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writinandcrying · 9 months

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TMNT ONE SHOT - Holiday Season - A Special gift

Christmas was not your favorite holiday, at least you had a mutant turtle to help out in this trying times (GN READER, Tw: dysfunctional family, arguments and bickering related to food, crying mentioned)

Fluff - makeout / first kiss with *insert turtle you like* after a shitty xmas (English isn’t my first language and I didn’t proof read this 😗✌️, pls don’t hesitante to correct me if you see something off putting, I hope you guys still like it!)

You climb up the last steps of the fire scape connecting the roof top of your building, dragging your feet as you groan one last time, it’s impressive you can hear your relatives arguing several stores bellow, you have lost count how many times people can pick on each other on their free will. You drag your hands along your face and sigh, you want nothing more but to distance yourself from that.

You didn’t get to feel much of The “Christmas spirit” everyone seem to love and cherish since you left your childhood years, and it seems that every year you learn to dislike December a little bit more. As much as The Grinch was deeply relatable for you lately, you didn’t want it to be, having a dysfunctional family in such a tender Holiday was kinda like receiving punch in the gut every day until 25th of December died out. After the first 10, the warm smiles and happy wishes over a great season seem to constantly mock your misery, leaving you bitter and resentful.

Leaning over the edge of your building, you check the many light up windows and different narratives playing along on your neighborhood, a family all gathered up taking a picture by their decorated tree on the left, you let a chuckle out by thrilled parents filming a rather young child by your right, to what it seems taking their first steps by their excitement.

it was nice seeing different kind of life’s playing along the fairy lights on the streets bellow, secretly wishing yours would be a little bit like theirs, reality seems distant as you accidentally disassociate, thinking how -your- family would be seen compared to those merry ones, your parents resentment growing against each other every minute, barking mean comments left and right to you messing apparently everything up. The perfect picture of a broken home. Awful to see, awful to be part of.

You sigh as you recall what drove you to the edge moments ago, a silly comment really, it was so small compared to the constant bickering around the whole month of December, but picking on you eating a single cookie? That you made? You spent the whole day cooking. The whole day trying to have a good Christmas, you can feel yourself fuming as you remember how much you have worked your ass off the whole month for their presents, for a good Christmas dinner, as they wouldnt even buy a single pair of sock for you. Give you a single “thank you” for all of your efforts, You tried, you really did, Despite all the odds against your favor, you still tried, when you finally decide you give yourself a taste of your hard work, your family dares to give you shit about your eating habits? No. Nuh uh.

That was the last drop. You marched to your room as you heard someone giving you shit one last time after harshly dropping the plate on the dining table. knew you would be screwed when they found out you were gone, no amount of locks would keep them at bay for longer than 2 to 3 hours. But god, you needed a time out. Yes, you would rather freeze your butt on a dirty and frozen roof top than to listen to another passive aggressive bullshit comment.

“you have been hiding here all this time?” A familiar voice fills out of the foggyness of your thoughts, your head turns around slightly, watching a well known silhouette marvelously shining through the moonlight “nobody’s seen you in days” his tone isn’t harsh or accusative, you can almost hear a incredulous chuckle out of him, he speaks lightly, curious to your whereabouts, you can also hear him landing near the regular rooftop entrance, you stare once again to the uncountable windows and buildings in front of you.

He waits for you to retaliate, reply with witty comeback, flash him an apologetic smile, anything, but silence wins you over. He knew something was up when you were this quiet, your family would be the main topic when you vanished like that, he also knew you needed space to deal with such matter, in due time, you would ask for comfort, you would seek for his presence, just like when he comes to you, yet this time it never came, you never came. The ninja turtle slowly leans over, trailing his eyes ahead as you do.

A sniff catches him off guard, he knows it shouldnt, but it does, he glances at you to finally see your glossy eyes staring ahead, a blush covering your cheeks and nose; You look adorable, sad, disappointed, frustrated, but still can’t help but to find you adorable, his hearts stings as you rapidly catch a sneaky tear roll down your cheek, turning your back at him before he can catch you in this arms.

“Didn’t want to bother.” your voice comes out more shaky than you would like, a bit hoarse due to the current season, you rub your hands together, if he questioned about your well being, you could just blame it on the cold weather,on the perfect snowflakes falling above you two.

“You could never bother” he trails along slowly, weary as if you were a scared cat, afraid that any hasty movement could make you dash “how about we go to the lair? Everyone misses you.” he gently places a hand on your back, “I miss you” he ponders, moving slowly to be by your side, your eyes don’t meet his, he wants to lean down, he wants your eyes locked on his, he wants you to trust him as much as he trusts you, he wants nothing more but to hold you close and kiss your sorrows and tears away.

he stays put instead, waiting on your call.

You instinctively turns towards him, his warmth drawing you in, you want to smile, to tell him over and over that eveything is fine, you were just busy, he doesn’t have to worry.

Instead your mouth is pressed in a tight line, you can feel your lips trembling when you try to speak, you know words will come out wobbly, and for the first time, you won’t be able to hold back tears in front of him. This is pathetic. You think, you want to be at the lair. You want to be near them, but how can you explain you can’t bare to see their love, brotherhood and companionship tonight? You can’t feel part of it? This night isn’t about you, it has never been and it will never will be, you just get used to it.

You look up; your thoughts swimming through your eyes, you open and close your mouth, how do you explain you crave affection, but can’t seem to bear it?

The turtle holds you in a swift movement, carrying you with ease, gently but still firmly holding you against his plastron in princess style, the familiar adrenaline rushes trough you as you can feel him jumping from roof top to roof top, you don’t have words to question him, astoundingly admiring him as you stare at his focused face facing the horizon ahead.

You close your eyes for a moment, learning your face over the valley of his neck and collarbone, in a blink of an eye, songs, chatter and laughter fills the air and you remember you are in New York , the most magical city to be this time of year. Yes, you had probably the crappiest month of your life, but for a moment, you let yourself drift away in bliss, focusing on sounds and passing colorful lights.

He settles both you on a empty office balcony, everything is dark inside accept for the faint lights on a very worn out tree looking back at you, you check your own reflection, your eyes are red and puffy, your hair is uneven, and there are millions of colors shining behind you.

The Rockefeller was the most iconic place all over New York during Christmas time, slowly turning around, the tree and it’s surroundings leaving you both speechless, you loved Christmas lights, it was impressive to say the least how the decorations were absolutely ethereal. ever so slowly, you both sit down and admire the virw quietly.

“You don’t have to deal with everything on your own” is the first line he graces you, you wanna laugh with that alone, look who’s talking you think over, but you can’t say it, you know he is right, he chuckles as if he could read your mind, he gently tilts your head upwards “next time, call me. Text me. Reach out, for goddess sake.” He smiles at you, you let out a huff, smiling shyly “you have so much on your plate already, I just, I didn’t-“

“You deserve so much better” he shakes his head, lips pressed in a thin line. Over many years of his life, he has thought he had too little and humans had absolutely everything on top side, it was unfair and left a sour taste over his mouth. you have shown him that kind of thought was childish, he had a family, he had people he could count on, that’s alone is a lot more than what many people have, He can’t take that fact for granted anymore.

He also knew your biggest wish was to be part of something like that, his biggest wish was to make you feel part of it, maybe even something more.

You shyly lace your pinky with one of his fingers, ducking away as you felt your face burning under his deep gaze, you were so appreciative of his family, of him, of his patience and dedication, to say you have a crush on the turtle was an understatement, everything the he did made your heart skip a beat, the way he would always seek out for you during hangouts, how he cared for your preferences and well being, you found yourself unable to look away when he was training, when he would laughs so care freely, when he gets lost on his interests and everything seems to slow down around the both of you. You rest your head gently over his shoulder, you know you can get lost in his eyes quickly, you bite your lip when you think of his, and how heavenly it would feel against yours.

“It’s alright..” that what you manage to come up with, it’s cheap and it’s empty, but you don’t know what else to say. “No it’s not.” He says it firmly, interlocking your fingers tightly to prove his point.

Sometimes, you swear he feels the same as you do, you swear you can catch a soft longing from him across the dinging table, across the dojo over self defense training, short glances that are filled with unspoken words, that the innocent touches are not so innocent anymore. but life has taught you not to hang on those wishes, not to have hope. It was hurtful to do so.

“why do you care?” you let a frustrated sigh out, you hate how you just asked that the moment the words left your mouth, you aren’t frustrated at him per say, more towards your feelings, at how clammy your hands feel around his, how fast your heart is beating, how you secretly hope he knows that you didn’t mean to let that question out, how much of a chicken you were, how you fought annoying daydreaming scenarios with him on daily basis and yet just wish he kissed you already.

“Because I do.” he makes you look at him again, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear, and for the first time tonight, you look at him, you really look at him, how he is breathing fast, how dilated his pupils are when he looks at you, how his thumb drags temptingly over the bottom of your lips, letting out a shaky breath as he squeezes your hand one last time.

“because I just do.” His gaze is locked in yours, pleading, full of what you have denied yourself for years, telling eveything you have ever wanted without any words. He was yours, and you are his.

you finally tell yourself fuck it and kiss him.

It’s desperate, it’s passionate, it’s eveything you want and more, you drag your nails on the nape of his neck and draws him into your space, your chest hits is plastron as he grips your hips as he pins you down against the ground, the way you hook one of your leg on top of his shell drives out a moan out of him, making you arch your back, you nibble his bottom lip as you swear you gonna lose your mind.

You don’t know how long has passed, your grip on him is as strong as his as you lay beneath him, you makeout until you are both out of breath, until the anger and frustration has been worn out and you two slowly melt together, once fervent kisses turns into soft, gentle ones, until you are both looking at each other, smiling and giving pecks between giggles, translating eveything you have both been feeling towards each other

“Goddamn.” he draws a hearty laugh out of both you, the turtle rests is forehead against yours, sighing dreamily, giving you feather light kisses on your cheeks as you pull him closer.

“I care a lot about you too.” you drunkly smile to him, caressing his cheeks tenderly, “I sure hope so.” you hook your arms around his neck, laughing at his antics.

“I gotta tell you something tho.” you tilt your head curiously, he looks down at your lips, licking instinctively as you bite yours.

“you surprisingly taste like gingerbread cookies”

That makes you giggle once more.

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It’s 3 am and Idk how to finish so hopefully the end it’s not too abrupt *confetti sounds* 🎉 let me know if you guys liked it!

#tmnt #tmnt x reader #rottmnt #rottmnt x reader #giulia writes #tmnt headcanons #tmnt 2007 #tmnt raph #tmnt mikey #tmnt leonardo #tmnt 2003 #tmnt donatello #tmnt fandom #tmnt bayverse turtles x reader #tmnt bayverse

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heli0s-writes · 2 years

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You’re Toxic, I’m Slipping Under

Summary: He bristles, offended. And you try, with as much dignity as you can muster after the last two hours of being fucked blind, to not look so smug about it. “See you next week,” he hums.

A/n: To celebrate Glass Onion coming out, here’s ol’ boy Ransom because I hate him so much :) 4.1k words. Warnings: Smut; mild degradation, spitting, daddy kink; classism; Mind Games with Ransom Hour etc. etc. Please stop reading if you’re not 18+

Your whole apartment building seems to rattle when he arrives thirty minutes late. Like raucous fanfare to announce his appearance, the door slams shut, the latch clicks loudly, and then you hear his heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs.

His shoes are still on—of course they are—stomping your floorboards and dragging in dirt. You can practically see them, the usual suede loafers switched out for leather boots with the late fall chill, and probably mud-caked because he’s thankless like that.

With your attention still on your laptop, already irritated because you’ve been attempting a paper that’s only chased its tail for the last three hours, you ask, “Did you misplace your watch, Ransom?”

Turning, you show him you’re the screen reading 8:32 and blink pointedly, “Is that a yes?”

“Don’t be smart,” he snaps back. “You know I don’t like that.”

Your head’s been a mess of fog, body tense and frustrated for days, and although you’ve always prided yourself on tact and grace—patient like a saint—Ransom manages to bring out the worst. You hiss, “Take your damn shoes off, you know I don’t like that.”

You watch mutely as he does so, not without a sneer here, a shitty comment there. He takes three long steps and plops himself on your bed, hands curling into the quilt, thumbs brushing over the patchwork fabric disparagingly. He pinches a loose thread and begins to pull, tugging slowly at first, and then finding joy in unraveling a line of stitching until nearly three inches rip apart.

“I always thought you needed to replace this thing.” He twirls the string disdainfully, “It’s ugly as sin.”

He pretends he doesn’t know how you obviously love this quilt—handstitched and affectionately made, your damn initials are embroidered into the corner, after all. He��s made a game of testing your patience, gleefully punching at every button as he tries to get you to snap.

Ransom Drysdale Thrombey. You’d met him at one of the Thrombey’s family… functions. Dysfunction, you’d muttered under your breath when Walt beat his cane against the floor in a drunken tirade and Meg ran out back to wolf down a pot cookie that she was supposed to be saving for later.

She was on the cusp of a panic attack, words tumbling out like a car crash, her hand in her beret, then hair, then trembling over her maroon-painted lips.

“God, I’m so sorry— I thought we could just make a pit stop before heading out. The food’s always catered and really good— god… it’s a fucking mess.”

You waved her off because it’s not like you haven’t witnessed at least one aunt having a meltdown during holiday dinner before— family’s just like that—and tried to placate her with, “Can’t be worse than the cousin who asked if we’d be scissoring later.”

