#part of me thinks it would be cathartic to fail a unit and get that pressure off but i really don’t want to

[djungleskogs]

has anyone else failed a uni class because i swear no one i know has (outside of deliberately not completing assessments) and i am soo scared that i am going to fail one of my units this semester and i am kinda spiraling

[ruby-whistler]

This is targeted at your dream apologist post, just to be up front. Just wanted to give my two cents in on some of the stuff w/o doing a whole rebuttal, since… I don’t really want to lol. To start off, I had an issue with how you framed the beginnings of Lmanberg. How Lmanberg formed wasn’t colonizing, it was just independence from the greater dsmp from a set of members that disliked the way things were ran by Dream (and by more direct extension, the rest of the dsmp citizens, namely sapnap.) Dream was protecting his power, not any kind of attachment made to the server, I’d argue, becuz in the end the way he relinquished control was by gaining more; by getting leverage over one of the original members, Tommy, via taking his discs.

Another thing, you shouldn’t be angry at ppl for not feeling sympathetic for a character that’s done such heinous things against other characters. You’re more then welcome to feel bad for him yourself, but no one else has to. After watching the whole of Tommy’s exile arc, it’s very clear to see the Dream was cruel and horrible to a child that hardly deserved it. Dream was dehumanizing to Tommy. Making him put all of his self earned items into a hole every visit and promptly destroying it all, telling Tommy that his friends don’t miss him, blowing up Logstedshire after finding Tommy’s secret room (that he hid from Dream to stop him from destroying it) filled with Tommy’s resources for escaping, not even allowing him to leave, these aren’t the actions of a good person put into a hard place, or a person with trauma dealing poorly with said trauma. That isn’t justifiable. Dream shouldn’t be allowed to hurt and inflict trauma onto another person becuz he has trauma. What he did to Tommy and to his friends (saying he didn’t care about them, saying he only cares about Tommy’s discs, Sapnap even had that sad moment of “you don’t think he meant it did you?” which. Yknow. Look between the lines methinks) was awful and doesn’t have to be forgiven by either the victims or the fans of said victims.

My opinion on the prison stay is…. I don’t really care lol. I definitely do see it as he deserves it, because what he did to Tommy was horrific. I don’t have any real sympathy for an abuser, especially one that does shit that I’ve had done to me before and done against a character I relate to heavily. So. Sue me if I think that Dream should have his shit rocked. Ignoring that Dream had very clear reasons as to why he was put into the prison and the fact that many characters have reasons to hate his guts and also not feel sympathy for him is…. Definitely the Dream apologist mantra. Noah fence ^^

One last bit since this ask is getting real long, but it was narratively cathartic to see Dream actually receiving punishment for his actions. Cathartic quite literally means “psychological relief through strong emotions��� so. Yeah. Sorry ppl were getting it mixed up with catharsis, but there’s the word they probably meant to use. Didn’t realize it would be such a crime to mix up two very similar words but what can you do with a younger audience.

This isn’t meant to be an attack, or mean, so I’m sorry if I’ve been a little passive aggressive in my wording, but to be fair. Your post was as well ^^ Cant wait to hear your response, if you feel like giving one.

Alright, so first as a quick disclaimer, I’m going to out a summary of the original post’s points, just to ensure that we’re on the same page;

The post does say:

- don’t dehumanize c!Dream because it continuously hurts people who relate to and/or sympathize with him, also dehumanization in general is an inherently wrong mindset

- don’t attack people who sympathize with him because he’s a victim of abuse besides other things

The post never says:

- you cannot hate c!Dream and not sympathizing with him is wrong

- the things c!Dream has done are to any degree excused

- don’t dehumanize c!Dream because he’s a good person

- people who dehumanize c!Dream are real life abuse apologists

If you read the post and didn’t get these points from it, i advise you to reread it as I made pretty much all of these abundantly clear.

I don’t know why you’d start talking about L’manberg, but sure; I never said it was colonization. I said some people who have had their country colonized relate to him because he had his home torn apart and is desperate to return it back to its original state. This is a completely valid reason to relate to him as it is a pretty big part of the character.

Dream wasn’t protecting his “power”, because he didn’t actually have any power on the SMP besides technically owning it. Before L’manberg, all he’d do is walk around, fix creeper holes and the prime path, jump into conflicts and end them if they got too pointed - he even fixed Tubbo’s house once after Tommy burnt it down, he got unfairly mugged by Sapnap and Tommy because he had weaker armor etc. He never used his position as landowner unfairly and was on the same level as any other member; his only concern was too keep the community united and semi-peaceful. Of course he had an attachment to the server, it had been his home for months, maybe more on the SMP timeline.

Do you genuinely think listing the bad things he did is going to do anything to my empathy or the empathy of other c!Dream fans?

I saw the entirety of the exile arc live, and I saw what was happening, and I hated it, and I hated c!Dream. Yet I’m sympathetic to him when he goes through a similar situation, perhaps because I’m not a biased hypocrite.

I never said c!Dream was a good person. Saying “these don’t look like actions of a person with trauma” doesn’t make sense to me because, as you said later on, it isn’t justifiable either way. I’m not saying anyone has to forgive him. You don’t need to forgive an abuse victim for their prior actions to recognize their situation is messed up. You’re making up points to fight against in your rebuttal that I never actually said.

I’m not saying “don’t dehumanize c!Dream because he’s a good person”. I’m saying “don’t dehumanize c!Dream because he’s a person and dehumanization is wrong” and “people who relate to him shouldn’t be hurt or harassed”.

He didn’t even do “terrible things” to his friends, by the way. Tommy has said like five times that he doesn’t care about anyone but the discs but when he said that isn’t true his friends believed and forgave him. Dream says it once while something that matters to him is being threatened, so that it doesn’t get destroyed, and suddenly he’s hurting his friends (double standard methinks). As if he didn’t repeatedly try to help them and care about them up until that point and they abandoned him even despite his prior actions. He did things that might’ve hurt them, but that doesn’t compare to the amount of things he did for them. Saying he doesn’t care is blatant mischaracterization.

If you think (fictional) people who have done bad things deserve to be horribly abused and have their basic human rights violated, you know what, you do you. Be a fictional abuse apologist, be as bad as the people who say c!Tommy deserved it, go on. I disagree with you however, and I’m sure many people who are actually sensitive and care about/relate to fictional abuse victims (I have seen many c!Tommy apologists say the torture is awful and he doesn’t deserve it, thankfully) will disagree as well, so why should I care about your wrong opinion? If you’ve dehumanized him and are failing to see you’re incorrect and hurting people, bad for you. You’re just proving me right that this is a very real problem that this community has to do something about.

[radramblog]

What happened to Dirk in Homestuck^2?

Why am I doing this to myself.

I memed a little yesterday when I was posting that article around social medias about Homestuck jokes, because once again we are in lockdown and I am therefore Stuck at Home. Canned laughter goes here. But there’s a topic related to the comic- or more specifically, its aborted sequel, Homestuck^2, that I’m interested in delving into a little bit. I’m going to avoid talking about spoilers as much as possible, but considering said comic takes place not only after the events of the massive sprawl that is Homestuck but also the more linear but still messy Epilogues, some amount of sus shit is inevitable.

Anyway. Much maligned is what the Epilogues and 2 did to everyone’s favourite decapitation target, Dirk Strider, and I have a theory as to why it happened this way.

To begin with, let’s summarise what and who Dirk is through the course of the comics. Fair warning from me, though, it’s been a while since I read through this.

Dirk Strider is a teenager who grew up in a post-apocalyptic future Earth, completely devoid of physical contact with other people and only really ever gets to talk to 3 other people, only one of whom is in anything remotely resembling a relatable situation. He struggles with self-identity, having created numerous robots including an artificial intelligence based on his own brain, aka Lil’ Hal. He’s somewhat of a control freak, and a bit of a cold aloof asshole, but means well, and is pretty gay. NBD. The kinda guy to set up a plan meticulously and thoroughly, not informing any of the moving parts even if said parts are his friends, and often involving some form of self-sacrifice.

Throughout the comic he further reckons with self-identity problems and his own self-loathing including entering a relationship with Jake which doesn’t go well and he eventually breaks off since he knows his overbearing and manipulative behaviour is Not Cool and Pretty Toxic but doesn’t know how to shut it off. Eventually he reaches the God Tier as a Prince of Heart, gaining the power to literally annihilate souls, which he never actually uses since he gets yeeted into deep (Paradox) space and then everything goes to shit. Except none of that happens because of the Retcon (aside from the God Tier bit) and we don’t actually see how that shit progressed in the canon timeline. I think. Dirk’s arc, as it were, doesn’t really come full circle- while he does assist in Dave’s character…growth? he really isn’t the focus of that conversation. This immediately precedes the action climax and there isn’t literally any dialogue after that so that’s what we’re left with.

I like Dirk in Homestuck a lot. It’s hard not to, considering the flashes heavily featuring him (Unite/Synchronise and Prince of Heart: Rise Up) are genuinely excellent, along with many of his music themes being absolute bangers. He gets to interact with Caliborn a lot, with a pretty great banter, there, and the whole splintered personality thing is a really interesting hook for a character. I think he’s my favourite of the Alpha kids, a controversial pick considering I know everyone loves Roxy so much. I think, I’m not as in tune with the fandom as that statement implies I am.

And then the Epilogues/Homestuck 2 came.

Now I read the Meat half of the epilogues first, but that’s more interesting, so we’ll tackle Candy first (this is going to get real confusing for those who haven’t read this comic, huh).

In Candy, Dirk almost immediately kills himself, citing the irrelevance of the timeline as cause, an act considered by whatever mechanism governs God Tier deaths to be Just because he hates himself (and also bc of things we’ll get into), so it actually sticks. This isn’t super relevant for the discussion, but that’s just kinda so unbelievably fucked up? Entirely? I’d imagine if you read Candy first you might get entirely turned off by this, which I’m sure a lot of people did.

Meat is where the, well, meat of post-canon Dirk is. You see, a concept very quickly introduced in the tail end of the original comic is the Ultimate Self, an idea where you somehow encompass every different timeline iteration or alternate version of yourself. This was pretty clearly tacked on to make it so characters whose arcs all happened in the retcon timeline could have their not getting an actual arc explained away, but it didn’t land then and it sure doesn’t land for me now. Anyway, in Meat, Dirk becomes his ultimate self, making him near-omniscient and able to control the fabric of the story himself- for much of this story, he is the narrator. And he uses this power to fuck with all his friends really distressingly without their knowledge (or consent), including breaking up a marriage, in order to further his own goals which largely appear to be just keep the story going so to not fade out of relevance. It’s a plot that makes no sense with his previous characterisation, but I guess now that he’s the Ultimate Self he’s a different person? But I liked old Dirk, and I don’t like New Dirk. He’s a villain now, but he made a much better anti-hero.

But this would be fine if he (or the epilogues, or Homestuck^2) were written well. But they aren’t. Dirk’s dialogue is long, painfully drawn out, with tangents that tend to amount to pure wank, misused literary references and pointless metaphors that go on and on, filling the screen with a bright orange screed that hurts to look at as much as it does to comprehend. It’s not fun. And we’ve seen Dirk communicate before, obviously, the story of Homestuck is built around chatlogs, but it wasn’t like this. He was sarcastic, dryly witty, blunt at times. Even when he was literally talking to a different version of himself it didn’t get that masturbatory.

I was so confused about what the hell happened to Dirk, because I had no idea what the hell someone writing this character was thinking when they turned him into this. And then, the 21st page of Homestuck^2 dropped.

And it all came together.

What Ultimate Dirk and Terezi are referring to is Pony Pals: Detective Pony, a children’s book about some girls who hang out with ponies and solve a mystery. It’s a real book, buy it for your 5-year-old.

Except they’re not referring to that, they’re referring to the Homestuck Canon version of Detective Pony- a birthday gift from Dirk to Jane, heavily edited and to be much more obscene and eventually developing into it’s own story, stated to be “tough, emotionally draining, but cathartic in all the worst ways possible”.

Except the quote “Remember Longcat, Jane?” and references to philosophy, dead languages, and ancient earth culture aren’t referring to the three pages of the Dirk-edited Detective Pony we see in the actual comic itself. That quote doesn’t appear there.

That image is from Detective Pony, by Sonnetstuck- the 40,000 word fanfiction from 2014 that serves as a completed version of Jane’s copy of the book. An expansion of what we see in canon. And it’s a tough, emotionally draining read, but cathartic in all the worst ways possible.

It’s a very good fanfiction.

In the later bits of Detective Pony, we can start to see the origins of what would become Ultimate Dirk’s signature style of writing. Long blocks of rambling text, orange dripping down the page, references to philosophy and history and language that go on and on. And it probably does look familiar to those who read the Epilogues and ^2. 

But there are a couple of key differences here. First of all, it’s just better written? The way these rambles circle back on themselves is so excellent, the absolute absurdity of this being written on top of a pony book for little girls, the humour (beyond some of the more immature stuff), it’s just a really well-written piece of fiction. Hell, you don’t even need to be familiar with the character of Dirk to enjoy it. It’s a harrowing piece, but it’s also self-aware- because it’s not supposed to be tough, draining, cathartic etc. just for Jane- it’s clearly that for Dirk himself.

The second part is, of course, that this is a fanfiction. It’s not canon, it’s not official, this is by someone who really likes Dirk for people who really like Dirk. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, so if you bounce off it (and I’m sure a lot did), then you don’t have to keep reading it, it’s fine, thanks for playing. As much as Homestuck^2 tried to doll itself up as “dubiously canon” it’s still the official continuation of the story, and that means if it’s as difficult to get into as Detective Pony, that’s going to be a problem for a lot of people.

The other part of it is that Detective Pony’s exploration of Dirk’s character is, well, in character. When the man himself steps in as a character in his own book, the explorations of what he is as an author, who he is as a person, make perfect sense for what we see of him at the start of the comic. He is that manipulative, blunt person, and he is aware of his faults. He’s the kind of person to hide a lamentation on his own failings inside an impenetrable maze of a story layered on top of a book about fucking ponies. Ultimate Dirk does not act like Dirk, outside of the “manipulator” angle, something that Dirk was aware of and trying to improve in the comic. But I guess people don’t have arcs, right?

It’s so interesting to see the seeds of Homestuck^2 laden within Detective Pony- because the meta angle that and the epilogues take is also represented in said fanfiction. While the nature of canon is a facet of the work, the idea of authors and narrators fighting for control of a story, different ideas in mind for the characters, one being more personally connected to them than the other, it’s all there. When I wrote about Fallout 4 in the past, I mentioned being worried that Bethesda took the wrong lessons from Skyrim- seeing something successful and trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle. I think Homestuck^2 is an extreme example of this- the writers of the comic saw Sonnetstuck’s masterwork and thought, yeah that’s great, we can do that. But they just can’t. And with the comic crashed and burning, the probably won’t ever get a chance to. Dirk is forever stuck as this amalgamation of himself that looks nothing like any individual version of him ever did.

At least we will still have Detective Pony, and many other excellent fanworks, for actually good Dirk content. I admittedly haven’t looked into much fanfic written during/post-epilogues, and I’m kind of afraid of what I’ll see- I can only hope the fanbase didn’t take the same wrong lessons as the official team did.

[yunatheintrovert]

that one time in Kandahar | Bell/Belikov Soviet-Afghan War AU one-shot

You sighed, staring down at the many empty shot glasses of vodka in front of you. His presence against you was a comforting, familiar one as you leaned against him with your legs touching his. Your vision blurred ever so often under the flickering lamps hanging over the bar. 

The flames erupting from one shot of vodka set alight by the enthusiastic Afghan bartender blurred into the scorching flames greedily consuming the wreckage of the armored APC downed by the dushmani. 

That was one you and your unit hadn’t been able to save. 

And then there was the news when you got back.

Another Mi-24 gunship on a convoy escort mission had been shot down over the Hindu Kush mountains, a region your unit would soon be moved to patrol over. The crew of the crashed gunship hadn’t survived. The pilot opted to pull the pin of his one grenade over the possibility of capture. 

You couldn’t blame him.

Blinking away the orange blurs in your vision, you sighed once more. Routine missions like that could easily go so wrong. All it took was one lucky shot by the dushmani with their accursed Stingers the Americans handed out like candy-

Resting your head against his shoulder, you glanced up at your companion. 

 If it came down to it, you preferred to go out in the initial fiery impact of the crash. Still, that was selfish...

“Please don’t die,” you murmured before leaning closer-

Warm chapped lips brushed against your own with the familiar scent of vodka and aviation kerosene greeting you like an old friend-

You blinked, staring up into those gunmetal blue eyes. 

Like an old friend, the words echoed in your mind.

You vaguely heard the sound of breath hitching in surprise. 

The vodka, you distantly thought while you pulled away from him, was really helpful.

Even in the cool Afghan air of Kandahar, your cheeks heated as did your lips oddly enough. 

It was the vodka. 

Before you could stumble over an apology, Dimitri abruptly pulled away from you, suddenly calling out for another round of vodka. You stared at the tan fabric of his Afghanka winter coat as his back faced you.

You only meant to give him a kiss on the cheek.

...And was the kiss really that bad for him?

“Sorry, Mitya,” you murmured before looking back down at your shot glass dejectedly-

“ДА!” Charkov suddenly exclaimed beside you, shaking his fist in the air, “You hear that, Gusev? I won the bet! I told you it would happen before Kabul. You owe me seven packs of Marlboros, my friend-”

“Nyet, nyet!” Gusev vehemently denied, leaning forward against the wooden counter of the bar. He slammed his shot glass down, “It was one-sided. It does not count!” 

You dazedly glanced between the two, only registering the word “one-sided” with a wince. Dejectedly, you looked down once more. You didn’t mean to ruin the night for Mitya and yourself…

“Comrade,” Charkov suddenly said lowly, grasping the Mi-24 gunner’s shoulder as he leaned closer with a smile befitting that of a zampolit, “We made no such rule.”

Gusev gulped before nervously laughing, “But you know my friend...There are other fish in the sea for young Bell there. Like that Spetsnaz captain-” 

You didn’t know what exactly happened right then and there. One moment, Gusev was looking up at Charkov with a placating smile, the next, his face suddenly paled as Charkov stared down at him.

You blinked.

Before you could ask if the caviar went down wrong for Gusev, he hastily looked away, laughing once more. 

“Ah, b-but you know, perhaps I was mistaken. Sometimes, couples are just fated to be with one another-” 

________________________________________________________________

The exposed gray ventilation above you on the safehouse’s ceiling came into focus as you stared up at it. Rain pelted the roof above you in a distinct pitter-patter, yet you could still register the cheery sounds of drunken soldiers talking amongst themselves and that one enthusiastic soldier exclaiming about him winning those Marlboros. 

You blinked, dazedly brushing fingers over your warm lips. 

The smell of vodka, aviation kerosene, and Afghan dust still lingered in the air like an old friend. 

What a vivid dream, you thought sleepily. And an odd one at that. 

Along with other soldiers, Belikov was in it and you had-

You had kissed him. 

Kicking away the thread-bare sheets at your feet, you sighed and rubbed the back of your suddenly warm neck. 

Someone must have turned up the thermostat.

It really was an odd dream. 

Shaking your head, you laid back down onto the sheets only to find yourself staring up restlessly at the ceiling moments later. Hollowness ironically filled your chest in a vague sense of loss- no longing. Distantly, you brought a hand up to your aching chest right where your heart was and grasped the fabric of your shirt there. 

Why, you thought slowly, do I mourn a dream. 

There really was no point.

Dreams weren’t even real. 

Yet you never did get any more sleep that night. 

________________________________________________________________

You leaned your head against your hand, staring longingly at the pot of coffee brewing at the corner. The familiar sound of the boiling dark brew already woke up slightly. 

Usually, Sims or Lazar would make the coffee in the morning. But you hadn’t gotten any sleep and woke up at 0400 hours to make coffee. 

Now that you thought of it, ever since you came to the safehouse with Adler, you had been rather sleepy... But this was different. Just a restless night that came with an oddly vivid dream, you asserted. 

Yawning, you perked up at the sound of footsteps behind you. 

“...Good morning,” you said sleepily. 

“Доброе утро, my friend,” an all too familiar accented voice greeted in turn. You blinked, jolting awake ever so slightly at the sound of his voice. 

Quickly, you went back to staring at the brewing coffee pot by the corner and gestured to it with one hand, “I, uh, made some coffee.” you said rather lamely. Words seemed to fail you in the early unholy hours of 0400. 

You heard Belikov take a seat beside you. Hearing the timer beep and the boiling come to a low, you perked up and walked over to the coffee pot. You glanced back at your companion questioningly. You heard coffee wasn’t generally consumed in the Soviet Union…

Belikov nodded with a smile. 

You awkwardly smiled back and grabbed the paper cups in the corner, pouring you both a cup of the dark brew. Hopefully, he was okay with drinking coffee black. The safehouse ran out of sugar and cream yesterday and Lazar was up for grocery runs…

Setting back into your seat with coffee in hand, you sighed, enjoying the familiar aroma of caffeine. A silence settled in the air as the rain pelted the windows outside. There was a storm system rolling through the Berlin metropolitan area according to the weather forecast...

“Did you sleep alright?” the Russian suddenly asked, his voice filled with friendly concern. You bit your lip guiltily. Belikov was always so friendly and nice, asking about your wellbeing. Only Lazar ever really did that before. And to think you had that weird dream about Belikov when he was this considerate…

“I-I’m fine,” you asserted, “I just had this weird dream-”

Deep down, you knew better than to start explaining that dream to him. But if you left that brief kiss part out, maybe it’d be cathartic and you could move on from it. 

Like giving a confession, you thought sleepily. 

4am thoughts really were the best. 

“-where we were both getting drunk in this bar in Kandahar. And there were soldiers around us drinking vodka as well. And one soldier kept on exclaiming about him winning packs of Marlboros for some reason…” you rambled on, feeling the guilty weight off your chest lessen. 

Suddenly, you heard Belikov choke on his coffee. 

“Are you okay, Mitya?!”

You worriedly patted his back, hearing him cough even more. After a few tense moments of coughing, he settled down. You opened your mouth to ask if he was alright, only to be interrupted when gunmetal blue eyes suddenly stared at you with an unfamiliar intensity.

“Ты помнишь? Это я, Митя.”

________________________________________________________________

Author’s Note: I debated on whether or not to post this since this is probably a rather confusing AU to read. 

Basically, this is an AU in which Bell and Belikov serve together as Mi-24D pilots in the same helicopter assault unit during the Soviet-Afghan War. The overall timeline of cod cold war is shifted more than several years since the Soviet-Afghan War really started happening in the 1980s. Also, I'm leaving things vague but things happened in between Bell and Belikov's service in Afghanistan and the events of the campaign that made Bell have amnesia. So Bell doesn't remember her close past with Belikov. 

On a side note...this is why I don't write kiss scenes. I'm horrible with writing them XD. Although to be fair, this was kinda meant to not be really romantic cause Bell's drunk haha. 

Well, I hope this was tolerable to read. Thanks for reading!

[hollyhomburg]

Butterfly (Part 3)(BTS x Reader)

Summary: You’d always imagined that your relationship would be over if your seven boyfriends found out you self-harmed. But after a slip up involving Namjoon, everyone finds out about your bad habit. To your surprise, they make it clear that they’re not going anywhere.  

Warnings: Panic attacks, Graphic depictions of self-harm, , suicide attempt, hospitals, panic attacks, breakdowns, horror, blood

W/c: 13.6k

Song rec: Make it right ~ BTS

A/N: I know it's been a long time but I hope people enjoy this installment of Butterfly! warning- it’s pretty heavy, but it ends well. As I've stated before, it’s not my intent to romanticize mental illness, prompt someone into a negative headspace, or make light of any mental health issues. This work has been cathartic and sometimes difficult to write. 

Please, if you feel like you are not in a good place, reach out to someone, I promise you people care more than you think they do- Even if it doesn't feel that way. 

