoms need to understand that almost everything they believe about the CCs they watch is speculative, at least to some extent, because of the nature of the content they make. Even if someone, in your opinion, displays evidence of some aspect of their personality - whether that be some form of bigoted, sweet, rude, clout-chasing, or anything else - because of the extremely one-sided nature of sharing one's life through a screen, that theory of ours will almost alwyas only ever be speculation, not a solid conclusion that can be drawn. We will never know these people's true intentions behind something shared to us via the Internet.

That vagueness leads to virtually every viewer creating a different theory in our heads about the CCs we watch, and we can't treat those theories as facts, especially not when sharing them with the rest of a fandom. I'm not a very big blog, but I consider even over 50 followers to be way too many people to spread a theory too, without at least clarifying that what I'm posting is speculation. If I have evidence, I like to list it or, if I can, provide sources; but otherwise, I take care to qualify most things with phrases or disclaimers that will clue followers into the speculative nature of whatever it is I'm saying. This is because theories and "feelings" can blaze through a fandom like wildfire, especially somewhere like Twitter, where so many things are word-of-mouth or based on summary due to character limitation.

You know why mcyttwt was cancelling Andi? Only a handful of original Tweeters under the cancel Andi hashtags actually knew what clips or tweets to criticize her for, or tried to elaborate on that criticism. But because every other mcyttwt user was getting bombarded by their mutuals hate-posting about Andi on their TLs, the "negative feeling" towards Andi grew and grew, even if most people didn't even know what they were supposed to feel negative about, exactly. Our judgement works on a quick trigger on the Internet because of the amount of information we're receiving, and so, even a single bad word against someone you don't have too strong of an opinion on can fundamentally alter your perception of them, usually subconsciously. If the first thing you see about Andi, who you've only seen on a couple LOH's or a couple Punz streams before then, is a tweet along the lines of, "disappointed in Andi for her homophobia and joking about suicide," despite you having no context, you will most likely be pushed to the negative side of her. Thus begins the cycle of hatred, building up and up, leading to you searching for more and more criticism about Andi, whether speculative or not, until you solidly and genuinely believe she is a Horrible Person. It all starts with the vaguest fucking feeling, because that's all speculation has to go off of, and it snowballs into a fucking wildfire across an entire fandom. I'm not about to be another person to let feelings snowball and spread like that.

Now, I don't know what exact blog you're referring to, but as an adamant SBI enthusiast, let me flip the argument many SBI stans have for their speculation upon the genuity of Karl's friendship with the Feral Bois, onto SBI. What do we have to go off of for the genuity of SBI's friendship, anyways? Our perceived brother dynamic between Tommy and Wilbur could very well just be Tommy capitalizing on Wilbur's brand and continuing the charade until now because it's been profitable. Maybe Techno only continues to associate with SBI because he knows how much his fanbase likes headcanon'ing about SBI, so he puts up with streams with them so he can continue to feed his fanbase with dynamics he knows they're obsessed with. Maybe Phil would rather play MC with people his age, and actually dislikes that he's friends with a teenager, but sticks around because he profitted so much off of Dream SMP and SBI-related content. And what could any SBI stan have to argue with me on any of these theories? Just because SBI laughs around each other and seems fond of each other doesn't mean they're actually like that behind the cameras. They so seldomly stream or make videos together anymore, anyways, so maybe they've grown tired of keeping up the dynamic.

Everything I said could be interpreted as utter bullshit, and that's because it fucking is. I don't actually know what Techno wants to do with his life, or how Wilbur and Tommy actually feel about each other, or who Phil wants to fucking befriend. The same goes for Feral Boys. There's nothing wrong with stating your theories or speculation, but to treat them as fact or not at least qualify such posts with the fact that this is all based on your bias and opinion, and no substantive evidence, is irresponsible. Just because you feel like one or more of the Feral Boys is "clout-chasing" doesn't mean you have the right to tout that feeling as truth. I feel a lot of things about a lot of CCs, both negative and positive, but no matter how strong my feelings, unless they have substantive evidence backing them up, I have no right to treat them as facts with my followers.

[insomniacowl]

Neon Genesis Evangelion analysis chapter 21: Kaji Ryoji Lies and Silence

Hi, it's been a while. I'm sorry I disappeared for 5 months while working on the graduate thesis. From now on I will try to upload once every two weeks at 7pm on Saturday.

From here on out, the analysis will focus on the important characters of Evangelion with 15 chapters left to go. Thank you for your patience so far and I hope you all stick with me for the remainder of the ride.

Also, I realized that Tumblr now allows maximum of 10 photos a post, so I am thinking of moving or co-posting on a different site. I'll update all of you when that happens

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Sakiel: The third angel, the first real opponent of Nerv. A portion of voice recordings of the battle attained

Shamel: The fourth angel, visual data gathered and backed up. Will send recordings of Unit – 01's battle against it.

Ramiel: The fifth angel, portion of remains attained and analyzed. Will send information about AT field.

Gagiel: The sixth angel, visual confirmation. Information attained from the UN. Will send information along with Unit – 02's battle data.

Israphel: The seventh angel, visual confirmation, will send data through channel 11-B. Attained sample of material composition

Sandalphon: The eight angels, confirmation through a still image. No further information

Matarael: The ninth angel, visual confirmation. Used the blackout to obtain a sample.

Sahaquel: The tenth angel, photographed attained. Will enter into the database through channel 57-F

Ireul: The eleventh angel, visual confirmation, data erased by Nerv. Will retrieve physically and send them over.

Reriel: The twelfth angel. Unit – 01 went berserk again

Bardiel: The thirteenth angel. Data attained from Mitsushiro facility

Zeruel: The fourteenth angel, visual confirmation. Unit – 01 went berserk. Will send video data.

---Excerpt from "The memos of Kaji Ryoji."

"2015: the Last Year of Ryoji Kaji" was written by the head scriptwriter Yamaguchi Hiroshi and was published in 1997. It contains Kaji's observations of various Incidents and set pieces in the series. It is not anything too particular; however, the fresh perspective Kaji's writings provide makes this an essential material in our understanding of the world of Evangelion. The excerpts mentioned above are essential proof of Kaji's identity as a spy and prove that the blackout during Matarael's attack was deliberately caused by Kaji and Seele.

Furthermore, it explains how Seele had attained information regarding Iruel's existence and its attack on the Nerv facility, even when Nerv/Gendou tried to hide this fact.

The memo above seems to be the observation of Nerv and the angels made by Kaji. While Kaji officially belongs under the Japanese government's command, as we have covered in Chapter 17, the Japanese government is unaware of Lilith's existence. It, therefore, has a different numbering system from Nerv and Seele.

Adding on to this point, the public in the world of Evangelion is unaware of the existence of Lilith. High-ranking Nerv officials such as Misato are aware of Lilith only as of the cause of the First impact and no more. Thus we can deduce that Kaji made the memo while he was on Seele's side, considering that he knew about Lilith in detail. But Kaji never once wholly and permanently sided with any organization. Like how his main character trait is a "flirt," he is never loyal to any organization, just like how he is perceived to be with women; two, perhaps three-timing.

Kaji: You've lost weight

Ritsuko: Are you flirting with me? Stop. A scary-looking friend is watching.

However, it is wrong to say that Kaji was a cheater by any means. His heart belonged only to Misato, and she was the one he trusted the most. His flirting with Ritsuko and Maya made others view him as a superficial person and did not take him too seriously. This got some eyes off his back. This would have given him more freedom to act in achieving his goals (but also, it might have been fun to get Misato jealous in a playful way).

Kaji: Not like you are going to repay that. I added some dummy information in case.

Now, let's take a closer look at Kaji's actions throughout the series. He makes his first appearance in episode 7, having a phone call with Gendou discussing the Jet Alone (JA) program. Because JA was developed as a competition to the Evangelion projects, its implementation would have caused Nerv's authority to weaken and jeopardize the HIP. Making it a top priority to prevent its further development. Minus the actions taken by Misato, the proceedings of JA going berserk and being miraculously fixed were likely a scenario manufactured by Gendou.

Kaji: it has been restored up to this point. It is frozen in a thick layer of bayclade, but it is alive.

The key to the HIP

We first see his face in episode 8 on a new mission: Transporting Adam and Unit – 02 to Nerv headquarters. He likely attained Adam's body in Germany, stealing it under the nose of our dear old friend Keel. The question is, how did he do it? We will never know the details, but we know that Seele's projects that required Adam were complete at this point (Creation of Evas and Tabris). They may not have had much use or concern for the leftovers. Since Adam's fetal form is small, it would have been easy to swap the original for a copy before he left. Of course, this would not have gone unnoticed for long, and it did not.

In episode 10, we see Kaji talking to an unknown woman about the initiation of protocol A-17. It appears to be a measure that limits and shrinks Nerv's authority and freeze their funds. Just like the JA plan, it shows the hostility of the Japanese government towards Nerv. Because Nerv and Seele are still on agreeable terms, Kaji is seen as a double spy between Nerv and the Japanese government. But in episode 11, the Nerv blackout happens. With clues spread over the episode pointing to Kaji as the culprit with Seele's support, we begin to see him in action as a triple spy.

The reason why Kaji undertook such a dangerous role is to get closer to the "Truth." Upon realizing the Japanese government's imbecility, he begins to walk the rope between Nerv and Seele to seek the truth.

Kaji: Is that an angel? This is not the time to be doing my job

We first see him in action in episode 13 while the HQ was distracted defending against Ireul. Here we see him collecting information around the central dogma. While doing so, Kaji notices the angel while passing through the passage in level 28 and hears the announcement that the "Sigma unit (the Eva simulation chamber) will be shut off in 60 seconds. Bearing in mind that Magi is located in level 40 and that a lower number refers to a deeper level, we can see that Kaji has already infiltrated deep into the complex. As central dogma and Lilith were information that Nerv and Seele wanted to keep secret, this infiltration was likely Kaji's initiative. With the same logic, we can also say that the information he gathered regarding the Marduk institution in episode 15 was his individual action as well.

Later in the episode, he is found by Misato as he was trying to infiltrate the central dogma. But Kaji does not seem surprised by this fact and opens the door without hesitation. What they see on the other side was the white giant Lilith. However, we hear Kaji refer to it as Adam. Why? There are two possible explanations for this. First is that Kaji knew that it was Lilith but deliberately lied to Misato.

This explanation is weak at best. It contradicts the characterization of Misato being the only woman Kaji trusts. Further, it contradicts the portrayal of their relationship in the following episodes. It is also difficult to explain why Kaji would distinguish between Adam and Lilith in his explanation to Misato.

The other possible explanation is that Kaji believed this to be Adam, and I am personally more convinced of this explanation. As we have seen in an earlier episode, Kaji passed on the Adam sample to Gendou. Both were fully aware of what he has gotten into his hands (puns perhaps intended). Then why did Kaji believe that it was Adam in central dogma? He likely at this moment believed that the white giant was the manifestation of the Adam sample that he stole. Although it looked different, Kaji, who saw Sandalphon transforming at an unbelievable speed, would have drawn parallels.

Kaji's misunderstanding is also supported by the secretiveness of the existence of Lilith. The information being top-secret accessible only to the Gendou and Seele. Even when Gendou referred to Adam as "The first man," it could be him trying to misdirect Kaji on the identity of the white giants. Although the reason for this secretiveness is not apparent, we know that Seele was ashamed of their status as the descendent of Lilith, this being the reason for conducting the ritual of atonement.

The HIP Seele type is, in essence, based on the feeling of perceived inferiority against the Adam-based angels. Thus it can explain away why Seele would want to keep the project a secret from the public. Even without such reasons, Lilith's identity as a being in the same caliber of existence as Adam might have created a need to keep her locked away and kept secret. This to minimize unnecessary friction and interference in their plans by other organizations.

To add on, let's touch on the strange phrase written on the container of Adam's sample that Kaji brought over. "Who is you? He is living. Why?". There are no explanations given regarding this phrase. It is likely written by one of the researchers in the german facility that was studying this sample. Being the only remaining Adam sample that seemed alive with the absence of a soul, it would have been baffling to look at it.

This lie about the identity of Adam and Lilith is a recurring motif. In the earlier chapters discussing the angels' identity, I have mentioned that due to the enemies being the "Angels," Evangelion fundamentally rejects the narrative of Good triumphing over Evil. During one of the sequences in the opening song, there is a frame reading "ADAM," and it is unique as it is the only one that is black words with a white background. This likely foreshadows the fact that information regarding Adam that we receive is different, thus, at some level, inaccurate or lies.

Either way, the truth of the White giant's identity is revealed near the end of the series. The audiences are made aware of it through the exposition of Tabris. For Miasto, she receives this truth from Kaji along with all the information and data he collected by himself. Through this 'Truth,' we can infer what Kaji wanted to protect and what his 'will' was. This 'will' to live is passed on from Kaji to Misato, from Misato to Shinji, and influences his decision during the end of Evangelion.

Kaji: Shinji, the only thing that I can do right now is to water these plants. And as much, there are things that only you are capable of accomplishing right now. No one is going to force you to do anything. Think for yourself. Decide for yourself. Determined what it is that you need to do right now.

So that you will not end up in regrets.

The alliance between Gendou and Seele began to show signs of schisms in episode 19 after Unit – 01 consumed Zeruel's S2 engine and became a being as though god. This was more in line with the plan of Gendou, who sought for the creation of a new god, the material conditions misaligning from Seele's plans of atoning for the sin of Lilith. Kaji was very much likely to have been aware of all this. When the schisms showed, Kaji had to choose the side he had to stand with. He seemed to have concluded that Nerv is closer to the truth that he wanted. Therefore he ended up helping Gendou achieve his version of the HIP.

I say this as Kaji played a crucial role in convincing Shinji to return and pilot Unit – 01 during the battle against Zeruel. Afterward, Kaji released Fuyutsuki, who was kidnapped by Seele, and began his pro-Nerv strategies. This leads up to his assassination by Seele's orders. To borrow Seele's words, "The bell around Gendou's neck lost its will to ring."

Fuyutsuki: Is that you Kaji?

Kaji: It's been a while.

Fuyutsuki: You will lose your life if you do this.

Kaji: I am just heading towards the truth that I believe in.

Let me talk a little more about his death. In episode 21 of the renewal version, an additional line was spoken: "They found out that I handed over Adam's sample to Gendou." This draws a line connecting the importance of Adam's Sample in Kaji's death and its role in the HIP.

Regarding the Assassin identity, due to the scene of Misato's grief being placed right after Kaji's death in "Death and Rebirth," some believed that it was Misato killed Kaji. One of the rare things that Anno came forward and cleared up was that Kaji's assassin was an unnamed individual that we do not see ever on screen. An additional argument made by those suspecting Misato as the culprit claims the evidence of interlaying of Misato's apartment door label right after the gunshot. This was later removed in the renewal version.

Kaji: No one can understand another person to a full extend. They can't even understand themselves.

But that is why people try their best to understand the other.

And that is what makes life such a fun experience.

Many of what Kaji says touches on the critical messages of Evangelion. It is also why I am starting off this section, the analysis of characters with Kaji; understanding Kaji is integral to understanding the series as a whole. He loved Misato but could not tell her his true feelings during the happiness of reunion after eight years. This was likely the greatest form of love that he could have given her, knowing that he is close to his death. The reason for Kaji's obsession with the truth and the sufferings he experienced in the past is fleshed out in detail in the comics version. He was orphaned as a consequence of the Second impact. After a failed attempt at stealing food from the military base, all of his friends were killed, leaving him alive and questioning the reason for their suffering and death. Kaji sought to avenge his friends by understanding why the Second impact happened.

But even without going into the details, we can try and understand the pain and suffering he went through as the generation living after the Second impact. Yet, his general attitude towards life and his ability to call living to be fun is his unique charm. He even managed to have a smile on his face while looking at the face of his death. His smile was not a forced fake that he made to mask his fear of death; he has probably smiled from the bottom of his heart.

Yo. You're late

Because he would have already reached the truth that he worked so part to attain.

TBC Chapter 22: Katsuragi Misato Part 1 With a cross in hand

[bowiebond]

Correct me if I’m wrong but Vision is supposed to be morally gray, isn’t he?

Here me out (this is based off my memory, so I may be off base, who knows).

But Vision is made up of JARVIS, Ultron, and the Mind stone, correct?

Ultron was deemed evil because he knew too much about the world and decided it couldn’t be saved, so he would destroy it and remake it in his imagine which he deemed “perfect”.

While JARVIS was a complex AI that could access basically any data and main function was to take care of Tony much like human Jarvis did. I would deem that as fundamentally Good, he was programmed to be a good to neutrally aligned AI.

But then there’s the mind stone which is a very grey area. It’s been show to give people powers if used in certain ways (Wanda & Pietro for example) or power life forms (Vision) and even fester on the dark thoughts and desires others (Loki) and brainwash (Clint).

It persuades the mind to do whatever it pleases despite not having a conscious of that makes sense. But usually, it persuades others to give into their desires from its history.

So Vision is made up of three things, The Bad (Ultron), The Good (JARVIS) and the Grey (Mind Stone).

Which really explains how he is to me. Case and point when Tony tells him to make Sam a “Glider” during the airport fight scene. Tony leaves room for Vision to decide on how he does it, and Tony used to be this vague with JARVIS at times too, yet JARVIS always did the right thing in Tony’s books, and I think Tony expected Vision not to shoot to kill, but quite literally slow Sam down and make him “glide” down to the ground so he can be subdued.

But Vision takes this as an order, much like JARVIS, but he chooses to use the mind stone in particular to take Sam down. Except he misses and hits Rhodey. He shows remorse after this in passing because Rhodey was close to Tony, close to JARVIS, but he doesn’t seem to truely understand that what he did was wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tony took his anger out on Sam simply because he realises his mistake and didn’t know how to lash out at Vision who could easily take a shot at him. There’s probably a lot more complicated feelings there in that scene but it’s very possible Tony realised Vision wasn’t as infalliable as JARVIS. He interacts with him less and less as the movies progress too.

And there’s also the scene in the kitchen with Wanda. Vision comes off as very well meaning but awkward, but he’s obviously seeking companionship with Wanda. It’s the first person he actively seeks to befriend. I’ve theorised this from the beginning, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason he acts so sweet with Wanda is because she gained her powers from the exact stone in his head. The Mind Stone actively seeks out Wanda of all people when in retrospect Vision should be more drawn to Tony, Rhodey or Pepper, hell any of the original six avengers, given he is infused with JARVIS’ coding. Outside of Wanda, Vision comes off quite stilted and awkward around others, as if he’s on the fine line of knowing he should want their friendship but not really feeling the pull to interact with them as he does Wanda.

