#surface level interactions for the most part… but maybe that’s fine. it’s just i don’t feel like i fit with the staff but also im not a

[pepprs]

retreat day 2 done. feeling good but weird

[carminecarnivale]

Literally no one is talking about this (that I’ve seen anyway) and the episode is old now but I can’t stop thinking about it so I’m making a post anyway.

This is about the scene in Helluva Boss season 2 episode 7 “Mammon’s Magnificent Musical Mid-Season Special” where a young imp and Fizzarolli sign to each other.

TLDR: The signing is wonky and the scene feels unearned.

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT DEAF AND NOT AN ASL EXPERT. THIS IS JUST MY INTERPRETATION OF THIS SCENE. I DO NOT SPEAK FOR DEAF OR HOH PEOPLES’ OPINIONS.

Right. So, surface level, what do the writers *want* to have the signing mean? What is their desired English sentiment?

Kid: Fizzarolli! I’m a big fan!

Fizz: Come on over here

Kid: I want to be a clown just like you!

Fizz: You can do anything you want to do.

Cool, great. Now, what did they actually sign? DISCLAIMER 2: THERE IS NO WRITTEN FORM OF ASL, ASL CAN BE SORT OF TRANSCRIBED IN ENGLISH BUT IT IS NOT WRITTEN ASL.

Kid: F-CLOWN (name sign, “Fizzarolli”) I BIG FAN.

Fizz: [Gesture to come over]

Kid: CLOWN SAME-AS-YOU.

Fizz: IF/SUPPOSE WANT, CAN-aff WORK.

On the most basic level, this is fine. It more-or-less represents what the writers wanted to be said. But it’s just…not great. It’s so simple compared to what the writers wanted to say. It makes the translation put up on screen look wrong.

The kid makes no indication that they “want” to be a clown, they could very well have been meaning that they currently ARE a clown, maybe even in training. There was no indication of “becoming” or a future signifier. There was a general lack of pronouns making it sound vague. The final sentiment from Fizz is much more grounded than what the writers wanted him to say. “You can do anything!” vs “you could work as a clown if you wanted to.” The difference speaks for itself.

There ARE signs for the sentiment they want to convey!!! They exist!!! LOOK: https://youtu.be/JbfWzc0-R6E?si=FxvbC9l-hvArLPg0

“But wait!” I hear you say. “What if they got the signs first and mistranslated it?”

Since this is an English show for English speakers that must be written in English, no. They wrote the translation first and put mediocre signing in the episode.

Could the sentiment have been gutted for time/animation constraints? Quite possibly! But we’ve seen the kinds of shots the Helluva team can pull off (Striker’s 3/4 turn with the pistol, DHORKs full camera action spin, to name a few) so I don’t doubt they COULD have animated the signing appropriately if they wanted to.

Now, they did have an ASL consultant for this episode (the bare minimum we love to see it, AND on the very last page of credits? wow), his name is Salvador Baltazar. There’s not much out there on him, but he’s primarily an interpreter. There is no way to know what he helped with or how much he dictated the scene and I don’t plan on wildly speculating. It’s great that he’s there, why did he let this signing air the way it did though.

Finally, what’s the purpose of this scene? Why is it here? Why these characters in this situation?

More competent analysts than I have picked apart the woobification of Helluva characters and how, once they’re not a villain anymore, their characterization and morals get completely overhauled to appeal to the “oh he’s so traumatized!” crowd.

I think this scene is a part of that. And it got its desired reaction.

Seeing celebrities interact well with children is already something that would net a character some popularity brownie points. If that child is clearly an “other” and the celebrity does something special to recognize that child? Brownie fucking bakeries.

The purpose of this scene is to show that not all of Fizz’s fans suck, yes, but also to show how kind and nice and thoughtful Fizz is just to hammer home how TragicTM his situation is.

And the fans went wild!!!! Here is a character putting in effort to learn ASL and speak with child fans! Wow he’s so great! He’s so amazing! What Herculean tasks he’s taken upon himself to be so cool! Wow! (Not everyone says it like that, but that was the general vibe of the Helluva tag following the episode’s release).

It got fans speculating; “I wonder if this ties into his Tragic BackstoryTM!” We’ll probably never know because Fizz’s fluency in ASL, his role in the Deaf community, is not something the writers care about exploring. They didn’t include a scene with ASL because they wanted to have a deaf character, they included it to make Fizz look good.

Something a lot of people have brought up about this kid—and rightfully so—is their age. What’s this 9 year old doing at the blow-out clown sex appeal concert? How did they get into the VIP section? Couldn’t you contrast the possessive critic guy with another adult who isn’t gross? Wouldn’t it make more sense if this character was an ADULT at the ADULT SHOW?

Yes! Yes it would! But would an adult signer garner half as many pity points as a young child with stars in their eyes? No. I doubt it would.

This scene is not here to show respect for deaf people. Just like the show doesn’t respect deaf people. I ask you to check out the captions for season 2 episode 6. Go on.

Because you know what you’ll find?

A bunch of loud, keysmashing inanity, that ignores describing what’s being said in favour of making queef jokes. These are not functional captions. For a show that prides itself on being just as professional as what you can find aired on TV or streaming, this is laughably bad. This is YouTube 2013 gaming jump scare compilations bad. And those captions are Still There DESPITE people pointing out that they’re not functional.

From a studio that’s fine with sabotaging their own captions I really shouldn’t be surprised with their treatment of ASL as sloppy, basic, and only really there for pandering.

Jesus Christ, do better.

[wildpeachfarm]

Idk maybe I’m stupid but can someone explain it to me like I’m 5 years old how Hannah has enabled or how her audience has pushed TERF ideas or rhetoric? Because it’s the one place the dots are not connecting for me every single time this conversation gets rehashed. I think it’s fine to disagree with how she’s acted in all of this, but it feels like taking what could just be called shitty or annoying and turning it into a moral issue when it doesn’t really NEED to be one to claim she or her audience are acting like TERFs. I just would like to hear one explicit example of how this is the case. Because I just cannot see how it’s “TERF-y” for a woman who has spent years facing immense levels of misogyny to make the decision to distance herself from friends who potentially victimized another woman which looks extremely horrible on the surface, even if her decision was made suddenly and under pressure. Whether she regrets it or not is not relevant to it; it just feels like an extreme lack of empathy to take how she reacted while under a microscope to a situation that looked horrible at first glance and claim it’s her pushing harmful ideas. Especially when she deleted most of her original tweets about it anyways and has not spoken on it since. And I don’t even mean this as hate, I am just genuinely asking. Because I don’t necessarily love her distancing herself either, I just also don’t see the reason to keep harping on her about it or making it into some huge moral issue where she is in the wrong when it does not have to be one. And especially when other women involved from the sidelines have done the same or more than her. Sometimes we can just say behaviors are shitty or nasty and leave it at that.

ehhh honestly that's not even a part of that ask that I was hard agreeing with and that's also just anons opinion, but also I myself wouldn't even go as far as to say "terf rhetoric enabler" (because I don't agree with that) but more so just concerned that she could be attracting a bad crowd in her fanbase unintentionally that some people wish she became more aware of.

last time i talked about this i was getting yelled at to hell and back and being purposefully misunderstood as claiming she was somehow creating a terf army in her fanbase which...let me be crystal fucking clear I AM NOT SAYING OR EVEN IMPLYING. Nor am I saying that her actions in response to the gogcident are somehow fueling terf ideologies. Not saying that at all and please don't think or claim I am saying that.

However, recently a decent amount of people have seen an increase in people in her fanbase (even some that she interacts pretty frequently with) start speaking using terf and specifically radfem phrases (notably during and right after the gogcident) which was raising some red flags for people who are either fans of hers or on the periphery. Now, I've said before that of course hannah probably does not know this and it's not her job to do a background check on everyone she follows on twitch and interacts with on twitter (that is just a ridiculous expectation). However, I think that when you speak a lot about feminist issues, etc. (all very important topics to discuss!) sometimes terfs and radfems just come into your community because they think you are all talking about the same things and have the same ideology. But, as your community grows and as that portion of your fanbase starts concerning people, I think it could be good for CCs to at least be aware of it. Personally, I have more issue with certain fans than with hannah herself but I do think some of her mods are shitty and she needs to stop it with the idea that "any friend of hers that makes a big mistake is no longer a friend" because that's just not going to hold up for very long in the real world.

As per her reaction to the george situation: yeah it was incredibly shitty and honestly I think she could have been fine waiting a bit before making responses because her quick jumps to conclusions (and shooting friendly fire at sylvee in the process) without talking to anyone involved first was a very foolish thing to do and disappointed a lot of people.

I feel like a broken record for constantly having to say this but I get that these female CCs want to do good by the women in the gaming space, i get it. But sometimes they make impactful mistakes and publicly react to situations poorly and I will say that about any cc who I think makes a poor call, guy or gal. I will always have empathy for people reacting badly to initial news dropping like this because I don't know what these people have gone through in their lives, but what I don't have as much empathy for is people immediately broadcasting their initial emotional thoughts all over twitter and then backpedaling when they realize they were being too extreme or emotional. I have criticized Dream for that, and I will criticize Hannah for that.

And you're right not everything needs to be a moral discussion! I don't really agree with people that are trying to heavily mix these two discussions because I honestly don't think they really coincide that much anyway.

I will never say her reaction is "terf-y" because it's just not. These are two separate discussions in my mind so to put them together in that way just isn't something I necessarily will agree with. And I've said this probably 10 times at this point, that I have never once said Hannah intentionally fueling terf/radfem rhetoric in her fanbase. I'm saying it's a somewhat inevitable byproduct of being a large female CC who speaks on feminism and misogyny on the internet. It happens to tiktokers, youtubers, other streamers, etc. This is not a hannah specific issue but people in the mcyt see it with some of her fans because she's simply just a larger female CC so of course her fans are more easy to spot. (same logic on a larger scale applies to the few bad apple dream stans that get the spotlight because of how popular dream is)

Hopefully this makes sense, it is nearly midnight for me right now so I am very tired but I wanted to answer this as thoroughly as I could because it's always an important distinction I want to make and I hate being misunderstood.

[bornonthesavage]

Tell Me "Don't", So I Can Crawl Back In Part 9

Part 8  AO3

That week at school, Steve was glad that things seemed relatively normal. Saturday had been great, a total success in his books, even if it had taken a slight detour into a territory he hadn’t planned to explore. The truth was, if he hadn’t been high, he probably wouldn’t have offered to jack Eddie off. It wasn’t that he had a problem with it. It was just… Their friendship was so new, and he still didn’t really know where Eddie’s boundaries were. Because sure, he and Tommy had done it plenty, but that was different. They’d known each other for years.

There had been a pretty big chance that it could have blown up right in his face. It was just that when Eddie had mentioned being a virgin, a fact Steve still couldn’t fully believe, his stoned brain hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how sad it was that nobody had ever touched Eddie before. Eddie was so sweet and funny, he deserved to feel good. Even if that was just with the help of a friend. And Steve wasn’t going to lie, it had felt pretty damn amazing for him as well.

He'd received plenty of hand jobs from girls, and a few from Tommy, but it had felt way different with Eddie. His hands had been a little rough with callouses, probably from playing the guitar, and the rings had added a sensation he’d never felt before. It had been rough and firm and a little erratic. To be honest, Steve hadn’t really been able to stop thinking about it. But he wasn’t going to bring it up again, not unless Eddie did. He didn’t want his new friend to think he was using him.

All week at school, Steve had looked for any sign that Eddie was uncomfortable. But he seemed fine. Maybe Steve caught him staring a little more, but that was just what Eddie did. He stared and smiled and flirted with everyone. It was just who he was.

“So, my advice worked?” Dustin asked on Thursday afternoon, after Steve had picked him up from the arcade.

Steve grinned. “Yeah, it did! I actually think I’m killing it with this whole friendship thing. Eddie seemed to have fun on Saturday.”

Dustin hummed as he ripped open a pack of Red Vines. “What did you guys do?”

“Oh, you know, just normal friend stuff. We watched some movies, ordered in pizza, had a few beers.” He obviously left out the other, less appropriate, things.

“Ok, cool, so you’ve initiated phase two. Now for phase three.”

Steve scrunched up his nose. “Wait, there are phases? Since when?”

Dustin rolled his eyes. “Since now. Keep up Steve. Phase one was you hanging out with him and his other friends. Phase two was you two hanging out on your own at your house. Now you two need to go out somewhere to complete the bonding.”

“Jesus, dude, I don’t think it’s that serious. Besides, we are going out this Saturday. We’re going to the drive-in.”

Dustin hummed again.

Steve narrowed his eyes, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. “What was that? Why are you humming? Are you judging my plan?”

“No, no, not judging,” he said, holding up his hands. “It’s just, is that all you two are going to do? Watch movies? That doesn’t seem very conductive to getting closer as friends. You guys have to like, talk and shit, if you want to really bond.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Steve muttered. “But we already made these plans. I can’t just change them now.”

“Well yeah, don’t change your plans. Just, think about next time. Do something with him that’s a little more… interactive. Something you would both like.”

Steve huffed. He’d been trying to think of other places to go, but so far he’d been coming up with a blank. Most girls he took out were perfectly happy with dinner and a movie. But it made sense, if he was trying to take this deeper than surface level.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll come up with something.”

He dropped Dustin off at home, waving at Claudia through the passenger window, before heading home. The house was dark when he pulled into the driveway, as per usual. There was nobody waiting at home for him. He hoped Dustin appreciated how lucky he was to have a mom like Claudia.

Once inside, he climbed the stairs with heavy feet. It was only a little after eight thirty, but he’d had a long day. He’d begun going on runs each morning before school, waking up at five thirty to jog a mile and a half around the neighborhood. Part of it was because he figured if he was going to wake up that early, he may as well do something with his time. More often than not, he was awoken by nightmares that left him screaming. The demo-dogs, chasing him and the kids through the tunnels, were a popular horror show his brain seemed to enjoy replaying. Only in his nightmares, there was never an escape. Just endless grey caverns and the snarls of monster behind them. So, yeah, the running helped.

He ripped off his shirt as soon as he got to his room and dropped onto his bed, wiggling out of his jeans as he got comfortable.  The room was cool, edging just a little into cold, so he pulled the comforter up and wrapped it around his shoulders. Sleep came quickly.

The first thing Steve became aware of was that he was in a bed. It didn’t appear to be his bed, though, as he looked around the room. But that wasn’t important. What was important was that there was a hand on his chest, slowly tracing a path down to his stomach. A warm mouth pressed a kiss to his hip, making Steve jerk. Ah, so that’s what was happening. He slid his own hand down to run his fingers through a mop of brown curls.

“That feels nice, baby,” Steve murmured.

The other person hummed; the sound deeper than Steve had expected. They looked up to meet Steve’s eye, and a jolt of something raced through him. It wasn’t a girl at all. It was Eddie. Eddie, who smirked up at him as he sunk his teeth into the flesh of Steve’s thigh, making him gasp.

In the back of Steve’s mind, he knew he should be freaking out about this. That this wasn’t something he normally did. But all he was able to feel in that moment was unbelievably horny. So what if he’d never done this before? This just felt right. And hey, Eddie wasn’t freaking out. Steve might as well go along with it.

“Eddie,” he said, hist voice coming out raspy. “That feels good.”

Eddie grinned, showing off his dimples. Cute, his mind supplied. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel, Stevie. Are you going to be a good boy for me?”

He might have been embarrassed by the sound he let out at that if he wasn’t already so turned on. “Yeah, Eds, I’ll be so good. I promise. Just, please, touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

Steve whined. “More. I want more.”

“Mm, so needy. Someone might think you were the virgin here.”

Ah, that’s right. Eddie was a virgin. Steve should be doing more, something to make this a good first experience for Eddie. But he didn’t seem capable of moving any more than the slow writhing he was currently doing.

“Eddie, come-come up here. Please, let me see you.”

The other boy ignored his pleading, instead continuing his press slow kisses onto Steve’s stomach and legs.

“No, Eddie, please. Come here. Please, please let me—

“Kiss you.”

Steve awoke to his own voice, needy even in sleep. It took a moment for the heavy fog of sleep to ease from his brain, for him to realize that he’d been dreaming. It took another few seconds for the confusion and embarrassment to settle in. He’d just had a sex dream about Eddie. He had wanted to kiss Eddie. The ghost sensation of Eddie’s lips on his skin, of his large hand on his chest, made warmth flood Steve’s face. Huh.

It wasn’t like he’d never had a sex dream about a friend before. It was pretty normal, actually. Hell, he’d even had one about Jonathan once. But usually, they were vague. In his dreams, he had never begged another man to kiss him. Never felt a burning need to make it good for them, to show them that he could make it good.

Maybe it was because he knew now that Eddie was a virgin. Maybe it, like, engaged the protective part of his brain. Now, his psyche was trying to tell him that because he cared about Eddie, he wanted his first time to be good. It made sense, he supposed. He’d always been a little bit vain. Who better to show Eddie a good time than himself? Which, yeah, that was something he was never going to admit out loud. Hand jobs were one thing. But sex with another guy? Yeah, that wasn’t something he’d ever thought about before. He couldn’t let Eddie know. He would totally freak out and never want to hang out with him again. So, right. No making this weird. He could do that. He could be so normal.

  Eddie stared into the endless swirling vortex that was his cereal and contemplated how he’d gotten to this point in his life. He might not be a genius, but for the most part he considered himself to be a pretty savvy and intelligent person. Apparently not, seeing as he was allowing a goddamn straight boy to ruin his life. It was fucking embarrassing.

All week, he’d had to pretend like everything was super chill and normal. Meanwhile, in his brain, he’d been slowly spiraling into a chaotic mess. Because Steve was just so chill. On Monday, he’d waltzed right up to Eddie like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. And hell, maybe for Steve, nothing had. Because apparently, Steve got off with all his buddies! And now, somehow someway, that included Eddie. As if Steve hadn’t been the first boy to ever touch him like that.

And the worst thing? Eddie could not. Stop. Thinking about it. Every night he laid in bed and remembered the way Steve’s hand had felt wrapped around his cock, the way he’d stroked so confidently. The way he’d looked, with his mouth partially open and those big pretty eyes half hooded with what looked like desire. But fuck, maybe that was just Steve’s ‘getting off’ face. It was absolutely maddening. And Eddie shouldn’t want it to happen again. He should tell Steve that he wasn’t interested in doing those things with him. You know, like a liar.

But that was probably the right thing to do. Because clearly, he wasn’t capable of doing things in half measures. Maybe if he wasn’t a needy, clingy, pathetic mess, he could allow himself to have something like this. For some people, this was probably the best of both worlds! He could be friends with Steve, hang-out and have a good time, and then get off whenever he wanted. But Eddie knew himself. He was going to want more. He always wanted more. And with Steve, that was goddamn inevitable.

And yet, like the fool that he was, Eddie knew he wouldn’t say no if Steve offered again. No, if Steve looked at him with those big pretty eyes, he would fold like a fucking lawn chair. Because, and he could not iterate this enough, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Shit, he’d already had two wet dreams, with Steve as the main star, in the last week alone. So, yeah. Basically he was screwed.

