#things are seeming Very Obvious in retrospect

[publicuniversalenemy]

just want to assure all my friends and followers that, even though i havent been active in Ages, im still up to the usual: realizing that im more mentally ill than i initially thought, and calling aggressively heterosexual 80s singers faggots <3

[five-rivers]

Little thing inspired by various Justice League summons Danny posts I've seen about.

.

Interdimensional travel was hard.

It was a true statement, and one that, in retrospect, was obvious. Of course interdimensional travel was hard. It was reaching out of your reality and into one that had an entirely different set of rules. However, having an interdimensional portal in one's basement tended to skew one's understanding of these things. That was why it took Danny so long to realize that the Observants were actually worried about him.

"Wait," he said, looking up from the (admittedly very passive-aggressive) report the crowd of Observants had just dropped on his (already crowded) desk. "You want to change my summoning ritual because you think other dimensions might hurt my human half?"

"Some of them certainly will," said one of the Observants, testily.

"I didn't know you cared about that," said Danny, still somewhat stunned.

"We normally wouldn't," admitted the Observant, "but although the position of Ghost King is, politically, a figurehead, you are metaphysically vital to the Realms as a whole. Damage to you is to be avoided, when possible."

"Uh huh," said Danny, looking back down at the summoning ritual change paperwork. Although, through a combination of Danny's own nature and the nature of time across dimensional barriers, Danny still looked fourteen and spent a great deal of his time going to school in Amity Park, he had years of experience interpreting the Observants' paperwork under his belt. "Yeah, it's just that I don't think this is the best way to, like. Do that."

"It is the best way to protect you!" said the Observant who had, apparently, been selected as the group's spokesperson.

"Maybe," agreed Danny, who wasn't entirely sure that was true. "But I feel like some of these modifications would kind of be a problem for wherever I wound up."

"Then they ought not to summon you."

While Danny agreed with that sentiment in spirit (getting summoned was almost always inconvenient and annoying), in practice, he wasn't so sure. "I don't think there's any way to communicate that to the guys who are summoning me. Like, some of them get me with old Pariah Dark rituals. And most of them don't really care if their mistakes screw over other people, so..."

"Next to the well-being of the Realms, that is a minor concern."

Danny didn't disagree with that, but he wasn't about to waste time arguing with the Observants about it. They just didn't get it. He tapped his finger on another section that was bothering him. "Also, this seems to keep me from getting out of the summoning circle at all. If someone is summoning me to ask for help, that's going to keep me from doing much."

"It will also keep you from inadvertently exiting into a hostile environment."

"Even in my home universe?" asked Danny, pointedly. "This seems like something more geared to imprisonment than protection."

The Observants were silent.

"Oh, come on, guys, really? Again?"

The Observants scattered.

Danny sighed and picked up the paperwork. He didn't think it was all bad ideas, honestly, but he needed a second opinion that hadn't tried to stuff him in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep Mark 2.

Maybe Clockwork would look it over for him.

.

"It isn't an entirely terrible concept," said Clockwork, "except for the obvious drawbacks."

"The whole being trapped in the summoning circle bit," said Danny.

Clockwork nodded. "To be fairer than they deserve, there is no way to modify that portion of a summoning ritual in some types of universes but not others. Not from our own side of things, in any case."

"And I mostly can't get at the other side," said Danny with a groan. He perched on the back of Clockwork's chair. "I do want to make sure that I, I don't know, fit with other universes enough that I won't completely demolish them just by existing."

Clockwork hummed. "There are some ways to do that. There are drawbacks, however."

"Bigger drawbacks than accidentally nuking a planet because my radiation is different than theirs?"

"It depends on your perspective, I suppose."

Danny sighed. "Go ahead and tell me, then."

Clockwork picked up a pen. "You are a shapeshifter. You have multiple forms, one of which cannot be harmed through any normal means and which similarly would have little negative affect on the environment unless you acted to cause negative effects. Change the current ritual so that a summoning puts you in that form, and then further change it so that you cannot leave the circle unless you are in a form that will not automatically cause harm or be harmed by the laws of that universe."

"You mean my Ghost King form."

"All your forms are your Ghost King form."

"You know what I mean."

"I do," said Clockwork, smiling.

"It freaks people out, though."

"Your current form might, as you say, freak people out," said Clockwork. "If your summoners were, say, ants."

"Is that likely?"

"Not particularly. But consider the multiverse. Not all of your summoners will be human."

Danny crossed his arms, frustrated that there wasn't an easy solution. "I guess I could always shapeshift into something nonthreatening after. Hard to see if it's something safe without running into

"You can do more than that."

"I can?"

"Yes," said Clockwork, setting the pen to paper. "Let me show you."

.

The summoning circle shimmered and shivered as Constantine and Zatanna recited the chant, their voices rising and falling. Batman and other members of the League stood by, watching, waiting.

This, this ritual, wasn't their first choice. It wasn't their second, third, or fourth choice, either. But nothing else they had tried worked, and the entire world was at stake.

They were summoning the King of All Ghosts. An eldritch monstrosity that had once tried to conquer all realities. But the alternative was worse. Much worst. At least, with the King of All Ghosts, there was a chance that they could negotiate and that it'd want the Earth more or less intact for the sake of conquering it. At least, with this kind of summoning, they could offer a sacrifice, a bargain, a deal.

And if Constantine was good at anything, it was deals.

The lines of the summoning circle flared green, then pure white, and, without any other fanfare, the King of All Ghosts was there.

It filled the circle with starry darkness, struck with nebulae and aurorae. The clouds rippled as a star died near its heart, fiery cataclysms spreading throughout the being. A crown like the accretion disk of a black hole burned around its highest extremity.

Something like a voice, echoing and many-layered, emanated from the being. "Nghftùsh phlarûm âzgûm (1)." It paused, and the League felt it examine the area more closely. "Ko wgâ âzgûm nghftùsh derza. Ko gok hubhûfh fhtù gâh mglwnuh...(2)"

Constantine swore. "Oh, bollocks, I don't know that one. Would it be too much to ask that one of these things speak English? Just a little?"

"Nghftùsh ak. Ko ngngi. (3)"

"Zatanna," said Batman, "could a spell let us understand one another?"

"Kù-nghînku bùr fùmúu umni snîgûrip. (4)" It seemed to bend closer for all that it didn't move. "Nghftùsh laglúfhâk krîk ko phlî ak phlorza. Chthe nî hîhnâ, ka. (5)"

"I think I understand a little," said Captain Marvel, raising a hand. "I think it understands us just fine."

"Hagthu. Nghftùsh ngngi ùk nî chthe kûmpù nû gâ. (6)"

"It wants to get out of the circle," said Captain Marvel.

The veils of green light that shrouded the being rippled. "Dal phlù. (7)"

"Not without an agreement in place, you're not," said Constantine.

"Gagthashîzgathg. (8)"

"God," whispered Flash, "that hurts my throat just hearing it."

Batman shot him a glare, then stepped forward. They'd prepared a list of demands. Most of them were negotiable, but it was better to start something like this with things you were willing to remove or throw away. It took several minutes for Batman to read the whole thing.

"Ku. Chthal lohúfhâk hagthu. Fhta nghftùsh kâk phlorza ko thru. (9)"

"What did it say?" asked Batman.

"I'm... I think it said it'll do it, but it needs something from us in return."

Batman nodded. They'd expected something like this. Whatever it asked for, it would, without a doubt, be exorbitant. Then, they'd go back and forth, reducing each of their demands until they'd reached a deal both sides hated, but could accept. Constantine had bet that, at minimum, the King of All Ghosts would want the entire population of Earth as slaves.

"Nghftùsh kâk hû ko mglwno nî phnglâ gho-lobi. (10)"

"Uh," said Captain Marvel. "I think he said one of our lives."

"Hik! Rlo phlarâk kruk nîk ghû. (11)"

"Not just any of us," said Marvel. "It has to be someone who's a parent."

A tension fell over the room. They'd known they'd have to sacrifice something. A single life wasn't much, but for the King of All Ghosts to specify a parent...

"But are you sure it's just one?" pressed Constantine.

The King of All Ghosts gave off a sense of... exasperation? "Úzg, hû. (12)"

"One," said Captain Marvel. "Just one."

"And just us, not our kids or anything?"

"Nghftùsh ngngi ùk e nghuu. Gù phlarâk fush ko du? (13)"

"No, it doesn't want children. They're... wrong, somehow?"

"And it's not a sex thing?" Constantine sounded... strangely hopeful.

"Hik! Fhtùl! (14)"

"No," said Captain Marvel. "And... something about fat, maybe?"

"Oh, we're definitely getting eaten, then," said Constantine, with forced cheer. "I volunteer, then. It's not like my kids are sitting up waiting for me or anything."

"Hik nuk. Ngngi ko. E hâta phlarâk lerzaolûm. (15)"

"Not you, there's... something wrong with your soul."

"Oh, he's a picky eater, too, huh?"

"Let's not antagonize him, okay?" said Flash. "He's kind of-- He's kind of looming, right now."

And so it was. Somehow. Without moving.

"Who will... satisfy you?" asked Batman.

The entity did not move, but it managed to indicate Batman anyway.

"Very well," said Batman, before anyone could even attempt to talk him out of it. After all, his life for the lives of everyone in this universe was a very good deal. "Take me."

For the first time, the King of All Ghosts moved, all that darkness, all that light, rushing towards Batman.

There was a burst of blinding light.

When everyone opened their eyes again, a boy with black hair, blue eyes, and a jawline that bore more than a passing resemblance to Batman's was stepping out of the summoning circle.

"That's much better," he said, stretching. "No offense, dude, but you kind of suck at Ghost Speak." He turned to Batman. "What I was asking for was a template so I could exist in your universe and do what you want without accidentally blowing it up because of incompatible physics, but whatever. Not sure how you guys got me eating you out of that."

"You wanted a human appearance so you could better conquer this world?" asked Batman.

"Uh, no? You've got a pretty strong clause against conquering the world in your paperwork there. You're probably thinking about Pariah Dark, but he's old news." The boy smiled widely. "Let's get started on your problem, okay?"

I've been summoned.

You haven't summoned me before. You have a nice space station here...

I can. You can't.

Inter-dimensional language differences are so annoying.

I hope you can do something. This will be difficult, otherwise.

Good. I don't want to be in this circle forever.

Close enough.

Figures (literally, 'certainly').

Okay. That sounds good. But I need something from you.

I need one of you to be my template (literally, life-pattern).

No! It's like being a parent.

Yes, one.

I don't want your children. What is wrong with you?

No! Gross!

No way. Not you. You're crazy (literally, your soul is cracked).

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Idea #92: Percy/Apollo, but make it The Trojan War

Into every fandom, a time travel fic must fall - or in this case a second one, because I somehow got to thinking about the delightful PJO trope of Percy being thrown back in time to The Trojan War and realized that doing so misses out on a fantastic opportunity.

Or: What if post-TOA Percy Jackson and Apollo time travel to shortly before The Trojan War?

aka the Tried To Change The Ending fic

Just imagine it:

Everything follows canon through TOA, with one exception: rather than struggle to catch up in the mortal world following the Second Gigantomachy, Percy elects to stay at Camp Half-Blood. There he can homeschool at his own place with programs tailored towards ADHD children and still visit his family on the weekends - and not get into any more ridiculous situations in the mortal world when one of the gods kidnaps him or sends him on a quest to find their sneakers.

This, naturally, stresses his relationship with Annabeth - who, now that she's no longer living at camp full time, calls it the easy way out. But Percy is tired and struggling in mortal high school where everyone thinks he's a delinquent idiot when another option exists seems foolish. Percy and Annabeth break up and drift apart.

Enter Apollo, fresh from his latest stint as a mortal. He's trying to do his best by his children, which includes popping by camp as often as he can get away with - which in turn means spending a lot of time with Percy, who at this point is unofficially running CHB because it's not like Dionysus or even Chiron have done a brilliant job of it in recent times.

(First aid, strategy, and mythology classes are made mandatory. Percy personally ensures every demigod knows enough about self-defense to be able to survive long enough to run away or for help to arrive. Bullying is cracked down on so hard that it's this, not Percy's generally parental nature, that has people calling him Camp Mom.)

Percy and Apollo become friendly. Enough so that some of Apollo's kids assume they're dating and keeping it on the down-low so as not to draw Zeus' ire. Or Poseidon's. Or anyone else's. It's on one of their not-dates that they're yeeted into the past, without warning or explanation.

And so 19-year-old Percy Jackson and post-TOA Apollo find themselves in Ancient Greece c. 1220 BCE, roughly thirty-five years before the destruction of Troy.

The time travel is immediately obvious, as Apollo becomes the closest thing a god might experience to being high the moment they land in the past - being a powerful god in modern times is nothing like being a powerful god at the height of his power in ancient times. It's overwhelming (and somewhat alarming from Percy's POV, but kind of funny in retrospect.)

The specific date is harder to determine, but made clear when Hermes shows up and starts going on about you'll never believe what father's done now: he seduced the Spartan queen as a swan and she's laid an egg. Hera is furious - especially as they're saying the girl that hatched from it is the most beautiful in the world, even though she's only a few days old. It's nuts. By the way, where have you been? You missed the last two council meetings. Do you want Dad to punish you?

Apollo at this stage is very high. He's also been USTing over Percy for quite some time and is worried what the gods of this era might do to Percy without divine protection (smiting or seduction, it's all on the table). But mostly he's very high, and so to keep Percy close and safe he declares he's been off having the dirtiest of dirty weekends with his latest lover and that Hermes' presence is ruining the mood. So if he would kindly leave, please and thank you, he'd really rather get back to it without an audience.

This, naturally, is a surprise to Percy, but he rolls with it because 1) he doesn't have any better ideas on how to get rid of Ancient Greek Hermes so they can figure out what the hades is going on and 2) he's been USTing over Apollo ever since he recovered enough from Tartarus to start feeling attraction again.

Fueled by mutual UST, they put together a cover story that should hold the next time a god with too much prurient interest shows: Percy is now Prince Persē of Gadir - a Phoenician colony that will grow into the future Cadiz - well past the edge of the Greek world at this stage but not beyond belief for Poseidon to have visited, as it's obvious who his father is. They claim his mother is the King of Gadir's youngest sister and as such Persē had a royal upbringing, but was far enough down the line of succession that he was free to chose to sail east and explore his father's homeland. Apollo caught sight of him on his journey, one thing led to another, and here they are.

(Are there easier, more sensible cover stories? Possibly. But the UST refuses to let them consider any of them now that a fake relationship is on the table.)

Deciding what to do about The Trojan War is much harder. On the one hand, it's a lot of senseless death and destruction. On the other, without it we don't get The Iliad and The Odyssey - two of the most influential works of literature in western civilization - and Aeneas doesn't go off to Italy (leading to the founding of Rome, which would change the history of western civilization a lot). In the end, they decide to let the war happen but do their best to mitigate the worst parts of it.

And so Percy goes off and becomes a hero of Ancient Greece while pretending to be in a relationship with Apollo.

This stage of things is filed with angst from both parties, as both Percy and Apollo want a real relationship with each other but think they're abusing the other's trust by eagerly faking their relationship. There's a lot of PDA, a lot of feelings, and limited communication. It goes on for quite a while and would probably exasperate quite a few people if everyone in the know didn't think they were already in a relationship.

It's also filled with modern day Percy being confronted by realties of life in Ancient Greece. It's not just mortals knowing about - and interacting with - the gods: it's everything. It's food and clothes and language and culture and housing and travel. He can play a lot off it as being a traveler from the edge of the known world, but some of it has him asking Apollo if he's being rick rolled.

Apollo, meanwhile, is having troubles of his own. He is not the god he used to be and it's hard pretending otherwise. He tries to walk the line of doing enough to be believable and holding back enough not to despise himself, but it's a fine line, he fails often, and he spends a not insignificant amount of time worried he's backsliding.

And so it goes until 7-year-old Helen of Troy is kidnapped by Theseus to be his wife.

This, naturally, does not fly with Percy, who by this time has built up something of a reputation as a hero. He teams up with the Dioscuri to rescue Helen.

One would think this would earn him Zeus' favor. It doesn't. Instead, Zeus sends monsters to harry him for refusing to let Castor and Pollux take Helen's captors' loved ones captive and raze Aphidna for Theseus' crime. Percy manages to hold his own for quite a while but eventually, exhausted from the near-constant fighting, is gored and left for dead by the reformed Minotaur.

...and when Apollo arrives, frantic, to heal him, Percy ascends instead, becoming the greek version of Saint Sebastian - a minor god of heroes, strength in the face of adversity, and athleticism; sort of halfway between Hercules and Chiron.

Then and only then do Percy and Apollo finally get their act together, confessing to each other how much they care for the other and how much they don't want this to be fake any longer.

History proceeds apace - albeit with Persē being a second immortal trainer of heroes.

24 years after their arrival in the past, 16 years after Percy's ascension, The Trojan War begins. Despite their best efforts, there's only so much they can do - war is war and gods are gods. They are able to stop some of the worst excesses on both sides, but in the end Apollo still sends the plague that causes Agamemnon to take Briseis for his own, which caused Achilles' departure from the field, Patroclus' death, &c - not because Apollo was trying to maintain the timeline, but because in the instant he sent it he was angry and reverted to his old ways.

Troy falls...

...but when Zeus tries to use this as an excuse to ban gods from interacting with their demigod children, Apollo is able to say that's a bit extreme isn't it? with enough backing from the rest of the council that Zeus is forced to amend his ruling so that the gods are only allowed to freely visit their children on the "cross quarter days" that fall between each solstice and equinox (1 February, 1 May, 1 August, and 1 November).

This changes everything and nothing.

Time continues its inevitable march. Greece has its golden age before being conquered by Rome, which splits apart under its own weight and forms several smaller countries, which eventually spread their cultures around the world...

Apollo and Percy are there for it all. Persē is a minor figure in mythology, but never forgotten. He is ever-present in Apollo's temples - though the Church will later try to rewrite their myth so that they were merely sworn fighting partners, rather than lovers who eventually had a quite lovely wedding on Olympus (and then, at Poseidon's insistence, an even bigger ceremony on Atlantis). Percy takes over day-to-day operations of CHB from practically the moment the Trojan War ends.

...and so Persē is there the day Sally Jackson tries to get her son to camp, and is able to intervene when the Minotaur attacks on their border. He's able to meet her and her young son, Perseus ("Mom named me after you and the guy that killed Medusa since you're the only two heroes to have happy endings!"), and guide him through the trials that come with being a child of prophecy.

One day that Percy will hand Luke - who was never happy with the limited attention the gods were allowed to give their children - a cursed dagger so that Kronos can be defeated. That child will be offered godhood, turn it down, and go on to have a happy life with his eventual wife, Annabeth. He will never have his memories erased and be sent to Camp Jupiter. Gaia will not rise until long after that Percy's grandchildren are dead, and Zeus will not be quite so bullheaded when the proof of it is brought before him. That Second Gigantomachy is swift, well-coordinated, and fought without another Greek/Roman war brewing in the background.