Honestly, I’m rambling at this point, but I think if Vision had stayed alive in the MCU there would have been a chance of him going rogue or even anti-hero. When I saw White Vision in WandaVision, it was like seeing what Vision could have become if he hadn’t had the Mind Stone directing his actions out of his base desires and feelings which were; Following Orders with Good Intention (JARVIS), Staying Close To Wanda (Mind Stone), and Feeling Disconnected From Humanity (Ultron). He sees humanities flaws through a naive gaze, but I feel he understands at his core that we have many good and bad things about us.

I’m done rambling now ahhh

[maevelin]

what is your opinion on how the IC treated nesta in general, but more specifically acofas?

Oh boy...you just had to go there lol

Negative rant ahead. So you’ve been warned.

Truth is I’ve tried so hard to get what happened in acofas out of my mind  and view certain things I used to like even out of context so to be able to still enjoy them but it didn’t work. If anything getting some emotional distance from this universe dampened my excitement for any future project from this franchise and writer. Granted I never considered SJM to be a good writer but at least she was able to work through some interesting characters and dynamics. Acofas negated that too.

And honestly I am so done with the whole thing and it even left me with a bitter aftertaste when it comes to Nessian in particular because the foundations set in that book (if one can call it that) are really something I detest. The insight we got into Cassian’s mind made me so angry and I noped out completely.

As for how the IC in general treated Nesta?

I had some time to think about that and I think the problem is that the previous books and ACOFAS more so have set up an environment where Feyre and the Inner Circle are the moral axis of the universe we are in. If they are objectively right or wrong does not matter because they are right no matter what. It is very unsettling for me to have to get into a book that exists on that foundation. 

At the beginning the characters in question, Feyre, Rhysand and so on were treading more realistic lines between right and wrong. Some of those lines were blurred. They were morally grey characters too given what the situation demanded from them and that was the allure of their dynamic as characters and as relationships but as we got more books with them they became more and more bland and their perspective was limited to the trope of the perfect shiny hero and they became dogmatic when it came to that. They knew what was the best for everyone. They could do no wrong even when they did. There were no repercussions to their mistakes. They are not to be called out for their behavior because their behavior is always correct (even when it is not and not just concerning Nesta but on many fronts).

We are at a point where their moral code is by default what creates what is right and wrong and the narrative acknowledges that directly and indirectly. So the readers are meant to accept that what Feyre does is morally right and doesn’t get to criticize her actions and the actions of the Inner Circle that many times can be morally ambiguous -at best- but are not acknowledged as such.

I would appreciate it much more if the author allowed the characters (all characters, Nesta included because I am not here to pretend that Nesta is not a hot mess of an abusive asshole too) to be subjected more to objective criticism without the narrative pandering to their moral high ground. 

Thing is that situations where you have to face someone’s trauma can be difficult, messy, ugly even. There is no perfect recipe. It doesn’t mean that your way or helping is always right just because you love your family or your loved one. It doesn’t mean that because you have had your own trauma you know how to deal with someone else’s. You can do more damage many times or you can’t reach someone that is struggling and when someone is in pain many times can’t open up or accept their problem or any help regarding their issues and this can create a very dysfunctional situation from all sides concerned. Toxic even. 

But here from the start the reader is to accept a fundamental truth. Feyre and the Inner Circle are right and they know what they are doing. Their motives, their actions, their responses are pristine and they are on a pedestal so where does that leave Nesta or even a reader that doesn’t accept that reality because their critical thinking gets in the way? 

And where does a character that is not as ‘perfect’ stand? Nowhere. It distorts the picture. Because until that character gets in line with that perfection they can’t be part of it. It gets ostracized even if is in simple things as not being drawn inside a painting.

And what I find even more problematic (especially in the end of ACOFAS) is that this feels very much like a parallel of how Tamlin treated Feyre but most readers ignore that because the former books established that Feyre and the IC are the established moral stance one should admire and anyone opposing that is on the wrong. In reality the moment the writer stopped viewing certain characters under an amoral light and forced them to be the ‘good heroes’ instead of the amoral characters that should have been everything became distorted. The parallels between those characters that are deemed to be doing things wrong and those that are supposedly doing things right are blatantly obvious and the only reason as to why the good guys have the holier than thou attitude and are on the right its because the writer “says so” and that’s not something I can abide with if I use critical thinking. 

Yes these books are not meant to be taken seriously and are light entertainment at best but I feel there are limits to that especially since given the direction the author choose to take the characters towards does not personally entertain me anymore.

I am not in favor of taking an unapologetic character and making them less than what they are only to fit them into a romance and way to work into a faux morality code.

Feyre wants to protect Nesta. She is for an intervention. Tamlin acted the same. In the same way Feyre gets to decide how Elain should give Lucien a chance or how Lucien’s attachment with Jurian and Vassa is silly or how Nesta should heal Tamlin also decided how Feyre should work through her trauma, how she should not use her powers, how she should exist in his court because...he knew better, because he loved her, because he wanted to protect her. And he did love her and he did want to protect her and he had his reasons and all that didn’t make him any less abusive. Tamlin was basically ordering or manipulating Feyre into acting in the way he believed was best for her and their life together. Does that sound familiar or what? Including how Tamlin was providing everything financially for Feyre and her sisters too and that was also taken as a given. 

And I am not here to say that Feyre doesn’t love her sisters or doesn’t want the best for them. I am here to point out the hypocrisy when it comes to how one should defend another person’s free will and choice. The only reason Feyre was able to escape that suffocating environment was because Rhysand gave her a way out. No one is there to do that for Nesta. If anyone did that for her would she stay? Of course not.  Would she follow Cassian to the camp if she had other alternatives? Nope. Surely Nesta is at the lowest of lows and her behavior triggered such reactions because she surely did something bad for even Amren to be set against her that way in the end of ACOFAS but that doesn’t change how the power imbalance is shocking. How Elain had no say to what happens to Nesta because Feyre is in charge. But once more where Tamlin was wrong Feyre is right. Where Tamlin was abusive Feyre is not. Feyre’s trauma was not as destructive as Nesta’s so of course this excuses everything. Not to mention that Tamlin was going through his own trauma too. Not to mention that every despicable thing Tamlin did as a High Lord was no less despicable than what Rhysand did but we saw how the narrative in the end treated Tamlin even after the way he repented in ACOWAR. 

But Tamlin is the bad guy who treated Feyre badly so even if objectively he can be as terrible as the characters we are meant to support are and can be we are still not meant to judge him the same as we are meant to judge the ‘heroes’ because different standards are set. The same treatment goes for Nesta, Lucien and so on. And I am not here to defend Tamlin or every wrong thing Nesta or any other character did. But the scales here are not balanced at all so I feel that for certain characters their mistakes weigh more than those of others. It also depends if someone’s trauma is more ‘comfortably accepted’ than others. It is like you can be depressed and damaged and traumatized but only as long as it fits a certain aesthetic kind of thing and that is triggering me in ways I am not comfortable with.

And you can see the insidious writing too. Nesta’s PTSD is used against her. 

Characters like Feyre are getting praised for overcoming their trauma and for their heroism and get all those monikers of glory but Nesta for example and even Elain that beheaded the King and ended the war are left into obscurity. Nesta was ready to sacrifice herself to give Feyre a fighting chance and was there to shield Cassian and die along his side but you know okay sure. Feyre is the defender of the rainbow and I don’t know what else title she has these days but when other characters do similar fits of heroism they are sidelined and those acts are quickly forgotten as if they never happened. That is a narrative issue because it chooses to highlight certain moments and ignore others.

People know Nesta as ‘Cassian’s’ for crying out loud and escape her house in fear because of him. Cassian that somehow glorifies the mate bond and the age gap even to legitimate worries Rhysand poses because if he didn’t then all of the sudden he would have to acknowledge how problematic is his attitude towards Nesta and their general dynamic. But hey she looks hot despite her weight loss and what Rhysand and Feyre have, suicide pacts and whatnot, is so pure so why bother with being decent towards a girl that as he sees is traumatized, has been violated and is stuck in a world and species she does not want. He admitted that he had been through the same emotional trauma in his past and it took him time to heal but hey Nesta is a bitch for not conforming to the way he and the IC believe is best for her to act, behave and heal.

Is Nesta right all the time? Hell no. She is an abusive asshole. She spends money she has not worked for and earned. She is all messed up and does not know which way is up and lashes out towards every direction.

But in the same way Feyre did the same with Tamlin’s fortune and Rhysand’s but at least she was grateful and in a relationship with them so I guess it was okay?

And keep in mind that what Nesta is doing is deplorable (taking Rhysand’s money, having a past of not treating Feyre right, not wanting to be with Cassian etc) but when Elain is basically doing the same but Elain is ...Elain. So it is okay. She is not as troublesome I guess and can hide silently in the sidelines so the same mistakes have different gravity and consequences.  Again that’s how the narrative is set. It favors certain characters while condemns others because by default it accepts in its core how Feyre and the Inner Circle is the moral axis so the other characters are satellites around that orbit and if they diverge from that then they get crashed until they are taught to gravitate correctly.

I could keep going but I feel like this game is rigged from the start when it comes to Nesta and I am finding it pointless really. The fact that the narrative pushes her trauma in a certain direction so not only to develop Nesta as a character but also pander to certain characters and a certain mentality regarding certain characters. I don’t feel comfortable reading something like that.

If the concern of the author was to push Nesta into an environment where the primary concern would be Cassian, their romance and the acknowledgment of the Inner Circle I am sure there are many more ways to work with that than taking a character’s PTSD and manipulating in a way as to make it less important for their individual narrative and more or less a stepping stool for getting the character to a place that wouldn’t otherwise go and especially more so if they were in their right frame of mind. 

And I am not going to even get to other issues like how I am sure how tone deaf the author is still going to be when it comes to PoC cultures (Illyrians) vs White Savior Trope (Nesta entering that culture as a Queen without a crown that will go through the blood rite and into a warring misogynistic tribe where she will give the solution in the end but you know...’yay feminism’...and then adding salt into injury you will have Rhysand, Azriel and Cassian that have been in charge for half a millennia and could have solved certain issues if they truly wanted given their position and power but now that someone else will do it for them they will still get the credit...but you know...dreamers change the world and all that...but only when it is convenient I guess...).

[braided-roses]

What is the best way to tease someone?

A 3,449 word essay broadly covering the methods with which we tease

Twenty-five minute read

"There can be no true despair without hope... I will feed the people of Gotham hope to poison their souls."

Bane: Dark Knight Rises

“Without hope, there is no despair. There is only meaningless suffering.”

D. Morgenstern

For this essay I will define teasing as a playfully enforced delay of indulgence. While the above quotes are dark for sure, and do not directly apply to this topic, I think they highlight aspects of teasing that are foundational to its differences from other forms of play. I believe there can be no true teasing without hope of gaining one's desire. If one feels they cannot reach their goal or desire, I believe that becomes an expression of submission to another, to the situation, but not a teasing of the mind.

Studying the possibilities of this field of play is one that takes special care because it draws on what we know about our counterparts like few other disciplines do. It requires us to first know what our counterpart desires most, and how to then playfully enforce the delay of indulging in that desire. Finding out what another craves, and creating structures with which to playfully impede the immediate gratification of that craving are challenging enough on their own, but combining these working pieces of teasing into a system is incredibly complicated— requiring intimate knowledge of one's counterpart’s boundaries and turn offs. While there can be no best way to tease someone, because of our inherent human complexities, this essay will attempt to put forth the best practices I know to have a mutually rewarding and pleasurable experience.

I think the first step in the process of teasing is to gain understanding; Get to know each other, build understanding, rapport and trust. This knowledge may be gained through focused, play specific conversations. Communicating in this way allows effective play to happen sooner. For example one could have a conversation as brief as please rub my clit until you break my mind, I'll beg you to let me cum, but don't let me. I'll tell you to stop if something goes wrong, and we'll talk about it after. The two drawbacks of this style of conversation is that it will remove some surprise as there isn't enough information yet to synthesize possible play patterns on your own, and one will lack a whole understanding of the person one is going to play with.

If a more holistic experience is desired though, it comes through best, in many cases, through a conversation as broader life and fantasies are discussed over many conversations that take place naturally and organically. The bits of information that may apply to play may be more separated, but they come with so much more information that can all be used to generate a deeper relationship, and broader play. We learn about each other through the listening mentioned above, and in our turn sharing our own desires and hesitancies. We have to open up also so we can be cared for ourselves and build trust through reciprocated, honest, vulnerability. These conversations inform us and build trust as we learn that both sides hear each other, want good things for the pairing and will not shy away even from the more sexually hungry sides of each other.

While this type of understanding centered communication is meaningful on a grand, human scale, even in the comparably limited topic of teasing it is needed in many ways. First, that trust built will be necessary in teasing play as it often leads to walking the edge of what a person can handle in the moment, both mentally and physically. To what degree we can trust, we can relax our fears of being hurt, allowing us to enjoy each sensation with less calculation of how to protect ourselves, allowing us to live in the moment in proportion of our trust, and to have the confidence that our partner cares to hear us when we make objections. Secondly, the information gathered in good communication is essential in order to know: the desire we are waiting to fulfill, the stimuli we will later use to push our counterpart to the point until it consumes every bit of them, warn us of the stimuli that could end play terribly, and how to recover from that event should it happen.

Some examples of what we may learn about play in everyday life- You may learn how meaningful it is to your partner when you hold your partner's face in your hands as you kiss them, or he/she may ask you if the you like being made to chase them down in a kiss. They might mention how they love the pain of their workouts, or that high rep sets are their favorite because they get test how long they can go before their will breaks. Watching a movie, and seeing one of the couples depicted playfully kissing each other, your partner might reveal that pulling away from a kiss doesn’t read as a building of desire to them, instead it feels like one is trivializing their highest expression of love— Making them feel their love is disrespected and devolved into a game. These lessons should be drawn deeply within ourselves. Making note of what makes them feel loved and pleausured, and special note of what makes them feel awful. Violating these turnoffs by accident or design may have terrible trust breaking outcomes. It is important to understand the reasonings and depth of their dislikes. One's dislike may be superficial, like forms of pain that, with a different approach, can be enjoyable, but some, like the kiss, may be fundamental to their world view. (Example of what could be synthesized from the above person’s information may be found at the bottom — Bonus Example 2)

The second thing is to determine how you will delay their indulgence in what they crave, by means of space, time, or even their own will. All of these modes and tools can be used in vast and narrow applications. Space, for example, can be used in inches or miles. Suppose your submissive wanted to touch, but you knew they wanted to be teased even more than to rub. You could grab your trusty ropes and tie their hands, one to the bed post, and the other by way of slinging a rope through the head board. You could release the tension until their hand is an inch away from their most sensitive spot. They can twist and moan and beg as they can almost reach, their finger tips just able to move the sensitive flesh nearest their most sensitive spot. They could reach up and play with less sensitive spots, but they won’t be able to reach any more, at least not without raising their hips to their hand, which can become quite challenging. Space has now been used as a tease. A boundary on their experience that they cannot get out of, nor do they truly wish to escape. A second instance of space as a teasing tool, known as "The Kiss" will be given in my final example at the end of this essay (Bonus example 1)

As examples for time and space — At work, one could be sending sexy texts to their counterpart who decides to be a little bratty. The dominant in this exchange could text back, “Say that again and I’ll have to remind you what happens to brats when their dominant gets home.” Knowing that their submissive will have to wait hours longer for the thrill of the attention of the punishment they asked for. In the same way a domme could send, "You've been such a good boy today, working so hard at work. I’ll keep dinner hot for you." Attached to this text would be little gif of her rubbing herself for him. He too will have to endure the boundaries of time and space. Time has been a tease in that hours will pass before they get their desire. Space has been incorporated in time because even if all parties from the individual couples decided to meet in the middle somewhere, they'd still be teased by time as they cannot magically teleport home to cross the space (if you can, please teach me). An example of time alone being a tease would be giving a submissive a vibrator with only five or ten minutes charge left in it. They can play all they want with it, but they don't know how long it will last.

The previous examples examined using time in minutes or hours, Time, like space, though, is incremental. Time can be used in minutes, hours, or like in the next example, seconds. Suppose you had an exhibitionist submissive walk with you in the woods and told them that they will flash you whenever you want them to. Already they’d be excited to have their desire at hand, knowing you crave to see them exposed, as well as the desire to be under your caring control. As you two walk you command your submissive to flash you for a few seconds here and there. Blushing, but proud, they obey. You praise them appropriately and enjoy your walk. Eventually you two hear the distant, barley audible, murmurs and stompings of a team of hikers. This time you turn to your submissive, order them to stop walking and command them to flash you, they willingly obey, but the knowledge that hikers are approaching you they risk discovery. They can hear the hikers drawing closer and they continue to obey, trusting you. Each tenth of a second registering in their minds and each snap of a twig causing their heart to pound in excitement. Time has become a tool for this second by second tease. As soon as you hear the first full word of the hikers you know they are almost close enough to see, so you order your sub to cover. You then praise your sub highly for their perfect submission and continue on your walk, no hiker the wiser.

Will is unique among the teasing tools. Time and space exist outside of our bodies, but will is our’s alone to interact with. Of all the tools of teasing will is perhaps the most wicked and most variable of all. If your submissive is a lawful-good type and aims to please, then you could use their will as a tease and simply ask them to spread their legs and start to rub or stroke for you. Tell them that they are not to cum without your permission. The pleasure from their body mixes with the pleasure from their mind as they internalize the fact that they are uniquely pleasing you, hopefully bolstered by your praise. These stimuli serve to push against their will to obey. What makes this particular mode so wicked is that their desire to please and obey is fueling their mental pleasure. Their will to obey forces them to stay within the boundaries you set, or lose what they truly crave- the sensation of pleasing you. As they get closer and closer their requests turn to quivering moans and groans- the craved treat of a teasing dominant-. You tell them no, and they continue to obey, rubbing or stroking for you. Their requests are denied until they speak in pleadings and beggings. In a bounded, short term tease of ending play, you simply let them cum, and praise them for their perfect obedience. In a boundless, pushing kind of tease though, you could deny permission until they slip over the edge and spectacularly cum. This form of play, for an obedience minded submissive, will feel like disobedience to them. — You must reinforce the fact they did all they could to obey you. You wanted to find their limit and they showed you beautifully.