“Fuck!” he screamed, his voice echoing around the small space of the trailer’s kitchen.

Wayne jolted from where he’d been reclined in front of the tv, a hand flying to his chest. What a drama queen. “Jesus Christ, boy! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “If I haven’t given you one yet, I think you’ll be okay.”

“I swear to god,” Wayne mumbled, shaking his head. “You’ve taken a full decade off my life expectancy.”

“Oh please, you know I keep you young.”

Wayne huffed, finally seeming to calm down. “What are you shouting about anyways?”

At the reminder, Eddie dropped his face onto the table with a heavy thunk. “Steve Harrington.”

“Harrington?” Wayne asked, his tone turning concerned. “Is he bothering you? I know his daddy is a real piece of work, so I can’t imagine the boy’s much better.”

Eddie let out a high pitched laugh and dragged his face off the table. “You’d think so, right? I know I sure did! But no, Steve just so happens to be an absolute sweetheart of a person! Like, he’s actually nice. And he babysits a bunch of middle school nerds! For free! And he compliments my band and sits with me at lunch and gives me rides. He’s nearly fucking perfect!”

Wayne furrowed his brow. “And that’s… a bad thing?”

“It’s a terrible thing!” Eddie shouted, leaping from his chair. By now, his cereal had gone soft and mushy, so he carried the bowl over to the sink. “Because now I have this stupid crush on this stupid straight boy. Although, trust me, I have some doubts about that, because let’s just say some of his activities are decidedly more on the homosexual side. But what am I supposed to do about that, huh? I can’t just go up to him and be like ‘Hey Steve, have you maybe considered that you might actually like dick? Hmm?’.”

Eddie walked to the sofa and dropped onto it without stopping his rant. “And even if he was a little bit queer, who’s to say he would like me? Because if his type is anywhere in the ballpark of Nancy Wheeler, then there’s no chance at all that he would ever like me. I’m literally her opposite! Steve would probably be into someone like, I don’t know, Jason Carver. Which, ew, god, I can’t believe I even said that. But still! The point stands! So now, I just have to live with my pathic, hopeless crush until I die.”

He ended by flopping an arm over his face. For several seconds, Wayne said nothing. This was pretty normal, for one of Eddie’s tirades. Mostly he didn’t need a response, just a captive audience for him share the many woes that made up his life. But eventually, Wayne hummed.

“Sounds like you’ve gotta decide whether you’ll be happier with him in your life as just your friend and nothing else, or without him at all.”

Eddie scrunched up his face, refusing to look at his uncle. “It’s not that simple. Besides a couple of middle schoolers, I’m pretty much the only friend he has now.”

“And if he suddenly gained some other friends and you didn’t feel beholden to him? Would you choose to cut him out then?”

God damnit. God fucking damn Wayne’s stupid logic! Because, yeah, the answer was no. He wouldn’t cut Steve off, not now. The last few weeks had been eye opening, and on top of his ridiculous infatuation, Eddie just really liked being around Steve. He added something to their group that they’d been missing, something fresh.

He groaned, loudly. “But what am I supposed to do?”

“Well,” Wayne said, “If you want the boy in your life, and you don’t think there’s any hope of there ever being more, then you’re going to have to try and put those feelings aside. Treat him like your friend first, and your crush second.”

Yeah, alright, that made sense. It didn’t mean Eddie had to like it! It was fully within his rights to mope as much as he wanted when he was in the privacy of his own home. Although, that didn’t leave him much time, seeing as Steve would be coming over to the trailer tonight so they could go to the drive-in. Which, if asked, seemed like a date thing to Eddie. But hey, it wasn’t like he was an expert or anything.

And what was worse, Steve wanted Eddie to dress him up in his clothes! How was he supposed to survive that? Every time Eddie pictured Steve in any of his clothes, the temperature in the room crept up to an uncomfortable level.

Regardless, Eddie spent an outrageous amount of time picking out the perfect outfit. He went through every shirt, every pair of jeans, ever belt. By the time he’d come to a final decision, Steve was due to arrive within twenty minutes. That gave Eddie barely enough time to rush through a shower, throw on a band shirt and jeans, and blow dry his hair. When a knock sounded at the front door just three minutes after six, Eddie had barely gotten his hair into a low bun. With a steadying breath, he yanked open the front door.

Steve stood on the steps, his face tilted up and a small smile on his lips. God, he was so pretty. He rocked back on his heels and tucked his hands into his pockets as he looked over Eddie.

“Welcome, Sir Steven, to my humble dwellings.”

Continue reading the the full chapter on AO3

[thecleverqueer]

I’m getting on the bus way late, but I feel compelled to defend the Wolfwren ship.

To preface, if it was made to be canon, it would be hugely impactful for the LGBTQ community as a whole for so many reason. In the same breath, however, I don’t see it ever becoming canon. Maybe I’m just jaded by the sheer number of queer-coded people in media with literally zero payoff. Never mind the fact that Lucasfilm is owned by Disney, who despite ring-wing criticisms, are by far the most vanilla, lukewarm media creator who shows literally zero inclination or willingness to “rock the boat” in any capacity. Truly, I would be shocked and nothing they have ever done has shocked me. And, honestly, it doesn’t truly matter either way. People should be allowed to enjoy what they enjoy without people judging or constantly attacking people over it. It’s all fiction regardless. The Wolf and the Wren don’t even exist in reality, so…

Still, the actors involved have obviously embraced it, fed into it, appreciate it, and I think that’s adorable and commendable. I find it incredibly interesting, yet not shocking that Natasha Liu Bordizzo picked up on Sabine’s clear queer-coding (whether purposefully done or not) and ran with it. This isn’t wholly relevant in and of itself, but I’m building to my point.

My point is that I have seen some arguments against Wolfwren that come from very homophobic, comphet places. Gayness still makes many people uncomfortable, and I’ll be honest, that’s on the person that’s being made uncomfortable by it and not the gay in question. Particularly, and since it is now sort of socially unacceptable to outright bash the LGBTQ community, I see A LOT of red herring arguments being made to try and divert attention to the real reasons that they hate it. And, I’m going to discuss one of those arguments that feels like is being made in bad faith.

The argument in question is the comparison to Wolfwren and Reylo. Many anti-wolfwrenners argue that they hate the ship because it reminds them of Reylo, a problematic ship between two people with a borderline abusive power dynamic that weirdly fall in love after a series of very questionable interactions.

And first, let’s be honest, some of these people probably do, at some levels, like and appreciate Reylo and that’s fine. To each their own. But, Wolfwren isn’t anything like Reylo at all. And comparisons truly cannot be made like that here.

Is Wolfwren problematic on the surface based on the happenings of Ahsoka season one alone? Yes. Absolutely. It’s not a washed and folded LGBTQ pairing. It’s not supposed to be. Their relationship has started out in kind of an ugly place. They’ve been gritty and violent. They’ve attempted to kill each other multiple times. That’s madness.

Still, there is no lop-sided power dynamic here though. Kylo Ren was obviously more powerful than Rey, both in the force and by societal position. He was a right hand man to the leader of the First Order. Rey was just a scavenger, rummaging for parts on a backwater planet. He’d studied the force since he was a tot. Rey didn’t even realize she had it. They were not equals. Sabine and Shin are, in every aspect of the word, equals in the story. Shin ultimately gay panics and stabs Sabine in the torso, but Sabine struck first in that skirmish. In fact, Sabine struck first in every battle that she and Shin had. And while Shin did have force powers where Sabine had yet to unlock her own potential, Sabine’s a bad ass. She’s not tradwife material (despite a lot of preconceived notions). She’s a warrior, someone that likely had blasters in her hands before she could write. That is something in and of itself. Sabine is equally capable, if not more so than Shin. Sabine is not a helpless victim just because she got stabbed, she has been an equal participant in every interaction that she and Shin have had.

Another difference is that Shin and Sabine have not lobbed words of hate, disdain or abuse at one another. Shin tells Sabine, “you have no power” then Sabine straight up shoots her with an arm cannon as if to say, “bet”. Other than that, there has been no hateful banter between them. At no point have either of them uttered the words “you’re nothing” while the other stood by in tears. It’s basically been well-matched sword duels where neither has truly gotten the upper hand outside of one lucky strike at the beginning. Sabine was unbalanced.

What truly makes this a decent ship is the “enemies to lovers” dynamic, a plot device that has been used time and time again in media (albeit mostly in cishet connotation where it doesn’t seem to bother other cishets). Shin is not beyond redemption. She isn’t inherently evil. She hasn’t truly abused Sabine outside of fighting back after Sabine went after her. Shin has done nothing other than sword fight with an equal, and follow around a master with questionable values. She is still perfectly capable of a redemptive arc, something that I feel was teased in episode 7 when Ahsoka reached out calmly to Shin saying, “I can help you.” It will not shock me when Shin does turn to the Jedi in the story, where she could and likely will find belonging. With that, she and Sabine could find happiness in a more homo-friendly, less heteronormative society. And if either of them were male and the other female, it would totally be embraced by the larger viewing audience as totally normal and okay.

So yeah… there it is.

[tonberry-yoda]

Hi could I get a romantic matchup for Haikyuu

Pronouns are she/her and I have a preference for men. Could I also ask for a mini fic of any kind like whatever you think of. I’m not sure if it’s part of this specific event but it was on your matchup rules. If not that’s totally fine!

Also please let me know if I forgot to include something!

Ideal First date: My dream date is probably at an amusement park (Disneyland maybe) because it was the highlight of my childhood and allows me to not act like I have a stick up my ass all the time and have fun LMAO. I’d prefer it over just a dinner date or a movie because it’s more fun. I also just think amusement parks are romantic and in a sucker for cute fluffy cliche stuff. In general though I would enjoy any date that shows that he put thought and effort into it and actually values the time I’m spending with him. (Like instead of just saying “let’s hang out. What do you want to do”, be like “hey when are you available this week? Saturday? Ok be ready at 7 on Saturday”. I like that because it shows initiative and interest). Also if we are meeting each other somewhere don’t be late I will leave. So overall any date that’s fun, shows effort, interest, and shows that he actually took the time to think about my personality and what I’d like.

Personality: INTJ 3w4. I’m introverted and calm most of the time. I can be socially awkward but if I prepare myself or plan beforehand I can be very charming. I'm really analytical and am good at finding loopholes and working around problems under pressure. But I can also overthink a lot of things and plan out too much of my interactions with people. I'm not good with emotional support and can come across a little cold because of that but I usually try my best to understand the other person and their needs. I hate small talk and I like people who are blunt and logical but also have emotional intelligence. However, I cannot deal with overly emotional people who are extremely dramatic and make a big deal of their feelings when a situation can be logically resolved much more quickly and peacefully. I'm not that expressive (outwardly at least because I'm actually really emotional I just hide it well) and have a hard time relaxing or enjoying things because I've been conditioned to always consider how it will look on mine and my family's reputation. I'm a perfectionist and hold myself to very high standards and I can sometimes be very critical of others because of my high expectations. I constantly chase perfection for myself and try to be the most idealized version of myself but these standards cause me to be extremely hard on myself when it comes to falling short of my expectations or making mistakes. I’m very understanding, fair, and extremely loyal. I’d literally take a bullet for my friends but I also expect the same kind of loyalty in return. I’m very devoted to my principles and can often have a hard time forgiving people if they do something I find to be fundamentally wrong according to my principles. I have trust issues with romance but when I fall in love I fall really hard and I’m very romantic (im a songwriter so I’ll literally write lyrics about them and draw them and stuff). A lot of people don’t realize how deeply I feel things because I don’t show it on the surface. I’ve also been told I seem intimidating until someone gets to know me. Some of my dealbreakers are: misogyny (when people especially men undermine my intelligence and experience and end up making a mistake I warned them about only to listen when another man repeats the same thing l've been saying since the beginning), big egos with nothing to back it up, people who can't keep up with me (I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with someone whose hand I have to hold all the time. They need to be on the same level/wavelength as me and not drag me down), being a coward and not standing up for your own beliefs/motives, people that are way too nice (whoever I end up with has to have a mean streak because it shows they are able to take action when needed. How are they going to support and protect me if they can’t even stand up for themselves when needed.), being self absorbed and not considering the consequences of your actions, people who have a moral superiority complex that think they're better for not wanting to break rules to get what they want, and people who can't take responsibility for their actions. (I would respect someone whose honest about being a bad person a lot more than I respect someone who tries to come across as kind and caring all the time no matter what. It’s like that Jack sparrow quote, “I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly, it's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly stupid”. I fully agree with him. I also have a short temper when people act like the things I mentioned, or if I’m in a situation where people are being inefficient or wasting my time but if people communicate effectively I’ll be very patient and help them come up with a way to deal with their situation.

Hobbies/ Likes: I love music. I make my own music and music is probably the thing I love the most. It's really what I use to process the world so music is definitely the way to my heart. My all time favorite band is Buck-Tick and I love dark wave/goth music like Depeche Mode. However I literally listen to everything so it’s hard to say a single genre I like more than others. I can't play any instruments but I also make my own music. (Shameless self promo but here’s my new song) I'm a good artist but I don't like doing it on a deadline. I've gotten back into drawing recently tho. I've also been doing martial arts since I was 7 + fencing. I'm good at chess and poker and made money from playing/betting on games when I was younger. I also love reading.

I love fashion and ive been modeling since I was 14. I also did some pageants as a kid. As for my style, I can’t pick a specific vibe or aesthetic because I think I’m simultaneously goth, preppy, athletic, and nerdy. It just depends on how I feel. The only common trait is whatever I wear will always look great😌. I tend to wear darker colors though but I also really like y2k and I have a bunch of lavender juicy tracksuits and stuff (I love purple). I also switch between wanting to look more masculine and androgynous or more glam and feminine. Sometimes I think of a song I want to look like and pick an outfit based on the song. My style is very bold and sometimes flamboyant and I love being admired and complimented. I may not be very social but I instead attract attention with how I present myself. I’m Indian but a lot of people have said I look like Atsushi Sakurai when he was younger.

I don’t want to be paired with nishinoya, tanaka, or hinata I don’t think I’d get along with them that well.

notes ����: GURL I LOVE YOUR CONFIDENCE OMG! I love seeing confident people like you and btw that song SLAPS! Cant wait to see what else you make in the future!! thanks so much for participating in my event and i hope you have an amazing valentine's day this year!! <3

THE CHARACTER CUPID CHOOSES FOR YOU THIS VALENTINE’S DAY IS…

KUROO!!

he's kinda the opposite when it comes to you being introverted

he is definitely not a shy guy

he's super social, but he will NEVER force you into a social situation if you dont want any part of it

he likes that you have a charming side. and he especially likes that you have that charming side around him <3

HE LOVES THAT YOU ARE SO PREPARED FOR SITUATIONS

like seeing you be this very prepares and thoughtful person has him head over heels for you

he finds that part about you very attractive

he will definitely encourage you not to overthink though

overthinking can be AWFUL and leave nothing but bad thoughts sometimes, so he sure can help when you think you've bumped into a really bad area in your overthinking journey

he is just always here for you

luckily, you dont really need to worry about his emotional health, he knows how to handle when things go downhill, but know that if he really needs your help, he will ask

he will support you if you do the same as a relationship should be

he very much has his shit together

he is very logical and emotionally intelligent so you have a good man on your hands

he is super calm about his feelings and again, knows how to deal with bad situations on his own

he knows that you have a perfectionist side about you and sometimes you two can butt heads because of it

mostly because he doesnt want you thinking that you need to be perfect

imperfections are what he loves and to see you hating on them makes him upset

so just know that you're getting a man who will show you A LOT of his love

he will be 100% loyal to you and to know that he has that in return makes him LITERALLY SO IN LOVE OMG

literally both of you are so in love fr

and if you wrote a song about him he would probably lose it tbh

like he cant believe that you love him that much, but he is so over the moon about it

he thinks it is super romantic that you are able to show your feelings that way to him and he's glad you have that outlet

so he 100% supports your music

he actually didnt think you were intimidating and that's why yall fit LMFAO

you two just liked each other right off the bat

you two definitely make fun of oikawa and his huge ass ego LMFAO

you two get through arguments and stuff very well

and very logically

it's wonderful and SUPER HEALTHY

like people around you are JEALOUS omg

sing to him or just play music around him

that's his comfort time for sure

he also loves how confident you are, it really makes him love and support you even more and means there's nothing that he has to do unless you really need it and he will latch onto you the moment you need help

he loves the way you dress and present yourself and wants you to help him dress just as cool lol

literally thinks your a stunning and wonderfully smart partner and wouldnt ask for anyone else <3

💌 HOW WOULD HE ASK YOU TO BE HIS VALENTINE??

simply, he would just ask you upfront. you would be doing some work and get an unexpected little kiss on the head from kuroo when he asks: "wanna be my valentine?"

