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chaotic-clouds · 4 months

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Another theme I really love in little nightmares 2 is how all the beings affected by the Signal Tower can be interpreted as representations of the different kinds of abuse children face throughout their life.

(Now bc of the recent LN podcast that came out giving some insight on how the LN universe works, we know kids that end up there are usually there because they’ve experienced severe trauma and/or abuse throughout their lives. What we also know now is that adults can also end up there, but instead these adults are usually the abusers, which is what makes this world 10x more nightmarish for the kids that inhabit it.)

But I’m not gonna get too into the logistics of the podcast for now though because I’ve not watched it entirely, and I still think this interpretation can be applied with or without the podcast context so I’ll just give my personal thoughts on the main antagonists in general for now!

Starting off with The Bullies I think their symbolism is most obvious, abuse from peers. In typical bully fashion the way they attack you is usually in hoards, killing you with their bare hands instead of a special ability. They even set out traps or what could be seen as a deadly prank, to kill anyone that is unfortunate to set it off. And while yes you are their main target because you are an outsider and “not one of them”, they also seem to regularly harass each other as well, emphasizing the cruel and vindictive nature they internalize (like when mono and six come across a solitary room with a chair in it, implying that the bullies regularly tied some people up and left them there for days, weeks even). But my favorite part is despite how cruel and aggressive they act, the form that the signal tower has turned them into is a porcelain doll, one that while keeping the appearance of a child is instead hollow and just as easy to kill (if not more than a regular kid). The bullies are the closest thing to the regular survivors of LN, but because of their cruel actions in defense of deeply buried insecurities, the Signal Tower has turned the bullies into fragile hollow husks of hate that will forever showcase the damage done to them outwardly, without any chance of concealing the cracks and pieces missing.

When it comes to The Teacher I’m not as sure, but I think she is meant to represent the abuse that individuals in power (specifically the education system) can commit to those underneath their rank. She’s extremely strict and cruel in her punishments, and has stricken fear into even the rowdiest of bullies, her class being dead silent as she teaches nonsense for however long she wishes. Adding onto this, she seems to be the sole person in power to the entire school, setting the schedule however she pleases. With her extensive neck I think this also can be seen as another act of dominance on her part, being able to literally be above whoever crosses her.

The Doctor is less direct, but I think he represents how those put in more knowledgeable and trusted positions can easily take advantage of those they’re supposed to protect. In this case towards his patients that he has taken advantage of and turned into his own experiments, but what confuses me is to why he’s on the ceiling? I mean it could just be as a way to be disturbing but I think it could be conveying how the doctor’s moral views have been so warped that he is literally viewing the world upside down.

The Hunter to me is also a little more confusing. I’m not sure what abuse he would embody but again he is farther from the pale city, so perhaps he’s not as in line with the Signal Towers influence/theme.

The Viewers in my opinion, represent neglect and addiction. While technically passive until provoked, they are designed to make you feel as though you’re walking on eggshells around them whenever you have to walk through the room they’re in. But because of them not caring about you whatsoever, you can pretty much just do whatever you want around them and they won’t even blink an eye until is directly disrupting the connection between them and the signal tower, in which case they get extremely violent, making a sound akin to screaming as they get up in your face to suck the life out of you. Their appearance also has a lot to say about their condition; The way their faces have been distorted and how uniform they all look, the Signal Tower has pretty much sucked the life out of them and made them forget who they ever were, possibly also representing how the relationship between them and whatever children they had would be so distant, that the kid wouldn’t see them as any different than a stranger they walked past on the street.

Aaaand because this post is now way too long maybe I’ll rant about how this applies to Mono and Six’s transformation via the Signal Tower another day. (Also this is just a silly interpretation!! So take this with a grain of salt, I’m sure someone else has explained this like 10x more literate than I could but I just love talking about this game 💔)

#little nightmares #little nightmares 2 #i love this game #little nightmares mono #little nightmares six #the hunter #the doctor #the teacher #the bullies #just me rambling #im so sleepy #the brainrot is real

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miraculousat · 1 year

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Origin: PT 2

Part two of my take on MLB's opening episodes. I appreciate if anyone takes the time to enjoy it!

Previous Part

Nadja - TV Studio

Reporter Nadja Chamack stands to the side of a picture of a mask made out of black butterflies in front of the eiffel tower.

Nadja: Mysterious black butterflies poured out of the Eiffel tower yesterday. They formed into what looked like a man’s face and delivered the following message.

Suddenly the video begins to play. The mask animates, forming a talking man’s face.

Hawkmoth: People of Paris! I am Hawkmoth! I assure you I meant no harm with Stoneheart. It is my dream to create a true hero for Paris. Unfortunately the boy I entrusted power to abused it. Just as your two new supposed ‘heroes’ Ladybug and Chat Noir abuse their own power. Power which could be used to grant each of us our wildest desires, selfishly hoarded by two… children-

The screen turns off suddenly. Tom, Marinette’s father, glowers at it.

Tom: I don’t know much but I know a bully and a liar when I see one. He claims they should give up their powers! But they’re the ones who saved everyone! They’re heroes!

Marinette: Isn’t it better to just give him what he wants?

Tom: The thing about bullies is that once they get what they want, they just want more. And if you keep giving them what they want.. You might find when the time comes and you’ve got nothing left to protect yourself, that’s when they show their true colors.

Marinette nods.

Marinette: Then.. What if ladybug, you know? What if she can’t beat him?

Tom wraps his arms around his daughter

Tom: Then us adults will do what we did before Ladybug and Chat Noir ever showed up. We’ll protect our kids. And stop him however we can. Don’t worry honey. If I have to, I'll fight him off myself!

Marinette laughs and hugs her father.

Marinette: Thanks super-dad!

Marinette runs up to her room and grabs her purse, pausing for a moment to look at her vanity drawer where she keeps her Miraculous. She opens the drawer and contemplates taking the case the Miraculous is in. Then, she places the case in her purse with certainty.

Nathalie - Adrien's home.

Nathalie taps her foot, waiting for Adrien in the dining area.

Nathalie: Hmm, what's he doing?

The clock chimes once; she looks for Adrien in his room but doesn't find him.

Nathalie: Adrien? Adrien?!

The urgency in her voice catches the attention of Gabriel who rushes past her to check his room.

Gabriel: You didn't see him leave? If anything has happened to my son.. I-!

Nathalie: Gabriel, Sir. He’s just a child who wants to make friends.. I assure you. If you’d just let him go to school he wouldn’t run off like thi-

Gabriel turns on her, gently grabbing her by the shoulders.

Gabriel: Nathalie. You know how important this time is for me. I cannot afford to have to worry about him on top of everything else. Now Go. Find. Him!

As he spoke his grip on her shoulders tightened until she visibly winced in pain.

Gabriel pulled back and released her.

Gabriel: I am.. Sorry Nathalie. There’s just a great deal on my mind..

Nathalie: I know, sir. I’ll go find him..

Nathalie walked away. As she did she paused looking back at him with a sad expression. She really did care for him. She hated to see him increasingly gripped by these darkening emotions. So much of the man she cared for was being lost. Without her, Gabriel wasn’t even himself anymore.

Adrien - Streets of Paris.

Adrien was running to school and away from his father at top speed.

Plagg: You're such a strange kid. Who would want to be at school when he can stay at home all day?

Adrien: You don't get it, Plagg. I've had enough of being shut up at home by my dad. I want to meet people and make friends! Go to a normal school like everyone else!

Plagg: Ugh, I think I'm feeling weak…

Adrien: You know what's strange?

Adrien stops running; unhooks his bag and grabs a wedge of Camembert.

Adrien: The fact that all you eat is this disgusting, rotten-smelling Camembert cheese, and then I have to smell like it 24/7. That's strange.

Adrien pulled a displeased face at the cheese.

Plagg: If you want to be able to transform into a superhero, then stinky cheese is the deal, my friend!

Adrien sighs and shrugs defeatedly before continuing to school.

Marinette - Collège Françoise Dupont.

Alya: The Ladyblog

Alya handed Marinette her phone. On the screen was a pretty impressively laid out blog for only having one night to design it.

Alya: bringing you all the latest news about the coolest superhero, Ladybug! How awesome is that?!

Alya took her her phone back

Alya: Check out the number of views since I posted the video!

Marinette: Alya, wouldn't you like to be a superhero and go out and fight monsters and villains?

Alya: Totally! I'm not scared of anyone! Why?

Marinette: Oh! No reason…

Seeing her chance Marinette put the Miraculous case in Alya's bag. She exhaled a huge sigh of relief. Now the right person finally had the miraculous..

Adrien - Outside the school.

Adrien runs up the steps to the front door. However just before he made it in the bodyguard’s car pulls out. Nathalie, exiting from the bodyguard's car, holds out a hand and calls up to him.

Nathalie: Adrien! Don't do this! Your father will be furious!

Adrien: Tell him you got here too late. Please!

Adrien runs to the inside of the school. Outside Nathalie sighs heavily, wondering just how to solve this gap between son and father..

Adrien walks into campus school grounds looking around with interest. He’s never been to school, and it’s been a long time since he’s seen so many people. Some stop, staring at him or beginning to chatter. Up ahead a group of kids gathered around Ivan. Adrien spots chloe and decides to approach.

Alix: So you really don't remember anything?

Juleka: You were totally going ballistic. It was so cool!

Kim: You were seriously out to crush me, dude! Mad respect!

Ivan: Oh, I'm sorry… I wasn't myself…

Adrien wonders how to intrude into this conversations.

Chloé: Pff! Once a monster, always a monster.

Ivan glowers at her, however as he expresses this anger a flash of uncertainty crosses his features. A voice creeps into his ear.

Hawk Moth: Ivan. You can still be the hero who punishes bullies like her… Your Akuma awaits you..

Ivan clenches his jaw and stomps away. Muttering to himself.

Ivan: I won’t let you use me to play villain again, Hawkmoth!

Chloé: Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Adrien felt conflicted. Had she.. Always been this mean to others?

Marinette: Someone should say something!

Alya: You’re absolutely right! Can’t leave all the do-gooding to ladybug, can we?

She smiled and winked at Marinette who nodded back at her. Alya approached Chloé.

Alya: How could you say that to Ivan? You're the real Stoneheart.

Chloé: Ugh, so I'm the one who broke Sabrina's dad's arm, am I? Just because your footage of those lame superheroes was shown on TV, doesn't mean you have to get so high and mighty.

Chloé: Look out, she's angry! She's going to split her underwear and turn into a huge muscled monster! (Alya huffs and walks off)

Chloé rolls her eyes. Marinette turns to look at Adrien with disapproval. Adrien flinches and looks away. Finally Chloé notices Adrien. She turns to him, suddenly all smiles.

Chloé: Adrikins! You came!

Other students see Adrien and rush over toward him, shouting in recognition.

As they do Marinette and Alya are crowded out.

Marinette: I should go check on Ivan..

Alya smiled softly at hir.

Alya: Girl, you’re the REAL ladybug of this school. You always know how to ACTUALLY help.

Marinette: Huh? No way! You stood up to Chloé!

Alya: Who CARES? You think she’ll even remember this conversation? But talking to Ivan? That’s what really matters. Helping people. Go on. Go check on him.

Marinette smiled and then turned to head off.

Marinette - Locker room.

Marinette sees Ivan sitting on the ground, looking down with his headphones on.

Marinette: Are you okay?

Ivan: I… don't know what you're talking about.

Marinette: Don’t you have someone you want to talk to about all this? Even if it’s not me, it seems like you’re going through a lot..

Ivan: I'm no good with words anyway.

Marinette: But… who needs words? You could draw a picture, or write something down..

Ivan: I could… write her a song?

Marinette: Her? Ohhh! For Mylene?!

Ivan: N-No!

Marinette: That's a great idea! What girl wouldn't want a song written especially for her? Go for it, Ivan, and, uh–, stay positive.

Ivan perks up a bit.

Ivan: Yeah. Writing music is a good Idea. Better than just moping here. Thanks Marinette!

He turns and heads off while pulling out a pad of paper.

Adrien - Miss Bustier's classroom.

Adrien and Chloé enter after he was signing autographs in the hallway.

Unknown boy: Could I have your autograph, please?

Unknown girl: Adrien, can I have an autograph, Adrien, I'm a huge fan!

Chloé: This is your seat, Adrikins. I saved it for you. Right in front of me!

Adrien: Thanks, Chloé.

Adrien looks to Nino excitedly.

Adrien: Uh… Hey! Adrien.

Adrien offers his hand to Nino for a handshake.

Nino: You're friends with Chloé, then, huh?

Adrien’s face drops a bit.

Adrien: Uh.. Y-Yeah. We’ve been friends since we were kids. She’s pretty much the only friend I had.

Nino’s expression softens.

Nino: Then it sounds like it’s time for you to make some new ones. I’m Nino Lahiffe.

Adrien’s expression brightened as he shook hands with the boy. His first friend!

Scene: Outside Miss Bustier's classroom.

Marinette: But why do you trust Ladybug so much snyway? All these butterflies.. And that Moth guy.

Alya: She's gonna handle 'em.

Marinette: But what if she's not really cut out to be a superhero even though everyone thinks she is?

Alya: What are you talking about, girl? I've seen her with my own two eyes, girl! Ladybug is a true superheroine! She's going to protect us all! I believe in her.

Somehow when Alya said it, Marinette felt like she could believe it.

Adrien + Marinette - Miss Bustier's classroom.

Marinette and Alya enter the classroom. They immediately spot that Chloé and Sabina have stolen their seats.

Marinette: Hey! Those were our seats!

Chloé and Sabrina laugh

Chloé: I’m sitting by my Adri-kins, Just like I told you I would.

Adrien: Uhhh… I…

Marinette: Okay. I get it. Good job, you three. Very funny.

Adrien: Oh, No. I-

Marinette: You're friends with Chloé, right?

Adrien: Why do people keep saying that?

Marinette huffs and turns away to sit down at the empty desk across the room with Alya. Adrien looks down at his desk dejectedly.

Chloé: Don’t let a loser like that bother you, Adri-kins.

Alya: Daddy's boy, teen supermodel, AND Chloé's buddy? Ha! Forget it.

Nino leans over to Adrien.

Nino: Why didn't you tell them it was Chloé's idea?

Adrien: I've known Chloé since I was a little kid. I know she's not perfect, but I can't throw her under the bus.

Nino: Standing up for what you believe in is never wrong, dude. The people who matter will never hold that against you.

Adrien stared at Nino and smiled broadly. Just like how he’d had to stand up to his dad to come to school! Nino was right!

Ivan - The locker room

Mylene sat with Ivan, listening to a song.

Mylene: Ahhh.. so that’s how you feel!

Ivan smiled at her and she turned to check her phone.

Mylene: Oh no, I'm gonna be late! Let’s get to class Ivan!

Ivan sighed.

Ivan: Why even bother going back to class… Everyone there HATES ME!

In a burst of anger Ivan slammed his fist into a locker.

Mylene: Augh!

Ivan spun around.

Ivan: Ah! No! Sorry! I was just!

Ivan paused, seeing Mylene take a step back from him.

Ivan: You’re.. Scared of me too? You’re just like all the others!

Mylene: N-No! Ivan I-!

Ivan turned to her with his face darkened. The mask of Hawkmoth covering his eyes.

Ivan: Just! GO!

Mylène runs away, scared. Ivan wads up his lyric sheet, throws his music-playing phone on the floor and steps on it, and sits down.

Hawk Moth: This is your second chance, Stoneheart, and this time you have extra help. No one will stop you-

Ivan: Shut up! I don’t believe any of your junk about being a hero! But they all think I’m a villain already anyhow, so I’ll just BE one..

Hawkmoth: .. Heh. Fine. Just remember, I'll need something in return.

Ivan is akumatized into Stoneheart again. He opens his eyes and all the other stone beings across Paris start waking up.

Adrien - Classroom.

Miss Bustier: Agreste, Adrien?

Adrien springs to his feet when called. Nino whispers to Adrien.

Nino: You say "present".

Adrien: Oh! Uh, present!

All the other students laugh; Adrien sits down, and he and Nino do a fist-bump.

Miss Bustier: Bourgeois, Chloé?

Chloé: Present!

Miss Bustier: Bruel, Ivan? … Ivan?

Stoneheart enters, breaking down the door.

Stoneheart: Present!

Chaos erupts, and Adrien runs out of the room. Stoneheart rushes over to Chloé and grabs her.

Chloé: Let go of me, Iman!

Stoneheart: I'm not Ivan anymore. I'm Stoneheart.

Chloé: Why are you doing this?! You’re going to hear it from daddy!

Stoneheart takes her with him; he breaks a wall and jumps out of the school.

Mylène: Put her down, Ivan! Come back! Ah! Ladybug!!

Mylene clambers down the rubble looking frantically for ladybug.

Alya turns to Marinette looking practically giddy.

Alya:Come on! Let's follow him!

Marinette: Uh… Oh, no. You go. I'm finding myself a safe place to hide.

Alya: Girl, you're gonna miss Ladybug in action!

Marinette picks up Alya's bag. She looks from it to Alya and then to Mylene. She hesitates before shaking her head.

Marinette: “No. There’s something I should do here. You go.”

Alya shrugs and heads off to chase after Stoneheart.

Marinette pulls out the box in the now empty class room. She pulls out the earrings and Tikki suddenly appears.

Tikki: “I knew you’d change your mind!”

Marinette: “You REALLY thin I can do this?”

Tikki: “I KNOW you can!”

Marinette: “Okay! TIKKI! SPOTS ON!”

Adrien - The locker room,

Adrien opened his locker.

Adrien: My first day of school and I don't even make it past roll call.

Plagg: A day off? Now that's what I'm talking about!

Adrien: Oh, no no no no. We've got homework to do.

Adrien: Plagg, claws out!

Chat Noir - Outside the school.

Stoneheart is still holding Chloé captive.

Chloé: You have no idea who you're dealing with. My daddy, the mayor, will bring in the police, the army, the entire cavalry!

Cat Noir: And don't forget the superheroes!

Chat noir leapt through the air hitting Stoneheart with his staff, but Stoneheart only grows bigger in response.

Chat Noir: Oh no. My bad.

Chloé: Ugh. Super incompetent, you mean. Wheres’ Ladybug? Now THAT’S a hero!

Stoneheart: Ugh! You wanted the cavalry? Well, here it is!

A swarm of butterflies gather around him and turn people in the streets into more stone beings like him. The stone beings run amok and surround Cat Noir.

Stoneheart: Seize him!

Chat Noir dodges out of the way as more come to attack. Mylene rushes up to him.

Mylène: Chat Noir?! Where’s Ladybug?! Ivan! Where are you going?

Stoneheart: To deliver a message. Just stay away Mylene.. This doesn’t concern you anymore..

Chloé: Ugh. All this lovey-dovey stuff is making me sick.

Stoneheart: Don't worry, little monster. I'm gonna take care of you, too.

Chloé cringes. Stoneheart stomps away leaving Mylene and Chat Noir behind. Chat Noir does his best to fight back a growing mob of stoneheart’s minions made from the swarm of black butterflies. Alya crouches down nearby to get a good shot of the action.

Cat Noir: If you can hear me, Ladybug, I could use a little help!

Alya: What's she waiting for?

One of the stoneheart minions grabs Chat Noir.

Cat Noir: Let go, you rockhead!

Alya: LADYBUG!!

Ladybug swings onto the scene. She turns to Alya.

Ladybug: You can't stay here. It's too dangerous.

Ladybug follows the trail of stone beings. Ladybug avoids them and throws Cat Noir's stick to him.

Ladybug: Cat Noir! Extend it!

(He extends his staff prying the stone being’s hand open and freeing him. He jumps out of the stone being's hand to the ground. Ladybug pulls him to safety with her yo-yo, leaving him hanging upside down.

Ladybug: Sorry I was late.

Cat Noir: M'lady, have I ever told you you turn my world upside down?

Ladybug: Oh, you're quite the jokester, aren't you?

She spots the Stonehearts closing in.

Ladybug: But your timing needs work. We gotta get out of here!

Cat Noir: Hey, aren't we going to take care of 'em?

Ladybug: No. If we wanna save them all, then we go to the source.

Stoneheart is in the Eiffel Tower, with the police surrounding him

André: (Through megaphone) I demand my daughter's safe return!

Chloé: Daddy!!

Stoneheart: You know what? You're welcome to her!

Stoneheart grunts and throws Chloé away, sending her hurtling towards the city streets. Chloé screams while being thrown and André screams in fright.

Chloé: Help! I promise I'll be nice to everyone, say please and thank you all-- AH!

At the last moment Ladybug swings in and catches her.

Chloé: Well, technically I didn’t finish. So it doesn’t count.

Ladybug: Huh?

She sets Chloé down. Chloé rushes over and hugs her father.

André: My little princess…

Roger: We're clear to attack!

Ladybug: Wait! No, don't attack them! You know it'll only make it worse!

André: You two should just give up your powers like Hawkmoth said! You’re only making things worse!

Ladybug flinches slightly as she looks away. Chat Noir seems to see that she’s stung by Roger’s words. He places a hand on her shoulder.

Cat Noir: He's wrong, and we'll prove that to 'em. Right?

Ladybug recovers a bit and gives him a confident smile.

Ladybug: Okay.

Ladybug: Hawk Moth, I know you’re listening. And I know what a bully and a liar looks like. Let's not reverse the roles here. Without you, none of these innocent victims would be transformed! But here’s the thing you don’t understand, Hawkmoth. Trust. The people of this city put their trust in me!

She looks to Alya.

Ladybug: And I will do everything I can.. To NEVER LET THEM DOWN!

Cat Noir: Wow..

Alya looks over the edge of her phone.

Alya: She’s amazing...

Hawk Moth: Stoneheart, take their miraculouses and let’s put an end to this game of villains and heroes!

Stoneheart: Right...

Ladybug calls out to Stoneheart.

