#the first three seasons can maybe be explained away as a trauma response

[glimblshanks]

Upper Decks, Season 2, Episode 6: Beckett Mariner is prescribed mood stabilizers

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Be Very Afraid

This is the best story arc episode in season three and arguably the best written episode since The Great Tree, but it’s still season three so there are still issues with it. 

Summary: When Zhan Tiri tells Cassandra she must destroy Rapunzel in order to wield the Moonstone's true power, Cassandra discovers that she can create, with fear, red rock spikes that cause fear and freeze their victims. Varian discovers the red rocks and teams up with Rapunzel to use his amber solution on them. Meanwhile, Eugene and Lance decide to throw a talent show to distract everyone from their fears. 

Why Can’t Cassandra Control The Rocks?

The series never gives an actual explanation for this. She could control them just fine in Rapunzel’s Return, so what’s changed? 

There is No Destiny!

There’s no prophecy, no oracle, no grand design nor master of fate to fight back against; the characters literally have no reason to do what they do. If you want destiny to be a goal then you have to establish what that destiny is first. 

What does Cassandra want? How does this connect back to Gothel, Rapunzel, and the Moonstone? Why she just failing about like an idiot here? Did she not have a plan when she threw her life away for this stupid rock? 

And of course Zhan Tiri is lying here, but why should Cassandra believe her? What does she gain by listening to a creepy ghost girl? This ‘destiny’ has not been established, so therefore there’s no hook nor bait for Zhan Tiri to trap her with. 

Leading directly into “you should kill your bestie’ should logically put Cassandra off of Zhan Tiri’s advice for good because Zhan Tiri isn’t actually offering anything. Temptation requires the person to be, you know, tempted by what they want, but Cassandra doesn’t know what she wants so none of this makes sense. 

The writing is desperately trying to make Cass sympathetic here, but all it winds up doing is making her look like a moron instead. 

This Isn’t Consistent

Not only does this fail to explain why Cass could control the rocks previously but no longer can, but it’s also contradicted just a couple of episodes later with the incantation bullshit. 

You need an established magic system in place in order for the character’s actions to make sense show!

This Ultimately Goes Nowhere

Ignoring how Varian should have been in season two and how translating the scroll should have led to freeing his father, which we’ve talked about previously; this subplot should have had more impact on the narrative than it actually did. Yes, Varian’s translation winds up driving the plot of Cassandra’s Revenge, but 90% of that episode winds up being utterly pointless, including the incantations themselves, so.... 

I Like This Sequence; Shame It Winds Up Being Undermined Later  

Unlike the majority of dream sequences in this show, this nightmare has an actual point. It more firmly establishes Varian’s fears and gives the audience some insight into what happened to him back in season one. Something we were sorely lacking. It also becomes the core conflict and drive of Varian’s character development through out the episode. 

Only for the episode to ignore Varian’s real issues and fail to adequately address anything. By series end this plot point will be completely forgotten. The show acts like bringing it up once and then never acknowledging it ever again just magically revolves Varian’s character arc. It doesn’t.  

So How Come Quirin Isn’t Affected By the Rocks? 

He’s right there next to them and he shows no reaction to them at all. You’re telling me the man who lost his home twice to these things, almost died to them, and nearly lost his only child because of them, is just not going to respond to new creepy red ones popping up? 

Quirin would have a treasure trove of trauma to explore in his own right, that undoubtedly would connect back to Varian’s own issues, but we’re just going to ignore it and have Quirin off screen for the majority of the episode?

Are These New Character Models?

Are you shitting me!? 

They built five new models just for a short two minute scene, one where none of the new characters are named nor given lines, only to never appear ever again!

What the fuck? Why did you waste time and money on this? What happened to all of the other background characters you already built? Did a bunch of season one models just get lost or deleted or something? 

Also why are they all wearing green? Is it St. Paddy’s Day? 

This Plot Point Wasn’t Established Enough Beforehand

Look, I’ll buy that there are people in Corona who still blame Varian for what happened in season one and for the Sapoiran take over. I mean they’re only getting half the story and were directly effected by his actions whether or not he intended harm to them. But we needed to see more of it beyond just this one scene.

No one was bullying him in Lost Treasure or The King and Queen of Hearts, so for all purposes he appeared to be integrated back into society, and now you’re telling me he’s not and that Rapunzel risked his well being by forcing him to interact with people who were hostile to him back in Lost Treasure? 

And yeah you can’t really move Lost Treasure back any further than it already is cause that’d leave a giant hole in the wall of the throne room for over a year. Which also makes no sense either. 

Or hey, maybe it’s just Feldspar being an asshole. In which case why should Varian or the audience care? 

Eugene is Wasted

Look I understand that there’s only twenty five minutes to tell this story and that Eugene isn’t the focus of the episode. I also understand that the B-plot is meant to be comedic in order to relive tension from the A plot, but this wasn’t the best way to go about it. 

The B plot swings too far wide in the other direction that it dilutes the tension too much. The A plot now has to work over time to keep the urgency going. I could understand it, if the show wanted start off with small fears first, but it needed to ramp up the drama as it got closer to the climax, not under cut it. 

We never see Eugene freak out over anything other this this cowlick. In fact we never see him scared of anything else beyond this one scene, which undermines Rapunzel’s arc this episode as she’s suppose to be the only one bottling things in. What makes Eugene so special that he can keep a lid on it with out consequences, or are you telling me that a dumb cowlick is his only fear? 

Either answer is stupid. 

I Hope You Have Copies of the Map

You went through all that trouble to steal the journal for this very reason and now here you are prancing around without it like it���s not that big of deal. Way to undermined past story arcs. 

It’s like the writers know that season one was their most successful season, and therefore try to make callbacks to it whenever they can, to make up for ignoring it in season two completely, but they still don’t want to actually acknowledge anything that happened during that season so they just refer to it in the laziest way possible, rendering the previous events pointless. 

So Close and Yet So Far

I’m mainly posting this whole conversation so that you dear readers will have context for what I talk about next. 

For you see, this scene starts out okay and it looks like we’re finally going to address the elephant in the room regarding Rapunzel’s involvement in Varian’s past trauma, only for the scene to immediately side step the issue all together and not resolve the conflict at all. 

No! Don’t Interrupt; Listen! 

Or at least go all the way and accept some of the blame yourself. 

It may look like Rapunzel is comforting Varian here on a superficial level, but without her verballing acknowledging what she did wrong, this action just winds up taking the focus off of Varian and what he needs and places it upon Rapunzel, both narratively and physically.

So what happens is that, in universe, it comes across like she’s just consoling Varian for her own personal comfort rather than genuinely trying to help. 

Why Would Varian Ever Think This? 

Okay, first off this has nothing to do with what Varian was talking about previously. Why would he jump from discussing his trauma to praising Rapunzel? You know the woman who is responsible for said trauma? 

Secondly, this switches the focus of the conflict off of Varian’s specific trauma and makes it about a generic “over coming fear” lesson mixed with an out of place validation issue. Which is not what’s actually needed for his character development; nor for Rapunzel’s for that matter. 

Third, being the sundrop has nothing to do with Rapunzel as a person. Her being born with magical powers was an accident of fate, same as her being royalty. She’s not innately better than anybody else because of this and nobody has any narrative reason to assume otherwise. Especially since her powers are utterly disconnected from her actual personality, choices, and actions. All three of which have become unbearably unpleasant by the last season. 

Finally, Varian, of all people should be the last person on earth to ever think so highly of Rapunzel. Them being friends again is already pushing believability. Him suddenly kissing her ass the same as everyone else this season is just flat out bad writing.  

Varian knows better than anybody what an awful person Rapunzel is. He’s seen her at her worse. He’s seen her not live up to her hypocritical ideals. He knows the larger problems that steam from placing people in power on pedestals. As her former victim, Varian by all accounts should be the one person who can bring Rapunzel down to earth and poke holes into her ego, even while still being her friend. Especially while still being her friend. She needs that! Writing Varian as another blind Rapunzel stan is not only writing him out of character, but it also damages Rapunzel’s own development. 

Also Varian hates magic. Why would he now worship someone just for having magic? 

THIS AIN’T ABOUT YOU BITCH!!!

I literally yelled that at my tv screen when I first saw this scene. Those were my exact words upon the episode’s first airing. And believe it or not, I’m not one to usually scream obscenities at inanimate objects. 

I understand what the writers were trying to accomplish here. They wanted Rapunzel to ease the tension by saying something funny and to make Varian laugh to distract him from his woes; thereby defusing the situation. But it doesn’t work because of season three’s tendency to make Rapunzel the most egotistical, smug, self-centered, abusive, self-righteous twat in the show. 

It really boggles the mind just how unaware the writing is. Like, surely no one makes their protagonist this unlikable on accident. Clearly they meant for Rapunzel to be an ass on purpose right?  They wanted Cass to have a reason to hate her so they decided to make her insufferable to the viewer in a misguided attempt to make Cass more sympathetic? Right? 

Then where is the bloody comeuppance? 

I genuinely thought this was all going to lead somewhere. That Rapunzel was going to learn to be a better person and I would have been fine by that. I would have applauded the show if they had turned her into an asshole intentionally so that they could teach a mature and nuanced lesson about morality. 

But they didn’t, and here I am; still shaking my head in confusion over a year later. 

Seriously what the fuck happened behind the scenes to cause this? How can processionals paid by the largest animation company in the world be so incompetent? 

Having Trauma is Not the Same Thing as Having a Phobia  

This is where Varian’s arc falls apart. Not only does the episode fail to have Rapunzel acknowledge her past wrongs for a second time, but it also completely mishandles Varian’s trauma because it equates it to being an irrational fear. One that can be overcome through pure force of will at that, same as Lance and everyone else’s fears in the episode. 

Ok first off Varian’s fear isn’t irrational. He even just said so at the start of the conversation. Varian’s trauma is very real, it’s not a hypothetical unlike clown-spiders and cowlicks. Also has been given very little reassurance that it won't happen again. Varian has no reason to trust Rapunzel or anybody else in the show. They never owned up to abandoning him previously, and both he and the audience have little reason to believe that Rapunzel wouldn’t just neglect him again if it was convenient for her.   

Secondly one does not simply ‘overcome’ trauma. Oh you can deal with trauma, you can manage it and learn to live with it. But it never goes away. It doesn’t magically disappear just because you ‘faced it’. 

In fact confronting it head on is actually the opposite of what your suppose to do when going through something traumatic. Studies have shown that distracting your mind after a car crash or what have you actually helps with PTSD later on. And ‘dealing with it” doesn’t mean ignoring the problem out right, but rather learning how to function despite the pain. 

But as the show acts like Varian’s trauma never even existed after this episode. 

This Doesn’t Resolve Anything!

What does “being special” have to with fear? How does this help Varian with his trauma? Empty validation has nothing to with what we were just discussing. 

Everyone gets afraid. Everyone has trauma of some sort. Are you telling me that my need for therapy some 20 years after being physically assaulted is just because I’m not special enough? Fuck you show! 

Moreover, this doesn’t resolve the story arc from season one. Varian and Rapunzel’s conflict with each other has nothing to do with self esteem. It was about personal responsibility, conflicting needs, and abuse. Yes, self image and acceptance was a small factor in their motivations, but it was never the driving goal behind their decisions. 

This is yet another broken narrative promise to the audience. There’s no closure to be had from this and leaves the viewer wanting, if not outright frustrated. 

In order to justify this exchange fans have to ‘read between the lines’ and make shit up in order for any of this to make any sense. People who still defend season three do by doing all the heavy lifting that writers themselves should be doing. 

If it’s not on screen, it doesn’t count. 

If Rapunzel never apologizes on screen, then she never apologized. If Rapunzel never checked up on Varian on screen, then she neglected him outright. If Rapunzel never acknowledges her wrong doings on screen, then she’s never learned anything. The characters pretending like she has doesn’t make it so. 

Why Does Cassandra Even Want a Destiny? 

Yes, Zhan Tiri is lying, there is no destiny, but Zhan Tiri being a liar doesn’t absolve Cassandra of her own actions. 

Cassandra herself believes in destiny and is looking for her’s, but why? 

Why does she want a destiny? What is this destiny she’s after? Why does she believe such a thing exists? What does she believe it’ll gain her? Why is she willing to risk so much for such a vague goal? What does any of this have to do with the moonstone or her mother? How does this destiny connect back with her personal feud with Rapunzel? 

It’s all disjointed and confused. Nothing lines up. It’s like the writers just had this dart board full of ideas for Cassandra’s villain arc, but couldn’t decide on which one to go with, so they just threw darts randomly each episode and went with whatever stuck for any given scene.

“Oh she want’s revenge for her mother during this scene, or wait no, she’s actually looking for destiny this episode?” “What destiny?” “Who knows. Now for this scene we need her to be sad because reasons...” “What reason?” “I don't care, make something up... Uuuuh, she’s sad cause she’s not a royal guard still” “But she became a guard during season one.” “Ignore that. Kids won’t remember. Now she needs to be angry and threating here” “Why?” “Because it’ll look cool.” “But why is she angry?” “Cause it looks cool Bob! Geez! Oh but she still needs to be sympathetic so give her a frowny face afterwards. Just have Zhan Tiri remind her how much she hates Rapunzel later, so as to egg her on and keep her doing stupid shit?”  “But why does she hate Rapunzel?”  “Do I have to think of everything BOB!!!???”  

There, there’s my non-so-accurate behind the scene’s glimpse into the Tangled writer’s room when discussing Cassandra’s arc. I could be wrong. There could have been some intricate and complex plan thought out that just didn’t make it onto the screen for whatever reason, or maybe everyone involved was so far up their own ass that they just forgot to give their main villain an actual reason for being the villain. But regardless the over all effect is that Cassandra is handed the idiot ball for a whole freaken season in order to even have a conflict and that is never good writing; or rather she’s hit in the head with it repeatedly. 

This Actually Goes Against Zhan Tiri’s Plan

Zhan Tiri’s short term goal is to be released from her dimensional prison and apparently she needs Cass and Raps to fight into order to do this. This was never established before hand and goes against her disciples pervious plans, but whatever. One could argue that this is just a lie in order to get them to fight later... 

However, this lie jeopardizes her long term goal. She eventually wants to wield both the moonstone and the sundrop herself in order to destroy Corona, but Rapunzel is the sundrop and you can only take her power during an ellipse, supposedly, which means if Cass actually succeeds in killing Rapunzel before then, then Zhan Tiri is up a creek without a paddle. Also if Cassandra did manage to steal Raps’ power with or without an ellipse then Zhan Tiri would still be out of luck. 

This was wholly unnecessary; you didn’t have to go from zero to sixty in one fell swoop. Have Zhan Tiri claim that fighting Rapunzel will award the power to the winner or something. There’s no need to bring up the ‘kill her’ option. That should logically just drive Cassandra away and puts Zhan Tiri’s plan at risk. 

The series wants to act like Zhan Tiri is this master manipulator, a chess master like Zantos or Palpatine, but she couldn’t even tie their shoes. Her plans make no sense and often contradict one another. They only work because the rest of the cast are reduced to imbeciles in order for them to work. 

This Plot Point Contradicts Season Two

His fear of spiders was establish early on, and I’ll accept the clown thing as there’s nothing to contradict it, but Lance has preformed numerous times before now and has never show stage fright. He’s a huge ham and back in Return of Quaid he mentioned how much loved acting and preforming and apparently been on stage before, so where does this fear of singing in public come from? Heck he sung in public just a few episodes ago in Rapunzel’s Return. 

If you have to sacrifice established character into order to make your plot work then you need a new plot. 

This Song is Nice; It Just Needed to Be in a Different Episode 

I’m glad Lance got a solo. He deserved one and the song is good. However it breaks the tension of the climax and gives the episode tonal whiplash. 

More than a song, Lance needed an actual focus episode in season three. One that was fully his. If anyone else shared it with him it needed to be Red and Angry, not Varian and Cass. 

Just imagine if this song came during an episode where he had to watch the girls. Imagine if he was singing it just for them. How much more impactful would that have been? 

Now imagine that we had a Rapunzel and Varian duet in it’s place here. That would have tied the episode together better and helped to further their own stories. Glenn Slater can write lyrics far better than Chris can write dialogue. I bet you a thousand to one Tangled the Series would have solved like half of it’s problems had Menken and Slater been allowed write and actual apology duet between Raps and Varian. 

Such a duet was proposed during Rapunzel’s Return but it could have worked here too, and you could have placed Lance’s solo in Day of the Animals or something, just leave Rapunzel out of that episode all together. 

Nothing honestly needed to be cut music wise, yet for some reason season three has less songs than the other seasons, even when counting the reprises, and they’re mostly shorter too. 

That’s mismanagement right there. Plain and simple. Someone at the top didn’t know how to balance the budget or resources and didn’t know where to the throw the money at. 

You Have a 70 Foot Shield Made of Magic Hair, Rapunzel

You couldn’t think to just block those rocks instead?

Giving your protagonist a big hero moment doesn’t work if they placed the person the have to save in jeopardy to begin with show. 

I Do Not Care About Rapunzel Right Now, Show

Yes, she’s the main character. Yes, her feud with Cass is the main conflict of the season and kicked off the episode. That does not mean that I automatically care about her personal feelings at this moment in time. 

Rapunzel has kept such a tight lid on her real feelings for the whole episode that this just comes out of nowhere. I was never waiting with baited breath for her to confess her deep dark secrets or whatever. 

It’s not even an interesting reveal. It’s just “Oh, see Rapunzel’s human too. She’s gets scared just like everybody else.”. I already fucking knew that, thanks. And what she’s afraid of isn’t even that compelling either; it’s a just a rip off of the prophecy dreams she had back in season one. The same ones that had no explanation and never furthered the story, so why should I care about this one?  

You have to earn the audience’s investment in your conflict. The character’s likability, as little as that may be currently, will only carry you so far, you have to establish shit first.  

Varian’s conflict has been the focus of the entire episode so far, and it’s a conflict that was set all the way back in season one, so of course that is what I’m invested in seeing get resolved. Rapunzel is once again just butting in and making it all about her when it’s not actually her story. 

And if you wanted it to be her story then you should have made her the actual focus to begin with and had her learn something by the end of it. 

This is Poor Choice of Words, Writers 

I could be generous here and pass this off as Rapunzel not fully believing in this prophecy. After all Corona’s destruction is still a hypothetical at this point and Cassandra really has left already. Since the episode is about fear, Rapunzel is of course more afraid of losing Cassandra’s friendship as it’s real tangible possibility. 

More than a possibility even, Rapunzel’s been dumped. Season three is a classic break up story, right down to the poor plotting and tunnel vision, hence why it’s so gay baity. 

However, this reading only carries so far. For starters this is Rapunzel’s what, fourth prophecy dream so far? Haven’t the past three already came true, so why would she think this one wouldn’t? 

Secondly, all that good grace goes right out the window once it becomes clear that, yes, Cassandra is indeed a threat; a threat that Rapunzel refuses to take seriously because she cares more about her own personal validation than her kingdom. 

Even as Cassandra does succeed in destroying Corona, and no doubt harms other people while at it, Rapunzel still is obsessed with ‘winning Cassandra back’. Oh and make no mistake, this is not because she actually cares about Cassandra as a person and her needs or feelings. Nope. Rapunzel just doesn’t like being dumped. 

Why Does Varian Need to Shove His Feelings Aside for Rapunzel’s Bullshit?

Rapunzel’s ‘confession’ has fuck all to do with Varian’s current issues. They do not connect in any way.  

Varian is dealing with real trauma, trauma that she helped cause, while Rapunzel is only dealing with a hypothetical prophecy and one very shallow, self-centered fear. There’s nothing to relate to here. Neither for Varian himself nor the audience. 

Yet for some undefined reason this is what gets Varian to ignore his PTSD flashbacks? What? 

This is once again break the narrative promise. I was promised closure for Varian’s story arc and instead of that the writers just brush it up under the rug. 

From the outside looking in this doesn’t come across as Varian ‘overcoming’ his ‘fear’. It looks like an abuse victim using learned helplessness to placate his abusers.

And yes, for the last time Rapunzel is Varian’s abuser. 

NEGLECT IS ABUSE!!! 

And and even though he is no longer her ‘responsibility’, she is still neglecting him emotionally as his supposed friend. 

Varian’s and Cassandra’s Stories Undermined Each Other’s 

Varian stopped the rocks. Rapunzel had nothing to do with it. Zhan Tiri blaming Rapunzel for it steals agency away from both her and Cassandra. 

However, if Rapunzel had used the hurt incantation to stop the rocks and Cassandra had felt it rom the other side, then you’d have something to back up Zhan Tiri’s claim and an actual point of real conflict to carry the rest of the season. Not to mention an actual tangible goal for Cassandra to work towards, survival. 

Cassandra’s conflict with Rapunzel not only prevents the resolution to Varian’s arc from being satisfying, but Varian fulfilling his arc in turn winds up cutting off Cass’s story at the knees. 

It didn’t have to be this way. Varian’s and Cassandra’s arcs should have complimented each other, but instead the creator decided to make them complete for screen time and relevance. 

It is such an gratingly stupid and petty decision that winds up being a disservice for all the characters involved.   

Cassandra’s motivation and goal should have been revealed back in season two. Varian should have been the sole focus of Rapunzel’s Return and gotten his big hero moment there along; with an actual ending to his conflict with Rapunzel that didn’t feel so lopsided and half assed. Then Rapunzel and Cassandra could have both been held accountable for their conflict in season three, instead of pretending like their shit smelled of roses the whole damn time. 

Lance Got a Whole Crowd Cheering Him On For Singing a Song, Varian Just Gets One Asshole Giving Him a Single Line of Congratulations

Did I mention this show has an odd anti-Varian bias? Cause it does. For whatever reasons his own creators hate him and that’s just utterly baffling to me. Like why create a main character that you don’t like? 

I look down on professional writers who treat characters they didn’t create poorly within their works, like with James Gunn and Scrappy Doo in the Scooby Doo Movie, Adric in the Doctor Who spin offs, or even the treatment of Doofus in Ducktales 2017. I don't care how much a character is liked or disliked by fandom, that shit is just tasteless and often unfunny. But at least I understand where they are coming from when they do it. 

But I’ll never understand what compels a writer to sabotage their own work; one that they are getting paid to write no less. Especially when said character is super popular with their fans. And Chris knows this. He knows the ratings plummeted without Varian in season two. He knows the merch didn’t sell because there wasn’t enough Varian products. That’s why he hyped up Varian’s return a whole week before Season Three’s airing with a massive online campaign, but he wasn’t smart enough to treat the character decently afterwards? 

I mean congrats, you convinced a just enough viewers to come back to season three to keep the show on the air I guess, but you left them all pissed off and have nothing to show for it to the higher ups a Disney. 

And Chris wonders why he wasn’t asked back to work on new Disney princesses shows that are currently in the works. 

That is Not Quirin. That is a Plank of Wood Pretending to be Quirin.

*Beep* *Boop*...*Dad Bot Is Proud. exe* 

Quirin is such a pale shadow of his season one self that he might as well not exist. I genuinely don't know why the writers released from the amber so early if they weren’t actually going to use him until the season finale. 

For the longest time I honestly thought that Rapunzel sucked out his soul with that decay incantation; what with that lyric about “setting the spirit free”. I genuinely thought that would be a later plot point, but nope, it’s just bad writing

Him just saying hi to son once and smiling blankly isn’t compelling and it’s isn’t fulfilling. It doesn’t actually resolve his arc. I mean he’s at least shown spending time with his son, but that’s not enough. We need to see him acknowledge past, we need to see him acknowledge his own flaws, and we need to see him being more attentive when Varian is in need. .  

Season one Quirin would be trying to stop Varian from going near the red rocks, a post season one Quirin should logically go after his son to make sure he’s alright, even if he’s know longer trying to actively stop Varian like he once did. 

There’s also that damn note and it’s secrets! 

You know what? That’s it. That’s the problem. The focus is all wrong in season three. Episodes get pulled into to many directions trying to juggle too many characters rather than dedicating the needed time to each individual arc. 

Season two’s finale should have been a three parter with Cass’s full motivation and goal laid bare before leaving.

Rapunzel’s Return should have been solely about Rapunzel and Varian’s conflict and resolving that arc fully 

Either Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf or Day of the Animals should have been a Lance episode about him and the girl’s, no Rapunzel. 

And this episode should have been about Quirin and Varian resolving their issues, with the Rapunzel and Cass stuff as the B plot not the stupid talent show 

There, all fixed. You don't even have to cut much, just rework the focus and leave Rapunzel and Cassandra out of conflicts they have no business being in. 

This Does Not Excuse Rapunzel’s Later Negligence Regarding Cassandra

Just because the red rocks was an accident doesn’t mean Cassandra should get a free pass for all the awful things she does later. Rapunzel uses this one interaction to excuse everything else Cassandra does in season three, as if she was just some poor lost baby and not a grown ass woman out to kill them. 

In fact Cass showing hesitancy here actually makes her later actions even worse. This means that she fully acknowledges that what she’s about to do is wrong, but goes ahead and does anyway, even gleefully so at times. Then she has to gall to act baffled when people see her as a threat? 0.o 

When fans say Cass isn’t redeemable or shouldn’t be redeemed, it’s not because he actions are so much worse than everybody else’s (even though they are), It’s because she doesn’t act like she wants to be redeemed half the time. The show doesn’t properly set up her ‘redemption’, instead it just lazily has Rapunzel yell at us how she’s ‘not lost’. 

Like below for instance. 

What Does Cass Need Saving From?

Cassandra is not in danger. She is the danger. 

She made the conscious decision to leave taking a world endangering artifact with her, and she later makes the conscious decision to come back and be an asshole for no adequately defined reason. 

She’s never shown to be in any physical danger from the rocks, the moonstone, or even Zhan Tiri herself. She apparently can take care of herself in the wild for over a year. She also has the capability of getting a job else where and just living out her life if she wanted to. Nothing is forcing her to listen to Zhan Tiri. 

Heck, even her hurt arm, the one thing Rapunzel is responsible for and could potentially be a continued threat to Cass’s well being, is just completely forgotten about.

And no, mental illness and past trauma are not excuses as well. In fact it’s rather insulting to both people with mental heath problems and abusive survivors to suggest otherwise. We don't need ‘saving from ourselves’ and we aren’t automatically dangers to anybody. Nor do we get free passes if we hurt someone. A jerk who happens to have a mental illness is just a jerk who so happens to have a mental illness; coloration is not causation. 

Conclusion 

It’s better than Rapunzel’s Return, but this episode was still a disappointment. A small part of me whishes this was a two parter because it has so much untapped potential, but I know it’s just be wasted in Chris’s hands. 

Anyways, I consider this to be the true mid-season finale of S3. Not only did the hiatus kick in after this episode, but it also clearly divides the season between the first half filler and the later Cass conflict. As such the next entry will be the mid-season recap. See ya, then. 

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Trek: Picard Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Agnes Jurati/Cristóbal Rios Characters: Agnes Jurati, Cristóbal Rios Additional Tags: Meta, Developing Relationship, my take on Agnes and Cris's relationship, and why i think it works, Minor Character Death (Mentioned), Psychological Trauma

Title Inspired by @regionalpancake‘s glorious Downtime Drabble “You’re Light On Me”

A while ago, a friend confessed to me that they didn’t really understand what Agnes Jurati and Cris Rios see in each other. They felt the relationship seemed unmotivated and forced, and they didn’t really see why other people thought it worked.

I’ve seen this sentiment a few times since the show came out, and I’m not here to tell anyone they have to agree with the show-writers’ choices or like a relationship if it doesn’t work for them. But I recently reread the little essay I sent that friend in reply (after making sure they’d want to read it ;9 ), and I really liked it, so I thought I’d share it here.

When people say that the kiss between Agnes Jurati and Cristobal Rios at the end of Star Trek: Picard season 1 blindsided them, I understand where they're coming from. I think the showrunners could have done more to make the developing relationship between these characters truly obvious, but for me, it didn't feel like the mutual attraction between Cris and Agnes came completely out of nowhere. Let me explain.

One of the big things about Rios’s character I find striking is that he wants to be stoic and cynical and misanthropic, but he just... can't do it. He tries! He's short, he hides behind his books, and he pretends he doesn't care about politeness. But the only people he ever swears at are Raffi, a very good friend, and the holos (which are a whole other matter, because there is all this self-loathing tied up in Cris's relationship with them). Over the course of season 1, it's pretty clear that Rios is rather good at reading people, and he wants to do right by them. He defers to Picard pretty much immediately and Soji looks at him pleadingly once and he decides to put his ship at risk for her.

Rios doesn't want to like people, he just can't help himself. He wants to be annoyed by Agnes interrupting his reading, but I think he finds her quirkiness disarming and charming. It's already visible in the way he looks at her on the bridge, when they talk about paper books. And then they go to the holodeck to discuss Picard's detour to Vashti. Since Agnes is the audience stand-in, she asks a bunch of questions, and instead of being annoyed or short, Cris patiently explains everything to her (after offering her a seat). Later, when Cris asks Agnes what she thinks about his outfit for the Stardust City caper and she says he's killing it, there's a beat there. He seems almost a little taken aback, either by her sincerity, or maybe by realizing he values her opinion. It's yet another thing they connect over it. (Also robot boxing. That scene is adorable)

With regards to Agnes… I think partially, she's leaning into her natural humour and quirkiness to appear non-threatening and not give herself away, but I also have another read on her behaviour. (This may partially be me projecting WAY TOO HARD, or, to put it more generously, applying some lived experience to what we see of Agnes's character, so your take on this might be very different. But this is what I see.)

When Agnes and Cris talk before they go off to have sex, Agnes is making jokes and smiling. To me, that doesn’t read as fake or a ploy to manipulate Rios, it seems real. And then when he asks, really asks, how she's feeling, suddenly there is this chasm of pain right under the surface. For me, the idea that Agnes has this intense psychological trauma and is dealing with it by finding joy in little things, like watering the plants, and reading papers, and flirting with the hot captain by completely wrong-footing him with a comment about her dad... it feels very authentic. And I can see how this guy, who pretends to be all uncaring and edgy but is actually a big softie not very far under the surface, and who smiles at her jokes and takes the time to explain stuff to her and listens to her babble, that's a nice distraction from the horrible things happening in her mind. Not in the sense that she's manipulatively using him, but in the sense that this kind of human connection gives her moments of light and gives her reasons to keep going, even through so much pain.

After Agnes kills Maddox, she is deeply, deeply conflicted over what she's done. To the point where when they’re leaving the Artefact, she basically says "I don't care if the world ends if I don't kill Soji. Let it all burn. I just can't do this anymore". And then here is this man, who's kind and caring and, yes, hot, and at first it's "I just want to feel something, anything, and he's here, he's half-naked, he's gorgeous". And Rios isn't necessarily opposed to a no-strings-attached fling. Because he keeps telling himself he doesn't get attached and he hates people and he's only ferrying them around because they're paying him. So it's a distraction with a woman who is quirky and witty and pretty, but it won't mean anything, and that's okay.

And then Agnes changes her mind, because she realizes having sex with Rios will make things more complicated. Or maybe because she thinks Rios deserves better. Or that she shouldn't have sex to distract herself from horrible emotional pain because that's kinda unhealthy.

So she pulls back.

And Rios, instead of being annoyed at missing out or feeling like she led him on, or any number of things, asks her how she's feeling. In a way that makes it clear (at least to me) that he really cares about the answer. And for a moment, Agnes lets him see the true darkness inside her. Because she can pretend it's about Maddox dying, she can pretend it's just about being a lonely nerd. She doesn't have to tell him how bad it really is, but she lets herself feel all of the bad emotions for just a moment.

And then she kisses him again, maybe to shut herself up or to distract herself, or because she needs the connection. And he doesn't have any illusion about what it is they're doing. He knows she's trying to feel better, he essentially tells her he knows it's a way for her to deal with her devastation, and he's okay with it. Maybe because he knows what it's like to feel hollow and terrified and need something, anything to cling to.

And at this point, I think they're both still telling themselves that they don't actually care about each other. Cris because he doesn't want to care about anyone ever again so he won't get hurt. (Which, again, he fails miserably at, but I think that's how he wants to see himself and why he treats his holos with so much disdain that Emil tells Picard "He doesn't get any nicer", even though we see Rios being kind to all the people on board.) And Agnes doesn't really have the brain space to allow herself to fall for anyone. She's just taking little moments of light and human connection where she can get them. And they both decide to have sex as a one-night-stand, just to make Agnes feel better for the night, just because they're both lonely and in pain. No deeper meaning behind it.

And then the whole tracker debacle happens. It takes three days to get to Nepenthe and by the time Agnes goes into a coma, they're still a couple days away at least. She doesn't wake up until Picard is back on board, which means she's out for a long time. Even though we don’t see much of the medical drama, we can assume she was very much at death's door. So, now Rios is faced with once again losing someone he feels somewhat responsible for. Someone he has actually gotten close to. And I think that moment and the fear it causes him might make him start to realize how much he actually cares about her.

And then when Picard and Soji are on board, they all sit down together and figure out the big mystery at the heart of season 1. And here is another thing Cris and Agnes find out they have in common: Both of their lives and minds got destroyed by Oh's machinations. Cris went against everything he believed in when he covered up what Vandermeer had done. He didn't actively kill anyone, but he feels like Vandermeer's death is his fault. His belief in the fundamental goodness of Starfleet was shattered when they threatened to blow up his ship. For Agnes, this kind of shattering of a truth she had clung to comes when she realizes she wasn't acting on the directive of the Head of Starfleet Security in a black-ops mission sanctioned by one of the most important institutions of the Federation. Instead, she was nothing but a pawn, used by Oh for nefarious purposes that had nothing to do with the greater good. The exact circumstances of their traumas are different, but they were both caught up in the same catastrophe and cover-up and it has marked them in similar ways.