💌 VALENTINE’S DAY DATE

"Are you open Valentine's day?" Kuroo asked you, looking at his own calendar, his computer open in front of him. You checked your schedule, the 14th completely free. "Yeah, why?" Kuroo smiled at you and walked over, placing a kiss onto your cheek. "Because you and I are going to Disneyland on the 14th." "Really?!" You exclaimed, feeling like a kid again. "Of course we are! I know how much you love it and you haven't been in a really long time, so why not? Plus, I've never been myself, so I think it would be a good time." "You've never been?" "Nope, not once." Kuroo walked back to his computer and ordered the tickets, getting excited. "Well, you're gonna love it. Man, it's been so long." You laid back on your bed and smiled at the ceiling. "Kuroo, you're the best." "Aw, you're too sweet, y/n." He ordered the tickets and walked over to you, pulling you into his arms. "I'm excited. Just the two of us and a really stupidly fun day." --- When you two ended up in Disneyland again, you couldn't help but feel overjoyed. It's like all the stresses of life disappeared, and here you were in the most magical place on earth. You showed Kuroo all of your favorite rides and ordered all of your favorite foods. Kuroo even ended up getting you something special from the gift shop. You showed him the best time that he's had in a long time and he did just the same for you. Hours passed and you couldn't stop all of the fun. Lots of small jokes from Kuroo and loving giggles from you. At dinner, the two of you were seated at one of the best places at the park to eat and a smile was stuck on your lips. "Thanks for taking me here, Kuroo." "No need to thank me. Thank you for having fun." A special Valentine's dessert came to the table and the two of you smiled. "Happy Valentine's Day." You said in unison. <3

~~~~~

mystery date rules | pinned post @tonberry-yoda

[zoe-oneesama]

Misinterpreted where? I GET that what we’re supposed to “interpret” from Zoe’s exposition dump was that Zoe was people pleasing the Wrong Crowd and that they turned to bullying her because she was ToO NiCe and therefore Not Like Them. They weren’t exactly subtle with the intention, which is fine, it’s for kids to get quickly. What I’m saying is that just because the writers intended for that to be the interpretation doesn’t mean they were successful in getting that across. The only reason we know her old “friends” were jerks at all is because they put cockroaches in her locker and called her a “loser”.  We don’t know anything else about them and that’s the one thing they’ve done. The writers want you to look at that on the surface level and just take it for what it is - that when Zoe started being her nice, “true” self, they turned on her.

Which is why most of my rant-essay is about the lazy writing. If they just included more - if Zoe talked about HOW she was “acting” around those old friends, like maybe they’d skip class or make fun of other kids or broke rules and then used their influential families to get away with it - if they included the reasons she “couldn’t take it anymore” because she didn’t LIKE acting like that, I would buy what they’re selling wholesale.

As it is? “Oh noooo, the people you deceived into believing you were one kind of person didn’t like it when you revealed everything about your friendship was fake, so they turned their backs on you, can’t imagine whyyyyy.” Again, they shouldn’t have put cockroaches in her locker, but calling her a loser is pretty mild after what they learned about her. I’d be feeling pretty betrayed and like I couldn’t trust this person anymore.

On Marinette, how is she supposed to know Zoe’s not lying “maliciously”? Again, this is just backing up my point about how this was sped-run without pause. Normally, you’d expect someone who hates lies, has already dealt with The New Girl Who “Lies” and got an arch enemy out of it, and who has no idea what Zoe has to gain other than being good with Chloe, to be a little more cautious and wary of Zoe, not open her arms wide and accept that SHE knows the REAL Zoe because they had ONE interaction before school and she was nice to ME! But as my essay should hopefully make clear, they just wanted to skip to the part where Zoe is fully integrated into the team with the Bee Miraculous, so they made the journey there too quick and boring.

I called her Diet!Marinette for a reason, a reason that I literally spelled out in the first paragraph of the rant. It’s not just a few “shared traits with other characters”, it’s that she has repeated character story beats with Marinette in Origins. I don’t think she’s Genderbent!Adrien or Good!Chloe, she doesn’t share the same goals or desires as either of those characters, aside from “I Want Friends” with Adrien (which for Adrien has pretty much been abandoned a long time ago) and her story line doesn’t overlap either of theirs like it does Marinette. The only thing unique about her is that she wanted to fit in with the Bourgeois’, but since that’s also been taken care of, she doesn’t even want that anymore. And it’s great she’s entering her Girl Boss era of Takes no Shits from Chloe, but right now the only thing that makes her stand apart from Marinette or even the rest of the cast is that she’s giving HEALTHY support to the love square.

It’s great you find her endearing and I’m not telling you to not like Zoe the character. But I definitely disagree that much thought was put into her by the writers. And that’s my interpretation.

Saw your post about Andre

What do u think about Zoe, then?

As a character, she's not bringing anything worth getting excited about. Personality wise, she's just Marinette-Pre-Origins: sweet and eager for friends, but ultimately letting her fear of Chloe rule her behavior until someone else reaches out, and now she suddenly has a spine. And I'm all for the idea of Marinette taking the lessons she learned in Origins about standing up for herself and not sitting by and letting injustices happen, and then turning around and inspiring someone else to do the same, so on paper, Marinette being that person for Zoe would be sweet and make sense. Except we have a full class of kids that she could've and should've already been that inspiration for, so this feel very Too Little Too Late.

And the few things they did to try and make Zoe unique didn't have enough thought or effort put into them so they fall flat.

So she got bullied out of her old school because she "was playing a part; being someone else" and when she dropped the act, "everyone turned against me". Um, yeah, if I found out my friend who'd I'd been confiding in and getting close to lied and faked their entire personality, I wouldn't want to be friends with them anymore either. I wouldn't go so far as to put cockroaches in their locker, but I can't blame Zoe's old "friends" for feeling betrayed.

(And let's be real, the writers definitely HAD to throw in the cockroaches thing so that Zoe actually had examples of being bullied instead of "no one wanted to be my friend anymore when they found out I was a totally different person")

So she's an actress, putting on different faces to please the people around her (clearly, she learned nothing from her previous experience - it's reasonable that people didn't like you because you lied, not because they didn't like who you really are). But then they didn't even keep up this 'acting' thing for more than one episode! Sure, she dusts it off in "Gabriel Agreste", but that entire aspect of Zoe's story is resolved as soon as it's introduced.

(Though it's obvious that the show is trying to convince you that her old friends DID turn on her JUST because they didn't like her as a goody-two shoes nice girl).

With Zoe putting on a fake persona, there could've been intrigue over the episode, or even the season, about who Zoe really is. Like, Marinette is SURE that Zoe is faking being like Chloe, but she has no way to know Zoe wasn't faking being nice to her when they first met. Why not show Zoe putting on different personas than just those two? Have Zoe interact with Juleka by being low energy and stand offish, then swapping to bubbly and energetic around Rose? Have Marinette be confused and that becomes part of the Mystery of Zoe?

And how about that contrivance, that Marinette met "nice" Zoe first and so is SOOOOO sure that Zoe is faking being "mean"? And because Marinette declares this To Be So, all of her friends just believe Marinette and are willing to give Zoe a chance. (despite not believing her about other things *cough* Lila *cough*) This is the same Marinette who's canonically declared her hatred of "liars" more than once, so even if Zoe is only "pretending" to be mean, why is Marinette giving her a pass? I'll tell you why - because we need to seamlessly integrate Zoe into the main friend group so we can speed run her taking over as the new Bee.

Because that's the main problem with Zoe - it's so blatantly obvious what the writers are trying to get out of her, because they don't even TRY to hide it. Don't get it twisted, I don't care that Zoe is brought in to replace Queen Bee, Queen Bee deserves to be replaced. I care how Zoe was brought in to replace Queen Bee. If the writers had taken enough time and care to ACTUALLY seamlessly integrate Zoe, instead of just shoving her in and bending the characters to accept her with no hesitation, then Zoe wouldn't come across as such a Mary Sue-Diet Marinette.

We already have a pretty full cast, so making the audience care about this new character that they've neither hinted at or bothered to build up to in Season 4 was already a big ask. Which is why I believe they should've stretched her "faking personas" story over several episodes. Have Marinette be as wary about Zoe as she was about Lila, esPECIALLY since she's Chloe's sister, but then have Zoe showcase her range of "personas" to throw Marinette off guard. Then you can have scenes of Zoe's mask slipping, like small acts of heroism where there's no time to think: pulling someone out of the way of an akuma attack, distracting the akuma if it gets too close to Ladybug, or even using her acting to help someone else get out of trouble despite Zoe getting nothing in return. Show the REAL Zoe through her actions DESPITE her acting, which then justifies Marinette being sure that "mean" Zoe isn't the real one.

Could've even had Chloe notice that Zoe's slipping and isn't acting very much "like a Bourgeois" and make it CHLOE who digs up that Zoe was bullied, make it CHLOE who airs out all the things that were done to Zoe. I mean, who better to call out a poser than Chloe? Especially since the rest of the class would more willing to take Zoe's side against Chloe (you would think) and it helps with the whole Zoe vs Chloe thing with the Bee Miraculous. Plus, having that information aired out when Zoe didn't want it to could've been a better reason to be akumatized than just "I'm giving in to playing the role I was already determined to play and putting my shoes in this hole with my dreams." Just saying.

But they didn't want to take the time. They didn't want to try. They didn't want to put in the effort to make Zoe someone to care about, both for the audience and for the characters. They shoved her in, gave her an exposition dump, and suddenly everyone was totally cool with her, No Questions Asked. In fairness, they didn't actually have Zoe be mean to anyone other than Marinette One Time in front of Chloe, so there wasn't much to overcome. But that's just another check in the "wow, you didn't even try" column.

I can't bring myself to care about Zoe because she's just a tool. She was brought in with the sole purpose of putting in nearly no effort to become friends with everyone and use the Bee Miraculous, as quickly as possible and as effortlessly as possible. Never mind that such a thing probably should have been earned. I just hate it when I can see the writer's intentions so blatantly.

But I get it, the Bee Miraculous is seriously OP and it'd be a shame not to use it just because Queen Bee was benched. Too bad Ladybug can't just merge Miraculouses and use it hersel- ohhhh, wait.

[ooooo-mcyt]

For real though watching yhs has lead me to the conclusion that despite Grian seemingly has such an active fight instinct....most of the time he actually doesnt respond to situations with half the fight attributed to him.

When faced with a traumatic situation Grian will absolutely bare his teeth at the nearest threat. He's absolutely vitriolic towards Sam at all times without fail and has even initiated physical violence in their confrontations once or twice. He's often on edge, often quick to angry outbursts, just overall rather hostile when faced with a dangerous/frightening/harmful situation. Which definitely indicates his main response to these scenarios is to fight. Hard.

However the more I engaged with fanon the more I faltered. A lot of fanon does portray him as very hostile in the face of trouble. Which should make sense. Canonically Grian knows when to say no, when to argue, and even sometimes when to physically fight back. Any episode with Grian present will likely have examples of him pushing back against harmful situations. And yet something always feels very Off about that being the start and end of it in a lot of fanon. Which led me down an interesting line of thinking.

I honestly suspect that Grian's volatility and will to fight back isn't nearly as strong as one would believe from observing him on surface level. In fact, his on the surface hostility feels like it's borderline a facade altogether to be honest.

I mean look at examples throughout canon of Grian in distressing situations.

Yhs halloween episode. The one where Taurtis got stabbed. And the following situation where Grian is famously forced to dress up like Taurtis. Grian would later be very upset about Sam stabbing Taurtis, however his initial response was to nervously laugh and even give Sam appeasing praise. I mean, Grian says "you weren't supposed to stab him" pretty clearly, but he anxiously laughs before and afterwards and even tells Sam he's proud of him when prompted. Obviously Grian was very upset about the whole thing later on after taking Taurtis to the hospital however in the moment he's mostly silent and when he's not he's just nervously laughing throughout, even agreeing with whatever *Sam* says when he's outright prompted by name for an opinion, then when everyone else tries to play it off casually Grian actually goes along with it almost entirely, even agreeing to let Taurtis drive him home for some reason. Then, according to his own story, he had an opportunity to talk to police at the hospital and he didn't incriminate Sam. He knew they were supicious of *him* but he still didn't incriminate the actual killer. "I told them I found him like that" Grian alleged. Honestly it sounds like he didn't tell them much of *anything* before being released and making the walk back to meet Sam. The next morning Grian was significantly more vocally upset about Taurtis being stabbed and expressed being upset with Sam however he seemed significantly more anxious than he was angry throughout the interaction. Then Grian immediately pretty readily agreed to go with Sam and Yuki to school and willingly put on the Taurtis outfit before the other's even started with the threats in the name of making things 'less awkward'. He certainly objected, however he was once again a lot more anxious than angry, nervously laughing, coming up with really weak unimportant excuses, and agreeing within ten seconds of being asked. Pretty much the rest of his time dressed as Taurtis goes very similarly. He objects to most things he's told to do and brings up Sam stabbing Taurtis multiple times despite the other's not wanting him to but is primarily nervous rather than hostile and he never actuslly puts up enough resistence for it to stick. Even when the other's were stuffing plastic down his throat and he told them he thought it may kill him Grian still did it and told the other's he *liked* it when pushed. Eventually he got out of it by running on Rowan's command and no sooner than being told to get out of there. When Sam found him again Grian immediately even reverted back to doing as he was told and cowering away from him in obvious fear up until Okami and Rowan showed up and shoved Grian behind them. Then he *still went home that night* knowing Sam would be there. When they found Taurtis it was pretty clear that Grian was hoping Taurtis would help him once he got his memory back however when instructed to stop telling Taurtis who he was Grian for the most part did aside from subtle pushing about the familiarity of certain things and then later when Taurtis got his memory back and made it pretty clear he wasn't going to help Grian? Grian conceded. He spent a good few minutes arguing about everything he'd gone through- everything they both had- and insisting it wasn't okay but when Taurtis made it pretty clear he wasn't going to do anything and they collectively agreed Grian was the real problem? Grian kinda...stopped. When Taurtis made it clear he wasn't going to be helping, Grian just kinda fell back into their normal routine with the other's, and when Sam demanded an 'apology soda' from Grian for what he'd apparently done, Grian bought it for him saying "If that's what it takes for things to go back to normal".

Let's also look at Grian's involvement with the law during/shortly-after the Halloween situation. When Sam and Yuki dragged him to join the Yakuza he was upset and objected anxiously but caved as soon as he got pushback. When Sam wanted to steak from the Yakuza he once again got objections from Grian who nervously insisted that it was a terrible idea but once again Sam shoved aside Grian's complaints and once again Grian just kinda fell into place despite being upset. When the police also started threatening the trio's lives to work for them, Grian objected. He questioned if they were allowed to do that and was very openly not happy about any of it, however he very quickly submitted under pressure. Both times Grian was locked in solitary confinement he loudly protested his sanity and both times he voiced how disturbing it was on a really deep level being locked up like that but both times when he was let out he just went with the other two again and let them brush it all off- even knowing full well they let him out to be *death fodder*. He just went with them relatively quietly save for maybe a token remark or two. Honestly the large majority of this bs Grian was involved with was under physical threat and he almost always bent under it. Even down to his fight with Pie over Ellen. Pie showed up and started challenging their relationship. Sam, Taurtis, and Yuki insisted they have a knife fight. Grian said *no*. Pie said yes. Sam, Taurtis, and Yuki affirmed there would be a knife fight. Grian objects more. Everyone else present discusses how the knife fight will work. Grian gets stabbed. Grian suggests they just ask Ellen who they want to date *obviously*. Ellen chooses nobody and leaves. Grian was upset but then just kinda accepts it and goes on with what the whole group was doing before.

And just to round this out with one more example. The Starwars Cosplay Incident. Apparently Sam burst into Grian's room, undressed him, shoved him into Leia Cosplay complete with fake boobs, and locked him in the basement for three days. Grian sits there for three days until Taurtis rescues him.  Grian has a moment of being rightfully very angry and finally even tries to physically attack Sam, demanding to know if Taurtis is aware of what Sam did to him and insisting that they can't expect everything to be fine now. Except it kinda...was. Taurtis stopped Grian from attacking Sam, they both brushed it off as a joke and not a big deal, and then they went to school. And Grian just *went*. He walked with the other two, he wore the outfit Sam put him in, and he just kinda moved on. Grian would later object when the clones tried to pull him out of class, snapping that he just wants to learn and get an education like a normal person and demanding to know why he's not allowed to. But he goes! And when he's released he walks right back to Sam and Taurtis, makes some bitter remarks to them, and let's them shove it all aside as if it's unimportant. Later when it's Grian, Sam, and a member of school staff alone in the closet, some innapropriate remarks are made to Grian. He very quickly says he's reporting the remarks made by school staff but Sam tells him not to be rude and it doesn't seem Grian ever does. Later on when Geode makes a comment about Grian's outfit as well Sam and Taurtis start pondering *giving* Grian to them. Grian repeatedly said *no* but with a lot more despair than defiance and we don't even know if he'd have actually followed through with fighting back if they'd tried to actually give him away because they were interrupted before the situation got to that point. Grian once again just let the other's move on as if that didn't happen and continued following them around, though! And he wore that damn outfit he was very explicitly uncomfortable with. All day.

Which is kinda all to say that when it comes to fighting back Grian is a lot more bark than bite.

Grian throws out a lot of bitter remarks, makes his objections very apparent in most things, and even has more than one vitriolic rant to his abuser(s) throughout the series. But that layer of his responses to things is so fragile that it tends to fall away within minutes- if that, sometimes *seconds*.

Of course ive seen other people take note of this and argue that it means Grian actually *wants* to do these thingd he's objecting to but I think that's silly. If it were just things like group crime or violent acts then id possibly see it but Grian puts up the same kind of response to having plastic shoved down his throat and to being locked in the basement for days which there's no way in hell he was any kind of okay with. The more likely scenario here isn't that he secretly wanted to do any of these things and made his resistence weak so he could pretend he tried while still doing it.

The likely scenario here is that his fight response is much more for show than one would think. Because Grian's strongest most influential response to things really never seems to be to fight. Aggression is really hardly Grian's overall stance on handling a distressing situation.

Much more frequently you see the most influence coming from completely other instinctive responses.

Looking for outside help in adults, friends, and classmates like when Okami and Rowan protected him during his time dressed as Taurtis or when Grian tried desperately to get Taurtis to be on his side and help him after Sam seriously hurt him both when Taurtis first got his memory back after Halloween and when Taurtis found Grian in the basement during the Starwars Cosplay Incident, hell, even during his fight with Pie it can be argued that Grian calling for them to just ask Ellen was an appeal to outside help as he hoped Ellen would agree to end the fight and save him from the situation as a result.

Running away- or trying to at least- from the threat. Most notably seen back during the halloween incident when he quite literally ran out the back of the gym and hid from Sam+Yuki then hiding behind Okami and Rowan when they showed up in an attempt to flee from Sam which is how he got away from the other's at all during that situation. Grian's consistent need to exclaim every so often how much he wants to go back to Europe is a subtler example of this, though, of Grian's urge to get away.

