#yes I know the progression of this doesn’t work if you look at it STRICTLY as the episode releases matching what happens

[ashersbraincell]

Oh btw for any grumbo shippers(I know I reblog a lot of the pairing because! Because they just have chemistry dang it!!), be it platonic or otherwise, I just came up with a little side plot-point that could work if you tweak around some of the timing between the two.

Imagine the reason why Mumbo is greying is because he’s secretly working at Mined!! To rescue Grian from the liminal hell he resides in!!!

[burst-of-iridescent]

Personally Kat.aang looks bad to me because Aang gave his most lightest skinned child special treatment 💀 there were air acolytes who weren’t air benders themselves but were still dedicated to keeping the culture alive so leaving Kya and Bumi out on account of them not being air benders is absolute bullsh*t. You don’t see Zutara shippers calling Kat.aang shippers racist because of it 🤔

yeah see this is one of those things that again ties back to bry.ke being totally oblivious about the implications of what they were writing because the optics of the kat.aang family are… troubling, to put it nicely.

the darker-skinned woman is a waterbender. the lighter-skinned man is an airbender. the nonbender is conveniently in-between. their clothing all correspond strictly to their individual elements (except bumi who gets chucked to red for the audacity of not being born an airbender — at least till he conveniently turns into one). if you knew nothing of these characters you’d never know they were biracial at all.

which is just… so disappointing. part of the reason i love zutara is how the fandom handles the incorporation of both cultures, and yet bry.ke couldn’t even be bothered to do the bare fucking minimum of at least having the kat.aang kids in blue and yellow clothes. if you’re going to claim that a significant aspect of this new, postwar world is the increased cultural exchange across nations then the kat.aang family of all people should be emblematic of that change! but no, instead of taking the opportunity to actually delve into and depict the intricacies of a blended household, we might as well just stick to the same shit we’ve been doing since atla because why think of something new, right?

it’s even more troubling that within the strange cultural division of the ka kids, it’s katara’s culture that gets the shaft. tenzin’s entire family might as well be air nomads through and through, and while bumi and kya seem to have been intentionally excluded from air nomad culture through no fault of their own, they don’t seem to know (or care) any more about their swt heritage either. the natural conclusion to draw from that is evidently that katara’s culture just doesn’t matter as much as aang’s in their family, and that paints a very disturbing picture of how aang views his wife’s heritage (especially with the worldbuilding of atla portraying the air nomads as ‘spiritually pure’ in comparison to everyone else).

i have no patience for the common ka defense that aang is a survivor of genocide so his culture should take more priority because a) katara is also a genocide survivor, as ka stans are so fond of pointing out until it doesn’t work in their favour and b) why are we acting like cultural integration is some sort of zero sum game? tenzin, kya and bumi aren’t going to run out of space for their air nomad traditions and practices just because they know more about their swt background as well. there’s no arbitrary limit on how much you can learn of your heritage.

yes, i know bry.ke didn’t intend for the ka family to come across this way. but whether the implications were purposeful or not, they still exist, and it’s fucking galling that the fandom will call zutara and zutara shippers racist all while defending the shitty writing choices of two american white men — and then pat themselves on the back for being progressive, as if genuine activism means harassing real poc in the name of fictional ones.

[notthetwilightyouremember]

First Dance

The wedding was fast approaching, Rosalie was basically floating around the house, finishing all the last-minute details. I still hadn’t gotten them a wedding present and I was fast running out of time. But what did you get the sister who hated you? Sure, we had had our moments of getting along. But now she had Emmett, those were far and few between. Not that Emmett didn’t try, in fact he often tried too hard, leading us to have explosive arguments.

My fingers paused over the ivory keys of my new piano. I longed to bang my head on the thing, but I didn’t want to break the instrument.

“What’s wrong?” Esme was by my side in an instant.

I let out a long sigh, “still trying to figure out what to get the happy couple.”

“Oh hunny.” Esme placed a hand on my shoulder, giving it a tender squeeze.

I resumed my playing, my hands flowing over the keys, the familiar notes of Esme’s Favourite filling the room.

“Why don’t you compose something for them?” Esme asked softly.

I scoffed. “They would hate that.”

Esme gave me a look. “Rosalie would love to have something special like that in her wedding.”

“How many times has Rosalie threatened to destroy my piano?” I shook my head.

“But has she ever done it?”

“No… But that’s only because she’s afraid to upset you and Carlisle.”

“Or is it because she knows that playing is the only thing that keeps you sane?” Esme countered.

“Rosalie doesn’t think that highly of me, I would know.” I tapped my temple.

Esme frowned, “think about it at least.”

“I will.”

I could never deny Esme anything, especially since I had returned from rough years. I let out another sigh of frustration. Maybe Esme’s idea could work, it took years for Esme’s favourite to be completed. Yet with how happy planning a wedding seemed to make Rosalie, maybe this piece could have years to develop too.

I ran my hands over the keys, focusing on how I felt about Rosalie, how happy she had been since she found Emmett. My hands responding with various keys, although there was no melody. I continued onwards for nearly two hours, before I made any progress. But one melody led to another and within an hour, I had a rough draft. I was reasonably happy with it. Of course, I could hear every single flaw in it, but that was the composer’s burden.

~~###~~

With the wedding next Saturday, I had finally gotten the piece to a place where I felt comfortable playing it for others. Esme had been the first and offered her usual praise. But the one I was most nervous for was Rosalie, I was sure she was going to hate it. But with more encouragement than strictly necessary from Esme, I prepared myself to go speak to Rosalie.

I took an unneeded breath for confidence, then knocked on her door.

“Yes Edward?” She answered, making no move to open the door.

“Can I speak to you for a moment?” I asked, hating how nervous my voice sounded.

I heard her let out an irritated sound and put her hairbrush down on her vanity. She was by the door less than a second later, she opened it dramatically, sweeping her hand in an exaggerated come in motion. I tried to keep the irritation from my face, stepping into the room, almost immediately choking on the smell of perfume.

Baby, rung her mental voice.

Not wanting to sit on the bed, I hung awkwardly in the middle of the room. Rosalie went back to her vanity, combing her long hair, a human habit she still hadn’t dropped.

I cleared my throat, unsure where to start.

Are you going to stand there all day or get to the point? Her mental voice was as irritated as the look on her face.

I shook my head, “would you accompany to the piano for a moment?”

I guess he wants to show off again, ugh. “Sure, did you have something to show me?” Her voice was kinder than her mental one.

“I wanted to show you something, yes.” My voice shook with nerves. “I truly hope you like it.”

You seem nervous is everything ok?

I ignored her question, running instead to the piano, where I took a seat to wait for her. Rosalie went at a human’s pace, a habit she still employed often, hating our nature almost as much as me. She hovered at the bottom of the stairs, realising for the first time that we were alone. I had requested it, I never wanted Emmett to hear the piece, if she didn’t approve.

“Where is Emmett?” She asked, as she took a seat next to me.

“I requested some alone time with you, to play you this piece, if that’s ok?” I replied softly.

Rosalie was still uncomfortable being left alone with men, but even I could admit, that she had made leaps and bounds since her early days.

“I guess?” Her reply was more of a question than an answer, but I took it as one, none the less.

“They’ll be back within the hour, try not to worry.” I almost reached for her, but thought better of it.

Rosalie nodded, turning her head back towards the keys. Come on then.

With her permission I began to play, focusing so hard on making sure it was perfect, I didn’t hear a word of Rosalie’s inner monologue. When the last key was still ringing through the room, I turned to face her, fearing the worse. But I was wrong. Rosalie turned to me with tears in her eyes, not that they would ever spill and a hand to her mouth.

“That-that was beautiful Edward.” Her voice broke on the first word.

“Really?” I asked.

She nodded, seemingly lost for words. Her mental voice was also quiet, lost in a daydream of her and Emmett dancing to the piece.

“I was hoping to gift you the piece, for the wedding.” I stumbled out, unsure of what to make of her reaction.

“You were?” Her voice was stunned. Thank you, Edward, it’s beautiful. It will make the perfect first dance for us.

It was my turn to be stunned, “the first dance?”

She nodded; her voice still lost to her.

This is why you’re my brother Edward, I know we fight but this, this is beautiful. Thank you so much, I’ll treasure it. Forever.

I barely had time to process her thoughts before her arms wrapped around me in a crushing hug. Now, this was the side of Rosalie I loved.

[deathsbestgirl]

conduit

kicking this off with scully in blevins’ office – because it kinda makes me want to die. after all the progress they’ve made their first few cases. mulder chose to be vulnerable with scully in the pilot after her own vulnerability (something i think it’s clear she doesn’t like to show from the moment they met, not necessarily in an obvious way but i think he was already observing her & could pick up on it) then the second episode, all their banter & teasing and what she did to get him back from ellens air base. *and then squeeze* when she decided working with him on the x files was the better option. where she got more of an idea about the way others tend to treat mulder. there was so much reflection in squeeze for scully. and the way she called him after colton stopped the stakeout (when mulder called her in the pilot, she put up a boundary, seeming a bit uncomfortable with the familiarity & her investment? or maybe that she was okay with him calling her late at night lol) now she’s in blevins’ office, being asked about mulder, his sister & his judgment.

it’s very interesting to me that blevins’ has to tell her she doesn’t need to protect mulder; he opened the file himself. so she gives him what she knows and it isn’t a surprise to blevins. but he’s clear that he thinks mulder’s judgment about the case, especially given his 302, that he’s not thinking clearly. scully thinks it’s odd but she asks to talk to mulder & give a recommendation before blevins just denies it.

it’s also funny to me because blevins seems concerned about mulder/his choices – how does scully read his concern. strictly professional?

as you know, agent mulder’s preoccupation with fringe matters has been a big source of friction in the bureau. this is another case in point. i’m going to disallow the 302.

with respect, sir, at least let me talk with him and make a recommendation.

(scully plays both sides so well here. she doesn’t want to pass judgment on mulder before even learning about the case and why he chose it.)

and so…down in their basement office, she starts asking him questions. but in typical mulder fashion he takes forever to get to what would actually convince her.

this is the essence of science. you ask an impertinent question and you’re on your way to a pertinent answer.

i just love this line lol like get to the point sir!! (did he think science would convince her lmao)

anyway, the tabloid, lake okobogee & the ufo sightings and finally he gets to the part where a girl scout troop had a sighting in whatever year, corroborated by the den mother & a photo. and one of those people was darlene morris. (later we learn about the pilot who saw something in the sky at the same time too) and somehow that convinces scully – which i find hilarious because like. it’s definitely about his sister, and it’s still about aliens in his mind. it isn't what she thinks but she goes along with him, to find out what’s really happening. because, yes that can seem strange with what else mulder tells her, but it’s still funny to me that she agrees. i think she just wants to help him, and this is a way she can. and she somehow must convince blevins that it isn’t a waste of time & that mulder’s sister isn’t interfering and i just wish we got to see it. because genuinely, how?

these scenes with darlene are ~a lot~ and scully just ~observes mulder. that’s the whole episode. when darlene offers them coffee, scully goes to follow her but realizes mulder isn’t tagging along like he should be. and that’s when she sees him, looking at all the family pictures – stuck on one of ruby as a little girl. gently touching it & his pain is obvious. the way she clenches her jaw, just slightly, and swallows – what’s she worrying about here? about the way he still suffers, his judgment on the case? Both…

(scully can’t stand to see people in pain. i wonder if that’s one of the reasons she first went into medicine. how did she end up in pathology? what drew her there, to speak for the dead and bring them peace? team scully believes in ghosts lol – but later on, post original series, when she’s practicing again, she doesn’t stick with pathology, she’s working in a hospital mostly with very sick children. it seems to me, there are events in her life that drive her professional choices. which is why i’m so curious about this. i don’t think it’s something addressed in the series directly. but in orison, we learn about how her sunday school teacher was murdered. i think that seems like a pretty good motivator, but i feel there’s more that just one incident – specifically something a bit closer, more personal.)

scully, always the one to pursue the more typical avenues, asks darlene about her ex, which she denies the idea of him being responsible. because she “knows what happened”

“they took her, didn’t they, mr. mulder?” darlene believes it’s aliens too…i love the way they don’t ~say~ it lol

and this bit, while mulder is talking to kevin, with just scully & darlene kinda hurts my heart. for both of them.

i’ve told this story so many times now…oh, to the newspapers, and the police…and every time i tell it, people get this look in their eye. just like the look that you’ve got right now.

scully doesn’t believe what they believe, and i imagine she kind of agrees with the local law enforcement perception – something terrible happened that’s difficult to face or understand, and somehow this fantastic story about aliens is easier. but really, that isn’t easier. because what can be done if it’s aliens? if it’s something more typical (though still terrible), investigation could help. they could find ruby…find samantha. but nothing has helped either of them.

literally but i can’t help but think it’s hard for her to face people who believe when she doesn’t, and their pain & struggle is so obvious. i wonder if this is the first time she starts questioning if she’s a good fit for the x files, a good partner to/for mulder. i don’t think she’s proud of being used to undermine another agent, whatever she thinks of his theories. and of course scully has a hard time believing this abduction/missing girl is the work of aliens, it doesn’t fit with anything she knows about the world or science – but with this case, it seems to me like she feels kind of guilty for not believing. not believing darlene…and mulder.

OKAY SO KEVIN. i love kids in this show – they’re so good at being creepy. even when they are just innocent kids, there’s usually a creepy edge to the characters or circumstances and they’re just incredible little actors already (are they into acting or do they like playing pretend lol). he’s just writing a bunch of ones & zeroes, not really interested in talking to mulder, but accepts his presence easily enough. when mulder asks, kevin tells him that it’s coming from the tv, the white noise.

one thing that makes me kind of crazy, cuz i’m bad with names & faces of white men in particular – do we ever see danny? because mulder seems to have a decent working relationship with the guy. (like there’s chuck, but he’s into the spooky stuff too.) like yes mulder bribes him a little to get it done quicker but he didn’t seem antagonistic like the guys in squeeze who asked for his damn help, or hotlzman & his men. anyway, he’s looking into the code kevin was writing.

i love the way mulder is just ~not having it~ with the local law enforcement.

criticizing her choices, something ‘she’s no prom queen’ ?? victim blaming gross misogyny / assuming she’s just a bad kid? instead of someone struggling, and she’s MISSING.

it’ was just a matter of time before…

before what?

before something bad happened to her.

and then something about ‘if darlene needs to make up crazy stories to get past that, fine. But don’t ask me to treat it as the truth.’

i’m surprised scully doesn’t get more frustrated by this behavior. is this part of her working in a man’s world, bad writing, or something else?

then when they leave i swear scully says something she’s had to say more than once about not antagonizing local law enforcement cuz they might need their help one day and it think its hilarious. and mulder says “who me? i’m mister congeniality…i’ll send him a bundt cake” – cracks me up, cuz really he is but people are assholes.

case stuff happens. they learn a little about ruby – pregnant, boyfriend, no real friends. but what i care about is the way scully is so gentle with people. the girl seems scared & worried, and she responds with compassion while still doing her job. and they go to find out more about greg randall – and i just love these big tattooed guys who idk, i guess i’d expect to bristle at authority & not answer their questions, but he just answers their questions.

hey, that’s a nice tattoo. what is that?

what’s it look like?

a flying saucer. you don’t really believe in that stuff do you?

i take it you don’t.

no, i think it’s all a bunch of crazy people howling at the moon. [the way scully is looking at him – this is how he understands people think of him]

so you haven’t been out to lake okobogee, have you?

no i haven’t. why?

you should ride with us some time. you might see some things that will change your mind. *~*he shows them his ear, burned & disfigured*~* get a killer sunburn in the middle of the night.

[scully, always observing her partner.]

these nsa guys, literally what the fuck are they doing?! like the absolute disrespect?? i get that to them that it’s pressing & distressing but how is it protocol to completely disrespect agents of other agencies? the invasiveness, the seeming threat they pose to a woman *sleeping* alone in a motel, even if she’s a trained field agent, is fucking insane. (and while they’re working on an abduction case, hackles rising.)

and idk, you’re telling me they couldn’t just get the right room? bullshit.

unless they tell me otherwise, i’m not accountable to anybody outside my subcommittee. i don’t care if it’s nsa or the vatican police.”

(just love that line)

and so he gets a little information from them, but he can’t really tell them where it came from. it came from a CHILD and he doesn’t have any information about ~how anyway. i don’t think they’d take kindly to ‘well he got it from the tv.’ but i guess scully tells them?

and mulder gets properly pissed at scully. why she told them anything, i don’t really understand. it seems against her morals, but i suppose this is early on and she still has respect for the government & their agencies. and idk, maybe she doesn’t think kevin is the threat but a risk & at risk if he somehow has that information. and i really hope she didn’t think they’d handle it the way they did?? one of the few things scully does that really bothers me.

i come on. how can an 8 year old boy who can barely multiply be a threat to national security? people call me paranoid.

and so they go to darlene & kevin’s home and witness them being dragged out of the house, put into *separate* cars. fucking inappropriate. literally what the fuck?! that is a LITTLE BOY. how dare they take him from his mother. i refuse to believe that’s proper protocol either.

the way mulder picks up the broken piggy bank 🥺 and scully just looks so damn solemn & sullen. (like yes honey, you helped them do this.) and again, scully observing mulder. he notices the camper outside and goes to check out the roof of it. for once, this actually seems like an investigative thing and i love that. this is her first field assignment, sure i’m she learned a lot at the academy, but it’s very different to actually do it. i love that he’s the one who really teaches her, even if it isn’t explicit. she just learns by working with him.

back & forth with agent atsumi about the case and the code. pieces of a bunch of different things. honestly this scene is oddly entertaining lol i understand nothing. like they got all this from a bunch of zeroes & ones? but the last bit of their conversation:

but they’re just fragments. a few notes here, a few notes there, some lines from the quran, a shakespearean sonnet…

almost like switching the channels, huh?

(the quran bit has me itching – mytharc later on biogenisis, the sixth extinction and amor fati. Idk if this tiny piece here was at all intentional to connect in the later episodes, not when this was written but when they wrote the later episodes. i love when they manage to weave a few things for continuity.)

literally the look scully gives him. i love her. how does she not question every single thing he says. i just want him to say more! it’s funny. (although this is not one of the episodes i laugh through.)

god they see darlene & kevin leaving and she is properly pissed. as she should be. but she’s blaming them and i totally get it (scully deserves it a lot more than mulder) but it’s still hard to watch. because they both want so much to help darlene & her family, and now darlene’s belief/trust in that is gone.

but for mulder, it’s personal. and the pain in his eyes & expression — i could cry.

(kevin staring at the security footage. what does *he* see? // was there something i didn’t notice?)

i thought we were headed back into town? …where are we going?

the boy’s the key scully. i know it.

the key to what?

finding ruby. just think about it for a minute. this is a boy who is receiving all kinds of digitized data from a television screen.

agent atsumi said it was a statistical aberration…

no.

okay i admit it’s not much of an explanation, but…

i think that kevin is a conduit of some kind.

a conduit.

a link or connection to whoever, or whatever, took ruby that night.

but how?

if there was an abduction, it’s likely that kevin was touched in some way.

mulder, i know what you’re thinking…i know why this is so important to you. i know. but there is no evidence indicating an abduction.

that’s why we’re going to lake okobogee.