Ladybug: Ivan! I brought someone who wants to talk to you! And It’s time you tried listening!

Mylène: Ivan!

Stoneheart: Mylène?! Stay away from me!

He begins to climb higher up the Tower. As he does his army of stone beings begins to close in on Ladybug and Chat Noir.

Cat Noir: We're surrounded! What do we do now? We can't attack him.

Ladybug: Yes, but we know where the akuma is.

Cat Noir: In his clenched fist. So…

Ladybug: So we know he's in love with her. That's it! We don't separate Stoneheart and Mylène: we bring them closer together! They're made for one another! It's just that they don't know it yet.

Cat Noir: Ugh. Not really following you, but guess I better trust you. Something tells me that this is how it's gonna be from here on out.

Ladybug grabs Mylène

Ladybug: You’re sure you want to see him?

Mylène: I know Ivan, he’d never do anything to hurt me. I trust him.

Ladybug smiles fondly at the girl.

Ladybug: Hang on tight.

Ladybug and Chat Noir go to the top of the Tower.

Mylène: Ohhh! I'm scared of heights!

Chat Noir: How are you planning to get them closer?

Ladybug: By using our powers! Lucky Charm!

She throws her yo-yo into the air, and suddenly… a parachute appears?!

Ladybug: A parachute? What am I supposed to do with this?

Cat Noir gets thrown away by a stone being. He clambers back up, calling out to Ladybug who is rapidly putting the parachute on Mylène.

Chat Noir: You sure you know what you're doing? CATACLYSM!

Chat noir touches the floor of the tower, causing it to crumble and creating a gap where the stone beings can't come any closer.

Ladybug: We'll find out soon enough! Are you sure about this?

Mylène looks over the edge of the eiffel tower nervously. Suddenly she spots Stoneheart and with a bold leap she jumps down for him. Stoneheart is shocked and reaches up to catch her, dropping the crumpled up blackened paper. Once he’s caught her Mylène kisses him on the forehead.

Mylène: Oh Ivan. I was startled, but I could never be scared of you. I’m sorry!

Cat Noir grabs the akumatized paper, and hits it up with his staff, sending it soaring up to Ladybug. Ladybug grabs the paper, breaking it.

Ladybug: Home run!

The akuma emerges from the torn paper and begins to fly away.

Ladybug: No more evil-doing for you, little akuma! De-Evilize!

Ladybug swings her yo-yo after the butterfly, catching it before it can fly off.

Ladybug: Bye-bye, little butterfly.

Ladybug opens her yo-yo, releasing a now-white purified akuma.

Mylene and Ivan, now restored to normal, float down to the ground thanks to the parachute. They cling on to each other, looking around at the view in wonderment.

Ladybug takes the parachute off Mylène and throws it into the air. It bursts into a flood of red magic which rushes around restoring everything broken during the fight, and restoring all the stone beings back to normal people safely on the ground.

Cat Noir: Whoa. Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

Ladybug: Yeah. It's beautiful and amazing. It's… miraculous!

Meanwhile, far away in a distant tower a lone figure glowers.

Hawk Moth: Trust? Heh.. The people of Paris may believe in you for now. But I can erode that trust until nothing remains… Then my wish will be granted.

Back at the Eiffel Tower Ladybug looks over at Mylène and Ivan.

Ladybug: Oh, they're so made for each other.

Chat Noir: Like us two.

Ladybug gives him a small smile before his Miraculous beeps.

Ladybug: Uh oh. You see that? Time to split. See you soon, Chat Noir.

Chat Noir: Can't wait, m’lady.

Marinette - Outside the school.

Marinette and Alya are talking on their way up the stairs.

Alya: Next target: Ladybug, an exclusive interview!

Marinette: Ooh. Sounds exciting.

Alya: Oh, wait! Even better: finding out who's really under that mask.

Marinette: Uh! Well! Why ruin a good mystery?!

Meanwhile, in the Agreste car, Gabriel is scolding Adrien via video.

Gabriel: You disobeyed me, Adrien.

Adrien reflects on what Nino says and gathers his courage.

Adrien: Father, why can’t you just trust me?!

Gabriel seems a bit taken aback by those words. He sighs, looking to Nathalie.

Gabriel: You won’t do it again.. without your bodyguard. He will drop you off and pick you off every day. Nathalie has offered to organize you a new schedule. You'll be continuing your music, Chinese, and fencing classes and your photoshoots.

Adrien’s eyes widen in surprise as he looks from the screen to Nathalie.

Adrien: Thank you, Nathalie. Thank you, Father!

Marinette - Miss Bustier's classroom

Marinette and Alya confidently go and sit in the seats behind Nino.

Chloé: Uhh… You're in the wrong seat. Go on, get lost!

Marinette: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good people do nothing!"

Chloé: What is that supposed to mean?

Marinette: It means that I'm not putting up with your crud anymore, Chloé, so take your attitude and go on, get lost!

Chloe looks like she’s about to reply when Mrs. Bustier arrives. All the other snicker and watch as Chloé takes Marinette's previous seat angrily.

Alya: Woah! Good job!

Adrien enters the classroom and he waves at Marinette but she turns away from him and he is feeling down again.

Nino: Dude, you wanna make friends, right? Well, go talk to Marinette.

Adrien: But what should I say to her?

Nino: Just be yourself.

Marinette - Outside the school.

By the time school ends it’s raining. Marinette feels the rain with her hand

Adrien: Hey.

Marinette still ignores him; he opens his umbrella.

Adrien: I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry. I apologized to Ivan already. I've never been to school before. This is all sort of new to me.

He hands her his umbrella, and they share brief eye contact through the exchange, before the umbrella closes over Marinette's head, causing Adrien to laugh, resulting in Marinette smiling and laughing as well and Adrien sighs.

Adrien: See you tomorrow.

Adrien turns and walks down the stairs.

Marinette drops her bag.

Marinette: Uh-huh!… see you to…mo… tomo… Haha! Whoa, why am I stammering?

Tikki: Hey! I think I might have an idea!

Tikki taunts her a bit and flies onto Marinette's blushing cheeks as Marinette tries to avoid eye contact.

Plagg peeks out of Adrien's shirt and looks at him.

Plagg: First day of school and we already have two lovebirds.

Adrien: Oh knock it off, you!

#miraculous ladybug #ML:AT #fanfic

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linkspooky · 3 years

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The Todorokis and the Shimuras...

The Shimura family is the set up for how we are supposed to judge the Todorokis. They were the original broken house that fell apart. Everything in Shigaraki’s flashback, informs Dabi’s flashback later. We see the same abusive dynamics repeating again and again, and yet nobody learning from them. @logicalbookthief wrote almost a week ago and it turned out to be near clairyvoyant to this weak’s chapter.

Interesting that Dabi, Shigaraki and Toga all internalized the idea they’re “bad” or “not good (enough)” as children. Interesting how rather than discouraging this idea, the adults around them reinforce that they don’t deserve the care a “good” or “perfect” child would be entitled to, by seeing their pain and doing nothing to help.

Shigaraki and Dabi are established as foils precisely because, they ar both children who, literally no matter what in their household, kept trying to be good heroes. However, every adult around them treated them like they were the problem, that they were at fault for what went wrong in the household, no matter how hard they struggled to be good they were labeled as “bad children.” They’re the scapegoats of their household, and as they grow into adults they become the scapegoats of society. “Do you really want to be a hero?” is asked to both Shigaraki and Dabi, they can’t be seen as good

Because it’s easier to divide between good children and bad children, good victims and bad victims, then for the adults to actually try to fix their mistakes. That would mean admitting that they might be the problem too. In order to enforce this, they even lift up other children as “good children” creating golden childs, and because they didn’t react as strongly to the abuse then it puts Tenko and Toya as the ones to blame for not trying to be good enough. It’s Toya’s fault he became a villain, unlike Shoto who tried to be the hero of his family despite all of his abuse. Toya must have never really wanted to be a hero in the first place.

1. Tenko and Toya were good boys

If Tenko and Toya were not forced to carry the blame for how their household went wrong. If one actually looked at them as children, it’s easy to notice what good children they were, actually.

When Kotaro punishes Tenko for playing hero again he assumes he was just not listening to his rule, and trying to cause trouble. However, when Nao asks him why he was doing it, we learn his motivation, Tenko didn’t want two bullied kids to be left out.

Tenko is five, so he doesn’t really have like a developed personality yet, but a lot of the positive qualities Shigaraki displays as an adult are all their.

Tenko always follows his own dream, no matter how much the adults around him try to discourage him. His desire to be a hero is that strong. He has the same quality that Deku is constantly praised for.

Tenko is also, extremely emotionally intelligent. He realizes that his father is the one in the wrong for always picking on him, and that his parents are siding with his father and not him by reassuring him of his father’s good intentions. Your father has a reason for always forbidding you to be a hero. Your father means well. Everyone puts, Kotaro’s good intentions, and Kotaro’s well being over Tenko’s. It’s Tenko’s fault for provoking him, it’s Tenkos’s fault for not giving up on his dream of being a hero.

It’s interesting how Tenko and Toya almost come from seemingly opposite households. Tenko comes from a friendly household where he has an extremely close relationship with his sister, where his grandparents are almost always comforting him and doing fun things with him, and yet he still feels smothered by it all because nobody wants to tell Kotaro off, so his emotional needs are neglected. Tenko spends a lot of his time with his family, Toya spends time mostly isolated from his mother and father and yet, they both feel rejected fundamentally from the household dynamic.

It’s because no matter what at the end of the day they are the scapgoat for their household, it doesn’t matter what Tenko and Toya’s actual emotions and intentions are, because they’re perceived as thebad ones. We as the audience see Tenko’s sensitivity, his care for others, his desire to be a hero, but his family labels him as a troublemaker for... having the same dream every other five year old kid his age as. Tenko and Toya aren’t really allowed to make mistakes, or be wrong about things like normal kisd would because they’re not really normal kids, they’re “the problem child” or the “problem” of the household.

It’s not just that Tenko was abused, it was that he was abused in front of everybody, and not a single person tried to help.

He could have stopped if anybody in his family did anything but watch, but in that moment they didn’t. Of course it’s hard to stand up to an abuser, that’s only human, but not only did they leave Tenko to cry alone afterwards, they also created the atmosphere where Kotaro was constantly apologized for, and Tenko was constnatly blamed, which eventually led up to this.

Tenko is not a bad child, Tenko is five. The story repeats for Toya, I don’t think the adults around him realized what an amazing child Toya was.

He’s just as hard working as any other kid at UA. Isn’t that the motto? Plus Ultra? Always put the effort in and be willing to break yourself to be the best. That’s what Bakugo is taught, that’s what Shoto is taught later on. They always have to be willing to push themselves to their limits and surpass it.

Yet, for doing what any other kid did, Toya is punished. It’s not his father’s fault, it’s Toya’s, because Toya just can’t give up. Literally nevermind his fact that Enji taught him to think this way, that literally every other kid his age is taught to push themselves to be a hero, no it’s just something wrong with Toya. Toya’s the one who won’t give up, and there’s nothing Enji can do to make him give up.

Let’s ignore the fact that Enji is also. you know, a liar. Having more kids to replace Toya isn’t for Toya’s sake, it’s for the sake of Enji’s dream. Enji doesn’t do what’s best for Toya’s welll being like ever, he gives up on Toya because Toya won’t surpass all might so it’s pointless, he continues making kids until he gets one with the quirk he wants, because, that’s what his goal is. Enji’s goal was never to have a family or be a father, it was to get an heir with an ideal quirk.

Yet, Enji is given the benefit of the doubt that he’s doing this for Toya’s sake, and Toya isn’t. Toya is just the proble child causing disruption in the household. It’s Toya who won’t give up on the training.

Except once again, by seeing Toya as the bad child they’re missing out on what a good child Toya is. Look how hard he tries, look how he doesn’t give up, even when everyone around him tells him his dream is impossible he keeps on struggling agaist impossible odds. Is it wrong for a disabled person to want to run a marathon? Is it wrong for a person in a wheelchair to want to play basketball? Yes, Toya’s quirk may have gotten in the way of him being a hero, but there were ways Enji could have accomodated his disability, supervised him, taught him how to become a hero without hurting himself.

Except, Enji was never ever interested in any of those things. Enji didn’t care about Toya’s dream. Enji didn’t even care about Toya besides the fact that Toya could be made to carry his own dream.

Toya’s extremely hardworking, dedicated, and also intelligent as well. When he was a kid he was capable of comprehending that it was wrong of him to attack Shoto. He realized that in the household he was being abused. A thirteen year old was even capable of understanding that Enji SHOULDN’T be able to get away with what he’s doing.

Like everyone goes on and on about what Toya says about his sister and his mother this chapter, but no one mentioned the fact that Toya was right. Toya had the correct political take. An abuser should not be allowed to keep his job as a hero like this if he’s going to treat his family this way. Just like a hollywood producer who abuses women shouldn’t be allowed to keep their job if they’re using it to take advantage of others.

Toya confronts his mother for the fact that she’s failing him as a parent as well. That’s not Toya being misogynist towards Rei, he’s telling her the truth and holding her accountable. Yes, Rei is also a victim, but Toya is thirteen he doesn’t understand that. All he understands is that he’s being neglected by both parents. I mean, look at how Rei sees Toya. Look at how the scene is framed visually. This is Rei’s flashback of Toya it seems like.

She paints him like an incrediblly disturbed child. As if Toya is the disturbance in the household. As if he’s the bad one. As if he’s the one causing the problem. As if, if he just gave up his dream of being a hero then everything would be better.

Ignoring the fact that, Toya would still be an abused child even if he didn’t react the way he did. If Toya was quiet. If Toya shut up. He’d still have grown up with zero parenting at all. Enji still would have gone on to abuse Shoto. Look at Toya’s reaction in his eyes. Look at the way his pupils shake. He’s being told that if he just gave up his dream of being a hero, the household will be happier, but he knows that’s not true. Toya knows the problem in the household is Enji. If Toya gave up his dream of being a hero, he’d still be a deeply unhappy individual, he’d just be suffering more quietly. The household would still be an abusive one. Toya in the end, still won’t be parented properly, because, Rei and Enji don’t see Toya as a kid.

Literally all Enji had to do was lift up a finger. All he had to do was walk up to the mountain and talk to him, and he couldn’t even be bothered to do that. Toya was trying so hard to be good, to meet his parents standards, and yet he never would because his parents standards were impossible to meet in the first place.

“Well, gosh I didn’t know what to say to him it would have been hard.” Yeah, I bet it was hard when he LITERALLY BURNED ALIVE.

It’s not just the one incident of this though. Enji and Rei both frame it as an oopsie daisy. If only he had been stopped on that one day. And not like, the five continuous years of ignoring him that built up before that point. The fact that he was never really taught how to handle his emotions in a healthy way, because neither of his parents treated him as a child.

However, the narrative of the scapeogat and the good child still remains. Despite the fact that Toya and Tenko were children trying so hard to be good, and all they needed was someone to tell them that.

When all they wanted was for people to see the good in their own actions, to see how much they were trying, struggling, to be good, because they are the scapegoat they will always be the villain of the family.

I think it’s amazing that Toya is trying to be good even now. Toya, unlike Enji who only ever cared about the number one spot, is interested in creating a world where heroes are actually taken to task and treated as heroes. Shigaraki cares about people who were similiarly rejected to him, and offers them a helping hand.

Shigaraki and Dabi are capable of so much good. They still care about the world. They’re still trying to create a world better to others than it was to them. Shigaraki’s goal even shifts from empty destruction, to just, I want to give a world to my allies where they can be free.

Instead of seeing them as victims, they divide victims into good and bad. Shoto is the hero of the family because look how good he turned out even though he went through the same thing Dabi did.

Is Rei wrong for focusing first on stopping Dabi rom hurting innocent people rather than focusing on getting him the help he needs.

Well, you think Rei would know. That people who come from abusive households. People who are constantly abused. Can lash out and abuse completely innocent people. I’t almost like that’s exactly what she did to Shoto, blaming him and burning him instead for what Enji did. And it’s almost like Rei didn’t start to improve until she received outside medical help.

Heroes pretend to protect society, while turning a blind eye to those who they can’t save, who are most in need of their help. They blame bad victims, and uplift good victims to use an example against the bad victims, well why couldn’t Toya have turned out a good child like Shoto.

Man.

It’s almost like. Shoto didn’t burn to death. Because Enji couldn’t be bothered to walk up to a mountain. It’s like letting a child starve to death and then saying “Well, why didn’t this child learn how to cook?”

They divide the good and the bad and throw the bad out. Well, isn’t it a tragedy that Toya became Dabi. Isn’t it just a tragedy that that child couldn’t be saved. It’s not the five years of neglect, it’s the one day on the mountain that was the turning point for that.

It looks like on the surface that Toya’s family is admitting what went wrong, but they’re really kind of not. Toya doesn’t need to be fought as a villain. Toya doesn’t ned to be stopped. Labeling bad victims as villains and putting them down with violence literally never helps, because that’s thementality that created them in the first place. It was Toya’s behavior that needed to be stopped, he was the thing in the Todoroki household, that made everything else go wrong. If only Toya had not died, then Enji wouldn’t have abused Shoto so hard EXCEPT WE ALREADY KNOW THAT WAS ENJI’S INTENTIONS ALL ALONG FROM THE START. If Toya had lived Enji would have kept on doing whatever he wanted with Shoto, because no one in that house was going to hold him accountable.

Even now, Enji gets the unconditional support that Toya deserved as a child, that he needs now, just because he happens to be a hero. Certain people are labeled as heroes, certain people are labeled as villain. Good victims are saved and given the support they need, bad victims are violently put down.

Even Natsuo says this, that he should have just told Toya to stop complaining about the family.

But aren’t the things the villains saying you know right? That Enji should not be allowed to keep his job. That Enji abused his whole family. Wht would have been different if Natsuo and Toya had their talks? Toya would still be a severely abused child who carried that abuse into adulthood, but he wouldn’t be making a fuss about it? He wouldn’t be loud about it?

It’s suppression over recognizing the victim’s pain. It’s blaming the victims without looking at the cause. The Todoroki family set up Shoto as the hero responsible for saving the whole family because he is the good victim, and as a indirectly, they imply that Toya is the villain in need of stopping.

Once again I return to both the Todorokis and the Tenkos. By refusing to see the good in their children, to see that Tenko and Toya were just children who wanted and tred their best to be heroes and were unfairly punished for it, they ultimately suffocate both children. By labeling them as deviants who need to be stopped rather than victims who they abused, they just, keep suffocating them.

Which is why no matter how much Toya or Tenko may love their families, no matter how much they may sympathize and love their mothers, they still feel denied, suffocated by the whole family. Because their whole family fails to see their good intentions, fails to see who they are as children. They can’t see how much they genuinely wanted to be a hero, and they can’t see how much they were suffering as well, because they’re not good children they’ve alraedy been labeled as bad ones.

That’s why they ask over and voer again, do you still want to be a hero?

When all they needed to be told was it was possible for them to be a hero. When that was all they needed to hear, they were rejected instead. That’s why they can’t go back either, because they know after all this time their family still doesn’t understand. They’ll be rejected all over again.

And the scapegoat will remain a scapegoat forever.

#mha meta #shigaraki tomura #shimura tenko #todoroki toya #dabi #todoroki family #shimura family #todoroki #shimura #bnha 302 #bnha spoilers #bnha 302 spoilers

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mimsyaf · 2 years

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Ok I have watched episode 7. What the actual fuck is up with literally all the LaRussos around class and race this season??? It is so BANANAS. Like.

Kenny is this small nerdy gamer boy, a newcomer to the school. He’s also Black in a school that is “diverse” the way white people think of diversity: majority white. Anthony and his friends take it upon themselves to bully him, and we’re supposed to have ANY positive feelings for Anthony after that? I know this is supposed to be Anthony’s journey to the dark side or whatever, but this shows Daniel and Amanda to have been asleep at the wheel as parents. I HATE IT.

When Kenny was caught in the library about to punch Anthony, I kept flashing to every article I’d read about how Black kids tend to get in trouble when getting in fights with white kids, even when the white kids were the aggressors. And yeah, Kenny ends up not getting in trouble here, but it doesn’t feel like the show is “flipping the script”. They just don’t acknowledge the dynamic at all. It feels more like the writers were blind to this issue, which frankly is true for their treatment of all Black characters on this show — very much an “I don’t see color” attitude. Reminds me of sitcoms from when I was a teenager in the 1990s. I’m old, and these writers are about the same age as me. They just don’t seem to have examined many of their underlying beliefs around race and class in the intervening years.

Also, I’m really turned off to Daniel and Amanda as parents. Seems like they raised a couple of incredibly callous and coddled kids who can’t see one eyelash past their own privilege.

Sam with her treatment of Tory. It’s always been inexcusably rooted in class from the first time they met at the country club, and the show never takes her to task for that!! How many times has Tory been *on the fucking job* and is harassed and hassled IN HER PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT by a LaRusso??? At least 3 times!! The power dynamics are not equal in these moments!! But the show seems to be saying that both the girls are equally culpable!

And then Amanda connects with her over “being a troubled girl” without any real acknowledgement that one of the main reasons Tory is “troubled” is that SHE ALONE IS FINANCIALLY SUPPORTING HER FREAKING FAMILY AND HER MOM IS DYING. Obviously Amanda doesn’t have all the details here but it’s like the SHOW doesn’t acknowledge it either.

Ok and… Anthony has hired a Task Rabbit worker to do the wax on wax off for him, and they couldn’t get a white aspiring-actor-type for the job, could they? Even though it’s in LA, a city full of aspiring-actor-types hustling to make rent! No they just had to get a person of color to play the Tasker. And then Daniel dismissed him brusquely!