And when they finally arrive at the day Apollo and Percy were originally sent back in time, Percy admits that while he is happy some version of him was better prepared for the war he was asked to fight in and allowed his peace afterward, he would change nothing about his own life, for it brought him to Apollo. The sunrise the next morning - on the first morning of the rest of their lives - is particularly spectacular.

Bonuses include:

Gaslighting Poseidon into believing that he's met Percy before the first time they're introduced. ("What do you mean you don't remember me, Father? You were present when I came of age! You gifted me this trident! Have I displeased you in some way?") It's an absolute masterclass that eventually manages to convince Poseidon that, yes, of course he knows Percy - and, maybe, he should check in on all his other demigod children to make sure he's not missed someone. (Two. He lost track of two of the others. Maybe he should be more careful about siring children in the future.) Apollo practically has to stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing.

As much historical accuracy as can be crammed into the Percy trying to make sense of Ancient Greece chapters as possible. Think Of a Linear Circle - Part III by flamethrower levels of historical research. As much as can be shoehorned in without bogging down the plot.

Percy and Dionysus bonding over their mutual dislike of Theseus, though Percy generally gets along with his other half-siblings, especially the ones who come to camp young enough to keep from getting big heads over being the children of Poseidon.

Though Percy adores all the children in Cabin 7 (most of whom are born via blessing this time around), he and Apollo have at least one child of their own - maybe a demigod born before Percy's ascension to sell their fake relationship? Maybe a minor god who's later attributed a different parentage by mortals? Dealer's choice on details.

It never being made clear who, or what, or how, Percy and Apollo were sent into the past. All of Percy's oddities are attributed to him being foreign or formerly mortal, all of Apollo's to the fact that he's in love with someone who didn't die before their first anniversary, and no one ever guesses time travel is responsible for their eccentricities. Or that time travel was ever an option.

And that's all I have. As always, feel free to adopt, just link back if you ever decide to do anything with it.

More PJO Ideas | More Terrible Fic Ideas

[johannesviii]

Nearly every time I've rewatched Infinity Train Book 3 since I first saw it in February, I saw more parallels and narrative echos, and infodumping my friends about them isn't enough anymore

I figured I should do a post about this one because I don't think I've seen a post about that specific thing yet, and I love this show's writing, and. idk. I just need to praise it I guess

So, the most obvious part first:

Grace became everything she hated about her parents

When Grace mentions her mother in the Debutante Ball Car, it's made pretty clear she's trying to distance herself from her mother as much as possible, and at this point, we realise retrospectively that Grace's room in the Mall Car in episode one was full of sports clothes - it seems she tries to avoid things reminding her of her life before the train. And of her mother. And yet-

She tries to control everyone and everything around her, and makes people do what she doesn't want to do

And she decides what's cool and what isn't

She makes people kneel in her presence, like her mother towers over her in her mind's eye

Obviously she constantly lies to get what she wants, and her dad does that in her tape

When her younger self looks up, she looks right through adult Grace, and it's actually her parents she's looking at! Her younger self is metaphorically seeing her parents where her adult self is standing!! I still can't get over this shot

Also I feel the need to mention her mother has the same voice actor as her in her tape and even if it might be to cut corners in the budget, that feels significant (and to be fair, sometimes you can cut corners while making meaningful choices at the same time)

Now you might think I'd have nothing to say about Simon on that matter, since we don't see any flashback of his life before the Train, and we know next to nothing about his parents. But I think it's very telling that the only actual backstory we get for him is his backstory with The Cat.

Because-

Simon became everything he hated about The Cat

Ok I never see anyone mentioning this, but hear me out

First, we have no idea if Simon knew The Cat was routinely invading people's privacy through their memory tapes, but he sure has no issue doing the exact same thing

But that doesn't stop there. He also collects things obsessively

And makes kids collect things for him as well, by the way

He thinks he's above others, but he immediately switches to victim mode when it comes back to bite him

HE. ABANDONS. A CHILD. WHO WAS UNDER HIS CARE!!

And. Uh. They both dig their heels instead of trying to change, too

Don't get me wrong, on some level I would have liked to know what Simon's parents were like too. I would have liked that a lot. But there's a good chance it wouldn't change anything, because everything we need to know about his background to understand why he's Like That™ is already in the show

But yeah, Grace and Simon both pretend they found freedom on the Train, and both distance themselves from parental figures who are at the source of their trauma, claiming they're different and better than them - and yet they are both subconsciously repeating patterns that caused at least part of their problems and/or trauma in the first place

And since they decided that making numbers go up was good, as long as they stick to that idea, they are bound to never escape from that self-perpetuating loop of harm and trauma

And I love it

And I hate it

[olderthannetfic]

I got a comment from someone saying I was clearly pushing the trans agenda due to how I wrote one scene. The scene in question is a character who had once had his memories forcefully erased against his will, who has regained some of those memories as well as his ability to use magic, putting on an outfit that accidentally is very similar to what he used to wear when going into magical combat. It hits him how completely correct this feels and he has a whole moment internally where he realizes no matter what the person trying to manipulate his memories has told him, he is magical and he is strong and he can handle things on his own. He doesn't need to be hidden away and coddled like a child. He's an adult. He's got this.

Apparently this read like a trans allegory, which... as a cis man I feel like I've gained new insights into trans people. I'm sure the commenter was going for, "this is like trans. By which I mean, it's bad." but what I got was, "this is like trans. By which I mean, they deal with a lot of invalidation by people who claim to only want the best for them and it's exhausting and hard but being themselves is as vital to their mental health as breaking away from his abuser was for this character."

And now I'm rereading my work through a whole new lens. Rereading all of it - the invalidation of real experiences he had, the denial of memories he had, the constant silencing of his voice in his own house, the tight control on his every action, the way he was consistently pushed into being someone and something he fundamentally was not, and the fact that if he ever chafed under that manipulation and abuse he was seen as the bad guy here - I feel like I've gotten an accidental glimpse into the lives of trans people. Specifically, holy shit this would be miserable to try to live through. Particularly when, unlike in fiction, you can't escape via magic and sheer force of will. I feel like someone just turned to me and went, "Hey, that agony you've been writing? A ton of people are quietly enduring it every second of every day."

It seems so obvious in retrospect that I feel like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. Not the allegory, I mean, the sheer weight of what trans people go through.

I have never been so grateful for a hate comment. It really helped open my eyes to some things.

--

[magniloquent-raven]

this post has been haunting me. i'm weak for beefy men in pretty underwear and @theweewooshow left an open invitation in the tags that i could not resist 😭 i was gonna say i can't believe this is the first fic i'm posting about these two, but honestly it kind of tracks.

hope yall enjoy!!

**

One of the things Tommy's always liked about Evan is how emotional he is. Expressive, is the word, maybe. Vibrant. It was one of the first things he noticed when they met. Poor kid was radiating nerves. The way his hands fidgeted in his pockets, and he wouldn't stop pacing while Tommy was double-checking their gear.

It's kind of fascinating to Tommy, watching Evan light up when he's happy, wilt when he's tired, always seeming to feel every emotion with his entire body.

All that to say...Tommy notices right away that something's up. There's a tiny, reactive part of him that wants to say wrong, something's wrong, but Evan's not pulling away, he just. Froze up for a second. It could've been a twinge in his bad leg when he climbed into Tommy's lap, or any number of other blips that won't completely derail the nice evening they're having.

But on the off chance...

Tommy carefully rearranges his grip, settling his hands comfortably on the small of Evan's back instead. "Everything okay?" He keeps his tone as light as his touch, and watches Evan's expression closely. Their eyes meet only briefly.

"No, uh, yeah." Evan's gaze skitters down, roaming Tommy's face, then darting away. "I, um." He grimaces, and shifts in place. The warm weight of his thighs is distracting. He's still a solid presence in Tommy's lap, and making no move to change that, despite his sudden singular focus on toying with the drawstring of Tommy's sweater.

The corners of his mouth are pursed into a frown that Tommy thinks about kissing away. That thought gets gently pushed to the side. Talking first, he reminds himself. Especially because... "If you're not in the mood anymore, that's okay."

Those—pink, perfect, God—lips part around a huff, half-curved into a grin. "That's kind of the opposite of the problem," he laughs.

Tommy can't help but mirror the smile, even if it's only a tiny one. "So, what is the problem?" He trails his fingertips up the line of Evan's spine, and down again, retracing the path when he feels Evan lean into the touch.

"It's...well, not hard to explain, exactly, but. I kinda wasn't expecting to explain..." He sighs, loud and exaggerated, and falls forward to plant his face in the crook of Tommy's neck, where he continues, slightly muffled, "How do you feel about lace?"

It's not what he was expecting to hear. Though, he's not sure what he was expecting. "Can't say I've thought much about it, to be honest."

He dated a girl back in the day who liked lingerie. She was always asking him what he thought about various scraps of silk and velvet, and it was all...very awkward. He always told her he'd like her just as much in cheap cotton and a borrowed t-shirt, which. In retrospect, was ironically true. When she broke up with him she accused him of being cold. Withholding. He brushed it off as neediness on her part.

He suppresses a wince at the memory.

Evan wraps Tommy's drawstring around his index finger, slowly curling it around his knuckle. "My ex. Taylor. She liked it. She liked...me. In it."

...Oh?

He can't picture it. Not in a bad way, he's not put off by the idea—very much the opposite—but when he tries, the mental image just...blurs. His brain is trying to mesh Evan with his hazy memories of things he never paid much attention to, and it's coming up frustratingly empty.

Tommy is very proud of how calm and steady he sounds when he says, “And…this was something you liked too?”

Warm air tickles the underside of his jaw. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Why are you telling me this now?” He feels like there’s something he’s missing. Something obvious he should have realized, if only he wasn’t so preoccupied with the way Evan’s thighs are flexing, his hand sneaking under the hem of Tommy’s hoodie, skin-to-skin, palm skimming his side, and the hot, tingling press of mouth-on-neck.

“Wanna find out?”

The second he nods he almost wishes he hadn’t, because all at once Evan is gone, and Tommy’s left sitting on his couch in a horny daze, blinking up at his slyly grinning boyfriend. As nice as the view is, his lap is cold now.

Evan thumbs his waistband. There’s excitement sparkling in his eyes, bright and shining, but he hesitates a moment before taking a deep breath and dropping his shorts around his ankles.

Oh.

So…lace. Tommy’s having feelings about lace. Not much in the way of thoughts yet. But feelings, definitely. The sudden rush of heat that burns through him leaves him a little light-headed, all the blood in his veins fizzing like he’s a can of soda someone just popped the tab on. His fingers itch to reach out, he aches with want, desire pooling low in his gut.

Thing is, they’re not even anything too fancy, as far as Tommy can tell. He has vague memories of his ex—and good God does he suddenly feel like he owes her even more of an apology—in complicated woven ribbons and things that probably looked like a crate of bungee cords in whatever bag they came in. Evan is just wearing…panties. Simple, pale blue, lacy panties. There’s a little bow on the front, and it’s unreasonably cute.

Evan hikes up his t-shirt a little, so Tommy can get a better look, presumably. Which he appreciates. He’s losing his mind a little over the trail of light blond hair under his belly button disappearing into soft blue lace. He wants to follow it with his tongue.

The attention is making Evan hard. Tommy’s not sure what his face is doing exactly, but whatever it is, Evan seems to appreciate it. He’s filling out that pouch in the front so fucking well, it’s making Tommy’s mouth water.

“So, uh. Good?” Christ, he sounds breathless and Tommy hasn’t even touched him yet.

It takes all of Tommy’s willpower to drag his gaze up to Evan’s face, but it’s worth the effort. His cheeks are flushed a happy pink, creased by a grin he’s failing to restrain even with his bottom lip trapped by his teeth. The blue in his eyes is a nearly-invisible ring around his dilated pupils, and shadowed by his heavy-lidded expression.

“Evan,” he says, a little hoarse. It’s all he can say without laughing hysterically at the sheer understatement of good. Without telling Evan, in detail, exactly how badly he needs to suck him off through that fabric. How vividly he’s imagining what it would feel like against his own cock, wondering if he could cum just from rutting against Evan’s lace-clad ass while he squirms and begs to be fucked properly.

And more importantly, it’s all he needs to say.

The rest he can just show him.

[sunshine-jesse]

Control: The Strange Dynamics of Andy and Leyley or

The Incest End Is Not The Fucking Bad End, Stop Coping

EDIT:

Hey guys! This post is blowing the fuck up, but this was my first essay on this game, and I think I've had many more insightful things to say since then. Here's a link to a masterpost with all of my essays, which I'd definitely suggest reading after this one:

Anyways, without further adieu...

I heard a lot about this game going in. I knew the general story beats and the funny haha incest memes. I knew it was about a toxic codependent relationship where Ashley, the sister, acted like your standard overly-controlling person who used various abuse techniques to keep someone in line. I expected Ashley to be a yandere-type character where she was borderline psychotic, irrational, and had a skewed perception of reality. I expected her to be a crazy bitch, and I love me some crazy bitches.

But then I actually played through the game. ...That is not what I got.

The game advertises Andrew as a doormat extraordinaire who is strung along by his Very Not Good sister and has no agency of his own' that he's just a henpecked abuse victim. But in practice, that doesn't seem to be the case. One of their first exchanges that in the story is when the occultist played his music and Ashley wanted them to check it out. He says 'no', sure, but then he smirks and says 'but I'll come along if you do.'

That is not the dialogue of someone who has no will of their own, that's the dialogue of someone who willingly gives up their own agency.

This is not, on its own, a sign of anything out of the ordinary. What caught my attention with it, though, is how it flew in the face of the common narrative surrounding their relationship dynamic. But that's not the first time I noticed it, it's just the first time, in retrospect, that their actual dynamic begins to show. The first time I personally noticed it is in the choking scene.

There are a lot of ways to view this situation. But my own reading? This was not a crime of passion. This was not him trying to break free. This is him doing something he's thought about for a while. This is premeditated. In this scene, Andrew is done playing along with Ashley's shit. In this scene, I firmly believe Ashley is the victim.

Ashley is the more openly abusive of the two who seeks to do whatever she can to trap Andrew so he'll never leave her. That much is clear. But Andrew-

-clearly has these same tendencies. He says this shortly after Ashley mentions putting her name up on a call girl's wall for money. There's protective brotherly instincts, and then there's this. This is not something you'd threaten a sister with, this is something that a man would threaten his wife with, which is directly brought attention to in the story.

(hey look he accepts the framing of it being WIFE beating at face value, and says Ashley is the only one who makes him like that! HMMMMMMMMMM WONDER WHAT THAT IMPLIES???)

It also implies that this is not the first time physical force has been threatened! I mean, that much is obvious, because of the choking scene that happened before, but I more mean that this implies that Andrew either threatening or utilizing physical force is an established pattern of behavior. However, the Decay route implies that she never thought Andy would kill her (but Andrew would) which can either be for or against depending on one's perspective, so I don't hold to the idea that it's an established pattern too strongly.

Okay, so. Andrew has some controlling and possessive tendencies too. So what? Their relationship is codependent. It's advertised as such. What of it?

Well first of all, it pretty much blows the lid off of the idea that Ashley is the sole perpetrator of abuse in their relationship. I've seen a lot of people view Andrew's behavior as justified retaliation against abuse, but frankly, I don't believe that him threatening to strangle Ashley for violating boundaries by trying to hold him accountable for his actions (given the strangulation part happens after she brought up Nina's death and how Andrew was ultimately responsible) is justified. And I ESPECIALLY don't believe that him threatening to backhand Ashley for her transactional attitude towards sex is justified in ANY circumstance.

EDIT: This part was edited in from the original post for the sake of readability so they don't have to see the reblogs to see the updated version! This post gained more traction than I was expecting!

…But perhaps even more telling is what she DOESN'T do.

Pushing someone's boundaries until they lash out is a pretty common tactic in abusive relationships. It's easy to see why, too: It justifies prior behavior and paints them in a negative light to others. This can be an important aspect of using DARVO (deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender) against someone, although the two ideas aren't necessarily linked.

It's pretty easy to argue that this is what Ashley does, but if you look at the one time her boundary pushing DID go too far, when Andrew lashes out with physical violence… she doesn't do that. She doesn't blame him. She doesn't paint herself as the victim. She doesn't even try to give a reason as to why she shouldn't be killed outside of the comfort she gives him. Why is this notable?

Because the mom does, in fact, engage in what could be considered DARVO against Ashley:

(i will elaborate more on this screenshot in particular below)

Ashley is directly compared to Mrs. Graves by Andrew, and yet she crucially displays none of the habits that Mrs. Graves does. Mrs. Graves lays the blame on Ashley, but Ashley doesn't lay the blame on Andrew. Mrs. Graves tends to paint herself as the victim of Ashley, but Ashley does no such thing to Andrew. The mom denies her culpability at every turn; Ashley doesn't. Ashley tries to hold Andrew accountable for his role in Nina's death, which could be considered a kind of DARVO. But she never denies that she had a role to play in it. She just mentions that he was the one who pulled the trigger. And he was.

(and the point was more that she DIDN'T engage in it when threatened with physical violence; the perfect chance to)

In Mrs. Graves' mind, she is the victim of either Ashley, or society as a whole. In Ashley's mind, she knows what she is, what she does, and what she's about. The only thing she's oblivious to- or doesn't acknowledge, at least- is the threat Andrew poses to her. In her mind, she's the bad guy. In Andrew's mind, Ashley is the bad guy. In official art, she is the bad guy:

And yet, in the game itself, Andrew is the one holding the cleaver. Not her. Hm.

Ashley is the world's most convenient scapegoat. She allows people to mask their own worst habits and pretend they're better people than they are. She accepts this role. She embraces it. She doesn't try to deny it. But when that mask slips, people lash out at her. Both Mrs. Graves and Andy (NOT Andrew, crucially) predicate much of their self-perception on being what she's not.

But they're the ones who enabled her to become like this, every step of the way.

And that's what blew my fucking mind, and made me question just who the victim really is. She was never given a chance to be normal, because other people relied on her NOT being normal.

By the end of my second playthrough, I felt worse for Ashley than I did for Andrew, and I still do.

So. What am I getting at? What does this show me about the relationship between Ashley and Andrew?

(I also wanted to point out that Andrew does engage in DARVO too but I didn't want to distract from the behavior of the mother. Unlike what Andrew does, it doesn't require someone to reassess the narrative they have towards the game in order to realize the implications of it, whereas it's pretty easy to justify Andrew's words as not qualifying as DARVO if you buy into the narrative that he's the sole victim and/or that Ashley is the main perpetrator of abuse. A friend of mine pointed out that it's a pretty key part of the push/pull dynamic they have, and I completely agree.

However, the direct comparisons to the behavior of the mother can't be ignored no matter your narrative, so I felt as if I needed to highlight that more.)