~the scully squat~

i love this scene. because in any other world, scully would be right. they were out in the open next to a lake in the middle of the forest. anyone looking to kidnap someone, this would be a great place. but it’s the x files. and mulder has all this random knowledge because of his obsession, that even her scientist mind doesn’t know. (re: the sand solidifying to glass & the burned tree tops)

and when she sees the wolf and he runs into the forest…scully running after him but he’s taller with longer legs and not in heels so she just hears the gunshot before she catches up. i imagine that’s a scary sound.

mulder what are you doing? …mulder, you are disturbing a crime scene…stop!

what if it’s her? i need to know…i need to know

[her eyes flickering all over his face, to his lips. she just accepts it.]

as the crime scene is being handled, they stand watching – and scully watches mulder, asks if he’s okay. “-m fine” – god he looks so despondent, dissociated…is he the one to start this “i’m fine” nonsense. scully knows he isn’t okay, but she asks to let him know she’s there, he doesn’t have to carry it alone anymore. (gosh they’re maddening. this “fine” nonsense when it’s clear they aren’t – they build it into their foundation, because it’s a small defense mechanism for both of them. a way to guard their hearts and protect their pain & vulnerability. but they don’t realize how it will carry through their relationship and eventually hurt them more than it protects.)

they find a note in greg randall’s wallet and compare the writing to the note left on their car; it matches. they find the girl, tessa. (was that detective or chief or whatever his title is not even going to look through the rest of the wallet??)

(mulder does not lean on scully during this case and so she does her best to be solid & always in his periphery. to let him know she’s there for what he needs, letting him know she understands this is difficult for him, and she’s not judging him – she doesn’t force it and respects his boundaries. this is different than the pilot. this time, his grief is raw, but in the pilot he had some distance because the case allowed for it. he was able to separate his experience & emotions from the case & the conspiracy. but this one is too close.)

oh god. the way he changes while they interrogate tessa – it seems like he believes now that she did murder ruby. Scully is so surprised by the change. the way she jumps a little when he hits the table the second time (i wonder if she doesn’t like his tactic here. because she was still being kind to tessa, though she definitely believes she killed both greg & ruby. she expressly tells tessa what kind of trouble she’s in, but her voice is calm & steady. still gentle, but with an edge. and mulder goes at tessa hard. she’s still just a teenager.

the scene outside…

they don’t want to have anything to do with us…mulder, stop. stop running after your sister…this won’t bring her back

come with me or don’t come with me, but until they find a body, i’m not giving up on that girl.

scully is always going to follow him but she still always tries to appeal to him. but she really gets some insight here. he doesn’t know how to give up and he can’t give up on his sister. he doesn’t know how to go on with his life without answers. mulder holds his pain in every fiber of his being, he holds his love in every fiber of his being. and his work is how he uses those things to find the answer, maybe one day get peace, to help others suffering in a similar way he is or the way he thinks his sister is/was.

the door is open when they get to the morris residence. when they go in, scully heads to the kitchen where she finds a teapot boiling on the stove – so clearly they left in a rush / something happened…in the living room mulder is staring at kevin’s work. sheets and sheets filled with zeroes and ones, all laid out on the floor.

scully goes to check upstairs and then she sees it – tells mulder to come up and look.

-look. it’s her, it’s ruby.

this drive to lake okobogee – this time mulder really does open up. i think he finally needed to talk and he wants to believe scully is there for him. But i think this is the most honest and private thing he could have chosen to tell her. In the pilot he told her about his sister & the regression because ~she needed to know~ it wasn’t as personal as THIS. It was personal, but for professional too. he spent their first case only giving her crumbs, what he felt she needed to know / deserved to know. until she got pissed at him, until she showed her own vulnerability, until she proved she believed something was happening (even if she didn’t fully believe him).

you know when i was a kid, i had this ritual. i’d close my eyes before i walked into my room because i thought that, one day, when i opened them, my sister would be there, just lying in bed, like nothing ever happened. you know, i’m still walking into that room…every day of my life.

[scully just listens to him but i think that’s exactly what he needed – nobody ever listens to him. for him, it’s a gift. and for scully, it’s one of her shining strengths. it lends well to her empathy & kindness]

they find darlene’s camper right after that. scully spots a trail and they hear darlene yell. When they find her, she’s fallen and kevin isn’t with her. scully sends mulder ahead and stays with darlene – she’s always doing that. for him, or for her, or for the people they come across? in my mind, some of all three. to let him see/find what’s out there, to avoid seeing/finding what’s out there, to help the person who needs immediate attention.

the way mulder protects kevin as the bikers go by is so fucking pure & instinctual. the way he speaks so gently & honestly with him. it really gets me because i know it’s what he wished he experienced when he was a kid. but the only time he’s experienced anything like that (truly anyway) is with scully. (here we see his doubt for the first time, that he might be chasing ghosts and it’s painful.) as he’s telling kevin he doesn’t think ruby is coming back, we hear scully scream mulder’s name and he takes off running with kevin.

this part makes me mad lol scully says ruby is alive but unconscious but they have her doing cpr?? absurd

i love when mulder asks science/medical questions – because he doesn’t know this kind of science but he has all the little facts about alien abductions & ufos & nasa/astronauts stored away in his brain and scully is always surprised & mildly impressed. (and so ruby is displaying the same symptoms astronauts have after being in space)

mulder doesn’t get what he hopes from ruby because darlene puts a stop to it. which visibly upsets kevin, who tried to reassure ruby that mulder knows. but darlene knows how people treat you when you talk about things like aliens & ufos & abductions and she wants to protect her daughter from experiencing what she did. mulder tries so hard to convince her that suppressing it won’t help ruby, but darlene’s mind is made up. scully has to put her hand on his shoulder to stop him continuing – another touch when mulder is feeling distressed. darlene taking the same vow of silence his parents did is extraordinarily painful for him. his empathy for kevin & ruby is so extreme in this moment.

and now for the real pain: scully is listening to his regression tapes, while mulder is sobbing in a church. the fact that she chooses to listen to the tapes feels monumental for their relationship. she doesn’t believe what he believes, but she wants to understand him. he sounds so young – and it is david’s voice right? it’s the same but so different and god i love when actors can change their voice like that.

as she listens, scully looks over the file. hse looks at the photo of samantha, then a photo of mulder & samantha. they were just kids when this happened.

david is so fucking good. the unbridled pain & grief, mulder is so lost. he sits in a church, looking for comfort, still hoping for answers. but he has no idea how to get either of those things.

“i want to believe.” – mulder has said he has the same doubts as scully, but this is the first real confirmation we get of it. he was telling kevin he didn’t think ruby was coming back. he showed his hand to kevin, but he didn’t show scully. he kept pushing what he wanted to believe – which for this case was that ruby would be returned, and for himself, that one day samantha would return unharmed. as he was supposedly told by the beings that took her. but keeping that belief after all these years has been incredibly difficult and he didn’t want kevin to suffer the same way. but they got lucky this time and ruby was returned.

this scene was really so much. the juxtaposition of scully in the office listening to his regression, and mulder sitting with his pain in a church. so good, so painful.

[simpfornatasharomanoff]

Runaway

A/N: Hey! I’m officially back from vacation and back to writing! This might have a part two, but I’m not sure yet! THIS WASN’T EDITED/LOOKED OVER SO I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR ANY MISTAKES!!!

Here’s a link to my Masterlist!

Warnings: Cursing, violence, panic attack (Let me know if I need to add any!!!)

Word Count: 5,169

Summary: You’re an FBI agent. Your mission is simple - apprehend the Black Widow. You think it’ll be easy, you’ve been studying her file for a while now, you know everything about her. As you’re pursing her, she tells you something - something you didn’t know about her. You end up helping her and you both find yourselves running from the FBI. Based off this ask.

“Welcome to the FBI, kid!”

You smile as you’re handed a badge. “Thank you, ma’am!”

“You’re going to be shadowing me,” The woman says. “I’ll be training you.” The woman smiles at you. “And I’ll also be training him,” The woman points to a man. “Come on,” The woman says, walking over to the man.

“Okay, Agents, time for proper introductions,” The woman says once you reach the man. “I’m Captain Macy!”

“I’m Training Agent Freddie Tomphson!” The man says.

“I’m Training Agent Y/N Y/L/N,” You say.

“Nice to meet you,” The man holds his hand out.

You shake the man’s hand. “Nice to meet you too!”

---

Two Years Later

“Freddie!” You let out a laugh.

“What?” Freddie asks innocently.  

“I can’t believe you punched Tyler!” You laugh.

“He was being a dick to you!” Freddie says. “You’re the sister I never had, and I’m not gonna let anyone speak to you like that!”

“Awe! You’re the younger brother I never had!” You smile, throwing your arms around your brother figure.

“Umph!” Freddie groans when you hug him tightly. “You’re like a month older than me!”

“That still makes you younger!” You say. “Thank you for punching Tyler for me, little bro!”

“Anytime, sis!”

---

Three Years Later

“Alright, you all know the mission,” You say, crossing your arms over your chest.

You’re standing at the front of a meeting room in front of your FBI squad.

“Apprehending Black Widow, aka, Natasha Romanoff, will not be an easy task,” You say, uncrossing your arms to point at a picture of the redhead that’s pinned to the board behind you. “She’s a trained assassin and she’s very skilled, you’ll have to keep your guard up!” You start to pace at the front of the room. “Do not, and I repeat, do not kill her. If you need to shoot at her, you aim for her legs. Am I clear?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Your team shouts in unison.

“Any questions?” You ask.

“Why can’t we kill her?” One of the newbies asks. “She’s a wanted criminal!”

You quickly move to stand in front of the newbie. You stare them down. “Our job is not to kill,” You say strictly. “It’s to apprehend.” You take a small step back. “Do I need to be worried that you’re going to pull the trigger, newbie? Because I’ll take you off of the mission like this,” You say, snapping your fingers.

“No, ma’am! There’s no need to worry!” The newbie stutters out.

“Good, because you’re lucky enough to be on this mission,” You say. “Now, everyone, get back to work. Once we get an update on Black Widow’s position, you’ll be notified!”

Your team salutes you before they all exit the room. You grab the picture that you pinned to the board and set it into the folder that’s sitting on the table - Natasha Romanoff’s file. You grab the folder and place it under your arm. You exit the meeting room.

You start heading towards your office.

“Hey, Captain Y/L/N!”

“Hey, Agent Roberts,” You say with a smile.

“I heard you’re making a lot of progress with the Natasha Romanoff case,” Agent Roberts says.

“We are,” You say with a nod. “I think we might be able to close it by the end of the week!”

“That’s exciting news!” Agent Roberts says. “I wish I could join you, but you know,” Agent Roberts says, raising his arm that’s in a cast.

“Trust me, I wish you could join too, you’re one of my best Agents,” You say with  a smile. “Next time, I’ll try to find an exit that doesn’t involve us jumping out of a building!”

“At least now I can check jumping out of a building off of my bucket list!” Agent Roberts says with a laugh .

“Well, I’ll catch you later, kid,” You say. “I’ve got a little reading to do,” You say, referencing the file under your arm.

“See ya! And good luck on your mission!”

“Thanks!”

You continue the walk to your office, greeting a few other Agents that greet you as they pass by. You make it to your office and close the door behind you. You sit at your desk and set the folder down in front of you.

You open the folder and spread all of the papers across your desk. You know Natasha Romanoff like the back of your hand. Everything about her is in her file, which you’ve read hundreds of times. You know everything there is to know about Natasha Romanoff.

You used to be a big fan of Natasha Romanoff, but then she broke the accords. After Natasha broke the accords, your boss assigned you to her case a few months ago.

---

You step into the FBI building, flashing your badge to the Agent standing at security.

“Good morning, Captain Y/L/N!” The security Agent greets.

“Good morning, Agent,” You say, walking through the security gate.

“The director wanted me to inform you that she would like to see you.”

“Thank you,” You say with a small nod.

You make your way to the stairwell and start making your way to the third floor. You like to take the stairs whenever possible as you ended up in your office more than you ended up on a mission.

You reach the third floor and make your way to your boss’ office. You reach your boss’ office and bring your hand up to knock on the closed door.

“Come in!”

You open the door and step into the office. You close the door behind you.

“Good morning, Captain Y/L/N,” Your boss greets.

“Good morning, ma’am,” You say.

“Come have a seat,” Your boss says, gesturing to the seat across from her.

You move to the seat and sit down.

“I have a new case for you,” Your boss says, sliding a folder over to you.

You move your hands to the folder, you go to flip it open.

“Before you open it,” Your boss says, stopping you from opening the folder. “You aren’t going to be happy about it, but you’re my best Agent and I need you on this case.”

“Okay,” You say with a small nod.

You open the folder and stare down at the picture at the top of the first page. Your eyes move back up to your boss. “You’re kidding me.”

“I’m afraid not,” Your boss says, leaning back in her chair.

You sigh and look back down at the folder, you quickly flip through some of the pages. “What did she do?” You ask.

“She broke the accords,” Your boss informs you. “And it’s our job to take her into custody.”

“Directory Macy,” You say, with a small shake of your head. You look back up at your boss. “You can count on me to apprehend the target.”

“Good, I’ve already got your team picked out,” Your boss says. “The best of the best, which is what you’ll need to apprehend an Avenger.”

“Yeah,” You say with a sigh.

“I know you look up to Black Widow,” Your boss says. “I’m sorry to put you on this case, I really am, but again, you’re my best.”

“I’ll do my studying,” You say, picking the folder up.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Your boss says.

“Yes, ma’am,” You say, standing up.

“I mean it, Y/N. I know this can’t be easy for you.”

You nod before leaving the room.

You quickly make your way to your office. You enter the small room and close the door behind you. You set the folder on your desk and look at the few Black Widow posters you have hung on your office walls. Some of your coworkers make fun of your posters, but you love the posters.

You move to the first poster and rip it off of the wall, letting it fall to the ground. You move to the next one. You pull it off of the wall, letting this one fall to the ground too. You move to the last one. You grab the corner and pause. You look at the poster, looking at the woman displayed on it. You shake your head and quickly rip it off of the wall, dropping it to the floor.

You move to your desk and sit down. You open the folder and get to studying.

---

“Captain!” Your door is pushed open.

“Yes, Agent?” You ask, looking up from the folder.

“We’ve got a location on Black Widow.”

You stand up, “Inform all the other Agents on the mission! Get them geared up and meet me out in the parking lot!”

“Yes, ma’am!” The Agent says before running off.

You move to the cabinet in the corner of your office. You grab the bulletproof vest and pull it over your torso. You strap a holster to each of your legs. You grab your pistols and holster both of them. You grab your knife and slide it into the knife holster attached to your belt. You grab the keys to your FBI vehicle.

You look at the folder on your desk. You grab it before quickly making your way out of your office. You pick your pace up and start jogging. You jog to the stairwell and jog down to the first floor. You quickly run out into the parking lot, where the rest of your team is already waiting.

“Alright, listen up!” You say. “We’ve got a location on Black Widow. This is a reminder that we are not to shoot her fatally!” You say, specifically looking at the newbie. “Who are my eyes in the sky?”

Two Agents raise their hands.

“Good, you two will be on the rooftops, making sure we always have an eye on Black Widow. Everyone else, you’ll be on the ground, we’ll split up when we get there. Let’s move out!”

You run to your car, three other Agents join you, one of them being the newbie. You quickly stash the folder into the glovebox. You turn your siren on and speed out of the parking lot, leading the other two vehicles.

“You three, I want you with me the entire time! You’re not to leave my sight! Especially you, newbie!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

You screech to a stop once you reach the location. You quickly put the car in park and take the keys out of the ignition. You stash the keys in one of the pockets of your bulletproof vest. You step out of the car, watching the other two cars pull up. The Agents get out of the cars.

“Everyone, comms on!” You say. “If you see her, call out her location! My eyes in the sky, one of you get to the roof of this building and the other this building,” You say, pointing at two different buildings. “Let’s go!” You say, pulling one of your pistols from the holster. You take off running.

You check every alleyway you pass, looking for the redheaded Avenger.

“Does anyone have eyes on her?” You ask.

A collective of ‘nos’ come through your earpiece.

“Damnit,” You curse, continuing to run, eyes searching for Black Widow.

You finally spot the redhead on the side of the street. She takes off running.

“Hey! Stop!” You shout, chasing after the redhead.

Black Widow looks over her shoulder glancing at you.

“Get back here!” You shout, watching as she turns the corner.

You turn the corner. “I’m in pursuit!” You say.

You and the three Agents follow the redheaded Avenger, you manage to get a lot closer to her than the others.

Black Widow runs into an alleyway. You follow her closely and smirk when you see it’s a deadend.

“You’ve got nowhere else to go!” You say, aiming your gun at the redhead. “Come with me nicely and I promise to help you out! Maybe knock a few years off your sentence!”

Black Widow turns around and looks at you. Before you can even think, she quickly runs and jumps up onto the fire escape.

You move quickly, running to the fire escape. You jump up and grab the platform. You pull yourself up onto the fire escape. You start running up the stairs, trying to catch up to the redhead.

“My eyes in the sky, keep an eye out! We’re running up to the top of one of the apartment buildings! Make sure you keep your eyes on her!”

“I see her!” One of the snipers says.

“Me too!” The other one says.

“Good! Don’t let her leave your sight!” You say, reaching the roof of the building.

Once the Agents following you reach the roof, they start to shoot at Black Widow.

“Hold your fire!” You shout. “Natasha Romanoff!” You call out, pointing your pistol at her once again. “We don’t want to hurt you!”

You watch as the redhead ignores you and jumps from the roof of this building to the roof of the next.

“Damnit!” You curse, feeling your fear of heights kick in a little.

“Please tell me we aren’t doing that!” The newbie says nervously.

“We are not!” You say. “But I am!”

“You are?” One of the other Agents asks.

“We’ve got a mission to do, so I’m going to do everything I can to do it!” You say.

You start to run, picking up as much speed as possible. You reach the edge of the building and jump. You land on the next rooftop, doing a summersault and rolling onto your feet.

“Natasha Romanoff, you are under arrest for violating the rules of the accords!” You shout, watching as she continues to run. “Stop running!”

You watch as Black Widow jumps onto the next rooftop.

“You guys stay there!” You say, looking over your shoulder at the Agents that are still on the other rooftop. “I’ll handle this!”

You run forward and jump onto the next rooftop, following the redhead.

You and Natasha keep jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Black Widow is running out of rooftops to jump, one more and then she’s got nowhere else to go. Checkmate.

You watch as Black Widow jumps onto the last available rooftop.

You run, and just as you’re about to jump, you trip. You fall off of the rooftop, reaching for the edge of the other building’s roof. You let go of your pistol so you can grip the roof with both of your hands. You watch as your pistol smashes against the ground below you.

You quickly close your eyes. Your fear of heights is now kicked into high gear.

“I’ve got eyes on Captain Y/L/N! She’s dangling from the side of a building!”

You try to pull yourself up, but your sweaty hands and the weight of your bulletproof vest stops you from doing so.

One of your hands slips and you’re left dangling from the roof with one hand. You try to lift your arm back up but your other hand starts to slip, making it harder to replace your other hand. Just as you’re about to fall, a hand grips yours tightly.

You open your eyes and look up, seeing Black Widow gripping your hand. You let out a sigh of relief.

Black Widow pulls you onto the roof. You roll onto your back and stare up at the sky. You let out a few deep breaths.

You quickly get to your feet, remembering you’re on a mission. You face the redhead.

“Thank you,” You say.

“You’re welcome,” The redhead says softly.

“Backup has arrived!”

You look over your shoulder, seeing the three Agents you were with on the building behind you. “I told you all to stay back!” You say.

“You were dangling from the side of the building!” The newbie says. “We came to help!”

“I don’t need help! I’ve got this!” You say.

You turn back to Natasha.

“I broke the accords to help my friends, my family!” Natasha says. “I’m not a criminal, I’m an Avenger!”

“The Avengers don’t exist anymore!” The newbie calls from behind you.

You sigh. “I know what it’s like to do something for your family,” You say quietly.

---

“Alpha team, status report!” The voice comes through your earpiece.

You run behind a building, ducking for cover as you get shot at.

