#thus now i need to learn how to draw her or bad things will happen

[consciouschunkofmoss]

the creativity has striken and now my coccyx hurts like hell

[gleefullypolin]

Another of my musings, shall we? Indulge me...

Today, let’s talk about why Cressida was never set up as a redemption story in Season 3, but simply as a lesson for our three main character leads…

I’ve seen a lot of discourse around the treatment of Cressida in Season 3, and I find it kinda funny because Cress has always been a side character and never a main plot point and it was very evident this season that it was still very much the case. In Season 3, she was what is known as a plot device. The point of a plot device is to jettison the main characters forward.

So, let’s look at how they used her to do that this season.

Eloise Bridgerton:

Cressida was a huge plot device in moving Eloise’s story along in a heavy way this season. El has been very close to being stuck in quicksand for a while now. What do we know about her character between S1 to now?

She doesn’t want to get married.

She believes that women are held back but is questioning her place in society and what to do about that.

She’s angry at Pen and feels betrayed by friendship currently.

So, when we last left her, her closest relationship ended because Penelope was Lady Whistledown, she realized she knew nothing about the one person she thought she was closest with, her belief that her say in the world as a woman was rocked, and the one connection with a man she ever had, Theo, dissolved before her.

She goes off to the country and meets up with Cressida, the one person who hates the person she also dislikes the most currently, who befriends her and thus we start the new season.

But in the story, Cress is now there to show Eloise a different side of the Ton. Eloise has always had a not so small issue…her mouth. It NEVER stops. She literally never shuts up. Pen was the type where she let her go on and on and on, and never stepped in to stop her. But Cress is like... Ok shut up, stop talking now and listen because bad shit is happening to me and I need you to hear about it.

And El finally saw that life outside the Bridgerton drawing room, was shit. Not every Mama will protect you from marriage you don’t want, not every word said at a ball stays between friends, and not every friend is welcomed by your family. El had to grow up this year. She had to learn that her family protected her from things others were subjected to.

El whispered in the ballroom about her brother helping Pen find a husband and that rumor spread like wildflower and El was quick to blame that on Cressida, only to find out that it was her own mouth that spread the rumor because she didn’t think, she just spoke loudly in the ballroom with no thought of consequence for her actions. And it was Cressida who had to point it out to her, Plot point made.

Cressida was desperate to escape a life her father was forcing her into. El could have easily been forced into marriage to a man thrice her age, but she was not. But she was still El. And El was caught up in her own worries with Pen/Colin suddenly announcing their engagement and she didn’t listen to Cressida’s concerns.  She didn’t see the desperation until it was too late, and Cress stood up and claimed she was Lady Whistledown.

It was only once Cressida, with no other alternatives left on her plate, and no loving parent to guide her, chose a path that led her to take actions against Pen/Colin by writing against the Bridgertons and blackmailing them that Eloise truly was forced to face herself and forgive Penelope and see the difference in how Pen wrote versus how someone with no remorse or responsibility held the quill. Plot point made.

But she then sees the difference in how Pen stands up and takes responsibility for her actions, faces consequences, holds her own as a woman of the ton and gives her back a bit of understanding that a woman can have a voice in the world. Now we see El facing that she has much to learn and going off into the world with excitement to find it.

Penelope Bridgerton:

Cress has always propelled Pen forward as a plot device, the evil queen who tortures the princess as the knight in shining armor comes to her rescue.

Case in point, Season 1, spills her drink, Colin to the rescue, I’m afraid I’m to escort Miss Featherington to the floor. Season 2, she tries to take Eloise from her, for her to be rebuffed, then she dances with Colin happily for him to only use her as a ruse to once again save Pen from Jack Featherington’s ruby scheme. And then Season 3, she does take Eloise from her, stands on her dress for Colin to chase after her, then tries to defeat her in her pursuit for Debling as a suitor.

All of these plot devices move Pen’s story forward. They have a purpose of either knocking her down a peg or by having a man dive in to rescue her thus making her feel important. This season ramped it up a notch as Cressida came after her true worth. Lady Whistledown. Sure, going after Debling was part of it, but one could argue that Debling was a red herring. Pen never truly cared about him. But Lady Whistledown was her true value.

Having Cressida take her prize, was the true crux of the plot device for Pen this season. Cressida stole her glory by claiming to be the one thing that Penelope truly felt she was worthy of. The power of Whisteldown. And once that was taken from Cressida by her proving to the Queen that Cressida was a fraud, once Pen felt she had beat her, Cressida struck the final blow in their showdown by trying to take away her worth and ruin her in the eyes of her family.

Having Cressida out her to her mother and then strike the blow to her new husband by demanding they pay her with blackmail and humiliation to destroy any hope of love and happiness that Pen had found was the final act of villainy in their story.

This was the part that Pen needed to propel her to take a stand, to allow her what she needed to say ENOUGH is ENOUGH and that she would not let this person take everything she loved away from her. She would not let Cressida deal the final blow in her life, her marriage, her family, her purpose. And it would not control her. And thus, she made her final move.

Colin Bridgerton:

Colin had a huge turning point with Cressida, and I did not see it coming. I will be honest when the scene came, I was like why the fuck are they wasting this scene between these two and he’s not having this conversation with this wife. But the more I sat on it the more it made sense because Colin couldn’t have this conversation with Pen. Because he was so hurt and so angry with Pen, he didn’t want to lash out and say mean things to her, but with Cressida, he didn’t care what he said to her. It was easier to say thing to someone he had no feelings for.

And thus, the blackmail conversation happened. Or Cressida/Colin’s Therapy hour was born. Because that plot point was exactly what happened. It was a way for us to hear Colin’s inner thoughts. In a book, it’s easy to know what the main character is feeling, because you read it. But in the show, you don’t get that intimate knowledge. Here we got to know what Colin was feeling.

He shared with Cressida that he left town wanting to hear from Pen, and when he didn’t, he withdrew from himself. He started to take away feeling, to hold back things he needed from others. He become Pod Colin! And then he talked to her about how Pen was treated by the Ton and by extension (CRESSIDA) He talked about loneliness and how that makes a person feel and for fucks sake he bared his soul.

And then he talked about how people pay this damned woman Whistledown to read what she has to say and boy if Cressida didn’t take 3 seconds to call him out for his whining and jealousy of his wife. Because that is what it was, and he recoiled as if she bit him. And thus, jealous Colin reared his ugly head. Plot point made.

And then Cressida, just like she had shown his sister, showed Colin, that outside the Bridgerton drawing room, life sucks. Cressida was able to hit him where things hurt, because she doesn’t care about Colin, she’s not Pen looking at him like he hung the moon, to Cressida, he’s just another spoiled Bridgerton. So, he gets to learn that you don’t always have a loving family to support you and welcome you back from mistakes and responsibility you don’t want with open arms. Sometimes your life just sucks, and you get forced to marry an old ugly man who wants 4 kids from you.

And then she charged him double for all her trouble and sent him home with his tail between his legs. Plot point made.

Colin now ready to accept that he failed, that he should have listened to his wife, and it was time to do things differently, returned to his wife perhaps ready to listen a bit more.

And thus, we see, that Cress was not a main character, she was there to propel our leads forward, to get them where they needed to be, and sometimes, just sometimes, the villain has to be the villain.

I’m not saying she will always be that, they did a good job making you feel sympathy for her this season, but this just wasn’t her season for redemption yet. Maybe in the future, but it wasn’t for Season 3.

[66sharkteeth]

Weekly thoughts!

Hooboy, the big episode! First off, I think everyone knows by now that you probably shouldn't read these if you haven't read the latest episode, but I ESPECIALLY mean that this week! Talking about some way bigger than usual spoilers.

Phew, this was a big one, both from a writing and drawing perspective. I actually spent a full day on that last panel alone, but writing it took way longer than usual too. Going back and forth between Bell's speech and Jericho's backstory played perfectly like a movie in my head, but it was really hard to portray it as a comic and it was one of the few times I was struggling with the limitations of the format. I think I pulled it off though, since everyone seemed to follow along fine! So while it was probably just a neat scene to everyone else, I'm rather proud of that haha.

As for the actual contents of the episode, I'm also glad everything hit w/ the majority of the audience for the most part. I know a handful were confused about if that was Bell or Jericho who did that, but to those people, I remind you it's been loooong established Jericho can control his extensions (Bell, Charlie, and Claude. Remember, they all took injections of Jericho's blank space?). Also on that note, Bell does not have her own scion... Only Rex and Jericho do. Bell, Charlie and Claude all took injections of Jericho's blank space, thus get to borrow some of his power. I recommend re-reading ep 80 if you need a refresher.

I do consider this ep kind of a big reveal of Jericho's true colors. I mean, you guys have known he's the main villain for ages now, but this is the ep that reveals his "better world for blanks" act is kind of a façade and what he's really seeking is a worse world for humans. The fall of humans benefitting blanks is just kind of a bonus. I'm glad a few people caught onto this with the fact that one of the worst horrors he experienced was having his autonomy taken away from him, then he proceeds to do just that to Bell.

And speaking of Jericho's horrors- Before this season launched, I dropped a bunch of hints about upcoming things. One of them was that the most disturbing scene (in my opinion) was coming up. I was actually referring to what happened to Kallie. I'm not sure if it was as disturbing to everyone else (I totally get like if Claude's leg thing fucked people up more), but being evaporated into nothingness but not dying was an existential dread that really fucks me up haha. If it fucked even a couple of other people up, then I did my job.

I don't have too much else to say about the contents of the episode. It was so hard to bite my tongue for weeks as everyone predicted pretty much every character but Desmond was gonna get it. I'm sorry I don't have too much else to say about him right now given what happened, but I definitely will in the upcoming weeks.

I guess the only other note I have is I might as well address something that bugs me slightly- It's definitely a minority but there's a handful of people who seem done with the series because "too many things go wrong." To which... I'm not sure what to tell ya. I'm fine with critique and criticism to be clear, but honestly, this is one thing I'm actually really confident I'm good at balancing. I'm not sure where people are coming from with "nothing good ever happens in this series" when this season alone has had probably the cutest and fluffiest scenes. Rex has a canon girlfriend, he had his first kiss with her, Desmond was reunited with his sister and learned to accept himself, Lyss learned to move past her trauma and accept blanks, Rex was reunited with Shnee, Rex's scion turns out to be a puppy dog w/ a crush. I'm aware a lot of these got kind of crushed with this latest ep...but that's.. kind of. the. point??? That's how you write tragedy and impactful scenes??

I dunno, maybe this is personal to me because it's ALWAYS bugged me when someone tells me they think a show is bad because it's "too dark." Like no... It's not *bad* because it's too dark, you just don't like dark themes, and that's okay. I TOTALLY get if CoB has gotten too dark for some people- it's definitely hit some hard themes and subjects, but I don't like to accept that as a critique. It just means it's not for you and that's okay. There's a ton of other great comics that are more light-hearted! I think the TLDR of this is it will always annoy me when people say something is bad just because it's not their taste.

Now. That said... everyone is completely valid in their hate of Jericho. I, however, still love him.

[kinaesthetiqueer]

(clearing out some drafts. condensing a couple of jnpr vs rwby into one post here)

August 1

i still haven't decided who wins rwby v jnpr

given me, there's an obvious answer. for plot reasons, i could convince glynda to skip it altogether. for canon reasons [post ends there, presumably i got distracted]

August 3rd

thinking about how i backed myself into a corner with rwby vs jnpr and how i don't really wanna write it so i might just skip it _(:3」∠)_

spoiler alert. processing rambles below.

if it does happen, rwby will probably lose because of weiss. unless rwby can convince me otherwise. they have the semblance advantage and canon on their side (food fight). however jnpr has non-canon on their side bc they're god's (my) favorite and also the way ive worked this volume favors them being more cohesive as a unit

i am thinking about ways to communicate even clearer when something from canon does or does not happen but i hope it's thus far clear that some things have yet to happen.

as Nora points out in her pre-jnpr vs crdl thoughts, she and jaune lost their duos demonstratory match. while it's yet to be mentioned, jaune still lost to cardin in his one-on-one as he does in canon.

i just rewatched jaunedice and forever fall before i decided to get tooooo far into JNdice planning. massively surprised that pyrrha becomes the target of cardin's ire simply because of being a know it all??? i knew i had my events mixed up but heavens that's hella extreme. makes dove's reasoning for going after Nora in ssvau seem... reasonable... good heavens. (hint: it's the jnpr vs crdl knockout)

for context's sake, and my own personal rambly timeline needs—

at the end of the rwby vs jnpr week (a week from current chapter), forever fall happens. which places jaundice taking place slightly to the left because i've adjusted cardin's asshole motivation in this au to crest with jaunedice, not quite originate there. giving a shorter time period of jaune torture. thankfully, because nora is our only pov that keeps track of jaune, i won't have to completely rehash canon-two-steps-to-the-left for this arc, only allude to what she notices. unfortunately for me, i do have to know everything that is happening. hence this ramble.

anyways i think the issue with jnpr vs rwby is several fold

i have a favorite team

nora is well rested

weiss is exhausted

jaune is not great at thinking on his feet

like they still prep and plan for rwby but they know damn well rwby has been more cautious about showing off than crdl ever was

pyrrha and nora and ren are gonna kick ass

blake and yang are gonna kick ass

ruby learns from earlier in the week after [spoilers] and can definitely kick ass if/when she stops pouting about weiss

the outcome has implications for the end-of-semester rankings which i am also still deciding

damn they might just have to fight until a draw due to time. because i think jaune and weiss would go down faaaaaaast.

----

bringing us to now....

okay SO since early august, i did some pretty intense problem solving and actually came up with the funniest solution possible. good news, i'm not going to skip it! bad news, im keeping the solution to myself until we get there.

it is my hope that my fight scenes are okay and fun to read, but i will be SO real with you they are one of my least favorite things to write. however, i think this one will be pretty fun

[iensrobens]

A wrap-up for this blog for a hiatus

Just realised I posted 15 sets of drawings during the past 20 days. This is the craziest thing I ever did and such a relief of all my obsession with the game and Shadowheart since August. First time in my life creating fan content and picking up drawing again in 10 years was absolutely fun. (and of course learning to use these sns apps is also interesting, I know I sound like an ape first seeing human technology but I’m really ancient in this sense.)

I’m no artist and drawing isn’t even a hobby, just that I happen to have an iPad with Sketchbook installed.(and I only got to know how to rerank layers with it 2 pics ago so sorry for the quality for my first few drawings.) I just want to draw all the scenes I depicted in my head and very personal ideas towards the story as I tried writing and had to toss everything in trash can because I struggled making up comprehensive sentences.

I was quite anxious and felt so panicked that if my personal taste is weird and my drawings are bad (as you can tell, I don’t know how to do color) but I’m glad and surprised to see ppl like those. The numbers I’ve seen in my notification tab is far more large than the number of ppl I met in real life. (and it is very relieving to press on the blue dots.)

I really appreciate all your likes and comments and even followings-totally unprepared for this. I read every comments you made and those warms my heart and I jumped around the room when I see you got the references and hints I buried. (although I’m not sure what is the correct courtesy to reply your reposts and comments.)

I can’t recall if I ever obsessed with another character to the same extent like Shadowheart-the only one I actually started to do fan art by myself.

(As I mentioned I’m bad at writing so the next part may be very unorganised because my thoughts are flying in my mind.)

