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traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors · 2 years

Note

Tw domestic abuse, sexual assault, suicide, self harm and eating disorder mentions (those last two not in detail, just mentioned)

Nickname: turquoise

Looking for advice, either on how to get out or just come to terms with this being the rest of my life, either way.

So I have a situation kind of similar to this ask posted just now.

https://www.tumblr.com/traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors/712807834009665536/tw-romantic-partner-violence-hey-so-ive-known

I've been with my wife for seven years now. A lot of her issues come from childhood trauma, but it's just...been wearing me down lately. Nearly from the start there were emotional issues between us, and physical violence and one sexual assault within the first six months (she said I agreed to let her do stuff while I was asleep but I don't remember that, and either way she didn't stop when I asked her to). I'm honestly not sure why I stayed but that's neither here nor there. Maybe I kept thinking it would get better but it didn't and at a lot of points I was genuinely scared for my safety, especially since the one time I did try to leave she found me in under a day and the friend I'd run away to decided I should go back home with her since, in her words 'well, you are kind of a bitch'. Anyway, there would be times when things got better but they'd always get bad again. We're in one of the better periods, though recently there's still been a lot of emotional stuff, some minor physical stuff (only small bruises and no lingering pain) and two sexual assaults last week. Still, things have definitely tapered off from a couple years ago, and she has been putting in more effort to be nicer, so if nothing else it's been a while since I've been balled up on the floor trying to be a small target so that's something. Still, as much as I should be happy about that I just...honestly I feel like shit a lot of the time, and I can't seem to stop being on edge no matter what happens, even though she gets mad at me whenever she notices that.

Also over the past two years she's developed significant anxiety, to the point where even after being on meds and in therapy for over a year she says she can't work.. We have no income now and I have a lot of my own mental difficulties that have made jobs difficult for me for most of my life (not self dxing, but likely autism and ADHD and a PD that have never been treated, along with a lot of past trauma from her and people before her, that's she's sometimes triggered on purpose or been dismissive of, though she is trying to stop that), but more difficult since I met her, especially since I've spent the past year at least in one of the worst depressive episodes I've had in my life, with my self harm and eating disorder getting worse again (both of which she knows about and does not respond well to at all), to the point that I'm pretty much always passively suicidal and have attempted a few times. At the very least I'm out of the bout of drinking I dealt with for a few months. I'm not outlining this to make anyone feel bad for me, just to point out that a full time work week, especially in the kinds of fast paced, people centric jobs I could reasonably get, would be very difficult for me to handle at this point. I've asked her if we could both work part time, since I thought a few days a week for each of us would be easier to handle, and at first she said yes but now she's flat out refusing, saying that since she supported us for a while she deserves a long break too, completely glossing over how often she hit me during that time and how generally shit she made me feel every day, or the fact that the abuse didn't stop when I went back to work, or that the circumstances that led to it being best for only her to work in that time were out of our control.

Basically, I want to leave. Ideally I'd just leave her, but she says she can't survive without my support, and that she'll kill herself if I actually go. I don't know if that's true or not but I don't want to find out the hard way, but I also know I can't handle both working full time and taking care of her full time (she refuses to do anything at home or to manage and organize our lives either, sometimes to the point of yanking me out of bed after only a few hours of sleep to make her food even though she is able to cook, arguably better than me).

Im basically never happy, and I want to leave but I can't, not with the way she is mentally now, not with what she might do, especially since the only person I know she could go to is her mother, who wouldn't be accepting of her being trans which isn't something I want to put her through. I've been thinking of asking a friend or relative of mine (what few I have left after she isolated me for so long, since I can't drive and for years she's been in charge of if I leave the house or not, which she rarely lets me do), to let me stay with them during the work week, since it would be easier to find and keep a job that way. I'd have limited contact with my wife, only seeing her on the weekends and preferably not talking much during the week, but still with me supporting both of us.

I don't know if she'd go for this, or even how to ask, but I know I can't handle dealing with both work and her and my own issues at the same time. I've tried to say this a bit and she's said I'm just being whiny and lazy, so I just don't know what to do or how to fully broach the subject, but I'm just so scared for the future between us in general.

I'm sorry this was a long post my thoughts are just not organized sometimes. Thank you for everything you do.

Amendment from turquoise. Abuse mention.

I just really wanted to clarify that I don't want anything I said about my wife to be attributed to the fact that she's trans. I don't think any of the mods of this blog would do that, but I just worry that others would, or that it came across as me saying her abuse and her gender are somehow connected but I swear I don't think they are and if anything came across that way I never meant for it to. I know most trans people don't hurt others (not to mention I'm trans myself but that just didn't seem relevant, still not sure if it is here)

Basically I just hope I didn't paint an entire group in a bad light and I really didn't mean to if I did sorry I was just worried about that.

Hi turquoise,

I'm so sorry about what's been going on. Also, I wouldn't worry about potentially coming off as transphobic, I don't get that vibe at all and I see what you mean to say quite clearly.

Just because the abuse has been tapering off doesn't mean you should tolerate it. Being assaulted violates your boundaries, and it's important to respect and assert them. Just because it's tapering off doesn't mean you're supposed to be happy in this relationship. It makes absolute sense why you still feel like shit. You're on edge because you may have developed trauma responses and you're around someone who your brain has been conditioned to perceive as a threat.

Emotional availability is essential for the longevity of a relationship. For your partner to not be there for you or respond well to depressive episodes or even suicidal thoughts is definitely a problem. I feel like if she truly cared about you she would make a better effort to be there for you, especially when you're contemplating suicide.

It sounds like your partner is refusing to share the responsibility of any productive or reproductive labor, which puts unnecessary stress on you. Just because she's been working doesn't mean you have to do everything. Most people just continue working without breaks, you know? So how is it fair for her to refuse to work when that means no income? It would make more sense if she was overwhelmed with burdens, but she really has pushed virtually every responsibility of hers onto you and is expecting you to be absolutely fine with that.

It seems like you've tried communicating with her but she's given you a hard time. If it is safe to do so, it may be helpful to simply assert a boundary such as "I feel x when you do y. If you continue to treat me this way, this isn't going to work." Just letting her know where things stand may be helpful in terms of communication, but if this would be unsafe to do, then it may be best to simply leave without warning.

Like I said in the other ask, if she is going to choose to mistreat you then it is your right to leave if necessary. It's a hard decision though of course, because you don't want her to go back to her abusers, but really, that's not your problem. If you need to leave then you need to leave, where she goes is not really for you to worry about. It's important to assert your boundaries and put your foot down when you've had enough, even if it doesn't benefit everyone.

Abusers often block the exit in various ways, and that can include threatening suicide. Please know that it is manipulative for someone to blame suicide or self harm on someone else. It is your right to leave when you want or need to. Your partner's actions are her responsibility alone. Breaking up does not hold you liable to what your partner chooses to do as a result.

If anyone else has any comments or suggestions, feel free to add on. Otherwise, I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

#mod bun #trauma talks #tw abuse #tw sa #tw r #tw emotional abuse #tw self harm #tw sui #turquoise #trauma details

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oliviahyeurl · 5 years

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FINISHED UTENA........

#its only almost 7 am but i did it #theres rlly no point in tryng to fall asleep so i guess ill just pull an all nighter.. my head hurts so much haha 😃#but this anime........ PHEW.#i feel like my entire experience was just me going 'i feel like im missing something here' every 5 seconds but you know what...#thats just my experience with every new thing i get into #the pacing in the last few episodes could have been handled a lot better i think?#so much that we havent seen happened and utena got over akio pretty quickly #idk.. maybe those things just werent meant to be shown #oh and my fave arc is probably black rose. i just really liked the elevator sequences where the charas r just venting out their frustration #i love me.. dumbass not able to finish a 12 ep series in 3 weeks but finishing a 40 ep one in two says and risking sleep for it #i dont regret it tho

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aoitrinity · 4 years

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Why Do I Have to Feel Like a Fucking Conspiracy Theorist -- OR -- How I Find a Semblance of Peace on Sunday Night

I’m also going to start this out with a GIANT DISCLAIMER.

I am about to theorize about what may have happened to the SPN finale. I have absolutely no insider knowledge. I am merely speculating here based on the panels and a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr posts that I have been reading over the last few days. If you are not in a good place to read such things, TURN BACK PLEASE. Go take care of yourself and your mental health. You and your feelings are valid and deserve to be handled gently right now.

Additionally, if you are here to give me shit for being unhappy with the ending, please walk away as well. I am here to reach out and share my feelings with people who might be struggling to make sense of something that upset some of us in very deep-seated ways. I am not here to bother you or critique you or tell you that you’re lesser because you liked the ending. If you felt it was good, then go enjoy it.

Long-ass post beneath the cut, everyone.

Alrighty folks...I debated whether or not to do this because I have been spiraling down the hell that is the SPN finale since Thursday. The travesty of what happened to our show--to this beloved show that seemed to have been so perfectly and precisely written for at least four years that it had basically already paved its own tarmac on which to land its plane and we all thought we knew exactly what we were going to get. And then we didn’t. We had a nigh Cas-less and entirely Eileen-less ending. We had no goodbye between Cas and Jack. We had Dean dying young after finally finding his freedom, only to ascend to heaven with no one but Bobby. We had the weird, weird, weird incest-y death scene. We had the bridge crane shot thing because...sure. You do you, Robert Singer.

It was so terrible, so truly awful, and I couldn’t seem to square any of it with anything we had known going in. I tossed and turned and cried and didn’t eat or sleep all weekend. I spent hours just reloading tumblr and twitter, going to the Misha panel, reading and reading and listening and trying to figure out what the fucking hell is going on because I needed to know exactly where to direct my anger. And after a fuckton of talking with @winchester-reload, I think we have at least a very plausible theory about what happened here--I’m laying it out below as much for my own peace of mind as anything else, because otherwise all of these thoughts are going to continue to spin around in my head for weeks and I won’t be able to do jack shit.

Now to start off, unfortunately I do think Dean was slated to die from the beginning of this season. I don’t know WHY they thought that was the best way to go, and I wish they had listened to Jensen on this one. Part of me wonders if it was an order from on high based on the discussion between Becky and Chuck earlier this season--the writers knew it wasn’t a great choice, but they were trying to signal to us that we should feel free to write our own endings to the story because they’d be better (I can wax poetic on the signs of why many of the writers probably wanted Dean to live, but that’s another post). I’m not defending that choice by any means, just laying it out there that I think they didn’t necessarily all want to kill Dean like they did.

However, what I THINK I can explain now is what happened with Misha and why we got so jerked around with Cas’s story. Consider what we know (I can’t immediately source all of it, but I did my best):

At the end of episode 15x19, Lucifer has been returned to the Empty after being killed AGAIN. He talks with Cas. Maybe harasses him a bit about Dean, idk. But then...Jack shows up. New God Jack. And he picks up Cas and pulls him out of the Empty, leaving Lucifer behind, because seriously. Fuck that guy (also leaving behind his abusive father is character growth for Jack, so yay for that).

-Misha was contracted to film 15 episodes this season. He was only in 14.

-Misha told Michael Sheen he had to go back to film 1.5 episodes after the shutdown in March. (Starts at 6:13)

-Misha was in Vancouver during filming of the finale.

-Mark P said at Darklight Con that the last scene he filmed was with Alex and Misha (and Mark P was only in episode 19).

-Misha implied that he was present for various filming moments, including Dean’s death (start at 35:15), and said that it felt like a “mini-reunion.”

-Various sources have mentioned that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale.

-After episode 18, Stands tweeted a fan who was angered and hurt by Cas's death that they could talk about the “bury the gays” issue after the finale aired.

-In episode 19 we know there were takes of the parking lot scene where the only thing fans observing could hear was Dean yelling “CAS” at Chuck (fuck I can’t find this one right now, but it’s definitely out there)

-Also in episode 19, we had a very strange, awkward montage at the end of the episode.

-In episode 20, we know there were a FUCKTON of missing scenes

-We also had no opening montage, but three other separate montages.

-Carry on My Wayward Son was played TWICE, back-to-back at the end of the episode.

-Episode 20 was shorter than normal and had surprisingly little dialogue. The pacing was VERY strange.

-The cast and crew has been almost completely silent about the finale since it came out. When they have spoken, it has been with an awkward excuse of “Uh...COVID?”

-Samantha Ferris has specifically noted that, despite the Harvelle’s being back in play and a big heaven reunion having been planned pre-COVID, neither she nor Chad Lindberg received any such invitation to return.

-Cas and Dean POP Funko figures were pictured together in a replica of Harvelle’s in 15x04.

NOW with all of this in mind (and I’m probably missing some stuff too because there is so much--feel free to add on to that list), please bear with me because here is what I think we were SUPPOSED to get POST-COVID (after it was determined that the reunion couldn’t happen because of the virus):

In episode 20, we start with our NORMAL OPENING MONTAGE, like always. It traces everything that happened during the season. We are reminded of Cas. The confession. Rowena. Eileen. Jack. Billie, God, the Empty, all of it.

Things then follow along in the episode where they did up until Dean dies and wakes up in heaven. After his conversation with Bobby, he drives off to find Cas (who, in the script, was listed as “Jimmy Novak” in order to protect against script leaks--who wouldn’t want to do their best to avoid spoilers about the finale with the wrapping of a fifteen-year show?). He does indeed find Cas. We get Dean’s end of the confession. Hell, maybe we even get a kiss. And then Dean sets up his new heaven home in the recreated Harvelle’s. Maybe Cas even fucking moves in.

Years pass. We get Sam having his life on Earth (still can’t explain why they cut Eileen and couldn’t even have Sam signing vaguely to the blurry brunette in the background; if anyone wants to take that on, go for it). Eventually, Cas tells Dean that it’s almost Sam’s time. Dean takes Baby and goes to meet Sam at the bridge. The cover of Carry on My Wayward Son plays during this much shorter sequence. End of episode.