Honestly though being quiet and moving as he's directed seems to be the most common winning response. You see little sparks of reaction from him but most of the time Grian is just quiet, nervously laughing, following Taurtis and Sam around in what they ask of him, and even outright appeasement strategies to maintain a calm environment. This is So common from Grian. This is what usually wins out. His quiet nervous laughter and agreeing with Sam when Taurtis is first stabbed. The fact that he didn't tell the police what Sam did when alone with them during questioning and then immediately walked to meet up with Sam and went to school with Sam+Yuki with literally no objections. The fact that he didn't say no like *at all* to putting on the Taurtis outfit in the name of not making things awkward and complied within seconds of first being asked. How he proceeded to do what he was asked all day and didn't make any move to get away until Rowan outright instructed him to run. The fact that he went back! The fact that he went along with it when they joined the Yakuza and when they stole from the Yakuza and when they joined up with the cops and when they *forced him into a knife fight*. How Grian eventually just lost his spark of defiance after Taurtis first got his memories back and made it clear he wasn't helping Grian, with Grian agreeing to buy Sam a fucking *apology soda* if it meant things would go back to normal after hearing everyone else agree that *he* was the problem in all he'd been put through. The way he just goes back to following Sam and Taurtis after they got him locked in solitary confinement on blatant lies because they *wanted* to. The way he walks around school with the other two while wearing cosplay that made him feel gross and uncomfortable that Sam had literally physically forced onto him and just went along with what he was told in the end.

Grian always puts up a fight but not a good one. He makes side comments, he makes objections, he even has more than one emotional rant about the hell he's put through, however this never wins out in the end and this presenting fight is very frequently just barely holding down much stronger freeze and fawn instincts that usually win out pretty damn quick.

Which!!! In a situation like Grian's it actually makes significantly more sense to have strong freeze and fawn responses than to have a strong fight response! I mean, think about it. A fight response is primarily useful in scenarios in which it's possible to take strong action to remove the threat. You're attacked by a dog so you throw stuff at it till it backs away. You're picked on by an upperclassman so you punch em' in the nose expecting fully that they'll leave you be after. Someone attacks you while you're walking home so you try and stab them with your key. Fighting is an incredibly good response for random/one time attacks. If you're ever kidnapped you wanna scream and punch and kick and make a scene so they can't take you to a secondary location. You fight. Fighting is optimal for unexpected stranger conflicts. That's not the situation Grian's in though. Grian suffers from serious long term physical, emotional, and financial abuse. He's in a country he doesn't have residency or family in, he doesn't have a readily available source of income, he doesn't have his own mode of transportation, it seems that most of the time he doesnt have a clear way home, he's often dealing with long term friends of his and seemingly his biggest source of support prior to this situation, even back in Europe he doesn't have much support system to run to given his parents canonically left him, he's frequently under threat of physical danger, etc. This is not the kind of situation in which an intense primary fight response helps. This is the type of situation in which an intense primary fight response either gets you seriously hurt or wandering the streets with no way to provide for yourself. It would likely be similar if he presented an intense primary flight response to be honest. In long term abuse situations where there's no rational way of escaping safely or no rational place to escape to? Often the primary responses that promote survival are fawn and freeze. Appeasing the aggressor or sinking into the background. Those are your ways to stay alive when you can't expect to 'win' or escape. It absolutely makes more sense for Grian to have primary fawn and freeze responses than a primary fight response.

But then why does he present so much hostility? What's with all the bitter remarks and the attempts to voice objections and the occasional overt insults/screaming? How does a fawn/freeze response present as fight when first pressed at?? Well fun fact, I have experience with that kind of presentation because I *was* that kind of presentation. Oh boy did I try to push strong fight responses towards my abusive father with token resistences and petty remarks even though most of the time I crumpled under the slightest pressure and spent my time ignoring the problem or dissociating or trying very hard to avoid future conflicts. You put up a token front of fight even if that's never going to be your primary response for the sake of your own mental health, really. To assure the world- and *you*- knows that you don't *want* this situation. So you can say you tried. Out of some misguided hope that your attempted bravado won't be seen through and that maybe this time they'll just stop pushing instead of calling the bluff. Which. Makes sense with Grian as well. I mean looking at the times he really truly goes off before reverting back to a more appeasing stance, most notably his rants from when Taurtis first got his memory back as well as from when he got out of the basement during the Starwars Cosplay Incident. Most of those rants were taken up by Grian loudly and passionately reiterating what he'd been through, insisting he was the victim, and calling Sam an awful person before the defiance fades out and he becomes more willing to just go about their day. It's one attempted push hoping the other parties present will vie in his favour and a reassertion that he's not okay with this and that *he* is being hurt which gives way within minutes to a much duller attitude. That's just a painfully familiar format. Adding on Grian's token objections/passive aggressive remarks to many situations that distress him and how quickly those objections give way as dismissed by others. That kind of behaviour feels strongly like an attempt to preserve your own mental wellbeing as much as possible with the knowledge that you tried to some extent and with just generally hearing out loud that you are the victim even if from yourself. Grian's behaviour just really feels like a facade of defiance to cover up general helplessness which makes a Lot of sense for the scenario. Probably more than just plain defiance would.

[infernalrevenge]

All Dolled Up

Fandom: Resident Evil 8: Village

Pairing: Donna Beneviento x Reader (Gender Neutral)

Rating: G

Summary: Donna decides to practice talking to Reader, using a mini Reader!

Notes: Resident Evil 8 owns my ass and so do the lords. This is just some bashful Donna, inspired by headcanons by @wallflowerimagines! Check out their stuff, I love how they've characterized the lords and their reactions to crushes and relationships and the like. Here's the original post!

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

And... done!

Donna closed the slot at the back of the doll's head and turned it to face her, noting all the details of her latest creation.

It had a simple uniform on: A white button down under a black vest with coattails, on its left breast was a patch of the Beneviento family crest. It was fitted with matching dark grey pants and even a pair of leather shoes for its porcelain feet.

It looked just like Y/N -- their face, their skin, their hair. It was perfect.

"Looks just like 'em, Donna!" Angie chirped, bounding up from her lap and hanging onto the side of the desk to get a better look.

Everything had to be perfect if she was going to get this plan to work, but this was just part one of... who knows how many steps. She wasn't sure exactly how long this would take, but this first step forward was better than nothing.

She set the doll gently on the desk slumped against a glass, letting out a breath as she willed the implanted Cadou to bring it to life. Angie peeked over and giggled to herself in excitement, hanging from the side to watch it all happen. Maybe when this was all done, she could have a new friend to play with too!

Soon enough, its head twitched up ever so slightly, its shining eyes trying to focus on the woman before them. They attempted to sit up straighter, their movements jerky yet slow as they tested the waters. They waved a hand in greeting, pink painted lips curling into a familiar smile.

"Good evening, Lady Beneviento!" they said, in that enthusiastic tone she knew so well. Y/N's voice wasn't quite as high pitched as the doll's, but the underlying warmth in their speech was still unmistakable.

Donna cleared her throat, giving a nod and a soft "Hello" in return.

Doll-Y/N shakily stood up on their feet, taking a few steps forward to greet the other doll. "Miss Angie, come join me up here!" They extended their hands to her, and she hoisted herself onto the wooden surface with their help. They were just about Angie's height standing up, but was now at eye level with Donna.

"Is there anything I can do for you, my lady?" they addressed the woman.

She knew it was just a title, something servants commonly called those of higher status, and she's heard Y/N say it many times, but she still couldn't help the heat rising to her cheeks at what she wished it implied.

To be someone's. To be Y/N's.

Angie was just about to respond but kept quiet with one turn of Donna's head. She made this doll to practice talking to Y/N -- the real, life-sized version of them. She wanted to spend more time with them and get used to their company. It had been so long since she tried speaking to another human being directly, almost always at a loss for words until Angie would swoop in and say what was on her mind. But she knew that with Y/N, she couldn't hide behind her forever. As much as she loved Angie and what she did for her, she also wanted to be with them as her, as Donna Beneviento. She already knew they cared for Angie like she did, and she wanted to let them know personally -- no barriers, no lies, no dolls -- how she felt.

One day, she would say everything to them. But for now, this doll should suffice.

She and Angie thought that she was used to the company of her Cadou dolls, and since she would like to get used to Y/N, then making a doll of them might help with that. Made sense, right? It wasn't ideal, but it made some sense.

She didn't quite count on how much it would be like them, though. As much as she had control over the doll, she can't control how they were when she wills it to act like them.

"If you... would like..." she started to say, almost uncertain as she glanced over at Angie. She only gave an encouraging nod in response, silently telling Donna to speak up. "You can tell me about how your day went." She did always love hearing them speak.

Doll-Y/N's face lit up, bouncing slightly on the balls of their feet and clasping their small hands behind their back. "Of course, my lady. Well, on my way to the market today, I passed a shop selling all sorts of flowers. I didn't know you could grow sunflowers around the village! Or perhaps the Duke brings them in from somewhere..."

----------

This routine went on for a few days: Donna would greet Doll-Y/N, ask about them, and they would go on about things she might already know -- hobbies they want to take up, their favorite foods and drinks, a show or movie they looked forward to watching (with her and Angie, of course), and so on. The lady would reply with some insight as well, though brief and only softly, so as to not interrupt. The doll's movements also grew smoother and more sure with every interaction, practically having Y/N's own habits and tics down pat whenever they spoke. It felt more and more like she was talking to them, the real Y/N. With every thumbs up Angie gave her after every session, it only emboldened her more. This might just work!

One day, she greeted the doll with a little more enthusiasm than usual. Y/N spent time with her and Angie at the study that evening, with her reading and them arranging some books while Angie talked to them a bit about anything they may have read recently, and new games they could play with the dolls ("And Donna", Angie threw out as a suggestion). If it weren't for her veil, Y/N would've seen how she spent most of the time watching the two people she loved converse so freely with one another, unable to help smiling at them.

Donna came back into her room practically bursting with happiness, a light "Good evening, Y/N!" escaping her as she sat down.

It seemed like Doll-Y/N noticed the positive change, so they brought up something they had in mind. "I'd like to switch things a little, if you don't mind, my lady. How was your day today?" they suggested, stepping closer to her. She suddenly grew a little shy again, hands folded neatly on Angie's lap as she kept her close.

"Oh, it was... wonderful," she replied, a smile curling on her lips.

Doll-Y/N nodded, an encouraging smile on their little face as if to tell her to continue. "I spent some of the day in the garden, watching you work for a while. Um, big you. Then I... spent the rest in the study. Also with... big you. You and Angie talked a lot about books and games." They both made such lovely company, after all. "How about you, Y/N?"

"It went by splendidly! Well, it started off just fine, with my usual chores, but after seeing you in the garden this morning I couldn't help but feel like the day's been brighter ever since," they said, taking another step forward and laying a gentle hand on her shoulder, their beaming smile ever-present.

Oh. Did they just...

She... brightened up their day? Did they really think that? Did the real Y/N think that?

"Really?" she whispered, practically sounding breathless.

"Yes. In fact, your presence alone brings more warmth and radiance than the sun ever could," they continued, their smile turning rather cheeky.

...did they just flirt with her?

Donna could feel herself sinking onto her chair, hands cupping her cheeks as if she needed to hide the raging blush underneath her cowl. Never mind that only Angie and the doll replica was here to witness it. But still! This doll looked so much like her Y/N, looking at her with those bright eyes and that charming smile and sweet look on their face and--

Did she just call them "her Y/N"?

Downstairs, Y/N heard a faint squeal and thud from the other side of the manor, setting down the dish they were washing and hurrying to the lady's room.

They knocked a little frantically, speaking through the door. "Lady Beneviento, is everything alright?"

It was Angie who answered, opening up just a crack so they wouldn't see the situation behind her.

"Hey Y/N! Everything's fine, Donna just, uh, she just dropped something and was caught off-guard is all." She seemed nervous, her eyes shifting a little and barely looking at them.

"Oh, but does Lady Beneviento need help? Did she get hurt or--"

"Nope, no! Don't worry about it, we've got it covered, I promise! Now shoo, off you go!" She waved an arm out to get them to turn around before shutting the door, leaving the somewhat concerned but even more confused servant in the hall.

Donna lifted her head up from her hands, Doll-Y/N now lying lifeless on the wooden floor. Luckily, nothing seemed to have cracked on them when she suddenly relinquished control in her embarrassment. She picked them up and gingerly leaned them against a glass on the working desk, just staring into their eyes as she tried to get her heart beat back to a normal level. Even calling them "hers" in the safety of her own thoughts was enough to fluster the poor woman. If she could see her face right now, it would undoubtedly be as red as a tomato.

Was that something Y/N would even actually say? Was her mind playing tricks on her, her feelings betraying only what she wanted to hear from them? How was she supposed to handle it if they did say that?

"I think that's enough excitement for one day," Angie commented, looking between the mostly frozen Donna and Doll-Y/N. The lady could only nod in agreement.

The next day, Donna stayed in her room, not wishing to be disturbed.

It wasn't unusual for Y/N to not hear much from Lady Beneviento and instead have Angie deliver messages and orders on her behalf, but even her personal mouthpiece seemed to want to avoid them. She just kind of... watched them mindlessly on the couch while they swept the living room. What happened last night?

"Miss Angie, is everything--"

"Please just shut up and clean the carpet."

[seesgood]

can we very gently talk about call out posts / culture really quick?  not in a judgmental way, but in like a: i just want to pose a thought and explain why i’m never going to buy into it and why i wish it would become less of a trend instead of more of one? and i’ll add the  disclaimer  here: i totally get not wanting certain people around you for various reasons, that is all your prerogative. that’s your comfort level. but in emphasizing “your blog should be a safe space” we’re kind’ve losing sight of the fact that the rpc should also be a safe space, and as much as your comfort and safety matter, so do other people’s. and not just the person who hurt you, but the third parties and other mutuals and 99.9% of people who are not at all involved in any way in whatever happened. so, anyway here goes, read it or don’t, we all have different opinions or reasons, i just want to be heard:

people are allowed to change.  think back to who you were last year. two years ago. think about the stuff you said when you were seventeen, or twenty-one, or hell whatever age you were. current-you would probably cringe at the kind of stuff past-you had to say. because you grew. you learned. you had life experiences. in hindsight you have the freedom to be like “oof yeah that was not the best version of myself right there damn i don’t want to be like that again.” the growing trend of ‘here’s a 10+ page google doc complete with out of context screenshots that sometimes date back to like 2017 or earlier’ makes this kind of change impossible. because right there, you’ve just frozen a person in time, probably not at their best, removed any and all amounts of context, and put it on the internet and let other people judge it for themselves. 

so that leads into another point that i want to just kinda present to the community at large: the act of documenting behaviors and storing them for months / years at a time, in itself creates a super unsafe environment, not just for you, your friends, the people who have hurt you --- but also for anyone else that isn’t at all involved in whatever happened. like, for example, i like to think that i’m a pretty nice person. i actively try to be a nice person. am i sometimes not having the best day? have people definitely caught me in bad moments? oh hell yeah. but am i, as someone who tries really hard to be nice and welcoming, constantly thinking through every message i send to someone knowing that a) i could have a reputation that makes them read into context that isn’t there and that could contribute to them misinterpreting words i meant in a different way, b) very aware that every post i make, ask i send, message i send can at any moment be screenshotted and posted and taken out of context and either serve as someone’s only opinion of me or pile on to someone’s existing opinion of me? yeah. so in my experience, and based on people i’ve talked to, we now have this thing where you can be surface-friends wtih a lot of people, but if you want to survive in the tumblr rpc you should really only have 2-3 people that you really trust that you can actually talk about shit with. 

and lately i’ve been seeing a resurgence of posts on my dash about like “bring back xyz in the rpc” or “the reason the rpc is like this is because of xyz” and i both agree and disagree with a lot of this, but primarily i think the reason the rpc is Off lately is because everyone and their cousin has a DNI, which is --- again --- your decision and i understand and respect that, but while you know the context of every name on that DNI, other people don’t. and to be honest: other people don’t really care and honestly maybe they shouldn’t care. --- and don’t get me wrong, your friends should care if someone has hurt you. that’s important. but joe billy bob who just wants to write their character with yours is going to read through your rules, they’re going to see “do not interact with me if you follow with or interact with these people you’ve never heard of and if you want me to tell you why just message me” (which no one is ever going to do, i’m sorry to say). and say, joe billy bob also followed that other person because they were like ‘omg this blog looks cool’ --- now joe billy bob, who just wants to write cool plots, is suddenly the middle-man in some type of drama that they do not understand, and maybe they’re able to remove themselves from the situation, but even then it’s still in the back of your mind. 

this is getting long. it’ll be longer, but let’s take a brief break for me to remind you that in some cases, it’s definitely good to give your mutuals and friends a heads up when someone has done something really, really bad. like, remember x amount of years ago when some dude was like ‘i’m gonna make up a new person and say they died by suicide as a social experiment’ or ‘hey this person actively tries to force very triggering plots about abuse / rape / incest onto people and has been doing so for years and does not seem to change their ways no matter how many people try to educate them’ that’s shit people should probably know about. and it’s also okay ( in my opinion ) for your friends to be able to message you like ‘hey i saw you’re writing with x and i just wanted to let you know i had this experience with them’ if that’s something they feel comfortable doing. and if they are comfortable with you still having the autonomy to make your own decision regarding the person. 

i’ll be honest, for a second: i’ve been part of friendships and groups that have turned really toxic for one reason or another. a handful of times. there are probably people out there that are like “yeah this chick is really fake and manipulative and etc, i was friends with her back in 2019″ which, okay. yeah. i’ve definitely done shit and said shit that was not the most representative of who i want to be and who i want to become, and you probably have to. because we are human beings and we are a product of our social groups and the community around us. and you shouldn’t be chained to a version of you that isn’t you anymore. people change. they grow. you don’t have to like them, but you should respect that sometimes people don’t mesh, and that doesn’t mean any of them are bad people, it just means the experience was bad. 

a few additional notes i would like to make but i’ve already gone on way too long:

90% of the callout posts that i’ve seen and the DNI’s that i’ve seen can, in my opinion, be classified as a friend group thing. you were friends with x, x did something, now y and z aren’t friends with x anymore. pain is a very, very real thing and people hurting you should never be minimized, but at some point i just want you to remember that not every friendship is going to end happily, but both you and the other party should be allowed to move on and grow better, healthier friendships after. rehashing Friend Group Gone Wrong instances removes that ability for not only person x, but also person y and z.

you putting out a callout says just as much ( maybe more ) about you than it does about the other person. which sucks. because i’d like to think we all have great intentions, and i’m not saying that you should swallow your pain, but it might not be the kind of thing that impacts the community at large, and maybe you should try to find a better way of working through it with a trusted friend(s)

i’m going to be very real and very blunt on this one: literally no one cares. i say that with love. i’m good friends with people who have each other on their DNI’s. establish a baseline of respect and ‘i’m not going to say anything to them about you and vice versa because there’s no need for me to do so’ and move on. but seriously. no one cares. most outside people read callout posts because they like being in the know about the drama, not because they actually care. 

