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linkspooky · 4 years

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Dabi the Villain, Touya the Victim

That no.1 title you’ve always wanted is a lot of pressure, huh? Has your heart been purified with all the praise you’ve received from the public? Does your newfound vigor as a father figure to your children, make you feel like you’re developing a ‘familial bond’ with them? You seriously thought if you could keep your eyes towards the future the past would forget itself would you? It’s time for someone to give you a life lesson - (RHA SCANS).

The past doesn’t forget. Dabi doesn’t forget. Scars may fade with time but Dabi’s won’t, they’ll only get worse and worse as he continues to burn himself using his quirk. Dabi arrives at literally the single worst time possible, to throw salt in old wounds, and stick his fingers in them for good measure. It’s clear, Dabi’s revenge is just going to make things worse for everyone, including his family, including Shoto.

However that begs the question, if not now, then when? This was always going to happen. I don’t mean ‘abusive families have to air their dirty laundry in live television’ I mean, there was always going to be some consequence to what Endeavor did to his family. Dabi is a monster, yes, but in-story he’s a monster of Endeavor’s creation. Dabi wouldn’t even exist without Endeavor’s direct actions. He’s a reflection of every bad thing Endeavor has done up until this point and everything he needs to face. The number one hero created the number one worst villain.

1. The Shadow

Dabi is more than just a murderer, he’s also a jungian archetype. The shadow is a jungian idea that states on the whole we are not as good as we think we are. In fact, we actually might be much worse.

The shadow is either an unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious ego does not identify in itself; or the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.

To put it into simple terms how we perceive ourselves, what we are aware of the light, is the conscious mind.

Everything else, everything we’re unaware of, what we’re ignoring, how we might come off to others, the unintended consequences of our actions is the shadow we cast. This isn’t something I”m making up it’s directly referenced in story.

The approach of the villains have multiple times been compared to shadows stretching and growing deeper, this is Jungian symbolism.

The emperor of Fallen Light, the villain that Dabi himself sent after Endeavor said word for word “His shining Light beckons the dark.” This is a story idea that’s been set up for awhile, Endeavor’s light is a false light. He is a good hero, the best there is currently, but calling him a hero requires ignoring everything he has done to his family. Most of the people who call Endeavor a hero have no idea what he did to his family, and even most of his family is just trying to forget and move on with their lives.

Endeavor’s redemption so far has been a false one, it hinges on everybody else wanting to just move on with their lives, and everyone else being forgiving towards his actions. I’m not saying that Endeavor’s wish to atone isn’t genuine, I’m saying the story has been setting up an arc of false light. We are shown the light of his actions, his desire to redeem himself, his desire to be a hero that Shoto can look up to, and we ignore the shadow.

There’s a duality to Endeavor. Technically there’s a duality to everyone. There’s the light, and the dark. To put it in less abstract terms, even within good intentions there can be hidden bad intentions. A person who gives to charity might just be doing it to make themselves feel like they’re a good person. There’s even an episode of friends about this, Phoebe gets in an argument with somebody that even “charitable” deeds like giving awaay money can be a little selfish because helping others makes you feel good about yourself, so she tries the whole episode to find a truly selfless action.

There’s a duality to Endeavor, there are two Endeavors, Endeavor the hero, and Endeavor the bad dad. They are both Endeavor in the end, he is all of his good actions and bad actions. Focusing only on his bad actions, or only on his good actions would be an incorrect reading of his character.

What I’m saying is, this idea has been building up in the story for a long time. This duality in Endeavro’s character. He is a hero capable of villainous things. However, the public, Endeavor’s own family, and characters like Midoriya and All Might only really ever see the good side to Endeavor’s actions. They all look at the light, at Endeavor the hero.

For the most part Endeavor has not been confronted by consequences for his actions. Yes, Endeavor tries to listen when Natsuo expresses his hurt feelins. Yes, Endeavor realizes his family might want to live without him in the house. However, as opposed to Dabi who has been hated as a villain by all of society for the crimes he has committed, Endeavor is still getting the hero treatment. The worst Endeavor has to come against is his own children’s hurt feelings at his actions. Even then, Natsuo has somebody like Fuyumi constantly pushing him to try to reconcile with his father. He has Endeavor violating his boundaries, and hugging him. Rather than criticizing Endeavor for what he did, most of the criticism falls on Natsuo for not moving on. Like, what Endeavor did is just something that happened in the past that they all have to move on from. He still has the respect of his peers, he still has his position in society, he still has the title of Number One Hero.

This happens because everybody looks at Endeavor, and they’re all blinded by the light, they only see his good deeds and not his bad ones. This isn’t a post debating whether or not Endeavor earned or deserves his punishment, or whether require punishment, it’s just an argument that there are consequences to your actions. That’s Dabi. He’s consequences. Everyone around Endeavor has been repressing their feelings. The Todorokis are asked to repress their personal hurt over the past for the sake of moving forward.

Dabi is the shadow that Endeavor casts. There is a villain in Endeavor’s actions. As long as Endeavor ignores that, as long as he keeps seeing himself in only a heroic life, that villain is only going to manifest elsewhere. In a story, repression does not work, simply ignoring your problems does not work. If a character ignores their shadow that shadow manifests and takes on a life of it’s own.

Dabi is a response to those repressed feelings. Not only is he a repsonse to them, he’s an inevitable result of them. No child abuse doesn’t usually turn abuse victims into murderers. That’s also, not the point. The point is this is a story, Endeavor tried to just bury the past, and Dabi, rose from the grave and said “No, I don’t think the past is better off buried. I think we should talk about it.”

2. The Monster

“People like to think their actions are free from guilt but they’re not-” This is once again more Jungian symbolism. People want to believe they are on the whole good and well-intentioned people. People want to believe they are better than they are.

Dabi has been hurt. Burned even. While Endeavor only looks at the best of himself, his heroic intentions, his ambition to become number one, Dabi sees not only the worst in himself, but the worst in his father, the worst in everyone.

The reason people identify with Dabi is not because they think murderers are sexy (but let’s admit it they are) it’s because Dabi as a character is made up of hurt feelings. He has been burned. He doesn’t forgive the people who burned him. He represents a darker, rawer side to human emotion. Sometimes abuse doesn’t make people poor innocent victims, it’s just pain, sometimes nothing constructive or good comes out of it. Sometimes it’s just damage, to you, and everybody around you.

Putting aside the fact that he’s a murderer (hey I acknowledged it, look at me acknowledging it), Dabi is also written as a character to embody the worst parts of abuse. The negative emotions that Dabi feels are real. Dabi’s hurt feelings are just as real, as the good intentions and desire to forgive that family members like Fuyumi and Shoto have. Neither is more valid, more real than the other.

However, everyone looks at the light, and the shadow is ignored. Dabi’s hurt feelings haven’t even been acknowledged. Not only that, but the feelings of all people hurt tend to get swept under the rug for the sake of “everyone else.”

When Shigaraki says Heroes have turned a blind-eye to the suffering of others, he doesn’t mean that heroes don’t try their hardest to save people, or that heroes never save people. He’s saying that the characters in the story are repressing their issues instead of confronting them, and repression makes people ignorant instead of being able to truly address the problem. Now, connect that back to Dabi, who is the shadow of his father’s actions.

Toya himself is someone in the story who has been “forgotten.” We see Fuyumi praying at his shrine, as well as Endeavor, Natsuo can’t bring himself to forgive Endeavor because of his feelings over Toya. Yes, yes, yes. However. One, the number one hero had his son die and nobody even investigated into those situation. Two, nobody even talks about it nowadays. Shoto brings up his older brother’s death at the dinner table like it’s just an awkward subject he’s uncomfortable talking about... not you know, a tragedy.

And I’m not saying that Shoto is in the wrong here. I don’t mean to demonize his response. I’m suggesting he’s repressed. He’s repressing his hurt feelings about the brother he never got a chance to meet, his two other siblings, his mother, all of that to continue to work with his father because he wants to move forward with his dream, and probably because if he tried facing all of that it would hurt a lot.

However, it’s still the tendency of all the characters on the heroic side to repress things, and look at that from Dabi’s point of view. His own family members don’t even recognize him because of a few scars on his face.

It’s lonely. At the very least it’s lonely and serves to isolate Dabi in his grief further. Push him to believing that he really did die alone and was going to get forgotten, that his survival is just a hindrance that prevents everything in his family from moving forward. Dabi is made up of hurt feelings, and Dabi without prejudgice takes out those feelings on other people. However, Dabi is still a person. The same way Endeavor is both hero and villain, Dabi is both villain and victim at the same time. Dabi was a ten year old who didn’t really do anything wrong who died, after being ignored by his father his whole life. Dabi is, a zombie that’s barely alive, and constantly killing himself with his own quirk. Dabi’s pain is impossible to ignore, and yet he feels ignored.

The difference between Dabi and Endeavor is that Dabi is living as a villain, he acknowledges that he is a villain. He’s the only one in the league to show genuine remorse for killing people, crying a tear of blood and trying to dissociate his own feelings of guilt and the past from himself to the point where he remarks he’s going ‘crazy’ thinking about it. (That doesn’t make it okay, but since when is anything ever okay with the Todorokis?) You have a character who knows exactly what he did wrong, confronting a character who for the most part still sees hismelf as a hero.

Endeavor still sees himself as a hero in this situation. Dabi lives confronting the worst parts of himself (well he’s barely alive but still), he’s stich together scar tissue, and is covered in wounds. He is everything bad that has happened to him. But still, Dabi is at least AWARE.

Beyond all the other plot details, what he’s doing right now is confrontation of something that Endeavor was previously ignorant of. It’s the crux of Dabi’s speech to Endeavor. What he’s saying is pointing out the dark side of each of Endeavor’s good actions.

Endeavor becomes the number one hero, which means he finally gets all the praise, acclaim and honor he always thought he was entitled to. This doesn’t mean that Endeavor’s wish to become strong to serve as a supporting pillar for the nation was a lie, but what Dabi says also isn’t a lie either. It’s the hidden dark side of Endeavor’s actions which Endeavor does not acknowledge.

Endeavor wants to move on and act like a father to his children like twenty years after the fact, and coincidentally this also happens right after being handed everything he wanted on a silver platter. Dabi is pointing out, the negative sides of Endeavor’s actions. Aren’t you just being nice because you’ve gotten everything you’ve wanted now? Don’t you just think you deserve to have your children love you too?

Dabi is confronting Endeavor with the dark sides of actions so he can no longer remain blind, and he is literally in story an agent of the cosnequences of Endeavor’s actions. Dabi became a villain because Endeavor had a son for the sake of his own selfish desire to get stronger, cast him aside, and then even let Toya die. Even if Endeavor wants to move past that, Toya doesn’t. Because for Toya that defines his whole life. Toya was burned by either Endeavor’s flames, or the fire of his own quirk that Endeavor trained him to use. The reason Toya doesn’t move on is because for him, he can’t move on. Toya is dead. Toya died. Toya is some kind of zombie. And if not a zombie, Toya is dying. All because of what his father did to him. And he gets to see his father move on with his life. Everybody else gets to “Get over” his death with Toya, who is left behind.

Toya is a frankenstein’s monster, created by Endeavor, abandoned by Endeavor, let loose by Endeavor on the world. In the real world this would be a far more complicated question, but in a story, especially one that references frankenstein directly, Dabi is quite literally “Endeavor’s Monster” running amok. Dabi would not even exist if not for Endeavor’s actions.

Dabi doesn’t even know why he existed, or why he was brought into this world, because for him, all there’s been is pain. Pain enough to turn his hair white, and burn half of his skin off.

The same way Endeavor only sees the best of himself, Dabi only sees the worst of himself, the shadow. However, the difference between them is Dabi has grown up mostly in the dark.

Dabi is a reaction to circumstances. You can say it’s a bad reaction. You can say it’s not justified. You can call him a monster. You’re probably right, but still Dabi did not create those circumstances, Endeavor did, Dabi can only react to them. Dabi is a consequence to everything Endeavor did to his own family. It might be entirely Dabi’s choice how he reacts, and true Dabi did not have to choose to be a murderer, but Dabi also never deserved to be put into this situation in the first place.

If Dabi is responsible for his reaction, then Endeavor is equally responsible for creating him. It’s something Endavor has to confront, because this ignorance, this represion, it hurts people. Think of Endeavor’s actions a few chapters ago.

Shigaraki is another victim of an abusive father, just like Dabi. Shigaraki is also lashing out, and trying to bring down the hero society, just like Dabi. Endeavor right up until Dabi arrived, and revealed himself thought he was completely justified in wanting to kill Shigaraki for the sake of everyone. Up until five minutes ago, Endeavor only saw himself as the hero, the light, meant to vanquish the king of evil.

Endeavor was perfectly willing to kill Shigaraki up until five minutes ago, because he only saw him as a villain.

And now suddenly Dabi showed up and it got all complicated and shit. However, it was always complicated and shit. The villains were never objectively bad. The heroes were never objectively good. The world wasn’t as black and white as Endeavor saw it.

Now Endeavor’s good action (saving all of hero society as number one hero), requires something most people would consider to be objectively bad (putting down his own son).

The personal investment that Enji has in both Toya being his own son, and also his guilt over what he’s done to his family in the past, now make it impossible for Dabi to be just another villain.

Except Dabi is Shigaraki. Dabi is Shigaraki, Himiko, Twice, Shuichi (not compress tho he’s just in it for the drama of it all). The villains in this story are trying to draw the attention of the heroes to problems within society, problems that have negatively affected them, so they can be fixed. You can’t fix something if you’re blind to it. You can’t deal with something by ignoring it. Dabi’s confrontation isn’t only inevitable, it’s necessary for moving forward.

The shadow isn’t destroyed or ignored, it’s accepted, because in the end it’s a part of you. You are both everything good about you, and all of your flaws at the same time. Living as a fully rounded person means acknowledging that.

Enji’s development is about putting his selfish sense of entitlement aside and learning how his actions have impacted others. Here is Dabi, dancing around going “Hey, Dad, this is how your actions have impacted me. Look at my burns.”

Confrontation is good. The hurt feelings that have been repressed should be expressed.

If Enji had continued on being ignorant, he would have unknowingly torched his own son, and just seen him as another one of the villains. Isn’t that the worst possible result? Beyond hero and villain, isn’t a father killing his own son tragic?

Dabi’s personal revenge is wrong. His decision to lash out is wrong. His obvious desire to kill himself, and then his own father isn’t just wrong, it’s unhealthy. Trying to burn yourself alive and be a martyr to a cause because you think there’s no good reason for you to be alive, and you’re going to die anyway no matter what you do - is in fact a bad coping mechanism.

Dabi is wrong, however, ignoring what happened to him is also wrong. It’s all wrong. Trying to repress those hurt feelings is just as unhealthy a coping mechanism, as lashing out with them.

Dabi is all hurt feelings, yes, he can’t forgive and he can’t forget, but maybe some things like the past shouldn’t be forgotten. Rather than ignoring the past you can acknowledge it, learn from it, reincorporate it into who you are now, because the past is just as much of a part of the present as Dabi’s burnt skin and scars are a part of who he is now.

#todoroki touya #dabi #bnha spoilers #bnha 290 #mha spoilers #mha 290 #i love that i can use that tag now #touya todoroki #todoroki toya #toya todoroki #league of villains #mha meta #my hero academia theory #dabi is a todoroki #todoroki family drama

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themollyjay · 3 years

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The Myths of Forced Diversity and Virtue Signaling.

In my novel Mail Order Bride, the three main characters are a lesbian and two agendered aliens. In my novel Scatter, the main character is a lesbian, the love interest is a pansexual alien, and the major side characters include a half Cuban, half black Dominican lesbian, a Chinese Dragon, a New York born Jewish Dragon, and a Transgender Welsh Dragon. In my novel The Master of Puppets, the Main Characters are a lesbian shapeshifting reptilian alien cyborg and a half black, half Japanese lesbian. The major side characters include three gender fluid shapeshifting reptilian alien cyborgs, and a pansexual human. In my novel Transistor, the main character is a Trans Lesbian, the love interest is a Half human/Half Angel non-observant Ethiopian Jew, and the major side characters include a Transgender Welsh Dragon (the same one from Scatter), a Transgender woman, a Latino Lesbian, an autistic man, three Middle Eastern Arch Angels, and a hive mind AI with literally hundreds of genders. In my novel The Inevitable singularity, one of the main characters is a lesbian, another has a less clearly defined sexuality but she is definitely in love with the lesbian, and the third is functionally asexual due to a vow of chastity she takes very seriously. The major side characters include a straight guy from a social class similar to the Dalit (commonly known as untouchables) in India, a bisexual woman, a man who is from a race of genetically modified human/frog hybrids, and a woman from a race of genetically modified humans who are bred and sold as indentured sex workers.

Why am I bringing all of this up? Well, first, because it’s kind of cool to look at the list of different characters I’ve created, but mostly because it connects to what I want to talk about today, which should be obvious from the title of the essay. The concepts of ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’.

For those who aren’t familiar with these terms, they’re very closely related concepts. ‘Forced Diversity’ is the idea that characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males are only ever included in a story because of outside pressure from some group (usually called Social Justice Warriors, or The Woke Brigade or something similar) to meet some nebulous political agenda. The caveat to this is, of course, that you can have a women/women present as long as they are hot, don’t make any major contributions to the resolution of the plot, and the hero/heroes get to fuck them before the end of the story. ‘Virtue Signaling’, according to Wikipedia, is a pejorative neologism for the expression of a disingenuous moral viewpoint with the intent of communicating good character.

The basic argument is that Forced Diversity is a form of virtue signaling. That no one would ever write characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males because they want to. They only do it to please the evil SJW’s who are somehow both so powerful that they force everybody to conform to their desires, yet so irrelevant that catering to them dooms any creative project to financial failure via the infamous ‘go woke, go broke’ rule.

What the people who push this idea of Forced Diversity tend to forget is that we exist at a point in time when creators actually have more creative freedom than are any other people in history. Comic writers can throw up a website and publish their work as a webcomic without having to go through Marvel, DC or one of the other big names, or get a place in the dying realm of the news paper comics page. Novelists can self-publish with fairly little upfront costs, musicians can use places like YouTube and Soundcloud to get their work out without having to worry about music publishers. Artists can hock their work on twitter and tumblr and a dozen other places. Podcasts are relatively cheap to make, which has opened up a resurgence in audio dramas. Even the barrier to entry for live action drama is ridiculously low.

So, in a world where creators have more freedom than ever before, why would they choose to people their stories with characters they don’t want there? The answer, of course, is that they wouldn’t. Authors, comic creators, indie film creators and so on aren’t putting diverse characters into their stories because they are being forced to. They’re putting diverse characters into their stories because they want to. Creators want to tell stories about someone other than the generically handsome hypermasculine cisgendered heterosexual white males that have been the protagonists of so many stories over the years that we’ve choking on it. A lot of times, creators want to tell stories about people like themselves. Black creators want to tell stories about the black experience. Queer creators want to tell stories about the queer experience.

I’m an autistic, mentally ill trans feminine abuse survivor. Every day, I get up and I struggle with PTSD, with an eating disorder, with severe body dysmorphia, with anxiety and depression and just the reality of being autistic and transgender. I deal with the fact that the religious community I grew up in views me as an abomination, and genuinely believes I’m going to spend eternity burning in hell. I deal with the fact that people I’ve known for decades, even members of my own family, regularly vote for politician who publicly state that they want to strip me of my civil rights because I’m queer. I’m part of a community that experiences a disproportionately high murder and suicide rate. I’ve spent multiple years of my life deep in suicidal depression, and to this day, I still don’t trust myself around guns.

As a creator, I want to talk about those issues. I want to deal with my life experiences. I want to create characters that embody and express aspects of my lived experience and my day-to-day reality. No one is forcing me to put diversity into my books. I try to include Jewish characters as often as I can because there have been a number of important Jewish people in my life. I include queer people because I’m queer and the vast majority of friends I interact with on a regular basis are queer. I include people with mental illnesses and trauma because I am mentally ill and have trauma, and I know a lot of people with mental illnesses and trauma. My work may be full of fantastical elements, aliens and dragons and angels and superheroes and magic and ultra-high technology and AI’s and talking cats and robot dogs and shape shifters and telepaths and all sorts of other things, but at the core of the stories is my own lived experience, and neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males are vanishingly rare in that experience.

Now, I can hear the comments already. The ‘okay, maybe that’s true for individual creators, but what about corporate artwork?’. Maybe not in those exact words, but you get the idea.

The thought here is that corporations are bowing to social pressure to include characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males, and that is somehow bad. But here’s the thing. Corporations are going to chase the dollars. They aren’t bowing to social pressure. There’s no one holding a gun to some executive’s head saying, “You must have this many diversity tokens in every script.” What is happening is that corporations are starting to clue into the fact that people who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males have money. They are putting black characters in their shows and movies because black people watch shows and spend money on movies. They are putting queer people in shows and movies because queer people watch shows and spend money on movies. They are putting women in shows and movies because women watch shows and spend money on movies.

No one is forcing these companies to do this. They are choosing to do it, the same way individual creators are choosing to do it. In the companies’ cases the choices are made for different reasons. It’s not because they are necessarily passionate about telling stories about a particular experience, but because they want to create art to be consumed by the largest audience possible, which means that they have to expand their audience beyond the neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white male by including characters from outside of that demographic.

And the reality is, the cries of ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ almost always come from within that demographic. Note the almost. There are a scattering of individuals from outside that demographic which do subscribe to the ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ myths, but that is a whole other essay. However, within that demographic, lot of the people who cry about ‘forced diversity’ see media and content as a Zero-Sum game. The more that’s created for other people, the less that is created for them.

In a way, they’re right. There are only so many slots for TV shows each week, there are only so many theaters, only so much space on comic bookshelves and so on. But at the end of the day, its literally impossible for them to consume all the content that’s being produced anyway. So, while there is, theoretically less content for them to consume, as a practical matter it’s a bit like someone who is a meat eater going to a buffet with two hundred items, and then throwing a tantrum because five of the items happen to be vegan.

The worst part is, if they could let go of how wound up they are about the ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ they could probably enjoy the content that’s produced for people other than them. I mean, I’m a pasty ass white girl, and I loved Black Panther.

So, to wrap out, creators, make what you want to make, and ignore anyone who cries about forced diversity or virtue signaling. And to people who are complaining about forced diversity and virtue signaling, I want to go back to the buffet metaphor. You need to relax. Even if there are a few vegan options on the buffet, you can still get your medium rare steak, or your chicken teriyaki or whatever it is you want. Or, maybe, just maybe, you could give the falafel a try. That shit is delicious.

#writing #original fiction #media #representation #diversity #the war of souls #the hearts of heroes #The Master of Puppets #scatter #transistor #the inevitable singularity #mail order bride

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vidavalor · 3 years

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Bucky flirting with Sam as part of the changing times theme in Ep 5...

This is on the long side. Contains brief mention of the show basically canonizing Bucky as a sexual assault survivor. It’s meta on Bucky and Sam’s identity themes and how the show is shifting into a theme of changing times with the latest episodes-- mostly about how Bucky’s journey is paralleling Sam’s, even while being a different kind of journey.

One of the more interesting subtle themes of Ep 5 is that while we have had a lot of emphasis in the earlier episodes on how much horror still exists in America-- and a very right, necessary emphasis-- as the show begins to pivot towards the part of Sam’s journey that involves him deciding to become Captain America, they are pivoting a bit to illustrate that as much as many things have, unfortunately, not changed the way they should have over time, a lot really has. (Also, the Sam-as-Captain-America thing isn’t meant to be a spoiler as I don’t really totally know if that’s the ending, it just seems um... really the only place this story is going...) They have been using Isaiah to illustrate this point for Sam quite a bit in Ep 5, especially. The core conflict comes from Isaiah believing that a self-respecting Black man wouldn’t want to fight for America after the horrors that have been done to Black people in its history, which is not something that Sam ultimately feels is true. He definitely feels the pain of Black history in America but he still believes *in* America and views it as his country and is accepting that everyone in it really has a role to play in making it live up to the ideals it espouses but has still yet to achieve. In deciding to appreciate Isaiah choosing to open up to him and share his story but respectfully disagree with him on what to do next-- and to have his ability to make this choice reinforced by Sarah supporting him by saying she knows he will choose to fight in the fights he believes in and she has his back-- Sam is choosing to become a symbol of something, even if he’s just a man, and he’s affirming to himself that it is okay for him to believe in this thing he believes in. It’s okay for him to believe in America and love America and what it stands for, even in all its extremely imperfect glory, because he can be the change he wants to see in the world. He knows there are many people who will support him in that and that it only happens if we make it happen and that America, in all its imperfection, has made a lot of positive change happen throughout its short history.