But that’s not what we got. Instead, much of what I just wrote about was excised from the episode. The remnants were stitched together after shooting had been wrapped. Filler was added in the form of montages and long, unnecessary extra shots to get the episode to something approaching a reasonable length.

But why? Why would they spend all that time and money and quarantining on Misha, only to almost completely cut him out of the finale? I struggled with why the fuck the CW would want this mammoth show to go down as the greatest queerbait in TV history when they had the chance to do something truly beautiful and monumental with it? It couldn’t just be sheer homophobia, right? Well, I think that factored into it, my friends, but here is where my head is at right now.

It was about cold, hard cash.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment: Supernatural is going off of the air. Supernatural, the CW’s cash cow for fifteen years. Sure there is still money to be made on blu-rays and merchandise and cons...but they need people watching their shows. They need that sweet advertising revenue. And you know what show they have about to premiere? A show that could, potentially, bring with it a chunk of that SPN revenue?

Walker.

And if any of you know anything about the original Walker Texas Ranger, you know that the show was predominantly a show about a very heterosexual white man being very excessively heterosexual. And for SOME REASON over the years, many of the execs at the CW still seem to think that this show, Supernatural, is really attractive to a lot of middle-American white men...whom they desperately want to watch this new show with this guy from Supernatural that they already know.

Now here’s where COVID fucked us. I think Destiel was greenlit by TPTB, at least in SOME form, before COVID. But then the pandemic happened, and they panicked. They got the cut of the last two episodes and watched them in their original, probably queer form. And then, the execs at CW looked at the economy. They looked at their cash cow, about to make its journey to the great beyond. And they looked at this new little calf Walker that they were so desperately worried about. And they made a choice.

They decided that it would be too risky to take the step with Destiel. They were worried about frightening off their ever-so-valuable hetero male demographic with the possibility that a traditionally masculine man in his 40s could be in love with another man in an overt way. It was homophobia mixed with greed, spun up by fear for their revenues because of COVID.

So they called in Singer, possibly Dabb, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they went straight to Singer. They told them that Destiel had to go: executive orders. And the only way to make it go in a way that removed any trace of what had been there was to rewrite what happened to Cas and cut him out from the last two episodes entirely. It was too late to reshoot anything. They had to just cut and stitch and fill with bullshit montages.

They removed the scene at the end of 19, probably because Cas and Lucifer discussed Dean. All that was left of Misha there was his voice on that fake phone call. They may have cut other things too, but I would bet my life that they cut a scene from the end of the episode and replaced it with that very strange montage. Then they moved onto 20. They cut out every scene with Cas. And left in only two platonic mentions of him, neither made by Dean. They tried to imply that Cas might show up in Dean’s heaven at some point, but that was as far as the editors could go in the time they had. They filled in with montages, awkwardly long shots, anything they could do to fill all of those missing scenes.

And they even had to take the opening montage, because literally everything in it pointed to Cas being there at the end of it all. They wouldn’t be able to leave out his scenes, they were too critical to the season. They couldn’t cut his confession without raising eyebrows. So they cut the whole thing and moved “Carry On My Wayward Son” to one of the newly-added driving montages at the end. Which is why we awkwardly had both songs play back-to-back--again, such a strange choice unless they were out of options and couldn’t exactly buy rights to a new track or compose anything else.

And so we were left with the shadow of the finale that we deserved, that Cas and Dean deserved. We were left without resolution or happiness or words. Bobo told us the most important thing about happiness is just “saying it” and our characters were silenced without anyone ever knowing the truth.

I think the writers might have known and been given the new party line that “Misha never filmed, he couldn’t, sorry, it was COVID, no one’s fault!” But I don’t think most of the cast even knew it had happened until they watched the finale on Thursday with us (though they might have been confused why the bit from 15x19 was sliced, they could reasonably have assumed it was a time thing and also BL episodes don’t make sense anyway). Why do I say that?

Well, first of all, Misha started sending out a bunch of excited texts to fans with some old BTS pictures about an hour before the show started airing on EST. He also wanted his children to see the episode, his YOUNG children. Why would he show them such a traumatic episode if their Dad wasn’t in it? What if it was because he wanted them to witness what was going to be a monumental moment in queer television history that their DAD got to be a part of? And then that was all dashed.

Which is why I think the cast and crew went almost completely radio silent the next day. I don’t think they knew. And based on how they have been acting on social media since then, I think many of them are absolutely furious, but they have been silenced because of NDAs, because they want to find work again in a cutthroat industry, because they don’t want to bring down the hellfire of Warner Brothers Entertainment upon themselves. So the most we have gotten is a little acknowledgement from the MERCHANDISING COMPANY trying to validate our pain (god bless Shirts, she is a LIFESAVER) and a response to my salty tweet about keeping good stuff in the closet from Adam Williams (the VFX coordinator) that seemed to acknowledge the validity of my complaint.

Then there was a scramble behind the scenes, I would bet my life. Talking points were fed to the boys who had panels today, to CE, to all the cast and crew:

Toe the party line. Misha never filmed. This was always about COVID. Do not mention Destiel. Do not mention Dean’s feelings for Cas. Do not promote the Castiel Project or anything that validates the idea that this was anything less than a superb ending.

And that is why we have heard so little from the cast on this front, and what we have heard has been muddled and contradictory. That is why the writers are saying nothing. That is why we have been left adrift.

Now before I close this out, I do want to say that I really, genuinely do not think this was on the writers at all. I feel like they tried to give us the best ending that they could, in a writers room that we know is notorious for splitting along party lines about the overall story (BL and Singer, who have always been about the brothers and their man-pain vs. Dabb and the rest who always seemed to want more for them and for Cas). I think they did everything in their power to at least end with Dean and Cas happy together. If they could give us nothing else, they wanted to give us that. And then the network took it from them. From us. From everyone.

For the sake of fucking money.

And the WORST PART OF IT ALL, for me, is that in the wake of this disaster, the fans have been left to try and figure out what happened. We have had to wade through a mire of conflicting information in the midst of all of our collective anger and grief over this garbage ending of a show many of us have loved and even relied on for YEARS, all the while wondering if we’re just fucking crazy, if we have all fallen collectively into the hole of conspiracy theories. That hurts ESPECIALLY badly because we have taken so many hits over the years from other groups on social media saying we were crazy for seeing things that weren’t there (especially Destiel), for writing meta and analyzing tropes and believing the evidence of our eyes and ears. The network has made us relive that entire nightmare WHILE processing our grief for a show we wanted so badly to celebrate and which instead we now have to mourn.

So again guys, I cannot prove that this is exactly what happened at all; this is simply my idea of what may have happened. But right now, it’s the most sense I can make from this mess, and to be honest, the act of typing it out has helped me enormously in my processing of it all. I feel like I can see more clearly, like I know where to target my outrage and where to direct empathy. I feel like just fucking maybe, I might be able to do my job tomorrow without bursting into tears at random moments.

I really hope that this post has helped some of you to, in some small way, process this too. We get through this the way that Misha told us at his panel this morning, the way the writers have told us to do all season long...we throw out the story God gave us and we make it better. We write our characters the happy endings they deserve.

We save them.

One last thing--if you have not already, please consider channeling your rage into a donation to one of the five causes our fandom has put together to pay tribute to our beloved show and to mourn the ending it should have had:

-The Castiel Project

-Dean Winchester is Love

-Sam Winchester Project

-The National Association of the Deaf

-The Jack Kline Project

#supernatural season 15 #spn finale #speculation #destiel #destielgate #the ending was not the ending #fuck the cw #trust the story #we were robbed

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greensaplinggrace · 3 years

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do you have any darklina fic recs?

I certainly have a few! But first I want to clarify that I don’t really read fic when I’m writing it, and since I have so many fics in the works right now, I haven’t really been reading a lot of fanfiction. So this list probably won’t be as extensive as it could be.

Here are some other great fic recommendation posts, however:

DARKLINA FIC RECS by @vicioux

DARKLINA FIC RECS // part ii by @vicioux

Darklina Ruling the World Together Fic Recs by @clubofthestarlesssaint

Tumblr Ficlets

Aleksander’s First Memory by @kestrafagnor

Fivan Talk About Darklina by @jomiddlemarch

a little light in the great, big dark by @valkyrhys

Alina tells Mal she’s with Aleksander by @lorsanbitch

Darklina week day 5: intimacy & touch by @starlesscne

AO3 Fanfiction

if it ain’t me by larry_hystereks (Incomplete - 10/13 Chapters)

alina’s in her second year at Yale when she meets aleksander at one of his frat parties.

a hookup with the potential for more, only if alina wasn’t still struggling to piece herself together from last year’s breakup.

or: alina, zoya, their trust issues, and the men that fall for them

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I’m only at about chapter 6 of this fic currently, but so far it’s one of my all time favorite Modern AUs. The characterization for Alina and Aleksander is incredibly well done, and the entire fic itself is so feminist and queer in such a refreshing way. Aleksander and Alina are bisexual as fuck, both with their own separate complex lives, and much of Alina’s own traumas and relationships are explored outside of Aleksander.

There’s some Zoyalina, with Nikolina friendship and endgame Zoyalai. There’s some mystery and some tension, but nothing too extreme, and a lot of the fic is merely an exploration in growth and overcoming one’s history and learning how to move on in healthy ways. I love it.

She Wears a Collar (With My Name) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

She is immortal, and whatever lingering hints of humanity she may have once had have long been bleached from her heart.

I will grant you one wish, boy, if it is in my power to do so. What does a Shadow Smith most want?

"You," he answers.

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 2: Role Reversal

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This piece is just exquisite. This author’s writing style is one that I particularly enjoy. Their stuff is always so uniquely composed and crafted, and this one especially is a work of art. The way Darklina as a relationship is portrayed in particular is fascinating to me because it’s a role reversal but it’s still so complex. Aleksander’s character is nailed.

the bright sun was extinguish’d by athousandwinds (Complete)

Somewhere, deep in the dark forests of Ravka, a boy grows up on stories of Sankta Alina of the Wastes, the Sun-Scorched Saint.

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This fic is just straight up magnificent. It’s so engaging and I love love love the way a role reversed Aleksander who joins the army is portrayed. He reminds me so much of Demon in the Woods Aleksander, as if he’s exactly what a grown version of that young boy would be. When I say I adore his characterization in this I’m not lying.

If I wanted any completed fic I’ve read to have a second chapter, it would be this one.

Winter in the Little Palace by redisxwing (Complete)

Written for Yuletide 2020.

Baghra and Alina's wildly different perspectives on the Darkling, and how things could have gone if nobody listened to Baghra.

Warning: Baghra is written as a harsh and arguably abusive parent, and this is darkfic about that relationship, with a side of shipping. Everything is terrible (except the parts that are pretty much okay).

Canon divergence pretty much as soon as Alina gets lessons in summoning.

This fic is likely not compatible with King of Scars (or any subsequent work).

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As is said in the summary, this one makes Baghra a bit more extreme. If you’re a fan of Baghra, this fic probably isn’t for you. But since I’m not a fan of Baghra, I had no problems with it.

My biggest praise for this fic is in regards to the character interactions and the POVs. There’s a brilliant grasp of unique perspective and how to convey it, and that talent is carried over into the way character interactions are brought to life in the text. Also, there’s a scene where Alina gets kind of protective of the Darkling, which is one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to Darklina.

Good Ideas by FelixRivers (Complete)

Alina Starkov had a very good idea. Aleksander Morozova would definitely agree. (or: Alina wants to go camping and Aleksander won't complain)

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This fic is just straight up adorable and hilarious. They’re such a cute couple and Alina’s POV is great. It’s just pure fluff and humor 💕

I’m not a bad girl, but I do bad things with you by SanktaJenya - @sankta-arya (Complete)

Winter had been hard on Old Baghra and Ana Kuya was worried about her, so she decided that Alina should make the trip to her cottage on the other side of the woods to bring her some food and kvas. On her way there, Alina meets a stranger...

Darklina Red Riding Hood/Company of Wolves AU

Darklina Week, Day 4, Fairytales

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This fic has a splendid grasp of tension and atmosphere. It’s very enchanting and dark and intriguing, and it nails those aspects with absolute precision. I love the style and the way the fairytale is incorporated into the narrative. It’s truly a masterpiece.

The Wretched by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“We are strangers, but I want to help.” He growls at her, mocking and mistrustful. “I understand,” she said. “You think I am one of them. I certainly look like one of them. But I want to help you. Will you let me?” Prompt: fairytale. Alina saves a dragon.

---

Okay so I’ve mentioned this one before as one of my Top 5 fics of all time and I still stand by that. I can’t even describe why I love this fic so much except that the pacing is amazing and the prose is stunning and the story is beautiful. Aleksander is a dragon and Alina is a witch, and their relationship is just so...interesting and fascinating and lovely. I would literally kill for this fic. There’s such a softness to it as well. Such a tenderness. Idk, I just really love it.

Show Me Who You Are (I Want To Know) by Ceris_Malfoy (Incomplete - 12/?)

Alina takes her future in her own hands and makes her own decisions.

---

This is a great “what if Alina had stuck around after the reveal” rewrite. It doesn’t have Mal bashing and in fact still writes them as close friends, which is something I’m fond of in Darklina fics. Aleksander is allowed to be soft and Alina is allowed to be powerful, and I really enjoyed the take on their dynamics as a power couple wherein Alina is given a lot of control.

There’s something to be said for the way Aleksander is written in the scenes where he must be honest and earnest with Alina. I really enjoy the way they both come to equal ground, and I’m even more fond of the way Alina is allowed to grow darker without losing her light. She also engages a lot with quite a few other characters, developing tons of friendships and alliances on her own that help strengthen her as an individual character.

on this bridge between starshine and clay by @rhea-imagined (Complete)

"His breath narrows for a moment, his fist clenched tight before he forces himself to loosen it. She is his only opportunity for salvation, but vulnerability is not a cape he wears easily. “In those days, there was less prejudice against Shadow Summoners. But everyone fears the dark, in one way or another.” He does not look at her as he waits for the penny to drop, half-hoping it stays suspended in the air."

