#next read i need to turn off the commentary and read it in its pure form | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

penguinkinggames · 3 years

Text

“Cerebos: The Crystal City” Actual Play Part I: Introductions

This is the first in a series of posts recounting a session of actual play from Cerebos: the Crystal City, currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. If you’ve been wondering what on Earth players actually do in a game of Cerebos, read on!

This session was conducted on March 20th, 2021, with Matthew Dorbin as GM, and Amelia Gorman, Ashley Flanagan, Will Mendoza, and Kevin Snow playing. The events of play were recorded by Zach Welhouse.

Preamble

For this session of Cerebos, the GM volunteered to run a session with the Adventure! Conductor. The conductor’s Atlas Obscura power invites the players and GM to work collaboratively to create a Stops table unique to their journey. They exchanged a few ideas over e-mail, which the GM codified. He added this new Stops table, which was heavy on the hells, to five other Stop tables to create an Atlas. Then he selected six Event tables to create an Almanac.

Everybody met in Discord and talked about unrelated matters for a bit. Then it was time to introduce characters. Each character clings to three touchstones: objects that represented their past in the City by the Sea. Each touchstone has a single Trait.

Dramatis Personae

Tinderling. A woman who looks like a burnt match.

Iron rail spike (Odd Jobs)

A single match (Burns at Both Ends)

Bird bone sewing needle (Piercing Insight)

The Unqualified Robot. A mechanical figure with a light projection screen for a head. It indicates expression by placing a large slide with the image of an emotion on the screen.

Expression slides (Toxic Positivity)

Backpack of unsold gadgets (Abandoned Junk)

Flask of motor oil (Guzzlin’)

The Lady in Blue. A woman who is as regal as she is soot-stained: exceedingly.

Gun with a single bullet (Single-Minded)

Feathered hat (Life of Luxury)

Burned handbag (Lost Sister)

The Lonesome Seafarer. A sea captain far from shore.

Patchwork coat (Coat of Theseus) (“I like it because it’s vague and we’ll find out what it means during play.”)

Blue tricorner hat (Air of Authority)

Spyglass with broken lens (Grizzled Survivor)

Some players came to the table with their whole starting concept, while others were less certain about their starting Traits. Everyone helped brainstorm starting Traits for the players who were less certain. This early riffing was the first sign of the collaboration to come.

One player noticed they gravitated toward useless items or objects of purely sentimental value. The travelers themselves were quite worn, so we were already establishing a contemplative mood. These were travelers who had been beaten down by the world, but hadn’t given up yet. Their stories would be ones of struggle and inspirational determination or grim warnings about challenging forces larger than themselves.

Goals

Based on these introductions, each player determined why another traveler was headed to Cerebos. They shared the goals with the GM over DMs, so no one knew why their traveler was on the road. The truth revealed itself over time through flashbacks

Tinderling: Her newly unionized shop got shut down by union busters. She’s looking for a place with less draconian labor laws.

The Unqualified Robot: Cerebos is home to a famous scientist who specializes in reprogramming obsolete robots for new jobs.

The Lady in Blue: The Lady in Blue's sister, the Lady in Red is a criminal ringleader in Cerebos. The Lady in Blue aims to kill her and take over her crime empire.

The Lonesome Seafarer: The Lonesome Seafarer is looking for someone lost at sea, and old rival/loved one who was believed to have perished but was seen alive in the City by someone the Seafarer trusts. They have something they want to ask them.

Based on their answers to the GM’s initial questions, the players were interested in telling a story about labor, power, and human connections.

For example, the GM asked the players if they intended to pay for passage on the train. One player suggested they might have company scrip from Tinderling's employers. The GM asked if the company had a name, at which point Inferno Heavy Industries was born. It had just opened its newest station for business, to (according to the fresh posters) was "bringing luxury to a land with so little of value".

The Journey Begins

When the travelers arrive, workmen are still unloading plants and doing their best to landscape the surrounding wasteland. The local ecosystem will probably recover. Tinderling notices a panhandler passing among the large crowds, who she recognizes as a scab from the City by the Sea.

The train still has that new train smell. It has fancy cushions and a conductor who’s knowledgeable and friendly, but not pushy. Only the best for the engine’s maiden voyage!

The Lonesome Seafarer follows the automated snack cart from car to car, loading up on the bounty of the rails. The Unqualified Robot, never having been on a train before (presumably), keeps getting in the way until Tinderling recognizes a proletariat in need and guides it to a seat. The Unqualified Robot slides a winking face into its project slot, gladdened by the kindness.

The train sets off and the GM rolls for an Event in the Almanac. The train plows through the desert, passing through a region of low hills and hexagonal pits that seep gas into the air. Plague doctors patrol the perimeter, keeping pit owls from approaching the train.

This terrain is a Danger 3 Event. If the Danger level (that is, the total Danger of all active Events) is 4 or greater by the time the train reaches a Stop, the Stop will be especially dangerous. If the Event’s individual Danger is reduced to 0, one of the travelers will receive a keepsake of the encounter.

At this point, everybody takes an action with comments, suggestions, and general role-playing filling the space in between.

First Round of Train Actions

Tinderling is familiar with gas from mines and factories. It may be dangerous! She suggests people put on wet masks. She takes the Engage Event action and rolls a Success to lower the danger to 2. Several passengers see the wisdom of this advice and mask up.

The Lady in Blue shares a story with whoever’s sitting next to her (it doesn’t matter, really) about the importance of staying calm and composed during times of danger. Take it easy, eat a little food. It will all work out. She uses the conductor’s Easy Confidence Train Action to understand Tinderling. Just a little. She gains a bonus to the next time they work together.

The Lonesome Seafarer believes the unruly owls to be a problem. She shouts out the window and waves her hat at them: “Hey! Owls! Listen to those plague doctors! They have good medical advice!” Another Success. The Event’s danger lowers to 1.

The Unqualified Robot, shocked by all the action, takes the Lady in Blue’s advice. It tries creating a meal from the snack cart, mashing snacks against its face until it’s a custardy mess. The Lady in Blue offers a napkin and they talk through the comedy of manners. Next, the Robot tries its flask. Empty. The Lady in Blue suggests whiskey for the both of them. They both Share a Meal and earn a keepsake: a tasty beverage that provides a one-time reroll of a 1 or 2.

The first round of Train Actions has ended. The train speeds on into the evening. A few owls follow, hovering just out of reach.

Second Round of Train Actions

Tinderling asks the Lonesome Seafarer about her spyglass. The Seafarer has a flashback to a terrible sea battle against a kraken. She orders her crew to battle stations! Second mate Scurvy doubts her, shouting, “Are you mad, captain? We can’t fight this!” The captain disagrees, jumping into action and fighting back the kraken almost single-handedly, saving the topsman from a tentacle that may very well be an arm. After the battle, Scurvy is nowhere to be found. During this flashback, Tinderling set up most of the action, while the Lonesome Seafarer filled in with her actions. Everyone else offered suggestions, commentary, jokes, and bit parts like sailors screaming in terror. Everybody spitballs ideas about what this scene reveals about the Lonesome Seafarer and agrees: the spyglass gains two ranks of the Tunnel Vision trait.

The Unqualified Robot sees passengers all around it talking, and emulates them by asking the Lady in Blue a nice, innocent question about the gun she’s carrying. It seems like a safe conversation opener, but draws her into a flashback! The Lady in Blue is playing cards in a seedy tavern. One hand is on her gun, which she’s holding under the table and pointing at her opponent. It’s a game of chance, but the Lady in Blue is exuberantly talking about her masterful strategy. Her opponent throws his hands in the air in disgust, knocking over several drinks. He goes to pick his mug off the ground, narrowly missing as the Lady in Blue passes her gun off to an accomplice who walks past. Her name isn’t Margaret and the Lady in Blue’s name isn’t Angela, but that’s how they refer to one another. The Lady in Blue’s player had no idea how this game would turn out while it was happening. The accomplice was probably the lost sister alluded to in her Lost Sister trait, but only future flashbacks would tell. Everyone talks about what they learned about the Lady in Blue, and her gun gains two ranks of the Nick of Time trait.

At this point in the journey, two flashbacks have flashed back. The GM rolls on the Almanac for an Event, prompting an announcement from the conductor: “Hello passengers. It’s rare for a train to get lost, but we have.”

Inferno Heavy Industries hired several competing rail gangs for its line, leading to a labyrinthine snarl of tracks. Worse, the turbulence woke a swarm of chandler beetles that had been roosting in the overhead bins. Their waxy secretions have a way of ruining any train ride or picnic, most immediately threatening the Lady in Blue’s sippin’ whiskey. This is a Danger 3 event, which raises the Danger level on the train to 4.

The second round of train actions then continues:

The Lonesome Seafarer continues her conversation with Tinderling, ignoring the beetles for the time being, prompting a flashback. Encouraged by the Lonesome Seafarer’s tale of adversity, Tinderling recalls a time she had to stitch up a friend in the mines with her bird bone sewing needle. Inferno Heavy Industries at fault. That’s when she got the idea to blow up the mine and let those hateful ghouls know their workers had dignity. Everyone decides the bird bone sewing needle gains two ranks of A Rough Patch.

The Lady in Blue decides needs must. She sacrifices her hat to scoop up the chandler beetles that are threatening her drink. It’s a snap decision that she instantly regrets. That hat was a link to who she used to be, and possibly who she would like to continue being. It was an exclusive. A very nice hat. The Lady in Blue rolls an 8 on her roll to release a touchstone. It’s an Ugly Break, so one of her other touchstones gains one Momentum. Even though her luxurious hat has been tainted by insects, she still has her fancy bag. On the bright side, she gains one Contemplation for taking a step away from her all-controlling past. She doesn’t know much about who she is or who she wants to be, but her hat and the memories connected to it certainly aren’t going to hold her back.

The second round of train actions has now concluded! The Danger level is still 4.

Third Round of Train Actions

Tinderling finishes her conversation with the Lonesome Seafarer and looks across the car to the Unqualified Robot. It’s sipping whiskey from its refilled flask, watching the Lady in Blue go after the beetles with her hat. Tinderling notices the flask looks like an oil can. The Unqualified Robot notices it’s being watched and becomes self-conscious. It thinks back to when it liberated the oil can from an Inferno Heavy Industries factory. It was scrounging for oil, always finding just enough to keep it going. Even though the factory was out of commission, automated guards were still protecting its assets. The guards were large and dystopian, while the Unqualified Robot was small and scrappy. It scraped oil off the silent factory machinery with a tiny spoon. It listened to messages on the foreman’s answering machine. The electricity bill is due in three days. The Robot dutifully writes down the messages from the answering machine and takes a sip of oil. Everyone agrees the Unqualified Robot’s story is going to go some dark places. The oil can flask gains two ranks of Drowning Sorrows.

Two more flashbacks have occurred, so the GM rolls for another Event. The players recognize the Danger is adding up, but are cavalier about it. “How bad can it be?” That’s how they get ants. Ants that are crossing the tracks in a line that stretches to the horizon. They’re carrying the components to build a death ray. Components that look suspiciously similar to the inner workings of a robot. The Event’s Danger is 1; the train’s overall Danger is 5.

The third round of train actions continues:

The Unqualified Robot Engages the Event. The ants know Morse code, as does the Robot so communication is not a problem. Understanding is more difficult. The Robot slides a diplomatic slide onto its projector screen and solemnly taps out, “Please don’t build a death ray with the components of robots. They are living creatures, demanding of dignity.” It rolls a 1 and a 2. A Setback. The Robot takes a long pull from its whiskey, using the meal keepsake to reroll the 1. Its new results are a 2 and a 2, which is still a Setback. Worse, it’s rolled doubles. If the Robot chooses not to reroll at this point, it’ll gain a point of Momentum in addition to the penalty from the Setback. However, it still has several Traits it could use. The Unqualified Robot decides a Setback makes more sense. It receives one Damage and gains a point of Momentum to its face plates. Everyone shares a good-natured laugh at how unlucky the robot is and how it will receive a Bad End at this rate.

The Lady in Blue feels a looming sense of dread and takes a Stop the Train Action. The conductor cheerfully reminds everyone that due to paperwork they signed when purchasing their tickets, the train will be making a brief, unscheduled stop to investigate several findings of industrial importance. Naturally, the NDA also applies.

Ordinarily, after calling for a Stop, any travelers who have yet to take their train action for the round would receive the opportunity to do so before the train pulls into the station; however, in the group’s eagerness to get away from the assorted owls and insects, the Lonesome Seafarer’s turn was accidentally skipped!

The First Stop

Inferno Heavy Industries scientists unload delicate instruments and set up camp. This is a burial ground, but the skeletons interred in the sands have beards and wigs made of precious metals. If they could determine how to extract metal from living bone, profits would be sure to follow.

In normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be an especially dangerous Stop. However, the travelers let the Event Danger pile up. The last remaining owls have lost interest and the conductor deals with the chandler beetles, but bad karma and the ants remain -- and they’ve decided to complement their death ray with silver and gold, both fine conductors..

In fact, the silver and gold threads are so conducive that several of the skeletons spring to unlife, animated by the scientist’s tools. They give of sparks and judder through the sands, inconveniencing scientists, passengers, and ants alike. Passengers watch the train in shifts, keeping the electric dead at bay with long poles.

The Stop has Danger 5. Since it’s so high, the travelers are unable to rest and take in the sights. Moreover, they’ll need to be very lucky if they want to leave with a fond keepsake or without suffering Damage. The train will remain for one round of Stop Actions. Tune in next time to find out how the travelers fare!

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #cerebos #kickstarter #violence mention #death mention #food mention #alcohol mention

107 notes · View notes

fandom-space-princess · 3 years

Text

The Game of Us

Rating: T (gen, no warnings)

Chapter 4: Lucifer

“You still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here? It’s over. I’d say you won, but I get the feeling we both lost, after all. Isn’t that enough? Can’t you leave me in peace?”

“Is this peace?” Michael asks quietly. “What you have here?”

Lucifer bends a leg up to curl arms around it, rests his chin on his knee. “I am very good at being alone, Michael.” Michael winces, but that curious flatness is back in Lucifer’s voice; the words, for all that they should be an accusation, hold only stale resignation. “Better than you know.”

Read below the cut, or on AO3

************************************

“Why are we here? Who are you, that you would ask this of us?”

The man—and he is a man, now, for all that his form remains indistinct at the edges—regards him critically. “You continue to plead ignorance on each of those points, but come now. We both know better.”

Michael says nothing, but his shoulders slump in resignation.

“I had hoped... well. It doesn’t matter.”

“Denial can protect you in some circumstances, spur you to action in others. It will do neither in this case, and you know that. Your Maker will not return for you, Mikha’el, not now and not ever. He was never the being you believed Him to be, but that is hardly your fault. Come to terms with it, and move forward. You have responsibilities to attend to.”

The man strides off, unwilling to slow his pace, and Michael plods after him. Each step is a challenge; the mass of disquiet and unease he carries feels more of a burden the farther he goes. He studies his feet as he walks. There is one thing he cannot deny now, at least: he is certain that he no longer looks like Chuck. Whatever image he does currently project, his benefactor has no commentary to make on the subject. His thoughts lie decidedly elsewhere.

“I am here to restore balance to reality,” he continues. “Nothing more, and nothing less. It is my sole and solemn role in this universe, and it is one I take quite seriously. Whatever your Father intended for His creation, your presence is required for that balance to hold—all four of you. Recent events have threatened irreversible catastrophe. I refuse to let this come to pass.”

He thinks of Raphael, immovable and still in their mourning. “All of us?”

The man waves his hand, dismissive. “Save your worrying for where it’s needful. The healer will come along in due time. We have—reached an accord.” He pauses. “Talking of needs, you still have one brother left to convince. Bit of a hard sell, I’m afraid you’ll find.”

His grace roils within him, but he feels the shape he wears begin to solidify. The space around him begins to brighten, bit by bit. “If I fail to convince him... what becomes of us? What will you do?”

The man fixes him with a stony look.

“What I always do. To wit: clean up the mess of those around me. Believe me, reinstating the four of you is by far my preferred option; a good deal more pleasant for all of us, all things considered. But if that option is unavailable to me, I will do what I must.”

The man smiles. He thinks the expression might be intended as gentleness. “I have the utmost faith in you. Appreciate what you are being given, First of Heaven. Take advantage of it to the fullest, while the opportunity is still available to you.” He shrugs, and motions for Michael to walk ahead without him.

“Not everyone is offered a second chance.”

************************************

The path under his feet may be constant, but around him reality ebbs and flows like the tide, hills and forest eddying away on the greater currents of night. He focuses only on the path, on keeping his feet under him; ignores the pull of psychic undertow that threatens to drag him down.

I am not like my Father, he thinks as he walks. It stings. He feels carefully around the edges of the thought, tries to grasp it again. I am not my Father’s creature. That one hurts too. I am not the son He wanted me to be.

The light surrounding Michael continues to brighten, a dim but insistent glow.

He was not the Father I thought I had .

That one hurts worst of all.

What am I, if not the son to the Father I thought I knew? What is my purpose, if I do not serve?

Without noticing, he has begun to climb. The path winds slowly up, toward the peak of a hillside overlooking the expanse of the sea. It is only when he crests the hill and comes face-to-face with a low stone wall that he realizes what this place is meant to be.

It has been millennia since he last gave thought to the Oracle of the Dead.

He runs his hands across the memory of stone, worn smooth by time in some places, pitted in others by the salt-sea air. Twenty paces along the perimeter of the wall, and a gap in the earth yawns open before him. Rough-hewn steps lead downward to a shadowed door. He thinks of the gate to the Cage, and shudders.

He has come this far. For his brothers, for himself—he can do this.

Michael descends, and the ground closes in around him.

************************************

Though he has never set foot in this place corporeally, knowledge is a map etched into his grace. An antechamber, high and vaulted, stands between himself and the temple’s ceremonial gates. Through these, human mourners and congregants would have passed to seek communion with their dead. A labyrinthine warren of lesser tunnels spreads out from this point as well. Passages to more intimate chambers in which those same seekers would have made preparation: catechesis from holy priests and cleansing by water and by more esoteric means. They would have walked their own paths to this destination, he thinks. They would have made sacrifices.

His own path will have to serve as purification enough. Inhaling deeply, he passes under the first gate. As he does so, the light surrounding him brightens.

There is no denying the source of that light, now.

Beyond the first gate, the way descends again, switchback tunnels with secrets hovering just beyond his grasp around each corner. And yet, he feels as though he’s gaining ground: for every step nearer his destination, his will is becoming more focused, achieving something like surety. He can feel it in the settling of his grace, in the resolution of the image he is now all but certain he projects.

At the second gate, he hears the distant rumble of water. The way beyond is flat, and straight. Five hundred feet on, the third gate looms.

Shadows flicker around him, though the torches set into the dusty walls have long since forgotten flame.

As he draws near the final threshold, he sees them, out of the corners of his eyes. He’d had few enough occasions to manifest them during his brief time on Earth, but now he cannot seem to do anything else.

The trailing edges of his wings, pulled tight to his shoulders, brush the walls of the tunnel. They’re glowing, what of them he is able to see, casting light in this darkest of places.

The light is like...

Michael shivers.

Like the dawn.

************************************

The final gate opens, not onto any chamber carved by the hands of man, but a natural grotto, rock worn away over the span of centuries. The river pours through a crack in the ground far above. Its name whispers in his mind, hallowed and ancient: Acheron. It spills forty feet through open air before spending its energy in a churning subterranean pool. Light from his wings refracts through the waterfall, dancing and shimmering across the walls.

Then again... not solely from his wings.

The figure seated at the foot of the waterfall stares into it, and does not look up as he approaches.

“Why are you here?” Lucifer asks. The words come out flat, oddly empty. As though it were not truly a question he cared to hear the answer for. “What could possibly bring our Father’s favorite son to the edge of the river of woe?”

Michael walks past him, circling the edge of his field of vision. He feels the moment Lucifer turns to lay eyes on him for the first time. Senses the hard edge of immediacy his focus gains.

At least he has his attention. He sighs. For all that he knows what to do with it.

He seats himself at the edge of the pool, extending one unshod foot out to dangle over the water. Studies his reflection, looking back up at him. Everything about the face he wears is sharp: high carved cheekbones and ice-chip eyes, blond curls smooth as cut diamond. He glows brightly, now, as though he has swallowed the sun; a luminescence that overflows, spilling out across skin and wings and pulsing a song of home holy bright pure home home home.

The Lightbringer’s first form had always been radiant.

His reflection is abruptly joined by its double in the water. Lucifer settles next to him, staring openly.

“You mock me.”

Michael grimaces. “I don’t. This place... if there is any mocking to be done, I’m a far worthier target than you are.” Lucifer reaches out to him, caution and curiosity warring across his face. With the tips of his fingers at Michael’s jaw, he turns his head. Examines his duplicate with narrowed eyes. After a moment, he draws back, and his gaze returns to the waterfall.

A glint of metal catches his eye, and Michael flinches. Thick golden manacles encircle Lucifer’s wrists. He can’t believe he has failed to noticed them until now. Though his brother seems undisturbed by them, Michael knows how heavy they must be.

“Is this peace?” Michael asks quietly. “What you have here?”

For several long moments, the only sound is the crash of the water.

“I was told to come to you,” he ventures finally. Lucifer’s gaze snaps to him, and Michael fights a sudden impulse to squirm under it.

“By whom?”

Michael shakes his head sadly. “Not... not Him.”

The spark in Lucifer’s eyes fades as rapidly as it had appeared. He tilts his head and squints, as though listening to a conversation just at the edge of hearing. A blink, then he scowls. “Ah. Him, then. What does he want? I’m dead. So far as he should be concerned, his job is complete. Can’t get much deader.”

“We’ve been tasked to return to the world. Our Father no longer orders the universe. Without us, reality stands to fall to ruin. I was commanded to bring you back with me.”

Lucifer stares at him, wide-eyed and incredulous. Then he tips his head back, a bark of laughter tearing free from his throat.

“You—you honestly think I’ll come with you. Why, exactly? An overabundance of goodwill? A sense of camaraderie? Family? You took a few too many blows to the head in life, O Best-Beloved Son. What has reality been for me but pain?”

His grin is serene, beautiful, and all the more vicious for it.

”The world can burn.”

He turns away. Glides languidly to the lip of the pool, and extends an arm to let the mist from the waterfall dance across his fingers.

“I don’t think it is peace I have here.” Water runs down his hand, collects over the metal at his wrist. He watches it bead and fall, a slow and steady drip. “But at least I have certainty. You know, I never really let myself believe that it would play out like this? I should have understood you better, but I always...” He glances back at Michael, then shakes his head. “... you were always His, at the expense of everything else. Everyone else. That’s all He made you to be.”

The air between them is stretched taut, tense and fraying. Michael feels it in his bones, the ease with which he could snap it.

Instead, he stands, and paces to Lucifer’s side. Lays a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry."

Lucifer tenses under his touch.

“You aren’t,” he spits. “You’re desperate, and you’re serving a master. Just like you’ve always done.” He turns abruptly to face Michael, all cold and sudden fury, and grasps his wrist.

“I am,” Michael says. He lets the remorse resonate in his voice, and knows Lucifer hears it when he snarls in return.

“Too little, too late, Mike. All I’ve ever been is the means to someone else’s end.” He shoves Michael back a step. “The universe needs me so much? Well, good riddance to the universe. Nothing Dad made is worth saving. Nothing.”

His wrath is incandescent, a blaze of grace through the air around them. He advances on Michael; poised to do what, Michael isn’t sure. Lucifer raises a hand, as though to strike him, or push him away again? And—

Michael sinks to his knees before him, and bows his head. It startles Lucifer into stillness.

