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wildemaven · 6 months

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don’t drink the punch | dave york

-> pairing: dave york x f!reader

-> word count: 3382

-> content warning: 18+ blog; insecurities, jealousy, holiday party antics, mentions of food and alcohol, office gossip, smut (unprotected p in v, fingering, orgasms), there’s no mention of it but reader is on BC, Dave is divorced from Carol, Soft and Sweet Dave, let’s say this is AU and no murdering is happening (or that at least reader is not aware of), reader is mentioned to be wearing a dress with heels and lingerie, otherwise zero descriptive features for reader, I think that’s everything but let me know if I missed anything

-> notes: more soft Dave because he’s been rotting my brain and making me weak lately. This could be the same universe as Caught Kissing Santa, but also can be read as a stand alone piece too.

-> masterlist / holi-dave masterlist

“I would enjoy these holiday parties a little more if the drinks being served had some actual bite to them. Then I wouldn’t have to give another forced Thank You to my Secret Santa for another gift I’m just going to re-gift to an unsuspecting family member. Did I mention how much I hate these parties?” Cathy shares among the small group of you and a few others, tucked in the corner of this year's CIA Holiday Party.

You laugh into your fluted glass of sparkling apple juice. Mainly because she’s right. These parties tend to be a little boring, as do most office holiday parties. Lacking any sort of decorum that would indicate there’s an actual party taking place. The lobby has far more holiday cheer than this conference room at the moment.

Red streamers taped to the wall above the food table and green plastic table runners haphazardly draped over random surfaces help add some festive color to the drab atmosphere. But the tiny plastic tree with misshapen branches bent in different directions placed in the middle of the long table in the center of the room, really ties everything together. Due to budget cuts, there wasn’t much of an allowance for new decorations, according to Cathy. Thankfully, you had convinced Dave to keep leftovers decorations from last year’s party in the supply closet

Once gifts were exchanged, the party felt like it was dragging on longer than it should. Your feeting aching in the too high heels you always decide on, snacking on nearly stale bread and cold artichoke dip, most of the other items already picked over. You patiently wait for the moment everyone else decides it’s time to call it a night and meet up at a local bar to continue the celebration, all while you make your way home to enjoy the rest of the evening with order in pizza and comfy clothes.

The majority of the party you spend talking with a few friends to pass the time. Catching up on random office gossip, the latest romance rumors that have all departments engrossed in every detail and any other dramatic news that you haven’t heard about. All topics are enough to keep you entertained for the time being.

“Maybe if York wasn’t so tightly wound and put some actual effort into these things, they would be easier to enjoy.” Sheryl adds to the conversation. “Between us, I might have brought a small flask of vodka to add to the fruit punch— should make things a little more interesting.”

“I’m sure his hands are tied, so you can’t really fault him for not allowing the hard stuff. Plus, are you even allowed to drink on site?” You decide to give your opinion. While you do see where they’re coming from, you can’t really hold it against Dave for not wanting to deal with everyone liquored up. And you’re more than certain there’s a zero tolerance policy for alcohol anywhere in the building, clearly Dave is just following the rules. You’re more than fine enjoying several glasses of the fizzy juice, noting to steer clear of the punch bowl.

“By the way— did you see the new tie York got? I’m shocked she made him put it on as soon as he opened it— a little awkward to do in front of everyone. I will say, it looks good though, doesn’t it?” Cathy points to where Dave and one of his much younger Agents are still talking on the other side of the room.

You watch as he holds up the ends of the tie, as if they’re both discussing the color and material of it. He must have said something funny, because she’s laughing now. You no one notices the way you subtly roll your eyes when her hand reaches out to him, holding the side of his forearm as she talks. She must be telling him how hard it was to shop for him, but she just knew he’d love the tie. And how she spent hours searching for the right color— it's black.

She’s cute, whatever her name is. One of the newer recruits you haven’t had a chance to meet yet. She looks to be in her mid to late twenties. A young, confident woman whom you’re definitely not jealous of with all the attention Dave is giving her right now. She’s a good 10 years younger than you if you had to guess. She’s attractive too. Dave seems somewhat oblivious to her slightly flirtatious behavior. Being the nice guy that he is and giving her his undivided attention— makes sense.

“Don’t you think it looks good?” You realize you’re being asked a question about said tie he’s wearing.

“Yeah. It looks really good on him.” That’s a lie. It does look good, but you kind of hate that she gave it to him, given how flirty she's being towards him. It’s not anything you would have ever picked for a Secret Santa gift, especially for Dave. The premise of the gift exchange was supposed to be fun, silly gifts. She should have opted for a coffee mug that says, Tears of my Employees, but that’s just your opinion. “Such a great color, too.” That part is the truth, it is a great color on him.

“Speaking of looking good— that dress on you is killer!” Sheryl shifts the compliments in your direction, catching you off guard and has you feeling slightly embarrassed at the attention.

“Oh! This? It’s just something I picked up earlier this week. I feel a little overdressed though.” You say all demure like, looking down at the way the black material drapes over your body. The dress feels a bit much compared to everyone else’s business suit attire. The high cut of the slit and the low straight neckline with straps holding it onto your body have you sticking out more than you would like.

“I’m sure Dave has told you plenty how beautiful you look in it.” Sheryl says confidently.

“Umm— no he hasn’t mentioned it. I haven’t had the chance to talk to him much today, actually.” You say meekly, looking back over in the direction of where Dave is.

When you go to sneak a glance at him, he’s already looking at you, not caring what the cute younger Agent is saying in that moment. His attention fully focused on you. He gives you a wink, raising his half-empty glass— cheers to you from across the room. You mirror the gesture back to him, pairing it with a genuine smile now painted on your face. He turns his attention back to the younger cute Agent, both of them now joined by a pair of Agents from analytics.

“Well, the night is still young. I’m sure he’ll be giving you all the praise soon enough.” Cathy says, pouring some red punch into her glass.

“Sure.” You smile politely at Cathy and Sheryl. “Umm, if you’ll both excuse me. I need to go use the ladies room.” Deciding you need a minute to yourself. Ditching your glass at the end of the long conference table, you make your way out of the room down the hall. Seeking out a few minutes of quiet to let your mind clear before heading back into the lackluster party. You catch Dave’s profile as you walk by the glass wall of the conference room, paying no mind to anyone outside the little holiday bubble he’s in.

The echoing of your heels clicking against the tiled floor is the only sound you hear as the bathroom door shuts behind you. You debate whether or not you should give your feet a break from being stuck in such a high arched position for so long, deciding against it at the thought of walking nearly barefoot in a bathroom. Placing your purse on the porcelain countertop, you take in your reflection in the mirror. Adjusting the straps on your shoulders, then sliding your hands down the front of your body. Admiring and reminding yourself how good you do look in this dress, it’s the main reason you decide to wear it tonight.

You’re not even sure why you were doubting yourself to begin with. You groan out loud into the unoccupied space for how you were comparing yourself to another woman— a woman you don’t even know. She doesn’t deserve that. Sometimes your insecurities creep in, clouding your mind with lies and false narratives you’ve conjured up. You brush it off. Grabbing your purse, you apologize mentally to yourself as you make your way back out into the hallway. As well as to the young woman who had also been on the receiving end of your near downward spiral. You’ll introduce yourself properly when you get back to the room.

Someone must have found a speaker. A vibrant Christmas song, you can just barely make out, is coming from the conference room. Most likely another one of Sheryl’s attempts to liven up the crowd. You’d given anything to see the look on Dave’s face right now— he has the worst poker face when he’s annoyed.

You’re halfway back to the party when you get distracted. An open door to an empty office has you intrigued. The plaque next to the door reads Dave York - Deputy Director NCS. Your fingers tracing over the carved out letters engraved on to the gold metal.

Laughter pours out of the party filled room at the end of the hall. Your fingers pausing over the last letter of Dave’s name. Glancing back over your shoulder, double checking that you are alone. Shadowy figures are still milling about on the other side of the glass wall. The party far more alive than when you left it. The addition of music was just what it needed.

You decide you’re in no rush to head back. The open door to Dave’s office practically welcoming you in.

Wall to wall shelves behind Dave’s desk have some sort of lighting that adds a soft ambient glow to the otherwise dark room. The rest of the walls are adorned with college degrees and various certificates, years and years of hard work and dedication.

You toss your purse to the leather chair that is off to the side as you make your way to the large desk. It’s made of some dark slab of wood, the sleek angles and metal hardware gives it an elaborate modern look. The desk is cool to the touch, your fingertips following the grain of the wood, as you take in the details of Dave’s space.

There’s a gold frame that catches your eye, twinkling under the dim lighting. You grab it from where it sits next to another photo of Dave’s daughters, Molly and Alice.

You’re instantly drawn to Dave in the photo. The sheer happiness that’s evident in the smile he’s wearing. A smile that he doesn’t wear often at work or for many outside of it. His dark locks brushed off of his face, in a dressed up polished manner. Face cleanly shaven, allowing his dimple to be on full display. There’s also a brightness in his eyes. You admire the way the photographer was able to capture such a beautiful candid moment.

“That’s my favorite picture” You turn to see Dave standing in the doorway of his office. Suit jacket discarded somewhere. His hands in his pants pockets. Head tilted ever so slightly as he slowly scans up your body until his eyes meet yours.

“Hmm… You have to say that, it’s your wedding photo.” You say as a matter of fact. Turning back to his desk, you glance at the framed photo one last time. You finger brushing over the portion of the picture where his handsome face is.

You’re too focused on the happy couple staring back at you, missing the barely audible sound of his shoes drifting over the carpeted floor as he slides up behind you. You nearly gasp at the sensation of his body pressed up against you, butterflies erupting in your stomach. His touch is captivating, evoking a sense of want, desire blooming immediately.

Your body doesn’t shy away from the way his hands settle on your hips. Welcoming the way his lips move over your skin, a gentle trail of kisses that lead upwards from the round of shoulder to the small space below your ear. Your stomach tightens. Goosebumps erupting all over.

“It’s our wedding photo.” A gentle squeeze of your hips as his lips ghost over the shell of your ear. He plucks the frame from your grip, setting it back in its designated spot on his desk.

“Are you trying to seduce me in your place of work, Mr. York?” A playful smile forms on your lips as you turn to face him, rucking the skirt of your dress over your hips as you sit on the edge of the desk, the silky material pooling around your waist.

The insecurities you had been feeling earlier in the night, long gone, forgotten under his intense gaze. Your hands lay flat over his documents and files as you lean back into a more seductive position, careful to not disturb their tidiness.

“Fuck, Baby. Looks like you’re the one doing the seducing, Mrs. York?” The new black lace panties and garter set you picked up this week on display for him. His hands glide over the black stockings that stop mid-thigh, his fingers slipping under the garter strap, continuing their upward movement, as he steps into the space between your legs.

“Is it working?” You purr, knowing full well it is based on the grip he has on the apex of your thighs. A small yelp escapes your throat as he slides your lower half closer to the edge so your flush against him— not missing how hard he is under his black slacks. You carefully allow yourself to lay back fully over the desktop.

Your hands catch the end of his new tie. Pulling at it tautly, bringing him down so he’s maneuvering his body over yours. One hand resting next to your head as the other guides one of your legs over his hip, encouraging you to wrap them around him.

“I just got all of these papers in order. Hours of reading and organizing. They’re going to be a mess now.” Dave’s voice is honeyed, holding zero malice in his words.

“I’m sure you can have one of your cute little Agents clean them up for you.” You tease, which only encourages his own seductive movements. Your eyes flutter shut at the way he ruts himself hard against your aching mound. Open mouth kisses delivered across your cleavage.

“Are you jealous, Mrs. York?” You can feel the way his lips perk into a smile on the top of your breast when he asks.

“I-I was. She’s very pretty. But I know who you’re going home with at the end of the night.” Your fingers card through his soft locks at the base of his neck, your head tilted back as he soft nips at your jaw.

“If it makes you feel any better, I think Julie finds you more attractive than she does me. She asked several times who the breathtaking woman in the black dress was.” That was a twist you hadn’t expected.

“Oh! Did you let her down easily?” Dave’s wandering lips are halted by your question. He pulls back, eyes filled with reverence as he looks down at you. The air between you is charged with an unwavering love for each other. His hand gently cups the side of your face, thumb slowly tracing over your bottom lip.

“I told her how you’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. How you make my life better. And that I don’t know what I did to deserve such a beautiful woman like you.” He’s the sweetest man you’ve ever met, a wonderful father to his two girls and an incredible husband— falling in love with him was one of the easiest things you’ve ever done.

“Dave—“ Tears prick at your eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now, let me take you home so I can unwrap you properly.” He tries to lift himself off of you, but you have other plans— more exciting plans.

Grabbing his face and pulling him back to you, your lips connect with his. Tongues melting into a fiery kiss. No further words needed, as your body does a fine job of conveying exactly what you need from him and you’re grateful he catches on quickly.

His hand slips under the lace material of your panties. Seeking out your pleasure as he alternates between soft deliberate circles over your throbbing clit and working you up with two fingers inside your warm cunt, hitting that delicious spot over and over again, causing you to bite back an explicit moan as you silently tip over the edge.

Rushed movements blur into the next. Working together to free his hard cock from his boxers and pants. Forgoing the effort it takes to remove your elaborate straps and lace, pulling your underwear to the side is all that’s required before Dave is slowly sinking into you.

Shared breaths and discreet whimpers fill Dave’s office. Nails biting into exposed skin with each heady thrust Dave delivers. Papers shuffling beneath you as your body tenses, arching into his. Dave senses you’re close, your vise-like grip has him nearing his own release.

“Dave! —fuckfuckfuck— Baby, I- I’m going to come!” You're breathless, trying your best to keep your voice low, not wanting to be heard by anyone.

“I’m right there —shit!— with you, Sweetheart.”

Your lips connect with Dave’s again as your orgasm surges through you, swallowing each other's moans and triggering Dave to spill inside of you.

The room is nearly quiet again as Dave’s forehead rests on your chest. His skin is warm against yours. Your lungs work effectively to help regulate your breathing to a normal state.

A kiss placed over your heart, then to your lips before he’s slipping out of you. Dave adjusts your underwear back in place as you still lay boneless on his desk, body a tingling mess is bliss.

“That was a first for us. Surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.” He smiles down at you as he tucks himself back into his boxers, tucking his dress shirt and refastening his slacks.

“Hmmm— I’m not opposed to it happening more often— make sure to pencil me in.” You hum softly at him. You reach out for his hand to help you off the desk. His hands instantly catching you and your grip onto his shoulders, your legs a little wobbly when your heels hit the ground.

Your dress adjusted, Dave’s tie situated, compliments exchanged —You look gorgeous in this dress, This tie was a nice choice, she did a great job picking it out— sweat patted down with a tissue— a valiant attempt to look less conspicuous as you both head back to the party hand in hand.