You know who else is enjoying similar truths in the same episode? Bucky.

Bucky arrives in Delacroix all “Hello, 21st Century! I’ve always wanted to flirt with a man in public! I will be over here, lifting heavy stuff and getting in the personal space of your next Captain America, Good People of Delacroix, Louisiana!” What’s so endearing about this is not even just that this is clearly the first time that Bucky has felt like he has some control over his own mind, after proving he can manage The Winter Soldier in him a bit in the last few episodes, but that he’s working towards this kind of peace in a time where he really no longer has to hide any part of himself. Long before The Winter Soldier, Bucky was so the guy with a girl on each arm and a guy in the dark of the back alley. He has never, in his entire century-plus of living, been able to really be who he is without fear. It’s not as if there is not any fear left for LGBTQIA people in the world because, sadly, of course there is but loving Sam would have gotten Bucky arrested twice over in the 1940s. Interracial marriage was illegal until the Loving Act of 1967-- and that was still just for heterosexual couples. Obviously, same-sex marriage wasn’t legalized in the U.S. until 2015. If Bucky had been caught with a man in his youth, let alone a Black man, they both would have been arrested. Even if they were let go (and Bucky would have been more likely to suffer less, on account of being white), their reputations and ability to work and serve in the military could have been impacted.

The show toys with this with Bucky’s interest in exploring it, even through the haze of a lot of severe trauma, back in Episode 1. While he’s mainly eating at the sushi bar because he’s befriended Yori on account of his amends project, he is living in a very modern existence by regularly conversing with these two. Consider that the show chose to make both of them Japanese, basically to illustrate that Bucky, in a sense, was always progressive for his time period. Bucky *could* have been the kind of WW2 soldier who forever saw people of the countries the Allies fought against as an enemy-- your grandfathers and great-grandfathers who never stopped hating the Japanese. But he’s not. He actually comes off as someone whose inability to fit the mode of the heterosexual white American guy in his own time period lent him a lot of empathy towards others and I might be wrong about this because I can’t quite recall at the moment but wasn’t he drafted, as opposed to enlisted? It’s doubtful he even really wanted to fight, although he’s always up for a fight against a bully and clearly hated the Nazis (but wanting to fight fascism makes you far from intolerant.) My point is that Bucky, back in Ep 1, is already experimenting with how living in the 21st century could be a positive thing for him in a life he might want to make for himself, if he can get through his trauma enough to do so.

He eats lunch on the regular with a man who is, in all likelihood, descended somewhere from at least one person who fought on the enemy side to Bucky in WW2. He regularly chats with Leah, who is completely unlike anyone he would have been able to talk to in the 1940s and seems almost designed to be *exactly* that intentionally-- she is a woman with a job that wasn’t like a nurse or a teacher or Peggy Carter lol. She tends bar, a job that was virtually exclusively male in the ‘40s. She has open visible tattoos and is probably putting herself through college-- something that women were just being able to attend, usually in female-only settings. She makes her own money and lives as a single woman, likely without the express intention on getting married and having a family relatively soon. (There’s nothing wrong with any of that. It’s more just that it would have been the exception, rather than the norm, in Bucky’s youth.) Atop that, she is Asian and works in a Japanese restaurant-- the ultimate business that would have suffered during the ‘40s as America didn’t exactly do right by its Japanese-Americans during the war and if Bucky, a white soldier, had been seen with a Japanese girl, it would have been bad for him but worse for her.

So the reason why Yori has noticed that Bucky always looks at Leah when they eat lunch is probably less about the attraction Yori assumed Bucky had for her and more that Leah is this personal fascination for Bucky-- a human being who is basically the total embodiment of everything that has changed in the world since Bucky was last freely a part of it. Yori assumes Bucky wants a date but Bucky really wants what he ultimately got out of it, which is more just to talk to her a bit.

They also play Battleship, which is kind of darkly funny. The game originated after WW1 and used to be played on paper. It soared into popularity in the 1930s and has never stopped being popular ever since-- so, in essence, the game they play is the one part of this that, like Bucky, has been in existence the whole time. It has taken on different forms, though. It became a plastic board game in the ‘60s and has been modernized a few times but it’s still here. (It’s also funny that Bucky is kind of losing the game with her, symbolizing that he’s not entirely figured out this whole modern world yet, even if he’s very interested by it.)

But the big thing is that Bucky is beginning to edge away from just observing this new world and trying to decide how he wants to participate in it. He’s basically decided that he might like to and while his heart is completely with Sam, he’s also afraid of himself and his ability to potentially destroy that one really strong wish he has to be with him, so he’s pushing him away by not answering his texts. He’s likely also, atop insecurity in himself, literally terrified at the idea of hurting Sam not just physically-- through some nightmare or some untapped Winter Soldier potential or failing to protect him-- but through the fact that he’s a guy from the 1940s who has literally never openly dated a man, had Black friends during the war but that was decades ago and is not really sure how to do this.

Forced into a date with Leah, he experiments with the modern world in a way because he’s here because sure, he likes her and all but he was more just interested in her world than her personally and he just didn’t want to disappoint either her or Yori, so he showed up. She seems fairly trustworthy (and he trusts no one but Sam and Yori, so that’s a start) but what he wants really is to say aloud to someone for the first time that he likes men. To see how that goes in this modern era. (Depending on how you take Bucky and Steve, he could have put this into words to Steve at one point, likely way back when, but it’s also possible that they both just knew and didn’t talk about it. Either way, you didn’t go around telling people you didn’t trust in the ‘40s and it’s doubtful that he’s ever just said it to anyone and for sure not on a regular basis.)

He even knows that this wouldn’t be a deal breaker for a woman, necessarily, in the modern era, which is probably blowing his mind a bit because you would have been hard-pressed to find a woman who would admit to someone she didn’t implicitly trust that back in the ‘40s and it wouldn’t have been so open and accepted. What he really wants in Leah is a new friend and she seems to sense that-- she likes this weird guy with the circulation problem that is nice enough to lunch with the old man at her restaurant, he seems okay enough, if broody and sad, so why not talk to him for a bit? She totally thinks he’s just a closet case (she’s not wrong lol) and won’t really be crushed by him rushing out of the date beyond like “too bad, he was pretty hot” but for Bucky, this is the likely the first time he’s ever casually chatted with another human being about his attempt at finding a guy he likes.

It’s actually really sweet in that he’s still sort of coding it a bit, if not that much. He’s still a bit nervous about this so he’s saying tiger pictures to reference men so he can say it without saying it. Leah gets it and just kind of rolls with it and probably has zero idea how big a deal it was for the century-old guy sitting at the bar.

He might have been intentionally dramatic a bit about how it was all “a lot” but he was also telling her the truth-- he did a little exploring online. Found some men. It looked like a lot of work to stroke all these egos. Bucky’s for the modern world but he’s kind of into more old-fashioned guys. He’s got a warm-hearted soldier kink. Family man kind of guys with generous spirits. He’s considering online stuff because he’s also a guy who has been through an absurd amount of trauma-- some of which the show will just come out and say involves sexual assault, off that Selby scene-- and he’s probably considering trying to get beyond some of it by just having sex with somebody. It’s not at all an uncommon response for people who have been raped to try to get beyond it by just having sex again and you know this is yet another level of anxiety for him when it comes to the idea of having another chance at life. He’s nervous around himself at this point and doesn’t fully trust himself, so he’s not sure how he can trust other people and the one guy he *does* trust and *does* want? Bucky has that whole ‘don’t want to burden him with my own issues’ thing happening. (That’s not a bad thing when it’s a situation of expecting your partner to be your therapist, which shouldn’t happen but Bucky would and should have expectations that someone he’d have as a romantic partner can be someone he can trust to care about him and be sensitive to how his past plays into his present needs, in and out of bed.) He’d trust Sam with this but he also wants to be like... he basically feels like he met the potential love of his life while trying to kill him and just got his mind back and the timing is all wrong. It’s a lot of ‘too broken for Sam’ self-narrative.

Whether or not Bucky actually went beyond scrolling and being astounded at the unattractive insecurity of tiger pictures or whether he hooked up a time or two, it’s clear he didn’t get what he needed out of it and he gave up on it, admitting to himself that he’s really basically a tired old romantic who wants love and trust and the whole dance of things and that kind of intimacy more than the back alley casualness of online dating. This is about as far as Bucky has gotten while trying to deal with his trauma while having a truly terrible therapist: he likes sushi now and would like to have his life’s first real chance at an open, mutual, loving, romantic relationship. He just didn’t know how to get himself there.

John Walker and the shield issues actually, ironically, gave him scenarios where he could, through actions that suited him better than those his therapist had assigned. He needed to learn not to not hurt anyone but how to manage it when he did. He needed to learn how to be a soldier that protects people again, not the Winter Soldier, and that he can control that part of himself. He needed the opportunity to show Sam that he really does care, he’s just a grieving mess of a man working through being so out of time and secretly scared that he might like this time better, might have a chance at being who he is for the first time, and he doesn’t know quite what to do with that. He lets Sam in enough that they can show one another that they understand each other’s traumas. He tosses himself out of a plane for Sam in the first episode to prove he’ll follow him anywhere, that he’s strong and will survive and come back, knowing about Riley not being alive when he hit that ground. Sam responds by seeing Bucky essentially frozen in a PTSD moment of the train car on the side of that truck and grabs him out of danger. They snark and bicker but the actions speak louder than the words-- there’s caring there and want and a sense that they’re a bit gone on the other.

Sam’s trust in Bucky-- even as Bucky is still learning how to trust himself with himself-- gives Bucky a confidence boost that he was missing when he pulled away from Sam out of fear of hurting him. The whole White Panther/White Wolf scene? Sam expected Bucky to grumble or blush, he was for sure flirting with him but didn’t expect quite that amount of flirt back. Without realizing it, he had hit on the exact part of Bucky’s identity that was giving him the biggest boost, that he understood the best at that time-- the White Wolf. The White Wolf is the freed Winter Soldier, a peaceful tender of goats, a wounded warrior beloved by a community who rescued him. He represents Bucky’s recent past into his present-- being able to work for the chance to shake loose the Winter Soldier and evolve into a different version of himself. He wanted to impress Sam with that-- he saw Sam’s flirting and parried back, which he didn’t always do, because he knew it would be impressive that the Wakandans had given him a (pretty sexy actually) nickname. He’s boosted by Sam still flirting, Sam still caring, still seeing something in him he’s working on seeing himself. He has some hope, even as they fight, because his attempts at getting closer to Sam are not being rejected wholesale and Sam keeps reaching out to him, often literally. After Madripoor and after Bucky going after and finding Zemo, he feels more ready. He’s more in control of himself. He thinks he has a path to getting beyond the worst of this stuff and he might not have worked out all the details yet or figured out what it looks like but he finally feels ready to try and since Sam hasn’t rejected him, he’s going to take Yori’s advice, just with the right person and stop waiting around, stop just looking and make a move.

In a way, Sam is introduced to 1940s Bucky for the first time in Delacroix-- this is the guy he saw glimpses of but was pretty deeply buried. He’s not reverted back to the Bucky of old as how could he, after all he’s been through? But this is the flirt, the natural charmer and he’s been set free for real for the first time, without worry or fear that he can’t live a life he wants and be the person he truly is without fear of rejection of who he loves, his family and the community at large. He likes this place that is the exact opposite of everything he’s suffered-- it’s so warm, he’ll never feel frozen again, physically or emotionally. The people here don’t care about his arm or who he loves, Sam’s family has Sam’s big, warm heart and Sam? Well, Bucky’s enjoying making him a little flustered. You like that stealthy White Wolf, Sam? Well, he’s got his eyes on you. ;)

Maybe the best part of this being the parallel to Sam’s decisions about how he wants to identify when it comes to him deciding to take up the shield is that it relates to a sense of freedom that is at the core of both of Sam and Bucky’s stories and is the whole point of Captain America and how it is supposed to symbolize a fight against fascism. Bucky has been told twice in the series that he’s “free” and each were, in a sense, a bit true. Ayo tells him this when he’s free from mind control and that is a major move forward for him-- life-altering-- but he’s not free from the trauma of it. Dr. Raynor tells Bucky that he’s free now and can build whatever life he wants but we see on Bucky’s face how those statements for him, in those early episodes in New York, really are conflicting ones-- he is free from mind control but still imprisoned in his trauma and that is what is keeping him from making the life he wants. Over the course of TFATWS, alongside Sam’s journey to decide how he wants to feel about America as a Black man and what he feels he owes to the country and the country owes to him, is the story of Bucky having to build his own identity as well. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is ultimately what these guys were-- the identities they still have at the beginning of the show. They’re going to end it Sam and Bucky, Captain America and the White Wolf. Bucky’s real sense of freedom only came when he realized he could trust himself to decide how he wanted to live, when he proved that to himself and took control over it. He’s still not completely fine-- no one really is, ever-- but he has a path now. Sam and Bucky have different identity conflicts but ultimately, at the core, their struggles with them and with what their country has asked of them and with how they want to live and what they want for themselves, is very similar and the core of a lot of why they understand one another well.

It wouldn’t surprise me if we find out that Bucky stopped answering Sam’s texts when Sam suggested he come to Delacroix. Bucky knew about the boat when he got there, the same way that Sam knew about Bucky’s nightmares, so these two were talking a lot, they were friends on a verge of more but both knowing they each had too many struggles to overcome first and I think that Sam had to have been trying to reach out and accidentally went too far. It’s kind of like in the therapy session-- most of the time, Sam is amazing at dealing with people who have been through trauma but he sometimes falls off his game with Bucky. The whole “this is what you wanted, right?” in the therapy session is frustration, it’s pushing a little too hard, it’s snarking over feeling like Bucky rejected him romantically, even if Sam understands why and probably wasn’t convinced they were ready for it anyway. It’s possible that Sam thought inviting Bucky home with him would be good for him-- and the sun and the Wilsons would have been-- but, at the time, it just made Bucky panic, which is then also why Sam just rolls over the fact that Bucky hadn’t been returning his texts when they see one another again. Sam kept reaching out to check on him but accepted the non-response because he felt like he might have kind of pushed Bucky too fast. They both know they both have feelings for one another but are scared by how much the other has to get through to get to that point and feel ill-equipped to really help one another, often blunder in their attempts to (and other times, get it just right.)

So, yeah. There’s still no shortage of conflicts to be dealt with but alongside Sam finding his path to living his truth in this modern world has been Bucky’s arc from daring to whisper about tiger photos to showing up to show off his prowess with heavy stuff and tools to win over his boyfriend in front of his family and hometown. It’s not subtext. It’s literally Bucky’s identity-themed character arc, existing in parallel to Sam’s. Just because they aren’t giving it a ton of labels does not mean that it isn’t the intent of the story.

#sambucky #buckysam #bucky barnes #bucky #sam wilson #tfatws

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hartofhearts · 3 years

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Tifa's Crescent Moon Charm, Round 2: A Romantic Literary Reference

As the cloti fandom has frequently discussed, Tifa’s Crescent Moon earring hints at her beauty, and the description of the Crescent Moon Charm hints at her feelings. However, the crescent moon might also refer to a Japanese literary quote--where the beauty of a moon is another way to say "I love you," and words aren't needed to express how you truly feel.

(Remake Tifa’s Crescent Moon Charm and Mature Dress, OG Tifa’s Wall Market Model and Concept Art; Remake images sourced from this Tweet)

Full disclosure: I do not speak Japanese nor have I ever lived in Japan, I just have Japanese friends who humor me.

Natsume Sōseki (1867 - 1916) was a well-known Japanese novelist. His portrait appeared on the Japanese 1000 yen note (comparable to a $10 bill) from 1984 - 2004, and the influential, world-famous writer Haruki Murakami named Sōseki as one of his inspirations. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

While there are several notable stories about Sōseki, there is one in particular that applies here. To quote from an article (that I’d highly recommend):

...as the story goes, Sōseki heard his student translate “I love you” from English into Japanese as “ware kimi o aisu.” He explains that “ware means I, kimi means you, and aisu means love. Thus, “I love you.” That is certainly a literal translation.

...Sōseki is reported to have responded: “Japanese people don’t use such an expression, you should say ‘the moon is beautiful isn’t it?’”

...Sōseki’s view was that any Japanese person could understand the true meaning behind “tsuki ga kirei desune” as a profession of love even though none of the words translate to “I” or “love.”

Also:

...[while] the literal meaning of “tsuki ga kirei desune” is “the moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” ...in addition to the phrase’s literal translation, it might embody the additional meaning of “I love you.”

(Source: “The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei”)

The significance of this unusual translation and its implications are as follows:

Among the many quotes by Natsume Soseki, “Tsugi ga Kirei” stands as the most popular.... This phrase was used by Natsume Soseki as a form of saying “I love you”. For the writer, two people with deep feelings for each other do not need to use those three words to effectively convey their feelings. Sometimes, even the simplest phrases contain more emotion than direct ones.

(Source: The Story of Natsume Soseki and The Stories He Had Written)

Hmm, so those who have deep feelings for one another don’t need to say the exact words to express their love? That deep feelings can be conveyed without being so obvious and direct?

What’s that again, Tifa?

Anecdotally, a friend of mine who grew up in Japan told me that this line is like any semi-obscure literary reference. Some people will know it, some people won’t. For those who don’t know the literary reference, they would take the phrase at face value and miss the romantic intent. However, if both people know it and if the context is right, they’ll get the reference and the meaning.

So to summarize:

A famous Japanese writer...

Who was especially honored from 1984 - 2004 (coinciding with development of the game)...

Coined a distinctive moon-related phrase which translates to “I love you”...

Which today is interpreted as signifying how in Japanese culture, direct language may not be needed to express deep feeling.

Enter Tifa, a character who is not known for being direct with her locked away thoughts and feelings, who is often associated with the night and moon motifs. In a series where the devs are known to make tons of real-world allusions, is it so out there that they would purposely include this particularly thematic one?

Final thoughts:

I reiterate, I do not speak Japanese--I did my best to verify the content of this post by checking with a non-gamer friend who grew up in Japan (who very kindly and bemusedly explained this to me when I asked). I am not an expert, so please feel free to chime in if you see anything. If you want to learn more about the Soseki story, I do highly recommend this article.

There’s something a little bittersweet about this reference in contemporary times. If both parties know the reference and feel the same way and the context is right--if the conditions are perfect--the feeling will be expressed. If any of the conditions are unsatisfied, the feeling will not be understood. When Cloud receives his Crescent Moon Charm and when Tifa wears hers, the conditions are sadly not perfect (the Lifestream scene with all its implications hasn't happened yet). So this reference--and thus their feelings--cannot be conveyed. Poor Cloud and Tifa!

It’s interesting how the devs state Tifa is supposed to follow a Japanese aesthetic, and Aerith a Western one. It seems that Aerith similarly takes a Western approach to feelings and would directly state them, vs. Tifa who seems to take the more traditionally Japanese (per Soseki) approach and would be indirect with how she conveys her feelings.

Food for thought: apart from the above association between the moon and love, the Japanese word for moon (tsuki, 月 ) sounds similar to the Japanese word for like/have affection (suki, 好き ). This might be yet another reason for the moon shape. Friend-approved article on the significance of suki here.

Given how FFBE: WOTV chose to highlight the Crescent Moon Charm, we know it's an important item for the Cloti relationship at this point of the game. While I doubt a lot of weapons and items will carry over between Part 1 and Part 2, I would be very curious to see if the Crescent Moon Charm makes it. 🌙

#final fantasy vii remake #ffviir #final fantasy vii #ffvii #ff7 #ff7r #tifa lockhart #tifa #cloud x tifa #cloti

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darker-soft-starker · 4 years

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High School AU Part 8 (1...7)

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16.k

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The silence that follows Tony’s exit only lasts for a single, deafening heartbeat.

In the seconds that follow the aftermath, silent and struck with confusion at the lightning-quick turn of events, Peter doesn’t remember getting to his feet and excusing himself. He just remembers that the moment he decides to act feels impossibly longer than it should, punctuated only by the harsh slam of the front door.

Ed, understandably, seems suspended in the moment, torn between his guests and, well, his other guest. Without thinking, Peter stands and doesn’t bother to excuse himself before leaving the table and following the trail of fire that Tony left behind.

“Pete,” someone calls behind him.

“Stay here, I got this,” he turns for a moment, hands held up placatingly, before jogging through the living room, out the front door. Outside it’s bitterly cold, the snappish, freezing winds whipping at his face, his bare arms.

Stark is stomping furiously towards his car when Peter spots him, a shadowy figure against the dying sunlight. He sets into a jog to catch up.

“Tony,” he yells through chattering teeth. “Wait!”

“Fuck off,” Tony snaps without looking back, hands balled into fists as he heads to his car.

“Where are you going,” he rushes to catch up with him. “What are you even doing here?”

“You don’t have to worry about me ruining your little Hallmark family moment, Parker,” Tony pulls out his keys. “I’m getting the fuck outta here.”

“Wait,” he stresses, legs moving faster, not understanding what exactly is happening. “Tony, wait.”

He makes the mistake of getting between Tony and the driver's side door in a thoughtless effort to keep him from leaving, one that seems to backfire rather spectacularly when Tony gets inches away from his face, seething. This close, his fury is palpable, and he suddenly seems taller, larger, coming at Peter like a tempest, swift and devastating.

“Move.”

Face set in a snarl, he looks angrier than Peter has ever seen him. “Tony, wait for just a second --”

He flinches when two palms slam down on the car on either side of him and Tony is suddenly towering over him, his eyes dark and unrecognisable.

“I said get out of the way.”

“Calm down, can we just talk --”

“You have three goddamn seconds before I --”

“Before what? What are you going to do,” he juts out his chin defiantly, even though his hands are trembling. “You going to hit me, huh?” With courage he doesn’t really feel, he stands up taller, until they're nose to nose and he can feel his warm breath on his face. “Go on, asshole. Do it.”

The provocation gives Tony pause. His lips purse and his gaze flickers between fury and uncertainty. He doesn’t move his arms from where they have caged Peter in, but Peter can see the opening he’s created, as if Tony were a ticking bomb with seconds left before zero and he has once chance to cut the right wire.

Adrenaline racing through his veins, his circles Tony’s wrists with his fingers, pressing gently, intent on pushing him back or comforting him or something. But Tony doesn’t budge at all, he just stares Peter down until the offensive anger visibly bleeds into defensiveness. Tony dips his chin for just a second before meeting his eyes again, and it’s like watching a portcullis slam down behind them. In that moment, he feels any camaraderie they developed quickly vanished in a puff of smoke.

“I’ll stay out of your way if that’s what you want, but just don’t be a fucking idiot. Ed was really looking forward to seeing you.”

“It’s Jarvis, not Ed, you braindead asshole,” Tony says finally, voice hoarse. “And stop holding my hands, I’m not your fucking prom date.”

Immediately Peter takes his hands away and Tony steps back, hands still balled into fists, albeit lowered at his sides; so it’s come to this again. Peter nods shakily, putting his hands up in surrender.

“I don’t know how you know them,” or what happened to you, Peter says, softly, as if not to spook him, chest heaving. “But you shouldn’t drive off. It’s late and you’re angry.”

“Yeah, because you’re here.”

He swallows around that particular sting.

“I told you about Margaret and May. Look, just come inside, okay? I’ll stay out of your way.”

The other boy still looks uncertain, but his anger is draining out of him fast, the rigid line of his shoulders slumping, arms crossing over his chest in a last ditch to protect himself from whatever phantoms Tony is seeing in Peter.