Meg’s face twisted in disgust. “Ugh, ew! Fucking Jacob! He’s a skeezy little incel— I swear he’s a moderator on one of those internet forums where they post revenge porn and upskirt vids— honestly, he was adorable two years ago. Then I guess he went through puberty and got radicalized on Youtube.”

You paused as she lit a cigarette and inhaled furiously before realizing that the two of you were thinking of two entirely different cousins.

“I meant the big one, Meg. This one went through puberty twenty years ago.”

“Ew, Ransom,” Meg frowned, “That’s even worse.”

“Ransom? What is he, a Disney villain?”

Leaves crunched behind your back and Meg looked up from flicking ash into the yard toward the sound.

“Let’s be honest, I’ve got the face of a leading man.”

Meg blew smoke at him, as if the fumes were enough to threaten his sensibilities. You figured not, he looked like a cigar smoker anyway—one of those guys who’d dedicate a whole room in their house with the humidity just right to keep them fresh. Rich people shit.

“Go away, Ransom,” she said, to clarify.

“I don’t recall addressing you, Megan.” He took a drawn-out look, lips pursing in scrutiny before lifting a brow, making a real goddamn show about it. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll bite. 400 on the dresser for an hour; you can get yourself something nice.”

You’re still not sure what it was about either your attire or attitude that allowed him to conjure up such an offer.

Maybe it was your shitty jeans and your sweater from freshman year orientation. Maybe you looked like an easy mark to tear down.

His audacity shocked out a laugh from you—a loud, abrupt guffaw that eased Meg enough for her to dip back inside to grab more from her stash. And when she was out of sight, focused on rummaging in the old clock, you responded, “Yeah, okay. I’ll bite back.”

Maybe it was an act of rebellion against your background in contrast to all this excess. The bitter aftertaste of eating bottom shelf food out of necessity for weeks at a time—those awful chicken bouillon packets and dried blocks of instant noodles your first year of college. No one paid for your schooling or housing so learning to balance an over-abundance of classes and a job because you needed to graduate early, needed to spend less money on tuition, meant that you were working yourself to death.

If Youtube radicalized Jacob, then habitually sleeping three hours a night in the campus library and skipping meals to afford textbooks while men like Ransom crashed Maserati’s for fun radicalized you.

So, sure. Game on.

He picked you up the following weekend without anyone knowing and took you somewhere expensive. It was a whirlwind of exorbitant dinners and being quietly sneered at down the straight line of his tall nose bridge. The front door to his bachelor pad shutting but not bothered with locking. Falling into the thousand-count Egyptian cotton bedsheets naked, the skylight’s beam spilling like gold-flecked champagne.

You promised yourself it meant nothing. Just an experiment of unbridled spite. If he wanted to throw money at you, hell, that’s his problem. If he wanted to fuck you, well, you’d give him the best fuck of his life— let him see that despite wealth, at the end of the day, he was flesh and blood trembling for the right stroke.

And sure, he trembled, but it was your mistake to pare it down so simply.

Ransom juggled fuck buddies much longer than you’d been fucking at all. He knew it was best with the right amount of emotion involved. Just enough to yearn. If he laid roses at your feet, kissed your knees featherlight and worked his way up to your jaw, cradled the back of your head, nosed the pulse of your wrist, your collarbones, asked for your eyes on him, and panted the lightest breath of your name at the edge of it all—now who’s fucking who over, sweetheart?

You were out of your depth. He was powerful, older, and more experienced. He touched you in ways that emulated affection—that brought fire and danger. His hands were large and callused at the juncture of his fingers. His pretty mouth was pink, wet, kissed greedy. His sharp eyes took everything in.

But, as you predicted, his moods soon volleyed in every direction as consequence of never being told no, and once the novelty of crazy hot—often angry—sex grew stale, you crashed back down to earth burned out. You ghosted.

“You’re, what…” he called through the door the week after you texted that it was both too much and not enough to carry on with, “breaking up with me? Seriously. This is a fucking joke.”

And you could have practically seen it—how his bottom lip would jut out as his incisors crossed, how his brows would sink when he got angry. He was never belligerent, only calculating.

You told him to leave, and he did, after a single loud kick to the frame, because he’s never begged for anything, and he wasn’t going to start.

The guilt came afterwards, with the bouquet of roses on the doormat, petals scattered around because he’d slammed them down after being ignored again and again, and you swept them inside to throw into a vase next to the three other vases with flowers in various degrees of wilted.

“Breaking up” prickled complicatedly in the middle of your chest, because despite the many shows of affection, you knew you weren’t exactly breaking up. You had never really been with him anyway. People aren’t… with Ransom. They’re towed along by Ransom, dragged by their hair by Ransom. Played with by Ransom until he inevitably gets bored.

It devolved into needless melodrama. Weekly episodes of a teen show with grandiose gestures of toxic relationships perceived as romance. Ransom’s habit of whisking you away, fucking you senseless, turning around to fight with you about any-goddamn-thing he pleased. Dropping off flowers and champagne. Restarting the whole process.

It wasn’t healthy—isn’t healthy, probably, according to most therapists—since he’s here, present-day, in your room, beginning to undress.

You fiddle with the sleeves at your elbows, thumbing cool satin before advancing, arms subconsciously crossed.

He’s only in his underwear now. A pair of nondescript gray boxer briefs fitted on his muscular thighs, taut as he leans back on his palms. He slowly spreads his legs, inviting you between them. His lips purse when you stand passively, knee brushing his bulge, hands resting over his shoulders. He’s warm.

One palm caresses your lower back and the other on himself, gliding up and down. His lids are half open, voice low, “You miss this?”

“No,” which is a lie. You missed it when evenings were boring, half-heartedly nodding to some boy’s drivel about campus life, mind wandering to someone who didn’t look freshly 21, didn’t date like it. Didn’t talk themselves up just to get you into bed.

At least Ransom was honest; he always said exactly what he thought, told you exactly when you were pissing him off, how he was going to teach you a lesson—where he wanted you, how he wanted you, and— a chill races up your arms.

He’s downright smug when he notices.

“No? You prefer sloppy frat boys pawing at you like virgins over me? Every time, you think they might fuck right but, well, you’re always disappointed.” He reaches beneath the short hem of the robe, splays his hand out over your thigh and very slowly feels his way up.

Your eyes shutter as he pulls you forward, gripping tightly and massaging up toward your ass. The pit of your belly is tightening, the rest trying to push down being too eager for him all over you, his broad shoulders, his strong hands, how he bends his grasp on your shoulder, fixes you in a perfect curved arch just the way he likes.

Ransom noses the robe out of his path, sinking his teeth lightly down until he scrapes a line over your breastbone, laying his face gently down like a child—like a lover.

“You know,” he begins, taunting again, “You make a… face.” He says it as he trails down beneath the swell of one breast, letting your nipple graze his cheek, before he presses a kiss to your ribcage. Hot like a brand, searing into your belly. And then he bites.

You flinch, hand going to his hair to pull him away. He throws his head back into your grasp, eyes glittering and amused. He quickly works your thighs apart, dipping two fingers between and sinking into your heat.

“There it is,” he chuckles when your eyes flutter, “Yeah... Really gets me off.”

You’re in his lap before you know it, your hold on him fallen off and now scrambling for his wide shoulders to hold yourself steady. He’s got you leaned back on his thighs, hanging off the edge of the bed and perfectly helpless, the only thing planting you even close to secure are your folded knees, your arms around his neck. He’s shushing you, one large hand on the small of your back, the other still working inside your pussy.

He says, “Calm down unless you want to fall,” but it’s goddamn hard when your heart is pounding with equal parts fear and arousal. He’s sucking on your tits, balancing you just precariously enough to thrill, fingering you all the while—like it’s nothing to him, like you’re an object he can manipulate however he pleases.

His cock is erect, flexing against the fabric over his groin, a swell of hard, aching muscle. You want to put your hand around it, feel its girth in your palm, simply hold it because you do fucking miss it. The places he can reach, the ways he spreads you, rocking in and pulling out—how he sometimes settles inside, and then does nothing but watch you squirm.

It’s undeniably gorgeous—and he is too—when you fumble it out after he lays you down and hovers over you with interest. You’re wetting your lips automatically, staring in awe at his thick shaft sprouting from soft, dark, curls, the tip of it smooth and almost purple, swollen up with blood.

“Legs up,” and the way he says it, how he just goes right out and says it, makes you groan.

Boys don’t do that. Too busy in their heads about peacocking and re-enacting the kind of porno where performers wordlessly move into new positions in sync, nothing verbal exchanged but high-pitched shrieking and nasally fuck me’s.

Ransom’s extremely verbal in bed. He easily says, “Look at me. Show me how much you want it,” and flits his eyes between your bodies.

You do, shivering, sliding two fingers along the sides of your folds, finding yourself aroused and damp, humiliated and incredibly turned on when he grins, simply content with watching. Your thighs are squeezing reflexively, abdomen crunching up trying to keep it together.

But he’s never been patient, and quickly tells you to hold your knees, rock back, make yourself small and exposed, and then he’s delving gently into your hole— thumbs taking turns, coaxing more.

Two fingers tuck in, then another two struggle next to them, and you can’t stop yourself from gasping and crying out at how he pulls apart the walls of your cunt.

The sound of it— sloppy, squelching, a light and hollow kind of noise like a tongue flicking inside an open mouth.

“Look at this pretty pussy.” He tugs a little more, and you wriggle into it, gripping your legs tighter, pulling your knees up, shins toward your burning face to hide.

He descends on your clit, tip of his tongue licking into your stretched hole, purposefully only running against the taut skin around his fingers. “You got a talent, baby,” he murmurs, buzzing. “I could fuck you the whole day, fuck you numb… but give you about half an hour and it’s good as new, tight and perfect.”

There had been marathon rounds of bouncing in his lap between being at each other’s throats, his thighs splitting yours, hands holding you up, nibbling at your ear. Then he’d turn you around, take you to the floor until you collapsed on the bearskin rug, the sweat on your neck and chest rolling into dark furs. Railed you until you were so sensitive anything would make you come; your body unsure if it was considered your own anymore.

Fuck, fight, rinse, and repeat.

“Are you—going to talk all night?” You grunt up to the ceiling, trying to steel yourself from panting or moaning and only barely making it.

“Thought you liked it when I talked.” His dark head is still between your legs, nose pressed into your skin, licking agonizingly slow with his entire tongue. It’s so warm, and gentle, and assertive. “What, you don’t like being told how good you taste?”

He keeps licking, pushing at the back of your knees when you try to switch positions, holding you in that bent up pose. He’s suckling at your clit when his fingers find their way back inside, easily hooking in three and pumping them smoothly.

“How—” he sucks hard, the shape of his full, plush lips fitted over you making a filthy wet smack, “mmm—I love the taste of your sweet pussy?”

When you come like it’s being ripped out of you, legs shaking around his head, lines of his spit dripping down your ass and onto the sheets, he lets you go with a hard slap on your sex, and you nearly wail.

“That’s my girl,” he says. “Yeah, you missed me, huh? You missed it like this, didn’t you? Tell me.”

“Unnng …” a high whine, “Ransom.”

“I know,” he mumbles, kissing up your belly, your neck, your ear.

He moves into position, entering effortlessly after all his prep work, and the shine of your juice still on his beard is fucking unholy hot. He’s grinning and panting, eyes fluttering briefly as he slides home.

“I know it’s big, baby. But you can take it, you’re gonna take it.” He’s a fraction unfocused, letting himself enjoy how you squeeze around him before he begins to punish.

Jesus, you missed this. Missed the agonizing drag of his shaft that feels like it goes on and on forever. Miss the way you get full of him, miss how it almost hurts.

His hipbones are hitting against yours, a steady fast rhythm because he’s experienced like that. Whereas some others might go faster when you’re close, Ransom stays at the pace that got you there in the first place. If anything, he pushes just a bit harder, makes you listen to the sound of his skin on yours, the choke of your breath he punches out.

You crunch yourself up smaller, toes touching the headboard now. Anything to get him further in.

“Fuck, you’re a slut,” he laughs. “Pretty little slut, god you don’t give it up like this for anyone else, do you?”

There’s not enough sense in you to argue even if you wanted to. The room is swimming, undulating, slipping further and further out of reach as the bed rocks and squeaks in protest. You’re sure you met a very handsome guy at the bar weeks ago but as soon as he started hinting that he was interested and stirred up conversation by asking your major, you left.

It just… wasn’t there. It wasn’t the same. No way in hell.

That boy wouldn’t have done this—wouldn’t be planting one foot on the bed, the other knee still down, enormous hands tight on your hips and crashing in.

You could cry, it feels so goddamn good.

Tears dribble their way out from the corner of your eyes. You turn your face enough to get a breath of fresh air, gulping it in frantically between the drive of Ransom’s cock and the half second he slides out.

You vaguely register his hand moving from your hip to your cheek, knuckles brushing upward.

“Oh,” he sighs, “pretty, pretty girl.” He slows his pace, nearly stilling. You squirm beneath him, inching away from how deep he is inside you, how intimate it feels as he kisses the hollow of your cheek and then toward your brow.

“So sweet for me,” he says, pulsing, making you whine with how he pushes against your sore walls. “Did I make a slut out of you? Huh? Make you stupid for my dick?”

“Make me come,” you say. “Make me—“

“Ask me real nice, baby. Ask daddy to make you come.”

You want to hit him. Kill him.

“No?” He whispers into the sensitive shell of your ear, “You don’t want it?”

