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stardustizuku · 1 year ago

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Part 4: The New Team

The first moment I said “This is bad” at Miraculous Ladybug...the first moment I realized this was going downhill – was when they introduced …Sighs, Rena Rouge.

(To be fair, it started with Lila and her weird necklace but that could have just been fixed easily)

I knew the moment Rena came that this was gonna get bad. I felt it in my bones that THIS was the sign of something insidious and awful boiling in the back of the show. This character marks the beginning of everything downhill in the show - it’s a glaring reminder of how awful the writing in this show is.

Don’t get me wrong I love Alya. I love the character design of Rena and I don’t think that - in a vacuum - her existing is bad. But her appearance signified that something far worse happened behind the scenes.

They were trying to add more heroes.

As I’ve stated in Part 2, where we talk about the Love Square, there is a very delicate balance between Chat and Ladybug’s dynamic. And throughout Season 1, which is meant to be the introduction to the series, we are given no indication that it will focus on anything else. There was more than enough drama with just those two superheroes to last you a very solid arc. But that arc never got developed neither as forefront, nor backstage, as far as seasons 1-3 is concerned.

Again, because the writers are idiots, who believe that developing the story might lead the Love Square to be concluded, which means having the creativity to develop it beyond what the 1 minute trailer told them to do.

So? What do we do? How do we develop this story further, without bringing in the complexities of its own premise?

Easy, you add useless heroes and McGuffins to sell more toys. They add nothing in terms of narrative cohesion, character development, or character relationships.

Like, Season 2 was 25 episodes long. And in those 25 episodes, it introduced a grand total of 3 potential superheroes. Of what are now

11 SUPERHEROES.

By the end of Season 2, a little less than halfway through the currently aired episodes in the USA, we had…3/11 of the entire team.

A team, by the way, that slowly took the emphasis away from what we were even watching this show, to begin with: The Love Square. Ladybug and Chat.

They were the core of the story. And the blatant addition of a new team, proved to me nothing more than a desperate attempt to distance themselves from it. For what reason? Either a lack of confidence in developing their main characters, or plain incompetence to detect what your show even is about.

As I stated in Part 3, in regard of theme, there’s nothing of the sorts connecting ANY of these superheroes together.

The new heroes have different powers – with absurd power balances.

The most powerful superheroes are supposed to be Cht and Laadybug, but I would argue that time travel is a biiiiit more powerful. Like, Garbiel could very easily time travel to save Emily or steal the miraculous before they're given to Chat and Ladybug. But sure. Whatever.

In regards of theme.

Chat and Ladybug have good and bad luck symbols as their animal counterparts. Then there’s Rena, the Fox; Carapace, the turtle; Hawkmoth, the moth; Queen Bee the bee…?? I’m not following that decision at all. If someone does, please do enlighten me.

And then there’s the newest superheroes, introduced in Season 4, and still being currently introduced…

The theme is the Chinese zodiac, but that’s only (checks notes) Excuse me, Paris? Uhm, yeah, Paris. So in Paris they have the Chinese zodiac, but in the USA and Beijin they have completely different powers not tied to the miraculous. And, I get it, you want new merch. Fine, all magical girls are thinly veiled ads for kid’s toys (I will buy the sailor moon blush one day, or so help me god) But, should you at least – try to make it make sense-

New superheroes or new powers should all connect to your theme.

Sailor Moon has planets, so introducing new Sailor Scouts it’s as easy as getting new moons, or suns in the galaxy. Something I find really cute is that Sailor Chibimoon has subordinates CereCere, VesVes, PallaPalla and JunJun. These were the asteroids once thought to be new planets in the Solar System before we knew of the AsteroidBelt and realized they were little rocks.

Mermaid Melody introduced new mermaids through the seven seas. There were only a finite amount of them. But even so, the only way to introduce Seira was through the death of Sara.

And Tokyo Mew Mew’s endangered animals allowed us to have Mew Ringo and (we don’t talk about brunononono, we don’t talk about brunooooo) Mew Berry.

Even Kamichama Karin WHICH I HATE so it goes to show how badly MLB messed it up – has a theme (sort of). It fumbles it extremely badly. Insulting to a degree how bad it does it…BUT IT DOES IT.

It’s greek gods. That’s it. You may have a new power, a new transformation or a new characters but you bet your ass it’ll be a Greek god. It may have no connection to the character’s personality or relationship to each other, but hey. At least it stays consistent on its terrible use of Greek Gods as nothing more than aesthetic.

So, your characters have no narrative weight behind it to justify why they’re here. You have no actual theme to tie all 19 of your superheroes (HOLY FUCK THAT’S A LOT OF THEM) aside from…animals? I guess.

(I swear to god PreCure puts more thought into their themes than this)

But at least, you would guess, your new heroes show interesting dynamics with each other that allow you to understand better either Chat, Ladybug, or each other?

No.

The team is bad.

They ditched the “Magical Girl” formula and decided to go for a bit of a “Super Seitan” feeling. I mean, Power Rangers type of show. More gender neutral, more focused on the villain of the week, and an emphasis on a big team.

Just. A bit of a problem.

But they did this, so into the show that we ALREADY had a sense of their character as a side character, so bringing them to the spotlight was uncomfortable.

Like suddenly making Molly a sailor scout or giving Tomoyo clow cards in the middle of the second season.

That’s not their purpose in the story.

And they’re introduced so haphazardly that there’s hardly any time for them to hang out with each other.

Rena first appears in episode 37, Carapace in episode 44, and Queen Bee in episode 49.

AND NONE OF THESE CHARACTERS INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER.

Not until Mayura. Which is episode 52, which just akumatizes them or gets them out of the way one way or another. Meaning, they do absolutely nothing for the plot, bring nothing to the table, and makes you wonder why even waste air time bringing on-screen characters that do not matter.

In any other show, yes. The characters slowly leaving the protagonist alone because they get trapped, killed or maimed is a good way to up the stakes of the finale.

Here’s the thing, though. I care about them. And they care for each other. They know they’re not losing just a teammate, they’re losing a friend.

I cried like a baby when Makoto died and Usagi only recognized her rose earring – because I love Makoto to death. I cried when Rei sacrificed herself to save Usagi, because I knew how much they bickered. I was upset when Mint and Zakuro fought, because I knew how much Mint idolized Zakuro.

Their failure meant something to the each other. Aside simply, “we lost manpower”. Because these people were, before superheroes, before their later egos – they were friends.

HOWEVER. This does not happen in MLB. Since they don’t GET to keep the kwamis, they don’t get to participate in every episode. We never get episodes focused on how they interact with one another. Which means there’s no sense of a “team”. Which makes you wonder why they’re even considered a “team”.

This is such a horrible decision it genuinely makes me wonder if these people KNOW how to create ANY story !!!

I feel like I keep comparing MLB to many decent and genuinely good magical girls animes. Which feels unfair, EVEN THO IT ISNT, because these are iconic anime’s that have left a print in media

So fine, let’s get this show to a level you all can understand how bad it is

DC superhero girls. And it’s GOOD, check it out if you can. It’s something to turn on and enjoy, with little overarching plot.

But get this, the entire focus is to watch the team girls Interact. A lot of the comedy comes from watching these girls having fun and watching them come to terms with their own superpowers. Watching them get in trouble as they hide their identity, and how they bounce from one another. Who helps who, who are besties, who kinda hate each other, who brings them together and who keeps them strong.

I especially love Barbara and Harley's dynamic, as well as Kitana and Wonderwoman's friendship. The episodes that focus on either of them make me really happy. And even if there's little overarching plot, because I know their situation, I wanna see them happy and have fun.

But because they all have to hide in MLB, you don’t see something like this. Which, btw, THIS is the foundation of both Magical girl GROUPS and Seitan. And I would argue you would get more leeway abt secret identities to one another in MagicalGirls that in Seitan. Seitan’s bread and butter IS team dynamics. The fact that we don’t know how two superheroes that ladybug and chat aren’t would behave around each other is an INSULT to the genre.

And to be fair, they could still keep their identities secret. Just. Have them interact every single episodes, without the need of Ladybug or Chat doing a 10 minute break to give them their Kwamis. It would have been fun to see Queen Bee chat with Ladybug, maybe hate Chat and fight with him to get Ladybug’s attention. Maybe, have Viper and Carapace make music references and vibing in the background. Have Ryuko and Queen Bee bicker. Have Rena and Chat make jokes at Queen Bee’s expense.

You could have amazing drama out of the team trying to find each other’s identities, but having Ladybug threaten them to take away their miraculous (MAYBE she’s paranoid about it since the events of Chat Blanc let her traumatized and will take away miraculous from them). Hell, maybe she took away Chloe’s miraculous not because “she’s unfit” but because she spilled the beans. And Chloe’s resentment is not just from losing her great title, but losing the first true friends she had.

And it would make the fact that Marinette is allowed to CHOOSE her teammate…a bit more bearable. Because honestly, THAT’S a terrible concept.

Most teams DONT get to chose who their partners are, and that’s what makes it amazing.

Because it’s a bunch of people who are forced to be together, slowly learning to open up and depend on one another. Which creates amazing and profound bonds that one originally wasn’t expecting.

Take for example Usagi. She didn’t CHOOSE her team. Instead, she found it. They found her. While Ami and Makoto are kind to her, she’s always butting heads with Rei, and playfully competing with Minako. They don’t all coddle her, or think she’s amazing. They see her as a friend. A crybaby, clumsy but kind-hearted friend who will help them out.

Tokyo Mew Mew has the same. Ichigo isn’t in perfect terms with Mint and they butt heads. Zakuro is a loner that isn’t integrated fully even in later episodes. But they’re a team. They work together.

The fact that Marinette gets to pick, creates issues like…Queen Bee.

Which.

Leads me.

To Chloe.

A God, Chloe.

PREV << MASTERLIST >> NEXT

#miraculous ladybug #sailor moon #mlb #mlb salt #mlb critical #magical girl essay #magical girls

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onewomancitadel · 2 years ago

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The other problem with 'my fave did nothing wrong' is that characters can do wrong in one sense and do the right thing in another.

If Cinder hadn't have gone after the Winter Maiden power, the direct consequence of that would've been Winter using the Maiden meat puppet machine that is obviously a terrible no-good bad thing, and Penny wouldn't have been the Winter Maiden. Cinder's a necessary agent to stop that, in a perverse way you might even say she's essentially part of righting the cycle of the Maiden powers. Actually - yes. I completely buy that, because she sets in motion the urgency of the Maiden power musical chairs game, and she is, in that messed up way of hers, responsible for Amber and everything that follows thereafter, but all of it is necessary pain and destruction to set the cycle of the Maiden powers becoming corrupted, right - which in turn represents the Ozlem wound at the heart of the story!

Which is obviously fabulous, because she's the one with a fucked up perception of them already. Realising the redemption of the power through her own perspective etc. is genius.

Even Fria's death (and demonstration of power) is not something that is framed as a purely negative event, in fact it's a natural good death - she lived her life fully through the triple-goddess cycle of Maiden, Mother, Crone - and isn't left in the Maiden meat puppet machine. So there is clearly some mixed sense of goodness and badness emerging here.

But it's 'wrong' in the sense that Cinder's own motivation for going after the power is misplaced, and it's 'wrong' in the sense she's not meant to have it, and it's 'wrong' in the sense that she's acting under the guise of villainy (in contrast to Ironwood's apparent heroism... Ironwood is a 'hero' doing moral badness - Cinder is a 'villain' doing moral goodness).

You can see how eliding an action in the story into either good or bad actually means you can't really talk about it in the sense that it's actually intended. But equally you've got that problem is that if a character claims to be good (verbally or is considered a hero) everything they do is good, and if they claim to be bad (verbally or is considered a villain) everything they do is bad, which is where I think this type of narrative complexity suffers, because a lot of people will decide to judge the moral actions based on their perceived characteristics and fitting their narrative actions to that. So it's not even just about stan culture but something underlying fitting a character trait to their actual narrative actions. To be totally fair - protagonist-centred morality is totally a thing, and in some cases it works and in a lot of cases it doesn't. That it's actively (and probably a little too obviously) explored with Ironwood is interesting to me.

But 'my fave did nothing wrong' is a natural response if you're on the defense about your fave and in addition to that if you're already uncomfortable with moral complexity but want to enjoy a naughty villain who's not too naughty it's easy to slide into. That's why there are such urgent boundaries drawn between Cinder and Emerald, Cinder and Winter, Cinder and Raven, etc., characters considered to be receiving redemption arcs but are a little too similar to Cinder in terms of narrative potential for redemption, and why comparing them is automatically made to be untouchable territory. That or it's just a case of unlikability, because they're not all the same emotional archetypes.

But to me moral complexity is most interesting, especially in characters who are set up for a redemption arc that recontextualise the moral dynamics and goals of the story - in Cinder's redemption arc, nonviolence, redemption, healing, forgiveness, are naturally embedded into it, and it sets up the final answers to the story, so finding where she is doing 'good' things that are considered 'bad' (especially if they embody Fall Maiden ideals of Choice) when later she will be a 'bad person' who transforms into something beyond good and bad, someone who will redeem herself, is very interesting to me. Which is why I don't want to play that game of saying she did nothing wrong.

Most importantly, a redemption arc happens as a consequence of badness; can't redeem someone if they were never bad.

#cindemption #I hate that the popular translation of Rumi doesn't really represent Rumi's original ideas #because this:#out beyond right and wrong there is a field. I'll meet you there #is amazing #and if Coleman Barks had published that himself it'd been boss

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peachyteabuck · 3 years ago

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the plum tree blossoms even in winter / kate bishop x reader

↪ summary: three years ago you tried to buy your freedom. when you come up short, you have no choice but to fold yourself back into kate bishop’s life.

commissioned by @domromanoff

↪ pairing: kate bishop x reader

↪ words: 7042

↪ trigger warnings: piss play, dark au, mob au, cnc, touches of maria hill x reader and carol danvers x reader, free use, pet play (puppy; collar; pet beds; etc), degradation, daddy title, mentions of free use

Red.

The number on your screen bleeds the same color as your scraped knuckles, same as the sweater your mom bought you two years ago that’s nearly threadbare now. Fucking red. You read this book once about how red is meant to symbolize wealth and sex – now all it means is that you’re royally fucked. You could probably handle a regular fucking (you’d been doing that for a long time), but the royal part of it is signaling your demise. It’s not like you thought you’d end up here, you tried everything possible not to.

But no. Of course this is how it works out, a measly hundred dollars short of an amount of money previously thought insurmountable. Mount Everest had nothing on how much you needed to get. It’d be easier to petition the IMF to clear your debt as this point.

Fuck it. You’re not going to make her find you, not going to let her jump you in some shitty bar two blocks from home. If this is your last act, might as well take command of the narrative. Phone in hand, arms wrapped around your body to trap what little heat is generated from the sweater, you make your way downtown.

The way to the club is familiar – the way one is able to find their childhood home even when if it been burned to the ground and they’ve been dropped across the country. It was sunset when you got your bank statement, it’s nearly pitch black when you knock on the unmarked door, your hand carefully avoiding the thick globs of grime. It takes a few seconds, but eventually, a woman wearing all black with an earpiece opens the door.

Valkyrie seems surprised to see you, her eyes widening just a little before she paints the bored, detached expression she was always sporting back onto her features. “What’s the password?”

Even in your distressed state, you have to roll your eyes. “Val, we both know the code is randomly generated every morning, and we both know I don’t know what it is.”

She shrugs. “You know the rules. Either give the password or get the fuck out.”

All you can do is sigh, and fight the urge to muscle past her. “Look, Val. I just really need to see Kate.”

The use of the boss’s first name has her stunned, even if she doesn’t show it. No one calls her Kate – not even her. She shuts the door in front of you, and despite the thick metal, you can hear her speaking into the intercom system. A pause – presumably Kate or one of the guards assigned to her inner circle replying – then another few muffled sentences. Another pause. Then the door opens once more.

Val looks…shocked. That’s the only way to put it. She looks shocked. It’s hard to surprise Valkyrie, she didn’t get her nickname because she spooked easy. Once you saw her roundhouse kick someone’s teeth in because they looked at her funny. It’s a sign she knows why you’re there, why you’re back for the first time in years. “She’s expecting you. You know where to go.”

You give her a curt nod, pushing past her only to be immediately enveloped into the pulsing beat of some shitty remix of a pop song that was perfectly fine before being put in a blender. It probably all sounded the same when one was coked out, though. Rich people, not the super-rich, but still pretty rich, dance and grind to words you can’t decipher. Lights flash different colors interspersed with black on their own beat. It was enough to make you nauseous if you hadn’t spent at least two years watching the sweaty bodies do the same thing every night of the week.

The good thing about drunk people is that they’re easily moved, too preoccupied with finding someone to grind on. You would probably stand out in anywhere else with your giant sweater and leggings and worn sneakers, but no one here saw anything but tits and ass and bulge. If you had none of them, they let you pass with ease. As you make your way to the second floor, a few servers and dancers up in cages look at you with the same surprise that Val did before (though much less concealed).

Yeah, you want to tell them. I didn’t think I’d be back either.

Kate’s office is tucked away in the back, artfully concealed. Anyone who didn’t know better merely saw a giant mirror reflecting the debauchery most were preoccupied with. You, though, knew that behind the central panel was the woman who ran the city when no one was looking.

Natasha’s the one parked in front of the door tonight. All she does is raise an eyebrow before letting you in (Val definitely told her, and everyone else, that you were back) to walk down a short hallway before reaching the actual entrance into the office. Kate was just as dramatic as she was paranoid. A simple code you knew like you knew your first phone number is punched into the keypad with shaky fingers – the vibrations either because of the beat that feels faint compared to what it was down in the heart of the club, or the lack of food, or the fear. Truly it could be all three, but you didn’t really have time before you’re entering a place you thought you’d never see again.

Just inside both the left and right are two women, deceptively skinny and dressed in all black. To the left, in a dog bed that you remember buying, is a one-eyed golden retriever who stands up as soon as you see him.

The dog – Lucky, you remember, because how could you forget – is deceivingly cute. Kate found him when he was a puppy with an eye infection that led to him now only having one of them, and he's never left her side since. She tells the story often, choosing to leave out that she found him after shooting a man in his home in front of his wife (he had groped one of her dancers; Kate was very possessive and didn’t like others touching what she had already branded as hers).

He remembers you, though. Even though it’s been years, and you’ve changed everything about your appearance possible without paying for surgery. He nuzzles into your hand, asking for scratches behind the ear. The guards say nothing, and for a moment – just a few, fleeting moments – it’s as if you’re back right where you started. Back in the living room-sized office with ceiling-high bookshelves filled with expensive books and knick-knacks. The two-way mirror you saw previously is located behind where Kate sits, in front of the desk being two chairs. You sit in neither, choosing to thread your fingers through Lucky’s long, silky fur, leeching off of his body warmth and holding him close. For a moment, it’s calm, it’s nice, and you can forget about the world around you.

You can forget, that is, until a voice you’d hoped you’d never hear again interrupts your quiet time “alone” with a dog you’d helped name.

“You know, I was hoping you’d be back.”

Your heart drops into your feet at the sound of her voice, deeper than you remember, but still all too familiar. Despite all the practicing you’d done in the mirror before you came over, you can’t find it in yourself to dig out some quip or sarcastic response. All you can do is hunch your shoulders ever so slightly and turn around to face her. “Kate.”

It’s all you can say.

“That’s all you can say?” she says with a small scoff. “Three years and all you can say is ‘Kate?’” She steps towards you, hands in the pockets of the deep purple pantsuit she owns multiples of. “Thought you’d have a little more rolling around in that pretty little head of yours.”

You did, is the worst part. You do have essays worth of things you want to say to her – to her stupid bodyguards who have definitely seen you naked, whether because Kate liked to fuck you wherever she pleased or because she had a picture of your tits in her wallet and an even larger one of her ass in her home office. The brand – the one she designed herself – is visible on your left cheek in as high a quality as one can buy.

But you stay quiet. Because you’re in the red, and when one’s drowning in red, one isn’t allowed to speak.

You watch as Kate takes her place at her massive desk. It’s black, got at least five different secret compartments, and is about the size of a twin bed. She had it custom made a few months before you met her, it finally being delivered the day of your third date. You had christened it by sitting on her face; similar to what had happened when the equally black chair was delivered the next day (when she had made you squirt for the first time).

Memories flash before your eyes. Just the good ones, though. The bad ones – you’re certain – will come later.

She doesn’t speak until she’s fully seated, legs crossed, and chair leaned back. “Now, sweetheart, why are you here?”

Kate knows, she’s just a fucking dick. At one point you liked that about her. Now, though, you’d rather chew glass (a thing you’ve watched Kate make someone do). “I don’t-“ you struggle to get the words out. Kate just watches, eyebrows raised and head leaned forward to indicate she’s listening. “I don’t have the money to pay you back.”

One of her guards (Carol, you’re guessing, even though her shoulder-length locks are now trimmed to her ears with a high undercut) lets out a snort. Maria, the one who hasn’t changed a bit since you last saw her, barely suppresses a sinister smile.

Kate merely blinks. “Sorry, what was that?”

God if you could kill her. “I don’t have the money to pay you back, I don’t have the money to pay anyone back.”

The woman in front of you just scoffs, moving to stand before stepping in front of her desk to lean on it. She doesn’t cross her arms over her chest, doesn’t make a move to comfort you. Just stands there, in her giant black boots and her custom suit and her shiny black hair. It takes a minute for her to speak, every second of silence more painful than the last.

“I’m having a little trouble remembering, actually…” she pretends to think. “What were the terms of our agreement again?”

You gulp, fighting back tears already. “I had three years to pay you thirty thousand dollars.”

She cocks her head. “And what were you paying thirty thousand dollars for?”

A few one break free, streaking down your face. “My freedom.”

“And how much do I normally require for freedom?”

Even more tears fall down your face, you wipe them from your jaw and chin before speaking. “Three hundred thousand.”

Kate steps closer to you, each clause punctuated by her boot hitting the floor. “So let me get this straight.”

Step.

“I offer your freedom at a ninety percent discount.”

Step.

“I give you two more years than usual to pay it back.”

Step.

“I let you loose, giving you all the chances in the world to earn that money.”

Step. She now stands in front of you, her presence deeply imposing.

“And you still can’t pay it back?”

You feel like an elementary-aged child being chastised by a teacher with nothing to lose. All you can do – just like the time you spilled milk on your school uniform on picture day – is stare at the ground and avoid eye contact and wait for it to be over. No begging, no pleading, just you and the knowledge you’re a total failure.

Kate uses a single crooked finger to force your chin up until your gaze meets hers. “C’mon baby, I’m a woman of many talents but I’m not a mind reader.”

You exhale a shaky breath. “And I still cannot pay you back.”

“There we go,” she says with enough cheer that it makes goosebumps crawl up your spines. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Yes it was. You know that too. But once again, you’re silent.

“Well, in that case, I guess you don’t get your freedom, do you, sweetheart?” Kate says with a smirk.

It’s hard to suppress the hiccups that are trying their hardest to force you to their knees. You shake your head weakly, unable to do much besides that.

Kate walks back to her desk, and even though you don’t watch her, you know from the sound it’s the compartment under the third drawer to the right. It’s for the most precious things, like the golden gun Kate bought for show or the passports of her three least used aliases.

Immediately, your eyes screw shut. You’re not sure it’s happening until you’re shrouded in darkness, waiting for the heavy feeling against your neck.