National Suicide Prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255

*** This chapter contains graphic content of a that may trigger some readers, Please take note of the warnings and Read at your own discretion ***

The day is soft and leisurely- almost euphoric, people running around the Han river and the sun shining somehow brighter. Of course, the humidity outside is an oppressive weight that stops everything from being completely enjoyable and keeps clothes sticky. But it fails to put a damper on the overall incandescent mood that all of the boys feel. 

As Practice finishes earlier than expected, a rarity in itself; the boys feel the giddiness of summer making any exhaustion dissipate. What is rarer is that they have no plans for the next day or the day after that- a rare stretch of free time a respite from their constantly full schedules, and they don’t want to waste a moment of it

The ac unit is pumping freely into the air as they step into their apartment, the same place where all farce falls away. Suddenly hands get heavy and tender and Shoulders lean into arms that will gladly support them. Kisses pressed to hot sun warmed lips that linger in the safety of things known and mutually cherished. Hoseok trips over Jungkook’s shoes but only laughs instead of scolds Hoseok gives him a playful nibbling kiss in retaliation. Everything is good- nothing stressful. Idyllic.

Jungkook claims the largest shower to a chorus of groans from the others who are also sticky with sweat from the dance practice.  The 3 other bathrooms are  steadily claimed, eyebrows raised and questions asked with raised eyebrows, “want to join?” 

Jungkook takes off his clothes and puts them right into the washing machine. He grins when Yoongi tells him that he shouldn’t be a tease. And licks his lips in answer to the wandering hungry eyes, Tae already has Jimin pressed up against the counter in the kitchen, neither of them caring much that they’re both sweaty. But they won’t waste the day doing this here, there will be time for that later. 

Jungkook giggles and walks in the direction of the largest bathroom. The one just off of Namjoon’s room. The blinds drawn against the sun is the first indication that something might be wrong- that and, your clothes are folded there, neatly, on the bed, your wallet on top. 

You must have left it. He doesn’t remember you leaving in their clothes this morning, but maybe they’re clean and Namjoon just folded them for you. You do that sometimes, leave wearing their clothes claiming that theirs are so much more comfortable, only to forget half your wardrobe here. 

Jungkook smiles, thinking of how forgetful you can be, the countless times that you've gotten somewhere looked up and said “oh I forgot my phone!” and Namjoon would look over his shoulder and shake his head sometimes saying, “We spend too much time together you’re starting to act like me.” Hoseok slinging his arms around your shoulders from behind, frog walking with you for a few feet until it gets too inconvenient, making noises in time with your steps. Hoseok can’t see it but you're smiling but the rest of them can.  

“She’s just distracted by our handsomeness~” he sings, the same moment you join in. And Jungkook finds himself impossibly endeared, tipping his head into Hoseok's shoulder and grabbing your shoulders at the same time.

“Help- she’s been consumed by a junghope sandwich, someone get me a plate” Seokjin deadpans, making everyone erupt into laughter.

The memory is sweet and fond on jungkook's tongue. He misses you, he want you here right now to enjoy this day with them. He feels your absence as keenly as he would with any of the others. The clothes are a reminder that there is 1/8th of them missing. Though you were there that morning when they woke up (You’d slept between Jimin and Taehyung last night). You’ve probably gone back to your own apartment to get some work done. Sometimes Jungkook wonders why you even still live apart from them at all. 

“Hey has someone called Y/n? She should come over today!” his request is answered by a few muted agreements. Words swallowed by the largeness of the house.

Things have been so much better between you and Jungkook recently. Not quite the best, but he’s coming around and you’re letting him in again. Namjoon had given Jungkook a mountain of articles to read about helping people with your type of problems, and it’s safe to say he’s dedicated himself fully to the mantle of being an understanding boyfriend. understanding and not helpful- because it was irrational to think that they could fix your mental health (Namjoon’s words not his- Jungkook swears he’s an expert on this). 

The lingering awkwardness felt between you two had disappeared after he’d done the hard thing and apologized. 

The night Jungkook finally man’s up, You’re in Jimin’s room. Fiddling around with something on his computer trying a find a new drama for the two of you to watch having finished the previous one the night before. Jimin’s hair is curly and floppy and bleach fried. He reclines on his bed in a baggy set of blue pajamas and prattles to you about things on twitter when Jungkook had come in, propping up his shoulder on the door frame. 

“Hey, do you mind if i um- talk to you for a minute?” Jimin looks up from his phone, sending a concerned look in your direction, almost looking like he might want to stay to mediate. The fact that Jimin thinks he might need too only makes Jungkook feels worse. But he swallows down the feelings shame, because this isn’t about him or how he feels- this is about how he’d hurt you and owning up to it.

So he can’t take it personally, Jungkook knows Jimin doesn't want to risk another incident like the one a few days ago where Jungkook yelled at you in the hallway and inadvertently made you go… hurt yourself. No mincing words. Of course, that hadn’t been his intent, but that had been the effect of his actions. 

Whatever look you give Jimin must make him decide that it’s okay to leave the two of you alone together, “I’ll go get the popcorn.” Jimin says as he gets up off his bed, brushing Jungkook’s hip affectionately with the tips of his fingers in passing as he slips by and gives you both privacy. Jungkook shifts from foot to foot. Until your eyes flicker up from the computer. 

“You can just sit Kookie.” Jungkook squishes down on the edge of Jimin’s bed, feet on the floor, elbows on his knees As you forgo the computer and turn the rolly chair in his direction. He runs his hands through his hair. 

Jungkook looks at the ground, unable to meet your eyes,  “I don’t know where to start.” You don’t respond, and when he looks up he finds you not looking at him either. Your hands clenched together in your lap, twining over each other in the way he knows you do when you get nervous.

Are you thinking about indulging in your bad habit right now? Is that why you look so distracted? Is it like a notification on your phone? Dragging your attention away from the present? How does it feel? Are you okay? Would you even tell me if you weren’t? Tell me love - tell me please- I only want to-

This isn’t about me, he reminds himself.  

“I want to apologize to you- I know that I didn’t make enough effort when you first told us about your…your self-harm” Jungkook barely manages to get the words out, but it’s a start to being more forward at least. He doesn’t want to tip-toeing around it, especially when he knows you have more open discussions about it with the others. You finally look up at him, at jungkook’s words falling uncontained and unfiltered “But I want to be someone you can rely on- like you rely on the others. Like I should have been in the beginning. God do you know I would get jealous?” 

That prompts a little quirk of your lips. Small and barely there, and he feels the tension in his shoulder break. Jealousy is never something that any of you really get in this giant poly relationship as impossible as that sounds. There is always so much love to go around, everyone spoils each other so that it’s easier to ask for more space than for less. There is very little room for jealousy and even less time for it. “I can’t imagine why.” 

“When I would see you with Yoongi or Namjoon, and you guys would go all quiet when I walked into the room because I knew you were talking about mental health stuff- Jesus, I just wanted to be a part of it- but I let my stupid preconceived notions get in the way of that.” Jungkook swallows. “But what I’m trying to say is that- I’m sorry for treating you so terribly, and I’m going to change so that You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me anymore- and I know you can’t forgive me but-“ 

Jungkook is knocked out of his reverie by your hands, soft and delicate, cup his cheeks, and he realizes he was looking at his feet again. Thumbs come up to brush across his cheeks affectionately. “Jungkook it’s okay- I know it’s not easy,” your lips quirk down at the side, eyes getting a little shadowed, a little distracted by whatever internal monologue it is that makes you sad, the opposite of what he wants,“I know I’m not easy-“

“No don’t-don’t excuse what I did.” Jungkook says with a shake of his head, grabbing your hands in his and holding onto them tight.  “It doesn’t have to be easy, you should never feel like you need to be perfect like you have to sacrifice yourself and your happiness to be perfect for us. If I was a good boyfriend I would have accepted you for you and not demanded you change without a reason. I want to try to be better- to understand you better- If you still want me.” 

His voice tapering off into an unsure hush. In the weeks since everything blew up in between you two, it’s been a little off-kilter. It’s not like you and Jungkook had broken up and he and the other boys were still affectionate. But you could both admit that it had sort of feeling like you’d broken up. And you realize as you look down at him, his eyes wide, the chiseled jaw that you love so much and the kind man in your arms that you know never meant to hurt you, you don’t want to stay in limbo. 

You slot yourself more fully between his legs, standing and tilting his head up to look at you his hands clenched on either of your thighs, Your nose traces his as you whisper, “bunny” chiding and delicate, Jungkook hates the nickname from anyone but you. Your breath a warm soothing wave over his skin. “I’ll always want you.” you kiss him, soft and sweet, and before Jungkook realizes it he’s crying a little breaking the kiss and burying his face again in your stomach. 

“I’m sorry,” he huffs through the tears, holding onto you tightly like you're going to leave, but you aren’t going anywhere. 

you run your fingers through his long hair, curling the ends around your fingers. “I forgive you Jungkook.”

Jimin and Taehyung watch through the crack in the door, munching on the popcorn as Seokjin walks by with his sugar glider on his shoulder. “What are you two meddlers up too.” He whispers if he listens closely he can hear you and…is that Jungkook? Talking softly. His hand hovers on Tae’s hip. 

“Just listening to the show hyung,” Taehyung says through a mouthful of popcorn. Grin boxy and happy. 

Inside you and Jungkook are too. His hand running up and down your back, face buried in your stomach, as he promises you that he will never dismiss you so terribly again, that he’ll treat you better, that he’ll treasure you every day. 

He wanted to fix it.  

Fix it so badly. 

When Jungkook opens up the door to the bathroom, on that hot day in June, he realizes that he might not get the chance.

Is this another bad dream? An intrusive thought, Jungkook stands there frozen. 

How many times had he had nightmares about this happening, how many times had he dreamt of finding you like this? how many times had the others had the same fear?

This has to be another bad dream. A piercing scream, half shout of anguish, Jungkook’s disconnected from the sound even though he knows it comes from his own mouth. 

But the image of you, lying eyes closed and prone in the bathtub, lips blue and skin ashen, the cold water blood red, your hand dangling over the side and a puddle on the tile, won’t go away no matter how many times he blinks. 

A still life. A painting, 

His knees hit the floor with a crack but he pulls himself over to you, lifting himself up on the edge of the bathtub, his breathing ragged and tearing through him, “please please don’t- be- don’t” he chants as he presses his fingers to your throat, and nearly sags to the floor when he finds a heartbeat there, beating unevenly but strong, still there, and still alive.

“Fuck Y/n!” he sobs, hauling your body up and out of the water, not caring about the blood that splatters against his bare chest or soaks into his grey track pants. “Someone! Please! Someone Call-“ but his choking sobs cut him off. He screams for his hyung’s, voice shrill, breaking. He shouts again and again and again for Namjoon, for Seokjin or anyone of his hyungs, for his loves, the people that have always helped him and loved him.  

Jungkook shakes and sobs as he pulls you up against his chest. Small and limp and unmoving. And someone must here him because all of a sudden Jungkook hears a voice on the phone with police and paramedics rattling off their address. Seokjin’s shaking hands on his cellphone, choking back something in his throat as he looks into the bathroom and can’t- can’t handle it, turns away to steady himself and talk to the operator.  

And someone is telling Jungkook to let you go- “Let go jungkook please”, Namjoon climbing over Jungkook to push him back- what’s going on- Namjoon why are you- what could they even- his back hits the wall after Namjoons shove. He looks up, Namjoon lying you out flat so that he can put his full weight on your wrists which are still gushing blood a little bit- but they seem to mostly have stopped with the added pressure.

Someone’s sobbing in the other room. Jungkook has your head in his lap tears drip onto your chest as he grits his teeth, and all Jungkook can say is your name, like a record that’s stuck on a loop. Namjoon holds your wrists down and keeps you from bleeding out- if you haven’t already. 

A few Minutes drip by, like the leaky faucet in the tub, like the blood on the bathroom floor soaking into the grout of the tile. 

The apartment is a flush with activity and everything hazy through panic, the idyllic world disturbed by all this red, and you and your limp body. The pill bottle clatters as Namjoon accidentally knocks it off of the side of the tub, though now it’s empty- Hoseok’s sleeping pills? didn’t he just fill his prescription last week? Why is the bottle empty?

Namjoon and Yoongi talk to the paramedics because Jungkook can’t, can’t see anything other than your face, your lips turned blue, the same ones he kisses whenever he gets the chance. The ones he could never kiss enough- maybe would never kiss again. The paramedics drag him back, get him out of the bathroom as they rush because there simply isn’t room. 

Namjoon and Jungkook are the ones who get to pile into the ambulance with you. Though they’re originally only going to let Namjoon in, Jungkook won't leave your side, won't have anything come through the haze- not the words of the paramedic telling him to get out before they clothes the doors- not Namjoon who insists he comes. Both of them pile into the spot in the ambulance that’s meant for one person and not two above average size young men. 

The others will follow a short time later. The ambulance door closes against Jimin’s nearly shrieking sobs as Taehyung tries to hold him up, almost unable to under the weight of all this panic- just as week with fear his teeth gritted. 

You have to be alright- have to- they can’t lose you, not like this. Not when they should just be starting building a future with you. Yoongi drives everyone to the hospital and he does not speed and risk crashing. Though he does have to wipe away his tears whenever they have a stop light. And his whole body shaking too much to hold onto the steering wheel as well as he normally would- should- if he wants to make sure his family gets to the hospital unscathed. 

Jungkook and Namjoon arrive at the hospital and watch as you are loaded into the gurney, doctors in blue-green scrubs shout statistics and numbers like a separate language that makes little sense to either Namjoon or Jungkook. A nurse tugs Namjoon along asking about your allergies and getting a clearer story of what happened. 

Hoseok’s empty pill bottle is handed over as they push your hospital bed at a breakneck pace, disappearing behind doors that clearly state “operation gallery: doctors only” in red lettering. An orderly is pulling Jungkook back behind that line. But Jungkook can’t hear him, can’t hear anything beyond the ringing in his ears. 

Eventually, he gives up and leaves Jungkook watching those doors, waiting for you to come through it, someone put a sweatshirt on him at some point and it’s half zipped over his bare chest. Jungkook looks at his bloodstained hands for a second before his eyes go back to the doors, waiting for you to hop out and say “sorry just a bad prank!” but it doesn’t come, it doesn’t happen. 

He’s dimly aware of Namjoon talking a few feet away arguing with the nurse at the front desk. His low and panicked words, his begging “please- please is there anything you can tell us- how she’s doing- anything-“

The first flash of a camera startles Jungkook. 

He turns, someone in a facemask a cell phone out, another flash as his face. And then someone else, with another more professional camera who came from who knows where takes a photo of Jungkook. They must have been waiting outside of their apartment and followed them. 

After all, they do live in a complex known for their celebrity clientele. It’s a good bet that they didn’t even know who was in the ambulance and only hoped it was someone famous. And then Namjoon is there tugging Jungkook’s hood up and over his face with shaking hands as well as his own. He turns to the nurse asking for a private room to wait in. 

The hospital is already scrambling with activity by the time the others pull up. All in varying states of distress. The sun just barely setting. Seokjin supporting Jimin while Yoongi rushes through the paparazzi trying to remain stoic but unable to conceal his puffy eyes from them without a face mask. 

By the turn of the hour the internet and the news are roiling with questions. What was Bangtan doing at a hospital? Was one of their family members hurt? Was one of them hurt, why was the youngest covered with blood? Who was the young woman who came in just before them? The internet was abuzz with activity while the others filed in, intercepted by Namjoon, the only one who's somewhat steady because he has to be right now. 

Jungkook is still standing by the door, still watching it and waiting for you to reappear. The cameras flash regardless. By the end of the night, there will be enough photos that no one will be able to deny that yes it was him and the rest of Bts there. Was the youngest hurt? Why wasn’t anyone seeing to him?  

“Jungkook come on-“ Seokjin tries to grab his arm but Jungkook flings it off of them.

“No! She has to be okay hyung, she has too-“ he breaks off, a sob silencing him. The adrenaline is fading- His chest is breaking open like a cracked egg without anything to hold it in place. legs shaking and nearly giving out. 

“Jungkook- please” 

“No I’m not leaving-“ he gets out through gritted teeth. 

“There’s nothing more we can do Jungkook, we just have to wait,” Yoongi says, voice low, blinking away tears his shoulders shaking, hands fisted in the arms of Jungkook's sweatshirt. Through the glass, the cacophony of reporters is flashing, photographing their every movement. 

Though the hospital staff has quickly moved not to let people in. and keep a barricade at the door. They can still capture the way Yoongi’s fist is clenched around the bloody sleeve of Jungkook’s sweatshirt.

Yoongi puts himself in front of Jungkook, blocking his view of the door. 

“Jungkook,” Yoongi begs, just his name, and Jungkook takes it as some sort of permission to break. His hyungs are here together, they’ll keep him afloat under the tidal wave of all of this. Sobs tumble uncontained from the cavern that is his chest, the kind of sobbing that comes from fear and desperation. His face buried in Yoongi’s shoulder, hands coming up to cover his face, to feel the shuddering breaths that manage to escape from his lungs even though Jungkook feels like he can’t breathe. 

Together Seokjin and Yoongi lead Jungkook towards the private room guiding him away from prying eyes to hide his breakdown. One of the nurses watches them with something that looks like pain- like she knows something about grief like this because she sees it every day. Yoongi feels anger flare in his chest at the look- though it’s extinguished almost instantly by the maknae’s next shaky sob. 

Inside the room, Jimin, finally calmed down enough to try and stop crying- tips his head back against the wall. He’s only partially successful as he’s breathing heavy enough to call it a panic attack and he’s not the only one- Hoseok is shaking that way too. Hands digging into his sides. None of them can seem to stop crying. 

The only one who doesn’t take a chair is Namjoon. He tries to but can’t, instead standing by the door, knee shaking in an anxious jerk, scanning the hallway for anyone, anything that might help. 

His phone in his pocket rings and the others watch as he lets it. Taehyung looking up from where he’d pressed his face into Yoongi’s shoulder. But only after the third call does he answer. “yeah uhm- Mr. Bang, it’s Y/n- she’s- she“ 

And he breaks off, covering his mouth with his hand to try to keep his sobs contained, tears finally consuming him when he has to explain what he just saw- what he just witnessed- The trauma finally hitting him.

Jimin’s breath stops coming in gasps the second Namjoon needs him, standing just in time to grab under his arms as Namjoon’s knees give out and steer him into the chair he just vacated. taking in a deep breath as namjoon shatter, half in-between his legs and half still holding him, picking the phone from namjoons hands. 

“I’m sorry.” Jimin starts, and then it's hard for him to stop talking. His voice the only one in the room, as he spills the contents to their boss- why, the how- everything. 

“I don’t understand. I don’t fucking understand this.” Hoseok sobs, pulling at his freshly dyed hair, as he makes these offal-wrenching gasps. The way that Hoseok cries- almost tearless, that makes it sound like his lungs are rattling around his rib cage. 

No one has an answer for him. Seokjin’s shaking hands fist in his pant leg next to him.  The others silently watch the door, straightening up every time a nurse or doctor passes it. 

Around the end of the first hour, The PR team starts doing real damage control. More protection is set up in the hospital, noticed by them only because of the two guards that come to stand outside their door. though their faces are recognizable only vaguely (there have been so many new guards recently).

Mr. Bang is there too. Talks to Jimin and Seokjin and manages to get a word through to Taehyung, who only answers with a shake of his head when he’s asked if he wants food. If there’s anything he can do. While the others just sob or stare blankly after he clarifies that there is no news about your condition yet. No one asks about what’s online. No one checks their phones to see the photos or the theories; half of them don’t even have their cellphones or left them in the car. 

Mr. Bang and another manager leaves to get them food, which no one touches. Jungkook stares down at his hands. Stained with your blood but drying- flaking off onto the floor. 

Seokjin kneels down in front of him, a wet wipe in his hands, stretching out carefully to clean them off, finger by finger, slowly and gently. Taking care of Jungkook like he has since he was fifteen.

Jungkook doesn’t mention the fact that Seokjin is sobbing himself. But when the elder finishes, Jungkook doesn’t hesitate to pull him close. Needing something to hold onto, and it’s the saddest Seokjin has ever felt with someone’s arms around him. 

It’s almost midnight by the time someone comes by to tell them anything at all. the doctor is still wearing her scrubs, the sleeve of her shirt blotted with blood. The boys, still life at one moment and then a flurry with movement when she appears at the door- asking about you, swarming her, asking If you were okay, how you were doing. If there was anything they could do. 

taehyung stays in the back, breath held, as he waits for the words he dreads. Doesn’t let himself feel anything until he knows. Knows for sure. He waits to hear the words come from the female surgeon's mouth. I’m sorry, but there wasn’t anything we could do she was too far gone.

The doctor inhales. 

“We managed to seal the lacerations on her arms after a few hours of surgery, she had to get her stomach pumped due to the medication she took. She’s very lucky that you found her when you did, she would have overdosed and gone into multiple organ failure if she had gotten here 5 minutes later-” They fall silent, waiting for the shoe to drop. And then in the back again, Taehyung letting out a jagged sob in relife, holding onto the windowsill for support. 

“-We need to monitor her overnight to make sure there isn’t any damage to her organs and probably for the next few days, she might not wake up right away either.” 

“So she’s- she’s okay? She’s not going to die.” Taehyung almost doesn’t want to know the answer. 

“For now yes, the chances are slim.” The nurse purses her lips, almost about to ask another question. Before Hoseok pipes up, voice raspy and quiet. 

“Can we see her?”  

Namjoon didn’t know what the hardest part was going to be, he’d thought the hardest part was going to be when he’d held your wrists in the bathroom to stop you from bleeding out, but this- somehow this was worse. 

Your body underneath the sterile white blanket, your hair tangled in places, your purple lips, tube going into your nose, your hands above the blanket, everything from your hands to your elbows wrapped in thick white gauze, the heart monitor beeping steadily but slowly. Calmly even. 

The nurses realized quickly that none of them were going to obey the “only 3 people at a time” rule. The manager talked to the head orderly and gave them special privileges, these continued when visiting hours ended. They knew it might be a little while before you woke up after anesthesia. The doctor had come by to talk again, about how personal drive had a lot to do with it. 

Namjoon knew what they meant- they meant that if you didn’t want to wake up you might not, but didn’t say it outloud for fear of what it would do to the others. A look in Yoongi and Seokjin direction lets him know that he’s not the only one who understands what this might mean. But the maknae’s are still so hopeful. Looking at you like they haven’t given up yet. 

Hoseok is still- still half not there. He moved from the waiting room to your room like a ghost, where he chooses a chair and just stares into empty space. The rasping sobs have subsided and now-now he just sits and watches. Shrugging off any hand that might touch him with the intent of wanting comfort or giving it. 

Hoseok grits his teeth in anguish, able to keep the sobs in his throat, his eyebrows knit together as he tries to keep himself from breaking down.  his breaths coming out short and labored. as he locks the part of himself away that’s panicking. His eyes sting, and he knows his face is looking pinched and severe. “you always look so angry when you cry.” You’d teased him before, after their last award show when they’d come home and Hoseok and Taehyung had been admittedly a wreck. 

Hoseok can’t forget the conversation he had with you almost a month ago. He should have asked again- he should have told someone. Blame sits on his shoulders, heavy. 

The night had started with a win from an award show, and ended with Hoseok falling giggly into bed next to you. He doesn’t often reach the right amount of drunk vs sleepy, but tonight- everyone had let loose more than usual, high off the win and rush of getting an award and beating another record. Even though he usually doesn’t like alcohol, it sings like a special kind of caffeine in his veins tonight and he almost dosent want it to end. 

You are equally as trashed, and equally as soft looking in his bed. You’d been waiting at home after the award show. Food and glasses of champagne ready and waiting for them. Ready to celebrate and dance around your living room. 

