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#so she can have it as a justification. as a treat. /j

strqyr · 7 months

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i don't think the branwen tribe under raven's leadership operates under the "the weak die, the strong live" rule.

they did, back when raven and qrow were kids—raven points out the rule like qrow should know it—but once raven took over... the bartender sees shay as nuisance rather than a genuine threat; the tribesmen get their asses kicked more often than not; they rely on numbers, not individual strength; more notably, when yang demands raven to send her to qrow, damn it, the tribesmen don't take too kindly to it: "that's enough! you watch your mouth in front of our leader!"

if the weak die, the strong live, you'd probably expect your leader to be able to stand up for herself in the face of demands and some light swearing, daughter or not. instead, the tribesmen don't wait for that, they step in on their own.

shay threatens yang: "when raven finds out what you did, you're dead!" <- there's an expectation, trust, that if they can't deal with something, raven will take care of it for them. and when shay finds out that yang is raven's daughter, he thinks it's him who's going to be dead. maybe he was being a tad dramatic, but the next time we see him, he's on guard duty.

if there was any punishment for his actions, all it would have amounted to was guard duty. the weak die, the strong live, you fucked up so i guess you're off to guard duty.

based on the bartender, the citizen living outside the kingdom walls in anima aren't super afraid of the bandits in general; they are, however, afraid of raven. the tribesmen aren't, though, but they seem to be of vernal (the "spring maiden"), if these two bandits and their differing reactions and behavior around the two are anything to go by:

it's a night and day. almost literally lol

the bandits respect raven without any hint of fear, they're willing to throw hands for her (unless they're against a maiden, that is, then she's on her own lol), in a sense, under raven's leadership, they are a family; the kind that goes "i've got your back, you've got mine".

i have no doubt this wasn't the case back when the twins were kids—qrow wasn't wanted after his semblance manifested for crying out loud—but things have clearly changed, since then.

#rwby #branwen tribe #raven's still going to keep repeating 'the weak die the strong live'#not something she really believes in me thinks #but that's how she was raised #so she can have it as a justification. as a treat. /j

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nikinramblings · 1 year

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Jiang Cheng is a good character.

YES, I want to open that can of worms.

I only say good but I mean a lot of different things. Good as in well written. But also as in he's not a bad person. He has many flaws, some venial, some major, he made mistakes as most in the story. He suffered just as much, even though part of it was caused by his own personality.

I'm pretty sure most people would agree but I also know there are less forgivable ones out there.

I know it's not straightforward because he's ill tempered and seeing the story from Wei Wuxian's pov it's hard to sympathise with someone who envied him so much when WWX has done nothing but love and respect him and his family his whole life. But come on.

His father did favor WWX over him, I think this point is quite pacific. I stand by the fact that JFM loved JC but the way he went about it was all wrong. If he had treated them equally then a lot of aggravation would have been spared. JC was at fault in taking it out on WWX, since he wasn't responsible for it but he was young and misguided and there it was WWX acting arrogant by his own (later) admission, which of course didn't help, no matter that he cared deeply.

His mother did nothing to smooth the edge of his character, instead she nourished his insecurities, constantly comparing him to WWX, underlying every little difference in their status, actions, results and treatments. It caused him to develop an inferiority complex that made him all the more bitter.

He's not as strongwilled and tough as some of the other characters and that's not a fault, he just has a more vulnerable personality he tries to compensate by acting rough. It's very apparent in how remissive he is around his mother who in contrast - while similar in temperament - has a very strong will. As a lonely kid, prior to WWX's arrival, his character has been easily molded by the people close to him, especially the ones he felt loved by. He grew prickly under the indifference of his father, the harsh ways of his assertive mother and the indulgence of his sister who while gentler is much tougher than him.

And then he watched his whole family being killed as a consequence of WWX's actions. It would have happened anyway, YZY understood that before anyone else, but still... Even though he was in the wrong blaming it on WWX, the Wen sect used that pretext to launch an attack that caught them off-guard. He watched all the people he loved die as WWX stood by someone else's side, never listening to his advice.

And I agree his temperament is not a justification, he should work on that, but I also know how difficult it is to change one own nature. He was easily riled up, he was too easy to condition and his envy and sense of inadequacy made him blind to the truth, but I think the way WWX was always able to win him back in a few words shows that he was trying, he was listening, he knew that was not the right way to go. And he cared about him too.

But I also want to notice that he was not just prickly, he was also right many times. He's pretty selfish, we can agree on that. It's not that he has no compassion for others but being it his pride, his sense of entitlement, his fear or whatever, he's not as selfless as WWX, ready to give everything up for someone he's not deeply connected to (which heightens the sacrifice he made giving himself up to save him). His indifference toward the faith of the two people who saved his life is quite unbearable, I have to be honest, but as explained in the story he has close to no memory of it and it lessens his sense of debt - not an excuse but I guess it makes sense. That being said, he goes about it the wrong way but what he tells WWX is right, he will never succeed in his intention, it would only bring destruction and I'm pretty sure he was not just thinking of himself, how he would be implicated, he cared for WWX, not for anyone else involved but for him. He was trying to save him.

Even though he never referred to him as his brother, like JYL did, he did love him like he was, he was just difficult, he wanted him by his side and tried to help him multiple times, if uncouthly, that's why he felt so betrayed when he chose to stand by Wen Ning and the others. I think his reaction after the golden core reveal is quite telling of his internal struggle.

When he found out he owed his life and his status to WWX he received one of the biggest blow of his life because he was finally set on hating him, resolving his lifelong internal conflict but deep down he knew that he couldn't ignore his sacrifice. For his whole life he had wavered in that limbo between love and hate, never able to fully commit to either side. He never truly hated him. Not until Jiang Yanli's death and not after he came back, maybe not even in between but that's his lowest point for sure. But now he had a debt of gratitude that he didn't want, because it clashed with his justified anger, because he didn't want to be linked to WWX again, because he didn't want to forgive him and feel like he was in the wrong yet again; not after what he had lost.

He was suddenly in debt without asking for it. It was like his grief and anger didn't withstand the good he had never known about, but he still felt them and there was a reason for them that he couldn't ignore, which made him look unsympathetic, once again his own efforts, sacrifices, losses... didn't seem to matter. And that was also because he had another unforgivable flaw, he was prideful, that meant he wasn't deemed able to confront the truth, which is belittling in itself.

First there is the envy, the pride. Then the grief, the inadequacy, the frustration. Ultimately there is another important bit, being kept in the dark. WWX had no right to take that decision for him, to be a martyr when he was supposed to be the executioner (from his point of view). He had no right to give up so much as if it was nothing when for JC it was everything. Most importantly he should have told him so he could have understood why he did what he did, because if he knew maybe Jiang Cheng would have done things differently too, he could have helped him. Every time WWX rejected his advice it wasn't because he didn't want to listen but because he couldn't listen, that would have lessened the resentment in JC. At that moment of their life him and JYL were all he had left and once again he fell second to someone else. Even worse he was abandoned by someone who promised to always be on his side, to help him in a difficult time, but not only WWX wasn't there and was protecting others, he was rejecting the hand Jiang Cheng tried to offer him.