I think this is one of the reasons Rios doesn't blame Agnes for killing Maddox. If anything, he gets more protective of her, e.g. by trying to stop Sutra from forcing another mind-meld on Agnes. You can see this in a more subtle scene, too: when Cris says goodbye to Agnes at Coppelius station, he reaches out to touch her face, but then he hesitates and proceeds with extreme gentleness and care. To me, that reads like someone very, very aware of the other person's trauma and possible triggers (forced mind-meld) and caring deeply about making sure she feels safe and has something good to counterbalance the horrible memories.

And finally, we clearly jump quite a bit in time at the very end of season 1. When our motley crew sets out from Coppelius, the Synth Ban has been lifted. Just imagine the bureaucracy that must have taken! That’s not something that can be overturned in a day. Also, Raffi and Seven have had time to connect, so I imagine in that time, Cris and Agnes, too, will have slowly figured out whether they're compatible and whether this relationship is something they might, very carefully and gently, endeavour together.

Because they have a compatible kind of humour, because they understand what it's like to feel deeply broken but to keep going regardless, because she's witty and quirky and he's caring and kind and they went through a very specific hell together, and they might be able to hold each other's hands as they slowly make their ways towards healing.

I’m going to do a metatextual thing here and quote an absolutely gorgeous drabble by @regionalpancake that, to me, encapsulates one very important aspect of the relationship between Cris and Agnes.

     Your Light On Me  

You’d forgotten just how it felt. To feel like you. A stranger, Last seen aboard the Ibn Majid. Proud, red trimmed shoulders, Bright pips, a polished combadge. You signed aboard, And found A different man signed off. You’re old enough to know, She cannot fix you. You wouldn’t want her to. That’s between Pops and you. That’s your work to do, Not hers. But Agnes? Preciosa. Something in her, Shines a light. Reminds you who you are. You have to find, Your own way home. But god, It’s nice, At last, To find, A gentle soul, To hold the lamp.

 Chapter 74 of Downtime

That. Right there. A gentle soul to hold the lamp. I think for me, that's what the relationship between Cris and Agnes boils down to.

They are broken people in a broken world, but by the end of season 1, they have found that they can hold each other while they try to put themselves back together. And what starts out as a fun, distracting flirtation, then turns into "meaningless" sex to stop feeling lonely and sad, finally becomes the beginning of a relationship built on shared trauma, but more importantly on kindness and charm.

I have no idea whether these two can make it work long-term, but I am very much on board for what we've seen so far, and I hope this can help a bit in explaining why.

NB: After I finished writing this a few weeks back, I remembered that there was a fic that came to very similar conclusions. Upon reread, I realized it essentially hits the exact same points I do here and does so absolutely beautifully. So if you want a truly touching in-universe perspective on this relationship, go and read Love Comes Softly by Be_Right_Back (@smhalltheurlsaretaken, or listen to the Podfic recorded by Thimblerig. I cannot recommend this fic highly enough!      

[generalfoolish]

Feel The Heat

Part Three: Architect

Rating: 18+ (minors take a hike)

Warnings: Alcohol consumption, implied drinking and driving (hey! don't do this!), some making out, mentions of sex but no actual sex, and some trauma reflection.

Word count: 3k

Pairing: Frankie “Fish” Morales x OC Juniper Collins

Summary: Idiocy continues. June and Frankie have a date, and a sleepover.

A/N: Hey babes! Sorry for this one in advance. She's not my best. She's also a hundred percent filler. We love her because she's necessary, though. I know it's a little shorter, but I have finals and a million other ideas keeping me from putting the work in. Also, I kind of like where I left it. Feel free to yell at me. Enjoy, anyway 💕

Masterlist | Part Two | Part Four

June took another sip of the wine, she had nearly drained the bottle; and she didn’t even want to know what number beer Frankie was on, but it was good. They had been propped up in the restaurant for long enough that the waiter stopped coming over.

“So what’s Fish about? I’m dying to know.” She asked brazenly, her cheeks tinged pink from the wine, and though her lipstick was long gone, her lips were stained red.

“Ah, I was wondering if you were gonna ask. It’s...not interesting.” He finally said, and they both laughed. “I like to fish, and the spot I go to has a bunch of catfish. I’ve been that way since forever, and in basics the name just stuck. Catfish, that is. The guys shortened it later to just Fish, which is...unfortunate.” June leaned forward on her elbows, and listened. She realized she was in trouble. This man could make anything sound interesting.

“Why’d they need to shorten it? Catfish is pretty easy to say.” She mused, more to herself than him. He took a sip of his beer.

“It was in spec ops, and it was just a mouth full during the shit.” He told her, glancing down. She took the hint.

“Do you eat catfish? I don’t really like it.” She admitted.

“What? No, that can’t be right. It’s great.” He laughed, and took another sip.

“Yeah, great if you love eating a muddy bottom-feeder.” She retorted, rolling her eyes.

“You like shellfish? Lobster? Because, I got news for you.” He said, smirking, and she laughed.

“Can you cook it?”

“Of course, I can.” He scoffed.

“Then I guess you’ll just have to cook some for me.” She teased lightly, the alcohol swimming in her mind.

“No way.” He said flatly. Her face fell, and he continued. “You want to eat it, you gotta catch it first.” She grimaced and shook her head.

“Not so much for fishing.” She explained, dropping her eyes from his gaze.

“What do you do then? Besides, follow my every movement.” He added playfully and she laughed.

“I took up gardening recently.” She reminded him, tilting her wine cup towards him. Samantha wasn’t too far off, he was pretty great.

“It’s a little late in the season, to start.” He told her gently. She squared her shoulders before letting them fall.

“Yeah. I had this great plan, until I thought about it at all. Day drinking has gotten me into more difficult spots though.” She huffed out a laugh. “See, there’s this grumpy farmer I wanted to impress. I wanted to...well, it sounds stupid now, but I wanted to prove that I wasn’t just a pretty face. I was going to bring you something I had grown.” She laughed, and wiped her eyes. “I didn’t think about growing seasons, or the fact that it takes a miserably long time for anything to actually grow.” He laughed with her easily, and she smiled.

“I can’t wait to see what you grow, and I hope you’ll consider me when you have to give most of it away so it doesn’t spoil.” He chuckled, but she could tell he was being earnest.

“I also write.” She blurted out. She was looking to change the subject before it got too deep, before they could get tangled in the implications, and the first thing that came to mind was something she hadn’t told anyone. Ever. The only person who knew she wrote was her publicist, and even she knew June under her pseudonym. She flushed, and tried to backpedal. “I mean it’s not a big deal. It’s really just like not a big deal at all.” He studied her face carefully, before speaking.

“Sounds like not a big deal,” He repeated, each word weighted. “But, if you ever want to tell me about it, I would love to hear.” He smiled and leveled his gaze at hers. She felt incredibly stupid for even bringing it up, but he had managed to give her a graceful out. She wondered if she shouldn’t tell him. She had no idea if this was even a date anymore, and she wanted the weight off her chest. She squared her shoulders again.

“Okay, you drug it out of me,” she laughed, and downed her glass. “I am a published author and no one in my real life knows.” She didn’t follow up. Her words hung in the air, heavy and bloated, before he cleared his throat.

“Why would you share that with me?” The confusion was apparent on his face, and it wasn’t what she was expecting. He looked incredibly touched at the gesture, as if she had just given him access to her most intimate secrets. She paused, and realized dumbly that she had. She had absolutely just revealed to him what might be her darkest secret; and as tame as it was, it was hers.

“I don’t really know.” She said flatly. She felt odd though, as she didn’t regret it. In fact, she felt relieved. “It feels good though.” She assured him.

“What have you published?”

“A half dozen novels about cowboys.” She told him, lamely.

“Cowboys?” He asked with a smile dancing on his lips.

“Cowboys.” She repeated with her own coy smile. “It’s a series, and it is not popular. But, I love it, actually.” She continued, a little bashful. “I lost money the first few years, but sales are actually picking up. I’ll never make my living that way, but I love it just the same.” Her cheeks were blazing hot, and  she finished in a whisper. He nodded, feeling that much closer to her.

The waiter came over to tell them that they should leave, and the pair laughed at how long they’d been sitting and talking. June was disappointed to bring the night to a close, but knew she had class in the morning. Frankie walked her to her car, and leaned heavily against it.

“You going to be alright to drive home?” She asked, watching him sway slightly.

“No.” He told her flatly, a chuckle following. “I’ll get a cab.” She rolled her eyes.

“How old are you? Get in, I’ll take you home.” She told him, pulling him around to the passenger side. He fought her a little.

“I’m out of the way, I don’t want you to have to back track.”

“Fine, we can go back to mine, and in the morning I’ll drop you by your truck. This is on my way.” The proposition was out in the world before she considered it. The words were hanging between them before she had a chance to worry the details out. It seemed simple enough, but the implications went deeper than she was ready to admit. Her worries were confirmed when she heard him suck in a sharp breath.

“I’d hate to impose…” He trailed, but she was already unlocking her car and shoving him in.

~~~

“Of course, I’ll take the couch, you’re my guest.” She told him, huffing in finality. He crossed his arms. Frankie had only barely agreed to the sleepover; he wasn’t getting bullied in the sleeping arrangement.

“No way. I’m not letting you sleep on the couch in your own home.”

“The couch is comfy, though. I slept there last night.”

“All the more reason you should get a proper night’s rest in your bed.” They glared at each other, and Frankie won. Or, so he thought.

“Fine. We’ll both sleep on the couch.” His laugh was sharp and loud, ripped out without warning. He wasn’t sure if it was the booze, but everything June had said had warmed his insides.

“That’s reasonable.” He agreed, and without thinking too much about the movement, he pulled her to the couch with him. He had meant for it to be smooth, and maybe a little romantic. Instead, it was messy and tangled, but when she landed face to face with him it was hard to argue his methods. He felt her breath on his lips, and he leaned forward, testing the waters, and skimmed his lips against hers. She responded in kind, pressing her lips to his with more urgency.

Frankie shifted June so that he was seated and she was straddling him. He pushed back into her kiss, and deepened it slightly. He ran his tongue against her lips, and when she parted them, he slipped his tongue in, tasting and exploring inside her mouth. He licked under her tongue, sucking it slightly, and managed to pull a soft moan from her. He pulled back for air, and noted how her pupils were blown black with lust, her bright eyes darkened. He wondered for a second if his own were so dark, and then she was on him again. She kissed and licked down his jaw and neck, before focusing on his ear. She nibbled the lobe, licked and sucked the sensitive skin around it.

When she pulled away, he almost whined at the loss. She was panting a little, and already swinging her leg off of him. He frowned at her movements, but didn't stop them. She sat heavily beside him, and pecked his cheek.

"Not that I don't want to continue...I just don't think it's a great idea. We've both been drinking, and it's a school night." The realization hit her like a brick wall. "Crap! Frankie! Do you need to get home to Liv?" He chuckled in response, which let her calm down a bit.

“No, she’s at a friend’s house tonight.” June breathed a sigh of relief, and Frankie felt his lips tug up. “Thanks for checking, though.” She nodded, and he just waited, not sure what she wanted next. He hoped it was more than making out. She cleared her throat and faced him, and he felt his smile fall. She looked too serious for anything light., and he braced for impact.

“The way I see it, Frankie, is we have two options here. One, we go upstairs, and I fuck you out of my system.” He inhaled sharply, and swallowed heavily. He could have laughed, if he wasn’t so shocked. “Option two, I go upstairs, alone, and tomorrow I take you to your truck. After that, maybe we can have another dinner...or maybe I’ll go fishing with you.” He did chuckle at her scrunched up face, this time. He considered her options for a moment.

“Why not a third, where both options play out?” He was teasing, mostly. Mostly, he assured himself.

“Well, that doesn’t work for me. I have had too many option three relationships take a nosedive, and I want to give this a chance. But, if you’re not interested in seeing where we could go, then let’s get on with the fun part.” He studied her face, etching every crinkle and freckle to memory. It was so intimate, he realized, being this close without touching. He wanted to take her upstairs. He didn’t really want to even take her upstairs, the couch was fine. She had been burning him since they had met, and he had had every opportunity to reach out and extinguish it. He hadn’t, and he knew why. He knew they could have something here. He had just spent hours with her, and he was already missing her presence. It wasn’t a choice he had to think hard about. He wanted to see her again. But, he wanted her tonight.

He leaned in and kissed her lips gently, pulling away before it could turn into anything more.

“Option two, please.” He noticed her eyes light up, but restrained himself. He could just kiss her all night, if she’d let him. He watched her leave the couch and disappear into another room. He took the opportunity to steady his breathing, and hopefully, calm himself down. She returned with an armful of blankets and pillows. He took them from her, and she stepped away, putting more distance between them than necessary.

“I have some old pajama shorts and a t-shirt from an ex, if you would like something more comfy to sleep in.” She offered, tossing a thumb behind her. He nodded as he made up the couch, not watching her disappear upstairs. She came back quickly and handed them off. He tried not to imagine who had left these behind, which option they had picked.

“Goodnight, Frankie. Kitchen is that way if you need water or anything. Bathroom is there, and I apologize for not having more sleepover supplies, it’s been...awhile.” She apologized, laughing. He waved her off.

“Goodnight, Ms. Collins. Sweet dreams.” He watched her retreat slowly upstairs before turning back to the couch. He was in trouble.

~~~

June tossed for a few hours before relenting. She’d never get to sleep otherwise, she told herself as she slipped her hand beneath her cotton shorts. No, she was too worked up, she reasoned as she made contact with her clit. She came hard in only a few minutes, thinking about how hard Frankie had been against her on the couch. She had been frantic, trying to slow them down, for her own sake. She was already falling hard for him; she didn’t need amazing sex to be the last nail in her coffin. She felt like she knew him, intimately, already. It was ridiculous, she kept reminding herself. It was someone who she had only met less than a week ago. She shouldn’t have invited him into her house. She didn’t need to see him in the morning light to confirm her fears. She had moaned his name into her pillow as she came; no, she knew just what she was in for.

She groaned as she remembered what she had said. “Fuck you out of my system?” She whispered again in the dark, cringing. Who was she? She didn’t talk like that. She taught six year olds. She tried to breathe deeply, and not go into a full-blown panic attack. How had she never gotten any better at flirting? She was grown, she could hook up and still have a relationship.

June squeezed her eyes shut against the memories threatening to crowd her, and reasoned she had made the better choice. They had been drinking, and it was too convenient. Hopefully, he didn’t think she was a psycho for inviting him over, making out with him hard, and then turning him down cold. Well, not cold, but lukewarm. She groaned again. Why was she acting like a teenager? She never fretted like this. Her mom’s cold words flashed in her mind, and she shuddered against them, willing them away. Too late, she thought about Terry.

Terrance, the one who had convinced her to move away from everyone. The one who had promised her everything, and then left her empty. The one who had no kind words or touches for her. The one who had left the taste of rust in her mouth.

She blinked against the tears, and tried to think about Frankie downstairs instead. All she could remember was the gruffness at the farmer’s market, the harsh words at the school, the disappointment in his eyes at dinner, and the coldness after she had turned down sex. She hugged herself tighter and tried to think about the soft touches he had given, the tender kiss, the personal stories, and the deep laugh she was falling in love with.