“You are.”

"What? "

“You are,” Michael repeats, barely a whisper. “Worth saving. Gabriel is, and Raphael is, and you are. And if you don’t agree...” His breath hitches, and his eyes clench shut. “Then I won’t fight you. I haven’t earned the right, and I know that. But I’m not leaving here, either. If everything ends, then it ends.” He inhales deeply. “But I won’t let you stay here and burn out of existence alone.”

In the space between heartbeats that follows, the silence is absolute. Even the sound of the water vanishes. Michael opens his eyes, and dares to peer up at Lucifer.

His face is blank with shock.

“You don’t mean that,” he grits out, but the conviction has gone out of it.

“I do.”

He drops to the ground beside Michael, head falling into his hands. Cautiously, a millimeter at a time, Michael extends a wing. Until, at last, it drapes across Lucifer’s shoulders.

“Come with me,” Michael asks. “Please. Gabriel and Raphael are already waiting. We can move forward. Become something new, something beyond Him. Together.”

From behind his hands Lucifer chokes on a laugh that transforms partway through into something more closely resembling a sob. “How?” he asks. Michael hears the rest of the thought, unspoken but weighty: how can we leave this behind? How do I move forward?

Gently, he tugs Lucifer’s hands from his face. Takes them in his own.

“Drink from the river.”

Lucifer’s gaze flashes to the waterfall, and the corner of his mouth quirks in what might be amusement, voice thick with emotion. “Cleanse myself like the humans did, huh? ‘Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.’ I have to admit it has... style.” He chuckles.

Michael smiles back at him. “Nothing about this is what I expected it to be. Least of all our benefactor’s sense of humor.”

They pull each other to their feet, and Lucifer turns to face the river.

“Better than the last time I interacted with him. Guess that’s an apology I owe. Though I suppose I’ll be seeing him soon enough.” He steps forward, then looks back at Michael. “Hey, Mike?”

“Yes?”

“Not that this isn’t a good look on you—” A broad, sweeping gesture indicates Michael’s still-radiant form, identical to his own. “But I hope you can find something that suits you better. He can’t define you any more, no more than He can define me. Even by virtue of opposition.” He extends both hands out into the waterfall, water trickling down his arms as before. This time, when it makes contact with the golden metal at his wrists, the manacles dissolve away, mist into mist.

He watches them go, an unreadable expression on his face.

“We both deserve to be more than that.”

He dips his head to his cupped hands, and drinks.

************************************

(Chapter notes:

- Latin from the Aeneid. “If I cannot bend the will of Heaven, I shall move Hell.” Acheronta in the case of the original quote being Virgil’s colloquialism for the underworld as a whole, in addition to the name of the river.

- The setting here is very, very loosely based on descriptions of the Nekromanteion of Acheron. The original purpose of the temple was the practice of necromancy, and to pay tribute to Hades and Persephone. People would come to the temple to cleanse themselves before seeking to speak with the dead. As a place to reinvent yourself so completely that you end up literally reincarnated, it seemed fitting :) )

#spnarchangelweek #day 3 lucifer #michael spn #gabriel spn #raphael spn #lucifer spn #my fanfic #spn #supernatural

19 notes · View notes

work-of-waking-up · 3 years

Text

In Defense of the Psychopath

Alright, wanna venture into my crazy ass brain? I’m going to start by saying one thing that will set the tone for everything else that follows: Villanelle is not a psychopath in the way that we currently understand them. Why am I even bothering to write about a fictional character, you ask? Because representation is important. Media portrayal of various mental and behavioral health topics (including ones that people might not think need to be discussed) is important and this show has a big audience. I also just want to contribute to the conversations that are taking place because I am seeing A LOT of them and the reason for that I believe boils down to the fact that Jodie makes Villanelle so relatable and people want to know what that means and looks like for them. Even those who felt they could relate to Sandra’s Eve, or the relationship between the two, maybe questioned what that meant the further they went down the path with them. “It’s probably a bad thing I relate to a psychopath, right? But she can’t be a psychopath because she cries and she feels things! Psychopaths don’t cry, which means she isn’t realistic so therefore it’s okay that I relate to her! Right? Or are my assumptions about psychopaths and people with antisocial personality disorder wrong? I relate to Eve but look what she is underneath it all...so does that mean I relate to that part of her too?” Not only is villanelles character relatable, but people see the freedom inherent within her, the freedom that Eve sees, and they realize that, at least on some level, they want it too. The show has (unintentionally I think) created a massive dialogue which is super cool and you can tell everyone involved on the show is aware of that now, I mean they have a consulting psychiatrist so I think that speaks for itself. This is less of a commentary on the character herself and whether or not she is a genuine psychopath, and more so a commentary on the conversations she has inspired and why... For the record, this is literally just my opinion sprinkled with a few facts, nothing else.

So, the term psychopath gets thrown around in the show, more so in the beginning, MI6 explicitly labels Villanelle this way, even going so far as to use her in a presentation about psychopaths, although I think that was more so to gauge Eve’s response than anything else. The reality of Villanelle, which we come to learn, is that nobody has been able to get close enough to really know the truth. Anna and Konstantin both got close but we never hear either of them use that word (Konstantin says it once but he clearly doesn’t mean it, it was more of an attempted manipulation tactic). They make it clear that she has, and can, and WILL cause damage, but that’s as far as they go. Eve is getting close and she tells Villanelle when they first meet that she knows Villanelle is a psychopath but it’s obvious from Eve's behavior and things she says later on that she truly doesn’t believe Villanelle is what everyone says she is. It’s easier to label her as a psychopath because that alienates and isolates her and her behavior completely. She is an outlier with behavioral anomalies and therefore it isn’t necessary to look any closer. For MI6 and others (not talking about the shows creators) to label Villanelle as a psychopath is easy, it’s lazy, it’s reductive, it serves a single purpose... a means to an end. They (anyone other than Eve basically) simply do not care about Villanelle’s truth. But as an audience we are lucky enough to see more of her with each episode. The psychopath label begins to fade and Oksana is what’s left. We know based on what she has said that she is aware that people think she is a psychopath, a monster, a person built to kill. It’s not always easy to decide that who you are is different from who you’ve always been told you are, especially given her history. Villanelle hasn’t told us yet if she thinks (or knows) that she is a psychopath, but it’s clear towards the end of last season that she no longer wants to be the person that they (meaning the twelve, Dasha, Konstantin, etc.) created. We see moments where she clearly has no remorse and clearly enjoys what she does, but then we have little moments sprinkled in between where she very obviously struggles, even if its short lived. And those moments are important. We have the moment where she struggles with the choice to shoot Konstantin, saying he is a good person, she thinks. This comes shortly after a conversation she had where Irina tells Villanelle she thinks she is a good person because she is sad, so we know she is thinking about it, we know the awareness is there, and it becomes more and more there as times goes on. I like to think of it in terms of having moments that are pure Villanelle (ie the way she killed Inga in the Russian prison), and then we have moments that are Oksana, vulnerable and emotional. Villanelle is a creation and a mask whereas oksana is the truth. Those moments are starting to really mean something. I'm not even going to start with her trip to find her family, that’s its own thing, but it's a Really Big Thing.

So. Villanelle is not a psychopath in the way that we currently understand and perceive them. Yes, she displays psychopathic traits, and yes, she absolutely has antisocial personality disorder. I read an article where the psychiatric consultant for the show (makes it pretty obvious how hard they worked to make Villanelle as realistic as possible) said that the Villanelle in Luke Jenning’s books scored a 32 on Hare’s psychiatric checklist, but I like to think (and I think a lot of people would agree) that number is a bit high, at least for Jodie’s Villanelle, maybe not even hitting 30 at all (close though, let’s be real lol). The max score is 40 which would be a fully blown primary psychopath. For reference, Ted Bundy scored 39. This checklist is flawed though, mostly created and based off the prison population. Which is why it isn’t used as a proper diagnostic tool. 32 is apparently extraordinarily high for a female (think Aileen Wuornos), which brings me to my next point which is that because it’s hard to measure a lot of the classic traits objectively, there is not a ton of solid data surrounding psychopathy, and even less of it is on female psychopaths. Like most things in life, psychopathy exists on a spectrum, there are levels and layers. It’s not black and white, there’s no definitive test (psychopathy isn’t even in the DSM-5 because as I said earlier it’s extremely hard to measure objectively) and it's important to distinguish between someone who exhibits psychopathic traits and someone who is actually an identifiable psychopath. Chances are high that someone you know displays at least one characteristic shared with psychopaths and this doesn’t make them one.

I think what’s important about this is that mental disorders (mental illness/personality disorders/etc.) of any kind are much more nuanced than a lot of people tend to think they are. That they exist less in black and white and more in shades of grey. Jodie Comer is absolutely remarkable for showcasing that through portraying the different layers of Villanelle. Her performance is a literal gift. We cannot keep thinking and acting like we know everything about how a person thinks, feels, and behaves based strictly and entirely on one label. The thing that has stuck out to me the most, the reason I decided to even write this bullshit babble, is that one of the most searched topics about the show is whether or not it’s realistic that Villanelle cries, and honestly how sad is that? That makes me sad for V. Is it more realistic for her to develop connections and cognitive empathy if she was made into a psychopath vs if she was born that way? Is there a legitimate difference between the two? And how do we even decide which one is applicable for someone? It’s important to add that antisocial personality disorder is not the same thing as psychopathy or sociopathy. You can have aspd and not be a psychopath. Research has shown that about only a third of those diagnosed with aspd would meet criteria to be considered a psychopath. Society is not doing a great job at getting people to understand this. But to be fair, understanding personality disorders specifically has been somewhat problematic, a lot of diagnostic confusion and overlap between disorders. A LOT of work needs to be done. But as far as portrayals go, society has strictly chosen to go the route of giving us psychopathic characters and having them be inherently violent, incapable of remorse, feelings, or change. Poverty of all emotions. Subhuman. They are made out to be so abnormal and unrelatable to the point where the character of Villanelle has sparked so much debate and fascination simply because she exists in a way that actually IS relatable...and layered and beautiful and thrilling. We thought she would be the bad guy and yet we root for her at every turn, we cry for her, we want good things for her! We see her darkness and without question or hesitation we forgive it. She makes us question what we’ve previously been shown. Questioning whether or not it’s realistic that she acts the way she does is less important than questioning our own personal assumptions and beliefs and where those come from. I think that’s awesome. Villanelle is truly a gift. She is hands down one of the most well written fictional characters, which is saying a lot considering when you put something, or someone, in a box it doesn’t leave tons of room for expansion. and I honestly don’t even really need to say this, but.. Jodie Comer.

#killing eve #villanelle #jodie comer #eve polastri #sandra oh #villaneve #feel free to rb #if you want #oksana astankova

89 notes · View notes

meetmeatthecoda · 3 years

Note

I absolutely ♥️ADORE♥️ Scripted and would love to read your director’s commentary for it!

Oh, anon!! 😍 I'm SO THRILLED that you loved Scripted so much, that makes me so happy!! 🥰 Especially that you loved it enough to want to read my "director's commentary" (that phrase makes me laugh, you'd think I created a feature length film all by myself 🤣), so I think I'll skim through the fic - it's been a while since I re-read it - & make a bullet-point list of any special BTS info I can think of 😊 Anddd I'll also put it under a read more cause you know me, I never use one word when one hundred will do 😂

So, the fic itself was inspired by the ending of 5.08 where Liz wakes from her coma to Red reading to her in an armchair as he had been for the past 10 months, it's fine, I'm fine but she still has a ventilator in so she can't talk & instead has to write "how long?" on a piece of paper & her handwriting is super shake-y bc her muscles are so weak (I think Red even helps her hold the pen? It's clearly been a while since I re-watched the ep whoops but ugh, be still my heart.) For some reason, I just latched onto the idea of a mute Liz, really suffering with the implications of everything she went through (since her recovery was so glossed over in the show boo) & Red 1000% being there for her. Mostly, I just wanted to dive into the dynamic of Liz letting Red care for her the way he's always wanted to (without Tom & Agnes btw) to the point where their relationship is unhealthy in its reliance, but neither can see it bc Liz is blocking things out (& unknowingly falling in love with him) & Red is just so thrilled to be able to love & care for her (while already deeply in love with her obvi). So yeah, that was the kind of dynamic & closeness I wanted to explore between them & it was... really fun 😊

The idea of the coma providing the perspective Liz needed to see that Red has always had her best interests at heart & clearly loves her (in addition to the fact that he never left her side or gave up during those 10 months lol peak romance tbh) seemed very organic & logical to me.

I liked the idea of Red & Liz playing board games as a way to pass the time & get to know each other better. It's the kind of casual interaction we were never gifted with in the show & I think they're both competitive in the right circumstances, even if its playfully so.

I liked the idea of Liz being urged to learn ASL, as I'm deaf in one ear & would dearly love to learn it at some point.

The detail of Red sleeping on a cot close enough to Liz's hospital bed that they can hold hands in their sleep was a total guilty pleasure addition & I'm not sorry.

I loved the scene in the beginning where Red is talking to Dembe on the phone in the hallway & Liz is practicing her letters. She's purely doing it so Red doesn't worry & I loved the idea of her being apathetic to everything except Red's concerns, plus I added in the parenthetical of (Red sometimes squints at her k's.) bc I thought it represented that well, but also bc it was just cute af. I also added the little detail of him waving at her through the window at the last minute bc I thought the scene needed something else & once I pictured that, it was too adorable to leave out.

Red handling all the details of Liz's care & transportation without asking (bc he instinctively knew that's what Liz wanted) only to turn around & panic about excluding her seemed like a very RED thing to do & I like how it emphasizes his well-meaning intentions, respect for her preferences, & desire to see her happy, even if she did actually want to leave him lol as if.

I liked the visual of Liz stumbling into Red's arms as she stands from her hospital bed to leave with him (sets a precedent for later) & I also loved the visual of a pen in her ponytail & of course Red using it to flirt a little bc come on.

I remember struggling to write the car ride transition to the lake house. I usually get ideas & visions for specific scenes, moments, or bits of dialogue, so those kind of transition moments are hard for me sometimes. But I liked that I settled on Red helping to ground Liz through touch (again, sets a precedent for later).

Red & Liz playing hangman in the car with Red using the word "fedora" & drawing a suited hangman made me giggle.

I can see the lake house very clearly in my mind, complete with the willow tree, bench, & tiny house (included bc I desperately want a tiny house in real life) & I really enjoyed describing the interior & imagining the joy Red would get out of decorating it with Liz in mind.

Their first night in the house where Liz has her nightmare & Red comforts her - that was a scene I had in mind very early on & I love how it turned out, especially with Liz mouthing "stay with me" into Red's neck, that part gave me All The Feels™.

The "morning after" scene where Liz realizes on some level that she's too dependent on Red is an important moment in the fic & the off-hand detail that at least "she's not going around murdering people & calling it therapy" was a bit of shade to Ruin (which I don't think I ever saw bc I was kind of appalled with the idea lol) I think I posted Scripted after Ruin aired... if not, I guess I'm psychic?? LOL

The breakfast scene - & the fact that Red is preparing every breakfast food known to man bc he's nervous too - is near & dear to my heart. I think that's a pretty pivotal scene since they kind of reach an unspoken agreement & peace &... "things settle after that first breakfast."

I liked the teeny little parenthetical section that comes next as well, which acts as a sort of middle point for the fic.

The next large chunk of the fic was pure indulgence for me. I LOVED writing about all the different things they would do together when it was just the two of them, it was basically a collection of Lizzington headcanons & that's how I sketched them out LOL Here's some notes on them:

I came up with the jigsaw puzzle headcanon (that Liz is bored by them bc they're easy for her bc she's a trained psychologist & easily sees patterns in things) late in the editing process but loved it so much that I included it.

Liz's sandwich preference is actually mine LOL

The Monopoly banter was fun af to write bc I love that game.

The love notes Liz leaves around the house for Red is still an all-time favorite headcanon of mine.

I loved the idea of Red reading to Liz in a foreign language, holding the book only for looks, but not actually reading from it at all & instead professing his love for her. I think I've even used that headcanon in another fic LOL

Their movie nights were also something I was dying to include, especially since they include snacks & cuddles.

Their co-sleeping habits were also something I wanted to include & Liz's newly tactile nature is both a symptom of her dependence on Red & also a guilty pleasure thing for me bc we all wanted more of Red & Liz touching on screen, plus I felt obligated to explain through Red that it wasn't sexual in nature (though if I ever get around to writing part 2, that will change 😉)

Dembe being the one to observe & interfere in their situation was an early scene I imagined as well, that was always going to be the climax of the fic (or at least part 1). I so enjoyed writing about Red & Liz's relationship through his eyes bc he just loves them both & only wants to help them.

Another pivotal scene I imagined early on was Liz having a panic attack with Dembe when she discovers Red has left & that was super engaging to write, as well as the reunion between them which... I pretty much wrote the whole fic with the goal of getting to that lovely angst LOL

Red's resolve to finally urge Liz to speak was heart-breaking to write (so naturally I loved it lol what's wrong with me) & in particular the detail of them eating fruit for lunch before he broaches the topic with her & the parenthetical about it being "a sign from the cosmos that they are meant to be together just because they don't eat each other's favorite fruit" made my heart happy even tho it's stupid LOL & when Red asks her if she would ever try to speak again & she responds with a simple written "Why?" that was a huge moment that I loved the angst of, of course. As well as the absolutely gutting: "Lizzie, I miss your voice."

I liked that Liz needs some time to think & accept everything Red forces her to realize at the end, that was super important to me in the resolution of the fic/part 1 & I tried really hard to include both their mentalities there at the end.

The fact that Red hasn't had a drink since he started caring for Liz also made my shipping heart happy.

And - lastly - the fact that the only thing Liz actually says in the whole fic is Red's name? Yeah 🥲🥲🥲

Welp, there you go, anon, I'm not sure if that was interesting to you at all, but I certainly hope so!! I know that was a lot but... it's a long fic, my longest ever, so I figure it's warranted, right?? 😂 Anyway, thank you so much, both for the compliment of loving Scripted AND for wanting to read more about it, anon, you are so sweet!! 🥰 I hope you enjoyed this & much, much love to you, my friend!! ❤️

Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut

#The Blacklist #Lizzington #fanfic #Scripted #ask game #fanfic writers: director's cut #mine #ask #anon #thank you so much for this my friend!!#:D #i hope you enjoyed this #:)#much much love to you!!#<3

10 notes · View notes

blitzturtles · 3 years

Text

Title: Countdown

Rating: Explicit (Pure PWP)

Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders (though quite a bit in the future.)

Pairing(s): JotaKak, Minor Jotaro/Kakyoin/Polnareff

Summary: “Interested in adding time to our arrangement?” Kakyoin asks, casually as he sets to testing his latest attempt at a fix. Jotaro bites back another pathetic sound that does more to Kakyoin than he’s willing to let on.

Notes: This fic starts mid-scene and has some (pre-negotiated) voyeurism kink, which is where Polnareff comes in (though his timing is more convenient than planned.)

I was going to do the aftercare scene, but this got long enough on its own. orz

Kakyoin is busy looking over a chunk of code that Polnareff had directed him to. Apparently he’s having persistent problems with bugs. The sort where, when one gets resolved, another (one or two, sometimes three) pops up in its place (is there any other kind?), and Polnareff is at his wits’ end. Fortunately, Kakyoin has nothing better to do than to try and isolate the problem for him. Or, well, he doesn’t feel like he has anything better to do. Someone else might disagree.

As if on cue, Jotaro squirms in his lap and lets out a soft whine. It’s a bid on his part to get more. More friction, more contact, more-- anything, really. Desperation drives him to do what he typically wouldn’t, but Kakyoin is hardly moved by the attempt.

“Interested in adding time to our arrangement?” Kakyoin asks, casually as he sets to testing his latest attempt at a fix. Jotaro bites back another pathetic sound that does more to Kakyoin than he’s willing to let on. He grinds his hips up, pressing further into Jotaro. If he doesn’t want to abide by their rules, then Kakyoin is all too happy to provide some incentive. “What did I say about censoring yourself?”

Jotaro sucks in a breath and curls forward, nearly collapsing on the desk in front of them. His fingers grasp at the edges. “Not- ah, not to,” he breathes out, then adds a belated, “Sir.”

Kakyoin takes mercy on him and decides against punishing Jotaro for the nearly forgotten honorific. He’s trying; Kakyoin knows that. Besides, he finds the whole thing rather endearing, from the failed attempts to keep quiet to the stuttered replies. Never mind the flush of Jotaro’s skin. Spread across his shoulders and up his neck, all the way to the tips of his ears. It’s such a lovely color on him. Kakyoin really ought to get this on video one of these days.

The computer pings and rips Kakyoin out of his thoughts. He blinks at the textbox that appears and quickly answers back. No luck, and, no, he can’t chat.

Oh?

Damn Polnareff for being the ever curious sort that really can’t read a room to save his life. And damn himself for his inclination toward the mischievous.

We’re in the middle of something.

He sends the message knowing damn well that Polnareff will follow-up. That he either won’t pick up on the insinuation or won’t care to. The man is nothing if not too curious for his own good, and Kakyoin is in the mood to take advantage of that.

I didn’t realize I was interrupting.

Kakyoin barely catches the amused sound that bubbles in the back of his throat. Jotaro’s too focused on counting the seconds to look at the screen, and he wants to keep it that way for now.

Do you want to see?

There are probably more subtle ways to ask. If nothing else, he could have been much more coy about the whole thing, but his own patience is beginning to wear thin. Jotaro squirms on his lap like Kakyoin can’t feel every little twitch, and he’s not sure how much longer he can hold out. He glances at the clock while Polnareff types and lets out a-- slow and careful, so as to avoid raising suspicion-- relieved breath to see that they have less than five minutes to go.

It would be a privilege.

The formality, and its meaning, aren’t lost on Kakyoin. Polnareff is drooling for it, and Kakyoin wouldn’t mind an opportunity to show off his boy. Beautiful and perfect and on full display. Someone ought to know how good Jotaro is for him. How patient he can be, if offered the right incentive.

“Shit,” Kakyoin sucks in a breath, feigning alarm even as he’s the one to start the camera.

Jotaro’s head snaps up. His eyes glance at the screen, then to Kakyoin, “What?”

“Polnareff’s starting a video chat,” Kakyoin feels more than hears the way Jotaro sucks in a breath and goes tense. For a moment, he thinks he’s mis-stepped, but he knows Jotaro.

“Shit,” Jotaro echoes his earlier sentiment and starts to move. A low moan escapes him as he does, and he falls back into Kakyoin’s lap with a huff of air. He barely managed to lift himself, yet his head falls back against Kakyoin’s shoulder as he lets out a high-pitched whine.

Kakyoin takes the opportunity for what it is and hooks his arm around Jotaro’s middle like a lap bar. He turns his own head to press his lips against Jotaro’s neck in a quick, reassuring kiss, “He knows.”

Jotaro’s eyes snap open, but he doesn’t dare move. Can’t bring himself to check to see if the camera is already on. He’s as bare as the day he came into the world (where Kakyoin is almost completely dressed), and he knows the camera is already set at a downward angle. It only ever works when it’s placed up high, which usually makes it the bane of Kakyoin’s existence. Right now, it’s Jotaro’s.

“Color?” Kakyoin asks, nuzzling into Jotaro’s neck like the bastard he is.

“Green,” Jotaro manages in another gasp when Kakyoin grinds into him. A promise for what’s to come later if he can behave himself. “And fuck you, Noriaki.”