I played as her for my first playthrough. I had a quite traumatised experience for this-knew her background and past story, saved aylin but killed parents as I thought it is what THEY want, but I don’t know what HER wants; romance laezel as the dynamic was so intriguing and so good, saved her prince and let her fly away as I though she belongs to the sky and it was best for her-of course the one who becomes a squid is then Shadowheart-and I just straightaway stabbed myself at the dock. Everyone got their good ending except shad herself, and it was so grieving-all she wanted were actually all gone in that playthrough-family, lover and herself; past, present and no future. I just felt I did my girl so dirty.

Then with the customised character playthrough I actually get to know her more completely-with amazing voice acting, the interactions and all the hidden dialogues around the world-like the childhood memories dialogue which are a condition for letting her save her parents-I feel that is the preferable way as all the needed is done and she made her own decision. (But is the origin playthrough now added these narratives? I was thinking Allister Marley was Astarion’s real name.)And then the evil Durge route for her Shar path to see an alternative timeline, though I prefer the selunite route as the cycle has to end, we are better than this but that gives so many story telling ideas.

I tried to type something like character study but I can’t make it expressive enough even for myself to understand. I just hope then all I wanted to see and say is conveyed in the drawings. God knows I tried.

And thus I have exhausted all my ideas (and my annual leaves) for it. Now I have to remind myself to really focus on my real life work. Until next time my friends on Internet, perhaps I’ll pop up again when DLC or definitive edition drops.

[a-student-out-of-time]

First off, given what happened with Mod Freeze, I don’t blame you for worrying about the Hiyokers coming after you. But it also made me realise that a lot of ask blogs, including ours, really like to subject Hiyoko to horrible fates. Never out of hatred, but it’s an interesting coincidence that she either dies, gets suicidal depression, or otherwise.

Secondly, one of the most difficult parts about these blogs I find is filtering out what counts as character hate, and what is said for the sake of the story. I know I normally don’t talk about my blog when I send asks here, but with Survivor specifically, I remember a few years back when there was one particular anon who really hated Kaede, called her out on every minor thing and verbally abused her regardless of whether what she did was good or bad, and then started rounding on me for pairing her with Shuichi. Which sucked ass.

But it’s different when that stuff is directed towards a character like Tsumugi or Kuripa for instance. Tsumugi gets hate asks ALL the time, but of COURSE she does; she’s a VILLAIN. And as for Kuripa, it’s always a What The Hell Hero situation with him. So even if some asks can be harsh, they are warranted.

So it’s hard to maintain your standards when it comes to these things. I don’t know if this is specifically an issue that I struggle with, but it’s important to filter out the generally abusive askers so they don’t bother you later down the line and you can deal with them swiftly.

//Yeah, you really need to curate what asks you get because that can lead to you helping to foster a particular type of audience. You let people do wild things, they'll be more inclined to do so because that's now accepted.

//Red from OSP put this well when she said that, by showcasing insecurity in your work and choosing to undercut the emotional beats in your story with humor because you worry people will mock you, you actually alienate people who were actually invested and draw in those who are comfortable mocking you. You've made it clear that you are unwilling to take what you're making seriously and thus the audience is told they shouldn't take it seriously either.

//Conversely, you have this problem with extreme investment among some fans who will relate very strongly to a character or a work who will be very sensitive to criticism. This has very little, relatively-speaking, to do with what you have to say and is instead a knee-jerk reaction because they interpret criticism of a thing they like as a criticism of themselves as well.

//This is patently ridiculous because meaningful criticism doesn't come from a place of hate but a genuine desire to see something improve, and by reacting negatively to any perceived criticism, you only prove harsh criticism justified. Some go so far as to interpret it all as a concentrated hate campaign by those jealous of how great this character, work or person actually is.

//These people are absolutely delusional and so toxic that it's really not worth engaging with them.

//I personally made the mistake of not curating asks early on, and it created a pretty toxic environment at times. Like, people have given me credit for having so many chill anons, but that's because I block all the really nasty ones ^^;

//There was a time actual fascists were trying to sneak number messages and slogans into their asks, and I had to learn to notice those. It became very obvious when I deleted one, an anon asked where it went, I explained that I understood what it meant, and then they went off on a paranoid racist tirade.

//Fascists are really the biggest, most fragile special snowflakes out there, and they won't even pretend to be chill when you prod them : P

//The bottom line is that, as a blog-runner, you have to be conscientious of the environment you want to create for yourself and your followers, and I wanted one where people could feel safe to express their opinions without fear of retaliation, and where hate and character-bashing are unwelcome. And sometimes it really is better to just ignore asks from truly toxic people and pretend they don't exist, otherwise they'll try and get you to recognize them.

[bruciemilf]

on something something anon here :DD

-On regency au Jayara

YOU YOU YOU YOU!!!! HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME, I'M GOING INSANE, I'M GOING CRAZY OVER THEM

I've always been a massive fan of royalty love stories for some unknown reason and it imagining these two with that aesthetic makes me go wild, one of my fav stories ever is Cinderella (1950), mainly because the aesthetic is just right!! (mostly it's because I love Cinderella, she deserves the word, my silly willy girl)

Jason hating Yara is funny as hell, this is princess swan on reverse because 1. Jason isn't a cunt who only appreciates women for their beauty, thus he doesn't need that lesson, and 2. They never truly stop hating each other.

their bickering starts loud and iconically, I mean, you can't not go down in history as a badass when you are Yara Flor, the girl who slapped Jason Wayne so hard he went flying through an entire ballroom and hit the biggest bush of flowers, Jason spent the rest of the week spitting flower petals, mostly at her.

Yara deserves to resemble Princess Jasmine (from Alladin) solely because instead of a tiger it's her horse who keeps scaring people away, despite his goofy face. Ironically enough, the moment Jerry and Jason meet they hit off immediately. (Martha was there with them when that happened and in the distance, she could hear Thomas screaming that was a sign he was correct!! they're made for each other)

But it's that delicate soft lonely feeling of silently dancing together in a ballroom that starts to change things (<- delusional Cinderella stan dumbassery)

Bruce always told Jason that if you want people to love you have to love them first, Love them harder, do it dearly, and do it because you care, not because you must. It's hard to understand someone so different as Yara, but he knows that uncomfortable when you have to practice dancing while people are watching, and you're bad at it. So he asks their teacher to let them dance together, alone, and he's whispering to Yara she's doing great because out of the two of them, he's the one who fell on his butt twice. (Yara learned that day it's very hard not to blush when there's a deep voice in your ear calmly telling you're good, you're great at this and you don't need to shy away. She wishes he would have said more)

my god, I have to draw them RIGHT NOW

(I don't want to make this ask bonkers long I'll come back for more later >:3)

YOU'RE GOING INSANE? IM GOING INSANE!!! oh anon how you've blessed me. Bewitched me body and soul.

Yara wasn't forged for grace; she's better with a sword than with a fork. She can't tame her reckless tongue, or her crude jokes, or her atrocious table manners.

She's not dainty and sharp and quietly powerful like one of Jason's paper fantasies;

There's admiration for them, a respect, a desire to see them succeed and flourish, especially when he talks of them with so much passion and fire, but that'll never be her.

She's always been too much; Too loud, too hot headed, too opinionated, too strong-headed, too much like Her to be anything even close to good. She's not poetry.

She's flesh and attitude and stubbornness and she knows, like a truth for the ages, that Jason Todd wouldn't marry her if Cupid shot him twice.

But when they dance together, when big hands carve a perfect hold on her hips, when clever fingers mold her frame almost possessively, Yara thinks, for someone that can't stand her, he sure doesn't touch her like it.

For someone that can't stand her, he's so quick to her side when another lord makes a flirty comment to her.

He's quick to say "disrespect my wife again, and I'll show you war" when lord Luthor won't take her strategic advice because she's young and has no cock for him to measure with.

"Do you think I'd have a bigger cock than him thought?"

Jason braids her hair (he's the only one allowed to touch it) and doesn't even need a second, "Of course"

But is she better? Is she above loudly correcting someone when they say poetry and writing are futile skills and Jason's the one wayne man who won't amount to anything? When she bites his neck so the next time high ladies have something to look at? When she defends his honor? No. Yara isnt

In conclusion; They're idiots in love your honor

[greenmansgrove]

I struggle to feel qualified to do my own readings…

and I also struggle to understand my self-readings. I worry for bad news, I worry for bias, I worry for missing something. And yet, I still feel called to perform readings, particularly in the times of strife I’m experiencing now. I actually performed this reading the night of my birthday — a yearly tradition.

I mainly use John Matthew and Will Worthington’s Green Man Tree Oracle, which is just a illustrated ogham deck and even includes the Forfeda. Saturday’s reading was as follows:

Ivy / Gort - Call upon those around you.

Vine / Muin - Consider what you hold dear; learn to let go.

Elder / Ruis - Sometimes we must make sacrifices.

*sigh* When I most need the readings, they always rip me to shreds. Given my predisposition towards hyper-independence, I know that I am being called not only to draw from my community for support, but also, given the difficulties I am experiencing, think about what matters most in these times and understand that, even if I have to give up what I want most at this time, that the blessings after such a sacrifice may increase.

It doesn’t feel fair, but I know there is truth in it. It hurts to hear when I spent so many year in deep material and emotional insecurity. I was beginning to resent this reading. What happened to my “protection” and safety I thought my first ogham reading had assured me I’d had in drawing Rowan / Luis two years ago? Just when I thought I was finally reaching stability, it all falls away before me.

I thought of The Morrigan, too. Chiefmost among her signs to me has been Elder / Ruis. It is how she lets me know she is near and watching. Thrice now I have found it growing in places dear and sacred to me. But it almost never comes up in my readings. The first and only other time I have pulled Elder was in the reading I performed for myself in September, when I began my dedications to and preparations for joining The Order of the Morrigan. At that time, I understood it to be confirmation of what she wanted of me, but perhaps it was also a warning of what was to come and something for which she was trying to prepare me.

Now I pull Elder again, when I know exactly what sacrifices are being asked of me. It is not necessarily a physical sacrifice or a sacrifice to the Morrigan, but a sacrifice of something towards which I had worked hard and which I may now need to put off in favor of focusing on what matters most. I almost resent this, too.

I admit that in working with the Morrigan, I fear being tested. I loathe the idea of a god testing my faith and resolve. Perhaps others are comfortable with it, as is their prerogative, but given my own religious trauma, I feel it is a breech of trust and mutual faith, and it is a boundary I have sought to set with the Morrigan since making my dedication. Was she testing me now? Or was she punishing me? That, too, I loathed, because as much as I reflect, I struggle to think of what I could have done and how to make amends.

I required clarity. Thus, I pulled from my Oracle of the Morrigan illustrated by Morrigan Oran. I had officially dedicated this tool to the Morrigan earlier in the week during the full moon, and I was nervous about my ability to interpret the abstract symbolism, but I needed clarity from the Great Queens herself. She would want me to stretch my oracular skills.

After shuffling the deck several times with my question in mind, I pulled the “Cycles” card. I took a long, hard stare at the card and read the little booklet’s entry, which the illustrator had channeled in her creation of the artwork. At first, I was only more frustrated at the vagueness. But soon enough, at least one meaning dawned on me, and it was almost as if I could hear the Morrigan saying,

This is all part of a Cycle. There will always be bad times. Neither you nor I can prevent them all, no matter how much you pray or what sacrifices you make. It is the way of things.

Though I still worry for bias, I found this comforting. Perhaps I am not actually being tested or punished. Perhaps this is not more of the same through which I have struggled in the years prior and against which I have been bracing. Perhaps I am just in a bad spot, and I can and will pull through.

I suppose I have the skills and resources on which to pull. I want to put my faith in this reading and find the will and confidence to keep moving and accept the sacrifices I must make. I am scared to, but I know I can.

[mercy-burning]

Fake Fiancée - Part 3

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Reader and Spencer write letters back and forth, both of them slowly starting to fall in deeper. Category: Smut (18+) Content Warnings: Strong language, sexual themes, masturbation (male and female), sexting, face sitting Word Count: 6.3k

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4

MASTERLIST

NOTE: Hello!! Sorry this has been so long in the making, but for a while my inspiration for this story absolutely disappeared, and then I tried to think of how to bridge the previous chapters to the final one with absolutely no luck. And then I re-read Part 2 and got stuck on the letter, thus this chapter was born! I didn’t want to drag this miniseries out any longer than 4 parts, and the letter format combined with other inner monologuing and description really allowed me to do that in an interesting way that hopefully doesn’t feel rushed! 

It was so much fun and very refreshing to write. I hope you like how it turned out!

Thank you all for being so patient while I get my shit together 😅 Love you guys! Enjoy 🥰

***

We've been sending letters back and forth for about a month now.

If I'm being honest, it took me about two weeks to decide whether or not I actually wanted to send one back, but could you blame me?

Here was this guy I couldn't stop thinking about after a one-night stand, only for him to catch me—months later at the same exact bar we'd met in—flirting with his friend. And then after our sexual encounter that night, all the things we said, the connection I thought we had, all of it...

He left it all behind the next morning, only to send me a letter in the mail.

I was pissed.

Sure, it was a nice letter, but the fact that he'd reduced what we had down to a piece of paper and scribbled ink had made me angrier than I cared to admit.

In retrospect, I may have overreacted.

Over time I started re-reading his words, and the more I thought about it all, the more I started to regret my anger. And more than anything, I just wanted to see him again. I couldn't stay mad at him, not when all I could picture was his pouty face and nervous hands. His sunbeam of a smile peeked through the clouds of my anger here and there, and the longer it settled, the more it bathed me in a warm light that should have made me happy. But all it did was make me long for him.

Once I'd actually started writing that first letter back, I wondered why I hadn't jumped on the opportunity in the first place. I mean, after all the cliché shit we'd experienced in our short relationship thus far, adding love letters to the mix was just as perfect as you could get, right?

Spencer,

I'm sorry it's taken me this long to finally write you back. Truthfully I wasn't sure I wanted to write you at all, but your letter kept drawing me back in. I couldn't stop re-reading it, imagining you sitting down somewhere and contemplating every word as you wrote them down. I wondered if you'd thrown out hundreds of pieces of paper after messing up when you could have just as well typed out a letter without wasting them.

And then by that point, all I could think about was just you.

I always pictured what your living room looks like, or your kitchen table, or your office, or wherever you sit down to write. I wondered if you looked like one of those hopeless writers in the movies that have a scruffy face, coffee stains on their white tee shirts, and messy hair that hasn't been washed in days due to lack of inspiration.

But in the end, the image that won out over all the others was just you as I remember.

I'm not going to lie, that image most of the time was your body above mine while I held my hand to your throat, but for the sake of romance I guess I should probably tell you what it was every other time— the outfit you were wearing the first time we met.

When I think of you, I think of your hand nervously clutching that beer bottle for dear life and the other one occasionally pushing your glasses up your nose. I think of your eyes every time they'd look away from me, probably to keep yourself from staring too long.

But the thing that always gets me the most is your smile— even when it comes in little flashes, after you've said something you probably thought was lame. You covered it up with that perfect smile.

I've dreamt of that smile nearly every night since I met you, and I wouldn't be opposed to seeing it in person again.

I'd love to meet you for dinner some time.

But since you did manage to "more or less abandon me twice now", I think it's only fair that you make it up to me first.

Make the next letter a good one, and we'll see what happens.

Yours, Y/N

P.S. I hope my handwriting is as pretty as you hoped. I'd hate to disappoint.