The think, purple collar is clicked on as easily as the time it fell from its place, the nameplate, bell, and tracking keychain jingling together like a fucked-up wind chime. It’s a sound you’re so familiar with your pussy immediately begins to pulse in a way you haven’t felt since you left. There are a lot of things you can say about Kate; you can’t say she was a bad lay. You also can’t say she’s not incredibly possessive, or that she loves change. The way she tugs at it, your sunken skin leaving more room than usual, says she’s just as upset as you predicted. It’s hard to tell whether it’s anger or sadness or merely her upset someone tried to defy her. She’s not one to take a dethroning lightly; hubris is just as punishable here as it was in ancient Greece or Rome.

It's scary (though even that word doesn’t truly encapsulate the dread that floods your system), how familiar it is to you. How your body immediately looks to the floor to make sure it’s clean enough to crawl on, to see if you’re the bed Kate has custom made for you is in the right spot. It’s empty, and you kick yourself when disappointment settles in your gut.

“Oh,” Kate realizes, turning to Carol and gesturing out of the room. “Danvers, go get the bed. It should be in storage – you know the place.”

Carol just gives a curt nod, moving in a direct, militant fashion that would have bodybuilders jumping out of her path. The thing is, you like Carol. When Kate would play with you in meetings, the guard would tease you just as Kate would.

Your owner has her biggest dildo stuffed inside of your aching pussy. You’re clothed in only a cropped sweater, the cold air of the office sending goosebumps up your skin. You were told not to move, but you know you’re also dripping down the cock and onto the woman below you. Kate is directing her security team to a possible threat that was reported by one of her informants at the NYPD, making sure her club’s patrons wouldn’t be blown to bits while..well, on blow.

But you’re sensitive from a whole day of edging, clit swollen and hot to the touch. It’s like your brain has turned to mush, put through a food processor until all that was left was a nearly-opaque juice. Any sort of self-control had been washed away by it leaking out of your ears, so between Natasha’s direct, complicated orders are your light, desperate whimpers.

Natasha’s talking to someone across the table from Carol when she leans closer to you, a wicked smile painted on her face. “You’re such a pathetic little puppy, aren’t you?”

Your owner holds you close, her arm wrapped around your waist making it so you can’t get far. But still, you can whine a little higher in your throat, push just a little farther – seeking out the woman’s warm body and embrace. All you can is nod, thread your eyebrows together, and open your eyes as wide as you can in an attempt to buy a crumb of sympathy. Carol doesn’t give it, but she does trail her hand over your quivering thighs, ghosting them over your leaking cunt.

“You’re cute,” she huffs a small, low laugh. “Maybe one day your big ole’ Daddy can let me fuck that little pussy of yours.”

You let out a deep moan that has Kate shoving three fingers into your mouth to muffle the sound, your lips instinctually wrapping around them to take them deeper down your throat.

You snap out of your vivid memory as Carol returns, dropping the bed in the spot next to Lucky’s. It’s hard not to feel relief when you see she doesn’t have bowls in her hands – one of Kate’s harsh punishments you remember all too well. In your state, you can barely stand. If you tried to get on all four and eat out of a large dog bowl, you’re sure your body would collapse in on itself.

Kate eyes the bed to make sure it’s in the correct place before turning to you. “Just as it’s supposed to be,” she says with a smile – one that’s so genuine it makes you ache. She likes this, and you hurt her when you left. Probably sent her into a tailspin when you parted ways three years ago; a violent rage that likely destroyed at least one priceless artifact and created a mess so large more than one of the maids from her mansion had to be transported in. That’s one of the parts that is most fucked up about it to you. It’s not just that she owned you, that she kept you as a pet and away from the outside world; it’s that she loved you. It’s that she cared about you; it’s that she didn’t just keep you like some common housecat, it’s that you were like a prized pedigree show animal with the papers to prove it. You sometimes half-expected her to put some ridiculous fancy name on your collar instead of your own in homage to the actual organizations you’d come to loathe.

You were an investment, a show-thing. Surely the girls on poles and making drinks at the lower level of the bar were the same, sure. But it’s as if you held some golden ticket for her that you never lived up to, never actually provided. A shorted stock. A worthless family heirloom said to have been passed down. A disappointment.

All you can do is stand there, in the center of the room, between two black velvet chairs, under the eyes of the three people there and anyone else unfortunate enough to walk in. The collar can’t be seen from behind, barely from the side…but under Kate Bishop’s gaze, you might as well have her name tattooed across your tits.

It's a few moments of bliss in Kate’s eyes before she speaks again.

“You cold, sweetheart?” she looks at your worn clothes, notices the shiver that occasionally shocks through your system (those aren’t from the chilly air she keeps pumped into the room, but she’d never let you say that out loud).

All you can do is nod, body shaking like a leaf in a hurricane now. God you know Kate is enjoying this. “Y-yes.”

Kate tuts, rolling her eyes. “Wonder how long it took you to realize how little you can take care of yourself without my help. Can’t even imagine what it was like for you in the dead of winter.”

You stare at the ground, following her footsteps from sound alone as she hunts through one of the drawers located at the bottom of the bookshelf to your left. It’s hard to suppress the memories of the New York winter, spent either in shelters or hookup’s places or in crowded apartments the few times you could afford rent. When Kate returns, she holds a large sweatshirt you know is hers, fuzzy socks, and new, more comfortable leggings. She remembers you’re not a fan of sweatpants. Even as your heart thumps in your chest, choose not to mention that as you mumble out a “thank you.”

Easily as riding a bike, you conform to rules you know Kate hasn’t relaxed since you left. You strip, ignoring the heavy gazes of all three women. There’s no underwear (something you expected), but it feels like the clothes were fluffed in a dryer before your arrival. It’s hard to think about what you don’t have when you’re warm and comfortable for the first time in weeks.

When you stand back up straight you regain eye contact with Kate, who gives a single nod of approval. “Go lay down, puppy. You’ve had a very exhausting night.”

With all that you’ve been through, you’re happy to finally lay down and try and get some sleep. You go to walk behind Kate’s desk and see Lucky on the other side of the desk, within eyeshot of anyone who walks in. As you curl up, it hits you like a ton of bricks:

You’re both pets. Lucky can leave when he wants, though. You can’t.

Lucky bastard.

The fucked up part is that this is the most comfortable place you’ve slept in three years. The bed is heated and plush, filled with extra stuffing. There’s a blanket attached to it, in case you get even colder. It’s comfortable, in a way that makes you feel gross.

But…it’s hard to deny how nice it is to not have to worry anymore. Kate does a lot for you and despite the price, it’s nice to think about whether you’re going to eat tonight, or whether where you sleep will be warm, or if your clothes will be cut up by stupid roommates you don’t trust. In any other situation, you’re sure the thought would be freeing, but here it feels like another collar layered over the one you already have.

“Wait, not yet,” she suddenly says, reaching into a desk drawer to pull out a single-use water bottle that’s…bigger than what you’re used to seeing. She twists the cap off before leaning down and holding it out to you. “Drink this. I can’t have you passing out on dehydration under my watch.”

It's then that you realize that you hadn’t really eaten or had anything to drink (let alone water and not poorly made cocktails left by customers at shitty bars) in days. You’re close enough to don’t even have to crawl, just sit up and angle your head to make sure not a drop falls down your chin.

It doesn’t take long for you to empty it – even if it it tastes stale in a way you can’t perfectly describe, the water has definitely been in the plastic for awhile – Kate tossing the bottle into a trash can before cooing at you. “Such a good girl,” she says, cradling your chin and rubbing her thumb over your cheek. “Go lay down, you need your rest now.”

You think about fighting with her for a second, but why would you? You’re exhausted, your body aches, the bed signs to you like a siren.

So you do all you can do: sleep. Try and rest before it all gets too much again. Wordlessly, you curl up under the attached blanket and let the world go dark.

You wake up about an hour later to the sound of Kate angrily flipping through a stack of papers as she mutters something about a faulty contract still being a contract nonetheless, and the feeling of having to pee.

It's intense, too. Sometimes you can ignore the signals your body flashes across your body, but with the sudden comforts of your situation it seems as if your tolerance has plummeted.

Kate’s frustration never lets up, never leaving you a perfect second to interject. Eventually you holding your legs together isn’t stopping it anymore, and you have to interrupt her. “C-can I use the b-bathroom, please?”

The women who guard the door keep their arms at their sides, both of them raising a single eyebrow at the same time. They don’t need to say it, you know there’s no way you’re getting out of here.

“Aw, need to go to the bathroom, sweetheart?” Kate mock-asks, jutting her bottom lip out in a similar fake pout. She doesn’t look up, though, doesn’t waste her time moving her eyes from the cash in front of her. When you don’t reply immediately, she finally looks down at you.

You remember her rules about speaking when spoken to, forcing a response from deep in her chest. “Y-yes. I have to pee.”

Kate still doesn’t look at you, but huffs out a laugh. “Well, darling, normally I’d let Maria escort you to the bathroom-“ You knew Kate had a private bathroom only accessible by tipping a thick anthology of W.H. Auden poetry that needed no escort. “But given your betrayal, I’m not sure you’ve earned that right yet.”

Fuck. You’re not even sure you’re able to beg. Everything inside of you is going towards not ruining the nice bed. “P-please, I have to g-go.”

Kate just stares at you with a blank stare, papers still in her hand in the same position they were in when you interrupted you. “Either you go here, or you hold it until we go home.”

The prospect of going back to Kate’s mansion almost makes you nauseous, but when you look at the clock, you notice it’s passed right after midnight. Kate normally doesn’t leave until two.

You swallow what little spite is in your mouth, looking down at the floor. Well…you think to yourself. This is just going to happen, isn’t it?

Thankfully, you’re allowed to stare at the floor as you let yourself…go. Slowly but surely the hot wetness of your piss falls down your clothes legs, soon pooling at your knees. It doesn’t touch your socks, by some miracle.

But when Kate tuts and hooks a finger under your chin to bring your eyes to hers, you know it’s even worse than you thought it would be. All you get is a “poor baby,” before she’s beckoning Maria over. The dark-haired woman clips you on your back away from the spill with an efficiency you’ve only seen when she’s being used as Natasha’s enforcer, stripping you of your dripping leggings while leaving the thick socks. She wipes you down with a towel seemingly pulled from thin air, the abrasive material making you wince when it’s swiped over your center.

But she doesn’t let up, not until you and the floor are equally dry. You’re a dog at a show, stuck frozen on all fours waiting for a release word. Maria is equally silent, even if her gaze is heavy and bores into you. She’s done this before – she’s seen you in much more compromising positions – and yet this feels…worse, somehow. You hang your head in shame even as she pulls away.

“Good to know you can still follow direction,” is all Kate says to you before returning to her work. Cowering in shame, you go back to the bed where you were before, now missing pants and a little bit of pride. Once again, though, there’s nothing you can do besides sleep or stay away and stare at the floor. You try the second option for a long time, watching Kate’s boots against the ground and listening to her do whatever it is she does. The flipping of paper, the signing of documents, the telling one of her guards to get her something to eat or drink. Occasionally someone will come in and talk to her with voices you don’t recognize. One of the meetings is about the type of gin they’re buying for the bar, the other is whether they should burn bodies or cut them up and scatter them across the state. It's after that last one that you try to go to sleep again.

The sound of Natasha’s voice is what wakes you up again.

“Bishop,” she doesn’t acknowledge anyone else in the room except her boss. “It’s time to go.”

Kate stops whatever it is she’s doing, looking to the leader of her security team. “I will be down in thirty. Please have my car waiting for me when we come down.”

The “we” makes your heart skip a beat.

As Natasha leaves, Kate turns to the guards posted inside her office. “Stand outside,” she commands.

The two guards do as they’re told without question, remaining on their respective sides now on the other side of the entrance. As soon the heavy, metal door shuts, Kate is hooking her hands up under your collar once just as she did earlier that day and slamming you onto the desk so that your ass grazes against the seam of Kate’s pants. You barely fight back a moan, careening against the hard cock you can feel straining against the fabric. You’re not sure when she started packing that day, but you can’t help but feel thankful as you imagine it inside you.

With one hand on the back of your neck, Kate pushes your top above your midsection to grab at your butt. “Still such a good ass,” she murmurs. “Almost makes up for everything you did.”

You’re wet – you know you are, and Kate knows you know you are, too – but she still slowly inserts a single finger. She pulls it out and holds it against the low light, smirking.

“Such a fucking whore…I guess some things never change, do they?”

You don’t respond, can’t respond, because just then Kate is re-entering your dripping pussy with three fingers. Your resistance turns to naught as she begins to fuck in and out of you, pinning you down so that all you can do is take it.

“F-fuck,” your moans are broken by each thrust, the sounds of her fucking into your dripping pussy filling the room. You’re grateful you’re alone with you, just the thought of Carol and Maria watching and degrading you with Kate sends you so far into your own subspace that you’re surprised your knees haven’t given out.

Kate speaks when the word more just barely begins to form itself on your lips.

“You abandoned me,” she seethes, forcing a fourth finger inside of you. “I treated you better than anyone else ever has and you fucking abandoned me.”

Her teeth are grit, anger palpable in the air. You can taste it – the metallic – every time you gasp out a moan, your hands crawling at the desk to see if the hard wood would break way to something you could cling to. It doesn’t happen, though, you’re not strong enough to break through reinforced wood. Shame.

“You don’t even have something to say for yourself?” The thrusts of Kate’s hands increase in their fervor, a pace that makes you certain you’ll be aching for the next few days. She’s never been one to pull punches, and that instinct doesn’t go away when the matter concerns you. “Fucking whore, you wouldn’t know loyalty if it slapped you in the face.”

She stops, suddenly, a groan escaping your throat as you find yourself struggling to accommodate her. You almost don’t notice her other hand snaking around your body to grab at your throat. It doesn’t take much for her to use it as leverage to pull you flush against her body. All you can do is scream when she slaps at your tits, leaving angry marks that will be equally as tender as your cunt.

Kate laughs with every wince. “See?” When you don’t respond, she withdraws her hand from your pussy and uses it to grab at your chin, pulling even closer so she can slot her face in the crook of your neck. With one hand pinching at your nipples, the other keeps you in place. You can smell yourself, your chin wet with yourself. “Answer me, you fucking slut. You’re mine, and you’ll do as you’re fucking told.”

You struggle to find the words, your body still as your mind rattles around in your skull. In the end, you say all you’ve wanted to say since you left. “I’m sorry.”

Kate stops for a moment, just a moment – and then growls. “For what?” She slams you back down onto the best, the two lamps on either side rattling with the force. The slips back inside you, four fingers, and you welcome it. “Tell me what you’re apologizing for!”

You struggle against the lack of oxygen and the rock in your throat and the truth that threatens to break free.

Kate just bares her teeth, a snarl low in her throat. “Fucking say it.”

If a dam were to break right now, flooding the city, it would be overtaken by the outpour of cries and apologies that flow from your lips. “F-for leaving you! I’m sorry for leaving you, for asking to be alone, for abandoning you so soon!”

Kate’s lips curl into a smile, and she sinks her teeth into the side of your neck. You’re hoping she won’t draw blood – but even if there are no deep wounds you know what she’s doing. She doesn’t want to leave you in pain, she wants to claim you. The bruise is high enough that you can’t cover it with a shirt or even a hoodie; regardless of your hiding capabilities it will ache and pulse under the protection of what you wear. As she makes smaller ones, too, you’re sure it will hurt when you turn your head and you’re sure Kate will push aside whatever hides it to that she knows…even if she isn’t directly looking at, she knows you know that you’re hers.

Her voice is kept low as she speaks low into your ear. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Her anger turns to a sweet so sickening it’s hard for you to admit that it makes you wetter - both sides of her and the flip between them.

You shake your head. “N-no Daddy. It wasn’t. I’m sorry.”

She moves her head to the other side of your neck and leaves another equally large, painful hickey. She smiles as you cry out in pain once more, it growing as she pulls away to whisper in your ear. “Then I guess you can come, puppy, why don’t you make a big old mess that I can make Maria clean up tonight. When I come in tomorrow to the floor and see it cleaned, I want to remember how fucking cute you looked when I made you fall apart so easily.”

Your moans are loud enough to shake the glass vase on the closest bookshelf to you. The hand keeping you in place drops to your swollen, desperate clit. The pads of two fingers make large circles around the most sensitive part of you. They’re wet quickly, the smooth feeling like silk against you. There’s something deep inside of you – something heavy, something growing. An explosion under something rarely stays an under for very long; you’re the dock and the pleasure are the waves. You can see them, crashing under you but you just can’t grab it. You buck your hips back feverishly, with no rhyme or rhythm to your movements. This is the end of the symphony, the final key change, the crescendo that you’re not sure can get louder but you still hope it does.

When you come, you think it’s so loud you’ll burst an eardrum. Just like at the end of a show, your blood sings and electricity cackles in your muscles. You’re floating, you’re above the rest of the world, you’re walking on air. Everything here is good – everything here is bright – everything can only be even better.

It succeeds the same way it came in, in waves. In ebbs and lows that fade before coming back ever so much, showing you what it was and what it could be. A preview, a small sample, a taste of what could be.

As it whisps away, the singing in your ears turns into the sounds of your panting. Your pupils are blown out, body wrapped in a light that feels sweet, somehow. You’re covered in a thin sheen of sweat, the wood under you cool to the touch. Kate’s words are muffled, but when your breathing evens out she’s telling you how good you did, how much she loves you.

And then you remember, you remember what happened the last time you saw her:

You’re laying in Kate’s circular bed, silk sheets making you feel like you’re floating on air. Everything, in this moment, is good. And you’re about to ruin it.

Kate’s in the bathroom, brushing her teeth. You can see her from where you are on the bed, watching her in a cropped loose shirt and sweatpants low on her hips. There are indents on her thighs from where the strap was, her letting you rest after hours of fucking you slow. She doesn’t do that often, so when she does, you like to savor it.

You also worry it may be the last time she ever fucks you like that.

When she comes back to the bedroom, Kate knows something is wrong. She doesn’t have to ask if you’re okay, she knows you’ll tell her when you’re comfortable.

That times sooner than you would like – you’ve been planning this for days, and you know that if you don’t do it now…you never will.

“I want to leave,” you tell her. She sits on the side of the best closest to you, making it easy for you to see her face fall. She doesn’t move, waiting for you to continue. “I want to buy my freedom.”

Kate doesn’t talk for a long time, her gaze a spotlight you’re sure could blind you. A few false starts happen, too, her mouth opening ever so slightly before closing once more. You’re sure hours have gone by before she finally speaks. “Are you sure?”

You don’t hesitate, you can’t. “I’m sure.”

Kate once more falls silent. “Okay. Get dressed, then. We can talk about the terms of your release downstairs.”

She leaves immediately, whisking herself downstairs to her home office. It’s similar to her office at the club, all dark wood and filled with books and trinkets. There’s a bed for Lucky (who’s currently in the kitchen begging Kate’s personal chef for scraps) and one for you, a mini-fridge, and secret compartments everywhere. It’s slightly homier, though, with a flatscreen television across from her desk so she can watch the news or games while she works. You even have your own heated blanket that you can wrap yourself in on cold nights. New York winters are brutal, but Kate’s insistence that “warm air breeds laziness” is even worse.

You dress yourself in the soft grey shorts you were wearing earlier and a large, well-worn sweatshirt Kate discarded when she came home at three that morning. It’s still thick even after years of wear, and smells just like Kate’s favorite deodorant. You didn’t know it then, but it would soon become the most painful thing you had to leave behind when you left. Everything hurt when you shut the door behind you, walking off without money or support or even an idea of where to go.

But that sweatshirt, the scents of your respective body wash and sweat and deodorant and perform mixing together in their own unique way…the reminder of Kate’s dedication sometimes able to be used for good, that not all that she does leads to pain…that hurt to leave. You’d have traded anything else you were able to pack in your backpack and duffel bag for that fucking sweatshirt.

Even when the A/C went out at one of your shitty apartments and the New York summer air made you gag…you wished you had it with you. It was your trophy, your prize for cracking down Kate’s defenses and getting to a place where she could be vulnerable. She told you a lot, on those nights you’ve never even dreamed of experiencing. About her parents, how she got that nickname she doesn’t want you to know about. How she got where she was, how she stayed there. How she met all the women in security.

Every time you had one of those late-night talks, where you ate ice cream from the carton while Kate stood against the fridge and you sat on a bar stool…all of those happened with one of you wear that sweatshirt.

The memory sends a strong shiver down your spine. Kate notices it, but doesn’t comment. She just gets you dressed in new sweats - enough that no one who doesn’t know you doesn’t comment on anything that could spark rumors that are too big. Being underdressed is one thing, not being dressed at all…that’s entirely another one.

“Let’s go, baby,” she murmurs in your ear. “We’ve got a whole lot of catching up to do.”

You stay close to her as she walks through the club, navigating it with an expertise that comes from walking the same route every day of the past ten or so years. Your gaze remains on the ground, only looking up when you realize you’ve stepped outside and need to step into one of the bulky, black cars that Kate loves. She has a whole fleet of them, and sometimes you would spot them around the city when you couldn’t afford public transport. Sometimes you thought they were watching you, but when life never got any easier, you refused to believe she would watch without positive intervention. It was easier to believe she didn’t care about you at all than to consider she’d saw your plight and done nothing.

There, in the backseat, folded so that the logo of some shitty bar that’s barely faded is front and center, is the sweatshirt. The sweatshirt. When you look back to Kate in shock, she just smirks.

“Told you you’d be back, baby,” she says with a knowing smile.

#kate bishop x reader #kate bishop x you #kate bishop/reader #lukis does commissions #lukis writes stuff #kate bishop x yn

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serowotonin · 4 years ago

Text

falling ; bakugou k.

pairing ( bakugou katsuki x fem!reader ) wordcount ( 2.4k ) genre ( fluff & basically pining )

↷ a hc-styled narrative describing the four stages bakugou katsuki goes through as he finds himself falling for you . . .