In this respect, I find quite poetic the scene in the donghua with Jiang Cheng reaching out to help him up during the Waterborne Abyss incident and Wei Wuxian plummeting down under the weight of his own actions (and LWJ coming to the rescue, obv), because it's a very accurate representation of the future events. He did it badly but he did try to help. He did try to make him see reason. He missed some crucial details and lacked sympathy but he made a lot of wise remark. He didn't have WWX's confidence (edging on haughtiness) and since he had always been sensitive to the opinions of the people around him he could foresee consequences better than him. He was also painfully aware that he wouldn't always be able to face them because he could barely stand up for himself in many instances against those more domineering than him.

Whether he was really full of hate after WWX's death or in a way he was hoping he would come back I don't know, JGY could have been right, he kept Chenqing because he thought WWX would come for it - to catch him? It could be, the fact JGY said it almost leads me to believe the contrary because we know he's deceitful and always looks for the worse angle to any matter, but it could be true. To meet him again? Who knows - or he kept it to remember him. I don't think it's all that important. Because after he came back he was angry and they couldn't go back to how they were before but things smoothed over. He let him keep Chenqing, knowing that's his source of power now. In his words, as I've said before, we can see he understood better what happened and why. He finally managed to vent his anger at him to the point of turning it into something else as he moved to another stage of grief. The fact that Jin Ling keeps interacting with him after everything is said and done is quite telling of how quiet the aftershock is, not that I think Jiang Cheng could stop him but he wouldn't make it easy if he still hated him.

And then there is the biggest thing of all. Him not telling WWX how he was captured after the massacre of their sect is the most mature thing he has ever done. It wouldn't have eased anything, it would have only served the purpose of hurting WWX further. If he really hated him he would have told him, just as he vented his frustration at not having any recognition for his effort when WWX and LWJ were trapped in the cave. But he didn't want to hurt him even more when he knew he had suffered enough. It would have been a very spiteful thing to do, proving he needed people's approval and nothing else. Instead he accepted to be considered selfish and ungrateful even in his most selfless moment. The comparison with his inability to tell him the true story with the way WWX kept his action from him is a dead giveaway to the true reason he couldn't find it in himself to speak: for the first time after that instance he learned to be selfless again.

#mdzs novel #mo dao zu shi #mdzs spoilers #mdzs jiang cheng #jiang cheng

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taelme · 3 years

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state of grace (2/2)

genre: office!au, (somewhat)exes-to-lovers!au, brother’s best friend!Johnny, magazine advice columnist!reader, photographer!Johnny (kind of hurt/comfort elements?, fluff, angst, johnny’s very much in love with reader, reader is j going through it) pairing/s: Johnny / Reader (ft some of the neos and some OCs!) word count: 27k+ tw: coarse language?, some suggestive language... lmk if I missed out anything! a/n: this is the second part to johnny’s fic! (there’s only 2 parts okay), based on state of grace but ofc not limited to that! have fun reading~ I'd love to hear what you guys think! read this on ao3

‘Subject: Update on our relationship Moony, It’s me, SSU again. The update is, I’ve been trying to be more obvious about how I feel towards the person I like, but they seem to keep needing justification for why I like them. It kind of feels like they want a proposal of all the pros and cons of our relationship before deciding to believe that I feel that way about them. But how do I even begin to explain that there’s no reason why I love them, but I just do? I talked to them the other day, and I think what’s holding them back is their fear that I’m gonna leave again. But for the life of me, I can’t seem to convince them that I’m here to stay. It’s a little harder to be myself around them too ‘cause we work together, and no one else knows about our history other than the two of us (even outside of work). It’s honestly getting a little frustrating because on one hand I want to be open about my gestures towards them, but I know they don't want people to start rumours about us, and obviously I don’t want to impose on them and their job or whatever. I’ll be honest, there’s a very big part of me that wants them to see themselves the way I see them; my sweet girl, honest, caring, loyal, hardworking, a little scatterbrained. But I know that that may be expecting too much because over the years, it seems that they started to see themself how others see them (which is this perfectly-functioning, well oiled machine that makes no mistakes whatsoever, people treat them like the terminator or something). If anything, I hope she can see herself through my eyes, see how much she deserves to be loved and cared for, and use that to return to her own perspective, to stop trying to fit herself into other people’s boxes. But I still catch a glimpse of those traits in her sometimes, they’re still there, just a little… suppressed, the part of them that wants to stop second guessing herself and just live how they want to. But at the same time, I want to learn all about the parts of them that have grown, that have evolved, that have faded, or hardened while I was gone. I want to know and learn how to love the good and the bad, but they don’t seem to think I can. So far each time I try to create that space for them, they shut me out because they just… don’t seem to think they have the time to entertain anything other than work. I’ll keep trying, I guess. I know they probably just need more time. I don’t know where I meant to go with this, but that’s just an update.

Sincerely, Suhnny Side Up’

Chenle was having a very interesting morning.

After an enlightening morning phone conversation with Taeil, who in his half-awake daze had accidentally let it slip that living with you and Youngho was so ‘awkward’ because of all the sexual tension between the both of you (and had proceeded to hastily hang up afterwards), Chenle was determined to put his one university module’s worth of knowledge on investigative journalism to good use at the studio that morning.

“Did you see? The response to you and John’s video was insane,” he greeted you with your breakfast at the studio, sipping on his redbull as he leant against the makeup table, Yeri seated in front of the mirror as she took the liberty of touching up her makeup with the array of materials at her disposal.

“Morning,” you sighed, accepting the paper bag from him as you dumped your bag onto the chair behind Yeri’s back.

“Yeah! You know, Jaemin told me that traction on your articles spiked like crazy, too,” Yeri mumbled, her mouth pulled into an awkward shape as she fixed her mascara.

“No ‘Good Morning’? Harsh world we live in,” you muttered with a sigh, Chenle flashing you a childlike grin.

“What’s so good about it?” he giggled.

Completely ignoring your inside joke, Yeri continued, “Everybody loves your dynamic, they keep saying it’s like you guys have known each other for ages, they aren’t buying the whole ‘you guys just met’ thing.”

You grunted, warming your hands around the paper bag. The morning was extra cold today, and you wanted nothing more than to have a nice warm hot chocolate (perhaps with the marshmallows on top too) to help you brave you through the day. But of course, Chenle didn’t believe in $5 hot chocolates (or adding a $1.50 just for marshmallows) for anyone other than the intern Jisung and Taeil, so you were stuck with warming your hands with your already room-temperature croissant.

“Are the couples here already? Why is it so noisy down there?” you frowned, gesturing over the loft to the set downstairs, Chenle giving you a blank look as Yeri filled you in.

“Oh,” she laughed, “It’s probably Youngho and Wendy, apparently she’s a friend he made when he was travelling a few years ago, so they’re catching up or something.”

Wendy. You didn’t think you remembered her name in the list of couples Johnny had sent you.

“Is she pretty?” you blurted, earning a look from Chenle.

“Do you want me to tell you you’re prettier?” he teased, making you roll your eyes.

“Forget I asked, I was just curious.”

You huffed. Whatever. It wasn’t as if you expected him to stay single for the whole seven years, right? Even if you did (by choice).

“I thought of our Halloween costume already, by the way.”

“Who are we going as?” You grimaced, earning a laugh from Yeri.

Chenle turned to Yeri, “You, cover your ears,” he pointed a finger at her, Yeri scoffing in response.