***

Y/N,

I'm incredibly grateful that you've given me a chance to redeem myself. Every night since I last saw you has also been spent wondering what your house looks like on the inside... What you looked like reading my letter (perhaps at your kitchen table?)

And this might sound silly, but I've also wondered what your bedroom looks like. You may be laughing at me, because I've been in your bedroom, but in my defense I was a bit preoccupied to really take notice of my surroundings— I was simply surrounded by you.

But since I've been to your home, I figured it was only fair that I invite you to mine, possibly for dinner. I don't know how to cook much— in fact I'm pretty awful at making anything that's not a can of Spaghetti-Os... But one of my co-workers is an excellent chef, and with a recipe from him and some practice under my belt, I'm sure I can pull it off.

But by "some" practice, I mean probably weeks or months of practice. So hopefully that gives you ample time to mull it over.

Perhaps in the meantime we can get to know each other through our letters. And who's to say, it might spare us the awkward "getting to know each other" stage of a first date. Though, pretty much every stage of every date is awkward for me, so it might not help at all.

Regardless, I'm very much looking forward to hearing from you again.

I do get called away for work quite often, however. So I apologize in advance if I can't get back to you as soon as I'd like.

But in any instance, you're still welcome to text message or call me. I know it isn't as romantic or personal as handwritten letters, but it's certainly practical.

Yours, Spencer.

P.S. Your handwriting is just as beautiful as I'd imagined it would be. And you could never disappoint me.

That being said, if you somehow decide that this letter wasn't up to your standards and reject my offer, I may just find myself in the deepest despair imaginable.

***

I was definitely way too in my head about this.

It was just a text. Sure, it was a risky text to send, but I had no doubt in my mind that it would be fine in the end.

So why was my stomach churning just thinking about sending it?

Some might have chalked it up to my fat ol' crush on Spencer, but I knew it ran deeper. It had to do at least a little with my history with Patrick... The man stood me up and sent divorce papers to my place of work rather than to my face... And as much as I liked to think I was completely over it, we'd been together for years, and it really did a number on me.

I didn't want to ruin this new thing with Spencer so badly that I was overthinking everything.

So even though I could see his face opening the text, my heart doing jumps at the mere thought of it, a bigger part of me worried that it would be a step too far in the wrong direction. I didn't want him to think I was only in this for... sexual reasons. Which, don't get me wrong, have been pretty damn great so far, but I really did want to get to know him and see where this went.

In the end I decided to hold off. I settled for something a little lighter.

Spencer,

Don't feel too bad about your cooking skills. I've been through my fair share of burnt frozen pizzas to know how you're feeling. So the fact that you've given yourself the opportunity to practice and learn a recipe just for me is extremely romantic, and I appreciate the thought.

I won't stop you from following through, though I'm telling you now that no amount of slaving away in the kitchen will make me change my mind about you. We could probably eat stale crackers on the floor and I'd still find you utterly fascinating.

Maybe that's a bit too extreme, but I hope you get my point.

Anyway, I'd love to come over for dinner some time. Whenever you think you're ready to show me those improved cooking skills, you just let me know and I'll happily make my way over.

In the meantime, I'm thinking of sending more with my letters. I don't want to give away too much, but I will say that I'm very crafty. And don't feel like you need to send anything in return, though I'll let you know if I ever change my mind.

Yours,

Y/N

***

In the bottom right corner of the letter, right next to her signature, was a red lipstick stain in the shape of... well, her lips. It was common sense to know that they were hers and no one else's, not just a stamp or a drawing, and rather her actual lip stain... But even without it, I would have been able to tell by their shape.

Was that pathetic?

I could hear her, picture her in front of me, hovering above me with red-painted lips in the shape of a smirk, visibly cooing as she called me names... I could feel the ghost of her fingertips trailing up my throat and tilting my chin up to look at her as she rocked her hips teasingly into mine...

The whine I let out truly was pathetic.

You pathetic, needy little thing, I could hear her say...

My hands clutched the paper so tightly I thought I'd tear it, but it didn't matter when all I could see while staring at it was her luscious, red lips... Her voice was right there in my ear, like she was really beside me, watching me...

Oh, God, what would she do if she saw me right now? Staring at her lipstick stained paper and subconsciously grinding down into my chair...

You pathetic, needy little thing...

My hips jolted with a small, broken shout of her name, and in no time the front of my pants were flooded with warmth. I felt her eyes burning into me from the void, sparking to life with amusement as her voice crept into the deep corners of my brain and whispered praises to me.

Ohh, what a good little whore... Getting off to the thought of me... That's it, sweet boy... Come for me...

By now my eyes had squeezed shut and the letter was crumpled in my hand, the other reaching down to add much-appreciated burning friction to my crotch as I rode out my orgasm. My whole body tensed and shuddered at every sensation, from Y/N's image behind my eyes to the sweet warmth that pooled in my underwear and soaked through onto my hand.

Holy mother of—

The next time I saw her, I was screwed. I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. I'd surely go red the second I laid eyes on her, and she'd know right away what I was thinking and feeling.

Simply put, it scared and excited me at the same time.

She'd utterly and thoroughly wrecked me, and if she didn't already know it, she certainly would soon.

Y/N,

I'm not sure what you intend to send in addition to your letters, but if it's anything near the sentiment of your lip stain, then you might have to refrain in favor of my poor, fragile heart.

See, it aches for you. It's bad enough I think of you always, but the moment I saw the shape of your lips on that letter, my heart almost shot straight out of my chest. Maybe it was the familiar shape of your lips or the implications of its place next to your name, signed after the word 'yours', that sent me into a tailspin, but whatever the case...

I'm pretty sure I've completely fallen under your spell.

I suppose I should also tell you that my heart wasn't the only part of my body that came to life at your added signature. I assure you, it took no time at all for me to come undone at the thought of your lips pressing gently against the paper, imagining that they were instead pressing to my skin... I didn't even have to touch myself, really. It just happened. Because of you and you alone.

I hope that wasn't too forward, but I felt it necessary that you know just how much of an effect you have on me.

If I could see you again in a millisecond, it wouldn't be soon enough.

That being said, I am determined to spend as much time as possible to perfect this dish for our dinner. Because you deserve nothing but the best, even if you insist that you could settle for less.

It's the least I can do.

Yours, Spencer.

And a week and a half later, when I didn't get a letter back on time, I was sure I'd messed up for good.

My mind was racing a mile a minute, yelling at myself for even thinking for a second of being that detailed in a letter without any consent. Sure, she'd taken it a step up by signing off her letter with a kiss, but I'd been absolutely idiotic in telling her that I got off to it.

I was honestly well and truly prepared to show up at her house with a big bouquet of flowers and an apology so wordy and probably too long for anyone's liking, in hopes that she'd forgive me for making this huge mistake.

Thankfully, though, it wasn't needed.

My phone chimed as I was pacing, my lip near bloody with how hard I'd been chewing at it, and I saw an unknown number attached to a text message and photo attachment.

The photo wouldn't load (I would have to plug it into my laptop and transfer the image there to see it— a fact which always irked Penelope to the core), but with the sentences I saw above the file, I almost knew exactly what I'd find when I had the means to see it.

There. Now we're even... Who says text messages can't be romantic and personal? XXX, Y/N

I felt like Bambi as I scrambled to my laptop three rooms over, stumbling over weak legs with my phone clutched tightly in my hand. My heart raced faster than it ever had as I started everything up and retrieved the right cord for my phone. With a few shakes and stumbles here and there, I briefly entertained the idea of upgrading my phone.

I probably would have left the apartment to do it immediately after seeing her photo attachment, but the moment it loaded up on my screen, my brain and body lost all ability to function properly.

A familiar burn coursed through the lower half of my body and tightened my chest at the sight of her, open and exposed and... wet.

My laptop screen was completely taken over by the image of Y/N's pussy, visibly glistening and aroused. A manicured hand—her hand— was in frame as well, middle finger resting snugly between the supple skin of her wet lips.

The fact that I only tasted her once felt downright cruel.

I tried to imagine it again— my face buried between the softness of her thighs. As much as I wanted to lay her down and indulge myself as long as possible, taking all the time in the world to slowly devour her and truly explore her for myself, what ran through my mind then was something more in the vein of our dynamic thus far.

My mind wandered, specifically to a place where I was the one laying down as she sat down directly onto my face and gave me what she thought I deserved. My hands were tied to the bed, maybe handcuffed. All I knew was that I couldn't touch her, and it bothered me. So I whined, and every time the sound left my mouth, she would let up, lifting further out of reach and causing me to instinctively reach my head up to chase her.

You greedy little slut... Take what I give you...

Desperately seeking her approval, I told her I'd be good and rejoiced when she lowered herself down to me again, allowing me to me completely wrapped up in her once more. My tongue lapped and lapped, gathering as much of her as I could before she'd inevitably leave again.

But she never did.

Somehow I kept my quiet, even though it was extremely difficult, and ate her out like my life depended on it. She glided smoothly over my face, coating more than just my lips in her arousal, and it thrilled me to my very core.

Every time I breathed in I could smell her, every time she groaned out my name my stomach fluttered, and it wasn't long before she was clutching my hair, shaking above me while I drank her in and repressed my whines.

My hips were uncontrollable though, bucking up into nothing and begging for any type of stimulation.

But then suddenly it was there— Her hand, firmly wrapping around my dick and gliding over it beautifully with a slickness that she must have transferred from her pussy. I could still taste her as I cried out her name, her movements quickening with every second until—

I didn't even realize I was actually alone until my eyes opened, cum coating my hand, my heartbeat heavy and loud, and the laptop screen in front of me a shade darker signaling a long period of inactivity.

I'd done it again...

And now we most certainly were not even.

I glanced over at my phone—plugged into the laptop—and then down at my lap, and my stomach knotted as my next move rang clear as day.

***

I woke up the next morning to texts from Spencer, and my heart picked up speed, a gentle warmth blooming through my chest at the sight.

I thought maybe he'd thank me for the photo I'd sent. Maybe he'd return it with an influx of messages along the lines of Oh my god, Holy fuck I miss you, and the like.

But what I wasn't expecting was to see a photo in return, of his hand that I'd dreamt of nearly nightly, wrapped firmly around his cock and all of it completely covered in cum.

Below the photo were three messages in a row, and each one gave me more butterflies than the last.

Sorry for low quality. No smartphone.

Also sorry we're not even anymore.

But I'm not sorry I did it- you're too perfect to resist.

***

Dearest Y/N,

I'm sorry you haven't gotten a letter from me in a while. And I know we've kept in touch through texting and calling while I was swamped at work, though now that I have some time off, I'd love to write you again. As much as I enjoy our virtual conversations, I still find sending letters to be my preferred method of communication (only second to speaking with you in person, that is).

Which brings me to the main point I'm trying to make.

I want to see you again. In person. I'm not completely confident in my cooking ability yet, but if you wouldn't mind the potential of it tasting awful, I'd love to have you over. I promise you nothing but the best, and I know that's a high promise, especially considering I probably haven't sold you on the meal, but it's true.

I'd do anything to please you.

And I really do mean 'anything', I hope you understand that.

Yours, Spencer.

***

The thought of seeing him in person again after so long made my hands way shakier than I would have liked. It made no sense the longer I thought about it, because it was obvious that we liked each other, and seeing each other in person wouldn't be a problem. Because it'd never been a problem before.

It irked me.

Still, I knocked on his door and physically shook out my hands, praying I could keep my cool when he finally opened the door.

But I should have known better.

One second I was staring at a large plank of wood, and the next I was staring into frantic eyes, golden and sparkling just as I remembered, but with an added glimmer of fear that matched the shakiness of my hands.

I don't know how long we stood there, just staring at each other, but the longer we did, the more we relaxed. His fear was gone, and the shaking in my hands turned into a dull hum that longed to reach out for him.

Still, I refrained, settling on a simple, "Hey, pen pal..."

By the way he looked at me, silent as ever, I started to wonder if that was a stupid thing to lead with. So I opened my mouth to apologize, to say anything else, but he beat me to it.

"Y/N... I... H—Hi, you look... incredible."

"O—Oh, thanks... Thank you, yeah, I um... figured I should... dress up a little. I know we're not going out anywhere, but I thought it might be nice."

He doesn't need to know that, Y/N, stop talking!

I gave him a small smile and a nervous laugh in an attempt to stop myself, hating how I was so nervous around him.

Spencer didn't seem to mind, though. He let me in and closed the door behind me as I quickly glanced around his apartment. It was littered with greens and browns, books everywhere, and I'd never felt more at home.

"Is it, uh... What you expected?"

"Hmm?" I turned to meet him, his soft voice pulling me from my wandering eyes.

"My apartment."

"Oh! Yeah, it's very you... I love it."

The compliment had his cheeks turning pink, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than kiss them over and over again.

And just like that, once again we were caught just staring at each other. I didn't know what he was thinking, and honestly, I didn't know what I was thinking either. All I knew in that moment was that Spencer Reid was standing right in front of me, close enough to touch, and I wanted to give in.

I was so wrapped up in the idea of feeling him that I almost didn't hear him speak. I wouldn't have heard him at all had it not been for his lips moving.

"I'm sorry, I haven't started dinner yet..."

"That's okay," I reassured. Or, at least I tried to. Really, though, I think it sounded more like I was uninterested in what he was saying, my voice flat and lifeless as I continued to stare at him.

Suddenly we were closer, and I had to look up higher to see his face, butterflies swarming in my stomach at the way he looked down at me.

"You're sure?"

"Mhm."

"I can start it now if you're getting hungry."

Food isn't what I'm hungry for, is what I thought. I almost said it, too, because he was even closer now, his hands coming out to touch mine. If they were humming before, they were certainly blaring with life now, growing hot under his light touch. And it took everything I had not to look down, because it had been too damn long since I'd seen his hands in person, and I wanted them on me immediately.

He could tell, too. He could sense my urgency, feel the longing radiating off my presence, and I knew this because I could feel his, too. His eyes practically dared me to say what I was thinking, and so I did.

"Don't you dare."

It was hard to tell who moved in first, but it really didn't matter.

I was here, in his apartment, feeling his lips glide over mine with reckless abandon, and that's all that mattered.

His hands gripped my waist so tightly I would have thought he was trying to hold me in place, to make sure I wasn't ever going to leave his sight again. And if that was the case, I would have let him hold me there forever.

My hands, meanwhile, clutched at his hair, forcing myself closer and closer to him with every sharp tug. I reveled in the way he whined into my mouth with every little thing I did, whether it was a tug of the hair or a roll forward of the hips, or even a swipe of my tongue over his.

He was putty in my hands yet again, and just like every time before, it turned me into a fucking goner.

Being with Spencer wasn't like anything I'd ever known. And the only other thing I'd known was Patrick. He didn't want me, not really, and even though he was good to me in the beginning, it was never like this.

I didn't come over to his apartment with shaking hands. I didn't send him fucking love letters almost weekly, and I certainly didn't get kissed like this...

Spencer was drunk on me, and I wasn't any sober myself.

"That picture you sent me..." I mumbled over his lips, still keeping myself as close as I could while I got out what I needed to say. "Where did you take that?"

We kissed for a few more seconds, unable to stay apart, before he answered, his voice just as breathy and brimming with desperation as mine. "My office. Just down the hall."

I kissed him again, hard, and then pulled back to look him in the eyes. They widened when I said, "Show me."

