#like sometimes it hits the nail on the head with the effects of trauma or sadness (law's storyline? maybe?)

[chromotps]

🤝🤝🤝 it really is fun to discuss and like, work through these feelings.... I ended up writing a lot about One Piece as a show and its tone, which is one of my favorite things to ramble about, so, you know! thanks for the opportunity. ahaha

omg I felt the same re: "frustrated that Ace's death wasn't really mentioned post time-skip until Dressrosa really". Like, I get that the time-skip was meant to speed up Luffy's training as well as his grieving, but I was still kind of unprepared as a viewer to enjoy things like the Sabaody reunion and Fishman Island Arc. Maybe it would've been different if I hadn't been bingeing the show and instead had been watching/reading it week-by-week? That way as a fan we'd have had time to process, like Luffy did... but...... hmmm :\\

I don't want to spoil too much (I'll try to be vague!!!), but there are a few other characters that die in later arcs, but to your point, they're mostly side characters, and especially ones that feel like part of the "older generation".

Mmmm regarding Ace's death as a "punishment" I'm still uncertain... Like, I think Oda maybe meant to frame it differently (but didn't execute it 100% perfectly, since some fans clearly walked away from Marfineford blaming Ace for what happened :[ ). Oda gives a few current-timeline characters (like Whitebeard!) deaths that focus on how they were taking a stand for honor/the ones they love/an ideal they had/etc, and those deaths seem like badges of honor in a weird way? I know that's a terrible way to word it, but I'm having trouble getting at it--but it's that thing that shounen manga does a lot, where honor is such a tangible virtue that dying with integrity (especially in some badass show of strength) is framed as more valuable than living with ''''cowardice''''.

(Which makes me think about the toxic masculinity in a lot of shounen stories, when they frame being "tough" as better than being "weak"/vulnerable/asking for help. Though I'm generalizing like, a tonnnnn here 😅. But still, in a One Piece world where there wasn't so much emphasis on characters shouldering suffering alone to be manly (thinking of like, Zoro insisting on taking Kuma's pain thing instead of Sanji, or... some more stuff in Wano I don't want to spoil 😂)—in a One Piece world like that, Ace wouldn't have ended up in that final predicament anyway!!)

I very much agree with everything you said about Luffy's Journey... especially "we're told that it adds weight more than we're shown that it does". Like, Sabo's post-timeskip actions fit with that too—we get one quick, and admittedly very heartbreaking scene of him becoming aware of Ace's death......... and then he's fine! Ready to go kick some ass and protect Luffy and do what needs to be done. Though, again, this kind of feels like a One Piece... trait? I don't want to say flaw, bc tbh I like the overall tone of One Piece, but a lot of characters (Nami, Sanji, Robin, most SHs 😂) go through deeply traumatic things and then act just kind of... "normal" within a couple episodes? I guess? Anyway, it would have hit a lot harder/more effectively if we did get just a little more direct evidence of Luffy being changed.

But thennnn like........ I don't know if it would still feel like One Piece at that point! Like, I saw some bit of trivia that I'm 65% sure is true, that Oda confirmed in one of those Q&A things, that Luffy has nightmares about Marineford. (actually, there's a one-off line about Sabo having nightmares, too!) That detail's incredibly touching and adds so much depth, but I also do think I'd be kind of put off if I actually saw something like that in an episode of the anime. Like, OP walks this weird line by having some intensely dark moments, but never giving them too much weight/attention so that the optimistic tone is carefully preserved. Comparing it to a show like Attack on Titan (which I stopped watching bc I honestly got sick of characters being killed off for shock value and people thinking that was good writing), I'd much rather have One Piece's manner of showing death and grief...

ajksgldfh I keep saying this and then waffling, but ok yes. 100% agree about Ace and Worth. Like, through a shounen manga lens, I can see Oda really thinking Ace had a full satisfying emotional arc. But when you start applying anything even slightly more nuanced to it/more modern thinking, he clearly had so much hurt left to resolve. Totally heartbreaking, totally agree, ugh.

Hm!!!!! What you said about the live action!!!!! god part of me is terrified for my heart if they do make it to the Marineford Arc, and the other part of me is terrified they won't. 😂 But dang it'd be cool to see an Oda-approved........ alternative? Or just, yeah, what changes would they make, considering they've already tweaked a few other plot points to make them stronger or more appealing to a more modern audience!!

I just watched MelonTeee's video on Ace and Worth and man the internal debate I have with myself on whether I agree with the choice or not...

Her video explains the fandom's love for the character so well, as well as why the tragedy hit so hard. For me personally I have not been that affected by a character death in a LONG time.

And I understand it from a certain narrative perspective – mainly how Ace's past continues to feature in the story a decade later, and Whitebeard's line that someone would carry Ace's flame, because that clearly describing Luffy. He goes after the mera mera no mi and finishes what Ace started in Wano.

But there are two major narrative reasons given for Ace's death that I disagree with. And are largely why I think it shouldn't have happened, and also why the death has hit me so hard.

This is going to get long, but I would really love to hear everyone's thoughts on it if you choose to read!

To give Luffy the push he needed to be stronger: I am pretty confident this is Oda's stated reason (in addition to Oda wanting to prove he could kill characters which I guess he said at one point and which is bleh). Anyway. That push already happened on Sabaody when Luffy lost everyone to Duma. He was HELPLESS. More helpless than he was through most of marineford. And when Rayleigh convinces Luffy to do the 2 years training, Rayleigh only brings up their epic defeat on Sabaody. He does not bring up marineford or Ace's death as a reason Luffy needs to get stronger. Because Luffy did not need that reason. The only argument I can think of is that maybe once he landed on Amazon Lily, and he realized the strawhats were likely alive, the terror he felt on Sabaody abated slightly. And therefore maybe he needed a reminder of what "loss" truly is to re-motivate him. However, I don't think that is really fitting with his character or the story.

Ace's dream was fulfilled: Oda has talked about the reason he doesn't kill villains is because not having your dream fulfilled is a worse fate than death. I think part of the tragedy of Ace's death was that his dream wasn't fulfilled. Even for those who accept his last words - that he had only one regret which was not seeing Luffy accomplish his dream - the amount of time he got to live with that dream was literally the last moments of his life. But I don't think just because you die with no regrets, does not mean your dream is fulfilled. Especially when Ace never truly internalized what his dream was. His final choice to turn around showed HOW MUCH he still was that lonely, scared little kid he was at 10 despite his warm smile and his growing family. The most heartbreaking part of the flashback was not Sabo's death. It was watching Ace asking the question "do I deserve to exist?" and giving all his devotion to those who said yes. It was him making the exact same decision he would make 10 years later, to refuse to run, because he felt like if he ran he would lose everything and Luffy was standing behind him. Ace's final words do more than state he has no regrets. He also gives the answer to the question he'd asked Garp, and that Garp had said only his actions could decide. Ace died thanking Luffy and his family for loving him despite the "worthless" or "good for nothing" person he was. Ace was moved to tears to hear his family emphatically saying "YES. You do deserve to live! We want you to live!" But Ace never actually believed it. His last words were a reflection of gratitude for the love he was given that he didn't feel he deserved. And thus his final answer to the question "Do I deserve to exist?" was no.

That he was too "good" This is kind of the most upsetting one I've heard (thankfully not a lot) and also the one easiest to dismiss. Ace, being the actual son of the pirate king, being super powerful, growing in strength and reputation faster than Luffy (debatable), put him narratively in competition with Luffy. What I mean by that is it positions him as too much the golden character, the mary sue, the typical protagonist, when One Piece is about Luffy's story, not Ace's. I disagree with the premise of seeing Ace's character that way. But also even he was "that" character, it's pretty clear Ace's dream would have taken him to becoming Whitebeard's heir - whose dream it was to build a family - while Luffy is Gol D Roger's heir. So Ace's journey would have supported the main story of One Piece and also be narratively satisfying.

---

What Was Ace's Dream?

The dreams Ace stated out loud were more reflections of his actual, deeper dream. "I want to be the king of the pirates" - because he wanted to prove his existence and his worth to the world. Which switched to "I want to make whitebeard the king of the pirates" - because Whitebeard loved him despite his blood, and so even if that wasn't what Whitebeard wanted, it was how Ace understood he could repay Whitebeard.

Both of those stated dreams get back to this question he'd been asking his whole life - that of worth. Worth and Love, which, for Ace's character, are inseparable.

For Ace's dream to truly be fulfilled, it's not enough for him to accept he was loved – which he did on the scaffolds, crying from happiness – he had to believe he was worth that love. He had to love himself.

Ace died with that dream tragically unfulfilled.

---

The Purpose of One Piece

Of course the decision to kill Ace makes the story more realistic and of course it is heartbreaking, tragic, moving, and obviously inspires deeper discussion.

However, what rankled me from when I first learned about his death, which was way before I was even introduced to the character in Alabasta, was that he is the only character of the younger generation (outside of flashbacks) to die.

Honestly when I first heard Ace was one of the only characters to die, I was just worried it would make him seem weaker or stupider than every other character, which is a personal pet peeve of mine. Luckily for most fans, it didn't do that.

Instead, what wound up upsetting me was how it seemed to contradict the purpose of the story that is One Piece (at least what I think the purpose is). In doing so, it opposes the meaning that many fans find in this absurd, ridiculous, inspiring, heartfelt, heroic tale about a boy made of rubber.

One Piece is an escapist story about a boy named Luffy who inspires every good guy he meets to pursue and achieve their dream. It's also about Luffy beating up every bad guy who punishments are that they cannot fulfill their morally reprehensible dreams.

Because of Ace's premature death, he is the only good guy character in the main timeline who does not get to pursue his dream. And what's extra tragic is that he is also one of the most deserving of seeing his dream fulfilled.

[wazzappp]

First bit of graphic design I've done in a year and its a fake logo for a hyperspecific AU... don't know how I didn't see that coming honestly.

Ok lets talk about why I went with 'Ghost Fighters' outside of the obvious name pun.

The main enemies the boys face would be ghosts. They are composed entirely of the suffering of people who have passed. The few memories that they have are of their worst experiences, but for the most part they just kind of exist as memories of suffering. Generally these spirits move on after a day or two, but if there is a specific strong attachment to a place or person or trauma sometimes they stick around longer. Someone who was murdered would probably not stick around as long as someone who died of old age.

The general appearance is of an emaciated figure with very few features. They usually have 'ribbons' that extend out of the backs of their heads, the ends of these are sharp and used for fighting. The elongated arms and sharpened two fingered hands with a thumb are also used for slashing.

Ghosts seek out similar suffering in their area. They cant move more than 1/2 mile away from where they died, which gives them a bit of room to roam, but if you live in a place where theres a high concentration of murder they have a higher chance of running into each other.

If they DO. It gets BAD and it gets bad FAST. Ghosts can merge together and so your'e dealing with double the ribbons and double the claws. Their roaming spaces merge which mean that they can find more ghosts to merge with. There isn't really a limit on how many ghosts can merge together. When things like natural disasters happen, you can get large ghost conglomerates and FAST.

It is very rare but sometimes the ghosts will haunt people. People who stay in one space the majority of the time are stuck in the same haunting area as a ghost. All they have to do is temporary move away until either a Ghost Fighter destroys the ghost or it dissipates on its own. If they do end up being possessed you essentially have a ghost in free roam. There really isn't bringing someone back from that.

Generally people cant see ghosts. Ghost Fighters can, of course, but there are also very rare 'psychics' who can see ghosts. Most people cant see them until they start to conglomerate in numbers of 20 or 30. By then it is a VERY large ghost mass and needs to be dealt with. The effects of the ghost can be seen (claw marks in cement, dents where they've been thrown into walls) but generally they go un-noticed by the population.

ALRIGHT. RANDOM FUN DOODLES ASIDE lets talk Ghost Fighter physiology. (it is so so important to me that Roxanne has No Chill whatsoever. SO. IMPORTANT.)

All Ghost Fighters have 'nail polish' with their corresponding color. It used to help them identify each other, but after the rise of nail polish its uhhhhh. not very effective. It's really not nail polish though, thats just the color of the nail now :)

Connection Gems rest on the chest and are embedded into flesh. They allow a Familiar to channel magic through their person! Familiars are a lot like the 'paper flamethrower' metaphor. Lots of power, but unable to use it without destroying themselves. Ghost Fighters allow them a way to express their magic.

EYES. You already know what the fuck it is bro. I don't need to explain myself here yall know me by now but fuck it imma try and find a way to reason it out anyway. Humans aren't really built to contain so much magic, so it shows through in little ways, like shining out of their eyes just a lil bit.

Speaking of which, Ghost Fighters are a little uh. Weird. You know the whole thing with elves? Where they look almost too pretty and the longer you look the stranger it gets? They have that going on. Their hair is always settled just right, their skin is dewy and almost shiny, the light always hits their eyes JUST right. Even bedheads still manage to looks planned and perfect.

SO. When you get a guy like Robbie? Whose attractive to start with but scowls all the time? When he finally DOES smile? Holy Shit. Nobody is prepared for it. Nuclear levels of pretty. Almost hurts to look at. 100 Billion enraptured 30,000 gay / bi awakening.

More stuff about familiars (Eli in particular. Need to think harder about his specific weirdness), transformation sequences, ultimate attacks, and interpersonal relationships on the way. I just. NEEDED. To get what I have so far out there dude. Brain too full. Door stuck. DOOR STUC K.

[celestial-ringleader]

Random Remy LeBeau Headcanons:

Idk what possessed me to want to make this, but it’s almost midnight and I’m having Many Thoughts about Remy (that and I wanted to make a headcanon post like this for a while so here we go-)

When it comes to looks, Remy is very attractive of course, but he has a lot of imperfections in his appearance:

Remy’s smile is naturally crooked, mostly due to the fact that he had no access to proper dental treatment as a child so his jaw is slightly off-set, and when he is genuinely smiling part of his lip quirks upwards (which also reveals his slightly mis-aligned teeth).

His nose is also crooked from being hit so often on the face and he also has a snaggle tooth also from the amount of times he’s been punched in the teeth.

Despite all of the above, he embraces how he looks because he knows it doesn’t take away from the fact that he still feels pretty and that’s all that matters to him. And people dig the confidence. SPEAKING OF-

In my mind, I see Remy as being less of the handsome man and more of the pretty/beautiful type of man. Like his last name literally means “beautiful” so of course he’s gotta be.

He has beauty marks along the hollow of his hip and on the inside of his thigh.

Remy is sound in his gender and sexuality, of course he played around a lot with it when he was much younger but now he knows for certain who he is and what he likes. As such, he doesn’t mind occasionally looking in a more gender-nonconforming way when the mood strikes.

So of course when Jubilee needs help practicing with make-up he offers right away. Anything for his pseudo-sister.

On the topic of siblings, Remy feels protective over those he cares about (which this isn’t new information) but when it comes to people like Laura and Jubilee, he’s especially more protective. This mostly comes from his experience of being neglected and he doesn’t want his loved ones ever feeling that because of him.

On a more angsty note: Remy tends to hide it whenever he’s hurting, [physically and/or emotionally]. If he feels sick, he still pushes through it just to make sure no one worries about him if he turns up absent even if it takes all his energy just to stay awake. Of course this usually ends with him being forced to take a fucking break while given a slight scolding for not telling anyone.

I know marvel will never address this, but Remy has a lot of built up trauma from all the years of him being hurt to the point of death, abandoned, betrayed, used, etc. and while he never shows it, all that really puts a heavy weight on him at all times. But he’ll never let it on to anyone. Instead he forces a smile and hopes that he can at least make someone’s day go better if his day isn’t.

Contrary to popular belief, Remy is amazing with children. He grew up with a large family, and was the eldest child on top of that, so of course he had to babysit his younger cousins a lot. Of course with infants that’s a different story, but kids just,,like him for some reason?

(Because this couldn’t be avoided) He has a very complex relationship with catholicism as a whole. On one hand he feels attached to it because he was basically raised catholic, but on the other it’s the same group that demonizes him over things he can’t control. He’s more passive with his religion and only really practices it on special occasions (like the holidays, for example).

“Gambit” is the name/persona he associates with all the bad shit he does. He only ever introduces himself as such when he’s either working with the X-Men or facing off against an enemy. “Remy” is saved for those he cares about and keeps the two separated as much as he can.

Remy was (and kinda still is) a habitual smoker, he picked up the habit at a young age and has a hard time letting go of his vice. Of course now it’s not nearly as bad, but when times get tough he’ll reach for his pack of cigs.

It’s not super obvious, but he’s kind of a huge nerd. His room isn’t decorated head-to-toe in merch, but occasionally he’ll find a rare collector’s item for Star Trek and he just has to get his hands on it. Also he definitely played dungeons and dragons and has a whole dice hoard hidden in his room.

He talks with his hands a lot, in fact he just moves around and fidgets often when he’s in a situation where he feels under-stimulated, whether that’s messing with his cards, humming to himself, or tapping on his leg/desk. However when he feels overwhelmed/anxious, his soothing gestures get to the point of hurting him. Like biting the inside of his cheek, picking at his nails, scratching, etc.

He doesn’t show it sometimes, but Remy will have days where he just doesn’t want to look at his reflection. Either because he doesn’t want to see his eyes, but sometimes he just feels alienated from his own body thanks to a lack of agency in the past.

OKAY NSFW BELOW THE CUT: (big warning for mentions of coercion and assault)

He aims to please his partners in the bedroom, so he changes things up as they see fit. So long as it’s enjoyable for everyone, he’s down for whatever.

Remy likes it when his partner messes with his hair, whether it’s just aimlessly petting it, running their fingers through it, pulling on it. He just loves the feeling so much.

His sex drive is kinda crazy sometimes, which is sort of a side-effect of all the energy he has pent up in his body constantly. Although it’s partially an effect of how hedonistic he is (which was a result of trauma and his need to escape it) and how often he feels like he needs to please everyone. Nowadays he has more control over himself, but when he was younger he was borderline hypersexual.

Not gonna get into specifics here, but Remy used to have a hard time saying “no” to people. Sometimes he’d land himself in situations where he wanted to say it but felt like he couldn’t, mostly to keep his reputation in tact but to also make sure that the other person is pleased even if he isn’t all in it.

Okay less angsty shit now. He enjoys being praised and given sweet talk. Of course he won’t say no to a bit of rough handling here and there, but it also feels nice when he’s cherished and told he’s doing good. But also outside of the bedroom praise takes him off guard and half the time he feels like he doesn’t deserve it, there’s far better people than him. And every single time he’s told he absolutely does deserve it.

Okay that’s all I can think of for now but I might add more to this as I come up with more akjdbvkj this isn’t for anything in particular, just wanted to share my random thoughts about him.

[hermannsthumb]

a drabble where hermann counts the freckles on newt’s face ... please that would be so cute 🙏

THIS IS SO CUUUUUTE.....will never get tired of writing "morning after world not ending" fics

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The weirdest part about waking up in Hermann’s bed isn’t necessarily that Newt is waking up in Hermann’s bed in the first place, but a combination of two facts: one, that Hermann is there with Newt, and two, that Newt (in his first few fleeting moments of consciousness after waking from a very heavy sleep) even has the capacity to recognize it as Hermann’s bed. It doesn’t feel any different from his own bed. The mattress, the sheets, and the light cotton bedspread all feel like his own. It feels, hypothetically, like any bed in the Shatterdome would. But Newt wakes up and immediately thinks I’m in Hermann’s bed. Only then does he remember that he crashed here with permission, and that the breathing, warm thing a few inches away from him can only be Hermann.

Still. It’s weird he recognized it. It’s not like he’s ever slept here before. He chalks it up to lingering drift effects—adopting some of Hermann’s sense memories, or maybe sharing brainwaves with him now. If their roles were reversed, Hermann would probably recognize Newt’s bed.

“You’re thinking too bloody loudly,” Hermann mumbles.

“Your breath stinks,” Newt says.

He finally opens his eyes, sighing, and blinking blearily at Hermann. He wonders where his glasses ended up. Probably wedged between the bed and the wall getting even more damaged than they already are. His eyesight is good enough, at least, to make out Hermann’s scowl, and it warms Newt’s heart like the appearance of an old friend. “Did you not brush your teeth last night?” Newt says. He yawns. “What time is it, anyway? I feel like I’ve been asleep for, like, days.”

“Noon,” Hermann says. He produces Newt’s glasses from nowhere, and slides them onto Newt’s face. Hermann comes into sharp focus, strangely adorable, a word Newt has never thought to apply to Hermann before: red lines from pillow creases on his cheek, crazy bedhead, stripped down to his undershirt (but still in his dumb baggy slacks). It almost makes Newt smile. “Er—tomorrow, noon. Though I suppose it’s today, noon, now. So you're nearly correct."

“Huh,” Newt says. They climbed into Hermann’s bed at half past nine in the morning, a few hours after the Breach closed, when they were finally too dead on their feet to even pretend to be involved in the celebrations. Which was yesterday, apparently. Newt’s never slept for over twenty-four hours before, but if anything justifies it, it would be the past few days—between having a seizure, running for his life from, like, too many different kaiju, and hooking his brain into a kaiju twice, he’s sure he’s going to have to unpack some serious trauma later. Hermann does too, probably. Maybe they can have some fun joint lab partner therapy sessions. “I feel like I got hit by a bus,” Newt says.

“Mm,” Hermann says.

