#this one took a while because i had to summon the fortitude to write it

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

My (jumbled) Thoughts on 5x18

I took a little bit to ruminate on the episode, because honestly for the majority of the episode I just couldn’t get emotionally involved. I just had no connection to it, and as much as I hate to say it, it serves as the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with this season.

They asked us to focus on not one, not two, but THREE competing plots. Four if you count Alex and Kara separately after they divide and conquer. Not only that, but they asked us to focus on the same three plots they’ve failed to meaningfully address since the start of the season. As a result, I was bored and resentful of these plots that mean nothing and yet are still taking up so much episode time, and STILL NOT GOING ANYWHERE.

The destruction of the DEO should have been a powerful and meaningful reset of our Supergirl-viewing foundation, but-- I couldn’t summon up anything more than a “huh. wonder if it’ll stick.” Because honestly? It came at the end of a season where the DEO has been a non-player. It’s no longer the base of operations, the superfriends were getting along just fine without it, and in recent eps it had slid slowly but surely into villain territory with Brainy being Lex’s little bitch dog. The DEO had become a non entity, and so its destruction feels like little more than the striking of a set. 

Now, there was one redeeming factor of the episode. Lena. But only one part of her change of heart. The scene where she confronted Lex had my heart in my throat. The way he got in her face, and she stood her ground and took it just long enough to get an opening to deliver the baddest one liner ever: “It doesn’t mean I have to be (a monster) too.”

The amount of strength that took. The fact she said it to the face of her abuser is the surest demonstration of her strength and emotional fortitude. 

Now. 

The scene between Kara and Lena left more to be desired, because it put Lena in the very position I did not want her: out in the cold, begging for Kara’s trust. Which Kara only provisionally provided: she’s not sold yet, which is the second character assassination this episode (which that deserves its own post). The scene might have brought them together, but it didn’t relieve the tension. It didn’t provide the reconciliation we’ve been waiting for all season. 

I agree that at some point, Lena would have needed to have this sort of confession scene, tear-filled and all but begging for a hug. But it was supposed to come AFTER Kara’s. After all, Kara was the one who hurt Lena first, and the best effort we got from her was international coffee and a couple of scones. Where was Lena’s chance to begrudgingly and wordlessly offer Kara a chair at her table, to plead her case? 

We didn’t get that, and while a nuanced story might be able to give us that in the future, it’s not the kind of writing you typically get out of a television show, and it’s not the kind of writing we get with THIS show. 

[luxexhomines]

1 saiouma, please ? :3

Thank you for the request, and happy saiouma day!! I didn’t know there was a saiouma day until I opened tumblr and saw all the fantastic art posted. I wasn’t sure if I had the spoons to write today, but I made it! Somewhere, it’s still March 10th, so it’s not late–at least, not yet…

1. don’t leave me

saiouma

Ouma woke up in a cold sweat, his eyes wide open as he lay there, still trapped in the images of the dreams that returned night after night to force him back into undead life within the merciless game of slaughter.

Trembling, all he could do was hold himself tighter–yet it seemed that if he did so, his frail body would shatter like a porcelain doll crushed into countless shining pieces and be lost in the world like the twinkling stars in the vast, dark sky.

Or, maybe, he had already broken, and he was simply trying to hold the pieces of his scattered self together.

He turned over on his side to see Saihara’s back facing him; not particularly wide, but broad enough to be comforting when he clung to it from behind, and strong enough to bear Ouma’s weight, which, while admittedly light, was still almost a good hundred pounds. 

A strange sense of relief ran through his body upon seeing Saihara beside him, like a current heat tingling from head-to-toe, and he let himself lay on his back. He allowed himself a great, shuddering breath, and felt his chest collapse in on itself when the air left him. He couldn’t tell if such a sensation offered him solace or a greater sense of anxiety.

It was then that Ouma felt the person next to him shift in the bed, and the weight of said person eased off of the bed as Saihara stood slothfully, perhaps not having fully cast away the cloak of sleep yet, and desperation seized every sense in Ouma’s body as he lunged across the mattress and grabbed onto something of Saihara’s–anything, it didn’t matter what. All he knew was that he needed to stop him from leaving.