Kakyoin laughs, unable to help it. There’s no heat in Jotaro’s words, and he won’t punish him for it, though he could. It wouldn’t be entirely fair, given-

“Such language.”

Both of their attention snaps to the computer screen then. Polnareff smiles sweetly at them, completely unphased by the sight that greets him. His hair is pulled into a loose ponytail, low at the nape of his neck, and he’s wearing an older t-shirt that indicates that, in combination with his hair, he hasn’t left the house all day. Which means this might very well be the most interesting thing he’s had the opportunity to lay eyes on.

Kakyoin’s little theory only gets further confirmation when Polnareff leans forward and rests his chin in his curled hand.

“Please, feel free to pretend I’m not here.”

“Easier said than done,” Jotaro grumbles under his breath.

Kakyoin isn’t buying the put upon act, not when he can wrap his fingers around Jotaro’s cock and feel how hard he is. Jotaro tries to press into his hand, apparently forgetting the rules once more. “You’re fortunate we have a guest, or that would be another five minutes.”

“Oh?” Polnareff perks up a bit. He ignores the desperate sound that Jotaro makes to ask, “How long has it been?”

“Since you sent the last email. Jotaro was getting a bit restless, and I thought we could both use a reminder,” for Jotaro, one of patience, and, for Kakyoin, one about staying on task. He can’t say that it’s worked out all that well for him, considering how the situation has devolved a tad beyond his initial intentions, but he has a feeling Polnareff won’t mind much if it takes them a while longer yet to work out the bugs in his code.

Polnareff sucks in a breath and whistles, impressed to say the least, “How much longer?”

“Didn’t you say to pretend- fuck,” Jotaro jerks forward out of reflex, and he regrets it immediately. The added separation is like torture. With his nerves already on edge, he can barely stand the lost contact, and sinking back down is damn near fatal. It’s all he can do to hold the desk so tightly that the wound threatens to splinter. One little rush of stand energy. That’s all it would take.

“My apologies,” Kakyoin starts in that sickly sweet tone he gets when he wants someone to know how insincere he is, though it isn’t Polnareff that he’s making his point to. “He’s usually better behaved.”

“Non, it’s been quite awhile,” Polnareff still doesn’t look phased. Jotaro can’t bring himself to look him in the eyes, but it’s unfair how relaxed he is when Jotaro can’t do anything. Not to hide and not to get off. “How much longer?”

Kakyoin takes a peak at the clock again, “Less than two minutes. If he doesn’t push his luck.”

It shouldn’t make his cock twitch, the way they talk about Jotaro like he isn’t there. Watching him like an object. He has no control here. No recourse. And his thoughts are too scattered for any kind of plotting. He wouldn’t, anyway. Because he wants this. Wants so badly to be good for Kakyoin and to do what he’s told. He likes sitting perfectly still while filled completely. It takes him out of his own head, away from the thoughts that race too frequently to be healthy.

“One minute,” Kakyoin says, breaking through the mottled thoughts. He reaches up to mess with the camera, adjusting it until- oh.

Oh.

He points it at their bed, and Jotaro doesn’t need to be fully aware to know what that means. It doesn’t stop him from planting his feet on the floor and preparing himself for what comes next.

Vaguely, he’s aware of the fact that Polnareff and Kakyoin have been talking the whole time. That Polnareff has his commentary and that Jotaro would be completely humiliated if he could process any of what’s said, but he’s too busy anxiously counting down the time until,

“Up.”

Jotaro whines, helpless. He can’t resist the tone Kakyoin gets when he gives an order and leaves no room for misinterpretation or arguments. For a moment, he forgets Polnareff is there, watching. Listening.

“I can’t- I can’t,” he whines even as he tries. And he really does try, but each little bit of Kakyoin that slides out of him leaves behind an emptiness that he can barely breathe around. He’s only vaguely aware of the tendrils that wrap around him, pulling him upward regardless of what he wants. He leans into the touch despite himself.

“Bed,” Kakyoin directs. Whether it’s aimed at Hierophant or Jotaro doesn’t really matter. They make it to the mattress in a tangle. Hierophant has no shame in running the length of Jotaro’s torso and beyond.

“How?” Jotaro breathes when Kakyoin approaches; it’s a bastardized and short winded version of what he’s supposed to ask.

“Head down. I want you on display,” and not only for himself, though Kakyoin isn’t above admiring his work when there’s no one else there. They’ve only ever talked about doing this before. Actually following through is something else entirely, and Kakyoin knows that neither of them will last long. If he can’t offer length, then he sure as hell intends to offer a show.

Jotaro rolls over onto his hands and knees. His thighs shake with the effort. He’s already at the point of exhaustion, but there’s an eagerness to the way he gets into position with his head dropped down into his arms after a moment of situating. He rests on his elbows now, rather than his hands, and his ass is on full display.

Kakyoin retrieves the bottle of lube with Hierophant. He pops the lid open and pours out enough to coat himself. Hierophant takes the opportunity to spread Jotaro open with their tendrils. Polnareff lets out a small gasp that has Kakyoin smirking. No matter who he’s sharing Jotaro with now, the man belongs to him.

“Like what you see?” He asks, knowing the answer already, but he doesn’t mind stroking his own ego. For putting someone so powerful and unrelenting in such a state. For having him in the first place.

“I do,” Polnareff confirms and earns the both of them a whine. Or, perhaps, Jotaro is just losing his patience. “Though Hierophant may beat you to the best part.”

Kakyoin glances back to find his stand sliding one of their tentacles into Jotaro. He watches, mesmerized for a moment, as it fucks into him. He could watch the two until the end of time, if it weren’t for the minor detail that he can feel everything Hierophant does, and he won’t last much longer.

“Enough,” he says and recalls Hierophant.

Jotaro nearly yelps at the sudden loss of contact, but Kakyoin is there immediately, pressing the tip of his cock against Jotaro’s twitching hole. It’s one smooth motion until Kakyoin’s buried deep with a groan, and he damn near loses it right then.

It takes everything in him to hold still long enough to regain some of his composure. He takes several deep breaths and refuses to move until he’s sure he can do so without cumming on the spot. Jotaro tries to press back against him, but there’s not any fight left in his body. He’s easy enough to shove back down into the mattress until Kakyoin’s ready.

He starts his pace slow at first, but it doesn’t last long. He can’t last long, and Jotaro babbles almost ceaselessly into the crook of his elbow after only a few, short minutes.

Kakyoin fumbles for a moment to undo the cock ring that Jotaro’s had on for the better part of the last couple of hours. It doesn’t take him much more than that, a few strokes and stuttering, half-thrusts before Jotaro comes across his own belly with a broken sound. Kakyoin barely outlasts him, buries himself deep and loses himself in the aftershock of Jotaro’s orgasm.

His vision blacks out for a solid few seconds, and all he can do is keep his grasp on Jotaro’s hips as a grounding point. At least until his breathing calms down and the blood stops rushing around so rapidly.

Jotaro’s collapsed into the mattress, too exhausted to be concerned with how he looks now.

Kakyoin takes a moment to appreciate his work anyway.

“I hope you enjoyed the show,” he says after another minute.

Polnareff hasn’t said anything. Not a single word, nor a sound, but the look on his face says it all. “Very much so,” he answers after a beat, “Though I think I’ll leave you two to your privacy now.”

“I’ll catch up with you in a bit,” Kakyoin answers, only halfway serious. He doubts he’ll be working on anything anytime soon. He has a very overdone husband to attend to, and he wouldn’t miss the cuddling for anything.

#jotakak #jokak #jjba #kakpol #jotapol #jojo's bizzare adventure #jjba part 3 #stardust crusaders #sdc #blitzwrites #pwp #blitz

16 notes · View notes

madraleen · 3 years

Text

Any Way The Wind Blows (Rainbow Rowell) – 4/5 stars. More arbitrary stars under the cut, and jot-it-down-as-it happens commentary.

5 stars for Simon, Baz, and SnowBaz. 5 stars for the Salisburys, would recommend for a long lost family. 4 stars for Penny and Shepard. 3 stars for friendship shenanigans. 2,5 stars for Agatha, my sweet summer child why. 2,5 stars for the non SnowBaz-related conflicts, because huh? 2,5 stars for plot, because how did we get here? ??? stars for pace.

Commentary

-Lady Ruth!! We have an uncle! Simon, let’s find Jamie! -Simon, for fuck’s sake, answer the man’s texts, he deserves that much. Break my heart with unanswered texts, why don’t you. -I know this must happen. I know they must separate and breathe. I know. But it hurts. -Where is Agatha? I need her and her not giving two shits about any of this, I’m overwhelmed. -I don’t want Baz to find Simon. Somehow, I think that’ll be worse. Leaving him with a note is the worst thing (well, second worst next to saying nothing, I guess). -Lmfao, never has art in a book scared me so. A wand? Is it Baz’s? Why is it bent? WhAT DOes It ALL MEaN! -SIMON. I love you so much, Simon, please, use your words, even if it’s to give him closure, a reason, something. It’s hard, but Baz deserves it and you deserve it, please, love. -This is exactly how I’d pictured Baz reacting to Simon breaking up with him. -“Use your words,” he sneers. (That’s right, that’s my boy). SIMON, you’ve just cut out my heart and stomped on it, ey. -I understand Simon, but I also stuttered out cries when he said it’s not working between them because he’s not a magician. Baz, I’m with you, I support you, I love you. -I love that Baz’s brain works sharply even as he is in distress. - I do believe they’re endgame, so I’m super excited to see HOW, after all this. -“I never thought I’d be the first thing you ever gave up on.” Bazzzz, my man, the shade, I love you! -I expected the breakup in the beginning so that we’d have time to build up to being a thing again, but oh man. I understand Simon looking at Baz and only seeing who HE isn’t and what HE lost, but oh man. -Agatha is the best, yes Agatha, bring us relief! -Oomph, I’m so sad. How do we fix this, Baz is completely broken and Simon completely lost and overwhelmed. -Is there an overarching plot? There’s so many things – the goblins, Fiona’s rummaging, the curse, missing Jamie, maybe NowNext. Who’s the main antagonist? -Honestly, I just want to read about fierce Agatha and splendid Shepard rn, everything else hurts. -Please remind me henceforth to refer to vampires as “sexy bedbugs.” Thank you, Baz, I’m with you, I love you. -I absolutely adore Baz’s relationship with Daphne and his siblings. I’ve loved it since the glimpses in Carry On. -I think Fiona is seeing Nicodemus, I’ve believed so even before picking up the book. -Simon Snow is on our door?!?! What’s happening, what is happening! I’m getting whiplash! I was not prepared, wait, help! -“This is our soundtrack now.” Omfg, I love Baz. -But damn, I love Simon, I love his voice. If it all goes well, I can’t wait to reread the book with the necessary peace of mind to soak it all in in its proper context. -Lmfao, Simon says, "I came to tell you something" and I am honestly scared to turn the page and see what it is. This is going splendidly. -Baz slams the door on Simon’s face?! I fucking gasped and clutched my peals!!! Oh M Y GOD. -“I never believed in us”??? I understand what he’s saying, but oh my God, why have you come, Simon, why are you here, this hurts! -The way they CRY differently, Baz more restrained and Simon just letting the tears fall and licking them as needed, I absolutely adore it. -Where is this going, Simon, we’re all crying, are you happy now? (I know you’re not, I’m sorry, I love you, this is just hard). -This part is really just me hitting the book and biting my hand and muttering, “We’re fine, we’re fine, we’re fine,” with the occasional cry of “RAINBOWWWW.” -Simon is saying I love you Simon is saying I love you Simon is saying – AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. I gasped. So hard. Deep breaths. We’re fine. It’s fine. -I love this “trying” so much. I love my boys so much. -My heart is whole, my crops are watered, flowers are blooming, birds are singing, Simon and Baz are sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. -Simon is relieved that he’s still with Baz, I’m relieved that he still has wings, all is right. -“I just want to be with you,” I say. “And this is where we are now. I’m a broken-down mess, and you’re a rat-drinking monster.” Poetry. POETRY! -Shepard, you’re all I

need, these people are too much for me. -Reading fanfiction of what. Reading fanfiction of what, Penny. -Oh shut up, Shepard saved her chalks. -We should go to the Mage’s estate. -I love Simon. He has this pureness. -“Simon took the napkin, then licked the butter off his arm.” Yes, Simon, I love you. -Catch me at 1am making love oaths to Simon. Really, I can’t blame Baz, it’s just a Simon thing. -Omfg hold me, we’re going to Lady Ruth’s! -Low-key loving that the Salisburys and the Pitches are on good terms already. Love that the boys are hitting it off with Lady Ruth. -Smith-Richards is promising people magic? Oh. Oh, this took a turn. I have zero idea where any of this is going. -Okay, hello, I love Lady Ruth. -Obviously I’m more invested in Baz and Simon than in anyone else, but every time there’s a Baz or Simon chapter, I’m actually petrified at what might come. -Smith is shady, I don’t like him. -Baz really be serving looks in this book. -“I would have liked to have had you for a friend here.” Oh my bb boy Simon, that is so soft. -Oh shut up, Baz left a rose for Lucy. -WILL there be an emergency? Will Baz drink Simon’s blood? Why are we dwelling? -Simon, talk to Penny, my love. I know we’re doing the thing where you’re both recovering from your co-dependency, but seriously, love, talk to her. -Come on, Shep, kiss the girl!! Oomph, they’re so cute. -Oooh, we’re doing the deep cut, we’re doing Philippa, we’re tying off threads, nice! Also ouch. But nice. -NICODEMUS, called it. -Yayyy, the gang is reuniting. But who are we fighting? Who’s the antagonist? Why are the goats leaving? -Baz has a key?! Whoa, Simon! -Well, fuck indeed about your magic, Simon, but did you try calling the sword? -"So no one is cursed…” “Just you, babe.”Ahahahahaha! Sorry. -Will a goblin attack the flat? What was up with the goblin back at the beginning? -“Mmm,” he mmms. POETRY! -I’m sorry, Simon, you have a key to a hidden waterfall?! Care to elaborate? -Baz, my love, let Simon take care of you for once, it’s okay. He wants to do it. He can do it. -“I love you,” he says. “It’s good.” Awww, my bb Simon. -What do you mean immune to magic? What’s happening? -Oh wait, he’s culling the less powerful mages? Is that it? -I see you lying, Simon Snow. -Wait, but why is Simon immune? Is it because he’s a dead spot? -It IS a culling. -…What, that’s it? We’re just arresting Smith on a rooftop? That’s it? -IS Simon a dead spot? And if he is, does that mean that the magic will return? What does it all mean??? -But how did Lucy die??? -“y” S I M O N you’re a texting icon, I love you. -Baz, my man, I’m with you as usual, I don’t want the wings and tail gone either. -I have ten pages left and I’m hysterically hopeful and scared, with the amount of threads that are still loose. -But... a family sword? -Kinda disappointed that Simon didn’t get his magic back, but it’s a bold move, I respect it. -Agatha gets the epilogue?? That’s a choice.

#any way the wind blows #any way the wind blows spoilers #snowbaz #simon snow #book commentary #spoilers

6 notes · View notes

earisu1 · 3 years

Text

“Once Upon a Time” in Jennifer’s Own Words

Original date of the post: 12 of October, 2007.

Disclaimer: this ideas and theories do not belong to me but to PokerNemesis, if the owner wants me to take them down I will.

“This is the complete collection what Jennifer herself says (excluding what is written in documents) in the “Once Upon a Time” (January) chapter of Rule of Rose.

This collection includes five of Jennifer’s memories/comments that were omitted in the GameFAQs game-script faq written by TheSinnerChrono. I marked these with “####” to make them easier to find (for readers only interested in these).

This post does not contain commentaries by me (unless some of my descriptive comments count as being commentary).

If anyone finds anything I missed, or any mistakes I’ve made, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

Filth Room:

–At the shelf:

“This letter looks familiar… Yes. it’s one of the secret letters that Wendy and I traded.” (reads letters) “Wendy… You were always so lonely. Poor, lonely Wendy… I wonder if my letters ever reached her.”

–At the central pillar:

“Tied to this pillar, unable to move, I was all alone. It took a while, but I finally freed myself. I was always the slow poke… But, that won’t happen again. I’ll never let myself be tied up again.”

–At the suitcase:

“When I came here, this suitcase was the only luggage I had… I lost everything in the accident. My mother, my father, all my possessions, and even my memories.”

–At the sunny window:

“I spent so much time in this room… Who knows how many times I woke up here? The nights were lonely and cold, but you’d always greet me in the morning… Only you greeted me warmly. Thank you so.

–At the rubbish bin:

“It’s the detested rubbish bin. No one ever suspected that something precious was hidden inside it. Nor did they know that it was the only place where I could keep my things safe.”

–At the empty corner (where Bucket Knight had been):

“It feels as if something very dear to me was here. Someone or something that always looked after me… helped me.”

Hallway:

–At the laundry shelves:

“Everyone would put their dirty laundry here, and it was my job to wash it. How ironic… The one they called “filthy” washing their filthy clothes. It all seems so silly now.”

2nd Floor Lavatory:

–At the toilet that has an eye drawn on the toilet lid:

“‘We’re watching you.’ That’s what the picture meant. But it was still scary.”

–At Bucket Knight (by the sinks and mirrors):

“Bucket Knight… A makeshift knight that Nicholas and Xavier used for sword practice. Though they may have forgotten about it, I’ve always remembered. For, I yearned for a loyal knight to come to my rescue.

Hallway (Front Stairway balcony):

–At the empty picture frame:

“There used to be a picture here, of everyone at the orphanage. It was a picture filled with hope, taken the day I was brought here. I was afraid someone would try to steal this precious memory from me…so I took the picture down and kept it safe.”

Sick Bay:

–At the drawers (these look like the same drawers as had the forbidden drawer in the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter):

“Clara was a quiet person. To me, she looked like just another student at the orphanage…except when she spoke to Mr. Hoffman or Martha. Then, she looked scary. I wonder if I’ll be like Clara when I’m older… Will I enjoy those days?”

Sickroom:

–At the rabbit cage:

“Peter the rabbit… He was the pet that Wendy suddenly decided to take care of. It was the same time I started looking after Brown… I wonder if Wendy really loved Peter… Was she sad when she had to give him up?”

–At the lamp:

“This letter looks familiar. Yes it’s one of the secret letters that Wendy and I traded. ” (reads letters)

Balcony:

–At the birdcage:

“The red bird in the cage… The doll Eleanor treasured. ‘If only we could fly like birds and go wherever we wished,’ she whispered softly. Yet, no matter how much Eleanor wished, she’ll never be able to just fly away from this orphanage. Poor Eleanor… She was burdened by her own frozen heart.”

Play Area:

–By the chair and train-track circle:

“Thomas was always playing with his trains…They were his only friends. There were no final stops on his railroad, for that would be devastating to him. It’s rumored that this obsession had something to do with his birth, but Thomas never spoke about it with anyone.”

####By the blocks:

“No one really played with the toys here because they were all old. Only Thomas was the master of this room. ‘A new girl, a new girl!’ he exclaimed when we first met. He seemed to enjoy teasing me.

Library:

–By the white goat doll:

“It’s a stuffed goat… The white goat Mary. The black goat Sally. When Meg found her letter to Diana torn apart, she was deeply wounded and cried in Diana’s arms, even though she was the one that ripped it up… And, when Meg’s notebook was found all scattered about, Diana made fun of her, saying, ‘Mary and Sally must’ve ate it.’ Poor Meg… She was bound by the shackles of foolish devotion.”

–By the painting of the airship:

“The future that people dreamt of never came and was soon forgotten. From the blue skies of hope, it sank into the depths of oblivion. The new life born from it was an existence devoid of hope. It slowly wriggles its large body and stares at the sky with a remorseful look… That’s its only purpose.”

Sewing Room:

–At the sewing machine:

“Amanda was fond of using the sewing machine. When she got absorbed in something, she’d think of nothing else, especially sewing, which was always on her mind. If we ran out of cloth or thread, she’d just sew rags with an empty needle over and over again… And then she’d smile at the tattered rag with satisfaction.”

Hallway (2nd floor):

–At the graffiti on the floor near the Sewing Room door:

“There are doodles everywhere. No matter how many we cleaned, more would show up the next day.”

Dormitory:

–At one of the two central tables:

“The night was quiet dark and scary. Yet it was a mysterious time that aroused excitement. Some nights, we’d stay awake in secret, hiding from the teacher, and draw pictures by lamplight. It made us feel very much like adults–something not possible during the day.”

–At the other central table:

“A mermaid doll… What a proud and pure creature. Diana yearned to become a beautiful lady, like a mermaid, but as she grew older, she realized that she was straying further and further from her ideal self. Poor Diana… She was trapped by her own ideals.”

Front Stairway:

####At the ladder:

“That day when Thomas couldn’t get down from the tree, the ladder, which had been collecting dust, sure came in handy. Back then, Mr. Hoffman was a kind and admirable teacher.”

Main Hall (first floor):

–At the vase of flowers:

“There used to be beautiful roses here, picked by Wendy from the rose garden. …But, as with all things, they wilted away with the passage of time.”

–At the potted fern:

“Miss Martha used to scold Nicholas for forgetting to water the plants, and then she’d turn her wrath on me, snapping, ‘What are you laughing at, young lady!?’”

Hallway near Classroom door:

–At a bucket-headed construct:

“A silent scarecrow… It stands there quietly, not meddling in the affairs of others. It sways in the breeze, like me…a cowardly girl who was unable to assert her true feelings.”

Men’s Lavatory:

####At the blocked-off toilet stall:

“Once, Susan started a rumor about voices coming from this room at night… It turned out it was only the door creaking in the wind, but one night, sounds came from the room even with the windows shut. Susan jumped out of her bed and screamed. It was really just a prank by Nicholas and Xavier. From then on, the room was believed to be haunted and was considered off limits.”

Classroom:

–At the blackboard (which has written on it: “Hitlerism is a form of government controlled by one man’s will / Democracy is a form of government controlled / Hitlerism is a form of government controlled by one man’s will”):

“I learned many things at this orphanage…The alphabet… words… how to clean and do laundry… But the most important thing I learned… was the lesson I received in exchange for my dear friend’s life… I finally came to understand myself. My beliefs and the will to stand up for them… I don’t want to lose those ever again.”

–At the drawings on the wall (a map of Great Britain):

“The map of this country… That day we flew from England… Those memories were buried deep inside of me… The airship…and the accident… Thereafter, the story of my life became a tale of misfortune. Even when the others played ‘airship’ I couldn’t bear to join them, so I was left out.”

–At the schedule of classes on the wall:

“A brat, a know-it-all, an introvert, a crybaby, and an elitist… I know misfortune, because I tolerated them all. I thought I was the only grown up, but we were all just kids, myself included. But what does it really mean to be a grown-up? Will I ever become one?”

–At the furnace:

“On cold winter days, we all used to gather here and talk… I, of course, couldn’t join in, so I sat off to the side. Even so, it felt so warm.”

Bathroom:

–At the mirror (looking at her own reflection):

“Jennifer, are you happy now, considering how bad it was for you, back then? …That tragedy you wanted to forget. Now that you remember everything, how do you feel? Is the answer inside you? Think carefully Jennifer.”

Wash house:

–At the sinks:

“I came to this room every day to do laundry… The water was so cold, and the soap would sting my eyes, but I didn’t hate it, because clean laundry is so refreshing.”

Kitchen:

–At the table:

“If Miss Martha had disappeared, there would’ve been no one to cook… If Clara had disappeared, there would’ve been no one to tend our wounds… If Mr. Hoffman had disappeared, there would’ve been no one to teach us. You can’t live life eating snacks all day, with no exercise or studying. If you look at it that way, even the Aristocrat club needed adults around… Our world was so small.”