“We were ambushed!” You say. “It was a trap! We won’t be able to get our hands on the files!”

“Don’t worry about the files! You need to retreat!” Your director says. “I’ll send Beta team to come pick you up! Meet at the rendezvous point!”

“Yes, ma’am!” You say.

You peek around the side of the building and start shooting.

“Agent Thompson!” You say, looking at your best friend who’s ducking behind a vehicle. “We need to go!”

“I heard!” Freddie says. “Make your way over here, I’ll cover you!” Freddie says, standing up from behind the vehicle. He starts shooting.

You take off running, making your way to Freddie’s position. You reach his position and duck down being the vehicle, Freddie also ducks down.

“Are we the only two left?” You ask.

“I think so,” Freddie breathes out.

“Shit!” You curse. “I think if we run, we can make it to the rendezvous point!”

“It’s risky, but I think it’s our only option!” Freddie says.

“Okay, let’s go!” You say.

You and Freddie stand up and take off running.

You point your pistol over your shoulder and pull the trigger as you run.

“Fuck!”

You turn your head and see Freddie fall to the ground. You quickly run over to him.

“I’m hit!” Freddie cries out. “My leg!”

You look down at Freddie’s leg, seeing blood spill out of his thigh. “You’re going to be okay!” You say, pressing your hands to his thigh.

“You have to get out of here!” Freddie says.

“I am not leaving you!” You say.

“If you don’t leave, we’re both going to die!”

“I… You’re my best friend… My brother! I am not leaving you!”

Freddie places one of his hands on your cheek. “It’s okay, sis. Just… Just help me up and I can distract them so you can get away.”

You nod and help Freddie get onto his feet.

“You’ll always be my sister,” Freddie says, starting to shoot. “Now go! Get out of here!”

You take off running, glancing at Freddie one last time. You watch as he gets shot in the chest and falls to the ground. You turn back around, focusing on getting to the rendezvous point alive for Freddie.

---

You look at Natasha. “I can help you get out of here,” You whisper.

“What?” Natasha asks, surprised by your offer.

“I know where all the Agents are located,” You say quietly, stepping over towards Natasha. You glance down, looking at the lake below you.

“So, what’s the plan?” Natasha whispers.

“There’s a lake right there,” You whisper, pointing to the lake.

“Captain, do you need some help?”

“No!” You say quickly. “I’ve got it!”

“What’s the plan after that?” Natasha whispers.

“We get to my car, and we get the hell out of here.”

“You’ll lose your job,” Natasha whispers. “You’ll probably find yourself on the run, like me.”

You nod. “I know, but… it’s the right move.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Natasha whispers. “Because there’s no going back.”

“I am,” You whisper. “You’re going to jump first to get away from me. I’m going to follow to apprehend you. Once we make it to solid ground, we’ll make a beeline for my car.”

“Got it, I’ll see you down there,” Natasha whispers.

Natasha turns and quickly jumps off the rooftop.

“Hey!” You call out, watching as she lands in the water.

“What do we do?” One of the Agents asks.

“I’m going after her!” You say.

“Are you crazy?” The newbie asks.

“Maybe, but I’m finishing this mission!” You say.

“What do you want us to do?”

“Get back down to the ground!” You say.

“Yes, ma’am!”

You look down at the lake, feeling your fear of heights kick in again. “You got this,” You say to yourself.

You jump off of the rooftop, your limbs flailing as you fall from the building. You splash down into the water. You quickly push your foot off of the bottom of the lake, pushing yourself towards the surface. Once you reach the surface, you gasp for air.

You immediately look for Natasha, seeing her swimming not too far ahead. You subtly point to the right, motioning for her to swim in that direction.

Natasha changes course and starts swimming in the direction you pointed.

“Captain, did you make it? Are you alive?” The voice comes through your earpiece.

“Yes,” You breathe out as you swim. “I’m still in pursuit!”

You follow Natasha, swimming fast to catch up.

You and Natasha quickly make it to the edge of the lage. Natasha steps out of the lake and starts running. You quickly follow suit, picking up speed once your feet are on the ground.

“To the left!” You whisper-yell.

Natasha heads towards the left and you follow. You reach into one of the pockets of your bulletproof vest, grabbing your keys.

You and Natasha reach your car. You unlock the car.

“I can’t let you do that, Captain!”

You and Natasha quickly whip around, seeing the newbie and the other two Agents. The newbie is pointing his gun at you.

“I’m doing it whether you like it or not,” You say.

“I’m taking you both in,” The newbie says. “You’re under arrest, Captain!”

You shake your head. “No you aren’t!”

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back!” The newbie shouts.

“Newbie, listen. I-”

“My name is Agent Brock! You’d know if you actually asked!” He shouts.

“Agent Brock,” You say. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“With what weapon?” Agent Brock asks, with a smirk. “Your hands are empty.”

“Let’s just talk this out,” You say.

“I’m done talking!” Agent Brock says, putting his finger over the trigger.

“Agent Brock, calm down!” One of the other Agents tries to calm him down.

“I am calm!” Agent Brock shouts, moving to point his gun at Natasha.

You watch as he pulls the trigger. You quickly move, stepping in front of the redhead. You feel a sharp pain in your left shoulder.

“Fuck! Get in the car!” You say.

Natasha runs to the passenger’s side and opens the door. She quickly gets in.

You open the driver’s side, keeping your head ducked down as Agent Brock continues to shoot his gun. You feel bullets hit the back of your bulletproof vest. You get into the car and quickly close the door.

You put the key into the ignition and step on the gas, speeding off.

“You’re hit,” Natasha says, looking at you.

You stare ahead, watching where you’re going. “I know,” You say.

Your breaths come heavy.

“What’s the plan from here?” Natasha asks.

“I don’t know,” You say, keeping your eyes on the road.

Your hands grip the steering wheel tightly.

Natasha turns around and looks out of the back window. She turns back around. “Pull over in that alleyway.”

“We have to keep going,” You say.

“They’re not following us, it’s safe to pullover,” Natasha says softly.

You listen to Natasha and quickly pull into the alleyway.

“Put the car in park,” Natasha says softly.

You do as you're instructed, your shaky hands moving to the gear stick and putting the car in park.

“Are you okay?” Natasha asks.

You continue to look forward. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem fine,” Natasha points out.

You lean your head back against the headrest. Your breaths start coming quicker. “I’m fine,” You say between breaths.

“You’re having a panic attack,” Natasha says.

You squeeze your eyes shut. You feel your heartbeat hard in your chest.

“You’re okay,” Natasha says. “We’re safe.” Natasha grabs your hand and holds it tightly in hers. “I need you to try and take a deep breath.”

“I… I can’t,” You say, feeling your breaths get even heavier.

Natasha looks at you. She takes your hand that she’s holding and holds it over her chest. “Match your breaths to mine,” Natasha says.

You nod, trying your best to slow your breaths. It takes a few moments, but eventually, you get your breathing back to normal.

Natasha lets your hand go and you pull your hand back.

“I’m sorry,” You say, looking down at your lap.

“It’s okay,” Natasha says. “You just went through a lot.”

You nod, “Yeah.”

“So, a plan,” Natasha says. “We need to get out of here now. There’s a ferryboat, we can get a ticket and get out of here.”

“Where does the ferry go?” You ask, looking at Natasha.

“Let’s go see, shall we?” Natasha asks.

You put the car in reverse and back out of the alleyway. You put the car in drive and start driving.

“We can’t take this car,” You say. “They’ll just track it.”

“We can just borrow that car,” Natasha says, pointing to a car on the side of the street.

“Yeah, borrow,” You say with a chuckle.

You park the FBI car on the side of the road. “Oh, by the way. Your file is in the glovebox.”

Natasha looks at you. She opens the glovebox and pulls the folder out. She shuts the glovebox. “Come on!”

You and Natasha get out of the car. You quickly make your way to the other car.

You pull on the driver’s door and thankfully it opens without an alarm sounding.

“I can hotwire it,” You say, leaning down by the pedals.

“You can hotwire a car?” Natasha asks, impressed.

“Yeah,” You say, messing with the wires.

“Now where did an FBI Agent learn to hotwire a car?” Natasha asks.

“A friend of mine in the FBI taught me,” You say, getting the car to start.

���You FBI Agents are just bad to the bones,” Natasha jokes.

You stand up and smirk, “Yeah we are.” You move to get into the driver’s seat.

“I’ll drive,” Natasha says, gently placing her hand on your arm.

“I’ve got it,” You say. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You’ve had a long day, please, let me drive,” Natasha says.

“Okay,” You say, moving to the passenger’s side.

You and Natasha get into the car and she drives off.

---

You and Natasha are sitting in the car on the ferryboat.

“So, Norway,” You say.

“Yeah,” Natasha nods. “Hopefully they don’t find us.”

“Yeah,” You say, leaning your head against the headrest and closing your eyes.

Natasha reaches up and gently touches your shoulder. You wince in pain.

“Sorry,” Natasha says. “We should probably clean that up so it doesn’t get infected. I grabbed the first aid kit from the FBI car,” Natasha says, holding it up.

“Good thinking,” You say with a smile.

“Let’s get this vest off,” Natasha says.

You pull at the velcro straps on the vest and undo them. You grab at the top of the vest and lift it over your head. You wince at the pain of your shoulder.

Natasha helps you lift the vest off of your torso. She throws it into the backseat of the car.

“I guess I gotta take the shirt off too,” You say, looking at your long sleeve shirt.

“Yeah,” Natasha lets out a nervous chuckle.

You start unbuttoning your FBI button up. Once it’s unbuttoned, you shrug the left sleeve off, leaving you in your tank top that you wear under your work shirt.

Natasha sets the first aid kit on her lap and opens it up. She looks at your wound. “Lean forward for a second,” Natasha says.

You lean forward.

“Okay, there’s no exit wound,” Natasha says.

You sit back and sigh.

“I know what that means,” You say.

“Unfortunately,” Natasha says, pulling the tweezers out of the box.

“This is not going to be fun,” You say.

Natasha digs the tweezers into your wound. You close your eyes and clench your jaw at the pain. “Fuck!” You curse.

“Got it!” Natasha says, pulling the tweezers out.

You let out a sigh.

Natasha sets the bullet and the tweezers in the first aid kit. She grabs gauze and she wraps it around your shoulder.

“Thanks,” You say, smiling at Natasha.

“Of course,” Natasha says, closing the medkit and setting it in the back. “What’s your name?” Natasha asks.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” You say.

“Obviously you know my name,” Natasha says with a chuckle. “You were yelling it at me.”

“Yeah,” You say with an awkward chuckle.

“You should get some sleep, Y/N.”

“What about you?” You ask. “I’ll be fine,” Natasha says.

“Are you sure?” You ask.

Natasha nods. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

You settle in and lean your head against the window. You let your eyes fall shut and you let sleep take over you.

---

“Hey, Y/N,” Natasha gently shakes you.

“What?” You quickly bolt into a sitting position, your hand instinctively goes to the pistol in your holster.

“Woah, calm down cowboy,” Natasha says with a laugh. “We’re here.”

You look out of the car window and see a small trailer. You move your hand off of your gun.

“Come on,” Natasha says, stepping out of the car.

You and Natasha quickly get settled in the trailer. Natasha called one of her friends while you were on the ferryboat and he hooked the two of you up with the trailer and a few passports for each of you.

“I can uh, take the couch,” You say, pointing at the couch.

“Don’t be silly,” Natasah says. “We can share the bed.”

“Oh, I, uh, that’s not necessary,” You say nervously. “You can just take the bed.”

“Come on, Y/N,” Natasha says, using her head to beckon you. “I’m tired, let’s go to sleep.”

“O..Okay,” You say.

You follow Natasha to the one bed in the trailer. You watch as she sits down and lays down.

You move to the other side of the bed. You sit down with a sigh. You shrug your FBI button up off your shoulders, leaving you in your tank top, and set it on the floor next to the bed.

“Can you do me a favor?” You ask.

“Sure,” Natasha says.

“Can you tell me how bad my back looks?” You ask, lifting the bottom of your tank top up.

You feel the bed shift. “Holy shit.”

“That bad, huh?” You ask.

“Yeah,” Natasha says, softly running her hand down your back. “Damn that kid has a trigger finger.”

“Yeah, he shot a lot. I’m lucky I had the vest.”

“You’d be dead otherwise,” Natasha says, pulling her hand off of your back.

“I’m glad I’m not,” You say, dropping the back of your shirt back down.

You lay down next to Natasha.

“I’m glad you’re not dead either,” Natasha says. “You make a pretty good partner.”

Silence fills the air.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” Natasha says.

“Goodnight, Nat.”

---

Taglist: @peggycarter-steverogers @womenlovingwomen-imagines @b-5by5 @natasha-danvers @crispykidcookiebasketball @kaitlynroseb @millennial-teenybopper @diaryoflife @haughtlikehell @feescher @marvelwomen-simp @d14n4ol @lilclownx @ymzki-haruki @feescher @hi-i-1 @tbpandtswiftfan @claudiaatje @midnight-lestrange @jellyfishbeansontoast @peabrain112 @supersourlemon13 @madamevirgo @fazebaconneggs @mcytpogmoment @xxromanoffxx @blurryylines @ilovemarvelwomen @natashaandwandaswife @midnight-is-lost @strangegardentaco @bubblegum18 @suki-is-a-queen​

[i-mybrunettelady]

(Un)usual day in the life of the Commander, otherwise known as a near death experience, through the eyes of one of her friends

Preface: I wrote this a bit earlier, but forgot to post?? Also, it’s my first time getting into Gorrik’s head, so don’t judge me too hard for that please :> Also am I shit at titling? Yes!!! But oh well.

Beware of (slight) EoD spoilers

At first, Gorrik thinks they’re going to kill her. 

He really thinks it, watching as they hook her up on strange machines. She’s motionless, more a puppet than a person, and Gorrik can only stare as they set to work. It seems surreal, how one moment she’s a monster on the battlefield, blinding and kicking and killing left, right and center, and the other – this, eyes closed, not putting up a fight as these new humans gingerly and quickly set to work. 

He’s ready to strike, to shout, to yell, it’s his friend, it’s the Commander, it’s Nyra, before he realises, with a thud in his heart, that if they wanted her dead, they would have just let her die of her wounds. It calms him down a bit, though he doesn’t move from the operating table and promises he’ll do harm if they do her harm. 

Days pass. One, two, three, it turns into a week, and she’s still out of it. Some nights Gorrik hits the table repeatedly and babbles loudly, but he gets no response. The humans come every day, clean the wounds, do their job, talk in a strange, new language between each other. She’s still out of it. 

Suddenly, Gorrik isn’t so sure of his prior reassessment. 

*** 

The second week, new people come. One of them, a woman with short dyed hair, goes to remove the bandages and Gorrik catches the grimace she makes at the scarred, red flesh she finds. Almost in disgust, she sets it aside, but the grimace is there even as she lays her hands on Nyra to check the “healing progress.” 

“Stop making that face,” he shouts at her, “and don’t stare! She didn’t let you!” 

The woman frowns and mutters something derisive in her language. But she listens, not looking any more than strictly necessary. Gorrik’s proud of himself, even a little. Even the big guns need help from time to time. 

“I won’t let them see any more than they have to,” he whispers into Nyra’s hair. “You said you were uncomfortable with that sometime. You came to rescue me, and now I’ll rescue you, if I have to.” 

Nyra doesn’t respond, but Gorrik can’t say if he imagined the light movement of her scarred hand in his or not. 

***

It’s the middle of week two. Sun is just coming through the small window in their cell, so it’s too soon for the doctors to come. He’s certain it’s not a part of his dream, though when he looks around, a big Lubinella Cadentis that he held onto was nowhere to be found. Rubbing his eyes, he yaws, but his yawn quickly turns to a surprised yelp. 

“Good morning, Gorrik,” Nyra rasps, with a slightly pained, but relieved smile. Edges of her eyes are wet with tears. “You– You were really calling for that– Dwayna’s mercies– that bug back in Elona..” 

“They didn’t kill you!” Gorrik shouts. “You’re alive!” 

“Sure am,” she lets out flashes of breath that are probably supposed to be laughter. “Been waiting for a while for you to wake up though…” She buries her head in the pillow, closing her eyes shut. “This hurts really fucking badly, you know. Good Gods, what exactly happened..” 

Jumping from his seat, Gorrik bangs at the door and yells what he presumes means doctor in wherever they crashed those airships to. Painkillers knock her out again, but this time, for a change, he is marginally less doubtful of it being harmful. 

[siriusmydeer]

late common room nights

ron weasley x fem!gryffindor!reader

summary: after hermione and harry leave the common room to go to bed, you and ron have to find something to keep yourselves... entertained

word count: 1.9k

warnings: first of all that summary is ass but, unprotected sex (DONT FORGET TO WRAP IT BEFORE U TAP IT), uh fingering?, RON IS A CONSENT KING, this was also my first smut so don’t expect anything amazing 😭, uhm underage drinking, lowkey an innocence kink, exhibitionism, and c*rmac again

“guys, ‘m out m’tired.” harry spoke, getting up from his seated place on the common room floor and stretching out his arms.

“me too, ‘ve got a new book to catch up on” she says, slowly walking over to the girls dormitory tiredly from the long school day.

“night y/n, night ron.” harry says, before making his way to the boys dormitory.

“so, ronald, what do we do now?” a smirk grazes your lips with an arched brow, chuckling a bit at the end of your sentence.

“oi! stop calling me that!” the boy basically cried out, grabbing a fluffy pillow from the vermillion couch throwing it at your chuckling body.

you catch it with ease shoving behind you, thinking of something to do with your best friend.

“how about.... 21 questions?” proposing your idea whilst pursing your lips, looking at the boy again with narrowed eyes.

“alright, darling. you first.” his voice lacing with an amused tone at your proposal, leaning back on his hands that laid comfortably on the mahogany floor meanwhile sitting across from you.

“ok...” your voice slightly trembling in nerves, whilst wringing your fingers together. “whats your favourite colour?” your voice swift, his ears barely catching the question. having a small internal battle with yourself for chickening out from your original question.

“navy blue..., what’s your favourite memory?” his sentence pausing in the middle, attempting to maintain eye contact with his azure irises.

not bad, you quickly thought while trying to think of another question. a chortle falls from your lips thinking of the amusing memory, “that one unsupervised quidditch match when i was knocked off m’broom and broke my foot”

“the one where i had to bring you to pomfrey at two in the morning and serve a months detention for being out past curfew.” you both reminisce at the memory.

as the night progressed the both of you passed around the fire-whisky the questions got bolder, and to say the least dirtier.

“okay... okay...” giggle escapes you, the alcohol clearly in your system. ron chuckles at your disgruntled face, leaning closer to your face wiggling his eyebrows.

“have you ever like... done it?” a tinge of awkwardness runs rapidly throughout the room, you giggle again nervously taking another swig of fire whisky.

“it..?” he looks at you cluelessly, waiting for more information. you widen your eyes at him like you’re trying, and failing, to send him a mental message.

after a few seconds he looks at you with widened eyes, a small chuckle leaves his mouth as he takes the fire whisky from you. “merlin y/l/n i didn’t know you wanted me like that” he says taking a swig.

“no! i don’t!” you attempt to explain, with a vermillion running up the expanse of your next directly to the apples of your cheeks. “i’m just.... curious, because i know lavender has it bad for you” you attempt to cover your tracks, but your intentions already revealed.

“yes i have, for your information. not with her though.” he says with a sassy remark, passing you the bottle again. “have you?” he spoke while eyeing you suspiciously.

“well now i’m embarrassed.” you divert your eyes to the staircase. “oh so, you haven’t! my oh my, i guess you and mclaggen never got that far.” he adds with a raised brow and smirk.

