#like um. if you think about it for a couple seconds the parallels are there.... kind of?? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

novelmonger · 9 days

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I wasn't expecting it to take this long, but after a million distractions, I'm back to going through the LotR audio commentaries and taking note of any interesting tidbits I haven't heard before.

Please enjoy my notes on the RotK design team commentary with Richard Taylor, Tania Rodger, Grant Major, Alan Lee, John Howe, Dan Hennah, and Chris Hennah:

They had to make Deagol's ears out of waterproof gelatin rather than latex because he was going to fall in the water, and the normal latex ears would have come off. I guess they must have done the same any other time a Hobbit got submerged, but they didn't say that.

The fish that Gollum eats at the beginning is made from some kind of edible gelatin so he could actually bite into it. They also had another prop fish that wasn't edible that they gave Andy Serkis to keep at the end XD

The little stone hollow thing where Frodo and Sam are sleeping for their first scene in the movie was a set they built with a removable back wall so they could get a camera in to shoot it from the back as well as the front. Why did I never think of that before?

There were a couple of extra shots they needed of Orthanc in the background to finish up the movie, but they hadn't managed to get the footage from the miniatures (and I guess the miniatures were gone by that point? idk). So they took one of the model collectibles Weta had made and took some photos of it out in the parking lot XD

Whoooooaaaa! Okay, so Alan Lee talks about how, in legends, they say that you have to kill a wizard three times for him to stay dead. And Saruman dies "three times" - first he's stabbed, then he's impaled, then he's drowned. So Saruman is dead dead. Dare I say it? This is...I think this is a better death than the one in the book ._.

They even put carvings on the crossbeams underneath the seats of the chairs in Edoras! You are never ever going to see them, but that was their dedication to making everything feel authentic. That's what sets this apart from so many fantasy movies and shows made these days.

Red in the costumes is meant to suggest royalty. That's why Aragorn, Boromir, Theoden, and Theodred all have red in their costumes - as well as Bilbo and Frodo! You're meant to look at someone wearing red and unconsciously think, "there's something regal about them."

John Howe points out that you probably wouldn't ever reforge a sword like they do with Narsil, at least not in the sense of putting the pieces back together, because it wouldn't be as strong as it was originally. (You could melt it down and start over again, of course.) But, he reminds us, these are the Elves, and it's more of a symbolic thing anyway.

The great hall in Minas Tirith was inspired by Charlemagne's chapel (and Byzantine architecture was one of the main influences on the design of Gondor in general).

The statue of the king in Ithilien was made out of polystyrene, which you would think would be pretty light, but it was so huge it was actually very heavy. They had to transport it to the location in three pieces: the base, the body, and the head. And to lift one on top of each other, they had to rig a sort of pulley system over the limb of a tree, using a four-wheel drive truck to pull it. But they discovered that the first truck wasn't getting enough traction, so they hooked a second truck up to it, and ended up pulling the first truck up into the air along with the statue!

They created fourteen new weapons just to put in the background of the armory in the scene where the Witch-King is getting ready for battle @_@

John Howe said that his inspiration for Minas Morgul was...getting his wisdom teeth pulled??? He describes a metal clamp digging into the perfectly healthy enamel of his tooth to pull it out, and draws a parallel to the metal pieces the orcs fitted to the top of the pristine white parapets, staining and violating them. Um...thanks, I could've done without that visual, John.

I can't believe I never thought about this before, but there's a little wooden roof over the pile of wood for the beacon that Pippin lights. The reasoning behind that is you need some kind of cover to keep the wood more or less dry for when it needs to be lit in an emergency. The beacon will burn away the wooden roof, but it can be replaced easily enough, and it's worth it to be able to quickly light the beacon.

A lot of the saddles they used were ordered from the Indian military, because they had a good, old-fashioned sort of look to them. Then they would add onto the saddles with things that would make them look distinctly Rohirric, rather than Indian.

Alan Lee's daughter worked on some of the figures in the doors of Minas Tirith!

John Howe goes off on this whole tangent about how there's no religion or religious structures in Middle-Earth, and why that might be, but the whole time I was just sitting there going, "...have you never read The Silmarillion????"

Because they had to make over a hundred suits of Gondorian armor, other than the hero suits, they couldn't make each one exactly the right size for the man who would wear it, so the casting department had to only get actors within a certain range of size. They also built the suits of armor with sliding pieces, so they could be somewhat fitted to different sizes.

The horses started out as being part of the art department's responsibility, but as time went on, there were just so many horses they had to keep track of (and the various liveries they would have to be fitted out with) that they had to make a separate horse department to oversee it all.

Because so much of the movie was filmed on-location, in some very remote locations, they had to make a sort of caravan of mobile repair stations that they could take with them. They had all the tools and crew necessary on hand wherever they went so they could repair broken props or ripped costumes, reapply makeup for gore and injuries, take nicks out of the edge of weapons.... It was really like moving an army around!

For the dream where the Evenstar breaks, they made a version of it that was five times bigger than normal, out of a very brittle resin. Then they made an oversized section of the floor and dropped it from a great height so it would completely shatter in a dramatic way like that.

Anduril was John Howe's design. He based it on a sword belonging to a friend of his in Germany, which to him is the ideal sword, the most beautiful sword. He also talked a bit about how Men were taller and bigger in the First and Second Ages, so their swords would have been longer.

John Howe: "Why do people criticize Tolkien for not developing his characters sufficiently? I cannot fathom that kind of criticism. I think it's done by people who don't read between the lines."

Richard Taylor said they had a lot of fun gathering up all the skulls after each take in the Paths of the Dead to put back up at the top so they could be poured down again. Apparently Viggo liked to gather them up and try to throw them at the crew members! "Many hours of skullduggery was to be had," as Richard put it XD

Apparently, they'd made dozens of really finely detailed silicone heads to be lobbed over the wall of Minas Tirith, but then all but one of them were stolen! So they had to quickly put together some crude latex ones to use in the shoot instead (one of which the mayor of Wellington threw). They didn't talk about this, but I'm assuming the one good head that was left is the one that gets a close-up. You have to wonder who out there was sitting around with a bunch of highly realistic latex severed heads in his basement or something....

While most of the siege towers are miniatures or CG, they built the top third of one and put it on tracks so they could move it up against the wall. They built the set with breakable ramparts for when the little drawbridge thing crashes down.

They had the same trouble in Minas Tirith that they did in Helm's Deep, with the battering ram being too heavy for the stunties to lift. But they never actually explained how they got around that problem, if it was the same solution or not :/ All they said was that they had replaceable panels in the doors, in case they were damaged by the battering ram.

In order to make Shelob's webs, they had to heat up two polymers and mix them together to make the stringy, sticky material. In order to mix them, they had to be heated up to 220 degrees C, but if they got up to 228 degrees, they would burst into flame @_@ After they were heated and mixed, they would dribble the mixture on top of a vat of water, where it would cool in spiderweb-like shapes. Then they would lift it out on a frame, and they could carefully place it on the set. One time, the polymers did burst into flame, and they were running out of fire extinguishers to put it out! O.O Eventually, they did call the fire department, who said they'd done everything the fire department would have done. They got the fire put out, but it was a nerve-wracking moment, because the room where they were making the webs was connected to the studio, so it could have been disastrous D:

Bernard Shaw apparently got the idea to do that whole bit where he knocks his sword against the row of spears when he saw the collection of spears all lined up in a row in the art department.

The "oil" that Denethor pours over himself and Faramir is a mixture of glycerin and water. (I always wonder about these things, so I'm really glad they mentioned it.)

When they were filming the pyre scene, they had a silicone dummy for Faramir on the burning pyre. Apparently somebody on the crew brought "David Wenham" a cup of coffee over because they thought he'd fallen asleep on the side of the set, only to discover that it was a dummy! XD

The horse rig they made for close-up work of people on horseback got affectionately nicknamed "the Phony Pony." The first day they brought it on set, Peter Jackson got up on it and "rode" the horse, making the whole crew laugh XD

One of the ideas that Peter Jackson came up with for the mumakil in a brainstorming session (which Richard Taylor says he's still not sure if PJ was serious about or not) was that they could suck up several riders in its trunk and then fire them out like bullets. I'm...really glad they didn't go with that, whether PJ was serious or not <_<

Alan Lee says that the first time he saw the dead mumakil that Weta made for the set, the body was hollow, and some of the crew had set up a TV inside it and were watching a rugby game XD

The last miniature they built for LotR was the Minas Tirith docks where the Corsair ships come in. It kept getting put off until almost the end of the shoot, so they only had five days to put it together! @_@

All of the dead horses are fake, of course, so Weta had to make them all. They were made of lightweight material, so each day you'd see the set dressers just kind of casually carrying in a whole dead horse and then picking one up from the battlefield afterwards like it's no big deal. They had to do a lot of repairs to the dead horses, because the legs and ears kept falling off or getting bent the wrong way XD

The stone Watchers in Cirith Ungol have Maori influence in their design. I wish they'd talked about that in more detail, but it was just mentioned in passing.

They were concerned about the various copies of the One Ring being stolen, so they kept it in a lunchbox that was labeled "Screws."

The scene where Frodo and Sam join the orc convoy was filmed on location up on a mountain, so they had to deal with a whole bunch of extras in extensive prosthetics and armor, which would make them sweat while they were moving around, but then when the camera wasn't rolling, it would be a challenge to keep them warm. The way they did most of the orcs was that they wore a rubber mask and then a helmet, and they would need to take them off at regular intervals so the actors could get some air. So in between takes, after the director called, "Cut!" there would also be a cry of, "Heads off!" That meant the dressers would have to rush into the crowd and quickly take off the extras' helmets and masks XD

Because the crew was committed to not damaging any of the flora and fauna in the places where they were filming, even in the location that became the plains of Mordor that Frodo and Sam struggle across, there were little flowers and moss that they wanted to protect (and it was a national park). So they would lay down carpets on the ground for people to walk on, so they wouldn't damage the plant life. I'm sure that made for a strange sight, Frodo and Sam struggling in tattered clothing over rocks and boulders, surrounded by perfectly ordinary rugs XD

To do the decapitation of the Mouth of Sauron, they had a headless dummy sitting there, and Viggo would swipe his sword where the head should be. Then Weta Digital put in the head afterwards.

The lava in Mount Doom was mostly a miniature (except for the set where Sean and Elijah did their part), made from methyl cellulose and other things to make it look like lava. They set it up on a table that they would tilt so it would flow down around the model boulders made from urethane.

Richard Taylor said that, at that time, no one had really done a very good CG bird, so he was especially pleased at how the eagles turned out.

There were about 400 people working in the art department total, and most of them had never worked in the film industry before! @_@

Ngila Dickson's philosophy for the Elves was that none of their "crowns" or headpieces would go upwards, but would fit close around their heads and then go down. That's one of those things I've subconsciously noticed all these years, but never really thought about before.

Apparently, a little bit of the graphite used on Aragorn's armor in the coronation scene kind of puffed out when he and Arwen go in for their kiss, and got on Arwen's dress D: And some well-meaning person tried to rub it off, but only succeeded in spreading it around further, thus ruining the dress. And most of the female characters only had one copy of each costume, because all except for Eowyn don't see battle and thus don't need different versions with varying amounts of wear and tear. They're just made to wear in one or two scenes of them looking pretty and walking through a room. But alas, that lovely green dress was ruined.

They didn't have much time with Sir Ian Holm, so they only had a week to get a mold of his face and make the old-age prosthetics for the Grey Havens. But then word came down that he didn't want to have prosthetics, so they were to just make him look old with makeup. They were really disappointed, but then on the day, Ian Holm saw the prosthetics sitting off in the corner and asked what it was. When they explained, he said it wasn't true, and insisted on them putting the prosthetics on instead.

One thing that was really impressed upon me during this whole commentary (over all three movies) was just how much love and joy all of the crew had for the project. Sometimes you watch a movie or read a book that really means a lot to you, that's changed your life, and you wonder if the people who made it fully grasp what a beautiful thing they've created. These people know. They were fully aware, from start to finish, that they were making something truly great and worthy of praise. And I think that's beautiful.

#lord of the rings #lotr #return of the king

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dearmahiru-archive · 10 months

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Hiii :3 For the Milgram ask game: 5, 14, 19 for Mahiru and 9, 12, 16 for Shidou?

omg hi hi hello hello :3c

5. favorite voice drama line/moment?

Mahiru: Kotoko-chan’s acts aren’t a problem, either. I think she’s fighting for her own cause as well. So I don’t blame her. Because I also think that I… that my love isn’t wrong. I don’t want to be shamed for my love.

Mahiru: Yeah. Es-kun, you’re working so hard… You’re doing great. Es: …! Mahiru: …Oh my… are you crying? Es-kun… Es: I’m not! Mahiru: You’re putting up a tough front.

(*kicking, crying, sliding down the wall dramatically, banging my head on the wall, ripping my hair out, screaming, punching air, rolling in dirt, eating sand angrily*)

i am so normal about this :) i expected mahiru's second voice drama to lean in thick on guilt-tripping and having mahiru be bitter but no. not only does she not get angry but instead she just forgives everyone involved. what the actual fuck

14. any headcanons on their appearance?

went :0 when i saw this question and went to go finish this little edit i was working on! i really really love the idea of mahiru having tan skin and her being a gyaru when she was a younger. i was actually hoping to make some blasian edits for the milgram cast (since i'm blasian!) but i'm a bit worried about being sent hate </3

19. what do you think their childhood/teenage years were like?

well you see (*shuffles through seven pages worth of self-projection*) it all started when she was born─

kidding kidding! i imagine that, during her years at an all-girls school, mahiru was apart of a popular clique but felt detached from them because they often took advantage of her. coupled with her sheltered upbringing, depression, and insecurities, this manifested in her strong desire to feel and give love to someone.

i also like to think teenage mahiru's hair was a little bit longer!

9. do you forgive/not forgive their crime on its own?

oh god this is another hard one─ um. i feel like if i was asked this about a real life person then my initial reaction would be, "this should not be my business." it feels so deeply personal to the people involved in the case that my input would feel grossly inappropriate.

i will say yes if only because it was for love. because, if asked if you could forgive someone's murder if it was out of a love, wouldn't you naturally want to forgive them? shidou's entire case is so messy but if i forgive mahiru for her twisted perspective of love that hurt people then i can surely forgive shidou. though, i do understand why someone else wouldn't be able to forgive him.

12. what do you wish would be discussed more often about them in the fandom?

hm, i'm not quite sure if there's any more discussions to mine? out of all of the characters i think shidou's treated mostly fairly, just plagued with the organ harvesting theory and amane discourse.

i personally would love to see more discussions about mahiru and shidou's parallels! i adore the similarities between fuuta and mu, so it saddens me that i don't know enough about shidou's character to draw the same for shidou/mahiru. if anyone wants to enlighten me i'd be thrilled!

OH AND THE JACK THE RIPPER REFERENCE IN HIS NAME!! it's very funny to me he's the only character who, to my knowledge, references an serial killer. buddy my bud are you good.

16. how do you think they actually sing in regular life?

boooring answer i imagine his voice would be similar, he'd just be more amateurish and hit the same notes as easily. i love this question though because it popped up the image in my head of shidou being taken to a mixer and awkwardly trying to do karaoke.

#sorry this took so long to answer!! i wasn't feeling good o7 #thank you for the ask <3 #♡. cinnamon lovemail

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i-hear-a-sound · 1 year

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RWBY

Thank you for the ask! Here we go:

Favorite female character? Ilia Penny Pyrrha Ruby Nora(!!!!) Emerald Weiss and most of all… maria😔she’s so fucking funny i loved her energy v6. Further explanations, Ilia has an adorable design, great voice actor and decent enough representation. Nora’s timeskip design was unmatched and she’s very quotable, plus her personality reminds me of one of my close friends irl. Ruby’s struggles in V9 (until they fucked that up) really hit with me as I’d gone through something very similar, and Penny… Penny just makes me happy. What they did with her makes me angry, but Penny makes me smile. :D

Favorite male character? I got a couple but at the moment it’s tied by Sun and Roman. Sun has fun energy and Roman is himself and iconic. Others are: James is hot and so is the bad bird BF he got by being autistic. Mercury is cool for the 5 seconds of screentime he gets every volume now. Tyrian and Watts got impeccable swag and the 5 hour long make out scene between the two of them was very interesting. Adam is cathartic and fun as hell to write my little meow meow. Jaune is best when he’s just a little loser dork, and Ren is very pretty.

Favorite Volume? Surprise surprise, Volume 3. I fucking love tournament arcs. I. Love. Tournament. Arcs.

Favorite Episode? That whole Apathy Arc in V6!!! Great horror in my opinion. I wish they’d show off more creative Grimm like that again. And as a side note, V6 is just… the best looking volume.

Favorite cast member? If they count, Jeff and Casey!! SUCH good music.

Favorite ship? *cracks knuckles* Freezerburn, Catmeleon, Monochrome, Schne//ekos, Pussy Magnet Purrah, Greek fire, nuts and dolts, Bees Schnees, Khali, Spicecream, Seamonkeys, Emercury, If there’s one between Ilia and Ruby put it here, Ginger Snaps, Arctic Winter, Silver Lotus, *looks at writings on my palm* Snow pines, Ironqrow, James x Oz, Crimsun, Strawbana, Nuts and Volts, and Rosebird. To name a few. Some might not be my favorites, these are just ones I like/like in concept. :) Character I’d die defending? Sienna fucking Khan. The whole White Fang, honestly. I do think protesting through violence against your oppressors is very swag and real actually. Plus she’s hot.

A character I can’t sympathize with? Uhhhhhh…… SALEM!!!!!!!!!! Cinder too ish but Salem mostly. Like, I feel a TINY bit bad, only because the gods are undeniably awful garbage horrible terrible. She still sucks though.

A character I grew to love? …Adam. I did not give a single shit about his decently attractive redhead ass until that reveal and his death in V6. He has become my blorbo; my skrunkly. My cringefail loser, my girly pop. Engrained within my brain like a silly silly worm. He’s fun to draw. Fun to write. REALLY fun to write. I can put him in so many situations. So many bittersweet, melancholic situations. And in so many outfits.

My Anti-otp? Ive got a couple.

Bumbl//Bee. Not my thing. Could have been, had they not continually tried making “Only disabled main character losing her arm” something “romantic” as well as paralleling said character to her partner’s… um… ex abuser? Hello?

Embe//rald. Fuck Abusive ships.

Taura//donna. Fuck Abusive ships.

Frostbite. This one is actually one of my least favorite ships, as it is essentially a pairing between the ex-racist ex-heiress of a huge company to the in universe minority said company enslaved and branded while he was a child. Plus, again. Fuck. Abusive. Ships.

Ar//kos. Not… my… thing.

Winter and Marrow or Robyn and Marrow. Nope nope nope. No. Thank. You.

Etc etc etc I could go on all day. Thank you for the ask!

#rwde #guess I’ll tag it that why not

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mythicalshipping · 2 years

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Been watching eps out of order recently and also OMFG *THIS* EP IN PARTICULAR:

The *GENTLE* way he reached over to hold Link in place?!?! The innate trust and intimacy of resting your hand on the nape of someone’s neck?!?! WITH GAK, RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SALAD?!?!

Link just SLOWLY LEANING INTO IT LIKE WTF?!?!

WHY DOES RHETT SAY THIS SO *SOFTLY*?!?!

~*cinematic parallels*~

Like, regardless of Rhett saying he was manufacturing the appearance of having fun, I think he clearly was.

HOW. WAS. THIS. ALLOWED?!?! Like, the thought that it was *just* misshapen enough to not alert the YouTube algorithm has me REELING.

Poor Stevie and Morgan, I would have simply walked into the sea.

MY FACE IS SO RED AT THE MOMENT HOW DID THIS NOT GET DEMONETIZED?!?!?

This was so much...

LINK’S GIGGLE HERE ;-;

*GRAB*

*STILL GRABBIN’ BUT MOSTLY OUT OF FRAME*

...I feel like this isn’t the first time they’ve had this (or at least a similar conversation).

Link agreeing to this right away...as if he’s been...in charge of something like this before...

...EXCUSE ME?!?! IS THIS REAL LIFE?!?! HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE BY LOOKING AT THIS COMPLETELY HETEROS*XUAL ANTI-SELF-ENJOYMENT CHART WHERE YOU CAN SEE THE LAST TIME I SHOOK HANDS WITH THE POPE BECAUSE IT’S ATTACHED TO OUR FRIDGE WITH A NOVELTY MAGNET AND HAS A F*CKING STICKER OVER THE DAY LIKE WTFLKDSJF;A;SKD

...Y’all...this is how a lot of um...grown-up entertainment type videos start...just sayin’...