EDIT OVER

It shows me that their relationship is all about control.

Specifically, the push and pull of who controls who in any given situation.

Andrew weaponizes his incompetence. He always looks to lay the blame on Ashley. This is drawn attention to several times, and said explicitly in the Decay route.

He is always surrendering control to her, and yet he never HAS to. He could always just say no. He could always refuse. What are the consequences? Her being upset? Well, unfortunately, it's not that easy. That's not how abuse dynamics work. He probably feels like he has to, or rather, feels like there's no other option. That he's in too deep, and stuck with her no matter what. But personally, I think it's pretty clear from his willingness to surrender control to Ashley that he still feels like he has it at points, because the moment he feels like he's about to lose it, he either considers violence, even as a child-

(the actual scene of slicing her finger is pretty sus too with this reading in mind)

-or resorts to it, outright, in both the choking scene and the vision in the Decay ending... when Ashley doesn't have enough bullets to defend herself (this will be important later!).

SO WHAT POINT AM I TRYING TO MAKE??? AM I JUST MAKING ABUSE APOLOGIA (the answer may surprise you)?

No. I don't think so.

Ashley is obviously very bad. She's controlling and uses pretty textbook abuse and entrapment tactics on Andrew whereas everything he does to her is inference, with Ashley too daft to realize just how much danger she's in until the vision in the Decay ending spells it out for her- and I don't know if a true abuse dynamic allows for one to be completely unaware of the consequences of breaking free. She could just let go of her desire for control and Andrew would be a much happier person.

And that's the point, because so would she.

I bring up control because that push and pull- that desire for control over each other- is exactly what's tearing their relationship apart, and this effect most obviously manifests in the two endings of episode 2. In the Decay ending, Ashley either tries to exert control over Andrew due to a lack of trust, or Andrew allows his feelings of entrapment to truly take root in his mind and guide his actions. In the Decay ending, Andrew becomes a true doormat with no will of his own, allowing his feelings of bitterness and resentment to fester and grow, eventually resulting in their deaths.

In the Burial ending, Andrew does the exact opposite. He takes control of the situation and does exactly what Ashley would do without much of a fuss. This eventually culminates in THAT scene (assuming you take the Questionable route), where his facial expression alone speaks volumes:

Look at how fucking confident this man is. This is not the face of someone who's unsure of himself; this is the face of someone who knows exactly what he wants and takes it. He is absolutely in control of this situation, and everyone is happier for it.

And what does Ashley have to do to get this ending?

Let's go back to Decay for a moment. If Ashley has bullets in her gun, she has control over the situation. She, at any point, could put an end to Andrew and survive. And yet, at the very end of it all, she could choose not to. She could choose to surrender control to Andrew, allowing herself to die. And that ending, I believe so much of his life and willpower will have decayed that there's nothing left for him to take control of, leaving him no choice- or rather, no use for the control he now has- but to die with her.

And in the Burial ending, she has to let him out of his cage before it's too late. She has to surrender control to him, and when she does-

-He will become everything she ever needed him to be.

It's all about her surrendering control, and it's all about him taking control. Because, no matter what, as long as that happens... the two of them will be together forever.

In life...

...or in death.

How romantic.

So no, the incest end is not the fucking bad end. They're going to be together forever in the end either way, so they might as well live through it.

[sugoi-and-spice]

Taking Care, Taking What's Mine - A "Play Nice" Commission

Summary: A Play Nice AU Chapter, in which, rather than taking the high road and trying to build a real relationship with the girl he's been sextorting for weeks, Tomura Shigaraki baby-traps her instead.

CW: Quirkless!AU, Dub-Con, Smut, Extortion, Baby-Trapping, Forced Pregnancy, Love-Bombing, Manipulation, Power Play, Possessive Shigaraki, Yandere Shigaraki, Morning Sickness, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

AO3 Link

A/N: Happy fucking Father's Day readers!! Lmao! I got this AMAZING commission a while ago to write an AU of my AU (a fanfic writer's dream come true honestly), of Shigaraki baby-trapping MC and well, while it took longer then I meant it to to come out, I'm so glad that I could post it on Father' Day of all days lmao.

Anyway though, this was so much fun to write. Shigaraki has been on the journey of bettering himself for so long in Play Nice now, it was a total blast returning to form and writing him nice and scummy again.

I'd love to do more of these honestly, so as a reminder: I give discounts on Commissions that take place in my AU's.

Play Nice, Burnt Bridges, Step by Step -- all of them. They're super fun for me to write and most of the heavy-lifting of ideating and plotting has already been done for them, so I'm happy to write fics like this for cheaper. :)

Anyway, enjoy some forced parentification on this day of dads. xD

“Hey, hey— are you alright?”

She lifted her head from where she’d been resting it against her gym locker, the coolness of the metal being the first thing to even remotely ease the headache she’d been fighting for the last three days. 

“Yeah, of course,” she tried to force a weak smile as Nejire approached her, clearly concerned, “Why do you ask?

The captain was dressed in her practice suit. And she quickly realized that so were all the other girls, most of them already making their way out the doors to the pool deck. She was the lone straggler who hadn’t even managed to undo her uniform tie yet. Nejire looked over at these girls, and then back to her, wordlessly demonstrating why that should be obvious.

She laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head, “Okay, I guess I’m feeling a bit under the weather today…”

And that was the understatement of the century. She felt like absolute shit . Piling on top of that stubborn pounding in her head were a pair of really sore tits, a lethargy that stuck with her no matter how much vending machine coffee she chugged, and cramps that had shot straight out of hell and directly into her uterus.

But to be honest, she couldn’t complain too much about these ailments. In fact, she was pretty damn relieved. These were all her tell-tale signs of PMS. They were a little worse than usual this time around sure, but if that was the tradeoff for the relief of not being pregnant, she’d take it in a heartbeat. Her period was only one day late at this point and it had all but paralyzed her with fear.

Of course in retrospect, the fear did seem a bit silly. After all, Shigaraki’s creepy family doctor had warned her there might be some changes.

“I never start patients new to birth control immediately on a Long Acting Reversible Contraception,” he explained, “Especially not teenagers.”

“Why not?” she demanded, “It’s reversible, right? It’s not like you’re tying my tubes or anything.”

“No, but you never know how your body is going to react to the hormonal shift. You could develop acne, weight gain, hair growth—”

“I don’t care about that superficial stuff.”

“... Migraines, blood clots, depression,” he continued, looking at her pointedly.

She looked away, feeling a bit stupid for interrupting him now that he’d listed the more serious side-effects.

“I’m not saying you have to stay on the pill forever. But give it a few months, see how you feel on it. It can help us better determine which long-term birth control is best for your body without any unnecessarily invasive procedures.”

She shuddered at the very thought of being stuck in this set-up with Shigaraki for months. She hoped he’d get bored of her sooner rather than later.

Well, on the brightside, at least this sketchy-ass doctor seemed to be as interested in looking under her skirt as she was having him down there. However, this still left the ever so pertinent issue of:

“Okay, but there’s still the issue of getting the pills. No pharmacy is going to give me these without signed parental consent.” She had the always convenient Japanese purity culture to thank for that.

Ujiko simply smiled and pulled out a wheel of birth control pills from his medical bag right then and there.

“Consider these the same as this appointment,” he said, cupping his hands over hers and placing the wheel firmly into her palm, “ Off the record. ”

And then the rest of the “appointment” had descended into one of extremely thinly-veiled intimidation that bizarrely enough, she’d relied on Shigaraki of all people to save her from. By that point, she’d been scared so shitless she had very little argument left in her to try and reason him into just giving her the damn IUD.

The regret of not standing her ground on the issue did hit her later that night on the train home. Particularly when she thought over the fact that the way they were keeping these pills off the record was by having her pick up her refills through Shigaraki. The idea of giving him even more power over her like that made her feel sick to her stomach. And yes, while logically she knew that he had just as much motivation to keep her from getting pregnant as she did (she had a feeling All for One would not take too kindly to his star successor knocking up a lowly commoner such as herself), she still just had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

So she’d resolved herself on her first refill day to completely lay into Shigaraki for any level of tomfoolery he may get up to in this situation. There would be no forgetting, no being too busy to pick up the pills for her, absolutely nothing. She was ready to rain full fire and brimstone on him if there was even a hint of bullshit.

But to her surprise (and relief), she hadn’t even crossed the threshold of his bedroom before he was tossing a new pack to replace her wheel with. Simple and nonchalant, and then he was just as quick as always to badger her about getting her clothes off already, get on the bed already, break up with your boyfriend already.

It was the same old, same old — for better or for worse. Even if she couldn’t trust Tomura Shigaraki himself, that action had at least ensured that she could trust his own desire for self-preservation.

And that was better than nothing she supposed.

Back in the locker room, Nejire asked her, “Do you think you’re coming down with something?”

She smiled at her friend, joking, “Nothing I don’t come down with every month.”

Nejire tilted her head in confusion for a moment before the lightbulb visibly lit up in her head.

“Ohhhhh,” Nejire nodded sympathetically, “Yeah, Aunt Flow can be a real meanie sometimes, huh?”

She laughed, then winced as the action worsened the throbbing in her head,  “Damn it— you can say that again.”

Nejire’s brows furrowed and she brought a hand to the small of her friend’s back, “Hey, why don’t you take this afternoon off?”

She looked back to her, surprised, “Oh no, I couldn’t…”

“Sure you could!” Nejire chirped, “And honestly, you probably should. We’re working on our weakest strokes today. I had you down to work on your fly.”

Visible dread filled her as she thought about doing that much undulation in her current state.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Nejire laughed, “Seriously, go home. We’ll miss you, but we love you too. So we want you to take care of yourself.”

She debated a little more internally, one other loose thread dropping into her mind’s eye.

“If I do… Do you mind—”

“I’ll let Mirio know,” she shot her a wink as she clarified, “ After practice. I’ll let him know you just need the peace and quiet.”

She smiled at Nejire, genuinely grateful. This. This right here was what made all of the bending over backwards she did to fit in and please others worth it. To be cared about by such a good person. 

The warmth of that care stayed with her all the way out to the school gates, where she was then immediately filled with dread upon realizing that she’d need to go in one of two directions depending on where she was going after school: the train station home, or the walk to Shigaraki’s.

And just which direction she was scheduled to go today.

She let out a long groan, anguished and loud enough to startle a couple members of the going home club that passed her. For once though, she didn’t care about her reputation, she was too focussed on what a goddamn nightmare she was falling into.

She pulled out her cellphone with a sigh. Yes she knew the effort was probably futile, but damn her if she didn’t at least try.

Yup. She could’ve seen that coming from a mile away. She sighed as she shoved her phone back into her bag and started the very slow trek over to Shigaraki’s. 

“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” Shigaraki said as he looked her over his doorway, “You look like shit.”

She shot him a wholly unimpressed look as she shoved past him into his bedroom.

“Yeah, I fucking told you.” 

Shigaraki, surprisingly, didn't have anything to say about her tone, even with her brusqueness towards him being more than usual. He just watched her drop down face first onto his bed and curl her legs up into her chest.

She sighed at the slight relief the position gave her. While dealing with Shigaraki’s antics was about the last thing she wanted right now, she supposed that at least she could be grateful for how much closer his apartment was to her school then her own home was. It saved her a good fifty-minutes of white-knuckling a train stanchion to keep down her groans of pain. Now at least she could get the relief of laying down much sooner.

If only for a little bit.

“What’s going on?”

She bristled at Shigaraki’s voice, the unwelcome reminder that she wasn’t going to be able to truly relax right now. And while there didn’t seem to be any entendre or even impatience in his question, the fact that his voice was getting closer to her was enough to make her suspicious.

“My head aches, my back aches, my boobs ache — everything aches,” she grumbled down into his sheets, “And I feel like I’ve been donkey-kicked straight in the uterus.”

“You start your period or something?”

He didn’t sound sarcastic when he asked it, not that typical boy way of asking any time a girl did something they considered “moody”. It was a genuine question. But it irritated her all the same. 

Everything seemed to be irritating her these days.

“About to,” she answered, “It’s like a day late, but it’s definitely coming.”

She felt the bed shift a bit as he sat next to her.

“Are you nauseous at all?”

Her brows furrowed, a bit confused by the interest.

“I guess a little,” she answered, because even though it was mild, there was a certain turn in her stomach that wasn’t unlike motion sickness, “But honestly, I think it’s just from the pain. This has been going on for like three days.”

“Have you taken anything for it?”

She could’ve laughed if she wasn’t so annoyed by the reminder of all her futile attempts to alleviate this. Because of course he was looking for a quick fix so they could fuck already.

“I’ve taken everything for it,” she groaned, “Nothing’s working.”

He just hummed in response, and then she could feel the sheets behind her dip a bit as he repositioned himself. Into what orientation, she wasn’t sure. She was about to turn her head back and ask him what he was doing when she felt his hand featherlight across her hip.

And between her legs.

“No, Shigaraki please,” she whined, pulling he knees closer into her chest, “I’m not kidding, I’m seriously in a lot of pain—”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Tell that to your hand then,” she snapped as his fingers tried to wiggle their way between her clenched thighs.

“I mean I’m not doing anything for me. This is for you.”

“Oh is it now,” she deadpanned.

“I’m not gonna fuck you,” he insisted, more irritably this time, “Orgasms help with cramps, right?”

She stilled, sufficiently stumped by that particular statement. Because yes, she could say from experience that they absolutely did. She’d spent many a nasty period with her fingers latched to clit to chase that particular path of relief. 

…but why the hell did Shigaraki know that?

She gasped as she suddenly felt the gentle roll of her clit under three fingers. Apparently, in her moments of distracted deliberation, Shigaraki managed to push his hand past the plush lock of her thighs and under the hem of her panties.

“Sh-Shigaraki…” she whined, pushing her elbow blindly and weakly back towards him.

He caught it gently in his free palm and, rather than trying to pin or strain it in whatever which way he desired, like usual, he just held it there. Didn’t even hold it in place really, just shielded himself against its determined path towards his ribs.

“I’m serious,” he said, uncharacteristically soft, “I’m trying to help you.”

She finally mustered up the strength to — despite how much her aching abdomen hated her for it — turn and glower at Shigaraki.

“No funny business?” she pressed.

He settled his own flat expression on her, “When have I ever been funny?”

More times than she’d like to admit honestly, but she got what he was saying here. He was a pretty serious, straightforward person on principle. He didn’t bullshit, he didn’t pull cheap tricks, and, shockingly enough, he didn’t typically lie. Frustrating as it was, Tomura Shigaraki was pretty much always unapologetically himself and he always did what he wanted.

So if he said that he was doing this to help her, then she supposed that she didn't actually have a lot of reason to distrust him.

Plus, his fingers hadn’t stopped their soft, but affective ministrations between her legs, and the pleasant sparks of heated relief they were sending through her were undeniable.

She turned back onto her side with a sigh that was half-exasperation, half pleasure.

“Fine,” she said, throwing back quickly before he got too victorious, “But fuck around and I’ll kick you.”

Shigaraki just chuckled, a soft throaty sound that shouldn’t have sent the chills up her spine that it did, “Yeah, yeah…”

In one motion, careful not to jostle her too much, Shigaraki both pulled her back and scooched himself closer, until her back was nestled snug against his surprisingly firm chest and her head laid in the crux of his bicep.

With this new closeness he was able to be a bit more deliberate with the angle and pressure he used to rub at her swollen sex. And, while she hated to admit it, the increased blood flow between her legs was causing the pressure within her to build quite a bit faster than usual. Enough so that it had her letting go of the tension in her neck and joints — the automatic stress reaction she had to any of Shigaraki’s displays of intimacy — and letting the weight of her head drop fully into his embrace.

A shuddering sigh left Shigaraki at that clear relinquishing of control, of the way she truly let herself lay back and relax into him. It gave him the encouragement he needed to enjoy her to the fullest extent that he wanted her as well, burying his nose deep into her hair. 

He started to stroke wider circles around her, the flats of his fingers never leaving her clit, but now allowing the tips to dip softly into her entrance. He didn’t push them in at all past his first knuckles, just enough to catch some of that growing wetness and spread it all across her fluttering lips.

“A-Ah—” she gasped out, “Sh-shit…”

“Like that?” he rasped, hot against her ear.

She bit her lip, nodding needily, “Mm— Mm-hmm…”

He groaned at the response, doubling down on that motion as he started to stud long, hot kisses down the back of her jaw and neck. The feeling, so gentle and intimate and good in combination to the way he worked her sex, had her unconsciously rocking her hips into his touch, and back into his own.

Vaguely through the haze, she could feel the familiar outline of his stiff cock against the cleft of her ass, but shockingly he didn’t try to grind it against her for relief. If anything actually, when her own hips moved unconsciously back against it, he actually shifted his own hips away, anglind them down so his erection pushed into the bed instead. As if he didn’t want her to feel it, that he was concerned about her feeling pressured by its presence.

She didn’t have the chance to think too much into that though, not when his fingers were coaxing her closer to the edge by the second. The mess between her legs was obscene at this point, through teary eyes she could see the overflow of it spreading wide across her thighs and pooling down in the sheets. 

“God look at you, so fucking wet,” he groaned, lips having made it down to her shoulder and staying there so that he could have a better view of her writhing under his touch, “You needed this, huh? Fucking needed me…”

She buried her face into his arm to muffle her moans, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of an answer, but also not wanting him to stop.

By some act of God, Shigaraki didn’t push for that answer either. She wasn’t sure why he’d abandoned his typical demands and taunts, didn’t threaten to stop until she gave him the verbal submission and begrudging praise he always wanted. Nor did she stop to think about why, she just let the gratitude course through her, spurred further and wider by the waves of heat rushing through her body, threatening — promising — to overflow.

Shigaraki could feel that axiomatic tension in her body, the boiling point it promised, and sped up his hand to stoke the flames.

“You’re close aren’t you? Oh yeah, you’re close…” his kisses turned to nips at her neck between progressively more demanding growls, “Gonna be a good girl and come for me?”

Fuck, hearing those last words spill from his mouth should not have done what it was doing to her. But it was speeding up her peak, and it was speeding it up audibly.

“Yeah, yeah that’s good, really good. Let it go. Go ahead, be a good girl and let it go.”

She cried out, her arching back forcing her face forward and mouth unmuffled as finally, finally her body went blissfully loose, the pain of the past few days overtaken by waves of heat and pleasure. One after the other, her hormone-driven sensitivity wrung out multiple orgasms, and his frantic fingers were happy to work her through each one until she was begging him to stop.

“Good girl, yeah, yeah, just like that. That’s a good girl,” he continued to praise, returning time and again to that phrase he could feel her getting unconsciously excited over, “That’s my good girl…”

It was just a few blurry moments of consciousness after that. She was pretty sure she whined something like “too much” to him at some point, and he whispered back something that she was sure was just utterly debauched right back. Or maybe it was sweet nothings, he had really favored those by the end of this escapade after all. 