In which Alexander comes clean to Alina and tells her about his true identity in hopes that this will help convince her to take down the Fold.

A rewrite of the fountain scene in episode four, with a good!Darkling that is trying to make amends.

---

This is my all-time favorite good!Aleksander AU. He’s kept in character despite the major changes made to his motivations, and Alina is given a lot more agency in her own story. It’s the first fic in what might become a series, but it can stand alone beautifully.

I love how Aleksander and Alina’s relationship is allowed to grow tense without breaking, and how it’s a clear sign of change but not abandonment. I love how both characters are able to think for themselves and become self-aware and are given the chance to think critically. I love the character interaction so much because it’s honest and fresh and engaging. Everything from the smallest action to the most off-hand thought is in character and meaningful and incorporated with an amazing style of writing. It’s a very refreshing piece, and the writing only makes it that much better.

Bunnies of a Feather Stitch Together by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Just as Alina called to the light, gathering and twisting it into a ball in her hands, the door swung open.

Kirigan blacked out the door frame. His appearance enough would have surprised Alina, but there was something clutched in his arm, something dark and floppy. It almost looked like the stuffed toys that had been passed around to the younger Orphans." - Alina and The Darkling bond over a love of soft things

---

Soft stuffed animal shenanigans. Bits of trans!Aleksander, which I’m very fond of, as well as just a lot of fluff with a bit of something bittersweet and sad in a good way.

Half Lie by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Baghra always talked of the demon that had stolen her daughter." Or, Alina learns the hard way that the Darkling isn't the only one who deals in half-truths

---

This one is trans!Aleksander, and it handles it in a very interesting way. It’s quite sad, and deals a lot with Baghra & Aleksander’s relationship through Alina’s POV. I want to give a warning for transphobia, because it does center around that a lot as the premise, but it really is worth the read if that isn’t a trigger for you. This is one of my favorite trans!Aleksander fics, and the way it handles emotion and grief and pain is quite extraordinary.

The CEO and Helioseismologist by mrthology (Complete)

Aleksander Morozova doesn't get sick. He's the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world, one that he had built from the ground up with blood, sweat, and tears. He exercised daily (usually), maintained a healthy diet, and kept himself fit.

He wasn’t sick.

Too bad no one believed him. And too bad Genya decided to call Ivan to take him home before also calling Alina to take care of him.

Maybe, just maybe, being sick wasn't so bad. Especially not when he has such a wonderful girlfriend.

---

Both of the fics in this series are great, but I love this one in particular because I’m an absolute sucker for hurt/comfort. Anyone who’s been on my blog for a while knows that it’s my all time favorite trope to read, and this fic fits the hurt/comfort trope to a T in the best of ways. It’s very tender and in character, and Aleksander and Alina are so soft with each other. It’s adorable and really makes you feel for Aleksander, and the caretaking is done perfectly.

All the different layers of dark (thousand little suns) by Anuna (Complete)

One month after the Winter Fete, Aleksander returns to the Little Palace, and Alina has been missing him.

Episode five canon divergence in which Alina had never left Os Alta.

---

This one is soft emotional hurt/comfort smut. They’re both so open and vulnerable with each other, and it’s so beautiful to read. I love the writing style and the emotion in this one. It makes my heart ache in the best way.

An Honourable Man by liviy695 (Complete)

A reimagining of the scene after the winter fete. Alina catches a glimpse of a caring Darkling after he returns from integrating the Conductor. Plus, no Baghra interference.

---

This one is what it says on the tin, in that Baghra doesn’t interfere and they’re allowed to talk after the Darkling interrogates the Conductor. But more than that, it’s a great imagining of how a scene where Aleksander reveals Marie’s death would have gone. There’s a sort of quiet to it that I appreciate, with grief and solemnity weighed against care and vulnerability.

I see the real you (even if you don’t, I do) by Anonymous (Incomplete - 8/?)

A series of questionable decisions lead Alina to meet the Black General a bit earlier. Butterfly effect ensues.

---

I’ve only read half so far (I hadn’t realized it had updated!! 👀👀) but I’m already in love with this fic. Alina’s dialogue and perspective is perfect, her relationship with Mal and the other cartographers is great, and I really enjoy how much personality she has. Aleksander is so smitten, but more than that, his characterization is soft but not weak. It feels almost as if he’s swept up by Alina, instead of the other way around, and I quite like that.

Of parenting by Anuna (Complete)

Alina finds out how her husband handled yet another parenting situation.

---

This is pure adorable Darklina parenting fluff and I live for it. Yet it doesn’t lack depth and in fact explored Alina and Aleksander’s relationship with parenting quite well.

i have a longing by LRCee - @ladylyannastark (Complete)

“So, Alina Starkov, risk-taker, how did you end up being editing’s newest wunderkind?”

Alina Starkov is rising in the publishing world. Singlehandedly responsible for editing (see: rewriting) the hottest book of the year, she lands a coveted spot at Morovoz Publishers. It's the position she's always wanted, at the biggest publishing house in the country. Life is perfect. That crush on her boss though, that's gotta go.

---

OKAY! I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH!! Let me tell you, as someone who is not too fond of Boss/Employee dynamics, I was very wary going into this fic. But boy did it deliver in a way that was perfect for me.

The relationship that develops between Aleksander and Alina is complex but healthy, and it never feels as if there’s too much of a power imbalance or anything that would make Alina feel forced or unhappy. The tension lies purely in how she fears others will perceive her, and not in how unhealthy her relationship with Aleksander is. For somebody who’s often attracted to unhealthy ships, I have to say that my favorite fics are usually ones that don’t have that type of dynamic between the characters. This fic delivers on that.

Also, Aleksander’s POV surrounding his struggle with his Russian heritage and his feelings for Alina is amazing, and has some of the best writing and characterization I’ve seen.

You receive: an evil demon; I receive: human souls by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

The next morning while she tried to tell herself it was a dream, that of course there wasn’t a fucking demon in her house, she found a note taped to her fridge.

“You might eat this shit,” it had written, “but I would like some fucking souls please.”

Darkling Week Prompt 7: free choice. Alina has a demon in her house.

This is absolute crack, and I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me.

---

May I just say that this is the most fun I’ve ever had when reading a fic. It’s interesting with a bit of mystery, and Aleksander as a little shit of a demon is hilarious. Alina in this fic is great too. It’s such a unique take on her POV, especially when you reread it after knowing the ending. 10000/10, this fic is brilliant in every way and I love it.

I had been lost to you, Sunlight by BrytteMystere (Complete)

A Girl became a Woman, became a Sankta, became a Goddess.

Or: An Immortal Alina calls upon merzost to reunite with the Prince of Shadows she lost long ago. She may have lost herself in the process.

But then again, maybe time and endless wars did that instead.

---

You really just have to read this one to get it. It is utterly haunting and fascinating in the best of ways. The writing style is strange and novel and fits so well with the story being told. The composition of the fic as a whole is genius.

I Look Inside Myself (And See My Heart Is Black) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"When is a monster not a monster? Why, when you love it, of course."

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 6: Favorite Quote • King & Queen • Monster

---

Once more, this author comes through with an absolutely breathtaking writing style and story. The imagery is elegant yet brutal, simultaneously horrifying and glorious. There’s a certain way these stories are written, like fairytales, where the beautiful becomes the macabre and becomes ever more stunning because of it. It’s very dark but in a good way - an almost bewitching way.

Afterlife by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“You are asking me to leave?”

“Not asking, shadow,” she said. “Telling. Time to get unlost, loser.”

Day 3 Darklina Week prompt: Modern AU (I mean, barely)

Alina expels ghosts from purgatory.

---

@aceofnowhere once again bringing the best of the paranormal to the Grishaverse. Literally everything you write is amazing idk why I’m even pointing out individual fics when I could just rec your whole page. But anyways!! This is fun and interesting and Alina is a badass. Aleksander is, of course, compelling and dark and kind of a little shit, and it’s all incorporated seamlessly into an existential paranormal narrative.

Once Upon a Shooting Star by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"But most of all, she was drawn to a vast darkness that reached out above all of them, a void so hungry for companionship that she knew she could fulfill."

---

Let. Alina. Be. Feral!! Anyways, I clearly have a type when it comes to storytelling, and it’s whatever the fuck this person has got going on. Feral!Star!Alina is literally the light of my life. Her interactions with not only other people but the world in general are so well done, but my favorite parts about this fic are the numerous ways her relationship with Aleksander is described and depicted.

I love the dark and light imagery, especially with how it’s portrayed as them filling in the gaps of each other’s lives and supporting each other instead of trying to block each other out. There’s such clear passion and joy and love and devotion between them. The central focus of this fic is on her and Aleksander’s relationship, the interplay between them and their powers and the way her light fills his loneliness, the passing of adoration and trust and reliance between them. It’s very beautiful and I love it.

A Blaze of Light by Keira_63 (Complete)

They discover the Sun Summoner in the burnt-out remains of the Shu laboratory in which she has spent the last seven years of her life.

Or, the Darkling finds himself with a Sun Summoner whose greatest wish is to burn Shu Han to the ground. He is happy to oblige her.

---

👀👀 Badass Alina and Badass Aleksander. The ultimate power couple, and Alina burning a path through Shu Han before they both burn a path through the world together. The darkness and rage in this one are handled very well, and the way that rage turns to coldness and then resolve is done so well. This fic is very cathartic and also very furious, and reading it is certainly a trip down emotion lane.

One more for the Road by Rist (Complete)

He returns to the war room shaken, and finds an Alina that cannot leave without at least having tried.

---

This one hurts so much but its soooo gooood!!! Very smutty but also very tender and very bittersweet. Sad and soft all at once. I just... love the way Alina and Aleksander are written so much, and Alina’s complicated feelings for him are explored in such detail and depth. This one is truly worth the read.

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temunitu · 2 years

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oh boy, rewatching Rise with 1-2 episodes a day is giving me a new perspective on the whole show (I'm talking mostly about character development, plot, pacing, etc.)

disclaimer: this is NOT meant to discourage anyone from watching the show, nor is it meant to attack anyone who enjoys the points i criticize. these are merely my opinions and i respect anyone who thinks differently from me.

read more because i'm incapable of keeping my thoughts short:

first off, when i first started watching Rise, i was completely smitten by the show. the first few episodes that aired before the rest of the show started playing on tv, i watched religiously. it was my favorite tmnt iteration for a LONG time and i still hold it near and dear to my heart.

but it was not perfect. nothing is, really.

Donnie - i’ve reblogged and mentioned how i didn’t appreciate how the writers handled Donnie’s development in Rise. Again, if you’re a Donnie fan, i can still see why - he’s a fun character. To me it just got old watching him run in circles.

Mikey - i had so many thoughts on my boy so i put it in a separate post - TL;DR Mikey didn’t have much development himself, the episodes he supposedly does were problems that got introduced and solved in the same episode, and Mikey acts as more of a hype-man/therapist and feels more like a background character than a main character. I might be biased cuz he’s my favorite, idc. he deserves more spotlight.

Draxum - season 1, he’s great. It’s season 2 that fell short with me. Not all the post-redemption episodes bugged me, he still feels largely in-character in mystery meat and the finale. I think it was hidden city’s most wanted that really… seemed off to me. Maybe it was the fact he was a teddy bear, idk, but him using Mikey as leverage against Splinter irked me. Draxum and Lou/Splinter had hardly any interaction in goyles, goyles, goyles so their “rivalry” felt really forced. i could see Splinter hating Big Mama since their relationship (was implied to have) lasted WAY longer. Draxum kidnapped and experimented on Lou in the same day and they'd barely met. idk, it felt rushed.

Season Two - i don’t blame the writers for this, i blame nickelodeon for cutting the series short so we didn’t get to experience the series in its rightful glory. but even leading up to the finale, it feels like there’s so many gaps missing in how characters and their dynamics change.

unbalanced focus - related to some of the previous points, but there really does seem to be a lot more episodes revolving around Donnie and Leo more than Raph and Mikey. i get why Leo and Don are fan favorites since they get so much more screen time than the other two, but Raph and Mikey had so much potential that just got shrugged off. Especially Mikey (don't @ me, he deserves better)

yes, the show got cut short. It’s still easily one of my favorites (especially season 1) but there were so many episodes that felt like there was a gap (like characters developed off-screen). I know the writers were pressed for time but season 2 just didn’t quite hit the same. Some of the episodes are still amazing/my favorites, but there’s a couple that really bugged me.

but my biggest complaint is still directed at nickelodeon/viacom for pulling the plug before giving the show a chance. most of these points would probably have been addressed or fixed if we'd gotten the full season 2 the writers had planned for.

#rottmnt analysis #rottmnt #tea mn tea

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bestiesenpai · 4 years

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Youtuber Sukuna pt3

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life! I never thought youtuber sukuna would be so popular, so thank you everyone for giving me encouragement to continue this lil series. This will be the final part, but who’s to say we can’t have an OVA episode?? I smell a beach episode...or maybe a trip to an onsen? Who knows!

Part one --- part two

This had to be the stupidest thing he’d ever done. It certainly felt like it. Scrolling on Pinterest was the last thing he wanted to do, in fact it was something he openly mocked in the past, but now per your advice, he was looking at thousands of photos of home decor.

Sukuna was hesitant to admit to you that he had no furniture in his home. After seeing how well decorated and lived in your home was, it only made his shame increase at being a grown man with foldable furniture. But you took it in stride and offered to help, even making him share a Pinterest board with you so the two of you could get inspiration for a shopping trip.