OH SO THE THING HE OFFERED YOU SECONDS AGO, BUT THERE WAS HESITANCE, YOU ARE NOW *REQUESTING* IN THIS MANNER??!?!

GUYS. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT?!?!

EXCUSE ME?!?! THEY’RE ACTUALLY GONNA...HOW WAS THIS...THE EDITORS MUST HAVE...WHAT ALL DID THEY CUT OUT...WHAT?!?!??!?!?

THE UST IN THIS IS *INSANE.*

...O.O

Okay, which one of you is their burner account?

^??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? The YT Algorithm Finger Block...

BRUH...

*crew laughing nervously while they try not to think about that one hastily deleted Tik Tok by *another* YouTuber that fully called the two of them out*

Y’ALL. Y’ALL!!!!

... I have no words...I’m just not gonna say anything...I’m just...

O.O

Is this why Twister got veto’d on Couples Game Night?

.............

?!?!?!?!@!qw4rhqwkljeljsad;lfja;jsfd;lkw4e

WHAT THE *ACTUAL* F*CK EVEN WAS THIS EPISODE?!?!

#rhink #gmm rhink #gmm rhink 2298

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keingleichgewicht · 2 years

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THOUGHTS ON CONVERGENCE??????

YEAH SHITS CRAZY RIGHT

i've made some posts already but there remains a lot to talk about and i kind of want to holler about... the title. 'convergence.'

like with 'the mill', i think the simplicity of the word here kind of betrays how the deep the name really goes. so, starting with the dictionary: a convergence is A Coming Together, yes? it's a meeting place, it's a falling into line. when we talk about 'convergent evolution', we're talking about how living under the same pressures can cause very different creatures to take similar shapes. when we talk about 'convergence' in maths, we're talking about two sequences approaching the same infinity; we're talking about a curve flattening out into a forever approach to a line it won't ever reach.... !

i do too much fuckin calculus in my daily life to really romanticize it — but, you know, cmon: pafl's all about being stuck, it's about treading water, it's about the dreadful uniformity of the monsters being trapped like that eventually turns you into. so this all feels relevant. and on account of being a huge freak about etymology i will go ahead and mention that it's from the latin — convergere — and con means 'together' and vegere means 'to bend', or 'to turn towards':

circles in the sand, driving each other round the bend. or something.

SO. there are, i think, at least a couple convergences the title's referring to. the first one's kind of the most obvious one: this song's the convergence of anya-and-dima pafl, as begun in punch it, punk!, and yura-and-sanya-and-kt pafl, as begun in, well, pafl.

to elaborate: up until this point those two pafls have always kind of existed separately. they evolve out of a communal origin point — that's COMFORT ZONE, and dmitry's breakout — and they start to edge in on each other's narrative territory somewhere around olga getting arrested, but they're mostly happening in parallel. each half of the story gets one sibling, one mutant, and one stoic adult stalker who discovers the truth about said mutant (...only obviously olga and sergei reacted real differently to that discovery)

i've talked about it before um here but anya-and-dima and yura-kt-everyone-else really do feel like they exist in different genres. punch it, punk! has this brightness, a willingness to forgive, an adventure-story resilience to it, which none of the other songs remotely possess — kt's guide get's closest, but kt also gets fucking crushed for it. in punch it, punk! things to wrong, and then they go right again! dmitry gets beat up, so he gets bandaged and band-aided and fed breakfast; olga finds him out, but she doesn't call the police, and she doesn't get telekinetically dismembered either, because anna's there to help them deescalate. no other pafl song works like this, i think. in every other song, things go wrong, and then they get worse.

( ^ again i've said this already but SUPER META-AWARE LINE. eo ibis quo omnia eunt: 'you will go where everything else is going.' welcome, says yura, to what it's been like for the rest of us this whole fucking time! welcome to being completely fucking doomed, baby!)

this genre thing is why i think occam's razor doesn't qualify as the two storylines meeting, yet — because in occam's razor, anya and dima's luck is still holding. yura looks dmitry in the eye, but anna drags him away, and nothing happens. for the time being the adventure story keeps rolling. whereas in convergence their luck's run out, which to me means the narratives have come together for real. they're operating by the same tragic rules as everyone else now: for most of us that's how it goes!

so it's a convergence 'cause it's a collision, and it's a convergence because the narratives aren't gonna separate again, i don't think, no second chances on that kind of thing. from here on out anya-and-dima's fate is fully tied up with yura's, narratively first, and then also in the very literal sense that they're all going to go down into that facility together, probably. every player still on the board (except sergei) is now traveling out towards those got taken out already (kt, olga, nikita)* and those that have been down there the whole time (temnova). the paths have unified and there's only one line forward....

even our old friend The Cube's here, representing..... uhhh ......., Something. what the fuck does the cube represent? all we know is that it's a silent, perceptive little object; it's shaped an awful lot like a game dice (and we've had game-theory metaphors before, revolver roulette, cards on the table, we've talked about luck); yura found it, olga didn't want it, sanya was it. which means, idk, anyone's guess. the cube's so fuckin weird dude. although speaking of :

i am actually totally convinced that we have no idea yet what the real significance of The Cube is. the problem is that its only current known ability (recognizing zone influence in artifacts or people) is something stalkers can literally already just do. the cube didn't out dmitry or katya, it didn't have to! yura did that completely on his lonesome! which means the cube doesn't actually have something to do in this story, not enough to warrant the amount of attention it's gotten. yet. and pafl's way too tightly-constructed to hang up a gun like that on the wall and then not fire it. PRETTY SURE this thing's gonna come back to bite one way or another

but right anyway: storyline convergence. i also figure that's basically what the pronoun ambiguity in the first run of the chorus is about. we have yukari and kyo here, which is very straightforward — yukari sang both pafl-the-song and punch it, punk!, and kyo did occam's razor. this is the two siblings, two storylines, talking over each other, talking both sides of the conversation. the two sides follow each other very closely now, because they are sliding down into total convergence. everybody's on the same page now — that's not a good thing!

the other convergence i think a lot about is.... character arcs.

this is where "convergent evolution" is relevant, i figure. you will come running back like a dog. i will come running back like a dog. earlier i was saying the two halves of the story in pafl are yura-and-sanya-and-kt and anya-and-dima, and that's true, in a straight-up parallel plotlines sort of way, but also arguably the two halves of the story in pafl are just yura and dima: the protagonist and, probably, deuteragonist. two boys trying to be heartless!

i've talked about them before (uhhhh for instance) and how they are basically doing each other's arcs backwards; that's been true since at least kt's guide, where they're explicitly placed at opposite poles of her narrative, "being used is really uncool" vs "giving up is really uncool." in kt's guide they're two boys who don't believe in a future. this is a fucking lot in itself: how they each get a verse-chorus cycle dedicated to them, how yura's "he" but dima's "you." how dima says, "this life's not fit for the likes of you and i", ironically a perfect echo of sergei's "the world is a cruel place to people like you", and yura says "pathetic ones like me lose before we join the game."

the interesting thing is kt tells both of them they're wrong, but when she says goodbye to yura, she's hoping he'll keep believing in a future from now on — whereas when she says goodbye to dima she's admitting that he was right not to. there's a really deliberate juxtaposition happening there! and what's crazy ironic about it is that, yet again, she's right but she's wrong: she's kind of got them the wrong way around. she's associating yura with freedom, and dima with the cage, but not to put too fine a point on it, it's yura's fault she got locked up! it's dima who set her free!

when i say they're "doing each other's arcs backwards".... they're two boys trying to be heartless. "i've weaponized my helpless spite" vs "i've an objection not one you can overrule." "fair play is overrated" vs "men like me have the right to be cruel." that much is true...

... but also, like, the thing is, dmitry started heartless. he has no fucking reason to believe in a future; he does not even know how to imagine one. we make a lot of hay about yura having Killed A Man (big deal, it was a cop) but honestly: dmitry has absolutely killed people, right? dmitry has, at the very least, canonically tortured children. he has been the weapon with which war crimes were committed. what is yura talking about, "bark all you want?" who is he fucking kidding? what does he fucking know? dt-001-319's quiet, he was obedient for years, but he most certainly bites!

(^ BY THE WAY this shot's fascinating because it's almost a kind of flashback. this can't be dmitry in the present, because in the present he's wearing his black sweater and his stolen jacket; in this shot he's in his uniform. these are his facility clothes. weird, right?)

but yeah: yura's attitude here is almost as ironic as kt's infamous "are you afraid of pain." dt-001-319 is unspeakably well familiar with pain, and familiar with violence, and he has zero moral compass to speak of; even the highly skewed one the facility gave him got screwed when they betrayed him. i'm not sure if yura understands this, at this point, but the remarkable thing is not that dmitry attacked him. the remarkable thing is that dmitry did not follow through.

i actually don't know if i've seen anyone talk about this yet, but i think it kind of might be the single most important thing that happens in this song, and also maybe the reason it's named like it is. yura makes his threat, he puts olga up as the sacrificial lamb, and dima stops.

like, alright, let's back up: pafl, so far, has been the story of yura getting ever more ruthless. he is ever more willing to burn anything, everything, if it will get him power, if it will get him control, if it'll get him an inch of what he has always been willing to die for, which is freedom, any freedom at all. any room to breathe: that's his arc.

& at this point i think it doesn't even have to be to his personal advantage to hurt you — i'm pretty sure, now that he's made that excuse for himself, he'll take any opportunity he can get. it's a really miserable fact of human nature that you will sometimes hurt other people just to prove to yourself that you have enough control over them to do it. i'm going to talk about this some more, if i ever make my post about "poor little boy can't solve all his problems with force", but there's so much hatred in how he treats dima and anya in this song, there's so much totally vindictive joy in having that power to cause pain. he sees it as turning the tables and he's going to keep chasing it until he's turned into something awful.

to put it together: dima has been learning to care about people. yura has been learning to treat them like gears in the machine. i think the other reason this song's called convergence is 'cause this is where the intersection is, this is where they cross each other's paths. this is where they officially swap places on the roster of the ruthless. this is where it starts coming down to dust !

and my argument for that is basically: that dima stops. he doesn't stop for katya — he isn't willing to go back down into his own personal hell to save her — and that's not exactly a heroic decision but it's also, honestly, understandable, in some level. he knew her for like, two hours, and she said things to him that felt very cruel at the time, when he had just saved her life and was in the middle of having the worst headache ever conceived of. and then she went off on her own, and did the exact thing he said not to do, and got caught: you can see how, from dmitry's perspective, it's not really his problem. not enough to be worth breaking back into a death-trap for.

and to be clear: he probably has done kt a lot of wrong, in his time! again, under temnova's rule, dmitry was definitely complicit; he's a kid, and he can't be blamed, but katya's a kid too, and he's most definitely hurt her before. but i don't think his brand-new education in having a heart is really far enough along to process that yet, and i can't hold it against him, all things considered.

... so he won't go back for her. and yura has the audacity to stone cold condemn him for this. "i see your decency has long degraded." (another dreadfully ironic line! degraded from what??? he's been locked up underground since he was a literal baby!) but — and this is the important bit — then yura puts olya on the line. cards on the table, everybody place your bets....

... and for olga he agrees. for anya he agrees — because the other, easy solution is to kill yura where he stands, dead men don't report mutants, but anya wouldn't want that to happen. dmitry who was raised to believe that sympathy is a weakness and mercy is a failure and the only holy purpose is to be used, and used up, he stands down, and he gives his freedom away, and he agrees to go back to hell for someone else's sake ... !

occam's razor sparked a lot of discussion about how yura is quickly starting to resemble the doctor temnova, which, oh boy is he ever: "some ventures require a sacrificial lamb" and "sacrifices are something that we have to make" are the same song set to different tunes. i think convergence marks the point where he starts to follow through. i mean, olya's in prison for his crime! she sacrificed herself for him! as recently as the beginning of occam's razor, the guilt about this was still killing him, as it would kill anyone; now he's bartering her life as if he doesn't care at all. sympathy has no place in a righteous heart... and as far as he's concerned saving kt is the most righteous cause there is.

so that's hence the title, hence convergence, because this is where yura and dima meet in the middle (and cross over, and start fully swapping places). i am actually relatively hopeful for dima's chances right now, in a nailbitey sort of way, i am hope hope hoping that this whole mess is .... awright, not a good thing for him, obviously, but also not as bad as it appears?

the thing is: sure, he's back on the leash. he's back under someone's command. he's going to be a weapon again. but also this time, he's there because he decided to be, in order to save someone he loves. there is a difference, isn't there? that means something! yura has the leash, but unlike temnova he does not have dima's heart. dima's heart belongs to dima, more than it ever has before. his loss of agency here is also kind of a demonstration of agency! that's hopeful.

and yura on the other hand... i mean, christ alive, yura.

yura's going to keep getting worse, but we've known that for a while now. they're all going down into hell anyway. what convergence actually gets me thinking about is the question of, what is going to happen when they meet temnova again?

i worry about dima, in that situation — in particular i worry about the fact that his faith in the facility was broken, but i'm not sure his faith in temnova specifically was. after all she warned him. she set him free. she's the only one who didn't betray him! and like a dog sure seems convinced that he'll come back to following her — one way or another — waiting / like a dog with a bird at your door, and so on

but also all things considered: sure, he might, but also, he's grown a lot in the time he's spent with anya. the decision to stand down for olga's sake means he's at least figured out some concept of agency. and he's got the advantage that he knows what actual love looks like now, he's got a better model to fall back upon than temnova's "noble to serve / as means to an end." it may or may not save him — but at this point i figure he's got a chance. whereas yura....

... yura already believes everything that she believes. and yura figured it out on his own. yura didn't have to be taught. mercy is the sign of a talentless actor — and dima does mercy now, so is he really her perfect little monster anymore, her golden boy? he's kind of... gone rotten, in his time away, hasn't he? he's gotten all sorts of human. (and as we know: the only use for a motor not meant to start... )

and despite the worst of circumstances yura has been doing the precise opposite: he is, by temnova's standards, a talented actor. by god, he's a prodigy; he's a natural. he didn't even need to be a mutant, to end up a monster — he got there his own way, the old way, for hunger ... and temnova's always struck me as hungry.

i don't know! it depends what temnova's motives are — and despite like a dog we frankly still don't understand her motives at all. she works at the facility, she believes in science, but also it only makes a limited amount of sense that she'd really be there to study the mutants. after all she's some kind of zone-creature herself, if not exactly a mutant, and i'd guess that she already has the answers to a lot of the questions the rest of the scientists down there are cracking their heads over. so what does she actually want to learn? why would she go to the humans to find it? what was she trying to make happen, in raising dmitry like she did? what are her plans for him, anyway?

the only thing we know for sure is that she was trying to build a boy without a heart .

and okay, yura's not a mutant, but despite what she says in comfort zone (we still don't really know how much of comfort zone was what temnova really believes, anyway, and how much is what she's feeding dmitry to make him into what she wants) — temnova strikes me as generally too pragmatic to actually be a stickler for the distinction. there's more than one way to be inhuman, i'm sure. and anyway the implication in like a dog ("a gear in the machine grew immune to corrosion") is that temnova started out human too. it's just that she got better. she got hungry. she learned devotion.

i used to worry that temnova would take dima back, and that yura would probably get killed, because he's out of his depth and too deep in self-destruction. right now i am honestly mostly worried that they actually might get along way too fucking well

footnote:

*yes I am conflating "being in the facility" and "being in jail" and "being dead" here. this is because 1. in narrative terms all three of those are kind of the same amount of "taken out of the story" 2. because let's be perfectly honest some of Our Heroes (irony, yura is not a hero anymore) are probably going to end up biting it 3. i am totally convinced at this point that dima and yura's journey to rescue kt is going to fully qualify as a katabasis, e.g. A Descent Into The Underworld, orpheus style. which raises the question of, oh you know, who's going to look back?

#pafl #parties are for losers #metatext #ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh lads this is a longun #what else can i really say but mercy on our uniform #and also to anyone who manages to read this whole thing that i am kissing you on the mouth as we speak

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findinghomes · 2 years

Note

ask game :o

“Do you have any tips for getting better at the game?” Dream read from the chat. He gave a soft chuckle. “Well, I would say don’t play it. At all. Just give up now. That’ll make you better.”

George liked the way Dream laughed at his own joke. He could see Dream doing that over texts, too.

“No, but seriously, I would say just practice. I don’t know, um.” He chuckled again. “That’s what I did at least.”

That night, George fell asleep to the noises of a keyboard and the short monologues of a stranger now with an entire space in his brain.

crafter6996: i saw your stream last night

dream: oh yeah?

dream: what’d you think?

crafter6996: you ramble a lot

dream: you can say hi next time

crafter6996: why did you assume there’s a next time

dream: just say hi idiot

crafter6996: no

crafter6996: idiot

The next time George watched Dream’s stream, he told himself he wouldn’t say hi.

It was the principle of it. If he couldn’t keep his friend on his toes, who else would?

this scene had me CACKLING i want any and all details :)

Okay so this got super super long, so viewer discretion is advised:

Hi Crow!!!! Okay so this scene was one of my favorites to write. I actually wrote the first two and a half chapters of The Invisible Life in about two or three days. A little bit further after this excerpt is where I stopped and then I finished the third chapter like three weeks later. Haha oops. But! This was one of my favorites because it’s finally when Dream and George get to interact. The first couple chapters were leading up to this exact point…and then I delayed it for a few weeks.

My thought process when writing this was that I wanted to show that a bond had already formed between them in the space between the second and third chapters, but I also didn’t want to rush it, even if I was actually trying to rush it so I didn’t end up with a 500k slow burn. Additionally! (and I think the hardest for me) I wanted to also show the effects of both of them hearing each other’s voices for the first time as a contrast between them texting for the first time AND as a parallel to Dream’s real life face reveal.

The part before the cut is the first time George ever hears Dream, but it’s also a little one-sided because George now knows more about Dream than Dream knows about him. As the token mysterious immortal being™️, this goes with his current character development. But also at the same time, you can see him start to invite someone else into his life for the first time.

The text break was just fun. Crafter6996, my beloved. I like to think that the person George stole all of the login info from is just vibing. Maybe crafter6996 is just stickyboy69 in another life. Who knows? On a (somewhat) more authorly note, I wanted the text break to show a little bit more of George’s changes, so he’s the one who texts first, sends more texts than Dream, and responds back with a pet name (even if Dream started it first). You can still see some hesitation, but you can also see some trust building. Also, I just love breaks in the narrative that move it along while also announcing HEY IM MOVING SCENES NOW. And my favorite kind of humor is when something describes one thing in perfect detail (George telling himself he will not talk to Dream) and then skipping ahead to when he does that exact thing (talking to Dream). I’m really glad that you also enjoyed the humor of the scene :D. I’m always so scared when writing humorous things/banter that it’ll fall flat because I think something’s funny when it’s actually not, so thank you for also laughing with (at) me!

I genuinely love writing The Invisible Life, and I’ve been so overwhelmed by the amount of people who love and interact with it too (I’ve even seen tags from a person saying they don’t ship dnf but like the story—this made me cackle). This fic was just kind of me messing around with being more spontaneous and less over-thinking. I’m a huge huge perfectionist, and that’s why I’ve never written fanfic until now despite writing my entire life because I was too scared of getting everything wrong. So, I thought, why not combine an au of mc YouTubers/streamers and a book with super complicated rules on immortality and demonic deals and make my own rules/world, because obviously that is easier than literally anything else I could’ve chosen. But yeah, The Invisible Life is the story that I don’t have to overthink. That means that I don’t really edit it as much as my other fics so honestly it may end up as a hot mess (I promise I do have plans™️ though), but maybe that’s the best way to be. (Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. Please don’t tell me otherwise. I may cry. It’ll be ugly.)

So, um, this turned out very long and I probably could’ve gone on for much longer because TIL dnf mean the world to me. I really appreciate you picking the scene and asking about it!!! I like to think of you as my first and loudest cheerleader for TIL, so thank you so much :D

#sorry the english major in me popped out #this was really fun #thank you again!!!!!#finn answers #finn rambles

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bao3bei4 · 3 years

Text

fan language: the victorian imaginary and cnovel fandom

there’s this pinterest image i’ve seen circulating a lot in the past year i’ve been on fandom social media. it’s a drawn infographic of a, i guess, asian-looking woman holding a fan in different places relative to her face to show what the graphic helpfully calls “the language of the fan.”

people like sharing it. they like thinking about what nefarious ancient chinese hanky code shenanigans their favorite fan-toting character might get up to⁠—accidentally or on purpose. and what’s the problem with that?

the problem is that fan language isn’t chinese. it’s victorian. and even then, it’s not really quite victorian at all.