STAGE I ( impression ) ;

the first time bakugou laid eyes on you was during the entrance exam at UA.

back then, you were just another face in the crowd of faces he was going to have to beat to earn his spot in UA

the first time bakugou spoke to you wasn’t memorable to him either

like with everyone else, he was loud and rude and made it very clear he wasn’t interested in playing friends

after that you became a part of the class, just another extra, someone who’d just get in the way

that was all he thought you were…

until you kicked todoroki’s ass one day during training

the teachers had paired everyone in the class and told you to practice your 1-on-1 combat skills using your quirk

bakugou, who was paired with kirishima went first

you and todoroki were to be the last pair

despite a good effort put up by kirishima, bakugou still ended up winning that round

when it was finally yours and todoroki’s turn, bakugou paid extra attention

in his mind, he knew todoroki was powerful and someone to watch out for

but what happened was quite unexpected

you maneuvered easily through todoroki’s attacks with a combination of physical prowess and creative usage of your quirk

let’s just say his ice didn’t work on you and he was caught off guard, allowing you to snatch a win

needless to say, most of your classmates were a bit surprised at first

bakugou included

they knew you were strong but they didn’t know you were that skilled

whatever the rest of the class thought didn’t matter to bakugou though

all he knew was that now he had to keep an eye on you

STAGE II ( perspective ) ;

after that event, bakugou did indeed keep his eye on you

it started off with him observing your moves whenever the class had to do any training exercises

he saw you fight with todoroki a couple more times after that

those didn’t end in easy victory for you as it did before because todoroki was now more wary of you

however, the way you evaded and countered his attacks was something to be praised

in bakugou’s subconscious opinion at least

your moves were carefully thought out and bakugou could see that

he could see the effort and practice you had put into perfecting them

not only that, he could also see the natural talent that you had to be able to become this strong

and it wasn’t only your fighting capabilities

you were also smart

maybe he hadn’t noticed it before but he did now

you seemed to always know the answer when a teacher called on you and your grades were great

slowly, but surely, you gained respect in his eyes

if he knew one thing about you, it was that you were maybe the tiniest bit better than the other extras

for a while it stayed like this, him acknowledging you but never making it obvious and you just doing your thing

that was of course until one day in the morning before class started

mina, kirishima, and sero were talking about things as they usually were and somehow the conversation led to you

they were talking about how strong and smart you were and going on about stuff

bakugou must’ve turned his head in their direction or something but mina noticed him listening so asked him cheekily what he thought of you

“y/n? of course they’re strong. anyone could see that.”

he said that pretty loudly and didn’t seem to notice you walking into the classroom

and of course you heard

“did my ears deceive or did the bakugou katsuki just praise me?” you teased

he was pretty embarrassed, blushing and sweating a bit but trying to hide it

soon after though, class started and the ordeal was forgotten

but something about that interaction led to you and bakugou becoming closer

closer in that instead of passing the other off as another strong classmate as you usually would, you’d actually greet each other and talk

you’d say hello to him in the mornings and goodbye after school and he’d just grunt or nod your way

but this was what it meant to be close to bakugou anyway

during the weeks that passed, bakugou found himself noticing you even more

before he only paid attention to your skills and thought about you as an enemy or rival of sorts

now it seems as if he’s just noticing the little things about you and your personality that make you who you were

he wasn’t doing it on purpose god forbid

no no it was just him being unknowingly observant

weeks turned into months and months turned into years

in a blink of an eye, you were all well in your second year

with everything that happened, you and bakugou became close

close enough for you to tease him at random times and close enough for him to ask you to fight him as training

by then it was safe to say bakugou knew you

he knew the little quirks you had

he knew your different smiles, your different laughs

he knew your favorite foods and your not so favorite ones

he knew the many different little things that made you you

STAGE III ( contradiction ) ;

before the start of the third year, the class decided to have a little get-together party of sorts

to celebrate the start of their last year in high school and to catch up as everyone’s been busy with internships and whatnot

you spent the break away from tokyo so it’s been a while since you saw the rest of the class

naturally you were excited to be able to meet them all casually again before the intense studying and training that awaited you all

bakugou, on the other hand, wasn’t too excited

frankly, he could do without seeing the class before school

but when he heard you were going to be there, he also agreed to go

so there you two were with the rest of the class at a cinema buying drinks and popcorn before your movie started

the neon lights and the prospect of popcorn lit up your face and bakugou couldn’t help but stare

there was just something, something he couldn’t quite figure out

it’s not that you were beautiful, it’s not that you looked cute in that outfit, it’s not that your smile was making his heart flutter

no it wasnt any of that true though they may be

you just.. you looked nice

thats why he was staring

yeah he hasn’t seen you in a while and you come back looking *nice*

of course he would stare

anyone would

apparently you had noticed him staring though, so you sent a wink and a grin his way before turning back to the popcorn and drinks

in other words, you killed him

with ridiculously high levels of cute and nice

kirishima and sero were just watching the whole thing happen and hell was it obvious to them

their boi was falling hard

now they knew he’d never admit it and they knew you weren’t likely to do anything about his “crush” even if it was obvious to you too

so…

while bakugou was busy helping you carry your popcorn, they devised a rather devious plan

operation: jelly burst

objective? none other than to make explody boiy jealous

for what reason? no reason really it’s just fun to mess with him and this is probably the first time he’s had this big a crush

once everyone finished buying popcorn and was walking into the cinema, operation: jelly burst was put into action

“hey y/n ! come sit next to me” — sero

so you did, nothing strange bout that, sero was a good of yours anyway, nothing strange at all

bakugou moved to come sit next to you too but kiri hurried past him and sat down on your other side before he could

“oh hey bakubro didn’t see ya there sorry”

the seat kirishima stole was the last seat on the aisle

and bakugou was forced to go sit somewhere else

alone

poor guy</3

the seat he found was a few rows above yours though and all went according to the jelly burst plan

by the end of the movie, bakugou was in the foulest mood and no one, except for the 2 lads sitting on either side of y/n, knew why

operation: jelly burst didnt end there though

see they got him jelly but they haven’t gotten him to burst

the next week at school, kirishima and sero both acted really nice to you

it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary but they did talk to you just a tad bit more than usual

either way bakugou noticed big time and he did not like it

he did not like it one bit

the jelly was there alright

it was just boiling to unprecedented levels

pretty soon, the boys dumped the idea of operation: jelly burst

mainly cos it was taking too long

but also because bakugou had become at least 10x more hostile

except to you of course

for some reason, a reason absolutely no one could figure out(sarcasm intended), he was just

quiet around you

didnt yell but didnt really talk to you either

whenever anyone else, kiri and sero especially, tried to talk to him though, he’d shout louder and be a lot ruder to them

he’s just agitated

and he knew why he was that way

he’s just in denial about it

he’s also in denial about the reason why

why couldn’t he just accept his feelings and act on it already?

kirishima asked him that one day in the dorms

he saw bakugou staring very intensely straight at you without blinking for a full minute

“look man, don’t even try to tell me you don’t like y/n. it’s obvious and i’m not an idiot. you aren’t either.”

“i know shitty hair. it’s just… i’m me. and she’s y/n. nothing’s ever gonna happen.”

“you don’t know that”

“but i do. cmon, she’s just so fucking perfect even with all her flaws. and i’m just the loud guy with exploding hands and no emotions.”

kiri was surprised honestly

this wouldn’t be the first time bakugou was insecure around him but the way bakugou talked about you and how he implied he wasn’t worthy

damn that hit kirishima

“bakubro, i’m gonna help you”

STAGE IV ( intimacy ) ;

ever since he told kirishima abt what’s been bothering him about you and ever since kirishima declared he’d help, bakugou became more…

quiet

he was still loud, but he just became a soft kind of loud now(?)

it was like he got calmer and he was assured that things would be okay

of course things were not okay

why? because ever since bakugou fully accepted his feelings for you, he doesnt know how to act around you

the other day you asked him what he wanted to eat for dinner cause you were cooking tonight

his answer:

“you”

“umm..”

“-you can make anything you want. i’ll eat whatever.”

that and a lot of other little awkward incidents started occurring

also maybe it was just the weather but he always seemed red whenever you saw him

it wasn’t the weather though

it was him being shy and nervous and flustered

which made bakusquad extremely weirded out cause seeing him like that is like seeing aizawa cheerfully smiling and wearing bright color clothes

it was weird af and was just not right

anyway, mina’s advice to him was to try to get closer to you

“but we’re already close”

“no i mean closer on a personal level. ask her how her day was or ask her random stuff about her likes and dislikes or her hobbies or literally anything”

“oh… ok then”

and so he tried that

he tried getting closer to you by greeting you every morning and sometimes asking you if you slept well

you found it odd

it certainly was odd, but you didn’t mind

if you ask him why he asks about your sleep he just goes red and says he needs to make sure his opponent for his afternoon sparring session is well-rested and healthy

speaking of the sparring sessions…

he asks you to spar more often than usual and actually makes small talk during your breaks

he was also a lot nicer to you, offering to help carry stuff for you and assisting you in the little things

like getting a mug from the kitchen’s high shelves or picking up the pencil you accidentally dropped

what he did worked though and within a few weeks, the two of you got a lot closer

the next step, as mina put it, was “making sure she knew you weren’t interested in her as a friend”

now that was hard for bakugou to do

“it’s not that hard. you could just tell her.”

bakugou: ..??

“basically confess”

bakugou: wha- *shortcircuits*

CONFESSING

he never thought about that

he actually has

he knew in his mind he’d have to do it eventually if he wanted to have you

but he didn’t think it would be *this soon*

“dont think that much and just tell her you like her”

“you’re making it sound easy”

“because it is!”

he groaned internally

he’s faced tons of villains and been in quite the number of fearful situations but the fear he felt now was completely different

“look if you’re afraid of rejection just confess like this”

*sero clears throat*

“*y/n i like you and i would like to be something more than friends. i’m not going to pressure you into anything so if yoh don’t want to we can just pretend this never happened>:)”

“...”

bakugou ended up confessing the next day though

just not like that

it was a spur of a moment thing and he wasn’t really aware he said it until you responded

the two of you were sparring as usual and you had just gotten close enough to knock him down and pin him to the ground

in that moment you were just so beautiful and amazing and everything and he just couldn’t keep it in apparently

“i like you”

“w-what?”

“what?”

“did you just say you liked me?”

“like not liked dumbass”

“:o present tense o:”

well long story short, you like him too and you tell him that and you two just sit there grinning like idiots

from then on things didn’t change much

you and bakugou still talked, although maybe more than usual

and still sparred with each other, although maybe less seriously and more playfully

some were surprised when it became known you were together

some weren’t

whatever other people thought though, they couldn’t deny one thing:

bakugou looked at you as if you were the world

STAGE ∞︎ ( fallen ) .

note ; i started writing this soo long ago but then abandoned it cuz thats just me:”] bUT i decided that since its his birthday i might as well finish it up and finally post it u.u,,, also TYSM @animebsposts for helping me with this ily and ur amazing<3

taglist ; ( send ask to be added ! ) @lilikags

#happy birthday ya big cute bomb boy<3 #bakugou x reader #bnha #www.pink-ink.com/writing #/hcs

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mistchievous · 3 years ago

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This fandom has a very strange divide when it comes to Shannon Diaz.

I say strange because I don’t think you’re all as divided as you think you are. I think you’re coming from different places and completely missing each other. I might be wrong, but let me explain what I mean.

First, it’s possible to have multiple emotions and opinions about a character. You don’t have to despise a character completely or adore a character completely. And if you do either of those things, you should acknowledge when a character isn’t two-dimensional. Like, I love this character including their flaws. Or even, I love this character despite their flaws.

The issue with Shannon is that the diverging opinions seem to be coming from two different places. I say this because I personally have differing opinions regarding Shannon that align with both “sides” of this depending on how I’m looking at her.

There are opinions regarding Shannon’s character inside the narrative, and there are opinions regarding Shannon’s character outside the narrative. And those opinions clash.

I’m going to explain this as clearly as I can.

Inside the narrative, we’re talking about Shannon as though she’s a real person and we’re judging that character based on her actions.

The main thing people talk about, of course, is Shannon abandoning Eddie and more importantly Chris.

Then others point out that Eddie also left, but fans have been willing to forgive him. So why not Shannon? To which Side #1 points out that Eddie "redeemed” himself whereas Shannon did not. To which Side #2 points out that Shannon didn’t get the chance to redeem herself because she was hit by a car.

I tend to fall more in line with Side #1 on this though I understand where Side #2 is coming from. And there are two main reasons why. (Though again, please understand that Side #2 falls more in line with the outside narrative which I’ll address in a minute.)

One reason is because I feel like Side #2 is misrepresenting the differences between Shannon and Eddie as parents and what they “did”. And I’m not talking about Eddie being gone for work whereas Shannon just left. I’m intimately aware that money is no substitute for a person’s actual presence. My dad can help me out as much as he wants financially, and I know he loves me. But it will never compare to everything my mom has done for me emotionally by supporting me as a person and really getting to know and understand me.

When I say there’s a difference between Shannon’s form of “leaving” and Eddie’s form of “leaving”, I mean this. Shannon completely removed herself from her son’s life. She was gone. She didn’t even stay in contact as far as we know. Whereas Eddie may have run away physically, but he was still there in a way. He still communicated with both Shannon and Chris. He still went home to them on leave. I’m not defending what he did or saying that he was being the parent or husband he needed to be. I’m just saying that these two things are different. And I would honestly argue that one is more easy to “forgive” than the other, but that’s just my personal opinion.

Now. The second reason I tend to fall in line with Side #1 from inside the narrative is because Side #2 is kind of assuming that Shannon would have redeemed herself if given the chance and that she was worthy of that forgiveness.

They might be right, but they also might be wrong. First of all, loving your child does not excuse hurting them. And while Shannon did love Chris, she also caused him a large amount of emotional pain. So even if she did “redeem herself” as a parent, no one is obligated to forgive her for abandoning him. And it’s important to note that if Shannon were Chris’ father instead of his mother, people would probably be far less inclined to even give her a second chance. Much less think that trying to better herself and be a better parent meant people were obliged to forgive her and see her more favorably. It’d be more like “Oh. So now he wants to step up and be there.” Whereas for a mom it’s like “Oh, she was struggling so much. And she came back. And she loves her son. Etc.”

As a society, we tend to put moms on a pedestal and see dads as secondary. And it affects how we react to the things they do.

But also, even inside the narrative, there’s no guarantee that she actually would have stuck around for Chris. She completely abandoned him once, and she could do it again. And arguably, it would be easier to do the second time. Even if she loved Chris and didn’t want to hurt him. She loved him the first time too. Loving someone doesn’t mean you’re incapable of causing them pain. So this idea that Shannon would have redeemed herself is a hopeful one. Not a fact. And even if she did, no one is obligated to forgive her. There’s no scale where if she does enough good things, it magically erases the bad. Forgiveness is personal. You choose to forgive someone. People can’t buy it from you with their actions.

Now, let’s talk about outside the narrative.

This is where I more line up with Side #2.

When people say Shannon “deserved” a redemption arc and that what was done to her character was fucked up, it’s not a defense of her inside the narrative. At least in my understanding.

This is where you’re talking about Shannon from a creative standpoint. Where you’re stepping back from the story and viewing her as a character.

Let me explain.

While you may not like Shannon as a person, creatively she was a well-developed character. She was complex and had a variety of motives. She had an actual background that we got to see bits of in Eddie Begins. She was built into someone important who could have played a very interesting role in the story.

Instead, they basically fridged her. They said “Eh. I don’t feel like dealing with this character and all the complexities they add to the story, so let’s just kill her off.” And they did. They turned an interesting and multi-faceted character into a plot device and used her death to focus on Eddie. The woman died, and her death became all about Eddie. (And Chris, but the man pain was the main focus. Let’s be real.)

It was sloppy and weak writing, and I would argue that yes. Shannon’s character deserved to be handled better. Not because she was a great person, but because she was a good character. Not to mention the fact that it’s also a bit misogynistic because this sort of nonsense is almost always geared at female characters. Not the male ones.

(If you watch Lone Star, they pulled some similar nonsense with Charles Vega. And I was pissed. And so was a lot of the fandom. Tommy got an entire episode devoted to her coming to terms with his death, but I’ll be interested to see if they drag her grief out for an entire season like they did for Eddie. If her pain has the same level of focus his did. Because if they skip to her moving on, I will burst into ugly laughter. Especially when unlike with Eddie and Shannon, Tommy and Charles had a very loving and well-founded relationship that was going strong. So, the idea that Eddie would be more consumed by grief over Shannon than Tommy would be over Charles would have me side-eying the screen a bit. Even though I know grief is a very personal process. But I’m getting sidetracked. Back to Shannon.)

I’m not saying Shannon’s character should have been handled better in that she deserved to redeem herself and be forgiven and be a mom to Chris and yadda yadda. That’s all inside the narrative.

I’m saying that as a character, it would have been better to follow her. Not run her over with a car. Even if she had that “redemption arc”, it would be a more compelling story for her to fail. For her to try and redeem herself and then get “overwhelmed” by parenthood and make more mistakes. And if she didn’t continue to fail, there could have been the focus on divorce and how that affects families and children. How she and Eddie navigate their issues with one another to continue parenting Chris.

Instead, no. They killed her. It was lazy and irritating writing.

So, that’s what I mean when I say I don’t think you’re all as divided as you might believe.

Because honestly, I think most of you have a more complex view of her that lines up with this in a lot of ways, but it’s not something people have time to really explain. So, it comes out as “Ugh. I don’t like Shannon,” which rubs some people wrong who are viewing her as a character. Or it comes out as “Ugh. Shannon deserved better,” which rubs other people wrong who are viewing her as a person and parent.

This is just what I’m seeing and taking away from everything, and I hope it helps clear things up for some of you. Or gives you a better understanding of where the other side might be coming from. ❤️

I don’t claim to speak for the entire fandom. It’s just eyebrow-raising to me. Because I hold both opinions, so I don’t really get why there’s a big debate.

#and there i go word vomiting on tumblr again #lol!#in this essay i will #shannon diaz #911 discourse #long post #mist speaks

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carbootsoul · 4 years ago

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anyway no one asked but: yue joins the gaang instead of becoming the moon at the end of season 1 hcs!!

- instead of giving up her life to replace tui as the moon spirit, she gives up tui’s blessing to give them the final burst of strength to escape from zhao. basically yue gives up her blue eyes, pale hair, and waterbending. she never (?) waterbends on the show, and the loss of her bending isn’t too devestating to her.

- also sokka gets a friend who can’t bend either... he deserves it.

- when the gaang leaves after the battle is over, yue decides to come with them and it’s a HUGE thing with her father and begins her main character arc, which is about whether her responsibility to her tribe and the preservation of their culture is more important than her paving her own way and also how those two things can coexist!

- she leaves her betrothal necklace on her bedside table and the last shot of the episode is just of it, lying there.

- this got rly long so there’s more under the cut

- her traveling clothes are a thing shawl and a tunic similar to sokka’s with pants. she keeps her usual haircut but it’s tied with leather instead of the fancy hair things she used as princess. also she uses a hunting knife as a weapon

- she and sokka continue their weird not-dating-but-kind-of-dating dance for a lot of episodes and it’s generally awkward and easy comic relief. also more shots of yue blushing because she’s just so cuteeee

- there’s a scene of them stargazing where yue tells sokka the story of a pair of lovers who died and then remained best friends in all their future lives (because avatar friendships enduring through lifetimes and also friendship being just as important as romantic relationships)

- yue becomes friends with EVERYONE they meet IMMEDIATELY and everyone falls in love with her because she’s sweet and pretty and has a nice laugh.

- there’s a filler episode that’s just sokka and yue going shopping together and trying on lots of jewlery but the running gag is that yue keeps getting distracted with talking to other people and definitely flirting with every girl she runs into and sokka is always distracted with a pair of earrings or a set of rings and doesn’t notice. finally some random guy is like ‘man your girlfriend has been flirting with my sister this whole time... are you aware.” and sokka is immeditaly like ShE’s NoT mY GiRLfRiEnD and then like wait what

- so maybe yue is a lesbian. sokka is very distressed that he’s been trying to court someone who’s not interested so he talks with katara while she’s sewing or something and he’s like is yue gay?? and katara is like oh i don’t know. lots of people we know are queer. sokka: WHO??? katara: well, zuko. suki. sokka: ZUKO??? SUKI??? and this is when katara realizes her brother’s gaydar is nonexistent.

- yue tries being a vegetarian (to be nice to aang) but thinks nuts are gross so she and sokka go on hunting trips together. she’s Very Good at archery.

- also the episode where they watch toph wrestle?? she and sokka are SO on her side. it made me angry in the show that sokka wasn’t on her side but yue would convince him very quickly and they are very loud together.

- she also stays to talk to toph on the estate because she doesn’t look as suspect as the rest of the gaang so the guards don’t kick her out immediately (read: she’s good at conforming to elitist ideas of how people r meant to act and passes the rich kid test). she and toph sit in the garden and watch the moon (because the moon symbolizes yue’s perceived failure to sacrifice herself to save her tribe) and talk about how sometimes to live as yourself you have to skirt your responsibilities to your family. yue leaves a few hours later firmly friends with toph.

- she continues to be the one firmly on toph’s side in the toph/katara disputes that are in the first few episodes with toph. katara can’t hold it against her though because literally who could hold a grudge against yue she’s so incredible

- (ok we’re skipping a lot of time here bc i frankly do not remember everything that happened in book 2) her ba sing se tale is her uhhh going to the market to buy herself an iced tea because she’s gay and just having a good time being a no one. a girl she runs into at the cafe asks her to go on a walk around the city with her and it’s very sweet but yue does Not know this is a date so when the girl gives her a kiss she gets blushy and says something dumb

- also at the end of another episode we have a short scene of yue on the roof of their house in the upper ring, staring at the moon and touching the place on her neck where her betrothal necklace isn’t. then the camera switches to zuko, on the other side of the city, looking at the same moon and absently running his fingers through his hair where his topknot used to be

- yue and jet hate each other but yue still advocates for him because she sees how he’s been hurt and thinks that he deserves a second chance. i don’t know the funeral traditions for any of the nations but she does a quick northern water tribe blessing over his body before they run away.

- yue and mai are like.. yes we r gay..... yes we do flirt with each other while fighting sometimes.... yes we r the two knife fighters.. yes we are ALSO narrative foils

- yue looks SO GOOD in fire nation clothes but she keeps her usual hairdo because she deserves it. the fire nation propaganda makes her very angry, as does the institutionalized homophobia. she starts arguing with some guy over it and katara is ready to back her up and start fucking screaming and get arrested and sokka is like.. now. now is when i should talk to her.

- he drags her away and she’s like fuck dude i can fight my own battles and he’s like no i just.. what you were talking about.... i have something i need to tell you..... and she’s like you’re bi!! good for you, sokka, thank you for telling me. and he’s like :bi shock: no?? you’re a lesbian. anyway yes she is a lesbian they are wlw mlm solidarity.

- there’s a filler episode where toph and yue rob a bunch of fire nation soldiers and when they get caught (after a While of these robberies) they get out of it by playing the ‘dumb rich kids’ card and run away with jewelry like.. dripping off their hands. katara makes them sell all of it except a choker necklace yue keeps that looks like a betrothal necklace but instead has an etching of a bird flying away.

- skipping again bc this is getting rly long. when zuko joins the gaang he and yue have a tentative conversation about their relationships to their nations and he’s like.. idk sounds like you needed to leave? that wasn’t an environment that you can thrive in. and she’s like but i can change it! i need to be there to change it, and i left. and he’s like well no. some things are just toxic. i went back to my nation and it was terrible. and she’s like i have a responsibility to my PEOPLE and gets mad at him and she and katara r like angry at zuko team.

- yue’s life changing field trip with zuko is just them leaving on appa to go to a market and be normal teenagers. they both viewed each other as Fire Prince and Water Tribe Princess, but this lets them open up and realize concretely that that’s not all that they are.

- zuko apologizes for implying that the nwt was irreparable and explains that the fire palace wasn’t something he could fix and that trying just hurt him more. yue says that part of the reason she was angry with him was because he was right and that she felt so much more herself when she was away from her home. they finally reach the conclusion together that they have to become themselves before they can hope to change their cultures for the better.

- yue comes along to boiling rock but is v much background to zukka bromance. she hangs out with suki some (lots more yue blushing oc bc suki is BUFF) and does some dumb gay fighting with mai but they’re both bad at it because yue is busy mooning over suki and mai is busy protecting ty lee.

