#which is a bit surprising because usually it’s female characters who get neglected

[boyfridged]

so close to making willis into my personal oc. i have so many thoughts and feelings about willis & jay.

[ricanvvas]

Well, of course, I was not really assuming you were saying Itachi would go out of his way to kill people. And as much as I understand his trauma holding him back from a lot of things, the fact of the matter is that while it would weaken Itachi in some aspects, he would still go on with things like a normal person despite not getting a normal like.

Usually, characters like Sasuke, Gaara, Kakashi for a time, and Neji, etc, will use their trauma as an excuse to be a bad person and lose control. But Itachi never did that. He stayed sane and collected, hence why he is such a great character in terms of writing, he’s just different. I think his heart weighs far heavier than his trauma and there are many scenes that prove it.

Also, I heavily believe novels are not canon because they were not written by Kishimoto himself, he only illustrated the covers, but I think what was confirmed canon by him was Naruto’s wedding thingy. So I don’t know much about how Itachi was like in the novel.

In the manga, he was a good human being. A good brother, a good friend, a good person, and he would not let no amounts of trauma, guilt, or regret stop him from expanding the space in his heart which is why I say he would be a better partner and a wayyy careful father than Sasuke ever was or is. That’s just Itachi’s personality, he’s lovely.

What I do believe is that it would take a lot, and I mean a lot of time & trials for him to accept and settle, aka the actual response I believe would be to his trauma. He would not use trauma to be what you stated above, but he would unwillingly let it affect how he goes through with things which I think I explained a bit. Basically major trust issues, trials, overthinking, pushing people away, bottling things up, etc. Sasuke on the other hand does not go through all that, he simply doesn’t want to lol, he isn’t that type of person, his heart just isn’t that big.

Oh yeah, regarding the “Sasuke being a bad father is terrible writing to give younger generations problems”—I don’t even know what to tell you, I just have a lot of opinions on Boruto Series itself but I don’t think him being a bad father had anything to do with the plot. Like it or not, the truth is that he mated with a female who started off liking him over his looks and cool-ness, which turned into an unhealthy obsession with the idea of being in love with him. She never had any valid reasons, if anything, she had all the reason to despise him. I don’t like to call that love, I’d like to call that mental illness (maybe too harsh? idc). And he never had a single reason to like her either, she never contributed to him or benefited him, he never had any interest, he was never fit for romance; let’s admit it, it was forced. So is it surprising that he abandoned her for nearly 13 years after getting her pregnant and never cared to check up on her nor the child? Is it really surprising even after being back he neglected the most basic things? Family duties? Absolutely no effort? No interest? And people really romanticize all that? Yeah, no. Sasuke is a terrible father because it was forced and he was never fit for it.

But yeah, I don’t think trauma would affect Itachi’s sweet heart. That’s what makes Itachi, Itachi.

Random question, but let's say that Itachi lived right? Like all the way to Boruto, do you think Itachi would probably be that one, almost, father figure to Sarada in a way? Considering since Sasuke has always been away from the two of them (Sakura and Sarada) if Itachi decided to stay in Konoha instead of traveling with Sasuke? Also I wonder how Itachi would react to Sasuke being with Sakura as well, I wonder, what do you think?

Interesting question.

To answer this, we need to consider some major factors that were crucial in shaping their lives.

If itachi lived, he should have the development he did during the war i.e. realizing treating Sasuke like a baby was a bad choice he made all along.

Sasuke doesn't know Itachi is alive. Why would he leave the village in the first place if Itachi was alive?

Itachi doesn't know where Sasuke is. Why else would Itachi stay in the village if he could be with his brother?

Konoha has somehow cleared his name and acknowledged its own crimes against the clan.

Still, I'm going to answer this question with the ideas that are independent of each other and don't need each other to exist (if that makes sense?)

I think Itachi would be a terrible father figure to Sarada. He didn't grow up to lead a normal life full of love and comfort. He was a Shinobi who was trained to kill. That's what he did all his life and he never had the time to be anything other than that. He loved Sasuke a lot, but his expression was thoroughly violent, although under extreme duress, and in a slightly easier life he'd have served better. He doesn't know how to be a normal person. He doesn't understand how to be something that's not a Shinobi and a killer. He was conditioned since his childhood to live a certain way and the change in the lifestyle would not change anything for him. I personally don't see him being able to guide Sarada or be a positive/healthy influence in her life. He can't give anything to her, or anyone, for that matter.

He's way, way too damaged as a person. Even if you include therapy sessions those won't erase his past and what he feels about himself. He can't offer anything in a bonding that isn't with Sasuke. He'd still feel some affection towards Sarada. He has no reason to not like her, but he can't be a parent figure to her. I mean, isn't that the whole reason Sasuke, too, isn't a 'good father' to Sarada? He too is damaged beyond repair.

Some anti-SS content under the cut. No slander or bashing of the characters, but my opinion on why Itachi might not approve of Sakura as his brother's life partner. I'll tag the post accordingly. Please don't read if you're a fan of the pairing.

He will not be overly thrilled about Sakura being in Sasuke's life. Sasuke didn't love Sakura and Sakura never loved Sasuke. She was obsessed with an image of his she found alluring and his absence in her life fed that longing further, making her feel she loved him. He was a trophy for her she was to win in the contest of her rivalry against Ino.

In other words, she had no genuine feelings for Sasuke.

Sasuke, too, never felt any affiliation towards her. Yes, there were some moments he cared about her deeply, but he's genuinely kind and caring towards people. If he loved her he'd be more open about his feelings.

When Itachi met Team 7 in the Kazekage Rescue Arc, he paid no attention to Sakura. His attention was solely on Naruto and was happy to see Naruto had grown so much from the last time they met. There was a reason he entrusted Sasuke with Naruto. And he wouldn't be too pleased to know that Sakura once tried to kill his brother for whom he bore the worst pains and sins in his heart.

That alone would infuriate him. However, it wouldn't matter to him if Sasuke really loved Sakura, because I don't think the Itachi that bid farewell to Sasuke in the war would claim any stakes on him. If Sasuke loved Sakura he would be okay with it, but not trust her. Itachi's brain works in different ways. xD

Itachi would also understand there's a reason his brother doesn't want to be with his family. And his lack of affection towards them would tell him everything. He decided things for Sasuke when he saw him as a child in the past, but won't make the same mistakes again.

I think he'd like Sarada, but won't be extremely fond of Sakura. Though I don't see him being good with kids at all.

[justleisha-deniyor]

congratulations on 300 followers, lovely! ❤ your content is amazing and i hope more people get to see more of it!! may i get a match up with either the villainess is a marionette or the way to save the female lead's older brother ( only the males )?

i'm the sweetest girl to be around as noted by my friends and family. always giving out genuine compliments and being quite affectionate, specifically to those closest to me. a good listener as well especially with the good advice that comes with it. been told that my patience is a blessing, especially with younger kids and babies. i do fuss over a lot of people but i just want my loved ones to take care of themselves. i can occasionally be witty unknowingly and i do have my dark humor. i'm not very good at taking care of myself but i am trying. very lazy which contrasts with my perfectionist side of me. since i'm usually tired, you'll find me in bed more often than you think either sleeping, on my phone, or reading a book. stormy days are my favorite type of weather which does surprise a lot of people.

not sure if you want my appearance, but i shall give! i stand at the height of five feet two inches so not very tall. i'm a light skinned desi girl who gets tanned very easily but i love that. i have long dark brown hair which i like to play around with and light brown eyes that almost look the color of gold when facing the sun.

i hope this helps! congrats on 300 followers again!! ❤

Thank you for your compliments love! Oh and thanks for participating it means so much to me <3

(Please run to me as soon as you get bored of these characters)

I pair you with Raphael Kedrey from The Villainess Is A Marionette!

You would actually have a pretty good relationship with Rezef too, but Rezef- uh? He's a bit of an insufferable man.

First of all, Raphael believes that God made you for him and he will say that meeting you was the best thing he's ever done in his life.

Raphael is a loyal and sweet lover. He really likes someone to take care of him! You could swear you have dog ears with you, just like when you're with Cayena.

He doesn't care what his mother thinks, and to be honest, he is deaf to anyone around him who says bad words about your relationship.

Raphael is hungry for touch because he hates when anyone else touches him, and as long as you let him, he strokes your hair that he loves the color, lays it in his lap and loves you at every opportunity.

Yes, she hasn't touched someone in a long time and now her love language is physical, she believes that the kind of love shown in the physical way is the best aspect of showing love.

A tough and cold knight on the face of it, this man is a cinnamon roll for you.

I pair you with Jeremy Agriche of The Way To Save The Female Lead's Older Brother!

Baby Jeremy- This is my personal opinion of course but I think Jeremy would follow his girlfriend like baby ducks.

Unlike Dion, who is always busy, Jeremy has quite a bit of free time. He's also less bloodthirsty than Jeremy Dion, so I'm pairing you with Jeremy, not Dion. The person I matched with isn't Cassis because Jeremy needs you more. :<

Just like Raphael, Jeremy would fall in love with your lovely aura. You are beautiful, sweet, kind.. Who will she fall in love with if she will not fall in love with you?

Now- Agriches have a bit of sidekick in their nature. It's also true that Jeremy is a neglected child, so he threatens anyone who comes between you in your relationship.

This was one of the reasons he was with his older sister Roxana and took over the Duchy of Agriche. He could not make her suffer by marrying his lover under his father's captivity.

When you develop a very close relationship with Jeremy, he will show you his vulnerable side and also trust you blindly.

You are the only one in your heart of both island men <3

[dorimena]

Ugh... been thinking about Aizawa crying during sex. Sucking on your fingers? Tears. Cockwarming? A river has been cried. Pegging him? Fucking waterfalls. Idk, man. Got any headcanons or add-ons about this? Maybe a short little blurb? — 🐬

Oh my-

I actually have this draft somewhere in my files about Aizawa crying during sex and cockwarming him (and I’ve been tempting myself to release sometime soon). But him crying a river because he’s cockwarming you? That sounds incredibly sexy, even better, dear 🐬 anon (*˘︶˘*).｡.:*♡

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔢𝔯; aizawa shota

𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱; 1.2k

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰; implied female reader, cockwarming, pegging, overstimulation (?), crying, cursing, mostly shameless smut, dom!reader, sub!character

𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔞𝔤𝔰; crying Aizawa, sobbing Aizawa, slut Aizawa, mating press, couch sex, loud sex, lots of cum

𝔰𝔦𝔡𝔢𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔢; yes, horrible title, terrible joke, but it’s kind of funny, right? I got carried away, as you see... will I ever be able to write a blurb? Probably not. It’s not proofread!

𝕴𝖙'𝖘 𝖌𝖊𝖙𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖍𝖔𝖙 𝖎𝖓 𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊 (𝖘𝖔 𝖑𝖊𝖙 𝖒𝖊 𝖗𝖎𝖉𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖉𝖎𝖈𝖐.)

He thought it was going to be a romantic date night at your place.

You promised some delicious food, some strong liquor, some nice massages, maybe throw in some soft cuddles as you lull him to sleep.

You did mention before that you had a little surprise for him to reward him for his good work this week, for saving more lives, contributing to keeping the city safe, teaching the kids at UA everything they need to know to excel in the hero world.

And what a surprise it was when you took out his favorite strap on he gifted you. But maybe he shouldn’t have gotten so excited at the idea of you fucking him until he forgets past pains and sufferings, maybe even today’s disappointment with how Kaminari seemed to forget how electricity could very much be well conducted in water…

Because for the past hour or two, maybe three, you’ve had him sitting on your lap with your silicon dick in him, slapping his thighs even if he were to shift, making him leak more tears each and every time the stinging becomes more intense.

You’re tempted in gagging him to see if with the lack of words he’d cry more.

“Stop moving so much, babe. We’re supposed to be relaxing.”

Your mocking purr makes him shudder as he flinched at another slap. Looking down, he can somehow make out, through his tear-covered vision, how his skin is turning red, a blurred handprint noticeable at the edge of the growing redness. He can also see how sticky his thighs are with how badly his dick is weeping in thick blobs of precum. God, has he always been such a slut?

Well, his shameless moan at the appearance below him and the lasting sting on his skin is enough to answer his own question.

“C-can’t he-elp it.” He groans out, trying his best to ignore how much hotter his body keeps getting the more he’s forced to sit still, the more you keep ‘accidentally’ teasing his nipples and play around with his precum covered thighs. Don’t you feel disgusted? Aren’t you?

Because if you are, that’s too bad. He hasn’t felt so proud of himself since-

“Auugh! M-mistress!” Aizawa sobs, feet trying to plant themselves onto the ground to keep himself stable as you slam up into him again, and again, and again.

No signs of mercy ever-present as you drag out of him so, so painfully slow before you go ahead and hit his sweet spot straight on.

Even with his feet on the ground and his back pressed onto your chest to keep him still, his hips still pitifully chase your thrusts, desperation present in every way he twitches and sobs.

He’s not even moaning, or even if he is, it’s just a garbled strain of your name fucked out of him as you coo praises and compliments into his ear, your hands grabbing onto his thighs to keep them spread so that he doesn’t shy away from your cock.

Turning your head a bit to see his face, you grin at how red he is, just like his wet, slick covered dick, his cheeks decorated with trails of hot tears coming from his closed eyes. And once he opens them, he looks into your eyes, eyebrows furrowed upwards as he wonders why you’re smiling like that, as if he were something so magical, so beautiful.

But this isn’t a time for something so romantic, not with how much he’s burning from deep inside his core up to his skin, flushing everywhere that’s possible as he manages to whimper out.

“H-hard, hard! N-need- nngh, ri-ide you!” And a please is whispered so, so sweetly, so softly, so unlike how society sees him as.

“Go ahead.”

And he rides you like there’s no tomorrow, even if you’re still slamming into him at an even faster pace. He can ride you, but you’re still in control of how fast everything goes.

He doesn’t complain, and not like he can even give his usual sarcastic remark with how his mouth's currently occupied letting out a waterfall of cries, moans and sobs, getting louder and bolder with every fast change of speed.

He’s gripping onto the couch cushion below you with such strength, you swore you heard a rip- but that’s alright, it was old anyways. Right now, feeling the way he can’t even control himself to at least act anything but a porn star is rewarding and forgiving enough.

His tears from earlier? You’re sure there’s enough water to bathe in, feeling how it touches your shoulders, seeing how it trails down to his chest, some lucky ones even going to his neglected dick. Poor thing, weeping just as much as the man who’s feared by so many criminals and past students.

This delicious fucking is going animalistic with how he’s bouncing on you, skin slapping polluting the air as much as the smell of sex. You hope neither filter outside into the neighboring apartments, although you’re positive you’ll be receiving some unhappy calls from the landlord.

Aizawa feels so, so hot and so, so close. It’s so painful, too painful, he’s never felt this way before. Maybe it’s how deprived he was for weeks, how starved he was for you, how desperate he was to be able to cum after so many failed attempts.

But he’s becoming so, so, so loud, with his sobs echoing around the apartment, his cries of your name and ‘mistress, mistress, mistress!’ ringing in your ears that maybe you should’ve gagged him. Your fingers will do-

And they did, with how greedily he’s sucking them, as if they offer the finest water to help quench his growing thirst to cum, cum-

“Cu-umming!”

And you let him, not retorting anything, not depriving him anymore as you send the most powerful thrusts you could muster into him to hear him wheeze so, so pathetically, reminding you how old he is, even if just 31.

And his eyes? His beautiful onyx eyes are glowing red, his sweaty, tangled mess of black hair floating in the air giving you the view of how he didn’t only lose control of his quirk, but also how he lost control of his thighs, his quivering, trembling, now cum covered thighs.

He’s babbling anything that comes to mind, it’s difficult to know if he’s praying for mercy or praying in gratitude, his hips still sliding up and down your cock as every hit to his prostate milks out more and more cum, the hot substance spurting onto the floor, onto the coffee table, onto his thighs, legs, feet, everywhere.

It’s so pornographic, so unbelievably out of this fucking world that you just need to see him do it again, even if you’ll have to stay inside of him to keep him horny and hot and bothered.

“Ag- augh- gain?”

Aizawa doesn’t wait for you to answer, and to damn your answer, not with how he still feels his dick burn with more need, still so hard because you wouldn't give it our attention.

But you do this time, switching your position to fuck him deep into the couch, mate pressing him as you flick your wrist furiously as wet sounds join in the symphony of his wails, his pleas of mercy which you’ll never, ever give to him unless he says the safe word or you’re feeling romantic.

[greensaplinggrace]

honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...

not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..

like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.

alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???

honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.

Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.

HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.

👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!

Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".

Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.

Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.

I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.

And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.

And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?

The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.

His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).

And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.

She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.

Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.

And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.

Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.

Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.

The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.

In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.

The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.

Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.

Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.

This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.

So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.

[goneseriesanalysis]

Subversion of Tropes

Spoiler warning for Fear, Lies and Plague down below 

TW: mentions of s@xual @ssault and r@pe

In my recent post, Misogyny in Gone, I pointed out numerous instances in the series where misogynistic tropes are present, and how that affects the narrative of the story. The women often seem to be underdeveloped, sexualised and demonised for choices and characteristics that their male counterparts make and have with no consequence. Of course this is not true for every female character, and it is certainly not present all the time, but it still has a huge impact on the story. There is one scene in particular though, that seems to subvert these tropes and I wanted to talk about it as I think it is both a really important aspect of the story and introduces us to a fascinating power dynamic, that I really wish mg had developed further.

The interplay between sex and violence is a theme that is heavily prevalent in Plague and is present in both Lies and Fear. It shows up in many different forms throughout the series and presents itself in multiple ways such as: Caine and Diana’s relationship, Astrid and Orc’s Scene in Plague and Drake with pretty much every attractive woman he comes across. This is a theme that mg writes particularly well – Astrid and Orc’s scene in Plague (with a small cameo from Drake) is one of the best written examples of this trope I have ever read. However, for me personally, this scene is marginally outdone by another example of this trope that occurs in Fear – that being Caine’s cementing.

Not only does this scene have the cathartic tint of revenge to it, but it also subverts this trope in that it is the woman who is the perpetrator and the man (boy) who is the victim. When I first read Fear, nothing about this scene seemed even remotely sexual to me (because I was a child and unless it was outright stated I was never going to pick up on it.) But, when I re-read the scene a few days ago in preparation for my misogyny in gone post, I noticed how reminiscent Penny’s takedown of Caine is to the way women typically experience sexual violence (both in media and real life.)

So the scene starts out with Caine turning up to Penny’s house to discuss the situation with Cigar. Great. Fast forward a bit and we get to Penny outright telling Caine that she has a crush on him….and him outright rejecting her. Instead of accepting this, she pushes, telling him that she could be anyone in his imagination. He rejects her again. And she does not take that well. While she doesn’t show it on the outside, we as a reader get to see her internal monologue, where she has an extremely inappropriate reaction to his rejection. It is clear from this that she feels entitled to his affection, despite him never giving any indication that her feelings were reciprocated. Penny seems to believe that Caine has falsely led her on, but we as a reader know that he has rejected any and all advances that she has made and has not ever, in canon, used her crush to manipulate her. (Before I continue I want to make it clear that I am by no means saying that Caine is innocent. Penny has every right to be angry with him for a multitude of other reasons. But her reasoning here is misguided.) So the first question that this brings to mind is: Would Penny have continued with the cementing if Caine had welcomed her advances?? I think mg left this purposely ambiguous. But I like (and I use this word very loosely) the idea that she wouldn’t have. The trope of a woman having to cater to the desires of a man in order to avoid violence is one that is common in all types of media, and is one that we see throughout Gone as well. The best examples being Astrid with Sam and, of course, Diana with Caine. Both of these women are forced to conform to what Sam and Caine want them to be in order to be safe in the FAYZ, and so mg flipping the switch on this and having Caine’s inability to capitulate Penny’s desires being the final straw to his downfall (even if he was unaware of this fact) is an amazing touch.

This theme is then continued in the way that Penny takes Caine down…by drugging him and incapacitating him. Now, these are occurrences that are usually associated with date r@pe, which is something that is mostly experienced by women. Of course, this is not what actually happened in the book, but the association is there for a reason, I’m sure. Given Penny’s attraction to Caine, her take-down of him is inherently sexual in both its execution and come about. Her extreme reaction to his refusal is probably a result of her less-than-ideal childhood. We are told than Penny’s father used to take inappropriate pictures of her older, but still under-aged sister. When her sister became of age, Penny assumed that her father would move on to her, but instead he skipped her and began taking photos of her younger sister. Mg doesn’t really go into much detail on how this must have affected Penny’s psyche – only that she was so jealous that she took her father’s laptop into the school and showed the other students, resulting in his arrest. It is heavily implied that Penny’s parents were not affectionate – they neglected their children (at least emotionally) and so Penny sought out attention and affection, as any child would. Seeing how much time her father spent with her older sister, and seeing why – it isn’t hard to believe that Penny would equate sexualisation to affection, and even love. (lemme just have a cry real quick.) This makes sense when you take into account her reaction to Caine’s refusal (which was actually pretty mild) and even when you look at earlier events – such as him helping to bathe her. I can’t speak for everyone, but if someone broke MY legs and then came in to help bathe me, I would not be happy, and yet Penny seems to almost enjoy it. We then learn that Penny and her sisters were sent to live with their aunt after their mother became too depressed to care for them. And, once again, Penny found that her sisters were getting all the attention. So she reacted with violence – by putting bleach in her older sister’s cereal. She later found out that her father had committed suicide in prison, after being beaten by other inmates. And so Penny’s formative years have been tinted with sex and violence – two things that no child should be exposed to (although that’s kind of the whole premise of the series.) When you look at her past it becomes clear that her take-down of Caine was an attempt to gain control over one of the many people who have denied her affection in favour of giving it to someone else. As she associates sex with affection, and responds to a lack of affection with violence, it makes sense that she would attack him in a way that is associated with sexual violence.

My final point is in relation to the actions that she takes while Caine is unconscious. She does three things that really give us an insight into her mentality regarding the cementing:

-          She cements him

-          She makes a tin foil crown for him

-          She cuts off his shirt

These actions again are reminiscent, at least subtextually, of the act of r@pe - a sexual crime done with the intent to both incapacitate and embarrass the victim – in essence, a power-play. And this is exactly what Penny does. She begins by entrapping him in the cement, taking his power from him. We know that Penny was not scared of Caine’s power, this was not an act of paranoia as the cementing of the Coates kids was. But rather, she knew how much his power meant to him, how much he relied on it – and she wanted to make him feel just as powerless as he had made her feel. This is further reinforced by her making the tin foil crown. Of course, she partly did this to cause him more pain (she literally stapled it to his head), but the main reason was to embarrass him. To turn his own narcissism against him. And then, to top it all off, she cuts of his shirt – which is just straight up sexual assault. This is the moment in the scene where the interplay between sex and violence really comes out. As she sees it, sexualisation is a form of affection. But as her whole life she has been denied any form of affection she has twisted this in her mind to where she sees violence as a viable outlet of emotions – or rather a replacement for affection. I think Caine’s cementing showed the breaking point for Penny – there are so many things she wants to communicate (her anger at Caine for all the horrible things he has done to her, her affection towards him, her desire for power and respect) and she just doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to do it, due to years of witnessing sexual assault and experiencing neglect. So instead everything gets distilled down into this twisted act of violence where she both expresses all of these things and gets none of them.

I really love this scene as I think it is a great example of mg’s writing ability. I know her attack of Caine was not only due unrequited affections, but I think this side of it is really excellently written, and makes me wish that we has seen more of Penny. I think it would have been a very interesting plot twist and a great use of character if Penny had managed to discard of Drake in Fear and take over his role in the story. Anyway this was only meant to be a short post and I really rambled on (as if anyone is surprised by now). Thank you for reading and please feel free to comment on/ criticise this!! :)

[viviane-lefay]

Yeah, no fucks to give here!

Really not into this ship - at least not in a romantic & sexual context.

—

At this point, I think it is best, if I put a little clarification here, before I continue:

This is just about my personal opinion, theories & headcanon - and by no means lays a claim to general validity (nor does your POV, btw).

I have more of a pick & choose approach to fandom subjects, anyway, so I can customize the experience exactly according to my needs and wishes. This is fiction, after all - the realm of endless possibilities - where anything goes, and where there is a place for the preferences of all of us.

That said, I really want to point out that I have nothing against people shipping the Dr. with Agent Stone - but since I, personally, prefer m/f ships, I’d rather choose the female OC approach, as it’s also my beloved villain x heroine constellation (not the subject of this post, though).

My take on the dynamic between the Dr. and his assistant is, therefore, quite a bit different from the fandom popular one. Well, to each his own.

What this post definitely is not, is an invitation for a debate regarding character interpretation, shipping choices, etc. - and all the potential drama that this might entail. If that is what you’re after, then I’d politely ask you to leave now, because all you are doing is wasting both of our time.

Let’s just agree to disagree and move on, k!?

I do my thing and you do you, guys!

I suppose, I made myself abundantly clear now.

—

Anyway, to return to the topic …

Where have all the male friendships & professional partnerships in fandom gone!?

Because, personally, I think agent Stone rather relates to his boss on that level…

Robotnik being a role model of some sort, that is - not unlike a kohai & senpai, or a younger & older brother constellation, actually - where the former looks up to the latter due to certain traits that he admires (and Stone certainly does). Regarding the age difference of the two, this could also make sense.

I’d estimate that Stone can’t be much older than his mid-twenties at most, since he’s in the position of a junior agent and assistant - still at the very beginning of his career path. And he’s very capable, disciplined and professional, at that, which is probably why he made it as Robotnik’s assistant at all (unsurprisingly, given the man isn’t the most patient).

Speaking of whom - I think, regardless of Jim Carrey being in his late fifties at that point - he, himself, can’t be that old, actually. My personal take (& preference) here would be late thirties, which would still make a lot of sense regarding his academic and occupational career. Being this overachieving genius, I guess that he finished school in time-lapse mode, skipping one, or even more grades - same goes for uni. Therefore, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was done by the age of 25 - his five PhDs included (bet he did two at once), which would still give him plenty of time to make his way as an agent and scientific government official up to the time of the events of the movie.

