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icey--stars · 1 year

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Stories To Be Told: PART 24

Series Index

A shadowsinger, a warrior, an Illyrian, that's what she was. Trained by one of the most formidable female warriors. Escaped the Illyrian camps and her clipping when she was barely sixteen and is now the holder of 6 siphons. What happens when she tries to sneak into the City of Starlight? And starts down a whole new road of chaos?

a/n: this story is slowly coming to an end... not yet though lMAO

WARNINGS: alcohol and creepy asf guy, non consensual touching

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This place was an absolute party. Rita’s was some sort of club that apparently the Inner Circle of the Night Court enjoyed going to, at least somewhat often. Mor had offered to bring me, along with the other girls, with Cassian and Azriel following in case someone got wasted and had to go home. But I suspected it was because Cassian wanted to be possessive, and Azriel–probably something along the same lines.

“Come on, let’s get a drink,” Mor suggested. “I need to be at least tipsy to be flirting right now.”

Emerie scoffed. “Alright, beautiful. Can I buy you it?” I had to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor. Damn, I thought. Maybe Emerie and Mor would become something from Starfall. I was all the way for it. They looked fucking adorable together.

Mor’s face went red and she coughed out an answer quickly, “Yes, thank you Em.”

Cassian and Nesta were already at the bar, flagging down the bartender to get drinks. Azriel lingered beside me, even as Gwyn went launching toward Emerie, a huge grin on her face. I couldn’t hear her words as she walked away. The music was just a tad too loud for that. But it looked something along the lines of and when did the little blushing thing get some claws? I rolled my eyes and began to follow after them.

“What do you plan on doing here?” Azriel asked me as we paused behind Cassian and Nesta, who were ordering.

I turned to look at him, lifting a brow. “Drinking, of course. Maybe dancing. Who knows.”

“Let me buy you your drink then,” Azriel suggested. “Can’t let you buy everything yourself. Not with me around.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why are you around?” I asked, looking at the list of drinks. That oatmeal stout looked intriguing enough.

Azriel chuckled, a little low sound coming from the back of his throat. “Because, baby, Rhys pays me a shit ton, and I plan to dote on you a little.”

A smile tugged at my lips. “Fine, but I’m still paying for something,” I said. “Some gift or something. I don’t know, but you aren’t doting on me without me doing the exact same thing.”

“Sure angel,” he said teasingly. “Now, what do you want?”

“Let me try that stout,” I said after a moment of thinking. “The oatmeal one.”

“Mmm, that one is good,” Az agreed. Cassian moved, and finally, it was our turn to get something. Azriel ordered for us both quickly, telling the bartender to put everything on his tab for the night.

Once given our drinks, I sat down on a stool at a high-level table, beside the one that had Cassian and the others. Azriel took the seat right beside me, our wings brushing against each other mildly when I turned to look at him. I tried not to shiver.

“How long has it been since you’ve come here?” I asked him, taking a nice long sip of my drink, reveling in the taste. That was the exact kind of thing I was looking for right now. Just a little nutty, and an even sweetness to it. Perfect.

Azriel hummed, looking out across the bar before turning his head to face me. Our wings brushed again. Gods, I’d have to find a way to subtly move my chair to stop that. How was he not noticing? Or was he, and just doing it on purpose? I wouldn’t put it past the sly spymaster.

“I went a few days before you arrived, haven’t been since. This place usually isn’t my kind of place. Mor loves it, obviously. Cassian comes often enough, and I hear Rhys comes here every once in a while. Mostly on a night out away from Nyx for a few moments,” Azriel explained, sipping on his own drink. Some sort of ale I think.

“Hmm,” I hummed in acknowledgement. I’d been to a club in the past. Wasn’t really to my taste, but I was fully intending on enjoying tonight. I’d heard from Mor this palace was great and quite accepting of winged individuals. I’d worn just a tight-fitting t-shirt, with the leathers that went on my lower half to match. It did wonders to show off my physique. I think Azriel noticed too, his eyes kept wandering.

“You look good,” he complimented. Ah, so he did notice.

I smirked against the rim of my glass. “Thank you.”

“My lady,” A new deep voice said from my left. I turned, looking at him. He was a classically beautiful High Fae male. High cheekbones, straight teeth, pointed ears. He had long black hair that went just past his shoulders. He was wearing a damn suit. Like a full on suit. Why the hell-? “Would you care for a dance?”

Azriel tensed considerably beside me. I lifted a brow, turning in my seat to face him slightly. I looked back at Az, unsure. Would it be wrong to do that? After everything? Oh, but I wanted to try and have some sort of experience here.

“Go have fun,” Azriel said, breaking my train of thoughts. “Then we’ll see if he can hold up to my dancing.” Oh. He wanted to set himself against this male? That- honestly… sounds fun. I distantly remembered dancing with Azriel on Starfall. It’d been fun, despite not being anywhere near as skilled or practiced.

I turned back to the male with a little smile. “Forgive me, if I step on your toes then. What’s your name?” I stood, brushing against Azriel’s damned wings again.

“Aaron,” he said, voice like silk. “And yours, pretty thing?”

The shadows began swirling faster, going up to my ears. Their voices were panicked. Don’t. The only word I could make out. But don’t what?

“Y/N,” I replied, letting him take my hand to kiss the knuckles.

“A fighter, aren’t you?” He hummed. “Your knuckles are quite rough.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling slightly. “I am a Valkyrie, Aaron. We know how to punch.” There was a cloud over my thoughts. Or it felt like a cloud. It clouded my judgment slightly.

“I’ve heard of that group,” Aaron hummed. “A bunch of females learning to fight. It sounded like fun. I almost wished I could join just to watch them in all their sweaty training clothes.” I felt a little spark of displeasure from that, feeling protective of the people I trained with. That comment rubbed me the wrong way. But that fog… it urged me to let go of that. I obeyed. My shadows started their don’t chant again.

“There’s only a few males given that opportunity,” I replied. “Our trainers.”

“The General and Spymaster–the ones you were sitting by?” He asked.

“Yes, that’s them,” I answered. He started to lead me to the dance floor, dodging a couple lost in each other’s eyes cleaning, dragging me with him.

“Your wings…” he hummed. “So beautiful.”

He went to drag a finger down them, but I moved out of the way. “Let’s dance,” I suggested quickly, lungs constricting slightly at the thought of this random ass male touching my wings. No. Hell no.

He smiled easily and we settled into a position and then whisked off into dancing. I ended up downing my drink, and Aaron bought a wine for me, insisting I needed it. Then another. And another.

A familiar song turned on, a remix of a ballroom dance Nesta had trained me in. The twirls are easy to deal with, opening my wings more so that his arm could go over them. However, I heard a fast approaching dip in the music. Aaron moved me forward a step and then I felt his arm curve over my wings as I dipped back. I froze, waiting for him to lift me up. The fabric on my wings was all wrong. The hands on my wings were all wrong. They weren’t rough with burn scars, they were smooth as a cat’s pelt.

Aaron was grinning as he brought me back up, crushing my wings to my back. “You’re good at dancing darling,” he purred. He leaned in to whisper in my ear. “I wonder if you’d be any good at riding.” The shadows screamed in unison. I couldn’t pick out their words anymore.

I caught the hidden meaning immediately and immediately prayed for the Mother to come down and save me. His hand lingered on my wing, settling on the curve instead of my hip. I glanced desperately in the direction of the table, hoping someone was watching. My shadows weren’t dancing anymore either. They were stiff, sitting around my wings and avoiding the male’s hand at all costs. Before, despite their panic, they’d been playing along. Now they didn’t even try.

He curled his fingers in, the nails dragging on the membrane as he leaned in close, pulling me close to his chest so that my jaw was on his shoulder as he whispered in my ear. “I’ve heard many things about Illyrian wings. Are any true?”

He dragged his hand up. I swore under my breath. Not from pleasure.

“Some,” I replied. “But I’ll have you know, I don’t let just anyone touch my wings. You’ll have to do more to earn it.”

“Oh… darling, I think I can earn it,” he chuckled. We turned just right so I could see Azriel. I felt for that bond in my chest, gritting my teeth behind my lips. I finally grasped the damned thread, and yanked twice.

The male dragged his hand up my wing again and I pushed against his chest, settling us into a dancing position again, but his damned hand was still on my wing. I was going to kill him, I decided, if he didn’t fucking let go. I felt the killing power begin to flow into my siphons in my rage.

“Ooo, what pretty powers do you have?” He purred, noting the glowing from the dark blue stones. “So pretty. So powerful… what would you look like under me?”

I was killing him.

A shadow came skittering to me. A familiar voice filling my ears. Only for me and another to hear. The only who could understand the hushed, garbled language of the shadows in the darkest of rooms. The only ones to listen and sing to the darkness. Don’t kill him. I’m coming.

I tried not to sigh in relief.

“What are these… darkness bits around you, darling?” He asked, curving his other palm to pick one up. It immediately leaped off and into my hair. His hand followed.

I pushed at his chest. “A secret,” I replied. Finally, his hand slipped off my wing. The one on my head remained, grabbing onto the short hair. It’d been growing to the point someone could fist it in their hand enough to get a grip.

Finally, I snarled. “Let me fucking go,” I ordered.

A voice of venom spoke from behind me. “Let her go. Now,” Azriel seconded.

The male smirked, looking past my shoulder at Azriel. He didn’t let go of my hair. If he didn’t let go in the next fifteen seconds, I was slicing his arm off.

One.

“Spymaster, what a wonderful sight. Is she one of your Valkyries?”

Two.

“Let her go.”

Three.

“Why? I think she likes it. Look at her little smile.” That smile was a damn grimace and relief for Azriel being near.

Four.

“You are hurting her.”

Five.

“She’s into that. Didn’t you notice?” Not this sort of pain-

Six.

“And how did you learn that?”

Seven.

“I asked, of course.” I wanted to scream at him, but for some reason my stupid brain remained silent. The fog was stopping me from moving. What was that fog? I didn’t know what to do. I was running off of bare instincts. Nobody touched my wings. Nobody–except Az.

Eight.

“She looks uncomfortable. How about we switch off?”

Nine.

“Then where is my new dance partner, spymaster?”

Ten.

“Go find someone.”

Eleven.

“Well, that seems like an unfair trade.”

Twelve.

“Good. Let her go.”

Thirteen.

“Go away, you’re bugging us,” Aaron dismissed.

Fourteen-

“Let my mate go or I will rip your head off your shoulders.”

Aaron dropped me. On the brisk millisecond before I hit fifteen. His arm was lucky. “You have a mate Y/N?!” He shouted.

I took a deep breathy sigh of relief, walking into Azriel’s chest. He immediately wrapped a protective arm around me. The hand went over my shoulders, carefully avoiding my wings. A good male. A respectful male. My male. My mate. Relief coursed through me so strongly I knew Azriel could feel it through that bond. I could feel a simmering anger through it. Or it might’ve been raging, but alas, the bond wasn’t that strong yet. I’d only been able to feel him when he walked over here. The shadows stopped screaming and chanting.

“Yes, now leave,” Azriel snarled. “You don’t touch my mate’s wings without fucking permission, or grab her hair prick.”

I saw Cassian and Nesta coming up behind him as I turned to face the scene again. I swallowed, jaw clenching.

“What’s the problem here?” Cassian asked, spreading his wings slightly to keep Aaron trapped and provide a slightly clear talking space. Nesta, on the inside, glared at the male with a fire in her eyes.

Aaron rose to his full height again. “Your friend is threatening me,” he accused. “Unprovoked.”

“Looked pretty damn provoked from here,” Nesta snarled. “You don’t touch my fucking sister.”

They’d seen. Azriel’s rage grew. Nesta shouldered past Aaron and took me from Azriel. Az immediately stepped forward to Aaron.

Nesta held me steady, avoiding my wings. My sister.

“You didn’t ask for permission to touch her wings,” Azriel snarled at Aaron. “By all rights, I could have Rhysand down here and have you arrested. Or just do it myself.”

Cassian chuckled. “I vote to do it yourself. I’d rather like to see what this little scrawny thing has against a trained Illyrian warrior.”

I felt a pain of guilt. I was trained. Why didn’t I escape? Why had my body just fucking frozen?! Normally I could react so well…

Cassian’s face fell suddenly. So suddenly I was concerned. One moment it was the epitome of rage, and the next it was blank.

“Move aside General,” Aaron ordered. Cassian, in his blank state, folded a wing. Azriel launched himself forward then, bowling the High Fae to the ground. Cassian shook free of his… state, and his face turned rageful once again.

“A little fucker who can use suggestion,” The general crooned. “Oh what fun. Rhys is on his way to deal with your stupid ass.”

Azriel pinned Aaron, siphons that he had on glowing brightly.

“Let me go fucker!” Aaron screamed.

“You will pay for the crimes you committed,” Azriel crooned. “Now free my mate of your spell.”

I was under a spell? That worked? Even with my shadows?

“I can’t,” Aaron chuckled, grinning victoriously.

“Explain,” Azriel yanked on one arm to a painful angle, causing Aaron to let out a yelp.

“She’ll be in that suggestive state for another few hours, especially with the alcohol,” Aaron gritted out. “It’ll wear–OW YOU FUCKER!” Azriel had yanked his arms painfully.

The people on the dance floor had moved, I noticed. A dark power rumbled through the area. I heard a few whimpers of fear. Rhysand walked in, clad in his normal clothes, but they were more ruffled than usual, as if he’d put them on quickly. No wings.

“So, Azriel, care to tell me what’s happening?” The High Lord crooned, sparing a glance at me.

“Aaron, here,” Azriel grunted briefly as Aaron jerked in his grip. “Decided to put a suggestion spell on my mate.”

“Show me,” Rhysand ordered.

The two males’ eyes glazed over for a moment before Rhys’s face curved into a wicked grin. It didn’t look to be used to convey cockiness, happiness or anything in between. It looked to be used to tell someone they’d fucked up.

“Touching someone without permission, Aaron, is illegal. Azriel, put him in a cage for the night.”

Azriel disappeared in the shadows. The mask Rhys had on fell and he looked at me. “Y/N,” he said, walking forward toward me. “How do you feel?”

“I’m fine,” I replied. “Just a little foggy.”

Rhys sighed in relief. “What did he do?”

I swallowed. “He was touching my wings.”

Cassian hissed, face scrunching up in displeasure.

Rhys looked angry. His gaze hardened, brows dipping toward his nose. “I’ll make sure he’s dealt with.” Then the High Lord winnowed away.

Nesta held me steady as I let out a sigh that almost sent me tumbling to my knees. “What the fuck,” I growled, shaking my head.

Azriel winnowed back, immediately running to support me. Nesta took a step back. I almost whimpered with relief as I felt him hold me to his chest.

“I’ve got you baby. Are you hurt?”

I shook my head.

“You wanna go home?”

“Yes, please,” I pleaded.

“I’ll get Mor,” Cassian said. “See you at home.”

Azriel pulled back. “You can’t fly, can you?”

I shook my head, leaning my head back into him. “Too fuckin’ drunk. Too much, too fast.”

“I’ve got you baby,” he promised. He scooped me up from under my legs, holding me carefully and then we winnowed into the air outside the House of Wind. He glided down, the wind doing absolutely nothing to stop the fog in my mind. It felt sort of like alcohol, but had a bit more of a different feel to it.

He carried me through the house, heading for my room. He settled me on the bed, looking at me as if he was questioning something.

“Take off your leathers,” he said gently. “Then you can drink water and go to bed.”

I scoffed. The drunk part of my brain decided to do dumb shit. “Trying to get me undressed, are you?”

Azriel choked on his next words, a surprised noise escaping his jaw as he stared at me in shock. “Fucking hell,” he sighed, shaking his head. Was that a slight bulge in his pants? Maybe, I was drunk. I unbuckled my leathers, setting them beside my others. “You’re impulsive when you’re drunk,” he noted aloud.

I chuckled. “No I’m not~”

“Drink,” Azriel shoved a glass of water into my hands, and didn’t stop glaring at me before I’d downed it, and another.

“Sleep,” he ordered, hovering on the side of the bed.

“Sleep,” I yawned. “No. I’m not tired.”

He scoffed. “What if I laid down with you?”

“Will you scratch my head?” I asked.

He tensed slightly. “Are you alright with that?”

I nodded, throwing the covers back and laying on the far side of the bed from him, facing the middle of the bed. Carefully, he slipped out of his boots and put his feet under the bed with mine, moving to hold me to his chest. He moved the arm he was laying on up to scratch at my head. It was more hesitant than before.

I hummed happily, leaning into the touch. “That asshole doesn’t know how to scratch my hair right. You do. I like you.”

“Sleep, Y/N,” Azriel ordered, but I saw a little smile.

“No-” I yawned. “You.”

“When you wake, you’ll feel better.”

“I don’t want toooooo~” I leaned forward so my face was more in his space. “I wanna do this.”

Then I kissed him.

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TAGLIST (see post for getting added)

@mis-lil-red, @bunnymallowo, @judig92, @biblophilefox82, @azzydaddy, @thegirlintheshadows101, @whatupmydudes01, @feyres-fireheart, @elizarikaallen, @xenlynn, @panzees-bizarre-adventures, @starswholistenanddreamsanswered, @baebeepeach, @nyctophiliiiiaaa, @brekkershadowsinger, @officiallyunofficialperson, @bookslut420, @margssstuff, @bluephoenix908, @goldentournesol, @rebloggiest-reblogger, @inpraizeof, @ladylokilaufeyson5, @graciereads, @chanaaaannel,

#azriel #azriel x reader #azrielxreader #acotar #acotar fanfiction #acotar fanfic #cassian #nesta #emerie #morrigan #emorie #mywriting

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starlight-edith · 11 months

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Can I ask what happened with the rose fisted glove person? Just curious tbh u don't have to answer

I made a post because I’m trying to get in contact with someone who doesn’t use their discord anymore and that happens to be the only way I know how to contact them. Rose jumps in and says no one should give me a way to contact him because that’s a super common abuse tactic and I could be putting him in danger. I then reblogged it trying to explain that I was in no way attempting to put anyone in danger, as well as asking if they remembered me because we used to be friends years ago (or so I thought, we talked about Judaism and I confided my deepest traumas in them and given they gave me advice and never at any point asked me to stop, I, being 13, assumed that meant they actually gave a flying fuck about me).

They then ignored this reblog.

Then others starting coming having seen it from their add on which was insinuating that I was an abuser and reblogged it too. I tried to explain to the new people but they ignored me as well.

So I made a new updated post in which I explained that I was in no way shape or form forcing anyone to do anything and all I was truly asking was for someone who knew him to let him know that I wanted to talk. Then rose jumps in again and starts saying my situation has a ton of red flags and essentially again insinuates that I’m trying to stalk and abuse him. I then explained that that was not the case and as we were friends they know damn well that I was the victim of not only abuse but also stalking. I also happened to mention that I was unhappy that they were making me cry on Shabbat which is meant to be a day of rest, so they came back with the same complaint.

When I came back and showed them literal video evidence that if anything the person I’m looking for is the abuser (he responded to being called an idiot by calling me slurs) they accused me of doctoring the conversation. Then they mocked me for becoming upset by saying that I had formed a “parasocial bond” with them and we were never friends, as well as saying something along the lines of “no matter how much you write in big text that doesn’t change that this is dangerous”

When I begged them to just drop it because they put this horrible insinuated accusation on their much larger blog which was resulting in several people literally thinking I’m an abuser because of their add on to my innocuous post that had nothing to do with them, they called me follower obsessed and claimed I was “ascribing a hell of a lot of power” to them (It’s not ascribing if it’s true??? They were literally the biggest blog in all of Jumblr in 2017 and I assume that hasn’t changed much)

The whole interaction is on my blog, just scroll down until you find the original post. The add ons will be in the notes and easily readable to you. The second post starts with “🎵here I am once again🎶” (it’s a quote from a song and I was trying to lighten the mood because I was feeling extremely upset) which you can find the additions in the notes of as well. I would link you to them myself but I’ve blocked everyone involved.

I can accept that I thought we were closer than we were but I refuse to accept being called abusive and then being told by everyone around me that that’s not what happened — you don’t have to say something outright to create consequences for the other party. I’m already feeling them.

I never even intended to make a second post about the person I was looking for, but I felt the need to because of the allegations (that rose swears up and down they didn’t make)

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umbran6 · 3 years

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The Argument Against Caleo

Spoilers up to Blood of Olympus and beyond. Beware! (Or not, the book series has been out for a few years, get over it). I wrote this after seeing a user wondering why people didn’t like Caleo, or in some cases, hated it. Here, I want to explain the answer as much as possible while doling out my own points.

One of the main grievances I have as a fan of Leo Valdez would be the ship Caleo, or Leo x Calypso. It’s a complicated ship, to say the least, with multiple issues that make me question why people like the ship. And I admit it, they initially had some chemistry, but there’s multiple issues that Uncle Rick produced through making such a relationship that makes it extremely open to criticism, criticism which I will explain through this post.

One of my main points against them is that the ship was created on a very limited time scale. Although we aren’t given an exact date to date of when Leo and Calypso met to when they fell in love, we can safely estimate it to be a week at best. Such a limited amount of time from going through the multiple stages of a relationship already stresses the limits of the suspension of disbelief.

A counterexample would be Percabeth, or Percy x Annabeth. Throughout the series, we aren’t introduced to them being romantically involved until the Titan’s Curse, which was two years after they met. Specifically, this is brought up by Aphrodite, the goddess of love herself. Admittedly, Percy and Annabeth were twelve years old when they first met, when romance was definitely out of the picture, especially with a quest to get the Master Bolt.

However, from there we get to see multiple examples of their character depth, ranging from their respective fatal flaws to their ambitions, hopes and dreams, and their friendship. We get to see the slow build up of their chemistry, which was a really good writing move on Uncle Rick’s part. These characters took their sweet time to get to where they wanted to go, and despite the false romantic lead of Rachel, they still got together.

On the other hand, we don’t see enough of this between Leo and Calypso — we only see one book where they interacted with each other in The House of Hades, and that was only for a handful of chapters. While they are definitely older so they can jump straight to romance (some may say too old, but I’ll get to that) its still a pretty huge gap to jump through without making it stick. This makes it hard to root for a ship when it is built on a rather faulty foundation from the ‘they just met’ to ‘they get together’, especially when they don’t have a lot of events to show their chemistry.

Which brings me to Ogygia, which has raised a few red flags for me when looking at it from a retrospective point of view. Now, we know what the main issue of the island is that the hero who landed on said island can’t leave until Calypso falls in love with them. And we’ve seen this with Percy during the Battle of the Labyrinth, where he lands in the island and Calypso falls in love with him while tending to his wounds from, you know, being erupted from freaking Mt. St. Helens. Needless to say, this falling in love with each other montage happened quickly to the point of suspicion, which sets up the complication that Calypso and Leo might have fallen in love due to magical intervention.

And hear me out, because although this might be a pretty big pill to swallow, we have evidence for this through Percy. It only takes one chapter for Calypso and Percy to meet, and the next he’s willing to consider leaving Camp Half-Blood and Annabeth behind to live on the island when Hephaestus gives him the choice to leave Ogygia or stay. We don’t even get an explanation on why Percy considered giving it all up just so he can be with her. All we know is, girl meets boy, now they want to live on an isolated island forever. It’s especially absurd considering Percy’s hamartia (fatal flaw) is freaking loyalty to those he loves. Needless to say, It’s a huge YIKES, especially when we apply it to Leo and Calypso.

It also raises the possibility that the romantic relationship between them is doomed to failure. And if you guys want to fight me on this, let’s look at Jason and Piper, a couple whose relationship started with a similar foundation. Piper had romantic memories implanted into her brain by Hera through the use of the Mist, while Jason was reduced to a Tabula Rasa (a blank slate for those who lack culture) by said goddess. They broke up before the Trials of Apollo because it was clear that when the dust settled, Piper had been aware that their romance was a lie and that their intentions to stay together was a mix of delusion and pressure from freaking Aphrodite. Leo and Calypso get together under what is arguably a very similar set of conditions if Ogygia’s magic had any influence on their relationship, and that this magic could wear off if given enough time.

Third, and here’s a pretty big one for me, would be Calypso’s character, mainly because there are a lot of unfortunate implications attached to it. In The Blood of Olympus, she was turned into the divine equivalent of Princess Peach, with Leo being her Mario (except he saves her with a badass metal dragon). Its extremely unnecessary to make a character, especially as one such as Calypso, get turned into the typical reward of a B-Class action movie. It’s insulting and puts her up as a trophy, a narrative that is definitely not ok by any means necessary.

In another direction, Calypso is also really, really worrying when things don’t go get her way. First, let’s look at The Odyssey, the first myth she pops up. Calypso had imprisoned Odysseus for ten years on her island until Hermes said to let him go, and although it gives them plenty of time to fall in love, it also raises the implications of stockholm syndrome. Then we’ve got the fact that Calypso cursed Annabeth out of spite, implicitly saying that she wished the daughter of Athena would suffer the same isolation that she did, which came to reality when Percy and Annabeth met the Arai in Tartarus. And Annabeth wasn’t even aware that she was still in Ogygia, much less intentionally intervened in the matter. When Percy left Ogygia, rather than be angry at Percy, Calypso cursed Annabeth out of all people to suffer the same loneliness and misery she went through. That’s some Hera at her worst levels of spite.