For long term teasing you could tell them they are not to cum without your permission, if they do they will be punished for it. This punishment is one they are okay with, but might not know. This leaves them to fight their own will for pleasure, obedience, freedom, and even pain. Lest they slip over the edge, they might force themselves to stop altogether, or you could command them to stop, leaving them quivering in utter denial. Their will has been the tease preventing them from indulging in orgasm. You comfort them and tell them maybe you’ll change your mind tomorrow, but, for know, they're done. Now time and will act as the tease. You cannot supervise them at all times, and especially without chastity- their own self will begins tease them until eventually they must resist their own desires at all hours of the day. Proving to themselves they crave metaphysical pleasure more than the physical release.

You may also balance will with consequence of pain if your submissive is bratty or masochistic in a way. Telling them that if they slip over the edge they will be punished, even tortured. Without knowing exactly what it is they may fight harder to stay on the edge. They edge spectacularly for you, but eventually crumble under the self inflicted stimuli, they cum and you deliver the next stimuli- maybe you simply force their hand to hold the vibrator against them, turning teasing play into overstimulation, or turn them over to spank them.

The third thing that must be done is to manage the environment we are in to best suit the play we will have. The space we are in should be constructed to do as much of the heavy lifting in our communication of the tone of the experience, and the desires of our counterpart, that we can. For example, an environment that is clean and bare suggests that nothing else will be happening in this space but what the two of you create. This type of room seems fitted to a private submissive who cherishes time and quiet exploration, and will become stressed or distracted by a number of other stimuli. A single sash and short rope laying on the couch suggests light bondage will be involved. A kind of quiet in the room implies that no one will be interrupting their play. They can take all the time in the world. On the other hand, a hot kitchen that is just a few steps from a noisy living room full of friends can generate a whole new tone. One of desperate craving for your counterpart, a contrast between the necessitated quietness of your actions and the noise and business of the space, a daring display of desire as you two risk discovery of your intimate acts with even the smallest allowances of expression- such as slipping your hand under their shirt and scratching up then down their back. If they let out a noise, they could be discovered. If someone walks in, they'll have to act like they haven't been delightfully toyed with for who knows how long, or the two of you might have to talk your way out of it. (Bonus points by the way if you pretend to be casually doing something else while your sub enjoys the predicament you're creating) Suddenly a kitchen becomes an environment perfect for sadomasochism and borderline exhibitionism. A room were will, time and space are used to holistically create a tease.

Finally, words and tone should be used to highlight the teasing. Drawing on the hope of the situation, highlighting what prevents them from indulgence, seems like the most fundamental approach to using our words to tease. Even in a relatively SFW tease with a short sub that is into strength kink, and having her height used against her. You could hold a stuffed animal out of her reach, she'd enjoy her feeble attempts at trying to snatch it away from you. Highlighting this exchange with your words would likely be welcomed. "Oh come on, hun. You have to be stronger than that. Maybe get up on your tip toes and reach for it. Haha. You're using both of your arms. Can't you pull harder? To end this form of play you could simply hand it to her, or let her gain some ground and take it from you before you transition to another fun game.

In summary, the best general approach to teasing someone is by fully utilizing the knowledge we have of their desires and drives, selection and use of proper abstract and practical blocks to that desire formatted to what degree they like to be pushed in their comfort levels or have their impulses blocked, that balance hope and the knowledge they will likely not succeed should then be traced with our words. All of which is bounded within trust and care for their overall well-being.

Bonus examples

1. The Kiss

I grasp her face with both my hands, knowing this makes her feel desired. My eyes meet hers and she knows this will be no little kiss. She shuts her eyes. I use her favorite kiss, placing the softest kiss I can on her waiting lips. She lets out a little shiver. She pushes into me gently, and I pull away just enough to keep our kisses feathered. I kiss down her jaw line, moving my face nearer to her ear and whisper a command to stay perfectly still as I let her go. I pace around her once, gently caressing, with one finger, places that catch my eye, her sensitive jaw line and clavicle, along her lower spine. I slip a finger into her waist band and slide across a few inches. Then I tug her by her waist band to me. I catch her by her shoulder and steady her, placing my hand on her jaw I pull her in for another kiss. I praise her for keeping her eyes shut. What a good girl she is. While I caress her cheeks and brush her hair away from her face, kissing her cheeks and forehead as I do this. I ask “are you going to continue to be a good girl for me? She breathes out a hot “yes” , “Look up”, I command. I place my hand on her neck and pull her into a deep kiss- gently moaning into her lips. I push her off and again praise her for being so obedient, so compliant. Praising her plump lips. I bring her back this time for gentle kisses. This proceeds until they become more insistent again, my grip on her neck tightens ever so slightly and she kisses me more intensely. I push her off and tell her soft kisses now. We return. She does so well at first. It’s not but a minute or two before she starts to get more intense though, whining and squirming into me trying to kiss me more deeply. Now I begin to pull slightly away each time the kiss becomes to firm. Leading her in a chase. Backing myself slowly into the corner she has lost track of. I push her off of me and say “You will kiss me gently. Yes, baby?” “Yes. Please” “Good girl. Now kiss me”, she goes to lean into me, but realizes my strong arm will no longer let her. She fights my strength, choking herself in my grip- I’m careful to keep my palm away from her trachea. I see her hunger flicker to desperation- I tell her to open. Her eyes snap open and I see her pupils constrict as they focus in the light and on me. As soon as she opens her eyes I grab her shoulder with other hand and pivot my hips, stepping forward and slinging her to my former spot as I switch places with her- now she is in the corner and I say, leaning in to just outside of her necks reach “oh, come on, baby. I thought you wanted to kiss me?” I feel her hot breath on my lips. “I do, please” I extend my arm again. “Prove it” she pushes again. Hungry eyes on mine. I watch her expression waiting for the slightest break in arousal, a second or two later I allow my arm to bend and let her come to me. It’s her turn now to lead. I grab her rib cage and let her press her lips into mine as she please. My hands caress her sides as she spins, pushing me into the corner. I match her passion and rhythm. She presses her body into mine, squirming against me as she places kisses on my lips, fevered and then soft and then heavy again. When she seems to be fading in decision, I slowly spin her back into the corner. My forearm framing her face on one side, my palm on her cheek, my fingers in her hair, and my extended arm on the other side boxing her in. I place soft kisses on her flushed skin and proceed to praise her and hold her gently.

2. Bonus example two. Referencing paragraph six. — Once we have this information of preferences and possible obstructions of it we can begin to synthesize it into possible modes of, and tools for, play for long or short term. For instance, using the above examples we can put together a possible play session that involves lots of skin to skin contact, unbroken kisses and maybe a pushing of minor, but prolonged pain to be a style this counterpart would enjoy. Such as having your sub straddle you, so your legs are touching theirs, putting your hand under their jaw, you drawing them in by it, using slow, soft kisses, but putting a teasing parameter on the kiss of a moderate painful stimuli, like slowly twisting the sensitive flesh on their ribs as long as they kiss you. They get a small dose of pain that they enjoy, lots of kisses and lots of skin to skin contact- both of which they adore. The pain they enjoy mixes with all of their love languages and make a special thing happen in their mind while it acts as a form of a will tease. After they limit is reached one could return to normal kisses and start a form of aftercare.

[rinharu-purple]

Hi, nice to meet you!

As a fellow Gavin stan, I found your analysis quite interesting and I'm very happy that someone finally understand the other side of our ginkgo boy... Idk whether you play in CN server or MLQC. I'm just curious, what do you think of Gavin in S2? Because I hear that everything is gonna be different. Also, the latest main story in CN server--do you think the story will be more angst?

Thank youu..

Waiting for more analyzes from you ❤

Dear Anon, 

Thank you very much for your kind words and I’m also happy to meet you ^_^

Please excuse my belated answer. I waited specifically for cheri’s translation of the S2 CH11, so that I could give you a worthy answer <3

I play MLQC, because I don’t understand Chinese (yet), so I am following @cheri-translates on a daily basis for the season 2 material. (Thank you cheri, you’re the best! (ɔˆ ³(ˆ⌣ˆc) )

From what we get so far, Gavin shows some differences in his aura and character in S2 due to two main reasons:

1) He didn’t have the extreme teenage drama from S1 (except for his mother’s passing)

2) He and MC were companions during high school, so their relationship has a healthier fundament.

The events of the second season take place in a “parallel universe”, therefore MC’s relationships vary from those in S1. But also the Loveland City they are in is a different one, with different players but also different villains. So things DO change in S2 in general.

What do I think about Gavin in S2?

I - AM - IN - LOOOOOOOVVVEEEE - WITH - HIM!!! <3 <3 <3

Gavin was the main reason I watched the anime and downloaded the game in the first place. He was a very caring, understanding, talented and *ehm extremely good looking guy. He still is btw. This guy has a very big heart and is the most human among all LIs if you ask me. But sometimes I had the feeling in S1, that he wasn’t reaching to his full potential. His love for MC was at times awkward, mainly because he doubted himself a lot and was underestimating himself in many topics with regards to MC. His past with his father and brother was also weighting on him big time. Thus affecting his actions to a great extent. Gavin’s potential was bound by ball and chains and he didn’t seem to be able to free himself from them. And yet, he was a resilient guy, who made peace with his past, always finding the love&faith in his heart and following his own path. Those unnecessary insecurities caused by his experiences were Gav-babe’s downside in S1.

In the second season, we meet a very self confident Gavin who doesn’t get worked up in front of MC easily, let alone shy away from her. On the contrary, Gavin is teasing MC shamelessly and even toys around with her as he lets her hover over the ocean. Would you ever think that S1 Gavin would dare to do that? :D He interrogates her just for the kicks even though he doesn’t suspect her one bit, or asks her if he should detain her, since she looked like she was asking for it (I really recommend you to read the scene in CH11). Gavin is carefree towards MC and this makes him unbelievably attractive. Sure, I was surprised at first as I saw him immobilizing MC after meeting her for the first time after many years and was afraid, that he would be hostile towards her. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case...so far.

In S1, Gavin and MC were already in a harmonious relationship and were moving forward side by side gradually. But they were also having difficulties in terms of protecting each other from harm’s way and hiding their dangerous missions or wounds from each other. Which didn’t go along with a healthy relationship, even though they came a long way by the end of the S1. Plus, their positions weren’t even equal in respect of being a couple since Gavin was quite the simp and was insecure at times about his interactions with the MC. There was a teenage Gavin in him, who was telling him that he wasn’t good enough for her, that he is useless, that he is worthless. Therefore he always had his gloves on, so the speak.  

These insecurities are downed to a minimum in S2 and Gavin no longer has the self loathing inner thoughts, so it feels as though, he is the real Gavin. The Gavin who he could be, he should be. Up to this point (S2 CH11). I feel like we are watching a Gavin who’s reached, or is reaching, to his full potential. 

In S2, we see him co-operating with MC right from the beginning with little reluctance at first, which is natural since -you know- they are working for the opposing sides. But then we saw in CH11, that they make one hell of a team! In all honesty, Gavin and MC don’t even need to talk to each other to understand what the other thinks. We witnessed many times in S1 when they were thinking/saying/doing the same thing at the same time. But this time, they are aware of the fact that they can see through each other without words. Moreover, they banter with each other by calling one another out. Which is mostly Gavin calling her out btw. This almost flirt-like sweet bantering makes their interaction all the more titillating to me. The chemistry between them is very evident and Papergames makes sure to let us producers know, the attraction is mutual and on equal grounds. Maybe its only my opinion, but I find S2 Gavin way more sexier than the Version 1.0. But its probably because I find self-confidence to be the sexiest trait a person can have. 

On a side note, Gavin also doesn’t display jealousy as in S1 and I believe this also has to do with his self confidence. Jealousy is an emotion which arouses from lack of self-confidence and trust. And the level of trust Gavin and MC share in S2 is off the charts, dare I claim.

One might even say, that the tables have turned in S2. MC has her memories from S1 whereas Gavin has started having flashbacks or dreams about their past just recently. Because of that MC already carries her romantic feelings from S1, she is the one with denser emotions in the new chapters and is rather insecure in front of Gavin. Thus making herself vulnerable for his “toying sessions”. Gavin on the other hand is beginning to explore his heart’s desires towards MC only piece by piece. He cares a great deal about her and is drawn to her inevitably, but can’t quite put his finger on it. His body and soul is already reacting to her, but his mind is a little bit slow on this front. But as stated in R&S “Inevitable”, his heart is destined to get drawn to hers. 

Whether the story is going to get angstier...Let’s not fool ourselves, Papergames has the word angst in block letters carved in marble in their office. So yeah, I am pretty sure that the story is going to get angstier. But I haven’t seen anything as angsty as in S1 CH13, 14, 15, 18. Those chapters were really hard to read, but let’s wait and see.

Another important point about Gavin’s character in S2 is related to his position. He is now the Commander of the STF and therefore carries a heavier responsibility than in S1. We see in every chapter how strategically he is acting and picking the best option in which nobody gets hurt. He is still a maverick and does things in his own way and yet he is now well aware of the fact that each of his actions are affecting great numbers of people. With his subordinates he shares special bonds all the while keeping them disciplined and whatever he does, he prioritizes everybody’s safety equally (only with MC as an exception).  Of course, this was one of his strengths also in S1, but in S2, he can have a bigger impact, since he has more resources to do so. He has become the perfect leader.

Which can be tied to his balanced temper. In S1 there were times, where Gavin wasn’t able to control his Evol and caused mayhem. We haven’t seen any uproar like this in S1 so far. Gavin is in control of his Evol, his emotions and his blushes...hih...well... almost. But he certainly blushes much less in S2. 

So to sum it up, yes, Gavin is different in S2, but in all the good ways and I couldn’t find anything that goes in the wrong direction so far. We have a more mature, confident and experienced Gavin in S2 and I can simply say:

AMEN

I hope my answers can help you with your questions and you can always feel free the contact me if you have any questions...be it anonymously or not.

Have a nice weekend dear anon! d=(´▽｀)=b

[mimik-u]

Flower Child, Ch. 18 (”Abyss”)

LINK

i.

The door that led into Room 11812 was already partially cracked when Blue Diamond arrived in front of it the next morning. Lost, hesitant, adrift, perpetually undone, she simply stared at it for a long while, sized it up, reified it into yet another monolith she would have to confront.

For she was surrounded by monoliths.

All the time.

They towered over her.

Mocked her.

Grief and ghosts and all those other inlaid, ingrained fears, carved deep into the marrow of her bones, muscle memory now. She was scared of everything, really: the continuance of life, the permanence of death, the human capacity for endurance, the inhuman throes of her nightmares. And how these nightmares were sometimes, maybe even oftentimes, waking dreams nowadays, stalking her far beyond the confines of a bed that was much too big for her. She was afraid of forgetting Pink Diamond and replacing her, caring for Steven Universe and losing him. Telling Yellow Diamond that she loved her. Showing it. Proving that she did. Never doing it in the end precisely because she was so afraid. (Of what? She scarcely could articulate in the labyrinthine abyss of her mind, where everything was guttural and murky and raw.) Consigning their marriage to the same grave where their daughter laid, the memory of their once great love dressed in funeral shrouds…. She was afraid of empty halls and empty penthouse suites and empty rooms where dust laid thickly on furniture that would never be touched again. Ratty hoodies, diamond quilts, pink sticky notes reminding dead twenty-one year olds to study for upcoming tests. She was afraid of living and afraid of dying, afraid of happiness and afraid of pain. She feared mornings, and she feared nights. Doorbells, sleeping pills, good days, bad days, her very shadow, her own wasted reflection. (Because fundamentally, Blue Diamond was afraid of herself most of all.)

She wasn’t particularly afraid of doors—because most of the time, a door was just a door after all—but she was afraid of this particular door on the sixth floor of a hospital. More simply, she was afraid of what was behind it. Simpler still, she was afraid of who laid in that hospital bed. Afraid of all the unspoken things that had simmered quietly in the space between them for years upon distant, aching years...

So, she simply stood there.

Lost.

Hesitant.

Adrift.

Perpetually undone.

She made a monolith out of a door.

Voices seeped from behind the narrow gap, rising and falling together in a conversation that didn’t quite make sense, try though she did to piece the snippets into a context that she could understand. Blue braced both of her hands upon the head of her cane as she leaned forward to listen, a long strand of her silvery hair falling listlessly between her eyes, curling just over her nose. 

How terribly her heart beat.

How loud.

Her fingers shivered; they simply ached.

“... ouch, dammit! Don’t poke me so hard,” Yellow Diamond snapped, her abrasive voice loud, clear, unmistakable, ringing.

(She was always so pleasant to be around in the morning.)

“Then you should quit squirming around so much, Mrs. Diamond,” a voice that she recognized as belonging to Dr. Reed replied, as amused as her patient was irate. “It’s just a needle.”

“Yes, well—it’s too early in the morning for me to be especially happy about being prodded like a cow.”

“Mm,” the doctor made a noncommittal noise at the back of her throat as she continued to work, noisily shifting invisible materials around.

“So, when will I get these results back?” Yellow asked, affecting a tone that was passably casual to anyone who didn’t know her, who was unaware that she clipped her consonants more shortly than usual when she was tense, scared, strained.

“A couple of hours if I had to wager. The lab’ll want to be thorough.”

“Naturally.”

“And once we get those results back—if they say what I think they will, of course—then we’ll have to run through the whole gamut of other procedures: urological assessments, medical histories, blood pressure tests, cancer screenings, chest x-rays, EKGs... it’ll be a long process.”

“Sounds like it,” Yellow returned in that same punctuated voice, and then the two women lapsed into silence as the ground revolted beneath Blue’s feet, simply eroded.

And she was suddenly falling at the same time that she was perfectly upright, a swaying pillar tethered only to the facticity of her cane. She clung to it all the more tightly, fingers whitening from the beds of her nails downwards; it was the only bulwark she had against total collapse.

Annihilation.

Ruin.

All these tests?

What were they for?

She furrowed her silvery brow and desperately thought back to her conversation with Dr. Reed just yesterday; nothing about it had suggested that something was seriously wrong with Yellow, except a few fractures and lacerations that would clear up with time and rest... so what reasonable line of logic led from a minor car accident to cancer screenings and chest x-rays? What had happened in the unaccounted for hours when Blue had been away? 

She closed her eyes as nausea suddenly rushed up the cylinder of her throat, sickness invading all her delicate senses.

The answer seemed to loom darkly ahead—only a door push away.

“Alright, Mrs. Diamond,” the doctor sighed, “I’m going to get these to the lab. I’ll draw up your discharge papers soon, too...”

Yellow must have made some sort of nonverbal reply because Blue didn’t have time to recover her face as the cracked door suddenly flung open, breaking the final divide between everything she thought she understood and all the awful things that she apparently didn’t.