You both decide to stay a longer, indulge in a little more of the festivities, you suggest ordering some pizza for everyone. Dave agrees and mentions also needing to call Carol at some point to tell the girls goodnight.

“You think they will notice we were missing?” Dave asks, his arm wrapping your waiting and pulling into his side as you both stop at the door to the conference room. The space is still filled with boisterous laughter as music continues to keep the energy flowing.

“I doubt it. They’re probably too busy discussing how boring your parties are.” You smirk at him.

“Boring? Who’s saying they’re boring?” His head whips over to you. You can already see him mentally running through names, his signature scowl now visible, looking back at his fellow agents.

“That’s for me to know and for you to stress about until the next one. I’m going to go introduce myself to Julie. I’ll see you in a bit.” You kiss his cheek and make your way back inside. You take a few steps before stopping and turning back to him, your dress skirt billowing out around your legs. “Dave, don’t drink the punch.”

#dave york #dave york x reader #dave york x you #dave york x female reader #dave york x f!reader #pedro pascal #wildemaven writes #pedrostories

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icedbatik · 1 month

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I saw this opinion piece in the New York Times and, while I don't normally copy and paste entire newspaper articles, this is an excellent (if scary) read.

Aside from the sections on how much lack of consent there is in today's sexual landscape, hockey fans -- who should be well aware of the dangers of concussions -- might take particular note of the section in which "choking" during sex is linked to brain damage on par with concussion damage.

The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex

April 12, 2024

By Peggy Orenstein

Debby Herbenick is one of the foremost researchers on American sexual behavior. The director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University and the author of the pointedly titled book “Yes, Your Kid,” she usually shares her data, no matter how explicit, without judgment. So I was surprised by how concerned she seemed when we checked in on Zoom recently: “I haven’t often felt so strongly about getting research out there,” she told me. “But this is lifesaving.”

For the past four years, Dr. Herbenick has been tracking the rapid rise of “rough sex” among college students, particularly sexual strangulation, or what is colloquially referred to as choking. Nearly two-thirds of women in her most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 students at an anonymized “major Midwestern university” said a partner had choked them during sex (one-third in their most recent encounter). The rate of those women who said they were between the ages 12 and 17 the first time that happened had shot up to 40 percent from one in four.

As someone who’s been writing for well over a decade about young people’s attitudes and early experience with sex in all its forms, I’d also begun clocking this phenomenon. I was initially startled in early 2020 when, during a post-talk Q. and A. at an independent high school, a 16-year-old girl asked, “How come boys all want to choke you?” In a different class, a 15-year-old boy wanted to know, “Why do girls all want to be choked?” They do? Not long after, a college sophomore (and longtime interview subject) contacted me after her roommate came home in tears because a hookup partner, without warning, had put both hands on her throat and squeezed.

I started to ask more, and the stories piled up. Another sophomore confided that she enjoyed being choked by her boyfriend, though it was important for a partner to be “properly educated” — pressing on the sides of the neck, for example, rather than the trachea. (Note: There is no safe way to strangle someone.) A male freshman said “girls expected” to be choked and, even though he didn’t want to do it, refusing would make him seem like a “simp.” And a senior in high school was angry that her friends called her “vanilla” when she complained that her boyfriend had choked her.

Sexual strangulation, nearly always of women in heterosexual pornography, has long been a staple on free sites, those default sources of sex ed for teens. As with anything else, repeat exposure can render the once appalling appealing. It’s not uncommon for behaviors to be normalized in porn, move within a few years to mainstream media, then, in what may become a feedback loop, be adopted in the bedroom or the dorm room.

Choking, Dr. Herbenick said, seems to have made that first leap in a 2008 episode of Showtime’s “Californication,” where it was still depicted as outré, then accelerated after the success of “Fifty Shades of Grey.” By 2019, when a high school girl was choked in the pilot of HBO’s “Euphoria,” it was standard fare. A young woman was choked in the opener of “The Idol” (again on HBO and also, like “Euphoria,” created by Sam Levinson; what’s with him?). Ali Wong plays the proclivity for laughs in a Netflix special, and it’s a punchline in Tina Fey’s new “Mean Girls.” The chorus of Jack Harlow’s “Lovin On Me,” which topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for six nonconsecutive weeks this winter and has been viewed over 99 million times on YouTube, starts with, “I’m vanilla, baby, I’ll choke you, but I ain’t no killer, baby.” How-to articles abound on the internet, and social media algorithms feed young people (but typically not their unsuspecting parents) hundreds of #chokemedaddy memes along with memes that mock — even celebrate — the potential for hurting or killing female partners.

I’m not here to kink-shame (or anything-shame). And, anyway, many experienced BDSM practitioners discourage choking, believing it to be too dangerous. There are still relatively few studies on the subject, and most have been done by Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues. Reports among adolescents are now trickling out from the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland, New Zealand and Italy.

Twenty years ago, sexual asphyxiation appears to have been unusual among any demographic, let alone young people who were new to sex and iffy at communication. That’s changed radically in a short time, with health consequences that parents, educators, medical professionals, sexual consent advocates and teens themselves urgently need to understand.

Sexual trends can spread quickly on campus and, to an extent, in every direction. But, at least among straight kids, I’ve sometimes noticed a pattern: Those that involve basic physical gratification — like receiving oral sex in hookups — tend to favor men. Those that might entail pain or submission, like choking, are generally more for women.

So, while undergrads of all genders and sexualities in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys report both choking and being choked, straight and bisexual young women are far more likely to have been the subjects of the behavior; the gap widens with greater occurrences. (In a separate study, Dr. Herbenick and her colleagues found the behavior repeated across the United States, particularly for adults under 40, and not just among college students.) Alcohol may well be involved, and while the act is often engaged in with a steady partner, a quarter of young women said partners they’d had sex with on the day they’d met also choked them.

Either way, most say that their partners never or only sometimes asked before grabbing their necks. For many, there had been moments when they couldn’t breathe or speak, compromising the ability to withdraw consent, if they’d given it. No wonder that, in a separate study by Dr. Herbenick, choking was among the most frequently listed sex acts young women said had scared them, reporting that it sometimes made them worry whether they’d survive.

Among girls and women I’ve spoken with, many did not want or like to be sexually strangled, though in an otherwise desired encounter they didn’t name it as assault. Still, a sizable number were enthusiastic; they requested it. It is exciting to feel so vulnerable, a college junior explained. The power dynamic turns her on; oxygen deprivation to the brain can trigger euphoria.

That same young woman, incidentally, had never climaxed with a partner: While the prevalence of choking has skyrocketed, rates of orgasm among young women have not increased, nor has the “orgasm gap” disappeared among heterosexual couples. “It indicates they’re not doing other things to enhance female arousal or pleasure,” Dr. Herbenick said.

When, for instance, she asked one male student who said he choked his partner whether he’d ever tried using a vibrator instead, he recoiled. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

Perhaps, she responded, because it would be more likely to produce orgasm without risking, you know, death.

In my interviews, college students have seen male orgasm as a given; women’s is nice if it happens, but certainly not expected or necessarily prioritized (by either partner). It makes sense, then, that fulfillment would be less the motivator for choking than appearing adventurous or kinky. Such performances don’t always feel good.

“Personally, my hypothesis is that this is one of the reasons young people are delaying or having less sex,” Dr. Herbenick said. “Because it’s uncomfortable and weird and scary. At times some of them literally think someone is assaulting them but they don’t know. Those are the only sexual experiences for some people. And it’s not just once they’ve gotten naked. They’ll say things like, ‘I’ve only tried to make out with someone once because he started choking and hitting me.’”

Keisuke Kawata, a neuroscientist at Indiana University’s School of Public Health, was one of the first researchers to sound the alarm on how the cumulative, seemingly inconsequential, sub-concussive hits football players sustain (as opposed to the occasional hard blow) were key to triggering C.T.E., the degenerative brain disease. He’s a good judge of serious threats to the brain. In response to Dr. Herbenick’s work, he’s turning his attention to sexual strangulation. “I see a similarity” to C.T.E., he told me, “though the mechanism of injury is very different.” In this case, it is oxygen-blocking pressure to the throat, frequently in light, repeated bursts of a few seconds each.

Strangulation — sexual or otherwise — often leaves few visible marks and can be easily overlooked as a cause of death. Those whose experiences are nonlethal rarely seek medical attention, because any injuries seem minor: Young women Dr. Herbenick studied mostly reported lightheadedness, headaches, neck pain, temporary loss of coordination and ear ringing. The symptoms resolve, and all seems well. But, as with those N.F.L. players, the true effects are silent, potentially not showing up for days, weeks, even years.

According to the American Academy of Neurology, restricting blood flow to the brain, even briefly, can cause permanent injury, including stroke and cognitive impairment. In M.R.I.s conducted by Dr. Kawata and his colleagues (including Dr. Herbenick, who is a co-author of his papers on strangulation), undergraduate women who have been repeatedly choked show a reduction in cortical folding in the brain compared with a never-choked control group. They also showed widespread cortical thickening, an inflammation response that is associated with elevated risk of later-onset mental illness. In completing simple memory tasks, their brains had to work far harder than the control group, recruiting from more regions to achieve the same level of accuracy.

The hemispheres in the choked group’s brains, too, were badly skewed, with the right side hyperactive and the left underperforming. A similar imbalance is associated with mood disorders — and indeed in Dr. Herbenick’s surveys girls and women who had been choked were more likely than others (or choked men) to have experienced overwhelming anxiety, as well as sadness and loneliness, with the effect more pronounced as the incidence rose: Women who had experienced more than five instances of choking were two and a half times as likely as those who had never been choked to say they had been so depressed within the previous 30 days they couldn’t function. Whether girls and women with mental health challenges are more likely to seek out (or be subjected to) choking, choking causes mood disorders, or some combination of the two is still unclear. But hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation — judging by what research has shown about other types of traumatic brain injury — could be a contributing factor. Given the soaring rates of depression and anxiety among young women, that warrants concern.

Now consider that every year Dr. Herbenick has done her survey, the number of females reporting extreme effects from strangulation (neck swelling, loss of consciousness, losing control of urinary function) has crept up. Among those who’ve been choked, the rate of becoming what students call “cloudy” — close to passing out, but not crossing the line — is now one in five, a huge proportion. All of this indicates partners are pressing on necks longer and harder.

The physical, cognitive and psychological impacts of sexual choking are disturbing. So is the idea that at a time when women’s social, economic, educational and political power are in ascent (even if some of those rights may be in jeopardy), when #MeToo has made progress against harassment and assault, there has been the popularization of a sex act that can damage our brains, impair intellectual functioning, undermine mental health, even kill us. Nonfatal strangulation, one of the most significant indicators that a man will murder his female partner (strangulation is also one of the most common methods used for doing so), has somehow been eroticized and made consensual, at least consensual enough. Yet, the outcomes are largely the same: Women’s brains and bodies don’t distinguish whether they are being harmed out of hate or out of love.

By now I’m guessing that parents are curled under their chairs in a fetal position. Or perhaps thinking, “No, not my kid!” (see: title of Dr. Herbenick’s book above, which, by the way, contains an entire chapter on how to talk to your teen about “rough sex”).

I get it. It’s scary stuff. Dr. Herbenick is worried; I am, too. And we are hardly some anti-sex, wait-till-marriage crusaders. But I don’t think our only option is to wring our hands over what young people are doing.

Parents should take a beat and consider how they might give their children relevant information in a way that they can hear it. Maybe reiterate that they want them to have a pleasurable sex life — you have already said that, right? — and also want them to be safe. Tell them that misinformation about certain practices, including choking, is rampant, that in reality it has grave health consequences. Plus, whether or not a partner initially requested it, if things go wrong, you’re generally criminally on the hook.

Dr. Herbenick suggests reminding them that there are other, lower-risk ways to be exploratory or adventurous if that is what they are after, but it would be wisest to delay any “rough sex” until they are older and more skilled at communicating. She offers language when negotiating with a new partner, such as, “By the way, I’m not comfortable with” — choking, or other escalating behaviors such as name-calling, spitting and genital slapping — “so please don’t do it/don’t ask me to do it to you.” They could also add what they are into and want to do together.

I’d like to point high school health teachers to evidence-based porn literacy curricula, but I realize that incorporating such lessons into their classrooms could cost them their jobs. Shafia Zaloom, a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, recommends, if that’s the case, grounding discussions in mainstream and social media. There are plenty of opportunities. “You can use it to deconstruct gender norms, power dynamics in relationships, ‘performative’ trends that don’t represent most people’s healthy behaviors,” she said, “especially depictions of people putting pressure on someone’s neck or chest.”

I also know that pediatricians, like other adults, struggle when talking to adolescents about sex (the typical conversation, if it happens, lasts 40 seconds). Then again, they already caution younger children to use a helmet when they ride a bike (because heads and necks are delicate!); they can mention that teens might hear about things people do in sexual situations, including choking, then explain the impact on brain health and why such behavior is best avoided. They should emphasize that if, for any reason — a fall, a sports mishap or anything else — a young person develops symptoms of head trauma, they should come in immediately, no judgment, for help in healing.

The role and responsibility of the entertainment industry is a tangled knot: Media reflects behavior but also drives it, either expanding possibilities or increasing risks. There is precedent for accountability. The European Union now requires age verification on the world’s largest porn sites (in ways that preserve user privacy, whatever that means on the internet); that discussion, unsurprisingly, had been politicized here. Social media platforms have already been pushed to ban content promoting eating disorders, self-harm and suicide — they should likewise be pressured to ban content promoting choking. Traditional formats can stop glamorizing strangulation, making light of it, spreading false information, using it to signal female characters’ complexity or sexual awakening. Young people’s sexual scripts are shaped by what they watch, scroll by and listen to — unprecedentedly so. They deserve, and desperately need, models of interactions that are respectful, communicative, mutual and, at the very least, safe.

Peggy Orenstein is the author of “Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the New Masculinity” and “Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape.”

#off-theme #and long #but worth the read

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moments-on-film · 8 months

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Moments on Film: Carmen Berzatto and Connell Waldron - Character Analysis

For the past few weeks, I’ve been a lot quieter on this site, and my analysis of The Bear, and that’s because I have been deeply engrossed in finally watching Normal People. I realize the show came out in 2020, but for whatever reason, I missed it when it was first released. Knowing that Paul Mescal has multiple films on the current/upcoming film festival circuit, All of Us Strangers, and Foe, the first of which, already garnering stellar reviews, and the latter, based on a sci-fi book of the same name, which I read and enjoyed, I decided to watch this piece of work from his oeuvre so I can better assess his range.