You squeeze your eyes shut, embarrassment clawing up your face, but Ransom’s hold is tighter, sharper, and he really is— so fucking right. You want it. And he’s made you a little stupid, so yeah--

“Please make me come, daddy. I wanna come.”

The Cheshire grin that unfurls on his face is more panther than cat. “You wanna come on daddy’s big cock?”

“Yes, daddy,” you admit. “I wanna so bad.”

“Oh, that’s it, baby. You’re a good girl, aren’t you. You put on a little show just for me? Act like you don’t want it but soon as I get in you and you let me lay you out anywhere, make you say anything.”

You turn away but he’s got your fucking number— got you as a boneless, spineless mess beneath him as he begins to fuck you again, and harder, his calculating, beautiful, cruel face hanging above you like a fever dream.

“You gonna come? Gonna cry?”

He’s melting away, he’s everywhere, and the lights behind your eyelids are starting to glare and threaten to explode.

“Gonna come for daddy, huh. That’s it, baby. That’s my girl, let me feel your pussy— ah— there it is— you can’t help it, can you? Mmm, swallow daddy’s cock with your pussy.”

Your orgasm is a wreck of curses and teeth on Ransom’s shoulder when he drops down close enough to make contact. You shake and whimper, struggling to calm yourself through the aftershocks.

When you’re done, still floaty but more aware, the mess of your humming insides less tight around him, he pulls out and shuffles up until his swollen tip is at your chin.

You obey wordlessly, and afterwards, when the flex of his shaft is tell-tale, and he empties into your mouth, you hold it there, show him the mess.

“Baby,” he says, slowly making his way back down, admiring the come submerging your tongue.

Ransom licks his lips, licks the inside of his cheek, and leans back over again, his eyes liquid darkness and pleased as punch. And he drops a line of spit on top, drools it down over your teeth, into your mouth, and says, “Good girl.”

“You need a new laptop.” He’s tugging his belt until the clasp hooks into place.

“I don’t.”

“It looks old.”

“So do you.”

He bristles, offended. And you try, with as much dignity as you can muster after the last two hours of being fucked blind, to not look so smug about it.

“See you next week,” he hums.

You don’t say anything in response, only listening for the same heavy footsteps slam back downstairs—perhaps a fraction lighter—and the clunk of the door swinging shut. A long breath and you stretch slowly, letting your body regain its normal shape before he bent you into a goddamn pretzel. A few minutes pass, and then a few more, and you hear the roar of his car speed out of the parking lot.

Safe now, out of his reach, you amble back up into your computer chair to face the awful white, blank document staring back like a judgmental audience. You slide in and crack your neck, feeling the throb between your thighs yield to a less uncomfortable ache.

The problem, you’ve learned after leaving Ransom’s world, was that you had been ill-equipped to play his game. His game, and by extension, Meg’s game. All the Thrombeys and Drysdales and everyone in-between.

They belonged to a class you couldn’t really understand unless you were making a fucking killing—and graduation was just around the bend, so maybe you would, one day—but you were in the red with 45 grand of student debt and staring down the barrel of a subsequent degree because it was getting hard to make it with just a single bachelor’s in anything.

There was too much to do and not enough time to be jerked around by Ransom—not nearly enough time to feel frustrated about your situation in any sense. No, scraping by taught you to survive. You couldn’t be whisked off to the Caymans for brunch, couldn’t be fucked raw in hotel infinity pools, get lost for days meandering the Pacific on luxury yachts for the fun of it.

Your world was a little more drab, a little less rose-tinted.

So it was back to normal now, back to the grind, back to not wasting any part of your week on shitty dates, shitty sex, and coming home more frustrated than you left it. Because there was Ransom, so eager to make some kind of statement about proving you wrong that he’d be the last to know when he’s being used.

And maybe 4 out of 5 therapists would say that your coping mechanism to a normal sex drive is unhealthy—mind-fucking and regular-fucking your ex/not-ex will do that—but you wouldn’t know. You can’t afford therapy just yet.

You rub your back, patting out the tightness of overworked muscles. It doesn’t feel any worse than the cramp you’d gotten after staying up three nights in a row cramming for finals.

As if your brain has reset, your fingers begin tapping on the keys, and you realize your writer’s block’s been lifted.

#ransom drysdale #ransom thrombey #knives out #ransom x reader #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale smut #reader insert #fanfiction #ransom drysdale thrombey

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jieunoclock · 3 months

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Love Your Feeling || Chapter five

- When JK meets Mom₊˚⊹♡

“Yun, you shouldn’t smoke,” he tries to discuss. “Neither should you, you look stupid,” I tell him,

Pair: jjk x femOC, college students, best friends

Word count: 4.2k

Warning: this chapter includes slight substance use⚠️

masterlist || taglist

!Friends to Lovers, Protective Brother, Secret Dating, Friends with Benefits, Angst, Mature content, Dysfunctional Family, Fluff, Smut, Mentions of Alcoholism and Abuse

——————————————————————₊˚⊹♡

Up, down. Up, down. Up… down… is the pace Jungkook’s chest goes at. It’s one of those moments where you’re mad that you woke up, so you keep your eyes closed in hopes you’ll go back to sleep.

Kinda like wanting to jump back into a dream, but it rarely ever happens unless you’re sleepy enough for it. In 1 out of maybe 10 scenarios you actually are sleepy enough, same goes for this instance.

I feel Jungkook move his arm, the tips of his fingers tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. His fingers fall to my shoulder trailing down before settling his whole hand on my upper arm.

It’s a Sunday, which usually consists of doing groceries and cleaning up the mess at home. So, if I can stretch this afternoon out as long as possible, I will.

I can already predict what awaits me at home; Beer bottles on the floor surrounding the couch, dirty dishes piling up in the sink, a load of dirty underwear and towels peeking out of the laundry basket, and probably a foul smell coming from somewhere you’re unable to locate.

Lost in thought, I eventually get sick of staying in the same position. I open my eyes with a soft groan, seeing there’s a blanket placed over us. That must mean Mingyu has seen us cuddled up on the couch, as he was probably getting his breakfast.

I slowly move my chin up to see Jungkook with his eyes closed, head slightly faltered to the side. My movement doesn’t give him any reaction, which must mean he’s fallen back asleep.

I untangle myself from his grip, careful not to wake him as I tuck him in with the blanket that was once lying over me, repeating Mingyu’s past actions of the day.

My clothes from the night before are still on his bedroom floor, crumpled up into a pile. I debate for a second if I should hop in the shower or not but I just know that if I don’t I’ll feel disgusting for the rest of the day.

Using Jungkook’s shampoo and body wash I now must smell just like him. He’s a sucker for good skincare so -with the little time I have for myself- I use his to wash my face and moisturize it.

Usually, I dry my hair with a hair dryer, it’s the best for the length of my hair. Letting it air dry takes hours and a hair dryer leaves an overall nicer finish. But since Jungkook is still sleeping, I pat my hair down with a towel and leave it at that. Too afraid that the noise will eventually wake him up.

Freshly out of the shower, dressed, moisturized skin, I’m now growing hungry. It’s a nice thank you to Jungkook if I’ll make him breakfast right? I know he likes anything containing literal flour, so that should be an easy task.

Compared to the fridge at home, this one is filled with food and ingredients. Milk and eggs in the refrigerator, flour found somewhere in one of his cabinets I decide to make him pancakes.

It checks off everything from the list; easy, tasty, great breakfast, contains flour. And I really don’t want to sound cocky, but over the years I’ve become a quite good cook. It was either, learning how to cook or living off of plain shin ramyun every single day. It’s the only ramen Yoongi would want to spend his money on, says it’s ‘without a doubt tasty, so it isn’t a waste of money’.

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to make them delicious, Japanese pancakes, like the lovely lady from the cafe does. But I do know how to make delicious crepes. Plus, they don’t require much effort.

Not even the smell of the crepes baking in the pan is enough to wake Jungkook again, which must mean he’s very tired. With his crepe now done baking, I top it with some sugar and lemon juice and place it on the counter.

Mine is now spread out on the pan, waiting to be flipped over. I walk over to the couch, placing a hand on Jungkook’s abs to shake him awake.

“Kook” a loud groan sounds from his throat, eyes sleepy trying to open them fully. “Smells good,” he says closing his eyes again and dropping the back of his head on the armrest ready to fall back to asleep.

“Yours is done already, come on,” that’s enough to get him up apparently, as before I know it he’s in the kitchen in front of his plate.

"What you wanna do today?" he asks me as he takes a bite off of his fork, humming in approval. I flip my crepe in the pan waiting for it to be done. "I need to do groceries and then clean up the apartment," I explain. he gives me a questioning look wondering why I'm the one who cleans at home.

"doesn't Yoongi do anything in the household?" I sprinkle some sugar on my crepe adding a bit of lemon juice before sitting down next to Jungkook. "Well, on rare occasions I guess,"

Jungkook disapproves, tells me that I need to protest by not cleaning anything. As if I havent thought of that. There was this one time I figured it wasn't fair for me to do all the housecleaning, which led to a huge fight between me and Yoongi. He told me he brought in the majority of the money within the household therefore it's only fair for me to do the shopping, cleaning, and cooking. even though I work as well. not as much as him since I still have school, but still I bring money into the household. more than mother ever would

"I'll help you" he then offers. Is he insane? nope, nu-uh. I tell him he's not coming home with me, to which he whines. and we eventually agree on just doing groceries together. Jungkook just has to get changed real quick and we’ll be off.

he changes into a simple white tee and blue baggy jeans, basic but stylish. he grabs his car keys and we make our way to the vehicle.

He drives us to a nearby store, one that I’ve never been to before. I don’t know what’s in the fridge at home if there’s anything really. But over the years I’ve picked up a kind of routine, buying almost the same kinds of things every single time.

Some kind of fruit, a family pack of ramen, eggs, milk, spring onions, a snack, and 2 packs of coke. It reaches just about our weekly budget and feeds us more than enough.

We walk inside of the store, trying to navigate anything that’s in my list. But the prices aren’t the ones that I’m used to, this store is far too overpriced.

I thug at his shirt, lowering my voice so none of the employees will hear me when I tell him I can’t afford it here.

“Uhm, Kook. This is far too expensive,” he looks at me as if I’m crazy, checking the prices for himself. “Where do you go then?”

I tell him it’s better to go to mine and drag him out of the store by his arm, buying nothing.

The one on my side of the city is a family-held business, I know the owners really well. The mother of the business used to be classmates with my mother, she’s always been nice enough to occasionally check up on me.

The products are far cheaper than whatever Jungkook’s store was, pointing out to him how much cheaper it actually is.

I send him off to grab me a pack of shin ramyun as I pick out some fruit, settling for a honeydew melon cause it’s probably one of my favourite fruits.

Gathering everything else and making our way to the cash register, I get greeted by the mother. She asks me how I’m doing and if my mom is okay.

I don’t want to bother her with the details by telling her she’s drunk at home so I just tell her she’s fine and been working hard, even though she doesn’t even have a job at this point.

She’s even so nice to pack the groceries up for me handing me a plastic bag whilst giving me a free bag of crisps.

However, after paying, Jungkook is still caught up in looking at the vitrine behind the counter. “One pack of cigarettes and a lighter please,” he says to her.

I’m certainly taken aback, I didn’t know he smoked. I mean I’ve seen him smoke before at parties but only rarely, never have I seen him buy a pack for himself.

I wait for us to be outside again before asking him about it, waving my mom’s friend goodbye. I load the bag of groceries onto the back seat of his car and want to sit back in the passenger seat but Jungkook just stands in front of the store.

I see him take a cigarette out of the packaging lighting it up between his lips. I stand next to him looking. At the big road that lays behind the parking lot.

“Since when do you smoke?” He raises an eyebrow at me.

“Today apparently,” he answers.

Unsatisfied with his decision, this just only asks for a new addiction. So to protest I hold out my hand, non-verbally asking him for a cigarette myself.

I hear him chuckle and he shakes his head. “No way Nayun,” he says with a big grin on his face. I try to force my hand in his pocket to just grab it but he’s stronger than me and pulls me away, telling me off.

With a big pout on my face, I decide this is unfair storming back into the store and getting another pair; a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Do I have the money for it? Not really but sure, I’ll survive, financially that is.

So now I’m standing next to him, smoking my own cigarette.

“Yun, you shouldn’t smoke,” he tries to discuss.

“Neither should you,” I look at him blowing the stupid cigarette smoke out of his lungs, it looks damn hot I’m afraid to admit.

“You look stupid,” I tell him, even though he doesn’t. Cigarettes taste like shit, I should invest in one of them stupid-looking disco vapes.

He just chuckles at my remark and stays silent until we’ve both completely smoked up the cigarette.

“C'mon, I should really get home,” I nudge at him back to the car. The drive is literally 3 minutes, I usually walk this route.

I thank him for driving me but as I slam the door shut, the car turns off and Jungkook gets out too.

“What are you doing?” I ask him with a nervous chuckle. “Helping you out?”

I told him off on helping me to clean up already but he seemed determined, though he could also just mean walking me to my door. That’s just stupid, he always just dropped me off at a bus stop so why would he walk me all the way to my door now? You can see my door from the car so it’s just stupid to do that.

“What do you mean helping me out?..” I frown at him in confusion.

“Yun I don’t care what you say, I’m helping you clean,” he says as he walks towards the stairwell. I try my best to stop him, yelling after him in protest whilst running behind him like an idiot.

Though he really stands his ground, doesn’t let my protests stop him from getting to my house. The first time he’s here, in our long seven or eight-year friendship. I decide to just give in, cause I can’t just stand outside all day.