He’s staring intently at Newt’s cheeks. Newt realizes that he hasn’t looked away from them since Newt woke up. Usually, this sort of behavior from Hermann wouldn’t even bother Newt (Hermann, after all, is weird), but Newt feels like being asleep in the man’s bed means they’ve reached a certain stage in their, uh, working relationship where he can ask about shit like that now. He taps Hermann’s chest. “What are you doing?” he says.

“You have freckles,” Hermann says.

“Uh,” Newt says. “I do? So?” Newt narrows his eyes, and listens in real hard on their lingering drift brainwaves. Or whatever they’re called. He can do that now—weird. “Wait,” he says. “Are you—counting them?”

“Yes,” Hermann says. “I have been. Be quiet, please, you’re disrupting my concentration.”

Newt rolls his eyes, but shuts his mouth and thinks back to yesterday morning. It’d felt so nice to just collapse into bed with Hermann after everything that happened—it felt extra nice to not have to argue with Hermann about it, too. Hermann was the one to initiate it, after all, to take Newt by the hand with a grumpy little “You need to rest,” and drag him back here. Newt tries to remember if he kissed Hermann. He doesn’t think so, though he remembers wanting to, and also thinking that (if Hermann hadn’t hurled up his dinner immediately after they drifted) he would’ve at some point before they made it back to Loccent. A farewell kiss for all he knew. Maybe Hermann would let him kiss him now—maybe he would let Newt hold his hand, and take him out for coffee, and do all that romantic shit people are supposed to do. Mostly Newt just wants to kiss those weird frog lips already. He's wanted to for years, man, come on. Hermann’s head suddenly gets quiet, so Newt takes that to mean he’s done, or almost done. “So,” he says. “Why?”

Hermann clears his throat. “I find it soothing,” he says. “Cataloguing you, that is. I like to understand things, and I’d like to understand you. You have a minuscule scar above your right eyebrow.” He reaches out, brushing his thumb overtop it. Newt got it falling off his bike and into a rosebush when he was six. He’s more or less forgotten all about it. “You have three piercings on each of your ears—the two on your left earlobe are slightly higher. You missed a patch on the underside of your chin when you last shaved.” Hermann moves his thumb down to stroke across the rough, stubbled spot of skin in gentle circles. Newt realizes he’s holding his breath.

“Are you, like,” Newt says, his voice trembling, “trying to seduce me or something? Because it’s totally working.”

Hermann’s mouth curls into a lopsided smile. He pulls his hand away. “If I was, you would know,” he says. “I’m not one for coyness. It wastes time. Did you know that you have three distinct colors in your irises, but green is the most noticeable?—at least, it’s what I notice the most.” He dips his hand under the bedspread, next, and laces his fingers together with Newt’s, only to drag both of their hands back up. “You bite your nails,” he adds.

“Cheater,” Newt says. “You’ve seen me do it. In the lab." Nervous habits.

“Is that why you paint them sometimes?”

“I paint them sometimes because it looks cool as hell,” Newt says.

“But it must help with the biting,” Hermann says. “You ought to try that—that lemon juice—” He suddenly loosens his grasp to stifle a large yawn in the crook of his arm, and Newt’s heart pangs at the sight. Sleepy, messy Hermann is almost too much for him to handle. “I lost count at fifty-three,” Hermann continues, blinking at Newt. “Your freckles. You were being too distracting.”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Newt says.

“You were thinking about kissing me,” Hermann says. “I—felt it, I suppose.”

Newt grins. “I’m still thinking about kissing you,” he says.

Hermann’s eyes flick down to Newt’s mouth. He smiles, lazily. “I know,” he says.

Newt decides to take that as an invitation. He leans in until their noses bump together, listening to Hermann’s racing heartbeat, feeling nervousness and excitement pulsing off of Hermann (and no doubt pulsing off of Newt in return) but—just as quickly—pulls back with a laugh. “Okay, dude, seriously, I wasn’t lying about your breath. Brush our teeth, and then kiss.”

“I suppose that's fair,” Hermann sighs.

[bae-science]

it’s t-t-t-t-time for another newt bae-science fic rec extravabonanza! same rules, same boys, same bullshit! let’s get into it:

a beginning; a second chance by @dykesword

other newt and i have a long and intricate ritualistic battle to become the alpha newt, but i gotta give credit where it’s due. if you like to annotate your books for fun, this fic will give you a looooong comment you’ll want to write, and for good reason! there’s a lot of really well done metaphor and character detail in here, while still keeping a very soft, melancholy but with a hopeful edge tone. and also, like, the care and detail in which newt’s mental state in the aftermath of the precursors’ abuse is depicted is so so good, and delightful to read

husbandly duties by @kingeiszler

i am soooo biased with this one bc technically it was made for me but GODDAMN it’s good. this shit has everything: gottlieb trio sibling dynamics, vanessa in giant femme earrings, hermann yearning, newt and karla infodumping together, newt’s terrible and accurate gaydar, gay crime, the newmann dynamic and why it works boiled down to its bare essentials, pride and prejudice glasses touch, and neon green acrylics. required reading for the vanessaverse

Say That Again by @robertfrobisherslover

WOOF. if you like mutual pining and lack of communication from men with rocks for their emotional processing centers, and guncle (gay uncle) newt and hermann and KILLER artsy sex scenes, and themes of words unsaid in a story about LANGUAGE..... oogoogogoogouhufug. the writing style is clear and well paced, i LOVE little mako’s scene she’s such a cutie, and there’s like. a line. that’s a play on the whole “it’s always been you” trope. that lives in my mind rent free forever.

speak right to my heart without saying a word by @thekaidonovskys

i’m just gonna paste the comment i left on it here, because that sums up what is so absolutely incredible about this fic the best:

so sometimes you stumble on a piece of fiction that you add to your little collection of stuff you would show a person if you wanted them to understand a part of you that you can't quite explain eloquently, or it would take too long, etc etc, and i've never really found something like that for my autism until now, which, like, poggers. and i'll be as straight up as i can while still being the biggest lesbian in the great state of ohio (not a hard feat but alan invented computers so i love continuing on the autistic tradition of being a living miracle), the chameleon effect hit me like a mack truck. catholic school in the deep south is the most potent and effective form of ABA therapy imaginable :/. so sometimes i wonder what i would be like if i didn't have such a strong ability to pass, and here's where we finally get to the part of this comment where i just vomit compliments at you: you nailed it. you got it. i don't know if you're on the spectrum, but either way, well fucking done. trauma therapy research talks a lot about healing fantasies, which are fantasies, usually in the form of daydreams, that abused/neglected/traumatized/etc people create that directly address a struggle they have and take the form of a scenario in which that struggle is helped in some way. it could be an abusive parent repenting and showering them with the love they never had, or someone finding them during a panic attack and somehow knowing how best to comfort them without having to ask, or being intimate with someone and having a scar or physical deformity they've been shamed for be given attention and care. and i think you have created the ultimate perfect healing fantasy for autistic people, or at least those with """"high functioning"""" autism. it has a character who is visibly and undeniably on the spectrum having the pain and trauma going through life like that causes being acknowledged and validated, they are purposefully paid attention to because person b genuinely likes them and wants to understand and respect who they are and how they function in the world, and thus get The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known as well as the eventual rewards of being loved, person b makes a genuine effort to help teach them social skills in a way they can understand and learn through and is there for them when these skills are being practiced, their space and boundaries are respected but they aren't infantilized or thought of as an emotionless robot, and they receive love and comfort on their own terms not despite of but because of who they are, even specifically being asked not to change the way they are because that way is lovable. they are openly desired. writing is my fucking JOB and it's still difficult to put into words how much you got 100000% right about the dream with this fic. i have been in the EXACT and i mean EXACT same situation as hermann when he asked newt if it was his personality itself that made people not like him, because i deadass made a spreadsheet of all my personality attributes i thought could be preventing me from making friends in college, and then asked my fellow nd friend to see if there was anything i was missing. so i guess what i'm trying to say is that this amazing, and i'm bookmarking it and putting it on my next fic rec post, and maybe one day way way in the future if i ever get a partner i want to explain the whole autism thing to, i'm gonna have them read this.

The Facts With Newton Geiszler, PhD by what_alchemy (NSFW)

storytime: i read this fic a few years ago, completely forgot the title and author, and ended up thinking about the part where hermann admits to having fucked a trailer hitch when he was a teenager, at least once a week. last november, i say to my friend samara on twitter, head of the BSHCU (buttslut hermann cinematic universe), hey this seems like something you’d have read, do you remember a fic where... and samara says FUCK i do know what you’re talking about lemme find it. so if the fact that i have been looking for this fic for like, two years, and that it contains a moment so iconic all i had to say is, “hermann says he fucked a trailer hitch” and she IMMEDIATELY knew what i was talking about, does not convince you to read this... go back to catholic school i guess.

Feeling Blue by TempusPetrichor

fics where newt goes back to work as a biologist, especially a xenobiologist, post pru are really interesting, and usually have something neat to say about recovery, how it isn’t linear, how it often involves us returning to things we love for comfort, etc. this one sure does! some good emotional and physical h/c, LOVE the use of the ghost drift, and it’s always fun to see post pru fics use dialogue very obviously taken from dbt, trauma-specific therapeutical texts, and anything that shows the author has experience with, or did their research on, ptsd therapies.

You’re Everyone That Ever Cared by KlavierWrites

you know a fic is good when it’s an only 9k slowburn and still manages to reach infinite regress levels of are you fucking KIDDING GO TO THERAPY. newt “acts of service” geiszler may have a little misplaced misogyny due to his broken woman-centric gaydar. as a treat. the fucking. post-drift scene where hermann subtextually screams “LOOK IN OUR BRAINS YOU FUCK I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU I JUST HAVE AUTISM AND CAREER IN STEM DISORDER” is soooooo. god just hermann in general in that scene is great. if you like classic mid 2010s era newmann, ghost drift romance, and good ole mutual pining, this is a treat.

Baby, You're Hotter than my Bunsen Burner by SkySongMA

moronosexual hermann representation is something that can actually be so personal

Times of Stress by RadioMoth

the boys are processinggggggg. man what a good, quick and powerful punch to the gut. if you like post-pr1 catharsis and physical h/c, AND are the one friend that likes to comment at the end of the movie that hey newt got beat the fuck UP, check this one out.

black tea by @faggotcas

okay first of all, god fucking tier url, lee. second of all, food as a love language is my SHIT. i love the very slow relationship development here, where you see them making a genuine effort to get along and that in turn leading to feelings reigniting. it’s such a sweet little moment of a fic, with a nice atmosphere and tone to fit it

now here’s the part where i usually drop my latest fic, but i haven’t written one this month because i’ve been busy launching an audio drama! you can find it here, it’ll be right up your alley if you like cryptids and gay scientists and enemies to lovers and good ole americana, but since this is a newmann post, i’m gonna recommend the pacific rim audio drama duology i did a while back! part one is called conversations from the brink, and it’s a little slice of the pr3 we better fucking get from streaming that godawful looking anime. love and lesbians to everyone ❤️

[lilbabychilton]

Two Weeks- Spencer Reid

Spencer Reid x Reader

Tags: Angst

Notes: The Reader, who lost her husband previously, comforts Spencer after he loses Maeve. (This’ll probably be part of a nearly canon universe, sooo we’ll see.)

Two weeks.

It had been two weeks since you watched helplessly as Spencer Reid got his heart broken and his entire life shattered.

You’d been at the BAU for a little over a year now, keeping your distance and never really allowing anyone to get close. You transferred there from Brooklyn SVU after your husband died. The gaping hole in your heart had never really mended instead of healing, you built walls. 

Watching Spencer lose the one he loved most brought up all of your unresolved trauma. Despite your best efforts to stay away from others, you’d grown a soft spot for Spence. He never asked questions, never pushed; but whenever he could tell something was wrong, he’d show up at your desk with a coffee.

One night, after a particularly triggering case, everyone had gone home; but you remained. Staring absently at the wedding picture on your desk, ghosting your fingers over the metal frame, you began feeling the all too familiar pangs of grief tugging at your heart strings. It was as if wind was howling through the emptiness of your heart. 

“Still here?” Spencer asked, leaning against your desk, his hands shoved into his pockets. 

“Still here.” You replied solemnly, letting out a deep sigh and prying your eyes away from the frame. 

“You okay?” He asked timidly, always careful never to cross your clear boundaries. 

“No.” You replied bluntly, shoving down the need to cry so far down into your gut you could feel it. The heaviness settling there like a block of concrete in the ocean. 

“You want to go get pizza?” A small, sympathetic smile crept onto Spencers face. Trying to cheer you up while effectively knowing nothing about you was no easy feat. “I know a place that’s open, it’s pretty good.” 

You graciously accepted, and found yourself sitting across from each other in the nearly empty restaurant. Spencer rambled on and on for hours about anything under the sun, and you didn’t stop him. His voice helped fill the emptiness, and to tell you the truth, it brought you joy. Watching him wax poetic about his interests was like watching a little ray of sunshine dance in front of you and warm the cockles of your soul. 

But now that ray of light was gone; and your heart ached all the more, wondering when it would come back. 

You made your way up the stairs to Spencer’s, apartment bag in hand. The hall was dimly lit and looked like it hadn’t been updated since the 70’s. Somehow it wasn’t where you pictured him living, but you pressed on. 

“Hey Spence, it’s me” you called gently, knocking on the door and waiting for a response. There was no answer. 

“Can you just let me know you’re alive in there?” you asked, with a sigh not at all expecting an answer. But a minute later there was a hard slap against the door and you felt your heart sink. 

He clearly wasn’t going to let you in, probably in no mood for company. But you couldn’t in good conscience leave him there to be alone another day. You’d been there, you did exactly this when your husband died, and to be honest isolating just made you feel worse, numb almost. 

So instead of leaving you did something you hadn’t done since you were a teenager; you picked the lock. Laughing to yourself as you pulled out the lock picking kit you bought on amazon a month ago in a wine drunk haze. 

“Who knew it’d come in handy.” You thought darkly as you heard the lock click open. 

You opened the door and were hit with a wave of humidity. The air was thick, the curtains were drawn, and there were books thrown all over the floor. Your mind flashed back to your house, a year ago, it looked exactly like this. And you looked exactly like Spencer, laying on the floor, greasy unkempt hair, and pajamas that probably hadn’t been changed since he ambled home that night. 

“Hey Spence” you greeted gently, sitting on the floor near his head.

“How did you get in?” He asked, completely unfazed, eyes fixed on the ceiling above him. 

You held the lock picking kit over his eyes and shook it a little. Spencer exhaled harshly, might have been a laugh, might have been frustration. 

“I’ve never told you about my husband.” You said, playing with the shoelaces on your beat up tennis shoes. Spencer turned his head, not willing to speak but interested in what you had to say. 

You never talked about your personal life. The only one that had known was Rossi, and you assumed he told the others not to ask, and you were grateful. 

“He died in a fire almost two years ago,” you started, “arson to be specific.” 

“I’m sorry” Spencer breathed, tears rimming his hazel eyes. 

“I know,” you replied, “me too.” 

“I was a Brooklyn SVU Detective and he was a firefighter. I was working a child trafficking case and I hadn’t slept in three days.” You anxiously picked at your nail, you’d never told this story to anyone but your therapist and even then it’d been a struggle. But you swallowed the lump in your throat and continued on. 

“The unsub was burning location’s to cover his tracks. The last location still had kids in it. Both my husband and I were called to respond. I couldn’t do anything with a burning building, so I waited outside, watching the crowd.” 

“Fuck” you muttered taking a breather and putting your head in your hands, by now Spencer had sat up and was listening to you intently with his legs crossed and his chin in his hands. 

“All the kids were out, they were doing a final sweep. I watched three firefighters go in,” you took a deep breath and felt the tears welling in your eyes threatening to fall and your voice shook. 

“And I watched two come out. I don’t think I’ve ever run harder in my life. By the time I got there two men were dragging my husband out of the building. He died holding my hand in the ambulance.” 

Tears were streaming down your cheeks when you finished your tragic tale. 

“Was that supposed to make me feel better?” Spencer asked getting up off the floor and moving to the couch, he was crying too. 

“No,” you scoffed, wiping the tears off your face and following him. “What I’m saying is, I get it. And it fucking sucks.”

Spence paused for a long moment then looked at you, “it does fucking suck.” 

That was probably the most inarticulate thing you’d ever heard him say, and you grabbed his hand to comfort him, “but it sucks more to do it alone, trust me.”

“When’s the last time you ate?” you asked and Spencer just shrugged. 

“You have to eat.” You said catching his sad gaze. 

“Not hungry.” He mumbled and you shrugged.

You stood up and walked over to your bag, pulling out a carton of lactose free ice cream and some plastic spoons. 

“I survived on this after John died.” You said, walking over to Spencer and handing him the container. 

“How do you know I’m lactose intolerant?” he asked with a near microscopic smirk threatening his lips. 

“I mean, other than the fact that statistically it’s super likely,” you began, “I pay attention, I’m distant not dumb.” 

Then you pulled out your laptop, and a set of dvd’s and set them on the coffee table. Spencer leaned forward to inspect them.

“The first season of the Doctor Who reboot?” He asked, turning the case over in his hands and scanning the images. 

“I’ve got all the other seasons in this bag. Sometimes you’ve got to distract yourself.” You said, laughing inwardly at your next thought. 

“When John died I binged all of the show Dexter, it was awful.” you paused, taking in your surroundings “but it was better than sitting in the dark and crying til I made myself sick.” 

“How?” Spencer asked, his face scrunching up in thought, like for the first time in his life he was at a loss for words. “How do I stop myself from doing that.” 

You sighed and he began to cry, you pulled him into you and stroked his hair as the sobs wracked his tiny frame. 

“Force” you said simply, “you force yourself to do it. The person you love wouldn’t want you to wither away in the dark.” 

“It’s so hard” he cried and you cried too, no one knew better than you did exactly how hard it was. That’s why you were here. 

“Do you blame yourself?” You asked. Spencer said nothing, he only sobbed harder, clinging onto you so hard you were sure he’d leave marks. 

“I did too” you said, easing yourself back and taking Spencer with you. “Rossi consulted on a case for us before my husband died. Said I had talent and should come help out at the BAU.” 

You paused and thought about that moment bitterly, as you were sure you always would. It was one stupid, simple decision what would have changed your entire life for the better. 

“I said no” you continued, absently playing with Spencer's hair in an attempt to sooth him. Your partner used to do that for you after John died, she’d come over every day and just play with your hair until you fell asleep. 

“I liked my life in New York. John was willing to go but I was scared.” You scoffed, and Spencer turned to you. 

“Do you still blame yourself?” he asked his eyes swollen from crying and sunken from lack of sleep. 

“Sometimes.” You replied simply, “less often now.” 

“Listen Spence, this is going to suck, and it’s going to suck for a long time. But I promise that eventually it’s bearable.” 

“That’s hard to believe” he said, no tone, no emotion. You knew exactly what was happening. Sometimes in grief your body gets so tired of feeling you just stop. That’s almost worse than the sadness. 

“Oh I know.” you said, “But you find people who make it easier. I’ve got my old partner in New York, she checks in on me all the time, we spend a weekend together every month. And there’s you too.” 

“Me?” Reid questioned, his brows furrowed. 

“Remember that night we got pizza?” you asked, and he nodded. “That was John’s birthday, we got back from a case where a woman lost her husband and fuck, Spence, I was in a rough spot.” 

“I assumed as much.” Spencer said, his memory rolling back to the deeply pained look he saw on your face as he packed up his things. 

“You were there, you didn’t ask any questions, didn’t try to comfort me, you were just there. And that meant a lot.” You said cracking a half smile. 

“I’m sorry I broke in,” you said moving some stray strands of hair out of his eyes. “But I couldn’t stand knowing you were going through this alone. Especially not after you helped me through one of my toughest days since I started here.”

“I appreciate it,” Spencer said, sitting up.

“The ice cream is going to melt.” You said, your eyes flicking over to the poor container sweating in the heat of the apartment. 

“You should probably eat it.” You said picking it up and putting it into his hands. 

“Only if you eat it with me.” He replied grabbing a second plastic spoon out of the box. You smiled and accepted it. 

“Only if we can watch Doctor Who, and only if you point out everything that isn’t scientifically sound.” You said and you watched a smile grow on Spencer’s face. 

“Okay.” He replied and you got everything set up. 

Wading through grief is heavy, it falls over you all at once and it’ll suffocate you if you let it. Sometimes you need a reprieve from it all. Something to help you feel joy again, remind you that the world is still turning. A ray of sunshine in the oppressive darkness. Spencer was one that for you, and now it was your turn to be that for him.

[brave-clarice]

“Clarice” Liveblog: Episode 2

Again, some extremely unfashionably late hot takes.

(Special thanks to @kathrynethegreat and @special-agent-pendragon​ for encouraging another liveblog!)

Clarice is working out! And eating junk food! I love it.

and cleaning her gun!

hey, Ardelia is drinking what I’m going to assume is her grandmother’s ��smart people tea”.

Krendler disciplining Clarice already is infuriating but appropriate.

“I lost control.” Oh no, I don’t like that. Don’t make Clarice unstable. Her mental and emotional state never had anything to do with her failing career.

getting weird mixed signals from Ardelia. Last week, she obviously didn’t want Clarice to lie/stick to the script Krendler gave her, but now she’s telling Clarice she messed up by not doing so...?

