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leighsartworks216 · 6 months

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I Come With Knives Pt6

Astarion x gn!Tav/Reader

(The other parts of this story are under the First BG3 Masterlist, or you can use the AO3 link to read it there)

This one is my problem child. I have no idea how to write for the other companions but I needed to have this as context for the companions learning about Tav's bg and yeah whatever I've got better stuff coming up. I am very very excited for future chapters >:)

Warnings: self-destructive coping mechanisms (scratching oneself), mentions of slavery, hints of a panic attack, mentions of emotional abuse, mentions of biting, possibly OOC companions

Word Count: 1,334

Main Masterlist

First Baldur's Gate 3 Masterlist - Second Baldur's Gate 3 Masterlist

I Come With Knives Masterlist

AO3

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Everyone eyed you warily. You didn’t blame them. After you scrubbed your hands raw of the blood staining them, you provided no explanation. You’d basically sped in, Astarion trailing behind, and ran for a bucket of water. And stayed there. For hours. After the fact, you changed out the water, of course, but they weren’t concerned as much with the pink-tinted water as they were with the frantic nature you scraped the natural dye from your hands.

Astarion didn’t say anything either. A few of them had tried asking, but he smiled tersely and made an excuse that changed each time. “I was too distracted fighting a beast.” “You know how some people get with germs.” “They really hate the color red.” (This one was not said to Karlach, nor in her earshot.)

It all came to a head at dinner, when you’d still provided no explanation. Gale handed out servings silently, staring at you as though studying a new specimen. Lae’zel watched you like a predator trying to defend her territory, prepared for the moment the intruder stepped over the line. Shadowheart barely repressed her scowl.

Wyll set down his bowl pointedly. “Haven’t you kept your secrets hidden long enough?” You raise your eyes from your barely-touched stew. You didn’t quite see him. Your mind lingered on the image of the Gur. “Do you expect us to continue following blindly while we pour our souls out for you?”

You bristled. The image disappeared, tucked away to haunt you later. “No. No, I’m sorry.” You sighed and set your bowl aside. Everyone watched you expectantly, more interested in what you could say than filling their bellies. “It’s just… difficult to talk about.”

“Speak,” Lae’zel encourages roughly. “We will listen.”

Astarion frowns at you. He’s taken to sitting beside you for ‘dinner’. They knew by now he wasn’t suited to eating normal food, but he didn’t quite trust them not to stake him through the heart or cut his head off. It was safest to linger by your side. The irony of your trust in him was not lost on him: You understood him best and you feared him the most. That fear may have dampened over time, but you still flinched at the gleam of his fangs, watched him as he left camp to hunt at night. Yet you’d bared your soul to him and him alone. He couldn’t wrap his head around it.

You inhale, slow and shaky. Your hands fiddle in your lap, providing you some sort of distraction. It would not be enough to ground you to reality should the thoughts become too potent.

“I was… am,” you corrected unsurely, “a vampire’s thrall. She… uses me as a blood source. Has used me, for years. I’ve been stuck under her thumb since I was a teenager. It’s… easier to have one consistent source of food than to go out looking for it every night.

“When we were out in the woods,” you nod your head slightly toward Astarion, “there was a Gur. A monster hunter. A-And he said he was looking for a runaway.” Your breaths sharpen into quick, frightened little things. You nearly choke on them. You stare into the fire. Your nails start scratching at your hands. You don’t even realize you’re doing it. “He had nothing to go on, just a name, but I panicked and I- I killed him. I shouldn’t have. I know I shouldn’t have. I could have explained everything. I could have paid him off. I could have-”

“Steady on, soldier,” Karlach interrupts. You can’t look at her, can’t draw your eyes away from the flickering flames, but you know she looks worried. It always amazed you how openly she wore her emotions, despite it all. “Take a breath, okay?”

Your nails stop scratching in favor of digging into your skin. You take a breath, slowly let it out, and your nails ease off. You run your fingertips mindlessly over the indents left behind.

You whisper, unable to raise your voice any further. “He said my master is in Berdusk.”

Quiet. Gale spoke up, voicing the awful realization everyone had. “That’s only a few miles from Baldur’s Gate.”

You nod.

“You’re marchin’ right back to her.” Karlach sighs, heavy and empathetic.

You finally lift your eyes from the fire. Everyone’s attention is on you, pitying and remorseful. “I have no choice. I can’t abandon you all just to run away. Especially with these tadpoles. I have no doubts she’ll find me quickly once we reach the city.”

“We could confront her,” Wyll suggests. “Go to Berdusk, face her head on, free you!”

“It’s not some goblin camp we can just walk into and clear out,” you protest. The idea thrills you to no end, but you cannot allow yourself that hope. Not when there is none. You will be found. Tonight, the next, a week from now. You’ll be locked back into your servitude. There is no chance you have to be free. “Killing a vampire lord isn’t- It’s not just-”

Astarion speaks up. You don’t expect it; he’d been so quiet this whole time. “If we can kill Cazador, we can kill Kir Parthene.” Your stomach rolls around at the sound of her name. “What makes facing my master any different from yours?”

You know the answer. Even if you don’t realize it yet, you know.

You have no qualms threatening Cazador. You’ve even told Astarion that you plan to help him kill his master, once and for all. Free him and his ‘siblings’, and rid Baldur’s Gate of the nighttime threat to its people. No longer would they have to go out, lure victims in as food for the vampire lord. It was so easy to promise. If you could help everyone else, why should you leave Astarion to the same fate you faced after this quest? He should be as free as possible from the chains binding him.

So why couldn’t you let them swear the same for you? What made Kir Parthene so different from Cazador? She was not stationed in as large a city, she did not steal souls off the street every night just for a quick meal, she did not personally carve poetry into the flesh of those beneath her. She had power, but no more than Cazador held. So why were you so reluctant to even dream of your freedom?

You were afraid.

Astarion can see the very second you know the answer to his question. Your eyes open a fraction wider, filling with a bottomless dread. Your heart stutters and your breath catches. He’s sure you’re on the verge of tears as you inhale a trembling breath, trying to keep yourself from hyperventilating, even as your fear squeezes your lungs.

“You won’t have to face her alone.” You turn to look at Shadowheart. “You’ve given us the strength to face our demons. We can help you face yours.”

You want to believe her. Believe all of them as they nod in agreement. Believe they could give you the strength you lacked, support you when you come face-to-face with her once more.

But then you see the deep crimson of her eyes and lips. You feel her nails digging into your skin. The cooing affections that come just after the harsh vitriol. Her teeth digging deep into your neck. How can you have any hope of facing her?

You shake your head and push yourself to your feet so fast Astarion is startled. “I’m sorry. I can’t think about this right now.” You abandon your dinner. It sits, lonely and growing cold, as you step away from the warm glow of the fire and the safety of your companions into the edge of trees surrounding your camp. You don’t go far, just far enough you can’t hear them speaking and they can’t see you collapse against a tree, clutching and clawing at your hands to remove the memories from your mind.

At least they know now.

---

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fractualized · 7 months

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Three Jokers Are Not Better Than One

(or, cheap twists don't make a good story)

Would you look at that? It's time to bitch about Three Jokers!

(spoilers for a 3-year-old comic ahead)

Gotham War got me into hater mode, so I figured it was time to take a second look at Three Jokers, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jason Fabok. I first read it when the issues came out, and I thought it was possible that the story isn't as bad as I remembered. I don't know why, since for the past three years I've been haunted by the possibility of it being deemed canon.

Of course, at the time of conception, Three Jokers was intended to be canon. Johns set up the premise in the Darkseid War storyline of the 2011 Justice League run, in issues published in 2015/2016. Batman takes control of the omniscient Mobius Chair, and he tests it by asking who killed his parents. Then he asks a second question, which Hal Jordan presses him on several issues later.

[Justice League (2011) #42 & Justice League (2011) #50]

Four years later, when Three Jokers was set to be released towards the end of 2020, Johns did at first confirm it would be canon despite being released via Black Label, where books are not meant to be part of the larger continuity. In later interviews, however, this assertion got walked back in favor of saying the canonicity is up to each reader, which is kind of a wild thing to say. "Look, this story merely proposes that one of our most popular characters has actually been three different dudes the whole time, which totally has a negligible impact on how that character should be seen and has interacted with the world. Take it or leave it!"

But then, DC's idea of canon has been pretty squiggly of late, especially with the increasing multiverse shenanigans. In the final issue of Dark Knights: Death Metal in 2021, the reader is told, "with our past finally set, myriad new futures are opening up. And as hypertime heals, we'll likely experience flashes of them– and even alternate pasts– in pretty epic fashion." Infinite Frontier followed, with a press release declaring, "When our heroes saved the Multiverse from Perpetua in Dark Nights: Death Metal, everything was put back where it belonged… and we do mean everything. All the damage from all the Crises was undone [....]"

I have a lot of thoughts about this, revolving around what the heck does it mean for storytelling and how we should understand characters that apparently, somehow, everything is canon? How are we supposed to take this as anything other than the omniverse being an excuse for DC Editorial to wave off responsibility for a legible timeline? "Batman can be in two places at once because, uh, the Monitor sneezed?"

But this too-long essay is about Three Jokers, so I'll narrow my concern: if character histories can simply change with a multiversal glitch, in whatever overwrought way those are usually explained to us, then it sure feels like it doesn't matter that Three Jokers was published under Black Label. It sure seems like, at whoever's whim, Three Jokers can still get locked into the main storyline. I mean, Zdarsky still hasn't explained what that three Jokers shit in Batman #135 is about. On the other hand, we know that the explanation for the two Jokers in The Man Who Stopped Laughing does not involve the multiverse, and Joker is supposed to reunite with Batman over in Zdarsky's story when that story closes out, so… I actually have no reason to be confident that means anything.

"But why would Three Jokers getting canonized be so bad?" you may ask if you've never read Three Jokers (or if you fully enjoyed it).

Speaking for myself, it starts with the premise: taking a character and saying, "actually, this is not one complex guy but three different guys, which fractures the character's motivations and relationships over the last several decades." When that character is one you enjoy very much, this twist is not fun. It's a fundamental change to who they are.

Then five months before the release of Three Jokers #1, Johns and Fabok did an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Some things the pair said raised red flags:

1) Three Jokers' story would focus on the trauma that Barbara, Jason, and Bruce suffered at Joker's hands, per Johns. "If you suffer some trauma, you don’t just get over with it and move on with your life, it changes who you are. Sometimes it changes you for the better, sometimes it changes you for the worse. You can heal right, and you can heal wrong. That’s really what the book’s about: Healing right, healing wrong, and surviving."

2) Johns also said of the story: “It goes back to the beginning when Batman first encountered the Joker, but it’s also The Killing Joke and A Death in the Family that speak to the book and that we’re building off emotionally." And Fabok mentioned that the book's look would be based on the aesthetics of The Killing Joke: "I really want it to feel like it could be a spiritual sequel, at least artistically."