As I open the front door, the first thing you’ll see is the bathroom door. It’s not big enough to conceal the sight of the living room next to it. You can see everything as soon as you open it; living room in front, kitchen to your left, bedroom door wide open.

Mom still hasn’t come back, as for Yoongi I wouldn’t know. Yoongi usually leaves early in the mornings and comes back home late in the evening or night, I’ve learned to stop worrying about it. most of the time he spends it with his friends, Seokjin and Namjoon, sometimes even Hoseok, doing god knows what.

Having my house on display like this is vulnerable there are absolutely no filters you can put on it. No fake smiles, no ‘it’s fine’, there are no excuses when it’s like this.

And it’s truly shocking how bad it can get in a week’s worth. The couch is empty aside from the empty take-out box, Dad’s blanket, and some beer cans.

I look at Jungkook trying to see what his reaction is, but it’s fairly normal. I can see the slightest bit of shock on his face, his forehead creased a little. But it’s quick to soften up as he notices me swinging my head around, acting as if it’s the most normal case in the world.

“Welcome home I guess,” I say nervously.

He doesn’t say anything and takes his shoes off after me following right behind me into my house. I set the bag of groceries down on the kitchen counter, unpacking it and crumbling the plastic bag to go into a bigger plastic bag that’s stored in one of our cabinets.

“Are there supposed to be shards of glass on the ground?” I look back at him to see he’s standing by the window, next to the couch where a bottle had smashed during a fight between Yoongi and Mom.

“Oh yeah no I haven’t had time to clean it yet,” I explain.

It leaves him with a bunch of questions; what happened? Why is there a smashed bottle on the ground? Did you hurt anyone? Did you get hurt? But he just leaves it be and doesn’t question it any further.

“What can I do?” He asks me. I wouldn’t want to bother him with a hard task, because he’s a guest and of course he doesn’t know where anything is here.

I look around the room to see what he can do, spotting the beer crate in the corner of the kitchen and the bottles gathered around the couch and coffee table. I think it’s the perfect job for him to do just that, not too difficult for a guest and it’ll keep him busy for a little to stop complaining.

I hand him the crate and tell him to put the bottles In there as I focus on doing the dishes.

I tell him to look good for any lost bottles until the crate is completely filled up with them and to then put them out in the hall.

Luckily there aren’t many dishes, mainly bowls and chopsticks stacked up in the sink. So when Jungkook has put the crate outside I’m already done with washing all of them.

Now there are two things left to do; taking out the garbage and doing the laundry. None of these tasks seem appropriate for Jungkook to do, I don’t want to bother him and he doesn’t want me to be bothered by doing these tasks on my own.

He pushes me onto doing the laundry, he’s gonna take care of the garbage. The laundry room is opposite the bathroom right next to my bedroom, completely closed off from the kitchen.

It takes me some time as I put some clothes in the dryer the other day and hadn’t had the time to fold them yet, so that’s included in today’s task. Taking the dirty laundry baskets out of the bathroom, my room, and Yoongi’s and turning on the washer to do a quick dark wash.

Would’ve been embarrassing to let Jungkook fold the laundry, worse, load the washer. There’s lingerie in here that I wouldn’t want him to see, no matter the fact that he’s seen parts of me that even my best girlfriends haven’t.

Since it’s only clothing of Yoongi and I, only rarely ever mom’s clothing. It doesn’t take me an awful long time to fold everything separating the clothes into two piles, one for Yoongi and one for me. Putting both of them on our beds.

The doorbell then rings, I’m not expecting anyone. Mom doesn’t ring the doorbell, neither does Yoongi. Jungkook is quick to open the door before I’m able to reach the living room, I immediately notice how neat it is. It doesn’t surprise me completely, Jungkook’s apartment is always spotless and super tidy. I have no idea how he was able to do it here in the little amount of time that I was gone.

Not a single piece of rubbish that’s lying around or a bad odour lingering somewhere, not even a speck of dust that’s able to be found at the moment.

Jungkook doesn’t take long at the door, greets the person on the other side, and receives a package from them. None of us ever order anything so it must be the wrong address, though Jungkook seems sure of it and places the box on the coffee table.

“Dinner!” He chimes, utensils already set on the coffee table.

He ordered a large box of fried chicken, one of those luxurious ones where they dress it up all nicely and stuff. I don’t think I can remember the last time we had takeout, probably at Jia’s house or something. Certainly not with my family, Yoongi will always say it’s too expensive.

“Are you insane?!” I yell at him. He’s being far too generous, cleaning up for me and ordering me dinner?

There are certainly four different flavours, sweet and spicy, extra crispy, honey butter, and soy garlic. I don’t know if we’ll be able to finish all of it.

I turn on the TV to watch something, nothing that’s on cable really catches my attention. And neither does Jungkook so I pout at him begging him a little to log into his Netflix account, it receives a little chuckle from him as he takes the remote out of my hand logging into the account.

He lets me choose whatever I want, and suddenly in the mood to rewatch Alice in Borderland. And even though he has seen it already, he attentively watches the show with his cheeks full of chicken.

We make it about 1/3 through the box before I’m already full, Jungkook’s appetite lays a little higher than mine, and continues eating a bit more than me but it doesn’t take him long to sigh at the fullness of his stomach as well.

I take a sip of my soda and hear the front door open, both Yoongi and Mom walking inside. She doesn’t look good, eye bags that are darker than my hair, hair all messy I swear there’s leaves in them. Yoongi looks tired too, in a different way than Mom though. Yoongi just looks sleepy as for Mom she looks sleep-deprived and lifeless.

Jungkook stands up from the ground immediately, bowing to greet my mother and Yoongi politely. He has never actually met my mother, he’s heard about her a hundred thousand times but never actually met her.

She tries her best to cheer up at the sight of jungkook, telling him how glad she is to finally meet him and how handsome he is. She quite literally squeezes his bicep and praises him for how strong he is. Shes acting like a fool, as if she’s a teenager again. It also doesn’t help that she doesn’t stop drinking, even if she’s already drunk.

Yoongi and Mom settle around the coffee table nibbling away on the chicken whilst Mom asks Jungkook a bunch of questions, asking about his parents and how he grew up and whatnot. Yoongi and I just stay silent, heads down.

It makes me sad seeing how much effort she’s putting into getting to know Jungkook, she never cares to ask anything about us. Whenever we leave the house for days, she doesn’t care. Whenever someone comes back injured or crying, she doesn’t bat an eye.

It just hurts knowing you’re the problem. Whenever she acts careless I’ll just brush it off as something she does, but seeing her act like this just puts a stamp on us being the problem.

It takes her a whole one-hour conversation to doze off, Yoongi drags her to the couch lying her down on it and she’s out like a light.

It’s nearly 9 pm now so Jungkook thinks it’s better to be off. Yoongi thanks him for the food and apologises for our mother’s behaviour, leaving me to walk Jungkook back to his car.

“Thank you so much for helping me out today, it means a lot,” I say as we’re standing beside his car.

“It’s no problem, it was nice to meet your mom. And of course, see where you live for once,” he adds.

“I guess I was always a little embarrassed about it but… I know I can trust you,”

He takes a step closer to me tugging me into a warm embrace.

“No need to be embarrassed about anything okay?” He says. I nod against his cheesy hugging his waist tightly saying our goodbyes.

I can’t hug him too long in case Yoongi might see and suspect things that aren’t there. He seems to be in a calm mood, I wouldn’t want to blow that up right now.

And then Jungkook drives off. It’s awfully quiet out, it’s almost dark leaving the air in an awkward grey color.

I release a big sigh before making my way back up to the apartment, where Yoongi is cleaning up the mess that was left behind at our dinner party.

“Where’d you find her?” I ask him, referencing him coming home with Mom.

“Found her on a bench somewhere near the city,” he explains. There’s no emotion behind it, the same goes for me. It doesn’t sound sad, angry, annoyed, happy or cold. Just, normal.

“I’m really sorry about what happened,” his voice changes, it sounds genuine and apologetic.

“I shouldn’t have said any of that,” he holds his head down whilst I’m trying to stay neutral before I break down in tears again.

But Yoongi doesn’t really go in on it any further, doesn’t talk about Dad or repeat anything that he shouted at me in the convenience store.

Instead, he tells me to wait as he disappears into his room, coming out with a rectangular box that’s wrapped in pink paper with a little bow in it.

“Here, I got you something,” he held it out for me to accept.

I take the package in hand unwrapping it eagerly, revealing the corner of a white box, and until it’s fully unwrapped I see he’s gifted me an iPhone. An iPhone 14 Pro Max to be exact.

I stutter in response, “What? Are you serious?”

A big grin appears on his face, proud of having such a reaction to his gift.

“This is far too expensive, are you crazy!?” I exclaim.

“I saved up, you deserved it. I smashed the other one anyways,” he acts nonchalant as if it’s nothing. I hug him tightly, still in complete unbelief.

“Thank you Yoongi,” I say as he gives me a small tight tight-lipped smile, he tells me to be careful with it and most of all enjoy it before he’s about to disappear into his room.

I remember seeing Dad yesterday and I should probably talk to him about it, it’s his dad too after all.

“Wait Yoongi,” I hesitate.

He turns around on his feet eyebrows raised a little, intently listening to whatever I have to say.

“I ran into Dad yesterday…” I can see his face drop instantly bombarding me with questions.

He’s worried, I can tell that whatever he said yesterday fades away just like that. He’s a softie deep inside.

I explained to him that I saw him in the elevator and that Jungkook saved me just in time, switching up the names cause I wouldn’t want to cause any more trouble.

“It hurts me too… I know you hate him and that you’re hurt, but I’m the person who had to live through all of it,” I sob softly.

He shushes me pulling me into a long hug, keeping me safe from anything and everything. “Be careful next time you go to Jungkook’s apartment okay, you don’t know what he’s capable of,”

“And call me if you see him, I promise I won’t lash out on you anymore,”

My tears are coming to a stop, leaving out water less and less. He asks me if he can do anything for me which I decline and then he really disappears into his room, wishing me a good night.

I feel so relieved. Things with Yoongi are good, Jungkook isn't embarrassed by me I think and I have a new freaking phone. It was time for an upgrade to be fair.

But I’ll set that up tomorrow, I’ll just watch a show and go to sleep cause I think I deserve some rest after everything that has been happening.

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chloreen · 7 months

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✨caution! Izzy rant ahead✨ Every time I see posts villainizing Izzy I'm slightly baffled. I know i should have gotten over it by now but making Izzy the villain is kind of missing the heart of the whole story? "But Gentlebeard is the heart of the story-" It's a story about found family. About dysfunctional people. People who err and fail and make horrible decisions and overcome their traumas. I know that's not lost on the fandom when it comes to Ed, not one little bit. He's all cute and bored when we meet him, right? Not the man who sets ships alight anymore, with all the people in them? Not a madman by any means, just a tired little boo who's ready to shake off Blackbeard's mantle? And it's great that he's ready. People get there. But what I get from many posts is that it's fine for Ed to get there when he's ready but Izzy had to follow him straight away into the land of the mentally healthy or fucking die. Only Izzy is just as dysfunctional as good old Ed if not more, and he's not ready, and nobody is asking him to be ready when they board the Revenge. The only person he feels close to in the world ignores him, Stede (understandably) offers him none of the talk-it-through treatment and the crew mocks him. All within reason, but when you have severe mental issues and trust issues and defense mechanisms your first instinct is not to open yourself up. It's to lock yourself down. Bite back at those who mock you. Attack those who disdain you. Destroy your chances of happiness, because you think you dont deserve it. Wrong approach? yes, god, yes, of course it is, but "wrong approach" is basically the title of every other episode in this show.

Now ,"I fed your darkness, Blackbeard" has been quoted as a closing statement more times than I can count. Everybody can read into "I fed your darkness" as they please; I know how I read into it. I've been in love with people who's darkness I fed and they fed mine in return. And I'm not even going to point any fingers here, regardless of how disproportionally abusive that relationship was. It's a we thing, it's always a we thing. Darkness feeds on darkness. Izzy didn't create Blackbeard. Izzy didn't burn that fucking ship with all the people in it. We don't even know if Izzy met Ed before he was Blackbeard or not. It was most likely a "we" thing, where they built together upon an existing structure, a joint tower of darkness. Feeding the myth, throwing all of their insecurities in it, creating a monster. Forging a bond not with the touch of silk and gentle fingers but with whatever nightmares you can imagine. So Izzy playing doctor Frankenstein to Ed's Kraken is…it's wrong, it's simply wrong. Ed was not a corpse when they met. He was not a blank slate. He was possibly already a mess of his own when the darkness-feeding started.

That turned out to be quite the rant but it's important for me to voice it. Izzy is far from blameless. Ed is far from blameless. A lot of other people in this show are technically far from blameless. But making a person who's a member of (the ofmd) family your villain? There are some straightforward villains in this show and then there are those who want to, crave to, strive to belong but have a hard time because they're so genuinely flawed.

#ofmd #ofmd gifs #our flag means death #izzy hands #con o'neill #as you can see I'm an Izzy apologist #I'll be frank for a long time I didnt even know I had to apologize for Izzy #that's how oblivious I can be #but also my reasoning was “why would he need to apologize with that face”

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omgthatdress · 9 months

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Everything I know about the royals comes from Tumblr memes and one bonus episode of a totally unrelated podcast but now I'm morbidly curious, so: what's up with William? And the Middletons? Or if that's a longer story than you want to explain, do you have recommendations for where to read about this that is likely to be fairly accurate?