“I better know you if you’re calling this early.” Amen, Ardelia.

I’m in love: this cinematography is straight out of the film (when she’s flying to WV with Crawford)!

“When’s the last time you went back to Appalachia?” “It’s been years.” What??? It has NOT been years--Clarice was JUST in West Virginia last week as well as in Silence, and she arguably attended college there as well. (UVA is at least nestled in the mountains, and you don’t have to drive far outside the Albemarle Valley to hit Appalachia proper.) After all the details about her character they’ve been nailing, they miss this glaring error? 

I like the tiny details she’s noticing (like the guy biting his nails). Not only because she’s an investigator, but because it’s reminiscent of Hannibal’s influence (imo).

Clarice Is Short: The Saga continues

still not getting any creepy vibes off Krendler. He’s going to be much less effective as an antagonist if he isn’t lewd as well as a dick.

I really don’t care for the way the opening “credits” fade out from the death’s-head moth to Clarice’s face. There are MANY animals that represent her, or parts of her, in the books--lions, lambs, horses, and of course birds--so this choice feels empty and lazy to me.

also lazy: having a fellow agent straight-up tell her in episode 2 “you shouldn’t be in the Bureau.” Maybe in two or three years, after some further “Death Angel”-type incidents, I could see this blatant rudeness, but not yet.

“Reesey”? Thanks, I hate it.

this flashback must be of Clarice’s little brother. That answers one question I had last week. That said...Clarice’s brother doesn’t play the same role in her story that Mischa does in Hannibal’s--but this sure feels like a Mischa-esque flashback.

good: they’re finally getting to the source of Clarice’s actual trauma!

bad: this is NOT how Clarice found out about her father. In fact, that whole incident is laid out in detail in the novels, and there’s nothing overly literary/un-cinematic about it, so this feels unnecessary. “The police are here! Something happened to Daddy!” No, bad! Show, don’t tell!

she would’ve known better than to introduce herself to that kid as “Clarice Starling, FBI,” come on now.

were they regularly able to wire tap hair clips in 1993? 

actually, nothing in this show looks very 90s to me so far. I’m sad about it.

so in eighteen months, Ruth Martin has gone from a junior Senator to the Attorney freakin’ General, and now she might run for governor?? At least let her get settled in one position of power first, why don’t you!

yet more Buffalo Bill flashbacks...alas.

are they trying to make this guy another surrogate Hannibal character? He’s commenting on Clarice’s accent and the dryness of her skin, asking about who she “left behind”...it all feels very Hannibal. (I know he’s a Charismatic Cult Leader trope, too--but when played off of Clarice...)

“Ew.” “I hate this guy.” I laughed.

I understand that Clarice probably feels conflicted re: her siblings in the book, but I’m really not digging the flashbacks of this Tim Burton character her brother.

@ the writers: Clarice already has the lamb backstory/symbolism, too. We don’t need this Little Brother stuff.

*shrieking* Mrs. Starling! At the sink washing the blood out of his hat!!! 

...aaand they had to ruin it with the brother’s painfully bad dialogue. Will still be good for gif-making, though.

are we supposed to interpret all these flashbacks as Clarice being incapable of controlling her emotions/state of mind? She keeps losing herself in memories and emerging all doe-eyed and panicky. I don’t like it.

not to be a broken record but...Clarice should be TOUGH. Again, Ardelia only saw her cry once in seven years. But she’s more worked up in this scene than Jodie was in Memphis!

when Mr. Cult Leader shouts “Agent Starling! Agent Starling!” he sounds exactly like Hannibal calling her back to his cell in the asylum. That has to be intentional. 

damn, wish that I could look as good five minutes after I’ve been crying as Clarice does.

I LOVE that Ardelia gets to be the crucial behind-the-scenes book-smart partner to Clarice’s action heroine.

AG Martin’s just playing politics by turning a blind eye to the crooked sheriff. But when her own daughter was just kidnapped and almost killed, she looks like a real hypocrite.

gosh, Rebecca Breeds is great. I already hope she gets nominated for an Emmy.

so Krendler is...doing the right thing???

Clarice’s father was definitely not a sheriff. I hope she’s just exaggerating for dramatic effect. (Maybe this will be clarified later.)

she couldn’t just sit with a manipulative guy without getting emotional, but she’s cool as a cucumber while telling an extended story about her father? HmmMM.

sometimes her mannerisms and facial expressions are so much like Jodie’s that it’s uncanny, like here when she leans forward to confront the Cult Leader.

“She did it.” Damn straight!

another great callback to Silence. this show’s camera crew knows its stuff!

“He’s concerned I have some residual trauma from Bill.” I. Hate. This. Subplot--and all its OOC implications.

“Catherine was close to her father, too.” Ooh, a nice allusion to the novel! Clarice makes note of their “common wound,” the loss of a father, when she’s in Catherine’s apartment in Silence.

she is just SO pretty.

little Clarice looks a LOT like Rebecca Breeds. I hope we see some more of her. 

The Good:

the continuing visual nods to the Silence film via cinematography

Mama Starling!!!

Clarice’s “The World Will Not Be This Way Within the Reach of my Arm” attitude, refusing to leave without helping the victims.

Ardelia Mapp coming in clutch! 

Clarice being, generally, a badass

and using psychological tricks/mind games to pin the antagonist...that’s the woman who disarmed a monster with just a few words.

Rebecca Breed’s acting has been phenomenal so far.

I like Clarice’s haircut a lot better when worn down (though it’s not very practical for fieldwork, so we probably won’t see it much).

The Bad:

the continuing Buffalo Bill-related Trauma Subplot. Ugh.

all the flashbacks to Clarice’s brother (and the not-so-subtle suggestion that her brother is, symbolically, another lamb).

will the real Paul Krendler please come forward? this guy is so TAME.

the other agents’ hostility towards Clarice needs to be toned down slightly so that it can escalate. Otherwise, where’s the tension?

is this actually 1993? I’m not feeling it. Shouldn’t it have a little of that Season 1/2 X-Files aesthetic? Please give me more than once-an-episode references to pagers and fax machines!

that glaring Appalachia continuity error...it’s still bugging me.

I missed the overt Hannibal references, even though they’re not necessary to any part of this episode. A lady can dream!

Overall, I really liked this one despite my various issues with it. It started shakily but built to a great finish. The emphasis across both episodes on Clarice being in the FBI not just to “get out, get anywhere,” but out of a genuine desire to help victims has been wonderful. I just hope they don’t swerve too far into the “too traumatized and emotionally compromised to function” lane. It would be a disservice to Clarice’s character and to her journey (and would smack too much of “Hannibal really did prey on her weak mind/brainwash her”.

Things I’d still like to see: More of her personality. Her hobbies and interests. That she’s cleaning her gun is great! Now let’s see “Poison Oakley” practicing her sharpshooting skills. Or car shopping. Or clothes shopping to show off her “developing taste.” (Ardelia can come!) I’ll take literally anything. Give us more of Clarice’s sense of humor as well. She had some subtle funny moments in the pilot, and it’s nice to see Rebecca smile for a change.

And Krendler? Smear that man in grease! I appreciated a happy ending even though Clarice’s career is, as we know, already in a downward spiral--the last thing we want is for every episode to be a slog, especially when a good chunk of the audience hasn’t read the book and doesn’t know Clarice is doomed to fail in the Bureau.

However... Krendler’s not a “redemption arc” kind of character. Or even a “run-of-the-mill sexist asshole” character. This is a man who spent seven years systematically sabotaging a young woman’s career because a) he was jealous that she solved the Gumb case before him, and b) she wouldn’t fuck him. He was a Justice Department official working fist-in-glove with a serial child molester who was planning some of the heinous vigilante justice imaginable. THAT’S why his very gruesome end at Hannibal’s hands felt deserved--even Clarice thought so! In short, he needs to get nasty.

Anyway, thanks for coming to another long-overdue TedTalk. Fingers crossed that the next one will be more timely (aiming for Sunday night)! 

[off-in-the-moors]

TRC rewrite: Main characters

Why? Because The Raven Cycle is a mess. From the setting, through characters and to the plot, everything is a mess on a foundations of good ideas. It feels like Margaret took three to four different drafts, stitched them together and switched around events, e.g. things that should be in book 1 are in book 3, etc.

So, here is my attempted to rewrite the Gangsey.

Blue

curly, damaged, black hair kept short; brown eyes and light brown skin

short and stocky, with a big eyes; untamed, arched eyebrows; and round nose

1/4 black, 3/4 white (Maura is 1/2 black, and Artemus is welsh)

her father, Artemus, was a history professor, focusing on British Isle (especially Wales)

when she was 14, her father's ghost appeared on Saint Mark's Eve, he suddenly died few months, leaving Blue devastated

was very close with her dad, didn't forgive her mother for not trying to save Artemus

straightens and clips down her hair to make it resemble hers dad's

owns a pink switch blade, which was once red, she stole from her father's stuff, uses it mostly to cut plants

knows a lot about plants, helps cultivated and collect them for the family business

interested in and actively looks for paranormal (magic, cryptids, you name it), interest seeded by her parents

went to public school, but after middle school was pulled out for homeschooling

works two part-time jobs, as a waitress at Nino's and a dog-walker, to have her own money

a psychic but her power makes it impossible to work as one

makes and remakes her own clothes, isn't good at it but she loves it

loves knitting sweaters for her friends and family

wears colorful, often clashing outfits with a lots of accessories

loves color blue, always has something blue in her outfit, even if only as an accent color

vegetarian

knows Adam from middle school, keeps warm relations with him (introduced her to his friends)

spends her Sundays with her family (e.g. hitch-hiking with her mother, helping with Calla, making sweater and clothes with Persephone, painting nails with Orla)

know few phrases in Estonian, thanks to Persephone

opinioned, independent and bold

environmentalist

Gansey

tousled, always preciously styled, brown hair; dark brown eyes, light skin

average but quite square built (looks stiff), straight nose, shadows and bags under eyes, often has pieces of mint leaves stuck it teeth

the shortest guy of the Gangsey

born with a silver spoon in his mouth

at ten, almost died from wasp stinks but survived thanks to "Glendower", obsessed with finding him ever since

insomniac, his grands and health suffers from it

was in the rowing team, until he slept through training and hit team-mate with a oar

has the power to commend people, but it's weak

loves mint-flavor things, borders on obsession

owns five different types of mint plants (Ronan named them)

makes mistakes in his research and normal day to day actions from lack of sleep, needs help of others

his mom buys him clothes

doesn't understand the value of money, mostly throws it around and leads people with no need to return it

needs glasses but often losses them (even worse with contacts), in the beginning of the story he's on his seventh pair

doesn't have friends outside the "Gangsey"

awkward about feelings and crushes, can't deal with them

has slit ADHD, needs to do something with his hands

perfectionist, fixes mistakes of others, brushes problems off

good at social interactions but horrible at maintaining relationships

after his grands suffered too much and his search for Glendower effected his school life, his parents cut him off from finances as a punishment

with Adam's help, found a job as a cashier at a grocery store, actually loves it

needs time to remember people's names

Ronan

curly, dark brown (almost black) hair, always shaven; blue eyes, pale skin (burns easily)

tall (tallest of the Gangsey) and quite muscular, angular face, narrow eyes, multiple scars on arms and few on face (oddly proud of them)

he's a copy of his own father, Niall Lynch (looks like a younger version of him)

shaved his head and got tattoos, after he discovered he's a copy, to resemble Niall as little as possible

dresses in what his father would never wear

has only one real tattoo, a Celtic cross on the back of his neck base, the rest of his back is dreamt up

the dream tattoo always changes, reflecting Ronan's mental/emotional state, but always has motifs of wings/feathers and branches twisting into Celtic knots

tried to stop dreaming up stuff multiple times, but it caused him headache and nausea, eventually ending in physical harm, went the dream "gets out"

confused about who or what he is

self-destructive, has no regards for his own safety

has a very strain relationship with Declan, envies his "realness"

vegan, loves animals and hates people who harm them

loves speed and racing, oddly proud of his speeding-tickets

believes for a long time, only Kavinsky understands him, but their "friendship" is complicated

doesn't allow anyone to touch Chainsaw (dream creatures are very personal to a dreamer)

tries to figure out what HE likes, and find his OWN path (even if it means craving it out)

touched starved

loves nature, can spend hours outside just sitting and thinking

acts and speaks before thinking, got himself in trouble for that many times (gets physical quiet often)

helps in the family "dream trade" business, doesn't want any of his creations near him, Chainsaw is the only exception

feels drawn to Cabeswaters, but he preferably would just burn it

knows Irish, speaks it when frustrated

before Niall's death, trained tennis and played on bagpipes (uilleann pipes), but stopped after his father's murder hates boxing

Adam

short, self-cut, light red-ish brown hair; grey eyes, tan skin with a lot of moles and freckles

skinny, deep-set eyes and a downturned lips

has only a backpack of his own stuff and a bike

deals with Gansey's antics only for a chance to escape his father and his living situation

lives with Gansey, Ronan and Noah in Monmouth

prioritises his education over his friendship with "Gangsey"

very frugal, keeps a "change jar"

mostly wears his wash-out Coca-Cola t-shirt, he bought with his first pay

the most sceptical about magic, still very cautious of it

hates loud sounds and physical contact

hates taking money from people and having money spend on him, but he knows he needs it

has three part-time jobs, including his favourite at the garage

loves cars, dreams about buying his own one day

afraid of heights and flying, childhood trauma

opportunist

highly values his independence

never refuses food

sacrificed his "hands and eyes" to Cabeswater, not only to wake the Ley Lines but also to escape his former life for good, seeing it as the only way (partly tricked by the forest)

deaf on the left ear but hears Cabeswater whispering to him through it

actively "fights" with Cabeswater for control (his way or the high way)

owns a old Nokia phone, only bought it to stay in contact with Gansey knows how to sew and dress a wound

Noah

messy, pale blond hair; light blue eyes, pale skin with a dark spot on the left side of his face

faded and lean; small, lively eye; bright, wide smile

kept him pretty much the same, but also add

sarcastic with a dry (and sometimes dark) sense of humor

"I'm the oldest one, so you should listen to me sometimes."

his Aglionby uniform always looks crinkled and dirty

doesn't remember most of his "living life"

gets his memories back from seeing/visiting people/places he knew

his emotional state effects his corporal form, e.g. strong negative emoticons make him less visible

music helps him stay visible

still loves Blink-182 (Ronan pirated him all their albums, including those he missed)

misses skateboarding, swimming, spending time with his old friends and family, and filling the weather

doesn't remember his death, only the pain

likes to wander around Henrietta

likes anything glitter, reminds him of his sisters

gave Adam permission to take his old Mustang, "If you can bring it to live, Parrish."

his disappearance is still a talked subject in Aglionby

sometimes mumbles or swears something no one understand, took Gangsey time to figured out it was polish

+ Bonus

Chainsaw

Ronan's first dream creature (or at the time Ronan believes so)

quite small for a raven

senses Ronan's emotions, always tries to comfort him by burying into his neck or "grooming" him

can speak single works but they sound very corrupted, e.g. "kerah" is a corrupted version of "cara" (irish for "friend")

at the beginning called Ronan Greywaren, but with time it change to "creātor" (creator), "somniator" (dreamer) and finally "cara" (friend), reflecting Ronan's own view of himself

likes to collect and bring Ronan small things, e.g. pen caps, leaves or pieces of newspapers

gets close only to people Ronan likes and/or trusts

If you have any questions or opinions to share, please send me an ask.

Thank you, for your attention :)

[ailuronymy]

Book Club: Tallstar’s Revenge, chpt. 37-45 overview.

Two highly professional gravediggers observe the job ahead of them:

“I'd like to congratulate us both on finishing this godawful book! A whole super edition in five weeks. They said it couldn't be done, but we showed them. “ - S

“Yes! It's truly miraculous that our brains are intact still.” - K

“So glad it's over, though.” - S

“Should I grab the shovel?” - K

“Yes, it's time. Let's bury this corpse.” - S

In this final week of reading Tallstar’s Revenge, we will be thinking about these final nine questions. Well done for making it this far! We hope you’ve enjoyed the ride. 

When you’re ready, consider sharing your thoughts with #ailuronymy book club and see what other readers are thinking!

1. First impressions?

K: It's bad! It's bad. It's all bad and I'm not surprised by any of it. K: I was actually expecting there to be more bullshit in the end, but I was almost... let down? By how underwhelming it was? S: Some moments surprised me a little but like... these did not spark joy. K: It was so boring. S: I have that same note: huge anticlimactic fuckery at the end. K:  If you're going to torture me, you might as well make it interesting, Erin. K: Throw in a wild plot twist or something. K: Get me going. K: Make me feel alive.

2. How did you feel reading this section? K:  Mind numb, head empty. For like, at least three chapters I read them and then failed to register anything important for the notes. It just dragged on. S:  More bored than I expected to be! I thought it'd at least ramp up a little, but it very much did not in any meaningful way and really petered out with a sad little "wuh-wuh."

3. What chapter did you find most interesting/moving/effective, and why? K: Chapter Forty, seeing all of the clanmates that I'd been missing for half the book felt so satisfying. I missed Dawnstripe, Heatherstar, Barkface, and Hopkit all so much. The only good bit. S:  I feel that. S:  For me, I think in terms of sheer pleasure, it has to be the echoes I saw from turn to dust all that I adore in Talltail swimming in a time of crisis. K: Yes! S: It made that passage I wrote feel retroactively so much more intense and significant, which I love.

4. What chapter did you find least interesting/effective/most frustrating, and why?

K:  The final chapter, Chapter Forty-Seven. That leader ceremony was so bad and I hated all of it. K: The Shadowclan battle was also mind-numbing. S: I think it's got to be the jump from first apprentice to leader ceremony. That's so much life we don't see, which given how goddamn long the book took for the rest of his very boring life is a travesty. S:  I tend to take some umbrage with Starclan whenever it shows up in canon, but in this particular case, the way that his leader ceremony is handled--especially by Palebird and Sandgorse--is horrific. S:  I also think it's appalling that Sandgorse offers a life of forgiveness, but never once asks for it from Talltail, unless I'm mistaken? S: He thinks he can embody forgiveness, but doesn't have the humility to admit to the things that he had done wrong by Talltail. Egregious.

5. Is there a passage that stuck in your mind–for good, or not-so-good reasons? What is it, and why did it stand out? S:  I think for me, this is Sandgorse's everything in the leader ceremony. I think I'll just [my whole rant just now + thoughts on forgiveness]. K:  I had two specific quotes from this go that fit I think. K:  First was: "I guess Clan cats aren’t used to leaving home.” Jake sounded amused. “I know the feeling you’re having. The nagging pain, the tug in my pelt and paws? I get that whenever I’m away from my home too long.” “Really?” Talltail blinked. “Why?” “Every creature needs to belong somewhere,” Jake told him. “Your paws know where that is, even if you don’t.” K:  Just the phrase of "Every creature needs to belong somewhere" felt so genuine and sweet coming from Jake, and I think could have felt so much more impactful if the themes we've recognized were more evident in the story. K:  The second was: “Talltail!” Dawnstripe leaped from the Meeting Hollow. “You came back!” Delight lit up her eyes. Talltail stood still as she raced to meet him. “I couldn’t stay away.” She stopped in front of him and gazed warmly into his eyes. “Then my training wasn’t wasted.” “It was never wasted,” he meowed softly. “Not once.

S: YES K: Partially because I will always be soft for Dawnstripe, but also, the genuine tenderness between her and Talltail in this moment felt so real and so earned. K: This is what I wanted from Bluestar and Stonepelt. S: I've said it before, I'll say it again: mentor+apprentice relationships For Life. K: Talltail saying that his training with Dawnstripe was never wasted, and then immediately transitioning into him encouraging and being a positive role model for Deadkit? K:  Ugh. It's so good. S: Loved it.

6. What other non-Warriors (or Erin Hunter affiliated) books does this one remind you of? Are there themes, symbolism, or storybeats in this novel that made you think of other stories as you read it?

K:  Oh, great question. K:  Oh shit, you know what. S: Hit me. K: We've got a Book Club classic coming at you. K: The Knife of Never Letting Go, by our mutual bastard Patrick Ness. S: You know, I was thinking about More Than This. But mostly because of how much I hated it. K: TKNLG's big theme revolves around like, what murder does to you and what it feels like to do an unspeakable act that you can't retract or replace. Revenge and anger become a part of you and you've got to deal with that. K:  And it's been ages since I read it, but I feel like that makes a lot of sense for this book. Todd and Talltail both spend a book with things being taken from them and wrongs being done to them, and it makes them so angry and hurt and desperate that eventually they go "Okay, yeah, murder would be a solution here." And when it comes down to it they both get to make that choice, of what they want to put out into the world and what kind of man they want to be. S:  I like that. I haven't read it myself, but I can definitely see how those themes talk to one another. S: I don't think there's a particular story I can pinpoint that is similar to this one, but I can think of stories that echo what I'd like this story to have leaned into more. S: Being about forgiveness and family trauma, it reminds me both of The Goblin Emperor and also the How To Train Your Dragon films? Especially the first film, I think. That whole undercurrent of absent mother, disdainful and frustrated father, queer-coded and different kid feels very present in Tallstar's Revenge. S: However, I think HTTYD does that a lot better than this book, by a considerable length.