These remarks foreshadowed a disconnect. A key part of The Killing Joke itself is that both Joker and Bruce experienced terrible trauma ("one bad day"), but in responding to it, they made different choices: broadly, Joker choosing to hurt people versus Bruce choosing to help people. Johns excluding Joker from his comments about trauma felt like a sign that he ignored a key part of the character, despite Joker being a core part of a new tale "emotionally" inspired by TKJ.

(We're setting aside "you can heal right and you can heal wrong" for now. Ohhh, we'll get back to that.)

Johns' blind spot was confirmed a few months later when he was quoted by the DC Nation Twitter account: "There are very few characters that are, to me, as irredeemable as The Joker. There is nothing in him that is good."

Wow, what close analysis from Mr. Emotional Build.

Look, I don't need Joker to be redeemed or woobified. (Ask me about the "Pushback" storyline from 2004 and hear my gnashing teeth crack a filling.) But I would like the full breadth of his character acknowledged, especially when you're claiming you're writing about trauma, especially when you're creating a "spiritual sequel" to one of best known Joker stories (if not the best known one).

Then Three Jokers finally came out, and over three months it proved to be neither an examination of healing nor very interesting, at least not in an enjoyable way. What it has to "say" about trauma, for any of the characters, is no different than the limited conclusion made in previous Batman books: mainly the drumbeat of fighting off the darkness by being a bigger person— or at least not killing your enemy. Making Joker into a role played by three different people adds nothing; it amounts to little more than a gimmick.

Hell, even as a gimmick, it's flawed. Theoretically, the three Jokers represent phases of personality the Joker has embodied over the years— but the representations we get don't make sense. Here they are summed up in Book 3:

Sorry, what? The Criminal is less interested in theatrics? In what time period was the Joker ever not interested in making a big show of things in one way or another? Maybe this is supposed to be an "early" Joker in terms of the Rebirth/InfiniCrisisDarkCarnateTier/whatever more recent conception of him, but I'll wager that's not what people think about when they think of Joker at his start. They think about Golden Age Joker doing goofy shit and laughing maniacally. They're not expecting this morose man.

The other thing is that, in Book 1, the narrative "assigns" each of our three protagonists to a Joker: Bruce to the Criminal, who appeared at the start; Barbara to the Comedian, who shot her; and Jason to the Clown, who killed him. Now at first I thought Johns was saying one Joker took over after another, but since Barbara's attack and Jason's death happened 9 months apart in 1988, which are not different Joker eras, I think we're supposed to see them as sort of… cycling on and off depending on the needs of the scheme? Maybe? But the descriptions above are still confusing. Why am I supposed to see the Joker who got carried away with the fun of beating Jason with a crowbar and successfully blew him up as less sadistic than the other one?

Johns does appear to lampshade this confusion in the middle of Book 1, when we get all three Jokers in a cabin in the woods. The Clown and the Comedian have this exchange:

This and a later panel with the Comedian actually imply that he and the Clown are interchangeable, even though they're supposed to be different. So are they or not? Is there an actual reason we need three Jokers, or did Johns just think it was a neato idea and then spend four years trying to figure out a "layered" justification for it?

The other thing about this cabin scene, and about the Joker trio largely, is that it should be fun and it's not. There should be chaos! Zaniness! At the very least, all the narcissism in the room should generate a competitive friction, make their interactions more dynamic. (Really it should generate bloodshed and end with one man standing within like ten minutes, but I'll grant the choice to save that for Book 3.) Instead it's almost mundane. The cabin isn't even decorated! It's dark and dreary, like the Jokers are dark and dreary. If we're gonna have three Jokers, can't they at least be Jokering with each other?

The same thought comes when I consider the very beginning of Book 1. It all starts out like a typical Batman story: three deadly crimes are committed in one night, the Joker seemingly responsible for all of them, and Bruce, Barbara, and Jason are drawn together as they try to figure out what's up. Of course, thanks to the Magic Chair, Bruce already knows there are three clowns, but Barbara and Jason are thinking that Joker is working with two look-alikes to create confusion. And considering the basics of what happens in this story, what the Comedian's larger plan is meant to accomplish, why couldn't this have been written with just two look-alikes? I mean, yeah, it would require Johns to forget about his continuity bomb, but maybe the story would have been better (and shorter). Again, the creation of other Jokers isn't doing much for what the plot is getting at. The three crimes that start us off would still serve the function of reminding Bruce of how Joker's been a constant in his life. The taunting of a convincing Joker look-alike is enough to set off Jason's anger and sadness about what happened to him, and his fears of what he could become. The climax with Joe Chill would have to be redone, but the threat of him being Jokerized isn't the crucial plot point; the Comedian's film of him is. Bruce doesn't even have any substantial thoughts about there being three of his nemesis.

But, alas, the story goes how it goes. And as it goes, we also see that Jason behaves more cruelly in his search for Joker than Barbara and Bruce. For example, Jason attacks and threatens one of Joker's victims to get information, feeling justified because the guy has a rap sheet, while Barbara scolds him and Bruce tells the victim, "I'm sorry this happened." What I find notable about this is that while comics regularly present Jason as hot-headed and Barbara as reasonable, Bruce… uh… If you gather a random selection of Batman comics, you'll find that his level of violence is all over the place. This story, however, requires a more somber Bruce, whose violence is more reactive, because Jason and Barbara serve Johns' dichotomy of "heal right" versus "heal wrong." We can't have Bruce on the sadistic side of the scale fucking that up, and besides, Jason's long been the posterboy for healing "wrong."

That notion comes to a head at the end of the issue. The heroes have encountered and subdued the Clown at the aquarium when Jim Gordon calls. The GCPD found another Joker, and Bruce leaves Jason and Barbara alone with the Clown to assist.

Goodness me, who could have predicted Jason might kill a restrained Joker? Not Bruce, who absolutely should have. Barbara is there to talk Jason down, sure, but what else is the Clown gonna do but needle Jason to kill him?

The Clown cackles then, declaring that Red Hood is his Robin, for the very reason of his violent impulses and how much he upsets the Bat, and of course Jason shoots him in the head, because oof.

Honestly, on this second read I found this scene a smidge too oof. Jason was a determined little Robin, dedicated to saving his awful mother to the very end, and him cracking and declaring that he'll work for a criminal… I don't know. I don't think it's impossible, but it feels superfluous. I don't think such a reveal is necessary to get Jason to fire. I think the Clown focusing on how the new Red Hood is actually quite similar to the old, as well as how Jason matters less than the neverending battle between Batman and Joker, is enough emotional stress to get to the same end result.

But that's a minor quibble; we've got bigger fish to fry! Such as the specter of the "healed right/healed wrong" dynamic that reappears as Barbara and Jason argue over the Clown's corpse.

Barbara leaves angrily after this, but man. I wish the story overall took more cues from this scene, that in a Black Label story we could stray from the simplistic idea of how a Good One would save Joker and a Bad One wouldn't. I want to explore Jason's assertion that Barbara didn't do her best to uphold Bruce's one rule. I want to know if maybe she's tired of being the fucking Good One.

Hell, let's go further: what if we were surprised by Barbara killing the Clown before Jason could? The Clown's taunting about Jason could have gotten to her too. We could have a story about how being put on a pedestal as a Good Victim is a cage, about Barbara struggling with falling from that position, about Jason feeling unsure if he should commend her for an act that obviously hurts her or comfort her for something he would have done himself. That's an actual examination of the struggle to process violent trauma— that you don't need three Jokers for!

But the story we have never gets back to Jason's suggestion that Barbara let the murder happen, not in this issue or the following two. This issue just ends with Jason hoping that the Clown was the actual Joker and that he didn't kill the wrong guy, which is a pretty "LOL oh yeah" line when you remember that he and Barbara don't know there are three Jokers yet.

Book 1, truth be told, isn't that bad. On my reread, I started to wonder if my only real issue with the story is that it's not as engaging as all the hype insisted it would be.

Then Book 2 starts, and goddammit. GODDAMMIT.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: why can we not have more DC writers having fun with Joker's multiple-choice backstory? Why did Johns read The Killing Joke and decide his interpretation would be this?:

Ugh. UGGGHHH.

I don't recall the issue, but there's these panels that circulate sometimes of Harley Quinn encountering Joker in Arkham or prison, in which they exchange words about their relationship and he's a creep and she kicks his ass. I have no problem with Harley kicking Joker's ass. He deserves it. My problem is that those panels play out like an empowerment scene in a generic Lifetime movie. My problem is that it doesn't have the flavor of Harley and Joker. My problem is that it's lazy.

And that's my problem with what Johns does with Joker's backstory in TKJ. He could take it anywhere, and he goes gritty without an ounce of nuance. Because hey, this is Joker, and "there is nothing in him that is good," right? We'll just ignore that one of DC's all-time classics, the one this garbage is ✨inspired by✨, has Joker reflecting on a past for which he is an unreliable narrator, but in which he laments how his comedy dream put his growing family in a bad spot, in which he desperately aligns with shady people so his family can be secure, in which he's devastated by losing the only person he has in the world and their growing baby. And these memories could be distorted or entirely fake, but what's interesting in TKJ is that Joker never tells anyone else about them, even in his big speech to Batman. The flashbacks are not part of an attempt to manipulate anyone or convince them his world view is correct. It's a tale in Joker's head that, regardless of the truth, deeply affects him. It's what drove him to go to horrendous lengths to prove his point, even if the point is wrong.

But fuck that, right? We're going lazy! We're going cheap! We're going with the Jeannie backstory, but actually Joker was only terrible to her. The Comedian fondly fantasizes about terrorizing her and their son, because he's 100% an abuser, because he must have always been that way, with not a single appealing quality that we need to reckon with as we so often do with toxic people in real life. Even the freaking stutter Joker had as he struggled with stand-up comedy is given to Jeannie. Seriously?

I cannot emphasize enough: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this "take."

On the other hand, when the Comedian is brought out of his stupor, we do finally get something super funny:

At least we'll always have this panel of Joker eating cat food.

The Criminal only interrupted the daydream because he's mad the Clown is dead, and the Clown was so eager to be dead I thought it was part of their plan buuuuuuut I guess not. Then we jump to Bruce figuring out that the "Joker" that Gordon cornered is just another victim, a dead judge. Barbara appears to tell Bruce what Jason did, and they discuss it over comms on the road.

Bruce, shockingly, says that they can't really do anything about what Jason did.

Pretty sure the guy who batarang'd Jason's throat rather than let him kill Joker would have a more intense reaction than this?? Or any reaction other than sober understanding? Maybe Bruce is still coping with finally dealing with three Jokers at once and will flip his shit when this all resolves. Or maybe he's just thinking, "it's okay, I still have two emotional support clowns left!" I don't know. He's so weirdly passive in this story.