person a and person b who are mentioned in the DNI / callout aren’t the only ones who are going to be affected. your friends, your mutuals, your writing partners are now all put in a weird spot where you have to pick sides on an issue you know nothing about and shouldn’t have to know anything about. you’re asking people to choose sides on an issue they cannot fully understand, and that’s not fair to them or to you. and it drives great people away. and then we all lose out on having more awesome people in the rpc.

you’re entitled to your safe space, but this is a public platform and you are also responsible for maintaining your safe space. you shouldn’t put it entirely on other people to do that for you. you can block, blacklist, make up funny names for, or spitefully erase from your many anything and anyone that you wish. but you shouldn’t make your friends do it for you.

there’s always an inherent power imbalance when any kind of drama occurs between those who have more followers / friends / connections and those who do not. and the smaller blog is always going to suffer a little bit more because they don’t have people blindly coming to their defense. 

bad moments, bad experiences, bad decisions DO NOT equal bad people. 

allow people to make up their own mind about something or someone

anywho, if you read through this whole thing i think i owe you financial compensation. but also thank you for reading / listening / considering. even if you rolled your eyes through the whole thing like “stfu lia” that’s fine. i’m just presenting an alternative thought. i’d like to once again state: i’m not judging you if you’ve made a callout/DNI or if you’re on a callout/DNI. like i literally don’t care. and frankly, in my opinion, i shouldn’t have to. because i, and you, and your friends, and your mutuals, and your non-mutuals should be allowed the space to make up their own opinion and mind on something or someone without being told that there will be consequences if they don’t agree with you. set boundaries. communicate in healthy ways. you don’t have to forgive the people who have hurt or wronged you, but you also don’t get to decide that their actions make up 100% of who they are as a person, or decide that that is the only side of that person people should get to see. 

[viperbarnes]

The Tie That Binds – [Three of Eight]

[B. Barnes, Soulmate AU]

Summary: HYDRA took everything from you, your life, your future, they even burned off your soulmark to make sure nobody would go looking for you. Now the man they forced you to fix reappears in your life, to make amends and to be ‘of service’.

You know that they made him do all those things, that James ‘Bucky’ Barnes is not The Winter Soldier, that he’s innocent. You don’t blame him.

But that doesn’t make seeing him again any easier.

Warnings: Panic attacks, language, talk and depiction of home invasion and abduction, canon level violence, HYDRA levels of torture, angst, fluff, slow-ish burn, friends to lovers.

Note: This is entirely un-beta’d so all mistakes are my own. Thank you for reading!

<- Prev / Next ->

You’ve just stepped out of the grocery store when you’re half-barrelled into by something big and solid. Instead of falling, like you expect, when the moment passes, you realise not only are you standing upright, but that your arms have been relieved of the two heavy paper bags you’d previously held.

It takes you second to fully process the situation, but when you do, you find yourself blinking up at the smug face of Bucky Barnes, your load now tucked easily under his arm, looking a whole lot smaller than when you’d struggled to pick them up.

“Wha– I thought you were away?!” You let yourself gasp in belated surprise, resting a hand over your heart momentarily. He wears sunglasses, which you find odd considering it wasn’t exactly bright out, but you’re still a little too taken aback by his sudden appearance to really make note of it.

“And miss our shopping trip?” He asks, voice filled with mock horror.

“You can’t shake me off that easy. I stick.” The smugness melts from his features, replaced by something softer as you shake your head at him, beginning to walk.

Almost a whole month and a half of these regular, strange meetings, and the two of you had fallen into something that felt a lot like friendship, but crucially, wasn’t quite. Usually he’d help you with your groceries, sometimes you’d corner him at a cafe and seemingly quiz him on aspects of HYDRA and your capture. It was… comfortable, and you hated to admit it, but you’d sorely missed actual human interaction.

Bucky moves to walk beside you on the footpath, and you eye him. You understand why he wears sunglasses now, at this angle you could clearly see the large purple and black bruise around the ring of his eye, and when you take a closer, less subtle look at his clothing, you realise he’d simply thrown on his heavy winter coat over top of what looked like a blue motorcycle jacket.

“You know I would have been just fine if you had somewhere else to be…” You venture, shifting your eyes away from him as you speak. Bucky glances down at you, and then at his attire.

“Just got back.” He says shortly, though you’ve come to know that was just his way sometimes.

“Most people might go take a shower… get some sleep… not go help some lady with her shopping.” You muse.

The slight smugness returns to his face and his gait and he swings his head to look down at you with a corny grin, only added to by the shades.

“Most people aren’t me.” He tells you cockily, leaning down slightly to emphasise this. He leans back again moments later, as if considering you, and you squirm a little under his gaze.

“Besides, I think you like having someone do the heavy liftin’.” It’s still part of his act, something halfway between a shadow of himself from a different time, and a romance lead perhaps.

You noticed he fell back on humour, on sarcasm or this faux personality whenever he felt like his true response wouldn’t be acceptable. Maybe most people wouldn’t notice the shifts so clearly, but you do. You did the same thing any time you had to interact with another human being.

Still, the way it makes butterflies appear in your chest sends you off kilter every time, not just because it was him, but because it had been a solid amount of time since anybody spoke to you or flirted with you like you were a halfway decent option. Especially someone who looked like Bucky.

You weren’t blind, you’d recognised his objective attractiveness long ago, somewhere in a dimly lit room, where tracing his jawline was a distraction from whatever else.

But it was different now. He wasn’t just the tragically beautiful assassin you were forced to work on, he was… Bucky.

An almost friend.

Bucky.

You scoff at his display, and at any fleeting notion that he’d even really look at you twice, and shake your head.

“I can’t say it doesn’t help on the days my hands shake too much… Lost one too many cartons of eggs to that.” You chortle at your own past predicament.

You miss the way Bucky’s smile falters, and his shoulders drop, and he forces himself to look away from you for several seconds.

“Where were you, anyway?” You ask, changing the subject as you come to a set of lights. Bucky shifts your groceries to his other arm and cocks his head at you.

“I’m pretty sure our deal was that I answer questions about what I used to do. Didn’t think my current shenanigans were on the table…?” You see an eyebrow rise above the lens of the glasses, and roll your eyes.

“Fine. I didn’t want to hear about your sidekick stuff anyway.” You turn away from him slightly only for him to step into your view again.

“Sidekick? You call me a sidekick?” Bucky sounds almost genuinely offended, and you scoff, leaving him trailing behind you when the walking light turns green and you make for the other side of the street.

“Please, you’re basically a professional sidekick.” You can’t keep the grin from your lips now as Bucky hurries to catch up with you, his brow now in a deep set frown.

“That’s unkind. That’s hurtful.” He tells you, truly, honestly pouting.

“I’ll have you know my sidekick stuff is extremely interesting.” He continues, sticking his nose up a little now. You shrug.

“Probably, but you didn’t wanna tell me about it so…” You spin to face him as you speak, stopping on your apartment buildings stoop.

Bucky still pouts as you blindly buzz yourself in, taking towards the stairs right away. Bucky follows, and you realise a little too late that he never usually came inside with you. He’d usually hand over your things at the door. Truthfully, as dismissive as you were being, you were actually rather glad he’d shown up, and you weren’t quite ready yet to part ways.

The rest of the climb to your floor is filled with Bucky huffing about how cool his job was, and you internally wondering if it was too weird to invite him inside. Your fear of the man had all but evaporated, despite the frequent dreams you’d been having, but you wonder if letting him into your home would change that.

Your apartment was your sanctuary. You had escape routes mapped just in case, you’d organised your things so that there was always some kind of makeshift weapon available to you in every room… considering these plans were made with his last break-in in mind, you’re not sure how your subconscious might react to having him physically within your space again.

You act as natural as possible, and when you do reach your door, you force yourself to steady your hand as you unlock it. Bucky had stopped even his playful whining, and you know he isn’t ignorant to the current situation.

Stepping inside, you hold your door open with your hip and casually jerk your head in the direction of your kitchen.

“That can just go on the counter.” You say, cursing the slight shake in your words. You continue ahead of him quickly, even as you hear your door close shut behind you, depositing your purse and coat on the sofa.

Bucky does as you say, and you turn in time to see him step back from the countertop, his eyes darting around the space quickly.

A different kind of anxiety rolls over you then, and you regret having not tidied up a little before inviting him inside.

“It’s a little messy…” You apologise, sweeping some dust from the nearest surface and scrunching your nose. Bucky blinks at you and frowns, opening his mouth, but you accidentally cut him off as another thought hits you.

“And I’m sorry about the cold… The window keeps breaking.” You gesture to the main window in your living space, rolling your eyes a little.

Bucky’s face morphs into a frown as he looks past you to the window in question, a plastic bag duct taped over a portion.

“Your windows broken?” He asks, concern filling his voice.

“It keeps happening. My landlord employs the cheapest handyman in the city, I swear to god…” You roll your eyes again and try to brush it off with a laugh, but Bucky’s face doesn’t change, even as he looks back to you.

“It’s the middle of winter.” He states, and then before you can reply, he straightens, his frown of displeasure shifting into one of determination.

“I’ll fix it.”

---

Bucky replays the clips on his phone one last time, making sure he properly understood the instruction, before he moves to copy it.

A short trip to the hardware store later, he’s back in your apartment, sat awkwardly on your windowpane as he finishes up replacing the lower piece of glass. He’d made sure the piece he’d bought was hardy, and unlikely to cause you future problems. He can’t imagine how cold it would have gotten in your place with a broken window, and tries not to scowl.

You linger nearby, having put your groceries away and offered him coffee, you now sit on your couch pretending that you weren’t watching him.

He doesn’t blame you for eyeing him just as nervously as you had on his first few visits with you. Seeing each other out and about was one thing, but he doesn’t underestimate the amount of trust you were showing in allowing him into your home. Hell, he doesn’t even think he’d be extending such liberties if he were you.

But he’s glad for it, if not only for selfish reasons.

It was easy for Bucky to pretend he didn’t know your status to one another. He’d ignored the little black mark long enough, ignored the urge to seek you out (before he knew you were you) so it really wasn’t that different for him. The only problem, and it wasn’t really a problem just yet, was that Bucky liked you.

He liked your jokes and your sass, he liked the way your expressions spoke louder than your words ever could, and how you didn’t even seem to realise you were making them half the time. He liked that you always seemed to have something interesting to add to a conversation, even on topics he wouldn’t have thought had much interest.

You were smart, and funny and cynical in all the same ways as him, and Bucky liked spending time with you. If he didn’t think it would make you uncomfortable, he’d hang around you a lot more.

Being friends with you was easy, in the same way that being friends with Sam was easy. He didn’t have to hold back certain information, or pretend he was something he wasn’t. You knew everything already, and for some reason, had decided you were okay with him sticking around.

“Do you think you’re going to find your soulmate?”

The question nearly makes him jump, as if you’d been looking right into his thoughts.

Bucky stops what he’s doing briefly and looks up at you. Your lips are pursed and your eyes move from his exposed wrist to his face. He coaches his face into what he might consider normal if the situation were different, and hums.

“Why wouldn’t I?” He clears his throat, and watches you shift your position on the couch, tucking your feet underneath you.

“I don’t know. It’s not really something I have to consider, so I guess I was just thinking about our situations… How it would feel.” You frown as you speak, and Bucky already knows you’re unsatisfied with how you’d answered. He stops completely and faces you, giving you his full attention.

“What do you mean?” He prompts. You think for a moment.

“I guess I just don’t know if I would.” You state, still frowning, though this time for an entirely different reason. Bucky feels something in his chest tighten.

“I don’t know. I’m not exactly the most normal person in the world… and I know your soulmate is supposed to be your perfect half, but there’s still choice involved, right? Not everyone chooses to be with their soulmate in the end…” Your eyes turn down to your lap, where you fiddle with your fingers nervously.

“I’m just not sure they’d want me.”

Bucky’s stomach drops at your confession, something an awful lot like hurt shooting through him.

He wants to hurry and reassure you that you were wrong, that you didn’t have to worry, but he stops himself.

He reminds himself that your fears were his own, only he knew for a fact the answer.

“I don’t think you should spend your time worrying about that.” He says carefully. You stop fidgeting and look up at him. He swallows thickly.

“Your soulmate will want you, regardless of if you’re the most normal person in the world or not. And if they’re worried about your past, or the way it affects you now, then they probably don’t deserve you anyway.”

Bucky shrugs, and tears his eyes from yours to continue in his task, but stays fully aware that your gaze remains trained on him.

“If you found them, I’m sure they would want you.” He adds, almost anxiously, his mind buzzing with a million thoughts.

From the couch, you let out a short laugh, the tension in the room lifting a little. He spares a glance at you, unable to to stop the smile that creeps onto his face at the sight of your own.

“What?” He asks, and you shake your head.

“Just never took the Winter Soldier for a romantic.” You tease, making him roll his eyes.

Bucky puts the last touches on your new and improved window and takes a step back.

“Would it shock you to learn HYDRA didn’t count it as a useful skill?”

If you like and enjoy, a comment or a reblog would be greatly appreciated!

[saphirered]

If you want some individual character asks how about Caleb with a Druid s/o who will wild shape into a cat if he seems sad to try and make him feel better.

Here you go! Enjoy 😘.

Not only out of components to return Frumpkin to his preferred cat form but also having loaned the now owl familiar to Beauregard as part of their agreement Caleb feels lonely, lacking the comfort of the orange fur ball to keep him company. There’s always been something about having the only creature aware of everything he had gone through and still look at him the same as they had always done that gives him hope there might yet be redemption and salvation for him and it’s something he really could use right now. All that’s left for him is to retreat to his room and wallow in sorrow until he falls asleep, gets the components to turn Frumpkin back, this feeling passes or a distraction big enough to have him focus on something else comes along.

You’d noticed Caleb silently retreat when the others were still around. Caleb may be good at covering up anything beyond a surface level of emotion but you know him well enough he’s not in the greatest shape when he just wanders off in the middle of the day. Things had been harsh lately and he’d been struggling. You’d been doing your best to be there for him but Caleb struggles even more with accepting help from others when he’s like this and prefers seclusion until he sets himself straight. It’s not healthy, you’ve told him but it keeps him going so you’ve come to terms with it offering him little gestures of kindness whenever you could if only to ease his pain a little bit.

When Caleb disappeared into the background making sure the others were too caught up in whatever they were doing you sat around, staring in the direction he left in half paying attention to the people around you and your mind debating wether or not you should do something, anything. After Caleb hadn’t returned in an hour you excused yourself and went after him searching for wherever he went. Your first guess had to be right. Not many places he could or would go.

There you are standing in front of the wooden door fist raised hesitantly to knock. Maybe this was a bad idea? Maybe you should just leave him to himself. If Caleb wants to be alone then you should respect that… but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check in on him… Because what if you could do something? It doesn’t have to be much or fix everything because you know that’s not the goal but the tiniest difference between Caleb wallowing in his own pain and having something or someone to bring him some comfort; that would be enough.

So you knock. There’s a silence and you don’t expect a reply of any kind. You try again, a little bit harder this time. Still you wait patiently. You’re about to turn and leave when the door opens and Caleb peaks out. He looks tired, exhausted even but musters a half smile upon seeing you.

“What can I do for you?” Caleb tries his best to not falter in his usual habits but he knows there’s no hiding from you. You wouldn’t be here if he had succeeded in the first place. No use in keeping the facade going.

“I came to see if you’re alright.” Again there’s the pained half smile. You pity him so much. You know Caleb does not want your pity but still you do. You can’t help yourself but feel sorry for everything he’s been put through and the scars left from the past. No one should have to suffer through such terrible things.

“I’m fine.”

“No, Caleb. You’re not fine.”

“I will be fine. I just need… time.” Caleb sighs holding onto the door. You clasp your hands together and give him the sincerest look you can muster.

“I know you will be fine but I also know you won’t ask for help unless it’s a last resort so I’ll ask you. Do you need my help? Is there anything I could do for you?” Caleb bites his lip, steps aside and allows you to enter. You do and the door is closed behind you. The room is as simple as ever, the sheets slightly crinkled and pillow sunken, giving away he’d been sitting in bed staring into the abyss for who knows how long.

Caleb sits on the bed hands clasped in his lap and nods to the space next to him. You take the hint and sit down. Hesitantly you reach out your hand towards his but stop and are about to pull away hadn’t Caleb grasped your hand to enclose it between both of his own. The grip isn’t too tight or lacking any strength but feels like him holding on to a lifeline no less.

“Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” You ask as the wizard keeps his eyes on your hand between his. There’s something about the gesture to him that brings him comfort and keeps him tethered to this plane. You’re like an island in the middle of the ocean and he’s been swimming from sharks out to get him but not even you can stand up against a flood. Caleb shakes his head.

“Is there something you usually do to make things easier?” You know of some of the coping mechanisms of Caleb but he wouldn’t have retreated if they worked. Caleb’s smarter than you are and knows himself best so while you may come up with some ideas, you’ll let him try first.

“Yes but not now. Not unless you happen to have about ten gold worth of incense on you.” Caleb laughs sarcastically.

“If you need Frumpkin back I can go retrieve him from Beau if you don’t feel comfortable doing so yourself. Don’t worry.” He appreciates your willingness to take the pressure off any social interactions he doesn’t have the energy for but sadly that’s not the reason.

“Thank you but Frumpkin as he is now won’t help. I need my cat. Not my cat shaped like an owl and it’ll still be a while before we get somewhere I can get enough incense to turn him back.”Caleb looks at you and can see the cogs in your head turning. A realisation has hit you but he cannot place it so instead he awaits for you to elaborate.

“You need a cat? Would any cat do or just Frumpkin? Maybe a cat that looks like Frumpkin?” You try your best to get the clearest visual of the orange ball of fur you can to make sure you could get this right.

“I think so but I’m not sure?” Caleb tries to figure out what you’re hinting at.

“Would this help?” You close your eyes and focus on the image in your mind. Next you open your eyes the world is different. You’re staring up at Caleb with a significant height difference. Your senses pick up on things you did not before and you’re hit with an overwhelming scent of a mixture of spell components, smoke and something more earthy. It’s not uncomfortable and actually pleasant.

Caleb is at loss for words. He knows about your ability to turn into animals but never considered the fact you’d be able to turn into a cat. While he certainly sees some dissimilarities between you and Frumpkin they are minor, he would not have expected you to know exactly where Frumpkin has that little spot shaped like a bean or where one of his whiskers is just a little shorter than the other above it.

Reaching out as if to pet you Caleb hesitates. He knows it’s not Frumpkin or another cat. He’s fully aware this is still you and you’re still fully aware of your surroundings, retain your memory and everything you knew as a person. He can see it in your eyes; they are unmistakably you. When you nudge up into his hand allowing him to stroke his fingers over your head Caleb reads this as you giving him permission. The head scratches turn over to your cheek and just under your chin and you can’t help but feel yourself beginning to purr just like Frumpkin does when he receives the same attention. It’s actually very comfortable and you get why the fey cat likes it so much.

An arm guides you to Caleb’s side and the fingers brushing through your orange fur continue. You don’t know wether or not it’s the cat senses kicking in or your own but you can feel the anxiety beginning to lessen from Caleb. That’s a good sign.

Slowly, little by little your positions change. One moment you’re half leaning against Caleb’s thigh, the next you’re curled up in his lap. Eventually you find yourselves laying back on the bed, you rolled up comfortably on Caleb’s stomach, the fingers brushing through your fur continuing until they become slower and slower and eventually cease, Caleb’s breathing growing heavier and slower. He’s asleep. You look at him careful not to twist too much but he looks peaceful and much less bothered by whatever haunts him so. You don’t want to wake him up so you’ll stay. You still got plenty of time left on this wild shape so maybe you’ll close your eyes for a bit too and you too fall asleep.