Aside from that, I can’t help but see parallels to the dynamic of Piett and Vader here, as well - a mixture of professional esteem and a bit of intimidation. But certainly no outright fear, as Stone is hardly under the threat of being strangled to death by his superior, like poor Piett is.

That is not to say that Robotnik’s still frequent misconduct towards him is ok (it definitely is not), but it certainly is more mild than he behaves towards, say, pretty much anyone else. Btw, that includes the “pin yourself to the wall”, grabbing him by the bottom lip and dragging him towards himself, while glaring at and chiding him (For what exactly!? Not being perfect, or as smart as him!? Chill, man, the boy is doing his best, and he’s doing a good job!).

Fandom, of course, does what it always loves to do - construe this as “evidence” for the alleged attraction between the two, which is pretty far-fetched, imho (…although you’re surely free to interpret it this way, if you so please. As I said, this is just my pov & to each his own. *shrugs*).

Anyway, you can clearly see Robotnik displaying this type of behaviour, along with the invasion of personal space, towards other male characters as well - be it “Major Nobody Cares”, “Officer Brainfart”, the big bar dude he threw out of the window, or Tom Wachowski. So, following this line of argument, does that mean he’s into these guys, as well!? Honestly, that’s pretty ridiculous!

If anything, it is a blatant display of asserting dominance, bringing the message home that he is the alpha male, while putting his opponent / subordinate in his place - and that’s it! What this behaviour definitely is not, however, is something remotely shipping related.

Besides, there are many examples of other male characters doing this for similar reasons, too - amongst others Darth Vader (remember that scene between him and Orson Krennic!?), and Severus Snape (after Harry invaded his memories during the occlumency lessons). And Robotnik does that quite aggressively in the cases above. In fact, it seems to be a fairly consistent behavioural pattern with him (not that he actually needed that though, but that’s an entirely different matter).

As for Robotnik’s personal attitude towards his assistant, I think Stone’s one of the very few people he actually respects, and even likes, because the young man’s esteem for him is so genuine, while everyone else regards him pretty much like nothing more than an asset, or a threat.

It’s not like he doesn’t somewhat encourage being kept in that position himself, behaving like he does - aside from actively reducing himself to his intellect & academic prowess. This isn’t all that surprising, as it is something he apparently gets his entire sense of self-worth from, and likely the only thing he got any appreciation for from others, which is, perhaps, also why he constantly needs to spotlight said trait (no behaviour someone truly at one with himself & his abilities would display, btw). Then, there is his little tolerance for failure - especially when it comes to himself. He truly expects to perform flawlessly, like a machine, and when he doesn’t, that really seems to unsettle him (that face when Tom points his unsuccessful attempts to catch Sonic out to him … he was so offended, he almost looked like he wanted to cry ^^;;).

So, of course it is likely that he becomes quite attached to the sort of attitude and behaviour that Stone displays towards him, even though he wouldn’t think of it this way - because, you know, emotional bonds with other human beings obviously are beneath him (Yeah, sure, we did see the veracity of that claim afterwards, didn’t we!?).

But, then again, growing up as an emotionally starved child and adolescent, used to being brushed aside, and, later, deliberately distancing himself from other people, he actually might have no clue whatsoever how to appropriately deal with things like these, and thus brushes them aside as “weakness”, which really does make sense, especially in the context that he was bullied as well.

Same goes for him eventually adopting the habit of pushing other people away via plain disagreeable behaviour. I think this phenomenon is called “hedgehog’s dilemma”, and it is quite ironic that he is more afflicted by it than his blue nemesis.

It is so painfully obvious that this guy has some massive issues, stemming from past emotional neglect and negative experiences - so much, that he even rejects all things human altogether, along with his own humanity.

His excessive idealization of and identification with technology, therefore, comes quite in handy as a defense mechanism in order to cope with said experiences.

Machines don’t ask much of you, they do what they are told, they are predictable, and they - above all - can’t suddenly abandon, betray, humiliate, and hurt you (which, I think, is the crux of the matter here).

Even though he might claim that his robots are everything to him, and that he doesn’t need anything and anyone else - his actions, however, prove otherwise … let alone his constant spiteful remarks on the matter, which just sound so damn bitter.

We can recognize that quite clearly when he is forced into involuntary seclusion on that mushroom planet at the end. This is where we see that what he truly is missing are not his machines (I bet he could have easily built a robot to accompany him out of the wreckage of his vessel), but one of the few people (maybe even the only one at that point), that he had apparently grown to value as worthwile company - namely agent Stone.

And, yes, it is very evident that he misses him (platonically, for me - but this isn’t even the point here) - he even tries to make a rock resemble Stone’s likeness in order to have someone to “talk to”, and mimic the social interactions he had with him.

Essentially, all those objects and machines are but a substitutive gratification that he tries to use, but that never come remotely close to the real deal, let alone are ever able to replace it.

In the end, he’s still a human being, along with all the human needs that go along with it - human contact and care included.

If the psycho-social and emotional makeup of his closest known relatives is any indicator to how his own might be structured - and it usually is (I’m speaking about the nature aspect, not nurture) - then he can’t be such a bad guy, after all - at least not inherently.

Taking his grandfather Gerald Robotnik, for example, who loved his granddaughter Maria (a total sweetheart) so much, that he was willing to do anything for her, in order to heal her from the fatal illness that was afflicting her - and who literally went insane with grief after losing her - then it shows someone with a strong emotional life, who feels what he feels very keenly and deeply. Furthermore, he is also someone that happens to bond very selectively, but if that is the case, it has this virtually absolute quality about it, with a love just as intense and profund to match (which is quite beautiful, actually).

On the other hand, though, that can also mean someone that has a high degree of emotional vulnerability, and who, therefore, is susceptible to sustain lasting damage from interpersonal traumatic experiences (which happens to be the case here, imho).

More often than not, it is this type of person that is likely to cork up their feelings and harden their hearts as a result - and who use every opportunity to deride the very traits, needs, and wishes they worked so hard to push away, if they see them in others. That is, amongst others, what gives them away. It’s pure projection - which is why I think that his caustic remarks should definitely not be taken at face value.

There are many, many examples of villains (or anti-heroes) that fit this type. Robotnik would hardly be an exception.

Besides, it is nice to see that Jim Carrey seems to have a fairly similar take on that matter (not that I actually care, but still):

“… and all it really comes down to is, he wants to be special to somebody, only it’s gone megalomania for him.”  [x]

Ouch! Poor guy, actually.

He seems a lot like Ozai in that regard. No wonder I dig this dude (aside from him being hot, that is, haha) - he’s totally the type of villain I fancy.

And also, like it’s the case with Ozai, I can’t help but wonder about his past, given there is known so little about it (aside from a few hints), so the following will be about some of my personal theories and headcanons about him, his family, and his past.

These are such important characters (main antagonists, no less), yet the creators can’t bring themselves to be more specific about the most basic facts concerning their families. Ugh, huge pet peeve here! Nobody expects a huge ancestral chart down to the tiniest details, but they could at least offer more info about their closest relatives - especially the parents, who happen to have the most formative influence on a person.

How old was he, when his parents died, anyway!? That they died seems pretty much a given, as that is what being an orphan is about, per definitionem (and he referred to himself as such). But how did they die? Did he witness their death, or was he absent?

Personally, I have this theory that their demise might very well be linked with what happened to his grandfather Gerald Robotnik, and his cousin Maria. Perhaps they were on that space research colony during the military assault, and were also amongst the “collateral damage” there.

From what I read, the recruited scientists lived there, so I reckon that they did bring their families with them, which is likely, since it is said that Maria was born there, so at least her parents must have lived there for an extended amount of time, as well. Since Ivo isn’t Maria’s brother, but her cousin, Gerald must have had at least two children, who lived alongside him (… and his wife!? No info about her, either.) on that station.

While I think both of Ivo’s parents were from prominent scientist families (after all, that is what the population of this space station was comprised of), it is still unclear whether or not they remained on that station. I am inclined to believe they might have split their time between there and Earth, as Maria and Ivo don’t appear to have been particularly close, such as, for instance, her and Shadow (who was pretty much her only friend there), but I think that might also have been the case due to a difference in age.

Maria was 12 years old when she died during the military attack on the station. Since Ivo apparently seems to have no significant memory of his parents, and seems to have spent his childhood as an orphan, he can’t have been older than 3-4 during this incident.

With Gerald arrested, and pretty much the rest of the inconvenient Robotnik family gone, aside from that small child, I think the military decided to take him along, simply because of the vast potential of this child, coming from a bloodline of geniuses, that was now theirs to mold and to exploit.

They likely left the boy in an orphanage afterwards, mostly to his own devices, and without any support, or caregiver whose bonds transcended the mere duty of keeping their fosterling alive - a lonely life, largely deprived of emotional warmth and attachment.

However, they did keep him under close monitoring, so they could intervene anytime they saw fit, to stir him in the direction they wanted - like a psychological experiment of sorts. I remember that in the movie the presiding pentagon guy referred to him as “a lab rat with teeth” - which is rather telling regarding how they perceived him, and pretty nasty, considering the implication.

The Robotnik name, though, they obviously did not refuse him - a decision they would come to regret later. While this allowed him the only tie to his ancestry, their legacy, however, didn’t do him much good.

Gerald Robotnik was a disgraced man, known to the world as the genius madman, imprisoned and sentenced to death as a criminal - which was, by far not the whole truth. And yet, he was turned into this idealised picture of a hero by his grandson, who so admired his achievents and strove to become a scientist because of it, despite knowing only the official version of the story.

The tainted reputation of his grandfather would haunt Ivo for a long time to come. It would also become the lens through which he was perceived and judged by the world at large, and this turned out to be the main reason he was rejected, and, furthermore, relentlessly bullied by his peers - irrespective of his own accomplishments, which earned him at least the praise of his authority figures.

That he eventually snapped and retaliated, did not exactly improve the situation for him. While the bullying did stop for the greater part, the peoples’ suspicion had turned into fear, as their concerns had come to pass after all, and, as a result, he was shunned even more.

In the following years, he was further on groomed to become this perfect military asset - a morally unchecked scientist and ruthless agent, that the government could deploy like the weapon they undoubtedly saw him as.

Unfortunately for them, however, their experiment didn’t quite have the outcome they had anticipated, as he not only exceeded their expectations on an intellectual and scientific level, but, at the same time, became increasingly unstable, unpredictable (”psychological tire-fire”) and, hence, potentially dangerous - to such a degree that they became very hesitant to deploy him at all (despite the “perfect operations record”), and even downright terrified of him.

Frankly, I think they’d also have ample reason to be afraid of him, other than just his obviously ambitious nature. The most prominent being a possible event, where he finds out about what truly happened to his family and himself, as well as their role in this. Needless to say, that he wouldn’t take this lightly, considering all the shit he had to endure because of it, and likely seek revenge. I’d really be curious about such a scenario.

[nbapprentice]

You said a while back that while Supergiant games (Bastion, Transistor, Hades) was mostly okay, you had some words about them. I was curious as to what those words were, since Hades' full release is soon.

okay. alright. ive been playing hades lately so i definitely want to give my two cents (or dollars by the size this is gonna get). but let’s go Step by Step

the good: i want to throw a whole Endorsement over supergiant games with the art direction and its characters, which is what keeps me coming back again and again, and what i can assume is that most people are attracted to. 

gameplaywise, they have a Format they stick to which has become their staple, not to their detriment but to their advantage, like... gameplay tropes, so to speak, that they stick to (such as the addition of special conditions that give a disadvantage in exchange for more long-term rewards)

i fucking adore that they take one concept per game, go for it, and when they’re done they are Done; they don’t bother with sequels, they don’t want to run things to the ground and i fucking respect that. They have their themes, and they stick to them (to various degrees of success).

that said, like every piece of media, they are not perfect and this has to be analysed and spoken about

CONTENT WARNINGS: genocide and ethnic cleansing, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia, suicide, and mentions of incest, and a general Spoilers warning

bastion: touches on ethnic cleansing, and not in a way i’d say is satisfactory. our narrator and one of our Sympathetic characters is one of the men who worked on a world-ending weapon meant to use against the Ura (a group of people coded as East Asian) which after a bit of googling is literally called “the final solution” if there was ever a war between the Ura and the Cael (who feel like rly tan white people to me). jesus fucking CHRIST.

we also meet more Ura other than our two named characters and we have to kill most of them. so that fucking blows.

the game tries for “being a genocidal monster will get you fucked up and blown up” which duh, but i feel we shouldn’t have had a person responsible for war crimes be one of our friends no matter how bad he feels about the whole thing, or the people victim of war crimes become villains in the latter half of the game. zia’s father could’ve taken ruck’s role ez pz.

transistor: the weakest of their games, imo; the lore and writing are fairly flimsy and i did not come out feeling Satisfied, especially because it had this rly good build-up that did not pay off. not to mention... their villains? 3/4 were gay people. lol. two married guys (not even explicit, you only realize by their shared last names) and the ps*cho lesbian trope (iirc she wanted to kill the protagonist’s lover or something). the female protagonist also ends up killing herself to live forever in a digital paradise with her dead lover. it’s. god. 

very Aesthetic, GORGEOUS music, interesting gameplay; had potential, i do not feel like it lived up to it at least as far as the story goes.

pyre: now this one. this one’s BEEFY. where transistor felt flimsy, pyre is rich; lots to sink your teeth into, rich in lore and loveable characters, again w the beautiful music, themes of cooperation and togetherness. my favorite of the cast is volfred sandalwood, the only Black (or, well, Black-coded) revolutionary i’ve ever seen portrayed with this amount of sympathy.

onto the bad: they literally have a Class of character named “Savage”; there’s the “mystical mentally ill person” trope; there is an overwhelming amount of explicit m/f pairs (one of them being. a romance that formed in a single day and then both of the characters were somehow willing to risk it all for each other? PLEASE) while the only hints of gayness are... hints. especially when Jodariel (another of my favs) is teased to have feelings for the player regardless of gender then only gets an ending with a male character with whom she has nothing in common 🙃

hades: and now. this one. music: gorgeous. character designs: spectacular (aphrodite is straight up naked but it’s so... natural and casual, it doesn’t feel sexualized at all). voice acting amazing. character interactions charming and endearing. as a greek mythology nerd, it was nice to see them go for the obscure shit like Zagreus at all, NOT portray Persephone and Hades as a loving couple, AND portrayed the gods as the bunch of petty assholes (some more benevolent than others) that they are. imo they’re too generous with their portrayal of achilles but i’ll allow it.

and finally... it seems all those criticisms about having all the gay characters hidden in the shadows paid off, cuz we got (aside of patroclus and achilles) a bisexual polyamorous protag. Holy Shit! and it’s not even playersexual, romance whomever you want shit without the routes recognizing each other: he explicitly talks about how he’s thinking abt them both (though it’s like “yeah usually mortals take one lover but gods love many huh” polyamory is a human thing too bro!!!!!)

and this is where it all goes, well, at least vaguely downhill lol. ok so the incest warning i gave up there? well. it’s not... outright incestuous. but it has some ugly implications. i want to emphasize: the characters never refer to each other as siblings, nor do they treat each other as such (thanatos, in fact, only recognizes hypnos as his brother, and megaera only sees the other furies as her sisters), but they were all raised by the same woman, Nyx... zagreus and thanatos even grew up together (im assuming megaera didnt meet zagreus until he was fully grown).

this is complicated even worse by the fact that they tried to trick zagreus into believing Nyx was his mother. he realized pretty early on this was not true but like... adoptive mothers, anyone? granted i can believe that bc of the attempt at deception that probably ruptured any attempt at actual familial closeness, and it’s not like hypnos and thanatos saw zagreus as their brother at any point, so they were p much aware of the truth too. with the fact that thanatos even looks like goth miles edgeworth (im not kidding you can google him up right now its literally edgeworth in a cowl) i rly feel they were aiming for Childhood Friend Anime Rival Man than the “surprise kiss bc ur not actually related <3″ shit. zagreus never once refers to nyx as his mother in-game, and also refers to thanatos and hypnos as her sons, never his brothers.

so yeah, like. if one’s feeling generous, zagreus and thanatos are more of a “my father is emotionally closed off and neglects me so my best friend’s mother basically raised me” kind of situation... just pulled off in, perhaps, the worst way possible (why didnt they just say Zagreus was told Hekate was his mom, that’s such an easy fix? or that he was born of nobody other than Hades??? [gestures at athena])

but then, the gods. aaaaaaaahhhhahahahh the gods. demeter shows up! and she calls zeus, hades and poseidon... her foster-brothers. which somehow would make the persephone thing less fucking awful, apparently. they really. really really did not need to do that. she could’ve just said “my fellow gods” or whatever. or my “god-brothers” or something, to pretend it was just a weird god alliance thing??? i dont know but implying that foster family isn’t family is just... bro, the dynamics still exist.

Don’t Like That.

i even contacted supergiant games over this. they reassured me they were even trying to avoid the incest of the original myths bc they didn’t want to mess with such a heavy theme. i believe them... but i really think they didn’t think this through. compared to something like fire emblem fates this is nearly benign, but the implications don’t look good :/

tl;dr of the tl;drs: i admire their artistic philosophy and the heavy emphasis on fresh gameplay, characters and their relationships; i appreciate that it seems that they listen to criticism?; i don’t appreciate that they didn’t think to at LEAST talk to adoptees when making a game about family.

[obsessedwithbbandsuju]

Love Scenario | Part 1

Things weren’t the same between them.

Pairing: Lee Hyukjae/Son Taeyeon

Things weren’t the same between them.

Warnings: Infidelity, smut, parental emotional neglect

___

oppa: a term used by a female to refer to a male, older than her, that she is close to

tteokbokki: a Korean dish made with spicy stir-fried rice cakes

sshi: a Korean honorific used when the speaker is relatively unfamiliar with the object of their words, usually regardless of age

hyung: a term used by a male to refer to another male, older than him, that he is close to

eonni: a term used by a female to refer to another female, older than her, that she is close to

noona: a term used by a male to refer to a female, older than him, that he is close to, but can also be used to refer to a man’s biological older sister

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When she and Hyukjae-oppa first became close, all the way back in 2014 while Taeyeon was working with Super Junior for their MAMACITA album, they’d hit it off instantly. She’d been a fan of Super Junior since their debut and was thrilled to get to know the members – though Heechul-oppa she’d been friends with since 2009 because they had emceed Inkigayo together. All the rest of the members were friendly and welcoming and generally pleasant to be around, and Hyukjae-oppa had been no exception to that – but there was something more. When Taeyeon talked to him, she often felt like the rest of the world had temporarily faded out of existence. Obviously she was still aware of what exactly she was with Super Junior for – for work, of course – and she made sure to keep that line drawn, but Hyukjae-oppa especially had a way of pulling her thoughts away from being purely professional and more towards being somewhat more personal.

After years of being friends – becoming such close friends that they would even frequent each other’s apartments and call each other often about work or troubles or even just for fun – Taeyeon realized that he made her heart flutter. Feelings for him were beginning to bloom inside her, leading to her rising temperature and quickened breaths when he was near. She was pretty good at hiding romantic sentiments, and this time was no exception, but she was starting to see signs that Hyukjae-oppa returned what she felt. She noticed him sneaking glances at her when he thought she wasn’t looking, glances that were too charged and intent to be just platonic like their relationship supposedly was. When there was even the slightest contact between their bodies, like shoulders bumping or fingers brushing, she could feel and see him stiffen just a tiny bit.

It wasn’t long after that Hyukjae-oppa began his flirting game. Taeyeon supposed that based on personal type, his push-and-pull could be seen as annoying, but to her it was just endearing – and entertaining. He would make teasing comments effortlessly here and there, comments that couldn’t be described as normal words between two friends. Things like, “You’re amazing.” “You’re really pretty today, Taeyeon. But then again, you’re always pretty.” “It seems like we’re dating or something, don’t you think?” They were always said with a mixture of both teasing and sincere that Taeyeon wondered how he could pull off. Cringy, maybe, but like she said – loveable.

And Taeyeon reciprocated gladly. It was a fun little game between the two of them, throwing suggestive words back and forth to each other. “I’m glad I have you.” “That’s why you’re irreplaceable.” “If someone saw us they’d definitely think we were on a date together.” She wasn’t sure how exactly Hyukjae-oppa felt about the comments, but she could tell was that he enjoyed them thoroughly. He would flash her that big grin whenever they had another exchange, and Taeyeon would inevitably find herself smiling back at him, too.

It went on like that until one day, the two of them were in Hyukjae-oppa’s apartment, sharing ideas for songwriting inspiration. Hyukjae-oppa was a pretty creative soul, and his suggestions were always interesting and, when followed, resulted in satisfactory products. That day, Taeyeon had given him an idea that was apparently particularly appealing to Hyukjae-oppa. He’d given her that signature wide and wholehearted grin, the one that exposed his gums in the cutest way, and she’d just had time to catch that flicker of conflict and nervousness in his large brown eyes before he leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

Surprised and not surprised at the same time, Taeyeon stared at him as he pulled back. “What are you doing?” Somehow, both of them could tell that the question was completely rhetorical – she already knew not just what he was doing, but what he meant by it. Nevertheless, she went on. “We’re not even dating, Hyukjae-oppa.”

“What do you mean? I thought we pretty much were,” was the reply. And then Hyukjae-oppa let a little bit of his doubt show through. “At least,” he said hesitantly, “I want us to be. I like you a lot, Taeyeon.”

It was completely natural, the way Taeyeon leaned forward and returned the kiss on the cheek and smiled at him. “I like you a lot too.” That was how they began dating. The stage leading up to their confessions was like the spring between the two of them.

When she and Hyukjae-oppa first began their relationship, there were just no words that could have described what Taeyeon felt. Every minute with him was filled with a sort of muted euphoria; even when she was calm, somewhere inside her she was absolutely elated at just his presence. When they were together, she could forget, if only for a little while, everything that was weighing on her and just bask in him – his charm, his kindness, his humor, his cuteness, his passion. He was just such a joy to be around, and she was sure that this was the first time she’d had such strong feelings for someone. They even matched well; their senses of humor were similar, they shared many of the same beliefs, the same hobbies, and even the differences between them became points of connection as they discussed their opinions with each other. He was cheeky and playful, and constantly made her laugh through his lighthearted teasing and natural jocundity. It was just… Hyukjae-oppa was so satisfying in every way – physically, psychologically, emotionally – and Taeyeon felt like she would never stop loving him. In all honesty, she might even be willing give him her entire world.

One thing that she’d expected, but still made her giggle, about their relationship was Donghae-oppa’s constant presence. He was practically attached to Hyukjae-oppa by the hip, visiting him constantly and turning a date night into a night for the three of them, curled up and watching a movie, or cuddled together and just relaxing. There were more than a few instances when Taeyeon would be reading something or working on a song, Hyukjae-oppa laying down with his head in her lap, and Donghae-oppa would be on her other side, leaning with his chin against her shoulder, or squeezing in next to Hyukjae-oppa to lay with him. It was odd and could have been taken as that kind of relationship to others, but Taeyeon never minded. She knew that Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa were practically a package deal, and the latter’s presence never made her annoyed. He was a dear friend, someone whom she cared about and respected, and in all amusing honesty, sometimes it felt like she and Hyukjae-oppa had adopted a son. The other members made appearances with they were together too, of course, but none as frequently and as naturally as Donghae-oppa.

Plus, Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa had an undeniable connection. Taeyeon thought it was touching, honestly. She’d been content, satisfied, happy with the way she and Hyukjae-oppa’s relationship was. It was the summer between the two of them.  

But maybe she should have known better. Taeyeon didn’t have loads of dating experience; she’d only dated four other people in her life before dating Hyukjae-oppa, but she knew enough about how they all eventually turned out. Either something went wrong, something got in the way of one or both of the two parties involved continuing to be content in the relationship, which had happened to her once before – or this. This, which was far more common, but no less sad.

Feelings just cooled off. It was inevitable, really. After all, romantic feelings were at least partially driven by hormones, and one’s body didn’t have the energy to maintain what was necessary to keep those hormones flowing enough. Once it stopped, once you became familiar with everything about the other person, that was the real test for couples. If they had become close enough emotionally and mentally, come to know and respect each other thoroughly, come to understand one another, and built a solid enough foundation upon which their relationship lasted, then the relationship survived that sudden plunge.

If not, well… maybe this was the direction that such couples ended up heading towards.

Taeyeon still loved Hyukjae-oppa. She’d gotten to know so much about him over the past three years that they’d been dating, and she knew nothing about him had changed. He was still the same Lee Hyukjae with whom she shared so many beliefs and passions, with whom she could, naturally as breathing, switch between conversations mulling over the fact that it was impossible to not be miserable at some point if you were born to conversations making petty, lighthearted fun of each other. He was still the same Lee Hyukjae whose unabashed harmony with his emotions she found amazing and fascinating and even a little inspiring. He was still the same Lee Hyukjae who was never hesitant to display his affection for her, the same Lee Hyukjae whose shoulder she could comfortably cry on and who trusted her to let him comfortably cry on hers. The same Lee Hyukjae whose perseverance through his difficult early years and his neverending dedication and determination today moved her and earned her admiration and respect for his character. Yes, she still loved him.

But love wasn’t quite the same as the burning zeal that fueled the initial stages of a serious relationship, and that zeal was dying between them. She still couldn’t imagine life without having him with her, but she no longer wanted to spend every waking moment by his side, just like he no longer wanted to spend every waking moment by hers. He could go several hours without thinking about her, she knew, just like she could, when during the first few years they were constantly on each other’s minds. Conversation lessened, the time they spent together decreased. Where they’d once walked side-by-side, shoulders brushing and holding hands, they now walked separately, usually one person slightly ahead of or behind the other. Once, when they’d had to part from each other for more than ten minutes, like the time before they’d moved into an apartment together, Taeyeon would always catch Hyukjae-oppa looking back at her longingly as he walked away, and she knew she gave him the same glances. Now, though, even when in the same room they barely acknowledged each other’s presence apart from a quick smile. Before, it was like they couldn’t live without saying “I love you” to each other at least every other minute. Now, it had become a somewhat rare occurrence. She could still hear the sincerity in Hyukjae-oppa’s voice when he said it to her, and when she said it to him she was being genuine, too, but it wasn’t as ferocious and ardent as it once had been.