- ember island players still say she turned into the moon >:(

#yue #yueki #sokka #atla #yue atla #leo.txt #god this is so long #i just have a lot of thoughts and love yue SO MUCH #she deserves SO MUCH #anyway i hope u enjoyed my thoughts #there's probably enough here for an actual fic so like.. maybe someday

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bthump · 3 years ago

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I wanted to touch on the whole gutsca thing with someone (I know zero people in this fandom so you're my lucky pick!). Am I alone in feeling like their first time together came out of no where? My meta with Guts is that he was not at all comfortable with sex at that time of his life (this instance being his first time [outside of the rape he experienced as a child]). His choice of words too, "here I go", translated to me like someone only doing what they felt was expected of them rather than something he was yearning for. He clearly wasn't even ready given how rough he was and how he regressed and attacked her. This moment seemed very forced and almost rang to me like Kentaro's declaration of "no homo though". I would be curious to know how Kentaro felt about homosexuality (bisexuality, etc) and if he ever addressed the ever blatant gay tension and romantic-non-platonic-love blossoming between Guts and Griffith pre-eclipse. I do get the sense that this may be a case of severe queer baiting or perhaps a PSA against gay love altogether ("falling for a man will literally destroy you and send you and everyone you love to hell" type of message); but I'm a very jaded person so I hope to be proven wrong. Sigh, my point being Gutsca seems pretty dang forced and empty of true development. I buy them more as besties than anything romantic. Especially since both he and Casca are actually in love with Griffith (what a fucking triangle!). Does anyone in fandom have any opinions on the sad possibility of this whole beautiful and ultimately tragic love between Griffith and Guts actually being a fucked up anti-gay PSA? Are there any interviews with Kentaro shooting this theory down so I can stop being sad and bitter about it? What are your thoughts?

Thanks for sending this, I'm definitely down to talk about it! I hope you connect with more people in the fandom but don’t worry about sending random asks even if you do lol.

Anyway you’re definitely not alone. I have a lot of thoughts on Guts and Casca's hook up, and they're all pretty much "it feels really forced and not particularly romantic but I think you can argue that that's deliberate" lol. For instance I discuss in a lot of detail here how various aspects of the scene indicate that Guts and Casca having sex is shown to be a case of both of them rebounding from Griffith and sort of giving to each other what they were unable or failed to give to him.

And I talk a lot about how Judeau essentially orchestrates it all and what that suggests about Guts and Casca's relationship here.

And lol sorry for all the links but also this post is about how their relationship feels one-sided to an extent and is used to illuminate a lot of Guts' flaws, using Judeau as a comparison point.

Oh shit and also one more lol, here's a comparison between the sex scene and Griffith's with Charlotte that suggests that both start as ways for the dudes to repress their feelings.

(Don't feel obligated to read all those posts if you don't want, you should get the gist of what I'm saying w/ those descriptions.)

But yeah basically I do think that Guts and Casca getting together felt forced and awkward. At best it might be intended to be seen that way, as two friends hooking up awkwardly in an emotionally intense moment but probably doomed to failure because neither of them are ready for a relationship with the other, or particularly interested in one deep down, once they finished "licking wounds." At worst it’s just bad writing lol. But again like I think there are good arguments for the former.

I also totally agree that their relationship has a strong vibe of doing what's expected. Like for real, at least to me both Guts and Casca read so easily as gay and repressed lol. Casca talks about her feelings for Griffith in terms of “he was a boy she was a girl can I make it any more obvious”

and I can’t help but see it as Casca like, wow I have strong feelings towards Griffith, he’s a man and I’m a woman, so clearly these feelings must be romantic, there’s no other option. Then when she has sex with Guts she keeps contextualizing it essentially as repayment for Guts saving her, like she owes him. “I too want a wound I can say you gave me.” “Not just being given to... maybe I can give something as well.” Which just doesn’t make her desire for him look all that genuine lol.

And then you have Guts. The way he tells Casca that from the start only her touch was okay with him after he has sex with her, referencing the scene when he wakes up with her on top of him and starts to panic before realizing she’s a woman, is soooo suggestive of repression to me. Like, first off because it’s incorrect, he was also okay with Griffith going in for a face-grab after winning a duel Guts had been projecting his rape trauma all over, which seems like a pretty conspicuous omission. And secondly because the reason he was okay with Casca’s touch specifically is solely because she’s a woman, not because she’s special or because they have a magic romantic connection - it’s because she’s not a man. To me that just screams that Guts was open to sex with Casca because she’s the only woman he knows, and he’s afraid of the idea of physical intimacy with men, regardless of what he might actually want deep down.

So yeah that’s basically how I feel about Guts and Casca’s relationship, strong agree with you.

When it comes to Miura’s intent, I can tell you that Miura was asked about the subtext in an interview once, back in 2000, and he responded with something along the lines of ‘two men can have passionate feelings for each other without it being romantic.’ The interview is here, but this is a paraphrase the translator mentioned in the comments.

Other than that I’ve never seen him address it directly, but on the flipside he has cited several textually gay stories as inspiration (off the top of my head: Kaze to Ki no Uta, Devilman, Guin Saga, mangaka Moto Hagio in general), and he has straightforwardly said that the (magical intersex) central character of his other work, Duranki, was intended to have romances with both male and female love interests. Also people tell me there are strong griffguts vibes with the main, presumably canon or intended-to-be-canon ship there. So there’s that lol.

As for the no homo aspect and the potential homophobia in the griffguts subtext... I can’t deny I’ve also considered the idea that it’s a deliberate anti-gay PSA (though I haven’t seen anyone else address the idea as far as I remember, and I’ve only briefly mentioned it offhandedly). Like, Guts and Griffith’s relationship turns bad because they’re both too invested in each other, maybe the barely-subtextual desire is meant to look like a sinister twisting of pure platonic feelings that ruins everything, if Griffith hadn’t loved him the Eclipse never would have happened, etc.

But honestly I don’t think that reading holds up compared to a much more positive reading of their feelings, in which it’s their failure to understand them and act on them, thanks largely to formative childhood trauma and self-hatred, that leads to tragedy.

I don’t know what Miura intended, and there certainly are aspects of the story that are homophobic regardless of his intent, even if my best-faith reading is entirely correct, like the only textual gay attraction being pedophiles and over the top heretic orgies lol, or yk, Guts and Griffith both assaulting the same woman while looking at/thinking about the other in a very sexually charged way.

But the reading of their relationship where it’s positive and good for both of them, even including sexual desire, and only gets fucked up because they both incorrectly think their feelings are unrequited is legitimately so weirdly strong, much stronger than a reading where the sexual nature of their feelings is what fucks everything up, so I’m pretty happy just rolling with that take.

And as much as Casca can be seen and may very well be intended as a no homo, it’s also very easy for me to read her relationships with both as less of a hopeful opportunity for positive heterosexual romance and more of a “here’s how repressing your feelings thru attempts at heterosexuality fucks you up” PSA lol. Griffith and Charlotte too, for that matter. It’s definitely a stretch to think that’s intended, but whether it’s intended or not it’s an easy sell for me and I’m fine with not really worrying too much about possible authorial intent there.

Finally, I also want to link this post that goes pretty thoroughly into why I interpret griffguts as very positive rather than as a cautionary tale or predatory gay lust etc

And also have this shorter post about Femto on the same subject too, why not

Oh and maybe this thing where I split hairs about Guts’ lust for Griffith and desire for revenge to make a point that the homoeroticism isn’t necessarily being equated with violence by the narrative lol

#ask #a #b #anonymous #theme: repression #theme: homoeroticism #interviews #ship: griffguts #ship: gtsca #theme: homophobia #theme: heteronormativity

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demonslayedher · 4 years ago

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Your content on Kny is interesting, being a Kny fan I would like to share a cusiority. During the final battle did you notice that the Hashira were passive about the death of some? When Shinobu died only Tanjiro had a reaction because of how busy he was; Mitsuri didn't seem sad and when Iguro remembered who died in the middle of the final battle he didn't even mention her. What did you think? It would have been nice if Gotouge had shown us what the Hashira's thought when the others died

[cont.] I'm the anonymous person who asked you the question about the Hashira who fell in the fight, Tumblr makes people write very little. Apart from Tanjiro they seemed cold to me, even for Tokito; the only one affected was Himejima; when always Iguro mentioned him during the clash with Muzan it was like he was thinking normally. There wasn't time to mourn for the dead but I was expecting a slightly deeper reaction. Anyway for Shinobu yes there was Inosuke and Kanao but the pillars are important too

Thank you for the Ask, time to get into it! This served as a good excuse to flip back through of a lot of the later volumes... or rather, a huge chunk of the series. Short Answer: I don’t think Mitsuri knew about Shinobu’s death. Longer Answer: A walk-through of the Pillars’ situations in the final showdown and a partial analysis of Kimetsu-style story pacing.

Disclaimer: I finished this around 2am. I chose to leave it rambling and unedited and typo-ridden. HAVE MY FEELS, I’M DISHING THEM.

(Disclaimer: This isn’t meant to be a plug for my own fics, but since they are born out of my emotional experience of canon, mentions will make their way in. U fu fu.) First, absolutely yes on there being no time to mourn. From the moment the Ubuyashiki Mansion blows up in volume 16 to the actual end of the fighting in volume 23, that is one hell of a night; this final arc(s) had NO CHILL. Like, wow. It’s been a long time since I followed another battle-driven manga, but that seems like a lot, especially for a relatively short series. And I was initially happy to dismiss all the lack of satisfying sadness as being due to the fact that they are in *PANIC MODE* and entirely focused on fighting, but that is also not necessarily the case; they do come off slightly cold. I want to touch a bit on what we want to see the characters mourn each other, but also why I think it works out a bit better that we didn’t; from a purely narrative standpoint. LET THEM BE SAD: Parasocial Needs Science says we form bonds with fictional characters that affect our brains in very similar and impactful ways, so our feelings are legit when they get killed off. It affects us like a breakup or other goodbye and makes us crave closure. As for my own assumptions, we look for proxy characters in-universe to give those characters we love the attention we wish to; their sadness validates our sadness, watching them get emotional can be super cathartic, and a good mourning arc can provide satisfying closure. This is something we got with Rengoku, canonically loved by like, everyone. Hell, even the guy who killed him was sad. Just to rub salt into it, the most recent fanbook that includes a section about how the Pillars see each other, and it drives home that even if we never saw much or any canon interaction between him and any other given character, they’re all like, “Oh yeah, Rengoku, he’s a great guy.” And, he’s the only character we really get space to mourn, pacing-wise. First, because of when it happens in the plot, this gives the story time to show us each and everyone one of the Pillars hearing the news; it gives them times to process it (which Tokitou clearly needed), and most of us, it takes us in depth through how it affects Tanjirou, our main character whose emotions that we, the readers, are most in touch with. Rengoku got star treatment in the way he was mourned, and we readers get to lap that up. So then when we don’t get that in-universe star mourning treatment, it does feel a bit jarring by comparison. Gotouge did say she was sorry to hurt everyone, but these are the conditions the little humans were up against all along and a point driven home again and again; even with power on par with demons through the attainment of a mark; even Pillars are just breakable humans who will never be able to regenerate like demons can, hence why their stakes are so much higher in every battle they go into. Furthermore, the Pillars are more ready for this than anyone else, they of all the characters would be the best at keeping their emotions in check in the heat of a battle. Which means they had to keep them in check for seven volumes of near constant battle, love it or hate it. KIMETSU LOGIC: The Writing Sins That Make This Manga What It Is I could go on and on and on and on about the writing sins this manga commits and how it shows that it’s Gotouge’s first time writing something of this length. In manga not all of it can be blamed on the author alone because the editors have a very significant influence, but yeah, this is not the most amazingly crafted story out there, by a long shot. Would I change any of it, though? Well, a few things, yes, of course, out of personal preference. But on the whole, no. It’s the collective errors that stamp KnY with its style and make it what it is, and I find it as endearing as all the randomly super goofy art. Now, when it comes to the lack of Pillars reacting to new of each others’ deaths, I wouldn’t necessarily classify that itself as a fault, and if I were Gotouge’s editor, I probably would have encouraged her to keep it to a minimum too. After all, I would be considered with selling a new shot of tension with every week’s installment to keep any readers from getting bored with the constant battle. And dang it, THAT TENSION WAS HIGH, those battles were remarkably emotional and tense through and through. The breaks in tension that we got were necessarily and not distracting, with the notable exception of Iguro’s past. That was clumsy placement. I’ll be honest, I didn’t bond with Iguro as much as a character because he lost his earlier chances to be appealing to me, and by the time the chapter with his flashback came out, I DIDN’T CARE, I waited anxiously all week to see what was happening to Tanjiro and was invested enough to have an appetite for the additional Sumiyoshi and Yoriichi bits, but dang it, Snake Pillar was getting in the way of what my emotions were primed for at that point. But, such is the way of fickle weekly readers; with THAT MUCH tension going on, readers crave a little breather here and there with a look at who else might taking in a breather in a flashback. We got bits and pieces of that mostly through flashback, like Tamayo’s memories of conversation with Shinobu experienced in real time through Muzan, as well as in-real-time moments with the characters having very slight chances to catch their breath (no pun intended). But, how well those breaths worked depending on each character, and how the readers’ emotions were getting slammed week to week. Just like how I as a weekly reader (by that point) had no appetite for an Iguro flashback while eager to move forward, there likewise would have been limited appetite for mourning, and we’re stuck with who we got as proxy characters to react through. ACTION, REACTION: The Rhythm of Basic Writing Advice It has often been said that in writing, something should happen in a scene, and the next scene should be a reaction to it. In the next scene something new happens, and likewise, there is a reaction. We could also thing of this as stages within the same scene, like the part when the music changes or the moment the battle has ended but we’re still on the battlefield. In Rengoku’s case, we got one big happening, and then a whole lot of reaction drizzled through the story after that. In the Infinity Fortress case, we get a big happening with the Ubuyashiki Mansion blowing up and then--a big happening!--a big happening!--a big happening--! A--uh oh, there’s a reactio---NEVERMIND, THINGS ARE STILL HAPPENING, GOTOUGE, PLEASE, THIS HURTS, OW, OW, HOW ARE YOU SO CRUEL, WE GET IT, THIS SITUATION IS AWFUL, PLEASE STOP HURTING THEM---

The reactions are there, scattered throughout. They’re short, but they sure make themselves count. While Tanjirou is our Empathy Personified hero, it’s natural that we get more of his reactions, but the lack of them in other characters is, I would say, a natural fault of having a huge cast to work with it. Once you start dragging too many other characters into the reactions, the actions have trouble moving forward, and with the level of seven volumes worth of tension it’s the actions that keep readers hooked and buying magazines. THEY’RE ONLY CORVIDS, OK: Now We’re Actually Looking At Canon Details Now that all being said, although it’s easy to dismiss a lot of Kimetsu Logic as amateurish at first, on further reflection, the little worldbuilding logic does excuse itself for not plunging each of the characters into a period of reaction to actions happening elsewhere. Not all the birds had Yushiro’s papers. Not all birds were created equal. It’s really hard to navigate that place. Ergo, communication was probably highly imperfect; not all the crows knew everything going on. We don’t feel that as readers because we’re seeing Kiriya and his sisters get all the available communications. In Iguro and Mitsuri’s case in particular, I suspect that might not even had been Mitsuri’s crow (as that one has a distinct personality and accessory) giving her orders to gather where Muzan is. It was probably any old down-to-business crow working with the information it had as clearly as it could in the battle that was most difficult to physically navigate. If Mitsuri’s crow (named Urara in the most recent fanbook) had been there, I imagine she’d have been having difficulty that whole time to even stay within a close range of that battle. Furthermore, a crow like that with a strong bond with Mitsuri might had also judged that telling her about Shinobu’s death was a dangerous distraction, and chosen to withhold information. The fanbook specifies that Iguro’s crow Yuuan was the one who told him about how Tokitou got a red blade (in fact, this is basically the only thing said of this crow besides its name and gender). To able to report in such detail that Iguro could analyze that Tokitou attained the red blade by the strength of his grip, that probably quite an accomplishment to have either witnessed that much, or to pass on crucial information that detailed and quickly. At that time, Iguro and Mitsuri were physically separated and she was distracted by the crow giving her orders to gather where Muzan was, so she might not even have overheard that Tokitou had died. As for Iguro, the second fanbook tells us that because Tokitou was young he had hoped he wouldn’t die. There was no opportunity to mourn him, and they weren’t close enough for that to throw him off much from battle, but on a Pillar to Pillar level, I think the amount of thought Iguro did dedicated to Tokitou showed a certain level of esteem for him and regret at this passing. What would have been nice? Maybe a little look over his shoulder to Mitsuri like “I hope she didn’t hear that.” That would have revealed a tender side of Iguro in a very short use of panels. I want to come back to analyzing Mitsuri’s reaction later, so let’s keep focusing on the loss of Tokitou. Once he attained more of his sense of self back, it seems he preferred the company of Corp Members closed to him in age (if we go by his little flashbacks, which in true Kimetsu Logic, are things we didn’t know about until they come up in flashbacks). Most of the Pillars weren’t especially close with him, even if they did care about his wellbeing, as they seemed particular aware of how young he was. Sanemi probably had never interacted much with Tokitou until that battle, and *OKAY, HERE IT IS, THE UPCOMING FANFIC SELF-PLUG* one of the things I really liked working with in my post-canon fic is that there’s a point at which thinking about Tokitou forces Sanemi to deal with all the trauma he’s buried from that battle. I figure it would hit him later; he had a good excuse of a distraction. Ugh. Man. My heart hurts again thinking of that chapter. Let’s also not forget, after Himejima showed his respects for Tokitou both quickly and sincerely, he couldn’t allow Sanemi to deal with Genya’s death until after everything was over. All the Pillars had to think like this. What would had been nice? I liked this reaction scene to two simultaneous and horrific deaths exactly as it was. Ow. Ahhhh. Owwwwww, it’s hurting again. This is catharsis exactly the way I like it. Let’s keep going with Himejima, the only one to have known to expect all this, and who stayed ready and likely hoped to bring down Muzan all by himself without any other sacrifices (welp, so much for that). There’s a scene in the novels that implies he had some idea that Shinobu wasn’t intending to make it out of the upcoming battle(s) alive, and I imagine he felt the same regret and bitter acceptance in advance that he also felt with Ubuyashiki. If we heard the news about Shinobu like Tanjirou and Giyuu did, I imagine he was hurt but it wouldn’t have been noticeable, and he probably would not be surprised even at how quickly it happened. What would had been nice? Anything. Just a “How pitiful” and some tears as he runs through the halls woulda’ been great. So since Giyuu did hear it loud and clear with Tanjirou, I first want to point out that whether that was Tanjirou’s crow or not (might not had been, because his crow was busy with a letter delivery from Senjurou at the time too), that crow must had loved to shared details; maybe even details that were not necessary. Like, would telling the lower level Corp members everything really help? Wouldn’t the loss of each Pillar make them lose their nerve? Was it because that crow was wearing one of Yushiro’s papers that it had to report extra detail for Ubuyashiki HQ? Whatever the case, Giyuu is initially shocked about Shinobu and then is like, “what is that paper the crow has? It sure is reporting things fast.” What would have been nice? ANYTHING MORE THAN ONE PANEL OF SHOCK. Come on, Giyuu, give the GiyuuShino shippers S O M E T H I N G. Granted, if Tanjirou had been killed in battle with Akaza, I believe Giyuu would have had an initial outburst of emotion, but then gotten himself under control real quick and stayed that way until it was safe to break down (which he did immediately later on, since the threat was gone--but he was just as soon picking up a sword and stabbing him, so again, Pillar-mode must come before experiencing emotions). I interpret canon as that even though Giyuu might had found it easily to address Shinobu in conversation due to frequency in how much they had conversed and the fact that she would usually talk to him first, he would never had considered himself especially close with her (since he never saw himself close with any of the Pillars). I feel their relationship had potential to grow closer if Giyuu had actually gone out of his way to communicate more with her, and he probably would had if they both survived, but at the time she died he probably still felt a distance, which is why it did him harder when Tanjirou--someone who Giyuu did actually get to a point of enjoying conversation with--was dead right in front of him. (Side not, oh man, OH MAN, being a weekly reader was so tough then. I still have so many emotions from that week. Oh man. Oof. Ouch.)

Of note, Giyuu had the best opportunity for reflection on a comrade’s death since he had enough recovery time once he woke up to build a fire and treat wounds, and Tanjirou took that chance to read a letter.

What would have been nice? AGAIN, GIYUU, ANYTHING, but after that battle I think he deserved to disassociate a bit. Also of note, I don’t know that they had complete information either, because NO ONE (by “no one” I mean Tanjirou and Inosuke) seemed to hear anything about Zenitsu single-handedly killing Upper Moon Six and surviving it. What would had been nice: “Good for you, Zenitsu, I hope you’re okay” or “Six? Again? Didn’t we already do that? There was a third??” or “well I got Upper Moon Two SO THERE” or “..........are you sure?” or even way, way after all is said and done, off in epilogue times, “you fought WHO by YOURSELF???” but I digress. Now back to Shinobu, losing her so early on in this marathon of high-stakes battles made her death seem forever ago by the time we got to another Pillar death. It would had been nice for more of them to react both with “no, not Shinobu!” and “we are in deep trouble” sort of ways. That made the glimpses we got of her in flashback feel way, way more nostalgic, since for our experiences as readers, she had already been gone a very long time. I like that the battle with Douma got stretched over so long a span of the manga, they really showed the stakes in how difficult of a foe he was, even if that battle was itself was relatively shorter than others. And as stand-ins for the readers to mourn Shinobu, I love how we got that both through Kanao and through Inosuke. But yes, it sure would had been nice to get something from... Mitsuri. Now, if I had only read the events of canon, manga chapter to manga chapter, and even the Taisho Secrets, I still never would have guessed that Shinobu and Mitsuri had such a warm friendship. I know this purely from the fanbooks and novels, and that is something I find a writing error that detracts a lot from the work. Some of the most apt criticism I’ve heard of the Kimetsu pacing is that it could have stood to give us one of more arc to bond with the characters at least a little more, so we could really, really be emotional over loosing them. We get all our spare Pillar interactions in works outside of canon and after Tanjirou initially gets to know Shinobu, he has no more on-screen interactions with her; she mostly appears in Taisho Secrets. Pillar Training was fun and all, but maybe another arc with stakes in it that occurs closer to home and brings out some different sides of the Pillars in Tanjirou’s presence, instead of each of them getting one dance each with our protagonist. That would had been a chance to show Shinobu and Mitsuri’s friendship, in which case, we would had really, really wanted to see Mitsuri’s reaction. But, Mitsuri had a job to do in the very, very, very heavy tension and battles that ran in weekly magazines for months on end. She carried the very heavy weight of needing to provide brevity. Her silliness contrasted against all that tension was fresh air for readers who had been holding their breath (no pun intended! kinda) through so much. And man, our reliance on her for that made it hurt all the more when things suddenly got very serious for her. But, that means she was also unable to play a heavy emotional role too early on. There wasn’t room to give her a satisfyingly emotional reaction to Shinobu or Tokitou; when after all, this is the girl who was fretting about dearly beloved Oyakata-sama, was horrified to see the explosion, angirly attacked Muzan, but was saved from certain doom almost immediately after she was taken by surprise in the Infinity Fortress, and then she’s BACK TO 100% FANGIRL MODE. Like, giiiiiiiiiirl, Oyakata-sama just diiiiiiied, tone it down a notch. I feel like I had more to say. OH YEAH. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?: To fanfic, duh. Going back to reaction and action and producing something with sellable pacing, again, I wouldn’t risk bogging down the tension-heavy final arc with too much open sadness (less is more definitely applies when the reaction scenes were often SO GOOD), but it clearly set up the desire for it. And, the length and intensity with which a work of fiction can live rent-free in audiences’ minds is a measure of its success. If we MUST turn to fanfiction to get that emotional closure (or force the Pillars to get theirs), then this is proof of a job well done in making us care. Herein lies the freedom with fanfiction: It doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to sell. It doesn’t have to fit a regular serialized format. Fanfic is whatever it wants, all it has to do is indulgently scratch an itch. I have way more stomach for sappiness in fanfic than in original canon, because I have higher expectations of canon to honor writing conventions, and to make decisions that will serve the overall story, not necessarily cater to my tastes. But fanfic? Fanfic, you are here to serve me. Dive into those characters’ dry eyes with a jackhammer and gives me their tears. I don’t care how much you have to fry their brains to do it, give it to me. I mean, I don’t write fanfic like that, noooo. At least, not that I post publicly. Ssh. No one needs to know aaaaaall my particular canon itches I wish to have picked raw. But all the more power to people who DO post that publicly and provide a great service to all the other people with that same need. But, in the spirit of writing fic that tries to honor the spirit of canon, I try to sprinkle the juicy emotional potential canon could have had around as needed, to draw out what I feel canon just didn’t have the opportunity to give us. It’s ultimately self-servicing for what I wish canon would had done, but my style of published fic does try to stay widely appealing as a gen fic. Everybody’s got their own balances and tastes, and that’s cool. And that is freedom canon authors don’t have. I’ll conclude by saying that, although we as readers collectively earned it, the ending of Kimetsu no Yaiba was too bright and happy and specifically chose bittersweet moments that would be easy to swallow (pretty smart for a quick ending), but entirely skipped all the really heavy stuff in the immediate aftermath.

