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bloodlustknight · 9 months

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Palpitations of the Heart

Miguel O'Hara x GN!Reader | WC 1.1k cw: description of panic attack (followed by comfort) Miguel helps you through a difficult time.

Thank you so much to my beta reader @hdmis you helped me so much with this!

It wasn't uncommon to find yourself here on long nights that followed an even longer day. Something about the darkness- its stillness- allowed your mind to wander. The quiet gave no barrier to the flood of unwanted thoughts that came with the night. Each one intrusive, pushing you further into that space where you're no longer in control. Suddenly it all hits you; stomach twisting, heart racing, your vision becomes hazy.

Before you realize it, you're reaching out for something, anything, to ground you. You try to focus your breath, each more shallow than the last. The thunder of your heart, intrusive as it pounds in your ears. You make for the door, needing to get away from this feeling, to just move. In your daze, you collide with something firm, the sensation stealing your attention for a moment.

"-heart." Your ears try to focus on the voice, head bowed.

"Sweetheart. I'm right here." He waits to touch you, watching to see if you're with him.

You reach out, taking his forearm to brace yourself. This was a bad one. It felt as though everything around you was phasing out.

"I'm not going anywhere." He murmurs as he looks down. Your fingers curled tight around his wrist, locked in an iron grip.

"Everything's gonna be alright." He reassures, voice measured as to not give away his concern. Miguel was no stranger to anxiety, that feeling that everything could come crashing down at a moment's notice, you had that in common. Though it was hard for you to let him in, with time he learned more, understood better, and tried his best to be someone you could come to when things were dreadful.

You're brought out of your thoughts as you feel muscles tense beneath your grip.

"I'm so sorry-" you partially manage as your hands release him, but your apology is cut short by two weighty arms wrapping themselves around you. Shaky breaths leave your body as your heart booms against your ribcage.

"Can you breathe with me?" Miguel asks as calloused hands rub the sides of your arms. Your only response is a deep exhale, an attempt at gaining some control.

"Okay, with me now." He looks you over, the way your eyes screw shut, how your breath rakes through your body, you are trying your best. Miguel guides you, taking note that you're only able to last half way through his instructions before your sucking in another breath.

"You're doing so well." He reassures, voice horse, giving away the fact he had been sleeping not long before finding you. His hands leave your sides, giving you space. After a few attempts you're able to breathe alongside him, gaining some stability.

Watching as his chest rose and fell in time with your own. You were grateful that your breath was under control, but the horrible feeling of dread hadn't subsided. It made you feel so meek. Mind continuing to fill with intrusive thoughts, you reach forward to place a hand on Miguel's chest. That's when the tears came.

A surprised look comes over Miguel, but soon after, his hands move to your back as he presses you against his sternum. Your hands clasped against your chest as you shudder into the crook of his neck. As your cries rake through your body, Miguel's hand cradles the back of your head, his other rubbing soothing circles onto your back.

"It's alright love, let it all out," He consoles with quiet empathy. Concern laced across his furrowed brow, throat tight as he repeats his reassurance, he worries for you. He's learned that in times like these, the best thing he could do is this. Be here.

His thumb rubbed small circles behind your ear as he held you. He could tell you were coming down, sobs replaced with sniffles. Slowly, you lift your face from his shoulder, snot following. Eyes growing wide as you realize how soaked his shirt had gotten.

"m' sorry I got you all…" you barely manage, your throat strained after all that had happened. Then your weight shifts. Miguel reaches forward, cupping your face.

"Don't worry about it." He says, pressing his forehead against yours. You suddenly feel hot, embarrassed by the thought of the snot and tears covering your face and now potentially his.

"Wait, I don't want to get you dirty, let me-" your cut short by Miguel taking the hem of his shirt and bringing it up to your nose.

"Here, blow." He offers.

"What- I'm not a kid come on." You laugh at his offer nugging his hand.

"I know, but you still got a little..." he cracks a sheepish smile.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner!" You groan, taking the hem of his shirt from his hands and giving it one good blow.

"There. Happy?" You look up, only to be met by Miguel's stifled laughter.

"I am." He says as he plants a kiss on the top of your forehead. You try and fight back a smile, but you can't help it.

"Wanna talk about it?" He asks, taking your hand in his, concern still filling his eyes.

"Could we sit here a little longer, maybe later..." you bury your head beneath his chin, placing your hands at his sides.

"Of course." He says, wrapping his arms around you.

You both stay like that well into the night, sharing laughs and a few more tears as your anxieties slowly drift away.

You're lying with your cheek pressed against Miguel's chest when you hear a rumble. Leaning back you find his lips parted as another snore escapes them. A smile pulls at your lips; you carefully attempt to stand, wanting to grab a blanket for the both of you. Your movement halted, as an arm wraps its way around your back. You look up, warm brown eyes meet your own, his lids heavy with sleep.

"Where are you going?" Miguel grumbles out, letting his eyes close once more. You could see just how exhausted he was. The floor of your living room wasn't the best place to call it a night.