Hoseok doesn’t know how he got so lucky in his life, the liquid gold threading it’s way through his heart like some kind of magic, he smiles at you and leans over to press his lips to yours. You can taste the happiness in it and the delightful cinnamon and spice taste that is Hoseok. 

“Hey,” he whispers, trying to be serious for about a quarter of a second before he fails, falling into giggles again, hiding his face in your shoulder hand fisted in the sleeve of your shirt. Suddenly dizzy with all the excitement. He keeps his tone joking “Want to have angsty conversations until two in the morning and drink wine?”

“That’s what me and Yoongi do!” you cry, for some reason indignant, kicking your socks off. 

“Yeah but I can be that way too! We could even, like- invite him!”  

You snort “like he’d ever get out from under Namjoon right now- not even for all the wine in the world” as if on queue, a high-pitched breathy moan and a muted ‘yes Joon right there’ is heard echoing from across the hall. Someone- jin from the sound of it- bangs on a wall crying something like “stop being nasty!” 

“A min Yoongi venting sesh without min Yoongi” both of you giggle at the thought. unlike other nights, when you might be interested in more of a supine eventing, tonight you just strip off your clothes to the barest forms without being truly naked, falling asleep in Hoseok's favorite way, your skin pressed against his. 

He’s drunk enough that he doesn't stop to wonder about what tracery the darkness hides on your skin instead settling into your arms like a ship would at port. Your hand running up and over his lithe shoulders tempting groans of pleasure from his throat. Hoseok has always always loved being touched, and being touched by you makes him feel like his very soul is shivering. Falling easily asleep in each others arms, the alcohol sending you into a spiral towards sleep.  

When you wake up, your head is pounding, and Hoseok is warm next to you, his fingers stroking through your hair, a look at him confirms that he’s awake and watching you. You know the wetness in his eyes as he looks down at you. You wonder if his head feels as bad as yours. 

“What’s wrong baby,” you say, reaching up to wipe the tears off his cheeks. 

“Bad dream,” he says. His eyes searching your body, his hands holding on a little too tightly. Hoseok doesn’t dream often, but whatever he must have dreamed about is clearly weighing on him. 

“Want to have that venting sesh now?” you pry gently, pulling yourself up so that you’re at his level and not snuggled in near his chest. His breath brushed over your cheeks when he breathes out. And in this lighting of very early morning, all of the red is diluted in Hoseok’s hair, making it look almost grey. 

You wonder what he’ll look like when it turns grey with age, you wonder even more if you’ll get to see it. In the dark, Hoseok looks like he’s wondering the same thing. He shakes his head, and your hands tighten on the back of his neck. “I don’t know if you want me to Y/n.” 

You stuck in a bated breath “what did you dream about Hobi?” 

He didn’t want to ask, maybe he didn’t want to know. All of the last weeks have been burning that question through him and he knows- all of them know what you said to Yoongi in the bathroom a few weeks ago when he caught you. Hoseok hears the words as good as if he was there himself - ‘I’m not going to kill myself’- But Yoongi- Yoongi wasn’t asking the right questions. “it’s just-“ he breaks off, swallowing a thick breath. “Do you ever think about dying? Do you want to die?”

You smile at him- or try too at least, the answer you give him isn’t what he wants not by a long shot. “I don’t want to make you sad Hobi,” your smile, your smile isn’t sad, regardless of what your words hint at, or the horror that wells up in Hoseok’s throat at how hopeless you look. 

Hoseok doesn’t want that.  You shouldn’t be resigned to this, this sadness that’s consuming you. You should be trying to fight at it. You try to give him a tired smile, a little stronger than before. Tugging him to turn onto his side so that you can put your arms around him. Hoseok doesn’t know what to say, what to do for that matter, his head pounds with the after-effects of the alcohol. “Let's just go back to bed okay?” 

Hoseok curls up against your throat and listens, hearing your heartbeat, and is lulled into a thankfully dreamless sleep, not realizing that later- he would wish he wouldn’t have, he would wish he had stayed up and asked you what you meant by that. If you really wanted to.  

“Do I ever make it better? Do any of us?” he murmurs, nearly asleep.

“Of course you do.”

If they had thought finding you in that bathroom was bad- it was nothing to compare to the pain of you waking up. 

Sometime in the early morning, muted grey yellow light filtering through the cracks in the blinds, some of the boys had collapsed into the so-called “parent cots” that the hospital staff had been nice enough to bring around.

The two smallest curl up swathed in Seokjin’s arms, with Jungkook and Namjoon in the other cot. Jungkook shaking through a nightmare in Namjoon’s arms at one point in the night, though by that time everyone is losing track of time. 

While every beat of the heart monitor had everyone feels a little better- because At least you were alive. 

Taehyung is propped up against the wall, coming to sit by you when he gives up on sleeping. After the first few hours of emotionally exhausted listlessness, Jimin couldn’t sleep either. Shifting out of Seokjin’s arms going to join Taehyung in the slightly larger seat probably not meant for two people. Hoseok is in a haze, half asleep and half awake, and never totally present.

From their side of your bed, Taehyung and Jimin watch and wait for him to fall apart. 

Hoseok has been awake the whole night, the only one who at one point hadn’t fallen asleep or at least tried. Hoseok looks like he might fall over, the bags under his eyes and the coldness in the room making his shoulders shiver uncomfortably, he watches you and he waits.

At one point in the night, Taehyung leans forward, taking his hand in yours, your hands are cold, but maybe a tiny bit warm on the palm, Taehyung warms it with both of his, careful not to jostle your bandages as he kisses your fingers. If he had any more tears left he would cry. 

“I promise, one day- we’re going to take a trip together, leave this whole city and everything that bothers you behind, and it will be just the 8 of us, maybe you and I could take day trips on our own, and I’ll make your life so happy and full that you’ll forget this ever happened, that you’ll forget you ever where sad.” Taehyung looks up when he senses Hoseok’s heavy eyes on him, his lower lip shaking. But he says nothing.  

Hoseok does reach forward and take your other hand in his. Thumb rubbing along the back of your hand slowly and gently. Eventually, Tae pulls back, leaning into Jimin’s shoulder, and drifts a little, not truly asleep and not truly awake. leaving Hoseok and Jimin to stand vigil. 

Jimin watches Hoseok almost as much as he watches you, he watches so hard he almost doesn’t realize when your eyes are fluttering open, he’s imagined it so many times over the last few hours he’s half-convinced it's not real. There is stillness for half a moment. The heartbeat monitor beeping unconvincingly in the corner.  

Your eyes are hazy and unfocused; Hoseok lets out a choked noise in relief, maybe your name, hand tightening over yours. “Y/n! Thank you- oh fuck thank god, thank you for not fucking dying- holy shit-“ Hoseok sobs, holding your hand so tight as he collapses forward onto the bed, knees sliding to the floor as he breaks uncontrollably. 

You blink through the cloudiness in your eyes as those sleeping stir awake. Seokjin blinks sleepily, unintentionally shifting Yoongi in his arms. On the other side, Namjoon stirs as Jungkook bolts awake. Jimin has never moved quicker in his life moving to your bedside. Taehyung jerks awake without Jimin's shoulder to lean on almost falling out of the chair. 

Hoseok is right- thank god for waking up. A god that Jimin has never believed in but might now just for this. He wants to collapse in exhaustion as all the fear leaves him and relife takes its place, he feels like he might just with how his legs feel like jelly. 

“What,” you say, voice small and rough, but it’s the most beautiful word Yoongi has ever heard in his life, more beautiful than any melody or rhythm. Eyes darting around the room taking in them: your family sprawled out in the grey hospital room. 

The heartbeat monitor kicks up beating faster, uneven. Your breath comes out worse. Suddenly taking everything in and understanding what it means. blood rushing through your head.

fuck- fuck you didn’t- you didn’t succeed when all you wanted to was- and now- and now they’re here and you’re- The white bandages on your arms are cumbersome, don't allow your arms to bend at all when Jimin and Hoseok take your hands in theirs. 

And Jimin’s expression is absolutely painful- painfully happy. 

It doesn’t make sense, not when the blackness in your lungs is sticky and suffocating- your treacherous heart hurts in your chest pumping despite everything. The dysphoria at living feels- it feels god awful. Worse than the pain that laces up your arms like gauntlets, worse than the swirling nausea lurking in your empty stomach.

Hoseok smiles at you through happy thankful tears. Jimin too- Looks so happy that you’re alive. It doesn’t make sense at all why he would be happy- not to your brain with everything- everything harsh and biting to your very being- god your head hurts. You’re dimly aware of Namjoon letting out a half laugh half sob in relief. Jungkook standing, his long hair half ruffled, his bunny eyes wide and tear-filled, looking so stunned, a smile slowly painting his face. 

It doesn't feel real, nothing does. The only thing you’re really aware of is the thunder in your ears of your own heartbeat, you can’t take it all in fast enough, everything- nothing you see makes its way through the fog in your mind and yet you’re overwhelmed with stimulus. 

The thunder of the heart monitor, Jimin’s and Hoseok’s hands holding yours, skin on skin warm but you feel so cold. Yoongi sitting up looking sleep ruffled but his eyes screwed closed with tears, back bending with the weight of it all as he holds his head with his elbows on his knees. Namjoon smiling at you tearfully with his dimples that you love so much on display, looking thankful. The sluggish pull of painkillers in your veins makes everything startling off-kilter like a ride at an amusement park. Taehyung crumpling into Jungkook’s side, falling to pieces in his arms. It’s all so much- too much. 

You give a shaky breath, pulling your hand out of Jimin’s and Hoseok’s hands, Jimin tries to hold on- but it’s almost violent how quickly you retract your hand from his, pulling at the iv drip there too so that it dangles out of the back of your hand. Pulling both of them to your chest, placing them there like you're guarding yourself against them. The heart rate monitor kicks up to the point that a warning tone sounds. A nurse opens the door as Yoongi stands. Not sure what to say- even less sure what to do. 

“Please- please why are you- why.” 

What are you begging for, what do you need? Just tell me how to make you better love, just let me help heal you. Tell me why you did it- why did you do it- why why why. There isn’t enough air in the room for your lungs to breathe easily. you can’t handle this- all of their eyes on you. Black spots start to dance in your vision  

The nurse strong-arms her way next to you in the bed, shining a flashlight into your dilated eyes “Miss do you know where you are? Are you in any pain?” Your breath still comes too fast-to-fast. 

“Please- why- what’s going on- why am I-“ your words are strangled by your breath, the panic all-consuming. The nurse hits the blue button; Seokjin utters your name- still blinking away the sleep in his eyes. Everything harsh and slanting and doesn’t feel real. 

“Miss you need to breathe, you need to calm down, you’re in the hospital.” 

There is another nurse at the door now, their hand on Yoongi’s side. Taehyung’s and Jungkook’s too. The room is full of people at this point. “You need to give her some space.” 

“No” Tae growls out, watching as you push away an oxygen mask, panic picking up again from the way you’re pushing everything away not just them. How afraid you look of everything, especially the hands that only want to help. 

The beeping from the heart rate monitor reaching a fevers pitch. The surgeon from before shoves her way past the guard at the door. Followed by another orderly who quickly tries to lay hands on Jungkook, who throws them off. 

“Someone gets them out of here- and pump 3 cc’s of Midazolam, she will tear her stitches if she keeps moving around- someone gets these boys out of here!” 

“Fuck off we're not leaving.” Jimin spits. The surgeons head whips up to look at him, her eyes narrowing at him, and Jimin has the good sense to look absolutely terrified. They all do.

“I do not care who you boys are. if you put the health of my patient at risk more than you already have I will ban you from her room and this hospital.” You still fight against their arms, even as the nurse shoots something into your resecured iv, another nurse holding your arm down to make sure you don’t try to tear it away. 

“Let me go. Let me go- please-please” you plead; the orderlies have to grip Jungkook around the waist before the door to your room closes behind them. sealing all the panic inside. 

Hoseok runs his fingers through his hair sagging against the wall, pulling at it harshly- and doesn’t know if he wants to punch a wall or be punched himself. 

“Okay- this is- that was. This whole thing is so fucked up.” 

He’s not wrong.

Food is unanimously decided on, a separate office room that one of the nurses leads them too. Namjoon doesn’t know what kind of strings Mr. Bang must have pulled to get them special treatment, but he makes a mental note to thank his boss later. 

For once, they’re all lost for words as they eat. Though Jimin doesn’t touch the food in front of him. And for once, no one forces him. This might have to do with the fact that he’d thrown up when they’d walked into the room. Yoongi and Seokjin both only nurse a coffee not feeling up to solid food just yet.

It’s around an hour before the same surgeon finds her way back into their room. “She’s okay.” She opens with, glaring at them like a hawk, Taking in the visible sigh of relief from all of them. 

“Why was she-” Seokjin swallows against the lump in his throat, “why did she push us away? why was she so-” he breaks off. Looking up at the doctor imploringly for answers to soothe the ache in his chest. 

“She was in distress, with all the painkillers and medication lingering in her system it’s likely she didn’t even know what she was doing.” everyone in the room sags in that. The doctor crosses her arms, giving everyone a warning glare. “If you put her in distress like that again I will have you banned from this hospital until she becomes more stable,” 

For the first time, everyone pays attention to what she’s saying. “You are not to touch her wrists or her stomach. We’re running tests right now to make sure she’s not in any immediate risk for acute organ failure, we’ve given her a sedative to keep her from potentially hurting herself or panicking the way you all made her but I swear if.-” 

“Is she awake? Is she still talking? Is she-“ Namjoon starts the same moment Yoongi says “let us see her.”

The surgeon snorts, rolling her eyes at the rapper. And Yoongi finds himself wishing that he were just a little bit taller so that he could stare down at her and intimidate her the way he’s trying too. Not that it looks like it’s doing anything other than piss her off. 

It was worth a shot anyway, and next to him, Taehyung is crossing his arms, looking at her with that unsettling blank look that seems to be doing enough. “If it were up to me you all would have been thrown out already.” Her hand hovers on the door, eyes going softer after a second “But she’s been asking for you- so follow me.”

You’re sitting up in the bed when they walk in. The yellow hospital gown clings to your shoulders- far too big. Hands lying on top of the covers your arms are bound in fresh white bandages From wrist to elbow. 

Someone’s opened the blinds of the window. And the morning light spills across your face. Looking much calmer and put together than when you woke up it’s almost startling. You try to smile at them, and say a muted ‘hey guys’, but it comes out so strangled it’s almost not a word. 

The bags under your eyes are almost purple. In the hospital bed- you look worn. The very soul of you looking like someone had washed a rag too many times and still hung it out in the sun to dry, leaving it crumbling and crusty and oh so delicate. You look a little sleepy too- must be the drugs, hell Seokjin could actually go for a sedative right now too. 

One of the beds has been removed. Seokjin, Yoongi, and Jungkook sit on the other. Jimin looks so unsteady on his feet that Namjoon immediately yanks him into the chair. Hoseok takes a seat at the end of your bed. Tae stands.

“I’m-I’m so sorry guys.” You say, a little tear coming out of your eyes as Jimin thoughtlessly takes one of your hands, realizing what he’s done the second he did and how you reacted before. But thankfully You don’t pull away this time. And he sees wetness sparking in your eyes. “I didn’t mean- I never wanted you all to-“ you look from boy to boy hunting for absolution, for forgiveness for something that none of them know how to give. 

“Are you sorry you tried? Or because you didn’t succeed? or was that even your intention? did you just go too deep?” Taehyung asks, not bothering to wipe away the tears that haven’t stopped falling since he saw you sitting alive in the hospital bed, calmer than before. There is nothing accusatory in his tone, he just wants to know. 

You don’t answer. Jimin takes the silence as his own, clamping down on the nausea.  

“You know I thought there’d be a sign if you were really going to do it?” he says, and you turn from Tae to focus on Jimin. Your fingers holding onto his hand weekly. And like before, once he starts talking he just can't stop, the words tumbling from his lips like a confession. 

“I thought that maybe we’d be able to anticipate it and be enough of a support system to catch you before this point. I even- fuck- you don’t know this but I even checked your phone? Even though I knew it was a breach of privacy? I thought ‘she’s definitely the type to leave a note and she’d probably draft it before she sent it out or something’ so I’ll be able to know before she does it. I’ll be able to stop her.” 

Jimin is trying so hard not to break down, you can see it in every twitch of a muscle that he makes, every single deliberate word. His collarbones look incredibly sharp under the collar of his t-shirt. And his other hand bites into his shoulder, holding on tightly while the one in your hand grips gently. As gently as you would touch something soft and newborn. Jimin’s lips are red bitten, his eyes puffy but clear. “But you know what the last words you said to me where?” you shake your head, trying not to cry yourself. 

“You said ‘see you in a little bit’ yesterday morning before we left for practice. like it was just going to be any other day- and after we found you all I could think about what that. That I’d see you when” his voice cracks, but he presses on the ache in his lungs, needing to get the words out. “That I’d only see you when we both died, and maybe that was what you meant. Maybe I’d have to wait my whole life before I saw you again in whatever what comes next.” Jimin is sobbing now, openly, doing nothing to stop the halting trail that they carve down his cheeks. Over cheeks and over lips that you’d kissed a thousand times. 

And almost never got to kiss again.  

“But I don’t want to see you then- I want to be with you every single morning, every single time I wake up I want to see your face, from this day on until the day I die I want to be able to see you every single fucking day.”

He’s crying too hard to let the words get through towards the end. You reach up, your hand stopping when it tugs on the iv but Jimin is already falling into you taking your reaching as permission,  already burying his face in your shoulder as much as he dares, worried like that you would disappear with too much force. And you cry, the weight settling on you like blame- because you’ve hurt this man, this lover of yours who wanted nothing more than the tenderest of lives for you. 

A life that you have never wanted. And you wish you did, you wish you had. If not for anything else than to avoid this mess that you’ve made, the pain you’ve caused in the people you love so much.  

You’ve hurt him so much by tearing yourself apart that now he is falling in shambles. You wish you could move your hand to run them through his bleach fried yet greasy hair, you wish that you had any soothing words for him- but you don’t. 

You’d tried to kill yourself, nothing more than that and nothing less.

You’d tried and failed and you were still here, and now you had to deal with the consequences. Jimin won’t move, won't stop running his hands over your throat to feel the pulse there, nose pressed to your neck to hide his tears. to reassure himself that you’re alive, that he still has time with you. 

On the cot pulled next to you, Yoongi sits, his hands shaking around a coffee that he doesn’t sip it. He’s the next to speak, the next one who has enough courage, “you know what I thought when I came into the bathroom and found Namjoon and Jungkook there with you?” Yoongi’s voice shakes, his hands in fists at his sides, he looks so so small there, his teeth gritted against the emotional pain in his throat. “I thought fuck- how are they going to survive this, how are they going to put up with losing both of us.” 

Jungkook lurches to his side, “Yoongi no-“ he says, as the others look on horrified, Yoongi bites his lip and brushes the tears out of his cheeks angrily as Seokjin fists a hand in the back of his jacket. “I know I wouldn’t have done it- I know it was just a passing thought, but also- fuck, I would have been a ghost had you not come back to us- a part of me would have died if you had, and I don’t want you to think that I’m holding onto you just to hold onto myself- but fuck, fuck I need you. I need you every day. Every moment like Jimin said every day that doesn’t have all of us in it is hell for me.” 

Taehyung pipes in, teeth gritted against his tears, “I want you to be here, and I want to you want to be here- I want you to get better. I don’t know what would be good for you.” Taehyung’s lower lip trembles as he tries not to cry, in taking several shallow breaths, “we’re not enough to properly take care of, and I know that now” Taehyung sees how your crying anew and rushes over his own words. 

You don’t want to admit it- none of them do, but the fact of the situation is that no one would be here if they were enough to keep you alive. “I know, I know you try really hard, and I know that all of us do too, but-but we couldn’t stop you, we couldn’t help you in the right way, and I know you need a better safety net than us. Do you think-” 

Taehyung pauses, closing his eyes for a moment- he knows he won't be able to go back from his next words, his next suggestion, once he says them you’ll act regardless of what he wants, but it might be what you need to keep this from happening again. 

 “Do you think that it might be better if you went to a recovery center? Or a mental hospital for a little while? Just to make sure you’re okay and safe?”  Seokjin and Jimin stiffen, but no one protests, no one tells you that you shouldn’t- even if they don’t want you too, they all know it might be best if you do go. 

“I don’t know-I don’t think that i-” you shudder and shiver, eyes darting from each of them, waiting to see if any of them are going to jump up and say that they don’t want you to be admitted to a hospital. Don’t want you to go somewhere that they can’t follow. 

Seokjin grabs your hand from where he sits folded over your right side, winding his knobby hands with yours, “you don’t have to decide now” the words you’d needed to here, a tense breath released from all of them.

“You can think it over and we can try to figure something out that works.”

The next few hours are marginally less sucky. You meet with doctors, they check your stitches and run a few more tests. There is a tenser meeting with the police. But everything goes smoothly- probably because of a stack of cash slid to them by one of the managers to keep it quiet. Always focused on containing scandals. 

By the end of the day, some of the boys need to go home and at least shower and change clothes if not get some sleep. Though Jungkook straight up refuses too until Namjoon gives him a look. Yoongi and Tae go to retrieve dinner from somewhere better than the cafeteria to get food. 

The others will be back soon, Seokjin stays with you, the others promising to bring back a change of clothes- he’ll just shower in the small bathroom attached to your room. He leans up against the door, the tv droning in the corner on some drama. Watching your face silhouetted against the yellow light. indulging in the image of you for a moment. 

You’re quiet just watching the tv going in and out of sleep. They’re going to try and wean you off the painkillers in an hour or so, and the doctor had warned you to try and get some sleep while you can. After a moment, you notice Seokjin by the door, giving him a small tired smile. 

Seokjin struggles to find something to say, but doesn’t, putting his hands in his pockets. You scoot over a little, patting the bed next to you. “Want to sit and wait for food with me?” neither of you mention that you probably won't be able to eat any of it. You’re on a liquid diet until they get your second-day labs back. But one of the nurses did promise you a very tasty strawberry and watermelon shake, so there’s that to look forward too. 

Seokjin nods and carefully gets into bed next to you, on top of the covers while you’re underneath, careful to leave some distance between the two of you in case you want it. His heart fluttering when you don’t instead turning onto your side and reaching to set your arm over his chest gently. Seokjin shifts, letting you tuck your shoulder under his arm. 

The television changes to a news briefing. a car pileup, and then before Seokjin can change it, “No news yet on the most recent celebrity news. What were the members of Bangtan Sonyeodan doing at Asan Medical Center and why aren’t the police saying anything- more on what we know during our celebrity bulletin at 8.” 

“I really made a mess of things for you guys didn’t I.”

“Don’t worry about it please” Seokjin begs, running his hand down your arm and kissing the top of your head. Reaching for a moment, for the clicker to shut the television off before they play anything else. 

“But you-” 

“I’m serious Y/n” Seokjin cuts you off, looking down at you, a bone-deep exhaustion in him as he reaches a hand to brush at your cheeks, hooking a hand under your jaw to turn your face up so he can see you better. 

“The managers have dealt with it, and we’ll see if any of the doctors breach doctor-patient confidentiality- and none of us care, we’re all just relieved that you’re still alright now.” the thudding truth of that last statement makes Jin feel like he’s gonna cry again, but he doesn't want to- he’s tired of crying. 

“You should get some sleep before the others get back.” You nod, seeming to accept his words for now at least before you snuggle further into his side. you’ve lost a little bit of your ashen tint to your body, but you’re still a little bit cold, a little weak from the blood loss (though they did have to give you infusions during surgery. Seokjin rubs a hand up and down your back rapidly to warm you up. 

“Can you...” you start for a second, cutting off, looking shy. cheek against his chest. 

“Yes, sweetheart?” Seokjin asks murmuring the words into the top of your head (even if your hair is a little greasy)

“Can you sing for me?” you ask quietly. 

“Of course,” Seokjin smiles, you’ve asked him to do that before, in the kitchen in your house, before you go to sleep, you love the sound of his voice, of all of theirs really. “Any requests?” 