When you wake up you feel whatever’s under you stir so you open your eyes and make eye contact with Caleb who looks mortified for some reason. You wonder why. Had you done something in cat form? Wait, you don’t feel as small as you did anymore…

When Caleb woke up he found you in your normal form supporting your head on your crossed arms laying on his stomach fast asleep, his fingers intwined in your hair and the other hand somewhere between your shoulder blades. He shouldn’t have fallen asleep. You hadn’t agreed to this and what if the reason you still being here was because his grip might have been too tight? Nevermind the awkwardness of this all. He doesn’t do well with most physical touch but just like you in cat form, this feels comfortable and he’s ashamed to admit he could very well get used to this, though he doesn’t have the heart to ask you himself.

You sit up supporting yourself on your hands on either side of Caleb. You saw his response to the position the two of you woke up and you know what he’s like when it comes to physical touch and after the emotionally intimate moment you shared with him finding comfort in you, you hope you hadn’t ruined it by falling asleep not keeping track on when your wild shape would end. You blurt out apologies as you sit up and begin removing yourself from on top of Caleb. Caleb stops you as you’re on your knees and rises himself to a sitting position.

“No, I should apologise. Thank you for your kindness. I should have been more considerate. I did not mean to keep you or put you in a, no pun intended, tight spot.” Caleb grabs one of your hands lightly as if afraid you’d slip away and he’d be alone again. Your initial fear you might have overstepped yourself falls away.

“Do… you want me to stay?” You’re almost afraid to ask but you have to, if not for your own sake then for his. Caleb nods sheepishly but when you wrap your arms around his waist pulling yourself close to him once more. His hands find your hair and begin to loosely brush through carefully getting rid of any tangle that might have been there.

“You know I could turn back into a cat once more if you’d prefer.” You mutter into Caleb’s stomach and you can feel the slight tension and release of his abdomen signalling a silent laugh.

“While I very much appreciate the offer and will hope it still stands in the future, for now I am very much content with this.”

[butgilinsky]

tension // rc

warning; language, underaged drinking, mentions of cheating, mentions of anti depressants but not rly depression, mentions of smut but nothing descriptive, hella angst

summary; you find out the real reason kiara doesn’t hang out with you and the kooks anymore. 

word count; 4.5k+

rafe x reader, platonic!kie x reader, and a sprinkle of rafe x kie

you had been friends with kiara for years. back in middle school, when kiara sat at a table by herself, you shocked your friends by placing your tray directly across from hers and asking her why she chose to sit by herself. 

you knew people that liked kiara, so you knew she wasn’t forced to outcast herself, but you quickly learned that she didn’t like the people at your school. she’d rather save turtles that caught in a plastic bag rather than talk about which swimsuit fit her body the best. 

she wasn’t like your other friends, and you liked that about her. you liked that she didn’t stray from her genuine personality to fit in, like most people on figure eight did. she was authentic and real, and she wasn’t going to jeopardize that for a surface level friendship. 

kiara used to blame her kook year on you. if you hadn’t befriended her in middle school than she wouldn’t have felt so lost when you moved onto high school and she was stuck to finish seventh and eighth grade. the age difference - only two years - never made a difference before, but after spending an entire year with you, her last two years in middle school were hard to swallow. 

the pogues didn’t go to the same school, and with you in high school, she had no choice but to turn to sarah. sarah had been a mutual friend between the two of you, and provided a sense of comfort and familiarity that kiara couldn’t find anywhere else. 

kiara was excited when she began high school. she could start hanging out with you again, coordinating her elective classes to spend more time around you. it was everything she had been looking forward to for the entirety of eighth grade. 

she looked up to you. a girl two years older than her that didn’t care when her friends ragged on her for spending so much time with a freshman. you took her under your wing and made sure nobody gave her shit in high school, and she’d never forget that. even when she spent the entire next year swearing off any and all kooks. 

you never understand the switch she had flipped, thinking she had gotten comfortable with her makeshift life on figure eight. you thought you proved to her that kooks weren’t all that bad. you showed her that for every time topper made a crude remark, kelce was there to interject with a light hearted response. you tried to make her comfortable there, treating her like the younger sister you never had. 

then she flipped on you. when her and sarah had a falling out, you were caught in the middle of it. you’d been dating rafe at the time, which made you biased in a way you wished you didn’t have to be. you couldn’t throw sarah in your rear view mirror like she didn’t mean anything. she was in the heart of your friend group, and despite what you wanted, you were around her too much to cut her out entirely. 

losing kiara hurt. you’d opened up to her about things that nobody else knew about you. you’d slept at her house when things with your parents got rocky. she was there when your brother moved for college, and offered a sense of comfort you couldn’t find in your other friends. 

she didn’t ask you to choose, she simply left without another word. she told you that she’d see you in school but that had to be the extent of it. if she was swearing off all kooks, that had to include you, no matter how much it hurt her to walk away from you. 

your last summer on the island was supposed to be the best one yet. sure, you’d be back for small breaks during the semester, and an entire month between fall and spring, but you were going all the way to south carolina in august. you were determined to have a good time. 

leaving rafe would be hard, seeing as he had just gotten back from his first, and last, year at college, but you were prepared to face the battles, no matter how tough. 

something about this summer felt off from the beginning. you didn’t know what it was, but you tried to shrug it off anytime it came up. you did your part in trying to keep your boyfriend and his goons out of trouble, though that proved easier said than done. 

it didn’t help when sarah dropped off the radar, beginning to sneak around and disappear for long periods of time. she had blown it off every time you asked, despite you promising her that she could trust you with every fiber of her being. you had been her honorary older sister for years, and you dating her older brother only heightened that. 

when she blew off your plans to go to the movie night, you made a mental note to dig into what exactly deemed more important than sneaking drinks during the movie neither of you cared about. 

“hey, kie.” your head turned to follow your boyfriend, eyebrows pulled together when he stepped up to the concessions stand to stand beside the girl you hadn’t spoken to in - you don’t even remember how long. 

you picked up on kiara’s annoyed expression quickly, sensing a small amount of discomfort in the way that she quickly ignored rafe. he didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he just didn’t care, but it captured your interest fairly quickly. 

topper tried to grab your attention, mentioning something about the bottle of burnett’s he scored from his plug earlier that day. you waved him off quickly, eyes firmly locked on the two that stood just a few yards away from you. 

“how are you?” kiara spared you a short glance before practically rolling her eyes, trying to mentally map out an escape plan, no doubt. 

“i’m fine.” rafe nodded, swinging his weight from the balls of his feet back onto his heels. 

“good, good. um, tell your boy that we know what he did.” kiara’s expression stood steady, despite the confusion clear in her eyes that you were sure rafe didn’t pick up on. 

“sorry, what boy are you talking about?” her eyes found yours again, but she could tell you were just as lost as she was, so she looked back at rafe quickly. 

“uh, he’ll know.” kiara rolled her eyes one final time, though the eye contact between the two last just long enough for your fists to clench at your sides before she turned and walked away. 

“bye.” you watched rafe watch kiara walk away from him, his hands shoved in his pockets and back turned towards you. 

there was something in the way that he watched her leave. the way his gaze lingered on her longer than normal. the way he chewed on the inside of his cheek when he spun around to face you. how his eyes were locked on his feet for a short second before he was offering you a bright smile as he returned to the same smiling rafe before he’d seen kiara. 

“what the fuck was that?” you didn’t notice topper pinching the bridge of his nose behind you, shaking his head at rafe’s lack of subtlety. you didn’t see the way that kelce was shaking his hand back and forth, telling rafe to completely deny whatever the hell just happened between him and kiara. 

sure, to anybody else watching it was just rafe and kiara talking. two people that supposedly didn’t like each other, despite their shared title of a kook. two people talking about something very vague and somehow secretive. 

but to you, it was your boyfriend talking to a girl he often didn’t associate with. it was rafe talking to your ex best friend who had left you high and dry after a fall out with your other friend, which you had no hand in. it was the girl who had deemed you guilty by association after sarah had turned her back on the girl. 

it was obvious there was tension between the two of them, but you had no idea why. 

“what was what?” rafe wrapped an arm around your neck, trying to pull you into his chest but you planted your hand flat on his chest to stop the collision. 

“that whole interaction, the tension, what the fuck was that about?” rafe rolled his eyes and moved to press a quick kiss to your forehead, something he knew calmed you down without fail.

“the only tension between kie and i is the same tension between her and the rest of figure eight. she hates me, ‘cause i’m a kook and i mess with her dirty pogue friends.” you wanted to push it further, wanted to say something else, but you couldn’t stop yourself from melting into the boy’s embrace when he pressed another, longer kiss to your forehead. 

“stop stressing, baby. let’s go sit down.” you nodded, accepting the kiss rafe moved to place on your lips. 

the next time you noticed something being off was midsummers. your mind had already been racing when you’d stood beside topper, eyes locked on sarah and john b less than a mile away. you were confused as to why she wasn’t being discrete about it, kissing him during one of the biggest events of the summer. 

your hand found topper’s arm, squeezing it gently before leaning into his side to provide a sense of comfort that he surely needed. you were confused, hurt for topper, and you knew it would inevitably become your job to get to the bottom of it all. 

you were upset that rafe wasn’t ravishing you in your dress, like you had originally planned. he had made a few comments in your ear as the night progressed, especially after the slit in your dress rode up while you crouched behind kelce to hide from your parents while you downed a glass of wine. 

his eyes had been glued to you almost all night long, and while you were drinking it all in and enjoying every minute of it, he’d disappeared at some point and you were now left to comfort a confused and hurt topper. 

when the commotion between jj and the head of security erupted in the middle of the crowd, your eyes found rafe. you knew he had something to do with it. you would’ve blown it off as a casual kook v. pogue rivalry interaction, but the way his eyes were trained on kiara when she began sticking up for jj made your blood boil. 

“you okay?” topper nudged you with his elbow, but you shook your head gently, eyes burning into your boyfriend’s back as he watched kiara run off, despite her parents’ protests. 

“do you know something i don’t, top?” his eyebrows pulled together in confusion, not catching on to what you were asking him. “what’s going on between rafe and kiara?” 

you knew you’d hit something when topper’s face fell. his lips parted as he tried to come up with something. a diversion, a distraction, an excuse, anything. you could tell he was digging through his brain for something to say to you. 

“topper, what the hell is going on?” he started stuttering, falling over his words as he shook his head slowly. 

“n-nothing. why would you- what makes you think that anything’s going on with them? kiara and rafe? pfft, that’s ridiculous, y/n.” your jaw clenched and you put a hand flat on his chest, pushing him back and away from the people stood around the two of you. 

“topper. spill. now.” your voice dropped to an octave you never used with topper. he’d seen you use it with rafe on multiple occasions, and the one time that kelce lied to you about the wine stain on your carpet. he knew it was a tone that you only used for specific situations, and he knew it meant he had no way out of this. 

“i-”

“what’s up with you two?” your head turned towards kelce, the bright smile he held once left his face at the sight of your tensed muscles and hand still pressed against topper’s chest. 

“what’s going on with rafe and kiara?” kelce looked panic, eyes looking over at topper who was shaking his head quickly to say he hadn’t told you anything he was supposed to. “kelce.” 

“okay, okay-”

“kelce, no!”

“top, we can’t hide it from her forever.”

“we can if you shut up!”

“she’s clearly catching on-”

“only because you’re giving her ammo!”

“shouldn’t we tell her the truth if she thinks it’s still happening-”

“still happening? how many times has it happened?” topper let out a heavy sigh, mentally cursing kelce for saying too much. kelce always had a soft spot for you, and that proved to be a weakness in more situations than not. “someone tell me what the fuck is going on, right now, or so help me god-”

“rafe and kiara slept together, okay? they slept together when you two were going through one of your spats.” your hand fell from topper’s chest, an uneasy feeling flowing through you as you tried to process the given information. 

“it happened once when you drilled into him too far and he kind of flew off the rails a bit. he swore it was a one time thing but then they fell into a bit of a routine. it only happened a few times, but-”

“when?” your eyes flicked between the two boys, who were sharing eye contact to decide who was the one who ha to break it to you. “i don’t care who says it, someone just fucking say it!”

“right before rafe graduated.” kelce rushed out, almost out of breath from how fast the words fell off of his tongue. 

you were still friends with kiara then. you’d been dating rafe for over a year at that point, and you were finding out about all of this over a year after it all happened. 

“how long?” topper sighed heavily, hating the position he was currently in. he was friends with both of you, but rafe was his boy. he’d been sworn to secrecy for over a year now and it would’ve been fine if you weren’t so observant, and kelce wasn’t so guilt ridden. 

“a few months, i don’t know. like three, maybe four.” 

you wished the ground would swallow you whole then. you knew it wouldn’t have come to light if you didn’t dig so far, but the damage had been done. you knew now, and there was no way around that. 

everybody had been lying to you. your boyfriend, who you loved more than anything. your ex best friend, who you still cared for immensely. the two boys who had stood up for you for years. the two boys who you cared for like they had been siblings born into the wrong family. 

your eyes stung, maybe from the tears that didn’t often come to you, maybe from the pressure of holding them back. you weren’t entirely sure which caused the burn in them, but it was uncomfortably present. your head started nodding, and your hands found the fabric of your dress, lifting it enough for you to bend your knees and slip off your shoes. 

“what are you doing?” kelce started moving before you could walk away, worried he had just ruined seemingly everything with a simple conversation. a conversation he should’ve steered clear of. 

“i’m going home, kelce.” you turned around, almost running right into the last person you wanted to see. 

“you’re going home?” he spoke gently, eyes locked on your shoes in your hand before looking back up and cupping your face in his hands. “hey, what’s wrong?” 

you grabbed his wrist gently, pulling his hand away from your face and setting it back at his side. he was confused, watching you summon every ounce of self control you possessed in order to stay calm in this moment. 

“i’m going home.” you said one more time, walking around rafe and towards your car, but you felt a hand on your elbow seconds later, only a few feet away from your previous spot. 

“baby what’s going on? at least let me drive you home-”

“why don’t you drive kiara home, rafe?” rafe rolled his eyes, letting out a low groan at the name that slipped from your lips. 

“we’re back on this kie bullshit? there’s nothing going on between kiara and i-”

“there was though, wasn’t there?” rafe paused, his movements stuttering as he stared at you with an unreadable expression. “c’mon, rafe. tell me nothing happened. tell me that you didn’t cheat on me with my best friend.” 

“who told you? was it kelce? son of a bitch. i knew his soft spot for you was going to bite me in the ass-”

“the only thing that bit you in the ass was your inability to keep your dick in your pants, rafe.” you ripped your arm out of his grasp then, eyes wide and filled to the brim with tears that you refused to let surpass your waterline. 

“baby, just listen to me-”

“no, you listen, rafe. i have never loved a person in my life the way that i love you. i have never done anything to hurt you and i would never think of doing something like what you did.

“i have never spent my time thinking about a person the way that i think about you. i never asked you for anything, never asked you to promise me a single thing. i never forced anything onto you, and you couldn’t do me the decency of just staying loyal to me. i would never disrespect you like that.” 

he knew you were right. he’d been at the boneyard when tourons approached you at a kegger. he’d seen you turn every single one down before they wasted their breath on asking. he’d seen you duck and dodge every person’s efforts in any situation, just before you came back to him with an amused smile and another story to tell. 

you kept him out of trouble that way. you were honest and transparent. you could’ve easily turned them down and pocketed the experience, but you told rafe every time. you didn’t know he saw almost every time, but you did it because you were loyal. you didn’t see anybody else the way you saw rafe. you’d do anything to assure him that he was the only one you had eyes for. 

and the icing on the cake was that kiara was involved. meaning that your entire junior year that was spent juggling time between your best friend and your boyfriend, they were spending their free time with each other, behind your back. you would’ve done anything for either of them. you still would. 

“y/n, i love you-”

“i wish i believed that, rafe. i really wish i did.” you shook your head gently, looking back at the other two that were watching with guilt building within them. “i’ve been loyal to the three of you to a fault. i’ve never kept anything from either of you, and-”

you shook your head, looking up at the sky to fight the oncoming rush of tears that continued to build. you refused to wipe them before the fell, but you also refused to let them fall. topper and kelce had never seen you cry, and rafe had only see it a few times. 

“i expected better, which may be my fault. i just- for fucks sake. topper i just watched your girlfriend cheat on you and comforted you for the last hour! how in the hell is that not enough motivation to say something to me about this?” you were screaming now, but there wasn’t anybody around to hear any of you. 

“y/n, i’m sorry-”

“just, forget it. i just want to go home-”

“baby-”

“we’re done, rafe.” his shoulders dropped, along with his jaw as he stared at you in disbelief. “it’s done. whatever this was to you,” you moved your hand between the two of you, gesturing to you as a couple. “whatever the last two years was is over, rafe. we’re over.”

your voice broke, pitching up in the middle of your words. rafe felt his airways constrict as a lump formed in his throat. he felt tears burn his eyes, much like yours had been for a few minutes at this point. he saw you slip through his fingers as you started taking steps back from him, not daring to show any sign of weakness as you squared your shoulders. 

“don’t fucking follow me, any of you.” you threatened lowly, spinning on your feet and walking off before any of them had time to process everything that had just happened. 

you tried to find your car, heavily disappointed and frustrated when you remembered you’d come with kelce. you were supposed to come on your own, given that rafe was being dragged along with his family. 

the frustration was enough to let the first tear slip out of the corner of your eye, falling down your cheek at an excruciating pace. once the first slipped, it was as if the floodgates had been knocked down. 

they came faster than you could wipe them away, which led you to leaving your cheeks a stained and wet mess on your walk home. 

you tried to think of all the times you’d blindly trusted the pair, never questioning their actions or motives a single time in the past. you never questioned people you trusted. it had been one of your faulty traits, being loyal to a fault. you blindly trusted people, but it had never come back to bite you this intensely. 

you rolled your eyes when you saw the pogue’s van on the same road you had been walking down for longer than you could remember. you were sure it’d pass until it didn’t, slowing to an excruciating pace on the road beside you. 

“y/n!” you sighed heavily, fully intending on ignoring the group of kids piled into the van beside you until kie stuck her head out of the passenger side window. 

��y/n, why are you out here all aone?” you turned then, facing the van that then came to a stop, kiara’s eyes locked on your tear stained cheeks. “holy shit, y/n, what happened?” 

kiara had only seen you cry once. it was the summer before you were going into high school, and you’d fallen off of your surf board. you were frustrated, having fallen more than succeeding that afternoon. the pent up frustration tipped you over the edge you’d been teetering on for months. 

you told kiara about the problems you’d been faced with, anxious about starting high school and seemingly losing all the friends you’d had your entire life. you didn’t know what to expect, and you were scared, but you never told anybody that. 

nobody expect kiara. 

“you were my best friend, you know?” you spoke gently, watching as kiara’s face twisted in confusion. “you were my best fucking friend and i trusted you with things i’d never tell anybody else. i told you about my parents almost getting a divorce, and how i almost had to move in with my brother all the way in maine. 

“i told you about almost being put on anti depressants, and confessed every secret i ever had to you. i told you everything. i trusted you with everything. never in a million years did i ever think you would’ve gone behind my back and fuck my boyfriend.” 