A little heartbroken by the sight, Peter croaks out, “Please.”

Tony’s face falls before the impassive, drawn expression returns.

“I’m - I wasn’t going to hit you. I’m not like that.”

“I know.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m cold.”

“You’re - I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, just -” he sighs, dipping his gaze to meet Tony’s. “Let’s go in. Foods still warm.”

Tony keeps his stare affixed to the ground for a long moment that has Peter waiting with bated breath, still outwardly appearing unsure and on edge, like the slightest misstep would startle him into racing off like the other day.

“Did Peggy make her pecan pie?” he then asks, very quietly, as soft spoken as Peter has ever heard him, arms unravelling to tuck his hands into his jean pockets.

“Yeah,” he smiles encouragingly when Tony finally looks at him. “It’s good, right?”

“The best.”

“So, you coming?”

“Okay…” he says, exhaling through his nose. “I’ll stay for pie.”

“I can’t think of a better reason to be here.”

“The company does leave much to be desired,” Tony nods agreeably, but there is no heat or sting in his words.

Their sides brush on the way in and Peter thinks, backwards and forwards, push and pull.

“Peter?”

He pauses before the front door, startled by the use of his first name.

“Yeah?”

For a second it looks like Tony is going to apologise again. But in the end he shakes his head, face closing off.

“Forget it. Let’s go in.”

----

Inside, Ed and Tony exchange some hushed words in the living room, while the remaining occupants talk idly about the spread, as if perfectly cooked green beans were the most interesting thing of the night.

When Tony re-enters with Jarvis, his demeanour a still a touch skittish, eyes low, but no longer appearing like he’s bracing for a fight. No one mentions the theatrics, and, like it was a deleted scene in real life, welcome him in. There’s a flimsy attempt to cover the awkwardness that lingers, everyone still clearly a little rattled, but May is the first to rise to give Tony a hug.

Margaret makes a big show of bringing in a spare chair and providing Tony a plate with a veritable pyramid of steaming meat and sides, taking his face in her hands and kissing his cheek.

And Peter sits there, awkwardly sipping his water far too frequently to be considered normal, trying to appear as unassuming as possible, and staring at the print of Caillebotte’s Rainy Day on the opposing wall, as if it were the most fascinating thing this night.

With a similar air of queer ineptitude, Tony seats himself at the table, settling in tightly next to Jarvis. As soon as he is seated, Friday immediately startles him by leaping upon his lap, tail flicking his face.

“You brought the literal embodiment of bad luck to the lake house,” Tony says. “That explains everything.”

It’s enough to break the air of tension in the room as the adults laugh and Tony breaks out into the first genuine smile of the night, dropping his fork so he can scratch Friday under her chin.

“Well, this is such a surprise,” May comments lightly, though looks genuinely pleased to see the other boy. “How do you guys know each other?”

Tony and Ed speak at the same time.

“They used to work with my dad,” says Tony.

“Tony works afternoons at the garage,” says Ed.

A beat of silence follows.

“They used to work for my dad and we kept in touch. Jarvis lets me work for him after school,” Tony corrects.

Peter blinks, a little floored by this revelation, mind rapidly connecting the dots. Not only did they know each other, but Tony had a job?

Torn between being confused and oddly delighted, he recalls suddenly each and every time that Tony was antsy to leave after school, about his ‘priorities’, he was just trying to get to work. Like a real job with money and taxes and responsibility. Holy shit.

Without voicing it, he queries what on earth a trust fund baby like Tony is doing working a blue collar job, certainly not for a lack of money, and certainly not because it was a quaint after-school activity.

But then Peter takes stock of his face - recalling all the injuries he has ever seen him with and he suddenly understands.

At once he feels very ashamed, and very sick.

From the corner of his eye he assesses Tony, eating slowly with one hand. Indulging Friday with the other, and Peter comes to understand that he’s either assumed too much about Tony or, given all the evidence, assumed too little.

“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” Jarvis tops up his glass of wine, peering curiously between the boys.

May explains, when neither of them speak up. “They go to school together. They’re friends.”

She utters the last part with marked uncertainty, evidently the scene from earlier still on her mind. Peter understands. Tony’s anger and fear play over in his mind too, not just from this evening. With a sinking heart he recalls the night at the party, remembers drunkenly accusing Tony of getting into fights on purpose, that he would openly indulge in being violence. And Tony, nonchalant, not reacting at all like Peter would have. Took him home and took care of him.

He feels like the biggest piece of shit in the world.

Has a difficult family arrangement and needs a bit of respite.

“I didn’t know you had a job,” Peter says delicately, swallowing down the bile in his throat. “That’s cool.”

Tony shrugs, sneaking Friday tiny cat-size morsels of food from his plate, getting flicked in the face with her tail as a reward. He doesn’t offer anything other than forced, casual nonchalance, despite seeming so tightly spun he could snap without a moment's notice.

“Peter said you were good with cars, that you restored yours,” May mentions, salting her potatoes, missing the surprised look Tony sends the both of them. “Makes sense.”

“He’s a natural,” Ed beams proudly at his employee. “An absolute genius.”

“Told you,” Tony looks up from under his lashes and smirks at Peter, addressing him directly. Genius, he mouths, pointing at himself with his knife like an idiot.

Which is apt when Peter mouths back the word idiot at him.

“That’s perfect,” May says, clapping her nephew on the shoulder, shaking him a little as if to rouse some enthusiasm. “Maybe you can diagnose the Volvo. You’re staying for the weekend, right, Tony?”

“Oh, no I’m not - I don’t want to intrude on -”

“Nonsense, you didn’t come all this way for one meal and I’m not having you drive back in the dark,” Margaret cuts in, her voice stern, her eyes knowing. “Stay the weekend, darling.”

“You’re having family time.”

“Stay,” May reaches over from where she sits opposite Tony, briefly gripping over his hands with hers. “It’s no bother to us, right, Pete?”

The entire table falls silent and the weight of several stares fall heavily on him, almost oppressively, but he’s only looking at Tony, trying to gauge his reaction. He’s met with an air of casual indifference, but the line of his lips is thin, and he’s stopped stroking a disgruntled Friday.

Risking a sonic boom, Peter kicks him under the table, testing his reaction. He smiles when Tony’s expression goes from cautious to irate, eyes finally flickering with something more familiar, and he deservedly gets kicked sharply on his shin in return.

It hurts, but also floods him with relief.

“Fine by me.”

As if he was ever going to say anything else.

----

After dinner May and Peter corral their hosts into relaxing by the fire while they attend to the clean up, hushing any protests to the contrary with tried-and-true Parker stubbornness. Once they were sure the hosts were situated in front of the old TV they’d set to disposing of the scraps and cleaning the plates by hand. This, at least, feels like something familiar, something he knows how to do without fear of stepping on a landmine.

They work efficiently like they do at home, May scrubbing and Peter drying and returning the cutlery and dishes to their rightful place. It’s the least they can do for the hospitality they’ve been provided.

“It’s such a weird coincidence,” May says lightly, passing him a freshly washed gravy boat. Peter accepts, swapping to the drier end of his kitchen towel and swiping away at the porcelain. “Tony, I mean.”

“I know.” He shakes his head, a huff emitting from his nose, echoing the same sentiment. “Small freakin’ world, right?”

“Do you think he’s okay? With the whole,” she gestures to her face worriedly with a soapy hand. “You know, at home? Should I call somebody?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “He doesn’t tell me those kinds of things.”

“I just mean, I thought - You were - you’re, y’know...”

He accepts a dripping plate, still hot from the running water. It scalds his fingertips upon contact and he nearly drops it before securing his grip, lowering it to the sink. “I’m what?”

“Y'know,” she hedges, voice deliberately light in a way that puts Peter on edge. “Dating.”

“What?” He hisses, staring at her. “No, we are not dating. Why would you even think that?”

“It would be okay if you were, you can tell me --”

“We’re not,” he pauses his drying to look her in the eye, mortification surely written all over his face, heard in the suddenness in which he stacks the plates. “We don’t even like each other like that. That’s not what this is.”

“I’m just saying if it was, it would be okay with me -” “- oh my god, you did this with Ned, stop -”

“- it’s just you two seem awfully close.”

“We’re not close. It’s not a thing.”

“Well, no need to sneak if it was.”

“It isn’t.”

“Okay,” she turns off the tap, shaking her hands over the sink to rid the excess water. “I just never know. You’re awful good at keeping secrets these days.”

“Wonder where I learned that from,” he mutters, hastily drying the last plate, placing it back in its cabinet a little roughly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he gives his best try at a smile, wiping his hands on his jeans and backing out of the kitchen. “I’ll see you in a bit, okay, just getting some fresh air.”

She stops him, gently grabbing him by the sweater.

“Just let him know he’s welcome, okay. I think he needs to hear it from you.”

----

It was a gentle stomp out the front door that brought him to the porch, a willingness to find calm in the stillness of the night, in the serenity of their surrounds, the chirp of crickets, the opportunity to see the stars, bright, crisp and speckled, like paint splatters against black paper, an inverse connect-the-dots.

A lot of people tell Peter the stars make them feel small, reminding them that they are just tiny specks in a gargantuan, ever-sprawling universe. But for him it’s the opposite, when he’s lucky enough to have a view of the night sky like this, he feels bigger, connected to the universe that he knows is alway there but often forgets. It’s a moment to marvel at the stars dying before him and revere them light years too late.

Perched on the top step and illuminated under the porch light, Tony has a burning cigarette between his fingers and, judging by the headphones over his ears, hasn’t noticed Peter’s presence. He’s not looking up at the stars like Peter has been, instead he stares out at the inky lake.

The yellow light does nothing to improve the discolouration on Tony’s skin, casting shadows over the contours of his face, he tries to not stare as he sits on the step beside him, careful and slow as to not spook the other boy.

They sit in relative silence together, Peter peering up at the round full moon as he digests the day, this arduously long day. It seems terribly wild that it was only twelve hours ago he was sharing pretzels with May and resigning himself to a delightfully boring, uneventful weekend with his aunt and people that he used to know, playing scrabble and skipping stones on the lake.

That was the plan, of course, before Tony blustered in like the thunderstorm that he is, and always has been since Peter met him.

Loud, dark, hard to ignore.

Tony slips his headphones down to cradle the back of his neck and takes a drag before speaking.

“You want?” He offers the cigarette, face impassive. “You look tense.”

Peter takes the offered cigarette, staring at the lit end, the pale wisps of smoke that curl from the end. Maybe it’s the guilt swirling in his gut that makes him do it, desperate for a distraction, or maybe it’s wanting to wipe away the morose contemplation etched on Tony’s face.

Instead of bringing it to his mouth, he stubs it out on the concrete, feeling satisfied when Tony makes an indignant noise.

“Those are expensive, you know.”

Peter shrugs, popping the stub into Tony’s makeshift ashtray. “Maybe you should stop smoking. You’re going to look like a leather bag by the time you’re thirty.”

He fishes another smoke from his pocket, lighting it and taking a deep drag.

“Wrong,” Tony tilts his head and exhales towards the sky. “I’m going to age like fine wine, princess.”

“You’re going to have emphysema before college,” Peter mutters, pulling the sleeves of his sweater over his hands to keep them warm, tucking his arms to his chest. It’s so cold out here and yet, at a glance and in only a shirt, Tony doesn’t even seem remotely perturbed by the biting winds.

It’s because he’s hellspawn, it’s the only reasonable explanation.

“This is fucking weird,” Tony says after a moment, “I don’t like it.”

Peter nods agreeably.

“Yep, even in New York. Six degrees of separation. Could have connected the dots if you’d mentioned your job earlier.”

“Would have, but it’s not exactly any of your business.”

Right. Because they’re not friends. They aren’t anything.

“I didn’t lie,” he says, “in there. I think it’s cool.”

“I’ll head out in the morning,” Tony offers, in lieu of responding to Peter’s faint adulations.

“Don’t be dumb,” he sighs, a little frustrated. “I don’t care that you’re here. Might be nice to have someone around my age, actually.”

“What, you think we’re gonna sing Kumbaya by the lake and tell each other ghost stories at night, or something? Thanks, but I’d rather jerk off with a potato peeler.”

“I’m not saying that. I told you I’d stay out of your way, if that’s what you really want.”

It’s disappointing to even have to say it. He thought they were getting along.

“You don’t gotta do that, it’s fine,” Tony flicks his ashes onto the steps. “Just leave me the rest of the pie and we’ll call it payment for putting up with your ass. But I draw the line at hymns by the fireside.”

Not the pie. Anything but the pie.

Peter opens his mouth to argue, but shuts it quickly, eyeing the other boy as he puts out the cigarette in the ashtray. It’s a small price to pay, isn’t it really, for all of the time Tony has fed him, to absolve some of the guilt he’s carrying like a stone. And for respite, as he himself has had a long, topsy-turvy kind of a day - but undoubtedly not as onerous and difficult as Tony’s must have been. And a small price to pay to keep him here, safe.

For Margaret and Ed’s peace of mind, of course.

Also, because the mental image he’s conjured of Tony sadly eating pie all by himself is deeply amusing.

And maybe to soothe the weird ache in his chest, too.

“You really got a sweet tooth, don’t you,” he states, silently agreeing to the deal.

Tony sighs.

“You should see me on Halloween.”

----

When they head back inside only Peggy and his aunt are still awake, though looking far closer to the verge of sleep, blearily watching a Charmed rerun, bottles of beers and mixers littering the coffee table. They perk up, however, when both boys enter the living room, and maybe it’s roaring fire, or the near darkness inside, but Peter suddenly feels as tired as they appear, warm and weary all at once, like a plug has been pulled unceremoniously from the base of his spine.

Knuckling his eyes like a small child, Tony looks much the same.

“Bed time,” May croaks, her back audibly cracking upon standing. “Come on, boys.”

Peter politely averts his gaze when May draws Tony into a hug, pretends not to hear how happy she is that Tony is staying. He extends that particular pretence when his counterpart stands stock still, hands reluctantly returning the embrace seconds too late to be natural.

While May washes up, Margaret leads them to the last room at the end of the hall. It occurs to him very quickly, that he hadn’t quite factored in the math when he implored Tony to stay the weekend. Their approach turns trepidatious when he realizes that there are only three bedrooms in this house and five people; a couple, an adult, and two teenagers.

The hinges squeak horridly when Margaret opens the guest room door, revealing a double bed, a dated quilt and a musky smell revealing the extent of the rooms disuse.

“If Peter doesn’t mind you sharing,” she says, gesturing to the bed that Peter had already dumped his stuff on earlier, “or one of you can sleep on the sofa, but you’ll have to share the bathroom. There are spare blankets in the closet.”

Peter’s heart pounds as they’re left alone in the room, staring at the bed, experiencing the sort of breath-stealing trepidation one he imagines might have when the roller-coaster you’re on gets stuck mid-way through a loop.

“I can...” he clears his throat roughly, gesturing to the living room. “I wouldn’t want to make you - unless you want to sh- ”

“I’ll take the sofa, we can alternate,” Tony says with finality, already backing away, duffel slung over his shoulder.

Peter, blissfully glad that Tony cut him off before he could embarrass himself by suggesting something foolish like sharing a bed, says, “Okay, yeah.”

As a rare act of partisanship he locates the blankets and helps set up the couch, giving him one of the spare pillows from the bed.

While Tony uses the adjacent ensuite to brush his teeth and empty his toiletries, Peter waits, sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching the material between his fingers, listening to the tap water run and waiting his turn. It’s not a large bathroom and brushing their teeth together would be weird, too intimate, even though he and Ned or he and Bucky did it all the time. He and Tony aren’t friends, in fact, Peter doesn’t know where their boundaries lie anymore, especially after tonight. He supposes, for a start, that he isn’t supposed to feel electricity around friends and frenemies.

Because maybe their elbows would brush as they crowded the sink and maybe they’d meet eyes in the mirror and maybe Peter might like that and, yeah, it would be super weird for them.

When Tony emerges he’s dressed only in his shirt and boxers, jeans slung over his arm, the glow of the bathroom light on the back of his head like a fiery halo. Somehow, seeing his bare legs for the first time, the curve of his calves, his naked feet, somehow was a lot more intimate than the idea of sharing a bathroom.

“So you do have something under all that denim,” he swallows, then cringes.

“You gonna cream yourself at the sight of skin or something, Parker?” he asks on a yawn. “Hmm?”

“No. You’re just...so pasty.”

“Whatever you say. Anyway, I’m out.”

Peter calls his name without thinking and Tony pauses in the doorway, the muscles in his back tensing for a moment, as if bracing for a fight, before relaxing again.

“I,” he says, unsure what he wanted to say. Settles for, “I’m glad you’re here.”

The look that Tony sends him over his shoulder is quick, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flash of gratefulness, and in Peter’s imagination, reciprocated fondness. That is until Tony taps on the door frame and opens his big mouth again.

“Night, Parker, I shall rid you of my pasty legs. Try not to get the sheets sticky thinking about my bare ankles.”

Asshole.

----

“You’re up late, kid,” May says the next morning, peering amusedly at his bleary-eyes and morning-induced disgruntlement over the rim of her coffee cup.

“Couldn’t sleep, his voice is hoarse with sleep, pouring himself his own cup of coffee and sitting beside her. “I kept hearing this clicking and beeping all night. You didn’t hear it?”

She shakes her head. “Was out like a light. Maybe someone was up watching TV.”

“Yeah, maybe. Where is everyone?”

“Peggy’s and Jarvis are in Syracuse.”

“Black Friday?” Peter wonders, recalling the hauls of gifts in his younger years whenever the couple would return from their hectic, discount driven ventures.

“Yep.”

“And Tony?”

“Out front, working on the car.”

“You really put him up to work?” He asks, leaning against the counter, bringing the cup to his mouth to hide his disapproving slope of his lips. “He’s on vacation.”

May holds her free hand up in defence.

“Don’t blame me. He offered and I turned him down. He’s stubborn, that one.”

“I’m very aware of that.”

“Once you’ve finished your coffee, be a darling and take out some water for him, won’t you? I would, but,” she winces, shifting on her seat. “my back’s killing me.”

“You okay?”

“Fine,” she waves her fingers at him dismissively. “Just slept funny.”

“Do you need anything?”

She pats his cheek, smiling from ear to ear. “Maybe another biscotti, bubby, if it’s not too much trouble. Love you.”

There’s something to be read in the way that she doesn't meet his eyes to follow her statement. In his heart he knows May, knows that she is still lying despite his attempts to have adult discussions with her, in the frank and embarrassing way he’s had to open up to her when he was younger and felt frighteningly not himself - except he’s nearing adulthood now. And maybe that’s the kind of transparency he seeks from her, because that’s what adults do, don’t they, they bring down the curtain when it comes to serious things.

And of course he brings her another biscotti, and while he’s up, he does as requested, filling a glass of water in the squeaky kitchen sink and takes a muesli bar from the pantry, pocketing another one for himself.

It’s chocolate covered. Not his favorite, more of a yogurt covered oats-bar fan, but it’s the least Peter could do for Tony’s free labour.

Outside it’s chilly, fog hangs low over the lake and frost clings to the grass in tiny ice crystals. There is a family kayaking out of The Narrows, a far away blur of bright boats and hi-vis life jackets, paddles parting through the still water like hot knives into butter.

Taking a moment to breathe in the clean air, Peter marvels at just how quiet it is, compared to the city. No traffic noises, no subway nearby and no neighbours creating all kinds of racket at ungodly hours. The only apt words that Peter can think of to describe it is: still. Nothing changes here. Or everything changes here and the houses and the lake and the trees have the good grace to stay the same while the rest of the world is in constant metamorphosis.

Peter likes it here, mostly as a novelty thing, and even more so for the company. But he’s a city kid through-and-through, loves the people, the awe of the tourists, the near helter-skelter way of life. It was a reflection of the orderly chaos in his own mind.

Here, there is nowhere to run from his thoughts.

Tony is bent over the open hood of the car, an old boom box by his feet playing Don McLean, a socket wrench in hand, twisting away at the insides of the car. He looks alive, happy. In his element with his hands smeared with rust and oil, dexterous fingers at ease with the tool in his hands.

Here, there is nowhere to run from his feelings.

Because there it is again, Peter pauses, struck by the rudeness in which it blooms; that feeling from the other day.

Not butterflies. More like pushing down on a bruise.

An exquisite ache.

It radiates through his whole body, his sternum the epicentre. Without thinking, he rubs at his chest, as if it might make the ache go away, but it doesn’t. It’s always been there, locked up in a little cage behind his ribs, set free these last few weeks.

Tony turns as he’s approaching, twisting the wrench in his hand like a cowboy with a pistol.

“If it isn’t Sleeping Cootie,” he greets. “He wakes.”

His mood seems to be greatly improved from the night before, seemingly back to his usual self. Whether that’s a good night's sleep, or their surroundings or getting his hands dirty, Peter’s not sure, but he’s not complaining.

“Here,” he says, just loud enough to be heard over the radio, holding out the water and the muesli bar.

He accepts with muttered thanks and drains the whole glass back, sticking the bar in his back pocket. Peter, for some silly reason, doesn’t stop looking at Tony’s bottom lip the entire time.

The ache ebbs and flows, the closer he gets, and when he boldly presses their sides together, it’s almost completely gone and unbearably worse at the same time. And so he lingers, for a moment that stretches far longer than a passing interest in the innards of a Volvo.

Tony seems to notice.

“You know anything about cars?” he asks, pinching Peter’s side, smiling cheekily when he squirms, ticklish. “No?” he asks, dodging Peter’s protesting arms and pinching him again.

“A bit,” he elbows Tony back, their hands settling close enough on the mouth of the hood that their fingers brush. “Not much.”

“Stick around then, cotton-tail. Let me teach you a thing about radiators.”

----

Peter knows a lot about robotics. He knows a lot about computers. Cars, albeit a different species, aren’t all that different. He knows the basics.

But watching Tony explain in-depth the specific parts needed for specific models, the tools that are necessary, it’s another thing. It’s more than just soldering and nuts, bolts and pliers. Each model and make is like knowing a person. A Ford from a Peugeot, from a rear wheel to an auto transmission. It was like being a veterinarian, for big machines.

And so Peter watched as Tony explained that morning, and well into the afternoon, as enraptured as he’d ever seen him in what is evidently a deep love, flanked by the autumn trees and yellowing grades of sunlight. A memory he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget.

He shows Peter the track of water through their radiator, the leak, the speed of water versus engine output. They will need a new replacement part, he says, he can probably do it for free with Jarvis’ approval, which is so guaranteed, he assures, it’s called a discount, hello, Tony had said, but they will have to order the part in because this car is ancient and no one should drive these deathtraps -

“But in the meantime, we can put in some Chem-i-Weld, that should get plug up the leak long enough to you to the garage and we can replace it -”

Peter just nods, allowing Tony to manipulate his hands to drip coolant into the narrow opening of the radiator, the bright-green fluid dripping into the grass below when some spills over the steel mouth in their haste.

At some point Margaret and Ed return with their purchases, bringing them lunch from the diner they’d stopped at. Ed hangs around for a bit, listening to Tony’s assessment of the vehicle’s ails, nodding and immediately agreeing to the free repairs without needing to hear a pitch.

It wasn’t all that bad, he guessed, even when Tony deliberately smeared engine oil on Peter’s cheek and Peter punched his arm in retaliation.

It was kinda fun.

And maybe Peter didn’t mind so much that their shoulders brushed, when he once would have shuddered.

And maybe he didn’t squirm when Tony put his hand on the small of his back when he was pointing something out, but leaned into it.

In all honesty, it’s one of the best days he’s had in a long while. He tries not to read in too much that some of his best days lately were the ones where Tony was in it.

But of course, nothing is impermanent, and even good days go bad.

----

Some time mid afternoon, Tony heads out to an auto store in town, keen on doing a full oil change on the car, which was completely unnecessary, Peter had argued, and was told to shut the fuck up in return.

Which, fine. He could afford Tony the distraction he was in clear need of.