I don't have any facts I just have pure fucking speculation if that's okay. :)

Like I've been saying for a long-ass time the one thing I absolutely LOVED about The Crown was its portrayal of generational trauma. It very skillfully showed how being a shitty husband who cheats on his wife and treats his kids like garbage was passed down from Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark to Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh to King Charles and then to Prince William. Hell, it probably started long before that but holy shit THE CYCLE OF DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE BE REPEATING ITSELF.

And if you really want to dig into it, well.... I think he and Harry followed a pattern that a LOT of siblings of bitter and messy divorce fall into, one kid sides with the mom, one with the dad. It's been said a LOT that Harry was Diana's favorite son, so it probably started with that. And OF COURSE William is gonna side with Charles because well... he's the heir. They have that shared trauma.

And then there's the way the whole "heir and spare" thing absolutely perverts any relationship they might have had as brothers. Charles managed to have a decent relationship with his siblings, I think, because first of all, Anne was a girl, and then Andrew and Edward were significantly younger than him and Anne, so there wasn't this unnaturally massive imbalance of power between them. One of the reasons I've come to believe the monarchy should be abolished is because of how badly it damages the structure of a family in a way that no one should have to deal with.

I think Diana might have been able to guide William into being a better person if she'd have lived, but idk. It may be wishful thinking. His relationship with her became kind of strained when he was a teenager and she was going on TV to tell the whole fucking world about her sex life. I think Diana did the right thing exposing the family like she did, but I can also understand how a 13 year old boy would be absolutely humiliated by that.

THEN there's the whole way he was a MASSIVE heartthrob as a teenager, and was intensely sexualized for it. Like it will absolutely mess with you when you have girls screaming and throwing themselves at you when you're still trying to figure your own sexuality out. It will also massively inflate your ego and convince you that the whole world loves you and there's nothing you can do wrong.

SOOOOOO

as for his relationship with Kate. She's much harder to pin down because she hasn't spent her entire fucking life in the spotlight, and the Middletons are sill granted a certain degree of privacy that the Windsors aren't. I don't think they're as absolutely fucked up as Diana's family was but I still definitely think her mom was a major driving force behind her staying with William.

I think there actually was some initial mutual attraction and that they may have even actually been in love. Buuuut then he waited ten years to propose to her, during which he cheated and they broke up and got back together. Honestly, I don't know what Kate's damage was with all of that, whether or not she was able to convince herself that William wouldn't be another shitty husband, or if she was willing to put up with his bullshit if it meant she would be queen.

Diana was more or less picked out as a bride for Charles because it was assumed that she would be a meek and beautiful wifey who never caused any problems. I mean, she was 19 and he was 32 for fuck's sake. She very much wanted to be queen. BUT what everyone wasn't counting on was that Diana would *gasp* have some serious emotional needs. She was deeply traumatized by her own parents' incredibly bitter divorce, overwhelmed and deeply lonely in her position as princess, and on top of that, suffering from bulimia and then post-natal depression. She needed love and support and Charles spent the whole marriage balls deep in Camilla.

Kate had a much more stable upbringing and had more than a few months to get to know both William and what her role as a princess would be. Ultimately, the vibe I get from her is that she's willing to be the perfect meek beautiful wifey who puts up with William's bullshit if it means she can be royal, which is exactly what Diana was supposed to be.

And I don't mean that to knock or belittle her. She's good at it. She looks incredibly happy when she's doing that. It's her career. It's an exchange I can actually really understand making, especially when your only other prospects involved working for your parents' party company.

But I could be extremely wrong about all of this Maybe she's absolutely miserable but she feels like she has no other options and worried about losing her kids and is terrified of what happened to Diana. It's hard to know, and I wish The Crown would have at least committed to *something* rather than just brushing all of this off.

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kwillow · 3 months

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I alluded to this fact in a previous question about Theo's preferences for companions: it really depends.

Read more because this got long... tl;dr: IT WOULD REQUIRE A LOT OF SQUEEZIN' AND THE JUICE WOULDN'T BE WORTH IT TO ANYONE IN-UNIVERSE WHO WOULD HAVE TO DEAL WITH HIM EVERY DAY.

Someone could exist who could, in theory, get along with him perfectly and be his ideal man/woman (which again, he doesn't even really know what that would be, so he wouldn't know it when he saw it), and they could start off on the wrong foot with him, set off a tantrum spiral and never recover his esteem for the rest of his life.

Even if someone who could be compatible with him was able to pick their way through the bear traps of his mind and get close to him, that doesn't necessarily mean anything would come of it. He can get infatuated easily, experience flickers of attraction - but he would much rather ignore those feelings than act on them in any way beyond just trying to be a good and loyal friend and benefactor.

And then, even if someone got close to him, and he was infatuated with them AND recognized those emotions for what they are (a big ask in and of itself), he STILL would not want to enter a romance because that would change the nature of the relationship, he doesn't know what to do in a relationship, and he wouldn't want to entrap someone in a relationship with him (Gods, the horror) or suffer the travails and indignities of romance because all his experiences tell him that eros is a corrupting force and always ends really, really badly.

So one could ask him to start a relationship, and the absolute best result would probably be a polite and firm decline with some blathering about the nobility of "unrequited courtly devotion," with the more typical result being a meltdown.

Effectively, one would have to stay close to him for actual years in close proximity without leaving for greener pastures than him (which one should) and maybe, maaaaaybe if the right mental dominos fall he could conceivably think of entering a relationship. Except in Amaranthine, he'd only want to do that with a childbearing woman because he feels he needs to have children to continue his withered, hollow excuse of a family tree. AND THAT WOULD START A WHOLE OTHER SAGA. ALL THAT ABOVE WAS JUST GETTING TO FIRST BASE, LET'S NOT EVEN GET INTO WHAT IT'D TAKE TO GET ALL THE WAY TO FOURTH. Anyone not able to produce more Norths would have a whole 'nother endurance test to slog through to work through his issues about debt to his family and legacy and all that nonsense. And would either path be worth it to someone? Performing years worth of informal therapy (not real therapy, he hates doctors!) on a messed-up guy just to get him to maybe agree to go out with you? Probably not!

To bring it back to the beginning, despite all I've written here, it all depends. I don't think I can write a rulebook or point-by-point guide for "how to get Theo to agree to date another imaginary person" because in the end, he is a fictional character and he is more beholden to what would be interesting for my partner and I to write and draw versus anything else. And it would depend on the setting, the characters involved, the circumstances that befall them, myriad little factors that could influence what feels natural for him to do. Maybe there could be an interesting story we come up with where he falls irrationally head-over-heels for someone and proposes the same day. He could also spurn all companionship and focus his attention on other pursuits.

So... if anyone is expecting any sweet blossoming love stories to come to fruition within Theo’s story in Amaranthine… the odds aren't good. I don’t have much interest in writing “romance” as a genre, only incredibly dysfunctional relationships as a vehicle to cause strife and comedy in fucked-up weirdos' lives.

#asks #I mean technically a post submission but still #text #hmm... i've got to think of a better tag for these long dumps haha #sometimes I admittedly feel a bit embarrassed and guilty because #quite a large majority of the questions I get about my guys revolve around shipping or true-love-love or steamy sex #and that's just not what i like to play with my toys #those things can be a fun treat but like candy corn #i get sick of it easily and i need some MEAT (evil guys being dysfunctional and getting kicked while they're down)#...i never said i had good taste just different taste #but yes sorry i cannot feed people that kind of treat most of the time i'm busy making like... disgusting fermented fish heads instead

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i-heart-hxh · 10 months

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hey

ik you're busy with processing all this scrapped ending stuff, but imma ask anyways. so people here and on twitter tend to say that killua and gon's relationship is codependent. how is it shown? cuz to me they're just extremely devoted to eachother, but i can't exactly see this whole codependency thing.

love your analysis btw, you're great❤️

Hi! Thank you very much for the kind words, I appreciate it! (Obviously answering this after a while, as the scrapped ending topic isn't quite as omnipresent now.)

On one hand, I do think their relationship has aspects of codependency, for reasons I'll go into below. But there's a lot going on in their relationship, and I also believe people use this term as sort of a catch-all for the various issues.

So, what is codependency?

Codependency is a dysfunctional relationship dynamic where one person assumes the role of 'the giver,' sacrificing their own needs and well-being for the sake of the other, 'the taker.' -- Psychology Today

I mean...doesn't this sound like Killua's unhealthy, self-sacrificing devotion for Gon?

Killua mostly takes on this role himself, but Gon does stoke this dynamic, assigning Killua the role of holding him back in dangerous situations and expecting him to clean up after his messes.

Killua is happy to have this role supporting Gon and takes it seriously, but as the series goes on, the burdens he deals with on Gon's behalf keep getting more and more extreme, and when Gon pushes him away even when he's doing his role (trying to keep Gon from doing something reckless and getting carried away, in the scene where Gon confronts Pitou), it breaks Killua's heart.

The issues between these two have a root cause: Both of them love each other more than they love themselves. This is the key to understanding many of the underlying issues in their relationship.

In Killua, this manifests by devotedly taking on whatever Gon wants or needs no matter what personal cost it has to him, trying desperately to be of service to him because it's the only way he knows how to express his love for him. Coming from the Zoldyck family, it makes sense acts of service are one of the only ways he believes love can be expressed meaningfully. As I said in another post, he even takes on things Gon doesn't ask him to do, and then hides how much he does for Gon and the costs it has to him, so Gon isn't even aware of how much Killua suffers on his behalf.

In Gon, this manifests by prioritizing Killua's life while recklessly disregarding his own. Remember this line?

I come back to this scene all the time because it's vital to understanding the way Gon values Killua above himself. To Gon, his life isn't worth all that much, but Killua's life is another story.

When Killua could have died if he dodged differently in the Dodgeball match, Gon loses his temper completely, to the point where he can't even answer Bisky's simple questions. I recommend reading the whole scene to see just how pissed Gon is about this, but for the sake of brevity here's the most important part:

This happens before the pivotal scene of Killua holding the ball for Gon, severely injuring his hands. There's a lot of complexity to this scene and what it means in their relationship, it honestly deserves its own post because it's difficult to summarize, but it shows us Killua being perfectly willing and happy to be gravely injured on Gon's behalf, and Gon accepting Killua's willingness to sacrifice and suffer for him. Definitely a case of codependency, if you revisit the definition above.

At the same time it's an indication of deep trust and understanding between the two: Gon knows that Killua wants to do this for him and he allows him to do this because he knows it has meaning to Killua. Killua knows that he's the only one Gon would ever entrust such a task to, and that means the world to him, even before Gon says his "It has to be Killua," line. And ultimately, even if it's a bit twisted, this act is all in service of Gon trying to avenge Killua being put at deadly risk.

When Gon is in front of Pitou and says the "This means nothing to you," line, this is intended to push Killua away, tell him it's not his fight. This battle is Gon's burden, he's willing to give up his life if it comes down to it, but Gon doesn't include Killua in his plans because, after all, Gon believes that it's okay if he dies, but not Killua. While the way Gon lashes out at Killua says more about his emotional state at the time than his intentions, his repeated pushing Killua away during his grief and rage is one of the ways he ironically shows love towards Killua--he doesn't want Killua to have to share this burden or die on his behalf, because he sees it as all his fault. Even when Killua contributed to what happened in a way (knocking Gon out in order to take him and leaving Kite behind, something Killua definitely blames himself for), Gon refuses to blame him even slightly.

But because Killua stakes his entire self-worth on how useful he can be to Gon (codependency), being pushed away by Gon and not allowed to share his burdens and his pain is just about the deepest wound Gon can inflict on Killua. It's not what Gon intends with his actions--if anything it's him trying to protect Killua in his own way--it's just the way their respective issues with self-esteem manifest, and it's unfortunate. It's why they need to split up for now, to heal and work through what happened, so they can come back together, communicate properly, and build a better dynamic the second time around.

Now, when discussing their codependency I think it's worth remembering some things: They are both young teens with issues with trauma and self-esteem, who haven't had close friendships prior to this. Many of the less healthy aspects of their friendship, like their lack of fully communicating for instance, are tendencies from the ways they were raised. They adore each other more than anything, they almost never intend to cause harm to each other, and the "roles" they take on in the relationship that end up hurting them are generally more self-imposed and coming out of their individual issues than something either of them is forcing the other to take on.

Their relationship has been transformative and deeply meaningful to both of them, and they're definitely happier together than apart. The issues between them need to be addressed and reflected on by both of them, but I truly believe this is something they'll be able to overcome ultimately.

#hxh #hunter x hunter #gon #killua #killugon #gonkillu #meta #my posts #asks #anonymous #long post #I feel like there's things I could dig into more but this is already long!

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a0random0gal · 6 months

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If you had the chance to change something about the dance of the dragons (TV show or book), what would it be? For example, how a character dies, which team a house is on,or an entire character personally. How would you change it to make the story better, in your opinion?♥️🖤💙💚

Ohh anon i've got a list.

When it comes to the tv show there are a few choices the writers made that just don't sit right with me.

Laenor

I do like the characterization they went for, he's a pretty cool dude who really loves his weird, dysfunctional family. What I really don't like is how they handled his death.

See I truly can't stand it when a character is sugar coated just because they're the protagonist and thus must be righteous and always objectively correct.

So to witness the writers white wash his murder, having him flee to essos instead of being killed by Rhaenyra pisses me off. I get that after showing them being good friends it would be very odd to have her kill him.

But that's the thing, they should have opted for a more ruthless Rhaenyra in the first place!