That’s how he found himself at IKEA on a bright and early Saturday morning. You’d begged him to let you come shopping with him, and Sukuna was a man unable to refuse any request you made of him.

“Ah, this is going to be so exciting!” You shouted, nearly running to the carts at the front of the store. You were clearly more excited than he was, your energy seemed to know no bounds as you bounced on your heels and waited for him to trudge to the front door.

“What’s so exciting about furniture?” He grumbled, subconsciously taking the cart from your hands. Pushing into the store, Sukuna felt like he had been transported to another world. With staged living quarters that looked more real than his own home, he was at a loss for words.

“Sukuna, c’mere!” You were already ten paces ahead, standing at the entrance to one said fake home. Coming upon it, Sukuna nearly gagged at the color palette. There were bright orange tufted couches with a blue area rug and more pillows than he had owned his whole life. With white accents and gunmetal colored lamps, it looked far too much for him.

“It’s ugly.” He said, not caring about the other people around you that seemed to enjoy it.

“Really?” Taking another look around, you shrugged your shoulders and took a step back. “You’re right, it doesn’t really fit your whole vibe.”

That was definitely correct. If Sukuna had to give a name to his personal style it would be ‘who the fuck cares as long as it works’. He wasn’t one to dwell on his looks for too long, just content grabbing clothes that were easily accessible and trendy, ones that he knew would help him fit in. And that habit had bled into his furniture choice as well.

“Okay, you seemed to pin a lot of pictures that look like this-” Leaning over, he watched you scroll past picture after picture of what almost looked like the same thing, a living room with dark colored couches, a white rug and dark colored walls, almost always with a metal or dark wooden coffee table.

“Yeah, it fits me.” Wandering through the store, Sukuna glanced at an all white room with a window frame encasing a faux view of a city lit up at night. “None of this shit.” He made a vague gesture to the room, and the one following it that looked similar.

“You don’t want any bright colors at all?”

“My hair’s already pink, what more do you want?” That made you snort and giggle, and in turn made Sukuna smile.

“Okay but you can’t just have all black furniture, it’ll make your house feel like a dungeon.” Your hand came to rest on the handle of the shopping cart, dangerously close to laying on top of his. “Promise we’ll get at least a little color today? Maybe a yellow, or a pink to match your hair.”

“S-sure.” Sukuna couldn’t look at anything except for your hand. Your pinky finger was just barely touching his, almost enough that Sukuna could slide his hand under yours and interlace your fingers together.

“Ooh, what about this for your bedroom?” And just like that, you were gone. Dashing off to a display on the wall for bed sheets. “You said you only have a plain white one, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How about this? This design is really trendy right now.” You were pointing to one that was a deep navy, white grid lines crossing over to make big squares.

“I like it.”

“Awesome! Now, do you have a queen or a king bed?”

After picking out the bed sheets, Sukuna slowly opened up more to the idea of shopping. He was able to recognize pieces he’d seen on Pinterest, picking them out as things he readily liked and would enjoy looking at in his house. He was even persuaded to get a few area rugs for different places in his house, and before he knew it you had piled the basket high with things.

“Ah, today was so much fun!” You sang, bouncing in your seat on the way home from IKEA.

“Now I just need to build all this shit.” Sukuna was amazed at how much you’d convinced him to buy. He had new furniture for his bedroom, a new couch was going to be delivered, a dining table and chairs and even a new desk and chair for his office setup in the corner of his living room.

“Lemme help!” You looked far too eager to help him build, and although Sukuna wanted to tell you no - he really didn’t want you to see how he was currently living - he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to have you in his house with him, working together on something.

“Alright. Let’s stop somewhere and get food though, I’m hungry.”

One quick fast food meal that Sukuna loathed later, you were carrying things up to his apartment. He refused to let you carry the heavy things even if he could really use the help with some of the oblong boxes. But he didn’t want to risk you getting hurt, so you carried the small things.

When everything was inside the house, Sukuna watched your reaction to his place. You hadn’t made a sound when you first arrived, you were probably too busy trying to bring everything in from his car.

“Sukuna…” Scanning his apartment, your eyes landed on his abysmal furniture.

“Yeah?” He screwed his eyes shut, dreading what you had to say.

“This is totally what I expected from you.” You laughed, unpacking some of the fake plants you made him buy. “It totally fits you.” Letting out the breath he’d been holding in, Sukuna grabbed one of the boxes containing his new desk.

“Let’s get started.”

If Sukuna thought cooking with you was hard, building furniture with you was the final boss level. He had you read the instructions while he laid all the pieces out, and when you let out a whine at how many steps there were, Sukuna could have died happily right then and there.

It was easy to build the furniture he bought, but it wasn’t easy to work with you. There was no problem with your actual work, but the fact that Sukuna had to be so close to you at times, nearly hugging you when he had to hold up a piece for you to put a few screws in, it was too much to handle.

He quickly banished you to work on another project. It was your fault he kept getting distracted and forgetting what step he was on, so the only solution was to work on separate things. Plus, watching you flit around his house, hearing you change the bed sheets and lay down a new mat in the bathroom made him feel like you were newlyweds decorating your first home together.

“It looks so good in here!” It was well past dark when you finished everything. It truly did look like a brand new space, and not just in the living room. The touches you’d added, with bright pillows, fake plants and some actual art on the walls, made Sukuna happy to be home. His place finally felt like a home and not just somewhere to crash at the end of the day.

“You did a great job picking shit out, I woulda never been able to do all this.” Putting his arm around your shoulder, he gave you a squeeze.

“Are you gonna do a house tour when the couch and table come?” A house tour? Why would he do that? Knitting his brows together, Sukuna sent you a look. “C’mon, you know what a house tour is! All the popular Youtubers do them.” You giggled, wiggling your eyebrows. “And aren’t you a popular Youtuber?”

“I-” Well, you had him beat there. His subscriber count was well into the millions at this point. “Okay, I’ll do one when the rest of the stuff comes.”

“Yes!” Bouncing up and down in joy, you clapped your hands together. “I’ll help you film, I know how bad you are at angles.”

“Hey! I’ve been getting better!”

In a week, you were back at his place, more excited than him to film this video. You’d helped prepare a little script should he need it, and you were fluffing all the pillows so they looked nice on camera.

“Let’s have an entryway shot, those always look so cool!”

“Whatever you say.” Sukuna was merely a puppet on your strings, maneuvering however you saw fit. He made his hands as steady as possible getting b-roll shots of everything in advance.

“If you forget what to say, remember I made a script!” With that final warning, you were standing at the entrance to his apartment and waving your hand. “Okay, start!”

“Hi people on the internet. This is my house tour that (Y/N) is making me do.”

“Shut up!” You laughed behind the camera, trying not to shake it.

“This is my kitchen and dining room, (Y/N) picked out the table and chairs for me.” Doing a sweep over the kitchen, he transitioned to the living room. “And this is the lounge room, where (Y/N) picked out the couch and rug, and my desk stuff over there.”

“Yeah, Sukuna had no rugs in his apartment before!”

“Mhmm.” Somehow Sukuna managed to not stumble over his words, easily recalling parts of the script you had written for him. Highlighting the fake plants and cheap art on the walls, the two of you stood in the bathroom together.

“Look, it’s us!” You waved to the camera in the mirror, nudging your shoulder with Sukuna. Suddenly, the image of getting ready in the morning with you or winding down after a long day together in the bath flashed before Sukunas eyes. What would it be like to come into the bathroom while you were in the shower and join you? Give you a shoulder massage under the hot running water, or to brush his teeth and tell you to hurry up and not waste water.

“And this is the bedroom.” Quickly exiting the bathroom, Sukuna hid his blush with his hand as he entered the room.

“Hold this.” Shoving the camera in his hands, you leapt onto the bed. “This is where I sleep!” Your laugh was easy and you rolled around his bed a few times, simply having fun wrinkling the sheets.

“Uh- w-wha-” Sukuna nearly dropped the camera in shock. Seeing you in his bed, even if it was just on top of the sheets fully clothed, made his heart stop. Gripping the camera hard in his suddenly sweaty hands, Sukuna nearly tossed it to the side and joined you.

“Just kidding!” You were already climbing out of bed as soon as that thought entered his head. “But isn’t this room pretty? I picked out most of the stuff in here too.” Just like that you were back to normal, talking about some random print on the wall that he’d ordered per your suggestion.

Needless to say, Sukuna had a hard time falling asleep that night, the image of you in his bed burned into his mind like it was the only thought he’d ever have again. His imagination was going wild, and he tossed and turned all night - even after relieving some tension.

With his new desk setup, Sukuna felt motivated to edit the video as fast as he could. What you said about improving his living quarters was true; now that his place looked nice, he felt nice in turn. He even left in the part where you jumped on his bed, adding a funny break in the video like you’d shown him.

‘IT’S CONFIRMED. IT’S CONFIRMED. THEY’RE DATING’

‘sirpohdjb my ship has sailed!!’

‘I come here to see why sukunax(Y/N) is trending and it’s this bullshit?? Y’all need to get a life’

Sukuna often felt like a fool when he was with you, and sometime after as well. Even from the first comment he left on your Instagram, he knew people shipped you together and wanted you to date. He felt embarrassed more times than not, but it seemed he never learned his lesson. That scene of you on his bed had gone viral and he regretted leaving it in.

But could you blame him? You made his head spin, most of the time leaving him incapable of doing anything else beside standing in his place looking stupid. It was hard to edit the videos you did together because reliving the footage made him dizzy all over again.

(Y/N): SUKUNA. ANSWER ME ITS URGENT

It was the middle of the day in the middle of the week and Sukuna had nothing better to do than laze around and do nothing. Except now, he was texting you back with his heart suddenly pounding.

Sukuna: what?! Is something wrong where are you??

So much adrenaline was coursing through his body that he had started to shake.

(Y/N): I just got a great idea, I need to know if you’ll do a video with me!

What the fuck.

“What the fuck?” Sukuna said out loud, staring at his phone in disbelief. This is what was so urgent? Nearly sending him into an early grave for a possible video?

Sukuna: what the fuck I thought it was serious

Sukuna: I thought you were in trouble

He wasn’t upset per say, but Sukuna was definitely annoyed.

(Y/N): sorry :( i didn’t mean to scare you

Sukuna: you did more than scare me

(Y/N): I’m sorry! I won’t do it again!

Now Sukuna felt bad and it wasn’t even his fault. In all the time you’d known each other, you never had a negative interaction. He waited five minutes for you to text something, but you didn’t and it was making him anxious all over again.

Sukuna: well tell me what the idea is

(Y/N): no, it’s okay it was a stupid idea anyway

It took you another five minutes to respond, and your answer made Sukuna groan.

Sukuna: you got me all worked up and you’re just gonna leave me hanging?

He had to rectify the situation somehow.

(Y/N): I just thought...of maybe doing your makeup for a video?

Sukuna: what

(Y/N): I told you it was stupid! Just forget it

Sukuna: shut up it’s not stupid

As typing bubbles appeared and then disappeared, Sukuna could just imagine the way your cheeks puffed out indignantly.

(Y/N): here’s a link to someone else who did it with her boyfriend, they had so much fun together!

(Y/N): let me know if you wanna do it, I think it could be a lot of fun…

Sukuna only needed to look at the thumbnail to know he would say yes. The two people on the screen were very close, with the girl nearly touching her boyfriend's face with her own. They had big smiles on their faces as well, and that enticed him more.

Sukuna: I’ll do it

(Y/N): really?? That’s awesome! Come over to my place on Friday, we’ll order pizza and make a day of it!

And that’s how Sukuna found himself in your filming room, stomach full of pizza with a disgustingly cute green frog headband keeping his hair back. He’d seen this room a hundred times in the backgrounds of your videos, but now he was actually here. There were even more plushies than appeared on camera and you had a humidifier going in the corner.

“Okay now stay still, I’m going to wipe a toner on your face.” He had no idea what that meant, watching you with curious eyes pick up a bottle from the table in front of you and dab the liquid onto a cotton pad. “Usually I use my hands to apply toner, but we wanna wipe the dust off.”

With a gentle hand, you held Sukuna by the chin and swiped the cotton across his face, it’s soft chemical scent wafting into his nose. It felt nice, having you apply toner and moisturizer on his face. The most he ever applied was sunscreen, but maybe he could convince you to do his skincare for him every day.

“So today, I chose this makeup look by Beyoncés makeup artist! It’s a really popular style called ‘soft glam’.” Sukuna nodded along with you like he understood what you meant, taking a glance at the picture on your phone before you showed it to the camera. “I think Sukuna would really fit this kind of look, he is a natural beauty afterall.”

“Shut up.” He snorted, a light flush heating his cheeks.

“It’s true! There’s so many comments under your house tour video saying how good you look with the new furniture.” You spoke about the new makeup you bought for the video as you applied the products. Sukuna tried to keep up with what you were doing and saying, but he couldn’t really contribute anything to the conversation about makeup.

“Tuck your lips in so you don’t get foundation in your mouth.”

“What?” He jerked away right as you lifted the small dish you had with what he assumed was foundation.

“I don’t think you want to eat makeup, do you?” You chuckled and pat him on the cheek. “Tuck your lips in.” Doing as you asked, Sukuna flinched when you gripped the back of his head. “Try not to move too much, I want it to be even.”

As you applied the foundation and subsequently the concealer and powder, Sukuna barely moved. In fact, he barely breathed. You had leaned in far closer than you’ve ever been to him, your breath lightly fanning over his face as you worked to smooth everything out.

The hand on the back of his head dipped down to rest at the base of his neck, your body coming to lean more onto him as time went by. You were speaking, Sukuna could hear it, but he wasn’t responding. The excuse was he didn’t want to mess you up, but in truth he couldn’t find any words to say.

“Look at you!” Holding up a mirror for him, you laughed at his shocked face. “How do you like it?”