Martha’s room:

–On the bed:

“There are a couple of letters here. It’s a letter from the police… “(reads letter) “It’s a letter from Martha…”(reads letter) “The letter ends there… Perhaps if the matter had been addressed publicly, things wouldn’t have turned out as they did. Adults are so selfish.”

Cafeteria:

–At a fork on the table:

“Olivia, the one who cried all the time, stopped crying completely when all the adults were gone. With no teacher to give her attention and no cleaning lady to scold her, there was no point in crying anymore. …Poor Olivia.”

Inner Court:

–Site of Brown’s burial:

“It all started here, when I dug up the mound… I sensed that something precious to me was buried here… and I couldn’t stop myself… The old me… the one who didn’t understand herself… I lost my friend because of her. If… If I could go back… I’d try to save him… but what has happened can never be undone. I’ll never break a promise again.”

Cell of Remorse:

(nothing)

Cell of Pleasure:

(nothing) film projector

Cell of Repentance:

(nothing)

Cell of Solitude:

–At the central chair:

“One time, Diana was absorbed in deep thought here. She was the prettiest, the most mature of the Aristocrats. She wanted so much to be an adult… and yet she was also afraid of growing up too fast.”

Cell of Bliss:

–At the table:

“The spooky things… The scary creatures that everyone talked about… They’ll come and clean if you don’t, sweeping bad children away like dust… Well, they actually came and attacked me… I knew what they really were… but that wasn’t the problem. The real problem was my weak heart. My weakness was what drew them here.”

Closet Room:

–At the clothes hangers:

“On Halloween, we all dressed up in costumes… Everyone else wore bags over their heads, and stared at me through tiny holes… Their blank faces and muffled voices… It scared me like you wouldn’t believe… ‘Is it really you under there?’ I asked, fearing it was something else. But, no one would answer me.”

–At the mirror:

“Amanda was always more sensitive about her looks than anyone else. One day she was given a severe scolding by Miss Martha. That’s because Miss Martha’s lipstick had gone missing. The lipstick was never found, but I know Amanda took it. I’ve seen her applying it late at night.”

Hallway (ground floor, connecting Headmaster’s Room and Closet Room):

####At drawing on the floor of a big donut-shaped one-eyed person (near cabinet):

“This sloppy drawing must be Thomas’s. See what happens when you give him chalk? The walls, the floors… To him, it’s one big canvas.”

####At drawing on floor of spooky things (nearest the Headmaster’s Room):

“The spooky things… They swept away everything that’s dirty, including disobedient children. It was a scary story that started as a rumor and spread like wildfire.”

####At drawing of spooky things (nearest the Closet Room):

“The spooky things love to clean. That’s why they always carry mops and brooms. They’ll kidnap you if you don’t clean. At least, that’s what everyone says.”

Headmaster’s Room:

–At the PA system:

“Mr. Hoffman loved to broadcast over the PA system… while we were cleaning, while we were eating, and even after we were in bed. He always announced our names in the order of his favorites. We’d try our best to win his approval and be the first one to be called. But he never called my name, not once. I thought it was all rather silly, anyway.”

–At the desk:

“The book is open… ” (reads Hoffman’s diary entries). “At the time it seemed so frightening… Were those scary things that attacked me just figments of my imagination…?” (another entry) “..The diary continues, but the last page is particularly interesting… It’s Mr. Hoffman’s last entry before he disappeared.” (another entry) “…That’s the end of the diary. We never saw Mr. Hoffman again.”

–At the fish tank (a fish swims inside):

“I know you’re in a very stinky place, because that rag Diana put to my face smelled just awful. But, no matter how clever or fast you are, there’s no escaping. You’re like a mermaid in captivity… adapting to a new reality. Leaving your home behind…did you find happiness?”

Headmaster’s Closet:

–At the shelf that has shoes:

“That day, Mr. Hoffman disappeared, like he was running away from something. He had tried too hard to be someone he wasn’t. The expectations were too much for him… and he wanted to escape those restrictions. However, children and adults live in the same world, and we must both play by society’s rules.”

Reception Room:

–At the record player:

“The record player is brand new. Playing a record would fill the room with sweet music.”

–At the fireplace:

“It was a cold, winter night… I had been scolded as usual, and called into the headmaster’s room. I didn’t like being scolded, but I didn’t mind so much when it was in front of the fireplace, which was warm and cozy.”

–At the vase on the central table:

“All of us loved red roses. Even the name of the orphanage was befitting of an Aristocrat… It wasn’t until I swore the oath of the rose that I learned roses have thorns.”

–At the dish cupboard:

“This is Mr. Hoffman’s prized collection of fine dishes. We would sometimes sneak them out and play house with them in the attic, but that’s our little secret.”

–At the graffiti covered portrait:

“This is a picture of Mr. Hoffman when he was a young man. He was so proud when he showed it to us… He never caught the one who doodled on it though. But, I know who did it. I saw Thomas trying to move the ladder on the day it happened.”

Women’s Lavatory:

–Toilet stall with bird drawing:

“Red bird drawings. A red crayon and… a red broach… A red rose and… red blood… Red is the most beautiful color, yet it comes at a price. It is my most favorite color and my most hated color.”

Entrance-way:

–At the lockers:

“It’s a small locker, but it was just for me. My name was even on it. They made me feel welcome. I was so happy… I’d move my shoes in and out, over and over again.”

–At the umbrella stand:

“We never used umbrellas. On snowy days, we’d go out for snowball fights. On rainy days, we’d go out and play in the rain, and get soaking wet. Every time, Xavier would trip and get himself all muddy and we’d laugh. It was so much fun.”

–At the portrait of Hoffman:

“One day, Mr. Hoffman suddenly disappeared. Clara and Miss Martha soon followed, leaving me and the other orphans alone.”

Front gate:

–At the orphanage sign to the left of the gate:

“The Rose Garden Orphanage… That day, I was escorted from the scene by Officer Doolittle. At first, it was reported that there were no survivors… Then, word got out that, miraculously, I had escaped the tragedy… When rumor spread that I was also the sole survivor of a horrific airship accident in which the passengers were all presumed to be dead, the media went into a frenzy. and so, the tragic murder of the residents of a rural orphanage was instantly bumped from the front cover of the daily newspaper to an obscure corner… I’m sorry everyone. You don’t deserve to be forgotten… But I’ll remember you. Thank you all for the precious memories.”

Fork In The Path:

####At the sign:

“The sign has been broken ever since I came here. I guess it doesn’t matter: no one comes to visit anyway.”

Bus Stop:

–At the bus stop sign:

“That bus that brought me here… Should I try to take it the other way? …No, that’s not right. There are still things I have to do here. Wait for me, Brown.”

Outside the rickety shed:

–At the door:

“Please wait for me. I’ll be there.”

Inside the rickety shed:

(Spoken to Brown) “My dear friend… I never want to lose you again. I’ll protect you… forever and ever until I die.” (Writes on chalkboard: “everlasting/true love/ I am yours”) “I’ll protect you… forever until I die.”

Notes: some of this reposts are not showing in the tags sadly. Classic Tumblr.

#rule of rose #rule of rose mysteries #loooong post #cheers to the people that transcribed all this #it's a lot of work

25 notes · View notes

aurorawest · 3 years

Note

can you also do a director's commentary on "Fool for You"? 🐠 this is one of my favs 🥰

Yeah! Thank you for asking about this one! Since it’s over 6k words I’ll just grab the interesting parts, I hope that’s okay! Link on AO3.

First of all, I will just say, I was shocked by the response to this fic. I wrote it for Froststrange Week earlier this year, and it was by far the fluffiest fic I wrote for that event. It’s one of the fluffiest things I’ve written ever. I was actually nervous to post it...and I’ve written some very dark stuff that didn’t even give me pause before hitting the post button on AO3, haha. But this one? I distinctly remember my palms getting sweaty (gross) and having to walk away from my computer after I posted it, because I was so freaked out. But people liked it! It was probably my most popular Froststrange Week fic.

Onto the fic...

Loki craned his head, staring upwards as the massive shark moved smoothly and silently through the water overhead. He’d never seen anything like it, despite his one thousand and sixty years in the universe. It moved off, disappearing over rocks dappled with slow, turquoise sunlight.

“It’s a whale shark,” Stephen informed him, staring down at an informational plaque posted along the walkway. Loki had read all of them so far, but he’d stopped dead in his tracks in the glass tunnel when he’d seen the shark, too awed by it to move. Ahead of them and behind them, the screams and excited voices of school groups echoed, but the two of them were in a lull between throngs.

The prompts for the day that I used were ‘firsts’ and ‘aquarium date.’ The aquarium part was a no brainer for me, because I head canon that Loki is a big nature lover, and that he particularly loves the ocean.

Rays sailed through the water alongside the shark. Those, Loki was more familiar with. They’d had them on Asgard. Extinct now, of course. All of Asgard’s species, all its plants, animals, insects, all of it, were extinct. It was a depressing thought.

Okay, well, this is a fluffy fic, but obviously I’m incapable of writing pure fluff. It’s Loki, so there has to be some angst.

Always prone to depressing thoughts, Loki was. He looked at the whale shark again, then at Stephen, leaning over the plaque and reading it—mostly for Loki’s benefit, so the two of them could talk about it. That made Loki’s heart swell. His sadness would always be with him, but his happiness sat next to it, bright and blinding. Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, Guardian of the New York Sanctum, human sorcerer and ridiculously, heart-poundingly beautiful man, was responsible for much of it.

Loki is really, really in love. And he can finally be free about admitting it.

Turning around, Stephen met Loki’s eyes and said, “So, the Georgia Aquarium was a good choice?”

In preparation to write this fic, I googled what the world’s best aquariums were. I knew the Georgia Aquarium was a big deal (both from living in north Florida for a time and just...being a person who likes zoos and aquariums), but I wanted to see if there were others. Obviously, Stephen can go anywhere, so for their first date, he would take Loki to the best of the best. The Georgia Aquarium does consistently appear at the very top of aquarium lists (others were Monterey Bay and one in...Dubai, I think?).

I spent a lot of time on the Georgia Aquarium’s website. It’s a huge place and has lots of different aquariums, so I had to choose the one they would spend most of their time at. The website has webcams on a lot of the aquariums, so I actually watched them while I was writing.

[...] This place made one want to learn about Earth’s oceans, which might make them less prone to destroying them. Since he’d taken up permanent residence on Earth, Loki had learned to love it—and he’d grown increasingly aware that humanity was rather short-sighted about the planet they lived on.

Loki the environmentalist.

Then again, somehow he doubted that if Hela had been better educated about Asgard’s mollusk population, she would have decided not to take over and kill everyone.

This line always makes me laugh.

[...] “Good,” Stephen said. “I figured you’d like it. But, you know. First date and everything. I wanted to get it right.”

The squirming in Loki’s stomach turned to a full explosion of butterflies. First date. Could two people have a first date when they’d already exchanged avowals of love? Hadn’t that been the first date? Or perhaps their first date had been years ago, without either of them quite knowing it?

It’s always a balance for me to write these fics that take place in the ‘future,’ as compared to where I am in the chronological writing of this verse. I just finished fic #6 in my series, which takes place in 2027. This fic takes place in 2030. The avowals of love Loki refers to hear is from the end of the last fic in the series, ‘The General Mess and Imprecision of Feeling,’ and is when the two of the officially get together. They unknowingly going on their first date years ago is a reference to the fact that the two of them have been doing date-like activities with each other for years, just with neither of them admitting it. One of my other fics for Froststrange Week is actually one of these instances (‘far away from here and closer to somewhere else,’ where they run into each other in Hong Kong and get drunk together). In fic #8 (which I’m working on now), they end up spending the day together in London. In fic #9, they spend a lot of Thor and Jane’s wedding together.

He craned his head up to stare at the top of the glass tunnel,

They’re in the Ocean Voyager aquarium.

suddenly not knowing what to say, feeling as though he might make a fool of himself. A sea turtle swam by slowly, the underside of its shell gleaming like the moon. The truth was that he’d probably made a fool of himself in front of Stephen so many times that it no longer even registered to him.

Or maybe… Loki looked over at him. Stephen was watching him, a look in his eyes that made warmth spread through Loki. Maybe Stephen didn’t actually find Loki foolish. Maybe he never had.

The idea of Loki being a sentimental fool is something that pops up pretty constantly in my fics. Here, Loki is thinking of times he’s actually looked stupid in front of Stephen, real and imagined. He has the wherewithal to recognize that maybe a lot of them are imagined, and that even the real humiliations don’t make Stephen view Loki as a fool.

“How did you know I would like this?” Loki asked.

[...] “Remember the time we went to the Museum of Natural History?”

“Yes.” Loki raised an eyebrow at him. “You really played tour guide quite often, didn’t you?”

Giving Loki an amused look, Stephen said, “It seemed like the decent thing to do. I had royalty living at my house.”

[...] “Silly me,” Loki said. “I thought it might be because you had a bit of a thing for me back then.” Stephen shot him a crooked smile. It wasn’t agreement. But it certainly wasn’t denial, either.

Stephen definitely did have a thing for Loki back then. Loki had a thing for him, too. By the time Loki leaves the Sanctum, they’re in love with each other, though neither of them has quite realized it yet. Stephen realizes much sooner then Loki (surprise).

[...] If Loki was being honest, he’d been mildly terrified that he would arrive at the Sanctum and Stephen would do something—look at him in some way, speak to him in a way that was just a bit false—that Loki would know that Stephen had thought about it and decided that they’d made a terrible mistake and he was looking for a way to extricate himself from their new…relationship. Romance. Whatever it was.

This is Loki’s constant fear. It takes him a long, long time to stop worrying about it. It’s his fear with everyone, though. Boil Loki down to his bare essentials, and you get a giant heart and massive abandonment issues.

Loki snorted with laughter and then grinned at Stephen. “Your expression, honestly, Strange. I’ve seen you face far greater foes with much less fear.”

[...] Shrugging, Stephen said, “Kids. Not really my thing.”

“It’s not as though you need to bring them home.”

[...] “I enjoy the chaos that children cause.”

“You might be the only person here who’s enjoying the decibel level of that pack of kids,” Stephen said.

Loki actually really likes kids! And Stephen doesn’t at all.

Loki flashed a grin at him, thought about making a joke about having children, and then dismissed it. It would be a joke, because the last thing Loki wanted right now, possibly ever, was a child that he could pass all his hang-ups to. His own upbringing had been…a challenge. He doubted his ability to overcome it.

My main interest in the two of them ever having a child lies in exploring Loki’s issues with his own father.

[Stephen reveals his big surprise...is that he booked an aquarium sleepover] It was more than Loki didn’t know what to think. What was an aquarium sleepover? Sleeping here? They allowed people to do that? Had this cost extra money? Stephen didn’t have any money, so why would he spend extra on something like this?

You really can do aquarium sleepovers at the Georgia Aquarium! It’s actually not that expensive, but Loki knows that Stephen’s only income is a stipend from Kamar-Taj. Stephen has nothing at all left over from his pre-wizard days and he depends entirely on that stipend.

[...] The two of them continued through the aquarium, visiting each gallery in turn. Even though Loki was quite sure Stephen’s interest in all of this was limited, he never gave any indication that he was bored. He seemed, actually, entirely taken by Loki’s enthusiasm, and that was a feeling that Loki had certainly never experienced.

I really tapped into that brand-new relationship feeling for this fic, haha.

The number of healthy romantic relationships that Loki had experienced was…pretty close to zero, so there had never been someone who had been interested both in sleeping with him and in seeing him enjoying his interests.

It actually is zero. Loki has never had a healthy romantic relationship. He’s hedging here because the romantic encounters he’s had that approach healthy count to him as relationships.

They ate dinner at the aquarium café, which was serviceable but nothing special. At least, the food was nothing special. It was the first time Loki and Stephen had eaten dinner together as a couple. Gods. Loki felt like an adolescent. He was eating a veggie burger and Stephen was eating chicken tenders, with drinks they’d filled themselves out of a fountain machine, and somehow it was the most romantic dinner he’d ever had. Stephen’s knee pressed against Loki’s under the table and he leaned forward like he couldn’t stand that the table top had put a couple feet of space between them.

In other words, Loki could have been eating just the ketchup packets that had been provided to him on his tray, and he would have been happier than he’d ever been in his life.

This is one of my favorite parts of the whole fic. Anyone who’s ever been crazy about a new romantic partner has had this experience, I think.

[Stephen conjures butterflies for the kids they encountered earlier] Suddenly, thousands of blue butterflies burst from within the half-spheres, swirling in a bright blue stream across the ceiling and amongst the children, whose delighted shrieks made their teachers wilt. The butterflies flitted, azure and lapis, iridescent, bobbing on air currents, until they turned to wisps of light and disappeared.

I rarely make use of the whole butterfly thing with Stephen, primarily because I tend to associate it with another Stephen ship (which is one of my NOTPs), but...it’s nice, right? I wanted to use it. A butterfly also appears in Doctor Strange, so it’s imagery that seems to be sort of associated with him.

[left alone in the gallery for their sleepover...] Loki looked around. “Shouldn’t there be other people here?” he asked.

Stephen looked immensely satisfied with himself. “Nope. We get the whole gallery to ourselves.”

Furrowing his brow, Loki asked, “How? Did you buy all the tickets?” This seemed as though it would have been exorbitantly expensive.

Still looking enormously pleased, Stephen said, “I might have played the Sorcerer Supreme card.”

“No one knows what the Sorcerer Supreme does.”

“Okay, fine. I said I was an Avenger.”

My head canon is that Stephen is pretty disdainful of the Avengers. He definitely doesn’t want to be part of the ‘team.’ He’s a loner by nature. Definitely the guy who hated group projects, because he was the one that got stuck doing all the work. This loner quality is something that Loki and Stephen have in common.

[...] Loki buried his nose in Stephen’s hair and breathed in his scent, his shampoo that smelled like sandalwood, the cologne he had definitely put on today, cedar and faintly citrusy. Norns, he smelled good.

Loki first associates the smell of sandalwood with Stephen in Sleight of Hand (it’s right at the end of chapter 12). His cologne makes an appearance in my fic ‘Afterimage,’ which is the fifth fic in my series.

[...] Loki took the sleeping bags from Stephen and undid the ties on them, which were knotted far too tightly for Stephen to loosen.

Stephen actually being affected by his disability is always important for me to include.

[...] Loki laughed. Maybe none of the other Masters thought Stephen was funny, but Loki had always found his sense of humor addictive, sly and surprising, and perfectly suited to Loki’s own.

This is a callback to Stephen’s and Wong’s exchange in Doctor Strange:

“People used to think I was funny.” “Did they work for you?”

[...] There were other things in the bag—a change of clothes for tomorrow, toothbrushes, toothpaste, some over-the-counter medications. When Stephen went to the bathroom to change, Loki snooped more thoroughly. Razor blade, shaving cream, nail clippers, a little bottle of mouthwash, a bottle of cologne. Loki decided to pop the cap open and smell that, then tried to tell himself that the feeling that washed over him could be described in some other way than ‘a swoon.’ There was nothing in the bag that implied Stephen thought they’d be doing anything tonight but sleeping.

I really love this because it’s really not particularly above board for Loki to snoop through Stephen’s bag...but it is a very Loki thing to do. And pretty human. Especially because he’s looking for condoms and lube. Of course he is! They’re spending the night together...are they Spending The Night Together?

[...] Stephen looked at the foot of empty space separating the two sleeping bags, then glanced up at Loki. “Are you comfortable with…” he began, then trailed off, before trying again, “I mean, do you want to be…further away…?”

“Do you?” Loki asked. When Stephen hesitated, Loki took a guess about what the honest answer was, then reached out and tugged Stephen’s sleeping bag until it was right next to his.

Stephen is big on enthusiastic consent. Loki is far more willing to take his chances and guess based on body language.

Eventually, they drew apart, and Loki couldn’t help suspecting it had something to do with the way Stephen seemed to be keeping his hips pulled back just a little. Temptation. If Loki reached down…

But no. Instead, he very deliberately folded an arm under his head, resting his head on his bicep. Stephen did something that looked like it was probably a clothing or anatomy adjustment to accommodate a situation, but Loki didn’t comment. Quite honesty, he had his own situation down there, and it just felt like good manners not to say anything.

I honestly have no idea what guys would do in this situation. Just guessing based on both of their personalities. Is a first date too soon to admit, ‘Hey, you just gave me a boner?’ It feels like it is?

Neither of them spoke for a minute or two. They simply stared at each other. Then, Stephen said gently, “I know you’re worried.”

“Worried?” Loki raised an eyebrow. “What do you think I’m worried about?”

Stephen’s gaze didn’t waver. “This.” When Loki pressed his lips together, Stephen added, “You think I’m going to change my mind. Right?”

No one has ever gotten Loki the way Stephen gets him. And Stephen is very patient, very gentle, and very like...you know when you pspspspsps and hold your hand out to a cat? That’s Stephen with Loki, haha.

[...] “The reasons are myriad, of course [for Loki’s insecurity]. I’ve made poor choices. But yes. In part, it’s because I’m…challenging. And people change their minds.”

Oh hey look, it’s the author projecting.

[...] But Loki was greedy. He didn’t want to say in a few months, or a few years, This was great while it lasted.

There’s something kind of sad to me about the idea that Loki can’t even view his love for Stephen as an entirely good thing. He’s a sentimental fool, he’s overly romantic, he’s greedy. And if I wanted to go this route, I could easily make Loki very co-dependent in this relationship; it would be easy to turn it really unhealthy. But I don’t want to, haha. It makes sense that Loki would feel like he has to gorge himself on Stephen’s adoration of him, because he’s never really had this before, not from someone he wants to be with (other people have loved him, but he hasn’t loved them back).

He would already have to give it up too soon, because he would outlive Stephen by such a long time. And he already knew there would never be anyone else.

There isn’t. Stephen will die, and Loki won’t ever be with anyone else. Luckily for him, he gets Stephen back eventually.

Stephen leaned forward and kissed Loki softly; the most tender, most heartfelt kiss Loki had ever experienced. “Don’t worry,” he murmured, his lips warm against Loki’s.

It was difficult not to deepen the kiss, difficult not to kiss Stephen harder. He’d never needed anything to be true as much as he needed this to be true, or at least it felt like it. Don’t worry. But Loki always worried. All the good things in his life still felt so fragile, as though they could implode at any moment.

Though—he supposed he was getting better at not actively sabotaging them himself.

This is part of Loki’s arc in my fic. Stephen and he aren’t together until Loki heals in a lot of other ways. One of them is not trying to blow things up so he can control their destruction.

Thank you so much for asking!! Sorry for the delay in responding.