Whatever it all was, she supposed it didn’t matter. All that mattered in those seconds of labored breaths and fluttering lashes was the beautiful bliss and relief that finally overtook her body. That allowed her to immediately fall asleep in his arms.

Shigaraki held her there for a long time after. He raked his eyes greedily across her body, letting himself carve every detail deep into his memory. He knew he didn’t need to, not anymore. Her boyfriend, her parents, hell, whether or not she got into Todai with him, it was all a non-issue now. There was no reason for him to lose this anymore. She wasn’t going anywhere in life without him. He was going to be able to revel in this sight for the rest of his life now. And he just couldn’t believe how lucky he was for that.

He chuckled a bit at that. Well, maybe lucky wasn’t the right word. This was all by design after all, weeks of very deliberate planning and deception. It was just like he’d always been taught. It didn’t matter what hand you’ve been dealt — and Tomura Shigaraki had certainly been dealt a shit hand in a lot of ways — a real winner made his own luck. 

Sensei would be mad, Shigaraki knew that much. Everyone would be mad in fact, but he didn’t care. He was just following the fundamental lesson Sensei himself had instilled in him the day they met. 

Take whatever you want, and fuck all the rest.

Several minutes into hearing those sweet deep breaths of unconsciousness from the beautiful girl in his arms, Shigaraki finally peeled his fingers away from her cunt.

And slid a wide hand up to cradle her tummy.

It was dark when she woke up, not a single one of Shigaraki’s many monitors or television lit the windowless room. That was odd for a couple of reasons, the first of which being that the overhead lighting had definitely been on when she’d dozed off. The second of which was that any time Shigaraki wasn’t preoccupied with helping her study or studying her, he was chronically attached to at least one screen, if not multiple, so it was more than a bit odd for him to have zero on. The reason for the lack of blue light however became quickly apparent as her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness.

Shigaraki wasn’t here.

She was totally alone in his room, alone and tucked into his bed. Had he gone to the bathroom or something? But then why would all the lights be off? It seemed like he’d probably been gone for a while. Weird…

She threw off the covers and flipped her legs around with much more ease than she’d done anything over the last three days, much to her relief. However long she’d been out, the sleep had clearly done her some good. The pounding in her head and pelvis had finally ceased, perhaps just in time for her to actually start her period. She did feel some dampness between her legs after all. Although…

Her face heated up as she remembered the much more likely cause of that.

Damn it, she thought with a groan, dropping her head into her hands. She couldn’t believe that she actually let him do that to her, for her. He was going to get entirely the wrong idea from it. The idea that she might actually like him and want to spend time with him, that there was some kind of connection between them that extended past the time she was required to spend with him to keep him satisfied. And she absolutely could not deal with that.

Being his little sex toy was one thing. A demoralizing thing, yes, but a manageable one. She’d seen the way Shigaraki treated things he objectified — games and magazines and the like. He got bored of them quickly. And if she was one of those things in his eyes, then eventually he’d get bored with her too and she’d be free.

If he was attached to her though? Had found connection in her and a desire to keep her in his life? She didn’t even want to consider that nightmare scenario.

She made her way out into the hallway, looking up and down from the empty bathroom on one end of the hall to the top of the staircase on the other. She didn’t have to contemplate the lack of presence on this floor for long though, when she heard Shigaraki’s voice echoing up from downstairs, talking emphatically to Kurogiri, she assumed. 

She couldn’t hear exactly what he was talking about, but whatever it was, he was being particular about it. “Don’t overcook” and “perfect” were a few of the words she managed to catch, so it was about food, maybe? The accompanying sounds of sizzling pans and clanking cookware would certainly support that. As would the smell that suddenly hit her.

It wasn’t an unpleasant smell by any means. In fact, it was salmon, one of her favorites. But for some reason at that moment, the smell hit her with a particular intensity that made her feel overwhelmed.

And really fucking nauseous.

She just barely made it to the toilet at the end of the hall, not even fully down to her knees by the time she was emptying her stomach into the bowl. It wasn’t just a brief moment of sickness either. The bouts were loud and long, she was sure that it echoed throughout the entire apartment. It left her red-faced, skin covered and hair clumped with sweat, not to mention still gagging long after she had nothing left to gag on.

A hand she barely even noticed came to rest on the small of her back in the midst of it all. It was only in the aftermath, spent and dry-heaving that she could process the fact that it was Shigaraki, kneeling at her side, patiently stroking small circles into her clammy skin and encouraging her softly.

“Let it out. Just let it all out.”

She groaned once she finally seemed to have a solid thirty seconds of dry, steady breath. And Shigaraki used that respite to nudge a glass of water into her hands.

“Here.”

She didn’t argue or agree, just took it from him with shaky hands, tossing half of it just into her mouth to swish around and spit the remaining bitterness from her tongue.

 “Drink some of it too.”

She nodded shakily, still too drained and disoriented to be irritated with his telling her what to do, or suspicious of the fact that he was being so nice. 

And still, as she took entirely too long to finish the rest of her water with timid little sips, he just knelt on the ground with her, moving the hand on her back to rest on her knee, thumb rubbing circles into the spot where a bruise would undoubtedly form. 

Finally, after a long, silent stretch, she managed to croak out, “W-What time is it?”

“Only seven,” he answered, “Kurogiri’s got dinner almost ready downstairs. Seared salmon, brown rice, avocado salad—”

She whined, shaking her head roughly at the very implication of food.

“Don’t like salmon?”

“I-I do… It’s just—” she gagged a little as she remembered that smell that had set this all off in the first place, “Th-The smell right now. It’s too much…”

“Oh yeah…” he nodded understandingly, muttering something to himself that she couldn’t quite make out. It sounded kind of like, “Heightened” and “Read about that…”

Her brows furrowed a bit, frustrated and confused. She was getting the feeling that he was really not telling her something.

“W-What?”

Shigaraki just waved her off, “No, that’s fine, that’s fine. Salmon’s not the only thing he made. There’s sauteed spinach, wakame tofu soup, toasted—” 

Jesus Christ, was Kurogiri cooking for an army down there or something? 

Well, whoever it was all for, and as delicious as it all sounded in theory, imagining those foods in practice right now was making her feel sick all over again.

“Mm-mm, Mm-mm!” she whined, shaking her head again.

She didn’t want to risk opening her mouth right now, lest she blow chunks all over the front of Shigaraki’s shirt. Although wouldn’t that be a nice little serving of karma for him…

“You need to eat something,” he insisted, more lecturey than she’d ever heard him, but with a strange gentleness to his voice as well, “And you need to drink some more too. You’re totally dehydrated.”

She shook her head more emphatically at that, which only resulted in her falling forward into his chest. 

He caught her before she could fall any further, scolding her not too harshly, in fact, a bit whimsically, “Is this how you’re gonna be the whole time?”

She pulled her head back to look at him, a confused furrow in her brows that brought the corners of his lips up.

“It’s not a bad look on you to be honest. All weak and petulant,” he brought a hand to pinch lightly at her cheek, “It’s kinda cute actually.”

Her eyes narrowed, finally feeling her stomach steady enough in her to be annoyed. He chuckled, just as amused and endeared by this look as the last. 

“Well how about okayu?” he offered with a patronizing little lilt, “And maybe some ginger tea?”

He clearly wasn’t going to let this go. And infuriatingly, he was right not to. She definitely was in no shape to go home on this empty stomach. 

She sighed.

“Yeah… Yeah okay.”

Going at her own shaking, snailish pace, Shigaraki helped her up onto her legs, pulling her immediately into his side as he led her back towards his bedroom. Normally she’d protest, stick an elbow right into his ribs and storm on ahead of him, but honestly she needed the help right now. So she sucked it up and let him lead her back into his bed. 

But that didn’t stop her from eying him suspiciously as he propped his pillows up behind her and tucked her back in under his comforter, the overall way he doted and fretted over her, even stopping to look back at her one more time from the doorway before he returned downstairs to give Kurogiri the new marching orders.

She dropped her head back against the pillows when finally alone, a bad feeling settling heavier and heavier in her stomach. This was beyond weird, the way he was acting. Sure, the guy was overbearing and constantly demanding of her attention, stupidly needy even. But doting? Not only willing but eager to put her needs ahead of his own? Caring deeply about her actual well-being and not just what he wanted to be her well-being? This was all way too out of character for him.

“…You can tell me. If he bothered you, I mean. N-Not just the Doctor either… If um… If anything’s bothering you.”

She sighed at the memory. Alright, maybe she wasn’t giving him enough credit. He’d shown at least some capability and even interest in her wants and well-being, he wasn’t a complete monster.

But still, all of this? The cooing and the caring and the, erm, servicing even that he’d done? It felt like too much. Like she was missing something really key about it all.

Like something was wrong .

Whether she ended up getting lost in that train of thought for long, or Kurogiri had already had some okayu whipped up downstairs, she wasn’t sure, but she was startled by how quickly it seemed that Shigaraki returned with a breakfast tray in hand. She cocked her head as he set it up over her lap, this was a lot more robust than she was expecting, and, she realized as she examined everything on the tray, a lot more stocked as well.

There was okayu, front and center for her, yes. But also on the tray was another small bowl of soup (looked like the wakame that Shigaraki had mentioned, a thing of plain yogurt (the really fancy kind that came in the glass jars), a glass of orange juice…

And a little dish of four pills. 

Painkillers or antiemetics maybe? They looked more like vitamins…

“Go ahead and start with the okayu if you want,” Shigaraki explained as he climbed up into the bed next to her, “But I want you to try and get some of the wakame and yogurt down too…”

As he settled down, his legs flush with her own, he continued to rattle off instructions and explanations for the rest of her tray, sending her mind completely spinning, faster and faster, like a goddamn Gravitron.

And she was ready to get the fuck off.

“...if nothing else though, take the vitamins. You need the folate, calcium, iron, and the omega-3 especially, since you don’t want the salmon—”

“Okay, stop, stop, stop !”

Shigaraki paused, having the audacity to look at her like she was crazy for snapping. 

“Jesus—what the hell are you even talking about Shigaraki?!” she demanded, “What’d you say, folate? What? What is all this?”

He cocked his head, clearly playing innocent. Whatever this was, he was clearly enjoying the slow unraveling of it all.

“What’re you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about!” she snapped, “All this attention and doting and food stuff! What the hell is this all about?!”

He just smiled back at her, taking in how pretty she looked, even when mad (especially when mad sometimes), God, to think that this really was his forever now. He wondered if they had a girl, how much she’d look like her. He hoped a lot…

“I just want to make sure you’re getting all the vitamins and nutrients you need…”

He reached over then, spreading his hand flat against her stomach.

“ Both of you .”

She froze.

No.

No, he couldn’t mean—

She tried to speak, tried to ask what the ever-loving- fuck he was talking about, but her mouth had seemed to go dry. She tried several times to open and wet it a bit, but every time she did, it felt like her throat was closing too. It took at least four desperate attempts for her to finally force out one rasped:

“... what? ”

Shigaraki’s grin widened, and he started to rub circles gently across her belly.

“You’re gonna look so cute, all big and round with my kid,” he giggled suddenly as he remembered something, “Oh, and your tits too. I wonder how big they’re gonna get…”

She stared at him, unblinking, unbreathing. Everything but un-fucking-existing.

He couldn’t be serious. He was fucking with her. He had to be fucking with her!

“Th-That’s not funny.”

His grin evened a little, not disappearing outright, but settling away some of its blissful excitement into something more coyly victorious.

“I said it already,” he reminded, “When have I ever been funny?”

She shook her head in disbelief.

“N-No. No, no, no this isn’t— there’s no way—”

“I’ve got the tests ready when you need to pee, but I think it’s pretty clear. These are all the symptoms I read about.”

“No!” she insisted, “N-No, no— this is, it’s my period! It’s just a day late, it’s not—!”

He chuckled, “I know the symptoms can be similar, but come on. When’s the last time you’ve hurled like that thanks to your period? And the sensitivity to smell? You know this is different.”

Crumbling, every argument she could possibly think of was crumbling to dust before she could even get the thought fully formed. And cruel, vicious reality was more than happy to take its place.

“B-But my birth control pills…”

“Fertility pills,” he explained, his splitting-grin returning in full, “I would’ve preferred to get Clomid from the doctor, but it looks like the over the counter stuff and tracking your cycle worked just fine.”

Her stomach dropped. Pieces of memories, peculiar behaviors and nagging thoughts she’d had over the last two months falling into place. How there were stretches of times where he’d cancel their sessions, only to insist they make them up a few specific days in a row. How he wanted to go multiple rounds a lot those days. How he’d stopped wanting blowjobs from her entirely. How he seemed to only want to fuck her from behind or with her knees pressed hard into her chest, positions he could fuck her the deepest in.

And how he’d have her stay still with his cock buried in her after he came. 

Back then, she just thought he was being weird and pervy. And in a way she was right.

Horribly fucking right.

Shigaraki shifted his legs away from her so that he could bring his head down to her lap, laying his cheek blissfully against her belly. 

“Was so easy,” he hummed against her skin, “Like your body was just waiting for me to knock you up. Waiting for me to make you mine…”

His hands moved across her body, one coiling behind her back so that he could pull her tighter into him, the other lacing his fingers through her own. The fingers on her trembling left hand.

“Both of you, forever,” he growled happily, a predator who had finally and definitively sunk his teeth into his prey, “All mine.”

[rei-ismyname]

Nightcrawler on Krakoa - The Spark is not a religion.

During Dawn of X Nightcrawler felt uncomfortable with certain aspects of Krakoa, especially the cavalier attitude towards death. On the day of the first Crucible, Cyclops sought him out to talk through his own feelings on the matter and they discussed it at length. Kurt had no answers, only questions, though he did end the conversation with something definitive. 'I think I need to start a mutant religion.' Contrary to what I've seen many people say, he didn't actually start a religion. This is an exploration of The Spark, Kurt's very secular answer to the personal and societal questions he had.

Melody Guthrie chose to die and be reborn

Since I'm looking to prove a negative - 'The Spark is not a religion' - it would be helpful to have a definition of the term. Scholars, philosophers and theologians have been trying to agree on one for centuries with the mainstream having given up. I'll come back to this, but Kurt's own religious framework is Catholicism. Plenty to work with there.

Florilegium translates as 'book of flowers,' but its usage is the equivalent of 'zine' or 'scrapbook'

Kurt accepted that his feelings of discomfort were in part rooted in his faith, so that's where he began his examination. As shown above, he 'set aside metaphysics' quite quickly - he gave up on 'starting a mutant religion' for many reasons, not least because 'it's not for me to contest matters of faith.' His feelings, that something was missing from Krakoa, remained. An obvious religious marker is the 'The Book of Spark' and the biblic stylisation. As we'll see, it's just Kurt's diary and not a holy text. I speculate that some of Catholic trappings Kurt used during his quest tripped some people up, in the same way the call and response ritual after The Five resurrects someone felt 'culty' to some. I think Hickman was being deliberately provocative, but at the end of the day it's an affirmation of identity before the community and celebration of rebirth - an ad hoc element of Krakoa's nascent culture.

After some soul searching and 'self-distraction,' Kurt was about to give up on the project altogether. There were bigger problems on Krakoa, such as 'The Patchwork Man' (who ended up being Onslaught) and the aforementioned cavalier attitude towards dying. Chuck asked Kurt to investigate because he's better with people, starting with David Haller - Legion - son of Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller. After rescuing him from ORCHIS the two formed a friendship based on, among other things, a mutual concern about the sustainability of Krakoan culture.

Importantly, Legion was not a disciple of his father and his didn't take his promises at face value. His loyalty was to Kurt and to mutants in general. An outsider and an agitator, but with only good intentions. He advised Kurt to begin by interrogating the 3 laws, and along the way they met Krakoans who were similarly concerned that they were a nation but not yet a people. Having rejected the whole 'starting a religion' thing, the mission shifted to finding or establishing 'something that makes folks feel like they're all in the same story' - as Stacy X put it. Obviously the presence of Onslaught was a factor in the unrest, but he was feeding off what was already there.

'Murder no man' and 'make more mutants' certainly gave Kurt food for thought, but interrogating them didn't help much with his primary mission. 'Respect this sacred land' did, specifically reinterpreting it to include the people on it. He acknowledged that all the laws were flawed, but this one in particular set him on the path to the Spark. It seems simple in retrospect, obviously Krakoa needs to protect its citizens, but the Quiet Council kinda missed that. It's especially egregious when you consider the scope of the project - all mutants living side by side, including those that have hurt a lot of people and would continue to. Problems like that just don't go away, and with some of those mutants on the Quiet Council (cough* Sinister) people are going to feel unsafe and isolated.

That first line is important - 'this is not a mutant religion'

Needless to say, Onslaught was defeated. Defeated by the lesser known mutants as a large group, creating a mutant circuit inside Legion's head. Legion had the space and Kurt had the idea but the people chose to fight and love and live. They didn't listen to Kurt because of religious or political authority, they listened because they liked the idea.

The Spark is a philosophy, a way of living. It encourages choice, risk, individuality, and seeking happiness as a community and as a people. There's no worship, no reverence of a higher power, 'no prayer or veneration.' Zero exploration of eschatology. It's compatible with existing faith because there's no overlap, except for the community aspect. It's definitely not a bloody religion.

There is one alternate future where The Spark is turned into a religion/faith - the Sins of Sinister timeline. Mother Righteous hijacked it as a tool to control uneducated enslaved clones and drew on their faith and sacrifice to perform deeply harmful magic. Considering SoS was an exercise in perversion and abomination, in corrupting good things into their twisted dark opposites, The Spark as religion/tool of evil should tell us that the real thing is nothing of the sort.

Kurt does love the aesthetic of religion, as you'd expect, which explains why the communal holodeck in Legion's head is called The Altar. Altar is not a strictly religious term, though, and the altar is nothing like a church. Lost and Cortez (of all people) are telling people about it because it helped them with their own pain, given without reservation. You could ungenerously view it as evangelism, but if you do that then you've broadened the term to the point of meaninglessness.

Kurt didn't start a mutant religion, The Spark isn't a religion. Pass it on :)

[pedgito]

MILLER'S GIRL ✎ SERIES MASTERLIST

Chapter Two: Delusions of Fantasy

Chapter Summary: Settling into the semester, you find yourself in an unsuspecting position with your professor, meetings that shouldn't feel so secret but do and an assignment that may change the course of things for the better...or much worse. [5k]

[student/teacher relationship, age gap, no outbreak, power dynamic]

Chapter Warnings: 18+, fem!reader, professor!joel miller (his teacher persona is v different from outside of the classroom, so if he seems slightly ooc....close your eyes), dom!joel, sub!reader, reader is a little obsessed with joel (and delusional), mentions of infidelity (not by joel), sarah doesn't exist here, background tess x joel, inappropriate relationships/actions, talks of literature and lots of random writing topics, more dream smut that translates into writing, gratuitous descriptions of mr. miller's body and personality, joel is conspicuously toeing the line of lusting after a student while reader is very obvious, some unspoken sexual tension

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You weren’t sure when days would begin to blur, pulling all-nighters to finish assignments that you kept putting off until the absolute last minute. But, the small coffee shop on the edge of campus has become your pseudo-home, early mornings and occasional nights when you need the extra energy boost or focus. 