It was no use, she decided. Mid-spiral, she wasn’t good enough for anyone. She was glad she hadn’t invited him up. She was glad she wouldn’t be used by another man. She would drop him off in the morning, and then that would be that. If she didn’t start loving herself, no one would.

~~~

Frankie stretched against the soft material as light started trickling in through the blinds. He could hear the birds outside, and he whistled softly in tune. He folded the bedding, and padded to the kitchen.

After looking around a bit, he settled on coffee and pancakes. He had noticed the canned tomatoes in the cupboard, and made a note to ask June if they were the ones she had bought from him. He got busy mixing the pancakes together while the coffee brewed. He hadn’t slept so good in years. He had expected a sore back, at least, but that damn couch was probably better than his lumpy old mattress. He cut some berries up, while the pancakes were frying, and smiled as he heard June walk in.

“Morning!” He greeted, cheerfully. She winced, and he let a small chuckle out. “Sorry, uhm, coffee’s ready.” She nodded, but didn’t say anything else. He turned back to the oven, wondering if she just wasn’t a morning person. He noticed she felt colder this morning, and hoped it was because she was hungover.

“You were right about the couch, super comfortable.” He told her as she settled in at the counter. She only nodded, which he barely caught. He turned to face her, one hand on his hip and the other holding the spatula.

“Everything okay?” She nodded again, and he frowned. Something was definitely wrong, but if she wasn’t telling him what could he do. He made her a plate of pancakes and berries, and made one for himself. He sat down beside her, and she ate in silence. In fact, she didn’t say anything to him until they made it back to his truck.

“Have a nice day.” She had mumbled, her lips tight. He gaped a bit before getting out, and slamming the door a little harder than he had meant to. He got into his truck as she sped off, and he slammed the door.

“What the fuck was that?” He asked the steering wheel.

“Whatever,” He said, tightly, throwing the truck into drive.

[mellifluousoctopus]

I decided to make a character analysis post about my observations of the tv show and what i know about the comics. I’ve bolded my main points.

abuse TW, canon incest mentioned

On Diego

Diego is often mischaracterized as gruff, insensitive, resentful of all his family, abrasive and rude. Especially towards Vanya. But in reality he’s big softie, although a less emotional one than Luther. Diego hides his feelings and   vents them in other ways.  No matter how visibly present they are, his has a disdain for his emotions. Maybe because they are so present. He feels very strongly. (anger and love being a very easily seen example) Reginald is cold and calculating and emotion is a blindness on the battle field as well as a liability to be manipulated by Reginald and by others. Diego hates his emotions not only to appear competent in his fathers eyes but to also hide from Reginald’s wrath. No doubt that boxing and vigilantism are whats keeping him from going insane.  

He will try to deny it but his father’s teachings have big bearing of who he is now. The duty of the strong to protect the weak, vigilantism, striving to to hone and train your powers and body so that you are useful a better hero. These are ideals that Diego has taken from his upbringing and we see him live by even so much as to abandon all reason and try to save a doomed man at the price of the timeline. This devotion to the teachings of his father despite Diego’s resent of him, is an ironic circle of his father’s manipulation that birth his hero complex. 

He does everything that Reginald instilled in them with the same subconscious motive. He is in confliction with his own emotions and his own motivation. Diego’s strive to be something in his fathers eyes as compared to Luther, who was seemingly given extra attention and praise. As Vanya wrote in her book, they were all starved for attention, but Diego was in such close proximity to Luther, that the extra weight attention that Luther had was in stark contrast to Reginald’s neglect. This explains both his obsession with the numbering system and his connection with Grace. In an attempt to be noticed by his father and to prove himself upon comparison to Number One. Diego pushed himself harder and harder towards more and and more impossible standards of what he thought would achieve his father’s love. But Reginald has no love and Diego broke. He began to resent Reginald and what he believed was a rank system. Before the dinner we find that Diego still believes that number is associated with rank. He appoints them as Team Zero, because the number one/number two bullshit would divide them in the face of Reginald. There is no proof that any of the others believed in the rank system.( Luther obvious believes that he is the leader, but in no way does he use his false authority as a palanquin over the other others.) 

Grace supplemented Diego the attention that he lacked from his father. To all the children she was fair, gentle, calm, and understanding. She was a guiding hand and beacon of love in a cold and isolating household. To Diego she was salvation. A chance at be given love and support that he so obviously was missing. Grace probably spent more time with Diego. Both from the boy’s own choosing and from the duties given to her by Reginald, A cold, commandeering, traditionalist. Diego’s stuttered was stamped out of him out of him by all means. While corrections and punishment would come at anytime, Diego’s real speech therapy most likely given out by Grace, who is the only governess the children the remember and is seen reciting tips to him when he struggled. This extra attention validated Diego and strengthened his connection with Grace. This connection opened his eyes a bit faster to Reginald’s narcissism. Grace is Diego’s mother, she is the only thing in his life that provides unconditional love. He has seen her beyond Reginald’s programming. Seen her think and feel. Shes a person him. A person that Reginald mistreats as severely as he does the children. He treats her like an object despite her humanity and she is oblivious to Reginald’s abuse of her and the others. It makes him hate Reginald even more. Grace’s treatment is confirmation of Reginald’s. He wants to save her, but until he can he will hate Reginald for her.

As I’ve said before Luther, Diego, and Allison were the golden trio, the jocks, the children which Reginald placed most of his attention as they were the first 3 and therefore the three most manipulable. Like Luther, Diego’s emotions and his powers (which require Reginald’s shaping to be a more than average threat) earned him the title of second useful. 

Diego was the third wheel among the 3. When he first began training Diego was most likely like Luther. Eager to learn, eager to help, however he was most likely motivated by fitting his father’s expectation. Later on trying to exceed his fathers expectations in order to compete with Luther. Luther was his rubric, but as it become more and more frustrating to become equal to him in his father’s eyes as well as more and more apparent that Grace was tool rather than a person Diego began to hate Reginald. Luther refused to see their father’s cruelty and Diego began questioning authority as result of this blindness. He saw Allison in a similar light. At this point she was self absorbed denier according to Diego and both Luther and Allison’s relationship (they were not subtle) reduced them to moon-eyed freaks. further fueling Diego’s self isolation and defiance.

Saving Klaus is saving people. To Diego, Klaus is a civilian that should not be. They are a victim much like Grace and their(Diego and Klaus’) siblings are to Reginald, but they have the ability to do more. Klaus is representive of Diego’s frustration with the inabilty to respond to the academy’s greater purpose.

Diego shed tears on his missing brother, but there were few good memories behind it. Five is a self assured asshole, he’s pretentious and spends little time with the siblings (except maybe with Vanya). He’s also able get to dads attention with little effort which Diego wants. His powers allow him shortcuts too. Diego was bound to be jealous and feel slighted. Diego does not instigate competition with Five because Five does not bathe in the attention nor acknowledge it. Diego also thinks the attention is less of something he compete with as such attention comes from the meeting of minds.

Ben was a great friend. They had quiet and limited friendship, though  as there was a rift between their motivations. As much as both hated how they were used by Reginald, Diego focused on Reginald and his experiments rather than the powers and crime fighting (which was where Ben directed his ire) but they had great times.As we know Ben and Diego played at least one prank on Allison as children however it is implied that this was a common occurrence. These pranks could have been a form of rebellion or simple play by them that didn’t involve their powers or Reginald. I’ve chosen to believe that Ben was actually a large part of these pranks creating them and doing a lot of heavy work with them, and that Diego was the enabler, willing to help, and coming up with wackier and wackier ideas. Luther, Allison, and Five were the likely targets because they were the ones that refused to have fun on their own time, or chose to eat out of Reginald’s palm.

A lot of people think that Diego hates Vanya, for some reason. He doesn’t. He loves her. She’s his (little) sister. She sweet and timid. And she’s an innocent and a bystander to the teams greater responsibility to the innocent. When Hazel and Cha-Cha broke in, Diego is mad at Vanya for being there. Not because she’s there but because she is unable to protect herself. She has no training and she is at very very dangerous site. She is still his (little) sister and he still is obsessed with protecting the innocent. The reason people think he hates her is he feels betrayed by her.  He is short and sharp, but that’s his defense. It keeps her away and keeps him from showing any other emotions. To him, she first banked on their trauma. Not only is this grossly upsetting and violating. Having all your scars presented in a public sphere is wrong especially without your consent, especially when you refuse to be vulnerable. The book is also dramatic from Diego’s point of view. Diego shuts down any extra emotion that isn’t rage. In his mind Vanya should have dealt with it and kept dirty laundry unaired or at least have been direct in her grievances, especially since she had nothing to complain about. He (and the others) believed that Vanya had it the easiest. She has no training, she was not put in the ways of violence, he believes she was never subjected to experiment. She is ordinary. She has no greater responsibility. She should be fine. His distrust is granted and validated in the second season. Born of further betrayal and fear. Vanya has gone against Diego’s raison d‘etre, she has also wiped out entirety of earth and after years of underestimating her. Shock and distrust, (but not despise) are bound to arise.

[prince-toffee]

I don’t care if the character is good. I care if the character is interesting. I don’t know where the morality police came from, I don’t know why people try to justify actions of villains, I don’t know why all characters need to be good. I don’t care if they’re justified, or right. ‘Do I care when they’re on screen?’ is the right question. The character can be a pure saint, but what does it matter if they’re pure good if they’re boring to watch? I love villains, love, love, love villains, but if a villain is just... boring, then what the hell is the point of even showing them on screen?!

For me spop is a prime example of this. I’m sorry, I really am, but I don’t care about... anything in that show, except for Hordak, Entrapta, and maybe Shadow Weaver. The Princesses do nothing for me. This one’s the sassy one, this one’s the hippie one, this one’s the blue one, again. I don’t care. I’m sorry. We learn nothing about them! We have no flashbacks, no lore, nothing! Show me Mermista’s father. The Whispering Woods are apparently sentient, can Perfuma talk to it? Show me how Frosta’s parents died, and give her a consistent personality. In her bio it says Netossa doesn’t have a kingdom, why? Show us Spinerella’s kingdom. Show me Entrapta’s backstory, her parents, her childhood, explore her kingdom! I’m interested, show me more! Show me The First Ones, they’re evil or something right? That was the plot twist, right? I think? Why weren’t we shown a satisfying and fulfilling climax where Adora kicks their asses? Show me George’s past battling against the Horde. Angella is immortal according to her bio, maybe. Show me that!

This show is bone dry! No meat! This show somehow manages to be empty and slow and drag while also going at break neck speeds. The only character I can’t complain about, who is my favourite Princess is Glimmer. Glimmer is great, I love Glimmer. Not s1-3 Glimmer, s4 Glimmer. Compromised Glimmer. For three seasons Glimmer was just another Princess, Adora’s best friend. But after Angella dies, then it gets fascinating. Glimmer has the responsibilities of Queen thrust apon her, and all those lines spoken in season 3 are paid off, Glimmer slowly becomes her mother even though she doesn’t want to be, she doesn’t want to be a coward, she wants to be at the frontlines helping her friends. And that pressure forces her to consult Shadow Weaver and go down a darker path. Her rise to power paralleling Catra that season, and then her descent catalysed by desire for power paralleling Shadow Weaver who forges the same relationship with her as with Micah, it’s all great. Glimmer wants to, is responsible for, protecting her kingdom, the whole world and as the Horde grows in power she feels the need to use increasingly more drastic measures to protect everyone.

Glimmer isn’t at her best in this season, but she is the most interesting at this point. And then in s5 she likes Bow I guess. The Mara Razz stuff is also pretty interesting, but that was in s4 and by that point I was just turning off my brain. I kinda feel like s4 was a filler season.

And then, when I’m given so little, we get to Hordak. And he, I cannot stress this enough how much this means to me even though it is the bare minimum, he has a flashback, an artistic, stylised flashback! With a thematic colour palette. With a tease that will be paid off, of our endgame bad guy. A flashback that tells us about the character’s backstory, about the lore of the universe, about themes that are relevant to the whole meaning behind the character and to the conversation he and Entrapta are having in that moment. We see the world from his perspective, we don’t agree with him, but we understand him. And guess what? That scene wasn’t even originally meant to be apart of the episode! Because of course it wasn’t! Because spop is the definition of white bread!

Fuck! Shadow Weaver does it even better! She has an entire episode dedicated to her, and it’s all a flashback, it’s amazing, we see her younger, we see what makes her go down a darker path, we see a meaningful relationship between her and Micah, we see LORE, LORE, LORE, I LOVE LORE, it’s lore that makes no sense timeline-wise, and complicates everything even more without expanding or explaining anything, and not paying it off later, but at least it’s something. I love Shadow Weaver, from her design, which is perfection to her voice which is gorgeous to her actions and writing which is marvellous. I love this irredeemable pure evil disney stepmother because she’s interesting, she’s fascinating! She steals every scene she’s in! Shadow Weaver is the best character in this entire show. I can’t stress how amazing Weaver is, and we all slept on her. I swear she’s like the only competent character in this entire show. She’s refreshing.

And to show you that I’m not just an edgy loser that hates heroes because they’re dumb and villains rock, I’ll say this. Not even Horde Prime is as interesting as those two. He’s this universe conquering monster that is pure evil and that is right up my alley, I should love him.... but I don’t. He sucks. He’s nothing. I feel nothing. I’m not intrigued, not interested, not captured. You know why? Because he’s a reskinned Princess. He’s not important, he doesn’t matter, he’s a cardboard cut out. He alludes to somethings that may or may not have happened in the past, we never see any of it. He’s like a weird Catradora shipper for some reason? He’s this super powerful monster that destroyed planets, he conquered half the universe, he brainwashes half our main cast, and the planet, and yet... I feel nothing... because deep down you know... that this is the last season and the hero will win and there will be no lasting ramifications, and if there will be we won’t see it. Oh no he couldn’t trace them because the ship blah blah blah. Fuck you. Sucks. The heroes are untouchable, he’s not scary, he’s incompetent, oh so you can just mind control people? and you didn’t do that right away, why? He’s stupid. And yeah Hordak is stupid too, but Hordak has a backstory and a love interest and thematic meaning, unexplored, but it’s there. Prime has nothing. I don’t know who or what he is. He’s an after thought. And what contributes to me not giving a fuck is the fact that s5 as a whole is terrible and it rots my brain, and I turned off my brain as I skimmed that season, I blacked out.

Anyway back to Hordak and Weaver. It’s strange when we get to them, because Hordak, in particular, is so unimportant and is so separated from the rest of the show, it feels like he’s in a completely different show from the rest of the cast. Even Weaver is important, she’s directly connected to Adora and more importantly Catra. Hordak? Sure his actions matter to the plot, his backstory and his lore matter to the plot, but he himself doesn’t matter. Sure the portal is the catalyst for the s3 finale and it calls Prime, the clone trauma is important to Catra’s arc in s5, but Hordak the person, is unimportant, Hordak the individual doesn’t matter. He’s less then a side character. He’s so disconnected from the entire show. He feels like he’s in a completely different show. Which strangely enough was welcoming for me. It felt like I could just like Hordak and Entrapta in that small corner of the fanon over there, away from all the drama. Hordak, from his design to his personality to his existing backstory, was so different and stood out from amongst the crowd.

At first it was wow this guy looks cool I’ll proceed to theorise what he’s about, and then when we actually got a story behind him at first I was disappointed, but I quickly began digging into the potential of it and you couldn’t stop me. An exiled and shunned clone with a genetic disease who wishes to prove himself to an uncaring god, his mental state is so fascinating to pick apart, don’t tell this isn’t the most interesting thing in this show... I don’t know what the conclusion of this cluster fuck is.

i hate wrong hordak

[girlsgonemildblog]

Who Made You Queen of Anything - The Bachelor, Season 25, Week 2 Recap

Image from abc.com

As I (and everybody else on the planet) predicted, Victoria made herself the center of attention for the entirety of this episode. We begin with Bri getting a one-on-one date, which causes all the other girls to mope about not getting the first one-on-on, Victoria included. One of the other girls who isn’t interesting enough for me to have learned her name yet tries to be friendly and comfort Victoria by saying, “It’s okay. We’re all jealous.”

Victoria then has an absolutely incredible response; “I’m not jealous; I just want what she has.” For anyone not familiar with this word, “wanting what someone else has” is the definition of jealousy. My jaw dropped at this line. And yet, that was somehow not the most shocking thing Victoria did in this episode.

Image from abc.com

Bri’s date was pretty boring; the two ride ATV bikes, and the rest of the girls watch them leave from 10 feet away. I live for this type of awkardness. They have a staged fall in the mud, then Matt chops wood shirtless, for some reason (I am not complaining), and I think there may have been a hot tub, but honestly, I was making myself a sandwich during the day portion of the date. During the night portion, the two bonded over both being raised by single mothers, and Matt gives her the rose. Overall, pretty blah date.

Back at the ranch (i.e., the “chateau” the women are staying in), the drama starts. Victoria, out of nowhere, decides to pick a fight with her roommate, Marylynn, for a reason I cannot figure out. From what I understand, Marylynn told Victoria that she wanted to get to know her better since they were sleeping in the same room. Victoria somehow interpreted this as “bullying” and decides to sleep on a couch in the living room instead of having to share a room with someone so evil as to ask her what she likes to do for fun. Marylynn will come back up later in the episode, so here’s a photo of her for those who may not remember who she is:

Image from abc.com

The next date is a group date of 18 girls. Usually, even at the beginning of the seasons, group dates max out at around a dozen people per date. Immediately, I knew this was going to be intense. The date begins with the girls getting into wedding dresses and taking fake-wedding photos with Matt. While this may seem insane to a bachelor-nation newcomer, this date actually happens every season. Victoria and Matt’s photo is laugh-out-loud funny and makes it abundantly clear that she is a producer plant:

Image from Twitter

While the photo shoot is going on, Chris Harrison emerges to announce the second half to the date; the girls are split into two teams of nine for a Hunger-Games-style round of Capture-The-Flag, and only the winners will go to the night-portion of the date. The producers clearly expected the girls to be a lot more vicious than they were; it was mostly giggling and flailing and over all boring.

Image from abc.com

During the cocktail hour, Lauren bonds with Matt because of the importance of religion in both of their lives. If you watched The Bachelorette last season, you will know that Tayshia broke up with one of her final three because their religious beliefs did not line up, so Matt giving Lauren the rose here seems significant.

Image from abc.com

The third date is another one-on-one with Sarah. The day-portion consists of them flying around in a bi-plane and landing in the middle of the woods. If it weren’t for the camera-crews and producers, Sarah probably would have been terrified she was about to get murdered. During the night portion, She tells Matt about how she quit her job to become a full time caretaker for her dad who is dying of ALS. This is a moving moment, but, as my mom and sister pointed out to me, it is a bit overshadowed by the fact that she is spending a portion the six-months her father has left to live on a reality show. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and say maybe she is trying to expedite the marriage process so that he can be there for her wedding. That sounds believable, right? Maybe? Anyway, Matt deems her trauma-dump worthy of a rose and she gets to remain for another week.

The next evening at the pre-rose-ceremony cocktail party, shit hits the fan. While having some private time with Marylynn, Matt presents her with orchids because he remembers they are her favorite flower. (Note: it is not common for the bachelor to do things like this.) Marylynn then rejoins the girls who, obviously, ask her where she got the flowers. She politely and humbly explains, and Victoria’s brain breaks. She rushes to go sit down with Matt and tells him that Marylynn is “toxic” and “bullying” her, but does not give any proof (because she has none).

Matt then speaks to Marylynn to clear up the situation, and, I think, realizes that nothing Victoria said makes any sense with Marylynn’s gentle personality. Marylynn is, understandably, upset and then tries to take Victoria aside so they can discuss their issues. Marylynn handles the situation politely and maturely, and Victoria refuses to let Marylynn even sit next to her on the couch. Even in the face of this ridiculousness, Marylynn still manages to stay calm and collected. Marylynn is impressively nice and I will be truly pissed off if she gets sent home because Victoria dragged her into made-up drama. That being said, Marylynn may be too well-adjusted to be on this show.

The rose ceremony starts, but in the middle of it, Sarah faints. The producers take her aside and Matt goes to comfort her and the episode ends on a cliffhanger. The Bachelor does a lot of lame cliffhangers, but this might be the worst. She already has a rose, so they’ll likely let her sit out of the rest of the ceremony and give her a glass of water and we’ll be on our merry way. Still, there are just things that go together; peanut butter and jelly, cookies and milk, The Bachelor producers and manufactured drama.

[rainhadaenerys]

Post season 8 fix-it headcanon/Jonerys fanfic outline

For Daenerys Resurrection Week, Day 1: Resurrection and forgiveness

A long time ago I commented here that I had written an outline for a post season 8 fix-it fanfic. And I did write some things, mostly about the political situation in the story, and character's motivations. As far as actually coming up with a proper story and proper scenes though, I didn't really go very far. And to be honest I really don't feel like writing fics, I'd rather spend my energy on metas. But I wanted to share my headcanon anyway.

To start, my headcanon is canon-compliant. I appreciate fix-it AUs, but I have a problem with them because I always feel the need to acknowledge canon. So I acknowledge everything that happened in season 8. But in my headcanon, I completely absolve Dany of everything. Instead, I tend to think Bran warged into Dany and made her burn King's Landing, urged by Sansa. So yeah, this is not for Stark fans. My headcanon is pretty much anti everyone but Dany and Jon. (By the way, if anyone has seen any fic with this premise, and that follows season 8 canon, can you please tell me? I don't know why, but it seems no one has thought of this so far? Or maybe I just haven't seen it, since I don't read a lot of fanfic, but I would appreciate reading a fic like this)

Ok, but now you're probably thinking, but why would Bran do this? Why would Sansa tell him to do this? Isn't it OOC? That's where my complete reinterpretation of Bran and Sansa's characters start. I'm sorry I had to vilify them, but I see no other way to completely absolve Dany.

First, Bran: When Bran had met Bloodraven, Bloodraven had hoped that by teaching Bran his abilities, he would have someone to help him look into the past and find an easier way to defeat the Night King. Probably, the children of the forest told him about something (like, maybe, some hidden magical artifact), but they didn’t know where this magical artifact was. So Bloodraven thought having another person with the Three Eyed Raven’s powers would help defeat the Night King. Bran followed Bloodraven’s instructions faithfully, but in the end, he didn’t find anything that would help, and that’s why he was useless in the War for the Dawn. The reason why the Night King was going after Bran was because the Night King knew Bran had the powers to find out his secret and destroy him easily (ie, without a battle). But Bran wasn’t able to do this in the end.

But Bran’s journey to become the three eyed raven wasn’t meaningless to the story. As Jojen once warned Bran, if he spent too much time inside the mind of a wolf, he would lose himself. And this is what happened. Bran spent most of his time warging on ravens, wolves, trees, trying to find the answer. He had seen in his future visions that the Night King would be defeated, so he wasn’t much worried about that (which explains his calm behavior when the Night King came to kill him), but he didn’t know exactly how, he thought he would be the one to do it, so he worked tirelessly and warged tirelessly (btw, Bran’s future visions are more flawed. He can look into the past easily if he knows what to look for, but the future isn’t as clear and it changes constantly, it is based on possibilities). Bloodraven had time to adapt before he spent most of his time warging. Bran didn’t have that time, because the need was urgent, so the time spent warging animals and trees made him start losing his humanity, in the sense that he stopped caring, and stopped having as much empathy. He loved his family to some extent, and he still had some sense of self preservation, but he had almost no empathy left for others.

Now, let's talk about Sansa. Sansa, during her journey, became a hardened woman. Unlike book Sansa, who keeps her kindness, show!Sansa has absorbed the lessons her abusers taught her: don’t trust anyone, look out only for yourself, take any advantage you can manage. This is what Sansa has been doing for quite some time. She doesn’t tell the truth about who killed Lysa Arryn, and the reason for this isn’t that she’s afraid of Littlefinger and sees no other choice. No. Sansa has entirely embraced Littlefinger and his plans. She later resents him for selling her to the Boltons, but this experience just leaves her more traumatized. So Sansa becomes a different person: her trauma makes her look out only for herself. She had always wished for power (since season 1 she wanted to be queen), and this hasn't changed, but now, it's also tied with her traumas: she wants power as a way for her to feel in control after lacking agency for so long.

So here's how I would interpret Sansa's actions since she escaped the Boltons. In season 6, when Littlefinger reminds Sansa that Jon is a threat to her, and only her half brother, Sansa starts plotting against him. She secretly corresponds with Littlefinger, and doesn’t tell Jon about the Vale army. She does this for different reasons: she thought that by doing this, Jon and Rickon had more chance to die, and she could become queen without Jon there to threaten her power. She also wanted to be seen as the hero of the battle, the one that saved them at the last minute, so she could have more chances of becoming queen. Not only that, but she didn’t want the Wildlings in the North and saw them as expendable. They were only a tool to her. She wanted to use them to get her lands and titles back, and used the fact that Jon saved them to try to convince Jon that they should fight (Sansa does say in season 6 that the Wildlings should fight for Winterfell because they owe Jon their lives). So she saw them as expendable tools to get Winterfell back, but she also didn’t care that they would die because she withheld information about the Vale army: the less foreign savages in the North, the better. When she doesn’t get her position of Queen in the North, she starts undermining Jon deliberately. Jon asks her to stop, but she continues doing it. When Bran returns, she offers Bran the position of Lord of Winterfell, and is relieved that he doesn’t want it. When the lords talk about putting her in Jon’s place, she doesn’t reprimand them. In her conflict with Arya, she was indeed going to kill Arya. After all, she sends Brienne away after Littlefinger reminds her that Brienne is sworn to protect both her and Arya. She only doesn’t kill Arya because she goes to Bran and learns that Littlefinger was manipulating her, and she realizes that Littlefinger is a bigger threat than Arya. She was fine in keeping Littlefinger as an ally before, she didn’t care about all the horrible things he did, but she realizes that keeping him alive would be more dangerous than advantageous. So she makes a sham trial to kill him, while also omitting her involvement in Littlefinger’s schemes in the Vale and the fact that she knew about them.

So by the time Dany gets to Winterfell, Sansa is a person that only cares about her position and privileges. When she hears Dany talking about her reforms in favor of the smallfolk, she is scandalized. Unlike book!Sansa, show!Sansa never lived as a bastard, and keeps her classism. Sansa is against Dany not because of pettiness or stupid distrust, but because she feels her power threatened, and because she thinks Dany is a tyrant for wanting to take away the privileges of the nobility. So Sansa tries to undermine Dany in every way she can: publicly telling Dany that she and her armies aren’t welcome; badmouthing Dany while Dany is fighting for her. When Sansa sees Dany giving Storm’s End to Gendry, she hates seeing it because she thinks giving Storm’s End to a bastard is an absurd (after all, she was usurped by her bastard brother) and also because if the Northern Lords see Dany’s generosity, they might not be so against her, especially after Dany fought for them. Finally, Sansa betrays the oath she swore to Jon in the godswood, telling Tyrion Jon’s secret, not necessarily because she wants Jon to be king, but because she wants to overthrow Dany. And she knows that if her plans succeeds, Dany will end up dead and no longer a threat. She doesn’t care that this could spark a civil war and that innocents could die. She doesn't care that she's plotting the death of a woman that just saved her. She only wants to retain her power, and she wouldn’t be allowed to do that if Dany actually “broke the wheel”. She continues not to care about anyone but herself by humiliating Edmure when he speaks (because she wants herself to be queen), and when Tyrion suggests Bran, she undermines him as well: first saying that Bran can’t rule because he doesn’t want it and can’t have children, and later by asking for independence, knowing that asking for independence would just lead to political instability and possibly war, but not caring about it, because she wants to be queen. So these are Sansa’s motivations.

So how would the idea of Bran warging into Dany work? Well, Bran has future visions. He doesn't choose to have them, they happen to him, and they are uncertain. But as we did see twice, Bran saw a dragon flying over King's Landing, and he saw the throne room destroyed. He later tells people in the Dragonpit that he knew he was going to be king. This implies that he didn't just have a vision of a dragon over King's Landing, but that he also had more detailed visions of what would happen later. He also tells Jon that Jon was "exactly where he has supposed to be", which implies that he knew Jon would kill Dany. So Bran knew many things: knew a dragon would fly over King's Landing, knew the throne room would be destroyed, knew Jon would kill Dany (meaning that he probably knew Dany was going to be responsible for the destruction), and knew the political ramifications of all that (he was going to be king). I think that, despite the fact his visions of the future are not as exact as visions of the past and present, every evidence seems to point out that Bran knew Dany would destroy King's Landing. So I choose to believe that he saw Dany, at the back of a dragon, burning everything, and all the subsequent events that happened with it.

So maybe, Bran started looking into the future and saw Dany becoming more and more depressed. He thought this would make her burn King's Landing. And he has seen how much Sansa craves power, and he still has some loyalty to his family. So he really has no interest in preventing an outcome that gets his family on top, and given that he has lost much of his empathy due to too much time warging on animais and trees, he doesn't really try to do anything to prevent the burning of King's Landing. He doesn't warn Dany or Jon. He tells Jon the truth about his parentage even though he knows that the truth would cause chaos. And so on.

At some point, he tells Sansa what's going to happen. And Sansa also does nothing to prevent it, and instead, wants to make it happen (like when she tells the truth of Jon's parentage). She takes Bran's visions of Dany burning King's Landing as a confirmation of her bias against Dany, which makes her feel righteous in her actions. And she wants House Stark on top, so she doesn't really stop to think that maybe, just maybe, she should be trying to prevent this from happening.

So when Dany marchs south, and attacks King's Landing, Bran watches over things to see what's happening, and Sansa waits by his side for him to tell her the news. But as time passes, nothing happens. Dany is not burning King's Landing as they expected. She is only attacking the soldiers, and is close to winning without bloodshed (This did, in fact, happen in the show. Dany never attacks any civilians before the bells, she only attacks military targets). Sansa starts to get anxious. Sansa was already expecting that she would become queen, and she becomes nervous when this possibility starts to be threatened. Then, when King's Landing surrenders, Sansa gets more desperate, and asks Bran to do something, telling him that they shouldn't allow Dany to stay in power. Bran, dispassionate as he is about everything and not really caring about people, tells Sansa that the possibility of warging into Dany exists. Sansa asks Bran to do it. He asks if she is certain, and in the desperation of the moment, Sansa says yes. So for Sansa, this was about seeing the power that she craved slipping through her fingers once again. For Bran, he was simply doing what Sansa wanted. He didn't particularly care about becoming King, but he didn't really have much empathy for the people of King's Landing, so to him it didn't matter.

Dany doesn't really realize what's happening. She is in a very emotionally fragile state, and she is already feeling certain things like anger and despair. This makes her vulnerable to Bran. A person with the mental strength to resist Bran’s warging could have done it, but Dany couldn't. So when we see Dany shaking her head in episode 8x5, before she starts burning King's Landing, it's because she was fighting against Bran's invasion, but in the end she couldn't resist it. So everything we see from that moment in episode 8x5 until Dany's death, Dany is only vaguely aware of the things she is doing, but is actually being controlled by Bran. And Bran is doing everything to make sure the outcome Sansa desired (Dany's death) happens: after Dany's attack, Bran makes her land with Drogon and makes her give Grey Worm the order to kill the Lannister soldiers that surrendered. He makes the speech about world domination. And Bran's warging is also the explanation why Dany acted so weird in the last episode. It's also the reason Dany didn't have anyone to protect her when Jon came to kill her: Bran made her give orders to her soldiers to leave her alone, and to let Jon come in without taking his weapons. When Jon stabs Dany, it's when Bran finally leaves her mind, and it's the first moment of full awareness she has since Bran warged her. So the betrayal and heartbreak she feels is even worse. She wakes from a trance and sees the man she loves killing her.

Now, you might wonder, why did Bran and Sansa have to go to such extreme lengths? Why didn't they warg a random soldier to do the job and kill Dany, instead of making her burn thousands of innocents to make Jon kill her? Expecting that Jon would make the decision to kill Dany is risky, because he could decide not to do it, and Bran and Sansa's plan would fall apart. But the problem is: they didn't simply want Dany to die. They wanted to destroy her reputation, to make sure that none of her followers could seize power. If Dany simply died, the throne would go to Jon, and measures to break the wheel could still happen. Sansa didn't want this to happen, she didn’t want to lose her privileges, she wanted the herself in power and Dany's forces neutralized. By warging into Dany, they could destroy Dany's reputation, make Tyrion and Jon kill her and destroy their own chances of seizing power, and destroy the chance that Dany's allies could seize power instead of her. With Dany burning King's Landing, Bran and Sansa could spin the narrative that Dany is a radical extremist, and that her wish to make reforms is what made her a tyrant. And so on. So this is why none of them thought of warging someone and making them kill Dany, or warging Dany and making her kill herself. (Besides, I headcanon that warging someone is easier if the person is in a fragile mental state, so maybe trying to warg someone else wouldn't work).

So this is my headcanon to explain Dany burning King's Landing. From this point, everything happens as in the show: Bran and Sansa get their crowns, Arya sails west of Westeros (and dies in a storm because I have no creativity to think of a story for her and I started to hate her show self anyway), Tyrion becomes Hand and Jon is exiled. Drogon obviously, takes Dany to Volantis to resurrect her.

In exile, Jon is miserable. On the one hand, he tells himself he did the right thing. After all, Dany seemed intent on "liberating" more cities, and could maybe kill his family. And regardless of whether she would burn more cities or not, or kill his family or not, he thinks that anyone who would burn innocents for no reason and call it "necessary" shouldn't rule.

On the other hand, Jon blames himself for all the ways he failed Dany. He thinks that he was so caught up in his own angst about his parentage, about how he and Dany were related, that he didn't notice how much she was hurting. So while Jon tells himself he did the right thing in killing her, he also blames himself for not comforting her, for disregarding her fears about the dangers of his parentage coming out and telling the secret to his family, for not standing up more for her. He wonders if he only could have comforted her, then maybe she wouldn’t have ended up like that. He also starts to doubt his decision to kill her: if Dany did what she did because she became mad with grief, then maybe he could have helped her come to her senses. Maybe he didn't have to kill her. Maybe he could have helped her heal. So I headcanon that Jon would be really hard on himself and start to hate himself for killing Dany. (By the way, it's also important to consider Jon's state of mind when he kills Dany. I'm sure seeing thousands of innocents burned by dragonfire must be pretty traumatic, and would push him to decide that killing Dany was necessary).

But not only Jon blames himself, he also starts to blame his family for what they did to Dany. He starts to hate Sansa for conspiring against her (and almost leading to Dany's death, since Sansa telling the truth made Varys try to poison Dany). He blames his family for being so cold to Dany, for using her for her resources and then discarding her, and thinks about how things could have gone differently if they hadn't done these things. And at some point, Jon will remember Bran's cryptic line about him being "exactly where he was supposed to be", and start to get suspicious that Bran knew what Dany would do, and that Bran knew Jon would end up killing her, and did nothing to prevent it. But Jon will brush off these suspicions by thinking that "his family would never do this to him".

Meanwhile, Dany will, obviously, be resurrected. Drogon will take her body to Volantis, but since he is an animal, it's not like he knows what to do with it. So he will rest with her body and mourn her somewhere in Volantis, and some slaves will find him. Said slaves will recognize Dany. They have never seen her, of course, but seeing a silver haired woman and a black dragon, it's not difficult to guess who she is. And they will also mourn her, of course. Dany was a hope to many slaves. These slaves also hoped that Dany would come to save them, so seeing the dragon queen dead is the death of those dreams. They try to get to Drogon, and Drogon, slowly, comes to trust them to get near Dany. They bring a red priestess to where Dany's body is to make the rites usually done for the dead and honor the dragon queen. They don't really tell this to anyone, because they don't want her body to be found and desecrated by slave masters. So the ceremony is done in secret. But something they didn't expect happens: as the priestess gives her the last kiss, Dany is resurrected.