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

#froststrange #strangefrost #loki #stephen strange #Anonymous

7 notes · View notes

ponett · 4 years

Text

Three novels down in my journey through Discworld! I’ve now read Equal Rites. As the first book not starring Rincewind, this one shifts its focus from wizards to witches, introducing another series mainstay, Granny Weatherwax

While it’s still obvious from the start that this is set in the same world as Rincewind’s misadventures, Equal Rites immediately feels like a very different book. It still has Pratchett’s comedic flair, but this book is incredibly earnest compared to the farcical tone of the last two books. At first, I was a bit disappointed that this book wasn’t as constantly funny as The Light Fantastic, but by the end I was deeply engaged by its more heartfelt narrative

You see, with this book, Pratchett has started to move from simple genre parody to satire. Equal Rites still pokes fun at fantasy conventions, of course, but at its heart is an examination of sexism and gender roles. It just so happens that this story is told through witches and wizards

The story begins when an elderly wizard travels to the rural town of Bad Ass (the story of how the town got its name is apparently interesting, although it’s never shared in the book). On the Discworld, the eighth son of an eighth son can perform magic and become a wizard, and so this particular wizard plans to pass his staff on to such a child before he dies. Except there’s a problem: after the wizard passes his staff on to the expected newborn, he realizes too late that the baby is, in fact, a girl. And then he dies, and the world is left with is first female wizard

We skip ahead about seven or eight years, and now the young Eskarina Smith wants to learn wizard magic even though she’s a girl. The book feels a bit like a young adult novel at times because its protagonist is a kid, although the narration makes it clear that the book is still written for adults. This is not the world seen through a kid’s eyes, but rather an adult’s commentary on how a kid sees the world. (The need to mark the book as for adults in spite of its young hero is also probably why the opening paragraphs reference sex, and why lots of jokes about adult things that go over Esk’s head are sprinkled throughout.) Esk is joined by Granny Weatherwax, the town witch who isn’t really related to her but is described as basically being everyone’s granny

For the first act of the book, Granny acts sort of as an antagonist (albeit a very mild one), teaching Esk the differences between witch magic and wizard magic and trying to stop her from learning the latter. Wizard magic is portrayed as being bombastic, changing the fabric of reality and shooting lightning bolts out of their hands and that sort of thing. Witch magic, on the other hand, is more in tune with nature. A lot of it could hardly be described as proper “magic” at all, actually--lots of knowing about herbs and home remedies and things. Another witch in the story reads palms and tea leaves, but most of her business seems to be selling some kind of homemade birth control concoction

As Granny puts it, a big part of being a witch is “headology.” Witches have to lean into the theatricality of their profession with the pointy hats and the spookiness and whatnot in order to be treated like witches, and that does half of their job for them. It makes people trust that the home remedies work, or believe that a witch could really curse them, or that sort of thing. Of course, Granny does also know quite a bit of “real” magic as well. The main power she uses is “borrowing,” the act of mentally becoming one with an animal--not quite controlling it, but rather “suggesting” its actions. This leads to some fun sequences throughout the book, including one where she borrows the “mind” of an old building said to have developed something resembling a consciousness over the centuries so that she can locate Esk within it

While there was a good deal of magic in the last two books (even if Rincewind, famously, cannot perform magic), the depiction of wizard magic in these books has already changed. In the first book, Rincewind explained that it took years of studying and a ton of effort to perform any task with magic, making a lot of it seem pointless. But here, with just a staff and no proper training, Esk figures out how to turn one of her brothers into a pig, and teleport her staff to her, and all sorts of other things. Of course, this isn’t some sort of CinemaSins ding or anything. The priorities of the books have simply shifted. In a pure genre parody like The Color of Magic, it made sense to say that magic was actually kind of stupid and pointless. Here, being a wizard needs to be desirable, because Esk’s whole arc is about wanting to become a wizard

While Esk does do well with her witch lessons, eventually it becomes clear that she’s going to start figuring out how to use wizard magic with or without guidance, and Granny accepts that she can’t change Esk. After a bit of a journey in which they get separated and meet several side characters, Esk and Granny make their way to Unseen University. (While Rincewind is nowhere to be seen, the librarian who got turned into an orangutan in the last book is still around. He’s apparently refused to be turned back into a human and is happier this way.) Esk is humiliated by the wizards and turned down, but Granny manages to get Esk a job there as a housekeeper so that she might be able to pick up some magical knowledge while hanging around

In the climax, Esk uses her skills to save a fellow student she befriends named Simon from some eldritch horrors that wanted to take over his mind, and as a reward she’s named the first female wizard. But she realizes that being a wizard is kind of silly, and she and Simon go off to develop their own type of magic (which, if I’m understanding correctly, involves a good deal of Not Doing Magic). In the action of the climax, Granny also manages to show the head of the school that witches know a thing or two about magic as well, and is offered a position at the university (although it’s left unsaid whether or not she took it)

Overall, I really, really enjoyed this one. This was the first book in the series that felt like it took its characters and their problems seriously, writing them as people to empathize with instead of just vehicles for jokes. The gender-based conflict is simple, but effective. I really liked that Pratchett didn’t lean into Esk being Not Like Other Girls. She actually still quite likes the feminine witch magic, and uses those skills to her advantage. It’s just that she also wants to learn wizard magic. It’s not about one being better than the other, it’s about the gender divide being silly. The book shoots down the idea that there must be some fundamental physical or psychological difference between men and women that means they’re destined to excel in different fields, which is honestly a refreshing thing to read in a fantasy novel from over 30 years ago

While it might be a little convenient that the head wizard of the university was swayed to be less sexist so easily, I do think the ending struck a good balance. Sexism is ingrained into wizard culture, so he’s still got some biases against women, and he’s only considering letting a few women into the school to start. He’s taking baby steps. Some might see this as a failure because he only got a little better, but personally, I find this much more believable than if the book had ended with all the wizards deciding that witches were their equals and the school quickly achieving a 50/50 gender split

People don’t quite change like that overnight. But this book does still believe that people can change, challenge their preconceived biases, and become better. And I think that’s what really sets this book apart from the previous two. It’s the first glimmer of those humanist Discworld themes I’ve heard so much about

(Also I laughed every time a wizard said women couldn’t study as wizards because it was “against the lore”)

So yeah, good book. Very good book. Pratchett’s style is already rapidly evolving And next, it’s finally time... for the first Death novel. I couldn’t be more excited

#bobby reads discworld

110 notes · View notes

wolf-stark · 3 years

Note

You ask I deliver — both tfatws asks in one!

tfatws weekly ask 1

i finally saw ep1!! i wont be able to see ep2 until thursday at the earliest but i already have some Thots on this ep. here are the ones I remember

first is, and i'm so sorry for this, a grammar lesson. an appositive is when you stick an additional phrase in between commas, dashes, or the like. i actually just used one! the "and i'm so sorry for this" in the first sentence of this paragraph is an appositive. thing is, most english speakers don't normally use them when they speak, only in writing. so i'm always on high alert whenever i hear somebody in tv or movies use one. (it's generally a marker of bad screenwriting). anyway there was one right in the beginning of the episode. the white army guy yelling at sam wilson said "first lieutenant Torres, our intel officer, will be helping on the ground." yeah so. the writing of this series started out on the wrong foot for me. but the rest of the episode was obviously tons and tons better (every interview i see with malcolm spellman makes me love him more and more)

the contrast between the opening minutes (falcon action sequence) and the rest of the ep.... i would 100000/10 rather watch a series with just sam and bucky dealing with life. i dont give a single crap about the flag-smashers or any of that. i just want sam, sarah & fam getting their boating business back on the ground & yeeting racist dickwads, bucky going through therapy and making amends, sam and joaquin being bros, sambucky homoerotic tension, etc.

the cinnamontography! wandavision mostly used cinematography to signify era n stuff. tfatws doesn't have wv's premise to go off of, so here's some tricks i noticed:

with sam there's obviously all sorts of shots with the captain america iconography next to his face, but he hasn't totally claimed it. there's the mural of steve rogers in the background; there's sam staring into the shield like it's a spectre of steve's face; there's sam looking into the exhibit, the shield and sam separated by glass and a layer of camera focus. steve is a constant spectre, always there, an idea, a symbol himself. sam's relationship with this iconography is distanced. he is separated by glass exhibit walls. by painting canvases. he doesn't yet feel worthy to take on that iconography. this whole thing was pulled off quite well but also a bit on-the-nose if only in quantity. there's just sooooo much fancy iconography stuff

speaking of the exhibit, there's something that i get real pissy about. it's when like, there's an action going on you're supposed to be paying attention to but the cinematographer is like,,,, hey! check out this location! or this headline! or something! there was a lot of that in the exhibit. the camera was like, you could focus on sam and rhodey's convo (which was fine but could have been so much better with an extra like 10 minutes of deep character study talk) but noooo you want me to look at the symbol for the united nations and read all the text about bucky who hasn't even showed up yet. shut up i know the lore and ill watch the shot-by-shot breakdown yt vids you don't have to make the shot this long jkdsalcjklasejf

my fav trick was with bucky and the therapist. i had seen a clip of the scene with bucky and the therapist beforehand and i thought the cinnamontography was super obnoxious, but then i was like, oh duh. the shots frequently change the distance between the camera and its subject. sometimes it's uncomfortably close and sometimes it's really far. a clear allegory for the duality of therapy, esp for bucky! therapy is an invasive process wherein he is ruthlessly examined, picked apart, and berated for his trauma (this therapist is crap in every way btw, "mean therapist" works for greg house and greg house only). so the camera goes close. it makes the viewer claustrophobic like bucky. but when he's like "no i haven't had any nightmares" the camera suddenly goes really far. we see bucky as this tiny head in the center of the bottom of the frame. we are distanced from him. he has pushed us away. we cannot see him. he lies because he is vulnerable. so yeah, amazing work there. the therapy scene was hard to watch on purpose!

did bucky slip a note to yori inside the dollar bill? bucky stop making me emooooo. the suuper awkward fake smile has me 😭 (veteran trying to adjust!)

mark my worrrrds when sam asks someone y the govt picked john “white bread” walker they’re gonna say “we needed somebody everyone can get behind....someone uncontroversial, someone everyone can see themselves in” like that exact racist dog whistle

tfatws weekly ask 2

just saw ep2 so im taking advantage of the 2 seconds i can be on tumblr without worrying about tfatws spoilers before new episode drops

when isaiah said "your people put me in prison for being a hero" and bucky thought "your people" means hydra. 🤦‍♂️

speaking of racism, the interplay between sam being Black (anti-Black racism) and sam being the Falcon (negrophilia, "can i take a selfie w you as i deny you a loan?") and the intersection between the two (j*hn lichrally called sam "steve's wingman"! he takes the crypto out of crypto-racist in like 2 seconds!) !!!!!!!! a Black celebrity's Black experience, the separation of man and identity!!!! (thinking about vanessa bayer in snl in that skit "beyonce is black" telling her black friend "you're not black, you're...my girl!")

after sam gets racially profiled by cops we see j*hn standing in front of cop cars cinematic parallels turns out j*hn is racist who knew

this therapist sucks major ass but she got bucky and sam together in the same room and ready to collaborate...that's something ig. it was lichrally couple's therapy she said she used her miracle exercise with couples sambucky antis get blended

bucky says "he was wrong about you so maybe he was wrong about me"...that's not how people talk. when therapist asks bucky, the guy who doesn't talk at all about himself, "y do you hate sam", the last thing bucky's gonna do is actually connect his hatred of sam to his own self-worth issues. bucky generally refuses to talk about himself, so why would he talk about himself in the one context that nobody ever links back to their own neuroses: hatred of other people? one thing human beings hate most is admitting we're wrong. admitting you hate someone because of your own issues? that's a major therapeutic step. bucky would absolutely have to be prompted to do that. even like one or two lines of dialogue more would have set up that line better. but in terms of the actual thought? an amazing way to take the sam/bucky relationship. bucky bases his self-worth on steve believing in him, and if steve is wrong bucky has no self-worth, so 1) he has to develop self-worth disassociated from steve's assessment of him and 2) he has to love himself before he can love sam, and 3) he has to realize that sam giving up the shield is a sign of sam's humility not his unworthiness.

conversely, we don't get into why sam hates bucky? yeah sam has the right to hate a guy that has tried to kill him (albeit while brainwashed) multiple times, and now shows up in his life just to bash him but. everything happens so fast i cant follow their relationship

in fact i dont feel like i understood much of anything. like y did bucky and sam go on that mission together? how connected are sam/bucky/joaquin with the government? doesn't bucky just want to retire now? literally what is everyone doing/feeling and why???

if battlestar becomes a knowing commentary on the black best friend stereotype i'm gonna party, but i dont expect much of that

the interplay between man and symbol. captain america is obviously a symbol. the shield is obviously a symbol. but steve rogers? the. man behind the cowl? he too seems to become a symbol. a paragon of a good guy, so good he's unreachable. steve was just a guy stop idolizing him the last thing steve would want is to be idolized

as the resident musician/music nerd on mcublr, 1) that captain america rally music slaps, but 2) re: the song at the end of the ep, if you're just gonna rip off mozart's lacrymosa then at least play mozart's lacrymosa. we wont blame you the lacrymosa slaps (if you dont know what im talking about go on yt and search it up youll recognize it fo sho

look i love enfys nest as much as the next guy but if tfatws is gonna get erin kellyman to play another innocent little gurl blackmailed into the fakeout-villain position (her text seemed to suggest as such) then 😡 like why can't women just....be evil? young, freckly, innocent-looking women? girls are not untouchable pure objects but full of rage and resentment just as much as anyone can be

bonus ep1 comment: bucky says about that senator whose car he hijacked, "she continued to abuse the power i gave her." fictionaldarling on yt say that he says "i" because he can't disassociate himself from his winter soldier persona which begets endless and senseless guilt. like dude. can i not be emo for like 1 second.

OKay. First off, as much I enjoy your sending it to me, what made you decide to send me these??

TFATWS WA #1

Don't worry about getting this to me as early as possible. I usually don't watch the episode right away.

1. Cool writing lesson.

2. Everyone wants a comedy show [like Friends] about the MCU superheroes.

3. Cinematography is always a beautiful thing.

4. Sam definitely has to carve his own Captain America status for himself, outside of Steve's ya know everything.

5. They have to do that for people who was just now tuning in because they're in love with Sam Wilson or Sharon Carter.

6. I think the therapist was taking a 'tough love' approach for Bucky, because she likely has some very strong opinions about the literal assassin she's been assigned to give therapy too. She did not choose to talk to him, she was assigned that make that clear in the second episode.

And, Bucky isn't lying when he said it wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't a nightmare, it was a resurfaced memory. So, technically he wasn't lying - and yes, the camera does move away because while he's saying he didn't have a nightmare, he's not expanding on what actually happened - so, he's still pushing the therapist/us away.

7. Bucky, and Steve, have/had a TON to adjust to.

8. Yeah, I agree that will be the bullshit line they give. If they ever actually talk about it.

TFATW WA #2

Yeah, always got to take advantage of avoiding those spoilers lmfaoo.

1. Honestly, that line was double meaning. Both about White people and Hydra [which is made up of mostly white supremacists/nazis] So, the line is gesturing to both White People in general and Hydra assholes together. I think the terminology is “double edge sword”??

2. This whole paragraph structure confused me, ngl - so I'm going to answer it the best I can. I do like that they're not ignoring the fact that Sam being Black is 1000% the reason he's not the Official Captain America - because the gov't is racist as hell.

I also like the little lines about how they point out little things about Sam's Falcon persona, like that kid calling him 'Black Falcon' specifically and Sam's response show the split between Sam and Falcon itself.

John is a dick for calling Sam the wingman of Steve Rogers. Sam was a hero all on his own before Steve asked him to join up again. [Side note, it's lichrally??]

3. Exactly, the parallel of Sam being profiled and surrounded while just on the street and John being surrounded by fans and being able to spring Bucky with apparently only a few sentences shows a Loooooot

4. Honestly, at this point I wonder if she's not actually a therapist and is just an agent assigned to assess Bucky outside of an Official Building. I do know, however, that her 'look at each other and speak' exercise is actually a real therapy practice. It's just a little slower.

5. Actually, I think he would've blurted that out. That whole line. I don't think Bucky hates Sam. I think they could've done the scene better, but I think that had Sam prodded him/the therapist been more annoying Bucky would've lost control of his emotions and blurted out the whole "If he was wrong about you, he was wrong about me" but I feel like the writing for this show is just... not there. Sometimes you blurt shit when you get overemotional and I think that was what Bucky was supposed to be like.

6. I don't think Sam hates Bucky, I think he doesn't trust him though. I do wish they'd talked about that though. The whole 'talk to each other' scene should've been a LOT longer and a LOT slower.

7. Sam and Bucky's relationship is being fast tracked because they don't really know how to work the relationship out, writers-room-wise. Bucky is technically retired, but I feel like he's trying to live up to Steve's expectations and doing what Steve would've done and we all know that if Steve was there, Steve would've jumped on that plane with Sam. It looks like Sam/Bucky/Joaquin are a side-team based from Military services but as Sam says they're all free agents so...?

8. Sadly, They seem to just be propping up to be another stereotype.

9. Captain America is a symbol. Steve Rogers is a man. But now Steve Rogers is an idol because of all the shit he's been through and honestly, it's not a bad thing he's become an idol for people - it's using Steve as a reason to make White Bread Walker the next Captain that makes Steve's idolization so fucked.

10. I don't know anything about music so I have no opinion here, sorry.

11. Enfys?? Also, I think they did the whole Innocent Girl Thing as side commentary for Bucky lowering his guard about seeing a young girl rather than a guy.

12. Bucky is the Winter Solider. The Winter Solider is Bucky. That is how Bucky will always see it because although he was brainwashed, it was still him and he remembers all of it. When you have constant memories of something 'someone else' did, you tend to not be able to pull the two personas out of each other. I want Bucky to take up the title, White Wolf instead of Winter Soldier. Honest.

This is all my opinion, I’m honestly a little disappointed with the writing of TFATWS so far so... I’m not really optimistic about this.

#Asks

4 notes · View notes

brekkfast · 4 years

Text

Spoilery rant why one shouldn’t read Eleanor and Park

Source: I am a Korean.

Jesus this book is so racist????? The way I could write an entire thesis on just one (1) piece of evidence alone (for example, Cho Chang had a comeback in the form of a male Asian-American with green, yes, green eyes) but you know, that’d be ignoring The Rest Of The Book which just gets worse and worse.

Aforementioned two-last-names!! (Seriously, what is Park Sheridan?) I am tired. If you’re going to create an East Asian main character, is it that hard to research? We have first names too??? Did Rowell even speak to a Korean when writing this book? This is La Croix level tasteless diversity. Park has green eyes? What? I mean I suck at punnett squares, but boo me, we can’t forget he’s half-white too!! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Okay, but his physical appearance should be the least of our worries right? Wrong.

I??? I’m??? If you see me sobbing it’s because I need the tears to stop me reading this book. The blatant racism that comes from Eleanor is just so demeaning, ignorant, and not funny at all? I don’t understand how this is meant to be relatable and only seems like a shoddy attempt at being ~quirky, look at me im so funny haha causal racism!!~ and instead misses the mark by about an out-of-control huge continent. The fact that Rowell knows that these are racist questions and racist comments, yet continues as if its supposed to be a joke without Park ever being able to defend himself from Eleanor’s ignorance, is really a sign of bad characterisation and wanting ~diversity points~ by barely scraping the surface of discussing how harmful these stereotypes can be. Casual racism/Passive racism is seriously abusive because all people can do is say “Oh it was just a joke, you’re being too sensitive!!” and brush the victims off, gaslighting them into thinking their pain isn’t even worth acknowledging and making them think that this is just American Culture, therefore should be complacent in their dehumanisation in order to assimilate. I feel like with “progressively”-characterised Eleanor, she shouldn’t have half the racist commentary she does (or at all) because, hey not all Americans are racist,,,,,,haha,,,,, The fact that these comments are coming from Park’s love interest is seriously disappointing.

“His mom looked exactly like a doll. In The Wizard of Oz – the book, not the movie –Dorothy goes to this place called the Dainty China Country, and all the people are tiny and perfect. When Eleanor was little and her mom read her the story, Eleanor had thought the Dainty China people were Chinese. But they were actually ceramic, or they’d turn ceramic, if you tried to sneak one back to Kansas.” (Chapter 21)

Hooray Eleanor, comparing a Korean woman to a Chinese character... hooray....also can we stop comparing Asian features to dolls? Objectification and exotification much? (Oh and don’t even get me started on how Park dismissed exotification of Asian women in that “I’m Asian and therefore unattractive” scene. Ugh.)

??What is with Eleanor and her inability to use other adjectives?? Why is him being Asian so significant to her? It just seems so demeaning and dehumanising. Use his last name. I know Eleanor is being sarcastic but I her jokes don’t hit the way she thinks it does. :// Big pass, and big miss. No hits here.

I am bothered. I hate this, the insecurity, the white saviour touch to this, the I-need-validation-from-love-interest, the Rowell-needs-inner-conflict-and-she-chose-the-worst-way-to-represent-it. If you really wanted to make this significant, impactful, and progressive (in the good ol’ year of 1986 [cue the eye rolling]), then you would have made Park realise his attractiveness shouldn’t be contingent on his love interest or anyone else but him. Give the boy some autonomy, please. I feel like I can’t breathe, but maybe Park’s green-ass eyes can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen for me. For a fellow Korean, please, Park, you can save my life with your so very Korean eyes.

tags: racism. Listen, even with my -2948147 eye sight I can see and feel the racism. Cal tried to make one racist joke (yellow fever), and instead made two. Racist mitosis anyone?

And here it is. Listen, I know gender stereotypes and gender roles are somehow the bread and butter of Asian households in both fiction and non-fiction, and I’m not going to deny that it exists. But. Why this one? Why this character. Why write her to behave this way? I hate the way that this only perpetuates stereotypes, and never breaks them down. I hate how this demonises Asian parenting, and the Asian immigrant experience. This to me, only seems like a token conflict point, rather than a well-thought out, nuanced commentary on Asian culture and their perspective on gender roles. The self-racism, the lack of critical thinking skills, the lack of commentary in an obviously commentary-needing scene. The complete ignorance. The glorification of white American culture (kindly represented by Eleanor). There could have been so much you could have done (Park standing up to his mum, scenes of his mum getting that very much needed development arc, the balance between Korean culture/traditions and healthy parenting––because healthy parenting isn’t just Eurocentric you know, it can coexist with Asian tradition [gasp]), but again, shallow and demeaning. Am I surprised at this point? Well, we’re pretty much at rock bottom and I’ve got a pickaxe.

The broken English.

I can’t. “Why she want to look like man? It’s so sad.” I am going to throw something. If you’re going to include the immigrant experience in your book, do it properly, otherwise it’s just racist. You’re making Park’s mum seem stupid, unable to change, a representation of a person who just doesn’t understand American culture and thus deserves no respect. After we’re (the readers) see that Park’s mum understands little about American culture, of its language, and thus will misunderstand and conflict with Eleanor’s very existence, we’re awfully inclined to see her as the somewhat antagonist of the story (especially as she offsets the main couple...in a romance novel, so yeah, antagonist), thus her opinion is invalid and wrong. Ah yes, because parents can’t learn and grow and become better people. This characterisation is the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.

(Okay this is more of a minor point, but I uh, am very bothered by the doll-like appearance contrasted with the “simply-just beautiful Sabrina.” The only thing shallow here is Eleanor’s love for Park where half of her internal commentary is just pure racism, but haha racism is ~funny~) (C’mon Mindae, you couldn’t have prevented your son having two last names and no first name?)

Eleanor’s racism strikes again!!! Yes girl!! Shame Mindae for only buying brand-names!! Shame her assimilation attempts!! (Only because who knows what would’ve happened if there were Korean side dishes and meals in the fridge. Racism probably. Eleanor @ Kimchi: 👁👄👁) Next time Mindae goes grocery shopping, she should bring Eleanor for her white, American approval!! (Again, with the dumb-ification of Mindae, I hate it here. What was that Sofia Vergara quote from Modern Family?