"Lets go to bed Miggy" you whisper, hoping he won't protest. With some grumbles and a few groans, you both stand and carefully make your way to the bedroom. Once you're under the covers, Miguel pulls you to himself, your back meeting his sternum as warm arms hold you in place. His breathing was soft and slow, already having fallen back asleep.

Slowly you settle in, listening to his breath, finding comfort in his chest's rhythmic rise and fall. You soon follow Miguel, drifting off to sleep.

#miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x gn!reader #im trans so i always imagine things with that as the default but this is a gn reader fic!!#atsv #panic attack #comfort #hurt/comfort #just want to take a big ol nap on this dudes chest #muscles are so soft when relaxed #also trying out a new layout #did a lil illustration for header while i was at it #idk if i like it tho... feels like it implies the readers race is white and that is not my intention ;-; i want it to be open to everyone #without implication

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herorps · 3 years

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shadow and bone and racism

shadow and bone just came out so i can now finally break my silence bc holy shit do they go ham on the racism and me being me, i just have to tell you all about it. possible spoilers and triggers for anti-asian racism and microaggressions.

to preface, i was very privileged to receive a screener for the entire first season last month and i was actually excited to watch it bc i have friends who love the books and the show piqued my interest since it was announced. and i also have to say that i never read the books and i probably never will ( tho i’ve been told i would like soc ) but i did like the show overall.

i think sab is a good adaptation and that the fans will like this show. i thoroughly enjoyed it and as someone who had very little to almost no knowledge about the books, i didn’t have trouble keeping up with the fantastical world.

however that doesn’t mean i can’t be critical of it.

i think the show can actually benefit from people being critical about it because so far, it feels like they took a very tone deaf direction and ran a marathon with it.

what i’m talking about, is alina starkov being half-shu.

now, i said before that my interest was piqued for this show when it was announced and one of the major reasons is the casting of biracial actress, jessie mei li, in the role of alina starkov. i can’t tell you how happy i was to see that a half-chinese actress was cast as the lead in a series based on such a beloved ip, especially since the creators of the show consciously changed alina’s ethnicity to be half-shu before casting calls were even sent out. ( for those of you who are also non-book readers, shu is the race of people from the country, shu han, and is based off primarily mongolian and chinese cultures )

so i was endeared with the idea that this character, that is coded white, was deliberately changed to be coded asian ( and coded mixed race to boot ) because the producers wanted to include diversity into the show. i commend that, i love that, i support that. but i believe the way they handled it, shouldn’t have been the way they handled it. and it’s because alina’s race is constantly brought up.

obviously of course race is going to be brought up at some point. alina in the show is surrounded by white people when we first see her, and her home country of ravka does have a hostile history with shu han----i get it. racism is going to play a part in alina’s story. but it doesn’t necessarily need to go so far as to constantly remind the audience that she is shu in almost every interaction she has with someone she meets.

and that’s a big part of the issue, is that nearly everyone she meets will bring up the fact that she’s part-shu. and a lot of the time, it’s said with hostility. now i’m not exactly sure if i’m just being particularly sensitive because of certain recent events, but the anti-asian racism hits differently these days. idk.

because that’s what it is, at the end of the day. it’s racism. alina is often the target of very hostile racism and it seems to mainly be directed at her character and her character only.

and honestly, on a surface level it makes sense, i sort of understand what the producers are trying to do. ravka has a turbulent history with shu han and were involved in wars with them and they’re often seen as the enemy so obviously that would affect a shu-mixed person growing up in ravka, a very white country. but on a deeper level, it reminds me a lot of the anti-japanese sentiments during wwii. the production team even created a banner that i felt called back to those anti-japanese propaganda of that era. ( mind you it was shown multiple times, in main focus, and acknowledged by characters that were coded shu )

but on the other hand, they’ve done a considerable job to diversify at least the ethnic makeup of ravka. there are black and brown grisha at the school and there are people of different cultures ( noted by costuming, etc. ) in ketterdam and there’s even a shu-appearing trainer that teaches the grisha to fight. so my question is, why is this very hostile treatment primarily geared toward shu people and geared toward alina specifically? it just doesn’t make sense to me.

and when i say it’s specifically geared toward alina, i mean that it’s very apparent that they’re targeting her specifically, because mal ( played by a possibly mixed-race archie renaux ) is also coded to be of mixed shu blood. while it is not explicitly stated that mal is shu, it is heavily implied that he is mixed, but he is never subject to the treatment that alina is, and the only times he is subject to racism is when alina is also present. in scenes where we see alina and mal as kids, they are often both referred to as “mutts” or “half-breeds”. but when they are older, only alina is continuously called those things.

this isn’t even touching the microaggressions she faces after she’s at grisha school and this one line that made my gut wrench so viscerally i had to pause the episode and replay the part so i could confirm what i heard. [ episode 3 spoiler warning ] i’m trying to avoid posting screenshots or from spoiling parts of the show but there’s a scene where alina is being cleaned up and made presentable by servants and one of them says “I’d start by making her eyes less Shu.” [ end episode 3 spoiler ] i don’t think i have to explain to anyone how offensive that is. and i understand that the intention was to show how racist this servant is, that the entire point of of this weird racism plot is to show how the people of ravka can be racist and ignorant, but to have that line be written by a white writer, approved by a white showrunner and said by a white character to the face of an asian actor/character feels very tactless. it feels like another antagonist alina has to go against is racism itself.