Oh, and as soon as Dany is resurrected, something terrible already happens: she has a miscarriage. Dany had found out she was pregnant very recently, and didn't have time to tell Jon. But since he killed her, the baby died, and didn't come back when she was resurrected. (I don't have the link right now, but I remember reading GRRM say that people who return from the dead are those who feel a strong sense of purpose, and I think a fetus wouldn't have that, so I don't think the baby would be resurrected)

Well, with all of this, Dany is incredibly traumatized. She doesn't know she was being warged by Bran, and she feels guilty for what she thinks she did to King's Landing. She has lost another child, she has lost her hope for the future, the love of her life has killed her. So she falls into depression, and starts to live hidden in Volantis (the red priestess that resurrected her helps her with a spell to prevent Bran from using his powers to see her). She has given up on the idea of helping people. And she doesn’t want to fly on Drogon anymore, because she has horrible flashbacks of what she did to King’s Landing, and because she doesn’t trust herself with a weapon as powerful as Drogon.

But after some time, Dany will start coming back to her former self. She’ll see the suffering of the slaves in Volantis, she will hear the news about Volantis going to war against the cities of Dragon’s Bay in order to re-enslave everyone, and she will hear about how some of the Dothraki have come back to their old ways and are enslaving again, and she’ll decide that she needs to do something about it. This is when she decides to ride Drogon again.

*by the way, here’s a parenthesis about the political situation in Essos*

Volantis has slavery, and is preparing for war against Meereen and Astapor. Meereen and Astapor are still strong and anti-slavery, because Dany left former slaves in the government, and she also left military forces to avoid her new governments being overthrown (like what happened the first time in Astapor, so Dany learned from her mistakes). Daario is still loyal to Dany, because he really loved her (and also because the Meereenese government is paying him to protect the city, so he really has no reason to turn on them). In Yunkai, however, Dany had wanted to do the same thing she did in Astapor (kill all the masters), but Tyrion convinced her not to do it, opting for only cutting the throats of two of the Yunkish leaders. This means that even though Yunkai is being watched by Dany’s army in the region, and they don’t openly sell slaves anymore (lest they provoke a war against Astapor in Meereen, which would be bad now that Yunkai is weakened), the Yunkish leaders are still conspiring to bring back slavery, but this time, instead of funding the Sons of the Harpy (once again, they’re not doing this anymore because Astapor and Meereen are aware that they were the culprits, and the resurgence of the Sons of the Harpy would mean war as well), they are secretly negotiating with Volantis, asking for help (since the end of slavery in Dragon’s Bay meant that the price of slaves went up, and Volantis’ economy was suffering because of this).

Meanwhile, some of the Dothraki returned to Essos. Of the ones that returned, some Dothraki believed in Dany, meaning that they didn’t return to the old ways and some even have hope that she will return, since she’s the Stallion that Mounts the World. While others have made up their own khalasars, and started enslaving and raiding again (even selling slaves to Volantis and other slave cities that remained). These khalasars that returned to the old ways are allied with Volantis.

I don’t  really have a headcanon for cities like Pentos, Myr, Tyrosh, Lys and others. I don’t know if they will still have slavery or not. The show doesn’t really mention it as far as I remember, so it could go either way.

*end of parenthesis about Essos*

So Dany starts by seeking for her khalasar, the ones that are in Essos. Some of the Dothraki (the ones that didn’t go back to their old ways and didn’t go back to being slavers) eagerly accept her back. Together with them, Dany starts again her army, and they end up defeating those other khalasars that started enslaving again. So once again, Dany unites the khalasars in Essos. But there are still some Dothraki left in Westeros, so Dany hasn’t reunited all khalasars yet.

After uniting the khalasars in Essos, stopping them from engaging in slavery, and stopping them from selling slaves to Volantis and other cities, at some point, Dany will reunite with the Unsullied. Together with her new khalasar, the Unsullied, and Drogon, Dany will start a war against the slave cities that remain in Essos. She will liberate Volantis and many other cities. She will go back to Slaver’s Bay and destroy the counter-revolutionary movement in Yunkai. She will reunite with Daario too, and things will happen between them, because I ship Dany and Daario, and also because I think Dany deserves to have some physical and emotional comfort before she reunites with Jon.

So with all that Dany is doing in Essos, news of Dany’s resurrection will reach Westeros, and they will greatly worry Bran, Tyrion and Sansa.

*And here’s another parenthesis, about the political situation in Westeros*

Tyrion is now theoretically Lord of Casterly Rock, but the Lannisters of Lannisport are opposing him (and unfortunately, ableism is a part of it). Tyrion has support from some of them, with whom he had a good relationship in the past, but not from most of them (and that fact the he killed Tywin is obviously another reason why many would oppose him). However, most of the Lannisport Lannisters start to die or disappear mysteriously - through suicide, through murder, or simply disappearing. This isn’t Tyrion’s doing, though. He doesn’t know why this is happening, but in the end, only his allies survived, and Tyrion starts to get a better hold on the Westerlands. (What is actually happening is that Bran has spies/ravens and is ordering the killing of those he views as opposition. He does this because he sees no other choice, because the situation in the Six Kingdoms is very chaotic)

In the Reach, Bronn is now lord, which is pissing off many lords (they think it’s an absurd that a sellsword was given Highgarden when many of the Reach families had better claims to it). He has the support of the Tarlys, because Sam’s family wants to support the new regime. But the region is in a chaos. Many lords are rebelling, the smallfolk are rebelling because Bronn is greedy and exploits them, and doesn’t give them justice (They aren’t necessarily hungry, because it’s the Reach. But Bronn is trying to indulge some lords to gain their alliance and be able to contend against the lords that are against him, so he let’s them do whatever they want with the smallfolk and offers the smallfolk no protection). Outlaw groups start to form to fight against Bronn and his allies, but he answers with brutality to those who oppose him or that try to ask him for anything better for the smallfolk. Bronn keeps his own sellsword army, that he rewards greatly to help him stop the smallfolk from claiming for more rights (and spending so much money on sellswords gains Bronn the enmities of some lords and smallfolk). Some of the Unsullied didn’t go to Naath (only Grey Worm’s closest friends went), and stayed in the Reach, and they help the outlaw groups.

The new prince of Dorne doesn’t have any allegiance to Bran. As soon as things calm down, he declares for Independence, given that King Bran gave independence to his own sister. He stops paying tributes, and Bran sends troops (composed of soldiers from the Crownlands, the Westerlands, Riverlands and the Stormlands) against them. The prince of Dorne answers, ready to fight for his independence. Bran brutally crushes his opposition.

Yara and the Ironborn want independence. Yara also resents the Starks for killing Dany, and also for making her brother die for them. She has taken back the Iron Islands from Euron in season 8, but now, without Dany’s support and the fear of dragons, some of the Ironborn don’t want a woman as their queen, and they want to go back to the old ways as Euron promised (while Yara, still loyal to Dany, has decided to uphold her ideals, decreeing that there should be no more raiding and raping). So the Iron Islands declare independence, but they are divided. Yara still has more support (since many of Euron’s supporters died in Dany’s attack to King’s Landing), but the few that don’t follow her start to raid the Riverlands, Westerlands and the North.

Edmure is a good lord, but the Riverlands have suffered greatly from the wars and the winter. When he tries to ask the Iron Throne for help to feed his people, the Iron Throne doesn’t send much. His niece Sansa is not going to help either (as she has her own concerns with food and can’t share), and Edmure starts go get disillusioned with the new regime and with his own family, who won’t help him, and who will also make his people fight in another war (against Dorne), while his people are being attacked by the Ironborn. And he doesn’t forget how Sansa humiliated him at the Dragonpit.

Gendry is loyal to the Starks, but only because he knew Arya and Jon. With both of them gone, his loyalty to King Bran is weak. He cares more about his own smallfolk. Gendry was a lowborn bastard after all, so he wants to do everything he can for them. But with time, he sees that the new regime is not interested in helping the smallfolk, just like they weren’t interested in listening to Sam’s idea of democracy. His loyalty also starts to waver. He also has problems with some lords from the Stormlands that don’t like that some bastard is now in charge, but it’s less than Bronn, since Gendry is indeed trying to be a good lord, and he is indeed Robert Baratheon’s son (he was recognized as such by Stannis Baratheon, and later by Daenerys Targaryen, so now it’s common knowledge).

The North also suffered with the War for the Dawn and the winter. Sansa is regarded as a competent lady by the Northern lords, but she has no love in the North. The Northern Lords kinda just got stuck with her. Sansa had stored grain in Winterfell to feed the castle and her armies, but that only means that the smallfolk in other parts of the North had to give up part of their harvest to send to Winterfell, and now, with the Winter, they are starving. To quell discontentment, Sansa tries bringing food from White Harbour, and Bran also sends her food. The fact that Bran is sending food to his sister for lower prices than usually done when trading with other foreign lands makes the lords of the Six Kingdoms angry. Bran stops sending so much food, so Sansa starts demanding more tributes from White Harbour. This angers Lord Manderly more and more, and Lord Manderly decides to demand for independence. Sansa had publicly complained many times about Dany being a tyrant for not giving her independence, so he uses the same argument Sansa used in the Dragonpit: White Harbour had suffered too much: they had sent their troops to fight the Night King alongside the Starks, but not only that, they had been the ones that most contributed to feeding the North. Because of this, he thinks he deserves independence, just like Sansa argued that she deserved independence from the Seven Kingdoms. He argues that what Sansa did created a precedent for independence, and that it would be tyranny if she refused to give it to him. Sansa is outraged, and sends her troops to make Lord Manderly bend the knee and force him to send food again.

The Vale will stay loyal to the Starks to the end, since they have mostly been left alone, and are not having as much problems with food (they weren’t very affected by wars, and their land is fertile). Nepotism also helps, because Bran won’t demand too much from his family. Edmure, also Bran’s family, was asking for help, but Tyrion advised that Lord Royce, the regent of the Vale and Sweetrobin’s advisor, was a proud man and their most loyal ally, and that angering him and making him send food to the Riverlands would be bad for them (Tyrion was wrong, as always).

By the way, winter isn’t over. Book speculation often said that the Others were the cause of the long winter, but in the show, we saw that there was snow in King’s Landing even after the White Walkers were defeated. So here, we’ll accept the fact that the seasons being long is just a normal thing for their world. After they kill Dany, Westeros goes through a few months of “false spring”, but winter returns stronger than ever after that. Crops die, hunger spreads through the land.

So basically, everything is chaos.

*end of the parenthesis about Westeros*

So with the chaos that is happening in Westeros, and the news of Dany’s return, Bran, Tyrion and Sansa start to get nervous. They pardon Jon, and Sansa sends men after Jon to bring him back from beyond the Wall, because she believes having Jon in Winterfell could serve as a shield in case Dany attacks (she thinks Dany might still love him, or that Jon might be able to negotiate with her. In a last case scenario, she could deliver Jon to Dany to make Dany leave her alone), and also, because she feels lonely, since her entire family left her.

Jon comes back to Winterfell. At some point, he overhears a conversation between Sansa and Maester Wolkan. Maester Wolkan was in the room when Sansa asked Bran to warg into Dany, and he knows the truth. Sansa sworn him to secrecy, but now, he comes to her with news of Dany’s resurrection, and asks Sansa if Dany would want revenge for Bran having warged into her. Sansa answers that she is not sure that Daenerys has memories or if she is aware that she was being warged, and if Daenerys doesn’t remember, she might not seek revenge.

So when Jon overhears this conversation, he learns that Daenerys was innocent, and that she is alive. He is horrified by what his family did, and also feels guilty for not believing in Daenerys, for having trusted his family and dismissed Dany’s fears, and so on. There’s a lot of angst. Jon then pretends he didn’t hear Sansa’s conversation, and pretends that everything is ok. He runs away from Winterfell in the middle of the night, without warning, with the intention of going to Dany.

From this moment on, I’m not really sure of what happens. I like the idea of Jon spending some time in the South, helping outlaw groups in the Reach, and learning about his brother’s tyranny. On the other hand, I don’t know how Jon could escape being seen by Bran’s ravens. So maybe Jon simply takes a ship and goes to Essos. But before he manages to take his ship, I still like to think that he talks with the smallfolk and hears what has been happening in Westeros (since he didn’t hear anything about it when he was exiled beyond the Wall).

Jon and Dany eventually reunite. Jon is brought to her in her war camp (because Dany is still at war with the slavers in Essos). While on the one hand Dany feels angry at Jon for killing her, for not supporting her and for giving up on her, on the other hand, she feels ashamed of what she did in King’s Landing and thinks she deserved to die (after all, Dany herself would have killed a person that burned innocents for no reason). So she accepts to meet Jon, but only with her guards around her, because while she still loves Jon, she is also afraid of him. Dany doesn’t have any intention of getting revenge against Jon, since she feels guilty about what she did. She is curious about what could possibly be the reason for Jon to look for her again, and thinks that he wants to kill her in the name of his family.

Jon is still very confused and tormented, and while a part of him believes that Dany is innocent, another part of him doesn’t want to believe that his siblings would have been capable of doing such an atrocity. So when he and Dany talk, he starts by asking her why she did what she did to King’s Landing. Dany answers that she doesn’t really know. That before she realized, she was doing it, like she couldn’t control herself. She tells Jon that her memories of King’s Landing almost don’t feel real, and that she is ashamed of what she did. This convinces Jon that Dany is indeed innocent, and he tells her the truth.

And this causes a lot of angst, of course. Initially, it makes Dany angry that he didn’t believe in her innocence and that he gave up on her so easily. She accuses him of having betrayed her, of having abandoned her. She also tells Jon that she was pregnant, and that because he killed her, he also killed their child (and this of course, makes Jon feel even more guilty). But with time, the anger passes, and she starts to see Jon as another victim of his family’s machinations (unlike Jon, who was hesitant in believing the worst of his siblings, Dany has a very low opinion of the Starks).

So Dany forgives Jon. They don’t return to their romantic relationship, but consider each other friends. And Jon starts to help her in her fight against slavery in Essos. This makes them content, since neither of them wants to ever return to Westeros. But unfortunately for them, news of Dany’s resurrection have started to reach more people, and lords from Westeros come to her to ask for her help in deposing Bran and the lords loyal to him. Listening to all the things that are happening in Westeros and how much the people are suffering only angers Dany. And it angers Jon as well. So they make plans to return to Westeros. Dany leaves a big part of her army of Unsullied and Dothraki in Essos, so that they could keep on with their fight against the masters. She returns to Westeros mostly with the army of their Westerosi allies (and her dragon, of course).

Dany has in mind a new political system, with a council of noblemen and a council of the smallfolk, so she negotiates with her allies with this in mind, making it clear that if they want to support her claim, they also have to support her reforms She has decided that she won’t hesitate to use force against the lords who don’t accept her reforms.

*another parenthesis*

Since I said I didn’t really have everything figured out, here are some alternatives to the things that I just described:

Maybe the reason Jon went back to Winterfell wasn’t because Sansa called him, but because when Jon was beyond the Wall, he saw that the White Walkers weren’t entirely gone. So maybe, what makes Dany return to Westeros isn’t that she wants revenge or because the lords are asking her to return, but because of the White Walkers. This would leave her conflicted, because the last time she tried to help those people she was betrayed and killed.

Or maybe Dany’s motivation to return to Westeros are just that she wants revenge. In this case, maybe she won’t even accept the alliance with the Lords, because she wants to change things for the common people. Or maybe she makes alliances with lesser lords promising them more political influence and that lesser lords would have as much sway as high lords in her new system (as well as smallfolk would also have more power).

*end of parenthesis*

Whatever Dany’s motivations for returning to Westeros are, she returns to Westeros, takes back the throne, and takes revenge. Dany is no longer the trusting soft person she was when she first went to Westeros. She comes with fire and blood, uses force when she needs to. Bran dies, because he is way too powerful for Dany to keep alive and trust that he won’t warg or spy on anyone again. As for Sansa and Tyrion, I could see different endgames: they could be exiled, imprisoned and kept as hostages, or Dany could kill them both for treason: Sansa because she revealed Jon’s parentage against Jon and Dany’s wishes, and also because of her part in the plan to make Bran warg into Dany; and Tyrion for telling what Sansa told him to Varys without Dany’s permission, which led Varys to try to poison Dany, and Dany could have died due to Tyrion’s actions; though I could see Dany being more lenient towards Tyrion than Sansa, since Sansa’s crimes are more grave. But I don’t see Dany ever accepting him as an advisor again.

Jonerys will reconcile and rule. There might be some conflict with Jon because he doesn’t want to see his family die (which is why there could be the possibility of keeping Sansa alive but as a prisoner), but in the end they get back together, marry and have children. Dany creates a new government in which both smallfolk and lords can have representatives and create laws, and she creates laws that limit the powers of the lords and stops them from abusing the smallfolk. She could also give some autonomy to each of the kingdoms: she doesn’t fully give them independence, but this greater autonomy helps quell the growing wishes for independence from each of the kingdoms.

So that’s my post season 8 headcanon. Dany was entirely innocent, the Starks were the villains, and Bran warged into Dany. Btw, if anyone wants to use this headcanon to actually write a fic, feel free to do so. Just please tell me because I’d love to read it.

[hoe-doroki]

ana reads bnha ch31

previous chapter here first chapter here next chapter here

🤣 I almost forgot that the first thing this boy says is something that only Todoroki would ever say. It’s his intelligence combined with his denseness combined with his life informing his whole worldview. Guysssss, this post is gonna be so looooong. I’m so excited! I’m panting. Okay, let’s go.

Once again, Ana squeals: My boy is so smart!! I like to think I’m smart, but, in this situation (between Midoriya’s rambling) I’m not sure I would have picked up on that. Shouto is so sharp. But then he doesn’t pursue it. He doesn’t try to squeeze the info out of Midoriya. Not because he doesn’t think he could—if I were Shouto, I would look at Midoriya and figure there was a way to get him to talk. He already gave a hint by accident. I just think he has confidence that he’ll be able to figure it out if he’s patient.

I wonder if he does, though? I mean, after their battle, Shouto stops caring about this...doesn’t he? I think he does. Which is interesting, right? He only cares right now because he sees it as a threat. But once he doesn’t care about the threat anymore, he only cares about Midoriya as a person. Not any of this All Might nonsense. Ugh, Todoroki <333

Of all time??????? Guys, that’s very different from being the current number two hero. Like, where is this GOAT ranking? I mean, we know that All Might is the greatest of all time. But, surely, someone from, 50, 100 years ago could be the second greatest of all time. But no, Shouto’s telling us that out of everyone who’s ever been a hero (in Japan) Endeavor is the number two guy. Wowza.

My question about Endeavor is always: what’s your awareness level, bro? Like, it’s evident here that he doesn’t think what he’s doing as a whole is wrong. But does he think that he’s messed up at all? Because, look, him saying, “You think I’d tell you anything?” That’s could easily be him just telling All Might to eff off, no further motive. But I also think that it’s a shame response. He knows some of his “success” with Shouto is fucked, stuff that he definitely wouldn’t share with All Might even if he didn’t kind of hate him. So he hides that shame under his prickly attitude, so he has no reason to talk. Or he’s just an ass, idk.

(Yeah, in the dub he says: “Are you implying something?” Fishy indeed.)

That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? Why is Shouto telling Midoriya this? @a-bnha-shoutorealm​ and I have talked our faces blue trying to figure out exactly this.

Obviously it’s triggered by the fact that he used his left side without thinking. And because he as the initial questions about All Might. And then he starts off this conversation by trash talking Endeavor which, at some point between his mother being put away and now, he has become comfortable with without fear of retribution (something Kim and I have also talked about ad nauseam).

But in two pages, he goes from this, to telling the story of his scar. Which I don’t think he’s ever told anyone before. Shouto doesn’t strike me as the type to need to keep things secret (judging by how he’s willing to blab off about Endeavor--while Endeavor’s there!--to the little kids during his and Bakugou’s remedial provisional license class). I think he’s just never had anyone he would consider talking to before. He’s been totally isolated by Endeavor--I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he’s been homeschooled, actually--and clearly doesn’t have any friends. Not that he sees Midoriya as a friend yet, but he is the only person he sees as a near equal.

The most likely solution I can come up with is that he feel like he needs someone to understand, so that he can justify why he’s not using his left side. That he felt like Midoriya was judging him and he wanted to explain his motivations to the only person he thinks is worthy of knowing. Of defending himself to. Shouto’s not the sort to just get carried away, so I think it must be something more like this. Something he feels compelled to do.

Wow, it’s so interesting seeing this juxtaposed against everyone else getting to be normal teenagers, have normal childhoods. Goddd, it breaks my heart, Shouto! We’re seeing Mineta and Kaminari talk about going after some cheerleaders—of course Mineta needs to make an appearance in my blessed chapter about Shouto—while Shouto’s talking about the quirk marriages. I wonder if it’s supposed to juxtapose any more than those two things, though. Is it also showing that Shouto doesn’t take part in those activities? That he has difficulty believing in love and romance due to the sham quirk marriage of his parents’?

And look how heavily drawn his speech bubbles are now? What exactly is that meant to represent? Is it an audio cue about what his voice might sound like or is it just to represent that what he’s talking about is dark and heavy or is it for drama? Him getting carried away as he tells more and more personal details? I don’t read enough manga to know 🤣

Separately, here we also get a hint that Todoroki’s mother isn’t in the picture. “As I remember…”

Okay, this we need to talk about, because that’s the other question people have. Why is Bakugou eavesdropping? To me, it’s always been pretty simple. We have the two people in the class Bakugou cares the most about. The strongest guy in the class—who just won the thing Bakugou was supposed to win—and the pebble in his shoe who’s growing larger and larger every day. He must have seen the two of them split off and, legit, I think he has FOMO. Like, if these two are doing something, he has to know about it. I think a part of him fears they’re laughing about him. Assumes they’re teaming up against him. He’s definitely assuming it’s going to be something about him or that interests him.

He doesn’t expect this.

He knows he shouldn’t have stayed once Shouto starts getting really personal. Bakugou might suck at human interaction, but that’s voluntary. He knows what he’s “doing wrong” socially—he just doesn’t give a crap. It’s a combination of preferring to be the way he is and being too deep down the rabbit hole of  assholery to know the way back. He’s frozen here. Shouto’s story is captivating—so painful you can’t not listen to it. That close-up face of his. That’s someone whose world has been rocked. I remember the first times I became aware of real abuse, times when I realized just how bad things could be for people and it shakes your worldview, freezes you as you struggle to comprehend. Bakugou thought he knew what families were like, since his mom is rougher with him. He didn’t know that something like this could happen to a person via their parent’s hand. I think this is one of the only times he purely feels bad about what he’s doing, what he’s done. But the horror of Shouto’s story has him stuck, unable to walk away.

“Sorry for wasting your time.” What is that?

Does he realize that he said a bit more than he was really intending to? That he troubled someone else with his personal life when he doesn’t want anything done about it? Or is this because he realized that Midoriya isn’t going to say anything about All Might and because of that the conversation was a waste of time.

You know what, knowing our dense little Shouto, I bet it’s that last one.

And if Bakugou’s shaken, then Midoriya is only more so. God, I’m 9 years older than Midoriya and if someone told me something like this out of the blue today, I’d be panicking. This is a delicate situation. He’s just become aware of serious abuse, and someone has confided in him their deepest traumas regarding that. What the hell do you say not to make it worse?

I think he handles it as best he can. Really, I think what he says here is just about the best thing he could have. Because Todoroki is not in a place mentally to accept help. Not even close. But even just sharing his story, that he accepts help from others, is vital. This introduces the idea to Todoroki that he can get help. That working with others is okay. It hasn’t penetrated yet, but it’s the seed planted.

Overall: 1.7K. Over 3 pages. Sorry, all.

Well, guys, this is the peak for me (until Shoto Todoroki: Origin!!!!). I know it’s not the scene with the most action or plot, but I live for character backstory and boys having sensitive moments. This scene in the anime is what made me start to fall in love with Todoroki and the show as a whole. It took me weeks to get to the end of season four after this episode. All the ones before this? Six months.

Todoroki’s story is harrowing, yes. At the same time, we’re getting more worldbuilding. So far, our image of heroes is All Might and the U.A. faculty. We haven’t yet seen any hero that’s corrupt or abusive. But suddenly we meet Endeavor, both through Todoroki, and a couple interactions with All Might. We learn a little bit more about how quirks have affected society and changed since their first appeared. This chapter isn’t one dimensionsal.

And we get our first panels of our main three. I think maybe part of the thing is that Midoriya’s world thus far has been loud, fast, intense. But this chapter is quiet. Nothing but Todoroki’s low, quiet voice. You could hear a pin drop. Barely a movement. Even Bakugou is still. It’s such a change of pace. And when you’re barely expecting it—it hits hard.

Also, every time I double check to see if something in the manga happened in the anime, it always did 😅 My memory may be fallible, but that adaptation sure isn’t! (joke, please don’t come at me)

If anyone has anything to add, obviously I’m dying to talk about it.

[fizzypunks]

Bad Timing

fandom: My Hero Academia/ Boku No Hero Academia word count: 5k rating: T (cannon description of violence) summary: Shouta has to handle the aftermath of the Nomu attack, and Hizashi has very bad (or good) timing

ship: earsermic

AO3

note: best viewed on Archive bc it keeps the formatting like itallics!

___

The day was finally at its end – the sun set in slats across the teachers lounge, and it was 3:55, when most people were leaving or gathering their lives up in a rush to get home. They’d all already left, urgently trying to beat traffic and make their way to whatever Friday plans they had in store.

 Aizawa didn’t have Friday plans – instead of unceremoniously rushing to get home for the weekend, or go drinking to relieve stress, he was instead sitting on the couch. He didn’t have lessons or binders around him, having freed one hand to take out his phone and flip through his lessons that Hizashi kindly spent the time uploading for him.

 The screen was bright and blaring and bled color into color into color – it was hard to look at for too long, but it was the only compromise he could make with his body when it came to improvised lesson plans. He’d type it up, with his one hand, a letter at a time, while his body healed enough for him to do better.

  This is what it is, no use complaining. Just get it done.

 The ache in his eyes he could deal with – he’d be disappointed in himself if he wasn’t used to it at his age, and he’d made peace with the eye strain and pain and dryness and anything else that was unpleasant about his quirk. His body, however, was a new story. It ached in a way he never experienced in his life, deep to the bone and then, maybe, even deeper – not a movement existed that didn’t somehow remind him of his body, his mortality, and it’s still a wonder he even survived.

 He stopped asking questions like  how  a long time ago, though, and he didn’t dare start now. All it did was drive him into crazy circles of  what ifs , dead ending in worse case scenarios that were a half inch away from coming to be…

 This new burn, this new hurt – it conjured with it the same image – or maybe it was muscle memory – of painful blood splatter in his eyesight. With it came a reel of other horrifics images and feelings and sensations that might have been if… 

  It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant...

 When he told his class that it didn’t matter that he was teaching, he meant it. It wasn’t what he wanted, but since when did he ever get what he wanted? It’s hero work, and educational duties don’t take a break just because he  broke  ; they never permitted a break because he  wanted  and  wished.  

 He broke. Plain, simple – no explanation necessary. That’s a world he’s unfortunate enough to live in, so he grits his teeth and bears it.

It’s all Shouta can do. Bear it, heal as best he can, move on – think about it less and less until it’s just another frame on the wall of memories that like to bug him at night, those few rare ones that let him rest and dream.

  Bear it. It didn’t kill you, so bear it.

 Still, in the middle of the day, after teaching and improvising and making himself stand upright like he didn’t want to bury himself in sheets, it was a  weird  sensation. Living through something that almost took his life in the most violent, frightening way possible, all for his kids. He didn’t think this time around, with the mending and the processing and the eventual moving on, would feel so…

 Off? Like a buzz on his skin, like time was shifted just a second ahead and he was playing catch up. He didn’t know the right words, couldn’t even explain to himself the things that he was feeling. He finally settled calling it  weird.  Whatever that meant.

 He’d dealt with trauma before, too – but this breed of unease was new, even to him and his seasoned career.

 The room was silent, but it felt louder than ever, and his screen had timed out when he realized he’d been staring dryly into it without doing anything.

 He refreshed the screen with his thumb, lights bright and vivid again like a train at the end of a tunnel.

 He’s stopped regretting his choices, he’s stopped wallowing because after two or three close calls with death, it gets a bit old – but god does he want to wallow  now . Now that his body was broken and every movement felt like shattered glass in a windshield, disturbed with every movement but, at least, mercilessly, held together by…

  What?

 Sheer force of will – he was certain that’s what it was. It wasn’t desire or hope, it wasn’t any positive or cheerful motto – he had time for those later, for now…

 He groaned, the weight of his eyes and body finally coaxing a response from him that wasn’t dead. Responses that were complete opposites from that which he always told his peers when they stopped him in the halls or at the end of lectures.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “It doesn’t matter, now if you wouldn’t mind, I have a class to teach.”

 It’s placating, it’s time-buying – other heroes know the drill, so they don’t argue with him too much – they just insist, and hope, that he listens enough to at least  rest . He always wanted to sleep, right? He had that stupid sleep disorder that always begs for him to rest his head for just a moment, so why not indulge it now?

 He blinked against it – he really did need to sleep, but the screen in his shaking fingers showed that he had plans to finalize, and a fresh round of essay to grade that  needed  to be graded by the next day.

  So  much was behind as is – the last essay, the last score for ethics lecture to be dealt out, a new plan for the upcoming week that adjusts for his kids and the stress they just underwent – no, hero work doesn’t forgive very much, and Aizawa would never tell them that he was giving them a break, but he was going to do exactly that and take off a few quizzes to lighten the load…

 Shouta leaned back against the sofa, and it wasn’t too soft and without structure, that it actually  did  do some good for him. He tilted his head back, too, and felt brief relief in the way his head didn’t feel like lobbing off like a hammer to the side of a statue’s temple.

 He sighed, and leaned into it, the slightest bit of relief he was able to find.

 The one think he was grateful for was that today was better than the beginning of the week. He had a long way to go, but thankfully some of the bandages could be taken off yesterday and today was his first day of being able to fully see – his face was freed, his shoulders lightened and only wrapped with a few white wraps – but it was still a struggle with his arms, his hands – the most damaged parts of his body that were trudging along…

  This is unbearable .

 But he will bear it. 

 But, right now, he will not bear it well. Like he broke under the hand of the Nomu, he was breaking again now and nothing was capable of stopping that.

 He took in a deep breath, and held it just because it felt good to feel so full. He held it and waited.

  This is going to be interesting.

 His breath was waning, it’s time slowly slipping by, expiring.

  This is going to hurt.

 His lungs were wrapped around empty air.

  Bad .

 He still didn’t let go, even when it ached. He didn’t know if he wanted to, but the red-blackness of his eyelids and the sting in him was a comfortable pain he knew he could release, if he wanted.

 Then, finally, he did want, and he let go, shoulders slumping with a harsh exhale.

 He opened his eyes to a slit, and saw the sun spots on the ceiling had grown longer. Golden, mingling, patient – he’d stared at them so many times before, grown bored of them between grading and impatience, but now they were a comfort.

 Familiar monotony and boredom. It seems that being bored was not always a bad thing, after all.

 Early in his career, this might have killed his spirit. His spirit, however, was put back together so many times, and damaged so cruelly and spitefully, that he at least felt some sort of partial happiness knowing it wasn’t possible to batter his spirit any more. It was impossible.

 It’s reached its limit years ago, what’s a new bruise on top of the rest?

 A sound like shuffling, quiet but distinct, came from behind him – clothes rustling, a distinct stiff sound, all quietly entering from behind; and it was intentional movement, Shouta knew.

 His instincts never dulled, even under mountains of bandages. “Hizashi. What are you still doing here?”

 His laugh – the one he would never admit to loving so deeply– was soft behind him, closer this time. “Gee, how’d ya know it was  me ?”

 Shouta wished he could shrug, and instead returned his eyes back to their resting state and closed them lightly. “ Gee  , how’d you learn to be quiet? Or, at least,  try  to be.”

 Soft brushing, padding of feet, the ridiculous squeak of leather – Hizashi walked around the couch and when Shouta felt the dip in the seat beside him, a little too close to him, he chuckled. “It’s hard to be, man – you know I’m stuck with my costume! On the clock, I’m Present Mic!”

 “I was talking about your mouth, but sure – that too.”

 Another laugh came, and it was just as warm and full and bright. Shouta guarded his expression at the sound, because it was too pleasant and he hurt too much to not indulge the pleasant things whenever they  did come. 

 But Mic isn’t Hizashi, and he’s more quiet now, between the two of them. Like he was in hours after sparring through out their friendships and careers, like lazy drawls in the morning when they passed each other, one waking up and one going to bed after a patrol. Quiet and in tune, in a way so few really understood.

 That was the part of Hizashi that no one really gets to see – the way he knew silence and patience that would put his hero and radio personality at odds if the public really got to see it. He was calm and reserved and knew which silences and calms to lean into, which ones to sit with, which ones were the  important  ones...

 He knew it right now, which was why he wasn’t on the limits of his own energy, like a battery fed into itself – a never ending feed that could go forever, Shouta thought time and time again. And his comfort in his quirk made it all too easy to emote and exaggerate and be  too  much for Shouta at times.

 Fragile times, like when his mind was barely glued to the body that was just as fractured and splintering around the edges as his spirit.

 “My, you think so lowly of me, Shouta.”

 “Just being logical. You’re louder more often than not, after all,” he said, and they both knew it was a joking lie. It’s the closest Shouta gets to a joke, anyways.

 The silence returned, and Shouta felt the burning questions in the warm body beside him – too close and yet, not really close enough – within arms length, but not within arms...

 But Hizashi is never one for mincing words or running from questions. “How you doing, Shou?”

 Shouta grunted. “Fine.”

 “No, no, no, no – I’ve heard you say that all week and, well, it’s crazy to think you’d be okay! I want to know  how you’re doing. ”

 “Hizashi, do me a favor. Be polite and just take the answer.”

 “No,” and the response was so fast, and sounded so bratty, Shouta was tempted to open his eyes and tilt his head to the right – to see if he was as close as he thought he was, if his hair was falling, if he’d taken off his orange tints and was looking at him with those stupid pup eyes.

 He didn’t, though.

 “What do you want me to say?” He finally said, quietly – maybe Hizashi wouldn’t hear him if he spoke quietly enough. “Obviously, I’m not fine.”

 “I know that, and –”

 “And it doesn’t matter. So, with that in mind,” and he did open his eyes this time – they stung fresh again, and he blinked, and he turned his head just slightly enough to change his eyes' direction. They stayed fixed in the ceiling, on the honey the sun was spilling, and he said, “I’m fine.”

 “Come on, Shou... “

 “It’s just…”

 Hizashi sighed. “Could you… at least  try  to take time off or stop studies or  something ? I can’t stand – “ and here he goes, he was too emotional –

  So annoying.

 His voice always shook when he was sad, when he was pretending like he wasn’t going to cry.

  So sweet.

 “ – I can’t stand  this. ”

  You and me both.

 It never really did any good to cut off Hizashi, and Shouta hates doing it any way. So he didn’t even attempt it. He knew he needed to say what he was saying, to be heard and unburden himself of the fears living in him. He didn’t really have the chance before, and it wasn’t fair to take it from him now. Shouta didn’t have the energy to deny him any of that, anyway, so his eyes shifted to the crease in the ceiling, the border between it and the wall, and just listened.

 “Shouta, you were almost killed – it’s… it’s so bad, this time – I’ve patched you up so many times and there wasn’t anything I could have ever done about  this , and I want you to stop trying to ignore it. You don’t have to be a hero all the time.”

 Shouta couldn’t help the scoff, and it stopped Hizashi for just a moment.  “Of course I do.”

 He was so bitter, he could taste it like the lingering flavor of cold coffee.

 “You literally don’t –”

 “Hizashi… I don’t have the energy for this.”

 “That’s my  point , Shouta! You can’t –”

 “Can’t do my job? Give me a better argument next time, Hizashi.”