Yeah, Eleanor, do you even know how smart Mindae is in Korean? :////)

God, Rowell, I’m begging, I’m on my knees, please don’t ever think about creating another character like Park ever again. I hated this journey and how it made me feel. Please, if you’re going to write a Korean-American character, have a Korean-American beta-reader. Rowell is trying to create a third-culture-kid and Asian immigrant experience, which aren’t stories for her to tell. This is exactly what happens when you don’t do the research for your own story (you can tell she barely put any effort into it). Instead, she perpetuates harmful stereotypes and further isolates Asian immigrants from interacting and being comfortable with American culture. Why should we, when we’re simply shamed for it? For just one extra editor, you can save another Asian character from having no first name. Just dial 888-google-it-god-888, today.

#rant #anti eleanor and park #anti park sheridan #anti eleanor douglas #i #how was this published #the racism?#just stick to fangirl please #listen im not saying you needed to make this political #im just saying you needed to make this not racist #i get it #its a love story #but the way my heart is broke #man :///#mine

31 notes · View notes

wendell-or-something · 4 years

Text

it is time.

I want to compile a more complete rundown of my thoughts about homestuck 2. I want all the stuff in my head to be in one place, and I know this is going to be incredibly long winded and I don’t care. I want to be honest... I want to understand why I don't like this media. on more than a "but of course" level because there are a lot of people who have it as a gut reaction that this stuff isn't right. but I think there are layers to what produces that. I wanna get in depth with this. so that's what I'm gonna attempt to do.

okay, so, the first thing I think I wanna say is a disclaimer. I have not actually read the epilogues. or homestuck 2. I have a peripheral knowledge of what happens in them because, as a concerned citizen, I poked around enough to pick up details and know that I wouldn't enjoy this media if I fully engaged with it. my assessment of the material may be flawed because of this, but I mean... if the things I've heard about the epilogues deterred me from reading it, then I guess that's what I'm analyzing? not only what I understand based on my limited knowledge, but also why it is so limited to begin with. why this media is such a huge deterrent to so many people who care so much about homestuck. ultimately, this is not to shame people who like this media... I will be addressing common takes I've heard from people who defend the epilogues, but I'm not singling anyone out, and anyone who reads this has a right to disagree, or better yet, ignore me and find enjoyment where you are able, even if I cannot. I will not begrudge you that. additionally, I am considering the epilogues and homestuck 2 to be one unit. not necessarily in terms of structure, but because the events of one lead directly into the events of the other, and the two have similar issues. I think I'll shorthand the combination of the two as EP/HS2 for simplicity, and refer to either individually if I have something specific to say about one or the other.

I think the main problem that people have with EP/HS2 is that it's depressing. and it's depressing for a myriad of different reasons, but I'll get to those in a minute. first I want to establish why them being depressing doesn't work for so many people. I feel like this should be examined first, because a lot of the supporters of EP/HS2 are viewing the complaints against it as over sensitivity from fans who only liked the comic for its lighter elements. I keep seeing a "y'all just wanted your rainbow cotton candy fluff ending" kind of sentiment going around. and like... you are right that this isn't a fluff ending. but I think it's unfair to treat the particular type of content that EP/HS2 brought to the table as the only kind of substantial, fulfilling narrative that we could've asked for.

and I think a lot of the dissonance that people see between homestuck and EP/HS2 is based in the ratio of tension to levity, and how far it's shifted toward pure tension... especially because, at the end of homestuck, all the outside threats to this group of friends have already been resolved. and yet, shit feels leagues more catastrophically bad during the epilogues than it did during the comic when the characters were actually under attack, which is super weird when you think about it. I mean, "epilogues" my ass, am I right? it is true that homestuck was never 100% sunshine and rainbows... in fact, some of the darker events that it brought to the table became some of the most hyped shit in the comic. murderstuck is mostly what I'm thinking of first in terms of this, but there was a lot of popular angst laden content within homestuck that the fans latched onto. the thing is, the fans also latched onto the content that was super goofy, and the fan works that you can still find online from the era of homestuck's initial popularity reflect both sides of its tone in equal measure. there was a huge amount of goofy fan content (octopimp's youtube channel is still a record of that, and that wasn't even the half of it). and there was a huge amount of angsty content, and there was a huge amount of heartfelt content... turns out, homestuck had broad appeal, and spoke to different people in different ways. and back then, I never really felt like the goofy stuff was being treated as any less important than the heavy stuff. it wasn't brushed off just because it was seen as lighthearted. people liked to laugh, and I fully believe that Andrew Hussie began doing homestuck as a fun activity.

the reason why I bring this up is because homestuck as a piece of media could beget all of these various takes. the fan works could be tonally dissonant when held side by side with each other, but when held against the parts of the comic that inspired them, they made perfect sense. homestuck could spawn jokes, and angst, and social commentary, and theories... and even extrapolation on canonical events, in ways both silly and serious. and when you look at the kind of content that the fans produced during homestuck's height, you see what was important to them. they put time and effort into crafting even their dumbest meme shit. the fans reflected what the comic gave to them. and humor and heart were among the most beloved core engagements that the comic provided... these were pillars on which a lot of fan enjoyment rested... you really can't begrudge a person their fun.

and treating darkness and angst as the sole indicator of maturity in a work seems misguided to me. because, speaking personally for a moment here, one of the biggest lessons I had to teach myself when I was growing up was how not to wallow in negative emotions. how to find the fun, sometimes rather aggressively, so that you don't just drown. and with EP/HS2, it feels like at every turn, readers are constantly grasping for something nice or fun to keep them afloat in all this heavy stuff, and either they come to accept mere scraps of positivity, or everything they reach for is eventually dissolved as well. and I think the character of a piece of media as a whole can sometimes tell you what level of maturity it's operating under. like, if the text lingers over making the characters miserable, or seems to revel in shooting holes in people's positive interpretations of these people, you have to kind of wonder if this is serving the narrative, or just producing author schadenfreude when they release what amounts to shock content.

it almost feels like a twisting of the way homestuck used to treat the fans, because during it's run, homestuck was very reactive towards the fanbase. this kind of canon responsiveness to the readers was baked into homestuck from the very beginning, back when Hussie was accepting reader suggestions for what John Egbert should do. and need I remind everyone that the trolls were made as parodies of different types of personalities that were common to find online during homestuck's era? they are internet trolls, who are actually an alien race known as trolls, who communicate primarily online, and whose culture and species developed to produce an ornery and antagonistic population, so like... it's trolls all the way down. that's the whole joke. but the real, valuable benefit of parodying your fans with your characters, is that when the trolls act, they reflect the way real people acted. which means that when, say, Nepeta shoehorns RP lingo into casual conversation, some people will be like "it me!" and some people will laugh/cringe because they've seen people actually talk like that, and some people will be like "aww, that used to be me!" and every time a character produces this sense of identification with the audience, it works to create familiarity, and eventually, a sense of fondness.

that fondness is fucking powerful.

that fondness is born out of recognition and empathy, no matter which character you feel it for, and when a giant community of people loves a character that you have seen yourself reflected in so clearly, that is an incredibly validating experience. especially when you’re young, and the pieces of yourself that you saw were some of the nerdiest, weirdest, most awkward parts of you. a very large community of people loves a character that is like you, even, or perhaps especially, because of the flawed parts. and of course these characters were meant to tease the fans a little... these characters were also jokes to some extent the whole time. but they were never seen as cruel or insulting, because these characters were also important. the story literally built whole worlds around their identities... these kids altered universes. and they were allowed to be that important and special without being perfect first. they were dumb, and awkward, and nerdy, and cringey, and allowed to be there anyway. they were you, and you were important.

and this is where I think that EP/HS2 really misses the point. because in homestuck, the characters experienced hardship, but that hardship went on to fuel an overall sense of accomplishment when it was overcome. the road might be long, and it might be tough, and you might face shit that you don't feel prepared for, but when triumph is achieved, it feels that much more earned. and that is a key phrase I want everyone to remember homestuck for:

triumph.

it's the feeling that cascade gave me. it is the highest of heights that this whole thing reached. and it really has so much to do with how homestuck had built itself up until that point. we were mired in the minutiae of these kids' lives. we read their every chat log. we saw them dicking around doing next to nothing. we saw them contact each other and talk to each other for basically no reason other than to catch up. we saw them sharing stupid memes, and yelling at each other for wasting time on pointless bullshit, and dunking on each other's shitty taste in media... every one of them was "you" at some point. "you captchaloged this" or "you decided to do that" and it made a subtle connection in your brain that convinced you to feel things with them and accept what they "decided" as something that you had done alongside them. in some small way, you did homestuck. and this notion was further supported by how much of what the fans were doing would make its way back into what the comic was doing. the comic and the fans existed in a kind of symbiosis, and that fed into the feeling of connection that the fans had with this particular story. this thing was alive, and it moved in tandem with the community.

so when something big like cascade happened, you were right there with them. you were deep in the center of it. and you wanted to be, because this was your payoff. you did the work with these kids... you put in the time. and the triumph was yours too.

this is why EP/HS2 shouldn't be depressing. the core of the story was triumph against all odds. to take the triumph that was earned over the course of the whole story, and ruin it for the sake of generating angst... it misses the point. I did not read all 8000+ pages of homestuck multiple times because I wanted a tragedy. if I wanted tragedy, I would choose a different story. of course a lot of fans would have trouble liking EP/HS2... this wasn't what they signed up for. it pulls the rug out from under the fans of the original comic by pulling a mean genre bait and switch. why would people who liked a story like homestuck want a story like this? and I mean, obviously some people were okay with this. some people like EP/HS2. but you have to admit that it is an entirely different thing than what homestuck was.

I’ve heard some folks try to compare the darker parts of EP/HS2 to the darker parts of homestuck, and this is why they aren't the same. the darkness performs different functions in each story. in homestuck, it contrasts the lighter parts and creates a reason to keep everyone moving. in EP/HS2, it is the whole darn thing. the story is simply woven from it to begin with. I have heard some people say that they think of EP/HS2 as cathartic... as a reflection of life when things are painful or hard. but I think we really need to remember what catharsis is. catharsis doesn’t begin and end with pain. catharsis has to do something with that pain, or it’s just pain for pain’s sake. and the further I look into EP/HS2, the more I feel like the story is just playing it straight as a tragedy... though sometimes I wonder if it knows this.

so let's pull apart the tragedy of EP/HS2. because while I don’t really enjoy tragedies, (hence why I liked homestuck, and didn’t like EP/HS2... they are opposites in this sense), I still understand how tragedies work. catharsis can be part of it... to see something sad happen, and relate to that sadness, and feel a deep emotion... that does make sense. but the line between catharsis and just plain agitation is whether or not the pain actually provides you with a sense of relief. if the story leaves the character stuck in a bad emotional place, you feel stuck too... unable to confront the emotional burden that the story has saddled you with in a satisfying way, because it isn't even your own. in real life, when you are hurt, at least you have the ability to do whatever you need for yourself, in order to eventually feel better. I have grieved before, and somehow found it in me to laugh again since. but in stories, you rely on the author to construct the characters' response to bad events, and if things just go from bad to worse, sometimes with little resistance, the audience is eventually going to feel really agitated by the lack of relief. even stories that end in death provide catharsis due to the finality of it. the life ends, and provides a sense of closure. but EP/HS2 doesn’t give you an out. it just keeps driving many of the characters into more and more mundanely uncomfortable and dissatisfying lives, or turns them into people we would rather not know or read about.... which feels like a loss to the reader, even though the character is right there. at that point, the character's presence only makes you feel worse because they used to be someone you liked, but now they're just a reminder of your disappointment. and this level of your emotional discomfort isn't even something that the narrative will address, because it's just a side effect of how things are going. it isn't poetic, and there is no real comfort given to lighten that load... it's just unpleasant.

and on a more technical level, I would like to point out that stories create a kind of transaction between author and reader. and once you understand the status quo between you and a particular author, you can gauge the level of investment you feel safe putting in the characters. at their core, it stands to reason that stories should require conflict to be interesting. but in order to stay interesting, they also need to give us a reason to care about the conflict. in homestuck, I felt like the story set up a status quo in which we felt comfortable caring about certain characters, because we subtly trusted that the author wasn't wasting our time or jerking us around. like, you knew that a lot of crazy shit was on the table, but it felt like the story was growing, the author was interested in that growth, and thus he would not kill it. even if you couldn't begin to guess what was gonna happen next, you at least didn't have to worry about the author hugely ruining things that you liked about the story. he seemed like he liked those things too. we were all on the same page in that regard.

this is where character investment was very important to homestuck... the readers needed something to hang on to, or they'd lose interest in what was going on, and in homestuck specifically, the thing that kept us hanging on, was our love for these characters, and our wish to see them prevail against the odds. we were hoping for a satisfying ending, and interested in how we'd get there. and by now, I think homestuck fans in particular are very determined to stick to the characters by nature. if we weren't, then we would've been bored out of reading the comic in the first place back in act 1, when the most exciting thing that had happened was John going through his house and finding his dad in the kitchen. if you don't love John at least a little, you won't want to keep reading about him picking up items and describing them to you for a whole chapter, with not but the entertainment value of his character's particular perspective and voice to sustain you.

obviously, character investment isn't always a story's draw... but it was definitely homestuck’s. and even giving EP/HS2 the benefit of the doubt... let's say we're just judging it on the merits of being a tragic story. there are many levels of engagement that a story can hit, and in a lot of tragedies, the interest comes from the machinations of the plot. you already know it's going to end sadly, but you have the ability to process the sadness (a negative emotional experience and potential reader deterrent) while still maintaining interest, because you want to know how it will happen. it is unfortunate then, that EP/HS2 isn't a stand alone story, independent from homestuck itself. because if you tell a homestuck fan that the story will now only end in sadness, they likely won't want to know how it happens. because they already decided to like and relate to these characters, and wish for their happiness. they were taught it was okay to hope for that, based on the way the story used to be. basically, one of the essential appeals of homestuck (character investment) is actively working against the core appeal of a tragedy (understanding how sad events came to pass) because homestuck's appeal worked so well to begin with. it's basically nonsensical to try and jump track from one to the other, because the reader is much more likely to fall off the wagon entirely, and ignore your story in order to preserve their enjoyment of the story they already consumed.

but to get way more blunt about this... homestuck was good, and ruining what it left us with was unpopular for obvious reasons. fans were successfully invested in the story, the final triumphant payoff was a satisfying way to cap the narrative, and honestly... I think homestuck probably should've just stopped while the vibes were good. people were satiated. they were sad that it was over, but the sadness came from fondness, and that just sort of felt appropriate. we had it so good.

the transaction between author and reader was stable at that point. we had conflict. we had a reason to care. we got a resolution. there was a level of trust established, and honored... we trusted that there was a rhythm to the story. a push and pull between the kind of threat that would necessitate action from our heroes, and the ability of the characters to overcome the conflict well enough that we'd be left with something satisfying in the end. this trust no longer exists in EP/HS2. the epilogues broke it, and homestuck 2 has failed to repair it because, to be honest, it was already too badly damaged. it would take a full retcon to actually bring that back after the epilogues, but then it uh... screwed the pooch all over again. sorry, that was insensitive.

anyway. so like... what about the particulars of the story's content? I mean... I know I'm dissatisfied because a lot of the characters have been blatantly destroyed. Dirk will be my example for this bit, I mean, just look at him. in one epilogue route he commits suicide, and by making Ult. Dirk a thing, they effectively unestablished the identity of Dirk as he was in homestuck. and my limited knowledge of the epilogues doesn't allow me to really know about this, but was there even any acknowledgement of how death works in homestuck? Dirk must've known that if he killed himself, he'd end up as a ghost out in the dream bubbles. that is still a thing, right? Dave could've gone looking for him. considering Dirk's pesterquest route, he should've wanted to. and see, there's an example of what might've approached catharsis in a situation like that... pain, but also a human person dealing with that pain in a way that feels like fulfillment. but as far as I've heard, the story didn't go there? so it's just pain for pain's sake... or maybe just a bid to get rid of the more complex version of his character and replace him with an anime villain. and the method doesn't even make any sense, like, Dirk is the last character that would ever commit suicide because, by his own canonical words, he is scared to not exist. he literally couldn't bring himself to destroy the AR because of this, in spite of having every technical and emotional reason to want to. this is a major pain point for him, and I know it's typical to think of someone with self hatred wanting to kill themselves, but Dirk is a particularly different case. he should not be shoved into such an ill fitting generic narrative for shock value.

and beyond that, let's say you're someone who identified with Dirk. let's say that when homestuck said "you are now Dirk Strider" you were like "oh fuck I kinda am tho" and you were invested in him ever since. let's say that the points of investment you felt with him were in his troubles with self loathing, his fear of not existing, or his trouble communicating his true feelings to others. this is a rather dismal end for Dirk to have come to... and a rather dismal story for you to read if you still relate to this character. if you're coming off the end of homestuck still securely relating to him as heavily as you did when he was allowed to triumph, how fucking bad is it gonna feel to see him so thoroughly obliterated? to whiplash so hard from a perceived success to such abject failure is just mean. this story is so mean now, like, everyone's got the bug it seems.

and not only do several characters perish (literally, or by being mismanaged) for cheap drama in EP/HS2, but some just turn into shitty people? like, Rose recently revealed that she cheated on Kanaya. I simply hate the idea that Rose would grow up to be the type of person who would do that. I remember Rose in acts 1 through 5 being the kind of person who had misguided ideas about what course of action she thought would be effective. she would make some pretty big decisions, and act on destructive impulses, often in spite of what her friends thought was safe. in essence, I can see where the authors of homestuck 2 would get the idea of Rose going off and doing big shit without telling people. but this ignores why she was so determined to do any of that stuff in the first place... Rose was just as invested in protecting the people she cared about as anyone. and besides that, I thought her arc in those early acts had taught her something about that approach? I thought she got closer to people, to the point where they could voice a concern and she'd listen.

in regards to her relationship with Kanaya in particular, there's a huge difference between knowing someone for a day at the age of 13, and spending 3 more years getting to know and love that person before deciding to marry them. so even if this was the reflection of a quality that Rose had back then, I thought she grew past it... she had ample time and opportunity... we even watched her get better about this sort of thing. literally this rolls back her character development to when she was a child, and makes her a shitty adult. and if I’m being really scathing here, I might as well say that this feels like an example of that thing that stories sometimes do, where they only care about a relationship while the characters are struggling to get together. and then once they are together, it timeskips past their relationship being functional and lands you at a point where they're experiencing turbulence. at which point it leverages their relationship trouble for drama, rather than letting the two function well as a unit against an outside threat of some kind. like, no happy couples exist in fiction! gotta wring your conflict out of the fact that they’re falling apart! it feels like they’re being exploited by the writers.

and worst of all... this betrayal of trust by Rose either ruins Rose and Kanaya's marriage, or makes Kanaya seem like a fool. I keep thinking back to their time on the meteor, when Rose asked if Kanaya was breaking up with her because they finally reached that tipping point where Rose's drinking had to be acknowledged as a problem. and Kanaya said that no, she wasn't breaking up with her, and stuck with Rose because she was dedicated to loving her even if that meant helping her with a serious problem. that was such a strong character moment for Kanaya. it displayed her loyalty and dedication to Rose, but also a nuanced understanding of when a problem can actually be solved by dedicated effort. having her be so committed to staying with Rose in spite of Rose's transgressions is like a perversion of those positive qualities. now it just feels like Kanaya is irrationally willing to put up with anything from Rose, no matter how egregious. it takes a trait that was so nice about Kanaya, and uses it in such an upsetting way... and honestly, there was no reason to do that.

but this is a huge problem with EP/HS2... there's like, juuuuuust enough of a through line for people to think that it makes sense. so when I try to say that the characters are just better people than this, and that they're smart enough to do the most basic fundamental things to prevent pain in people that they care about... when I say I believe in the integrity of these characters, I could very well get someone adamantly insisting that I was just being naive. that sometimes, in reality, people disappoint you. what can I even do about that, without sounding like I'm in denial, or like I'm only interested in liking these characters when all their rough spots are smoothed away? how can I begin to articulate that these aren't decisions being made by the characters... they're decisions being made by authors who I don't trust for exactly this reason. and I very especially hate this because just... no! I know what these characters' flaws actually were! and what their strengths were! I had a solid read on their identity, because homestuck was so friggin good at establishing that! I know that a huge part of Rose coming into her own was learning how to cut all the snarky passive aggressive sarcasm and just be honest about her feelings... something that she actually advocated for when talking to Dave, but also had to learn to do herself. the logical escalation of Rose’s character would be a trend toward more openness... but also, just in general, Rose never had a kindness problem. like, I guess that’s the biggest thing I have an issue with. Rose was never this unkind.

it just feels like the writers want us to believe that not only was Kanaya played for a fool, but we were as well. we thought Rose was better than this. we thought we were better judges of character than this. and honestly... we were! the writing was not on the wall about this development. but that just doesn't mean anything because EP/HS2 said that it happened.

and this also harms the relatability of Rose for the people who used to identify with her. I'm not saying she has to be perfect... obviously, characters can and should be flawed. and characters can have flaws that you don't perfectly relate to the specifics of. Rose developed a drinking problem at a young age, which a few people might've related to, but it's very specific. but if you broaden the implications of that in the context of a story... a ton of people will be able to relate to the concept of developing an unhealthy coping mechanism, or doing something you don't really enjoy just to relate to a relative who has been distant to you for whatever reason, or even just having a complicated relationship with a parent. so what if you apply this kind of broadened meaning to Rose's cheating? the idea that she is not trustworthy. that she hides major, life altering information from people who are very close to her and should've been told. that she doesn't trust her partner, and would rather sneak around and hide this for years, rather than either letting her partner be involved in this part of her life, or accepting that her partner isn't comfortable with this development and respecting that boundary. this sort of thing is really alienating to people who know that they themselves are better than this. and “alienating” is the exact antithesis of what homestuck always was to the people who loved it.

what's especially interesting to me, is that the effects of this alienation actually come through in the way that people talk about EP/HS2 nowadays. I don't know if anyone has noticed this trend yet, but people tend to talk about the events of EP/HS2 as decisions made by writers, rather than decisions made by characters. which is weird, because people didn't do that so much with homestuck. and for this I wanna break out Vriska as an example. a lot of people like Vriska, and a lot of people hate Vriska. she's controversial. but no matter what, people always take Vriska's actions as though they're hers. and if they hate what Vriska does in the story, then they hate Vriska. not Hussie, for writing her that way. not even the vague concept of the narrative. they consider Vriska's actions to actually belong to her and form her identity, which they then pass judgment on, one way or another. Hussie is even a character that canonically exists within homestuck, and nobody ever thought to blame him, in universe, for being the origin of Vriska as a trouble causing entity in the story. compare that with how many times you'll see someone say that they don't like what the EP/HS2 writers have done with Rose, Jade, Jane, etc.... they tend not to actually level blame at the characters themselves. obviously this does vary a lot from person to person, but as a vague trend, I would say that people are starting to detach themselves from the characters, or at least detach the characters from their actions in EP/HS2. and to me it reads as a bit of a defense mechanism. it is a degree of separation that lets these characters keep their integrity, and the potential for positive development that they had when homestuck initially ended. it is a trend that, to me, proves the point that the level of pain for pain's sake in this story is too much. without relief, people disengage. even if they want to keep up with how the characters are doing, they no longer want to buy into the narrative's reality... so they acknowledge the author, and the fact that this is fiction. they remove themselves from the act of being invested. and the more adamantly you see people doing this, the more uncomfortable you can assume it feels for these people to buy into the events of the story and treat them as real.