There was a perfect little nook in the corner of the coffee shop that was hidden behind a wall. A small alcove that was usually empty—at least, it was when you tried to use it. And you find yourself there on a lonely night, crisp autumn air biting at your skin as you slip into the coffee shop. It’s mostly empty at this hour and you order your usual drink of choice before you’re slipping around the corner with your coffee in hand, startled by the sight before you.

“Oh, shit—Mr. Miller—” You stammer, stepping back awkwardly as you almost run into his arm that is flipping a pen between his fingers, his gaze flicking up to you curiously.

He’s just as surprised to see you here, but ultimately, it makes more sense in retrospect.

He had a house, an office (both here on campus and at home), but he preferred a place like this, surrounded by the smell of coffee and the gentle ambience. He could’ve gone home to Tess and gave up grading and preparing assignments, but that didn’t sound appealing either. He finds the more he’s in Tess’s presence, the worse his thoughts wonder.

That maybe escaping to the coffee shop would push you from his mind, but here you were, in the flesh, and Joel couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

He offers a curt nod, polite. Part of him expects you to just…go away. But, he has the idea that he’s probably taking up your usual study spot. Before he entertains the idea of leaving, you take a seat silently in the chair across from him, holding up your hand.

“No, it’s fine—you don’t have to leave or anything.” You tell him assuredly, opening up your laptop as you settle into your spot, eyes connecting with his over the edges of your screen, his expression looking a little more jaded than your own.

You were exhausted, but he was exhausted and upset. You couldn’t be sure at what, but there was the glaring fact that he was here, nearing midnight, when he could easily be at home. You didn’t question it though, finding that if you wanted to, you could wear him down enough to talk.

“So,” After a long stretch of silence and his silent typing away at his keyboard and you still staring at a mostly blank screen, knowing you wouldn’t be able to get much work done with him around, thoughts and eyes wondering curiously, “I read those books you suggested.”

Ah, right. The email he’d sent on a whim. A lapse of judgment after the fact, seeing how it could be misconstrued, knowing it could be viewed as inappropriate.

The thoughts he was having were inappropriate, but even then, he knew he would never entertain it. And shit, you’re still looking at him, expecting some type of answer.

“Did you enjoy them?” He asks simply, no elaboration or asking for much.

 Just a simple yes or no.

There’s an angst that settles in your gut over his acknowledgment of the email, nodding quietly.

You had, truthfully. It was a few poem books he said were his favorites, and you could see where your interests intertwined, finding that the tone in the poems he enjoys reading is what you also enjoy reading.

Angst, dread, intense feeling that was hard to ignore.

And truthfully, Mr. Miller was impossible to ignore.

“I read them the other night,” You add, pulling up a half-finished assignment from your English course, “you’ve got…good taste.”

Joel chuckles quietly at that, easing slightly in his seat. Part of him was worried, even if his intentions were in the right place, that things may be misconstrued. He breaths out a sigh of relief he didn’t realize he was holding in.

“I figured you’d enjoy them.” He smirks slightly.

You feel your cunt clenching at the subtlety, crossing one leg over the other as you find a hauty comparison to his words, thought flashing through your mind.

You’d gone to bed with the words of the poems on your mind that night, but the voice wasn’t lacking in tone or voiceless—in fact, it was his voice. His words as he pumped one, two, and then three fingers into you over his desk, hands clenched into his shirt as you held onto him like a lifeline, only surfacing back to reality just as you were about to come.

But, he didn’t need to know that.

And you didn’t need to know how desperate he fucked himself into a lonely fist when he was pent up from work (which was more often than not, lately) with the image of you on his mind.

He’s never had thoughts like this and he can’t comprehend why—part of him wants to blame Tess and her choices and the stress it has put on his marriage. But, Joel has been checked out for a while and this, even though only in the confines of his mind, feels like an even worse betrayal.

“You should send me more.” A soft sip on your coffee as you stare flirtatiously over the rim of your cup—cool it, you tell yourself. But, it doesn’t work.

There’s a small twitch in his face, the deepest hint of a smile saying—yeah, I’ll challenge that—but it quickly fades. 

“Just…if you want to,” You add, playing things subtly, carefully, “if that’s okay?”

Joel knows he shouldn’t entertain the idea, but he sees the genuineness in your expression, beyond his attraction toward you. You had a desire to write and share and feel—he could respect that. He nods slightly, pressing his laptop closed and gathering his things slowly.

“Alright—give me a couple days,” Joel bargains, “Anything you prefer?”

You shake your head innocently, wishing he would recommend his own literature. You wanted to see how deep his ego ran, if he had the nerve to be so bold. “Anything you like, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it too.”

It was an understatement.

And the accidental coffee shop mishap doesn’t end there. In fact, it quickly grows out of control, beyond your own intention—this was natural, no coaxing needed.

–

Joel hated how much he craved your presence outside of work, in this stupid fucking coffee shop—but like his dependency to schedule and caffeine, he finds you become a normal occurrence and it throws him out of wack when you’re not around.

Luckily, you never strayed. You were there every night, even early mornings when he had to take a retirement for the night—you didn’t need to pry, you knew. He’d twist a nervous hand around his wrist that slowly trailed to his ring finger, fingers flexing anxiously. He had to be home, he didn’t want more problems. Even if this was somehow helping him work through his inhibitions, he still had a responsibility.

And Joel knows the time he’s spending with you could be misconstrued, but he does it out of a genuineness to further your interest and desire into literature if anything. He’s met with many students after hours—though, not to this extent. And always within the grounds of school, either in the classroom or his assigned office, nothing beyond the border of allowing a personal connection.

He was bending rules for you and he couldn’t help it.

There’s so much you learn in the short month or so that this drags on—Joel likes black coffee, no add-ins or sweet touches. He fidgets a lot, fingers constantly twisting at the watch on his wrist or scratching at his slowly regrowing stubble when he had just shaven a day or two prior—you start to notice the small blank patches in his beard because of it.

He seems so unsuspecting and normal—maybe that was what drew you in. You couldn’t really pinpoint it anymore. There was a point where the secret admiring morphed into open admiration and maybe Joel should’ve stopped it there. But, it made him feel good.

It made him feel wanted. And that was his first real mistake he made with you.

Allowing it.

It never breached anything inappropriate, but he’d notice when you would track the movement of his hands, rubbing over his face or neck in exhaustion, arms stretching over the back of his head after a long period of sitting down, hunched over in the small sanctuary you two had constantly found yourself in.

Mr. Miller was fair in that he never helped you with his assignments. He wasn’t there to give you a leg up or help you out in that regard, he knew you were capable. Competent. But, he fed your desire for him and literature by asking about your own interests and melding them his own, curating your time together in the small cafe with topics you could both find yourself getting lost in.

It was easy to lose track of time with him. And very irresponsible.

Joel does notice your longing glances and subtle twitches in your face when he does certaIn things, moving his body in a way that accentuates his strong form—he wasn’t toned necessarily, but he was broad, large, and he wasn’t amiss to how his own shirt clung to his body or how well-tailored his slacks were. He liked things to fit well. And you appreciated that so much.

But, beyond your own disappointment, things never cross that line.

He never makes a comment or threads the line of touching you, his hands always aware of their placement around you—and maybe he was just being respectful and was terrified to lose his job, but you can see the flex of his fingers when you remove your sweater or lean in to close to him, his eyes dragging along the slope of your neck, nostrils flaring in response at how comfortable enough you feel to just lean in.

He’s foolish to think this wouldn’t mean anything to you, but he allows that thought to stray from his mind and continues, too attached to these meet-ups like they were his own form of free therapy, beyond the dreadful marriage counseling he was going through.

It wasn’t working, but this was.

And he thinks that it is partly because it’s you and not Tess.

In fact, he knows it’s you.

The emails continue for weeks, days upon days of trading back responses and links—and really, everything is telling him to stop. Everything.

The guilt. The fear. The anger.

Yet, he never tries.

-

Joel can feel you breaking out of your shell little by little, more engaged in the group setting of the classroom the more time he’s spent with you one on one. He doesn’t want to initiate a responsibility in it, but he can since the familiarity and comfort when you speak–even if it's mostly directed at him.

Truthfully, you didn’t have a problem speaking in front of the class, but if it filled Mr. Miller with a sort of pride, you weren’t going to deny that.

You try to ignore the way he speaks your name, calls on you and beckons you to speak with a raise of his eyebrows, arms crossed firmly over his chest–and your eyes draw to his stomach, following along the soft slope and over his groin and you see his thighs tense as he crosses his legs too, one gently over the other as he leaned against his desk.

You smirk slightly, feigning a look of innocence as your eyes drag to his face, answering his question mindlessly—something about how to capture dialogue properly and even Joel can see that you’re not fully there, mind elsewhere.

It wasn’t hard to surmise where, but he ignored it. For now.

But, it wasn’t until the day was nearing the end of your class, head buried in your laptop as you copied your handwritten notes down into a document for later, knowing absently that he was perusing around the room but trying to ignore his lingering presence every time he glanced over at you.

His hands surround your chair before he announces himself, flimsy plastic creaking underneath his grip.

“Mr. Miller.” You address pleasantly, typing idly away at your keyboard.

He speaks your name gently, a reverence in his tone that allures fondness, a smile creeping on his lips. 

“Any questions?” He asks curiously, brow furrowing in confusion, “On the assignment—“

He points blindly to the board, eyes still locked on you as your head turns toward the board, down at your notes, then back at him.

“I mean—not really?” You sound unsure, “Write something fantasy, make it interesting—“

He can feel your interest waning, seeming rather nonchalant about the topic, like it would be an absolute breeze and wasn’t worth the wasted energy. But, he’s challenging you.

To what, you weren’t sure.

Joel clears his throat, grip tightening on the back of your chair as he leaned over subtly, chest crowding around the back of your head, examine the notes you did have type out before his eyes dragging back toward you, and you can’t ignore his gaze, chin turning up toward him and your eyes soften as they connect with his.

“But, specifically—dreams.” He clarifies, “Sometimes your best ideas can come to you in a dream—so think of it as journaling them but, expanding…bringing it to life.”

Dreams…

You’ve had enough of them in preceding weeks to last you a lifetime, all including him.

“Bringing it to life…” You echo his words, mincing the words on your tongue as the idea flusters your mind, a small nod from Joel in response.

Of course, he had no idea the extent of how deep your mind wandered, but his words were edging too close for comfort, like he had the faintest idea.

There’s a brief moment of self awareness as his eyes drag to your lips, tongue dampening them as you soothe the chapped skin, nodding absently.

“I think—I think I understand what you’re saying.”

Mr. Miller smiles then, whether fake or not you couldn’t tell, “Good—feel free to, uh—“

Email him.

You see him hesitate to force the words out, chuckle awkwardly as he leans away, breaking the built up tension between you both.

“Yeah, yep.” You laugh softly, infectiously as you turn your attention back toward your laptop, a small smile tugging at your lips. “Thank you, Mr. Miller.”

He pats your shoulder softly and squeezes, the only point of contact he ever allows himself, never letting his touch linger or stray because he knows—if he broke that point of contact and wandered elsewhere, he wasn’t sure he could stop.

-

You tap mindlessly at the edge of your keyboard, laptop resting wobbly in your propped up legs, start to type a word before quick erasing. Mind flicking through baseless and boring ideas, wondering how easily you could muster up a fake dream and amaze Mr. Miller with your lackluster writing skills—just lie, it wasn’t that hard.

You feel your mind wandering then, head hung back against your pillow as you stare at your ceiling, his expression etched into the back of your mind, eyes wandering along the dip in your cupid’s bow and the less than subtle lick of your lips that you offered in return. 

This couldn’t all be in your head.

You sigh, heavy and thick, but the soft ding of a notification on your laptop pulls your attention.

On the other end, Joel sits anxiously at his desk, foot tapping insistently against the hardwood floor, still fully dressed from work sans his tie that laid slack on his desk.

It wasn’t even a fully drafted email, rather a precursor to beginnings of an improper, but casual conversation. He tried to keep an open line of communication with all of his students, but when you don’t show up at the coffee shop that night, too burdened with the idea of just what you were going to write—he worries. 

‘Are things coming along? Didn’t catch you at the cafe tonight.’

You stare blankly, unsure how to respond.

It felt…odd, starting a conversation over email.

Of course, you didn’t have any other means of communication, so this is what Joel was forced to devolve too, tapping nervously as he awaited your response.

‘Having trouble actually—any suggestions?’

Part of you craves to hear his voice—and selfishly, he does too. And Joel knows the moment he offers the information up, he’s going to regret it. But, he does.

The house was empty, thankfully. Tess was working later than usual and Joel couldn’t be bothered with the semantics, finding himself straying further and further from this bed every night. His office was his new sanctuary, bad back be damned—he would choose the couch over a bed with her, knowing she still judged him for the choices she made.

A phone number is attached to the email that follows, ‘I’m free, if you want to talk through it.’

Your heart desynced from its usual rhythm for a brief moment, nearly fleeing your body if you hadn’t felt it so deeply in your chest. You couldn’t—this…it couldn’t be all in your head.

You quickly type the number into your contacts, hovering for far too many minutes over the call button, wondering if it mattered how you looked—if he would judge. You didn’t appear much different, but you were in your own comforts, vulnerable. And as much as he appeared here in your dreams, the reality of him being this close was startling.

You bite thoughtfully at your bottom lip as you prop your phone against the screen of your laptop, a blank document open behind the calling screen as you went through with your hesitation and attempt to connect the call, chin resting against your fist as you waited, eyes wandering aimlessly around the room.

When the familiar tone blares of the call going through and Joel is suddenly appearing on screen, you’re not sure why you followed through with this in the first place—even if he was the one who insisted it by offering up the information.

He looks slightly more disheveled across the screen, still dressed in the outfit you saw him in earlier, his tie gone, a button or two undone, and he’s definitely allowed his fingers to run through his usually quaffed hair, a curl falling freely over his forehead, his phone seemingly propped up in a similar manner as you can see most his upper body that wasn’t hidden by his desk.

“So, what’s the issue?”

He jumps right in, which isn’t surprising.

You feel the sense of familiarity in your usual conversations, like you were almost there in the room with him—you couldn’t imagine how exhausted you looked or seem currently, but you push the thought from your mind and hoped it didn’t cross his, that he wasn’t harping on your similarly disheveled appearance in his mind.

He seemed as if he genuinely wanted to help.

You hated it, wishing he wouldn’t drag things out.

If he wanted you, he could have you.

Instead, it felt like he wanted to—or rather needed to keep you at a distance, just out of reach for his own good rather than yours.

“Just…wondering, I guess.” You look down briefly, feeling his curiosity through the screen as you pick at a frayed thread in your blanket. “How—how detailed are you asking?”

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be so loud that it feels like…too much?” Joel feels like he may not be making complete sense, but he tries. “Do you have a few dreams you remember well that you feel the need to jot down, that you can morph it into something tangible?”

The way he speaks so eloquently, even beyond the guise of his profession, never gets old. Maybe it is a habit he’s formed, speaking and teaching for so many years that he can’t force himself out of that mode—but maybe he was also allowing it to be a barrier, that if he let his guard down too much that you might sneak in and find a way to pick at him and allow yourself to get comfortable.

He couldn’t do…comfortable. But, this—this he could manage. It allowed for a clear divide between student and teacher. Professional and casual, even if he didn’t hand out his phone number to people so willingly. 

“Um…yeah,” You nod slightly, mind filtering through the filthy thoughts of him over you, breathing a deep satiating desire for relief into your body, lips on your body, fingers buried deep inside of you, bringing you right near the precipice before you’re being ripped away from the glorious fantasy, “there’s a few, I guess.”

“Do you wanna share?” His eyebrows raise inquisitively, his hand disappearing off screen to bring a clear glass to his lips, half-filled with a dark brown liquid.

Tequila, maybe? Whiskey? 

His lips curl around the edge of the and he sips, ice clanking inside of the glass as he awaits your response.

You shake your head hesitantly, smiling slightly, “I think the whole point is to surprise you, right?”

He chuckles softly, “I suppose.”

“Maybe…some vague advice, if you have any?”

Joel sets the glass against the desk a few inches off screen, thinking quietly. Eyebrows furrowing deep as he contemplates. Hard.

“Don’t hold back,” He starts, staring mindlessly off into the distance as he speaks, “be—be authentic and try not to limit yourself.”

“So, no sparing any details?” You ask teasingly and he smirks at your playful tone.

“Why would you do that?” He asks unknowingly of the thoughts on your mind, “You’re a beautiful writer, don’t discredit yourself.”

It tugs at something deep inside of you, a subtle frown forming on your face as you nod in response. “Thank you…”

“Hey,” There’s a gentle utterance of your name that has your eyes connecting fiercely across the screen, “I mean that.”

You’re silent, at a loss for words. It wasn’t for lack of knowing what to say, but how to say something—how to extend your appreciation. But, you figure that may translate better through writing, brewing over the idea in your head.

“Mr. Miller—“ Your mind lingers on unspoken words and thoughts, begging to be spoken, but the faint creak of a door in the background on his end has you both shooting to attention, a shared understanding as he scrambles slightly.

“If you run into any road blocks, just send me a message, okay?”

You nod, cut off by his sudden eagerness to end the call—feeling you just got caught doing something horrible, a shunning on the horizon.

You sleep that night with a fresh revelation on your mind, smothered by the feeling of special treatment that Mr. Miller was offering, wholly committed to your own delusion and it fuels and stokes that fire effortlessly. And the vivid scenes of your dream flow onto the page the following morning in perfect detail:

It starts off innocent, a bland tale of forbidden love or…something thereof, playing at the idea that this wasn’t supposed to be. Two parrying forces that yearn for the other but can’t find the courage to jump or take that leap—full of dread and hesitance and intensifying that idea. 

Until, there’s a major implode of tension.

A sudden snap on the male character that resembles Joel so much it is unsettling, down to the subtle mannerisms as he takes in the characters appearance and words throughout, slowly describing yourself in a way that isn’t…obvious. But, it is heavily implied. 

There’s a sudden confession of desire, not love, but a definite yearning that is mostly mutual, leading into a fantasy of filth. Debauchery personified in a way that feels inappropriate to write for a college assignment but is therapeutic for your mind.

His hands wander with a restrain that reads as worried—unsure of what the other character expects, but the moment your lips connect all bets are off, clothes rapidly disappearing amongst the confines of the male’s vaguely described quarters, laid over a flat surface. His bed or his desk, the detail is omitted, but he crowds dream you in and devours, capturing your mouth in another heated kiss, hands wasting no time as they slip over your cunt, beyond the sacred barrier of your underwear and inside of you like he’s done this a million times before.