To put it simply, I found Normal People very compelling, moving, and heartbreaking. The acting from the two main characters is stellar. One of the other things I noticed, are the seemingly endless connections to the main characters in The Bear—in particular, Connell Waldron and Carmen Berzatto. Although these characters are different and a world apart, one in Chicago, Illinois and one in Sligo, Ireland, watching this show was like viewing many of the same problems through another character’s eyes.

On the surface, there are so many obvious similarities, (like the fact that they both religiously wear a chain necklace, Connell’s silver, and Carmy’s gold), but underneath there are multiple traits, insecurities, weaknesses, strengths, and patterns of behavior that stood out so clearly to me that I felt compelled to start writing this piece. In my opinion, both The Bear and Normal People are coming of age stories, because both feature multiple protagonists who are on a journey to discover who they really are and what actually brings them purpose, peace, fulfilment and joy. In a prior piece, I analyzed why I believe Carmy Doesn’t Know Who He Is Yet, and while the reasons may be different, the same is true for Connell Waldron. Below are several examples I noticed of the shared similarities between Carmy and Connell.

Please note: If you watch The Bear, but not Normal People, or vice versa, and you want/plan to, heart this post and come back to it after viewing to avoid major spoilers. If this doesn’t bother you, please, read on, and thank you, but I wanted to give fair warning. 🧡

Communication

Both Carmy and Connell struggle with this desperately. In The Bear, Carmy has trouble putting words to feelings, but he has them, he feels very deeply. In Normal People, Connell struggles to identify what he is feeling. These issues cause both of them, and the people in their lives, so much pain and suffering. Carmy’s life of abuse and trauma has forced him to stifle how he feels about situations he’s in, placate and appease others, and silence himself. In 1x6, Carmy tells his sister Natalie, “most of the time, I feel sort of trapped, because I can’t describe how I’m feeling.” Connell, on the other hand, is so worried about what others will think of him and his choices that he denies his true feelings, to the point where he often can’t even identify them himself. In 1x2 Connell tells Marianne that he struggles to know what he feels, “I might look back on something and think how I felt at the time, but, when it’s happening I never have any idea.” There are so many moments in both stories where one or two sentences would save them and their loved ones a world of hurt, but neither one is capable in several key moments that really count.

Crippling Indecision

Both characters suffer from this. In S2 of The Bear, Carmy is trying to straddle building his dream restaurant, and being in a relationship that is pulling him from everything he needs to be doing to open it. In 2x8, Sydney tells Carmy, “I just think you need to decide...” I have read much into this line because, due to his past, there are so many questions in Carmy’s life that he’s never been allowed to/allowed himself to explore enough to answer. In Normal People, Connell starts out not even knowing what he wants to study in college. He only comes to a decision when Marianne tells him very clearly what makes the most sense, based on her observations, and she’s right. Both of them look to the women in their lives go help them make key decisions.

Talent for Their Craft—with Barriers

Carmen is a talented and award winning chef. Before he’s left The Beef in his brother’s will, he conquered the world of fine dining. He’s risen to the top of his profession. He was even awarded the James Beard Rising Star Chef award from his time as a chef at Fairest Creatures, in Malibu and retained 3 Michelin Stars as CDC of Eleven Madison Park in New York. However, in S2, he struggles with crafting the menu for the new iteration of The Beef, The Bear. He’s torn between incorporating nostalgic dishes from his past, and new forward moving dishes created in partnership with Sydney. Connell is a talented student and sports player when we first meet him, and he goes on to be a “star” student at Trinity College, in Dublin, recipient of a prestigious scholarship, and editor of the publication of the literary society. However, in his work, (at times), as in his life, both suffer from his lack of communication. He receives a letter in response to a short story he submits that says his work “lacked a clear voice and confidence.” This problem affects all areas of his life, not just his professional one. Both Carmy and Connell’s work suffers because of their personal issues which they have yet to work out.

Soulmates

The relationships between Carmen and Sydney and Connell and Marianne have many parallels. Both couples (yes, couples) trust and confide in each other exclusively. They are each other’s confidant, and safe place. This gets tested for each couple when they are not truly honest with themselves about what the other means to them and when they let outside forces mess with their cosmic connection. Carmy ends up going out with Claire, partly due to the outside pressure from his family. Connell has a beautiful budding relationship with Marianne in the beginning of the show, but capitulates to outside pressure from his group of friends to do what is expected of him and be with the popular, but mean, Rachel. When he does this, it illicited the exact same response from me as when Carmy ditched Sydney to help Claire run an errand. Both moments had me yelling at my TV, “what are you DOING?! How could you do this to her?!” The thing is, both sets of characters have such a magnetic pull on each other, that outside forces can only penetrate for so long. Their paths are deeply intertwined. Carmy essentially asks Sydney to join him in opening a restaurant, and Sydney says yes. Marianne effectively asks Connell to join her at Trinity College, and he says yes. Both decisions will advance their relationships, personally and professionally. I must note that I don’t believe either ask is selfish. Carmy sees Sydney has talents and skills that compliment if not exceed his, and he wants her to shine. Marianne sees Connell’s talent and passion for English and knows Trinity is the best school. Another beautiful parallel is the fact that they are so deeply connected they they can literally read each other’s minds. Carmy and Sydney regularly start and finish each other’s sentences. They think alike, they dress alike. Carmy selects a chef coat for Sydney that could have been designed by her. In Normal People, Connell actually tells Marianne, “you know sometimes I felt like I could read your mind…..but I don’t know…maybe that’s normal.” Marianne stares at him deeply and pauses before saying “it’s not.” And it isn’t. These two sets of characters have a connection that is unique, special, and written in the stars.

Wasting Time with the Wrong People

Both Carmy and Connell go through trying to force relationships with other people that are just not right for them. Marianne does this too. We have not seen this yet from Sydney, but we may, as the show (hopefully) goes on. Carmy, for a variety of reasons, tries to be in a relationship with Claire. Early on, Connell succumbs to pressure to be linked with Rachel, who he doesn’t even like. Later in the show, he is in a placid and passionless relationship with Helen Brophy. Both Claire and Helen are or will be Doctors. Claire is in her last few months of residency, and Helen is at Trinity studying medicine. Neither woman is right for Carmy or Connell, which pulls them from their respective soulmates.

People Pleasing and Trouble Saying No

Carmy’s abusive upbringing has made him a people pleaser to some extent. He has had the completely arduous task of literally being in charge of managing his mother’s emotions and mood swings, as well as his brother’s. He doesn’t want to rock the boat or make people upset. This makes him say yes to people and situations he may not actually agree with and is another reason why he has trouble expressing his feelings and what he wants. This is a reason why he drops his work and Sydney to please Claire when she asks for a favor. Connell, from what we know, has a loving mother, but he is an only child and has no father, and seeks outside validation from friends. He’s very aware that his relationships are conditional and he very much goes along to get along, much to his detriment. An early example of this is when Rob asks to copy his French homework and he hands over all of his hard work without question. In the background of this scene, you can hear another character ask someone else for theirs and they give an unshakeable, “no.” Carmen and Connell struggle with boundaries that would protect them because they don’t want to risk making people upset.

Anxiety and Panic Attacks

Gif source: @birthdaysentiment

Both suffer from this. Actually both shows do an excellent job at uplifting the struggles of mental health, particularly for young men. Among other things, Carmen has undiagnosed PTSD from his trauma that manifests in sleep walking nightmares and severe panic attacks. When panic overtakes him, he literally is gripped in its clutches, and can barely breathe or move. The first time we witness him having a panic attack, it’s because he gets a phone call from someone asking for his brother who doesn’t know he has died by suicide. He gets so shaken, it impacts him physically and he has to physically remove himself from the restaurant. Connell has his first panic attack the moment he experiences just how conditional his friendships truly are. In 1x3, after he finally defends Marianne, his secret girlfriend who he loves, but is unpopular, to his friends, helps take care of her and takes her home, he shows up at school the next day and is relentlessly teased. Experiencing the way his friends will just turn on him on a dime causes him so much anxiety, he has to run to the bathroom and has a panic attack in the stalls. Connell also struggles with depression after his friend, later in the show, dies by suicide. He has a panic attack, so bad, he can’t even leave the house. Unlike Carmy (so far), Connell eventually gets treatment, and we see him start to even out emotionally. It must be said that during the final panic attack we witness Carmy endure, it is the thought of Sydney that pulls him through. Connell has treatment, but he also has the support of Marianne during his most major time of need. Both turn to these women in their lives for their strength in moments of great distress.

Al-Anon / Counseling Share Session

Gif source: @birthdaysentiment

Season 1 of The Bear culminates for Carmy emotionally when he reaches a breaking point, and in an effort to get help, makes a decision to not only attend an Al-Anon meeting, but get up and share many details about his background and his brother and it becomes crystal clear how deeply his absence has and continues to impact his life. Jeremy Allen White acts this 7 minute uncut scene with his whole heart, making us feel for him in every moment. He is spilling his guts, while restraining his deep, deep trauma, sadness and pain. His eyes brim with tears the whole time, tears he has still yet to shed. In one of the final episodes of Normal People, at the recommendation of his roommate, Connell goes to a free counseling session, sits in a chair, and starts for the first time ever to truly speak his mind, including how the suicide of his friend has impacted him, what Marianne means to him, and how he hates his current station in life but feels like there’s nothing for him to go back to in his hometown. Paul Mescal, like Jeremy Allen White completely carries this scene with the power of his acting in an extreme closeup. Unlike Carmy, Connell breaks down, and his emotions gush out in free flowing sobs. Both actors make the correct decision to barely make eye contact. Sharing this much is new for them and makes them uncomfortable, so for the most part, they keep their eye-line down, but despite this, the vulnerability is palpable we can really and truly see, hear and feel all of their pain.

Coming to Terms With What They Want

Gif source: @birthdaysentiment

I think the ultimate goal of both characters, Carmen and Connell, is to decide what they want, free themselves from the expectations, opinions, thoughts, or suggestions from others, and go get it. As I said, both Normal People and The Bear are coming of age stories. Both stories highlight the transformative power of love and the confidence to make choices for yourself with that knowledge that there will be someone there to love you no matter what. For Connell, it has been such a journey for him to come to terms with the fact that writing is his true calling. In the end of the show, he has the incredible opportunity to go to New York and take his place in a prestigious MFA program. At first, he is so scared to leave. Marianne is his rock and he loves her. He’s scared to leave and be alone in a strange city without support, without her. He asks her to come with him, but she knows this is a journey he needs to go on alone and she wants to stay in Ireland and live the life she’s living. She encourages him to go, and reassures him they will be ok. In The Bear, Carmy is not at this place yet. As I mentioned earlier, I have written about how at the present, Carmy doesn’t really know who is is or what he wants. However, we as an audience can see that his gentle spirit is attracted to art, drawing, and creativity. This has been beaten out of him, but I believe art is his true calling, he’s just never been allowed to pursue it. If we get more seasons of The Bear, I hope we will see Carmy have a similar breakthrough in reigniting and going after his dreams and letting go of what no longer serves him or brings him joy. I truly believe that he and Sydney will be a part of each other’s lives no matter what. In the kitchen or outside of it, in Ireland, or away, Carmen and Sydney and Connell and Marianne are connected in ways that time and space can’t break.

There are many, many other parallels to be made in both stories (which I may continue to write about). Connell and Marianne’s stories have come to an end, as Normal People was one season, and based on a book. We know where his journey takes him, but we can only speculate where else he may go, and if he and Marianne find their way back to each other. Carmy, on the other hand, is a character on a show that hopefully will have several more seasons, so his future is unclear. I just hope he can get the help he needs to heal and the strength and support to discover who he is and what brings him joy. I hope he, like Connell, mends and maintains his relationship with Sydney no matter where life takes him, especially if it leads him out of the kitchen.

Both The Bear and Normal People are at times, beautiful, tender, heartbreaking, poignant, and hopeful. They shine a brave light on what it means to be open, vulnerable, complex, flawed, trying, failing, succeeding, and most of all, human. Both series also show so beautifully how we need community and each other to raise us up, lift us out of our darker places and reach and keep reaching for light in our lives to be our truest and best selves. As Marianne tells Connell in the final episode as both she and Connell cry, “we have done so much good for one another.” I see this in Carmen, in Sydney, in Connell, in Marianne, and in so many other characters on both shows. And in this life, at the end of the day, isn’t that the most important gift? And we each have it—the ability to change someone’s life for the better.

©️moments-on-film 2023

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crispylilworm · 28 days

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last i’m posting about this xoxo sorry about the watcher spam recently but i feel the need to put my 2 cents in since my opinion on this doesn’t align with the vocal majority on this site

gotta admit my first youtuber drama experience was a 0/10 not because of what the creators did but solely because of the insanity of the fandom. because…wow. i have never seen a group of people throw around demands and accusations of betrayal in such a dramatic way lol. maybe i’m in the minority here but i felt the majority of responses and criticism just were any lacking basis at all.

my first thoughts with the announcement were literally “oh good for them new streaming service, i won’t be going for it, but maybe after a few months i’ll consider paying for a 1-time sub to catch up on everything”. sure some disappointment i wouldn’t get regular updates but overall excited for the new content this pay structure would give them the flexibility to create.

maybe because i didn’t get into youtubers until the pandemic when watcher was already it’s own independent thing i don’t have that same (*cough cough* parasocial) level of connection, just really enjoy the videos they put out. maybe because i go through subscription-of-the-month stints of paying for a patreon or twitch or other creator channel and rotate what i watch, this didn’t feel outrageous to me. i hate the subscription world we live in so i go out of my way to never pay more than a strict budget limit per month because that’s my ability and that’s my mentality on this. i thought at best maybe i’d consider rotating this in when they put out more.

don’t like the idea of it? you don’t have to pay for it. can’t afford it? i understand the disappointment from this aspect but creators don’t actually owe you anything for free - even if it was free in the past. overall and for whatever reasoning you have: it wasn’t that deep.

if anything i am in a way thankful that they rescinded on their decision because that means me & others will continue to enjoy videos for free. but overall i’m disappointed that this means they’re sacrificing their own creative wants and financial needs of whatever they had planned. we won’t actually know the extent of what, if anything, this prevents them from creating because y’all wouldn’t even let them attempt to try this next phase out.

fans saying “well we don’t want high-budget content” well maybe they want to explore more than what they’re currently able to do? maybe they want to create more beyond their buzzfeed-format videos they know will rack in views from the nostalgia-obsessed side of the fans? i, too, personally love their humor and would just enjoy them chatting and being silly, but i do also think this holds them back. remember those hilarious self-made commercials from their most recent videos? that's probably just a glimpse of what new flavors of content they’re able to think up.

this whole fan response was just disappointing (and pretty scary ngl) to me, and i know saying that is like kicking a hornets nest but i really think if they continued with the plans from their original announcement it would have been ok. i actually think it would have been more than ok! but the response imploded so hard i’m sure we’ll never see them try something new again lol.

my personal thoughts are that if your opinion in any way revolved around something they “owe” to fans, feelings of “betrayal”, thinking they’re “sell outs” for wanting to transition to paid content - i think you really need to take a step back and reflect, and i mean that with zero malice. watcher is a business, not your friends, not “the boys”, not your guaranteed source of a specific type of content either. ultimately they made a business decision that they thought would help them grow that would have either succeeded or failed, that's it. for better or worse, we wont get to watch that play out.

i will continue my quiet enjoyment of their videos, and happily move on past what i frankly think was the most unnecessary internet drama i’ve seen in a minute lol. the takes overall were dumb but tame, i only blocked a handful of accounts for posting things i thought were totally out of line that i won't get into but i'm sure you've either seen or heard people discussing.

i didn't even get in to my hot takes lol like how this plays into the dangerous trend of the expectation of art to be free....and the overall devaluing of creatives and why AI is thriving in these areas...but ill defend that thesis another day lol. y'all aren't ready for that.