“Mrs. Diamond, oh, hello! Good mornin’!”

Her wiry eyebrows hoisted high above her thin glasses, Dr. Reed looked equally surprised to see Blue Diamond standing just outside the door. The medical tray she bore in her arms jumped a little as she did, shaking a few test tubes that were filled with dark crimson.

But Blue was impatient, eager, scared most of all. (She was always scared.) Her hooded eyes involuntarily slid from the harried doctor to the test tubes to the impressively cut figure just beyond Dr. Reed’s shoulder.

For Yellow Diamond, wearing her favorite pair of silken pajamas like royal regalia, sat upon the edge of her hospital bed, simply staring at Blue from widened eyes, her cracked lips parted slightly, every line etched across her face a livid, pulsing scar.

It was an expression of contradictions, of paradoxes, of dichotomies: tender at the same time that it was strained, vulnerable and equally forbidding.

Yellow averted her gaze first, a dull flush suffusing her sharply hewn cheeks. When she turned away, the sunlight pouring in from the window eclipsed her features behind the curtain of its flaxen reach.

“Good morning, Dr. Reed,” Blue murmured, painfully wrenching her attention back to the more immediate woman. “I see you have been… busy.”

She glanced questioningly at the tray of test tubes again, but just as the doctor opened her mouth to respond, Yellow got there first, cutting across her with cold precision.

“She was just leaving,” she said pointedly, still not looking their way. She brought her left arm up—the one enmeshed in a brace—to absentmindedly skim the right where her sleeve was meticulously rolled up at the elbow, where a long piece of gauze had been nearly wrapped around the joint. “Right, Doctor?”

It was a clear dismissal, blunt and unsubtle, a maneuver of clear avoidance, of keeping those strange, private words in the dark. Blue imagined it was a tactic that would have worked exceptionally well on Poppy or Livia or one of their various other employees besides whom Yellow had already intimidated into submission, but Dr. Reed didn’t seem to be especially frazzled by Yellow Diamond at all—unbothered by her elevated status, impervious to the harsh way with which spoke, as though every word was a finely calibrated weapon. She only resigned herself with a meaningful sigh that Blue couldn’t quite miss, her wire-rimmed glasses slipping incrementally upon the bridge of her nose.

“I suppose I was,” she smiled grimly, adjusting her tray more securely in her arms.  Blue counted the scarlet tubes. There were four in all. “Be sure to eat that. cookie, Mrs. Diamond”—she called over her shoulder, as calculatingly sweet as Yellow was acerbic—“and it was nice to see you again, Mrs. Diamond.”

Blue stepped to the aside to allow the doctor passage. They exchanged a final nod, charged with unspoken significance, and then, just like that, Dr. Reed was gone.

And finally, they were alone.

Blue and Yellow Diamond.

Once upon a time, this had been one of their most treasured sensations in the world.

To be alone.

With one another.

In the confines of a room.

Oh, how Blue’s slender hands had once known Yellow as intimately as they had known her own body. The curvature of her sharp jawbone. The tender column of her pulsing neckline. The feeling of their hands together, gently intertwined. Spiny knuckles. Soft palms. Brushing thumbs.

And now, eight feet stood between them.

Seven once Blue timidly dared to step into the doorway.

Merely six once she made an awkward movement to close the door behind her.

And neither of them especially knew how to breach the space between them.

The distance.

The gulf. 

Yellow seemed to have finally noticed that she was massaging the place where the doctor had drawn her blood because she suddenly stopped, self-conscious, wrenching her left hand away from the spot. But the gauze was still there, wrapped around her bony elbow tightly, advertising its unspoken secret like a flag at half-mast.

“You’re having tests done,” Blue stated.

It was as bold as it was quiet.

The loudest accusation in an otherwise silent room.

“They’re nothing,” Yellow replied immediately, trying for a nonchalance that didn’t quite land. “It’s nothing. Just routine stuff.”

The lie landed between them, too, with an odd, dull plunk, and Blue felt the beginnings of something other than fear coil in the pit of her stomach for the first time all morning. A burning sensation—stinging, raw.

She squeezed her cane again tightly and absently thought that it wouldn’t surprise her if her fingers came away with indents from where she gripped the metal.

“You were drunk… you were in an accident, Yellow,” she whispered, her words acquiring an icy edge. They lashed. They lunged. They hurt. They were intended to hurt. “Are you sure there’s something you’re not telling me?”

On the ropes, cornered—she hated being cornered—Yellow’s features suddenly hardened, her nose upturning, mouth calcifying into its trademark sneer. If Blue Diamond’s cane was her defense, then Yellow Diamond’s snarl was her weapon, sharp as any saber or sword. 

“You’re being paranoid, Blue—even more so than usual,” she scoffed, fingertips digging into the sheets beneath her hands. “It wasn’t as though I caused the accident. I wasn’t even driving!”

“Then why has Dr. Reed ordered such an extensive battery of tests for you? Can you answer me that at least?” She insisted, now shrill, now angry, now hoarse, now unknotted, soon to be undone—her throat wrenched with its own rage. Tears burned the corners of her eyes, gathering like rushing rivers down the skeletal curves of her cheeks. “I’m your wife, Yellow Diamond, and you—”

“And I should what exactly?” Yellow interrupted, laughing so mirthlessly that the sound was feral, almost inhuman. “Give you yet another reason to fall apart for four years? You barely survived the last time. I barely survived watching you, Blue. I—“

But she stopped short.

She realized that she had said too much.

And six feet became six hundred feet as the two women stared at each other across the empty tiles, as the words that Yellow had growled registered to them both. 

Neither of them had barely survived Blue’s total dissolution.

Both of them.

Together.

Alone.

They were both so utterly alone.

“I’m sorry,” Yellow exhaled, the fight in her voice punctured. Leaking. Drained. “I… I’m—“

But what exactly she was, even she didn’t seem to know. Prodigious marshal of words that she was, she was clearly at a loss for words, her mouth quavering with its own forced silence. Yellow abruptly looked away again, and the sunlight threw the stitches across her cheek in sharp relief, the redness of them, the rawness. 

Painful to even look at.

How much more painful were they then to bear?

How many other wounds besides had her wife collected in all these awful, unspooling years? Not even simply the visible ones, but all the other sundry hurts, too. The lines beneath her hawklike eyes. Her perpetual coldness, wrapped like impenetrable armor around her skin. The very way that she spoke these days, as though each word was a marionette jerked by some strict taskmaster’s violent strings. 

In the night, when she was alone in that master bed that had never been intended for just one, Blue didn’t have to look at these things, didn’t have to acknowledge that there was a reason that the door to the study was perpetually cracked open, didn’t have to wonder about how her utter contempt for life reflected on others because fundamentally, there was no one other than herself; it was her and her alone.

During the day, she didn’t have to care.

Time stretched ad infinitum all around her, slipping, always slipping away.

And she remained in the mire of her own head.

Stuck.

Broken.

Sinking.

Sunken.

Gone.

“So, please, Blue Diamond… please don’t look away, Steven Universe had whispered, indicting her, condemning her entire modus operandi with seven simple words as he laid in that hospital bed, dying for everyone to see.

She had looked away from Pink Diamond, and now Pink Diamond was dead.

She had almost looked away from Steven Universe.

Even still, even after all that they had ever been through together—and they had been through quite a lot—Blue Diamond was looking away from her wife even now.

Fool, masochist, coward.

She was, she was, she was—all of these things and very likely more.

Drowning.

Save me.

Spiraling.

Always.

Sinking, sunken, gone.

But the corrective, Steven Universe implied with every word and kind deed, wasn’t in the recognition of her problem; it wasn’t even in the actual acknowledgment that there needed to be a change.

It was in action and reaction.

It was in change itself.

A sickly boy could extend a flower to her in the cemetery, but she had to be the one to accept its grace.

She had to be the one to not look away.

Six feet, not six hundred feet.

Please, Blue Diamond… please don’t look away.

Swallowing thickly, Blue forced herself to gain perspective in that tiny hospital room, narrowing the world to just the two of them and the few strips of tile which stood between them.

Six feet.

So close and yet so far.

(Their daughter was six feet under the ground.)

“We apologize to each other all the time,” Blue murmured, her voice lilting softly in her accent, “and yet… not at all. How many times have we hurt each other, Yellow? How many times have we had to repent before doing it all over again?”

“So many times,” Yellow returned automatically, and her voice was quiet, laced only with the fading dregs of bitterness. Her knuckles were white where she continued to clench the sheets balled in her fists. “Because I am sorry—every damn time, Blue. I don’t mean to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. Hell, but I—”

As her voice rose, it was just as quickly stifled.

Choked.

A single tear glanced down the consummate businesswoman’s sharply angled face, and perhaps it was the most visible sign of her defeat that she didn’t immediately make a move to scrub it away, to pretend as though it had never existed.

And perhaps it was this gesture, or lack of a gesture, that finally did it for Blue Diamond above all.

That taught her what she needed to do.

She moved forward, one halting footstep over another, the hem of her long dress sweeping across the clinically white ground.

Clank.

Five feet.

Clank.

Four feet.

Clank.

Alerted by the telltale clangor of the cane, Yellow Diamond abruptly jerked her chin upwards, her lined eyes wide with horror and disbelief, with fear, with apprehension, with confusion, and something else, too—something almost indefinable because it had been a long time since Blue had recognized the expression in her wife’s chiseled face.

Had seen it.

Had noticed it.

Named it and reciprocated it.

Yearning, that irresistible rush of longing.

It shone painfully in her eyes, a drowning man’s golden flare shot into the dark.

Clank.

Three feet.

Clank.

Two.

“Blue, what are you—”

Clank.

One.

Scarcely twelve inches stood between them now, the air quiet, unnervingly, unnaturally still.

For everything was on a tightrope, the line just ready to snap.

Between them, individually, over twenty years of history were stored in the shared memories of their bodies, and for a moment, if only for a fleeting second, Blue felt as though if she could only reach out and touch Yellow in just the right place, that the world would just as suddenly right itself on its tilted axis, and everything would make sense once again and forevermore.  They would be reconciled, reunited, restored, all of their damages undone, and they would know each other intimately, just by touch alone. They would be able to pick up where they last stopped, somewhere in the darkness, on a road that went by the wayside so long ago. Maybe, at long last, they would even join hands.

But, no.

That was simply naïveté.

Childlike belief.

A dream.

Touching Yellow Diamond would not change the fact that their daughter was dead and that four years of grief had nearly destroyed the both of them; touching Yellow Diamond was not an apology; it wouldn’t even be an adequate excuse. The touch, if such a thing were to exist, would only be a gesture, a microscopic movement towards what had heretofore been the impossible.

The beginnings of a bridge.

And one goddamn awful gulf.

But it was a start.

And that was what mattered, right?

Yes, Blue Diamond thought to herself.

Please.

Closing her eyes against the sudden vertigo—the fear, the terror, the rush—she slowly leaned over into the darkness and gently pressed her lips against Yellow Diamond’s forehead, exhaling softly as the stalwart general tensed beneath the touch, deathly still.

“I’m sorry, Blue.”

Her voice shook, a pillar cut off at its foundation, sunken to its knees.

Blue gingerly brought her hands up so that they were encircling her wife’s head, her tousled hair, the tips of her ears, her temples…

“I’m so sorry,” Yellow repeated simply; her voice cleaved itself in two; she was insisting on an apology, as though it was absolutely necessary for them to proceed.

And it was.

But so, too, was this.

“I know,” Blue whispered as Yellow’s shoulders began to silently shake. In response, in return, because she wanted to, because she desperately needed to, she began to absently skim her thumb through the woman’s hair.

 “I’m sorry, too.”

Three words still hung—unspoken—in the sterile air.

Suspended.

On the tips of fearful tongues.

ii.

Priyanka brought them all back to the slaughterhouse again because there was nowhere else left to go. There were five of them in total, so they couldn’t very well have their daily harrowing conversation out in the hallway. They were adults, and Steven was a child, Steven was fourteen, so they couldn’t baldly discuss his mortality in his hospital room, where he laid in a bed, hooked up to so many whirring machines. Her office was cramped, and the chapel was somber. The cafeteria was too noisy, the hospital’s atrium just the same. 

And so, that left only one option.

The conference room on the fourth floor.

The slaughterhouse.

They all took seats at that long, long table and did their best not to look at each other, at the griefs laid bare in all of their tired faces.

“I’m sorry,” Priyanka said abruptly, “for yesterday. I got your hopes up. I got my own up, and I... I should have been more circumspect.”

She stared at her lined hands, at how they were templed neatly upon the smooth surface of the table. Even sidled up next to each other, brushing, her palms felt bitingly cold.

“I knew better, and that—irrefutably—is on me.”

“Aw, come off it, Doc,” Amethyst shrugged dully from the other side of Greg. “You couldn’t have known.”

“You told us best yourself, Priyanka,” Pearl agreed, her voice an almost passable imitation of prim. She was sitting in the chair opposite to Amethyst, delicately massaging her temples with the tips of her long fingers. “That damage wouldn’t have shown up on the scans... we don’t fault you for that.”

“We won’t,” Garnet added pointedly, never moving her bicolored gaze away from the empty air just above Greg’s shoulder.

“We would never,” Greg finished kindly, and when Priyanka dared to look up at him—he was sitting to her immediate left—she was appalled to see a weak smile quivering on his bearded mouth. Of all the things she didn’t deserve, a smile was high on that list which seemed to grow longer with every passing day that Steven Universe was in her care.

“You’re all being far too nice to me,” she insisted in that same blunt tone, though she knew it was a losing battle, four against one, the weapons of their affection all drawn. “I made that child—I made all of you—a promise. And doctors don’t make promises.”

Take care of my baby for me... please.

You have my word.

“Not unless they’re arrogant,” she concluded coldly, glancing away. “Foolish.”

And she was a fool—assuredly. A jester in a white lab coat. All she needed was the hat. In the slaughterhouse, she half-demanded that the people around her admitted to it, that the victims of her fault had their chance to cleave her apart on the altar, too.

But because they were kind and good and everything that was compassionate in the world, not a single one of them did.

Garnet even reached over and briefly placed a warm hand on Priyanka’s arm.

“It’s a good thing you’re neither then.”

And of course, here was yet another thing she didn’t deserve—a consolatory touch—but the doctor did not have the heart to shake it off, not now—not when there were dark circles beneath Garnet’s eyes that spoke to yet another sleepless night in a long row of likely many.

“Yes, well, at any rate”—she hurried away from the subject, desperate to escape their kindness, goodness, their sympathetic gazes—“I’ve called you here to give a progress report… we potentially have another donor candidate… a live donor this time.”

Priyanka enunciated each word as though she was announcing the presence of a ticking time bomb, and it registered as much in the faces of her captive audience. Garnet withdrew her hand quickly, as though stung, and they all stared at the nephrologist, each and every one of them, with a naked disbelief that was a far cry from the unadulterated joy of yesterday’s declaration. They had been briefly happy, and then they’d been so quickly, so mercilessly burnt; it was no wonder then that they were skeptical.

It was painfully obvious that they were still licking their damn wounds.

“A patient at this very hospital,” she continued haltingly, precise in every word. She had to be careful here not to let something slip up, not to betray a word that would drive the blades sticking into these people’s chests in just one inch more. She wanted to be fastidious this time; she intended to be sure. “Their blood type is likely a match for Steven’s, but we’re checking again just to make sure… and even if that’s a certainty, there are so many other tests besides that we’ll have to do just to make sure their body is healthy enough to undergo a transplant… it could take weeks…”

She spoke into thick silence, excruciating to the last as each word was wrenched free from her teeth in some poor facsimile of her usual brusque fashion.

Pearl and Garnet exchanged a pregnant look across the table, but it was Amethyst who spoke the meaning aloud; she was always the one who seemed to be the best at translating what everyone was secretly thinking into words, what they were all too fearful to say.

“So we shouldn’t get our hopes up yet, huh?” She asked candidly. “That’s what you’re saying… isn’t it?”

“Something to that effect, yes,” Priyanka returned with a slow nod of her head. “I just don’t want to… I would rather not…”

But she struggled to find the right words, to strangle all her emotions into sentences that didn’t complicate the professionalism to which she was called.

Because she couldn’t break down.

She couldn’t flinch.

She was the doctor in the room for goodness’s sake, and that meant something.

But again, Amethyst stepped in so she didn’t have to—blunt, plain, merciful.

“… hurt him again,” she mumbled, her lavender hair forming a curtain around her lowered head. The young woman swiped her arm roughly across her face in a gesture that was lost on precisely no one. “Yeah, I guess that’s for the best…”

The ensuing silence was somehow worse than the last. 

It seemed to chafe at them all, rubbing their skins raw.

Greg Universe shifted in his chair.

He looked less man than mountain, carved ruggedly against a bleak, gray sky—hunched in on himself, avalanched, collapsing all over. 

(When she’d first met the man some fifteen years ago, he’d still had all of his hair.)

(A kid having a kid.)

“He hasn’t said more than a few words today, Dr. M,” the mountain whispered, his voice eroding in all the right places, crumbling. “He barely even looks at us.”

Priyanka didn’t know what to say.

She wasn’t naturally warm like Maisie Reed.

Wasn’t soft.

Wasn’t encouraging.

Being a doctor didn’t require any of those epithets, even though she knew cerebrally, intimately, that being a human did.

“It’s hard being sick,” she finally said.

It was the easiest way to utter an even harder truth.

(Sometimes, her patients found it unbearable.)

iii.

“And Archimicarus preened his feathers haughtily, all the while keeping one amber eye on Captain Bonham, whose apparent warmth wasn’t enough to stop the falcon from being wary of the witch’s eccentricities: the dual pistols she wore in the holsters on either side of her waist, the long knife handle jutting just above the ribs of her corset, and most ominously of all, the necklace she wore around her neck—a leather cord threaded through the skull of a baby bird,” Connie read aloud, adopting her most suspenseful voice for one of the most tense chapters in the book—Lisa and Archimicarus meeting Valentine Bonham, famed pirate witch of the jewel-bright seas, and her serpentine familiar Scyllane. 

Of course, Valentine would prove to be one of Lisa’s most beloved companions by the end of the book, a swashbuckling mentor with a semi-tragic backstory, a kind of mother figure who had a penchant for committing petty theft and tax fraud against the despotic king.

But Steven didn’t know that yet.

“Skyllane,” Connie continued, “her silvery scales glimmering beneath the midday sun, hissed her amusement at Archimicarus’s obvious discomfort as she coiled herself sinuously around Valentine’s neck. Show off, the falcon thought savagely…”

Her mouth twitched into a reflexive smile at this part, nostalgic at Archimicarus’s occasional petty asides, and she looked up automatically, hoping to see the same amusement reflected in the face of her one-person audience… but Steven… Steven obviously wasn’t feeling it.