what also turns me off about this scene is that jessie mei li revealed that this scene is what actresses had to audition with. “...the sides that they sent for the audition, like Alina is talking to Genya and they’re talking about her eyes and they’re talking about her Shu ancestry.” having actresses of mixed-asian ancestry come in and act out that scene for white producers doesn’t really sit right with me. and i know that there’s an argument to be had about how it’s important to show the minutia of what it’s like to be ethnic in a world ruled by white supremacy and that it’s important to show how alina’s race affects her story, but i don’t think that going this far is necessary to the development of plot or character.

and i don’t personally know jml, i don’t know how she feels about the show apart from what she’s probably briefed to talk about in interviews, but it is perfectly valid for me to feel iffy about the microaggressions while she feels that it’s necessary for character development ( again, this is just an example, i have no clue what she thinks of the racism ). our experiences are different, our upbringings are different, but we’re both happy to see representation and i’m happy that she’s happy to see an actual mixed-chinese character on screen as the lead.

i’m glad that the producers were open to diversity and were open to making the lead a person of color, but it’s things like the treatment of shu characters and exchanges like “Tell her...Oh, I don’t know...good morning.” “I don’t actually speak Shu.” and “I didn’t know the Zemeni had such talent.” “She’s Suli.” ( zemeni is a race of “dark-skinned” people and suli are coded south asian/mena/wena so this exchange is just white people mixing the brown people up ) that remind me the majority of the writers and producers are white.

now i’m not saying that you should boycott the show or that this show is the most problematic thing to ever grace my retinas, because i really enjoyed watching it and i want to see what season 2 has in store ( more crows content please ). but, i want you all to please keep all of this in mind when you watch the series and think critically of what kinds of unconscious biases these producers had. you’re allowed to have nuanced opinions, you’re allowed to be critical of the media you enjoy so long as you understand where some people’s criticisms are coming from---where my criticisms are coming from. i just hope in future seasons the treatment of alina gets better and that she actually learns to love her shu side because otherwise it’s just going to be problematic as the show continues.

#shadow and bone #grishaverse #six of crows

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rokhal · 3 years

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What do you think is the worst part abt Jason Isaacs writing for Robbie in avengers? Im almost finished reading all his comiks after a suden hyperfixation binge bc MAN i love this kid and like, i dont super hate his writing personally, but its still definitely very hit or miss for me- like rhe stuff during race of ghost riders was good imo (ignoring the bastardisation of blaze) but everything else feels like isaacs writes robbie too woobified? Like he feels too much like your perky marvel teen hero, like wheres his anger! His quietness! His brooding! Sure robbies powerful as hell but hes not like THE most supreme powerful best ghost rider ever he didnt even want this gig originally! IDK im just, let the kid be fucked up again !!!! Let him have some issues!!! Also wheres gabe!!!!!! Anyways sorry for rambling i would just like to know thank you :]

*Jason Aaron lol, easy mistake to make tho

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, there. Jason Insert Old Testament Name Here, Mediocre White Guy From Georgia, completely ignores Robbie’s extremely difficult living situation, the struggles and trauma implied in his backstory, and how his canon character expresses his response to those challenges. He writes Robbie like a nice naive kid, struggling with the weight of unaccustomed responsibility and seeking mentorship, a classic protagonist he probably believes his young readers will identify with, not knowing that Gen Z is already hardened and cynical and disgusted with adult authority.

He writes Robbie like bootleg Jaime Reyes.

Gabe is missing because Felipe Smith’s choice to include a developmentally-disabled character is terrifying to most writers and I don’t think we’ll see Gabe written in character unless Felipe Smith or some actual genius with a strong commitment to research or actual life experience interacting with people with disabilities gets the reins. Like, nobody wants to be Sia directing Music.

The other reason I think Gabe is missing, is the same reason Eli was missing for most of Robbie’s term in Avengers: Jason Aaron doesn’t like writing relationships, especially previously-established relationships. He fucking deleted Noble Kale from Danny Ketch Ghost Rider because he felt Noble Kale’s presence ruined Danny Ketch as a power fantasy. (Either that, or he has religious hangups about writing possession.)

Aaron does not write grounded stories. Smith!Robbie was an extremely grounded character who faced genuine real-life problems. Like old-school Peter Parker, Robbie had to deal with rent and work problems and shady money-making opportunities and temptation and family medical problems, things readers can understand and relate to. Jason Aaron’s stories are beyond this kind of thing. They deal with Heaven and Hell and angelic conspiracies and vampires and a vast kaleidoscope of magicocosmic plot threads that exist only long enough to inspire a memeable splash-page.

tl:dr Jason Isaac is a hack who is unable to conceive of comic books as anything more complex than power fantasies, thinks a Ghost Rider is just a scary-looking superhero with cool powers, and thinks family connections are boring. Robbie Reyes and his world are completely outside Aaron’s skillset.

#all-new ghost rider #meta #my meta #jason aaron #jason aaron sucks #robbie reyes

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