Covering her ears, she stuck her tongue out at Chenle.

“By the way, I’m not gunning for first place this year. I’m not afraid to say I’m going as Chae Kyung from Princess Hours.”

“At first I wanted us to go as Elvira—”

“No. Next idea,” you shot back immediately, Chenle’s playful smile making your glare harden.

Rolling his eyes, he shook his head with a dejected sigh, “I knew you’d never be down for it, but it was worth a try. We’re going as Pennywise and Georgie,” Chenle grinned, “You’re Georgie, obviously.”

Your lips parted in surprise, already slightly unnerved by how accurate you figured Chenle’s costume was gonna look.

“It’s this weekend, right? Are you sure you’ll have time to get all your stuff ready?”

Rolling his eyes, Chenle gave you a dismissive wave, completely oblivious to Yeri who still had her hands over her ears, “Don’t worry. I’ve got everything covered.”

“Anyway, there’s two couples here already, they’re waiting for one more,” Chenle informed, crushing the empty paper bag and setting it on the table, making Yeri scrunch her nose in distaste, removing her hands from her ears after you gave her the go-ahead.

Rolling your shoulders back, you nodded, “Right. Okay.” You could do this. Professional, you reminded yourself.

You thanked the heavens that Chenle hadn’t told you you were prettier than Wendy, because you were sure you wouldn’t have believed him. Perhaps, you were also a little pleasantly surprised that Wendy was here with her girlfriend of eight years.

“Hey, you’re here,” Johnny smiled, pointing his little camera at you, giggling at the look of disdain you gave him, pulling you by your arm to introduce you to the three pairs of couples you were interviewing today for your video about ‘Exes who got back together’.

“Nice to finally meet you, Y/N,” Wendy smiled, the knowing look she exchanged with Johnny unnerving you to no end. Dismissing it quickly, you were momentarily distracted by Wendy’s girlfriend who asked if there was still coffee left.

“John bought enough for all of us so there should be one cup left, if I remember correctly,” she hummed, waving at Yeri who was standing by the table.

“Yeri, can you help me check if that’s empty?”

Picking up the cup, Yeri brought it closer to her face and sniffed, frowning.

“This isn’t coffee,” she called out.

Johnny’s head whipped around to source the commotion, spotting Wendy’s girlfriend walk over to Yeri to inspect the cup.

“I think it’s hot chocolate,” Yeri hummed, “D’you mind?”

“No!” Johnny protested, his little camera pointed at the floor now as he walked over to the table, snatching the cup from Yeri like a little child, “The hot chocolate is Y/N’s.”

Mine?

Wordlessly accepting the cup from Johnny, you missed the way Chenle was watching with an all-too-knowing smile on his face.

“Sorry! I took the last coffee,” he admitted a little belatedly (frankly not sounding sorry at all), having gotten too distracted observing you and Johnny.

Taking a sip, your eyes widened in surprise. $1.50 for added marshmallows.

“Is it good? I know it’s not the best but I told them to add more marshmallows ‘cause… yeah,” Johnny murmured as you made your way to the camera, adjusting his cap that he wore backwards on his head, looking almost nervous. Another olive branch, perhaps?

You could almost picture it, that one Christmas he’d spent at yours and Taeil’s house, insisting that he’d make you a hot chocolate that you couldn’t get anywhere else, even going to the extent of trying to add different brands of chocolate to trying premium cocoa powder to fixing the perfect drink to marshmallow ratio and perfecting the temperature just to make a drink he proclaimed was so unique and so special just because it was made with love by your ‘one and only, Johnny’.

You blinked harshly, blaming it on the steam from the cup as you shook your head, mustering a small smile.

“No, yeah. It’s… enough.”

He gave you a tight-lipped smile, setting his little camera down on the stool next to him as you took your seat.

The other interviews had gone by like a breeze.

Wendy’s on the other hand… was a little more... interesting.

“Why did you get back together?” You asked, inviting either her or her girlfriend to answer.

“Well, honestly,” Wendy cleared her throat softly, “John already knows this story but when we were on a break, I was really having a tough time at work… there were a lot of ugly rumours floating around and you know how things are in the music industry, gossip spreads and whether you like it or not your gigs get affected based on if people are willing to take that risk of presenting an artist with such a… rep.”

“But when I met her again… it was like she still saw me for the truth of who I was even though everyone was telling her all sorts of things about me. She chose to believe in me, instead of what people were saying. And that was kind of how I knew, like, ‘hey, she loves me for me, and that’s not easy to find.’”

Johnny perked up, “Oh my God!,” he clapped his hands together, eyes widening, “Oh my god, there’s a song that’s exactly like that but I forgot what it’s called.”

You shot him a look, eyebrows raising as he began to hum.

“... for the best, my reputation’s never been worse so, you must like me for me,” he groaned, “what is that song!”

Wendy and her girlfriend had simply frowned, not recognizing it when you’d huffed, something in your brain seemed to click as the song had automatically played in your head.

“Delicate,” you supplied.

“Yes! Delicate!” he scrunched his eyes shut, smiling wildly, “Damn, we have a Taylor Swift fan over here,” he added, teasing lilt to his tone.

Rolling your eyes, a small smile lingered on your face as you turned back to Wendy, “So you guys just… got back together?”

“No shit, they did,” Johnny huffed in amusement, scratching at his collarbone under the neck of his sweater, earning an annoyed huff from you.

Wendy nodded, “It was like… beginning again but not, at the same time.”

“Like re-learning about each other,” her girlfriend added.

Humming, you couldn’t help but blurt, “You weren’t scared?”

“What is there to be scared of?” Wendy smiled, somehow making you feel like you were the one being interviewed now.

Your eyes widened, immediately assuming a defensive stance, practically fumbling over your words.

“A lot of things, I mean. There’s the fear of getting hurt again, the fear that you’ll disappoint them, the fear of getting your expectations too high and getting disappointed...” you trailed off, suddenly feeling embarrassed that you’d let yourself get carried away like that, the look that Johnny was giving you not going unnoticed by Wendy.

“Woah, you sound like you’ve gone through hell with your ex,” Wendy’s girlfriend had remarked, laughing.

Your lips parted, shaking your head in dismissal.

“No, no, you know. I mean, after all, I do write for an advice column and… I see these fears in relationships all the time,” you hoped that was believable enough, though from the way Johnny was still looking at you, you knew it hadn’t convinced him.

“Honestly?” Wendy spoke, “Of course there were fears, but… I don’t know. For me, most of these fears are just a result of me getting too in my head about it. It sounds kind of cheesy but at the end of the day, there was just this feeling in my gut that it was right, like… what I felt most aligned with.”

Her girlfriend seemed to have agreed (and rather wholeheartedly, at that), nodding profusely, “Yeah, yeah! It’s like, the fears came from the outside, all the trying to justify why I was choosing Wendy even despite what everyone was saying. But there’s no specific reason that made me kind of go ‘Oh, I love her because of this’, it was just a ‘Oh, I love her’,” she smiled, “Your intuition, your feelings, it’s just… something you know others can’t decide for you or try to rationalise for you.”

Johnny hummed, “I totally agree.”

You nodded slowly, “That’s…” you hummed, nodding, not being able to find words that properly encompassed what you were feeling.