#watcher #my thoughts #long post #putting this in read more so yall dont jump me lmao #overall conclusion is #its not that deep

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controversialhpmemes · 2 months

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What are your thoughts on the narcissist!Sirius Black headcanon that’s starting to be talked about?

I personally think it makes a lot of sense, especially with the way he talks about his family, Severus, Peter and Remus. The only person he seemed to really respect as anything close to an equal was James.

I’ve seen some people hate on this headcanon, largely people that seem to not like narcissists, or think NPD is an “evil disorder”. But they’re largely missing the mark on what people are trying to say, since the headcanon is largely popular within groups that actually like Sirius.

I think the way he views his family and the rest of Slytherin as lesser beings is a pretty major factor, but also his lack of empathy for Remus. Like, the whole prank situation I think really demonstrates how he felt that Remus really wasn’t as important as him. His lack of empathy for Remus not wanting to get caught, not wanting to hurt anyone, and the fact that he doesn’t even seem that sorry for it.

NPD, from my understanding of it, seems to be more of a thought process of “no one can ever hurt me because I am superior to everyone”. And I fell like the way he talks about his family could easily be read as that.

I think James would definitely be his EP (equal person) in this headcanon. Since James is really the only character we see Sirius treat with any actual respect for more than just because he knows he’s supposed to.

It’s just a fun headcanon that honestly makes so much sense and I was curious to know your opinion on it.

I do not see it. Sirius can be arrogant and callous but he is not a narcissist. Not even close to enough for a disorder.

Some reasons.

Not an envious person. Actions not motivated by jealousy or envy.

Does not need admiration and praise. Enjoys it as a teen. Does not need as an adult.

Is capable of empathizing. Kind to Harry, Hermione, Ginny. On good terms with Kingsley, McGonagall, was on good terms with Lily.

Does not exploit people for his own gain. Lupin's condition did lead to "prank" and Sirius was callous about it. But not exploitative for Sirius' gain.

Able to be around unimportant and unspecial people. Lupin, Muggleborns, Peter, poor people. Valued friendship over social standing.

Not outwardly entitled. Ate rats for Harry in Goblet of Fire. Was not caring about his appearance. Did not demand Harry's praise, thanks, admiration.

Did not care about power, looks, success. As a teen possibly but as an adult, no proof of this.

No delusions of grandeur.

These traits taken from this site.

#sirius black

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volostogekiss · 1 year

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five moments when he realized how much he’s in love with you:

Warnings: Mention of suicide/death, very depressed Volo (with bad thoughts), suggested/mild violence.

GN!reader, strong reader ngl, hurt/comfort, the whole thing with Volo.. y’know. This got away from me (it’s long), and I really can’t say much about this besides I wanted to see what Volo was thinking when it came to the one he loves. :’)

1 | when you showed him the new plates you’d gathered

To put it mildly, you were fond of Volo.

To put it truthfully… you were terribly captivated by him.

It couldn’t be helped, you tried persuading yourself, since he was a rather lovely man. He’d been kind to you during all of your encounters, or perhaps it was that the majority of other villagers and Hisuian people had made it easy for you to commend any decently sympathetic behavior, really.

Either way, it was hard to repress your growing feelings for the beautiful, bright, silly little merchant.

You didn’t believe that he was just a trader, not with his ability to appear without warning like a swift spring downpour, drenching you before you had a chance to locate shelter. That was quite like him too, in how he could flood you with knowledge of all the history Hisui had to share, and yet, you still felt as if he knew something you didn’t.

Unfortunately, that only fascinated you even more.

He wasn’t like anyone else in Hisui who you knew.

True, you didn’t know many people here, but there was just something about him which complicated forgetting about him like all the rest.

Maybe it was because Volo treated you gently—like a friend, that dreamy mess of your mind suggested—and after months of being downtrodden and judged without reprieve, that was what you needed to feel alive again.

To feel cared for, to feel loved.

The beginning of your budding attraction had sprouted from his understanding advice, his surely unfounded concern for a stranger like you, and admittedly—although somewhat exaggerated in your opinion—his startling praise.

You liked to think the two of you were friends. To be fair, you knew a bit about him, that he enjoyed exploring ruins and historical sites and poring over ancient artifacts and manuscripts. When you decided on finding him for once, rather than the other way around, you told yourself as much.

You told yourself as much, so that you wouldn’t have to concede that there was another reason, concealed by your practical need for a translator, behind wanting to find him.

The past few weeks, you’d been searching for him between survey tasks to no avail, and you’d had a feeling that perhaps the man was just unwilling to be found.

If only you had known how true that had been, and that Volo enjoyed being the one to seek, rather than be sought.

On your way back to the village after a grueling expedition, it had crossed your mind that he might be craftier than you’d first suspected, and that the certain guile about him wasn’t just for wheedling a customer into buying his guild’s latest stock.

And of course, while you were pondering him, that was when he had found you.

Of course, it was when you weren’t out looking for him any longer, did he show up.

Though despite that, and despite how tired you were… you still felt yourself perking up when you saw him.

Volo was the same as always, carrying that massive pack and meandering about without a care in the world. And as he crested one of the slopes leading up to Aspiration Hill, he chirped your name, waved with a flourish like he typically did, and caused your heart to thud a bit more loudly in your chest.

You were glad to see him.

Yet you were oblivious to how painfully glad he was to see you.

He looked forward to finding you whenever he could, and he wasn’t sure when exactly it had happened. Maybe it was because you were the one who fell from the sky, maybe it was because you humored him, or maybe it was because you had a habit of keenly listening to his theories for hours. Cogita didn’t appreciate how he often prattled on—actually, he wasn’t sure anyone else did—but you…

You’d said you liked his voice, and Volo had paused, unable to say anything until you laughed.

From then on, Volo couldn’t fathom it, but every time he saw you, he had found it more and more difficult to lock away those feelings.

They welled up in his chest when he called your name again.

However, instead of returning his greeting, the first thing you did was to charge right over the hill and yell at him.

“HEY!”

At your unwarranted outburst, Volo was caught between utter shock and hiding his blatant amusement at how ruffled you were, a sight he didn’t often witness. As though confirming that you’d really been addressing him though, he merely aimed an index finger at himself.

“Yeah, you! Why are you so hard to find!?”

The merchant swore that you’d mumbled something else underneath your breath, but he was too absorbed in the fact that you’d been searching for him. Ah. A knowing grin was already curling onto his lips.

Despite how busy you were, you were looking for him. What did that say about what you thought of him?

Never one to miss an opportunity to tease you, Volo cocked his head to the side with a mischievous chuckle. “If I had known you were looking for me, my dearest friend, I would’ve surely shown up sooner!”

You did your best to remain unfazed by his pleasant words; with righteous indignation, you crossed your arms, attempting to keep up the act. Stupid, pretty merchant, too damn handsome for his own good.

…This was bad, and you needed to wake up.

“Might I know why you were so diligently looking for me?”

Volo now wiggled that pointer finger at you, and even as you fought against the urge, you wondered what it would be like to hold his hand in yours.

Warm, probably.

You pushed aside the thought, however, and averted your eyes to your satchel. You needed to compose yourself.

“Well, I remembered you’d wanted to see the plate I’d gotten from Lord Kleavor.” Fumbling in your bag for all the others you’d obtained since last running into Volo, you leveled your breathing and collected yourself. “You told me how excited you were about them, and that you were searching for a few yourself in the coastlands.”

You risked a sideways glance at him.

He hadn’t said anything, but his grin had widened, the dimple deepening beside the right of lips.

It was as if he’d been prompting you to go on, that he was interested, that he was raptly hanging onto each of your words.

So, even with your wobbling, smitten heart, you took a breath to ground yourself, then went on, “I figured since you really liked taking a look at them before, and I’m curious about them, why not show you the new ones I found so far…?”

While you withdrew a first pair of pink and brown plates from your bag, you trailed off, thankfully, for Volo was astounded, if only for a second.

You… remembered that about him. You’d come to him because you’d remembered he’d liked them.

When was the last time someone else had done that?

Almost instinctively, he was wading through a familiar melancholy at the realization, but it receded quickly when he saw how eager you appeared, how you really wanted to be around him.

“Oh, how generous of you!” laughed Volo, his tone lively as he tried to distract you from his temporary shock. “It seems you already know me, don’t you?”

He wasn’t prepared for your response, however.

You simply smiled at him.

But this smile was different than any of yours he’d seen before.

This one…

This one reached your eyes.

It brought a distinct joy to your face that was never present when you were around anyone else, almost private in how you’d guarded such an expression so vigilantly, and he suddenly, irrationally wished he could keep it for himself. He wished you would always turn to him with that smile, instead of wearing that unreadable, neutral look you’d been coerced into adopting everywhere you went in Hisui.

Oh. Against his prudent sense for what he would one day need to accomplish, Volo’s heart trembled at the thought, and that smile seemed to seal his fate.

It was then that he knew that things wouldn’t be as easy as he’d thought they’d be.

“Well, apparently not well enough to find you when I’ve been trying for weeks,” you confessed with a cheeky hum, “but that just means I’ll have to get to know you really well now, doesn’t it Volo?”

He blinked once, twice.

“You were looking for me for weeks?”

“Of course, I was!” That smile was still on your face. “You’re the only one who I could talk to about these things!”

When he’d taken in your words and seen your beaming face, all just for him, a blooming sensation of warmth and contentment flooded his heart—his poor, stony heart, having spent an eternity in isolation.

Volo wouldn’t let you know that, however, as he tipped the lid of his hat toward you and announced cheerily, “Then, the pleasure is all mine.”

You laughed, handed him the two plates, and winked at him.

“I think it’s all mine, actually.”

And Volo was sure, at that moment, even though he really should have tried to stop himself,

he loved you more than he should have.

2 | when you appeared out of snow and ice

Volo knew that you were strong.

While that should’ve posed a problem for him and his future plans, the ridiculous empathy—yes, just empathy, he told himself—he had for you was overriding every clear thought he had about marching off across the snowy expanse and ignoring you.

It wasn’t as though you were fighting a colossus of ice, capable of ending your very life with just a snort of his glacial breath or a toss of his enormous head, rigid and unable to be tempered by anything other than brutal nature itself.

It wasn’t as though his heart jolted and splintered just a bit more every time he heard the thundering echo of the noble’s roar, felt its sinister tremor quaking beneath the earth.

He was as worried as anyone else was, he told himself again. That was why he was waiting like the others, albeit from a more distant and secure vantage.

Although, Volo supposed he wouldn’t be very safe if you were defeated and Lord Avalugg’s rampage turned deadly, so he thought it best you subdue it.

Yes, that was all.

He stamped his feet once, rubbed at his arms with his frozen fingers, and sighed again, a great puff of chalky mist rising into the frosty air.

…

But still, his heart betrayed his true feelings.

Regardless of how he tried to tint it, it was that ingratiating worry which gradually began to chill him more than the arctic weather, and he probably wouldn’t be able to hide how cold it had made him for long.

You were strong.

So why couldn’t he stop worrying?

No, Volo couldn’t cease his pitiful worrying. He couldn’t at all when with a somber cry, the icelands then fell silent, the snow once more lying in innocent clouds, and everything dulled to its lifeless shade of pale gray.

Despite his inability to see into the mire of white settling above him, his heart was brimming with hope before he could dampen it. He didn’t know how long it’d been since you’d gone to fight. Though with every minute he’d spent pacing tiny circles at the base of the mountain and imagining what could’ve gone horrendously wrong, he knew he couldn’t convince himself there was nothing personal about the way he was concerned for you.

No, he couldn’t. And he couldn’t hide his worry, melting away into unbridled relief, when finally, finally you emerged from the haze of snow and ice that had been leisurely walking its way down the slope, committed to concealing you from him for far too long.

Volo wasn’t sure when he had started running. He had heard the starchy snow crunching beneath his boots, but then he heard nothing else when you cried his name.

“Volo!”

“…!”

And then he was smiling. He was shouting your name. He was still running toward you.

The way you lit up and hobbled toward him as quickly as you could, despite how you were bruised and winded and exhausted, made the worry all worth it.

Volo knew everything was worth it, for you.

3 | when no one else wanted you—

He saw you.

He saw you, crouching atop the grassy stones high above the fieldlands waterfall.

Every muscle in his body commanded him to rush forward, but he didn’t want to frighten you. It was a first, considering how often he liked to see you jump and whirl around to face him. You didn’t this time though, your hunched figure instead sluggishly rocking back and forth as your Decidueye huddled against you.

…because you were hurt.

Volo had seen you smattered with cuts, he had seen you worn from your battles, and he had seen you doubt yourself when you thought no one else was looking.

However, he had never seen you like this before.

You were devastated.

They had really hurt you more than they ever had before.

Volo almost wanted to curse aloud. Why would they do this to you? You had done nothing to them to warrant this—if he thought about it, he was the one to be indirectly guilty—and yet…!

…Was he really any better than them, though? He wasn’t supposed to love you, but here he was, his allegiances like dead branches clinging miserably to the tree, swaying whichever direction the wind decided it fancied, and waiting for the day they inevitably fell to uselessness.

Shaking his head, Volo dismissed the thought. No, he was better than those villagers, those people from the clans. He didn’t betray you like they had.

Yet, hissed that infernal voice in his head.

Volo didn’t want to think about it.

And he didn’t have to then, for Decidueye had straightened immediately, poised for an attack.

It was to be expected, wasn’t it? He hadn’t thought you the careless type to forgo cautiousness, especially after everything you’d just gone through, so it didn’t surprise him to see you abruptly still when your Pokémon growled.

Justifiably, your partner was wary of any more humans who might approach you.

Lifting his hands to show that he wanted no trouble, Volo held Decidueye’s gaze for a long, scrutinizing second.

It took another few before the Pokémon eventually dropped his wings to his sides.