He dragged me through the apartment on rushed legs, and I almost laughed at the urgency, only stopped by the realization that I was just as urgent. It occurred to me that perhaps my laughing at his urgency might just be a slight turn on for him, given our history with my playful degradation, but still I pulled back— Tonight felt... different.

It didn't feel like we were headed in the direction of me calling him my dirty little whore throughout the night, and it was something I was more than okay with. In fact, I welcomed it, excited to see where this new night would take us.

We ended up in his office, which remained more or less the same aesthetic as the rest of his place. In the middle sat a small desk with a laptop and some papers scattered about on it, accompanied by a tall floor lamp and a rolling desk chair.

"Where were you exactly?" I mused, gripping his hand tightly and buzzing at the way his fingers flexed against my own.

"In the chair... I pulled the photo up on my laptop."

"Right. No smartphone."

Spencer hummed in confirmation before dragging me along to the chair, and I fucking giggled as he plopped down and practically pulled me right on top of him, the chair rolling back a foot or two. I went down for a bright, messy kiss that ended with his hands clutching my ass over my skirt and my own cradling his face.

His growing bulge nudged right up into my inner thigh, and I groaned lightly in his mouth, my fingers dragging softly down his jaw and neck until I reached his shoulders.

"What were you thinking about?"

He raised his eyebrow, and I rocked my hips forward with a sly grin, hoping to get my point across. "When you were looking at my picture, in this very chair, what were you thinking about?"

Seeing his eyelids stutter and his tongue dart out at my movements sent a rush through me, and I moved my hips once more to emphasize my urgency.

"I... I thought about you... riding my face. You tied my hands..."

"Oh?" I sighed, rocking forward again and humming into his neck. "Well, that can definitely be arranged if you want it bad enough..."

"Please, Y/N, yes... Please..."

The need dripping from every syllable made it near impossible to breathe, and I was suddenly very inclined to give him everything he wanted. With or without the begging.

So I reluctantly peeled away from him and stood up on weak legs. Staring at Spencer as he sat there, leaning back in the chair with disheveled hair and obvious desire in his eyes, made it all the better when I took my panties off from under my skirt and motioned for him to come forward. "On your knees?"

I would have demanded it in any other situation, but I was feeling a bit more sweet this time around.

And he seemed grateful for it, sliding the chair back further and getting down in front of me. I reached out and played with his hair, trying my hardest to commit his beautiful face to memory. I wanted it burned there for the rest of time.

"Hands?"

Spencer offered his hands to me, and I hummed happily, doing my best to tie his hands together with a makeshift knot from my panties. It wasn't really tight or secure, but it was enough for him to whine as he set them in his lap.

He watched intently as I dropped my skirt—a bit redundant now, but I thought it'd be a nice way to get him more excited. Plus I wanted to see his face (or at lease what I could see of it while it was buried between my legs).

I stepped forward then, looking down at him with a smile while my hands reached out to comb through his hair. "You ready?"

"Uh huh."

The look in his eyes right before I came forward and hovered over his face almost made my come on the spot.

But as fun as that would have been, I was glad for the way my body held off and settled for a beautiful, burning increase of pleasure that dragged out the longer he swiped his tongue through my folds. Actually, I forgot for a moment that I was supposed to be moving, riding his face like he'd thought about.

I willed my eyes open and clutched Spencer's soft locks of hair beneath me, gently rolling my hips and grinding down further on his face.  The groan he let out not only felt good against my skin, but it sounded like pure bliss, eliciting a small whimper of my own as I tightened my grip in his hair and rocked faster.

"God, I missed having your mouth on me, baby... You're... so good..."

The longer I spoke the more breathless I became, not because the words didn't come easily, but because I truly believed them to be true.

Spencer really was so fucking good, his tongue the most delicate, divine object of the universe as it drew out every ounce of delight from my body. I may have been the one above him, calling the shots and directing him where and how to please me, but he was the one who clung to my soul like static and politely guided me towards damnation.

I wasn't even sure of my surroundings to tell you the truth. As my body tensed and took me through one of the most blinding pleasures I'd experienced in weeks, My eyes were squeezed so tightly it's like I saw the universe. All I knew was Spencer's lips sucking my clit and my hands deeply rooted in his hair as I shouted incoherently, stars swirling around behind my eyelids.

Truly, for all I knew, we could have been in space. It wouldn't have made any difference.

But eventually it came to be too much. I was reaching a limit I didn't want to get to so quickly, and so I flashed my eyes open and tried to adjust to this brand new atmosphere, unweaving my fingers through pretty brown waves of hair and stepping back to assess the situation.

What I found was the most beautiful man I'd ever known, panting like he'd just ran a marathon and yet harboring the most intense joy and desire a person could hold. He was on his knees, bound hands writhing in his lap as he awaited further instruction and licked up as much of myself on his face as he could before I stopped him.

Under normal circumstances, I would have wanted to absolutely ruin him. That adoring, desperate look in his eye would have spurred me to more devious endeavors, but all I wanted in this moment was to make sure he was satisfied. I wanted to take care of him, to let him know that I longed to make him feel as worshipped and adored as he'd made me feel.

I got down to Spencer's level, quickly removing the fabric from his wrists and hauling him to his feet, where he now towered over me, still waiting for words to address and instruct him.

Instead, I leaned up with soft hands upon his cheeks and pulled him down to meet my lips in a kiss that changed the tone entirely. It was erotic still, of course, what with my arousal infiltrating my taste buds and eliciting a soft sigh from the both of us, but our urgency manifested in sweeter ways... Softer lips, gentle touches of the face, and an exchanging of breath that was so smooth and seamless it felt like we were floating on air.

I was finding it hard to breathe again, but it wasn't an issue in the slightest. In fact, there was nowhere else I'd rather have been than right there, kissing Spencer Reid like we had all the time in the world.

When the breathlessness was a little too much to bear, we pulled away, though only leaving just enough space to breathe. Our lips stayed briefly connected while we caught up, and his hands found their way to the sides of my face. The way they practically engulfed my whole head brought a brief smile to my lips as I finally gave him the words he was looking for.

"I'm so glad I met you," I whispered.

"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing."

We kissed each other again, naturally and with so much ease that I wondered how I had ever lived without him.

And then, as my hands slid gently down his chest, I felt it.

Something that felt very much like a ring attached to a necklace sat right where his heartbeat resided, and I knew exactly which ring it was.

"W—" I pulled back and circled the shape of it with my finger through the shirt, then looked up at him. "Is that what I think it is?"

Spencer looked briefly panicked, pulling away a little and fishing down the front of his shirt for the chain. "Oh... Um, yeah. I, um... I forgot to take it off, I'm sorry. I..."

"You... kept it?"

I observed the diamond as it laid flat on my palm, still attached to the chain and around his neck. Honestly, after all this time I figured he'd never found it or gotten rid of it, seeing as he never brought it up. And yet there it was, glittering in the palm of my hand as my other one presses firmly against Spencer's rapidly beating heart.

"Y—Yeah... It um... It was really the only physical thing I had to remember you—Well, at least until we started sending letters... And I guess I just... W—Wearing it has become such a habit that I forgot to take it off."

"You never take it off?"

I could tell he was nervous, and rightfully so given I wasn't really letting on how I was feeling about the whole thing.

Still, he answered my short question in such a small whisper I'd have thought he was trying not to get in trouble.

"No."

"Why?"

My words certainly weren't helping ease his anxieties, so I remained close, dropping the ring and focusing rather on his eyes. I softened the look in my own and glided my hands down to hold his. His fingers flexed against mine, squeezing them for dear life as he sighed out in relief and flashed me a soft smile.

"Because... I wanted you close to my heart."

With a smile that mirrored his eyes, full of enchantment and pure adoration for the person in front of me, I didn't use my brain and instead focused on what my heart was telling me, consequences be damned.

"I think I might love you..."

Spencer squeezed my hands tighter, that relief spreading out to all his features and brightening that beautiful smile.

"Funny... I was just thinking the same thing."

Our lips met once more, and I swear it was like nothing bad was ever going to happen for the rest of time.

I'd never felt that way. Not once with Patrick did my heart feel settled into place, even during the great parts of our relationship.

And now here I was, with a man who sent me love letters and kept every physical reminder of my existence, who kissed me like I was the most precious thing in the world and slowly mended my wounded heart.

He held me close the whole way to his bedroom and never let me go until the morning. Though, even then his arms outstretched towards me and his fingers flexed, needing to grab onto any part of me that he could find.

And as I was sure I always would, I welcomed him with open arms.

***

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[testudoaubrei-blog]

Content note for discussions of eternal damnation, and all sorts of other shit that will trigger a lot of folks with religious trauma.

Before I get started I might as well explain where I’m coming from - unlike a lot of She-Ra fans, and a lot of queer people, I don’t have much religious trauma, or any, maybe (okay there were a number of years I was convinced I was going to hell, but that happens to everyone, right?). I was raised a liberal Christian by liberal Christian parents in the Episcopal Church, where most of my memories are overwhelmingly positive. Fuck, growing up in the 90’s, Chuch was probably the only place outside my home I didn’t have homophobia spewed at me. Because it was the 90’s and it was a fucking hellscape of bigotry where 5 year olds knew enough to taunt each other with homophobic slurs and the adults didn’t know enough to realize how fucked up that was. Anyway. This is my experience, but it is an atypical one, and I know it. Quite frankly I know that my experience of Christianity has very little at all to do with what most people experienced, or what people generally mean when they talk about Christianity as a cultural force in America today. So if you were raised Christian and you don’t recognize your theology here, congrats, neither do I, but these ideas and cultural forces are huge and powerful and dominant. And it’s this dominant Christian narrative that I’m referring to in this post. As well as, you know, a children’s cartoon about lesbian rainbow princesses. So here it goes. This is going to get batshit.

"All events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God." - John Calvin

“We’re all just a bunch of wooly guys” - Noelle Stevenson

This is a post triggered by a single scene, and a single line. It’s one of the most fucked-up scenes in She-Ra, toward the end of Save the Cat. Catra, turned into a puppet by Prime, struggles with her chip, desperately trying to gain control of herself, so lost and scared and vulnerable that she flings aside her own death wish and her pride and tearfully begs Adora to rescue her. Adora reaches out , about to grab her, and then Prime takes control back, pronounces ‘disappointing’ and activates the kill switch that pitches Catra off the platform and to her death (and seriously, she dies here, guys - also Adora breaks both her legs in the fall). But before he does, he dismisses Catra with one of his most chilling lines. “Some creatures are meant only for destruction.”

And that’s when everyone watching probably had their heart broken a little bit, but some of the viewers raised in or around Christianity watching the same scene probably whispered ‘holy shit’ to themselves. Because Prime’s line - which works as a chilling and callous dismissal of Catra - is also an allusion to a passage from the Bible. In fact, it’s from one of the most fucked up passages in a book with more than its share of fucked up passages. It’s from Romans 9:22, and I’m going to quote several previous verses to give the context of the passage (if not the entire Epistle, which is more about who needs to abide by Jewish dietary restrictions but was used to construct a systematic theology in the centuries afterwards because people decided it was Eternal Truth).

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

The context of the allusion supports the context in the show. Prime is dismissing Catra - serial betrayer, liar, failed conqueror, former bloody-handed warlord - as worthless, as having always been worthless and fit only to be destroyed. He is speaking from a divine and authoritative perspective (because he really does think he’s God, more of this in my TL/DR Horde Prime thing). Prime is echoing not only his own haughty dismissal of Catra, and Shadow Weaver’s view of her, but also perhaps the viewer’s harshest assessment of her, and her own worst fears about herself. Catra was bad from the start, doomed to destroy and to be destroyed. A malformed pot, cracked in firing, destined to be shattered against a wall and have her shards classified by some future archaeologist 2,000 years later. And all that’s bad enough.

But the full historical and theological context of this passage shows the real depth of Noelle Stevenson’s passion and thought and care when writing this show. Noelle was raised in Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christianity. To my knowledge, he has never specified what sect or denomination, but in interviews and her memoir Noelle has shown a particular concern for questions that this passage raises, and a particular loathing for the strains of Protestant theology that take this passage and run with it - that is to say, Calvinism. So while I’m not sure if Noelle was raised as a conservative, Calvinist Presbyterian, his preoccupation with these questions mean that it’s time to talk about Calvinism.

It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that Calvinism is a systematic theology built entirely upon the Epistles of Romans and Galatians, but only -just- (and here my Catholic readers in particular will chuckle to themselves and lovingly stroke their favorite passage of the Epistle of James). The core of Calvinist Doctrine is often expressed by the very Dutch acronym TULIP:

Total Depravity - people are wholly evil, and incapable of good action or even willing good thoughts or deeds

Unconditional Election - God chooses some people to save because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, not because they did anything to deserve, trigger or accept it

Limited Atonement - Jesus died only to save the people God chose to save, not the rest of us bastards

Irresistible Grace - God chooses some people to be saved - if you didn’t want to be saved, too bad, God said so.

Perseverance of the Saints - People often forget this one and assume it’s ‘predestination’ but it’s actually this - basically, once saved by God, always saved, and if it looks like someone falls out of grace, they were never saved to begin with. Well that’s all sealed up tight I guess.

Reading through these, predestination isn’t a single doctrine in Calvinism but the entire theological underpinnings of it together with humanity’s utter powerlessness before sin. Basically God has all agency, humanity has none. Calvinism (and a lot of early modern Protestantism) is obsessed with questions of how God saves people (grace alone, AKA Sola Fides) and who God saves (the people god elects and only the people God elects, and fuck everyone else).

It’s apparent that Noelle was really taken by these questions, and repelled by the answers he heard. He’s alluded to having a tattoo refuting the Gospel passage about Sheep and Goats being sorted at the end times, affirming instead that ‘we’re all just a bunch of wooly guys’ (you can see this goat tattoo in some of his self-portraits in comics, etc). He’s also mentioned that rejecting and subverting destiny is a huge part of everything he writes as a particular rejection of the idea that some individual people are 'chosen' by God or that God has a plan for any of us. You can see that -so clearly- in Adora’s arc, where Adora embraces and then rejects destiny time and again and finally learns to live life for herself.

But for Catra, we’re much more concerned about the most negative aspect of this - the idea that some people are vessels meant for destruction. And that’s something else that Noelle is preoccupied with. In her memoir in the section about leaving the church and becoming a humanistic atheist, there is a drawing of a pot and the question ‘Am I a vessel prepared for destruction?’ Obviously this was on Noelle’s mind (And this is before he came out to himself as queer!).

To look at how this question plays out in Catra’s entire arc, let’s first talk about how ideas of damnation and salvation actually play out in society. And for that I’m going to plug one of my favorite books, Gin Lun’s Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (if you can tell by now, I am a fucking blast at parties). Lun tells the long and very interesting story about, how ideas of hell and who went there changed during the Early American Republic. One of the interesting developments that she talks about is how while at first people who were repelled by Calvinism started moving toward a doctrine of universal salvation (no on goes to hell, at least not forever*), eventually they decided that hell was fine as long as only the right kind of people went there. Mostly The Other - non-Christian foreigners, Catholics, Atheists, people who were sinners in ways that were not just bad but weird and violated Victorian ideas of respectability. Really, Hell became a way of othering people, and arguably that’s how it survives today, especially as a way to other queer people (but expanding this is slated for my Montero rant). Now while a lot of people were consciously rejecting Calvinist predestination, they were still drawing the distinction between the Elect (good, saved, worthwhile) and the everyone else (bad, damned, worthless). I would argue that secularized ideas of this survive to this day even among non-Christian spaces in our society - we like to draw lines between those who Elect, and those who aren’t.