He heads inside then, hungry and a bit sweaty and wanting to check in on May. He feels a bit bad for having left her to her own devices all day.

It doesn’t take long to find her, she’s in the living room, fast asleep and snoring on the sofa. Margaret sits beside her on the armchair reading a newspaper, glasses perched upon her nose, bags of her purchases by her feet.

He reaches over to gently retrieve the glasses from Mays face without waking, placing them on the table. Knowing his aunt she’d probably flail in her sleep and smack herself in the face and break them. She’s done it before.

So has he.

“Poor thing has been through the gamut, hasn’t she,” Margaret mutters, without looking up. “I keep telling her to get on stronger medication.”

“For what,” he slowly rises. “What does she need medication for?”

She stares at him. “Her pain, darling.”

“What pain?”

Margaret swallows. “She hasn’t spoken about it with you.”

“No,” Peter says, “but I know something is wrong. I’ve asked. She won’t tell me.”

She sighs, dropping the newspaper to rub tiredly at the bridge of her nose, her glasses nudging up with the motion. “Right. Of course she wouldn’t. Look, Peter, it’s not my business to say, but she’s okay. Don’t fret. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“If there was nothing to worry about, why wouldn’t she tell me?”

“For the same reason you keep things from her.”

“I don't --” he stops himself. “She doesn’t think I can handle it, does she.”

“Darling, you know that’s not why.”

No, he doesn’t know that. What he knows is that May always has his prescription filled every month, always two days before he’s due to run out of meds. He knows that when things start to go south for him she cries when she thinks he’s asleep.

But he voices none of this, says instead, “I’m just gonna get some fresh air. Do you need anything?”

She doesn’t, and he can’t get out there quick enough.

----

Once, when Peter was thirteen, some jerks in his class found out that he did gymnastics. They teased him all day, called him a fruit, a fairy. That it was no wonder Piggy Parker was queer. Which wasn’t untrue, he was indeed very queer, but it wasn’t because he did gymnastics and they didn’t need to shove him against a locker for it or call him a pussy.

That was the first time that Flash ever stood up for him.

And it was the day he first thought about quitting gymnastics.

Not because he didn’t like it. But because of the way Ben looked when he picked Peter up that day, how his face twisted when he saw Peter’s black eye through the rear view mirror. And then the way he spoke to May in low tones later that night when she had gotten home from work when they thought he was sleeping.

He was good at gymnastics, and he thought he loved it. But nothing was worse than the feeling he’d had that day, something monstrously dark and twisted in words like burden and shame.

He’d always been an anxious kid. He’ll never really know if it was the result of losing his parents young, the fear of abandonment, or if that’s just the way he naturally was. There were the panic attacks, the social anxiety, the waking up in the middle of the night so sure the world was ending.

And now this.

He didn’t want any more pity or coddling.

The next day, on the way to school, he told Ben that he didn’t want to do gymnastics anymore. He didn’t have to tell him why. Ben already seemed to put two and two together. They argued about it. Ben said he was giving in and giving up and it doesn’t seem like he ever told May about how Peter wanted to quit because of that day, she never brought it up and he never told her.

But none more so than the day Ben died. The vehicle that would later become known as the May-Mobile was at a mechanic somewhere, something else had gone wrong with it, once again. So, keen to get Peter to gymnastics, despite his vehement protestations, Ben had borrowed a car from his work colleague, just for the afternoon.

The front passenger seatbelt hadn’t been working, it kept getting stuck and couldn’t be buckled properly, so Peter had been sitting in the backseat. At the time he was tight lipped, giving one word answers, arms crossed petulantly over his chest. He wasn’t being taken seriously. Again. He was so mad that day, he hated everyone. Wished everyone would just leave him alone.

Then they were at a stop light.

Having gently tolerated Peter’s childish indignation the entire ride, Ben had turned around in his seat, one hand on the wheel, the other steadying himself on the passenger seat to implore with Peter.

To tell Peter to just give it a shot, just keep going with it, that he shouldn’t give up what he loved for anyone --

If he hadn’t been looking away from the road, maybe he would have seen the drunk driver that crossed traffic before it plowed head-on into their car. He might have been able to avoid it.

If he hadn’t been such an ungrateful, insolent child, Ben probably would have swerved and survived.

Peter never told May about the arguing. That Ben’s death was his fault.

She had enough on her shoulders. It was enough that he knew - and it was his to live with.

So in a weird way, he kinda gets it.

Doesn’t make the jackhammering of his heart ease any though. If anything, the air in the house starts to get thinner, the occupants more intrusive to a cohesive stream of thought, even if they aren’t in the same room.

Spying his sneakers by the door, he slips them on, too eager to get out to bother with socks. foregoing socks and taking a run by the lake.

He has blisters by the time the house has disappeared in the distance, but he doesn’t stop. Not when Tony drives past him, looking at him with surprise through the window, not when he feels blood slipping down his heels, not until he’s out of breath and his feet can’t carry him anymore. Even then, the thought of going back inside makes his stomach curdle.

It’s not even that he’s mad. He isn’t.

It’s just that everything in his head, the catastrophe of it all, is too big, and the house is too small to contain it. The thought of stepping foot inside has him feeling claustrophobic.

So he walks along the dock and sits, hoping the outdoors will swallow his thoughts.

----

There was something about this lake at this time of year. The leaves of the trees flanking the water, ruddy and ocherous, the way the water was so still as if it were straight out of that Monet painting, Morning on the... something or other, he can’t remember. But if Peter sat down long enough and stayed still it felt like he became a part of the canvas. If he didn’t move he could stay, etched forever in the sublime tranquility.

But something always moved, even if he didn’t. A bird. The light sprinkle of rain rippling across the lake. Tony settling down next to him on the dock, jostling him when their shoulders brush.

“You look like a sulking pomeranian,” Tony says, apropos of nothing.

“Well, I’ve been called worse, I guess,” he says quietly, digging deep to find amusement in the comparison despite the maelstrom of thoughts, the heaviness in his chest.

Tony nudges his side. “Spill. Tell me what’s earned your scorn today.”

“You remember the letter? The one from the hospital?”

He feels, more than he sees Tony stiffen beside him, the mockery gone from his voice when he answers. “Yeah. What ended up coming from that?”

“Nothing. May insists she’s fine. Peggy knows something but won’t tell me what, but says it’s fine.”

“Could it be possible,” Tony says dryly, “that everything is fine?”

“If it was, then why wouldn’t they tell me?”

“Don’t know, princess.”

“I just wish they’d tell me so I can stop,” he points to his head and makes an explosion noise, “you know.”

“Adults,” Tony shrugs. “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. Well, at least according to state law.”

He looks over to the bruising on the boy's neck, chest going tight at the sight. It must have really hurt. It must have been scary.

“You seem to know a bit about that,” he hedges.

“I guess,” Tony looks down at his hands. “Doing my best to live without one particular adult.”

Has a difficult family arrangement and needs a bit of respite.

He clears his throat, willing his nerves to settle before he says the next part, the memories of the previous night at the forefront of his mind. “I know we’re not,” he gestures between them, “y’know, and I’m not your favorite person, but If you need a place to stay, you can always stay with us.”

Stark is quiet for a long minute as he looks out to the lake.

“Thanks, but I don’t need any handouts. I can take care of myself.”

“Not saying you can’t. Is that why you work at the garage? And take money to help others cheat?”

“You know about that, huh,” Tony grins wryly, but it quickly fades, voice getting darker. “Yeah. Been saving up. And now I don’t have to ask anyone for anything.”

“You know that’s not a bad thing, right. You can ask for help.”

“I don’t need help.”

“But do you want it?”

“Just leave it,” Tony says as gentle as he’s ever heard him, as if Peter were the one who needed comforting. “I made it this far. I know what I’m doing.”

Peter twists his lips, wants to be defiant and try to give this guy hope from where it had clearly and literally been beaten out of him. But it’s not right to insert himself like he knows anything more about the situation than the glaringly obvious. Like it was with Bucky, all he can do is be there, if someone wants him there.

“I’m sorry.”

“If you’re heading into a pity party, Parker, I’m going to stop you there.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he shakes his head. “I’m sorry I just assumed that you were just some rich asshole, that you were an angry kid. That you were violent.”

“I am angry,” Tony interrupts. “I am violent.”

“You’re not.”

“I am. You don’t know me.”

Peter scoffs, shifting on the dock until his knee nudges Tony’s thigh, a small point of contact meant to keep them both grounded. He releases a breath when Tony doesn’t move.

“I know that you drove me home while I was drunk and paid for my meals when you didn’t even like me. I know you could have hurt me when you hated me, but you didn’t. You made sure I had a ride when it was raining.”

“No need to get all starry-eyed,” Tony shakes his head. “I’d clock Rogers’ stupid fucking face again if he wasn’t too chicken shit to come near me. I’m not a saint.”

“No,” Peter bumps their shoulders together. “But you are a sucker. And angry, violent people just aren’t suckers.”

“Says who.”

“Science.”

“That’s some pretty questionable science, Elle Woods.”

“How about you shut up and take my word for it?”

Tony exhales, shaking his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

They sit quiet and unmoving for a while, becoming still with the scenery again, becoming surreal with it, sitting long enough for the moment to process, and for Peter’s heart to stop beating so fast. But something always moves.

By the time Tony moves to light another cigarette the kayaking family are back, tiny patches of yellow in the far distance. The sun has started to get low, taking the precious few degrees of warmth with it.

This time when Tony offers his cigarette, Peter doesn’t turn him down.

“Aren’t you afraid of getting my cooties,” Peter asks dryly, accepting the cigarette, placing the filter between his fingers, inspecting it. He’s never smoked before, never thought about it, never wanted to. May would lose her damn mind if she ever got whiff of nicotine on him.

“Terrified,” Tony nods seriously. “But, in the common interest of getting you to unclench, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

“I am unclenched,” Peter mutters, bringing the cigarette to his lips, right where Tony’s lips were before and inhaling.

Tony’s only response is to lean back on his hands to leer at his ass, no doubt to evaluate that claim, his eyebrows raised dubiously in Peter's direction when he straightens.

There’s only a split second for heat to curl pleasantly in his stomach before he inhales too quickly, smoke seizing the breath out his chest. The other boy laughs, whacking Peter on the back as he catches his breath, taking the cigarette back from his fingers.

Despite himself, a little embarrassed, Peter laughs as well, vowing not to take up that particular habit, not even when he wanted Tony to look at him like that.

“Alright, toots,” Tony says loudly, and without warning reaches over to tug the brim of Peter’s cap over his eyes. “Enough feelings for one day, I’m starting to break out in hives. Let me show you how to do an oil change.”

----

They head back to the Volvo then, Peter’s stomach growling which he ignores, his feet aching. He’s sure that these shoes must be ruined now, the blood from his heels tacky, sticking to the fabric of the insides of the sneakers. He just should have worn socks, for fucks sake.

“I hit him first,” Tony says suddenly, breaking him from his thought. “I’m not a victim. I hit him first.”

His throat is immeasurably dry when he goes to answer, even though he’s not sure of what to say. He swallows and tries to buy himself time to find the words, to be the person that a kid like Tony might need.

“He shouldn’t… he shouldn’t have hit you back.”

“Yes, he should,” Tony’s voice is like gravel. “You don’t get to hit people and not get what’s coming to you.”

He gets the acute sense that Tony isn’t talking about himself and, for once, he wisely doesn’t prod him on it, can see in the tautness of his body that he’s wound so tight the barest brush could have him snap.

“Why’d you hit him?”

“He was talking shit about my mom. He wouldn’t stop.”

“Where is your mom?”

“Cliffside.”

“Where’s that?”

From the corner of his vision he observes his profile. Tony’s lips twist derisively.

“Malibu.”

Tony is quick to change the subject from there, though the conversation is light, the gravel never really leaves his voice much as he explains the relatively simple, if not tedious ways to do a complete oil change on the car.

While Peter’s sure he’s never really going to need to know, he let’s Tony gravitate to other easy repairs, apparently while he was getting oil he’d bought a new air filter as well, and also new brake pads, but without a ramp or a hoist, the pads couldn’t be changed, but keep them in the back seat and he’ll change them when he fits in the new radiator.

Peter lets him talk and talk and talk until his voice grows hoarse and the buzzing swarm of thoughts in his head go quiet.

----

“What are you smiling about,” Jarvis asks later when Peter enters the kitchen, keen to help out with dinner. A lasagna, if the minced meat and flat pasta sheets are a sign of what's to come. He washes his hands free of all the dirt and oil before putting them to culinary use.

“Nothin’,” he treads over, taking the wooden spoon over by the sizzling pan, homemade marinara sauce underway. He dips a pinky in, tasting it. It’s far too acidic, verging on metallic, like as if it came straight from a can. “Needs sugar,” he says, scrunching his nose.

Ed leans over to taste, humming with agreement before pausing midway, sniffing his hair.

“You smell like cigarettes and grease. What on earth have you been doing all day.”

“Tony taught me how to do an oil change,” he says, spooning in a touch of sugar into the sauce.

“Did he? He’s a good lad, that one.”

Momentarily distracted by the sound of daughter, Peter pauses to sneak a glance into the adjacent living room where Tony is regaling May with some story, his expression open and comical, his gestures exaggerated and broad. She’s laughing though, snorting through her nose, which catches Tony by such surprise it sends him off too. Then, the ache is back, sharp and unexpected.

It’s like the pain he sometimes gets in his right humerus, the pain he always gets on a rainy day. He broke his arm when he was eight, falling from the still rings during gymnastics training. The ache isn’t so bad.

Peter declines to respond, lest it get back to his protege, but silently agrees.

----

Tony, it would appear, does not hold the same reservations as Peter when it comes to domestic tasks, like brushing their teeth together, if the way he barrels right on in, shoving Peter a bit when he reaches for his toothbrush, is any indication?

“Don’t you knock, asshole? What if I’d been naked?” Peter asks around the toothbrush in his mouth, a little disgruntled by the constant jostling as Tony vigorously brushes his teeth, nearly elbowing Peter in the head.

“Why would you brush your teeth naked?” Tony gives him an odd look. “Weirdo.”

“That’s not what I -” he starts, stopping himself with an annoyed, minty huff. “Nevermind. You’re such a dick.”

As he suspected, it is oddly intimate - for him anyway - the heat of Tony’s side pressed against his, their bare arms brushing. Peter pointedly looks away from the mirror and gets a rush of self consciousness, and a little vulnerability, as he rinses and spits. Wiping his mouth free of any lingering suds, he makes the mistake of looking into the mirror. There, Tony addresses his reflection.

“You done yet? I need some quality time with the crapper.”

Peter scrunches his face up, shoving Tony out of the way so he can exit, the boys snickering following behind him as he heads to the sofa for his turn that night. Friday vacates her spot on the sofa, as if sensing his need for rest, leaping on the armchair with a disgruntled purr.

It’s pretty lumpy and smells faintly like mothballs and a bit like May’s perfume. He turns on his side, body exhausted after the long day. Body exhausted, yes, but as standard, his brain doesn’t know how or when to click off. The house is too quiet.

He takes his phone out and texts Nat and MJ and asks them about their weekends, hoping desperately for an opening in which he can talk about his own.

They’re two of his most reasonable friends. While the laughter and mockery he receives isn’t entirely uncalled for, and eventually subsides over the course of the next hours, he values their opinion almost above all of their bloated circle of friends, classmates and teammates.

Call me if you need an out, MJ texts as a bookend to their conversation sometime near midnight. Seriously. My cousin Drew is here and he keeps talking about his anal fissure.

Say the word if you want a rescue, I know how to hotwire Yelena’s bike, is what Natasha sends.

He loves his friends.

He closes his eyes, thinks of Tony the next room over, and drifts, drifts away.

----

He wakes while it’s still dark, not remembering having fallen asleep.

There’s an ache in his neck, and a blanket over his shoulders that he didn’t put there himself. Odd. But then, maybe he did, he doesn’t remember falling asleep either.

Before sleep again tugs him under, he hears a faint click, clack.

----

On Saturday, Tony wakes up to the sound of Northern Cardinals tapping at his bedroom window and the occasional chirp, and quite immediately regrets not bringing ear plugs or having an extra pillow to suffocate himself with.

For some reason everyone says the red bird has a lovely song.

Tony thinks they sound like squeaky toys being stepped on.

Consciousness is a horrible thing, and as soon as his brain becomes aware that he is, in fact, conscious, there’s no going back. Because now he’s all too aware of how unfamiliar the mattress underneath him is, the scratchiness of the sheets that bind his legs and how badly he needs to pee.

It’s with his eyes half cocked that he stumbles over to the adjacent bathroom, waking incrementally. He shivers as his bare feet hit against the tiles and relieves himself, groaning deep in relief, heading into the shower after.

Lucky for him, the water is blissfully hot and lasts long enough for him to wash and to soothe his aching lower back, compounded by sleeping on the sofa the night before and being bent over the hood of a car for hours yesterday.

Once out he wraps a towel around his waist and brushes his teeth, wincing when the cut on his lip stretches a little bit with the motion. Once done, he slaps his face with cold water to wake up a little more and prays to any deity listening that someone has put on a pot of coffee for him to guzzle.

Yes, he thinks, inspecting the fading bruises around his neck, refusing to think about how they got there. What’s important is caffeine, mother-fucker. The life source. Piping hot, right down the gullet. That’s what the doctor ordered. The doctor, being Tony.

He’s so distracted by the idea that, as he turns to leave, he doesn’t notice the bathroom door being opened and walks straight into a tired looking Peter Parker.

“Holy shit, I’m sorry - “ Peter immediately apologizes, clutching a towel and a change of clothes, “I didn’t realize you were -”

It’s when Peter’s eyes not-so-subtly rove over his body that Tony quickly remembers, hair dripping droplets down his neck, that he’s half-naked and covered in a towel.

His hands fly to cover his stomach and his nipples and he gasps, pretending to be scandalised for being caught in such a state of dishabille.

“Buy me dinner first, hornbag,” he chides disapprovingly, deeply amused when Peter stumbles back, gaze averted to the ground, mumbling more apologies. Tony can’t tell if he’s shy or just exceedingly polite, but his cheeks are blooming pink and he looks as if he’s trying to melt through the floor. It’s funny.

Clearly a virgin.

“I’m just gonna...” he trails off, squeezing past Tony to get into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Tony places his hands on his hips and grins to himself.

Great start to the day.

----

Despite the rough, splenetic start to the weekend and the shit-show that he knows he has to go back to tomorrow, Tony is actually, surprisingly, in rather high spirits. He’s not a dweller, so, that helps.

And it’s the location. The great outdoors and all that garbage, as people say.

Maybe it’s the company as well. Parker excluded, of course.

And it’s definitely assisted the hot brew of coffee in his hands.

“You complete me,” Tony whispers over the rim of his mug, taking another sip. It’s hot, almost scalding the roof of his mouth, but it’s so freaking good, his desire positively carnal. “Hell fucking yeah, baby. Get in me, that’s it, just slide on inside.”

Jarvis, across the table, blinks at him. “Are you quite alright there, Anthony? Do you two need a moment alone?”

Tony shakes his head, taking a bigger sip.

“No, we don’t mind people watching.”

Friday enters the kitchen then, and upon spotting Tony, hurries over on her delicate paws to rub her head against his calves, her purr rumbling as she weaves through his legs like an infinity sign. He indulges her then, leaning down to scratch her tiny face with his free hand.

“Hi, stinky,” he greets, delighted when she butts her head against his palm.

Pets were the best. Not that he has any.

“Don’t feed her,” Jarvis warns, “I already gave her breakfast.”

“Sure,” Tony lies, already sneaking her a sliver of bacon from his plate.

What. He’s helpless against big, water eyes. It’s not his fault.

Speaking of, Prissy Parker is taking forever in the bathroom. By time he comes out, hair gelled perfectly into submission even though it’s mostly hidden under a Mets cap - of course this loser goes for the fucking Mets - Tony’s already on his third cup of coffee and is silently working on his ability to disassociate on command after having heard more anecdotes about May and Peggy’s college life than he ever cared to know.

“Long shower,” he whistles as Peter heads for the near depleted coffee pot. “Took my advice about not getting the sheets sticky, huh?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he says, punching Tony in he arm as he passes.

Jarvis, who had been enjoying his tea, looks up in mild alarm.

“Gee, he’s so sensitive,” he leans in to whisper.

Peter’s eyes flash over to him as he waits for a new pot to boil, a flare of anger that Tony is all too familiar with. The fire in his eyes reminds him of when they first met, when Tony turned down his offer of friendship, a brilliant, flawless augury of many moments to come.

But Tony can see the heat for what it is, just a front.

Because he knows, it’s all a mirage, isn’t it. Both of them. It makes him think of how their sides brushed yesterday while working on the car, something that would have incensed the both of them in another life, would have had them flinching as if they’d been burned. Disgusted with themselves. Each other.

Sometimes still are.

But Tony knows; a flame manifests and scorches in resoundingly different ways.

What a fucking world, he thinks, that fire and singe. He sips his scalding hot coffee again, locking eyes with Peter.

The smirk around the rim of his cup is sidelong and gleeful. What a fucking world indeed.

----

Tony doesn’t know why he does it. Doesn’t know why he does anything, really, barring the gratification he gets from succumbing to his impulses.

Maybe that’s why he does it.

Or maybe it’s because of the terse conversation he overheard between May and Peter after lunch that day. Something about pain and medication, Tony doesn’t know, he wasn’t meaning to pay attention. They were on the porch and their voices drifted in through the open door. He really was too busy kicking Peggy’s ass playing Super Smash on the dusty old Gamecube to pay attention to it.

But what he does know is that May came inside and went to go lie down in her room after and Peter didn’t come back in.

It wasn’t until he went out for a cigarette some hours later that he spotted Peter, sitting by the docks, much like he had been yesterday. He stares for a moment, trying to reconcile the figure hunched over on the dock with the person he knows Peter to be.

For all of Tony’s memories are worth, Peter has always been this annoying larger-than-life figure. But, emphasis on the annoying. From the moment they met, Tony had pegged him to be some old-money, football playing degenerate like everyone else on his team.

The moment he tried to befriend Tony two years back was jarring, infuriating, because the kid was new and had clearly sniffed out the influence where he could smell it. He’d had Barnes and Rogers on either side and although Tony wasn’t at the top of the social pyramid, his familial connections had him in the upper echelon of the so-called food chain.

That’s what he thought it was, back then.

He didn’t need to think about disdainfully slapping away Peter’s literal and metaphorical hand of friendship, it was obvious to him what value he was after and it had nothing to do with Tony.

But, the assignment taught him in many ways that his impulses and his own assumptions were categorically erroneous in this instance.

Because he didn’t have enough data to base his hypothesis on, then, just a petty first impression. How was he to know that the torn jeans and ratty hoodie weren’t a fashion statement. How was he to know that Peter was genuine, when his smile looked as practiced as everyone else's.

He’s not proud to admit that it took a real peek into his life to know that Peter wasn’t who Tony thought he was.

Turns out he really was larger than life. Tall and strong. Handsome, even with his dorky glasses and signature scowl. Super smart and modest and what Tony had thought was pandering was really just Peter giving away love like it was for free. Everything Tony wasn’t.

But right now, at the edge of that pier, Peter looked small. Scattered. Like a short gust of wind could knock him over.

Tony didn’t like that much.

And maybe that’s why he does it.

Maybe that’s what convinces him, half-burned cigarette tucked between his pursed lips, to shed his jeans and sunglasses right there on the porch, despite the frigid air. It’s the impulse, and he hasn’t ever been real good in saying no to those.

It’s definitely the urgent impulse that convinces him to set off into a run, leaping over the stairs and sprinting for the dock. Perhaps that’s what convinces him to hurdle himself over Peter’s hunched figure and cannonballs directly into the lake, knees clutched to his chest.

It’s worth it, to hear Peter shriek in surprise as the water splashes over him until he can’t hear anything.

And the look of outright indignation when Tony resurfaces?

Bliss.

“Asshole,” is all Peter says, wiping his phone free of water. He tugs his cap further over his eyes, and directs his attention back to his phone as if Tony had not just executed a perfect dive into a dirty, rotten lake.