“I look so flat.” Turning his head side to side, Sukuna lifted a hand to touch his face.

“Don’t touch it, you’ll mess it up!” Snatching his hand away, you held it tightly in your grasp. Sukuna was thankful for the layer of makeup he had on now, no one could see his blush.

“What’s next? This eyeshadow shit?” He picked up a product on a whim, opening it up and staring at it. “Why’s there only two colors? Why are both of them brown?”

“That’s contour, we’ll get to that! This is the eyeshadow!”

Putting eyeshadow on Sukuna was harder than both of you thought. Not used to the feeling of the brush, he twitched every time it was swiped across his eyelid. Through plenty of trial and error, and many times of you telling him to just take a deep breath, you got through it.

“I’m gonna have to cut out so much of you flinching.” You teased, checking the camera to make sure everything was still working.

“I don’t get how you can do this shit, it’s fucking awful.” All Sukuna wanted to do was rub his eyes and face until his skin went raw.

“We aren’t even at the worst part yet: eyeliner.” Taking a seat, you lifted up a simple black pen.

“Oh god.” Hanging his head, Sukuna said a quick prayer for his eyes before straightening up and taking a deep breath.

“Sukuna, I gotta ask you something.”

“What is it?” Cracking an eye open, you were looking at him with your lip caught between your teeth.

“Can I...I need to sit in your lap to do eyeliner.” Sukuna audibly and quite loudly gasped in shock, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. “When I help my friends with eyeliner I sit in their laps! It’s just easier that way!”

“I-I uhm- okay?” He eventually forced the word out, copying your movements and turning his chair to face yours. “What uh- what should I…?”

“Sit still.” Pulling your chair flush with his, you pushed Sukuna’s legs closed and scooted up his thighs until your butt was firmly seated on him. Wrapping an arm around his shoulder, you uncapped the eyeliner. “There, now I can get started.”

Sukuna was in so much shock, he didn’t move. Even when the eyeliner tickled the inner corner of his eye, even when you moved his hands to rest near your lower back so you wouldn’t slide off, even when you did the bottom lashline, he was frozen.

If this is what heaven looked like for him, he would gladly take it and never leave. Your face was so close, he could feel it even when his eyes were closed. The soft skin of your hand held his powdered cheek gently, keeping yourself steady as you drew the lines on his eyes.

“All done.” You whispered. Sukuna opened his eyes and made a noise in the back of his throat; your face was close enough that if he tried to focus too hard he’d go cross eyed. You weren’t paying attention to his reaction at all, too focused on making sure his eyes were even.

The rest of the time went by in a blur. You’d slid off his lap after that, diving right into putting more powders on his cheeks. Swiping thick gloss on his lips is what drew him out of his stupor and into another one as you once again held his chin, swiping the corner of his mouth with your thumb when you were done.

“Sukuna, you look so good!” You said with a slight whine, showing all angles of his face off to the camera before showing him. “You have to promise when you get rich and famous and become a global celebrity that you won’t forget about me.”

“Shut up, you know I won’t.” He said with a smirk, swiping the mirror from you. “(Y/N)...I look fucking hot.” Bursting into laughter, you wiped imaginary sweat off your brow.

“Well I guess I don’t have to ask how you like it!” Patting him on the back, you got up to stretch and check the camera one last time.

“Would you fuck me, ‘cause I’d fuck me.” Sukuna said to himself, striking a few poses in the mirror and for the camera. “Hey, you watching this video you better fucking share this with all your friends. Everyone needs to see how hot I am.”

“We should have ordered you some clothes, turned you into an Instagram baddie!” You teased from behind the camera.

“Please, I don’t need fancy clothes when I’m this sexy.” Running a hand through his hair, Sukuna pointed the mirror at you. “Be honest (Y/N), you wanna date me right now. I look so hot, I bet I’m gonna have thousands of DM’s.” Sukuna’s confidence was the highest it's ever been around you. For some reason, the makeup gave him more assurance.

“Well let me know when to schedule a date with you then, I’d love to grab dinner sometime.”

“I’ll have my assistant pencil you in.” He joked, looking back at himself in the mirror. Sitting back down, you ended the video and made Sukuna wave to the camera. Not turning off the lights you used to film, you made him snap several pictures with you.

“This video was so much fun, Sukuna, thank you!” Rocking back and forth in your seat, you had a demure look while you fiddled with your phone. “And I wasn’t joking about dinner. I really like you, Sukuna.” That made Sukuna stop in his tracks, nearly throwing the mirror down in shock as he turned to look at you.

“Huh?!”

“I-I mean- I mean I like hanging out with you!” Obviously embarrassed, you leaped from your seat and began turning the filming lights off, pointedly avoiding his gaze. Both yours and Sukunas faces were burning with embarrassment, awkwardly not looking at each other.

“(Y/N)...” Sukuna half stood from his chair, forcing himself to move despite how awkward he felt. “I-”

“Let’s wash off that makeup now, I bet it’s uncomfortable.” Keeping your eyes trained on the floor, you went to the door. “I’ll show you what to use in the bathroom.”

The tension in the air was thick after that, and it remained that way for a few days after. Sukuna knew what he heard, he saw how your face looked as you said you liked him, he could hear the sincerity in your voice. But it obviously wasn’t something you were ready to say, as evident as you not texting him as much as you usually did.

When the video went up, Sukuna immediately felt butterflies in his stomach all over again watching it. Reminded of how close you were to him made him ache to have you near him, and seeing you sitting on his lap had another feeling rising in his stomach, warming him up in an embarrassing way.

He patrolled the comments as usual, but there were no mean ones that he could yell at. All of them were screaming about how the video just confirms that the two of you are dating, and surprisingly they weren’t calling out him for looking like he was in love with you.

The comments teased you this time, keen longtime viewers of yours pointing out specific timestamps where you looked embarrassed or looked like you wanted to kiss him. Sukuna checked out every single one, liking the comment for showing him that what you said earlier wasn’t a mistake.

Ever since that day, it seemed like you were promoting on Instagram and Twitter a lot more. Sukuna already had notifications turned on for all your socials and there was a definite uptick in your content posted to those platforms.

There were more sponsored posts and polls posted asking your followers for style advice, and which beauty items they preferred more. Sukuna was happy to see you got an increase in brand deals from the video you did together, a video that had now easily reached five million views and counting. He congratulated you whenever he saw a sponsored post, sending you cute little emojis along with the praise.

All week you had been hinting that there was a big announcement coming, a major event in your life that you were so excited to share with everyone. Sukuna, along with all your other followers, ate up all the crumbs you left throughout the week. Many suspected you were going to go work for a designer label, while others assumed you’d announce a sudden marriage.

(Y/N): Sukuna, check Instagram!

You texted him in the evening on Friday, but he didn’t need the update. He was already on your page when the post was dropped, waiting impatiently for the picture to load.

“A TV show, huh?” As he read the promo photo, he smiled. Appearing on a TV show was a big opportunity for you, one that was sure to lead to many more. Your role wasn’t stated in the photo, but your promo picture was a professional one no doubt taken at a studio.

“Wait, what?” When Sukuna got to the caption, he took a pause. Why were you going on a dating show? He read the words over and over, hoping for a different outcome each time. But there was no denying you’d be going on a dating show.

Checking out the show's page, Sukuna let out a groan. All the male contestants were hot and not even he could deny it. Some had muscles like he did, others were more unconventionally attractive.

Sukuna: you’re going on a dating show?

It took him a while to text you back. In fact, it took nearly thirty minutes for him to text you. Sukuna had gone through all five stages of grief several times, coming back to being in denial over and over again.

Dragging his feet to his kitchen, he grabbed a bottle of wine that one of his rich clients at the gym gifted him. Popping the cork, he collapsed onto his couch and took a long drink from the bottle.

(Y/N): yeah, I’m super nervous!

Sukuna: I bet

Oh, did he fucking bet. He’d gone through all the male contestants' Instagram pages, trying to talk them down in an attempt to lessen the blow that he could potentially lose you to one of them. Why did he have to wait so long to confess to you? Now the chance was gone, possibly forever.

(Y/N): what do you think about the show? I was kind of scared to take the deal

You didn’t want to know how he really felt.

Sukuna: it’s a great opportunity, great for exposure and it’s a lot of money

(Y/N): that’s true!! I’ll have to treat you to dinner with my first TV check!

Just great, a chance for you to gush about whoever you met on the dating show. Taking another long drink from the bottle, Sukuna crumpled even more into his couch. Back were the stages of grief, each emotion washing over him until he mustered up the courage to do something about it.

“Hello?” You answered the phone, confused as to why Sukuna called you instead of replying to your messages.

“(Y/N).” Sukuna said your name firmly, honing in on a spot in the ceiling. Swallowing around a growing lump in his throat, Sukuna forced the next words out. “I like you. I-I really, really like you.”

“What?” He could hear you gasp over the phone.

“I know, what kind of asshole confesses to you when you’re about to go on a TV dating show?” He chuckled, taking a deep breath. “But it’s true. I wanna be your boyfriend, (Y/N). I know it’s too late to back out of the show but-”

“Sukuna-”

“No, let me say this. I know it’s too late to back out, and-”

“Sukuna!”

“And I don’t want to hold you back from finding someone better suited-”

“Sukuna!”

“Better suited for you than me. I’m just a dumb, muscled up chump that-”

“Sukuna I’m a stylist, not a contestant!” You were finally able to get a word in, face flushed from the sudden onslaught of emotions going through you. Sukuna was silent on the other end, mouth hanging open as he processed the words.

“Y-you’re a...a stylist? So you won’t be dating any of them?” He whispered after a few moments, the shock starting to wear off and being replaced with humiliation.

“Yeah, I’ll be on the styling team.” Your voice also dropped to a whisper, the weight of his words beginning to settle down on the both of you.

“Oh god.” Putting the bottle down, Sukuna slapped himself in the forehead. He had never felt like a bigger idiot than in this moment. “Sorry, I’m so sorry, just- just forget it.”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t want to forget it. I...I want you to be my boyfriend too, Sukuna.” There was a pregnant pause, and you could practically hear Sukuna’s brain working overdrive.

“Let’s go out on a date!” He shouted, pushing himself off the couch and to a shaky stand. “I’m free whenever, let’s go on a date!” The alcohol was definitely affecting him more than he first thought, and Sukuna fell back down onto the couch.

“Really? Okay, how about tomorrow? That’s like the only day with good weather for the rest of the week.”

“I’ll pick you up at noon.”

Sleeping restlessly through the night, Sukuna woke up way earlier than his alarm. Taking an obscene amount of time getting ready, he was still early to your house. Taking a lap around the block, he went to a flower shop and bought you a handful of flowers.

“Hi.” Your voice was soft, almost meek as you entered his car.

“Hey. I got you these.” Handing you the flowers, Sukuna bit his lip nervously.

“That’s so sweet, thank you!” Gently hugging them to your chest, your nerves began to melt away and you smiled, making Sukuna smile as well.

Sukuna once again had you pick the cafe you were going to. This one was in a bustling downtown street, not in the middle of the countryside, and as you two walked down the street there were couples passing you left and right.

Snagging an outdoor seat, Sukuna went inside to order for you. This cafe, unlike the last, actually served coffee and Sukuna was quick to get a large cup of it. Buying a few croissants cutely decorated with various creams, he went back outside.

“Say, you’re really cute, why don’t we sit and chat for a bit?” An unknown man was standing near your table, and Sukuna caught the tail end of his sentence.

“N-no, I’m good.” Your eyes were glued to your lap, obviously uncomfortable with the attention you were receiving.

“Aw, really? A pretty face like yours shouldn’t be all alone!” The man had a sleazy grin on his face, visibly eyeing you up in a salacious manner. “My name is-”

“Baby, who’s this guy?” Sukuna had had enough. Stepping right up to the table, he nearly slammed the tray in his hands down on the table. Your head shot up, relief flashing across your face.

“Who are you?” The man scoffed, curling his lip in disgust.

“I’m their boyfriend. Who the fuck are you?” Puffing up his chest a little bit, Sukuna stared the man down.

“Boyfriend? They didn’t say anything about having a boyfriend.” The man attempted to look at you again, but Sukuna beat him to it and caught your eye instead.

“Geez baby, I know we had that fight before we came but I’m hurt! If I get rid of this creep, will you call me your boyfriend again?” Laying a heavy hand on the man's shoulder, Sukuna gave it a squeeze.

“Y-you’re always gonna be my boyfriend, dummy.”

“That just warms my heart!” Sighing loudly, Sukuna gave the man a not so subtle push away from the table. “Well, you heard ‘em. Get lost, you worthless sack of shit.” Grumbling, the man walked away and Sukuna took his rightful seat next to you.

“Thank you.” Immediately, you latched onto him, squeezing his arm in a tight hug as you pressed your face into his shoulder.

“It’s okay, I’m here.” Wrapping you up more tightly in a hug, Sukuna pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “I would have beat him up if you wanted. Men are fucking disgusting.”

“Sukuna, you are a man.” You laughed lightly.

“Exactly my point.” Rubbing a hand on your back, Sukuna picked up one of the croissants. “I hope you like these because I can already tell it’ll be too sweet for me.” You laughed again and sat up, keeping your face close to his.

“I have something sweet for you too, I hope you like it.”

“What is it?” Quirking a brow, Sukuna jumped when you planted your lips on his. The kiss didn’t last long and the taste of your lip balm and feel of your lips was permanently engraved into Sukunas brain.

“There.” Your cheeks were absolutely on fire, shame rolling off of you in waves at having your first kiss in a crowded cafe on a busy day in the city. It wasn’t even a particularly romantic setting, but something spurred you to do it.

“W-what the hell! You can’t just do that!” Sukuna gasped, his own cheeks burning a deep, scalding red. “You gotta warn a guy first!” His dramatics were drawing attention from the other patrons, making the situation even worse.