“for your information, we never did anything because he was busy gazing at every other female in his vicinity” you punctuate and return to his sassy-tone, and a hair flick. you steady your eyes back to ron who looks at you amused.

“if i was with you i wouldn’t look at anyone else” he mumbles, gaze strictly on the floor his face matching his hair colour; a bright scarlet hue.

“what?” you look at him, widen eyes, face flushed and hair dishevelled. thinking you heard wrong, scooting closer so you can pick up his head with your thumb and pointer finger.

“i said...” he takes a deep breath before continuing, “that if you were mine, you would be the only person i’d look at” he says nervously, grabbing your wrist looking up at you.

you inhale and close your eyes for a second thinking about every single possibility this night could lead too. you choose wisely and opened your eyes looking in his direction finally choosing your words.

“prove it.” your tone stern, looking in his cerulean irises to prove your sincerity.

after that he doesn’t hesitate to capture your lips with his, moving together while subtly maneuvering you to straddle his waist. he opens his mouth so swiping against the strawberry chapstick that was worn into your lips and pleading for entry beneath your lips.

your mouths synced together in a deep harmony while both his larger hands came to grapple at your hips to keep you steady on the planes of his thighs. your core just above his clothed cock, you sink down slightly swivelling your hips slightly to create friction.

“bloody hell.” you hear him mumble while your lips were slightly seperated before rejoining them, his slowly growing tighter at the slight friction. one of your dainty fingers tugging at his reed tresses and the other on his placed on his jaw. you move forward again and create more friction against his strained erection, a low groan falling from his mouth.

you had a butterfly feeling erupting in your stomach, as one of his hands made its way into your hair giving it a small tug. a barely audible moan left your mouth, ron pulled away just a millimeter to look into your eyes.

“i want you, right here, right now.”

“what if someone see’s-“

“let them.”

he captured your lips again, placing both of his large hands right under your thighs maneuvering you to the nearest vermillion couch to lay you on. He hovered over you before kissing down your neck, sucking marks on the nearest skin he could find.

you knew you would have to cover them up in the morning, but you didn’t care. you could only focus on his lips sucking on your skin, and tangling your fingers into his fiery red hair.

he kissed up from your collarbone, kissing the fresh red marks that laid beautifully on your skin before hovering over your face again.

“you’re beautiful, darling.”

he leaned in again, tongues prodding at each other lustfully, while his warming taste of spearmint and pumpkin bleeds onto your tongue. one hand aggressively gripping your hip and the other one fiddling with the buttons of your uniform top, robes and ties already discarded when you entered the common room.

“are you sure you wanna do this, m’love?” he asked gently, affirming this is what your intentions were. hearing the repetitive pet names conform out of his mouth sending shockwaves of butterflies erupting through the warming of your belly, mixing with arousal.

“i want you ron, all of you.”

you leaned forward pushing your lips together in a passionate kiss, slotting them together the mess of the kiss being your last concern; while you both worked and attempted to rid each other’s clothes off. both of you left in your undergarments, he disconnected your lips for a moment to take a look at your body and seeing the heavy breaths you took from the frequent moving of your torso.

the eyes the stretch marks on your hips, the small scars from quidditch on your body, the birth marks scattered on your body and he thought he had never seen anything more beautiful.

“w-what?” you stumbled on your words, as he looked upon your body thinking he was judging you. you instinctively almost went to cover yourself, he quickly grabbed your wrist pinning it beside your head before looking deep into your irises.

“you’re the most stunning thing, i’ve ever seen.”

he went to kiss the column of your neck again, slowing down before he mumbled again.

“i want to get you ready for me first, can i do that?”

“please.”

he took off the rings on his middle and ring finger seeing the callouses from the handling of his quidditch broom, and slowly slipping them on your agile fingers and leaning in towards the shell of your ear.

“hold on to those for me, darling.”

he kissed down your bra-clad chest, to your stomach and down to where you needed him most. he slipped off your panties, throwing them on the common room floor before kissing up your thigh.

he looked at your glistening core with lust, his pupils blowing wide before running a finger down your wet folds. you let out a breathy whine before he continued, slowly slipping his middle finger into you and slowly pulsing it in and out.

“ron- fuck.” you hissed in pleasure, from being touched for the first time. “you like that, princess?” ron mocked, seeing your face slightly contort.

a small whine slipped from your slipped from your lips as a response, before he continued his torture on your cunt. you bit your lip, trying to keep quiet hoping nobody from upstairs would hear ron pleasuring you.

he kept a steady rhythm, pulsing his fingers in and out of you knowing how hard it was for you to keep quiet. he kissed your thoughts and stomach while teasing you by speeding up his pace in and out of you.

you let out a moan escaping your lips before biting them harshly,

“come for me darling, come all over my fingers”

you let out a loud moan in response, unable contain it anymore. you felt a wave of euphoria wash over you as you came for him, gripping whatever was close to you. he puts his fingers in his mouth with an exaggerated moan before leaning over you again kissing your lips, making you taste yourself feeling arousal wash again all over you.

he kissed back up your stomach before his hand slid up towards your back, undoing your bra before throwing it towards the floor, along with the matching set of panties. he looked at you in adoration of your naked body, before looking up at you,

“are you ready, angel?”

“but i want to help you too, ron”

you said leaning to grab at his briefs before he grabbed your wrist in his hand, and interlocking your fingers.

“tonight is about you, your my priority.” his tone was hoarse but a mix of gentle lacing it, the last sentences being whispered in your ear. you tried to suppress a shiver before grabbing his face and looking into his sheer-like azure irises.

“i want you inside me” your voice slow and and heaving, you spoke then kissing him again. he moved up, placing himself between your legs and leaning on both of his forearms, one of his hands tangled in your tresses and the other grabbing at your hip.

his cock hard, almost painful and leaking with precum started to slip into you, only managing the tip in before a whine escaped your lips while digging your nails into ron’s flexed bicep.

“it’s ok, m’right here”

he took your nod as a sign to keep going before slowly pushing fully into you. at first his strokes only small, barely there. he didn’t want you to hurt, he adored you and he just wanted to make you feel good.

“ron, please. go faster” you said gripping his hair in one of your hands, and his dipping your nails again in his bicep with the other. he slowly started to build up a pace, he knew you both wouldn’t last long considering this was your first time and the girl he loved was withering in pleasure under him, and only pleasured by him.

he let out a grunt into your neck, as he littered it in kisses while murmuring small praises into your ear. you tried to suppress your moans by biting into your lip, hoping hermione wouldn’t come looking for you.

“ron i’m gonna- fuck”

“me too, come with me” he said in between small grunts. you both let out low moans at the same time before he let white ropes of cum shoot into you and another wave of euphoria washed over you, harder this time. he laid beside you, both panting as he grabbed a blanket covering the both of you. he leant his head on your shoulder, his arm winded around your waist, pulling you closer to him and kissing your shoulder.

“keep the rings, darling, they look better on you.” he said in between pants.

you looked at him before speaking,

“is this the part where we separate and go to our dorms?” you mumbled, scared of his answer.

“no.” he whined, “i don’t know about you, but m’tired” he said sleepily, closing his eyes.

“we’re also naked, the first years will be mortified-“

“don’t care. they can close their eyes” he said, with sass.

“your brothers and all of our friends will tease us for all eternity” you teased with a laugh.

“they’ll be more relived that the pining is done.”

“pining over who?” you said, arching your brow.

“YOU. merlin woman, you are blind.” he picked his head off your shoulder to look at you before putting his head in the crook of your neck, giving it a small peck.

“mortified, ron. i’m telling you—“

[bananaofswifts]

Taylor Swift Turns on a Facsimile Machine for the Ingenious Recreations of ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’: Album Review

Swift recreates her entire 2008 album literally down to the last note, then gives herself room for stylistic latitude on six never-before-recorded "vault" tracks.

By Chris Willman

Swift recreates her entire 2008 album literally down to the last note, then gives herself room for stylistic latitude on six never-before-recorded "vault" tracks.

There is no “best actress” award at the Grammys, perhaps for obvious reasons, but maybe there should be this coming year. And the Grammy would go to… Taylor Swift, for so persuasively playing her 18-year-old self in “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” her beyond-meticulous recreation of the 2008 recording that did win her her first album of the year trophy back in the day. It’s impossible to overstate just how thoroughly the new version is intended as an exact replica of the old — all the way down to her startling ability to recapture an untrained teen singing voice she’s long matured and moved on from. It’s a stunt, to be sure, but a stunt for the ages — mastering the guile it takes to go back to sounding this guileless.

There are two different, very solid reasons to pick up or stream “Taylor’s Version,” regardless of whether you share her ire for the Big Machine label, whose loose ways with her nine-figure catalog precipitated this, the first in a six-album series of remakes where she’ll be turning on the facsimile machine. One is to marvel at her gift for self-mimicry on the album’s original tracks, where she sounds as possessed by her younger self as Regan ever was by Pazuzu. The other reason is, of course, to check out the six “vault” numbers that Swift wrote during that time frame but has never released before in any form, which dispenses with stylistic fealty to the late 2000s and frames her “Fearless”-era discards in production and arrangements closer to “Folklore.” Those half-dozen (kind of) new tracks really do sound like modern Taylor Swift covering her old stuff.

But those original lucky 13? It’s the same damn record… which is kind of hilarious and marvelous and the kind of meta-ness that will inspire a thousand more think-pieces than it already has, along with possibly efforts at forensic analysis to figure out how she did it.

It would not be surprising if, as we speak, Big Machine was putting a combined team of scientists and lawyers on the case of the new album’s waveform readouts, to make sure it’s not just the original album, remixed. Honestly, it’s that close. The timings of the songs are all within a few seconds of the original tracks, if not coming in at exactly the same length. The duplication effort doesn’t allow any detours. If “Forever and Always” had a cold open then, it’s going to have a cold open now. If the 2008 “That’s the Way I Love You” had slamming rock guitars with an almost subliminal banjo being plucked beneath the racket, so will the 2021 “That’s the Way I Loved You.” A drum roll to end the old “Change”? A drum roll to end its body-snatcher doppelganger. And if she chuckled before the final chorus of “Hey Stephen” 13 years ago, so will that moment be cause for a delighted giggle now.

Of course, much analysis will be put into whether the new laugh is a more knowing-sounding laugh. And that will be part of the fun for a certain segment of audiophile Swifties who will go looking for the slightest change as evidence of something meaningful. When “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” first came out weeks back to preview the album, there were reviews written that swore she’d subtly changed up her phrasing to put a contemporary spin on the song. And maybe they were right, but, having done a fair amount of A/B testing of the two versions of the album, I found myself feeling like I do when vinyl buffs insist there are significant sonic differences between the first stamper version of an LP and one that was pressed a year later. If you can spot those very, very, very modest tweaks, go for it.

But my suspicion is that if Swift has decided to turn a phrase a little differently here or there on this album, or done anything too differently aside from brighten the sound, she’s doing it more as an Easter egg, for the people who are on that kind of hunt, than anything really designed as reinterpretation. Because the last thing Swift wants most of her fans doing is A/B-ing the two versions, the way I did. The whole point is to have folks retire the OG “Fearless” from their Spotify playlists, right? The Swift faithful were already threatening to rain down damnation on anyone caught sneaking an audio peek at the old version after midnight. What she intended was to come up with a rendering so faithful that you would never have a need to spin the vintage album again. In that, she has succeeded beyond what could have been imagined even in the dreams of the few self-forgers who’ve tried this before, like a Jeff Lynne.

Is there any reason to find value in the new versions if you couldn’t care less about the issues of masters and contracts and respect in business deals that made all this strangely possible? Yes, with the first one being that the new album just sounds like a terrific remastering of the old — the same notes, and you’d swear the same performances, but sounding brighter and punchier just on a surface level. But on a more philosophical one, it’s not just a case of Swift playing with her back catalog like Andy Warhol played with his soup can. It’s really a triumph of self-knowledge and self-awareness, in the way that Swift is so hyper-conscious of the ways she’s matured that she has the ability to un-mature before our very ears. With her vocals, it’s virtuosic, in a way, how she’s made herself return to her unvirtuosic upstart self.

On Swift’s earliest albums and in those seminal live shows — at the time when she was famously being told she “can’t sing,” to quote a song from the follow-up album — there was a slight shrillness around the edges of her voice that, if you lacked faith, you might’ve imaged would be there forever. It wasn’t. That was partly youth, and partly just the sheer earnestness with which she wanted to convey the honesty of the songs. She’s advanced so much since then — into one of pop’s most gifted modern singers, really — that the woman of “Folklore” and “Evermore” seems like a completely different human being than the one who made the self-titled debut and “Fearless,” never mind just a woman versus girl. It wouldn’t have seemed possible that she could go back to her old way of singing at the accomplished age of 31, but she found and recreated that nervous, sincere, pleading voice of yesteryear. And maybe it was just a technical feat, of temporarily unlearning what she’s learned since then, but you can sense that maybe she had to go there internally, too, to the place where she was counseling other girls to guard their sexual virtue in “Fifteen,” or wondering whether to believe the fairy tale of “Love Story” or the wakeup call of “White Horse,” or proving with “Forever & Always” that writing a song telling off Joe Jonas for his 27-second breakup call was better than revenge.

If at first you’re not inclined to notice that Swift has re-adopted a completely different singing voice for the “Fearless” remakes, the realization may kick in when those “vault” tracks start appearing in the later stretch of this hour-and-50-minute album. The writing on the six songs that have been pulled up from the 2008 cutting room floor seems primitive, even a little bit by the standards of the “Fearless” album; there are great lines and couplets throughout the rescued tracks, but you can see why she left them as works-in-progress. But she doesn’t use her youthful voice on these resurrections, nor does she employ the actual style of “Fearless” very strictly. Of course, she feels more freedom on these, because there are no predecessors in the Big Machine catalog she’s asking you to leave behind. Her current collaborators of choice, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, divided the co-producing work on these fresher songs, as they did for the two all-new albums she released in the last year. (The “Fearless” recreations are co-produced by Swift with Christopher Rowe, someone who worked on remixes for Swift back in that era.) They co-produce the vault songs in a style that sounds somewhere between “Fearless” and Folklore”… a more spectral brand of country-pop, with flutes and synths and ringing 12-string guitars and a modicum of drum programming replacing some (but not all) of the acoustic stringed instruments you’d expect to be carried over from “Fearless” proper.

Of the previously unheard tracks, Swift was right — she��s always been her own best self-editor — in putting out “You All Over Me” first, in advance of the album. With its imagery of half-muddy stones being upturned on the road, this song has advanced lyrical conceits more of a piece with the level of writing she’s doing now than some of the slightly less precocious songs that follow. Still, there’s something to be said for the sheer zippiness with which Swift conveys teen heartbreak in “Mr. Perfectly Fine,” which has a lyric that shows Swift had long since absorbed the lessons Nashville had to offer about how to come up with a high-concept song — the concept, in this case, being just to stick the word “mister” in front of a lot of phrases relating to her shallow ex, as if they were honorary titles to be conferred for being a shit, while she employs the “miss” for herself more sparingly.

Some of the remaining outtake songs go back more toward the sedate side of “Fearless”-style material; she didn’t leave any real bangers in the can. “We Were Happy,” the first of two successive tracks to bring in Keith Urban (but only for backgrounds on this one), employs fake strings and real cello as Swift waxes nostalgic for a time when “you threw your arms around my neck, back when I deserved it.” It’s funny, in a good way, to hear Swift at 31 recreating a song she wrote at 17 or 18 that pined for long-past better times. The next song, “That’s When,” brings Urban in for a proper duet where he gets a whole second verse and featured status on half a chorus, and it’s lovely to hear them together. But, as a make-up song, it doesn’t feel as real or lived-in as the more personal things she was writing at the time — and the fact that its chords are pretty close to a slightly more balladic version of the superior ��You Belong With Me” was probably a pretty good reason for dropping it at the time.

the 18-year-old Taylor Swift is a great place to visit, but “Folklore” and “Evermore” are the place you’ll want to return to and live, unless you have an especially strong sentimental attachment to “Fearless”… which, sure, half of young America does. It’s not irreconcilable to say that the two albums she issued in the last year represent a daring pinnacle of her career, but that “Fearless” deserved to win album of the year in 2008. Has there been a greater pop single in the 20th century than “You Belong With Me”? Probably not. Did the album also have lesser moments you probably haven’t thought about in a while, like the just-okay “Breathe”? Yes. (I looked up to see whether Swift had ever played that little remarked upon number in concert, and according to setlists.fm, she did, exactly once… in 2018. Because she’s Taylor Swift, and of course she did.) It’s not certain that her duet with Colbie Caillat really needed to be resurrected, except it’s fun, because hey, she even roped former duet partners back into her time warp. But there are so many number that have stood the test of time, like “The Way I Love You,” an early song that really got at the complicated feelings about passion and fidelity that she would come to explore more as she grew into her 20s… and just kind of a headbanger, too, on an album that does love its fiddles and mandolins.

It doesn’t take much to wonder why Swift put up “Fearless” first in this six-album exercise; it’s one of her two biggest albums, along with “1989,” and it’s 13 years old, which does mean something superstitious in the Taylor-verse. In a way, it’ll be more interesting to see what happens when she gets to more complicated productions, like “1989” or “Reputation.” But maybe “Fearless” did present the opportunity for the grandest experiment out of the gate: to recreate something that pure and heartfelt, with all the meticulousness a studio master like Swift can put to that process now, without having it seem like she’s faking sincerity. Let the think-pieces proceed — because this is about six hundred different shades of meta. But, all craftiness and calculation aside, there’s a sweetness to the regression that’s not inconsequential. It harks back to a time when she only wondered if she could be fearless, before she learned it the harder way for sure. What they say about actors “disappearing into the role”? That really applies to Taylor Swift, playing herself.

[chudleycanonficfest]

Rewrite the Stars

Day 7, Post #1 is by @adenei

Title: Rewrite the Stars

Author: adenei

Pairing: Ron/Hermione (Romione)

Prompt: Songfic

Rating: PG 

TW: Depiction of blood purity/discussion of prejudices against Muggleborns, Violence/Murder mentioned (but not graphic)

************

*This fic is inspired not only by the song, but also Anne and Philip's relationship in the movie The Greatest Showman.*

Summary: AU In a world where there’s no Voldemort, but blood purity is strictly enforced, Ron and Hermione must navigate their budding relationship, and all the trials and tribulations that come with it.

********************

“Are you sure this is alright?” Hermione asks as she smooths the front of her dress, checking for wrinkles for the fifth time in as many minutes.

  “Yes, it’s fine! You look beautiful,” Ron assures her.

  He places a warm, comforting hand on the small of her back as they enter the grandiose ballroom where the Auror department is hosting their annual dinner. A handful of Aurors are honored for their achievements, but over the years, it’s turned into an event for the upper classes and Purebloods.

  Hermione knows she doesn’t belong here, amongst the men and women whose wealth and social status put them leagues ahead of anyone else, and it’s rare to receive an invitation to such an event even as a Halfblood. But as a Muggleborn, Hermione braces herself for an onslaught of jeers and slurs. If Ron wasn’t being honored for his success on a case he’d worked six months to solve, she wouldn’t be here at all.

  Ron has always encouraged Hermione to follow her dreams, even during their Hogwarts days. Though they were sorted into different houses, the two shared many Prefect rounds together. Being named Head Boy and Girl also brought them closer together, where they began seeing each other in secret . Neither had intended to break things off upon graduation, but when Hermione received rejection after rejection for potential jobs within the Ministry, she pushed him away too. 

  There was a time years ago when she hoped to be working within the Magical Law Department with dreams of making the magical world a more accepting place for every witch and wizard, no matter their blood status. But those bright-eyed and bushy-tailed dreams have long since dissipated. The rules are archaic, and there’s no chance of overturning something so set in stone until there’s a new Minister of Magic who would be open to the possibility. 