“Right, next question.”

===

“Do you want to take a look at the footage together? We can decide what we wanna keep and edit out before sending it to the editing team,” Johnny suggested after almost everyone had streamed out of the studio, just leaving the two of you and Wendy, who was waiting for her girlfriend to come by with their car.

Giving you one side of his wired earpiece (maybe as a way to get you to sit closer to him), you sat next to him at his desk on the loft of the studio, letting him transfer the footage to the big iMac on his desk as you bid Wendy goodbye.

“How do uh… how do you guys know each other?” you mumbled.

“Sorry, what?” he leaned his head down so he could hear you better, the smell of coffee and his proximity overwhelming you.

“No, I was just asking how you know Wendy,” you repeated, louder this time.

His lips forming an ‘o’ shape in realisation, “Oh. We met when I was in Austria, she was there on a trip with her girlfriend.”

“You were in Austria?” your lips parted in surprise.

You’d always wanted to visit Austria, but it’d always seemed like a dream you were saving, for some reason.

He nodded, a hint of a smile on his lips as he turned to look at you.

“It was really beautiful. The whole time I was there I just couldn’t stop thinking about how much you would love it,” he admitted, rapidly clicking around and typing on the keyboard, making you wonder for a moment how he was multitasking with the footage so seamlessly.

“Did you go to the Christmas markets?”

Johnny smirked, eyes practically glinting with mischief at an opportunity to tease you, “Someone’s been doing their research, huh?”

You rolled your eyes, not being able to help the embarrassed smile on your face, “I mean, I’ve always wanted to go there… people always tell me it’s extra nice during Christmas.”

He nodded, “It is. But, of course, it’s important to have a good guide to go with you and show you around too. The tour guides’ll only bring you to the touristy places. You need someone that knows the local spots.”

You raised an eyebrow in question, “Do you have any contacts?”

Johnny scoffed, feigning offence.

“You’re looking at the best guide you could possibly find. And even better, you won’t even have to pay me a single cent,” he emphasised with wide eyes, though you couldn’t help but furrow your eyebrows, eyes narrowing slightly.

You could imagine yourself harshly pulling your heart back down to earth, the outside voice in your head echoing loudly in your mind. Don’t get too carried away. He could just be saying that because you’re Taeil’s sister.

“That makes no sense, you don’t get anything out of it,” you huffed.

Johnny frowned, looking genuinely upset with the way his smile fell, hands halting over the keyboard. Turning to face you, he sighed.

“Why do you think I’d only do it if I’m gaining something out of it? You’re not my business partner, Y/N,” his tone was firm, urgent.

You huffed, turning your gaze back to the computer screen.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m not your business partner, I’m your best friend’s sis—”

“No,” he said, even firmer, almost frustrated, “Look at me.”

You had no choice but to comply, meeting his gaze with your hesitant eyes.

“Taeil has nothing to do with it. I said I’d do it for you. Not ‘I’d do it for Taeil’s sister’, but that I’d do it for you.” my sweet girl, he would’ve said, but stopped himself before he could.

For now, all bets were off.

You felt paralysed under his stare, as if he was desperate for you to understand his words.

“There's no reason why,” he insisted, and from the sound of his tone, you couldn’t bring yourself to doubt his sincerity, “just the fact that I want to share that experience with you.”

You swallowed, throat feeling dry as you felt a lump start to form, turning back to the computer screen, rolling your shoulders back.

“How long were you there?” you continued, seeing him pause before turning back to face the computer, taking a deep breath as he furrowed his eyebrows in thought.

“About a year?” You saw the video on the screen, surrounded by the different functions and editing tools, “Yeah, it was about a year before my dad got posted to France and we spent another two years there.”

You purse your lips, nodding, “Must’ve been hard moving around so much.”

He pressed his lips into a firm line, nodding, a certain nostalgia in his tone.

“I mean, yeah, It was all beautiful. I know how lucky I am to even have been to all those places but… I don’t know,” he shrugged, “couldn’t really enjoy it ‘cause I was too busy worrying about my mom… and I was homesick most of the time.”

You huffed, “That’s funny, you always said you hated our town.”

Your smile faltered when you met his gaze, serious and holding a million different thoughts behind them.

“I did, didn’t I?” he murmured, just the slightest of smiles on his face, “but you know, you can be homesick for more than just a place.”

You shut up at that, turning your gaze back to the screen, gesturing for him to start playing the video.

Something about being around Johnny had made you feel like it was alright to not worry about how straight your posture was, or whether your hair was messy, or the language you used. Being in the studio with just Johnny, only needing to worry about the editing, something about it felt comfortable. The kind of comfort you would feel if this was your everyday routine, like how you’d felt that day watching him make your bed, or how you felt when he’d made you a mug of tea, or draped a blanket over you when he saw you trying to get some shut-eye on the sofa.

It felt foreign, to feel so at ease. The only times you found yourself feeling like this for as long as you could remember was during mealtimes or when you were watching shows before you slept. You couldn’t remember the last time this feeling of ease in you had been induced by somebody’s presence.

As crazy as it seemed to you, Johnny’s presence was enough for you to let your guard down without you thinking too much. It was as if your body just recognized his familiarity, telling you it was alright to relax because he knew you (more than you were willing to admit), and never held that against you or over your head.

Staring at the screen for so long, Johnny noticed the way you’d bring your hand up to press or rub at your eyes every now and then, “do you wanna take a break? I can continue editing on my own.”

Before you could even think of protesting, he added, “Just so you know, I’m not really asking. Take a break.”

Strangely enough, you didn’t refuse this time.

Making your way to the small sofa a few paces behind his desk, you sat yourself down on the sofa, pulling your laptop out to check your emails, spotting one from Mrs Kang talking about how pleased she was with yours and Johnny’s video.

Yawning every now and then, you heard Johnny let out a giggle when you were already halfway through working on your reply.

“Seriously, take a nap,” he laughed, “the sofa’s more comfortable than it looks.”

You shook your head, another yawn leaving you in spite of yourself, stretching your neck as you tilted your head from side to side.

“I’ll have you know,” you sighed, slumping down further in your seat, “never in my five years of working here have I ever napped in the office.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Johnny sing-songed.

“Stop tempting me, I really need to get some work done,” you waved him off in dismissal, seeing him turn back to his computer with a little ‘if you insist’.

But like you said, perhaps something had shifted during your conversation with Johnny, your body comfortable enough to not fight yourself when it decided you were too tired to keep working, falling asleep with your laptop on your thighs and your head resting uncomfortably on the back of the sofa.

Johnny, trying his best to stifle his smile, took the liberty of removing your laptop from under your hands, saving the document you were working on and tucking an arm under your legs to shift your body, his other arm supporting your back as he got you into a more comfortable position, letting you use his fluffy jacket as a pillow.

And so you slept, the texts and emails coming into your devices going ignored, and when Chenle decided he’d better take action after his five missed calls to you had gone unanswered, noisily climbed up to Johnny’s studio loft only to receive a glare from Johnny and take in the shocking sight of you sleeping peacefully behind Johnny as he worked, he knew it was different, but he also knew it was good, so he didn’t say a word.