He didn’t seem like he was feeling much of anything, really.

When she’d come in with her mother that morning, he had tried to hide it, insisting that she open The Unfamiliar Familiar again, that they could pick up where they had last left off like everything was fine and good and normal and dandy.

But it wasn’t.

And perhaps pretending was only adding insult to injury, salt to an already agonizing wound.

Her mother’s famously steady hands had been shaking all day. They shook around around the leather of her steering wheel; they shook around the circumference of her coffee tumbler; they shook as she fumbled with her keys to lock the sedan’s door. She dropped them. Connie picked them up and didn’t comment on the incident, just as her mother didn’t comment on the event except to proffer a perfunctory thank you. And still, her mother’s hands continued to shake as she ushered Connie through the double doors that led into the Truman Ward, where only the nephrologist’s most dire patients were hospitalized. 

On the ride to the hospital that morning, she had laid out the bare bones as best and well as she could to her daughter—Steven had been going to get kidneys, and then he just as suddenly wasn’t. 

Steven’s life had miraculously stretched before him, and then the ribbon was abruptly, cruelly cut.

And his heart is tired, Connie, her mom had whispered—very quietly, with evident strain. As though she was scarcely able to comprehend it herself. So tired. And his lungs are doing their best to keep up…

Connie did not think it was necessary to ask what happened to tired hearts.

Staring at Steven, who wasn’t staring at her but rather at a fixed point upon the ceiling, she instinctively understood that there was only one thing tired hearts could do.

And that was shatter.

Break.

“Hey… Steven?” She asked tentatively, replacing the straw wrapper bookmark in the place where she had last left off. (She didn’t quite close the book—not yet. There was a finality in that action, mundane though it was, that suddenly scared her.) “Are you… okay?”

Seconds dripped before anything happened. Surrounded by a nest of tangled wires and tubes, Steven was deathly still in their embrace, less subject than object, less object than tangible ghost. From her vantage point—the chair next to his bed—she couldn’t see his face, the expression in it, perhaps even the lack of one. But she observed the way that his right hand laid feebly on top of his stomach, fingers lightly curled into a ball. And she saw the feeble rise and fall of his chest, how it stuttered every so often with each arrhythmic movement that found its companion in a staccato beat on his heart monitor.

And here was yet another thing that scared the twelve-year old.

She surmised that all these signs and symbols had something to do with finality, too.

Endings.

She hated those.

Sometimes, when she was reading a really good book, she would stop just before the last chapter to steel herself for what was to come.

“Yes,” came a mechanical reply. “Just tired…”

“I can imagine,” Connie said. (She couldn’t imagine it all. She could barely reconcile that this was the same boy she had laughed and laughed with only so many days ago on the first floor of this very hospital. He had smiled at her so kindly, eyes shining with their own paradoxical aliveness. And she’d thought to herself, even then, how miraculous he surely was, how extraordinary.) “We can stop right here for now if you want to take a nap or something…?”

“I don’t like naps,” Steven immediately said in that same colorless tone, and yet, there was a slight edge to his voice that wasn’t exactly anger, but rather defiance, argumentative, defensive, self-directed—as though it was aimed towards himself. His chubby fingers tensed on his stomach, crumpling the paisley-studded fabric there.

Connie did not think it was necessary to ask why he didn’t like naps.

Or, maybe, it was entirely necessary.

Maybe it was one of those very human statements that required an equally human reply: comfort, consolation, concern.

But she lapsed into silence rather than pursue it, the weight of her book pressing heavily upon her knees, the weight of the moment overwhelming her in all of her twelve-year-oldish-ness. She glanced emptily at the page where the spine was cracked open and realized that they hadn’t even reached the halfway point yet.

There were still so many pages to go.

Hundreds.

“… how does it end?”

But now, very suddenly, with all the air of a startled cat, she glanced up, and saw that Steven had painstakingly tilted his head in her direction. And he was simply watching her, the expression in his dark eyes impenetrable and distant, even though he was so close, quite close enough to reach out and actually touch.

Her literary mind worked ahead of her.

There was a metaphor in there somewhere.

“The chapter?” Connie asked, wondering if he was implicitly asking her to keep reading. 

“No.” The line of Steven’s pale mouth barely moved. “The book.”

It registered with her immediately—he was asking for an entirely different thing besides.

Cold collapsed down her spine, settling somewhere in her stomach.

Icy.

Hard.

“Don’t be silly,” she returned numbly, as though it was just a game they were still playing. It was not in fact a game. It wasn’t even close to one. “You’ll have to wait for me to read the rest of the book to find out. We haven’t even reached Chapter Eight yet.”

There were twenty-one chapters total.

Epilogue included.

Steven was silent for a long time, but never entirely; the various machines invading him did all of the talking in his place: whirring, beeping, stuttering on.

“I guess we better keep going then.”

“Yeah…”

Connie removed her straw wrapper bookmark again and began to read.

She read very quickly now, as though something depended upon it.

iv.

A little before noon, Dr. Maheswaran briefly came in to disconnect Steven from the portable dialysis machine and send Connie downstairs to be picked up by her father for tennis practice. Garnet watched him as he seemingly watched nothing. He looked away when the nephrologist gently disconnected the machine’s tubing from the central line grafted into his neck. He closed his dark eyes when she replaced the oxygen mask over his mouth for one of those quick albuterol treatments. (Ever since his episode last night, his breathing had been a little too stilted for the doctor’s liking, a little too short.) He barely opened them again when Connie said her tentative goodbye, placing a hand on Steven’s arm as Dr. Maheswaran placed a consoling arm around her daughter’s shoulder. 

Through his mask, he couldn’t say anything, so he only blinked slowly, the shadows turning beneath his eyes starkly pronounced. He coughed once. The feeble sound rattled across his chest. 

It shivered his whole body.

It shivered the entire room.

When Connie withdrew her hand, fear flashed across her face.

(For she was shivering, too.)

The Maheswarans left, and Garnet and Steven were left alone in that tiny hospital room that was filled with golden sunlight. It leaned through the window with a light, mocking smile, teasing a warmth that the gym trainer couldn’t feel as she continued to watch Steven.

Vigilantly.

With no little obsession.

Afraid to miss something.

(Maybe even more afraid to stay.)

Hunched over in the uncomfortable chair next to his bed, she curled the fingers of her right hand over her clenched left fist, gingerly rubbing her knuckles, and she stared plainly at the punctuated rise and fall of his chest as albuterol vapor leaked beneath his mask, spiraling into the air like fading smoke. The machine hissed pneumatically, nearly overwhelming the sound of Steven’s beating heart, which was measured out in shrill noise, clangorous noise.

Beep…

Beep...

Beep…

Garnet hated this sound and she was simultaneously desperate to keep hearing it.

A nurse came in some ten minutes later to remove the mask and readjust the oxygenated cannulas in their former place, gently threading the tubes around Steven’s ears, maneuvering the tiny nubs into his nose. He kept his eyes closed, but Garnet was almost positive that he wasn’t sleeping. 

It was subtle, but she knew the signs, having studied them night after night for almost nine months now—all those times she had curled up beside him in bed, resting her chin on top of his curly, black hair, keeping a vigilant eye out for all the demons she couldn’t exactly see. 

The shadows that lurked around and about them never quite materialized into foes she could punch, kick, or destroy, so she memorized all the telltale signs of his aliveness instead, committing each trait to memory as though her own sanity depended on it.

The slight furrow in his dark brow.

The twitch in his nose.

The grim press of his lips.

(When he was truly asleep, he had the tendency to snore, mouth lazily lolled open in unguarded torpor.)

But the nurse didn’t know him, so they only said poor kiddo before leaving too, and the room suddenly felt so much more vacant without the hiss of the albuterol to fill all the empty crevices—the silence, the all-consuming nothingness, the barefaced, omnipresent pain.

Beep…

Beep…

Beep…

Steven slowly opened his eyes as the nurse’s footsteps died away from the room.

And Garnet watched him as he seemingly watched nothing, as he stared, very quietly, at the ceiling, without so much as moving a limb. She drank every micro-gesture in, as though every micro-gesture meant something in the wide cosmos of the universe. Every breath became consequential in this barebones theology, a butterfly’s wings rippling through space and time to matter in ways both big and small.

It mattered—fundamentally—that Steven continued to breathe.

Beep…

Beep…

Beep…

“Garnet?” He asked quietly. His voice was small, weak—the mewling rasp of an injured animal. She thought fleetingly of Cat Steven, of how they had found that tiny, defenseless kitten shivering in the pouring rain. If only Garnet could scoop his namesake into her strong arms just the same and keep him safe, holding him very quietly, very gently, against her chest.

“… yes, Steven?”

“Was my mom… was she ever scared, too?”

The question was simple enough, and it simply unmoored her.

Skewered her through.

Because they didn’t really talk about Rose.

Not really.

They referenced her obliquely, in passing mention, if they absolutely had to; her portrait loomed above the door leading into the beach house; every year, on her birthday, they laid flowers upon her grave and tried not to think about young she would have been had she never died.

And yet, here Steven was, trespassing that unspoken rule and doubling down upon it.

As little as they ever discussed Rose Quartz, they touched upon her illness even less.

So many memories.

Too painful.

Too raw.

Never healed, buried deep within their skins, buried six feet under the ground.

“…I think she might have been,” Garnet answered slowly, “but I can’t say for sure. She was good at pushing down her feelings for us… for our sakes.”

Which in turn made her an excellent leader.

(And an inscrutable friend.)

Steven seemed to silently grapple with this for a few moments, his expression complex, as though there were cloud shadows roaming across his eyes and mouth, threatening rain but never delivering.

“I dreamt of her last night,” Steven said, an explanatory note in his voice. Justificatory. He wasn’t bringing up his mother for just any random reason. “My mom.”

Garnet’s heart shriveled somewhere inside her throat.

“Mm.” She attempted to be calm anyway. “Tell me about it.”

“We… we were in a pink room full of swirling clouds,” the child whispered. “We played football together. And video games. And she told me that she was proud of me… that she loved me…”

What Steven knew of Rose came from stories and anecdotes, from picture albums and yellowed newspaper clippings, from the few videotapes she had left behind—from the one video she had explicitly recorded for Steven scarcely a month before she had delivered him.

It wasn’t a lot, but still, maybe it was just enough.

Because that sounded like Rose.

Her kindness.

Her warmth.

Her fun.

For she had loved, more than anything, to play.

“And then what happened?” She asked, her voice almost even.

“… I woke up.”

And Garnet watched, helpless, as a single tear wriggled itself loose from the corner of Steven’s eye, slipping gracelessly down his cheek and away.

He was silent after that.

She was almost positive, though, that he wasn’t asleep.

v.

“C’mon, Ste-man,” Amethyst wheedled, wafting the milkshake temptingly just below his nose. She’d walked nearly a block away from the hospital just to get the damn thing—a specialty of Stacey’s, the little retro milkshake bar on the corner of Pin Avenue and 32nd. The staff dressed up like they were from The Jetsons and everything. When Steven hadn’t been… when things hadn’t been so bad… they’d sometimes shlepped over there after his dialysis treatments to slam burgers and milkshakes as the jukebox played the Heaven Beetles’ greatest hits. One time, all five of them went together and sung shitty karaoke ’til Pearl was laughing so hard that strawberry milkshake shot out of her nose. “It’s got Reece’s Pieces in it—your faaaavorite…”

“I’m not thirsty, Amethyst,” he returned dully, turning his face away from her. “Sorry.”

His pale neck exposed to her in the gesture, Amethyst could now clearly see the livid bruises that crept vine-like out of the collar of his hospital gown, blooming blue and purple near the place where his central line was inserted just next to his collarbone.

If she could have, if it would have made sense, Amethyst would have crushed that stupid styrofoam cup between her fingers right then and there and enjoyed the feeling of milkshake pouring all over her shaking fingers.

She would have reveled in the destruction of the act.

The cathartic release.

Very probably, she would have begun to cry.

But Steven didn’t need that.

He didn’t need to see her lose her shit.

So, she only collapsed backwards on her feet and into the chair pulled up next to Steven’s bed. She was ginger, notably careful, as she placed the milkshake on the nearby tray, where it’d melt into itself between the hours and the blazing sun.

For the sun burned today, like golden fire, through the square window.

It scorched.

“You… you haven’t eaten in, like, days, my dude,” Amethyst stated plainly, as if he didn’t know that better than anyone else who cared to know. “Dr. M’s worried ‘bout you. If ya don’t get enough nutrients…”

But Steven cut across her bluntly then, still not looking at her. “… then they’ll have to put a feeding tube in me… I know. I heard Dr. Maheswaran and Pearl talking about it the other day.”

She supposed it should have surprised her that he already knew; maybe if she’d been Pearl, she would have jumped to try to sugarcoat the blow with something soft, something comforting, something consolatory. 

But the truth of the matter was that there was nothing soft nor comforting nor consolatory about the ugly reality that reared its head above them, ten feet tall and ready to fucking strike.

He was fourteen, not ten.

He’d long stopped believing in magic.

“Doesn’t that scare you?” She asked him, frustration edging the rims of her scratchy voice, and she knew, even as she spoke, that she was being hella unfair. The poor kid couldn’t help the fact that he was puking his guts up left and right, but he was just laying there, lifeless, like he’d already accepted the inevitability of the stars that had spelled out his fate. 

And it maddened Amethyst.

Sickened her.

She really want to pummel that goddamn milkshake cup into smithereens; she clenched her fists tightly on top of her knees to try and stop them from shaking.

She reminded herself—painfully—that it was only yesterday that happiness had been given to the kid before it was so brutally ripped away.

She told herself that even grown ass adults had trouble with that.

The volatility, the utter unpredictability of life.

“Of course it scares me, Amethyst,” Steven replied, his broken voice barely a whisper as he finally turned to look at her, his brown eyes drowning in the black bags which encased them. Grooved them. Hollowed them.  “I don’t wanna have another surgery… but what do I… how can I do anything? I… I don’t know if I… I can’t stop this. I can’t.”

He seemed to struggle for the words, each one wrenched from him with a punishing drag of air.

And it struck Amethyst then and precisely there, with all the sharpness of a knife, that she took it for granted.

How easy it was for her to simply breathe.

“Catch your breath,” she implored him wildly, leaning forward in her chair. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, Steven.”

“B-but it’s not okay,” he insisted fiercely, sniffing. A single tear slanted out of the corners of one of his eyes and down the hollow of his face, slipping beneath the oxygenated cannulas, following the gentle curve of his beaten, world-weary face. “Don’t say that it’s okay. Please. I can’t take that anymore.”

“Okay, fine!” The awful words exploded out from her, tumbled and rushed and spilled from her mouth headlong on their hands and knees. Amethyst would say anything to make him calm down, and because she had no filter, because she’d never known how to mince the truth, she would mean every damn syllable. “Everything isn’t okay. Everything isn’t fine. Is that better? Are you happy now?”

But to her utter horror, to her staggering discontent, the answer was apparently—

“Yeah,” Steven sighed, closing his eyes in visible relief. “Yes.”

He laid there quietly for a handful of seconds to take in deep gulps of air.

It looked painful.

Excruciating.

“… I just wanna be on the same page,” he eventually finished, his voice a barely distinguishable mumble, distant and muffled.

Amethyst’s entire chest seized with fear unlike that she’d ever felt in a lifetime full of fear; it gripped her, and it wrestled with her.

Put its hands ‘round her throat and squeezed.

“And what page would that be, buddy?” She tried to keep her voice even anyway, though. Steven had yet to reopen his eyes. “Enlighten me.”

But there was no forthcoming reply.

His outburst had exhausted him, and sleep was merciless.

It stole him away.

vi.

They worked together in tentative silence, Greg and Pearl, taking damp washcloths and running them along the parts of Steven’s body that they could reach beneath all the medical apparatus: the column of his neck, his pale face, his arms, his leaden legs. He was too weak to take a shower in the bathroom attached to his hospital room, and they wouldn’t have been able to get a few of his lines wet anyway for the fear of clogging them up.

So a nurse provided them with a basin of soapy water, and they each picked up a rag, gliding the rough fabric as gently as possible across his skin as he laid beneath them like a doll, limp and lifeless.

Staring up at them from dark, button eyes.

Greg pulled his own cloth around Steven’s left ear, now rubbing the tip of it, now gently scraping behind, and tried not to think about how he’d done the very same when the kid was just a baby, so tiny in his arms, so helpless. He’d been afraid then, desperately so, to make just one wrong move. What if he accidentally hurt the little tyke? Rubbed his head a little too hard? Accidentally got soap in his eyes? What if he fucked up? (He was so good at fucking up.)

He’d miss Rose the most then, in those far too common moments, when he was at his lowest.

He’d miss the way she used to wrap her warm arms around his shoulders and show him, without so much as saying a word, what he looked like in her eyes.

Like he was someone worth loving in spite of everything.

In the face of it all.

Fourteen-years later, Steven was tiny beneath his arms.

Helpless.

And Greg missed Rose.

(He would always miss Rose.)

Pearl’s hands trembled as she gingerly lifted Steven’s left arm, weaving her cloth through the gaps between each of his fingers, swiping its breadth across his sweat-stickied palm. Greg followed his hooded gaze to where it settled somewhere on Pearl’s face, where there were faint circles cradling the spaces beneath her eyes, where there was a recent gauntness in the pointed architecture of her cheeks.

She must have noticed, too, because she blinked quickly, self-consciously, pausing her ministrations.

“Are you okay, Steven? I-I’m not hurting you, am I?”

Because that was the most important thing after all—neither of them wanted to hurt him anymore than he was already irrevocably damaged.

Couldn’t bear to even leave so much as a bruise.

“No,” came his simple reply.

It was the monosyllabism that was somehow the most dreadful above all.

Pearl also caught onto this, swiftly folding her slender fingers over Steven’s knuckles, her rag dangling like a white-sheeted ghost from her fingertips.

“Are you sure? You… you haven’t been yourself all day.”

He was silent at this, and Greg was pretty sure it was because the answer was obvious, painfully so.

(He hadn’t been himself in eight months now.)

The man swallowed thickly and turned away, dipping his rag in the basin on the nearby tray; the lukewarm water slushed around his wrists. He made a meal out of squeezing the cloth out, hoping that when he faced Steven and Pearl again, the moment would have passed, the unspoken things remaining unspoken.