Through such evidence we can see that Calypso is extremely wrathful towards those who break her heart even though they don’t want to. It certainly implies that Calypso isn’t in a good state of mind, and could easily repeat said actions if provoked. We could almost compare it to Medea and the original Jason, but at least in that case, Medea has every right to be pissed off at Jason and take her revenge. Calypso’s curse and how she handles things certainly implies a level of immaturity that would end in disaster if they broke up.

One issue that, I’ll admit is more from my personal point of view is that the ship took a lot of Leo’s character and threw it in the garbage in Blood of Olympus. Though we see him do a lot of stuff behind the scenes, the fact that its all for the goal of reaching Calypso just reduced him to someone who is more focused on love than, you know, fighting the evil goddess that was responsible for killing his mom and getting sweet sweet revenge. While the revenge plot can be cliched sometimes, it can be played well, while romance and the typical ‘always save the girl’ trope is just overdone. If Leo had been allowed to, you know, be more focused on other things rather than Calypso, we could have seen a lot more variety in his character.

For example as one of the possible character arcs he could’ve gone through, Leo has always been alone among the couples, often being isolated. Heck, Nemesis herself stated that he would always be the seventh wheel, and that he would never find a place among his brethren. Though some fellow tumblr users have taken this in multiple ways, either saying that he should learn to be happy by himself or that he is socially isolated in the Argo II because of these romantic relationships (I prefer a mix of both). Uncle Rick just giving him a girlfriend seems like taking the easy way out of solving such an issue and abandoning what could’ve been a rather interesting character arc. The relationship isn’t a bad thing if we remove some of the unfortunate implications, but it is a bad way to end what is a complex and realistic problem for a character and in some cases maybe possible in real life.

One more minor but still yikes worthy point is that there’s a huge age gap between them. We’re not talking about the ‘Hazel is 15 and Frank is 17 and in one year that’ll be a problem because then Hazel will be jailbait’ age gap. And even then, we can argue that Hazel is older since she is chronologically ninety-one years old. No, Calypso is older by millennia in terms of mindset and body due to the perks of being a goddess, while Leo is sixteen.

God-to-Mortal relationships are already complicated, even with emotionally and socially well-functioning adults. The fact that Leo is underage, inexperienced with romance (despite his flirting, Calypso was his first kiss), and has been through a freaking ton of trauma in his youth, does not make this okay. At best, they’re both mutually interested in each other but may have different expectations when it comes to a relationship. At worst, Calypso is taking advantage of a boy just so she can get out of Ogygia and possibly dumping him later on like the wrapping of a candy bar. Even though Calypso lost her immortality during The Trials of Apollo, that doesn’t even compensate for the immense age gap alongside Leo’s guilt at the possibility that he might’ve been responsible for her losing said immortality.

Oh, and about Leo... I’m a fan of him, but I can admit that he is in a bad spot both mentally and emotionally throughout the series. He’s lost his mom due to a mix of his own powers and Gaea’s trickery, and never had the chance to fully process that event and come to terms with it. The foster home system alongside his own trauma has forced him to hide his emotions through a façade of happiness and jokes when it’s quite clear to me he needs a therapist, stat. He's also run away from several foster homes, implying this means he was and still is being affected by the event. His mask is still on during The Blood of Olympus considering he hid a lot of things from Piper and Jason.

Speaking about them, not helping this matter is the fact that he’s rather isolated in terms of friendships since Jason and Piper, his supposed best friends are more interested in locking lip rather than, you know, actually hanging out with each other. He doesn’t have good friendships with the rest of the Seven, and the closest ones he does have is with Hazel and Frank. And even then they start off in the wrong spot since Frank is very insecure about possibly losing Hazel to him during Mark of Athena while Hazel in the meantime, is also dealing with the fact that he is the descendant of her possible boyfriend Sammy Valdez.

This could indirectly have made him desperate for affection since he has nobody else to confide in during the rest of the series, which is a bad mental state to be in when one lands on Ogygia, the island that we’ve seen could possibly force two people to fall in love with each other. A romantic relationship is not something that he needs or something that will help him in the future. He needs more than that, and having him in one that could end in disaster is the last thing he needs.

And that does not make him a bad person, much less a bad character. While some who are similarly emotionally and socially isolated may turn to violence or creepy behavior on those they want affection from, Leo does not do that to the other characters. It just means that he as a character needs more time to recover and develop before we go giving him romantic relationships, much less one with Calypso.

That’s not to say that they don’t have some things in common. Both are starved for love and affection, with Calypso being constantly rejected by heroes while Leo was rejected by foster homes and his own family. It’s a trait that they have in common, but it shouldn’t be the only thing that they have in common, especially since it is laced with a trauma that is clear they haven’t had help processing. They need to develop more as characters and as friends before they should be paired together.

So… yeah. The Caleo relationship is, in my eyes, doomed to failure, or at least heavily flawed after taking the above points into account. Uncle Rick, as if seemingly aware of these criticisms, has put the relationship in a rocky place by The Tower of Nero, giving them the possibility of overcoming the above criticisms and their own flaws, or giving fanfic writers an out and pairing Leo with another character or have him single, but happy. Either way, in my opinion Caleo is a bad ship when it comes to how it was created, alongside the flaws and unfortunate implications it has.

While I can see some of the chemistry the ship has, you can’t just use a couple of moments where they get along as evidence that they belong together, especially with the above reasons. That’s like using a band-aid to cover a bullet hole without removing the bullet, stopping the bleeding, and preventing infection. If both characters and their relationship had been given more time to develop, I would understand how they would get together.

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i8jisoo · 4 years

Text

𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐘 𝐊𝐈𝐃𝐒 ⇉ skz with pregnant!reader

seungmin x reader | part seven of dad!skz

↬ genre; fluff & angst

↬ warnings; obviously pregnancy, talk of sex/condoms, talk of morning sickness, cursing, child-birth

↬ notes; i feel like my mental health is getting worse and it has been really hard to be positive but i finished this awhile ago, never posted it! just thought to post it today since i just reached 500 followers,, tysm everyone for the support on my posts and following me for content,, i’m waiting for enhypen debut rnnn, it’s really one of the only things keeping me happy n ready. my bias is jungwon :) he’s so adorable n cute i can’t wait + i hope to start writing for enhypen soon when i feel better,, ty guys <3

the night was a one night stand

seungmin had no plans to see you after, you already gone by the morning so it made no different what he wanted afterwards

so with his number in your phone, you decided that texting him would be the best

you texted him your address, asking him to meet with you after u addressed who you were

the best maybe after twelve, seeing as how from nine to eleven you would be occupied with the toilet bowl, the morning sickness really weighing on you

hes there, ready to talk, looking great

ur just there in a t-shirt and sweatpants with slightly messy hair

you seat him on ur couch, pacing in the kitchen before actually beginning to talk

“it broke, or maybe you forgot. i don’t know but you, you got me pregnant.”

i honestly see seungmin being really innocent in this and he’s just made a bad decision which resulted in a baby

“wh-what? no, i used.. i..”

it dawns on him that he can’t remember slipping on a condom before

he’s turned white as a sheet, probably feeling more ill than you

he does the math, figuring you’re around two months, you’re not that far along obviously

“we don’t have to do this, you hardly know me.”

hes shaking his head quickly, “nono, i wanna.. i may never get this chance again. i might not ever meet someone again, so, if it’s with you? i’m fine with that.”

seungmin was there for the next appointment, fully supportive and stepping up

hes scared but so excited

he also moves out of the dorms, raising flags, but he keeps assuring everyone that he was just getting a change of scenery

he claims he got a dog but uh, there isn’t one

he actually moves in with u, an apartment that wasn’t too far away from the dorms and he will time to time spend the night if they need him to

ur actually really understanding of his career and u admire his adjustment

late night with him where u two go to a twenty-four hour convenience store and buy every junk food possible

u also acquired strange cravings such a pineapple and cream cheese or kimchi and chocolate sauce

that night however u rly had a craving for cheese and cheese only

it doesn’t last however, from three to five you are in the bathroom hunched over

he?? isnt?? actually?? the worst partner to get pregnant from a one stand with?????????????????????????????????????????

he’s pretty much a sweetheart

bless everyones heart though when they find out about you

“this is my friend, we are.. having a uh, baby!”

haha surprise...

u swore that jisung’s breath was lost when he said that

chan is fucken freaking out about this

“we’re gonna be uncles!”

everybody screaming and cheering which was a good sign

ur days are average and u guys just act like friends

friends having a baby lmfao

it’s a fine line between dating and not dating

seungmin reaaalllyy likes you but he has this bit of guilt in him for getting you pregnant

ur the one who uprooted your life and ur gonna have a kid for the rest of ur life with him and he’s still living his and doing what he loves

seungmin heart eyes motherfucker when u come to a concert, just there to see him n see what he does for a living

u guys get this cute ass picture of everyone lmfao i just imagine the boys and seungmin standing around and posing with ur small bump

he doesn’t get to go to every single appointment, so his first appointment he went to was when you were around six and a half months

he’s super excited and just super nervous

so many expecting moms its crazy

when your name is called and you two go back, he’s jumping out of his seat and going back with you

the doctor applies the gel on your stomach, the rounded bump sticking out prominently

his hand clasps around yours, fingers laced with yours and he gives you a warm smile

the screen flickers on and theres your baby

it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen

he can clearly see the legs and arms, theres the head!!! he can make out the toes and fingers

then u guys get to hear the heartbeat together

it’s so strong and he just,, wow.. this is real 😣

ur bearing his child, your guys’ baby,, he can hardly believe it

then the doctor asks if u two want to know the gender

“yeah.” 🥺🥺🥺

ofc u could’ve known before but u didn’t know if seungmin wanted to find out or wait n u just would feel guilty if u went ahead

he was rly trying to be as involved as possible, he had a busy schedule and u two weren’t even dating and this whole thing was happening secretly

they turn the monitor for you two to look at, pointing around

“there they are, we have a baby boy.”

seungmin is so taken aback, this all is so .. unreal for him

he’s ready to get the disc with ur ultrasound footage n the heartbeat but also the ultrasound photos 🥺 he’s so in love with your baby boy

u two are just sitting in the office after, ur wiping off ur belly n he’s just like

“i’m in love with you. you and our son — i know, we agreed to co-parenting and no feelings but,” his voice is so strained n he’s just so fragile n so utterly raw, “i couldn’t help it.”

ur fact at first is just frozen and slightly shocked

then ur like 😮🥺😣

“no, cause i was thinking the same exact thing.”

that seals the deal for u two pretty much, ur both emotional wrecks in the exam room

theres the boyfriend and girlfriend dynamic now — seungmin and you sleeping cuddled together

it wasn’t like you two didn’t cuddle before,, but it would usually end up with seungmin silently creeping out of bed or you softly removing his arm or you leaving him gently

u rely on him more, the final trimester hard on you and ur so exhausted and hurting

u two getting the nursery ready together which actually consists of u sitting down rather than actually doing anything

though u will have to teach this boy how to put away bibs and fold baby clothes

u two are young and u both have a lot of explaining to do to your own families, but they are supportive

they r more than happy to teach u two about children and giving tips on these things

blue nursery with lil teddy bears around and its just the cutest, props to room designer seungmin 🤓

baby boy is so stubborn, you’re past your due date and you both want him out

you two try a shit ton of things

name it all: pineapple, spicy foods, raspberry tea, daily walks around the block, literally everything

everything except for the obvious that had been recommended by your obgyn

sex.

both of you two hadn’t really explored in the topic of sex or anything of the sort, it was slightly awkward

you’re five days overdue now, which now you couldn’t even care

“please..! they said it works, even our ob said so!”

he is so cautious about this, but begrudgingly decides to proceed with this idea

he’s so sweet 🥺 but maybe a little too sweet because next thing you know is that two short hours later ur water breaks and u are in labor!!!!

both of you are vv nervous

his hyungs are right there to calm him down, asking you if ur okay and if u need anything

they rly adore their lil minnies baby mama & their lil nephew

seungmin is big daddy deffo

he’s so attached to u 🥺 it hurts to see u in so much pain and he can’t do much to take it away, but he will kiss ur forehead and wipe ur tears away

he personally finds u so angelic as u are quite literally coated in sweat and nearly breaking his hand

it’s finally over, you and seungmin both turning to the tiny baby that just came into the world, both of u crying while laughing at the beet red baby

theres your little baby boy in your arms, squirming at the new coldness and trying to move around in the blanket

all of the boys come in, excited to meet the baby

in amazement you made this adorable, small baby after one night

this experience was everything and more to you both, so glad you weren’t as careful one night and now had the greatest gift given to you: your small son who slept soundly in your arms

503 notes · View notes

kasienda · 3 years

Text

Right Behind You - Ch 3: Akuma

Chapter 1: Scandal

Chapter 2: Friends

Chapter 3: Akuma

Chat Noir vaulted from one building to the next with the ease that came with almost a decade of practice. Even the explosions that tilted the ground with alarming frequency did nothing to throw off the hero’s balance or progression.

He landed in a crouch overlooking the akuma. The akuma was cemented into the ground with neon blue cannons on both arms, but able to pivot in every direction. Smaller turrets dotted the area in half a dozen concentric circles around the main villain.

It shot off a projectile that split off into six different pieces, each one flying towards a different building. Chat cringed as the missiles found their targets bringing down each building in what looked like controlled demolitions. Seismic waves crashed through the area seconds later.

Definitely not good.

At least it was stationary. But it had enough firepower that getting close would be near impossible.

Maybe he should have dove in immediately, but he didn’t see any evidence of civilians, and he really wanted some backup because explosions sucked. Even if Miraculous Ladybug healed everything after the fact, fighting with broken ribs was not fun. Not remotely. And with the explosives coming at the end of heavy projectiles with homing capabilities, they would have to approach this one cautiously, and probably defensively.

He groaned. He hated laying siege. It was going to take hours.

Carapace landed on the roof beside him. “How ya doing, Kit-Kat?”

Chat Noir smiled in greeting, but his eyes remained laser focused on the akuma. “Honestly? I’ve had better days. You?”

“Same. I got almost no sleep last night. And the alert woke me from the absolute best nap I’ve had in weeks. Now, I’ve got a killer headache instead.”

The rooftop under them shook as a nearby building crashed to the ground in a heap of rubble.

“That is one nasty akuma,” Carapace said.

Chat Noir nodded in agreement as he opened up the extra-dimensional pocket in his baton and pulled out two little white pills. He held them out to his turtle-themed teammate. “I keep some extra strength Tylenol in my baton.”

Carapace’s face lit up as he took the offered medication. “Dude! I could kiss you!”

Chat smirked. “You’ll have to buy me dinner first.”

Carapace barked out a laugh. “I’m sure I could whip up a can of tuna for you, Kit-Kat.”

Chat shook his head playfully. “You’ll have to work harder to win my affections. I’ll have you know this cat has a very refined palette.”

Carapace laughed.

Chat Noir smiled. Maybe an hours-long siege wouldn’t be so bad. Definitely better than staying home alone in his oversized studio obsessing over every missed red flag from his “date” the day prior.

Maybe he should have gone on a date with Carapace instead.

Keep reading on Ao3

“Shouldn’t we be fighting the akuma instead of standing around flirting?”

Chat Noir and Carapace both turned around to see Rena Rouge standing behind them with her eyebrows raised in judgement.

Chat just grinned, sweeping her into a sideways hug. “Rena! It’s been so long!”

“Missed you, too kitty. What’ve we got?” she asked, peering down over the edge of the roof.

“A demolition man?” Carapace observed, as another six buildings crumbled to the ground.

“Isn’t that a movie?” Chat asked. An old movie. Had Nino tried to get him to watch it? Nino loved any and all action flicks - new and old.

“Yup!” Rena confirmed. “My ex subjected me to it. Terrible movie.”

“Lies!” Carapace objected, shaking his head. “Don’t listen to her, Kit-Kat. Definitely worth your time.”

“I will never get those hours of my life back,” Rena said, drolly.

Chat Noir burst out laughing at the appalled expression on Carapace’s face.

“Guys! Let’s focus!” Ladybug’s voice interjected from behind them.

Chat started for a second, and then whirled towards her with a charming smile. “It’s good to see you, m’lady!”

She didn’t smile. “Not tonight, Chaton. Can we just get this over with?”

“Everything alright, boss lady?” Carapace asked, his lips curled downward into a slight frown.

She didn’t spare him a glance either. Instead, she watched the destruction below them without emotion. “I was having a good time with my friends for the first time in forever after an absolutely terrible week. And akumas…”

“Suck,” Carapace filled in.

“Exactly,” Ladybug agreed. “So, let’s get this over with and maybe the day can be salvaged. Chat, you go down the middle, Carapace go left of the building, and I’ll take the right. Rena, we need a ton of decoys. The goal is for all three of us to get there simultaneously and strike at once.”

Chat frowned, glancing away from the akuma and towards his partner. “Are you sure, m’lady? Wouldn’t it be better to huddle up, let Carapace cover us to get close?”

Carapace and Rena Rouge said nothing, both turned to Ladybug waiting for her response, but Ladybug’s face was still flat and impossible even for Chat Noir to read.

“If we split up,” he continued. “We’ll be more likely to get picked off. And the decoys will help, but they can’t replace an almost impenetrable shield against those missiles.”

“Playing this one defensively will take hours,” she said. “Let’s try the offensive strike first, and if it doesn’t work we can pivot quickly and we’ll be in a closer position to set up a shield.”

Adrien did not like it. She was asking him to gamble with their lives, with her life, to save time. Even Carapace and Rena exchanged a frown.

“Please,” Ladybug begged, taking a step forward, her blue eyes darting from one of them to the next, her face finally showing some emotion, and he did not like what he saw. “I really need to avoid an endless siege,” she whispered, her eyes suddenly glassy, threatening tears.

Her distress hit him like a punch to the gut. She clearly wasn’t okay, and hadn’t been for awhile. How had he failed to notice that she was far from okay? Because her tears now had nothing to do with the current akuma. This went deeper and he hadn’t noticed anything was wrong. How long had she been struggling while he ran in circles trying to keep his father happy in between grad school commitments?

He couldn’t remember the last time he had met up with her for a joint patrol or just took her out on a friend date, which had once been a regular thing between them.

He would have to make it up to her, and he could start with making this akuma go away as quickly as possible.

He nodded, and offered her a small smile. “Okay, m’lady. I know that if anyone can pull off a crazy plan, it’s you.”

She offered a watery smile in return and he felt his chest loosen for the first time since the akuma alert had sounded. The day wasn’t wasted if he could help her have a better one.

“Thank you, Chaton,” she said. “I…”

Her words were cut off as the building adjacent to them crashed to the ground in a crumbling free fall.

“Whatever we’re going to do, we should probably do it now,” Rena said.

Ladybug’s soft vulnerable tears disappeared as she turned back to the akuma. Her usual game face - serious and sharp - took its place. And Chat couldn’t help the fond smile that bloomed across his face. Even when she was coming apart at the edges, she had so much strength. So much resilience.

“Rena, I want as many decoys as you can pull off,” Ladybug ordered. Rena nodded. “We’ll charge with a two second delay once the illusion is in place. Carapace, on the left, Chat in the middle, and I’ll take the right. Ready?”

“Aye aye, boss lady,” Carapace acknowledged with a salute.

The familiar sound of the flute rang through the air, and suddenly an army of countless Ladybugs, Carapaces, and Chat Noirs surrounded them protectively on all sides, just far enough apart that he didn’t really have to worry about touching them.

Chat launched himself off the rooftop towards the akuma.

Missiles flew at the decoys, but the illusions dove sideways and away from the projectiles, most of them avoiding the collisions. The missiles were too fast though, and dozens of decoys clipped out of existence.

Chat Noir maintained his forward charge trying not to think about how unprotected he was. How unprotected his lady and Carapace were.

The akuma was right in front of him - just a single vault away, when he stumbled - tripped over an errant piece of debris like a raw beginner who didn’t have nine years of experience under his belt. He took out half a dozen decoys himself as they ran straight through him.

He launched himself up from the cracked sidewalk immediately, but the damage was done. Carapace was stalled, fending off an unlucky aerial assault. Ladybug took the lead and reached the akuma first. But the villain fended her off easily with a backhand that sent her flying. Then fired off five missiles all tracking straight for Chat Noir who had just given away his position.

He dodged around the first one easily enough. The second one, too. But the third cost him his balance, and he barely managed to swerve around the fourth. He ended up helpless on his knees, at the mercy of the fifth.

Every muscle locked, anticipating the blow, when Carapace slammed into him from the side, stealing his breath away. And they both ended sprawled across the unforgiving concrete. Before he could recover, the projectile hit the ground where he had been kneeling seconds prior.

The pavement launched upward, slamming him completely back to the ground. The sound was too loud to be heard, but he definitely felt it rip painfully through his body despite his protective transformation.

His ears - ringing with the aftershock - couldn’t hear anything else. But the protective green glow of Carapace’s shelter bloomed into existence around them, deflecting the worst of the next concussive wave over their heads. The ground remained unsteady beneath them though.

Chat Noir allowed himself one deep breath before he kipped up to his feet and hauled Carapace to his, as his eyes rapidly took in the field on the other side of the green shield that was already cracking from a relentless assault.

“Please tell me this day is almost over,” Carapace growled out.

Most of the decoys had been decimated at this point - only a dozen or so remained, but Rena Rouge couldn’t create more without losing the current ones, which would reveal Ladybug’s position immediately.

Chat laughed. “I wish.”

He knew which one was actually Ladybug, though. It was in her single-minded focus. Every version of her was quick and graceful, able to pivot on the spot, and perform impossible dodges, but Ladybug always landed closer to her target than she started, determined as she was to end this battle.

She truly was in rare form tonight. Her plan would likely have worked amazingly if he hadn’t screwed it up.

The akuma managed to take out another handful of decoys with his latest barrage of missiles. And then the akuma got lucky, and shot towards the real deal.

“Carapace-”

She dove forward under the projectile, and then flipped back to her feet right in front of the akuma.

“-drop the shield.” Chat Noir ordered, already running toward the barrier, not waiting for it to fall.

She snatched a keychain or a dog tag from the akuma’s neck, grinning in victory. She crushed it into pieces with her strengthened hands, but her grin dissolved when no butterfly emerged.

The green shield fell away. Chat put on a burst of speed.

The akuma swung his cannon arm and slammed it into Ladybug’s side. She was thrown sideways, and landed in a terrifyingly still puddle of red and black.

The akuma pointed his rocket launcher towards her.

Chat Noir threw himself forward just as the akuma shot off the missile.

He took the blast square in the back. His suit no doubt offered some protection but this akuma had the power to bring down solid steel super frames.

Chat Noir’s skeletal structure didn’t stand a chance.

Pressure exploded across his spine. The blinding pain came an instant later. It felt like he was being burned alive both inside and out.

He didn’t break his fall, his arms dangling lifeless at his sides. He landed face first, his chin striking the crumbling pavement sending a second wave of agony through his form.

He couldn’t breathe, let alone scream.

Was this what dying felt like?

It had never hurt this bad before.

…

Carapace was still processing what Chat said when he took off like a bullet. Straight for the shield. Carapace frantically dissolved the barrier before his teammate could crash into it. Carapace shot after him, only a few paces behind, but he already knew it wasn’t enough.

His heart jumped up to his throat and time slowed to nothing as he watched Chat Noir take the hit meant for Ladybug, and crash to the ground, both his magical suit and skin torn to shreds, exposing raw bleeding tissue on his back and legs.

Carapace threw himself into a roll to put himself between the akuma and his fallen companion, and landed sprawled against the black cat’s unmoving form, screaming for his shelter once again.

The shield went up not a second too soon, immediately taking hit after hit. The sound of cracking glass echoed overhead reminding him that the shield would only hold for so long against the maelstrom.

He glanced back, hoping he had managed to envelop Ladybug in the protective barrier as well. No such luck. She was just on the other side of the glowing green bubble. At least it was between her and the akuma. They made eye contact, and she jerked her head towards Chat.

She wanted him to take care of her partner - not dive back into the battle.

He nodded acknowledgement.

A second later, she launched herself off the ground and took cover in the growing piles of rubble.

His attention turned to Chat Noir who wasn’t moving.

“Talk to me, Kit Kat!” Carapace shook his shoulder, but there was nothing, not so much as a groan.

Up close, Chat looked even worse - like he had been chewed up and swallowed by a dinosaur, only to be spit back out. Carapace could only imagine how much pain he was in. Carapace had been knocked around more than his fair share in this line of work, but he’d never taken a hit that vaporized the suit away!

He carefully rolled Chat to his side and then to his back, trying not to touch his injuries, which was almost impossible as they covered more than a third of his body. He was completely limp. Carapace leaned his cheek to Chat’s mouth, feeling for any signs of breathing.

There wasn’t any.

Carapace sucked in his own breath, his throat threatening to squeeze shut, and dread twisted his gut like a coiled snake.

Carapace had seen Chat Noir put under mind control, transformed into various inanimate objects, erased or vaporized from existence. But he had never before had to confront a lifeless body.

But surely the ladybugs could bring him back, right?

Another volley of missiles struck the outside of his barrier, the ground underneath them tilting sideways. The shield was holding.

The sound of static buzzing filled the air and Chat’s transformation dropped.

Carapace was completely unprepared. They were adults. They hadn’t timed out in ages. And he jerked his gaze away, but unfortunately, Carapace could recognize his own best friend from just his clothes and shoes.

Especially when he had his face pressed to that shirt not thirty minutes prior.