That is not acceptable, Tony thinks.

He swims for a bit, gliding on his back, and staring at the sky. The clouds are grey and swollen, lingering overhead and threatening a deluge of something unpleasant.

“You think it’ll snow?” Tony asks, moments later.

Sullenly, Peter shrugs, attention focused on his phone.

Larger than life Peter may be, he’s still inexorable when he wants to be.

Not that he’s ever been particularly chatty with Tony even on his best days, but it’s hard to miss how he’s been growing steadily more quiet this entire weekend, giving clipped, one-word answers. And Tony’s pretty sure that the fidgety fingers and the restless legs have a lot less to do with him and more to do with whatever existential crisis a sixteen year old might have, or perhaps with his ailing aunt.

Tony tries not to take notice for all of about four seconds before he gives in. In the peak of the noon sun, Peter has abandoned his sweater, donned in only a graphic tee and jeans, slouched so low that his spine almost looks like a sagging crescent, the sleeves of his shirt riding up on his remarkably toned arms.

Oh, I do declare, Tony thinks amusedly, fanning himself in his mind.

Anyway.

Priorities.

“What’s up with you, hmm?” Tony presses, wading closer. “What's gotten stuck up that bubble-butt of yours?”

“Nothing,” says Peter, tapping away at his phone, not even acknowledging Tony’s backhanded compliment. “What are you so happy about?”

“Your misery.”

“I really hate you,” Peter mutters without feeling, putting his phone away to stare moodily out at the lake.

Well, that will just not do.

“C’mon now, chin up, frog-face. You look like you’re about two seconds away from needing to breathe into a paper bag.”

Tony’s probably not far off the mark. He saw the half empty bottle of Klonopin with Parker's name on it stashed in the bathroom cupboard. You learn something new every day with this guy.

Not that pharmaceuticals were a personality trait.

But, well.

Moving on.

“Don’t call me that.”

“You really do have your panties in a twist, don’t you,” Tony says, mostly to himself. Peter doesn’t even bristle like a snooty cat like he usually does. Just stares forlornly to the distance like he was in some indie film. It’s weird. “You know, someone who pulled one off recently isn’t usually this tense.”

Finally, Peter’s attention is firmly on him.

“I’m not tense and I pulled one off just fine.”

“Oh, did you,” Tony teases, enjoying how pink Peter’s complexion suddenly turns. “How saucy. Did you think of me and my pasty skin, hmm?” he prompts. “It was the sight of my perky breasts, wasn’t it, you little perv.”

“No,” Peter adjusts his cap, cherry-cheeked. “You’re weirdly bent on when and where I jerk it and I’m the perv?”

“I’m not bent. I just think you’re uptight and need to relax. Ergo, penis-colada.”

“I am very relaxed. Ergo, you are an idiot.”

“Oh, precious,” Tony flicks water up at him. “Come on, be honest.”

“What,” he says defensively. “If I’m uptight it’s because you deliberately wind me up.”

“In a sexy way?”

“In a ‘I’m going to disembowel you and feed you to Friday’ way.”

“We’ve talked about your sweet nothings,” he tuts. “Terrible. Zero out of ten. My dick just shrivelled in on itself to seek shelter. Look.”

He holds up a single pinky finger and wriggles it.

It has one of the possible intended effects when Peter laughs through his nose, the tight line of his shoulders easing. And this, this is what Tony has found in recent days that earns him a great deal of satisfaction - winding Peter up just the right amount when warranted, and getting him to uncoil when it’s not Tony that’s done the winding.

“C’mon, stop being such a buzzkill,” Tony implores. “We’re not at school. Could you stop being chronically constipated for a minute and have some fun.”

Peter looks at him suspiciously.

“And what happens when we go back to school?”

Well, he hasn’t considered that yet, and doesn’t really want to.

Instead, he makes a show of scanning their surroundings and appearing contrite, peering up at him through his eyelashes. He watches as Peter’s defensiveness gives way to curiosity, the tautness in his arms melting as Tony swims closer, beckoning with one hand as if he had a secret to tell.

“Don’t tell anybody,” Tony whispers, hands sneaking up to grip at Peter’s wrists, “but here’s the plan. I think we should --”

“Tony, no,” Peter realizes a second too late, already pulling on his hold, voice raised with barely restrained laughter. “Do not, stop, stop - don’t you fucking dare - ”

Then he pulls, Peter shrieks loudly before he hits the water.

“Tony!“

----

Peter emerges from the water furious, a scowl that could rival the mythical scorned, cheated out of their fate, water dripping from his eyelashes, his perfect hair a sodden mess over his face, snorting lake water inelegantly from his nose.

For his troubles, Tony gets an angry splash of gross lake water in his mouth and hands pressing down on his shoulders, pulling him under.

And Tony gets the uproar, because this lake is really not made for swimming. It’s dirty and more suited to kayaking than it is accidentally inhaling the water in any orifices, but Tony is nearly seventeen and if he wants to play around in scum and dubious bodies of water, that’s his decision, poor or otherwise.

He’s close enough to the lake floor that he can plant his feet on the rocks and thrust upward, thwarting Parker's half-hearted attempts to drown him, laughing at Peter’s put-off expression even as he fights to catch his breath.

“You are the fucking worst, I could kill you right now,” Peter says, low, with what Tony guesses is supposed to be a menacing expression as he wipes his glasses free of water with his abandoned sweater. It’s quite adorable.

He spreads his arms wide and grins.

“Do your best, baby.”

----

There’s a lot of things that Tony would never have thought he would say.

Like, for example, that peanut butter and cottage cheese on toast were a good combination.

Or that The Black Parade was the modern incarnation of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Or that Peter Parker looked strikingly handsome, wet and sputtering after being unwillingly pulled into a dirty body of water, and that having a water fight with him would constitute as a good time.

And it’s not that Tony hasn’t ever thought that he wasn’t attractive. Of course he was, with a body and a face like his, sprung to life as if it came carved from marble, it was undeniable to anyone with functional vision. But while Tony lumped him and his dumbfuck teammates and friends in one category, it never struck him just so.

“You didn’t answer my question about school,” Peter says during a truce, wading in the water, seemingly content with his new habitat.

“What, my dear, was the question?” Tony blinks, eyelashes laden with droplets, genuinely having forgotten. “Be precise.”

“What happens when we go back? Do we just... ignore each other like before?”

Tony places a hand on his own chest. “I never ignored you.”

“You were an asshole to me.”

“And you were such an angel to me,” he rolls his eyes. “What’s your point. You wanna hold hands in public or something?”

“No,” Peter flushes. “I don't know, just act like we don’t actively despise each other?”

“Don’t we? Are we friends now?”

“No.”

“You crushin’ on me?”

“No.”

“Then?”

“You don’t hate me,” Peter breathes, swimming closer. “And I don’t hate you. You know what, yes, actually. Let’s hang out. Come to the game next week. It’s against Aldrige.”

“Football?” Tony huffs amusedly, locking his eyes with Peters. “You think the path to reconciliation is in me watching a game I don’t even like played by the future, festering dregs of our society? Think again, dollface.”

“I think you think too much,” Peter says before splashing him in the face with freezing lake water.

“And I think I have better things to do on a Thursday night.”

“Like what,” Peter swims closer until they’re nearly nose to nose.

“Becoming one with my bed, cutting my toenails, crying myself to sleep,” Tony ticks off his fingers. “Literally anything that isn’t sport. If I wanted to watch a bunch of repressed angry dudes jump all over each other and hump grass I could just watch porn.”

“So, I’ll see you there?” Peter grins in that cheeky-cherub way of his.

“Are you even going to play?” Tony tries, his will faltering.

Peter had taken the brace off his wrist over the weekend, but that didn’t mean he was done being benched.

“I’ll get cleared next week. Just don’t rub one out in the bleachers if the grass humping becomes too much for you. They frown upon that.”

“For the record,” Tony says flatly, “I dislike you very, very intensely. Especially right now.”

“Feeling’s mutual, bub.”

Neither of them move, and somehow they’ve managed to gravitate disconcertingly close to one another during their back-and-forth. The fire is back in Peter’s eyes, utterly magnetic and a gust of unexpected want barrels into his body.

Tony wants so excruciatingly in that moment to bridge the gap, wants with his whole body, whether it’s to dunk him under the water or to pin him to the dock, kiss the cocky out of him. Wrap his arms around him and keep his lips and body warm from the freezing water.

God, wouldn’t they be something. All push and pull.

The want just keeps building like a score reaching crescendo until he can feel it like a suffocating pressure, right to his very fingertips, in his nails, and it just makes him want to reach out and do things he has no permission to do, even when they’re so close that he can feel Peter’s breath on his face, even though Peter’s eyes have gone dark and heated, so all that’s left to do is -

Peter’s outraged squawk when Tony splashes him again is terribly satisfying.

Not as satisfying as kissing him might be, he imagines.

But it will do.

----

Tony has learned a lot about Peter since the time they started working on their assignment, but nothing near the information he’s managed to accrue over the course of this weekend. How his nose scrunches when he sneezes, that he’s allergic to nickel, that he’s the worst type of human being: read, a morning person.

Peter fucking Parker. Really?

This guy wears punny shirts and hums the Star Wars theme as he’s studying, Tony’s been on the unfortunate receiving end of it so he really, truly has to ask himself. This dweeb?

Yeah, his heart beats in response. This fucking dweeb. What are ya gonna do about it?

If he had a Magic-8 Ball to shake it would likely land on some ambiguous and unhelpful advice.

Who the fuck knows?

----

They’re saved the disgrace of having to walk back dripping wet and half frozen into the house - while they have been dilly-dallying the day away in a cold, dirty lake, the adults have set up a bonfire between the porch and the dock, largely without their notice.

By dusk Tony is starving and accepts his pyramid-like stack of food graciously as he settles in a rickety wicker chair by the fire, diving into his helping of steak, corn on the cob and potato salad. Jarvis heartily offers a boat of mint-flavored gravy which Tony declines because he hates mint in anything that isn’t gum and even then cinnamon is clearly the superior alternative.

Once dinner is finished the marshmallows and crackers are distributed - and Tony is shit, he means shit, okay, at getting the marshmallows right, too bored to keep an eye on it, but Parker does it right nearly every time. He passes his best around the fire and keeps the few horribly charred ones to himself and that used to be something that Tony would want to sneer at him for.

Goody-two-shoes.

Now, it just makes Tony want to watch him.

Beside him, Peter shivers as the warmth of the flame starts to burn some of the chill from his skin, their clothes slowly starting to dry. It makes him think back to how May had tutted fondly at their wet appearances after they had emerged from the lake, flocking to the fire like overgrown human moths, running back into the house and emerging soon after with towels for them both, tugging Tony’s around his shoulders playfully like a scarf.

She’d been so… patient. And warm. The reprimand never came, not from anyone, despite Tony's expectations.

Now, he stares at the bonfire, idly listening to the faint music and yelling from a party at the other side of the lake, finally allowing himself to relax.

You can never be surprised by someone's actions in the heat of the moment if you’ve already tested their limits beforehand. That’s what people were. Full of variables, yes, but predictable once you knew how they responded to particular stimuli. It wasn’t a perfect methodology by any means, but at the very least Tony could count on knowing what might earn him a fist to the face with most people. Or a flinch.

It’s the first proper Thanksgiving he’s had since he stayed with the Potts two years ago. Rhodey and his parents always go to Minnesota each year to see family and last year Tony’s mom came up from California, and, well, wasn’t that was a fucking disaster.

So this? This is one of the nicest nights he’s had in a very long time.

Nobody expects him to be proper, to sit upright, to only be seen or heard if he was being useful. He wasn’t being useful. He was getting the seat wet underneath him and he planned on convincing Peggy to let him have a beer and he’s sure his unexpected presence was akin to a meteor collision on this otherwise quaint family weekend.

But no one looked at him like he should be punished, or like he was an outsider. It was like he was supposed to be there all along.

His own mom, as much as he adores her, wouldn’t be caught dead in this scene.

But still, Tony might call her later and tell her about it.

They stay out there for a while, Jarvis’ boom-box playing Cold Chisel on some local radio station, but it's just slightly not tuned right and the noise is a bit pixelated.

It’s a long time before he draws his eyes from the fire. The adults are laughing about something and Peter is on his phone again, though his features are much lighter than earlier in the day.

“Your hair is curly,” Tony observes, they’re both dry now. “Huh. I didn’t know that.”

Peter’s hand flies to his hair, running his fingers through it, chip dipped in what Tony can construe as a self-conscious habit, his low laugh short and void of genuine amusement.

“Hah, yeah,” he tugs a lock in front of his brow, pulling it straight before releasing it. “You can see why I don’t walk around like this all the time.”

“No, I don’t,” Tony says, not understanding.

Peter looks at him oddly.

“I should head to bed,” he says eventually. “We have to leave early in the morning.”

Tony doesn’t want to be out here alone and he doesn’t want this weekend to end so he nods, stands and follows him inside.

It’s good timing then. It doesn’t snow, but the sky does finally split open and it rains.

----

At first observation it seems everyone has already gone to bed. Save for the TV playing Jeopardy the house is quiet, dark and still. However both stop dead in the living room, pausing when Jarvis, asleep on the sofa, snores loudly.

They stare, transfixed, as he mumbles answers to the game show in his sleep.

Friday is curled on his chest, looking very pleased with herself.

“Right. Well, I can just,” Tony gestures to the floor after a moment, as it’s his turn for the already appropriated sofa, “the carpet is fine.”

It won’t be a comfortable night, but it can’t be any worse than the time he camped out in the cramped backseat of his car after a fight with his father.

“We can share,” Peter rolls his eyes, already heading to the room. “The bed’s pretty big, so. As long as you keep your hands to yourself.”

Tony follows with an air of casual disinterest and aims for puerile with his next words, just for the small thrill of winding Peter up.

“I’m going to tell everyone at school you propositioned me to get into your bed.”

“Shut the fuck up or sleep on the floor,” is all Peter says before he locks himself in the bathroom. Tony grins to himself.

Success.

They settle very awkwardly on either side of the bed after they’ve both had the opportunity to piss and brush their teeth, looking around each other but not really meeting eyes, flinching any time their skin nearly touches. Yes, the bed is fairly big if you’re a teenage kid and the sole occupant, but, as it were, the bed looked impossibly small now, as if it had shrunken overnight

Well, no time like the present is there. Tony’s the first to move, pulling back the sheets and climbing in. Peter’s quick to follow suit, lowering himself gingerly, shuffling awkwardly until they’re both settled on their sides, facing away from each other.

“You better keep to your side. I swear to god,” Peter says in the darkness, “if your butt or any other part of you touches me...”

“And sully my reputation as a perfect gentleman? Please.” Tony fakes a yawn. “We both know you’re the sexual deviant here.”

“You’re a moron.”

Tony smiles in the darkness.

----

It’s been twenty minutes of rigid backs, carefully measured breathing and staring at walls, glaring evidence that neither of them are asleep or even close to it.

“Can you hear that noise?” Peter whispers. “That clicking noise?” He imitates whatever his freakishly good hearing is picking up, sounding like a vaguely predatory, foot-high dinosaur, but Tony knows what he must be referring to, even though his own hearing doesn’t pick it up - or is so used to it by now it doesn’t even register.

Tony’s eyes widen as he thinks of his bot, stashed in his duffle in the closet, the zip slightly open so he can ‘breathe’.

“Nope,” he says. “Don’t hear anything.”

----

An hour later, both still very much in the same place they were before with added sighs of annoyance and the occasional cough. Sleep isn’t coming any time soon. Sleep and Tony have had regular disagreements for as long as he’s known it.

“You wanna watch Gordon Ramsay yell at people?” Tony says, turning onto his back.

“Okay.”

After fishing out his laptop, Tony has to very carefully open an entirely new window to stream an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, lest Peter see the thousand and one tabs Tony has open on his main window. Some of them benign, like google results of what does fremdschämen mean, others a little more embarrassing like the numerous PornHub tabs and the YouTube playlists of questionable reality TV shows.

Best to avoid that situation completely.

----

“It’s fuckin’ raw,” Tony does his best impression of the accent an indeterminate time later, the laptop stowed away, the room pitch-black save for the strip of light under the door and warm, sleep finally tugging him down to its dark depths.

“I’m shutting it down,” Peter imitates with vigour, laughing softly to himself.

Tony closes his eyes and allows the sandman to do his work.

----

When he wakes he notices three things.

One, is the sound of the kettle boiling, a screech of noise as it hits crescendo. The second is that it’s very cold, the heat of the fireplace not quite sufficient to reach the guest room, the snappy, waspish wind against the window a sign of the conditions outside.

The third is the warm huff of Peter’s breath on Tony’s face.

And that leads to the observation that they’ve drifted closer to each other through the night, facing one another, faces inches apart. This close, like earlier in the lake, Tony can count Peter’s eyelashes, the stipple of pale freckles upon his nose. His face is lax with sleep and his lips are parted slightly.

He’s snoring, just slightly.

Also, he fell asleep wearing his glasses.

It definitely is not endearing.

The bedside alarm clock says it’s only just past five, which would explain the tired ache around his eyes, and why Peter is dead to the world, motion behind his closed eyelids as if he was in a dream.

For some reason, the only thought that accompanies the sudden swell of emotion in his chest is, Toto, I've a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.

There’s a warm looking flush dusted over Peter’s cheeks, and of course there is, Tony thinks, he’s gone and stolen all the blankets through the night, leaving Tony little more than a pitiful square to cover his torso. That’s why he’s shivering.

Shit-head, Tony thinks, sliding closer under the comforter, hoping to share some of Peter’s heat, desperate to go back to sleep.

Except sleep doesn’t come, it never does.

Not when Peter unconsciously shifts closer, sighing softly as his bare legs brush Tony’s, not when he gravitates like a planet in orbit, close enough that they’re sharing a pillow, lips smacking drunkenly on their combined body heat.

Not when Peter wakes some moments later, eyes opening confusedly before dimming with fondness, like maybe that was what more or less than what he had expected. The thing that annoys Tony is that he doesn’t know which - they’re so close their breath mingles, and their toes and knees brush under the blankets and it’s more intimate than friendly - so which is it, he wonders; more, or less?

“Hey,” Peter says, shifting closer until Tony can feel the soft brush of Peter’s hair against his forehead. “Morning.”

Tony’s betting on more. Peter is braver than Tony is - and this - this is.

His stomach drops, courage slipping from his grasp.

“Do you know what really annoys me about you?” Tony whispers in lieu of returning his greeting, his voice shaky and easily blamed on the lack of sleep. “What really annoys the shit out of me?”

“What,” Peter queries softly, eyes still closed.

“This,” Tony extends a finger to flatten the hairs of Peter’s ridiculous wayward eyebrow, stupidly captivated by the way that Peter leans into the touch ever so subtly, like a cat being pet.

He feels the huff of laughter over his lips before he hears it.

“My eyebrow?”

“Yes,” Tony mumbles, stroking over the hairs again to ensure they remain flat, like a normal eyebrow should be. “Why is it always like that.”

“Not sure,” his bed companion hums, careless and minute, slurred with sleep enough that Tony might not have caught if he weren’t already studying the lines of his face. “Maybe it just likes to annoy you.”

“It’s very successful in annoying me. As is every other part of you. You’re infuriating.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

To steel himself he takes a deep breath, drawing on his remaining reserves of courage as he breathes out, encouraged ever so slightly by the way Peter hasn’t yet flinched away.

Tony allows his finger to trail from Peter’s eyebrow down the slope of his nose, his skin sleep-warm and smooth. Then his finger moves to trace the curve of Peter’s cheekbone, and that’s when Peter’s eyes open.

His stare errs on soft, curious and Tony doesn’t know why he’s doing it, except that the need to touch is too great, feels drawn to him, like this is the perfect state of being, intertwined and silent. And that the way Peter shifts closer to him until their foreheads touch means maybe he feels that way too.

Curiously, always pushing boundaries, his finger trails from his cheek, to gently stroke his philtrum, and then down to the soft bow of his upper lip.

“This weird?”

“A bit.”

Ever so gently, he traces the curve of his lips, sighing when Peter’s hands come to clutch his shirt, not flinching, not looking away.

“Do you like it?”

Peter just nods, shifting even closer until the tips of their noses touch.

“Can I -” he asks, cutting himself off, letting go of Tony’s shirt to raise one of his hands until one of his fingers touch the apex of his shoulder, stroking down over his arms, the bump of his elbow and down the sharp slope of his forearm, resting at the underside of Tony’s wrist where his pulse beats fast and fierce.

They remain like that, the moment sweet and gentle in a way the two of them rarely were. Courage builds at the same time that his fear escalates, like standing at the precipice, sick with nerves but elated at the prospect of taking the leap.

He wants to lean in so badly and capture those lips with his own. Wants to climb over Peter’s body and press him down. To bite that full lower lip, to cradle his hips with his thighs and pin him down, make him gasp, beautiful and breathtaking.

“Tony,” Peter whispers, pressing his lips against his thumb. He thinks he will move it and lean in and replace it with his own lips.

But before he can there is a loud knock at the closed door.

They still, lips the barest width apart.

It’s May.

“Pete?” She raises her worried voice through the wood. “Time to wake up, kiddo. We gotta go soon.”

“Okay,” Peter calls back, still staring at Tony. After the footsteps retreat from he inhales deeply before letting the breath go and taking his hand away from Tony’s.

Neither of them move for a moment, Tony’s thumb still resting on Peter's plump lower lip, their gazes heated and locked, but then, Peter’s hand slowly slides up from his wrist, feather-light, to rest over Tony’s hand, clasping around it.

At this moment, their only point of contact were their touching foreheads, their hands and Tony’s finger on Peter's lips, but his whole body felt as if it were floating, buoyant, like being grounded and suspended in the air at the same time.

Underneath Tony’s thumb, the lips stretch into a resigned smile.

“I gotta go.”

For a moment he doesn’t let go and wishes that the universe would go his way, just for once, wishes that time would do him this one favour and stretch these seconds interminably, hit the breaks, play itself out like the movies where everything pauses.

If it did, he would shift, slide his nose against Peter’s and wait for him to give Tony a sign, or for Peter to bridge the distance. But time doesn’t work that way and the universe rarely indulges him such hedonistic impulses.

As it was, in real life, his finger drifts to stroke the sharp line of Peter’s jaw until it reaches his chin then, down his throat, just for a second he lets his touch linger, not knowing when or if he will get this chance again.

“Tony,” Peter whispers, soft.

Conceding the moment to the whims of time, Tony pulls away then, shoving down the floaty feelings. A mocking grimace crosses his face as he decides to go for push, instead of pull.

“If you lift up that blanket and hotbox me I’m going to break your nose.”

And just like that, the moment broke.

Peter snorts before sitting up, swinging his legs off the bed. “Your dirty talk needs work,” he mocks.

“You shouldn’t fart the bed, honey,” he leans up, resting on his elbow. “How’s that?”

As has become the impulse of the day Tony sneaks his free hand from under the comforter and pinches Peter’s side where he knows he’s sensitive. As predicted, Peter squirms and bats away at Tony’s offending hand and takes grip of his wrist, laughing breathily.

“I’m going to tell everyone at school to call you Farty Parker.”

Peter squeezes his wrist, thumb stroking the underside, his expression, Tony might dare say, indulgent.

“No, you’re not. You wouldn’t do that to me.”

No, he wouldn’t.

Well, maybe he’ll tell Rhodey. Then he’ll look at Peter with judgement and Peter will know what Tony told him and it will be hilarious.

Tony watches while he gets to his feet and reaches his arms over his head, back cracking with the effort. Neither of them say a thing when makes no effort to hide the way he stares appreciatively at the sliver of skin that gets exposed when his shirt rides up before he saunters to the bathroom.

He stays in the bed and listens to the sound of the shower running, the creak of the old plumbing, replaying the last few minutes in his mind. Tony was going to kiss Peter.

And Peter was going to let him.

Tony’s lips stretch to capacity.

“What are you smiling about, Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, when he returns. Something soft hits Tony in the face.