But it was the very absence of a reply that seemed to gall Pearl, spiral her, and Greg could see, when he turned back to them, that she was utterly ruined.

She couldn’t hide it; it shone in the over-bright lights of her eyes.

“A-a kidney is bound to turn up,” she said, speaking in that rapid way she always did when she was upset (and trying not to let people see). “Dr. Maheswaran is looking for one even now, and… and… she thinks she might be able to secure a live donor kidney this time because, y-you know, the numbers and everything. Your numbers. Not that they’re abysmal. I mean, they’re bad, but—”

Greg tried to step in, tried to rescue her, before she got in too deep.

“I know it’s hard, Shtu-ball… but chin up,” he said gently as he maneuvered his washcloth beneath the kid’s neck. He skated around the bruises when he could. (There were so many new bruises, erupting like angry supernovas all across his tender skin.)

“Pearl’s right”—she shot him a grateful glance—“Dr. M’s not gonna give up, and neither are we.”

The silence stretched again.

It absolutely groaned.

And Steven finally moved his gaze away from Pearl and back to the bare ceiling.

Apparently, he’d been staring at the ceiling a lot today, divining something in it that no one else could see.

“Were you guys this scared… when Mom… when she was…”

But before he had ever gotten the words out, before he could finish another word let alone the whole sentence, Pearl abruptly extricated herself from Steven, gently setting his hand back on the bed, gently throwing her white cloth of a flag down.

“Excuse me,” she muttered feverishly. “I’ve got to… I can’t—restroom.”

But rather than flee into the door that led to the ensuite bathroom, she swung through the adjacent door, the one that led out into the hall, and Steven watched the place where her lithe form disappeared with cavernous eyes.

Sunken eyes.

Dull.

His mouth still partially open where he was still forming the words.

“I… I was so scared, buddy,” Greg said quietly, his throat constricting with all the surging memories. Her big, brown eyes. The tubes running through her skin. How he held her hand at the end, when Dr. Howard unplugged the machines, so she didn’t have to be alone.

Pearl, of course, held the other.

And there they were, the three of them.

And then, just the two of them.

Alone.

Steven’s eyes, so much like his mother’s own, turned to capture him now, penetrating his father somewhere deep in the muck and mire of his soul.

“… are you scared now?”

He choked back a sob.

“Yeah, buddy. I am.”

vii.

They sat together on Yellow’s hospital bed for a long time, not exactly talking, but communicating in other ways—in the brush of their nearly touching shoulders, in the painful glances they would occasionally shift each other from the corners of their eyes, in the way that Yellow’s pinky finger rested on top of Blue’s wrist where their hands were placed on top of the sheets in the microscopic space between them.

Now once more armored in a button-down shirt and a pair of slacks, Yellow Diamond almost looked herself—brilliant and impressive, striking to the last.

And then she would look to the side again, revealing the raw cuts now laced into her sculpted cheeks.

And Blue would fantasize about gently touching one, running her fingers across one of those tentatively scabbed lines, capturing the measure of her wife’s face, relearning it all over again.

But in the end, she didn’t dare.

Because for right now, this was simply enough.

To be sitting next to Yellow Diamond.

To simply be.

Together.

For once, not entirely alone, even though so many unvoiced things still remained.

Three words.

Mountains of griefs.

And something else now, too.

I don’t want to commit to claiming anything about these tests, Yellow had explained earlier, her usually gruff voice working itself into something gentle, a little more kind. Not until I know something for sure…

You don’t believe I can take it? Blue’s tone was as gentle as it was accusatory in that devastatingly contradictory way of hers.

Frankly, her wife returned quietly, no.

And somehow, it was the truthfulness in the other’s expression which made Blue stop short of pressing for more, for she could see, in the lines beneath Yellow Diamond’s golden eyes, just what these past four years had done to her.

You barely survived the last time. I barely survived watching you, Blue.

It was a miracle that they were even sitting here.

Barely touching, barely talking, but still… it was a start.

It was something simply to be breathing the same air.

Around three, Dr. Reed finally dropped by with Yellow’s discharge papers and another doctor whose name Blue didn’t quite catch; she was a tired-looking lady, though, with a fiercely drawn face. Salt-and-pepper hair. Hands shoved in the pockets of her lab coat. They asked if Yellow would come with them. It’d maybe take an hour or so.

The businesswoman made to get up, but Blue stopped her with a withered hand on her arm.

“Wait,” she murmured. “Your collar is crooked.”

She reached upwards to adjust the crumpled white band, straightening the crease between her delicate fingers. 

And Yellow stared at her silently—with open tenderness and rawness and aching disbelief.

And when she swallowed, Blue could see every cord convulse in the smooth column of her throat.

“Would you wait for me, Blue?”

But she must have realized how vulnerable that sounded because she quickly tried to amend herself, always aware of her audience, that there were people watching. She stood up abruptly and a little awkwardly; it was clear that one of her legs was killing her.

“In the town car, I mean?”

“Yes,” Blue returned softly. “Of course.”

Yes.

A complicated expression quivered across Yellow Diamond’s plump lips then; it was hesitant and rich, stiff and almost unbearably visceral in its reluctant vulnerability.

It wasn’t necessarily a smile, but it was something.

It was a start.

viii.

Pearl would have done something, anything, to escape her own body, but it clung to her stubbornly as she half-ran through the hospital’s halls—down Truman Ward and down the glass-encased skywalk, down the elevator, down some forsaken hallway and then another, the turns she took arbitrary and varied.

Anywhere but Room 11037.

Horror clawed its way up her throat—shame and awfulness and terrible, maddening grief—until she could hardly breathe for its presence in her mouth. The nausea was overwhelming. The memories she usually kept carefully tucked away surged forth, frothing like foam on the waves that skimmed the shore near their home.

Just the mention of Rose.

That alone was enough to undo her on any regular day.

But context mattered, too.

Steven had brought up his mother so readily, as though they and their situations were one in the same.

Like they were both—

But she couldn’t complete the thought, even to herself, because fundamentally, Pearl couldn’t accept the inevitable—not when Rose Quartz had once taught her what it was to touch the stars. 

Blindly, haphazardly, unintentionally, she found herself in one of the larger hallways in the hospital, and she immediately knew, from experience, that she had made her way down to the first floor. This particular corridor emptied out into the larger atrium and housed many of the administrative offices and various waiting rooms. 

It was fairly empty. A few people in olive colored scrubs walked by and paid the woman no attention, her total disintegration invisible to them.

Unseen.

And somehow, the fact of this was soothing to Pearl.

Comforting.

So she swiped a delicate hand across her face and moved forward until a sight towards the end of the hall stopped her short, like a blow to the stomach without being half as neat—so uncomplicated and yet so devastatingly simple.

A silver-haired woman wearing a dark blue dress.

Hands poised on a metallic cane.

Staring inscrutably at a pair of nondescript double doors.

Her heavy braid fell thickly across her shoulder.

ix.

Blue Diamond had been on her way out to the car when she noticed a half-open door in a dyad of two on the first floor of the hospital. Golden light spilled from the room upon the bare, white tiles, submerging them in a brightness, a warmth.

The brass label on the adjacent wall gleamed at her invitingly.

The chapel.

Because naturally, hospitals possessed chapels—sanctified spaces where people could pray to their gods and hope they would intercede on the behalves of their loved ones. There was something psychologically comforting in the gesture, she supposed—to do something in a situation where it felt like nothing else could be done, to speak to the Divine and take comfort in the fact that they were not alone because the Divine was omnipresent, and the Divine was all-encompassing, and the Divine loved them powerfully.

She stood in front of those doors for what seemed like an eternity and remembered painfully when she had once loved God.

She’d grown up with a Rosary woven between her fingers, singing Alleluia every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday at Mass until her daughter was murdered, and every theological comfort she had ever held dear scattered to the floor like beads.

She supposed it was only nostalgia then, which drove her to lightly press on that already half-opened door.

But as to what made her go in, the former headmistress could hardly articulate.

Her fingers wrapped themselves tightly around the head of her cane.

Clank, she proceeded forward.

Clank.

Clank.

Clank.

x.

Above all, Pearl didn’t know what made her do it—it was almost as though a sense of daring reckless gripped her and propelled her forward, step over unthinking step. She approached the spot where Blue Diamond had only recently disappeared, her pale eyes flicking upwards to the label which named the room for what it was, and then back to the double doors again, which hadn’t been completely shuttered to a close since the entrance of its last visitor.

It was a small chapel from what Pearl could tell at a cursory glance, only offering the essential trifecta of artifacts—a couple of pews, a tiny altar, and what appeared to be the portrait of a dove, spreading its elegant wings across the back wall. 

And there, sitting in the middle of the front row, was Blue Diamond, her head defiantly lifted.

As though determinedly not in prayer.

Her concentrated gaze seemed to be trained upwards, directed at the beautifully painted mural, upon which the gentle lighting threw its warm, amber glow, casting the bird in molten gold.

That same feeling of daring propitiated her again, and it was with her arms tucked neatly over her chest that Pearl impulsively drew closer, stepping across the boundary of the threshold with tender steps, ballerina movements. Her footfalls were light by nature, and in the thin carpet, they were hushed to the point that the older woman didn’t seem to be aware that she had company at all. 

Her cane stood, temporarily abandoned, on the side of the row.

Though her head was high, her shoulders were hunched in on themselves.

Caved.

When Pearl reached the pew directly behind her, she skimmed her knuckles against the grains of the wooden armrest, producing a low, plaintive note as a means of attracting her attention without entirely startling her.

And it was with painful slowness, a certain gracefulness, too, that Blue Diamond finally turned her head to look Pearl’s way, her shadowed eyes wide with surprise and melancholy, with curiosity and well-practiced temperance.

Pearl’s thin brow furrowed.

She bit her lower lip.

xi.

“May I sit?” The Crystal Gem asked, and there was a brusqueness in her otherwise smooth voice that reminded Blue Diamond of yet another encounter with one of Steven’s motley guardians—the one who had stood in front of the door, the muscled woman with bicolored eyes. 

She had warned her against hurting Steven.

She, too, had looked at Blue with quiet disdain.

Perhaps loathing was the more fitting word.

“Be my guest…?” Blue returned, allowing a pause by which the woman could introduce herself. 

“Pearl,” she curtly supplied as she lowered herself to the end of the pew and sat rather primly, with one ankle crossed daintily over the other. 

“Pearl,” Blue echoed gently, trying the name on her tongue. It was a lyrical number, assonant and delicate, much like the person to which it belonged. 

For she was slight—as willowy as the other Crystal Gem had been powerfully built. Simply put, she looked as though one puff of wind would blow her over, bending her back like the breeze did stalks of long reeds, rending her, bifurcating her, snapping her in two. And just as Yellow and Blue’s physiognomies told the stories of their griefs, so, too, did the lines beneath Pearl’s eyes announce her own.

There was a boy in the hospital bed.

There was a wasting disease.

“May I assume,” she continued tentatively, “by the expression in your face, that you already know who I am?”

“Yes,” Pearl replied certainly, but then just as immediately said, “No. I don’t know.”

She closed her pale eyes against some inner turmoil as the ambient lighting gently kissed her beaten face, caressing her cheeks in honeyed gold.

“I know your name, and I know what your family’s company has done,” she continued, “but I suppose that isn’t the same thing as knowing you, is it? Understanding why my… why he… why Steven loves you.”

There was it again—that same oblique indictment that the other Crystal Gem had leveled at Diamond Electric, silently condemning her for all sorts of untold flaws, and Blue Diamond frowned, sucking a little on her lip as the charge did what it was intended to do—level a finger directly at her chest, pressing neatly upon her sternum.

Perhaps these activists were not as inconsequential as she had wanted them to be after all.

Perhaps they had something important to say.

Perhaps here was yet another instant in which Blue had looked away, painstakingly ignoring all of the uncouth things in order to more capably realize the vision of her perfect, invulnerable, tableau of an ugly, imperfect, sheltered life.

She accused Yellow of shoving Pink Diamond in a drawer, but perhaps Blue had always made sure to be in another room when all the shoving was being done.

“Because he loves you,” Pearl finished quietly, “and I’m trying to… I can’t quite figure it out.”

She turned to Blue directly then, appealing to her simply with her over-bright eyes and her slightly parted mouth, with the shadows all over her face.

So many premature lines.

And Blue Diamond returned the gaze as steadily as she could.

Perhaps she even mirrored it.

Lines and shadows and lines.

xii.

“I don’t think… I don’t imagine that I’ve been good at love in a very long time,” Blue began, each word slow and precise, maneuvered carefully on her lilting tongue like a hand-rolled cigarette wheeled between expert fingertips. “Giving, receiving it… showing it… even with my daughter… even before she—”

But the woman could not complete the sentence.

And Pearl found that she didn’t want her to.

The unspoken conclusion sat in the space between them—a little girl Pearl imagined her to be, arranged in a pretty pink dress, dangling her Mary-Jane enclosed feet from the crimson pew.

“But Steven Universe,” she continued, and even at his very name, the mere mention of him, the older woman’s expression seemed to subtly transform, the heaviness in it unfurling.

Incrementally lightening.

Surely.

“He extended a flower and smile to me that day in the cemetery. He noticed that I was sad. And that taught me a lesson I had never thought to learn in all of these many staggering years…”

Pearl couldn’t help herself then; a breathless question fell impatiently from her lips.

“And what would that be?”

Blue Diamond arched a dark brow at her that would have been haughty were it not for the tears glistening in her eyes, threatening to exceed their sunken edges.

“That there is such kindness, such… such love, in your troubles being seen, identified, and acted upon. He saw my sadness, and he named it. He gave me that tiny hibiscus and showed me, wordlessly, that I was not alone.” 

She glided a skeletal hand across the side of her face, her palm capturing the beginnings of those now falling tears.

“I was being seen, Pearl, for the first time in I cannot tell you when… and it made me realize that this is what I wanted most of all, that perhaps, this is what all humans really want in the end.”

“To be seen,” Pearl repeated, her voice constricted, so many emotions thick.

“Yes,” Blue Diamond whispered with a gracious nod of her head, disturbing the heaviness of her silvery braid, “and to be loved by another.”

“Is that what he wants?” She pressed insistently, but deep down, the answer was already known to her, spelled out to her in the rush of so many memories. How many times alone in the past couple of days had he told them as much, both with words and without them? How many times had he asked them all not to look away? Amethyst opened a window for him so he could hear the words they’d all been too cowardly to utter in his presence. In a hospital room, in the dead of night, he told her to rip the bandaid off, to confirm that which everyone already knew and tiptoed around instead of saying.

You’re very sick, sweetheart.

I know.

And even still, even after all these horrible and unsubtle signs, she’d already done the damn thing and run away from him again anyway.

He asked if she’d been scared when Rose had been in the same place, laying in a hospital bed.

Sick.

Dying.

And yes, the answer so clearly, so blatantly was.

“Yes,” Blue Diamond murmured, her quiet voice tender.

And almost, if not entirely, kind.

“I think that is what he has desired all along.”

Pearl had no other recourse then, no semblance of a facade left by which to cling to, to desperately hold onto in a chapel where two entirely different women sat side by side, utterly undone by the same boy.

She brought both of her hands up to her mouth then and began to weep.

xiii.

Blue allowed the woman her moment of private grief, turning her head away from the sight, even though the sounds weren’t as easily escapable.

The sobs.

The keening.

The primality of it all.

Tears gathered in her own eyes, but she refused to let them fall, she swept them all away—because she understood intimately, viscerally, somehow without really knowing it—that this wasn’t her moment, her child, her bone deep, unbearable, unlivable grief.

Though it had once had been.

And it still was.

But not for this child.

Not for Steven Universe.

She’d lost a child; she wasn’t currently losing one.

And there was a fundamental difference in the fact.

There was primacy.

Five minutes passed, maybe ten, and Pearl gathered herself, collected all her tiny, fragmented pieces into a frame that wasn’t entirely shaking with its own reckoning anymore. And Blue finally looked over to see that the woman was leaned forward on the edge of her pew, the heels of her hands pressed against her eyes.

“He’s not doing well,” she said faintly.

If Blue hadn’t been staring at the movement of her thin mouth, she wouldn’t have known where the words had come from.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have even believed them.

They struck cleanly, like a slap to the face.

“Yesterday’s… disappointment”—disappointment was not the correct word—“hurt him badly, and he’s shutting down. Closing off.”

Each word was painful, razor sharp in clarity, dragged from Pearl’s teeth against her will. She dragged her fingers in lines down her wet face, now reaching the point of her chin, now cupping them into fists on either side of her jaw.

“We can’t get through to him,” she finished quietly. “We’ve all tried.”

And tried and tried and tried—Blue could see every failed attempt scrawled in the lines all over the woman’s tired face. The devastation bruised her black and blue.

“I’m sorry,” she offered simply. “I’m so… sorry.”

But Pearl, with all suddenness, with an aspect of barely repressible contempt, leveled her an incredulous look as though to say, What good will sorry do?

She had an excellent point.

“You should talk to him sometime,” she went on to say, turning away from Blue now. A series of conflicted emotions seemed to be playing out in real time across her pale, sky-colored eyes—disdain warring with grief warring with loathing warring with grudging respect.

It wasn’t quite endearment, though.

And Blue Diamond had a sneaking suspicion that it never would be.

“Maybe not today… he’s tired… hurt… but some day… you should visit him. He would like that.”

It was Blue’s turn to stare at the other woman incredulously now, her mouth slightly open as she awaited a punchline that never quite came. Pearl obstinately refused to meet her gaze, fingertips templed just next to her trembling lips.

“I… I have nothing to offer him,” she whispered, a trembling note in her voice as she tried to convey exactly just how serious she was being. “I’m hardly… I mean, he was the one who saved me. I don’t know what I could ever give him in equal return.”

But somehow, without really knowing why, how, or all the sundry explanatory variables in-between, she knew that this was perfectly untrue.

And Pearl seemed to know it, too, for the corner of her lip slightly lifted in the sliver of a sardonic smile.

“Start with a flower and a smile, perhaps.”

[nikki-writes-stuff]

Beauty in the Blood - Part One

Summary: One day your friend convinces you to join a dating website that matches people based on their search histories, and when you match with Loki Odinson, a handsome, intelligent coroner who’s a fan of your murder mysteries, you’re absolutely thrilled. But there’s something off about Loki, and as your relationship progresses, you discover that his dark side is even darker than you could ever have imagined... 

Pairing: Serial Killer!Loki x Writer!Reader 

A/N: This story is based off of this post! I hope you guys enjoy; this is my first time writing Loki, and this will probably be the darkest thing I’ve ever written. Please let me know what you think as the story progresses! 