“Sshh, you’re being too loud!”

“Like I care! Kiss me again, I’m ready this time!” Grabbing you by the shoulders, Sukuna tried to kiss you.

“W-wait, there’s people watching!”

“I don’t give a fuck who’s watching!” Grabbing your chin, Sukuna kissed you much firmer than when you kissed him. It lasted longer as well, bordering on too long for what is accepted in public. “There.” Pulling away slightly out of breath, Sukuna sat back in his seat and took a sip of his coffee.

“You’re so embarrassing.” You whined, hiding your face in your hands and hitting Sukuna with your head.

“All I’m hearing is how great of a boyfriend I am.”

“No you’re not.” You countered, getting wrapped in a side hug by Sukuna.

“It’s debatable.” Picking up the croissant he dropped, Sukuna took a bite. “Hm, this is sweet but not as sweet as that kiss you gave me.”

“Sukuna!”

#jujutsu kaisen #ryomen sukuna #sukuna x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen scenarios #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #jujutsu kaisen imagines

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iamacolor · 2 years

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I might not be the only one to think this but I believe this show (eaw) would have been so much better if it had a second season or at least a few more episodes than what we'll end up with. If the writer(s) had more time to develop certain arcs or relationships, some parts of the show would make a lot more sense. I didn't get this sudden minwoo redemption arc. Where did it come from? What bothered me the most was nothing led to it. No clues, hints, nothing! It just kinda appeared out of nowhere. Plus, Minwoo should have remained a bad guy. I don't buy his sudden change :/ And tbh, I don't understand why so many writers (this goes for any show, not only dramas) want to give their villains backstories. Every once in a while, it doesn't hurt to have a character that's just mean, no explanation needed. I was disappointed when I saw that happen because the beginning of the show was so promising. Another thing that's been bothering me for quite some time now is Tae Su Mi's character and her arc (I have no better word sorry). Wish we had more time to dive deep into her world. When we had the flashbacks to her pregnancy/uni days, it was nice. But then, we get nothing. How are we supposed to be interested in her story/relationship with Youngwoo when we get crumbs? When she went to visit Youngwoo's father with that US job offer, I was curious. I wanted to see if the father would push his daughter to go to the US or if he would be too torn to do so. Instead, we get one question and then it gets swept under the rug. These last few episodes were kind of meh and I'm disappointed :(

hello anon! yes it's become clear that there is no way to resolve everything without rushing over things and that it's going to be done hastily and that it's already quite messy with the way the writer dragged some stuffs, especially the tae sumi plot which as of now is barely a plot we only got youngwoo telling her she was her daughter and tae sumi going to see her father but on youngwoo's side nothing new has happened and we've never even seen her think about it or talk about it to geurami or anything like that and as you pointed out even her father mentioned nothing - so if you stick to youngwoo's point of view tae sumi's story is a thing of the past and it has no consequences on her life which is insane since it's the plot with the highest stakes and ye sit'll come back next week but it should've been woven into the story more - and even if minwoo has a "deal" with tae sumi nothing significant has come off of it so we could just erase the tae sumi plot and it'd be basically the same show which is such an odd writing choice??). but at this point I feel like it's not so much that the show needs to be longer it's that the writer couldn't really handle all of her own elements and maybe because it's her first drama (and @ has made several posts over the last couple of weeks pointing out how probably because the writer is more used to writing movies rather than a story as long as a 16 episodes drama requires she struggles with filling her story all the way and pacing her character's actions and notably the balance between minwoo's vilain acts and tae sumi's impact) she's still following a fairly typical kdrama type of story and shape of plots etc but this doesn't really fit all the new narrative and directing choices that come with having a protagonist like youngwoo and it feels a bit like falling back on something comfortable that you know the audience already knows but that won't be seen as something to criticise ( I feel like she's just ticking boxes that I don't like and that make things worse but I'm not sure how a korean audience reacts to these types of plots and twists but I'm guessing they're just used to it and it's just how the genre goes). this is something that the producers, the writer, the team behind the show should've worked through differently and planned better since the beginning of the show so that we didn't need to wait until the last week for all of this to come out and so that I wouldn't have genuinely forgotten about the journalist investigating tae sumi or that the ceo was plotting against her until they showed them to us in the latest episode after not mentioning it for so long...

as for minwoo's "redemption" it doesn't even feel like a redemption to me it's just that he's suddenly nice to sooyeon and that he somehow doesn't mind that junho's seeing youngwoo (the fact that we're now seeing minwoo understand the pressure junho put on youngwoo better than junho himself... who thought this through) but other than that??? the scene of him raising volume on the TV when they spoke about tae sumi and youngwoo walked past just to get a reaction put of her clearly showed he has not given up on that so?? if they wanted him to have a roper redemption arc they should've started earlier or made him less of a "vilain" so that we wouldn't mind him so much or as you've said just let him be as he was lol. tbh if he wants to be nicer to some people ok maybe I don't need an explanation for that but you can't tell me sooyeon could genuinely like him just because of that

I didn't mind all of that too much until this week because then they messed up with junho and youngwoo in a way that just felt wrong based on what they built their relationship on and what we knew of them and because most of us were focused on the romance (because as we pointed out aside from the cases they handle each episode that was the only real continuous story lol) now all the flaws are becoming more obvious (and it's not too say it hasn't been a good show, it's just less innovative, balanced and well-planned that the first few weeks led us to believe)

#extraordinary attorney woo #anonymous #I've got mail

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facelessfrey · 2 years

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I’m thinking about Roswell and Motherland Fort Salem again....haha

I just feel like Motherland works in so many ways that I wish Roswell did, that it has/had the potential to but wasted it.

Like obviously I’ve been talking about how I feel like Motherland handled Raelle missing for half the season compared to Roswell and Alex. And now that we have Raelle back and her and Scylla are engaged, I know what I want to happen from this eventual Malex reunion. But just...all along, it was so much better with everyone knowing that Raelle was missing. I mean, granted Raelle is the lead of the show really and Alex is clearly not that according to Roswell writers, but you know, he’s not. But still, having everyone know Raelle was missing and even though they had a lot else going on, there was always some sense of urgency to get Rae back, especially from Scylla. We’re getting it a bit from Michael now but imagine if we’d had that all season long. Imagine if he had gone undercover with Bonnie and Clyde to try and find clues to where Alex was. I just feel like it would have made a lot more sense and felt less like stalling. If they actually built Alex’s disappearance into the mystery of what Bonnie, Clyde and Tesca were up to, that would have maintained his presence in the narrative and kept some sense of urgency, even if it took a while to unravel all the clues. I don’t know, they better have one hell of a reunion when we get to it.

But aside from that aspect, I just feel like Motherland excels in other ways too. A big frustration of mine with Roswell has always been the lack of threat against them, the lack of real stakes, the pacing. While I liked Jones, I think the biggest threat they ever had was Noah just because they knew so much less and the violation of body/mind control felt the scariest. But they had Jesse Manes and did next to nothing with him. Sure he supposedly had a bomb to kill aliens at the end of season two but there was so little real story leading up to that. No one was worried about such a thing until the last two episodes. It was such a weak story in a mess of a season. But he could have been such a great villain rather than just a despicable man. Project Shepherd could have been a real ongoing threat instead of just Jesse in his bunker or his severely understaffed prison with just Flint for a lackey. There’s never been a real threat to the aliens being found out by the government etc. And then you have the supposed Dark Triad where two out of the three are...not a threat and the third is just...dull?

With Motherland, the Spree in the first season were genuinely frightening with their suicide balloons and infiltration and face changing. And while we knew they were fighting against conscription of Witches there were so many more layers to unpack there and then they were getting confused with the Camarilla, who are genuinely terrifying witch hunters.

The Camarilla who are a very real threat and have infiltrated the government, putting the lives of our main characters and all witches in danger. And Hearst with his vocal chord stealing and using against them and Silver becoming President, the stakes are super high, especially going into the final two episodes with our main unit turning themselves in.

I just...I feel no such stakes from Roswell and never really have aside from maybe a few points with Noah and a tiny bit with Jones. But Project Shepherd or fucking Deep Sky could have been real genuine government threats the way the Special Unit was in the original show and they just...weren’t. And it’s a shame. I’ve never once felt like our aliens were in real danger of being exposed aside from maybe in the teen flashback when Rosa died. And that feels like it should be integral to the story, especially since they do bring it up a lot for it never actually being a real problem in the narrative.

And then there’s the relationships. Raelle and Scylla are the main ship of course in Motherland so they get all the good angst and focus, but they, like Malex, have been apart a lot but they’ve never tried to bring in third parties for extra unnecessary drama. And they’ve always let them have these great reunions that feel so earned even if they’ve spent entire seasons technically apart. And then Abigail and Adil are technically a more secondary ship but they’ve had plenty of focus as well and so much growth both individually and as a couple, even including Khalida feeling like family to Abigail at this point. It’s all really well done. And aside from the romantic relationships, the unit are so close and their friendship and sense of found family is so strong in a way that Roswell just fails on so much, and characters like Adil and Scylla and Anacostia and even Alder etc just slot into that so well.

Maybe it’s because there’s more of a sense of character hierarchy that makes it work because all of the Roswell characters are kind of fighting each other for screen time instead of naturally slotting into their rightful places. But even when all of the Roswell characters, particularly this season and last are working together, they still all feel so separate and their are so many individual friendships that are lacking.

Liz and Maria should be best friends, they should constantly be checking in with each other and they have maybe like one or two crumbs of scenes together a season. Liz and Alex are supposed to be friends and they’ve had like five scenes together in four seasons. Maria and Alex are supposed to be best friends, which they did okay with in the first part of season one and then made it weird and then never really repaired that friendship in any meaningful way on screen. It took till literally this season for people to actually acknowledge that Michael and Alex are a serious thing. Max and Alex literally didn’t have a scene together until last season. Kyle and Alex’s friendship was done so well in season one and then has just disappeared entirely since. Maria rarely interacts with Max. Maria rarely interacts with Kyle. They made such a big thing of Rosa being Kyle’s secret sister and then they’ve had like maybe four scenes together. Rosa and Michael are great but they rarely get to interact. I don’t think Rosa and Alex have ever had a scene together. Even like Maria and Isobel and Rosa had such a great thing going last season but basically nothing this season. There’s just such a lack of consistency, it’s infuriating. It makes any kind of relationship arc really hard to track or invest in.

Whereas on Motherland, there are such distinct journeys for all of the relationships. The romantic ones obviously, but also Raelle and Abigail, the Bellweather unit as a whole, Tally with Alder, Abigail with Alder, Petra with Alder, Abigail and Scylla, Tally and Scylla, Khalida and Abigail, Anacostia and Scylla, Anacostia and Alder, Anacostia and the unit etc etc. And it feels like all of that is coming together in the final season. Anacostia is using Scylla’s work, Tally and Abigail are trusting Alder, Abigail and Tally are letting Scylla in and boding with her etc.

The characters on Roswell are so good and the relationship are there to work with and yet....I’m constantly shocked when Liz actually talks to people other than Max...

Sigh...I feel like there’s about four people who might actually crossover with both shows and understand all of this but I just...have feelings. And I don’t want either show to be ending but I’m grateful to Motherland for being as good as it has been with what it’s had to work with.

(also...the mythology and world building on Motherland...so much better and less messy than Roswell. At least they bothered to create a witch language rather than name people Jones and Bonnie and Clyde and call an alien planet the Oasis)

(also, Motherland only has ten episodes to work with instead of 13 and they usually do better to tell a much tighter story that doesn’t feel like they just drop things half way or rush other things)

Okay...I’m done with my rant now.

#roswell new mexico #motherland fort salem

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absolutebl · 3 years

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This Week in BL

May 2021 Wk 3

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

It’s a cray cray Friday when Vietnam gets its eng subs up before GMMTV Thailand. What alter-reality are we in? Well, the Vietnamese offerings are better right now anyway. (Oooo, feel that burn.)

Ongoing Series - Thai

Top Secret Together Ep 2 - pulping it up in the best possible way. Sure sound and production values are pants, and in classic Thai fashion the editing in post is exacerbating (rather than fixing) pacing issues, but it’s still CUTE AF. I don’t even mind the added university storyline, because they’ve got good chemistry (and a confident gay fresher after a panicked gay hazer is an old favorite... what can I say, SOTUS was my first love). We aren’t spending too much time with any one couple, so it’s weighted a lot better than Brothers was, but also character development is slow.

Siew Sum Noi Ep 2 - Unfortunately, it’s just too hard to find, plus no subs. I’m dropping it in the hopes it comes back on my radar some day.

Y-Destiny Ep 8 - (Thurs) It’s rough having a ghost boyfriend, half your friends are scared, the other half think you’re crazy, and kissing shortens your lifespan. This was a cute couple even if I wasn’t wild about the surrounding story.

Close Friend Ep 5: (Dear My Star/JimmyTommy) - about high school penpals. It had to rely entirely on voice over work as the actors only meet face to face at the end. It’s a good thing they are appealing screen presences on their own, with good vocal control. It’s hard to imagine any other BL pair carrying this kinda plot. It’s by far my favorite of the series so far, and I’m not even a big JimmyTommy fan.

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 7 - no subs. Do we care? Not really. Because we have...