“Whatever makes you happiest.” Seokjin swallows, turning it over in his head for a moment before he decides on it. He starts up, the words falling from his lips the way they’ve done 1,000 times. 

“Will you stay by my side will you promise me~” he continues the rest of the verse of butterfly until he gets to the rap part. Slipping into Yoongi’s lines with a slightly more joking tone, changing the words to puns as he sees fit. “butter cake~ butter cake~”

 Even after all these years- Seokjin still can’t rap. But he does his best switching around the lyrics and making them goofier while keeping the rhyme, swaying side to side with you in his arms as much as he can in the hospital bed. The giggle you let out is soft and rippling, coming from your belly. Making the first real smile he’s had today appear on Seokjin's face, his hands holding onto you a little tighter as he breaks off “You’re going to make me lose tempo ~” he whines. 

Outside the door, Yoongi and Taehyung pause, listening to the sound of your and Seokjin's laughter. Looking at each other, the bags of food in their hands, just soaking in the sound for a second, even as it fades. You start singing too. your voice gentler and quieter, sleep-roughened, joining in with Seokjin's. 

Taehyungs hand squeezes his roughly, the younger taking in a shaky breath.  And for the first time since they got home and found you, Yoongi lets himself believe for a moment that everything is going to be okay. 

4 WEEKS LATER 

“So,” Mr. Bang says as he makes his way around the edge of the table, it’s only him, their manager Sejin, and boys in the conference room today, this decision is purely between the head of the company and them really. “We’re here to discuss which one of you should go public with Y/n as your significant other.” 

The room erupts with the conversation, Jimin and Seokjin actually sit up, everyone simultaneously volunteering themselves for the position. It wasn’t really a position, they knew that whoever went public with Y/n would undergo severe scrutiny and probably a hit to their popularity; it would incur the wrath of the fans, several trending hashtags of twitter. And make everything much more difficult for them in general. 

They didn’t care at all of course, how many times had they each wanted to take you to a party or an award show with the company’s blessing- or have you sit in on an episode of run BTS or star in a Vlive. Being your official boyfriend in the company’s eyes was just permission in general to do just that. 

The only reason why none of them were jumping out of their skin in anxiety about having you not in the room with them was that you were currently exactly 3 floors below them, in the practice room- Soobin had invited you to watch their practice for their upcoming first concert. 

None of them knew their juniors all that well yet. But they knew there would be enough staff around to keep an eye on you. No one had come out and told any of them what had happened, or even knew the nature of your relationship with the boys. But all of them knew that you were somehow special to them, though only the managers knew anything more to speculate about your relationship- Mr. Bang and Sejin where the only who knew the full story. 

You hung around so often that you knew all of the staff by name, had brought doughnuts to the break room often enough and volunteered to help many times, enough that the staff liked you. In the first week after the hospital stay, one of the makeup noonas had even asked Jimin where you where, tensely asking, “is she- still in the hospital?”

Jimin had been able to choke out “She came home last night.” while he barely managed not to burst into tears. Taehyung had stepped in, stepping in with a hand on Jimin's shoulder, and comforting words in his ear, gripping his hand hard. 

“it’s okay Jimin, she’s fine at home, Namjoon is with her now- we don’t have anything to worry about.” 

So at the moment, they had nothing to worry about. And as much as they all hated to admit it, it wasn’t because they trusted you- no- it was because The staff was under explicit instructions from Namjoon at this moment not to let you leave the company building without texting Namjoon first. 

Your hospital stay had been all over the news for weeks even if no one had ever figured out your identity. A small miracle in its self. Some talk shows were still speculating about it- and hopefully, this business with them coming out with you as their official S/o would put the matter to rest. 

You understood why it was necessary, even if it meant lying about what had really happened. Saying that you had fallen into a glass table, would be your official story, the youngest member finding you first which was why Jungkook had been so dazed, why there were more than 400 photos floating around on the internet of him half shirtless and bloody. 

An accident- even if it was anything but. 

This particular discussion had come out of a few tense weeks- following your…attempt. When the boys had decided that hiding you were doing more harm than good. They’d initially intended to draw straws for it- pure luck was the only way to do it fairly. And they’d alerted the company more as a courtesy than anything else. 

The company hadn’t like that one bit. None of the management, Accept for Mr. Bang, who had sat back on his thighs, given them a tired smile and said, “you really love to give me a headache don’t you?” 

So now they did it the company’s way, with statistical evidence to who it would affect the least, who was most likely to not cause too many waves. It was an ineffectual and unemotional approach to it, and all of them hated it. To Taehyung especially- it seemed like the statistical information in front of them discounted on fact. 

The facts being that they where all in this relationship together, every party an equal piece of the love that you shared, even if the nature of that love and the way it was felt and received was different for each member. 

Everyone needed different things and from each other- they got it. Tae needed companionship more than anything, someone to be there- but not necessarily to speak, simple enjoyment of each others company which was why sometimes he was content to sit back and let the others be loud for him. 

It was different than the way that the others showed and receive love the same way Jimin needed physical affection like it was air, and Yoongi- Yoongi only really needed it on the bad days like Tae. Whereas Namjoon- wasn’t exactly the most affectionate of the bunch but was always okay with receiving even if he wasn’t initiating it- different then the way that Seokjin sometimes needed his space and needed that to be physical- Seokjin who got just as much satisfaction from caring for others as he got from being cared for. Which was why he and Jungkook had a symbiotic relationship, Jungkook needed to feel snuggled down and smothered with love to feel secure. 

And you, the way that you needed understanding and care without enabling your worst habits. Care and gentleness without accommodation. That in itself a challenge that they were slowly conquering together, though your therapist was helping them in no small way. 

They were all a puzzle piece fitting perfectly with the ones around them. And this- this arguing and analysis of them- it felt like management was trying to shave down a piece to fit better when in reality- they already all fit perfectly together. 

So the others might shout and ask questions- but Taehyung just sat back, and waited. 

“Before you try to speak your case, you should know that both of you have been eliminated from consideration.” Yoongi has to grip Jimin’s hands to stop him from sitting up, he can feel the rage underneath the younger skin as Jimin’s whole body tightens. 

“Would you at least tell us why?” Seokjin asks scalding, never one to take the company’s wishes into account. 

“It’s simple,” Sejin says, shuffling the papers on the conference table in front of him. “You’re the most popular domestically, and Jimin is the most popular abroad by a number of twitter engagements- statistically the group would take too much of a hit if either of you was viewed negatively.” 

The members don’t comment on this, rolling their eyes if anything.  They’d long since stopped being jealous over each other being more or less popular that each other- since just after their debut. Seokjin slumps back in his chair rubbing his lower lip with his finger. And surprisingly, doesn’t protest. 

He’s thinking of all of us, Yoongi realizes with a start- his heartstrings pulling, Seokjin might have tried time and time again to piss off the company as much as possible with his hair dying, hair cutting and liberal style opinions. But this time- he’s not just accountable for himself.  

“Because of this Hoseok is also out.” 

“What the actual F-“

On the other side of the table, Seokjin forcefully pulls the redhead down. Taehyung looks like he might laugh if it wouldn’t make him sick. 

“We also believe that the fans will think it’s strange if the youngest member is in a relationship before his hyung’s” Jungkook’s jaw tightens but he waves his hands for Mr. Bang to continue. 

“Which leaves us with Namjoon, Yoongi, and Taehyung as possibilities.” The three are rim rod silent. Taehyung looks tired, blinkingly lazily, Namjoon’s tapping the table agitatedly. Mr. Bang turns to Namjoon first, leaving no room for preamble. “We’ve come to the conclusion that Namjoon would be the best pick, we believe that next to him, Y/n will leave a favorable impression. Namjoon is best equipped to deal with all of the stress as the leader.” 

“But won't this also add to this stress?” Taehyung asks, leaning forward, his eyes dart to Namjoon’s “I’m not trying to advocate for myself it’s just-“ Taehyung makes eye contact with Namjoon. “this is going to be…a lot” 

Besides Namjoon, Yoongi nods, “it is- but it’s going to be worth it.”  

“Are there any objections?” Mr. Bang asks.

Inside the practice room, you watch the members of txt perfect the ending of one of their songs- Soobin is the only one who you really have any interaction with, as he’s not that much younger than you or Jungkook. But you’re slowly starting to get to know the other members better, even if the age difference is a little more insurmountable. 

They’d offered you an in on this practice more as a courteously to their hyung’s than anything else. Here at the company- no one knew exactly how to place you. Most of them taking bets on who were you dating this week, which was a subject of constant debate at the beginning after a makeup unnie had walked in on you kissing Namjoon and Yoongi in the same week (in the same closet no less). The unnie had even tried to tell Namjoon after a little while- not that it hadn’t already made it around the rumor mill. 

“Wouldn’t it be a shame if they broke up? But she distracts all the boys when she comes around and they do have an even busier schedule coming up.” Imagine her surprise when her confession, what she had seen was greeted with an understanding laugh from Namjoon and a flushed face by Yoongi. “So that’s where you went off too when you were supposed to be working on your mixtape- you asshole! I waited for 30 minutes for you!” 

Now, most of the staff knew you by name- and knew not to ask what kind of weird relationship you had with the boys, not that they’d ever believed the truth of the matter. You were all good at hiding it and dodging any questions. But they did notice the marked shift since the hospital stay. 

Everyone could put two and two together. Especially given how the boys were with you now compared to before.

They’ve been treating you so gently the last few weeks, so tenderly, even in front of the staff. Yoongi had brushed a hand across your cheek when they left for the meeting, and Jimin hadn’t seemed to want to let go of your hand. If any of the staff was watching the 8 of you, when you’d looked up- you hadn’t noticed. The assistant that usually babysat you when you were without one of your boyfriends (not without good reason- you’d gotten lost on more than one occasion wandering around the company before) gesturing you towards the leather couch in the corner where you could sit and watch the practice without fear of disturbing them.

You have another week until you can get the stitches out of your arms but the scars will stay for a while- if not for good. Your light blue sweatshirt is tight at the wrist; there isn’t a risk of your sleeve slipping up and any of them seeing. Before the Txt members can finish their current song the door to the training room opens. And a mask-clad Jungkook pokes his head in. You shoot up and gather your stuff.

You cast a quick glance around making sure that there aren’t any cameras around to record or microphones- it’s just a general practice so you shout. “Thanks for letting me kill some time cucumber!” before you hurry out the door. 

Soobin’s reply comes with the start of “yah! Noona-“ but you don’t hear the rest of his protest at your weird nickname for him as the door closes behind you and Jungkook. 

“How was the meeting?” you ask sweetly as you follow Jungkook, and you can see his eyes crinkle and know he’s smiling at you under his mask. The tips of his fingers brush yours after you’re done hooking your mask over your face. You’ll enter the car through the underground parking garage, but it never hurts to be extra safe in the face of paparazzi. “You guys figure out which one of you is going to be my fake boyfriend yet?” 

“Yeah, there isn’t anything fake about me you brat,” Yoongi says as he exits his studio as you pass flicking you on the shoulder before running his fingertips down your arms gently, joining you and Jungkook on your way down the hall to the lounge room where the others wait. Yoongi like Jungkook only brushes fingers with yours though he does playfully tug on one of the strings of your hoodie- he’s in a good mood- but the heaviness in his eyes tells you that whomever they’ve decided for you it isn’t Jungkook or Yoongi. 

At the same moment, Jimin passes on his way out too and almost stumbles when he sees you, that same heartbreaking boyish smile that makes his eyes disappear erupting on his face when he sees you. 

Pulling you away from Yoongi and Jungkook and giving a careful glance around to make sure there aren’t any unwanted prying eyes. Pressing his lips to yours in hello when he realizes there aren’t. His plush lips sucking yours in a passionate kiss, one that seems a little resigned though. 

“So it’s not you either,” you ask when you break apart. Jimin giggles, and shakes his head. “No, but I wanted to see you before I left, just wanted to let you know that I’ll be back later,”

“What are you doing?” you ask shyly, as Jimin kisses your fingertips, his fingers lingering on your rings you have there, small and perfect, a small red stone at the center of a delicately thin band. He slides one off your ring finger and puts it on his own, though it’s a tight fit. “This is pretty- who gave it to you?”

“Namjoon” you smile, letting him take it, you and Jimin are the type of couple who share jewelry all the time. “You never answered my question” 

His answering smile is mischievous, “you’ll find out later,” he says, kisses you again quickly, letting his forehead rest against yours for a second.

“Number sweetheart?”

2 weeks earlier was when you’d devised the number system.

 “If you’re not going to go to the hospital, then I think we should set up some rules- or just some things that could help you.”  

You suck in your lower lip, hands tightening on the blanket in front of you. and Namjoon is already soothing a hand over yours. It’s a comfy night in, take out, your staple these days and everyone in pajamas. You yourself are in a cooky themed top and tata themed bottoms. All the others are piled around you likewise swathed in fluffy blankets propped up against pillows. 

Someone had the bright idea of dragging two king-sized mattresses out into the living room a few days ago and you’ve all been sleeping out here, like a massive sleepover every night. It’s more out of necessity than anything else, after the second night that you’d slept home, you’d woken up to Yoongi sleeping in Namjoon’s chair again for the third night in a row, just to keep an eye on you. and this might not have been an ideal arrangement (everyone was woken up whenever someone stirred to use the restroom) it was better than that alternative. 

You play with Seokjin's fingers in your lap, tracing along the double joints and the lines of his palms as he talks. “you promised you’d be more open with us Y/n. And you’ve tried before- you’ve tried to tell us how and I know it’s too hard for you. But maybe it will be better if we’re not all comparing notes and you give us something to jump off of.” 

“And you know I’m not sure it if-if I can give you that.” you have to be open with them, even if it’s hard but sometimes, it’s just impossible for you to be open. When you say this, some of them look tired, some of them look a little angry. But what’s best is Jungkook leaning forward to take your hand, your feet in his lap  “I understand,” he says, nodding a little, his fingers smooth over your knuckles in admonishment, His long curly hair falling in his eyes. 

it’s Taehyung who suggests it, curled on his side, head half in Namjoon’s lap. “What if we devised something easier, some way that we can check in without feeling like we’re going to make you close off, kind of like the colors system.” You nod, as do the others. You’re all familiar with the stop light system for your more intimate encounters, enough that you all understand what he’s is getting at. 

“So like- numbers you’re thinking?” Namjoon clarifies, sucking in his chin and mulling over the words in his head. his fingers absentmindedly trailing along Taehyung's jaw. below him, Tae basks in the affection, it looks like he would purr if he was a cat, but Namjoon is so thoughtful that he doesn't notice. “So like, 10 for like, needing to be checked into the hospital, and 1 for like, so happy I think everything could be okay?” he clarifies. 

“I feel like it should go the other way maybe like 10 is happy, and 1 is sad,” it seems almost too simple to use those words but the others know what you mean. Sometimes it comes down to something just that simple. 

“We should write it out,” Jimin says, standing up and almost falling over as he steps over bodies to get a nicer marker and a clean sheet of paper, switching back and forth with Namjoon, scrawling in elegant Hangul as you bounce things back and forth. Eventually coming up with this:

10- So happy that I think everything’s okay from now on. 9-  A really really good day, 8- I’m gonna be okay probably for a few days after this, Cuz I feel so nice, 7- happy, (the feeling like when you get a hug and the warmth stays for a long time) 6-  happy, might feel a little meh, but it’s nothing that’s getting in the way of everything. 5- I’m okay. 4- I’m not okay but I might be in a little bit. Be gentle with me, maybe don’t leave me alone. 3- Don’t leave me alone. Bug me to talk until I do (even if I don’t want to). 2- Don’t leave me alone, get everyone together, cancel whatever needs to be canceled. 1- Check me into the hospital.

Jimin is careful as he pens the last line. Thinking about the possibility of a one. The list gets pinned to the refrigerator, alongside a picture of the 7 of you (minus Seokjin who was behind the camera) all sprawled out and sleepy in the living room after a movie night.

It’s a few days until it’s used. But Jimin is surprised how much better it makes him feel when Taehyung asks you “number?” and you sit and think about it for a second, looking at the list on the fridge. “Probably a 4.5,” you say in a quiet voice, a little bit worried how it will be received,  But it’s honest, and that’s all you promised to be with them. You’re feeling just the slightest edge towards delicate today. 

Taehyung and Jimin spend the rest of their free time snuggling you and running their fingers through your hair until they have to go record. And throughout the evening and most of the afternoon, you sit in the corner of the recording booth watching the seven of them record a chorus until their throats hurt. Flashing them smiles and thumbs up whenever one of them turns to look at you.

“Number sweetheart?” Jimin asks, in the hallway after they’ve decided which of them will go public with your relationship. 

You think for a moment, “probably a 6 or so.” Jungkook still lingering nearby, nods, then gestures you to follow. Jimin’s heart a little lighter after checking in that and making you’re okay, knowing that even if you weren’t the others knew and would take care of you. He takes a moment, Kissing you again, making it deeper this time, his hand on the small of your back, tongue licking at your lower lip hotly, before he’s breaking away again leaving you a little breathless and flustered. 

“See you tonight!” he calls, dancing away, at the same moment you yell “Park Jimin you are a tease!”

It’s isn’t until you’re all back home that they tell you, Namjoon shyly looking down- trying to hide his dimples. As you shout “Joonie!” and hug him. His hands slipping over your shoulders, holding you tightly. His dimples and his smile incandescent. 

“Ah I’m so jealous,” Seokjin comments behind you at one of the bar stools, though he doesn’t look all that upset with a lap full of Hoseok who seems to barely be paying attention, almost asleep in Seokjin’s lap. 

He didn’t get a good night sleep last night- and you try not to think about why that is, and why he crawled into bed with you and Jungkook so early this morning either, all of them have a hard time leaving you alone- or going to sleep in general these days, especially since you’d taken apart the group bedroom in the living room and switched back into your usual sleeping arrangements.

“Your knees are so boney” he comments, shifting to sit better on Seokjin’s thighs. “Yah! Like your ass is any better!” Seokjin replies, but there’s no bite to any of it. Especially when Hoseok slumps against Seokjin’s shoulder. Tipping his head into Seokjin’s neck, a safe harbor despite the teasing, looking small and in need of protection in a way that he rarely asks for but sometimes needs.  

At the same moment across the city, Jimin sits in the expensive and plush chair, the room is private enough where he can take off his bucket hat and his facemask, running his fingers through his hair before the manager enters his office after having left Jimin alone for a moment. “We’ve had it altered of course to your specifications. And changed the color as you specified in your last email.” 

“Thank you for that, and for allowing me to respond via email.” they usually don't allow that, preferring in-person meetings for non-overseas clients. The manager nods, he knows who Jimin is, and has seen the copious amount of media coverage in the last few weeks. Enough to suspect why Jimin might be busy, and also might have put a rush on this. But the jewelry designer is one he picked particularly for Its anonymity as well as for its high-end designers. 

The manager opens the velvet box carefully, and Jimin almost wants to sigh when he sees the engagement ring in the center, it’s hexagonal cut stones surrounded by a flurry of rose cuts in the shades of lightest pink. Glimmering in the lights. Jimin takes it, barely hesitating to feel the coolness of the stones. Already imagining it on your finger. Jimin nods, showing his approval before he slides your ring out of his pocket. 

“This is exactly what I had in mind, when can I have it sized?” 

(Please comment and reblog! Likes are nice, but they do little to support content creators!)

[wordywarriorwrites]

Chapter 13: Settled Scores

Masterlist: The Boss of Brooklyn A03 Link Author: @wordywarriorwrites Summary: When it comes to being The Boss, James Buchanan “JB” Barnes rules with an iron fist. For him, there’s no room for sentiment, and certainly no time for distraction, even if it is in the form of an old flame. Steve Rogers had bowed out of the life a long time ago, but a twist of fate brings him right back into the fold, and face-to-face with a man he once loved. When a game of cat and mouse turns into a matter of life and death, both will be forced to decide whether they’ll be loyal to the business, or faithful to each other. A/N: Bucky Barnes Mob Boss AU. Stucky. For: Star’s Multi-Fandom Follower Celebration & Sherry’s Fall Into You Challenge. Warnings: Language, violence, drug use, alcohol, smoking, explicit sexual content, illegal activities.

As soon as he got back to Brooklyn, Bucky put everyone to work.

The Families were stronger together, and their combination of intelligence and brute force had never failed them before. The business may have been nearly destroyed, but it wasn’t irreparable, and they were nothing if not resilient.

Everyone had expected the fight to come to them. They’d planned for it and were ready for it, but nothing could have prepared them for what actually happened.

The first indicator that something wasn’t right was the sudden, unexpected lift on an offshore account they’d frozen months ago. When Bruce and Wanda dug into it, they discovered the money taken had belonged to Steve, but neither of them could figure out who had gotten their hands on it, let alone where the money had gone.  

Then, a few days later, Natasha found an article in the newspaper. Page six, below the fold, buried beneath the rest of the international news – an abandoned warehouse in Barbados had been blown sky-high. The local authorities suspected foul play, but other than the remnants of what appeared to be shell casings, cages, and camera equipment, they had nothing to go on.

Things went quiet for about a week, but eventually, another bombshell dropped. Barton had been overseeing a product shipment when Sam Wilson was found passed out in the back of a cargo container. Though the man hadn’t eaten, bathed, or slept in days, the first thing he asked for was a meet with the Boss.

At three o’clock in the morning, in the back seat of an Escalade parked by the docks – that’s when Bucky learned Steve had uncovered the truth and discovered who had sold him out. Sam wasn’t able to tell them where Fury and Steve had gone, or give them any names, but he insisted the only reason he was alive was because of Steve.

In the month that followed, there were a lot of whispers, but no actual confirmed sightings. Cuba, Haiti, Dominica, Grenada, Venezuela – it appeared they were hopping all over the West Indies, but nobody could be sure whether they were in pursuit of the betrayer or if they themselves were being chased.

It all eventually came to a head when Bruce uncovered suspicious movement in Tobago. Apparently, several plane tickets to New York had been purchased all at the same time. Since they’d been bought with cash, Bruce hadn’t been able to trace the buyer, but in the end, he hadn’t needed to.

Of all the people he could’ve called, Steve reached out to Thor; he said to expect them in five hours, and asked him to send Sam and Natasha to retrieve them at the airport. Their imminent arrival meant Bucky would get the answers he was owed and get his revenge, but first, he needed to prepare.  

Another day, another grave, and this time, there would be no mourners.

Wanda and Thor had provided the supplies. Tony made sure the police steered clear. Clint ensured those who worked the territory were given the night off and compensated for their troubles. After the four of them made their contributions, they let him alone to handle the rest.

Bucky could’ve easily paid someone to do the digging for him, but this particular hole in the ground was special, and he wanted it done right. The land was hard, nearly frozen solid, but that didn’t stop him; he forced the soil to give way and steadily worked toward making a six-by-six-foot chasm.

The blisters on his palms, the sweat on his brow, the ache in his back, the burn in his lungs and arms – it was cathartic. As the shovel moved and the dirt pile grew, he was also taken down into that silent, dark space inside himself, and he admittedly enjoyed the slow crawl into it.

Part of being Boss was ensuring that what occurred back stage stayed backstage. They always put on a show to distract the public, because what happened behind the curtain was bloody and violent, and those with delicate sensibilities couldn’t be permitted to know or see how shit really went down.

Things had gotten out of hand, and unfortunately, the masks had slipped, and they’d exposed themselves a bit too much. Outsiders had been allowed to infiltrate and rewrite the script, but he would no longer tolerate it. Steve may have selected the time for the song-and-dance, but Bucky had chosen the venue, and he was for damn sure running the show now.

This was his fucking city. These were his fucking people. And he was done fucking around.