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fans served a primarily utilitarian purpose throughout chinese history. of course, most of the surviving fans we see⁠—and the types of fans we tend to care about⁠—are closer to art pieces. but realistically speaking, the majority of fans were made of cheaper material for more mundane purposes. in china, just like all around the world, people fanned themselves. it got hot!

so here’s a big tipoff. it would be very difficult to use a fan if you had an elaborate language centered around fanning yourself.

you might argue that fine, everyday working people didn’t have a fan language. but wealthy people might have had one. the problem we encounter here is that fans weren’t really gendered. (caveat here that certain types of fans were more popular with women. however, those tended to be the round silk fans, ones that bear no resemblance to the folding fans in the graphic). no disrespect to the gnc old man fuckers in the crowd, but this language isn’t quite masc enough for a tool that someone’s dad might regularly use.

folding fans, we know, reached europe in the 17th century and gained immense popularity in the 18th. it was there that fans began to take on a gendered quality. ariel beaujot describes in their 2012 victorian fashion accessories how middle class women, in the midst of a top shortage, found themselves clutching fans in hopes of securing a husband.

she quotes an article from the illustrated london news, suggesting “women ‘not only’ used fans to ‘move the air and cool themselves but also to express their sentiments.’” general wisdom was that the movement of the fan was sufficiently expressive that it augmented a woman’s displays of emotion. and of course, the more english audiences became aware that it might do so, the more they might use their fans purposefully in that way.

notice, however, that this is no more codified than body language in general is. it turns out that “the language of the fan” was actually created by fan manufacturers at the turn of the 20th century⁠—hundreds of years after their arrival⁠ in europe—to sell more fans. i’m not even kidding right now. the story goes that it was louis duvelleroy of the maison duvelleroy who decided to include pamphlets on the language with each fan sold.

interestingly enough, beaujot suggests that it didn’t really matter what each particular fan sign meant. gentlemen could tell when they were being flirted with. as it happens, meaningful eye contact and a light flutter near the face may be a lingua franca.

so it seems then, the language of the fan is merely part of this victorian imaginary we collectively have today, which in turn itself was itself captivated by china.

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victorian references come up perhaps unexpectedly often in cnovel fandom, most often with regards to modesty.

it’s a bit of an awkward reference considering that chinese traditional fashion⁠—and the ambiguous time periods in which these novels are set⁠—far predate victorian england. it is even more awkward considering that victoria and her covered ankles did um. imperialize china.

but nonetheless, it is common. and to make a point about how ubiquitous it is, here is a link to the twitter search for “sqq victorian.” sqq is the fandom abbreviation for shen qingqiu, the main character of the scum villain’s self-saving system, by the way.

this is an awful lot of results for a search involving a chinese man who spends the entire novel in either real modern-day china or fantasy ancient china. that’s all i’m going to say on the matter, without referencing any specific tweet.

i think people are aware of the anachronism. and i think they don’t mind. even the most cursory research reveals that fan language is european and a revisionist fantasy. wikipedia can tell us this⁠—i checked!

but it doesn’t matter to me whether people are trying to make an internally consistent canon compliant claim, or whether they’re just free associating between fan facts they know. it is, instead, more interesting to me that people consistently refer to this particular bit of history. and that’s what i want to talk about today⁠—the relationship of fandom today to this two hundred odd year span of time in england (roughly stuart to victorian times) and england in that time period to its contemporaneous china.

things will slip a little here. victorian has expanded in timeframe, if only because random guys posting online do not care overly much for respect for the intricacies of british history. china has expanded in geographic location, if only because the english of the time themselves conflated china with all of asia.

in addition, note that i am critiquing a certain perspective on the topic. this is why i write about fan as white here⁠—not because all fans are white⁠—but because the tendencies i’m examining have a clear historical antecedent in whiteness that shapes how white fans encounter these novels.

i’m sure some fans of color participate in these practices. however i don’t really care about that. they are not its main perpetrators nor its main beneficiaries. so personally i am minding my own business on that front.

it’s instead important to me to illuminate the linkage between white as subject and chinese as object in history and in the present that i do argue that fannish products today are built upon.

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it’s not radical, or even new at all, for white audiences to consume⁠—or create their own versions of⁠—chinese art en masse. in many ways the white creators who appear to owe their whole style and aesthetic to their asian peers in turn are just the new chinoiserie.

this is not to say that white people can’t create asian-inspired art. but rather, i am asking you to sit with the discomfort that you may not like the artistic company you keep in the broader view of history, and to consider together what is to be done about that.

now, when i say the new chinoiserie, i first want to establish what the original one is. chinoiserie was a european artistic movement that appeared coincident with the rise in popularity of folding fans that i described above. this is not by coincidence; the european demand for asian imports and the eventual production of lookalikes is the movement itself. so: when we talk about fans, when we talk about china (porcelain), when we talk about tea in england⁠—we are talking about the legacy of chinoiserie.

there are a couple things i want to note here. while english people as a whole had a very tenuous knowledge of what china might be, their appetites for chinoiserie were roughly coincident with national relations with china. as the relationship between england and china moved from trade to out-and-out wars, chinoiserie declined in popularity until china had been safely subjugated once more by the end of the 19th century.

the second thing i want to note on the subject that contrary to what one might think at first, the appeal of chinoiserie was not that it was foreign. eugenia zuroski’s 2013 taste for china examines 18th century english literature and its descriptions of the according material culture with the lens that chinese imports might be formative to english identity, rather than antithetical to it.

beyond that bare thesis, i think it’s also worthwhile to extend her insight that material objects become animated by the literary viewpoints on them. this is true, both in a limited general sense as well as in the sense that english thinkers of the time self-consciously articulated this viewpoint. consider the quote from the illustrated london news above⁠—your fan, that object, says something about you. and not only that, but the objects you surround yourself with ought to.

it’s a bit circular, the idea that written material says that you should allow written material to shape your understanding of physical objects. but it’s both 1) what happened, and 2) integral, i think, to integrating a fannish perspective into the topic.

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japanning is the name for the popular imitative lacquering that english craftspeople developed in domestic response to the demand for lacquerware imports. in the eighteenth century, japanning became an artform especially suited for young women. manuals were published on the subject, urging young women to learn how to paint furniture and other surfaces, encouraging them to rework the designs provided in the text.

it was considered a beneficial activity for them; zuroski describes how it was “associated with commerce and connoisseurship, practical skill and aesthetic judgment.” a skillful japanner, rather than simply obscuring what lay underneath the lacquer, displayed their superior judgment in how they chose to arrange these new canonical figures and effects in a tasteful way to bring out the best qualities of them.

zuroski quotes the first english-language manual on the subject, written in 1688, which explains how japanning allows one to:

alter and correct, take out a piece from one, add a fragment to the next, and make an entire garment compleat in all its parts, though tis wrought out of never so many disagreeing patterns.

this language evokes a very different, very modern practice. it is this english reworking of an asian artform that i think the parallels are most obvious.

white people, through their artistic investment in chinese material objects and aesthetics, integrated them into their own subjectivity. these practices came to say something about the people who participated in them, in a way that had little to do with the country itself. their relationship changed from being a “consumer” of chinese objects to becoming the proprietor of these new aesthetic signifiers.

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i want to talk about this through a few pairs of tensions on the subject that i think characterize common attitudes then and now.

first, consider the relationship between the self and the other: the chinese object as something that is very familiar to you, speaking to something about your own self vs. the chinese object as something that is fundamentally different from you and unknowable to you.

consider: [insert character name] is just like me. he would no doubt like the same things i like, consume the same cultural products. we are the same in some meaningful way vs. the fast standard fic disclaimer that “i tried my best when writing this fic, but i’m a english-speaking westerner, and i’m just writing this for fun so...... [excuses and alterations the person has chosen to make in this light],” going hand-in-hand with a preoccupation with authenticity or even overreliance on the unpaid labor of chinese friends and acquaintances.

consider: hugh honour when he quotes a man from the 1640s claiming “chinoiserie of this even more hybrid kind had become so far removed from genuine Chinese tradition that it was exported from India to China as a novelty to the Chinese themselves”

these tensions coexist, and look how they have been resolved.

second, consider what we vest in objects themselves: beaujot explains how the fan became a sexualized, coquettish object in the hands of a british woman, but was used to great effect in gilbert and sullivan’s 1885 mikado to demonstrate the docility of asian women.

consider: these characters became expressions of your sexual desires and fetishes, even as their 5’10 actors themselves are emasculated.

what is liberating for one necessitates the subjugation and fetishization of the other.

third, consider reactions to the practice: enjoyment of chinese objects as a sign of your cosmopolitan palate vs “so what’s the hype about those ancient chinese gays” pop culture explainers that addressed the unconvinced mainstream.

consider: zuroski describes how both english consumers purchased china in droves, and contemporary publications reported on them. how:

It was in the pages of these papers that the growing popularity of Chinese things in the early eighteenth century acquired the reputation of a “craze”; they portrayed china fanatics as flawed, fragile, and unreliable characters, and frequently cast chinoiserie itself in the same light.

referenda on fannish behavior serve as referenda on the objects of their devotion, and vice versa. as the difference between identity and fetish collapses, they come to be treated as one and the same by not just participants but their observers.

at what point does mxtx fic cease to be chinese?

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finally, it seems readily apparent that attitudes towards chinese objects may in fact have something to do with attitudes about china as a country. i do not want to suggest that these literary concerns are primarily motivated and begot by forces entirely divorced from the real mechanics of power.

here, i want to bring in edward said, and his 1993 culture and imperialism. there, he explains how power and legitimacy go hand in hand. one is direct, and one is purely cultural. he originally wrote this in response to the outsize impact that british novelists have had in the maintenance of empire and throughout decolonization. literature, he argues, gives rise to powerful narratives that constrain our ability to think outside of them.

there’s a little bit of an inversion at play here. these are chinese novels, actually. but they’re being transformed by white narratives and artists. and just as i think the form of the novel is important to said’s critique, i think there’s something to be said about the form that fic takes and how it legitimates itself.

bound up in fandom is the idea that you have a right to create and transform as you please. it is a nice idea, but it is one that is directed towards a certain kind of asymmetry. that is, one where the author has all the power. this is the narrative we hear a lot in the history of fandom⁠—litigious authors and plucky fans, fanspaces always under attack from corporate sanitization.

meanwhile, said builds upon raymond schwab’s narrative of cultural exchange between european writers and cultural products outside the imperial core. said explains that fundamental to these two great borrowings (from greek classics and, in the so-called “oriental renaissance” of the late 18th, early 19th centuries from “india, china, japan, persia, and islam”) is asymmetry.

he had argued prior, in orientalism, that any “cultural exchange” between “partners conscious of inequality” always results in the suffering of the people. and here, he describes how “texts by dead people were read, appreciated, and appropriated” without the presence of any actual living people in that tradition.

i will not understate that there is a certain economic dynamic complicating this particular fannish asymmetry. mxtx has profited materially from the success of her works, most fans will not. also secondly, mxtx is um. not dead. LMAO.

but first, the international dynamic of extraction that said described is still present. i do not want to get overly into white attitudes towards china in this post, because i am already thoroughly derailed, but i do believe that they structure how white cnovel fandom encounters this texts.

at any rate, any profit she receives is overwhelmingly due to her domestic popularity, not her international popularity. (i say this because many of her international fans have never given her a cent. in fact, most of them have no real way to.) and moreover, as we talk about the structure of english-language fandom, what does it mean to create chinese cultural products without chinese people?

as white people take ownership over their versions of stories, do we lose something? what narratives about engagement with cnovels might exist outside of the form of classic fandom?

i think a lot of people get the relationship between ideas (the superstructure) and production (the base) confused. oftentimes they will lob in response to criticism, that look! this fic, this fandom, these people are so niche, and so underrepresented in mainstream culture, that their effects are marginal. i am not arguing that anyone’s cql fic causes imperialism. (unless you’re really annoying. then it’s anyone’s game)

i’m instead arguing something a little bit different. i think, given similar inputs, you tend to get similar outputs. i think we live in the world that imperialism built, and we have clear historical predecessors in terms of white appetites for creating, consuming, and transforming chinese objects.

we have already seen, in the case of the fan language meme that began this post, that sometimes we even prefer this white chinoiserie. after all, isn’t it beautiful, too?

i want to bring discomfort to this topic. i want to reject the paradigm of white subject and chinese object; in fact, here in this essay, i have tried to reverse it.

if you are taken aback by the comparisons i make here, how can you make meaningful changes to your fannish practice to address it?

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

some concluding thoughts on the matter, because i don’t like being misunderstood!

i am not claiming white fans cannot create fanworks of cnovels or be inspired by asian art or artists. this essay is meant to elaborate on the historical connection between victorian england and cnovel characters and fandom that others have already popularized.

i don’t think people who make victorian jokes are inherently bad or racist. i am encouraging people to think about why we might make them and/or share them

the connections here are meant to be more provocative than strictly literal. (e.g. i don’t literally think writing fanfic is a 1-1 descendant of japanning). these connections are instead meant to 1) make visible the baggage that fans of color often approach fandom with and 2) recontextualize and defamiliarize fannish practice for the purposes of honest critique

please don’t turn this post into being about other different kinds of discourse, or into something that only one “kind” of fan does. please take my words at face value and consider them in good faith. i would really appreciate that.

please feel free to ask me to clarify any statements or supply more in-depth sources :)

#x #-__- another fandom essay sorry

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eremiie · 4 years

Text

blame it on the whiskey;

❥ 12k words | nsfw | eren x reader

❥ you and your closest friends get together for a sleepover, but there’s one issue— eren jaeger is there, but you have to stick it through for the rest of your friends.

❥ content: alcohol use, overstimulation, choking, slapping, biting, scratching, dirty talk, degradation, teasing, orgasm denial, barebacking, cum play (?), spitting

"i literally just don't understand why he's here." your complaining was filling the small kitchen, you body propped up on the island seated in the middle of the room. "i mean he's just so annoying.. i don't understand you guys, y'all-"

"listen, ___, babe, you just need to relax." hitch cut you off, strutting into the kitchen then placing her arms at your bare shoulders, fixing the straps on your tank top as she spoke. "eren is not even that bad, and he's cute! we're gonna get you drunk tonight so you don't even have to think twice about him." she runs her hand down your waist and fixed the hem of your shirt before walking towards jean, reaching around him for a bottle of whiskey, pouring herself a shot with her glass before waving her way out of the kitchen, back towards the living room.

"i don't even know why you let him bother you that much, ____." jean huffs, pouring the rest of the chips into the bowl, connie pulling sasha away before she could try to grab it. "wait until i bring it to the living room, sasha!" he hisses, passing the bowl to you to hold.

"i don't! he argues with me over everything. it's so annoying. i swear i mind my business, and then he just butts in with his smart ass mouth. connie's usually there, right connie?" connie turns towards you with a confused expression on his face, stopping his slight wrestle with sasha, irritation spread across her face at the way he was restricting her from eating the snacks for the sleepover.

it was your last year of high school before you were going off to college alongside your friends, well your friend group. you all planned to get together in celebration, hosting a sleepover party, choosing jean's house as the destination while his parents were away. you had no problem with this; however you had a problem with eren jaeger.

during your first couple years the two of you got along quite well. having been so close with connie, sasha and jean you were kind of forced to hang out with eren, mikasa and armin since eren and jean were close as well. the two friend groups along with a couple others spent time well together, all of you constantly hanging out and having fun. both you and eren's personality were too much, you were both temperate and were easy to irritate. your arguments, no matter how small also turned into something big (you always won them though). your mouth was too quick and witty for eren while his was too harsh and rough for you. after a while the arguing turned into shade and pettiness and the two of you let your pride get the best of you, refusing to turn a shoulder towards the other, a newfound "hate" forming between the two of you.

but even after all of this not one person in your friend group could deny the sexual tension between the two of you, prevalent even from the beginning.

it was funny, when you and eren's friendship first blossomed the two of you had the slightest crush on each other. although, neither of you denied it and would never act upon it. the closer you got the more handsy you got, the more flirty you became until you chose to act repulsed upon one another's mere presence in a room after realization hit, which carried on even until now.

"i mean, i don't know, i don't pay attention. everything you guys argue about is stupid anyways." connie's hand was slapped away by sasha and she jumped off the counter.

"jean, please i'll bring it over there, just let me have a couple of pieces." sasha pointed to the small bowl of sour candy, putting on her best puppy dog eyes. jean rolled his eyes and shoved the bowl in her direction. you had to admit, she looked adorable in her onesie. she was matching with connie as well. they both thought it'd be comedic to buy onesies when all of you went to the store for snacks earlier. you took in jean's appearance as well, noticing he was still in his jeans and a t-shirt, how atypical of him.

"connie carry the drinks, and ____,"

you narrowed your eyes at jean with a pout at his lack of understanding upon your situation as he came over with his arms crossed over his chest. "it's only one night, and y'all will be gone tomorrow. don't be stupid, we're all friends here so just stay out of each other's way."

"jean,"

"please? i want this night to go as planned, and perfect."

"what's your idea of perfect? getting to suck on mika-"

jean's hand clamped over your mouth anger spanning over his face, his body tilting over to the left to see if anyone was listening from the hallway. "shut the fuck up! no, i want this to be fun for all of us dumbass. if you and jaeger boy are gonna go back and forth like that it'll ruin it for all of us."

"guys hurry up, we're playing never have i ever shot edition!" hitch yelled from the living room.

you licked jean's hand and he quickly pulled it away, grimacing in disgust before wiping your saliva on your bare leg. "yeah, whatever."

you hopped off the counter, adjusting your top for the umpteenth time and pulling down your shorts, walking out the kitchen with jean to set down the bowl of chips on the coffee table in the living room. you scanned the room; on one couch lied historia, connie and sasha with jean beginning to walk over to that corner, to sit on the floor beside the couch, and on the couch parallel lied armin, mikasa and eren who was just now sitting back down, sprawling himself across her lap, taking up almost the full length of the couch causing you to sigh in irritation at the simple action. reiner sat on the floor near historia, and hitch sat on the floor with the bottle of jack daniels seated in front of her, refilling a shot glass and patting the seat next to her for you to sit.

"here, take this shot." she pushed it to your lips once you were seated beside her and you reluctantly downed it, a burn singing your throat.

"hitch, relax, i'm gonna take some shots during the game."

"it's a starting shot, girl." hitch's filled her own glass and took another shot before placing the bottle back down and smiling. "okay so is everyone playing?"

everyone nodded their head with a hesitant nod from armin.

"jaeger sit up, i need a clear view of who's going after who, and with your lazy ass sitting like that i can't tell." hitch snapped her fingers at eren from her spot below him, hitting his leg until he groaned and sat up, scooting backwards until he was upright. he ran a hand through his hair to try and tame the loose hairs in the front of his head but it was no use.

"so we all take turns asking questions, if you can't think of one then we'll just skip you. every single time you have done something you take half a shot." hitch leaned into your ear to speak specifically to you, "cause if it was a whole shot i'm blacking out by the end of this night." she burst out into laughter, jean rolling his eyes at her. "i'm going first!"

"hitch what haven't you done?" connie smirks, crossing his arm. "don't you have to mention something you haven't done?"

hitch waved connie off with a glare. "never have i ever cheated, connie." she emphasized connie's name, her comment mostly directed to him and he returned with a confused look, before he realized she was asking in regards to the game.

no ones fingers went down, hitch letting out a giggle. "so no one takes a half a shot, huh? ______ your turn."

you thought for a second about something you haven't done, before opening your mouth. "never have i ever had a threesome." no fingers went down.

"wow, not even your finger went down hitch." eren's voice spoke, a smirk danced across his face that you wanted to smack off just because. seriously you couldn't put your finger on it, it was something about him that just irritated you so much, and you couldn't pinpoint it either. you'd keep composure for tonight though, for jean.

"shut up eren. jean boy! it's you turn."