  So, for now, Hermione tends to a job that gives her equal satisfaction. She teaches young Muggleborn students in a special school that she founded with the help of Professor McGonagall. Hermione earned her certification to teach the primary levels at University after graduating from Hogwarts, and now works with Professor McGonagall to teach those students between the ages of five and eleven how to prepare for the world they’ll enter when they’re old enough to go to Hogwarts. This is in addition to all of the regular courses that Muggle England expects them to study.

  The prep school is what reconnected the pair, when Ron was assigned to work the case of an eight-year-old that disappeared last year. It was determined that the child was abducted by Fenrir Greyback and turned into a werewolf. Ron found the boy’s body deep in the Forest of Dean, where it was determined that Fenrir became too bloodthirsty on that particular hunt. 

  Hermione was distraught over the outcome and took comfort in Ron, who was equally shaken by the case. As the weeks following the case progressed, Hermione found herself spending more and more time with Ron. Slowly but surely, they found their way back to each other and had only just rekindled their relationship a couple of months ago.

  Since their relationship still feels so new to Hermione, they’ve kept things quiet. But she knows how important tonight is for Ron, and she wants to be there for him. To support him the same way he supports her. Hermione knows he will be by her side through it all, and has assured  her that no one will make any comments. 

  Ron leads them around the room, exchanging pleasantries and mingling with people Hermione’s only heard stories about. Thus far, everyone she’s encountered has been polite. They are about to make their way to their table when a voice calls out to them.

  “Ron! There you are, dear! We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  Hermione turns to see a plump woman with hair the same shade of red as Ron’s. A man follows in her wake who peers at them through half-moon spectacles with the same cerulean eyes that she’s so familiar with, only they’re attached to a different face. They’re much colder than the warmth Ron’s eyes emit, and that’s when the dread begins to expand from the pit in her stomach.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize you were both attending tonight,” Ron attempts to hide the surprise as he greets his parents.

  “And miss the opportunity to see our son receive an award for his hard work? Don’t be silly,” his father responds with a wave of his hand.

  Hermione has yet to meet Ron’s parents. A chill crawls up her spine as they talk to their son as if he is standing by himself. Suddenly, all of Ron’s promises become emptier than the desk of her former student.

  “Er, right. Mum, Dad, I’d like you to meet someone.” Ron gestures toward Hermione.

  She can see his mouth moving, but no sound comes out, at least not that she hears. The blood drains from her ears, causing momentary deafness as she stands under the scrutinizing stares of his parents. Hermione holds her head high as his mother admonishes his choice of a date. There’s no empathy for them whatsoever.

  “...What will everyone think? You come from a certain class of people, and we need to uphold our status. At least go for a Halfblood, darling.”

  Years of following the mantra ‘hold your head high, don’t let it bother you, stay in your lane’ have still not prepared Hermione to endure this moment. She is a strong-willed woman, she fights for what is right, and she refuses to stand here and take this woman’s judgmental words all because of the family she was born into. 

  This is the exact reason why Hermione insisted on keeping their relationship private. Her feet move on their own accord as Hermione tears herself away from Ron’s side and weaves in and out of the clumps of people. She manages to find the visitor’s entrance and exits to the bustling streets of London. Refusing to cry, she rushes along the cobblestone sidewalk and down a deserted alleyway. 

  Hermione forces herself to forget the sound of Ron’s voice calling after her as she disapparates away from the Ministry of Magic. She finds herself in her classroom, staring at all the empty desks in front of her. Desks of students who would be forced to meet the same unfair limitations that she lives day to day. She feels so helpless, not knowing what to do in an effort to make their lives easier. 

  Looking down at the elegant maroon ball gown she’s still wearing, she feels dirty. This isn’t the life she’s meant for, no matter how many assurances Ron can give her. She doesn’t belong in his world. Thank goodness she keeps an extra outfit in her coat closet, which she rushes toward before shedding the expensive formalwear from her body. 

  Once she’s changed, Hermione sits down at her desk, staring at the piles of papers left to be graded. Ron insisted she leave them there so they could spend their weekend together. A heartbreaking realization enters her mind as she thinks of his name.

  We can’t be together. This is never going to work.

  It’s as if he knows that she’s thinking of him as the floo lights up and he stumbles out. Ron sheds his dress robes, leaving him in his starched white dress shirt and pressed black trousers. She refuses to look up even though she can feel his gaze boring into her as he stands at the head of her desk.

  “Hermione.”

  She says nothing because what is there to say?

  “They’re small-minded people. What do you care what they think?”*

  He reaches for her hand, but she tugs it away as she sits back in her chair.

  “It’s not just them, Ron. You haven’t lived this life. You don’t know what I’ve been up against. You’ll never know what it feels like to be looked at the way your parents looked at me tonight. The way they spoke down about me to my face. I can’t—I can’t be subjected to that. The way people will look at us because we’re together. I don’t deserve to feel that way.”

  Hermione stands up and exits the classroom, stepping into the abandoned hallway. She can’t do this anymore— it’s too painful. She’s learned to pick and choose her battles. It’s better to let people like the Weasleys think they’ve won while she keeps fighting on her own.

  You know I want you, it’s not a secret I try to hide.

I know you want me, so don’t keep saying our hands are tied.

You claim it’s not in the cards, that fate is pulling you miles away and out of reach from me,

But you’re here in my heart, so who can stop me if I decide that you’re my destiny?

  “Hermione, don’t do this. Please. I don’t care what they think. I want you, and nothing else matters.”

  She stops and only turns her head slightly to see him leaning out of the doorway, his hand gripping the door jamb as he calls after her.

  What if we rewrite the stars, say you were made to be mine

Nothing could keep us apart, you’d be the one I was meant to find.

It’s up to you, it’s up to me, no one can say what we get to be

So why don’t we rewrite the stars, maybe the world could be ours tonight.

  “Please, love, don’t let them dictate what our life looks like.”

  The desperation in Ron’s voice is what makes Hermione turn all the way around to face him. She begins to walk a few paces toward him before the voices in her head get a hold of her. He’d become an outcast if she stayed with him. She can’t let him risk everything he’s gained by choosing her.

  You think it’s easy? You think I don’t want to run to you?

But there are mountains, and there are doors that we can’t walk through.

I know you’re wondering why because we’re able to be just you and me within these walls

But when we go outside you’re gonna wake up and see that it was hopeless after all.

  “You know it’s not that easy. We can’t just run away from everything so we can be happy. Your family would never forgive you, or me for that matter! Everyone will do everything in their power to tear us apart. It’s not worth it.”

  “So, what? You’re saying we’re not worth it?”

  No one can rewrite the stars. How can you say you’ll be mine?

Everything keeps us apart, and I’m not the one you were meant to find.

It’s not up to you, it’s not up to me, when everyone tells us what we can be.

How can we rewrite the stars? Say that the world can be ours tonight.

  Hermione reaches out and clasps his hands with her own. “No, you’re not listening to me. You’re worth so much to me that I have to let you go.”

  “But what if I don’t want to let go?”

  All I want is to fly with you. 

All I want is to fall with you. 

So just give me all of you.

It feels impossible (It’s not impossible). 

Is it impossible? (Say that it’s possible.)

  “I don’t want to let go, either, Ron, but I have to. You mean too much to me.” 

  She knows it’s better to be hurt on her own terms than to let someone else hurt her instead. Ron will see reason eventually. He has to. Hermione wraps her arms around him, tighter than ever before, putting all her feelings into one single embrace, hoping that he can understand. 

  How do we rewrite the stars? Say you were made to be mine?

Nothing can keep us apart, cause you are the one I was meant to find.

It’s up to you and it’s up to me, no one can say what we get to be

And why don’t we rewrite the stars, changing the world to be ours… 

  There are many things she can change, but her blood status isn’t one. Above all else, she’s proud of being a Muggleborn, and she’ll keep teaching her students to be proud of their roots as well. She’ll keep her memories of Ron and how wonderful he is locked up tight as she finds a way to navigate this world without him. Hermione has made her decision as she kisses his cheek and lets go. Perhaps in another lifetime, they’ll be able to be together with nothing standing in their way.

  You know I want you.

It’s not a secret I try to hide.

But I can’t have you.

We’re bound to break and our hands are tied.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her voice leaves the faintest echo among the abandoned halls. Before she loses her nerve, she turns on the spot and apparates away, leaving the hurt look that is etched on Ron’s face burned into her mind as she leaves him alone.

[bookwyrminspiration]

hello! just curious, how do you plot out your stories? (for example, what have you done to plan out the wings au? do you have it all in your head? do you plan it out on paper or in a doc specifically for it? do you just go with the flow? sorry if this is a lot of questions lol i'm just trying to convey my point-)

hello, synonym!! lovely to see you again! I'd love to share my process!

as I explain my personal methods (again, personal, just how I do things!), I'll use the wings au as an example because i know you've read it and it'll just be easier over all. but essentially, yes to all of the above, just with different parts of the story!

my progression is: chaotic doc, background (as needed), basic written plot, expansion on the plot, any other details needed, and then just write things! but don't worry, I'll provide more detail, i say as if i'm capable of being concise

(putting below a readmore for simplicity)

chaotic doc: so, the very first thing I do when i have a story is open up a doc, and write down everything i know about it in little bullet points and rambling sentences, just basic information with no organization. the organizing can come later, right now I just want to get as much of what's in my head onto the paper as possible.

I type out the basic premise of the story or the few things I know about how I want it to go, the things I know I want to remember later, things I'd need to think about to set it up, etc. for the wings au, this was details like everyone's wings (things to remember later), how they got those wings and a sentence or two about what the world was like now (things I needed to think about to set it up), a little blurb about where the story would start. this is less writing details about the story, and more noting down the details I want to figure out later in the expansion. i find it works best to type this out because i'm a much faster typer than I am at physical writing, which allows me to follow the flow of my thoughts a lot better and go back and change things.

background: background prepares me for the next step, but the amount of effort I put into this section depends on how complex my story is. it basically means write down (we've moved to pencil and paper now, but this could be digital too if you prefer) anything you need to know in order to set up the rest of your story. what do you need to know in order to tell the story you need to and to get you where you want to be? for the wings au, the background was that the world had been overrun with monsters and everyone was living underground now. the neverseen had been defeated, or so they thought, coming back later. all these things that essentially prepared me to get to the plot. it told me where the story was happening and the emotional/physical environment everything else would happen under. if you have a more worldbuilding heavy world, this step might be a little more complex, or if there's something very specific with the characters you need as context beforehand.

sometimes the readers will be aware of pieces of the background, and it's even necessary for them to know--for example, you all knowing the elven world is in the middle of a monster apocalypse and living underground; if you didn't know, the rest of the story wouldn't make any sense. but there may be things you write down that are just for you to know, personal notes. for example, I have notes written about how the monsters came to be, more specifically, that you all haven't been made aware of and may never be. planning this out is for you, so if there's something you want to remind yourself to keep in mind while writing, this could be a good place. but now that we know the world we're writing in, we can move on

basic plot: for me, I struggle to figure out where to take a story, and if I don't have the basic concept laid out before I start writing, I ended up with really weird stories that completely deviate from what i wanted (I say this from experience). so I break it down into the bare essentials. literally as basic as I can be. there are five crucial parts of a plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. just those five. for each of those, i write--writing, because it takes more time (allows me to think) and feels more organized to me, but you can do it differently--just the general idea I have for each section. just as few words as possible. detail comes later. for the wings au I literally wrote "they get wings" for rising action. having read the wings au, you know just how simplified that is.

one things that might help is consider how you would explain this idea to someone in one or two sentences. you just want to make sure you have a beginning, middle, end, and the transition between them. from there you've got the skeleton of your story, and everything else can fit itself into this idea.

expansion: now that you have the skeleton, it's time to fill in some of the more essential anatomy. this is where you add the specifics. for me, i write this physically in bullet points in a journal of some kind. I take the first section, and write down how the story is going to start. where am I going to begin this journey. for the wings au I wrote "beginning: sneaking into breeding facility to destroy monsters. problem: caught/monster breaks loose." if you remember this is essentially the events of the first chapter but in two sentences. I'm giving enough detail that I know what I'm going to write, but not so much it's going to be stifling to follow my exact notes when I actually get to writing. this will be different for different people, so you may want more or less detail than I provided, I'm just giving an example of how I did it.

I continue this for the rest of the plot, but that doesn't mean every single little detail that will ever happen is planned out. I'm not patient enough to be super thorough with every little thing, so I go long enough until I have a solid understanding of what I'm going to start with when I'm writing, or just until I'm bored and can't deal with planning anymore. for me, that meant I was more detailed when planning from the mission in the facility to them getting to the abandoned gnomish village, as those would be some of the first things I would be writing about. after that, I got more vague and just touched on some of the key part of each of those five sections. I take those two/three words and turn them into two/three bullet points. I also didn't want to be too specific with the later details, because I knew i'd be influenced by things as I wrote and would be inspired to fill that out.

any other details: this is kind of any afterthoughts you might have or details you need to keep i mind that aren't necessarily plot. you may have a lot of these, or you may have none. for me, this was where I wrote down what kinds of wings and other animalistic traits each of the characters had (yes, I wrote them down again). it's not strictly plot, but it does affect the rest of the story. this is also where I write anything I forgot to when going through the first time, and then i can draw a little arrow pointing towards where it fits in to the rest of the story or is relevant (which is part of why I like the writing aspect, but this is entirely achievable on a doc). another example from the au is me writing "domestic" to the side and pointing it back to my notes about the gnomish village, because while it wasn't essential to moving the plot forward, i wanted to touch on some aspects of domestic live with the ten of them while they were there.

just write things: now that you have all this planning done (good job, you!) you can get into the writing aspect. you've already decided your beginning and know where you want to go, so this is the part where you just starting putting words on the page. it can be pretty daunting to just look at a blank page, so if you'd like, start a paragraph in. skip the first paragraph and just start in the middle of something else--you can add back what's missing later. I personally note things that I want to come back to inside [brackets like this], and that can be words, sentences, entire paragraphs. i use the square ones specifically because I don't use them in my writing unlike (these parentheses), and then I can search the document for them all at once and see all the places I need to go back.

this is also where the "just in my head" and "make it up as I go" part comes into place. you have a pretty good idea of what you're doing, but you're going to have ideas as you write, so sometimes you just follow the flow of your brain and write things you could've never even planned for. and if you're interacting with others as you're going (like I'm talking about theories with you all while writing future chapters) then you may be inspired by them to add things to the story. originally, I wasn't going to even have any messages from Bronte or Oralie, but now because I saw what some of the people reading it were picking up on, I realized the potential there and added them in on a whim

and sometimes when you get stuck, the best way to get yourself out of that is to just add something random, which can spiral off and affect the rest of the story. I've said it before, but the dragons were not planned. I'd actually seen a piece of writing advice months ago that if you're stuck, change the weather. so I was stuck and made a sudden rainstorm, but then I needed an explanation as to how things got so wet so fast because I'd mentioned clear skies earlier. so in my attempt to explain it, dragons came to exist. writing is a process, so don't limit yourself to everything you've written. you'll be inspired along the way, so try to take it in stride.

one final note: as much as you plan, this is not going to be a definite map for how the story will go. maybe something makes sense as you're planning it out, but when you get to actually writing it makes no sense as all and you need to change things. that's fine! this kind of a plan is just to get you prepared and keep you afloat amongst this ocean of words trapped in your head that you want to transcribe. if something isn't working, change it! in my original written plan for the wings au they weren't going to run away for a few weeks, instead sneaking out for an hour or two at a time over those few weeks because they couldn't stand being underground anymore, until Linh was actually the first one to make contact with a creature and realize it didn't immediately want to kill her. but because she's not the narrator of this story, I couldn't write it the way i wanted, so I gave that to sophie in the tree.

this is just my approach to my more complicated stories! for some of the really quick ones, I just open a doc and start going. this kind of thinking keeps me organized so that I'm doing the idea the most justice. but just because it works for me doesn't mean it'll work for everyone. if it does work for you, great! but if there are parts you need to modify for yourself, you are more than encouraged to do so. personally, if I could only chose one part of this process to rely on, it would be the basic plot. that's the key to everything for me, but for others it might be something different.

I hope this helps with whatever it is you're writing!! I wish you luck and look forward to seeing whatever it is (should you chose to share it, no pressure)!! if you'd like more of my process on how I write it consistently and update on a schedule, I'd be more than happy to talk about that too!

[berena-cpr]

Unfinished Masterpieces - Fic Rec List

Remember the WIP on ao3 you can’t let go? The one that resonated with you? The one that you’d give anything to know how it ends?

While the Berena Creative Project Resuscitation event is all about starting to work again on projects sitting in our draft folders, life can get in the way of finishing a project for a hundred reasons.

These works, posted, but still a few chapters short of ending, are loved though and with this list we’d like to share the love for the unfinished masterpieces one can find in the Berena tag on ao3.

Given the high response we had when we asked to tell us about your favourite WIPs, you’ll find the list under the cut:

Anything Else to Declare? - LittleMissO

“I've personally had sleeping issues since I read LittleMissO's Anything Else to Declare because yeah, I'm still there, breath held and heart pounding like crazy after the most delicious slow burn, and pining, and that outrageously flirtatious conversation over a whiskey.”

that line between your heart and mine - ktlsyrtis

“it is just plain hot but also I love the idea of them writing letters to each other and I also love the exploration of what their relationship might be like with Bernie still being in the RAMC.”

you disappear like your cigarette smoke (now the taste of your kiss is all that remains) - bonnissance

“A wonderful, emotional angst filled fic, looking at how Bernie’s life might still have progressed after Serena left. I loved how it showed her testing her own boundaries to see if it was possible to find another relationship with someone else and when she found that wasn’t something she could do, she accepted it and found other ways to be happy without Serena. I reread it fairly often because although unfinished it doesn’t ever seem incomplete. But the last word “Serena” always leaves me full of a hope that I would dearly love to have fulfilled.”

Secrets in the Dark - Wonko

“I’d love to see this continued!”

For a Good Time Call - Regency

“Young Serena using that pure sex voice of hers to make a little extra as a phone sex operative, and young nervous Bernie taking the first tentative steps in exploring her sexuality. Who better than Serena to help her figure things out? The premise of the fic is ingenious, the writing amazing, the dialogue just outstanding. Hot, sexy, soft and full of compassion and feels. I would sell a kidney to read the next chapter to this – Bernie and Serena meeting years later and recognising each other’s voices.”

you're the only one I never looked for - gutsandglitter

“Never expected I'd enjoy a Baby Boom AU, but I love this fic. Serena hanging out in the country feeling extremely overwhelmed and constantly running into this weird tall, awkward woman named Bernie is a mood. I will forever hold out hope for an update so that I can someday read about them having lots of sex (after an appropriate amount of angst, miscommunication, and unexpected grocery store encounters, of course).”

Things Kayryn doesn't write - Kayryn

“So they’re not exactly unfinished, because they are complete, beautifully crafted, amazingly inventive, head canons, but they’re not completed fic’s so I’m counting them. I actually think that’s one of the lovely things about them, there’s a full story in there but enough space in them to bring your own imagination to the details. The fact that every head canon is spot on and you can completely image it happening is the icing on the cake, and the perfect characterisation is the cherry on top. Canon could have taken lessons from from Kayryn”

I Want to be Your Fantasy (Maybe You Could Be Mine) - Regency

“I just love the concept and the first chapter just pulled me in and I so very much want to know what happens next.”