 For whatever reason, that was enough to shut him up. Shouta didn’t want to, but his headache was too strong and his friend’s concern was too soft and he was just a broken vase – hairline cracks that got too big too fast and now shattered at the foundation – unable to hold onto any of it let any of it fill him, so why even try to touch it?

 Hizashi does a lot of things loudly, even when he tries not to – it’s a side effect of being the Voice Hero, a natural course of events that would, rationally, lead him to be a vocal and expressive person. He’s sniffling and trying to stop it, trying to reel himself in, and Shouta sighs again, because the Voice Hero shouldn’t be trying to reel himself in at all.

 This isn’t what he wanted.

 He truthfully didn’t want to be in this position at all, but he’d remembered that he never wanted to spend his time  wishing  , so he didn’t wish – he couldn’t  fix  that, or the way Hizashi was hurting for him. But, he could fix…

 Whatever this was.

 “Hizashi.”

 The sniffling stopped for a second, enough for it to be masked in a, “... what, Shouta?”

 “Thank you.”

 “Hmmph.”

  Pouting?

 “Don’t  do that.”

 “Hmmph!”

 Pure annoyance drove him to open his eyes, and tilt his head, and level his eyes against his best friend because pouting was so fucking stupid. His eyes widened, though, when he finally met Hizashi’s gaze for the first time that day.

 The first thing was that he wasn’t fully in his costume. His speakers were missing, and his hair was fallen to his shoulders in gell-stiff half-mast, finally succumbing to gravity in a way Shouta was certain was due to a hair brush and messily tucked into a hair tie. His tinted glasses were gone, leaving nothing between their eyes as they locked.

  He’d hung up his hero costume for the day, and maybe it made sense that he wasn’t talking like Present Mic any more – not as loud, not as joking, just intentions and and heart.

 He was half way between the two – between persona and  him,  and he looked so soft…

 But his eyes, his eyes that stare so deeply and knew Shouta so intimately over the years their lives had been intertwined – they were wet and silently overflowing, and Shouta was certain the embarrassment of crying was what was so freely tinting his cheeks. It was a brush of pink over pale, high cheekbones, under crescent eyes that leaked streaks down to his jaw, his chin.

 He, however, still had the mind to pout – not that Shouta had anything to say, not with the sudden, brand new pain of his heart aching at seeing his friend like this.

 Shouta’s eyes softened, his annoyance gone like dye down a river.

 Hizashi, however, wasn’t a coward, and held his gaze because he wanted Shouta to know what he was doing to him. 

 And all in the glowing sunlight…

  Stop...

 “Hizashi…”

 “Don’t you dare! Don’t try to stop me or tell me I’m wrong or that I’m crying too much or  whatever .”

 “I wouldn’t dare,” he said, because he had the mind to say something and that was the brilliant thing he thought of. His shame was hot and fast and his eyes shifted to the side, just off from Hizashi in the best possible way he could manage to face the other. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

 “Well, congrats, because I feel bad.”

 Shouta knitted his brow in anger. “You’re an idiot.”

  Don’t make me feel worse.

 “What th–”

  You always make me feel worse.

 “If you’re spending all your tears on me, then yeah. You are.”

  Because you’re so good.

 Hizashi was crying and clearly upset – anyone could see that – and yet he still decided to furrow his eyebrows and look confused and stupefied all at once. “ Wind it back a few seconds for me, Shou.”

 Shouta raised an eyebrow.

 “Say that again,” he prompted, shifting to face Shouta even more completely. He leaned forward on his knees, on his elbows as he wiped away the tears.

 “I said you’re an idiot.”

 “You’re my best friend.”

  Friend .

 “And?”

 “Not even  you  believe yourself, do you? I’ve seen you cry for me, too.”

 Shouta turned his eyes down. That’s  different  . That’s more than he can ever really explain, and what’s even more, it’s more than he wants to explain. Those words turn into sentences that turn into feelings that  can’t  be taken back, and he’ll never make the mistake of falling down that slope. So he looked away, anything to feel less guilty and like shit, and shook his head.

 Maybe some honesty wouldn’t hurt. “What would you have me do, then? I don’t have options.”

 Hizashi saw him dodge the question, the scenario he’d painted – he scooted closer and Shouta felt too alive with envy, wishing there were no barriers, be them white casts and mental blocks, that kept him from bridging the last of that tiny gap. 

 “I’d have you sleep. I’d have you stay home. I’d have you trust that the faculty, your peers, your  friends , could handle you being out for a bit.”

  The logic is there…

 Still… “No, I need to stay here. My students are back, and I owe them –”

 “It would be a week. You’d have your casts off in a  week –”

 “Who told you that? If Recovery Girl –”

 “It’s common knowledge, Shou, I just  guessed  . But that’s not the point – the point is that I’m  right .”

 Where does this conversation end? He doesn’t want to say it, he doesn’t want to open himself up again, and he doesn’t want Hizashi to be crying like this. Crying, because of him.

 He sighs again. “It’s…”

 He clears his throat again. “It’s easier this way. For me.”

 Hizashi had already been close, but now he was right beside him, the knee he was folded over now just against his leg. Personal space had never really been a thing for him, and now proved to be no different. His big watery eyes stayed trained on his calculated, intentionally flat ones.

 He’s also always been good at picking apart his words to find the realities beneath them. “Distractions, right?”

 Shouta didn’t want to admit to it, but he nodded anyway, eyes falling until they settled on Hizashi’s clavicle. His exposed, open clavicle, and he yearns even more to be able to be closer than this. Take comfort in closeness that was 16 years in the making, but never really actualized. Never, really, fully  realized , either...

 “Yeah… distractions.”

 “Say, if I wanted to come over and make dinner and show you baby animal photos, would you let me?”

 Shouta blinked, and Hizashi smiled – he looked too pretty, glowing from his tears, and Shouta hates thinking that.

 “Don–”

 “They’re baby  foxes .”

 Shouta looked down, and grew pink – it’s pathetic how easily he could be bought, and he wasn’t ever really going to say no to time with his best friend. Even now, he’s always finding himself saying  yes  to the colorful, often too-loud man.

 Hizashi seemed to realize that he’d won, the way his eyebrows stopped dipping, stopped taking such a sad shape. “At least let me do this, Shou – if you’re gonna bring your mummy self into school and yell at kids and threaten expulsion, then let me make stir fry and udon for you.”

 Shouta smiled, small, hesitant, but not quite of his own intention; finally breaking – in a different way than he’s used to. “Fine. Just to be clear, it’s only because I want food.”

 “ Suuure , that’s the reason.”

 And before he could say anything back, Hizashi did that thing that makes his heart weak – the thing he always does when he’s leaning in like this, and it’s too emotional for his own comfort zone, and things are charged with a restless, aching energy. He reached out his left hand and rested it over Shouta’s open one. His phone was already falling from his bruised fingers, so he pushed it down to his lap and held onto the half of his hand that was exposed.

 He wants to ask why he does it sometimes, but doesn’t think that now is the time to ask it. Time, place, his broken body, everything was wrong – so he just let himself enjoy the affection, while he can bask in it with legitimate cause.

 Then Hizashi had to ruin it. He grinned, a little too proud. “Nervous?”

 Shouta tensed, and his body yelled at the pressure in his arms, in his torso. “Excuse me?”

 Hizashi laughed a bit, and he was a little flush – from the crying. “You’re a  biiiiiit pink. Like, blushing. Like, actually, you’re very –”

 “Shut up.”

 “You act like any teensy-tiny bit of affection is like poison, Shou – it’s  okay  if you–”

 “I take it back, actually, you can’t come over.”

 “Awwww, come on, I just –”

 “I mean it, I’ll order from the corner market.”

 “Now that you told me how you’ve been feeding yourself, I’m  definitely  coming over. God, I swear, you should know how to take care of yourself by now, it’s like you hate trying to –”

 “Hizashi –”

 He stood, really fast, smiling dumb and bright as he stood infront of Shouta. “Now come on! Up! Let’s go to your apartment!”

 He offered a hand, but Shouta shook his head. “I can get up fine –”

 Hizashi leaned forward, and it was an awkward placement, the way he was balanced, but he took the phone from his lap and tucked it into his pocket before his hand rested just on the side of Shouta’s shoulder. He urged with his eyes as much as with the slight tug at his waist. “Come on!”

 Shouta looked down and nodded, a feeling of warmth overcoming him yet again. He heard moreso than saw Hizashi smile, felt him beaming at him at letting him help him up, and then the hand on his shoulder shifted, to the spot of his ribs just above the bandaging.

 “Can I pull here?”

 “Yeah…”

 And he did and it really fucking hurt, little splinters under his skin all over again. He pulled air sharply between his teeth, and let Hizashi hook his elbow around him to stop the recoil.

 “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

 “It’s –” Deep breath, relax eyes –  bear it . “It’s fine.”

 It’s not fine, but it’s bearable, so he releases some of the tension he know is sewn into his arms. He opens his eyes, and Hizashi is so close it’s almost startling. His arm still was around him, under his arm, like a brace. Warm, pleasant pressure, pleasant heat...

 “I’m fine,” he breathes again, because for once, Hizashi doesn’t have anything to say. He just stares.

 “Hey… um…”

 “Hizashi…?”

 When Hizashi spoke it was quiet, in a way that betrayed his confident words. “Shou… this is not good timing, but…”

 This time it was Shouta’s turn for his voice to stop working, and he didn’t have anything to say – all too aware of the soft sound of breathing between them, the way his eyes were overwhelming like never before. 

 He had nothing to counter him or force him back or make him leave. He just waited, eyes at half mast because that was the only way he could handle Hizashi looking at him like  that . Like he always did, with care and adoration, and it just made him sick.

 “I almost lost you, and I don’t want to regret not kissing you any more… for years, Shouta,  years .”

 Shouta deserved a medal for surviving the whiplash of their conversation, from the joking to the serious to the trivial to the  important…  he couldn’t move much, but he wasn’t sure if that was his body or his anxious nerves speaking, so he just looked down at his lips.

 “Tell me it’s okay,” Hizashi said, close but far enough for comfort. Far enough for  respect  , for hurting and aching Shouta to say yes or no and only then either bridge the gap or depart. His hand was delicate on his side and his finger tips were light, brushing,  too much. “Tell me if you want…”

 The timing was so awful – Shouta just wanted to move, to take him in right there, to stop him from talking and pull him into himself so harshly and violently that they might become one. Close was never close enough…

 “I…”

 Hizashi’s free hand came up to his cheek, holding him there gently. His thumb brushed under his scar, over the hot skin that he was certain was an embarrassing shade of pink…

  Don’t fuck with me.

 “Tell me, Shou…”

 He was wiping away a tear, and Shou crumbled at the touch. “Y– yes.”

 A sharp breath, then again, louder, stronger, “ Yes. Yes, Hizashi–”

 Hizashi wasted no time, and pressed himself closer, and Shouta wasn’t surprised to taste salt on his lips because he’d spent too much time crying, too. 

 “I’m – not going to change –” Shouta said between breath and kiss, shaking from the anger of just wanting to  hold Hizashi and being un able to. “I’m – still a hero – I’m still –”

 – Kiss –

 “ –  still going to work, and – get hurt – and –”

 Hizashi retreated, lips hovering for just a moment. “I know, I know –”

 Shouta’s breath is heavy, laden with desires and 15 year old feelings and guilt, and doesn’t know where this is supposed to go. He’ll hurt Hizashi like this, he just knows he will – is it wise to let him do this, knowing what, inevitably, is going to happen. He huffs out his nose, trying to find a way to be delicate.

 He’s  never  known how to be delicate, and he just wishes that right now, he could somehow discover the secrets to not breaking his friend’s hearts. “I’m – is this a good idea?”

 “Of course –”

 “No, I mean it – is it  rational , when I’m just – just –”

 Hizashi’s hands are at work again, one holding him up, one wiping away tears from a scar. 

 “I’ll hurt you – I’ll hurt you and it’s inevitable and I can’t –”

 “ Shouta ,” and his voice was loud, and commanding, and energized – his quirk at its lowest state. 

 It worked though – Shouta had no idea how worked up he’d become, how his weaknesses were seeping through like never before; he was broken in so many ways right now and they were all on display, so humiliatingly on display, that he couldn’t even keep himself calm.

 Hizashi kissed him again, slower this time because he, shockingly, knew how to slow down. How to be rational when others weren’t. 

 His lips moved to the side of his mouth, then to his cheek, to his ear – “How long, Shouta?”

 “What – do you mean?”

 “It’s been fifteen years for me… fifteen years. I was in school looking at you. I was at graduation, looking at you. I shared our first apartment, and was looking at you. I’ve been teaching – and I’ve been looking at you…”

  How romantic…

 “How long has it been?” He said.

 It was too good to be true. It was too sad to be true. They’d put this off for so long, and it took a violent, bloody incident to bring Hizashi to him like this. He’d had his chances too, but he’d always shied away from them because it wasn’t fair.

 He’d die a hero one day, and Hizashi didn’t deserve  that .

 Shouta leaned into the feeling of Hizashi’s lips against his cheek, his ear, and told him what he’d never spoken out loud before. “I… fifteen years. Fifteen years, Hizashi…”

 “ God,”  and he’s crying now. 

 Shouta doesn’t want to admit to the few stray tears decorating his eyelashes like spiders on webs, so he doesn’t – he just leans into the soft, awkward embrace from his best friend, and lets him cry because they’ve both been idiots.

 The sunlight was long against the walls, and the halls of U.A were quiet, and Shouta, for all the breaking he’s done, has finally found a way to put some of the pieces back together.

[detroitwhatitmeanstobehuman]

Chapter 19 - Mischief and Mayhem

Part 2/10 of In The Meantime

Word Count: 15,445

Warnings: Swearing, discussion of trauma, sexual content.

Genre: Self-insert/Smut/Hurt/Comfort

Pairing: OC (Detective Rachel) X Connor

Rating: Explicit

Summary: In an effort to quell Connor’s misgivings and anxieties, Rachel arranged something of a fun get-together with Hank and Markus and his companions. The goal? Achieve catharsis in whatever way that would be enjoyable. And some of those ways are rather destructive, but Connor finds it all strangely enjoyable and freeing.

What It Means To Be Human | Previous Chapter

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

Date: November 14th, 2038  Time: 2:45 PM Rachel - Lover Hank - Friend Markus - Friend North - Friend Josh - Friend Jericho - Allied Objective: Have fun

“Oh, come on! Now you’re just showing off!” Rachel exclaimed angrily while she was still sitting on the slick kitchen floor.

Connor couldn’t stifle the perverse glee of the motion of twirling and flipping each pan in his hands expertly as he juggled them. There was something about the weight and balance of them that felt incredibly satisfying to him. 

The day had progressed as enjoyably as it began, and Connor felt privileged to be able to see the lengths of Rachel’s silliness. As they lingered in the dining room, Rachel suddenly appeared from the kitchen with a pair of floor scrubbers on her feet and a mop in hand, proclaiming herself a mighty warrior and demanding a challenger, of which Markus was the first to accept. This, of course, led to a “battle” of epic proportions, with Rachel fending off the androids, each of them using a mop as though it were a sword.

Hank and Josh decided to stay out and spectate, Hank cheering for Rachel while Josh cheered for the androids. But with Rachel being outnumbered three to one, she was felled easily by Markus and crumpled onto the ground dramatically, pretending to die in an over-the-top fashion as though she were in a Shakespearean tragedy. 

Looking down at Rachel with a giddy smirk, Connor slid over to her in his floor scrubbers. “I have no clue what you mean, Detective.” He teased. “I’m simply making sure I don’t drop any of these pans.”

Rachel scoffed at him with an eyeroll, laughing mostly to herself. “Wiseass.”

“Takes one to know one, Detective.” Connor retorted playfully.

Rachel shook her head, slowly getting up back onto her feet unsteadily. “I’m starting to think that maybe Hank and I are a bad influence on you, Connor.”

“Speak for yourself, Rachel.” Hank responded, standing in the doorway with Josh not willing to risk potentially injuring himself, which was a relief for Connor. “I’m thoroughly enjoying seeing this side of him.”

Hank - Friend ^ There it was. That unrestrained praise that Connor was realizing more and more he had never gotten before from Amanda. To think that he worked so hard for her approval before.

But he doesn’t have to, anymore. He has people worth working hard for. People whose approval actually meant something to Connor.

North slid past Connor, side-eyeing him. “If you think that’s impressive, watch this.” She said to Rachel before sliding her hands into her jacket pocket and pulling out what looked like a set of throwing knives. 

North then started juggling them as expertly as Connor was juggling pans. He couldn’t help but be impressed by her sheer finesse and dexterity. To think that she was a mere sex android before the revolution was a thought that was easy to forget. You’d barely know if you’d met her now. But that only made North that much more intriguing. Her deadliness wasn’t programmed, but learned. It was practiced.

And this was a fact that clearly hadn’t escaped Rachel as she stared at North’s hands, her dark brown eyes wide with wonder as her hands started tentatively flapping with joy. “You can throw knives?” Rachel asked, and excited giddiness sprinkled in her higher-pitched voice. “Like, at people? With accuracy?”

North raised a curious eyebrow at her without stopping her little show. “Yeah.” She replied flatly. “And I can catch them if anyone throws any at me.” She then narrowed her brown eyes at Rachel. “Why?”

The shorter woman’s eyes darted back and forth before they widened in realization. “I just came up with a great idea!”

“Uh-oh.” Josh said preemptively, bumping Hank with his elbow with a smile.

“No no! It’ll be fun!” Rachel reassured them, sliding towards the door to the main hall. “And we can all take part in it! Without risk of injury.”

“Oh good!” Hank said, stretching his back with a crack. “I was starting to worry I was gonna get left out at the end, there.”

Markus then kicked off his scrubbers and tossed aside his sweeper as he followed Rachel outside. Connor did the same, putting his pans back on the counter before following them. “So what’s your idea, then?” The deviant leader asked her.

As they all walked out into the main hall, which was now covered in debris from the various objects and furniture the group ended up destroying. Rachel side-stepped around it, Hank and Josh rounding around the other side from the dining room to meet up where Rachel was going. “Well, I saw that there was a dart board in the game room.” She began explaining, Markus, Connor, and North all following her. “And when North started juggling her knives, I got a brilliant idea.” She then turned to the red-haired android with a smirk. “How many of those bad boys you’ve got in there?”

North returned her smirk as she pulled out five from each pocket. “Enough to keep busy.”

“Ooooooh!” Rachel exclaimed as she stared at them. “Perfect! So we’ll definitely have enough!”

As they all entered the game room, Rachel located the dart board and gestured towards it dramatically with her hand. Connor was curious as to what she was going to suggest next. It filled him with intrigue. 

Connor thought he knew Rachel pretty well after the week-long revolution they’ve gone through, but even now, she still continued to surprise him. It wasn’t difficult to see how she had managed to thread herself in Connor’s circuits. She was endlessly charming and endearing. Indeed, she never failed to be a creature of character and Connor never ceased to be further enthralled by her. And what captivated Connor most was her sheer enthusiasm and passion.

And all of it was genuine. There was nothing that Connor could call fabricated or dishonest about Rachel. In everything she did, everything she was, and everything she believed in, she was completely earnest.

Indeed, it seemed that Rachel made it nearly impossible for Connor not to adore her. His programming may have held back many of his feelings before he accepted his deviancy, but he certainly didn’t hold them back now.

And he never would. Never again. He loved Rachel, he loved Hank, and he loved his friends. He would be a fool to be ashamed of any of that.

“So, we’ve got our dart board, here!” Rachel announced to the group, who were all standing to attention. “Let’s see who’s the best at throwing knives.”

Hank then scoffed at Rachel. “Well, it’s sure not gonna be you. You have shit aim.”

“I tend to, yes.” Rachel agreed. “And yet, I’m quite the sharpshooter when I’m given a deadly weapon.”

“It certainly saved my life enough times over.” Markus agreed, nodding at Rachel pleasantly. Connor couldn’t help but swell with pride on her behalf. “As well as many androids who have you to thank for being alive today.”

To Connor’s surprise, Rachel actually seemed to shrink a bit at Markus’s praise. Her shoulders hunched over as she looked away. “I just...did what I had to do.”

A moment of quiet hung over them all. The air was strangely stale in the afternoon light. “I wish Simon was here.” Josh suddenly said, breaking the silence. That name was familiar to Connor and when he placed why, he felt a fresh wave of guilt wash over and soak itself into his biocomponents. The android on the Stratford Tower. The one who carried out the heist with Markus and shot himself in the head. “He would’ve really enjoyed just spending the time like this. Just...being with friends and actually having fun. Without having to worry about supplying blue blood and biocomponents and wondering if we would be wiped out.”

Rachel then regarded Josh curiously. “I guess you...never really actually hung out before the revolution.” She supposed as her dark eyes flicked over the androids. “Which makes sense. I mean...who can really blame you?”

“He died for his cause.” North chimed in, her arms crossed as she leaned against Markus. “We all miss him, but...I think he would be happy that his sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”

Markus’s brows furrowed as he looked towards the ground. “I just wish he could see it.”

As Connor regarded his fellow androids, he locked eyes with Hank. The old man shook his head, his bright blue eyes clouded with a solemn sort of sympathy for the androids. Hank was a seasoned lieutenant. He’s likely lost fellow officers before and understands their pain.

But all Connor could feel was guilt. Perhaps if he hadn’t followed Rachel to the roof, Simon would be standing here with his friends. Maybe he would’ve survived. In any case, Connor couldn’t shake off the weight of Simon’s death. It was his fault, and Connor had to take responsibility.

In fact, he had to take responsibility for everything he had done before he accepted his deviancy. Despite having the trust and friendship of the leaders of Jericho, Connor still felt on some level that he didn’t deserve it. And memories like getting Simon killed only served to solidify that doubt.

“Hang on!” Rachel said confidently, interrupting the sombre mood and fixing Connor in her intense gaze. Already, the android detective could tell that wheels were turning in her head as she was putting pieces together in the nebulous enigma that was her brilliant mind. “Simon was put in the archive room along with all the evidence we collected from the deviancy case, right?”

Connor nodded. “Correct.” He replied.

“So, he should still be there, right?” Rachel asked him before she turned to the lieutenant. “Hank, we left when you started beating the shit out of Perkins.”

“Hank physically assaulted an FBI agent?” Josh asked Rachel in surprise, looking between her and the lieutenant.

She gave him a bright smile. “Oh, he did!” Rachel responded joyfully. “And it was fucking awesome!”

“And you can bet your ass that I would gladly do it again if I ever saw that bastard ever again.” Hank proclaimed proudly, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

“Well,” North interjected. “I’m impressed.”

“Wait, so,” Markus said, fixing Rachel in his heterochromic stare. “You have Simon? Locked away somewhere?”

“Theoretically.” Rachel hastily told him. “Simon should still be in the archive room at the station provided Perkins didn’t take him.” She then turned to Hank once again. “Did he go into the archive room after we left? Because he showed up at Jericho that same night, so I got the feeling he was in a hurry as soon as he realized we were gone.”

Another stab of guilt for Connor, realizing that he had unwittingly led the FBI straight to Jericho. Granted, his mission had only changed once he actually arrived and met Markus, but that didn’t stop the immense stinging feeling Connor could feel in his chest at the memory.

“Don’t know.” Hank said to Rachel with a shrug. “I was kicked out after kicking enough of the shit outta him. So I have no clue if Simon’s still there.”

Another moment of quiet seemed to descend on the group before someone spoke up. “Should we go check to see if he’s there?” North then asked. “If we can get him back, maybe we can find a way to get him back online, somehow.”

“Well, it’s not gonna be all that soon, I’m sorry to say.” Hank said calmly to North. “Cops and everyone else are working on staying on top of things after the evacuation. I doubt there’d be anyone at the station right now, and I don’t think it’d be safe for any of you to just start pulling androids out of evidence.”

“But we can’t just leave him in there!” Josh interjected. “He’s one of us, even if we can’t bring him back, he deserves a proper memorial at the least.”

“I’m not saying we leave him in there!” Hank retorted back. He shook his head with a sigh, leaning back further against the wall. “Look, we can’t get him right now, but I doubt it’ll be long for things to be normal at the department at least. I’m keeping tabs on the precinct right now for any updates, so...if I get word of anything, I’ll let you know and we can try to go get him.” He proposed to them. “Got it?”

“Please.” Markus replied, his eyes pleading. “As soon as you get word, let us know.”

“Yeah, yeah. I will.” Hank said to Markus, giving him a patient smile. “Besides, I don’t think Rachel will let me forget it. Or let me live it down if I do.”

“Nope, absolutely not.” Rachel said confidently, her arms crossed and her eyebrows raised at him.

It was odd to see Hank in this position. To think that he was so vehemently against androids and so hostile before was almost unthinkable, seeing the lieutenant comforting their friends this way. And the fact that Hank was unapologetic about his newfound perspective on androids made Connor feel as though perhaps he could atone for his past crimes.

Perhaps he could make amends after all. In any case, the prospect of perhaps bringing Simon back to life and reuniting him with his close friends gave Connor hope. Hope that perhaps he would consider himself deserving of the friendships he had gained after everything.

“But until then,” Rachel’s voice cut through Connor’s thoughts with ease as she approached them. “Let’s see who’s best at throwing knives. I’m gonna bet that it’s Connor because he’s perfect at everything and this seems like it would be right up his alley.”

Rachel - Lover ^ North - Friend ^ Connor could barely suppress the bloom on his cheeks at her praise. “We’ll see about that.” North challenged, an edge of competition to her prideful demeanour. Her challenge was only further exemplified when she handed Rachel one of her knives with the handle facing her. “But, since this was your idea, why don’t you go first?”

Rachel nodded, holding the knife and stepping forward. “Great idea!” She agreed. “I’m probably gonna suck, since I’ve never done this before. But who cares? This is supposed to be fun.” But as she stepped up, preparing herself, she then grew rather meek and nervous as her stress level fluctuated slightly. She wasn’t distressed, just a little nervous and unsure. “Um...you’re gonna have to actually show me what to do, because I have no clue what I’m doing.”

North rolled her eyes and approached Rachel. “Well, first of all,” she said, putting her hands on Rachel’s shoulders, “you’re standing too close. Back up a bit.”

Rachel’s eyes widened at the contact and a familiar reaction to North’s touch made Connor’s software stutter briefly. “O-okay, yep.” Increased heart rate. Flushed cheeks. Something unpleasant sparked within Connor as he observed them.

North then put her hand on Rachel’s, causing a brief gasp to escape her. “Grip the knife like this, thumb up and fingers around, like that.” She instructed folding her hands over Rachel’s to correct her grip. “And stand with your right foot out and your left behind you.”

Rachel further continued to blush as she obeyed North’s instructions. However, when she glanced in Connor’s direction and made eye contact with him, the smallest ghost of a smirk on her face was made known to him. “Uh, like this?” She asked, leaning further into North’s touch.

“Yeah, exactly.” North encouraged. “Now, how far you bend your arm back depends on how far from the target you are.” She then began pulling Rachel’s arm back behind her head. “From short range, you throw with your elbow bent and your wrist behind your head.”

“Okay.” Rachel replied, leaning more into North’s touch, glancing back at Connor. The android grew more and more confused. Was Rachel actively trying to make Connor feel these unpleasant feelings? Or was she simply being her typical mischievous self?

And more importantly, what did these strange feelings mean? He wasn’t certain and Connor couldn’t place a name for it.

“And, I’m pretty sure I don’t need to tell you how to throw something.” North said, stepping back and detaching from Rachel and standing next to Markus.

Rachel then gave a nervous laugh. “Y-yeah, I think I’ve got that.”

[Confront Rachel]

Ask Hank

[Say Nothing]

As Connor observed her, he stepped back towards Hank. He didn’t like the feeling it gave him and he wanted to be sure of it in case it interfered with his relationship with Rachel. The last thing he wanted was to jeopardize it.

“Lieutenant?” He whispered to the old man. “Can I ask you something?”

Hank shrugged. “Shoot, I’m all ears.”

“Do you find Rachel’s reaction to North...strange?” Connor asked.

“What?” Hank asked, confused.

Rachel

North

Strange Feeling

“I’m concerned for the state of our relationship.” Connor admitted, shuffling nervously in place. “I’m feeling something I can’t describe, but it’s unpleasant and it was triggered by how close North and Rachel were to each other and Rachel’s reactions to it.”

Hank - Friend ^ Hank then rolled his eyes, seeming to finally understand. “That’s jealousy, Connor.” He said flatly. “It’s a normal thing that happens.”

Jealousy. Interesting. Interesting and alarming. “What is it typically triggered by?”

“A lot of things, Connor.” Hank replied. “Someone being better at something than you that you’re working hard on. Someone you like or care about a lot spending more time with someone else rather than you. It’s a normal thing that happens, but it’s also kinda stupid and irrational.”

That didn’t serve to comfort the android. “How so?” He asked.

“Well, I can tell you that Rachel is obviously not gonna run off with someone else.” Hank assured Connor. “She loves you a lot and she’s not the type who goes behind people’s backs about shit like that. If you ever needed to be worried about something like that, you’d be the first to know because she’d outright tell you. She ain’t got the patience for two-faced bullshit like that. So, you ain’t got anything to worry about.”

Connor nodded, Hank’s confidence and experience with Rachel calming Connor’s innermost doubts. “I see.”

“And don’t worry about how she acts around North, okay?” Hank continued. “She’s just weak for a pretty face. You remember her reaction to the android at Kamski’s place? She’s real fuckin’ gay and has a pretty big thing for someone who can kick her ass.”

Connor tilted his head curiously. “I thought she was bisexual.”

“She is.” Hank groaned with increasing exasperation. “But her reaction to girls is different than her reaction to guys. So, she tends to label it that way herself. But the point is, you’ve got nothin’ to worry about, Connor.” He then shrugged. “Plus, you know how she is. She’s a lil’ shit and it’s real entertaining to her to cause a little mayhem. It’s the whole reason some girls like seeing guys get kinda jealous. I personally don’t get it, but who the Hell am I to judge?”

“Noted.” Connor went back to observing Rachel, feeling a lot better. Jealousy was a normal emotion, but it wasn’t rooted in rationality. That was easy information to contend with and Connor’s trust in Rachel far outweighed whatever irrational unpleasant feeling threatened to jeopardize that.

If Hank was confident that their relationship wouldn’t be compromised because of it, Connor trusted him.

With a thunk, the throwing knife landed cleanly on the dart board. Not in the centre, but it wasn’t close to the edges, either. “Huh!” Rachel said, clearly impressed with herself. “Not too bad for my first actual try throwing a knife.” She then turned to the others with a smirk. “Alright, who’s next?”

Markus then stepped forward. “I guess I’ll give it a shot.” He said with a nervous laugh.

North then pressed one of her knives into his hand and pecked his cheek. “Just do it like I showed her.” She assured him.

Rachel then let Markus step in front of her. She backed up and found her place by Connor and didn’t hesitate to take his hand in hers and squeeze it, looking up at him with a sly smile.

With a thunk, Markus’s knife embedded itself into the dart board not quite in the centre, but closer than Rachel’s did. “Not bad.” Rachel said, impressed. “Alright, let’s see if Josh’s got this.”

The black man snickered as North handed him one of her knives and stepped back. “I’m sure it’s not that hard.” He insisted dismissively. Yet, as Josh prepared to make his target, his hands trembled slightly. And after a long moment of waiting with baited breath, he finally threw the knife at the target.

And it landed just on the outer edge.

It was met with snickers from Rachel, North, and Markus, while Josh whipped around, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. “You guys made it look easy!”

“Josh, chill.” Rachel said, waving him off. “We didn’t even do that good. We did decently. Besides, for all of us except for North, this is a first.”

“Exactly.” North assured Josh, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Besides, I wasn’t great at first, either. It took a lot of practice for me to get good at it.”

Rachel nodded. “Right!” She agreed. “It takes practice.”

“Yeah, well.” Hank said, carefully shouldering past the others, taking the knife North offered him. “I can’t do much worse than that.”

Josh then threw up his arms. “Hey!”

“I mean, don’t fucking jynx it, Hank.” Rachel interjected. “Fate is a cruel mistress and she has no Goddamn self-control.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m well aware.” Hank waved her off, throwing an icy glare back at her, to which she only smugly grinned at him. As Connor regarded her for that moment, he noticed what Hank was talking about earlier. She did indeed seem to derive pleasure from the mild annoyance of others. But going through every catalogued memory of her didn’t seem to turn up any sort of malicious intent from her antics. Just...general mischief, it seemed. And the android would be lying if that wasn’t something he found charming about her.

So perhaps Hank was right in that Rachel may be doing all this on purpose to get a rise out of Connor. And begrudgingly, she was succeeding.

The android’s extrospective thoughts were cut off by a dull thunk of another knife. However, instead of being embedded in the dart board, it was instead embedded in the wall below it. And after a moment, stifled snickers followed as everyone else tried not to laugh.

Hank, being his typical irritable self, shrugged with a grumble and shuffled back towards Connor and Rachel. “Yeah, that’s just about what I fuckin’ expected.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, sir.” Markus consoled with a pleasant smile. “I’m sure with enough practice, you’ll get it.”

“Well,” Rachel interjected, “if Hank was able to do a decent job picking up on Connor’s coin tricks as quickly as he did, I’m sure knife throwing won’t be too difficult for him.”

Connor then cocked his head at the both of them curiously. “I didn’t realize that he actually tried them.” He said.

“Oh yeah, after he took it from you on the Stratford Tower, he started trying it himself.” Rachel explained to Connor with a signature cheeky grin. “He actually did pretty decently. Not as gracefully and impressively as you, but he did pick up on it pretty quickly. With enough practice, he might even get as good as you.”

Hank laughed. “Right, whatever you say, kiddo.”

“Hey!” Rachel barked at him, smacking his shoulder. “No put-downs in this household, Hank! In this house, we all love and respect Hank Anderson.”

Connor then smiled at the lieutenant in agreement. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Hank - Family ^ Hank then gave Connor a playful shove in response. “Yeah, love you too, son.”

Connor couldn’t help but melt a little at the fact that the lieutenant just referred to the android as “son.” Granted, it probably wasn’t literal. After all, humans weren’t keen on their loved ones simply being replaced, as Rachel made quite evident in her insistence that Connor be more mindful of his physical safety.

But even the thought that Hank viewed Connor as a son figure to him made something warm bloom in him. And it was much different than the feeling Rachel gave him when she smiled at Connor. Hank clearly struggled and tormented himself over the loss of Cole. And he blamed androids for his son’s death until now, and when Connor stepped into the lieutenant’s life, all Hank could see was one of the machines that killed Cole.

The idea that Hank saw Connor as family just as much as he saw Rachel was an idea that added just that much more purpose to Connor’s life. A purpose that he was still discovering not only in his newfound deviancy, but in his newly gained freedom.

Something that no one could take from him. Not anymore. Not ever again. And it seemed to Connor that he would have to remind himself of this frequently until he really and truly believed it.

“Hey, Connor!” North then said, breaking through Connor’s reflective thoughts. “You’re up!”

The former deviant hunter glanced back at Rachel before he walked toward North. “Who wants to bet that Connor’s gonna get a perfect bullseye on his first try?”

“Nobody, because you’re probably right.” Hank jested.

Taking the throwing knife from North, Connor couldn’t help but take in her features. From Connor’s perspective, it wasn’t difficult to see how Rachel could become so flustered in her presence. Along with her bold, tough, and brash nature, she was also pleasant on the eyes.

Indeed, North was very pretty. And it seemed that Connor had found something else in common with Rachel. Perhaps, as Hank put it, they both had a weakness for a pretty face.

Diverting his attention from North, Connor made several calculations in rapid succession. From the distance between himself and the bullseye, the weight and centre of gravity of the throwing knife, to the angle of his arm, he took in every detail.

And then, with deadly precision, he threw the knife. And it landed in the dead centre with a sharp thump.

“Called it!” Rachel’s voice chimed from behind him.

Just as much behind him were groans. “Of course he’d get it right in the middle.” Josh remarked in light-hearted frustration. “Figures that CyberLife’s most advanced model would get the bullseye.”

Markus - Friend ^ Connor glanced back at them seeing them all smiling between each other. “Maybe he’s just good with his hands.” Markus added, winking at Connor.

The shudder it sent through Connor was a strange one. And Rachel’s response made Connor realize that it was definitely intentional. “Oh, trust me. He is.” She said with a deliberate tone to her voice.

“Alright, keep it in your pants.” Hank grumbled at them, eliciting a laugh from everyone. But the strangest part was that Connor wasn’t sure who the lieutenant’s exasperated comment was actually directed at.

But now Connor understood Rachel’s reaction to North much better.

North - Friend ^ “If you think that’s impressive, watch this.” The red-haired android said, shouldering past Connor. The detective android stepped back to give her space as immediately, several knives were thrown at the dart board.

And all of them landed in the bullseye, sticking out of the dart board like a morbid bouquet made of steel and threateningly sharp edges.

And it seemed everyone was impressed by her. “Woooooooooah...” Rachel gasped in awe. North then turned to look back at Rachel with a prideful smile on her face. “That was so fucking cool! I’ve actually always wanted to learn how to throw knives because I just always thought it was super neat!”

North then chuckled at her, grabbing her hand gently. “Well, now you know.” She encouraged, and Connor felt that unpleasant prickle in his software again at the blush that formed on her cheeks. “So keep practicing, and maybe you’ll get as good as me.” The android then turned to everyone. “That goes for all of you!”

“Yeah, right.” Josh scoffed at her. “As if any of us can compete with that!”

“Well,” Rachel piped up, “except for Connor, of course.” 

Rachel - Lover ^ Connor gave his partner an appreciative smile.

Her dark eyes then widened with excitement. “Wait! You can catch knives, too. Right?”

North nodded, her eyebrow raised skeptically. “Yes, why?”

“Can you teach me?”

Connor felt another uncomfortable feeling in his abdomen. But it was a different feeling than what he identified as jealousy before. This came from a different place. A place of worry and concern. And this was a feeling he was much more familiar with. The feeling of worrying about something bad happening to Rachel.

Intervene

[Say Nothing]

“Uh, sure.” North accepted sheepishly. “I guess I can teach you. But it’s not as easy to learn as throwing, definitely. And you might end up getting hurt.”

“I think that might be too dangerous, Rachel.” Connor interrupted, stepping close and putting his arm around her. “Perhaps under different circumstances, I’d be more open to the idea, but now hardly seems like a good time.”