What's more aggravating, though, is the other aspect of this conversation, that Jason "healed wrong." It would be one thing as a pat judgment Bruce is making, but we know from that interview that Johns positioned "healed right versus healed wrong" as the story's theme. It's not good. It's way too glib a framing for evaluating how people who've gone through trauma are dealing with it, in any context. Sure, there are better and worse coping mechanisms, better and worse outcomes, but healing is an ongoing process that can be so individualized. Reducing it to "right" and "wrong," saying that one is "strong" and implying that the other comes from some sort of deficiency… I hope Johns just spoke poorly and he does understand that it's not that simple.

Now, is it a stretch to apply that critique to Jason killing criminals at his whim? Sure, deciding that you personally should play the role of judge, jury, and executioner is not a good way to deal with trauma. But that's not exactly what's happening here. This "healed right versus healed wrong" framing is being applied to Jason Todd going after the Joker. Obviously, I like Joker, but can we be real about this? Can we be real in a Black Label book, the imprint where comic books (allegedly) have room to take things more seriously? Can we take the question of, "In this fictional world where Joker is an unstoppable fatal mayhem machine— now THREE machines— is it completely out of bounds for someone to finally kill him?" and be like, "Errr…not really?" When this story explicitly denies Joker even one teeny redeeming human quality, are we seriously still going to say, "Well, you know, if Jason takes the life of the man who murdered him and millions other people, because he doesn't want him to kill more people, which Joker will absolutely do and we all know it, doesn't that say something awful about Jason?" Are we really??

Plus the judgment about healing is put into the mouth of a man who— say it with me!— regularly dresses as a bat and beats the ever-loving shit out of people because his parents were murdered. Toning Bruce down in this particular story doesn't hide that.

Although, what I think is intended as a flawed assumption on Bruce's part is his other line, "Jason's suffering." It implies that Barbara still isn't, but we are shown Barbara reflecting on her paralyzation, even now when she's "strong" and has healed "right." And the story will get into this a bit later, but it absolutely does not let Barbara and Jason escape the dichotomy. To the story's detriment, their interactions go in a wild direction, but we'll get to that.

First, Bruce and Barbara's investigation leads them to Blackgate, because the fingerprints on the murder weapon for the dead judge belong to none other than Joe Chill. However, we learn that Chill has been in the medical wing for two months because he's sick with cancer.

Meanwhile, Jason's investigation leads him to a closed athletic center. The pool inside is filled with the chemicals stolen from Ace at the start of the story, as well as dozens of pale naked bodies with green hair. Jason's attempt to contact Barbara is interrupted when one of said bodies bursts to life and grabs his ankle, asking for help. Jason reacts with hostility, kicking the poor guy, and I'm not sure if it's because he's unnerved by a room of floating Jokers or if it's pretty normal for him to not keep his cool even for the sake of an obvious victim of a horrible crime. A Gotham City vigilante can't be that shocked by one guy being alive in a pile of bodies, can they?

But that's all setup. When the guy falls unconscious, the Criminal and the Comedian ambush Jason and drag him away, one saying, "He'll be perfect."

It's a line that meanly gets your hopes up, poking at a subject that could make all this more interesting.

Jason awakes, strapped to a chair and as naked as the bodies in the pool. The Criminal says he and his pals have spent a lot of time trying to find the perfect candidate for a new Joker, and he repeats the question of what's up with Jason taking on the Red Hood moniker.

It seems that, like DCAU Tim Drake in Batman Beyond before him, Jason Todd will be transformed into a fourth Joker! But it won't only be because it will wreck the Batman. It'll be because Joker already sees himself in Jason. This is something new to explore! There are places to go here; other comics hinting at Joker's past point to him having a childhood not dissimilar to Jason's, of growing up on the street, experiencing abuse, and learning unpalatable ways to survive. We could see Jason struggling with the possibility that he has more in common with Joker than he wants to think about!

But we won't. Inexplicably, the Criminal turns around and says that despite their similarities, despite Jason hating Batman as much as he does, despite the Comedian (presumably) saying Jason is perfect, and despite getting Jason ready for the pool, Jason actually isn't good enough, not "bright" enough. (Because all the Jokers we have in this dour story are so bright?)

And then the Comedian just beats the hell out of Jason (saying it's more fun than the first time, in another annoying nod to how he and the Clown are the same damn Joker) and says they're leaving Jason alive because maybe he'll prove them wrong and he'll become a new Joker after all? But the current Jokers aren't really going to go for it. Their interest is just abandoned.

The point is only to freak Jason out, so when Bruce and Barbara arrive, fight a horde of Jokerized victims, and find Jason alone and naked and vulnerable, he does not react well when Bruce tries to ask if he's okay. Jason turns on him and blames him for setting him on this path, for leaving him in the dirt, for replacing him easily. He lashes out at Barbara too, asking if she's going to lock him away, but ultimately it's easier to take comfort from her.

A direct reference to Return of the Joker here, focusing on the shadow Batman casts over the lives of his partners, the responsibility he bears in how Joker targeted them to hurt the Bat, and how poorly he offers comfort himself.

It does segue nicely into the next scene, when Bruce and Barbara get Jason to her apartment to rest. Bruce leaves to keep investigating, and Barbara is pissed because this is the exact lack of support that contributed to Jason going his own way. Support is highlighted again when Jason wakes in Barbara's room and looks around.

Aside from Barbara seeking out books to deal with her physical and mental struggles after Joker's attack, the old calendars show the help she received from her father and health professionals.

And this scene does get into something that's missing from TKJ, in which Bruce tells Joker that no, not everyone will retreat to madness like he did. How we react to trauma is greatly affected by the resources available to us.

This scene is nice. It's nice to come from the action to some place quiet and for someone to say this Jason, something he's wanted to hear. It's late in coming, but it's pain validated.

And then Johns fucking ruins it.

Man. Just. Ugh. Yeah, I know people seek comfort in moments of vulnerability, but… the reader knows. The reader knows moments like this aren't included to be like "oh, this was an isolated blip of human behavior! The story won't call back to it later!" Johns apparently wants Barbara/Jason to be a thing. And if you want a solid reason for that… well, we don't get any good ones.

Meanwhile, Bruce is in the cave, and I'm only mentioning that because these folder labels are incredibly funny:

Then the issue ends with Joe Chill kidnapped from Blackgate by the Comedian, who has a video camera and asks him to talk about why he really killed the Waynes. Dun dun dunnnnnnnn! Is that a twist on the way?! Well, yeah, but not really the one you think and it's incredibly stupid.

Finally we are at Book 3. Jason is suited back up, and he and Barbara have met up with Bruce in the cave to figure out how the Jokers plan to create another, better Joker.

Soooooo Jason and Barbara had that whole conversation. Jason was shaken by what the Jokers said to him. But now he's completely back on track. Allllllrighty.

Jason and Bruce then have an argument rehashing everything that Barbara said she was sorry Jason experienced, with Bruce saying of course he'd love to kill the Joker, and Jason pointing out that he obviously hasn't. Jason also says he thinks the only reason Bruce isn't turning Jason in for killing the Clown is to protect Batman's identity. Barbara just tries to de-escalate with her doe eyes. They're back to the status quo, and it sucks, which is the point. When they try to get back to the investigation at hand, Bruce pauses and attempts to apologize.

And again, with this blatant TKJ reference, it feels like we need to dig into the parallels between Jason and Joker! They both insist it's too late! They won't take help! But surely Jason isn't as far gone! There's something to chew on here.

But nah, this story is heading toward a big ol' revelation, foreshadowed here:

🎶 Why the fuck you lyin'? 🎶

Finally they get the alert that Joe Chill was kidnapped, and on investigating his cell, Bruce finds a bunch of letters addressed to… himself, Bruce Wayne. He seeks out the prison reverend.

Which is unintentionally hilarious, because in the storyline that started this whole three Jokers nonsense, there's a Batman Darkseid War one-shot where Joe Chill's behavior does not remotely align with this.

Lol comics are fun.

In the middle of Bruce investigating the letters, we get Jason being all repentant with Babs again.

You just said? You totally were?? Gonna kill more clowns??? How is this supposed to come off as genuine? Granted, Jason doesn't try to kill the other Jokers after this, but the apparently impetus for reversing course is... uh... we'll get there.

Anyway, among Chill's letters are tickets to the Monarch Theater, so the heroes all head over for whatever the Jokers have set up for them, which of course includes another horde of failed Joker zombies. During the fight, the Comedian's interview of Joe Chill plays on the screen, and the Criminal reveals they have Chill tied up in a chair suspended over a vat of green chemicals.

As Chill on screen explains that he killed the Waynes out of hatred and envy for how much they had, and how much he regrets his actions, the Criminal explains that he considered both Jason and Barbara as strong candidates for the new Joker. And wait. WAIT. Mr. Johns, sir, are you telling me it crossed your mind to write a story in which Barbara becomes the new Joker? That's so much more interesting than the bullshit we're getting! Imagine it: Barbara dealing with the dissatisfaction of being the "good, strong victim" and just losing her shit. You could combine that with how uneasy Jason is with his similarities to Joker, and maybe Jason is the one who convinces Barbara to turn back. This is Black Label! This could've been anything! Anything!

But we've got Chill. And the Criminal goes on to say the reason he wanted to make a new Joker at all:

Are… are you? I'm pretty sure Joker is pretty well fucking defined. He's a murderer with a very dark sense of humor who is obsessed with Batman. That's been a pretty good through-line.

Also, Joker pretty clearly means a lot to Batman, as that middle panel with Jason seems intended to remind us, but the Criminal does clarify that he wants to be "everything" to him, which is why he's pulling Bruce's parents' murderer into all this. I guess I can't blame him for reaching for the stars?

Cue big fight scene. The Chill recording continues to explain his regret, and soon the theater is on fire. Batman saves Chill and knocks the Criminal unconscious. Chill thinks Batman is going to kill him, but Bruce saves him from a falling brick wall instead— before the Criminal revives and tries to set off a bomb to kill them all, maybe. There's a BOOM flag sticking out of the dynamite a few panels later, after the Comedian shows up and shoots the Criminal in the head. TWIST!

The Comedian surrenders, and after a scene with Jason picking the most awkward time to suggest he and Barbara try being a couple and Barbara looking pissed she has to tell him no, we jump to Bruce and the Comedian in the armored police car.

As a batjokes shipper, looking at these pages is weird, because they are good food for the brainworms. The Criminal wanted to engineer a Joker who meant the most to Batman, but the Comedian wanted to be that Joker. It's a weird plan, considering that Joker prefers Batman over Bruce Wayne, so he would be more likely to not want to heal Bruce's wound lest the healing lead to less Batmanning, but still. This crazy plan is all about maintaining Batman's attention.

But I can only enjoy these panels out of context, not just because I'm pretty weary of insanely elaborate plans that manage to work out, but also because there's just so much to hate in the rest of the story, especially the real twist that closes it out.

Before we get to that, though, we're thrown back into the Jason/Barbara nonsense with a very gross letter he writes to her.