kiara’s face dropped, her eyes widened while a chorus of gasps erupted from inside of the van. she moved to step out of the van, pushing the door open after struggling to unlock it and stepping in front of you on the dark and empty road. 

“y/n, you have to listen to me-”

“no, i don’t. that’s why you stopped hanging around, isn’t it? that’s why you ran to the cut, because you went behind my back and slept with my boyfriend for months-”

“y/n, it wasn’t like that, i swear.” 

“then what was it, kiara?” you screamed, your shoulders falling further than they already had while you stared at her with defeat evident in your features. 

“i fell in love with him.” you scoffed, rolling your eyes while a sarcastic laugh dripped from your lips. 

“that’s amazing, kiara. i’m so happy for you. i’m so happy you found love in the one person on the entire island that held my heart in the palm of his hand.” she sighed heavily, anger bubbling inside of her. 

“it’s not my fault i fell in love with him, y/n!”

“did you love him the first time you fucked him? is that why you slept with him, or was it only after you’d snuck around behind my back for months that you started to fall for him?” you raised your eyebrows, your patience for this conversation wearing thin. 

when she didn’t respond, you nodded. you smiled softly, despite the fresh tears rolling down your cheeks as you stepped away from the van and kiara. 

“y/n, wait-”

“get back in the van and never fucking speak to me, ever again, kiara. i don’t want anything to do with you for the rest of my life.” 

kiara felt her heart shatter in her chest. watching you walk away with every ounce of the truth hurt more than the day she’d walked away, shielding you from this heartbreak. 

she knew it was wrong the first time she slept with rafe. she’d been vulnerable, and seeing rafe vulnerable somehow helped. she didn’t love rafe then, but it didn’t take long for her to fall into it with him. their time together had been brief, but it was something kiara would never forget. 

falling in love with her best friend’s boyfriend was never something she intended on doing. she told rafe it was wrong and that they could never be together again after the first night, but she had trouble following her own rules. she’d been heartbroken when rafe broke things off for good. he didn’t want to hurt you anymore than he already had, and kiara had to respect that. 

that had been the leading factor in kiara’s hatred for the kooks. she knew kelce and topper knew. she knew rafe would never tell you, and you’d get to live the perfect life by his side. she hated rafe for stealing her heart and crushing it in front of her eyes. she hated you for living the life she wanted more than she’d care to admit. 

she hated herself for hurting you, even if you didn’t know. she’d covered it up with the story of sarah’s party that night. though that wasn’t a lie, it was dull compared to her betrayal towards you. sarah was never her best friend, you were. you just, unfortunately, loved the same boy. 

you both were in love with rafe cameron, and he chose you. 

but none of that mattered to you as you walked home, tears in your eyes and on your cheeks. you had lost everything in one night, and you didn’t know how to process it. 

one thing you knew for sure is that you couldn’t wait to move off of this island. 

[calliecat93]

When I started TNG, the biggest curiosity I had was why Dr. Pulaski was so hated. I heard plenty about why, but at the same time I wanted to see for myself and be able to draw my own conclusions. Well now that I’ve finished S2, I think that I can safely state my opinion and the reasons why she had such a bad reception.

My general opinion is… Pulaski’s fine, but she got an bad start. She’s a very competent doctor who is devoted to her duty. She’s a bit of a smartass, but otherwise a friendly enough person. She’s a VERY much based off a certain CMO form a certain other Star Trek show that came out before this one, but we’ll get to that later. Pulaski honestly had a lot working against her and she just wasn’t able to get over them despite her actress Diana Muldaur (who played Miranda Jones in TOS) doing an excelent acting job. It ultimately ended with Pulaski being dropped all together and Crusher returning in Season 3.

While I understand the hate against Pulaski and can’t say that it’s unwarranted to an extent, I think that a lot of it that I saw was overblown. Now if people disliked the character, that’s fine. Everyone has different tastes and reasons for what they like and dislike and should be free to have and express those thoughts. But a lot of the issues with her that I had were taken care of very early on and she became much better by the end of her tenure. So why do I believe that Pulaski ultimately failed? Well I’ve come up with three explanations based off my own observations from watching the show and what I got from fandom consensus. Now this is all my opinion based on those observations and is not objective fact whatsoever, so take this with a grain of salt. So I believe the reasons that Pulaski failed are:

#1. She Is Essentially a Female Dr. McCoy… Sort Of: Pulaski was clearly heavily based on Dr. McCoy from TOS. She’s an middle-aged, somewhat world-weary doctor. She’s stubborn, grumpy, and doesn’t put up with anyone’s crap. She’s witty and always ready with a biting comment. She has the dedication to her job. She has the bantery relationship with the Science Officer, which we’ll go into that here soon. She is a doctor before she is an officer and that will always be her top priority, even at great risk to herself. She has a zero tolerance towards authority and isn’t afraid to talk back to anyone no matter how much they outrank her. She even outright has a hatred of teleporters that McCoy had. The parallels are all there. It may be why I’m a bit more lenient on her since McCoy is very much my favorite character in TOS and so far all of ST. But I think it is very much the root of the problem.

While Pulaski has several of McCoy’s traits, I think the writers really only understood McCoy on a surface level. They forget to include his compassion, his empathy, his humanism, his loyalty to the captain even when he opposes his actions, all of the things that make McCoy… well, McCoy. I don’t even know if the pacifism is there. Also McCoy had over 70 episodes of TOS and at that point five films (Undiscovered Country hadn’t been made yet). Pulaski had about 20 episodes and her relevance depended on the episode. McCoy had that as well, but he also had more material so we had FAR more time to get to know him. Pulaski didn’t get to have the time to gain that depth or care from the audience. Like… can I imagine Pulaski hypoing someone so that she can be tortured in their stead and it have the same impact that The Empath did? Can I see her counseling and assuring Picard if he’s having doubts like McCoy did for Kirk in The Ultimate Computer (okay tbf that would be Troi’s job but still)? Could I imagine any of the main cast being crushed about Pulaski dying of a terminal illness and choosing to stay on essentially a doomed spaceship with someone she just met and feel as gutted as I did in For the World is Hollow…? Honestly… given time maybe but in the end no. Now could I imagine McCoy risking getting an aging illness to possibly cure a child and others of it ala Unnatural Selection? Yes, albiet I think he’d be smart enough to bring protective equipment with him to be safe. Could I imagine McCoy telling someone like Data they’d be wrong to sit by a woman giving birth because he wasn’t human ala The Child? Hell no. Maybe he would if he was worried it would cause potential distress the one giving birth, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be because they’re an android. But I could imagine that someone who just saw McCoy as ‘grumpy doctor with a bad bedside manner who says witty lines and argues with the logical Vulcan character’ would get that interpretation. Thus why I think that Pulaski may have ended up how she did.

Now mind you I do think it IS a double standard to excuse McCoy’s dickish momemts and flaws, but demonize Pulaski for her’s. It’s like saying a man can be that way because it’s just expected of them and they can be forgiven, but a woman doing so or being assertice is wrong and they are horrible and unforgivable for having these traits or having flaws even if they correct them. That being said I do think that it’s more than that and it all comes down to the fact that TOS and TNG are two different shows with different character dynamics and ways of doing things. TOS mainly followed a Triumvirate (for the most part but that’s a different post entirely), TNG is much more of an ensemble. Pulaski didn’t have a Kirk nor a Spock to bounce off of or either let her traits shine or be kept in check like McCoy did nor did she really develop any unique relations for herself aside from maybe with Troi. We hear about her empathy and humanitarianism, but we don’t really see it on-screen like we did with McCoy. She has his surface level traits, not the deeper ones that the Triumvirate dynamic along his doctor position allowed him to showcase. In other words, Pulaski was put in a series that wasn’t designed for her while McCoy was exactly where he needed to be in order to thrive. It really speaks to how much the TNG writers didn’t really seem to get McCoy or why and how his character worked, which is strange since they got him right when he showed up in the series premiere. But maybe that was due to DeForest Kelley and him absolutely knowing the character he’d played for so long. But yeah they tried to replicate McCoy, and it just didn’t work with TNG’s already established character dynamics nor did they fully get the character that they were trying to recreate. If I want McCoy, I’ll go watch TOS or AOS. I didn’t need Pulaski for that.

#2. Data and Misconstrued Character Dynamics; This is in relation to the first reason and REALLY shows how much the writers didn’t think the dynamics through. We all know how much Spock and McCoy bantered. How they are opposite ends of the spectrum and how their perspective points helped Kirk in making his decisions. Well clealry they wanted to re-create that with Pulaski and Data. Makes sense, Pulaski represents the humanism and Data the logical. But there’s one big, BIG problem with that: Data is NOT Spock. A lot fo people have pointed this out, but here’s the thing about Spock. Despite whatever he may have said, Spock DID have emotions. He kept them suppressed due to the issues in his upbringing and that wasn’t necessarily healthy, but he did have them. And despite speaking in a calm manner, he was also an utter sass bucket, could be rude, and had no issue putting down humanity if he had a point to make. He and McCoy were very much equal in their bantering and yes maybe McCoy could go too far with his insults, but there was always an equal balance and Spock was also perfectly capable of starting/escalating their spats. There were also plenty of moments to show that in spite of it, they were still friends and cared a great deal about each other with probably the best examples of this being The Immunity Syndrome, Bread and Circuses, The Empath, and plenty of moments in others like Miri and For the World is Hollow… Those who have been following me know how much I love the Spock/McCoy dynamic and I could go all day, but the point is it’s a complex relationship that may seem like disdain on the outside, but is so much more when you examine it up close.

Data however? Data is intelligent and the Science Officer with a calm demeanor, but that’s about where the similarity between him and Spock ends. Data is an android. I do not believe that he is emotionless, he just has a different wiring that causes him to feel things differently. He’s never shown disdain towards humanity at least from what I’ve observed thus far. If anything, he actively seeks to understand it and emotions more. He actively has hobbies like Sherlock Holmes. He tries things like sneezing and growing a beard in an effort to understand more. Data is more or less a child with a child-like understanding of things and he doesn’t really understand social cues or things like humor, but he DOES have emotions and feelings. There’s too much on-screen evidence to say otherwise. He just has his own way of processing it. This is what makes Pulaski look so bad. When she calls Data a machine, says he can’t understand, and even purposefully mispronounces his name, she comes across as an outright bully. She is essentially bullying a neurodivergent child. Do I need to explain why that’s awful? Data, while by no means a doormat, isn’t the type to sass back or make any biting comments back like Spock would. There is no balance. There is no equal footing. There are not enough positive interactions outside the banter to show that there is something deeper there at the end of the day like Spock and McCoy did. Heck you can even compare how Pulaski and McCoy talk to Data via McCoy’s guest appearance in Encounter at Farpoint. He DOES make a quip about Vulcans when talking to Data and when Data points out he’s an android not a Vulcan, McCoy mumbles “Just as bad.” But immediately after he gives Data genuine heartfelt advice on treating the Enterprise with care. It’s clear that ultimately it’s McCoy being his usual grumpy self who’d be acting the same way towards anyone else and is otherwise perfectly civil and encouraging to Data. We’ve known him long enough to know this. Pulaski didn’t have that luxury, coming off as condescending towards Data at best and considering that she’s a doctor, it looks especially bad.

Now to be fair this only lasts for about four episodes. Pulaski does start catching herself by her second episode, and stops completely after Unnatural Selection when Data helps her and stays with her after she gets the aging virus. After that she’s MUCH moe civil to him, even defending his choice going against the Prime Directive in Pen Pals and was at his retirement party in The Measure of a Man. But clearly the damage had been done. Data is a very beloved character and by Oulaski’s intro had already been established and well-liked character. Data was treated equally and was valued as far more than just an android among the rest of the crew, Crusher included, so Pulaski coming in a season later and acting that way also didn’t help. The writers did not think through why Spock and McCoy worked and how to try figure out a unique dynamic for Pulaski and Data. Instead they just tried to copy TOS, and it utterly failed. It ruined Pulaski’s chances before she could even really start running. But I do believe that she could have rebounded and as I said, she DID get past it. She did relapse some at the end of the season in Peak Performance to the point I wanna say that maybe it chronologically happened earlier in the season, but even then she felt realized her screw up and apologized. It’s still an improvement from early on. But things just weren’t meant to be, which leads is to…

#3. She Only Lasted One Season/She Replaced Dr. Crusher: I believe that the biggest thing that worked against Pulaski is simple: she was cut after Season 2. Pulaski was created when Gates MacFadden left the show. I’ve seen conflicting reasons as to why, but regardless she left and a CMO was needed. IDK how popular Crusher was, but I had really enjoyed her. She was essentially the mom of the ship which added something different from TOS (wel McCoy was also the mom lets be real XD), had a son onboard which also added something new, was very much capable and devoted to her job, and was a badass when she got to use a phaser. Her being written out sucked, but that’s not necessarily a reason to hate Pulaski. But as I highlighted above, she just didn’t work. They tried to make McCoy, but without the dynamics and depth that let McCoy flourish. TNG is not TOS. Whenever TNG tried replicating TOS like with The Naked Now? It blew up in their faces. The key to a spinoff or reboot is to keep certain themes and tone alive, but to not just replicate what came before. TNG flourished when it began to find it’s own footing, and ultimately lasted four seasons longer than it’s predecessor due to it.

I genuinely believe that Pulaski COULD have developed into her own character and could have found her place the same way that McCoy did. But alas that didn’t happen. People wanted Crusher back, so they managed to get MacFadden to return and thus Crusher was put back in her rightful place. Because of it, Pulaski was just forgotten about. She didn’t get the chance to form her own character. She didn’t the chance to develop further and leave her early days behind. Why? Because she simply wasn’t given the opprotunity to do so. I can’t say it was the wrong choice, but it’s an utter shame because I do believe that Pulaski was on her way to improving. But it was too late. Her bad start with Data, her character not working in the TNG dynamic, and her replacing an already perfectly likeable character who did fit the dynamics all amounted to the character’s abrupt end. And because she didn’t get the chance to develop further and find her own path, her bad reputation has stuck to this very day.

In the end, the whole thing just feels like a waste. Pulaski had potential, but it just didn’t work in the end. I can’t say that I hate her. If anything, I feel bad for her. The writers failed her at the end of the day and by the time they tried correcting their errors, the audience had already made their judgement. It may have been for the best to just drop her and bring Crusher back, but I also hate seeing character potential just so utterly wasted. I hope that if any side material used Pulaski, they were able to find a much better direction for her. I can’t say that I love Pulaski. In a more TOS-like setting maybe she’d have worked better. But in the end I think that Pulaski was a decent character who just had too much working against her and they caused her to crash and burn. Just an unfortunate case all in all.

(Image Source)

[thoughtsonhurtandcomfort]

12C, part 12

Part 1 |  Part 2 |  Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |  Part 6 |   Part 7 |   Part 8 |   Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 |

Tag List: @deluxewhump @whumpinggrounds @yet-another-heathen   @its-mysweetlittlesecret-blog  @killtheprotagonist

Content Warnings:  immortal whumpee, lady whumpee, captivity, lab whump, dehydration, starvation, exhaustion, temporary character death, sort of dehumanization? or perhaps better stated as disregard for ones humanity

Author’s Notes: I call this chapter ‘I have no clue what I’m doing but I’m trying’. Brought to you by 6 lovely souls. :) Usually I do a deeper edit of these but I’m feeling lazy tonight and really want to get this one up so I can move forward. I was also a little writer’s blocked this week so apologies if it’s not my best work. :\

Also, I think I might post the next set of parts under a new title...picking up where this leaves off, of course! But there’s something nice and complete about there being 12 ‘chapters’ to this, and as you’ll see, the title being named for the room might not apply anymore. ;)  So if you’re on this tag list or watching this series don’t be alarmed if suddenly a new title is there when the next part pops up.

----

Emmeline has been gone before - taken away for testing or left somewhere overnight so they can check for results in the morning.

But this is different.

Everything is gone. The table, the equipment, everything except the camera in the corner. The room is completely dark and empty.

Liv pulls out her clipboard and flips to her page for the room - or, she would, if it was there. She hasn’t been given any checklist, any notes, anything for room 12C. It’s as though no one was ever there.

Slowly she backs out of the room and shuts and locks the door. In her mind she begins frantically skimming through every moment of the day she can remember. Did anyone look at her differently? Say something to her?

This has to be my fault somehow.

Right?

And yet, no one called her to an office or confronted her in the hallway. She came in to work and went about her day as usual. Surely if they suspected her of tampering with a subject, or any other violation, they would take action immediately?

Unless Emmeline is being punished instead of me.

But where is she?

Liv goes through her final routine tasks of the night on autopilot, her mind turning over every worst possible scenario.

Maybe Emmeline was taken to another lab. Maybe there’s an even more top-secret level to this lab that she has no idea about. Or maybe...maybe that bastard Dr. Crafton did something with her…

An additional thought creeps in that Liv refuses to dwell on.

What if she died for good this time?

But that can’t be true. Even at her most fearful and cynical, Liv can’t comprehend the tragedy of Emmeline’s light being snuffed out in this prison after hanging on so long.

She has to be alive somewhere. Suffering, scared, but alive.

But where?

----

In the days that follow Liv performs her magnum opus of pretending things are fine.

On the surface she’s as calm, quiet, and moody as always. Inside she’s constantly paranoid, expecting to be confronted at every turn, pulled into an office and questioned. She’s wary of the researchers and of security, even of her own boss. She over analyzes every look and interaction.

But one, two, three days into the week and nothing has changed except Emmeline being gone and, as of Wednesday evening, a new resident in room 12C. The balancing act in Liv’s mind between ‘I’m so fucked’ and ‘where is Emmeline’ tips in favor of the latter. It’s not as though she can ask someone. So she starts simply...listening.

Her late hours are an obstacle; most of the researchers have left by the time she starts cleaning. But the ones that sometimes stay over tend to be the chattiest when they believe no staff - at least, in their mind, no staff worth acknowledging - are present.

It takes caution and patience, but soon from observations and overheard conversations with her headphones in, Liv manages to piece together what happened.

There are whispers of new subjects, more than they have room for. Frustrated complaints of how the ‘research’ with Emmeline was going nowhere, of failed blood transfusions and transplants. ‘Fascinating but useless’ was how one of them put it. Without results the funding would soon dry up, but selling her to a competitor would be disastrous if the competitor had success where they didn’t.

But that’s as far as Liv gets. A why without a where. They don’t have a room for her or funding to continue research, but they won’t sell her. In a better world they’d let her go, but Liv doesn’t humor that idea for a second.

Her suspicions still linger on Dr. Crafton a little while longer. Considering his newfound enjoyment of torture, she wouldn’t put it past him to ‘volunteer’ to move Emmeline to a private lab of his or something.

This soon disproves itself for her. In the fleeting moments she sees Dr. Crafton he seems irritable, not at all like a man who got exactly what he wanted. Then one evening she overhears him griping about the ‘wasted potential’ of the former subject in 12C and Liv is sure he doesn’t have her.

Any satisfaction she gets from these discoveries is quickly dulled by still not knowing where Emmeline is. Liv keeps showing up, keeps hoping, does her work in spite of the gnawing ache of Emmeline’s absence. All this time Liv was trying to help and comfort her, she didn’t realize how much of a help and comfort Emmeline was in return.

I just want to see her again...

----

A week passes, and then another. Liv still listens, still keeps an eye out, but her hope is fading. No one notices, of course. She was always a little sullen, always kept to herself. As long as she continues to be a good worker, no one bothers her or questions her.

That night is particularly quiet. Most subjects are asleep or keep to themselves. Even the chatty guards in Hall A are bored and end up listening to a sports radio show rather than talk to each other or Liv.