Back to Amanda: if I were Sam’s mother and my daughter treated a performer at a child’s birthday party like that, I don’t care WHAT the performer had done, I would immediately take my daughter aside and let her know all the reasons it is NEVER ok to treat someone as “less than” because of what they’re doing for money. Or for any other reason for that matter. I have had jobs like Tory’s and the Task Rabbit freelancer’s and some people think they can treat you like shit when you have those jobs. And you know what? Those people are bad people!!! Are we supposed to think the LaRussos are Bad People???

LUCILLE RAISED HER BOY BETTER THAN THIS, GODDAMN.

MR. MIYAGI RAISED HIS STUDENT BETTER THAN THIS TOO.

I’ve thought that since nearly the first episode, when I felt like Sam’s values were REALLY out of whack, and Daniel mentions it in passing but then is much more concerned with her potential sexual activity with Kyler than that she seems to be hanging out with a bunch of jerks and deceiving and abandoning a former best friend in order to be popular.

Honestly at the moment I think the overwhelming message for the teenage characters on the show is that adults are all blind, selfish, and crazy, and unable to be trusted. I’m with Robby at this point! Trust no one.

But seriously I would love to know if the writers have thought about ANY of this. If the LaRussos are meant to seem inexcusably unaware of their white privilege and the power afforded them by their financial status. Was this intentional, or oversight? If you have thoughts, chime in.

#cobra kai season 4 #cobra kai spoilers #season 4 spoilers #I know this isn’t coherent but… do you get what I mean???#I’m actually pretty sad about this #at least as sad as one can get about fictional people on a tv show #Mimsy rants #negative post #thinking about race and class

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whaleofatjme1920 · 3 years

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Dealing With People Who Don't Care (Ticci Toby X F!Reader)

Dealing With People Who Don't Care

[Ticci Toby X F!Reader]

[Warnings: slight language and calls to violence? Bullying, slight yandere behavior]

[AN: Requested from ѕρσσку яανισlι on Quotev! Idk if I'm ready to tell y'all that this was basically my first quarter of college.]

College wasn’t supposed to be like this, at least, that’s what you keep telling yourself. When you graduated from high school, you were told that petty drama and catty people were going to fade away because that was high school and this is college. Something new, something for young adults, and something you’d been looking forward to for far, far too long.

Truth be told, in high school, you didn’t really have any problems. You mostly got along with the people you did talk to and aside from a few arcs which you lovingly call ‘character development’, you generally kept your head down and to yourself which allowed you to stay off some of the cruller people’s radars. You were liked when it was necessary but ultimately stuck to yourself.

How did it all go so wrong?

When you first came in on orientation day, you’d met up with a group of girls and bonded on the train ride back to campus. There was a group chat made and you were a ready part of it. You felt nicely about your entire situation because these were nice girls, and they treated you like you held the sun and rose the moon. Is that what positive friendship was like?

For the first few weeks, everything with them was a bliss. Unfortunately, you were the only person from that group in your specific branch and major. This meant that you often spent most of your daylight hours alone or with yourself entirely. The other girls all had majors that were almost word for word the same, and that meant that they spent a lot of time together. Slowly, that had been growing closer and closer to each other and leaving you out.

It came in small doses at first, and you had chalked it up to your nature being so different from theirs. They were much more extroverted than you ever could have been. They were fire, and you were ice. But that did not mean that you were boring, or any less interesting, you were just quieter, preferring to take this just as softly. Wandering around the city with maybe one or two people, talking about the things that matter as opposed to getting wasted in a crowded apartment with fifty people who don’t even care about your wellbeing.

That’s what was different about you than them.

“Hey ladies,” you smile widely as you take your tray of food from the cafeteria to the table where all the girls sat. You notice that they’re all engrossed in conversation but quickly turn to greet you with smiles and waves.

“Hi, Reader! How has your day been?” Maria greets, her fingers gently tugging through her blonde hair. “Me and Georgina were just talking about you.”

Georgina nods and pats the seat next to her for you to sit down. “Yeah, what have you been up to?”

You take a seat next to the redhead and sip from your drink. “It was alright. With midterms coming up though… Little stressed,” you admit as the two girls sitting around you frown in response. “Lots of essays, some minor discussion posts, a group project but we’re just starting it early because it counts for like, 20 percent of our grade and is part of our final,” you say as you stab into your food.

“Oh? A group project?” Georgina asks with a raise of her eyebrow.

You nod. “It’s actually more like a partner project. I’m paired with this guy named Toby? But like, I haven’t seen him yet - he doesn’t show up to class,” you sigh.

“Maybe try emailing the professor,” Maria suggests. “But I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” she hums with a small smile, her hand reaching over and gripping yours warmly.

From there, the conversation that follows has you drifting away. By now, a third girl has joined the conversation and her name is Helena. Helena is also in the same class as you with the group project, but she isn’t as close to you as Georgina and Maria are. She greets you just as warmly but she turns the conversation in a direction you weren’t expecting.

Laughter rings out from the table.

“And that guy from last night?” Georgina giggles.

“He was insane!” Maria adds. “You have to come inside!” She mockingly says before bursting into another fit of giggles.

“And he dressed so weirdly,” Helena continues. “Ratty as all hell jacket and then followed us into the theatre? Asked to show us magic tricks-” she’s not even able to finish her words because she’s laughing much too hard.

You tilt your head slightly. “What happened last night?” You ask.

The girls pause for a moment. “Don’t worry about it,” Georgina says as she swats off your question. “You weren’t there.”

“This was last night?” You ask again.

They nod.

“Yeah, wasn’t anything special,” Maria attempts to shrug off before those three continue with their conversation and inside jokes.

You eat in silence, every now and then smiling and offering forced laughter as you think about what you did last night. You weren’t doing anything, in fact, your roommate went out on a date with her boyfriend and left you in the dorm all along. So, you finished your work a little early and started on some other things, then watched Netflix and fell asleep before midnight. You were free the entire night.

And they didn’t even think to invite you.

From there, you started to notice all the times they forgot about you and excluded you. It carried on in the sloughed off invites, the ‘sorry we can’t meet up for dinner,’ and generally just avoiding you. They had jokes they couldn’t share with you, and you were at their side, they acted like you weren’t even there until it faded into nothing.

Reader: Are you guys doing anything tonight?

Maria is typing…

Maria: no not tonight :(

Reader: oh okay! But if any of you want to come to Target with me or something..? Maria: sorry, I’m busy!

Georgina is typing…

Helena is typing…

After that, they’d left you on read, not even bothering to answer you. Later that night on snapchat, you saw the three of them wandering the city without you, laughing and having a good time.

Instead of talking to them right away, you focused on your classes and your work. And that meant finally tagging down toby.

You’d managed to finally get him in your sight after emailing your professor who struck some type of fear into him. You were able to meet him face to face at a little cafe somewhere off campus.

“Over h-here,” he calls out from near the window of the cafe, waving you towards the back.

You flash him a quick smile and let it fall before finally taking a seat across from him. You’re slightly surprised to see that there’s a cup of hot chocolate and a chocolate chip muffin is there waiting for you. “Oh, uh, thank you,” you say as you get comfortable.

“It’s n-nothing,” he says with a small smile. “I-I’m sorry for k-keeping you w-w-waiting all t-this time,” he continues in an apologetic tone. “T-Things with my f-family aren’t e-easy right n-now.”

Not wanting to push him, you nod and smile reassuringly. “It’s okay,” you relent. “So, this project..?”

“It’ll b-be a breeze,” he replies. “D-Don’t worry about i-it, yeah?” He picks up his own cup of hot chocolate to fight off the child of mid autumn and nods to you, his dark eyes scanning over your form. “I w-wanna know j-just who I’m w-working with.” He smirks slightly, the corners of his mouth pulling up like a know-it-all cat.

You look into your cup of hot chocolate and shrug. “Nothing too interesting,” you attempt to slide off.

Toby rolls his eyes. “Calling b-bull,” he snorts. “You l-look stressed. W-What’s on your m-m-mind?”

You sigh deeply and relax your body as you think back to the situation with those girls. “It’s nothing.”

Toby hums once more but does not push you. Deep down though, he knows something is wrong.

And that’s how it carries on. You and Toby meet every so often to work on your presentation and your paper together and your so called friends continually leave you in the dust. Before you know it, you’re spending more and more time with Toby than anyone else, and because of that, you don’t feel nearly as alone as you used to.

From Toby’s perspective, he would never tell you what he thought when he first saw you walk through those doors of the cafe to finally meet him in person.

When he first got that email in regards to him not showing up and worrying you, he’d rolled his eyes and pretended it didn’t matter. It was whatever, who cares? Apparently you. With a slight gripe in the back of his head, he looked you up on social media with the help of a friend named Ben and found all that he needed to know just by looking at your profile. He was almost ashamed to admit how enraptured with you he had become. That’s why he was so adamant you met him at a cafe, where he could spend time with just you.

When he saw you walking through the doors, his eyes scanned over every inch of you. You had a slight bounce in your walk despite it being so chilly.

He wondered if you wanted to be warmed up.

You looked so soft in his eyes, so sweet and so alluring. Just your looks alone was all he needed as water for a growing obsession.

Toby is addictive by nature. Seeing you was what allowed that addiction to take off. When he heard your voice? He felt like he was high.

He knew something was wrong with you when you sighed like that. It was a loaded sigh. Of course, after the two of you parted ways for the night and on good terms, he immediately dug into the lives of your so-called ‘friends.’ Let’s just say that damn near instantly, he did not like them.

Maria, a nursing major. He considered her an air head that wouldn’t get anywhere with substance, and saw that she was much more of a party girl than anything else.

Georgina, another nursing major. Also considered her a lost cause.

Helena, a medical assistant major. Toby considered her the worst one, but it didn’t come at first. He found that girl was vile in every sense. The things he’s overhead her saying about other people? Terrible. The things he’s overhead her saying about you? Absolutely unacceptable.

He noticed her whispers that cut like thorns wrapping around you from the shadows as he sat in class near her, but never next to her. He listened to the filth that poured from her mouth and was able to pick up the conversations from her phone like it was nothing.

And all of that? It lit a fire in him, a fire that would eventually burn her down and scorch her until she was nothing but ashes.

You’re about to head to class and present your final project with Toby. You look like a mess, and it’s not just from the lack of sleep because of your other class’s finals, but because you are absolutely emotionally drained and have nothing left to give. You’d finally formally broken up from those girls, but it did not come without tears.

Reader: hey guys, it’s been a little while, but I just wanted to get some things off of my chest before I call it. First and foremost, I want to thank you for the time we did spend together, but I don’t feel safe or happy anymore. These past few weeks have been nothing but straight ice and being left out and I’m just… I’m tired, for a lack of better words. I know that you don’t really want me around anymore, so I thought I’d just nip this one in the bud before it got out of hand or anything like that. I just - whatever, I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done to offend you.

Georgina is typing…

Georgina: Honestly don’t take this the wrong way but you legitimately brought this all onto yourself.

Georgina: you don’t really talk to us the way that we talk to each other

Reader: but you literally never gave me a chance???

Maria: shes right tho,,,,, like, you just always kept to yourself. You didnt really give us anything to go off of

Georgina: right??? And it’s not like she’d actually do any of the things we wanted to do either

Reader: I’m sorry but like, I offered for you guys to come do some things with me and I even asked for you to tell me when you guys were making plans - I would have gone out

Helena: does it even matter now though? You brought literally all of this onto yourself there’s no use for you to just beg us for you to come back lol. Just stop while you’re ahead

Helena: you were never really there to begin with tbh you just kinda existed

Maria: exactly that! Like im glad we’re getting stuff off our chest because omg did you get on my nerves. Always quiet and just watching??? Never saying anything??

Georgina: RIGHT It was like a literal ghost in the room LMFAO

Reader: are you fucking serious right now?

Reader: you’re going to act like this?

Maria: you brought it on yourself

Helena: it was bound to happen

Reader: I cannot believe you guys are acting like such assholes right now

Maria: you did it first though?????

Helena: ^^^^

Georgina: ^^^^

From there, the conversation had delved into them throwing all of their problems onto you. It honestly felt like projecting, but you had a class to go to and project to present and no time to cry.

You wiped your tears, got ready for the day and headed out to your building from out of your dorm. Soon, you would be on break and away from this place that’s driving you up a wall.

You walked across campus and plastered a faint smile on your face as you continued to move through the nippy air. You enjoyed seeing the leaves as they danced on the flowing air and eventually kissed the sidewalk. You could smell pumpkin spice and the remnants of November. What a beautiful season.

Waiting for you outside of Wendell’s Hall was Toby, hands in his pockets as he leaned up against the wall just beside the door.

“Were you waiting for me?” You ask with a small smile.

“Maybe,” he hums with a small smirk. “C-C’mon, it’s a little c-chilly out here,” he says as he gently shuffles you inside after opening the door for you. He watches you carefully as you walk through the halls and find the elevator to get to the sixth floor.

As the two of you wait for the doors to open, Toby checks you over.

“What?” You say with a small chuckle.

“J-Just checking,” Toby hums. “A-Are you okay?” He asks as the doors open. He nods for you to go in first, and then follows in directly after. He watches your finger press the button for six.

“Why?”

“You s-seem a l-little tense,” he says as he looks over you again, his eyes narrowing in on yours. “I-Is it the p-presentation?”

You hold your hand out and make a ‘so-so’ motion. “I guess,” you reply, attempting to shove off anything that might make you cry again. Your eyes are a little dark, and your skin is still soft from the saline, raw from you rubbing those pearls of water with your sleeves repeatedly.

“You w-wanna talk a-about it l-later?” He asks softly, his hand resting warmly on your shoulder as he brings you into his side.

You look up at him and smile. “We’ll see.”

When the doors open, you and Toby quickly make it to your class and are pleased to see there’s spots open and the two of you can sit together. Toby is quick to snag the seats for the both of you and his warm expression falls when he sees Helena waltzing into the room.

Helena sits a little ways from where you and Toby sit before she wiggles her fingers at you like a nonverbal smile before actually turning her lips up in a fake saccharine smile.

You shift uncomfortably and instead focus on your presentation. You feel a little nervous, mostly because Helena is here and this is also a big chunk of your grade. You’re academically passing with flying colors, but a hiccup like this could spell something bad. You breathe out deeply when you feel Toby’s hand resting on your shoulder, grounding you.

“We g-g-got this,” he says with a small smile, squeezing you lightly. “You w-wwanna get it out of the w-w-ay?”

“No,” you reply suddenly. “I just want to see how this goes.”

Toby nods and turns his attention to the other students that continue to walk through the door. “A-Anything for y-y-you,” he says softly.

You barely hear it, but you smile all the same.

Presentations pass in a pretty boring manner. Your professor seems pleased with everyone that presents, and she offers praise and saves the criticism for emails, but so far, it seems like everyone is doing well! You’re almost fully calm by the time you raise your hand to present but when Helena and her partner begin snickering, your heart sinks to your knees.

“Alright, you two are good to go,” your professor says with a warm, reassuring smile on her face after she pulls up your project on the overhead projector. “Giving the remote to Miss Reader, whenever you two are ready.” She holds the remote out to you and then whispers ‘you’re gonna do great’ before taking her seat in the front row.

You silently thank her for her reassurance and then turn your attention to Toby, who begins the presentation.

You make sure to speak clearly and concisely as you present your project, paying close attention to detail and everything that was outlined on the rubric. You watch your professor’s expression light up brighter and brighter as you carry on with your half of the presentation. It seems that she’s really pleased with the both of you, but especially you!

Your big hiccup comes when the questions part of your presentation comes up.

See, prior to this, the questions portion had been empty and pretty dead. But of course, because Helena is here, she’s dead set on making you flop.

When she starts firing questions, you and Toby answer them to the best of your abilities. Admittedly, you are more than mentally dead at this point. With every question that Helena digs into you, you feel your brain cells dying off at an even faster rate. The lights of the projector bore into you and make you dizzy. You’re just… exhausted.

Helena finally poses a question that makes your face heat up. “So?” She taunts, her eyes looking at you innocently. “I just wanna know,” she continues, her eyes flashing.

You should be able to answer this. It’s so simple and right there in your bank of knowledge you just can’t open the vault.

“Miss Reader..?” Your professor quietly asks, pulling you from your thoughts. “Are you able to-” You shake your head, feeling numb and cold all at the same time. “I’m sorry, no,” you whisper. It was one of the first things you learned in the class and one of the most important.

Your professor nods and mouths, ‘don’t worry,’ before turning to the rest of her class. “Alright then, you two are dismissed. Give them a round of applause for their work.”

The applause surrounds you but you do not feel it, and when you move back to your seat, you can’t help but feel embarrassed. The looks that you get from those around you are of pity and ‘she hasn’t learned anything this quarter, has she?’ It makes your face burn with embarrassment and you feel so unnaturally warm because of it. A rush of emotions comes over you when you see Helena’s shifty glances and hear her insipid giggles and you hurriedly get your things together and bolt out of the classroom.

Toby shoots up when you rush out and he’s not able to catch you. Instead, he sits in for the rest of the class to give you some space and anything else the professor may say. His glare is turned on Helena. When she flashes him that same sickly sweet, mocking smile, he sees red.

Class ends shortly after that, the professor clearly uncomfortable with whatever just happened with Helena and Toby is keeping his ire hidden until what comes after he deals with you. He’s got a few choice things in mind he’d like to do to Helena, mostly spinal disfigurement and popping bones from their joints and scattering them across the country, but he knows he has to play this as slimy as she did. He’s already conjuring up ways to academically cripple her.

Toby pushes those thoughts to the side before he makes his way to your dorm. He’s nodding to the guy at the front desk and running up the stairs to find you faster than his thoughts can even gather. He just wants to make sure you’re okay.

He walks through the hall of your floor before going over the room numbers. He’s only been in your dorm once - the two of you tend to spend time with each other outside of the campus. Twenty four hour McDonalds, out and about in the city, public parks, the two of you just like wandering. When he sees the numbers of your dorm, he internally sighs and knocks. “H-Hey, Reader? Y-You in t-t-there?” He asks as he knocks again.

From inside, you shuffle underneath your sheets. He’s here? You don’t answer.

“I j-just want to make s-sure you’re alright,” he continues in a soft voice. “If you n-need space though, I c-c-can go-” he barely makes the motion to move when you open the door just a crack.

You look up at Toby with dark, puffy eyes. You can’t bring yourself to say anything, but he can see that you’ve been through hell and back emotionally. You look like a mess, in less graceful words.

“Oh g-gods,” he murmurs as you push open the door just a bit more. “R-Reader,” he says softly as he takes you into his arms, his shoe gently pushing the door closed as you wrap your arms around his waist, taking in the scent of graphite and sandalwood as you sob into his chest. “What h-happened, s-sweetheart?” He asks softly as he rocks the two of you back and forth.

You continue to cry into his chest and grip onto the back of his hoodie as he gently maneuvers you to the side of your bed to let your tired body rest. “S-She’s so mean!” You cry as you continue to squeeze your eyes shut, still gripping Toby like he’s the only thing grounding you.

“What h-have they d-d-done to you?” He inquires in a tone just a little louder than a whisper. Internally, he knows he’ll make all three of those demons suffer and leave the school, by any means necessary. He just wants to hear it from you to know how hard he needs to fuck up their lives. Judging by this interaction alone? It’s monumental.

You then go into a painful detailing of everything those girls have ever made you feel, at one point even bringing up the chats you have saved on your phone. Your breathing begins to even, but Toby’s vision grows redder and redder.

He listens to everything you say as you recount your pain to him and he grits his teeth. Especially those chats - those are unforgivable.

You’re exhausted by the time you finally finish telling him everything they’ve made you feel and the things they’ve done to make you feel this way. You finish it with just a few more words. “They make me feel so small,” you admit through sniffles and broken breaths. “They just - they made me feel so left out and so insignificant,” you admit, still wiping away tears.

Toby holds you tighter before one of his hands reaches up to cup your cheek. “N-No! You’re n-not insignificant, you’re e-everything and m-more,” he begins to ramble. “Y-You’re s-s-so smart and p-put together and o-on top of i-it,” he continues, his thumb wiping away your residual tears.

“You’re just saying that-”

“I w-would never,” he cuts you off in a tone that’s more serious than he intended. “I m-mean everything I s-s-say and those g-girls suck. They d-don’t hold a candle to you,” he says as he cups your face.

“Toby…”

Toby hushes you by pressing a soft, almost scared he might spook you kiss to your lips as if he’s testing the waters. When you make no motion to fight him, he presses just a little more fervently before pulling away, leaving you with stars in your eyes. “I’ll handle e-e-everything, okay?” He promises softly, watching as the stars fade to exhaustion. “G-Get some r-r-rest,” he coos.

You allow him to lay you down as he moves the blankets to cover you before he gets up to turn off the lights. “You’re going to handle it?” You whisper as you allow sleep to veil over your body.

“Y-Yes, I’ll handle e-e-everything,” he promises again, flicking the lights off.

Toby fumbles through the dark for just a moment before slipping back into bed with you, allowing you to wrap around him like an octopus. He cradles you in his arms, his lips pressing to your forehead. “Sleepy t-time,” he mumbles as you cuddle into his chest.

You smile softly and feel your body go light, only anchored by Toby’s warm embrace.