Laenor's death in the books (at least for me) was the first instance of Rhae Rhae making morally wrong choices in order to pursue her ultimate goal. It was compelling! Here she just takes the easy way out, without having to make a tough choice.

Also his survival really fucks her up when you really think about it. Now all her sons are bastards since her marriage to Daemon isn't valid, and for the upcoming season 2, how are they going to handle Addam and Seasmoke? Laenor is still alive, his dragon won't accept a new rider. This doesn't make any sense and just causes plotholes what the actual fu-

Sidenote: After Laenor's very moving speech on how he was done goofing off and was now willing to really step up for Rhaenyra and their family it's super strange to imagine him ditching them all immediately afterwards Lol.

Rhaenys

My gosh, where do I even begin with this woman?

She too is pretty cool at the start, but then episode 9 rolls around and I roll my eyes.

She's so hypocritical. She tries to shit on Alicent for "toiling in the service of men." When that's all she does in the goddamn story!

She wants Baela to get Driftmark, tells Corlys about it, he shuts off the whole plan cause he wants a kid who he's not even related to on the driftwood throne, and when she complains about it he dismisses her.

So what does feminist Rhaenys do about it?

She... submits to her husband, something she conveniently forgets about when talking to Alicent. My god. Just remove this entire exchange, it hurts to watch.

And the coronation scene, Jesus Christ! It was so cool in the books, why did they have to ruin it? Had they replaced it with something better I wouldn't have complained, but this is just, the worst.

Rhaenys shows how badass she is by.... Brutally crushing hundreds of small folks to death and almost slaughtering the greens.

Cool, cool, absolutely necessary. Thanks Sara.

And you know what's even more infuriating? When she flees to Dragonstone to inform Rhaenyra of all that happened. She says she didn't kill the greens cause she didn't wish to start a war. I'm sorry what?

That would have ended the war at the start! As glad as I am that Rhaenys didn't barbecue them it makes absolutely no sense!

If she had killed them there would have been no dance in the first place!

I hate these dumb show only moments. They needlessly complicated an already complicated story and just mess everything up.

There's probably other stuff I could rant on, like how Aegon was made a rapist sorely to make the audience think:

Oh look! The greens are so baad, they believe a rapist alcoholic douche should be in charge instead of our empowered dragon queen, they sure do suck!

Or how house Velaryon was disrespected and mistreated by D*emyra but still somehow decided to support Nyra's claim.

They didn't really have a motive to be greens though, so I think they should have stayed neutral. Their fervent black support makes no sense.

The writers really should have given them more reasons to back up the blacks or had their beloved queen treat them better so that their loyalty made more sense ( I mean holy hell I wonder how they will handle the two betrayers and Corlys's arrest lmao).

But other greens have already shat on these awful decisions and I won't beat a dead horse.

Book

When it comes to fire and blood I surprisingly have very little complaints, except of course, the Jaehaera situation.

My poor baby deserved better, I've made a post about it in the past

(where I ranted and said stuff I kind of regret now, don't post while very angry guys I don't recommend it)

tackling how the little queen was unnecessarily killed off and how her death genuinely adds nothing so why was it added? God I get upset just thinking about it lol.

Some people say George did it cause he needed Aegon's kids to be born after Viserys's, and apparently he couldn't fathom a married teen not having kids until her 20s, which is veery weird.

The more plausible theory is that he got rid of her cause he wanted more Velaryon queens to showcase how close they used to be to the Targs.

Which is something I had understood already thanks to Alyssa, the sea Snake and all the Velaryons who were masters of ships but whatever.

#hotd #house of the dragon #hotd critical #anti team black #pro team green #rhaenyra targaryen #asoiaf #aegon ii targaryen #corlys velaryon #laenor valeryon #rhaenys targaryen #rhaenys velaryon #jaehaera targaryen #fire&blood #hotd season 2 #thanks for the ask! it was lots of fun to answer lmao

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badaziraphaletakes · 4 months

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In which some poor innocent unsuspecting reader submitted an ask and I respond by throwing an entire textbook at them

Like seriously i won’t even be upset if no one reads this PhD dissertation, like actually what is wrong with me omg

The ask:

I want to start by saying I love this account and really appreciate the rebuttals I see here to some of the messed up stuff the fandom’s spit out over the past few years. That being said, the most recent post about “the creepiest take you’ve ever seen,” was one I disagreed with strongly. It’s entirely normal to enjoy watching media where characters have breakdowns. It is not a desire to see a person breakdown. It is a desire to watch a good story.

(Edit: Just realized I somehow omitted to include the full text of the ask here. I apologize for the error! Will fix it soon. -Mod X)

My response:

Hi and thank you for your kind words! (Also idk why there is this huge gap in the text here, sorry haha!) If it were a necessary part of the story, or a part of the story that made sense, I would agree. But it’s not necessary (esp not at this point in the story) and therefore wouldn’t be “good”, if we are defining good art as being emotional truthful, which I imagine is a pretty uncontroversial definition.

Side note: We already saw him have this exact shattering breakdown in Uz. So that renders most of what I am about to say (and arguably some of what you have said) somewhat moot. But I’m going to continue anyway because some of the points brought up here touch on issues that I think bear re-visiting often.

It’s cathartic, it’s engaging, and it helps people who’ve been through the same thing see themselves reflected. For example, I like watching someone on tv hit rock bottom with their addiction because I’ve been through that, and seeing them finally realize they have to work on recovery and actually do it is motivating and empowering.

I’m so sorry you’ve been through that. I haven’t (although I am estranged from an entire side of my family due to alcoholism and meth addiction, which is a whole fun thing), so I can’t comment on this too much.

But addiction is not the same as an ab*sive relationship. (I do have knowledge of those, both from life experience and from my previous job in ab*se research. I edited a newsletter about family violence research for several years.) Seeing a person suffering from addiction realize they want to work on recovery, and realize that the substance they are addicted to is messing up their life, can make sense. Especially if they're in a place where they're able to work on it and have the opportunity to try to change.

But seeing an ab*se survivor “realize they need to get away from their ab*ser because they’re evil and have a breakdown about it” doesn’t make sense, because being trapped in an absive situation is not about “motivation” or what they think about the abser or even, really, about "empowerment". (Side note that word is thrown a lot to delude women into thinking our capitalist system is working for us rather than oppressing us. But I digress.) It boils down to the fact that they are in danger if they leave. The situation is not within their control.

(This next part is not directed at you, but at the general readership, in case this is helpful discussion for anyone: A lot of addictions aren’t within people's control at all either. It depends very much on the drug we’re talking about, the health of the individual, the quantity and duration of the addiction, whether the person has access to the healthcare they need to be cured, and whether there’s a way for them to get free from the broader societal dysfunctions that led to them being trapped in this situation in the first place.)

Also, with addiction, people can absolutely get past that without losing their sense of self and their identity. If they go through that kind of crisis in the process of healing from addiction, I would argue that something is very wrong. (Not with them, but with the society around them). In a best-case scenario, a person suffering from addiction would have access to the kind of mental and physical healthcare and support system that lets you get free from that without a shattering breakdown or loss of sense of self.

Besides, not everyone who has an addiction has toxic beliefs about themselves or their own identity or other people, etc etc. (Babies who are born addicted come to mind, if we want to talk about the most extreme example.) So I find the idea that addiction is down to toxic beliefs about one's self very suspect. I would argue that 95% of the time, addiction happens because your life sucks. The mental health community is starting to have this conversation about depression and anxiety - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to work on one's "limiting beliefs" and "destructive thought patterns" can only do so much to help you feel better when your whole life is shit anyway. And it can actually make it WORSE if the victim is made to believe that their depression is the fault of their "Faulty thoughts" rather than a reasonable reaction to a shitty situation. Not necessarily saying we should throw CBT out the window altogether, but I am saying that mental healthcare will be a LOT more effective when it learns to truly take the broader societal context into account. I suspect, I hope, we'll soon be having a simialr conversation around addiction.)

And that’s doubly the case for ab*se survivors. They’re not stuck in that situation because there’s something wrong with them that they need to fix. They’re stuck in that situation because there’s something wrong with the ab*ser.

Regardless of the victim’s personal worth as an individual, regardless of whether they’re a good person or what-have-you, they don’t deserve to be ab*sed.

(I'm just waiting to hear about how some therapist tells a victim to work on their "limiting belief" that they need to stay with their ab*ser in order not to be killed, and/or tells them that fearing their ab*ser will kill them is a "cognitive distortion", and tells them to stand up to their ab*ser and/or leave, and then the ab*ser kills them. But I digress.)

And the loss of self when separating from a toxic system that’s defined your whole life is a real thing some people go through. It’s not bad consider that Aziraphale could also go through that, or to want to see that experience reflected.

I want to be very clear that I don’t have the smallest objection to people wanting to see that in a show. But a. that’s not what the person was saying, and b. they were also saying it’s necessary. IT’S NOT. I can’t emphasize this enough.

Loss of self is the worst-case scenario for how something like that goes. Nothing good comes from that. That is a side effect of ab*se (because the ab*ser’s the one who says that “Everything you are is bound up in me and you’re nothing with me"), not an integral part of the process of getting away.

Trauma is not necessary for character growth.

The way these things should go is that the person is able to gradually and mindfully work through the beliefs that are poisoning them with the help of a therapist, trusted friends, etc.

I know what I’m talking about. I worked in trauma research for over seven years. Please trust me on this one.

And again, Aziraphale can’t “separate” from them anyway. There’s nowhere he can go where they won’t find him. So his beliefs are irrelevant to his situation. And if the show implies that his beliefs “need to change” as part of the earth being set free from heaven-hell’s tyranny, or that he “needs to change” in order to be free, I will be writing a strongly-worded letter to the creators.

But more importantly, *they didn’t just say giddy.* They also said apprehensive. Perhaps they’re apprehensive because they know it could be painful to watch. Or because they don’t want to see it handled poorly.

“Giddily apprehensive” sounds an awful lot like “excited” to me. I admit it is ambiguous, though, so I’ll give you that one. I maintain that the OP expressed themselves with an exceptional lack of grace, however. And fwiw, they’d be FAR from the first person to want to see Aziraphale suffer because they are mad at him. I think I have good reason to believe that's what they're getting at here, given how many people in the poster's orbit say the same kinds of things and how many other things I've seen the OP say that are along those lines. I acknowledge I should have made that clearer in my original post.

They aren’t giving this advice (if one could call it that) to a human. They’re saying they’re excited to see a character breakdown. Character arcs like that are common and enticing for good reason.

I have yet to see a reason why I should believe that the things people say about Aziraphale are different than the things they say about people in real life.

I would point you to a couple lines down where you say yourself that we respond to characters the same way we respond to real people.

Personal growth ≠ character growth.

But what makes a good character is that they act like real people.

As an audience, character growth (even negative) is engaging.

Yes, absolutely. But we can absolutely do character growth in a way that does not spread harmful mindsets or misinformation about what ab*se and recovery from ab*se looks like. In fact, I would argue that character growth can’t happen if the writer doesn’t write the characters to behave in a way that is realistic to real life.

Characters follow the same rules, though. We respond to characters the same way we respond to real people. The same general rules of personal development and so forth apply.

The idea that “Aziraphale realizes his ab*sers are terrible” is something he needs to do for his “personal development” is highly objectionable. He doesn’t need to grow in this area. He just needs his ab*sers to leave him alone. Side note: We should give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he already does think they’re terrible and only stays with them because he is terrified. Even if this hadn’t been strongly and frequently hinted at in every episode going all the way back to S1E1 - almost every scene, in fact - we should still give him the benefit of the doubt.

Also, even if we say, for the sake of argument, that Aziraphale was a terrible, awful, horrible person - I know you’re not saying that, to be clear - even then, he still wouldn’t “need to realize his ab*sers are terrible” or “have a complete breakdown” or “lose himself” in order to grow. That's not how growth works. The best growth happens when people are at peace and safe and loved. Not frightened and confused and alone. He never chose them in the first place, he never wanted to be on their side. If he were left alone, he would just spend the rest of eternity reading his books and eating Eccles cakes and snuggling with his former-demon. That’s who he really is. There’s nothing about him as a person that needs to change. I agree a story where a person loses their sense of self after escaping from an ab*sive system would be interesting to watch, but I maintain that it does not make sense for the context of this particular story. And, such a story would NEED to make clear that the person wasn’t bad or wrong for deriving some part of their sense of self from the ab*ser and that they shouldn’t have had to have a catastrophic breakdown in order to develop their own sense of self. No one should have to go through that.

It’s not the same thing as asking for personal growth from a real human being.

Good characters do not operate according to different emotional and psychological rules than we do, though. If they didn't, we wouldn’t have millions of people sobbing about how real Aziraphale and Crowley feel to them. We would be the biggest dodos in the world if we were reacting this way to paper dolls 😄

Comparing the desire to see a character go through a dramatic storyline like that (and to come out of it strong and shining) to fundamentalist rhetoric is… just total bullshit.

You said this blog has been a good place for you and I want it to continue to be that way for you. So I want to give you a chance to revisit this part and see if you can say something more constructive. Because I've gotta admit, this really made me upset and I can't let it go without saying something. It’s not cool to call someone’s commentary “bullsh*t” like this.

I heard the line “we must die to ourselves” many, many times from the high-control religion of my childhood. It is a classic cult line. Hence why so many cults have "burial and rebirth" rituals, make people change their names, etc.