===

“Who are you supposed to be?” Kun laughed, catching you at a bad time when you were trying hard to get your red helium balloon down from the ceiling, having forgotten it wasn’t tied to your hand when you’d set your drink down on the table.

Groaning, you gestured to the bright yellow raincoat you were wearing, the hood that was draped over your head.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m Georgie.”

Kun frowned, looking rather amusing with his eyebrows furrowed in his no-face makeup, “Geor…gie?”

“The kid’s little brother that Pennywise ate.”

Realisation flashed in Kun’s eyes, his mouth forming an ‘o’ as a hum of understanding left him. “Got it. Saw ‘Pennywise’ staring at me in the bathroom mirror just now and nearly passed out.”

“That makes sense. I was wondering what was taking him so long to come back,” you sighed, casting another wistful glance at your balloon.

“Wanna just go to the ballroom first? I don’t think he’ll be done scaring people anytime soon,” Kun’s suggestion earned a pout from you, gesturing to your balloon that was still sticking close to the ceiling.

“Sorry, but my costume doesn’t really allow for much movement at the moment. Bid your last farewell to your balloon, let’s go.”

Sighing, you muttered, “Chenle’s gonna nag my ear off,” you followed Kun out of the little lounge of sorts, the green rain boots you were wearing making odd rubbery sounds against the marbled floors as you headed through the hotel your magazine was using as the venue for their annual Halloween Dinner Party.

Chenle had joined you at your assigned seats not long after, visibly dismayed at your lack of a balloon.

“Hello?” He practically yelled, “I paid seven bucks for that balloon. And it’s a crucial element to your costume! Now people are just gonna think you’re Paddington Bear,” he whined.

You scoffed, slumping down onto your seat, checking the nameplate in front of your cutlery just to make sure you were at the right seat.

“And it’s my fault you let yourself get scammed into paying that much for a single balloon?”

“Yeah, gotta admit, you could’ve gotten it for half a dollar,” Kun sucked in a sharp breath.

“You guys just can’t appreciate the quality of my costumes. Where’d you lose it?” He asked, looking almost determined to set out to find it the moment you disclosed its location.

“It’s in the—” you stopped yourself short at the sight of the ballroom doors opening to reveal Johnny, clad in a black shirt and jeans, leather jacket to match, your red balloon in his hands, “there.”

Kun’s eyes followed the direction of your gaze, clasping his hands together in delight, “There’s your seven dollars.”

Chenle continued to watch you curiously, gaze intently switching its focus between you and Johnny who walked through the room, towering over everyone else as he headed over to where you guys were seated.

“Were you two together before this?” Chenle couldn’t help the mischief in his smile, implication heavily laden in his tone.

Kun’s eyes widened, giving a distracted wave to Jaemin who’d just arrived and was taking his seat in between Kun and Chenle.

“What’s going on?”

“Something exciting, I hope,” Kun murmured.

You shook your head in response to Chenle’s question, “No, we weren’t. I haven’t seen him at all the whole day.”

“I’m guessing this belongs to you?” Johnny drawled, reaching his hand with the balloon towards you, your face feeling warm from all the embarrassment that coursed through you at the whispers and speculative looks you were getting, trying to fumble around with the string that he’d so tightly looped around his fingers.

You hated the way Chenle looked at you when Johnny had taken the liberty of tying the string to your chair himself after you got fed up with your fumbling.

“I swear we weren’t,” you whispered harshly, “stop looking at me like that.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Johnny took a seat next to you, completely ignoring the little nameplate that read Yeri’s name in front of his set of cutlery, sighing as he shifted in his seat to get himself comfortable.

“It’s assigned seating, you know,” you told him pointedly, glancing briefly at Kun who was still looking on eagerly for insight on why Chenle seemed as if he‘d just received a new piece of hot gossip.

Johnny glanced at the name plate, turning back to you with a shrug, “Yeri won’t mind.”

“Who are you, anyway?” You did a once-over of his outfit (maybe it wasn’t ‘once’, you didn’t seem to have much control over your eyes with how good he looked in this considerably normal outfit), his hair left messily styled, slightly wavier than usual, sticking out where it was longer at the nape of his neck.

“Need a clue?” he grinned, baring his (rather real looking) fangs, making you frown.

Chenle practically screamed, “Edward Cullen?”

Johnny scoffed, “No. Try again. You’re close.”

“Are there that many pop culture vampires?” Kun frowned, turning to greet Yeri who had arrived in a very elaborate costume that had you wondering how much money and effort the staff here put into their costumes.

“Okay. No-face, Pennywise, Georgie… the Divergent guy?” Yeri listed out, frowning when she reached Johnny, the latter’s dismay deepening.

“C’mon, try harder, Yeri. Four didn’t have as much hair as I do,” he scoffed, turning to you with a knowing smirk, “Y/N, you definitely know this. You had a huge crush on him.”

That’s ironic. You almost laughed.

Chenle hummed, trying to withhold his comments after that day he spotted you napping in Johnny’s studio after Taeil’s little slip-up, “No one knows Y/N’s crushes better than I do,” he narrowed his eyes at Johnny in suspicion.

Kun frowned, thinking out loud, “Vampire…”

Your eyes widened, scoffing in disbelief as realisation hit you, “Oh my God, you’re Damon Salvatore aren’t you?”

Hums and ‘ahh’s of understanding resounded around the table, Johnny leaning forward to pick up his glass of water, taking a nonchalant sip and shrugging.

“Told you Y/N knows.”

You narrowed your eyes at him, pretending to bend over to adjust your chair’s position so you could remind him, “Remember, there’s no normal reason why you would know this.”

As if overhearing you, Chenle scoffed in offence, his pennywise makeup making you feel even more like you shouldn’t be offending him, “I had no idea you liked him, how’d he know before me?”

Maybe if you knew that was Chenle’s way of planting a mine right before you and Johnny’s feet, you wouldn’t have been so caught off guard. Johnny however, was calm and collected as always.

Johnny shrugged, calmly lying through his teeth, “Taeil and I are friends from college. Apparently, Y/N here had many little crushes back then.”

You huffed, meeting eyes with the waiter who was making his way to your table with what you hoped was a promise of drinks. Unfortunately for you, Chenle didn’t let you off the hook quite yet.

“Oh, so the both of you knew each other?” he carefully planted another mine, and you kept your gaze on the waiter so he wouldn’t see you falter.

“Vaguely,” Johnny supplied, “We knew of each other, right, Y/N?”

You waved him off, trying your best to remain as nonchalant as possible, “Yeah, whatever.”

Placing your orders respectively, along with the choice of meal, you watched as the Emcees had taken their place on the stage, highlighting the various costumes they saw just to engage the audience.

Chenle had left the table not long after, very proudly showing off his Pennywise costume to the audience as the waiter had arrived, being held hostage by Johnny who insisted that you should try the red wine on his behalf since he wasn’t drinking tonight, making you nudge him.

“Fine, shut up, Johnny. I’ll try it later.”

“Oh yeah, I wanted to ask. How come you call him Johnny?” Jaemin asked, earning a wide eyed look from you.

“Huh? Oh… no reason, it’s just a nickname, I guess. My brother calls him that so I just got used to it,” you attempted to brush it off, Johnny nodding along with you.

“Right…” Jaemin huffed awkwardly, taking a sip of water as Yeri pressed her lips into a firm line, averting her gaze, brushing off the strange tension with a laugh.