#ticci toby #creepypasta #creepypasta x reader #ticci toby x reader #x reader #reader insert #angst with a happy ending #angst #light angst #toby creepypasta

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simplepotatofarmer · 3 years

Text

why i want c!dream to have a chance to heal

(or ‘i wrote half of this in a depressive funk at 2 a.m. sitting on the kitchen floor because it’s hard to articulate why i like c!dream’)

tw for child abuse

there’s a lot of mixed feelings in fandom about c!dream. i have or had a lot of mixed feelings about him. in the past i’ve called him a monster, a character i didn’t care for. i’m not sure when that started to change, really, but i know why.

i want dream to have a chance to heal - and not because i believe he’s done nothing wrong, the point is he has - but because as a child, almost every adult in my life abused me in some way.

my dad broke my jaw when i was seven because he lost his temper and picked up a can of soup and hit me in the face with it. that wasn’t the only time he hit me but it’s what i remember the most.

my mom was constantly emotionally abusive to me as a child with some physical abuse thrown in. she would tell me that i did everything wrong, that i was worthless, that i was making her life hard, that i had ruined everything. it was constant.

my parents had me extremely young, 15 and 16 respectively. they had issues with drugs and alcohol and my mom dealt with her own emotional abuse from her parents.

i love my dad. now, he’s one of the few members of my family that doesn’t try to manipulate me, one of the few people who expresses genuine care and love for me.

i can’t say i love my mom. she still views me as competition and shows no real love for me. but i can see she’s a great mom to my youngest brother and when i made the decision that i couldn’t care for my other brother’s three kids permanently, my mom and dad were the people i told the court should have custody.

they’re not perfect but they’re also not the people they were when they abused me and the kids they’ve raised now are happy and kind. they’ve fostered multiple kids, one of which has decided to stay with them after turning 18.

as for the rest of my family, they haven’t changed but they’re still people. people who in a lot of ways truly loved me and at the same time hurt me greatly. they were never monsters or fully evil and i could talk forever on why i think painting abusers as monsters or evil full stop is often harmful (how long did it take me to realize i was being abused because my family weren’t monsters, because sometimes they were so kind and loving and then so hurtful, mentally and physically? i didn’t think they were abusive because my friends loved them so how could they be? but i digress)

this is a lot of personal information and if you got this far, i’m sorry, thank you, and i swear it’s relevant.

dream has done horrible things. unforgivable things and i think he deserves a chance to be better.

watching the old vods from the beginning of everything, i’m not struck with the opinion that dream is an evil monster right out the gate, i can’t even say he’s a master manipulator. to me, he reads as person in a situation he doesn’t know how to handle, a person with control issues and a cruel streak. he cared about people, he cared about the world and when things started going differently than he wanted, he started tightening his grip. he made mistakes, he contradicted himself. he became a bully, more so than he was before.

later, he picked a target he thought he could handle: tommy. he knew he could beat tommy down, he knew how to hurt him. i don’t think it was some masterful manipulation. dream was wielding a bludgeon at a target who was vulnerable. it was cruel and abusive and there’s no two ways about it.

and i still think he deserves a chance to heal.

because people, even abusive people who have done awful, unforgivable things, can change. it doesn’t mean the people they’ve hurt should forgive them, it shouldn’t mean that and that’s why i don’t use the term ‘redemption’ because whatever dream does next should be separate from anyone he’s hurt. it should be done by him alone and for no reason other than he wants to.

for me, seeing someone who is an abuser, someone who is also being abused, begin to do better, is important. things aren’t always black and white. people aren’t always good or bad. they’re a mix of both and at this point, i truly believe the message wouldn’t be a good one if dream doesn’t at least have that chance.

it doesn’t mean he has to take it. it doesn’t mean he has to heal or change. it doesn’t mean he has to do it well either. only that the chance should be there because dream is a person. a person who is a bully and abuser and a person who has regrets and people he cares for and expressed a desire for a normal life.

whether or not those things he expressed were true honestly doesn’t matter to me. it becomes a game of ‘who said what’ and you can see within the shifting perspectives, everyone is an unreliable narrator.

i suppose the point is, for me as a victim of abuse and someone who has a complicated relationship with my abusers, there’s something about c!dream that makes me care about him, care about what happens to him because everything i’ve seen, to me, paints a picture of a young man who has a cruel side, who is a bully and sunk further and further into that side out of frustration and desperation. someone who did terrible things but is having terrible things done to him and should have a chance to be better. not because he deserves it, but because he’s a person and people deserve chances to heal.

this was a long post and rambling and i tried to be as objective as possible because i’m lowkey afraid of posting anything c!dream positive, especially a take this personal, and i want to make it clear it’s my take and i don’t speak for all abuse victims.

#dream smp #loyal does meta #dreamwastaken #dreblr #c!dream #if this needs to be tagged as crit pls let me know. a lot of the wording was like..... me trying to avoid getting hate again lmao #child abuse cw #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis #dsmp meta

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

Note

what if Jiang Cheng is the one in the arranged marriage with Jin Zixuan (maybe an au where birth order matters more than gender?)

ao3

“Well, no one cares what you think!” Jin Zixun shouted, and Jin Zixuan flinched, already knowing that this was going to end in disaster. His older cousin – his father’s favorite of the lot – was mean at the best of times, and when he was angry, he was especially cruel. A kid like Jiang Cheng, barely nine, wouldn’t be able to deal with him. “You’ll never made anything of yourself, anyway; the best thing you’ll ever be is A-Xuan’s wife!”

That was worse, somehow, than Jin Zixuan had thought it would be. Maybe because his name was invoked – maybe because Jiang Cheng looked as though he’d been slapped in the face, his eyes filling with unshed tears, and when his fist found its way to Jin Zixun’s face a moment later, Jin Zixuan thought that it was completely deserved.

Afterwards, when they’d all split off their own ways, he went to find Jiang Cheng.

He didn’t need to, he knew, but – he’d liked Jiang Cheng, at least a little.

He was the same age as Jin Zixuan, a little boy like him, even if he was the second child and not the heir the way Jin Zixuan was. He’d been laughing about something when Jin Zixuan first saw him, something whispered to him by his older sister, a plain girl recognizable only by her Jiang sect colors, but he’d straightened up the second he’d seen them walking into the room, putting on a serious expression, and Jin Zixuan had suddenly felt an overwhelming rush of oh you have to deal with this too that he’d never felt before in his life.

All of his so-called friends thought it was great to be the son of the sect leader, but they didn’t have to go to the terrible parties and stand there being shown off to people all night; they actually complained that they didn’t get to go.

He didn’t think Jiang Cheng would complain like that.

Maybe they could be friends, he thought, hopefully. Real friends, not pretend; friends that stayed together because they liked each other and not because their parents needed a political connection –

And then, less than a shichen after they’d been ushered off to go play together by adults who had better things to be doing, Jin Zixun’d managed to ruin everything. Again.

It didn’t take long to find Jiang Cheng.

They’re in Jinlin Tower, which meant that there weren’t many places Jiang Cheng could go that Jin Zixuan couldn’t find him – not like the Lotus Pier, which was an impassable maze even in the guest quarters that they’d taken special care to try to make nice and orderly for the one time they’d tried unsuccessfully to visit – and it turned out he hadn’t gone all that far, just ducked into a nearby guest room that was tidied up even though no one used it.

Jiang Cheng was curled up next to a window, his whole body looking especially small. He wasn’t even looking out of it, but he still gave off the impression of being on the verge of jumping out, or even just that he’d be blown away by the wind.

He wasn’t actually all that small – maybe a bit short for a nine-year-old, maybe a bit more slender, but his father and mother were both tall and that meant he probably would be, too, given time.

“You shouldn’t listen to Zixun,” Jin Zixuan said, and Jiang Cheng looked at him, red-eyed. “He’s dumb. All he ever does is say mean things, and they’re never true.”

“S’true, though, isn’t it?” Jiang Cheng said. “I’m the one that has to marry in, ‘cause I’m second, not first. I’ve got to leave Lotus Pier, go to Jinlin Tower…”

Marry you. Be the official wife. Smile and bear it and host your parties while you’re off fucking someone else – multiple someones – to get kids for the inheritance. Never have children of my own, but instead be stuck raising your bastards for you…

Jiang Cheng didn’t say any of that, of course, but Jin Zixuan knew.

After all, he’d overheard his mother and her friend – former friend – fighting over it. Madame Yu wanted to break the engagement when it turned out that the girl had come first and the boy second, since her husband was refusing to flip the order and marry Jiang Yanli out instead, and his mother had refused, the lure of the Yunmeng Jiang’s power more potent than their old friendship.

Caustic words had been said. Words he probably should have been too young to understand, words that maybe Jiang Cheng didn’t get yet, but…well.

His mother had always been very clear about all the things she hated about her life.

And now she was going to force the same life onto someone else.

“I don’t think my parents would agree to let me be the one to marry in,” he said, almost wishing he could. Sure, then he’d have to be the one living his mother’s horrible life, but at least there was something familiar about that type of suffering – he’d spent his whole life hearing about it, after all, hearing about it over and over and over again until it almost felt like he’d lived it himself.

He thought he could bear up with living that terrible life.

He wasn’t so sure he could bear up with being the one to cause it.

Jiang Cheng snorted. “Why would you want to?” He squinted up at him. “Aren’t you going to tell me that Jinlin Tower is great and I shouldn’t worry because being your wife will be great, too, or something like that?”

“I have no idea if being my wife is great,” Jin Zixuan said blankly, out of lack of anything better to say. He probably should have said something like that. “I’ve never had one before.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and then for some reason they both started sniggering uncontrollably.

“Of course you don’t have a wife, you’re nine,” Jiang Cheng said, giggling. “Even I know that nine year olds don’t have wives! And anyway, if you did, it’d be me, wouldn’t it? It’s not like they’re just, I dunno, handing out practice wives.”

“I wish they’d hand out practice wives,” Jin Zixuan confessed, covering his eyes. “That way I could be sure I wouldn’t…you know…”

“Screw up?”

“Yeah.”

Was Jiang Cheng going to judge him? Should Jin Zixuan have kept that to himself, pretended that everything was under control…?

But Jiang Cheng was nodding. “I wish they made practice everything,” he said emphatically, and Jin Zixuan drooped in relief, coming to sit on the floor next to Jiang Cheng. He wasn’t actually allowed to sit on floors, not even clean ones, but he was also supposed to be hosting Jiang Cheng, so if anyone asked that was going to be his excuse. “It’s so hard to get things right on the first try.”

“No one gets things right on the first try,” Jin Zixuan said.

“Wei Wuxian does,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Who’s he?”

“He’s my shixiong,” Jiang Cheng said. “It’s – kind of complicated. His parents were friends with my dad, before they died.”

- well at least I managed to keep my husband from bringing home a bastard!

Right. That kind of complicated.

His mother always told him he had to be the most careful around bastards – that they would be smart and pretend to be nice, try to get him to like them, while in reality they’d be scheming against him in the dark, maybe even try to kill him, so they could get what he had and they didn’t. Jin Zixuan figured the same had to be true for Jiang Cheng, and he felt sorry for him.

“Well, you seem good enough to me,” he said firmly. “When you’re my wife, I’ll treat you right.”

He would, too. He wouldn’t go around with other women, wouldn’t come home smelling of them, wouldn’t rub what he was doing in Jiang Cheng’s face and laugh until Jiang Cheng lost his cool and started throwing things – of course, there was always the question of the inheritance, but maybe when he had to find himself a woman, he could try to find Jiang Cheng a woman of his own, too, someone he liked, and those children could be surnamed Jiang.

Maybe they could find one they both liked and share.

“I don’t know what’s so bad about being ‘just’ someone’s wife, anyway,” Jin Zixuan added. “I mean, my mom’s the scariest person I know, except maybe for your mom, and they’re both wives.”

Jiang Cheng grinned. “Yeah, that’s right. Next time that big old bully says anything, I’ll tell him to repeat that where my mom can hear it, see what he does then…uh, no offense about the bully thing. I know he’s your cousin.”

“I don’t like him either,” Jin Zixuan admitted.

“Then you’ve got good taste,” Jiang Cheng said, and Jin Zixuan preened. His first ever compliment from his wife!

“I know we’re only hanging out together because our parents said we had to,” Jin Zixuan said, suddenly feeling brave. “But maybe we could…maybe…”

“Be friends?”

He nodded.

Jiang Cheng thought about it, crinkling his nose as he did. Jin Zixuan waited patiently.

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng finally decided. “But only if you help me prank Jin Zixun to get back at him.”

“Deal!” Jin Zixuan exclaimed, then hesitated. “I’ve never pranked anyone before, though…”

“I’ll teach you!” Jiang Cheng scrambled to his feet, then stopped as if struck by a sudden thought. “Do you like dogs?”

“Dogs?” Jin Zixuan repeated blankly. “They’re well enough, I guess…you have three, right?”

He’d seen glimpses of them when he’d visited the Lotus Pier last year, when they were supposed to have first met except Jiang Cheng got sick with a stomach illness right before their visit, throwing up and everything, and Jin Zixuan’s mom had refused to let him anywhere near him.

Jiang Cheng scowled, and suddenly his eyes were welling up with tears again, causing Jin Zixuan to panic again even though he was pretty sure it wasn’t his fault this time.

“I used to,” Jiang Cheng muttered. “But Wei Wuxian’s scared of dogs, so my father had them sent away. I was just thinking…never mind. It was stupid.”

Jin Zixuan bit his lip. It wasn’t a good sign that Jiang Cheng’s father was already favoring his bastard over his son, not at all, not when fathers had all the power in the cultivation world. Not when even his mother, proud and fierce and famous for cowing his father with thrown pottery and fits of temper, was in the end helpless to stop him – she couldn’t make him stop humiliating her, couldn’t make him stop going out and having all those bastards. She stopped him from bringing them home, but she couldn’t stop him where it mattered, because all he had to do was threaten to make one of them the heir instead of Jin Zixuan.

He wouldn’t, because he needed her maternal family’s support, but he could.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair to his mother, it wasn’t fair to Jin Zixuan, and it wasn’t fair to Jiang Cheng, either. And it especially wasn’t fair that he was already being replaced – and just when Jin Zixuan was starting to feel better about the marriage, too!

The whole arranged marriage deal didn’t seem so bad if it was going to be with Jiang Cheng, who seemed pretty nice. Jin Zixuan didn’t want to have to start all over again with another boy, especially not a bastard.

“If you know where they are, you could send your dogs here to live with me,” Jin Zixuan suggested, feeling suddenly spontaneous in a way he almost never did, and Jiang Cheng turned to him with wide eyes. “That way you’d have a reason to come visit a lot, and your father could see that we were getting along.”

It would remind Sect Leader Jiang that their marriage could be broken by either side at any time, if they were unhappy – show him that they were committed, that they wouldn’t accept inferior goods in Lanling. Maybe it could help convince him to keep Jiang Cheng and his mother instead of swapping them out.

“I was just thinking I could introduce you, but that’s even better!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, looking excited. “You’re serious?”

“Sure,” Jin Zixuan said. He had an entire palace of his own back in Jinlin Tower, full of rooms he never used meant to host as guests all the friends he didn’t have. They could put the dogs in some of those, hire someone to take care of them – feed them, walk them, brush them, whatever needed to be done for dogs. If there was one thing Jinlin Tower didn’t lack, it was servants to do things. “But you have to come visit them. Without bringing Wei Wuxian.”

That way, even if this Wei Wuxian person used his bastard tricks to pull the wool over Jiang Cheng’s eyes to make him think that they were friends even as he stole away Jiang Cheng’s birthright in secret - Jin Zixuan’s mother had warned him - there’d still be a way to show how important it was to keep Jiang Cheng as the legitimate son. They might have just met, but it was pretty clear to Jin Zixuan already that Jiang Cheng was way too friendly and nice to know how to properly guard himself – someone would have to do the work for him.

And who else, if not his husband?

“Don’t worry about Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng said. “He won’t go anywhere if he thinks there’ll be dogs. You’ll really do it?”

“I’ll talk to my parents,” Jin Zixuan promised – he was only nine, there were limits to what he could actually do – but Jiang Cheng seemed to think that was enough. He smiled at him, and Jin Zixuan smiled back.

Maybe this could work out.

#mdzs #jiang cheng #jin zixuan #my fic #my fics #okay it's not JZX and his two brides #but it was in the queue so I moved it up #Anonymous

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spencers-renaissance · 3 years

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I found my way home

Summary: After Spencer tells Hotch about his recent autism diagnosis, he expects that to be the end of it. Somehow, though, it keeps coming up, and Hotch keeps proving himself to be the best father figure he could have asked for.

Tags: autistic spencer, protective hotch, hurt/comfort, fluff, paternal hotch, team as family

TW: mentions of ableism, one small instance of ableism & homophobia

Pairing: Gen

Word Count: 4.1k

Masterlist // Read on AO3

This was borne from my conversations with @criminalmindsvibez about the lack of autistic spencer fics and her amazing headcanons. While I'm not autistic, Emily is, and helped me to portray Spencer's autism as accurately as possible. That said, please feel free to correct me on anything I got wrong :)

Spencer had made an effort to get into work even earlier than usual today. He’d ridden the metro through the city, dipping his hand into his messenger bag every few minutes to compulsively check that the slim letter he’d received in the post the other day is still in the front pocket where he’d safely placed it that morning. He brushes his fingers over the paper once more as he enters the near-empty bullpen, the letter cool from the winter air.

It’s still so surreal to him that this is where he works. After years of dreaming of working for the FBI he’s finally here, and even though it’s been his place of work for almost two months now, he’s still not used to it. The warm offices are a nice reprieve from the wintry December wind, and he can feel himself relaxing as he heads to his desk. Leaving his coat and messenger bag on his chair, he pulls the letter out of the front pocket and runs his index finger along the edge. He finds himself biting his bottom lip as he tries to work up the courage to go and see Hotch.

Sucking in a deep breath, he marches determinedly up to Hotch’s office, entering as soon as his knocks are answered.

“Reid,” Hotch says pleasantly as he takes a seat opposite his desk, realising belatedly that he probably should have waited until he was invited. “You’re in early. What can I do for you?”

Nervously, Spencer hands him the letter he’d couriered across the city so carefully. He’d taken care to open it neatly with his letter opener but the return address on the back has been stamped at a crooked angle, and it bothers him every time he notices it. He can’t stop looking at it now as he taps his fingers anxiously against his leg in the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence, a safe and familiar reassurance played out by his nervous fingers. He watches apprehensively as Hotch pulls the letter out of the envelope, unfolding it and skimming his eyes down the page, taking in the news Spencer’s been so anxious to share with him.

Diagnosis: Asperger’s Syndrome

God, it had been a long process. He’d had to seek out a doctor in DC who diagnosed adults, paid for all the consultations and diagnostics himself — his insurance certainly wouldn’t cover it, not that he’d feel comfortable using his cushy FBI insurance for something so personal anyway — and the whole process had taken far longer than he’d expected. Finally, though, the envelope had arrived in the mail, and he officially had a diagnosis.

Of course, he’d had his suspicions for years, especially after one of his professors during his second PhD had casually asked whether he’d ever been tested, planting a seed in his brain that led to many late nights in the library, reading all the literature available to him. It’s why he’d found it strange that it had felt so validating to finally receive that letter in the post. But it had.

The label made sense, and now that he had a diagnosis from a medical professional he felt comfortable to share it with others; he’d been far too paranoid about being questioned, not being believed or lectured about the evils of self-diagnosis no matter how he was confident in himself. He didn’t tend to be an insecure or self-conscious person, but after years of bullying and trauma surrounding what he now knew for sure to be his autistic traits, he couldn’t help but feel almost protective of his affirming label.

Now though, it’s an irrefutable statement. Dr Spencer Reid has autism, and the first person he wants to tell is Hotch.

“I had no idea you were getting tested, Reid,” Hotch says, a hint of surprise bleeding into his voice. “Is there any specific reason you wanted to share this with me?”

“Well… I felt like someone on the team should know,” Spencer starts carefully, afraid to give too much of himself away, “and I thought that someone in a leadership position was the best option. Gideon has never been very… supportive of my autistic traits or behaviour, so I thought that you— that you would be the best option.” He feels awkward, fidgeting in his chair as he watches Hotch’s serious face and kind eyes absorb the information.

“That trust in me means a lot, Reid,” he says, a rare smile making its way onto his face. In that moment, Spencer knows he made the right decision. “How can I make things easier for you? Is there anything you need me to be doing differently?”

“Uh—” He hadn’t really been anticipating that question and it catches him off guard: he’d predicted a quick nod of acknowledgement, a request to photocopy the letter so it can be put on file followed by a swift dismissal, but the letter is now sitting on his side of the desk: clearly, Hotch intends on keeping this between them. This is far from what he expected.

“Why don’t you start by telling me about autism and how it might affect your work?” Hotch corrects himself, recognising quickly Spencer’s need for specifics. “I’ll admit I don’t know much beyond some probably rather unhelpful stereotypes.”

Spencer nods. He can answer that question. “As everyone knows I often go off on tangents,” he begins, “and that’s because my special interests — or hyperfixations — often coincide with our work, so I know a lot about the topics we’re investigating. If I do that, just redirect me to the case and I’ll be fine. It’s also really hard for me to have to present myself in a certain way all the time. Vocal stims and gestures are the most satisfying to me but I often have to mask them, which I’ve never been very good at anyway, and it’s fairly exhausting. That’s why I often excuse myself; I go to the bathroom or a secluded hallway and stim on my own. My doctor also told me I tend to overcompensate in social situations and over-perform emotion. Those are the basics, I guess, but it’s a very complex disorder and since it makes up me as a human being, I can’t exactly explain all of it in one conversation.”

“No, that’s fine, Reid, you’ve given me a good picture of what to expect, thank you.” Hotch smiles at him, fondness in the crinkles around his eyes and the softness invading his usually stern expression. “First of all, you never have to feel like you need to excuse yourself to stim. Do you think it would be helpful if we told the rest of the team so they know what to expect? I’m assuming vocal stims are saying certain words or making sounds…?”

Spencer nods.

“Okay, so if you needed to do that we could just continue the conversation while you get it out of your system. Gestures certainly wouldn’t be a problem. How do you feel about that?”

He hadn’t really considered telling the rest of the team but it seemed sort of intimidating, like he’d be opening a vulnerable side of himself to people he didn’t even know that well. On the other hand, they’d all been so understanding of his quirks and odd behaviour so far without even knowing the reason behind it. He’d never once been made to feel the way he used to at school, forced to either pretend to be someone else completely or be isolated and ostracised.

He settles for, “I’ll think about it.”