Something was stagnating between them; Taeyeon could feel it, and she knew Hyukjae-oppa could feel it too. He’d always been open with his emotions and thoughts, wearing them on his sleeves, and even now when he tried to hide them, she could tell roughly what was going through his mind. Is this right? Is this supposed to happen? Is this normal? Will we get through it? Is it just a phase?

And she had the same concerns. Was it right that some days the only words they exchanged was a relaxed “hey” back and forth? Was it supposed to happen, the fact that they often slept with their backs to each other, barely touching, and at times even opted to crash in separate bedrooms of their shared apartment? Was it normal that there were instances where Hyukjae-oppa looked slightly annoyed when she made conversation with him? Would they get through the inexplicable awkwardness between them that seemed to pop up at times? Was it just a phase that they felt like they could easily go days without seeing each other, a phase that was soon to end?

It was now the autumn between the two of them, the autumn that seemed to be going on forever.

Taeyeon felt the problem – the problem that she wasn’t even sure could be count as a problem – exacerbating when Hyukjae-oppa began coming home late more frequently. Of course, as an idol like him, she more than understood the hectic schedules that he had to endure, but something about this didn’t add up. He would stay out even when Super Junior wasn’t promoting, mostly with Donghae; always practicing this or that with his friend or having to prepare for some broadcast or another, again with his friend. The amount of work he actually had did not at all seem proportional to the amount of time he spent taking late nights out with Donghae.

As much as things had cooled down between them, it was still difficult for Taeyeon to be without him so often. He would sometimes spend two consecutive weeks coming home late – past twelve in the morning, and it was only thanks to her workaholic tendencies, which prompted her to engross herself in work (like lyrics or composing or designing) far past the time the sun had set, that she sometimes wasn’t in bed and asleep by the time he came back in.

Oddly enough, when she was awake to welcome him back, he was probably the most openly affectionate that she saw him during the strange cool-off period that had come over them. When she greeted him then he would smile tiredly, open his arms and give her a hug and a big kiss on the cheek or forehead. For some reason, those hugs were needy in the way they had been during the earlier stages of their relationship. Often he would insistently pull her toward the couch and they would fall into a tangled mess of limbs onto the cushions. Then Hyukjae-oppa would cling to her for at least a good ten minutes in silence, his face buried in her neck, or her shoulder, or in her hair, breathing in deeply. Sometimes he would continue peppering her face and throat, maybe even her ears and collarbone, with soft, open-mouthed kisses.

But those spells were few and rather far-between; most of the time, they were consistently indifferent towards each other in their actions, although Taeyeon didn’t think that apathy quite extended to their feelings. She still loved him, and she could tell he still loved her too, but things had changed.

She knew she should talk to him about it, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Something between them seemed… fragile, and she was cautious that if she pushed even a millimeter too far, that something would break.

Admittedly, it hurt – proof that she was still in love with Hyukjae-oppa. Having to nurse all these concerns was hurtful, frustrating, and inconvenient, but Taeyeon didn’t know what else to do. Normally she was a straightforward person who liked to talk through her problems, but she had a gut feeling that this problem couldn’t be fixed by talking. In fact, taken the wrong way, she felt like talking, or rather, trying to talk, would only make it worse.

So she just… let it sit. Hyukjae-oppa did the same; he made no attempt to approach her rationally about the issue.

Taeyeon hadn’t been intending to let anyone in on their relationship’s state, either, but Donghae-oppa caught on. Everyone who knew him was aware that he wasn’t the most observant man in the world, but everyone who knew him was also aware that there was no one more in tune with Hyukjae-oppa than him. He had noticed something about his friend, and one day gave her a call about it. Taeyeon had been in front of her piano, composing, when she picked up. They exchanged quick greetings, and then Donghae-oppa asked her the questions that was on his mind regarding Hyukjae-oppa. He sounded a little hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he should be looking into this business, but Taeyeon didn’t mind. With respect for Hyukjae-oppa’s opinion, she didn’t give Donghae-oppa all the details, but she did open up to him about the matter. He was sweetly reassuring as he always was.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Things might be getting complicated now, but I know Hyukjae loves you.”

If no one else, Taeyeon trusted Donghae-oppa’s words regarding Hyukjae-oppa. She smiled. “Thanks for the talk.” It wasn’t often that just comforting words made her feel better – usually she only felt better when there was a concrete way to approach the problem that she had in her hands – but this time was an exception. It felt good to just know someone had listened to her.

“It’s no problem.” Donghae-oppa said. They said their goodbyes and hung up.

It was a Saturday night approaching a Sunday morning. Taeyeon was sitting in her bedroom, curled up on her bed with her blankets bundled around her, reading a book about Wu Zetian, the female emperor of China. One of her most lasting fascinations had always been women rulers in history, and Wu Zetian was a figure that couldn’t be ignored when it came to those matters. The book was a biography, a compilation of most of the information known about her, and it also addressed many of the rumors surrounding the emperor. Was there evidence that she killed her own daughter? Was there proof that she was really as malicious and sadistic and utterly without conscience as a good part of history made her out to be? It was a fascinating read, and Taeyeon found that she could often turn to it to engage her and take her mind off the world.

When she finally broke free of the daze that she fell into when reading about topics that interested her, she was stretching languidly on the bed, a yawn escaping her mouth. Hyukjae-oppa had left early that day, saying he needed to polish and practice some choreography with Donghae-oppa, at around eight a.m., and he still wasn’t home. The only word he left her was a quick text:

I’m probably going to stay late at the studio with Donghae again today. I’m sorry I’m gone for so long these days. When I get the opportunity I’ll make sure we get the chance to spend an entire day together, okay? Love you.

A quick look at her phone revealed that it was eleven twenty-three at night. As usual, Super Junior had no promotions and no upcoming schedules, so it was one of those instances when Taeyeon had no idea what her boyfriend could possibly have to do for so long. She did know, though, that he was at the S.M. dance studio with his friend.

Taeyeon wondered if she should maybe bring him some food. Hyukjae-oppa was better at managing work and leisure than she was, but he could be just as persistent as her, especially when it came to dance and choreography. Knowing him he hadn’t even eaten anything since dinnertime, which was an entire five to six hours ago. Plus, Taeyeon was sure Donghae-oppa would appreciate the break, too.

Her mind made up, she marked her spot in the book and left it on her bed. The tteokbokki didn’t take long for her to make, and soon, she was packing them into containers along with two sets of chopsticks, one for her boyfriend and one for Donghae-oppa. Putting it all in a spare lunchbox, she washed her face and brushed her teeth and was out the door.

Arriving at the studio, Taeyeon closed and locked her car door behind her. She had worked with Super Junior enough that she knew where they usually practiced, so, assuming that Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa were there, she made her way to the practice room. To her surprise, though, it was empty except for a few dancers, whom she recognized.

“Hana-sshi.” She called the name of one of them. Hana-sshi turned around and saw her, exchanging a quick word with the other dancers before hurrying over to where Taeyeon was standing.

“Taeyeon-sshi! What are you doing here so late?” the dancer asked.

“Have you seen Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa? I’m here to see them.”

Hana-sshi’s fine brows furrowed as she ran a brisk hand through her dyed red-streaked hair. “They left about an hour ago. They were going to head over to Donghae-sshi’s house to work on some lyrics.”

“Oh.” Mild annoyance stirred in Taeyeon’s gut. Great. Now she had to head all the way over to Donghae-oppa’s house. She would have just given up and eaten the tteokboki herself, but she had made too much of the dish for that. Besides, the sooner it was eaten, the better it tasted.

“Thanks, Hana-sshi.” She said her goodbyes to the dancer and left the studio, soon back on the road for Donghae-oppa’s house. It was a pretty lengthy drive, and Taeyeon spent it full of thoughts. She wondered if this was the first time Hyukjae-oppa had gone over to his friend’s place without letting her know. While she had never been the type of who needed to know what her partner was doing 24/7 – in fact it annoyed her when her partners needed to know what she was doing 24/7 – given the rust that was creeping over her relationship with her boyfriend, it was a little bit more disgruntling than it would have been otherwise.

Some time later, she had arrived at Donghae-oppa’s apartment complex. She’d been over to his place several times, too, though not as often as she’d been over to, say, her members’ places, or Jiyong-oppa’s place, or Heechul-oppa’s place. Still, with Donghae-oppa’s trusting nature and the speed with which they’d become close, she did have the code to his apartment.

Taking the elevator to the floor he lived on and then reaching his door, Taeyeon rang the doorbell. It was broken. Grimacing at her luck, she rapped her knuckles against the solid wood and waited, but there was still no response. She did it again. Still nothing. She checked the apartment number, just in case, to make sure she was at the right door. She was, so she knocked again. After three minutes, there was still no response.

Wondering if maybe the two men had fallen asleep, Taeyeon, reluctantly, put in the code to Donghae-oppa’s apartment. She was invading his privacy and she knew it, but she wasn’t about to just leave after everything, and she also wasn’t keen to stand outside of the door until someone finally came and opened it.

Cautiously, she inched her way into the apartment, closing the door behind her and peeking around furtively between her fingers, just on the off chance that there was something private happening. Nothing that she shouldn’t see was going on – in fact, the living room and kitchen of Donghae-oppa’s place were completely devoid of any human life.

Wondering if maybe they had gone into Donghae-oppa’s room to be more comfortable – after all, these were two men who had shared a bedroom more than a few times before – Taeyeon quietly made her way down the hall. The last thing she wanted was to be loud and make them think there was an intruder in the apartment.

She approached the door of the bedroom, but something made her pause just a little under a meter away from it. The sounds that were coming from inside were––Taeyeon felt her entire body freeze, and it took every ounce of control in her not to drop the lunchbox filled with the food she’d prepared onto the ground.

Because she could hear thumps of the bedframe repeatedly hitting the wall, and more than that, she could hear moaning and gasping and mewling coming from the bedroom, and both of the voices, she recognized. One was Donghae-oppa’s, and one – she would have recognized that voice, and those grunts of pleasure, anywhere. She’d heard them plenty of times before, after all.

“Hyukjae.” That was Donghae-oppa, his voice throaty and raw and dripping with pleasure. Taeyeon’s knees wobbled, and she put a hand on the wall to stop herself from collapsing to the floor in a boneless heap.

“Fuck.” The single word was strained and hoarse, and unbearably, undeniably, shamelessly erotic. This time it was decidedly not Donghae-oppa – it was him. “God, Donghae, you feel so good––!”

Taeyeon spun around, the lunchbox still miraculously held in her clenched fingers. Trying to be as silent as possible, she fled the hallway, fled the apartment, and ran back down the stairs. She didn’t stop until she’d reached her car, and it was only then that she realized her fingernails were digging painfully into her palms, on the verge of breaking skin and drawing blood. It took a conscious effort on her part to unclench her hand.

Yanking her car door open, collapsing into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut, Taeyeon stared blankly out into the night. She didn’t know what to think. While the extended amount of time Hyukjae-oppa spent with Donghae-oppa had stricken her as odd rather frequently, and the thought had he could be cheating had fleetingly crossed her mind before, never, never, had she considered it to be an actual possibility that could really, legitimately happen. And yet –

Taeyeon realized she was trembling. Taking a deep breath, she leaned back in her seat, letting her head loll back so her gaze met the plain grey hood of her car. She wanted to get out of there, she wanted to banish the apartment complex from her sight that very instant, but she knew it was dangerous to drive under the influence of strong emotion. And strong emotion was the most enormous fucking understatement she could think of to describe her state.

Her eyes drifted to Donghae-oppa’s floor. She didn’t know which window was his, but what she did know was that somewhere up there, her boyfriend and his best friend were fucking behind her back. How long had this been going on? Since Hyukjae-oppa started having late-night outings with Donghae-oppa so frequently? It all made sense in the way that Taeyeon didn’t want it to. And if she was right… if this had really been going on since Hyukjae-oppa’s early days out with his friend – then they’d been doing this for several months, the better part of a year. Since before she’d had that phone call with Donghae-oppa when he’d assured her that things would be alright.

And was that… was that why Hyukjae-oppa was so randomly affectionate with her after coming home late if he found her awake? Because he’d been getting cozy with Donghae-oppa and was now… what? Feeling guilty about it?

Taeyeon wasn’t sure how other people felt when finding out that their partners had cheated on them, and she was even less sure how they felt when finding out that that person their partner had cheated with was one of their close friends. Until then, she hadn’t been sure how she would feel in that situation – hell, she never imagined that she would ever find herself in that situation – but here she was. And strangely, even when she tried to summon up fury and bitterness and resentment, she couldn’t. Instead, there was a void opening up inside her. Suddenly, she felt so very tired.

Taeyeon started her car and pulled away from the apartment complex’s parking lot. She just wanted to go home.

The home you share with your cheating boyfriend? The home into which you invited your friend who willingly cheated with him? A voice inside her head asked. It wasn’t mocking, but sympathetic, careful, cautioning. Taeyeon swallowed and didn’t, couldn’t, answer.

When she got back to the apartment she shared with Hyukjae-oppa, Taeyeon hastily put the tteokbokki she’d made in the refrigerator to worry about later. The following shower she took lasted nearly an hour as she sat in the tub and let the hot water stream over her body, wondering what she was going to do now.

Finally, she came out of the bathroom, her hair still dripping, wearing nothing but her underwear and the first piece of clothing she’d gotten her hands on – which happened to be one of Hyukjae-oppa’s hoodies, plain light grey and oversized so it hung down to cover the tops of her thighs. She had just hung the towel she used up to dry after patting down her hair a few times when she heard the code of the apartment being punched in and the door opening. Hyukjae-oppa came in, and Taeyeon fought the brief impulse to throw the still-damp towel at his face. He looked so fucking disgustingly normal.

Instead, she just said quietly, “Hi.”

Kicking off his shoes, Hyukjae-oppa walked to her, his arms opened wide. Taeyeon didn’t have the energy to shove him away like part of her screamed at her to do. She let him embrace her tightly, and the two of them collapsed onto the cushions of the sofa, Hyukjae-oppa on top of her. His warmth against her body was so… comforting, so grounding, and Taeyeon hated it. Even after finding out what he and Donghae-oppa had been up to behind her back, even after being fully aware just what Hyukjae-oppa had come home from doing, his touch was still soothing to her.

He began brushing his lips tenderly against her face and neck, each graze more ardent than the last. Taeyeon knew she should feel disgusted, because she finally realized just what exactly it was that that passion was fueled by: his sentiments about cheating on her. And yet, she couldn’t. And when he pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her pulse point, the breathy moan that slipped out of her was in no way faked. They hadn’t had each other in – God, it had been over four months.

Hyukjae-oppa seemed to realize that too. He switched from kissing to nipping and sucking at her skin, putting that talented mouth to use against her throat and collarbones, even her inner shoulders. She could feel him hardening against her thigh, and his chest moving against hers was rubbing against her nipples through the fabric of their clothes. Suddenly desperate to have him, Taeyeon gripped his face in her hands and kissed him, hard. Not missing a beat, Hyukjae-oppa reciprocated, shamelessly letting his tongue tangle against hers in a sloppy mess of wet, hot muscle. His hands traveled to the hem of her hoodie – well, his hoodie – and pulled, hitching the material up her abdomen and exposing her hips and stomach. His fingers brushed against the sensitive flesh there before he continued to take off the article of clothing, Taeyeon raising her arms above her head to help him slip it off.

His urgency feeding off of hers, Hyukjae-oppa made quick work of the rest of their clothes, flinging them off to the side haphazardly. Beginning at the curves of her breasts, he kissed, sucked, nipped his way down her body until he was holding her thighs apart with his hands. Taeyeon hissed, bucking her hips to demand that he hurry up, and it seemed that he wasn’t in the mood to tease either. He obeyed her unspoken command and buried his face between her legs, dexterous tongue working her clit and entrance as his hands on her thighs kept her from reflexively closing around his head. It wasn’t long until Taeyeon could feel the beginnings of an orgasm rippling inside her, but before she could fall fully into its throes, Hyukjae-oppa pulled back.

Coming back up, he pressed their lips together in a tender kiss that made Taeyeon feel simultaneously like there were fireworks going off in her stomach and something curdling and rotting in her chest. But fuck, she couldn’t even think about telling him to stop, especially not when he lined himself up against her entrance and she could feel how hard he was. Then he snapped his hips forward, those impossibly precise dancer’s muscles doing their work, and buried himself up to the hilt inside her, instantly connecting to that one spot that made her toes curl and her back arch. Taeyeon moaned, pressing her eyes closed tightly, seeing stars.

Neither of them lasted very long, on account of the amount of time it had been since they’d been together like this and their heightened emotional, and consequently physical, sensitivity. Hyukjae-oppa was relentless as she remembered him to be, every stroke pressing against that area inside her without fail, and the hilt of his cock rubbing against her clit with every move he made. It must have been barely over five minutes later that Taeyeon came with a shrill cry of pleasure, hanging on to Hyukjae-oppa for dear life as her walls clamped down around the searing-hot member inside her like a vice. That must have done it for Hyukjae-oppa, too, because he gave one final, harsh thrust, every centimeter of him buried in her dripping channel, all of his pelvic muscles filled with tension about to snap.

“I love you,” he whispered hoarsely into her ear.

Taeyeon wished he hadn’t said that. Now she was forced to hold back her tears as he came inside her, the warmth of his seed spurting in her core. A few seconds later, Hyukjae-oppa relaxed, slipping out and going limp on top of her, for which she was grateful. With his face pressed against the crook of her neck and her shoulder, he couldn’t see that she was making a visible effort not to cry.

By the time her boyfriend had lifted his head to look at her, she managed to get herself under control and was laying there with her eyes closed. She could feel his gaze on her, so she cracked her eyelids open to stare back at him. Sure enough, he was looking at her.

But then he ducked his head again like it stung him to look too long into her eyes, and instead began peppering her jawline and throat with kisses. Taeyeon suspected that she knew why he was finding it difficult to hold her gaze for long.

As Hyukjae-oppa lavished her neck and lower face with attention that would have been sweet, Taeyeon curled her fingers into his soft, luscious hair, wondering what she was going to do. A part of her, the rational part probably, was telling her to break up with him right then and there; reveal to him that she knew exactly about his activities. But laying there as he pressed worked at her skin with single-minded tenderness before gently slotting their lips together to kiss her sweetly on the mouth, Taeyeon couldn’t find it inside herself to do. If she did, the next thing that happened was that she would leave him, because there was no chance in hell that she would let him think she was willing to stay with him after what he’d done. And the thought of leaving him was… it wasn’t pleasant. As much as Taeyeon wished she could say that she’d easily made up her mind to break up with Hyukjae-oppa as soon as she learned about his infidelity, she couldn’t do it. She still loved the bastard, and the image of the shocked face she knew he would make was too much for her to bear. It was the first time she cursed herself for being so softhearted, or maybe for being so completely in love with Hyukjae-oppa.

But she also couldn’t act the same around him. How could she, after she found out that he was cheating on her? There were times when she just wanted to strike him across that beautiful face of his, but of course she couldn’t just do that. So instead, she put as much distance, physical and emotional, between herself and Hyukjae-oppa – at least as much as was possible when they shared an apartment. She found herself beginning to be less and less halfhearted when returning the already fairly sparse gestures of affection from him, because she couldn’t put her heart into it, not when she was aware that Hyukjae-oppa was going behind her back with Donghae-oppa, and especially not when he continued to do it. His “outings” with his friend didn’t decrease, and of course although Taeyeon couldn’t say for sure if they fucked every time they said they were going somewhere together, she knew that sometimes they were.

And as a result of her withdrawal away from him, Hyukjae-oppa withdrew from her, too. The occasional days that he was feeling openly affectionate dwindled to almost nothing. They could hardly carry out a casual conversation without friction, verbal or nonverbal, rising between them. Taeyeon wasn’t a fool, and neither was Hyukjae-oppa – they could feel the tension that was undeniably splintering the relationship between them that had once been so strong. Soon, it became a rare instance for them to acknowledge each other’s presence in the same apartment. They’d go days, even weeks, at a time exchanging only three words in total. Hyukjae-oppa sometimes seemed like he wanted nothing to do with her. Taeyeon couldn’t really blame him for it, after the way she was treating him. But she also wasn’t sorry for treating him the way she did.

It was undeniably, irrefutably, impossibly painful, the fact that they’d drifted so far apart. Taeyeon was under no illusion that she’d somehow managed to fall out of love with Hyukjae-oppa. No, she was still impossibly enamored with him. She wouldn’t really be surprised if the sentiment was no longer returned – even beyond the mess that their relationship had deteriorated into, he had cheated on her, and was still cheating on her, after all – but she did know that she still loved him. And looking back at what they had been to each other as compared to what they were now, if they even were anything, she sometimes had to hold back tears with all her might. But she couldn’t act like she was completely happy with him when she wasn’t, and yet she couldn’t find it in herself to break up with him. It was laughable.

That was the winter between them – monotonous, cold, awkward, everything they had ever felt for each other freezing under a thick layer of ice and snow – and it seemed that it wasn’t going to be ending anytime soon. Still, Taeyeon was positive that they would be over one day; it was only a matter of sooner or later.

She supposed it could be counted as later.

It was the day of her and Hyukjae-oppa’s six-year anniversary. Six years ago today, he had given her that peck on the cheek that she’d returned, the one that had begun their relationship.

Surprisingly, Hyukjae-oppa had put some effort in this time, the kind she couldn’t remember him putting in since the first few years of their dating. Taeyeon had a broadcast that day – she had been a guest on Running Man along with Soojin and Minhee-eonni – and had come home to find that her boyfriend had made a shrine of sorts next to the large window leading out to the balcony of their apartment. It was simple, just a wooden stand on which he’d framed and placed some of the pictured that they had taken together in the past, as well as little gifts they’d bought each other. Among the miscellaneous items, Taeyeon saw the ring that he’d gotten her for their one-year anniversary and the small hand mirror that she’d gotten him for their six-month anniversary. The sight of the gifts made her chest feel hollow. It seemed like so long ago since they’d had that loving connection between them.

“Babe.” Hyukjae-oppa’s voice was sweet as he came out of his bedroom while she was kicking her shoes off and peeling off her coat. Taeyeon felt a pang. She couldn’t even remember how she would have felt about his preparations had they not been locked in this wreck of a relationship – if she hadn’t found out he was cheating. Or rather, if he just wasn’t cheating. Maybe she would have thrown herself into his arms and kissed him all over the face, but right now – right now, she just felt tired. Tired of looking at their photos together, tired of seeing all the things they’d bought for each other, tired of thinking of the fact that it was their anniversary which seemed like such a laughable shamble now, tired of him and his unfaithfulness and the fact that she still clung to whatever this had become despite all that.

“Hey.” Her voice came out even more weary than she’d intended it to. She just wanted to retreat into her room, but Hyukjae-oppa grabbed her hand, entwined their fingers and pulled her gently over to the stand. “Look,” he said. “We took that picture on our first date. Remember?”

Taeyeon did, despite the fact that she didn’t really want to. Their first date had been nothing special, but it had had that special kind of private intimacy that Taeyeon valued in a relationship. They’d gone over to her apartment, since they still lived in separate places back then, watched a movie and eaten dinner together. It was only the slightest bit awkward since they were already more than familiar with how the other acted, just with the added little fact that they were now dating. Hyukjae-oppa had insisted on taking the photo right before he left, looping his arm around her shoulder and pressing their heads together as they looked up at the camera. He had always liked recording the times they spent together.

“I remember,” she said, trying to sound at least somewhat enthusiastic as to not hurt his feelings. But she had never been naturally good at expressing her emotions through tone, and she was just so tired. Her words came out strained, and she could tell Hyukjae-oppa was crestfallen at her lukewarm response.

It’s the very least he can suffer for fucking Donghae-oppa behind my back, a voice inside her head sneered.

Still, he kept trying. “And that one,” he said, gesturing to another photo. “For when we visited Jeju Island together.” They were on a ship, and had been doing the classic Titanic pose upon, once again, Hyukjae-oppa’s insistence. Taeyeon stared in silence at the bright, wide grins on their faces in the photograph. Was that really her and Hyukjae-oppa, the same two people they were now? The two in the frame, their utter happiness together, it seemed like it was all from a different world.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Despite the lighthearted question, there was a kind of strain in Hyukjae-oppa’s voice. Taeyeon thought she might know where that feeling was coming from. She felt the same. “Yeah.”

If only he would just leave her alone.

But Hyukjae-oppa seemed to have no intention of doing that. He spun towards her, anger flashing in his dark eyes. In all honesty, Taeyeon couldn’t say it surprised her, even if he was a person who rarely expressed his anger in loud or emotional ways. She was the same way, after all, and she knew the imminent signs of a rare explosion. Hyukjae-oppa was frustrated and irritated at her lack of much enthusiasm, after the work he must have put into this – and she didn’t feel in the least bit sympathetic for him. Maybe if he hadn’t cheated on her she wouldn’t be acting like this, had he maybe considered that?

“What’s up with you?” Hyukjae-oppa demanded, his voice louder than she’d heard it for a long time. He must be legitimately riled up. “I don’t expect you to start shouting hallelujah, but is it so hard to at least pretend that you care?”

Like you obviously care so much, cheating on me and all? Taeyeon spat back in her head, but she wasn’t looking for a fight. She was too exhausted and felt too drained to be shouting, in spite of the ire stirring inside her at his brazenness. Did he really think he was in a position to be complaining to her?

“Do I always have to say only what you want to hear?” she asked quietly.

Hyukjae-oppa recoiled like she’d slapped him. “What?” He sounded dumbfounded, as if the very fact that she’d said something like that to him was blowing his mind.

Taeyeon sighed. “Never mind. I’m just… I’m tired.” She went to move away, but Hyukjae-oppa gripped her forearm with his hand, stopping her. His hold was tight, not tight enough to hurt, but tight enough that she could tell he was more than a little vexed.