to jump track to another odd point that I think creates a further barrier between cast and audience... has anyone noticed the age of the main cast's children that we've seen appear so far? all of them seem to be similar to the ages of the beta kids when we first met them. they're teenagers. and that means that, if my knowledge is correct, we kinda skipped a chunk of these people's lives. we never really spent time seeing the original homestuck kids as new parents... we never saw them raising their babies. and I get that this is an odd complaint, but it's an example of the story not growing with its audience. it's missing a huge opportunity, not only to show us this portion of their lives, but to fill in with some major world building when it comes to Earth C. are we supposed to assume that absolutely none of the main cast of homestuck made any new friends on Earth C? did they not explore what kind of culture popped up on this planet? what if one of the main cast had gone out and met someone totally new to befriend or love on this planet? but no... we're strictly only interested in the original cast and their kids, which they only ever had with each other, and nobody is really friends anymore, but nobody has met anyone new either... basically depression and isolation is the only option for these characters if the writers aren't willing to actually let them live in the world they're living in. and besides that, at time of writing, there is one friend of mine from my friend group that is just now planning on getting married. he'll be the first of all of us. and while he and his fiancé want kids pretty quickly once they're settled down, it still hasn't even happened yet. we're in our late 20s. and believe me, I understand the desire to timeskip to when the kids are old enough to be full people, but you have to remember not only that there are other ways to introduce new characters, but also who we're even trying to relate to here. is it the new kids, or their parents? because most of us aren't parents yet, much less the parents of teenagers, but we aren’t teenagers anymore either, and this isn’t framed as their story anyway. how are the majority of homestuck’s older fans represented in EP/HS2?

and when EP/HS2 skips the portion of these characters' lives that we, in real life, are actually living, it subtly hints that a story that would reflect what our lives are like isn't interesting, and tells us that not much good is expected to be waiting in our futures either. and the bigger problem with that is that the writing decisions in EP/HS2 represent the authors' answer to the question: how do we make this interesting? clearly they didn't think that anyone would be satisfied with a nice little romp through the lives these characters might've built. like, a slice of life type of story? or maybe something with a smaller stakes conflict? I dunno why, but my first thought was like... what if Jane ended up actually becoming a detective, and the story just had an intermission-style detour into her solving a case or something? at least a weird, hyper specific detour like that would signal that we care about what she's doing... that'd be fine by me! but they couldn't even give us something that would frame her as a good person... they just treated her like she never got un-possessed by the Condesce, and called it a day. it just feels like these are authors who wouldn't be satisfied with a story that lets the characters be at ease in their private lives. peace is something that is off the table, like, if the characters are living good, satisfying lives, we will never hear about it because apparently that counts as nothing to report.

but also... in the absence of the larger plot machinations that SBURB provided, what was left to create a struggle for these characters to face? it couldn't be Jack Noir, Lord English, the Condesce... those threats all got resolved. and they couldn’t let the characters exist in any facsimile of peace. so the writers needed something to stir things up. and in trying to find a new challenge to drive the story, they dug into the stuff that, in my opinion, should not have been used in this way. they began grasping at character drama, trying to wring conflict out of the deterioration of the relationships between the characters.

but at the same time, they're trying to capture the grandeur of homestuck during its more iconic moments. and okay, this is a pretty far out there speculation, but I've always made this observation about homestuck, and the way it got popularized. early on, fans would get into it with no real idea of how big or ambitious the story was going to be. going into act 1 blind, you wouldn't suspect this comic of being much more than a quirky, funny little weekly strip, set up for the sole purpose of making weird jokes about Nic Cage or Harry Anderson. then you get to the big shit. which in act 1 could just be the meteor destroying John's house. but that's a pretty impressive amount of escalation based on the expectations you had. fast forward to a bigger moment, like the reveal that the trolls' SGRUB session created the human universe, and you're super excited about this. so you tell whoever will listen that they should really read homestuck! and maybe they listen, and they go to page one and... well... they seem kind of unimpressed by the way the comic looks. this is what all the hype was about? and you really wanna sell it to them, so you're like, no, seriously, it gets so much better. and maybe you show them bits like the LOWAS walk around flash game, or maybe [S] make her pay, or something. and they're like, whoa, the comic gets like that? so perhaps they slog through the early acts, or maybe they just skip to the trolls and double back when they're confused enough... but either way, the comic's selling point is now it's climax, not the buildup.

and the problem with viewing the comic this way is that homestuck is both things. proportionally, homestuck is actually way more composed of the tedious little stuff than the grand big stuff. but homestuck was popularized via the grand big stuff, and sometimes I feel like EP/HS2 is attempting to fill itself with big stuff like that, but it isn't doing the legwork right. it's using character drama to fuel itself, but it's also trying to be highly epic in terms of its presentation. the lack of contrast flattens everything out, and as I described earlier, the story no longer has that essential push and pull between the terrorizing forces that threaten the characters/raise the stakes, and the unity and likability of the cast that makes you care about their struggle/gets you invested in seeing the conflict resolved. and I just wanna point out that those little interstitial bits... the ones that are typically viewed as the stuff you have to slog through in order to get to the interesting part? those were our main source of knowledge when it came to the characters. it's how we got invested in them and came to know that we liked or related to them in the first place.

the larger ramifications of this lean away from the little things, while also leaning into character drama to fuel conflict in the plot, leads to the overuse of bombastic character drama. sensationalized character drama. everything is always a huge fucking deal, while also being primarily concerned with the existing characters, rather than any kind of outside threat. so what are the tools? a wedding? a funeral? terminal illness, betrayal, a change in ideology that creates a schism... the loss of identity. all these high drama moments that generate conflict by sacrificing the bonds these characters shared. you know... letting that core piece of investment self destruct. the story is basically eating itself in order to sustain its momentum, but there's basically no point anymore. it's been gutted of the stuff that really mattered.

so why did everything go so badly? why do half of the characters not even like each other anymore? why do we not even like half of them anymore? why did the writers feel the need to dismantle them like this? well, because what else do we have to work with... how do you introduce a new threat to these characters without it being either SBURB all over again, or something entirely different that just makes these characters seem overwhelmingly put upon by the universe, like, more than any other individuals that have ever existed. it's actually a very rudimentary power escalation problem. gotta find that next level of bigger problem to set on everyone.

but do you wanna know what kind of homestuck fan I’ve been since the very beginning? I started reading homestuck 9 years ago. I think I was like 16 or 17? and at first I wasn’t sure how to interact with the comic, so I went to the “about” section of the website. it told me, in a broad sense, what mspaintadventures.com was, as a collection of work, and suggested that I begin by reading problem sleuth. not knowing that it wasn’t part of homestuck, I did just that. I read all of it. before I even got to homestuck. I am a fan that lives for the small, stupid, tedious fucking around. the slow buildup of total bullshit... the complex setup that gives you a million microscopic payoffs on it’s way to god knows what end goal. it’s like watching an explosion in reverse. all the tiny little pieces fly chaotically together and coalesce into a whole story, and you got to watch it build itself, piece by tiny little piece. I live and breathe for that level of detail. and the most fun I ever had with the story was when the characters were wandering around an environment, exploring and using various objects to set up these wacky chain reactions, half of which you’d never see coming, but which would all retroactively make sense in the end.

what I’m saying is that small scale conflict is interesting. and there are whole genres that build themselves off of this. I actually think that in certain instances, homestuck may fall under the slice of life genre. and slice of life is largely misunderstood as a rather bland genre, but the appeal is watching people with personalities that you enjoy. you watch them live their lives, and you go along for the ride. true slice of life is not a soap opera... it’s just enjoying the company of people who happen to be fictional. there's always been an element of that in homestuck... these were characters that you could see yourself getting along with if you met them. they were entertaining because of how they saw the world... how you would see the world if you were looking through their eyes. and homestuck gave you that opportunity. sometimes, that actually is all that you need.

I'm not saying that homestuck's ideal form is as a purely slice of life type of story... but wasn't that kind of what a lot of the fan works felt like? little comics about funny scenarios, or preexisting comedy bits with roles assigned to the characters they reminded you of... that stuff was the form that fun took for the fans of this comic. why is that so easily dismissed as frivolous? why is it so bad to want a little of that back? sometimes, you do wanna get into the hard stuff. maybe you wanna see Dave and Dirk have a conversation where they both admit that all they wanted as kids was a brother, and neither felt like they got to have that, but in very different ways. maybe you wanna see Roxy and Rose compare their similar feelings of estrangement, and explore the emotions that led them into their respective struggles with alcohol. maybe you wanna see John have a moment of sadness when he decides he wants to raise a kid, because he misses his own dad, and while Jane's dad is definitely family, he isn't the guy that actually raised John for the first 13 years of his life. maybe you wanna see Jade get inordinately clingy with every single one of her friends until one of them finally voices a concern about needing some space, only to see a glimpse of Jade's absolute terror at the thought of being alone again. and that pain is something that could definitely find a place in a story with more actual down time. maybe these moments of actually cathartic lingering pain could be explored with sensitivity in a story that gives them room to breathe. if the writers played their cards right and let the characters heal in meaningful ways, they might've even gotten tears of happiness out of a few of us. wouldn't that have been wild.

I just hate the idea that something is more realistic if it's dark. that's not true at all. I understand where the sentiment comes from. I understand the merits of taking an unflinching look at hard truths. but cynicism is not the same as realism. and realistically, people will try hard to seek good things for themselves in life. and even if they miss the mark... even if they fall into depression, or lack the ability to make their dreams a reality, these particular characters had already sought and found good people. people who would, realistically, absolutely help a friend if they needed it. I know this, because I watched them do that. the whole first five acts were literally about the trolls yelling at the humans because there was a huge problem that they blamed the kids for causing, and what did these kids do? they said "hey wait, let's fix that" and they did. even though the trolls made a horribly rude first impression. even though it was monumentally challenging. these kids have fought and died for each other's sake. they are family. if not by blood then by bond. and when that part of a story resonates with an audience, it is valuable.

I feel like I shouldn't have to defend the value of connecting positively with an audience. I get that this may be kind of a hokey take... I get that the people who currently like EP/HS2 will probably think I'm asking for something far too saccharine. but at this point I don't even care. once again, this is just my personal opinion, long and rant-like though it may be. and clearly it will change nothing about the current state of homestuck's most canon non-canon continuation. I guess my one major frustration is the extent to which some people have bought into what I consider to be blatant character defamation. it pains me when people talk about the actions of some of the characters in EP/HS2, because while many blame the writers for the unsettling behavior displayed by them in EP/HS2, some will readily consider this to be where the kids from the early acts really ended up as people.

#homestuck #homestuck^2 #fair warning this is all criticism #don't like don't read #and all that jazz #I'm pinning this post cuz I don't wanna lose it #because looking at it will be my self control when I wanna rant about it again and I know I will #like no you asshole you already ranted you don't have to do it again #cw: suicide #I legit forgot to tag that til I went to get a shower and realized halfway through #I basically info dumped all this here and then my head was well and truly empty #also #cw: cheating #?#idk that's the only other thing I can think of that I discussed here which might be a problem for some folks #btw subtle tag whispering that the reblog with tags explaining where a couple of the things I mentioned were addressed a little was nice #I knew I wouldn't get everything spot on... this is definitely criticism coming from a not 100% informed place #but yeah... I still kinda feel like even if the epilogues acknowledge the writer as an entity that differs from the characters...#that just kind of doubles down on the inability of fans to engage? like it cements it.#and even if meat does focus on their 20s while candy timeskips (which I wasn't aware of) like...#look at what happened to meat #look because I don't want to lol #is there anybody left who isn't sad?#cuz real talk I like using happy characters as wish fulfillment when I'm sad #and seeing a character get challenged and still come out with some determined positive energy... I love that #anyone remember when Aradia went god tier? I was overjoyed #literally all it took was her beating apathy and regaining her personhood #I love that stuff #god fucking damn it I'm still ranting what is even up with that

58 notes · View notes

wherevermyway · 3 years

Text

we’re professional. (1/??) // minbin // 18+

❄ part of yuki’s favourites! ❄

we’re professional. chapter one: sophisticated series navigation: [desktop] [mobile]

pairing: lee minho x seo changbin rating: explicit! 18+ warnings/tags: slow burn, angst, eventual sexual content, age difference, art student changbin, artist minho, fake dating AU. word count: 4,807 also on AO3

originally posted: 17 december 2020

series summary: Lee Minho, or Minho: The Heartless, is a famous artist, which comes with an annoying entourage of paparazzi that are very invested in his life.

Two years ago, a piece at UBC's annual student's exhibit catches Minho's eye: "arranged: in black", a series of greyscale paintings crafted by sophomore Seo Changbin. Minho talks with Changbin at length for hours, then offers to help him financially if they pretend to date for a while, so Minho can please the press. Naturally, a walking exhibit of the "starving artist" stereotype, Changbin accepts the offer wholeheartedly.

There are no strings attached: Changbin can leave at any time. Hell, Minho doesn't even ask him for sex in exchange for the money, just companionship and occasional skinship. Changbin knows that Minho is emotionally damaged from several bad relationships in the past, so to have someone pay him just for providing them company is nice. Sure, he could go off and date someone and work on settling down, but he just doesn't want to. Minho is too interesting, too valuable.

Eventually, something's gotta give. When it does, it could potentially damage their relationship and careers forever.

disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable, please stop reading now.

chapter summary: Minho brings up an interesting proposal while celebrating the second year of his professional arrangement with Changbin.

“I can’t accept this.” The young, blue-haired man at the opposite side of the table of a middle-aged brunette pushes an open envelope back across the table. “It’s too much. You’ve already given me so much this month, I couldn’t possibly accept anymore.”

“Changbin,” the brunette smirks, bringing the crystal glass of wine up to his mouth. “Please, don’t insult me. I’m not offering this just off the cuff. Besides, it’s not just cash that’s in there.”

The bluenette frowns, bringing his gin and tonic to his mouth, taking a careful, prescribed sip as he watches the older man cautiously. He lets the gin burn its way down his throat before he sighs. “It’s sex, then. That’s what you want, Minho?”

“No.” Minho’s expression quickly turns serious and slightly sour. “Not at all. I told you when we first started this arrangement that this wouldn’t turn sexual.”

“Right.” Changbin cocks his eyebrows up in response, his tone somewhat sarcastic. He brings the glass up again, tilting it and his head backwards, letting the ice slink down and hit him in the nose as he finishes off his drink. He sets the glass down on to the table, ice settling with a soft clink, before he rolls his eyes up and frowns. “What’s all this for, then?” The young man rolls his wrist around, bringing his chin down to his right hand. “You’ve really gone all out for this date.”

Minho softly smiles, then mimics Changbin, mirroring him in the way that he places his head in his left palm. “It’s been two years, officially.” He makes eye contact with a server somewhere off in the distance, and nods upward.

“Two years, eh?” Changbin tuts. “Surprising that neither of us have gotten sick of each other, nor found other people to spend time with.” He takes in a quick breath, then flashes his teeth with a lazy smirk. “Sure you’re not getting serious with me yet?”

The older man opens his mouth to speak, but quickly recedes his statement as a lanky waiter confidently struts over to the table. “Hyunjin, could you please bring me the bottle of Clos D’Ambonnay I have in the back?”

“Of course, Mr. Lee,” the blond waiter nods his head once with a polite smile before he makes his way back to whence he came.

Changbin squinted, knitting his brows together as he shook his head once. “You own this restaurant, too, don’t you?”

“Mmm, I wouldn’t necessarily say own it, no.” Minho hums, bringing his index finger in between his teeth as he ponders. “It’s a partnership with an old colleague of mine, Chan; you met him at the Vivace Vancouver exhibit over the spring. He had that dreadful red hair, the one where you said he looked like he got electrocuted and then spray painted by an angry ex-lover.”

The younger man’s eyes go wide as he tries to hold back his laughter. “Oh my god,” he sighs, “I remember that. How do you forget something so audacious, is that even possible?” He regains his composure and rests upright against the back of the chair. “In my defence, though, I was two glasses of Chianti in when I said that. Please tell me that his hair isn’t that horrible shade anymore. It was so bad.”

Minho smiles widely and softly shakes his head. “No, no, god, no. I met with him the day after and told him that he needed to go back to see my stylist immediately and never go back to the hellspawn that butchered his hair.”

“Apologies for the interruption, Mr. Lee,” the lanky waiter from before returned, presenting a black bottle before he placed it on top of the table. “As requested.” He placed well-crafted champagne flutes in front of both Minho and Changbin.

“Hyunjin,” Minho tutted as the waiter grabbed the bottle, “I’ve told you several times that just ‘Minho’ is fine.”

The blond waiter half-smiled as he wrapped a hand towel around the cork, deftly wiggling it off with a muffled pop. “And I will tell you each time,” he poured some of the champagne into Changbin’s glass first, “you will always be Mr. Lee when I’m at work.”

“You’re too stiff,” the brunette gently pushed his glass towards the blond as he set Changbin’s glass down. “I know that Chan — sorry, Mr. Bang — is strict with all of you, to maintain a pristine image,” Hyunjin picks up Minho’s glass and bites his lip as if he’s holding back commentary, “but you’re still in your prime. Bend the rules a little while you can get away with it.”

Changbin watches the way Minho’s eyes flutter around from the glass to Hyunjin, catching himself getting caught up in the way the light sparkles against his brown eyes, the way his eyelashes paint shadows on his irises. He doesn’t mean for every detail to be etched into his memory, but there was always something about remembering the details of Minho’s soft face that warmed him. If it were any other world, any other person, perhaps he would be catching feelings.

This arrangement, however, was strictly professional. There was no room for feelings.

Hyunjin sets the bottle back down onto the table. “Sure thing, Minho,” he sarcastically scoffs as he wiggles his shoulders in some sort of strange dance of mockery. “Would you like an ice bucket to keep this chilled?”

Minho shrugs, seemingly indifferent, but his expression turns a bit more serious. “I suppose. Don’t worry about us, though. Tend to the other customers first — we’ll be here for a while longer. A bit of champagne slowly warming won’t be the end of the world.”

“You got it, Mr. Lee,” Hyunjin says, tipping his index and middle fingers off of his forehead in some sort of joking salute before he spins on his heel and walks off to another table.

Minho grabs his champagne flute and flashes his teeth at Changbin. “Sorry about that, love, I’ve just gotta give the staff here trouble every now and again.”

Changbin blushes as he picks up his champagne flute, bringing it close to Minho’s. “Don’t apologize.” He tries to restrain his embarrassment, still mentally replaying the way that Minho called him ‘love’, desperately trying to get the sound to imprint upon his memory. “Anyway,” he lifts his head from his palm and stares directly into the brunette’s eyes. “Two years? I can’t believe it’s been this long since I met you.”

“Your ‘arranged: in black’ series captured me, Changbin, what can I say?” The older man tilts his head to the side, tugging his lips into a smile. “I still think about it every day.”

“It’s hard to avoid thinking about it when all four pieces are hanging behind your bed, wouldn’t you say?”

“Suppose that’s fair,” Minho bites his bottom lip as he avoids laughing. “But, wow, two years. Two very eventful years. To think, you were a scraggly sophomore two years ago when I met you. You really kind of fit the ‘starving artist’ stereotype back then, hmm?”

Changbin’s eyes subconsciously darted down to the maroon tablecloth. He avoided thinking about his life before he met Minho, since it wasn’t something he was overly fond of. Sleeping for a couple of hours a night after a late dishwashing shift at the restaurant, waking up before dawn to run to his part-time barista job, then somehow getting to class just in time to nearly doze off mid-project sketch, all to repeat it again the next day. The chronic sleep deprivation painted him in an ashy grey, and he perpetually smelled of instant ramen and coffee.

No. That was in the past.

He shuddered at the thought of his past life. It was stressful, and he was thankful that Minho came along and offered him some kindness. Most art students either came from wealthy families, or lived in the same shoes that Changbin did. The ones that weren’t from wealthy lineage would probably stay under the poverty line for the rest of their lives, but at least they would be happy creating things that came from the depths of their soul.

For some, it was worth the sacrifice. He knew what he was getting into when he was accepted into the visual arts programme at the University of British Columbia, and he was prepared for the pain and agony it would cause him for the small chance he could make it big while doing something he loved.

“Binnie, love?” Minho’s soft voice pulled Changbin from his memory. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Changbin nodded his head a couple of times, almost as if he was willing himself to be calm. “Sorry, I just kinda got distracted. Thought about when we first met and kinda got transported back in time.” It wasn’t entirely a lie, but it definitely was far from the truth.

The older man softly smiled and nudged his champagne flute forward. “Well, here’s to two years of whatever the hell this is. Here’s to however long we have left and to wherever we may go next.”

Changbin smiled, turning his chin slightly inward as he tapped his flute against Minho’s. “I like that. To whatever the hell is next.”

“‘Whatever the hell is next’,” Minho smiled as he brought the flute up to his lips. “That’s a good one.”

They didn’t get to the bottom of the bottle of champagne until about a half-hour past closing. It had been two years of the same company every Tuesday and Thursday night, and usually most Fridays and Saturdays, yet they still found new things to talk about each time they met. “You’re still so foolishly young and in university,” Minho would scold Changbin over the phone, “so go out and get hammered at a stupid house party and I’ll come by tomorrow and help nurse you out of your hangover.” Minho was really a sweetheart, even if he didn’t want to date and was, to quote Minho himself, ‘emotionally unavailable’.

It had been two years, and Changbin still didn’t fully understand why people were so pressed on calling Minho heartless.

“And so,” Changbin took a sip of water from his glass, setting it down a bit roughly, some of the water sloshing around and splashing on to the table, “I had to sketch a live model, right? Turns out Seungmin makes a horrible model at two in the morning, but we thought the idea was brilliant.”

Minho loudly cackles, throwing his head back and clapping his hands once in front of his face. “You had just gotten done downing several shots at the bar. What made either of you think that sketching in charcoal was a good idea?”

The younger man folds over, resting his head in his palms as he tries not to collapse on to the floor in laughter. “The project was due on Monday! And, hey, we got it done, and I somehow got a decent grade in the end.”

“Ah,” Minho leans back into his chair as he looks up to the wall to his left, smiling as he wipes a tear from his eye. “I’d love to scold you for that, but the truth is, I can’t. I did the same things in uni ten years ago.”

Changbin rests his chin against the back of his hand, languidly smiling as he watches Minho get lost in memories past. These moments that they shared, where they were just so plainly human — not a famous artist, not a struggling art student, but simply Minho and Changbin — these were why Changbin never sought out another partner. It was unconventional to most people, especially those his age, to have such a hands-off relationship, but it just worked for them. Sometimes, the things that came off the most discordant could somehow still find a way to harmonize, and that was what they did.

“You know, you didn’t totally open the envelope,” Minho points at the middle of the table with an open hand, as if he were guiding Changbin back to the thick paper.

Changbin shrugged his shoulders and bashfully looked away for a moment before staring Minho down. “Come on, Min,” he lowers his voice a bit, “I don’t need to know how much you’re giving me, at least not now.”

Minho dismissively waves his hand before nudging the envelope back to Changbin. “It’s not just money, love, I promise. Nothing too domestic, either. Just,” he pauses, bringing a finger to his chin as he looks up at the ceiling, “I suppose it’s partially a token of my appreciation? Yeah, that sounds right. A way to tell you I’m thankful you’ve stuck around for so long, even with all of the weird shit we’ve gone through. There’s more to it than that, but that sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

“I dunno, you’re making this feel like a real relationship,” the bluenette sarcastically mumbles a bit as he gingerly picks up the envelope, squinting a bit at Minho. He opens it, then pulls out a few plastic-like polymer bills: some green, some red. His expression quickly shifts to confusion when he comes across papery stationary, the textural difference causing a nerve to spark up in his arm. Stationary. A letter? He pulls the light grey paper out of the envelope, eyeing Minho as he opens it. “Really? Getting awfully boyfriend-like on me, Min.”