“So, can I call you Johnny too?” Yeri teased, making Johnny shoot her a look.

“For you…” he pretended to be deep in thought, “‘Mr Seo Youngho’ will suffice.”

Now that there was an empty seat between you and Jaemin, you spent most of the dinner party talking to him, not wanting to slip up if you were to talk to Johnny. Though Johnny would still insert a little comment every now and then that would render Jaemin flustered and leave you rather annoyed.

You figured you had no more reason to be annoyed when Johnny had entered into his own conversation with Yeri and Kun, but your annoyance didn’t seem to disappear as you heard him laughing and joking with Yeri in a way that made your attention waver from Jaemin every now and then, feeling apologetic that you couldn’t give him your full attention while talking to him, especially since you were talking about work. You couldn’t help it, you just wanted to know what they were so intently conversing about.

“Honestly, I really admired you when I read your old stuff for Ask Moony,” Jaemin admitted, his wording making your eyebrows furrow slightly.

“Admired… past tense?” you couldn’t help but ask, feeling as if you were a michelin chef getting told he’d just served a bad dish.

Jaemin’s eyes widened as he sipped his wine, setting his glass back down on the table as he shook his head, “No, no. Don’t get me wrong. Your newer stuff from last year and this year was great, too…”

You grimaced, “I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming soon.”

Jaemin nodded, expression sheepish, “But… I don’t know. I mean, after a while it started sounding a little more… textbook,” his eyes were sincere, his tone wary as if he were treading on thin ice, “Which I completely understand, ‘cause you have to deal with a lot of different people in your audience, but… I don’t know, it was just different. More… controlled? If that makes sense.”

You hummed, nodding slowly as you processed his words.

“Not as engaging?” you frowned.

Jaemin sighed, shaking his head as he gave you a small smile.

“No, no. Engaging, yes, they’re engaging. But… connected…? ” he pressed his lips into a firm line.

Connected? You thought you were making progress with your recent articles, trying to reconnect on a deeper level with yourself and your audience. Were they not picking up on that?

“I'm trying to work on that,” you felt the need to clarify, a last ditch attempt at defending yourself.

Your attention was diverted by the cheers that erupted in the room, Chenle busy celebrating on stage with a dance as Pennywise as he just got awarded ‘Best Costume’.

Sitting back in your seat with a pensive look on your face, you spent the rest of your meal in silence, Jaemin seeming to have sensed that you weren’t in the mood to talk anymore. So you sat, your open book of a self oblivious to the concerned glances Johnny would cast your way every now and then.

By the end of the main course, you’d wanted nothing more than to go home, letting Chenle have your dessert now that your appetite was gone, Johnny managing to extend a casual offer to drive you home ‘since you lived near each other’.

Bidding goodbye to the others, you continued on your silent walk to the open carpark, Johnny still giving you curious looks as he opened the passenger door to his black Sedan for you to enter.

Waiting for him to take his seat in the driver’s side, you pursed your lips, fiddling with the yellow raincoat you’d taken off and bunched up in your lap, trying to think of ways to make your writing more authentic and personal. More ‘connected’. Because if Jaemin didn’t make it obvious enough by now, your trying simply wasn’t enough.

“Did something happen?” Johnny asked after he’d linked his playlist to the car, an old coldplay song echoing in the car as he started the engine, “you‘re upset.”

Like you said, Johnny read you like a book, recognising the feel of the pages without even having to look at it.

Brushing it off, you shook your head, mustering a small hum.

Looking around for a distraction, you spotted the all-too-familiar teddy bear keychain hanging from his rearview mirror as he started to drive. Jerry, you remember how he named it. the simple reason being that that was what he got after trying to combine ‘Johnny’ and ‘bear’.

“Was this always here?” you murmured, not missing the way he lowered the volume of whatever song he was playing.

“... Yeah,” his tone was soft, gentle as he reached out to touch the teddy bear, “.... kept me in good company.”

“Didn’t think it’d have lasted so long,” you huffed.

Johnny simply smiled.

“I took very good care of it, just so you know,” he told you proudly, like he was showing you the orchid plant he’d managed to keep alive for more than a year.

“Do you wanna like… go for a drive? See the Christmas lights or something?” he asked, your small hum giving him the greenlight to take a completely different route, driving down a long stretch of road and shops where there were a multitude of Christmas displays, gigantic Christmas trees and people out and about.

“Why’d you wanna see the lights all of a sudden?” you asked. If you knew Johnny as well as you thought you did, you knew he hated getting stuck in traffic. Which was why his sheer willingness to drive into it was a surprise, to say the least.

“No reason, just… felt like it,” he shrugged as he pulled to a stop at a traffic light, removing his jacket and folding it into a makeshift pillow.

Reaching over to tuck the jacket between you and the window next to your head, he hummed, “Here, rest your head.”

Obliging just so he wouldn’t nag, you leaned your head against the jacket, the smell of his perfume and him somehow making your heart stir.

Your phone chimed with a text.

Moon Tael 10:24pm - are you hitching a ride back with johnny?- 10:24pm - u shld ask him if u didnt- 10:24pm - i had drinks so I can’t pick you up- 10:24pm - btw yuta gave us a bottle of wine if u and johnny r interested-

You pressed your lips into a firm line, Johnny glancing briefly at you as if he were trying to read your texts.

“Who’s that?”

“Taeil,” you sighed, “He said Yuta gave us some wine.”

Johnny’s eyebrows raised, a hum of pleasant surprise leaving him, “Sounds great but… I think you’ve had enough wine for one night.”

You huffed.

“I don’t know why he would’ve thought we’d still wanna drink after a dinner party,” you yawned, frowning when a little thought had popped into your head. These days it was almost as if Taeil was encouraging you to spend time with Johnny.

You didn’t think Johnny would’ve told Taeil about the two of you… surely Taeil would’ve made it more obvious if he knew, right?

The light turned green, Johnny beginning to drive.

“Johnny?”

“Hmm?”

“You tell Taeil everything, right?”

He huffed, amusement evident in his smile, “Well, yeah. Pretty much.”

Your frown deepened, “Did you ever tell Taeil about… you know, what we did?”

“Oh.”

Johnny adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, letting go with one hand and letting it fall into his lap, shaking his head.

“No,” his reply was simple, but the weight it carried was beyond words.

“Why not?”

“Well… well, because he’s Taeil. He’s my best friend and… like you said, I tell him everything. He knew about my… habits,” he told you pointedly, “I mean, of course I trust him and love him but… he’s very protective over you. I mean, he didn’t even approve of Taeyong dating you, and everyone knows Taeyong’s an angel.”

“Wait,” you frowned, “Taeyong?”

Johnny let out a grunt, almost sounding sulky as he nodded, “Yeah, he thought you were cute when we were at your house for Taeil’s birthday party but Taeil shut it down as soon as he found out.”

You pursed your lips, poorly stifling your amusement at picturing Taeil trying to be firm.

“So, you were scared?” your eyebrows raised, a teasing lilt to your tone, “Johnny Seo? Scared of tiny Moon Taeil?”

Johnny shot you a look, not being able to fight the smile from his face as he reached over to muss up your hair, the gesture sending warmth to your face and your heart picking up speed.