"never have i ever kissed a stranger." jean huffed at the pet name given by hitch.

hitch and eren's finger went down and they exchanged glances before starting to laugh. "eren! are you talking about that random girl at that party we went to a couple months ago?" hitch spoke through her laughter when eren nodded his head.

both you and mikasa rolled your eyes and you let out a huff of annoyance, for no particular reason. hitch pour and passed eren half a shot, both of them downing the liquid at the same time before shaking their heads.

"my turn!" connie exclaimed. "never have i ever kissed someone that's the same gender."

"connie you definitely have." eren laughed, clearly enjoying himself.

"why would i say it if i have? i haven't, you probably did! put your finger down!" the boys didn't even acknowledge historia and hitch's fingers going down until reiner spoke.

"it was definitely ymir." he chuckled to historia who put her hand over her face.

"stop!" she squealed out of embarrassment. before taking the shot hitch handed to her.

"my turn!" sasha repeated connie's words, stuffing a couple pieces of candy into her mouth before speaking again, "never have i ever had a one night stand."

a plethora of fingers went down, this included you, jean, eren, hitch, reiner, and historia. "shots, shots, shots, shots!" hitch chanted laughing before filling everyone's cup with half of a shot, sitting back down. "historia, i didn't know you had it in you, and you either _____." she smiled poking your sides causing you to squirm away. "anyways your go, historia."

"okay, um.... never have i ever... sent nudes?" her statement came out more like a question. your finger went down along with jean's, eren's, reiner's and hitch's, who proceeded to fill cups again.

"historia i'm surprised you haven't." hitch filled historia's cup wiggling her eyebrows at her. "i bet yours would be so bomb too, like your so cute and small and your boobs are like perfect-"

"hitch!" historia's hand slapped over her mouth in further embarrassment as she cut hitch off before she could go on any longer.

"reiner, your go."

"never have i ever... dated someone just to make someone else jealous."

jean, hitch, mikasa and eren's finger went down. eren seemingly uncomfortable. "wait, okay let's talk about this one—" hitch spoke. "jean who did you date and who were you trying to make jealous?"

jean let out a puff of slight annoyance. "you don't know her and i'm not saying who i was trying to make jealous."

"why? cause they're in this room?" hitch raised her eyebrow earning a hard glare from jean who didn't deny it, only flipping her off and muttering a "shut up".

"eren how about you?" eren stretched his arms out, the hem of his white shirt rising up to reveal a little bit of his stomach, before he let his hands back down. "uh, it was mina carolina, from school, but i'm not saying who i was trying to make jealous."

"you guys are some pussies," hitch drunk her half shot. "mikasa? im surprised."

"i'm not telling." mikasa simply stated.

"well then what about you, hitch?" you asked.

"two things, none of you guys know who the person i dated was, and anyways he was a bitch, second, i was trying to make marlo jealous, but he didn't fall for it, his sweet ass." she sighed. "i need another shot after that one." you grabbed the bottle before hitch could take another shot, clicking your tongue with a shake of your head.

"marlo? the one that sasha punched that one time we had a party at school last year?" armin asked with a small laugh, remembering the event.

"yup, that marlo. you guys were talking about what i haven't done, what about eren? what hasn't he done?" hitch mumbled.

"i'm sure eren isn't as bad as you, hitch." mikasa spoke in a monotone voice.

"maybe because he doesn't tell you half of the things that he does."

before mikasa could respond back to hitch's snarky comment, eren cut in, "well for starters, never have i ever slept with someone i wasn't attracted to."

"that barely counts, you're attracted to everyone, jaeger." jean said, putting his finger down.

"shut it, horse face."

"seriously? i thought you were gonna say something way more interesting than that." hitch face palmed, putting a finger down then grabbing jean's shot glass to pour him some.

"like you said, there's not much i haven't done." eren smirked looking at his four fingers down before putting up one and flipping hitch off who reciprocated, sticking her tongue out at eren as well.

"don't get cocky, honey. mikasa your turn."

mikasa sat in silence for a moment, thinking about what she could say although she didn't have to think much, she was basically a blushing virgin, her still having all ten fingers up but one. "never have i ever been rejected."

everyone's fingers went down but hitch, historia, armin, sasha, and of course mikasa's. "i'm too hot for that shit," hitch exclaimed before you shoved her finger down.

"stop lying, let's not talk about the countless times you've cried to me over men." you smirked, hitch pushing you away in a jokingly manner, she downed her shot and poured you one as well.

"armin, your turn baby."

"well," armin fiddled with his fingers deep in thought. "um... i've never you know..."

"had sex before?" eren butt in, putting his finger down immediately. armin nodded his head and everyone's fingers went down but armin and mikasa.

the rest of the game went well, jokes thrown around, more lewd questions being asked, and by the end of it eren, jean and hitch had all their fingers down, essentially losing the game. hitch was the first one out though, clearly drunk by her demeanor.

you got up to use the restroom unannounced, the alcohol filling your bladder, but no one seemed to notice you get up and leave, everyone talking about the game that was just played. you didn't feel particularly drunk, just a little lightheaded when you stood up. you used the bathroom, and began to wash your hands until the door opened outright scaring you, a small shriek coming from your throat until you realized it was eren.

that's when you got upset.

"maybe try knocking on the door first?!" you exclaimed, putting your damp hands on your waist. "what the hell, is wrong with you?"

eren rolled his eyes and looked you up and down. "my bad. you're done though, so excuse me."

you scoffed and crossed your arms in disbelief. "how are you gonna tell me if i'm done or not, i'm in the bathroom. stand out there and wait. you're so rude." you went to the towel rack to dry off your hands then turning around to see eren still standing there. "hello? did you hear me."

eren's eyes came back up to your face and he narrowed his eyes at you. "i'm rude? how? all because i accidentally walked into the bathroom when you were in here?" he raised an eyebrow at you, and you came over to stand in front of him. you didn't miss the way his eyes flickered up and down as he watched you tell him off.

"that's not what i said, i just asked you stand out in the hallway and you literally didn't leave. can i have my privacy? what the fuck?"

"you're literally just washing your hands, stop making it a big deal."

"a big deal? im sorry that i want to use the bathroom in peace. fuck off, eren. you're so annoying."

"how am i annoying? you get mad over the stupidest things.. you're overreacting." eren stepped forward, more into the bathroom.

"guys and girls, can you both shut the fuck up?" hitch stumbled towards the bathroom door, stepping in between you and eren. "both of you are being crybabies. all of us can you hear you guys from the fucking living room."

you rested your weight on your left leg, glaring at eren who just bore his eyes into yours. you noticed he was taking the situation lighter than you, not as mad as he usually gets when the two of you argue. maybe he was drunk? you let your eyes trail over his attire, simple sweatpants and a plain shirt of his, with his chain hanging out, resting on his chest. you averted your eyes and turned towards hitch.

"he apologized ____, and eren, knock next time, hun." hitch grabs both you and eren's arms. "let's all just be civil and friendly here, and... let's play body shots!" hitch slurred with a smile.

"i still have to use the bathroom." eren said. he placed his hand at your waist and moved you backwards towards the door until your feet were behind the line that separated the hardwood from the tile. "excuse me," eren said letting go. you wanted to pull away and tell him to get off of you but you were a tad bit embarrassed at the way you overreacted, not to mention you liked the feeling of his warm hands on your cold skin. "i'll come play in a second." he shut the door.

eren tended to himself, using the bathroom as well and then washing his hands, staring at himself in the mirror for a couple minutes. he retied his loosening ponytail, the same couple strands sticking out in the front and then adjusted his shirt and necklace. he shook his head, alcohol buzzing through his veins luckily he wasn't too drunk yet, and was still pretty stable but he knew hitch wouldn't die down on the alcohol, so he was bound to be fairly drunk by the end of the night, despite being a heavyweight. his hands still buzzed from the way they felt on your skin, but he quickly shook the thought away. clearly, it was just the alcohol talking for itself.

right?

you were leaning against jean on the kitchen counter as hitch explained the rules of the next game you guys would play for your entertainment. you were sure it was mostly for hitch's and to keep herself under the influence. you could only imagine the impounding headache she was going to have, and you could envision yours too. after all you did have a good amount of shots at this point.

hitch sliced the lime into four pieces. "since mikasa and armin aren't playing, we only have to use one lime." she held up the sliced lime. "so remember, salt, shot, and then lime. you have to put the lime in your mouth and hold it there for the other person, okay? so don't pussy out."

you were skeptical about the game. it was just a sexual way to take a shot; you pour salt on a body part, lick it off, take a shot and then suck on the lime. you guessed you were in it for the thrill. "you don't have to play if you don't want to." jean looked down at you from your spot next to him and rubbed your shoulder, watching your demeanor.

"don't encourage her not to play!" hitch shook her head at jean. "we need as many people as possible so we have more players, plus we're all only going once so it doesn't matter." she used the wheel app on her phone to pick a person at random, and pick a body part at random as well.

"it's fine jean, i'm good, i'll play, just a little drunk." you murmured with a small smile, standing up straight.

"historia and," hitch spun the wheel again, seeing what boy it would land on. "and jean! ooooh," she giggled. "let's see what body part." another spin of the wheel and it landed on shoulder.

historia began to tie her hair back and said a small "i'm scared," before giggling as well and propping herself up on the kitchen counter. hitch began to pour the salt on the crevice between her neck and shoulder, historia leaning back in the slightest so the salt wouldn't roll down.

"don't put too much." jean spoke, stepping forward to stand in-front of historia.

jean simply licked up the salt slowly and impassively, holding underneath her shoulders to keep her upright. historia's eyes widened in the slightest and hitch cheered her on until jean let up and grabbed the shot of whiskey next to him downing it in one go. he blinked a couple times letting the alcohol settle before connecting his lips to the lime sat in historia's mouth and sucking on it before making a sour face and pulling away, taking the lime with him before spitting it in the trash. a mantra of claps arose from hitch, sasha, connie and you, everyone chuckling at his last reaction.

"what did it feel like?" hitch asked but didn't let historia answer before going, "i can't wait until my turn, can i just go next?" she spun the wheel from the app and it landed on reiner, her proceeding with her turn, the same thing repeating with her chest, except reiner placing the glass between her breasts, tilting the cup up to drink it when it was time to take the shot. hitch spoke aimlessly, cheering reiner on and adjusting her top afterwards with a giggle. "i'm literally gonna be so drunk!" she exclaimed, although she had to have been the drunkest one in the room already.

"okay, next," with another spin of the wheel hitch's eyes widened as she stared down at her phone before bursting out into laughter and tugging connie by his onesie. "connie look at this shit!" connie glanced over her shoulder before a surprised look danced across his face. you tried watching to see who he would look at to give you a hint of who were the next contenders but he avoided all gazes and held in his laughter, unlike hitch.

"who is it?" you asked out of pure curiosity and slight annoyance, causing hitch's laughter to roar louder. you stood on your tippy toes from your position beside jean to see if you could catch a glimpse of her phone but it was not visible causing you to step down, rolling your eyes.

"____," hitch tried to subside her giggles but they kept up, her clamping her hand over eren's shoulder for support who looked down at her a just as confused expression as you. her phone was faced down to the ground so he couldn't see who's name it landed on either, although his curiosity got the best of him and he grabbed her wrist to see the phone for himself. hitch pulled away hastily but it wasn't fast enough. "chill!" she spoke through her fit.

"and me?" eren questioned. you raised your eyebrow and eyes began to land on you in question of your reaction to the pairing. you weren't sure how to feel. of course eren and you were two ends of a stick and bickered accordingly but you couldn't help but find him attractive. you knew your stubbornness probably wouldn't let him even touch you in the slightest, let alone take a shot off your body, especially with a public audience. you didn't want them to think twice about your dislike for eren.

"i'm not doing it." you huffed, crossing your arms and almost sneering at eren.

"i mean you guys don't have to do it if you don't want to." jean repeated himself like earlier, placing a hand on your shoulder in a brotherly manner. he was still watching for a reaction from you, the only thing giving him a hint was the way your eyebrow twitched, and the questioning glance you were giving eren. hitch rolled her eyes before she grabbed her phone back from him.

"they literally hate each other of course they're not going to do it." connie chimed in.

"yeah, eren you don't have to do this." mikasa added as well quite sternly, hinting to eren that it was best for him not to either way.

eren gave her a side glance before looking at you for any sign. "i mean i'm down. it's just a stupid shot." he avoided eye contact with anybody in the room, his eyes darting around instead while playing with the loose strands of hair in the front of his head. "i couldn't give a fuck." he added, then crossing his arms as well.

"jaeger boy getting bold, huh?" reiner laughed from his position leaning against the cabinets to the side of the kitchen. eren rolled his eyes in response.

"_____ please just do it! it's just a game and it's only one time— you're literally so boring." hitch's words came out muffled, her hand covering her mouth as she spoke. "remember what i told you earlier, you just need to let go tonight. okay, eren is hot too— so just,"

"okay, hitch." you cut her off abruptly not wanting to hear more of her mouth until you realized what you just agreed to. you watched erens eyes widen in the slightest and his upper lip upturn slightly. you hoped you didn't boost his ego, you still hated his guts, you just wanted hitch to stop her rambling.

"what? seriously? get on the island then!" hitch grabbed your hand and you pulled away so you could climb on top of the island counter yourself with a small pout while hitch spun the wheel on her phone until it landed on 'stomach'. she turned the phone towards you then turned it towards eren. "stomach." she said with a smile.

"you guys don't even like each other, how is this happening?" jean mutters, but hitch caught his words and gave him her own roll of her eyes.

"just let it happen, jean, they're both drunk, they'll probably forget about this tomorrow." she whispers back quite loud. you look at her before laying down on your back with a glare, you didn't think you were really that drunk.

eren climbed off of the counter he was sitting on and made his way over to the island. "hopefully you still hate me after this." he snickers before grabbing the hem of your tank top and sliding it up your stomach until it was bundled right under your breasts. you hated the way his touch sent sparks on your skin.

"shut the fuck up and get it over with." you hiss back as he pours the salt over your lower abdomen, using his free hand to pull your shorts down in the slightest so they wouldn't get in the way.

"open up." eren's hand lingered in front of your face with a quarter of a lime for you to hold in your mouth. you glared at him for the umpteenth time and grabbed it with your hand, placing the sour fruit in your mouth to hold with the rest of it jutting out. eren poured himself some of the brown liquid into his shot glass from earlier, setting it down beside him. he didn't even warn you before he dove down right above your pelvic area, his warm tongue singeing your stomach, and you couldn't help but let out the slightest gasp, looking down at eren. one of his hands was pressed against the table the other one placed on your upper stomach, a hold on your shirt to keep it up, but respectfully (or unconsciously) he avoided your boob, his eyes trained on the substance on your stomach. another lick, and another, and another, and you didn't even realize you were biting your lip to keep from embarrassing yourself in front of your comrades. eren let the salt dissolve on his tongue and once no more resided on your stomach he pulled back with a smack of his lips, an unreadable expression on his face before grabbing the shot and downing it in one go quickly, shaking his head back and forth so it could go down smoother. his hands moved down to either side of you before he bent over you and avoided your eyes again, not to mention you did too, while sucking on the lime that was still being held by your lips. your eyes fluttered and you looked at him for a second until he disconnected. the last thing you felt was his upper lip brush against yours, sending a tingly feeling up your spine.

you sat up abruptly, bumping eren's head in the process causing him to grimace at you and stand up straight. you hopped off the table and pulled your shirt down, hitch grabbing your arm and pulling you into her grip. "you did so good, o-m-g. yay for alcohol, it's bringing my friends together!" she laughed as you pulled away from her and rolled your eyes, crossing your arms and crossing the kitchen to grab a paper towel, wiping at your stomach.

"yay for alcohol!" sasha repeats with a giggle clapping her hands causing connie, hitch and the rest besides mikasa and jean to join along.

"i didn't think she'd actually do it." historia murmured with raised eyebrows at what just took place.

"me neither.." armin responded, his hand covering his mouth with large eyes as well while clapping his hands softly from his spot seated on the counter.

"eren, you didn't have to do it you know, it's just a game." eren turned to mikasa at the sound of her voice and narrowed his eyes slightly, before shrugging it off and murmuring an "i'm drunk." causing mikasa to scoff.

jean watched you cross back over to him with a cautious face. now you could feel the alcohol buzzing. "you okay?" he murmured, a wary look on his face. was it really that shocking to everyone that you could have some fun? or was it the fact that it was with eren jaeger?

you gave him a questioning glance and then look at jean, shuffling your feet. "i'm fine, stop making it a big deal." jean narrowed his eyes as the remaining two carried on with the game, sasha and connie going by default and having planned to do it together anyways. after connie wiped his stomach, as he had sasha do what eren did to you. afterwards everyone decided to pile back into the living room wanting to end the night off with a movie. hitch, of course insisted on bringing the leftover alcohol in its bottle even though armin didn't think it was a good idea, let alone anybody thinking it was a good idea.

"pour me a little more hitch." eren said, seated behind you on the couch while hitch sat in front of you on the floor, bottle of alcohol between the two of you while connie laid against the back of the couch beside him. everyone's seating seemed to change, the group collapsing wherever they deemed fit, but you of course stuck with hitch. jean minded his own trying to select a scary movie for the group, eyes trained on the tv in front of him.

"so you want to get drunk drunk?" hitch slurred using her hand to try and uncap the bottle of liquor. you mentally shook your head and fiddled with hitch's glass that was sitting beside the liquor bottle so she wouldn't fill her own glass again. you were drunk, but not drunk enough to not take care of your friends. plus you wouldn't want hitch passing out either way.

"mikasa, help me pick out a movie?" jean said, eyes looking to the side at the ebony haired girl who stared blankly at the screen, eyes flickering between the people in front of her and the blue light emitting from the tv. she wasn't oblivious to the reason jean was asking, her demeanor made her just choose to ignore it.

"i don't have any suggestions. try searching up some recommended movies or something." jean shrugged his shoulders then whipped out his phone to oblige, meanwhile, eren reached over your shoulder, hand around his glass he carried around all night for hitch to fill. her hands were shaky and she tried her best to concentrate while slowly filling up the cup until eren pulled the glass away, a couple drops of alcohol pouring onto the floor before you tilted the bottle back upright for her.

"hitch, you're making a mess." you grumbled, then taking the bottle and closing it for her before she did anything further.

"eren you should stop drinking so much, or like get some food in your system." sasha suggested eyeing the drink in his hand. he narrowed his eyes at her then roller his eyes sipping on some of the new drink unwary.

"i'm good, i'll eat later."

"no seriously jaeger; you and hitch are the main ones who finished that bottle," connie pulled out a chip as well eyeing it then shoving it in his mouth then leaning forward to nudge eren, gesturing to the bowl for him to eat too.

"connie, stop." eren's lips twitched as he tried not to smile drunkly, swatting connie away and pushing him slightly, connie getting shoved back a little by his small push and him retorting as well. "you haven't ate anything either."

connie laughed and shoved him back, raising a fist jokingly to make eren flinch who instinctively caught connie's wrist with his hand, connie fighting back with a laugh. connie gave eren a hard shove and you flinched when you felt the liquid of eren's drink splash onto your shoulder and shirt.

"eren— what the fuck!" you exclaimed, eyes turning towards you as you stared down at your shirt, hands open at your side, the feeling of the sweet liquid dripping down your back and down the cleavage of your breasts, the feeling steadily uncomfortable. the way the liquid seeped into your clothing wasted no time bubbling up your immediate anger. "dude," you were heated, standing up slowly. "y'all play too much!"

"eren look what you did!" hitch's eyes widened, her trying to refrain from laughing in the midst of her drunken state while eren and connie just stared at your rising figure in shock.

"yeah eren, look what you did." connie mocked earning a hard glare from eren who flipped him off.

"guys it's not funny." historia gave both of them a disapproving look before watching you walk off to the kitchen, an evident attitude in your step until you disappeared around the corner.

"and you wonder why she fucking hates you." jean scoffed with an agreeing nod from reiner, while jean finally clicked a random horror film that looked scary enough since his phone didn't give him good results, his irritation at the night going downhill not failing to grow.

"shut it kirchstein, that was connie's fault not mine."

"what? you're the one who had your drink above her like that. i was just playing with you, right sasha?" sasha shrugged her shoulders at connie until he pouted and she snorted, nodding her head. "see!" he exclaimed. "that wasn't my fault."

"it doesn't matter who's fault it is." historia let her hands out of armin's hair, crossing them. "she's clearly upset, and it doesn't help that eren has been messing with her all night."

"dude, what?" eren was baffled by historia's response.