7. Did this novel (or the experience of reading it) change your perspective on anything, either within the world of Warriors or outside it? What do you think about differently now?

 K: Hm. I think it's certainly limited my excitement on reading any future Super Editions books. They all seem to be just the same garbage plot wrapped with slightly different bows, and that's both disappointing and relieving. S: I feel you on that. S: I think for me, the single biggest shift is that it's changed how I think of Tallstar. For me, he was probably my favourite leader--or one of my favourites--growing up reading the books, and he came across often as wise and relaxed, and then made that final defining mistake. S: Having come back and read this, I feel that the book stripped a lot from the character in a way that wasn't constructive. I don't feel like I know him better, but I do feel like I respect him less. And I think that's a monumental failure of a prequel. K: Tallstar had such a specific presence in the original series, and this book just really takes a lot of that away and replaces it with something worse. S: It does. And that's disheartening to me. S:  Of course I can and will kill the author myself and take my place on the throne of canon, but you can't unknow details of a character. So that does change things. I don't have the same fondness for Talltail, now that I know he spent so much time being unadmirable and stupid and boring. S:  I recognise that your twenties is like that for most people, but like. Doesn't mean it's worthy of a narrative. S:  Kind of makes me think of Albus Dumbledore, to swing back around to Joke Rowling? S: Like, despite and sometimes because of how phenomenally jank and flawed that magnificent man is, I love Albus Dumbledore. I always have, ever since I was first listening to the tapes. And part of that is knowing his past--knowing that he struggled figuring out what was right, knowing that he fell in love very young with someone whose ideology became incompatible with his core beliefs and virtues. But I think you can allude to past mistakes and show growth without having to delve into it, if that makes sense. S: If I read about teen Dumbledore being like "hmm maybe wizard supremacy is good" for several chapters, there's a strong possibility that would stain all my readings of him into the future. I can know he did something, without needing a front-row seat. K: Yeah. S: And I feel like the crux failure of Erin Hunter's super editions is they don't have the delicacy or sense needed to know what needs to be told and what needs to be shown. S: Because sometimes, showing is worse. K: Being shown like, all of this, was worse than not. S: Nearly all of this book could have been summary.

8. Last week, we talked about predicted endings for the novel. In light of that, how do you feel about the ending? Was your prediction correct–and do you feel that reflects well on the narrative, or poorly? (i.e., is it good that you could guess, or are you disappointed by the result?) How important is it for an ending to be “unguessable”?

K:  We hit the nail on the head and I am not surprised at all. S:  I would say we were basically correct, but it brought me no joy. K:  Yeah, it felt bad to read and go "I already knew this but sure, disappoint me with what you have to say." S: That's not to say I would have been overjoyed if there had been some bizarre twist, because I don't think twists or shock endings are inherently good storytelling. K:  They're not. They've gotta be handled well to make me feel like, "Fuck yes, this is wack and I want more" K:  And like, you can predict an ending and still have it be satisfying! K:  That's just called successful foreshadowing. K:  But what we did was like. Just have the sad, knowledgable wherewithal to know exactly what kind of inane and soulless bullshit Erin would pull. It's not foreshadowing if it's just "you're a bad writer and you're going to reach for the easiest tropes to tie up your story without any thought about what makes it good" S: As a general rule, I think you should be able to predict endings based on the tone and emotional themes of the story. For instance, a story that starts with someone getting thrown out of their house by their unloving family should, ideally, rectify that by ending with that person having either found a new loving family and/or revenging on the previous bad family. Sometimes both! S: If you're going to start an arc, you should finish it in a satisfying place. If you start with a murder being discovered, you should have a denouement at the end. S: So... I guess Erin Hunter's ending is... fine, in that light? S: Their narrative is honestly very muddled, so it's not super easy to actually see what the through-line of the story is. The story starts with a prophecy about Talltail leaving, so really it should end with his triumphant, enlightened return... but then it keeps going. K: It just drags on and so much of it feels weightless. S:  It feels like they're juggling a lot of themes and ideas, but they're not really doing any of it well enough to be impressive. While I'm reading, there's always this deep uncomfortable sense of anything could be dropped at any minute. A good performer of any kind makes you feel safe in their hands, not lowkey on edge. S: It's like watching amateur stand-up.

9. In your opinion, what is the most important moment or event in this final chunk of story, and why?

 K:  I guess the cliche answer would be to say "Tallstar choosing to return to Windclan", but like. I think that really is the most important part of all this. S:  I think it's actually choosing not to kill Sparrow. K:  Oh, I mean. Okay that's fair lmao S:  Because I think he probably could have gone back after he killed Sparrow and everyone still would have been basically fine about it. It didn't seem like anyone cared enough to try to stop him leaving, and frankly the clans as Erin Hunter writes them are mad blasé about murder. S:  But I think in order for Talltail to retain like, some moral worth as a character, it was vital (if super inevitable) for him to not kill Sparrow. K:  Absolutely. K:  Can you imagine if he had, though. K:  Like, if he'd pushed Sparrow off the ledge and went "sick" and then Sandgorse's ghost showed up to razz him with airhorns like 'YOU IDIOT SON, THAT WAS THE WRONG CHOICE, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WOULD DISAPPOINT ME AGAIN' S: Om.  S:  [that one video of the guy screaming above the mountains] S:  That's Starclan whenever the living make a bad decision.

Bonus question: choose a different character from Tallstar’s Revenge and briefly imagine what this story would be if they were the protagonist instead.

K: Hm. I'm torn. Barkface, or maybe Reena, would be interesting to me. S:  I think Reena's experience would be super interesting. K:  I think you could tell a really interesting narrative with her. S:  I'm sort of thinking Shrewclaw? Like, he's such a dick and there's very little about him that's redeemable, but like. This is also true of Talltail for a lot of the book. S: And I guess an external clan perspective of Talltail from someone who actively dislikes him could be kind of interesting! It'd definitely be a totally new counterpoint. K:  Yeah! Especially given that they end up kind of being... foils? A little? I think it could be super neat to like, see Shrewclaw reprimand Talltail for being so focused on revenge, and then suddenly becoming revenge-minded himself and then having to grapple with that hypocrisy. K:  Either by going "My feelings are different, I'm not like you," or going "oh shit oh fuck we're the same and now i feel all sorts of ways about it" S:  I think the low-hanging fruit for why Shrewclaw is such a prick to Talltail is just plain homophobia, you know? But that's so boring, so I'd definitely want to tap into like, the inner world of Shrewclaw and swing it a different way. S: See Talltail through his eyes, emphasising everything Shrewclaw doesn't like about himself. Which becomes so tasty when you later think about Mudclaw doing something similar. S:  Shrewclaw has to grow from hate and jealousy to grudging respect and kinship within the clan, and then Mudclaw grows from outright respect to total adoration. It's an interesting intergenerational trajectory.

Final notes.

S: God, can we rewind a moment to the whole Sparrow bullshit. K:  Oh 100%. S:  Talltail obsesses over this for like, at least twenty chapters. And then two lines of dialogue and he's like, "I'm cured, my dad was a hero the whole time." S:  “It’s what Sandgorse would do.” Now that the rage had gone, Talltail wondered how he could ever have thought of killing Sparrow. Had grief taken away all his faith in the warrior code?” MY rage is still right here. K:  Literally one of my notes is: K:  Talltail straight up telling him he’s here to kill him like a coward. Like not that I WANT him to be a murderer, but god damn, just do it! K:  If you're gonna spend an entire fucking book yelling about how badly you wanna kill a guy then just! Don't make me wait this goddamn long! Do it!! K:  And yeah, just. Redeeming Sandgorse. BLeughghelfuf

S:  Okay, another point of rage: Talltail literally dissolves the goodwill between the travellers and the clan. K:  Y E A H S:  Like, years of peaceful gathering, destroyed. S:  Note: "This dude literally just ended years of peace over his petty revenge quest" K:  I do find it hilarious though that Talltail goes "Hey we should leave," Reena goes "Hm?? No you dont?" and then Sparrow comes in with the most uncomfortable, exhausted expression saying "No He's Right They Really Should Be Going And Should Never Come Back Thanks," S: I'm also so pissed that when Talltail showed up, the travellers were like, “Warriors and kittypets don’t belong with rogues” AND YET you stay for a whole month or more in clan territory? What ripe fuckery is this. K: YEAH IT MADE NO SENSE S: Everyone's just ambiguously racist enough to use it as an excuse whenever they don't want to do something.

S: Also: we called it re: Reena, although the story was actually less obnoxious than I was expecting. S: “There was sympathy in the she-cat’s mew, and Talltail suddenly wondered if Reena had been hoping that Talltail would be her mate: that they’d have kits and travel together. Had she started to imagine a whole new life ahead of them?” Ew.  K:  i was gonna say K:  We really did call it. S: Way to project, Talltail. S: "I guess she's in love with me and I'm breaking her heart by leaving because of the elaborate future she's imagined of our strong, brave kits and--" calm down, boy, she didn't say any of that. K: Yeah, like. Keep it inside, buddy.   K:  There was a lot of very wild Jake/Talltail shit going on but I'm going to drop this from my notes first before dipping into the bits I did like: K: Jake saying “oh that drive to kill wasn’t REALLY you” is VERY “what if I date this unhinged maniac man so I can change him and make him better because I know who he is deep down” and that is VERY unsexy of you, Erins, K:  Jake... my boy.... S: Yeah.  S:  I'm just going to keep pointing at the advice I gave him in previous Book Clubs. Respect yourself, king. K:  I did briefly look at the disastrous mini-comic at the end of the PDF and I do love that he's canonically a chubby king, though. S:  We do love that. A cuddly boy. K:  He's shaped like a friend! S:  But yeah, if these cats were people, Talltail is some skinny closeted runaway with some serious esteem issues and a kind of volatile and disrespectful pattern of behaviour. S:  And Jake is the cute bi boy next door with a supportive dad with apparently a solid sense of self and value, and I find that kind of a jank combination? It feels like it'll either lend itself to basically "adopt a stray" style "fixing" someone else, which isn't a great relationship dynamic, or Talltail dragging Jake into his mess and drama. And it's just difficult for me to imagine what Jake sees in Talltail. S:  If the relationship was just a bit more balanced--Talltail bringing something of value to Jake beyond "adventure"--I could believe it more. K:  Meanwhile, if Talltail retained his "soft, shy poet boy who's just looking for a place to be accepted and flourish" attitude... S: YES 

S:  I got so mad when Talltail's like, "I'm going to kill a guy," and Jake was like, "you can't!" and Talltail's like, "if I was back home, I would have probably already killed by someone by now," and Jake's like, "yeah but that's different, warriors killing each other for Survival is fine." K:  IT ISN'T S: And I'm like, whoa, slow down, I want to talk philosophy right here right now. S: It's a genuinely fascinating conversation that I want canon to have a lot more, but they just... glance over it.

S:  Pivot for a moment to the gay part of Jake/Talltail: I was surprised by exactly how heavily they implied it. K:  Me too!!! S:  I thought it'd be a lot less than there was, and a lot more oblique. So that was a pleasant (? is any part of this pleasant?) surprise. K:  And in the final comic they say that Tallstar sees Firestar like the son he would have had (with Jake).  Which. Is gay. S:  Mad huge gay, for sure. K:  Their final "oh, what if I stay with you!" parting scene was wild to read. And on Tallstar specifying that Jake is someone he loves at the very end. Like hot damn S:  But I Lost My Whole Mind. Because of one line. I read it and involuntarily galaxy-brained with the power of song. I can't find the full quote right now BUT it was basically Talltail and Jake talking right before Talltail leaves to return to the clan. S: And Jake's like, "you know what you have to do. Listen to your heart.” K: YES S: And I was HIT BY A TRUCK S: by this song S: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCC_b5WHLX0 K:  OH FUCK YES S:  Which honestly is so good, and also hilarious, because I have fond gay memories of this song from my teen years. S:  So I know we were saying the very long slow lame end was boring and anticlimactic, but there were a few things that did in fact spark joy.  One was--despite his name and the rampant ableism--Deadkit. K:  YES K:  I have in my notes: K: "I would die for Deadkit." and then "Apparently Deadkit would die for me" S: Hopkit sat up straight, quivering with effort. “Still as a stone, right you are!” he mewed. “Barkface, carry on!” Bless. S: MY SON S: MY BOY K;  And Talltail finally being like? Not an asshole, and treating him well and encouraging him.  He really did feel like he was emulating Dawnstripe in a wholesome way. S:  I KNOW. S:  It honestly made me feel so good about the story I've planned out, but I can talk about that after. S: I also loved that Talltail swam. <3 K: Yes.  S: I was there just elated, thinking about Mudclaw's final moments. And how this story actually ties in so well with that one. That's nothing really to do with Erin Hunter, but it was nice for me. It made the two feel resonant and in conversation with each other in a way I truly hadn't expected. K:  Oh fuck also, two extra from the notes K:  "Talltail’s heart began to race. “I can’t go home!” He stared in panic at Jake. “They won’t want me! I broke the warrior code when I left my Clan. They’ll drive me away again!” — On the one hand: I understand that his fear of being driven away/not being accepted stems from like, 90% of the interactions in this book. But also: THEY LET YOU LEAVE, everyone agreed! Nobody drove you out!" S: Talltail: "I'll go if I must, I understand, you need me to leave--" The rest of the clan: "uhh dude you said you wanted to go." S: Makes me think of people who get really pissed when they're like "I said I'm fine, why didn't you ask me more about how I was feeling because I was clearly Not Fine and Lying to you." S:  And it's like... I trusted you to tell me the truth. Don't play stupid games. K: Yeah! Like, if you want to be consoled or helped, be honest! I can't read your mind!

S: Palebird is just a full on mess in this book, huh? And it's really unsatisfactorily handled.  S: Sandgorse gets obsessed over for... the entire book. Palebird, equally bad parent, doesn't really get any kind of meaningful resolution with Talltail. K:  I misread when Talltail first brings the kids into camp, and fully thought that Palebird recognized Talltail and chose to ignore him in favour of her kits. That sadly isn't actually far off from what happens when she does recognize him. K:   He just goes "oh she died and in my leader ceremony she makes me feel like she always loved me and i never should have doubted her" S: I was so furious that her bit was like "a mother's love for her kits" and he's like, oh I can't believe how stupid I was for doubting her. S: She abused you, dude. S:  Being like, "lol jk" after she's dead counts for Nothing. K: It’s awful.  S: "I always loved you," said Palebird. "I just never wanted to interact with you at all when I was alive and I attached all my grief and trauma to your existence, which made it impossible to enjoy time around you, and I never even bothered to get help for myself or you, and I was happiest when you weren't in my life and I could focus on my other family. So I guess I didn't actually love you. I just felt like I probably should have, but oh well." S: I am as angry about her as I am about Sandgorse. K:   Yeah, she just somehow gets a free pass because "that's just how moms are!" -Erin S:  "Mums can say they love you and you have to believe them." K:  What kind of mother did you have/are you to your kids, @the Erins collective. I want to know. S: I KNOW K: Like, please answer for science. K:  I KNOW WE'VE ROASTED SANDGORSE THIS ENTIRE TIME BUT K:  THE NOTES S:  GET HIM S:  GET HIS ARSE K:  “I give you this life for forgiveness. No death need ever be avenged. Forgiveness brings peace far more surely than vengeance.” Talltail felt his ruffled fur smooth, his claws retract into his pads, his breath come steadily. Mercy was his, and always would be. “I’m sorry you had to learn the hard way, Tallstar,” Sandgorse meowed. — HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO MURDER A FICTIONAL CAT S:  YES YES YES YES S:  I was literally about to grab the same note. K:  "im sorry you had to learn the hard way" WHOSE FUCKING FAULT WAS THAT S:  “I give you this life for forgiveness. No death need ever be avenged. Forgiveness brings peace far more surely than vengeance.” It is a fatal mistake to conflate forgiveness with pacifism. K:  It's just. K:  Like I knew it was going to be awful, I knew this moment was going to happen, but just to see it and see the phrasing. K:  "I'm sorry you had to learn the hard way" is just the ultimate slap in the face. You abused and abandoned and neglected this kid. You did this. You were a ghost for 70% of the book and could have told your son that you "died a hero" and stopped him from being an absolute asshole. YOU DID THIS. S:  What peeves me is that I personally believe forgiveness is something you have to do for yourself, and not for other people. A lot of the time, bad people in your life won't ask for your forgiveness and don't deserve it. K: Yes!  Forgivesness isn't earned, forgivesness is given. K:  It's up to you to give people that forgiveness on your own terms, whenever and however you choose. And if you go "I'm not giving this to you" you don't have to! It's for you! It's your choice! S: But all your anger and hate and misery inside will burn you out like acid, so sometimes you need to go, "you're never going to earn my forgiveness, but I am choosing to forgive what you did so I can move on with my life and grow." S: It's why "forgive but don't forget" is a good thing to remember. You can let go of self-harmful anger without ever losing the lesson that person taught you, which was stay the hell away from people like that. S: That's the conversation I want to see happen around forgiveness in this story. K:  Talltail deserves so much better than any of the story we were given. K:  And like. Forgiveness through that specific lens is so compelling. S:  I know. It's something I'm deeply invested and interested in.  K:  It's so engaging, and relatable! It's messy and nuanced and full of a lot of good shit. S:  Yeah, like, and what happens when the person you resent or distrust tries to make efforts to atone, but they always fall a little short, or don't grow the way you need them to?  How do you forgive that, but still choose to walk away, knowing that in their narrative, you're the bad guy? K:  It's hard.  Knowing that they see you as the bad guy is like, the fucking toughest.  s:  It's extremely hard and I think there's so much space in this story for that exploration. K:  It makes it so easy to want to go back in for seconds and explain yourself to try and get them to understand you, even when you know that like, they're not going to and never will.  And it'll just hurt you more to try than to move on and be a better you for it. S: And being able to forgive yourself is I think a massive underrated lesson. K: Yes! It's beyond hard to try and be gentle with yourself and have compassion for yourself sometimes, especially regarding a messy scenario like these. S: I mean, all of this is way out of Erin Hunter's range, but like, ugh. What could have been. K: Yeah, absolutely. K:  Also I'm always here for young upset queer kids growing up to become Better & Cooler & Sexier than you, so don't try any shit dad, S: Anyway! That's it! We did it! K:  Yeah! S:  Honestly this is such a dumb book but it always feels like an accomplishment to get through another Book Club with you. K:  I agree. K: <3 S: <3

[thejustmaiden]

Fiction and Real Life Go Hand In Hand

This blog goes out to all those pro-Sessrin fans out there who refuse to acknowledge the very real effects fiction can have on our world and vice versa. I highly encourage other Inuyasha fans who defend/enable these shippers to read this, as well. I assure you, by no means are my intentions here to stir up trouble. Honestly, I just want some good healthy discourse for once if that’s not too much to ask. If you do decide to engage, please be mindful of that and treat others with respect and I will do the same in return. All in all, the goal of this blog is to exercise my right to speak out and be critical about content I believe to have very potentially detrimental repercussions. I ask that you not attack me or insult me simply for stating an opinion. Thank you! 

It’s like the title says, meaning fiction does matter. Where do you think we get ideas for all the stories we tell? Where do we draw inspiration from in the first place?

Real life, that's where! And yes, always with a touch of imagination! Long story short: fiction matters because real life does.

Allow me to elaborate.

Shippers of the Sesshomaru x Rin (Sessrin) pairing say it's not fair of us to throw around serious accusations or use certain deragatory terms that suggest such awful acts like child grooming or pedophilia because of the harmful implications. One of their reasonings being that some people IRL have actually lived through these traumas, so we shouldn't dare to assume they're comparable since one is just fiction and the other is not. But this isn’t about which is worse than the other, because they’re both super problematic. All we’re literally doing is making a link between grooming in real life and grooming in fiction. They mirror each other. Same issue; different mediums. We’re not undermining any one’s past experiences with grooming or the like, nor are we prioritizing fiction to diminish real life abuse. They’re both awful in numerous ways and that’s all we’re trying to say. In fact, if anything we’re attempting to demonstrate just how crucial this correlation is between them. In order to protect past victims and prevent future ones, we must remain vigiliant of the content we consume, and yes, sometimes that means we have to challenge it too. Just because it’s widely-viewed does not make it widely-accepted or well-received. It is paramount that we educate ourselves on how to be more critical of some of the harmful tropes and images that are still way too prevalent in mainstream media. Sexualizing young and pre-pubescent girls is way more normalized than some of us even realize. It’s sad but true that Sessrin is just one of many examples. I know it feels like society has failed us in a lot of ways, but it’s never too late to re-evaluate and re-learn better and more improved ways of viewing and processing information presented to us.

Our mission: Let’s not show our kids that grooming or any other form of abuse are acceptable if they may ever come to experience or encounter it themselves. Be it the real world or on screen. Deal? 

There have been a number of occasions where real life victims do speak up against the Sessrin ship and express how extremely uncomfortable it makes them feel by what it represents. The problem is that it’s becoming more evident now that many of their fans will dismiss anything purely on the basis that we pose a threat to their ship and nothing more. What it comes down to is they have no real leg to stand on and cannot possibly top any of what we have to say so instead they simply disregard it. Our inconvenient truths don't fit into their ideal *cough* OOC *cough* narrative so they just choose to be willfully ignorant. It conflicts with their fantasy, so rather than present a sound argument of their own, they flat-out reject it and offer no plausible back-up behind their reasoning besides "I don't interpret it that way." GUYS, CHILD GROOMING IS NOT UP FOR INTERPRETATION.