“Why are you like this?” His voice was rising. “Fuck, Taeyeon, we’ve barely had a conversation in months! I know we’re not like we used to be, but I tried! Doesn’t that matter to you at all?”

Doesn’t it matter? Doesn’t it fucking matter? Never mind about not wanting to fight – Taeyeon could feel that earlier ire beginning to bubble. He was lecturing her about mattering? Did it matter to him that the fundamental quality of a relationship was trust? Did it matter to him that he was deceiving her by not being faithful? Did it matter to him that he was, for the love of God, cheating? Clearly not. Clearly the relationship meant nothing to him, clearly she meant nothing to him, so why should she have to care? How dare he talk like he had the right to say anything?

“How much longer are you going to be like this?” Hyukjae-oppa continued, oblivious to her fury and furious himself. “How much longer are you going to act like you have a stick up your ass? I don’t understand what’s wrong with you! Why won’t you talk to me?! Is it so hard to just––”

“Oppa!” Taeyeon shouted, the resentment that had been building inside her since she found out about his activities starting to boil over. She couldn’t remember the last time she had raised her voice so much. The surprised look on Hyukjae-oppa’s face at her outburst only fed the ugly mass of frustration, hurt, sadness, and anger seething in the pit of her stomach. “Take your own advice! How much longer are you going to be like this? How much longer do we have to keep this up? Are we going to do this until we die?!”

“What are you talking about?” He really, genuinely sounded so confused and exasperated that Taeyeon could have burst out laughing if she wasn’t so angry.

“You’re really acting like you don’t know? Skirting around the apartment, avoiding any talking, going out with other people, trying to somehow salvage this laughable disaster of a relationship, while really hating each other?!” At the last part – hating each other – the confused indignation in her boyfriend’s eyes turned to shock. He opened his mouth, but Taeyeon didn’t want to hear him talk.

“Don’t you think I tried too? I kept telling myself we’d be fine, I kept telling myself that it would all pass eventually – but then you had to go and ruin everything!” Her words reminded her of a child throwing a tantrum, but Taeyeon couldn’t help it, because the words were right. He had ruined everything. Maybe she could have had some faith that things would work out between them, maybe she could have had the will to fix the crumbling pieces of their relationship, if he hadn’t cheated on her. But he had – he fucking had – and since she’d found that out she’d been unable to muster up the energy to try any longer. More than that, she felt like a part of her ability to trust had broken. If her own boyfriend was continuously cheating on her while pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary the whole time, if her friend was cheating with her boyfriend while also acting like everything was fine in front of her for so long, how was she supposed to trust anyone?

This is wrong. This is all wrong. She should have just ended it all with him the moment she learned he was cheating. Then they wouldn’t be in this mess. But she just had to be an idiot and cling on to hope that somehow they would manage to turn over a new leaf. Taeyeon didn’t know why she had bothered. She knew the truth now; they’d never be able to do that. They were stuck with the lot that they had, and that lot was festering, rotting, and crumbling to nothing.

“What do you mean?” Hyukjae-oppa was reaching toward her, face full of hurt incredulity, but Taeyeon slapped his hands away. She felt like if she allowed his fingers to come in contact with her, they would burn her skin. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself from flying into a complete rage at him.

“Why – why did you have to do it? Who gave you the right to make me feel so pathetic? Who gave you the right to make me so miserable?!” Taeyeon shouted, covering her face with her hands, unable to stomach the sight of him any longer. She hated – hated – that she was losing her composure like this, hated that she was letting anyone see her so riled up and raw and vulnerable, but her control was slipping from her like grains of sand slipping out through her fingers.

“I don’t hate you!” Hyukjae-oppa cried. Even without looking at him, Taeyeon heard the anguish in his voice. It didn’t help. “Hating each other – that’s not what’s been going on at all!” She could feel the warmth from his body as he got closer in an attempt to take her hands. “Taeyeon, I still lo––”

“No!” Taeyeon screamed, shoving him away. Once the words that he was almost about to say might have given her hope, but now it was good for nothing except serving to make her tears spring up faster. If you loved me you wouldn’t have done this to me! “You don’t get to say that! Why can’t you just admit that you’re done with me?! What’s the point of all this when you don’t really care about me at all?!” She lashed out at the stand, blinded by her tears and the unfair hopelessness of the entire situation. It crashed to the ground, sending pictures and trinkets across the floor. Against her will, one in particular caught Taeyeon’s eye: herself and Hyukjae-oppa, arms wrapped around each other, their forms set against the breathtaking backdrop of a setting sun and the Eiffel Tower rising high into the sky. They’d taken that trip together to Paris a little over two years into their relationship, and she remembered that she could hardly stop smiling.

“This!” Taeyeon screamed. She snatched the photo from the floor and thrust at Hyukjae-oppa for him to look at. He looked paralyzed with shock, but his eyes instinctively moved to the object she was holding out at him, and Taeyeon saw recognition flicker in his gaze. Right before she flung it hard back down onto the ground, because the sight of it made bile rise in her throat. The frame of the photograph shattered, shards of glass skittering across the apartment.

“What’s the point of this if our relationship was worth so little to you anyway? What’s the point of your so-called trying if you’re just going to go behind my back and fuck Donghae-oppa again? It’s all useless, it’s a waste of your time and mine – just forget it all!” Wiping at her face and eyes furiously, so hard that the harsh pull of her hands against her skin was enough to hurt, her head throbbing and her chest splitting, Taeyeon shoved past Hyukjae-oppa and ran to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. To her dismay, she heard his footsteps come down the hallway, after her.

But she wasn’t going to let him get in. She didn’t want to see him right now. She didn’t want to see anyone right now. Frantically fumbling with the door handle, she locked the door and backed away from it just as Hyukjae-oppa, reaching her room, tried it out. The handle caught on the lock.

“Taeyeon? Taeyeon, please listen to me.” There was wild desperation in his voice that she’d never heard before. Trembling, Taeyeon stumbled deeper into her room and sank to the ground right next to her bed. She hated crying out loud, but the pressure in her chest, the pounding in her head, the tightening of her throat, it was all too much to be quiet. Burying her face in her knees and wrapping her arms around herself, she began to sob. The adrenaline of her explosion faded, leaving her feeling gapingly hollow inside. She didn’t know what to do. There was nothing to do. She was a fucking fool for thinking they could have ever gotten past what had happened to them.

“Open the door. Please – please, Taeyeon. Let me explain. Please.” Hyukjae-oppa sounded near tears. The handle of her bedroom door rattled wildly as he shook it, futilely trying to get in. Taeyeon didn’t want to hear his explanations. They would all be empty, anyway. It was all useless. Any attempts she’d made, and any attempts he would make, to salvage their relationship – all of it was useless. They were over. They’d been over for a long time, it was just that Taeyeon had been too much of an idiot to see what was right in front of her nose.

“Don’t you dare!” She wanted to sound angry, she really did, but the entire phrase came out between a garbled mess of sobs and heaves. “If you try to come in I’m never looking at you again!”

The rattling of the handle stopped. Taeyeon squeezed her arms around herself harder. Her entire body was shuddering with the force of her sobs. This wasn’t it. This wasn’t how she’d imagined she’d one day part ways with Hyukjae-oppa. The fluttering of her heart from the earlier stages of their relationship, the happiness she had felt whenever she so much as got a text from him, seemed like a cruel joke.

Maybe if they hadn’t met. Maybe if they hadn’t become romantically involved. Then Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa could have done whatever they wanted to do without it affecting her. Then she wouldn’t feel so utterly meager and worthless. She knew Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa had known each other far longer than she’d known either of them, and anyone could see the intimate connection they shared, but did they have to do this? Did they have to lie to her like this? It would have been better if they’d just come clean about it instead. It would have hurt, but she would have accepted it and moved on with her life. But apparently – apparently she wasn’t worth even that to either of them.

It must have taken a good thirty minutes for her cries to completely stop, and after that Taeyeon just sat there for at least two more hours. She huddled against the bed, drained and exhausted, her eyes sticky with dried tears. The devastated atmosphere of the apartment was practically palpable, but somehow, she felt less awful after letting it out. Her head felt a little bit clearer than it ever had since that day she found out about her boyfriend’s relationship with his best friend. It was obvious now; she couldn’t be with Hyukjae-oppa, but she didn’t want to end it so messily. She still cared about him – she didn’t think she could ever stop doing that – and she knew that if she just left in this state, she would be hard-pressed to ever see him or Donghae-oppa again.

Before she put a close on things, as she should have long ago, she wanted to clear everything up.

Taeyeon stood, her legs screaming in protest after several hours of being tucked against her chest, and she had to grip her bedframe to stop herself from grimacing at her unsteadiness. Taking a deep breath, cracking her back and giving her legs a quick stretch to rejuvenate her body, she unlocked her room door and peeked outside. A head snapped up, and familiar eyes that practically glittered even in the dim light stared back at her.

Hyukjae-oppa was sitting against the wall in front of her bedroom. Somehow he looked like he’d aged since she’d last seen him, which was only hours ago. His eyes seemed to be sporting faint dark circles under them, and the vigor and life that she was so used to seeing in his gaze was gone, leaving him looking dull and empty. He was always fairly pale, but at the moment he seemed to be outright pallid. His entire body was limp, but as soon as he saw her he shot to his feet. Instinctively, Taeyeon flinched at his sudden movement, and, seeing her discomfort, Hyukjae-oppa froze.

“Taeyeon… I…”

She didn’t want to hear it earlier than she had to. Holding up a hand, Taeyeon shook her head once, clenching her jaw. “Later. Call Donghae-oppa, please.”

Fear spread across Hyukjae-oppa’s face, although of what Taeyeon couldn’t say exactly. Could he tell where she was going with this? They had been such close friends before everything, after all. The thought of how tight-knit the two of them had once been sent a nauseating pang through her stomach.

“Taeyeon,” he tried again, “please––”

“Tell me later,” she interrupted again. “When Donghae-oppa’s here.” Stepping out of her room, she closed the door and slipped past him, heading towards the living room. The stand she’d knocked over was still toppled, and the pictures and bits of glass were still scattered across the floor. Kneeling down, Taeyeon carefully picked up the shards, concentrating unnecessarily hard to shift her focus away from Hyukjae-oppa, who had followed her and was now standing at the junction between the hall and the living room, staring at her motionlessly.

Finishing the job and placing the shards carefully into a bag for later disposal, Taeyeon reluctantly turned back to Hyukjae-oppa. He hadn’t moved from his spot, and the expression on his face might have convinced her to stop what she was doing under other circumstances. But now, nothing could stop her. She had made up her mind.

“Call him,” she said curtly. “And don’t tell him that I know. I don’t want him making up excuses on the way.” She sounded harsh, but Taeyeon thought she had a right to be. She was tired of hearing bullshit from both of these men, and wanted to make this as quick and clean as possible, no more ugly emotions involved. Bad enough that she and Hyukjae-oppa had to split with the knowledge that he had cheated hanging over them; there was no need to make the situation worse.

Hyukjae-oppa flinched at her tone. He looked like he was about to protest, but then, his shoulders sagged and his entire body drooped. He knew as well as she did that it was pointless. Reaching into the pocket of his sweatpants, he pulled out his phone, and was putting it to his hear a few moments later.

“Hey.” His voice as he greeted his friend was so miserable that it made Taeyeon want to begin crying again. If he was going to be so upset that she’d found out, why did he do it in the first place? “Can you come over now?”

There was a pause; Taeyeon couldn’t hear what Donghae-oppa was saying, but she suspected that it was something along the lines of being surprised. After all, it was almost midnight.

“Yeah, now.” Another pause.

“…You’ll find out. But it’s important.” Hyukjae-oppa’s face seemed to crease at that last word – important. It wasn’t exactly an accurate description of the situation.

“Okay. Thanks. Bye.” He hung up, slipping the phone back into his pocket but not looking at her, even as she knew he could feel her watching him steadily. He seemed unable to meet her eyes, and Taeyeon fought the urge to sigh – something she felt like she’d been doing quite often lately. Preoccupying herself again, she knelt on the ground and began to pick up the photographs and frames that had gone flying when she shoved the stand in her earlier rage.

The sound of tentative footsteps told her that Hyukjae-oppa was approaching to help. She tried not to stiffen and instead aggressively narrowed her focus onto what she was doing, staying vigilant for any shards of glass that she might have missed earlier as she gathered the photographs in her hands. Thankfully, she managed to not look at Hyukjae-oppa as he knelt a few feet away from her and occupied himself with collecting the little trinkets they’d given each other in the past that he’d put on the stand.

Once they finished the cleanup and set the stand back upright, awkwardness fell. Neither of them knew what to say; Taeyeon sat on the couch, arms crossed, staring numbly ahead at the wall in front of her, while Hyukjae-oppa paced the living room, sneaking furtive glances at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. The one time she looked back at him he averted his gaze so fast that Taeyeon almost thought she had been imagining it.

Eventually, the ringing of the doorbell alerted them to Donghae-oppa’s arrival. Hyukjae-oppa’s face fell as he glanced toward the front door, stopping his pacing. For her part, Taeyeon stood quickly and hurried to open the door for the man waiting outside. If she thought too much about what was about to happen, she was afraid she was going to lose her nerve. She had to be clearheaded if she was going to rationally and calmly stomach what was about to come.

Taeyeon opened the door. Sure enough, it was Donghae-oppa, dressed casually in a jacket and a pair of jeans. Unexpectedly – even though she should have been expecting it, in fact – the sight of him sent a new rush of resentment through Taeyeon’s veins. Questions leaped to the tip of her tongue, most of them beginning with “why” and “how could you”, but she stayed quiet except for one word.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Donghae-oppa looked faintly worried as she stood aside and let him come inside. Despite Hyukjae-oppa not giving him the specifics of the situation, Taeyeon was sure that Donghae-oppa had gotten some wind of it. There wasn’t much going on that was so urgent that he would need to come to their apartment out of the blue.

Taeyeon closed the door behind Donghae-oppa and turned around to see him staring at Hyukjae-oppa, who was avoiding his gaze. She wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Jealous at their connection? Angry at them for tricking her? Betrayed that they had found it in themselves to have the sort of relationship they did when she was in the picture? She had felt all of those things plenty of times before, since finding out that they were fucking – and whatever else they could have done – but in all honesty, right now she just felt tired. She just wanted this to be over, quickly and painlessly as possible.

“Sit.” At her brusqueness, Donghae-oppa turned back to her, his eyes wary. Hyukjae-oppa just looked entirely lost in thought. Nevertheless, neither of the two men argued as she lead the way to the living room and sat on one of the couches, hoping that Hyukjae-oppa wouldn’t be senseless and try to sit next to her. He didn’t, instead taking a seat on one of the armchairs across from her spot. Meanwhile, Donghae-oppa sat in the other one, shedding the jacket. Both of them seemed to be avoiding her gaze.

“How long has it been since you two got together?” Taeyeon asked. Her words might have been a little too blunt, but she needed to get her point across: the charade was up. She knew what they had been doing.

Hyukjae-oppa seemed to wither a little bit more. Donghae-oppa looked shocked, like a teenager who’d been caught red-handed trying to steal from the convenience store. He glanced over at his friend, whose gaze was glued firmly to the ground, and then back at Taeyeon, his eyes wide and his lips parted slightly. With the expression on his face, anyone would think she had just given him a full slap across the jaw.  

“Taeyeon––”

Hyukjae-oppa had already tried to explain himself. She did not want to hear it from Donghae-oppa, either. “Please stop,” Taeyeon said quietly. “I don’t need to know your reasons. Just answer the question.”

“Since two years and two months ago.” Hyukjae-oppa’s voice was tremulous. Taeyeon gripped the arm of the sofa to stop herself from squeezing her eyes shut at the information. Two years and two months ago meant it was before the cooling down of their dating started. Which meant that Hyukjae-oppa had begun his infidelity before it became obvious that what was between them wasn’t what it once was. He hadn’t just cheated because he was looking for comfort outside a deteriorating relationship; he had cheated because of the feelings he had had for the person he was cheating with.

It took her a few seconds before she could bear to face them again. Her boyfriend – or was he her ex-boyfriend now? – still wasn’t looking at her, but Donghae-oppa was. There were tears in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, although the words sounded closer to a whimper. Taeyeon shook her head. She didn’t need his apologies, or anyone’s. What good would they be?

“I love Hyukjae.” Donghae-oppa’s sudden statement hung in the air, charged with tension and yet somehow so utterly flat at the same time. Taeyeon wasn’t surprised. She’d known it for a long time now. Next to his friend, Hyukjae-oppa buried his head in his hands.

“I know,” Taeyeon said quietly. “And Hyukjae-oppa? Do you have the same feelings?”

There was a long silence as her ex-boyfriend sat still, not even looking at either her or his best friend. But when he finally did, it was Donghae-oppa he looked at first, before he looked at her. His dark eyes were filled with guilt.

“Yes,” he whispered. “I love him, too.”

Taeyeon nodded, wordless. She’d already expected that.

“Hyukjae-oppa,” she said, “I’m sorry I made you think earlier that I didn’t care about your anniversary preparations. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way – I was just so frustrated and angry at everything. I wish I could have appreciated what you did for today more.” The way he was looking at her, both hopeful and hopeless simultaneously, broke her heart, but it was no longer enough to change her mind.

“That’s all.” Taeyeon stood from her spot on the couch. It was time to go; she couldn’t stay a second longer in this apartment any longer. Her old place at Hanwha Galleria Foret was still hers in name, even though she didn’t live there anymore. “I’ll come back for my things another time.”

“No.” Donghae-oppa shot to his feet, although Hyukjae-oppa was still motionless, as if paralyzed, next to him. “No. Taeyeon, please,” he begged. “Please don’t leave him. He loves you so much.”

“He loves you more,” Taeyeon replied instantly – she hardly even had to think about it. Hyukjae-oppa’s actions had made that clear enough; she would never be enough for him. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” It was already plenty difficult to stomach the reality of what this had become. Donghae-oppa begging her to change her mind was only bound to make it even more agonizing for everyone involved.

Feeling heavy, she walked away, heading for the coat rack near the front door. The coat she’d taken off earlier today when she came home from filming Running Man hung there, with her car keys, her phone, and her wallet that she’d left in its pockets. Perfect. Everything she needed at the moment. I guess I should be grateful for the small things in life, she thought sarcastically.

She had almost reached the rack when Hyukjae-oppa dashed in front of her, blocking her way. His eyes were wild and frantic and filling rapidly with tears.

“Please,” he begged. “Please don’t leave me.”

“How can you say that?” Taeyeon asked softly, in disbelief at his words. She had to leave him. What else was going to remedy this wreck of a scenario, other than her getting out of the picture? This was the best thing that could be done for all of them. Donghae-oppa and Hyukjae-oppa could be together without her in the way, and she… she wouldn’t have to be a fool any longer. She would rather have nothing to do with either of them at all from this point onwards than be… this.

It was obvious that Hyukjae-oppa knew what she was talking about, too, from the helplessness that filled his gaze. But he didn’t give up. Taking her hands, he sank to his knees in front of her. Taeyeon followed him down with her eyes as he knelt, her head beginning to pound with the promise of imminent tears. Why couldn’t he just let it go? Why couldn’t he just let her go?

“I’m begging you,” he whispered, his voice shaky and unstable from crying. “Please. I’m horrible. I know that. I know I’m the most disgusting thing to walk the earth for what I did to you, but don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. I’ll do anything, Taeyeon, please. I love you. I love you.”

I’ll do anything.

And maybe he would. Maybe he would end this thing with Donghae-oppa, maybe he would choose his feelings for her over his feelings for his best friend, if only to stop her from leaving for good, for forever. But Taeyeon couldn’t force him to make that decision. She couldn’t force him to choose one love over another, and she couldn’t ask Donghae-oppa to bury his feelings for Hyukjae-oppa for her sake. The only thing to do was to act herself, and the only action she could take without being unspeakably selfish and inhumanly cruel to both of them was to go.

“I’m leaving,” she told Hyukjae-oppa softly, squeezing his hands in hers. “I have to.” She glanced over her shoulder at Donghae-oppa, who was watching the exchange, crying silently. Their gazes met, and that was enough to tell him what she wanted to say.

Turning back to Hyukjae-oppa, who was staring up at her with desperation in his eyes and tears streaking his cheeks, Taeyeon bent down to kiss the crown of his head. His familiar scent flooded her nose, and her own tears threatened to rise up and destroy her composure, but she held them back firmly. “Goodbye, Hyukjae-oppa. You and Donghae-oppa be good to each other, okay?”

And then, pulling her hands out of his, she stepped around him and swept her coat off the hook of the rack, hearing the familiar jingle of her car keys inside. Unable to find the courage to look back one last time, she left the apartment, closing the door firmly behind her. With a deep breath, raising her chin and straightening her shoulders, she walked down the hallway, down the stairs, and to her car. Then she got in and drove away, heading back toward Hanwha Galleria Foret. Her heart wanted her to look in the rearview mirror at the apartment complex, fast getting further and further away, but she didn’t.

An amount of time that Taeyeon felt too exhausted to even think about identifying later, she was standing in the elevator, heading up to the floor of her apartment in Galleria Foret. Taeyeon leaned against the cold metal wall, fighting against the urge to close her eyes and deny all of reality for a few seconds. In the midst of her spacing out, the elevator stopped at her floor. Shaking her head in an attempt to clear her mind, Taeyeon stepped out into the hallway, only to pause and blink in surprise as she saw a familiar figure heading towards the elevators. It was Jiyong-oppa.

But what was he doing on her floor? Wondering if maybe she’d pressed the wrong button in her daze, Taeyeon glanced at the floor number displayed in the hallway. Sure enough, the digits etched into the fancy metal confirmed that she had, in fact, accidentally brought herself one floor below where her apartment was.

But if that meant she had run into Jiyong-oppa, so much the better, even though she was curious to know where he was going at this time of night. From the look of surprise on his face, too, it was clear he’d seen her. The sight of her friend sent a wave of welcoming through Taeyeon, enough to rejuvenate her a little bit. She smiled weakly and waved him over.

“Why’re you back here so late at night?” he asked as he closed the gap between them. Taeyeon hesitated, not sure how to answer. A part of her wanted to let out all that had happened in the last few hours so that she could finally get some of the weight off her chest, because she felt like she was suffocating, but she knew that doing so would be disrespecting Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa’s privacy. Instead, she simply said, “I broke up with Hyukjae-oppa.”

Jiyong-oppa’s face turned sympathetic. Not the kind of sympathetic that made you feel pitied and belittled, but the kind of sympathetic that made you feel like you were understood and supported. Nodding, he gave her a once-over, taking in her state. “You didn’t bring anything with you,” he noted, “and nothing’s been delivered to your place, which means you haven’t been preparing to move back in.”

Taeyeon nodded silently. They both knew the unspoken conclusion to Jiyong-oppa’s observations: the breakup between her and Hyukjae-oppa hadn’t been clean or agreed upon before today.

Jiyong-oppa brushed his hand reassuringly against hers. “Come on, let’s go. I’ll help you get settled in – or something.”

Despite herself, Taeyeon smiled at his word choice, grateful that his lightheartedness could take her mind off what had just happened with her ex-boyfriend. “Thanks, but aren’t you going somewhere?” she asked. “You’ve got to have an appointment if you’re going out so late at night.”

“Seunghyun-hyung invited us to a nightclub. But it’s okay, I can ditch.”

“You sure?” Under other circumstances, Taeyeon would have been more hesitant to steal Jiyong-oppa when he had a prior agreement to be somewhere. But this was Seunghyun-oppa; she knew he wouldn’t mind, as long as Jiyong-oppa notified him of his absence.

“Positive.” That was all it took. The entered the elevator together, and as it went up a floor Jiyong-oppa quickly texted the other member of Bigbang, letting him know he couldn’t make it.

Entering her apartment with Jiyong-oppa behind her, Taeyeon involuntarily let out a contented sigh, not realizing how much she had missed the place. She had checked it occasionally when she was living with Hyukjae-oppa, but it had been nearly a year since she’d come back. Everything was familiar, nostalgic, and comfortable, without anything to remind her of bad memories.

“Everything’s collecting dust,” Jiyong-oppa teasingly commented, looking around. Taeyeon rolled her eyes. Both of them were well into adulthood by now – Jiyong-oppa was even back from the military, after all – but around each other there were times when they both seemed to become ridiculously immature. It was a common thing among friends who’d practically seen each other go through puberty, she supposed.

I’m hungry, Taeyeon thought tiredly, being back in her own place suddenly making her aware of the fact. She glanced at the refrigerator in the kitchen, but knew better than to hope something was there. Of course everything was empty. Her furniture was still here, but that was about it, and there was certainly nothing perishable left in the apartment. She could order, since food delivery services were open 24/7, but she didn’t feel like really conversing with anyone unfamiliar, even just briefly.

“You’re hungry.” Jiyong-oppa wasn’t asking a question; it was a statement, because he knew her enough now to even pick up on the signs that she was hungry, just like she did him. Taeyeon nodded, her lips thinning into a straight line in displeasure.

“I could bring something from my apartment,” Jiyong-oppa offered. Grateful for him, Taeyeon nodded with a quick word of thank you. Waving it off and saying he’d be back quickly, he jogged out, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

With another sigh, Taeyeon made her way to the bathroom, washed her hands, took off her coat, and walked down the hallway to the room that she used as a closet. Flipping on the light switch, she was greeted by the hollow space, left completely empty when she moved in with Hyukjae-oppa save for a few clothing racks here and there. She hung her coat on one of them, took out her car keys, phone, and wallet from its pockets, and went to the bedroom. For some reason, as she opened the door she felt nervous, but it was a grounding kind of nervous. Almost comforting, like she was coming back to a family that she hadn’t seen in a long time.

Switching on the light, Taeyeon’s body sagged when she took in the sight of her old bedroom after so long. She felt safe here. This room, at least, was free of memories of agonizing over an unfaithful boyfriend and a friend that was complicit and part of his cheating.