He found himself with the fabric of Saihara’s striped nightshirt between his nimble fingers, pinched with a formidable strength that he didn’t think he possessed, and Saihara turned to look at him.

“Ouma-kun?”

Somehow, the words didn’t want to leave his lips–it seemed so much like confessing to being weak, that he couldn’t survive without Saihara’s presence–but such resistance was futile regardless because it was true that he could barely manage an hour without Saihara around, couldn’t fall asleep when he shared the bed with only himself, would fall into a panic when he woke up from nightmares of being torn away from his beloved only to find him missing from his side.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, the words breaking as he spoke them, so broken did he feel himself to be that nothing he said or did could ever escape that brokenness, nothing.

Saihara took a second to register the words, piece them back together in his mind, and then nodded, taking the pale, weak hand hanging pathetically onto his shirt in his own, ghostly hands with care, and he crawled back into the bed carefully so as to not disturb its current occupant. He faces Ouma as they lie there, his golden eyes shimmering darkly as they confronted violet eyes with firmness, and holding that one, cold hand with all the fortitude and compassion he could summon from his heart swelling with loving concern.

“You know I wasn’t going to leave you,” he states, eyes searching the features of his lover, which were contorted with tinges of sorrow and anxiety that bled through the facade he aimed to sustain even in the dark of night with the one person he trusted with his life, his entire world.

A moment passes before Ouma nods shakily, letting another breath of air escape him. His hand is numb, even as it lays in Saihara’s two hands, which, no doubt, are warm and resolute.

“I know,” he exhales. “I know.”

But left unsaid is his plea to Saihara to stay, to postpone whatever he had planned on doing in the middle of the night because Ouma was still scared, still weak. And maybe it was the way he always would be.

[wunderlass]

Smoke & Mirrors: Epilogue

His captors think him defeated, but even Odin doesn’t know the secrets Loki holds. Before long, he’ll be free, events set in motion by Frigga’s best intentions and Loki’s worst instincts. He’s seen his future, and nothing is going to stop him from stealing it. Loki/Darcy, M rated

You can also read on AO3 or FFNet.

A/N: There's a tense change here. That's because I wrote this at a time most things I was writing were in the present tense and it was hard to switch back, even though I was trying to get this written while the hot flash of inspiration struck. I hope you'll forgive me, as I think it works if you view this section as us catching up with Loki and Darcy in the present moment, with the rest of the story serving to tell you how they got here.

Laughter peels through the air, a sound as sweet as the honey which is stuck in strands of Darcy's hair. It glints as the breeze catches it, drawing Loki's attention. Though his attention is never far from her—it can usually only be diverted by the toddler who put the honey there.

Said toddler is being enticed towards his uncle with a piece of candy, tottering on uneven feet across the grass with outstretched, grabby hands. Thor encourages him on with a fond smile and nonsense words, which results in giggles even when the little boy stumbles and has to right himself.

Never mind that Loki's son has had plenty to eat already, the staff at the old palace on Vanaheim putting together a feast when they asked for a picnic. Even Thor hasn't been able to make much of a dent in it—instead, Frigga will ensure it is distributed later to the people who need it more.

The trees lining the meadow rustle in the breeze, the cornucopia of their colored blossoms shedding onto the grass. Spring on Vanaheim is a bright, warm affair, and so the family gathers from their respective realms to enjoy a few days at Frigga's childhood home. She has retreated here to live out her time as dowager, except for when one of her sons needs her council.

It is the ideal home for her, brimming with pleasant memories from her own childhood and from Loki's, and also has its own portal which allows swift journeys between realms. Its safety and neutrality also makes it the ideal place for her grandson to spend his own childhood, while Frigga gathers as many memories as she can with the family members she will outlive.

Frigga herself has not aged, not to Loki's eyes. Darcy likes to tease him about his nonexistent gray hairs, but he cannot deny the passage of time on his face—lines he had not expected to wear for centuries. Yet his mother weathers the passing years much as she always has done. She sits as regally as anyone can on a picnic blanket, her silk dress somehow unmarred by sticky hands even though she indulges in as many cuddles as she can entice from her grandson. She is calm, content, freed from the pressures of her own throne and devoted instead to doting on the little boy.