And that’s what brings us back to Catra. Because Catra’s entire arc is a refutation of the idea that some people are worthless and irredeemable, either by nature, nurture or their own actions. Catra’s actions strain the conventions of who is sympathetic in a Kid’s cartoon - I’ve half joked that she’s Walter White as a cat girl, and it’s only half a joke. She’s cruel, self-deluded, she spends 4 seasons refusing to take responsibility for anything she does and until Season 5 she just about always chooses the thing that does the most damage to herself and others. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, the show goes out of its way to demonstrate that Catra is morally culpable in every step of her descent into evil (except maybe her break with reality just before she pulls the lever). The way that Catra personally betrays everyone around her, the way she strips herself of all of her better qualities and most of what makes her human, hell even her costume changes would signal in any other show that she’s irredeemable.

It’s tempting to see this as Noelle’s version of being edgy - pushing the boundaries of what a sympathetic character is, throwing out antiheroics in favor of just making the villain a protagonist. Noelle isn’t quite Alex ‘I am in the business of traumatizing children’ Hirsch, who seems to have viewed his job as pushing the bounds of what you could show on the Disney Channel (I saw Gravity Falls as an adult and a bunch of that shit lives rent free in my nightmares forever), but Noelle has his own dark side, mostly thematically. The show’s willingness to deal with abuse, and messed up religious themes, and volatile, passionate, not particularly healthy relationships feels pretty daring. I’m not joking when I gleefully recommend this show to friends as ‘a couple from a Mountain Goats Song fights for four seasons in a cartoon intended for 9 year olds’. Noelle is in his own way pushing the boundaries of what a kids show can do. If you read Noelle’s other works like Nimona, you see an argument for Noelle being at least a bit edgy. Nimona is also angry, gleefully destructive, violent and spiteful - not unlike Catra. Given that it was a 2010s webcomic and not a kids show, Nimona is a good deal worse than Catra in some ways - Catra doesn’t kill people on screen, while Nimona laughs about it (that was just like, a webcomic thing - one of the fan favorite characters in my personal favorite, Narbonic, was a fucking sociopath, and the heroes were all amoral mad scientists, except for the superintelligent gerbil**). But unlike Nimona, whose fate is left open ended, Catra is redeemed.

And that is weird. We’ve had redemption arcs, but generally not of characters with -so- much vile stuff in their history. Going back to the comparison between her and Azula, many other shows, like Avatar, would have made Catra a semi-sympathetic villain who has a sob-story in their origin but who is beyond redemption, and in so doing would articulate a kind of psychologized Calvinism where some people are too traumatized to ever be fully and truly human. I’d argue this is the problem with Azula as a character - she’s a fun villain, but she doesn’t have moral agency, and the ultimate message of her arc - that she’s a broken person destined only to hurt people - is actually pretty fucked up. And that’s the origin story of so many serial killers and psycopaths that populate so many TV shows and movies. Beyond ‘hurt people hurt people’ they have nothing to teach us except perhaps that trauma makes you a monster and that the only possible response to people doing bad things is to cut them out of your life and out of our society (and that’s why we have prisons, right?)

And so Catra’s redemption and the depths from which she claws herself back goes back to Noelle’s desire to prove that no person is a vessel ‘fitted for destruction.’ Catra goes about as far down the path of evil as we’ve ever seen a protagonist in a kids show go, and she still has the capacity for good. Importantly, she is not subject to total depravity - she is capable of a good act, if only one at first. Catra is the one who begins her own redemption (unlike in Calvinism, where grace is unearned and even unwelcomed) - because she wants something better than what she has, even if its too late, because she realizes that she never wanted any of this anyway, because she wants to do one good thing once in her life even if it kills her.

The very extremity of Catra’s descent into villainy serves to underline the point that Noelle is trying to make - that no one can be written off completely, that everyone is capable of change, and that no human being is garbage, no matter how twisted they’ve become. Meanwhile her ability to set her own redemption in motion is a powerful statement of human agency, and healing, and a refutation of Calvinism’s idea that we are powerless before sin or pop cultural tropes about us being powerful before the traumas of our upbringing. Catra’s arc, then, is a kind of anti-Calvinist theological statement - about the nature of people and the nature of goodness.

Now, there is a darker side to this that Noelle has only hinted at, but which is suggested by other characters on the show. Because while Catra’s redemption shows that people are capable of change, even when they’ve done horrible things, been fucked up and fucked themselves up, it also illustrates the things people do to themselves that make change hard. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, two of the most sinister parts of her descent into villainy are her self-dehumanization (crushing her own compassion and desire to do good) and her rewriting of her own history in her speech and memory to make her own actions seem justified (which we see with her insistence that Adora left her, eliding Adora’s offers to have Catra join her, or her even more clearly false insistence that Entrapta had betrayed them). In Catra, these processes keep her going down the path of evil, and allow her to nearly destroy herself and everyone else. But we can see the same processes at work in two much darker figures - Shadow Weaver and Horde Prime. These are both rants for another day, but the completeness of Shadow Weaver’s narcissistic self-justification and cultivated callousness and the even more complete narcissism of Prime’s god complex cut both characters off from everyone around them. Perhaps, in a theoretical sense, they are still redeemable, but for narrative purposes they might as well be damned.

This willingness to show a case where someone -isn’t- redeemed actually serves to make Catra’s redemption more believable, especially since Noelle and the writers draw the distinction between how Catra and SW/Prime can relate to reality and other people, not how broken they are by their trauma (unlike Zuko and Azula, who are differentiated by How Fucked Uolp They Are). Redemption is there, it’s an option, we can always do what is right, but someone people will choose not to, in part because doing the right thing involves opening ourselves to the world and others, and thus being vulnerable. Noelle mentions this offhandedly in an interview after Season 1 with the She-Ra Progressive of Power podcast - “I sometimes think that shades of grey, sympathetic villains are part of the escapist fantasy of shows like this.” Because in the real world, some people are just bastards, a point that was particularly clear in 2017. Prime and Shadow Weaver admit this reality, while Catra makes a philosophical point that even the bastards can change their ways (at least in theory).

*An idea first proposed in the second century by Origen, who’s a trip and a fucking half by himself, and an idea that becomes the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which protestants vehemently denied!

**Speaking of favorite Noelle tropes

[illuminatedquill]

Extracurricular, An Analysis

Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as it’s accomplice.”  - Tom Robbins 

You know the story. You’ve heard it before, right? 

Boy meets girl. 

Girl finds out that boy is running a side protection business for prostitutes. 

Girl decides to blackmail boy into letting her join his business. 

Classic high school criminal shenanigans ensue leading them into more dangerous situations where they are forced to make desperate decisions to stay alive. 

Oh, and they fall in love along the way. 

Oh? You haven’t heard this one before? Then let me introduce you to this delightful kdrama called Extracurricular. 

I watched this one while waiting for the newest Hometown Cha Cha Cha episodes to drop and ended up binging the whole series in two days. There are many remarkable parts of this series: it’s a crime drama, first and foremost, that showcases high school teenagers caught in a cycle of violence and crime, abandoned by the society and adults that are supposed to be protecting them. There are no clear good guys and bad guys in this drama; everyone is cast in shades of grey. Our main leads, Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri, run the prostitution business, and are both from broken family backgrounds. Their actions are morally questionable at best, but the top tier performances from Kim Dong Hee (you might remember him from Itaewon Class) and Park Ju Hyun make you cheer for them anyway. You want them to have a happy ending, despite the horrible things they do. The audience is always reminded that despite how clever they are in staying ahead, their actions have consequences, and they’re just high school kids. The drama never pulls it punches. 

But, weirdly enough, it’s also a love story. And that’s the part the really sticks with me until now. (The chemistry between the main leads is absolute dynamite and I could watch ten episodes of them just verbally sparring with each other. They don’t even kiss. They’re that fantastic when together on screen.)

I’m writing this because this is undoubtedly one of my all time favorite kdramas and I have a lot of feelings about our main pairing, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri. I can’t call them a couple (wait, didn’t I just say they fall in love) because their relationship can’t be labelled simply as that. Think of it as something similar to the main leads in My Ahjussi. Two people who should have become soulmates, yet met at the wrong time. 

This kdrama is not particularly happy, and while I do encourage people to watch this, I am warning that the subject matter is extremely dark. If you’re sensitive to scenes depicting sexual assault, graphic violence, or anything in that zip code you’ll want to steer clear. 

Also, I’ll be diving into spoiler territory in this analysis. So if you want to go in clean, then stop reading here. 

Still here? Awesome. Let’s dive deep into the messy, amazing pairing that is Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri. First, let’s do a brief character background on our two main leads, starting with Ji-soo. 

Oh Ji-soo is one half of our main pairing and this story starts with him. He lives by himself and has been essentially abandoned by his only parents; his father is a failed businessman who gambles whatever money he acquires on scams and his mother ran away. His apartment is small, sparse, but functional. He owns only a few outfits aside from his school uniform. The only unique item he owns is a pet hermit crab that he takes care of. His life outside of school is non-existent; he has no friends, no one to hang out with and do typical high school teenager activities with. He takes care of himself and lives only for himself and his “dream”: to graduate, attend college, get married, and have kids like a normal person. 

But to do that, he needs a large amount of money. He has no other financial means to do so (his father is largely absent, as is his mother), so he decides, at some point, to start up this protection business for prostitutes. The drama doesn’t go into detail about the how and why he came to this conclusion that this was the best way to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, so you’ll have to suspend your disbelief from the get go. Considering the themes of the story (how youths abandoned by society tend to act out in extreme ways to make it in this world), it’s not hard to believe his desperation would drive him to make such a decision. 

Ji-soo, despite his shady business, is actually a decent person. There’s a streak of humanity that exists inside him that refuses to go out, despite the increasingly dark and bleak events that start to overtake his life. He’s attached to his hermit crab, cares for his “employees” outside of them being tools to make him money, and doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt. He goes above and beyond what’s required to help out people at the risk of his own life (in particular, Gyu-ri, and we’ll get into that shortly). 

What we learn from the first few episodes is that Oh Ji-soo is extremely smart and methodical in how he approaches his life. At school, he is known as a model student - quiet, top of the class in terms of grades, doesn’t draw any attention to himself, always follows along with what the teachers ask of him. Only his homeroom teacher, Mr. Cho, seems to consider his quiet style of existence to be concerning and tries to make him less socially awkward by pairing him up with another student in a new extracurricular club. This leads to the introduction of Bae Gyu-ri, Ji-soo’s longtime crush and future partner-in-crime. 

Meet Bae Gyu-ri, the other half of our dynamic duo. Her introduction into the story kickstarts the entire plot, as one of her earliest actions leads to a domino effect that spells increasing doom and tragedy for our main leads. She messes with Ji-soo’s operation at a critical moment and she spends the rest of the drama doing her best to make up for the consequences that follow. 

In my personal opinion, she is probably the best main female lead I’ve ever seen in a kdrama. Hands down, no other character exists (currently) that rivals her sheer cunning, wit, and badassery. Gyu-ri is Crazy, capital C, and is the chaos to Ji-soo’s control; the fire to his ice. Despite being the direct cause of half the events that happen to Ji-soo in the drama, he can’t help but need her because of what she offers. They make an incredible team. Her competitiveness, her need to win no matter the odds, helps them survive time and time again. 

Gyu-ri is from the opposite end of the spectrum of Ji-soo; he’s dirt poor and she’s insanely rich (always nice to see a reversal of typical kdrama tropes). Her mother and father run a successful entertainment company. Gyu-ri is popular at school, friends with seemingly everybody, pretty, cheerful and gets along well with her teachers. Ji-soo, and the audience, believe from the beginning that she has the perfect life. It’s not hard to believe that she’s just involving herself in Ji-soo’s business because she’s bored and needs an outlet, at first. 

We soon learn otherwise. Gyu-ri has more in common with Ji-soo than he initially realizes, in that they’re both trapped in circumstances beyond their control - it’s just that Gyu-ri’s cage is gilded, whereas his is not. Her parents are strict and have her life planned out for her, all without her consent or input, leaving her feeling frustrated and powerless despite her rich lifestyle. A suicide attempt hasn’t done much to change her parents attitude towards her, only serving to further their control over her life. 

So, when she learns of Ji-soo’s operation she immediately seeks to angle her way into it. First, she tries to rip him off, believing that he’s an evil “pimp” and thus deserves it. But after spending some time with him, she changes her mind last second and decides to help him out instead. 

And, now, let’s get into their relationship, which is one of the best (if not the best) aspect in the entire series. 

I need to be upfront about something: the relationship between Ji-soo and Gyu-ri is not exactly healthy. I wouldn’t describe it as toxic - the circumstances surrounding them aren’t exactly the best environment to encourage open and honest communication - but it’s definitely not what should be considered ideal, especially for young adults, and especially for young adults who are dabbling in crime instead of studying. 

So, why do I love them so much? If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know that I loathe toxic relationships in kdramas, so I understand if you think I’m coming off as hypocritical here. Why do I like Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri when I didn’t like, for example from recent history, (oh boy, here I go again on my Nevertheless BS) Park Jae-eon and Yu Na-bi?

First, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are way cooler than Jae-eon and Na-bi ever could be. They run a criminal enterprise that involves having a high amount of intelligence, cunning, and daring to do so. Do Jae-eon and Na-bi run a criminal enterprise as a side business? No, they don’t, because they’re boring art students. 

Secondly, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri actually progress in their relationship and change their views as they learn from each other. Now, granted, that progress isn’t towards becoming better versions of each other - quite the opposite. But at least they have progress. Jae-eon and Na-bi stayed in the same stupid cycle for the whole series and then decided that it was better staying that way as opposed to trying for something else. 

Last, but certainly not least, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are actually interesting to watch for me. The chemistry between Park Ju Hyun and Kim Dong Hee is explosive and they way they spar, exchange looks, and just generally exist around each other on screen is something I can watch forever. I’ve said this before but Han So Hee and Song Kang’s on screen chemistry, outside of their intimate scenes, really didn’t impress me. 

Okay, back to Extracurricular. This relationship, man. It’s all I can think about (other than HomeCha’s Du-sik and Hye-jin, but that’s another post). Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are so good together. 

I’ve noted before that Ji-soo is methodical in how he approaches his life; he plans out everything ahead, and rigs any situation as much as he can in his favor. It’s brilliant, but when a crisis happens, he doesn’t know how to deal with it effectively. He panics and flounders; becomes indecisive at a time when clear, decisive action is required. 

Enter Gyu-ri. She quickly becomes the partner he never knew he needed. When there’s a situation, she becomes invaluable in her quick thinking and wit, coming up with solutions on the fly. It’s not perfect, but it keeps them just one small step ahead of whatever is coming their way. 

The only thing preventing them from becoming unstoppable is the lack of communication and trust they have with each other. A lot of that has to do with how Gyu-ri entered Ji-soo’s business - she blackmailed him first, and, when that failed, she strong armed her way into getting him to accept her help. It’s implied in the drama that Ji-soo has had a crush on Gyu-ri for a while (since ninth grade, I believe) and in the first episode he actually gets the chance to spend time with her outside of school on a sort of quasi-date. 