His gaze whipped back up to the painfully familiar face, now marred with gashes and a rapidly forming bruise on his chiseled chin.

“Opaque!” Carapace yelled. The translucent barrier turned a dark and solid green, though the cracks and fissures remained. He wouldn’t be able to see the battle, but that was better than losing Chat’s identity to all of Paris.

Adrien’s identity.

The same Adrien who befriended him in collège when he had fallen into almost total isolation after his older brother had disappeared, the Adrien who had coaxed him through his first gig, the Adrien who had nursed him through his break up with Alya, who had held his hand through his bisexual awakening, the Adrien who had never failed to be there for him.

The Adrien who was his very best friend who was currently not breathing.

Nino cradled his best friend’s head in his lap as hot burning tears fell onto Adrien’s cheeks.

“Carapace,” Chat’s kwami said. “He’s not okay.”

“But he’s going to be okay, right?” Carapace asked, his eyes never leaving Adrien’s pale and lifeless form. “As soon as Ladybug fixes everything?”

“Probably not,” Plagg said.

The two words struck him like a freight-train. His gut dropped out from underneath him as his heart rose up to his throat. His eyes burned, and the whole world went out of focus. He fell forward, his head pressed against Adrien’s as his sudden grief came out in wracking howls that sounded inhuman even to his own ears.

He rocked back and forth, still holding Adrien close - if Nino held him close enough and hard enough, maybe he wouldn’t leave him.

Nino knew that’s not how this worked. His throat cemented closed, and yet his devastated cries broke past the emotional blockade anyway.

“Carapace! Listen to me!” Plagg flew right into his face. “There’s a chance to save him! I need you to keep his heart going until Ladybug does her thing!”

“W-what?” Nino stammered, staring at the kwami in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Turtle boy!” Plagg barked. “I need you to focus! Hands on his chest! Now! I will not lose this kitten!”

“You mean, like CPR?”

“Yes! Now!”

Nino scrambled to comply, laying Adrien’s prone head gently on the ground, trying to ignore the stains of red on his own arms. He placed his hands on his friend’s chest. With elbows locked, Nino started pressing down hard over and over again.

“Faster!” Plagg directed. “Don’t stop!”

Nino tried to focus on his own hands, and not on the hot tears slipping down over his mask, or the blood seeping on the cement to his knees, or the angry deep cuts that slashed across Adrien’s face, or Adrien’s closed eyes that might never open again.

Nino tried to stamp down on his rising panic, tried to hold back the torrent of grief and tears, but he was failing. His whole form was crumpling in on itself as the wracking sobs kept coming in unrelenting waves despite his best efforts to hold them at bay.

“Don’t stop!” Plagg shouted again, diving towards Adrien’s jean pockets.

Nino swallowed his fear and his devastation, forced it down until his gut swam sickenly. He fought off his desire to fold into a ball and howl to the universe about how this couldn’t happen.

Instead, he forced himself to keep pressing down and up, and then down and up again on Adrien’s chest. It was a drum beat that he had to maintain, he couldn’t stop no matter how much his arms and shoulders burned in complaint.

Because if he stopped, the world might end.

If it hadn’t already.

Plagg reappeared with Adrien’s phone in hand. A minute later he placed the device against Adrien’s bruised chin. A youtube tutorial on CPR was playing. Nino adjusted his rhythm to match the rapid counting in the video. It became mindless at that point, which unfortunately meant he had more ability to think.

It didn’t seem like it was working. Adrien wasn’t responding at all, and he was losing more blood with every thrust of Nino’s arms if the dark pool of red black at his knees was any indicator.

Nino lost his pace for a second overwhelmed with fear. What if it didn’t work?

“Don’t stop!” Plagg shouted.

“He’s bleeding out!” Nino screamed back, syncing up with the video once again. “Aren’t I just making things worse?”

“Probably. I doubt anything is getting to his brain. But you’re not trying to revive him,” the kwami said, dismissively.

“I’m not?”

“No, you’re just trying to keep his soul here until Ladybug defeats the akuma.”

“His s-soul?” Nino stuttered over the word, his desperate sobs now coming in torrents.

His fucking soul? What was Nino supposed to do with that? It was too big and too much, and Nino didn’t know how to wrap his head around any of it.

“P-please, Dri,” Nino begged, his voice cracking on the nickname. “P-please, don’t leave me.”

Nino’s arms kept the rhythm, never losing the pace. Even transformed, his shoulders and triceps were burning in protest, but Nino ignored it. Wayzz would provide all the endurance he needed.

The sound of shattering glass exploded overhead, spiderweb cracks spreading all across the dome.

“Fuck.”

The shield couldn’t take another hit.

“Lose the transformation,” Plagg ordered.

Nino’s eyes whipped toward the cat kwami. “What?! Plagg! I don’t know how long I can do this without enhanced strength.”

“I will destroy anything that gets through until Wayzz has another shield up. You can’t do CPR and replenish our defenses over and over, simultaneously.”

“But… doesn’t a kwami using his power by himself make bad things happen?” ” Carapace objected out of habit, not because he particularly cared at the moment. Nino had never had the opportunity to see Wayzz without the limits of the miraculous.

“Something bad has already happened! This is called damage control! We don’t have time to argue!”

Another splintering crack overhead seemed to punctuate Plagg’s point.

“Wayzz, shell off,” Carapace whispered.

Immediately, his arms and back burned more intensely with the loss of the miraculous’s support, and Nino grunted with effort.

But he wouldn’t stop - not now, not ever. This was Adrien and he didn’t care if his arms fell off. He wasn’t going to give up on him.

“Cataclysm!” Plagg shouted, flying rapidly out of Nino’s line of sight. He didn’t worry about how much of the city block Plagg might take with him in destroying the incoming missiles, trusting the kwami would direct the damage AWAY from them. He didn’t worry about anyone being able to see his or Adrien’s identity. There was so much smoke that it wasn’t possible. And Nino didn’t worry about the fact that they were exposed or vulnerable.

Adrien was already dead. If they got hit, then at least they’d go together.

Black ash rained down around them like some kind of ominous snow.

“Opaque Shelter!” Wayzz called half a second after.

With the shield in place, Plagg whipped back down to Adrien’s shoulder watching intently.

“Come on, Pigtails,” Plagg grumbled. “We’re running out of time.”

Nino’s right arm spasmed in that moment, and he wasn’t sure if it was fatigue or the rising panic caused by Plagg’s words.

“No! We can’t be out of time!” Nino screamed as if Plagg could control when Adrien’s soul was gone. Nino wiped his snot on his own shoulder, and turned his glare on Adrien’s face. “Do you hear me, Dri?!” Nino screamed, unable to wipe the tears dripping from his eyes over his nose to fall on his own now bare hands. “You can’t give up on me! You can’t!”

This wouldn’t be Adrien’s last day on Earth.

It couldn’t be.

Because Nino didn’t know how to face the world without his best friend.

…

Adrien’s entire existence was pain. Everything was on fire - from the top of his head, through his body, to the tips of his fingers. All of it was pulsing in an agonizing rhythm. He thought the internal inferno centered on his chest, but his back felt like he had landed in a pool filled with glass shards. He couldn’t feel his legs at all, which considering how everything else was fairing, might have been a blessing.

But it was his chest that cried out as it was struck again and again without care for his fractured ribs.

Stop, he tried to say, begged from every inch of his mind. But the words would not form on his lips. Please, just let it end.

But the hammers to his chest kept coming, relentless and never ending. He urged his arms to action - to move, but every last bit of strength had been sapped away.

He prayed that it had been worth it - that Ladybug was alive and well - able to defeat the akuma without him.

But his condition suggested otherwise. If Ladybug was okay, he would be too.

Someone was crying hysterically just above him, well on their way to screaming. Their voice was broken and raspy.

It wasn’t Ladybug - the tone was too deep - but it struck a chord in him. He wanted to soothe it just the same.

I’ve survived worse, he wanted to tell the voice, though he had serious doubts if that was true. But being erased from the time continuum had to be worse, right?

“Dri?”

That was Nino. Adrien could only moan in response.

“Shit! Plagg, I think he’s awake.”

Why was Nino talking to Plagg? Plagg knew better.

“Don’t you dare stop!” his kwami ordered.

No. Please stop. It only came out as a whimper.

Something hot and wet fell onto his cheek. “I’m so sorry, du-” Nino’s voice cracked before he finished the word.

Nino was crying.

Adrien had made Nino cry. He hated that.

Adrien opened his eyes only to be assaulted with hard edges and burning lights that were far too bright. None of it made sense. He slammed them shut again, but it didn’t help. His head still wanted to split into halves.

“Dude! Take it easy!”

A warmth settled on his shoulder. Soothing vibrations pulsed through his neck. Like a cat’s purr.

Plagg?

“I know it hurts, kitten.”

Adrien would have laughed had he been able. Hurt did not begin to describe the agony he was in.

“But you will survive.”

The painful beat on his chest - so hard, so deep - like a stampede of gazelles were trampling over him - continued. It never stopped.

Adrien wasn’t sure he wanted to survive.

The sobs from the boy above him - deep cries of pure despair - made him reconsider. Adrien would survive anything - go through any torture - to soothe Nino’s pain.

Mercifully, everything faded.

When Adrien woke up again it was to a miraculously pain-free world. He sighed, his whole body easing in relaxation. The memory of his torture was already fading fast.

He opened his eyes again, but he still couldn’t bring the world into focus. There was a flash of green light of a miraculous transformation, but it was too bright. And Adrien let his eyes fall closed again.

He pressed his hands down for balance, expecting to find debris and jagged fragments on the sidewalk below him. But the cold ground was smooth and undamaged. His hands were bare - he wasn’t transformed. He should have been transformed, shouldn’t he? They had been fighting an akuma.

The ladybugs had healed everything. But then, why did his head still feel like thick fog?

“Dude! Can you hear me?”

He wetted his lips. “Nino?” Adrien asked, recognizing the voice.

There was a beat of silence. “Yeah, it’s me, dude. Can you sit up?”

Adrien attempted to do so, and was surprised at how hesitant his muscles were to respond to his wishes. He managed to prop himself up with Nino was bracing him on both sides. Adrien leaned into the support. What was wrong with his body?

“Why?” The word came out slowly, as if Adrien’s mouth was just remembering how to form the sounds. “Why... is the world spinning?”

Adrien wasn’t often one to complain, but usually, the ladybugs did a way better job.

“You sure he’s okay now?” Nino was asking. But who was he talking to? “Should I take him to a hospital?”

“He’s fine. The ladybugs healed him. The hospital wouldn’t know what to do with him now.”

Was that Plagg? Why was Plagg talking to Nino? Plagg should know better. Adrien clutched the sides of his head, in both hands. Why did nothing make sense?

But the nasally voice continued. “He wasn’t completely gone yet, so they could heal him. He’s physically fine now. Good job, turtle boy.”

“What about mentally?” Nino asked.

Adrien squeezed his eyes closed. They weren’t helping him anyway, only making him dizzy.

“You worry too much. He just needs twelve hours of sleep. He’ll be as perfect as a freshly opened wheel of camembert.”

Adrien snorted out a laugh. And it was surprisingly painless. He found himself smiling sleepily, and leaning into Nino’s chest, which felt a lot… more solid than normal.

“We don’t normally need twelve hours of sleep after a Miraculous Ladybug.” Nino’s voice was hard with frustration. “What’s different?”

“The difference is he died!” Plagg snapped back.

Adrien wanted to ask about that. What was the big deal? He had died countless times before, and it had never mattered before.

But the conversation faded away.

He woke again when he was laid down gently into his own bed. A heavy hand rubbed his shoulder soothingly. There was a beeping sound. A phone. And the hand disappeared.

Adrien whimpered at it’s loss.

“Yeah?” a familiar voice answered. It was still Nino. “LB, calm down. He’s okay. I took him home before anyone could see who he was. Plagg says he’ll be coherent again in twelve hours. I’ll tell him you want to see him for patrol tomorrow?”

And now Nino was talking to Ladybug like they knew each other well. It was like his worlds had smashed together like a meteor crashing onto the Earth’s surface and Adrien had somehow managed to sleep through the world ending collision.

Was any of this real? Was he dreaming?

He tried to sit up, but Nino’s sudden hand on his chest kept him down. Plagg curled up on his shoulder and started purring. Adrien stopped resisting and stayed down.

“Yes, he was healed,” Nino said. “I don’t know. Plagg said it was normal for him to be out of it for a while even with the ladybugs because of… how badly he was hurt.”

There was another pause, as the person on the other side of the conversation - presumably Ladybug - responded.

“I promise he’s okay. Yeah… of course. I’ll be right there.” And the comforting weight on his chest vanished.

“Plagg?” Nino called. “Can you let him know that he has a patrol with Ladybug tomorrow at the normal time? I gotta run.”

Adrien’s chest tightened at that announcement.

“You’ll call me if anything changes?” Nino continued.

“Sure, kid,” Plagg said, still curled up on Adrien’s shoulder.

Adrien tried to sit up again, but his body wasn’t listening to his brain. “N-Ni…no?” he forced the name past his lips. Why was it so hard to speak?

The smooth gloved hand was on his chest again, easing his anxiety. “Just rest, mec.”

But the hand disappeared again too fast and too soon.

“D-don’t… g-go,” Adrien managed to string together.

The comforting presence came back, and this time Adrien pinned Nino’s arm to his chest with both his hands, determined to keep him there this time. “Okay,” Nino reassured, and slid into the bed lying prone alongside him. Adrien’s body finally melted in relief.

“I’ll stay until you go to sleep,” Nino said.

For a beautiful moment all the tension in his body seeped away, and he just let himself drift. But a few seconds later, he processed Nino’s words and his eyes shot open.

Because Adrien didn’t want to sleep. Something was clearly wrong. He looked frantically around at the walls, ceiling, and furniture. Adrien recognized none of it. There were too many lights and colors and none of it made any sense, and it felt like the walls were closing in on him. What the hell was wrong with him?

“N-Nino?” Adrien called, his eyes burned and his throat was closing off. “W-what…?” but he couldn’t get the rest of the words out. And it was hard not to panic. His breathing quickened, and his heart took off like there was a race to be won.

He sucked in air frantically, because he wasn’t getting any. His chest spasmed painfully, and his arms were shaking, and his fingers tingling. The tremors spread to his extremities, the numbness only a second behind. He tried to stop the convulsing, he tried to hold it still, but he couldn’t do it. The pinpricks spread to his head, and his vision spun worse than it already was.

“Dude!” Nino jumped in, clutching Adrien’s head in either hand. His hands were gloved and hard.

Was it really Nino? It didn’t feel like Nino, and Adrien didn’t trust his eyes that were incapable of making sense of anything at the moment.

“You need to stay calm. Breathe with me,” Nino said, their foreheads pressed together, but Nino was wearing some kind of hood - it was hard… like Chat Noir’s armor.

“Dri!”

The exclamation cut through all of Adrien’s panicked thoughts. That was definitely Nino. Whatever he physically felt like, no one else called Adrien that. Nino had come up with the diminutive nickname a few years ago, shortly after he had broken up with Alya. He didn’t use it often - it was usually dude, mec, man, guy, but in the quiet moments, Nino would call him Dri. And Adrien loved it, especially when Nino was the one saying it.

“Can you do that, Dri? Breathe in slowly.”

And Adrien trusted Nino more than anyone, except maybe Ladybug, and even then, he thought it might be a tie.

And so he listened. He breathed in deeply and slowly on a count of four before letting it back out again for another slow count of four from his best friend.

His panic gradually receded. And he just lay there keeping his eyes closed, his hand clinging onto Nino’s - when had he even grabbed Nino’s hand - as if his life depended on it.

Nino was still wearing the thick solid gloves.

Nino didn’t wear gloves. Not ever.

“What happened?” Adrien asked slowly, pleased that the words strung together fully and clearly.

Nino’s grip tightened. “I promise I’ll explain it to you later, Kit-Kat. Plagg says you need rest.”

Had Nino just called him Kit-Kat?

“Plagg always…” Was he seriously talking about Plagg with Nino? This had to be a dream. “Plagg always votes-” Adrien’s sentence was punctuated by a yawn, “-for laziness.”

“I think Plagg may be onto something this time,” Nino said.

Adrien wanted to argue. He hated it when people didn’t explain things. When people kept secrets. And he knew he was the biggest hypocrite on that front, but he would have told Nino everything years ago if it had been his choice.

But his head was growing heavy, and his thoughts were still smothered in a muggy fog, so he didn’t protest.

“I love you, Dri,” Nino whispered. “You have no idea how much. Please. Please, don’t ever do that to me again.”

I love you, too.

…

Chapter 4: Fallout

#adrino #adrinino #friends to lovers #slow burn #Adrien Agreste #Nino Lahiffe #temporary character death #mentions of blood #anxiety #panic attacks #hurt comfort #romance #battle scenes are also hard #right behind you #my own content #miraculous ladybug fan fiction

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

Text

Beth’s Template in S11

Okay Bethyl Enthusiasts! Here goes!

I’ve been promising to talk to you about exactly what I think will happen in S11 with Beth’s arc, and that’s what I’m going to do today. I’ve had a basic idea of things for a while, now, but these bonus episodes and their epic symbolism have really kicked things into high gear. They’ve helped me see things more clearly and even helped give me a more definitely (disclaimer: though still somewhat fluid) timeline for how/when it will all happen.

So, of course we all hoped to see her in ep 22. But if he we had, it would have had to have been in a coda. Like a preview of some kind. Because they didn’t quite get to the part of the story where I’m expecting to see her. But I’ll get into that in more detail.

So, we’ve been saying for a while that we think she’ll come through Eugene’s storyline, so that’s what I’ll be focusing on here. Because that’s specifically what I think we’ll see in S11. @wdway has found a TON of Beth symbolism around Eugene. She did most of her investigating and reporting over the long, CoVid hiatus, but I haven’t gotten around to posting much of it. Maybe I still will. We’ll see. There’s been so much to talk about lately.

Let me also state that, while I firmly believe we’ll see Beth in S11, I don’t think we’ll get to the point where Daryl will see her. And yes, that kinda sucks. But they probably won’t have their reunion until the spinoff. I know the Bethyl reunion is what we’re all waiting for, but hey, at least once we see her, we’ll know it’s coming, right?

So let’s start by going through the relevant template.

I’ve mentioned parts of this before, so I apologize if any part of it is repetitive. But it will help you if you understand not just what I believe we’ll see, but why.

So, let’s return to 6x08/09. At the end of 6x07, the church fell and all the walkers got into Alexandria. Eugene ends up in a garage with Tara and Rosita. They can’t get into the house connected to the garage because the dividing door is locked. After a discussion between the two ladies about whether they’re going to give up hope or else “do something,” Eugene offers to pick the lock and they get inside.

Inside, Morgan was keeping Creepy Wolf Dude (who I’ll abbreviate CWD) in the basement. He brought Denise (Beth proxy) in to patch up his injury, which she does. Carol wants to kill CWD and tries, but Morgan stops her. He’s on his “all life is precious” kick and ends up body slamming Carol, so she passes out. But when his back is turned, CWD also hits him over the head, so Carol and Morgan are both down for the count.

Just then, Eugene, Rosita and Tara enter, but CWD takes Denise hostage and leaves.

Everyone with me?

Okay, let’s start with Denise. Because of the way she died, Daryl’s reaction to her death, and AALLLLLL the Beth symbolism around her, she’s clearly a proxy for Beth. So what I’m going to argue is that this little sequence is a foreshadow and template for how she’ll be reintroduced into the show. Notice how Daryl isn’t present in any of these scenes. So again, this is how we, the audience will see her. Not how Daryl will first see her. Kapish? Okay.

So, I think Eugene unlocking the door to a new place represents him finding or “unlocking” a new community. Kinda like the one he, Yumiko, Zeke, and Princess are now in the process of discovering.

How did we come up with that? I honestly don’t remember in detail. Like I said, it’s something we’ve discussed for a long time. I think we started with Denise=Beth and worked backward from there. It kind of feels like out of all the members of TF, Eugene will see her first, but then she’ll be taken away from him right away.

Now, he’s in the midst of discovering new people/a new community. A few other pieces of evidence for this:

1) Before they run into the garage, right after the church falls, Eugene gets on the radio and calls for help. Remember, Daryl hears him? So that parallels to Eugene talking with Stephanie via the radio.

2) If you go through the dialogue of Rosita and Tara in this scene and compare it to dialogue in the scene in 10x16 between Yumiko and Ezekiel (the scene where his horse dies) the parallels are ridiculous. They aren’t the exact same lines of dialogue, but the meanings and chronology of it is almost exact.

3) In terms of Denise = Beth, before she patches up Creepy Wolf Dude, she says to him, “show me the wound.” In Rick’s dream in 9x05, we heard Beth’s voice say, “What’s your wound?” It’s almost like they were trying to show us that Denise = Beth and that this template would play out with her return.

Okay, I hope that’s all clear. Shit’s about to get really interesting.

Before we continue, I want to remind you of THIS POST I did about 5x09. If you haven’t read it, I suggest doing so. I talk about the radio voice in 5x09 and how it talks about “attacks against the republic.” We couldn’t have known what that meant before, but now it’s clear that it’s a foreshadow of the CRM and the CRM war, which won’t happen until the spinoff.

It’s super interesting because Andrew Lincoln was the radio voice (he’s currently with the CRM) but he has his English accent. (I’ll tell you why that’s important in a minute. It wasn’t a casual or irrelevant choice on the writers’ parts.) So if that suggests Rick being with the CRM, which he is, it’s kind of interesting that Beth’s voice, singing “Struggling Man” also comes out of the radio at first, before we see her sitting there singing it. That suggests that she, too, will be with the CRM and part of the CRM war. None of Ty’s other death hallucinations spoke from the radio. I’m just saying.

The voice there even mentioned brutal attacks against the republic, including setting people on fire and hacking them with machetes. And that’s important because that’s just what the wolves did at Alexandria, and in the above template, we have CWD taking Denise (Beth). So it’s all interconnected.

But even so, I’ve had a hard time nailing down what it means and what the story line will actually be when Beth return.

Enter episode 10x21 and @bluesandbeth’s inspired research.

In ep 21, Carol snoops around in Daryl’s room and finds the book “The Golden Age of Piracy.” Now, I’ll admit I didn’t look into this reference very extensively because I THOUGHT I knew what it meant. We had a “pirates” reference between Daryl and Carol in 10x01, when they first discussed leaving together on his bike. Since we already know they’ll be leaving together for the spinoff, that conversation was a foreshadow of what will happen in the spinoff. And if you’ve been following my posts, you know that I see their whole arc in the bonus episodes (6x18 and 6x21) as a foreshadow of that same story line. So to me it was just another confirmation of the spinoff arc.

Then @bluesandbeth contacted me because she’d been looking into the Golden Age of Piracy book. She looked up the author and found out some interesting things. This author is real and basically wrote two kinds of historical books. (X) Books about piracy, and books about the American Revolutionary War. The author wrote a book called Greene and Cornwallis. (X)

Yikes! Yes, Greene is a real person and a patriot who stood against Cornwallis in the Revolutionary War. But what are the chances the writers use an author who just happens to have written a book with Beth’s last name in the title?

Historically, Nathaneal Greene was George Washington’s top general and right hand man during the war. I’ll come back to him. For now, it’s enough that he shares Beth’s last name.

I immediately hopped online to see what @bluesandbeth was seeing and look for more. And boy did I stumble upon a treasure trove!

I noticed a second book by this author called Swamp Fox. (Full title is Francis Marion: Swamp Fox.)

Now, you may wonder why that caught my attention. It’s not anything I ever posted about. It has to do with Leah. While me and my fellow theorists were discussing her and episode 10x18 endlessly, we noticed that Leah often wore a fox-fur scarf:

We conjectured back and forth about what it meant. Foxes, just like most animals, can have many different symbolic meanings depending on what culture you’re looking at. They’re often seen as sneaky and wily and deceptive, so we wondered if it was a reference to the writers “deceiving” us because Leah is a hallucination. But that was about the best we could come up with.

Well, when I saw the title of Swamp Fox, I immediately thought of Leah. And of course symbolically, Leah = Beth. So I decided to investigate.

And guess what? When I started reading about the Swamp Fox book, all the stuff from the S6 template above and the 5x09 stuff about Beth being part of the CRM war started clicking into place so fast, it made my head spin.

The Swamp Fox is about Francis Marion, a real man and patriot who also fought against the British during the American Revolutionary war. He’s the guy Mel Gibson’s character in The Patriot is based on. He faced down Cornwallis (one of the main British generals during the American Revolution) and was awesome at guerilla tactics and staying hidden. You know, in the swamp. Hence, they called him Swamp Fox.

Does that sound familiar to you? Think about what Andy Lincoln/Radio Voice said in 5x09 about Guerilla warfare and attacks against the Republic. You could describe Francis Marion’s military career any better if you tried.

And then I went to Wikipedia to look up general information on Marion and pictures of the British flag are all over the place.

Okay, this is another thing that won’t be very familiar to you because I haven’t focused on it much. In one of the episodes of TWB, Julia Ormond’s character is at home and we see a huge British flag hanging on her wall. Not surprising, given that she’s British. But it was such a huge, blatant symbol, and the camera focused on it for so long, that we figured it had to mean something. We just didn’t know what. The best we could figure is the colors (blue and red) and the fact that there’s both a huge X and a T/cross on the British flag.