"Dear Barbara, I want to make a change. But I can't do that without you. I know I've come across cold and distant…"

1) Look, love can help people heal. Barbara could be a good friend advising Jason on what might help him. She could help bring him back into the batfam fold. This letter is not that. This letter is pushing someone to be in a romantic relationship with you for the explicit purpose of getting them to heal you. That's not how love works. That's using someone as a tool. It's supposed to be sad that Barbara never sees the letter but it's good, actually. Don't put that shit on her!

2) This romance came out of freaking nowhere and now we get Jason insisting he can simply stop being Red Hood for the sake of it— but only for the sake of it, apparently! Does Jason think his worldview as Red Hood is an impediment to healing or not? This is just surface-level melodramatic nonsense. And I wish that was the point, but no. Again, the letter getting swept away is presented as sad.

3) Speaking of which, who tapes a confessional letter that exposes your vigilante identity to a door where anyone can see it? You'd slip it under the door at least. Johns couldn't figure out any other way for the letter to vanish? Get out of here with this contrived nonsense. There should've been panels of Jason rereading the letter, realizing how unhinged it is, and throwing it away himself.

4) Is the "Funtime Cleaners" guy in his purple uniform supposed to be Joker? Or representative of Joker's influence on their lives? If yes and it's him, he's a goddamn hero. If it's symbolic, what does that mean, that even when you reach out to others… elements out of your control will keep you alone? 'Cause that sure is bleak for a book allegedly about healing.

With all that done with, now we get to the big twist, the dumbest fucking part of this story, the end, the takeaway. Of course it involves more crimes against The Killing Joke, which I'm increasingly convinced no one at DC has actually read in the past thirty years.

Bruce drives up to Alaska, and we get this reveal.

Do the kids still *headdesk* nowadays? That's what I'm doing. There will be a blood stain.

1) So Bruce has known the Joker's identity, or at least the Comedian's, basically the whole time. We're just retconning that the Joker question he asked the Magic Chair wasn't for information; it was a second test question. And all this is in the face of Bruce lamenting many times over the years that he doesn't know who Joker really is, of him lamenting it in The Killing goddamn Joke. "I don't know him, Alfred. All these years and I don't know who he is any more than he knows who I am. How can two people hate so much without knowing each other?" We're just. Fucking excising that. A line alluding to Bruce's motivation for visiting Joker in TKJ's opening scene.

2) We're rounding out the lazy revisions to the TKJ backstory with some copaganda! Geoff Johns doesn't think it's possible for Joker to have been anything but a horror to his family, but he does think it's possible that random officers in the friggin' Gotham City Police Department— in early Batman lore no less, when they were at their most corrupt— would fundraise for a "lady" they clearly don't know to get her out of the city to safety. Also, what was the plan for when Joker asked to see his wife's dead body?? Congrats, you've come up with something dumber than "Pushback."

3) This scrawls more highlighter on how bad the premise of there being three Jokers is, because the flashback in TKJ happens before Joker starts out. Like that's how Bruce always recalls it; he didn't meet the Joker until after what happened at Ace Chemicals. So isn't Jeannie then actually the Criminal's wife? Because the Criminal is the one who behaves as Bruce remembers Joker was at the start. So is the Comedian obsessed with the Criminal's wife for some reason? Or is the Comedian actually the first Joker, and the Criminal came later and used to be more wacky? What is going on here?

Under all these questions, per the final page, the point of Three Jokers is still visible: ultimately, his victims matter more than he does. But that's a hilarious point to a story that revolves around three of the guy, with very little payoff to the gimmick, and when part of the plot is that the heroes still shouldn't kill him.

And again, just because a story makes reference to healing, it doesn't mean it's "about" healing. The most we get is the knowledge that Barbara and Jeannie received support from other people. There's no discussion of how long it took either of them, of why Barbara came out the other side not wanting to kill Joker, of anything Jeannie has done since she left Gotham. The possibility that Jason could find connection is promptly throttled by a forced romance. It's implied that the Comedian's plan worked for Bruce, as we see Bruce at Chill's deathbed, holding his hand, and at Chill's grave. You might be interested in Bruce's thoughts as he juxtaposes Chill's repentance against the fact that his parents are still dead, so you can assess if this really would affect the feeling of loss that drove him to his lifelong mission, but you won't get them. The "how" of healing is up to the reader— who is never asked to extend the same thought process to the Joker. And you personally do not have to give a crap about Joker, but again, if this book is supposed to be about responses to healing, about Jason's response versus Barbara's, then taking an actual look at Joker feels relevant!

So there we are: fourteen pages of me venting my little heart out, hoping the premise of Three Jokers never gets looped into canon. I'm well aware that my personal attachment to a character means nothing against DC's incentives to promote stories with Big Twists (and endless events and multiverse bullshit), but then again, those incentives are based on what people will buy. So if I can add to the voices saying that Three Jokers is bad, and you should not spend your money on it or books like it, maybe I can be one vibe of many that keeps the Joker as one single bat-obsessed murderclown...

Though if not, I can always retreat to older comics. I still have plenty of those to get through.

#three jokers #the killing joke #batjokes #batman #joker #bruce wayne #barbara gordon #jason todd #analysis #my jibber-jabber #tl;dr three jokers is just usual batman stuff with a dumb gimmick #and jaybabs thrown in for the lulz

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mattsdollie · 1 month

Text

Overacheiver

warnings !!!

arguing, swearing. angsty, use of y/n if you squint, nicknames, tiny bit of fluff at the end :3

tiny plot explanation ! teenage y/n gets in an arguement with her father, shes finally had enough and storms out of the house. she ends up calling matt.

this is my 2nd ever fic i've made if there are any mistakes, please tell me !

WORD COUNT ; 754

y/n is now in her last year of highschool, shes always been an overachiever to try to win her parents' validation, but it just never worked. since she was in 1st grade, she got golden medals, she won spelling bees, she tried her best to get number 1 student in all her classes but she only ever got second place.

now i'm in my last year of school, all these certificates and medals just piling up in my room, yet my parents have never once thought to congratulate me, let alone be proud of me.

9th grade throwback

i get to pick what stream i take for the rest of my life. i've always loved science, but my parents keep pressuring me to take coding and ICT.

"i don't want to do programming, though," i said, tears filling my eyes as my father shouts at me. "i've been working in this industry for years. technology is taking over the world. programming is the future." he said, sternly and coldy, in a loud tone.

i just sigh as i feel the tears drop down my face. knowing i can't do anything to change my future, considering the fact my father wants me to do programming instead of what i love learning, science.

present

it's been an overwhelming weekend. all I've been doing is studying, and every time i come out of my room, my parents just end up screaming at me for not doing all the chores, knowing i have two other brothers who just rot in their rooms all day, playing games with their friends.

i started to dread coming to school, i barely had friends, all my friends had their main friends. sofia has danielle, ariana had emily. me? i had no one, except my boyfriend, matthew sturniolo. he has been by my side since 7th grade. being there for me everytime i had an argument with my father. even though i love him, i felt like i was bothering him, burdening him even, when i texted him to just go out, i felt like i was forcing him.

today, obviously, me and my father had another argument because i wanted to switch classes to an advanced science class. "why, you want to go to that class because all your friends are there isn't it?" he replied to your request, shouting at you for just speaking to him. "my friends?" you say shakily as tears threatened to fall out of your eyes. "*my friends?*" you said again, sternly, and raising your voice, your vision goes blurry from the tears that are overflowing in your eyes. "i barely have friends dad, you really think i want to switch classes because of my 'friends'? i dont have time to make friends." you shouted back at him, tears flowing down your face. your nose, eyes, and ears turning red. "i do everything in my will to try to make you proud and you just treat me like your shitty fucking maid. im so fucking tired." you said, voice hoarse and wobbly from shouting earlier.

you storm out of the room, grabbing your bag that had your phone, wallet, and headphones. you put on a jacket so you don't die from hypothermia, since the weather has been freezing recently.

you've exited your house 30 minutes ago now, trying to get as far away from home as possible. you pull out your phone as you sit at a bus stop. you text matt.

"matt, can you pick me up please?" you press enter, followed by you sending him your location. you put your headphones on, mitski was playing. making you cry even harder.

you feel your phone vibrate, its matt. "im on my way, stay put okay? i love you so much." the message read out. you stare at your phone, as you feel your tears roll down your cheek, to your chin.

"i love you more, matt." you reply.

by now, Matt has already picked you up. You both are lying in his bed. you curl up into a ball and matts arms wrap around you. "You wanna tell me what happened?" matt whispered. you whined, not being able to get over the heated argument with your father. "Okay, pretty girl. i'm gonna get us snacks, and we'll watch a movie, yeah? im sure that will cheer you up." he smiled, giving you a kiss on your temple. "i love you so much," you say, your voice shaky. "i love you more." Matt replied, almost reassuringly.

THE ENDDD !!! the arguement totally were notttt based off the ones i had with my dad 🫡

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thelunarfairy · 6 months

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Ohh loooook, it's me, again-

Bruh now I'm here to talk about another one of my favourite tbhk character, TSUKASA-

I have quite a questionable type, and tsukasa just so happens to fit in that so here I am, simping for him-

But omg your theories and analysis on him and his behavior? That really intrigues me and makes so much sense! I actually never thought about his behavior towards amane to be that way.

You know, out of curiosity I've been searching things like "can one child out of twins be a psychopath", considering how tsukasa's behavior has been described for so long typically. And at least even how I have childishly perceived his character. Didn't make sense to me because if I think this biologically, how can tsukasa's brain develop differently while amane acts sane with emotions in check? Is tsukasa even a psychopath? So after reading your analysis it hits me that ah yes, the boy is just a full blown sociopath who needs Amane's apology, an explanation, and his understanding. Because as you said, he doesn't show the emotions on his face, but you can sometimes determine his feelings through his words.

But also you know how children act the way they act because of their surroundings right? So how why did tsukasa act that way as a child? His little actions, such as crushing the bones of frogs, or just killing them. These little teensy acts of violence, I wonder where he learnt that from. Or maybe it's just me being too much-

He's such an intriguing character because we just don't know what's going on in his mind. You never know. You don't know why, he's doing what he's doing. Why he's acting in such a way, it's all a mystery. And I'm just waiting for when everything gets revealed and tsukasa finally finds peace that he deserves. The boy has suffered a LOT. And if I were in his place? I'd be petty as HELL. I would be angry and all over the place. Because yeah imagine sacrificing your life for your sibling, only to find out he not only killed himself, but also you, who gave their own life just for another. Now that's a tragedy.

Look, Tsukasa leaving people intrigued again haha is a gift he has. Look, if we're going to talk about Tsukasa we have to talk about both of them, let's include Amane.

The twins have had psychological problems since childhood, and we can say this is because of their suicidal tendency. Tsukasa was the first to give up on his own life, Amane gave up later, but gave up.

Consider the situation, if the person you love is going to die and to save them you need to make a sacrifice, what do you think people would do? Generally, they would try to look for another way, or even sacrifice someone from outside, who has nothing to do with it (let's not be hypocrites and let's understand that there are people who would do this, NEVER ALL of them, but there always are)

What would you do? Would you sacrifice yourself or try to find another way to convince God to save that person?