Notting Hill - Bat_and_Breakfast

“All the “Rom Com idiots in love but they don’t know it miscommunication capers” re-envisaged for Berena you say? Sign me up! I love the way the plot of Notting Hill is absolutely recognisable, but never at the expense of Bernie and Serena’s characters. Everything they do, their responses, the dialogue, is so them. And the cleverly cast Holby regulars as supporting stars - genius. It’s an absolute triumph of transformative work. It’s wonderfully and engagingly written. If you’ve ever got sucked into watching “just a bit” of rom com and found you’ve just lost a couple of hours of your life - this fic does the same thing.”

Follow Me There - troiing

“Full disclosure: I’ve never watched Sanctuary and I know nothing about the characters. But this crossover fic is so good, that it doesn’t even matter.”

hold me closer (tiny dancer) - serenacampbell

“I don’t know why I’m so attached to that fic, but I am. I love the premise of a slow burn fic where the characters still get to do sexy things during the awkward slow burn oblivious period. It’s like the best of both worlds.”

Machu Pechinku - Jrnsaxa

“Forget France and Nepal, what if Serena spent her sabbatical in Peru? The setting in this is beautifully vivid, as is the the delicate ways in which Serena and Bernie start to reconnect after Elinor.”

Hello, Major - lesbianquill

“This is a near perfect Serena being fixated on Bernie in fatigues fic. The first chapter is very insightful, helping us to understand why Bernie might not be happy to accede to Serena’s small kink/obsession. That of course doesn’t last for too long because Bernie loves Serena and she loves having sex with Serena. It was offered as a smutty one shot, but then they rewarded us with an even smuttier second chapter and teased us with the news that a third chapter would be forthcoming. It never happened. Main reason for wishing it could be continued? I enjoy well-written smut.”

In the Spirit of Three Stars - alwayssomethingelse

“Bernie and Serena as Federation officers on Deep Space Nine. Oh, the potential!”

Anatomically Correct - phantomunmasked

“Bernie severely overcompensating for any possible awkwardness in their first time by ordering a mountain of sex toys is a premise that will always delight me. Every time I go back to this one, I ponder what their weekend away would bring with a big grin.”

The Clinic - RexWolfe

“Maybe it’s all the Bramwell we’ve been watching, but this one’s been on my mind lately. Can’t go wrong with a Victorian AU.”

a life in pictures - Regency

"I soooo want to see Serena maybe modelling for Bernie (or at least just how the date goes)”

working up a storm inside my head - sevtacular

“While this isn’t actually an unfinished fic in the sense of chapters missing, the prompt fic collection of Sev can always be added to as far as I’m concerned. Love what has been written so far, hope there will be new chapters with time.”

Body and Soul - ChalkHillBlue

“Possibly the weirdest AU idea ever, this body swap AU makes my brain go crazy with the possibilities every time I read it.”

When We Need One Another The Most - Whispersmummy

“I know this isn’t strictly Berena but it wouldn’t have been written if not for the Berena fandom who love most every conceivable way these two dorks might get together. Very well written (imo) and cleverly constructed fic. Lots and lots of angst and who doesn’t love angst? Only thing missing is a small amount of smut. (Yes I’m back there).”

Ring In The New - fiveroundsrapid

“Fics where Bernie comes to Holby before/during Adrienne’s illness are my kryptonite, and this one is so good!”

Holby One: A Star Wars AAU Story - elitryalittle

“Holby One is my favorite unfinished fic. It’s not just because I came to Berena via Star Wars (a bit of an unusual way, but here I am), but also because I can totally see Serena as a healer and Bernie as a Jedi knight. Kudos for their excellent knowledge of the SWU and this great idea of a crossover fic. I’d give them a limited edition “Looking for Leia” patch and a sticker if they’d finish it.”

to gaze at you, from afar (I sigh, I sigh, I sigh) - bonnissance

“The photographer/model AU you never knew you needed in your life, but you really, really do.”

Heroic Endeavor - Nicolaruth27

“I never would’ve thought I’d be down for a Greek god AU, but this fic has permanent residence in a corner of my brain. Bernie as Athena in mortal form is inspired, and the way the fic is interwoven with canon is a delight.”

what a lovely way to burn - ktlsyrtis

“I just love anything that's weaved into canon but with them being happy and dating and communicating."

Love, Unexpected - Igerna

“Bernie is still married to Marcus when she meets Serena during a conference. They immediately bond and keep in contact, sharing both professional advice and thoughts on their private lives. Love, for them, happens rather unexpectedly. I do love conference fics and slow burns - and this is a good one.”

a little less war torn - kitnkabootle

“The setup for this - in which Serena is the one who goes to help when Bernie is brought to Holby, instead of Raf - is one of my favorite ‘what ifs’ to ponder, and the writing is outstanding.”

[hatboyproject]

This is very long, but it might be of interest to someone, somewhere. I was asked recently about the direction I'm taking this romance in and whether or not I'll be addressing certain disability specific subjects within it. The answer, of course, is yes - I have always planned to do this in one form or another. Whilst no single piece of media can address everything I'd like to say on the subject, and I am working within the bounds of a larger story with its own pacing and focus to consider, there's still room to touch on some of these things.

I'm aware that my interpretations won't always be the same as others'. They are my interpretations, coloured by my experiences and feelings, and ultimately, this is my mod - I'm writing it for everybody who 'wears the ballcap,' so to speak! But, it's my interpretation of this character that I'm trying to share with everyone. Different people "took the helm" (laugh, I'm hilarious!) on writing Jeff across the trilogy, and as time has gone on I've been trying to convince myself that it's okay to have my turn at doing that, too - albeit in a non-professional capacity. So... Let's get into my interpretation of Jeff, where his stuff comes from on my view, and how things went to get him to where we are at the beginning of ME3, where the romance can occur.

A lot of how I interpret him comes from experiences in my own life with my own issues, and with those of my loved ones, some of whom are physically disabled in similar (but not identical) ways to Jeff. Some of this carries an element of catharsis for me.

Mechanically and narratively speaking, what draws me to writing this romance is the contrast between how these two characters are strong. It's this core idea that strength doesn't have only one manifestation in a person. That loving somebody doesn't have to be done only one way, that it can be beautiful and passionate and fulfilling - even if, when it gets physical, the headboard can't exactly be made to shatter with the force of it all. For me, it's also an exercise in insecurity and dealing with feelings of frustrated inadequacy - something that has plagued me my whole life.

Yes, yes, he's fictional - but the only way for me to really get into a character is to think about them as if they're a real being. When I look at Jeff as a person, I see many things... Some very positive, some pretty negative... I try to see him as a complete person with strengths and flaws.

On the surface he is often defensive, dismissive, sarcastic, and emotionally avoidant. But why is that? He is highly skilled, dedicated and capable, and knows it, but at the same time is a person who is constantly overlooked, underestimated, and asked to work thrice as hard to get the same considerations. Even then, his validity is questioned often by almost everyone around him. Over time, combined with the realities of living with his physical condition, this has given him some deep-seated insecurities. He feels the need to brag about his skills because they are, ultimately, the one thing about himself that he is absolutely certain has real worth. He overcompensates for this by abusing rules and technicalities wherever he can, because I think he knows that if he played life by the rules, he'd never have gotten anywhere. It's a stacked deck, so why not hide some aces up his sleeve? When you don't fit in the box provided, you question the value of every box you see.

When a person lives with this long enough, it can get hard to swim against the tide of society's expectations and still remain chipper about it, let alone not internalise some of it. It can cause a person to create a shell constructed out of distrust and untruth.

Living with a disability can really suck sometimes, and the suck is compounded when having to deal with your own frustrations plus those of others. In my personal experience, that happens a lot.

There is a certain sense of alienation that it can create, and it can become a kind of Sword of Damocles. It can be easier to anticipate rejection and others' assumptions, inabilities to understand or relate than to keep reaching out, only to have the same tired conversations about being different. I see a lot of this in him. I understand the chip he has on his shoulder.

I also see an extremely sensitive, empathetic, devoted and boundlessly loving person under all that. In fact, it's because of these things that I think he actively tries to distance himself. At the core of his being, I see Jeff as somebody who loves quickly and completely. I think he sees that as a vulnerability, incompatible with what he's learned he has to do to survive... and also with the machismo thing that comes with being a pilot. I think on some level he's terrified of that about himself, but he also can't help it. Jeff is ride or die. So, he tells himself he doesn't care and never lets anyone in. Any time anyone showed interest, he'd shut them down, alienate them, distance himself, and get in the seat of something that flies.

I think up until now, (ME3) he's seen intimacy both as a thing he longs for, but is also afraid of because of his fundamental knowledge that he is different. He thinks he can't "measure up" to what he sees all around him. He sees romance as something that will lead to his inevitable rejection and being crushed, emotionally - and if he's not careful, physically, too. I think he's embarrassed about that as well. He's very interested where it comes to all that, but the things he likes to watch, he knows he can't do like that. His only experience is second-hand as a voyeur, so some of his perceptions about that are unhealthy for him. I think any kind of attempt by the medical professionals in his life to broach the topic and offer support on, he's angrily changed the subject, or stopped listening to, because of the entire mess above. I think Jeff is kind of a lonely person, and some of it is self-imposed, though the reasons for him thinking it's the right thing to do aren't all within his control.

All this is difficult for him to reconcile with, because he has been desperately in love with his commanding officer since almost the moment s/he met him, but entirely unprepared to face it.

I think at first it was easy for him to dismiss it as a stupid crush. Everyone gets them when cramped up in close quarters in stressful situations and the Commander's magnetism was hard to ignore. But then it became clear that Shepard really hadn't read his file and really hadn't made any assumptions at all about him. S/he just wanted to know him, and as time progressed and that actually bore out, it got hard not to really feel something powerful, even though s/he was the Commander and it wasn't strictly appropriate to think that way. But, then there was that thing about not fitting in the box provided...

I think he agonised over coming to Shepard with it, but ultimately decided it would be selfish with everything they were going through. I think there was a part of him that decided s/he'd never be interested anyway, not when there were other, healthier people to choose from... People who didn't have these hangups or need special accommodations made for them. I think he decided to keep it to himself, for what he felt was both their sakes.

If/When the Commander quietly hooked up with someone else, I think he had a lot of feelings all at once. On the one hand, the person he cared for most was finding some peace in all the craziness. On the other, he wished that particular brand of peace was shared with him. Most of the time there were more important things to worry about, but during downtime, I think it was on his mind a lot.

I think he feels very sheepish about it, but occasionally his jealousy got the better of him and he interrupted Shepard at moments that got too hard to watch on the security cams. He watched the cams around the ship lot, and listened in on all the others a fair bit. I think because he saw himself as being at a remove from most people in a lot of ways, it was easy to justify that to himself. I think he saw it kind of like listening to a podcast or a soap opera or... Nature documentary, almost, or something. He got to know all of them in this way... Parasocially at first, but gradually, socially too. He felt better about trying, because he had this secret edge. Not the greatest stuff he's ever done, but... Complete person. Strengths and flaws.

And then, the unthinkable happened. He couldn't accept that the ship was dying. He was sure he could save it... But when Shepard's hand touched his shoulder, when s/he'd come back for him, he knew it was over. And then, it really was over. Shepard paid the price for his arrogance. The person he wanted to protect the most spun off out into space. The communicator between his mask and that helmet was still in range for long enough that he could hear the choking. For a long time afterward, even hearing people cough made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

The Alliance grounded him. I don't think he even had the capacity to be mad about it. I think that was a hard time for Jeff. I think between being burdened with the knowledge of the Reapers, the loss of Shepard, and the weight of his guilt, he was pretty close to the very, very edge when Cerberus knocked on his door and made him a bunch of promises. Pretty sure those promises had nothing to do with leather seats and everything to do with Project Lazarus. I'm very sure that the promise of Shepard coming back is the reason he even let Cerberus pay for the surgeries he agreed to undergo, because I don't think he valued himself much at all at that point. I'm pretty sure it was being ready to help Shepard that he was thinking about when he was learning to walk on his painful legs without crutches for the very first time. When Cerberus offered him a big shiny reset button I think he took it without hesitation because there wasn't anything else to hope for. I think seeing Shepard in the docking bay galvanised him and without ever telling them so, he pledged his life to them even harder than before. I think he told himself that he would support Shepard in every way he could. He would go wherever, do whatever, and when dealing with him, try to give them what he knew they needed; a goddamn break.

So, fast forward again, and now we are here. With all of this in mind... Shepard might have had a dalliance with someone else, or might've been too damaged by their previous love interest on Horizon, or whatever. Either way, I think Jeff saw it as not his business to even dream about that. I think the guilt tore him up every time he looked at Shepard. I think he felt like on some level, he deserved the pain of unrequited feelings which only ever got more intense. If he didn't think himself worthy of it back then, doubly so now. I think during the six months of house arrest, he tried to visit, but the Alliance denied his every attempt. Then the attack on Earth happened.

And so now we have Jeff, who, just like other humans is confused and groping about for a sense of what's up and what's down. Fortunately for him, Shepard is part of that sense of stability. He's just better at hiding it, because avoiding it and telling himself to focus elsewhere is second nature to him by this point. But things are a little different, now. Shepard seems looking around for a connection too. Future days seem short in number and the rulebook less and less important by the minute. Denying it to himself becomes impossible, and even EDI prods him about it. Shepard won't stop being so goddamn nice to him and even responds with things that if he didn't know better, he could interpret as... But then all the old insecurities come rushing back and he's walking on his own damn eggshells again. Fuck it. It's time to admit it. To come clean. S/he has to know.

So he asks. And s/he accepts. He's equal parts thrilled, stunned and terrified. He's even on some level, suspicious. Is s/he setting him up for a fall? Are they angry about his responsibility? What do they want out of this, actually? He hasn't explained what it'd be like. That what they're doubtlessly expecting of him is unrealistic. That he's completely inexperienced. I think at this point, he's a bit pissed off with himself and feeling a lot of dread because he's pretty sure how this is going to go. He realises he's got so caught up in it that he's done things in the wrong order. Damage control. He has to talk with Shepard and explain what s/he should expect from him, because it will be different. Manage expectations because he's had to manage his own. He goes in steeled.

But s/he knows it will be different, it turns out. As ever, Shepard has made no assumptions whatsoever. S/he only wants to get to know him. Wants him for everything he is, and accepts what he is not. It was never an issue for them beyond understanding how to work with it, because he is worthy just as he is, and has worked hard enough. He has to teach them about his limitations, about underestimating and overestimating... But where there's a will, there's a way. Time for a few shared moments of peace before the end of days, and through all the craziness, something feels right at last. He feels safe enough to let Shepard in properly. Thus begins his reassessment of himself and reckoning with letting go of the insecurities he has that aren't actually his own, but come from outside.

Also he totally gets to sext the Commander now when s/he's on missions. Nice.

So. There's a lot more I could say and expound upon but it's been hours and I have stuff to do. That's my direction. It's not going to suit everyone, and I doubt I can get everything across... But I'll try. I'm just one person, with just one perspective, with just one version of this story. But I hope people like what I come up with surrounding this framework, because I have lived a lot of it myself. Just a few less Reapers in my version. Not everyone's experiences and responses will be the same.

[tundrainafrica]

i really thought hange was non-binary bc the one who said hanges gender was up for interpretation was kodansha us but isayama asked for gender neutral pronouns right?

here!

I’m gonna answer all of the gender asks in one go because for one, I don’t think I wanna flood my own feed and my own tumblr with the same arguments. 

I think a lot of the questions on Hange’s gender and the topic of  gender and sexuality overall are kinda intertwined and I feel like for anyone who actually reads my stuff, it’s better understood as one big wall of text. 

So I was wondering, is that song the absolute proof about hange's gender?

No. I think the interpretation of the song which people are using to prove that Hange’s nonbinary is very western centric. I actually did research around this song and knowing what I know about Japanese culture, I actually interpret the song as a way for Japanese people to break out from gender norms. 

For people who are not aware, Japan is incredibly strict with gender norms. The LGBTQ community is not as progressive as it is in Western countries (I mean gay marriage isn’t completely legalized yet). And just looking at it from the stand point of gender roles and gender expectations, despite the progressive thinking, there are a lot of things Japanese men and women have to conform to just to be respected in everyday society. Because in Japan, the community has always been more important than the individual and it’s honestly the same for most asian countries as well. 

A lot of the pressure of living in Japan, working with Japanese people is the pressure to conform and I’ve seen my friends do it through small things like getting bangs (because all Japanese women have bangs apparently), wearing make up when going out (because this is generally an accepted for all Japanese people) and always dressing your best because in that manner women are held to an incredibly high standard in Japan. And this goes similarly for men who are constantly pressured to be the breadwinner in the family. If your wife is making more than you, be ready to hear people talk. I know these expectations exist in a Western setting too but Japan is incredibly stiff as a society and this is one reason why, despite having numerous opportunities to moveto Japan myself, I am not at all entertaining that possibility. I have worked in a Japanese company and I hated it and moved to a western company right after six months. I have completely accepted the fact that there is no mobility career wise from a non-Japanese (and a woman at that) in Japanese society. 

In conformity, hierarchies etc, Japan is its own monster. That’s why when songs like Jibunrashiku, Hitchcock (by Yorushika) or Shisoukan (by Yorushika) come out, for one it’s in Japanese so I wouldn’t approach the songs from an English and as a Japanese speaker and someone who is pretty familiar with Japanese culture, I can’t help interpret that song as a social commentary for the shitty parts of Japanese society and how they tend to shoot the concept of an ‘individual’ down. 

But does that mean I completely shoot down the idea that Hange is NB? 

NO. Yams said so himself, Hange’s gender is unknown. But at the same time, Yams recognizes the fact that in the anime and in the live action, Hange is a female. If Yams were that adamant to make Hange NB, I think he would have at least made more of an effort to police how she is depicted in the anime and in the live action. 

 His exact words were:　「ハンジは彼（彼女）みたいな、ちょっと浮世離れした、枠にとらわれない自由な感じで描きたかったんです。」If I roughly translated it to English, “I wanted to draw Hange as someone otherworldly, free from the confines of gender.”

Tbh, I wanted to avoid these gender asks altogether but I’ve seen the environment in twitter and the ways many people approach gender, particularly ‘nonbinary’ or genderfluid and it really just doesn’t sit well with me. For one, what’s up with all these rules on how to approach our nonbinary and LGBTQ friends? What’s up with all these accusations that if we don’t follow them to a T, then we’re suddenly transphobic or homophobic? 

The fact that we’re creating all these rules on how to go about her nonbinary gender for one, just defeats the whole purpose of Hange being a free bird in the first place who wouldn’t have cared and who wouldnt’ ever have been confined to gender in the first place. 

I mean the establishment of set rules and social norms on how to navigate gender, sex, sexuality and gender roles is the reason why we had heternormativity in the first place. And what I can see, yes, we did get progressive, we did start recognizing other genders, other ways of thinking but the danger in all this is that, we’re once again creating frameworks and norms about how people that identify as these genders are supposed to act. And this defeats the whole purpose of why we recognized concepts of other sexualities, other genders and breaks from gender roles in the first place. 

We wanted to show these people that their feelings are valid, that the way they’re navigating their relationships and their identities are valid and the heternormative society we’ve lived in that has been condemning for so long, was flawed, was wrong. 

But the thing is, with the establishment of all these social norms on how to navigate our relationships with LGBTQ people and how to navigate our own gender, sexuality, sex and role is just making us regress back to that shitty heteronormative society of a hundred years ago. Because suddenly, everyone is questioning once again ‘How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m nb?” “How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m trans?” “How am I supposed to be feeling if I’m LGBT?”  

And we’re creating these abstract ideas of how exactly, being genderfluid is supposed to feel like. Am I really supposed to be going by ‘they?’ Am I supposed to be uncomfortable with CIS pronouns?