Well, I now know what that symbol represents in TWD world. Reading about Marion and seeing the British flag on his Wikipedia page made it all make sense to me.

In short, Francis Marion, a.k.a. The Swamp Fox = Beth. She’s going to be the second-in-command general/guerilla warfare expert against the CRM. That’s why they had all that stuff in 5x09 when we saw her and heard her sing. The reason for the British flag is that Julia Ormond’s character = Cornwallis.

Read up on Francis Marion HERE.

(This is also why I said it’s important that in 5x09, they had Andrew Lincoln use is British accent for the radio broadcast. It’s meant to be from the point of view of the CRM, which symbolically represent the British in the template.)

So they’re using the American Revolution as a loose template for how the CRM war will go.

Back to Nathaneal Greene of Greene and Cornwallis? Yeah, same thing. Greene was George Washington’s direct under-general and right-hand man. Kind of like a…second or new sheriff? In the CRM war, George Washington = Rick and Nathaneal Greene = um, Greene (Beth).

More on Nathaneal Greene HERE.

But here’s the thing. None of that is going to happen until the spinoff. So why am I talking about it for S11? Well, it has to do with Charleston.

You can look this up on Wikipedia for more details, but Charleston was an event that was huge for Francis Marion. It was Charleston, South Carolina in that case. And it was a stronghold that the colonists were holding against the British. Then one day, the British attacked and took everyone there as prisoners of war. Marion WAS stationed there at the time, but he wasn’t there when the attack happened because he’d BROKEN HIS ANKLE in an accident and left the city to recuperate.

Okay. Anyone recognize Charleston in terms of Eugene or TWD world?

When talking to Stephanie over the radio, he got her to finally tell him where her settlement was. Any guesses? Charleston.

Now, in this case, it’s Charleston, West Virginia, but I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the writers went with the same name, even if it’s a different state.

So, here’s how I think it will play out.

I don’t think Stephanie’s group is actually the Commonwealth, or at least not the major, Commonwealth city everyone knows from the comic books. They DO have the white storm trooper guys, so I think they’re linked to the CW somehow. Like maybe they’re a branch of the CW in the same way Grady might have been an outlying branch—or at least in communication with—the CRM.

So again, maybe they’re PART of the CW, but they’re not living with the main group.

So, I think Eugene’s group will be taken to Charleston in S11 (that should happen next) and they will see Beth there. I have no idea if Eugene will recognize her or not. Given that we still don’t know what went down during the missing 17 days after Coda, and Eugene was hurt, we don’t know if he actually saw Beth at all or if he was out during that time. I’ve agonized over this a lot, but understanding this new template, I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t really matter. Maybe he’ll recognize her. Maybe he won’t. But either way, he’s not going to be in the same place with her for long.

I think soon after Charleston will be attacked. Now, historically, it was by the British, right? And because Julia Ormond’s character = Cornwallis, it’s got to be the CRM who attack Charleston. And we’ve seen them do this with other communities in TWB, so it makes sense.

But here’s where I had the S6 template wrong for a long time. Because CWD takes Denise, I thought a group would attack Stephanie’s community and take prisoners, and Beth would be taken with them, while Eugene and the others were left behind.

But because of the Marion/Swamp Fox/Charleston thing, I think the opposite is true. Sounds like Eugene and co will be taken as prisoners by the CRM. Why did they do it the opposite way in S6? Because they couldn’t have had all the Alexandrians taken and Denise left behind. It just wouldn’t have worked for that S6 storyline. The point is mostly the separation. Eugene gets into a new place, briefly sees her, and then they’re separated.

So Charleston will be attacked and all the people (probably including Eugene, Yumiko, and Zeke) get captured by the CRM. If Beth is Marion, then she won’t be there when it happens.

I’m wondering if she’ll be out in the woods, hunting or getting supplies or something, and this is where she’ll step in the bear trap, injuring her ankle. That would fulfill all the bear trap symbolism around her, including Alone when she stepped in the small game trap. Just a guess on my part, but I think it’s highly likely.

Even if I’m wrong about that detail, I think she’ll be away from the Charleston community, just as Marion was, when the CRM captures the people there.

This is why it doesn’t really matter whether Eugene recognizes her or not. If he doesn’t, and they don’t realize they know the same people, she won’t know that Maggie and Daryl are (relatively) nearby. I think at this point she’ll go to try and rescue the people from the community who were captured (if she’s been with them for awhile, there are probably people there she cares about) and that’s how she’ll run into Rick and first cross paths with the CRM.

She and Daryl will meet down the road at a later date.

Even if Eugene DOES recognize her and she knows about TF, I still think she’s going to go try and rescue her friends before attempting to go to D.C. because they’re in more immediate danger and she’ll have some loyalty to them.

So, this is what I think we’ll see in S11. And I have no idea where it will cut off. Maybe the last thing we’ll see with Eugene in S11 is the fall of Charleston. Or maybe that will happen in episode 2. I really have no idea.

But I’m going to mention one other thing before I stop for today. I know this is getting wrong.

Who is Creepy Wolf Dude in this template? I mean, the wolves attacked Alexandria, so we could assume it’s just the CRM, and maybe a particular person in the CRM. Might be.

But rewatching 6x08, something caught my ear.

Morgan and Carol were arguing about whether or not to kill Creepy Wolf Dude, right? She keeps saying he needs to die. Morgan keeps saying no. And then we have a really interesting conversation.

Carol (talking about wolves): They made us kill. We had to stop it. I had to stop it.

Morgan: Where there’s life, there’s possibility. Even if we never let him out—

CWD: I’d get out.

Morgan (talking over him): Even if we never let him out, he could know what he’s done.

Who else killed and made TF kill? And rather than killing this person, they put him into a cell, vowing never to let him out. But he got out?

Negan! They’re basically talking about Negan’s fate after AOW here.

And guys, that’s CRAZY. I think CWD = Negan.

And I have more evidence for this.

In the TTD after 5x09, I remember that Nicotero was on it. And they were talking about how intrigued CWD was by Denise. I think it was Chris who said something like (and I paraphrase), “I guess it wouldn’t be right to say he fell in love with her or anything…”

And Nicotero corrected him and said CWD kinda did fall in love with Denise. Maybe not in a lifelong, deep, abiding love like we see with Bethyl/Glaggie/Richonne/Etc., but he’d never met anyone like her and he was intrigued by her. He fell in love with her as much as a killer like him could fall in love with someone.

Then, in 7x16, we had Sasha’s death. We went on and on about all the Beth symbolism around Sasha in that episode. It was ridiculous! Kind of like these bonus episodes had been. And Negan…kinda liked Sasha. I mean, I don’t think anyone would have described it as falling in love, but he liked and respected her. Said she had beach-ball-sized lady nuts and he truly respected her and was sad to see her die.

So I think these are both templates that point to what will happen next.

(BTW, Eugene was present for a LOT of Sasha’s final episodes.)

The main reason we always thought Beth would show up with the Saviors is because of the Negan (bat, actually) symbolism around her. But if she and Negan have a major arc together or interaction later on, all of that will suddenly make sense.

So again, I’m not sure if we’ll see this in S11 or if it will come later, but I think after Charleston falls, Negan and Beth will somehow meet (maybe he leaves the communities at some point) and have a lot of scenes and episodes together.

All right. I’ll stop there. Do I know any of this for certain? Of course not. As always, it’s subject to change. Especially the details. And the instant I see anything that changes my thinking or makes me realize I interpreted something wrong, I’ll let you know.

But my biggest point is that this really SHOULD be the next thing we see with Eugene’s group. Of course, this is TWD and it might still take us 8 or 10 or more episodes to get there as they have a lot of things to focus on S11. But it’s coming. And soon.

Remember that S11 is scheduled to start in June. So we don’t have long to wait. (Yay!)

Thoughts?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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writefinch · 4 years

Text

Family-Owned Small Business

(CN: incest, sex work, mentions of sexual assault & suicidal ideation)

The worst part of my job is administration. Last-minute rescheduling when a client flakes on us. Chasing up payments. Booking accommodation at short notice. Answering messages! Jesus, every time in the last year when I've slumped, sighed, and thought to myself "fuck working, I need a break from all this" it's been when I've opened my messages and seen thirty different texts that need a reply. Some people are fine with it I guess, but for me it's boring, time consuming, and stressful.

Big deal though, right, I mean nobody loves doing admin, why even bring it up? Well, if I tell someone that for work last night I ate a client's cum out of my mom's pussy, I'd expect that they'd get fixated on the sex work and the incest. I'd expect them to freak out and not pay attention to the specifics of what I'm saying. So, first, I'd like that person to know that the thing I hate about my job is probably the same thing that *they* hate about *their* job. I would rather lick my mom's asshole for five minutes than answer emails for five minutes, and I answer a lot of emails.

Do we have to worry about violence, danger, cops, and legal trouble? Yeah, we do. Am I scared of these things? Yeah, sometimes, but I had to worry about all of those things before I started doing sex work. At least now we've got the money to buy our way out of the worst of it.

I'm not saying that what I do with mom is an objectively healthy relationship, let alone a perfect one. If you took me back in time and told me I could pick a completely different life for me and my mom, I'm sure there's a bunch of choices I'd pick over this one. But I never had that choice. I got hurt a lot growing up. I feel like I've finally escaped the things that hurt me, but I know that I've barely started to recover from them.

That's why I'm writing this. We've saved enough money to afford some therapy and my first session is next week. I want help with the fear, the nightmares, the mood swings and insomnia, I want to stop the rush of rage and terror that flows through me every time I see the word 'dad,' I want help untangling the stuff that came out of being told I was a pansy when I was growing up, then figuring out I'm gay, then figuring out I'm a girl, then figuring out I'm all three of those things while I was living in a place that kept trying to kill me for it. What I don't want is for the psych to pin it all on the two least harmful and least fucked-up things about my life, and worse, I don't want them to make me believe it. This journal is a prophylactic, an assessment of my job, my relationships and my life that I can refer back to if and when someone sticks their fingers in my brain and swirls them around.

I'll start with a problem statement: my dad. The memories that hurt the most are the ones where he almost appeared human, the flickers of joy, curiosity and humor that stood out from the bland cruelty that made up the rest of his personality. I'll remember him buying me ice cream or talking about a book or a movie with me, I'll doubt myself and wonder if I just went crazy and cut him out of my life for no reason, and then my brain will hook onto a random act of sadism he inflicted on me.

The physical abuse was bad all on its own, real psycho shit like driving me out into the woods and making me pick through the brush for a switch he could hit me with and a whole lot more I won't go into, but the emotional abuse was worse. When I was eleven, I forgot to feed my cat one day. He gave her away to my uncle, but told me that she'd developed malnutrition and had to be put down. I didn't find out the truth for another two years, when he just let it slip at Easter. He bragged about it, even, like he'd invented a really smart child-rearing technique. I don't want to write too much down here because I don't need to, if anything I want therapy to *stop* everything he did from running through my head. He's a punishment-obsessed sadist, a Baptist, and he works as a judge. Did he ever sexually abuse me? No. Parent of the year, right? He kicked me out for being a fag the day I turned eighteen, so it's ironic that my biggest fear is that he comes looking for me. He doesn't even know I'm a girl.

On the other hand, my mom has had an interesting life. She's kind of a fuck up. When I was one year old, mom and dad split and dad got full custody--being a judge helped with that--while mom left the state. She spent a decade trying to kick a heroin habit and a year and a half in prison for related stuff, got banned from even entering the state I lived in on account of her parole--again, dad being a judge helped with that--illegally emigrated to Canada for a while, and went to Oregon by mistake, doing a mixture of bartending, delivery driving, MDMA dealing and whoring to stay afloat.

The only reason we met again is that I was in the same city staying with friends, also whoring. I don't remember the first time I saw her, but the first time we talked was in a mutual friend's tiny studio apartment with a few other hooker friends. We ended up comparing our Pest Lists, shared a few drinks, and swapped numbers. A week later we fucked, and a month after *that* we realized that we'd Oedipus'd ourselves. It seems funnier now than it did at the time.

That was an emotional time. We cried with joy that we'd found each other, we started tip-toeing around the ideas of rebuilding our lives together, and we agreed to pretend that the sex had never happened. Of course, we got drunk together a week later and fucked again. She's hot! I have a thing for older women, I have a thing for breaking taboos, and I have a thing for being mommied in bed. Blame dad for raising me like this, I dunno.

We started doing sex work as a team after she got a dental abscess. The bill for the hospital stay and the tooth removal was insane, and the dentist straight-up told her that she'd end up with another in a different tooth within a year if she didn't get two root canals. Even when she was recovering, we could only afford fish antibiotics off of Amazon. We crunched some numbers and made some inquiries, and figured out that we could pull in two week's worth of our combined income with one night of mother-daughter stuff.

Our first joint session was with a real estate pervert I'll call Stan, a chubby balding powerlifter in his fifties who we'd both had as a client before. Mom took me over her knees and switched between spanking me and fingering me while he watched. I sucked him off while mom made out with him, made out with my mom with his cock between our lips, licked his balls as mom licked my ass, then let him fuck my ass while mom sat on my face. That was the first half hour. He came six more times before we passed out in the early hours of the morning, and I drifted off nursing his finally-limp cock in my mouth. He paid us the price of a used Volkswagen for our trouble, and I blew him one last time before we left as a thank-you.

Six months later, mom's teeth were fixed, I was on spiro, and we had just under a dozen clients for our "doubles sessions." Only a few of our appointments are ones with me and mom together, three or four a month, we mostly work alone. That's not out of a deliberate choice, it's just that we've got a strict criteria for who we'll double up on.

Trust is one thing: depending on the lawyers we can afford, what we're doing is either kinda illegal or extremely illegal. Since my dad is presumably still a judge, I don't want him to ever find out about this. He'd put us in a prison or a mental institution. We won't do a double session with a client unless we've both had individual sessions with them.

Money is the other thing. Getting your dick sucked by a hot mom while her daughter sucks your balls costs a week's wages for the average person. Hiring us for the night is more like a month's wages. Even in a city like this, there's only a few thousand people that can drop that kind of money on hookers. Then, they've got to *want* to fuck a trans girl and her mom together. Don't get me wrong, more people are into mother-daughter incest than you'd expect, but it's not a universal thing.

Clients are, on average, annoying. It's a fact of life. The thing that all clients have in common is a ton of disposable income and a fondness for fucking hookers. They're not necessarily bad people, but there’s a heavy ‘What can a banana cost, ten dollars?’ vibe to them. It’s not that they’re adrenochrome-drinkers who don’t see regular people as human, it’s more that they don’t have an intuitive awareness that other people don’t have savings accounts, health insurance, an investment property, and four figures of walking-around money at any given time. I guess I'd feel differently if I was like, a concierge or a PA, but there's a lot more pillow talk in my job.

I've had bad and dangerous clients before, there's been at least two occasions where I was pretty sure I was going to die--one where the hospital afterwards stay wiped out four months of income, not counting the month where I couldn’t work--but they were all before I met mom, when I couldn't be so careful about screening prospective clients and dropping them if they threw up red flags. I'm sure we'll get bad clients in the future, but we're in a better place to deal with them safely.

I also wanna write down what a "normal day" is like. Friday was a good example. I woke up early at 9am and cooked breakfast for mom. She was up already doing the laundry. We entertain some clients in our apartment, so we go through a lot of clothes and a lot of sheets. You can't fuck a guy on top of another guy's cum stains, that's rude. Some of the job is Housework But More. We don't really use the main bedroom or the sitting room because we treat them like bed and breakfast guest rooms. It's annoying but every time we have a session without getting an actual hotel or motel room we save like $50 minimum.

After breakfast I epilated, showered, and went for a run. Personal grooming isn't that big a deal in terms of time, I'm not saying I don't spend a lot of time on it, I do, but I'd be spending that time even if I worked in a bar or an office or something. Look: I'm hot. I might have been a weird-looking spotty nerd when I thought I was a boy, but as a girl I'm a fucking dime. I could get like, 25% uglier before it had any impact on my earnings. The only part of personal grooming that's necessary for sex work and I wouldn't do all the time anyway is power-washing my guts an hour before every session.

After lunch, mom went to see some friends and I played Magic for a few hours. At two pm, the actual work started. I picked up the work phone for the first time that day and began answering texts. An hour later I'd cancelled the 6pm appointment, blocked out all of Sunday evening, checked in with a few regulars, and provisionally moved three guys to the 'Time Wasters' list.

I spent a while sexting with a good prospect. He was a good prospect because he paid up-front for the sexting instead of treating it like a free samples platter at Costco. We scheduled a tentative appointment for next Tuesday, when his wife would be out of town on a business trip. Most of the guys I fuck have kinks, and I swear that 'cheating on your wife with a sex worker' is the most common one there is. Do I feel bad about it? At my hourly rate, absolutely not.

Mom got back at half four, so I took a break. We made tacos for lunch together and ate while watching Billions. She nudged me and told me that I need to do my injection, and, well, we have a little ritual for that. I'm scatterbrained and I'm not great with needles, but mom has been incredibly supportive with my HRT, and when I told her I was having problems taking them on time, she came up with a way to make me as comfortable as possible. As soon as the needle is ready, I laid down in her lap and she cradled my head in her arms, pressing her bare chest against my face. I took a nipple into my mouth and nursed it softly while she stroked my hair. She called me a good girl, telling me how proud she is of her daughter, how much she loves me, and asked if I was going to take my medicine like a big girl. On good days I inject myself while she pets me and coos over me, and on bad days she takes the needle and does it for me. As soon as I dropped the needle in the sharps container, mom pressed a Hitachi against my cock and took one of my nipples into her mouth, called me her big brave girl, and asked if I was gonna cum for mommy.

As usual, the answer was yes.

Late afternoon and early evening is when the messages start flowing in, especially on Fridays, when the kinds of people with hooker money have either left work early and thinking about getting laid, or are still held up at work and are desperately thinking about getting laid. This kind of messaging gets trickier, because it comes down to what I'm providing. Like, setting up a session is the kind of normal administrative stuff that's baked into the price of a session. It's also partly a sales job, so I'm naturally flirty and solicitous, and because I do sex work I talk openly about sex.

However, *sexting* is not normal administrative stuff. If I'm sending you messages for jerking-off purposes, I can charge by the hour or by the text but I will insist on charging for it. Also, it's not just sex that me and mom provide. There's a reason that 'companionship' is an old euphemism for whoring, it's because whores are good company. I'm a good listener and I don't judge, which means I'm like the fun parts of a therapist but without all the homework and self-improvement. I'm (unsurprisingly) friendly with all of my clients, and I have more than a few clients and former clients who I'd consider good friends and vice versa. I talk to a bunch of them outside of a business context, especially the ones I met outside of my job, and that's a normal part of maintaining a pool of clients for any sales job, but on the other hand... it's a demand on my time and it's a part of my services. I can and have bluntly told guys that they're wasting my time when it comes to uncompensated sexting, but the platonic stuff requires a lighter touch.

One of my regulars, Fintech Pete, sent me a message. Two messages later, he sent me $100, and we're off. Describing in gratuitous detail exactly how I'm going to suck his cock, begging him to fuck me until my clit is drooling all over the sheets, sending him feet pics, things of that nature. Pete is great for sexting because he barely jerks off while he's doing it, he saves all the messages and pictures and jerks off to them later, because he's got some biohacking routine where he only cums once a week. He said once that part of the reason he hires sex workers is that he takes each nut a lot more seriously if he's paying three digits minimum for the privilege. He does this teleconferencing report with the board of directors at his company four times a year, and every time he hires me to kneel under the desk in his home office and suck him off while he makes his presentation.

Anyway, while we were going back and forth like that, he mentioned that I'd made a joke one time about doing a joint session with my mom. I told him it wasn't a joke, and to cut a long story short, half an hour later I was asking mom if she was up for an overnight session starting at 9pm. She agreed, Pete confirmed, so we both got ready--think getting dolled up for a night out but with a more thorough enema--and drove to his place. He lived outside of town in a two-bedroom suburban home, alone with his two dogs.

As soon as we were parked in his garage I did the safety call in front of him: I rang a friend of mine, told her we were visiting a friend, told her it was at the address I sent her earlier, and told her we'd call her again tomorrow morning. Was it really necessary to do that with someone like Fintech Pete? No, but practice makes permanent. If you let these things slip when there's no danger, eventually they'll slip when there is danger.

Now, I don't want to imply that I'm in a lot of danger! There's a reason that most of the faces you'll see on the Trans Day of Remembrance are of poor black and brown women, because real danger comes when you can't turn skeevy jobs, when you can't afford to take precautions, when you have to make the choice over and over between maybe starving and maybe getting murdered. I'm white, I've got a good support network, and I've been relatively lucky in that I can do all these things to minimize my risks. I've still got to do them, though! Things like safety calls are a good habit to get into and it helps all sex workers if there's an expectation that they've all got someone looking out for them.

...I get that there is some bravado creeping into this journal. I start off saying that admin is the worst part of the job and a page later I flippantly mention that the job has put me in the hospital. On a day to day basis yeah, the admin is the bit that sucks the most, but if you offered me a deal where the admin is twice as bad but I never took that session, I’d take it in a heartbeat. This job has left me with some scars. Any time something cold touches my wrist I get a vivid flash of the first time I had my hands zip-tied behind my back in a cop car. I've had nightmares all my life, and more than a few of my nightmares are about stuff that's happened since I got into sex work.

If it seems like I’m downplaying it, it’s because the harrowing stuff is where the job has gone wrong, it’s not baked into the everyday stuff, and most importantly it has nothing to do with my mom. The work I've done with her is some of the least stressful and dangerous I've had since I started this job, and whatever wounds I have, she's not the one who caused them.

On a more positive note, a cool thing about doing sessions with my mom is that we can dress pretty conservatively and still have it come off as insanely lewd. Mom wore a black cocktail dress with an imitation pearl necklace and her hair up in a bun, I was in a white blouse under a lambswool sweater, a pleated short skirt, cheap dark tights--Pete has a thing for tearing them--and patent leather shoes. When you're going to suck a guy's world entirely off alongside your mom, the more modestly you're dressed, the more perverted it looks. Out in the suburbs it also means you get to avoid the microskirts and fishnets look which screams to the neighbors 'I've just hired a pair of hookers' or the mid-range raincoat over microskirts and fishnets look which screams 'I've just hired a pair of pricey hookers."

Pete's living room looks like the back room of a Radio Shack, computer guts everywhere, every surface turned into a makeshift workbench. It's not a suitable place for lovemaking; I don't want to have to pull shards of a soundcard out of my perineum. His bedroom is a lot neater, with a king-sized bed to sit on, a ton of pillows to lounge up against, and a TV mounted on the wall. Mom poured out some wine, a mid-range red zinfandel that we'd picked up on the way, Pete brought out some imported dark chocolate that costs like $40/kg, and I swung my legs over his lap and turned on the Food Network. I took a bite of chocolate, mom took a sip of wine, and before either of us swallowed she pulled me into a deep kiss, mixing the wine and the chocolate. It's a good combination, and Pete enjoyed the show.

The night started off with chatting. None of us were in any rush, not with an overnight session, and since Pete has been a client for each of us for a while it was a pretty relaxed atmosphere. Pete's fingers danced over my thighs, absent-mindedly plucking ladders into the fabric as we talked baseball, business, sex work, the difference between the gentrified fag bar downtown and the really gentrified fag bar downtown, programming and other nerd shit, local politics, the contestants on Cutthroat Kitchen, just normal stuff. Mom and Pete started talking about fancy cooking stuff so I started annoying them both by claiming that sardines are just fully-grown anchovies, that DOP labels are all fake, and that instant grits are better than the regular ones until mom jabbed me with a finger and told me that my mouth should be put to better use elsewhere.

You know how some people say "Cilantro tastes like soap, that's why it's good?" Same thing for how weird it feels to go down on my mom. The first time I ever jerked off, watching a 144p clip of Rocco Sifreddi fucking a girl in the ass while flushing her head down a toilet bowl, knowing that this meant I was going to go to Hell unless I begged God for forgiveness and never did it again, I came so hard I passed out. It feels good, it feels wrong that it feels so good, and it feels even better because it feels so wrong.

She was already wet when I got between her legs. I kissed her clit and started licking, her bush tickling my nose and her thighs squeezing my ears. Fabric rasped over my head as she hiked her dress up to run her hand through my hair. Everything was muffled but I could hear kissing and clinking, and I knew that mom was undoing Pete's belt and jeans to give him a Catholic-quality handjob.

I got mom worked up, bucking her hips and getting all breathy, until she asked me to get up here and give her some help. I crawled up to his groin and winked up at him. He blushed and grinned back. Pete's not a bad-looking guy. I mean, I don't care about looks in general, I guess I can look at someone and say that objectively they're ugly, and if someone is beautiful it adds something to the experience, but like... it doesn't really figure into it. Obviously most johns don't look like supermodels but they're not uniformly ugly, as I said before the thing that johns have in common is being horny guys with a lot of disposable income. Still, Pete is towards the better-looking side of that scale.

...Okay there is one thing about him that's weirdly common for my clients, I call it 'John Balding:' where a guy is losing his hair but in a slow, uneven, and kinda weird pattern, so that even when they cross into being more bald than not, they never bite the bullet and shave it all off. Pete is only like 30% of the way through that process so it doesn't look terrible yet, but he's on that track.