And yes, as difficult (and even dull) as it would be to slog through, there’s a part of me that wants to see all that, for the sake of closure.

And now I sleep byyyyezzzzzzzzz

#KnY fandom theories and meta #KnY Spoilers #tw death #KnY nerdery #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer

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malachi-walker · 4 years ago

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thought: I know almost nobody would think this unironically because it’s utterly fucking deranged, but the unfortunate implicative intersection between “the fiction you consume and create is indicative of your morality” and “a proper redemption arc for Catra would’ve ended with her dying” is “if you realize that you have done bad things in the past and want to redeem yourself, the first step is to kill yourself”, which, uhhh,,,,,, yeah

Ok, fair warning, I am really tired thanks to several days of family emergency, so I am incapable of gauging how coherent this is. Also please note there is some vitriol, but it's not meant to be directed at everyone who dislikes Catra, just that special brand of anti who decides liking Catra is a good reason for them to pass judgement on you and make sure you know you're scum. Pissbabies, basically.

But sadly I do think this is something that carries over into reality more than anyone wants to admit, especially when you consider how often sacrificing your life is considered to be an ultimate expression of good and not a tragic waste of human potential in spite of what it accomplishes. Or--and this is just the one that's affected me most personally since the tender age of 12--the double standard of how men are allowed to do awful shit like aid in totalitarian conquest, burn villages, and nearly kill the hero (looking at you, Zuko) but their redemption arcs are accepted and hailed as narrative brilliance whereas a female character who does the same from an equally if not worse background of abuse is an awful bitch who should just be left to die. And again, I was 14 the first time someone told my parents right in front of me that I was just a lost cause and they should give up on me, without even knowing anything about me beyond me being a troublemaker with emotional problems beyond what a pep talk could fix, so despite how deranged the implication is it IS something that has real world carry over. The kind of carry over that tells a 14 year old responding badly to a lifetime of abuse at the hands of her murderous birth father that she's just evil and should be given up on because she'll never get better even though she's only just now getting a shot at therapy. Yeah. That happened to me personally. (Did I mention I grew up in the bible belt?)

But back to narrative stuff. The problem with the redemption = death trope is that it only has a net outcome of (and that's if done correctly, a lot of uses fuck it up regardless) cancelling out the bad you did in the past, but also leaves someone incapable of creating any further good and thus taking that score from a neutral zero into positive digits. And it is very much a cultural double standard that you see everywhere narratively, but I don't know about you, but even in situations where it would be absolutely the only option I would still see it as a horrible waste of potential future good.

Also those people conveniently forget that if Catra had died, no one would have stopped Adora's sacrifice. So whether or not you believe Catra's survival is a net positive (I obviously do) calling for her death because of that bullshit double standard does pay massive negative dividends down the line, where Adora at best dies heroically and wastefully against Prime to be hailed as a hero but never get a chance to live a happy life for herself or at worst fails completely due to the poison and the Heart of Etheria ends up in Prime's hands to skullfuck the entire universe with. In fact, the fact that they both survive is a perfect refutation of the narrative concept of sacrifice being a positive under any circumstances. It's a waste, whether it's Catra dying after getting a chance to finally do some good but being unable to or Adora sacrificing everything without ever getting to live for herself because the hero always has to give everything.

Oh, and that whole "fiction consumed being indicative of your morality" thing? If they're saying my morals are trying to give people a second chance to make some good out of their lives instead of just killing them and taking the neutral or negative, then those are morals I'd be pretty damn proud of to stand by. Because I've been there. Because I've been a bad person and done my best to become better, and maybe I would have been able to do it better if everyone around me didn't insist on constantly punishing me for it instead of trying to understand me. And because it's easy as fuck to sit on your ivory tower judging everyone below... Right up until you're the one falling to the ground and hoping someone gives you a hand up before you splatter. And frankly I don't buy that correlation to begin with, so it's already a flawed argument. If there were a correlation between morality and the media you consume, for one there would be a hell of a lot more serial killers running around considering the true crime genre exploded a few years ago and is now more popular than it's ever been in history.

But let's be real here. None of these people are actually considering the overall implications of the view they're espousing. They're just pissy because the mean catgirl didn't get murdered (except she did. And only survived via deus ex She-ra) and will come up with any faux-intellectual argument for why they're right and anyone happy with Catra's redemption is wrong because they can't fathom a world with grey areas or no clear right or wrong answer that they can't fall into. Honestly, this purity rhetoric reminds me of something...

But I'm not surprised that point would escape those people.

#fuck I'm sorry to get on my soapbox #but my grandad's in the hospital and might be dying and i am so fucking DONE with the bullshit #just admit you don't like catra and use the block tag #it's not that hard #provided you don't hang your entire sense of selfworth on always being in the moral 'right'#in which case you have a fine future career in evangelism ahead of you because that's the only place where you have one #anyway sorry op if you expected something better but I am so tired I can feel my bones #answer #personal

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spiders-hth-is-an-outlier · 4 years ago

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Today in Strongly Worded Opinions (That You Didn't Ask For), I'm going to assert that there are too objective ways to measure whether or not a relationship is strong in story terms – by which I mean, unrelated to whether or not readers/viewers personally like the dynamic or the chemistry of the actors (in such cases as there are actors involved).

So for the sake of clarity, be ye advised: this isn't about shipping, fuck it, ship whatever you want idc. Shipping a strong relationship isn't inherently better than shipping a weak one – heck, you could just as easily argue that it's the lazier, less creative route. Also, I don't care? I don't care, it's just fandom. Follow your arrow. This is about ways to discuss whether or not a relationship introduced into a text succeeds or fails as an element of the story – or really as I'm going to prefer calling it, if a given relationship forms a strong or weak story element.

For this I'm presuming that you're creating a relationship between a protagonist and a secondary character introduced as a piece of the protagonist's overall story – protagonist/protagonist relationships aren't really a different situation, but they do have more moving parts, so for simplicity's sake, let's stick with a Main Character (we'll call that M) and a Significant Other (S for short). Also, these relationships by no means have to be romantic; any relationship can be measured as weak or strong in story terms.

Also, I'm going to say everything here as though it were factually true, even though it's just my opinion, which is correct, but if you disagree then it's only my opinion, but I am correct. Ready? Okay!

Strong relationships have story functions; in reality nothing means anything and people just like each other because they do, but fuck reality, it's a huge narrative mess. And my basic premise here is that the story function of a strong relationship falls under one (or more, if you wanna get real fancy) of these three categories:

The relationship can unlock under-explored elements of M's story or character through mirroring or intimacy (often shows up as “friends to lovers”). There is backstory that hasn't been unearthed yet, or some reaction or experience in M's life that could advance the story, and S can serve as a means to get at it. Maybe M and S share a similar trauma or life story; maybe S is the first person M feels able to open up to about something profound and relevant. Maybe part of M's story is a conflict between how they seem to others and how they see themselves or their own potential; maybe S is the person who sees them the way they see themselves...or sees M as the person they're afraid they'll never be. The story goal being met here is giving M a boost toward successful completion of their story arc, so even though there could be conflict, S is fundamentally pulling on the same side as M in the major story conflicts, in such a way that by the end, the reader should feel like M's success is at least in part because of what they gain from their relationship with S.

The relationship can function as a piece of the story's overall conflict, or as a secondary subplot conflict (often shows up as “enemies to lovers”). Traditional romance novel plotting effectively slots the love interest into the role of “antagonist,” because the romance's conflict is generally driven by people not getting what they want from each other until certain win conditions are met. In this kind of relationship, M and S might be actual-facts competitors, or be divided by ideological concerns, or they might be forced into proximity by the plot but clash on some personality level. The arc of this relationship is typically going to be about the M softening up as the relationship develops – if M starts out ruthlessly single-minded, maybe realizing that they're running roughshod over S in the process is part of their character breakthrough; if the story is about M realizing that they've underestimated the complexity of the world around them, maybe coming to recognize S as an equal is how that gets concretized for the reader. Basically this is a story where S presents a problem that M has to solve, and the more central to the narrative solving that problem is, the stronger the relationship is.

The relationship can serve to divide M's goals (often shows up as “love versus duty”). This is a story where M has to accomplish two separate things in order to fulfill their arc, but those two things aren't easily integrated. One of M's goals might be fulfilling a vow, or filial duty, or seeking revenge, and the other goal is some form of protecting or obtaining S. If the story puts M in a position of having to choose, then the relationship is inherently strong; it's providing narrative drive, whether or not S is especially well-developed as an individual character. This one can be tricky, because a very weak relationship can serve a superficially similar purpose, by demonstrating M's devotion to duty or obsessive pursuit of whatever when M rebuffs S to keep them out of harm's way or to avoid distraction or whatever. The difference is that in those superficial cases, the audience is meant to recognize that aw, that's sad, M has really had to Make Sacrifices – but there's really no dramatic tension involved; we know all along that M is going to Make Sacrifices in purusit of the real goal. When this is done seriously with a strong relationship, the audience is meant to feel divided as well; Romeo and Juliet just doesn't work as a story unless the audience likes Juliet and Mercutio, unless they fully identify with the dilemma that Romeo is in when he has to either avenge Mercutio's death or spare Tybalt for Juliet's sake and the sake of their future together. That's a big fucking story moment, and it only works because the audience buys both relationships – Romeo's with Mercutio and with Juliet – as narratively strong, to the point where Romeo's choice is not a forgone conclusion. This one is much easier to get wrong, I think, than the other two are!

What I'm saying here is that a strong relationship isn't really determined by how personally compatible two characters seem to be; a lot of movies that fridge a character's wife, for example, rely on actors convincingly portraying, in a brief window of time, two compatible people who care for each other – I'm thinking of, like, Richard Kimble and his wife in The Fugitive, who I think do sell the idea of a loving and happy marriage, but the relationship itself is a weak one. The story only really needs the bare fact of it – “Kimble had a wife that he loved and then this happened” – to kick off the actual story; the relationship between Kimble and Gerard is a stronger one narratively, because much of the emotional tension of the movie, what makes it more effective than just a series of chase scenes, is the way their mutual respect evolves as they compete against each other, and the story question of “Kimble really needs an ally, is this the right person for him to trust?” It's such a strong relationship that it comes as a huge relief of tension when he does make that gesture of trust and it turns out to be the right choice. The audience is happy that Kimble will be exonerated, but the audience is equally happy that the conflict between these two charcters is over – we didn't like them being at odds because we didn't want either of them to lose! Now, would these two people ever be close friends, let alone come to love each other? No? Yes? Who cares? Kimble loves his wife more, but has a stronger relationship in this story with Gerard. From a writing perspective, it's trivially easy to introduce an S and say “M loves this person,” but it means relatively little. It's harder to introduce an S and say “some part of this story now hinges on how M navigates knowing this person,” but that's kind of what has to happen in order to create a payoff that's worth the effort. A strong relationship provides skeletal structure for the story; it can't be stitched on at the margins.

This is an even tougher sell in something like a television series, where the introduction of S may come in well after the story is underway and the bulk of M's characterization is already in place. That's why introducing a late-season love interest is a notoriously dodgy proposition! To demonstrate weak vs strong relationship in action, I'm going to take an example of what I think was a failed attempt and pitch some ways to doctor it up into a strong relationship: Sam Winchester and Eileen Leahy.

This is objectively a weak relationship. She doesn't materially affect the metaplot of the series, or drive any major choices, or reveal anything about Sam's character. She's just, you know, generally nice and attractive and Sam likes her, which is a fine start, but then the writers just leave her idling in the garage forever. But it didn't have to be that way! Say we wanted to make it a Type 1 relationship: super easy, barely an inconvenience! Eileen is very like Sam, actually, in that she lost her parents as an infant and then had the entire rest of her life shaped by the trauma and the pursuit of revenge. That's amazing. How many other people, even hunters, share that specific experience with Sam Winchester? Sam was physically changed by drinking demon blood in infancy; Eileen was physically changed by being deafened by the banshee or whatever it was in infancy. Even just allowing them to talk about that would have made the relationship stronger. Sam is affected by the fact that there is no Before Time for him; even now that they've long since had their revenge on ol' Yellow Eyes himself, he grapples with the fact that he's forever robbed of any memories of innocence or safety or a life that wasn't lived in the shadow of this killing. Eileen also has had her life's quest for revenge fulfilled, and also has to reckon with the fact that it doesn't actually give her access to the innocence that was stolen from her. Maybe she struggles with that. Maybe Sam can open up to her because she knows what it's like to look back on your child self and feel that however strong you've made yourself, you're never strong enough to protect that child.

What if you want to write something spicier than Sam and Eileen talking about their sad feelings? Okay, let's take a Type 2 story. Eileen has been a lone hunter with a disability all her life; it's fair to guess that even if she can't match Sam's physical strength, the fact that she's survived at all means that she's pretty indomitable. Maybe she's had to be ruthless, even brutal in her hunting style; maybe she has a shoot-first-ask-questions-never approach to hunting that she credits with her very survival, but that Sam finds excessively rash and bloody. Maybe they fight about it. Have her kill some ambiguous, maybe-not-dangerous monstery types, a werewolf or something, and Sam's like, hey, we really can't just-- and Eileen is like, look, I hunt how I hunt, come with me or don't. I mean, this is a retread in some ways of early season conflicts about who to kill and when, but everything in the latter seasons is a retread anyway, so whatever, and it provides something interesting to have Sam deal with this whiplash of how there seem to be two Eileens, the smiley, jocular sweetheart who eats pancakes with him and the one who kills like she's swatting flies. What if he wants one but not the other? It doesn't really work that way, does it? Is this something he can dismiss as a foible, or is this a dealbreaker? The dude is almost forty, if he distances himself from Eileen, how many more hunters does he think he has a chance to meet and marry? If she won't even listen to his concerns seriously, is it really a good relationship anyway, or will Sam's needs always end up taking a backseat to Eileen's?

A Type 3 fix could just come down quite plainly to, what if Eileen is ready to retire? She's had her revenge. She's lived her life on the hunt. Maybe she's done, and maybe she wants Sam to be done with her. Doing this in season 15 would circle Sam back to his season 1 story conflicts in a nice way, I think – why does Sam do this at all, if it's not for revenge any longer? Does he feel personally responsible for every dead person he could've saved but didn't – is that a reasonable boundary, or lack thereof, to set? Is a compromise possible – could he continue to coordinate hunts while also getting out of the field and starting a family, or is that still putting his family in the shadow of too much violence and danger to tolerate? What's Dean going to say? He's pitched a fit in the past when Sam said he wanted out, but he's mellowed with age, hasn't he? Maybe he'll get it now? But maybe Sam also feels guilty and fearful, because he knows Dean will hunt without him, so now he's in more danger because of Sam's choices, if Sam makes this choice. It's a little heteronormative, as story conflicts go, but it's thematically appropriate to Supernatural, and the fact that Eileen isn't speaking out of timidity but out of the same weariness that Sam has so often felt about the whole endless cycle makes it feel a little less “the little lady won't let me go on adventures anymore.” This might not be my pick of the three, but the point is that it makes for a strong conflict, a legitimate divided loyalty for Sam to wrestle with, and one that doesn't have a clear right answer.

Anyway, hopefully that helps illustrate what I mean when I say that the narrative strength of a relationship doesn't have anything to do with how likeable an S character is – Eileen is very likeable! But that doesn't substitute for building her into the fabric of the story in some way. My expectation is that a serious protagonist relationship should bend the story arc in a way that requires response, and if it doesn't, I don't take that relationship particularly seriously. Canon can declare a relationship real by fiat, but it can't automatically declare a relationship meaningful without, you know, making meaning of it.

Oh, and there's not anything really wrong with weak relationships – most M's are going to have several in the story. My point is just that the difference between a weak relationship and a strong one isn't really a matter of taste or preference, but has a functional meaning that can be tested and measured, and if there's argument to be had about it, the argument can take place on evidentiary grounds. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

#apparently i give writing advice now?

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rantaire · 4 years ago

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i’ve watched approximately 4 episodes of supernatural but when you live on tumblr for years you are always spn-adjacent. we have no choice but to absorb it by osmosis because it’s just that massive. i feel like i know a lot about the show from fandom, and many of my fandom friends were in it at some point. i also work in entertainment media so i’ve been tracking all the updates in its final year. and i have to say that even after years of disappointments from movies and tv, this one seems particularly egregious?

here’s the thing. there’s so often a divide between the fever-dream of shipping and what we actually get in canon. and we know this. we’re not stupid, or gullible. people in fandom engage with the narrative on a level most critics could never dream.

even though many of us recognize that our beloved ships from giant properties won’t go canon because they are embedded in giant global blockbusters created by megacorporations, in recent years there seems to also be a trend of bad endings that not only work to crush these ships but make for awful storytelling and act dismissive of their own canon. and I’m tired of it.

maybe steve/bucky would never happen, but steve abandoning his traumatized best friend that he’d fought actual wars for in order to go back in time for a woman who moved on with her life without him? crap. star wars not even attempting finnpoe despite the actors’ encouragement, and giving poe a random half-assed love interest because, oh look, a girl? we can be angry about these things, and we can and should demand better and broader representation. if nothing else, at least tell a better story.

why spn’s finale feels so unsettling to me as a non-fan is that even i came to believe the tide might be turning, just a little bit. fandom is more mainstream and recognized than ever. our ships and our transformative works are discussed in big media outlets. actors and creatives acknowledge fic and retweet fanart. actors and creatives acknowledge how vital it is for people to see themselves reflected and represented in media. and it seemed to me, as a sideline observer, that supernatural appreciated its fanbase and understood how important dean and castiel’s relationship was, and how beloved castiel was as a character on his own. to have him not appear in the last episode at all is unconscionable to me, and i have never seen him in an episode! this is how much impact the character had that’s filtered down.

i watched the reactions a few weeks ago of mixed euphoria and dismay after castiel’s love confession and subsequent disappearance into “super hell.” that didn’t seem great, message-wise, but it was a step that felt significant, it meant a lot to many people, and it probably would not have happened without fandom and their tireless cheerleading and enthusiasm. it seemed like maybe they were really building to something.

and so even though i knew in my dead withered critic’s heart of hearts that we wouldn’t be getting a destiel kiss, i thought that spn might be brave enough to give their fans a final gift—a thanks for everything. have dean and cas drive off in that damned car whose name i know because i live on tumblr. end with them smiling at each other. something. i know the pandemic came into play, but other actors appeared, and even castiel’s voice could have been literally phoned in.

instead, from the anger and pain and incredulous memes i’m seeing from people across social media, it appears that what the show delivered was an ending so unfitting it was like a parody of an end. they threw the baby out with the bathwater. it’s incredibly disappointing, and it feels cowardly to me. you don’t have to make a ship canon just to appease fandom. but your fans deserve a better story for their characters after fifteen years.

spn was uniquely positioned because it’s old as balls. most of the people still watching have seen it all and would have been up for anything good. the creatives could have done pretty much whatever they wanted. this isn’t a case of disney or international censors breathing down their neck. instead, they appear to have taken the easy way out of a lackluster finale written by folks who probably high-fived themselves for poignancy and half-assed twists and got paid more money than any of us will ever see for it. that’s boring, and it’s passé, and it didn’t have to be this way.

sometimes a property like she-ra can swoop in and save the day by delivering what fans want most. but she-ra was also made by people who came out of and understood fandom culture and just how much representation means to people. how much emotional investment and time and energy we’ve put into characters and their lives. why they matter. and it should stand as an example of what to do next.

if there’s a takeaway for all of this, it’s that we can’t and shouldn’t trust “mainstream” productions to do anything that we want in terms of representation. even if they’re uniquely positioned. even if they tease. even if they say they understand. even if they say they’ll do better next time. they’ll keep throwing pieces of bones, but they will almost always keep disappointing us. and they’re not even creating good art along the way. i know a dozen spn fic writers who could’ve written a vastly better ending to the show and i’m sure there are thousands.

we need to create the stories we want to see. in fic and fanart and transformative works, yes, but also (and i say this to myself as well), write that book. write that script. draw your graphic novel. film a movie in your backyard tomorrow because it sounds like anything we produce right now will be more inspired and more important to each other than the scraps we get from distant studios who are only vaguely aware that we’re alive and buying their merchandise. and i want to buy your books, watch your scripts, frame your art. i want to be able to invest in the stories we want to see told.

i love what we make for each other, and we should keep doing that, more furiously than ever. and if you want to, if you dream of it, you should push to create on a broader scale. you already know that you’re a better creative than a lot of people who are generating the “hits.” i can’t wait to see what you make. and fuck supernatural’s finale.

#thinking thoughts #supernatural

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herecomesnaya · 4 years ago

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Oh here I am, I think I'll take a bottle of: Roman’s abusive tactics have worn down Jason 2020, if you don't mind, thank you very much 🤲

yes indeedy! let’s see what I got here...

so, in the beginning, Jason was a lot different than he is now in terms of attitude. snarkier. more willing to fight back. his internal monologue less doubtful and uncertain of himself. able to spit Roman’s cum into his wine glass and walk away without a second thought. says no out loud more often, implies Roman is the crazy one.

but then, slowly, it changes around. it’s (I hope) subtle at first. Roman’s first tactic to start breaking Jason down isn’t to tear him down, but to build him up. he calls him a good boy. praises him for taking it so well. shows the barest modicum of care at some points, which feels like a hell of a lot to Jason, considering 1) it’s Black Mask and 2) Jason doesn’t ever particularly feel like he’s worthy of praise, so it leaves more of an impact when it happens.

starting in chapter 4, Roman begins to change Jason’s line of thinking from what he wants to what Roman wants. it starts off most evidently during sex, so Jason doesn’t realize what’s happening, just thinks of it in the context of it being a play scene. but the reason Roman broke him down until Jason told him to do whatever he wanted to him is because he was trying to prime Jason to carry that belief with him outside of the bedroom.

by chapter 5, he’s managed to convince Jason slowly over the course of the fic that what Roman wants, though, is actually what Jason wants. Jason may not entirely believe it yet, but Roman consistently reinforces this narrative:

“I-I— I'm sorry, okay?” he says, hoping that'll be the end of it. “I was wrong. You were right. Could you stop being weird now?”