Putting her phone, keys, and wallet on her desk, she sat down heavily in the swivel chair in front of it. Inevitably, her mind was already going back to Hyukjae-oppa, wondering what he was doing now. Had he accepted that she’d left, or was it still hard for him to stomach? Was Donghae-oppa comforting him? She hoped so.

Not the time, she chided herself. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure it would ever be the time to think about Hyukjae-oppa again. But right now, she had more immediate, more concrete concerns, such as what she was going to wear to bed. She hadn’t brought any home clothes from the old apartment. Sleeping in what she was currently wearing – a pair of black jeans and a loosely-fitting black hoodie – was possible, but it didn’t seem like something she would particularly want to do, given a choice. She could just outright sleep with only underclothes on, but it was cold these days, and she didn’t want to risk getting sick.

Just when she was resigning herself to the situation, she heard the sound of her apartment code being put in. Standing up, she hurried back to the living room just in time to see Jiyong-oppa enter. He was holding a light blue plastic container in one hand, two bottles of water dangling unsteadily by their caps from his other hand, and a plain white T-shirt and black pajama pants draped over his arm, all of which made for an odd picture when they came together.

Taeyeon took the container from her friend so he could hold the water bottles with both hands, looking at him curiously. “Are those for me?” she asked, gesturing with her eyes at the clothes. Jiyong-oppa nodded. “I figured you hadn’t brought any clothes and you don’t want to sleep in what you’re wearing now, so I brought you these. And,” he added, pulling out two items out of his pocket, in which they’d been stuffed rather awkwardly, haphazardly between his index and middle fingers, “a toothbrush and toothpaste. They’re spare, so don’t worry about returning them.”

“You just took the first thing you found in your closet for the clothes, didn’t you?” Taeyeon snorted, eyeing the plain, crinkled T-shirt and pajama pants. Jiyong-oppa didn’t say anything, but the small, knowing smile that crept over his face briefly was all the confirmation she needed.

“Thanks though,” she said genuinely, because moving back in would have been much more troublesome if not for him. Running out of the apartment she had shared with Hyukjae-oppa had not been the smartest idea, and she’d known she was leaving behind plenty of necessities, but the need to get away from him as soon as possible had overwhelmed all other concerns. She would have had to pay for that had Jiyong-oppa not come to her rescue.

He patted her head in response to her thanks, the same way he’d been doing for over twenty years now. When she was younger it had baffled Taeyeon, because it was a gesture he never did to anyone else, but now she appreciated it, and secretly even enjoyed the fact that it was reserved solely for her. “No need to thank me,” he said. “I’m always here for you.”

Taeyeon smiled, and although she was drained emotionally and mentally, the smile was sincere. “I know.” They had had each other’s backs for almost as long as she could remember – since she was newly twelve and he was newly seventeen. An uncountable number of things had changed since 2004, but miraculously, thankfully, that wasn’t one of them.

Placing the container down on her table, Taeyeon opened it to find two rolls of kimbap cut into pieces arranged neatly inside. On the inner lid was fastened a pair of chopsticks. Looking at it made her mouth water; she hadn’t been able to eat anything since having lunch during Running Man, several hours ago. Eagerly, she freed the chopsticks from their spot on the lid and popped a piece into her mouth. Flavor flooded her tongue, and she nearly purred in satisfaction.

“At least go change.” Jiyong-oppa’s amused voice broke through the pleasure-induced haze that the food had cast over her.

He was right. Reluctantly, Taeyeon took the clothes he was holding out to her and dragged herself away from the food and to her bedroom, where she quickly changed. The T-shirt and pajama pants were just what she liked to wear in casual settings; comfortable and loose-fitting, excess fabric hanging from her body. She could faintly smell Jiyong-oppa’s cologne on the smooth, cool material, but she was so used to the scent after two decades and counting that it only just barely crossed her mind as a point worth noting.

After she finished putting on the borrowed clothes, Taeyeon hurried to the bathroom to splash some water on her face. The stark cold temperature of the liquid, which she’d set on purpose, against her skin brought jarring perspective to the entire situation. As Taeyeon stared in the mirror, strands of hair around her face dripping wet and some plastered against her cheeks, drops of water running down her face, it all seemed to sink in for good. She had broken up with Hyukjae-oppa. Six years together ended with this ridiculous fiasco, and on their anniversary, no less. It wasn’t like she had expected them to last forever, but what had happened just bordered on the plot of a novel, complete with a shocking reveal of infidelity and a dramatic climax consisting of a barrage of screaming and knocking things over. It was the kind of thing that Taeyeon would have rolled her eyes over had she read it in the book, and yet…

Fuck me. She leaned against the sink on her elbows, her gaze fixating on one drop of tap water running off her chin. Maybe she should just swear off relationships forever, Taeyeon thought with humorless amusement. Time and time again they seemed to be proving that they weren’t worth all the baggage that they came with, at least in her experience.

And neither is that baggage worth the time it takes to think about, she told herself. Turning away from the sink, she tried her hands and face on the towel and rejoined Jiyong-oppa in the kitchen. They ended up sharing the kimbap since it turned out that he was hungry too, after which they caught up with what had been going on in the other’s life, having not been able to have a substantial conversation with each other for a good few months. As expected, Jiyong-oppa, despite working constantly for the past few weeks like her, was as busy in the upcoming days as she was. They were both addicted to work to the point that it was unhealthy, but neither of them could help the fact that in spite of how exhausting it was, work was an undeniable comfort. She would rather fly through the day occupied with schedule after schedule than be left with the free time for her mind to slip back to Hyukjae-oppa, or the other things that had long bothered her since she was young.

By the time Jiyong-oppa left, it was nearly three in the morning. Just before he went out the door, he turned back. “Is it okay if I let the others know that you… broke up?” he asked.

Taeyeon nodded. Jiyong-oppa might not be the best person at keeping news to himself, but she knew he wouldn’t go spilling the information to people who didn’t need to know – just like she knew that he was asking because he was aware of her tendency to keep things like this to herself. It was because Taeyeon didn’t like talking about matters too personal to others, preferring to distance herself from and move past the topic, which was difficult when people kept mentioning it around her. And, she admitted, it was also maybe a little bit because she didn’t want to be pitied. But she knew that was a ridiculous concern, that the people Jiyong-oppa told wouldn’t pity her; they’d just be sympathetic, like he was.

Besides, she’d already found herself in some awkward situations because of her reluctance to tell others about things like this. The last thing she wanted was for someone to bring Hyukjae-oppa up around her, or worse, show up with him under the assumption that she’d be happy to see her boyfriend. In that vein, she was grateful that Jiyong-oppa was willing to give the news.

Thankful that she had no schedules tomorrow, so she could take one day to plan things out before she became busy again, Taeyeon brushed her teeth and crashed. It was no unfamiliar sensation to sleep alone, since it had been a long time since she and Hyukjae-oppa had slept in the same bed, but this time, there was the added comfort that it was her bed in this apartment that was solely hers. It wasn’t something that was addled with memories of Hyukjae-oppa and her relationship with him, the way every little thing at their old apartment seemed to be.

Despite that, she didn’t sleep well. When she managed to lose consciousness, something in her subconscious seemed to prick at her, summoning up the hazy image of shining big brown eyes and a wide, cheerful smile that exposed gums. She would wake back up, disoriented and groggy, her chest hurting and her throat tightening like she was going to cry, then roll back over and try to fall asleep again. She would eventually, only for the same thing to happen and for her to wake up again.

Helplessly, Taeyeon pulled her legs into her chest and lay there in a fetal position, staring blankly ahead of her into the darkness. It was true that she felt liberated from all the choking frustration that had been a part of her life since she found out about Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa, but now she had these new emotions to deal with. Knowing that she could no longer touch, hug, or kiss Hyukjae-oppa made her heart sink. Knowing that he, whether he loved her like he said he did or not, had cheated on her made her eyes burn. Why would he do that to her? Why hadn’t she meant enough to him that he, at the very least, hadn’t lied straight to her face for years? It was even more painful because she now knew that his relationship with Donghae-oppa had started when his relationship with her was still going fairly strong, no signs of the coolness that had eventually settled over it making themselves known yet. And still he had cheated on her. What was she supposed to think of that? If he loved Donghae-oppa that much – and Taeyeon was sure he did, otherwise he just wouldn’t have done what he had – then why not just be honest about it so they didn’t have to slough their way through the muck and grime to such a low point before it finally all shattered?

Thinking of Donghae-oppa was far from pleasant, too, but it was probably what her mind most constantly went back to after Hyukjae-oppa. Taeyeon didn’t know what to think. She’d always believed that Donghae-oppa was such a good, kind, and honest person. Hell, she still believed it, which made the knowledge of what he had done with his best friend all the more jarring. She couldn’t quite reconciliate the Donghae-oppa who had offered her such sincere comfort about the deterioration of her relationship with the Donghae-oppa whom she’d heard in his apartment, being fucked by her boyfriend. Those two things had gone on at around the same period of time, and she knew that, but her mind just couldn’t seem to wrap itself around the idea completely.

At some point before the sun rose, Taeyeon gave up. She took to just lying there motionlessly and silently with her eyes open, too drained to think about trying to fall asleep again. The hours blurred together until finally, sunlight peeking in through the gaps in her curtains coaxed her into sitting up in bed. Rubbing her sore, itchy eyes with the back of her hand, Taeyeon grimaced slightly, but immediately her facial muscles fell back to an expression of apathy as she realized that even grimacing took more effort than she was willing to make.

She didn’t feel rested. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to feel rested for a long time. Maybe it would have been better to just have a schedule today.

Stumbling out of bed, she picked up her phone and checked the time. It was 6:09 in the morning. To her slight surprise, she had already received several texts about what had happened yesterday.

[Soojin 💎– 3:38 A.M.] Heard that you broke up with Eunhyuk-oppa. I know you probably won’t talk about it, but I’m here if you want to, ‘kay?

[Yuna 🌺 – 4:01 A.M.] Eonni, I’m sorry to hear what happened. But you’re the strongest person I know, I have faith that you’ll get through it.

[Hana-eonni 🌙 – 4:19 A.M.] Are you okay? I’m always prepared to let you lean on me :)

[Sunbin 🎀 – 4:37 A.M.] I know you probably won’t mention it much, but we’re all ready to listen if you ever want to talk, eonni.

[Taeyong 👶 – 4:41 A.M.] Jiyong-hyung told me what happened with Eunhyuk-sshi. You definitely aren’t looking to cry about it in front of anyone, but just this once, could you call me when you see this text?

[Youngbae-oppa – 5:04 A.M.] Taeyeon, you’re the kind of person who bottles everything up inside. I’m not going to pester you, but just remember that there are people who are there for you. I’m here too, if you want to vent.

Another text came as she was looking over the ones that she’d already received. Taeyeon clicked the notification.

[Daesung-oppa – 6:10 A.M.] You’ll be okay, right?

Touched but also overwhelmed at all the messages, Taeyeon sat down on the armchair in front of her desk. Are you okay? Do you want to talk? I know you’ll get through it. She sincerely appreciated all of them, even though she wasn’t sure how much the messages really helped her emotional state. Granted, it was undoubtedly such a blessing that she had so many people looking to comfort her, but she couldn’t open up about it. Doing so would mean invading Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa’s personal boundaries, and as momentarily gratifying as it might be to spill the beans, Taeyeon knew she couldn’t do it. The knowledge that her boyfriend had cheated on her with their mutual friend was something she would have to stomach by herself. The thought left a sour taste in her mouth.

Don’t dwell on things, Taeyeon. It will never be useful.

It sounded like something she’d say to herself, but that voice in her head wasn’t her own. It was her father’s – saying one of the many things he’d begun telling her since after her mother passed away until the day that he passed away himself. Obviously he was no longer here to keep saying it to her, but his words – and not just those particular ones, but many that he’d said to her in his life – stuck with her even today, years and years and years later. As much as she failed to grasp what her actual feelings toward that man were, Taeyeon knew a lot of her personality and tendencies came from him.

Despite her resolving time and time again not to think of her father anymore, Taeyeon couldn’t help herself; she wondered what he would have done, if he was still alive. Not that she would have told him about the ridiculous way she’d broken up with her boyfriend – he was probably the last person she’d want to tell – but if she, for some reason, found it in herself to do, what would he have said? “Get over it”, maybe? “Focus on your career”? “Relationships usually end, anyway”? Taeyeon understood that fathers got angry when their daughters were hurt, much less cheated on, and if her mother had lived then maybe her father would have reacted like that. But the kind of man her father had been since after his wife’s death… Taeyeon couldn’t imagine it from him.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t cared, although that was what she had believed when she was younger. He had cared, she recognized that (and wished she’d done it sooner because then it wouldn’t have cost her so many tears thinking that he didn’t care about her), but he’d never expressed it in any way that she and Taeyong could have been happy with. He certainly hadn’t expressed it in a way that would have had him shouting and becoming furious if he learned his daughter had been cheated on. Her father had been a touching success story in many ways, but in that particular way he had been a failure, and she was pretty sure that if she lived in a universe in which the possibility existed that she’d tell him about what had happened in the past twenty-four hours, she wouldn’t have taken it. He would have disappointed her again.

On the other hand, she wondered what her mother would have said. She only remembered a little bit about her – that she’d read to Taeyeon before she went to bed, that often when Taeyeon asked her what she was doing her mother would reply that she was writing, that she’d gotten frustrated at Taeyeon once for disturbing her reading time, although she’d apologized later. Her mother had been a woman who valued her alone time and privacy. That, Taeyeon thought, she’d gotten from her.

But she couldn’t say with certainty what Lee Jiyu would have said if she’d heard her daughter had broken up with her boyfriend of six years because he’d cheated on her with a mutual friend. In fact, she hardly had any idea. Her mother had died when Taeyeon was a complete child – around five years old. She couldn’t recall much about her. And Taeyong probably remembered even less than she did.

Opening her phone again, Taeyeon stared a long while at the messages. She felt sorry towards all the senders for how she felt – vaguely irritated, because she didn’t want to deal with human communication at the moment. She didn’t want to deal with anything at the moment, not even her own mind.

But they were looking after her, and the least she could do was reply. So she fired a quick text back at everyone – something along the lines of “Thanks, I’m fine, don’t worry about me” maybe adding the occasional “really” at the end – except Taeyong. Her little brother had asked that she call, and, tired as she was, Taeyeon felt the motherly instincts she had somehow developed towards him stirring. As much as she would never admit it, she couldn’t just not do something when he asked it of her so seriously.

Holding the phone to her ear and listening steadily to the unchanging ringing, Taeyeon rolled her eyes. Of course her brother would urgently tell her to call him and then not answer. Granted, it was over an hour ago since he texted, but still.

Taeyong picked up after about ten rings. “Noona!” was the first thing he said, voice surprised and tinged with concern. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Coming from the person who’s also up at the same time after sending me a text at 4:41 A.M.?” Taeyeon asked, amused.

There was a brief but clearly annoyed silence at the other end before Taeyong switched the subject.

“Why’d you break up with Eunhyuk-sshi?”

Well. Her little brother had always been straightforward, like her. Normally he wasn’t this nosy, but he could be when it came to her.

“What do you mean, why? It was just your usual breakup reasons,” she lied. Taeyong had always liked Super Junior, and he’d seemed rather happy about her and Hyukjae-oppa dating. He certainly hadn’t disapproved of it (not that that would have stopped her). She didn’t want to punch him in the face with the news of the real reason why she and Hyukjae-oppa had broken up – for Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa’s sakes, too. Taeyong had a hot temper, and she didn’t want him calling anyone and cursing them out – which was the least he’d do if he found out. Maybe one day, after everything had settled and she had gotten over Hyukjae-oppa cheating on her and Donghae-oppa lying to her, she would tell him. But now, with all the emotions that were involved, letting anyone know would only make the situation messier.

“Noona,” Taeyong snapped, “I know you love being mysterious and cool and dealing with everything by yourself, but you clearly aren’t okay. If it was a normal breakup you wouldn’t sound like this.”

Taeyeon shifted in her seat. Did she sound out of the ordinary? Slightly, maybe, although most people usually couldn’t tell – but it was true that most of the time she didn’t even really speak to anyone much until she’d worked out whatever issue was bothering her in her head somewhat.

And this was Taeyong, her younger brother.

She sighed. Obviously Taeyong was already on to her; trying to deny things would be useless. “Fine,” she admitted. “It wasn’t exactly typical. But I can’t tell you more.”

Her brother made a noise of irritation. “For fuck’s sake, noona. Why did I know you’d be like this?”

She could tell he was frustrated with her unwillingness to say anything, and for that Taeyeon was sorry. But that didn’t change the course of action she was going to take; she simply wasn’t willing to divulge Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa’s personal information to anyone, and not even out of any particular fondness for them, but because she just didn’t feel comfortable with giving out such intimate matters in general. Although Taeyong was her brother, he was no exception.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she meant it sincerely, because she was sorry that her refusal to be forthright with him about what happened annoyed him. But past that, there was nothing she could do about it.

Taeyong sighed. “No, you don’t need to be. I know you have good reason not to tell me. I’m just… I’m frustrated. Can’t you open up to me now? I’m only a year younger than you anyway, I’m not a baby.”

Her younger brother’s words made Taeyeon wince, if only slightly. She knew he wasn’t much younger than her, she knew he wasn’t a baby, and he was right – she didn’t often open up to him. But she couldn’t help her nature; she’d never been the kind of person to tell others about her problems much. Maybe a word here and there, but she didn’t like talking in depth about the negative things that often went through her mind. It made her feel exposed, vulnerable, and it made her feel like somewhere in the universe, her father was looking on in disappointment that she hadn’t followed his words. It was ridiculous, she knew; her father was dead. He’d been dead for well over a decade. But still, she couldn’t escape his influence – no more than she could bring herself to be open with Taeyong about her problems. He might be an adult, but she still remembered more than clearly the days when she’d tuck him into bed, help him with his homework, give him what advice she could at only a year older than him, all over the phone if she had to. She remembered reminding him to eat healthily, she remembered comforting him when he called her, crying about something harsh their father had said, and she remembered looking at him and thinking, “Don’t worry. Your big sister is going to take care of everything. Leave it all to me.” It was difficult for her to forget those times, and in turn, it made her wonder: was it right of her to be dumping her problems on him? Surely he had enough of his own; he was a celebrity, like her, a popular actor who had plenty of pressures and responsibilities that came with his many roles. Taeyeon knew better than anyone how stressful fame could be, and if her brother was already suffering from those difficulties, he didn’t need her to be adding on to them.

“I’m okay,” she told him. She wasn’t sure how true that was, but it felt like the only thing she could say. “Really, I am. I’ll get over it.” Eventually. Maybe. Hopefully.

Taeyong was silent for a few seconds. Taeyeon could tell he didn’t believe her, but she could also tell that he could tell that she wasn’t going to elaborate any more on the matter. “Okay,” he said, reluctantly. “I’m just – I’m here for you, got that?”

“Never forgetting it,” she replied. With an undignified snort, he hung up.

Taeyeon placed the phone back on her desk and leaned back in her armchair, staring at the wall. Now what?

As soon as she realized she had nothing to do, her mind immediately, against her will, flew right back to Hyukjae-oppa just as if it had been waiting for this moment for years. Taeyeon groaned, unable to stop the tide of thoughts about him that flooded her head like a torrential downpour. What was he doing now? Was he thinking of her, like she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him? Maybe he’d already gotten over everything that had happened. He had Donghae-oppa, after all. Donghae-oppa, who apparently meant more to him than she ever had. Donghae-oppa, with whom, for whom, he’d deceived her for years. Once again, the knowledge that their relationship had been going on since before she and Hyukjae-oppa had begun to drift apart hit her like a train skidding off of its tracks. The two of them had seen her many times since they’d started fucking – and whatever else they had done – had seen her, talked to her, smiled at her, laughed with her. Hell, the three of them had even met up more than once in that duration. How could they interact normally with her while fully aware of and participating in what was going on between them?

Moreover, why couldn’t they just have been honest with her? Why did they have to be such utter cowards and drag her into the issue for such an unnecessarily, ridiculously large span of time? For fuck’s sake, if they had just told her what was happening, she would have simply walked away and left them to their own devices!

The anger, humiliation, and betrayal were bubbling inside her, but it was barely a minute before they simmered out, flickering weakly in the pit of her stomach before vanishing altogether. Furious at herself for not being more furious, Taeyeon tried to summon that searing rage that had momentarily sent energy flowing through her limbs, but she couldn’t. She tried to resent them, but she couldn’t. She felt betrayed and she knew she felt betrayed, but she still couldn’t resent them.

She knew why. Because it was completely, thoroughly, hopelessly, and totally futile. Hating them would only bring her more useless pain. Hating them would only make her life harder. Hating them – it wouldn’t change a thing. Not one single, infinitesimal, miniscule, god damned thing.

Her life went on. It was just that simple.

No matter how splintering her breakup with Hyukjae-oppa felt, no matter how utterly used and betrayed she felt by both men, it didn’t matter. It was already in the past, and regardless of how much she raged, shouted, protested, or shrieked about it, what happened had already happened. Hyukjae-oppa had cheated on her, Donghae-oppa had deceived her, both men had lied to her and stabbed her in the back – and none of it mattered. It seemed, right now, like what they’d done to her was everything that she cared about and would ever care about, but Taeyeon knew it wasn’t – and in fact, it was nowhere near everything that she cared about. She had other, much larger concerns in her life. A shattered romantic relationship, a broken friendship, they didn’t matter enough that she would be crying over them forever. It hurt so much right now, but in the end, being miserable about what happened just wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth the time, it wasn’t worth the pain, it wasn’t worth the effort. And if Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa had decided that she wasn’t worth their honesty – which they evidently had decided, years ago, when they’d begun their relationship and decided not to tell her for so long – then they weren’t worth her sadness.  

She couldn’t wallow in this forever. Eventually she’d have to see both of them again, too.

Taeyeon rubbed her eyes tiredly with the heel of her palm. Going back to sleep wasn’t an option, not when she was already out of bed. So, she stood. Stretched. Cracked her back, stretched her inner thighs, rolled her neck, and stilled for a second longer, staring at the wall in front of the desk.

But only for a second. Because then, she walked out of her bedroom, purposefully tucking her hair behind her ears. Her chest still felt painful and stuffy, and the thought of Hyukjae-oppa and Donghae-oppa was still raw and shaky, but she pushed it all back somewhere inside her. Somewhere she would be hard-pressed to reach.

There was work to be doing.

[justthehiddleswrites]

The Reluctants | Chapter 10 | The Reluctant Detective

Pairing: Adam (OLLA) x OFC (Charlie Bock)

Summary:  Charlie can’t believe her luck when she lands an apartment all to herself in Quincy, Massachusetts in a decaying triple decker. But life gets more complicated when someone moves into the basement. Specifically her landlord, Adam, who also happens to be a vampire. As life collapses around Charlie, these two forge an uneasy and unlikely relationship. But is their relationship as doomed as the building they live in?

Chapter:   Adam finds out the truth of Charlie’s whereabouts as well as Jason’s nature and is pissed.

Warnings: Violence, Smut, Frottage, Dry Humping, Teasing, Coming In Pants, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex. Couch Sex. Kidnapping. Stalking. Non-Graphic Violence, Character Death

-

Adam groaned and stretched in bed early that evening. Charlie’s side was cold, and the sheets tucked up. His brow furrowed until he spied the note on his nightstand.

“Ridiculous.” he clicked his tongue at Charlie, slipping out without waking him. He remained in bed, hoping she would soon return and slip under the sheets to curl next to him before heading to the living room.

But Charlie didn’t show when she usually did. Or two hours later. At first Adam figured she was caught up at the record store, but at three hours Adam worried enough to call Simmons’ personal cell phone. No easy feat as Adam needed to dig out his landline from under a table and crumpled pieces of paper and dust.

“Hello?” Simmons answered with his distinct, gravelly voice.

“It’s Mr. Streiff.”

“Oh, already calling with an offer to buy the Gibson? Charlie is a better salesperson than she lets on.”

Adam’s brows knitted. “What Gibson? I’m calling to check on Charlie, who is working late with you.” His tone firm, bordering on accusatory.

“She left hours ago. With a 1905 Gibson she insisted to take to show you.” Simmons responded worried, although Adam couldn’t tell if it was over the guitar or Charlie. His fist balled tightly at his side.

“What?! Where did she you go?” Adam paced the floor as silence hung in the air while Simmons contemplated his response.

“I didn’t see.” Simmons snapped his fingers. “Wait! I wondered if her cousin came and got her.”

“What cousin?”

Adam shoved on his boots while pulling on a shirt. Charlie said nothing about a cousin. And given what she said about her parents, he doubted the existence of any cousin.

“The one who came by the other day asking for her schedule.”

“And you gave it to him?!” Adam’s voice rising to a yell.

“He said the family came to surprise her. It sounded nice.”

Adam rolled his eyes and cursed. “Fuck! What did he say? Did he give a name?”

“He said his name was Jason. And—” Simmons’s next words met with a dial tone when Adam hung up.

He threw the phone against the wall, smashing it to bits.

“Fuck!” He kicked at the pieces of plastic on the floor before slumping onto the couch. He couldn’t decide whether to kill Simmons first or go out hunting for Charlie.

-

Charlie rolled her neck, popping the bones.

“Ah…” she sighed while taking a quick inventory of her body.

Her head still pounded and tender to the touch on the back, where she touched what seemed to be a goose egg. Her arms and hands were free, and she was wearing everything from when she left the record shop, save her overcoat. As Charlie sat up from the bed or couch or whatever she sat on, a chain clinked. Charlie glanced down to see her leg shackled to what Charlie now determined to be a couch. A shitty futon to exact.

Loud voices filtered from next door and Charlie moved to the edge of the couch, as far as the chain would let her.

“This was not part of the plan, Jason. Idiot!” A female yelled.

Something clattered to the floor on the other side of the door.

“Why are you the one calling the shots!?

Charlie recognized Jason’s sniveling tone.

“I’m the one taking all the risks! You wanted Adam, she will get us him!”

“That doesn’t mean kidnap her! Do you realize how pissed he will be?!”