Anyway, back to the sex. A fun thing about double blowjobs is that you can take them a whole lot slower than solo blowjobs. Me and mom have had a lot of practice so we go at about 1/4th speed and it feels twice as good. She started off by wrapping her hand around the shaft, slowly stroking it while she softly kissed the tip, and I licked his balls, gently lapping at one, then the other, cleaning away the day's sweat and musk, carefully taking both of them into my mouth at once. Mom swallowed half his length, and I started kissing my way up his shaft as she pulled back up, my lips touching the head as hers reached the very tip. She grabbed me by my hair and pulled me into a deep French kiss with his cock in the middle, precum mixing with spit, moaning as we felt him twitch and grunt, mom's hand on his balls and my hand on his shaft. We broke the kiss and repeated it in reverse, taking his cock in my throat as mom kissed her way down to his balls. He came after five minutes of gentle little schoolgirl kisses on each side of his cock from the pair of us. The first rope caught mom on her cheek, the second hit her hair, but I wrapped my lips tight around the head and sucked him dry before he could spill another drop.

You can't give a client a mother-daughter blowjob and not snowball the cum back and forth in front of him. We've done it enough times to get the timing down: wait until he sits up straight, because if you don't he'll be too dazed from nutting in your mouth to really appreciate it. Make sure he's looking at you, move your hair out of the way so it doesn't obstruct his view, open your lips so that a trickle of jizz almost sloshes out, move in close to your mom so that your noses are touching and it's clear that you're about to kiss, sink a palm into her tits as she grabs your ass, and then you gotta really go for it: wide-mouthed, feral, energetic, like you're trying to reach each other's sinuses. If a little bit of cum spills out because you're being so sloppy, that's a sign that you're doing it right. You're going to lick it up afterwards anyway.

We broke the kiss, I licked mom's face clean, and we took a break. We drank some more wine, he offered us cigarettes--the coolest clients are the ones that let you smoke indoors--and we cuddled and relaxed for a while with Guy's Grocery Games playing on the TV. Pete went to get some water, and returned with three bottles and a strip of Cialis. He downed two pills, we both stripped off--it was sweltering by that point--and got ready for the next round.

Mom played with his nipples and I got between his legs again, this time going lower than his balls to eat his ass out. Rimming is a trusted client privilege like the mom-daughter stuff is, except it's less about trusting them in the legal sense and more about trusting that it won't be grainy down there. I like it when a client is clean enough to rim, because I'm extremely good at it. Mom says she's better, she claims she once made a guy no-touch cum with a rimjob, but I don't fucking believe her.

He got hard after a minute of digging my tongue into his ass, but his cock was still super-sensitive so we figured we'd tease him for a while longer. We swapped places, mom ate his ass while he made out with me, squeezing my tits and playing with my cock. I like it when guys touch my tits, my cock is... fine, I guess? I don't viscerally dislike people touching it but it doesn't do much for me. After a minute of that he reaches around and works a finger into my asshole, which is much more my speed.

By the time he was two knuckles deep I looked down and saw his cock twitching, leaking precum onto his stomach. He seemed pretty worked up. I kissed his neck, nipped at his ear, and whispered, "Do you wanna breed me, Mister?"

He sure did.

I use condoms unless I've got an extremely compelling reason not to, and mom has a cool trick for getting them on. She grasped Pete's cock around the base, placed her lips around the tip, deepthroated the entire thing in a single stroke, and as she slowly lifted her head back up, his cock was neatly fitted with a condom.

As soon as I lubed up he put me on my back, pushed my ankles up to my ears, pressed his cock against my hole and sunk into me inch by inch. He muffled my moans with a kiss and rutted me into the bed. I gotta give it to him, all that biohacking and cardio is doing something right because he railed me at a fast, steady pace until my dick was leaking all over my tummy and I couldn't form sentences in my head any more. Mom made out with him as he finished, and at that point I was just babbling nonsense. He was gentle and cautious as he pulled out of me, stroking my hair as I reached down to take off his condom. I poured the contents out over my tits, slumping back against the headboard as mom licked them clean.

It wasn't yet midnight by then, and we went on like that through the night. Licking his feet, mom-daughter 69, him sucking my cock while mom rode his dick like a Sorority cowgirl champion, more wine, more double-blowjobs, tacking an extra $200 onto the fee for the privilege of pissing in my mouth instead of having to get up to go to the bathroom, a whole buffet of fun whore stuff.

We woke up at around ten in the morning, stayed for breakfast, then said our goodbyes. Me and mom thanked him for his custom, and he thanked us for a good time. By midday we were at home, we both showered, checked our calendars, messaged our evening clients to confirm that they were still on, and then... well, the rest of the day kinda evaporated. I played Demons' Souls until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, passed out in bed, and woke up when my alarm went off in the evening.

That's one of the things I don't like about overnight sessions: you're technically only spending like, ten to twelve hours with a client, and for some of that time you're either not fucking or actively asleep, but it kinda feels like it destroys two days. By the time it's scheduled, everything in the rest of the day is either preparing for it or doing it, and when you get back it takes the rest of the day just to recover. I don't like that part of my job, and if I sit down I can probably go through a whole bunch of things I don't like about my job. I still know that my job isn't a *bad* job, because the last time I had a bad job it was at a chicken processing plant. Know how I know that the chicken job was bad? Because I excused myself for a bathroom break four hours into the shift, walked off site, and never came back.

You know what, there's another reason I know that this isn't a bad job and that mom isn't a bad mom, and I guess it's part of the reason I've written all this down in the first place. I was seven years old when I first wanted to die. By the time I got to high school, suicidal thoughts were just the radio static in my brain. I can't remember any point after like, grade school where I didn't daydream about suicide every single day.

Now? I sometimes go for weeks without thinking about killing myself. It hasn't gone away completely, it still pops up when I'm upset or stressed out or tired or really hungry, but what I do is I talk to mom about it, and she talks me out of it. I feel guilty sometimes about putting that pressure on her, and taking that pressure off is part of the reason I'm going to therapy I guess.

I hope it works out.

I really think it will.

#story #stories

64 notes · View notes

jungshookz · 4 years

Text

the one with the scrunchie

➺ pairing; min yoongi x reader

➺ genre; universitystudent!yoongiverse!!!!! uni!yoongi is the broody skater boy that everyone has a crush on!! y/n will never see her scrunchies in the same way ever again and also in case it wasn’t already blatantly obvious by the gif above this drabble is 98% smut and the other 2% is also smut (dirty talk! thigh riding! yoongi has really nice thighs!!!)

➺ wordcount: 4.4k i feel like this is shorter than usual i’m soRry

➺ summary; yoongi believes that one scrunchie is just as capable as a pair of handcuffs - it’s time to put that theory to the test.

➺ what to expect; “i wouldn’t mind being more intimate with you but i don’t know how and also i’m just not ready to take my clothes off yet.”

➺ optional reading: not necessary but feel free to read some other drabbles from the uni!yoongiverse!

➺ note; we all knew this was going to happen as soon as yoongi formulated the scrunchie theory so buCKLE up and be prepared!! happy valentine’s day!!! mwah mwah!!! (i couldn’t locate the original creator of the gif but it was pulled off of this pinterest page!) if you can guess which specific part of the drabble was inspired by the gif then i’ll give u a gold star

»»————-　♡　————-««

min yoongi does not beat around the bush

sure, he’s been known to be overly blunt and a little too honest at times (aka a little bit of an asshole) but that’s just part of who he is and that’s not going to change

he attacks problems head-on and with the confidence of a bull charging towards a waving red flag

and yet

here he is, with a problem

except this is the first time he’s ever had a problem with his problem

here’s the problem: ...he doesn’t know if you’re physically attracted to him or not

whICH he understands is kind of silly because he knows you’re certainly not with him for his brains because his grades are mediocre at best

he’s riding the 70s-80s range which he’s completely fiNE with by the way

keep your judgements to yourself!

what was he talking about again

oh righT

he feels like you don’T want him to touch you for some reason??

which is a teensy little problem because call him old fashioned but he thinks that people who are together should probably be okay with touching each other

obviously if you aren’t ready for anything more than kissing on the sofa and some light petting that is totally okay and he completely understands

it’s just weird because you always seem very eager to touch him but when he gets his hands on you you get all bashful and blushy (which is cute for the most part but that’s not the point)

whenever he wants to return the favour you always shake him off and tell him that he can help you out next time

and then when next time rolls around you tell him that he can do something next time

and then when next time rolls around you tell him that he can do something nExt time until it turns into an endless cycle of ‘it’s okay, you can return the favour next time!’ in which he’ll nEVer ever return the favour!

and so on and so forth

also it’s weird because he doesn’t really know if he can even classify this as a problem??

for the millionth time in a row he’s totally 100% fine if you aren’t ready to do anything just yet but he wouldn’t be so riled up about it if it weren’t for the fact that your butt looks fantastic in those jeans

he can’t help but wonder if it’s his time of the month because his hormones are raging and everything you do turns him on

like the other day when you were eating your sandwich you licked some mayo off your finger and yoongi nearly [censored]

is he just thinking with his head and not with his head???

now that he’s really thinking about it he realises that he’s never actually gotten you off before

wha-

he’s nEVER given you an orgasm????????

so yeah

that’s pretty much it

he’s boiled it down to you being completely rePULsed by him

it’s just been on his mind ever since the two of you officially got together and he doesn’t really know how to phrase this without sounding like a complete dick

he feels a little bad because he’s supposed to be paying attention to what you’re teaching him but his mind just won’t let him focus and he feels like if he doesn’t ask you this rigHt now he’s going to explode from the inside out

his arm shoots up in the air (you asked him to start raising his hand instead of just blurting out the answer even though he’s literally your only student)

“do you not like me touching you?” yoongi blurts out before pausing

…okay yeah there were probably a million better ways to have worded that question

you look up at yoongi with wide eyes as you stare at him across the table

well

you don’t know what this has to do with chemistry but you’ll bite

“maybe i wasn’t clear enough-” you click the cap back onto the marker before setting it down “but when i asked you if you had any questions, i meant questions that were related to intermolecular forces or nuclear fusion.”

…has he even been paying attention to anything you’ve been saying this whole time???

you’re going to have to test him later with a surprise pOP quiz >:-)

“oh yeah well i have a toN of questions about whatever you were talking about but we’ll get to that after you answer my question.” yoongi drops his pen before leaning back against his chair “so, please - answer my question.”

“well, i… i have to be honest, i don’t really understand your question.” your brows knit together and you purse your lips in thought “of course i like you touching me! i mean, sure, i’m a little germaphobic but i hold your hand all the ti-“

“not like that, y/n. i mean the other kind of touching.” yoongi sighs and leans forward a little bit

you’re about to tell him you’re not sure what he means when it suddenly registers in your brain what exactly he’s referring to

that kind of touching

well

you and yoongi have.,,. definitely.,. fooled around before but a lot of those interactions have been limited to heated makeout sessions anD that one time u gave him a blowie before class

and also that hand job in the back of the library

…and then another blowie back at your apartment

but other than that you guys haven’t done anything else

and it’s not that you don’t want to be intimate with yoongi

in fact you’d have to be craZy to not want to jump his bones buT the one thing that’s holding you back is that you’re just not ready to expose yourself to him like just yet

even the thought of flashing your bra strap to him is making you queasy

and it’s not because of anything he’s done!!

he’s always very considerate with you and he never pushes you to do anything that you don’t want to do

like that one time his hand was slowly sliding down to your butt (this was very early on when you two weren’t a thing yet but you had makeout sessions like a pair of hormonal teenagers) but you stopped it before it could reach its destination

and since then his hands have not wandered at all!

actually that’s a lie he did glide over your bum the other day but he’s allowed to do that now because he’s ur boyfriend so

and it’s not like you aren’t handsy yourself, miss let-me-slide-my-hands-underneath-yoongi’s-shirt

so if you think about you’re just doing a lot of giving and basically none of the receiving which you thought yoongi would be ecstatic about but apparently not

anyways

this is literally just a you thing

it’s a mixture of insecurity and anxiousness and overwhelmingness all rolled up into one big ball that’s just sitting in the pit of your stomach

you’re sure you’ll get over it one day

but today is not that day

“-because i’d love to go down on you if you’d let me.” yoongi finishes his rant and you feel your cheeks immediately redden

wha-

what the heCk was he talking about when you blanked out

“no, i d- i do want to… do things with you but i… i don’t know, i would rather just keep my clothes on, that’s all.” you mumble sheepishly and scratch the back of your neck

yoongi’s eyes widen a little and he perks up “so you… don’t mind me touching you?”

“of course i don’t mind you touching me.” you snort before rolling your eyes “anyway, as i was say-“

“as long as we keep our clothes on?”

you have a feeling yoongi is no longer focusing on chemistry

in fact you doubt he was even paying attention from the very beginning

“i… yeah! pretty much.” you shrug “i just, um, i don’t know if i want any hands down my pants yet. hands on the butt is welcome.”

you probably sound like an idiot right now

you can’t do things with yoongi while fully cloTHED

“okay, i think i get it…?” yoongi narrows his eyes a little

uh oh

you recognise that look

that’s the ‘i’m just going to pretend like i know what you’re talking about but i actually have no idea what the hell you’re talking about’ look

you’ve seen it many times before

that’s fair though because you’re basically telling him you wanna do stuff with him but also you don’t wanna do stuff with him so how can you wrap up your main points in one single sentence??

“i wouldn’t mind being more intimate with you but i don’t know how and also i’m just not ready to take my clothes off yet.” you blurt out and keep your eyes glued to yoongi’s face to see if he gets it now

“oh!” yoongi lets out a ‘huh’ before nodding to himself “okay, i get it now. yeah, i totally understand. also, i hope it doesn’t seem like i’m pressuring you into anything, it’s just that this is my first time being with someone who doesn’t have a lot of experie- noT that that’s a bad thing, i just- you know, you’re you and i’m me- okay, uh, i’m not explaining this very well-“

now you’re the one who’s barely paying attention to the other because you are getting wAY too into your head about this

was your explanation super lame??

oh god

why are you so nervous all of a sudden

maybe you should come up with another excuse to make yourself sound less lame

“also, this might sound a little silly,” you snort and shake your head “but if you had your head in between my legs i honestly wouldn’t know what to do with my hands, and that’s just one more thing i’d have to worry about! so if you think about it maybe this is just a blessing in disguise!”

yoongi pauses before the corner of his mouth twitches in a tiny smirk

“i could cuff you to the bed.”

oh dear lord

you feel your cheeks get even reDDer and you clear your throat before whipping back around to face the whiteboard “so! let’s get back into it…”

in your haste to change the subject you fail to notice the ‘i have a very sneaky plan up my sleeve’ look on yoongi’s face

so from what he understands:

a) you DO want to be more intimate with him (yay!!) (but a respectful, non-selfish yay)

b) you DO want to keep your clothes on

c) you DON’T know what to do with your hands

okay

he can work with that

he can definitely work with that

yoongi presses his lips together to hide his smile when it hits him

he knows exactly what to do

fun fact: yoongi has actually never celebrated valentine’s day before

well

okay

he haS celebrated valentine’s day before but this is the first time he’s actually cared about valentine’s day

and usually he forgets that valentine’s day exists (he really doesn’t understand why it’s so special) so when his previous significant others would ask him what he got for them his go-to was aLways something related to the bedroom because it was kind of an easy way out and made both parties happy

and he’s never stuck around to celebrate more than one valentine’s day with the same person which is pretty nice because that way he can’t be accused of recycling gift ideas

anyways

what was he talking about again?

oh riGHt

valentine’s day presents

not only did he surprise you but he also surprised himSelf when he bought a dozen red roses for you AND a box of bougie chocolate covered strawberries

because he’s literally never done this before so he decided that if he was going to go all out it was going to be for someone he genuinely really liked

and that person is u :-)

and then he made a comment about how valentine’s day is really just part of the whole ‘gross commercialisation of a day that really has no meaning to it’ scheme before presenting you with a brand new scrunchie

and it wasn’t the gorgeous roses or the rich chocolate that got you excited

it was your brand new heart-patterned scrunchie

the base is white but it has little red hearts dotted all over it and it’s the cuTEST and you immediately put it on as soon as yoongi gave it to you

he ordered it off etsy!! anD he paid for express shipping

and if that doesn’t show you how much he cares about you he doesn’t know what will

and you know what

yoongi would buy you a hundred more scrunchies because you are all over him right now and he is very into that

also it might be due to the fact that the chocolate-covered strawberries were actually champagne infused chocolate-covered strawberries (he was wondering why they were so exPENSIVE) because he can usually hold himself back pretty well (aka after a particularly heated makeout session he’ll politely excuse himself to the washroom for ten minutes even though you always insist on helping him out but most of the time he declines because he wants to return the favour but he can’T) but tonight.,.,.

tonight he’s putting in extrA effort to keep it together because you slid his hands down to your bum and he nearly lost his shIT

here’s a sum-up of the night:

yoongi took you out to a nice dinner even though you insisted you’d be fine with ordering takeout or something (also he wore a crisp white button up but he rolled the sleeves up and you sweAR he knows exactly what he’s doing)

you guys went to a little donut shop afterwards and you got powdered sugar all over yourself but c’est la vie

and now you two are at your apartment where you decided to binge-watch netflix for the rest of the night and enjoy the chocolate-covered strawberries

and well

only half the box of strawberries have been consumed because now the two of you are kind of focused on enjoying each other

your hands instinctively slide down to pop the button on yoongi’s jeans but before they get a chance to reach it yoongi grabs your wrist and brings your arms back up around his neck

“you know how you said you wanted to be more intimate with me but you didn’t know how?”

you clear your throat before pursing your lips

if this is him talking dirty it’s not working

“…are you talking about the conversation we had at the beginning of last week?” you wonder out loud before shaking your head gently “yoongi, listen, it really isn’t a big deal, you don’t have to do anything for me-“

“and do you remember what you said about not knowing what to do with your hands?” yoongi interrupts you and his eyes flicker up to the scrunchie peeking out from the back of your head

“well, yeah, but- is there a point to all of this?” you sigh before leaning forward to smush your cheek against yoongi’s shoulder

“do you trust me?” yoongi hums and pokes the tip of your nose

“of course i trust you.”

also

unrelated but you need a pick me up

another one of those strawberries will do

you’re going to ask yoongi to get these evEry valentine’s day because they are obscenely delicious

you pull away from yoongi and turn to reach for another strawberry and at the same time yoongi reaches over and tugs the scrunchie off from your head

“wha- hey!” you whip around as your hair falls around your face before noticing that yoongi’s giving your scrunchie a bit of a stretch “what do you think you’re doing?”

yoongi can’t help but laugh lightly at your pouty face before he pats his lap “i want you here.”

yoongi’s speaking to you a little more assertively than usual anD he has that familiar gleam in his eyes

okay

you’ll play along

the strawberries can wait

you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear as you settle on yoongi’s lap before resting your hands on his chest to keep yourself from toppling over

“good. now arms behind your back.”

your brows knit together slightly in confusion but you figure it’s best not to question yoongi because he seems pretty sure of himself

and you sure as hell have no idea what’s about to go down

this is weird

usually you’re the one in control

you feel like you want to fill the silence by talking about something and for some reason you can hear your heart drumming wildly in your chest even though you don’t have a reason to be nervous

...right?

yoongi reaches behind you and pulls your hands through the scrunchie before moving them gently so that one wrist is crossed over the other and-

you can’t seem to wiggle out of the scrunchie

“not too tight?” yoongi murmurs

you shift your hands a little

yep

definitely noT getting out of this any time soon

“i can handle it.” you respond quietly and yoongi feels himself twitch in his pants

noPe

tonight is not about him

tonight is about you

you’ve never been restrained like this before but the idea of yoongi being completely in control is getting you far more riled up than you’d like to admit

“if at any point you feel uncomfortable,” yoongi murmurs against your skin as he moves his kisses up your chest, “the safe word is strawberry.”

“mhm, strawberry, got it.” you sigh impatiently, barely paying any attention to what yoongi’s saying because his mouth has travelled up onto your bare neck

“good. on my thigh.” yoongi spreads his legs a little and you feel your heart hiccup in your chest

you know exactly where this is going

you wobble slightly as your knees settle on the soft couch on either side of yoongi’s clothed thigh and yoongi smiles fondly

“comfy?”

“mhm.”

unsurprisingly, yoongi’s thigh is vEry firm

it’s from all that skateboarding

you’re sure of it

you would be lying if you said you weren’t a little worked up from the ten minutes of copious kissing but now that you’re sitting on yoongi’s thigh you can definitely confirm that you are: worked up

yoongi places his hands on your waist and pulls you closer until your torso is pressed against his

typically this would be the point where you drape your arms around yoongi’s shoulders but the fact that you can’t do that right now is torture and yoongi can see the frustration swimming in your eyes

you’re about to tell him to do something, anything, before he suddenly pushes your hips back and flexes his thigh at the same time

you let out a gasp when your body instinctively spasms a little bit out of surprise

that is definitely a new feeling

it’s a very good thing you decided to wear a skirt tonight

a pitiful whimper slips past your lips at the feeling of the rough fabric of yoongi’s jeans rubbing up against you through your panties

“like that?” yoongi pulls you towards him and then backwards again and he swallows thickly when he notices how blown out your pupils are

now that you know what yoongi’s plan is, your body seems to go into autopilot mode

you start moving on your own as your muscles begin to melt into him but yoongi’s hands stay glued on your hips as he guides you back and forth

the two of you share licking, burning kisses as you continue to ride yoongi’s leg and yoongi lets out a grunt when your knee digs into his crotch

“y/n, fuck-“ yoongi pulls away when you do it again

he can’t tell if you’re doing it on purpose or if it’s unintentional but he has to shift the focus bAck to you

yoongi takes his bottom lip in between his teeth as he watches you grind your hips back and forth with hooded lids

his hands slide down so that they rest on either side of your thighs

he lets out a low groan when he realises that this would be his exact view if you were actually riding him

“yoongi-“ you hiccup pathetically when you feel that particular spot within you flutter

your nails dig into the soft flesh of your palms when you suddenly feel the urge to get your hands on your boyfriend

yoongi’s mouth twitches in a smirk when he notices your shoulders straining

it looks like his makeshift handcuffs are working veRY well

he’s definitely going to use them again in the future

“something the matter?” yoongi mocks with a slight pout of his lips

“god, you- this was the worst idea ever and i hate you-“ you shudder as you continue grinding against his firm leg

you can’t even find the words to describe how incredible this feels and the only thing going through your mind is fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck because fuCK this feels good

“oh yeah? show me how much you hate me-“ yoongi’s hands find their way underneath your skirt and his fingers dig into your bum to bring you closer to him

he has to admit that he’s losing his grips on the reins a little bit because the more you grind against him the more turned on he gets

and he is currently very, very turned on

you’re riding his leg anD your boobs are like right at his eye-level so he’s kind of living the dream right now

but also in a way he’s torturing himself too because he usually loves it when you slide a hand down his chest or when you bury your fingers into his hair

“fuck, i can feel how wet you are-” yoongi groans just under your ear and you let out a choked moan in response

you never thought something like this would be as hot as it is but also it’s the idea of you being bare on his leg that’s making the two of you go crazy

another wave of pleasure tremors through your body and your head dips back as yoongi kisses up your throat

“that’s it… you’re so pretty like this… so needy…” yoongi curses quietly when he notices the darkened patch on his jeans

he slips an arm around your waist to keep you balanced and he uses his other hand to take your chin in between his thumb and pointer finger so that you’ll look at him

“god, look at you… you’re doing so well…” yoongi knows that getting approval is something that’s verY important to you but he’s only seen you get excited over it when it comes to projects and assignments

and you obviously want to hear another remark of approval considering the way you start to roll your hips more smoothly

but it’s when you take his thumb into your mouth that yoongi ascends to a whole new level of turned on

he leans back against the couch and his hands start to forcefully guide your hips so that you’re rocking against him harder, faster

“yoongi, i think- nngh-“ you pant and your shoulders strain even more in a desperate attempt to wiggle out of the scrunchie “oh, god-“

he can tell by the way your breathing has become increasingly shallow and how your cheeks have gotten progressively pinker that you’re almost there and he’s definitely going to keep this image of you in his brain for a long time

“gonna cum for me?” yoongi growls as his hands grip at your ass to mould you to him

you head starts spinning from pleasure and you feel every nerve in your body begin to go into overdrive

all you can focus on is how good this feels and how hot it is that yoongi’s in complete control over you and how you are definitely going to want to do this again-

“you have no idea how badly i wanna fuck you right now.” yoongi groans and thAt pretty much does the the trick

“ah-!” you let out a sharp cry as your whole body tenses up as your orgasm rocks through you

your toes curl and your legs tighten around yoongi’s thigh and you sweAr you would’ve blacked out if it weren’t for yoongi keeping you anchored to him while pressing reassuring kisses along your shoulder

he has his arm wrapped around you while his other hand loosens its grip on the side of your thigh

you’re panting like you just ran a marathon and you lean forward to press your forehead against yoongi’s “hi.”

“hey.” yoongi’s out of breath too but he has no idea why lol

if anything, seeing you work through your orgasm has gotten him even harDer but he reminds himself for the millionth time that the purpose of this whole scrunchie thing was so that you’d be more comfortable being intimate with him

“how was that?”