It goes sideways pretty quickly because of some shenanigans from his business, but not before she gets to know him and says some pretty touching words regarding his situation. Poor guy is head over heels - even after finding out that she’s the one blackmailing him, his feelings are only dampened, not extinguished. When he catches a glimpse of her family’s situation, he gains a deeper understanding of her and why she acts the way she does. Even more importantly, Ji-soo treats her the same after finding out this information which, to someone like Gyu-ri, means more than if he comforted her about it. 

If you want to see a physical representation of how he feels, other than paying attention to his actions, you can see it in him keeping mementos from Gyu-ri. She has an interesting habit of folding bags into origami shapes and giving it to him. Even after the blackmail reveal, you can see that he continues to keep these in a container on his desk. It’s really cute that he keeps these, when it probably doesn’t even matter that much to Gyu-ri. 

Towards the end of the drama, Ji-soo prepares to turn himself in to prevent Gyu-ri from being implicated in the crimes they committed. And it costs him almost everything to protect her. Ji-soo, the quiet, nerdy kid, puts himself on the line time and time again to protect Gyu-ri, knowing that it puts his life and his dream at risk to do so. And all for what? For some girl that he thinks doesn’t even like him in return? 

Well, let’s talk about that. Because I’ve seen some comments that Gyu-ri was only using Ji-soo for her own selfish gain. And I can agree that was how it was at the beginning for her; she definitely was only interested in acquiring money, like Ji-soo was, in order to achieve her own goal of being free from her parents. 

But, oh man, that is not what is motivating her at the end. 

It’s actually pointed out relatively early by some of her friends that it’s obvious that she likes Ji-soo more than he likes her. Understandably Ji-soo is keeping her at arms length from him given the whole recent blackmailing, so it would make sense that it looks that way. 

Further questioning reveals what she likes the most about him: 

“It’s not like I’m crazy about him. He’s fun. And amusing. He’s smart. And there’s a certain charm he has. He also has a wolfish side to him. But he thinks he’s a puppy.” 

- Bae Gyu-ri

But, as she gets to know Ji-soo better, you can certainly see that she starts to fall hard for him. As a cover story for why they hang out so much together during and after school, Gyu-ri states to everyone that they’re dating. The reactions across the school definitely imply that this is a shocking development, which means that Gyu-ri hasn’t dated anyone before. So why Ji-soo other than the reasons she herself states? 

He challenges her, just as she challenges him. Gyu-ri may be the more dynamic, quick thinking of the pair but Ji-soo is every inch her intellectual equal - just in different ways. She doesn’t seem to be the type to be easily impressed, but you can tell that she’s definitely impressed by Ji-soo’s operation and how thoroughly set up it is. When Ji-soo is frustrated at the beginning by his setbacks, he blows up at another student (knocks him out in a crazy punch) and immediately walks over to Gyu-ri afterwards (who saw the whole thing) to inform her that she is now his partner in crime. 

The look in her eyes, and the small smirk she has speaks volumes about her attraction to him in that scene. Smoldering. 

And, oh yes, she’s prone to jealousy. Another classmate, Min-hee, gives Ji-soo a present out of the blue (it was supposed to be for her boyfriend, Ki-tae, but that’s another sub-plot) - all within view of Gyu-ri. It’s hilarious how she tries to brush it off. Later, for plot reasons, Ji-soo has to spend more time with Min-hee which only furthers Gyu-ri’s annoyance. 

And her motivations stop being entirely about the money and more towards helping preserve the dream that she and Ji-soo share about being free. There’s a scene in episode 8 where it’s revealed that, due to a business partnership with a local gang (set up by none other than Gyu-ri herself in a desperate move), Ji-soo would have to drop out of school permanently to work on their behalf. Gyu-ri overhears this and, despite badly needing the gang’s help in sustaining their own business, immediately terminates the partnership. 

All because it would interfere with Ji-soo’s dream. 

Man, if that isn’t love. 

In the following episode, Gyu-ri, and later on Ji-soo, is kidnapped by the same gang in retaliation for terminating their partnership. Ji-soo comes to her rescue but Gyu-ri is already almost free (again, she’s really, really badass) and is demanding that they bring Ji-soo to her instead of running for her life. 

Surviving this latest attempt puts the two in a reflective, vulnerable mood and Gyu-ri asks Ji-soo why he keeps saving her. Ji-soo asks later on why she keeps risking her life to be with him. They don’t say the answer in words but in an almost kiss (yeah, you read that right - almost). 

And then, if you aren’t already convinced, Ji-soo crosses his one last remaining line in an effort to keep Gyu-ri safe; he accidentally pushes a fellow classmate down some steps and, instead of helping her, leaves her to die after grabbing the evidence she has on him and Gyu-ri. 

Extracurricular pulls off quite the magic trick here, hiding this well done love story in the middle of a serious crime drama. 

The real tragedy is that Ji-soo thinks that Gyu-ri views this whole business, and by extension his life, as one big game. It’s something that she takes offense at, visibly becoming upset when he says that. 

But even if that were true, he should be assured since Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose. 

As they hurtle towards the end and face up to the consequences of their actions, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri undoubtedly lose sight of their original goals and dreams. They do some fairly horrible things to stay alive and ahead of the police who are close on their trail. You can’t really blame them for doing what they did; in the face of a society that has abandoned them, what they’re doing is a logical outcome to gain what they want so desperately and deserve so much: the chance to be free to live like normal, care-free people. 

I can’t say for certain that they achieve that. The drama is serious in consequences and, at the end, the net around them is drawing tighter and tighter. I won’t spoil the ending scene for you, because I highly encourage you watch this drama yourself but I will say this: Ji-soo and Gyu-ri seem stuck in an impossible situation with nowhere to go, and no one to help them, with a clock ticking down towards either death or discovery by the police. 

But, all the same, I’m always the optimist. They’ve gotten through situations like this before and they can certainly do so again. Maybe not as bad as this one, but not too far out of their league. And, like I mentioned before, Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose. Especially when it comes to Ji-soo. 

Their relationship is truly dangerous, as Ji-soo himself notes. Them being together is the source of their problems; they’re too much alike now, as opposed to the beginning of the drama where he stated that they’re too different. Their love is the kind of love where both of them are willing to burn the whole world down if it means keeping each other safe. 

I’m a real sucker for those kind of love stories. No one’s a hero here. They’re just kids in high school, doing the best with what they know. 

Who are we to judge what is right and wrong? Especially when the one committing the acts are high school kids who don’t know any better and just want to save each other? 

Do we have that right? 

Do they really deserve that punishment? Shouldn’t we be pointing fingers at the society that forced them to act this way? 

Extracurricular really makes you think about that. Is it really so outlandish and terrible what Ji-soo and Gyu-ri do to survive when the adults who are supposed to be protecting them, teaching them better, have failed in their duty? 

Maybe they really did win at the end. Not so much in succeeding in their goals but in gaining something that not even regular people are likely to find - a partner, a soulmate, someone who will stand by you no matter what. 

If you do watch the ending, and are not an optimist like I am, then all I can say is this: whatever happened, they were together at the end. 

They were together. 

[impalementation]

spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 4

part 1: “When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons

part 2: “Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id

part 3: “Something effulgent”: Season five and the construction of Spike the romantic

* 

“But I can’t fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason.”: Buffy and Spike as a blended self

Before I get into seasons six and seven, it’s worth asking: why would the show do all of this? Why would it spend all of this time developing a supporting villain and joke id character? Why would it give him a romantic arc? I see people say that the writers only gave Spike these storylines because he was popular or they wanted to keep him around, but even that being the case, there was no need to give him the specific arc that they did. It’s more than possible to read meaning into the story that they chose from the array of possible options. 

Here is the thing about the id. It’s not actually something separate from you. It’s not a ravenous monster you can blame your weaknesses on while remaining pure and dignified. The id is part of you. The immediate and enduring appeal of Spike is, I suspect, strongly influenced by the fact that the things the id wants are so very human and sympathetic. His foibles and mistakes are often painfully familiar, even exaggerated through vampirism as they are. In fact, it’s precisely because Spike is allowed to show a full range of reactions to love, because the writing is under less pressure for him to do the “right” or dignified thing, that he can at times be compelling in ways other characters can’t. If Spike just did nasty things, his appeal wouldn’t be much more complicated than the appeal of Angelus, who people tend to like as a villain or storyline rather than as a relatable character. But Spike doesn’t want to dismember nuns or construct elaborate murder tableaux. He wants familiar things like love, identity and meaning, even if the ways he goes about getting them can reflect people’s worst impulses. 

Which brings us to Buffy, and Buffy’s story about growing up. Buffy is Buffy’s show, which means that every writing choice tends to revolve around her arc in one way or another. And this goes for Spike’s storyline even more than most. In the final three seasons of the show, the writing finally engages with how inextricable the id--and all of its impulsive, inarticulate romantic desires--really is from a person’s self. So instead of keeping Spike at a comfortable distance, both Buffy and the writing begin to take him seriously. They begin to invite him in.

Starting in season five, it’s telling how frequently Buffy herself projects on Spike, rather than just the writing setting them up as mirrors. She tells him that he’s the “only one strong enough” to protect her family, and later assigns Dawn specifically to his protection. In “Spiral” she describes him as “the only one besides me that has any chance of protecting Dawn.” This is a very intimate role that she otherwise only assigns to herself (and which is not really based on pure practicality, considering that she’ll later describe Willow as her “big gun”--yet never gives Willow the task of protecting Dawn). She tells him that he cannot love, which is the thing she fears most about herself. Her protests that Spike is a vampire, and thus cannot express or want human things like love, mirror her lamentations that as the Slayer, she cannot have a normal life.

From the Gilliland Gothic double essay:

More than any of her other lovers, Buffy and Spike overlap one another so often that at times their character arcs become nearly indistinguishable. With Angel, Buffy traveled a parallel path in attempting to master self-control. With Riley, her journey ultimately took her in the opposite direction. With Spike, Buffy’s journey is most closely shadowed, in that her interactions with him in many ways can be seen as metaphors for her feelings about herself.

So now Spike is multiple things. On the one hand, he’s the soulless id he’s been since season two. His vampiric behavior represents a morally uninhibited way of reacting to romantic frustrations, among other things. But on the other hand, his vampirism now also marks him as like Buffy, not merely her opposite.* Nor is he only her mirror in the realm of romantic love. The part of him that is a vampire is the part of him that is supernatural (ie, Romantically larger-than-life), that sets him apart from regular people, and dictates how he can and cannot behave. Just like Buffy’s slayerness. His vampirism is what makes him capable of protecting Dawn, while also making him (supposedly, according to Buffy) incapable of human feeling--again, just like Buffy’s slayerness. Instead of Buffy’s Slayer side being aligned with Angelus, who was an unmitigated evil, it becomes aligned with Spike, who is something more complicated. 

*(Though it must be noted that this was a process that began in season four, with the show aligning Spike with the Scoobies by making him a victim of the Initiative. Spike being supernatural suddenly marks him as non-normative, just like the Scoobies, in contrast to the institutional conformity that the Initiative represents. The evolution towards treating the Romantic supernatural as something positive and associated with identity plays a key role in transitioning the show to the more complicated attitudes of the last three seasons.)

This shift in the show’s attitudes towards the id affects how Spike is used. In “Blood Ties” for example, Spike assists Dawn in breaking into the Magic Shop and in “Forever” he helps Dawn resurrect her and Buffy’s mother. In both cases, Spike could be read as embodying impulsive behavior that Buffy is supposed to be better than. Yet both cases specifically involve Spike helping Dawn, who is repeatedly portrayed as Buffy’s human side. As Buffy says in “The Gift”: “[Dawn]’s more than [my sister]. She’s me. The monks made her out of me. [...] Dawn is a part of me. The only part that I--”. In other words, Buffy’s id becomes closely tied to her humanity, even going so far as to become its safeguard. “Blood Ties” ends with Buffy affirming her connection to Dawn, which Spike’s rule-breaking directly enabled, and “Forever” ends with Buffy acknowledging how desperately she wants her mother back too, and becoming closer to Dawn as a result. (Compare to “Lovers Walk”, where Buffy acknowledging her id results in her breaking away from Angel, not drawing closer to anyone). Or in “Intervention”, Spike building the Buffybot directly parallels Buffy’s own anxieties about what she thinks she should be. She thinks she’s losing her ability to love, and that effusive fakery is her only recourse (as she said in “I Was Made to Love You”: “Maybe I could change. [...] I could spend less time slaying, I could laugh at his jokes. I mean men like that right? The joke laughing at?”), a fear that even has some merit, given that her friends cannot tell her and the bot apart. Instead of Buffy and Spike having separate arcs in the episode, Spike learning the difference between real and fake dovetails with Buffy’s own relationship to her realness and fakeness. It turns out that neither of them want a bot version of Buffy. They want real emotion, things like sacrifice and heartfelt gratitude. If even Buffy’s id would let itself be killed for Dawn, then maybe she has nothing to fear from herself. Maybe there is some beauty in the emotional part of her nature that she thinks she must repress.

In other words, part of the writing (and Buffy) fully engaging with romanticism and the id, means engaging with the ways they can be bad and good. There’s this weird thing that happens with Spike as soon as he falls in love with Buffy, where suddenly his actions are more uncomfortable, and to many, off-putting, because their object is Buffy (instead of another vampire like Harmony or Drusilla, who either enjoy the same vampiric things he does, or the audience might be inclined to see as a moral nonentity regardless). His comic id quality becomes somewhat darker and more serious, almost like the way Angel’s early season two darkness becomes more serious after he loses his soul. But at the same time, Spike’s actions are also more intriguing, sympathetic, and even noble...because their object is Buffy. It makes no sense that a soulless vampire should not only fall in love with the Slayer, but genuinely attempt to transform himself into someone worthy of her love. And yet that’s exactly what Buffy inspires him to do. By loving Buffy Spike’s dual nature, and the dual nature of his romanticism, is thrown into relief: it’s something that can be selfish and creepy, yes, but also something that hints at the idea that real romanticism does exist. Something worth feeling romantically about does exist. Thus the writing can at once criticize, say, the way the chivalric mindset conflates love and suffering, while also suggesting that there are kinds of love it’s worth being transformed by. (Meanwhile, Spike’s fumbling bewilderment over how to love Buffy, and what the rules of loving people correctly even are, creates a human middle ground between monstrousness and heroism). By leaning into the way that Buffy and Spike have been used as mirrors for three seasons, and introducing the mythology-bending idea of Spike being in love with Buffy, the writing is able to fully engage with this complicated, contradictory nature of love and romance.

All of which is to say. Spike becomes a potential love interest, and is given a convoluted inner conflict between monstrousness, humanity and heroism, in precisely the season in which Buffy begins to reckon with her own inner conflict between her darker impulses, her human reality, and her supernatural role. It’s no coincidence that season five opens with Dracula, an icon of romantic vampire mythology, tempting Buffy with darkness and promising her insight into her nature. Or that a vampire kidnaps Dawn--again, her human half--in the next episode. Or that the season’s antagonist is a super-strong blonde woman who wants to destroy Dawn instead of protect her. Or that she says goodbye to Riley, the boyfriend who embodied her hopes for a more normative way of being (notice how Riley is progressively destabilized by everything non-normative about Buffy’s life, and provokes those anxieties Buffy expresses in “I Was Made to Love You”). Over and over in season five, Buffy fears that her Slayer half is cold, destructive, and otherwise dangerous. That these Romantic things like gods and vampires have it in for Buffy’s vulnerable humanity. Yet Buffy’s vampire id simultaneously gives lie to these fears by proving itself capable of heroism and genuine human feeling.