“Oh, but I'm only giving you what you want,” Roman says, his voice like silk over ice. “Let's try things your way. What do you say, boys? Hm? Should we give Red Hood's methods a chance?”

the purpose is to make Jason doubt himself. to gaslight him into thinking that he practically asked to be treated like shit. because he comes when they have sex, and Roman treats him like shit while they fuck, so clearly that means Jason’s desires = being treated like shit, right?

chapter 6 is probably Jason’s last big defiant action before he gets, well, not completely complacent, but pretty damn close. fucking Chain is something he’d never have done at the beginning of the fic, but by this point, his psyche has already been re-shaped a bit by Roman’s tactics. sex is at the forefront of his mind where it wouldn’t have been before. sex is a tactic to get what you want from someone: he learned that from Roman.

by the end of the chapter, he’s gone through subspace (not for the first time in the fic, but more on that in my subspace meta), and while he’s still in that state, Roman does one of his little tactics to get Jason to trust him more: he takes off his mask while they’re in bed together, although he doesn’t let Jason see.

in chapter 7, we get more of Roman undermining Jason’s intelligence:

“Oh, Red,” Roman says with a shake of his head. “Still tragically incompetent with words, as always. You're lucky I know you well enough to realize you've got more going in there than you let on.” He accompanies this with a tap to his temple, and Jason at least has the good sense to feel offended.

he constantly reinforces the narrative that Jason has more brawns than brain, and needs someone like Roman to get him to “think clearly.” this is meant to make Jason doubt himself, wonder if he’s really thinking straight when Roman isn’t in his head.

in chapter 7, Jason also asks for one of the things he’s consistently been denied: boundaries. and Roman’s response?

“I admit I was a bit overzealous. I apologize,” Roman says, not sounding very contrite. “But that's exactly what I'm talking about. You need to trust that whatever I do to you, it'll work out in your favor. Do you think you can do that for me?”

Roman asks for obedience, not thought. trust, not mutual understanding. it’s about what he wants, and Jason, more and more, is starting to go along with it.

and what happens when Jason trusts Roman? well, he gets one of the best fucks of his life...

but also, a bunch of people die. whoops?

Jason’s guilt over this incident is so strong, and Dick comes into the story at exactly the perfect time to exacerbate that. in chapter 8, here’s where things really take a turn for the worse.

Jason is put in a position where he has to justify his attraction to Roman, and defend himself against actions that he feels personally responsible for. and what happens when he does that? it reinforces the until now unspoken belief that he really does want Roman to do whatever he wants to him.

because now there’s another party involved. now Dick knows he didn’t fight back like he “could” have, like he “should” have. now Jason, in his mind, has outside confirmation that he’s a willing party in this, and even goes so far as to wish he’s being raped to avoid having any culpability in it.

(the irony here being that Jason is being raped, because Roman consistently pushes past his boundaries when he says a clear “no.” he just doesn’t realize that it still counts as rape even if you come. he’d realize this if it were someone else in his position, but because it’s him, because he’s Jason Todd, because he’s stupid, because he doesn’t know how to admit what he wants, it can’t be rape. it can’t be. right?)

so he ends up leaving the confrontation with Dick feeling more isolated from his family, his only possible support system. feeling on edge, terrified that Dick will tell Bruce, and that he’ll be ousted from the family again, the black sheep that no one likes.

it’s this guilt and doubt and pain and terror that brings him into Roman’s arms, where he does arguably the most extreme session of the fic to that point. and that’s exactly where Roman wants him.

the next day, Roman really ramps things up. he sets up a fake situation where it appears that he’s been worriedly tending to Jason’s wounds all night. author’s note: he hasn’t. he’s full of fucking shit.

this line right here?

“I knew it,” he says a moment later, shoulders sagging under the tailored sleeves of his suit. “I knew you'd wake up as soon as I left.”

this is a little writer’s trick we in the biz like to call “a lie.” Roman can say that line literally whenever he comes into Jason’s room, and it’s like, oops, he only just stepped out for a minute! teehee! when in reality, he’s left Jason alone the entire night. Jason never receives proper aftercare, this is intentional.

but it still works. Roman manages to convince Jason, in his despair, to part with the knowledge that he used to be Robin. Jason is so alone at this point, he just wants someone to know that he’s in pain. and Roman has gotten him into subspace and “taken away the pain” often enough that Jason relies on him for it now. it’s like a drug to him.

and then comes the present. a simple gesture, and an easy one when you’re as rich as Roman Sionis. just a couple books. but to Jason, they mean so much more. they’re a “confirmation” that Roman listened to him speak about more than just business and sex. a “confirmation” that he does care, at least a little bit.

spoilers: he doesn’t. he doesn’t at all. it’s just a cheap way to endear Jason to him further, and Jason is in such an emotionally wrecked state that it actually works.

and then what does Roman do right when Jason has that realization?

he buys a bunch of hookers and spends all night paying attention to one.

give Jason attention, take it away. make him jealous. make it so that Jason is the one who wants Roman’s attention, not the other way around. and it works.

and when Jason gets upset and expresses that to Roman, his feelings are again downplayed and minimized.

“...I already told you what this means. Did you see a collar on her?”

It takes a second for Jason to realize Roman’s let up on his throat enough for him to speak. When he does, it’s hesitant and raspy.

“...No.” Roman lifts him by the neck, smacks his head pointedly back against the concrete. Jason corrects himself. “No, sir.”

Again, his airway gets cut off. “That’s right. Just because I’ve got some bimbo hanging off my arm doesn’t mean I give a damn about her one way or the other. This was supposed to boost morale, after everything that’s happened.”

Jason winces. He wonders if “everything” means his illness, or if it stretches all the way back to the former lieutenants now headless and chained to the bottom of Gotham Harbor. Either way, it’s his fault. That much is clear.

so now, once again, Jason feels responsible for his own anguish, even when it’s Roman’s fault, specifically building him up and tearing him down again. gaslighting him more to make him feel crazy. like he can’t trust his own emotions. like he needs Roman to make sense of them for him.

so Jason gets drunk to deal with the pain. and Roman eventually relents and gives him the attention he wants.

how does Jason respond?

a drunken love confession. Jason is now so broken down that he mistakes Roman’s token affection for love. he wants it to be love. he needs it to be, because that would make everything make sense. the way he feels. the way Roman is acting. everything.

and then, once Jason confesses, we get another sharp slap to the face by Roman: his “punishment” for being driven to drink, being cuckolded by Ms. Li. Roman knows at this point that Jason loves him. he’s using that against him by forcing Jason to watch him with someone else.

but he also throws him a bone: the knowledge that there’s a shipment coming in. he knows Jason wants to know about it. knows why he’s there. he needs to keep Jason tethered to him, keep him feeling like he’s getting what he wants when he’s actually doing exactly what Roman wants.

we can also see Roman continuing to subtly tear down Jason’s confidence in himself:

“Son, please,” Roman sighs, lifting a hand to cut him off. “Quite the contrary. It wasn’t an accident that I let you overhear that last night. That was your reward for complying so well, if anything.”

Immediately, Jason feels like his outburst was overblown. He shrinks back into his seat, looking down at the scraps of food on his plate.

Jason isn’t allowed to question Roman. if he does, it’s only because he’s an overdramatic brat. his feelings are constantly minimized, replaced by whatever feelings Roman deems it appropriate for him to have.

and then we get to the most recent chapter, with Roman manipulating Jason into having a conversation with Batman. Jason is given a week to prepare what he wants to say. and what does Roman do?

he doesn’t give Jason a second alone to think. constantly on him, fucking him, hurting him, giving him pleasure, distracting him. he doesn’t want Jason to be prepared. he wants him to be caught off-guard and thinking only of what Roman wants. then, only then, will he be the perfect little soldier to stand in front of Batman and pledge his allegience to Black Mask properly.

and that’s where we left off! there’s going to be even more delicious, horrible manipulation in the newest chapter, so I hope you guys are excited! can’t wait to publish it!

#ask #fic chatter #Blurry #daddy tag #tw rape #tw abuse #elidebrey

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halequeenjas · 4 years ago

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Solt Circle || Connor, Orion, & Jasmine

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @connorspiracy @3starsquinn & @halequeenjas SUMMARY: Jasmine offers Connor the chance to come help her with a ghost at one of her listings. Rio comes along to film and ghost-y times are had.

Connor was excited to work with Jasmine. Knowing that she’d been the one to banish Bloody Mary and the Sandman had given him the biggest fanboy hearteyes. She was exactly what he’d been lacking in his life; a mentor, a leader, a bloody inspiration. She wasn’t like one of his family’s old friends who couldn’t stand ‘em and helped Connor out of some begrudging sense of community while still holding it against him that his dad had fucked off to do a boring grown-up job. She was actually excited to work with him, and if she could get rid of Bloody Mary, maybe she could actually help Nadia. Honestly, it was a relief to know her inability to get rid of Larry Bob wasn’t a reflection on her talents. Whatever healthy skepticism he’d had about her had subsided. Not only that, but she was offering him his own banishing, and letting him film it. “Mate this is gonna be epic,” he said excitedly as he got out of the car with Rio right outside the address Jasmine had given him. Her car was already parked, and he could see the For Sale sign swinging in the autumnal breeze. “Way better than last time. You’re gonna get to meet another exorcist. I reckon she’s really rich too, judging by her… well, everything, and she’s paying us for this.” He knocked on the door, film, but polite.

While banishing ghosts was never how Jasmine pictured her life when she was younger, it was a duty she took very seriously. She’d seen too many times first hand just how dangerous White Crest could be and if she could make it even a little safer while still making a profit, it seemed like a no brainer it was what she had to do. Everything with Larry Bob was currently on hold with her arm still broken and body sore. But a banishment would be easy enough and she wanted to encourage Connor to keep practicing. While the whole YouTube thing made her shake her head a bit, she appreciated his eagerness to learn and become better with his craft. It was apparent he was very excited for this and it was a warm feeling that she welcomed. She opened the door when they arrived and greeted, “Welcome to the haunted cabin. I could probably leave it haunted and sell to some hipsters, but that’s unethical so here we are.” She gestured with her good arm for them to come inside and knew Connor would immediately be able to see Mrs. Solt’s ghost. She was an elderly woman who just had a hard time letting go of her home and wasn’t particularly malicious. They had spoken some and Jasmine told her she’d be helping her move on and find peace. She wasn’t a poltergeist, so it was possible. She seemed afraid but receptive. “So I’ve got some snacks just in case we need a little boost at any point. I’m going to let you take the reins on this one and step in if needed. As you can see, I’m a bit out of commission right now.” She eyes the skinny kid in baggy clothes and asked, “Who’s your friend?”

Orion was always thrilled by Connor’s excitement to see new, haunted areas. Now, Connor seemed more excited than Rio might have seen him at any of the locations they had visited. He understood his friend’s excitement, the idea of meeting anyone with a similar hobby or passion was thrilling enough. Add in the bonus of seeing a ghost and filming it just seemed to be the icing on the cake. “It’s really cool that she’s helping out with this stuff.” Rio agreed with Connor, clutching the bag around his shoulder that held the equipment he worked for Connor. Helping film and edit had been a welcome distraction from having to deal with the onslaught of people in his life attempting to comfort him following his parent’s death. They seemed to come from all directions. The actual friends in his life, people from the hospital and gym his parents worked at and even former neighbors that found him around town. Considering his parents had lived here for over twenty years and had a pretty strong reputation within the town didn’t help Rio’s anonymity. The kindness was appreciated, though it forced a narrative on Rio to be heartbroken and mourning that he wasn’t sure he could live up to.When Jasmine opened the door, he recognized her almost immediately. Though his parents had already been living here since Rio was born, he had become familiar with her brand selling other houses within Harris Island. Initially surprised by the realization that a seemingly normal realtor was actually an exorcist, Rio eventually settled on being impressed. “Hi! I’m Rio. Er- Orion. Quinn. But I go by Rio usually.” He held out his hand in offering if she was the type to formally introduce himself. “I’m Connor’s friend. And Coworker. I help film sometimes.” Introductions weren’t exactly Rio’s strong suit. But considering he was here to film and not speak, he at least figured he wouldn’t have to talk much today as the two worked their magic.

"Yeah, I mean, we help each other, I guess? She seems way more experienced than me, but she has this one guy she can't get rid of, so I'm helping her back." Jasmine had quite the presence, broken arm and all. He hoped Rio wouldn't be too intimidated by her. Connor gave a low chuckle at Jasmine's ghost. "That's what you get for taking on Bloody freaking Mary," he said, clearly still impressed. He found her ethics around the supernatural to be interesting. "You've got people like me who travel around visiting haunted places. You should probably have a subset of clients who want to buy the places as tourist attractions." He realised with a brief moment of panic that he'd forgotten to mention Rio was coming. "Oh, sorry. I should have mentioned. Kind of distracted with all the Bloody Mary and Sandman stuff. But this is Rio, my camera-man." With the door open, they stepped inside and Connor looked around the entryway, taking in the energy of the place. "So what kind of haunting are we dealing with? Annoying kind that knocks your eggs off the counter or like the real bad kind?"

“Someone had to do it. I just happened to have some know-how and figured why not me,” Jasmine said with a wide grin on her features. It was more than evident that both Connor and Blanche were beginning to look up to her which was a pleasant feeling in itself. Being able to put those younger than her on the right path was an honor she took seriously and it was nice they seemed to respect her all the more for it. She extended her hand to Rio and responded, “It’s good to meet you, Rio. I’m Jasmine Hale.” She noted the familiarity of the name Quinn and the recent news article but opted against mentioning it. Seemed like poor timing though it had been just on the tip of her tongue. While Connor’s gimmick was one she’d thought of plenty of times before, it still seemed wrong to let ghosts be some sort of tourist attraction and gave too much potential to endanger people. “You might be on to something, but probably better to avoid that for now. Don’t want ghosts getting angry and spiteful on people.” She led them into the living area and began to explain, “Mrs. Solt is far from an antagonist ghost. She just wants everything in her home to stay the same and is having a tough time moving on. I told her we’d help her. Mrs. Solt,” she called out at the end of her sentence and an elderly ghost appeared. She wore the same floral nightie she always wore and looked uneasy as she approached the trio.

After introducing himself, Orion planned on remaining in the backseat. After all, exorcisms and ghost stuff were more Connor and apparently Jasmine’s area of expertise. While Rio had done as much reading up on what the Scribrary had to offer on spirits, he wouldn’t say he knew much about them. Plus, as the three settled into the space, it was clear the two were discussing someone that Rio couldn’t see. The ghost of the woman that owned the house, from what Jasmine had said. But aside from her words, Rio had no sense of a fourth presence besides a small nagging paranoia that he was in danger. And Rio felt that everywhere he went. “Sounds a bit sad, honestly.” Rio chimed in quietly, wondering if he died somewhere in town if he would be able to move on or not. “Uh- I can’t see you Mrs. Solt but hello” Rio gave a nervous smile and waved around the room, no idea where he was actually trying to signal. He turned back towards Jasmine and Connor, “Where do you want me to set up so I’m out of your way?”

Although Jasmine came across as a snobby Karen-type personality at first glance, someone who thought the whole world revolved around her and her needs, Connor was beginning to see that there was more to her than that. He sort of admired the strength of her moral compass. Before he'd become an exorcist, he'd attended countless haunted tourist attractions and left the ghosts remaining there after he left. Of course, there were some he'd been able to help move on just by talking to them, understanding them, but the majority of the time he treated the visits like a one night stand; get in, get what you wanted, and get out.

"You won't be in the way," Connor reassured Rio, his voice quiet and reassuring. "We'll set up a couple of fixed cameras in different parts of the room and you can handheld the rest." He turned on the GoPro that was attached to the front of his jacket, letting Rio get the tripods set up, and he made his way towards Mrs. Solt, taking a seat on the end of one of the sofas. He understood what Jasmine meant. She didn't feel ominous, just lost and confused. "I'm Connor," he introduced himself, trying to get her attention. "Did you live here a long time?"

“It is a little sad, but that’s why we’re going to help her,” Jasmine explained to Rio. If she were being honest, this was the kind of haunting she preferred. Poltergeists and possessions always resulted in some sort of pain. But this? Mrs. Solt could be banished and not have her soul destroyed. She was a sweet woman and Jasmine wished peace for her. In the same vein, that sweetness could only last for so long before she veered into instability. She shook her head and quickly added, “You definitely won’t be in the way. Though I will be staying out of the shot. The whole of the internet does not need to see me in this thing.” She held up the cast with a look of distaste on her face.

She watched quietly as Connor interacted with the ghost, wanting to see how he spoke with her. “Nice to meet you, Connor,” Mrs. Solt said in her most endearing voice. “I have. Raised both my daughter and granddaughter here.” There was something wistful in the way she spoke as if it had been too long since she’d seen either of them. It was enough to pull at her own heartstrings, but she let Connor take direction here. Maybe a little talk would do it after all, but she knew Mrs. Solt still held out hope that her granddaughter would reappear. Come home after all these years. In this town, the missing often didn’t just show up again and Jasmine couldn’t help but think something terrible happened to her.

Orion busied himself with setting up tripods and cameras. Since he wasn’t much help when it came to spirits, he could at least have everything ready to film just in case something happened. For now, the view was pretty similar to a lot of the filming that Rio had done since landing the job, Connor holding a conversation with an empty house. But Rio knew the truth, even if he couldn’t see it for himself. Once the extra camera was recording from the tripod, Rio held the other camera close to his chest and tried to get some other shots from different angles just for editing options.

"Ruin your public image, would it?" Connor teased as Jamine said she’d rather stay off-camera. He had a wry grin on his face for a moment, then he became perfectly charming as he made himself at home on the couch. Some spirits, he found, preferred it when you just acted completely normal, like you belonged. Some took it as an affront. He got the impression Mrs Solt could just use some company. She'd probably been alone here for years.

"Really, your daughter and your granddaughter? Three generations of Solt women," he chuckled kindly. "What are they up to these days?" He trusted Rio to let the camera roll. Anything that Jasmine appeared in, they could edit. "Do you smoke, Mrs Solt?" he asked, offering her one from the packet and taking one for himself. It was a simple test, really, just to see how corporeal she was. If that didn't work, he'd offer her a mint. "Of course, I won't light one if you'd rather I didn't."

“Exactly,” Jasmine had responded with an easy smirk on her face. She leaned against the bannister to the staircase as Rio set up the cameras. There was a proud look on her face as she watched Connor converse with Mrs. Solt with ease. Treating nonviolent spirits with respect could always go a long way. It seemed like he was really amping up the charm, too. She could practically see the posh English charm seeping in.

“Yes,” Mrs. Solt answered somewhat quietly as she looked sadly ahead, “My daughter moved out a few years ago after little Jessie went missing. She’s in New York now.” Terrible city and no one here if Jessie ever found her way home. She looked back up to Connor with sad eyes and momentarily glanced at the cigarette. “Oh no, I shouldn’t. I haven’t had one since before Melody was born.” Then again, it was a little too late to care for her health. “Oh, what the hell, I’ll take one.” She reached for the cigarette, her fingers managing to wrap around it for only a few seconds before they simply went through it. “Silly me, I forget about that sometimes. Thank you for the offer though, sweetie.”

“And you shouldn’t be smoking in here,” Jasmine added on.

Even against the one sided conversation that Orion was able to see, it was evident that Connor was winning the woman over. When it came to social cues, Rio had been a wreck the majority of his life. Seeing the ease that people like Connor had with people and ghosts had always perplexed Rio. When the two had first met, Rio had spent hours watching every video that Connor had uploaded. At first he had assumed that it was a persona. Just an act that he kept up for the fans on the other side of the screen. As it turned out, Connor was just as easy going in real life. “He certainly has a way with words.” Rio spoke softly, mostly to Jasmine so he could avoid interrupting any conversation between Connor and the ghost. He had learned to talk in between the conversations, only when he knew that he could edit certain parts out. A small grin broke out across his face when the cigarette hovered for a split second before falling to the ground. Bingo. Without a second thought, Rio found himself adding onto Jasmine’s statement, “You shouldn’t be smoking at all.” It took a moment before he realized how much of a mom he sounded like and began blushing immediately, “It’s uh- bad for your health.”

"Oh," Connor's face changed. So that was why she clung on. She was holding out hope that Jessie, whoever she was, would come home. "Is Jessie your granddaughter?" he asked, puzzle pieces sliding together. He gave a sympathetic understanding smile as Mrs. Solt's hand slid through the cigarette packet. Okay, so she wasn't a spirit who was particularly prone to control over corporeal things. "Okay, well, it would be impolite of me to smoke if you can't." He put the cigarette packet back in his inside jacket pocket. "Yeah, yeah," he chuckled, waving a hand at Rio. "Sorry about my mate over there. I do lots of things that are bad for my health." He adjusted his position, leaning back, more relaxed, hoping Mrs. Solt would copy his body language. "Can you tell me about Jessie?"

“He’s right,” Jasmine agreed as Rio mentioned he shouldn’t be smoking at all. It was a habit that Jasmine personally hated, but noticed it seemed to be popular on the other side of the sea. The smell and health dangers were enough to make her scrunch her nose. She peered over Rio’s shoulder to see what this all looked like on camera. “Huh, surprisingly good shot for not being able to see all the subject matter.” Her focus shifted back to Connor and Mrs. Solt who were conversing easily. Maybe she didn’t have any right to feel a sense of pride as she watched them, but she did all the same. Connor still had a lot to learn and he was eager to do so. Still, he showed a certain level of maturity and understanding while talking to Mrs. Solt that told Jasmine he took all of this seriously.

“Jessie was sixteen when she went missing about five years ago,” Mrs. Solt explained through teary eyes though she could produce no real tears. She wasn’t stupid. She knew the odds and knew it was unlikely Jessie was still alive, but hope was a fickle thing. She couldn’t just let go of that. Couldn’t just let go of the idea that maybe her little girl was still out there. Who would she turn to if she did find her way back? The idea of her alone in the world or worse distressed Mrs. Solt. “I need to be here in case she comes home.”

Even with as simple of a compliment as telling him that his camera angling was good, Orion could feel his face heating and could only imagine how bright red it was glowing at the moment. He had never been great at accepting compliments, but he was even worse at taking them from strangers. “Oh uh- Thank you. I’ve gotten a good bit of experience now trying to film stuff that I can’t see.” It was frustrating at times, only catching Connor’s side of a conversation and trying to piece the full context together. He was picking up on the reason why Mrs. Solt hadn’t left. Something to do with a missing relative, Jessie. Knowing that they were helping these spirits was still rewarding all the same. Whether Rio could see them or not. “Thanks by the way, for helping him. Connor gets super excited about all of this stuff so I know he must be thrilled to have someone else that he can learn things from.”

He tried to fill in as much as possible, looking to the camera and telling them what Mrs Solt had said. As much as Connor enjoyed the excitement and certain level of recklessness that came with being a YouTuber for the supernatural, that didn’t mean he couldn’t equally treat a clearly sensitive situation with the respect it deserved. He could practically feel Mrs. Solt’s suffering. It hung in the air, engulfing the entire home. Her spirit was so ingrained in this place. Her loss, too. “I’m so sorry,” he said, voice soft. “Mrs. Solt, you clearly love her a great deal. But…” He had to do this sensitively. “But if Jessie is still alive, she wouldn’t be able to see you even if she did come back. And… she doesn’t know you’re here.” He reached out his hand. He couldn’t quite touch her, but he put his hand on hers all the same. “If you move on, if the worst has happened and she’s… not coming back, then she’ll be on the other side waiting for you.”