“really nice.” you respond almost instantaneously and yoongi feels a sense of pride bloom within him

you’re not the only one who likes getting approval!!!

he reaches behind you and pulls the scrunchie off and placing it next to him

your wrists have gone a little pink considering how much tugging you did and yoongi brings them up to his mouth to sweep soft kisses over them

your cheeks flush for a different reason when yoongi leans up to give you an affectionate little kiss

when you finally drape your arms around his shoulder you can’t help but let out a happy sigh

now thIS feels a lot better

“you okay?” yoongi can’t help but notice that you’ve gone quiet

“…was the purpose of buying the scrunchie for me just so you could turn them into makeshift handcuffs?” your eyes narrow suspiciously and you glance down at the scrunchie

yoongi turns to look at it before looking back over at you

he clears his throat

“if i say yes does that make me a bad boyfriend?”

(later that night you tell yoongi you’d like to try grinding on him again - only this time, you’ve requested that he have his hands tied.)

help me help you make your wishes come tru (aka send me a request)

requested drabbles masterlist

855 notes · View notes

purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1160

survey by pandaphant

What was your first kiss like, and who was it with? It was with my ex-girlfriend; she was spending the night and the time just came for us to kiss. It was scary, but they were very encouraging so I felt a whole lot comfortable in the end.

Do you have to be in love with someone to sleep with them? In my case, yes. I know this isn’t a prerequisite for a lot of people though, and that’s okay too.

What's your favorite kind of bear? Not too obsessed with bears but I like polar bears and pandas, heehee.

Would you rather see a movie at a theater or at home on DVD? At this point? A theater. Pre-pandemic me would’ve preferred to watch movies at home because I find the cinemas too loud and too dark – and movie tickets cost like a bitch – but now I just want that life back.

Have you ever sent a FWD because you were afraid? I have no idea what this is. I’m reading this as ‘forward,’ as in sending forwarded messages; but I’m not sure if I’m accurate.

Are you still madly in love with that *someone*? No. There’s still love in there, but it’s no longer the in-love kind of love; and the love I do have is also considerably tinged with resentment.

Have you ever waited for someone? Like...in relationships? I’ve never been in that kind of situation before.

You've been given access to a time machine. Where and when do you go? I’d love to go back to an early point in my last relationship and end it off as soon as I saw the first red flag, instead of ignoring and tolerating the next 487897839473 that followed.

Would you ever date more than one person at a time? I would never be in an open relationship. I’m cool with it and I have friends who are in one, but it’s not my preference.

Would you rather have pancakes or waffles? Waffles. We have pancakes pretty often at home already; I also find waffles a lot more versatile as well.

Do you hate any of your friend's S.O.s? No. Hans is a delight; I’m friends with both Andi and Leigh so that works out well for me; and I’ve never met Jo’s girlfriend but I bet I’ll like her anyway.

What do you eat on your waffles? Either with bacon or fried chicken. Then with maple syrup and whipped cream on top of the waffles too, yum.

Have you ever had a major crush on someone that never found out? I had a happy crush on JM that never went out within Kate, Jo, and myself. He was objectively physically attractive and it was just nice to look at him sometimes, but it never developed into anything emotional and I definitely did not have any intention to flirt or cheat, because bleck.

What is one thing that has changed your life, either good or bad? I think this pandemic has brought about a lot of changes.

What is a juggalo? A juggalo is someone who is a fan of Insane Clown Posse. I only know this because I’ve confused it for gigolo a billion times.

Do you like to cuddle? Only with the right person.

Have you ever drank alcohol? Yes.

Which is your favorite punctation mark? Semicolon and em dash. So basically I like hacks to make my sentences longer.

What is one trait you could not put up with in another person? Refusing to acknowledge their toxic habits or actions and staying the way they are because “this is who I am.” That shit makes me absolutely nauseous.

If you could have any super power, what would it be and why? I’d love to time travel just to satisfy the budding historian in me.

Have you ever worn leg warmers? No. I’m not sure what those are, either.

What's your favorite way to wear your hair? These days I style it in either a very high ponytail, almost like Ariana Grande-esque; on more relaxed days it’s in a low side ponytail.

If someone made a movie about your life, what would you want it to be named? Y’all know how much I dislike questions like this that force me to get creative, so I’m moving on.

What makes you really mad? All shapes and forms of injustice.

What do you like to do for fun? Trying out new things – I’m always down to try hiking, attending a cooking class, rock climbing, archery, etc, as long as I’m with at least one person.

What eye color do you prefer in a significant other? No preference but seeing as how most Asians have dark brown eyes anyway, I’d go with that because I doubt I’d end up with someone from a different race.

American Eagle, Hollister, or Abercrombie? Eugh, none of these.

What's your favorite ice cream topping? Hot fudge and/or chocolate chips.

Have you ever rebounded...or been someone's rebound? No.

Why is your best friend your best friend? They both understand me and my needs, and we simply click insanely well in our respective relationships.

If there was one thing you could do differently, what would it be? If the pandemic never happened, I could be driving to the office everyday, experiencing nightlife, meeting new people and expanding my circles, and overall making the most out of my 20s. That kind of life would have been nice.

Do you have commitment issues? Commitment was never an issue to me. It’s trust that’s been ruined for me.

What do you do when the lights go out in a thunderstorm? Groan out in frustration and gather with my siblings in the living room.

If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today? Just buy a crap ton of food and share it with loved ones. Then spend most of the time with my dogs.

Where do you live? Philippines.

Are you scared of spiders? Not as much as most people are.

What's your favorite band? Paramore.

If you had to do one which would it be, skydiving or bungee jumping? Skydiving. I’ve already done bungee jumping so it would be cool to try something completely new.

Do you answer your phone when it's your mother? I’d say it’s 50/50. If I have nothing much going on I’ll pick it up; but if I’m busy at work I’d have to reject it.

Do you own anything with peace signs on it? I don’t think so, but maybe. Idk it’s always possible.

Do you every buy anything at Bath & Body Works? I don’t, but this question is very timely since I had just watched Safiya Nygaard’s vlog about buying every single Bath & Body Works scented candle in existence and combining them into one candle. I had no idea they had SO many candles??? And all of them have pretty names and notes??? Thanks to her I literally placed a couple of their candles in my shopping cart at like 2 AM last night hahaha.

Do you like candles? I do now. I definitely see the hype haha.

What'd all you wear this week? House/loungewear.

Do you know any hippies? No.

Do you refuse to use public bathrooms? Yeah, even before the pandemic I refused to use them unless I absolutely had to go. The idea of sharing a toilet with hundreds of other people is just so icky, even though I don’t let my butt touch the toilet seat.

Do you know anyone that had Swine Flu? I don’t think so. I now know people who’ve gotten Covid, though – both from family and my circle of friends.

How'd you get your last booboo? Cooper’s leash, when he was tugging on it.

#survey #surveys

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knivesandwives · 3 years

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Can you give an excerpt (is that the word?) or a pic from the book about Hannibal and Clarice's little date thing? I'm intrigued lol

Oh lol I'm honestly still reading it! Thank you for facilitating my venting though, and I will gladly share my incomplete knowledge. I haven't even finished this scene, which continues into another chapter. I had to take a break and cool my head because it makes me want to gag like I was a 5 year old with an aversion to kissing scenes (which is not usual for me. I just. I don't know about this). I could take the time to finish reading it in the time I'm writing this buuuut I'm too heated to do so atm, even though it would spare me the embarrassment of having very incomplete context. I don't even know whether Thomas Harris intends for the reader to want them together, but his treatment of Hannibal Lecter has generally verged on salivating over him, imo, so. I'm gonna take it as implied that I should like this a bit more than I do. I could be very wrong. Under the cut because it is a Rant

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I’ve got the fun wacky stuff first because this book is Wild. Bonkers. Then I have semi serious stuff and Thoughts thoughts in the second half

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WACKY FUN STUFF PART

it is So over the top corny. Highlights so far:

-Hannibal is playing the harpsichord when Clarice walks out. In other scenes he’s played his theremin. He is insufferable

- the piece he's playing is called ‘If True Love Reigned’ and was composed by Henry VIII, which is a red flag if ever I heard one

-he dresses up in white tie for her and spends FOREVER decorating the house *just so* and inspecting the dinner table from various angles to check whether the Aesthetic is right, because the house he's rented out is only so-so and he's gotta make up for it:

I mean. He decides to add a shit ton of flowers to make it intimate and create a hanging gardens effect, realizes that this looks bad, and decides that the solution is More flowers. Maybe he’s right, but I think with the rest of the decorations this is probably looking like a mess right now.

-Uhhh if I remember correctly from the Freudian Daddy Issues chapter (hhhhh I want to have a word with Thomas Harris), the reason he makes the peonies in the flower arrangement “white as SNO BALLS” is because she has some sort of (dad-related) childhood memories about these fucking Hostess twinkie-level snacks. There are Levels to his floral arrangements

-Similarly, the cocktails he prepares for them have orange slices on the side because it’ll remind her of her father slicing oranges and Hannibal wants to be daddy

-The landlord he’s renting the house from (where he’s keeping Clarice and holding Date Night) has a fixation on Leda and the Swan, to the point that he has four statues of it and eight paintings of it in that one house alone. Hannibal likes the horniest one with the best “anatomical articulation.” Make of that what you will. There was indeed a reason for Bryan Fuller including such a pussy out painting in the set for Hannibal’s dining room. Hannibal covers the other Leda statues and paintings that don’t live up to his standards

- He brings her clothes to wear?? Special Fancy clothes for Date Night. Ugh. And I thought it was pushy and anal in SOTL when he gave her tips on how to improve her fashion

- Hannibal wears an ascot over a white shirt. No jacket. I don't know if I trust the taste level of this man. I like Freddy from scooby doo but his look seems like a stretch in this context

-he uses candelabra like he's the phantom of the opera and has this incredibly fucking extra mirror in his rented house:

-he tells her his goals for the evening in one of the trademark Long Confusing Hannibal Monologues we’re so used to seeing in the show, then asks Clarice if she understands, and her response is: no I don’t so I hope your food is good at least

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Actual Serious Thoughts about it (content warning: some vaguely psychosexual things involving characters’ family, drugging and non-sexual consent issues)

I think my reaction is definitely influenced by the context that's been presented so far for their relationship in this book, which includes (briefly):

--Hannibal has a fixation on Clarice as a potential replacement for/idealized version of Mischa, his dead sister. The moment he lays eyes upon her again in this book he starts having uncontrollable flashbacks that directly associate Clarice with Mischa and overlays their meanings and iconography. So... that's something. It shows up constantly whenever we get a glimpse into his POV. I have thoughts about what Hannibal finds appealing about Clarice RE as an idealized version/teacup reversal of Mischa; the book tells us he admires her courage and her spirit as a warrior despite having been victimized, and so Clarice is in some ways a version of Mischa that was capable of surviving despite the odds. That was (crudely) my working theory, anyway. Might have to reevaluate that now because I'm less certain now about Hannibal's intentions and how much his appreciation for Clarice is really *respectful* of her potential, versus how much he sees her as some sort of vehicle to replace Mischa and be some sort of walking talking idealized doll that he crafts into his dead sister. I wanted it to not be *as* weird and psychosexual as I thought it would end up being, but this book definitely leans into some weird sexualized Freudian shit, and I'm concerned that Mischa and Clarice are part of that despite my best efforts to rationalize it in a way that I would have preferred. Really, who fantasies about their lover being a reminder of their sister?

--Freudian hell part 2: Hannibal has rescued Clarice from the Verger farm (after she rescued him, which was quite dramatic) and has her drugged at his house and undergoing the type of hypnosis we see suggested with Will and Miriam Lass in NBC!Hannibal. Hannibal suggests things, she follows those suggestions with apparently little agency of her own. He probes into her history and traumas and causes her to see things. Among his goals here is to have her make peace with her dead father in some way (in a scene which strongly resembles Abigail's therapy with GJH's corpse as seen in the s3 flashbacks), and to give her some form of control over her memory of him. This is accompanied by some very squicky speculation from Hannibal about Clarice having taboo sexual associations with her father, which she projects (among other things) onto other father figures in her life like Jack Crawford or her fallen FBI partner. I didn't know before I got into this book whether it was going to legitimize the Electra complex angle on Clarice this much, and maybe I'm wrong to accept Hannibal's viewpoint as sacred, but. So far, that seems to be the take.

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So that's the context for the leadup to this romantic dinner scene. Hannibal has decorated his house specially for this date night type thing and given her a slinky, fancy dress to wear in his fancy house. Clarice has been heavily under the influence of drugs so far, and this night is no exception. This chapter so far has been a treasure trove of the more romantic dialogue repurposed for NBC!Hannibal, but I kind of can't stand it here in this book as anything remotely romantic. It's almost entirely him talking *at* her and it seems like this is more about him and his idealized fantasy of her than it is actually about her. The text does refer to him as "the monster" more frequently in this chapter, and it calls him out directly for his vanity and self congratulation, so I'm not entirely sure if I'm even supposed to like it, but. Anyway. You asked for excerpts! This particular scene is probably the densest part of a very dense chapter (the highlights are a mess rn):

There's a lot of interesting stuff in here, some of which really raises my hackles in ways I wasn't anticipating. Clarice has just emerged in the outfit he chose for her to join him. Clarice's first question to him is to ask about how much he's invaded her privacy without her knowledge, and he has a very bullshit answer where he pretends that this situation he's manufactured, in which he drugs her and creates a fantasy world for them, is okay because it exists outside of reality. It doesn't. It's an interesting idea but it's bullshit. This is not his memory palace, this is reality and it does exist as a part of time that Clarice has had to experience (or not, as the case may be for her level of consciousness throughout this). And he turns around from this question about him being intrusive to reiterate his attraction to her. Squick at that. Her plain (possibly curt?) answer to his compliment, even though it's a thank you, causes him annoyance. This is where I really, Really start to have, like, flashbacks to Jessica Jones and the playing house plotline. Real strong flashbacks to that. Clarice's (apparently unintentional) failure to meet his standards and reciprocate in the exact way he wants her to makes him Annoyed. Clarice identifies this and holds her ground, interestingly enough, and Hannibal has a moment of awe at her stubborn individuality, but immediately falls back on self congratulatory wanking at his choice of woman. Then, there's more talking at her, to which she eventually says that she basically doesn't know what the fuck he means but she hopes he plans to make dinner worth her while. I appreciate Clarice holding her ground so well here, especially given the circumstances, and I don't know quite where this is headed, but I guess the gist of it is that in this context I just really want to slap Hannibal about and see him burn

#ramblings #knives reads thomas harris #and vents about things i shouldn't #but thank you!! i need to and i appreciate interaction #but keep in mind i am a fool who is willing to vent about this without knowing everything #just think of it as liveblogging? i guess

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years

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Michael in the Mainstream: Artemis Fowl

Since the early 2000s, Artemis Fowl has been languishing in development hell, and it really is a mystery as to why. The series has everything you could possibly want for a blockbuster young adult franchise: it’s a charming blend of science and fantasy with rich worldbuilding and mythology, it has enjoyable and even complex characters who go through great character arcs over the course of the series, it has an enjoyable major antagonist, an insufferable smug villain protagonist who goes through a stellar redemption arc over the course of the series, and tons of crazy heists that combine scheming and fairy magic. There was no reason this couldn’t have existed as a competitor to the Harry Potter series, but alas, it was not to be. The young adult fantasy franchise languished for decades in development hell, until finally Disney pulled it out and put Kenneth Branagh at the helm. Finally, we were going to get the Artemis Fowl adaptation we deserved!

Except we didn’t.

Artemis Fowl is legitimately one of the worst adaptations of any work of fiction ever. It has been held up alongside The Last Airbender and The Lightning Thief as part of the Unholy Trinity of terrible adaptations, and I’m not even going to try and pretend that this “Honor” isn’t well and truly earned. This film is an utterly abominable bastardization of the beloved franchise, to the point where this feels like an entirely different story that had familiar names slapped on it at the last second. If you want to know what horrific extents this film has butchered the story and characters, read onward, but there’s no way I’m going to pretend this film isn’t awful right off the bat.

There is literally nothing in this film that works. Nothing at all. Starting from the opening scene, the establishing shots, you can tell things are wrong – there are news people around Fowl Manor? Mulch is being interrogated? What is going on? The film from the word go is simply making one thing absolutely and abundantly clear: this is not the Artemis Fowl you know. The film goes out of its way to do the opposite of the franchise, merely using names and vague concepts in an attempt to sucker fans into watching it. Butler’s first name, an emotional reveal from the third book, is common knowledge; Opal Koboi, a cunning and threatening major villain who was the antagonist for almost every novel starting with the second, is here reduced to basically a personification of the voice on the phone from Scream; Root, once a short-tempered man who was hard on Holly as a method of tough love to push her to be the very best LEP had to offer to prove women belonged on the force, is here a woman who, while just as angry as ever, robs Holly of a major part of her arc and reduces her to plucky female sidekick. And even outside of that, as its own thing, the movie is just utterly incomprehensible. The story is rushed and confusing, with lots of exposition and action but with no context or cohesion. Things happen and things go from scene to scene, but none of it makes any sort of sense. A character will switch allegiances within a few minutes, characters will somehow find a way to survive deadly attacks offscreen… the worst offender is a character death they try to push off as emotional, despite there being no reason to care for this character, and when all hope seems lost, a deus ex machina saves the day! My wife, who is unfamiliar with the series, and I, a huge fan, both struggled to figure out what was going on at any given point; the movie is really that bad at communicating what is happening, which is even more baffling because the film is a pathetic hour and a half in length, a distressingly short amount of time to establish a new science-fantasy franchise of this scale.

The characters are almost all terrible. Artemis is the standout with how awful he is; no longer the cunning criminal masterminds of the book, Artemis here is more of a somewhat smug little brat who is overly emotional and, worst of all, NICE. He’s so nice in fact that by the end of the film he has managed to speedrun his character development and arcs with Mulch and Holly, who consider him their close friend and ally. Butler is pretty bad here as well, mostly because he is given almost nothing to do and is seemingly only there because he was in the book. In fact, his crowning moment – when he took on the troll – is instead given to Artemis and even Holly, with Butler ending up severely injured. It’s a bit nasty that they changed Butler to be black and then had his (white) master steal his greatest moment; it’s giving me flashbacks to Kazaam. Opal is hit pretty bad as well; being made the big bad of this loose adaptation of the first book’s plot – which is amusingly one of the few books she had absolutely no role in – wouldn’t be so rough if she was more of a presence and not just some vague, hooded figure who threatens Artemis over the phone and generally does nothing to warrant being an adaptation of the baddest bitch in the series. She’s rather ineffectual and they even try and give her a sort of sympathetic motivation, one where she resents humans for pushing her kind underground. It really is a disgusting waste of a character who could easily rival heavy hitters like Voldemort in the awesome and theatrically evil department.

Holly is almost okay, but her entire arc and a big chunk of her narrative purpose is robbed by making Commander Root a woman. Root, played by Judi Dench, is honestly one of the better characters since Dench has Root dropping lines like “Top o’ the morning to ya” with gravelly deadpan seriousness which makes the character unintentionally hilarious, but the cheap laughs don’t really make up for butchering the story of one of fiction’s finest ladies. As a side note, they have made Holly 100% white despite her skin being described as nut brown rather frequently in the book, and the now white Holly together with Artemis steal away Butler’s biggest moment. And that’s not even getting into how they neutered Juliet, who has also been race lifted but was turned into a child who barely appeared in the film. I’m not usually one to toss about racism accusations, but there’s a lot of red flags here that Branagh’s usual colorblind casting just doesn’t excuse.

The most consistently enjoyable performance is Josh Gad’s as Mulch. From the moment he was cast, I knew he’d do a good job and capture the spirit of the character, and he does! ...sort of. The decision to have Mulch be a giant dwarf and narrate the story in a crappy Batman impression while also violating literally the most important law of fairy culture (don’t tell the humans anything about us) by spilling the beans to M16 is unbearably stupid, and a lot of his jokes are just relentlessly unfunny. But I think that Gad does leak a bit of that Mulch charm at a few points, and it’s apparent he at least somewhat gets his character, which is not something that can be said for anyone else in this film. Sadly, much like his standout performance as Lefou in the live action Beauty and the Beast, he can’t possibly save the trainwreck of a film he’s in.

I guess I’m not entirely surprised by this film. I mean, a lot of quality young adult literature from the past two decades has been horrifically mangled in the wake of Harry Potter – Inkheart, The Golden Compass, The Lightning Thief, Ender’s Game, and Eragon – so this movie really isn’t an anomaly. But it is the culmination of a horrible trend. This is the zenith of horrible young adult adaptations, or perhaps I should say the nadir of adaptations as a whole? For all the flak I could give those other adaptations, on some fundamental level they still understood something about the source material. Ender’s Game still understood it could not erase the ending where children are revealed to be being conscripted to perform the ethnic cleansing of an alien race. Eragon couldn’t completely ruin Saphira, try as it might. The Lightning Thief… well, I mean, I guess the Medusa scene was mostly faithful. But Artemis Fowl? Artemis Fowl goes out of its way to be the opposite of its literary counterpart that there is no way to justify even saying it is based on the book by Eoin Colfer; it would be like having a movie about kids hanging out at the mall and doing mundane stuff, except they’re all named Jesus and Peter and Paul and then saying it’s based on the Bible. Just using names doesn’t mean anything, you actually have to use the themes and characterizations too, and this movie does none of that.

This movie is most comparable to The Emoji Movie. Neither of these works really deserve to be called a “Film” since they are basically whatever it is they’re trying so desperately to be stripped down to the bare essentials. The Emoji Movie is the most basic, by-the-numbers animated adventure film with a “be yourself” message you could ever hope to see, with a story so absolutely basic that just watching the trailer will allow you to predict the every motion of the plot. Artemis Fowl on the other hand is the most cliche-ridden fantasy epic franchise-starter you could imagine, and that’s if you’re able to penetrate the ridiculously dense and cluttered story and are able to make sense of what’s going on. I can think of absolutely no one this film could ever appeal to. There’s not a single redeeming thing about it. The movie is flashy, trashy junk that should never have been released, and Disney honestly did the right thing by releasing this on their streaming service because it would be outright disgusting to charge movie ticket prices for this tripe. The fact Disney has more faith in the eternally-delayed New Mutants theatrically speaks volumes about the quality of this film.

I can’t in good conscious say that this is the worst film of all time. F4ntastic is probably a much worse butchering of characters than this film; Disaster Movie is much more horrendously offensive and unfunny than this; hell, Chicken Little is probably a worse Disney movie because as awful as everyone in this film is, at least they aren’t Buck Cluck! But I don’t think there’s a single movie I hate more than this one. Lucy can finally move over and sleep easy knowing that the fact it’s not based on a pre-existing work has finally saved it from the #1 spot on my worst list; Artemis Fowl is now the reigning champ. Kenneth Branagh should be ashamed of himself for making and releasing this (and doubly ashamed for having the gall to unironically compare his slaughtering of Artemis Fowl’s character to Michael Corleone), Disney should be shamed for putting more money into this film than they did into BLM charities, and I hope that Eoin Colfer finds whatever he was paid worth it to see his greatest creation butchered and disrespected like this.

#Michael in the Mainstream #Review #movie review #Artemis Fowl #Kenneth Branagh #Eoin Colfer #fantasy film #fantasy #science-fantasy #Josh Gad #Judi Dench #Disney #Disney+#disney movie

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chessiesystem · 4 years

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StEx Appreciation Month, Day 31: Nitpicks

SO, I have a LOT of nitpicks about literally every aspect of the show, like I could go on and on, but then this post would be the embodiment of this gif:

So for today I’m just going to focus on costume nitpicks! Like with everything in the show I have an ideal version of everyone’s costume/wig/makeup, so today I’ll just go over my main nitpicks with the various costumes and post my favorite versions!

Obligatory JapanAus picture because those tours overall had the BEST costume aesthetics.

Let’s get started:

(Also just to go ahead and get this out of the way, this post is almost completely ignoring the 2018 redesigns, like. Those don’t live in my head. I’ll just be focusing on the Broadway/Bochum/tour designs.)

Rusty:

Okay so with Rusty my main nitpick is!!! That stupid empty black space that’s above his chest plate in SO many of the costumes!! Like WHY is that there?! Here’s a good picture of it:

It drives me absolutely insane aljsldf. Luckily Bochum eventually corrected this but that it was ever there drives me up a wall.

Another nitpick is his headband… I can tolerate it when it’s paired with the hat, but I can’t stand it on its own, it just looks ugly to me. And speaking of his hat, I love most versions of it, EXCEPT for the New Starlight Express one where it was styled after a baseball cap. That bothers me on a level I don’t even fully understand alsjflds.

Anyway, I think overall my favorite version of Rusty’s costume is the 2018 version… I think the silhouette looks strange, especially from the side, like kind of too baggy? But overall it’s really cute, I love the colors and the new chest plate design, and the HAT. Also really like the new makeup!! It was looking rough for a minute lmao.

This is Peak Performance (not the Pearl…definitely not the Pearl):

Pearl:

Being as I’m in love with most of Pearl’s costumes I actually don’t have a ton of nitpicks. I think my main one is that I’m not a fan of the salmon/gold tones that were sometimes used for the bodice. For example:

I think moreso than the costumes I’m critical of Pearl’s wigs. I HATE when she has straight wigs… the only exception to this rule is Stephanie Lawrence’s and Nikki Belsher’s because those wigs were also big and fluffy. But that lanky thing Bochum had in the early 2000s? Terrible. Pearl should have big, dramatic curls. Also, this should go without saying but her hair should be PINK. Blonde Pearl actually gives me acid reflux.