In your mind, he had. But, that was beyond the point.

His fingers work you over expertly, your own hands wandering over his strong frame, biceps flexing underneath your touch as you describe a distinct feeling of stubble as he decends and you feel the texture against the inside of your thighs, underwear disappearing at some point you can’t remember before his mouth is latching into your cunt without hesitation, feeling the warmth of his mouth so vividly it almost startled you awake at the time, the distinctness of his voice echoing in your mind, biting your lip to stifle your desperate moans.

“Don’t hold back.” He echoes, a distinct line of dialogue that sticks out in your mind as you type it into the document, feeling your inside twist and clench at the fleeting memory of his voice.

You come against his mouth with a shout, fingers twisting into his horrible disheveled hair, just long enough that you can secure a good grip before you’re pulling him upright, tasting the slick of yourself on your tongue as you kiss him.

It’s all a dream, after all. 

You take your own liberties, playing up the descriptions in a way that feels sinful, but you do it anyway. You finished the assignment in a few hours despite the ability to extend it over a few days, not bothering to wait as the idea was still fresh in your mind as you typed it out.

You don’t even hesitate to send the assignment once it is finished, fully confident in your abilities and Joel’s echoing encouragement.

It may have been the best thing you’ve ever written.

-

Joel is blissfully unaware of the debauchery awaiting him in his inbox, busying himself with the endless list of divorce attorneys in the state, wondering if he should really go through with this—ending his marriage, starting anew and cutting ties with Tess. He isn’t sure, really.

He isn’t positive about anything in his life anymore. 

He sips gingerly at the steaming cup of coffee, his second of the night as he switches between his browser and a separate page of assignments he was concocting for the rest of the semester, specifically tailoring some around your own interests. He couldn’t explain why he was putting the effort in, why there was genuine concern—but he wanted you to succeed, if anything.

You don’t see him at first, he wasn’t hidden away in your usual spot, but he’s tucked away in a quiet corner near the back of the cafe, and you almost decide to ignore him and give him the space he seems like he craved, wondering if he had already read through your essay, but he nods at you subtly when he catches your gaze, a quick look up from his computer as you grabbed your coffee order from the barista.

Come here, he beckons silently.

You cross a single arm over your chest and press the lid of the cup to your lips and sip, gentle are careful steps progressing his way as you stop, hip pressing against the edge of the table. He looks at you, friendly and innocent, like he hadn’t offered up his phone number without precautions or asking, handing out the final line of connection that sealed the deal for you. This wasn’t just…help. It had to be more.

“J–Mr. Miller,” You catch yourself, finding his first name almost slipping from your lips, too close for comfort but he doesn’t seem to catch it, “reading through the assignments?”

You’re curious, but silently hoping he hasn’t crossed yours yet. Or, if he had, wondering if he was calling you over for that very reason—he wouldn’t express his thoughts in the coffee shop though, he couldn’t. If he lies, you can’t see through it.

“Uh, not yet, giving that a couple days,” He shakes his head, closing out of the browsers and shutting his laptop, “sit?”

He’s extending the invitation, hand gesturing toward the empty seat.

You bite back the smile that creeps on your face and take a seat, pulling at the sweater that covers your body, the cold chill creeping into the cafe as the bells to the entrance ring.

“Did you ever figure out what you were struggling with?” Joel asks curiously, still painfully in teacher mode, much to your dismay, “I didn’t hear from you, so…”

“Oh, um,” There’s an excited fluttering in your tummy, hesitant to debrief him on the details, but you nod, “yeah—just took a little bit of thought and the words started flowing.”

“Well, that’s good,” He offers politely, “I’m glad I could help—if…if I did.”

“Of course,” You smile more confidently, “You always do.”

If he only knew.

His eyebrows furrowing subconsciously, staring at his watch as the numbers creeped closer to midnight, his mind heavy with thought he wouldn’t speak out loud. So, you ask.

“Are you okay?” You utter softly, knowing it was the instance either of you have ever made the effort to ask—through countless meet-ups and secret conversation, feeling a need to keep it all hushed—it never occurred to you until you’re saying the words out loud. “You seem…irritated.”

Joel laughs bitterly, a soft chuckle that radiates in his chest. “Who isn’t?” He challenges, seeing the familiar look cross your own face, “Sorry—that’s—”

Joel looks away briefly, feeling that confiding you was a line he couldn’t cross, even though he’s blurred just about every other one in existence. 

“I don’t mean to pry,” You shrug, “but I figure—it doesn’t hurt to ask?”

He’s withholding and you can see it, clock it in the way he checks his phone screen—a few missed calls and a text but you can’t read out anything other than the name. Tess.

Tess Miller. Got it.

“Did you get your assignment turned in then?” He asks curiously.

You nod shyly, twirling the cup slowly on the table, eyes drawn away from him despite how starkly he glared at you, hands cupped in his lap underneath the table. If you scooted closer your knees would knock together and you fight the urge to do so.

Joel notices the way you curl inward, a subconscious act that always denotes something simmering beneath the surface with you. He was used to your forwardness, your inability to respect personal space to a degree that…didn’t necessarily bother him in the way that it should. And he hates how his cock twitches at the sight of you glancing away, intimidated by his eye contact for once in the few months he’s gotten to know you.

There’s a creeping thought edging its way into his mind, an urge to force your wandering gaze on him, coax you into trusting him, wondering just how easy it would be for you to comply with his will, if it would take any fight on your part at all.

“Good, I’m excited to read it.” Joel replies honestly, a genuine smile finding its way onto his face, “I’m always lookin’ forward to what your mind thinks up.”

He may be asking for more than he bargains for with that.

“Well, I’ll see you on Monday then?” You confirm, feeling the need for a quick escape, things getting entirely too close for comfort, “Hopefully with a perfect score?”

Joel smirks knowingly, “Don’t get ahead of yourself now.” He teases.

Unfortunately, you were yards if not miles ahead. 

Beyond saving.

And Joel had no idea.

[bibibbon]

MHA and the bystander effect (long post)

MHA's society suffers heavily from the bystander effect.

I wish that this plot point was further explored and this could of been where we actually take all mights character somewhere and not waste him on the whole iron might bs.

It can be argued that we first see this as early as the first chapter where we have people simply standing there watching a hero take down a villain. In all retrospect when I see this I genuinely think of some kind of performance, the hero is a glorified soldier that has to elegantly perform their duty while ensuring the safety of lives and entertaining them.

We then have the attack with bakugo and the sludge villain. People again are standing there watching another performance go down except here the heroes don't know what to do and it can be argued that they aren't trying hard enough at all. The heroes look at the situation, say they don't have any compatible quirk that helps the situation and simply stand in the sidelines waiting for someone to come and help that's after the manh failed attempts. Now this absolutely wouldn't work considering the victim in this circumstance was getting choked to death and him struggling even more literally caused a fire and property damage. I think it's interesting how no one thought of simply aiming at the sludge villains eyes (his obvious weak spot) and it was izuku in his panic that actually helped save Katsuki and gave all might the strength and confidence to step up and do something. What's even more interesting is that at that moment all might like the other bystanders was also contributing to the bystander effect simply standing there distanced from the fight and involved in it at the same time.

The third time we see this is during the UA entrance exams. Everyone is focused on getting points and destroying robots not really paying attention to their surroundings. After releasing the zero pointer everyone priorities themselves and starts to run with no one sparing ochako (who is injured) an eye and offering to help her. Rather the unconscious thoughts are that someone else will help her and it's full of people trying to prioritise themselves as this is also an exam. Izuku also priorities himself and tries to get away until he sees ochako and this is the second time where he recklessly runs into danger.

I think what's really interesting is that nedzu made this the point of the test which is something that iida says to izuku when they meet again. Iida points out that saving peoples lives and helping them is indeed the point of the test and heroism yet the test is very much structured in a way where you need to destroy to save and you need to prioritise yourself which can be the test just being a microcosm for the real hero society.

We mainly and clearly see the bystander effect in action when it comes to shigaraki tomuras backstory. It can be argued that this is one of the major reasons what drives shigaraki to villainy. Throughout tenko's backstory people see him suffer yet they don't help him physically at all or are quite late to do so. This starts from his father's punishments to him aimlessly roaming the streets scared and alone just for all for one to come along and offer a hand to him. A villain ends up helping a child instead of the people who are supposed to do so (Iam ignoring the contents of chapter 420 that revealed that AFO was behind this all along)

Tenko's backstory also emphasises just how much society is dependent on heroes that they think they aren't responsible for anything and any remains of social responsibility are rather diminished as people are busy and turn a blind eye to an obviously scared kid who is suffering.

Heck we even have momo a class 1A member acknowledge that the bystander effect is a very big thing within hero society yet no one does much to reduce this. It seems that hero society actually makes it somewhat of a taboo to even intervene in situations and help people when you aren't a hero which is why labels such as vigilantes exists. This could be linked to what we find out what happens to lady nagant and how she was in charge of killing vigilantes or anyone who opposed the government.

You can say that the government uses heroes (like hawks and lady nagant) as a way to control citizens but this turns out to be a double edged sword for them as time goes on and all mights notorious reign of 'peace' falls the people start to wake up you can say.

Hero society especially with the rise of all might and the all might era has created a society that is rampant in the bystander effect and a society that relies, worships and glorifies heroes to a toxic extreme. Obviously this has negatively effected everyone in different ways. It's not only civilians that suffer but also the heroes who are put into extreme situations and have to live up to incredibly toxic and high standards while also appealing to the public. I think a great example of this is all might who is a character who suffered from the system yet upheld and was somewhat responsible for creating it.

After the war arc we see the hero society system crumble away and we see the complacent bystander effect fade away and get people become distrustful or heroes and anyone around them. During this arc we also see the once glorified and worshipped all might statue become vandalised and people abandoning any hope of the hero system or hero society in general. Chaos and panic are rampant and people have lost hope as the system dissolves.

In conclusion, if horikoshi actually handled this theme of bystander effect in hero society properly then we could of gotten a compelling story where villains or victims that suffer from it are saved. Hori could of also used this to show how flawed hero society is and how corrupt the hero public safety commission is as well.

Add on

Horikoshi during the vigilante arc also has civilians realise their compliance in all of this and how the hero system set them up in a way which they can relax and watch without having to do anything as society crumbles. It's such a shame that horikoshi takes this and basically diminishes any proper hope by making the ending of the second war arc a disaster.

[novlr]

how would i write a character who switched places with their unknown twin sibling without giving it away to readers and other characters? would i still use their name? how would i describe them if they aren’t themselves? would i have to reveal to readers and not other characters?

For those not in the know, the trading places trope is one where a character assumes another’s identity. It’s a classic storytelling device that has been used in so many different types of media, from film to classic literature. It offers a fertile starting point for exploring identity, relationships, and the complexities of living someone else’s life.

The trading places trope typically involves two characters swapping lives, either voluntarily or through supernatural means. Classic examples include Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, where a prince and a commoner trade positions, and the film Freaky Friday, where a mother and daughter switch bodies. This narrative device often serves to help characters gain perspective on their own lives by walking a proverbial mile in someone else’s shoes.

How do you manage reader knowledge?

One of the biggest decisions you’ll need to make when writing a trading places story is whether to let your readers in on the secret. This choice will fundamentally shape how your plot plays out, affecting everything from narrative perspective to how you handle description and dialogue.

You have two main options for revealing the switch to readers:

Let readers in on the secret from the start, creating dramatic irony as readers watch characters interact with the wrong person. This allows you to build tension through near-misses and close calls and also gives you the opportunity to explore the character’s internal thoughts and struggles.

Keep readers in the dark, creating a surprise revelation for later in the story. This approach requires careful writing so the reveal doesn’t feel unearned. It means you’ll need to foreshadow with subtle clues that will make the reveal seem clear in retrospect.

Letting readers in on the secret

If you choose to let readers know about the switch, you can explore the internal struggles and anxieties of the character living someone else’s life. If this is the avenue you choose to explore, you can use their true name when using their PoV or narrative voice. You should, however, use their assumed name in dialogue when other characters are referencing them or if you are using their PoV as narration.

It also offers you the opportunity to describe their physical differences, as this is something that the imposter will be very aware of. They might have to hide certain physical traits, or might even be uncomfortable with unfamiliar routines, relationships, and spaces that are new to them.

You might show them struggling with daily tasks the original person found simple, or navigating complex relationships without revealing their true identity. For example, they might not know how to operate familiar technology, or they might react differently to longtime friends, raising suspicions. These subtle details can create fascinating moments of dramatic tension while maintaining the story’s believability.

Keeping readers in the dark

If you choose to keep the swap a secret from your readers, then it’s imperative that you use only the name of their assumed identity throughout, otherwise it gives the game away immediately. You can plant subtle hints through slightly changed behaviours and interactions, but these shouldn’t be too obvious.

If you want to keep things tucked away for a later reveal, you can focus on environmental details that feel a bit off to the character. They might not fell 100% comfortable in their environment but don’t share why. It also allows for confusion from other characters when they react to subtle changes. The trick is foreshadowing without revealing too much.

You can also describe physical sensations of discomfort or unfamiliarity, like how clothes don’t quite fit right or how their reflection in mirrors startles them momentarily. This approach requires careful balance. You need to provide enough hints to make the reveal satisfying while still maintaining the mystery.

How to build a sense of mystery

To build an effective sense of mystery around switched identities, focus on subtle behavioural changes that readers might initially dismiss, like unexplained reactions from secondary characters, like a friend’s momentary confusion or a pet’s altered response. You can also create situations where the imposter must navigate unfamiliar territory, perhaps stumbling over childhood memories or failing to recognise longtime acquaintances immediately. These small details plant seeds of doubt without revealing the switch too early.

To make this really effective, there must be a clear baseline for the original character and their behaviour. No matter which approach you take to the trading places trope, each character must have a clear sense of who they are (or were), as must the secondary characters. That doesn’t mean you necessarily need to tell this explicitly to the reader, but even if the character who is replaced never actually appears in the story, the characters who knew them must have a consistent idea of who they are/were for this trope to be effective.

Without a baseline, it’s impossible to show the small, subtle mistakes that an imposter might make. They might forget inside jokes or react unexpectedly in familiar situations. It’s also a way to create a good sense of character tension if the imposter begins to lose themselves in their adopted life. Near miss moments are also a great source of narrative tension, so setting up plot moments where this could happen is great for plot development.

Some quick tips for writing the trading place trope

Control the perspective by choosing your PoV carefully. First person creates more intimacy but requires more skill to maintain mystery. Third-person limited allows more flexibility in revealing information. But multiple PoVs can show different sides of the deception.

Balance your description by focusing on environmental details that would feel foreign to someone in a new space. Let your characters interact through the space and use muscle memory moment to highlight or foreshadow unfamiliarity.

Maintain consistent character voices, like speech patterns for both the original and imposter characters. They should struggle mimicking the other’s mannerisms, and if it’s the approach you choose, you can also include internal thoughts about maintaining the deception.

Common pitfalls to avoid

Don’t rely on convenient memory gaps to explain knowledge issues.

Avoid making the switch too perfect as some mistakes make it more believable.

Don’t withhold too much information from readers if they’re meant to be in on the secret.

Make sure the reveal has proper setup and payoff. There is nothing worse than a trading places reveal that feels unearned.

Don’t forget to address the emotional impact on all characters involved.

[fieldofheathers-stuff]

The Silco Saga. A Retrospective After Season 2

Part 1.5: A brief intermission on The Flashback Issue™, (un)reliable narrators and Silco committing infanticide

Why the timeline isn’t fucked, actually

A common issue I see people have with Season 2 is that some of Vander’s backstory messes with the timeline established in Season 1. While it is true that Vander in the S1 flashback on the bridge appears to be significantly older than the Vander in Silco’s drowning flashback - implying that the two events took place years apart and not, as Vander’s letter says, one right after the other - I would like to offer an alternative reading on the S1 Day of Ashes scene, which in my opinion can be explained in a way that doesn’t necessarily mess with canon too much.*

Arcane S1 has a very interesting way of using flashback scenes, and POV shots in general: they are always firmly rooted in someone’s POV, but despite being subjective, we the audience are led to believe they are fairly reliable narrators. There’s only one person who’s shown as being consistently unreliable in their POV: Jinx (a choice which narratively makes sense, as she suffers from psychosis). Jinx is also, coincidentally, the person who’s POV we see in the Day of Ashes flashback. Now, this might veer into headcanon territory (which I’m OK with), but nonetheless, hear me out: is it really that far fetched to think that Jinx, being very young and in obvious distress, would misremember this event, and superimpose the face of the father she knows as an older child on that of his younger self? While I don’t mind people coming up with their own HCs on this event, I think that there’s a much simpler way to interpret this “incongruence”, which fits both the general canon narrative as well as a specific trait of Jinx’s POV.

*There’s obviously one reading of this incongruence between the designs of Day-of-Ashes-Vander and Drowning-Vander where this continuity mistake can be attributed to external reasons, such as the writers not having a clear idea of the backstory in S1 and later retconning in S2, which I don’t have a huge problem with either. It happens all the time. However, I find a possible in-story reason for this incongruence much more elegant and appealing.

Silco says ‘Fuck them kids’ (except Jinx)

Another complaint I have heard, which I personally find pretty funny all things considered, is that having Vander and Silco know Vi and Jinx’s mother (and, consequently, Vi and Jinx) before the betrayal “cheapens” their story in S1, and makes Silco’s intent to kill them in Arc 1 seem more unrealistic due to his previous connection with her mom. I find this logic quite baffling.

As I have already pointed out in my previous post on Silco’s relationship with Jinx, the main point of his self-asserted narrative is that he was essentially reborn as a new man after his own attempted murder by Vander, unburdened by the sentiment and affection his older self held for others. This belief Silco holds about himself is perfectly in line with his treatment of Vi and Jinx in the first arc of S1: he doesn’t care about them, and he’s perfectly willing to get rid of them if it serves his end, just as much as he’s perfectly OK with killing Vander, because those are connections that only his older self cared about, not the new, “updated and improved” Silco.

The only reason Jinx is saved from an unfortunate fate is that Silco, in a moment of weakness following an extremely stressful series of events, instinctively identifies with her; thus, he creates an unsolvable conflict between his need to uphold his own rebirth narrative (which is really nothing more than a dysfunctional coping mechanism) and this newly found but extremely powerful self-identification with this child. His adoption of Jinx is his own way of trying to have his cake and eat it too: he can still hold on to his ideology, while also offering some sort of comfort to this suffering child, which is actually himself, thus also reinforcing the idea that he is right.