Just because you so desperately want your ship to come true does not mean you can up and decide to redefine a word so that it caters to your stance. Remind yourself that these are complex AND objective terms that we have no right to fiddle with to serve our own selfish purposes. This is why we can conclude that there's no debate about Sesshomaru's actions towards Rin embodying child grooming.

I apologize if any of my words are triggering by the way, so please feel free to take a break and return later if that’s more suitable for you. it's just really important that everyone in this fandom comprehends the extent in which Sessrin going canon is catastrophic. And no, I'm not exaggerating; I'm simply speaking the truth. Shippers justifying these horrible acts- yes, even in fiction- is usually due to the stubborn refusal to hear us out. No offense to anyone (just stating facts), but more times than not antis like myself feel as if we’re talking to a brick wall when we interact with Sessrin peeps. They go in circles and never expand on their perspectives. 

Just a head’s up: THIS GETS LONG. Stick with me. :p

Just look at their take on the Inukag vs. Sessrin relationships for example. This isn't a question of age gaps, this is a question of physical/emotional compatibility. Inukag are the same age mentally wise regardless of one being demon and the other not, whereas Sessrin is not and never will be, and yes, even once she's an adult. The thing is we have debunked this time and time again, because they’re not the same and therefore not comparable, but for some reason these fans won’t drop it. Nothing has changed in their argument, yet they’re persistent in bringing it up. I choose to not go into more detail, since like I said, you can find it around everywhere. I just wanted to touch upon it briefly to prove a point. Maybe it will come up again later in my blog though! 

Where was I earlier? Right, child grooming! Haven't you guys realized that what you’re doing is precisely what child groomers do to make excuses or deny any grooming took place at all? (FYI: I’m not accusing you of being child groomers yourselves.) “They reciprocated so the feelings are mutual" is a typical groomer response, but of course it varies. More often than not, victims of grooming aren't even aware they've been groomed until much later. That's how manipulative groomers are that they can legitmately convince you that maybe you're wrong in questioning their motives. Perhaps in the victim’s mind that because one huge indicator of grooming never actually took place it technically cannot constitute as grooming. They start to doubt themselves even though their intuition is telling them something’s off. They should just ignore it then since it can’t possibly be grooming if that one particular thing never happened, right? Wrong, grooming isn’t strictly this or strictly that. It's much more complicated and multi-faceted. This is why the “but Sesshomaru left Rin in the village” point upsets me greatly. HE WAS STILL INVOLVED IN HER LIFE, Y’ALL.  

On top of that, are you aware that this is the exact same kind of predatory mindset pedophiles use to describe their infatuation with children? They'll say things like, "I don't see them as an adult and a child. I see them as two people with a soul connection." Okay no joke, I wish I was lying, but that is literally a point one pro-sessrin fan on here recently used to defend this ship. It both astounds me and terrifies me that they don't see the glaring similarities they share in common with actual pedos.

Alright, I want to quickly return to what I was saying earlier about fiction's impact on real life. (Sorry, I’m a bit of a scatterbrain!)

The characters and their worlds in our stories that we dream up and bring to life are nothing short of awe-inspiring and magnificent if we so choose them to be. If it wasn't for our imaginations, stories like Inuyasha would have never come to exist. Fiction provides us an amazing outlet where we are given the opportunity to express ourselves and explore its infinite creative possibilities.

But strip away all the demons and magical components of this show we all love so dearly and what are we left with?

At the very core, Inuyasha is a story that's very reminiscent of the human experience: love, camaraderie, a sense of purpose, and much more!

So perhaps we got a full-fledged dog demon like Sesshomaru, but does that necessarily mean we can't relate to him or understand him simply because dog demons don't exist in the real world? Well, I hope that's not how you view it or else you're missing the whole point of why humans create stories to begin with. We create them to make better sense of and thus connect with the world we live in. And when you really think about it, our stories are just a celebration of life- both our struggles and our triumphs. Now I'm no philosophy professor, but I'm pretty sure they'd say I hit that nail right smack on the head. ;)

All shitty jokes aside, the whole reason I’m mentioning this specific example in the first place is because this recently came up with another Sessrin supporter. That supporter tried to defend the ship by stating that we aren't allowed to use Sesshomaru as an example to judge by since his kind don't exist in the real world.

Now if it isn't evident already, this "it's just fiction" argument is a popular go-to stance many Sessrin fans will resort to once they've run out of ideas and are metaphorically backed into a corner. The funny/sad thing is that they seem to sincerely believe this is strong enough evidence to defend their ship with, but per usual, they fail to see how hypocritical that would be. I’ll clarify soon down below. 

Seriously, since when did we decide that fantasy- or any story genre for that matter- stopped reflecting the real world we live in? I mean, we humans are the ones writing these stories. Our human influence is bound to make an impact in some capacity. In fact, we want it to!

Obviously none of us have ever met a dog demon like Sesshomaru, because how could we? Let me tell ya, this is gaslighting at its finest! This is a fictional story with fantasy elements, so of course there will be beings and creatures in their world that don't exist in our own. Does that somehow translate to the fact that nothing from the story of Inuyasha can be applied to our own personal stories or that there aren't meaningful messages to be taught and learned?

So on the flipside, if they're not screaming at us "it's just fiction" for the hundred billionth time, then they are, believe it or not, doing the reverse and comparing it to real world history. One instance of this is how they tell us we're making a big deal about something that isn't real, but go right ahead and use the history of feudal Japan to support Sesshomaru's decision to court (aka GROOM) a young girl because that's how it was done back then. And so, your point being?? It wasn't right then just because it was legal, and it's most certainly not right now. This is how all of their arguments go by the way, where you'll constantly witness a cherry-picking approach. It's agonizing to endure contradiction after contradiction in their arguments filled with nothing but holes in their logic.

I'd just like to add that if we're overreacting to this fictional ship like they love to say we are then technically so are they. They tell us things like "grow up" or "nobody is telling you to keep watching," yet fail to realize they're reacting just as fervently as we are but just on the opposing side of the same damn argument. I find it interesting how they're as invested in this show but pretend they aren't then STILL have the audacity to say it's only us who care this much!? So thank you Sessrin shippers for further proving our point that fiction is more than capable of affecting reality and the people- YES, US- who reside in it.

It's insane that people act like pedophiles and other creeps don't enjoy entertainment too like the rest of us. Believe it or not, they look just like you and me most of the time. Yes, that means they can easily pass as a “regular guy” if they so wished to. My question to you is how do you think pedophiles will take it when they discover others- underage fans more specifically- who dig the same kinda media they get off to? Maybe not in the exact same way, mind you, but there's a thin line between them when you really think about it. I mean, what other explanation is there for why literal pedos on the internet have been known to sneak into pro-sessrin group chats here on Tumblr before? (Thankfully, they were later kicked.) I know that for a fact! It's almost as if the universe is trying to tell them something they refuse to listen to elsewhere. Hhmmm I wonder what that may be. 

I imagine it’s possibly one of the hardest things to admit out loud and to themselves, but I can almost guarantee you that most of these Sessrin shippers who are victims of CSA and who still see no issue with Sessrin must be living with some sort of unresolved trauma caused by the very abuse they claimed to have undergone. It's been proven that victims who do not seek or properly receive the help and treatment they need in order to address and live with a traumatic experience such as this are more likely to perpetuate that very same abuse themselves in some way, shape or form. What if in this case fiction is enough for them, but who's to say it won’t eventually manifest itself in other more dire and far-reaching ways? It's not like we haven't seen this vicious cycle before, and I can promise you that Sessrin won't be the last. LET'S STOP NORMALIZING & GLORIFYING THE ROMANTIZATION & SEXUALIZATION OF CHILDREN. Fictional example: Usagi Drop. Need I say more? Real world example: Woody Allen. Again, need I say more?

Bottom line is that Sessrin shippers don't want us to think too critically about this ship of theirs, because if we dig too deep then they're forced to face the very troubling implications this pairing really stands for. Of course they'll never admit to them, because instead they rather double down and grasp at the same old straws as long as it means their precious ship is protected at all costs. Screw everyone else if that's what it takes, because they'll threaten to burn down legit buildings in real life if that ensures Sessrin goes canon! (True story, this happened on Twitter.) They’ll taunt and bully anyone who disagrees. Even if all you literally say is that you don’t like the ship, they’ll gang up on you. Tell them about your past experience with being groomed? They’ll laugh in your face. I wish I was kidding, but I assure you I am not.  And they say we're ridiculous and taking this way too seriously? Yeah...

The typical behavior of a Sessrin shipper demonstrates an overly aggressive front since they're usually on defense mode anyway. They only want to ship their sick ship in peace in other words. But just because neo-nazis have a right to spew their bigoted ideology, doesn't mean we don't got the right to punch them! Freedom of speech doesn't equate to freedom from consequences. And Sessrin shippers wonder why they got so many haters. Just sayin'.

Their presence on other platforms like Twitter and Reddit are some examples of how delusional and unstable some Sessrin fans are capable of becoming. Even recently, an anon here on Tumblr sent Richard Ian Cox (English VA for Inuyasha) a totally uncalled for ask telling him that "sessrin is love and there's nothing he can do about it." (That's not verbatim, but if you're interested I'll link you to it.) It appears they discovered that he didn't like Sessrin based on how he had been replying to asks, and just for that reason alone they thought they had the right to harass him. For simply stating his opinion, y'all. They didn't even have the decency to show their face either. Talk about immature and cowardly! 

Just yesterday (or was it the day before?) a fanatic Sessrin user on Tumblr- who’s also been known for hateful remarks on Twitter but those tweets have of course been deleted since then- went out of their way to not only lurk in a group chat they don’t belong to on here but to then proceed to harass a few of us in there. They had the guts to take screenshots from that group chat, tag us in posts on their page regarding what they read in there, and without our knowledge or permission went ahead and actually blogged them?? I mean, who calls out people behind their backs while they're just minding their own business?? It worries me how unhinged and out of touch with reality some Sessriners are. Not all of them, but a whole lot of them. 

It seems all they are doing is looking for trouble, as they just can't stand how much we hate this ship. So it's more than okay if they love on their ship but it's not okay if we don't and we should just keep our mouths shut. But since when do Sessrin fans have authority over our opinions? Even if they were officially canon, nothing is ever gonna change our opinion. Now when they actually do decide to participate in discourse with antis, you'll see them fishing for excuses to bow out. How they normally go about this is by fabricating a way to blame us antis for their exiting a conversation as if we're being the irrational ones here.

There’s no denying that some antis can also be overly blunt or aggressive (nobody is saying we’re perfect here), but speaking for myself, I know I would never make such nasty comments about other fans and their personal lives. And honestly? It would make me feel like shit talking bad about someone I don't actually know. Nah, I won't stoop to that level or give haters that satisfaction. I may not attack them as people, but that doesn't mean I can't attack some of their messed up ideas that threaten to distort how we should or shouldn’t perceive certain dangerous situations and events. Seeing as how for me this is more than just a matter of opinion- it's a moral responsibility and even an obligation.

I know it's difficult to remain civil when things get heated and people start taking things personally- yet more proof that fiction impacts our lives- but that's the only way any of us will ever have constructive discussions about serious topics like this. Unfortunately, Sessrin shippers, from what I can tell, are incapable of engaging in real discourse for the most part. They may be vocal but that doesn't mean they can pack a punch. I’d really love to be proven wrong someday.

Okay, moving on! If they're not involved in some big-time gaslighting then they're using their infamous strawman argument approach.

Sessrin fans’ sole purpose isn't really to defend their ship, per se, but rather to deflect and antagonize. They like to mislead in order to shift the focus/blame onto their opponent or something else that's not related so that they can stray from the main point. 

Take the drama CD for example. It's officially NOT considered canon, right? But that hasn't stopped many fans from referencing it anyway so let’s too consider it for a moment. The point is that they use its "existence" whenever convenient then deny it or downplay it whenever it’s not. So on one hand, it's plain as day that they celebrate it as proof of a romantic future for Sessrin. But then later once we point out to them that Sesshomaru is essentially confessing to Rin that he will wait for her until she's of age, they'll brush it off and quickly add that they didn't interpret the scene that way and leave it at that. I mean how else would you interpret it? And if it's not a proposal of sorts then why exactly are you bouncing off the walls about it to begin with?? If that's all it means is nothing then why are we even talking about this?! You see what I mean here??! And somehow we're the crazy ones? 

Let me to be frank with you. If you haven’t listened to it already, this proposal he offered her sounded like a declaration of love in a multitude of ways, which is wildly inappropriate since Rin was only 12 at the time. Signifying that Sesshomaru was/is indeed grooming her. Well, that is if you choose to recognize the drama CD. Nevertheless, whether you do or not, I personally hate that this non-canon satire is even associated with the Inuyasha name to begin with. Ugh. 

Intentional or not, Sesshomaru made a deliberate decision in that moment to tell a little girl- and not just any little girl mind you but a girl he's taken in under his care for a good year- that he would wait for her if she so chooses once she's old enough. 

The issue is that it isn’t only age of consent we’re concerned about regarding this pairing. What Sessriners fail to see is that this grown male authority- her vassal, her guardian, her adoptive father, or whatever you wanna refer to him as- is basically making a move on this girl he had in his company for quite some time. There's no sugarcoating that. Us antis call it how it is, and I'm sure as fucking day other people who don't watch the show would most certainly agree that the Sesshomaru/Rin bond is filial. Set aside those rose-tinted glasses of yours, and going by everything we’ve been delivered in the manga and parts of the anime (and NOT the drama cd), there are literally no hints that indicate a blossoming romance between this adult male demon and this small human girl he’s taken under his wing. You can imagine them all you want if it pleases you, but that doesn’t mean they’re there. Adult!Rin is a figment of your imagination, nothing more. The idolization of this pairing is pretty disturbing seeing as all we have to go off of in canon is Child!Rin. There have only ever been sweet and innocent moments passed between the two, which is why I’m positive that an unbiased viewer or an outsider would state their dynamic resembled something akin to a father-daugther relationship. I would bet a shit ton of money on that, believe you me!

Rin's inhibitions are low because children are naturally naive and don't know any better. Remember, she adores and trust this man with all her heart, so why would she think any of this so-called grooming is not normal behavior. (I only say “so-called grooming” because I don’t think Sesshomaru bringing her gifts in the village has to be a romantic thing.) Or how would she ever be able to understand that she’s being taken advantage of if she has no previous experience with it? Maybe if she was present for that time Inuyasha and the gang scolded Miroku when they had learned that years previous he had supposedly proposed to this young girl in the village they were visiting, then Rin would. And he didn’t even assist in helping raise her but look at how they reacted! How is this any different than Sesshomaru hooking up with Rin later? It’s actually worse in Sessrin's case. Do you honestly believe that Inuyasha and the others would take kindly to this?

It's not uncommon and considered harmless for young children to have crushes on adults, after all, but the adults in these scenarios should never resort to using and abusing the position of power they held or continue to hold over this child for any reason whatsoever.

What I'm trying to get across here is that no matter how you spin it, Sessrin can NEVER be deemed a morally acceptable pairing. Like ship what you want, we're not saying you can't ship Sessrin. What we're saying is this:

STOP referring to their bond as "pure" and not expect backlash for your grossly inaccurate statements. Just admit it's toxic, because it's extremely harmful to many viewers- and not just victims- to pretend and suggest otherwise.

Please remind yourself of the very real canon fact that Rin traveled with Sesshomaru and they established a bond all while she was just a girl. Oh, and he saved her life too many times to count, not to mention brought her back from the dead TWICE. This is why I don't care much for your counter argument "that dynamics can change over time," because although that's true, like with everything in life there must be standards we adhere to. Exceptions to rules, if you will. Our own basic morals demand it.

For instance, it’s normal that some childhood friends begin to like each other as more than friends years down the road. Nothing wrong with that, because that's a natural and healthy occurrence. Now you cannot apply this to an adult and a child for obvious reasons, but what you also cannot do is apply this to an adult who met and knew another adult while they were still just a child. Why? Well, because it'd be like betraying and perverting that former child's view of you. They were never your equal because your established dynamic resembles that of one an adult posesses with a child even once they've grown up. Think about it this way: it's in the same bracket of family members or family friends who've watched you grow up and mature into an adult. Then later just because they're all grown up, does that mean that those children "are not off bounds" - that's quoting a Sessrin shipper by the way- to these certain family members and family friends? 

If you're still struggling to grasp this, I urge you to take a moment (or all the time you need!) to really put yourself in that child's shoes and self-reflect. Would you truly be alright with a family friend you haven't seen in years (but sorely missed because they used to occasionally babysit you) just someday coming back into your life and then very inappropriately flirting with you or even making sexual advances on you? (Sorry for the run-on!) Or even worse, can you picture this happening to one of your own children??! Seriously, ask yourself that and sit with that for a while and really take it all in. It’s not fun, I know, but if that’s what it takes to help you finally understand then please try and practice more ways to utilize your self-awareness in the future. It’s for everyone’s benefit, not only yours, I promise! You'll also find it makes it tremendously easier to empathize with others.

I got news for those fans who don’t view Sesshomaru as a father figure to Rin. The title we give him doesn’t hold as much weight as a lot of us are making it out to be. Let’s try to be neutral here and stick to the hard facts, shall we?

*Sesshomaru is an adult male authority whose protection Rin is under*

*It’s safe to assume that Rin has grown attached to him and maybe even looks up to him*

*They care about each other and the other's well-being*

*He has has played a crucial part in her supervision and care for a significant period of time (yes, even if it’s just passing a message along to Jaken)*

Not so random anecdote: In an Inuyasha episode I recently revisited, Sesshomaru had just rescued Rin from Kohaku who had been possessed by Naraku and was ordered to kill Rin. Anyway, at the end of their scene you can hear Jaken ask out loud, “what should we do for dinner, Lord Sesshomaru?” And that’s about the most domestic thing I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth. They’re such a family dammit and nothing will ever change that!! <3

This is precisely why I could never in a million years view those past students of mine in a romantic light. I don't care how many years have passed, it's just not possible for me. Just the idea of pursuing a romantic and/or sexual relationship absolutely repels me.

Speaking as a former teacher, you don't need to be a parental figure who's around all the time in order to have great love and affection for a child. I would've done absolutely anything in my power to protect them even though they weren't my own. Then again, I did consider them my children in a way even if wasn't in a familial sense. Does that make my love for them any less unique? No, it's just different but not inferior. When you stop to think about, it really doesn't take as long as you may think to establish rapport with a person, particularly children. Connecting with a child is almost instant (but of course some are more receptive than others), and once you do make that special connection one can only make with a child, a strong and overwhelming need to guide and protect them kicks in almost automatically. The unconditional love an adult feels for a child is powerful and constant, and nothing should ever change that. As much as some of you really want to believe otherwise, that feeling doesn’t just go away because they turned 18. In your eyes, they’ll always be that kid.

I get it, sometimes when we escape into these fictional worlds of ours, it's difficult not to project our own wishes and desires onto certain characters. I don't blame fans for picturing themselves with Sesshomaru- I know I did haha- but never once did I self-insert myself as Rin. I know she's one of the biggest catalysts for his character growth- if not THE biggest- but how and why does that need to turn romantic? There are other antis who I have spoken with on this. They informed me that they used to live vicariously through Rin and ship them together, as well. As they got older, they later learned how weird and twisted this ship actually was. That's what's supposed to happen, y'all, you're supposed to grow out of that fixation. 

Now take your mind out of the Inuyasha universe for a second and hypothetically (or not hypothetically if you have kids) answer me this: if and/or when you ever have a child, would you genuinely be comfortable with the idea of them dating and eventually marrying their father’s best friend who was also there to witness them grow up? Be honest please. 

I highly doubt you would want that- or at least I hope not. You see, that's another MAJOR point I've made a few times already and yet you Sessrin shippers continue to avoid the question. It's pretty obvious it hasn't been rhetorical either. Ignorance is bliss?

Finally, I’d like to address one more point. It seems there is a HUGE misconception and I'd like to clear it up real quick. That is Sessrin shippers misinterpret one of the issues we have with this ship. They chalk up our complaints of Sessrin being canon (which is a LIE, nothing has been confirmed yet) to us just being salty because that somehow means our ships aren't or won’t be. I assure you, readers, other antis and I will attest that this ain't about dumb shipping wars, this is so much bigger than that!!!

I noticed recently that some Sessrin fans have even begun calling us Karens lolol like if anybody is a Karen it's them! This ain't about some mere difference in taste, this is very likely to have LONG-LASTING NEGATIVE EFFECTS. Sessrin going canon is a very harmful message to send viewers and children/teens especially. So if anything, it’s these shippers who are being the entitled ones here thinking that the fact we don’t support their ship is the worst thing in the world. NO, THE REAL PROBLEM IS CHILD GROOMING. GET OVER YOURSELF.

Out of nowhere, some of them even started assuming all us antis were white, which in their books is also equivalent to Karens or even white supremacists somehow?? Those aren't one in the same, but it's easy to make it appear that way when the US is currently tackling major systems of oppression and racial injustice. Because to them, all antis must be from over here. (Yes, I'm American. But no, I'm not white.) How else can anyone explain not shipping Sessrin, right?! Somehow they have it in their heads that ALL of Japan and surrounding places are super approving of this ship, and that everyone else isn’t because of their upbringing and “Western way of thinking.”  