Warning: This chapter contains hints of smut and GRAPHIC descriptions of death and murder. Later on, this fic will also include rape/non con, dub con, kidnapping, yandere/obsessive elements, and even MORE graphic descriptions of death and murder. Please read at your own risk, and as usual, this is only for the eyes of those 18 and older. Thank you, and enjoy!

It was hard to find a decent guy these days. New York was the city of dreamers, artists, and absolute weirdos, and out of the three, you only seemed to attract the latter. You’d been to speed dating events and Singles Night at your local bar, but there was never a connection, never a spark, and every guy seemed to have something fundamentally wrong with him. It wasn’t that you were looking for the perfect guy, it was just that you’d met too many who were demanding, controlling, or misogynistic.  

You’d given up on finding your special someone a year after you’d moved to the city. After all, being single wasn’t too bad. You could do what you want whenever you wanted without having to think about someone else. So what if you didn’t have anyone to kiss on New Years? So what if you cried a little every now and then from feeling so alone? It was fine. It was absolutely fine, you told yourself. Fine, fine, fine…

“I’m absolutely fine, Wanda. I don’t need a boyfriend to be happy.”

You were sat across from your good friend, who was stirring her coffee with one hand while she tapped her fingers against the table with the other. She arched a skeptical eyebrow at you before taking a sip of her drink.

“You’re right; you don’t. But you’re lonely,” she pointed out. “A boyfriend would help with that.”

There was no denying that she was right. Wanda was perceptive, and she was also one of your closest friends. You’d met her during your first week of living in New York, and she’d helped you adjust to living in such a busy, fast-paced place. She probably knew you better than you knew yourself, and that was why you slumped in defeat and threw back the last gulp left of your mimosa.

“God, you’re right,” you bemoaned. “I hate it when you’re right.”

“I know,” she grinned. “But don’t worry; I can help.”

“Wanda, not that I don’t appreciate your effort, but the last guy you sent me out on a date with got mad that I didn’t put out after he paid for my dinner. I don’t want to go on any more blind dates.”

She winced, reaching over to pat the back of your hand.

“I had no idea Kyle was like that,” she promised you. “If I’d known he would be such an asshole you know I wouldn’t have set you up. But I wasn’t going to suggest another blind date.”

You tilted your head to the side.

“What did you have in mind, then?”

She grinned and reached into her purse, fishing around until she found her phone.

“I heard of a new dating app that made me immediately think of you,” she explained excitedly, pulling up the website and passing her device over to you. “It matches you with people in your area based on your Google searches!”

“Pfffft.” You scoffed, taking a quick glance at the screen before looking back to your friend. “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard of.”

“I know, I know, it’s a strange concept. But it has one of the highest success ratings out of all the dating websites! It’s only been around for six months, but over half of its users say that they’ve found someone they can see themselves spending the rest of their lives with!”

“Statistics can be made up, you know,” you groused. “Besides, one look at my browser history would send anyone running in the opposite direction.”

“Maybe not someone who has one similar to yours,” she pointed out. “C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Wanda, you know what I do for a living, right? I could match with some kind of serial killer!”

Your friend just waved you off and ordered another coffee, picking up her phone again and stuffing it into her pocket.

“Just try it? Please?” she begged. “Just give it a shot, and if it doesn’t work out, then that’s that, right? No harm done.”

Several hours later, and you found yourself sitting on your couch, staring at the same website homepage that Wanda had shown you. You bit your lip, letting your fingers skim over your laptop’s keys, not typing anything just yet but feeling their ridges as you considered the “Join Now” button.

There wouldn’t be any harm in it, right? Just like Wanda said, if you hated the kind of people you matched with, then you could always delete your profile. And you didn’t only search things for your research, after all; you also googled recipes and cute animal videos. What if you matched with a gorgeous guy who’d also googled “Try Not To Laugh – Kitten Edition”? Hell yeah.

After taking a deep breath to steel yourself, you clicked on the button, making quick work of filling out the ‘About You’ information. Five minutes later, you’d chosen a profile picture and linked your Google account to the website, and you were ready to sift through your matches. The wheel on the screen turned slowly as your computer processed the information, and you actually jolted when it dinged with the results.

Well. Result. There was only one person who’d shown up with a similar search history as you. You let out a breath you hadn’t known you were holding, and you almost closed your laptop and went to retreat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s from your fridge, calling it a day and forgetting the whole debacle. But then you saw his profile picture and… Holy shit.

He was lean and pale, and your eyes were immediately drawn to his long, black hair. He had it slicked back in the photo with just one strand hanging down over his left eye. In the photo, he was wearing an exquisitely tailored black suit with a black shirt and tie underneath it, and you couldn’t help but let your eyes trail along the lithe contours of his body. He looked as if he were carved from marble; you almost started drooling just from the sight of him.

You jumped again when your computer dinged for a second time, and your eyes widened when you saw that you had a new message in your inbox. With fingers that were just barely trembling, you opened it, skimming over the message from the man you’d paired with.

Good evening. I must admit, I was quite surprised when I got the notification that we’d matched with one another. I’ve had this profile for about four months, and I’d had yet to be paired with anyone.

So he was handsome and eloquent. You clicked on his profile and blinked when you saw his name. Loki Odinson. Wow. Even his name was refined, if not a little strange; it sounded like a name you’d give to one of the characters in your books.

Hello, Loki, you typed out. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I was pretty surprised to find someone else who has such a twisted search history. I don’t know if I should be happy or concerned.

It only took him a few moments to reply.

The feeling is mutual; I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for the morbidity, though. Mine is that I happen to be a coroner for a living. And yours is…?

I’m a writer, you explained, your interest piqued by his profession. I write murder mysteries. So, yeah… Morbidity seems like a fitting way to describe it.

A writer, you say. I happen to be quite an avid reader; would I know any of your work?

I’m not sure; have you ever heard of The Bell Ringer? That’s probably my most well-known book.

You’re kidding.

He sent you a picture, and it was of a pale hand holding a copy of The Bell Ringer, your name glistening in bold font beneath the title.

I’m a great fan of your work, as you can see. I own several of your novels.

Another photo loaded beneath the newest text, and it was of a shelf full of your books. The Shrew Woman, A Night in New Hampshire, The Hanging Woman – nine books in total. The only one that you’d written that wasn’t there was the one you’d just sent out to your publisher, and you suspected that once it was out in stores, it would be joining the ranks of Loki’s shelf.

Wow! It’s always so nice to meet a reader. I’m so glad you like my stuff!

Oh, love, you’re a huge talent. I must say, I’ve found your work rather inspiring.

That’s so kind of you to say!

I know that this is rather forward, but are you doing anything tonight?

You glanced up at the clock you had hanging on the wall – 8:13 pm. It was already pretty late; typically you’d be putting on your pajamas and curling up in bed to do some late night reading here soon. But something inside of you whispered that you should do it; you weren’t spontaneous enough. What if this was an opportunity to meet the One? At the very least, it would be cool to meet such a loyal reader.

It depends on if this guy I’m talking to online asks me out. Do you think he will?

He would have to be a fool not to. I suspect he’ll ask you if you’d like to meet at a café.

Well, then, I suspect I’ll have to say yes.

An excited grin was plastered over your lips as you bantered back and forth, and when Loki sent you an address and a message saying ‘I’ll see you there in twenty minutes’, you jumped off of your sofa and rushed to put on your shoes. You were still dressed in the leggings and oversized sweater you’d worn to brunch with Wanda, and all you had to do was straighten your hair and pull on your boots before you were out the door. The address he’d sent you was within walking distance of your apartment; in fact, you’d been there before, but never on a date.

Your heart was pounding the entire way over, and you couldn’t get over how unlike you this was. You didn’t just get up and meet guys you’d met on the internet on such short notice, much less so late at night. And yet here you were, stepping into the café fifteen minutes after receiving Loki’s message. Your eyes scanned the room, but it appeared that he wasn’t there yet. As you got in line to order, you tried to calm yourself, not wanting to look too frazzled when your date finally showed up. You tried to even your breathing, twisting the fabric of your sleeves between your nervous fingers.

He’s just a person, you told yourself. You’ve been on dates before; everything was going to be fine. Nothing bad was going to-

“Hello, there.”

You gasped and turned around, eliciting a chuckle from the man now towering over you. He was dressed in a set of black trousers with a simple white button-down tucked into them, and his hair was loose and falling around his shoulders. His grin was wide and full of teeth, with just the slightest sinister edge to it. But his eyes were warm and twinkling with excitement and just a hint of mischief. Those clear blue irises brought a smile to your own lips, and you chuckled along with him at your initial fright.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you walk in,” you explained.

“It’s quite alright,” he assured you, offering his hand. “I know you already are aware, but I’m Loki.”

You grinned and introduced yourself, going to shake his hand, but he smoothly cradled your fingers and drew them up to his lips, pressing a light kiss to your knuckles.

“It’s good to finally meet you in person,” he cooed, seemingly all too aware of how flustered you now were.

You opened your mouth to say something in return, but you couldn’t think of anything to say as silence lay heavily between the two of you. You were saved, though, when the barista called out to you, asking if she could take your order. You spun around on your heel and shot her a grateful glance before ordering your favorite menu item and reaching into your purse for your wallet.

“…And I’ll have a cup of Earl Grey,” Loki stepped in, handing her a card from his open wallet.

“Oh, I could have paid for mine,” you protested, but he waved you off.

“No, no, love. It’s my treat.”

He gave you a tight, close-lipped smile, and you didn’t protest further as he paid for your orders. He led you to a booth in the corner, sliding into the side opposite to yours gracefully. The leather squeaked against your thighs as you shuffled in, and when you were finally settled across from him you caught a flicker in his eye that sent chills up your spine.

It was gone in an instant, though, replaced by the same suave look he’d had while ordering his tea.

“So,” he began, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “As I said before, I’m a fan of your work. Truly, I have been since your very first novel.”

“’Beauty in the Blood’?” you asked incredulously. “I’m surprised; no one seems to like that one. After reading it, my mom suggested that I start going to therapy.”

Loki chuckled, licking his lips, and your eyes followed his tongue of their own accord.

“Ah, well, whether or not that’s true, it’s still my favorite of your works by far,” he continued. “The parts told by the killer’s perspective were…beautiful. You captured his mind so artfully, it was as if…”

He paused, searching your face for a moment.

“It was as if…you understood him,” he finished.

You furrowed your eyebrows, thinking over his words. He’d skipped right over the small talk you’d come to suspect on first dates, but despite how strange of a direction the conversation was taking, you were…intrigued by it.

“Well,” you started, “I feel like I did understand him.  I mean, sure, he took delight in the killing of others; he saw it as an art form. But as twisted and evil as he was, he was still a person – a person that had come from my mind. Cuz the thing is…”

You paused, gathering your thoughts and trying to find the right words to convey them.

“The thing is,” you spoke carefully, “that every storyteller uses bits and pieces of themselves to tell a story. A story is like a stained glass window – it’s made up of different pieces of an author’s mind and soul, and it comes together to create something greater than the sum of those pieces. So, yes, I think I can understand him; his darkness might be a reflection of my own – deep, deep down.”

You glanced up at him, blinking when you saw the transfixed look upon his face. His eyes were wider than they had been before, and his lips were parted as he listened.

“Sorry,” you chuckled, shaking your head. “I, uh… I got a little carried away. You probably think I’m some kind of freak-“

“I think you’re beautiful.”

His words took your breath away, and when the barista set down your cups on the table, you jumped in surprise.

“Is there anything else I can get you guys?” she asked cheerfully, and a flash of annoyance crossed over Loki’s face at the interruption.

“We’re fine,” you assured her quickly, giving her a polite smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re so welcome!”

You gripped your mug tightly as she walked away, savoring its heat as it warmed up your cold hands.

“So,” you said, desperate to break the sudden silence that had fallen over the table, “you mentioned that you’re a coroner. What drew you to your profession?”

Loki sipped his tea, humming as he thought over the question.

“Well… The conversation has already veered towards the darker side of things,” he mused. “I might as well tell you the story.

“When I was twelve years old, my sister killed herself,” he began.

“Oh, Loki, I’m so sorry-“

“Oh, no, don’t be,” he interrupted. “We weren’t close at all. I was adopted at a young age, you see, and Hella never accepted me. She was cruel, and she took every opportunity she could to remind me of my inadequacies.

“But, as I said, one day she died. At first, we didn’t know how it happened; there were no marks on her body whatsoever. She just looked like she was sleeping as she lay there in bed. We called the hospital, and the police, and eventually the coroners discovered that she’d injected bleach into her arm. Later on, my mother found the syringe under her bed, and all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. We finally knew the how and the when, and I never really cared much about the why.

“…That probably makes me sound like a monster, doesn’t it?”

You sat back, swallowing a scalding-hot sip of your drink before answering.

“No,” you answered, shaking your head. “I don’t think that makes you a monster. She abused you; it’s only natural that you found some relief in her death. I would’ve probably felt the same way.”

He studied you for a moment, tracing the lip of his cup with his index finger.

“I wonder if you would have…” he murmured to himself, so quietly that you almost didn’t hear it.

“Well,” he sighed, plastering a smile on once more and straightening up, “you probably aren’t going to be very keen on a second date if I keep dragging our conversation into subjects like this. Tell me, where are you from? What made you move to the city?”

“How do you know I’m not from here?”

“Love, neither of us have the New York accent, now do we?”

You laughed, and after that the two of you fell into an easy flow; it seemed that the heavy beginning of the date made it all the easier to talk to him. You discussed what you liked about the city and what you didn’t like; you learned that Loki was originally from a small town right outside of London, and that he has an adopted brother named Thor that he was close to.

“He’s an oaf,” he’d said when you’d asked what his brother was like. “Everything about him is literally the opposite of its coinciding part of me. But…he loves me; he never thought of me as the adopted child. I was always just his brother; despite his shortcomings, I think he does mean well. Besides, his IQ level is in the single digits, so I’m afraid I must look out for him for fear of what would happen if he were left to his own devices.”

From there, you shared stories about growing up, about life and ex partners and mistakes and successes. Before you knew it, the happy barista from before was approaching your table again, this time with a nervous smile.

“Hey, guys,” she greeted. “I’m so so sorry to bother you, but we’re closing up…”

Loki glanced down at his watch as you glanced at your phone – 10:30.

“Shit,” you laughed. “I had no idea. Time flies…”

Your date shot a glare at the barista before his eyes flickered to you. He gave you a wide, close-lipped smile and straightened his collar, raising his eyebrows.

“Then I suppose it’s time for us to head out,” he murmured. “May I escort you home?”

“Oh! Of course. If it’s not too far out of your way…”

“Even if it is,” he smiled, “I still want to walk you home.”

Your heart fluttered, and you set a five dollar bill on the table as a tip before standing up. The barista scurried away, and you almost turned to apologize to her for Loki’s cold shoulder. But you didn’t know him well yet; maybe that’s just how he was. Maybe he didn’t mean anything by it.

“You guys have a good night!” she called out after you, and you smiled over your shoulder at her before reaching for the door. Loki’s hand darted out and grabbed the handle before you could, opening it for you with a slight bow.

“After you, my lady.”

“How chivalrous.”

The two of you walked side by side down the street, hands brushing as you strolled down the sidewalk. You glanced upwards, smiling at the scattering of stars overhead as your breath fogged in the chilly air. You shivered, rubbing your arms a little bit to ward off the chill. Loki evidently caught the movement, and you felt his arm drape around your shoulders. You leaned into the warmth of his body, tilting your head up to share a grin with him.

“Again – chivalrous.”

He chuckled, squeezing you for a beat.

“I try my best… It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?”

“Gorgeous. Not as gorgeous as you, but…very pretty.”

You laughed and hid your face in his neck.

“Stop… You’re too charming.”

“Oh, really? I was under the impression there was no such thing.”

The two of you fell back into a companionable silence as you guided him towards your brownstone, until he spoke up once again.

“I must say… There’s a question that I’ve been meaning to ask you that I’m just…dying to know the answer to.”

“Go ahead, Loki. I’m an open book.”

He laughed softly again, hesitating before voicing his question.

“If you were to kill someone, how would you do it?”

You paused, thinking over your response.

“Well… Why am I killing them? Is it a crime of passion or a crime of necessity? Am I killing them just for the enjoyment of it, or out of revenge, or because the person needs to die for a bigger cause?”

“That… That is actually an excellent follow-up question,” Loki mused. “Let’s say… A crime of necessity. The person needs to die for a personal reason with no anger or revenge in mind. How do you do it?”

You bit your lip, calling to mind all of your morbid Google searches that might apply.

“Um… Air shot between the toes,” you finally said. “Fill a syringe with air and inject it between their toes while they sleep. It’ll look like a heart attack that way.”

Unbeknownst to you, warmth suddenly bloomed in Loki’s chest, and you glanced up just in time to catch the fond, almost…loving gleam in his eye. He quickly looked away, tilting his head up to look at the stars, but you’d caught it. And it wasn’t that it unsettled you; you weren’t uncomfortable because of the look. You were uncomfortable because you hadn’t been upset by it. You’d felt that same flutter once again as butterflies batted around your rib cage.

Nothing more was said as you turned the corner that led to your street, and you silently ascended your home’s steps with Loki’s arm still around your shoulders. You reluctantly slid your key into the lock, only turning to him once your door was opened a crack.

“I had… A really good time with you, Loki,” you told him, craning your neck to look into his eyes. “I know that this isn’t what you’re supposed to say to a guy after a first date; I know that it might scare you away. But I want you to know that I haven’t felt this way in a long… Actually, I’ve never felt this way. And it’s really scary, but I hope… I hope we can do this again sometime soon.”

Loki’s eyes softened, and he moved his arm from around your shoulders to your cheek.

“I haven’t felt his way, either,” he murmured. “But I know that I don’t want the feeling to go away.”

He was leaning forward, his eyes closing, and your heart leapt into your throat as you met him halfway. His lips were cold, and smooth, and soft as they pressed against yours, and you leaned into his touch when he pulled you closer by your hips. A sound escaped your throat as his tongue darted out, licking past the barrier of your mouth to glide itself against yours. His hands came up to cradle your cheeks, his thumbs rubbing against your cheekbones as your lips moved against one another, and you hummed once again as your chests pressed together.

You don’t know who pulled away first, but you spent a moment just taking in one another’s essence, your foreheads pressed together as the fog of your breaths mingled. You heard Loki let out a chuckle, and you looked up curiously.

“What is it?”

“I’ve just…” He licked his lips and let out another soft laugh before pulling away.