I am not just making up a comparison. This is a real phenomenon. Controlling ab*sers are the ones who’ve given us this idea that “death of the self” is character growth. It’s not. Character growth happens in spite of those excruciating emotional crises, not because of them.

Growing as a person is supposed to feel good overall. Not always easy, but on the whole, it should be a positive experience.

Also - Again, they said he “needs” to do it.

And they didn’t say anything about Aziraphale “coming out strong and shining”. You added that in. I think it's wonderful that you want to see that for him (so do I) but that’s not what this person was saying

If they'd said that, I wouldn't object to it at all. But they didn't. That part was left out. Which I think may be very telling in itself.

There are a myriad of reasons someone could have that desire, including having gone through something similar themselves.

Having gone through something similar doesn’t necessarily mean it makes sense for another character. It also doesn’t mean it’s necessary. And having been through something that went a certain way does NOT mean that it happening that way makes sense for someone else.

Deconstruction from a religious upbringing is different from leaving an ab*sive relationship

Aziraphale doesn’t have religious trauma. (I’m not going to talk much about religious trauma and deconstruction here, because it’s outside the scope of this blog, largely because - as attested by no less an authority than Neil Himself - Good Omens is not about religion. But I’ll say a little bit.)

Heaven and hell are not a “religion” in his world - they’re real. His fear of hell (and of heaven) is absolutely, one hundred percent, completely legitimate and appropriate, and NOT something he should be “reasoned” out of. Saying otherwise gives “your ab*ser isn’t actually that evil and scary”. But regardless, in either scenario, that kind of traumatic personal crisis is not a necessary part of the healing process. My heart aches for all the people whose deconstruction process was emotionally shattering. But what makes it ache even more is how for so many of them, the takeaway is somehow that that kind of crisis is necessary - rather than "dear god, i hope no one else ever has to go through that kind of hideous experience to get away from their shitty religion", which surely is what the takeaway should be (assuming there even is a lesson to be learned at all from an experience like that, which is doubtful) - and they go on to demand it of other survivors and gatekeep against people who haven't gone through the exact same thing they did in the process of getting away.

How, HOW did we get to a point where so many people’s deconstruction is a fucked-up, scarring experience that we think it’s inevitable for deconstruction to be that way????? I grieve.

I know the idea of killing one’s old self is inherently wrong to many people.

It’s not about whether it’s *wrong*. If that's valid for someone and they get where they need to be - you do you. It’s about the fact that it’s painful and it’s unnecessary to the process of growth.

Furthermore, it is the kind of thing ab*sers WANT to see happen to their victims when they leave. They want victims to think that they have to have that kind of crisis if they want to leave them. Because then they’re less likely to leave. When we encourage that kind of thinking, we are playing directly into their hands.

What should happen is that the victim should be given the opportunity to realize that all along there was much more to them than their ab*ser.

I don’t personally desire to watch Aziraphale do that, especially because there are so many wonderful aspects of the Angel he’s been since the beginning

Agreed.

But fwiw, this is giving a faint whiff of perfect victim syndrome. Even if he were an asshole, he still deserves to just have his ab*sers leave him alone, not to have some kind of shattering, soul-crushing emotional breakdown. They will always, always be worse than him.

but it’s not wrong to want to see that. People do go through it, and their stories are incredibly compelling.

I don’t disagree. For me it’s rather about the place this is coming from. OP was saying it’s necessary. There’s a difference between wanting to see a show address this issue overall because it’s interesting, and demanding that a specific character go through it because you think it’s necessary, or that their process of leaving and healing won't be legitimate (or whatever word we wanna use) if it doesn't happen.

And, as you said, it doesn’t make sense for Aziraphale. If the character is an asshole, I’d be able to see it a little more (although again, I still very much question the entire idea in the first place) But he's not an asshole. I find anyone’s thinking it “makes sense” for him to be highly questionable.

I know Aziraphale is much more than a character to many people

Speaking as a (very, very, very slightly, lol) professional writer and actor - every character should be “more than a character”, if they’re well-written. They should feel real if the writer and/or actor has done their job well. I like NG's line that "If you write someone who is utterly and completely themselves, you get people coming up to you and going 'Oh my God, you wrote my life!'

a desire to watch him go through a psychological breakdown is not some poorly concealed desire to watch real people go through that.

It may or may not be. I agree that it isn't always.

In this person’s case, though, I very much did get concerning vibes. Poorly concealed. (As an ab*se survivor, you start to know the vibe of victim-blamers after awhile.)

Regardless, though, the way we respond to characters is the way we respond to people in real life. Story is a primary vehicle through which people learn how to interact with one another and their environment. If it wasn’t, discussing media along these lines would be pointless, and I'd just spend all my time talking about how good David Tennant looks in those tight pants 😁 Or, probably, I would take up a different hobby altogether.

I wouldn’t have wasted my time starting this blog if the things people say about this story and especially about Aziraphale didn’t have real-world applications (not to mention making a lot of ab*se survivors feel very unsafe in the fandom - before we turned off anonymous asks, I got an average of two messages a day from ab*se survivors and other oppressed people telling them how this blog has made them feel so much safer in the fandom) - and if their views about the characters didn’t mirror the kinds of things they’d say about people in real life. (All the anti-Aziraphale autiphobic takes come to mind.) I flatter myself I have enough judgment that those takes wouldn't have troubled me so deeply if they weren't reflective of real-world societal problems and indicative of problematic attitudes in the people who write them.

In this case, the wording is identical to the kinds of problematic things people say about real-life victims/survivors. Yes, the person may not actually consciously want (or want at all) to see real-life ab*se victims/survivors suffer. But I absolutely, one hundred per cent guarantee you that anyone saying this has some major problematic biases/assumptions that are contributing to how ab*se survivors are maligned, degraded, and oppressed in our society. (I never want to see Disabled people suffer, but if I say ableist things, I’m contributing to it whether I mean to or not. I may not want to see women suffer, I am a woman, well more or less anyway lol, and I've identified as a feminist my entire adult life, but nevertheless there have certainly been times in the past when I've said sexist things. It's something all of us will always have to be vigilant against in ourselves. I suspect at this point I'm preaching to the choir, because you do not strike me at all as a bigoted or ignorant person, but I figured I'd re-iterate all that again anyway, because screaming it through a megaphone as often as possible is what this blog is for lol. :)

And what’s worse, they are spreading that rhetoric. I’ll be damned if I’ll let it go by without saying something.

Hope this makes sense and cleared some things up.

With love and respect,

Mod X.

#good omens #goodomens #aziraphale #good omens 2 #badaziraphaletakes #goodomens2 #ineffable husbands #cw: abuse #cw: trauma #cw: religious trauma

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aspureasamelody · 7 months

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I saw your post about "photos of happy memories"!

So adorbs! Especially these! The initial bad guy team and good guy team both have framed group shots (featuring one grump to boot!)!

Which other groups do you wish had their own framed photos that we got to see too?

I would have liked to see a photograph from:

Jack's Army of Evil (They even all have matching jackets! And Ashley, Vlad, Tubbimura, and Jack would love to take a photo, they know they look good. Cyclops would probably mess up and photobomb the whole affair, but that's what would give it extra character!)

The Black Vipers (Jesse and her girls posed all together for a classic old Western WANTED poster shot would be so cool!)

Dashi and Chase and Guan and Dojo (There are pictures of Dashi in the scrolls, so they had a way of making pictures back then! Granted, I feel like Guan and Chase might have burned any group photos of them and records of their time together already...)

Chase and Omi (So many possibilities for how they could stage it!)

Kimiko and Keiko (Just give me a scene of Kimiko forlornly looking back at a cute selfie of her and her bestie when she's feeling lost or lonely!)

Klofange and his former team before the mermaids took them out (For heartwrenching purposes and for a "we can be your family now?" moment from Omi please!)

Bailey Family photo! (Make it super awkward. Dressed in Sunday Best. Featuring Daddy and Momma Bailey and their kids of course, but also the grandma that Clay is deathly afraid of. I want the wildest, most dysfunctional family moment ever captured on camera and framed.)

#xiaolin showdown #Jack Spicer #Jesse Bailey #Grandmaster Dashi #Chase Young #Omi #kimiko tohomiko #Klofange #Clay Bailey

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silverview · 14 days

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🏆 achievement unlocked: ben wheatley feature completist 🎉 i’m not going to rank them but i am going to talk about them a bit!

down terrace (2009) ☕️

v impressive debut. the key pillars of the idiom are already here, and that’s why it’s good. unglamorous low-level organised crime and violence; family dysfunction/parent-child trauma; and – less obviously, but it’s there – folk sensibility. and michael smiley is there. he totally steals the show, as he does every time he pops up in one of these (with one exception obviously). not to get ahead of myself but my main takeaway from this whole exercise is that michael smiley is a genius

kill list (2011) 🔨

like down terrace, but MORE. more violent organised crime, more overt folk horror, more smiley. same amount of family dysfunction. if down terrace is the seed from which you can extrapolate the rest of the filmography, kill list is a perfectly condensed smoothie, all the key themes fully realised but blended together. i love it. i think you can draw a clear line from this to mother's ruin. reece says that after seeing this, he turned to wheatley and asked “why did you make that?” which i think is a fair question. i relayed the anecdote to my bf who spluttered indignantly and said “i don’t know, reece, why do we do anything? why did you black up?”

sightseers (2012) 🚗

all these films are at least a little bit funny, but sightseers is probably the most overt comedy, and it REALLY works for me. alice lowe is fantastic and i wish they’d work together more. her performance suits wheatley’s style. again, gestures to all the key pillars, but none of them actually take centre stage here. it ends up being about… love, i guess. a successful departure. dark, depressing, very funny. the dog lives

a field in england (2013) 🍄

i’ve probably made my thoughts on this one clear enough for the time being. one of the best modern folk horror films, one of reece’s best performances, one of the best british films ever. the interesting thing to note here is that for the first time, wheatley takes one of his key pillars (in this case, folk horror) and runs with it as far as possible, to the exclusion of everything else. he’ll do this again with his other pillars later, and it will be successful every time

high rise (2015) 🏢

i’ve seen high rise twice this year, and the second time i was really hoping it would turn out to be good after all. it’s not, though. it’s a huge mess. the ending is particularly baffling and stupid. some actors are good in it, especially reece, but he’s not even in it enough to make it really worth rewatching. thematically, a huge departure for wheatley, but unlike sightseers, it doesn’t come up with anything else to latch onto. it does have a brief psychedelic sequence which feels very tacked-on and underwhelming. further points deducted for michael smiley not being there

free fire (2016) 🔫

speak of the devil!! who’s that, it’s michael smiley!! and he crushes in this!! as does EVERYBODY in this wonderful cast!! oh man. another exercise in taking one pillar of the idiom and running with it as hard as possible. this time, it’s unglamorous low-level organised crime and violence. and it’s JUST THAT. it’s insane and weird and it rules. it’s also a metaphor for the troubles. i miss armie hammer unfortunately, he was really good at playing total bastards and he looked good in this

happy new year, colin burstead (2018) 🥂

another ‘one pillar to its logical extreme’ exercise, this time revolving entirely around family dysfunction. again, very successful. funny, sad, absolutely wonderful ending. made me think about my sister’s wedding lmao

rebecca (2020) 👗

rebecca is alright, but the fun for me mostly came from looking for little ways wheatley snuck his idiom into it around the edges of the studio. it’s really about gender roles/femininity and womanhood in particular; i’m sure plenty has been written about that wrt the source material and the more famous film

in the earth (2021) 🌳

zach is babie. what else can i say? if he was in this more, and/or if the film was a lot more violent, i would like it more. if it dropped the pandemic angle, i would like it more. it’s not a worthy successor to field, but nothing could be. it’s fine. it’s got some good stuff in it. i like it, and i’d probably like it more if it had no relationship to field whatsoever, or if it leaned hard into being an overt sequel / continuation of that story. can you even imagine? i think my issue is just that it doesn't commit hard enough to being any one particular thing

meg 2: the trench (2023) 🦈

fuck this movie fr. and i’m not saying that because i’m a snob. i actually liked the first one okay! i thought it succeeded on its own terms! meg 2 does not succeed at fucking anything. it has brief flashes of being good, like when that chick’s head implodes, or the shot from inside the shark’s mouth, or when statham kicks a man into a shark’s mouth and says “see you later, chum.” and then for the whole rest of the time it’s complete balls. the dialogue is so clunky. the bits that are just humans interacting with each other about non-shark business should be good or at least NOT SHIT, like… i’ve SEEN happy new year colin burstead i KNOW wheatley can do humans. except he forgot how, apparently. baffling. heartbreaking. i used to work with reality tv ip, and we used to say “just because it’s trash, that doesn’t mean it has to be bad.” meg 2 had to be trash but it didn’t have to be bad. at least, not this bad. rip

#what do i tag this.#i've never actually sat down and intentionally smashed out an entire director like this #ben wheatley

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rubykgrant · 1 year

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(The Freelancers are just there and OK, don’t worry about it, everybody is alive and friends in this scenario, it’s fine)

-Florida makes everybody Uncomfortable... plus, he and Sarge start this REALLY awkward flirt-fight thing, where maybe they’re dating Romeo/Juliet/forbidden-love-style, maybe they also wanna stab each other, maybe both (this is the equivalent of two single dads that get together, and it embarrasses the heck of the kids “Gross! Old people love”)

-Florida also keeps halfway flirting with Church (like maybe not, but also kinda yes) in his very specific creepy way, and Church is just like “Uh... no thank you???”, and then Sarge calls him a home-wrecker

-York vibes with Grif, and keeps helping him rig snack machines to spill free goodies. Also, he intentionally sets-up Donut to say all kinds of innuendos. York totally encourages the bad puns and double-entendres (if it makes everybody else groan, that means he won)

-Flowers and Donut are a whole SPECTACLE for the others to hear

-South and Kai become this unstoppable FORCE OF CHAOS, and their bros are over there begging them to be normal for 5 minutes

-South also gets along with Donut, she likes that he knows all the drama, and he likes how mean-funny she is

-North and York both LOVE being overly-supportive of Wash, he’ll be doing something normal like getting a bowl of cereal or whatever, and they’ll be cheering “Look at our boy gooooo!” etc like embarrassing parents at a soccer game

-Wash loves hanging out with the Triplets again, and people start calling them the Quartet

-Everybody gave Wyoming the silent treatment for almost 2 whole months, which drove him crazy

-When they finally acknowledged his existence, he started having all kinds of arguments with Sarge (it is a nightmare to listen to them; Sarge is a yee-haw and Wyoming is like the evil-version of Bert from Mary Poppins)

-Other people keep taking the “Grifshot” and hiding it somewhere Maine can find find it, and he ALWAYS gives it back to Grif... who is like a timid little bunny rabbit in that situation

-Maine will also just stand around and watch Tucker do stuff. Tucker feels like this is some kind of INTIMIDATION act, but Maine literally just thinks Tucker is cool

-Lopez was initially indifferent to all these extra morons he has to hang out with, but Connie actually pays attention to him and is the only one who knows how to chill, so they get along really well

-People were surprised that Tucker wasn’t immediately flirting with the new girls, but he honestly assumed that South and Connie were a couple and he was trying to be a good ally-bro (they start playing it up, and... maybe they ARE a couple???)