Also I don’t think much attention is given to her headpiece, but I really love when they’re big and princess-y. Like, this headpiece with these earrings? I love:

As far as a favorite Pearl costume, that’s really hard because I love so many of them, but I’ll say this one. I think it’s a nice balance of pink and white:

Greaseball:

I don’t have a ton of nitpicks about Greaseball’s costume… like, it fucks pretty hard? I moreso have beef with his makeup. NONE of these men know how to blend and it looks terrible. I get that it might be a stage makeup thing that looks better under stage lights but I still don’t even really buy that because every other character blends?? Also, I don’t like how the makeup is just contouring… I get that it’s to make the actors look more masculine, which does suit Greaseball’s character, but PLEASE give that diesel some character makeup!!

I really stan the Broadway makeup for this reason. Look at this Jareth-looking bitch, he looks amazing! And it’s just SO cool:

Idk even this London makeup is pretty okay imo… anything to make him more visually interesting 😭:

Dinah:

My main gripe with Dinah’s costume will forever and always be the apron lmao. I’m very, very picky about it because it’s SO easy to make look tacky as hell. The 2018 apron is the ugliest its ever been, I’m sorry:

LIKE WHY IS IT SO BIG AND LONG. Also the silver strap around her chest is WAY too high now. I swear they tried to make the 2018 coaches more modest in the ugliest ways possible. But anyway.

I prefer for the apron to only be beneath the belt, but if it also has to be above the belt I can tolerate it if its small, like the Broadway design or the earlier Bochum designs. I also prefer when her leggings are on the more silver/metallic side than just straight up blue. Broadway and Japan-Australia had the right idea with how metallic they made everyone look.

As far as Bochum goes, I feel like the costume’s peak was from like 1997 to 2007:

PERSONALLY, though, my ideal Dinah costume would be Debbie Wake’s from the Japan tours. The color, the leggings, the wig, it’s all so… Peak! I also really love how the top of her skirt is divided into sections?? It’s really cute. The only thing I’d change is I’d remove the part of the apron that reaches above the belt and adjust the color of her wig. But otherwise I love this one so much 🥺🥺🥺:

Electra:

I have a lot of very disjointed thoughts on Electra’s costume, but bottom line is I’m rarely content with it… but my MAIN nitpick is definitely the color scheme. I know that it’s intended to be blue/red/silver but instead it often looks blue/red/white to me and I just CANNOT dissociate that from the American flag/overzealous patriotism alsjdlf, it kind of gives me heartburn. I’ve seen some fan redesigns of the costume that incorporate a blue/red/gold color scheme instead and I think that could REALLY fuck, though I don’t know how it’d translate to the stage/irl. Or just?? Design his palette after the bi flag colors??

Another nitpick is how boxy and bulky his chest box often is. I feel like I can’t criticize this TOO harshly because, in my opinion, this musical should be FIRMLY 80s, and that’s probably what counted as “futuristic” in the 80s, but it’s just a personal preference of mine that I wish his chest piece was more slender and streamlined. I think it’d make the silhouette better and just?? Look better??

I also don’t like most of the mohawk wigs… they just look… VERY cheap and fake to me most of the time. I prefer the looser/wilder wigs because they look softer and more natural.

ANYWAY I’ve found that the costume that actually sates most of these complaints for me is the Japan-Australia costume. The palette actually looks blue, red, and SILVER to me, and the body suit is just?? Sooo shiny and metallic and sparkly?? It’s so pretty. The wig is a perfect balance of the looser/wilder London wigs and the early mohawk wigs, and the MAKEUP is so good, it’s the only time I’ve seen a silvery/metallic base on Electra work and NOT whitewash the fuck out of the actor. Not to mention the base in JapanAus matched the body suit REALLY well and aaaah idk I could wax poetic about this costume all night aljsfld it’s really good and I appreciate it for being the, like, one (1) Electra costume I vibe with 😭.

Again, I’d streamline the chest box if I could but overall? This is peak performance:

CB:

Off the bat I’ll say I hate how big his shoulder boxes have gotten over the years. Like they are just ridiculously massive, it looks kind of awkward when the actors can’t even rest their arms by their sides due to it. They look like little kids wearing arm floats. Also not a fan of how much lower the neckline has gotten, and how much smaller the bandana has gotten?? His chest and neck are SO exposed now when they use to be completely covered and it irks the hell out of me.

Funnily, this one picture pretty clearly displays all three of these nitpicks:

Compare this to back when the neckline was higher/the bandana larger, he’s completely covered. He also isn’t fucking DROWNING in his shoulder boxes:

Also not a fan of the hair piece Bochum has used in recent years. Like it was just so much cuter when the actors used their real hair :^//. And I just Do Not Vibe with how straight and neat the hair piece is, CB has wild, curly hair and I’ll die on that hill.

ALSO, and this is more specific to just one actor, but I kind of hate Dan Ellison’s makeup aljsldf. Like it’s well done but it just has far too much going on. All what CB needs done is his cheeks, his eyes, and his lips— all that extra that Dan does on his jawline and with the laugh lines around his mouth and eyes is just… too much. And it frustrates me so much because he would be SO much cuter if he went with a simpler makeup!! Ugh. But anyway.

This was 100% the makeup at its best, like. Absolutely peak, thank you Thierry Gondet:

And my favorite costume comes from the 1990 Japan tour. I ADORE how this chest box is fitted and designed, and it just looks so shiny and red? Like it was freshly washed and painted 😭. Not to mention the red contour on his temples is kind of a Look:

The only thing I’d adjust is I’d give him the suspenders present in most of his costumes, because they’re honestly adorable. And, of course, he needs his Chessie System sticker. But otherwise? This is Peak Performance.

Okay I was gonna do more but this thing is fuckoff long as it is, so I’ll just stick to the Big Six. If you made it this far you’re a trooper, thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings aljsldfs.

#stex appreciation month #starlight express #stex rusty #stex pearl #stex greaseball #stex dinah #stex electra #stex cb #naph.txt #THIS IS SO LONG ALJKSLFDS I'M SORRY

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pamelalillian-isley · 3 years

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Old Wounds

I feel like I need to get things off of my chest. Things that have been bothering me for some time now. Things I thought I have overcome.

I have been told by friends, that I am strong and powerful and that I take no shit. And when it comes to their wellbeing- I am most definitely the protector and the healer. But when it comes to myself...all those words of hope and wisdom seem to just sit on the surface.

I haven’t been in a serious relationship since 2017. And it’s not for lack of trying. I had one “boyfriend” and it lasted a month. Before that, I was in a relationship for 7 years with an emotionally and mentally abusive man. I won’t get into describing him or who he was- as I don’t have anything positive to say about him. But I will tell you about his actions, and how they weakened me.

I had to beg for things that should be standard. I had to beg to be touched, beg to be treated like a girlfriend. He would sit in his computer chair playing video games all the time. When I’d come over, and we wanted to watch a movie together- he never say next to me on the bed or couch or even cuddled. He was always in the chair. Needless to say our sex life was garbage because it was hard to initiate things with someone who’s head is always in a video game. I am a casual gamer myself, and tried to get him to play games with me- but he always made up some excuse as to why he couldn’t.

Whenever a holiday came around where gifts are given (birthday, xmas, valentines, and our anniversary)- the effort was always subpar. Excuses I heard for why I received no gift, frequently were “the package is delayed” “its on backorder” and “it arrived broken so i had to send it back.” As far as the rest of the effort to make something special...it didn’t exist. Flowers? Happened ONCE, and it was because I told my best friend to suggest to him that he get me flowers for my birthday. Making plans always landed on me. He always asked “what do you want to do for valentines day/our anniversary/ your birthday” I had to provide the plans. Meaning whatever the activity was, and whatever the restaurant was - I had to pick. Whenever it was something for him (his birthday) I planned surprise parties, a dinner at a fancy expensive steak house he always wanted to try, I planned bbq’s and parties. I cooked his favorite dinners. I did what any normal woman would do for someone she loves. The energy I gave, was not returned.

I started to think, maybe I’m asking too much. Maybe I am being unreasonable? Maybe guys aren’t like they are in movies. Maybe I am being too hard on him and he’s trying his best. What guy actually tells his girlfriend she’s beautiful? That only happens in movies...

He wasn’t trying his best. He would manipulate me into feeling bad for asking for things that should be standard. He made me feel guilty for wanting affection. He made me feel like I was needy. He would accuse me of flirting or cheating, or he would get weirdly aggressive (not physically) if another man was being nice to me. He hated that I had male friends from college and from my days of playing xbox live. He called my friends sluts and cheaters (they aren’t). He would gaslight me into thinking I was nuts. One day I came over, and when I went to kiss him...his mouth...smelled like pussy. But what did I do? I was beaten down into thinking I was nuts...I denied it. I chalked it up to me jumping to conclusions and I never even mentioned it to him. Come to find out years later- he was cheating on me...with a very close friend OF MINE. And he was doing it on and off the entirety of our relationship.

I never looked through his phone or asked for passwords. I respected his privacy...but my gut started to tell me something was wrong. After years of crying to my best friends about how unhappy I was, I started to become suspicious of things. After I’d leave his house for the night, I would drive about 10 minutes away, and then drive pass his house to see if *her* car was there. (I was suspicious about them for a while...but i NEVER had solid proof or evidence. And i never even tried to bring it up, because he would gaslight me and say things like ‘are you sure YOU aren’t cheating and you have a guilty conscience so you’re accusing me?’)

So my anxiety got worse, as did my depression. I have tons of other stories and examples of him being a piece of shit- but we’d be here all day, and this is already long af.

Until one day I just couldn’t do it anymore. I woke up from a nightmare. In my dream I had basically faded away into someone I didn’t recognize. I basically turned into his mother. Not his mother like I babied him and mothered him. But I mean, I was in the same position as his mother. In real life, his mother was miserable. She hated her husband (his father). She was financially dependent on him and couldn’t work due to health issues. She dealt with a verbally, emotionally and physically abusive man. She let herself go. She gained weight, stopped doing her hair and makeup. She stopped dressing nice. She became a shell of who she was. And she would come into the room when I was over, and she’d talk to me and say shit like “I wish I had money. I’d take my kids and gtfo” (my ex had a younger brother). In hindsight, I think she was trying to warn me. I think whenever she came in to vent and to talk and say things like “i wish I could leave him”- i think she saw what was happening...and I think she was dropping hints. Anyway, in my dream....my life ended up just like hers.

I woke up in a panic and sweaty. I called him and told him I couldn’t do it anymore. I told him it was over. That I wasn’t happy, and I didn’t want to beg him for attention. I didn’t want to beg him to treat me like a girlfriend. Afterword he went on facebook and posted “7 years down the drain with a phone call” as his status. THE FUCKING AUDACIDTY. A few days later he wanted to meet up to talk. I thought he was going to come clean, or apologize for being a shit head and try to get me back. No. Instead he took that opportunity to shit on me. All those things he told me he loved about me, he used against me. He said I emasculated him. He said I was too aggressive, too needy, too much. He then accused me of infidelity and yelled “you can go back to whoever you’re fucking now" as we walked away to our separate cars.

A week after I broke up with him, I had found out that he was indeed cheating on me with that girl, the entire time. I found out, that because I was out of the picture, they were openly together. To my surprise I wasn’t pissed. I laughed. I actually laughed for a solid 5 minutes. I felt....vindicated. Because what my gut had told me the entire time WAS true. I WASN’T crazy. I knew it the whole fucking time.

And now I was free. To be honest I ended up spiraling out a bit. Got into cocaine and alcohol to numb the feeling that I wasted 7 years with someone like that. I was so angry at myself for not leaving sooner, for ignoring those red flags, for losing myself and who I was. I stayed in that spiral of doom for about a year.

Things started to get better and I thought “lets try some casual dating.” What a terrible idea. Not only had I just gotten over the trauma, but I hadn’t fully healed. My worth felt....worthless. The bar was SO FUCKING LOW, that I attracted total idiot fuck boys. “Oh my god he called me beautiful” *insert eyeroll here*

Its been 4 years now. I do want to be in a relationship. I have tried. But it always comes up short. They either don’t want to commit, or they’re alcoholics, or they’re misogynists'. Mostly its been men who don’t want to commit. Everyone just wants to fuck and run. I tried the fun, no strings attached thing. It got old really fast. Either I caught feelings, OR the sex ended up being boring because I prefer sex with emotions. I prefer being really into someone romantically when having sex. So FWB isn’t for me.

But I am slowly accepting that maybe I won’t ever meet anyone. That maybe I’ll be that cool wacky aunt to my friends kids. A majority of my friends are married and some already have kids. I am already their crazy auntie. And maybe that’s my roll in life. Maybe I will be that woman who never marries, but travels the world and experiences life and has amazing stories and wisdom.

But deep down inside....I’d really like to know what it feels like to be loved. I am loved by friends and family. But I have never experienced what its like to be loved romantically. I have never been kissed by someone who loves me.

#lowvalueman #abusive relationships #gaslighting #manipulation #personal growth #dating a narcissist

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mysterious-foxes · 4 years

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TW: Death, Drugs, Emotional manipulation/gaslighting

I don’t want to go back and edit anything, but this took way longer than I thought it would while trying to write it out. This is for documentation purposes and some entertainment if you want to hear about a psychotic woman that came into my life. Here ya go:

Okay, now that I’m home, I’ve eaten, given both dogs love (and bf took them on a walk), and I have New Girl on in the background, I’m ready to write out this crazy rant. Feel free to skip if you don’t want to read this LONG story or for whatever other reason you wouldn’t want to read it. I’ll add a ‘read more’ so that this doesn’t take up everyone’s timeline. I will say this though, if someone had told me this was going to happen a year ago, I never would have believed them, but everything I’m writing is 100% true.

If you are here to read my crazy rant about this fucking insane lady, welcome! I hope you find this as funny/interesting as I am currently. This is also a very emotional subject for me so while I might be thinking it’s funny now before I write it, I may go through a range of emotions while writing this. Such as anger, sadness, bewilderment, confusion, etc.

A little bit of a background. I am the youngest of 6 kids. I have 2 sisters and 3 brothers. I’m going to give them all code names using the color of the rainbow. Oldest to youngest is Red (f), Orange (f), Yellow (m), Green (m), Blue (m). Red and all 3 brothers are married (Yellow has been with her girlfriend for 3+ years). Blue only just got married a couple of months ago. I have 4 nephews (2 from Yellow and his wife, 2 from Green and his wife) and 2 nieces (both from Red and her husband). My mom and dad were married for over 30 years. They would never show much (if any) form of PDA in front of us kids and I never once saw them fight. My dad has always been quiet and never talked much. And he never really built a good relationship with us kids, especially those of us who have left the religion he believes in which is 4 1/2 out of 6 (I’m still unsure of Blue’s complete views and I don’t think he even knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if him and his wife left the religion within the next few years, even if it’s just secretly). My mom passed away a year and just a few days ago (on Green’s birthday). I miss her more than anything.

A little about my mom (again, for background). She was a great lady. She was also religious. She was extremely involved in the community, her church community, volunteered a ton (served on the local softball board for 17 years and did anything and everything for my high school’s theatre even after I was gone). She put everyone ahead of herself (especially us kids). She also pushed through any pain she had. About 2 years ago, she realized she was really sick and needed help. Doctors could not figure out for the life of them what was wrong with her. They took out her gall bladder. They put her on diets. I honestly don’t even know what else. About 6 months later, they found the problem and delivered the news. She had pancreatic cancer and it was severe. They gave her 6 months to live. We made the most of those 6 months. I was going out to my family’s a lot more than I had in a while. Red flew out and stayed for a few months. All of my siblings were there when she passed. Oof, I got a lot more into that than I meant to, but I feel like it gives a pretty good background about her. I told you this would be long.

Okay, so now we’re to where I can start talking about this insane lady. So for obvious reasons, my dad was very lonely. In May, my dad gives me a call and tells me he’s been talking to a woman (we’ll call her Ethel). Well, it felt soon, but I was happy my dad was finding comfort. He met her (get this) on an LDS widow and widowers facebook page. She lived in Oregon and he was going out to meet her in person and spend time with her for a week or 2. Awesome! Way to go Dad! Live your best life and make yourself happy!

He comes back and we start talking about when she’ll come to visit. Well Ethel has a sister (who lives in a city about an hour from my dad’s house) needs to have heart surgery Ethel needs to watch her cat. So Ethel comes to Utah and stays at my dad’s house for a couple of days. A few of us kids go out and have dinner with them to meet her. I was the first one there. Upon first meeting her, she talked, A LOT. She talked the majority of the time. It didn’t take long to realize that she had something to say about EVERYTHING and she seemed like she though she was the expert in EVERYTHING. For example one of the most recent times I talked to her, she was talking to me about the theatre I work at (which is a $31 billion theatre, super high tech and honestly they do pretty well). When I mean she was talking to me, I mean SHE was talking (she doesn’t let other people talk very much if at all. Only for “I’m sorry, that must be hard” or “I agree with you”). Well, she hasn’t been to the theatre I work at, but she’s been to their location in another nearby city which puts on a lot smaller productions and doesn’t have even 1/10th the amount of tech. They don’t put on nearly as good of productions. Well, Ethel tells me, “I’ve never been to a Broadway show, but I think that they’re as good as Broadway.” Like what?! HAHAHAHA. How can you even say that? You know absolutely nothing about it and you’re saying that!

Now, we’ve all met her, but she doesn’t really know the first thing about any of us kids. She asked me one question and then took over the conversation as soon as I got 2 words in. She did ask us all in a group about my mom (which was super awkward). We mentioned my mom was very charitable and she goes, “Oh I’m charitable person!” Who the fuck says that? And comparing herself to my deceased mother (who both her and my dad have “reassured” us time and time again that she’s not trying to replace). She constantly says how much like my mom she is or what she’s done better than my mom. HUGE RED FLAG. How desperate do you have to be to try to one up a dead person?!

In Ethel’s constant talking, she talks about her children and family members a lot. She talks a lot about how her husband passed and her brother passed and someone else passed all pretty quickly. She talks about her brother passing basically every time I talk to her. Now you might think it’s sweet she talks about her family, but it’s not. She doesn’t talk good things about any of her family. She talks about all the mental illnesses they all have. Her children refuse to meet my dad (or so she claims). And she doesn’t talk to any of her 3 children at this point. Another huge red flag.

So Ethel was here to take care of her sister and her sister’s cat while she was in the hospital. Well, turns out her doctor couldn’t do it the day they had planned, so it got pushed back. Then her sister desperately needed to go shopping so she had to push back her HEART surgery again. And I think one time she couldn’t go because her feet hurt from diabetes? There were a few different things. So Ethel is staying at my dad’s house this entire time. My dad’s very religious and so they’re not having sex, sleeping in the same bed, or even sleeping on the same floor. My dad is staying downstairs while she sleeps in his room. Finally, a month later, her sister goes in for surgery. Ethel is gone from my dad’s house for 2 days. To be fair, my dad wasn’t feeling good and had an infection in his tooth so was in a lot of pain. So yes, I get why she wanted to come support her new boyfriend, but also, my dad had plenty of children close enough to take care of him and she was supposed to be taking care of her sister’s cat. She stays at my dad’s house for another 3-4 days before going back to her sister’s. She gets back and to her surprise (but nobody else’s), the cat is missing. I also would have ran away if I thought I was abandoned and needed to scavenge for my own food since I haven’t been fed in days.

Finally, Ethel is going back to Oregon. Orange and my dad take her to the airport. On the way home, my dad mentions to Orange that they’re talking about getting married. Wow! Less than 9 months since my dad’s wife of 30+ years passed and he’s already ready to get married to another woman. What the fuck?! How is he over my mom already? I get wanting companionship, but holy fuck that’s quick! So I call my dad. My Aunt J had already chewed out my dad telling him that he’s moving too quick and not thinking about us kids (which is not wrong). And I guess she told him just to have sex and get it over with. I know my sisters also called my dad just before me. I called my dad and told him I was uncomfortable with how quick they were moving and I didn’t understand why they felt the need to move so quick. He just kept saying that it’s different when you’re older....I told him the 2 reasons that I could think that they were moving so quick is that she’s a gold digger or that they wanted to have sex (which come to find out that she claims she never had sex with her deceased husband and hated sex when she had it with her ex but I don’t know if she ever told my dad that because some of the things he has said to her is questionable). He assured me that was neither. Sure Dad...

I know I’m kinda all over the place here, but bear with me. So my Aunt J reached out to Ethel’s children. Only the oldest daughter responded (which Ethel claims is a liar and manipulative and basically the worst person on earth). So at this point, for I feel like pretty obvious reasons, I don’t trust much of what Ethel says and will most likely take her daughter’s word over hers. My aunt didn’t want to say everything and wanted us to reach out to the daughter personally, but she did tell us that the first thing that Ethel told her children when she met my dad was that she met a guy with a 401k. Who the fuck talks about that first?! Not even his name or where he’s from, but that he has money...So Orange ends up reaching out to Ethel’s oldest daughter. Ethel has said that her oldest daughter is a liar and manipulator and is basically the worst person in the world. I don’t know how someone can say that about their own child that they claim to love so much. Anyways, so Orange is pretty level headed and took everything that the daughter said with a grain of salt. But the daughter said some nice things and honestly made us feel better about Ethel all around. One of the things that Ethel has said on multiple occasions is that her children refuse to meet my dad. Well, when Orange talked to the daughter, she said that she was more than happy to meet my dad and talk to him about Ethel. But again, overall, she did make us feel better and that Ethel actually had feelings for my dad and wasn’t going to gaslight him (turns out that wasn’t accurate). We wanted to be upfront with my dad so Orange told him about the conversation and told him that it made her feel better. My dad told Ethel (including that Orange took what the daughter had to say with a grain of salt and that the daughter made her feel better) that Orange talked to her daughter and Ethel says, “I can’t believe that Orange would believe her lies!” First of all, I trust anything that her daughter says over her in the first place, but that just reaffirmed that. Second, that’s extreme gaslighting and my dad believes it.

Okay, so this has been a lot to write out and a lot more exhausting than I thought it would be. I’ve taken week long breaks (if not more) at a time, so I don’t know if I’ll forget to say something or if I’ll go in a different direction than I was originally planning for the next paragraphs but hopefully this is all entertaining enough. It won’t be all in chronological order, but I’m doing my best.

So after all of this, my dad tells us that we should go through my mom’s stuff that’s in the house that we want. Until you’ve done that shortly after the death of a loved one, you don’t know how exhausting it is. The first time was on a weekend that almost all of my siblings were able to be there. We video chatted my sister who couldn’t be there since she lives across the country. So we split up all of the big stuff. There’s some big furniture that people couldn’t currently take. Like I live in a tiny 1 bed apt and I couldn’t fit a piano, dresser, and vanity all in my apartment (let alone just one of them). So those are staying there until I can buy a house (which hopefully will be across the country). I was going out every Sunday to go through everything. I was a little petty and at one point was going through a box that had a bunch of church stuff in it right in front of my dad and kept asking him if he wanted the church things. My dad said we had plenty of time to go through things and take what we wanted so we were only doing what we felt was necessary and then would take our time from there.

One of the things that my dad and Ethel claimed was that their deceased spouses were trying to get them together...if anyone knows my mom, that’s definitely not true. I don’t know how my dad doesn’t see my mom would have hated Ethel. Her, Green’s wife, and myself would be gossiping so much about Ethel. Plus, one of my mom’s wishes when she passed was that if my dad got remarried then all of us kids would like his new wife. Not a single one of us like her. So not only is my dad completely oblivious to the fact my mom wouldn’t like her, he doesn’t uphold to one of her dying wishes.

So Ethel comes back to Utah. I don’t remember quite why. But she stayed at my dad’s. It was supposed to be temporary and she was supposed to stay somewhere else for most of the time she was here. Then she kept making excuses as to why she wasn’t leaving Utah and not staying somewhere else. There was one point where she was supposed to drive back to Oregon, but her car “broke down” about 7 (I think) hours from my dad’s house, but probably somewhere in the middle of the drive. So my dad being the good guy that he is drove out to pick her up and brought her back to his house. Where she has stayed ever since. The only time she’s left since was for their honeymoon. She had come back a couple of months before they were even technically engaged.

Oh my god! I just remembered something I forgot to mention earlier! Ethel and my dad do a LOT of PDA. My parents rarely showed affection in front of us. They rarely kissed in front of us. The most they would do was hold hands. Well Ethel and my dad are full on cuddling in front of us. Which wouldn’t be a big deal if that wasn’t the first thing I ever saw of her when we first met and if they didn’t do it so much in front of us at the beginning and if my parents showed any form of PDA. They also called each other pet names which my parents never did. All in all, it was really weird. AND my dad made a dirty joke which he has never done so to his kids in the 34 years he’s had any of us. I was very taken aback. So they ended up getting officially engaged and wanting to get married ASAP. Blue had been engaged for several months before. We told my dad to not even get engaged before Blue got married...well, they were talking about having a small ceremony in Oregon and inviting only a couple of her friends. No....my dad is not getting married without a single one of his friends or family members. I think enough of us spoke up about that so the idea was quickly shot down. But my dad was talking about getting married within maybe even weeks. We all knew Blue didn’t want him to and that would be taking away from him. So we convinced my dad not to get married before Blue’s wedding. He was unhappy about it, but he waited.