Rachel then scoffed at him and brushed his hand off, much to the android’s irritation. “Right, as if throwing knives is any better in ‘these circumstances.’” Connor didn’t appreciate being dismissed so flippantly, especially when it came to her safety. “Besides, I didn’t ask you if you were open to it. Since when did I let you decide shit like that for me, hm?”

Connor stared her down as she turned to fix him in her intense gaze. Her tone held a slight edge of annoyance to it, but it seemed less annoyed and more teasing.

Persist

[Give Up]

But he wouldn’t be swayed by her wiles. “You told me to be more mindful of my physical wellbeing, which I did for you and for Hank.” Connor evenly scolded Rachel. “So I suggest you do the same.”

Another scoff. Another dismissive and flippant scoff in the face of potentially getting herself injured by accident. “I doubt I’m gonna get killed, Connor.” She continued to insist, accompanied by a heavy eye roll. “And besides, what are you? My mom? I don’t take orders from you.”

Scold

Order

Warn

[Give Up]

Connor’s irritation at her brazen attitude was beginning to boil over as his hands clenched, the tension making them shake. “Then you’d better learn to, Detective.”

“Oooooooooh!” The others all said in unison.

“I don’t think you’re gonna win this, Connor.” Hank tried to discourage the android. “She’s the most stubborn girl alive.”

“Mm.” North hummed. “Sounds like I’ve got some competition, then.”

“You and Rachel working together would be quite the sight, I feel like.” Markus remarked, pulling North close to him in Connor’s peripheral vision.

“They’d better watch out, then.” North teased him back.

Josh let out a hasty breath. “Yeah, no kidding.”

Rachel continued staring Connor down, looking up at him as she stood toe-to-toe with him. He had to admit that it was amusing seeing Rachel try to intimidate him despite being so short compared to him. “And what if I don’t, Connor?” She challenged him, the glint in her eyes blazing and scorching. “What exactly are you gonna do about it, hm?”

Diffuse

Threaten

[Give Up]

That was enough for Connor to catch on. If he wasn’t sure before, he was at least 79% sure that her seemingly innocuous teasing behaviour all day was being done deliberately to wind him up. But he wouldn’t get his answer with everyone staring at them. “Why don’t we take this outside, Detective?” He suggested.

Rachel’s eyebrow quirked at him, the smirk on her face only driving Connor more and more towards simply grabbing her and pushing her against a wall to claim her without caring about the others. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to snuff out her smug and flippant attitude and he himself had grown an overwhelming urge to make it known to her that she was his.

She was Connor’s and Connor’s alone, and he wanted her to know that as deeply as possible. He wanted to embed it into her very soul.

“You sound pretty serious, Connor.” Rachel mocked sarcastically before gesturing towards the door with her head. “Let’s take this upstairs.” She then already started walking out of the game room, not even bothering to wait for Connor. “Don’t stop on our account, by the way! I wanna see how good you guys get at this once we get back!”

“Sure thing!” Hank called after them.

Walking up the stairs, Connor followed Rachel dutifully. Throughout the whole day, there was so much excitement rushing through his veins. Connor couldn’t imagine feeling more excited.

But that excitement was very quickly turning into something darker. Something far more primal and possessive. For as much as Rachel was encouraging him to act out and be a delinquent - to “channel his inner bastard,” as it were - she was also igniting something fierce in him. The little ways she’d look at him, lean against something, lean against him in what seemed to be a very deliberate way, or the way she’d talk back at him.

Which irritated Connor, but not in a way he could recognize as genuine anger. Because it wasn’t. It was something very specific he couldn’t identify. Something that made Connor want nothing more than to confine Rachel to a room and ravage her until she didn’t have the strength to talk back at him.

Indeed, it was a sense of wanting to strip her of and make her surrender her sense of pride. Something she had plenty of and was indeed one of Rachel’s many charms.

Following Rachel, he found himself in a lavish bedroom. His eyes fixed on the sway of her hips. This had to be deliberate. She had to be trying to drive his processors crazy on purpose. There was no way she was doing any of this by accident. 

No, Rachel was far too clever for any of this to be an accident. Far too devious. If there was one thing Connor learned about her, it was that her actions were purposeful. She wasn’t someone who took well to her actions or words being misinterpreted. As she turned around to lean against a dresser, she looked at him with lidded, dark, sultry eyes that practically beckoned him closer.

Scold

Warn

Tease

But he wouldn’t let her have the upper hand. Not this time. “I don’t know what you think you’ve been doing, but you’d better watch your attitude, Detective.”

In typical Rachel fashion, she simply scoffed at him, defiance staring back at him. “Whatever could you mean?” She asked coyly, but her tone too was deliberate. She knew exactly what she was doing. “Oh right! You think you can tame me. Now, that’s adorable that you think you can control someone as proud and unrestrained and shameless as me. That’s so cute!”

Irritation flared up in Connor as he stalked closer, taking dangerously slow steps as he stared her down. “I’d advise you to watch your mouth.”

“Or what?” Rachel challenged him, her legs crossed as she stared at him.

Tease

Warn

[Kiss]

Rachel - Lover ^ Connor then chuckled, his lips curled into a knowing smirk. He approached her, grabbing her jaw and running his thumb along her lip. “Or I’ll find a much better use for it.”

Rachel gave him a mocking smile as she stared at him intensely, her dark eyes glittering with unbridled defiance. “Make me, then.”

That was all the permission he needed.

Swiftly turning around to close and then lock the door behind them, Connor briskly walked up to Rachel and pushed her back against the mirror above the dresser, practically bruising her lips with his own as he held her face in a vice grip. The brief surprised gasp and then series of needy moans only made Connor more and more determined. He knew her well enough to know that she was quite the harlot, and after all her teasing earlier, Connor couldn’t even hold himself back.

The moment her hands went up to tangle themselves in his hair, Connor suddenly grabbed Rachel’s left hand and pinned it to the dresser, their hands deskinned and their feelings connected once more. It indeed confirmed his suspicion that this was all deliberate, but what pleased him even more to discover was just how pliant she was and how eager she was to be taken control of like this.

But that wasn’t enough for the android. With his other hand, Connor grabbed her hips roughly and harshly grinded his tightly concealed erection against her clothed heat, causing her to break their kiss and expose her neck. Oh, how amusing it was for her to proclaim how untamable she was, yet she exposed herself so willingly for him.

It was almost too easy.

As he started biting and sucking on her neck, determined to mark her, Connor felt Rachel try to pull her hand away, only for Connor to wrench it and maintain a tight grip on it. “No!” He growled into her ear, grinding into her harder. “I want you to feel what you’ve been doing to me!”

“A-ah!” Was all she could choke out. All she could whimper. “F-fuck - shit!”

Her involuntary curses only made him more and more impatient. He needed release. He needed it badly. But after her little game with him, he knew only once wouldn’t be enough for him, and he could sense that she wouldn’t mind that one bit.

But oh, all the ways he could humble her. All the ways he could further dirty her, control her, drive her insane the way she’d been doing to him. They’d only had sex once, and that was the night Jericho had been attacked. And he had to admit, he was indeed thinking of all the ways he could fuck her into submission all day.

But what to choose? What to start with? What was he most curious to see? After all, half the fun of this were the  sounds and the faces she made. The pure unrestrained bliss and pleasure that she couldn’t hold back because of him.

Vaginal

Digital

Oral

He settled on one method and pulled back, letting go of her and staring at her in the eye with as commanding of a look as he could muster. “Get on your knees in front of me.” Connor ordered.

Rachel swallowed and obeyed immediately, following him off the dresser and kneeling before him, looking up at him expectantly. Connor could barely hold back the thrill of seeing her so easily submit to him. For as much of a self-proclaimed bastard as she was, she did aim to please.

Indeed, she could be a very good girl when given the right incentive.

Connor wasted no time unzipping his fly, gently caressing Rachel’s face with one hand while the other worked to free his aching cock. Her blissed expression and contented hum as she pressed her face further into his hand reminded Connor that this wasn’t just something done without feeling.

No, they loved each other. They loved each other so much. This was a result of trust and of want and nothing less than that.

But the android was growing impatient, so slipping his member out of his boxers, he roughly jerked her face up by her chin and pressed the blue-tinged head against her cheek, smearing pre-cum on it. “Suck.” He ordered.

For a moment, she hesitated, and Connor wondered if perhaps he went too far. “H-hang on.” She relented, swiping her hair out of her face with a hand.

Connor suddenly felt rather awkward and sheepish and paused for a moment. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” He apologized. “Is this too much?”

“No! No, not at all.” Rachel reassured Connor with a smooth honeyed tone to her voice. “It’s just...I don’t have the best gag reflex, so, y’know...keep that in mind.”

Connor nodded, relieved that she wasn’t afraid or uncomfortable. “I understand.” He assured her, stroking her cheek with his thumb. He then got an idea that he hoped would be comforting to her. “Just tap on me once if you want me to go faster, twice if you want me to slow down, and three times if you want me to stop. Got it?”

Rachel - Lover ^ Rachel nodded, seeming to understand. “Got it.”

Letting Rachel set the pace, Connor hissed through his teeth when she grabbed his throbbing member and licked a stripe up it from the hilt to the head. It took all of his willpower not to look away or close his eyes from the sheer pleasure of her swirling her tongue around his head. This felt much different than the feeling of her walls tightening and clenching around him. Connor wasn’t sure if this was better or not, but he certainly enjoyed it.

And his enjoyment only skyrocketed the moment she wrapped her lips around him and sunk onto him, closing her eyes and grabbing Connor’s hips. He wanted so so badly to buck his hips into her mouth. To bunch his hands in her hair and mercilessly fuck her face.

But he didn’t know what her limits were and he wasn’t willing to test them without knowing. After all, her comfort was paramount to his wants when it came to this.

That didn’t change the fact that it was getting increasingly more difficult to hold himself back when she was moaning and sighing into it. “Sh-shit!” He hissed. The vibrations from her voice and her throat were only serving to make Connor more and more impatient. And her facial expressions. He knew what her blissful looks were, but if this was how she looked, pleasuring him, he hoped he looked just as enthusiastic when he was performing cunnilngus on her.

Up and down Rachel bobbed her head, eagerly and expertly sucking him off. Then, seemingly as a test, she took as much of him as humanly possible, stuttering and gagging for a moment once her nose pressed against his naval.

“Fuck!” But then Rachel swallowed around him, and Connor nearly lost his mind then and there, throwing his head back with a loud and rough groan. 

Connor grabbed Rachel’s hair and yanked her off his cock, briefly relishing in the pleasured moan she gave in response, filing that detail for later. Looking down at her, her dark eyes wide with confusion as she stared up at him, his cock twitching in anticipation in front of her lips. The android had to catch his breath, even though he didn’t need to breathe. “Do that again.” He ordered.

Smiling up at him in understanding, Rachel nodded, wrapping her lips around him and taking in a sharp breath before taking in his full member and swallowing around him once more, the sensation making Connor’s sensors nearly fry. Going back to bobbing her head up and down, the pleasant sounds vibrating around him, Rachel glanced up at him, a coy and devilish look in her eyes as she kept eye contact with him. He didn’t even realize just how much he enjoyed that before. But the fact that Rachel was making eye contact with him while she was sucking on him made this experience feel far more intimate.

But Connor wanted more. And he knew that if he didn’t warn her, he might accidentally hurt her. “I-I need to move.” He stuttered, his voice cracking slightly with static. “Are you alright if I do?”

Rather than tap on him, as they had agreed, Rachel instead took his hands and put them on her head, deskinning her left so he could feel what she was feeling.

And he could sense a clear answer. Go ahead, I’m all yours.

That was enough for him.

Setting a moderate and even pace, Connor gripped Rachel’s short brown hair and started to thrust into her mouth, groaning and hissing at it. This was exactly what he needed to satiate his craving. To not only feel her mouth around him, but to use her. And if the obscene sounds she was making were any indication, she did not seem to mind.

Connor did not think he would enjoy the feeling of Rachel gagging on him as much as he did, but by his makers, he really did. He wasn’t even sure why, but he didn’t even want to question it. All he wanted was to lose himself in this feeling, cursing and gasping all the while.

Tap. Tap.

Taking her warning, Connor slowed down. Briefly alarmed that he might’ve hurt her, he glanced down at her. But her eyes were still screwed shut and she was still moaning and swallowing around him contentedly.

He kept his pace, trying to keep his own release at bay. But he wanted to cum. Oh, he wanted to paint Rachel’s darling throat white and he wanted her to swallow all of him. But he needed to work around her needs and her limits.

Tap.

After a few moments of thrusting and wet slicking sounds, Connor felt a singular tap on his leg, and took that as his signal to increase the pace.

As he bucked into her mouth harder and faster, her moaning and whining became louder and more uncontrollable. Her grip on his hips tightened, and Connor’s grip on her hair did the same. So Rachel liked having her hair pulled. That was a fact Connor was going to thoroughly experiment with shortly.

Tap.

But for now, he had to finish this. He was getting close and even Rachel seemed to want him to finish. His thrusts were becoming more and more erratic as he was starting to lose his ability to focus as his release drew near. And he knew exactly how he wanted it. “I want you to take it all, Rachel.” He growled at her from above him, causing her to glance up at him. “I want you to take it and swallow every last drop! I want it all down your fucking throat!”

Rachel responded with an eager gulp and a squeeze at his hips. Connor took that as a signal to wrap this up. Snapping his hips into her mouth at a brutal speed, he timed his last thrust accordingly and buried his cock into the back of her throat as much as he could as he let out the most guttural and feral groan he was sure he’d ever made as he felt her swallow around him, shuddering as he felt himself throb and spurt into her mouth.

He nearly buckled to the ground, having to keep himself steady with a hand on the dresser, as he felt her swallow around his head repeatedly, trying to swallow and take every last stream of his synthetic cum.

After a few moments, certain that he had finished, Connor pulled out roughly, his cock hanging limp as it slid out of Rachel’s mouth, a thread of saliva still connecting them. The moment Connor had slipped out of her mouth, Rachel began sputtering coughs and gripping her throat and Connor wondered for a moment if he had hurt her. But he assured himself that she knew her limits and wasn’t hurt.

But he still wanted to be sure. “Are you alright?” He asked, extending a hand. 

Rachel took his gratefully, wiping her lips and standing up to her feet. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She said between weak half-coughs. She swallowed as she looked at Connor, seemingly impressed with herself. “I just didn’t think I had that in me.”

“But it was good, wasn’t it?” Connor asked, wanting to make sure he was good to her.

“Oh, fuck yeah.” Rachel replied with confidence, smiling in a way that made Connor feel a certain hardness return. “Gotta say, not nearly as bitter as the real thing. I can definitely get behind that.”

Connor made a note that Rachel enjoyed performing fellatio on him for another time. “And you’re sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Rachel assured him, resting her left hand on his cheek. “You did really good.”

The brief rush that her praise sent through him was snuffed out by his still unquenched desire. He gave her a dark smirk that made her eyes go wide. “Good.” Was all he said before he whipped her around so that her back was pressed against his chest and she was pushed against the dresser. “Because I’m not quite finished with you, love.” He purred into her ear, earning quite the delighted and shocked whimper from Rachel. He slipped his other hand between her legs and rubbed her along her clothed sex, making her legs quiver in response. “Such a shame you had to be such a tease to me all day now that you’re being such a good girl for me.”

“A-ah!” Rachel mewled, clutching onto his hand with hers as she trembled and shivered in his touch. The way she arched her back against him as she pressed further into the android’s chest, nuzzling her head into his cheek and gently exposing her neck to him made Connor want to take her right then and there. “C-Connor!” She yelped when he bit into her neck once more and sucked at her tender flesh. “Th-they’ll hear us!”

Connor smiled into her neck, knowing that those were empty words. A warning that was technically true, but he could feel as clear as day her hunger. Oh, she wanted this. She needed this. And she had no shame about any part of this dalliance between them.

Rachel didn’t care that they might be heard from their companions below. In fact, Connor sensed a rather amusing thrill from her at the prospect of potentially being caught in the act. Something that made his processors crackle with intensity at the thought. While he had the better sense not to act on it, there was something extremely alluring and motivating about the thought of being caught by the others as he ravaged her in front of them. Showing them that Rachel was his. Showing them just what a delinquent android was capable of.

That he was no one’s master. That the android had control over the human and that she had no complaints about it. That she willingly submitted to him and his control.

But what was that worth if he didn’t get mutual confirmation that they both wanted this? And that was exactly what he was going to do in the cruelest and most teasing way possible. After all, an eye for an eye, as the saying goes.

[Continue]

[Finish]

It was only fair, after all.

“You say that as though you don’t want them to.” Connor purred into her skin, slipping his hand underneath the fabric and brushing past her clit, causing Rachel to jump with a loud whimper. 

The shiver in her spine and the wave it sent through her was easily felt by the android at being called out so plainly. Oh, the way it sliced through her ego was more than enough for Connor to continue. 

He got a rather devious idea and clamped his right hand over Rachel’s mouth and slid two of his fingers along her sex, very pleased to discover that she was practically dripping for him. His fingers slipped right into her sopping entrance with ease, and he started mercilessly working her into a needy mess. The whimpers that filled the room as he caged her between his elbows was absolute euphoria to him as he worked to completely undo her with only his hand.

But he could feel her still trying to hold back the volume of her pleasure. Indeed, the lionhearted Rachel was still desperately trying to cling onto whatever pride and dignity she had left. A circumstance that Connor was more than eager to change. 

“It’s so cute how you’re still trying to hold back.” He teased into her ear, only increasing the speed and friction of his ministrations. “As if you’re not something of an exhibitionist yourself. Am I correct?”

That sent what felt like a lightning bolt through her as she turned her face away from him, refusing to look Connor in the eye. The way she looked in the mirror directly in front of them, and how completely dominant and powerful Connor looked gave him a rather interesting idea. Moving his hand from her mouth, Connor grabbed Rachel’s jaw harshly and forced her to face the mirror. “Well?” He asked her mockingly as he bucked against her from behind against the dresser, causing her to yelp. “Nothing to say? You’re usually so outspoken.”

“F-fuck you!” She spat at him, but one curl of Connor’s fingers was enough to make Rachel melt into his control as she whimpered. Her legs trembled. Connor knew she was drawing close, but he wanted to drag this out long enough for her resistance to crumble.

He had a goal far larger than simply bringing her to orgasm. No, he wanted to absolutely break her. And all he needed to do was have her begging for him. To have the mighty and headstrong Rachel a pleading shameless mess for Connor.

And he knew just how to do it.

“You are truly captivating, my love.” Connor praised as he continued his ministrations at a painfully teasing and cruel pace. “You have no shame. You are absolutely enjoying every moment of this and you don’t care who hears. You wouldn’t want this to stop until I decided I was finished with you.” He purred, nipping at her soft and delicate ears as she moaned and whined in his grasp. “And yet, you’re still too proud to admit it out loud. Too embarrassed to admit how badly you want me to ruin you or how little you care about getting caught.” 

He slowed the pump of his fingers, angling his palm so that it didn’t slide against her swollen nub. “And as much as I find it endlessly fascinating,” Connor removed his hand from her jaw and fastened it around Rachel’s throat. “I’d like to hear you say it!”

For a moment, Connor feared he was accidentally hurting her, but the sinfully blissful smile on Rachel’s face as her eyelids fluttered encouraged him to finish this. The way her dark brown eyes rolled back in her head and the shudders that coursed through her body made Connor throw all caution to the wind as he dove right back into her sex, wanting nothing more than to wreck her.

As she whimpered and cried out, Connor could practically feel her dignity and pride ooze and slip between his fingers as she pressed into him, losing herself completely. 

“Y-yes!” Rachel managed to cry out between moans and gasps, strained by the hold Connor had on her throat. “Fuck! I want you so bad! I don’t fucking care if all of Detroit hears us! I just want you! I want you to touch me, bite me, mark me, fuck me! Oh God, I want you to fuck me! I want you to fucking wreck me!” Yes! Oh, yes! The growls that erupted from her was exactly what he wanted to hear. “God, please! Please, please, please, please fuck me!” And the way her pleas rolled off her tongue so quickly and rapidly for him made Connor’s own pride swell greatly.

He didn’t think he would enjoy the sounds of begging so much, but by CyberLife, Connor didn’t think he would ever want to hear anything less ever again. It was his own personal symphony. Like a theatre, the others may be able to catch it from outside, but this was a show for him. Only he had the privilege to hear it sung for him.

Planting a soft and tender kiss to the crook of Rachel’s neck, Connor whispered sweetly to his human partner. “As you wish, my lionheart.”

Pistoning his fingers into Rachel and curling them just right, Connor knew she would be cumming soon. And when she did, Connor would really push her limits. She was so resilient and strong, and he wanted to see just how much she could take.

And afterwards? Well, he would take good care of the love of his life. He would make sure she knew how much he cherished and loved her. For everything. For how much she encouraged him. How much she believed in and stood by him. And most importantly, how genuinely she loved and cared about him for who he was. How much she earnestly enjoyed his company and him just being with her.

Disconnecting from Connor, Rachel reached up and gripped Connor by the back of his head as her own slumped against him. “C-Connor!” She cried out. “C-Con - I’m - fuck - I’m gonna -”

“I know, darling.” He hadn’t used such affectionate names, but they seemed to tumble out of him in this moment between them. He barely even noticed it, but upon doing so, there was an underlying softness beneath it all. “Cum for me, dear. I’ve got you.”

Planting tender kisses anywhere his lips could find, Connor cradled her as she shuddered. Her walls clamped around his fingers as a broken whimpering cry tore through the air and ripped out of her lungs, her arms clutching on tightly to Connor as she came.

Gently working her through her orgasm, Rachel was panting, slumping against him, moaning quietly at him. Taking his hand off her throat, Connor instead guided Rachel to lean against the dresser, her hands crossed in front of her with her head resting on them.

Yet as she did so, Connor became painfully aware of his strained erection against her backside. He made a pledge to push her to her limits, and he was curious as to his own. So, taking his hand out from her pants, Connor brought his fingers to his lips and licked them clean, making eye contact with Rachel in the mirror. 

A quick vital scan showed her arousal spike once again. It truly was amusing how easily riled up she could get. Hooking his thumbs into her waistband, Connor slowly slid her pants and her underwear down her legs, exposing her swollen and glistening womanhood to him, Connor feeling his breath get siphoned out of him at the sight of it.

As Connor teasingly slid his cock against her slit, lubricating it with ease, Rachel gave the android an inquisitive side-eye as she moaned at the stimulation. Connor offered her a playful smirk as he ran his hands along her sides. “You did say that my goal today was to do everything Amanda would either simply not want me doing or everything she would hate me doing.” He repeated cheekily. “And she didn’t exactly care for you or your influence on me.”

Rachel snickered at him. “I did say that.” She said with a jovial lilt to her slightly gravelly voice. “It really is a shame I can never meet her. I would certainly have some choice words for her, that’s for sure.”

Connor leaned forward to whisper to her. “Would you like me to leave a message?” He jokingly asked. “I’m sure I can pass it along to her.”

Rachel smirked behind him. “I feel like she’s gotten the message at this point.” 

Connor chuckled at that. “On that, we can agree.”

Feeling his member twitch against her warm and wet entrance, Connor then felt Rachel sway her hips for him. “Are you just going to stare at me?” She asked with a quirk of her eyebrow. “Or are you going to finish what you started?”

[Continue]

[Finish]

Feeling that fire that had been building during this whole scene flare again, Connor swiftly grabbed Rachel and shoved her into the corner of the room, effectively caging her and rolling his hips against her. Tugging her hair and forcing her head to the side, Connor growled into her ear. “The safe word is ‘thirium.’ Got it?”

Rachel - Lover ^ All he got from her was a whimper accompanied by a nod. But that wasn’t good enough for him. Yanking Rachel’s hair again, Connor pressed her further into the corner, squeezing himself against her body. “I didn’t quite hear you.” He snarled as she whimpered helplessly.

“Y-yes, sir!” She yelped. “Understood. I’m all yours, sir!”

His circuits crackled at that as he lined up his head with her entrance. Sir. He repeated inwardly as he let go of her hair, resting his hands on her hips. Connor very much liked the sound of that. There was an air of authority of it. And it was uniquely invigorating to hear addressed to him.

And he was fully intent on using that vigor to completely ruin Rachel.

“Good.” A cruel smile stretched across his lips as Connor leered over her form. “Now, let’s see how many times I can make you cum on my cock alone.”

Objective: Fuck Rachel Into Submission

The only answer was a choked off scream.

--------

Muffled cries. Just what Connor didn’t want to hear. Perhaps in a different situation, he would enjoy the fact that Rachel could barely contain herself, so her only reprise was the muffling of a pillow.

But not this time. He didn’t want her to hold back, and he was fully prepared to snuff out any pride she tried to gain back. Snapping his hips into her on the large lavish bed, Connor wrenched one of his hands from Rachel’s hip and grabbed a fistful of her hair, harshly yanking her face from the pillow. “No!” He snarled into her ear as he leaned forward, his chest grazing her dappled backside. “Don’t you dare hold back! I want to hear you!”

“Y-yes, sir!” She whimpered. Indeed, it seemed that was all Rachel could say anymore, and Connor adored the way it sounded. They had been going at this for a while, and it was clear that she was approaching her limit. But Connor wasn’t done with her yet, but he would be soon.

Her strained screams and mewls were all Connor cared about. But while she obeyed his order not to muffle herself, she still clutched onto the pillow. And that irritated Connor in a way he didn’t understand. “Give me your hands.” He ordered.

Rachel struggled to slide her hands out and maneuver them towards him, and Connor was far too impatient for this. Harshly grabbing them and pulling her up from the bed, Connor snarled viciously into her neck. “I said give me your fucking hands!”

Complying with a hoarse whimper, she put her hands behind her back which allowed Connor the accessibility he needed to clasp a hand around both of her wrists. The fact that Rachel’s wrists were small enough for Connor to be able to maintain a firm grip on both of them with one hand was not lost on the android.

Unlatching his teeth from her flesh, Connor sat back up and brutally pounded into her, forcing her breath out in pitiful squeaks. He could feel her legs shaking and knew she was going to cum for the fourth time. But he had already decided he would get a fifth out of her.

Slipping his other hand between her legs, Connor’s fingers found her swollen and overstimulated nub and gently circled it in contrast to sheer cruelty he was lovingly inflicting on the rest of her body.

His own end was arriving soon, the tightness in his gut feeling as though it would burst. But he didn’t get tired. That was one of the beauties of being an android that they were both blessed to discover in this intimate and sinful moment between them.

It didn’t take long for her to cum as a broken scream followed by a series of gasps told Connor very clearly. As her walls clenched around him for the third time, Connor very quickly followed, that knot in his stomach coming undone as his cock throbbed and pulsated inside Rachel, thick streams of his own semen filling her up once more. If he were concerned about whether anyone else would use this bed, he would pay more mind to the mess that had decorated her thighs, glistening in the cold autumn afternoon light filtering through the window.

But Connor wasn’t finished. Pulling her up so that her back was flush against his chest, Rachel gasped in surprise, her head rolling back against his shoulder as he used the arm that was holding her hands to cage her against him. It amused him thoroughly that she barely had the strength to hold her own head up, but it was a good indicator that this would probably be as much as she could take for now.

It was of no surprise to Connor that she was shaking her head the moment he started pistoning into her again. “C-Connor..." She whined weakly. “I can’t...i-it’s too much.”

For a moment, he faltered. But he was determined to see this through. “Come on, darling.” He soothed her, lovingly stroking her chin with his thumb. “Gotta give me one more. You can use the safe word if you can’t handle it.” He assured her, causing Rachel to open her eyes drowsily at him. Her cheeks were stained with tears from the overstimulation. “Can you handle another?”

Gasping as Connor continued his thrusts up into her, she nodded, rolling her head to the side and closing her eyes. “Okay...okay..."

Pressing tender kisses along the marks the android left in her flesh, Connor picked up the speed of his thrusts. Even her whimpers were quiet and meek. She wouldn’t last very long. With the hand that was caging Rachel against his body, Connor began massaging a breast, gently pinching and rolling the nipple between his fingers as his other hand was working with her clit.

Rachel still flinched and jumped at his touches, but her voice would likely be very hoarse and used by the time this was over. It made Connor sorely regret not bringing a bottle of water for her to drink afterwards. But he would have to make up for it once they returned home.

For now, all he had to do was finish this.

“Cum for me, my love.” He murmured sweetly in his human partner’s ear. “I’ve got you. Don’t worry, just let go.”

It wasn’t as easy or quick or even intense as the first few times, but Rachel tensed with a cracked whimper and arched her back against Connor and he worked on easing her from the high, still chasing his own end. Softly caressing her curves and placing tender kisses wherever Connor could reach, he purred into her ear. “You’ve done so good for me, dear.” He praised, seeing her smiling at him in his peripheral vision. “Just hold on, I’m almost there.”

All she could do was weakly nod as Connor’s thrusts became more and more erratic, another familiar knot forming in his abdomen as he reached closer and closer to his nirvana. Panting and huffing in her ear like a dog in breeding season, Connor didn’t take long to cum as well, burying himself as deeply into Rachel as he could with a strained staticky groan. 

Still pumping into Rachel, Connor gently laid Rachel down onto the bed, making sure her head was nestled on the pillow. He released her hands and moved them so that she could position her head the way that felt most comfortable to her. 

After being sure that he was finished, Connor slid out of her, their combined fluids staining and dripping down onto the hardwood floors. Straightening his tie, Connor brought a hand down to his member and approached Rachel. Her dark brown eyes fluttered open as he approached. She was still breathing heavily and Connor bent down and kissed her temple. “Such a good girl.” He praised her, pleased at the contented hum and tender smile it earned. “Would you do me a favour and clean me up?”

Rachel - Lover ^ She smirked up at him, still breathing heavily. “Only if you return the favour.” Rachel bargained with him, wiggling her legs a bit. “But...after my legs start working again, please.”

“Of course.” Connor agreed, smiling affectionately at his partner. Even though he couldn’t get enough of the soft bliss that Rachel was a pristine picture of, part of him still wanted to tease her. “Though, we shouldn’t keep our friends waiting for too long. Now shouldn’t we.”

“Oh, fuck you.” She spat at him. 

Connor couldn’t help but feel happy that he hadn’t completely extinguished her eternal flame. He would find himself extremely disappointed if she had forever lost her sense of pride and defiance. “Again?” He asked her, teasing, tilting her chin up to face him. “You truly are insatiable.”

“You know what I meant, you smug bastard.” Rachel huffed, too tired to show any actual aggression towards him.

Connor chuckled a bit at her. “Even after having your pride quite literally fucked out of you, you still have bite in you.” He remarked, pleased to see her characteristic smirk. “How interesting.”

She scoffed at him. “You say that as though it’s not one of my most charming qualities.” And certainly no lack of an abundance of self-assurance.

Rachel - Lover ^ Another quality Connor couldn’t help but admire as he bent down to plant a firm kiss on her lips. “I would never say that.” He agreed, standing back on his feet. He angled his still soaked and wet cock in front of her expectantly. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

It was an order, but a gentle one. It was clear that Rachel was spent after five orgasms, and it would be unwise to continue to be ruthless after that. But she nevertheless responded, using her hands to angle his member wherever she needed to. Connor had to bite back a hiss as she licked several stripes up his shaft, making sure to catch as much as possible. It was evidently clear when she was moving her lips and her tongue all around him that she was intent on being thorough.

Her eyes were closed in contentment, a coy smile on her lips as she licked the last of their shared cum off him. But like the tease that she was, Rachel ran her tongue around his tip, suckling on it just a bit before she pulled back, a string of saliva still connecting them. Opening her eyes to look up at Connor, she placed a chaste kiss on the tip of his dick and then began tucking it back into his boxers and zipping up his fly.

It had only just occurred to Connor that while Rachel had stripped completely for him, Connor didn’t even bother to remove his tie. An observation that pleased him in a way he didn’t quite understand.

Doing his belt back up, Connor walked towards the mirror above the dresser, straightening his tie and making sure his hair was neatly done before he finished with Rachel. “Aren’t you...gonna return the favour?” She asked distantly from the bed.

As Connor walked around, collecting each article of clothing that belonged to her, he glanced over at her. “Impatient, are we?” He asked teasingly.

“A bit, I suppose.” Rachel replied, glancing over at him from over her shoulder, her dark brown eyes beckoning him closer. “After all, it’s only a courtesy. You could’ve at least left less of a mess of me. Or left me able to walk or stand up straight at the least.”

As Connor laid her clothes on the bed behind her, the android circled around to face her. “You say that as though you didn’t enjoy every moment of that. As if you’re not proud of the copious mess that’s slicking between your thighs right now.” He mocked as Rachel sat up, looking down at him as he kneeled before her. “And besides, we agreed on a safe word and I’ve reminded you about it repeatedly.”

“I realize this, but shh.” Rachel shushed Connor, looking away from him. Situating himself between her thighs as he neared himself to the left side. He waited for her to glance down at him and gave her a devilish smirk accompanied by a raise of an eyebrow. Rachel rolled her eyes at him as she gave him a genuine smile. “But yes, I really enjoyed that. Dominance really fucking works for you, Connor.”

Rachel - Lover ^ Connor started licking away the mess he’d made of her, pausing between kisses and licks to talk. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He said in earnest as he neared closer and closer to her swollen and slick flesh, brushing past it to clean up her right side, amused at the small whine Rachel made. “In any case, we shouldn’t keep our friends waiting for too long.” He reminded her, smirking against the soft plumpness of her thigh. “After all, I’m eagerly looking forward to watching you try to explain yourself.”

Her eyes then widened in comical realization as she then narrowed them at Connor. “You motherfucker!” Rachel exclaimed.

But all it took was a hard press of his tongue up her slit to quiet Rachel’s complaints, Connor dragging a low and pleasant moan out of her as he lapped up and sucked on her. He paused to look up at her, smiling. “Think you can handle one more?”

Rachel’s eyes darted back and forth, squinting as her thick brows bunched together in contemplation. Once her rich mahogany eyes landed on Connor’s, her lips softened into a blissful smile, Rachel reaching out with her hand to stroke his cheek tenderly. She then threw herself back on the bed with a sigh, hooking her legs over his shoulder. “Alright.” She breathed. “One more, and then we go.”

Pleased with her answer, Connor dove into Rachel as though she was the most lavish and exquisite delicacy known to all mankind. And he would not be satisfied until she was.

--------

Date: November 14th, 2038  Time: 5:38 PM Rachel - Lover Objective: Check in with Rachel

Arriving back at Rachel’s home, Connor immediately went towards the kitchen, taking his shoes off and greeting Bear at the door. “I’ll go ahead and take him out.” Rachel said hastily before Connor stopped her.

“You should rest.” He insisted. “After all, you’re still fairly exhausted and I wouldn’t want you to overexert yourself.”

“And whose fault was that?” Rachel asked with a scoff and a knowing look.

“Yours.” Connor responded smartly. “After all, you were the one who deliberately and knowingly teased me all day in front of everyone and then didn’t even try to stop me once we were alone.”

Pursing her lips, the human woman seemed to accept defeat, letting out a begrudging sigh. “Whatever, I’ve still got my shoes on, so I’ll do it anyway.” She said, grabbing the leash from the hallway and getting the harness on the large black dog, whose tail was wagging back and forth excitedly. “Come on, boy. I’ll take you out now.”

She was out the door, so Connor thought the next best thing to do for her would be to at least get her a glass of water to hydrate her.

Admittedly, it was very fun to watch Rachel flounder to explain herself once they left the bedroom, which Connor then realized smelled overwhelmingly like sex once he emerged back into the cold crisp air of the rest of the house. The others were waiting downstairs, doing whatever they felt like getting up to without the pair, and the first to notice their return was Hank, of course.

“There you are, you fuckers!” The lieutenant groaned in response, drawing the attention of the androids, North giving them a very pointed look. “You’ve been gone for like an hour. What the fuck were you doing?”

Watching Rachel’s eyes dart back and forth as she tried to come up with a convincing lie to tell Hank was quite amusing. And even more entertaining was the lie Rachel ended up telling. “Well, we talked for a little bit, and since Connor was so worried about my physical well-being, we did some...uh, training!”

It was admittedly quite humorous to see the skeptical look on the lieutenant’s face, but seemingly he’d rather not ask further questions out of disgust at the potential details of what they were actually doing.

And afterwards, Hank gave the pair a ride back to Rachel’s home, parting ways with the androids of Jericho, before going home himself, exhausted from all the activities. But not before Connor got a very pointed telepathic message from North. You do realize I used to be a sex android, right? Next time, pick a more discreet location to be perverts and teach Rachel to be a better liar.

Connor simply gave her a polite smile as he left. I’ll do my best.

But now, as he waited in the dining room with a glass of water ready for Rachel to drink, he was left alone with his thoughts for the first time all day since this morning. And Connor’s feelings were...good. He enjoyed the time he spent, with Rachel and Hank. He was growing accustomed to simply spending the time with them outside of work. And now that they didn’t have to worry about any urgent situations or circumstances, it was easy to be at peace.