"eren didn't do anything?" mikasa's voice came out in a more questioning manner, of course quick to defend eren in her monotone voice.

historia narrowed her eyes, not seeing how eren or mikasa couldn't see the fault in his actions. "me and hitch heard them arguing in the bathroom. i'm the one who told hitch to go get them to stop because jean was getting irritated."

"why was horseface getting mad?" eren rolled his eyes.

"because you guys are always arguing! that shit is annoying, she clearly doesn't like you eren so just stay out of her way." jean exasperated, resting his chin on his palm.

"do you have a crush on her or something, huh? we were just cool like last year, it's normal for us to argue at this point." eren's feeble attempt to defend himself clearly failed, both eren, jean and even armin looking upset with him.

"that doesn't mean anything, and no i don't. that's my best friend... so shut the fuck up." jean flipped eren off as well, trying his best to focus on the movie he aimlessly picked out.

"well she did the body shots with me? she was just fine seconds ago." and eren didn't mention how you didn't slap him silly for pushing you aside the door earlier, or how he delved in that memory a bit as well.

"because i told her to have fun and put up with your ass for the day. not everyone thinks you're the shit eren, and she definitely doesn't."

eren's irritation was rising, jean's likewise, and he huffed, laying back into the couch, putting as much space between him and connie as possible in clear anger that he was struggling to control, especially with being drunk. he became more reckless and obnoxious, and everyone knew so. yet he knew somewhere in the back of his head was that he was in somewhat of the wrong.

armin patted his head to flatten down any flyaways before speaking, "historia is right, eren. she's upset so go apologize— or at least help her out." sasha and connie nodded their heads in agreement.

another puff of breath from eren before he reluctantly got up, everyone's eyes on him making him uncomfortable. he rather be a around someone he didn't like (yet found attractive in the least) then be in an environment that wasn't fond of him at the moment.

eren rounded the corner until his eyes landed on your frame, sat on the edge of the counter desperately wiping at your top with vigor in efforts to dry it. you had at least got the sticky substance off your skin while your were working at it. you didn't even notice eren standing there, simply staring, not even knowing what to do now that his friends coerced him into the kitchen. he maneuvered over to the sink and that's when you noticed his tall figure, your face immediately twisting into an angered expression.

"what do you want now?"

eren turned around with a wet napkin and began coming over to you gingerly. he stumbled over, arm stretched out to begin patting at your top awkwardly with a grumble. "they told me to come and help you."

"eren get the hell off of me." you recoiled in panic and vexation, your hand flying up to shoo eren away.

"i'm trying to help you." he spit out, his breath beginning to get heavy, and you could smell the alcohol on it your nose twitching at the scent, but then again the smell of alcohol was still present on your shirt as well.

"i don't need your help." you rolled your eyes as he continued to try and wipe at your shirt stains. the gesture was... unlikely for him, maybe he was feeling guilt curdle inside him? although at the moment you didn't care, continuing to try to get him out of your vicinity and tend to the accident on you as well.

"can you just-" but you didn't give him a chance to finish, your frustration getting the best of you and your hand flying across his face. you didn't even register that you hit him until you saw the way his head flew to the side, tufts of his brown hair flying the opposite direction, the sound of the impact going in one ear and coming out the other just as fast.

he stood still for just a moment trying to process the stinging pain on his left cheek, his thoughts jumbled as the alcohol swam through his system. immediate regret began to dance its way up you as you watched the way anger twinkled in his eyes before he let out a small incredulous laugh. "oh... i'm sorry—" you gasped, and then flinched when eren's hand flew up to pin the hand that slapped him up against the cabinet door above the counter you were still perched on. "eren, what the fuck? let go of me," you struggled to get him to let his grip go, his eyes flickering from your face to the water like stains littered on your tank top, then to your legs; spread on either side of him as he stood in between them, his grip unconsciously tightening on your wrist. he went back up to be met with your timid expression that you tried to mask with the furrow of your brows although your lip still quivered, especially when met with the darkened look of eren's eyes.

"thought that shit was funny, yeah?" he mumbled lowly, shifting a little bit to get somewhat closer to your body as you watched him from above with bird eyes that darted from side to side to watch him cautiously.

you couldn't lie— you were a little scared, which frightened you that you were scared. you, the only one in your close circle that constantly picked at eren, constantly got into petty arguments with him, and weren't afraid to constantly call him out on the ridiculous things he would say... you were all of a sudden scared? maybe it was his demeanor, you thought to yourself, the way he didn't rise his voice up at you after you slapped him, much like earlier when you were yelling at him in the bathroom, the way he didn't shy away from a intimate game with you, the way he was looking you up and down like you were prey— it was all unusual, all frightening to you to see him move like that, not to mention the vice like grip he had on your poor wrists at the moment.

"eren," you whimpered, moving your hips in an effort to push him away, but your movements only amped him up. he moved your other wrist so that both of yours were gathered in his large hand, then placed his now free hand on the counter beside you. he didn't even realize the way he was leaning in closer and closer to your neck, until you cringed when you could feel his breath right on your shoulder, panic ensuing once more, especially regarding the fact that your shirt indeed had see through splotches on it, blame the liquid.

"you've been trying me all day..." he started, voice low and as if he was talking to your neck, not even looking up at you, his eyes trained to that same spot. "first you were running your mouth about me in the kitchen,"

he heard that?

"then you were getting all up in my face in that bathroom, and all those noises you were making when we were playing body shots..."

"eren, just let—"

"and then you've been walking around in those little ass shorts, and this top all night.."

you didn't think he was just talking about you upsetting him anymore.

eren's hand slid behind your body until his hand found your lower back, scooting you closer to his while maintaining his grip on your wrist, but pulling your hands away from the cabinets. he let his hips circle against yours so you could feel him. "you feel that?" he asked you, his lips now ghosting over the space between your shoulder and neck. "you did that."

what you can only describe as being some kind of shudder that made your body twitch had ran through you at the feeling of his lips connecting with your skin, the icky feeling of your shirt was barely prevalent with the emotions running through you, more specifically down to your core. his hips stopped meeting yours but his kisses continued upwards until he pressed one to your jaw, nibbling at the skin. "_____," he breathed out, his eyes still holding that dark haze when they met with yours as you looked down at him.

"let me fuck you good."

you were giving in.

you were giving in to the boy you supposedly hated, (in your head) you were giving in to all the arguments you ever had with him, you were giving in to the betrayal that your friends might feel when they find out about your endeavors but, god— if eren's dick straining his sweats didn't feel so good against you, or if his lips kissing up your neck and staying idle beside your lips didn't make you just want to turn your head and smash yours against his...

yup, you were giving in.

you turnt your head slightly so that eren's lips could collide with yours and he reciprocated immediately, finally letting go of your wrists and letting his other hand fall behind you to your ass so he could pull you flush against him, despite the still slight wetness of your shirt rubbing on his. your mouths tasted like all the alcohol from the night but it wasn't a big deal in your semi-drunken state.

eren tapped your ass to signal for you to wrap your arms around his neck and so you did, him sliding your body off of the counter and then all but throwing you over a little more so that your upper half was looking down at the floor behind while he held onto your legs, carrying you over his shoulder. "eren, put me down if you're gonna carry me like this i can walk normally!" you hissed loudly slapping his back making him chuckle.

"wouldn't you be embarrassed if everyone heard you about right now?" eren stopped in his tracks to give you a chance to quiet down before he left the kitchen, and you took that opportunity, mentally shrinking down in his grip out of somewhat chagrin.

eren's plan was to slip past the living room and go straight towards the stairs, as they were to the left of the living room, and unless the ones occupying it turned around they wouldn't be able to see the two of you, besides whoever was sat on the couch to the right. eren began walking out of the kitchen, and you prayed nobody was looking, your vision limited to only the floor below you.

you sighed when you felt your body rise a bit, meaning eren made it to the stairs, until you jolted at the sound of mikasa voice from her position on the couch, "eren—" but he cut her off quickly with a mere,

"we'll be back in a minute."

the trek up the stairs somewhat felt like forever to you, your stomach beginning to flip at the thought of being fucked silly by someone you deemed you hated, the mere idea was pretty outlandish to you, but you knew it was quite real when eren opened the door to a particularly blank room.

of course sat the bed and a nightstand on either side, but the room was lackluster, except for a few generic paintings in a couple corners of the room and a rug detailing the carpet. eren must've knew where to go since he was generally close to jean, having been even closer to him and his family during his middle school years.

eren wasted no time throwing you on the bed, your body hitting the surprisingly soft bedspread, and you almost felt bad for the wash it would have to go through when eren was done with you; because you knew he wasn't gonna be gentle.

he also didn't waste anytime stripping away at his clothes his shirt already strewn onto the floor and his pants halfway down his legs already, while you on the other hand were already hesitant to take off the messed up garment you were still wearing, and of course eren had to comment on this; "come on, you still wanna sit there smelling like whiskey? take off your shirt." you rolled your eyes at him and you swore you saw a smirk over his face when you began to pull your tank top over your head, now only sitting there in your undergarments and shorts, criss cross on the bed.

eren strode over and grabbed your jaw harshly, pulling you in for another drunken kiss, his other hand coming up to palm at your breasts while you measly reciprocated his kiss, it being more clashing teeth and tongue then anything. once his lips were removed from yours he let the thumb on your jaw swipe over your bottom lip, pulling it down to reveal your teeth before leaning back in and letting his own teeth nibble the skin beside your ear. "i want you to suck my dick." he said blatantly, looking at you once he pulled away. you would have never thought; as many times as the two of you would banter back and forth telling each other to 'suck my dick', never did you think there would ever be a day where he said it literally. "on the floor." his voice came out more like a command making you side eye him, and cross your arms.

"why should—"

"on the floor." he repeated, making himself comfortable on the bed he was sat on while you reluctantly slid off the bed to the floor in front of him, your hands on your knees while he pulled down his boxers, his cock slapping against his lower abdomen, sitting pretty. your eyes widened, you weren't sure what you were expecting; of course eren like many others bragged about his size in a joking manner but you never took him seriously, nevertheless did you take any of your guy friends seriously. he let out a small laugh at your expression before you realized you were staring for a little longer than you should have been. luckily, he didn't make another snarky remark, instead tapping your cheek with fingers that weren't wrapped around him, signaling for you to open your mouth. "open up." he repeated for the second time that night.

"that's your favorite line, huh?" you huffed, taking him into your hands. he ignored your comment and instead placed his now free hand onto the back of your head ushering you down his length with no caution, causing you to choke slightly, your hand flying up to his knees to steady yourself and push off in the slightest. you made sure your nails were digging into his skin in response, but you weren't sure if the feeling was even pervasive, as the only sound he let out was a groan when he felt his cock be engulfed by the heat of your mouth. the hand holding your head began gripping your hair and you winced at the newfound pressure although it was soon forgotten when eren began bobbing your head up and down, the feeling of your throat being used running through your whole body.

"yeah," he moaned out as you began finding your own pace, now taking one of your hands and wrapping them around what you couldn't reach; mainly so he wouldn't try to push your limits. "you're surprisingly good at this," he choked out, and he looked down at you to catch you glaring right back up at him, a clear grimace on your face.

you pulled away from his dick with a pop and began using your fist to pump him lazily, staring up at him with a bored expression. "you should really watch your mouth when i'm sucking you off." you retorted making him let out another one of his small chuckles and letting go of his grip on your hair for a second to run his fingers across your cheek, his thumb smoothing over your swollen lips once again.

"you wouldn't try nothing."

"don't count on it."

and once again his hand returned to your hair ushering you to take him back in your mouth and you did, but this time he was in more control, bucking his hips up into your mouth ardently and throwing his head back as you treated him and pushed him towards his high.

you couldn't help yourself, the feeling of eren using your throat so carelessly sent a plethora of emotions right to your core, and you let one of your hands drift past your shorts, rubbing yourself through your underwear and feeling how aroused you were, making you let out a small whimper around eren. he looked down at the sound and noticed you touching yourself, biting his lip and slowing his assault on your throat. "you're enjoying this aren't you?" he lifted your head up and a line of saliva was connected from his member to your bottom lip, making him smirk. "you dirty slut..."

you were in no position to deny it when you had your hands halfway down your pants, so you just rolled your eyes and connected your mouth back to his tip, giving a particularly hard suck that made him hiss and his hips stutter. "you're lucky i'm even letting you touch yourself right now..." he groaned out. "now, make me cum."

and you followed through for the most part, going back down on him, letting your tongue work him up and through, while his head held you right where he wanted to until you felt his seed shoot into the back of your throat making you cough and pull away, swallowing it anyways.

eren panted out and let go of your hair, balancing himself on the bed while using his other hand to rub himself through his orgasm while you climbed onto the bed behind him, beginning to strip your shorts, eren's eyes following along to watch you pull the fabric over your legs and onto the floor and unclasp your bra, throwing it alongside your shorts. his gaze went down to the wet spot on your underwear and you didn't miss the way his tongue slipped overtop of his lips. "so you like it when i talk to you like that, hm?" he hummed, pulling up his boxers and shimmying his sweats the rest of the way off his own legs.

eren crawled between your legs, grabbing onto your ankles and pulling your forth so that your head hit the pillow and you were now under him, his hands making their way to your thighs, grabbing and palming at them harshly before making his way to the wet patch on your panties."i bet you can't wait until i fuck this little cunt of yours." he murmurs pressing his fingers against your clit making your legs squeeze around his sides, a small gasp eliciting from you.

you moved your hand down to try and help your relieve some of the ache inside of you but eren was quicker; grabbing your wrist once more and slamming into the bed, shaking his head at you while you lolled your head back and let your hips rise up in anticipation. "look how greedy..." he taunted.

"jesus, eren, do something if you're not gonna let me," you whined, jutting your hips into the air causing eren to snicker but begin to pull down your underwear anyways. you let out a breath of relief at the feeling of the cool air hitting your wet pussy, and that breath was brought right back, getting caught in your throat when you felt eren's fingers slide against your folds.

"you're so wet... if i knew i could get you like this i would've fucked you a long time ago." he finally slid a finger into you and you sighed deeply, but that one finger wasn't enough and eren's pace was tortuously slow.

"eren, please,"

"you're begging already?" he smirked down at you and continued to pump his one stupid finger in and out of you slowly and you whined, your hips moving up in down trying to make yourself feel more full. "beg me some more then, ask for another finger, and be nice."

you put an arm over your forehead and furrowed your eyebrows, looking angrily at eren. you knew you couldn't find for dominance with eren, especially with the way he was acting with you at the moment, but you didn't want to beg either; yet how else would you get your pleasure? you had to put your pride aside for a minute and beg. "eren, please."

eren scoffed and raised an eyebrow at you. "that's all? i could stop right—"

"fuck, eren, please add another finger, please?" you huffed, and eren rolled his eyes at you but added another finger making you groan and clench around the digits. "yes, yes..."

eren made himself comfortable, leaning down on the bed and positioning himself somewhat beside you, his palm supporting his head and your leg trapped underneath his armpit now, while he continued thrusting his fingers in and out of you until he curled them and made you buck your hips into the air. "uh huh, right there!" you yelled out when he hit your sweet spot.

eren moved his fingers away from the spot and continued his normal pace causing your hand to fly down grab his wrist. "eren, go back!" you cried out and he ignored your pleads.

"you can do better begging."

my god, what did he want from you?

"eren, oh my god, please just do that again."

"not good enough."

"eren—"

"you don't sound like you really want it."

this boy was gonna be the death of you.

"i want your fingers... please, hit that spot again," you twisted his wrist so his fingers would point upwards inside of you again. "right there, eren... please, for me?" you begged him, letting your hips grind down into his fingers and you almost choked out when you felt them hit that same spot. you were so close, you could feel that bubbly feeling in your stomach and your jaw dropped open, you were so close, you were so close you were—

he stopped.

he fucking stopped.

"eren!" you screamed your claws once again digging into his wrist with a sob. "why, why, i was almost there!"

"i know." he said blatantly, watching you squirm from beside him that same bored expression you had earlier detailing his face tauntingly.

"then go!" you sobbed and slapped at his upper arm repeatedly until you felt his hand back in your hair tugging harshly, your head jerking back and him now closer to your face. "please..." you felt like you were saying for the umpteenth time that night.

he leaned towards your ear, letting his hand loosen from your head. "talk to me nicely before i leave you here to get yourself off." he mumbled before letting his fingers continue to drive inside of you while your hips pushed down to meet them to build up that same feeling from earlier, this time eren not stopping until you let out a scream of his name, your eyes rolling to the back of your head and you creaming on his fingers, your juices coating them, causing a lewd sound to elicit as he pulled them out.

your chest heaved up and down as you tried to catch your breath, but you were quickly forced to breath through your nose when eren's wet fingers entered your mouth making you taste your own release. "suck," he told you, and you were too tired to try to do anything slick back, letting your tongue swirl around them and pulling off giving him the opportunity to come down and kiss you, slipping in his tongue quickly so he could taste you as well. "good job." he watched as your body still convulsed slightly from your orgasm but that didn't stop him from pulling you by your waist and flipping your body over effortlessly.

"'m gonna fuck you so stupid."

eren wastes no time pulling down his boxers for the second time and kicking them away while you raised your hips just wanting him buried inside of you as soon as possible. he came up behind you, using his palm to push down your back some more until it was arched completely, running his hand back up your spine and giving your ass a good slap. he rubs his dick against your folds teasingly, waiting until you let out a whimper to push his head in slowly, both of you groaning simultaneously. "fuck," eren sighs, continuing to push himself in until he bottomed out. "so tight,"

eren begins to pull in and out of you slowly, getting used to the feeling of your walls wrapped around him, his face scrunched up in pleasure much likes yours, your hands gripping the sheets so tightly and you couldn't help but moan out eren's name. he snaked his hand up to your neck, leaning forward so he was pressed against your back until he pulled you up so you were flush against him. he began to pound into you more fervently, your ass clapping against his lower abdomen, the two of you moaning out together.

"shit," eren kissed your shoulder and bit down slightly harder making you wince against him and his hands tighten around your neck tantalizingly. "you like when i fuck you like this? when i use you like this?" his lips returned to the spot he bit, sucking a hard mark and then coming back up, pulling you against him harder while he fucked into you harder. you tried to suck in a breath but his grip around your throat was strong, so your jaw hung open no air coming in until you tapped eren's thigh causing him to release his grip so you could suck in a breath. he resorted to give you a break, his hand going up until they had you opening your mouth up so he could place his fingers in your mouth, holding it open and spitting into it making you whimper and clench around him. he pulled the digits out and let his hand trail back up your hair for the umpteenth time and pulling your head to the side so your neck was bare to him, letting him suck dark marks into your soft skin while he drilled you.

"cause you're a whore for shit like this, right? letting me spit in your mouth like that..."and the words coming out of his mouth made his hips stutter and groan, him finally letting your body fall back into an arch while he moved his hands to your hips and pulled you back on him while he fucked into you more, nails digging into your skin, and you could already see the bruises you would have the day after. the pleasure quickly was becoming too much, the feeling of eren's saliva sitting on your tongue, the way each one of his strokes his so deep inside of you, the way he treated you so roughly all had tears collecting in the corners until you were screaming for the second time that night, your hand gripping impossibly tight at the sheets and one flying backwards trying to find eren's thigh to grab at as well while your orgasm crashed over you again abruptly.

"eren!" you sobbed out letting eren pull the hand that was searching for his leg back so your head was slightly lifted off the bed, your breasts bouncing with each of his thrusts.

"fuck, 'm gonna cum.." eren panted, feeling your walls pulse around him as you came, soaking him even further. his forehead was sweaty and causing the flyaways in the front of his bun to stick to his forehead as well as his abs to glisten in the slightest from behind you.

"cum inside me..." you blabbered out, jaw still strung open from the pleasure flooding your body.

eren hissed as he felt himself climax as well, cumming inside you and filling you up, his movements stopping and his chest resting against your back, one hand on the bed to hold him up over you. once he was a little calmed he slid out of you and spread one of your cheeks to watch his cum attempt to drip out of you, but he stopped it, using his fingers to push it back inside of you, his mouth in an 'o' shape as he watched it, feeling himself already feeling hard again, and he still wasn't satisfied yet. "'m not done yet," he heaved out and watched as your hips fell to the bed. "one more round."

"am i that good?" you said with your finger pulling down your bottom lip as he dragged your hips down to the edge of the bed and turned your body over harshly. seeing your fucked out face in front of him was such a turn on, tear streaks down the side of your face, your lips swollen and a crease between your brows from eren's constant onslaught.