Thor is freed of those responsibilities himself, if only for a few days. He can ride, and spar with his brother, and make an idiot of himself to entertain his nephew as much as his heart desires. Loki is pleased he is playing to his strengths. And yet, there is a calmness to him here, a carefree attitude that Loki rarely sees in him anymore. Much as it pains him to admit, he misses it, and mourns what his brother has lost in gaining the throne. Thor has confided that the spring days they spend in Vanaheim—which come around quickly due to the short solar cycle of the realm—are the happiest of his current life.

Behind Thor, Jane pulls faces at the little boy, eliciting more giggles. Jane adores him: the closest she will get to children of her own. Her chosen legacy will be science, and her love for Thor, when she is dust and he lives on. It doesn't make her sad—not as sad as the thought of Thor raising and losing children with a human lifespan. Instead, he is under firm instruction to live and love again once she is gone, and raise his heirs then.

The little boy is aging slowly, though. It's a positive sign that he may outlive his grandmother, rather than the other way around. There may be a throne in his future, but Loki has other hopes for him, no matter how long he lives. He knows Darcy feels the same.

He cannot count Jane as a friend—she will likely never trust him—but he values her sharp mind and the loyalty she has shown Darcy through everything. He wishes his brother could have eternity with her, if only for the happiness it would bring to Thor, but these things are not meant to be.

They make the most of it, their little extended family. Hela is on lying in the grass, soaking in the sun, though she will never tan. She could lie on a blanket, but she refuses, enjoying all the sensations Vanaheim has to offer. Even the allergies. When the itching becomes too much, she will rise to play with her little brother.

Loki suspects sometimes that the Hela he sees one day is not the Hela he has seen on the previous, even if she still arrives in her teenage guise. One day, they have a girl with more naivety than the daughter of Death has any right to, and the next it is gone, all used up and replaced with a haunted edge. Perhaps she returns often to her mortal family whenever they become too much a part of the past, so she never really has to lose them. Today Hela is naive, experiencing this all for the first time.

She's a strange creature, his first born, yet there is more of him in her than he would care to admit. She is often withdrawn, living in a world of her own imagination, prone to sulking and plotting revenge over trivial slights. But for all that, she delights in the sun, and in the warmth their family provides. And the older she grows, the more her uncanny resemblance to him does as well. Even though he never expected to have the fortitude to deal with a teenager—let alone one who can be a different age from one day to the next—he understands her, and that makes it easier.

As for his son—well, whatever physical resemblance he may have to his father, his sweet nature all comes from his mother. He does not brood, or hold grudges—though time will tell on that score—and he laughs far more than he ever cries. He delights in everything: case in point, the explosion of glitter Loki summons to tempt the boy away from Thor.

His brother feigns a pout of dismay as Loki's son comes running, staring up at him like he's the most wondrous person in the universe.

Loki's heart turns over in his chest. It takes a beat for him to recognize that this is happiness, a moment of pure joy, and a very particular moment at that.

It passes, a fleeting thing which cannot be kept hold of, so strange to be inside it rather than witnessing it. But this slice of happiness, the simple joy of spending time together in the old palace gardens, spurred so much into existence.

Loki catches Darcy's eye: she too has realized what has just passed them by. She wears her own happiness like a shawl, always draped around her and only momentarily set aside when she must.

He brushes the hair away from their son's face and hands him one of the candies. He looks so much like her, and the way Loki feels about the pair of them is a devotion so fierce he couldn't have imagined it, those many years ago as he stared at this scene in the mirror. Darcy has taught him patience, and gentleness, and trust, and forced him to earn her trust until it is unbreakable. She also showed him how to accept, even love, Hela. She has molded him into a different being, a better man, and shown him that a mortal life span does not mean it will be any less fulfilling. He would be grateful to her for the son she graced him with, but even alone she took his existence from bearable to blissful.