When Bucky was satisfied, he tossed up the shovel, and used the small step ladder to climb out. The old paper mill he’d chosen for the meet was vacant and tucked out of the way, which meant there was nobody around to see him ready the center of the factory floor with thick, plastic sheeting. He’d just finished laying it and taping it down when the front doors opened and Natasha stepped over the threshold.

It only took a minute for everyone else to make their way inside, and those sixty seconds were very telling. The dead Senator’s wife and Sam’s little helper had huddled up close, and their expressions conveyed they’d chosen to cling to each other for safety, not warmth. Fury and his crew entered next, and their stoicism suggested they knew what was coming. Bucky fully expected Sam and Steve to bring up the rear, but when only Sam appeared, he looked to Natasha for an explanation.  

“He’s not here, but asked me to give you this,” she murmured. “Said it’s his payment in full.”  

A small tablet in a protective, leather case. Innocuous in and of itself, but once turned on and perused, the contents shook the very foundation of the business. There were dossiers on all of the heaviest hitters in both Brooklyn and the West Indies, and the material had the potential to completely shift the balance of power. On top of it, there were other records, which included detailed profiles on Fury’s crew, along with evidence that proved who was responsible for the debacle that had been his life for months.

Bucky lifted his gaze from the tablet and locked eyes with Fury. He didn’t have to ask if the man knew everything, nor did he have to wonder if the rest of his crew knew they had a traitor in their midst. One look at Sam and Natasha was all it took for Bucky to know they were also well aware of what had to happen.

Perhaps if it had been any other time, in any other place, Bucky would’ve shown mercy, but he’d run out of compassion long ago. He had zero sympathy for the so-called innocent and absolutely no desire to show a single ounce of leniency toward the guilty. The only recompense for treason was blood, and as Bosses, he and Nick were responsible for putting their perspective conspirators down.

“You know what you need to do,” Bucky stated calmly.

Fury said Maria’s name and both Natasha and Sam sprang into action. The rest of the crew gave them a wide berth, and while the other two women had to be forced onto their knees, Maria knelt willingly, and she was the only one who didn’t scream and beg for her life.

Bucky retrieved his gun from the base of his spine and disengaged the safety. He didn’t torture them or allow them any last words, and the only small courtesy he offered was a quick, clean death via a well-aimed bullet to each in turn.

Sam gave Fury his weapon, and though he’d accepted it without reluctance, he didn’t immediately pull the trigger. It could’ve been because they’d known each other a long time, or maybe it was because he just needed closure – whatever the reason, he hesitated, and asked her why she did it.

The litany of excuses was as predictable as it was pathetic. Maria accused Fury of replacing with her with an amateur; said it was her plan that got them into the United States; insisted Nick was the one who screwed it up because he was weak, old, and allowed sentiment to get in the way.

Fury reminded her Steve only got caught because she’d set him up; told her the man didn’t deserve to die because of her greed and jealousy; explained he did what he did in order to save Steve’s life and avoid a war. Maria retorted that Fury was going to retire and leave everything to Steve, and she did what she had to do to protect the mantle that was rightfully hers.

The back and forth went on for some time, and Bucky managed to tune most of it out, but when she said Steve was feeble, treacherous, and pitiful, he couldn’t help but be drawn back in.

“Unlike your precious, golden boy, my loyalties have never been divided,” she spat. “And you’re an idiot if you think Steve’s so-called respect for you will ever outweigh his obsession with Barnes.”

Fury shook his head, but before he could say anything more, Maria shifted her ire, and focused it on Bucky. She sneered that Steve was a chatty drunk, and all it took was a few drinks for him to get sloppy and start blubbering on and on about how James Barnes was, “the one who got away.”

“Bucky, Bucky, Bucky,” she jeered. “You pity-fucked him once, and he still cried out for you like that in his sleep. And I knew – I knew when he caught up with us that he’d crawled back into bed with you. He sold us all out! He’s nothing more than an unworthy, ungrateful, deceitful whore!”

Rage, threadbare patience, and itchy trigger fingers – it was a bad, bad, bad combination, but it wasn’t Bucky or even Fury who decided to finally shut her up.

Natasha tersely muttered, ‘that’s quite enough,’ aimed, sent a knife flying.

Whatever else may have spewed out of Maria’s mouth was cut off, and the next sound she made was little more than a wet gurgle. Blood dribbled down her chin before it bloomed across her chest.

Then, she was gone. Chapter 14: Vortex

Everything: @jennmurawski13​ @nerdy-bookworm-1998​

Steve Rogers: @patzammit @hearttoearth​ The Boss of Brooklyn: @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety @captain-rogers-beard

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: C.H.U.D. & Us

Do you like horror? Do you feel for the plight of homeless people? Do you despise Ronald Reagan and everything he represents? Well congratulations! You have a functioning heart and mind! But you also might be in to the B-movie cult classic that is C.H.U.D. This is a film that has at least partially wormed its way into the cultural consciousness as the titular monsters have become something of a go-to descriptor for any sort of sewer-dweller as well as an insult used to describe alt-righters and other nasty bastards (it works too since alt-right people do often look like they crawled out of a sewer). Unless you’re a cult film aficionado though, you may not have actually sat down and watched this film, which is a shame, as it definitely has quite a bit to offer.

But you know who almost certainly HAS watched this film? Beloved filmmaker, comedian, and actor Jordan Peele! And I know this because his second feature film Us is pretty much a semi-remake of C.H.U.D. No, I’m not joking. I would never fuck around about something as serious as trashy B-movies and Jordan Peele films. This is serious business right here. These movies are pretty similar thematically and even slightly plot-wise, but at the same time their different approaches really help set them apart and make each film great in their own right.

The big thing with C.H.U.D. is its function as a criticism towards the Reagan-era treatment of the homeless and the mentally ill. Homeless people are portrayed very sympathetically, with them going missing being what really kicks things off… or it would be, if anyone in power gave a damn. No, the people in power only start caring when people they start caring about go missing. Things go from bad to worse when it’s revealed that the C.H.U.D.s are not only mutated homeless people, but that the United States government is complicit in their transformation, having decided to dump toxic waste into the sewers. Aside from giving Jason Takes Manhattan’s ending some level of plausibility, this is a pretty brutal showcase of how society treats the less fortunate, and especially how the government treats them. As far as B-movies go, this one has the most instantly believable problem causing the monsters.

And it is similar with Us. The film has a much broader application than Peele’s previous film Get Out, which is pretty blatantly about left-wing condescending racism. But the way the Tethered function, their nature as failed experiments left behind by the government to rot, and their desire to simply be given all that they had been denied because the powers that be deemed them less worthy is not just stellar thematically, it is the sort of message that in this day and age is needed more than ever. Reagan is long dead and burning in Hell, but the evil he perpetuated still stands.

The big reveal at the end – which I WILL refrain from spoiling – changes the entire perspective of the film and showcases the Tethered as not just victims, but people who if given half a chance could easily excel in the upper world. But they were denied this chance, shunned as mindless monsters, and then are we to vilify them when they rise up to take what they deserve? Both of these films certainly show their “monsters” as vicious and violent, but ultimately they are merely scared, terrified beings lashing out at those who have oppressed and hurt them, intentionally or otherwise.

Both films certainly do show the oppressed commit monstrous actions, but it never really stops sympathizing with them, instead (rightfully) demonizing the government and the people who constantly put them in those positions of oppression. C.H.U.D. certainly is more cathartic, featuring the major government antagonist being not only shot but blown up, but it also tends to feel a tad more exploitative, what with literal homeless people being mutated, though I must stress the movie doesn’t demonize the homeless and paints them as sympathetic victims of a cruel, unfeeling government who just decides to kill ‘em all to cover up their own fuckup. This is one of the single most realistic depictions of government ever put on film, and for that C.H.U.D. deserves some praise. Us certainly paints a more sympathetic picture for its “monsters,” beginning with the story Red tells her captive audience, and while the reveal of their true nature is a bit more sloppily executed than the reveal of C.H.U.D. it still manages to bear down with the full weight of its allegorical impact with late-game revelations.

Another interesting thing with C.H.U.D.: the monsters don’t even appear all that much. When they do, they look absolutely fantastic; the suits are stunning achievements of practical effects, though the scene where one stretches its neck out is a bit dubious. But for the most part, even at the film’s climax, the C.H.U.D.s are mostly absent, with a “less is more” approach being used in regards to them. I don’t recall there ever really being more than four or so onscreen at once, and there’s no massive invasion of monsters. Honestly, it helps keep the film from feeling like a bloated spectacle, and the fact the film slowly builds up to the monsters appearing after a brief appearance in the start really helps them feel more memorable and iconic than other forgotten throwaway monsters of the 80s, while at the same time letting the mystery, atmosphere, and grimy New York backdrop congeal and allowing the message of the film to just ooze over and permeate you.

Us, on the other hand, keeps the Tethered front and center starting at the second act, but in this case this is a good thing; the Tethered have a lot more personality, seeing as they are essentially fully human, where the C.H.U.D.s are mutated humans whose last vestiges of humanity were washed away by the waste the government hid beneath the streets. Lupita Nyong’o in particular is masterful as Red, and is incredibly skilled to be able to pull off playing two roles who frequently share the screen and who are essentially copies of each other while still managing to make them distinct and different. Tim Heidecker and Winston Duke too really do a grand job as their Tethered counterparts, in Heidecker’s case probably more than his regular person character (not to say he’s bad, but seeing Heidecker selling a creepy killer is a lot more impressive than seeing him play a douchebag husband).

Out of the two, I think it goes without saying that Us is the better film. It has all around better acting, it has the most incredible foreshadowing I have ever seen with every little thing foreshadowed getting a satisfying payoff, it has a great soundtrack, it has some moderately enjoyable humor, it’s paced very well… but here’s the thing: C.H.U.D.s big reveal of the true nature of its monsters is a bit better executed. A lot of people get hung up on how Us overexplains the origin of its monsters, and while it certainly doesn’t bother me because the Tethered are still an effective allegorical implement regardless of their in-universe origin, I can’t help but feel the reveal that the government mutating homeless people into cannibalistic sewer monsters and then just… not giving a shit about it was just a bit better executed. However, I feel like watching C.H.U.D. actually helps improve the big reveal at Us by token of being so similar that the latter’s twist becomes far easier to swallow.

Both of these movies are great for what they’re going for. Jordan Peele’s Us is a fantastic horror film that uses the genre as a way to showcase the effect privilege has on those without it, whether you intend it to or not; C.H.U.D. is a classic B-movie that, while perhaps still a bit exploitative, is ultimately incredibly sympathetic to the plight of the homeless as well as extremely critical of the government that would put them in such danger. Both films are fantastic in their own right, and I highly recommend both to any horror fans, especially those who love some sweet, sweet allegory alongside their brutal murders.

Both of these films are some of my favorites for really pushing the boundaries of what a horror film can do, story-wise. I think C.H.U.D. is a bit more ambitious in some ways, being a pretty direct attack on the Reagan-era government, as well as being relatively sympathetic to lower class people in a time when that wasn’t really the norm. For its time, it really is an impressive work, while Us, while certainly delivering a message that has strong impact, is a bit more open to interpretation and honestly lacking a bit of the gut punch that Peele’s Get Out had in terms of conveying and delivering said message. Still, I think Us is just better for refining what C.H.U.D. was trying to do and delivering it in a more polished form with better actors, a better budget, and just overall more intelligence and visual flair… which is not to say C.H.U.D. was lacking either, as it paints an incredibly dark and grimy picture of New York that I absolutely love, it’s just that it’s hard to deny that Peele is just a better filmmaker than the director of C.H.U.D. and really knew what he was doing. But again: both fantastic films in their own right, and both definitely worth watching.

[langwrites]

Lang Plays Fire Emblem: Three Houses

So a while ago I said I was planning on playing the story routes in this order: Blue Lions, Black Eagles, Church of Seiros, and then Golden Deer.

The Golden Deer made a liar out of me.

So, here’s an approximation of What Happened During Verdant Wind.

So many spoilers below the cut, you guys. I do a lot of route comparisons.

Okay, I’ve been staring at the “which house do you want” selection screen for an embarrassing amount of time.

This shouldn’t be hard. I had a plan.

But no.

I clicked the Golden Deer, just like that. What the fuck, Claude. I blame you.

Immediately upon talking to this rop of students again, I can feel the difference in the social group from what the Lions were like. The latter were really a bunch of noble kids around their prince, and they felt really tight-knit. Classic Fire Emblem starter crew.

The Golden Deer is the fucking Scooby Gang.

First impressions of individuals:

Raphael, thank goodness, is the one character who absolutely has his shit in order. Sure, he’s bad at book work and thinks everything comes down to MUSCLES, but all of his emotional issues are handled by the time he arrives at Garreg Mach. He’s the brightest of sunshines.

Ignatz needs some more confidence in his art, and also I want to see his painting of Seiros. Now, if only both of his offensive stats and growths weren’t incredibly bad.

I was so close to making him my dancer. Just because he sure as hell wasn’t gonna be useful anywhere else.

Lorenz! I don’t like him. His haircut is a monstrosity.

Leonie! We are going. To be. Besties. Even though the timing of your support conversations are incredibly bad.

Marianne no please don’t be sad everyone loves you

Hilda is the greatest enabler I have ever seen. By which I mean she enables other people to do all her work for her.

Lysithea is going to have the last word with God. And especially he Death Knight.

And finally Claude! Teamwork makes the dream work, so obviously meme work does the same.

I’m sorry.

PRE-TIMESKIP

Mock battle! Marianne’s great and I love her and also the only healer oh god.

OKAY. I have access to New Game+ bonuses. What do I do first?

Immediately crank the Professor Level stat to max to avoid ever having to run short of activity points again.

Next, raise all skills I can’t easily get to at least Rank D+. HEAVY ARMOR IN PARTICULAR.

Third: Boost supports with people whose support ranks are an absolute pain in the ass to earn. Lookin’ at you, Rhea.

Also, put glasses on Byleth (named “Yuri” for this playthrough). Glasses are the bomb. I am the evil genius.

LEVEL GRINDING TIME.

It’s a lot harder with Blacksmith access being story-locked, but I can do this!

As a direct result, every single battle after this point is a complete curbstomp in my favor. Because the grind don’t stop.

I broke a lot more weapons than last time, though.

I will befriend Leonie and Ferdinand if it’s the last fucking thing I do. I will befriend everyone, and I will not get timeskip-locked out of supports! >:(

Ferdinand was my first recruit. Oh dear.

Okay, there are like five born cavaliers in this game. Leonie, Ferdinand, Lorenz, Sylvain, and I guess Dimitri if you’re on the right route.

Last time, Sylvain was a great paladin and a decent Dark Knight before he started getting one- or two-stat level ups for like thirty levels. Similarly, Dimitri was great until all his ultra-secret-awesome promotions didn’t use a fucking horse.

Contrast Leonie who, despite sitting out 99% of the game out of spite from me getting locked out of her support chain, went to endgame with a ten-level deficit and still rocked.

Ferdinand didn’t count since I failed to recruit him last time and he died. These two facts are directly related.

I didn’t use Lorenz at all; I recruited him to keep from having to kill him later.

This time, Lorenz straight-up sucks, Sylvain did the terrible level dance for like the entire game, and Dimitri’s not recruitable.

Contrast, again, Leonie. Her support chain with the player character is hot garbage, but she plowed through most of the game as a mainstay of my team and made it to Bow Knight first out of anyone.

Bernadetta and Ashe as Bow Knights don’t even come close to being as durable as she is, except for Ashe’s absolutely bananas Resistance. 29?! WHY?!

And Ferdinand is also awesome. His only real weak point is Resistance, but he doesn’t need it. He dodge-tanks everything, is faster than Leonie, and has two Saints’ relics he unknowingly stole from Seteth.

He still talks in MLA format, though.

I started putting off recruiting people so I wouldn’t have to level-grind them up to par with the rest of my team.

But if these people wanna join, of course I’m saying yes.

Lord Lonato’s rebellion and Miklan yoinking the Lance of Ruin feel way less relevant on a Golden Deer playthrough than on a Blue Lions one. None of the Herd really know who the hell these people are.

I say that despite having already recruited Sylvain for this playthrough and deploying him in the relevant level. He wasn’t treated as there by the game’s preamble cutscenes.

At least the Holy Mausoleum stuff feels more...handled? Claude actually asks questions about rebellion and about the “assassination plot,” where Dimitri didn’t really.

OKAY SO there’s this whole plot thing where Flayn goes missing for a month. With the Blue Lions, this is handled like a manhunt. Dimitri’s seriousness about the issue rubs off on everyone except Sylvain, and Felix actually correctly identifies the culprit almost instantly. He doesn’t know he’s done it, though, because basically everyone is just throwing out accusations. Manuela is the real MVP.

CONTRAST THE DEER. The very first meeting reads like a Scooby Doo episode, when they’re piling up clues and throwing out suggestions like the gang of goofball teenagers they are. Claude’s got this group running like Persona 4′s Investigation Team. None of them are jaded or frantic, they’re just doing this.

Why did Rhea entrust the investigation to a herd of teenagers.

Anyway, the rest proceeds as usual.

I don’t know why the game tries to drop the same set of hints for each route. “OoooowoooooOOOOoooo, your house leader might be the FLAME EMPEROR.”

The Flame Emperor wears heels. And is still too short to be either Claude or Dimitri. Especially Dimitri. Who the fuck let this kid get so tall.

The only real result of all this bullshit is that my wyvern-riding sniper of doom is not available during the first map where Yuri personally beat the Death Knight into the ground.

Which, by the by, was hilariously cathartic.

It doesn’t exactly matter, since the only unit who can make real use of the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes is unrecruitable, but bragging rights.

Remire Village’s drama is about as bad while playing as the Golden Deer. One of the foreshadowing cutscenes, though is excellent:

Claude actually finds a book that depicts The Immaculate One before its debut, only to have it confiscated by Seteth and learn that it wasn’t a library book at all; it belonged to “Tomas.” Like, all of his suspicions--which he shares with the player--start lining up. Censorship! Monsters! Sword of the Creator! What the hell is going on here??

Dimitri’s version of the cutscene involves him being caught investigating Lord Arundel by the player and Sothis. Which--since his route doesn’t meaningfully deal with the Morlocks faction aside from steamrolling them as incidental opponents--seems kinda useless.

Kicked the Death Knight into submission again out of spite.

Sylvain was useful! Mostly because I had him sit there and distract the incidentals while Claude and Lysithea cleaned house, but still!

Claude is the only lord character who seems to understand that the transforming Morlock faction probably needs to be taken more seriously. For the remainder of Part One, no one does so.

Rhea you’ve got some ‘splainin to do.

Marianne’s my team’s dancer this time. She’s a sweetheart. She seemed happy to be asked and to pursue the lessons, and being able to use Physic is a good trait in someone who’s nearly always going to be waaaaay behind the rest of the group.

Dad-stabbing happened.

Again.

Boop boop Solon’s dead.

Again.

Dear diary: I learned the definition of irony and set the Flame Emperor on fire.

I kid.

But Claude took her out in one completely overpowered shot, because crits are a thing, Flame Emperor class skills don’t reduce damage enough to survive it, and his Dex stat is through the fucking roof. And he was on a wyvern at the time because fuck it, why not.

Claude’s reaction to all of this is a minor letdown compared to the fully-rendered cutscene in the last route.

This would become something of a trend--taking out OP bosses with unexpected critical hits.

I didn’t expect to like Lorenz and now I do. How.

This is hilarious simply because he seems to be the only character that Mercedes hates. What the fuck, man.

Once again, Edelgard invades! Once again, I drop someone unexpected on her head!

Not really. It was Yuri.

Yuri does the timeskip shuffle and we’ll see everyone again after a nap.

FIVE YEARS LATER.

Aw, Claude was waiting for Yuri to show up. Adorable.

The post-meetup fight is actually harder than it was in the BL route, despite excessive level-grinding. This is due to three factors:

Claude is automatically on a wyvern, meaning that he has inherent class vulnerability to archers on a map with at least five of them. And less range than they did, for some fucking reason.

Lorenz and Ignatz started out on the same corner of the map and both of them are shitty offensive units who could barely kill a mage between them. (Neither of Ignatz’s offensive stats cracked 20 for another thirteen levels.)

I don’t have Ashe and his personal skill Locktouch, and nobody started with a Chest Key or Door Key, which meant I had to keep various enemies alive long enough to steal all of their stuff. And the enemy item drops came up one short of the number of chests on the map. I want my stuff, dammit.

LET’S MAKE A SCENE.

Randolph, as a boss in Verdant Wind, did not get any better at figuring out when he’s outmatched. Therefore, I killed him with Raphael again.

At least he straight-up died this time.

Claude didn’t even get to set the damn place on fire.

Ingrid is turning out to be way better of a unit this time than she was last time. She’s a little slower, but a lot stronger.

FELIX, WHERE THE FUCK WAS ALL THIS STRENGTH HIDING LAST TIME. YOU’RE TEN POINTS AHEAD OF THE GUY WHO HAS STORY-BASED SUPER STRENGTH.

AND SPEED.

Iiiiiiiiit’s JUDITH!

She only shows up on one map in the entire Azure Moon route, and that’s a damn shame. She’s so cool in Verdant Wind.

A lord-class character who isn’t also a Lord! WOO!

Also her spies are better than anybody’s apparently.

I am choosing to believe that because Ingrid’s family is related to Judith’s, her badassery in this route is the direct result of meeting her distant cousin and absorbing badass radiation.

There’s something funny about having to pull one over on Lorenz’s dad to get anything done. The Great Bridge falls not to power, but Claude baiting Count Gloucester’s entire army to be somewhere else. (FEAR THE DEER.)

As a result, Ladislava dies alone. (As opposed to taking Ferdinand with her due to plot shenanigans.)

Lysithea and Ferdinand’s paralogue was really quite sad, for all that the only named guy who died was deeply unsympathetic. Ferdinand’s dad was an asshole, but he wasn’t the asshole for this particular scenario, and now both of his parents are gone. :(

Felix...hasn’t heard from his dad in a while. Worrying.

Oh, and Caspar’s uncle is still dead, in case we were keeping track of that.

Dorothea’s happier with Ferdinand alive. She did an impression of the Gatekeeper. :3

Gronder Field! FUCK.

I delayed playing this chapter for two solid days because I already knew what was gonna happen. Specifically: Edelgard gets injured and evacuated, and Dimitri drops of exhaustion just in time to get run through like ten times by the Emperor’s rearguard.

I eventually got my shit together enough to do the thing.

Marianne, Raphael, and Ferdinand went after the Kingdom army first. Leonie and Felix hung back and then reinforced them after taking out the archer on the central hill.

Claude killed everyone in the center of the map, which meant Edelgard set the entire hill on fire and if Bernadetta had not been recruited she would’ve burned to death there on the spot.

Ahem.

I sent Yuri to clear the entire left side of the map by herself.

She succeeded.

Raphael KO’d Dimitri with a luck Gauntlet crit, got blasted down to half health by a Warlock, then plunked ineffectually at Dedue until Marianne used her Levin Sword to sort him out.

Ferdinand killed everyone else on that side of the map.

Claude once again got the kill on Edelgard with a lucky crit, after Yuri had killed everyone else (up to and including the Demonic Beasts) single-handedly.

And then the plot moved on. Hilda’s account of Dimitri’s death was awful, Dedue’s reaction was worse, and off we go to punch Edelgard’s teeth in.

Again.

Annette’s dad is probably dead now.

Felix’s, too.

(I THOUGHT WE WERE DONE WITH THE DAD-STABBING.)

FOOOOOORT MERCEUS.

No matter how many times I think about it, Claude’s Almyran army reinforcements only make so much sense. How the hell and fuck did he manage to sneak an entire foreign army across a whole country to help with one battle?

But hey, they’re here, and Claude almost admitted the reason why he could do that. And the arrow greeting between him and Nader was cool.

(Spoiler: On top of being the Alliance’s leader, he’s also the crown prince of Almyra!)

The Death Knight had the gall to run from my army.

Yuri punched his ticket for the third time, which was not the charm.