Tsukasa didn't think twice. But, let's overlook it a little due to his young age. And this is another factor, a four-year-old child who decided to die, do you see how impactful this is? Children at this age shouldn't worry about anything, he should just understand that his older brother is sick, but the whole time Tsukasa is trying to please Amane because he knows he's about to die.

Tsukasa is a very intelligent boy, above average, he proves this to us all the time, but I still can't see him in the same way as most people.

Tsukasa has high suicidal tendencies and signs of depression. One of the most important signs that is undervalued by people is shown by him all the time, the warnings: Amane doesn't like me, Amane hates me, Amane will live better without me.

So, let's go to Amane, he follows the same reasoning.

Apparently Hanako has more psychological problems than Tsukasa. He, in his most youthful phase, appears to have severe depression, high suicidal rates, and the possibility of self-mutilation (nothing confirmed). Depression doesn't happen because you're sad, depression is a disabling pain, and when I say pain, I'm not referring to the body, but the mind.

Suicide is an act of desperation, he wants to get rid of pain. Amane has severe trauma, high rates of depression and suicidal tendencies, and in addition, like Tsukasa, he is unpredictable. The difference between them is that Tsukasa is spontaneous, he does a lot of things that make people scared, Amane doesn't do it directly like him, but he does it.

We found out that he was going to kill Aoi only after it was actually close to happening, he planned everything coldly and while it was happening, he pretended he didn't know anything, he pretended he was helping Nene and Akane find her ( because he felt obligated) and he even questioned her "How did you manage to escape number six?"

Tsukasa kills supernaturals in front of us, he tends to do cruel things at certain times, Hanako tends to do it behind our backs, you don't see or know his intentions.

Remember, the two are opposites. Didn't Tsukasa say that?

They both have a lot of psychological problems, if I'm going to delve deeper into this, I'll have to make a post hahaha but, you have to take one thing into consideration when we talk about the twins.

The supernatural creature under the house.

Tsukasa has lived with her since he was four years old, so he's used to seeing cruel things and thinking it's normal because he's seen it for a long time and there was no one there with him to tell him it was wrong.

Do you think this is a common conversation? He is talking to the creature. Is it normal to ask someone if they have eyes or hands? And even more so calmly and naturally.

Amane also knows this creature, less than Tsukasa, I suppose, but he also lived with it. The twins are not just two, they are three, the thing is embedded in their chest.

In the heart.

Tsukasa didn't kill animals as a child, he gave them to the creature, he clearly didn't know what he was doing, I imagine he found out later. He offered a rice ball to the creature to make another wish come true, and when nothing happened he assumed that he wanted an animal because the day before, his lizard had disappeared.

If he has learned to be cruel, it is probably because of the thing that is embedded in his heart, the creature in the house.

Amane is more responsible than him because Tsukasa saw things that he didn't, but that doesn't take away Amane's guilt. The story develops like this, hiding everything about Amane, about number 7, about Hanako, he hides it, but nothing guarantees that he isn't like Tsukasa, but he hates to admit it.

They are opposites and at the same time similar, to talk about one, we must talk about the other, that's how it works, or better yet, talk about all three. Never forget that thing, ever.

I still owe more posts about both of them hahaha, it will definitely be one of the big ones. I hope you liked it, thanks for the ask! ♡

#jibaku shounen hanako kun #hanako kun #toilet bound hanako kun #amane yugi #hanakokun #jshk #tbhk #aidairo #jshk spoilers #yugi twins #tbhk hanako #jshk hanako #jibaku shoujo hanako kun #yugi amane #yugi tsukasa #tsukasa yugi #jshk yashiro #yashiro nene

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findafight · 11 months

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It was also so ooc for Robin to want to be friends so badly with Nancy in s4. Plus her encouraging Stancy to get back together? Whoever this person was, it was not my Robin. Like s3 Robin would be wtf are you doing girl. Because let's be real she hated Steve for years because her crush only had eyes for him. How would she not have a grudge for the girl who hurt her person, her bff??? It doesn't matter if Steve never bitched about Nancy or that he would only say positive stuff about her, Robin still sees that her bff is hurting. And with the cheating rumors going around, Robin is smart and can connect the dots.

R/nance doesn't even make much sense as a friendship. I absolutely loved your take on one sided R/nance when Nancy was questioning why Robin didn't really want to hang out with her or preferred the group. And then when Robin told her it's because of Steve and how Nancy never really reflected her wrong doings because it's been so long, that was so good. Because again realistically Robin wouldn't want to hang out with people if it hurts her bestie. Like you said they share everything, Robin would have to limit herself, she couldn't talk as openly about her relationship with Nancy to Steve because it's awkward and over time I think she would conclude that's simply not worth it. Her relationship with Steve is more important to her.

In s4 Nancy should have been the one to make it up to Robin, not Robin begging for Nancy's attention. It would allow Nancy to finally get some character growth and her reflecting on past behavior would also introduce Stancy in a more natural way other than "oh hey Steve, Jonathan is not here, btw you are hot". She basically gets everything handed to her without any work (when it comes to her personal life, I'm not saying she doesn't work hard when it comes to other stuff). Like Robin immediately wants to be besties and Steve still worships the ground she works on, there are never consequences for her hurtful actions and thus no growth as an individual. Like Nancy as a character is still the same as she was in s2, she never reflects on her behavior because the narrative lets her off the hook so she doesn't really have to apologize for anything . It would have been so interesting if Robin was cold to her in the beginning as she was with Steve, maybe even a bit colder.

I think that just because Robin is not good at reading people in the moment, she still is able to make those connections later. Plus, after the first few weeks after Starcourt growing pains between stobin, Steve is probably the one person she knows she can read with accuracy (both because she now knows him, and because he allows himself to be vulnerable in front of her). So what with Steve's guilt/martyr complex and all the rumours that must have followed at school the week after halloween, regardless of Steve brushing them off and probably actively denying that Nancy cheated (literally he doesn't know she did. no one who knows would tell him, and he blames himself openly for the end of their relationship), she'd probably piece together that Nancy did a number on his heart. So I would have liked to see Robin giving Nancy more of a side-eye in S4, especially if her and Steve were getting a bit flirty. Tbh I know I've mentioned it before, but the only reasonable explanation for Steve making not just eyes but flirting with Nancy, is that somewhere along the line, Steve and Robin got it in their heads that Jon and Nancy had broken up (hence Nancy not going to cali with mike). Because we know so little about Steve's parents, but we do know his dad cheats and Steve knows about it and is extremely sensitive to infidelity. I could maybe see him tell Nancy he still had feelings for her before fighting vecna, to get it off his chest before potentially dying, even if he knew she was still with Jon, but not the other stuff. Literally would not make sense for one of the most defining and pivotal traits he's had since s1, or for robin to encourage it.

ooo. yeah I agree. I guess the one-sided rnce post really was attempting to explore a situation that makes Nancy realize that her actions have impacts on people she potentially cares about that cannot be unaddressed. There's a through-line in the show of Nancy's actions, regardless of what they are, as being completely justified and right. So when her and Jon fight in s3, she never has to actually address her part and classism in it. (they were both wrong!! Both of them should have apologized!) In s2, when Steve does reasonable not-wanting-to-get-disappeared things, the narrative treats him like he's a bad boyfriend for being unsupportive. When Nancy cheats on him, TPTB retcon it by saying they broke up at the party or in the alley, removing any guilt for Nancy's actions. For her interpersonal relationships, we don't see Nancy putting much work or effort into them. Hell, we see steve apologize immediately for threatening Dustin's teeth when he was getting frustrated and said he went too far. And Lucas apologizes to Will in s3 too. So the show can show us friends putting in effort to not leave each other hurt. It would be neat to see Nancy actively trying in her relationships. Apologizing or opening up a conversation or something. idk.

I think there was some potential for an interesting friendship between Robin and Nancy. But yes Robin deserved to be a bit wary of Nancy! I can see Robin trying to be her friend a little bit after starcourt, attempting to put Barb leaving her for Nancy behind her, but Nancy not really being open to it so it sort of soured Robin to her. And then in s4 when the Upside Down is back Nancy trying to be Robin's friend and robin, having been burned by Nancy before, is now suspicious of why she suddenly wants to be friends now. That would have been such a fun dynamic to have! Like Nancy being kind of jealous of steve and robin's friendship both for her wanting to have a friends, and possibly, if they were still going with it for whatever reason, for her romantic interest in steve. And Robin being protective of both her own and Steve's hearts from Nancy! neat!

Post s4... yeah. I don't see Nancy actively wanting to be friends with the other people who fight the Upside Down. like, sure maybe she'll exchange numbers and split a bottle of wine with the older teens, but she wouldn't be cuddly call-after-nightmare friends with them. Not just because of personalities, but because I think she'd want to put everything to do with Hawkins behind her and look to her future.

We see her only stay in contact with the person she is dating, and not really anyone else. Like. in s3 we see Steve have connections with the Party and after that with Robin, but only see Nancy with her boyfriend. I think it's really important for Nancy to have an arc that isn't about romance, or about her guilt about Barb. or at least, not her unresolved and continuing guilt about barb. It could be about her moving forward and having close friendships again despite that guilt. But at this point, I don't think could happen, as it would require more groundwork than the show can afford to give to it this late in the series. I just want her to end the series single, ready for uni and moving on from what happened. I want her to be free of Hawkins, in a way she cannot be if she's dating anyone involved with the Upside Down, especially when any of her three popular ships are all hung up on the town or the people in it in a way she doesn't seem to be.

#robin buckley #nancy wheeler #stranger things #stranger things meta #anti ronance #findaanswers #anonasaurus #finda's rambles

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luccfher · 2 years

Text

"But I'm a boy..."

Eddie Munson x Male!reader | pt. 2

sjxuiqz omg this is my 1st time doing this kind stuff, pls have patience ok 😭

+ if you liked it, pls follow me for more aaand like or reblog! ( ◜‿◝ )♡ (the gif ain't mine!!)

Summary: You've been wanting to talk to Eddie privately for days, but he's been too busy "organizing" his new campaign. (both characters have legal age!)

Warnings: insecure reader, mention of abusive relationship, argument, a lot of crying 💀, etc.

Cis or fetish women, please don't read.

I feel this very cringe 💀

---------------------------------------------------------

— "Eddie- can.. can you hear me for like a minute? Please."

— "suree, what's up?"

— "well I-"

And once again you were ignored by him, the boy who is supposed to be your best friend. You can't blame him, he was busy "studying" last week to get at least a 6 in a class. You let out a sigh and got up from his bed, went to the kitchen and opened her refrigerator, you had one of some couple of beers that were in there. The time passed and Eddie realized you weren't in his room anymore and unfortunately you had already finished most of those beers.

whatever you wanted to say to him, it was probably something very serious, I mean, to drink almost a six by yourself, you're totally screwed. You got up from the sofa where you were lying and looked at him, letting him see your reddish and swollen eyes.