“Nothing, Mr. Parker,” he says, clutching what appears to be a forest-green hoodie, one he knows he’s seen Peter wear before, and often. It’s the same one Tony pulled the strings on to annoy Peter those weeks ago. “What’s this?”

“Collateral,” Peter replies, towelling dressed in a white shirt and jeans he slings a duffel over his shoulder, looking like James Dean, eyes roving Tony up and down. “Until I give back your jacket.”

Tony manfully waits until Peter leaves the room to bring it to his nose and breathe in.

Fuck.

----

“You come over whenever you want, sweetie,” May hugs Tony at the open front door, kissing his cheek again. “You’re welcome at any time, remember, I mean it.”

“Thanks,” he hugs her back, warmth blooming in his chest, giving her a grateful smile when she releases him.

Peter walks back slowly towards the car, waving a hand and visibly softening when he gets a wave in return. “See you tomorrow,” Peter calls back, adjusting his cap and biting his bottom lip, managing to make it sound like a promise. Cute tells, Tony thinks, those are the variables he can work with.

“So,” Jarvis says once they’ve driven off, a knowing look on his face, “that the guy?”

“Don’t look so smug.”

“I’m not smug, Anthony, I’m English.”

Tony sighs. He can’t really argue with that, can he.

What a weekend, he thinks, throwing an arm around Peggy and Jarvis, steering them to the kitchen for coffee. What a world.

For once, he can’t wait until tomorrow.

---

tagging: @bylerboyfriends @ravens-starker-stuff, @starker-rays, @ironspiderstarker, @muse-of-gods, @notfor-temporaryuse, @tabbycat1220, @sugarfreecult, @rebel13lion39, @plueschpop, @spideravocados, @jellybbunny, @booktrashme, @elfkido, @mycatislickingmybedsheets, @queerghostboyo, @disneyprincessdominatrix, @cherrygoldlove @starkerflowers@starkeristheendgame @thewolffearsher @starkersugar , @starkerforlife6969, @css1992, @parkerrbitch, @fuckmemrstark, @blankblankityblank, @ilovemoreid, @blaquedecember, @killmylonelysoul, @notfor-temporaryuse, @arvaen, @chaos-with-a-pen, @notnormallaura, @portiamarie02, @bloodymisanthropist, @ser-no-tonin, @staticwhispersinthedark

#starker #tony stark x peter parker #iron spider #starker high school au

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alorenawrites · 3 years

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On Words and Meaning

So I've been thinking a lot about how Loki is being discussed and the words used, particularly by Hiddleston, given his bent for using literary language in his descriptions. There are three words I want to touch on in this little post, one of them definitely rooted in his usage.

So the first I want to touch on is the term "romance." We've heard (often from Hiddleston), that Loki is, at heart, a romance. I think there's a dimension of the discussion missing in these conversations in that is important to consider.

To the layman, a romance is simply a love story, sometimes with a sexual undertone. But in the literary sense, a romance is a much deeper genre. I want to consider that this layer may also be present in Hiddleston's intent on using the term in describing the story arc. It certainly is in mine, as someone with a fascination with literary form and also with an English degree who has spent way too much time exploring genre.

So firstly, we need to define "romance." From literaryterms.net:

I. What is Romance?

In the strictest academic terms, a romance is a narrative genre in literature that involves a mysterious, adventurous, or spiritual story line where the focus is on a quest that involves bravery and strong values, not always a love interest. However, modern definitions of romance also include stories that have a relationship issue as the main focus.

II. Examples of Romance

In the academic sense, an example of a romance is a story in which the main character is a hero who must conquer various challenges as part of a quest. Each challenge could be its own story and can be taken out of the overall story without harming the plot.

Example 1

A knight who wishes to prove himself by recovering a stolen heirloom from an enemy may find himself attempting to make his way through a dangerous wood filled with thieves.

Once he has accomplished this challenge, he may find himself climbing a tall mountain on which a group of people are in trouble. He would save the group somehow, and then move on.

Then the final stage: the enemy’s kingdom. There may be a fair maiden whom he meets and somehow helps or rescues, or perhaps she helps him.

But the fair maiden is not the focus of the story – his quest is the focus. Each story can be taken out, yet each builds the hero’s strength to face his final quest. These stories tend to be serious rather than humorous and touch on strong values.

In considering this, I've thought about Loki's arc as a quest that does, indeed, involve the discovery and exploration of strong values with a three part quest, though I don't think the quests entirely stand on their own. The overarching theme is about Loki discovering his sense of self- his quest to become a full person, not just a trope for the universe to exploit so others can reach their better selves. I divide the show up in to three quests. The first, in episodes 1 and 2, is Loki finding a sense of purpose in the new world- his quest is to discover who this new variant is and where they are hiding. This is resolved by the end of that second episode. The second arc takes place in the next two episodes- Loki discovering his empathy for others is the continuation of the overarching personal development plot, while his quest is to discover Sylvie's goals and to uncover/share the truth behind the TVA. And in our third section, episodes 5 and 6, we get the culmination of the personal growth arc in his ultimate discovery of different facets of himself (illuminated by the different elements of self shown in the multitude of variant Lokis) while the quest is to uncover who is in control of the Sacred Timeline and why. The differences in colour palettes, settings, tones, etc. between the three episode pairings is a part of how I started to distinguish my thoughts on each. And regardless of the visual distinctions, I most definitely see the entire arc as exploring strong values and bravery, though the bravery is multi-layered, showing not only the visible bravery of facing down an apocalypse, Alioth, etc., but the internal bravery of challenging one's self and digging deep into discovering who one really is. This is a theme of queerness that I see lingering in this series- discovering who we are is a process, not an outcome.

I think that this definition of a romance, in the classical sense, is a little oversimplified, as there is often a theme of discovery of self or improvement of self along the way. In a Gothic romance, themes of "the people are the real monsters" come into play (Crimson Peak is an excellent example of this)- there may be elements of the supernatural, but the real thing of which the viewer/reader should be afraid is the person behind the curtain. Gothic romances also often do include a love story arc, but it is often deeply flawed on some level and often also includes some sort of sexual or romantic awakening, often by a female lead, that leads to the discovery of whatever darker is taking place (Crimson Peak turns this on its head in that it is Thomas' awakening with Edith that leads to his turning point and Edith's realization that the Sharpe siblings are the monsters, not the ghosts in the hall). The themes of discovery of self, or of the fortitude of moral values, or of the journey of a person's development, play into both a Gothic romance and its foundations in a classical romance.

So. There's part 1 of this ramble.

On to part 2!

The next word I want to examine is the term "relationship" and its companion, "love." Now, mind you, I come at this from a queer perspective as a demisexual, demiromantic individual, so these two words are ones I've spent a LOT of time pondering, in the quest to define my own identity.

We've heard the term "relationship" tossed around so often with only a romantic implication attached, but in truth, this word is so much more broad than this. You are in a relationship with your barber. You are in a relationship with your cat. You are in a relationship with a spiritual advisor, a professor, your best friend, your partner. Just because it is so heavily used in this way doesn't mean the relationship is only an intimate one (though intimate relationships are also not inherently sexual or romantic in nature, either, so let's remember this as well). Now if we break down what a relationship is, it's just a consistent interaction with someone based on some common interest or goal. It's a remarkably benign word. Its connotations, however, take it in a multitude of directions.

So let's look at it through the lens of an intimate relationship and add in the component of love. We'll start with just a blanket statement that love is not only one single thing. It isn't just romantic. It is our family, our friends, our pets, pie, the colour blue, that feeling of perfection when the waves of a warm lake brush over your calves...love is embedded in the experiences of these things. We love them. Love it as vast and broad as relationships. We love places, people, things, and experiences. We love ourselves (or we try to learn to).

In my world, through my particular brand of queerness, love changes in intimate relationships on a regular basis. I love my partner dearly. But on some days, that love is to my best friend, while other days, it is a romantic love and on others, sexual expression may be involved, but they may overlap in different ways. Sexual expression is independent of romantic attraction and the degree of each isn't tied together in any way. If we can separate these things, I think we can see the relationships in our everyday lives in different lights and with greater complexity.

I also think that looking at these things through the lens of diverse sexual and romantic experiences can inform how we interpret the Loki x Sylvie pairing and why some of us just aren't bothered by it (though certainly not the only reason people aren't).

We've been told Loki loves Sylvie. That much is beautifully clear. But love (and being in a relationship) doesn't automatically mean that 1) both parties are experiencing it in the same way, 2) both parties have the same approach or priorities, 3) the level of romance is necessarily the same between the people involved, 4) that sexual attraction exists at all.

Sometimes a kiss is a form of communication and not tied to the want to shag someone.

So this is where my interpretation of this particular pairing comes into play. I do see the story as a romance, in the classical sense, but also with a slight streak of the more modern sense involved. The focus is still on the quest, even when the love story emerges. And that is where I see the priorities of these characters and their definitions of the relationship differing and I analyze it through these different dimensions of love and relationship orientations.

Loki actually embodies one of the traits I've seen listed for demisexuals- we hold our friendships extremely close and because we hold our friendships the way we do, it isn't uncommon for us to end up with crushes on our best friends (and no, they don't generally develop into other forms of relationships, but they could). This is the phase in which I see Loki by episode 6. He has formed this intense bond, unlike any other it seems he's had, and his heart is breaking over the thought of losing her to her own rage. All he wants is for her to be OK, remember? This isn't a selfish action. But I think it is significant that while he tries to stop her, he's not the one who initiates the kiss. All his actions here are ones that a close friend would also do for their best friend. Like, I'd try to stop my besties from inadvertently destroying the universe. I'd even throw down over it. And for the exact same reasons- the risks are too great, we need to think, and I want them to be OK. Almost everything Loki does throughout his growing closeness to Sylvie is something I'd do for one of the people I've told I'd defend- as in, I literally told some of these people, "anybody messes with you, I'll cut a bitch- just tell me who and I'm there."

So because of all this, I don't see this relationship as sexual in any way. Romantic? Possibly. But not necessarily. Even being in love with one another doesn't mean a relationship has to have a sexual component.

Looking at Sylvie, I see her also as having found companionship with Loki, but her overriding goal is, ultimately, not to bond with someone- it's her mission. And she has sacrificed her entire life because of the TVA to this mission. She tells him repeatedly, in one way or another, that the mission comes first. Yes, she does care about him, but I don't think the way she cares about him is the same as the way he cares about her because they have differing priorities and needs (and hence why she feels betrayed by him when he tries to stop her). Or at least she hasn't allowed herself to express that. When she falls to the ground after she's killed He Who Remains, I think we get a glimpse of what Loki meant to her- she is alone, she grieves, and there is no meaning left to her story. She's done what she dedicated her entire life to and the person who could have given it other meaning is no longer beside her.

I still don't think that the first thing they would do upon seeing each other is suck face and have wild sex. Would that bother me? No, not really. I can headcanon something different than what actually happens, I'm fine with that (just look at all this glorious headcanoning happening right here!) I'd like it to stay a romantic friendship (queer platonic relationships for the win- they're squishes!) because I don't think we hardly ever see those types of relationships and queer platonic relationships are incredibly beautiful and powerful and yes, based on love and maybe even romance, in their own way. They are defined by the people in them, as are all relationships.

And now to address "but she kissed him!"

Yes, she did. And I've kissed my partner when there wasn't romance involved because I wanted to share a moment, to express something deeper than I had words for (yes, even on one of my aromantic leaning days), or just because it's fun. And it doesn't have to "match" up with how the other partner feels it, either, so long as the message itself is what comes across. This is how I read the Sylvie x Loki kiss. It was a message of worthiness. Loki's entire arc, including in that scene, is in discovering if he's anyone different than the monster he's made himself out to be (and encouraged others to see him as). He tells Sylvie that he can't be trusted, falling back on the habit of characterizing himself as the professional liar, the one who can't form those attachments which are built on trust. He also identifies her as someone incapable of trust in that moment, which I think is also a projection of how he sees himself. He tells Mobius he can only trust himself and the show slowly shows Loki coming to trust others, but in this moment in the Citadel, he's falling back on a different perception of himself.

This is where the kiss comes in, for me. Sylvie isn't trying to tell him she'd jump him right then and there, if things were different. Sylvie is trying to tell him that she does trust him, that he can be trusted, and that he is worthy of the affection of a friend, even if she can't have him in her way. She is prioritizing her mission, yes, but not without giving him some sort of reassurance, in her own way, that this rejection isn't personal. That he isn't too broken to be loved. It doesn't have to go into romance (not saying it couldn't, just saying it isn't a requirement). It doesn't have to go into sexual relationship territory.

Maybe I see this so vastly differently because of my experiences exploring gender, sexuality, and romantic orientation. Maybe I see this so differently because at this stage in my life, I would absolutely kiss a friend if I felt something so heavy was going to break them. I have a friend I say "I love you" to every time we talk on the phone or video chat- we've been together for 20 years. I've got photo proof of a snuggle pile of friends when I was a young adult. I've shared a bed with a friend with no reason other than that we didn't want to sleep on the floor and why not. I've had friendships that were awkward to start and intense once they got going that are absolutely still important in my life. I've had crushes on friends that have faded and just shown me another dimension of what it is to love someone. I've watched adults who struggle to make connections to other people discover those moments of awkward "how do I do friend mode?" and come out stronger for them, with that huge sense of victory hidden behind a small smile they don't want to share with anyone else quite yet.

I see so much possibility in how we interpret a television show reduced to "it's a romance and that's sick and incest and he wants to fuck himself!" and it just saddens me that so many people have such a limited understanding and experience of the depth and breadth of human relationships and of how people love one another.

#loki show #loki meta #thoughts on love and relationships #literary genre romance #loki and sylvie

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charlettebffxiv · 3 years

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Promt #2: Aberrant

It’s never simple, is it? Not when you live in a forest that’s infamous for bordering wilderness less understood than it is feared. Of course, it’s feared and avoided for good reason, Charlette knew this, she’d seen what lays beyond the shadowed borders where brush and canopy grow too thick, and the shade too dark, for anyone to see further than six paces. Nothing is ever simple, but why does it have to be like that here, on her botanist table? Right now?

“Don’t look at it like it’s an opo-opo waiting to fling scat, Charlette. It’s not going to bite if you do it properly!” Bobocufu’s confidence was not infectious, at least not for Charlette. It did not, in fact, make her feel any braver, and honestly she didn’t think anyone would blame her.

“What if it’s worse?” she asked, tongue-in-cheek and making the lalafell leader of the Botanist guild puff-up like a shroom ready to spore. “Don’t be difficult. It’s not going to come out on it’s own, but it has to come out. So reach-in, and tickle the damn things belly!” ridiculous. Botany is ridiculous! That’s the only thing that crossed the Duskwights mind as she glanced at the pot, turned on its side and constructed for the express purpose of attracting what lay within. A mite, the size of Charlette’s head, and filled to its gnashers with water and earth aether. It stunk, and it growled, and the click-clack of the segments of its body were ominous. “It’s going to be worse than an opo-opo flinging scat. It sounds worse, looks worse, and is worse. I can see how the thing is brimming with aether. Nothing gets that packed with the stuff, without something terrible happening because of it.” She was not wrong, and she knew what she was talking about. Or, at least she would be if this was an aberrant she was hunting down for the Archives. Bobocufu, though, was already on the verge of popping. “Don’t be such a coward! You and the rest of those tunnel-dwelling librarians have no grit in your soil! I thought you’d done dangerous things, gone to exciting places! Fought criminal elements and uncontrolled magic!” She’d climbed onto Charlette’s desk, and was standing right next to the pot, containing the mite, who was hissing like a viper. It made Charlette nervous, Bobocufu had awfully long ears. Ears that can be snacked on in the quick clamp of mandibles. Do mites have mandibles? A question she didn’t want answered right now. “I have! I did! They also taught me never to stick my hand into a dark hole with an obviously mad creature inside. A mad aberrant creature too!” The lalafell swung her little hand and switched Charlette across the ear with the flick of her fingers. The elezen balking from the pinch of pain at the tip of her long, long listener. “Ow!” “Positive Aberration, thank you very much! Just because they don’t fit your fancy list of what is, or isn’t, correct doesn’t mean they are just bad. Why do you think Giant Mites get so full of aether in the first place? Because it has to go somewhere, and they use it! Earth to make burrowing easier, water to keep themselves hydrated and make traveling through tunnels quicker! Mud is slicker than hard soil after all!” The way she said it, it upset Charlette. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but should anyone at all be so enthusiastic about a giant vilekin swimming through mud like a landshark? “Aberrations happen when aether is out of balance though. It’s, quite literally, the product of things being wrong. The embodiment of discord where we want order and a healthy cycle.” another swat to her ear, Charlette now holding her hand over it, pressing it back against her head. If she where a Miqo’te she’d fold it out of the way. “Stop it!” “You stop it! Think, Charlette. You’ve been with us for almost six moons and you’re still acting like we’re a bunch of white-robed Order soldiers off to stop a great, big, bad! You’re in Botanists duds, my girl. Think like one, if you’re going to look like one. How is order brought back to the cycle?” Charlette has to stop, as much to let the sting subside as to take a chance to actually think on her Leader's words. “We go in and fix the problem. Remove the issue, so balance is restored.” this earned her a nod, but not the kind that is a straight yes. It was one of those nods, sort of to the side, following a long and annoying “Yeeeeah… almost. But not quite. Going in and removing the issues is all well and good, stop it at the source. But that does not make all that aether go away. And, sometimes, you can’t stop it. Those great, big, crystal craters left behind by the Calamity? I don’t see us chipping away at them.” Bobocufu was the kind of person to talk with her hands, miming swinging a pickaxe, and swaying her short arms wide as she can when she, finally, gets to her point. “It’s up to us, and them. The seedkin, vilekin, beastkin and all other kin that want to, or need to, live here. What happens, when a bunch of mites burrow away with all that aether? Leaving long tracks of it along the way? Dispersal, dummy!” little knuckles rap against Charlette’s head. “It’s not to be feared. It’s not the enemy. It’s, actually, our friend. And the only reason it’s hissing at you, and you’re hesitating like a little baby, is that both of you are too dumb to see that.” Charlette’s pout was thick, and far too sour. It made Bobocufu laugh, loud and high-pitched. “I’m not dumb.” “No, you aren’t. So stop acting like you are! I can forgive the Mite, it’s a bug! But you? Are you a bug?” “No…” “Then reach in, and use your big Duskwight brain to yank that stupid thing out of it’s hide so we can take it, and the rest of them, to the dying groves! They’ll bring life right back to it again, you’ll love seeing it Charlette. Trust me. But before you can, you need to-” Charlette raised a hand, stopping the lalafell before another lecture came her way. “Okay. Alright. Against my better judgement, I’ll wrangle the stupid Mite.” little hands clapped together, and a big smile spread across the Botanist’s face. She watched, eyes trained on Charlette as she slowly reached out. It was cold inside that pot. Cold, and dark, and the only signs of what was inside was that click, clack, clatter of chitin and the shuffling of the mite. Charlette’s hand touched smooth, bugish hide. Goosebumps bloomed up her arm and across her shoulders. It was cold, it didn’t feel like a living thing. But it was too big to scoop out with one hand, the other disappears out of Charlette’s sight and into the den of the hissing ball. Cupping it in her grip, and hefting the surprisingly light mass, she pulled it out. “There we go! Not so bad, was it?” Bobocufu asked, looking as proud as a mother hen with Charlette’s progress. She’d never admit it to the woman, but Charlette did enjoy that look. Well, really, she lived for it. Approval from her peers, ah, so sweet. “Now watch this!” and a stubby little finger, dark with the stain of soil, rushed out and poked right in the center of the coiled vilekin. It unfurled, heaved, glowed with the brightness of blue and green. Earth and Water! “What’s happening?!” Charlette shouted. Or she would have, if the Mite had not just fired a long jet of greenish-black water right into her face. Bobocufu laughed, Charlette choked, and thankfully Maxim was there to pick the scuttling thing up and stuff it into the cart with the others. “Ah! Excellent. Refreshing, mite ichor. It’s good for the skin, and now you’ve seen the worst these little shits can do. Next time you’ll be a little more brave, huh?” If that was the intention of the lesson, Charlette was too busy scrubbing grit from her mouth to have taken it in. Well, aside from the fact that nothing is ever simple.

#ffxivwrite2021 #ffxiv writing #ffxiv rp #ffxiv roleplay #ffxiv

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flickeringart · 4 years

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Fire and Air

As functions of the psyche

Fire is commonly associated with spirit. For some, ”spirit” seems too abstract to even begin to grasp. It’s essentially the thing that is life and gives life at the same time. It makes things show up and it is the thing that shows up simultaneously. It takes things into being and it is the being at the same time. Fire is the presence of life and the meaning it carries through its forms (which includes the absence of meaning). For something to ”be” it has to come alive in consciousness and it’s this phenomena that fire is a symbol of.

There’s a strong sense of ”being life” in fiery individuals which comes with all the positive attributes of warmth, passion, confidence, enthusiasm, bravery, creativity, leadership and authority. They view life in terms of symbolic meaning, which is different from viewing life in terms of literal function, which is more characteristic of earth. It’s also different from experiencing life through emotion, which is characteristic of water. Emotions have no higher purpose or inherent meaning when taken out of a fiery context. Water is the animating force, which means that it is experiential rather than symbolic. Since it’s purely experiential it is undifferentiated which allows for no more than what is felt. What is felt is a fact, but it has no context. Context is ultimately provided through the air element, which I will get to.

In astrology, fire dominant people are often described as being willing to head out on adventures, take risks and live like they are demi-gods of sorts. This is because they are in touch with the spirit of life – not the experience, the concept or the function of life. The force, or ”fire” if you will, is not a definable substance; it’s the implication and the presence of each form and phenomenon. Generosity is another thing that is usually associated with fire people. They can give because they usually don’t feel a sense of pressing lack. A gift is a symbol and is immortal in essence – it carries power because of the intention put into it. To contrast, from an earthy perspective a gift has a literal function (of utility and sensation) and is consequently stripped of its godliness. It is plain materia that is used for its physical properties and nothing more. Of course, in real life individuals are not made up of one element, but it’s effective to exemplify in this way.

Life of fire dominant individuals is, from their perspective, a fascinating enfoldment of a story. They’re not merely bodies that are born and clothed, moved and put to sleep, they harbor the sense of immortality, of being exempt from death in the way that death is present only because of the image making faculty and the attribution of meaning. Physical death is a symbol, not a fact in the life of these people. It’s more than a concept, because it is not separated from life, it’s an expression of life. Every component of life has a purpose, because the fact that anything shows up in consciousness must mean that it belongs to spirit. The spirit is pure light, pure being. The optimism that is usually associated with Aries, Leo and Sagittarius stems from this notion. The negative attributes of arrogance, superiority and intolerance that are sometimes shown in individuals with these signs are due to compensation for disconnection with the intangible. They don’t feel immortal and need to compensate for it by elevating themselves above others. It’s a childish attempt to regain potency, but it’s not genuine, it’s artificial.

Speaking of artificial, since fire is associated with the archetypal realm, individuals with strong fire placements tend to be able to step into the energy signature of a certain archetype and live it out. This is a great source of strength, but it is never the less a substitute for cultivating real confidence and power. Through the use of a certain jargon or mannerism that is essentially “taken on”, the person is able to navigate the environment and get certain needs met without having to put in the effort of actually meeting them on one’s own. For example, a person could want to live out the father archetype in order to gain strength and a sense of purpose. By stepping into the energy signature the person can live a life that is worthy of this specific archetype and feel safe as part of a set narrative. Fire is intimately connected to tales and story lines – and fire dominant individuals generally feel safe in the world of legend and myth. This might lead them to cope through bringing this world into real life, to compensate for feelings of inferiority and incompetence. They might be able to embody archetypes to the extent that they elude people – the façade seems so seamless and organic, almost too consistent.

The real strength of fiery individuals is found in the capacity to be, not in turning to archetypes to cover for a weak ego. Fire is not about what there is – it’s about the “is-ness”, the essence, and the spirit of life. It can’t be substituted with or derived from anything other than itself.