All the prices he has paid to be with her are worth it, and he still finds himself scrambling to remain worthy of her love. He is not an easy person to be with—he knows this, even as he refuses to "get some therapy" as she so often suggests. The throne of Jotunheim wears on him, even as he searches for a wise heir amongst the other claimants to the crown. His dreams are often little better than night terrors, black ghouls come to steal any semblance of peace he might hope for. And this is not the future he believed he was striving for when he first saw this moment in his mother's mirror, but it is better. Infinitely better. He would not change any detail of it.

Hela has dabbled with her grandmother's talent for mirror magic, but Darcy refuses to look at the visions her step-daughter captures in glass. Too much of her life became caught up around one moment, and even if all of them were as happy as this one, it wouldn't do to spend her time waiting for them to arrive. Loki agrees. They have limited time before they must pass into Death's realm permanently. It is better to enjoy each and every moment of sunlight while they can, just as Hela does. Instead, Frigga has learned to capture these memories in her mirrors.

Hela gives an excited yell. A butterfly has landed on her outstretched hand. It is calmly basking on her cool skin while she stares with awe, and her brother toddles towards it with a giggle. Loki pauses his progress, unwilling to spoil the moment, and he does not complain, happy to wave and babble at his sister while she studies her tiny visitor.

"It's so fragile," she breathes. "Beautiful, but fragile."

"I once thought the same of your Mama," Loki says quietly, and Darcy tuts at his obvious flattery. "But I was wrong."

"Watch it, buddy," Darcy mutters.

"She's beautiful, yes," he hurriedly corrects. "But not fragile. She's the strongest person I've ever known. Strong enough to put up with me."

Darcy smiles at him, twining their fingers together.

"They don't live long at all, though," Hela says with a pout. "All that beauty, gone so quickly."

"Then make the most of it while you can," says Frigga, as the butterfly alights from Hela's finger and vanishes into the sky.

Here we are. 130,000 words and four years later - it's done. This is the longest piece of fiction I've written (thus far) so bear with me while I take that in.

Yeah, it took longer (FAR longer) than anticipated to write. It's flawed, in ways all serialised stories are bound to be, and in other ways too. But I am mostly happy with it and I hope you all are too - whether you joined me at the beginning of the journey or somewhere along the way. Thank you for cheering me along and I apologise for being so consistently pants at responding to your comments.

Thanks also go to all the people who beta'd along the way or who acted as sounding boards in other ways. The story wouldn't exist without your help!

Here's to the rest of the stories...

[unhingedwordvomit]

On the first of many #metoo moments

For the better part of my life, I have been in love with someone who was manipulative and abusive. We started dating when I was 15 and he was 18, after months of me begging and pleading with my parents to let me date him (spoiler alert, they were right, and I shouldn’t have been allowed within 100 feet of this fuck). He was controlling and unhinged from pretty much the get go. He would lose his mind if I wore thongs, tight skirts, or pants with no back pockets (leggings weren’t quite a thing yet). He was extremely insecure and any guy friends I had were basically enemies of the state. If I ever dared to speak to another person with a penis, I was basically cheating on him and he would call me a fat whore and dump me. A few hours later, he would call me begging for forgiveness. I would conservatively estimate this process went on every couple of weeks. And because I was very young and very naïve, I tolerated all of it.

He told me he loved me after we had been dating for two months. I was definitely in love with him, but since it was my first foray into the love business, I didn’t say it until a few months later. The lows were frequent and very low, but the highs were also very high. One day I was a fat (115lb) whore (virgin). The next I was the love of his life. He went out of his way to make up for his shitty behavior by taking me to nice dinners and making me baked goods. I thought this was how love worked.

As I mentioned, I was 15 when we started dating. The pressure to have sex with him crept up, but I wasn’t ready. I told him this. We did everything but have sex for the first year we dated. I did whatever else he wanted, because I needed to distract him from actual, vaginal sex. I knew I was too young for sex. I knew it wasn’t the right time. I found every excuse in the book to not let this man take my virginity. But after a year, the tensions surrounding not having sex were at an all-time high. He was horny and pissed, and I was desperately grasping at reasons to not have sex. The spring after I turned 16, I went on a band trip to NYC. This was another typical ordeal with him, since I would be far away and hanging out with dudes, which was, of course, unacceptable. The whole trip was me trying to manage his emotions and keep the breakup cycle at bay. I texted him constantly and bought him a present. But it wasn’t enough, and during the long drive back home, he dumped me again. He said I didn’t really love him if I wouldn’t have sex with him (* I will return to this later). I was crushed. I was broken. I loved him so much. I didn’t want him to leave me. I didn’t want to have sex.