The way Rio flushed as she complimented the shot didn’t go unnoticed by Jasmine. She was far too interested in seeing how Connor engaged with the ghost to call it out. Too many people didn’t know how to take a compliment around here. It wasn’t a problem she ever had, but she still found it mildly perplexing. Mrs. Solt was opening up to Connor and he was asking all the right questions. As it stood, they could probably do without a banishment which was always preferred. It was a gentler way to go. Her head tilted as she watched them with a soft smile on her face. She turned back to Rio and simply answered, “Of course. Connor’s a good kid. He’ll be helping me with some things, too. It only makes sense to teach him what I know.” There was also the fact it was rewarding to pass on some of what she knew to the younger generation.

Mrs. Solt sat there quietly for a few moments. She’d never really been able to let herself believe that Jessie could be dead. For all these years, she’d held on to hope even if her heart broke every single day that Jessie didn’t return home. Somewhere in the darker corners of her mind, she knew it was unlikely Jessie was alive. She’d been missing far too long. Phantom tears rolled down her cheeks as she quietly whispered, “I know you’re right. Even just to see her alive one more time…” See the likely beautiful woman she’d grown up to be. Hear her voice. It’d be everything. If she wasn’t though, that just meant she’d kept her little girl waiting on the other side needlessly. “I think I’m ready.” She focused on letting go of the fear. Of seeing her little Jessie on the other side. There was barely time to wave as she felt herself fade away.

Though Orion couldn’t see the ghost, he could read a room. The way that Connor’s words seemed to wind down. The deeper focus on Jasmine’s face all told him that something was happening. Something that he couldn’t hear or see or maybe even feel, but was definitely happening nonetheless. “Is something happening?” Rio asked quietly again, squinting his eyes as if doing so held any chance of him catching a glimpse of the woman the other two could so easily see. Right now, all he could do was trust that Connor was working his usual charm and doing the right thing. If they were lucky, when they reviewed the footage they would be able to capture at least a few glimpses of the experience. Even an orb or a flashing light would be enough for some of the fanbase. “Something totally just happened. Man, not being able to see ghosts is such a drag when I’m like technically a ghost hunter.” Was Rio a ghost hunter now? He didn’t really feel like one, though he supposed he did work for one.

She passed onto her new afterlife with Connor holding onto her hand. He couldn’t quite feel her, but he knew it had helped, even if only the gesture of it. These were some of the best exorcisms to take part in. He stared silently at the spot where Mrs Solt had been just a moment before, as if saying a silent goodbye. “She’s gone,” he said, his voice tender. “She just needed a little bit of encouragement. I think she’ll be happier now.” He stood, gesturing to the area she’d have appeared on camera. “You should see some changes, right here. There’ll have been some orbs in the shot, or something that looked like dust in the air, now cleared up.” He explained both for Rio and for the audience. “There are lots of reasons people stick around after death. Sometimes they just need to say goodbye, even if it’s only mentally.”

Moments like these were never easy, but they were always rewarding in their way. Too many people like them could forget that ghosts were once real people, too. Jasmine was proud of the way Connor handled the situation with Mrs. Solt with an amount of compassion she hoped he never lost. She nodded along slowly as Connor explained to Rio what had just happened. All she could hope was that maybe Mrs. Soly was reunited with her granddaughter again. In this town, it wasn’t likely she was alive after missing all these years. “You did well,” she told Connor as she approached and place a hand on his shoulder. It felt as if something should be done for Mrs. Solt though she wasn’t quite sure what. She simply stated, “I think I’ll maybe say a few words to honor her. She seemed like a good woman. Mrs. Solt, I hope you find peace in your new afterlife and that one day you’re reunited with both your girls. I have no doubt they never stopped feeling your love.” This always felt off, talking to the dead once they were gone, but the woman deserved some sort of remembrance.

Turning the camera off after Connor had wrapped, Orion let his arms fall to his side so he could join the two of them. A ghost passing over always seemed like it was bittersweet. Sure, their spirit had moved on to an assumingly better place, but it also meant that they were just… gone. Never to be seen again. “Nice job!” Rio agreed with Jasmine and gave Connor a thumbs up. “I think we got some good footage too. I mean, I can’t actually see anything. But the shots all looked good.” Since it seemed like more of a teaching moment between the two, Rio busied himself by collecting the rest of the equipment and starting to pack it away. It was cool seeing them work together on something like this, both things that the two seemed to be passionate about. “Is it sad that I know the spirit in this place was good and it still creeps me out?” Rio asked once things seemed to have wrapped, “Are we done here?”

Connor nodded, solemn but hopeful. Today had been a good one, and he didn’t get many of those these days. “Yeah. We’re done.”

#wickedswriting #connor #rio #orion #solt circle #me: i'll post this soon guys #me: *5 hours later* oh SHIT

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amphtaminedreams · 4 years ago

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The Eras of Lana Del Rey: Lookbook no.9

Hi to anyone reading,

Hope you’re okay! AND that you didn’t end up here because you searched the Lana Del Rey tag so you could see people ranting about her-you’re about to be very disappointed. Sorry. This is not about to be some Question for the Culture discourse because the world is bleak enough right now and the last thing we all need is to be reminded of that saga.

Being a Lana Del Rey fan is easy, they said. She’s not a controversial artist, they said. And yet 2020 had to do what it does best and fuck everything up.

Whether people like her or not, it’s made me so angry reading all the abuse she’s been getting about her appearance for the last couple of weeks, because I really thought that if we could agree on anything it was that attacking individuals for the way they look because you dislike something they’ve done (with the exception of shit like racist tattoos and blackfishing) is, you know, awful and judgemental as fuck? Like you do realise when you treat the word fat as a pejorative that the fat people you don’t have a problem with understood that you meant it as an insult too? I think what all those people tweeting about Lana’s weight, and that includes some of her fans, are forgetting is that she was in her early 20s when she was thrust into the limelight. As much as there’s this conspiracy that her dad bought her a career in the music industry, she’d made the decision to go it alone and had lived in a trailer park as a struggling musician for years. On top of that, we have the unreleased tracks with lyrics seemingly referencing an eating disorder in her younger years. OF COURSE her body is going to look different. Why is it that we treat weight gain as an inherently bad thing without any insight into the other factors that constitute a person’s “health”? It’s fucking insane that so many feel they have the right to comment on other’s bodies in the first place and it breaks my heart that she might be reading these comments. This wasn’t intended to necessarily be a rant about how much I love this woman but all the shit I’ve read about her on the internet these past few months have pushed me to it. You'll respect your queen of alternative music or I shall stan twice as hard on your behalf. You can thank me later when you come to your senses xoxo

I’d love to say it was intentional that I finally finished this post the week Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass was released but that would imply I have my shit way more together than I actually do. If I’m being completely honest, I’ve only heard L.A Who am I to Love You so far 1). because I want to wait for the hard copy for the rest and that doesn’t turn up til September and 2). because I do not have my shit together, lol. That being said, there is no doubt in my mind that I am going to love it-one thing I have always loved about Lana’s lyrics is how well they paint a picture and this is something that poetry only more freely allows for the exploration of. That ability to create such a strong narrative voice and atmosphere is a talent that extends to her visuals and the production of her records too, and is something I really missed when it comes to the Norman Fucking Rockwell era. I’m just going to say it: a strong aesthetic is to NFR as memorable songs are to Lust for Life. Lacking. Am I allowed to say that as a fan? The collaborations don’t do it for me, okay, and as as NFR is concerned, aside from The Greatest/Fuck It I Love You video which went down the whole neon surfer girl route, it’s hard to identify a cohesive theme. It’s understandable that at this point, she would want to just focus purely on the music, and it goes without saying that NFR will stand the test of time in that regard but I don’t think we can deny that when people think of Lana in the future, it’s not gonna be a green windbreaker that comes into their heads.

^Illustration credit to Filip Kozak (https://filipkozaksart.tumblr.com/?fbclid=IwAR3vwLX2pNxoFNhTPD1ky14LllPqlLtL1GxGlD79xuHxdtzcHLw-6aNBZWo)

And here’s where this Filip Kozak illustration comes into it; after years of it sitting in my camera roll for years, it finally has a use. There’s really nothing better to illustrate how mundane life has become this year than the disproportionate level of excitement my photo-hoarding-self experienced realising it would fit perfectly into this post and is thus eligible for deletion. Up there with being able to fit a whole box of biscuits onto the shelf at work rather than having to individually take out as many as I can and then shove them on top of the existing box of biscuits one by one. Truly riveting content on this Tumblr page. Back to the point-by using this as my stimulus for the post rather than the Lana Del Rey albums as outfits tag that went round on Twitter, I can conveniently exclude NFR as an outfit inspiration category, and that saves me from having to buy a charity shop windbreaker with its price bumped up 150% by some upper middle class Depop e-girl or boy who uses the word peng as a descriptor like it’s a nervous tic. To make up for leaving out NFR, I’ve tried to branch out a bit and do the outfits not just based on the music videos or album covers but also from street style and stage looks and photoshoots from around the same period too. It was hard not to be influenced by the general “vibe” and sound of the albums either when I was planning outfits, whether it’s the grand, orchestral instrumentals of Born to Die or the 70s psychedelic rock inspired riffs of Ultraviolence and hopefully that’ll show as well! Enjoy:D

Born to Die (Release Date: 27th January 2012)

It’s been 8 years, and when you ask most people what they think of when they hear the name Lana Del Rey, they’ll probably dismiss her as the one who sings about being sad and doing coke and sleeping with older men. That’s the Born to Die impact. Say what you want but it’s one of only a handful of albums released by a female artist to have spent more than 300 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart and it really established the mythos of “Lana Del Rey” because before all this, before all the think pieces from other women claiming she’d set feminism back hundreds of years with her music, before she ousted grayscale Effy Stonem as the queen of angsty teen Tumblr (which as you can probably guess was a subsection of the internet I was very much engulfed by, lmao), she was just Lizzie Grant, a relatively normal aspiring singer songwriter in her early twenties. But as Lana Del Rey, she was someone else-some beautiful, mystical being that personified the sentiment of being born in the wrong era. Whilst every other singer’s record labels seemed to be trying desperately to thrust them into the future and keep them on top of all the musical and stylistic trends, it was refreshing to hear someone whose music and visuals captured all the most glamorous elements of the past. Part Priscilla Presley/Jackie O reincarnation (the National Anthem video really illustrated how Lana is just as much a storyteller as she is a musician), part high level mobster’s wayward wife à la Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface, she was the good girl by day and the bad girl by night, and I think that’s a duality we can all relate to or would like to think we’re interesting enough to relate to deep down.

Her style from around this period was EVERYTHING. She had those grungy Tumblr girl elements, the camo jacket and the oversized pieces and the leather jackets, but she also heavily drew on the styles and silhouettes of the 50s and 60s with the beehives and the new look Dior inspired cinched waist dresses. Even now in 2020, I think this period is what most people would think if they were asked to describe Lana’s style. I made sure I got the grungy pieces in there with the chunky boots and the vinyl and the oversized leather but the foundation of her looks back then were usually these daintier throwback pieces like the white silk dress and the corset and the mint fur trimmed coat (House of Sunny’s Penny Pistachio coat).

Favourite lyrics from the album? “Now my life is sweet like cinnamon, like a fucking dream I'm living in” from Radio. Nobody asked but I’m gonna give it to you anyway.

Born to Die: The Paradise Edition (Release Date: 9th November 2012)

Lana’s Paradise EP contains probably my absolute favourite song of her’s, Ride, and with that, the beautiful opening monologue that will stay in my mind forever. This era was of course ushered in by Tropico, the short film that included the premiere of the songs Bel Air, Body Electric and Gods and Monsters, which established the ethereal tone of this period-it’s in the name, after all. Both the album and the videos were other-worldly and leaned heavily on religious symbolism which I’m sure pissed off many a middle-aged bible basher at the time. Most prominent in her lyrics were reflections on the freedom of the open road which corresponded with visuals of biker gangs and desert dwellers and modern interpretations of the Wild West, as was an attempt to capture the nature of the so-called “American spirit” which as Lana portrayed it shared more qualities with a kind of celestial, transient being than any kind of solid concept or identity. She played an emotionally detached stripper and a haunted saloon-style-bar singer (almost looking like a runaway bride) and Eve the “first woman” all in the same album and honestly, if that’s not iconic, I don’t know what is. We saw SO many incredible red carpet looks in this period too which built upon this idea of her as the fallen angel tempted by original sin that Tropico established; I feel like this era was all about laying bare the soul of the character she played, this broken, delicate but ultimately liberated being that was so dangerous to the idea of the strong, stable modern feminist ideal. She went about it in COMPLETELY the wrong way in a post that betrayed the ignorance of the privilege she has as a white female performer, but I think this is what she was getting at in it and Ultraviolence only went on to bolster her critics.

In response to the criticism she still receives about the choice to wear a Native American war bonnet in her Ride music video, I’d like to say that it really seems like she’s learnt from that-actions speak louder than words and so though it’s not my place to say whether this makes up for that error, the work she’s done with Native American reparations-focussed foundations since and the money she’s donated to the cause says a lot about her intentions. Again, I want to stress that it’s not my place to say! But it’s a detail that is often overlooked so I thought I’d mention it here.

“I was a singer, not a very popular one. I once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet. But upon an unfortunate series of events saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky, that I wished on over and over again, sparkling and broken. But I didn’t really mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing it to know what true freedom is.”

Ultraviolence (Release Date: 13th June 2014)

AH, Ultraviolence. My favourite of Lana’s albums and imo, a masterpiece. ONE skip. ONE. Sorry Guns and Roses. I got stoned in my back garden and listened to this (for research purposes ofc, heh) and ended up deciding that this is what I want to listen to when I die (also whilst stoned). It sounds dramatic but listening to this album in that state of mind is such a heavenly experience that I’d be too zen to notice myself slipping away into nothingness on the basis that if I didn’t as long as I could stay in that bubble of awe, nothingness forever wouldn’t be so scary after all. I know, I know, that sentence has big Jaden Smith’s old tweets energy. But if an album is what helps me get over an existential crisis, I beg you allow me the nonsensical ramblings about how I felt like I was ascending into the stars.

Though in terms of the lyrical content the public perception is probably correct, I think the reputation Ultraviolence has as Lana’s darkest, most gothic album (which is something I’ve in incorporated into the outfits I put together) is mistaken; instrumentally and visually it drew more on 70s psychedelic rock and the bohemian counter culture of the period than anything, and her stage looks are a clear reflection of that, and also the outfits I was most excited to channel. It seems counter-intuitive to the moody atmosphere I associate the tracklist with but it’s my go-to summer album; it’s raw (probably her most stripped back work along with NFR, lots of the songs are barely edited) and it’s gloomy but let’s be real, hot as fuck-don’t bother making a sex playlist, just put Ultraviolence on shuffle, and you’re good to go. This was the album where Lana debuted some of her most criticised lyrics and where the notion that she glamourises abuse comes from, one of the points she also seemed to be getting at in the Instagram post, but imo it’s fair to say that she sang truthfully about the initial allure of a dangerous relationship and the nature of the mindset that facilitates staying with somebody poisonous where you do feel like you’re nothing without them. Turning horrific experiences into romantic tragedies is how Lana has always made her music and yeah, out of context there are some fucked up lyrics on the album, but policing how a woman expresses her trauma and complaining that she glorifies weakness because she wrote honestly about the reality of a complicated partnership is hardly any more “feminist” than the lyrics themselves. I can only guess that the reason Lana felt the need to bring up this criticism in 2020 is because these darker themes are going to be revisited in her upcoming album and that in spite of the issues with the way she expressed herself, this time critics will be more accepting of how she chooses to address these themes.

On a lighter note “yeah my boyfriend's pretty cool, but he's not as cool as me” will always be a great line. Simple but effective. If my boyfriend ever is cooler than me it’ll be doing Lana a disservice.

Honeymoon (Release Date: 18th September 2015)

Considering that a lot of other Lana fans are of the opinion that this is her best album, I find it weird that I really don’t remember all that much about this period, other than High by the Beach being released and then hearing Salvatore and Freak for the first time. I guess because she didn’t do a Honeymoon specific tour and didn’t make that many public appearances in this period? It was definitely harder for me to find visual reference points beyond the HbtB music video and the cover art, so I mostly drew on the general vibe of the album, a cinematic accompaniment to a summer in Italy or the South of France, filled with exotic instrumentals and the sense of impending romantic doom that Lana does so well. I suppose if I associate the visuals of this era with anything it’s idyllic florals and warm tones, bygone country club pool days, a rich American’s vacation in Southern Europe, long walks on the beach (and as our Lord and Saviour Jujubee once said, big dicks and fried chicken). Apparently inspired by Lana’s relationship with Francesco Carrozini, it’s a hazy story of some ultra-feminine, submissive archetype becoming unhealthily enchanted by a mysterious “foreign man” who’s ultimately not all that good for her, which as the story goes turned out to be quite prophetic. Going against the grain, it’s my least favourite of her albums after Lust for Life, but in spite of that, I will always remember how obsessed I was with the sax riffs (I think? I don’t know my instruments all that well so forgive me, lol) on Freak and I definitely understand why it’s a firm favourite for so many.

“You could be a bad motherfucker, but that don’t make you a man.” was truly a cultural reset of a line.

-on an unrelated note, OMG, I never realised how I have my mouth open in literally every fucking photo I take, somebody tell me how to pose, please and thank you-

Lust for Life (Release Date: 21 July 2017)

Lust for Life is a controversial one. On the one hand, I appreciate that this album was the victory cry of a happier, more independent, politically-aware Lana in spite of it apparently being a far more optimistic sounding album than the one she wanted to release, but on the other there were way too many collaborations for me and this meant that the album lacked a sense of cohesion and the characteristic narrative thread that usually runs throughout her tracklist. Aside from Love, Cherry, Get Free and Tomorrow Never Came, most of the songs on the album aren’t hugely memorable and it’s a crying shame that a collaboration with STEVIE FUCKING NICKS of all people left so much to be desired. Coming from two witchy icons, I expected something absolutely magical so maybe I was setting myself up for failure, but come on. We could’ve had a real anthem there.

Aesthetically speaking however, this is one of my favourite eras for Lana, which is unsurprising when you consider the tracklist contains references to both Woodstock and Coachella. I’m not gonna lie, I think seeing Coachella fashion in my early teens was my style awakening-I remember seeing Vanessa Hudgens’ outfits and being like, wow, I want to be her (oh, what a fall from grace)-so the late 60s/early 70s flower power groupie style Lana adopted in this period really spoke to me. It was all long hair and dreamy pastels, and this era included some of the most head-to-toe coordinated looks we’ve ever seen from her. Of course I couldn’t completely abandon the grungy touches that I love, that I tend to associate with the early Lana street style days and the Paradise and Ultraviolence music videos rather than with this album, but I’m never gonna pass up an opportunity to whack out a good floral two piece and putting together Lust for Life inspired looks is the perfect excuse to do that.

So, that marks the end of this post! If you made it to the end, thank you so much for reading! I have a Yesstyle lookbook and review to edit but now that I’ve finished that, I’m trying to go down more of a style inspiration focussed route with my lookbooks rather than just putting together outfits from clothes I’ve just bought (though I might still do one every so often to bring in a new season-let’s just ignore the fact that they’re all blending into one bc climate change for now, one catastrophe at a time please universe). I find that if you have a specific idea in mind of what you want, it’s super easy to find something similar on Depop and Ebay and that way you avoid buying new things and also take old things off a person’s hands that might otherwise end up being thrown out by a charity shop and then dumped into a landfill from there. Something I’d LOVE to do before this year is out is put together a lookbook based on the most stylish TV shows of the last decade, but that probably won’t be for a while-even so, if you have any recommendations of series to watch which could fit into this category, let me know!

To finish, I need to go a little bit off-topic so forgive me, but I truly don’t know why this even needs to be said: WEAR A FUCKING MASK. IT IS NOT A POLITICAL ISSUE. IT IS A BASIC HYGIENIC PRACTICE THAT HELPS SPREAD THE STOP OF A HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS DISEASE! RUDIMENTAL SCIENCE! NOT A CHANCE TO PROVE HOW “EDGY” YOU ARE! SERIOUSLY, STOP MAKING A FUCKING PANDEMIC ABOUT YOURSELF! NOBODY ENJOYS WEARING THEM BUT THEY HELP PROTECT OTHERS! SO UNLESS YOU HAVE A VALID MEDICAL REASON NOT TO BE WEARING ONE, DON’T BE A SELFISH PRICK!

Sorry to sign off on a rant-y note with something that has nothing to do with Lana, lol, but all the stupidity has been grinding me gears lately and I had to let it out on behalf of all retail workers: if we can wear a mask for 9 hours at a time, YOU can tolerate the mild discomfort of wearing one for 10 minutes. I know this doesn’t apply to the majority of people but there’s always a couple of arseholes, isn’t there!?

Stay safe,

Lauren x

#ldr #lana #lana del rey #fashion #fashion blogger #style blogger #outfit inspo

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apparitionism · 4 years ago

Text

Run 4

The way forward is sometimes just that: keep traveling the path. Sometimes it’s entirely the opposite: change everything, especially the path. In continuing to write this story, I’m taking the former approach. In most everything else, I hope more of us are doing the latter. This fanfictional distraction is here for you to read or ignore as you see fit. The urgent task right now, as I see it, is to listen to truthful voices and take meaningful actions based on their truth; me, I mess up pretty regularly, but I’m trying. I hope you’re trying too.

Part 1, part 2, and part 3 of this dealt with a Myka and a Helena who sparked, nearly immediately, in the past... but then something went wrong. Those parts dealt also with the following: a particularly deceptive new running shoe; some former athletes named Pete, Giselle, and Badge; and the difficulties posed by certification and compliance. Anyway, I don’t know why I feel compelled to keep pushing my way through this baggy narrative, but it is for the moment the way.

Run 4

Helena and Giselle each accepted a coffee, Helena paying for both, from a bored teenager staffing a cart on the building’s ground floor. The space adjacent to the cart was overdecorated to resemble an outdoor seating area at a bistro, with wrought-iron tables tucked among ironically overdone foliage. The chairs also were bare iron, and Helena felt, as she sat down, that hers was remarkably uncomfortable. Her initial physical discomfort increased as Giselle said nothing, just sat back in her own chair, her posture a laconic challenge.

Eventually Helena sighed. “Do your worst,” she said.

“Pretty sure you don’t mean that.” Giselle put her particular slow emphasis on “mean that.” Yet another challenge.

“Get your worst out of the way,” Helena proposed. That was met by a wicked chuckle, and Helena shook her head. “Unsubtle,” she objected.

“Who, me? That’s not news to you. Here’s what might be though: she says she’s got a boyfriend.” Giselle ostentatiously did not identify who “she” was.

The thought was felling. “Does she?” Helena managed. “Has she?” She tried, for a moment, to convince herself that she was not in fact knocked down by this news. That she had no reason to be knocked down by this news.

She tried, for that same futile moment, to convince herself also that she was untroubled by the fact that Giselle knew there was no need whatsoever for either of them to identify who “she” was.

Giselle chuckled again, now lasciviously. “So were you an anomaly or have I got a shot?”

“And here I actually believed you cared to hear about me.”