Nitiman Ep 3 - currently my favorite out of Thailand. It’s the university Thai BL i’ve been waiting for since... when was the last good one? My Engineer? Yowza. Anyway we got: head on my shoulder, baby is a floppy drunk (but still wants to be in control), proximity alert, boyfriend’s closet, seme gets seriously jelly, and a cute twist on feeding him. There’s something fun and complex about Jin’s character. He’s not a panicked bi. He knows exactly what’s going on, he just hasn’t decided if he wants Bb or not. He clearly enjoys being looked after, the compliments, and the attention, but he’s not sure if he’s going to like what happens if he gives in. I like that twist on the usual tsundere uke archetype a lot, cautious rather than willfully obtuse or freaked out. We can see Jin realizing in stages: I like this person, I like that they like me, I like the romantic attentiveness. But in the background is... do I actually want to f*k him? It’s a dynamic we don’t often see on BL.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 10 fin - the most ridiculous show using BLs worst tropes in a sort of weird smoothie of bitter greens and too ripe banana. The ending was the sappiest cheesiest thing ever, like cheese syrup tapped from the cheese tree. So of course I loved it, but I’m pretty sure I giggled through all the bits meant to be profound. Because, in the end, to tolerate this show at all, you just can’t take ANY of it seriously. RECOMMENDED (with some SERIOUS reservations and trigger warnings.) Full review here.

Be Loved in House: I Do (Taiwan) Ep 1-2 - I don’t mind a damaged seme character but this one is a bit weird for me. Like creepy Cheese in the Trap level weird. On the bright side, the story has given our tsundere uke good motivation for his angst and great existing friendships, loyalty, and likability. Plus I’m invested in the cafe owner/innocent puppy side dishes. So if it’s only the seme character I’m not jiving with, and he’s the most established actor, it should all turn out fine. I believe in you, Taiwanese BL.

Papa & Daddy (Taiwan) Ep 6 fin - speaking of belief. This such a good show but they gave us a cliffhanger ending. Now we must hope against hope for season two. That’s never guaranteed with Taiwan tho. So, I’m docking a few points and saying, RECOMMENDED so long as you realize it’s a cliffhanger.

Love is Science? (Taiwan) Ep 1-9 (BL subplot) - this is a good het romance, but the fact that the BL subplot is a beautifully acted disaster bi + confident gay means you’re hearing about it whether you want to or not. Plus they just added in some GL! Come on! I gotta support Taiwan normalizing queer to this extent. They are fighting the good fight and if I also have to watch a career lady and her much younger softest straight boi get it on, too? Twist my arm with that service sub subtext. Go on Taiwan, TWIST IT. It’s on Viki. Join the revolution. * Incidentally if you actually like the D/s het dynamic of this show, I highly recommend Japanese Kimi wa Petto - career woman keeps a hot young dancer boy as a pet. Oh yes, an actual pet, that IS the pitch. Never doubt Japan when kink is on the line. It’s also on Viki. Go get your kink on, thank me later. (If it helps: That was not a request.)

Most Peaceful Place 2 (Vietnam) Ep 2 (AKA 5) - love triangles aren’t my thing, but if you’re gonna do it short form, by all means bring in the lead’s other BL pairing so the chemistry is on point. Now I've no idea who I want him to end up with. Can’t they just be in a poly triad?

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 7 - I’m still enjoying it a lot. It’s still unabashedly queer and the tension is ramping up. We now have secret identity, blackmail, femme fatale, faen fatale, and incoming seme confrontation. Best of all, the series is still airing, which makes it longer than any other Vietnamese BL I’ve seen (aside from Tein Bromance - which is just too weird to count).

Gossip - Thai BL

SEVEN PROJECT TEASERS

No one is entirely sure what Studio Wabi Sabi’s Seven Project/7Project will entail.

It might be like Close Friend (1 episode per couple, no linking),

or Y-Destiny (2 episodes per couple, loosely linked),

or The En of Love (4 episodes per couple, linked but independent consecutive stories).

They’re giving the couple’s arcs separate titles. So each one would be what? Seven Project: Once Upon a Time or the like? We’re in Taiwanese title territory people and NO ONE WANTS TO GO THERE. Anygay...

Once Upon a Time is the BounPrem (og UWMA) anchor story, and seems to be the most dramatic and likely saddest. These two can handle most of what’s thrown at them at this juncture, so it should be good.

Vs Love is a BoomPeak (og Make it Right) university vehicle. Since I thought Boom was done with our nonsense, I couldn’t be more thrilled and surprised this pair is doing another show together. I don’t think either of them are the greatest actors but I find Peak very endearing and Boom charismatic on screen, so I’ll watch.

Would You be My Love is the hotly anticipated SantaEarth launch. They’re a (cultivated) IRL ship and Earth is an established BL actor. They have great chemistry and high energy so this could be lots of fun.

We are also getting a GL from this series from established BL actresses Samantha and Pineare. Nothing teased yet on that, but I’m looking forward to this installment the most. Also curious to see how the ladies handle the branding and promo side, not to mention the culture. (Thailand variety shows gonna force *girls* to play the Pepero game?)

Secret Crush on You upcoming Thai BL with no release date, co-produced by and featuring (but NOT staring) Saint and directed by Cheewin (sigh) with all fresh faces. (Previously known as Stalker the series.) It looks like pure pulp and I’m not wild about the plot but could be better than expected as it’s adapted from a novel. Cheewin is an okay director when he has an actual story to follow.

Don’t Say No the series. Coming from the producers of TharnType this is the JaFirst vehicle many have been waiting for. Friends to lovers + a good boy/bad boy pairing on a sports romance foundation. It’s basketball so they tapped Meen as well (he’s semi-pro). The bad news? You get one guess as to who is writing the darn thing? Yep it’s MAME. So, ya know, expect some slam dunk kidnapping, a light dribbling of rape, and me turning into a basketcase. AKA...

Will I have to live blog this series in order to survive it? That seems to be the only way I can. So probably. Which means the bad sports puns will continue. Look, if I’m suffering, SO ARE YOU!

Rumors of a new YinWar vehicle The Best Story (mini series) coming in July. Also rumors that their previously announced Love Mechanics (full length series) has either been delayed, is facing money issues, or is moving studios, or all three.

Breaking News

DELAYED (I’m talking these three off the watch list until we get new airing dates)

Love Area’s release was pushed out but it got a trailer.

Golden Blood was supposed to drop Weds but comments in MDL report that it is delayed due to C19.

Love’s Outlet (Taiwan) is supposed to have started a 50 episode run (only 3-5 min each, what utter nonsense). Sadly, this delay is due to a surge in cases in Taiwan which was doing so well, but also doesn’t have many inoculations.

Bad Buddy has started workshopping at GMMTV actual.

Kang Insoo’s BTS for Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding is SO FLIPPING CUTE. You have to watch it. Trust me, I don’t rec behind the scenes stuff often.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

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sword-dad-fukuzawa · 3 years

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2021 watchlist review

So, just to finish putting 2021 behind me, here are the top anime I watched last year in no particular order. Also, I felt like talking about them. Long post ahead.

Full Metal Alchemist (both Brotherhood and 2003)

I loved both, but they're very different anime. '03 is a war story; FMAB is a battle anime that features war. If I had to make a value judgement, I'd say I enjoyed '03 better (though I did watch it before FMAB) but FMAB has more rewatch value, if only because '03 needs to be watched more or less in order and starting from the beginning makes it better.

I liked the way '03 characterized Mustang and Kimblee better out of the two; FMAB had the more satisfying and better paced ending. Also, FMAB has Ling Yao. I will always love FMAB for simply having Ling Yao. '03 wins in the "making me feel things category" because I really loved how they handled the origin of the homunculi and the story it tried to tell about human arrogance; FMAB wins best romance because I will never get over Mustang and Hawkeye, especially in the episode where they fight Envy for the last time. Jean Havoc remains my beloved no matter the adaptation.

I'd say FMA is one of those anime that was just, as a whole, extremely well-written and animated. I continue to have very mixed feelings about Roy Mustang.

Mars Red

I love this anime a normal amount, I swear. This is totally not my favorite anime of this year hands fucking down, no sir. I totally do not think about all of the characters from it daily.

.../s

MDZS Season 3

NO THOUGHTS ONLY HOW MUCH I LOVE a. WangXian, b. Xue Yang, c. the way they adapted Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao. I am very sad about how it's over, and I'm also very sad about how dirty they did Jiang Cheng, but everything else about it is glorious.

Interspecies Reviewers

I'M STONE COLD SEROUS WHEN I SAY INTERSPECIES REVIEWERS BEATS A LOT OF NON-ECCHI ANIME OUT OF THE PARK. If you're okay with seeing tits during a slice of life fantasy anime that talks frankly about sex and BDSM and is also genuinely hilarious, go watch it. It's so good.

Dr. Stone

I am very much a raging science nerd and let me tell you, this has got to be my favorite of all the ways science gets portrayed in anime. Dr. Stone is so obviously a love letter to STEM--it shows science as something hopeful and exciting, and the people who love it as all sorts of folk. It's hilarious, heartwarming, and incredibly entertaining. I binged this one in a few days.

AND SCIENCE PORTRAYAL ASIDE? THE FRIENDSHIPS N THS ANIME SOMEHOW MAKE "uwu power of friendship deus ex machina" CONVINCING. I love it.

Jujutsu Kaisen

I usually try to stay away from anime that gets a lot of hype, but man, Kaisen lives up to it. The animation is great, the characters are genuinely so loveable, and sometimes I look at Team Gojo and think that this is what Team Seven could have been. It's a little bit too big brain for me sometimes, especially the power system, but it's lovely all the same.

Hakata Tonkatsu Ramens

Got recommended this by @electrick-indigo! It's, like, what if you took found family and then did found family in a setting where murder is just...a thing that happens regularly. I adore the main character, and he's gnc as fuck. Plus the whole anime has the vibes of BSD in its earlier arcs, which I love and adore.

Promare

COMFORT MOVIE COMFORT MOVIE COMFORT MOVIE

It's a surprisingly nuanced look at societal oppression wrapped up in pretty neon colors and mecha battles. And gay. There's so much gay. I adore this movie.

Umibe no Etranger

It's an extremely good movie about two queer dudes falling in love, and the manga sequel "L'etranger du Zephyr" is just as good. I am just...very attached to Mio and Shun. They do a good job of realistically portraying queer romance and the way relationships can evolve over time, particularly in the sequel. No complaints about this one.

Heaven's Official Blessing

It's very soft and is my favorite brand of supernatural mystery solving. Like, In/Spectre wishes it had romance and mystery this good.

The Way of the Househusband

It's hilarious and a really good pick-me-up.

Dragon Pilot

Ah yes, a cute anime about girls that pilot dragons by getting vored. It does not make more sense in context. Watch it anyway because all the characters are so endearing.

Horimiya

A romance anime that I really enjoyed! It's just teenagers being cute and in love!

Fuse: Memories of a Hunter Girl

This one is an interesting story about furries and a girl with a bazooka. It feels a little bit like a fever dream, in retrospect.

#full metal alchemist #mars red #mdzs #dr stone #interspecies reviewers #jujutsu kaisen #heaven's official blessing #way of the house husband #dragon pilot #horimiya #fuse memories of the hunter girl #umibe no etranger #hakata tonkatsu ramens

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rosiehunterwolf · 3 years

Text

little things

Prompts: Hugs and Crying

Word Count: 3,251

Characters: Lloyd and Kai

Timeline: Immediately after episode 18 (Child's Play)

Trigger Warnings: Trauma, Brief panic attacks

Summary: "Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things."

-Kurt Vonnegut

Lloyd’s tired of being left behind. How is he meant to be the green ninja when he always has to work harder, train better, and wait longer to go on missions with his team? He wants nothing more than to be their equal.

At least, that’s what he thought he wanted.

Read on FFN.net

Read on Ao3

Tumblr work under the cut

The trip back to the Destiny’s Bounty that night was thick with tension. No one spoke, but Lloyd could feel Kai’s gaze boring into him.

He wished the fire ninja would look at something else. He didn’t want to think about what he was looking at.

It had been Lloyd’s choice, and he knew it. Not that his range of options had exactly been wide when a huge, ninja-eating monster had been looming over them, but he had made the choice nonetheless.

He just hadn’t expected it to be like this.

He had thought that not being a little boy anymore meant he got to become stronger, fight better, and, of course, accompany the ninja on their missions.

But he hadn’t thought about the way his legs would become so much longer suddenly, forcing him to concentrate so he wouldn’t trip. Or how his hair would dangle too-long in his face, or how the green gi, on which the sleeves and pant legs had been rolled up a ridiculous amount of times, now fit perfectly. Reminding him too much of who he was and what he was meant to do.

Most of all, though, he hadn’t expected the gaping ache in his chest, like someone had ripped out his heart. He didn’t understand where it came from or what it meant, only that the sparkling display racks in the windows of Doomsday Comix had never felt more distant than they did now.

Their arrival at the monastery couldn’t come soon enough, and Lloyd began to dart down the hall, anxious to get away from the prying eyes of the others. Before he could get far, however, a hand snatched his wrist, and he looked back to see Kai staring at him apprehensively.

“Hey, bud. We’re here for you. You don’t need to go running off on your own.”

Lloyd shook his head. “I’m not. I just wanna go take a shower.” The voice that came from his throat wasn’t his, it was too deep. He didn’t even recognize himself anymore.

Lloyd repressed a shiver of dread, realizing Kai was still looking at him expectantly. “I got… there was a lot of rubble and dust when the Grundle caved in the roof, I just wanna get clean. I’m fine.”

Kai stared at him for a long moment, and for once Lloyd couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. Relenting, he let out his breath, dropping Lloyd’s wrist. “You’re not. But whatever.”

Lloyd merely nodded, realizing that wasn’t the most reassuring answer he could give, but being reluctant to hear his own voice again.

Forcing himself to turn away, he headed down the hallway, passing the ninja’s cabin and heading towards his room a little way down.

Uncle Wu had cleared out the small storage room for him that first night he had stayed on the Bounty, and it had been his ever since. He had appreciated the gesture, to have his own space away from the others, and it had always been a comforting little place for him.

But now, as he gazed around at it, the room itself wasn’t the only thing that was small anymore. The bed in the corner was no longer large enough for him, the mirror mounted on the wall was too low down, the Starfarer comics piled on the nightstand were too juvenile and suddenly much less interesting.