The day after I got back, I went over to his parents’ house (he still lived with them while in college) and we had sex. At the time, I thought it was sweet and romantic. He was very gentle and loving. In hindsight, I want to vomit. It took me well over 10 years to realize that coercion is rape. For good measure, I’ll insert the legal definition of rape in TN here. Because, as a woman, I have to constantly prove that what I’m saying is true. This is from www.rainn.org.

Let’s return to the asterisk. I endured a year of manipulation and coercion. He would say anything and everything to degrade me, to belittle me, and to make me feel guilty. He would say anything to make me feel obligated to give him sex. I resisted and resisted until he had finally worn me down. This is rape culture. When are men going to realize that no means no, not convince me? Consent is never ambiguous. Pressure is not consent. Discomfort is not consent. Why do men want to have sex with women they have to beg, belittle, and dehumanize?

He (like most men) will never admit that what happened was not consensual. Even though the legal definition of rape includes coercion, he will find a way to reconcile it in his brain to not rape. I’ve actually never confronted him about this. And since I don’t plan on talking to him ever again, I don’t think I will.

One time we broke up for a 3-4 month stint, which was our longest at that point. I started dating someone else. A very kind man. Someone who treated me like a human being. My ex had taken to stalking and harassing me and my new man, probably because he couldn’t handle the fact that he dumped me and I might’ve dated someone else. He would follow me home from work back to my dorm. He hacked into my voicemail and email and changed all my passwords. He threatened to post nude pictures and videos of me online weekly (turns out he couldn’t actually do this because I was a minor in the photos). He incessantly called me and my new man from a restricted number. All hours of the night. He and a cunt (who once pretended to be my friend) drew penises and wrote derogatory things on my car, then covered the entire thing in saran wrap. One of my most vivid memories is driving it to a car wash while sobbing. Eventually I went to the university and had some sort of no-contact order put on him. This finally stopped him. Unfortunately, I was still in love with him. Ugh. UGH. I’m still so disgusted with myself. I dumped my new great boyfriend and went back to him a couple of months after the no contact order. I don’t know if I will ever live this shame down.

We continued our toxic relationship until I was 18. We broke up 5 months after my brother died. Actually, we had just gotten back together right before my brother died. We had been fighting the night he died. If I had taken another route home from his apartment to my house, I would’ve passed the wreck. But for all the abuse I endured during our relationship, he saved me after my brother died. I couldn't have gotten through it without him.

The night my brother died, he was working late at Walgreens, because of extended holiday hours. I had just gotten home and had resumed fighting with my boyfriend via AIM. It was around 1 am. The phone rang. WTF? My mom answered (I found out later they hung up because she thought it was a prank call). The phone rang again. Then my mom was running down the hall shouting my brother’s name. I will never forget the panic and terror in her voice. My parents said the cops had called and they were going to UT Medical Center. I didn’t go because I was pissed. So. Pissed. He had finally got his act together! Because my mom said cops, I thought he had gotten back into trouble. I was sure he and my parents were about to be embroiled in whatever legal ramifications his choices had brought on. So I declined to go. I mentioned this to my boyfriend, as our text fight had been interrupted. Later, a cop showed up at my house. He asked if my parents had been notified of what happened. I said yes. He said that he was still breathing on his own when they left the scene. I was very confused and asked him what happened. He said he couldn't tell me (what??? You can tell me he was breathing, but not anything else???). Then he left and I was mostly very confused, but my brain still hadn’t put it together that something really bad had happened. I told my boyfriend about the cop. A few minutes later, he called and said he was coming to get me to take me to the hospital. I found out later that my mom had called him and told him to bring me after they found out that shit was bad. Even as we were driving to the hospital, I was clueless. I was mostly pondering, “What could he have done this time?” My boyfriend dropped me at the entrance and I went in by myself, because he wasn’t a dumbass and had put together that shit was bad. After I got there, the doctor told us he was going to die, and I had a hysterical breakdown. My boyfriend came into the waiting room and from there, basically carried me emotionally and physically through life for the next few months. I couldn’t function, and he functioned for me. Despite our terrible and toxic relationship, I will always be grateful for this. He transformed into a completely different person for a few months. He stopped being abusive. He was loving and supportive. He was my lifeline. I clung to this version of him for many years after. In all honesty, I still cling to it a bit. When something traumatic happens, it binds you to the people who are there living it with you. I think this is one of the main drivers of why I would go back to him for years after we broke up. It’s strange how one person can break you and save you.