-He DID try to hit on Ohio, which everybody thought was hilarious

-Kai is less subtle; who’s single and what are you into?

-Iowa for some reason decided Simmons is the coolest dude and always wants to know what he’s doing and help with projects (he messes things up a lot, but Simmons enjoys the attention)

-Idaho is a naturally good helper for Doc, they both like assisting with bandages and what-not, and they’re both “list-makers” (they make categories and lists for everything, from important supplies, to favorite movies). Idaho also is a great friend to O’Malley; whenever he speaks up, Idaho instantly plays up the role of “evil assistant” and goes along with the bit (they don’t do anything actually “bad”, they just like. sneak all the ice cream and them blame it on somebody else)

-Grif and Simmons get really into playing word-games with the Triplets, they have endless conversations about nonsense

-Carolina had to try REALLY hard to convince them “No seriously guys, I can relax now!”

-Tex, Carolina, and Church have their own weird little dysfunctional-family thing going on; whenever they get snippy with each other, he tries to be the peace-maker, and it ticks them both off. If they ignore him for too long, he starts bothering them until they finally crack to yell at him (and that means success). Sometimes Carolina and Tex will whisper to each other while glancing at Church and giggling, so he KNOWS they’re talking about HIM, but when he asks they just go “Nothing~”. Carolina is a total enabler when it comes to Church mouthing-off to somebody (she just encourages him to rant more). Tex will throw Church over he shoulder like a sack of potatoes sometimes and just walk away with him. He likes it

-Tex just kind of decided that Locus is going to be her friend, and while he doesn’t understand why she even likes him, he enjoys her company (still thinks he doesn’t “deserve friendship”, but he’s getting better). They like going to events like motorcycle races together

-Whenever Caboose asks a question, North takes the time to explain stuff to him (so does York, but York doesn’t know what the fudge he’s talking about and just makes stuff up. not in a mean-lying-way, he’s just a dink)

-Iowa and Caboose will wander off to look at rocks or whatever, but also just have a whole ADVENTURE (they might have accidentally gone to Narnia at one point)

-Kai and York are united in a “f*ck the law” attitude, and will engage in some “creative vandalism” from time to time (they wreck advertisements all over the place)

-Doc and Maine hung out together for several days before even discussing stuff about O’Malley and the Meta... nobody is entirely sure what was said (which is fine if they want to keep it private), and this seems to have resulted in Doc having absolutely NO fear of Maine (even when other people still get intimidated), and Maine has all these inside-jokes with O’Malley

-Sarge called dibs on Maine, South, and York. He truly feels like they are integral to some kind of grand scheme that makes no sense to anybody else. Maine is fine with it, he likes the Reds. South immediately jumps on the SUCK IT BLUES band-wagon (because guess which side her bro got absorbed into). York hams it up, like woe is me, I am on the opposing side of a feud from my dear friends, knowing full well this does not matter

-Locus is one of the few people who kinda just has default respect for Flowers? It seems as if he genuinely doesn’t notice how weird Flowers is (he does, Locus just likes the way this messes with everybody else). Meanwhile, Flowers is at least nice enough to avoid giving Locus “orders”, and instead invite him to join activities like baking or knitting/crochet

-South scares Simmons to death, she’s everything that terrified him about Carolina times a thousand, but she loves listening to him when he snaps and gets all uppity

-Tex and Connie have their own chill moments together, kind of reconnecting their friendship, and sharing stuff they have in common (they like similar books and what-not)

-North started having a whole control-trip, not intentionally trying to be a jerk exactly, but he doesn’t know how to NOT be the one who takes care of everybody else, and if nobody listens to him, he kinda has a panic attack and becomes insufferable... as a result, Tucker gets into arguments with North, kind of a LOT. They don’t “hate” each other or anything, but North makes a lot of incorrect assumptions about how immature Tucker acts (not fully realizing how capable and clever Tucker can be), so Tucker feels the need to one-up North and take him down a notch. Tucker finally made North see there are different ways to care for people. They eventually are on better terms, and can jokingly argue without it being a whole thing, because North genuinely respects Tucker

-When Maine seems to be getting especially “isolated”, it’s actually Locus who knows how to gently approach him and pull the guy into a different train of thought (both having once felt like they were “just weapons”, and learning how to be people again). Maine returns the favor, but with a different method; when Locus is in a self-destructive and depressed mood, Maine will just pick him up, then go pick up somebody else, like Wash or Caboose or whoever might be right for the moment, and they have a Friendship Adventure (which usually involves watching cartoons)

-Kai gets all the ladies together for a PARTY NIGHT! Sometimes it’s just them staying in, eating their favorite food and watching TV, sometimes it’s going to a club for dancing, sometimes they have an entire action movie adventure that results in a show-down with some bad guys at an abandoned amusement park. You know, fun stuff

-Connie and Wash like going out for friend lunches together, they enjoy a lot of the same kinds of food. They also both dress like dads on vacation to the beach, and will complete the fun with bowling

-York doesn’t get totally DRUNK like he used to, but he’ll get a bit buzzed occasionally, and while he’s up for hanging out with anybody, his favorite person to be around like that is Lopez. The robot might sound “stoic”, but he’s clearly amused by loopy York... who speaks Spanish, and catches all the funny comments Lopez makes (Lopez will also help steer York when they walk around so he doesn’t trip and fall)

-Church personally gives Wyoming a reality-check whenever the guy gets too full of himself, and it’s weirdly not with his usual explosive fury of swears; it will be very quiet and kind of chilling. Wyoming is genuinely unnerved, and tries in vain to win Church over with compliments (Simmons calls him a loser and a suck-up). Doc joins in, being a mean little smart-mouth with Church

-Ohio is the only one who isn’t afraid of Carolina’s hyper competitiveness when it comes to video games, they’re BOTH super headstrong about playing

#red vs blue #rvb

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revelisms · 1 year

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Throwing down a big ramble of Silco and Vander headcanons, because I've had these two on my mind Too Much recently (and just need somewhere to braindump, while I figure out how to write them).

cw: abandonment issues, violent/complicated relationships, repression, dysfunctional family histories.

While it's likely canon(? side-eyes our TBD S2 flashbacks) that these two knew each other as boys and worked together for a long time, I really like the idea that they were pulled together by chance.

Maybe they worked on complete opposite sides of the Fissures—Silco working the mines, Vander working the fisheries/refineries/metalworks, etc. Carting off raw materials to various industrial crews was part of Silco's weekly work (and how he'd been able to build connections across the working circles of the city; climbed the rungs and twisted the ears of higher leaders, later on)—and Vander's crew was one of them.

Maybe they caught each others' eyes—or hated each other, at first (or Silco had an immediate, heavily-bottled crush). Countless handoffs turned into messy introductions, into Come down to the Drum, Swiftlet—we'll get'ya sorted up!, into them holing up together in the off-hours with other workers in their ratty pubs, realizing how uncannily much they had in common, for all their surface-level opposites.

Vander takes him under his wing; another stray to the litter. (It's a penchant they both have, perhaps, in their own ways.) He's older than him. Stronger, louder, warmer. A middle child in a big family, rife with dysfunction, broiling over with anger. He's someone who knows how to make his voice heard in the mess, and people flock to him, in ways they never did to Silco. They fear and respect him, in turns. He has a reputation—and it weighs heavy as a blade. He's never afraid to flash it, when needed (or just when he needs to send some brazen fools running).

Silco's jealous of it all, naturally—and more than a little admiring. He believes in him. Feels like he can trust him; like Vander would do anything for the two of them, for their cause, their people—just like he would, for them.

Quietly, his admiration bleeds into something else. An obsession, a hunger, a selfish and desperate sort of love. He was always an outcast, a dirty little thing, to his own kin and anyone on the streets. Never had a father, to appraise him. Never had anyone to call his own, who saw him as worthwhile; who picked him up from the sludge and kept him on his feet: made him feel like he could be feared and respected, too. He's been surviving since he was old enough to haul a cart of coal, and his youth was stripped from him. Always an ancient thing in a weak little body, gnawing at the seams for blood.

I think Vander was deep-seated in denial. An angry, bitter, violent man, with a deceptive charisma casing it all. Their relationship was inherently destructive (and with a flavor of Fight Club repression): they fought with fists as much as words. Sometimes, it skirted the lines, got too close—roughhousing bleeding towards something Silco craved, that Vander feared: that they nearly had, tumbled against walls with fists at their necks and their breath tangled.

And maybe, once or twice (or countless), they slipped over those lines; got too drunk to remember. Convenient thing, that, for Vander to sit in his denial; but Silco never forgot, never played it off. He ached, and he resented. Vander called him a brother in private, and a partner in public, and Silco simmered at it—A brother? Is that all I am, to you? All you see us as?—and, eventually, accepted it; that it was more important to have him, in whatever ways he could, than to not have him, at all.

I read him as having a bone-deep fear of abandonment, as equally as Jinx does: terrified of being left behind, discarded, being seen as unworthy, etc.—largely from growing up in a broken household with an absent father, but also just from being the runt, his whole life; ignored and spat on by his peers, by the stronger ones, the faster ones, the smarter ones. There's rage under that, festered for a lifetime. There's also an intrinsic sliver of inadequacy.

We don't know anything about his home life, before—but there's something there, in the nature of Henry's character in Detachment, that I can't not tie to Jinx: perhaps a guilt he's battled with his whole life, from having an ill weakling of a mother he never knew what to do with, who died too young, hating her life and all an undesired childbirth had reduced her to.

Cue both of these into how he latched onto Vander, and why his betrayal shattered him to a shell—and also why he saw something in Powder: an opportunity to nurture the part of himself he gleaned in her, but also a chance to absolve that guilt from his mother, an innate need to try again, and why her sledgehammering into his schemes brought the humanity back into the monster he'd harnessed in himself.

I think Silco was always a deeply guarded, manipulative, quiet, and wrathful man—and that Vander saw him, empowered something in him, that made him feel worthy, not soiled. That they brought out the worst in each other, in the guise of familial connection, and hid their own fears under the surface (Silco, his affections and desire; Vander, the guilt of emboldening something monstrous in Silco that he despised, that he hated himself for taking pride in).

They were unstoppable together—but destined for a bloody end. A perfect foil for all the ways love can spiral into something destructive.

And, in the aftermath of it all, we have Vi—Vander's manifestation of those regrets: another little thing, adoring in his shadow, that he emboldened in his image while equally discouraging it every step of the way, and that he wallowed in his shame over; and we have Jinx—Silco's own manifestation: another image of his fractured, misguided understanding of what makes family real (e.g., I see the monster in you, and you see the monster in me, and that is still worth something, for all others may be repulsed by it).

He refuses to abandon her, even though he is given every opportunity, by himself and by others; refuses to abandon her like he was abandoned, like he himself abandoned his mother, even for all Jinx lashes out at him, looks for lies in everything he does. He is always, in his own ways, clinging to her—not wanting to lose her, to lose someone who sees him, again; and who he sees, in turn.

(And it's what Vi is striving for, as well—trying to absolve her own guilt of abandoning Powder, and clinging to memory of what they had, not wanting to lose her sister again—and it's something she will rage at Silco for, and go head-to-head with him on, constantly.)

TL;DR—Silco and Vander are a destructive unrequited tragedy, and Vi and Jinx will carry the imprints of that, in everything they do: broken mirrors of their fathers, and their fathers broken mirrors of each other.

#rambles #arcane #silco #silco arcane #vander #vander arcane #vanco #zaundads #arcane meta #i have TOO MANY THOUGHTS i haven't even gotten into the meat of this i jsut alsfjk #AUGH #punching the air #banging on riot's window for S2 tidbits #laying on the floor at the scene at the statue - because he *still goes back to him* after everything #yearning for him to just say something back #completely stripped down to a weaker/insecure self - to that man who strived for Vander's approval and understanding #like BUDDY #gah

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