"shut the fuck up." eren slipped right back into you, feeling his own cum around him that he forgot about for a brief moment. he thrusts into you harder, making your body jolt repeatedly, your tits bouncing and him grabbing onto one, twirling his fingers around your nipple before grabbing at you breast hard making you hiss and grab his upper arm, dragging your nails down it.

"make me." you snapped back with your nail still embedded in his skin.

eren gave you a surprised look at your retaliation and snaked his hand around your throat once more. "you got some nerve talking to me like that when i just fucked your lights out."

you twisted your face and took it upon yourself to spit at him, your saliva landing on his cheek and he gave you a look of shock making you smirk at him until his eyes glowered over, his hand around your throat coming up to slap your face like you did to him earlier, and in the same manner your head flew to the side. luckily, he didn't slap you too hard but you could still feel the stinging sensation filling up the side of your face. "fuck is wrong with you?"

"fuck you!" you retorted as he wiped your spit on your sternum and slapped away the hand that was clawing at his upper arm.

"aren't you already doing that dumbass?" and he gave you a brief reminder, his hips bucking up into you harshly making you let out a gasp. "i guess you forgot."

you let your hand fly over your mouth when eren's cock brushed over that same spot from earlier as he lifted your hips slightly to try to get a deeper position in efforts to cum, but you were steps ahead of him; your stomach turning as his dick hit your g-spot again and again, your vision hazing over as you climaxed for the third time, no noise even coming from your throat, eren only knowing from the way your body began twitching and the way you clamped around him.

although, that didn't stop his pace, him essentially overstimulating you.

he rode you through your high and beyond, the feeling of your wetness around him mixed with his own cum edging him forward trying to reach his own high. the feeling of his pelvis rubbing against your clit once he lowered his hips had you trying to crawl away from the overstimulation as he leaned over you feeling how close he was. "_____..." eren puffed, leaning into your neck as he continued to drill into you. "god, 'm gonna cum again..."

you couldn't even respond, trying to keep in your own cries as tears streamed down your face again while eren groaned against your neck, the vibrations being felt through your chest. his hips stuttered once more but this time he pulled out, rubbing himself a few times until his cum sputtered onto your chest and stomach, another moan being let out from him followed by another large huff of breath before he collapsed onto the bed beside you. "god... _____." you couldn't even respond, your body still shaking slightly and your eyes closed while you continued to let out small snivels and whines. his eyes trailed over to you, looking at the dried tear stains on your face, the hickeys splattered across your neck, his cum painting your chest and stomach, the bruises on your hips, your swollen clit and puffy pussy, and his cum slicked near your entrance. "i fucked you up."

eren got up and in record time came back with a wet rag that you could care less about where he got it from. he wiped you up, the feeling of the warm water comforting you, your body finally calmed down. you sat up once he left the room once more and looked around, quickly realizing you couldn't put back on your dirtied shirt. you sighed and realized you would have to go back downstairs to grab one where your bag filled with your belongings was. eren came back in the room and grabbed your underwear and shorts for you, handing you the ladder and stuffing your panties into his pocket.

"what are you doing?" you asked looking at the undergarment hanging out of his sweats that he had put on earlier before leaving the room.

"keeping these." he smirked at you while you sat there with a pout.

"eren, i need those, i can't go down there... my bra and shirt are dirty and i need to grab clo--,"

"i'll go grab all your stuff for you."

"i still need my underwear." eren ignored you, shuffling out the room and heading back downstairs. once again, pretty fast, he came back in the room handing you your bag. "i'm gonna take a quick shower..." you looked up at eren who was still eyeing you, his eyes flickering to various parts of your still bare body. "are they awake?"

"everyone's knocked but armin, mikasa and surprisingly hitch, i thought she would've passed out by now. i'm pretty sure they heard us judging by the way they looked at me."

"oh..." you looked down at your bag and felt a little better about the confrontation you would have to face tomorrow. "...can you wait for me?" you asked hesitantly, eren's eyes gleaming at your question.

"yeah, i'll wait."

❀ ❀ ❀

you were now changed out, eren having thrown the sheets and your clothes into jean's wash, which now gave you a good idea of how close he actually was to your friend, despite how much they argued much like you and eren. "you good?" eren asked, laying on the bed with a new pair of bedding on top, him laying on the duvet.

"yeah..."

"you sure? you're walking funny." you flipped him off and sat down on the edge of the bed beside him. "you ready to go back downstairs and pretend this never happened?" he asked you a slight edge to his voice even though you knew he meant it in a joking manner.

"wait, can we talk about all this first?" you turned your body to eren. "so are we still gonna pretend we hate each other or whatever? or are we cool now?"

eren pondered on your question for a minute. "depends, do you still want everyone to think we hate each other, or do you genuinely want to be cool? i mean i just fucked the sh--"

"eren, shut up." you cut him off quickly with a raise of your hand. "we can talk to the ones who are up right now because they're obviously gonna ask questions, especially hitch..."

"so what? everyone else is just gonna see us become buddy buddy?"

"we're obviously still gonna argue, eren, that isn't gonna change because of your ass... i just won't pretend i hate you so much."

"so you were pretending to hate me?"

"you're the one who wanted to fuck me."

"and you went along with it."

"this is why i hate you."

"i thought you were pretending?"

"i wasn't."

an awkward silence loomed over the two of you before you both burst out into laughter that died down quickly. "you're so stupid." you said before standing up. "c'mon, let's go."

as the two of you headed downstairs you first headed for the kitchen to drink some water before you were gonna knock out on the couch, hitch already in there bent over the sink.

"you okay?" you asked her as you headed for the fridge.

"no, my head hurts like crazy... i took a little nap and when i woke up my head was pounding."

"it was all that alcohol." you chuckled, plucking a cold water bottle from the fridge.

"yeah? and was it all that alcohol that made you go fuck jaeger? i mean i know i said he was cute... i think, but--"

"you heard that?" your eyes widened as you turned around towards her, a smile tugging at her lips.

"honey, i think we all did, half of us just tried to block it out with the movie."

you slapped your hand against your forehead, your initial plan to fall asleep on the couch then pretend nothing happened wasn't even available anymore.

"jean's gonna kill me." you muttered before opening your water bottle and taking a swig of the liquid that cooled your sore throat.

"yup, jean's gonna kill you." and you could only glare at hitch because, well... she was right.

"i'm blaming it on that stupid whiskey if he asks." you said before walking out the kitchen.

"you can't blame all your problems on alcohol!" hitch replied before you turned the corner with a shake of your head.

#eren yeager x reader #eren jaeger x reader #eren x reader #eren jaeger #eren yeager #eren jaeger smut #eren yeager smut #eren aot #attack on titan

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dathen · 3 years

Text

Okay I have some complicated thoughts following Melanie’s arc that all build on top of each other and hinge HEAVILY on unreliable narrator interpretations so bear with me

In my relisten I’m at the beginning of s3, and it always shocks me a bit at how quickly she interprets Martin’s interaction with her as hostile. I’m going to skip over the “it’s understandable, Melanie’s had a hard time in her career” disclaimers since there’s plenty of meta on that already, and instead follow the effects of this tendency: not on others, this time, but on her

(This got absurdly long and covers so many episodes so I’m going to split it into separate pre- and post-bullet surgery posts)

Rewinding a bit, the last time she was at the Institute, she was starting to get along with Jon before he seemed confused about her comment on “the other Sasha.” It takes her a split second to interpret that confusion as him suddenly deciding to gaslight and mock her, gets angry and tells him there is something seriously wrong with him, and leaves before he can ask what she means. Given how tenuous their truce was and the fact she and Jon had mocked each other in the past, it’s an outburst that at least has some personal history behind it.

But only a couple episodes later, we learn that it’s not just Jon she responds to in this way. In TMA 84, she meets our Martin Blackwood! Customer service voice opposite-of-Jon politeness extraordinaire! And as soon as he gets confused about the two Sasha comment, she.......immediately assumes that HE is also trying to gaslight her. She insists that “I’m not doing this again” without giving him a chance to ask or explain, so they miss the opportunity to piece together the deal with the Not!Sasha. Her doing this with someone she just met shows a much broader pattern than her interactions with Jon.

That very episode, Elias offers Melanie a job, and she accepts despite Martin’s protests. Later, she accuses them all of them being an “old boy’s club” because she interpreted Martin’s warnings as sexism rather than trying to protect her. As the audience, we see the unreliable narrator of her perspective at work: we know that Jon and Martin were genuinely confused, and we know that Martin was trying to save her, and that all of these instances were her seeing it as people being out to get her.

Hop forward to the notorious gossip scene in TMA 106. Here, Melanie complains about Martin being hostile to her. My first assumption was that this was all offscreen, but after this parade of misinterpretation and comparing to her and Martin’s actual interactions, I have to wonder:

TMA 84, after Martin tells Melanie about the murder, and right before Elias interrupts:

Martin: Are you sure you’re alright?

Melanie: Yes! I just got… God, I’m kind of at the end, you know?

Martin: The end of what?

Melanie: Everything. Friends, clues, savings. Everything. Options. There’s nowhere left for me to go . I don’t know why, but… I just, I just felt that perhaps coming here might help. And talking things out with Jon. I mean, I mean he’s awful, but at least he listens, you know?

Martin: (soft) Yeah. ...I’m sorry. Um, is there anything that I could, like, maybe...do for you?

They get interrupted immediately after this, so this was the first impression Melanie was given. Then, when Elias offers the job, she...assumes Martin’s “I don’t think that’s a good idea” is from sexism, when he’d just been talking about murders and disappearances that caused that very job opening.

TMA 88

Melanie: Are you alright?

Martin: Yeah… Sorry, just a lot of change recently, y’know. You and John and Sasha and… everything’s gone a bit wrong. It’s the not knowing, you know? I mean, Jon’s still alive. Not sure why, but I’m sure of that. But Sasha, I…

Melanie: Yes, it’s… it’s probably, um…

Martin: Sorry, sorry, I’m... What do you need?

Next interaction! Oh this one HURTS. Martin takes her question literally, and starts telling her why she’s not alright, a reverse of their earlier exchange. But Melanie came by for a question and wasn’t prepared for an honest answer, so Martin quickly reels it in and asks what he can do for her once again.

Skipping forward a bit in that same scene:

Martin: Oh, you weren’t here when we took the place over from Gertrude! It’s been over a year just to get it like this. I mean, I think the database was on Jon’s list, but--

Melanie: So how do you track someone down?

Martin: Oh, oh well, y’know, we’ve a few contacts in various record offices around the place. Aside from that it’s just… just a bit of detective work, really. Tim used to do a great line in impersonating people to utility companies! Heh, the number of times he got them to give him ‘his own’ address--

Melanie: Right, right… Um, this one, the name is 'Jude Perry.’ Doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?

I LOVE THIS EXCHANGE. I TREASURE IT. Having bottled up his emotions, Martin is going in full Friendly Helpful Coworker mode. There are so many little details here signaling that he’s embracing her as part of the team, sharing anecdotes about Tim’s shenanigans and Jon’s old plans, looping her in as One of Them as he helps her get what she needs. This is the kind of approach you go to management trainings to get, to help new hires feel welcome and part of things. But alas, Melanie is in a hurry and wants to cut to the chase, so all this is lost on her.

TMA 98 - I won’t copy it all in here because it’s long, but this is an overwhelmingly positive interaction. She asks if he’s okay, but he bottles it up and says he’s fine. This time, she presses, and he admits it’s because of the statements. Martin ends up asking for help!! and Melanie agrees! She’s on the way to murder Elias, but she still gets credit for “I’ll ask him to cut you some slack.” Then she invites him to drinks!

And then.... TMA 106

Melanie: Anyway, Martin’s always been lovely to you.

Basira: Hmm. I don’t know, I mean, you should have seen him when I turned up last year. I think he thought I was trying to steal his precious Archivist.

Melanie: Ahhh. I got the exact same when Jon was hiding out, and came to me with his “source on the inside” stuff. Martin was not impressed.

WAIT WHAT

We just looked over all their interactions! They were all soft and lovely and welcoming!! But then we hear Melanie with “well unlike how he is to me, Martin is nice to you.” This was taken at face value for years, but when you line up all of the above, I feel there is a strong basis to say this is another case of Melanie’s first impressions + over-defensiveness gone wrong. Just like we saw her initial bickerings with Jon solidify into series-long hostility, her interpreting Martin’s confusion as gaslighting and warnings about the job as sexism seems to have doomed her opinion of him long-term. We hear Martin being kind and concerned and welcoming, then hear Melanie contrast it as bad treatment.

Recently, a mutual considered this even further to how she talked about losing all of her friends with the Ghost Hunt UK circles:

Melanie: Even back then, I could feel all my old friends starting to distance themselves from me. ... I stopped asking the others for help, and I kept my research to myself. I talked to them less and less. By the time I was arrested, I think a lot of them had already given up on me.

I have to wonder...did this sort of dynamic play out here, too? Did she assume that her friends’ concern was judgment or hostility? Were they giving up on her, or did she lash out and push them away? Either way, it’s easy to see parallels to s2 Jon in her description, here, with her withdrawing and diving alone into increasingly risky research without asking for help. And s2 Jon definitely shared Melanie’s tendency to see offers for help and support as hostile. (Aside: I interpret her and Georgie as not very close at this point, like a networking contact rather than a friend; Melanie comes to Jon for someone to talk to about her struggles above her, and Georgie seems to be unaware of all of Melanie’s encounters pre-s3)

And on that downer note I am ending part 1...but PART 2 IS GOING TO BE WAY HAPPIER THAN THIS. Here, we see Melanie with a lot of people who would have supported her if she let them: Martin, Jon, possibly the friends she said abandoned her. But in her effort to protect herself and not let history repeat for how she’d been hurt in the past, she ends up alone and spiraling.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma spoilers #melanie king #tma meta #I had to stop myself from just rambling All Melanie Feelings in Every Direction to stay on track #but hoo boy writing this gave me a lot of feelings for the martin melanie friendship that could have been

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labarch · 3 years

Text

Witch Hats and Prejudice Part II

<-- Part I

Olruggio, my love, my man, I’m sorry your proposal to Qifrey in chapter 40 didn’t go as you hoped, let’s sit down and discuss your workaholism, temper issues and saviour complex, yes? Yes. It’s couple therapy time at last, we’ll have a look at Qifrey and Olruggio’s relationship and at chapter 40 in particular through the following points:

-Panelling in the Orufrey conversation in chapter 40

-Prejudice and power imbalance in Qifrey and Olruggio’s interactions

-Help as a collaboration between equals (spoiler: they haven’t made it to that stage yet)

-What Olruggio wants from Qifrey

Panelling in the Orufrey conversation in chapter 40

The conversation in chapter 40 is never framed as a happy reunion. If we reuse the analysis of the panels from Coco and Qifrey’s conversation I made in my previous post, we find the same markers of unease between Olruggio and Qifrey. Most of the panels are narrow, and get darker and darker as night falls. Qifrey and Olruggio rarely share a panel, and even when they do, they rarely make direct eye contact: Qifrey looks down, or Olruggio walks away from him, or they are curled in on themselves or standing on a slope at different eye level. For a while Qifrey is up in the air and mostly talking to himself. Oh yeah, and there’s a hat that gets in the way at some point.

It gives the sense that they are having two separate conversations, and that they never truly achieve the connection that we saw between Qifrey and Coco. On top of that, while the conversation is supposed to be about comforting Qifrey and earning his trust, Olruggio never manages to get a smile out of him, except for wobbly, miserable little grimaces. So what’s going through both of their heads, and why are they failing to meet halfway?

The chapter has an outward pull to it. The scene takes place on a slope that leads away from the atelier. The chapter opens with a herd of dragons flying away and into the night. Then Qifrey takes flight to look into the distance, while giving a very contradictory speech about how fulfilling yet dull his life is here, how happy yet trapped in an illusion he feels. He has to hold on to his cape as it flaps in the wind. It brings those dragons back to mind, like they are a metaphor for the side of him that wishes to escape. Qifrey’s migration season is just starting folks, it’s a confusing time for him okay.

In contrast to Qifrey looking ahead into a dark wilderness, Olruggio in this chapter is almost always looking back. He walks away from Qifrey to talk to him over his shoulder, or he looks back towards the atelier. In the only scene where he faces Qifrey full-on, the past is so present on his mind that he de-ages them both. It’s interesting, because it adds a caveat to his pledge of listening to everything Qifrey has to say: he is not so much trying to adapt to Qifrey’s new situation as he is trying to bring them back to the childhood stage of their friendship, when they were always together and kept no secret.

This whole looking ahead / looking back dichotomy brings me back to the mentality of the Great Hall, a society obsessed with keeping itself in an insulated bubble, wrapping itself in good intentions and noble ideals, and ignoring its own inner darkness and complexity. Qifrey, because of his inability to be content and stay in place, threatens that delicate balance. That sends the other witches around him into such a state of panic and outrage that even those who genuinely love him end up lashing out at him with uncharacteristic brutality.

Prejudice and power imbalance in Qifrey and Olruggio’s interactions

I have described in my previous post how vicious and oddly personal Beldaruit got in his attacks against Qifrey in chapter 36, but you can make the same case for Olruggio, especially since the two scenes run in parallel. There is something excessive about the violence with which Olruggio confronts his friend. For one, he is choosing a hell of a time to do it: the girls are safe, there is no urgency to press Qifrey for answers right this instant – except if he is hoping to shock Qifrey into honesty while he’s disoriented. Qifrey has just woken up from a three-day coma; he is half-naked in a place Olruggio knows worsens his nightmares; his scar is exposed; he is half-blind because Olruggio has taken his glasses; Olruggio is literally an angry dark blob looming over him. I’ve often heard it say that Qifrey is manipulative towards Olruggio, but in return Olruggio isn’t above using intimidation tactics against him, consciously or not.

There is also the staggering lack of empathy of the approach: what started this whole thing is that Olruggio learnt about Qifrey’s impending blindness. And his knee-jerk reaction was to attack Qifrey about it. Like, um, my dude, your friend almost died, he is going to go blind and lose his job, you wanna try being sensitive about it? (Note that Qifrey running after the Brimhats didn’t trouble Olruggio that much at first: after his interview with the Knights Moralis he is mainly concerned with “getting his story straight with Qifrey”; it’s only later on, when we see him staring at the glasses he’s just repaired, that he starts voicing his doubts about Qifrey’s intentions). He may be right to suspect that Qifrey is hiding things from him, but there’s a pretty big leap between “you are keeping secrets” and “you are wilfully using your own child as bait”.

This whole suspicious climate, that makes Olruggio jump straight to the ugliest conclusion possible, is once again a feature of the Great Hall mentality. The mind of a person who has been in contact with forbidden magic is forever corrupt, and his actions are forever suspect. Had Qifrey been anyone else, he would probably have been given the benefit of the doubt for losing track of his students while he was, you know, extremely concussed and suffering from blood loss. Interestingly, Olruggio’s concern – whether, when faced with a chance to go after the Brimhats, Qifrey would choose his quest over his students’ safety – is addressed as early as chapter 22: after an instinctive movement to rush into danger, Qifrey pulls himself back and takes measures to keep Coco and Tetia safe, and even plans to call Olruggio and the Knights Moralis as reinforcements to help rescue the others. Then he gets hit in the head by a giant snake golem, and the rest is history.

In general, Beldaruit’s and Olruggio’s accusations that Qifrey is using Coco as bait without caring for her wellbeing just don’t hold up. First, all the attacks by the Brimhats so far have occurred in completely mundane, teaching-related settings with other adults present (at the stationary shop, or during an exam), so pushing blame onto Qifrey clearly comes from prejudice rather than evidence. Second, if Qifrey’s sole aim was to get clues on the Brimhats, he would pressure Coco into taking the Librarian test as early as possible, but we keep seeing the opposite: he encourages her to take breaks and to enjoy her training rather than be laser-focused on her goals. Hilariously, out of the two tests Coco passed so far, Qifrey gave his approval for none, thinking it was too early for her (extra-hilariously, Beldaruit is the one who speed-ran Coco through her second test). I’m just saying, if Olruggio hasn’t noticed any of this and can’t take it in consideration before bringing out the accusations and threats, maybe he’s not doing that good a job as a Watchful Eye.