And then Fort Merceus took an intercontinental ballistic missile and suddenly defeating the fort’s garrison feels a lot less triumphant.

Spot the miscolored eyes in this cutscene!

Welp. Fuck it, we’re off to Enbarr. Time to also punch Hubert this time! What a change of pace.

Eyyy, it’s the Enbarr map. I totally forgot to bring Seteth and Flayn along to check out the opera house, despite a whole bunch of characters talking about how they totally wanted to check that place out at some point. No room for deadweights in a map that has SO MANY ARCHERS.

Managed to get the special dialogue between Ferdinand and Hubert, and now I’m sad again.

Killed Hubert with Claude.

And because this is a two-part map, we immediately run off to chase down Edelgard. Due to the player army not doing a really weird 180 in the middle of the plot to kick Cornelia out of Fhirdiad, she didn’t have time to turn into a giant demonic thing! She just has WAY TOO MANY MAGES.

Strategy: Forget what Door Keys are, split the team by Avoid rating, and go to town.

Claude nearly died thanks to a critical mass of Gremories and Mortal Savants (and still, what the fuck is that name), but Dedue-as-guest-character didn’t, so I count that as a win! His defense was so high that the Giant Demonic Beast couldn’t even scratch him.

Claude, Petra, and Ingrid all having Alert Stance as a skill means dodge-tanking is hilariously easy.

Also, Ingrid was supposed to just take a chunk out of Edelgard’s HP bar for the final assault and ended up crit-killing her on the first attack. With a bog-standard silver lance.

Weird as the situation turned out, I guess that means one of Dimitri’s friends really did avenge him after saying they would. Even if Dedue was the only one who had a special cutscene about it.

We rescued Rhea! And the characters being happy about it doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I want answers, same as Claude, and being forced to RP Yuri being oh so worried about Rhea’s safety felt incredibly disingenuous.

Claude actually yells at her over the “...” she seems to think is an explanation. THE TIME FOR SECRETS IS PAST.

WHY DID ALL THIS SHIT HAPPEN.

WE’VE BEEN AT WAR FOR FIVE YEARS.

A WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE DIED HORRIBLY FOR BASICALLY NOTHING.

Incidentally, this is why I didn’t end up playing Edelgard’s route as planned. Her logic for kicking two other sovereign countries in the balls felt incredibly self-centered.

At least Catherine’s happy. Same with Alois and the rest of the Church crew.

They are soon going to be not as happy.

I’m filling out the ENTIRE support log before endgame. I have absolutely no idea what characters are going to end up together as a direct result.

The last conversation? Seteth and Manuela’s A+ support!

Because so many of the support conversations are romantic at A/A+ level, I guess we’ve managed to turn this ragtag army into a polyarmory.

Oh boy, Thales sure is a sore loser.

I say, as though I didn’t kill EVERYONE he knew over the course of an hour and also split his skull open under Seteth’s axe. His racism would have keeled his ass over before death set in.

That sure is a ICBM.

GOD DAMMIT RHEA, THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A Q&A SESSION AFTER THIS.

WHY DOES EVERYONE WHOSE JOB IS EXPOSITION UP AND DIE.

Meanwhile: THE UBER-DEAD PEOPLE.

Claude, your route is batshit. What is this genre anymore?!

I wanna point out that, despite seeing Rhea/Seiros do the dragon thing, the player character never told Claude what the fuck that was about. I feel like one of the first things I would have done after the class reunion would be going, “By the by, did anyone else notice the fucking dragon?!”  WHO IS ALSO THE POPE???

Bah.

ANYWAY. Looooong-overdue exposition time!

I notice that Rhea didn’t out Seteth or Flayn, which was nice of her.

Claude, she can turn into a fucking dragon. I don’t think immortality is that far from being plausible.

GOD DAMMIT NEMESIS, CAN YOU FUCK OFF FOR TEN MORE MINUTES.

Uuuuuuugh fine, fuck everything, I’m putting your head on a pike.

CLAUDE, THE SWORD OF THE CREATOR LOOKS LIKE A SPINE.

OF COURSE IT’S MADE OF BONES. A BUNCH OF THE HEROES’ RELICS MOVE ON THEIR OWN!

The frantic music is not helping.

Time to kill a bandit king.

“My flabber is completely gasted by now.” Okay, that made me laugh.

Nemesis’s boss mechanic is pretty neat. To kill him at all, you need to kill all of the minibosses in the level and take down his friendship-based-plot-armor.

Or it would be, if I didn’t already make a habit of steamrolling everyone else on the field before tackling the boss at the end.

CUTSCENE.

Cutscene lesson: “Fuck honor duels.” It’s time for CHAIN SWORD LIMBO.

Claude, your bow shoots LASERS. SINCE WHEN.

Also getting kicked across the field by a dude twice his size didn’t seem to actually affect his mood much.

Awww, Yuri smiles now. Adorable. :D

AND THAT’S A WRAP.

Pairings: Yuri/Sothis (mostly to get them out of the way and see what everyone else would do), Claude/Petra, Raphael/Marianne, Catherine/Shamir, Lorenz/Mercedes, Ashe/Annette, Felix/Sylvain (bad end; the former straight up disappears), Seteth & Flayn wander off, Manuela/Dorothea, Lysithea/Linhardt (again), Leonie/Ignatz, Ferdinand/Bernadetta, Caspar/Hilda, and a couple of people are alone. Cyril gets to actually be a student after the story’s done, though!

Whew, that was fun. Gonna mix up the pairs a bit next time I play through the endgame and see what happens.

[coffeebased]

Would it be terrible if I kept doing this: popping onto WordPress once a year, for a week, just to chirp energetically about the things I’d done the previous year, before disappearing into the aether? Who would sanction me? Other than myself, of course, but I think that I have enough things to distract my conscience. My annually-updated reading blog hardly takes precedence over my other responsibilities and the reparations that have swallowed up my life.

  I know that I was due one more blog post in January 2019, about reading stats being compared across the years. How convenient it is that that is exactly what I shall be doing now, here in January 2020.

  My ideal posting schedule for 2020 will be as follows:

  2019 Books I have read and my 10 favourite ones (right now! Oh, happy day!)

2019 Reading Statistics (1/11)

Reading Statistics: 2013-2019 (1/18)

Goal-setting for 2020 (1/25)

  This was the system I tried to implement last year. Two out of three posts completed is still a failing mark. And goodness knows if I will manage to stick to that schedule this year, let alone what happens after those posts. That’s every Saturday for January settled. In previous years I used to do everything in one big post and that was great, like, very cathartic, but posts had gotten more and more unwieldy.

  This is such a heartening beginning to a blog post: complete abandonment to the four winds. No commitment! Just my own satisfaction. In 2020, forget overpromising, we are lackadaisically mentioning that we have some ideas that may or may not push through.

  I read 126 books in 2019! You can view the complete list: here. It’s the second least number of books I’ve read since I started documenting my reading habits in 2013. I’m not really surprised since I spent most of the year gathering data in the field or studying. More on that in succeeding blog posts.

  Previous year-end reading posts are here: 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 a b|.

  My Ten Favourite Books from Those I Read in 2019

    The Sparrow and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell

  In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet that will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question what it means to be “human”.

Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley

  If you work hard enough, if you want it enough, if you’re smart and talented and “good enough,” you can do anything.Except get pregnant.Her whole life, Lucy Knisley wanted to be a mother. But when it was finally the perfect time, conceiving turned out to be harder than anything she’d ever attempted. Fertility problems were followed by miscarriages, and her eventual successful pregnancy plagued by health issues, up to a dramatic, near-death experience during labor and delivery.This moving, hilarious, and surprisingly informative memoir not only follows Lucy’s personal transition into motherhood but also illustrates the history and science of reproductive health from all angles, including curious facts and inspiring (and notorious) figures in medicine and midwifery. Whether you’ve got kids, want them, or want nothing to do with them, there’s something in this graphic memoir to open your mind and heart.

    The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie

  For centuries, the kingdom of Iraden has been protected by the god known as the Raven. He watches over his territory from atop a tower in the powerful port of Vastai. His will is enacted through the Raven’s Lease, a human ruler chosen by the god himself. His magic is sustained via the blood sacrifice that every Lease must offer. And under the Raven’s watch, the city flourishes.

But the power of the Raven is weakening. A usurper has claimed the throne. The kingdom borders are tested by invaders who long for the prosperity that Vastai boasts. And they have made their own alliances with other gods.

It is into this unrest that the warrior Eolo–aide to Mawat, the true Lease–arrives. And in seeking to help Mawat reclaim his city, Eolo discovers that the Raven’s Tower holds a secret. Its foundations conceal a dark history that has been waiting to reveal itself…and to set in motion a chain of events that could destroy Iraden forever.

    Lent by Jo Walton

  Young Girolamo’s life is a series of miracles.

It’s a miracle that he can see demons, plain as day, and that he can cast them out with the force of his will. It’s a miracle that he’s friends with Pico della Mirandola, the Count of Concordia. It’s a miracle that when Girolamo visits the deathbed of Lorenzo “the Magnificent,” the dying Medici is wreathed in celestial light, a surprise to everyone, Lorenzo included. It’s a miracle that when Charles VIII of France invades northern Italy, Girolamo meets him in the field, and convinces him to not only spare Florence but also protect it. It’s a miracle than whenever Girolamo preaches, crowds swoon. It’s a miracle that, despite the Pope’s determination to bring young Girolamo to heel, he’s still on the loose… and, now, running Florence in all but name.

That’s only the beginning. Because Girolamo Savanarola is not who—or what—he thinks he is. He will discover the truth about himself at the most startling possible time. And this will be only the beginning of his many lives.

    A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

  Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining Station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn’t an accident—or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.

Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan’s unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.

    Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki, Rosemary Valero O’Connell

  Laura Dean, the most popular girl in high school, was Frederica Riley’s dream girl: charming, confident, and SO cute. There’s just one problem: Laura Dean is maybe not the greatest girlfriend.

Reeling from her latest break up, Freddy’s best friend, Doodle, introduces her to the Seek-Her, a mysterious medium, who leaves Freddy some cryptic parting words: break up with her. But Laura Dean keeps coming back, and as their relationship spirals further out of her control, Freddy has to wonder if it’s really Laura Dean that’s the problem. Maybe it’s Freddy, who is rapidly losing her friends, including Doodle, who needs her now more than ever.

Fortunately for Freddy, there are new friends, and the insight of advice columnists like Anna Vice to help her through being a teenager in love.

    Tiempo Muerto by Caroline Hau

  Two women meet on the island where they shared a childhood. One is looking for her mother, the other her yaya. One is an Overseas Filipino Worker, the other an heiress. In an old bahay na bato haunted by scandal and tragedy, secrets and ghosts, the women find their lives entangled and face the challenge of refusing their predetermined fates and embracing their open futures.

    Gideon the Ninth, The Locked Tomb #1 by Tamsyn Muir

  The Emperor needs necromancers.

The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as necromantic skeletons. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.

    Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K. J. Parker

  This is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege, written down so that the deeds and sufferings of great men may never be forgotten.

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all.

To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job.

    Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

  Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly in a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Jia writes about the cultural prisms that have shaped her: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the American scammer as millennial hero; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the mandate that everything, including our bodies, should always be getting more efficient and beautiful until we die.

  Thanks for bearing with me. Keep a weather eye for the next post.

[Reading] My 10 favourite books from 2019 Would it be terrible if I kept doing this: popping onto Wordpress once a year, for a week, just to chirp energetically about the things I'd done the previous year, before disappearing into the aether?

[ifollowfugo]

hey can I request the bucci gang making their s/o feel better after a particularly shitty day at work? thank you so much !!!

Hey! I’m trying something new. It’s the same setting for all of them, because I couldn’t find six different settings for this. Sorry! And also I’m very sorry about the wait, I can’t explain how tired I’ve been lately.

***

After a difficult day at work, you made your way home slowly and effortlessly, wanting to get there but not really feeling like transporting there. You felt oversaturated, irritated, the day truly couldn’t have gone any worse. You got there around forty minutes later than usual because of your lack of will to move, opened the door, and realized your boyfriend is already there, worrying.

-

Bruno was sitting on the couch watching tv but not really paying attention, so the second he heard the door open he jumped to go greet you.

“Tesoro, where have you been? I was already starting to worry!”

“I’m sorry, honey. I just had the worst day and I wasn’t really feeling like moving so I just made as little effort as possible.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about your day. You know what? I’m treating you tonight. What do you want to eat?”

After Bruno bought your favorite dish from your favorite restaurant, you two sat on the table to eat in comfortable silence. The atmosphere was so peaceful you could feel yourself calming down and finally start talking about your day, to which Bruno listens with all of his attention and makes some remarks on how you could avoid certain situations.

After washing the dishes you sat on the couch with him by your side and cuddled with him for a while. You felt like his arms were made specifically for you as you fit perfectly between them

“I was thinking.” Bruno let out a little time after. “I think the fact that you put up with all of that today really shows your mental strength. You should be proud of yourself. I know I am.”  

-

Abbacchio is on the kitchen preparing some tea when he heard the door open. You made your way tiredly to his side and just sat on the table and stump your head on it. He is looking at you, you know he is, but he won’t be the one to talk first. He wants you to tell him what is on your mind. So you start talking, which turns into yelling because you are still feeling angry. He just lets you unwind. After you’re done, he spoke calmly.

“You know, you shouldn’t let things get to you like that. I understand it’s hard, but is necessary, a part of life, and we just have to suck it up.” He spoke like he doesn’t care about what you’re going through. You are already feeling like an idiot because that made you feel like you might be too sensitive. And then he continued. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to be angry. embrace your anger, turn it into determination. Tomorrow you are getting there and kicking every problem on the fucking face. I know you can do it. That is one thing I adore about you, your power of will. I know you will be able to get everything you want in life and sort anything it throws at you.”

All you can do at that moment is hug him, hiding your face on his chest for a few minutes before turning to his face and kissing his lips. Both of you wanted to just stay there forever, united in a soothing silence you both enjoy.

-

Mista is so nervous you haven’t gotten home yet. He is standing in front of the door waiting for you to finally get there. When you do, he throws his arms around you and picks you up.

“I’ve been worried sick, babe! What happened to you?!”

“I’m sorry, Guido. I just didn’t feel like walking today and walked slower. I would have called but I was too spent to do anything.”

“What happened, baby? Tell me everything.” He said as he led you to your bedroom and then the bed.

Both of you got comfortable together on the bed and you started venting about what happened. He listened, making funny faces here and there with the intention to make you laugh. You appreciated the effort but you were still too angry to focus on anything.

“You know what you need?” Mista got up and went to get something. Came back with oils. “Massages. I’ll help you relax. I can promise you my massages are the best.”

You took off your clothes and positioned yourself on a towel on the bed, neither of you wanted to stain the sheets. Mista started working his way through you back with his hands, and they felt heavenly. He wasn’t kidding about his massages. His hands felt so good on your body, you started to feel more and calmer until you just dozed off.

After realizing this, Mista repositioned your body the way it should be on the bed and covered you with the sheets, getting in by your side and cuddling, dozing off himself.

-

Narancia hasn’t really noticed what time it was, he was really concentrated doing homework because Fugo had threatened him if he didn’t have it again the next day. You got into the living room and sat by his side, spying on his work to help him if he needs it. Although you offered, he wouldn’t let you help him because he wants to get it himself, and you couldn’t find neither the heart nor the energy to tell him he was really wrong.

“Is something the matter? You are really quiet today.” It warmed your heart that he noticed. You really adored this boy.

You started talking about the events of the day as you tried (and failed) to be calm. After you’re done describing some moron you had had to deal with, he looks really intensely to your eyes and asks:

“Would you like to get some ice cream? I’m up for it. It always makes me feel better after a long day.” Of course, you do.

Together, you make your way to the shop while talking about nothing important, holding hands, doing some childish stuff. Who cares? You deserved it. Narancia had a way of making you as happy as you were as a kid, and that was priceless. He made everything a thouand times more enjoyable, and you weren’t about to waste that.

-

Fugo was sitting on a little individual sofa, reading a book you had recommended. He heard you get inside and immediately got up to greet you. You noticed he was stretching so you guessed he had been reading for a long time. Must have had the day off.

“Hello dear, how was your day?” He greeted you with a hug and a light kiss on the cheek and he could sense your stiffness. “What’s the matter?”

You tell him about the awful day you just had and start getting frustrated over the same stuff you had been trying to forget. Luckily, you know your boyfriend experiences this kind of stuff all the time, and you trust he has an answer or at least a suggestion.

“Well, maybe there is something I can do. Feel like having a walk with me?” You didn’t, but maybe it was worth trying. 

As you two walked, he looked like he knew where he was going, so maybe it wasn’t just a simple walk around the city. You arrived at a storage unit and he got a key from his pocket, and that was where your curiosity got the best of you.

“What have you got here, honey?” He looked at you and grinned from ear to ear.

“This is where I come when I can’t get the anger out. I thought maybe you could try it.” He opened the door and revealed a room filled with plates and things made out of glass, with an area with bats and safety goggles and gloves. “I come here and I break stuff to calm my nerves. It’s just so cathartic.”

You spent hours in there, just throwing plates around and hitting vases with a bat. When you felt like you didn’t even have the energy to be angry anymore, you made your way home. You felt happy he shared this with you, and now you felt like you knew him better.

Back home, you sat on the couch and watched a movie enjoying each other in an embrace. He caressed your hair with the utmost delicacy and placed some light kisses on your forehead.

-

Giorno was making dinner by the time you arrived. If he had started so early, you knew it was going to be something special. How does he always manage to do this kind of stuff exactly when you need it? You never knew. He peeked his face over the wall that separated you.

“Amore?” He took one look at you and decided you needed a hug. He knew you so well. “What happened today? Was someone rude to you?”

You told him what had happened and you were clearly carrying so much frustration and tiredness you couldn’t continue with your day without letting it go that Giorno offered to prepare a bath and you practically begged him to do it. He chuckled at this, turned everything in the kitchen off for a while, and went to the bathroom. In the meantime, you decided to make a relaxing tea.

Sometime after, while you were sipping your tea sitting at the kitchen table, Giorno returned to tell you he was done, so you made your way to the bathroom. The sight alone was impressive, he had lit candles everywhere and rose petals floated on the water in the tub, but the smell really completed the atmosphere. It was perfect. You kissed Giorno and thanked him with a smile and got into the tub.

You enjoyed your bath while Giorno cooked, so when you got out the place smelled delicious. That man really knows how to spoil you. You got dressed comfortably and enjoyed dinner with some renewed energy and the feeling of being loved intensely.

[fixingaheart]

It Was 50 Years Ago Today....

August 26, 1968.  It's hard to believe, but it was 50 years ago that the Beatles released "Hey Jude."  "Hey Jude" was the first single on the band's label, Apple Records and it spent nine weeks on top of the charts in the United States.  The longest for any Beatles single.  "Hey Jude" was different for that time as a single due to it's length, 7:11.  At that time it was unheard of for a single to be that long.  But it was the Beatles, so normal was not something that they ever followed.  Contrary to what John Lennon believes, the song was written by Paul McCartney as a song to John's son, Julian.  At the time John and his wife, Cynthia, were in the process of separating and eventually getting divorced when Paul was making a drive out to visit Cynthia and Julian to see how they were doing.  The original title was going to be "Hey Jules", but Paul changed it to Jude because it had a better sound to it.  John Lennon always believed that the song was about him and that Paul had written it about Yoko coming into the picture and that he was feeling like their partnership was ending due to his new relationship.             For me there are bands that I love that I think about what my favorite song is and it's hard to really decide what it is.  But for the Beatles it's no contest, my favorite is "Hey Jude" by a landslide.  I absolutely love this song and depending on my mood at the time it is one of two possible songs that I consider my favorite song of all time.  It's a song that can brighten up your mood no matter how you are feeling and believe me over the past five or six years I have used this song constantly as a pick me up on the days when I have not felt my best.  The song has one of my favorite lyrics of all time in it.  "Take a sad song and make it better."  I always say if I were to ever get myself a tattoo I would def get a song lyric and that would be one of the two I would consider getting.  One of the other really great things I love about the song is the line "The movement you need is on your shoulder."  I saw an interview with Paul about how when he played that line for John he told him he would take that out and John said no he wouldn't because it was the best line in the song and everytime he plays it live now when he sings that line he thinks of John.  I always think of that interview when I hear that line in the song.  And you go through the great lyrics of the song and then you come to the outro part with all the "na na na na's" and oh my god how great is that!  Over four minutes of "na na na's" and listening to Paul just lose his ever loving mind screaming ad libbing is just amazing.  If I were ever to have a wedding, one of things I want to happen at the wedding is to have this song played and everybody comes out to the dance floor and the outro part of the song is just sung as loud as can be.  It would be such a fun time.  Two of the best days of my life, August 18, 2010 and July 7, 2014 I was lucky to see Paul McCartney in concert and when he had the audience singing the outro part, first everybody, then the guys, then the ladies just one of those moments where you honestly have to pinch yourself and ask if this is real life right now.              I always liked the song a lot but it wasn't until about six and half years ago that it really became my favorite Beatles song of all time.  At that time in my life I had just gone through something that hurt like hell and I was really struggling with stuff in my life.  I was living in Virginia, I felt alone, I felt like my life was falling apart and I was in a hole that was becoming too deep to see any way out of.  One night as the painful thoughts refused to leave my head I decided to throw on some music to try and escape my sadness.  It was on that night that this song came on and for the first time in a long while I was able to forget about the hurt and crack a little smile.  So I played it again, and then again, must have listened to it five or six times in a row that night and every since that night any time I feel the pain, I will turn to this song.  A couple months ago I was back in that hole again, even worse than it was those years ago.  Nothing seemed to matter anymore.  I would come home from work and all I would do is sleep, some nights I wouldn't even eat just sit on the couch and sleep, wake up a few hours later and go to my bed and go to sleep.  I was having scary thoughts, things that used to get me excited I couldn't have cared less about, including music.  I would cry for what seemed like hours and when I thought I was done for the night, I would start to cry again.  I would use all the energy I had just to pull myself out of bed in the morning and go to work.  And one night just like those years before I said I needed to do something and so I went to my computer and turned "Hey Jude" on again and again and again.  And it was cathartic for me to hear that song.  Why?  Because "Hey Jude" is a song of hope for me.  A song that is meant to chase away the sadness you may have in your life.  It's a song that just makes you smile each and every time that you listen to it.  It's a song that even when life is not going all that great, such as mine the past few months, it still never fails to provide some amount of hope to a hopeless situation.  It's a song that has stood the test of time for 50 years.  And it's a song that will stand the test of time for the next 50 years.  It's a song that has save my life on numerous occasions.  It's a song that will never ever get old for me.  So to Paul, John, George and Ringo thank you for giving the world the hope is so desperately needs.  And to "Hey Jude", happy 50th my friend.

[theroguesrandom]

Stranger Things s2 Reaction

So I just finished the second season and I have to say..... overall I was really pleased with it?? It wasn’t quite as strong as the first season, but it would have been hard to be after the sheer newness of the world wore off. I was dreading season two since I heard about it, simply because I loved season one so much and didn’t want to see it all fall apart (and so many shows fall apart hard after a strong start) but this season managed to hold its own, keeping the characters (for the most part) engaging, the story heartfelt and organic, and failing to tread over the same tropes and plots as the first season, while still paying homage and throwing in cute shout-outs throughout (from Eleven’s “mouthbreather” to things as subtle as Steve picking up last year’s Christmas lights while sorting through shed remnants).

The plotting was a little weaker overall, less cohesive, with some threads hanging looser by sheer value of the world just getting bigger... and, in my opinion, a few unnecessary side quests. But overall i was not disappointed. This was a successful addition to the Stranger Things universe and I was really happy with it.