— "(Y/N) What the hell happened to you? It's 'cause your relationship with her?"

You couldn't hold back the tears at his comment, you felt so guilty for the fact that after so many years having him by your side, you couldn't find the words to tell him that you never had a girlfriend, but you didn't know how to tell him the truth either.

although the beer used to not take effect so quickly on you, however given the conditions you were in and the speed with which you finished them. you avoid making eye contact with him so you decided go to the sofa from which you had previously got up, you sat on the edge while you played with your fingers, you really wished you could tell him everything you have been hiding from him for so long. You knew that Eddie wasn't like your ex, a fucking jock who only spent half the year manipulating you and threatening you into having sex or else he'd tell the entire basketball team. But the fear was still there, you were afraid that this would affect the friendship you had forged with him since 1st year of high school. You felt so ashamed, sad, wanting to tear your heart out.

— "(Y/N) please... Give me a explanation"

he sat next to you, at no time did he cut the gaze he had on you, he was simply worried about his friend.

—"Do you remember the time we fought over that girl? Reddish hair, brown eyes and a little shorter than me. And they weren't just discussions between us, but also by the club."

— "I remember it perfectly, you and they used to tell me that she was just keeping me away from the Hellfire Club and also-"

— "I was jealous of her, after all... she could have you as many times as she wanted and she could show you how much she loved you."

— "we- we can also show how much we love each other, what're you talking about man?"

You clench your fists and jumped up from that sofa with the courage to confess or so you hoped. Your "plan" was to tell him as directly as possible your feelings for him.

— "I'm talking about I've been in love with you for 2 years already. I am madly in love with you, with your face, body, hands, voice, everything. Every time she came I just thought about what it would be like if I were her! I wanted to be able to feel your kisses and hugs, I wanted to feel that kind of love that can only be granted to a couple and sorry if you don't understand it, but I really can't stand it anymore, I can't save each of the feelings I have towards you."

Eddie froze, perplexed at the confess of his best friend, as much as he wanted to say something, he just couldn't. He lowered his head and passed his hands on the back of his neck, “what should I say to him?” he thought.

weakly he got up from the sofa while he played with his rings slightly, now it was he who tried to find the words to comfort the other, but he failed in the attempt and simply blurted out:

— (Y/N) I'm a boy.. you're gay?"

— "This must be a fucking joke, Munson."

You were angry, but not with him, it was quite obvious that he wouldn't understand well, much less if you started to get upset and shout your feelings at him. you started crying with rage and impotence, there was nothing else to do. You thought you had screwed everything up after confessing. You gave up.

— "Know something? I'm leaving."

You said between tears and sobs, you were devastated by the reaction he had, you expected something calmer or similar. You went as fast as you could to the door and opened it, the first thing you saw It was the same girl that you were jealous of. What a coincidence, what a fucking coincidence. You let out a sarcastic laugh and let her pass without her seeing your face. You ran out of the camper to grab your bike so you could go somewhere else, maybe to Robin's house. When you got on the bike from afar you could hear Munson yelling for you to stay, you ignored him and started driving with slight problems because it was already night and the storm towards the most difficult escape.

------------

— "who won this time?"

— "I guess Eddie won, I ran out of there."

— "Ha! told ya, rob."

— "My god Steve, can you please shut up?"

You smiled a little as Steve rolled his eyes at Robin's words, you loved these idiots so much. They were the first to know (realize) that you were gay. You appreciate the fact that they didn't turn their backs on you like your family and "friends" did. you lay on your back putting your hands behind your head and closed your eyes, the last thing you wanted was to know about Eddie and the girl.you felt how the boys lay down on your sides and tried to comfort you, on the one hand there was Steve who caressed your head and hugged you from behind.. and on the other hand there was Robin who wouldn't stop talking about how everything that had happened was similar to a movie he saw a few weeks ago at work.

When Robin finished talking, she realized that you and Steve had fallen asleep, she smiled letting out a sigh, she adjusted her head and body so that she was comfortable, but also so that you wouldn't be when it came time to move.

#eddie munson x m!reader #eddie munson x male reader #eddie munson icons #stranger things #gay love #m!reader #trans ftm

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kanansdume · 1 year

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I'm finding my views on Satine Kryze to be really following my views on Padme these days, which seems appropriate given that Satine has always felt like a knock-off Padme anyway and her entire existence is intended to help parallel Padme and Anakin's relationship.

But I really hated Satine when I first watched TCW a few years ago. I couldn't stand the way she treated Obi-Wan, I felt like the entire romance was pretty shoe-horned and ham-fisted and full of a lot of romance tropes between hetero couples that I'm not fond of. And I also interpreted the explanation we get about Mandalore's current peace and what had to be done to make it that way as... not great and kind-of a cultural extermination of some kind.

Since then I've followed a number of people who happen to love and defend Satine and her political choices, read through their metas about why the warriors being exiled to Concordia was a reasonable choice to make at the time. I've also read a few posts that still condemn that choice the way I did initially.

And while I think the INTENTION of the writing here was that this was a reasonable choice for Satine to make, that she was exiling the people who refused to be peaceful and practice their culture without trying to start a war all over again, the way it's said and written does NOT feel like that. At least, not to all of us.

For one, the usage of the term "warriors" in the line. They say they exiled "all the warriors" to a nearby moon. They don't say "we exiled everyone who refused to stop fighting and killing for a war that had already stopped" or "we exiled Death Watch who were a well-known terrorist group" or anything like that. They JUST say "warriors" which does feel vague enough as a description to feel like she is exiling literally everyone who happens to be someone who knows how to fight and has based their culture around being warriors, regardless of whether they were a problem or not. It also then feels hypocritical of her to have done so when she very clearly has guards who can fight on her behalf, so either she didn't exile ALL of the warriors or she managed to get a few people she decided to give exceptions to in order to learn how to protect her.

And because of this vagueness, the natural assumption to make from there is that Satine has basically forbidden everything that WENT ALONG with warrior culture: wearing armor, using weapons, learning how to fight, etc. Everything that we've been told via other media is VERY IMPORTANT to Mandalorian culture. I think we can reasonably decide that this was... PROBABLY not true, there's no canon evidence for this being true that I can recall. She never SAYS anything about forbidding armor or learning how to fight and only forbids OUTSIDERS from carrying weapons. She herself personally refuses to use lethal weapons and doesn't appear to wear any armor ever, but I don't think there's any mention of her not allowing other people to do so. Obviously her guards do in fact wear armor and carry weapons. She doesn't even condemn Padme for picking up a blaster to help fight off some smugglers at one point, despite that theoretically going against the rule of no outsiders carrying/using weapons.

Satine ALSO seems to be someone who does, to some degree, take a lot of pride in Mandalorian culture and traditions. She says as much when Padme shows up. So in some ways, it doesn't make sense that she'd entirely eliminate a portion of that culture so long as those who practiced it weren't using it to actively hurt other people.

That being said, Satine is someone who is... particularly implacable in her beliefs. We see this MOST clearly with Obi-Wan and the way Satine discusses the Jedi and the war with him and the way she condemns his entire people for fighting in the war at all, despite all of the obvious reasons TO fight the war that we have as the audience. It's never made canon in the show itself, but we also know from Lucas's interviews that the Jedi didn't even have a CHOICE about whether to join the war as Generals or not, they got drafted. But Satine appears unwilling to listen to Obi-Wan's reasoning, to hear him out on why they're working to protect people, to re-evaluate her personal definition of "peacekeepers" for someone else's culture. She never budges on this particular issue, not once. She and Obi-Wan basically just stop discussing it at some point.

So with that in mind, it does feel in character that Satine could be so insistent on keeping a war from happening that she could exile everyone who refused to stop practicing warrior traditions, regardless of whether they were hurting someone else or not. Especially if she was a young traumatized teenager at the time, reacting to a civil war that kept her on the run for a year and appears to have done a lot of damage to the planet.

And then we come to the part where they tell us that EVERYBODY who had been exiled had died out. Everyone. Within a span of TWENTY YEARS, which is not that long of a time. Which calls into question certain things like whether the people who were exiled were allowed to LEAVE it in order to find a place to live that accepted them so long as it wasn't within Mandalorian space. Were they allowed to make contact with other people to bring them resources and supplies or not. If they had just said "everybody left the moon and we assume they have since found refuge elsewhere" that would be different. But they all are supposedly DEAD, which to me speaks of a more concerted effort to not allow those people to leave and an equal effort not to take care of them. While it's entirely probable that this report was a LIE given by Pre Viszla and all of those people have simply now joined Pre's Death Watch, neither Satine nor anyone in her government appears to feel all that upset about it. It's not a tragedy that no one was able to stop in time, a dark spot upon their history and Satine's leadership that she acknowledges.

And that feels particularly condemning to me.

But the problem is that I don't think we're intended to see it that way. I don't think it was intentionally written as something the audience would actually condemn Satine for.

Which means that this is where we hit upon the Padme Problem. Which is when they care so little about their female characters that the nuances that are implied by the dialogue and writing are glossed over to the point that the character ends up seeming more of a terrible person than they were intended to be. Padme's brushing off of Anakin's massacre of the Tuskens makes her seem like a racist whose grand values suddenly don't exist, solely because Padme's motivations aren't the ones that matter in this scene and nobody cared enough about her when writing this to realize exactly how it would come off to an audience. With Satine, it's the unfortunate usage of the vague term "warriors" and the fact that they all died combined with her implacable attitude towards Obi-Wan and the Jedi which is a result of them using bad romcom tropes of the time for that relationship. All of which leads to Satine feeling like a tyrant who advocates for cultural extermination, because it's the only way some of these inconsistencies make any sense sometimes.

Which is too bad, because Satine perhaps COULD'VE been a better written character, could've been more interesting as one of the few characters in Star Wars who is actively advocating for pacifism and looking at how that fits into the world around her. But she just... isn't a better written character. Not unlike Padme. Or her sister.

#star wars #satine kryze #padme amidala #anti obitine #obi-wan kenobi #jedi #the clone wars #swtcw #tcw #star wars the clone wars

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getvalentined · 3 months

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Angeal for the ask game :D

ANGEAL HEWLEY

🎟️ SEXUALITY HEADCANON: Heteroflexible and biromantic. He prefers women, physically speaking, but could have an intimate relationship with a man. One man in particular.

⚧️ GENDER HEADCANON: Angeal is hard to get a read on, for me, since he's another of those characters who exists in a position that he seems to believe requires a hypermasculine presentation. I read him as cis, but I can see just about anything for him.

💕 A SHIP: Unrequited Angeal/Sephiroth is really the only ship I have for Angeal—I genuinely believe he's utterly in love with Sephiroth, and he never ever said a word about it to anyone.

🖇️ A BROTP: Angeal+Lazard is probably my biggest one, only because the mental image of both of them trying desperately to keep Genesis and Seph in line is so clear in my head it might as well be made of crystal.