“I do,” Giselle said, and for the span of that short utterance she was sincere. Then came yet another chuckle, this one that said she had inferred how disconcerting it was for Helena to have encountered not one but two former lovers in the same place, at the same time—as well as how overly disconcerting one of them was. “I care to hear about whether you were an anomaly.”

“I have no idea,” said Helena. It was true. She and Myka had never got around to histories. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Giselle said a brusque, “Fine.” She then asked, from her particular former-lover space, “How’s your dad?”

The question made Helena smile a little, even as it made painfully clear the difference between Giselle and Myka and their roles in Helena’s past. “He’s well.”

“Good to hear.” That represented another small span of sincerity, Helena felt. It passed like the previous, however, as Giselle followed up with a laser-focused, “Now talk about it.”

But Helena did not want to talk about it. She did not, she told herself, want even to think about it... but of course seeing Myka had forced her to think about it... and all right, yes, she did want to think about it... but of course she had never really stopped thinking about it.

Helena’s first sight of Myka’s neighborhood confirmed that it was, as she had warned Helena, a bit on the seedy side. The building that housed her apartment had obviously begun its life as a rather grand home, but it had not aged well; to its misfortune, it appeared to have been carved into ever-smaller living spaces, echoing what were no doubt the successive reductions in circumstances of the neighborhood’s residents, each new tenant a step further down the economic ladder. A haphazard accretion of postal receptacles adorned the brick beside the front door, and a loveseat of questionable character lounged over most of the cramped porch, as if in stoned contemplation of that seedy neighborhood.

Helena stepped past an overflowing Bakelite ashtray and tried the door: unlocked, as Myka had also warned, “because nobody’s got much worth stealing.” It all spoke of youth and bohemianism and a necessarily grimy lack of choice that Helena had left behind years ago. What are you doing here? she asked herself.

She climbed a flight of stairs, trepidation rising with each step. When she reached Myka’s door, she looked at the wine bottle she held: looked and regretted buying it; it was too expensive for this place. She then rethought the regret—for why shouldn’t she have brought something she could easily afford?—but then circled back around to it; what if Myka thought it an ego-driven attempt to emphasize the difference between their professional statuses? And was it in fact such an attempt? She hadn’t had that conscious thought in her hurry in the shop, but now she wondered: was it? But then again, what if Myka liked that difference? She hadn’t seemed the sort, but... and so around Helena went, again and again, rethinking, regretting. How many cycles of that could she go through in the space between her knuckles’ rapping on a door and that door’s opening?

All thoughts of regret—all thoughts, full stop—fled when Myka appeared, for Helena’s bodily response was yet more precipitous than it had been in their earlier encounters: a headlong, full-on awakening. The difference between corporate-intern-Myka, the one who stepped to the back of the room, and law-student-at-home-Myka was as arresting as the initial stagger triggered by the touch of her hand. She was even taller, her posture completely assured, unfurled. Helena had got only the barest taste of this Myka from her “when was the last time” question, and she had not understood with fullness, not until this moment, how that taste had made her want so much more.

“What are you doing here?” Myka asked, and hearing her own thoughts quoted back at her knocked Helena sideways—but in that moment she did know, for her body had made it clear enough what she was doing here: chasing the singular effect this tall, unexpected woman had on her.

Yet Helena felt unable to chase and charm Myka as she had other women, with a gift like the wine, which now seemed even more out of place. Nothing she would normally have done to charm was right. Nothing she said was right; she fumbled, trying to speak as herself, sounding like an idiot instead. What are you doing here was not in the end the correct question: rather, Who is this you to be doing anything, here or anywhere else?

She sat at Myka’s tiny kitchen table, at a complete loss. And yet Myka, while mostly facing the food on the hob, kept looking over her shoulder at Helena—as if she knew. Everything? She was assured not only in her posture but in her entire aspect, including her tone of voice. “You walk around like you run the world,” Myka now said.

“Do I?” Helena stalled. Was it a compliment or an accusation?

“You tell me.”

“Walk around that way? I don’t know how I walk around.” More stalling. All she seemed able to do, in response to Myka, was stall, in increasingly futile attempts to steady herself.

Myka smiled. “I meant, tell me if you run the world.”

“Run the world? Of course not.” Still a stall. True, however.

“I don’t know... that’s not the story I hear.” Myka was wearing a thin T-shirt, through which, when she turned and it pulled against her back, Helena could see the protrusions of her vertebrae. The spine, how it would arch...

“I myself...” Helena had to stop and wet her mouth. “I myself run nothing. I work for people who run things. I move a particular process from one point to another.”

A process... that she wanted to move from one point to another... but she forced herself to remain seated. All she wanted was to be nearer to Myka, to begin to move that process, but she forced herself to remain seated. Because she did not know. She thought she knew. She hoped she knew. But she did not know, so she forced herself to remain seated. In fact it seemed best not to move at all. What if movement startled Myka? What if movement was what would make her send Helena away, thus depriving her of this astonishingly stimulating silhouette of bone-column under a T-shirt? Looking, very still, forever: if that was what was required, that was what Helena would do. So much for negotiation.

Another glance over the shoulder.

“So of course you’re not from around here,” Myka said.

“What gave me away?” What are you doing here, she thought again. Flailing at flirting, doing it boringly... what is this new vocation of yours that you perform so incompetently?

No smile this time, only a raised eyebrow. “Might have something to do with the way you say the word ‘what.’”

That sent Helena’s brain into disarray. Did Myka like the way Helena spoke? Find it annoying? Put on? She did speak so as to smooth away her origins, but would an American be able to hear that? “Are you from around here?” she offered back, from within her confusion. “I don’t know American accents at all.” Yes, boring. Myka would throw her out any second for failing to amuse.

“Reasonable question. I don’t sound distinctive anyway.” You do to me, was Helena’s helpless thought. And she might have been foolish enough to say that out loud, but Myka was continuing, “And the answer is no, mostly—I’m from Colorado, mostly—but a little bit yes. I guess I’m sort of from Stanford? Easy to get assimilated.” She shrugged, and that moved the T-shirt in a way that was even more arresting.

“Is it?” Helena said, weakly.

“I was wondering. Before. What to do, where to go. Law, here, that was the best compromise. I don’t usually. Compromise, I mean. But you have to do something.”

“Do you? Or rather, does one?”

“Well, here I am.”

“Doing something?”

“Doing something.” One more glance over the shoulder; then, “Come taste this,” Myka said, and Helena saw this invitation as her one chance. She tried to be serious about it—Focus on basil, she instructed herself, according to Myka’s instruction—but she proceeded to disobey herself and Myka both, focusing instead on how her own mouth was moving, hoping that the movement of a mouth might push Myka to want, or to acknowledge wanting, even to begin to think of wanting, what Helena herself wanted so badly...

...and then they had that. They had exactly that, because Myka asked, and thank god she had the fortitude to do so, and did it in a way that Helena could answer without stumbling, with the result being a perfect, promising shimmer of a first kiss, followed by an even more faultless slope of a second, one in which Helena felt her body once again waking, telling her exactly what she wanted, what she needed from Myka. That very minute, never mind any decorum—any control—she was accustomed to maintaining.

Helena was very good, in fact very practiced, at falling in love. Easy to do: volitional. Also, easy to use: as motivation, as fuel. Easy to fall out of as well, and to escape. All accomplished with decorum and control.

But with Myka she was able to control nothing but her own affirmation of want: she was a new version of herself, one to whom something was happening.

Their bodies together were just like that, responsive systems and sinews and skin to which things were happening, outrunning Helena’s mind, and seemingly Myka’s too, the meticulous placement of lips and tongues and hands and fingers resulting from... instinct? Lucky guesses? But the how of the happening was unimportant.

More important was the why: “Made for me,” Myka gasped in a rising moment, “you, for this, with me.” Such ardent words might have been said by anyone in the heat and the dark, but they were said by Myka’s voice, in that newly intimate heat and dark. Helena caught them, perhaps by accident, and she then held them close to her heart.

She thought she would not keep them for long. She certainly tried, later, to let them go. Once close to her heart, however, there they remained, as if in a locket, in remembrance of their having been said. By Myka’s voice. In that heat and that dark.

On arriving at the house the second night, the night on which she was to be served day-old pasta sauce, her trepidation had only increased. Despite what seemed to be the bespoke physical connection she and Myka shared, one night was only one night. Sometimes singular experiences were just that. Were meant to be no more or less than that.

Helena lingered on the porch. She noted that the loveseat’s angle had undergone a slight revision, and further, that someone had thought to empty the ashtray—possibly Myka, given that the interior of her space was tidy, nearly spotless. Magical thinking, intended to ward off the encroaching entropy of the neighborhood?

But Helena had no room to question magical thinking: she had brought another bottle with her, and as she climbed the stairs to deliver the next fateful knock, she overlogicked that she had had misgivings the previous night, based on the bringing of a bottle, yet the previous night had been a magical success despite those misgivings, so in conclusion this time would—

The door flew open. “Oh, put that down and come here,” Myka said, with a gratifying impatience.

If only all magical thinking were so magically successful.

The bringing of a bottle, the action Helena had regretted and rethought, became the token. “What is this?” Myka asked on the third night, squinting at the label.

“It’s a Feteascā Neagrā,” Helena told her. “Most distinctive thing I could find. Romanian. I’ve never in my life drunk a wine from Romania. Have you?”

“I have no idea,” Myka said. She continued squinting, and if Helena was delighting in getting to know the variations of Myka’s facial expressions? If she was feeling privileged to have the opportunity to do this small-yet-large thing? Then that was what she was doing. What was control?

“I wanted to bring you something new,” Helena said. As you’ve done for me, she nearly added. All this difference: who I could be. Who I could be for you.

They tasted it in Myka’s kitchen—the first time they’d managed to get to the wine before pushing into bed. Was the third time the charm? Or was it the definitive turn for the worse?

“It’s a little strange,” was Myka’s verdict.

“The wine itself? Or drinking it clothed?” A provocation. It seemed risky, even after all the intimacies of two long, glorious nights. What was decorum?

“Mm.” She had a wide repertoire of hums, Myka did. “Both.”

“Let’s fix that latter.” Helena felt these words as yet another risk—but who was this unknown self who heard peril lurking in every suggestive utterance? She’d thought supreme confidence was hers, and it certainly would have been after two such radiantly successful nights with any other woman. Yet here she was, brought low by impostor syndrome, terrified of misstepping and giving herself away as nothing more than an insecure, wanting, out-of-place animal.

That very morning, in the early not-yet-light, Myka had said, “I have a study group tonight,” and Helena had been seized by something uncomfortably like terror at the idea of being deprived of her, even for the span of one night.

“Oh?” she said, trying for that’s-fine.

“So if you could wait till ten-thirty or so to come over? I should be through by then. Is that all right?”

Yes but also no, Helena thought through a knee-withering wash of relief, but she said, “Why wouldn’t it be?” The disappointment at losing any minutes at all bled into her voice; she could hear it.

“Mm,” was Myka’s response—one of her knowing hums. “Here’s what I hope is a sweetener: we can have tomorrow morning together. Can’t we?”

“Can we?” But Helena saw then that Myka was right: the next day was Sunday, and while Saturday was to be no less a workday than the others had been—with Helena needing to leave before dawn to make sure she started her day as her actual self and not as her “with Myka” self, fitting her body consciously back into her impersonal hotel room, erasing that felt difference—on Sunday, that day of comparative rest, she could wake up with Myka. Spend time waking up with Myka: spend time slow, letting their bodies remember and revel in what they’d done at night. Think about it, in the daylight, together. In the daylight of a Sunday morning, they could remember and stretch and smile. Revel and rise to a breakfast not prepared by anyone for anyone, but rather made together.

They did stretch, did smile. Did enjoy that breakfast, though it took a while to get to, to and through, for they did also distract each other. “I hope you don’t care about your eggs being perfectly cooked,” Myka said, moving an incipient scramble away from a flame, “because I’ve never seen you like this before. In the real morning.”

Later: “I hope you don’t care about your eggs being perfectly breakfast,” Helena said an instant after they had sat down, belatedly, to eat those interrupted eggs, “because I’ve never—” But she couldn’t finish her thought, for she was already moving to Myka again, because never any of this before.

After a Sunday afternoon of only a few relatively low-key meetings—during which Helena tried mightily not to appear as preoccupied as she was by the surprising, rewarding ease of the morning’s never-before—she brought to Myka a Sonoma Valley chardonnay.

“Compared to last night in Romania, this is...” Myka looked to be groping for an inoffensive word.

“Ordinary?” Helena supplied.

“My education’s limited, but it seems.”

“It couldn’t be more ordinary.” Because Helena had been having yet another thought, one that she now nearly said out loud: that what she wanted was for the entire situation to become ordinary. To be the everyday. Presenting herself, bottle or no, at this door, to this so-desired breathing, womanly body, which housed such an increasingly necessary person.

The following night, Myka’s response to a cabernet of rather distinguished origin was, “What’s this fancy one saying?”

“Saying?” This time, Helena told the truth of what she had intended: “Ideally, ‘I am a very expensive cabernet intended to make up for Myka Bering and Helena Wells’s sad lack of morning this morning.’ This so unfortunately Monday of mornings.”

“It was a sad lack,” said Myka, and Helena thrilled to her agreement. “Anyway, it gets the job done,” Myka went on, and the bottle was left to its own devices for the first while, for just as on Sunday morning, no one bothered with pretense. Helena voiced an internal hallelujah that she had no need to force herself to remain seated anymore; instead she had leave to let her hands roam under Myka’s customary T-shirt, to let her fingers work up and down the length of that alluring piece-upon-piece of bone.

Myka showed Helena just how much she appreciated that work. In fact she showed, and even said in words, how much she appreciated just about everything Helena did. Her openness never ceased to be striking, stirring.

“You’re so different here,” Helena thought to say, at one late-night point.

Myka pressed her mouth to Helena’s, then said, “So are you.”

“Am I?” The thought warmed her almost as much as the kiss did. “But I’m not hiding anything so aggressively when I’m there, not as you seem to be.”

Myka shrugged so quietly that the sheet covering their bodies remained still. Helena felt it only as a ghost of a pressure change. “How much I don’t want to be there. When I’m there.”

“That doesn’t sound like you’re still trying it on. Is it all law, or just this?”

“Didn’t we talk about this before? You have to do something, right? I’ll fight my way through it and see.”

“Why did you start studying law?” Helena pushed, not knowing why she did so. “Beginnings can be so very explanatory regarding how we end up where we do—though we often don’t see it at the time.”

As she said the words, she felt their patronizing ooze, and Myka responded, reasonably, “That’s pretty pedantic, coming from you... especially given that this evening’s beginning involved me taking you out of your clothes. Kind of explains how we ended up here. I saw that at the time.” She said all of this while smiling against Helena’s unclothed shoulder, but Helena felt even the smile as a rebuke. Myka took sweet pity on her, however, saying, “I started studying law because of a coin-flip, but also I was pretty sure I’d be good at it. And I am. The studying, anyway. Doesn’t help, but I am.” The smile, which had faded from her voice, renewed itself as she said, “Why did you start doing what you do?”

“Same reason,” Helena had to concede. “Well. No coin-flip, but I knew I’d be good at it. And I am.”

“You’re pretty good at this ending-up-here thing, too,” Myka said.

“Not so good as you,” said Helena, embarrassed. Had she ever before felt her face redden so at a lover’s expressed admiration? No. She had preened.

“I’ve never been so good at this before,” Myka said, and before Helena could object that that could not possibly be true, she went on, “I think we’re good at this.” And Helena might have thrilled to that, but Myka punctured her with, “Also, by the way, you don’t need to go ‘wise mentor’ on me. You aren’t robbing the cradle like you seem to think you are, grandma. I took some time to get to this compromise.”

“Pedantic and mischaracterizing myself as a relative sage. Well done.” Helena sighed at herself. “I don’t want to be so... wrong. For you.” It was the closest she had come to speaking her fears aloud.

A comforting hum ensued. Then came a mischievous, “You’re wrong only if you don’t kiss me, you pedantic cradle-robber. So I think you better kiss me.”

But even as Helena kissed as instructed—comforted by the hum, the instruction, and the kiss itself—she knew she most likely was wrong, if not in her pedantry or her misplaced sagacity, then in her ever-stronger wish to take this unprecedented, shiny affair and extend it into some real future. She had no idea who she could be in that future... thus her wanting of such a future so, so, so much? (Her thinking that being instructed to kiss this way could satisfy her for years, years, years?) Wrong, wrong, wrong.

She nevertheless did nothing to address how wrong she knew it was, not at any moment, for at any moment Myka was likely to say disarming words such as, “Do you want to do something normal? Watch TV?”

“That seems an unpardonable waste of time,” Helena would say, pushing the idea of error entirely, decisively from her thoughts.

“I’m so glad you think so,” Myka would respond, and then they would forget that such things as television existed.

Once, early on, Myka had remarked, “They told me you’re a peacock. Well, that both sides are peacocking. But I’m pretty sure that makes you your side’s only peacock.”

“Don’t tell me anything about what’s said at your workplace,” Helena should have said then. From the start, that was what she should have said. And if only, if only she had said it.

Instead, like the showoff she was, she responded, “Does my display impress you?”

Myka offered a meaningful hum from her repertoire. Then she said, as punctuation, “We’re well past that.”

They were well past so many things: stop signs, flashing red lights, hazard flares.

In the aftermath, Helena tried to tell herself it was for the best. That the entire fiasco was showing her the correct way forward: do not mistake a bodily response for anything other than itself. And do not let your body, certainly not in combination with someone else’s body, deceive you. You are yourself, not a different sort of person.

She had hewn religiously to that correct way during the intervening time. And yet on that first AAI day, despite those good lessons she thought she’d learned, she found herself unable to resist finding herself back at certification and compliance. Her ungovernable body would not cease chanting Myka is still Myka, and her apparently equally ungovernable mind would not cease entertaining a mad hope that the time might have made some difference with regard to what Myka thought of Helena—and, of course, of what Helena had done: what Helena had had to do. Then again, certification and compliance. Clearly Myka was still Myka, and perhaps even more so.

But as Helena beheld her, here in this unexpected present, she was still Myka, and oh god even more so. Helena could not discern, through the layers of Myka’s clothing, any details of her spine, but the idea that there might now be yet another lengthy iteration—not intern, not law-student-at-home—made her hunger to investigate the difference in its twist and stretch. There will be no difference in the ethical strait through which it steers her, Helena tried to remind herself, with a harshness, because: Certification and compliance. Myka will not have ceased to be Myka.

She supposed Giselle’s arrival had saved her from doing something she would regret, such as revealing some particular weakness that would damage the negotiation. She counseled herself, though she should never have needed to, that the negotiation was paramount; her remembrance of feeling for Myka was an artifact of the past, a thing of no matter to anyone but an historian of failure.

Now Giselle said, “You better give me something.”

Helena set her jaw. “There’s nothing to give. It’s dead and it’s buried and I would appreciate it staying that way.” A lie, but a soft one. Some version of her would in fact appreciate it, she was sure.

“Your face right now doesn’t say ‘buried,’” Giselle informed her. And though Helena managed to resist jumping to the clearly wished-for “what does it say” question, Giselle nevertheless answered it with, “If you don’t know, how ’bout let it be a surprise. Like you showing up all of a sudden as Ms. Deceit.”

“Really? ‘Ms. Deceit’? Does my face now say ‘ouch’?”

“If the shoe fits...” Giselle said, with yet another wicked grin. Then she exhaled, heavy. “That shoe, though.”

Helena nodded. “Indeed, that shoe. What does AAI think should be done?”

“As if I’d tell you. As far as I’m concerned, baby, from here on out you’re Oklahoma.”

“I’m sure that’s meaningful,” Helena gloomed. “In some sporty sense.”

“You know I’m Texas! Or you would, if you ever listened with both ears to a word I said. And never mind about us—the Zelus money in Sooner and Longhorn sports? Helena. If you’re playing this game, you need to get up to speed.”

“Speed does seem to be the issue.”

“It’s an outstanding piece of equipment, you know that too. Break every record overnight... but only if we let it.” Giselle sing-songed the last two words, then twisted half a grin, and Helena was reminded of exactly why they had clicked, so long ago. Then Giselle said a not-quite-baiting, but extremely provocative, “Myka hates it.” The length Giselle put on the word “hates”—even longer than was customary for her—was clearly intended to needle.

It worked. “Of course she does,” Helena said, putting her index fingers to her temples. Of course she does. Certification and compliance, and Myka was still Myka. Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way.

“I knew you knew her pretty well,” said Giselle. Self-satisfied—and she had every right to be, for she’d got everything very correct.

“It doesn’t take long.” Barely a week...

Giselle said, “So true. That girl is an open book.”

“That was in a way the problem,” Helena allowed. “At the time.”

“Interesting.”

“It isn’t really.”

“Again, not your face’s story.”

“I’ll just sit quietly then. If my face tells it all.”

Giselle pouted. “Not all. Not the specifics. Tell those.”

The specifics. But they were so... specific. To Myka. To Helena’s response to Myka. Helena now desperately did want to be an anomaly, in every way. To Giselle, she said, “This has nothing to do with me. Your shot is your own concern. Whenever she has someone, whoever that someone is, I hope she’s happy.”

“Your face won’t quit telling on you. Who is it wants a shot exactly? Or do I mean another shot?”

“Don’t.” Helena’s plea must have been plaintive enough this time, for Giselle’s face changed. After a breath of a moment, Helena told that changed face, “My father still asks after you.”

“Make sure you tell him I asked about him too,” Giselle said. “Tell him I went off like back then on how old and white he is.”

At that, Helena smiled, because her father and Giselle had each habitually made much of the other’s age and race, to their somewhat strange, yet obvious, mutual delight... Helena hadn’t understood any of it, given that it all had to do with sport. Giselle was right: she hadn’t ever listened with both ears, and she wasn’t up to speed. She would have to remedy both of those, but especially the latter, and she would have to do it—appropriately or ironically—fast, so as to both justify and make a success of her presence here.

Giselle asked, “He know you’ve got this Zelus gig?” At Helena’s nod, she said, “Bet he’s thrilled.” Helena rolled her eyes, because of course her father was beyond thrilled, and Giselle laughed.

They did then talk about other elements of the past, some that made them smile, some that made them groan. One that made Giselle reach across the silly table and take Helena’s hand—one brief strong squeeze, which Helena returned. History in the end had its consolations.

Much later that day, Helena approached the 40th-floor elevator lobby and saw Myka, in the company of the man with whom she worked in certification and compliance, across the space. Myka’s face seemed at first to be a study in distress, but then her coworker put his arms around her. She put hers around him, and she began to smile.

“Oh,” Helena said out loud.

TBC

Tagless essay: So I feel like it’s hard to know what to do about, or with, history. That’s true of all history of course, right now with such immediacy; with regard to this story, though, I’m paring it down to romantic/sexual history. Part of me wants both Myka and Helena, every version, to be all Barry White about it: “You’re the first, the last, my everything.” Even while I know he means it metaphorically, I’d like it to be for real for them. But that isn’t how most of life works... ideally, though, a Bering-and-Wells situation would truly speak to “the last” and “my everything.” Anyway that’s what I like to see: these two women developing an understanding that together, they become preferable versions of themselves, in ways that can’t be replicated when they’re with others. Too pie-in-the-sky? Probably. (This gets back to Freud and prostheses in ways that I’m sure don’t merit going into, but I’ve thought a lot about how certain improving additions to ourselves are more functionally necessary than others, e.g., the difference between eyeglasses and Apple watches.)

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #Run #part 4 #AU week

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