To flip the tables, I’d like to discuss the Air element. Air is somewhat of an agent of spirit, a mediator of life. Extending and reaching into the unknown, seeing the potential in the expression of thought and form. It’s the connective function within the psyche; in symbolic terms it’s the bridge that is made between point A and point B. Air is the function of relatedness which is distinctively different from merging, which is more characteristic of water and the emotions. While being the bridge, air is also the points on each side of the bridge. To make it even more complex, it’s also the absence of the bridge and the points. Air has no substance but can imitate substance accurately enough to be squarely in the perspective of a particular substance. It has the function of detachment, which allows for observation and objectivity. It also has the function of disidentification, which makes it possible to step back from or get closer to something that exist in consciousness. Perhaps equally important to mention is that air not only allows for disindentification but identification as well. In order to be able to relate from something and to something there has to be the introduction of duality. Subject interacts with object, which can be illustrated by a simple sentence. The air element is what allows for a conceptual “I” to exist and it’s defined by a simultaneous conceptualization of a “you”, “I am talking to you”. Language and communication is inevitably dualistic in this way. The intellect has a separating function – it depends on refining and dividing experiences into manageable parts.

Air dominant individuals operate primarily on the level of the intellect, which gives them the reputation for being conventionally smart, interactive, curious, inquisitive and reasonable. On the more negative end, they’re known for being prone to over-analyze, rationalize and not experience reality through anything other than the interpretative functions. As many have discovered, words are only pointers and don’t offer anything else than conceptual understanding. The experiential and functional components of reality are sublimated for abstractions. It makes air people very good at selling and promoting because they can interpret reality to their liking. The thought scape has limitless potential – which also contributes to making air people great liars, or more positively, great persuaders. As already stated, air is the subject and object but also neither of the two. Getting out of tight spots and trappings is one of their greatest advantages for this reason, but it could also lead to confusion. Is the subject the object or the object the subject? You see what I’m getting at.

Life of air dominant people primarily consists of relationships – not only with others but with themselves as well. There’s usually uncertainty around what one thinks or what one is without the contrast that other people provide. This is especially the case for Libra, the air sign of partnership. A conceptual self is derived from observing another and assuming a role that works to create equilibrium and balance. It’s not “ultimate” balance, but the relative balance that can be achieved between two shifting components. For Gemini, it’s more about general interaction and play then perfecting communion and for Aquarius there’s an emphasis on ethicality and mental ideals than balancing out polarity. Overall, air is necessary to provide context. Without the ability for comparison and evaluation, events are void of implication. There’s no clear direction or perception of direction. It’s easy for air dominants to confuse the mind with a concept and locking themselves into a mental prison. It’s also easy for them to not identify with anything in particular and be a constant inconstant, which paradoxically serves as fixed identity anyway.

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fireinmywoods · 4 years

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the heart of the matter (is Leonard McCoy)

Followers...friends. I come to you today, hat in hand, to ask for your support in a certain fandom matter, a trifling concern of little real consequence which nevertheless has been driving me absolutely cross-eyed bonkers for some years now.

Simply put: can we please all agree that Bones is the heart of the Enterprise???

In AOS, I mean. I’m not aware of any debate over this when it comes to TOS, where the roles of the triumvirate have always been explicit, though there are a few different ways to identify them:

Spock = logos = superego = head

Bones = pathos = id = heart

Kirk = ethos = ego = soul

So clear! So clean! So universally accepted by Trek fandom at large!

Oh, but things get murkier in AOS, and there are plenty of posts floating around which suggest that it’s Kirk, not McCoy, who serves as the heart in the Kelvin timeline. Even the writers of the first two AOS films have outright stated that their interpretation of the triumvirate had the original roles switched, with Kirk as the highly emotional one and McCoy as the arbiter between Kirk’s passion and Spock’s logic. It’s true that this technically counts as a Word of God pronouncement by the actual creators of 2/3 of the series thus far, which some would argue renders it canon. However, it’s equally true that those same creators also felt that Kirk was a fuckboi and that Benedict Cumberbatch wonderfully embodied their vision for Khan Noonien Singh, so honestly, who gives a hot hollerin’ fuck what those dingdongs think. This seems as justified a time as any to invoke Death of the Author, and in fact, it’s my firm belief that despite the writers’ intentions, Star Trek and Into Darkness both support the original triumvirate breakdown.

Under the cut you’ll find a long-winded and self-indulgent ~*~character analysis~*~ of the Kelvin-timeline incarnations of Jim Kirk and Leonard “Bones” McCoy, reviewing why Leonard is still unmistakably the heart, unpacking what the hell Jim’s deal is, and finally taking a look at some key examples from canon, because ya girl believes in showing her work.

Let’s get down to business.

[A quick warning, as this is starting to spread beyond my own followers: if you don’t like McKirk as a romantic pairing, you ain’t gonna like part IV, so I’d bow out before then or just take your leave now.]

i. Leonard

Independent of Jim’s characterization, it should be blindingly obvious that Leonard is the heart. He’s by far the most nakedly emotional of our seven core crew members, a trait we see writ large and small throughout the films. He’s reactive; he’s passionate; he’s humane. He cares, first and foremost.

Not about Starfleet, of course. Leonard doesn’t give a damn about playing the game or advancing his career, or even really about the Enterprise’s mission - he has no desire to explore strange new worlds, he’ll pass on seeking out new life and new civilizations, and he spends half his time trying to convince everyone else that boldly going where no man has gone before is a great way to die horribly. Fuck exploration, fuck space, and fuck the Federation while we’re at it. Leonard is perhaps the most improbable of the Enterprise’s senior officers for the simple reason that he seems to resent everything about the job.

Well. Almost everything.

See, what Leonard cares about is people. He cares about their lives, about their stories, about their hopes and dreams, about their suffering. That’s why he entered and has stayed in an extremely taxing caring profession, and it’s why he’s still on the Enterprise despite his incessant bitching about everything they do. He wouldn’t trust anyone else to take care of the crew he’s become so attached to, and he finds fulfillment in helping the people they encounter out there in the nightmare of space.

In every timeline, Leonard McCoy defines himself by what he can do for others: the pain he can ameliorate, the wounds he can heal, the diseases he can cure, the small amounts of good he can bring to a galaxy filled with so much absolute horseshit. Unlike most of his colleagues, he’s not motivated by curiosity or an adventurer’s spirit or a burning desire to make sense of the universe. (Fuck the universe, too, as a matter of fact.) Instead, he’s driven by the incredible depths of his compassion and empathy and concern for the people he serves alongside and those they meet along the way.

Sure sounds like the heart to me.

ii. Jim

I actually totally get why some people characterize Kelvin-timeline Jim as the heart. He’s quite literally a different man than the original timeline’s Kirk, and he definitely has more of the pathos qualities to him. Early on, he’s a total spitfire, fierce and hot-blooded, quick to anger and other sharp-edged emotions we’re not used to associating with James T. Kirk. Even as he grows into himself and leaves some of those traits behind, he remains spontaneous, passionate, protective, and self-sacrificing - easy enough to mistake for the heart if you squint.

But let’s not confuse having a heart for being the heart. Sure, Jim is more openly emotional and reactive than his TOS counterpart, but there’s still a marked difference between the way he and Leonard express and act on their emotions.

AOS Jim definitely has a lot of feelings - big ones - but at the end of the day, he’s not driven by his heart. He’s driven by his gut.

Whenever there’s trouble, Jim makes a beeline right for the center of it. He’s impulsive as hell, rarely pausing to think past his first instinct, because he just wants to be doing something, no matter the odds, no matter what it costs him. He explicitly calls himself out on this in ST:ID when arguing with Spock: “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I only know what I can do.” He doesn’t have the patience or the constitution to sit and debate all the options, either internally or with his crew. If there’s a path forward from where he is, even a bad one, Jim’s gonna take it.

[Sidebar: One could make the case that the roots of Jim’s instinct to act reach back to his childhood traumas - canonically ignored abuse and neglect on the one hand, and the Tarsus IV famine and massacre on the other - but that’s a whole post on its own and we ain’t got all day here.]

Jim can’t not act, and while that gets him into a lot of trouble, it also saves lives. Sulu probably appreciated that Jim’s gut drove him to leap off Nero’s drilling platform without a moment’s hesitation after a man he’d only just met. He may have been a real shithead about it, but Jim’s impassioned insistence on going after the Narada and not wasting time on the possibility of a better option was key to saving Pike and Earth itself. And I don’t know why Spock was so surprised that Jim intervened to save him on Nibiru, considering that the reason they were there in the first place was because Jim couldn’t sit back and watch the Nibirans die when there was something his crew could do to help them, even if it meant risking a violation of the Prime Directive.

Jim is a good man with a big heart, and he cares about people, absolutely. But he cares most of all about Doing The Right Thing - which in the heat of the moment often translates to Doing Something, Anything, Hold My Beer.

iii. heart vs. gut (i.e., time for some receipts)

I think one of the main reasons Leonard and Jim’s characterizations get confused is because they both tend to act on instinct, only lightly informed by higher reasoning. However, I’d argue that their motivations and the nature of those actions are super distinct, and those distinctions remain relatively consistent throughout all three films. (And y’all know I really mean this shit if I’m out here calling ST:ID consistent.)

Jim is a big picture guy, figuratively and often literally heaving himself full-body into the mix of whatever problem the crew has encountered for lack of any better alternative. That energy propels the plots of all three films: the chaotic path he carves through the events of Star Trek and ST:ID, and the slightly calmer but still undeniably bananas course he charts for himself and his crew in the second half of Beyond.

As the heart, Leonard operates on a more micro level. His concern invariably lies with the individual people caught up in those grand events Captain Chaos is busy dragging them all through. While Jim’s zooming around flipping plot switches, Leonard can always be counted on to bring it back to the personal.

We frequently see this juxtaposed right there on film. Think of that slow pan through medbay in the first movie after the Narada’s ambush and the destruction of Vulcan: while Jim is stewing over what to do about the Big Bad, Leonard has stepped into the CMO role without fuss or fanfare to care for the wounded crew and traumatized survivors.

Or jump ahead to Beyond: during Krall’s attack on the Enterprise, there’s a gorgeous cinematic shot of Jim sprinting down the corridor with two crew members to take on the invaders - and then we cut to Leonard moving slowly through those same ghastly red-lit corridors, searching for casualties in need of help, visibly affected by what his scanner is telling him about the downed crewman he tries to save.

Actually, Beyond as a whole does terrific justice to each of their roles. (Perhaps because it was not written by dingdongs.) The first act finds Jim flailing around for a sense of purpose and forward momentum - an understandable consequence of a gut-driven character having stalled out for too long - and he ultimately gets his mojo back by spending the rest of the film careening through one insane seat-of-his-pants ploy after another. Meanwhile, in the quieter moments between all the mayhem, Leonard serves as the empathetic sounding board for both Jim and Spock as they struggle with deep emotionally charged secrets and Big Life Questions, helping them untangle their feelings and reminding them of the emotional attachments which are ultimately key to their respective decisions to stay on the Enterprise.

More examples, you say? Don’t mind if I do!

Star Trek

GUT: Jim hurtles around the Narada, improvising almost every step of the way and paying the price for his and Spock’s scheme in bodily harm, and ultimately succeeds in rescuing Pike. HEART: Leonard calls out for Jim as he runs into the transporter room, overwhelmed with relief that he’s made it back, and takes Chris Pike’s weight literally and figuratively onto his own shoulders to begin healing him while Jim runs back off to the center of the action.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

GUT: Jim argues with Leonard, Spock, and Scotty in quick succession as he’s preparing to drag them all off to Qo’noS, immune to their attempts to reason with him because, unraveled as he is by grief and pain, he can only focus on his visceral drive to Do Something. HEART: Unlike the others, Leonard is upset not about the larger moral questions of whether it’s right to go after John Harrison or bring torpedoes aboard the ship, but about the fact that Jim himself is hurt and hurting and won’t accept help.

GUT: Jim makes a snap decision to sacrifice himself by hurling his body against the warp core to realign it and save his crew. HEART: Shellshocked by the emotional grenade of his best friend’s death, Leonard suddenly realizes, through the haze of his own numbness and upswelling grief, that he might still be able to do something for this lonely radiation-ravaged body he’s been brought and the life it represents.

Star Trek Beyond

GUT: At the tail end of an improvised plan to out-maneuver Kalara, Jim quite literally shoots first and asks questions later, igniting a fuel tank and setting off an explosive series of events which he and Chekov just barely escape. HEART: The next time we see Leonard, Spock is opening up to him about Ambassador Spock’s death and his own plan to leave Starfleet for New Vulcan - and while he’s empathetic toward Spock (I can’t imagine what that must feel like), Leonard’s thoughts go immediately to the emotional impact of Spock’s plan on the other people he’s closest with. (I can see how that would upset [Nyota]. / I can tell you, [Jim]’s not gonna like that.)

GUT: Jim frantically strains to reach the final switch in the life support hub, believing that he’s going to die either way since the vent has already opened, but spurred on by the knowledge that his ability to move that switch is the only thing standing between Yorktown and annihilation. HEART: Knowing exactly what’s at stake, with the fate of the station and millions of lives hanging in the balance, Leonard’s greatest concern is that Jim won’t make it out in time.

iv. never bet against the heart

Let’s wrap this up with a deep dive on one of the absolute best examples of Leonard as the heart: his decision to sneak Jim onto the Enterprise in the first movie.

As relentlessly as I drag him for the, you know, poisoning and kidnapping aspects of that whole deal, there’s no denying that it is a god-tier heart move. Is it logical? Absolutely not. Is it really the right thing to do for either himself or Jim, as far as he knows at the time? Nope. It’s 100% the wrong choice for his own job security, reputation, and relationships with his fellow crew, and it’s almost guaranteed to get Jim into even worse trouble. Leonard is a smart dude who must understand that this course of action will likely end up coming back on them both in a real bad way. For someone who argues loudly and often in defense of self-preservation, this is a shockingly bad idea.

But none of that matters, because Jim shakes his hand and tells him to be safe with that horrible empty-eyed smile, and it gets him right in the heart, one-two-three.

One: sympathy, worry, and affection for Jim - his best friend, his wild and troublesome stray, his only family.

Two: guilt over adding onto Jim’s pain, and the instinctive urge to fix whatever‘s hurting him.

Three: fear of heading out into the unknown by himself, the agonizing uncertainty of not knowing what’s coming, craving for the security and reassurance Jim’s presence would give him.

“Dammit,” Leonard says, as his heart wins out over his brain. He knows this is a garbage plan, and he doesn’t care. His heart chooses Jim. That’s all that matters.

So he goes back for Jim, and to his own surprise it turns out that this Very Bad Idea was actually a Very Good Idea because Jim’s impulsive instincts end up saving Earth, and Leonard’s not in the habit of fixing what ain’t broke so he figures he may as well keep on chasing Jim’s crazy ass around the galaxy for a while, through jungles and off cliffs and into the goddamn afterlife when need be, until finally one day Jim’s gut drives him right into Leonard’s arms and he suddenly realizes that this is what his heart was choosing all those years ago: Jim’s wide terrified eyes, Jim’s voice breaking over his name, Jim’s hand pressing hard against his chest, reaching out for what’s his.

But that’s another story.

#mckirk #otp: bedside manner #fic related #palimpsest verse #@animetrashmuffin is a gift #several people messaged me when i vague-tagged about this a while back #but you're the one who had to listen to me rant at great length about this while i was sick so CONGRATS PAL THIS MESS IS FOR YOU #mccoy #kirk #star trek #aos #long post

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muertawrites · 4 years

Text

Two Halves - Chapter Five (Zuko x Reader)

Part Four

Word Count: 3,300

Author’s Note: I was up until 4am finishing this on Thursday night, and honestly, the way my single brain cell was barely functioning at that point, I’m surprised this even got done, let alone that it got done relatively well. We’re also getting super close to 1,000 followers, so if you like this series or any of my other works, PLEASE subscribe! I’ve got some fun stuff planned once we get there that I’m really excited to start planning!

~ Muerta

Despite their rocky beginning, your first few weeks as Lady of the Fire Nation go surprisingly well. After your conflict with Advisor Lin, everyone begins to treat you with newfound respect - even Zuko. Your first breakfast together was the last time he advised any of your aids to be moderate or keep their distance from you, instead encouraging them to speak to you as directly as they would him, openly reproving them when they treat you as if you aren't capable of grasping everything they face you with; of course, you very much feel like you aren't, remaining stoic during morning briefings in the dining room while inwardly panicking, hearing everything but only able to decipher about half of it. You’re lucky you’re still shadowing the Firelord, learning your place and duties; once you’re sent out on your own, you have a feeling you’ll drown before you even get the chance to tread water.

Protective as he is, Sokka arranges to stay in the palace until you’re completely settled, stating that it’s his duty as the chief ambassador for the Southern Water Tribe; you know that the real reason is because he’s worried to death about you, trying his hardest to keep up the tough, unflappable big brother act for nobody's sake but his own. Toph also decides to extend her trip, quite concerned herself but mostly using the political tension as an excuse to catch up with you, Zuko, and Iroh - you don't mind, since having her around is an endless comfort to you, and you often invite her to sleep in your room so you can pretend that you’re just two friends enjoying normal young adult lives.

Each day spent in Firelady prep school is a new lesson in what exactly the role means, and you’re quickly finding that it’s much more than observing any of the first ladies of the Water Tribe could have ever prepared you for. They were considered accessories to their chiefs, appearing beside their husbands mostly for aesthetics and only truly serving the purpose of giving birth to sons to take his place; as the Firelord’s wife, you’re seen as an extension of him, and he an extension of you. Your people view you as the monarch and matriarch of a massive, powerful clan, and expect you to live and act in sync with one another for the betterment of your children, both literal and metaphorical. Nation comes before everything, any action that could suggest intentions otherwise criticized with the utmost scrutiny; disgrace is all too easy, while honor seems near impossible.

You have tea with Zuko every night before bed; the more you learn about the culture of his upbringing, the more you empathize with his younger self.

“I understand now why you were so angry,” you admit to him one night. “They make you feel as if just being human were a mistake. I'm already frustrated - I can't imagine what seventeen years of it was like.”

Zuko hums, his face taking on a wistful, somber expression.

“That's what my father did to me,” he explains. “Everything was wrong, even if it was what felt natural.”

He takes your hand in his, his thumb grazing over your knuckles as he gazes off in thought.

“We can change that, though,” he tells you. “Things already feel better with you here.”

For a country that just ended a century long war in which they were the main aggressor, you would think that your advisors would put more energy into matters of diplomatic affairs than your image.

“I'm just uncertain what a choice like this could make the nation feel,” Advisor Yong says. “We’re already walking a very delicate line.”

You stand in one of the palace’s many meeting parlors with Zuko, Advisors Yong and Sung, Sokka, Iroh, and the royal seamstress, pouring over multiple yards of fabric she's brought for the robes that will immortalize you in your wedding portrait. For the past forty-five minutes, you've been debating whether you should be pictured wearing Fire Nation or Water Tribe clothes - the proceedings have been dismal at best.

“The representation of our tribe is important to our people,” Sokka replies to Advisor Yong. “We’ve been small for decades, and mostly because of the Fire Nation - she should wear a traditional dress.”

“But certain people in our nation are still very put off by the idea of a foreign queen,” Advisor Yong argues. “A man was already killed over the matter; embracing it so fully could spark anger and endanger her and the Firelord even more.”

In the time you've spent with Advisor Yong, she's grown to be your favorite of anyone within the royal council. Her small stature and plump, motherly features make her seem gentle and subdued, but her kindness only runs so deep; when faced with confrontation, she's like an angry bull - fierce, but in a way that's so swift and graceful, you barely notice her goring into you until she's shredded you to pieces. She's been one of your most supportive council members as well, guiding you in matters of proper Fire Nation etiquette and culture and sticking her neck out farther than could possibly be expected to keep you safe. You can see Sokka getting irritable, but you know she speaks with a voice that only has your best interests in mind.

“Perhaps we should consider the external perception,” Advisor Sung suggests. His soft spoken manner is a welcome reprieve from the increasing bitterness in Yong and Sokka’s tones. “Yes, it's quite important that the Southern Tribe is recognized, and doing so will present a compassionate image of our nation. On the other hand, however, having our lord and lady in different traditional dress could suggest division; picturing them as the same would imply a more unified pair.”

“Maybe we should put Zuko in a Water Tribe outfit,” you suggest flatly. “Make it look like we’re pushing you guys around for a change.”

Zuko snickers beside you, raising a hand to his mouth to (ineffectively) stifle the sound under the guise of a cough. The rest of the room is deathly silent, its occupants either oblivious to your sarcasm or deeply unamused by it.

“I believe what our lady is trying to convey,” Iroh chimes in, “is that we have hardly taken her own thoughts into consideration. After all, it is her marriage and her people she must represent.”

“Okay, so what do you think?” Sokka prods, turning to you. “Do you want to wear Fire Nation clothes or Water Tribe ones?”

You sigh, dropping your eyes to the mixture of red and blue fabric sprawled out before you.

“Honestly? I don't know,” you confess. “There are too many issues with either choice. I think we need more time to gauge how people react to me just being here before we decide.”

“My lady, I understand,” Advisor Yong says, “but as cautious as we have to be, we can't be too hesitant; you can’t possibly hope to bear children in a few months’ time if we can't come to a decision on something like this in a timely manner.”

You and Zuko both jolt, instinctively backing away from one another.

“Children will come much later,” Zuko sputters, his cheeks turning the same shade as his robes. “Right now we have to focus on getting the people of our nations to agree with each other.”

“And children are an important part of doing so,” Advisor Yong explains. “They’ll serve to physically embody the union of the two nations; the sooner you become pregnant, my lady, the quicker we may resolve the issue.”

“I’m not going to bring a baby into this world just to be a political pawn,” you snap, a bit more harshly than you intend to. “That wouldn’t be fair and I couldn’t do that to my kid.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Zuko glance at you with an expression you can’t quite place. You want to reach for him but restrain yourself, feeling strange about showing him any sort of intimacy with an audience.

“We need to decide what will be done about this portrait before we decide what will be done about heirs,” Iroh agrees. “We should give our lady more time to think on the matter. Could we spare another day?”

Advisors Yong and Sung look to one another, Advisor Sung nodding his compliance. Advisor Yong also concedes, her tone almost apologetic when she speaks.

“Another day will be just fine,” she says. “We’ll leave the final decision to you and your husband, my lady. Have Rina bring your instructions to the seamstress when you’re ready.”

Your stomach flutters manically when you hear the words “your husband”. Advisor Yong has never referred to him as such, only ever calling him “the Firelord”; somehow, coming from her, the title feels much more significant than just the result of an arranged marriage.

You flop down in the grass beside Zuko, burying your face in the sleeves of your robe. He chuckles, tossing another apple peel to the turtle ducks in the courtyard pond.

“At least they’re being nice,” he consoles you. “Advisor Yong called me a coward in front of the whole council when I told her I wasn’t sure about getting married. She was right, but it’s hard getting your ass handed to you by someone who looks like a sweet little grandmother.”

You sigh, rolling over onto your back and tilting your head to look up at him. He gives you a faint, assuring smile, which you can’t help but return.

“I totally understand why you snapped when we were kids,” you tell him. “I’ve been here less than a month and I already want to go apeshit. Did you know that one of our advisors told me to take my betrothal necklace off the other day? The slimy little bastard waited until you left the room to do it, too! He told me it made me look less like a ‘naturalized Fire Nation woman’, and I told him that anyone who expected me to look like one was either stupid or delusional. And what, we need to have kids right way for the sake of political leverage? That’s horrible! What kind of monster brings a child into the world just to use them their whole life??”

You draw back when you notice Zuko’s fallen expression. You’ve sat up by this point, and your near-screaming has scared the turtle ducks to the other side of the pond. You feel your heart drop into your gut, wishing you could take the words back.