“I’ve just never felt like this before,” he repeated.

You smiled and pressed a peck to his lips before walking towards your door again.

“Have a good night, love,” he called after you, and you paused in the doorway to blow him a kiss.

“You too, Loki.”

You shut your door, missing the way his gaze darkened as he stared at the façade of your building.

“Oh, I will, darling. I will.”

__________

Loki hummed to himself, the leather of his gloves squeaking as he clenched and unclenched his fists. The silver of the table gleamed under the fluorescent lights of his basement, and the air was musty, thick with the smell of iron…and decay. Instruments and tools were lined along the wall in front of him - knives, machetes, a hatchet… It was cliché; he knew that. But he just hadn’t been able to resist the temptation while designing this special room.

A muffled scream sounded from behind him, and he rolled his eyes before turning back to the perky little barista who was currently strapped down to another metal table he’d “borrowed” from the hospital morgue.

“Are you honestly still trying to scream for help?” he snarked, raising an eyebrow at her. “I’ve told you; you’re currently under about five feet of solid concrete. Who will hear you? Who will help you?”

The girl let out a sob, and he watched her big blue eyes flicker to the wall just over his shoulder before coming to rest on him again. They were red and swollen, and he let out a coo of false sympathy.

“Oh, don’t worry, little girl. None of these are for you.” He grinned, turning back to the table behind him. “You can thank my new lover for that. No, she inspired me to take a different direction this evening.”

A small, genuine smile came over his face as he picked up the large syringe, turning it over in his hands.

“She’s been inspiring me for a while, actually,” he mused, ignoring the screams as he sauntered over to his victim, syringe in hand. “She’s such a brilliant writer, my darling is. It truly was fate that brought us together; if I’d had known that my favorite author was a beautiful young woman who also lived in Manhattan, well… I’m sure I would have found her sooner. But I won’t dwell on lost time; I’ll just have to make up for it.”

He ran a hand over the girl’s knee, trailing it down her shin even as she struggled against the strong ropes twined around her wrists and ankles. As his hand gripped the arch of her foot in an iron-like hold, he let his eyes close. This was always his favorite part – the moments right before death. The anticipation was like foreplay; it got him just as hot and eager, and the payoff was very nearly comparable. If he were ever asked to describe the feeling of ending another person’s life, of ripping out the remaining chapters from their story before it could be written, the only thing he’d be able to compare it to was an orgasm. That white-hot pleasure that flooded his veins was addictive, as was the lead up he was experiencing right now.

“You know,” he mused, slowly drawing back the plunger of the syringe, “my girl is so smart… Not a lot of people would think to off someone like this. But it’s not as easy as you would think; you can’t just use any old syringe. It has to be big, has to be a lot of air. And you have to be careful; if you hit muscle, it won’t be fatal, and the whole endeavor would be for naught. But if you hit a vein, and if you get a big enough pocket of air…”

The duct tape on her mouth did little to quell her scream as he inserted the needle into her flesh. A novice might not be able to find a vein, especially not in a foot, but the years of medical school paid off, just as they did every day at his job. He injected the empty cartridge into her vein, groaning and letting his eyes drift shut. He was slow about removing the needle; the separation of steel from skin was slow, intimate… Gentle.

“Hush…” he whispered, drawing out the word with a hiss. “It’s done now, love. It’s done.”

He let his arm fall to the side, and he took a step back, watching the girl start to settle down as he put some distance between them. He gently set the syringe down onto the table before crossing the room to the armchair in the corner. Letting out a soft grunt, he lowered himself into the seat, crossing his legs and letting his head fall back.

“Fuck, what a day,” he sighed. “This isn’t what I was expecting when I woke up this morning.”

Loki lifted his head and gave the young girl a wry smile.

“As you may have guessed, this isn’t my first time doing something like this,” he began. “But I do try to limit myself. I may take…five victims a year. Maybe six or seven if I’m particularly stressed. My last one was on New Year’s, though. I’m not due for a killing for another few months, but… That girl really had me going.

“I was hoping that she’d invite me in tonight,” he confessed. “Though I wasn’t expecting it. It was our first date, after all. But a man can hope, can’t he? If she had invited me to stay the night, you wouldn’t be here right now. Alas, though… I had all of these pent up feelings that I had to do something with. And you were so…obnoxious back at the café. I couldn’t tell if you were being genuine with your disgusting, overbearing cheerfulness or if it was as fake as your blonde hair. But, god, did it get under my skin…”

The girl let out a sob, and he noticed that she was beginning to shake. He chuckled, feeling himself grow hard in his trousers as he thought of you. You’d come up with this idea, this beautiful, drawn-out murder. Such a sweet, innocent looking girl on the outside. But such delicious, pure wickedness within.

“Fuck,” he huffed, palming himself through his pants. “Despite the nuisance you made of yourself, today was so perfect… She’s the One, you know. The one and only girl who can ever complete me. I didn’t even believe in this sort of thing this morning, but for the first time in my life, I’m glad I was wrong.”

He forced himself to still his hand, moving it to his knee as his jaw clenched. In the past, he’d done this in front of a few of his victims; male or female, if they were pretty, young things, the act of killing them made him so hard that he had to touch himself as he watched them squirm on his table. But not tonight, not after you. That part of himself was only for you, now, and he was strong enough to resist the urge until his was the only heart beating under his roof.

And so he sat back and watched. At first, the girl only shivered, and after thirty minutes he was afraid that he hadn’t injected enough air into her. But then he noticed the way she was breathing; it was like she was a fish out of water, and the slope of her furrowed eyebrows betrayed the pain she was in.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, voice thick. At first she didn’t answer, but then, almost imperceptibly, she nodded. He hummed in understanding, hiding his grin behind his hand as he scratched his chin.

“How marvelous.”

He knew she wouldn’t last long when her skin started to turn blue. After an hour, the seizures began, jolting and shaking her body as if she were a ragdoll. He watched in fascination, his cold, blue eyes never leaving her tied-up form. Soft, strained whimpers were leaving her throat, and he let out a purr as her eyes rolled to the back of her head.

His joints popped as he stood up, and the heels of his shoes clicked against the concrete floor as he rounded the table, making his way to her pretty blonde head. He slowly, deliberately pulled the duct tape away from her mouth, and he chuckled at how blue her lips had become.

“This is a much better look on you,” he observed. “This is so much more real than those saccharine smiles.”  

She finally went still 84 minutes after the injection. Even after her heart stopped beating, he stood over her, watching the unnatural stillness of her chest. Despite all of the corpses he’d created over the years, and despite the years he’d spent in his profession, it was still something that he’d never gotten used to. People weren’t supposed to be that still; people were supposed to blink, and smile, and talk, and breathe, but the things they became after death did none of those things. They didn’t move, and they didn’t feel, and there was always a moment of disgust when he first laid eyes on a fresh corpse.

But it passed quickly, even quicker than normal tonight. The disgust faded away and left behind pure, unadulterated lust as his thoughts strayed once more to you. Typically, he would stay behind, lingering in the basement to dispose of the body. Sometimes, if he wasn’t too tired, he would actually drive out and deposit them in whatever spot he’d predetermined to be the one the police were to find them in.

But tonight, he left the corpse there on the table. He flicked the lights off and climbed the first, then the second set of stairs, peeling off his gloves and petting his cat on the way to his bedroom. He showered, then combed his hair, then settled down between his silk sheets completely naked. Then, and only then, did his hand travel down to his cock, and his mind once again, indubitably, trekked back to you. Your face, your voice, your beautiful fucking mind…

The thought that finally made him cum was the picture of him fucking you in a pool of blood on his basement floor, of the bright crimson painting your skin as he let his hands worship your body. The thought followed him into his dreams, ruby red and throbbing to the beat of his heart as he slept deeply into the night.

_____________

Detective Romanoff stood side by side with her partner in front of the dead body, hands planted firmly on her hips as she chewed her lip.

“How old did you say she was?” she asked the coroner, her eyes flicking down to the rope burn on the woman’s – the girl’s – wrists and ankles.

“Twenty,” was Dr. Odinson’s accented reply. He turned around, glancing between the two detectives before taking a deep breath and turning his attention back to the body. “I’m afraid that there won’t be much investigating for the two of you to do here. The cause of death was a heart attack, pure and simple.”

“A twenty year old girl having a heart attack?” Detective Rogers scoffed. “I think you got your wires crossed, there, Loki.”

Natasha watched as a muscle in the coroner’s jaw twitched, and he let out a frustrated huff as he peeled off his medical gloves.

“Detective, this sort of thing happens all the time – freak accidents that can strike even the healthiest of people. They are…unfortunate, but they’re also a fact of life.” He tossed the balled up gloves into a trash can and whisked past them, bending over to type something into the laptop resting on his desk as he continued speaking to them.

“After reviewing her medical records, I found out that her father died two years ago from a heart attack; if I were a gambling man, I would say that a bad set of genes were the only culprit here.”

“What about the marks on her wrists?” Natasha asked. “They gotta mean something, right?”

“Oh, I’m sure they do,” Loki smirked, cutting his eyes over at her before straightening up. “It probably means that little Miss…” He paused, glancing down at a paper resting beside his computer. “Miss Allison Berry was into bondage before her untimely demise.”

“A woman is lying dead, Odinson,” Rogers spat. “Show some respect.”

Loki raised his hands up in surrender as he sauntered towards them.

“I apologize if I offended you, Detective,” he replied coolly. “I meant no disrespect. But I’ve run all the tests in the book. There were no signs of sexual assault, no signs of foul play. I’ll type up a proper report for the two of you, but I’m telling you now – the girl died of a heart attack.”

Natasha and Steve shared a look before turning back to the doctor.

“Have the report ready for us before the end of the day,” she ordered, patting Steve on the shoulder and gesturing for him to follow her as she made her way out of the cold morgue.

“Whatever you say, Officer.”

Natasha froze mid-step, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck bristle as a thousand images flashed through her mind after hearing him say that word. She gulped, oblivious to the confused look Steve was giving her, and she kept walking without turning back around.

“It’s Detective, now, doctor.”

The door clicked shut behind them, cutting off Loki’s dark chuckle as he was once again was left alone with Allison Berry’s body. His smile didn’t fade as he pulled on another pair of gloves; if anything, it grew as he finished the young woman’s autopsy.

“I was being honest with them; you know that, don’t you?” He winked at the girl’s unseeing eyes, his hands moving of their own accord as he stitched up the clean line he’d cut through the skin, bone, and muscle of her chest.

“It was just a heart attack.”

[gffa]

Hi!  I went through a similar phase as several of you--I never really connected the dots between my own aro/ace qualities and my gravitating towards the Jedi culture until someone else pointed it out and then everything just sort of clicked together in my head in a way that made so much sense. And I think it can be really useful to view the Jedi through this lens of aro/ace culture, not because people are obligated to agree to this interpretation (they absolutely are not obligated to do so!) but because it provides a framework of reference for why not being drawn to romance and/or sex is not a foundational flaw in characters.  That there might even be an entire group of people who find that to be really satisfying and fulfilling--I mean, look at how many people gravitated to this discussion (or were already here) in just one day on one person’s blog on one social media platform.  It’s not hard at all for me to think, yeah, I’m looking at us building aro/ace culture of our own, it’d be easy for an in-universe group of people to do the same, and the lack of romance and/or sex wouldn’t be them suppressing their feelings or lacking something fundamental about the human condition, either. That’s part of why the Jedi mean a lot to me--there are other things as well, I greatly value their “face the shit within yourself, acknowledge that shit, and then let that shit go, because holding onto it is poison that will hurt you”, as someone who came to the same conclusions long before I was ever a Star Wars fan.  I love the worldbuilding, I love the psychic space wizards aspects, I love how goddamned extra they are about everything, etc. But a culture that not only doesn’t prioritize romance/sex, but actively values other things and finds meaning in those things?  That we see they have friendships and connections all over the place, that they find joy and meaning in teaching their students (and learning from their students, just as much as they teach them), that they find joy in helping others and protecting others, that they love through different ways, that they love the galaxy around them, they love their brothers and sisters in the Force, that they love their community and their culture?  That they just don’t seem to really want love and romance? Even those that do feel romantic feelings (setting Anakin aside, of course) still find the Jedi path to be a fulfilling one.  Obi-Wan may have had romantic feelings for Satine (which was apparently fine, it’s about his commitment and where he places it, I’m pretty sure that was the whole point of the Obi-Wan/Satine relationship, to be a narrative foil for Anakin/Padme, where Anakin does prioritize his feelings for Padme over his morals and judgement, which results in disaster of epic proportions) but he is a fully realized character without them.  He loves--we see that with Qui-Gon, Ahsoka, Luke, Anakin--that he cares deeply, that he’s a compassionate person, that he lives a life that he considers satisfying.  He becomes a Force Ghost and we can see him looking out over Endor, at the things that have finally been set back to rights, and he’s happy. Even within canon, the Jedi that feel restless and like something is wrong in this galaxy, they’re not restless because they want romance/sex, but because they want to do more as Jedi.  They want to help more people, they want to do more good in the galaxy, and do you know how much that means to me?  That even those who are dissatisfied (setting aside those that leave the Jedi Order because they want to have romantic relationships, which are treated warmly by the Order and by the people who left, like Tula’s grandmother) don’t have to be shoved back into the same box so many mainstream properties shove the characters into?  That it’s not about how, oh, they want traditional nuclear families, but instead that they want MORE of what the Jedi are--more love as shown through service to others, more love as shown through helping others. Do you know what a relief it is to have a group of people who find fulfillment in the same kind of things that I do?  Friendships and helping others and learning/teaching about the galaxy around them and self-reflection/understanding and accomplishments the like?  That these are treated, not just as valuable, not even just as valuable, but more valuable to these specific people?  Without demonizing that they’re totally cool with other people wanting romantic love?  DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT MEANS TO ME? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT MEANS THAT THE JEDI DON’T REALLY SEEM INTERESTED IN ROMANCE OR SEX AND INSTEAD FIND SATISFACTION IN OTHER THINGS?  THAT IT’S NOT ABOUT SUPPRESSING YOURSELF, BUT THAT PEOPLE SOMETIMES JUST REALLY DON’T CARE ABOUT THOSE THINGS.  SOMETIMES EVEN LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE. That the Jedi aren’t just “hey, this one Jedi can be read as aro/ace, that’s neat” but instead the Jedi said, “Hey, how about an ENTIRE CULTURE that vibes hard with aro/ace culture?”  That it’s the one mainstream culture that I can think of that really can be interpreted to say, “You’re not just an outlier, but YOU’RE THE NORM in this fictional society.”  Do you know what kind of value that has to me, as someone who only has the tiniest scraps of representation for this character or that character who maybe might be like me, but are rarely confirmed and are almost always The Different One?  Do you know what kind of value it has to me that it’s not just one or two of them, but that THE CULTURE ITSELF is where I would fit in?  That they built an entire society where nearly all of them seem to be Like Me? AN ENTIRE SOCIETY OF PEOPLE I WOULD FIT IN WITH? Which isn’t even getting into the worldbuilding specifics that are so much fun to play with--like, can you imagine what it would be like to have this psychic connection to this vast field of energy in the cosmos?  To be able to sense the feelings of others around you, to feel their presence even when they’re halfway across the galaxy, to just know what they’re feeling?  To be constantly surrounded by the lights of those souls that are gently nudging up against your own?  The warmth and peace of the Jedi Temple that isn’t just what you see/hear/touch, but also what permeates your very thoughts, the soothing balm on your soul that it would be? Can you imagine what it would be like to have this in your head all the time?

A familiar sense of warmth, of belonging, of finding himself part of an endless lattice of connections that held him and everything else, each fixed in its proper place.  A Force. Romance and sex can be wonderful.  But they are not the sole defining qualities of what it means to be sentient or what it means to be fulfilled.  The Force being described as an endless lattice of connections and warmth, that sounds incredibly wonderful and human to me, that sounds incredibly fulfilling and like everything I could possibly want. That is what the Jedi seek and have found.  That is the foundation of their culture.  That is the culmination of their lives. This is why their relationships are so wonderful and I’m so glad that the iconic Jedi relationships, whether we as fans turn towards shipping them or not, whether we joke about how much you can read into them or not, are ones that are all about other aspects that are just as epic and important. Obi-Wan’s most iconic relationships are with Luke, Anakin, Qui-Gon, Ahsoka.  They’re all incredible ones and it’s not to disparage his feelings for Satine (I love them as a pairing, too!), but that his character is defined more by familial and platonic relationships being just as galaxy-shaking as romantic ones might have been in another story?  That means a lot to me. Anakin is, of course, driven by his romantic relationship with Padme, but think about how important his relationships with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka are, ones that don’t have to be seen through the lens of romance.  That the ultimate climax of the prequels was Anakin’s fight with Obi-Wan, a familial connection.  That the ultimate climax of TCW was about Ahsoka’s relationship with Anakin, another familial/platonic connection. Ahsoka is a rising star in the SW franchise and her most iconic connections are with Anakin and Rex, both of which do not have to be interpreted through the romantic/sexual lens, that are complete just as they are presented.  That even when she can no longer be a Jedi, even when that possibility is stolen from her, she still doesn’t need to be defined through romance or sex. Yoda has many important, iconic relationships and is such a central character to the mythos and mythology of Star Wars.  His relationship with Luke is one of the most foundational of the OT, his relationship with Obi-Wan is important when you dig further into the supplementary material, his relationship with Anakin creates some of the most memorable scenes of the prequels.  All without ever having him desire a girlfriend.  Hell, the movies had Yaddle right there and you know what?  She wasn’t Yoda’s girlfriend, he wasn’t her boyfriend, that’s not what they were to each other, because they didn’t really seem to have any desire for that. THAT’S ONE OF THE REASONS I LOVE THE JEDI.  They show compassion and care and love all over the place, but they do it through George Lucas’ views on how people should strive to be, and they do it not through romance, but through friendship and helping others and seeking greater understanding of self-knowledge and artistry through the Force, and none of that should ever make them lesser, just as aromantic and asexual people seeking those same things does not make them lesser. We are people who love just as much as anyone else, we have fulfilling and wonderful lives, I don’t know any aro/ace person who would really even want to change themselves, we find ourselves to be perfectly fantastic the way we are.  I don’t feel some part of me is missing, I don’t feel I’m less interesting because I’m aro/ace, I love being the way I am.  I love how much my friends and family mean to me, I love how much joy I get out of caring for animals or helping other people or even simply yelling about Star Wars with them.  My connections to people are just as wonderful as anyone else’s, regardless of how they’re not in the romantic/sexual category. And, so too are the Jedi.