Still, Decidueye seemed to be warning him as his sharp eyes flicked from Volo to the water racing under the ledge they were perched upon: I will not hesitate to remove you if you bring more harm to us.

Volo knew better than to antagonize your Pokémon. Silently, he nodded in acknowledgement, which appeared to satisfy Decidueye, and he then lowered his arms.

He looked at you again.

You still hadn’t moved, but you definitely knew he was there.

…He should say something, shouldn’t he?

His voice was hushed when he finally found something to say to you—not what he truly wished to say, but what he could manage from everything you knew of him.

Something that wouldn’t sound odd, coming from him. Something that would reassure you that he was still the same, even if everyone else you knew had changed. Even as Volo had thought it, he wasn’t sure he believed it, but he wasn’t about to question himself now.

You needed him to be the person you’d always known him as—the merchant, the historian, the friend you could rely on.

And so he would be.

“Strange events seem to follow you wherever you go, don’t they?”

You said nothing, but Volo didn’t press you. He knew you had heard him over the churning water.

Slowly, instead, he found his place beside you. He moved tentatively under Decidueye’s apprehensive supervision, reminding him of what would happen if he faltered.

Nonetheless, it was promising that you hadn’t pushed him away.

You permitted him to come closer, in fact, and as he shifted slightly so that his shoulder was practically touching yours, he swore you almost leaned into him.

He could feel how warm you were, even as a light breeze streaked past, but he remained where he was.

He would wait for as long as you needed.

While Volo had trekked up the cliffside, the ominous, crimson sun had been burning lowly, descending toward the charred horizon. Now, as he squinted at the warped and discolored sky, he could see it was nearly touching the mountains.

He didn’t mind that you hadn’t said anything, though it was worrying you had probably sequestered yourself here for quite a while. Volo knew when you had been banished—the miscreants hadn’t even allowed you to wake with the stretch of unnatural dawn—and given the supposed time of day now, it was certainly alarming.

“I think I should still be mad.”

Your voice was so muffled and tired and unlike anything Volo had ever known from you, that even as the noise of the surging waterfall rang in the air, he only heard you.

He was fixated only on you.

“Shouldn’t I be mad?” Your hands were curling over your arms; thankfully, Volo noticed no injuries on them. “I did everything—I fucking did everything for them, and then they threw me away when it was convenient for them.”

You sighed, flattened a leg against the ground, and slapped a hand down in frustration.

“If I stayed angry, it would help me forget about everything else, wouldn’t it? I could be so lost in how angry I was that I wouldn’t even know what I should be mad at anymore… But now I just feel empty. I don’t even know where I should go. Where I can go.”

Something stirred in Volo’s heart. He understood what that hollowness, that void felt like, but he didn’t want to imagine your suffering, screaming at nothing, tearing at yourself.

How pathetic that they couldn’t appreciate you.

They didn’t deserve you.

“If you’ll trust me,” Volo offered, and he was then aware of how you had finally raised your head, “I know of somewhere safe for you.”

You were staring at him now, though Volo had turned away from you.

He had asked you to trust him, but a shard of guilt was steadily wedging itself into the cracks of his heart.

Maybe he didn’t deserve you either.

“Volo…”

But when his name fell from your lips so reverently, he forgot that guilt. It was too easy to forget when it came to you, until it wasn’t. He needed to be here for you, and what that meant for his future, he would deal with then.

“I trust you.”

He turned back to you, saw your face for the first time since he’d arrived, and then he was pulling you close.

He wouldn’t ever forget that look upon your face.

“I will always appreciate you, even if they won’t.”

“…Thank you. It means a lot that you decided to look for me, even if that would put you in danger of their judgment, too.”

Their judgment means nothing when I will always love you.

He only tugged you closer.

You were fully leaning into him now, languishing for comfort in your vulnerable state, and Volo would give you exactly that.

It seemed you thought the same, for when Volo covered your hand with his, he finally felt you relax against him, enough so that you could speak again.

“You said that strange events seem to follow me wherever I go.”

“Yes.”

“But I think even stranger people seem to follow me, you know,” you said meaningfully, your fingers curling between his, “people who want me for who I am, unlike all the others.”

His heart fluttered. He squeezed your hand in his own answer.

Oh, you had no idea how much Volo wanted you, and no one else wanted you like he did.

4 | the fated day on mount coronet

He wanted to apologize for being the reason you had such a look on your face. He was the one who had hurt you. He wanted to tell you that he had never meant it, but in some malevolent fold of his mind he had. He couldn’t stand it. He wanted to forget about everything. He wanted to start over, and if you had just let him—given him exactly what he wanted (but what had he truly wanted?)—then you could’ve begun again together, in a new world.

So he could have told you honestly that he loved you.

But he couldn’t.

Volo didn’t know what he could say, as you trapped him beneath you, your hands shackles around his wrists. Painted with fiery wrath as the setting sun outlined you in vivid gold, you were truly a sight to behold when you snarled his name and demanded why he had done this.

There had to be something else wrong in his mind for him to still think you were stunning amid your ire.

“Tell me.”

Your knees dug into his sides, the flexing of your hips on his distracting him for a disgraceful moment. He had let his guard down after Giratina had fled, and then here he was, pinned and at the mercy of your questioning. It was ironic he had intended to subject Arceus to the same, to wring answers from it as you were with him. He laughed. He laughed again when your grip tightened and your nails pinched his skin. Though as the creator always remained silent, he would say nothing you wanted to hear. Volo was sure his violent sneer said plenty, but when he forced himself to say something—anything, anything to pretend this had all been a farce—he knew he shouldn’t have said it.

“I hate you.”

He shouldn’t have said it. Not when your expression had then broken like a sheet of river ice, shattered by the unfortunate soul of his words that meant to drown your heart in the frigid water below. Yes, I should have. Volo wanted to convince himself that he was right to have said it. After all, you were the Chosen One, weren’t you?

You had stolen everything from him—his place before Arceus, his dreams, his world. And in it all, as foolish as he had known it was, for you were never once truly his, you had stolen even yourself from him.

It was unsurprising how much he had wanted you, and yet, he should have known how absurd those feelings were.

You should have stayed far from him; he should have made sure of it. But throughout the time you had spent with one another, months after months, you had somehow become a part of that everything he had worked for, yearned for, and so impossibly devoted himself to.

And then, you had almost become his everything too—his reason, his muse, threatening to change his mind about the plan he had set in motion long before your arrival in Hisui.

Why couldn’t you have just agreed with him?

He had shoved you off himself in your weakness, watched you fall back before springing to your feet and shouting words he told himself he couldn’t hear.

You could’ve made this easy, but you… Volo had snapped again. You just had to get in my way, with your infuriating heroism, your disgusting perseverance, your impeccable talent in battle, your delightful smile, your heart so full of love for—!

Perhaps that was why he had said he hated you. To blame you, even though Volo knew the fault was only in himself. Because he had allowed you to get in his way. Because he loved you too much to just let you go without hurting you, because he had known that you would never acquiesce to his ambitions, because he had been too stubborn to stop himself when the plates were so close, and you were so close.

But he had forced you away with his fury, tossed the final plate to you, and wished he would never see you again.

Volo had told you that too, when he abandoned you on the temple summit. Because I hate you. Because I’ve failed. Because I’m ashamed. Because I don’t deserve you. Because I—

…if he really hated you, why, then, as his feet took him farther and farther from you with every step, did his heart wish to wrench from his chest just to be with you?

No, it never could’ve been easy.

He knew why.

Because I love you.

And he always would, no matter how many times he lied to himself.

5 | when you’d found one another again, after everything

Volo should’ve known that despite his vicious words, spiked with poison and disdain and bitterness, you wouldn’t give up on him.

After all, your tenacity was one of the things he loved about you. He just hadn’t expected you to waste the entirety of it on him, so that you could cut away the thorns protecting his heart.

They were ugly spires of tarred anger and hatred, meant to seal the cracks in his heart, but never meant to heal the wounds inflicted upon him from all the awful things he could not easily let go.

All this time, he had hardly been living, fueled only by his warped sense of selfishness and selflessness between which he could no longer differentiate.

But every day, you snipped at another barb. Some days, you wrestled it off harshly. Other days, he tolerated your gentleness in prying it free. Even when you allowed those thorns to snag at you with no concern for your own safety, when you still stayed despite how he pushed you away, Volo didn’t want to admit that you were giving life back to him, one breath at a time.

If he did, he knew he would break.

And there would be no turning back for him.

“You just wish to see me break,” he’d spat at you, “so that it can be your retribution.”

Volo knew it wasn’t true. I was the one who wanted to see you break. You knew as well. He didn’t want to say that he was only lashing out, but you knew anyway.

On those days when you had to fight to twist the thorns from his heart, he would insist on wielding his insults, once more build his inadequate defenses in a futile effort to weather your assault of compassion, and scoff at how you wouldn’t just let him be.

“I forgive you, you know.”

That was always your response. If he offended you, you never said anything about it. You would only smile at him afterwards.

But the smile never reached your eyes.

And it was his fault.

He sometimes wished you would be angry with him instead, as you had been on Mount Coronet.

It had been months since his betrayal, or at least, that was how long Volo had thought it had been. Certain there were people hunting him for what he’d done, he had been wandering ever since, with no place to go but wherever his body next gave up on him. He knew he was disappointing his Pokémon. He had resorted to leaving them in their capsules, for he couldn’t bear to see their sorrow and claim responsibility for it. Every day had seemed too long for him. He had no purpose anymore, and he wouldn’t deny that he often considered if it would’ve been better for him to dwindle away without a trace.

He wouldn’t be missed, anyway.

…So why was he here?

Volo wasn’t sure if it had been weeks he’d spent in your secluded alcove, a series of rising caves carved over centuries by the highest tides of new moons. He didn’t ask when you had learned of this place, beyond the flats and by the West Sea, but you knew he was curious. It was obvious to you; most people knew he was curious about many things.

He was surprised you indulged him still: You told him that Wyrdeer had wanted to take you here when you’d called upon him after your exile.

You didn’t say why you hadn’t been able to reach the caves, though.

Volo knew why. Having seen you that day above the waterfall, he needed no more explanation. He didn’t deserve an explanation either, not when he had hurt you the same way.

No, he had hurt you more than they had.

So why hadn’t he left you yet?

He could’ve left whenever he had threatened to do so. When he had initially declared it with such vehemence, you had just agreed, shrugged, and moved on with your chores.

Somehow, your passive reply had only encouraged him to remain where he was. It was another challenge from you, wasn’t it?

…

Volo knew it wasn’t a challenge from you, but one from his own heart—to test himself, to tempt himself into deserting you again.

Even when he said he would, he never could leave.

He often watched you go, however. If he was awake when you departed, his eyes would follow you until he could see you no longer. It had been mortifying for him to realize that they would seek your figure the second you returned, too.

“You can leave if you’d like,” you had proposed plainly, assuming his fleeting glances were indicative of a wish for freedom. “I didn’t tell everybody about you. None of them are looking for you.”

He hadn’t been able to ask why.

Skeptical of your claim, Volo hadn’t understood why you had spared him from their judgment, until he saw the harrowing question on your face.

“Why would I want you banished like I had been?”

You ripped a handful of thorns out of his heart that day.

Despite that, sometimes he thought that eventually you would have enough of him, you would be the one to leave, and you wouldn’t come back. He never said it aloud, but he was grateful you were here. When you had disappeared for the first time, he had panicked, even with your note of courtesy—courtesy his behavior hadn’t merited—describing where you were traveling. He couldn’t help it. Volo feared losing you again. Even if he never told you, he looked forward to your return; he felt his heart leap against his ribs when he spotted your straw hat in the broad grassland below, when he heard your sandals scuff the cave floor with that familiar shuffle.

He had grown too used to your presence.

Or was it that he was giving in, reminded by how things had once been between you two?

He liked to think you cared, for why else would you still visit the caves, even after you had been toiling away without him? You didn’t need him, but he didn’t want to believe it was only haughty optimism inspiring such a vain question.

Then why had you bothered to take him in after discovering him, sprawled out in the mirelands, unconscious in a pool of mud, and on the precipice of crumbling to nothing? You hadn’t even informed the villagers or the clans about his foiled plot, grandiose in its failure, and about the danger that he could pose.

Because of you, he was free to wander. He never went far though, only down to the beach or to the grove ideal for his Pokémon’s sunlit naps, but he had one less worry because of you.

Perhaps you felt you had a favor to repay, when he had done the same for you. You just didn’t want any debts to him.

Of course, then, it had to be when he was at his lowest that you found him for the first time, when he had always been the one to find you.

Of course, out of all people, you had to be the one who found him, too.

Arceus was a cruel god.

…Then why did its Chosen save him?

No. Volo knew it was wrong to think of you that way. Why did you save him?

It was shame that kept him from asking anything of you, rather than the abyssal rage that had for too long seeped into every fracture in his heart.

Volo didn’t know when he’d let that brand of his anger die out. Maybe it was the moment you had found him again. Maybe it was when you’d brushed the tangles from his hair, and he had let you, because it made him feel like this was how things should have been. Maybe it was with each barb you removed, a thread of his anger went, too.

In place of the fury that had devastated his heart, shame mourned every one of his mistakes instead, and he couldn’t bear to expel it, not when he really should regret how he’d treated you.

He was tired of it, too. He was tired of trying to convince himself that he hated you. He was tired of being alone, but he couldn’t find it in himself to admit that to you. His Pokémon enjoyed your company along with your companions’, and for that, he was glad, but even when they tried to urge him into accepting the happiness he could find with you, he couldn’t.

Why did he deserve your forgiveness?

Volo watched you sweep the dust from the cave, a laugh bubbling from you when your Hippowdon snorted in her sleep and sent the debris straight back inside.

His throat clenched.

He didn’t deserve it.

Whether you’d misconstrued his shame for the spite he’d harbored for you upon the Temple of Sinnoh or not, you revealed nothing to him. If not for the way you were more subdued, your words more measured than he’d remembered, he would’ve thought you were acting as if nothing was wrong.

Volo wasn’t sure he preferred it that way.

He knew, however, that things were indeed wrong, and it was up to him to mend, rather than destroy.

Though even as he knew so, another three days had passed before he gathered the courage necessary to broach the subject.

Like most other nights, as Togekiss slept in her nest beside him, Volo observed you dabbling in arranging flowers or inking notes into your journal before heading off to rest in a lower cavern. Tonight, under the moonlight, you were preening an assortment of pink wildflowers, white Oran blossoms, and yellow King’s Leaves in a stout clay pot when he finally spoke up.

“Why are you doing this?”

From the opposite side of the small cave, he thought he saw you flinch. Strange, that it was no insult he had hurled at you so far that elicited such a reaction from you.

“You must have other tasks to see to than to waste your time on me.”

You were plucking at the golden leaves now, adjusting them this way and that, but still, you were silent.