To give you an idea of what I mean, look back at what I talked about earlier with their incessant mention of Sessrin vs. Inukag. Because THIS is another popular example of how these shippers present their side and then ignore all the facts. Many fans have already proven how fucked up and inaccurate it is to label whole countries and cultures. It’s like they simply think mentioning it makes it count even though we’ve discredited their points over and over. Nah, you got to back it up with good reasons that support your side of the argument. That’s How To Have An Argument: 101. So at the end of the day, all they're actually achieving in doing is making dumb and entirely unrelated accusations based on nothing just to lead to deductions that are equally unfounded. Nothing at all is accomplished but more gaslighting and hurling of insults on their part = a complete waste of time for antis = an excuse for them to peace out early from the conversation & that’s what they wanted all along

We’ve reached the end (finally! sorry for all the rambling!), and I hope those of you who stayed till the end or read enough can take something positive out of this. As many Inuyasha fans are aware, there will be a livestream with the VAs for Sesshomaru and Rin coming out within the next few hours. We don’t have all the details yet, and afterwards we probably still won’t. I’m not just talking about Sessrin here but about the sequel in general. Whatever happens, please just remember to be kind to one another. If you don’t think you’re capable of doing that, then it’s best you vent and fume elsewhere. Easier said than done, I know, but just try. Throughout this blog, I admit there were moments where I got frustrated and took some jabs at Sessrin shippers. Please believe me when I say that I do not and would not ever wish any of you ill will. 

Inuyasha was such a huge part of my childhood, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m anxious as hell that Sunrise will ruin one of the best things I loved about this show. So pardon me if my reactions are too visceral for your liking. haha Also, like the movies and the drama cd, this sequel is not in fact canon. Therefore, for those of you who disagree or who still plan to enjoy this new series, respect the fact that some of us fans will definitely “cancel” it if we feel that’s what we have to do to come to terms with it and move on. Fans have that right, after all. Why should we get on board with something if it’s so uncharacteristic of and unrecognizable from the original source material? If all this is some sort of cash grab of Sunrise’s doing, then count me out. I truly hope that this sequel turn outs being a lot more promising than a lot of us are expecting. I’m begging you, Sunrise, I wanna believe you’re better than this. Please and thank you!   

By the way, if you’re interested, feel free to check out my two other blogs on this same subject. Click here and here. The last two screenshots do not come from something I’ve written myself. If you’d like to read more from where those came from, let me know and I’d be more than happy to send you the links. Okay, bye for now. Peace out and stay safe, everyone! 

[xxpadfootxx]