Let’s talk characters

Season MVP: Dustin The show has really struck gold with Gaten Matarazzo and they used it this year, giving him a dynamic arc, great one liners, and every opportunity to shine. All the kids had their own storylines and pulled them off admirably, but Dustin’s bond with Dart, his slightly lopsided triangle with Max and Lucas, his surprising sibling-esque relationship with Steve, and his great sense of humor made every moment he was onscreen totally engaging. If Mike was the “main kid” of the group in season one, Dustin really took the spotlight this year.

(He was also the absolute star of that finale dance scene, despite two main couples kissing. Seriously, that was some last second heartache and triumph I didn’t see coming, that was hard to watch and then had me throwing my arms up excitedly in all the best ways. I love the full circle back to season one, with Dustin getting a sweet moment with Nancy.)

Runner up: Steve. Because Steve. Do I even have to say anything else? Last season’s last-second hero, this season’s group dad, total sweetheart and totally engaging. I love everything about this man, right down to his Farrah Fawcett hairspray. (And I’d also like to throw out: he was absolutely not a bad boyfriend, and I’m pretty pissed that Nancy let him think that he was.)

Most unnecessary character: Jonathan. I hate to say this because I adored him in season one... but he really did absolutely nothing this season. While every other character had some kind of independent arc, contributed something, set something in motion, poor Jonathan was stuck tagging along on other people’s arcs the entire season. Driving with Nancy to help her expose the facility (don’t tell me she wouldn’t have done this alone). Assisting his mom and Mike in interrogating Will (yes he contributed but, again, this would have gone the same exact way without his specific memories added in). Standing there while his mom burned the monster out of Will... even their reunion hug seemed sadly indicative of his role this season –– the two of them hugging and Jonathan kind of latching awkwardly on afterward. He didn’t change anything. Not one plot point of season two would have been affected if he hadn’t been there. (And obviously it would have raised a lot of questions if he wasn’t there, I’m not saying he shouldn’t have been... but the story really let him down this season.)

Runner up: Eight. Your mileage may vary on this one I guess. She did add a bit of backstory for Eleven (whether you think it was necessary or not is really a matter of opinion; I lean toward no, and lean toward it opening more plot holes and raising more questions than it answers) and acted as a bit of a foil for El, giving her a chance to choose the kind of person she wanted to be: vengeful or forgiving. But... was this really necessary for the story? Did it ultimately lead anywhere? Couldn’t El’s “runaway and return home” plot have been satisfied by seeking out her mother and visiting her aunt, without the additional side quest?

To be honest, it felt like a wasted episode.

Season’s Unexpected Hero: Bob CAN WE TALK ABOUT BOB?? I’ve loved Sean Astin since his days as LOTR’s “unexpected hero,” and I was looking forward to seeing him this season. But... we all knew from second one that he was monster fodder, right? He was the new guy. He was dating Joyce, who we all know will end the season standing with Hopper. It was obvious. ...Except then it really wasn’t? Because, like with so many things, Stranger Things turned all the possible tropes associated with a character like this (good natured, bumbling, and ultimately useless) on its head, making him useful and clever, and strangely capable of dealing with and adapting to all the impossible horrors suddenly being thrown at him. The show made us root for him, made us bond with him, made us think no maybe he could actually make it... and then tore our hearts out and fed them to the demodogs.

But at least he got to live on as Will’s superhero.

Relationships

Best relationship: Eleven and Hopper Even after those waffles in the woods at the end of last season and the parallel to his lost daughter, I didn’t expect this relationship to hit me the way it did. They were so... imperfect and sweet and painful and adorable and real. I ached for them both, knew exactly where they both were coming from in every second... and that’s a hard thing to achieve. The way they cared about each other and the way Hopper looked out for El made their little fractured found family such a joy to watch and had you rooting for them to reunite the whole season.

Runner up: Steve and Dustin This one crept up on me but wow. Who would have guessed these two would bond the way they did? Right down to Steve driving Dustin to the Snow Ball and giving him last second encouragements based on his own failed dating experience? I would watch a whole show about these two hanging out and looking out for each other, could we please have that spinoff? They were the MVPs of the season for a reason.

I also want to give a shout out to both “kid couples.” Lucas and Max were adorable throughout with really great chemistry. And even though Mike and Eleven weren’t given much chance to interact this year, their moments of missing and pining for each other were really poignant this year.

Weakest Relationship: Nancy and Jonathan Jonathan’s arc continued to disappoint here. Arguably his only plot point of the season was finally getting together with Nancy, but I just... didn’t see the chemistry. It felt very much like a plot point they forced in because they implied it was heading in that direction last year and felt like they needed to. These two getting together, along with Eleven’s side trip to Chicago, were easily the weak point of the season.

Other Things

Billy –– I have to say this right now... I really wish they hadn’t taken the time to make Billy sympathetic. Without that insight, without having seen his dad’s abusive nature, Max’s victory over her brother in the finale would have been hugely cathartic. She took him down, intimidated him, and made sure he wouldn’t torment her anymore. Standing up to her tormenter is huge and I don’t want to dismiss the significance of that for her... but knowing that Billy’s entire home life is ruled by fear and abuse makes her victory –– and her later moment preparing for the dance, where her mother dotes on her and shows her kind attention, something Billy clearly never gets –– a bitter one. If the show had taken it further, gotten them to understand each other somehow, gotten them to team up against some demodogs and then come home united against their dad? That could have been amazing.

That said--

Max –– was such a great addition to the kids’ group!! I don’t have much else to say except that it’s hard to fit a new character so seamlessly into an established group like that, but I ended up loving her pretty much immediately. The Zoomer is more than welcome in the party in my book.

Dart –– Demodogs are so freaking cute as babies, what the hell?? I kept waiting for him to come back, for that relationship to pay off, and I wasn’t disappointed. I was hoping he’d managed to find a way back to his dimension before the Gate closed, though. That made the end just a little bit heartbreaking.

Will’s Rainbow Ship –– I’m just curious about what the internet’s going to do with that, honestly.

Barb –– I’m so glad the show didn’t forget her or downplay the significance of her death. Ultimately, her loss was what brought the facility down and I think that was just such a perfect tribute to her, and her friendship with Nancy.

And I’m sure I’ll come up with other things the second I post this, but I think I’ll just leave it there for now. Great season overall, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!

[katiekart]

Eating Disorder Fight Club

I’m still not entirely sure why anorexia chose me, but for most of my adolescence I was firmly within its grip. Memories from then remain so fresh, as though frozen in time, and although i’ve been recovered for almost a decade my eating disorder remains a huge part of me and who I have become.

Something that will always stay with me is the loneliness. The feeling that no one could possibly understand and the self-inflicted isolation left me in my own little fantasy world, where nothing but the numbers and routine mattered. Despite the pain and the exhaustion, I convinced myself I was happy because I had ultimate control over my body. I was fooling everyone and I was succeeding at being a good anorexic. The nervous adrenaline rush before every weigh-in and the little kick I got out of every meal missed was enough to keep me going and going and going.

I realise now, of course, that I could never have been happy. It was never enough, and as my body grew smaller and weaker my spirit shrunk with it. Eventually I wasn’t really Katie anymore, I was just anorexia. This is where the thought of recovery became so scary and impossible. I was riddled with self-doubt and a complete lack of confidence. Anorexia became a safety blanket - at least if I wasn’t good for anything else, I could always be anorexic. It became my identity, and so intertwined with my being that the thought of recovery was tormenting.

At some point during the spiral my friends, teachers and eventually parents became concerned about my wellbeing and I was dragged to the GP, who thankfully took us seriously and referred us to a local Adolescent Unit. I struggled for months at home but eventually, with my parents unable to handle my condition and my anorexia too devious, I was admitted as an inpatient. I still remember the nursing staff who became like Aunties and Uncles to me, their silly stories making meal times marginally more bearable, and their hours spent playing pool keeping me from being constantly miserable. I will always be grateful for the care I received, I know I was exceptionally lucky to have found the right help so quickly. Many are not so lucky, and with resources getting more strained and eating disorders becoming more prevalent the future is scary.

I still struggle with my confidence, and this has manifested itself into anxiety in recent years which brings about its own hardships, but the mark left by anorexia is so profound that this in comparison seems totally manageable. My work as an artist suffers as I deal with constant thoughts of not being good enough or of failing, but I have taken a leap of faith designing these badges and just hope they bring some people some comfort.

I enjoy using symbolism in my work, and look to traditional beliefs and superstitions to instil a deeper meaning into my illustrations. I thought very carefully about what I wanted to say with these badges. I wanted to try and represent everyone in the eating disorder journey.

The moth symbolises intuition - I have always had a bit of a "spidey-sense” when it comes to people who are struggling. I feel very deeply and although I don’t think much of myself, I am compassionate towards others. It’s about not being afraid to confront problems and ask questions, acting off of your gut and stepping in if you think something isn’t right. It might be uncomfortable, and they may even hate you for a while, but they will be thankful eventually.

The dogwood symbolises love undiminished by adversity - how my Mother, in particular, continued to love and support me through those years baffles me. I was a horrible person to be around, I consumed all her time and thoughts, and yet she was there without question. Never forget about those around someone with an eating disorder, because they are struggling too. I still feel guilty about what I put my family through and will always appreciate their love through that time.

The mushroom symbolises resilience - going through an eating disorder is going through a battle of a lifetime, it’s tough, especially when you’ve been ill for a number of years. Eventually as your body gets healthier and your mind gets stronger, fighting back becomes easier, but it takes a lot of courage and will. There will be bad days and better days, but don’t lose your resolve to get there because life is better without anorexia, I promise.

I hope this gives a little insight into why I made these badges. This has been a really cathartic process for me and whilst dwelling on my past can be painful, I think it’s important. If you would like to contact me for whatever reason, please do any time. If you’ve ever been affected by an eating disorder, I send you all my love and luck.

If you have stumbled across this post and would like to purchase one of my pins, details can be found here - katiek.bigcartel.com

50% of my profits will be donated to the wonderful Beat charity - a vital resource for people afflicted with an eating disorder.

[rayshippouuchiha]

You write Steve/Tony and like Steve, so I was wondering your opinion on the post-CW spitefic is? Where Team Cap is destroyed and drags out all their faults and entitlement. I saw you read Wix on ao3, who I found when looking for not-Steve-friendly fic. Is reading Steve bashing hard for you or do you think he had good points in CW even if Tony is your trashbaby?

Okay I’m gonna go in depth with this because this isn’t the only ask I’ve gotten on this subject.

So sit down, buckle up, and get ready for a ride Nonny.

So to truly explain my feels on spite fic I’m going to, perhaps unnecessarily, go into a bit of detail about my MCU!Steve and Civil War feels as well as my feels when it comes to Steve’s arguments in Civil War specifically.

Now, as stated before, I am a Stony shipper and I do adore Steve, he’s my precious triangle of justice and I love him.

That being said, as much as I love Chris Evans, I don’t really see MCU!Steve as Steve once we get past Cap 2 if that makes sense.

I just ... don’t.

The Steve I love when it comes to MCU is CA:TFA through most of CA:TWS Steve and even then I’ve got some quibbles with his characterization (here’s looking at your ass Joss Wheat-thin).

But post WS and into AoU there is a bitterness and hypocritical slant to Steve that I’m not that fond of.  A sort of derisiveness towards Tony in particular that grates at me.  And he’s not the only one either.  The majority of the team is dismissive towards Tony in a way that just ... blows my fucking mind.

(Now, to be fair, this is also taking into account that MCU!Steve seems to pull heavily from Ultimates!Steve from the comics which is a whole different kettle of fish than 616!Steve.)

I’m quoting some of my past posts here directly but the points all still stand for me.

I am and always will be forever bitter that MCU gave me the coming together story of Avengers and instead of following through with that and giving me stories about team work and found family and overcoming differences for the good of mankind on a larger scale they chose to go the opposite route.

We could have had The Golden Age of Heroes(TM) but they stole that from us.

The Steve&Tony friendship is one of the areas where the MCU dropped the ball in a major way.  Their relationship has been as defining part of both of their lives over the years in the comics and the MCU fails to even really touch on the depth of feelings that have always existed between the two.

Overall in the MCU the relationship between the two is, in my opinion, decidedly one sided.  There is, again in my opinion, no real evidence that Steve values Tony as an individual beyond the “I’ll miss you” comment in AoU.  Steve shows a blatant disregard for Tony and his emotional well being as well as his general well being.

In two separate movies Steve shows more trust towards a man he barely knows (Sam) and a woman who was an active enemy (Wanda) than he ever shows towards Tony.

(And don’t even get me started on my belief that it took two separate characters to give Steve the rounded friendship he should have gotten with Tony)

So instead of my Golden Age of Heroes(TM) I got an MCU driven by Tony Stark/Steve Roger’s untreated PTSD and a shit ton of in-fighting where they managed to make the Iron Man/Captain America relationship all kinds of toxic without even the courtesy of giving me the bright days first.

This unwillingness and/or inability to build a correct Steve/Tony relationship in MCU plays a great deal into my ability to read spite-fic where Steve is concerned.

Cap 3 itself gives me the rest of what I need to be able to set my love for him aside in a way that I can’t for Tony.

Specifically the issue of The Accords and Steve’s response to them.

I’d like to preface this by saying that even though I’m firmly Team Iron Man when it comes to this issue I’m aware that Tony made some mistakes (what they were is another topic entirely).

That being said I find myself incapable of being overly sympathetic to Steve in this instance outside of the fact that I too would do my best to protect Bucky Barnes.

I just would try to find a way that didn’t involve spitting in the face of 117 countries in the process.

In Civil War Steve argued from both a place of privilege and ignorance.  He is one of the elite telling the common man that his way is better.  It smacks of self-righteousness and rings tone deaf for what is supposed to be the core of his character because the narrative and information we’re given in the film doesn’t back up his argument.

He also goes against the will of the very people he’s supposed to be protecting in order to protect Bucky (who was indeed not to blame for his actions under HYDRA but that’s a separate issue) and in the process damages a great deal of infrastructure and injures a number of otherwise innocent individuals.

It’s actions like this that prove that the Accords as they were presented in Cap 3 look to be necessary and needed even if they aren’t perfect.

I, personally, don’t see how anyone could think they’re not at least a vaguely reasonable precaution in the MCU even while admitting that they’d need overhauling and tweaking (which Tony did).

The comics were different in a lot of ways.  There was an actual moral dilemma concerning registration and things of that nature that wasn’t put forth in the MCU.  The history was richer, the relationships were deeper, there were enough heroes/villains/enhanced individuals of various kinds for it to be an actual war instead of a pissing contest in a parking lot.

The MCU didn’t have that.  The MCU didn’t have the background to show the Accords as anything but a reasonable starting point even if they were flawed.

Hell the MCU didn’t even give us enough information as to what the Accords contained for us to actively take Steve’s side and say that they were inherently wrong.

Hell Steve and the rest of “Team Cap” didn’t even have the time to read and understand the Accords themselves before uniting against the restrictions they supposedly placed on the Avengers.

(Because one shot of Steve flipping through the packet is not the same as reading/understanding that amount of legal jargon and I will willingly meet anyone who says otherwise in the fucking pit.)

I’ve said in the past, and I maintain the stance still, that MCU was not in the correct emotional and/or plot position/stage for Civil War to be a Thing™.

I also maintain that it was basically two movies smashed together.

It’s basically Hey Guys Here’s Some Rulez and Up All Night To Get Bucky jammed together and forced to fit.

And the story, the characters, and the fans suffered for it.

Instead of a heartbreaking story centered around the super human community, on Steve and Tony and their differing views but desperate love for each other (because it’s there even if you don’t think it’s romantic), and such we got a heartbreaking story of how Steve is a short sighted jackass who’ll plow over anyone and everything who stands in his way even if that is the rest of the world that he’s supposed to be protecting and Tony is, once again, everyone’s punching bag.

Honestly this is just a long winded way of saying that I’m cool with spite-fic for the most part.

There are some that take it a bit too far logically but it’s fic and that’s allowed.

Also I think that a majority of spite-fic isn’t hate based when it comes to Steve and Team Cap.

I think it’s disappointment based.

Because Steve, thanks to the writers, let a lot of us down when he put one man in front of the entire world and ultimately his team and Tony.

I think a lot of writers use spite-fic as a cathartic way to work out their emotions concerning those issues and I’m cool with that.  I think they use spite-fic as a way to dissect the arguments from different viewpoints and with an admitted amount of bias.

I also think that a lot of spite-fic isn’t even really spite-fic it’s people using basic fucking logic and world knowledge to rip the flimsy ass premise of the movie apart with extreme prejudice and in doing so Steve and his side comes out look far worse than Tony and his side because logically most of their actions made little to no sense.

So yeah I’m good with spite-fic and it doesn’t really bother me to set Steve to the side to read post-CW stuff that shows him in a bad light both fairly and unfairly.

[multiverseofmiracleshq]

Due to the increasingly hostile tension between the nation of Krakoa and President Osborn, the Quiet Council of Krakoa held a meeting for mutants on Emma Frosts’ ship in the sea beside the the Island nation. As a result they reached the conclusion that they would need to divide and conquer in order to cover all of their bases.

THIS IS THE OFFICIAL COMPLETE CHAT LOG COVERAGE OF THE IC

MOIRA: Her presence wasn’t supposed to be known. Moira Kinross ( Mactaggart ) was not a prideful woman. She had lived ten lifetimes and had worn many faces, but pride had never gotten her very far in any of them. Quite the opposite, actually. Her proudest moments had led to her flesh melting away by Pyro’s powers and Mystique’s rage. But that was seven lives ago. In this one she had come the closest she ever had to achieving her goal of mutant peace. She let Charles and Erik walk in the sun while she hid in the shadows. If Moira Kinross died, so did Krakoa. Her tricky little mutation would reset everything and once again she’d have to labor through trying to get people to unite and work together. She, Erik and Charles had conferred and the safest place for her was what the three dubbed Moira’s No-Space, sector 18. She stayed quiet and advised but the world needed to think she was dead so it didn’t lose its progress. That was, until Charles Xavier went missing. It was peculiar timing coupled with Osborn’s rise to power but there was little they could do if Cerebro couldn’t detect a trace and the mutants who covertly searched couldn’t either. Knowing that she might have had three lives left - if she was lucky - made it more complicated than just showing her face. Still, she sat in Charles’ place at the table on Emma’s opulent boat, a founder of Krakoa most didn’t even know was a mutant. She had put a vision in his mind decades ago and they were too close to perfection to lose it. “Obviously we have much to cover.” Fingers drummed against the cold white table. “Our children being arrested, our team being copied and, of course, Charles. I’d prefer to not be here for the sake of us all, but it seems we’re past the point of preferences. Anyone like to begin?”

KATE PRYDE: The rock of waves against the hull wasn’t as prominent here, in Emma’s yacht that made her supply ship look like a pontoon. In fact, it sat remarkably still, as if undeterred by the ocean carrying it. Sitting at the far end of the table, she felt remarkably still and intrinsically, she missed the lull of a rocking ship. Crossing one leg over the other, she examined her fingernails while Moira spoke, a lingering question on the back of her tongue that she knew wasn’t the time to ask. Near her, Kate could feel the presence of Emma, and while they had moved to better terms, things were still complicated between them. Namely, the broken nose thing. As much as Kate hated to admit it, she knew she was developing a habit that was causing her to spiral and react to things, instead of work through them. Looking up just as Moira closed her statement, Kate went ahead and scanned the eyes of everyone else that sat with them, skipping over Emma, Jean, and Scott. When no one else seemed to make an immediate move, she dropped her hand into her lap and sat forward. “Dismantling Osborn did rank top priority, but with Charles gone, everything got a lot more complicated. But Osborn had the ability to poison the mutants from the inside, so I don’t know if reallocating our resources to finding Charles is smart right now.” It was a difficult statement to make, and a difficult direction to suggest, but Kate still remembered the chaos from Emma sitting on the Cabal, and how little of a threat that was in comparison to whatever Osborn had planned.

ERIK: “Charles has the potential to have incredible influence over people-- you all know that. In the wrong hands, that potential could be devastating.” Erik’s view on the topic at hand was being pulled in two directions, and he was doing his best to make himself seem impartial. He wasn’t, of course. And that wasn’t exactly a secret. But he tried to make it seem as if it wasn’t too drastic. “I’d argue that finding him should be closer to the top of the list than the bottom of it.”

MOIRA: “He was always supposed to be the figurehead.” Moira’s head nodded in agreeance. “It’s not just his telepathy we’re losing.” They had omega telepaths but they needed Charles and everything he stood for. The face of the X-Men, the face of Krakoa. “If they keep arresting minors, however, we’ll lose footing outside of the nation as well. From all accounts they’re dehumanizing our children.”

KATE: “Than what does go to the bottom, Erik? The kids being arrested and having who knows what done to them, or a sociopathic Avengers? Not to mention the, you know, evil X-men. Sounds like we’re juggling our weight and then some in total bullshit and there really isn’t a right way to go about this. All I know is that we can’t have Osborn in our team anymore and we can’t keep letting him kidnap minors with abilities. You want to talk about weaponizing for the wrong reasons? You give him a bunch of untrained mutants and what do you think will happen?” Despite the aggression of her words, Kate’s tone was level and as calm as she could keep it. She loved Charles, most of them did, and it felt more like an impossible decision, but the matter at hand was they were facing a threat with more power than they understood at the moment.

EMMA: Letting them all onto her pristine boat was the least Emma could do after her involuntarily abhorrent behavior. Moira’s reemergence had come as somewhat of a surprise but she had brushed it off with the cool indifference she had decided to permanently adopt until her pride could heal as flawlessly as her face. “If the Cabal knows where Charles is they never let me be privy to any details. I’d be surprised though. Egomaniacal sociopaths don’t care much for anything outside themselves.” How sad it was that they thought it plausible she could be from their ranks. She was sitting rather close to Scott, one gloved hand lingering near his own. Sometimes you needed people to tether you and Emma was, on occasion, flesh and blood. “I can assure you his mutants are very trained. Madelyne has done nothing but cause trouble,” her eyes danced over Nate noncommittally. “And Mesmero is far more equipped than he should be. My concern will always be the children and their wellbeing. We have no future without them.”

ERIK: “There really isn’t a bottom to the list, you’re right.” He replied with a side, eyes glancing down to a non-specific and unfocused place. After a few seconds there they slid over to Moira, making it look as if his next question was solely for her. It was meant for the entire group, but perhaps he was looking for specific answers that he thought she might have. “So how do we decide which lives and which problems to put first?”

MOIRA: She had shared the lives she had lived before but it had never been done well before. Xavier, Apocalypse, Magneto. She had tried and failed to achieve what Krakoa was. “Perhaps we need to put them all first, divide our strength and energy. That’s how this Island was created, mind you.”

SCOTT: “We might not have another choice.” Scott said grimly from his place at the table. The dull throb of a headache that had existed behind his eyes for two days was front and center again, and even with the aid of his glasses, the lights were still too bright. From the Cabal infiltration to the aftermath of rescuing Emma, Scott hadn’t been sleeping much. And now, with news about Charles. “I agree with Erik, regardless. Charles has to be top priority. We don’t leave people behind.”

KATE: “That’s under the assumption we have the resources to exhaust. I’m not trying to be a pessimist, but we don’t want to stretch too thin and then lose everything.”

JEAN: For a number of reasons the baby had been left at home, one of which being Jean got seasick and an infant + a boat seemed destined to fail. She had remained quiet for the most part by Logan’s side, but her gaze had repeatedly fallen on her husband across the table. Her head turned slightly to the side, mind brushing out to meet his in a brief brush of what was intended to be relieving. “We have more than most know. X-Force has been working around the clock looking for Charles and trying to give warnings of C.R.A.D.L.E. to mutants. Dividing may not be a bad idea when you think about the number of heavy hitters we have. We do have some range.”

BETSY: "I do have some contacts.” Betsy reclined in her chair, armor clinking. There was always something going on in Otherworld and she had come straight from some mystical mess. “Pete Wisdom with MI6 is a good friend. He can’t get involved in your politics, obviously, but there’s resources we can use to look for Charles.”