“That’s fine. There’s no pressure,” Hotch assures him. “I’m very happy you told me, Reid. I hope you know you can come and talk to me about anything, whether it’s about this or something completely different.”

Spencer leaves his office with the letter back in his hands, no notes or copies having been made, feeling almost elated. Never in a million years would he have expected that to go so well.

⭐️

He doesn’t really expect it to come up again. He’d told Hotch so that he could understand him a bit better, and also because Hotch had quickly assumed a protective, almost paternal role in his life and he wanted to share the piece of news with him whether he was leading his department or not. That was supposed to be it, though, he didn't think anything would materially change, especially since he decided not to tell the team about the diagnosis just yet.

But almost immediately after he’d told Hotch his diagnosis, his rambles began to be gently redirected back to the case, sometimes without him even noticing. He wasn’t rudely cut off by anyone anymore, Hotch always steering him back on course before anyone else can jump in and hurt Spencer’s feelings. It’s so… kind that it almost feels foreign, and he finds himself gravitating towards the older man more and more, sitting next to him on every jet journey and staying glued to his side during cases.

His newfound protectiveness over Spencer is only demonstrated more clearly a few months after their conversation in Hotch’s office when they’re on their way to New Mexico for a case. The second he spots that the murder victims had all been found with different Fitzgerald quotes scrawled on sheets of paper found in their own personal notebooks, ripped out and left for investigating officers to find, he launches into an info-dump to rival info-dumps.

He can’t help that literature is a special interest of his, made all the more intense by the fond childhood memories of reading to his mother in her bed. Fitzgerald had been her favourite author of the Modern Era, and he’d spent hours analysing significant passages in his novels as a child, so he starts explaining the literary merit of each of the quotes left at the crime scenes.

Apparently, he doesn’t hear the first two times Hotch tries to direct him back on topic, but he hears it when Gideon shouts, “Spencer! Long and unnecessary tangents are not conducive to actually solving these cases. Get back on topic. Now.” He’s loud enough to briefly knock him back several decades to memories of his father screaming at his mother’s schizophrenic babbling, when she’d become convinced that the villains of her favourite novels were trying to break into the house.

Spencer stops mid-sentence and stares at Gideon, who is staring right back. Everyone’s watching the two awkwardly, but the short moment of silence is quickly broken by Hotch. “There is absolutely no need to be that rude, Jason,” he says disapprovingly, while he lays a hand on Spencer’s arm in a light, absent-minded sort of touch. “Reid may have been off-topic but he deserves respect just like everyone else on this team. Nobody needs to be shouted at like that.” He directs his attention back to Spencer. “Why don’t you tell us how those Fitzgerald quotes could help us solve the case, Reid?”

He gives him an encouraging look, and when he looks around the jet, everyone else is, too. Carefully, he starts speaking again, a little afraid of being cut off again, but after a few sentences of relevant explanation he regains his momentum. It’s more than a little vindicating when it’s his ‘unnecessary tangent’ that ends up being the key to cracking the case.

⭐️

Soon after Hotch’s split from Haley, he approaches Spencer one evening when they’re the only two left at the office with a dinner invitation. Within the hour, they walk into a nice, low-key Italian place in the city and take a seat in the far corner of the restaurant.

“Is everything okay?” Spencer asks a little uncertainly, confused as to why his boss is suddenly taking him for dinner.

“I had this idea almost as soon as you told me about your autism,” Hotch explains, knowing by now that preambles and niceties only frustrate Spencer instead of setting him at ease. “I wanted to take you out for dinner every week to try and give you a space to ramble about all your special interests and not feel like you have to mask around everyone. But when I was with Haley, all my personal time was obviously spent with her and Jack. Now, I have the time to dedicate to you and all the incredible knowledge you’re hoarding in that brain of yours.”

“Really?” Spencer asks excitedly. The idea of uninhibited space to talk about the recent knowledge he’s acquired and not have to feel insecure or worry about performing social skills he doesn’t see the point of is everything he’s ever wished for, and something so wonderful being provided by Hotch only makes it better.

“Really.”

Spencer wastes no time. He dives right in. “I was just watching a documentary the other day about volcanoes and their ability to trigger lightning storms with their voltage,” he begins. “Basically, magma rises toward the volcano’s surface, its water rapidly turns to vapor, which shatters the molten rock into tiny particles and creates charged particles. When the ash plume erupts into the atmosphere, the densely packed particles collide, driven by momentum. Friction then affects their electrons, becoming electrically charged. Positively and negatively charged electrons separate in the ash plume which creates a charge imbalance that builds an electric charge strong enough to trigger a lightning storm.”

“That’s incredible.”

“I know,” Spencer says excitedly. “If the ash plume rises high enough in the atmosphere ice forms, and when ice, hail, and supercooled liquid droplets collide, the rates of lightning explode, it’s crazy.”

They’re briefly interrupted by a waitress taking their orders, but as soon as she leaves, Hotch gets him to jump back in. “What about that lecture you attended last week… the literature of 18th Century England or something?”

“19th Century English Lit, yeah!” He’s so eager to finally share this with somebody who will genuinely listen to him, and he can’t help it when his arms start to flap excitedly. Remembering where he is, he doesn’t try to mask it, pin his arms to his sides and simply deal with and suppress the innate urge to stim, he lets his body do what it wants to. Instead of eliciting a strange, sideways look, Hotch just smiles fondly.

“The lecturer had this fascinating theory on Dickens. I’ve always seen him as a pretty straight forward author of picaresque fiction, obviously combined with facets of melodrama. And it’s common knowledge that he was inspired by the novel of sensibility, of course. But I’d never thought about the stylistic and lexical choices in his works beyond standard analysis, and this lecturer went on a deep dive into his use of collocation and it opened my eyes…”

He spends the whole evening stimming to his heart’s content while detailing every current interest of his to Hotch, who simply listened intently while eating his meal slowly, dragging out the meal for as long as Spencer needed. “Let me give you a lift home,” Hotch insists after footing the bill, leading him out into the warm evening air.

“Oh, I don’t mind taking the metro,” he replies truthfully.

“I know. But it would make me feel better to drop you home safely. It’s late and seeing you into your apartment building would give me peace of mind.”

“Sure,” Spencer agrees happily, he’s still buzzing from such a nice evening and the least he can do for Hotch is let him rest easy tonight, so he climbs into the passenger side of his car. A few minutes into the car ride home, he realises he should probably actually verbalise just how much he enjoyed dinner. “Thank you, Hotch. I don’t think anybody’s ever done something so nice for me before.”

“Don’t mention it, Spencer,” Hotch replies, smiling even though he doesn’t take his eyes off the road. Spencer very much likes it when Hotch uses his first name, and he’d been doing it all evening. He doesn’t really understand why it feels so nice, just that it makes him feel… special, maybe.

“Don’t mention it, Spencer,” he repeats, before freezing as he realises what he’s said. He’s got so used to not masking all evening, he’s not in the right rhythm and mindset to suppress the urge to repeat Hotch’s words. He’s been so nice the whole evening, the last thing Spencer wants is for Hotch to think he’s mocking him.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Hotch reassures him, tapping his arm lightly as he smiles encouragingly.

“Don’t mention it, Spencer,” he says again, repeating it a few times in relief before the itch is satisfied. He really does have the best boss/friend in the whole world. There’s no doubt about that.

⭐️

Rossi’s initial reaction to Spencer had admittedly been a bit rocky, and having Hotch undeniably on his side was the only thing that made those first few months bearable. He never let them go off on their own; never put Spencer in a position where he’d have to be alone with him. Gradually, though, Rossi adjusted to his quirks and he became almost as protective of Spencer as Hotch.

That doesn’t bode well for the local sheriff when they’re on a case in North Carolina. He’s been prickly since they arrived, being as stubborn and uncooperative as possible, slowing down their progress on actually solving the case, and Spencer’s noticed him being a little extra rude to him in particular. It doesn’t massively bother him — it’s not exactly like someone’s aversion to him is a novel concept — but he can feel some sort of tension coming from the others. It happens a lot more now that they know about his autism and are more aware of themselves and others.

He tries to ignore it the best he can; he puts his head down and focuses on the geographical profile, going wherever he’s sent. Besides, the sooner they solve this case the sooner they can get out of North Carolina and back to DC. On their third day on the case, he’s working quietly in their designated corner of the police department alongside Hotch and Rossi while the others are out investigating in various different places. It’s a nice environment, and even though both men are his superiors, he feels more relaxed in their company than in anybody else’s.

It’s a relatively pleasant morning — considering the whole trying to catch a brutal serial killer thing — until they need to ask the sheriff a question. He saunters over, a tense and angry expression on his face, and Spencer can’t help but feel a little off, the confusing tension in the air that Spencer can’t quite identify making him anxious in his inability to properly decipher it. “Gentlemen,” he says, already frustrated. Spencer suspects it’s a pride thing; not many police departments like being shown up enough to have the FBI called in.

Eager to know the answer to their question, Spencer’s the one to jump in and ask. “Sheriff, we were just wondering whether the town gets much traffic from the local university or—”

He’s cut off by the sneering, towering man. “I’m not taking any questions from your kind,” he says aggressively.

“I’m sorry?” Spencer squeaks as Rossi and Hotch both prepare to say something in response.

The sheriff cuts them off before they can get their likely diplomatic and calming words out. “Homo retards aren’t welcome around here.”

“Hey!” Rossi shouts as he leaps out of the chair, grabbing him by the collar as he’s helped by the element of surprise. “You don’t fucking talk to Spencer like that, you hear me? Weak, cowardly men like you—”

“Dave,” Hotch says placatingly, putting a hand on his shoulder and diffusing the situation. “Listen, Sheriff, we are only here to help you. But if you can’t respect my agents then we’re going to have a problem. Either you’re civil to Dr Reid, or I’m reporting you to the NC Sheriff’s Association. You hear me?”

The sheriff’s pride is clearly wounded, but he at least nods before giving them all a scornful look and walking away.

“We didn’t even get to ask the question,” Spencer says anxiously, suddenly feeling out of his depth, like he can’t quite get enough air.

“Dave, try and get an answer,” Hotch directs, taking charge of the situation. “Spencer, come with me.” He takes him into a secluded hallway for a little privacy, sitting him down on the cool linoleum before sinking down next to him. “You’re okay.”

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Spencer whispers over and over to himself as he rocks backwards and forwards, trying desperately to self-soothe.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Hotch asks. He’s been in enough of these situations with Spencer to know he’s usually in two very different headspaces: he either longingly craves the grounding touch of a hug or a hand on his back, or he needs complete space. He’s also learned that asking outright is the only way to get an direct answer.

“Yes,” Spencer replies, before repeating it over and over again as he’s wrapped up in Hotch’s arms, head pressed against his chest, his hand pressing gently against the back of Spencer’s head. He starts to calm down as he manages to breathe to the heat of Hotch’s calm, steady heartbeat, the comforting touch of someone he trusts with his life also helping to bring him back down to earth. A good ten minutes after the altercation with the sheriff, he’s feeling much better and brings his head out of it’s safe cocoon between Hotch’s chest and hand.

“Come on,” Hotch says kindly. “Let’s get back to the case, yeah? You can just sit and work quietly until you’re ready to hold a proper conversation again. How does that sound?”

Spencer nods tiredly, knowing that work will perk him back up again, and being surrounded by his team will make him feel safe, asshole sheriff or not.

⭐️

Over the years Hotch helps him through any hurdles that come his way, learning the exact nuances of Spencer’s characteristics and requirements, making sure to accommodate him in every way possible.

He brings an extra, super-soft sweater in his go-bag in case Spencer ever forgets his and needs something gentle on his skin but tight enough to make him feel secure. He buys him stimming toys, dropping them on Spencer’s desk before he even arrives at work and lets him use his office whenever the lights and noise of the bullpen get too much, drawing the blinds and giving him the space he needs. Rossi doesn’t even question it anymore when Hotch shows up with a stack of paperwork and moves into his office for the morning.

It wasn’t until Hotch made a concerted effort to make his life easier that Spencer realised how hard it had been fighting through life on his own. So when he realises Hotch’s birthday is coming up, he decides he wants to show his gratitude. It’s never been easy for him to express emotions, especially since he’s never really found it rude when people don’t thank him, but he knows that for most neurotypical people, appreciation is important.

So he talks it over with Derek and on Hotch’s birthday, he comes into work to see Spencer waiting in his office with balloons, a cake, a card, and a present. He’d spent hours trying to find the right words to explain how he feels, to find the right words to show Hotch just how much everything he’s done for him means, but eventually he’d settled on something simple:

Caroline B Cooney wrote: “I found my family. I found the right thing to do. I found my way home.”

I found all of these things when I joined the BAU, but more specifically when I walked into your office, hands shaking, clasping a letter I’d been waiting for all my life. Thank you.

Hotch reads it with tears in his eyes before taking in the cake, a classic birthday cake Spencer had bought at the store, the words “Happy Birthday Dad” written in blue icing. He didn’t really understand why the cake had stood out to him, or why he associated the word ‘dad’ with someone who wasn’t related to him at all, but he’d trusted his gut and with Derek’s cheerleading, he’d bought it.

“Oh, Spencer,” Hotch says tearfully. “Can I hug you?”

Feeling only mildly uncomfortable at the visible display of emotion Spencer doesn’t know what to do with, he nods and steps into Hotch’s comforting embrace. “This means the world to me,” Hotch murmurs quietly as he stands, hugging Spencer for as long as the younger man can stand it.

Spencer’s still not completely sure why he’s managed to make him so emotional, but at least he can trust that it’s a good thing, that Hotch is happy and pleased and reassured. And if he can make him feel even a smidgen as happy as Hotch has made Spencer over the years, well. He’ll consider his long and boring trip into the city to buy the cake, present and card worth it.

Quick Note: Spencer is diagnosed with Asperger’s because that part of the fic is set in 2005. These days he would be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @strippersenseii

#criminal minds #criminal minds writing #criminal minds fic #spencer reid #aaron hotchner #hotch & spencer #spencer #hotch #my writing #autistic spencer reid #autistic spencer #dad hotch

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dorimena · 3 years

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𝕭𝖆𝖇𝖊, 𝕴'𝖒 𝖋𝖎𝖘𝖙 𝖋𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖊

𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔢𝔯; Todoroki Shoto

𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱; 1.8k

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰; fluff, angst, media slander, body criticism, mentioned dieting, crying

𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔞𝔤𝔰; Endeavor is a slightly better dad, slight self-hate, implied BakuTodo

𝔰𝔦𝔡𝔢𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔢; this was kind of rushed, so it’s not proofread yet. I’ve taken some ideas from our conversation!

It happened all too suddenly.

It wasn’t supposed to happen all too suddenly.

It wasn’t supposed to happen at all.

If there’s a reason that justifies why you ignore the media and rightfully hate most talk shows, then what’s happening in front of you should be a good one.

Because Shoto looks like he’s about to… do nothing about it. He’s not really speaking or reacting much, simply staring at the screen with such a dull light on his face, resignation showing itself as he struggles to keep himself composed, keep himself scarce of any emotion but neutrality.

He’s failing terribly, but he wouldn’t know, and you wouldn’t tell him. It was meant to be a relaxing Thursday evening, where Fuyumi sent over some food and Natsuo ever-so-kindly sent a six-pack of beer with her to help you and Shoto unwind from such a hectic week full of arrests, busts, investigations, interrogations.

It feels like you’re somehow doing police work rather than your respectful ones, which is something you’d look into after figuring out why the media decided to suddenly talk about Shoto’s weight gain. It’s nothing new for you, for him, for your friends, for your family, for anyone who knows Shoto. Most people assume he’s picking up more mass to form bigger muscles, others simply enjoy the new Shoto, and the kids are beginning to no longer go up to him to bully him for the weird capsules around his waist, but rather to invite him to play with them.

Shoto was beginning to feel so much more comfortable in his skin, he was beginning to love his new body and the small changes that occur as he continues to slowly tone his muscles. He’s even accepted not to gain back his muscular form, simply keeping in mind the change in dynamic between him and the general public.

No one’s pointed a finger at him.

No one’s talked badly of him.

No one’s ever criticized him over his change.

Everyone was just glad prohero Shoto was fine and recovering well from his unexpected injuries.

So watching how these two talk show hosts are talking shit about his weight gain and ridiculing the way he looks in his clothes is making your blood boil.

On the screen, there are two pictures: the one on the left is a recent picture that made it on the newspaper as people thanked Shoto for saving a few kids from a terrible house fire; the one on the right is a picture from when Shoto was 16.

How could they be stupid enough to compare a teenager’s body with an adult’s?!

It’s like comparing a five year old’s drawing with a professional drawing, yet they’re ridiculing and nitpicking the professional and praising the child’s drawing.

It’s a weird analogy in your mind, but it’s the only thing that tries to help you understand why they think it’s necessary to suddenly bring up something so personal, so private, from someone?

When they switch to an improvised interview with Endeavor, Shoto shrinks a bit into the couch, leaning more into your side as you both listen to what his father had to say with such personal questions about his youngest son’s ‘recent’ weight gain.

Shoto knows his father’s opinion: Endeavour doesn’t care. But not in a ‘fuck you’ type of way, but in a ‘it’s your life, and if you’re happy, so be it.’

He’s changed quite a lot from when Shoto was younger, yet watching the way his father’s eyebrows furrowed in anger and snarl at the question had Shoto wonder if his father really isn’t bothered by his weight gain.

Slight weight gain, might you need to remind him.

But instead of listening to Endeavour criticize his son and agree with the commentaries, he yelled at the reporter for being so selfish and careless, how he’s keeping Endeavour from continuing his task of making sure recently rescued citizens are doing well or not.

And when pushed further for an answer, the older man sighs and explains how even though Shoto’s changed, he doesn’t see it in his weight, but rather his person and strength, a change in power, to which he’s proud of and only ever concerns him other than the general well-being of his son.

The talk show hosts don’t seem to be happy with the sappy response, probably waiting for the hero to maybe help feed the drama. So, they take matters into their own hands: try convincing the audience the number one prohero is probably only lying to save his image and pride.

Now that hurt a lot, seeing how they’re trying to change the context and make Endeavor into the asshole bastard of a father he stopped being time ago.

But it was enough to make Shoto stand up and walk silently to your bedroom.

You know what he’s doing, know what he’s probably thinking as he stares and scrutinizes his image in the mirror.

You mute the TV, rubbing a hand over your face as you head to the bedroom, frowning when you catch the way he subtly brushes away some tears. The more you watch, the more you feel like crying with him.

It’s so frustrating being a prohero, especially one admired by the media merely by his looks and status rather than talent and power.

He hasn’t done anything wrong to suddenly be bashed and hated on, to become such a joke and be ridiculed to the point his self-love and appreciation is thrown to burn in a trash can just so those pathetic celebrities can get a paycheck making people’s lives miserable.

Heck, there’s a prohero flaunting around about paying escorts to offer services at a party and they’re off the hook, apparently.

You can’t keep watching Shoto tear himself apart, not when it took so much patience, understanding, acceptance, appreciation, reassurance and love to build up his confidence again.

You don’t really speak, just go to the mirror and flip it over, stopping Shoto from glaring at himself, but it makes him finally let out a pained whimper, one full of dejection and hurt.

You got him quickly, wrapping your arms around him as his body shakes as held-back cries finally leave his system, doubt flooding his mind and insecurities coming back in full swing.

You manage to get you both to the bed with some awkward shuffling and lots of squirming, making sure his head is resting on your chest so that he hears your heartbeat while you brush his hair with your fingers, whispering and mumbling how he shouldn’t listen to them, that they’re lying, that their opinion doesn’t matter because they’re so unhappy and insecure about how confident he was.

How he’s a stronger person than they are for accepting and loving his body instead of succumbing to cheap plastic surgery to hide away his imperfections, which he has none.

How he’s a more beautiful person than they are for being so kind and generous to everyone that he sees, being polite and offering help where he sees they need.

How he’s a powerful person, not because he’s the son of Endeavor, but because he just carries his own influence over people, how they simply are drawn to him because of how he is and who he is personally, how naturally charming he is when he speaks and treats people.

You spill every confession, every praise, every single word you could think of to help sooth him from his hiccups, to ease him into tranquility while you both figure out how to carry on such harsh criticism about his body.

Shoto eventually starts laughing, shoulders shaking as he finishes wiping his tears. You’d be concerned, but knowing him, he must’ve associated this moment with something else.

And you are right.

“Remember when Bakugou came and bluntly told me how I’ve gained weight?”

“Yeah. You were ready to cry.”

“Yes, but I didn’t get to, because Bakugou directly told me, with no hesitation, how it makes me look healthier in an ‘odd’ way and how adorable I look. Later he threatened to feed me snacks if I ever think of strictly dieting.”

You nod, wondering where he’s getting at with this, not like it’s out of the blue.

“If a guy like Bakugou doesn’t see a problem with my weight gain, then, why did they?”

His voice went soft, quiet, as his question lingers in the air for some time before you shrug, holding him closer to your body.

“Maybe because they’ve never learned to love themselves, and you did because you’re a better person than they’ll ever be. You don’t ridicule anybody if you see a change, simply tell them about it and help them figure out how to fix it if they don’t want or like it.”

Shoto remains quiet, basking in the comforting silence as his head throbs a bit as a warning.

Pressing a palm into one of his eyes, he mumbles “do you think my father’s embarrassed of me?”

You hum, shaking your head immediately as you figure out your words.

“Your father seemed more embarrassed about how invasive these people are and how they were making him a fool rather than your newfound softness.”

You scratch Shoto’s head, playing with his hair as you try flipping the white strands to where the red strands lay.

“I think if your father were truly embarrassed, he would’ve forced you back into a diet a long time ago, or would’ve been around to monitor you. But he didn’t, because when he saw you after your accident, I heard him quietly thank the heavens that you’re safe and doing well rather than fuss about how your cheeks look fuller.”