Another thing about this climate of suspicion, added to the power imbalance between Qifrey and Olruggio, is that it prevents them from having a healthy fight. Olruggio invokes his duties as Watchful Eye to berate Qifrey whenever he steps out of line, but when Olruggio lets his temper carry him too far and misuses his own power (when he drags Coco out to the Knights Moralis even though she had already been officially accepted as an apprentice in volume 2, or when he accuses Qifrey of using Coco as bait in volume 7 without proof), Qifrey never criticises him for doing so. It’s not that he is shy about speaking up to power – he is more than happy to yell at Beldaruit and Easthies when they mistreat his students. But when it comes to Olruggio, Qifrey is compelled to shoulder as much blame as he can, and seems almost afraid of saying anything negative to him.

It would have been justified for Qifrey to start chapter 40 by getting mad at Olruggio for his earlier accusations: Olruggio had been insensitive, unhelpful and completely out of line. But instead Qifrey pretty much encourages Olruggio to attack him again: from his “I thought you might be mad at me” to frantically denying that Olruggio might have ever done anything wrong. In return, there is something defensive in Olruggio’s delivery during the “I’m angry that I wasn’t someone you could trust” segment: he walks away from Qifrey as he gives the non-apology, and it comes out sandwiched between criticisms of Qifrey for being reckless and a long speech of Olruggio praising himself, and how everything would be alright if only Qifrey behaved himself and relied on him more. It’s an issue that this old distribution of roles is so well-entrenched between them, with Olruggio as the golden student and Qifrey as the eternal problem child.

Qifrey’s exaggerated gentleness and praise towards Olruggio participates in the feeling of wrongness that weighs on chapter 40. The memory erasure scene is framed like a kiss, and Qifrey keeps complimenting him even after sending him into an unnatural sleep. It would come across as condescending and manipulative, except for how fervently Qifrey seems to want to believe that Olruggio is perfect, and that any dysfunction in their relationship has to come from him.

Qifrey, focused as he is on his own dark secrets, is utterly unwilling to see any darkness in Olruggio. It makes sense when you consider that Qifrey has also been absorbing the prejudices of the Great Hall: he thinks very little of himself, and has probably been looking up to Olruggio as a moral compass ever since Olruggio took him under his wing as a child. He must also comfort himself with the thought that, when/if his quest drags him away from the atelier, Olruggio will be a perfect teacher for the girls. Having to come to terms with Olruggio’s flaws must be terrifying to him. But what about Olruggio’s perspective in all this?

Olruggio is an example of how even those who materially benefit from an elitist, close-minded society are damaged by it in some way. He grew up in the Great Hall as a bright-eyed, idealistic genius, and even as an adult he clings to the principles of that society like a mantra: “bring the blessings of magic to the people”. He is successful and respected by his peers, popular with the nobles and well-liked among the commoners. Yet somewhere along the way he became a ragged, workaholic hermit.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I suspect Olruggio of grappling with his own, deep-seated fear of being unwanted and left behind. He betrays that fear in the way he is attacking Qifrey: his concerns about Qifrey’s treatment of Coco aren’t based on evidence, and underneath that veneer he is mostly complaining that Qifrey is neglecting him. “Be straight with me”, “Don’t lie to me”, “You wouldn’t even tell me about it”, “You took her as a student without a word to me first”. There again, Olruggio is being a bit hazy on how far his influence goes as Watchful Eye: from what we know, Watchful Eyes are meant to ensure that students don’t get mistreated, but they don’t get a say in who teaches whom: it’s the disciples who choose their masters. Olruggio grumbling about Qifrey adopting more and more children behind his back is cute when we treat them as a couple. But from the perspective of their professional relationship, Olruggio is claiming the right to veto Qifrey’s students and take them away from him without any evidence of abuse.

The problem is that Olruggio is very bad at expressing his feelings without using his job, and therefore his authority, as a crutch. It’s endearing when he uses it to explain away his gifts to the girls (“I just want them to test a prototype”) or his marks of affection and care (“Drying your hair so you don’t catch a cold is part of my duties as Watchful Eye!”). However, it adds a layer of threat to his arguments with Qifrey, because he is constantly dangling that authority over his head, even when he is urging Qifrey to trust him. In his more agitated moments, it turns into a one-man good-cop / bad-cop performance (“Step out of line and I’ll report you” / “Why won’t you confide in me? I’m your best friend!”). Sure, he is willing to side with Qifrey against the Knights Moralis when he deems it appropriate, but here’s the catch: Olruggio gets to decide where the line in the sand lies, and that line seems to shift depending on how hot his temper is flaring at any given time.

It’s no wonder their conversation lends them in a dead-end when it is so one-sided. Thourghout the manga, and in volume 8 in particular, the author explores the idea that help should be a collaborative effort between equals, that encourages both parties to grow and learn more about themselves. Trying to unilaterally “save” someone is almost guaranteed to miss the mark and come across as condescending; it might even cause further harm.

Help as a collaboration between equals

Therefore, Qifrey and Olruggio can’t really come to any connection unless they make it clear that they are helping each other, not just endlessly acting out their roles as the golden student who knows all the right answers, and the problem child who must be saved from himself.

Aside from the framing, help as an equivalent exchange is the other key difference between chapter 40 and Qifrey and Coco’s dialogue earlier in the volume. In order to counter Coco’s doubts and growing self-hatred, Qifrey reinforces everything he admires about Coco: from her social skills and capacity for teamwork to her practical skills and her straight lines. He reminds her of all the things that she achieved so far. He also strongly hints that her fight is his fight, too, and that they should hold onto hope for each other’s sake. Finally, he makes a (pretty dramatic, unnecessarily literal and definitely unsafe, but still awesome) leap of faith by letting her decide what direction she wants to take next. His support isn’t conditional on Coco making the “right” choice, but freely offered. In return, Coco makes a display of saving Qifrey as well, saying she wants him right by her side while she figures out her path. The rescue itself is symbolic (it would actually have been safer for Qifrey to go back on his own), but Qifrey’s gratitude is genuine, because Coco made him feel valued, irreplaceable, just as Beldaruit and Olruggio were making him doubt his place as a teacher.

By contrast, Olruggio’s speech of friendship contains a grand total of ONE compliment, served in such a back-handed way that it sounds almost like a warning: “To Coco, you are a good teacher, so don’t betray that trust”. This is weighted against a slurry of criticisms about Qifrey’s recklessness, and heaps of self-praise. Olruggio is making a case for why Qifrey needs help and why Olruggio is best-qualified to deliver that help, like he is making a sales pitch to a client. It’s probably not a coincidence that Olruggio is remembering his successful bout of diplomacy in chapter 39 as he gears himself for his conversation with Qifrey. Olruggio, look, I get that you have more faith in your professional persona than in your regular self, but you can’t talk to your best friend like you are doing customer service, it just doesn’t work that way.

The help that Olruggio offers leaves no room for Qifrey’s input: once Qifrey has confided everything and laid himself bare, Olruggio will pick apart “where he needs the help” and “when he is about to do something stupid”, and either support or stop him as he judges appropriate. It reinforces Qifrey’s inferiority complex and interiorised guilt, by implying that his moral compass can’t be trusted. It also places the blame for Qifrey’s rash actions solely on his lack of judgement, rather than on having to grapple with complex, life-threatening situations and being caught in a pincer between a terrorist group and an oppressive system. There’s no mention that the definition of what’s “lawful” and “responsible” and “just” has gotten a bit messed up lately, and that Olruggio himself has had to compromise with his duties to cover for the kids. Olruggio fakes confidence in his capacity to fix everything, and pretends that things can go back to the way they were, but it would have been more honest of him to ask Qifrey to work with him so they can form a united front to face their new, complex reality.

Instead, by claiming that he is helping Qifrey out of a sense of duty, as Watchful Eye and as a friend, Olruggio reinforces the feeling that Qifrey is a burden to him. This gives Qifrey more incentive to keep his friend away from his investigations, and to see himself as expendable. In that light, since their friendship brings Olruggio so much trouble and so few benefits, betraying him and stealing the memories that relate to Qifrey’s secrets start to look like the lesser evil.

The only way that the conversation in chapter 40 could have gone well is if they both freely admitted to needing each other. However, it is too early in Olruggio’s character arc to be honest about his own feelings and worries. And it is too early in Qifrey’s character arc to see past his own self-loathing and recognize that his “perfect” friend also needs support and guidance. Yet, when they do, it is hinted that Olruggio can draw inspiration from Qifrey, and help Qifrey in a more meaningful way by highlighting how Qifrey matters to him, letting them reach this stage of true collaboration.

What Olruggio wants from Qifrey

I think Olruggio is repressing a sense of disillusionment about his work, the fairness of the system, and his usefulness as a witch. We see glimpses of his anxiety in chapter 39 notably. While he says that his true role is to help the commoners, circumstances keep reminding him that like it or not, his main function is decorative. He gets dragged in on short notice to be yanked around by petty nobles and arrange light shows at weddings; he has to act in secret to help the destitute, and even then can only do so much before the rules of magic society get in his way. So far he manages to keep his head above water, using his talent for diplomacy and showmanship to keep the nobles appeased, and finding small, creative ways to help commoners without breaking any law. But it leaves him with the feeling of being trapped in an increasingly constraining role, and is slowly pushing him towards a burn out.

He seems to feel a kinship with princess Mia, who like him is used as a tool in petty squabbles between nobles. He even metaphorically puts himself in her shoes: after likening her situation to being trapped in the spotlight in a dance she doesn’t want, he applies the same metaphor to himself and his inability to act outside the narrow constraints of witch rules, of being constantly watched and judged. And then, adorably enough, Olruggio actually brings Qifrey into the metaphor. He muses that Qifrey, who has gone against established rules before, might be the key to escaping that dance.

For all that the “problem child” / “star student” dichotomy has been weighing on Olruggio and Qifrey and warping their friendship, there is a flip side to it as well. As a prodigy who always pressures himself to perform perfectly (to the point where he will work himself to a zombie-like state and then hide behind a mask to look perfect and pristine in front of his clients at parties, Olruggio no), Qifrey provides a chance at escapism. For all that he berates him for causing trouble, Olruggio seems to fondly remember their old adventures. It’s possible that he valued the opportunity to do rebellious, forbidden things without having to jeopardise his reputation. His fear of being left behind by Qifrey is then also a fear of losing his hope that, when the pressure of being the perfect witch becomes too much to bear, Qifrey will be there to break him free.

In summary, Olruggio wants Qifrey to be his rebellious prince who breaks him free from the ballroom, and we respect him for it. Qifrey had his reasons for not being able to confide in him, and they both have a lot of character development to do before they can reach a stage of actual collaboration and trust. But I don’t dispute that taking his memories was a dick move. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

#witch hat atelier #witch hat meta #qifrey #orugio #olruggio #orufrey

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your-highnessmarvel · 3 years

Text

From Bleak to Bright - Part Eleven

All other parts on on my masterlist, link provided below.

AN: soooo um i think this may be a little tension relieving ;;;;)))

Warnings: angst, language, SMUT (18+ ONLY)

MASTERLIST - SERIES MASTERLIST

PART ELEVEN

** Two years later, Manhattan, New York **

You scrolled down on your phone, pretending to actually be doing something, while you waited for Natasha. A group of teenagers had come into the cafe, loud, laughing, challenging each other to some stupid fight. You rolled your eyes, chewing on some gum, making sure they kept their distance with you. Who knew what those kids had touched. Ew.

Nat texted you that she was around the corner, and to keep from staying a second longer with the obnoxiously loud teens, you all but ran out the cafe. You marched down the street, spring air brushing through your hair. There was a smell between a wood fire and flowers that drafted from God knows where. The sun was high up, the afternoon in Manhattan hot. Many people walked by wearing shorts or tank tops. Summer was approaching. It brought a smile to your face.

But that smile soon faded as you walked by the newspaper outlet and caught sight of the title.

TWO YEARS SINCE NEW YORK ATTACK

You gulped, biting on the inside of your cheek. It had already been two years since the last time you’d spoken to him? It seemed like way longer. It seemed as if you’d walked into a parallel universe. No one ever talked about him, least of all your friends and family. Least of all you.

You shook your head, brushing away the thoughts that brought you back to all those years ago. You shook away an image of a loft, of a coffee table full of leather-bound books, of hands on your body.

“Hey!”

You looked up, Natasha standing before you in a trendy outfit that made her look like a runway model. She had huge sunglasses perched on her nose, pink bubblegum in her mouth.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Yeah!” you answered, trying to hide the newspapers with your body, but you saw how her chin dipped when you walked by. She would surely see the titles and tell your brother. Dammit. You’d been doing so well.

Technically, you’d been doing fine.

Ever since the Avengers had defeated Loki and Thor had brought him back to Asgard, you’d never seen or heard of him. You’d gone to a few rounds of therapy, mostly with psychologists who dealt in soulmates, and after a few months of isolation, Bruce had let you go. It had been a relief to have your phone back, your liberties, your God damn car.

When you’d gotten the keys to your apartment back, it had felt final. But as the last people invited to your “homecoming” celebration had dwindled out, you’d found yourself in a pit.

Everything was muted. Yes, you still saw colors, but without the person behind those colors, you just drifted. Yes, you were happy, somewhat, but whenever you saw couples together, something in your chest burned, like a slow leaking flame. You’d never be like them. Even though you’d heard stories about people marrying someone who wasn’t their soulmate, the simple thought of having another man - except Loki - in your life sent shivers down your spine.

“I heard they got free donuts,” Nat said, bending her head close to yours. You giggled, but there was no heart it in.

She was bringing you to a stupid singles night out. Even though she briefly skirted on the fact that you’d already found your soulmate, she said it was an opportunity “to get out there”.

Hell, maybe it would make you forget Loki, although you highly doubted.

The night went on in a sort of downward spiral. It started off really fast and funny, with music and drinks, and a lot of men fighting to come to talk to you and the hot redhead. But with every passing guy, the more they didn’t look like him, the more they said things that set your teeth on edge, the duller you felt.

Like being emptied slowly, hand by hand, touch by touch.

By the time Nat brought you back to your apartment, you could barely manage a smile.

You tried, once again, fixing your stupid leaking tap but decided against it and went straight to bed. Because of that stupid newspaper, you had nightmares, plagued by a dark-haired prince wearing green and gold armor.

In the morning, you ignored the tap and went to work. When you came back, the tap wasn’t leaking and you thanked your lucky guardian because if you had to hear one more drop, you’d lose it.

The next night, coming home after drinks with your brother, the windowpane was fixed.

You knew something was wrong when your squeaking front door slid on perfectly oiled hinges.

Someone had been in your apartment. Multiple times.

Stepping in your apartment that night, eight nights after the tap was “fixed”, you looked around in the darkness. The shadows seemed denser, more menacing, as if they hadn’t been standing there every night, ever.

You looked at your tiny kitchen. Nothing seemed amiss. You checked the lock, but it locked on its own with no problem. Even better than before.

You couldn’t actually complain about your little home invader because they had fixed all the problems that were slowly driving you to the brink. But you hadn’t said a word to anybody, not even Bruce, because deep down, you knew who’d be waiting for you one night, eventually.

The bathroom light had been changed. It used to flicker all the time, giving you the creeps while you took a shower. But now it opened wildly bright and stayed there.

There. That was the daily change.

You changed in the bathroom, taking a hot, quick shower, keeping the door firmly locked. You felt watched as you padded across your apartment in your jammy shorts and tank top, your hair a wet rope down your back.

The cabinet where you kept your mugs had a faulty knob that had cut you on more than one occasion. It was polished now.

Hands trembling, you pivoted in your kitchen, fingers white-knuckling the countertop.

“I know it’s you,” you murmured, feeling your heart throbbing in your throat. The shadows seemed to listen. “I know what you’ve been doing.”

You apartment seemed to breathe, swallowing your words, digesting them. But nothing came back to you. You kept expecting the shadows to linger, to move, to break away, but everything remained still, quiet.

Your heart plummeted.

You went to bed looking out the window, noticing just how clean it was for an apartment in downtown Manhattan.

You had dreams of him, vivid dreams. You swore you could feel fingers on your cheek the next morning.

It’s when you walked in to the scent of flowers and found a bouquet of your favorite in the kitchen that you truly lost it. It took everything in you not to pick it up and smash the glass vase against the wall. There was no note, but just the fact that now, he wasn’t being so subtle about him breaking and entering, made your heart bash wildly against your ribs.

But you knew what he was doing. He was trying to get to you without the others knowing. He’d surely scourged the place for microphones or cameras, just like you’d done two years ago, and found none. He knew the Avengers, or anybody watching, wouldn’t know he’d been here. And just the fact that you’d told no one about the mysterious repairs in your flat meant everything for him.

You turned, flowers at your back. The shadows seemed to be smiling. They knew he was here.

You were older now, wiser. You knew how to play his little games.

“I’m not afraid,” you said to the dark. The curtains had been drawn in the living room, you noticed, as you made your way there. He’d wanted this to be done in private.

“I know you’re here,” you continued, inching to the windows, intent on pulling them back to shed some moonlight in your apartment. “You can... you can talk to me,” you whispered, heart heavy and harsh in your ribs. Your hands had begun to shake the closer you got to the curtains.

When you wrenched them open, exposing the city beneath you, you could barely take your eyes off the horizon.

Because you saw it.

The flicker.

His face there and then not, your heart wrenching in your chest, causing an audible gasp from your lips to echo in the room.

You felt the heat of him at your back. “I thought you were unafraid?” he asked, his voice rumbling, something vicious seizing your insides with a hot grip.

Something akin to a puzzle piece clicked back into place at the sound of his voice. You could breathe lighter now, see colors more vividly, hear the world around you clearly. All this time, you’d suffocated, been drowning, and now you weren’t.

“I’m not,” you answered, but neither you nor he missed the way your voice trembled.

You felt the warmth of his hand on your hip, saw the reflection of him flicker in the window as he leaned closer, his lips brushing the space beneath your ear. Fire lit everywhere on your flesh as he brought himself flush with you.

He inhaled. “I’ve missed you,” he mumbled against your skin, the sound of it vibrating in your bones.

“Where...” you licked your lips and restarted. “Where have you been?”

His other hand braced just under your throat, long fingers seeping warmth through the fabric of your t-shirt.

“Away,” he mumbled. He slid his hand from your hip to the sliver of skin under the hem of your t-shirt and you hummed involuntarily. His touch was like no other’s. “You’re so soft,” he mumbled.

You tried not to forget that he’d left you there on the floor two years ago, but the way his body fit against yours made any logical thought seep from your brain.

“I’ve dreamt of you for so long,” he drawled, making it seem as if you’d been separated for an eternity. “I’ve dreamt of your eyes. Your voice. The way your body fits right onto mine.” He shifted slightly, pressing you harshly against him. “I’ve not the heart to take another woman to bed. I want it to be you.”

His words sent a strange heat dripping down into your belly, heavy and wanting. Your mouth parted, and the hand Loki had against your chest slipped up until his thumb pressed against your mouth. “How sweet of you,” you said against his thumb.

He chuckled lowly. “I can show you sweet,” he said.

“I rather you practice restraint,” you mumbled, even though deep down, you meant none of it.

He chuckled again, shaking his head, lowering his hand back so it lay lightly around your throat. Then his chuckle turned into a groan, his force deepening. “Y/n,” but now his voice was pleading, like a man who’d been deprived of everything. “Please. I’ve thought of you all this time. Don’t push me away. Not you.”

The last part made you frown, but you nonetheless pushed from him, turning to face him. He had deep, dark circles under his eyes, his face ashen as if he hadn’t slept in a millennia. His hair was slightly longer, curling along his jaw, hiding his ears. He wore a white t-shirt and black slacks, but he was cold as you pressed your fingers against his shoulders.

“Okay,” you whispered. You tried not to maintain eye contact because the haunted look in his green eyes made you sick.

He bent forward slightly, grasping your face between his huge, warm hands. The first brush of his lips was soft, sending butterflies scuttling across your belly. But then he gripped your face, bringing you to him, and kissed you like he was a starving man and you were his reprieve.

A strangled moan left his throat, his lips molding to yours, driving you backwards until your spine hit the window. One hand went to the glass to soften your fall, but he didn’t let up his rhythm. You could barely keep up anyway.

He kept kissing you so harshly, delving his tongue between your teeth, angling your head back to kiss you deeply, that every rational thought in you just went to dust.

You gripped his back, marveling at the strong muscle, bringing him flush against you. One hand went to his hair, knotting in the raven locks, tugging until you swore you’d hurt him. But he kept kissing you, hands venturing to your hips, sliding over your ass, gripping your thighs and hauling you up.