Lloyd sighed, rubbing his hands over his eyes. There was no point lingering here. He might as well go take a shower like he had promised Kai.

But when he pulled open the drawer on his dresser, he paused, gazing down at the clothes.

Everything was too small. Of course it was.

Lloyd took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair as he tried to push down the bubbling panic in his chest.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Letting out his breath again, he grabbed a pair of old, baggy pajama shorts that had always been too big on him anyway, and an undershirt from his gi.

Slipping through the halls, he made it to the bathroom at the end of the ship and quietly pulled the door shut behind him.

As he undressed, all he could focus on was his body, how it was bigger and older and different now. He forcibly shoved the thoughts out of his head before he had a breakdown and stepped into the shower.

Lloyd turned the shower as hot as it would go, barely even noticing as the water scalded his skin. He didn’t know how long he stood there, only that the water kept getting colder and colder until his teeth were chattering. Not even bothering to wash his hair, he stepped out of the shower and grabbed a bath towel, pressing his face into it.

He couldn’t do this. He had thought he could handle it, but he couldn’t. Lloyd was barely clutching on to the last threads of his sanity, and he needed to get out of here.

Quickly changing into the shorts and undershirt, he walked over to the window and carefully pushed it open. Stars twinkled at him from the dark sky, and he glanced down. The bathroom was at the top of the ship, just behind the bridge, so it was about a twenty-foot drop to the ground- easily enough to break a leg.

Biting his lip, he grabbed onto the window frame and pulled himself out, gripping onto the side of the ship as his feet found purchase on the windowsill. As he slowly stood, he accidentally caught sight of his face in the reflection in the window and nearly slipped, gasping sharply as he just barely caught himself from falling.

Get yourself together, Lloyd. You’re still yourself, just a little older. Stop being such a crybaby.

Reaching up for the edge of the roof of the bridge, he hauled himself up and crawled back from the edge a bit. Staring out over the trees, the soft glow of the city in the distance, he glanced down at his hands. Fingers too long, palms too rough.

He hadn’t known it was going to be like this. All he had done was age up a few years. It was a small sacrifice to make, seeing as the Grundle would’ve killed them all otherwise. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. Lloyd shouldn’t have been acting so selfishly.

He wrapped his arms around his legs, curling up into a ball.

For the first time that night, Lloyd let himself cry.

---

Kai paced back and forth across the hallway. “Ugh! Why do I let him leave? I know he always locks himself in his room and never comes back to talk to me!”

Zane frowned. “I know this is difficult and confusing for you, Kai- it is for all of us. But Lloyd’s always been much less straightforward than you. Perhaps we should try a less direct approach.”

“You’re saying I should just let him sulk alone for the rest of the night?”

“What I’m saying is that maybe we should just give him a little time to himself, time to process, before we all go barging in to speak to him.”

“Just because Lloyd thinks he wants to be alone doesn’t mean he should be. Isolation isn’t going to solve anything.”

“Kai,” Cole sighed, “that’s not what we’re saying at all. This is just a sensitive situation for Lloyd, and we don’t want to provoke him the wrong way.”

“A sensitive situation?” Kai barked. “Don’t you think I know that? But I’m telling you, he needs someone! Don’t you see? That’s what he does! He tells us he’s fine, but he’s not! Of course he’s not! And- and I want to help him, but I can’t. When he needs me most, I have no idea what to do. Augh, why did I let him come with us? I knew it was too dangerous!”

“Kai,” Zane put a cool hand on his shoulder. “Calm down. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“Nothing I could’ve done?” Kai blinked up at him through watery eyes. “I was supposed to protect him.”

Nya squeezed his hand. “You can’t blame yourself for this, Kai. You can’t.”

“I’m not trying to. It’s just… hard. This isn’t some small little mishap we can go back and fix. This is big.”

“I know, but he’s strong. He’s going to get through it. I think Zane’s right, we should tread lightly. Although,” she paused, her brow furrowing, “I am starting to get pretty worried about him. He’s been in there a long time.”

“Wait,” Jay frowned. “In his room?”

“No, the bathroom.”

Kai’s head snapped towards her. “Wait, what? Did he go in there again?”

Nya shook her head. “I’ve been watching the door. He never left after he went in the first time.”

Cole glanced between them. “How long has he been in there?”

Kai’s gaze darted anxiously towards the bathroom door. “He went in there to take a shower nearly an hour ago.”

Cole’s eyes darkened. “Yeah, that’s too long. Let’s go.”

They hurried over to the bathroom door and the others hovered anxiously behind as Cole rapped his knuckles on the wood, leaning his ear against it. “Lloyd, you okay in there?”

There was no answer.

Cole knocked harder, and Kai could feel the anxiety building. “Lloyd? Bud? We just wanna talk.”

“Okay,” Nya breathed after a moment, “Lloyd’s as stubborn as a mule, but he doesn’t purposely worry us like this. Something’s wrong.”

“Zane,” Cole said, the struggle to keep calm evident in his voice. “Can you pick up anything?”

Zane stilled for a moment. “My sensors don’t detect any sign of movement.”

Kai’s heart skipped a beat. “Get me in.” Shoving past the others, he lunged for the door handle, yanking on it- but it didn’t budge. “He locked it! Why would he lock it?”

“We need a lock pick!” Jay yelped. “Nya, do you have a bobby pin?”

“I can get one, I’ll be right back!”

“Lloyd!” Cole yelled, banging on the door. “Open the door! Don’t do anything dumb!”

“Talk to us, bud!” Kai cried. “Please!”

“I’m back,” Nya huffed, skidding across the floor and holding out the pin. Jay snatched it from her hand and jiggled it in the lock, gritting his teeth. The others waited apprehensively as the seconds ticked by.

Jay pulled back with a sigh. “It’s not working.”

“Lloyd,” Kai moaned, “Open up!”

Cole glanced at them. “Should I break the door?”

Zane hesitated, then nodded. “Do it. We can always replace it later. Lloyd is more important.”

Everyone except for Cole stepped away from the door. The earth ninja held up his fists, and they glowed amber, the light spreading down his forearms.

“Stand back, Lloyd! I’m coming in!” Cole lunged forward, punching in the door and sending splinters of wood flying.

Kai darted to his side and stared into the bathroom, his breath caught in his throat.

Jay stepped around them, pulling back the shower curtain. Empty.

Just like the rest of the room.

“He’s not here?” Cole asked. “I just destroyed the door for nothing?”

“That’s impossible!” Nya yelped. “I saw him go in, and he never left! I’m positive.”

Kai’s eyes lingered on the far wall. “I know where he went.”

The others followed his gaze towards the open window, and Jay’s eyes widened. “He went out the window? That fall could seriously injure him!”

Kai shook his head. “He didn’t go down, he went up.” Glancing back at the others, he added, “Perhaps Zane had a point about the whole subtlety thing. Let me go talk to him first.”

The others exchanged reluctant glances, but stepped back.

Kai pulled himself out the window, balancing carefully as his fingers found the edge of the roof’s shingles. A chilly breeze hit him in the face, but he ignored it, hauling himself the rest of the way up with a soft grunt.

Lloyd was sitting a few feet away, curled in on himself as he stared off into the distance. Kai slowly eased his way over to him and the two sat in silence for a while.

Kai forced himself to look at the boy and felt a tug on his heartstrings. The way he sat there, so quiet and still, was as unlike Lloyd as his new appearance.

Kai shook his head. He couldn’t allow himself to think like that. No doubt Lloyd already had enough of those thoughts going through his head. This was still the same person. He was still Lloyd. He was still his little brother.

Kai leaned closer, allowing his shoulder to lightly bump against Lloyd’s. The green ninja gasped suddenly, as if just realizing he was there, and quickly scrubbed at his eyes. The action made him seem more like the young child that had been left behind. That, and the fact that he was shivering.

“Dude, you’re freezing!” He glanced down to see Lloyd was only wearing a pair of baggy shorts and a light tank top. “Why aren’t you wearing any proper clothes?”

Lloyd’s cheeks flushed, and he dipped his head, muttering under his breath.

“What?”

“I don’t have any proper clothes, okay?” More quietly, he added, “Nothing fits me anymore.”

Oh, Lloyd. “Hey, why didn’t you come to me? Y’know I’ve got way more clothes than I’ll ever wear, me and the guys would be more than willing to share stuff with you. And we’ll take you shopping, too, so you can pick out some stuff of your own. How does that sound?”

Lloyd sniffed, wiping an arm across his face. “Yeah, that sounds… that sounds good.”

“Here.” Kai slipped his sweatshirt off and draped it over Lloyd’s shoulders. “It’s not exactly warm out. Don’t make yourself sick.”

“Thanks.” Lloyd pulled the sweatshirt tighter around his shoulders, and Kai felt a small swell of relief as he noticed it was still a little big on him. So his little brother hadn’t grown up completely yet.

“Bud,” he said gently, “it’s fine if you come up here, but tell us before you do next time, okay? We were worried about you.”

Lloyd looked down, still refusing to meet his gaze. “Sorry. I just… didn’t really want anyone to follow me.”

“I know, but you can’t be alone forever. It’s not going to fix anything.”

“Being together isn’t going to fix this, either.”

Kai winced. “Not physically, no. But we’ll be here for you emotionally. We’ll help you heal.”

“But I can’t-” Lloyd stopped, sighing. “Sorry. I’m being selfish.”

“Selfish? How is any of this selfish?”

“Because! You guys were risking your lives, and I made the decision that saved you, yet I’m regretting I did!” “First of all, you’re not regretting you saved us, you’re regretting the other consequences that came out of the choice. Second, it wasn’t much of a choice at all. The Grundle backed you into a corner- literally- and that was the only logical solution at the time. It’s not fair. It shouldn’t have been you. You shouldn’t have been there. You shouldn’t have been forced to make a decision like that. But you were. So you have every right to be upset, every right to complain. That is not selfish.”

Lloyd finally turned to look at him, a helpless, floundering expression on his face.

Kai took pity on him, putting an arm around him. “Lloyd, I’m here. Whether you wanna talk, or scream, or cry, or just need someone to lean on, I’m here.”

“I… I don’t know what to do, Kai. I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

“You are. You’re still the same Lloyd, still our friend, our little brother, our charge. This changes nothing between us. We’re gonna take care of you, okay?��

Lloyd sniffed, putting his hands over his face, and Kai elbowed him gently. “It’s okay to cry, y’know. No one’s gonna judge you for it.”

“But I… I’m not a little kid anymore.”

“So? Everyone cries! It’s natural, and it doesn’t matter how old you are! I’ve cried, I’ve seen Cole cry, Jay cry, I’ve definitely seen Nya cry, and Zane- well, actually, I haven’t seen Zane cry. But that’s only because he’s a nindroid and physically can’t cry. He still gets upset sometimes, though.”

“I know, but… I just feel like I should be able to handle things better.”

“Are you crazy? I’d go insane if I suddenly just aged several years in the span of seconds. Compared to me, you’re handling it like a champ.”

Lloyd didn’t look at him. “Not really. I feel like a wreck right now.” His last words caught on a sob, and Kai glanced over at him, apprehension budding in his chest.

“Are you okay?”

Lloyd blinked rapidly, trying and failing to stop the tears spilling from his eyes. “Not really.”

“Can I hug you?”

Lloyd hesitated but nodded, and Kai wasted no time in wrapping his arms around Lloyd’s shoulders, pulling him close.

Kai didn’t know how long they sat there, but it was a while before Lloyd broke the silence. “Do you think the Final Battle is coming sooner, now that I’m older?”

“I don’t know. But whenever it is, I’m gonna be there. Even if that means I have to kick Garmadon’s ass for you.” He bit his lip, grinning sheepishly. “Shoot, I didn’t mean to say that in front of you.”

Lloyd snorted. “I already know that word.”

“Wait, who taught you that? Was it Nya? I bet it was Nya.” “It wasn’t any of you. I grew up at Darkley’s, what do you expect? That isn’t the only choice word I know.”

Kai’s eyes widened. “Don’t you dare tell Zane, he’ll have a fit.”

A brief smile flickered across Lloyd’s face, the first once Kai had seen all night.

“Hey, if I’m grown up now, I should at least get to use some bad words once in a while.”

“Not happenin’, bro,” Kai grinned. “You’re not that grown up yet.”

“I could be fifty and you’d still say that.”

“What can I say, you’ve got a baby face,” Kai smirked, putting his hands on either side of Lloyd’s head.

“Stop that,” Lloyd grumbled, pushing him away. “‘M not a baby.”

“You are, and no dumb tea can change that.”

Lloyd bit his lip, trying to look away, but Kai forced his head to turn, looking him in the eye.

“Lloyd. It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend like it’s all fine. Let it out.”

Lloyd gasped, half falling into his lap, and Kai gripped him tight. It’s gonna be okay, he told himself. He’s going to be okay. We all are.

Lloyd’s path had been difficult from the beginning. It wasn’t fair that all this had been thrown on him- he was just a kid, even now. But it had been, and Kai had an awful feeling that this wouldn’t be the worst hardship his youngest teammate would have to endure.

But next time he would do better. He was one of the four elemental masters of the elements of creation. It was his job to protect Lloyd, to keep him safe.

It made his heart break to see Lloyd, usually so spunky, so unshakable, like this, and he was going to do everything in his power to make sure it didn’t happen again.

But for now, he just hugged the green ninja.

He hoped, with time, it would be enough to heal him.

#ninjago #ninbingo #my fic #rosie writes #ninjago lloyd #ninjago kai #the 👏 show 👏 needs 👏 to 👏 give 👏 the 👏 ninja 👏 more 👏 consequences 👏 for 👏 their 👏 actions #seriously there's no way lloyd just walked the whole child's play thing off #he wasn't even phased in the next episode!#something had to happen in between change my mind #yes yes it's angsty but it had to be done #thanks for reading!#reblogs and comments greatly appreciated!

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