There’s obviously no such ethical conundrum when it comes to his relationship with Vi in Arc 1. Silco quite clearly sees her only as a projection of Vander, an incarnation of his ideals, a continuation of his legacy best exemplified in her physical prowess as a fighter. And since his goal during Act 1 is to either convince Vander to work with him again, or get rid of him altogether, I don’t see how he shouldn’t apply the same logic to Vi. It doesn’t matter she’s an innocent bystander in his conflict with Vander, or the daughter of a former close friend. Silco, after his “rebirth”, is a man who is willing to see the world only within the black-and-white paradigm of his own narrative. Therefore, killing her is no big deal for him.

This indifference towards Vi then turns to visceral hatred in the following two arcs, as she becomes a double threat: a symbol of Vander and a wedge between him and Jinx, the only relationship he can't stand to lose. So yeah. Fuck them kids.

Flashbacks pt. 2: Kids don’t know shit

I think the general logic of “very young kids in Arcane don’t have reliable memories” can be used to explain why Jinx and Vi don’t seem to remember Silco pre-betrayal. First of all, while I keep harping on the fact that Silco’s narrative of dual identities is total bullshit, it doesn’t mean that pre-betrayal and post-betrayal Silco aren’t two very different people to an outsider’s perspective. The pre-betrayal Silco we see in Vander’s memories is humorous, gentle, soft, thoughtful. We do see some hints of an underlying grittier nature (his very serious tone before he subverts our expectations with the “Bozo 1” joke is a perfect example of him already knowing he can be very intimidating if he wants to), but he appears, to all intents and purposes, as a completely different man than his post-betrayal persona. There’s also the factor of physical disfigurement and change of look between pre- and post-drowning Silco which would seriously impact any ability of the girls to recognize him.

Another important factor to keep in mind is also that It’s made pretty clear in both S1 and S2 that the kids don’t know about Vander’s betrayal of Silco, and therefore probably have no idea why Uncle Sil didn’t show up at the Last Drop after the Day of Ashes. Even if Vi and Jinx were close to him pre-drowning (which we aren’t even sure of, since he doesn’t appear in any flashbacks with them as young children), they probably think he’s dead. It’s pretty obvious throughout S1 that both Vander and Silco have kept the whole drowning affair a secret, the first out of guilt and shame for his actions (which he spends the rest of his life trying, unsuccessfully, to repent from), the second because it would make him appear weak against his rival. Vander, when admonishing Vi about her willningess to use violence when fighting Piltover’s oppression, only vaguely hints at the reason why he thinks this approach is dangerous, mentioning how much Powder means to her and asking her what she would do if she lost her (a clear mirror to his own failure towards Silco, but Vi doesn’t know that). On a lighter note, when Ekko hilariously asks Best Timeline Silco, in S2ep7, ��Didn’t you try to kill him?”, he’s clearly referring to Silco killing Vander, while both Silco and Vander interpret it as Vander killing Silco, making it for a very awkward interaction between the two.

(On a side note, I love Silco’s sappy “power to forgive” answer. Oh Best Timeline Silco, you softie. This is what having the Nation of Zaun and being gay married to your best friend does to a MF. )

It also kinda makes sense that Jinx, who eventually has a clearer picture of what happened between Silco and Vander, still doesn’t remember him as a part of her childhood. We are told several times that she has very few childhood memories of her family before the Day of Ash. It also makes sense that Silco wouldn’t mention Felicia or Connol to her. The Silco that knew them, after all, drowned in the Pilt the same day they died.

I think this also hints at the fact that Silco probably wasn’t very involved with the girls as kids, which, again, goes very well with his characterization as someone who cares more about The Revolution™ than about the individual people of Zaun. The flashback with Felicia gives us a hint that this was one of Silco’s characteristics even before the drowning: while Vander toasts about “raising an ankle-biter or two”, Silco only raises his glass “to the Nation of Zaun”. I don’t think these are just meant to be throwaway lines: they perfectly encapsulate their future priorities, with Vander dedicating himself to his mission of nurturing Zaun’s people to the point of giving up the fight, and Silco becoming such a radical that he completely looses sight of the people he’s fighting for. (They are both cringe boyfailures and I love them for that.)

[thewebcomicsreview]

Anyway, let's talk about a good comic. People often talk about how a good twist is something that seems obvious in retrospect even though you didn't see it coming, and that's also true of non-twisty plot developments. The two plotlines of this chapter of Clown Corps have been Morgan going all Vigilante to fight Echo on her own, and McBell falling back into her criminal ways. In retrospect, of course Mustard falling to the Dark Side (or at least the Mildly Edgy Side) would cause her to be a worse teacher for McBell when McBell really needed her. And I didn't predict that, so seeing it happen here has the same kind of satisfaction as a good plot twist. The setup of the page is also visually reinforcing the idea, that Mustard can't get the phone because she's off on a vengeance quest. Even though Mustard's house has been shown to us, there's a slight confusion initially as to where the ringing is and where Morgan is. Panel 3 even looks like she's reacting to the ringing, while the next panel makes very clear she isn't, and makes very clear why she isn't.

It's that thing about Clown Corps where yeah it's not really that exciting or impressive in a vacuum but Clown Corps is always doing these little good things and they add up. It's the most consistently "Pretty Good" comic I've ever seen, and to the point that it gets a combo bonus that pushes it into Great.

[demigod-shenanigans]

Late Night Cocoa and other Remedies

Summary: Leo was totally fine, in case anyone was wondering.

Fine with the nightmares that had been getting worse since they got back home.

Fine with the fact that Jason’s place at Camp Jupiter, having been built for one person, only had a single bed.

They were just staying for a week. Leo could completely platonically share a bed with his best friend for a few days.

Sure, their shoulders kept brushing. Maybe Leo wasn’t even sure how he’d make it through the first night with the heart palpitations that was giving him—never mind a whole week. But he’d figure it out.

It was fine.

In retrospect, he really should have accounted for his habit of clinging to things when he had bad dreams

Word Count: ~5.5k

Rating: Teen and Up

Another Valgrace fanfic repost from my Ao3 that takes place in the same universe as this one. This time, we’ve got angst, more pining and lots of hurt/comfort. Also quite possibly some kissing ;)

CW for references to Leo’s canon foster care abuse, nothing super in-depth or graphic but as per usual my rule of thumb with this stuff is better safe than sorry.

———

Leo was totally fine, in case anyone was wondering.

Sure, his nightmares had been getting worse since they’d gotten back to camp, like the brain equivalent of adrenaline draining out of his body after a fight, leaving him aching all over.

Hey, you lived, congrats! Now, remember all that pesky trauma you’ve been ignoring?

Nightmares were a normal thing that every demigod experienced. The last few months had been a lot. The gods liked to give you shitty doomsday visions whenever they got the chance. And sure, those dreams sucked, but excitingly, Leo also had plenty of memories from before that time to have nightmares about. Now that he no longer needed to have prophetic nightmares about Gaia, he got to have dreams about all the other shit that had happened to him, plus a little extra trauma he’d collected on the journey. Wasn’t that exciting?

He was fine, though. It wasn’t anything he’d never dealt with before. It helped when he had ways to keep himself busy.

For this reason, among other things, Leo had been glad that Jason had asked him to go along on a trip to Camp Jupiter. It made for a welcome distraction—those were harder to come by than Leo wished, with everyone insisting they “rest up” and “take a while to recover” after their several week trip on the Argo II. It also made for a great excuse to spend some alone time with Jason.

Technically, their visit to Camp Jupiter was about the Temple Hill renovations Jason had been planning since they’d gotten back to camp, along with the new shrines at Camp Half-Blood. When he wasn’t talking over details with Annabeth, he’d been rambling about it to Leo a lot. It was obvious how passionate he was about it. He had sketches and a model made out of old monopoly houses and everything. It was cute.

Leo wasn’t exactly needed for Jason to present his first draft to the Roman demigods. But Jason had been nervous, and he hadn’t seemed to like the thought of leaving Leo—aftereffects of him blowing himself up to save the world, apparently, despite the fact that it had been two months. And, well, it wasn’t like Leo had anything better to do, so they’d taken Festus on a little cross-country road trip.

The trip itself had been shockingly uneventful by their standards. Sure, there’d been the occasional monster, but compared to their trip to Greece, Leo was pretty sure that almost counted as a vacation.

Their arrival at Camp Jupiter, however, came with a whole host of new and exciting problems.

For one, being the guy who’d fired on their Camp a few months prior, Leo wasn’t exactly popular. He didn’t blame the Roman demigods for being distrustful of him—getting possessed sounded like a stupid excuse even to Leo, and he was the one it had happened to.

Jason got very defensive about it, considering Leo’s whole dramatic sacrifice and everything. After one especially mean comment, there’d been some ominous electrical crackling from his direction, and Leo had had to drag him off before they caused another incident, proving the guy’s point by getting him struck by lightning or something equally unfortunate.

This actually wasn’t the main problem. Leo had mostly been expecting it. Besides, he hadn’t exactly been popular in most places he’d lived, neither at school nor with his foster parents, so it wasn’t like this was a novel experience for him. He was pretty used to it.

The bigger problem was Jason, who, seeing as Leo getting glared at in the barracks wasn’t a feasible living situation, had asked Leo to stay at his place. A place that, as it had specifically been designed for Jason and his new role—high priest, or whatever it was, Leo could never remember the exact title—had been built for exactly one person.

This was Jason’s first proper visit to Camp Jupiter since the war had ended, so he hadn’t been to his new place before. The furniture was bare-bones, just the necessities, picked out by someone who wasn’t Jason. Meaning: no couch, and exactly one bed.

The living room came with two armchairs, which were decently cozy, but even Leo wasn’t short enough to use them for a bed. He’d need both legs detachable instead of just one for that to work, and even then it’d be a tight fit.

So that left them with just the bed.

And sure, they’d slept around each other before, shared a tent or a campfire, but that wasn’t the same as sharing a bed. Bed sharing wasn’t something Leo had ever done with anyone except his mom and Piper, who was basically his sister and therefore didn’t count.

Sharing a bed with Jason… that was different.

Leo had offered to spend the week sleeping on the floor, because he’d slept in less comfortable places than wooden floors in a heated building, but then Jason had said he sometimes found himself a nice bush to sleep in when he got anxious and he could just do that, which… yeah, okay, even Leo had realized at that point that they were both being ridiculous. Sometimes he really did wonder why Piper put up with either of them.

Anyway, they’d decided to stop being idiots and just share the bed, so now Leo was awake at one in the morning, staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore Jason dozing quietly next to him and the way their shoulders were brushing.

Jason ran a little colder than he did, which Leo had never noticed before, but now he could barely resist the urge to hold a hand to Jason’s cheek to warm him up, and maybe keep it there. Maybe just lean in, and… yeah, no, absolutely not.

Leo really shouldn’t spend extended periods of time thinking about any of this, because if he did, his brain would kick into overdrive again, and if he let it… well, the top ten things of what not to do when you were hopelessly in love with your best friend probably included accidentally lighting his bedsheets on fire.

He wasn’t even noticing the fact that their hands were almost touching.

Jason didn’t seem to mind lying next to Leo at all. The second they’d flopped down on the mattress, he’d been out cold. And here Leo was, still awake, fighting the heart palpitations that Jason‘s peaceful smile gave him. How Leo was supposed to make it all the way to the end of the week when this would be a nightly thing, he had no idea.

This was no fair. Leo hadn’t cheated fate only for his bisexuality to kill him.

He turned his back to Jason, facing the wall. It was impossible to ignore he was there, even when Leo wasn’t looking, because no matter which way he turned, they were always touching. Leo had tried, but the bed just wasn’t big enough to avoid it completely. His skin prickled. He was used to having disastrous crushes—to falling hard and flat on his face. But he’d never been so close to one of them before—physically and emotionally speaking. He wasn’t sure what to do with that.

Not that the falling flat on his face-part couldn’t still happen. Jason had seen him do a lot of stupid shit. That wouldn’t even make the top three.

It felt impossible that Leo fell asleep under these circumstances, but at some point, he did. Maybe it was the exhaustion from traveling here. Maybe, despite feeling like a live wire every time Jason got too close, the backdrop of his steady breaths was actually calming.

Whatever it was, at some point throughout the night, Leo did fall asleep. Inevitably, the nightmares came, as they always fucking did.

~~~~~~~

It was Teresa this time, yelling at him after he’d gotten another bad report card. Grabbing his shoulders too hard. Leo should have run sooner than he did, but it had been the early days, right after his mom died, and he hadn’t figured out running was an option yet. Instead, he just froze and curled up and tapped “I love you” into the carpet until his fingers hurt, waiting for his mom to tap back from wherever she was. She never did. She couldn’t.

Teresa yelled at him to stop fidgeting, stop making noise. Told him that it was no wonder his relatives hadn’t wanted to put up with him, and he should be so grateful that she did, but her patience was wearing thin. One more mistake, one more step out of her perfect lines…

His face hurt. There was more yelling.

The dream dissolved into something completely incoherent after this, just vague images. Then suddenly he was alone, swallowed by darkness or maybe the earth. Breathing hurt. The yelling was still there, further away now, but it wasn’t Teresa’s voice anymore.

“Leo? Leo!”

Someone was shaking his shoulders.

~~~~~~~

Leo startled awake with a gasp and an embarrassing wet sound. Someone really was shaking him. The room around him was dark, which was just a little bit too close to the dream for comfort.

It took a moment for Leo‘s soul to return to his trembling body, and even longer for his brain to process what was going on. His head was buried in something that felt just cool enough to be soothing. His hands were clutching soft fabric way too tightly.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re safe.”

Jason’s voice, so close that it must’ve been right in his ear.

Right. Jason. Camp Jupiter. No fucking Teresa. This was ridiculous. Leo had almost gotten killed by monsters countless times in the last year. He’d died. It seemed incredibly stupid that, after all this, he’d get worked up over some mortal lady he hadn’t seen since he was nine years old.

He blinked a few times, bleary, trying to make sense of his surroundings. That it was dark probably meant it was still the middle of the night. So, normal. No reason to panic.

He wouldn’t freak out any worse than he already had. Not over this. Not in front of Jason, who he’d probably woken up with his tossing and turning and his idiotic tendency to-

Leo froze as his brain finally caught up.

Jason.

Jason, who Leo was currently clinging to like he was a giant pillow or a human-sized marble statue of Nike.

It suddenly made a ton of sense why the place his face was pressed into felt so much like skin. Because, duh, it was. His head was buried in the crook of Jason’s neck.

His hands were clenched so tightly into Jason’s shirt, digging into his back, that Leo was sure it must’ve hurt, but he couldn’t get his stupid cramped fingers to unclench.

Jason didn’t seem bothered, though. He’d stopped shaking Leo once he’d realized he was awake, and now his arms were wrapped around Leo’s midsection in a gentle hug.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Jason said it solemnly, like a promise or a Styx oath he couldn’t possibly keep. “Never again.”

Leo had to choke back a sob. He really didn’t want to cry right now. Not when it felt so nice to be held like this, and he was terribly afraid anything he did might make it stop.

“I’m fine,” he forced himself to say, trying and failing to get his breath to steady. “I’m fine.”

Because clearly, saying it twice in a row would make it way more believable!

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was also somewhere in the incoherent nonsense I mumbled at Piper after I got stabbed,” Jason replied, not moving even a little bit. “It hurt more than any of the times I got knocked out, but I was way more conscious through that incident than most.”

Jason wasn’t great at jokes. For some reason, most of the jokes he did make were like this—aimed at the fact that he kept getting hurt.

Something about him trying to joke now made Leo’s insides feel gooey. Like maybe Jason realized that jokes made things less overwhelming for Leo and was gently egging him on. Telling him they didn’t have to talk about anything if he didn’t want to. That it was okay for them to just stay like this, for as long as Leo needed, and if being ridiculous helped, that was what they’d be.

“Still can’t believe how many times you got concussed in the last year. You must’ve really pissed off the Roman god of head injuries at some point.”

Jason snorted. “I’ve been researching all the minor gods and I’m pretty sure we don’t have one of those.”

“Careful. If they do exist, you just made them mad again,” Leo teased, the pressure on his chest easing. It wasn’t as hard to breathe now. “Though I guess I can’t blame you for getting knocked out so much. It’s not your fault you’re so nearsighted you couldn’t see the stuff flying at your head until it was literally hitting you in the face.”

“I can still see things that are far away. They’re just blurry because they’re far away.”

“Yeah, and then they’re blurry because you have a concussion.” Leo finally managed to get his fingers to unclench, gently patting the spots where they’d been digging into Jason’s back. “Sorry for going all human clamp on you, by the way. I, uh… I have a tendency to cling to stuff when I’m having nightmares. It’s been that way since I was little. Kid Leo never quite learnt his lesson with that one.”

“If you remember what we talked about earlier, I don’t think hugging stuff is nearly as weird as me sleeping outside when I get stressed,” Jason said, his head still resting on top of Leo’s like they were two gears perfectly made to fit together that way. “Besides, I don’t mind. Not like it was your first time.”

Right. The campfire koala incident. For a moment, Leo had been too busy being overwhelmed to be embarrassed.

Nice to know that couldn’t possibly last.

“Piper still gives me shit for that. She’s gonna have a field day if she finds out it happened again.”

Jason laughed. Gods, there was a sound Leo would never grow tired of hearing.

So, there was an obvious downside to the fact that Leo was slowly calming down. The downside being: he could start thinking about the way he was curled into Jason, so close that he could feel his heartbeat. He could start thinking about how they were still sharing a bed, except unlike earlier, there was barely any part of them that wasn’t entangled in some way.

His skin prickled and felt hot.

Well, that had the potential to become a problem.

“Hey Superman, think you could release me for a second? I kinda wanna go splash my face.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Do you need any help with the prosthesis?”

Jason slowly untangled himself from Leo, who missed him immediately, but also instantly felt like less of a fire hazard. He really didn’t want to go all Human Torch right now.

“I know how to put my leg on, you dork.” Leo raised an eyebrow. “Besides, Harley said the time you removed it after I fell asleep on you, you spent fifteen minutes just staring at it, trying to figure out how to do it. Not sure how helpful that would be.”

“I was afraid I’d break something,” Jason said sheepishly.

“If you had, I could have just fixed it. As you may recall, I’ve melted parts of this prosthesis before. I’d researched stuff before making it and everything, but it turns out spontaneous combustion isn’t a common amputee issue, not even for demigods. Can you believe it?”

That had Jason laughing again. “Shockingly, I can. Hang on, let me get the lights.”

There was a routine to putting on the prosthesis now, so Leo only sometimes had to take it back off when he realized he’d forgotten to put the sock under the liner or something equally dumb. (It wasn’t his fault this stuff came with a ridiculous amount of steps and what felt like fourteen different socks.)