“What do you suggest? Let her go? Absolutely not! She’s mine.”

“I don’t know what I wanted, but this is not it.” The floor shook as Ava stomped and pouted. “I’m hungry.”

“There’s some blood in the fridge.”

The door creaked open and Charlie scrambled away. Ava popped into the room.

“Oh, you.” her voice dripped with disdain. “You’re awake.”

“How in the hell did you and Jason…” Charlie’s voice wavered, still coming to grips with her situation.

Ava smiled, her fangs peeking out from behind her lips. “Your little stalker boyfriend?”

“Not my boyfriend.”

“No, but he is your stalker.” Ava smirked. “I met him outside when Adam threw me out. So rude.” Her bottom lip popped out into a pout.

“He will be so pissed when he gets here.”

“I realize that!” Ava stomped her foot and then stormed away as Jason came in.

He sat down right next to Charlie. His cast rough against her skin. Jason lifted his good hand to run the back of his finger along Charlie’s cheek. She jerked back at the intrusion.

“Get used to me, sweetheart.” Jason’s face twisted into a sick smile.

-

Adam spent the better part of an hour grilling Simmons on every nuance of his conversation with Jason and the events of that night. Frustrated and angry, he slammed his hand repeatedly against the steering wheel of his Jaguar. It hurt like hell.

As soon as he got back home, he went to Charlie’s apartment and ransacked her living room and bedroom. Clothes and paper flew in the air without regard until he located Charlie’s neglected planner. With a deft finger, he flipped the pages until he found what he wanted. He ripped the page out and then shoved clothes and debris from his fit to find the phone.

“Charlie?” Elise answered in a groggy voice.

“Who the fuck is Jason?”

“Who the hell is this?” Elise’s voice turned shrill.

“It’s Adam, I’m her…” He hesitated. How much did Charlie tell her friends? He quickly replaced the thought with panic and fear as to what may happen to Charlie. “… boyfriend.”

Elise sat up in bed. “Oh, pleasure. Did Jason show up? I told Charlie to be careful.”

Adam would have to wait until Charlie came home safe and sound to discuss hiding important information from each other.

“Tell me everything about him.”

-

Twenty minutes later, Adam hung with Elise with enough information about Jason to recognize breaking his arm last month was a gift. He should have broken his neck. Nothing that would pop up on a standard background check, but red flags nevertheless. He sounded like a serial killer in the making. Adam ripped the phone out of the wall and walked downstairs to fish out his own address book. He prayed the number still work as he punched in the number.

“Hello?” the male voice answered.

“Frank, I need a favor.”

“Adam. You know that’s not my name, right?”

“I’m not calling you Francois Eugène Vidocq.”

The man chuckled. “It is a mouthful. It’s been at half a century since we talked. How’s Eve?”

“Dead.” Adam winced.

“I’m sorr—”

Adam cut him off. “I don’t need your apologies. Do you still have access to the Registry of Motor Vehicles?”

“Massachusetts? Well, yeah, if you call hacking into their database access.”

“I need you to get my an address for a Jason Fuller and a Nicole McDonald?”

“Got anything else? Dates of birth?”

“No.”

Frank sighed on the other end of the line. “Give me a bit, I will call you back.” The line clicked dead.

Adam paced the floor. His hand ran through his wild hair. He hated this. He hated his mind racing to all the possibilities of the horrible things happening to Charlie. A thought entered his mind. He walked into the spare bedroom, digging through a box. And then another, and a third.

“She’s fucking right, Eve. I should let her clean and organize down here.” He rummaged through yet another box before pulling out a tattered shoebox. “Apologies, baby, for what I may have to do. But I love her.”

An hour later, the phone rang.

“Took you long enough.” Adam snapped back. He threw a black leather jacket on top of his usual rock n roll attire, combat boots and everything.

“You didn’t say anything about a rush.”

“The urgency was implied, Frank. Did you get the addresses or not?”

“I got what you want.” Frank rattled off two addresses, Jason’s in Cambridge and Nicole’s in Revere. “You never told me why you are looking for this guy.”

“He took something very dear to me.”

“A guitar?”

“A girl.”

-

Charlie soon discovered Jason and Ava didn’t have a fucking clue what they were doing. Two things became clear to Charlie: Jason wanted to keep Charlie for himself, and Ava was always hungry. She had no idea how long she had been here or if Adam realized she’d gone missing. If she wasn’t so terrified, Charlie would have been laughing at this Keystone Cops kidnapping of hers.

Ava and Jason bickered in the corner.

“Hmmm.” Charlie cleared her throat. Two heads snapped over to glare at her. “I’m wondering,” She crossed her legs at the ankles, chain clinking along the floor. “which of you is going to let Adam know you have me?”

Ava’s face pinched up. “I beg your pardon?”

Charlie’s lips twitched into a smile. “Well the whole point of this is to get Adam’s attention, am I correct? It’s hard to do that if he DOESN’T HAVE A FUCKING CLUE, I’M HERE!” she screamed.

Jason stomped over to Charlie and hit her with his open hand. The left side of her face exploded in pain.

“DON’T FUCKING TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” Jason screamed back. His nostrils flared and spittle flew out of his mouth. Charlie cried out of exhaustion and pain more than anything. Jason’s expression softened. He sat next to her.

“Sweetheart.” He cooed, reaching up to soothe the already bruising mark on Charlie’s cheek. “You know better than to get me upset. I lose control when I get upset. You might end up hurt.”

Charlie gulped. “Sorry.”

Jason stood up and kissed the top of her head. “Now let’s go get some ice from that bruise.” He walked off to the kitchen.

Ava’s gaze darted between the kitchen and Charlie. “Fine, I’ll make the phone call.”

Adam never got that message because he was long gone.

-

Jason’s Cambridge apartment was empty, but that didn’t stop Adam from ransacking the place. In particular, he shredded to bits a few photos of Charlie pinned onto a corkboard.

“Fuck!” he cursed as he caught the time after kicking in Jason’s TV. There wasn’t enough nighttime left to make it to Revere. “Hang on just one more day, my love.”

-

Charlie iced her cheek with the frozen bag of peas Jason tossed to her. Her stomach gurgled.

“Could I get something to eat?” Charlie’s voice soft and wavering.

“I’m hungry too.” Ava whined.

Jason rolled his eyes. “Women.” He grabbed his keys. “Feed on her if you’re hungry.”

“Do I look like I have a death wish? I want to talk to Adam, not be killed by him. Bring something to eat.”

“Fine!” Jason slammed the door.

He returned several hours later, a greasy bag of fast food tucked under his cast and a drunk girl holding his other hand.

Charlie’s nose scrunched at the aroma of burger and fries. Jason pushed the girl towards Ava.

“Eat up, both of you.” he sneered.

“I’m trying to watch my cholesterol.” Charlie piped up.

“Did you ask her if she is clean?” Ava complained.

“If you don’t like what I brought you, then you can STARVE!!” He slammed to the door to the other room.

Ava shrugged her shoulders and dragged the girl into the kitchen. Charlie snacked on the fries while ignoring the greasy cheeseburger. Tears rolled down her face.

“I miss you, Adam. Please find me.” she whispered as she pulled the thin afghan over her body and laid down on the sofa, which she just noticed smelled of beer.

[caedmonofthehighlands]

Harry Potter Fic Rec List

I’ve practically been reading Harry Potter fics since I was out of the womb and unsurprisingly, I recently ran out and have been searching the web for stories that I haven’t yet read. 

I figured that with all of my fanfiction knowledge, I should make a list like the ones that have helped me to find interesting and well written fics and so, I present to you a list with my favourite Harry Potter Fanfictions. Some are Classics, some are Muggle Au’s, but they’re all worth a read.

Gelosaþ in Écnesse by Batsutousai | Completed | 98.5k | Mature

Pairing: Salazar Slytherin/ Harry Potter

Summary: Caught in the backlash of Voldemort's Killing Curse, Harry is thrown through time to a world so very different from his own.

Notes: It’s a time travel fic! I have a special place in my heart for that trope and I love this one particularly. The pairing is one I’d never even seen before and at first, I was a bit sceptical at first but I was pleasantly surprised the way everyone interacted with each other and the amount of research that clearly went into this fic. In my experience, every work of Batsutousai’s is a good read.

Gray Skye Mourning by KneazleGriff | Completed | 183.4k | Mature

Pairing: Severus Snape/ Harry Potter

Summary: As Severus Snape lay dying on the filthy floor of the Shrieking Shack, bleeding in the arms of Harry Potter, a profound, devastating realization awakens a long lost love, latent for years, torn asunder by time’s cruel fate. Is love strong enough to overcome the pain of the past and ensure severus’ survival? Time-Travel fic. SSHP

Notes: Okay, I know the summary is kind of cheesy but this fic is fantastic. It explains why Snape was such an ass in canon and it’s really touching. It’s a very emotional fic. There are a few smutty scenes so you’ll want to make sure you’re okay with reading that. Also SSHP fics that I enjoy are pretty rare since I usually steer clear of Teacher-student relationships as well as Minor-Adult relationships.(Part of why I love time travel fics so much) 

Zubats, Zubats Everywhere by RenderedReversed | WIP | 16.8k | Teen and Up

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Tom Riddle

Summary: In which Harry is pretty sure his Pokémon journey isn’t supposed to have such a copious amount of Zubats—or just the figurative one, since Arceus knows Tom Riddle pops up in his life often enough to be a Zubat in disguise.

Notes: This fic is adorable. They have Pokemon Pet names, they buy each other stuffed animals and accidental stalking? It’s more of a Oneshot Collection than a continuous fic but don’t let that stop you. Comedy, Fluff and Harry Potter. What else could you need? 

Away Childish Things by lettered | Completed | 153.8k | Teen and Up

Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter

Summary: Harry gets de-aged. Malfoy has to help him.

Notes: This fic. The way lettered handled the whole ‘people from the wizarding world find out about Harry’s home life’ amazingly. The characterization of the characters, their younger selves and their opinions of themselves is just... *Chef’s kiss*. I’ve read this one over and over and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. 

Harry Potter and the Boy Who Lived by Santi | WIP | 147.7k | Mature

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Female OC

Summary: Harry Potter loves, and is loved by, his parents, his godfather, and his brother. He isn’t mistreated, abused, or neglected. So why is he a Dark Wizard? NonBWL!Harry. Not your typical Harry’s brother is the Boy Who Lived story.

Notes: One of the only ‘Wrong boy who lived’ Fics I’ve enjoyed. Technically, Harry twin brother is the actual BWL so it’s not exactly the wrong one. This Harry is very OOC, keeping only his name and his physical features. His twin brother is really more ‘Harry Potter’ Personality-wise. Despite all of this, I absolutely loved this fic. The way Durmstrang operates is amazing and much better than Hogwarts.

The Spellmaker by SonnyGietzel | WIP | 166.7k | Mature

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Tom Riddle | Voldemort

Summary: Latin; a dead language with no practical applications except perhaps the deciphering of old texts and as a particularly quaint party trick.Thankfully, as Harry finds out, Latin is not as dead as he was first taught when he decided to learn the language. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, of course; he loved Latin, and would have been proud to know it even had it been as useless as it was pretty. But in the world of Wizards, the world of Magic, Harry realizes his rare talent with words is particularly valuable, and allows him to use magic that no one's ever heard of, that no one's ever seen. But as time goes on, and he becomes more and more entangled in the webs spun by those around him, he starts to realize just how deep the magical rabbit hole goes and how dangerous power like his can be.All Harry had ever wanted was for the world to make sense.

Notes: Latin? Hell yeah! Harry’s spell casting by knowing latin and understanding science is so cool. Plus I just really love the librarian. It’s still updating too so you’re not just torturing yourself for the sake of entertainment if you read it,

SCHOOLED by WyrdSmith | WIP | 113.6k | Explicit

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Tom Riddle

Summary: 7th Year Gryffindors learn why it is never a good idea to piss off Ravenclaw Hadrian Morgan. His payback during Professor Slytherin's class is BEAUTIFUL. In carrying it out, orphaned pureblood Hadrian catches the interest and libido of the present Lord Marvolo Slytherin, who -- with the assistance of the entire Slytherin student body as well as a few other surprising characters -- tries to lure Morgan into his life and his bed. But just how naive is Hadrian Morgan, really?1945-era mash-up of most major and minor characters of HP and other fandoms, as well as historical characters. [WAIT, PLEASE! .... ahem.... If you just heard a mental screech of brakes, please understand that this is not a farce, nor crack, nor crap. This has many reviews from now-devoted readers who almost bypassed it, but are now glad they accepted the dare to just try chapter one.]

Notes: My opinion on this fic is complicated. It’s brilliantly written. Harry is witty, sneaky and ruthless and I just love him. Tom is just a lil bit predatory. You should definitely give it a read because it’s awesome, just make sure to properly read the tags and the summary first. 

Time to Put Your Galleons Where Your Mouth Is by Tsume Yuki | Completed | 46.3k | Teen and Up

Pairing: None

Summary: Harry had never been able to comprehend a sibling relationship before, but he always thought he'd be great at it. Until, as Master of Death, he's reborn one Turais Rigel Black, older brother to Sirius and Regulus. (Rebirth/time travel and Master of Death Harry)

Notes: I love this. I love this so much. Harry is so great To Sirius and Regulus. He may be a bit OP but he’s honestly just a king in every single way other than literally. This was an amazing read and a great change from the more romance-centric fics that usually catch my eye. 

Kudosed, Bookmarked, Subscribed by maquira | WIP | 49.6k | Explicit

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Tom Riddle | Voldemort 

Summary: By day, Harry works as a lowly assistant to his boss: the cruel, controlling Tom Riddle.By night, he lives, breathes, and writes fanfiction. And when he's not writing, he's obsessing over the work of his favorite Ao3 author: Lord_Voldemort_.So, of course, it’s only a matter of time before Harry gets caught reading Voldemort’s latest fanfiction at work… by none other than his boss.

Notes: I know it’s Harry Potter and the nearly everything about the books has to do with magic but Muggle Au’s are my guilty pleasure. Pair that with maquira’s beautiful writing and I’m hooked. Really, check out any of maquira’s other fics, they’re all just as good. 

Let’s Start the Show by Terrific Lunacy | WIP | 29.9k | Mature

Pairing: Kind of Harry Potter/ Tom Riddle

Summary: It started as a game. When two highborn lords come looking for a distraction from boredom, they merge the worlds of the highest class with those of the lowest class. An invitation sets things in motion that were supposed to stay locked away. Because a kingdom on the verge of collapse, a noble without a past and a circus performer with a secret are not a good combination.

Notes: Something about this fic just captivated me when I first read it. It still does, really. I love the plot, I love Harry’s cheek and you’ll love it too.

Dreams and Darkness Collide by Epic Solemnity | WIP | 209.5k | Mature 

Pairing: Harry Potter/Voldemort

Summary: Though he was raised without the expectation of saving the world, Harry still possesses a savior complex. Only, it's so dark and twistedly immoral, he created an alter ego to practice vigilantism. His second identity makes a name for himself and immediately ensnares Minister Riddle's complete and obsessive attention. A game of cat and mouse begins and morals are questioned.

Notes: I’ve read this so many times I could probably recite it by heart but I could still read it a thousand more times. 

My Name is Cameron Sage by thesewarmstars | Completed | 41.8k | Explicit

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Severus Snape

Summary: Things are going poorly for the side of the light, and in a last-ditch effort to fulfill his destiny, Harry goes back in time to try again.

Notes: Another Time travel fic! A particularly smutty one but Sevvy has a friend for once in his life and they’re so sarcastic but they’re also really sweet. 

Consuming Shadows by Child_OTKW | WIP | 312.2k | Mature

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Voldemort, Harry Potter/ Male OC

Summary: On the night of the attack, Lily managed to escape with her infant son, but at the cost of her husband’s life. Distraught and distrusting of her friends, she fled to France with Harry, to raise him away from the corruption in Britain and the rising influence of the Dark Lord. She trains him to the best of her abilities, shaping him into a dangerous, intelligent and powerful wizard.But when Britain re-establishes the Triwizard Tournament, and Harry is forced to return to his once-home, he finds himself questioning whether he really wants to kill the Dark Lord. Voldemort finds an unexpected challenge in the child, and as his intrigue and amusement grows, so too does the desire to possess the spark in those defiant green eyes.

Notes: Harry attending foreign schools is also a favourite trope of mine. I love the different interpretations of different wizarding schools. Bonus points if he visits Hogwarts to attend or participate in the Triwizard Tournament. 

To be Set Free by Merrinpippy | Completed | 35.8k | Teen and Up

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Tom Riddle

Summary: Harry Potter, raised and abused by the Dursleys ever since his parents died, lives in the cupboard under the stairs. He has no friends or family who love him and his life is dull until one day a letter arrives arrives for him, written in green ink, that promises freedom. Sounds familiar, right?King Thomas Riddle's illness combined with his political paranoia pushes him to arrange three royal balls, after which his son, Prince Tom Riddle, must choose a guest to marry, thereby securing the kingdom's future and solidifying their strength in the eyes of their allies/enemies. Tom is convinced that he will be able to defy his father and choose no-one, or at least he is until at the first ball he meets an attractive stranger with dark hair and glasses who won't tell anyone his name...

Notes: Fairytale Au’s are magical and this fic just proves it. You barely even need to put a spin on cinderella to fit Harry into his role in the story, which is sad but also absolutely perfect.

Azoth by zeigeistic | Completed | 88.7k | Explicit

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Draco Malfoy

Summary: Now that Harry is back at Hogwarts with Hermione for eighth year, he realises that something’s missing from his life, and it either has to do with Ron, his boggart, Snape, or Malfoy. Furthermore, what, exactly, does it mean when one’s life is defined by the desire to simultaneously impress and annoy a portrait? Harry has no idea; he’s too busy trying not to be in love with Malfoy to care.

Notes: Portrait Snape. That’s it. That’s all I have to say.

Death of Today by Epic Solemnity | Completed | 500.8k | Mature 

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Voldemort 

Summary: Raised in a Muggle orphanage, Harry arrives at Hogwarts a bitter boy. Unusually intelligent, he's recruited by the Unspeakables and the Death Eaters at a young age. As he grows older, he constantly has to struggle to keep his footing around a manipulative and bored Dark Lord, who fancies mind games and intellectual entertainment.

Notes: In all honesty, I don’t have much to add. Epic Solemnity is a fantastic author though so make sure to check out their other works.

Hermione Granger’s Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Run by waspabi | Completed | 93.3k | Teen and Up

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Draco Malfoy

Summary: 'You're a wizard, Harry' is easier to hear from a half-giant when you're eleven, rather than from some kids on a tube platform when you're seventeen and late for work.

Notes: I live for this Au. I would give my right hand and make quite a few human sacrifices for a sequel to this story. 

Rebirth by Athey | WIP | 269.7k | Mature 

Pairing: Harry Potter/ Tom Riddle

Summary: Two boys grow up together in an orphanage, grow powerful at school, are torn apart by death and brought back together by rebirth. Horcruxes aren't the only way to live forever. Necromancy, reincarnation, TR/HP Slash dark!Harry.

Notes: Ah, reincarnation. I always figured that Harry’s type of immortality would be much more interesting than tom’s in this story. A little bit of smut near the end there so you might want to watch out for that. 

[dweemeister]

My Dream Is Yours (1949)

Decades come and go, but Hollywood will never stop churning out films where the protagonists become stars in show biz. Often, these films are musicals – and so it is with Michael Curtiz’s My Dream Is Yours, starring Jack Carson, Doris Day, and Lee Bowman. Doris Day, to most who are superficially knowledgeable about her acting career, conjures up images of a virginal blonde with an incredible singing voice. That reputation – ignoring the saucy comedies she made in the late’50s and 1960s – was created largely from the musicals she made while contracted to Warner Bros., including the subject of this review. In what seems to be a by-the-numbers musical of an aspiring singer seeking a radio and recording career, My Dream Is Yours is surprisingly unimpressed with Hollywood glamor. The film prefers to concentrate on professional jealousy and infighting over artistic taste to an extent unimaginable if made by another other Hollywood studio at that time.

In Los Angeles, Gary Mitchell (Lee Bowman) is a popular radio singer, a regular on Hour of Enchantment. Financial and personal disagreements lead Gary to break with his native talent agency led by Felix Hofer (S.Z. Sakall) and his right-hand man Thomas Hutchins (Adolphe Menjou). In this surprise turn of events, Gary will also fire his manager, Doug Blake (Jack Carson), who reports to Thomas. Out of desperation, Doug hops on a plane to New York City to find a replacement act. After what is looking like a futile search, Doug is about to capitulate when he hears the voice of jukebox factory employee and war widow Martha Gibson (Day). Martha agrees to pursue her dreams to be a radio singer and is forced to leave her son back in New York under the care her brother. The plot becomes convoluted from here.

Though the plot, after a certain point, is not worth straining one’s mind over, My Dream Is Yours presents the radio/recording industry comically – consumed with profits and using a predictable jargon and tone of voice to sell products. The film’s three leads are beholden to this Hollywood capitalism. Gary and Doug are particularly impacted, as the latter contends with the former’s outsized and flirtatious ego. For Doris Day’s Martha, she is presented as the debutant and must conform to what the audience and the industry expect of a female singer. Accompanying Martha in many radio performances is a proper and prim all-female orchestra conducted by a gruff woman – a surprise to viewers then (when watching musical ensemble performances of the early and mid-twentieth century, female instrumentalists are rare unless they are harpists) and now. Nevertheless, My Dream Is Yours was written only by one woman (Laura Kerr; 1947’s The Farmer’s Daughter and 1953’s Battle Circus) from a screenwriting team of several, and the film almost commits to tell a woman’s story. But other than Martha’s conflicted emotions of leaving her only child in New York City with a relative, the film never truly follows through. The cynicism of My Dream Is Yours remains intact, in comedic elements, but this is a story messily told.

Considering her reputation, it may surprise viewers that Day is credited second behind Jack Carson. This is Day’s second feature film after her debut Romance on the High Seas (1948). In the span of ten months between her first two films, Warner Bros. could not have imagined how instantly popular Day would become (even with her successful radio career, which her character’s trajectory mirrors at times) – hence her second billing behind Carson. Caron and Day’s performances are acceptable; the film’s collection of character actors keep the film watchable. Veteran actor Edgar Kennedy, in a brief role as Uncle Charlie, appears in his final film. Warner Bros. mainstay S.Z. Sakall, a Hungarian-American actor who could dependably be found in the studio’s comedies and musicals (usually as some sort of giddy impresario, although “giddy” does not describe his character in My Dream Is Yours), plays up his Eastern European accent for this movie. As Felix Hofer, Sakall’s thicker accent and communicative style makes Martha’s ambitions of breaking through as a music recording star less attainable than they seem. Stardom in My Dream Is Yours is not achieved simply by a jaunty musical number or farcical humor as one might find in a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) or 20th Century Fox musical of the same era (even though there is a hilarious bit of farce when Doug attempts to meet Martha in New York City for the first time).

My Dream Is Yours is best remembered today for a peculiar musical number featuring Bugs Bunny and a cameo by Tweety Bird. This Friz Freleng-directed number, “Freddie, Get Ready”, is Warner Bros.’ response to MGM’s dancing duet of Gene Kelly and Jerry Mouse in Anchors Aweigh (1945). Featuring Bugs Bunny, the song plays in a dream sequence as Martha’s son, Freddie, dozes off for the night before Easter. There is not much context or lead-up to Bugs’ appearance, other than the fact that Doug reads Freddie a bedtime story to sleep from a Bugs Bunny book. The novelty lyrics, so divorced from the film’s plot (the fact that Easter is upcoming does not factor largely in this movie), are sung by Doris Day, Jack Carson, and Bugs (voiced by Mel Blanc); the melody is based on Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. I personally am not a fan of novelty songs – prevalent in numerous ‘40s musicals, including this one for reasons integral to the story – so I wish that composer/arranger Harry Warren and lyricist Ralph Blane had crafted a song that could hold its own outside the film’s bounds.

But that is where Warren and Blane’s title song, “My Dream Is Yours” comes in. The film’s title song provides both Doris Day and Lee Bowman (dubbed by Hal Derwin) a decent love ballad to exemplify their artistry and a moment where the film outlines its primary themes. Day’s voice, the epitome of gently confident grace, is suited to all of Warren and Blane’s songs – novelty and otherwise. Day, as the self-sacrificing decisions Martha, must make – familial, financial, artistic – are probed by Curtiz and the screenplay, with no definitive answers or resolutions provided for any of the film’s characters. My Dream Is Yours contains a template that may have been influenced by the dynamics of United Artists’ original version of A Star Is Born (1937) – and Curtiz’s film may also have later influenced the 1954 Warner Bros. A Star Is Born remake with Judy Garland. Curtiz’s film certainly resonates, and we know this because director Martin Scorsese has admitted as much. My Dream Is Yours was a major influence on Scorsese’s lesser-known musical New York, New York (1977) – an homage to the mid-century Hollywood musical combined with Scorsese’s mid-‘70s Gotham grit.

The bitterness that simmers beneath the surface of My Dream Is Yours is unusual for a 1940s musical, making the film far from your typical Doris Day star vehicle. Professional and personal relationships are strained, familial duties are neglected, and one can only buck audience expectations so much without risking the ire of the public or one’s bosses. The separation of daughter and mother intentionally refers to Day’s personal life – when she first became a radio star, she was forced to leave her son, Terry, to the care of his grandmother; Day seldom saw her son in these early years and would only begin to bridge this chasm after signing a lucrative contract with Warner Bros by having Terry move to Burbank with her.

My Dream Is Yours is not a top flight Warner Bros. musical by any means. But its focus on a professional woman struggling with the artistic and personal dilemmas of being a public musical figure – without the unbelievably convenient contrivances that a lesser musical might feature – is commendable. Received warmly by audiences but without too much fanfare, My Dream Is Yours was a modest success in Doris Day’s early film career and – given the standard he had set for himself with Dodge City (1939) and Casablanca (1942) – the continuation of Michael Curtiz’s late-career decline. By the end of the of the decade, Doris Day would become one of the most bankable actresses in Hollywood and demonstrate her dramatic, comedic, and musical acumen for a notoriously fickle industry.