“So why… why are you still doing this?”

Volo wasn’t sure why he was talking so much.

Maybe it was that he really was healing, and his curiosity had returned, or that he didn’t want you to think he still hated you.

Your hands stopped moving. The stalks of the flowers sagged.

He saw you take a breath, then turn to him.

And for the first time since you had brought him here, your eyes met, and he couldn’t look away.

“I may have been a core member of the Galaxy Team, but I have my own life to live. And even if I lived how the villagers wanted me to, it would never be enough for them, would it?”

The implication of your question, one that neither of you had any predilection for answering, caused Volo to tense.

He didn’t miss the way that you stiffened as well.

“And,” you continued, your eyes never once leaving his, “if I decide that I want you in my life, I think that’s up to me, and up to you, but no one else.”

Why would you?

Volo couldn’t move.

He could only watch as you stood, the pearly moonlight dappling your figure with an array of stars, gleaming with every step you took toward him.

Before he could protest at how close you were, you had seated yourself before him, and Volo was humiliated by the pain in your eyes.

That was his fault.

He was shaking. He had thought he could do this. He still could, couldn’t he? He had to.

And then, before he had a chance to run, the words escaped him.

“How can you forgive me?”

A thousand ways Volo had envisioned asking you what had weighed on his conscience ever since you’d found him, and a thousand ways he’d imagined your response. He would ask you, shouting or crying or pleading, but even in his better dreams, you would only nod. You would nod, tell him you understood, and then you would leave before you could say you’d always truly meant that you’d forgiven him. He didn’t like to think of the nightmares, when you boasted that he’d fallen for your lie, and then you would echo his own words back to him: “I wish to see you suffer and agonize as I do.”

But here you were, smiling at him.

“I remember you once said something to me.”

How many sleepless nights did you have?

He didn’t know what he had told you that had kept you so at peace in front of him, but he couldn’t believe the words of a traitor had provided you the wisdom to forgive him.

Folding your hands across your lap, you stared off toward where the moonlight filtered in. He may have thought you were calm, but inside, you were struggling to continue.

I had many. Too many, without you.

“It was only a few months after I had met you,” you started quietly, “and I had helped return the Wall Fragment to Warden Calaba.”

Still, he wasn’t sure where you were going with this.

“You spoke of her faults that people often mentioned, that she was too stubborn, too old-fashioned.”

The cave was silent, save for the distant melodies of the retreating waves. Volo waited for them to return, heard their soaring notes as they rolled in, and his anticipation for what you would say next swelled along with them.

“But you didn’t think she really hated the Diamond Clan or the Galaxy Team—rather, you thought she simply loved the Pearl Clan very, very much.”

You turned back to him, and Volo saw only grief in your eyes.

He looked away.

“I think that you’re the same, in a way. You simply love what’s important to you very, very much.”

His breath caught in his throat.

“You love history, the ruins, myths, and the questions no one else could answer but you. You love your Pokémon. I know you love many things in Hisui. And when you love something, I think it’s natural you want to protect it.”

Volo felt your fingers on his. He was still looking away.

Nothing you were saying was like that of his dreams or his nightmares. He had a feeling you had been preparing for this very moment longer than he had.

“When I thought of that, I couldn’t hate you.”

His heart was quivering, just as his hand was in yours. Your palm was warm. He realized how cold he was then. You were warm. Your words were everything he needed to hear.

You were everything he needed.

“I couldn’t stay angry with you.”

Volo couldn’t hold on anymore. Was he hanging on, about to tumble into the chasm of his own folly, or was he waiting to finally be pulled to safety by his hope, by your salvation?

The lull of your comfort was too inviting to disregard. You were breathing into him that last breath he needed—

“I could forgive you, Volo, because I knew how much you could love, and how much you still love.”

—and then he let you pull him in.

He cried as you took him in your arms, embraced him like he meant the world to you, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

The guilt, the sorrow, the days he thought of ending it all—

he didn’t know if he could forget them, but with you, he wanted to try.

“I’m sorry.”

His apology was unending, perhaps worthless with how he repeated it as if you hadn’t heard him.

But you had. He knew you had, but he couldn’t stop the doubt.

“I know,” you said faintly.

“I didn’t hate you. I didn’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I know. I forgive you.”

“I’m sorry.”

Volo wasn’t sure he could stop.

Were hours passing as you held him, let his tears wet your clothes, and listened without judgment?

You were too good for him.

He didn’t know when he’d finally fallen silent, but he felt you tilt his head back, and then your lips were smoothing the wrinkle between his brows.

They touched his cheeks, his nose. His lashes fluttered over his eyes. His heart was reaching for yours, and he couldn’t fight it. He didn’t want to fight it anymore.

I love you.

You kissed his forehead, brought your warm fingers to his cheeks. Your hands smelled of flowers.

He shuddered.

“I love you, Volo,” you whispered against his lips.

And then, he knew nothing else but you.

He said your name like a word of immaculate praise, and you replied with his, a faithful murmur on the sea breeze.

I love you.

He felt your breath hitch—were you as nervous as he was?

Volo knew he was. He couldn’t go back anymore. You were his fate from the day he’d met you, and as if he had been searching his whole life for this moment, he kissed you.

A torrent of emotions crashed over him when his lips met yours completely; affection and pleasure and bliss coursed through him in wonderful harmony. It had been so long since Volo had last succumbed to such feelings that he was nearly overwhelmed. And they were because of you. You, you, you. Your lips were soft, perfect. How many times had he dreamed of kissing them? He didn’t know. His mind was fuzzy with desire, and he didn’t think he could let you go. Not when an aching heat fanned at his heart, and a pleasing tension knotted inside him, craving your touch.

I love you.

He didn’t know when his hands had found your waist, but when you gasped as he drew you closer, he was almost viscerally aware of how gravely he wanted you, needed you.

You were the same, however. Grasping fingers tugged at his hair, at his clothes. As if you couldn’t contain yourself any longer, you were pushing against him, your hips sinking into his, and when his tongue traced your lips, you moaned so splendidly.

It sent a wash of giddy ecstasy careening over him, and Volo knew he had already been hopelessly swept away by you.

Roaming across his jaw, his arms, his chest, your touch was a welcome caress, defying his qualms for as long as he held you. Subconsciously, Volo mirrored you, desperate to feel all of you against him. He tucked a leg around your waist, angled himself away for an inconvenient moment of respite, but then he dove in again, nipping at your lips between kisses, sweeping a hand over your chest—

and then he felt it.

He stopped. He drew back from you to stare at your flushed face, your brilliant eyes, as if to tell himself that yes, it was you.

Beneath his fingertips, your frantic pulse thrummed just like the intense pounding of his own heart.

Your heart. You were alive. You were here with him now.

You had shown it all to him, allowed your heart to sit in his hands, and he was blessed to feel its beat rippling with a sweet warmth through him.

And as your heart sang only for him, his heart would only ever sing for you, the one who would never let him go.

You were smiling at him, and this time, that smile reached your eyes.

He would never let you go again.

Volo would never let you go again, so that he could show you how much he still loved, without a doubt in his heart at all.

He leaned in. His lips found yours as he smiled, and finally, he could honestly tell you,

“I love you.”

[end.]

❥

[extra]

Sometime much later…

“You know, Volo, I don’t know if it was lucky or not that I found you when I did.”

“And why is that?”

“Because while it was good to at least find you, if I found you any earlier, I might have punched you.”

“…What?”

“I was really mad at you, you know.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not angry with you now, and if I was, I’d still be more inclined to do this.”

You laughed, pulled him close, and kissed him.

Grinning, Volo deepened the kiss. He was sure he could live with this instead.

#volo x reader #look i just. i just think that his comment about warden calaba really says a lot about him.#like you too!!! YOU TOO LOVE VERY VERY MUCH volo #many of his other actions and words okay there was a lot i tried to fit in here and use as headcanons but. i liked this one <3 #i think volo would be pretty depressed after the temple incident and he would not be immune to just wasting away because of everything #anyway. give volo a lil kiss!!!

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frannyzooey · 6 months

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I just have to say, I love the way you interact with people online! Not only do you lift up other writers, but you're also so kind with the people who share their different perspectives on your fics. Even when someones ideas about your stories differ from the direction you've chosen to take, you still give kind responses that allow for conversation and creativity. It's really changed the way I think about fanfiction and writing in general. I've often felt so intimidated by fandom space, but you make this site such a warm and friendly place. Thank you for that! ❤️

Nonnie, I just wanna tell you how much this made my day 🥰

Fandom space is intimidating, isn't it?

Especially this space lately -- the rapid movement of the dash, the constant uploading of fic, the opinioned posts that make you believe everyone feels a certain way (they don't), the hot takes that make you feel judged before you've even participated. It's a lot.

It really can be super intimidating, like trying to coax yourself to jump into a fast moving river at the most volatile point -- but it doesn't have to be like that. ❤

Fandom can be such a safe, supportive place. It can be a place where you make your best friends, and discover skills you didn't know you had, and find a new sense of self worth. It can be a place where you can be yourself, when so many places in our daily lives are not safe for that. It can be a comforting space, a fun space, an exciting space to share your interests with others just as passionate as you are and THAT is what I strive for.

If I write something and toss it out into this universe, who am I to dictate how others interpret it? I have no control over that, and tbh, I love seeing their different takes because it helps me 1) think of the story from a different perspective and fall in love with it that way, but it also 2) helps me see areas in which I could focus on in future writing: perhaps maybe a concept that was important to me didn't come through, or something I thought was clear but the majority of the readers didn't grasp, etc.

My ONLY goal is to encourage others to create - whatever form that takes, no matter the subject or trope, no matter if I care for it or not. Someone encouraged me three years ago to create and it literally changed my life - honest to god, it took on a whole trajectory that I would have never even known was possible - all because they welcomed me into this place with open arms and an open mind. The only way I can think to repay such an enormous gift is to make others feel the same way ❤

Welcome! To know that seeing anything I have done on here has made you feel safe makes me very happy and I hope you continue to have fun! Come into my asks or DMs and say hello any time! ❤

#people are the nicest ❤

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tangledbea · 4 months

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Personally, I think Cassandra's villain arc was misunderstood. I believe the Gothel thing was meant to be the straw that broke the camels back, but a lot of people acted as if it was the only reason. It was a major factor, sure, but people seemed to ignore Waiting in the Wings, how Cass pretty much put her life on pause to help Rapunzel on her quest, the hand thing, how Cassandra felt like Rapunzel didn't listen to her anymore, and just the unequal power dynamic with Cassandra technically being Rapunzels servant. Not to mention the play scene in Once a Handmaiden, where its acknowledged that Cass and Rapunzel didn't work their feelings out the best. There were many reasons contributing to why Cass did what she did. It wasn't just the Gothel thing. Although I do agree that Varians arc was much better written.

P.s. This doesn't have much to do with my main point, but I think the reason many people were underwhelmed by the reason for Cassandra's turn might be because there was the hiatus after season 2. We were left questioning why Cass took the moonstone for months, and the hiatus gave us time to forget some of the stuff from S2 I mentioned above. When we got our answer in that controversial plot twist, some people's reactions may have been "Seriously!? That's why?"

The thing is, they show acted like Gothel being her mother was her main deciding factor. Yes, there were a lot of other things along the way (none of which I personally felt would be reasonably concluded with, "And so I betrayed my best friend and decided to take over her kingdom, and if I kill her in the process, that's fine"), but the show itself threw the rest of it out the window as soon as the Gothel reveal happened. From my understanding, the showrunner literally said that her burnt arm didn't matter anymore after it had served its purpose, and that's why she was able to physical therapy it back into use on the road and why it didn't factor in at all once she got the black rock armor.

The writers did their best to wrangle her arc back on track, but CS literally just wanted her to be Gothel's daughter, and for that to be the main reason she turned on Rapunzel, because villainy is hereditary, apparently. With all the other little things that added up, it could have been a very good villain arc, but they used the Gothel thing as the straw that broke the camel's back, then had her site that over and over, drew parallels between them, did their best to make it the most important reason.

As for me, I was loudly and adamantly against the idea of Cassandra being Gothel's daughter, which had been speculated upon since Tangled Before Ever After aired. In fact, I was so opposed to the concept that multiple people asked me if I was alright after "Rapunzel's Return" aired, because they knew that it becoming canon was going to upset me. And it did. I was so disgusted by that choice that it has forever tainted my view of Cassandra.

You're entitled to your opinion, but please don't be under the impression that I don't take other things into consideration.

#Tangled #Tangled the Series #Cassandra #TTS #Answered

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lilydalexf · 2 years

Photo

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted on Tuesdays.

Interview with Lydia Bower

Lydia Bower has written some true classic X-Files fics. Do yourself a favor and dig into her collection! She has 29 stories at Gossamer and 35 stories at AO3.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

Actually, yes, it does. With AO3 becoming the premiere spot for fanfic (rightfully so, by the way) I assumed most of the newer fans were unaware of the Gossamer Archive and the few other sites still available for the older fics. So I was delighted to come back into the fandom and see folks reccing a lot of the classics.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I remember how incredible it felt when I initially found people who got me, who were just as stupidly invested in this weird little TV show as I was. It was like nothing else I’d ever experienced. There were message boards and newsgroup lists and email lists; anything you wanted to talk about, you could find a place to do it. I loved the post-episode discussions and would spend hours at that. We had a week (or months) between episodes, so nothing went undissected. We were all very, um, focused. Yeah, focused is as good a word as any.

And then the fanfic started showing up. That was it for me; I was all in. I can still remember going first to Vincent’s archive and it was like achieving a state of nirvana. The heavens opened up, the birds began to sing, and all was right with the world.

What did I take away from it? More friendships and good memories than I can count. That’s something I’ll carry with me for the rest of my days. Oh, and the two best imaginary friends a person can have: Mulder and Scully. I carry them too, etched indelibly on my being.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I was involved with all of it in the beginning. I bounced from newsgroups to mailing lists to message boards to web sites. Around the 5th or 6th season it got to be a bit much since I was also doing a lot of writing then, so I narrowed things down and got the majority of my fix from The Haven message board and the smaller Primal Screamers email group.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

As I said before, the friendships and the good times with fellow Philes. I also took away a better sense of who I am as a writer and how to use that to hone my skills. I learned how to look at media as a whole with a more critical and analytical eye and to dig beneath the surface of what I was consuming. I learned how to better express myself and maintain a cool head while in the midst of a fiery discussion. I became more confident of who I am and the worth of my opinions. I finished growing up, basically. Most of all, I learned how to just let go and enjoy being a fan of something so incredible that still connects with people almost 30 years later. That’s a legacy to be proud of.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I’ve always been drawn to the paranormal and the strange, and when I caught an ad for TXF, I made sure to tune in. The Pilot itself was enough to hook me. It was creepy and a little scary and the two leads were incredibly smart. It didn’t hurt that they were also good-looking and had smoking hot chemistry. Like the kind that jumps in through your eyeballs and settles into a low boil somewhere below the waist.