ERIK: Erik glanced around at the seats around him, taking it all in. He gave Scott a nod in agreement and then spoke after Betsy finished. “Not only do we need to get the job done, this is a good opportunity to once again show how resilient we are; to show the world how we will protect our own, no matter what. We will stay together, and we will fight for each other. Giving them another reason to second guess meddling in our affairs in the future isn’t something I’m necessarily against.”

LAURA: “We can burn down C.R.A.D.L.E.” Laura shrugged a shoulder. Ever since they had left the facility it felt like her claws were about to extend involuntarily and the last thing she wanted was to hurt someone she cared about. Maybe it would be cathartic. “Some of us don’t have much to do otherwise.” Just hide on the Island. They had already asked the Wolverine’s to track Charles’ scent but it had been a dead end.

LOGAN: “I don’t blame you for wanting to, and I can’t believe I’m saying this.. but that might not be the best idea.” In the past-- yeah, Logan might have been all for it. He would have done something like that solo. He looked to Laura, a bit stern and a bit concerned, but he understood where she was coming from. “Runnin’ around with claws out gets us the wrong kind of attention.”

KATE: Forcing herself to swallow a breath, Kate settled back into her seat, trying to relax. She couldn’t really get the image of Emma out of her head — of the words she spoke and the way her cold eyes raked over Kate like she didn’t deserve to breathe the same air. Kate had come a long way since being the girl with the small voice entering Xavier’s school, but she still looked up to Emma as a friend. As a mutant. As a person. And a driving force behind her urgency was her need to put a stop to Osborn for what he did. Even if she could admit that they had the resources and the people, Kate never actively saw that. It wasn’t entirely real to her — but Osborn was. “We’d have to secure Avengers support. They weren’t a big fan of us last time, but it’ll be impossible without them.”

LAURA: Her hands twitched slightly but Laura kept them by her side. She had been sitting as silently and stilly by Warren as possible but now the restless energy that had been bothering her was flaring up. “I’m not running around with my claws out. I’m going one place, taking them out and doing what I have to do.” Gabby would understand. It was almost hurtful that Logan didn’t get the urge to burn a facility to the ground when he knew what they could turn you into.

CABLE: “Who’s gonna take one for the team and talk to them for us?” Nate piped up, leaning forward with both arms against the table in front of him. “I mean, I don’t have the best track record when it comes to getting people to side with me. Otherwise I would bodyslide over there right now and give it a shot.”

LORNA: “You’ve got an Avenger for a kid.” Lorna’s words were directed at her father, spoken as if she wasn’t blood related to Wanda as well. “And she helped us when we needed it. Think maybe you could try and see if they’d do more than focus on whatever bullshit Osborn is throwing at them?”

LANA: “My teammates work with the Avengers. Former sidekicks, mentees, whatever. I can float it with Spider-man, Amadeus and the others.” However, it still felt weird to contribute in any way to a mutant thing. It felt like she didn’t belong. “That being said, we have our own C.R.A.D.L.E. @#$@# to deal with. Ms. Marvel is still... Well, there’s a lot going on, y’know.”

LOGAN:  “You don’t want more blood on your hands, do you?” Logan wasn’t saying it to be hurtful. It was just to try and make Laura take a step back and think about it for a second. In the end, he knew he couldn’t stop her if she had her heart set on it.

EMMA: Even though she registered hearing Kate speak, Emma’s eyes remained fixed on a spot over Logan’s head where a white clock was silently ticking away. When she decided to speak once more her gaze was anchor-less and one hand hovered by white painted lips. “Katherine is right.” She still didn’t glance over, mostly because she hated feeling embarrassed and Emma was bursting with shame. “But that may not be enough. Osborn’s little Cabal I had the pleasure of sitting with is making their work turning distrust away from the Avengers and their adjacent’s.”

LAURA: “They already gave me more.” Laura hissed. They didn’t have to kill people. They just needed to wipe it clean. For a moment her mind registered the hot sting of how much she hated Warren seeing her covered in blood with a snarl on her face, but sometimes that X-23 was the one who got the job done. “It would be worth it if it kept others safe.”

ILLYANA: Most of the time their conversations were boring. Illyana listened because it was the smart thing to do but she very rarely focused in. As they discussed Illyana moved down the tiny buffet they had set up, a singular bite taken out of a finger sandwich. “Scott,” she swallowed bread and lettuce. “You’re Captain Commander. Designate some teams. The Council gives their blessing, we stab who we need to and then we can leave the Island without getting picked up by some stupid American.”

ERIK: “I could talk to Wanda, yes.” Erik glanced between Lorna and Emma. “There are a few different paths we could take, different connections we have available to us. And even if the public is losing their trust in the Avengers, we luckily know better. It’s a smart option-- perhaps the best one we have right now.”

WARREN: “What about you though, Laura?” Warren spoke up before Logan could answer. “We want you to be safe too. I mean-- don’t get me wrong, I know you can take care of yourself. But I’m not big on the idea of you going back there.”

LORNA: “I feel like she owes us, considering the -- you know...” Lorna waved a finger in the air as if that would clarify decimated our race and took our mutations without straight up calling Wanda out. Her elbow was resting on the table, hand tangled up in the green. “So, it’d be a real dick move to not step up right now.”

REMY: “Neither am I,” Remy’s voice carried from where he sat near Lorna, lounging back in his chair. His eyes weren’t focused on her, rather, they were watching the drum of his fingers against the table. Though his demeanor indicated boredom, his tone towards Laura did not. “But Logan,” he didn’t even bother addressing Warren, “It’s not our place.”

BETSY: “I’ll phone Pete and see what he can do. Otherwise, Excalibur needs to focus on the Otherworld. That’s a whole pot we don’t need to get into right now.” There were moments where Betsy resented her new life and the role she used to play. Even throughout the struggle it was, in some ways, simpler. “Do we know how much time we have before the public tears us apart over his disappearance?”

SCOTT: His eyes swung to Illyana, a fraction of this moment spent humoring her. “It’s not that simple.” he then settled back into the conversation bustling around the table. “If Wanda can convince them on mutant behalf. I feel like we’ll need more reach than that to get everyone on board, if they’re not sympathetic to the cause. If anything, they’ll want to take down Osborn just as much as we do, and we can allocate people to other duties instead — like finding Charles.”

LAURA: What they were saying made sense but Laura didn’t want to admit it. She had made so much progress but after seeing red once again she couldn’t shake it.  A stubborn part of her - the part that probably came from Logan - had tricked itself into believing that if she eliminated the thing that had hurt her, the thing that was bad, everything could once again move. “I have to.” She replied simply to both her father and Remy ( who may as well have been family ) while also leaving Warren out. “You.” Her sights locked on Cable. “I saw what they did to your girlfriend.” The words were spoken as if Lana wasn’t beside him, and she didn’t even try to get into whatever was going on with Quire. “Jean and Scott can help look for Charles. We can handle C.R.A.DL.E.” It was then that she finally looked at Warren. “They can’t kill me. I’ll live.”

JEAN: “I think it’s going to be hard for us to get the Fantastic Four to help us.” Jean sighed. “Not with everything going on with Franklin, but if the Avengers help us they might as well.  I know things have been tense with Reed and Sue as late, but we need all the alliances we can get.”  That being said, one ear was being kept on the other situation to make sure it went smoothly.

ILLYANA: “Well I’m a Captain of Krakoa,” Illyana set her appetizer down. “So maybe I should designate. Laura goes to not get killed with other youth, Lorna and Erik appeal to their treacherous blood traitor and then you can decide who looks for Charles and who fights the reject X-Men.” A snarky smile briefly passed her lips. “You’re welcome.”

WARREN: “Laura--” Warren was looking at her, expression tense and eyes full of concern. “You’re pretty damn near indestructible but..” What could he say to convince her? He wasn’t sure. But he was scared for her.

KATE: “Yeah I’m starting to see why, Yana.” Kate shot a glance in her direction, not one of malice or ill-intent, but also not one of amusement. Somewhere in the middle. “I don’t know if you’re helping.”

ILLYANA: There was a noncommittal shrug before Illyana returned to her bread and lettuce on the peripheral of the room.

LORNA: “Sometimes you just need to blow stuff up.” Lorna knew that all too well. “Can we just get someone to supervisor this explosive visit?”

CABLE: Nate took a quick glance at Lana before facing Laura again. He took a pause, thinking it over but not sure if he should say everything he was thinking. “They’re bastards, that’s for sure.” That was the truth. Part of him was itching to get them back for what they did. “They deserve it.”

LANA: Even though she had been rudely ignored, Lana leaned forward slightly. “I have a really bad habit of blowing things up, so I think I can help. I just can’t get arrested again. I ran out of strikes like three times ago.”

CABLE: “See, that’s what I’m worried about. That’s why I’m not.. 100% on this idea.” A thumb jutted out towards Lana after she mentioned not wanting to get arrested again. “They deserve it. But is it worth the risk of you guys going there again?”

JEAN: “Logan.” Jean shifted in her chair to face him fully. They were on shaky ground but finding their way back together once more and she was grateful for that. “The Council can’t authorize a suicide mission. Not when we have so much at stake already. Of course, there’s a chance we might get ignored altogether.” That was directed at Laura. “So let’s find some middle ground here.”

LOGAN: He heard his name and turned to Jean, locking eyes with her for a long few seconds. He got lost in that connection briefly, and then found his words again. “Is there middle ground here? I dunno if I can see it.” His voice was at a low whisper-- hinting at his frustration. “I can’t let those kids run off like that but I have a feelin’ we’re gonna have a hard time keeping ‘em down. Had this been ten, fifteen years ago, I might have even been in Laura’s shoes.”

JEAN: As much as Jean wanted to enjoy their recently awakened connection the buzz of tense minds around her was beginning  to build up behind her eyes. “Ten to fifteen years ago I would have tried to stop you.” Bright eyed and bushy tailed, a fresh X-Men. “I know they hurt you.” Jean’s voice softened. “A lot of you. And that’s not okay. It’ll never be okay. Scott, you wouldn’t mind helping assemble a team that could deal with C.R.A.D.L.E., would you? We can do this but it needs to be the right way.”

LOGAN: One corner of Logan’s lips perked into a smile for a split second before disappearing again. The two of them were good at being nostalgic at the worst times, but he welcomed it anyway. Then he glanced to Scott, not saying anything but waiting for an answer.

SCOTT:  Just parked in this chair, on Emma’s yacht — it had Scott itching to jump up and do something, anything. The nervous energy that bounced around was felt in the drumming of fingers, the restlessness of legs bouncing, and of the constant chatter. They were also fighting for solutions to something that seemed impossible. Hearing his name drew his attention to Jean, who he saw facing Logan, though her words were directed to him. “It doesn’t have to end there, but yeah. We’ll have to figure out what resources we can allocate towards what causes, and that’ll be after we find out how much help we can get from the Avengers. It’s a lot like sitting on our hands, but if we just react, we could end up making this worse for ourselves. And for Charles.”

LOGAN: “Gotta love when we’re on the same page, Summers.” Logan replied, his tone only slightly sarcastic. He wasn’t here to ruffle feathers. “These kids are about ready to jump ship--” Pun definitely intended. “We can’t let ‘em run off.”

EMMA: “While you all blow up that torturous playpen I have a very specific date with Mesmero. Which means I’m officially appointing myself head of the Cabal and X-Men task force. Any issues with that?” Emma only waited for a singular beat with an arched brow before continuing. “Scott, darling, I’ll just be needing a few people for that. Katherine, Quire, the standard fare.”

KATE: For the first time since arriving, Kate’s eyes landed somewhere on Emma’s face. She had meant to meet her eyes, but her gaze instead landed on her nose and she involuntarily winced a little. “Sounds like a plan,” it was as much of a response as she could give in return.

EMMA: The blonde’s lips twitched downwards in displeasure momentarily at Katherine’s gaze. “Most excellent. As much as I’d love to, I’ll comply with the Council and will not kill him. I make no promises to his mental state.” In other words, she’d rip him apart.

QUENTIN: Quentin, from where he sat with his feet up on the table, gave Emma a lazy two fingered salute-- small sparks of blue energy trailing behind his hand as it moved.

LAURA: Sitting rigidly, Laura watched them all debate while knowing that in the end they ultimately might not change her decision. Not even Warren, with his sad eyes. A part of her felt betrayed by Logan but that was ridiculous. Then he was making eyes at Jean and Laura’s head was shaking. “As long as it gets done and I’m there then I don’t care. But we don’t have time to wait on you to rally your troops.” She gutted her chin at Scott.

JEAN: For some reason it would always feel a little wrong when Scott and Logan got along, but Jean was grateful for it all the same. “I’ll keep looking for Charles then. I’ll use Hank and Monet to start. Erik, you’re welcome to join after you talk to the Avengers.” The offer was really just  to be nice.

SCOTT: The brief, subtle movement of Scott’s hand just brushing against Emma’s was a tell that he didn’t want to broadcast, but he wanted to make her aware of his presence next to her. He’d been there in the immediate aftermath, and he’d been there through most of the healing. “The Cabal will be dealt with accordingly and will fall within the laws of Krakoa.” But he agreed with Emma, and he’d stand by her decision to deal with Mesmero however she saw fit.

ERIK: “I appreciate that, Jean. And I might just take you up on it.” Erik gave her a nod. “It will give me something to look forward to.” Talking to the Avengers was certainly not on his list of favorite things to do.

EMMA: Perhaps a different woman would have been abashed by the fact that she was sleeping with the husband of the woman across from her, but they had settled into a strange normal. She and Jean were of no threat to one another and as Scott brushed her hand there was the slightest sigh of internal relief. They’d get everyone off her boat and she would drink champagne on the deck, diamond tears plinking into the ocean. “Love your enthusiasm, Laura, but we have an image to protect. We need a statement ready.”

ERIK:  “We can keep it simple: “Be ready.”” Erik gave an almost playful sideways glance to Emma.

KATE: “So it’s settled then.” Just like the rest of them, Kate was ready to get off this boat and get back on solid ground — which lately, hadn’t really been her thing. She was already gripping the arm rests and beginning to stand. “We designate teams, we try not to stretch ourselves too thin, and we take Osborn down. Now we just need a when, a game plan, and we’re set.”

LAURA: As soon as they were dismissed Laura’s chair was pushed back and she was heading out of the room without a word. She needed to get off the boat. Wolverine’s could drown, after all, and there was enough shit to worry about.

MOIRA: She had remained silent for a large part of the conversation deliberately. Her role in Krakoa was not supposed to be participatory at this stage. Moira knew what she knew about the world, and it was more than most. She always maintained a fear she would be the one to knock everything off its proper course. “Then I believe we are through. I’m sure we can count on the Council to be efficient.” Moira rose, looking everyone over. “If they were better circumstances I would say that it’s good to see you. It’s not, however, so all we can do is strive  towards improvement.” With that she turned to leave, back to the No-Space where she could no longer pretend like she did not exist. They were all in the thick of it now, for better or worse.

[moviegroovies]

oof. in the last few days, i’ve watched five (5) new movies, at least three of which i have opinions on i’d like to share. for convenience’s sake, i’m going to start with the most recent, and work back from there. 

so: troy (2004) 

as someone who was coerced into studying the iliad at a liberal arts college, this movie enraged me. as someone who likes to enjoy himself while watching movies, this movie horrified me. all around, i’m going to rate it a solid 3/10, and that might be generous, but there WERE a few things i liked, which i’m going to talk about, because what else do i do here, anyway.

i’m not even going to get into all the ways this was an unfaithful adaptation of the source material, because there just is not the fucking time, and i’m sure other people before me have done it, so let’s just say that the moment they cast brad pitt as achilles, all hope was lost. i will comment that they of course no-homo’d achilles and patroclus, but had i gone in expecting to see any representation in this movie, i would have been an even bigger masochist than i am. that does not mean i wasn’t still a little disappointed, though.

troy takes into account much more than the actual span of the iliad, beginning (long) before the start of the epic and ending after it finished. in this way, we see the full span of the story, which i suppose is a good thing, although it did stretch this painfully milquetoast adaptation into an agonizing three hours. we see everything from agamemnon’s quest to unite all the kingdoms of greece together underneath his rule to the sacking of troy, meaning we also get to see paris seducing helen, achilles’ death, and the sacking of troy with the trojan horse, all of which the iliad does not include. being that the actual content of the iliad isn’t quite so battle-focused as the general public might think, these things are all probably good for the telling of an actual story. i can forgive most of the changes to the story that we did see, because i think that, given that you don’t know the source material, it makes for a cohesive and satisfying narrative, all in all. menelaus’s character being changed to make helen’s choice to leave with paris more sympathetic made the choice to have hector kill him a cathartic one. even better was briseis getting to take her revenge on agamemnon for his treatment toward her and, more generally, the fact that he was the one who brought war and soldiers to her front door. sure, that totally ruins the play orestes, but that was never going to be the sequel we were waiting for, anyway. 

side note, i think of the actors, agamemnon (played by brain cox) was the best. he just had a really good love-to-hate-him thing going, and played up his part pretty excellently. orlando bloom also felt like a good choice for paris (i would for sure leave menelaus for him, for instance), and vincent regan as eudoros was sort of a dark horse in the cast for me; i’d never heard of him before, and his character was small, but there was something striking about him. maybe it was just his eyes. 

in the movie, the siege of troy went from spanning ten years to like... maybe a couple of weeks? that was the one change from the source material that i really couldn’t abide, but What Ever I Guess. if they had just begun in the 9th year of the siege, it might have made the casting of then 40 year old brad pitt as achilles make a little more sense. as it stands.... whatever. sure. do whatever the fuck you want. i can’t stop you. 

generally, i like brad pitt in things (one of the other movies of the five that i watched, for instance, was se7en, although i don’t really have any particular comments on that other than, it was good, i liked it, i probably won’t choose to watch it again just on a whim), but i really could not get behind this particular performance. it had some of the same problems as him at the start of interview with the vampire; i think he kind of warmed to the role with that one, but the scene with him as a dissociating human felt... off, in terms of acting, but maybe that’s just me. either way, i’m not sure he ever really warmed to being achilles. 

and that sucked, because achilles could have been such a good character. 

obviously my personal bias is being taken into account here (yes, i read TSoA, yes i am letting it influence my perception of the dude), but if troy’s achilles had been prepared to put the raw emotion latent in the iliad’s achilles into the role, i think the character would have hit harder than he did. i personally didn’t love the expanded romance with briseis that they shoved in, but there was potential to see some tenderness there, and that could have been played up more, especially since she acted as the catalyst, here, for achilles to consider accepting the happy but unremarkable life he could have lived, instead of dying for glory in troy. failing that, i think patroclus’ role should have been more pronounced, and i’m not even saying that as a proponent of the patroclus/achilles relationship; even if they kept the two of them as cousins as they did in this setting, i think we needed to see a lot more interactions than the ones we did (although there was a fair amount, and given how long the movie turned out, i understand why it wasn’t fleshed out better) to really justify how hard achilles took the death of patroclus. there WERE some times that achilles got to exhibit emotions other than like emotionally stunted badass soldier either brooding or being pissed off--and that’s one of the highlights of the film, i’ll get back to that in a second--but the emotional climax between achilles and hector didn’t live up to my expectations. for one thing, in that scene in the poem, achilles didn’t just fight hector in retribution for the death of patroclus. he fought EVERYONE, up to and including hector, and more than that, a fucking RIVER DEITY. it was wild, unabashed grief that made him do horrible things. i would have personally loved to see an unhinged rampage, and instead, it got boiled down to one single fight between achilles and hector that lasted, i think, far longer than it should have. achilles was more powerful than hector, no matter how good hector was. i think it might have been more to my taste, at least, if we were shown that achilles had the strength to kill hector in a second, hardly taking him on to fight, and simply hadn’t before this because he was never given a reason to. 

all i’m saying is, movies are more interesting when characters are allowed to fully break, fully snap, just go buck fucking wild. but that’s just my onion.

i said i was going to come back to the “more emotions than emotional constipation” thing, and let’s do that now. one thing i DID like about the choices made in this film was that achilles was allowed to cry on screen, and he did, several times. i don’t know how to express how refreshing it was to see the archetypal badass soldier, the best of the greeks, break down into tears, especially when you consider how few movies really show men crying, much less movies of this particular genre. it’s kind of one of those “don’t give them props for scraping the bottom of the barrel” things, but i liked it, and since there were so few things i really did like about this movie, i’m going to give them props there. not just that, either--i also liked the way that paris could not face his death in his fight with menelaus, and crawled, terrified, back to his older brother. i liked that, while he degraded himself for the act later, the narrative and other characters never treated this like the wrong decision. sometimes, it’s impossible or incorrect to be noble at the price of yourself, especially in something like the fight over the hand of a woman who made her decision on where to go. paris did not win the fight, but he had a brother who loved him, and menelaus couldn’t understand that. and he died.

interestingly enough, paris also loses that fight in the epic, but rather than going to hector for protection, he’s whisked away by aphrodite before he can be killed. this was changed, naturally, because at no point in troy do the gods, who play by all accounts very important parts in the trojan war as told by the iliad, actually appear in the movie. they’re discussed throughout, and achilles’ mother, a goddess in the epic, appears to speak to him before he leaves for war, but it’s never affirmed whether or not she is divine, whether apollo is truly taking revenge for achilles’ desecration of his temple, whether godhood can be trusted or not. this is a theme that’s discussed and subverted many times, bringing in a type of ancient agnosticism to both the characters of achilles and hector, but ultimately it’s left unsolved. since they went the route of not being including the gods as characters, i’m happy with that conclusion. one of the more powerful bits of screentime between achilles and briseis was when he confided that he believed the gods were jealous of humans for their mortality, so ultimately, it was fitting that this story was told about the humans and the heroes, a celebration and examination of humanity, rather than throwing in divine intervention and cheapening the plot. 

there was a theme of love in the movie which i liked pretty well, especially for the fact that it wasn’t focused entirely on romantic love. the war began because helen ran back with paris, but not really: agamemnon was itching for a war anyway, and was happy to use his brother’s missing wife as a reason to begin the fight with troy he had been craving. menelaus clearly had no problem being cruel and unfaithful to helen, so her leaving him is not framed as a slutty and frivolous choice as it has been in other media. she goes off with someone willing to give away everything (up to and including his family and his palace) for her, and it’s honestly hard to blame her for that. plus, the war could have also been averted by hector turning around the ship and returning helen to her husband, which he very nearly does, except that if he did, he knows paris will try to fight menelaus for her and die, and he cannot bear the death of his brother. therefore, the war begins with two sets of brothers and two sets of lovers: helen chooses paris because he genuinely loves her, hector allows it because he loves his brother, and agamemnon profits off his brother’s loss because he loves nothing more than power, and the loss is a chance for that. achilles nearly costs agamemnon the war because he’s ready to leave and live his full life thanks to the love of briseis, until his love of patroclus and his grief at his death take that option away. priam gets a speech toward the beginning about there being worse reasons to fight a war than for love. i think this is honestly kind of simplistic and missing the point of what war is in general, but it was a nice scene to play into the theme.

outside of that, other things i enjoyed were odysseus’s narration book-ending the action, because he’s my favorite character of homer’s, if not in troy (i honestly don’t like sean penn in the role, but that’s my own personal cross to bear), the scene around patroclus’ death where eudoros looks on in horror when he thinks it’s achilles and then gives a visible sigh of relief, even as it’s mixed with the horror of patroclus’ death when the helmet is removed and he sees it’s not, the part where agamemnon looks on at patroclus’ funeral and comments how “that boy just won [him] the war,” which was such an asshole thing to say but also honestly what i was thinking, and that one little scene with paris giving the sword of troy to aeneas as a fun little shoutout to the aeneid. i could go into other things i DIDN’T like, but after watching that movie for three fucking hours, i think i’ve put enough time into that as it is. 

coming soon: pointless commentary on the first back to the future and fright night (1985)! get hype!!!