Shoto tries to remember, but he was in the kitchen bothering his sister, but somewhat helped put the table when you guys went to visit for lunch a few months after his discharge.

But you’re right. His father would’ve done something sooner if his weight gain were an issue, but the old man didn’t. He even sent over some food and snacks from time to time, and still does, but a little less often. Whether it’d be because he caught wind of Shoto trying to slowly ease back with the sweets or because of the demand of his assistance in some missions.

You guys stay in bed, eventually falling asleep from the exhaustion of the random roller coaster the media decided to put you both in, more on Shoto than on you. But you went to sleep with a bit of ease, knowing Shoto’s at least trying to cheer himself up as well and realize the media’s opinion isn’t as valid to him as the opinion from those he loves and cares about.

But your sleep was interrupted when you heard your phone blaring in the living room. Shoto luckily is snuggling into his side of the bed, so you manage to walk quietly towards where your device sat and check the caller ID.

It’s Bakugou, and when you answer, he demands to know how Shoto is, how he took the bullshit those talk show hosts decided to spill and if he can pay a visit in the morning, wanting to check himself how the sleeping man is doing.

You’re sure Shoto will very much appreciate the hothead of his friend visiting.

#𝔖𝔬𝔣𝔱! 𝔖𝔥𝔬𝔱𝔬 #❀; purity #bnha fluff #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki x reader #𝖙𝖔𝖉𝖔𝖗𝖔𝖐𝖎.𝖘

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everythingsinred · 3 years

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Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt. 2)

And we're back with more exciting and mean Natsume! Here we will further explore Natsume's life and how absolutely dark his existence is, as well as some very important aspects of his personality that will be useful to us when NatsuMikan starts picking up speed.

Again, I am warning people that this whole essay in general talks heavily about topics like bullying, child abuse, suicidal ideation, and depression, so if those are triggering topics, it might be better for you to not read.

Previously, we were introduced to Natsume and he has sent Mikan on a dangerous quest to the Northern Woods. During that trip, she and her friends have captured his one and only best friend, Ruka, which will not bode well.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five is instrumental for completing Natsume’s introduction, long as it’s been. Natsume is a mysterious character, and he will continue to be evasive and strange for many chapters to come, but by the end of this chapter, we will understand some basic foundation for his character.

The chapter starts with Ruka’s point of view, recalling a moment when he saw Natsume cry, presumably after a mission. Ruka wonders why it’s only Natsume that has to go through “this”, and Natsume tells him that he can take it--for now. He says he wants to grow up and be an adult, to be big and strong enough to properly escape this hell. This is a consistent wish of Natsume’s, and in many ways his only wish: to grow up already.

Higuchi really out here trying to convince us this was supposed to be a cheerful story.

Natsume had to be an adult, had to make the selfless and responsible choices for the sake of his family and for Ruka, had to abandon play and smiles and laughter for a life of secret missions and frequent hospital trips. He’s dying and he wants to be an adult already because he’s certain he’ll never be able to grow up. He wants his body to match the level of responsibility he’s had to take on, but he can’t force the outside to match the inside, especially when he’ll probably be dead long before it happens anyway. This wish evolves and changes when he falls for Mikan, but it doesn’t go away.

He associates adulthood with control, because his life at the academy has been observing the adults control and use him. He wants control for once, to be able to make a choice and even just say no.

Ruka notes that Natsume hasn’t cried at all since that night, and that he now keeps all his sorrow locked away. This kid needs therapy, immediately. This is another reason that Ruka is so precious to Natsume. Ruka is compassionate and kind, so concerned about his friend that he would also shut away his own heart so that he can’t be happy for as long as Natsume is in agony.

Natsume has a scene of his own, where he snaps at Permy for saying that Mikan is full of crap and lying about being an alice. He points out that the academy is not an easy place to lie your way into, and Permy immediately backtracks and lies that she’s agreed with him this whole time. Like I’d said earlier about the loneliness involved in being surrounded by fans who don’t really know or understand you, having people all around you bend over backwards for your approval makes it clear that they really have no interest in what you’re saying, just that you’re the one saying it.

In the anime essay, I’d pointed out that because of their admiration for him, it would elude people that Natsume is in fact lonely. He speaks out against things and people rush to agree, not really considering why he might say that. This is a similar moment, though he doesn’t seem too bothered by Permy’s behavior. It’s still concerning, but it’s interesting to compare this “yes, man” attitude to Ruka’s.

There is obviously a difference between someone agreeing with every word of your mouth no matter how much it changes and contradicts, bending over backwards for your approval, and someone wanting to match you out of compassion, but Ruka’s line of thinking does still have some major flaws.

Ruka is a child, just like the rest of them, so even though this behavior is motivated by love and compassion, it’s still immature and raises some questions.

“If you won’t smile, I won’t smile either,” is a sweet line, but now Natsume is aware that Ruka’s misery is his fault. If he wasn’t so sad, Ruka could be happy. This doesn’t make Natsume happy; it just makes them both sad, and that doesn’t solve any problems. Naturally, Natsume would never say that, and Ruka would claim he’s unbothered and--just like Natsume--that he doesn’t care about hanging out with the others, but they’re both miserable now, and I think this is part of the reason why there’s a gap between them at the start of the manga, and why they’re a bit distant, despite being best friends.

They’re each other’s most important person, but they don’t really communicate that well, and Ruka constantly feels like a burden.

Natsume needs something that Ruka can’t give him, and that something is what he’ll eventually get from Mikan.

That being said, at the moment, Natsume is getting nothing but irritation from Mikan. When he finds out Mikan and her gang kidnapped Ruka, that irritation turns into rage and we see a final fundamental building block for Natsume’s character: his berserk button.

Natsume doesn’t care about the reasoning or justification for the kidnapping. He doesn’t care about explanations or common sense.

His rage only increases when he discovers Ruka was tied up and even beaten (he is told this by a classmate, when Ruka is actually unharmed). The other kids in Class B--his admirers--are terrified to see how scary Natsume is when he’s furious.

Natsume's biggest weakness is Ruka so Mikan is kinda fucked.

He doesn’t care about the game anymore. He only cares about Ruka.

So he goes to the Northern Woods, where nobody is expecting him. He tells Mikan to leave the school, which… she cannot do, obviously. He is overtaken by rage and he ceases to be reasonable.

He uses his alice on everyone but Ruka, and is about to use it on Mikan, but her alice nullifies it. Then Narumi kisses him, prompting him to pass out.

Here, we are introduced to a consistent character trait of Natsume’s, one that may contradict all that talk about forced maturity and selflessness. In fact, Natsume’s habit to go absolutely postal on anyone who threatens a loved one is a contradictory one. Going into a rage requires the sacrifice of common sense and reason for the sake of complete emotional detonation, and as a result he fails to understand that his actions could inadvertently hurt his loved ones or innocent bystanders. No reassuring words are enough to calm him down, and sure enough Natsume will destroy something.

It’s important that we see this trait now, as part of Natsume’s informal introduction, as we will see plenty more instances of it later on. In a way, going berserk for someone can even be a love language of his, where if a person being threatened is enough to set him off, he probably cares about them.

And just as interesting as seeing what he does in these situations is posing the why! Why is it that Natsume goes ballistic in these situations, when it requires the loss of the one thing he wishes he had more of, control? My guess is that Natsume has had a rough childhood and much of that time was spent running away from a dangerous entity. Staying cool and calculated under some conditions would have its benefits, but so would the quick-action and confidence that Natsume would gain by going berserk. When you have to protect someone, and Natsume has been in that situation many times, then it’s sometimes even beneficial to be able to lose yourself for a moment or two. But perhaps it’s not that either. Natsume is, despite all his airs of coldness and mystery, actually a very emotional person, and in that way he is easy to understand. Even if this isn’t a habit he developed by watching his loved ones ripped away from him through either extortion, manipulation, or just plain murder, it’s still something he might be predisposed to: attacking with everything he has despite not having a clear plan or even any real thought.

Chapter Six

We pick up where we left off and Natsume wakes up grumpy after everyone seeing him under the effects of Narumi’s pheromone alice. He causes more destruction, still in somewhat of a rage, and even causes Narumi a head wound though his teacher seems unbothered by this (or maybe even used to it, who can say).

The next thing that happens is that an alarm rings, signaling that Natsume is due for severe punishment, and, as Naru points out, not something he can help with this time. Narumi warns him to get a move on before a mystery enemy (Persona) arrives, and that is enough to scare Natsume into getting out of there. But not before he issues a word of warning of his own to Mikan, that she will regret coming to Alice Academy of her own free will.

Isn't it interesting how her optimism, something he hated so much about her from the start, ends up being something he loves about her?

I have very many thoughts about this warning. It might even seem like a threat, as if Natsume will go out of his way to make sure she regrets her decision, but he does no such thing. He is convinced that Mikan doesn’t need help reaching that conclusion--she will realize it on her own because the school is simply that terrible.

It makes a little bit of sense to view Natsume’s hatred of Mikan this way: Mikan skipped right into his own personal hell with a smile on her face and a bubbly attitude. Meanwhile, he fought and kicked and screamed right until the very end when he was forced into attending the academy. And Mikan is not some normal girl who might be able to live a quiet and pleasant life in the academy. She’s already been marked, what with all the games about her enrollment, and that might anger Natsume even more: she’s really naive enough to walk into a place that’s not just hell to him, but inevitably to her too. Because of this, Natsume hates her and is predisposed to hate her more the more cheerful and optimistic she is.

And, unlike in the anime, this hatred takes much longer to go away.

Anyway, we see Natsume again later in class, when he shows up late after having just been terribly abused as punishment for his actions in the Northern Woods.

In the anime, Natsume catches Mikan insulting him while wearing the punishment mask, and although he’s covered in scratches and the kids are whispering about his bad mood, there’s not much else to it. He doesn’t seem any more unpleasant than he’s been this whole time.

There's nothing funny about this but I will put here as a warning that anybody who jokes that kids should be hit will be hit by me!

In the manga, Natsume is so weak that he can hardly stand. It’s not just scratches, but blood and gashes on his wrists and legs. The mask is not only used to mark him, it’s also used to punish, by physically abusing him when Persona has better things to do.

He makes his way to his seat, but Narumi is on the way, just enough to make a quippy comment.

(I wonder sometimes about Narumi establishing himself as untrustworthy to the children, particularly Natsume, and how exactly that’s supposed to be a help to the student body at large. I mean there’s the possibility that Mikan is special, and her being Yuka’s daughter helped Narumi remember what he became a teacher for. In that case, it might make sense that Narumi, being so jaded and bitter, might be content acting as a villain to the abused children of the academy, and especially to Natsume, but I can’t help but feel that’s not the case. I don’t want to think that Narumi was willingly complicit and even amused by Natsume’s abuse. It’s difficult to tell for sure, though, because Narumi is way more mysterious than Natsume tries to be.)

Sumire tries to kiss up, whining to Natsume about how everyone is suddenly acting so nice to the new girl, until Natsume forcefully kicks her desk to shut her up. He only holds back with Ruka, who he would never lash out at.

Narumi then announces that Mikan shall have a partner, and that her partner will be Natsume. It’s funny because although Hotaru made it clear she didn’t want the job, Iinchou was willing to volunteer, but Narumi ignores that because he always wanted Natsume to be her partner. At this news, everyone is shocked, wondering if Mikan is supposed to be special, seeing as she’s paired up with Natsume of all people.

Narumi smiles to himself despite the chaos and then lets himself leave the classroom, saying, “let’s see what happens.”

Why does he partner them up?

Mikan thinks Narumi is crazy for this, and from an outside perspective it certainly might seem that way.

Natsume’s theory, as becomes clear later during the exams, is that this was organized by the ESP and Persona, perhaps as a punishment, but definitely with ulterior motives. He is closer to nailing it, but a little off. There is no way in hell the ESP would want to partner the child of rabble-rousers with the school’s pet child soldier. That’s a recipe for disaster. Knowing that the ESP was excited to welcome Mikan because of her alice, and that her presence at the school might encourage Yuka to try and save her, he wouldn’t have wanted to disturb his own plans.

So what is the reason?

It’s all Narumi, of course. Perhaps the O.G. shipper, Narumi could tell right away that Mikan’s nullification would be useful, particularly in regards to Natsume. Pairing them up is just another means to an end, as Narumi actually wants the kids to raise some trouble.

Chapter Seven

Being partners with Natsume is quite unhelpful.

Mikan ends up a No-Star and her Special-Star partner is for the most part absent throughout her ordeals, having to cope with it all on her own.

Chapter Seven is mainly lacking Natsume. He functions to not function for most of it, that is to establish himself as being a terrible partner.

There is a moment that stands out, when Mikan is writing a letter to her grandpa, where Natsume appears. Yes, he appears in her head to taunt her about her regret coming to the school, and she spites him by committing to optimism and determination in the future. But he also has a short appearance paralleling a panel of Mikan: they are both in their beds, awake.

WHAT WAS THE REASON?????!??!?!?

This parallel is interesting, their panels right next to each other. She is thinking about her grandpa, and we have no way of knowing what Natsume is thinking about, but there has to be a reason for him to appear despite having been mostly absent so far in the chapter.

To me, it’s another narrative tool to pair them together. They have been so far, in more ways than one, and will continue to be as they fall in love, and this is just another example of how they’d been fated from the start. Even when they hate each other, and even when they aren’t thinking of each other, they’re still tied. Looking at those panels, and seeing Natsume despite his relative irrelevance to the plot, seems to be a message that there’s more to come between them. I don’t know if any of what I’m saying makes sense, or if it seems silly, but there’s very little analysis I can do without just talking about potential.

Later, with Mikan in a new mood, ready to make the most of her situation, the kids are talking about her resilience with both her no-star status and having Natsume as a partner.

Ruka does the talking for Natsume, warning Mikan that she’s being watched and remarking that nobody should have been assigned a no-star for simply disturbing class.

Once again, Mikan and Natsume are paired: they are both treated unfairly, with Mikan given a no-star status she doesn’t deserve, and Natsume given a special-star status despite the fact that he doesn’t even go to class most of the time. They’re the exceptions to the rule, and the reader is made to wonder what exactly it is that they have in common that would result in this treatment.

Ruka tells Mikan not to trust any teachers at the academy, not even Naru, and this is almost like hearing from Natsume himself. Unlike Mikan, who will happily make strong bonds with teachers like Narumi and Nodacchi, Natsume has absolutely no positive adult figures in his life. His father is far away, his mother is dead, and every teacher is someone he holds either directly or indirectly responsible for his suffering. The adults at the school have failed him and he has nobody to trust. Something Natsume needs is a positive role model, somebody he can look up to and have faith in, because as it stands he’s a traumatized boy who absorbs negativity and takes it out in bad ways. A trustworthy adult would very much help Natsume grow and learn better coping skills, and in the meantime it makes perfect sense that he would act out and even be a bully at times.

Chapter Eight

Natsume has a habit of ignoring any and all episodes where Mikan has confrontations with her teachers. He is either dozing off or listening to music with Ruka, and doesn’t seem particularly interested in even watching.

That being said, we see a new side to Natsume in this chapter, a new emotion in a way we haven’t before: fear.

Natsume ditches class with regularity. He does not care about being present. For most classes, he would simply walk out and go screw around somewhere else, but with the dangerous ability class, he doesn’t have that choice.

The other teachers may be complicit, but they won’t do the abuse themselves. Persona is not above that, as we have already noticed despite never even seeing him so far.

If Natsume does not want to attend the dangerous ability class, then he has to run for it, and in this chapter he does, like his life depends on it, because his safety sure does. He’s only ten years old and forced to do horrible missions for the school. This is one of the scenes that reminds me that he is just a child. He knows he could get punished for running, but he does it anyway. Maybe, if he runs fast enough, they won’t catch him. Maybe, if he doesn’t get caught, he doesn’t have to go on a mission. Maybe, just this once, they won’t mind if he doesn’t show. It’s such a childish and desperate thing to do, to avoid pain at the cost of more pain to come.

Natsume is scary when he's scared...

It’s funny that as he is running from pain, he runs into Mikan, who will later alleviate his pain. For now, he just shuts her up so that Persona can pass the area while looking for him. We see Persona for the first time, what Natsume is scared of more than anything, and although his fear seems obvious, Mikan is preoccupied by annoyance for being shut up like that.

They bicker--or she bickers at him, mostly--until the middle schoolers encounter them and start bullying them.

Natsume is ready to ignore them and walk away, until Sumire’s brother calls him a murderer, reminding us of the rumor Hotaru and Iinchou discussed. Natsume stops, and Sumire’s brother whines that he’s just a special star because he’s “Persona’s favorite”.

Sumire and her brother have, like, nothing in common other than curly hair, huh.

Being Persona’s favorite is no privilege, as we know now from the run-in we just had with him and Natsume’s fear. This sets Natsume off and he starts some fires. When they threaten to call Persona, who Natsume was just running from, he responds that they can call him all they want, but he’ll burn them before he can get there to capture him. We see once again, through Natsume standing up for himself, that his berserk button lacks reason (as he is willing to sacrifice punishment by Persona again).

In a last-ditch attempt to threaten him, the middle schoolers threaten Mikan, who they perceive to be Natsume’s new girlfriend. (Calling her his girlfriend is interesting because it is even more proof that they are being narratively paired together! It shouldn’t be a surprise at all that they eventually get together, when almost everybody around them pairs them up like this, even when they can’t stand each other.) They do not expect that Natsume actually hates her, and genuinely doesn’t care if she gets bullied or not. He smiles in twisted amusement at this turn of events and walks away for good this time, leaving Mikan to be bullied.

Aw, he's smiling! How sweet.... oh wait that's a skull.

Now, Natsume is a good person deep inside, somebody who is selfless and kind in secret ways. There is no secret kindness about this scene. He is not a nice person, for sure, and this scene is proof of it.

Natsume is used to sacrificing himself for the comfort and well-being of his loved ones, so there might be relief in not caring about the comfort or well-being of somebody, and being able to choose his own well-being before that of somebody else for once. It makes sense that he would be so amused, because this time nobody has anything to hold over his head.

Conclusion

We have seen some more of the abuse Natsume faces on a daily basis. He and Mikan have been partnered up and they are presented narratively as foils and as pairs even outside of that dynamic.

For the next part, we'll see even more examples of them being paired together, as well as how Natsume is isolated from his classmates.

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#gakuen alice #alice academy #hyuuga natsume #natsume hyuuga #natsumikan #sakura mikan #mikan sakura #my meta #ga #mine #ga meta #ga meta: nm #ga meta: manga #ga meta: manga nm #let's talk about natsumikan #let's talk about natsumikan: natsume #i love him! i love THEM! perfection! excellent story-telling! fantastic! so much to analyze! i ADORE!

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ciggylungz · 4 years

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Eat your heart out

Blurb night- 1.8k words

(request: ok but what if u wrote one where y/n is a virgin and they finally did it after dating for months and then Harry's friends came to visit him and you overheard h talking how bad u are and all that angsty stuff...)

Virginity

The word means a something different to everyone. Some people save it for marriage, some don’t care about it, others tie it to religion. It’s all up to personal interpretation and value. For Y/n, it’s not that she didn’t want to lose it, she just never felt ready until she met Harry.

She had met him through a mutual friend, they were both invited to a birthday party and just got on so well they decided to get to know each other better. Dates, hangouts, and many hours spent together later they had become official and now they’re 5 months in and going strong.

A few nights ago, she had finally felt ready. She had communicated to Harry at the start of their relationship she’d never been intimate with someone before and it might take her a while to feel ready to be so vulnerable with him, but eventually the night came and while it was a bit clumsy filled with trial and error she thought over all it was a special experience. Harry had made her feel comfortable, he had made her feel like she was beautiful and made him happy, so she’s completely confused and crestfallen at the words she’s hearing come from his mouth echoing through the spacious house.

“mate, it was bad. Like proper awful, I almost gagged at some points from how bad it was.”

A cruel laugh followed his words. Her chest felt hollow, like her heart had caved in just from his words. She couldn’t bring herself to stop listening, she guessed she was just a glutton for punishment because the hurtful words just kept coming.

“I thought being with a virgin would be hot!”

She heard the voice of one of his friends exclaim, she had never hated the sound of someone’s voice before that moment.

“so did I! it’s why I put up with the wait, thought she’d be bloody tight and a good shag, but I was dead wrong. She barely got wet; she didn’t even taste good! I couldn’t stay hard for shit, pretended to cum and everything just to get it over with. I didn’t know sex could be so bad!”

Another round of cackles and random bullying comments were made about Y/n among the group of men, at this point Y/n felt worthless. She felt like she failed, she felt dirty and stupid. Everything he’d ever said to her was now being questioned. she swears she could vomit.

“Jesus H, what a waste of a pussy innit? Don’t worry can get some girls lined up for you this weekend. Can trip and have a proper orgy, deserve it after pity fucking that dud.”

“Thank god! Need a good fuck after that nightmare. Line up a good few for me yea?”

Humiliated didn’t even come close to describing how Y/n felt right now. Not only had her boyfriend objectify and completely embarrass her to his friends, she’d just heard first hand that he hated it so much he had faked his orgasm, and was planning to cheat on her with multiple women in less than 24 hours. She was sick, her heart stomped on and her feelings completely crushed. She’d never felt so worthless, stupid, used and disgusted with herself. She had confided in Harry how she was scared to be vulnerable, afraid to be intimate with someone because she wasn’t ready to be so open and bare with another person. Harry had told her how she was worth the wait, how she was beautiful and he loved her but now she knew none of it was real. He’d just wanted to be with a virgin, and he hated the experience.

The vomit crawling up her throat had finally reached her mouth, the girl darting towards the bathroom to empty her churning stomach into the toilet tears springing to her eyes as her body tried desperately to purge out all the hurt yet the waves kept coming.