The final act of my undoing came with the episode Conduit. By the end of it I knew the show had a firm grip on my soul. Mulder captured my heart that night, too. He still has it. He’s one of a very small handful of characters I’ve encountered over the years that I just get, at a bone-deep level I can’t even begin to explain. I am him and he is me.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I’d been writing fanfic since the mid-80s but hit the proverbial wall that is writer’s block right around the time the show premiered. I wanted to write TXF fanfic from the start, but the muse wasn’t having it. She reappeared not long after The Field Where I Died first aired. I hopped around on the web a bit and found much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the shipper front. The muse decided we needed to give my fellow shippers something to make them feel better and give them a bit of hope. So I wrote Games. And the rest is history.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

I reacquainted myself with it earlier this year after an extended absence. I walked away from the show and the fandom after my utter disappointment with the direction the show took after the 7th season. I just couldn’t choke down what TPTB were trying to feed me in S8, and completely tuned out of S9 (with the exception of the finale). I saw IWTB a couple years after it was released in theaters and watched the revival, too. Sadly, nothing I saw there made me want to dive back in. Then one night this past spring I was poking around for something to watch and caught Paper Hearts on a broadcast channel. That was all it took. That feeling I thought I’d lost came roaring back and I settled in for a complete S1-7 rewatch. I poked around looking for a spot to call home and came back to my safe place on Tumblr.

I’m neck-deep now, for however long that feeling lasts, and devoting a lot of my free time (again) to this weird little show about aliens and monsters and two people who love each other dearly. And I’m writing fanfic again - after another bout of writer’s block that lasted almost seven years.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I got pretty deeply involved with the Game of Thrones fandom when the show began. I was already a fan of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice book series and liked what I saw the first few years. I wrote several fanfics in the ASOIAF universe, and I’m still involved, but only from the perspective of a book fan. The show went too far off the rails toward the end of its run and killed my love for it.

Compared to TXF, I think it’s a much more segmented fandom. There are several small groups built around dozens of characters there, instead of what I see in TXF fanbase as a larger, more inclusive community. I think it’s safe to say we’re all here for Mulder & Scully in one respect or another. The other characters get their share of love too, but it’s the MSR that draws us in and helps keep us here. Other than that, fangirling is fangirling. You find your tribe and take it from there.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Well, let’s start with Fox Mulder, with the why of it being what I tried to explain earlier. Dana Scully, because I want to be her when I grow up, but without all the emotional and physical damage she had to endure. I’m also a fan of Sandor Clegane from ASOIAF. Stu Redman from Stephen King’s The Stand. Kevin Garvey and Nora Durst from the HBO show The Leftovers. Olivia Dunham and the Bishops from Fringe. The Three Musketeers that make up the core group of the TV show Evil. I could go on, but I don’t want to bore you. Suffice to say I’m drawn to characters who are complex, damaged, and deeply flawed, but are trying their best to do the right thing and who are ultimately perfectly imperfect human beings.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

At present, every day. I’m very much back in over my head right now. If I’m not watching it, I’m writing about it, or talking about it. I don’t know how to obsess just a little bit when it comes to TXF and Moose and Squirrel.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

Absolutely! It’s almost overwhelming how much fanfic I have to catch up on, let alone the new fics being posted daily; and all that while trying to reread some of my old favorites on Gossamer and the other OG archives. I don’t have time to read fanfics in other fandoms right now. Maybe someday.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

How much room do you have for this? <g> Okay, in no particular order and no doubt forgetting some folks, I’ll read anything by these OG authors: Karen Rasch, Terma99, Nascent, Jill Selby, Madeleine Partous, Meredith, Kipler, MCA, Anne Haynes (Paula Graves), Penumbra (@mashnotesofthemythopoeic), Rachel Anton, Joyce McKibben, Tim Scott, Darwin_xf (@darwin-xf), Suzanne Schramm, Prufrock’s Love, Sue Barringer, Mustang Sally, Rivkat, Dianora, Plausible Deniability, A.I. Irving, Rachel Howard, MD1016, Punk Maneuverability (@seepunkrun), bugs, Dasha K (@dashakay), Khyber, Blackwood, and OneMillionAndNine.

As far as new to me authors (OG or not), these folks are also talented wordsmiths: leiascully (@leiascully), Aloysia_Virgata (@aloysiavirgata), audries, and lepusarcticus (@lepus-arcticus). I’m sure there are more great authors out there, but I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to dig into the newer stuff on AO3.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

TXF: Pass You By, Light Don’t Sleep, Red Letter Day, Primal Sympathy, In the Ruins, Dance Without Sleeping, and Incomplete. I’ll stop there but please understand that they’re all my babies and I love them equally. I’m also very fond of the Let Everything Happen to You series I recently completed.

ASOIAF: These Scars We Wear, The Calling, Beggar’s Banquet.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I’m doing both. I’ve written and posted 10 new fanfics since I came back into the fold and I’m working on another one right now. I also have a casefile WIP I’m struggling with that I began during the early part of S4 and set aside when the cancer arc reared its head.

I’m also in the process of bringing all my older stuff from Gossamer and my defunct website over to AO3. I think I still have 2 or 3 shorter pieces still to be moved and one post-Fight the Future fic I wrote that’s lost somewhere on the net. If anyone has a copy of my fanfic titled Shift laying around, please give me a holler! [Lilydale note: Fic found! I had a copy and sent it to Lydia.]

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

See above!

Where do you get ideas for stories?

From the ether. Seriously. Something, whether it be a line of dialogue, a question, an image, or a scene, will just pop into my head and demand my time. I’ve written 6,000-word fanfics just to slip in a single line. I don’t know how the muse works or why; I’m just along for the ride.

What's the story behind your pen name?

I always published under my own name until I set up my AO3 account. I went with wonderland there because I’m like Alice when I’m writing: I fall down the rabbit hole into Wonderland and enter a different reality.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

Yeah, they know I write it but not where to find it. Though I suppose a Google search would make it easy enough to locate. My family and friends have always been supportive of my writing, albeit confused that I’ve chosen to write fanfic instead of “real” fiction. Yeah, I know.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

wonderland on AO3

@amplifyme on Tumblr

amplifyme271 on the bird app

Lydia Bower everywhere else

Thanks for your invitation, Lilydale, this was fun!

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #lydia bower

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majorbaby · 26 days

Text

very very long rant

when i first left tumblr after the porn ban, the sjw stuff was starting to plateau, but you still had big bloggers ironically calling themselves misandrists in bio. I say ironically because unlike an open misogynist, an open misandrist cannot amass vast structural power, they instead will remain on the fringes of society. before they can even be shunned in the mainstream or the elite, they're being shunned by their own peers.

at that time, there was a lot of popular blogs run by (sometimes allegedly) racialized people or "poc-run spaces" like thisisnot[country] and blogs specifically dedicated to pointing out cultural appropriation. i personally contributed to the reclaimthebindi which in retrospect seemed inspired by blackout selfie day (not to be confused with thr subsequent 'blackout' posts associated with BLM - that was later), altho idk to what extent the south asian diasporic community (of which i am a part of) actually paid homage to the black blogger/s responsible for blackout day.

now many of those blogs are defunct or have been scrubbed from level-one searches of tumblr, and their history has not been well documented. it's hard to understand what the climate was unless you were there because not many secondary sources, like the one you're reading right now i suppose, exist. or they weren't well-circulated. this one won't be, i'm turning off reblogs i think.

this is, in my opinion, in contrast to other major trends in internet culture that inform offline social justice movements. that's your gxmxrgxte (so well-ingrained in my memory that it still upsets me enough to censor today), metoo and the annual around ao3's right to host any and all content with very limited few exceptions.

reclaimthebindi is still up, so are a few of the thisisnot blogs, but you can't really tell that they were all interconnected, a part of the same zeitgeist. i have a few theories as to why, and which one you pick depends on how generous you are when imagining the people who ran these blogs. some of them for sure were run by bored college students seeking an outlet. some of them were denied recognition by their offline peers because of racism, so it felt good to find a space where they could actually amass social capital on the basis of the very thing that disadvantaged them in every other space. some were concerned with punitive justice, others with restorative justice. some just posted black and brown bodies so that those images would exist on the internet somewhere. some were run by racefacing white people who also felt like outcasts offline, and saw a quick and easy way to be embraced elsewhere. it's possible that some people did it for a combination of these reasons.

whatever benefits there may have been, it wasn't enough to keep the momentum going. very few put out 'retirement' statements, most just stopped posting and were eventually purged. tbh, i see the draw in airing your grievances all in one place, but it's exhausting, and eventually your supporters grow tired of the negativity, and you grow tired of the negativity too. that's why i think it's usually better to stick to posting and sharing the stuff you love, not the stuff you hate, or at least, find a balance. though their presence is much, much smaller, creator networks for women, lgtbq, and racialized people have sprung up, and so have spaces where people post and repost art that engages with class, race, gender etc.

but it still feels like racialized people have a much quieter voice on tumblr. i have to rely on stumbling upon them naturally, which is next to impossible, especially if you're on tumblr for a small to medium sized fandom, which i think most fandoms are these days. your supermassive fandoms - doctor who, sherlock, kpop, harry potter, the mcu, also no longer dominate the site. i would still say tumblr is the big fandom site, but a lower user count means that the internet's fandom site is smaller than before.

so, less users in general, and any existing minority shrinks. and if we're talking racialized people who are lgtbq, that's an even smaller minority.

this in my opinion has contributed in a major way to the backlash against feminism, the idea that "terfs ruined feminism" with the subtle suggestion that feminism has perhaps failed, or was never really good to begin with, and a laser focus on terfs as the ones responsible as though the mainstream, patriarchal, cis-heteronormative bloc had absolutely nothing to do with it. or the ludicrous idea that terfs are the mainstream, patriarchal cis-heteronormative bloc. two things can be bad, that doesn't mean they're the same thing.

anyway! a big part of the original tumblr feminist movement was not just the "poc run blog" but in the "woc run blog". "poc" was absorbed into BIPOC, and "woc" is a legacy term. your woc were regularly venting about how being a woman of colour means choosing between your race and your gender, putting up with the misogyny of the racialized men in your life who you show up for constantly but who throw you under the bus when the white man asks them how high to jump. now there's white lgbtq bloggers all over the place asking whether you "include black and brown men when you said you say men are trash?" (yes, i absolutely am) and if you ask that question to a room full of white people, they're all going to keep their mouths shut because they don't want to appear racist.

well, white men do not have a monopoly on misogyny. misogyny levied at racialized women by racialized men is a huge intra-community barrier to trying to organize against racism and white supremacy. it is extremely upsetting to see white people suggest that racialized women, lgbtq people and children are not oppressed by the racialized men in their own communities. that we are not survivors of domestic abuse, sexual abuse or that we do not endure oppression under patriarchy in the home, workplace and in society inflicted upon us by our own kin, which compounds upon what we already absorb from white people.

and they can go on doing so on here because many racialized women have shut up and gone away. even running blogs aimed around celebrating themselves has become a service to white consumers that they've done thanklessly for years. just to hear that actually, they have no right to say "men are trash" because what if the brown man that abused them or their mom or their aunties overhears and gets his feelings hurt. didn't we discern the difference between hurt feelings and systemic oppression almost fifteen years ago on tumblr dot com?

like, sure, maybe we should adjust "women only spaces" to be "spaces for women and trans people" but we can do that and not pretend that we have absolutely no idea why women live in fear of men, or that a reasonable amount of fear is completely unwarranted.

man it is one thing to come back here to find all the, admittedly, sometimes kind of annoying sjw blogs around race gone, and another to see a resurgence of popular MRA talking points. but i see how that's happened. racialized women are done talking about this, and who can blame them. white women, and i wish i only meant cis women, get slapped with 'terf' the second they open their mouths, so they are also done talking about this.

if you managed to read all of this please be a little careful when reblogging posts that are critical of feminism. yes, there are a few bad-faith actors within feminism, but feminists in general are a minority group, even if it doesn't feel that way on tumblr. think about it, how long has it been since you saw someone with 'feminist' in bio? is it a good thing to keep facilitating this growing resentment against feminism? has feminism done nothing for us? should we toss it out with the bathwater?

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nancydrewwouldnever · 1 year

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I feel like the majority of his impetus behind ASP was his disgust with Trump. It feels like it was his more physical manifestation of his anti-Trump stance, beyond his tweets of the time. I feel like once Trump lost re-election in 2020 his politics interest started waning big time.// I noticed this too. I started questioning it ever since he brought the idea forward and doing interviews about it. It felt like a vanity project against trump with interviews of not so great republicans. Then once trump started going downhill and lost, his interest in it has almost disappeared. I wonder if he feels like he accomplished anything with ASP. I don’t think we’ll ever know but from the outside looking in, it doesn’t feel that way to me. However I do think it could’ve been a very decent political site if there was just more of a long term focus and determination about it. He’s just not a person who has that, in my opinion.

So, obviously, I'm using some older asks still in the inbox to spur some things I'm thinking about while I have asks off.

While I do believe in the loss of interest after Trump was out of office, I also want to talk about what ASP might have accomplished for Chris, even half-heartedly.

Let's not kid ourselves that ASP was not a cog in the wheel of a larger PR persona soft pivot strategy. Let's take a look:

The Wired Interview, January 2020 (clock when the interview actually happened though, October 2019 in L.A.)

So this was done not too many months after the Hollywood Reporter Interview of early 2019 that also teased the "quasi-retirement" angle and talked about ASP as well:

So, like any good business venture, using the year previous to launch to tease out the product. (The product being the reinvented post-Marvel Chris Evans.)

Then, a feather in the cap that would have hit at the same time as ASP's initial launch, had it not been for Covid, the Time Magazine May 2020 inclusion article:

But, to me, the real big score for any politico, a write-up in The Washington Post, October 22, 2020:

They even came to his MA house for the photoshoot, due to Covid.

The rebrand/pivot continued into 2021, post-election, but pre- him going back to more regular filming scheule. The Newsweek article, June 18-25, 2021 cover edition:

So, here we had it, the real gain from ASP, the post-Marvel all-grown up new Chris Evans PR persona. Yay.

Too bad whatever personal life decisions he made half-way through 2021 completely blew this up.

I would have liked to have seen where this version of Chris could have gone. (And I guess we'll never see this again, because he seems to have no interest in it anymore.)

#ask #ASP #interview #2020 #2021

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skaruresonic · 6 months

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You seem like a very cool friend to have, you have a bigger heart then I, I just can't tolerate death threats and wishes. Offcourse in politics you see it all the time, but people in politics have power over us and sometimes their decisions is a matter of life and death. It's different then someone being involved in comic books and games like flynn.