I vividly remember the day we broke up for good. It was a day around his birthday. Since I was 18 and couldn’t go to bars, I was not invited to the birthday celebration (no possibility of having, you know, a party). Instead, I planned on cooking him a romantic dinner. I got up early that morning to straighten my hair the way he liked it. I had bought a new dress I knew he would like. I went grocery shopping and showed up at his apartment just as he was rolling out of bed. I made him muffins for breakfast. He opened my gift of some very nice wine glasses, a great gift for an alcoholic (did I mention he’s an alcoholic?). He left to go run errands, and I spent the next few hours making ribs. At some point during the day, a former coworker and friend (male) texted me to see how I was doing. My shitty boyfriend demanded to know who I was texting and, as usual, had a jealousy tantrum. He was in an immediate and incurable sour mood. We ate dinner in silence. I cut him a piece of cake in silence. I cleaned up the mess in silence. After cake I stuck around because I was sure he would want a birthday blowjob. My devotion to this fuck was BOUNDLESS. Instead, he said to me, “You can go now.” I walked out of that apartment knowing that this was THE END. I later broke up with him, a departure from his usual routine of breaking up with me. He begged me not to. And I somehow summoned up the fortitude to not go back.

For a while, anyway. We’ve actually never gotten back together since. We’ve had “things” every few years. I am filled with shame writing this, but I tried to get back with him several times over the past 10 years. He (not shockingly) would never commit to me in any tangible way, but definitely had no problem fucking me. After getting raped by another guy I had dated on and off, I reached out to him. And he was incredibly supportive. He was actually the first person I kissed after months of crippling PTSD. I actually cried while kissing him, and he was extremely kind about it. I’ll never figure him out.

Almost a year ago I was getting ready to break free from the shitty life I was living in Texas. We had rekindled our “thing” for a couple of months. In fact, he was going to help me move across the country. Then he blows me off, four days before the move. I didn’t have time to find anyone else to help me. I was DEVASTATED, but I was also too overwhelmed with panic and stress to really think about him and my devastation. Once I arrived in NC, I began to process the ordeal and realized I didn’t love him anymore. I don’t know why I needed to endure so much abuse, pain, and disappointment to get here. I’m afraid as time goes on, the negative memories will dull again and the feelings will creep back in. Yet another reason why I need to write this down. I wish I could get a lobotomy to selectively remove this part of my brain. Actually, I would like to forget him altogether. I wish I could never think about him again. I would gladly forget the only genuine love I’ve ever felt, because then I could permanently move on from this fucking ordeal. It is not better to have loved and lost when that person is abusive, selfish, generally shitty, and will never ever ever EVER reciprocate your feelings.

For many years of my life, I have hated him while simultaneously being in love with him. At this point, I don’t hate him anymore, for any of it. I’m still incredibly hurt by it all. I don’t believe in karma, but he’s already been dealt a lifetime of misery. He has certainly not been left unpunished. Revenge is never satisfying, anyway.

I’m sad to say that I’ve never loved anyone else, although I have wanted to. I’ve even told other people that I loved them, probably out of sheer desperation to love someone else. When I look at pictures of him now, it still feels like a punch in the gut. But I don’t feel any love anymore. At least not for now.

Me in 2008, hours before I would finally end an abusive relationship.