In other words, Spike becomes a potential love interest in a season that treats the Romantic--ie the grand and mythical--as something more than just an attractive lie to be disabused of. Rather, the question that season five seems to posit to me, and which will not be fully answered until the end of season seven, is this: once you do clear away the attractive lies, once you accept the hard realities, once you’ve seen the darkest underbellies, what are the things that are left that are truly grand and beautiful? What are the stories that are really worth telling, and the heroes that are really worth having?

And the show asks and answers these questions on both a very personal level, and a more meta, systemic level. On the personal level, Buffy and Spike are forced to confront their illusions not just about the world, but about themselves. They are made to ask themselves what constitutes a heroic role or a demonic weakness, versus basic, unromantic humanity. And on the meta level, the show asks questions about our expectations for how both love stories and chosen hero stories are supposed to go.

part 5: “Everything used to be so clear”: Season six and the agony of the real

[mc-lukanette]

42 More Lukanette Thoughts

Marinette making a lucky charm bracelet for Luka, but being afraid to give it to him since Adrien also has one and she doesn’t want Luka thinking that he’s just a replacement for Adrien. Luka finds the gift eventually and naturally does not think that at all.

Luka being a morning person (or at least more of one than Marinette) so he helps Marinette’s sleep schedule by calling her to wake her up in the morning. This also leads to late-night calls between them where they both check if the other is sleeping at the right time (which can lead to either good or bad things; good because they’re checking on each other, bad because they clearly don’t have self-control and might just keep each other up).

Luka ends up hurting one of his hands and proceeds to avoid Marinette, knowing that his lack of ability to play music might affect him emotionally. He doesn’t want her to see him vulnerable. Marinette inevitably figures it out and frets over him while also thinking up ways to help him out.

Marinette being miserable every time she hears the ballroom music that she used to associate with her (former) love for Adrien. She was with Luka once and he got to witness her shouting angrily at the speakers playing the music that she has a boyfriend who is NOT Adrien and she doesn’t appreciate this reminder of Adrien’s existence.

Marinette struggling to confess to Luka, but then having no problem rambling off praises for him to other people.

Marinette tries on Luka’s highlights once and surprises Luka with it. He’s so caught off-guard that he reaches up and touches/feels her hair himself, earning a blush out of Marinette. Now she has to try his looks more so he’ll initiate physical contact more.

Luka getting his own version of “Copycat” (not him being jealous, but just an akuma who’s out to make him look bad). The name? Lukalike.

AU where Marinette isn’t technically into Adrien, but has been brought up/grew up to plan and schedule for the future to an obsessive degree (in line with all her scheduling in canon). She actually wasn’t romantically in love with Adrien but saw him as a viable option and he was “already in her plans” by the time Luka showed up. Marinette cut Luka off in a panic after realizing she was in love with him, but realizes her mistake later on and absolutely drops an emotional bomb on him when she reveals that she returned his feelings this whole time and had to get over her obsession for planning/organization first..

Luka still being the calm, collected individual he is, but he’s actually really excitable and “loud” over text. Marinette learns that after they exchange numbers and it’s adorable.

Vagabond (Homeless) Luka who travels all around, playing music for people. Marinette loves his music and will happily walk around to find him playing, even if she’s crunched for time. He provides lots of inspiration for her though it sure is weird how long he’s been around??? what could he possibly be sticking around for? (bonus if he sticks around so long that it leads into winter and obviously she’s not letting him stay outside)

Luka and Marinette meeting as Viperion and Ladybug, falling for each other, and they want to date but they also don’t want people to know so cue superhero dating.

AU where Juleka either wasn’t born or she and Luka simply didn’t grow up together, so Luka didn’t have to grow into the “big brother” type. He’s also bad with physical contact, as his mother isn’t a very physically-affectionate person, so he seeks out a way to be better with being touched. In comes Marinette and she happily offers to get him used to physical contact. Bonus if she starts feeling jealous at the idea of him eventually being able to touch other people and Double Bonus if she just ends up being the exception more than anything else and they’re both okay with that.

Pre-dating, Luka and Marinette knowing full well what they do to each other and going out of their way to make the other blush.

“Felix” divergence where it turns out that Marinette was still pursuing Adrien because she was convinced that Luka wasn’t actually crushing on her (thought it was her overthinking/hoping for too much because she “is used to being disappointed” by now, plus the fact that he confessed and then walked away without saying a word), but she realizes that he is when he makes the comment about “being there for her.” She explains it to him in relief and Luka’s heart is sent on a ride because he was convinced that she didn’t feel that way about him. Bonus if now Marinette is panicking about the video and will later be glad that it didn’t go through.

Sass “challenging” Marinette and teasingly saying that he’ll take Luka if she doesn’t want him. Cue Marinette being very jealous of Sass hanging around Luka all the time and she eventually gets fed up to the point of confessing to Luka outright, then being all smug to Sass who had planned this from the beginning so he’s not complaining.

Rose gets a cold, so Luka temporarily takes over as Kitty Section’s singer for practice. Marinette isn’t ready.

Childhood Friends AU where Marinette grows up believing that Luka and Juleka must have the same romantic orientation because they’re twins and she doesn’t know how orientations works. Thus, clearly Luka is gay which means that he doesn’t return her feelings obviously (she’s very wrong).

Marinette wanting a song to replace the ballroom music she remembers when she was still crushing on Adrien, so she non-subtly tries to find a song that Luka would like that they could slow dance to (either pre or post dating).

Post-battle, Viperion asking Ladybug if it���s okay for him to hang onto the snake miraculous for a little longer, then going on to explain that Marinette, a friend of his, seemed really sad that day and he figured it’d help to be visited by a hero. (Ladybug is screaming internally because she knows that she’s not supposed to let them keep them any longer than the battle but his request is so pure and sweet and he’s doing it for her--)

Viperion setting up for Second Chance. During the battle, he and Ladybug end up bonding and/or kissing, but Viperion ends up needing to go back, thus erasing it from the timeline. However, while Ladybug doesn’t seem to remember the specifics or what happened, she seems to have vague feelings that he used Second Chance and even touches her lips at one point with a thoughtful look.

Marinette learning how to do her own make-up to try and look closer to the age that Luka looks. She very much doesn’t need it to impress him/make him think that she’s pretty..

Marinette getting into bouts of being extremely lame and romantic, like texting Luka things like, “I was just thinking about you,” and then regretting it when he responds with something equally lame with no hesitation.

Fu being okay with Luka knowing Ladybug’s identity, as Luka is someone who keeps to himself, is able to keep a secret, and actively supports Marinette.

One day, Marinette accidentally catches Luka working on a love song that’s clearly written for her. He’s embarrassed for once, partly because he’d never intended for her to hear it, but she assures him that it’s okay and she’d like to hear the full thing. She shows up occasionally to listen to his progress, Luka suspecting nothing, then cut to when the full song is done and she ends up singing it alongside him without warning, essentially confessing back to him.

Event where Marinette is put in charge of selling custom-made “Ladybug Fan” and “Chat Noir Fan” T-shirts. And then in comes Luka with a white shirt and a shoddily-but-lovingly-written “Marinette Fan” on it (bonus if he tried to draw her pink flowers).

Marinette drawing something for Adrien in her sketchbook and keeps abandoning it to spend time with/visit Luka (a metaphor for her slowly getting over Adrien and falling for Luka instead). She’ll end up making something for Luka instead in the end.

At some point in adulthood, Marinette admitting to Luka that she’s been crushing on him for a long time, but was afraid of saying anything. Luka assures her that there’s still a place in his heart, but Marinette needs time to accept that (out of guilt and being convinced for so long that he’d never forgive her) and/or Luka needs time to really confirm to himself that she means it (not that he doesn’t believe her but he’s thought for so long that she didn’t like him that way). Cue awkward dorks slowly working their way into a relationship with hand touches, cheek kisses, and finally the full acceptance that they’re willing to forget about what they thought before and just love each other.

Luka and Marinette being married with kids. Whenever Marinette has to let Luka sleep, he’ll wake up later but with their kids telling him that she told them to tell him that she loves him (she also might’ve skipped breakfast because she doesn’t like having it without him and Luka will definitely be going to meet with her for lunch, complete with kisses for giving him so many feels in the morning).

someone: Marinette, don’t hide your face in your hands. [Marinette proceeds to use Luka’s hands to hide her face instead]

Marinette and Luka, having never met, being in a pet store and buying a pet mouse and snake respectively. Unexpectedly, the two pets escape from them at some point before they leave the store, and after frantically searching, they find the mouse and snake next to each other and actually seeming to get along as if they’re friends. The store owner confirms that the two animals frequently escape to see each other and they have no idea why, but Luka and Marinette acknowledge it and decide to exchange addresses so their pets can still see each other. Meeting up “just for the sake of their pets” quickly becomes an excuse.

Luka is definitely the type who wouldn’t wash off Marinette’s lipstick kisses for the longest time. Marinette ends up having to clean them off herself (which really just encourages him not to do it himself more).

Likewise, Marinette forgot her gloves once while it was cold and Luka warmed her hands for her, so she continued “forgetting them” after that.

Luka and Marinette end up getting a pet and Marinette struggling between finding Luka playing with their pet adorable and being extremely jealous because now the pet is stealing her Luka time.

Post-dating, Marinette having self-esteem issues over being as short as she is (maybe having gotten rude comments from models before). She keeps trying to kiss Luka from above and insisting on being the big spoon.

Kitty Section getting a singing game and Luka getting to hear Marinette singing for the first time. Now he has to hear it so much more. Bonus if their voices blend well together when they sing together.

Marinette wanting to give Luka promise ring but being convinced that he’d hate it because he “already has so many accessories” (as if Luka wouldn’t enthusiastically wear anything she gives him).

Luka being an exhausted rock star who flees from paparazzi and his fans. Marinette ends up seeing him and letting him hide in her house, being a huge fan of him but not getting to star-struck levels since she grew up with a famous model friend and knowing celebrities. She allows Luka to hide at her place whenever he wants and eventually worries about him seeing her as “just like his fans” when she realizes that she’s crushing on him.

Marinette breaking up with Adrien in adulthood, which starts a lot of rumors from people about how Marinette will just turn down any guy she sees because who in the right mind would break up with the sunshine model??? Then, cue Luka (who may or may not have met Marinette yet) coming in and seeing all the distance people make from Marinette (and not getting it), so he happily approaches her and strikes up a conversation because he doesn’t care about rumors or anything like that.

Marinette getting a two-seater bike for Luka and trying to be subtle about it like

Alya doing a scheme by inventing some sort of game where someone gets chosen and has to shout out the person they love because, “Girl, you blurt things out all the time! You’ll totally say Adrien’s name,” and then Marinette blurts out Luka’s name because she loves him and not Adrien, shocking everyone.

If Marinette and Luka (i.e: the “thinkers” of the hero group) were akumatized together, Paris - no, the world - would be officially screwed.

Fashion Designer Marinette and Rock Star Luka. Marinette has been trying to confess to Luka for a while, but things usually go wrong or the timing is always off. She finally says “screw it” to subtlety, and waits for them to have an interview together (as Luka wears Marinette’s clothes constantly and they’re best friends), then unzips her jacket to “get comfortable” while they’re sitting next to each other, revealing an, “I Love Luka Couffaine (yes, romantically),” shirt. The interviewer and audience notice immediately (especially due to the large screen in the background that shows an enlarged view of the interviewer, Luka, and Marinette) and then it’s just a matter of waiting for Luka to notice (probably after he stops gushing about Marinette’s amazing clothing choices).

[quinntamsin]

“Aurora.” She voiced the words subvocally. “Yes, Quinn?” the AI replied. “We’re going in, alert C&C we’ll need exfil.” She reloads the needler and walks into the flood infected compound.

Halo, Season 1 - Episode 4 “Homecoming”

Master Chief

We open with the fire team was a kid, every single SPartan we’ve seen and we’re pushed forward into the memory of John. The kids are march along singing a jody ( rhythmnic chanting during marching), and thus we see how the UNSC abducted and indoctrinated kids to make the Spartan IIs.

We jump back to the modern day as Halsey and her aide argue over what the Forerunner object is. Oh, wow, this woman is in a ride for her hell for what she’s going to unsleash. Cortana pops up and we get a bit of an overload on what’s going on, and Chief’s having anxiety. Heh, tear out a fucking emotional suppression implant and this happens.

Duh.

Eridanus looks like Madrigal in that it appears to be another craggy dirt ball, I thinkit’s just the spots they choose. Wait not, even the terraformed deciduous forest is kind of gnarly. I’m going to call that it’s some sort of fall sitch. Oh, and the forest IS terraformed, called it. Plus some nice foreshadowing where John locates the spot where his plot mcguffin paper is! YAY PLOT PAPER!

Dig it up - up oh, HOLES! Back on Eridanus, John is gophering along w00t! Out comes a box, (A MAGICAL BOX!), filled with “drawings and samples? What by the Nine is this wonderful weird shit! Welp, Foreunner tech is all kinds of mind-fuckery, so John drawing the same image plus Halo over and over again makes sense. Into the House! Cortana compiles images to provoke John’s memory. Giving us some shots of what his family home was.

Little John runs by with the dog and he hears his father speaking. This is something that really humanizes the Chief, and will make him more epic later on. A memory is unearthed, and we learn where John found the images. WHERE, he found the Forerunner tech! Baby John and big Jouhn as a scene was...adorable. And, he figures out that Halsey stole him. yup, fuck this lady.

Kai:

Wow, Kai-125, is basically experience an existential crisis, and yup, she’s gone and removed her chip. Fuck, go for you girl, just please don’t go all murdery please. I wanna see this as a woman reclaiming her agency, not as another “emotional female” soldier bullshit trope.

They are really placing up subtle bits of how the Spartans don’t feel, and how they explore their awakened emotions in this story. Kai, spreads blood in her hair, and I’m, not sure, how I feel on this. I think the dying of hair with you’re own blood is interesting, and it shows a small level of psychosis as well. I mean its’ her fucking blood! She’s also a literal murder machine, so I guess this is okay as well.

The doc staring Kai after the hair, and Kai calls out her bullshit. Wow, please please just don’t go all murdery. I just wana Kai to not go down that route! Okay, she’s a kid, cuz you know they were stolen kids. Keyes getting some more knowledge drop as the Spartans talk like a bunch of 10 year olds discussing Halo Weapons (like when the game first dropped) was - pretty cute. Makes sense, it would be Kai who helped Keyes break Sanghelii. I’m shipping these girls now, deal!

Keyes drops some reasons why she doesn’t like Spartans II. Wow, Spartan II pets was...fucked up. Keyes really gives an idea of how shitty their children. Hooyay, your mom supported Child Abuse! Kai and Keyes are back working on things yeah, shipping this shit. Kaiyes ftw. Heh, Kai coin’s Halo, call it.

Kwan:

Our girl is off with kill-daddy Soren on Madrigal so she can spark the blood insurrection about Vinsher the Butcher. Soren relates on how he felt as an early escapee of the child soldier abuse system *COUGH* Spartan II program! Yup, and he killed his dad, wow that’s not at all surprising. Ship design in this series is nice as it really does fit how things felt in the games.

The capital of Madrigal being carved from a mesa is pretty bad ass. And, I do like how it’s obviously this Colony is Korean founded. We see Hangul everywhere, plus, it emphasizes how much the colonies are evolving. There is also a definite Middle Asia and perhaps even Indian feel. Kwa runs into a contact, and I think this bitch is gonna betray her. Yup, betrayal runs on his face hardcore.