As someone who was bullied both irl and online, death treats trigger me. I had panic attacks over it. Strangers telling me to die because of how I looked or because of my Sonic opinion. It also made me lash out, and hurt me friends. Not excusing my behavior but I wasn't myself anymore. That's why my tolerance is zero to people like that. I'm just weaker or too sensitive.

I don't think I'm tolerating his behavior by forgiving him, per se. I'm saying, "I expect better of you because you are my friend and I am giving you a chance to Do Better." Because, bear in mind, my first reaction was to unfollow him. After giving it some thought, I realized it didn't really make sense to abruptly cut ties with someone I considered a friend because they said something fucked-up at 3 AM. IDW fans tend to cut ties with no explanation, and upon reflection, I asked myself, "Am I really doing any better if I react first and don't ask for context?" The disappointment I felt was because I'd held him to a higher standard; the reason I unfollowed was because of that. It wasn't like I cheerily condoned it or anything, I really was disappointed and told Random as much. We continue to be friends because he hasn't repeated the offense, but also because we just like each other as people. But, again, because I didn't broadcast my disappointment early enough for the public's liking, people assume I blithely tolerate death threats towards Flynn. I don't. You'd think folks would realize that by looking at how I abide by a strict no-contact policy. (Then again, they may just interpret that as an act of cowardice on my part, so who knows.)

That being said, anon, you shouldn't beat yourself up over your reactions to things no one should go through. That's like calling yourself weak or too sensitive for crying out in pain when somebody punches you in the face. Of course it's going to hurt; of course the natural reflex is to first yell "Ow!" and then "Hey, what the fuck?" People mocking you for doing either are only being sickening and also don't know how psychology works. We're not punching bags, we're people.

And the worst part is, they act like they act like you have a victim narrative, and then turn right around and paint themselves as victims of harassment because you… reblogged a post of theirs. On the Reblogging Site. Forgive me if I don't exactly feel sorry for you, you know?

I was once on Twitter. I can count the number of conversations I've had where people didn't twist my words on one hand. On Tumblr, at roughly the same time, I was receiving harassing asks attacking my character at least once a day. And that was on top of people in general sneering at Le Haters.

They mock us for being part of a clique, but honestly, I feel like my friends are the only ones keeping me sane through all this. At least they won't judge even if I go off the deep end. At least they know where I'm coming from. At least there's someone out there who knows this situation isn't fair or balanced and acknowledges that it's actually kind of fucked-up.

Of course, folks will say "You're only friends with Random because he agrees with you," which... paints a rather narrow and sad view of how they approach their online friendships, tbh. Do you require conformity of thought in your friendships, then?

Imagine months' worth of this. Imagine people attacking every angle of your character, from your intelligence, to your character, to your friendships, to your status as a Sonic fan, to your mental health, and then on top of that the majority of them proceeding to imply what you went through was invalid and didn't happen, and even if it did, that it didn't matter, at least not in comparison to what the people hurt by looking at your blog went through.

In other fandoms, we'd call that victim-blaming, but Sonic is a unique cesspit where a shocking amount of abuse apologia slips through the cracks:

This? Is fine in the mainstream's eyes. Because we "deserve" it somehow.

Legitimately I was afraid when I announced my mom's death online that they would mock me for it. And they did. And they didn't do that to just me, they pulled it with my friends' and their deceased loved ones, too, even when they hadn't said anything.

On Mother's Day, I received a nasty chain of reblogs mocking my mom's death and the language I'm studying, which is very important to me because it is our tribe's language and a language we nearly lost to residential school. I didn't grow up learning it, but I'm learning it as as an adult, filling that void.

What really put the nail in the coffin and made me decide to delete my second blog was when they said, quote, "Maybe she wouldn't have died if you weren't such a cunt."

My fears about being mocked online for it turned out to be entirely valid. Tbf, a few people backed off when they heard the news, but then you had shitheads who just wanted to stir the pot because haha isn't it funny to watch Le Hater suffer. (tw for parent death below)

Truth is, I harbor a great deal of guilt over her death because I had to watch her suffer for a long time at the hands of inept and sometimes abusive hospital staff and was unable to do anything about it. There were some cases where I might have exacerbated her suffering, such as when I cleaned the tub days before her death (with good intentions) and she slipped and cracked her head, got a hairline fracture in her skull on top of everything else.

I don't like thinking about it.

I feel like there's maybe some unprocessed trauma there in that I tend to think about it at least once a day, but I push it into the back of my mind. That's kind of what Natives do: we don't have the resources to deal with our trauma, so our solution is to just stop thinking about things that bother us, like closing a door in our minds. Out of sight, out of mind.

However, it's difficult to close certain doors when people keep trying to push them open. I can handle Not Thinking about That Particular Thing, but how can I avoid thinking about IDW discourse when people in this fandom are constantly reminding me of how I'll never be forgiven my heathen ways? And kicking sand in my face by saying I have a victim complex when I have pulled every stop possible to draw proper boundaries? What they really want is for you to shut up forever, and fuck that.

I won't say I've been perfect, either, but based on the way folks talk, you'd think we want Flynn homeless. And that's a degree of bad faith you just can't work with. You can't work with supercilious centrists who'll sneer "you're just as bad" when all you're doing is posting on your own blog, who act like you getting snarky in your blogging is the equivalent to being told your mother would still be alive if you weren't "such a cunt."

Again, you cannot win in a situation like this. The only solution is to walk away because it's clear they need an eternal scapegoat, and it seems nothing I can do or say will convince those whose minds are already turned against us that we're not terribad people.

#asks #death threat mention

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why-animation · 11 months

Text

Director Ishihara ✕ Chief Director Ogawa Discussion (re: Sound! Euphonium ~ Ensemble Contest)

My translation of the discussion featured here on the official Eupho site. Figured it might be worthwhile since I suspect Ogawa's gonna be a major figure at KyoAni in the coming decade. Caveat lector though.

A Prologue to the Kumiko 3rd Year Arc

─Special Edition: Sound! Euphonium ~ Ensemble Contest (Ensemble) is the first entry in four years for the Sound! Euphonium (Eupho) series, and production is currently underway. How’s it going?

Ishihara: Coming back to Eupho again…hoo boy, it’s a handful! (Laughs)

Ogawa: (Laughs) The animation for the instruments and stuff can give us trouble here and there, but in my opinion, this is the sort of anime where the real problem is figuring out how to portray the drama. First of all, Ensemble was originally planned to be an OVA, and also Ensemble is tied to the Kumiko 3rd year arc (scheduled to air in 2024), so I’ve been thinking about how that’s gonna work.

─So at first it was planned to be an OVA?

Ishihara: The Kumiko 3rd year arc in 2024 is still pretty far away, and we know we’re keeping the fans waiting, so we got to talking and felt that we should have something in the mean time. To that end, there was a story in the novels from the back half of 2nd year that we didn’t portray in Sound! Euphonium the Movie ~ The Promised Finale (Chikai no Finale) about Kumiko’s first efforts as club president with the ensemble contest. We decided it’d be a good idea to put it out as a standalone episode. In terms of composition, we made it like an extension of the TV series. However some time later, it had turned into something we could show as a film, so we made it with the big screen in mind. Truth be told, the drawing count really got away from us. (Laughs) It might not look quite as flashy as a movie, but I think you can look forward to it with tempered expectations: it's a depiction of unspectacular everyday life.

─You talked a bit about it being tied to Kumiko’s 3rd year arc. How exactly does Ensemble fit in with the series?

Ogawa: I think one of the biggest points is that it serves as a prologue to Kumiko being club president. The first season closely depicts the activities of the wind ensemble club, and the second season focused on the human relationships. When I think about what’s interesting in the Kumiko 3rd year arc, the biggest thing has gotta be how Kumiko’s future is shaping up now that she’s a club president. Ensemble is connected to the 3rd year arc, so this fits in as a prologue to her being president.

The balance of realism and entertainment

─What’s been at the front of your mind while making Ensemble?

Ogawa: This applies to the whole of Sound! Euphonium, not just Ensemble, but when it comes to the wind ensemble itself, to my mind, the keyword is “lifelike,” or “realistic.” “Like you're really there.” We’ve been very much focused on balancing this goal with making it entertaining as anime.

Ishihara: Absolutely, that’s exactly what we were thinking when we were making Eupho and pursuing that sense of verisimilitude in animation. Drawing the instruments as realistically as we could and all…

Ogawa: That said, sometimes you'll have a scene that just screams "hey, make me a highlight!" and you can end up over-directing it, so it’s pretty hard.

Ishihara: Yep, that’s it, that’s the experience. Just because you have flashy scenes doesn’t mean you’re telling your story, and in fact you can often tell a story by resolving the characters’ emotions without having any flashy scenes at all.

Ogawa: On the other hand, I do think it’s better to do something anyway and regret it than not to do it at all, even if it ends up over-directed and loses that sense of realism, because there really are a lot of cases where it turns out better as a result…I’m constantly struggling with that feeling.

Ishihara: Also, and this doesn’t have anything to do with directing, but there are some seniors who show up who’ve moved on from the band, which I think people will like.

─It’s been about four years since the last Eupho visual project. What does the staff look like?

Ogawa: There are a lot of people who watched Eupho as students and told me they joined Kyoto Animation because they liked it so much. Their desire to do something great really comes across.

Ishihara: Part of me wondered what’ll happen now that there’s so much new staff who hasn’t worked on Eupho before, but they draw Eupho the same as always, and with utmost care. It makes me so glad. It’s been a long time since we’ve drawn instruments, but the movement in the marimba cuts is so good to the point where it looks nearly like it was rotoscoped. Nope! It was all animated solely from the reference footage.

Ogawa: Man, the staff is working so hard. It used to be that even when we used 3DCG, we needed to retouch it to give it texture. That caused us all kinds of trouble. Since then, the 3D and compositing staff have improved even more and come up with all kinds of tools. As the series has incremented, we’ve all really come to appreciate the advantages of both 2D and 3D animation. We’d like to improve ourselves even more with the Kumiko 3rd year arc.

Eupho: Past and Present

─You mentioned instruments. Regarding the music, I hear the piece you planned on using, “Omens of Love,” is the subject of some discussion.

Ogawa: There’s a passage in Ensemble that features “Omens of Love.” I was in charge of the boards for half of Ensemble, and at first there weren’t plans to use any musical compositions. However, when it became a theatrical project, we decided to utilize a piece since there was a passage that we wanted to really make an impression. When we asked around our staff involved with the wind ensemble what sort of piece they thought would be good, there were a lot of people who answered “Omens of Love.” It was a song I’d heard of through a few places too, and I think it really fits. The more I listened to it, the more I liked it, the more I got jazzed about the idea. (Laughs)

─How did recording with the wind ensemble go?

Ishihara: The performers are mostly all different from the first season, but it’s still the same ol’ Eupho. Ogawa-kun, you hadn’t participated in the recording before. What did you think?

Ogawa: It really got to me. I’d been invited to regular concerts, so I’ve heard live performances before, and those were plenty moving too of course, but this time I was listening to them closer up, and it just felt more imminent somehow…the sense of presence was just amazing. So many people were gathered for the purpose of making just one cartoon, and yet a lot of people came to tell me how much they liked Eupho. We were recording a short version of Omens of Love, and yet I was very impressed with how Ouwada-sensei and everyone else from the orchestra came up with all these forward-looking proposals for the trimming process, taking on the role of creators in their own right.

─It sounds like real teamwork

Ogawa: I came to truly understand how broad the domain is about which I know nothing. I learned a lot at the recordings, but there’s no way that could possibly cover everything, so it really did have the sense that this was something everyone was making together. What about you, Ishihara? You’ve been to these recordings so often…

Ishihara: It’s really interesting to hear a performance up close. I love places where people are making stuff, like workshops, and, of course, my own workplace included. The audio recording studio has the feel of a “maker space” too, so it just feels really comfy.

Ogawa: There are some things that you can just feel how good they are in your bones. There are some takes where you know it’s good the moment you hear it, and everyone else feels the same way. That’s not specialist knowledge; that’s just what’s so interesting about music: it really is a common tongue.

─There are some new cast members, and some who haven’t dubbed Eupho in many years. Was there anything remarkable about the dubbing process?

Ishihara: We talked some about realism and entertainment at the start, and my own directorial sensibilities have changed since the first TV season as well. Around the time of the first season, Eupho had a lot of instances of anime-like comical modes of expression, but those have gradually faded. I think the cast’s delivery has transitioned from something more anime-like to something closer to realism.

Ogawa: I feel that there were a lot of times when the sound director, (Youta) Tsuruoka, was putting a ton of passion into his directing. During the dubbing process, Tsuruoka was like “do it like you just want to start it all over again. Do it with the feeling that you want to tear down everything you’ve done up to now.” I got the sense that Tsuruoka had a very clear idea of what he wanted. I interpreted it as him proceeding under the premise that even if you break from what came before it won’t truly be a break, and that he’d see what feelings each cast members would take with them as they took their fresh start. People were saying things like “if you’re not growing, you’re doing it wrong,” and just as the cast took that attitude and grew a bit, so too did their characters – at least that’s how it felt to me.

The vision behind Kumiko Oumae’s depiction

Ogawa: There was one other thing that really left an impression on me from the dubbing, and that’s regarding Kumiko. Up until now the structure has been that other characters would be having problems and Kumiko would be looking on, but looking towards the 3rd year arc, it’s more about Kumiko herself. Tsuruoka talked with (Tomoyo) Kurosawa – Kumiko’s voice actress – about the nuances of “how to finally express the story of Kumiko Oumae.” They also discussed how to “leverage everything they had up to now,” and I thought “ahh, I see now.” It’s not a “connecting” but rather a “leveraging” process that will drive our progress towards something new, or something like that. It’s something I thought about in productions meetings and stuff regarding how to tell Kumiko Oumae’s story. As production progresses, there are times when that theme becomes so obvious that it actually becomes invisible. I came to be painfully aware of that while listening to Tsuruoka’s direction, feeling quite thankful for it, and at the same time feeling the pressure knowing that nothing will escape Tsuruoka’s eye. (Laughs)

─Do you have a message for the fans?

Ogawa: There will be new compositions in this one, so those are the places to watch and listen carefully. The power of theatrical audio equipment for listening to music is unmistakable, so I hope you all like it. I’m looking forward to it too! If you’d all walk on down to the theaters, I’d be much obliged.

Ishihara: I think we're taking a new start headed towards the Kumiko third year arc. As with everything else in life, it’s a lot fun declare “it all starts here!” and take that first step straight forward. I think that feeling is what this work is all about. You’ll be getting a glimpse of the Kumiko of the future. I hope you all enjoy it.

#hibike! euphonium #sound! euphonium #translation

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