“Oh, Zuko,” you breathe. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

Zuko shakes his head, closing his eyes and taking a deep, measured breath. You watch his chest rise and fall, his shoulders loosening as he exhales. When he opens his eyes again, he meets yours, the knot between his brows unraveling.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I know. My father was a monster. And my mother… she just did what she was told. I never realized how much she sacrificed for me until she was gone.”

You inch closer to him, warily reaching for his hand. He takes it, lacing his fingers with yours and gently tugging you to sit beside him, reclining against the trunk of an ancient maple tree. He leans into you, clutching your hand tightly.

“Sometimes I wish the worst thing he did to me was use me,” he laments. “Then maybe I wouldn’t have done such awful things to the people who loved me.”

“Zuko,” you whisper, tightly squeezing his hand, “you’re not your father. Just the fact that you asked me to marry you proves that. You didn’t choose your family based on who would make you powerful. You chose me because you love my siblings, and they love you, and that’s exactly why I agreed to be with you. I never met your father, but I know for a fact that he never knew love like you do; he wouldn’t allow himself to because he thought it was weakness. But you’re so much stronger than he is, and could ever be, because Katara and Sokka, Aang and Toph, and Iroh - all of us are here with you. You allow yourself to show weakness in loving us, which is the bravest thing you could ever do. You are nothing like Ozai.”

To your surprise, Zuko smirks at you; the corners of his eyes glimmer with the buds of tears, however, and the rest of his features don’t rise to match the expression on his lips.

“No wonder Uncle likes you so much,” he says. “You sound just like him.”

You scoff, punching him in the shoulder. He laughs, playfully tossing you over his lap and pinching the soft sides of your stomach, an area he discovered was sensitive by accident one day whilst he was walking you through the palace; you giggle hysterically, trying in vain to fend off the attack. He retreats after a little while, sighing as he cradles you in his arms - your head presses to his chest while his chin rests atop your head, hugging you tightly in a way he hasn’t done before. You wrap yourself around him, arms latching about his waist to hold him just as closely.

“I won’t let them pressure us,” he assures you. “We’re family, and we have to take care of each other. That’s all I ever want to do for you.”

You nestle into him, curling your body closer to his while your arms squeeze at his sides. He kisses the crest of your head, a rare display of affection he’s only done a handful of times - it makes you realize that even when you were teenagers, and Sokka started to make serious suggestions about keeping his promise of marrying you after Hakoda left you in his care, he never once made you feel as safe as Zuko does.

“I hope I wasn't interrupting anything with my invitation,” Iroh greets you when you arrive at his chambers.

Before your nightly pot of tea with Zuko, a messenger came to your quarters telling you that Iroh wished to see you; when you asked why, the messenger told you that the general wanted to teach you to play Pai Sho. You looked to Zuko quizzically, wondering what was so important about knowing how to play a board game that you needed to be summoned so late in the evening, and he sent you off, assuring you that, knowing Iroh, it was worth taking up the offer.

“Just Zuko’s tea,” you tell him, “which, if it weren't for his company, I think I'd bail on every night.”

Iroh chuckles, leading you inside and lowering you onto a cushion on one end of a large Pai Sho table; he takes the other seat, smiling good-naturedly at you.

“Unfortunately, my nephew has never quite taken to the art of tea brewing,” he says, “no matter how many times I've tried to teach him; I take comfort in the fact that he's much better with a sword than I am, instead.”

You grin, watching as the old man spreads a set of tiles across the game board.

“Do you know of the significance of Pai Sho within the royal families of the Fire Nation?” he asks; you shake your head in response.

“It is traditionally learned as a way of teaching our young leaders to rule with strategy,” he explains. “It is meant to teach a balance between inner passions and outward logic, as well as how to observe one’s peers; those who practice Pai Sho diligently know how to pinpoint an opponent’s weaknesses while understanding and controlling their own, keeping others from using their shortcomings against them.

“Each tile has a meaning,” he continues, “and represents a different positive or negative attribute. They may only move in certain ways, but can change their effect on the game based on how the player chooses to use them within each environment. For example…”

Iroh goes on to explain each tile and its movements to you, walking you through each element of the game and practicing different tiles with you until you can actually place them in a somewhat skilled way. When you're comfortable, he plays a simple game with you, aiding you in which possibilities cause which consequences and pointing out ways you can better defend your side of the board. You play five games with him in total, never winning but trying as if you stood a chance against such a skilled player as him.

When you lose the last game, Iroh removes the last tile you played and replaces it with the white lotus - you quirk your brow, wondering why that would be the better move.

“I thought the white lotus was a weak tile,” you question him. “Why put it up against something as strong as the flame tile?”

“There are no weak tiles in Pai Sho,” Iroh instructs you, “only ones that are often overlooked. Sometimes we must look at things from a different perspective, you see; manipulate the odds by doing something unorthodox and unexpected. If your opponent cannot anticipate your actions, they cannot overcome you.”

Iroh removes the white lotus from the board, taking your hand within his and placing it in your open palm. He folds your fingers over it, closing your hand between both of his.

“Keep this with you,” he says. “It may help you someday.”

“But won't your board be incomplete?” you ask.

Iroh chuckles, giving you a mischievous wink that makes you feel almost as if the man is in some way omniscient.

“I have plenty of others,” he assures you. “It will do much more good in your hands.”

The next day, you accompany Rina to the seamstress’s workshop, wanting to give her the instructions for your portrait dress yourself. When you tell her this, Rina is clearly confused - she gently attempts to explain to you that it isn’t necessary, that she’s supposed to handle these sorts of things for you, but once you reveal what you have in mind, she shifts completely.

“The council is going to hate that,” she says. “I think it’s a great idea. I can take you to the seamstress, come with me.”

When you relay your plans to the seamstress, she’s also shocked - her eyes widen, and she physically backs away from you as if even considering following your orders will get her executed for treason.

“Are you sure?” she asks. “It isn’t what the Firelady would typically do…”

“And I’m not a typical Firelady,” you reply, your tone bright and straightforward. “I’ve been asked to do what will create compromise, and this is the best compromise I can think of; I’m simply doing what I’m meant to.”

The seamstress agrees, but only after you give her your vow that she won’t take any of the blame should the idea backfire (you're in charge, after all, so what can anyone do? She’s just following orders.)

In white fabric, she makes a set of robes for Zuko and a dress for you, each including elements crafted in Fire Nation and Water Tribe tradition. She then takes each set to its own vat of hot water, adding blue dye to one and red dye to the other - she places the pieces in, looking nervously up at you as you approach the twin cauldrons.

“I just want to make one last adjustment,” you tell her.

Before she can respond, you take a bucket of blue dye and a bucket of red and tip each one into the opposite vat. The garments swirl as if caught in the midst of a tempestuous storm, the dye bleeding into the pristine fabric until it stains a shade of vivid, furious purple.

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fremedon · 4 years

Text

Brickclub I.5.13, “Resolving Some Questions of Municipal Policing”

“Curiosity is a form of gluttony," Hugo says, of the onlookers trying to peer through the station house door. "To see is to devour."

This is the most direct statement of a theme Hugo comes back to over and over--the destructive power of gossip and idle curiosity. It's a theme that pulls a lot of weight, but starting on this reread so soon after my last one, one thing I'm wondering is how much that theme is supposed to be setting us up to excuse Marius's lack of inquiry into the version of his history Valjean shares.

Observations on Fantine:

--Fantine, a panther during the fight, now cowers "like a frightened dog" in the station. I think the panther line might be the only feline metaphor Fantine gets.

--"She would have softened a heart of granite, but you cannot soften a heart of wood." Fantine has been turning herself to stone for the last few chapters, but there are worse things to be.

--And one of those is to become even stonier. In her last monologue, right before she attempts to leave: "Oh! I won't do it again, Monsieur Javert! Whatever anyone does to me now, I won't react in any way."

--Fantine's two long monologues keep coming back to two points: The injustice of prison wages, both to the prisoners and their competitors, and her ability to be respectable when given the means to support herself. She used to have so many changes of underwear, and now she just has one silk dress for the evenings. She still owes 100 francs to the Thenardiers, but she's up to date on her rent now, just ask her landlord. And at the end, Madeleine agrees with this: "I will give you all the money you need. You shall again become honest in again becoming happy."

We've seen, and will continue to see, how the lack of means bars access to 'honesty'/respectability, but the reverse of that statement is surprisingly hopeful: only provide the means to live honestly, and a person will be honest.

--Madeleine and Javert's battle for Fantine's liberty is framed almost exactly like the battle for Valjean's soul between his convict self and the bishop in "Petit-Gervais," and Fantine's heart softening back to trust is a much more direct parallel of Valjean's change of heart than I had realized. Valjean never manages to reach Javert this way, but he does pull Fantine back to humanity for her final weeks.

There is one major difference, though, and it’s not actually in the level of their transgressions. Fantine has spit in the face of the mayor in the place of his power; Valjean has stolen a sentimental treasure from his host, in the home where he was given shelter. Both insults are a thing that can be absorbed or shrugged off, practically, but with immense symbolic weight behind them.

But Valjean’s reverie ends with him obliterating the convict within him and letting the bishop take full possession of his soul. Fantine keeps hers. She doesn’t have to go through any of Valjean’s extreme self-abnegation to get her humanity back.

And speaking of extreme self-abnegation, there’s Javert. This got long.

Javert, despite being wood and not stone, is the one who gets the statue imagery in this scene. From the moment right before he stops Fantine from leaving, after Madeleine instructs that she be freed: "Up to that moment Javert had stood stock still, staring at the ground, out of place in the midst of this scene like some statue left in the way, waiting to be put somewhere." I am reminded of the cart in Montfermeil--the broken cart that is a metaphor for outmoded institutions, left in the way to finish decaying. Javert, the automaton of the law, is left in the way, waiting for a purpose.

Twice in this scene, we see him imagine himself an empty vessel for the law. It’s the only kind of grandiosity he ever has--humbleness to the point of self-obliteration, so he can embody The Law.

The first is while he is first handing down Fantine’s sentence, and I’m going to quote at length:

"It was one of those moments in which he exercised without restraint, but with all the scruples of a strict conscience, his formidable discretionary power. At this moment he felt that his policeman's stool was a bench of justice. He was conducting a trial. He was trying and condemning. He called all the ideas of which his mind was capable around the grand thing that he was doing. The more he examined the conduct of this girl, the more he revolted at it. It was clear that he had seen a crime committed. He had seen, there in the street, society, represented by a property holder and an elector, insulted and attacked by a creature who was an outlaw and an outcast. A prostitute had assaulted a citizen. He, Javert, had seen that himself. He wrote in silence." (Wilbour)

And the second is after Madeleine intervenes to demand Fantine’s liberty a second time:

"It was obvious that Javert must have been 'thrown out of kilter,' as they say, to allow himself to address the sergeant the way he did after the mayor's request that Fantine should be set free. Could he have forgotten monsieur le maire's presence? Had he in the end convinced himself it was impossible that any authority could have given such an order, and that surely monsieur le maire must have said one thing instead of another without meaning to? Or in view of the outrages he had witnessed over the past two hours, did he tell himself it was necessary to act with the utmost resolve, that the humble must assume greatness, the sleuth must turn himself into a judge, the police agent must become an agent of justice, and that in this exceptional extremity he, Javert, was the personification of law, order, morality, government, the whole of society?" (Donougher)

Hoooo boy. There is just so much to unpack here, and I’m glad we have another year and change of brickclub to keep unpacking it.

Just on the surface: Law, order, morality, government, and society are all the same thing to Javert. The purpose of law is to uphold the social order. It is a contradiction in terms that authority should seek to undermine itself:

"Javert felt he was about to go mad. At that moment he underwent in rapid succession and almost all at once the most violent emotions he had ever experienced in his life. To see a common prostitute spit in the face of a mayor--this was something so monstrous that in his most dreadful imaginings he would have regarded it as sacrilege to believe it were possible. On the other hand, obscurely, at the back of his mind, he made a hideous comparison between what this woman was and what this mayor might be, and then he had an inkling of something very simple about this extraordinary attack that appalled him. But when he saw this mayor, this magistrate, calmly wipe his face and say, 'Set this woman free,' he was stunned, thoughts and words failed him equally. His capacity for astonishment was exceeded. He remained speechless." (Donougher)

Refusing to punish this transgression against established hierarchies undercuts Madeleine’s legitimacy in his head so much that he takes it upon himself to contradict the mayor, to argue with him, to put forward his abstract embodied Authority as more valid than the mayor’s actual authority. Madeleine only wins by literally citing the legal code, in a scene that reads almost like a battle between wizards.

Going back to Fantine’s attempted departure--"The sound of the latch roused him. He raised his head with an expression of supreme authority, an expression that is always the more frightening the lower the level at which power is invested, ferocious in the wild beast, atrocious in the man of no account." Wilbour says "in the undeveloped man"; I prefer Donougher here, because it gets the ambiguity in "the lower the level at which power is invested"--both that power is frightening in the hands of beings who cannot, personally, wield it well, but also that small concentrations of unaccountable power create petty tyrannies.

Javert knows he is a small man who, on his own merits, neither possesses nor deserves power over others. But he is a small man channeling the whole of social authority, and that makes him terrifying.

If what he were channeling was actually Justice, it would also make him--well, it would make him Enjolras. But it’s not. I talked a couple of chapters ago about the themes I’m starting to think of as Hugo’s major arcana, and one of the big ones is Fatalite. He brings it up in the very first sentence of the prologue:

“So long as there shall exists, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates with human fatalite a destiny that is divine...”

The divine destiny--the intention of Providence--seems to be whatever humanity is capable of achieving. Fatalite is whatever human-made factors interfere with that achievement: Social condemnation. Custom. And Law. It’s all fatalite.

The more Javert imagines himself an empty vessel for the law, the more self-abnegating he is in his duty, the worse he is, because what he is channeling is the force that creates hells on earth.

He has lost this purity in Paris, and to some extent that accompanies real tolerance of corruption--this Javert would have resigned rather than serve with men he knows are taking bribes and enabling double agents like Le Cabuc. But this Javert would also never have casually granted Bigrenaille's request for tobacco in solitary. And I’m not sure this Javert would have noticed the grievances in his suicide memo--certainly, he doesn’t respond at all to Fantine’s repeated refrain about the prison wages.

I really like @everyonewasabird's idea that Javert, in frightening Fantine to death--in taking an innocent life, one he has no claim over--Javert will break a geas. He loses the ability to be this empty vessel, and is muddling through on his own instincts and prejudices after that--and his own instincts and prejudices are terrible, make no mistake. But they’re malleable, in a way that the whole force of abstract social condemnation isn’t.

And also, god, now I’m thinking about Valjean standing there listening to Fantine talk about the unfairness of prison wages. What must be going through his head.

#brickclub #lm 1.5.13 #brick arcana #geasa #prebricking #we're still on a break #I just don't know how to schedule posts

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memepipboy · 4 years

Note

Kellantine, fluff 04?

“Kiss me.”

HOHOH

OHOHOHOHOH

_____

Ellie giggled as she sat down the community shot glass, wiping the side of her mouth as she stood.

“Okay,” She said through a smile, glancing over the room occupied with Kellar, Nick, and Hancock. “I’m gonna tuck in over at Rexford. It’s been a good but tiring day.” Walking over to the other very used couch, where Kellar and Hancock were sitting, she gave Kellar a very gentle hug. “Good job again tonight, hun. You look incredible.”

“Awh, El.” Kellar nearly melted at how genuine her praise sounded. “Thank you so much, especially for helping me get ready!”

That night, Kellar had a last minute set with Magnolia--THE Magnolia--at The Third Rail. She was nothing but apprehensive at first, she was never one for the spotlight or for performing. But with Ellie and Hancock both being reassuring (and a little pushy), Kellar gave in and decided to give it a shot. While looking out into the audience to see those two, as well as and especially Nick, did not help with her nerves at all, their overwhelming support made her evening delightful. Afterwards they decided to go back to the Old State House for a few shots, courtesy of Hancock, who else.

“I can get this dress back to you tomorrow,” Kellar added as Ellie pulled away, mindlessly straightening the top of the blue laundered dress she was wearing. “I think it’s helped me get through tonight long enough.”

They both smiled at each other as Ellie began to leave the room. “Y’know, keep it.” Ellie waved off the previous offer. “I know there won’t be many times you can wear it, but I think it suits you better than me.”

Kellar held her gasp back and perked up, looking over to Nick with an excited glimmer in her eye. Nick visibly softened and chuckled at her girlish excitement that was so rare to see, flicking his eyes up and down her form and noticed her feet positioned in a perfect pointe, high heels tossed to the side. Tomorrow, he would see Kellar in her combat boots and cargo pants again, with a hard expression on her face to match the Commonwealth. Seeing not only her, but all of them in a situation where none of them were on edge or in immediate danger tugged at his heart strings, because he knew these moments were few and far between.

Hancock wrapped his right arm around Kellar’s neck, bringing her in close. “Nah, we can probably throw some raider armor on it and you’d be good to go!” His low raspy laughter nearly harmonized with hers. “You’d definitely win best dressed in the Commonwealth, but it’d be short lived, that’s for sure.” He released Kellar and gave her shoulder a hearty pat. “You absolutely earned it tonight, that’s for sure. Don’t you think Nicky?” Hancock added obnoxiously, making hard eye contact with the detective, clearly to embarrass. Nick shot a stern glare at the mayor, enough to make anyone lose face, except Hancock did nothing but lean back into his seat and mischievously giggle. “Let’s all agree not to tell Magnolia I said that though, huh?”

Clapping his hands down on his legs, Hancock stood and made his way over to Ellie. “I’ll talk to Clair at Rexford to make sure it’ll be a cap-free stay for you all. I would say stress-free as well but honestly, she’ll probably give me hell for doing this.” He motioned after you for Ellie out of the quarters. “I’ll be back sooner rather than later if Clair doesn’t light my ass up--there’s condoms in the left drawer of my desk--”

“John, if you don’t leave now Clair won’t have anything left to shoot.” Nick piped in, giving him that same bone-chilling glare.

All that was given in response was a jovial laugh. Ellie whacked John on the shoulder as they turned and left.

Kellar’s eyes were still squinched from smiling, she turned back to Nick and rubbed her cheeks. “I don’t think I’ve smiled this much since my wedding.” Her hands fell back into her lap, raising her shoulders slightly. “It’s funny how Hancock and Ellie were the only ones drinking. I guess we’re kinda buzzkills, huh?”

“Well, I could if I wanted. Where I’m Gen 2 I can still process liquids and food it’s just...unnecessarily complicated.” Nick let out a weak laugh to help the awkward explanation. “How come--?”

“I was an alcoholic, Nick.” She said flatly. A few seconds passed silently as he shifted in his seat under her intense gaze.

“I’m sorry, I--”

“I’m joking,” she reached her hand across the table and rested it on his knee. “I mean, that is the reason, but I don’t care. It feels like so long ago at this point.” Her fingers poked at the single shot glass on the table, scooting it here and there. “We’d make a really boring truth dare drink team.”

“A what?”

Kellar’s eyes widened, scoffing. “You never played? It was really popular at my college it’s basically truth or dare but you have an out of taking a shot if you don’t want to do tell the truth or do the dare--” She picked up the shot glass and leaned towards her partner. “Let’s play, just a little!”

“Wha-” Nick couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “You just said we would be boring!”

“Oh, yeah it’ll be a snoozefest! The only one who’ll have an out is you, kinda. It’s more like 20 questions I guess, isn’t it? Let’s do it though, I have stuff I’m DYING to know. You go first.”

An eyebrow raised on the detectives face. “Oh?” He’s never had the ability to say “no” to those blue eyes. “Alright,” He sighed. “Uhm...hm...” He glanced throughout the empty room, as if it would give him a question. “What--is your favorite color.”

“Nick!” Kellar laughed. “That’s so vanilla. Besides, you already know the answer to that!”

Nick rested his bad hand on his chest, as if he were wounded. “Kel, I’m trying to get to know you better, and you throw it back in my face like this?” The whisper of a sly smile on his face made Kellar’s face burn.

“FIne,” She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “It’s yellow. Bright neon highlighter yellow.”

The smile quickly disappeared from his face, dropping his façade completely. “What? I thought it was baby blue--” He felt his thought process come to a sudden halt as he saw the conniving expression on Kellar’s face. Nick held is hands up in surrender as he gave a breathy laugh. “Fine. I deserved that. Your turn?”

As if on cue, Kellar very eagerly scooted forward on the couch opposite of him. “Have you ever had relations with someone to get information for a case?”

If he had a drink he would have promptly spit it out. “That’s what you’re dying to know?!”

“Yeah! It’s such a trope in those old movies, and you’re the living embodiment of those so I have to know!”

He buried his face in his hands and slowly pulled them down, as if to squeeze the embarrassment out. “No--I’ve never slept with anyone to get info. I mean, I’ve definitely--” His train of thought derailed as he saw Kellar become more and more intrigued with each word he said. God knows where she thought he was going with this. “I’ve flirted with people, and sometimes that leads to kissing them but never anything...too intimate.”

“Really! That is so interesting,” Her hands cupped her face as she stared at him intently, making him feel his tie was too tight with the sudden attention. “So, okay, is it something you can tell you have to do with someone or do you have to feel it out? Might I add, if I may be so bold, you must be an incredible kisser that you use it actively to get information out of people.”

Stifling a chuckle from seeing her talk so frantically with her hands, he stroked the bottom of his chin, he hadn’t ever given it much thought. “I suppose, I just think of it as something else I can use if I need to. I haven’t been told one way or the other, though it seems I have enough supportive evidence, huh?”

Kellar mimicked his thinking pose. Anyone could tell the gears were turning,but only her and God knew what was bouncing around in her brain. With furrowed eyebrows, she reached forward and began to pour a shot of whiskey. “Okay, you can absolutely say no to this,” she stood and walked to Nick’s side. The glass was presented to him. “Dare or drink. Kiss me.”

Any and all words completely left Nick, he thought for a moment he might have shut down momentarily. Did Kellar Curtis, the woman who he had multiple conversations about with Ellie, and out of necessity Hancock, just ask him to kiss her? He had no idea how long he had sat there staring at her, jaw agape. “I-I’m sorry?”

“I wanna know! Like I said, you can say no. I amjust SO curious, I have to know if you could get information out of me if you wanted.” Her eyebrows raised and she shook the shot glass, spilling some alcohol on the floor. “Dare or drink. Or say no.”

Nick’s eyes met hers and held their gaze. Now the gears were turning in his head, quite literally. He took the shot glass from Kellar’s hand and tossed it back, before standing and snaking his hands to the base of her neck,sliding them up to her face. The blue of her eyes never felt so icy, up close they had a completely mesmerizing effect on him. He could smell the alcohol reflecting back into his nose, and he nearly mumbled an apology for it before he pressed his lips to hers. His good hand slipped down to her waist and pulled Kellar’s body closer to him, where she wrapped her arms around his neck. The heartbeat thumping from her chest was enough to move them both.

Hesitating for a brief second, he realized Kellar was not initiating any new positions or head turning, she really wanted him to show her what he was capable of. Acknowledging this, Nick considerately caressed her face much in the same way he would nudge a small kitten towards a correct direction, taking this opportunity to deepen the kiss. Slowly it turned hot and breathy, the taste of her lipstick beginning to be shared between them both. Nick’s hands slowly smoothed down her sides and rested on her hip bones, when she suddenly put her hands on his chest and pulled away.

“Mm.” She hummed, almost sing-song. “...seven out of ten. I don’t think you’d be able to get anything out of me.” She wiped the bottom of her chin to get the streaks of lipstick off herself, circling back to her original side of the table. “Not bad though.”

Nick’s hands lingered on a ghost of what used to be Kellar standing in front of him, before one landed on his hip and the other covering his mouth, flabbergasted by what just happened.

John would give him so much shit for this.

#hey this is so long again im sorry LOL #asks #anon #oght i loved doing this one tho #long post #fanfic asks #fanfic prompts #nick valentine x sole survivor #tw alcohol

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thejustmaiden · 4 years

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Fiction and Real Life Go Hand In Hand

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

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

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

Allow me to elaborate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #anti sessrin #sesshomaru #rin

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