And If I don’t go through this process… If I don’t feel this way then maybe I’m not NB? Maybe I’m not Trans? Maybe I’m not LGBT? And if I don’t conform to this clear cut idea of what NB is which people set up for me, god forbid I might just be transphobic or homophobic. 

And Here’s the thing, everyone’s journey to self discovery is unique and there is no exact way to go about your gender or identity. I find it terrifying actually that creating all these clear cut rules have built misconceptions in so many people already on what they are supposed to feel like when they decide to identify with a certain gender which is no different from long ago when people had to hide the fact that they liked people of the same gender because god forbid they might just be persecuted for being gay. 

Creating these frameworks, these incredibly strict rules on how someone is supposed to navigate relationships with LGBTs and their own personal identities is only making it all the more dangerous for people who are in the process of discovering themselves. 

Back in college, I used to accompany a friend to a clinic when he was starting HRT treatments and before he started them, he had to consult with a doctor and the consultation lasted months. Before all that, they gave him a checklist of ‘feelings,’ which if he does experience them, he checks it and if he does check enough of them and agrees with a huge chunk of them, then he might have gender dysphoria and maybe the HRT treatments and sex reassignment was for him. It was a hundred item checklist,  pages full of waivers, warnings and questions about his own experiences with his gender identity. And the fact that he had to consult for months after on that? There must be a reason. 

Maybe because the academe realizes, maybe because those adept on the field on gender realize that gender is too complex of a subject to have been boxed into these categories in the first place. 

And this whole discourse or I wouldn’t say discourse more of like, this ‘pushing of agendas’ as to say, ‘this is how being gender fluid or non binary is supposed to feel like’ this is how being transgender is supposed to feel like and if you don’t fit it to a T then you’re not transgender or you’re not nb. Or if you don’t fit it all, maybe you’re just transphobic is dangerous for many reasons. Either it gatekeeps people who want to explore their gender further. Or it forces people to have to conform to these and force themselves to ‘feel’ all of these things in the first place. 

And god, this is just the gender issue, I haven’t even explored the sexuality, gender roles or biological issue.  

i mean pronouns are important but they don’t really reflect someone’s gender??? like there’s people who use he/they, she/they or all pronouns(? they just don’t conform to gender binary ahaha

Given the environment on twitter and having witnessed the bullying first hand that came with one writer who is active on twitter using she/her pronouns for Hange, I feel like my own writing and my own POV on how I go about my writing and how I approach the gender of Hange (since I strictly use she/her) might just be a ticking time bomb and I might find myself at the end of whatever hate war or ‘education’ or as I like to just refer to as bullying, one day. 

I believe though I at least have enough knowledge and awareness of the LGBTQ situation and I think I did put a lot of thought already into this before I made my decision to use ‘she’ to refer to Hange.

(And tbh, you can be nonbinary and you can be female at the same time and I’ve written about that multiple times already BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT EVEN IN THE SAME CATEGORY. And creating this mutual exclusivity between being nonbinary and female just kinda invalidates a lot of those people who are still deciding where exactly they fall in this complex web of identity discovery)

As someone who generally mainly hangs out with LGBT people and i have been doing this since high school by the way, and as someone who has tried all the sexualities on the spectrum, I talked to my asexual friends about possibly being asexual, I have experimented with women and sometimes, I just had dry spells and it just so happened that in the end of all these, I fell in love with a guy but I really believe that gender is such a flexible thing and even though I am with aguy right now, I still simp over lesbians, gays, ciswomen, transgenders because simping isn’t about gender. 

And these set of rules on how to navigate genders is just invalidating the experiences of people who are flitting in between the two identities and it just hinders the process of self discovery for a lot of people. 

Anyway, the point is, there is only one statement I found fundamental when approaching my relationships with the LGBT community and my own perspective on my self identity. 

Recognition of someone’s feelings and their journey to a gender identity and the pronouns that come with it are important.

Then someone might go “THEN WHY DON’T YOU RESPECT HANGE’s NON BINARY PRONOUNS. Because just because someone is nonbinary doesn’t mean they automatically go for they. Just because someone is non-binary, doesn’t mean I have to use every single pronoun on the spectrum. The only one who can tell me what pronouns they want used on them is the person in question. 

(I actually read an argument somewhere that going for ‘they’ just because someone is NB is transphobic lmfao. Assuming someone’s pronouns is apparently transphobic too lmfao.)

AND HANGE IS FICTIONAL. And we will never hear about which pronoun she would have wanted in the first place and I think the great ‘nontransphobic’ in-between is just letting people interpret characters how they want to interpret characters in this fictional world (And Hange can be both interpreted as nb and female). It’s the policing which makes the whole process of self discovery, the process of navigating genders all the more difficult for a lot of people. 

And policing how exactly people should navigate gender and sexuality is just gatekeeping. Hange is everyone’s character. The only gender and sexuality identity people have complete jurisdiction on, is their own. And this policing of what exactly certain journeys to discovery are supposed to feel like is inherently harmful for those who are still in the process of deciding for themselves where they stand. 

And going back to what Yams said “I wanted to draw Hange as someone otherworldly, free from the confines of gender/sexuality/gender roles.” I agree with that. 

Because even though I do use ‘she’ with Hange, I do not firmly believe that Hange is a cisgender heterosexual female either. I just believe there are so many more layers to her whole identity and I believe similarly for every single person. Just concluding for one’s self that Hange is nonbinary with a very narrow minded view of what non binary just generally defeats the whole purpose of being ‘free from the confines of gender’ and hinders a lot of discourse and analysis on Hange’s identity over all.

I mean, I don’t know if people agree with this but in the decades I have spent with my close friends figuring out their gender identities, changing pronouns, transitioning, coming out to their parents, here is one thing I noticed. They weren’t asking for a celebration of their gender or sexuality, they weren’t asking for all these policing on how people should approach them. All they wanted was for their feelings to be validated, normalized as an everyday occurrence. I think the point of all these LGBTQ discourse (and by extension race and sex discourse) were all there to just make all these different identities normalized and to completely eradicate the concept of a negative bias or an other which was generally plaguing society for a long time. 

And as their friends, I have never approached them as this champion who would make sure EVERYONE RESPECTED THEM IN THAT WAY IN TWITTER THEY BELIEVE LGBTQ PEOPLE SHOULD BE RESPECTED. All these nonverbal rules I have set up for myself on how to go about being friends with them is because I wanted them to be happy and comfortable in their shoes. And what were the types of things they appreciated? Me hiding it from their parents until they were ready to come out, me helping make their relationship work with their partner, me respecting the pronouns they requested for themselves, me accompanying them to HRT when their parents refused. 

And you know what, that was only a facet of our friendships. My friends’ gender identities and sexualities never dominated discourse. None of them were the ‘token gay friend,’ the ‘token lesbian friend’ or the ‘token asexual friend’ or the ‘token NB friend.’ They were all people I genuinely care about who just happened to have fallen in love with someone of the same gender. They were just people who just happened to be uncomfortable with their original sex. But I would never just describe them as just that. My friend who just so happens to identify as assexual makes a great companion on a night out drinking. My friend who just so happens to be trasngender is really great with logistics and planning and was super helpful and I was eternally grateful when we worked together on that one project. My friend who just happens to be a lesbian has the cutest picture of her girlfreind on her phone screen. 

I will memorize their favorite orders, what makes them tick, what makes them such a great companion, their talents, capabilities more than I will remember their gender. And that’s the characetr song in question is called “Jibunrashiku” or in English “just like me.” Because in the end a strict society which creates all these maxims of what exactly people of a certain gender should act would of course birth songs like “Just like me” A society which puts so much emphasis on gender and sex  as an identity instead of other things like personality, preferences, skills etc. 

And I don’t know if it applies to everyone. But my friends appreciate it because this journey to whatever gender identity they chose wasn’t rooted in some sort of strict framework on how they should be treated according to twitter. It was rooted in their own experiences and how these experiences made them feel. 

Do they feel weird in a woman’s body? Do they just don’t feel any romantic attraction to the opposite gender?

Just treat them as how you would treat anyone else you respect. Just be a decent person. Just be a good friend.

Respect their requests for their own personal pronouns. If they need help, help them to the best of your abilities. 

And here’s the thing, the approach I use with navigating identities, sexuaities genders are rooted in one very simple concept which can be applied to the race discourse, the feminist discourse etc etc. 

Don’t be an ass. Respect people. Don’t reduce people to one facet of their identity. And by extension, when faced with such a dubious situation, think, discern for yourself what’s right or wrong. When there are people educating you, policing you on what is right or wrong, process that information objectively.  

All I have here right now is my own opinions on the gender discourse on Hange and my own opinions on the discourse overall. 

If you don’t agree with it, then have a nice day and I hope you find something else that will convince you to be more openminded but...

UTANG NA LOOB HUWAG LANG KAYO MAMBULLY NG TAO POTA. MAGHANAP NALANG KAYO NG IBANG PWEDENG GAWIN SA BUHAY MO. 

ANG DAMING NASASAKTAN ANG DAMING NATRATRAUMA ANG DAMING NAWAWALANG GANA MAGSULAT KASI DI KAYO NAG-IISIP. PURO TIRA LANG. 

Okay thank you for listening. Do what you want with the information up there but I have said my piece.

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

So, this may sound weird, since I don't ship ZK, but I think the reason some dislike EIP is because they realize it was the first part of a busted enemies-to-lovers arc. EIP was part one, where Zuko and Katara see how others see them, and it weirds them out. Yet, Zuko insisted on sitting next to Katara and Katara pushes Aang away, suggesting there might be something there that they don't want to acknowledge. (1/3)

The first part of the finale was Part 2, where June reiterates the "Hey you're with your gf again!" Zuko and Katara deny it, but there likely should have been an undercurrent of 'Why do people think we're together? Do we act like it? Should we be? S/he is kind of cute.' During this time, Zuko defers to Katara and despite Toph likely being more helpful, asks Katara to be the one to take down Azula with him. (2/3)

Last part of the finale should have been the money shot, Zuko taking lightning for Katara, and in a parallel to CoD, Katara healing him. Dante Basco is right in that there probably should have been a kiss at that moment and the end scene of the gang at the Jasmine Dragon with Zuko and Katara shyly proclaiming their interest in each other. (3/4, sorry I have one more)

Again, ZK is not my ship, but EIP seemed to set up a ZK endgame that jumped the tracks at the end. By all the "rules" of a good narrative, Zuko and Katara should have ended up together, otherwise EIP should never have been countenanced or storyboarded. Full disclosure that I'm not a huge Kataang fan either, but Kataang was done a disservice by having EIP exist. It either should not have ever gotten written, or the ZK enemies-to-lovers arc should have been concluded. (end)

Disclaimer: I don’t care if someone ships Zvtara. Never have, never will. If the takeaway you (the general you, not anon specifically lol) get from this post is that Zvtara is “bad,” then I’m going to assume you didn’t actually read anything I wrote, because that is the farthest thing from my point here. Also, this post is strictly my personal response to these asks. I don’t expect everyone to read this and be like “YEAH” lmao. I am sure some people have different opinions, and that is a-okay!

In short, I think we will have to agree to disagree, anon.

Do some people consider EIP the beginning of a busted enemies-to-lovers arc? Of course they do, they’re “rabid zkers” who wear Zvtara shipping goggles 24/7 lmao. EIP couldn’t have been the beginning of an E-L arc because such an arc was never in the cards for them in the first place! Katara forgave Zuko in the previous episode. Trying to cram a romantic relationship into five episodes after months of hatred between Zuko and Katara would have been awful writing (and thus probably would have been a decision mercilessly criticized until the end of time, lmao). So it’s honestly better that Zvtara gets to spread its wings in fanon instead (much less pressure)! Also, realistically speaking, Katara and Zuko probably still had so many issues to work through in their friendship. Like yes, she forgave him and recognized he was trying to do better, but that doesn’t erase what Zuko has done to her and her friends. There is still plenty of forward progress they need to make before romance can even be considered between them. If that makes sense?

Also, let’s be real: EIP and bit with June afterwards were 100% ship bait. Just an attempt to add to the “drama” of who Katara would end up. A technique only effective while it was airing, for the record, because if you watch the show straight through, it becomes glaringly obvious that Zuko and Katara’s relationship - while gorgeous - was always meant to stay strictly platonic within the canon timeline.

Anyways. I’ll try to break down your ask one piece at a time!

“Zuko and Katara see how others see them, and it weirds them out”

Yes, they are definitely weirded out! The transcript says, “Zuko and Katara inch away from each other, slightly uncomfortable.” Which is just a longer way of describing that they were weirded out by the depiction of their relationship in EIP, lol. However, the play is not how others see them. The play is the Fire Nation’s imperialist propaganda, meant to demean the entire Gaang. I talk about in specifics how the entire Gaang is belittled here, but this is the key stuff I noted about Zuko and Katara:

it’s important to situate that and more importantly situate eip zuko and katara’s relationship within the context of the show. the fire nation is an imperialist country. the southern water tribe has suffered heavily beneath them. we know from “the headband” that fire nation individuals are fed pro-imperialistic propaganda from birth; that combined with zuko and azula’s degrading comment of “peasant” towards katara demonstrate very clearly how the fire nation views every other nation - put simply, they are superior and everyone else is inferior. that attitude is therefore reflected in the eip play:

- katara, an indigenous woman, is highly sexualized and portrayed as overly dramatic and tearful, because the fire nation objectifies women not of their own people and views them as less intelligent and less emotionally stable

- she is thus paired as having a “romance” with zuko in eip because naturally, via fire nation logic, zuko would be able to “score” an “easy” woman of one of the water tribes

- furthermore, the eip “romance” between zuko and katara emphasizes zuko’s position as a traitor to the fire nation; the implication is that as a traitor, he’d only be able to achieve a relationship with a “lesser” woman, e.g. a woman not of the fire nation

That is not how other people truly view Zuko and Katara’s relationship. That is how the Fire Nation depicts their relationship in order to degrade and dehumanize Zuko and Katara. To misinterpret that as “evidence” that Zuko and Katara should have been together romantically is… disturbing, in my opinion. (I really try to stay far away from zkers who use EIP as “proof” of supposed Zvtara interest in each other like honey that is imperialist propaganda please don’t 😭).

If you want to talk about how other people actually view Zuko and Katara’s relationship, look at the Gaang, who were around them most of all! They never tease the possibility of romance between their friends. Why? Because within canon, there wasn’t one. Simple!

“Zuko insisted on sitting next to Katara”

Nope! This is all the transcript says: “Zuko [Removing his hood.] Just sit next to me. What’s the big deal?” He doesn’t even mention Katara! Zuko is literally just like I’m already sitting. Why do I need to move? lmfao. It’s no thoughts head empty for our favorite firebender 😂

“Katara pushes Aang away”

I’m assuming this about the kiss, which I’m going to make a post about in the future because I am TIRED of the tomfoolery. Anyways, I’ll keep this brief - yes, she does push him away. She does not deny that she likes him. For Katara, the issue is the timing: “This isn’t the right time.” Both Katara and Aang know they like each other, plain and simple (which is why Aang doesn’t ask if he returns her feelings - he asks if they’d be together, because he knows their feelings are mutual). Katara pushes Aang away because, as she says, they’re in the middle of a war. She’s already seen Aang die once. He might die again. She doesn’t want that, of course, but it’s a reality Katara is forced to consider.

Anyways, her decision has nothing to do with Zuko. Lol.

“June reiterates the ‘Hey you’re with your gf again!’ Zuko and Katara deny it, but there likely should have been an undercurrent of ‘Why do people think we're together? Do we act like it? Should we be? S/he is kind of cute.’”

June’s assumption - especially because it is a repeat of a gag from earlier in the series, when it is incredibly concerning to assume a Fire Nation citizen would be with someone of the Water Tribes because of the war and its consequences - is comic relief. Not even good comic relief, lmao, because of the horrific implications I just mentioned that come with it, but it’s supposed to be comedy. There was no need of any “Zvtara” undercurrents there because a) Katara and Zuko had never expressed romantic interest in each other in the past, b) it wouldn’t track with the show’s narrative of Katara as Zuko’s surrogate sibling because of her position as Azula’s primary foil, and c) it just doesn’t make sense in general. Katara likes Aang. Zuko likes Mai. There was never a love triangle there, plain and simple. Fandom invented it.

And again, if you want to talk about how people actually see Zuko and Katara, don’t look at June, who has never had a proper conversation with either of them. As I said, the Gaang is a much better example, since they’re with the two 24/7. If they never tease Zuko and Katara about romance, why should we trust this random lady who doesn’t even know them?

“During this time, Zuko defers to Katara and despite Toph likely being more helpful, asks Katara to be the one to take down Azula with him.”

As I mentioned, Katara is Azula’s primary foil, so from a literary perspective she absolutely needed to be the one to take her down. Zuko needed to face Azula, but taking her down - again, from a literary pov - was always meant to be the end of Katara’s journey (she was the only person besides Aang who was ever a match for Azula, after all, as we see in CoD). Also, how would Toph be more helpful?? Not saying you’re wrong, btw, I just don’t understand what you mean. If I was Zuko, I also would have brought the waterbender that I’d already witnessed almost take down my sister already 😂. But even if Toph would have been more helpful, sometimes practicality must be sacrificed for a fulfilling narrative arc, lol!

“Last part of the finale should have been the money shot, Zuko taking lightning for Katara, and in a parallel to CoD, Katara healing him.”

Honestly, anon, this part of your ask baffles me 😂 I totally understand why rabid zkers might make this argument, but taking into account the rest of the show… It just doesn’t make sense? It’s been talked about a hundred times, but Zuko taking lightning out of romantic interest would ruin his redemption arc, regardless of if it was Katara or Aang or Sokka or anyone in the Gaang that he was taking it for, so that should be the end of discussion, full stop. I’ve talked about this issue here and here before, and someone else does a great job breaking it down in this post, too. But seriously. Zuko having romantic interest for anyone in the Gaang would ruin!! His!! Entire!! Arc!! I hate when people don’t understand that 😭 Zuko had to learn selflessness, to learn how to put others before himself, and to unlearn the imperialist rhetoric he’d been indoctrinated with from birth. Romantic interest during canon for Katara, Sokka, Aang, whomever, I don’t care, completely disregards all of his growth of breaking away from the Fire Nation. Plain and simple.

“Dante Basco is right in that there probably should have been a kiss at that moment and the end scene of the gang at the Jasmine Dragon with Zuko and Katara shyly proclaiming their interest in each other.”

I learned in a discord I’m in that Dante Basco apparently hadn’t seen the whole show until this year lmao. He didn’t know what energybending was nor did he know A:TLA ended with a Kataang kiss. Take that with a grain of salt, of course (you can watch the livestream this is revealed in here, and it was also mentioned in the recent StageIt A:TLA reunion), but I think it’s safe to conclude Dante Basco can be treated like any other Zvtara shipper. He likes the ship, which is totally cool, but he is not one of the writers, so his opinion meant naught in constructing the canon narrative.

ANYWAYS. My point is why would Zuko and Katara proclaim interest in each other if such interest would have to be crammed into five measly episodes?? Especially when four of those episodes were the finale?? That is awful writing, of course the A:TLA writers wouldn’t do that, lmao! They’d built up Kataang and Maiko already. Why scrap it and needlessly rush a romance from an excellent - and, important to note, a newly established - platonic bond? Nah.