If anyone had heard her getting sick, they didn’t care since no one even called out her name. The girl didn’t even feel like an actual person anymore, just a defective object who was disposable. She couldn’t be here anymore, the emotional pain starting to manifest into physical symptoms as well. Her head pounding, stomach turning and ears ringing. It took all the energy she had left to shove some of her things into her bag to take back to her flat.

The girl was too humiliated to even face them, to confront Harry or mention what she had heard. She internalized all of it, pulling her hood up and ducking out of the front door silently. She suddenly felt lucky that the living room wasn’t in view of the entry way so she could slip out without detection.

----

y/n didn’t bother to leave a not nor text Harry about her departure, making her way on foot to the underground to get home. She hadn’t driven her car there since Harry had picked her up, and she didn’t have any service to get an uber so she opted for the easiest option.

The majority of the train ride she spent with her head down, thoughts racing as she desperately tried to suppress the sobs begging to be let out. she somehow managed to keep it together until she got into her flat, as soon as she shut the door her back was against it pained sobs wracking through her body.

When her bottom finally hit the ground she was reminded of the bruises she’d woken up with on her hips and ass from where Harry had gripped onto her.

Maybe that’s why he made me switch to all fours, he was so disgusted he couldn’t even look at my face. Maybe that’s why he seemed to get angry, I couldn’t make him feel good.

The soreness didn’t even compare to the internal injuries his words had left her with. It was as if she’d been clawed from the inside out, every hurtful word slashed at her organs. Her mind burning with self-hatred, insecurity and disgust towards herself. Y/n had always been insecure, she struggled with body image and confidence since she was a child and this ridicule of her natural state and what was supposed to be special tore her limb from limb.

She didn’t know how long it had been, she seemed to zone out finding herself laying in fetal position on the wood floors of her home. Her back was still pressed into the cold steel door, using what was left of her to stand to her feet and lock it, sliding the chain lock as well just to make sure there would be no chance of anyone disrupting her decent into the void of pain.

She didn’t get much sleep that night, her head wouldn’t stop pounding and her thoughts never eased up. She’d gotten a text from Harry asking where she was, her only sending a simple message saying she was feeling poorly and went home in reply.

Harry left her on read.

It must have been many hours since the sun had rose then set again in the time she’d laid still between her covers. She hadn’t gotten up to use the bathroom or eat. She didn’t feel like a person anymore. She didn’t feel like she held any worth in any sense to anyone, seeing as no one had reached out for her in the hours she’d been MIA, not even the boy who supposedly loved her.

Y/n shifted her gaze to the clock on her nightstand, she then knew it was Sunday. It had been almost an entire 48 hours since she’d moved from her spot and by now she was sure Harry had been balls deep in numerous other women. Women who could give him everything she failed to, women who he desired and could get off with. They must be everything she’s convinced she’s not. Pretty, sexy, desirable, loveable, worthy of Harry’s intimacy. Something he regretted ever engaging in with his own girlfriend.

---

It was 10 in the morning on Monday when Y/n’s phone finally dinged. By Sunday night she had managed to drag herself to the bathroom to relieve herself and brush her teeth, yet she only then returned to her bed to lay in a depressed shame filled coma of sorts, she truly felt so heart broken it was like her body was giving up on her.

She caved and looked at the message, feeling another stomp on her deflated heart when she saw it was from Harry-

“you alright? Stopped by your work, they said you haven’t called out but you never showed?”

Y/n had forgotten about her job in her spiral, but even now she couldn’t bring herself to care. She knew she was already on thin ice with her manager for taking so many days off to see Harry preform or visit him on his breaks so it wasn’t a surprise if she got fired. She didn’t care though; she knew if she lost her job she’d be another month late on rent and end up being evicted since she couldn’t scrape together enough for last month either. This would lead to her likely having to move back home with her mother or find a hostile somewhere for women, yet she didn’t care. It seems silly that something as simple as someone commenting on her sexual skills would put her in such a state, but that’s not really the main focal point in her mind.

The thing that hurt most was knowing Harry had only been with her to get to take someone’s virginity, and she’d disappointed him so badly he talked shit about her to his friends and made plans to cheat on her. Harry had completely disrespected, objectified and crushed her, and he didn’t even know she knew but she decided he shouldn’t have to know she knew what he said for him to realize it’s wrong. He’s an adult man who knew full well how hurtful and horrid his comments were about someone he had claimed to love. He should have spoke to her if he felt that way, yet instead he played her and tossed her out like rubbish.

Harry broke her heart, one he’d known was already fragile and timid. He’d still said all those nasty things about her even after the nights he’d let her cry into her chest about how much she hated her body, how bad her self-image and confidence was, the way she felt like she was never good enough for anyone. His actions only confirmed what she’d always feared to be true.

Harry didn’t love her.

#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles angst #harry styles imagine #harry styles writing #harry styles blurb #blurb night #harry styles smut #harry styles au #harry styles x reader #harry styles x yn #harry styles concept #harry styles oneshot #harry styles blog #harry styles request

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bitchapalooza · 3 years

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Veneziano is not useless and Romano is not abusive.

Rome never actually taught Veneziano to work hard for his appraisal. He just handed it out to him. You can't just do that to a child. You can't hand them everything without including a teaching moment. Without so much as giving them the occasional criticism so they can be accustomed to it later in life. And guess what? Veneziano is not accustomed to criticism.

Yes, Austria berated him. He treated him badly. But that isn't criticism. That's plain bullying him. Veneziano both expects positive outcomes and negative outcomes in life, which is good, but they're for certain things not everything. He expects praise for his art and when Austria told him to stop and that it was bad, Veneziano felt bad. Like bad-bad. Worse than someone who isn't used to being in trouble because Rome never punished him(as far as we know).

As we only know this from Romano's point of view, I can't say he WAS neglected by Rome. For all we know, Rome did pay attention to Romano but to Romano it wasn't enough because Veneziano was getting much more of it thanks to his natural talent. Its clear Rome cared for Romano and Romano reciprocates it. But without filling in the blanks, showing Romano with Rome and how he treated his oldest grandson, we don't know how their relationship actually was like.

The way Romano felt resulted in him becoming uncaring. He didn't care about putting effort into things without some reward in return, aka praise. Acting right because what's the point when no one cares? He insulted people because, as a child, he doesn't know how to properly process his feelings and how to cope with it. And this stuck with him through to adulthood because the adult who was supposedly caring for him only encouraged this behaviour by not telling him this was not okay. By not sitting down and talking to him. Tackling the issue at hand. Spain did not have an authoritative bone in his body to actually help Romano. He spoiled Romano, he handed it to him without hard work, something he was most likely previously accustomed to. But Spain let him get lazy. Let him misbehave.

Veneziano had everything at the start then he lost it while being with Austria.

Romano had nothing in the beginning then he gained everything when he lived with Spain.

If it were the other way around, Veneziano with Spain and Romano with Austria, Veneziano would truly become spoiled. I'd even say someone similar or exactly like Jeff Winger from Community; self centered, always needing to have the last word in, his ego is waaaay past the roof. He'd be so unbearable all because Spain further spoiled him. He has the thought that HE is the leader. That everything he says is right because no one told him otherwise. If he were to be in a situation to canon Vene, lets say being Germany's prisoner, he would be so confident in his strength to fight back. He'd overestimate himself, not bothering to calculate his chances against Germany. And when Germany lands him into a headlock, Veneziano being incapacitate, he would be utterly confused as to why it didn't work. Because to him everything goes his way. Nothing is supposed to go wrong. When it would, Spain would fix it. This would be a hard reality check, it would challenge what he's so used to. He'd be so thrown for a loop that he'd be frustrated, maybe even throw some sort of tantrum.

As for Romano with Austria, Romano could take two different routes; be the same asshole he is now while repressing his own problems to take it out on others, or become a major pessimist who doesn't dare insult even a baby in utero in fear of the consequences. If the latter is the result, then Austria would have pushed him into cleaning, basically pressuring him. He would nonstop find a way in making Romano do what he was told to do just as he'd do canon Vene(taking his paints away, no dinner, ect). He would also have the motherly care of Hungary to back him up and be willing to listen to him. He would most likely turn out to be softer. Nicer. More willing to open up his walls to people. All because someone helped him with the issues he already had. In a situation like canon, such as meeting Germany, he would not be so confrontational. He would show his fear, either keeping his distance or hiding behind his brother. He'd probably even be nice to Germany, showing his manners to him. But I wouldn't say he'd be friendly, just trying to be nice so he doesn't die for any reason whatsoever.

Both these possibilities are unhealthy just as the canon results are. Neither one of them are okay for various reasons, not just their upbringing. But their time with Austria and Spain certainly weigh heavily into who they are now. Other than being awkward, we don't know how unification shaped them either but I can take a guess and say it was still just as awkward as canon.

The point is, children are impressionable. They are clueless without guidance. The way they turn out when they're grown depends on how they were raised and what they were exposed to.

#hetalia #hetalia headcanons #hetalia veneziano #hetalia north italy #hetalia romano #hetalia south italy #hetalia austria #hetalia hungary #hetalia spain #hetalia rome #tw neglect #tw abuse

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nobodyfamousposts · 4 years

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Miraculous Salt: Bustier

Fair warning: There are some dark and potentially triggering things discussed. Assault, domestic violence, drug use, overdose, and attempted murder are implied if not outright mentioned.

“Today, class, I’ve asked a special guest to come speak to you!” Bustier greeted them all with a smile. She gestured to the woman next to her, a young adult they hadn’t seen before. She seemed a bit nervous awkward, but was dressed professionally and tried to appear confident.

Bustier clasped her hands together.

“Vivienne is a former student of mine from a few years back. She going to talk to us about positive examples and appropriate behavior in the classroom.”

Marinette slumped in her seat, already knowing what this was about and just whom this lecture was meant for. Bustier’s frequent looks at Marinette weren’t even necessary. The fact that several of the other students shot glances back to her made it clear they knew as well.

Apparently Bustier’s lectures to Marinette about the high road and helping her classmates weren’t enough anymore. Now it just felt like she was making a spectacle to prove a point.

The woman, Vivienne, looked to Bustier in confusion.

“I thought I was supposed to give a lecture about preparation for the future?”

“Well certainly.” Bustier agreed, smiling brightly and indulgently. “And about how a good future for everyone can be started by setting an appropriate example in the here and now.”

Several of the students around her nodded. Lila sent a smug look back at her. Marinette merely wanted to crawl under her desk.

The woman stared at Bustier in open-mouthed surprise.

“Are you joking?”

Bustier appeared startled. “I’m sorry?”

“Are you actually joking? Did you mean to tell me you brought me here. All this way. On a weekday. To give a lecture to students about your downright toxic classroom habits?”

Everyone’s eyes widened. Their mouths opened. Because…no one just talked to Bustier like that. She was a teacher! And she was so nice!

Bustier herself was frozen in shock.

“Excuse me?”

“No. No. You’re right. You had me come to give a speech to your class. Fine. I’m going to talk to them.”

She cleared her throat and turned to the class.

“Listen to me. All of you, but especially you in the back because it seems you are Bustier’s target of the year.” She said, looking around to everyone in the class though her eyes remained mostly on Marinette. “You have the right to feel angry when you are wronged. You have the right to be upset when someone hurts you. You have every right to not forgive the one who does it. It is not your fault when someone does wrong. It is not your responsibility for someone else’s choices. You are under NO obligation—ABSOLUTELY NONE to make the person hurting you feel better about it! And at some point, you need to consider what is best for yourself and your life, even if it means cutting people out of it and letting them face the consequences of their actions.”

“What are you doing?” Bustier demanded, outraged.

“Telling them the truth.” Vivienne stated flatly. “It’s the least I could do after what you did to me and my class thanks to your ‘approach’.”

“But you were a great example for your classmates.”

“No, I was their stepping stone and in some cases, their punching bag. And look how well that turned out! I’m STILL in therapy because of you!”

Bustier gaped in horror.

“Yeah, turns out that constantly pushing myself to take on the burden for everyone else’s choices isn’t actually healthy! Either for me OR anyone else.” Vivienne huffed. “And I have you to blame for a huge part of that.”

She pointed at Bustier in outrage.

“Because of you and your lessons, I lost my ability to be assertive. I became passive to the point of being a doormat, and it’s something that STILL affects me today! Because under YOUR guidance, I was taught that other people’s behaviors were MY fault. That if someone was being cruel or hurting me, it was because I wasn’t trying hard enough. That it was MY obligation to make bad people better rather than their own. And that if I tried to speak up for myself, I was the one in the wrong. Especially when you dragged my parents into things and portrayed the entire mess like it was my fault for not being okay with my treatment instead of concern over how I was being treated.”

“Now now, you’re over-exaggerating.” Bustier argued in that annoyingly placating tone.

“You made it MY job to try and better people who didn’t WANT to be better. I was thirteen! I was a student in your care! How was that supposed to be MY job? My only job was supposed to be to learn, and because of you, I’ve learned all the wrong lessons!”

She rubbed her face, frustrated and exasperated and just done with this whole thing.

“I don’t know what’s healthy or not. I don’t know when I’m being selfish or when I’m supposed to let something go. I still freeze up when dealing with people because even years later, I still have your voice ringing in my head about how I need to be ‘the better person’ regardless of whether I actually CAN.”

She stopped and took a breath. Then turned on Bustier, appearing truly angry with the woman.

“You pushed me to the point of self-destruction and said that was love.”

“I’m sorry that you apparently had a rough time of things,” Bustier fumbled. “But I can’t be held responsible for how every student turns out.”

“THEN YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE BECOME A TEACHER!”

Bustier reared back as if struck by a physical blow.

Vivienne breathed deeply, trying to get herself back under control.

“You had a position of power and authority over me. And you used it to push your responsibility on me. To push the responsibility for EVERYONE in that class on me. On top of my own schoolwork. My own issues. My own responsibilities. I had to deal with yours and everyone else’s. Their well being. Their futures. Their selfish little wants and requests I didn’t have time or energy for but was still expected to fulfill. All of that. On me. And now you’ve even gone so far as to bring me here to advocate for you doing the same thing to someone else? And you don’t see anything wrong with that?”

Vivienne gestured to her chest, agitated and hurt and just…finally letting years worth of frustration out.

“Doing what you did? Pushing things the way you did? You put an unreasonable burden on a child. All in the name of being a ‘good example’ for how other people should be. Guess what? The only thing being a ‘good example’ accomplished was showing people what to expect from others rather than anything they should expect from themselves.”

She glared at Bustier.

“I did some reading on psychology after leaving your class. Turns out the thing you missed about modeling is that it’s the ADULTS who are supposed to model for their kids, not other kids under their care and especially NOT the ones being victimized.”

Bustier forced herself to speak. “But…everyone deserves a chance.”

“You have students that struggle. It’s common. They need extra care. That’s understandable.” Vivienne agreed. “The problem is that instead of being the teacher you are supposed to be and giving them that care yourself, you instead push that responsibility on your other students when it should never have been their responsibility in the first place!”

“They can’t change and do better if everyone is expecting them to fail.” Bustier reasoned.

“Maybe so, but they’re certainly not going to change if they don’t see a reason they should. Giving bullies a free pass and then lecturing their victims on ‘being the bigger person’ after they’ve been hurt because of the bullying is NOT going to motivate the bully to change anymore than it’s going to motivate the victims to keep trying! Was it any wonder so many of your students just gave up?”

Bustier’s eyes widened in shock.

“What?”

“Yeah, it turns out that I’m not the only student who left your class with problems down the line. Big surprise, but being reprimanded for feeling hurt and being told that their feelings are less important than those of the ones harming them isn’t exactly motivation to keep going out of their way to do their best. Not in grades, which unsurprisingly fell amongst students in your class by the final year. Not in activities, which—surprise surprise! Your students stopped being invested in because you kept pushing for everyone else to work twice as hard for something that you were letting other students get full advantage of with nowhere near the same effort! Was it any wonder that I was the only one you were able to browbeat into doing anything by the end? It was because everyone else got disillusioned and stopped trying! Because you rewarded the bad students and admonished the good students if they took issue with that. They weren’t blind! They know favoritism when they see it!”

The class was staring. Unsure what to say. Or if they even should speak.

“Oh, and on the subject of favoritism. You surely remember Candace—my bully whose behavior you defended and minimized? Yeah, she’s in jail. Again. For causing a scene in a public setting. Again. And even assaulting police, which is actually a new one for her this time around. But it’s her standard behavior. It’s all she knows how to do. Because you and people like you catered to her tantrums and brattish behavior, gave her whatever she wanted, and admonished anyone who complained about how she treated them.”

“Well…” Bustier simpered. “Treating her cruelly isn’t changing her now, is it?”

“Because she’s an adult used to getting her way!” Vivienne exclaimed. “The time to teach her better was when she was young. It was when she was still a student under YOUR care! Instead, you solidified her into the messed up adult she is today! Speaking of messed up adults, how about dear old Henrik? You remember him?”

“He…he was…a perfect student…” Bustier muttered, uncertain and wary.

“Sure was. Your model student. He sure road your high horse all throughout school and even all the way to his own wedding to Delia—your OTHER favorite student to coddle. You must have been so proud of how that turned out. And even after she’s cheated on him. Among other things. He’d be the picture of domestic violence at this point…you know…if he could actually acknowledge that the relationship is even abusive.”

She sighed.

“But he still insists he can ‘change her’. That he can ‘help her be better’. And some other reasons about ‘make a bad person be good’ that sounds like the sort of tripe you fed him. You know, most of us just thought he was a wannabe stud who like having girls rubbing themselves all over him. It never occurred to us that he was uncomfortable and just didn’t know how to ask them to stop.”

Several of the students gasped in shock. Adrien in particular appeared uncomfortable, like the story was a point for him in particular. Remembering the way Chloe and Lila hung off him, Marinette had to wonder if Adrien and this Henrik didn’t have a few concerning things in common.

Vivienne, however, continued. And even started to tick off on her fingers. “Elodie joined the police force and is so caught up in her own brand of ‘justice’ that she jumps into things without thinking and a number of her arrests ended up going free regardless of the charge due to her not following procedure. Arthur was always the sort to ‘go with the flow’ rather than stand up for anything, so he ‘went with the flow’ all the way to a strip club where he spends his nights, still waiting on some new job opportunity Delia promised him years ago. Kent and Morgan were arrested for embezzlement of some charity’s funds. Michael works at a repair shop, so he has a steady job at least. Sam’s charged for property destruction from illegal street racing. Again. Vincent is claiming some close relationship with Jagged Stone that I don't even want to consider. Randall died from drug overdose last year, otherwise I’m sure you would have called him up instead of me.”

Everyone gaped at her in growing horror. Alya and Max both seemed to be looking at their phones, only to wince or appear more agitated with whatever they found—Marinette assumed it was likely proof of Vivienne’s claims. Bustier looked almost ready to faint at the news of what’s become of her former students.

Vivienne just tapped her chin.

“And you know, now that I think about it, it makes sense that you called me out of everyone to come lecture your class because I think I’m probably the only former student NOT a complete wreck—if only because I’m a few steps away from it thanks to therapy.”

She sneered at Bustier in downright disgust.

“All these people you said it was my job to save. All of them—every single one of them fell apart when I finally gave up. Though they were admittedly barely hanging on as it was while they still had me to dump on. And I’m pretty sure that I could have been a millionaire by now if I’d held firm on charging people for the things they wanted from me instead of bowing to your insistence on doing things for people for free to be ‘nice’. Or, you know…NOT wasting my time and giving up on my own opportunities to pull everyone else out of the fires they kept starting.”

Feeling the weight of everyone’s gazes on her, Bustier spoke up to attempt to defend herself.

“To make a healthy classroom—”

“Your classroom isn’t healthy!” Vivienne shouted. And it was only now that Marinette realized there was a growing number of people hovering outside the door and listening in. “It says something that we have a magical emotion-based terrorist running around and his most frequent targets other than a guy obsessed with pigeons have been your students! Hell, in the past year the majority of akuma attacks have all been from this very class! If i didn’t already know you were doing this all along, I would think you were grooming these kids to be taken by Hawk Moth!"

“They’re not...that bad...” Bustier weakly defended.

“One of your students is the girl who tried to CRASH A TRAIN! And it didn’t take me all of five minutes after entering to see you catering to what can only be a chronic liar.”

Lila immediately started the waterworks. “How could you say that about me?”

“Actually, I hadn’t pointed you out. But thanks for doing it yourself, and while we’re on the subject, GOOGLE. Five minutes is more than enough to debunk your stories. Anyone could do it if they bothered to. Which might have gone a long way in preventing the classroom from becoming toxic, Bustier, if you had helped to develop your students’ critical thinking skills so they could figure things out for themselves instead of demanding they become doormats to make other people ‘feel better’.”

“I—I—” Bustier looked almost ready to cry.

“Couldn’t be bothered to tell them they’re being lied to?” Vivienne asked, sarcastically.

“She has a condition! I didn’t want to impair her ability to make friends!” Bustier exclaimed, making the class stare at her in growing horror. Others turned on Lila in outrage at the confirmation. Lila in turn started to shrink in on herself, realizing that this had not been the best time to draw attention.

“So you protect one student by letting the rest be used and manipulated. It’s not like that can go wrong! Just ask Henrik…as soon as he gets out of the hospital.”

One student—Rose—actually raised her hand. “What…what happened to Henrik?”

“Officially, food poisoning.” Vivienne replied. “Unofficially, Delia only married him because he’s rich and good as arm candy, but she only needs him alive for one of those two things and his moral righteousness makes him less appealing as the latter.”

Bustier wobbled, her strength giving out. She quickly made it to her chair and almost fell onto it as the sheer magnitude of what was happening hit her.

“But…I don’t understand. It can’t be me. I’m…I’m a good teacher…”

“No.” Vivienne interrupted. “You’re a nice teacher. At least to certain students. For everyone else, you taught pretty words and preached about love and kindness to help build up a rose-tinted view of the world and the people in it. It’s no wonder nobody knew how to deal afterwards.”