And being able to spend time with Markus, North, and Josh made Connor feel more at peace about himself as well. It was a huge weight off his shoulders to know that they didn’t think ill of him despite everything and that they considered him an equal. He began to regard them as close friends and he had a feeling that their friendship would only grow.

But despite everything and the effort Rachel put in to make Connor feel more at ease and in control of himself, which did work. He felt better about himself and about his programming now than he did this morning.

But there was still that doubt. That small voice in the back of his mind in his processors that still whispered disparaging and discouraging affirmations to him. Words that coiled around Connor’s confidence in a chokehold.

His nightmare was fresh in his mind, still. Although he was more comfortable knowing that that’s all it was, there were still things from it that unsettled Connor to his core. And indeed, when he thought back on today in the context of the fear his nightmare instilled in him, Connor realized something.

He was afraid of losing control. At any moment, he could’ve hurt Rachel. At any moment, Amanda could’ve taken control and forced him to do something horrible to her. It was an irrational fear, but a prevalent one. But it wasn’t just that, either.

He was also afraid of giving up control. Because he saw what Rachel was capable of when she killed Sixty. It was gruesome and it was terrifying, but it was also alluring in a disturbing way. And despite understanding that it was simply an unorthodox method of attack and that Rachel was only protecting Connor, there was no doubt that there was something paralyzing about the thought of letting Rachel have that control. Because he essentially had to watch Rachel kill a lookalike of Connor in a way that was inhuman.

And he couldn’t help but put himself in that position and feel an uncomfortable pit in his stomach at the thought of it. Even though he knew Rachel would never hurt him, not on purpose, he couldn’t shake that thought or that fear away.

But he didn’t have long to ruminate on these thoughts before Rachel returned, Bear huffing with snow on his paws and on his belly, and shaking melting water droplets everywhere. His eyes landed on her as she undid the harness on the large dog and started drying him with a nearby towel before letting him run back into the house. Connor couldn’t stifle the smile at how the dog immediately ran to grab a toy to play with and teethe.

As Rachel approached Connor with a smile, the android held out the glass of water to her, of which she accepted appreciatively. “Thanks.” She said, having a seat and taking a long sip from the glass. Setting the glass down, she slumped against the table with a long sigh. “I could nap right now.” She groaned, gently grabbing Connor’s hand and stroking her thumb along his knuckles. “But it was a good day, right?”

Sincere

Indifferent

Nightmare

Rachel - Lover ^ “It was.” Connor agreed, offering her a smile as he looked down at her.

Now that they were in the quiet of her home between them, he felt more at ease. Yet, as Rachel looked at him, her brows then quickly furrowed at him as she examined his face. “You okay?” She asked him. “You have that look. That ‘something’s bothering me, but I don’t wanna burden anyone else with my problems’ look.”

As Connor looked into her rich brown eyes, he let himself chuckle a bit. “Nothing escapes you, does it?” He asked somewhat rhetorically.

“I’ve seen that look enough times to recognize it at a glance.” Rachel informed him, interlacing her fingers with his and bringing his hand to her lips, placing a soft kiss on his knuckles. “So, what’s up?”

Connor thought for a moment what he should tell her before she answered for him. “You’re still thinking about it, aren’t you.” Rachel presumed. “Your nightmare.”

Truth

Lie

The android nodded forlornly.

Rachel sighed. “That’s okay.” She relented, giving him a bittersweet smile. “I knew your problems weren’t gonna just go away after one day. And it’s totally normal to still feel thrown off by it. It’s...just gonna be like that for a while.” She then leaned against him, and Connor did the same, pressing his cheek into her forehead. “But did today help you feel better, at least?”

Yes

No

Rachel - Lover ^ “It did.” Connor replied in earnest, kissing her forehead.

“Good.” Rachel said appreciatively, resting her head in the crook of his neck before speaking again. “So...did you wanna talk about it?”

Connor thought again back to the nightmare. What exactly did he want to tell her about it? How he was fearful of giving up control? How he was afraid of losing control and hurting her as a result? How he was afraid that she might deem him as a threat and hurt him?

[No]

[Yes]

Perhaps it was better to be honest with her. After all, she gave him the freedom to reject her offer and discuss it another time. But perhaps she could give him some necessary insight into his fears like she did when he was first awoken from it.

Connor nodded and pulled away from her, still grasping her hand. Her patient brown eyes were locked on his, a small appreciative smile on her lips. Looking at her sweet face melted the cold and fearful parts of the android and made him feel more comfortable in this moment of vulnerability.

“Seeing Amanda in my nightmare...made me realize just what my worst fears are.” He began to explain to Rachel. “I think the reason I saw her at all...was because of what happened that night, when we won the revolution. When...Amanda took control of me.”

Rachel nodded in acknowledgement. “Right, that would make sense.”

At least she was able to. “It made me realize just how easily I could’ve lost everything I had gained.” Connor confessed. “In the blink of an eye, everything I loved and cared about was going to be ripped away from me, and there was nothing I could do. Until I realized I could escape. But what would’ve happened if Kamski hadn’t warned me about the emergency exit? I...I would’ve lost everything.” Connor then registered the fear and anguish in his human companion’s eyes. “I would’ve lost you.”

Rachel then gave him a painful smile. “But you didn’t.” She reminded him firmly. “You escaped, and I’m still here. And so are you.”

To hear her reaffirm that was helpful and made Connor feel more secure in himself. “But I’m still afraid.” He admitted, a small twinge of shame in his voice. “I’m afraid of it happening again. I’m afraid of Amanda taking control of me and...making me hurt you.” He finally managed to choke out. “And I’m afraid of losing control. It’s...it’s why I was so rough with you earlier. It felt good to have that control. It made me feel more secure. But...I was still afraid even then.”

“Hey, that’s okay.” Rachel said, stopping him before he could spiral. “If I didn’t want you to, I would’ve stopped you. You gave me a safe word and I didn’t feel like I needed to use it at any point, Connor. Because I trust you. I trust that you would never hurt me and that Amanda’s truly gone, now.” 

He knew she meant that. Connor knew that Rachel meant that completely and wholeheartedly. And her unshakable faith in him quieted some of his doubts. 

And if she trusted him so completely...perhaps he should do the same. “I’m also afraid of giving up that control.” Connor continued. “I’m afraid of not having it. That not being in control would just make me the same as I once was. An object. Something to use and control.”

“Believe me, I understand that feeling painfully.” Rachel empathized, her gaze intense, an edge of venom to it. Connor tried to grasp for the reason and found it. Luis. The man who had abused her as a teenager. “But there’s a key difference between control being taken from you, or being made or raised to obey and nothing else, and willingly relinquishing that control temporarily.” She explained. “Giving up control willingly doesn’t make you weak or less of a person. Because it’s still a choice you get to make for yourself. A choice you can take back whenever you wish. And you can choose who you give that control to. You can choose who you trust enough to have control over you until you decide you want it back. And you’re no less of your own person or independent because of it.”

To hear those words spoken to Connor from a position like Rachel’s was vindicating. He wasn’t wrong to be afraid or to be wary. But that he could overcome it and choose what he wanted to do with himself and his life and position. And as long as it was his choice, he was always his own person.

Connor felt his eyelids grow tight as he leaned forward, resting his head against Rachel’s, feeling cool tears slide down his cheeks. “Thank you..." He breathed softly to her.

“Of course.” Rachel replied tenderly, stroking his cheek with her other hand. “I’ve always got you, Connor. And I’ll be here for you every step of the way, no matter how tough or ugly it gets. No matter what happens, I’m here. Whatever you need, I’m here to help.”

“I know.” Connor replied, smiling. “And I’m so thankful to have you in my life.”

“And I, you.” Rachel leaned forward and pressed her lips against Connor’s softly, her touch as tender and light as silk sheets. The android happily returned the gesture, but with as much sweetness and gentleness as she displayed herself. 

Pulling back, there was a niggling thought in his head that he wanted to share with Rachel. A proposition of sorts he wanted her opinion on. “Can I ask you something?”

Rachel laughed sweetly at him. “Always, Connor.”

Amanda

Control

Jericho

Sixty

The android suddenly felt small, dwarfed in spirit in her presence. Swallowing his pride, he let his feelings be known. “You know...how I asserted my dominance over you earlier?” He reminded Rachel. “In the bedroom of the house?”

“I recall, yes.” She replied somewhat playfully.

Connor avoided her gaze, turning his head away slightly. “Would..." His voice caught in his throat as he tried to voice his honest feelings. “Would...it be too much to ask if you did the same?”

Rachel seemed taken aback by his request, but all Connor could see in her eyes when he looked back at her was pure concern. “Are you sure?” She asked him, her brows knitted together.

Connor nodded timidly. “Y-yes.” He stammered out. “It’s just that...hearing you say how much you trust me when I had control over you made me think that...perhaps I can move past my fears if I trust you to have control over me.” He felt so shameful. “I-I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t trust you.”

Rachel nodded, taking in his request. “I see your logic.” She agreed, detaching her hand from his and cupping his other cheek with it so she was forcing him to look at her. “But...are you sure you’re ready? I’d be glad to, don’t get me wrong. But...I don’t wanna push you if you’re not ready. We don’t have to do it right away, we can take as long as you need to.”

Connor wasn’t sure how to answer her. He did want to, he really did. There was no one else he could trust to do it. But he did feel an apprehension to the thought. A certain prickly and paralyzing feeling was forming in his abdomen at the thought of relinquishing control. “I..." He struggled to answer her, but she then interfaced with him, then, and Connor felt much more secure and safe. Much less anxious.

Rachel then shook her head as she leaned against him with a sigh. “You’re not ready, yet.” She decided. “I can tell. I can feel it. But I want you to be able to tell me. I want you to be able to tell me no.”

Yes

No

Connor knew she meant that. There was nothing but patience and understanding that he could feel on her end. All she really cared about was his safety and wellbeing and she would never dare compromise that. “You’re right.” He admitted, feeling much more confident in himself. “I’m...not ready.”

Rachel - Lover ^ Rachel let out a sigh and let go of Connor, leaning into his chest. “Good.” Was all she said in response. “You’re allowed not to be. It’s okay not to be. Whenever you do feel ready, I will be. But you get to decide when that is, got it?”

Connor wrapped his arms around Rachel with a relaxed sigh. “Got it.”

For a while, the pair just stayed there in each other’s arms, taking complete comfort in each other. Connor couldn’t imagine having this level of complete security and comfort with anyone else. Indeed, Rachel was his home. His rock. His safe place. And she made sure he knew that, no matter how many times she would have to remind him.

After a good while, Rachel separated from Connor with an exhausted groan. “I am pretty beat, though.” She said with a good long stretch, the clear sounds of her back cracking making Connor want to cringe out of sympathy for her. “How about we just spend the rest of the day relaxing on the couch, hm? Maybe watch a movie or two?”

Connor smiled, getting up from the table and following her to the television. “Sure.” He replied eagerly. “What did you have in mind?”

“A movie I really liked as a kid that I think you will.” Rachel explained vaguely before she turned around and pointed at him. “But again, you’re not allowed to look up anything about it! It ruins the fun!”

Connor followed her and sat down next to her, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “I would never.” He teased her. “I’d hate to be unpleasant.”

“You big squish.” Rachel cooed affectionately at him, already getting in position with the remote in her hand. “It’s called Wall-E. It’s an animated movie from when I was a kid about two robots falling in love in a post-apocalyptic Earth where trash has sort of accumulated, leaving the planet uninhabitable.” She then flashed him an excited grin that Connor couldn’t help but adore. “I think you’ll really like it.”

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

Next Chapter

[jaxsteamblog]

Summer Camp and (mostly) Lost

Click here to read the full fic on AO3

On the first day of classes, Katara was already looking forward to the first break. Someone had recognized her from the debut and people were hounding her between lectures. Even in the halls with more than a hundred students, she could hear her name whispered among the ducked heads. Inevitably, someone near her would check their phone and their head would whip around, settling on her for a second before typing a furious reply.

Armistice Day was two weeks into the first semester, which would at least give her a long weekend.

However, when she tried to find something to do, nothing seemed to come together. After taking off so much time, Sokka was adamant about keeping the shop open. Especially, as he reminded her, now that he had to save for a wedding.

Rohan was traveling with Thuy to Gaoling. The Beifongs - who had worked with Avatar Kuruk’s companions - had a daughter that was a professional fighter. On the one hand, it was assumed that such a wealthy and well-connected family like the Beifongs would be the ones to teach the new Avatar if they had the ability. On the other, Rohan knew it was because Thuy’s unusual upbringing was the perfect match for the fact that Toph Beifong was blind and undefeated.

“So does that mean you’re going to be Thuy’s airbending instructor?” Katara asked as she screen chatted with them while in bed. “I mean, you’re plenty unusual.”

“Unfortunately, Pop is pretty insistent that she have some sort of reasonable and level-headed teacher. So Jinora is doing it.” Rohan said.

“Has her firebending-”

“AZULA.” They interrupted her and Katara dropped her phone as she fumbled. Diving for it, she fell off her bed.

“Azula will teach her?” She asked, popping up onto her knees. Rohan nodded vigorously.

“Now, none of this is being confirmed in the press at the moment. But someone leaked our travel plans to the Fire Nation.” They answered.

“You’re going to the Fire Nation with her?”

“Yeah, I’m like her guide for a minute until she finds her group.”

“Hmmm.” Katara rested her head on her bead, staring up at the ceiling. It might be interesting to go travel the world with the Avatar. Maybe in another life.

“Hey, I gotta go, but chat soon? Unless you’ll be elbow deep in some guy’s guts.” Rohan said and Katara looked down at her scream, grimacing.

“I told you-”

“I know, I know. Class work first, cutting up people later.” Rohan flashed a quick grin and Katara sighed. “Say hi to your brother for me.”

They ended the call and Katara pushed herself up, stretching her arms over her head. She could study, go over her anatomy notes one more time, but her head just wasn’t in the right place. Laying back down on her bed, she pulled up the info page on Toph Beifong. She was only a little younger than Katara, but was a bit on the small side. Watching the recommended video, Katara guffawed loudly as she watched the woman launch a man twice her size into the stands.

This was exactly the thing Sokka was into. Hopefully as Queen of the Water Tribes, she could get the Avatar to introduce them.

Sighing, Katara dropped her phone onto her chest and put her hands over her eyes. She had to think about something happy.

Her thoughts for years had circled around being a physician. She wanted to go home to be a village doctor, spending her days assisting births and treating ailments. Katara fantasized about being a hero not for the destruction she wrought, but for ending the regular tuberculosis that plagued the tribes. Murdering viruses was much easier to swallow than the human body count that haunted her.

But now that was being taken away from her. Arnook had, for all of her attempts to avoid it, gotten her alone. He expounded on her the importance of her position, the necessary responsibility she needed to take for her people. She would be an icon of strength, of prosperity, and would be able to keep all three tribes safe.

Because Thuy was still vulnerable, and didn’t Katara want to save her from the same fate of losing her home and her mother?

Thuy was capable for her age. She had told Katara that Avatar Aang came to her first when she was at the heart of the swamp. A massive tree, that was simultaneously all of the trees in the swamp, was where she went to hide from her noisy family. It was there she meditated and found how the tree was connected to all things, and how she was connected to all things through it.

It was then that Aang found her, and taught six-year-old Thuy hilarious things to do with mud. It didn’t even strike her that she was earthbending.

Thuy explained that all of the elements were connected to each other, and that the Avatar was the heart of that forest. All she wanted, she said while they looked over the group of Avatar descendants, was that everyone would find their commonality and be able to celebrate their differences.

“Like how fire and water both flow so beautifully.” Thuy had added.

Katara rolled her eyes just as she had then.

There was a certain romantic aspect to fire and water. And steam could be pretty, but more often than not it just scalded people who got too close.

Her phone started to ring and Katara picked it up.

“Well speak of the hogmonkey.” She said as Zuko’s face showed up.

“You were talking about me?” He asked.

“Tangentially thinking about.” Katara said and then sat up. “Hey, I never got to ask, what did you think of Thuy?”

“She was nice. She said I looked like I belonged at the North Pole.” Zuko answered and Katara snorted.

“I think that brat is trying to set us up.” She said.

“Girls at that age are wild.”

“I wouldn’t know. I was getting ready to fight my way through Fire Nation territory.”

“And Azula was leading a hit squad against me so I think you’re going to need to take your trauma card elsewhere ma’am.”

Katara laughed, shaking her head.

“A little birdie told me that Azula is going to be teaching the Avatar firebending.” She said.

“Oh yeah? Did that little birdie also mention that they were the one to spill the beans to the press? I swear, Rohan can’t keep a secret to save their life.” Zuko said. Katara chuckled again and looked at Zuko’s face.

“If you had been a normal teenager, what do you think you would have done at her age?”

Zuko let out a breath and looked off into the distance as he thought.

“If I were normal, my mother would still be around. And.” He suddenly smiled and rubbed his eye with his hand before pushing his hair back. “Okay, so in my mother’s village, there’s this theater camp that runs in the summer.”

“No way.” Katara said, her voice breathy in astonishment. “Zuko, you are such a nerd!”

“I can’t help it! You saw my father, I inherited the drama!” He retorted and they both laughed.

When they settled, Katara lifted the phone high above her face.

“Have you ever gone to your mother’s village?” She asked. Zuko looked thoughtful, which made her feel better for asking.

“Once. After the war but before I was recalled.” He said. “It’s nice but homely and made me realize that I could never not be rich now.”

“You’re soft.”

“I’m so weak Katara you don’t even understand.”

As they laughed, Katara saw him smile at her.

“You have off on Armistice Day right?” He asked.

Katara nodded.

“Why don’t we go to Hira’a? The tourist season ends there really early and the people there don’t mind me so much since I’m Ursa’s son.”

“Are we going to go to summer camp?” She asked.

“Maybe we can tangentially think about it.” Zuko replied.

~

Katara focused on her schoolwork during the week prior to leaving. She didn’t want to have to think about tests or her first research paper the entire weekend. What did bother her was a lack of supplies for the trip. Zuko said there was a legend about the woods surrounding Hira’a and suggested they go hiking. At first she had agreed, but then Sokka informed her that she would need gear for such a trip.

Luckily, a person in her lab had his from a cross kingdom trip. As Katara collected some of the basic things, she shook off others. Her hike wasn’t going to be as intensive and she could just rely on her phone for directions.

Flying out, Katara was too excited to be nervous going through the airport. Her anxiety resurfaced only briefly when she made a layover in a larger Fire Nation city to board a very small charter plane.

There were a few other passengers on the plane and one little boy chattered endlessly for the entire trip. Katara, tired, smiled but looked out the window, trying to focus on something else.

The woods around Hira’a were thick and the canopy resembled broccoli florets. What was unexpected was the massive mountain and the few shining discs of the lakes.

Zuko met her as the plane landed, standing under a shaded area while the plane taxied to a stop. Suddenly shy, Katara held onto the straps of her borrowed backpack while she walked down the stairs.

“How was your trip?” Zuko asked as he met her on the strip.

“It was good only,” Katara looked up with a small frown. “Do you think it’ll rain?”

Zuko looked up at the sky as well. “The weather says no. And it tends to get overcast like this every day in the afternoon.”

They looked at each other and Zuko held out his hand.

“Come on,” He said. “Let’s get to the house.”

At the small luggage carousel, Zuko grabbed her suitcase and rolled it as they left the airport. Katara glanced up at the sky once more as they walked through the cool air curtain at the exit. It definitely felt like a storm to her.

To her surprise, they walked past the taxi stand.

“The house is close.” Zuko assured her, having seen her face. “And the villagers prefer that there not be a lot of cars. It disrupts the environment.”

The village was beautiful, even in the subdued light. The trees were a deep green, and bright flashes of fruit or clothing stood out against the leafy backdrop. There were roads, but people on bikes or motorbikes swarmed over them. Every once in a while, a delivery truck would rumble past, coughing out black smoke and Katara understood the facemasks.

“Ah, Prince Zuko!” Someone called out and they turned. A middle-aged man on a motorbike walked up to them, his flip-flops slapping his heels.

“Noren?” Zuko asked in disbelief.

“It’s good to see you, la!” Noren replied and Zuko, leaving Katara’s suitcase on the sidewalk, went to shake the man’s hand.

“I didn’t think I’d run into you.” Zuko replied and Noren waved a hand in front of his face.

“I heard the crown prince was in town, so I knew I had to come and see.” He said. Zuko laughed and rubbed the back of his head. He then stopped and looked back, waving Katara over.

“Katara, I’d like you to meet Noren. He runs the theater in town and was a friend of my mother.” Zuko said as Katara got closer. “Noren, this is my friend Katara from the South Pole.”

“Ursa was part of the theater troupe.” Noren said as he shook hands with Katara. He then slapped his thighs and looked at Zuko. “Now, dinner?”

Katara and Zuko made it to the house and Katara insisted on changing before they went to Noren’s house for dinner. His wife Noriko was a sweet lady who doted on Zuko, but more hilarious was their teenage daughter Kiyi. While she tried to hide it, Kiyi was clearly excited to see Zuko and showed him photos of her latest pictures on her phone.

Noren told Katara about Zuko’s visit to the village years ago. Trying to find some piece of his mother, Noren had offered his assistance in any way that he could. During that short time Zuko spent in the village, he got very close to Noren and his family, becoming like an older brother to Kiyi.

While they were at dinner, all three of them turned on Zuko when he spoke about his plans to take Katara into the woods. Noren didn’t like the woods at all and Noriko insisted that it was going to rain. Still, Noriko packed them both up with extra food and Noren gave them a ride in the dark on his bike.

Tired, full, and covered in sweat, Katara laid face down on her bed and fell asleep.

In the morning, Zuko packed their lunch while Katara reheated leftovers from Noriko to eat for breakfast. Zuko handed her a mug of coffee just as she served up the plates and they both looked over a map. The route Zuko plotted out was simple and they went over their supplies. Water, sunscreen, bug spray, and even a portable battery to recharge their phones should the worst happen. It was just a day hike, and the sun was even poking out behind some of the clouds, so it wouldn’t be too bad.

“Can you bend humidity?” Zuko asked as they shoulder their backpacks.

Katara rolled her eyes and started toward the door.

The trailhead was further from their rental than the airport, so Zuko called a taxi. Unsurprisingly, a young woman on a motorbike showed up and they piled on like they had when Noren had driven them home last night. What was nice was the moment when the driver handed them a face mask each, shaking her head at their clumsy application.

The humidity was disgusting and Katara was panting by the time they stopped at the park. Zuko peeled money out of his wallet and handed it to their driver, who saluted them before puttering off.

“Are your babysitters here?” Katara asked.

“No. Hira’a is small and they know when there’s a visitor. And again, I’m Ursa’s son.” Zuko said.

“Oh good, so if I drown in this air, it’s only you who can save me.”

“We’ll be fine.”

The rain started fifteen minutes into their walk.

There was no warning. It was clear one moment and the next a gray sheet had dropped all around them. The rain fell like bullets and they ran to the nearest tree with leaves sturdy enough to hold up against the onslaught. It took awhile and Katara felt the sting of the rain on her scalp.

“It’s just a burst.” Zuko said, rubbing his hair vigorously. “It’ll pass quickly.”

Right as he finished speaking, a crack of thunder went off like a shot.

“We need to get to shelter.” Katara said, her body tense as she prepared to run. Zuko sighed and nodded.

They moved blindly through the rain, stumbling over tree roots and exposed stone. Small rivers of muddy water rushed down the path and Katara worried about slipping. Finally irritated, she used her bending to repel the water from her. It was unnatural and made her feel weird, but she couldn’t even see three feet in front of her.

“That’s a lot of water you’re holding.” Zuko remarked as he stood in the dry spot with her.

“I can do better.” She said and moved sinuously around. The ball of negative space undulated, but burst as Katara thrust out her arms with a sharp breath. The rain around them stopped.

Turning her head, Katara saw Zuko staring at her, open mouthed.

“Like what you see?” Katara quipped.

Zuko nodded and Katara blushed, losing her smirk and feeling her ears burn. Suddenly aware of her attention, Zuko coughed and swung his backpack off a shoulder, pulling it to his front.

“Where did you learn to bend like that?” He asked as he unzipped the main pocket and rummaged through it.

“War.” Katara said simply. This was oddly easier to hold than the negative space, since she wasn’t trying to keep the water away from her. The fat droplets simply hung in their air like strands of glass beads.

“It didn’t do anything like that for me.” Zuko said. “All I got out of it was this face.”

“Zuko, your face is fine.” Katara remarked.

“You only say that because you like me.”

“I didn’t find you ugly before I liked you. It was just surprising.” Katara paused, listening to the heavy rain that fell around them. It was much more enjoyable now that she wasn’t getting drenched.

“The burn surprised me too.” Zuko said and held up his phone. “Here we go.”

Katara walked over to him, pushing the rain out of her way. The fat drops burst against her hand the same way boba pearls would against her tongue.

“How did it happen?”

“The burn? After my grandfather died, my father insisted that my uncle step down since my cousin had died. My uncle is older and had no heir, whereas my father had two children and was young. My uncle refused and the war started. I defended my uncle and my father punished me.” Zuko explained as he pulled up a map of the woods. He didn’t look at her as he spoke and Katara stared at his burned eye.

“Zuko…” She murmured and lightly touched his face. Wherever Zuko went while telling the story, he certainly wasn’t with her and her touch shocked him. Jolting back, he surprised Katara, who fell with a yelp. She lost her hold on the rain and it, plus everything held up on top, dumped on them, soaking them instantly.

Zuko went to her and picked her up, running with her in his arms.

“I saw a cave.” He yelled over the sound of the rain. Katara just held onto him, feeling the wet soak into her skin.

When Zuko dipped into the cave - which was only moderately drier than the open - Katara used her bending to dry their clothes. Zuko found windblown debris and made a scant fire, again shaking out his hair.

“Sorry.” Katara said softly.

“It’s fine. It was an accident.” Zuko replied with a weak smile. “The only downside is, I dropped my phone and it’s fried.”

“Okay, so that is bad.” Katara said and then brightened. “Wait mine is in my-” She stopped as she reached into her back pocket. Slowly pulling out her phone, she stared dumbly at the shattered screen.

“But we do have the map!” Zuko said and went to his pack. He pulled out the map and sat down to open it over his lap.

“That sure is a map.” Katara said as she sat down next to him.

“I know these are elevation lines, but…” Zuko tapped the map.

“You don’t know where we are.”

“Not a clue.”

“And we can’t call for help.”

“No.”

“So what do we do?” Katara asked. The thunder and lightning was short lived so at least now she could breathe.

“Wanna makeout?” Zuko replied. Katara scoffed and then, seeing his grin, started to laugh.

“When the rain stops, we can try to find our way back to the path.” Zuko said and put his arm around Katara’s shoulders. “For now, let’s just hang here and rest.”

The rain lasted for nearly an hour and Katara forced Zuko to wait until the air felt right to her before leaving. As they walked out into the forest, nothing looked familiar. Having peered through heavy rain, the shimmering brilliance of wet leaves was disorienting. Zuko kept the map out, turning it in his hands before picking a direction.

“Zuko?” Katara asked cautiously and Zuko looked up from the map.

“Yes?”

“Why did you even go back if your father burned you?”

Zuko’s thoughtful face was nuanced, as Katara now saw. He looked pained, but in a way that made Katara think he was going to tell her bad news.

“My uncle and I believe that my father wanted me to refuse to return. That was always an option you see. I could renounce my claim to the throne and stay with my uncle in Ba Sing Se. But if I did that, Azula would inherit.” Zuko shook his head. “And I don’t want to live in a world where Azula is a political force.”

“But does that make you happy?” Katara asked.

“The future makes me happy. Knowing that I’ll be able to do the things I want when I’m the Fire Lord.” Zuko answered.

“But that might be decades away!”

“But it will happen. And my father can’t really do much harm since he knows I’ll oppose him.”

“You made a really brave choice Zuko.”

Stepping over a fallen log, Zuko took Katara’s hand and helped her over. As she hopped onto the ground, he held onto her.

“Oh, I don’t think I’m all that brave.” He said softly. This pained look was more internal; something that hurt him alone.

He then patted her hand before releasing it and they started off again.

“Do you think I’m making the right choice?” Katara continued. “To be the Queen of the Water Tribes?”

“Well what does being queen mean to you?” Zuko asked.

“No more war.”

“Then I think you’re at least giving it an honest go.”

“But I could do so much more for my people if I was a doctor.” Katara replied.

“Really? Because what do you think will happen when Arnook dies?” Zuko questioned.

“What do you mean?”

“Yue was his heir, right? And not even a proper heir; she was going to have to be married so some guy could be the King of the North Pole.”

“And?”

“My kingdom went to war over the prospect of there not being an heir to inherit. If Arnook were to die without someone clearly next in line, I can tell you war is exactly what will happen.”

“No, my father wouldn’t let that happen.”

“It might not have anything to do with your father. Or it’ll happen with or without him. The South Pole might want to keep their independence, same as the Swamp Tribe, but Arnook has made it clear that the North Pole wants unification. War would happen regardless.”

“And you just know this to be true?”

Zuko gave her a look and Katara threw up her arms.

“Why does this have to depend on me?” She asked. Zuko shrugged.

“Circumstances of birth.” He said nonchalantly. Katara lowered her arms, having them fall loose and slapping the sides of her legs.

“Spirits, is it really just that?”

Zuko walked up to her and rubbed her arms.

“Even something so mundane as when you were born can change everything. I mean,” Zuko paused and huffed out a laugh. “If Thuy had been born a moment earlier then she wouldn’t even be the Avatar.”

“I don’t want my whole life plotted out just because of when and where I was born.” Katara said.

“Okay, so what’s one thing, within reason, that you want that you can get while stuck with these choices?” Zuko asked.

“I want to be with you.” She blurted.

When Zuko blushed, his skin turned yet another shade of red that didn’t match any part of his scar. He gripped her arms for a moment before suddenly releasing her and walking away.

“Zuko?” Katara called.

Zuko whirled around and pointed at her.

“You wanted to go on a date.” He said fiercely.

“Yes?”

“Let’s go on a date.”

“We’re sorta lost right now.”

“Not now.” Zuko rubbed his hands on his pants and looked down for a second. “After midterms. A proper date.”

Katara laughed, nodding.

“Okay. But how are we gonna get out of here?” She replied.

“I don’t-” Zuko started but stopped as a call went through the woods.

“Zuuuuuukoooooo?” A woman yelled.

“Is that Noriko?” Katara asked. Zuko chuckled and took her hand. Jogging, but watching out for roots, they moved in the direction of the calls. Noren, Noriko, and Kiyi all were shouting from in front of them.

When they finally broke the treeline, the family was standing, each one holding an umbrella.

“Ay! There they are!” Kiyi shouted.

“Ah, thank goodness!” Noriko said and fanned herself.

As they all gathered, she swatted Zuko’s arm.

“Why didn’t you listen to me, boy?” She asked and Zuko laughed, rubbing where she had hit him.

“Mom! You can’t just hit the prince!” Kiyi said.

“When the rain came, Noriko was really worried about you and insisted that I drive out. When you weren’t at the trailhead, she knew you were lost.” Noren explained.

“Tourists always get lost.” Kiyi added.

“The prince isn’t a tourist.” Noriko said sharply. “He’s just not as familiar with these woods.”

“Well, we were lost and I’m really thankful you came out here.” Zuko said. “I’ll make sure to listen to you better, Auntie.” He leaned in and hugged Noriko, making her blush.

“Dad borrowed our neighbors van so we can take you back.” Kiyi said. As she looked at Zuko and Katara, she shook her head.

“It must be nice to be a waterbender.” She remarked.

“They are very handy to keep around.” Zuko agreed. Katara glared at him as he chuckled.

“I will put you in ice.” She hissed. Zuko didn’t reply, but took her hand as they all started to walk to the trailhead. His hand was warm and dry, which made Katara aware of the cool dampness that lingered on her skin. But she wasn’t cold. At least, not with him.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

[gra-sonas]

‘Roswell, New Mexico’ Star MichaeI VIamis Teases MaIex Jealousy, 1940s Flashbacks

The CW’s “Roswell, New Mexico” Season 2 is giving Michael Guerin plenty of drama. In the first two episodes, the character has grieved the loss of his brother, tried to make amends with Maria, learned new information about his alien mother and he’s already been arrested once. Actor Michael Vlamis told International Business Times that there’s plenty more to come.

The Chicago native talked to IBT last week in a phone interview while he was social distancing in Los Angeles, and he opened up about Michael’s anger, jealousy and longing. Plus, of course, he teased more tension for Michael and Alex (Tyler Blackburn), AKA Malex, as Michael tries to move on with Maria and Alex gets a new love interest.

IBT: What’s your favorite aspect of Michael's storyline this year?

Vlamis: My favorite aspect is probably also my least favorite aspect, which is the feeling of losing a brother because that is also such a difficult thing. There's losing a relationship, and then there's losing a family member. Fortunately, aside from grandparents, I haven't had to deal with losing a direct family member, but I have lost a very close friend. That actually happened right before the season started, which was, it was a crazy experience. I don't want to get into it. It's way too dark.

But that person that I lost, my buddy, was such a proponent of my career and me as an actor. Back in the day, he was always so excited for me to take a chance and come out to LA and do this thing, and so I felt like this responsibility, I kind of channeled that guy on set during this season while reeling from the loss of my brother. It was a very beautiful and cathartic thing, but it was also a very tough thing because consistently I'm putting myself in this headspace of what I felt like at the time when he was gone.... If that dude was going to go down, he would want to go down with a purpose, and I just try to take some of him and put it into my work.

I think he's pissed off because he feels like he has to step up now, and he has to now all of a sudden be the protector. He has to be the savior. In a lot of ways, he is a protector, but he never thinks of himself as that. He just does what he has to do, and now the fact that Max has gone--because he played the hero card, because he played the savior card, which is a big reason we're in this whole mess, he's always kind of done that--he kind of feels responsible that he needs to be the one to look after Isobel.

I think that's why he shows up to the funeral. I don't think he wants to be there. I think he wants to be drinking away all of his sorrows, and that's why he shows up not dressed and filthy and hammered and he's got a bottle with him. Deep down, he knows what he has to do, but he hates the fact that he has to do it.

IBT: Michael is also learning about his real family and his mom. At the end of the last episode, we see him become suddenly more determined to learn about his mom. Can you tease a little bit of where that journey's going to take him?

Vlamis: I think he was always very interested in learning about his mother, and then when she passed at the end of Season 1, he gave up. Now that this new information's coming, it's pissing him off because he's been drinking, wallowing in his sorrows, playing this victim card, wanting this whole thing to be over on the outside. Like just, "Okay, maybe there is no purpose, and that's it. Screw it. I don't have a family. I don't have anything. I'm kind of this lost soul."

But this new information comes up, and just when he's deciding to give up on it, deep down, he's still that kid who's longing for his family, who bounced around from foster home to foster home. He wants to find out his roots, and he does this season. He really finds out a lot about his mother and where she came from and did she spend any time when she landed in Roswell, or was she taken as a prisoner immediately?

This is all information that gets explained as the season goes on, and they do it in a really cool way. They use the flashback device to go back to the late 1940s and early 1950s and see what Roswell was like back in the day during that time, and that's all through the information that he's finding. It's a really cool journey for the character, but also for the show because we get to see all these old pieces.

IBT: Of course, I have to talk to you about Michael's many romances.

Vlamis: Of course. Of course, you do.

IBT: I was re-watching the end of the last episode earlier today, and Michael really says, "I want to be with Maria," to Alex very kind of abruptly. Why is he so anxious to tell him that he likes Maria?

Vlamis: I think because he wants to be left alone right now. When it comes to Alex, I think that there's too much pain, too much trauma between the two of them, too many reminders of a darker time that he needs to let go, and whether he wants to say that--Maybe it came out so abruptly because maybe he doesn't know what he wants exactly, but he knows that he deserves to be happy, and maybe he wants to actually be happy for once.

Does he want to push Alex away? Probably not. I mean, they have a kind of love that's unexplainable. It's been around forever, and there's so much history. That's always a tough thing. But unless you lay a hammer down, you're never going to go explore these other possibilities and maybe a life that you actually deserve and that is better for you.

I think that's probably why I said it so abruptly just because it just needed to be said, and such a hard thing to say. And I could play this yo-yo effect forever and go back and forth with the two characters. Or I could take a shot, which is even harder to do, to say no to someone and say yes to another. I think that's what he's doing right there.

IBT: Last time we talked was at New York Comic Con, and you said that there's definitely sexual tension between the guys, but they're going to try to be friends. Are they going to struggle with being friends? Being friends with your ex is not the easiest.

Vlamis: No, I've never been friends with one of my exes. I don't know how that works, so I kind of take in a lot of my life experience into the character. I always try to do that. I will say that it's very rocky at first, but with that being said, he's the one guy who's really helping me uncover this truth about my mother, so whether there's animosity towards one another or not, we are stuck together. There are so many more Malex scenes this season, maybe even more than last year.