Oh Kwan has a bounty, looks to be about 100,000 bells!

The Folk gathering for Jin’s memorial is righteaously a mix of different rituals! A Madrigali (is it wrong I want to rename the planet Casita?) gather. Will Kwan find the generals? I mean, general in the we’re a bunch of bad ass hero commandos ala fantasy movie! Not, actual serious ranking army figures! I say this, because this is a fucking militia, genral doesn’t mean the same thing!

Kwan welp, our girl, get’s reality dropped on her. Called it! Vinsher’s actions have quelled the rebellion, and Kwan isn’t living in reality. Yup, in come riding the strongmen, and Soren’ kicks some serious ass, and saves our delusion girl. I mean, yeah, this delusion makes sense, but damn, hope she gets a kick of grounding.

Meanwhile, at the Legion of Vinsher.

Kwan is...just stuck on this road, she’s lying to Soren, I can see it. This is going to end bad. We split to Vinsher planning her death like a fucking Mafia Don. (Yup, fuck this guy he ain’t getting his own POV section). At least he’s sending an assassin, and hopefully, they’ll realize how fucking dangerous an ex-Spartan is. Vinsher is wow, he’s like a slightly less imposing Baron Harkonnen, and not as smart.

Ah Soren, being a fucking Pirate! Kwan, girl, y ou need to stop hoisting this unrealistic dream. How her father basically got a prophecy for his family. Kwan, I think is starting to realize her actions has consequences,and that in a world of fucking colonists you need to think things out.

Hottakes:

Yup, he keeps taking off that fucking helmet, I’ll just have to accept this Inferior Chief I guess. Lucky the actor isn’t shit, and I actually like him.

Lol, the side quest feel of this episode was...fucking great. I love that they are hunting for a literal piece of PLOT PAPER!

Seriously Kwa, you better deliver girl, or you’re world is going to shatter.

Kai please don’t go unhinged and get some agency BEFORE ALL THE SPARTANS DIE!

Vinsher and his bunch in pristine black as night costumes where as everyone else is in shades of grey, and orange and yellow is pretty great.

Lol, the exaggerate Spartan stompiness is...funny.

Kai dropping all the creds on Dr Keyes was...satisfying. I like Keyes, but she’s also a bit on her high horse.

Master Boof (that white shepheard of kid John), is the best fucking boy!

Kwan is...just as disconnected as one could assume.

SNERK, the assassin’s name is Franco...best ever.

GO JOHN! Calling out his kidnapping shitt abusive mother figure!

I bet you Kwan has a link to Forunner tech, calling it.

More Halsey being shitty, yup yup, stripping kids of their humanity. Cuz we can’t have a woman with severe empathy repression feel uncomfortabl when her hens come back to roost.

Seriously, I will sing and dance when this bitch dies. Fuck abusers, fuck Halsey.

[bigskydreaming]

Hi! I was reading a fanfic and it brought up Roy and Dick's fight, which I see a lot of in fics but never what they fought about and consequently why they don't talk. I thought it was a vague excuse/reason why Roy was Jason's friend not Dick's anymore but this fic brought up when Dick was batman so I was wondering if there was actually a fight between them? Btw I really enjoy your metas! They're v thought out and well articulated. Also it's v easy to separate what's your opinion and what's fact which is. Very helpful for me

Yeah this is one hundred percent a fanon thing that's kept deliberately vague to justify why Roy in his friendship with Jason seems to have no positive thoughts or concerns about Dick whatsoever. Now granted, Dick and Roy are not nearly as close in the New 52 as they were pre-Reboot. The lack of their friendship there is definitely one of the things I disliked most about the Reboot - and I actually don't care if Jason and Roy are friends tbh, its the total erasure of his history with Dick as if he can't be friends with both, that like, bugs most.

But so like, yeah, Roy and Dick aren't super close when they interact on the Titans in the New 52, but there's literally nothing in any of their interactions that explains the complete absence of him from Roy's life or a reason that Roy would like, hate him the way he tends to in a lot of Jason-centric fics.

When you factor in pre-Reboot stuff though, it starts to get a LOT more.....uh wyd? And this is why I have trouble buying that people just write Roy and Jason the way they do because its the only thing they know from recent comics. Like one, most fans talk about how they don't even read the source comics, so there's no reason their knowledge of the characters or events would be limited to just recent comics if they're going off wiki summaries and scans anyway. And second, most fans AREN'T limited in their knowledge to just recent comics.

Like, the second people start writing Roy and Jason and Kori but with their pre-52 characterizations and references to events from THAT timeline, it all gets very messy, the way they're like, completely antagonistic towards Dick a lot of the time. Because Roy and Dick were always solid. Yes, they fought. A lot. But they always, ALWAYS made up afterwards. They had conflict about Roy's drug addiction - it didn't stop Dick from being there to support him through rehab, or Dick being the first person Roy called to help him get Lian after he learned of her existence. Dick literally held Lian before Roy ever did? He's the one who first put her in Roy's arms for the first time.

(Which is the prime grudge I and most Dick Grayson fans have about Roy and Jason fics which make Jason like, the absolute apple of Lian's eye. If you want to expand Lian's circle of loved and trusted ones to include Jason as Roy's friend and thus her uncle, like go for it! But there's zero reason that should require invalidating and erasing the fact that Dick was this little girl's adored godfather and uncle for pretty much her entire life. And the way Dick is just shoved offstage from Lian's life entirely, to slot Jason into his place as though they're completely interchangeable, its like....THAT'S the kind of thing that gets people irey about how Jason 'steals' Dick's dynamics and character relationships.

Because there's nothing saying they both can't be major players in Roy and Lian's lives! But just that they're not interchangeable! You need to develop the specific role Jason plays there WITHOUT just overwriting everything Dick actually did in relation to the two of them pre-Flashpoint, which is what you're drawing from the second you write Lian, unless you're specifically going with the few appearances we've had of her within literally just the last year.

But I mean, when people just search and replace Dick Grayson in all Roy and Lian's pre-Reboot stories and act like Jason was the one doing all of that instead.....why wouldn't fans of the source material be annoyed by a character getting credit for interactions and things done for Lian and Roy that Jason literally NEVER DID, while at the EXACT SAME TIME, conjuring some mysterious, unnamed 'Falling Out' that Roy and Dick had, that was clearly all Dick's fault, and resulted from him being basically excised entirely from Roy and Lian's lives?

Same with Kori, for the record, and like despite being Dick's ex, she and Dick have NEVER been like, estranged? She and Dick have often been close even after their breakup. None of it makes any sense, and the fact that a lot of fans don't even try to make it make sense or justify it, and expect other fans to just be fine with settling for an inexplicable reversal of Dick's every actual dynamic with these characters while setting up Jason to occupy the exact same role Dick played in these other characters' lives, like.....lol. Its fun.)

Anyway, back to your question, like, there are fights you can go with pre-Reboot as the source of various conflicts between Dick and Roy - but again, I maintain its just as crucial that they're always written as getting past them. They have a very tempestuous relationship because they are the two people MOST likely to call each other on their shit, two of the two people WITH the most shit in common due to the parallels in their childhoods and the roles they've occupied in the Titans and the superhero community in general, and the two people most resistant to being called out on their shit by each other, lol. Mostly in that case because like, they do recognize that they have a lot in common and understand each other very well, so the second the other is calling them out for something, they're usually like "ugh, if HE'S saying this, its probably true and I am just not prepared yet to be wrong about this. I need more time being unjustifiably rawr about things." Its like that thing where they both look at each other doing something that feels familiar or calls back to their own reasons for doing something and they're like ugh I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

So they clash. A lot. But always with the implicit bedrock of like, there's nothing either of them can do or say to the other that will push the other away for good.

They fought over Roy replacing Dick as leader of the Titans when Dick's wedding fell apart, even though Roy actually didn't want to do it and was kinda pushed into it by the government, but again, Dick like, got over it and realized it was for the best and forgave Roy for it that very same issue. And on and on. It always went like that. So there's plenty of stuff that can be used or pointed at as a source of conflict between the two, but the part I'll always call unbelievable is the idea that they never make up after one of these fights. Why now? What fight, specifically, is so bad between them that despite everything else they've gone through AND gotten past, they can't get past this one? Y'know?

So yeah, that's my take on this. There is no definitive falling out between Dick and Roy as many fics like to point to in order to shove him offscreen and make room for Jason in Roy and Lian's lives, and personally, I just don't find it necessary and I actually think it makes Roy look REALLY bad. Because when you're not specifically detailing all the things that Dick has actually DONE for Roy, the lengths to which he's been there for his friend, and like, specifically invalidating each and every one of them as something that never happened in a particular fic, then literally anyone who reads that fic and has their own awareness of Dick and Roy's friendship is kiiiiiinda likely to be reading that and thinking wow what an ungrateful asshole, when Roy's just written as bitching about Dick with Jason and sandbagging him without any real explanation as to WHY, beyond just 'oh they had a fight years ago.'

(And coming up with some random awful thing that Dick did to justify Roy hating him now isn't like, a superior alternative, lmao, because again, its still just trashing one character for the sake of getting him out of the way of two other characters' friendship and people are going to think what they think about that).

Anyway, my now standard stock disclaimer that like, there doesn't actually need to be a canon fight obviously, for people to just write things this way and handwave that Dick and Roy had an epic falling out years ago and now they just hate one another or whatever, or just Roy hates him or vice versa. Obviously people are free to do what they want. They don't need a reason other than "I want to write it this way so Jason and Roy are friends and Jason doesn't have to 'share' him with Dick or have his friendship be overshadowed by their greater history together." That just happens to be a reason that no Dick Grayson fan is ever really going to be happy about, lol, for what should be perfectly obvious reasons, so it honestly shouldn't be surprising to people that fans of the source material often gripe about it.

Because yeah fanfic is a tremendous opportunity to transform the source material into something better, but if what's better for some fans actively takes away what was working perfectly well for other fans the original way, they're going to say that. Especially in a fandom where so many new fans take their view of the characters and their dynamics from fics rather than the source material - when fandom has that much of an influence on what new fans perceive to be 'canon,' fans are perfectly within their right to emphasize what is ACTUALLY canon and what isn't, so that new fans at least have the opportunity to determine for themselves what take they want to go with, instead of just accepting at face value that the nature of say, Dick and Roy's relationship is just that Roy hates Dick because of some mumble mumble ancient history vague mumble details not found mumble mumble fight.

[live-laugh-loverpool]

The First Day

Tags: @millythegoat, @alissonbecksfan234

The Premier League season started on August 5, 2022. And Arsenal--for once--chose victory.

Too bad that meant that Crystal Palace, already stripped of one of their best midfielders, would have to lose.

“Will you be searching for a midfielder for the rest of the transfer window?” the gray-clad, wrinkly reporter asked in his thick Yorkshire accent. He sounded like a teenage boy in a dress shirt and a bowtie at a family reunion, only dressed up and there because his mother made him.

Patrick Viera, at the other end of the microphone, knew the trap. He had learned it from watching Arteta at Arsenal. If he gave any definite answer, the media would erupt, placing unnecessary strain on his players. And they didn’t need that--they already had enough tactical problems.

So he just shrugged, offering a half-hearted “we’ll see” and a brief, yet polite, nod. Viera had always prided himself on his social etiquette.

The reporter, seemingly satisfied, gave him the generic “thank you for your time”. Viera responded with another quick nod and left the interview room.

He decided to take the long way to the locker room. Maybe if he was lucky, he could catch a minute to put up his feet. Standing up and yelling for ninety minutes was not easy.

*

On Saturday, a whole host of things happened. One of the surprises was Liverpool’s draw against Fulham.

Klopp knew that Liverpool had deserved to drop points with that performance today. He hadn’t even tried to dismiss it as “just a game”. Because he knew it meant so much more.

Now he was beginning to question whenether they needed a midfielder. Not that he’d tell the press--those nosy reporters alway thought they deserved to know everybody’s beeswax.

Florrie dropped down next to Klopp in the away office. She wore a tiny Liverpool jersey with “Papi” on the back--for Milner. Klopp himself couldn’t help but smirk at the chaotic reaction it had caused. Milner had said there was “sand in his eyes”, Robertson had tried to convince Florrie to get “Uncle Robbo” printed on top of the shirt, Tsimikas had promised he’d take Florrie along with him to his nightclub to show off the jersey, Matip had slapped him in the back of the head, and Alisson had been in serious danger of carrying Florrie out on the pitch with him for the whole match. He flat-out refused to let her go until Lijnders offered to take Florrie.

“Boss?” Florrie pointed to the scoreboard. She knew about what a draw meant compared to a win, and how much further on the table Fulham was. “Are we still gonna win a shiny trophy?”

“Well…” Klopp decided not to lie to the little girl. “I don’t know, Florrie. We drew today. A draw means less points, and that means less chances of winning.”

Florrie nodded, putting on her best serious face as she grabbed the ball next to her. “Can I help you win?”

Klopp couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Maybe when you’re older.”

“But I wanna score a bunch of goals now!” Florrie pouted, crossing her arms and sinking in the chair. “Later stinks.”

“Well…that was honest.”

“You always tell us to tell the truth!” Florrie reminded Klopp. “And that’s the truth, right?”

“Yeah, but you have to wait until you’re a few years older, Flo.”

“But why?”

Klopp groaned. Florrie was still in her “why” phase, and he wasn’t exactly ready for some of the questions. “Because you’ll get squished by bad guys.”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t have kids of their own to care about and thus have no empathy.”

“Why?”

“On which question?”

Florrie grinned, her blue eyes shining. “Both.”

“Because they’re not married.”

“Why do you need to get married to have kids?”

Klopp almost screamed in frustration.

*

It was Sunday afternoon in London, and Ilkay Gundogan was growing more tired of the press' bragging about Erling Haaland by the minute.

“Erling Haaland! It just had to be!”

“He always scores!”

“And now let’s hear from Manchester City’s new superstar, Erling Haaland!”

“Erling, Erling, Erling!” Gundogan vented, slamming the “off” button on the remote. “Everything’s about Erling on here! It’s like it’s Erling City instead of Manchester City!”

 “Well, he did score a brace today,” said Kevin De Bruyne. The Belgian had made fast friends with Haaland, and if he was being honest, he was rather concerned about Gundogan’s problem with the Norwegian. “I guess that makes him worthy of the front page, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Gundogan grumbled, muttering under his breath. “And the back page, and the advertisements, and all the pages in the middle too. And all of the City section of NewsNow will be filled with his pale, genetically-modified, Ken-doll face.”

“Ilkay!” De Bruyne chastised the captain. “For a former Dortmund player, I must say that you seem to hate Erling. He’s new--at least try to be friendly to him. I thought Klopp taught you better.”

But that only made Gundogan even grumpier. “This is not about Dortmund, Kevin. It’s not about Klopp. Who will you bring up next, Mourinho?”

“I just might if you keep grumbling.” De Bruyne shook his head. “Maybe you should lay down. You’ll feel better after that.”

“I’m not tired!” the Turk yelled, hurling down the couch cushion and storming away. “Go hang out with your brother Erling!”

De Bruyne sighed, opening a box of chocolates. This was not getting off to a good start. But it would eventually get better. Gundogan would solve whatever problems he had with Haaland, and they could get down to serious business.

He sure hoped so.