“Hard to believe, I know,” he rolled his eyes, “but honestly? I wasn’t exactly scared of how he’d react… I was just worried about whether he’d think I was good enough for you because, well, I didn’t.”

“You didn’t?”

“Back then,” he clarified.

“That’s ridiculous,” You snorted, making Johnny frown, “if anything, I didn’t think I was good enough for you.”

“Y/N, you really don’t give yourself enough credit. You being you was the very reason I—” he stopped himself, letting out a small sigh.

He was usually extremely straightforward with his feelings, but somehow whenever it came to you, he wanted to follow your pace, afraid to ruin things if he let himself get ahead of the both of you. Things were a lot more delicate now than they were in the past, but though it was different, Johnny knew the change of pace was very much needed. It was good.

“... weren’t you scared?” he asked, shifting in his seat slightly.

You shook your head, “I was… very.” Perhaps you still were, but for different reasons than before.

A small silence ensued, Johnny inhaling deeply.

“Like I said. That was how I saw us back then. But not now,” he told you, the car beginning to move again with the rest of the traffic, Johnny and you sitting in silence as the song echoed loudly in the car.

“It’s different now?”

Johnny let out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. The traffic light turned red.

“Of course it is,” he murmured.

You were reminded of what Jaemin had told you during the dinner party, wondering if part of that reason why Johnny felt differently now was because he couldn’t connect to you now like how he could back then. Either way, it wasn’t like you were letting him.

“Of course,” you echoed softly.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He offered, making you huff.

“They’re worth much more than a penny.”

Johnny smiled, turning to you, reaching a hand out to pluck a hair from your sleeve and toss it elsewhere.

“Name your price. I’ll double it.”

You sighed, shaking your head, fixing your gaze out the window, not trusting your eyes to withhold all you were feeling. You took your chance when the traffic light turned green.

“Do you think I’m out of touch with myself?”

Johnny’s eyebrows furrowed, lips parting slightly, “Who told you that?”

Shaking your head, you attempted to lie, “No, no one did.”

“What did they say?” he insisted, somehow being able to see through your dismissiveness. Like Taeil said, you were never good at lying, especially not to Johnny.

You huffed, annoyed at how he seemed to have a heightened intuition when it came to matters concerning you.

“What makes you so sure anyone said anything?”

Johnny’s tone was skeptical, “Can you honestly tell me they didn’t?... You tend to take what people say about you a lot more seriously these days.”

Your silence spoke for itself, not knowing how to answer him as you averted your gaze to your raincoat, your head still pressed against his jacket.

“Fine. I was talking to Jaemin just now, and he was saying that my recent stuff for ‘Ask Moony’ was controlled… like, he basically said I wasn’t as connected to my readers as I used to be when I started out… and I guess he’s not wrong because I do feel… different writing for ‘Ask Moony’ now compared to when I first started out. And not in a very good way.”

You turned to look at him “… but doesn’t that mean he’s right? And he should know better than me, right? Since he’s the one doing all the analytics and shit. Maybe the reason why I've been putting out sub-par articles and I’m not as connected with my readers is because I don’t feel connected to myself. I mean, don’t you think I’m different from how I was?”

Johnny shook his head, “You are different from how you were.”

You huffed, “Precisely, I’m out of touch. But it’s not like I haven’t been trying,” you felt a sourness take over your, your face beginning to feel warm and your throat feeling closed, “It’s not like I’m not trying to get back to how I was.”

You wondered, just for a moment, why Johnny always managed to make you feel more willing to be vulnerable than anyone else had in so long. With him, you couldn’t hide, not like everyone else had been allowing you to.

Surprising you with the little huff of laughter that left him, you watched as he came to a stop at the traffic light, the glow of the streetlamp casting warped shadows on the dashboard.

“Sweetheart,” he began, the gentleness of his tone making your tears rush to brim at your eyes, “of course, you’re different now. You can’t expect yourself to be the same person as you were seven years ago. And for the record, I don’t expect that either.”

About to cut in, he continued, “But if you’re asking me? You’re not… ‘out of touch’ with yourself. You’ve just been looking at yourself through someone else’s lens and… well, forcing yourself to be that version you see.”

The light turned green.

You let a small silence fall between the two of you, thankful for Johnny’s words, even though they were a lot to process.

You’d barely noticed you were crying until he’d parked under his apartment building, turning the engine off and looking at you with that same look he wore whenever you cried.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Johnny asked gently. In his time here, he was sure he’d seen you cry more times than he’d ever seen before. Somehow, each time felt as heartbreaking as the first.

Your jaw was clenched so tight it felt as though you would shatter any second. You removed his jacket from under your head, setting it down into your lap, your hand wanting to hold onto the fabric but fingers feeling too weak to do so.

Your rational mind was telling you it was too soon, a mistake to be letting down your guard, even if it were just for a moment. But your heart (foolish or wise, maybe both) was telling you to listen to what it wanted for once.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured, breath caught in your throat, inhaling, its shakiness made you feel even more pathetic.

“What’s there to be sorry for?” Johnny frowned, shifting in his seat to look at you.

You shook your head, lip quivering which made you press your lips together in a tight line.

“A lot of things,” you murmured, vision blurry as you stared at a blur of colour on his shirt, another tear slipping from your eyes which you brought your hand up to wipe away roughly, “sorry for being rude to you since you came back. I didn’t mean it.”

Your eyebrows furrowed, your voice sounded pained, “I’m sorry if it hurt you… or if it,” you let out a painful sigh, your chest starting to ache, “made you feel like I didn’t care if you were here or not. Because that’s not true, I’m… I’m so thankful that you’re here.”

Your hands shook as you brought them up to your eyes, pressing your palms against your closed eyes as though it would stop your tears from flowing.

“It’s alright. I know you needed time to process everything, and that you were still upset… but I meant it when I said you could take your time, you know?”

“That’s the thing, Johnny,” you blurted, inhaling deeply though your lungs weren’t satisfied, “I know you’re waiting… but… what if you’re just, you know, waiting for something you’re gonna regret waiting for?”

Johnny’s lips parted in surprise, his frown deepening, “Huh?”

“You know,” you continued, “back then, you knew me when I knew who I was, knew what I wanted and knew where I was going… Now I’m… I feel like I don’t know anything…”

You pressed your lips into a firm line, shutting your eyes as you forced yourself to breathe, “I need you to know that, Johnny. What if I'm not anything like you knew? I just… need you to know that you could just be waiting for someone that isn’t anything like the carefree, bubbly, free persona you’re familiar with.”

Johnny had never seen you like this before. Right now, all he could see when he looked at you was fear, anticipation for the worst, the amber glow of the lamppost shining on you that made the tears on your cheeks look golden.

His mind was already made up long ago, he was realising that now.

“What i’ve been seeing…” he began, and you felt yourself stiffen, as if preparing to be left wordless like that night in the garden, “though it may not be your carefree, bubbly, or free side… you’ve shown me the sides of you that are hardworking, focused, controlled…”

You felt him inhale deeply, “scared, messy, anxious, in pieces.”

Your tears flowed rapidly, once again feeling as though he’d picked up your heart gently and laid it bare for the both of you to look at.