🚫 A NOTP: Don't garotte me for this, but honestly Gengeal? I don't like the way he talks to or about Genesis; I've heard people say that they're like a divorced couple, but if anything they read to me as siblings desperate to get out of each other's orbit and utterly unable to escape their shared history no matter how they try. (Given that they seem to both have Gillian's mtDNA based on explanations in-canon, and we know that they can be considered siblings based on Weiss using his connection to Genesis as proof that he's also Angeal's brother in DFFOO, I feel like that's a fairly accurate read.)

💭 A RANDOM HEADCANON: Angeal didn't actually join SOLDIER at the same time as Genesis, and not only because he didn't particularly want to—Angeal is over a year younger than Genesis, and was just too young to enlist when Genny left Banora. It was almost a year before Angeal was able to follow him to Midgar, by which point Genesis had already formed a fairly solid relationship with Sephiroth, and Angeal was more than a little put-out by the idea that his position as Genesis' only friend had been taken by this weird kid with weird hair and weird eyes that Genesis kept clipping photos of from the newspaper. When he got to know Seph, though, he changed his tune pretty dramatically—and fell for him almost as hard as Genesis. This is one of the reasons that he inserts himself between them at every opportunity, not only because he doesn't think they're good for each other, but because he doesn't think that anyone is good enough for Sephiroth, not even himself. And if he isn't good enough to be Sephiroth's one and only, then Genesis (impulsive, arrogant, troublemaker Genesis, who spent days exploring a monster-infested cave system as a boy without a thought of the danger he courted in doing so, who already had everything he ever needed or wanted and still leveraged his obsession over a hero he hadn't met into an invention that garnered recognition in a way that Angeal never could) definitely wasn't. This is how the whole relationship fell apart.

🗣️GENERAL OPINION: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the saddest thing about Angeal is that he's the only one who couldn't bear to live with himself. I'm not a huge fan of the character as a person, but he's fantastically executed as a character. His story is legitimately one of the most heartbreaking in the series—He had a whole host of people who loved him so deeply as to be fathomless, and it didn't matter. His story is a tragedy not because of how he was made or how he died, but because of why things turned out the way they did. So much of the suffering he went through was self-imposed, and that's the saddest part of all.

(For the character ask game.)

#angeal hewley #headcanon warning #angeal critical #maybe #I don't think it's particularly critical #to talk about his canon characterization #but it's upset people in the past #so there's the tag!

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mydisenchantedeulogy · 6 months

Text

Wips

Below is a list of one-shots I'm working on with a special event announcement below. Please enjoy.

Resentment [Vergil x Reader]

Fandom: DMC

Information: This goes hand in hand with the event announcement below. The concept is that you are a representation of Envy who lost their name and Virgil is seeking you so that he can open one of the seals on Temen-ni-gru.

Snippet:

You resent them, all of them, for everything they own and have accomplished. As you stare out at the crowded street from your bedroom window you can not help but feel bitter toward the people roaming around. Compared to you, they live carefree lives.

Hurt/comfort - Untitled [Akutagawa x Reader]

Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs

Information: Untitled as of yet, this is meant to fit in with my 'To Thine Own Self Be True' universe. The reader and Akutagawa have been together for almost a year and a botched mission puts the reader in danger, bringing their secret relationship in the limelight.

Snippet:

Resting against his shoulder, you feel him tense up a bit. It's humorous, considering how long you have been with him, but you understand. Akutagawa isn't used to this sort of thing.

"I'm sorry," you utter.

He sighs in response.

"Even if I would have complained, you would have done it anyway."

You smile, nuzzling against him. He knows you so well.

A/B/O - Untitled [Dazai x Reader]

Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs

Information: This will be an omega verse one-shot. The reader is an omega who goes into hiding with Dazai, who is an Alpha after they defect from the Port Mafia. However, due to unfortunate circumstances, the reader runs out of scent blockers.

Snippet:

"Are you baking?" Dazai asks as he sniffs the air. "Something smells nice."

You frown. Shit! What are you supposed to say?

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. I need something from the surface. It's urgent."

Dazai peeks over the back of the couch. There is a darkness in his eyes that makes you shiver. He knows.

"Are you in heat?"

Domesticated [Akutagawa x Reader]

Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs

Information: The title is going to be changed, but this one-shot is an AU featuring the reader from my 'To Thine Own Self Be True' universe. It follows the events of Bungou Stray Dogs: Beast where Akutagawa is a member of the Armed Detective Agency.

Snippet:

"What condition will you have me fulfill?" Akutagawa asks.

You hum. It has been a week since Ranpo had issued the OK card and you hadn't given it much thought, honestly. Leaning back in your chair, you take him in. What can you ask him to do to test his self-discipline and morals?

An idea comes to mind and you snap your fingers.

"Take me out on a date."

Akutagawa widens his eyes a bit. "A date?"

You nod.

"What better way to judge your character? There is a lot that goes into date planning, so don't expect it to be that easy. I'm not the materialistic type, but I'll fail you in a heartbeat if you don't put your all into it."

The ombre-haired man hums.

"I will not fail."

Welcome to the Jungle [Vaas x Reader]

Fandom: Far Cry 3

Information: The reader in this AU is a photographer who follows her colleagues onto the Rook Islands in a last-ditch effort to find the mysterious Rakyats who are rumored to have a mystical power, only to run into Vaas who is cursed.

Snippet:

"You have heard about this place, no?" the guide asks.

You hum.

"I've read up on it a bit. During the 15th century, the natives helped a Chinese explorer take down Lin Cong's empire and free their people. It's a remarkable story."

The guide laughs.

"It is remarkable. You know the history…but do you know the island is cursed?"

Cursed? You snort. The man narrows his eyes in response.

"Long ago, a warrior betrayed his people and the leader cursed him, turning him into a ferocious weretiger whose claws and teeth can tear through flesh and bone with ease. The natives say the tiger still roams the jungle," he explains.

"I don't believe in curses. Everything has a logical explanation," you state.

The man leans in.

"Ask yourself what you believe when you come face to face with the weretiger. I assure you that you will not be so doubtful then."

Events:

Bordering on Madness Yandere Event [Various x Reader]

Fandom(s): Various

Information: Centering around @writeformesinpie 's A-Z Yandere Prompts, I plan to write for each letter with a different character. Below is a list of the dialogue starters with the character's name and fandom.

List:

#devil may cry fandom #vergil x reader #bungou stray dogs fandom #dazai x reader #ryuunosuke akutagawa x reader #far cry 3 fandom #vaas x reader

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smolwritingchick · 2 months

Note

Hi Val ! just a little note to thank you for creating Nini because it's super rare to have a black oc with a lot of updates so I hope you will continue like that🫶🏼I've been following you since before you deleted your account🫡 so when I saw that you had taken it back I was super happy ✨️ I just wanted to know if you knew when you were going to post or if you had to rewrite everything. big kisses to you and Nini 🫶🏼

Hi Angie!!! Omggg you are sooo sweet! Thank you thank you thank youuuu! I appreciate you sticking with me after all this time! I still get shooked when readers tell me they've been here before I deleted everything. I should also apologize to you and the old readers. I deleted everything abruptly with no explanation and I never realized just how happy my writing made so many people until I started getting messages on my personal Tumblr blog. And I'm like damn.

What made me start writing again and reposting my work was when I got a text message late last year from one of my elementary school mentors. I've kept in touch with her ever since and she had asked me if I was still writing. That question lit the fire again. I've been asked that question by so many people but when it came from her, something just sparked in me and I said to myself, "I fucking miss this shit. Let me start over,"

So, I set everything up. It's pretty cool to start back from the bottom and get rediscovered. I call myself a beautiful accident when people come across my stuff. I'm satisfied with reposting my work and being a smol part of the Black K-Pop community. I've become more of a casual fan of BTS and I don't follow too much K-Pop like I used to. I surely missed A LOT but it's exciting to watch and read over the things I missed in BTS from late 2020 to now.

I chose to finally write on Wattpad, too. I never used the site like that but I was like, I'm older now, let me at least try to write on it and I fell in love with it. I found the PDF of Bangtan Gal and then I began to reread and edit each chapter. Although lots of gifs and photos aren't there like before, I would rather have all the chapters I wrote for the story be here over some replaceable gifs and photos.

I rewrote a lot of things. Like the dialogue to make sure it would say "Jennie said" instead of "Says" and as I would reread certain chapters new ideas would come about and I would add to it which helped me get my groove back. A good example is the War of Hormone chapter when I thought of even more ideas of Jungkook helping Jennie get used to being in the presence of his stage persona when they perform together for the song. When he grabbed her back and asked her "Where you going?" when she started backing away was in the heat of the moment and I thought it was funny and pretty cute. And then him saying to himself that he hoped to be her boyfriend in his head at the end was another last minute idea when editing.

2+ years of writing the chapters and now I am back to where I stopped writing. It's surreal continuing the story. I hope you all bear with me for the slow updates. I missed how frequently I'd post the already prewritten/edited chapters lol. I was so excited to post this story again.

But anyway, I appreciate you all for taking the time to check out my creativity. I'll continue to work hard! :)

#answered

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adenei · 10 months

Text

Ch 1 - Never Really Over

*Deep breaths*

Soooo I've been working on a new multi-chap romione fic since April. Have kept it pretty quiet aside from my betas who have been wonderful with their help and support because let's be real, finding time to write and allow yourself to become invested in a hobby with an infant is HARD. But that's a whole other slew of issues for another day. You're here for the fic (I assume), so let's get back to that.

I love the direction this is taking, and am super proud of the idea and its development. I think I'm known a lot for taking existing stories/movies/etc and twisting them to fit a ship in an AU, but this one is all me - yay proving to myself that I CAN have original ideas!

It is an American Romione AU in a modern setting.

Summary:

Hermione Granger is a modern woman who doesn’t need to find love for self-fulfillment. Not that finding love is even an option anymore. Her perfect love story has come and gone with the one who got away—sorry, the one who disappeared is more like it.

That fake fairy tale is all well and good until Ron Weasley, the man who ruined everything, suddenly turns back up in her life with no explanation whatsoever. It seems his only goal is to show up wherever she is, attempting to undo the walls she’s built around her heart after he shattered it into a million tiny pieces. But Hermione’s determined not to let him in. With the help of her best friends and an online dating site that promises users their very own ‘happily ever after,’ she sets out to move on from her first love for good.

After a few misses, Billy slides into her inbox, a sweet, genuine, fun-loving guy who’s easy to talk to and fills Hermione with the hope that perhaps love isn’t off the table after all. Seemingly overnight, she’s gone from perpetually single to balancing a love triangle on a fine, fine line. The deeper she gets, the harder she realizes it’s going to be when she has to choose. The last thing she wants to do is break anyone’s heart—her own included.

So, without further ado, I give you the first chapter of Never Really Over.

Read on AO3

But once in a while I trip up and I cross the line, and I think of you

Work ᐧ a ᐧ hol ᐧ ic (noun) a person who compulsively works long and hard hours.