Considering the fact that it was four am and he was both shaken up and distracted because his crush was right there, looking softly at him, it was still something of a miracle that Leo got it right the first time.

~~~~~~~

Splashing his face did actually help. Leo considered just going back to the bedroom after, but he still felt too agitated, so he spent a few minutes pacing in the hallway with his crutches, then briefly went outside for some fresh air to clear his head.

When he finally got back to the bedroom, Jason wasn’t there.

This would have been more alarming if he hadn’t appeared in the doorway a moment later, holding a cup of steaming liquid.

“I thought maybe a warm drink would make you feel a bit better. Reyna says it helps her, so.” He shrugged.

“Coffee?” Leo asked, trying his hardest not to grimace because the thought was sweet, even if the drink was something you could technically chase him with.

“Cocoa.” Jason smiled at him. “You don’t like coffee.”

“Oh.” There was a warmth in Leo’s chest, flames licking gently at his heart. It had been so long since he’d stayed somewhere long enough for anyone to remember little things like that about him. It had been so long since anyone had cared enough to bother. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, there’s a decent chance it might taste burnt,” Jason said with a grimace. “Or, uh, very sweet. I think I turned the stove up too much and then I got distracted and then I tried to fix it with extra sugar, but that might’ve been a bad call.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, it could also be both,” Leo joked, taking the warm cup in both hands.

Jason startled, still gripping the handle. “Wait, careful, it’s really-”

“What, hot?” Leo laughed. “Appreciate the concern, but I seem to recall being fireproof. Out of all the things that genuinely could kill me a second time, I doubt hot liquid will do the trick.”

Jason looked embarrassed as he removed his hand from the cup. “Forget I said anything.”

“Nah. It’s no fun if I don’t get to tease you about it.” Leo lifted the cup to his mouth and took a sip. The temperature didn’t bother him at all, but he struggled not to splutter at the sweetness of the drink. “Gods, Sparky, how much sugar did you put in this?”

“Three spoonfuls?” Jason answered tentatively, and from the way it tasted Leo was pretty sure he meant tablespoons. “Is it bad?”

“Awful,” Leo teased, but the way Jason deflated made him backtrack immediately. “Hey, I’m messing with you. It’s fine. Just very sweet. Fair warning, though, I cannot guarantee that I won’t spend the next three hours jumping on your bed trying to get the excess energy out.”

“I think I can live with that.” Jason wrung his hands like he usually did when he got nervous. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me what your dream was about. But it sounded bad, and I… if you ever do want to talk about it, I’m here, okay?”

That made Leo feel a little sick, though that might also have been the amount of sugar in his cocoa. He nodded slowly, then spent several quiet minutes slowly sipping the warm, sweet liquid until the cup was empty. It helped, if only a little.

Jason didn’t push him.

Maybe that was why, when Leo sat the cup down on the bedside table, trying to calm his racing heart, he did say something.

“The nightmares are worse than usual lately. Sometimes I dream about what happened to my mom. Sometimes it’s just bad memories from quests we’ve been on. Piper getting hurt. The time you got stabbed. The time I died.”

Jason winced. “Yeah, I’ve had a lot of nightmares about you…” He broke off, like maybe saying the word ‘dying’ would remind Thanatos Leo existed and to come back for him. “Sorry. Keep going.”

Leo desperately wished he had some way to keep his hands busy. He didn’t sleep with the toolbelt on. He wasn’t sure about the constraints of magic items, but it would be really inconvenient if he somehow broke it by rolling onto it or if it started spilling random half-finished inventions all over the bed every time he turned during the night, so he didn’t risk it.

For lack of anything better, he drummed his fingers against the side of the bed.

“There’s other stuff, too. It was mostly ‘other stuff’ tonight—at least the coherent bits I can remember. Bad childhood memories from after Gaia killed my mom.” Leo’s fingers clenched around the bed frame. He felt properly sick now. He’d never told anyone about this—not even Piper, who knew just about everything else. “Right, cool, so not to waste that perfectly good dramatic build-up, but I don’t really know how to talk about this.”

“You don’t have to talk about it right now, if it’s too much,” Jason reassured him, squeezing his shoulder. “We don’t have to talk at all. We can just sit here. Or we can go back to shitty head injury jokes. Whatever helps.”

“This is helping,” Leo said immediately, unsure if he was referring to Jason being there in general, how being touched grounded him in the moment, or Jason making it blatantly obvious how well he knew him.

That the third one was even an option felt absurd in itself.

The thing was: Leo was kind of terrified of being known. Terrified of people looking at him differently if they saw all of him—all the cracked and broken bits.

But this was Jason. Jason, who sucked at this stuff just as badly as Leo did, but who was still trying because he cared so much. Who paid attention to little things no one else bothered to notice. Who knew when Leo felt vulnerable about something and didn’t tease him or push him to talk. Who made him terrible sugary cocoa at four in the morning because he thought it might help.

And every part of Leo that wasn’t busy being terrified was so incredibly sick of being alone.

He took a few steadying breaths, which was a colossal waste of time because they did not help, and then everything came spilling out.

“I’ve had some shitty experiences with foster parents. The first one was the worst—like, if you looked up ‘terrible’ in a dictionary, I’m pretty sure you’d just find a picture of her face. She shouldn’t have been around kids at all, but she seriously couldn’t handle a traumatized eight year old with severe ADHD. She yelled at me a lot. Sometimes it was more than yelling. It got worse the longer I was there—the more she realized I wasn’t any of the things she’d wanted me to be.” Leo looked away. “Story of my life, I guess. I’m never what anyone wants me to be.”

This time he couldn’t choke back the sob that was bubbling up in his throat. It was too much, too fast, and he didn’t have an undo button. He was afraid of what he’d see in Jason‘s face when he looked up. Him and his stupid lack of a brain-to-mouth-filter. No one wanted to deal with-

Jason’s arms wrapped around him again, pulling him back into his chest, promptly interrupting Leo’s spiral.

“Forget her. Forget anyone who ever made you feel like that.” Jason’s voice was soft and reassuring, but there was an angry edge to it, the same kind he’d had when he’d started sparking electricity after that one kid’s stupid comment. “There isn’t a single thing I’d change about you. You’re everything I didn’t know I needed in my life.”

“What song did you steal that from?” Leo joked, because he couldn’t fathom the thought that Jason might mean that.

He’d never been what anyone needed in their lives—a lot of the time, he was actively the opposite. His mom had loved him to pieces, he knew that, but him being there had been the thing that got her killed, and he hadn’t gotten any less skilled at screwing up people’s lives since.

He pressed his face into Jason‘s shoulder, shuddering, trying to get the tears to stop. Fuck, this was embarrassing.

“I never told you what my first impression of you was, did I?” Jason continued, undeterred. He didn’t let go. It was completely unfair how nice that felt.

“Confusion?” Leo guessed, finally getting a handle on his breathing, if nothing else. “That was amnesiac Jason’s main emotion for the first hour or so after I met him.”

“I guess, yeah.” Jason shrugged. “But for reasons other than the general ‘waking up on a bus with several people I don’t know’-situation. You weren’t how I expected my best friend to be at all. You were exactly none of the things I’d been taught were important my whole life.”

“Dude, your pep talk needs work, because ouch,” Leo muttered. He tried to make it sound light-hearted, but he was failing miserably. Even knowing that Jason was probably going somewhere with this—what, with the fact that he still had Leo wrapped in his arms and everything—hearing these words still stung. “Way to kick a guy when he’s down.”

“I wasn’t done.”

Leo forced himself to look up, meeting Jason’s eyes for the first time since he’d started talking. There was something so sincere and vulnerable in his expression that Leo didn’t really want to look away again.

“Oh, are we getting into all my great qualities now? That might take a while.” Joking was easy. So much easier than to address that Jason looking at him like this made his heart sputter like a faulty machine engine.

“You’re a troublemaker, and impulsive, with no respect for authority. You just act instead of thinking. And somehow it always works out. I overthink everything I do, but when you say you’ve got a plan, I know we’ll be okay, even before you’ve actually told me what the plan is.” There was such genuine awe in Jason’s voice that Leo thought something inside him would crack open. “You make me laugh and be stupid in a way I never would have allowed myself to be before I met you. And I like myself so much more when I’m with you. I’ve spent my whole life learning to be a hero and a leader—being exactly the kind of person everyone else wanted me to be. When we’re together, I feel like I’m finally learning what it’s like to be happy.”

The world tilted off its axis and Leo wasn’t sure he ever wanted it to right itself again. The way Jason was looking at him right now stood a very real chance of being the reason for his second death in under three months.

Leo seemed to have decided he had a point to prove in regards to impulsivity and lack of thinking, because before his brain had the chance to catch up, he was leaning forward and kissing Jason.

With all the love he had for Piper and her confidence in him actually confessing his feelings like a reasonable person, a part of Leo had always known it would go exactly like this—a heat of the moment thing he had no chance to overthink and plenty of time to regret later.

Jason’s lips were chapped and tasted faintly of toothpaste, and it was a miracle that Leo was even doing this without setting either of their faces on fire. His heart was thundering in his ears, so loud that he was almost sure they must’ve been able to hear it all the way back at Camp Half-Blood.

He pulled away before Jason had much of a chance to react with anything that wasn’t gaping like a fish. For several seconds, Jason‘s expression was the human equivalent of a loading screen, which would have been hilarious in any other situation, but currently made Leo want to melt himself through the floor and disappear.

The regret part of his brain took no time at all to kick in. What the fuck was wrong with him? ‘Here’s a thought: don’t follow up the recollection of traumatic shit you’ve gone through with trying to kiss your best friend.’

Maybe he could move to another country. Did Frank still have relatives in Canada that he could flee to? Or maybe he could ask Thalia for Artemis’ contact information and beg her to let him move to the moon.

Somehow, the first words out of Jason’s mouth after the kiss were, “yikes, you weren’t kidding about the amount of sugar in your cocoa. Sorry. There was chocolate in there at some point, I swear.”

“Is that the only thing-” Leo started, but was promptly stopped by more chapped toothpaste lips.

Jason was kissing him. Jason was kissing him.

It took every bit of focus Leo was currently lacking to not burst into flames as he wrapped his arms around Jason’s neck, melting into him as best he could. His skin was still tingling, and when Jason‘s hand brushed his bare elbow, he got a minor electric shock.

“Ow! Gods, we’re both safety hazards,” Leo laughed, slowly pulling his hands back before they could reconsider and burst into flames belatedly. “Here I am, spending my very limited reserves of concentration on not lighting you on fire by accident, only for you to almost zap me into cardiac arrest. Unbelievable.”

“I may also have made your hair poof out. Sorry,” Jason said, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “You okay?”

“I will be if you kiss me again.”

“Are you sure you want to risk that?”

“Hey, I happen to enjoy living dangerously.” Leo grinned. “Besides, you said my lack of thinking was part of what you liked about me. No take-backs.”

And then Jason was back to kissing him.

~~~~~~~

Four extremely clumsy sugar-toothpaste-kisses later, Leo wasn’t sure his hair or his heart would ever go back to normal. He also wasn’t sure he cared.

They curled back up in bed after, like semi-reasonable people who had to get up in an hour and a half because the whole point of this trip had been Jason presenting his plans to the senate, and him sleeping through that would probably not be the best impression he could make on his first day at work.

They were touching intentionally this time. Leo’s head had found a nice spot on Jason’s chest, and one of Jason’s arms was wrapped around his shoulder.

Leo was pretty sure he’d never felt this happy in his life. That was one point for emotional vulnerability, he supposed.

“I meant what I said, by the way,” Jason said into the silence of the room. “I want you to know you can talk to me. About anything.”

“Oh, I’ll make sure you regret that offer the next time I get excited about socket wrenches,” Leo replied with a grin. “I appreciate it, though. And right back at you. It’s not like you’re any better at this than I am.” He gestured, trying to convey the existential horror that was opening up. “But I’ll need precise measurements on how much chocolate you take your sugared milk with in advance.”

Jason groaned. “I feel like I need to apologize to your teeth.”

“Stop saying stuff that makes me want to go back to kissing you while we’re trying to sleep,” Leo chided him. He said this like sleep was a thing that might actually happen. Like his skin wasn’t still prickling with electricity and he wouldn’t spend the remaining night staring at the ceiling, thinking about kissing Jason again in the morning. “Besides, one time you missed my lips so bad that it probably counts.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to open your mouth!”

“That’s the thing with us pesky mortals, Superman. Sometimes we need to breathe.”

Jason chuckled, which made a fresh bout of warmth bubble up in Leo’s chest, but he wasn’t quite as afraid of bursting into flames now. The fire under his skin had tapered off along with his nervousness, feeling less supernova and more overactive radiator. Overactive radiator was a level he could usually control. He wasn’t sure it would ever go below that again if he got to keep kissing Jason whenever he wanted.

“We should probably actually try to get some rest,” Jason sighed, obviously none too thrilled about the thought of having to do the senate presentation on four hours of sleep.

“Boo,” Leo complained, but he nestled up to Jason, moving his head a little for a better spot on his chest. “You’re lucky you’re so comfortable.”

“I think I’m lucky for a lot more reasons than that.”

How Leo managed to not spontaneously combust at that point, he wasn’t sure.

———

Some notes:

Genuinely shocked I don’t see people using Leo’s tendency to hug stuff when he has bad dreams more. I read that part and immediately knew I was gonna do something with it, lol

Fun fact: this wasn’t meant to be a kiss fic, just regular pining hurt/comfort. But then Jason started saying all this stuff and Leo was kissing him and hey, sometimes when I write all I can do is accept I’m only along for the ride.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Jason’s initial reaction to Leo being his best friend in the first book vs him genuinely becoming his best friend later on. Leo is all the things Jason isn’t and was never allowed to be and then he learns that that’s a great thing and seems to be so genuinely in awe of him? Something something child soldier gets to be a kid for the first time in his life and never recovers.

Is Leo’s way of dealing with everything he went through by making jokes about it healthy? Not necessarily, no. But it’s been his main survival technique for ages, and even if he were to eventually recognize that, changing it wouldn’t be an instant thing. What definitely doesn’t help in a situation like that is trampling all over his coping mechanisms. There were a couple of writing decisions made in ToA that I didn’t love for a variety of reasons, and that one is definitely up there. But as far as I’m concerned, canon is only a series of vague suggestions, anyway.

Jason and Leo are both completely shit at admitting anything is wrong and learning how to talk about it to anyone, including each other, is hard. But sometimes trying is all we can do.

Also, for the sake of everyone in that entire series, I hope New Rome has therapists, because CHB sure doesn’t. (Mr D, who’s been gone from camp a lot and canonically didn’t bother to give therapy to anyone but Chris and Nico, is an outlier and should not be counted.)

Anyway, thanks for reading! Comments and reblogs appreciated!

@poppitron360

[sandpapereater]

The alien assault scene in episode 1 of Dandadan isn't that bad, actually

Reasons below the cut!

WARNING: mentions of S/A and spoilers for DanDaDan

With the popularity of DanDaDan being on the rise due to the recent anime adaptation, I got into the series full of hope and excitement at the thought of a new shounen with actually compelling plots and characters.

And I got that. Easy to say, the characters are great, the plot points are great, the set-up is great, at least from my perspective. However, there was one scene that bounced around in the back of my head when going into any sort of fandom spaces to speak on the show.

The scene where the main female lead, Momo, is kidnapped by aliens and nearly raped.

The reason I kept thinking about this wasn't some perverse fantasy, it was rather fear of how others would interpret the scene. With such a touchy subject, there's sure to be lots of opinions, including ones that are very similar to my own. There's also lots that aren't similar to my own.

To say there was no issues with the scene would be a lie, as even I can recognize that it did feel a bit odd to portray an underage girl in such a compromising position. While ultimately nothing happened, I still felt disgust at the prospect of what could've, and I think that's just a human response.

However, I am not of the belief that this scene is exploitative, used purely for comedy, or even meant to be gratifying (the three main points I see).

(This paragraph is just an explanation of the scene, if you've see the show you probably don't need to read it) To give a simple summary, Momo is kidnapped by aliens after a dare to go looking into a common abduction sight. Not believing in their existence and wanting to prove a point, she does so, and ends up strapped to a metal bed surrounded by aliens. In her underwear, she attempts to escape, and this is the catalyst for her powers displayed throughout the rest of the anime. Blowing the aliens away with her psychic ability and the help of Okarun (the male mc) she escapes.

I can see where the discomfort comes from. Momo, a girl who we can presume to be roughly 17 years old is put in a very dangerous, often overly sexualized scenario (in anime) not long after a comedic scene.

Now, to get the basics out of the way, this scene, at least from my perspective, did not appear exploitative, at least not towards young women like many have said. It's shown as a horrifying, awful thing, and ultimately, nothing comes of it. Is this to say it's not still traumatizing for the characters and uncomfortable for the viewer? No. It is, and it's supposed to be that way. I understand that the anticipation of assault and being in threat of it is a trauma in of itself.

However, it's still different from what actually happened. This scene does a good job at making you uncomfortable, specifically with the designs of the aliens and Momo’s obvious disgust. You're meant to feel repulsed and upset, and the few tidbits that could be seen as comedic are hard to view as such with the context of the scene.

Momo is never once shown from an unsavory angle that most fan-service anime typically target. Despite being in her underwear, there are no gratuitous boob butt shots meant to titillate. If anything, it seems to avoid that. It establishes a threat and a potential later plot point, and it eliminates said threat without a need to focus the shots on Momo’s body.

Even still, I've heard complaints that this scene is comedic. This, I didn't understand one bit, as I distinctly remember being uncomfortable and on the edge of my seat while watching. Despite the previous comical presentation of the show, Momo’s distress is shown as serious, and while in retrospect after knowing nothing bad is gonna happen, you might find some of the lines funny, the scene itself doesn't seem to be a purposeful leeway for that.

Just because most scenes up to this point were comical does not mean this one is. I'd say it does a good job at establishing a setting and the reality of it, cutting through the initial mystification that both main characters experienced. This is like saying a horror movie can't have jokes, or that a kids show can't handle dark themes. It doesn't really make sense to act like having varying tones throughout a show means they're all meant to be taken the same.

In my opinion, this scene is purely something to present what's happening and make an impact. Could it have been done differently? Yeah, probably. Does it work as it is? Yeah. To act like any mention of sexual assault in media is automatically exploitative or meant to be titillating to the audience is a ticking time bomb, and ultimately just a wrong assumption. If you're getting your jollies off to this scene that's more a problem with you than it is the anime. And yes, I understand accountability and effect over intent, but when it's so deliberately in the angles, dialogue, and even sound to make it uncomfortable, that “effect” is only gonna be gratifying to a certain subsect of people. Unfortunately, we have to deal with them existing, and we can't cater all scenes around it.

I know that's a tricky line to tow, but on the topic of this scene, it does it well. Momo is upset, the aliens are gross, she ends up kicking their assess. If that doesn't say “the aliens are the bad guys” then call me blind, because so clearly is it trying to depict it as negative, not exciting.

If you were uncomfortable with it, that's fine. I understand if it's a bit much for certain viewers. But overall, I think it's a scene that could've been handled far worse. Does this make it the best scene in existence? No, but it also doesn't mean it serves no point in the story.

What happens in the scene is bad, obviously, but the way the scene is constructed isn't.