🐾Green Tea & Cherry Blossoms Are a Good Mix (Part 1/2)🐾

Summary: Ochako is now happily married to Izuku and has a solid spot as the number four hero where she has been able to help people every day for years. Trying to catch up with her fellow hero friends one day, Ochako very suddenly realizes that her life is about to change in the largest way possible. Aka, Izuku comes home to one hell of a surprise.

~~~

Being a hero came with a lot of responsibilities, so many responsibilities that it made it hard for them to hang up the cape and live just as normal people. Ochako did not mind as she loved her job and saving people was something she had come to pride herself in but it felt nice for her to get together with her old female classmates for a rare break from the battlefield.

Momo, Ochako, Tsuyu, Jirou, Mina, and Hagakure were all sitting in Tsuyu’s nice apartment, laughing over old memories and catching up on what was new while sitting around the dining room table drinking sodas and eating small sandwiches as they used to when they were still in school.

“Speaking of valiant efforts, Ochako, you had a pretty solid win last week, didn’t you? Against that shape-shifting villain who could turn into any person, animal or object, right?” Jirou said, twirling one of her earphone jacks with her finger as she continued their conversation about their recent victories against the villains ravaging the city.

Ochako started to fiddle with the edges of her hair and cast her eyes down at the ground shyly. “It wasn’t that big of a deal. Any of you could have easily pummeled him into the ground, probably better than I did, I just happened to be there when he attacked.”

“Oh don’t be so modest, Ochako!” Mina said, placing a hand on her shoulder and smiling widely. “That guy was a real beast! You aren’t known as the number four hero for nothing!”

Ochako blushed at her friend’s words and took another bite out of her sandwich. She loved being the number four hero but being referred to as such always made her embarrassed. She didn’t always like the labels because even though she had worked tooth and nail after her incident with the metallic villain when she was still in school to become the greatest hero she could possibly be, she sometimes felt as if her friends deserved that title more. Even so, none of them treated her any differently, and she loved being able to comfortably talk to them, no matter how many titles were slapped on their names.

“Alright, can I change the topic for a moment?” Hagakure asked from her corner of the dining table, sipping her drink and wiping away the residue with the back of her hand.

“Sure, what’s up?” Momo asked, all of the girls turning to Hagakure.

“I wanted to announce something so drumroll please!” The invisible hero chirped and drummed her fingers on the dark oak wood of the table. “I’m getting married!”

“WHAT!?” All of the girls rose simultaneously and went over to congratulate their good friend who was smiling and laughing brightly as she accepted their hugs and pats on the back.

“So Ojiro proposed?” Mina squealed, her eyes shining.

“Yeah, Mashi took me out to dinner like a week ago and he was acting all strange. He kept fidgeting and his tail kept accidentally hitting people when they passed our booth so I finally asked him what was going on and he got down on one knee! I was so happy, I’ve been waiting all week to tell you girls about it!”

The girls all patted her back and gave her hugs once more, congratulating the invisible girl all over again on her new engagement. Finally, they all settled back down and began to eat and talk again.

“Speaking of Ojiro, how is he doing? What has he been up to? I feel like I haven’t seen any of the guys in forever.” Mina said, collapsing back into her chair and taking a swig of her sprite.

“He’s doing really well actually! He’s been out of town for a while, he had to leave the day after he proposed to me but he is coming back today!”

“Deku is out of town too,” Ochako piped up from in between Momo and Tsuyu. “He is going to be back within the next few days but he had a conference to attend to with some of the other top heroes. Todoroki and Bakugo are there as well, right Momo?” Ochako asked.

“Yeah they are, Shouto left last week to go pick up Bakugo from his house. Apparently, he lost his driver’s license again due to trying to blow up a guy for rear-ending him. My husband doesn’t mind though, they still have their differences but Shouto knows how to ignore it and despite his still crazy demeanor, Bakugo has matured quite a bit since high school,” Momo said.

“That’s true,” Ochako said. “Kirishima has really gotten Bakugo to calm down hasn’t he?”

“I just love that couple!” Mina said, putting her hand together and raising them to the side of her face as she gushed. “Who knew that Bakugo would be such a sucker for that red-haired hero?”

“Yeah,” Ochako chuckled and took another bite of her sandwich. That was when she felt it. She had been feeling a little queasy lately, and she had thrown up earlier that morning but her head had felt clear and she didn’t have a temperature so she had taken some aspirin and ignored it. But now a wave of nausea suddenly and forcefully washed over her and she dropped both her glass and her sandwich on the ground, rushing for the nearest bathroom. She heard her name being called but she ignored it as she sped around the corner and slid to a stop on her knees in front of the toilet. Thankfully, the lid was already up and so Ochako was able to make it before throwing up. Her body felt suddenly feverish and her hands were sweaty as she vomited into the water. The moment brought her back to a time in high school, when she had just come back to school after being in the hospital for a few weeks following the attack of a villain. The memory caused her to shiver as she remembered the horrible trauma it had caused, how she had felt so alone and weak and scared. That is until Deku had shown up out of the blue and had talked to her, calming her and holding her hair back as she relived her horrors in the form of being sick in the middle of the night. Even just the thought of Deku made her feel calmer, and by the time she was done throwing up, she felt less shaky.

“Ochako! Are you alright?” Tsuyu asked, peering her head in the doorway with a worried look on her face. Ochako flushed the toilet and stood up on wobbly legs, holding onto the counter for support and faced her friends with a shaky smile.

“Yeah, I’m alright. I have no idea what that was, but it’s been going on for some time now.”

“The vomiting?” Momo asked.

“Yeah. Every morning it’s as if a new sickness has washed over my body but then it is gone by around noon or so! Every day for the past week I’ve been feeling really strange.”

“Why don’t you come and sit down?” Tsuyu asked, motioning with her hand toward the hallway. Ochako nodded and padded out of the bathroom, her friends helping to support her to lay down on the couch. She sat down and already started to feel the effects of the incident fade away, her limbs regaining strength and her breaths becoming more consistent again. Mina walked over to Ochako and handed her a glass of water, concern filling her pretty black eyes.

“Are you sure you are alright?” Jirou asked.

“I think I’m fine,” Ochako said, taking a sip of water and rubbing her face. “I can already feel it receding, I’m just really confused.”

“Did you say this only happens in the morning, Ochako?” Momo asked.

“Yeah, I don’t know what it is.”

Momo put a hand to her chin as she thought, her mind wandering until her brain finally clasped onto a solution. Her face paled and then she blushed a furious red.

“Hey Ochako, can I ask a really personal question?”

“Um, sure, what’s up Momo?”

Momo blushed even redder and rubbed the back of her head nervously.

“Have you and Izuku ever…” Momo cleared her throat and forced herself to look at Ochako.

“Have you and Izuku ever had sex?”

Ochako had taken a sip of water, not expecting the question to be THAT personal and ended up choking on it once the words hit her.

“W-What!?”

Momo blushed again and the other girls tried to suppress the little giggles that were surfacing due to the situation.

“I’m sorry it was so dramatic but I really need to know, I might be able to figure out what has been happening with you.”

Ochako swallowed and blushed a bright red.

“Well, we have been married for about two years so yes, we have had s-sex a few times.”

“Was it unprotected?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Was it unprotected?” Momo asked again, her brow furrowed.

“Why do you want to know!?”

Momo sighed and rubbed her arms.

“As you know, Ochako, I have two young twin boys and so I have been getting some experience with them as well as doing lots of research.”

“Alright, so what does this have to do with me throwing up every morning?” Ochako asked, her brows knitting together and her teeth gently teasing her bottom lip nervously.

“Ochako,” Momo said, kneeling down in front of her and placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m bringing up my sons because I believe that you are showing some similar symptoms with what I experienced.”

Tsuyu placed a hand over her mouth and Mina’s eyes began to shine with excitement.

“What do you mean?” Ochako asked softly, the idea of what Momo was getting at starting to sink in.

“This is just a theory but I have a slight suspicion that what you are experiencing is morning sickness,” Momo took a deep breath and looked at Ochako with shining eyes and a wide smile.

“I think you’re pregnant.”

Ochako sputtered and her eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“Holy shit, you think that I’m… I’m… going to have a b-baby?”

“Well, I think you should take a pregnancy test, alright Ochako? Don’t jump to conclusions or anything, I just think that you are showing a lot of the same things that I experienced when I found out I was expecting the boys,” Momo said.

Ochako felt her head begin to spin. A baby? I mean, she had always wanted a family with Izuku but they were always so busy, constantly working to save people and battle villains. The more she thought about it, the more worried she became. Would he be happy? Worried? Unhappy? Upset? Anxious? Angry? Ochako was getting more and more worked up and had to force herself to take a deep breath and calm down. She closed her eyes and allowed her anxiety and insecurities to melt away. She was the number four hero, she could handle anything.

“Alright, I’ll take the test to be sure,” Ochako said.

“Oh my god, Ochako!” Mina squealed, her eyes bright and shining. “What if you really are? That would be SO amazing! A little baby IzuOcha running around!”

“Are you late Ochako? I knew I was expecting when that happened to me,” Tsuyu said thoughtfully. Ochako looked at everyone and smiled.

“I don’t know anything for sure, but I’m happy to know that I have all of you to support me no matter what.”

“Of course!” Hagakure said cheerfully.

“Hell yeah! I call being the cool aunt!” Mina called happily.

“Guys, I don’t actually know anything yet!” Ochako said but everyone seemed to ignore her as they all laughed and beamed at their friend. Tsuyu’s phone suddenly chimed and the frog girl paused to glance at the notification on her screen.

“Oh, Fumikage is coming home from the grocery store with the kids, you guys are welcome to stay but I am going to start cleaning up some of this stuff so that it’s not so cluttered when they get home,” Tsuyu said, placing her phone back in her pocket.

“Thanks, Tsu, all of you actually, for the catch-up day but I, uh, guess I have some other priorities to sort through at the moment,” Ochako said sheepishly. The other women nodded at her with bright smiles and waved to her as she stood up from the couch and made her way to the door with her bag slung over her shoulder.

“Text us updates!” Mina called out behind Ochako just as she shut the door and began to make her way to the nearest pharmacy.

________________________________

Ochako paced ceaselessly in the main living room of the large, spacious flat she and her husband shared. He wasn’t supposed to come home for the next two days or so but she still couldn’t help but feel nervous. The pregnancy test from the pharmacy had proven Momo’s theory 100% correct and an appointment at the doctor’s office confirmed it even more.

She was having a baby. Izuku’s baby. She was going to be a mother and he was going to be a father. Ochako placed her hands gently on her still very flat stomach, feeling her strong abs rather than the swell of a baby belly. She knew that feeling would change with time but it still felt different. Now that she knew, she felt as if she could already feel the swell despite it not existing yet. She turned towards the large windows in their living space, gazing out across a more rural part of the city where they lived. Both Izuku and Ochako needed to be close to where all of the crime was but also enjoyed the peaceful serenity that came from being farther away from the heart of the city and so had chosen an expansive apartment complex to live in that was not too expensive, and that sat on the edge of the city, but still gave them access to lightning-fast train routes that took them to the heart of the crime when necessary. Her eyes scanned the distant buildings and settled on the bright pink flowers of the Cherry Blossom trees down below her. The beautiful trees swayed in the breeze and made her feel just a little bit calmer about the whole situation.

She was so deep in thought that she did not hear the door open. Izuku was about to call out her name when he saw her watching out the window wistfully, one her hands raised to her face to absentmindedly nibble on her fingertips. She was so beautiful, even when she was doing nothing more than just staring out of a window, she just looked so perfect. Izuku’s heart swelled with his immense love for his wife, his eyes beginning to water at the perfect image of his wife watching the world, the sun glimmering through the glass to leave little diamond-shaped speckles to shimmer off of her chocolatey brown hair. She was wearing a slightly cropped pink t-shirt and white shorts that cupped her nicely and allowed her strong thighs to stand out prominently. Izuku noticed she was barefoot, so he quietly took his own shoes and socks off at the door and crept up behind her.

Ochako let out a frightened squeal when she first felt those strong, solid arms wrap gently around her waist but when she whipped her head around and saw her husband home two days early, her face brightened up immediately, seeming to lighting up the entire room.

“Zuku!!! You’re home early!” Ochako exclaimed, turning around the rest of the way and launching into his arms to give him a proper hug. Izuku chuckled against her and placed his chin on her head as she snuggled her face into his neck.

“I missed you,” Izuku said softly, leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek. She giggled when he kissed her and kissed him on the cheek back, her smile widening at the sight of him.

“I missed you too,” he murmured.

Izuku leaned down to kiss her cheek again, a small peck, but then paused and leaned down one last time, this time dragging out the kiss and even flicking just the tip of his tongue out to ghost it across her flesh.

“Zuku…” Ochako groaned as he repeated the action but on her neck this time. “Zuku, you just got home, stooooop.”

“I don’t mind,” Izuku muttered in a low voice. “In fact, that’s what makes me want you even more, I haven’t gotten to touch you or hug you for over a week, I need to recharge myself.”

Ochako almost gave in, her heart aching with her love for this man when all of a sudden everything came rushing back. Two days. He came home two days early. Which meant that she had two days less than before to think of ways to properly tell her husband everything.

“Wait! Wait, Zuku, I have to talk to you first,” Ochako said quickly stopping him from continuing to kiss her any lower on her body.

“Ochako, is everything alright?”

Ochako nodded quickly. “Nothing is wrong, it’s just…”

Ochako took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“Something happened while you were gone, or at least, I realized something had happened while you were gone and now I don’t know how to tell you about it. I’m sure it’ll be fine but I’ve been stressing out about it for the past three days.”

Izuku raised his hands to very lightly grip her shoulders. Lightly, lovingly pressing his lips to hers he allowed her to relax a little.

“You can tell me anything, alright ‘Chako?” Izuku whispered to her when he had pulled away.

Ochako nodded and met his gaze, setting her resolve and taking a deep breath.

“Izuku, I… I’m… I’m pregnant.”

Izuku said nothing at first and Ochako closed her eyes, fearing the worst.

He was upset. He hated her. He hated the baby. He wanted to leave her. He wasn’t ready to be a father. He was angry at her. She knew it was irrational but the thoughts kept shoving past her common sense anyway, flooding her brain and even bringing tears to her eyes. She was about ready to cry or snap at him or do something when he stunned her with the most passionate kiss she had ever felt. Her eyes snapped open and then closed again but more relaxed as he kissed her as if she were the air he needed to live. When they broke apart they were both out of breath but Izuku’s eyes were shining with wonder.

“You-You’re having a b-baby!?”

Ochako nodded, the tears in her eyes now turning to joyful ones and sliding down her cheeks as she took in his reaction. Tears of his own were sliding down his cheeks and his entire face was ablaze with a bright red blush.

Izuku launched at her and gripped her waist, lifting her into the air and spinning her in a circle three times. When he set her down, his whole demeanor seemed to make him almost glow with pride and happiness.

“It-It’s mine? It’s really mine?”

“Yes yes!! Of course! There is no one else’s it could be! You are my one and only Izuku, always.”

“Oh!” Izuku said, his eyes widening slightly in alarm. “I did not mean in any way to suggest you were being unfaithful, I just…” He sighed. “It just all feels so surreal to me. I finally get to have what I have always wanted with the woman of my dreams? How the hell did I get so damn lucky!?” Izuku said in awe.

Ochako felt her heart squeeze somehow ever tighter and she nearly tackled him into a kiss full of passion equal to the one he had given her.

“You are not the only lucky one.”

Suddenly, Izuku really started to cry. He placed his head in his hands and his whole frame began to shake with silent sobs. Alarm coursed through Ochako and she immediately knelt down to meet her husband who had slid to the floor.

“Zuku? What’s wrong!?”

Izuku sniffled a few times before turning his tear-streaked face to look at her. Raising one of his scarred hands to cup her cheek, his thumb lightly caressing her skin.

“I just, I just remembered everything from that night. The night I almost lost you,” Izuku said. Although the pair had been through many hardships together as heroes rising through the ranks, many of which had resulted in near-death experiences, Ochako immediately knew which one he was talking about. The night with the metallic villain that had kidnapped her. The night she had actually died but been brought back to life at the last second by none other than the man sobbing on her floor.

“I remembered how when I thought you were gone forever, how my mind played through not only every memory I had with you but also every memory I wanted to share with you but that I thought I never could. The memories of getting married and going on dates and kissing each other. One of the scenes that played through my mind at that moment was of this.” Izuku said softly. “It was a scene of being told I was going to be a father. At the time, I didn’t know why I thought of that and I thought it was never going to happen, even if you did manage to come back. But you did and now, I am living what I thought was mere fantasy.” Izuku’s shaking had decreased in force but he was still trembling against the comforting grasp of the woman he adored.

“Izuku Midoriya,” Ochako said loudly and confidently.

“Yeah?” Izuku asked, looking up into his wife’s determined features.

“You are going to be a father. But not just any father, you are going to be the father to our child. You and me. And damn it you are going to be the best father to ever live,” Ochako said beaming.

Izuku stared at her in shock for a small moment before breaking down all over again, joy radiating from him.

“Chako?” Izuku hiccuped.

“Hm?”

“Thank you, you are the greatest gift I could’ve ever asked for.”

[nuricurry]

Saint Seiya | Ikki/Hyoga PG-13; “all i’ll ever be to you is someone else”

It’s strange, the way things change between them. When they become ‘something else’ rather than just associates or comrades, or even just friends. There are things that are different, but things that stay the same, and maybe that’s why the transition feels so awkward and stilted and incomplete, because they were picking up things in the middle. 

They had known each other since they were children, they had begun a lifetime of conflict and rivalry at an early age, but now that they’re older, it’s all a little different. Childhood spats about deciding who got to pick the game they played are different now at age seventeen, when their responsibilities are greater, the costs higher, the risks more steep. Now they fight about making the hard choice in sparing their enemy mercy or not, they fight over the fact that Ikki wants to dive into danger all on his own, while Hyoga chases after his shadow, picking up broken pieces left in his wake. That much will probably never change, the chasing, the fighting, the bickering. But there are new fights now, ones that Hyoga still doesn’t quite know how to navigate. He knows what arguments to give when Ikki pushes him away during a fight. He knows what to expect, when a new enemy rises and they haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in over a month. What he doesn’t know is how to tell Ikki that he wants him to stay the night, not because he’s afraid he’ll get hurt, but because he likes his company. He doesn’t know how to tell him that he wants to touch him in a way that isn’t meant to hurt-- no punching, no grappling, no shoving or hitting. What he wants is for the two of them to hold hands. He wants them to kiss. He wants to look at Ikki and not see anger there, not see a scowl or frustration. He doesn’t know how to argue that telling someone that he’s in love with him isn’t about manipulation or coercion, sometimes it’s just conveying emotion and affection and it wouldn’t kill Ikki to say those words back, once in a while.

There are times when they are lying together on his bed in the apartment in Omsk and he feels as if he’s choking on memories, yet it’s still when things are so incredibly new. Something about the way that Ikki looks lying on his side across the bed from him, just looking at him, it feels like something that Hyoga’s seen before. Something in the unguarded rawness between his gaze and Hyoga’s is familiar when it shouldn’t be. The first time they have sex, when Ikki is pressing his back into the mattress and he has his hips pushed upwards with his legs around his waist, it feels like they’ve done this a dozen times before. It feels like they don’t need to ask, don’t need to test waters about what will and won’t work, what they do and don’t like, because their bodies already know. He has doubts that they could possibly be so compatible-- no one ever really is, not the first time, not the first dozen times-- but Ikki doesn’t want to talk about it when it’s over. He just wants to roll over and sleep, and so that’s what they do.

That night, and every night after, when Ikki is beside him, Hyoga has dreams he can’t explain. Dreams about a boy with bright blue eyes and a secret smile, about a childhood that isn’t his. Fields of wheat and aquamarine seas, completely unlike the cold tundra and black waters he knows best. In his dreams, his hands hold bows and pots and small childrens’ hands. In his dreams, he lies on the grass in hot summers, and that boy with his blue eyes and infectious laugh lies beside him. He wakes up after those dreams with his heart full and heavy in his chest, and he never knows why, because they’re just dreams. He compares their fights to broken bones. It’s a fracture born of trauma, a result of pressure building and building until finally parts of their bodies snap. It’s a wound that isn’t immediately obvious on the surface, it’s felt more than it’s seen, and it’s not something that can be easily healed. It takes time for things to be stitched back together for them, it takes them setting things into place and letting it heal over, hoping that the bones fuse together the right way, that they won’t just break again with the next slightest bit of pressure. But like broken bones, those cracks remain, and they never go away. They calificy, they get harder and crust over, but they can’t ever return to their previous state; the memory cannot be erased and its effect on them will remain, for the rest of their lives. Their relationship is like a mirror, chipped and cracked and broken, then put back together again. It can be fixed, but it can never be perfect, it will always be just a breath away from shattering again, into even smaller pieces the next time. The first time they really break is when they fight about dying. When Ikki throws himself headfirst into a fight he can’t win, and he doesn’t come back out. For months, Hyoga walks around, feeling like there’s something lodged in his chest, a huge sharp knife sinking deeper and deeper into his heart, painful enough that he feels like he’s splitting into two. He feels like he’s half-dead the whole time, like his soul was sucked out of him when he heard that there’s nothing that remains of Ikki’s body, and they’re sure he’s gone this time. 

He dreams of stormy seas, of his hand desperately reaching for someone else’s. He dreams about blue eyes and a bottomless pit, of hands touching his face and promising him that he’s not alone, that death isn’t the end, it is just a bump in the road. Trying to hold onto that voice, that feeling of warm and comfort, is like trying to grab onto smoke. It slips through his fingers like it doesn’t exist at all, and he just wakes up every day with tears on his face, and a name he can never remember on the tip of his tongue. 

When Ikki comes back, whole, reborn, it’s the splint put onto their relationship. It’s the morphine that blinds Hyoga to the pain, makes it all a little more manageable, a little fuzzy on the edges. He forgets about the nightmares and the loneliness and the knife in his chest. Until he asks that Ikki never does that again, and Ikki refuses to promise him. 

He knows his duty, he says, he agreed to accept this life and all it’s dangers, all it’s trails, when he agreed to put on the armor. He’s not going to back down because Hyoga’s afraid, because Hyoga can’t commit to anything that might end up being difficult. 

Their fight is less about dying, and more about commitment, because Hyoga tells him that Ikki is only so quick to offer his life because the risk is negligible. Because it’s easy to die and harder to live, because Ikki doesn’t have to face consequences if he dies, he doesn’t have to see the damage he leaves behind when he does. 

They have angry, furious, violent sex on the couch, not even bothering to try and make it to a bed. They push and bite and dig their nails in because it hurts but it’s real, it’s a screaming neon sign that tells them that they’re alive, they’re both here, and they can afford to do something so stupid and selfish again. 

For a week after, Hyoga dreams of soft, gentle kisses, of a warm body wrapped around his late at night. He dreams of words of praise, words of comfort whispered into his ears, of an arm heavy and familiar draped over his waist, and fingers tracing indistinct symbols into his stomach. He wonders if those dreams are all in his head, or if maybe Ikki is the one prompting them, late at night after he’s fallen asleep. Ikki denies it, he tells him to stop talking about his dreams because they’re blinding him to reality, but there’s a fear in his eyes when he says those words that Hyoga has never seen before. 

It becomes a loop, the structure of their relationship. A cycle that they don’t know how to break. They fight. They break. They make up. They fight. They break. They make up. The same three steps over and over again, in varying degrees, in different lengths. The breaks are shorter when the fights are longer. Because when they’re fighting over Ikki never giving Hyoga a key to his apartment, it’s not about keys, it’s about trust and establishing Hyoga in his life. That’s a long fight, a fight that lasts months, and is fixed with a slapped on band-aid of a copy of Ikki’s key but instructions to never be there when Ikki isn’t. But that also means that when the fights are shorter, the breaks are longer, they’re one of those deep bone breaks, the crack right down the center of the mirror’s reflection. When they fight about Shun, it’s a short fight, but it’s short in the way a bomb denotation is short. It only takes seconds for their worlds to completely fall apart, with an accelerant in the mix. 

He doesn’t know why he never said anything before. That’s a lie; he knows why. He knows it would break things and that’s exactly what it did. Explanations meant nothing when they came under duress. Words like <i>before</i> and <i>different</i> and <i>why are you holding this against me? we weren’t together</i> fall on deaf ears. Arguing that it’s not a betrayal when there was nothing between them to break doesn’t work because Ikki wants to be angry, and Hyoga can’t take those things back. “When were you going to tell me you fucked my brother?” Ikki says with his whole chest, and Hyoga can only plead for him to understand. 

He can’t lie and say it didn’t mean anything, because it did. Because he does care about Shun, and they did share things together. But feelings are not a zero-sum game; it doesn’t take away from his feelings for Ikki, for Hyoga to have feelings for Shun. They both have their pasts, they both have histories outside of each other, but Hyoga knows that it’s different, it’s different because it’s too close, it’s a line that’s far too easily blurred. 

And so they break, and they crumble, and they turn to dust. Finally they’ve reached the point where there is nothing left to mend. 

Hyoga dreams of fire, of a city razed to the ground. He dreams of cold air on his neck, of arms around his waist, but no comfort in that embrace. He dreams of apologies and cries for help trapped behind his teeth, unable to be said because there is no one there to say them to. He dreams of Ikki beside him, standing on the edge of a cliff, looking out over the precipice of their misery. He dreams of them letting go, and falling into the abyss together, dying over and over again hoping to be reborn the right way, in the right time 

They return to the earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

[multishipperlove]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series), Cinderbrush (Web Video) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jamie Wrenly/Aff Flowers/Cameron Solomon/Sasha Murasaki Characters: Jamie Wrenly, Aff Flowers, Sasha Murasaki, Cameron Solomon Additional Tags: Truth or Dare, Kissing, Mentions of past injury, Childhood Trauma, Nothing explicit but it's discussed, Werewolf Turning, Polyamory Summary:

A game of Truth or Dare causes a distressing realisation for Aff. Luckily, their group is there for them though.

They were all currently spread out on the floor of Jamie's living room, lazily passing a bottle of cheap wine around while a movie ran in the background. None of them were really paying attention to that though, more caught up with each other than anything that was going on around them.

When Aff passed the bottle over to Sasha again, with quite a bit left, she emptied it without a second thought. Cameron gave a low whistle at that. “I thought you didn't roll at parties?” he asked teasingly, as she placed the bottle in the middle of their little circle. So far, she'd been the one who'd had the least alcohol between them. Now, Cam wasn't so sure anymore.

“Well I'm not at a party, am I,” she shot back, and the smile forming on her lips already told them she had a plan. “It's not like I need to keep my guard up when it's just you losers being around.”

“Thanks, we love you too,” Jamie interrupted, quite pleased when his lame comment got a giggle out of Aff at least. Stupidly adorable.

Sasha just rolled her eyes though, not rising to take the bait. “Whatever. Anyway, now that we got this,” saying that, she picked up the bottle again, giving it a slight shake to get their attention, “let's make this evening a little bit more interesting.”

“Not that I'm opposed to it, but do we really need a game of spin the bottle to make out with each other?” Cam asked amused, though he was already more alert, definitely interested. “I kinda thought we were beyond that stage.”

“Let's make it truth or dare then, maybe that makes things more interesting,” she suggested.

Jamie looked sceptic at first, and couldn't help but take a look around the room again. “Fine,” they agreed then. “But if you break anything we can't cover up, you're the one explaining it to my mom.”

“Oh hush, we're not that stupid,” Sasha sighed, before finally turning to Aff, the only one in their group who hadn't voiced an opinion yet.

“Yeah, sure, I'm up for anything,” they agreed quickly, giving the group a smile that seemed slightly tipsy but definitely excited. “I mean, I've never played spin the bottle before, so-”

“How have you never played spin the bottle before?” Cam asked incredulously, before Aff had a chance to start to ramble. “It's like, the game you play as a teen. Or pre-teen, you know, because we were all young at stupid at some point.”

Jamie's sceptical “were?” was easily drowned out in Aff's laughter, which sounded a bit too self-conscious for their friends taste though. “I dunno, I was never really invited to any parties, you know. I just never got the chance, I guess.”They didn't mention that it was mostly because no one wanted to invite the girl who broke her classmate's nose just for calling her that, but the uncomfortable shift in posture was enough to tell everyone that the question had hit a bit too close for comfort.

So before the tension could get awkward, Sasha spoke up again. “Good thing we're here to remedy that then. Would you like to start?”

Aff shrugged at first but then nodded, reaching for the bottle in her hand as they all started to form a proper circle. It felt more exciting than it probably should at their age, as everyone waited with baited breath for the first person to be chosen.

Naturally, it landed on on Cam. Who immediately started waggling his eyebrows at Aff with a suggestive smile. “Dare.”

Aff bit their lip, almost looking nervous if the others couldn't see them fighting a smirk that badly, as they briefly looked between Cam and the others. Jamie groaned. “Oh please, just kiss him already.”

And they did.

As expected, the first few rounds of the game were spend with almost nothing but smooching each other. It was fun, but after a while they actually started to throw in some other challenges as well. Some embarrassing questions here and there, daring each other to take silly photos, or to eat something gross.

When Aff ended up almost tossing their cookies because they insisted on finishing the sandwich that Cam had slapped together (consisting of three different condiments, a thin slice of raw beef, half a marshmallow, three gummy worms, and a spoonful of the mystery leftovers from the fridge), they all finally decided to take a break though.

They ended up in a pile on the couch again, Aff stretched out over Sasha's and Jamie's laps, and their head in Cam's. The boy was trying to make up for the stupid food challenge by running his hands through Aff's hair and gently scratching his nails over their scalp, just the way they liked it.

“If you get food poisoning because of this I'm going to kick your ass,” he muttered, gently flicking Aff's nose when they started to grin again.

“Yeah, I think it's a bit late for that,” Jamie chuckled, while Sasha rolled her eyes again and snuggled closer to them. “But if it gets worse, I can whip something up that should help.”

Aff just shook their head, eyes still gleefully closed as they enjoyed their partners' undivided attention. “Nah, I'm good. Actually, if this is the way you guys react, I might try this more often.”

“I think I'm with Cam on this one,” Sasha spoke up. “You only get to choose truth from now on, and it's your own fault.”

Aff made a disgruntled noise, mostly because it had been their first time being able to play at all and apparently they'd immediately managed to get themselves banned from part of it. But then again. “That's fine, truth is fun,” they muttered eventually, nuzzling a bit closer to Cam again.

“Of course it is, everyone likes talking about themselves,” Jamie said, and surprisingly, it didn't come out as snarky as it could have. “Especially if you give people an excuse to spill their secrets.”

“Well, some secrets,” Sasha interrupted. “Some things you keep to yourself. It's a fun way to start rumours though.”

“Isn't that like, against the rules?”

She chuckled softly and reached over, gently cupping Aff's face for a moment. “Darling, I got so much to teach you.”