It's just a different dynamic. But that's something that we really enjoy to play too. We enjoy that sexual tension because no matter what happens, they have a deep love for one another, so whatever the lines are, there's going to be that, "What if that worked out, What if?" Whether that's good for him or not, whether he wants that or not, you always kind of wonder that.

IBT: I know that Alex has also getting a new love interest this season. Will we see any jealousy in Michael?

Vlamis: Yes. Screw that guy. Hate that guy. [laughs] Oh, man. I actually love that actor, Christian [Antidormi]'s the man, but there is a lot of... Yes. You will see a lot of jealousy from Michael Guerin--even though he shouldn't be jealous because he's in a different relationship. But we all act actually have some scenes together too coming up, the three of us, which is really fun. Yes, you get to see the subtext of Guerin not being too happy about this new guy in the world of Roswell.

IBT: You have been playing Michael for two seasons now, and I believe you guys are renewed for a third, right?

Vlamis: We are. Yes. We just got word that we might go back a little later to Santa Fe to shoot, but they're just being safe right now and kind of … trying to figure it out, but it seems like, yes, we 100% have a Season 3, and it'll be shot sometime this year.

IBT: You get to actually think about this character's future and know that your character does have a future. So what do you really want to see Michael do?

Vlamis: Man, if I answered this, honestly, I'd probably give away spoilers, so I have to be careful in how I answer this, but I would want him to find peace within himself and knowing that he's enough and that there are people that love him and care about him in the way that he's always longed for, which his family, whether him and the aliens are actually related not or whether they were separated from different homes growing up.

I think I really want him to realize that none of that matters and he has a family, which is something that he's back and forth on. He struggled a lot. He knows that they-- The Pod Squad, what everyone calls us. Yeah, I love that actually--But he knows that they're there for him. But deep, deep, deep down, they weren't in the house every day.

He didn't wake up and eat a cereal with those siblings and everything just went about. No, he was getting beat up, and he would sneak out to the Foster Ranch and wonder about where he's supposed to be. I would like him to find a little bit more peace with himself. At the same time, I'm a little conflicted because I love being in a jail cell as the character. I love being dirty. I love fighting. I love the drama. I don't know which way they're going to take me, but I'm going to be happy with either.

~ ibtimes

[callioope]

I’ve been vague about what has been going on in my life intentionally, both because I needed to tell some people offline first and because it’s a lot to process. 

But here is what happened: I am in the process of miscarrying.

I thought it might help to share my story. Miscarriage is more common than people realize and rarely talked about. If someone can benefit from my story, all the better, but mostly this is to help my grieving and coping process.

This is pretty detailed, so trigger warnings and all that.

Exactly one month ago, I read the results I had longed for: pregnant.

Today, I’m sprawled out on the couch in the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced. 

They don’t tell you that miscarriage is a process.

We’ve been trying to conceive since the end of last June. It was taking so long, I was convinced I’d be scheduling a fertility consultation this coming June. They tell you if you’re under 35, to give it a year. Before we started trying to conceive, I’d tell anyone about how time speeds up the older you get. It makes sense logically, of course, when a year is 1/5 of your life, it sure seems long, but went its 1/32, well... 

But this has been the longest eleven months of my life. The first month we started trying, I had an unusually long cycle. 39 days. I was so sure I was pregnant. My breasts had been hurting for two weeks. Husband and I were vacationing in Minnesota to see Aston Villa play. I bought a pregnancy test, beaming, excited, and was puzzled by the negative result. A week later, when my period came, I cried to my mother, and she said something about the universe saying I wasn’t ready or something. Whatever it was sounded bleak and ominous to my ears. It sounded like it meant I’d never be ready. 

The fall was busy and stressful, and despite all the tedious ovulation test strips, nothing happened except somehow, my period got lighter month by month. I was pretty sure something was wrong with me. I thought I had a UTI. (I was actually stressed and dehydrated, which I eventually remedied.) While I cried at a Sara Bareilles concert in November, my mother told me that her OBGYN said it can take as much at 9 months for the body to recalibrate after being on the pill.

Speaking of which. I’ve been taking the pill for over a decade. For the most part, I took it correctly. There is some leeway to taking it incorrectly, for the record. You can miss two pills in a row and it still has instructions for what to do (while cautioning to be safe and use extra protection). Maybe only once did I ever have to throw out a pack for missing too many in a row. 

(This is maybe neither here nor there, but rebelcaptain accidental pregnancy fics have become a bit of a pet peeve for me. Jyn and Cassian are far too careful and intentional to let that happen, and it is so easy to be responsible since there are so many birth control alternatives these days that don’t even require reliance on routine or memory.)

So, of course, the concern lately is that clearly 10+  years on birth control has messed me up. I do not know this objectively (what I do know is that I have OCD and anxiety and obsess over Everything That Can Go Wrong), but the point is that birth control really can have consequences that I don’t think are necessarily fully understood or studied. DO NOT GET ME WRONG, USE BIRTH CONTROL. My only regret is what I didn’t know.

I learned too late, but a lot of conception advice articles tell you to quit the BC as soon as possible. Even if my mom’s OBGYN is wrong, the general advice does seem to be that it can take up to 3 months for your body to recalibrate. So, if by any chance someone reading this is thinking about conceiving soon, if you take nothing else away from this rant, take this. I wish I had stopped taking the pill a few months before we actually intended to start trying.

After ten months of all this worrying, I finally got what I’d longed for. The moment I saw that positive result, it felt so surreal. There had been little things leading up to that moment, strange hints and signs, like I knew subconsciously even before a test would have been positive. I wrote that Howl’s Moving Castle pregnancy fic before I knew. I started learning “Here Comes the Sun” on my ukulele before I knew (it’s... silly, but I decided I wanted to learn the ukulele because I wanted to be able to play that song for my kids some day). It involves finger picking, so I’d been putting off learning it, but one day I just decided it was time. And finally, I decided to watch the latest season of Brooklyn 99. I’d avoided it because I knew Amy & Jake were also trying to conceive, and it was too emotional for me to watch that when I was so frustrated for how long I was taking. (Of course I didn’t realize they also had trouble, and watching it actually felt cathartic for me.) I got that positive result literally the next morning. 

I spent Monday, April 20, making checklists and spreadsheets. I set my first prenatal appointment for May 8. Those two and a half weeks were the slowest of my life. They stretched out like a rubber band. I couldn’t really focus on anything except this pregnancy I’d waited so long for. That’s probably why time moved so slowly. I wasn’t filling it with the hobbies I enjoyed, writing and playing my ukulele. All my overwhelmed brain could handle was the hilarious distraction of Community. Yeah, this is also around the time I disappeared from fandom. It was originally for a happy reason, I was just too excited to focus!

I know many women who have miscarried. The data seems to vary from source to source, but anywhere between 10% to 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. I couldn’t wait to get to the doctor to confirm everything was okay. I wondered if they would do an ultrasound; I dreamed of seeing a fetus on that screen.

We started talking about how we were going to tell our family. We wrote a pretend promotion letter for my sister, promoting her from “sister” to “aunt” (she’s a badass at her job and we had recently been talking about her promotions so it was thematically relevant). We planned to do a video call with my parents where we played Quiplash and created custom answers related to the pregnancy. 

But we never got that chance. On May 8, I went in for my first appointment. I’d spent the last three days sewing a mask because the ones we ordered still haven’t arrived yet. So all the time I would have spent preparing myself for the worst (as is my way) was spent instead distracted by sewing and finishing up Community. 

They took me to an office first and went over medical history questions. “Any morning sickness?” the nurse asked. “Not at all,” I said. “Should I be worried?” “No,” she answered. “Consider yourself lucky!” 

(For the record, many women who carry to term do not ever get morning sickness.)

(It was just one of those unfortunate exchanges.)

Then the exam with the doctor. All in all, it’d probably been 30 or 40 minutes by this point, all of this excited talk. I was going to tell my parents on Mother’s Day. My due date was Christmas.

I video call my husband just in time for the ultrasound. 

There was no embryo. 

The doctor said a lot of women are ovulating later in their cycles due to the stress of the pandemic. At the time, I thought maybe. Hope is funny like that, in the face of logic. It started to grow like a weed in the cracks of my breaking heart. 

But the thing is, even with that stubborn hopeweed, I knew. I’d been doing this for ten months. I knew when my last period was, I knew when I ovulated. I was 7 weeks and 1 day, and there was no embryo, and that was it.

The beginning of the process of miscarriage. 

Technically, it’d started a few days before that appointment, but I was distracted at that time. I’d noticed one morning that there seemed to be more hair in the shower floor than there should be. 

Dots started to connect. My breasts had stopped aching. Now, they started to shrink back to their original size. 

This happened over several days. I felt certain I would miscarry on Mother’s Day; fortunately, that did not happen. No, enough days had to pass for that hopeweed to prosper. Only then, when it whispered maybe would I start spotting and cramping. 

On Tuesday, the second ultrasound confirmed what I already knew. Not viable. Missed miscarriage. Technically, the prescription the doctor hands me reads “missed abortion.” “It’s just the technical term,” the doctor explains, acknowledging that many women might find this triggering. 

I don’t cry as much as I did. I only cry when I tell people. It seems important for people to know, just in case. Just one person in the relevant circles of my life. I had to tell my boss to explain the sudden uptick in unexpected doctor appointments. (I’m Rh negative, so I needed to go to the hospital to get bloodwork and a Rhogam shot -- and being in a hospital these days in anxiety-inducing enough without this trauma.)

It still feels surreal. All of this happened in one month. Somehow my life has changed completely and then reverted back. This is just a blip in my life, relatively, and yet it seems the longest month of my life.

In movies, in stories, miscarriage seems to go the same way: a flash of bloody sheets, a shout of shock and pain, and then grief. I never knew how it really goes: that it would stretch out for weeks, from the moment I saw that first ultrasound to now, twelve days later, just starting to bleed. I’ll have to go back for another ultrasound to confirm it’s done, and if it’s not, then I’ll need surgery. 

This speaks nothing of the grief. 

And then it’s back to square one, a whole year later: ovulation tests and endless waiting. 

It’s been a whole month; it’s been only a month, and miscarriage is a process. 

[overthinkingkdrama]

Can you explain to me what makes IU a good actress in your eyes? I like her but I’m also really trying to understand why everyone’s praising her to the skies after My Mister. My favorite performance from her is actually in Producers, where I thought she stole the show from the other leads. But Ji Eun in My Mister always just has this one same steely look, and in gifs of the show I feel this one-dimensionality becomes very obvious: I couldn’t tell if she was feeling angry, or sad, or numb, etc.

(Continuing from my last ask about IU’s acting): the same with Man Wol in HDL. She does all the right expressions, and they’re all quite convincing, but I never feel like they go beyond the surface. Maybe she’s just not good at micro-expressions and that’s what I’m having trouble with? I hope you don’t mind this ask. I’m not ratting on her because I genuinely enjoy her shows and especially loved her in Producers, but I am struggling to understand the sudden love for her acting post HDL.

(More on IU): compare her with someone like, say, Han Ye-ri, or Esom, or PMY, who all have these really expressive embodiments of their respective characters, and the difference becomes quite stark, I feel.

***

Let me start off by saying that I don’t pretend to have any expertise in the subject of acting. I both praise and criticize it as an amateur and a layman. I just know what works for me and what doesn’t work for me. So when you ask me this question, understand that for me the measure of what makes someone a good actor or a bad actor will always, by necessity, have an huge element of subjectivity to it. What is good or bad is going to be largely in the eye of the beholder. And so when I answer you it’s going to be on the basis of my subjective opinion and my experience following Lee Ji Eun’s acting consistently through 5 different projects since 2015.

That being said, there has been a dramatic turn around in the general fandom response to IU’s acting in the past two years, and that’s not by accident. She’s been involved in some high profile projects (My Mister, Persona, and most recently HDL) that have allowed her to showcase different aspects of her talent and demonstrate a distinct progression in her technical abilities and people are sitting up to take notice.

Three years ago I was interacting with posts on tumblr about her lead role in Scarlet Heart Ryeo, where both Knetz and English speaking drama fans were claiming that she was single-handedly ruining the show for them. That she only had one, saucer-eyed expression and that she wasn’t able to keep up with her more seasoned male costars.  Now that she’s in the fandom’s good graces they like to forget, but the vitriol (which female idols in general still frequently face, btw) was nearly constant at that time. I wholehearted disagreed with her critics then, and I disagree with them now.

I had first become aware of IU while watching Producers, which was also the first drama I ever watched as it was airing in the days of Dramafever. I was completely enamored with her portrayal of Cindy and I, like you, thought she completely stole the show, despite coming into the drama as a fan of her costars. From then on, I’ve been a fan of her as an actor and I’ve enjoyed all of her subsequent projects to greater or lesser degrees.

My Mister was the turning point in her career.  I’m on the record on tumblr as saying that My Mister is my favorite Kdrama. Ji An is my tumblr icon. I’ve made my partiality no secret. And for me, the reason should be obvious. The drama was controversial but it was also a huge critical success, with a beloved, veteran director at the helm, and I think it made people change their preconceptions about her. If she is being praised for HDL, then I would credit My Mister as the reason. People went from dismissing her out of hand as another singer who made a mediocre actress, to hailing her as one of the best idol actors out there.

If you can’t see why, or you think her performance in that drama is “one-dimensional” then a reply from me is probably not going to convince you otherwise. However, I have to ask due to the way you’ve phrased the question about My Mister in particular: Have you actually watched the drama, or are you only familiar with it from social media and gifs? Because if it’s the later, I can see why you might have formed this opinion. My Mister is an incredibly restrained drama, and the characters in general but Ji An specifically, carry a lot of trauma and emotion beneath the surface and are very reluctant to give anything away lest they be viewed as weak by others. If it’s the former, and you have seen the drama, then I don’t know how you can say, in all sincerity, the performance is one-dimensional or that Ji An only has one expression.

Certainly, Ji An is a very “steely” character.  But that’s because she lives her life on a knife’s edge. When we meet her it’s like she’s already dead, living in despair, trapped in a situation that she can’t see a way out of and perhaps on some level she doesn’t thinks she deserves to escape from. She slowly, very slowly, comes back to life over the course of the drama. That’s is how she is written. I would go further and say that is probably how IU was directed to play her (an actor isn’t an island, the director has a lot of say too in what they show and what they don’t.) I think there are many shades of subtlety in the performance, which cannot be captured by facial expressions alone. They come down to the timbre of her voice, the way she moves and holds herself, etc. Many of which can’t be captured in a gif sets or in stills. However to say that those expressions are the only things IU gets to show in the drama is simply disingenuous.

She gets to show the hard edges of disgust, fear, self-loathing, and cruelty. She also gets to show vulnerability, heartbreak, softness and remorse. She has explosive scenes, she has wrenching scenes, she has quiet scenes of grief and of gratitude.

(Couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for on tumblr so I grabbed these gifs off google images, credit to the gifmakers.)

I think she showcases them all. Maybe these emotions and they’re expression aren’t what you’re looking for in “good acting”. Perhaps there is another deficiency you are seeing that I’m not. Or maybe the way she shows these things isn’t loud enough, big enough or varied enough for your tastes. If that’s the case, then I don’t know what to tell you. Something about it isn’t striking a chord with you. It did for me. There’s really nothing I can do to change your mind.

However, I would venture to ask...did you have the same criticism for Lee Sun Kyun? His character is hardly so expressive that what you’ve said about Ji An couldn’t just as easily apply to Dong Hoon. I’ll go so far as to posit what you might be having a problem with in My Mister is the direction and not the acting.

As far as your critique on HDL that she “does all the right expressions, and they’re all quite convincing, but I never feel like they go beyond the surface” I’m not sure what to tell you. If she does all the right expressions AND they are convincing then how can you say they don’t beyond the surface? If they don’t go beyond the surface, then aren’t what you really saying is they aren’t convincing? At least to you? It could just be that you’re not connecting with her character for one reason or another, or maybe some of the idiosyncrasies of IU’s acting style just don’t connect with you. Maybe this is just a “different strokes for different folks” issue.

I, for one, do not enjoy Suzy’s acting. I think she’s perfectly serviceable as an actor, and she’s improved in recent projects. Even so, she never works for me especially in crying scenes. And kind of like with what you’ve said above, I think she makes the right expressions at the right times, but something about it rings false for me. And I’ve watched enough of her stuff at this point to be certain it wasn’t a one off.

But when it comes down to comparing one actor to another, or IU specifically to some of the actors you’ve mentioned, again I can only plead subjectivity. Different actors bring different strengths to their projects, and some projects require different things of their actors. I could sit here and dither with you about Han Ye Ri (who I think is the best out of the three you’ve mentioned above, and the most similar to IU in the characters she picks and how she plays them) and her different characters, but it would only be a wheel spinning exercise since we’re never going to have an exact one-to-one comparison between people.

To summarize, I believe you when you say you sent this ask in good faith. And I did my best to answer you, though I’m afraid you may not find my analysis very satisfying. This isn’t a subject I can approach with a lot of objectivity, because IU is one of my favorites and like I said, I’m just an amateur critic. If you’re noticing a lot of love and praise post HDL, I think it’s probably a result of the boost she got from My Mister and not as much because of her current drama on its own. Although I think she’s continuing to demonstrate that she knows what she’s doing and her turns in My Mister or Producers or Persona weren’t just a fluke.

Don’t feel like you have to like something just because other people are telling you it’s good. And don’t feel like you have to criticize something because it’s suddenly grown in popularity in a way you didn’t expect. Don’t take all of this too seriously, and try to enjoy yourself out there. That’s all any of us are trying to do, and I think it’s easy to lose sight of that.

Sorry for the long reply. Thank you for the ask.

Jona

[dogcollar101]

How To Keep Your Dog From Running Away Plus How to Build a Very Cosy (Free) Pet Bed

How a large four orders rescue lives

As stated by the National Health Service and press accounts, over 4,500 events per year from the U.K. have people and dogs, together with kids being the most significant prey category. . You might be more inclined to be intimidated by your dog compared to win the lottery!

1 episode is an undesirable statistic but and soon you accept your dog runs off as you let these events will keep that occurs. There are 5 fundamental actions, 4 significant controls and 3 key devices that you want to find out to utilize effortlessly to acquire control and also to build subject in your own dog. This informative article explains the way to achieve so and just how to avoid your dog working out. A collar and guide will work tools of hands, only exactly the like holding your little one's hand. Mobile phones are just another security apparatus we utilize together with your kids to maintain touch as well as for a far safer and more secure atmosphere. Our dogs really are not as crucial and therefore so are at a greater statistical risk compared to our kiddies. Your voice is not likely to be enough. Whistling is hardwork plus it presumes your pet discovers the whistle stronger than that which exactly are at the close of your own nose. You have to begin to comprehend that quitting your dog working out is an ability to be learned and developed an ongoing basis, and such as people, the enter of patience and love, will likely be repaid. The odds is that in case your young ones are version kiddies your pet probably will soon likely be too, but it does not mean it's certainly likely to be simple to coach, it merely means you almost certainly have the disposition and determination to continue to keep your pet secure and disciplined. I admit this guide could be a little contentious however, also the processes work and won't harm or hurt your own dog. Neglect and ignorance can be really just actually a far larger killer. If You Would like to prevent your puppy working out you will find just 3 points that your needs to attain:

Instant response Your puppy's entire and undivided focus Complete obedience You Want to Know There Are 3 Good Reasons why your puppy will run off:-

Sex Cruelty Owner Mis-management Each one reason as mentioned previously could possibly get your pet murdered or badly hurt. In the event that you overlay insufficient success with the 3 most disciplinary aspects you've got serious problems to address and also you also want to improve this fast or risk your own furry friend resulting in death or critical injury. The final result is going to be losing of one's furry friend by lethal injection, gun shot or deadly accidents. If minors are included and they truly have been your family it'll destroy not just your own life but that of one's whole family. This is the way I view it any way and it's that inspires me to receive it directly. Your furry friend running is perhaps never to be dismissed. I propose to test some simple helpful tips which may make your daily life simpler and boost your own association with the creature at a degree you can appreciate and focus onto good impact. I will discount the initial two reasons which cause conducting a way. For those who require guidance to manage them give your puppy to some loving household, this guide isn't for youpersonally. Your dog exists with perceptions that once participated are so compelling you light in to insignificance when they have been participated. That you never have to be your dog whisperer to appreciate that, however you can watch it to the moment you call back your dog. It's maybe perhaps not just a fantastic moment as soon as your pet embarrasses you for the inability to handle it. I do believe a year at your dog's lifetime is all about 6.5 of years, thus by the end of year your pet ought to be needs to makeout noises, short sentence words and structures. The four main orders in sequence are:

Sit cure down remain Dogs really are quick learners. Not merely do they understand your disposition, but they just take every thing directly into the border constantly and they're also quite persistent. The earlier you get started teaching them the greater, attempt to create it interesting without even completing with a dog. Remember that your kiddies really must not be forcefed with a sizable McDonalds everytime that they obtain their dining table ways and The National Hedgehog Road Skills award hasn't been obtained by way of a hedgehog. A direct result could be the same of one's kid's hand. You speak through it precisely the exact identical manner. You wouldn't permit your son or daughter pull you off the feet, notably on a major road, therefore utilize exactly the exact identical area with your own dog.

Step 1 ). It's obviously your fault

I truly do not feel that Springer Spaniels using their pesky ears may hear you precisely over 30 metres off until you shout which causes you to try looking in hands does it not. Once I was younger I had a liver and white springer'Bramble'. He knew for the afternoon exactly what struck him if he had been busy rounding up sheep. I'd have managed to play with to that British Lions using a French handle similar to that, canine went flying, perhaps maybe not at the least little hurt, only caught in the action. He yelped only with fright, but not chased sheep and now episode if he can hear me he reacted immediately to all of the Big-4 orders.

Step Two. How to avoid the dog pulling off the feet.

A sharp and incredibly hard yank the guide yanking back your dog supporting you'll do just fine. Subsequent to the 2nd or next period they'll desist. That is always easier to complete if your St. Bernard can be still a puppy, that explains the reason why I say start instantly. Bad habits are manufactured by the owners not the dogs. Never permit your puppy to tug. Start by holding your pet's hands (the guide ) and work ardently in a disciplined as well as at a reasonable way, and also reward good performance and subject and also focus with behavior that falls short. Little and often is equally good and also a regular is effective. The item that actually gets results will be patience. You wouldn't simply take out your child to some deflecting environment to show them don't get it done to your own dog . Get your pet's care and eye contact and advancement can improve. If you're experiencing trouble getting your pet's care boost the deal value e.g. noodle beef. That really is all about hearts and thoughts and growing absolute confidence. Enough opportunity to utilize treats reaches the start of teaching that the control. Once your dog knows what's demanded of this, a tap on the mind and some reassuring words is adequate.

Step 3. The Way to slow down your dog to a pace

Just how a lot of you really wouldn't hang on tight to a own 6 year-old child's hands at the city center? Would you anticipate that your six year old to speak fluent Russian? No, therefore do not expect your pet to comprehend what sounds exactly the exact same in their mind. Make use of the guide to construct confidence and a great deal of patience. By the time that your dog is just six months old they'll soon be getting more biddable, more interested and much more ascertained but up into this first season you may not be confident. But you're desperate to provide your pet the liberty of this encounter about. A match keeper educated me an excellent strategy called hobbling. Your puppy's collar must allow one to receive three hands under it, even in the event that you cannot it really is overly tight. Simply stick with your puppy's front paw throughout the crate, it appears barbarous, its not and you're able to grab your pet dog on three legs, so it places the odds in your favor, and that means that you finally have the chance to teach your pet to stay near for you, or obtain it back . Do not make work with of a retractable guide it motivates your pet to tug off. Dogs retractable leads aren't correctly trained (this type of statement might be tremendously contentious however I might assume that those owners wont be reading this kind of article therefore that there will not be anybody to violate!)

Step 4. Period - how much time does it take to teach my dog? I presume 300 hours has a fundamental occupation done until your puppy will pertain in to state saving, field sports, or even societal human activities such as military or police work. It will take a fantastic year to repay and train your pet dog. If you receive the Big-4 orders in fast and the dog will begin to execute well however it is going to require no less than annually so have patience and persist. Exercise all of the period - practice makes perfect. ( in addition, it can help you shed weight!) . I finally have a black and white Springer Spaniel and that she had been dreadful for conducting off. This really was my fault. On shadowy evenings I just had to become distracted for a moment and also your dog has been gone. That I am at the dark and pouring rain, then yelling off my head and also canine is at the following county. Twenty anxious minutes after I obtain yourself a chunk of sand straight back! Never be cross legged with a husband, it really is after the fact and so they can misinterpret you, resulting in trauma and confusion. Only get a note yourself to prepare an exercise session at a restricted environment to repair the issue whilst kicking your bottom and perhaps maybe not the dogs!

Step 5. The Way to prevent your puppy working out

You may spend countless hours dealing together with these, you teach the 4 commands so when they're more than 6 weeks and really know the controls then you've got to create subject to endure or face the potential for an unthinkable episode. I've tried whistles, going after her and only leaving her, not one that can be just displays canine to threat. When I can not restrain your dog in both long and short stove she's unworthy from the field besides just a pet. How do I prevent my furry friend out of working out. A match keeper indicated that an electrical collar. I dismissed it out of hand to be unkind, however it's maybe perhaps not quite as unkind as watching your furry friend in misery trapped to some wheel. I opted to try out an electric collar resolved to become fair and kind. It's transformed canine with no cruelty whatsoever which is the way it works: First and just after six weeks , and just when the Big-4 orders come inplace can you utilize . My collar includes an audible alert that canine can hear much when she can not hear or see . She immediately learned to react for the bleep, this means just 1 item'Heal'. Ever since crazy life has got really hearing and fantastic vision toowe expect to find plenty of it if we have been outside today because we're silent, your dog is in order in any way times and especially is safe. Your puppy and notably Springer Spaniels would require to complete as you ask. You ought to be there during the right time of any episode that requires care or arresting and also a bleeper is in fact on the area as well as instant. If your dog does not respond you can find 8 preferences to'tweak your dog's ear', establishing to and including shock. Most these are much milder than demanding handling or hitting dog. They all hurt a whole good deal less than influence with the HGV. I have to stress that in the event you never possess the enormous four orders inplace and also a certain dog you shouldn't deploy this kind of tool, keep your pet on the lead. The collar is simply for the pet's control and protection and also the fee, that will be roughly exactly the same like a static shock in the door handle, doesn't lead to canine much disquiet, however it enables her know I need her care when everyone fails that will be pretty rare nowadays. I actually don't understand how a shepherds get it done however they will have my admiration. I actually don't want my pet to attain such levels. We've got a lot of fun together and that she loves my 2 girls, actually she loves everybody else including the postman! I believe patience would be your trick and after that it's an issue of time. . She has a distinctive settee inside our backyard (but not presumes that directly from your house), and also your dog house made from straw bales she loves since it's quite warm. She knows where the border is, also pushes it like mad, but she's secure and well behaved and in order in any way times because she can hear and each single day that goes with her understanding of speech and also excruciating procedure improves. I believe I shall always utilize an electrical collar today, it's a security device that makes me less nervous concerning your dog's behavior because I will concentrate on enlarging canine's understanding of orders, therefore her behavior continues to enhance and she plays with an even bigger plus a great deal more fulfilling role in day today tasks. In the event you never want your dog to conduct off access to grips with all your collar, guide, instruction, rewarding and subject and also be learned - the ideal method to try this gently is by using a bleeping collar - it works. I feel these new apparatus are your dog identical to a two way radio. No soldier goes into combat with no. I do believe that they truly have been here in order to stay and used sensibly will completely change your own life and also make teaching your pet a true joy with much less worry. Remember it's the finger over the button and you also choose whether you're a dog trainer or perhaps your pet dog re - I know that I am.

How much time does it have to instruct your pet the 4 Commands?

It requires approximately 20 minutes equipped with some very'must have' treats, then repeat the practice per time or so after for a couple seconds until you view it work instantly. I utilize mackerel fillets but whatever aside from chocolate is going to do just fine. For each and each single minute of practice you want one hour or so of training to find the control working consistently after which four or three times more to buy them working together. You'll cover gaps on your regular and also you also are going to certainly be in a position to see if the others have managed your own dog. Dogs will continually push to the limit to learn what they are able to eliminate and that means you've got to become that limitation and also you also can't do this by being fine and feeding canine treats. Never violate your pet by cruelty and bullying to find the claw you need, a busted dog doesn't get the job done precisely and whoever has trained your dog will put a broken dog off a mile, you can not hide it and also you also can not mend the hurt.

A control ought to really be instant, it's futile if it's not and can allow you to get personally, your kids, canine or any poor unsuspecting driver in to an unthinkable position, it's well worth the hard work.

Should you allow your dog on the settee - Training Versus Behaviour?

Oh boy is that a popular potato! Primarily your pet understands the gap between your scruffy sofa in the play room and the main one from the family area however, you might need to work longer on the practice. It's possible to let your pet perform whatever you want provided you put your time and campaign in together with the bottom rules, but here's just a very easy guide.

Your puppy contains just two standard adjustments, you to frighten and the alternative is more lively. Figure out what they are and exactly what exactly they mean. In the event you never desire a yappy dog you'll find the opportunity in approximately ten weeks to sort out it.

Do not permit your pet to act in a means that will be offensive to the others, I am certain that you never require an inventory from me personally.

You are able to make work with of a slap, a business voice or push orders as long because it's instantaneous. If your furry friend is outside reach that you'll have to be very quick (run and voice ) or utilize an electric collar. A sharp jolt beats a struggle or injury. If that really can be administered at the onset of action canine is not likely to replicate the offence. You wont violate canine doing so. Prolonged aggression or ferocious punishment fills your furry friend with dread. I've discovered them begin to yelp in front of a blow has been struck because they understand what's coming. Can you really do your own job knowing some one is all going to offer a good hanging? Neither can the dog. Never have I seen a broken dog which did not attract a lump into my neck and also have me scratching my lip to keep the tears back. Much like canine I suffer silently alone incapable to speak.

Being a Fantastic puppy owner and handler

Awful behavior develops as a consequence of not enough effort or selfishness by the proprietor. Just like your kids the longer patience and time spent together with them and effort that you put in to your own dog, the greater reward you may get with a powerful step of loyalty reimbursed. Like kids that they are going to grab injury between adults and also they don't really enjoy it. Neglect is going to bring about canine making its own rules and you are going to require your dog psychologist to intervene. Unless your pet is ill and needing 24 hour oversight, I would recommend that they should possess their very own special location. A kennel is ordinarily the very most useful so that they are able to get peace and to flake out and dry/chill outside and become . You'll not ordinarily possess your kiddies in bed with you, therefore I believe that it's somewhat strange to own your pets too. Deficiency of good sense is the thing that develops poor creature behavior. Lots of exercise, fantastic diet, subject, regular, attention and care will continue to work with the furry friend.

In conclusion, the 3 fundamental parts of equipment certainly are an outcome, a collar along with an audible apparatus which can be discovered anywhere immediately by means of your puppy which up on being discovered remembers your furry friend to a own side. . If a step of force will be required then this apparatus ought to be able to manage it or be supported it up.

How to Make a comfy dog mattress at no cost - well practically

I Believe a Excellent mattress creates a very Satisfied puppy, especially if they possess a Complete tummy

Being an engineer, specialising in materials storage and handling, as it regards a mattress for your dog I desired to generate a comfy spot for her to bed. For many weeks I persevered with puppy cushions but they simply become dirty and aren't too simple to wash or hot to sleep outdoors. In the winter this season we had two feet of snowwhich canine adored nonetheless it had been cold on her behalf and I wanted some thing .

Pallets tend to be equipment you are able to grab at no cost. Three or two are quite straightforward to convert to a bed. 1000mm x 1200mm is also an ideal size. When you experience an out house, shed or garage they'll fit easily indoors. It is irrelevant whether your dog chews them, the timber may be recycled or used for firewood of course if you make use of straw, the straw might be properly used or burnt. This alternative is not for everyone however the puppy will adore it and also you also will grow to appreciate it and this is the reason:

The straw helps you wash canine The dog may scratch and arrange that the straw since it needs The pallet and a couple of straw bales produce an extremely cozy den Filled with straw your pet can reside outside in all weathers Living out is best for canine Dogs can grow their natural seasonal jackets in accord with this climate. In they move to a country of lasting moulting, outside un-heated they are able to live longer naturally. The straw is comfy and hot annually round particularly with the extra security of 380mm into 450mm of insulating material on either side The pallet keeps your puppy away from the cold floor - crucial. Straw bales include #1.75 to 3.50 Prior to going in to blind fear of scabies or mange, I have not ever had any problem. However, if you're involved ask your veterinarian, I believe that you may realize that the contemporary treatments keep them anyway. Do be careful for cardboard and claws (stapled on). Plywood makes good shirts if the timber is a little rough after which your heavy straw does the remainder.

My pet wants her duvet mattress and can be quite satisfied to have to it and I rarely watch that her little dark nose encounter across the boundary of this bale until I predict on her behalf.

There's a great deal of crap talked about training and maybe perhaps not much help with the true control commands once they don't really get the job done. Much of that time period it's simply impossible to intercept behavioral and mistakes dysfunction with time to improve it you might say that the pet could very easily grasp the condition. This only makes it harder for both you and your puppy

I'm a stuff management engineer by profession, and also an enthusiastic motorcyclist that I use to get work the majority of the yearround. Even the BMW GS 1200 Adventure can be actually just really a trying and awesome system, therefore if you're in trade or industry and would like to develop or produce a brand new warehouse or production unit, then please go and see my site.

I've experienced spaniels all my own life, having grown up using them. I've always found it tough to get assistance with the very tricky pieces of training. I like to coach the basic principles and build my relationship with my dog and now I love to watch her employed in the area doing exactly what she does best and getting her to keep coming straight back again to me personally at a systematic manner and never through the county. I typically ship your pet to get a season having a keeper to empathize, it is somewhat like doing a ski season to get your own dog.