My rating: 6.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[zhouxuns]

thoughts on the finale

overall, s3 was quite good. but the finale makes it all feel pointless. and not just s3, but s2 and s1 as well. and i know the line about “the universe acknowledges you” was because of what was to come and was supposed to be some sort of comfort to the audience, but it wasn’t. at least not for me. legion never stuck the landing for their finales so this doesn’t surprise me. but i’m gonna rant anyways.

several things i didn’t like.

1) no acknowledgement whatsoever of the hallers who gave david a loving life. they retconned the hallers’ existence this whole season to push the idea that david never received love in his childhood and didn’t grow up looked after. despite the fact that we’ve seen throughout s1 how dearly important david’s childhood was and how important mama and papa haller were to him and how much he loved them and vice versa. i mean really, no acknowledgement of amy haller at all? the woman he cared about most besides syd? his sister? who was so important to him, we got a multiverse episode about how key amy was to david’s lives? not even an acknowledgement towards lenny when she killed herself inside amy’s body? and even worse, we’ll never know precisely why the xaviers gave david to the hallers in the first place. i found this retcon extremely insulting to david’s character, but to adopted families/foster families.

2) farouk’s redemption. how utterly insulting to the audience’s intelligence to redeem farouk with no recognition for his insidious actions and unrelenting vile choices. he possessed a baby, terrorized it for fun, abused a child, he sexually molested david every time david was frozen with fear to further suppress him, he raped lenny, a lesbian, whenever he felt like it, he stole people’s bodies because he felt like it, he killed endless amounts of people. and then they have this same farouk ask his younger self if he was really that hateful and petty as if the audience is supposed to forget that just a year prior to that conversation, that this same farouk brutally murdered an innocent amy haller to get at david and, as lenny said, raped her whenever he wanted. the same person who continued to plant the ideas in david’s head that he’s god and doesn’t have to regard the lives of other people. the same person that kidnapped syd and manipulated her into turning against david before he even betrayed her. like, for real? just retcon all of that to pretend like farouk had a change of heart and always loved david and wants world peace? all it takes is to share beer with your old enemy despite the fresh blood on your hands? wow. how embarrassingly bad is that on the writers’ behalf.

3) syd. not only did syd have a mere handful of lines in this episode, but yet again, it’s as if the writers changed their minds about syd’s feelings/characterization. she’s got to be one of the most jerked around characters on this show. she used to be consistent up until the latter half of s2 when the writers decided to make syd ooc for the sake of plot (you know, the david is evil crap). syd just episodes prior expressed that she felt it was worth it to have been with david and that she wouldn’t change it. she didn’t regret their love, she regretted their downfall. in her final moments, she’s back to bitter snark, borderline defeating the whole empathy episode. i loved the bit about saving baby david, but loathed the “i am” in response to david saying she’ll be extraordinary without him around. it retcons the entire value of syd’s history, her life choices, her self perception. syd, who ALWAYS believed she was extraordinary, given by her famous quote “who teaches us to be normal when we’re one of a kind”, suddenly will be a “better” person w/o having known david? when it was through him she found summerland, found mutant allies, found freedom, found a second childhood. and then what is the purpose of saying her new life will be distinctly amazing if we don’t even get to see it? not even an epilogue paragraph of what syd became in her new life? it felt like such an impersonal send off for her. she’s the female lead but yet again she ends up on the reduced end of things.

4) no consequences. the entire theme of s3 was, time traveling can change the past, but it can’t change who we are. there were no consequences in sight for any of these people. all those awful things david did, murdering and orphaning people, causing his best friend/sister’s suicide, drugging those hundreds of women, none of it mattered when legion pretended like it was supposed to. we didn’t really see david grow. we didn’t truly see him redeem his self. we didn’t see him express any true regret or remorse for all he did on the way there. right up until he end he remained in his entitled tantrum state. all it did was justify everything he did. because the past got rewritten. david got his second life and the people he sacrificed to do it don’t matter. and really? “sorry” was all he could say to the woman he raped and hurt the most? big yikes. legion’s faux commentary on make entitlement and sexism went absolutely nowhere. it’s absolutely bull crap. further proof that rape should’ve never been part of this show, let alone trying to do commentary on rape culture.

5) disjointed elements. switch turning out to be a time god felt so last minute and so lazy. she suffers and endured all this abuse from david because she was meant to “grow up” into her celestial clock form. sure it’s better than just her dying, but it feels as if her screentine was dedicated for a disappointing surprise. given how much screentime switch took up, i expected better. this is my main problem with shows adding more characters to the main plot. it causes the original characters to be neglected which results in less screentime for the originals (syd and the loudermilk twins) or being killed/written off (lenny, ptonomy, the birds) and usually the pay off isn’t good.

6) the severe lack of follow up. we will never know what oliver’s 1 + 1 plan was. we will never know what ultimately became of the birds. what became of ptonomy, who they turned into a flash drive and gave all of 3 lines to for the whole season, we’ll never know what the 3 years from now event change ptonomy calculated turned out to be, or what became of summerland or division 3. we’ll never know why they showed 616!legion in the desert. we will never get a true apology from syd to david and vice versa. we will never get an actual explanation for why farouk was allowed to roam around freely and unchecked despite him being the root cause for david’s demise.

7) the impersonal approach to mental illness. what’s the deal? legion had such a sensitive despite clinical approach to mental illness in s1. they handed the diagnoses with such care and the themes involved with it. in s2 it’s all but abandoned, and in s3 the theme returns, but with no personal touch whatsoever. ah gabrielle has the sickness, it runs in the women in the family, okay mental illness is hereditary for david, understandable. how come this is something david never reconciles his self with? how come they never give david’s true diagnosis? we know he has dissociative identity disorder, but david doesn’t. david is expressly in denial about being mentally ill, even saying he’s not “crazy” to his mother. yet he has a system of alters he works with. they all say “i am legion” which we know is what his collective of alters are called, but that’s it. one of the things david wanted to change was his mental illness. is he ever going to learn he can’t change that because he was sick all along because of his mother? his mental illness is such a huge aspect to her character yet in s3 it just feels like a post it note stuck to his chest. no one regards it with sensitivity. no one accepts responsibility in exacerbating his condition. nothing. legion used to be about mental illness. then they shed it for social commentary which held no weight, and destroyed the characterizations for an outcome that was ultimately inconsequential.

overall, this just proves to me that legion needed more than 3 seasons. easily 4-5 seasons would’ve worked better for this. legion doesn’t even leave things up for interpretation, it just leaves most of what they set up unanswered. i felt since s2 that it had been too soon to develop the story they were developing and i was right. choosing a 3 seasons arc where 2.8 out of the 3 seasons the male lead is a sympathetic and genuinely good character to make him evil and narcissistic and apathetic? makes no sense. or when the female lead used to be this complex morally grey character and at her last hour becomes isolated once more and is quoting things straight out of 2014 tumblr? i mean really? wtf.

the other characters didn’t get to do enough across these seasons. they were cannon fodder for david’s story/development (or lack thereof) more than anything else. once they were less proximal to david, they were less relevant to the writers too.

syd and david’s relationship didn’t last nearly long enough before they were thrust into ghastly new territories. and the same goes for everyone else’s dynamic on the show. far too much offscreen development occurred. farouk having a change of heart? you truly couldn’t pinpoint any point where farouk ever felt sorry for david or cared about anyone else but his self. he’s been nothing but condescending, sadistic, manipulative, and countless other atrocities. d3 and the summerlanders being comfortable with farouk with no mind control at play at all? get real. kerry and syd’s friendship was nice tidbit but we didn’t see it develop at all. it would’ve been important to see these female mutants develop a relationship. it’s the most frustrating thing aboutall of this. clearly more time was needed.

we needed more time for these things to feel truly earned. but noah was way in over his head because of how busy he became by the time s2 swung around and decided to cut the show short. i don’t buy for one minute that 3 seasons was the plan all along. everything about legion’s story progression beyond s1 screams improvisation and a messy one at that. there wasn’t enough time for these characters to breathe, too much characterization and story had been retconned to get the ending over with, and legion choosing to end where it began, except all the characters we loved are gone, all the things that made the show most important to us are gone, feels more depressing than i thought it would.

it’s going to be difficult rewatching the show especially from its flawless premier season, knowing none of it happens at all. it’s literally unfathomable to think that 3 years later this is where we’d be. i’m so disappointed.

[blitheringmcgonagall]

Headcanons for Wolfstar personalities...

I’ve been carefully reading a lot of stuff about Wolfstar and people being unhappy/offended by the portrayal of Sirius (especially, I think?) by other writers. And I think that it’s based on assumptions that may be incorrect.

To explain: in my case, I happen to work as a psychiatrist and obviously I see mental health everywhere, including in characters I see in books. And it interests me to look at how someone is described in canon and what their background is, and to come up with theories as to how it could have affected them from a mental health perspective, in a positive and negative way.

Your upbringing and your early life experiences as well as your genes have a massive impact on your brain development and place you at varying risk for developing mental illness and/or personality disorders. This does not mean you are a weak person, far from it, it just affects how you view relationships, your ability to trust others, your ability to self-soothe, to calm your emotions, your fear of abandonment etc. mental health problems affect both men and women, just to note here. Members of the 🏳️‍🌈 community have higher rates of mental illnesses as teenagers, not surprisingly, due to the higher stress/shit they have to put up with.

Anyway....

So for me, based on canon evidence that Sirius ‘ mother used to scream at him, that he hates his family, that he ran away from home, that he made impulsive decisions and used to get into regular fights/hex Slytherin wannabe death eaters etc, I headcanon him as having borderline personality disorder. It just makes sense to me. And yes this means he experiences very intense emotions that can be overwhelming, he can lose his temper quite badly, he has fears of abandonment and finds it very hard to trust people and can become paranoid/quasi psychotic when very stressed (I’m sorry but if that doesn’t sound like canon Sirius???) - but in no sense whatsoever is that me implying he is in some way “feminine” or the female in the relationship. That’s like implying that only women have traumatic early life experiences???? It’s just me making sense of his background and what little canon info we have, and then imagining how it would have affected him. James is his secure base, that someone he has learnt to completely trust. The Potters seem to be the same for him. He’s way less secure when it comes to romantic relationships so that includes Remus. In my mind he gets depressed after being forced back into grimmauld place, unable to contribute and DO SOMETHING and reminded of the emotional abuse (and probably physical abuse and emotional neglect) he experienced there. He probably has PTSD as well. I mean who wouldn’t after being stuck in Azkaban for 12 years?????

In Grimmauld Place, he gets depressed, and he changes from the very helpful, supportive godfather to Harry earlier in the HP books to then making rash decisions and Hermione is worried about him in canon.

btw Boderline Personality Disorder occurs in males and females, although it is easier to get misdiagnosed as a male because often when you present with drug or alcohol abuse eg professionals don’t recognise the underlying problem which made you turn to substance abuse in the first place.

Okay, so in no sense whatsoever is my headcanon of Sirius as “dramatic” (if you want to call it that), based on misogyny or me thinking he’s the female in the relationship or whatever. It’s simply based on the info from the books, and how I imagine it affecting him. I hope that makes sense. It would be EXACTLY THE SAME if I was writing about a female character who had had the same life experiences.... it’s not based on gender. Sirius being into flying motorbikes, wearing ridiculous coloured t shirts with a Phoenix on it, sticking up multiple muggle women posters in his room - the guy does drama rather well in canon. And I don’t see any of this drama as at all “feminine” ... it’s just him. He’s also described as very good looking in canon. Again that’s not trying to make him feminine it’s just a fact. You can be very attractive and very male, lol!

Then Remus. So we know he suffered a huge trauma aged about 5 which changed his life forever. He thinks he’s too old, too poor, too ‘wrong’ to get married, he’s surprised he makes any friends and that they accept him as he is. In canon, He has low self esteem and won’t stand up to James and Sirius when they “bully” Snape after the exam. Anyway, I headcanon that he has PTSD, probably complex PTSD because each month is traumatic for him. And then after 31st October 1981 he experienced complete loss of all his friends and what he now believes is betrayal by his lover. I guess he probably became depressed for a time and may have drunk excessively to cope. With PTSD, people often feel closed off emotionally and that’s how I see Remus. Don’t get me wrong, I see both Remus and Sirius as being incredibly resilient despite their respective traumas. They are incredibly loyal, to their friends, to Harry, to Harry’s friends, they both risked their lives regularly with the Order to save others, they both die trying to save Harry and the next generation. They are heroes. Remus is a very kind and thoughtful person who the students love. Sirius is willing to live off rats in a cave to help Harry. They are both incredibly likable, strong characters. That’s how I write them and I really don’t see how that is in any way misogynistic at all. I think when you get where the characterization is coming from, then maybe this idea / assumption is not so valid? I mean you can still believe that, but it’s just not accurate.

In relation to who is top/bottom or don/sub etc, I don’t really care. I am quite happy to read either/all the above. Personally I think maybe they switch depending on time of the month?? I don’t think being a bottom equates being less male/masculine at all. I don’t see why it should. In canon Remus seems to be the only person Sirius immediately listens to (“sit down!”) so that may sound a bit dom I suppose. The greater tendency towards dom Remus is most likely also a reaction to earlier fandom ideas where Remus was very wet blankety/passive unpopular guy who has never dated anyone and Sirius was the suave/popular guy who had loads of conquests under his belt!! And to each their own, I personally don’t really fancy that version of Wolfstar.

But I have read fics with Dom Sirius and others with Dom Remus, fics with Blackinnon (even if I’m not usually a fan, I have been won over by brilliant writing @stonecoldhedwig 😍😍😍!), fics with Jegulus (even though Jily is absolutely my favourite but @wolfstargarden your writing is too good 😂!!!) fics with Remus being buff (💕💕💕@confunded-gryffindor !!) and fics with Sirius being a mechanic and others where he’s an artist( @jencala !!! ❤️❤️) or where Sirius is an Indiana Jones type character (@hp-shessocold😍😍!) you can be any of these things and can be either female or a male character. You can be a drag queen or a tattoo artist and be very Sirius (@jennandblitz 😉!) . I’ve read Sirius dying of cancer (ugh!! 💔) fics and Remus having a chronic illness quite a few times. As long as it’s well written and I love the characters , I don’t care. As you know, I read a LOT of fics and I generally let people know what I think about their fics (by gushing about the writing!) so you know I’m not making this up, lol!

There is some research suggesting that people with BPD traits often end up in relationships with people who are quite opposite e.g. don’t express strong emotions/are emotionally repressed/distant etc. maybe they compliment each other. So in my universe Wolfstar do compliment each other. I’m currently refusing to consider canon endings ☹️☹️☹️!

Anyway, that’s enough. I feel good for explaining what I think. You can agree or disagree. I happen to think that many people write characters based on their own life experiences and that this affects the portrayal.

I went a bit overboard with this!! I need a cup of tea or some sleep!! Up early tomorrow!

The Wolfstar fandom is full of incredibly talented people and I hope you can all put these disagreements behind you and move on. Good night❤️

[lavieendonna]

Snapshot || ArtMajor!Ashton AU (Chapter 1)

Summary: A ‘Brushwork’ spinoff where Tillie - VCA’s resident library assistant - has to supervise Ashton - VCA’s holiday troublemaker - and she discovers that a collection of photographs is the biggest inconvenience she could have ever agreed to. Date: 7 Feb 2019 Requested: lol no  Pairing: Ashton x OFC (original female character)  Words: 4.9K Warnings: none! A/N: So this (and two other spin-off stories) have been in the works for... so long. It’s got a long way to go, and it’s still in an experimental phase. I wasn’t going to post this until Brushwork was completely wrapped up but I thought this might motivate me to finally tie the knot in the end of that. So let me know what you think, if you liked it, if you didn’t, if you want more... I could use all the love I can get! Big Love xo 

Ask | Masterlist | ‘Snapshot’ Spotify Playlist | Next Chapter | ‘Snapshot’ News | Brushwork

Chapter 1: Disappointed Soccer Mum 

‘So, are you coming out with us tonight?’ Wren asked, and I could tell that she was teasing me because she was already laughing at the thought of me going with her wherever, just waiting for me to say ‘no’. I rolled my eyes at the older girl, a small crooked smile finding my lips.

‘I’ll give you one guess.’ I laughed at her.

‘Thought so.’ She chuckled back, and I felt like a normal person would have been offended that Wren wasn’t in the least bit surprised that they weren’t going anywhere with her. But this happened every other night and had for nearly four years now, and we were both just used to this whole routine. Wren planned something fun, she offered for me to tag along, I politely declined and made my own entertainment for the night.

‘Well,’ Wren checked the silver watch dangling on her slender wrist before looking back down on me. I was sat at my usual spot in the very back corner booth of the restaurant, my things sprawled across the table. ‘Do you want anything before I clock off?’ I shook my head but smiled gently.  

‘I’m okay.’ I told her quietly. ‘I’ll grab some leftovers before I go upstairs.’

‘You make sure you do.’ Wren gave me a stern look with a matching pointed finger and I just nodded quickly, almost afraid to disobey (even though I knew I would). She had this habit of getting a little mothering toward me about this stuff. Actually, when I thought about it, everybody in the restaurant had the same habit when it came to me.

It made sense, I guess. Harvey owned the restaurant so he was, naturally, the head of this little family situation thing he and his staff had going – I was basically part of the furniture, the way I treated the restaurant like a living room, so I guess I was kind of included in all of that. Not to mention he and Queenie had just become first-time grandparents, so to Queenie I was like her third chance at parenting.

Wren was a little different; like me, she was single and lived alone –  but she was a few years older than me so she was entering that stage in her life where she just wanted to take care of somebody. I was still studying and had a bad habit of neglecting my basic human needs, so naturally I was the prime candidate for her to unleash her inner caretaker.

Wren was also essentially the closest thing I had to a “best friend”, and though she’d never explicitly said the words I knew that she was aware of how I’d ended up living in the flat upstairs. Harvey knew because he was my landlord, and Queenie knew because she was married to Harvey. But I really had this gut-deep feeling that the older couple had told Wren too. I didn’t mind too much; she never mentioned it. She and the bosses just hovered and mothered and asked me why I hadn’t eaten yet.

‘Did I just hear you turn down food?’

Queenie had come marching out of the kitchen, hairnet almost falling off of her head of greying black hair, and what looked like a tomato sauce covered wooden spoon sitting in the front pocket of her stained white apron. Her hands were on her hips, brow furrowed together with pursed lips, and I got the feeling this was what a disappointed soccer mum looked like when she stormed into the living room to find the kids playing ball in the house after she specifically told them not to.

‘Uh, yes?’ I nodded, not meaning for that to come out like a question. ‘I’m not hungry.�� That was clearly the wrong answer, I realised, as Queenie’s disapproving stare turned into one of bewilderment.

‘I haven’t seen you eat all day, Missy.’ The older woman scolded me. ‘It’s eight o’clock! You need to eat, you can’t keep starving yourself!’ I rolled my eyes, all in good faith. This was also a common occurrence.

‘I ate upstairs, I promise.’ I told her with a small, reassuring smile. ‘And anyway, I was just about to go home, right after I finish this email.’ Queenie shook her head at me, hands folding across her chest, hoop earrings hitting her neck with every shake. I could’ve bet everything I owned and then some that she was scolding me in her head. In Spanish. Loudly.

‘At least take some soup home with you.’ She said very pointedly, and before I got a chance to decline she’d taken off into the kitchen again to get the damn soup that, honestly, I probably was going to forget about and let it go off in the back of my fridge.

I chuckled quietly as I turned back to my laptop screen that was glowing bright in the dim mood lighting of the back of the restaurant. The feeling of Queenie making a fuss over me, while it made me kind of uncomfortable (even after all these years), ultimately still felt kind of nice.

The email in question, however, that sat unfinished on my screen, was starting to give me a migraine. I’d been trying to write it for a few days now, but every time I tried it sounded so… whiny. It sounded like a “why me?!” kind of email which, to be fair, was exactly what it was but I knew that there had to be a more professional way to word it.

Hi Leanne, I tried again.

I understand the situation; however, I feel that Carolyn or Stefan would be more suited for the task because…

And this was the part where I got stuck every time. I couldn’t say that Carolyn and Stefan had more experience than I did, because that wasn’t true. And I couldn’t say that I didn’t have time because Leanne was my boss and she’d been conspiring with the school’s Head Office and, you know, it was kind of their job to search me in the database and just knowthat when I wasn’t working in the library or in class that I had literally nothing else to do.

No, the truth was that I just really didn’t want to conduct community service in my library, supervising some delinquent dude who couldn’t sit still over the break. I enjoyed my solitude here, and I liked the quiet and I liked being on my own. I actually got things done when I was working alone, and if I had to babysit all semester then I could kiss all of that goodbye.

Hi Leanne, I tried one more time.

That’s fine. Please have him come to the service desk at the library at 12pm with his paperwork.

Thanks,

                Tillie Daniels

Well. So much for fighting the power. I hit send and prayed to God that I wouldn’t regret it. I mean, I already kind of did, so I guess I was hoping I wouldn’t regret it even more.

After packing up my things and begrudgingly accepting the damn soup that Queenie shoved under my nose in the plastic takeaway container, I waved goodbye and called out my farewells to the rest of the staff on my way through the kitchen before I pushed through the back door that lead into the back courtyard, headed for the metal stairwell just to the left and flush with the building.

When I first moved to Melbourne after getting accepted into VCA, I nearly dropped dead thinking I was going to have to live in the actual restaurant on a stretcher in a pantry somewhere – either that or worse; that Harvey and Queenie were going to kill me in the courtyard and feed my flesh to their customers. But, no, neither of those things happened. Instead I was shown what looked like a fire escape out the back. It still seemed sketchy to me, but against all better judgement I followed the Cook and his Wife up the rickety stairs and, lo and behold, I was pleasantly surprised.

The flat wasn’t overly big, but without the unnecessary clutter of furniture and the like it looked quite spacious for what it was. The two windows in the living area were big and wide and let in so much light I didn’t really know what to do with it all. They took up most of the far wall, and in front of them were a couple of cushion-clad bench seats – very FRIENDSstyle – and the thought of curling up on one of those with a good book and some coffee got me more excited than I’d been in years. The kitchen was on small side, but it had the most gorgeous white faux-marble benchtops I’d ever seen, and the bathroom benches seemed to match too which brought great peace to my inner OCD.

The bedroom was a modest size, although I did have to buy a hundred-dollar IKEA closet for the corner of the room. It did have a tiny ensuite attached to it, though, and the little window inside had a gorgeous view that was, probably, my favourite in the whole house.

It was like there were just layers and layers of mini horizons outside of the small rectangle. There were the tops of the trees that lined the street behind the restaurant, and then behind that I could see the tops of all the buildings and town houses of all the streets that lay behind that. Off in the distance was the silhouette of the Melbourne skyline, and beyond all of that was the rest of the sky that seemed to just stretch on forever.

I locked the deadbolt of the front door as soon as I walked inside, switching on the main lights as I somewhat floated through the flat putting my things away. The soup went straight into the fridge to be forgotten, laptop on the counter in front of the only barstool I owned and my bag hung on the back of my bedroom door. I finished tidying what little mess there was in the flat, and when I felt content, I flicked the kettle on and found a Bluetooth speaker to let some gentle music float around me to fill the space.

The flat didn’t feel empty or anything, it was just a habit of mine that I had formed over the years. My whole life had been surrounded by noise – every home I’d had was noisy whether it was from music or TVs or loud conversations. These days I had the library, which had the gentle buzz of students and teachers, and the restaurant that had the rustle and bustle of staff and customers.

The flat just had me. And having control over the noise that surrounded me made the flat feel like it really belonged to me this time.

By the time the kettle finished boiling I had swapped out my jeans for a pair of warmer sweatpants and some UGGs, making a coffee carefully – despite it being nearly half eight in the evening – and finding my old, weathered copy of Mansfield Park. To say it was my favourite was a slight understatement; the spine was currently being held together with so many layers of invisible tape that it really wasn’t invisible anymore.

As I sat down on the banquette seating in front of the window my phone started to ring. I quickly put my book and drink on the coffee table beside me, pulling my phone out of my pocket to find Queenie’s number and picture lighting up the screen.

‘Queenie?’ I answered without a proper greeting, part of me worried that something was wrong with Harvey. Queenie didn’t usually ring this late, especially since she was just downstairs and I’d just seen her barely half an hour ago. Harvey was a pretty old guy (I suspected, anyway) and he’d not been well the last couple of weeks. I felt like it was pretty fair for me to think that maybe something had happened. ‘You okay?’

‘Hi, yes, everything’s fine.’ Queenie reassured me right away, though I wasn’t a hundred percent convinced. ‘Sorry, Mija, you’re probably already settled for the night.’

‘It’s fine, Queenie, I was just having coffee.’ A small lie, technically, but she didn't need to know that.

‘At this hour?’ The older woman laughed on the other side of the line. ‘Dios Mío, girl, you’ll be up all night.’ I chuckled but rolled my eyes as if Queenie could still see me – though with her Super Spanish Mother Powers I wouldn’t put it past her if she could.

‘Ah, you know me.’ I said simply. ‘You all good? Did you need me to come back?’

‘Nah, nah, stay there.’ She said gently. ‘I just wanted to ask a favour from you for tomorrow morning.’

‘Sure, Queens, what do you need?’ I picked up my coffee and had a quick sip, knowing that sometimes Queenie got carried away on the phone. Knowing my luck my coffee would be cold by the time I finished talking to her.

‘I have to take Harvey for another appointment tomorrow so we won’t be able to come in for the Leone’s delivery in the morning.’ Queenie said and my heart sank as soon as I registered the words because I knew exactly where this was going. ‘I just need you to let the girls in the back when you hear the buzzer, she’ll know what to do.’

‘Girls?’ I made a face. ‘I thought Tony and his son did the deliveries?’

‘Jules said something came up so they’re sending Rocky and Claudia instead.’