Jamie grinned and pressed a kiss to Sasha's temple. “Maybe wait a bit longer before you corrupt them as well, I quite like them like this.”

“Oh, oh no, corrupt me all you want,” Aff said quickly, effectively getting the other's attention again. “I mean, if you want to. It sounds fun.”

The others couldn't help but laugh at that, and it soon turned into a fully blown laughing fit for all four of them, continuously egging each other on and relapsing back into it before anyone had the chance to get themselves under control again. When they did finally calm down again, still letting out the occasional giggle, Cam was the first to speak up again.

“Alright, anyway, does anyone wanna continue playing?” he asked, wiping at his face to get rid of the tear tracks. They hadn't laughed like this in a while, especially not for such a ridiculous reason. Maybe that was the alcohol speaking, though he felt almost sober again by now.

“I would, but I'm also, like, really comfortable right now,” Aff sighed. “Can we do this without moving?” As if to prove their point, they wrapped their arms around Cam's waist, refusing to leave their spot.

Cam chuckled softly. “I guess we could settle on just asking each other weird questions, if that's what you want.” Aff didn't protest at least, and Jamie and Sasha seemed satisfied enough with that solution as well. It was as good a way to pass the time as any, especially when they were all starting to get tired.

“Alright, I'll start,” Sasha said finally, when no one else made any move to do it. “Everyone's first kiss. Go.” Aff and Cam shared a look and started giggling again, and even Jamie had to bite their lip to not join in once more. Sasha looked predictably confused. “What, what did I miss?” she asked.

“Canoe kiss,” Jamie told her, and as understanding dawned on her face, Cameron hit their shoulder in fake outrage.

“You said you wouldn't tell anyone!”

“Not unless offered the right information in return, so don't act surprised,” they chuckled, leaning in a bit to kiss the pout off his face, which worked maybe a little bit too well.

But Sasha interrupted them before they could get lost completely, gently tugging on Jamie's sleeve. “So who was your first kiss then? You didn't answer yet.” Jamie pulled back from Cam again with a sigh, reaching out with one hand though to intertwine their fingers. Cameron appreciated it, gently starting to rub his thumb over the soft skin of the back of their palm.

“Well, this is going to be embarrassing, but- I don't remember,” Jamie told them. At Sasha's unbelieving look, they tried to wave it off. “I know, I know. But there's a reason I have a policy about taking my own products now, at least when I'm working.”

“You really don't remember your first kiss? Isn't that a bit sad?” Aff asked. And if it had been anyone else asking the question, Jamie probably would have taken offence, but they knew that Aff was just like that sometimes. They probably hadn't meant it in a judgemental way.

“Some people would probably profit from not remembering their first kiss, so I'm not too hung up about it,” they admitted with a shrug. “As far as I'm concerned, as long as there is no proof that can be used against me in any way, it doesn't matter. I would much rather focus on who I'm kissing now.”

“That's fair,” Sasha agreed, though she still moved a bit closer and laid an arm around their shoulder. Jamie leaned into it, maybe not needing the comfort but enjoying it anyway. It was really not a huge deal for them, but they were well aware that most people put more significance on this kind of thing.

“So who was yours then?” Cam asked after a few more seconds of silence, looking to Sasha for an answer. “The one who asks has to answer, too. Anything else wouldn't be fair.”

“Fine,” she muttered back, though the blush rising on her cheeks gave away she didn't quite like the new rule. “It was you, doofus.”

“Wait, what?” Cameron thought he'd misheard her at first. “No way, you told me you'd already done it all when we started dating! Didn't you have a thing with Jason once, too?”

“No, I made that up,” she admitted, almost sheepishly. “I didn't want anyone to think I was inexperienced, and Jason certainly didn't mind. It's always been surprisingly easy to get the rumour mill going in my favour, so I figured, why not for that, too?”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense,” Cam muttered, though he was obviously still a bit shaken by the new revelation. “I can't believe I was both yours and Aff's first kiss. That's crazy.”

“Maybe you were Jamie's, too!” Aff piped up, a wide smile on their face. “And neither of you remembers!”

“I could live with that,” Jamie replied immediately, before Cameron could deny it, and prompting another round of laughter. “Sure, let's go with that. Cameron's been my first kiss, then our group is even.”

Cameron shook his head slightly but agreed easily enough. “Sure, that works. Always happy to be of service.”

“And for your sacrifice, you're allowed to choose the next question.”

He wasn't sure if that was actually a reward, but accepted it anyway. After a moment of thinking about  it, he nodded again. “Hmm, alright. What's the worst childhood injury you had?”

It wasn't a question Sasha had expected, but she was the first with an answer. “Oh, easy,” she huffed. “Nothing. Maybe a sprained ankle or something, but my parents never really let me do anything fun, and I spend most of my time inside.”  

“That's tragic,” Jamie replied with a frown. “I think mine would be the time I cut my hand while looking for herbs, because that's the only thing my mother panicked enough about to actually take me to the hospital.”

“Did it need stitches?” Aff asked, sounding maybe a bit more interested than they should have.

“Yeah, a few. But it wasn't as bad as it looked, really. What about you?”

Aff pondered it for a moment as well, and then got a weird look on their face. “I got bitten by a dog once. But does it count if I don't really remember it?”

“If you don't remember it, how do you know it was your worst?” Cam asked, confused.

“My parents have told me about it a lot and I guess I went to therapy for it for a while?”

That definitely made the others pause, and the sudden silence in the room combined with their stares made Aff uncomfortable enough to start squirming. They finally sat up properly again, sitting down on the arm of the couch beside Cam, who quickly reached out to hold their hand.

“I mean, you don't have to tell us if it's like a really bad memory or something,” the boy quickly assured them, feeling bad now for not thinking about something else.

But Aff just shrugged. “Not really? As I said, I don't remember it. It's kind of a funny story, actually, I don't mind telling.”

“Okay, so what happened?” Sasha asked, not able to hide her curiosity now.

“Yeah, so basically,” Aff started, trying their best to tell the story in a way that actually made sense and not start rambling again halfway through. “I think I was like six, maybe seven years old. And back then we lived in a house that had this open backyard that would just lead into the woods, you know, and I do remember that I was there all the time.”

True to their words, they didn't seem to get more agitated or nervous while speaking, but the other three still kept a close eye on their body language as they went on. Cam gently tugged them a bit closer as well, missing the intimacy from just a few minutes ago when Aff had been spread out over their laps.

“Your parents just let you roam the woods by yourself? When you were six?” Sasha asked in disbelief, and before Aff could continue.

“Well, yeah,” they replied. “It wasn't all that big, and I was, like, really small. So if I went back now it would probably seem really small, too. Anyway. So one day I went out after lunch, and apparently I was gone a lot longer than usual. My dad was about to go out looking for me when I finally showed up again, and whenever he tells me about this he still gets really pale when he remembers that part. Because he opened the door and I was just covered in blood.”

Everyone's eyes went wide at that, even Jamie looked shocked behind their red tinted sunglasses. Aff gave a nervous laugh, as if they didn't know how else to react, and quickly continued.

“He said he didn't even ask me what happened, he and mom just packed me in the car and drove me to the hospital. He also said it took me like an hour to start talking again at all, and that I didn't remember anything back then, either. But yeah, I had a bunch of bitemarks on my legs and like, upper torso? And tons of scratches. And most were really shallow, but some have left scars and stuff.”

Cam remembered seeing them, now that they were talking about it. A few white lines and dots criss crossing over most of Aff's back, marks that no one had ever really spoken or asked questions about. They'd had better things to do at summercamp back then. But the scars did resemble old bite marks, he'd just never bothered to think about were they might have come from.

He placed a gentle kiss on their shoulder, just as Sasha spoke up again, still looking concerned. “But, were you okay afterwards? I mean, that must have been a huge thing for you.”

Aff shrugged again, and finally leaned closer to Cam. “Not really? I'm missing a few days there, so all I remember if my mom taking care of the wounds afterwards. Apparently there was a whole police investigation about it too, because at first they weren't sure if maybe my parents had anything to do with the injuries, but the doctors insisted that dog attack was the only thing that made sense.” “Did they search the forest, or do anything else after that?”

“Oh, yeah, but they never found anything. There was a newspaper article and everything, but no one saw anything,” Aff told her. “But some people apparently collected money or something so I could go to therapy for a while? I don't really know the details, you'd have to ask my dad.”

“But you're not scared of dogs now,” Jamie stated, remembering that they'd seen Aff playing with dogs before. And enthusiastically, too, no sign of any fear.

“No, I never way,” Aff confirmed. “But my anger issues got like really really bad after that, so that's why they send me. Not that it helped much.”

The witch looked even more sceptical now, and raised an eyebrow at Aff. “And you've never considered that it might have been something else than a dog?”

“Why?”

God bless them, Jamie thought, but sometimes Aff could be dense as a brick wall. “Babe, you're a literal werewolf. And it's not like that's a trait that runs in your family.”

Aff was quiet for a moment, and then seemed to really process what Jamie was getting at. All they uttered was a very quiet “oh.”

“Yes, oh. That seriously never crossed your mind?” Jamie asked, incredulously, and getting louder as the were talking. “Not even when your anger issues got worse and you started shifting for the first time?”

“Hey, easy,” Cam interrupted, pulling Aff into his lap now and wrapping both arms around their waist to hold them close. “It's not their fault, they don't even remember the attack in the first place.”

Aff was frowning slightly, but felt like Jamie was right. It was weird that they had never put these two things together. They hadn't even really thought about the incident in years though, it had never even crossed their mind. “Well, I dunno,” they mumbled. “It seems kind of obvious now, I mean- I guess it's possible that that's where it came from?”

“Either way, I think it's a bit too late to say anything for certain now,” Sasha said gently, reaching over to lay a hand on their knee as well. “And it's not like it's all that important where it comes from, right? It's just important what you do with it.”

“But- if someone else lost it enough to attack me back then, does that mean that I could do the same to some other kid?” they asked, looking distraught now. Cam turned his head to glare at Jamie, mouthing over Aff's head 'Did you have to say that?'

Jamie gave a helpless shrug, but then focused on Aff again as well, reaching out to cup their face. “Hey, listen. Sasha's right, we can't know for certain that's what it was, and I'm sorry for implying otherwise. Second, if it really was another werewolf attacking you, who said they didn't have it under control? They might as well have done that to you on purpose, we don't know.” Aff clearly didn't like that idea any better, but they didn't look like they were about to go into a panic anymore either, so Jamie continued. “And lastly, beside the fact that you're already actively working on your control of this stuff, you're not alone. You have us, and we're all ready to help if you ever feel like you are loosing it.”

They nodded slowly, making an appreciative little sound when Cam started rubbing their back. “Yeah, yeah you're right,” they finally sighed. “I guess I'm not at that point yet. And-”

Sasha interrupted again. “And you never will be. You're better than that, Aff.”

Cam nodded, hoping that the conflicted look on their face wouldn't stay. They all fell silent again, still huddled up and hoping to comfort Aff however they could, while they themselves were trying to come to terms with the idea of being able to pass this on to someone else if they weren't careful enough. It wasn't a good feeling, but the others being there made it better.

“Okay, no more questions for tonight, huh?” Cam spoke up eventually, keeping his voice gentle. “Does anyone wanna go to bed yet or should we just- I dunno, watch another movie or something?”

“I'm fine with either,” Aff mumbled, admittedly still a bit more subdued than they usually were, but also feeling a little better again. Since no one else showed any preferences either they decided on watching another movie in bed, which was the superior choice in Aff's opinion anyway.

Along with Cam they called dibs on middle spoon, since Jamie's bed was actually the only one to fit all four of them more of less comfortably without them needing to pile two or more mattresses on the floor. They had gone over to doing that when they were all sleeping over at Aff's house instead, which happened more often, but everyone being able to sleep on the same bed for once was nice.

After a while, about halfway through the movie, Sasha and Jamie fell asleep, leaving Cameron and Aff awake by themselves. Cam was still holding on to Aff as well, having pretty much refused to let go since the whole werewolf conversation earlier.

Tucking a strand of their hair back, Cam leaned in a bit closer to whisper. “Hey, you doing okay? You're not still worried about what you said earlier, are you?”

Aff sighed softly and nudged close to him, and in the dim light of the laptop screen still running in front of them Cam could see their concerned expression. “I don't know. Kinda, I guess?” Their bit their lip again, and at first Cam though he's need to keep pushing. But then they continued. “Even if I don't remember the pain or anything, I know that it was a terrible experience for my parents, you know? And it's turned me into a werewolf, which is kind of cool, but also like really fucking scary. I don't wanna do that to anyone.”

“Hmm. You know, Jamie has a ton of books on all kinds of weird stuff, maybe we can find something about werewolves in there,” Cam suggested, actually having been thinking about this for a while. “And maybe we can find something that either makes it easier to keep your cool, or something that makes it impossible for you to pass it on? I mean, that kind of information has got to exist somewhere.”

“You think?” Aff asked, actually sounding hopeful. “That would be nice, yeah. I know it probably sounds stupid now, but I always thought being a werewolf is just something that happens to some people. That it's, like, random.”

“That's still a possibility, don't forget that,” Cam reminded them, closing his eyes now as he was getting more and more tired as well. “My thing was kinda random, right?”

“I don't know if it counts as random if something literally chose you,” Aff chuckled. “But I guess you're right. Or maybe it is a family thing, and it just skipped a few generations or something. That can happen, right?”

“Unlikely,” Cam muttered. “I still think you'd know, in that case. Sasha's thing is a family thing, right? And she knows, even though her parents are shitty and just left her to figure all the stuff out by herself.”

“Huh, I didn't know that,” Aff admitted, making Cam realize once more that they were still, in a sense, “the new kid”. They hadn't known the rest of them for years, like he, Jamie, and Sasha had. And while Aff probably knew some things about him the others didn't, just because of the anger management classes, the other three of them still knew more about each other just due to growing up in the same tiny city. And especially he and Sasha had been sharing secrets with each other way before the other two had joined the picture.

“Yeah, you know what, we should probably talk about that,” he said. “Like, all of us. Where we think our stuff comes from, and what we know for certain. That would probably be a good thing to know.”

“Probably,” Aff agreed, sounding like they were slowly starting to drop off as well.  

“Tomorrow then?” Cam asked.

“Tomorrow,” came the sleepy reply, and it didn't take long after that before the two fell asleep as well, barely remembering to close the laptop before they did so.

[hecohansen31]

Could we maybe get Henry Pearl helping reader through a rough patch? Just like tooth rotting fluff

(A\N): Hello there, lovely! 😘✨

You have no literal idea how happy I am of this, and how in need of Henry Pearl I am, since... I am not going to lie, lately (and still is) has been a low key a rough patch for me, since I have been struggling with anxiety and my appointment with the psychologist moved to next week, since I have to stay at university for two more days (with those snakes of my roommates).

Also my mom, to whom I usually talk with for anxiety, has been extremely bitchy with me (which I get because I stress her extremely) (although half of my anxieties are because of her) and today I broke one nail, which is very “KIM PEOPLE ARE DYING” problem, I realize, but I got them done last week, plus I just get very stupidly concerned about these things, thinking that people will judge me for it...🙈

I know this is too TMI, and I am going to leave you to our sweet and gentle Henry Pearl, the true light of this dark period, sorry for the personal thing, I just wanted you to know why I am a bit inactive today (alongside avoiding spoilers... which failed miserably! 🤣).

Hope you’ll enjoy it, sweetheart! ❤️

(And if you have more, for this babe, I am always open for it! 😘✨)

WARNINGS: Stress and Anxiety and Mention of Past Trauma 💜

You had been fidgety the entire night, and when Henry had moved to retrieve something for him to paint, meanwhile you checked some emails, he had found you having a anger-filled breakdown, against your computer, for not loading fast enough your emails.

He didn’t understand the reason behind it, gently calming you down with the promise to take a look to the computer, which you continued on saying it was too slow.

He gently kissed your forehead, immediately making you met under him, as he got the computer out of harm way, putting himself between it and you, who gently hugged around his waist, pushing your head onto his shoulder and gently kissing it, before you laid your face down there, tired.

“You need to leave it some time to charge, lovely” he explained, meanwhile he closed and re-opened the web, gently getting it to finally work, as you took a sharp intake of breath, moving to take it from his hand.

But he closed it before your hands could even come close to the technological object.

You looked at him confused and gently he pushed you down on the bed, playful towering onto you.

“What has happened, my lady?” he asked with a fake British accent, as a true knight from the old stories, meanwhile you just scrunched your nose, a bit annoyed.

“Henry, let me get to my emails, you draw and I answer a some of them... we had a deal” you mumbled, meanwhile you tried to launch yourself closer to the computer, but no result was successful since Henry got his hands onto yours, pinning them over your hand.

And he ended up kissing your face, peppering it softly and playfully, effectively getting a laugh out of your chest, meanwhile you tried to push him away, although your tries were weak and not very interested in actually getting him to stop his ministrations.

But somehow you managed to turn the things around and before Henry knew it, you were mercilessly tickling him, before you planted some kisses in order to distract him from your hands reaching out for your computer.

And you immediately went back to your emails.

Henry tried to regain his breath, staring at the painted roof of your little house: he had done it, meanwhile you anxiously asked him if he was alright.

“Didn’t Michelangelo do the same?” he had asked, meanwhile you had slapped his shoulder, saying that “Michelangelo didn’t have a hot girlfriend to worry for”.

He didn’t surrender to you, although he had lost this battle, you hadn’t won the war.

He hug-attacked you from behin, making you giggle, but your eyes didn’t shift from the screen.

It took a few kisses onto your neck, and you finally caved in, turning around for another long and attentive kiss, which made him feel like he was melting onto you, meanwhile you smirked, quickly bringing him back to reality with an harsh bite on his upper lip.

“... I would gladly do this, instead of answering emails” you mumbled, onto his lips, your eyes becoming tinged with worry “... but I seriously have to do this, or...”.

“Or what?” he asked, raising an eyebrow in an half a smirk to you “... I don’t think they’ll fire you, sweetie, they like you too much”.

He had heard you talking over the phone about having an hard time at work, mostly whenever he would catch you shouting at somebody on the phone or huffing when your phone blinged during movie night.

He could also justify your nervousness, knowing exactly that you were the type of person who needed to do her best in anything, and when you gave your best and people didn’t recognize it... well... that was a problem.

That was why he cherished you with everything he could, earning an identical treatment that made butterfly come alive in his stomach.

You had been there, after Tallulah had revealed anything to him, and you had been there after, holding him close to you.

And if your situation was even slightly as stressing as that, he couldn’t help but want to hold you and chase away all your worries, as you had done.

“... don’t joke on this, Henry Pearl” you mumbled, although a little laugh escaped your chest “I am worried about everything, we have had so many deadlines so so close and people have been pushing their work on me... and I was just unable to say no”.

He could understand it all, but still he refused to let you in your own destructive behavior, mostly when it got between him and his well-deserved cuddles.

“I know that you are, but you seriously don’t have to let this get to you, you always manage to succeed in anything” he reminded you, making you smile lightly, and blush rather strongly “...I am kind of in awe that you are still with me, although you could have so much...”.

“If you finish that phrase I am crashing my computer on top of your head” you threatened and he giggled, apologizing with soft kisses all over your hair, before he gently settled his face in the crook of your neck.

“... don’t do it, it is a MacBook, it is expensive”.

“Then don’t do this, Henry Pearl, because you are the most perfect creature in the world” he blushed, but didn’t let this stop him from going on with his talk.

“... and please don’t let your anxieties get to you, we can talk about them” he moved to kiss your forehead and felt you relax slightly.

“I don’t want to bother you” you whispered, meanwhile you turned to gently lay onto his chest, meanwhile he lowered himself till his back hit the mattress softly, not even startling you “... sometimes I just get these awful thoughts, and I don’t want to ruin your eternally sunshine-y moods, you have already so much on your plate...”.

“And you have, too, so many things on your plate and still find time to comfort me, so I think that I can do the same for you, sweetie” he gently kissed both your cheeks, before he finally managed to kiss your mouth, gently caressing your face “Please I don’t want you to feel like you can’t tall about it with me”.

You nodded softly, promptly understanding the true problem and gently pushing yourself to nudge against him.

“... but right now I feel too tired to actually talk” you mumbled, ending the phrase with a yawn and getting Henry to gently lay himself on top of you, cuddling you closer to his beating heart, meanwhile he pushed your computer onto the nightstand, to avoid it crashing it down to its misery.

“I love you, sweetie” he muttered as he engulfed you, throwing the sheets around you, pretty sure that you were already snoring.

“... love you, too, Henry Pearl”.

[conversationswithcole]

Quarantine Blues

It is 3:45 p.m. on Tuesday here in New York and I am outside for the first time since yesterday afternoon. The birds are chirping, the sun is strong and I’ve been in my bed all day, which is in the basement so when the blinds are closed I refer to it as the dungeon. I wouldn’t even be outside right now if my Dad didn’t scream my name one hundred times to get up and get some fresh air. He was so sick of me ignoring him that he referred to me as Nicole and he NEVER calls me that. I don’t even think I can recall one time in my entire life that he has called me anything but Nic or Nikki. I was so sick of hearing him yell at me from the living room I came outside just to shut him up. But now that I have been out of my bed and in the sun for a half n hour I want to thank him; I needed that push.

The weather that we have had this Spring is bizarre. Two weeks ago it was 75 and sunny, not a cloud in the sky, with a UV index of 8 and half the population of Long Island looked like bright cherry tomatoes for the next week. The following Saturday it felt like we traveled back in time to mid January and it was SNOWING because temperatures dropped into the thirties. It’s certainly not helping to soften the effects of the quarantine blues.

This quarantine sucks. There is no sugar coating it, at least not for me. Yes of course there have been some small positives and moments of joy that have come out of this but overall it just plain sucks. It has been hard not to feel guilty about complaining when things could be worse, but honestly I hate that saying, because yeah sure things could always be worse but that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to feel negatively about what is going on. I saw a post that read, “We are not all in the same boat, but we are all in the same storm”. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Whoever came up with this analogy hit the nail on the freakin’ head. In my opinion it is the best way to describe what this global pandemic feels like. 

Grief is hard enough to navigate, especially in the first year after losing your loved one. Trying to adjust my life to it’s new normal without my little brother while also adjusting to the new normal of a world in quarantine is like having a knife in a gun fight.

Exactly a year ago this month I had developed such irrational anxiety after so many years of build up that I felt like I was losing my mind. I had spiraled into this dark place and it was extremely terrifying. I had been going to therapy for a few months at this point but was still feeling like I had to do more. At first, I was highly against taking any sort of medication to help deal with my anxiety and high functioning depression but things had gotten to a point where I felt like I did not have a choice. I know I am one of the few lucky people who find the right therapist and the right medication on their first try, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.

I began going to therapy mainly to help me to deal with the trauma of my home life. Living with an addict had a tremendous effect on my mental health which directly affected other parts of my life outside my home. Addiction is not only an addicts disease, it is a family disease. 

Since my brother’s passing there have been thousands of different thoughts flowing through my mind. Some days in quarantine, when I am feeling extra lonely, and both of my parents are at work, I wish he was here with me. I wish we were quarantined together so that we could spend time doing things like playing Guitar Hero or listening to music while burning incense. But then I think to myself, is that really what it would be like? Or is this just a fantasy of what you would want it to be like if you could choose it? The reality of the matter is, that’s not how it would be. Growing up my brother and I were best friends. Only a few years apart in age, I had friends whose siblings were my brothers friends and when we came home every day all we had was each other. My older siblings have about a ten year age gap between us and they spent the majority of their childhood going back and forth between our house and their mother’s home. We were close even after I went away to college and the distance between us slowly came about the deeper he fell into his addiction. By the time he had passed our relationship was in turmoil. I had reached the point of resentment and full on rage. After five years of standing by his side and trying my absolute best to help him and everything my parents and I had done for him I couldn’t fathom the fact that he still was choosing to do this to us. 

Realistically if things were exactly the same as they had been right before my brother passed and we were sentenced to this at home lock down, it would’ve been a fucking nightmare. Imagine being stuck inside your home with a heroin addict in the midst of one of his worst drug binges thus far? I’m hoping that you can’t imagine this but if you can, or are currently going through it, I am praying for you. It would’ve been torture for everyone, including my brother. 

I function my best with a consistent and healthy routine. I like to have a set work schedule that does not change at the last minute. I like to plan out my days at the beginning of the week so I can be the most efficient. Right before this quarantine I was in such a healthy place. As healthy as you can be while grieving, but nonetheless I felt good. I had my routine down pact. I was training for my first ever half marathon, things were going really well with work and babysitting, I had my schedule set and I planned out my training and my free time around that. I was making great money and finally putting a real dent into my credit card debt. I was excited for all of the things that were planned for the near future. Between losing all of this overnight AND the loss of my brother just six months prior, I was crushed.

Before I started writing last month I had been speaking my thoughts and feelings via my Snap Chat story, which gave people an opportunity to respond directly to my videos. I received a ton of messages from people that felt similar to how I had been feeling since this pandemic flipped the world upside down. They shared what works for them and I appreciated that they took the time to reach out. This is the beauty of conversation. 

Connecting with others makes it that much easier to take a deep breath and realize that you are allowed to feel this way and more importantly that you are not alone. Life is literally like a roller coaster, it’s full of ups and downs and twists and turns and sometimes it happens so fast you don’t even realize it’s happening. 

Today was most definitely a down day. I did not want to get out of bed for anyone or anything and I took a two hour nap before noon even hit. This is an overwhelming and confusing time for the entire world, and we all need to be there for each other because everyone is going through this storm just on their own boat. 

We should all work on being a little kinder to ourselves and to remember that it is totally okay to not feel totally okay. 

As for me, I’ll be taking my ass back to my bed in the dungeon for the rest of the day because I’m not okay today and that is okay.

[mylordshesacactus]

can I go old school and ask for commentary on Priority?

you ABSOLUTELY CAN, I really LIKED writing Priority and I always get excited when people show interest in it!

Priority was--at the time--unusually long for me, as I mostly wrote oneshots, so a seven-chapter plot-centric fic was an accomplishment! It’s also one of only two Mass Effect fics I’ve ever written--it’s not one of my main fandoms, but Jack and Miranda just have such a compelling dynamic and the story was in my head.

It’s a very straightforward plot, obviously--there’s not a whole lot of twists and turns, but then again, I was kind of trying to make it feel like...a loyalty quest, essentially. 

(Hence the title. [weak rimshot] Plot-essential missions are...see, in the in-game interface...”Priority: [Location]” is how the game marks the next piece of...it’s, you know, it’s--listen I’m very funny)

The opening chapter is sort of a vignette--I initially intended to publish it as a oneshot, but when I got the idea for a short plotty missionfic, I realized that anything I opened it with would be SIGNIFICANTLY less effective than what I already had! It’s a bit tonally different than the rest of the fic, but it also does an excellent job of setting up...well, Jack’s priorities. It hits her lingering trauma and fear of Cerberus, the bond between her and her kids, establishes the nature of her relationship with Miranda, reminds us that Eezo the varren exists, and allowed me to place the fic in time--immediately after the war, and we’re just Ignoring The Endings as one does when writing mass effect fic.

A surprising percentage of Jack’s kids don’t actually have names in canon, so I had to give them some! I know at least one person has (with my enthusiastic permission) borrowed those names and I think even Rademaker’s arm, which is super cool. (And anyone else who wants to write anything with the Grissom Academy kids, feel free to do the same).

A few things that I really like about this fic:

I think I nailed Aria...better than a lot of ficauthors in the fandom, even extremely prominent ones whose characterization I generally agree with. I think people tend to default to writing Aria as a sort of [generic dom voice] crossed with [generic femme fatale but she’s unexpectedly crude sometimes]. If you actually...go back, play through her content, LISTEN to her speech patterns? Aria’s very rarely coarse at all, and her rulings actually tend toward mercy unless you’ve actively crossed her and been bad at it. I know, I know, “Don’t Fuck With Aria” but that’s not actually HER phrasing, that’s something that sprang up around her and she adopted it. She has, when she’s not ripping folks a new asshole, a very soft and gentle tone, is generally polite, and actually has a kind of dorky playfulness about her--at least with Shepard, whom she actually likes and respects. She DOESN’T act like either of the stereotypes she’s generally written as, and it’s weird to me how so many writers who otherwise 100% nail voice and dialogue have COMPLETELY missed hers.

(About that “Aria actually tends toward the unexpectedly merciful” thing. In ME2, you get an email from the mother of that girl Samara’s daughter murdered. She just says “Aria gave me this address” which means that either Aria specifically sought her out knowing what the ardat-yakshi leave in their wake, or...this shaky, shy, reclusive woman nevertheless felt comfortable seeking Aria out specifically to ask after the woman who avenged her little girl, knowing she had absolutely nothing of value to offer, and actually received that help. And given Aria isn’t actually inclined toward spontaneous acts of generosity--at least not that early in the series--I heavily suspect it’s the latter. She’s ALWAYS been a lot kinder than she lets on.)

Also--yeah, it only happens in a dream, but. This sequence of events in Jack’s subconscious? I guarantee it’s either pulling from real-life memories of the Grissom Academy attack, or it’s 100% accurate regardless. Because the sequence of events goes:

>Invading Cerberus mook taunts “Subject Zero”>Jack loses her SHIT at him for having the gall to call her that in front of her kids>Another Cerberus mook, a few seconds later, calls her “Zero” casually>Prangley, having no other context for the name, flares his biotics and tells the mook to shut the fuck up

I think Jack’s pretty open with the kids about her history, they know what Cerberus did to her--she’s never been quiet about it before, and it’s important context to what she can do and why she’s here. But she very much does NOT tell folks about what they named her--Shepard finds out about “Subject Zero” as a moniker during Jack’s loyalty mission. That name is clearly a major trigger, and the Academy invasion would in all likelihood have been the first time her kids heard it. They’re smart. They know what the fuck that means, and they don’t appreciate it.

Anyway, yeah! I actually really like this fic and it’s a very short, easy-to-digest little piece. I definitely wish it got more attention! Like I said, I’m really not active in the ME fandom, and it’s not like, a phenomenal epic plot fic OR a solid oneshot, so between those two factors it never got much of an audience. I like it though!