“But…it can’t be my fault.” She insisted. “I’m only one influence! There are parents! Guardians!”

Yeah, no. Vivienne was not letting her pass the blame.

“Whom YOU spoke with. Whom YOU influenced with your position to put focus on the wrong problems—not what needed to be addressed but what you wanted to make your classroom easier for you. Parents don’t know what their kids are doing during school hours other than what they’re told is happening. And when they’re told that their kid is ‘problematic’ or ‘causing conflict’ or ‘not a team player’ but they’re not being told WHY? Or not being told that their kid is being mistreated, bullied, or outright assaulted? And those parents then turn on the kids?”

She shrugged.

“Honestly, what were we supposed to think?”

Bustier shook her head, now crying.

“I can’t fix everything!”

Vivienne stared, solemnly.

“But you could have helped. You just…choose not to.”

She looked back to the class.

“Don’t trust blindly. Stand up for yourself without pushing on others. Remember that you are allowed to have limits. And sometimes…” Her eyes fell back on Marinette. “Sometimes, it’s better to just cut out the weeds than hope flowers grow.”

With that, she turned and left the classroom, the various students and faculty listening in parting before her.

It was cold outside. Almost matching the feeling in her chest.

And yet, she let out a sigh.

“Now that’s the closure I’ve been looking for.”

And she carried on.

#ml salt #bustier salt #lila sucks #trigger warning

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omnivorousshipper · 3 years

Text

De aged Deckard: You’re gonna go far, kid - Part 16

Summary: When the Shaw siblings try to break into an Eteon facility, they’re met with some unexpected consequences. Now, it’s up to Owen and Hattie to be the older siblings Deckard never had. Even if they have no idea what they’re doing

Part 15

Setting down a bowl of freshly cut watermelon, Dom looked around his backyard and nodded in satisfaction. Everything looked perfect to welcome the Shaws into the crew and hopefully be the best afternoon any kid could ask for. They had plenty of food already set up, several games around the yard, along with a sprinkler, and he could already hear all the other children clamoring in the kitchen as they all begged Mia for a piece of cake. When he had explained that they would be getting new playmate that afternoon, he had nearly laughed at the look of pure excitement and mischief in all their eyes. Especially Sam when Luke had dropped her off so he could go pick the Shaws up.

When Luke had called him up and explained the situation, Dom had been half convinced he had been still asleep and coming up with a pretty odd dream. But, no. Deckard really had been turned into a child and his siblings were bringing him to LA for help to take care of him. Which, Dom was surprised to hear that. He would have thought the Shaws would be too proud to ask anyone to help with their family, but here they were asking if they could look after one of their own. Dom only hoped Deckard wasn’t a menace like Dom suspected Owen was when he was a kid.

Thinking about the Shaws must make them appear, because in the next minute, Dom could hear a car pulling up and saw Luke’s jeep pulling up. Half smiling, Dom started to walk towards them, and before he could even say anything, he could already hear Owen.

“Does he have to show off that bloody thing?” The man complained as he hopped out of the jeep, eyeing Dom’s Charger.

“Only when you show up!” Dom called out and smirked at the glare Owen sent him. Ignoring the man’s pissy attitude, Dom instead focused on the little boy Luke was lifting out of the car. He raised an eyebrow at the dress, but didn’t question it was the boy looked around at everything was curiosity. “Not exactly how I thought we’d be meeting again.”

Deckard’s head snapped over to him and Dom’s smile dropped a bit when he saw the little boy hide behind Luke and stare at him with uncertainty.

“I’m sure that makes all of us, Toretto.” Luke chuckled. “Come here, Deck. I want to introduce you to one of our friends, Dom.”

Dom crouched down in front of Deckard when Luke brought him closer, even if Deckard still hid behind the man’s legs. The boy was truly adorable and Dom couldn’t quite put the image of the cold blooded look he saw in Deckard’s eyes as an adult to the innocent wariness this child was sending him. How did this small kid turn into a hardened man? What happened to him?

“It’s nice to meet you, Deck.” Dom smiled and was rewarded with a small wave. “Are you ready to meet some more new friends?”

The little boy looked up at Luke for what he should say.

“You know my daughter Sam I was talking about?” Deckard gave a small nod. “She’s inside with the other kids and they all can’t wait to meet you.”

Dom frowned at the almost flash of panic that crossed Deckard’s young face. Did he not want to meet more kids?

“Dad!”

Before Dom could even stop a single kid, four little bodies were rushing past his legs and straight for Luke instead. Sam immediately started to climb her dad as if he was a jungle gym while Jack jumped onto one of Luke’s arms and swung on it as if it was a monkey bar. Meanwhile, both Baby Brian and May were clinging to Luke’s legs. All the kids were talking a mile a minute as they excitedly begged Luke to play with them.

Chuckling, Dom shook his head at the kids’ antics. But, as he did so, he looked down and saw Deckard had abandoned his position behind Luke and had instead run for his brother and sister. Owen was holding him protectively and whispering something to him as the boy hid his face in his neck. As for their sister, she was standing in front of her brothers, almost as if she intended to fight off the kids if they dared come too close.

“Alright! Alright! That’s enough!” Luke laughed, carefully setting Jack and Sam back on their feet. “Calm down guys, I want to introduce you to someone. Now, where’d he go?”

“He’s here.” Owen stepped past his sister and brought Deckard closer to the kids. The little boy poked his face out just enough to see the other kids. Dom watched as Deckard’s eyes scanned over the other kids and he had to wonder why the boy was so scared. Was it the height difference?

Luke had said Deckard was roughly ten years old, meaning he was the oldest of the children, but he was still so small, Sam was several inches taller than him with Jack being the same height as him at seven years old. Dom had to wonder if maybe Deckard had been bullied while growing up and that was why he was so wary of other children. Or maybe he didn’t have much experience around other children, but that sounded wrong since he knew Deckard had a hand helping raise his siblings. So, what was it?

“Hi! Are you Deck? My dad’s talked a lot about you!” Sam piped up, excitedly stretching up onto her toes to get a better look at Deckard’s face. “I’m Sam! And this is Jack, Baby Brian, and May!”

“Hi.” Deckard’s voice was so soft, Dom wasn’t sure if he actually heard the boy or not.

“You’re going to be staying with us for a while, right?” Sam smiled brightly. “We’re going to have so much fun! Do you wanna play with us? I got a new soccer ball and I’m showing Baby Brian how to play.”

“Soccer?” Deckard looked at Owen for clarification.

“Football.” Owen chuckled.

“No!” Jack shouted. “It’s not football! It’s soccer!”

“Where Deck’s from, soccer is called football.” Dom explained and could see the four American children wrinkle their noses at the explanations of the British calling their game something else.

“Do you want to play with them, Deck?” Owen asked gently. All the adults held their breaths as they watched the little boy’s face grow thoughtful as he carefully weighed his answer. Finally, he gave a solemn nod. Without any fanfare, Owen carefully lowered Deckard to the ground and looked like he immediately regretted his choice, however, he had no time to voice that as Sam ran up to him.

“Come on!” She nearly shouted in his face and grabbed his hand. She practically dragged Deckard away with the other children following after them, throwing all sorts of questions at Deckard.

“We should keep an eye on them.” Hattie spoke up suddenly.

“They’ll be fine.” Luke told her. “Sam knows to treat Deck gently and will tell the others to do the same.”

“But Deck doesn’t know when to tell people to stop.” Owen told them, face blank as he watched Sam proudly showing Deckard her soccer ball. “Especially younger kids.”

“We’ll take turns checking in on them.” Dom told them, a note of seriousness in his voice as he met Owen and Hattie’s gazes. He wasn’t surprised in the least that they were so concerned and overprotective of Deckard. The boy wasn’t supposed to be a boy after all, and the change had to be just as bad for them as it was Deckard. “If he wants to take a step away from them, then he can. Mia will probably want to give him a haircut when she sees him, anyway.”

“As long as she doesn’t make it worse.” Owen smirked faintly.

“Only if you actually go apologize to her.” Dom couldn’t quite keep the growl out of his voice as he met the man’s eyes. He might be willing to invite Owen around, but the man still needed to do quite a bit to make up for their first meeting. He could only hope Owen was willing to make those amends, even if it was more for Deckard’s benefit than his own want to.

“As long as she doesn’t stab me.” Owen shrugged nonchalantly. “Too many people here have already done that.”

Dom blinked at the man.

“That was one time!” Hattie hissed and elbowed Owen sharply in the ribs.

“I still have the scar!”

“It was a butterknife!”

“I needed six stitches!”

Glancing over at Deckard and the kids, Dom carefully filed away not to give any of the Shaws any real silverware or anything remotely sharp. However, as he watched Deckard cheer Baby Brian on as the three year old kicked the ball, he had a feeling he would only need to implement that rule for two Shaws. Especially as he turned back and saw Luke pulling the Owen and Hattie off of each other. How were the children acting better than those two?

#deckard shaw #owen shaw #luke hobbs #hattie shaw #dom toretto #sam hobbs #toretto crew #hobbs and shaw #de aged fic #a different de aged fic

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spockandawe · 4 years

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I’m so unbelievably weak against characters who make terrible choices because they’re hurting and upset. I love the subtler resentful decisions that quietly build up ill will, and I love the big dramatic choices that end with everyone going down in flames. But more than anything, I love love love hurting myself with the emotional flavor of a character struggling with the tension of simultaneously realizing that people hate/mistrust them (or how much people hate/mistrust them, or which people hate/mistrust them), while also realizing that those people just have... no idea where they’re coming from.

I was thinking about this first because of Mu Qing, who is honestly a very low-key version of this scenario (and it’s also quieter since he’s not a lead character and rarely takes the spotlight himself). But the first big tgcf flashback honestly made my heart ache, seeing him trying to walk a line between maintaining his own independence/pride and not belonging to someone he wants to be peers with, but when he tries to be tactful, people decide he’s being shady. He was picking cherries, to bring a treat to his poor mother (and the poor children around his home), but then got accused of stealing, and then didn’t want to say that it was because his only remaining parent was living in poverty. And it continues through the present day! He knocks out Feng Xin so he can save him from a burning city, because Feng Xin refuses to leave, and people are like ‘>:OOO MU QING ATTACKED FENG XIN??’ In some ways, this character hurts me more than the others, because he rarely does anything wrong, he has a bad attitude, but his most significant “missteps” tend to be like ‘you could have been a little more kind, tbh.’

But also too, I’ve been working my way through the svsss extras again, and... Shen Jiu. God, Shen Jiu. This character is agonizing, and I love him so much. He makes terrible choices! He does terrible things! He tries to set up an actual literal child to die horribly, because he resents that this child had a parent who loved him, and that he found his way to Cang Qiong young enough to reach his full potential! It’s absolutely unforgivable! But nobody except Yue Qingyuan has any clue how much Shen Jiu has been through and how to possibly help him grow or heal or how to support him into better decision making. And Shen Jiu is so hurt by the way Yue Qingyuan left him that he refuses to let Yue Qingyuan help him now. Like! This child was a slave, begging for food on the streets, then was sold to a rich boy who abused him in sexually-flavored ways and planned to marry him to his sister so he could keep him forever, and then his “rescuer” was a scumbag adult who taught him to steal and murder.

And while Shen Jiu was suffering, he thinks Yue Qingyuan, who came from the same beginning and who promised to come back for him, was living in careless pampered luxury in a prestigious cultivation sect. Shen Jiu’s own self-evaluations are incredibly harsh, from the moment he’s reunited with Yue Qingyuan. He calls himself terrible, he calls himself a thing, and once it’s clear that he’s going to pay the price for his bad decisions, he tries hard to shove away the one person who cares about him and find some way to protect him. Yue Qingyuan never stopped loving him and defending him, but literally nobody else in the world has any sympathy for him whatsoever. How am I not supposed to be heartbroken? Shang Qinghua sighs over how his readers used to hate on Shen Qingqiu for having no motivations, which, sure, that’s understandable from what’s on the “Proud Immortal Demon Way” pages, but seeing the trauma driving his choices in svsss and seeing his own self-awareness and self-loathing and knowing that one (1) person in-universe has any inkling of his internal world (and that person died trying to help him), I’m! In pain!!!

Plus, in svsss proper, I saw a post in passing once that was something like... ‘readers are hard on luo binghe, because he’s the only mxtx protagonist where we see the worst decisions of his life and aren’t in his head to understand why he’s making those decisions.’ Which I still find fascinating, and think about often. It makes sense to me. And as far as my terrible-decision-making children go, he’s very interesting to me because he doesn’t really deal with the widespread distaste/mistrust that mu qing and shen jiu experience, it’s very much targeted on one person. I live for the parts of svsss where all Luo Binghe has to do is breathe, and Shen Qingqiu flinches and bolts. And Luo Binghe is not acting in kind or well-considered ways, a lot of the time! But he was seventeen, and his beloved teacher had told him that ‘humans can be good or evil, demons can be good or evil,’ but the moment Luo Binghe turned out to be half demon, even though he’d just been fighting desperately trying to protect Shen Qingqiu, that teacher he trusted more than anything immediately turned on him, stabbed him in the chest, and threw him into hell.

That’s agonizing!!!! Even without the aftermath, that’s agonizing to read! And when Luo Binghe comes back, years later, he’s upset, he’s hurt, he’s lonely, he’s still stinging from that betrayal, of course he’s not making good decisions. I follow good blogs, because I haven’t seen any terrible Luo Binghe takes on my dash, but I’m kind of :c that these takes apparently exist. Again, it’s not that I think he makes good decisions, but I can see why he makes bad decisions, and I can see other characters missing that context, and I am rolling in terrible, glorious pain. Luo Binghe shows up secretly in Huan Hua Palace and starts taking it over and generally acts shady as heck? Well, Shizun wouldn’t let him beg for forgiveness when he was a disciple, and he’s afraid to face Shen Qingqiu until he can meet him on a semi-equal footing. Luo Binghe gets angry and spiteful when Shen Qingqiu asks if he’s responsible for the sowers? Yes he does! He’d always, always tried to do right by Shen Qingqiu, and trusted Shen Qingqiu when he said demons could be decent people, but the moment he turned out to be half-demon, Shen Qingqiu immediately started expecting the worst from him at every turn. It hurts! I don’t blame him for acting on that hurt! And I am so endlessly compelled by the way that Shen Qingqiu completely fails to recognize the context for where Binghe is coming from.

And like... I cannot leave out Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao. Xue Yang is fascinating in his own way, because the steps are... a lot more explicit and clear-cut than some of these other characters. Shen Jiu’s downward spiral is very internal and he curls up tight to hide his weak spots even with the person who values him most in the whole world, but Xue Yang very plainly tries to lay out his reasoning for his most important person. His whole world is crumbling by the time things reach that point, and it was probably beyond salvaging, but god! He tries so hard to explain the position the world placed him in, from childhood onward, helpless and vulnerable, and that nobody was going to defend him except himself.

But when Xiao Xingchen doesn’t understand what he’s trying to communicate, when he realizes that the person he values most isn’t willing to hear what he’s trying to say, he starts lashing out again and trying to hurt. It’s the same lesson he learned when he was young, in some ways. ‘If I’m stupid enough to trust you, you’re going to use that to hurt me.’ And then the logical next step, ‘If you’re going to hurt me, all I can do is try to hurt you worse.’ You can see the trauma playing out right there on the page, and it’s agonizing. I can understand some people not enjoying reading things that make them hurt that way, but I have trouble Getting it when people don’t at least find that kind of dynamic compelling as hell. I’ll sometimes avoid media that I know is going to make me sad, but if I’m in the mood to Experience Sadness, I know a dynamic like this is going to grab me by the heart and shake me like a ragdoll.

And... Jin Guangyao. He was on my mind too, partly because I’ve seen a few takes on his motivations lately that honestly kind of baffle me? Like, to each their own, especially since mdzs never takes us inside his head. But I see posts that like... he was bullying Nie Mingjue, or what if Lan Xichen could Tell he was never genuine and mistrusted him on some level, and how to put this. It’s not that I agree with the choices he made, though I really don’t want to play fandom purity police in any way, shape, or form (murder is good, actually), but I understand the choices he made enough that those sort of interpretations that skew towards the cruelty-for-the-sake-of-cruelty territory honestly kind of upset me.

There’s some interesting comparisons to be made with Mu Qing, in some ways. They both grew up poor, without a father, in “shameful” single-parent situations (a sex worker mother vs. a father being executed for being a criminal). They were poor boys with ambition, but no matter how they tried to carry themselves with dignity, those poor beginnings were rubbed in their faces, years after the fact. I think it does make a real difference that Mu Qing’s shame is mostly based in his own history (sweeping floors) while Jin Guangyao’s is more external (son of a whore), and that Jin Guangyao’s also insulted a parent who he loved dearly, and that Mu Qing was seeking the respect outside of famiial structures while Jin Guangyao was desperate to be accepted by his father.

There’s so much of Jin Guangyao’s early life that’s like ‘I’m Just Trying To Live My Life, My Dude,’ and it hurts me to watch. He really didn’t have goals that were all that excessive! If his goals were excessive in some way, it’s only by virtue of how highly ranked his father was, which isn’t his fault. His goal: ‘I want my father to accept me into the family.’ What the world saw: “oh my god, this son of a whore SERIOUSLY wants to be brought into this noble family, lmaooooo.’ There are characters who are more compassionate than that, and a lot of that reaction is down to the nature of the setting, but LORD, man! It’s honestly a pretty restrained goal for a kid to have! Especially when his father totally promised to come back for him someday, and he waited patiently for years before setting out on his own.

And even once he gets kicked down the steps of Koi Tower and dials back his ambitions, he gets so little space to breathe. He’s learning cultivation late, he takes a position as a nobody in a different cultivation sect, he’s just trying to live. But no matter how he rolls with the punches, no matter how he smiles and bears it, he’s being constantly, constantly prodded in that old, painful bruise. I’ve been finally working my way through The Untamed, and it was painful to watch, in Gusu, when he’s trying to present the Nie Sect’s gift to Lan QIren, and people just start focking gossiping about him, right there, perfectly audibly. And when we see him back in Qinghe, he’s perfectly polite and deferential, and that one disciple is still like ‘fuck you, ur mom was a whore.’

He makes bad decisions, but even when he makes good decisions, he can’t win. I don’t get anything from him at all that suggests he had Hugely Lofty Ambitions from a young age, he just wanted some kind of decent life, but almost nobody would cut him a break. Nie Mingjue did cut him a break, and Lan Xichen was gentle and kind to him, and that made such an impact on him. But I also think it made it that much worse, when he made later questionable decisions, and Nie Mingjue refused to let him explain himself. Nie Mingjue’s rigidity breaks my heart in lots of ways, but especially when it comes to Jin Guangyao. I don’t want to make this all about personal attachment, but it’s kind of inescapable in this situation. Nie Mingjue sends him a loud, violent message that if he’s not perfectly morally upright, he’s Done. But by now, Jin Guangyao has years of history of people being cruel to him based on a history he never was able to control. Nie Mingjue protected him, but hes made it clear that protection was... conditional. There could be arguments about how conditional, and what the non-murdery limits would have been, but the murder has been done, and it was already clear that Nie Mingjue never had the power to protect him from everything.

I can’t read Jin Guangyao’s later actions without also reading that fear and insecurity into his decisions. He even tries to say it outright, that he’s afraid of everyone and everything, and Nie Mingjue misses the point. Jin Guangyao hurts me a lottle, because he suffers both in terms of the general public’s judgment of him, but also in the judgment of someone he cared deeply about. I can see the reasoning and trauma, but so many other people in the story can’t. Jin Guangyao gets pushed to the edge by how his father holds him at arm’s length from the family, the atrocities he tells Jin Guangyao to commit on his behalf (and then maybe I’ll treat you like my actual son, maybe), but when he tries to express that, Nie Mingjue is like ‘can’t you just endure more, though??’ He builds a temple with a statue with the face of his dead beloved mother, and the public is like ‘omg, he made that statue with his OWN FACE, can you believe it??’

In some ways, the way Lan Xichen determinedly loves and trusts him makes it all hurt even worse. I absolutely believe Jin Guangyao when he says that he never once wanted to act against Lan Xichen. So many of the terrible decisions Jin Guangyao makes tie so directly to him seeking either safety or security. But he works hard in social gatherings to keep the peace and people think he’s two-faced. He endures years of mistreatment before hitting back and people judge him for hitting back at all and say that well, what else could we have respected from someone with that background. Nie Mingjue threatens to kill him multiple times, and he was a very straightforward, honest man, of course Jin Guangyao was frightened of him and decided it was safer to see him dead. I live for the pain of seeing a character I love make decisions I strongly disagree with, understanding why they’re making those decisions, and seeing other characters not understand, and simply hate them for the decisions.

This isn’t exactly new, this is why I’ll never be able to shake my love for Starscream, even if his quality of motivation... varies by continuity. And Pharma and Prowl are two of my favorite characters in all of idw1 for exactly this reason. I’ve got at least three fics brushing up against Pharma’s resentment over ‘yes, i got ordered to run a hospital on a garbage planet I was sharing the most violent, sadistic decepticons in existence, I SURE WONDER WHY I WAS DRIVEN TO THIS DESPERATE POINT, BUT THE LOVE OF MY LIFE THINKS I’M JUST A TERRIBLE PERSON, SO I GUESS THAT’S THAT.’

And in the murderbot books, I genuinely get reduced to tears when murderbot has to deal with people compassionately interpreting its behavior instead of giving it no credit, the way its used to. I find the raksura books intensely, intensely satisfying in how Moon struggles to fit into a highly social, close-knit society after growing up so traumatized and alone, and how his colony gradually adapts to him and gets used to his quirks, instead of driving him out, the way he’s experienced so many times. No real conclusion here, I was just spacing out during a work training call, and got overtaken by how much I love characters who experience this particular flavor of emotional isolation.

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