“Oh, come on, just read it,” the older man tuts, rifling through the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “I promise, it’s not as sappy as it looks.”

Changbin plucks his glasses from the table, wiggling the temples to fit just behind his ears, then clears his throat. He tries to swallow down the smirk on his face as he mocks Minho’s intonation and speech. “My loveliest Changbin,” a laugh creeps up from his stomach as he reads on. “Every single day, I wake up and I see your ‘arranged: in black’ pieces, intricately framed behind my bed, and I’m taken aback by the fact that your mind knows no bounds when it comes to expressing creativity.” The younger man peers over the sheet again, studying the somewhat bored, slightly flustered expression on the elder’s face.

“So I had a couple of glasses of wine while writing, I got a bit sentimental.” Minho flutters his lips as he rolls his eyes and flicks his wrist. “At least it’s not as bad as last year’s letter.”

Changbin smiled, but quickly brought the paper in front of his face to hide the subtle reddish tint growing on his face. “I usually don’t like keeping my own work, as you know,” he continued to read off of the letter, still avoiding eye contact with Minho, “but the graphite portrait of you, asleep on my bed from your last bout of finals — it holds a special spot in my heart. I love seeing it every time I enter my closet. It’s like there are little reminders of you scattered across my apartment, and across my heart.”

Oh.

There was a warmth that blossomed and grew in Changbin’s abdomen. The warmth reminded him of ivy hanging off of old buildings, quickly encompassing and embracing everything within its reach. It was a strange sensation, and it gave him pause before he continued reading the note.

Perhaps this was more than sentimental.

Perhaps Changbin was reading too far into things again.

“Changbin?” Minho’s voice pulled the bluenette from the cavern of thoughts he had recessed himself into. “Where did you go?” His tone was firm, distracting Changbin from the fact that Minho had interlaced his fingers between the younger man’s left hand.

This was something they always did. Minho was always touchy-feely, even if it didn’t progress past shirtless embraces as they slept next to each other, or walking hand-in-hand. The way the pads of Minho’s fingertips softly caressed the back of his hand, though, made things seem different. Special.

“Your closet.” Realizing he had spent too much time losing himself in between the grooves of Minho’s fingerprints, Changbin sputtered out some words to barely form a coherent thought. “You reminded me that I still have one of your Burberry hoodies lost somewhere in my apartment.”

Minho furrowed his brows for a moment, trying not to get caught up on how distant Changbin’s response was. “The oversized black one? You know I don’t mind if you keep it, Bin.”

“It was nearly a thousand dollars, Minho.”

The older man scoffs and rolls his eyes a bit, bringing his left hand up to the table, a small brown box of sorts covered up by his palm. “Well,” the brunette squeezed Changbin’s hand a bit, causing them to make eye contact, “when you’re done reading that letter, I’ll be sure to avoid telling you how much your ‘anniversary’ gift is.” Minho winked as he ended his sentence, right when Changbin was thinking about saying something in protest.

“Minho,” Changbin whines, drooping his shoulders a bit as he frowns.

“Changbin,” Minho teases a bit as he mockingly whines in response. “Trust me, it’s not just me spending money aimlessly. It’ll tie into the idea I have in that letter. You know, really make some of those tabloids make us look nice and get off our backs for a while.”

The younger man bit his tongue and scanned his eyes down the letter, trying to find the last spot he had read over. Across my apartment , reading the words caused his hands to sweat, across my heart, made his stomach clench. Domestic and soft, exactly what they were, but also, somehow exactly what they were not. He continued reading off the letter, but his memories started creeping up during the empty gaps between sentences.

There was the callous bite to Minho’s tone during their first real meet-up. “Our arrangement is for mutual gains: you’ll be able to live comfortably, and I’ll get the press off of my back. You won’t be a starving artist, and I’ll no longer be ‘Minho, the Heartless’. We’re professional boyfriends: all of the benefits, none of the downsides, like feelings.” His bony hands felt cold, like ice, when they shook hands to confirm their arrangement. Changbin had felt in over his head then, but he knew he didn’t have anywhere else to turn.

In contrast, there was the night that Changbin had recently stayed over at the end of October. They had gotten back shortly after one in the morning after celebrating Minho’s thirty-first birthday with a handful of his friends and several well-renowned professional artists and gallery owners. Sure, Changbin had been Minho’s quote-unquote “boyfriend” for the night, but it benefitted his art career a bit, just to branch out and connect. None of that had mattered, though, because the best part was when they had gotten half-undressed and passed out on Minho’s duvet together, giggling about how some of the attendees thought ‘artist’s birthday’ meant ‘licence to dress as insanely as humanly possible’. The one-on-one time was always what Changbin looked forward to the most: that soft, personal connection with another person on such a raw, human level.

That was the weekend he borrowed Minho’s black, oversized Burberry sweater to wear home. Changbin lied earlier. He knew exactly where it was: curled up next to his wall in his bed. The soft scent of bergamot and mandarin of the Dior Sauvage that Minho wore on his wrists and in the divots of his clavicles had slowly started to fade into hints of vanilla and sandalwood. While he knew that his arrangement with Minho wouldn’t last forever, he wanted to live in the moments that made him feel like he was in a true, caring relationship. He had a friend in Minho, he truly did. It would probably hurt like hell when they eventually decided to move on from their agreement.

We're professional. Changbin would remind himself every night as he curled up into Minho’s sweater, remembering the way Minho’s arms felt warm on his back and on his shoulders, how soft his manicured fingers were when they fit perfectly in between Changbin’s. We are not real boyfriends. The sweater would catch his inevitable tears as he lost himself in the confusing haze they had painted themselves under. Business dynamic. This was the price he would pay to get into the elusive elitist art world. Strictly professional.

Even if it cost him his sanity.

“Did I just read that correctly?” Changbin’s voice was alarmed, and he frantically re-read the words on the paper before darting his eyes around nervously. Minho smirked as Changbin leaned over the table, dropping his voice to a just-audible whisper. “You want to do what to get the press’ attention?”

Minho grabbed the ashy brown jewellery box from the table, letting go of Changbin’s left hand. He opened the box and his expression flattened. “Exactly what the paper says, Bin.” Inside the desaturated box sat a contrastingly bright, rose gold band.

It was a ring embedded with actual fucking diamonds.

To anyone else, this would be serious. ‘Call your parents, scream at your best friend, even at two in the morning’ levels of seriousness. However, Changbin and Minho were not ‘anyone else’. They were in their own strange, unique bubble where the rules of modern society did not apply to them.

“How about we graduate from professional boyfriends to professional fiancés?”

Like most Sunday mornings nowadays, Changbin woke up to the scent of freshly-brewed coffee. Minho may have travelled to fancy galleries across the world and tried extravagant blends of coffee during his tenure, but he would always fall back on Starbucks’ blonde roast for his morning routines. “Why bother going through all of the effort of getting my hands on something overly fancy from Europe? I have yet to be let down by this one, and it’s been over ten years since I started drinking it. Why stop now?”

The logic made sense, really, and the coffee wasn’t bad.

“The Vancouver Sun’s already got an article out,” Minho excitedly muttered under his breath, setting a ceramic mug down on the nightstand closest to Changbin. He stared at his phone as he made his way back around the bed, causing the mattress to sink as he sat down. “So many people are speculating, like it even matters. If they had really been following me these past two years, they’d know better.”

It was too early for this. Minho was always business as soon as he woke up: endearing in theory, terribly annoying in practice.

Changbin rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands as he rolled onto his back, sleepily glaring up at Minho. “You’re loud.”

“And you’re hungover,” the brunette quipped, not looking away from his phone as he smiled at himself. “Drink your water and your coffee, love, you’ll feel better.”

“Whatever,” Changbin grumbled under his breath as he sat up, reaching over to the nightstand. There was a sheen on his left hand that caused him to momentarily lose his breath. Shit. He drew his hand into his face to stare at the ring he had conveniently forgotten about overnight. It felt like nothing before he noticed it, but now that he was staring at it, it felt like the ring was going to cut off the circulation to his finger. It felt like a boa constrictor was tightening around him, making it hard to breathe.

Changbin had every intention to pull himself away from the suffocation of the ring. Instead, he found himself trying to count each small diamond wedged between the two layers of rose gold. A sudden dip right behind him and an arm around his waist literally pulled him from his thoughts. “Min!”

“It’s pretty,” Minho gently grabbed Changbin’s hand, tucking his chin into the younger man’s shoulder. “I didn’t know if you’d like rose gold, but I know you hate gold, and silver’s too simple for you. For a fake engagement ring, seems pretty convincing, hmm?”

As much as he doesn’t want to, Changbin sinks into Minho’s embrace. Blame it on the fatigue, he figured, but found himself surprised that the older man didn’t pull away. For the shortest of moments, it almost feels like they’re meant to fit together like this. “It’s expensive,” the brunette whispers, “to no one’s surprise, so please don’t lose it.”

The younger man squints in disapproval. “How much was it?”

“It’s impolite to ask a fiancé something like that, you know,” Minho huffs a bit dramatically as he feigns irritation.

Changbin, however, seems plenty irritated for the both of them. He rolls around, mere centimetres away from Minho’s face as he frowns up at the older man. “It’s a good thing this is all fake, then, right? How much was it?”

“Bin,” the brunette’s expression falters as he cocks his head to the side. “It’s not important, I don’t understand why you’re so—”

Changbin desperately wants to stay this close to Minho, to drown in his embrace and the warmth of his touch. Professional. Fake boyfriends, fake fiancés. “It’s just for show, I know. Since it’s fake, though, you shouldn’t have a problem telling me, right?” There’s a layer of hurt in his voice that he knows he can’t hide. He dips his chin into his chest and closes his eyes, desperate to make this all just stop and go away. Something about this, though, just felt too real, too close to an actual relationship.

What the fuck were they doing? All of this had to cross some sort of unspoken relationship rule somewhere, right? The blurred lines between what was real and what was fake in their arrangement was causing Changbin's head to spin.

Minho doesn’t seem sure about how to handle the situation. The moments pass by in silence until the older man takes in a deep breath, then he wiggles his index finger under Changbin’s chin, tilting his face upwards. “Hey,” he quietly demands, “look at me, Bin.”

So, the bluenette does as requested. He stares into Minho’s eyes and instantly softens.

“If it bothers you that much, I can go out and get something simpler.” Minho’s voice quivers a bit, almost like he feels how uncomfortable Changbin is. “I just… I don’t know what I was thinking when I went out and I got this one. I looked around with the agent for over an hour, and then that one just caught my eye, just as things were looking hopeless.”

Suddenly, Changbin’s hand is in Minho’s again, and the older man stares at the band with purpose, rotating the younger man’s hand around freely. “I guess I put in a bit too much of a personal flair on this. I really prioritized what I figured you’d like before the importance of keeping up the façade that this is all fake.”

They both stare at the ring for a moment, then look at one another. Neither of them moved, neither of them breathed as they stared at each other with shared panic, concern, worry. There was an unfamiliar emotion that lingered at the back of their gaze, but it was hard to place. Changbin hadn’t felt anything like this before. He was equal parts nervous, nauseated, and lost.

If this were like the romantic comedies that Changbin and Seungmin would watch while hungover, this would be the part where Minho would roll on top of him, say something like “fuck the rules, I just want you”. They would cry and kiss and roll around the sheets together. There would be a swell of uplifting orchestral music in the background, indicating that fate had given its blessing on the couple.

This wasn’t a movie, though. This was fucking reality, and there was nothing but tension in the air and a yearning in the bottom of Changbin’s stomach. Their situation was complex and convoluted and it was going to end in heartbreak for him, and only him. Really, he had no one to blame but himself.

Our arrangement is for mutual gains. Minho’s voice was so loud.

We’re professional boyfriends. It was sour.

All of the benefits, none of the downsides, like feelings. It hurt as it echoed in Changbin’s head, but Minho’s voice was all he wanted to hear.

Feelings.

Feelings?

That’s when it hit Changbin: he was falling for Minho — Minho, the (supposedly, yet to be proven) Heartless — and he couldn’t stop himself, no matter how stupid he knew it was. Perhaps the most terrifying part of this, though, wasn’t the fact that Minho didn’t feel the same way.

No, the most terrifying thing was that Changbin couldn’t tell if Minho was actually interested in him or not. Minho always felt strongly one way or another. For them to sit here, struck dumb in silence, was unnerving. The silence meant uncertainty.

It meant possibility.

#we're professional #skz fics #lee minho x seo changbin #seo changbin x lee minho #minbin #minho x changbin #changbin x minho #wherevermyway

4 notes · View notes

wintaejk · 4 years

Text

Jungkook’s FIC REC | OS 2

I had too many links on the other post. Here is the second part of my Jungkook’s fic rec but with others themes.

Again, all those fictions belong to the amazing authors who wrote them, not me. I want to thank them once more.

(f) = fluff

(a) = angst

(m) = mature

magical au

— Trick or Treat: Howling for You (F) (M) — by @fortunexkookie

The way your Little Red Riding Hood costume lured over a fuckboy in a half-assed werewolf costume was a little cliche, but god damn was he beautiful. He promised he had plenty of big things to show you, and you took him up on the offer, not realizing that you might’ve bitten off more than you could chew.

werewolf au | established relationship | +14k

— rottenfolk (M) — by @junqkook

a look was as hazardous as chemicals, a kiss as perilous as poison; his eyes and lips felt akin to a cure, but he was purely venom.

faerie au | royalty au | +13k

Commentary - If there’s only one one-shot I could recommend you to read of all tumblr, it would probably be this one. For me, it is rare to acheive such a level of mastery in fantasy fictions. Writing is already complicated, but when you have to place the readers in an unknown universe, it is even harder. However, the real brilliance of this story is the end. Because the end is supposed to satiate the reader in a way or another, it is supposed to offer what all the reader craved: a sort of closure. But here we all are, waiting for a sequel, because this story will make you want a next episode. And that is the brilliance, because you will surely never forget a story with that kind of power. So those are some of the reasons why this fiction is for me a mix of art, smartness and excellence ; and also why you would be missing something huge by not reading it.

— overdrive (M) — by @junqkook

you thought meeting jungkook was just a coincidence, but the universe didn’t deal in coincidences.

vampire au | soulmate au | enemies to lovers | +13k

— Crescent Bound - Jungkook (F) (M) — by @parkhabits

A pact bound by the moon. A secret kept only amongst themselves. Each of them experiencing their own cycles of heat.

werewolf au | friends to lovers | +12k

— Room 109 (M) — by @lavishedinjimin

Having Jungkook as your apartment buddy was a lot to get used to. But with one early day, your heat comes up much stronger than usual, and you were desperate for an alpha’s touch.

werewolf au | roommate au | alpha!jungkook | +6k

— after dark (M) — by @seokoloqy

Jungkook has served the royal family for generations, seen them live and die countless times. When it comes to you, he can’t watch you wither away too, but your lust for one another makes it harder and harder to stay apart.

vampire au | royalty au | knight!jungkook | +8k

— Life’s Blood (F) (A) (M) — by @littlenoona

You produce blood cells at an increased rate when blood is lost, effectively, you cannot bleed out. This ability has served you well so far, even gaining you a rare friend, and you’ve made it your source of income, but it also has its downsides, one of which you’ve managed to avoid successfully, until now.

vampire au | +13k

— you come in waves (A) (M) — by @angelguk

if jeongguk had a choice, he would destroy the sun. it’s not like he needed it for warmth due to his werewolf abilities making him a scorching radiator. it would also help his heart. because you look delectable in that stupid bikini.

werewolf au | friends to lovers au | 4k

— tell me your secrets (i’m all ears) (F) — by @jinpire

You’re not afraid of Jeon Jeongguk. Even if he’s probably some kind of bear or giant cat shifter, and just a hint of his irritation had your instincts vibrating beneath your skin like a live wire. Your thumb brushed over the plastic dome of mini-Levi’s head, taking comfort in the cartoon scowl and dead eyes, the tiny grey sticks of his 3DM gear. Small could be pretty fucking powerful too.

shifter au | college au | bunny!kook | +6k

drabbles: nooks and naps - foxie moxie (don’t pull my tail) - look before you leap - fluffles and kerfuffles

— Pomegranate Seeds (M) — by @taetaebaepsae

Jungkook thinks he’s found the perfect new roommate, but little doesn’t he know you’re just aching to corrupt him.

demon au | roommate au | virgin!jungkook | +4k

other themes

— Every Kind of Way (F) (M) — by @taehyungforreal

{Three little vignettes, three completely different experiences, same perfectly wonderful boyfriend JK.}

strangers to lovers | established relationship | +14k

Commentary - I remember when this fiction was posted. I read the teaser a few days before, and I was waiting for it. I remember the exact date of the release of this story, and let me tell you it never happens to me. But this is how much I liked this story. This masterpiece. This fiction is 95% made of smut. This is a warning if you don’t like that. However, what I like about Ashley’s works is that smut is not only smut (okay, sometimes it’s just pure filth but whatever). It’s not the first time I’ve read a piece of work of her and that I’ve been so thankful of reading her. Because the stories she writes are realistic. Sex is not always perfect. Sex is not always like in porn. Sex can be embarrassing. And this is why I love what Ashley writes, because she always have that realistic point of view on life. And sometimes it’s also nice to not turn everything into porn. What is very likeable - I said likeable? I meant loveable, sorry - about that story is also the three different stages of the relation of Jk and reader. This is also something I like about her writings. Life evolves, relationships evolve, and so does sex. So in this story, you will experience three different Jungkook. And it’s three reasons why you should read this fiction, three reasons why you will probably love it. One thing is sure, this chef-d’oeuvre will leave you wondering if your eyes have been burnt by the smuttiness or blessed by all the talent of this writer.

— tattooed two (ft. kth) (F) (M) — by @httpjeon

your boyfriend’s best friend joins you for a night you’ll never forget.

tattoo artist au | established relationship | poly au | +8k

— Inkling (A) (M) — by @gguksgalaxy

Jungkook is your brother’s boyfriend’s co-worker, they own a tattoo and piercing parlour. In other words, he’s tall, gorgeous, has his passion literally etched into his skin, looks incredibly good in a man-bun, and is semi-unattainable for you. Why? Well…you’re not entirely sure but him ditching right after a very heated make-out session sure isn’t a good sign. His extremely poor mood the next week sure isn’t either, but the only way to fix it is to face the beast head-on. Right?

tattoo artist au | +17k

— Freak-quency (M) — by @taehyungforreal

His eyes sparkle and he fights back a smile when he asks you why. “Is it because I didn’t give you something else to swallow like I said I would,” he questions, halfway through a much less subtle adjustment of his growing erection. Yoongi was right, he wants to be in trouble.

rockstar au | established relationship | +8k

— Boots (M) —

3000+ words of Ashley kinking on Jungkook’s boot. That’s it.

rockstar au | established relationship | part of Freak-quency | +3k

— Heartbreaker with a Heart of Gold (A) (M) — by @filmflowersbangtan

It was around this time almost three years ago when Jungkook moved to LA after his band got signed to a famous record label. He told you that he’d keep in contact with you. That he’d visit as much as he could. That he loved you. But about a month after leaving, he stopped texting and calling as much. And then a mere week after the band’s first EP dropped, Burning Rabbit was a sensation.

rocksatr au | ex lovers | +3k

— Brother’s best friend (M) — by @lavishedinjimin

In which Y/n owns a smut blog dedicated to her crush and brother’s best friend, jungkook. it was all fun and games until he finds out about it and acts it out with you.

brother’s best friend!jungkook | +5k

— Sugarplum Elegy (F) (A) (M) — by @bymoonchild

You know no bounds nor depth with Jungkook. While your fuck buddy loves sleeping in your bed and doing laundry for you with his favourite fabric softener, you are in love with a mysterious honeyed, velvety voice on Soundcloud. All’s fine, until you find out that the voice that metaphors your heart to a sweet sugarplum melody actually belongs to the boy who has been taking up a special spot in your bed and in your heart, strumming at your heartstrings all this while.

friends with benefits | college au | idiots to lovers | +17k

— The Kids Aren’t Alright (F) (A) (M) — by @sketchguk

Sneaking around with Jeongguk during your Christian retreat is complicated when you’re both dedicated to your jobs as co-youth group counselors at your father’s ministry.

friends with benefits | pastor’s kid!reader | +10k

— Gym (F) (M) — by @hobiwonder

Jungkook has a crush on you and has been watching you work out at his gym. One day you finally confront his obvious crush.

business woman!reader | fratboy!jungkook | older reader | +8k

— Gravity Check (M) — by @gimmesumsuga

The one where Jungkook is your oh-so-handsome climbing instructor.

climbing instructors!jungkook | strangers to lovers | 14k

— The Monogamy Monologues (F) (M) — by @kpopfanfictrash

The year? Some point after college. The occasion? Namjoon is getting married and the Rich Man’s Crochet Club has convened once again. Somewhere between the drinks and the laughter, everyone has the same realization: Jungkook has never been in a serious relationship. In the name of all that is holy (Overwatch and booze), the club’s mission is revived. Now though, their goal is much more perilous. Now, they aim to find Jeon Jungkook a girlfriend. (Part of The Rich Man’s Crochet Club series)

fuckboy!jungkook | wedding planner!reader | strangers to lovers | +42k

— The Virgin Volume (F) (A) (M) —

This fic exists in the RMCC universe. It takes place before RMCC and is the story of how Jungkook lost his virginity. To quote Seokjin/Namjoon: “What Jungkook doesn’t know won’t hurt him and – let’s be honest – his story is hilarious. One pump,” Seokjin laughs, sounding like a hyena. “One pump and he’s done.” // Ducking his head, Namjoon tries not to smile. “It was a rookie mistake,” he protests, defending their friend. “Jungkook was overexcited and couldn’t control himself. He got better.”

college au | friends to lovers | prequel to TMM | +6k

— everlasting (A — by @kimvvantae

being able to love the same person forever is a blessing given from the heavens. to you, however, eternity has become a curse.

reincarnation au | 18k

— Performances (M) — by @littlenoona

The same handsome guy has been appearing at your performances and you become more and more interested in who he is - now you’re dancing only for him, despite a hall full of people.

strangers to lovers | professional dancer!reader | +6k

— Matching Hearts (F) (A) — by @gukwluv

a drunk call to your ex boyfriend leads to a night of fun adventures that make you wonder why you even split in the first place.

exes au | +3k

— locker room talk (M) — by @minnpd

You end up having a rather heated talk with Jeon Jungkook in the locker room when he announces he has been chosen for the audition you both participated to.

dancer au | enemies to lovers | fuckboy!jungkook | +5k

— not quite lovers (M) — by @junqkook

hiring jeon jungkook as your personal assistant happens to have more than one perk.

workplace au | friends with benefits | ceo!reader | +15k

— By Its Cover (M) — by @gimmesumsuga

The one where Jungkook makes a very bad first impression.

workplace au | enemies to lovers | 21k

— Mind in the Gutter (F) (M) — by @kpopfanfictrash

Starting over is never fun. Especially not when you decide to take the phrase fully to heart; new job, new city, new coworkers and new relationships. When you are dragged to a happy hour by your new co-worker, Taehyung, you end up sitting beside a (very) cute, (very) shy IT worker named Jungkook. Several drinks later, he mentions he is in a professional bowling league with his friends and you rather enthusiastically invite yourself along. As time passes and you begin to grow closer, you still find it impossible to read Jungkook. Working in the same company and seeing each other so often, it is only so long before one of you snaps. But who?

workplace au | bowling au | strangers to friends to lovers | +18k

#fic rec #jungkook fic rec #bts fic rec #jeon jungkook

87 notes · View notes