On instinct, you wrapped your legs around his waist, feeling his arousal just where you wanted him, and he spun you away from the window. How he moved with such eloquence as he devoured your mouth befuddled you, but when your ass found the countertop and Loki pressed himself between your legs, your brain fizzled. A whole jar of butterflies now flew in your belly.

He broke from the kiss momentarily to grasp your breasts, kneading them in his hands, marveling at the sight.

“Restraint, Loki,” you mumbled breathlessly, lips swollen.

One of his brows furrowed, but he went right back to kiss you, holding your tits in his hands, then moving to grip your thighs with such strength it should have hurt.

“I can’t stop,” he breathed between kisses, holding the back of your head. “I want you. I want you so fucking bad.”

You squeezed your eyes shut harshly, ignoring the red alarms in your head. Because it was him. Because it was him, always him, and now that he was here, touching you almost everywhere, his scent invading your senses, you never wanted him to go.

He pulled your head back and kissed down your neck, over the swell of your breast, taking one nipple lightly between his teeth. A gurgled moan left your throat, Loki holding your head back, exposing everything to him.

“No bra?” he grumbled against your skin, his tongue soothing the ache on your nipple.

You just breathed in response, your legs clenching against his arms.

He chuckled against your body. His left hand, the free one, slid down the length of your chest until he took one finger to lightly circle you through your pants.

You gasped, jolting in his grasp, his mouth possessively clamping shut on your nipple.

“Eager,” he hummed. He was so warm, smelled so fucking good, that the second time he applied pressure and circled his fingers, you all but moaned for everyone to hear. He teased you some more, licking and pleasing you all through your clothing.

Then his mouth left your hardened nipple and traveled up to your ear, where the warmth of his breath made you shiver. “If I can do this to you,” he whispered, circling your core through your pants. “Imagine how it’ll feel when I fuck you.”

His words made you want to clench your thighs together, to keep the heat and pressure there, but his body was still between your legs. He chuckled, biting your neck, hard, knowing it would leave a mark. He yanked your head forward until your eyes met his.

“I can feel just how much you want me,” he mumbled, hiding his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling. “I can smell it.”

You rocked once against his hand, eliciting a groan from him as your thigh briefly brushed him through his pants. He was hard. Wanting. The hand behind your hand squeezed until it hurt, but when he soothed his tongue against your neck, circling your clit, you lost yourself in him again.

“Y/N,” he murmured, chanting your name like a prayer. You were almost there and you couldn’t believe it. You rocked against his hand, biting your lip, and when he saw that, he brought your mouth into a breathtaking kiss. “Cum against me,” he said through each kiss. “Cum.” It was a command.

You squeezed your eyes, grinding against his circling hand, and when he licked your neck, you all but came apart with a moan. Loki quickly kissed you, swallowing your sounds of pleasure as he slowly, leisurely circled you through your pants. Your legs shaking, you trembled against him until his fingers stopped and he brought his forehead to yours.

“Run away with me,” he whispered. “Let me ravage you every night, y/n, please.”

Lost in the dizzying aftermath of your orgasm, all you could do was breathe, eyes closed. You fisted one hand in his shirt, feeling his heart beating savagely under his breastbone.

You tilted your head up, meeting his gaze.

“No,” you said.

AAAAHHHH omg i was so shy writing that little smutty part lmaooo BUT YES MORE TO COME OOOOHHHH (you will get a whole smut scene soon, let me get used to writing smut again hihihihi)

tags: @subtlemalice @yallgotkik @buckyandlokirunmylife @kaz11283 @legolas-bromance @shylittlemountain @tofeartheunknown @feelmyfckngsoul @kind-of-crazy-butthatsokay @caffiend-queen @tomhollandsslilslut @lady-loki-ren @nathan-no @rosaline-black @abundanceofcarolines @my-own-oracle @it-was-all-a-beautiful-dream @marvelouslovely @drbaureid @bored-as-hell-666 @youhavemyfantasticbeasts @theinfinitenerd @toe-vind-ek-jou @ink-and-starlight @blank-bakabane @sunshineonloki @holaamishamigos @palegoopbearlight @heyarely16 @pleaseexecuteme @athalahild @help-i-need-a-social-life @tapismyforte @coloursforyourportrait @celestialstarshadow @fukyouthink @lust-for-pan @thic-thor @winchescumberholland

#loki #lokixyou #lokixyn #lokixreader #loki x you #loki x yn #loki x reader #smut #soulmate au #loki fic #loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #imagine loki #loki imagine #loki oneshot

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hansoulo · 4 years

Text

lay back in cloying sin

part three of “Pillar of Salt”

Pairing: Boba Fett/Princess!Reader (she/her pronouns, no Y/N)

Warnings: NSFW-ish; references to marks and bruises, kissing, probably inaccurate descriptions of ballroom dancing, fluff, mentions of alcohol consumption

Word Count: 3.3k

Gif Credit: (x) by @/ktfhett

A/N: boba & reader: [tyler the creator voice] oh no i hope i don’t fall

༓ series masterlist ༓

Dinner was a tedious affair, filled with hollow pageantry. It was one last hurrah before the send off of the honored guests, one of which you’d never talked to and the other who was nowhere to be found. The former, Lord Vader, sat at the head of the long table and made for very unamusing company. You had the distinct impression that he’d rather be anywhere than here, having to listen to his uniformed subordinates squabble in grating voices and your father simper about mining collectives. That made for two of you.

But the cavernous banquet hall was always beautiful, if a bit ostentatious, and the food never disappointed, so you consoled yourself with a loosened corset and the promise of a second dinner by servants who pitied your forced small portions.

You floated into the large room, shuffled through by the compounding procession before an older man offered to help you into your seat. The ornateness of your evening wear made you grateful for the help, watching in sincere thanks as he pulled out the high-backed chair.

“Thank you, um…” the color of his robes and the softness of his hands signalled high rank and you chanced a guess. “Duke...?”

“Sagcock,” he finished for you. “Jovron Sagcock.”

He has got to be joking.

Evidently, he wasn’t.

If the man saw you choke on a laugh, sputtering it into a hiccup as you sat down, he pretended not to notice. After all, princesses knew better than to be unbecoming or crass or know why any part of that exchange could be fodder for humor.

Fighting down one last cough, you attempted to regain some sense of decorum. What a wonderful start to the evening.

The arrangement of persons on this particular night was strange though, even disregarding the title of the man now seated beside you. There were more people than usual filling out the hall tonight, all fancily clad and buffed to shining. Boba wasn’t anywhere to be found.

The supposed importance of the occasion probably necessitated a shuffling of seats to soothe egos and encourage conversation, but you weren’t used to being so close to the head of the table, near parallel with your mother. Usually your elder sisters sat higher and provided you the benefit of distance. Of course, they were all gone now. Your brother was still too young to be at evening dinners, so there was no buffer between you and your parents’ ire.

Maybe this was the Maker’s way of getting back at you for your tiny tryst. Maybe they all knew about what happened in the garden and were just waiting for the shoe to drop, branding you as a harlot and finally letting you free. Vader’s static words travelled down the table and mingled with your father’s but you were too busy entertaining worse-case scenarios to understand conversation.

People were observing you, you realized partway through the first round of courses. Watching you with strange eyes as if you were the last scrap of halfway-spoiled meat for imperial officials and all the nobility that had come to pay their prostrate respects. No one had really given half a damn about you before, which made it all the more strange.

A heel foot softly kicked at yours underneath the table, breaking you out of your glazed thoughts. The fork you had been mindlessly moving across your plate stopping mid-swirl. Looking up, you met the quiet glare of your mother and cleared your throat.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” you asked. Your question was punctuated with a smile too large to be genuine. The queen’s head jerked towards the grizzled man seated to her right and you turned towards him at her behest, face open in trained invitation. “Oh, hello, General.”

General Enes, current commander of the army of Quas Killam. Not strictly Imperial, but aligned close enough to have him in the king’s good graces and to reside permanently at court. He was also a Duke and probably a cousin thrice removed, but who was counting?

“No need to stand on pleasantries, your Highness,” the gray-haired man assured you, one large hand resting over his stomach as servants replaced the dirtied plates in front of you with new ones. You only sipped delicately at your algarine as he chortled and remembered, “It seems like yesterday that you were running around the palace with your sisters. A little sprite of a thing, weren’t you?”

Was he drunk already? “Yes, I remember,” you tread pleasantly; carefully.

The general settled and let out one last chuckle before his eyes grew hawk-like again, trained in the jewelry and accoutrements that signified your being old enough to marry but young enough to have not yet been taken. Like a prize. Or a charity donation. “You’ve grown into quite the young woman, you know.”

So that’s where this was going. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes and tried to look gracious. “Thank you, sir. That’s a high compliment.”

“How old are you again, dear?”

Masking your surprise at the forwardness of the question, you supplied your age to a nod of approval from both him and your mother.

“A good age, I’d say. ‘Round the same as my youngest.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” you shot a look down the table and caught a glimpse of cropped flaxen hair, its owner sitting enough seats down to prevent any shared conversation. You counted your blessings for it and smiled, tight-lipped. “Your son and I shared company when we were children.”

“Well that’s very nice,” the queen interjected quite loudly and looked around the long table with a light laugh but cold eyes. “Isn’t that nice?”

Your father looked at you for the first time all evening as if on cue, boring a hole into your face with the words he seemed to be telepathically trying to put in your mouth.

The taste of bitter wine on your tongue made your thoughts fevered, though not borne out of alcohol so much as the memories of someone else’s touch in the same places. “Yes,” you repeated vaguely. “Very nice.”

Darth Vader apparently didn’t remove his helmet. You wondered why he came to dinner at all.

The remaining evening hours had been whittled away by dessert and drinks. Everyone who cared to stay shuffled into the ballroom, a behemoth of a thing filled with inky windows and sparkling artifice. It was a blur of waltzes and predetermined couplings with boys you’d been ignoring since you were old enough to kick them in their shins, but you didn’t care enough to go to pains to avoid it. They broke up the monotony of introductions, at least, and let your mind and body be somewhere else for a while.

All compounded, the night left you flushed and tired. You needed alcohol. Or air. The latter was probably the more reasonable choice of the two.

Being in the midst of ballroom theatrics allowed for an easy enough escape, and a side entrance to a balcony overlooking the palace grounds became the object of your attention.

The tall double doors lay open in their glass encasings and spilled out lamplight refractions on the guests’ gaudy clothing and gaudier jewelry, everything sparkling and warm. But you were far enough away from it to still be chilled by the night air, a balm for your flushed cheeks and fizzling temper.

Usually guests ignored it in favor of staying indoors, so you were fairly confident in the promise of solitude and an undisturbed breeze.

But someone apparently had the same idea as you.

“Hello,” you ventured out a greeting to the silhouette not yet fully in your vision. You stepped closer and the heels of your shoes echoed on clay tiles. “I’m sorry, am I bothering you?”

Royal Highnesses shouldn’t really care about whether or not they were disturbing strange party guests, you could make them leave if you felt so inclined, but something in you was feeling magnanimous tonight. You tried not to think about why.

The figure didn’t turn back towards you, still facing out towards the blurry glitter of urban lights far off in the distance. It looked pretty this far away, all glowing masses and amorphous buildings that scraped the sky. You’d never been close enough to see all the dinge and smog that made its home in places not populated by princesses. Marble felt more familiar than metal.

The man wore metal too, and his voice scraped at your chest when he answered. “You’re not bothering me, princess.”

Oh.

You ventured cautiously towards the balcony’s edge, next to the man you now could recognize as Boba. The thick stone railing was cool to the touch. “Hello.”

His helmet tipped to the left, which was probably his way of saying it back.

“I didn’t see you at the dinner,” you noticed quietly. Would it be presumptuous to assume he was avoiding you? Intellect said yes, but ego didn’t listen. You leant forward, the speckled marble digging into your elbows as you mirrored Boba’s sightline out into the city. “You know, you wouldn’t have needed to make conversation. Lord Vader was the guest of honor and all he did was sit there.”

“I don’t like crowds.”

“Ah.”

A silence lapsed between you, awkward as if you were strangers. You were though, weren’t you? Strangers. Not friends. Not lovers. Not really.

But if he asked you to crack yourself open for him, you would. You would rip apart every satin petticoat and snap the boning in your corsets until your hands were raw if it meant he would touch you; skin to skin. You’d run away and cite a hidden fountain as the reason why.

You didn’t know what he’d give up for you, if anything. Boba didn’t seem like the type to have much in the first place. Either by choice or by necessity.

The garden afternoon nagged at you after having time to form coherent thoughts, and the fizzy shine of palace lights reflecting off his helmet reminded you of what you’d been meaning to ask.

Night made you softer-spoken. “Why did you let me take off your helmet?”

Night made his edges sharper. “Why did you want to?”

“I asked first,” you volleyed back as reason enough to get an answer first.

Boba wasn’t a Mandalorian in the true sense of the word, at least that’s what gossip told you, so it didn’t really matter if he took the helmet off or not. But he kept it on in front of everyone else.

The hunter gave you visor-silence and your impatience made you concede. “I just wanted to see you,” you breathed out, still not looking at him. The admission sounded much more naive than you intended.

His words held their characteristic aloofness but were edged by gentle teasing. “What if I said the same?”

That he wanted to see you?

You still didn’t understand half of why he did what he did and what he wanted, but you turned to face him head-on anyway. Cold moonlight fell on your neck and the air cracked with fever. You tried to reply in jest. “Then I’d say that you were being stupid.”

“You’d be right.”

A swallow bobbed in your throat. He always seemed to take up your vision; fill it and suffocate you with seemingly no effort. “And then I’d ask you to do it again.”

“Do what, princess?”

He knew. He just liked seeing the words come out of your mouth.

“Let me take your helmet off.”

This time, he guided your hands up himself. They were slow and almost careful running across your palms, placing them on the mechanisms your fingers found in quick memory. Set on the balcony railing, the helmet seemed to be a prop. An upside down bucket filled with all the things you had yet to say to each other, spilling out onto the ground in a fog.

“I like you better without it,” you decided when he turned back towards you, his weight still resting on the railing with one cocked hip. Everything about the way he looked was dark: inky black curls and scarred brown skin and eyes that pushed the air in your lungs with a stall and a catch. They looked even darker next to tan clothes and green armor.

His voice wasn’t entirely lacking in humor. He did that. Humored you. “Do you now?”

“Mhm.” you nodded with fake seriousness, slightly giddy and slightly too brave. You blamed it on an excess of wine and good company. “Better-looking.”

He only scoffed, a flash of pearl-white canines serving as one half of a smile. A smile that had been wider when it was against your collarbones, your neck, your mouth. A smile that you wouldn’t mind being in other places.

You nudged Boba’s shoulder with your own when a waltz kicked up in the background, faint through the open ballroom door. “There’s music,” you implied, half-joking and half-expectant. There had been this whole time, of course, but acknowledging it now seemed better than never. “You should ask me to dance.”

“I’m not one for dancing, your Highness.”

The title made you roll your eyes, a commonplace formality that you usually insisted on but now found overly facetious. Coming from him, that is. “Clearly not,” you almost snorted. Pushing away from the marble ledge with a finality that seemed almost comical, you held your hand out and waited, eyebrows raising and fingers beckoning. Well? your face seemed to say, Are you coming?

His sigh was bone-deep and settled in your chest like chunks of black plaster, but it felt good. “You’re not going to let me leave, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” you replied, as if it’d be ridiculous to expect anything else. Princesses danced with men at parties. You were a princess. Boba was a man at a party. In a roundabout sort of way. “It’s easy, I promise,” you assured, wrapping your hand around his wrist and pulling him away from the balcony. His glove slipped down a bit; just enough that your thumb could press one soft circle against the tan skin over bone.

Uncomfortable wasn’t really the correct word for how you thought he felt. You doubted Boba could ever be uncomfortable. No. No, the right word would probably be… bemused. Like he was in a menagerie watching a creature, something exotic and pretty, with mild interest while it still had his attention. But you did have his attention. That was something.

“You put your right hand on my waist,” you moved to reposition the large fingers more accustomed to blasters than they were to bodices. Boba smirked, almost boyish, when you caught his hand wandering someplace else. “Not that low,” you chided with quiet exasperation, placing your palm atop his and guiding it back up.

The pale leather was warm underneath your skin and you bit down a smile, almost awe-struck at how strange your hand looked next to his. Yours was polished, weighed down by heavy gold bangles and softened by years of idle play. His, you suspected (for you didn't actually know; hadn’t yet actually seen), was anything but.

“That’s good,” you supplied lightly. “And then I do this,”your other hand reached to rest on Boba’s shoulder. “And then- no, no you give me your left hand. Hold it out- good.”

Still looking down, you were careful not to trip over your skirts or his boots. “And now we just-” you breathed out and glanced up, surprised to find his expression strangely careful. Almost tender. You gulped down the quiet notch in your throat. “-now we just um… sway. Like this.”

You eschewed complication in favor of a simple rhythm, just letting your feet fall wherever they liked so long as they didn’t tangle in themselves. Now wasn’t the time for anything laborious; you didn’t have faith enough in Boba’s footwork. But he actually wasn’t too bad all things considered. A bit stiff and a bit gruff, but those were part and parcel. It was a bit like dancing with a tree trunk. A very handsome, very broad, very taciturn tree trunk. It was easy to let yourself sink into it a little with how solid he felt.

The man arched an eyebrow when your fingers stretched to thread together with his. “Just sway?”

“You’re welcome to do a jig instead if you’d like,” you replied wryly as your weight shifted from foot to foot. The hand around your waist stiffened at the prospect and a grin escaped your face.

“Nevermind.”

The amusement that had previously only been in your throat escaped in a quiet laugh. “Thought so,” you whispered, victorious. Tension, bunched up in your shoulders and collected in your bones, melted completely when he pulled you closer and let your head fall against the space of his neck. Sinew fit against silk like puzzle pieces and warmed the quiet moment that followed. Neither of you spoke for fear of disturbing the fresh peace.

You found yourself dwelling more and more on hypotheticals. Unrealistic and stupid, you knew, given who you both were. But still you dwelt, unable to fathom a reality outside of the last nine hours and inside a reality within which Boba was gone.

Would he fit here, with the stucco and plaster and ivy? With all the sheltered society of an insignificant court? With you?

You wondered if he dwelt on hypotheticals, too.

Swallowing cold air as Boba thumbed the collar of your dress, you felt the light scatter of broken blood vessels from hours before smart again. Your cheek pressed against the pauldron of his beskar, but neither of you were really dancing anymore. “I- I wanted to talk,” you began quietly. “About earlier.”

“Did you not like it?” Did you not like me?

“No! No, I…” you shook your head, trying to rid yourself of his assumption. The crystals hanging from your headpiece tinkled with every soft movement. “No, I… I liked it. I like…” The lump in your throat seemed to travel down back into your stomach. “You,” you finished, swallowing the final word and leaving all its implications to settle in the night.

He could feel the rise and fall of your chest; delicate and airy and resigned. You spoke again. “But you’re leaving tomorrow and... and we could’ve been caught. And the more I think about it the more I really am not looking forward to the idea of some court scandal or being cloistered up like a nun because I—”

He called you your name.

He’d never used your name before.

You lifted your head off his shoulder, desperate-eyed and looking for answers you both knew he couldn’t give. “Yes?”

“Kiss me.”

You barely breathed out an okay before the arm around your waist tightened, crushing you against cold metal and a warm body.

He kissed you how a lover would. Like how a first kiss should’ve been.

It was gentle. Warm. Tender-mouthed and aching, placing promises down your throat with a soft hand and closed eyes. It was… It was…

It was broken up far too quickly.

A voice called out your name from somewhere far-off, regally accented and not at all welcome. It called your name again, first middle and last with all the titles in between with much less patience. Your mother, queen consort.

The groan of displeasure that escaped you was muffled in Boba’s mouth and swallowed up before it could give either of you away. He recovered much faster than you did, peeling back from your body with eyes already alert and scanning the shadows for passersby. There were none. For now.

“It’s my mother,” you whispered, letting your eyes roll seemingly out of your skull. “They’re probably doing some send-off for Vader’s entourage.”

Neither of you mentioned the fact that Boba was part of that entourage too.

Your last words were rushed before the footsteps became too close and the mercenary pulled away. You didn’t really want to stay to hear the answer. “Will I see you again?”

Boba Fett, you’d come to learn, wasn’t the kind of man to offer more than what he knew he could give.

The helmet went back on. “I don’t know.”’

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