“EIP seemed to set up a ZK endgame that jumped the tracks at the end. By all the ‘rules’ of a good narrative, Zuko and Katara should have ended up together”

Nope. Idk what rules people have been teaching you, anon, but they were lying!! You deserve better than people who would lie to you like that 😤. But yeah, narratively speaking, Katara and Zuko getting together would have made no sense. It would have undermined Zuko’s and Katara’s arcs, it would have completely disregarded Katara’s established feelings for Aang and Zuko’s for Mai, and again, it would have been totally rushed. Who wants that?? Normal people don’t, lmao. This might be hard to believe considering I occasionally rag about BNF zkers, but I actually have several friends who are Zvtara shippers! They agree that canon Zvtara would have made no sense, and that it’s better to play out a potential Zvtara dynamic in post-A:TLA fanon. I swear, it is only the rabid shippers who think Zvtara should have been canon, and trust me when I say no one should want to associate with them, lmao.

(And again, as I touched upon earlier, Zuko and Katara’s canon narrative relationship was surrogate siblings because of Katara’s position as Azula’s primary foil. The show wrapped their arc up perfectly! With a lovely bow and all. So no complaints from me!)

“otherwise EIP should never have been countenanced or storyboarded. Full disclosure that I’m not a huge Kataang fan either, but Kataang was done a disservice by having EIP exist”

What EIP did right:

- accurate (and horrifying) depiction of pro-imperialist propaganda

- recap of previous seasons

- a lesson on consent (Aang kisses Katara, it is depicted as wrong, and Aang reacts appropriately by admonishing himself and by giving Katara space afterwards. like, people call Aang an incel/entitled/whatever, BUT HE HAD THE PERFECT REACTION?? he literally backed off and never pressured her again. i would have killed for the guy who kept getting in my personal space during my junior year to have backed off when i told him to. spoiler alert: he didn’t)

- hit some good humor beats

What EIP did poorly:

- honestly it’s not very interesting just based on watching it (deconstructing it as propaganda gives it better depth), but that’s to be expected from filler

- stupid shipping drama

- not having an additional conversation/explicit apology between Aang and Katara

HOWEVER. This final point is actually very subjective. For one, A:TLA has a clear trend of not showing apologies on screen. Ex.: Katara doesn’t apologize to Sokka for what she said about their mother, Zuko doesn’t apologize for anything he did to the Gaang, Song, or really anyone (closest we get is “Hello, Zuko here” lmao), Ty Lee and Mai don’t apologize for putting the Kyoshi warriors in jail, etc. etc. So while an explicit apology would have been great, the lack of one admittedly tracks with the show’s pre-established standards. And two, while I of course would love a conversation between Aang and Katara (that’s literally MORE KATAANG. why would I refuse 😂), it isn’t… necessary, to be frank. Aang’s mistake is treated as such - kissing Katara was wrong and he should never have done that. Like I said, Aang acknowledges this error and gives Katara space afterwards. Thus, it is Katara who chooses to be with him when the war is over. She respects the time he gave her to come to a conclusion, and the choice she makes is that she loves him despite his poorly-timed kiss (I mean, she forgave Zuko for being complicit in Aang’s death. Katara is clearly a very forgiving person!). So like,, it gets to a point where if someone doesn’t recognize that, they’re probably the kind of weirdo who labels anything they don’t understand in a story as a plothole, lmao.

All of this is to say that EIP wasn’t a disservice to Kataang. It certainly could have been better, of course, and the kiss was obviously only put in to hype up drama (“will they, won’t they” blah blah blah), but overall it handled consent well for a kid’s show.

“It either should not have ever gotten written, or the ZK enemies-to-lovers arc should have been concluded.”

On the whole, EIP is absolutely an unnecessary episode, yeah. It was just a recap before the finale. The only important thing is its accurate depiction of pro-imperialist propaganda, but most people’s minds don’t immediately go to that, I’ll admit lmao 😂. And as I’ve already said, there was no Zvtara E-L arc - fandom completely made that up. Which is totally fine! That’s the point of transformative works. But they are still fanon. Plain and simple.

TL;DR - Zvtara was never in the cards for A:TLA. I wish rabid zkers would stop pretending it was and have fun in the sandbox like the rest of us 😭

And for the record, anon, you absolutely, 100% do not have to be convinced by any of this! It’s just my own, personal thoughts on the whole dealio. No worries either way!! 💛

[hopekiedokie]

The Dreaded First Day of School (single dad!jimin)

SUMMARY: On his son’s first day of school, we learn that the badass, leather jacket wearer, and tattoo clad single dad might not be so tough after all. Or maybe, his soft little son isn’t as pure as he ought to be. (In short, Jimin’s baby is growing up and he’s not prepared for it.)

GENRE: fluff, humour, maybe angst if you squint hard enough

WORD COUNT: 1.6k

NOTES: So Jimin isn’t supposed to be a mean or awful dad here. He’s just still not totally equipped to be one even after five years now. This might become a mini series with Ms. Y/n being Haneul’s teacher in the future. Who knows? Also, the photo is not mine.

POSTED ON: 26th March, 2021

What the actual heck is this??

Jimin has seen a lot of crazy things in his life but this, whatever is happening in front of him, is something he truly cannot believe.

You see, today is his son's, Haneul, dreaded™ first day of school.

The kid was up until 3 in the morning, crying his eyes out. He kept begging Jimin to not let him go, saying things like “I’ve been a good boy.” or “I don’t know those people.” or “Please, daddy, I don’t want to go!”

Half of the time, Jimin didn’t even understand what he was saying because he was crying so much.

The worst part is that Jimin had half the mind to give in to all these excuses and to just let Haneul attend school next year.

Contrary to popular belief though, he’s not entirely an awful example of what a father should be. In general, yes, he’s done a lot of questionable things. But in particular, as a father, he does like allowing his son to eat whatever junk food he wants, watch whatever is on the tv, or letting him up way past his bedtime (as late as 4am).

BUT he still has a smidge of decency left in his being and he actually wants his son to grow up decent.

(Which for the most part, is going along fine since Haneul is probably one of the sweetest and softest kids he’s ever seen. How though? Jimin has no idea.)

So with tired eyes and barely 4 hours of sleep, he dragged his son to school.

Even during the drive, Haneul was still adamant about skipping school and all the while, he kept using his cute crying voice that ALWAYS turns Jimin into mush.

Not this time though.

“It’s gonna be okay. You’ll meet a lot of friends and you’ll play with them! It’s gonna be fun, I promise.” This is one of the many things he said to lift his son’s spirits up.

All his efforts are still not enough to pacify Haneul as the tiny boy kept throwing a tantrum. Jimin even had to carry him after getting out of the car and during the entire walk to the school gymnasium where the assembly is, Haneul held his arms tightly around his neck.

To be completely honest, Jimin thought that it would be embarrassing but actually, he found the entire thing quite endearing.

Maybe it’s the narcissistic prick inside him that’s talking but seeing and hearing his son say that he’d rather spend time with him makes him feel like perhaps he’s not so bad of a dad after all.

Which brings us to the present.

To reiterate, Jimin cannot believe what’s happening.

One moment, his son is clinging to him for his dear life, then in an instant, he watched him grow up right in front of him.

In the worst way possible.

Not to be dramatic, but it was like watching his entire life slip away from his grasp.

The beginning of the end started when Jimin pointed to these three boys and insisted Haneul to introduce himself.

Boy, oh boy, oh boy, BIG mistake on his behalf!

He probably should’ve pushed his son to the “nerdier” looking kids. That would’ve helped him in the long run, as well!

At first, he watched in awe from a far as Haneul progressively turned less tense and more comfortable with those boys. They started with cute small smiles but it quickly turned into wildly animated gestures while comparing their Paw Patrol themed trolley backpacks.

“That’s my boy! Already making friends and it’s only been 5 minutes.” Jimin proudly thought to himself.

Okay, maybe Haneul is going to be fine. All that crying thinking Jimin did the entire night was for nothing! His cute soft son can totally do this.

Now, Jimin’s life altering moment comes. The time to actually say goodbye is here.

A teacher announces that they’re taking the kids to their respective classrooms and even if they cry or make a huge fit about it, the parents or guardians should stay where they are. They should refrain from “babying” their child.

Alright, now’s the time for Haneul to cry again! There’s no way he doesn’t cry even just a tiny bit…....Right?

Jimin makes eye contact with Haneul and, without any second thoughts, proudly mouths “I love you” while pointing to him.

Normally, Haneul is quick to return the gesture. Heck, he even goes as far as drawing a huge heart with his tiny pointer fingers!

But today, he doesn’t do that. No no no no no!

Instead, Haneul discreetly looks around him to check if anyone is watching him then……….

He shakes his head towards his father then faces back to his new friends.

Gasp! What is this???

Jimin has never felt so betrayed in his entire life! Not to mention, by his OWN son too.

This irks him so much.

So much so that he stands and gets close to his son, opposing the teacher’s instruction of letting their kids be.

Bitch, no. He’s getting his “I love you” from his son no matter what.

As he walks towards Haneul, it’s apparent that the kid had somehow done a complete 180 from his mood 10 minutes ago.

How can this be? How is he suddenly so cold towards his own man?

When he finally gets to Haneul, he literally, no joke, had to call his name 4 times to get his attention. The actual audacity of this kid!

“Hey, Haneul. Daddy’s gotta go!” Jimin says with his world famous “no eyes” smile.

Haneul’s face drops.

Bingo!

This kid is about to get a huge reality check or so Jimin thinks he is.

He’s waiting for any signs of despair, a sniff or maybe some glassy eyes but nothing happens.

Come on, where are the water works?? Where are all the hugs and kisses???

Haneul is like (・-・) to Jimin.

O-okay…….

“...”

“...”

“...”

Nothing???

“There’s a lot of scary strangers here……”

Okay, so that was really mean for Jimin to say bUT HE ONLY WANTS TO SQUEEZE EVEN JUST A DROP OF AFFECTION FROM HIM. Sue him!

Haneul finally opens his mouth.

Jimin quietly anticipates his son to return to his warm and loving self that he still doesn’t quite know where he gets from...

“So what, daddy? I’m a big boy! I don’t need you.”

(´⊙ω⊙`)?！

Uhm exCusE mE, but W H A T??

Needless to say, that statement hurt Jimin like a buttcheek on a stick.

However, he’s not gonna break away from his badass persona in front of all these people, especially around these little shits that they call “children”. He has an ✨𝓪𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓽𝓲𝓬✨ that he strictly abides to, people!

And frankly, he’s not gonna let his son walk all over him.

So without any word, Jimin leans down to give Haneul a kiss. If he’s not gonna receive any affection through words then fine! He’s gonna get it through a different way.

Jimin’s lips are almost in contact with Haneul’s plush cheeks. They are literally a hair away that Jimin can feel the heat emitting from it but all at once, that heat is gone.

You know why?

Because Haneul is quick to do that matrix shit where he bends his back to avoid his father’s lips.

Then he saunters away, leaving Jimin hanging.

(๑´⊙ ₃ ⊙`๑)

Jimin calls him a couple times but again, he did not look back.

S I G H

Alright, then. He doesn’t normally raise his voice towards his son (nor disciplines him tbh) but oh boy, oh boy! This kid is practically asking for it.

He doesn’t give a fuck if he’s five, no son of his is gonna be allowed to treat him like that!

“HANEUL! GET BACK HERE. NOW!”

Well, that got him looking back towards his father.

Jimin points in front of him to which Haneul begrudgingly complies after taking a peek from his new found friends.

Haneul hears the other boys snicker behind him as he trudges towards his slightly pissed father.

When he’s standing right where his father wants him, Jimin leans his cheek down again for him to kiss.

Now, the other boys are blatantly laughing at him.

Maaaaaaaan. He can’t be a laughing stock on his first day of school! He needs to be as cool as his daddy!

As Haneul contemplates his life choices, Jimin patiently waits for his kiss. There’s no way Haneul is gonna reject him for the third time in a row within a span of two minutes!

Within a few seconds, he feels Haneul’s lidol babie hand against his cheek.

O M G

How 😭 cute 😭 is 😭 this 😭 ??

This has got to be one the softest moments they have shared together. AND it’s in front of all these people!

Take that Namjoon hyung for saying I can’t be a gentle and tender loving father!

Jimin is about to place a hand over Haneul’s small one to caress it but then Haneul pushes his face away.

“Just go, daddy!”

Before Jimin is able to process what just transpired, Haneul is already strutting towards the other kids, feeling like a king or a boss for bitch-slapping his own father.

This little fUqer!!!

Who does he think he is to act like this towards Jimin iN FRONT OF OTHER PEOPLE??

This is what happens when he lets his son spend too much alone time with his Uncle Jungkook and Uncle Taehyung.

But to be fair, Haneul is still Jimin’s son at the end of the day so…..like, maybe he shouldn’t be too surprised??

Yet, still, he truly cannot believe it.

All it took was 5 minutes and a rowdy set of friends, then his kid has grown up.

He apparently “doesn’t need him” anymore, according to the kid.

To think that Jimin got up early to make him those cute bento boxes. He even specifically made them look like various pokemons that Haneul fancies!

Wow. Just. WOW.

Excuse him, but he’s just gonna get in his car and crank up “Slipping Through My Fingers” by ABBA while he ugly sobs.

[allisfairinnullandvoid]

Oh, I see your new title! Okay, tell me about Mitsuo. Anything you want, your headcanons, AUs, canon, or anything else, here's your rambling free pass!

THANK. YOU. You are a life saver. I have wanted to ramble about this stupid boy for SO LONG.

I’ll try not to ramble for like, ridiculously long, but also I really can’t predict how long it’ll end up being in the end. But where do I begin…?

I’d say I have quite a few Mitsuo AUs, the first one that comes to mind is a one off one where he’s an Imp, absolutely inspired by my partner’s Miitopia game, where Mitsuo is an Imp. I really love Imp Mitsuo in that game, he’s a little brat and he causes problems on purpose and I just adore it, it kickstarted my third wave of Mitsuo Love. It would he fun to do something with this AU but I haven’t thought of much by myself. I do know he usually comes out of hiding in Inaba around nighttime and steals stuff, because again, he’s just a little troublemaker. Narukami tries to befriend him, because it’s Narukami, and I can’t NOT create an AU where they aren’t involved with each other somehow.

I guess that’s another thing I’ve been brainrotting over, not explicitly Mitsuo, but him and Narukami as a ship. Can I call the ship Mitsuyu? I’m gonna call it Mitsuyu.

I really really like this ship. I really love the idea of Narukami trying to befriend Mitsuo because of how he’s portrayed to try and befriend literally everyone, I love the idea of him being the only one with enough understanding and compassion and empathy to get close with Mitsuo and really learn about him. I like how in game Narukami’s willing to go up to Mitsuo on the street and just listen to him ramble, and I feel like Mitsuo has no one to talk to aside from Narukami, so whenever he gets the chance, he just goes on and on and on, and Narukami’s willing to listen. I think he’s got a lot of things swirling around in his head, he could ramble for hours.

I’m worried this ramble is just gonna turn into one about Mitsuyu now, lmao.

Imagine how they’d interact in the Imp Mitsuo AU… Mitsuo would probably be a little shit. Like, he’d just completely mess around with Narukami all the time, maybe be a little flirty sometimes. He’d probably be genuinely surprised when Narukami keeps coming back to talk to him through it all. Next thing he knows, he’s got a genuine friend, and oh no, he’s catching feelings! Because let’s face it, Mitsuo would definitely catch feelings first, I think.

They’d probably hit him like a slap in the face. I think Narukami would come to a more gradual realization of his feelings. He’d be better at hiding them compared to Mitsuo too - Mitsuo’s probably painfully obvious. To clarify, I’m not strictly talking about Imp Mitsuo here, I mean EVERY Mitsuo from any AU I discuss that includes Mitsuyu.

Narukami would be really good for Mitsuo. I already have a post about Mitsuo headcanons, I believe, though I can’t remember if I listed off the headcanon of him being neglected. Couple that with him being ignored or belittled by everyone else around him because of his looks, it’s no wonder he’s so desperate for attention he’d kill a guy. Also sometimes I wonder how he managed to kill Morooka AND hang his body on a roof. He’s still in high school, y’know? Weird boy. But I digress.

Narukami would give him all the attention he’s been craving for so long. Praise, hugs, kisses, all the soft stuff Mitsuo didn’t realize he really needed until he got it. I think Mitsuo would cry when he gets to cuddle Narukami for the first time. Narukami would soothe him, too. I just want them to be soft, Mitsuo needs it.

It’d take a while, but I can see Narukami’s existence in Mitsuo’s life affecting him drastically, by that I mean holy shit Narukami, you just prevented a murder. Narukami would kill away Mitsuo’s feelings of emptiness, he wouldn’t feel like he’s nothing anymore, because he matters to Narukami. As long as he’s around, Mitsuo isn’t nothing. He feels he finally has a purpose.

I also can’t remember if I mentioned this in the Mitsuo headcanons post, but I don’t think Mitsuo would care what you label his gender as, maybe. Not much to it, he just doesn’t care. Maybe he secretly gets happy when someone refers to him with pronouns that aren’t he/him for once. He’s not good at hiding it in front of Narukami, I bet. Narukami likes to frequently switch his pronouns around just to see him smile. Mitsuo doesn’t smile very often, so Narukami cherishes it.

I used to think of Mitsuo’s in-game sprites as completely unflattering, at least, compared to how he looks in the P4 anime. He’s really cute in the anime. But I’ve gotten so fond of him that I actually think his smiling sprite is cute now. Like, when you can talk to him in the shopping district and he’s rambling about the murders, you have the option to either agree or disagree with what he says. When you agree, he smiles. And it totally gets to me. Not only does no one talk to him, I bet barely anyone ever agrees with him on things, either. I can’t imagine how happy he might feel to have someone engage with him for once and actually agree with what he says.

There’s so much untapped potential with Mitsuo, it’s so sad. The most you get of his backstory is through his dungeon, and through talking with NPCs around town about him, and thats about it. It’s a shame that Atlus didn’t flesh him out as much as the other characters. Seriously, through his attention seeking nature alone, there’s so much potential backstory there. What he’s already got is fine, it’s okay, but he could’ve gotten so much more. And most people brush him off because of his looks, too, so there’s really not much Mitsuo fan content out there to consume, along with the small amount of official Mitsuo content that exists.

I think a social link with him would be really cool, but with how everything fits together in P4 like a puzzle, it would never work out without heavy planning and modification. Might be a cool mod though.

I think his dungeon is great, and I love how one floor is the exact same as a floor in Adachi’s dungeon because he’s a mock killer. I like it visually, and I LOVE his dungeon theme. I was so angry when I heard it for the first time because goddamn, it was criminally catchy. I love his boss fight too. He needs to hide behind a video game character, a shield, to pretend to be strong and courageous and mature, when he’s really just a weak, cowardly child with (most likely) an overinflated ego. I like how the dialogue progresses into madness the farther you go into his dungeon, I like the first dialogue of Mitsuo getting “knocked down” by Morooka to represent him getting expelled. Even though there’s not much of it, the stuff in P4 relating to Mitsuo is all really cool and really fascinating.

I think it’d do wonders for his character just seeing more cutscenes with him in them. Like, before Morooka’s murder, you can see him in the background of some of Yukiko’s s-links, stalking her. Maybe it shows a cutscene of him rambling to Rise that one time, or it shows him angrily running out of Marukyu Tofu when the boys go there for the first time, cuz he was being ignored. Maybe there could be a simple cutscene of him being lead into the interrogation room by Adachi and then being pushed into the TV because YES, I AM STILL SALTY THAT HE IS THE ONLY VICTIM WITHOUT A CUTSCENE. I know the lights were off, but… C’mon, Atlus, doesn’t that just make your job easier…?

And look at that, I STILL ended up rambling about Mitsuo for too damn long. So sorry about that, but seriously - thank you for giving me the opportunity. It’s not very often that I get to talk about him, so I really just indulged in myself here. And sorry if the formatting is weird, or if the progression doesn’t make sense etc. I practically started speaking my mind, just seeing where that would take me. And it took me all over the place :’)