God, I hate the connotation of that word. And yet it still burns into my mind, distracting me from—unironically—the article I’m trying to finish up at my desk. Am I three months ahead of the current deadline? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean anything. There’s nothing wrong with having backups just in case. It shouldn’t classify me as a workaholic.

Because I’m not.

It’s only haunting me because my brain has a sick and twisted sense of humor. It clearly refuses to follow my strict list of off-limit thoughts, cementing the chokehold the word has on my life.

Ugh. Why am I letting this bother me anyway? I’m Hermione Granger, a capable, independent woman who is perfectly happy with her life right now. A twenty eight-year-old with a house of her own, a career she’s passionate about, and the five best friends a girl could ask for thanks to fate bringing us together during freshman orientation at Kearney University. The memory brings a smile to my lips. What more could one want?

And then the frown returns when I remember that I’m sitting alone in the office on a Friday evening and self-doubt trickles in. If I’m being honest, there’s a lot more I want. Like love. Finding the love of my life would be nice. I thought I’d at least be married by now, and maybe have one kid by the time I turned thirty. Not that I’m a traditional woman by any means. I’m about as modern as they come. It’s just…

No. You’re not allowed to think about him, remember?

Except it’s really hard not to think about him. Especially when that damn word keeps flashing in my mind while I sit here on weekend time, finishing an article that’s nowhere near due. But it doesn’t matter. That inside joke died a long time ago. I stopped finding the word endearing the moment I realized he was no longer in my life. Now if only my brain would get the memo.

I shake my head, brunette curls flying around as I try to refocus on the cursor blinking in front of me. It’s still a tough pill to swallow, but I’ve long since given up on love—or so I’m telling myself. Romantic companionship clearly isn’t in the cards for me, so I turn to the one thing that will never let me down: writing. And right now, I’m only a couple of paragraphs away from completing a lovely little piece on the hidden gems of Bora Bora—the things they won’t tell you in the travel guides.

A long, deep breath helps me push those intrusive thoughts away and brings me back to the salty ocean air and the calm lapping of the waves. If I concentrate long enough, I can feel the sparkling white sand between my toes, and it’s enough to catapult me right back into the article—until my phone rings two minutes later.

I don’t want to answer, but it’s Hannah Abbott, my best friend, and she’s always there for me when I need her. The least I can do is return the favor. Plus, the creative juices are no longer flowing thanks to the interruption, so I may as well see what she wants.

With a swipe right to answer, I do my best not to sound annoyed. “Hello?”

“Where are you?!” Hannah cries, though her voice sounds hushed, like she’s hiding in a closet or something.

“Finishing up an article at work. Why?”

“Unbelievable,” she grumbles, more to herself than to me. “Hermione, I’m going to let you think about why I’m calling for a second and see if you can put the pieces together.”

“What are you talking about?” I’m not in the mood to play this game, but I adjust the phone and hold it against my shoulder so I can lift my laptop and check my desk calendar.

August first. Friday. The day I try to forget. But then I see the periwinkle writing at the bottom of the square. Harry and Neville’s birthday party.

Remember the strong support system I mentioned earlier? The freshman orientation group turned lifelong friends? Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom are part of that, along with Hannah, of course, and Seamus Finnigan and Lavender Brown. We never miss anyone’s birthdays, and Hannah knows that.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit! How could I forget?”

Hannah sniggers at me. “Yes, how could you forget? Hermione, I don’t know if it’s because you love your job so much that you’re willing to stay late on a Friday, or because of what day it is, but—”

“We’re not talking about that. I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

I slam my laptop shut and shove it in my bag a little too haphazardly. I’m already closing my office door by the time Hannah responds again. “Right…”

She’s clearly contemplating whether to push the subject or let it go. After all, she’ll have all night to try and grill me on it, but she knows better. We don’t talk about what happened on August first. Ever.

And just to make sure she doesn’t go there, I try to swing the conversation back to the guys. “Have they noticed I’m not there yet?”

“Well, considering it’s a small gathering of our closest friends—all of whom are already here because the party started an hour ago—yeah, they’ve noticed.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry, okay? I just—”

“—Got caught up with whatever article you’re working on? I know, I know. You’re lucky it’s only their twenty-eighth birthday and not the big three-oh.”

“Come on, Han, this is one tiny mistake and I feel terrible. You don’t need to make it worse. I’m never late, you know that! And I would never miss something as big as their thirtieth birthdays. Especially not since we’ve already got a running list of themes and ideas going. Just—give me a break, okay? I’ll be there soon. I’m almost to the car now.”

“Alright.” Hannah sighs. There’s a stilted pause and I wait, knowing there’s something else she wants to say, and I brace for the lecture about my workaholic tendencies and what it relates to. Damn psychology major.

“Listen, Hermione, there’s something you should—” But after a long day of reflecting on it, I don’t want to go there right now.

“See you in fifteen, bye!” I hang up the phone before she can finish her sentence. She tries this every year. You’d think after six years she’d let it go. But no, she thinks that one of these days I’ll finally talk about it. Well, she can keep trying, but it’s not going to happen. That part of my life is over and it’ll only hurt more to bring it back up.

⚭

It takes me a little longer than fifteen minutes, but that’s to be expected with D.C. traffic. Once I’m parked outside Hannah and Neville’s house, I quickly do a once-over on my appearance. Thanks to the mid-summer humidity, my hair is frizzier than when I tamed it into its half-ponytail this morning. It’s too bad my incessant need to run my fingers through the curly strands does nothing to combat its flyaway tendency. I guess I’ll just have to deal with yet another pitch from Lavender to let her help me with my nonexistent beauty regimen. Perks of having a beautician for a friend.

Prying my eyes away from the visor mirror, I get out of the car and look down at the pale yellow eyelet sundress I put on this morning. There are definite wrinkles and creases from sitting at my desk all day, but what can I do? At least my mascara isn’t running down my face and I don’t have sweat stains under my arms. That’s more than presentable for a backyard barbeque after working all day. Kudos to whoever chose that over some fancy dinner.

Not that my friends would care. They’ve always accepted me for who I am. Sure, I’ll never hear the end of being late tonight, but at least I made it, and in their company, I’ll be able to accomplish the one thing I’ve struggled with all day: taking my mind off of him.

Faint sounds of laughter echo as I walk up the path to the front door and let myself in. A ‘happy birthday’ sign hangs from the ceiling in the foyer, and red and gold balloons litter the floor leading to the kitchen. Of course they’d deck out the place with the colors of our alma mater—I wouldn’t expect anything less.

“Hey, I’m here! And sorry I’m late, you know how work is,” I call to a seemingly empty house.

I poke my head into an empty living room before heading back to the kitchen, where I find Seamus pulling a beer out of the fridge. Everyone else must be out back.

“Well, well, well, look who finally decided to show up.”

And so it begins.

Rolling my eyes, I grab a wedge of gouda off the picked over charcuterie board on the counter. “You say that like I intended to show up almost two hours late. I lost track of time.”

That was sort of the truth. After all, I couldn’t tell Seamus I forgot, he’d never let me live it down. Seamus is usually the one who gets called out on things. His affinity for pyrotechnics has created many occasions for us to give him hell, and you can guarantee between the five of us, we never let him live a single one down. So I guess I can’t blame him when he doesn’t miss a beat now the tables are turned.

Which is why I’m not surprised he isn’t letting me off the hook yet. With a snort, he tries to call my bluff. “C’mon, Hermione. We all know you love working so much that you’d skip out on weekends if you could. You don’t have to lie.” And then, to make things weirder, he looks around and lowers his voice to add, “You can tell me the truth about why you’re late. It’ll be our little secret.”

My face scrunches up before I have a chance to control its reaction. Why does he care so much?

“I…I don’t know what you mean. I really did lose track of time, Shay. Why are you acting so strange?”

A scowl crosses his face as he sets his beer down on the white speckled quartz. He eyes the back deck before lowering his voice and says, “Because I’ve got a bet going with Lav and Nev on whether you were going to show or not.”

“Whether I was going to—why wouldn’t I show? Honestly, it’s not my fault I got wrapped up in research and writing an article all day and then forgot I had plans tonight! Do you guys bet on my predisposition to get lost in my job and failure to show up to events often?”

I’m so bewildered by the fact that there’s a bet that I don’t even care about letting my forgetfulness slip. Do I need to reconsider how genuine these friendships are? Does this happen often? Are my friends not as supportive as I thought they were?

I open my mouth to ask as much, but clamp it shut when I see the wide-eyed, pale shock cross Seamus’s face. His reaction is far more severe than it should be and now I’m really confused. He spins around and opens the fridge, rummaging around until he pulls out a mango White Claw—my favorite.

Things are getting more suspicious by the second, and I need to know what is going on. “Seamus, what—”

“Here.” He opens the can with a loud crack and hands it to me. “You’re going to need this.”

Oh, come on. “Seriously? You know I don’t care if I’m already three drinks behind.”

“Well, you might this time…” he mumbles before nodding to the door. “Come on, everyone’s out back. I’m sure they’ll be excited to know you finally made it.”

Okay, what is happening? I try not to let my jaw drop as my mind works to decode this odd behavior. Seamus has always been the one with the crazy ideas and adventurous spirit. There’s not a cryptic bone in his body. If anything, he’s always impulsive and up-front with his intentions.

All I can do is shake my head and follow, giving up on trying to make sense of anything. I take a few quick swigs and step through the sliding glass door that Seamus left open for me. Lively conversation comes from my left, where everyone is sitting around the patio table. I prepare myself for more endless teasing as I shut the door behind me, but instead, the chatter dies to a sudden silence. More peculiarity.

Did I spill something on myself and miss it? No, Seamus would have said something. Or are they really just that shocked about my late arrival? I’m about to ask as much until I look up and see an all too familiar shade of red hair sitting at the table with his back toward me.

Despite the eighty-degree weather, my body breaks into a cold sweat. I’ve spent six years pretending he doesn’t exist anymore. Six years trying to forget that part of my life, convincing myself that he wasn’t the person I thought he was. That he wasn’t ‘the one.’

Everyone else’s expressions mirror my shock when they realize I didn’t know he was going to be here, though Hannah’s contains a tiny wince that’s meant to say, ‘I tried to warn you.’ And their reactions are enough to make Ron Weasley, my ex-best friend, ex-confidante, and ex-lover, turn around.

Seeing his face unfreezes my body from its current awkward stance. Anger and hurt burst through the gates that I’ve worked so hard to keep locked up as our eyes meet. In slow motion, my hard seltzer clatters to the ground, soaking my feet and wedge leather sandals in the sticky, bubbly liquid as I try to find my voice.

As if this paradox couldn’t become any more ironic, he actually seems excited to see me. He opens his mouth to say something, but I’ll never know what since I manage to cut him off with the only scathing question that I can possibly think of.

“What are you doing here?”

#romione #hermione granger #ron weasley #hp fanfic #american au #alternate universe

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