So leading up to their wedding, Ethel kept pushing us to get things out of the house. When we talked to my dad, he would always say that we could take as much time as we need and Ethel would say she never pushed us at all. And whenever I’d come out, I hated being around Ethel and would always go hide in the basement “doing things” until the rest of my siblings came. When I was forced to talk to her by myself, she would just keep talking and talking and not letting me get a word in. I live with my boyfriend and I’m not married so she thinks I just live in sin. She asked me about him once just so that she could say that she has family in the city he grew up in and so on and so forth. She also won’t talk about my sister’s girlfriend. Probably because they live in sin too...anyway, Orange, Green’s wife and myself planned a bridal shower for Blue’s (at the time) fiancée. She didn’t want Ethel there, but it was being hosted at my dad’s and Ethel never left so we couldn’t get around it. Speaking of Blue and his wedding, Blue was supposed to have brunch with his fiancée’s parents and my dad. Before my dad was actually engaged, he brought Ethel along. And Ethel doesn’t even ask, but tells them all that she’ll take care of the ties. Then she goes out and buys some samples before even knowing what the wedding colors are! Blue didn’t want her going to the wedding, let alone doing anything for the wedding. When I get married, Ethel will not be doing anything for my wedding.

Blue’s wedding happens. This is the first time Ethel meets my boyfriend. I don’t think they even said one word. This is also the first time that Yellow and his wife have met Ethel. Now Yellow’s wife got her degree in psychology and is a therapist. She said that Ethel crossed off almost all of the signs of a narcissist. Ethel still hasn’t even met Red and her husband in person (even to this day). Now we’re a month away from my dad’s and Ethel’s wedding...unfortunately. My dad asks me to put together a playlist for their wedding. No thanks, but I’ll do it for my dad. He specifically requested a song by Chicago for her walking down the aisle. Chicago was my mom and dad’s band so I was very upset that my dad would have a song with another woman from the band that him and my mom loved so much. I begrudgingly put together the playlist and added that. However, I didn’t add any other Chicago songs (even though he suggested that). And I made sure any songs I used didn’t mention forever or only love or anything like that. I might be a little petty.

Day of their wedding, I find out that all the decorations Ethel asked for from Green’s wife were from Blue’s rehearsal dinner. She didn’t even ask Blue or his (now) wife if she could use them. She asked Green’s wife...and then when she told Ethel she would have to ask Blue, Ethel said something along the lines “Well his dad paid for them so I can use them.” I don’t think it was quite as snarky as I put it, but that was the message she was trying to get across. My siblings are all hanging out at the dining table before the ceremony. Even though they’re both religious, they were just having a civil wedding in the backyard because if they were to marry in their temple, she would have to divorce her deceased husband (but my dad would be able to be married to multiple women for eternity...not misogynistic at all right? /sarcasm). My dad’s bishop comes in all bright and cheery. He knows quite a bit of my family so he comes and says hi. I don’t think it took long for him to realize we weren’t happy about the wedding. Ethel claims she invited her children (I really don’t think she did). She had a few of her family and friends come to the wedding, but none of her children. We’re pretty sure one of the couples that came was her daughter’s ex husband and his new wife (whom she has said she is closer with her daughter’s ex than her actual daughter).

Okay, so I’m now at the point where I’m going to give information that I don’t 100% remember fits where. Some of it was before their wedding, some of it before they even got engaged, some of it after their wedding. This may just be a bunch of word vomit, so I hope it all makes sense and anyone who happens to still be reading this doesn’t get lost. BTW, if you happen to still be reading this, congratulations on making it this far! I told you this would be a long post.

One of the first times we met Ethel when she was out here the first time we were doing a family dinner. I don’t remember everything we did for the dinner. Green’s wife cooked the main meal. Orange was supposed to be in charge of the Au Gratin Potatoes and something else. Well, I had asked what I could do and had the choice of rolls or salad. In our family group chat, my dad said Ethel wanted to contribute and asked what she could do. I told him I would do the salad and asked if she could do the rolls. Apparently that wasn’t good enough and she wanted to do more so she ended up doing the au gratin potatoes. We specifically wanted our family recipe for the potatoes and Orange had already bought the ingredients for it so she let Ethel know where to find the ingredients. Before I get into what actually happened, one of the things that Ethel boasts about all the time is that she grew up helping her mom with catering and so she knows how to cook really well (I have liked very few of the things she’s cooked). So Ethel doesn’t use our recipe and uses her own for the potatoes...they weren’t very good. And the rolls she brought were terrible store bought rolls. Like, if she doesn’t want to make rolls, whatever, but at least buy decent rolls. Also, rolls are a really easy thing to make to show off to a family you’re trying to impress. I seriously just get the frozen Rhode’s Rolls and then after cooking them melt butter on top of them. Super easy and people are always super impressed with how good they are. So not only does she not use the recipe for potatoes we wanted, her recipe is meh, AND she gets shitty store bought rolls.

At one point, Green’s wife and I were going through the small room upstairs cleaning it out and trying to make sure my sibling’s belongings got in a box for each of them. This is the room that my mom died in. All of my siblings were in this room with her. It is painted dark blue and along the middle of the wall around the room is a trim of wallpaper covered in whales. Ethel and my dad are wanting to turn this room into his home office (especially with how much he’s been working at home due to Covid-19). Which is whatever, they can do what they want. While Green’s wife and I are in there cleaning out the room, Ethel comes in and starts using some sort of tool on the wallpaper that tore small holes in it. She said it was so they could take down the wallpaper easier. I don’t know why she had to do that while we were in there cleaning. It has been a few months since then and she hasn’t done anything else to that room (including taking down the wallpaper). Green’s wife believes she did that while we were in there just to be mean. She actually believes Ethel just likes being mean and does things just to be mean. It’s hard to disagree with that considering everything else.

I don’t know why I didn’t say something about this earlier when I was writing about how Orange and my Aunt J had spoken to Ethel’s daughter. There were some things that they talked about that were huge red flags. Ethel’s daughter said that Ethel was a gold digger and just looking for someone to take care of her. Also that from Ethel’s first marriage, she got $60,000 from her ex husband and she blew it all within just a few months. Ethel has been filed for bankruptcy multiple times and just overall isn’t great with money. All of her children have tried to help her and she has burned every bridge because she just sells the cars they would buy for her or do other stupid things because she never had any money. I mentioned before that Ethel’s children refused to meet my dad. They said that it was way too soon after her last husband passed (their step dad) for them to meet my dad (yes, it had been like 7 months). So since they refused to meet my dad right away, Ethel told them that they wouldn’t be a part of her life anymore. Of course my dad doesn’t believe any of this, but like I said earlier, I trust Ethel’s daughter way more than I trust her.

When my dad was talking about getting married to Ethel, one of the things we pushed for was a prenup. My dad reluctantly agreed that he would look into it. It turns out that in my state, if they hadn’t gotten a prenup stating otherwise, when my dad died (if Ethel was still alive) then everything would go to her and then once she died everything would go to her children and nothing would go to my dad’s kids. So he did go through with the prenup (which also covered if they got a divorce he wouldn’t have to give her money or anything). His lawyer actually gave him some really good advice and I hope that my dad was more open to his lawyer about those things than he was with us even though we said the same things. And luckily, control of the trust and everything else is still in the hands of my oldest siblings when my dad passes (even if Ethel is still alive).

So Green has 2 kids. One that they’re fostering and hoping to adopt, the other has some cognitive disabilities. Even so, he is the smartest kid I know. At 3 years old he could name all of the planets in the solar system. I’m 24 and I can’t do that. He just retains knowledge really really well. Well, Ethel likes to call him her “special little buddy”...which is extremely ableist to say the least. He doesn’t really like her and he can tell that we all don’t like her (he’s 6 and he can see that better than my dad). Green’s wife absolutely hates it when Ethel calls him that too. Green’s wife is probably the one that stands up for all of us the most. But she’s also super nervous of the inevitable time that she pisses Ethel off. Ethel has called CPS on her own daughter because her preteen grandson was moody and didn’t talk to her while she was at lunch with him. If she calls CPS on Green and his wife, then they take their foster child out of the home immediately and who knows what that’ll do to their chances of adopting him. When Ethel calls CPS on any of my siblings, if I haven’t already done it for other reasons, I will tell my dad that I want to be a part of his life, but our relationship can’t include Ethel. I know my siblings and they do not do a single thing that would concern CPS.

So when Blue got married, I’m not sure exactly when it was, but I know that Ethel talked to Blue’s new sister-in-law for a bit. And she was talking about Blue’s wife’s anxiety, which Blue’s wife has never said a thing to Ethel about. And Ethel just went on and on about Blue’s wife’s anxiety and how hard it must be and that’s why Blue’s wife is like this and so on and so forth....I’m curious to know what Ethel thinks my mental illness is and tells people about.

I’m writing this one right now because it just happened and I don’t want to forget the details. So my dad’s house has 6 bedrooms and 2 family rooms. It was a good size for my family while we were growing up, but now it’s just the two of them in a 6 bedroom home. They’re planning on redoing a lot of things and we’ve been doing a lot to clean out the house and split up my mom’s stuff. So in the smallest bedroom in the house, there was a lot of baby stuff and when we didn’t know where to put things, a lot of it would go in there. Well, on multiple occasions, they’ve told us that we can take as much time as we need to go through the house and that there was no rush. Ethel has been pushing to get everything out when my dad isn’t around, but now even my dad has pushed to get things out a little bit. They decide that anything we haven’t gone through and they’re not sure what we want, they’ll put in a storage unit for us to go through when we can. I thought that was a great compromise. Well, Ethel ended up taking a picture of the small room and posting it on Facebook talking about how messy we are and how terrible of step children we are. How we were supposed to get it out by the time they got back from their honeymoon so on and so forth. Yellow and his wife see this before Ethel ends up deleting it off of Facebook. Yellow calls my dad (which I’m so grateful because so far it’s just been the girls making any sort of fuss) and is really upset about it while talking to my dad. My dad puts him on speaker and talks to Yellow and Ethel together. Ethel says she accidentally posted it on Facebook and it was supposed to be just for her aunt. How do you accidentally post something on Facebook? And if you’re talking shit and posting it to a private audience, you sure as hell aren’t going to make the mistake of posting it publicly. But also, she was talking shit about my dad’s kids and he defended her. How can he take her side on that one?

The anniversary of my mom’s death is on the same day as Green’s birthday. Well, the day was coming up and in our family group chat Ethel asks how we want to celebrate the birthday and remember my mom. Not my dad, ETHEL asks...that is not her place in the slightest. If my dad had asked, then I would have been more than happy to talk about it, but Ethel doesn’t get to be the one to try to see how we want to celebrate. Green’s family, Yellow’s family, and myself and my boyfriend ended up going to an amusement park for that day. Then we went out to my dad’s that night for pizza (hawaiian especially to remember my mom) and to watch a destructo show (because my mom LOVED those). Yellow and his family were staying at my dad’s. Well, Ethel told Yellow and his wife to make themselves at home and to eat whatever and drink whatever. When Yellow was telling me about this, I thought it was so funny because 1 he said he felt like “yeah, of course I’ll make myself at home, this is my house, not yours! and 2 my mom would get so annoyed with him for when he visited opening up a bag of chips without asking for permission or things like that. Like small things that didn’t matter in the scheme of things, but he would do with my mom, of course he’s not going to care what Ethel thinks about it. The other thing that Ethel talked to Yellow and his wife about was getting rid of all the sippy cups and only keeping one in the house per grandchild with their name on it. She said that she would always find 5 sippy cups full of milk laying around the house, but she wasn’t saying that because of Yellow’s family. So that means she was saying it because of Green’s family. Which, the younger one never leaves his sippy cup behind and the older one doesn’t drink milk (he used to be allergic and now just doesn’t like it).

One of the things that bugs Green’s wife a lot is that Ethel will always message her and say passive aggressive shit or ask her to tell my family about something or talking to her about getting everything cleaned out of the house, etc. At one point she asked Green’s wife to choose what toys they wanted to keep in the house. My mom bought way too many toys for the grandchildren, but she loved them. She would end up putting a bunch in storage and rotating them out when the kids stopped playing with some toys because they were bored of them (genius really). But it sounded like Ethel was wanting to get rid of basically all of the toys, which the point of having them there and not at my siblings’ house was so that the kids had toys to play with there and only got to play with them at my dad’s house. I think one of the reasons for getting rid of them or at least downsizing is that she always claims that the toys don’t get put away. They do though. I have been there when my siblings are putting their kids mess away. I’ve helped clean the toys up. They always get cleaned up.

Oh my god!! I can’t believe it has taken me this long to mention this one. So while my dad and Ethel were on their honeymoon, we were going through the house and trying to clean out as much as possible. Well, while doing so, we found a TON of different medications. Some were for her, some her deceased husband, and some were for somebody named “Gale Friend”. But there were probably at least 40 different bottles of pills (if not more). And at one point, Green’s wife was downstairs cleaning out of of the bedrooms. In one of the vanities (that is either mine or Orange’s, not even my dad’s let alone Ethel’s), there were some more bottles of pills and LOOSE PILLS in the drawer. This is an area that my nephews are unsupervised a LOT. Imagine if one of them opened the drawer and ate one of them! Yellow’s wife thinks that it’s too sloppy for an addict and that Ethel was trying to get us to say something to my dad so that she could play the innocent victim and that his kids just hate her and it’s her and him against the world.

Speaking of playing the victim, she does that with my dad a lot. She has literally told him before that it’s him and her against the world. She has talked bad to him about every single one of his kids (except my oldest sister that I know of). She has been trying to cut him off from his family. He can’t talk to anyone of us or even his sister alone. Also, when we’re around, she talks to my dad in a baby voice. I’m sure she does it when we’re not there too, but just trying to act like she’s this innocent helpless little girl and my dad has fallen for it. I’m sooo scared that he is finding himself to be miserable and feels like he has nobody there to help him. I hope he knows that any one of his kids would help him if he said anything. He’s such a good guy and deserves happiness. I hope that soon, he is able to realize that she’s not happiness.

Wow, this was incredibly long. I’m 100% sure there are things that I missed/forgot about. And I’m 100% sure there are things that will happen later and I will be back here writing it down to keep record and if anyone actually was interested in knowing. If you are here reading this, you seriously deserve a medal for being able to get through this entire thing. Thanks for bearing with my scattered brain and I hope it at least made you laugh at the insanity if nothing else.

#long post #tw death #death #tw gaslighting #tw emotional manipulation #tw drugs #psychopath #insane #insanity #i miss my mom #i hate this woman #why did you do this dad?

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persephoneofhades · 4 years

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i think it is worth pointing out that ben didn't carry that secret about ian on his own, ryn knew from the get go and they were complicit in keeping maddie in the dark and just as ryn said she could have helped ian too and decided not to. i do think it's not really fair to ryn's evolved morality and her sense of right and wrong for maddie to act like her choosing not to save ian is somehow less of an evil than ben making that exact same choice

furthermore as much as i love maddie i can't help but take offence to seeing her say shit like 'what will you do, kill him?' referring to robb as if she thinks ben is actually capable of that now when his choice was essentially made in seconds and following him basically imagining this nightmare scenario in which she dies. i wish he had told her about it because maybe she'd have some compassion and realize it wasn't some on a whim decision

i do hope ben can get the help he needs with his addiction to the songs and now those cells injections and i really hope ben, maddie and ryn can all come together again. i'm a polymarine shipper and very much not for excluding one member of this triad but i'm seeing this trend of people wanting to push ben out of it but ryn and maddie are queer and polyamorous and clearly in love with him and i think they work better as a triad than they are now with ben/ryn together and maddie/ryn together

Okay, so I’m putting this all in one ask, but I will attempt to treat it like 3 in terms of how I respond to it.

This is going to be SUPER long so it’ll be under a cut.

So I’m going to start with the first bit that people have brought up that it’s unfair for Maddie to absolve Ryn of letting Ian drown and then keeping the information from Maddie but to break up with Ben over it. She says in the episode that it’s “different” for Ryn, though they never have her explicitly state WHY she believes it’s different so all I can do is try to explain my point of view on why I believe it’s different and maybe why I can understand Maddie seeing it as different. Obviously, this becomes super subjective and I do wish they’d had Maddie be a little more eloquent about why she thinks it’s different.

I have not seen that episode where Ian kidnaps Ryn in a while now, but I’m pretty sure I remember Ryn was somewhat disabled due to a drug or just physical exhaustion or something. She couldn’t fight back the way she normally could have and it’s not clear whether that continued after she transformed or not. I can’t even totally remember how Ian’s car ended up in the ocean, something’s telling me Ryn was finally able to do something and it causes him to accidentally steer himself off a cliff, but like I said, I can’t recall it in detail. But I do remember Ryn being not completely herself physically and it’s why he’s able to kidnap her AT ALL and that’s something Maddie would have known, something that’s NOT true of Ben. Ryn has the excuse of being in a far more vulnerable position than Ben, so her reaction to flee from her kidnapper once she’s finally given the ability to do so is more understandable than Ben leaving Ian to die.

Ryn also, while definitely learning, is always going to have her instincts. Honestly, the fact that she LEAVES Ian to drown rather than attacking him in the car is fucking MAJOR for Ryn. And I think it goes to show my earlier point that she recognizes she’s in a vulnerable position and is choosing to flee rather than fight. Ryn has gone from someone who would basically kill nearly any human to a person who will ally herself with some humans but kill the ones who threaten her to someone who seems to hesitate to kill others even when they betray her. She’s made a TON of progress! But it’s never been MADDIE who held her to a standard of not killing people, it was DALE. I can’t even remember if Maddie knows Dale HAD that conversation with Ryn, they were definitely alone in the car together and I don’t know if it’s ever made clear whether Ryn or Dale tell Maddie about the conversation afterward or not.

So from Maddie’s point of view, she’s probably trying to be understanding about Ryn’s instincts and the things she’s been taught in the water about survival. And this combined with the understanding that Ryn FLEES her attacker when she’s somewhat physically disabled means that, while Maddie would obviously have preferred for Ian to live, Ryn has a pretty solid excuse. RYN knows that she’s been told it’s not good to kill people (or let people die I guess) if you can defeat them some other way and her attempt to get Maddie to blame her for it is a sign that she remembers that, even if she didn’t follow that rule at the time. She’s having to see her instinctive actions through a human lens.

Ben also isn’t the one who was kidnapped. So again, like with the fact that Ryn is disabled, Ben is far less at risk than Ryn is in this situation. And they all know it, they know that Ian would not have fought Ben if Ben had freed Ian and helped him up to the shore. Ryn’s secret is effectively out, but she knows she’s not supposed to be revealing herself and this is a situation where it would be MUCH better for her to flee. NONE of that is true of Ben.

And while this isn’t super clear and could be considered a headcanon, we know that Ryn SEES Ben coming, she looks at him as she leaves the car and then swims off and leaves Ben behind. I think there’s something of an unspoken “I’m fine, you don’t need to worry about me” and some kind of understanding on Ryn’s part that he’s going to go check on Ian. She doesn’t go grab Ben to swim back WITH him even though we know she goes straight back to Maddie. She LEAVES BEN WITH IAN. I think Ryn was maybe under the impression that Ben was going to free Ian and try to save him so she didn’t have to. I don’t think Ryn knew any more than Maddie did that Ben LET Ian die. She probably assumed that he either couldn’t get the door open and had to come up for air himself or that Ben was just too late or something and that Ian died despite Ben’s efforts, not because Ben didn’t MAKE any. So while she doesn’t say anything to Maddie, I think she’s under the impression that Maddie knows everything there is to know. Ryn obviously came up before Ben did and Ian was not with her, so there’s nothing to admit to that Maddie can’t figure out for herself.

Finally, Ryn’s actions aren’t out of character for her whereas Ben’s VERY much are for him and I think that’s something Maddie’s picking up on. I’ve discussed a few times how Maddie’s history with substance abuse issues and drug addiction in relationships with someone she loves are a long-standing character trait that has already caused her to break up with Ben once back in Season one. I think she’s recognizing the red flags and the signs that Ben is doing things that are uncharacteristic, but isn’t aware that it’s related to him being addicted again because she has no idea that he’s done that. Maddie KNOWS what she can handle in a relationship and this kind of erratic behavior isn’t it. She’s recognized a red flag and is leaving the relationship because of it. That isn’t true for Ryn. Ryn has already killed someone in Maddie’s defense, so she knows that that is something Ryn COULD do if she feels threatened enough and has clearly already chosen to accept that facet of Ryn’s personality in order to be in a relationship with her. She knows Ryn would not do something like that except under super dire circumstances, and being kidnapped while physically disabled would probably count as a dire circumstance. Again, as I’ve said a few times now, that ISN’T TRUE FOR BEN. Ben is not in dire circumstances, his life has never been in danger, and leaving people to die has just never been something he’s been willing to do before this episode. It’s not NORMAL for Ben, but it’s something Ryn has a history with, so it doesn’t bring up red flags for behavioral issues in Ryn the way it does with Ben, something Maddie recognizes as a dealbreaker for herself.

TL;DR I think Maddie has a POINT that it’s different for Ryn that it is for Ben. Ryn is only just learning that it isn’t okay to kill people in your own defense unless you have zero other choices, Ryn had been physically disabled and was very much more at risk from Ian than Ben was, and I don’t think Ryn lied to Maddie about anything.

Okay, on to the second ask about Maddie making a sarcastic comment to Ben referencing his letting Ian die after he makes some jealous comments about Robb.

Yes, it’s a bit of a low blow, but in her defense, Ben’s being kind-of an ass himself in this scene. He’s making some valid points, but he’s being ridiculously condescending and patronizing about it. They DIDN’T know that Robb was safe at the time, so he has a point that Maddie needs to be careful about how much Robb learns about her life, but it’s not as if Maddie doesn’t KNOW that already. Maddie is getting justifiably insulted and angry at Ben’s behavior and so she throws Ian’s death back in his face to remind him that Ben’s response to people learning things about the mermaids isn’t necessarily any better and he has no platform from which to preach at her about this issue. Especially since Ian got involved in the mermaid stuff THROUGH BEN.

And your argument that Ben made a split second decision based on a paranoid hallucination is kind-of a moot point because, as you said, Maddie doesn’t know shit about it, so how would she be able to take it into consideration when having an argument with Ben about what he did? And honestly, I don’t think she believes it was a premeditated incident, she’d be a LOT more worried about him if she thought he’d planned Ian’s murder somehow. No, she KNOWS it was a split second decision to just, let him drown and pass it off as an accident he couldn’t prevent. And the vision doesn’t change much. She KNOWS that Ben did it to try to protect Ryn and she understands the impulse to try to eliminate the threats to the mermaids, she just sees this as a step too far. I think even if she DID know that Ben had some sort of drug-induced hallucination, she STILL wouldn’t agree with him. She’d still tell him he went too far, that he crossed a line.

i’m a little confused at your argument, though, you say “she thinks ben is actually capable of that now when his choice was essentially made in seconds“ implying that the quickness of Ben’s decision is what exonerates him because it wasn’t pre-meditated but you follow it up with “[she’d] realize it wasn't some on a whim decision“. So is his justification for what he did that it wasn’t pre-meditated murder or is it that he thought it through somehow in like 5 seconds flat and decided it was worth it? Because those are two ENTIRELY different arguments for why Ben’s actions weren’t as bad as they seemed.

Finally, for your last ask, I too want them to find a way to help Ben with his addictions and I do hope the injections do something although next episode’s promo and blurb seem to imply the injections start having some BAD side effects finally which isn’t a good sign.

I agree that Ben/Ryn don’t work on their own well at all, at least not right now while Ben is lying to Ryn all over the place and not really communicating with her effectively.

I DISAGREE, though, that Maddie/Ryn don’t work on their own. I think Maddie/Ryn are the most healthy leg of this triangle right now and have been for a while. I wrote a post a little while ago about how I think Polymarine works because the three sort-of represent a balance of traits within each other and I still believe that and I hope we can get back to that. But I think Maddie and Ryn could absolutely work on their own without Ben in a way that Ben and Ryn DO NOT work without Maddie. Mainly because Maddie is the reasonable one, she’s the least impulsive of the three whereas both Ryn and Ben tend not to think too much before they leap and it gets them into trouble more often than it doesn’t. They each tend to enable each other and Maddie is their voice of reason. She’s also one of the most understanding and tolerant of the three, the one least likely to jump to violence as a first resort. I think that she and Ryn work as balances on each other in the same way that Ben and Maddie worked on their own before they met Ryn. I think for good polyamorous relationships to work, too, that the relationships between each leg needs to be good on its own, not just when they’re all together and that’s where the triad is having issues because Ben is making both of his relationships with Ryn and Maddie dysfunctional and unhealthy.

TL;DR I think there’s a LOT of reasons why Maddie might be seeing a difference between Ryn’s leaving Ian in the car and Ben’s leaving Ian in the car. I think while Maddie’s comment is certainly a low blow, it was done in reaction to Ben being an asshole so I’m letting that one go and Ben is still the first person Maddie calls when she needs help so she clearly still feels like she can rely on him when she needs him. I think Ben needs to work on fixing himself so he can make his separate relationships with Ryn and Maddie healthy again in order for Polymarine to work. I’m not arguing for Ben to be pushed out indefinitely, but I think I’d rather see Ben need to take a back seat than Maddie and there’s a lot of worry about Maddie getting sidelined for Ben/Ryn to take center stage and I can understand that worry.

#siren #siren freeform #polymarine #maddie bishop #ben pownall #ryn fisher #bryndie #siren spoilers #Anonymous

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