‘Huh.’ I gave a quiet sigh. ‘Alright then. What time are they coming?’

‘Probably around seven.’ I could almost hear the grimace in Queenie’s voice as she spoke and I groaned inwardly. ‘I know it’s early – I can ask someone else if it’s too much trouble, Tills.’

‘Nah, don’t stress. I can do it.’ I told Queenie as I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the migraine begin to make a comeback. ‘I have to be up early anyway.’ Another lie, but I felt like I owed Queenie this much. And regardless of that, even though I didn’t technically work for the restaurant, I was probably one of the better people she could have asked anyway.

‘Ah, gracias, Mija, really.’ Queenie gushed. ‘I owe you, okay? I’ll have Harvey cook you up something nice.’

I tried to decline the offer but, naturally, Queenie was having none of it and pretty much planned the meal there and then. Eventually she let me go and, as expected, my coffee was cold. I sighed again, taking the mug back to the kitchen to tip the rest of the contents down the drain. I wouldn’t be needing it anyway, I had to be up early apparently.

The thought of an early start as well as that stupid supervising shift in the library, the prospect of tomorrow really didn’t seem so great. Switching off the music and shutting the blinds gruffly, I hauled myself to bed and fell face-first into the pillows, almost wishing that I would suffocate before morning came.  

Seven o’clock rolled around quicker than I wanted it to, but my saving grace was that both Claudia and Rocky, the Leone’s delivery boys for the day, looked exactly how I felt. Claudia had this long dark hair that was thrown up into a messy top-knot, Rocky’s shaggy (almost) pixie cut hidden under a maroon beanie. Both of them were in oversized hoodies and tights, which made me feel a hell of a lot better about my UGGs and sweater paws while I helped them unload the van into the restaurant kitchen.  

‘You guys don’t really do this often, do you?’ I asked with a small laugh as I helped Rocky with a particularly heavy box of what I guessed were vegetables while Claudia took a phone call from their father, I deduced based on the fact that she was repeating ‘yes I know,Dad’ many, many times.

Rocky scoffed at my question, trying to disguise it behind another yawn.

‘I could ask the same thing,’ She said with a curt – but friendly – gesture at my feet once the box was set down on one of the steel counters. ‘Are those uniform around here or what?’

I glanced down to the UGGs on my feet and laughed.  

‘Ah, no.’ I admitted. ‘No, I don’t actually work here.’ Rocky’s eyebrows shot up in a silent question. ‘I live in the flat upstairs – Queenie asked me to supervise the delivery.’

Rocky seemed to smirk at the new information, dark eyes crinkling in the corners just a little.

‘What, they don’t trust us?’ She asked me with a tilted head. I rolled my eyes at the girl, Claudia coming back around the corner (though she was still on the phone, and unimpressed by the looks of it).

‘More like they don’t trust the bozo’s in here.’ I grinned and Rocky gave a loud laugh with a slightly impressed nod before we dragged our feet back outside to the van to help Claudia with the rest of the boxes. 3

We all yawned our way through the next hour and we all sat and had coffee while the morning staff prepared for the day and before I knew it, it was almost nine and it was time for them – and me – to go back to work.

*

I could think of a hundred different things that I could have been doing that would have been more productive than just sitting around at the service desk in the library waiting for this Ashton guy to grace me with his presence.

At twelve thirty, when he was officially half an hour late, I’d already sent out overdue emails to half of the students in the entire university and had started stamping the new books that had been delivered earlier in the morning. That was supposed to be his job, and here I was doing it for him. In those thirty minutes, I’d looked at my watch more times than I had all year. I was aggressively unimpressed.

‘I’m looking for, uh… Tillie? Tillie Daniels.’

‘Who’s asking?’

‘Uh, I’m Ashton.’ He said. ‘I was supposed to be here at –’

‘Twelve.’ I finished for him. When I looked up at him, face rock hard and glaring daggers, he was looking down at me over the desk, shifting his weight from foot to foot sheepishly with a small smile twitching on thin lips. ‘You know you’re late, right?’

‘Yeah… I’m sorry about that that.’ He said, smile wavering (though he didn’t look away from my killer scowl, which surprised me since I was usually pretty good at making people uncomfortable with that Angry Librarian Face). ‘I woke up late and had to do a make-up test for one of my classes. Then my roommate was having a bit of a crisis, then I couldn’t find the library –’

‘Did you bring your paperwork?’ I cut him off. I wasn’t interested in his life story, I just wanted to get this over and done with. The sooner he started stamping books, the sooner I could get back to inputting the new books into the system and, more importantly, the sooner my shift would be over and I could ditch this guy.

‘Oh.’ Ashton said dumbly. ‘Yeah.’ He fumbled around in a seemingly empty satchel that hung over his shoulder for a minute or two before he produced two slips of crumpled paper and an envelope. He handed them to me and it took me a couple of moments to actually take them from him, just because I hadn’t quite finished staring.

He was wearing a loose, white muscle shirt and black board shorts, vans on his feet – with no socks, since no guy seemed to feel the need to wear socks anymore – and his blondish hair was slightly wet as it curled around his ears. I cocked an eyebrow, my fingers brushing his as I took his paperwork.

‘Couldn’t find the library?’ I questioned and the guy kind of shrugged. He didn’t seem uncomfortable, but he didn’t elaborate on it either which made me think that he hadn’t thought up a detailed enough story to continue the lie. I just blinked away the thought, trying to flatten the papers on the counter while Ashton stood there, hands in his pockets as he waited for me to read them.

One was pink and was double sided. It was a time sheet, one with a grid that I realised, without even looking at it properly, that I was going to have to sign and stamp every day for the next few months. The other was a letter from the Dean, explaining that Ashton’s presence here was mandatory. There was no way he was getting out of this, and consequently that meant I wasn’t getting out of this either.

‘What’s with this?’ I asked as I turned over the last item in my hands, trying (kind of) to smoothen out the creases while I looked for a label or stamp. But there was nothing on it, it was just an off-white, sealed, blank envelope. It barely even felt like there was anything in it. I stared at Ashton incredulously and, once again, he just shrugged without even looking bothered by it. He pulled out his phone instead and started to scroll or text or whatever, and I suppressed the urge to scream.

Usually I was pretty patient with people and strangers, but for some reason there was something about this Ashton guy that just really irked me. He was standing there, lying about why he was late and wasting my time, and then he had the nerve to mess around on his phone like he wasn’t wasting my time as well as his own.

I took a breath and counted to five in my head, trying not to snap too soon. This was already going to be a long semester – I didn’t want to make it even longer by completely throttling the guy on the first day.

‘Alright, whatever.’ I huffed, stamping the pink slip and handing it back to him gruffly. Ashton shoved his phone back in his pocket and took back the time sheet hurriedly, a flash of annoyance passing through his eyes that made me roll my own.

I took a second to glance around the area where we were to see if there was a free three feet of space for Ashton to work and shuddered inwardly when I realised that the only table that wasn’t currently being used was almost right next to me. I fluttered around for a bit, letting Ashton tap his feet and look around with a glazed over and bored expression while I stood and pushed the trolley of new books a few feet down the long librarian’s desk. I found the other School Stamp and set it down in front of a desk chair, rolling an empty trolley between his chair and mine to create two separate work stations.

‘You can come ‘round over there,’ I finally spoke again, gesturing to the small entrance gap at the opposite end of the desk. ‘You’ll be stamping the new books we got in yesterday.’

‘O-kay.’ He pursed his lips but made his way around anyway, dumping his bag next to the chair before he sat down. ‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it.’ I said shortly, picking up a textbook from the pile and sitting it in front of the blond. ‘Just open the book –’ I opened it. ‘– stamp the inside –’ I stamped. ‘– flip to the back –’ I flipped. ‘– stamp again.’ I stamped again. ‘If it has a jacket, stamp the inside of the jacket too. Stamped books go on the empty trolley; you’re here ‘til two.’

I dropped the newly stamped book onto the empty trolley before I sat myself back down in my own chair, intending to ignore Ashton for the rest of his stay here. But as I stole one last annoyed glance at Ashton, he was grimacing again.

‘Two?’ He asked, though I wasn’t sure it was really aimed at me entirely. Regardless, the whine annoyed me – probably more than it should have, but I really didn’t have time for this today. I was not in the mood.

‘I should make you stay ‘til halftwo, you know.’ I shot, unable to help the acid in my voice. ‘You were late by like thirty minutes.’

‘Yeah, you mentioned that.’ Ashton sighed, taking the first book from his full trolley very begrudgingly. ‘I just thought I’d be doing something a little more… interesting.’

There was no way this was real, like, he was not saying that right now. I’d never met somebody so obnoxious in my life.

‘Maybe you should have thought of that before you pulled whatever stunt landed you in here in the first place.’ I snapped back, and I watched as Ashton recoiled though he was smart enough not to comment.

‘Can I at least listen to some music while I do it?’ He asked with a slightly arched brow, gesturing to the headphones he’d just pulled from his pocket. I gave a small shrug but nodded.

‘Yeah, do whatever.’ I huffed and that was end of it.

With a tense silence falling between us – finally– I was able to turn back to my computer and finish sending out the emails I needed to. Despite how annoyed Ashton had made me, it was surprisingly easy to tune him out. He found a kind of rhythm for his stamping that sort of set the pace for the afternoon. It was a little slow, but it was better than him giving lip and annoying me with actual words. I would take it, I decided, and used the constant thudding to gently guide me into my own rhythm until the sound was nothing but dull background noise.

I’d progressed from emails to homework over the course of time, but when a literary analysis failed to peak my interest I moved on to a piece of writing I was in the middle of brainstorming for the school magazine. I didn’t contribute to the VCA Focus often, but the Autumn Edition was going to be published soon and the Editor in Chief, Rae, actually came to me and asked if I would write something to be featured.

It was an honour, really, I’d never actually been askedto write before. Usually I submitted things on a whim. They were weirdly popular, my pieces. I saw my poems and flash fiction pieces being talked about on the school forums and in classes more often than I thought they would. It was flattering – and exhilarating at the same time since nobody (except for Rae) knew that those pieces belonged to me.

I was never sure why, but it never really appealed to me to have my name out there. Part of it was that whenever I was writing I seemed to just dissociate from my regular self and become somebody else, and I felt like if I ever put my name onto my pieces I would lose that part of me forever. TD wasn’t Tillie Daniels. She was somebody else who didn’t know anything but writing for writing’s sake.  

It wasn’t the cleverest of pseudonyms, but it was enough. There were an infinite number of students in this school with the same initials, so I still felt safe. I felt insured.

This particular piece was starting to do my head in a little bit, though; it felt like I’d been ‘brainstorming’ for days. Rae had said the theme for the Autumn Focus was something along the lines of “longing” and “desire” – but I wasn’t really sure if I was supposed to take that literally or not. Then there was the added problem that I didn’t usuallycorrespond to any particular theme when I wrote. I just wrote whatever came to me in the moment, or whatever felt right, and the Focus usually accepted anything I submitted because there wasn’t usually a set theme in mind. Rae was introducing a new system this year, for some reason, and whether she knew it or not she was messing with my own system (or, you know, lack thereof).  

I was immersing myself into research and definitions, as time went by, and before I knew it, Ashton was tapping me on the shoulder and bringing my attention back to earth.

‘It’s two.’ He said simply and flatly. I just stared blankly, stealing a glance back at the monitor and then back to Ashton who was staring at me almost impatiently from where he stood on the other side of the half-full trolley of books.

‘Okay?’ I twitched my eyes ever-so-slightly, thinking Ashton would have just gotten up and left on his own. But he didn’t, he just kept staring.

‘Can I go?’ He tried again as he made a quick gesture in the direction of the library exit. I gave a nonchalant shrug and nodded.

‘Yes?’ I half-mumbled and Ashton rolled his eyes and left. I huffed, watching him sling his bag back over his shoulder and turn on his heel to wander with that obnoxious walk he had going on. I was still scowling when he turned to call over his shoulder.

‘See you tomorrow, I guess.’ He said, and he already sounded defeated.

‘Whatever.’ I muttered again, but he was already out of earshot, almost moseying out of the doors.

[ Snapshot Masterlist | Next chapter ] 

[idolizerp]

IDOLIZE PROJECTIONS FOR 2019

Inspired by general prediction posts circulating the web these days, the Idolize Predictions are a bit different. They are, rather, a mix of out of character information on our plans for each group (tentatively) over the upcoming year in terms of overarching plots and trajectories. These are not things that your muse will know with certainty, but are definitely something that you can have had them heard in rumors and be speculating about, or that you can use when planning point purchases and second characters and so on!

OLYMPUS

Olympus is beginning their ninth year since debut this January, which means contract renewals are looming on the horizon. Negotiations will begin, in character, within a matter of months. As a result, if the company deems you valuable, there may be some wiggle room in requesting solos. We’re hoping to get their subunit based on CBX off the ground as well as have them do some touring/major concerts. We’re also, of course, going to move them towards some of Exo’s recent comebacks.

JINX

With JiNX being so well established and so far in their careers, fans in particular may be feeling Midas is neglecting them, or at the very least not doing enough to promote the girls as a unit. Midas knows that the longevity of a girl group lies in individual activities drawing from the cache of the group’s brand, however, and will likely to continue pushing them in the same manner. Fans feel they were snubbed at the awards ceremonies this year, given their recent renaissance, but others note it likely means they’ll be gunning for the trophies in 2019. There is some resentment building regarding Neon, who is generally deemed to be “JiNX lite version” around the company.

TITANIUM

Titanium has had a solid enough run so far, nabbing another trophy for their conceptual videos, which tends to be their usual fare. Midas is rumored to be making a push to make the boys more widely marketable, though it remains to be seen if they’ll truly let go of the moody and thematic concepts for which the group has become known. The issue of such heavy concepts is that it becomes more difficult to separate the idols from the image, which can impede brand recognition and desirability, so there are rumors Midas will work on group varieties in the upcoming year to soften their personal images.

AURORA

Aurora is building up into quite the powerful act, in terms of versatility and well roundedness, and in any other generation would likely have been the standout girl group of their general tier. Unfortunately, Honey has shot up with a meteoric swiftness that has really gotten under Midas’ skin. The girls will be pushed double time this year, with a thematic trilogy concept planned and rumors of increased movements to brand the girls as a unit, pushing a narrative that will suit their fairytale vintage image, likely through pursuing clothing or makeup endorsements.

NEON

Neon girls should be getting excited, because movements towards debut are getting started. Out of character we have a tentative plan to bring them out around March or April, but of course that’s going to depend on how full the group is and so on. Since they’ve had a pretty consistently near-full membership and it suits the Midas narrative to try and bring someone out to fill the gaps and safely challenge the color-pop dominated landscape, we’re thinking its a good time to bring the girls to the front. We’re tentatively planning their debut track to be A Girl Like Me so that they can hit those neon/dark contrast semi-nineties, girl-crush-lite vibes that will garner them media play against JiNX and Jawbreaker alike, which will result in some predictable backlash from those fans but such is the rookie life.

HEAVEN

As the most senior girl group on the site, Heaven is proving themselves well established and, with the advent of a successful subunit, quite versatile. Perhaps way too late in the game, 99 Entertainment is finally moving in a direction that will provide some more versatility of image for them in terms of discography and image. However, there are rumors that new female trainees are being recruited into the company for the group that will become a Heaven 2.0 - more versatile, more marketable, and up for debut when Dynamo gets off the ground. That means its time for the girls of Heaven to really take serious measures to solidify themselves over this year and the next.

POIZN

POIZN is unexpectedly on the upswing in 99 Entertainment these days, with their recent win of Best Boy Group, thanks to the runaway success of Love Scenario. The success of the song was entirely unprecedented both for the group and for 99 Entertainment in general, something that hasn’t really happened since the days of POWer. This is putting them in a position to be huge money-makers on the scene, but the concern is, as always, if they’ll stay out of trouble. The benefit of a major popularity surge like this is that a bunch of new fans will come in who aren’t that aware of past scandals and are more likely to overlook them, which will naturally bury old scandals and provide a fresh start.

IMPERIAL

Imperial is in a surprisingly precarious position as we move into the new year, with a solid but under-performing year compared to their counterparts in POIZN, something that surprises everyone including company executives. Plans for the upcoming year are to push them towards greater musical recognition via releases and encouragement to participate in special stages, collaborations, and hopefully a more consistent comeback schedule for the upcoming year. Fans are worried they may be benched yet again in favor of POIZN, however, which has everyone (including the boys themselves) a bit on edge.

DYNAMO

On a purely out of character note, we’re really hoping to get Dynamo debuted in the summer, for a number of reasons. 99 Ent. has had the longest gap between debuting artists and on top of that their tropical house vibes would be perfect for the summer season, frankly speaking. That’ll depend on how things go with the group, since we’d like to have at least ¾ spots more consistently filled so that we don’t end up thoroughly overextended or anything like that. In character, the kids will definitely be aware, thanks to the even more insistent pressure during training, that there’s a chance of an impending debut, and will likely be quite on edge trying to keep up with that increased demand.

CHERRY BOMB!

CHERRY BOMB! is in an ambiguous position this year. Their summer song wasn’t the huge hit they were hoping for to follow Red Flavor, and while their releases on the whole were solid they didn’t have any major standouts as they’ve had in the past. On the whole, for the group, it was a bit lackluster.  Fortunately, they still have the fanbase to warrant further action from the company, rather than MSG benching them entirely in favor of their current stars, Honey (though the atmosphere between the two groups could certainly be edging towards awkward at this point). MSG intends to cash in on the (arguably?) more provocative and eye catching dark concepts for the upcoming year, with the upcoming release of the spooky cult girls series of Peekaboo, Bad Boy, Really Bad Boy over the upcoming year.

INDIGO

IndiGO is in a glowing position to continue their meteoric rise in the new year. With 2017 and 2018 behind them they’ve fully solidified their huge boost from the idol rebooting show, thoroughly taking advantage of the situation. They’re sitting comfortably on top of the heap when it comes to marketability and public respect in MSG and in in general. As they transition into a more ballad-with-an-edge territory in the coming year, they’re representing a corner of the industry that has been overlooked for a while now, giving them a unique capability to begin standing toe to toe with big names like Atlas or Olympus, something MSG and IndiGO themselves would never have thought possible even a year ago. They’ll be working towards releases of lengthy music videos that show off their “diamond in the rough” personas with extended drama interludes and in depth storylines isolated in each video, something new for MSG.

HONEY

Honey is clearly in a strong place at this point. They’ve had a very comfortable year of (out of character) AOA releases that have solidified a versatility to their image that had been called into question, with prior claims being that the girls were capable only of the memetic and cutesy dances of prior viral Twice tracks. With the AOA tracks having solidified their versatility in terms of a sexier concept potential, we’ll probably go ahead and begin with some of the more risque (comparatively) AOA releases, such as Black Cat or Mini Skirt, potentially with Twice 2018 worked in (Yes or Yes, etc) to show versatility. The girls are also going to be pushed into Japan with a formal Japanese debut upcoming, likely with BDZ, so overall it’s going to be a big year for Honey with MSG pushing them really hard, in order to solidify the image they’re building for them as really varied, catchy, energetic artists with a lot to offer in terms of performance.

1NFERNO

1nferno had a solid year and are currently standing toe to toe with Titanium, warring back and forth for top conceptual-idol recognition. Where Titanium’s image often follows them off stage, however, MSG is hoping to avoid that with 1nferno by providing more group variety work via V-live in the upcoming year, so that they can get the boys out there in endorsements and so on. They definitely benefited from having a truly packed year, releasing a whopping four songs, which really showed MSG is investing in them for the long haul. In terms of discography the upcoming year is going to be pretty NCT heavy, we’re thinking, to have MSG really showcasing their intensity and power. We’re planning to move them in a direction where, reflecting past awards they’ve gained such as the one this year, they become really well known for their hard hitting choreography and solidify a perception as being experimental but compelling.

MAYDAY

Our new girls on the scene, MayDay are in the position to take on a new generation. While their debut will be a bit distant, given MSG’s focus on Honey at the moment in terms of up and coming girls, we want a lot of pre-debut buzz around the group as MSG will increasingly become known for having a gift with girl groups, much in the way JYP has been lately. MayDay is notable in MSG as they’ll be the first act that almost completely abandons attempts to integrate rap in their songs, a move that it seems like they’ve been approaching gradually after criticisms on Honey and CB! for their rapping (deserved or not). With as many active girl groups in MSG as we have debut might be a bit longer in coming for them, but they payoff is that we plan to have them make a pretty solid impact right out of the gate.

ATLAS

Obviously, Atlas is on a trajectory that neither the boys, the industry, the public, or the company expected. The upcoming year will focus on capitalizing on this in any way possible. Consistent, hard-hitting comebacks are to be expected, as well as an overall global push through concerts, including a planned KJH concert upcoming, in order to use the boys to sell their new investment in Jawbreaker. Obviously they’ll be releasing Idol for their next comeback, but after that will depend on what exactly BTS puts out IRL, possibly supplemented with a release of Airplane Pt. 2 to give you an idea of what kind of stages you can be expecting. This means there is (tentatively?) a lot of room for the boys to start solidifying themselves as artists even beyond the label of Atlas via solo work in acting, music, etc.

JAWBREAKER

Jawbreaker is having a really up and down year, with their technical debut/re-debut definitely taking a toll on the girls in terms of exhaustion and likely having been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. However, they’ve also taken home a Rising Artist award (which to be fair isn’t the biggest thing but considering they also got their first win this year, they’re definitely making strides!) and developing a “self producing” image as well as one of versatility, thanks to KJH pushing them immediately into various activities that Singularity had been neglecting, such as setting some long-running variety format V-live series for the girls and doing consistent promotion. It can be safely assumed they also semi-frequently media play with the girls, particularly in terms of repping an image that isn’t particularly popular in the current color-pop and whimsy saturated industry, in the hopes that it poises them to join the fray of the Aurora vs. Honey fight. Of course Jawbreaker might not appreciate being so directly compared to artists so many years their juniors in the industry, but that’s the nature of idol life. They’ll likely make a return to the classic “HER.oine” sound with Du Ddu Du Ddu in upcoming months.

SIGNAL

Signal on an OOC level is in a bit of a nebulous place because there’s been not too much activity with the group. We’re really interested in debuting them down the line as a slightly more well rounded/polished version of Atlas, in as much as they were intended to be idols from the start and have the benefits of a much bigger training team and far more resources. Depending on how upcoming debuts go, we’re also interested in adding “Dongsaeng Sonyeondan” (the purported new group from Big Hit) to their discography, should it fit the image we’ve got in mind. They’ll definitely have a heavy weight on their shoulders with Atlas exploding in popularity, and trying to bear up under that will be impressive.

NITRO

Congratulations are in order, first and foremost, because 2019 marks the year Nitro gets to move up and out of those dorms! We’re sure the boys have been chafing for a little personal space and here it comes.  Nitro have, in character, had a really solid year, alongside a big boost in 2017, so much like “real life” Got7 we’re hoping to capitalize off that momentum and work on building them up. One of the next moves will be to begin preparations for launching the JJ Project sub-unit, as well as an increased push for the boys to make appearances on V-live via company sanctioned variety. Their schedules will be reflecting some more variety efforts as well, as KTM is really hoping to rep the “underdog” image that sells so well with the public, so feel free to incorporate that kind of narrative into your work.

XLNC

First of all, it XLNC’s anniversary this month so congratulations to the boys, who will likely do some kind of guerrilla concert as a fan outreach effort. In the coming months we’re hoping to more consistently integrate the narrative of their monthly youtube cover projects, likely through some panns we’ll put out on our own that spotlight the effort, to demonstrate a growing popularity as they gain traction with their consistent output. You’re also welcome to pick up purchases to that point on your own. The company will move them towards expanding their youtube outreach as well, likely via more than just covers, such as vlogging and other avenues, so if you have a suggestion or an idea for something your muse can bring to the table with that, let us know, and maybe pick up a pann about it to build that arc up! Like Honey, they’ll also be making a Japanese advancement in the coming year, and will likely have a pretty even spread of comebacks in Japan versus Korea.

NIGHTMARE

Nightmare is in, quite frankly speaking, not the best position at this point. KTM is a company that is becoming quite aware of the struggle they have to market such a heavily conceptual group, much less get the public to notice. With brand offers infrequent due to the nature of their image and with traction slow building in the industry, they’re beginning to realize their hardcore push at being super unique might have done more harm than good, in budgetary terms. That means they’ve brought out the big guns: subunits. Starting now, the Nightmare page will be updated to reflect their new subunits, as well as 3 additional members. These members will have canonically been with the group since the beginning, however, bringing their total up to 7 members. This leaves them operating as a bigger group for our universe, and the only ones with all members participating in subunits. The subunits will be based from Loona’s subunits with debuts upcoming. Named Dawn (⅓ inspiration), Dusk (yyxy inspiration) and Eve (Odd Eye Circle), the Dawn unit will be the first out of the gate, designed to show a sharp charm reversal from Nightmare, in the hopes that they’ll start getting calls for brand deals since they know the girls have the looks and talent to make it in the industry, they just have to shake up the industry to make it obvious. Please note that Loona solo work will NOT be used and is still claimable as a solo voice. Group songs may be done for repackages or distributed to units as seems appropriate to the core Nightmare sound.

FIX8

fix8 has made a jump to KTM in our current adjustments, in the hopes that we can build a more compelling narrative for them so that we can get some more members on board, and hopefully debut them a little faster as well, since we think they’ve got a good image contrast to the current in-universe gg landscape. With XLNC being a very niche group, Nightmare struggling for public attention, and Nitro only just now getting the attention deserved after years of effort, KTM is becoming rapidly aware that hopping on the color-pop trend train may be their best bet for long-term viability. Thus, fix8 was conceptualized to compete with the current big names in the industry in terms of up and coming girl groups, with a lot of pressure on them to debut to high acclaim and be, frankly speaking, the next big deal. They’re getting scouted as much for personality and look as they are for core talents, with KTM figuring they can train them up over time and rely on stage presence as they get their bearing. They want a piece of the viral success of Honey and they’re pulling out all the stops to make it happen.