Near the end of her shift Liv makes her way to that floor’s storage room. It’s a small, dingy room with a single lightbulb that barely illuminates all of the shelves that line the walls. Nothing important resides here - not samples or expensive medical equipment. Only cleaning supplies, tools for maintenance, a handful of basic first aid, and obsolete equipment gathering dust, some of which might be older than the building itself.

Normally Liv prefers the supply room on the floor above; it’s a little bigger, a little cleaner. But tonight she’s feeling lazy and settles for this one.

As she’s putting things back on the shelves, she notices something pushed back against the far wall that wasn’t here before. It’s just a crate, long and sturdy but unremarkable. But what piques Liv’s curiosity is its presence here at all. No one uses this room except her, the janitor who fills in on nights she’s off, and sometimes maintenance. Maybe one of the researchers might come looking for something they need, but more often than not this room sits neglected.

Liv kneels beside the crate and feels around for a way to open it. She finds a latch and unclasps it easily, then manages to wiggle the lid up enough to get her fingers under. It isn’t even on that tight, and it only takes a couple pulls to lift it open.

What the fuck?!

She gasps and recoils, falling back and scrambling away from the crate, breathing quickly. Not much gets to her around here, but she was not expecting to open that thing and find a dead body.

Once the initial shock subsides she sits up and brushes her hands on her jeans. This doesn’t make sense. Subjects that die are given autopsies and then incinerated. If it’s here in the facility, why isn’t it in a lab room?

Shaken but determined, Liv scoots closer to the crate and peers in again. It’s hard to make out much in the dim light, but she can tell that the body is...fresh, for lack of a better word, and padded with some kind of loose packing material. She moves up along the box, having to tilt a little to keep her own shadow from blocking her view so she can see the face - 

For several long, silent moments, Liv just...stares. She blinks against the darkness, trying to process what she’s seeing.

“Emmeline?” she says aloud, barely recognizing her own voice. Hands shaking, she takes out her phone and turns on the flashlight.

The face illuminated by the light, gaunt and lifeless, is unmistakably Emmeline’s.

Liv quickly turns off the flashlight and puts her hand over her mouth to suppress a sound of...of…

Of what?

Relief that she found her, or fear that she’s dead dead, or disgust that they stuck her in a box in a storage room like nothing more than a piece of old equipment.

There are too many questions going through her mind and she pushes them all aside. She reaches a shaky hand down and cups Emmeline’s face. It’s cool to the touch, but Liv has seen her share of dead bodies before and something about this is...different. Like her body is lingering in some state between life and death, simply dormant. It’s just a half-assed theory, but it gives her hope.

Liv brushes her thumb over Emmeline’s lips, finding them chapped. There isn’t a mark on Emmeline’s body, and any drugs to put her under would have worn off by now. The most obvious and awful conclusion is that they simply let her die naturally of dehydration, alone in the dark.

A tear slips from Liv’s cheek onto Emmeline’s neck and trickles down out of sight. Liv sits back with a loud sniff and rubs at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Fuck,” she whispers. “You deserve better than this…”

She slips her hoodie off and leans forward again, draping it like a blanket over Emmeline. Like this, it’s almost easy to believe that she’s just sleeping.

“It’s going to be okay,” she says numbly, “somehow.”

Then she puts the lid back on, stands, and leaves the room.

----

In the time between when she leaves after discovering Emmeline, and when she returns the next day, something shifts in Liv.

The sight of that drawn, still face haunts her dreams. And when she wakes all she can think about is the notion of Emmeline being stored like a piece of furniture only for them to take out and hurt again someday when they have funding or whatever the fuck.

When Emmeline was in one of the lab rooms the idea of trying to help her with guards and cameras around felt impossible. But the storage room...that she can work with.

She waits until the end of her shift before going to the storage room again. She doesn’t even have to act differently or come up with an excuse; she has plenty of legitimate reasons to be in there.

As soon as the door closes behind her she grabs her water bottle from her cart and goes right to the crate. She opens it cautiously, as though not wanting to startle its occupant. But Emmeline hasn’t moved an inch or changed in the slightest since last night.

“Hey,” she says quietly, just like she would when entering room 12C. It feels natural even if Emmeline doesn’t answer.

Liv leans over the crate and tips the water bottle to Emmeline’s lips. She lets just the smallest trickle of water slip in at first, then another, then another. Nothing happens right away, but Liv isn’t deterred. She has no idea how her immortality works, but Emmeline has been ‘dead’ for days now, surely it will take more than a couple sips of water for her body to heal.

She leans one arm on the edge of the crate and rests her chin on her arm. With the other hand she continues slowly pouring water down Emmeline’s parched throat, a little at a time. Pour. Stop. Wait. Look for signs of life. Pour again.

It feels a bit like watering a plant, and also not at all like that. Emmeline is not nearly so replaceable.

When the bottle is empty, she caps it and sits up with a sigh, stretching her stiff shoulders. She can’t help feeling disappointed. She was expecting something to happen. But it’s okay - if it takes time, so be it.

Just as Liv is reaching for the lid, she hears a soft sound. She freezes, arms out, listening intently. It wouldn’t surprise her if it was a rat or something, with the state of this room…

Several silent seconds tick by and she’s starting to believe she imagined it when the sound happens again. A little louder...and close…

Heart pounding, she looks down into the crate. At first glance nothing has changed, but the longer she looks...yes. Yes, she’s sure of it - her hoodie, still draped over Emmeline, is moving ever so slightly with barely-there breaths. When Liv presses her fingers to Emmeline’s wrist, she finds a weak pulse.

Oh my god. Oh my god, it worked.

The soft sound comes again and it is now clear that it’s the sound of a sighing breath. Triumphant as she feels at having done something right for a change, Liv knows things are far from good. Emmeline is in bad shape. This is going to take time.

Liv touches Emmeline’s arm for a moment, watching her face. Little changes apart from the puffs of breath that now escape her chapped lips, but it feels like a victory. Not to mention a big fuck you to the researchers.

“Hang in there,” she whispers. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

It kills her to have to put the lid back on and leave Emmeline in the dark like that. The best she can hope for is that she remains unconscious a little longer. Liv is impatient, she wants to make this all better right now. But for both of their sakes, patience is necessary.

Hang in there, she tells herself, as well.

----

Part of being patient means not going back to the storage room every night. She used to barely use it at all, and she fears too sudden a change in her behavior will draw unwanted attention. It’s one of the hardest things she has ever done, to walk past that room knowing Emmeline is inside and then keep walking.

Still, Liv manages to hold out for a few days before returning. She parks her cart just inside the storage room door; she doubts anyone will enter, but if they do, the obstacle might buy her some time to quickly close the crate.

Emmeline is no longer breathing. Liv expected as much, but it hurts all the same. This time, though. This time will be different.

Once again she feeds her sips of water and soon enough there are signs of life. This time, Liv is prepared with another bottle - this one filled with apple juice.

She cups Emmeline’s head and lifts it a little to give her a sip of the juice. Another, then another. Slow, patient, hopeful. Emmeline’s pulse grows stronger, her breathing more steady.

And then she moans, and it’s a weak, pitiful, broken sound, but Liv is so damn relieved to hear it, because it means she is that much closer to waking.

Liv continues giving her sips of juice, watching her throat bob as she actively swallows it. Suddenly she begins to cough and it startles Liv so much she nearly spills the juice all over her. She quickly pulls the bottle away and sets it aside, her eyes fixed on Emmeline.

Emmeline’s coughs fade into raspy breaths. She groans and shifts uncomfortably. Then finally, finally, her eyes slowly open.

She’s frail and shaky. Her glazed-over eyes flick around, uncomprehending. Her mouth opens as though to speak, but when she tries nothing comes out.

“Emmeline?” Liv says, very quietly.

At the sound of her name, Emmeline’s eyes land on Liv. The recognition on her face is immediate, and Liv can’t help but smile.

“Hey. It’s just me. Here...”

She holds the bottle to her lips again and Emmeline drinks eagerly.

“Careful, not too fast...that’s better...okay I’m going to take it away again, I don’t want you to overdo it…”

She sets the bottle aside again while Emmeline gasps for breath after practically chugging the whole thing down. Liv can’t blame her, and hates to deny her what she so desperately needs, but she also doesn’t want to make her sick.

“Just breathe. You’re okay.” Relatively. “I’ll give you more in a minute.” She reaches down and takes Emmeline’s hand.

“Where…” Emmeline’s voice cracks. She pauses, swallows, starts again. “Where am I?”

“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

“...good.”

“The good news is you aren’t in the lab.” Liv gives her a moment to process that before regretfully adding, “the bad news is that you’re still in the building. In...a storage closet.”

Emmeline blinks slowly up at the ceiling, her brow pinched. “What?”

She shifts again and Liv realizes that she’s trying to sit up. Liv instinctively reaches to help, putting a hand on Emmeline’s back - only to withdraw when Emmeline gasps.

“S-sorry, I was just - “

“No,” Emmeline interrupts. “Please - put it back, it was warm…”

Liv remembers how cold Emmeline’s skin was when she found her like this, and this room is just as chilly as the lab. She slowly settles her hand on Emmeline’s back again and helps her ease herself up. It’s hard to resist the urge to touch more - a hand in her hair, an arm around her shoulders - but she doesn’t know whether it would be welcome.

But Emmeline is shivering and she has to do something.

“Here…” she takes the hoodie that has been acting as a blanket for Emmeline these past few days and slips it around her shoulders. “Arms.” Emmeline obediently slips her arms through the sleeves.

When Liv zips it up Emmeline curls her arms up to her chest and presses her face into the cuffs of the sleeves. “Thank you, this is - oh - “

Emmeline’s eyes flutter shut and she sways, nearly dropping back into the crate. Liv steadies her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Shit...hey, breathe, you’re okay…” Maybe sitting her up so quickly wasn’t the best idea.

Taking slow breaths, Emmeline opens her eyes again. She looks so tired in spite of being under for so long. But then, she’s been denied food, water, warmth, proper rest, safety, and the type of weariness living like that brings is bone-deep and not so easily solved.

Her eyes dart around the room - from the old metal shelves to the dim lightbulb to the concrete floor, and heartbroken understanding falls over her face.

“When they put me in this box,” she whispers, looking so empty, so resigned, “I thought they were moving me somewhere. Maybe another lab. I thought within a day or two the lid would come off. But it never did. It was so dark and cold and...and you weren’t there, and…” her lip quivers and she clutches at the cuffs of the hoodie. “I was scared…”

Liv swallows around the lump in her throat, feeling her eyes burn. Those fucking bastards. “I thought they took you away too, at first. Finding you was...kind of by accident. But now that I have...” she steels herself, knowing once she says this, there’s no going back. “...I’m getting you out of here.”

Emmeline looks to her, eyes wide and tentatively hopeful. “You are?”

Liv chews her bottom lip and nods. “I have a plan. I just need you to hang in there a little longer…”

“I can do that,” Emmeline replies, voice wavering. “Please just be careful…”

“I will.”

Emmeline looks half about to cry, half about to pass out. Liv gently nudges at her shoulders, easing her back down into the crate.

“Please don’t take the shirt,” Emmeline whispers as her eyes close.

“I won’t,” Liv promises. “It’s yours now.”

“Thank you…”

A tear slips down her cheek and Liv brushes it away with her thumb. She leaves her hand there a moment for Emmeline to lean into, seeking out every small bit of comfort she can get. Liv wants to give her more, so much more, but she can’t. Not here. Not yet.

“I’ll be back,” she promises as she reaches for the lid. “Just hang on a little longer,” she adds as she lowers it, cloaking Emmeline’s sleeping form in darkness once more.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic  during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Dreamshaper

Dreamshaper has 54 stories at Gossamer. Her stories often feature Mulder and Scully exploring their feelings in ways you really, really wish you could’ve seen on the show. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Found in Memory, Just By Existing, Purpose, and Promise. Big thanks to Dreamshaper for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I'm not at all surprised people are still reading X-Files fanfic! There's a deep catalogue of good and interesting fiction there, and the X-Files still has cultural significance. And of course there were the recent seasons to bring it back to mind. I think if you had asked me in 2000, I might not have supposed that it had this kind of staying power. So now I'm thinking of this interview as a time capsule--what will my answer be in 2040?

My own fic was not designed to have staying power. If anyone is reading it now, bless them, they are kind and patient. I would only recommend probably reading the first and last things I posted just to see what kind of growth is possible. The first time I ever posted fic, someone told me to never write again. I was a teenager. I was crushed but I went on writing anyway, and I worked hard to improve.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I think of two things. As for the show itself, I still think of Mulder/Scully as the ultimate in romance. I can still picture certain moments from the episodes, from the movie. I look for pairings with tension that reminds me of theirs--an almost-regency level of UST, but with a modern element of danger.

As for the fandom itself, I grew up in it. My entire online life and the core of how I participate in fandom was formed here. I was 17 or so when I started writing and posting MSR. I was 18 or 19 when I started meeting fans in real life. I was fortunate enough to fall in with people who were equal parts gracious and nerdy, and while my own nerdiness is innate, I remember and emulate the kindness which was shown to me.

I have an entire side post to this question about how strongly I disagree with the current age stratification in fandom--this idea of not interacting across artificial age divides is tragic to me.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

ATXC, and mailing lists. I don't actually remember the names of all the mailing lists! I can picture myself sitting in my kitchen on my computer, and what the emails looked like--the font, the signature lines--but not the names. I can even remember specific conversations we had! One of them must have been Scullyfic, because I remember the first meetup being planned. Is that right? Was it the Scullyfic meetup? [Lilydale note: Probably was Scullyfic. There was a big email flurry when the first Scullyfic mailing list meetup was being planned.] My mind was absolutely blown by the idea of a fan con. Now I've led panels at a dozen of them.

I remember some of the arguments, too. It's funny that some of them are the same arguments I still see here and there, like whether or not criticism of a fanwork is valid. Real Person Fic being this unbelievably shameful thing you had to ask to be shown, and the doyennes of the fandom would have given you the cut direct at Almack's if they'd found out, you know?

This was also the era of AIM and ICQ. mIRC too, right? I spent a lot of time in channels. I absolutely loved when people started to be more open about themselves in chats. I was always so interested in how fandom fit into people's lives. Some people I talked to were moms, college students, people who had interesting careers, and they all just found ways to make fandom work for them. They had a need and were meeting it, despite the pressures of their offline life.

I don't know how to explain the impression that made on me, but--it normalized fandom. That seems obvious, maybe, but I hadn't known this was something you could integrate into your everyday life.

It also normalized the idea of women taking their own needs as primary, in a way that went beyond what I was exposed to in my home life, or through the feminism of the 1990s. There was this wild intersection of the--the domestic and intellectual life of women, and the playful life of women, just making itself known to me in a way I'd never seen before. That was enormous. Absolutely a foundational experience for me.

My experience was that ATXC and email lists were like, these surface-level interactions where people figured out, roughly, if your mind ran on a similar track to theirs, and then you were invited to make deeper relationships in more private corners of the internet. Social media filled both functions at once, I think, for a while. But the privacy was missing. I'm not surprised that Slack and Discord are starting to fill that private corner gap--everything old becomes new, etc.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

UST and monsters. This is still an unbeatable combination for me!

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I loved romance novels--I read so many of them. Somehow, before we even had a computer at home, I started to tell myself romance novel stories with Mulder and Scully as the lead characters. This was how I talked myself to sleep--I wasn't a good sleeper. Then when I got online and did whatever search led me to ATXC, I was just shocked. Shocked! Can't do the surprise justice, in this era where fanfic is relatively mainstream. Other people had also independently invented this thing I loved! But they wrote their ideas down! I jumped on the bandwagon immediately.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

It's like my relationship to my childhood, frankly. Foundational, but I don't think about it all that much on a daily basis, right? I smile and reblog gif sets. I get nostalgic. I get embarrassed by social mistakes I made. I feel the way many of us do about memories from our teenage years. I wouldn't be who I was without it, but I'm not still in it.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was. I've spent 20 years in fandom! I did some beta work for someone who'd started writing slash--The Sentinel. The actual Sentinel, not just an endless loop of Sentinel AUs based on Sentinel AUs based on etc. I had some idea at the time that I was queer, but this was my first real exposure to romances that weren't straight. So I tore my way through the early 2000s slash fandoms as they developed: The Sentinel, Due South, Stargate Atlantis. Popslash, where a mix of good writing and absurdity ruled. Bandom, where I met my wife. Since then, many smaller fandoms.

It's hard to compare any of these things to each other, let alone to the X-Files. In each one, I was lucky enough to find a circle of women who were strong beta readers and good friends. I never wrote as much or for as long as I did in the X-Files.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I watched the new episodes. I've shown friends important episodes--I remember that a few years ago, another friend and I tried to hook a third friend on the show by binging some favorites--mostly shippy MOTW, so it was like, Arcadia, Triangle, Bad Blood. Fun stuff!

We finish watching and I'm like, well? And? And she says, that was fine, but I'm more of a man-pain, secret babies kind of person? I'll never forget it. She had no idea but she'd hit the nail on the head! We were wheezing with laughter. We went back and watched mytharc episodes, which was much less fun for me, but much more interesting to her.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic often. I look at new things sometimes, and I've reread a few old classics, but my reading taste has changed so much. I still love straight romance, but it needs to be fast and sharp in a way that is hard to find.

I read fic in other fandoms when I have time. In the past few years, I've finished a degree, had a daughter, renovated a small Victorian and then sold it and bought another one during this pandemic--so time has been short. Currently I read some Untamed fic, some Good Omens fic, Magicians, Schitt's Creek...a sampler. Whatever friends are writing, whatever they recommend.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I never have a favorite of my own fics. I'm never satisfied. The second I post something, I'm always full of regrets. I've written fics that did very well and still hated them a month later. People have asked me over the years to move more of my stuff off Livejournal and onto ao3, but I do it really reluctantly and only by specific request. Everything's ephemeral! Let the old works diminish, and go into the West!

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I have no oldies to dust off. I do periodically think of X-Files stories I would tell, but I don't have enough time for current interests--and so it goes.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I do. I was most recently writing in The Magicians fandom. I posted a couple new stories in an old fandom last year--I'd written Good Omens fic fifteen years ago, and then again for the Amazon adaptation. I have a pile of original novels in various stages of completion, but I'm never happy with them. One day I'll figure myself out, perhaps, or I'll just keep writing myself this and that and leaving it all in a drawer.

What's the story behind your pen name?

So AOL had a character limit for user names--I think it was 10. I was a teenager at the time I was coming up with the one I'd use for fandom, so I went with Dreamshaper. It was kind of literal, in the sense that I was going to share the stories I'd been telling myself to help me sleep. But the character limit meant I went with Dreamshpr, which I later liked because of the alternate reading of Dream*shipper*. A reminder to the younger fans that we were the original shippers!

I would also come up with new pen names when I wanted to experiment with a fic that didn't fit my usual style. I don't remember any of them. I probably did that a dozen times, so, sorry to those poor completely abandoned stories.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Giddygeek on tumblr and ao3. I'm most active on twitter, but largely about my domestic life with dips into fandoms or original writing; message me on tumblr if you're an old friend who'd like to reconnect elsewhere.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just gratitude--I'm so glad that I found people to share an obsession with, and that they were good people, at a time in my life where that made a significant difference to me. I don't know where I'd be now without my time and my growth in this fandom!

(Posted by Lilydale on December 22, 2020)