“But I’m still thankful… you know? That you’re showing me all of that…” you frowned, looking at him with unadulterated confusion in your expression, “because I want to care for all these sides too…”

Your rational mind was practically screaming for you to fall back on your protection.

Shaking your head, you sighed, “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

Johnny surprised you when he’d let his hand reach over to grasp yours, cold and trembling in his warm grasp.

“But I’m asking, anyway. If you’ll let me learn about the ‘you’ that I don’t know,” he told you, his thumb rubbing over your knuckles gently.

You inhaled deeply, your vision blurring once again, “Even if you find nothing special by the end of it?”

Johnny gave you a small smile, reaching his other hand up to cup the side of your face gently, wiping your tear away as fast as it fell.

“Even still. If I find nothing special by the end of it, fuck it, even if I find nothing,” he let out a huff of laughter, his voice trailing off into a murmur, “I want every bit of that nothing.”

You nodded, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” You turned, unlocking the door and stepping out of his car, Johnny meeting you as you were about to walk into the building, unconsciously taking your hand in his, interlocking your fingers.

“Consider me fully warned,” he smiled, neither of you bothering to let go till you reached his apartment.

“Wait, before we go in…” Johnny began, spotting Taeil’s umbrella haphazardly strewn outside the apartment door, “Do you remember the time when we put a bunch of places on a randomizer website and went wherever the wheel told us to go?”

You couldn’t help but smile at the memory, how you would both sing loudly to the songs on the radio, fumbling over words you didn’t know and bickering over who got the lyrics right. Johnny mimicking radio dj transitions in between songs, giddy and giggly as you ate food from 24-hour drive-thrus and canned energy drinks from 7-11’s. Sharing giggly kisses where you would bump teeth from how much either of you were smiling, how he would let his hand clasp yours, fiddling with your fingers absently as he drove.

You remembered Johnny taking pictures of couples and the beach and you in your pajamas fighting the breeze with one of his bomber jackets slung over your shoulders when you’d ended up there past midnight. How he would take photos of you, teasing you by posing you perfectly and refusing to take the photo until you would stop posing to ask what was taking him so long. How he would whine that you were a bad model, insisting that if he ever became a successful photographer, he’d never sell his photos of you. The way he would double over and giggles would bubble from him like you were the funniest person in the world when you asked if it was because the photos of you didn’t turn out right. The way he would reply that no, it’s because they’re the most beautiful photos he’d ever take.

“I remember,” was all you could say.

“Would you ever wanna do something like that again?”

Your delayed response had caused him to quickly blurt out an excuse.

“You know, for our next video, I saw some comments saying we should do a video on how to spend Christmas in the city… like a ‘Couples take us through their ideal Christmas date spots’ kind of thing,” he explained nonchalantly.

You shot him a curious (yet slightly skeptical) look.

“Just… for work?”

Johnny’s smile grew, a feigned thoughtful hum leaving him, “Do you want it to be more than that?”

Johnny wasn’t usually one to beat around the bush.

Your lips parted in shock, averting your gaze as you shrugged. Both of you were aware, but neither of you seemed to mind.

“Do you?”

Johnny giggled, “You never seem to answer my questions directly these days.”

“Of course I want that, my sweet girl,” he let the name slip as naturally as it had used to, fully aware of what he’d said as he took his lower lip between his teeth, awaiting your response. Not being able to tolerate the silence, figuring it’d probably been too much, he cut in.

“Sorry, I—”

“Don’t worry about it,” you told him quickly, “we… have to film the video anyway so… let’s do that.”

“Saturday?” he asked, earning a nod from you.

“Saturday’s fine with me.”

Johnny took the liberty to unlock the door, only realising then that he was still holding your hand, letting go as he spotted Taeil in the living room, lounging belly down on the sofa watching the news.

“I’m gonna shower,” you called out, just so Taeil wouldn’t start asking you how the halloween party was, trying to ignore the staticy buzzing flowing through your right hand, which was now significantly warmer than the left.

Perhaps in his giddy happiness, Johnny let himself get a little carried away with his wine that night, Taeil calmly strolling into Johnny’s room when Johnny was typing something seriously on his computer, the same sleepy look in his eyes he got whenever he was tipsy. Not to mention very drowsy and very unfiltered.

“Someone’s in a mood,” Taeil huffed, amused lilt to his tone as he walked over to Johnny’s bathroom, taking a new packet of q-tips he’d run out of.

“Dude,” Johnny sighed, an almost guilty look in his eyes, as if he were holding back a multitude of secrets, “I need to tell you something.”

Setting his laptop on his bed next to him, Johnny got ready, Taeil holding up a hand in a gesture for Johnny to wait.

“Hold on, can I just pee really quick? I’ll be fast, I swear,” Taeil briskly walked out of the room, returning minutes later only to see Johnny snoring on his bed, sticking to the right side of the bed as though he were saving a space for someone.

Sighing, Taeil helped to transfer Johnny’s laptop from his bed to his bedside table, wanting to check in on you in your room as well, only to see you knocked out cold on your bed too, sticking to the left side.

===

‘Subject: Another update, even though you didn’t ask Moony, It’s me again. There’s no simple way to say it, so maybe i’ll just say it how it is in my head (very complicated and very messy). I may also be a little tipsy while writng this so just ignore the typos. The person I'm in love with is my best friend’s sister. The first time I met her waswhen my best friend invited me over for thanksgiving. It wasn’t much of a thanksgiving actually, it was just a normal dinner cause his family doesn’t celebrate it but it was like thanksgiving for me cause I couldn’t go home that year to be with my family so he just invited me to spend it with his family. Maybe i’m just thinking about thanksgiving more because it’s the first time I’ll be spending it with her and her brother again in like ages. She was… a daydreamer, to put it simply. Her brother says that’s just a nice way of saying she’s unfocused, but I don’t think so. She kind of reminds me of a butterly,,, for some reason. Like just flitting around from place to place or from thought to thought. She’s caring, considerate, loving. In all my interactikns with her for the past i dont know how long that ive been back for, I know that hasn’t changed, she was always such a sweet girl, even when she tried to be mean. I could see how time had changed her, but i could also see how much she was trying. But back then we just snuck around and didn’t really think too much about it, nobody else knew other than the both of us, we just kind of thought it was better that way back then, no one else to tell us how things should or shouldn’t have been other than us. Im seeing alot clearer now how things are different and we cant just go about it how we did back then… if i want to do this again i wanna do it as honestly as possible. i reallyreally don’t think i can keep ignoring how im feeling, or pretending it doesn’t exist. I wanna just fuck it and tell her brother or tell everyone and tell her but i dont know if thats me or the wine talking, maybe both. i dont really know where i was going with this but i just needed to get it off my chest. I just wanted you to know so you could tell me what you think. you dont have to replu if you dont want to or if this doesn’t make sense. I was thinking of asking her out on a date on Christmas… should I? I don’t know. Maybe i will.

Sincerly, Suhnyy sideup.’

“Hey guys, so, as I was saying...”

You were walking out of your building as you overheard Johnny talking to his camera, spotting you through the little screen and letting out a long gasp.

“Nooo, you weren’t supposed to come out yet!” he scrunched his eyes shut, turning around to look at you, his grin softening to a small smile, “you look nice.”

You shot him a look, “I look like this everyday.”

He nodded, humming in affirmation, “You do.”

He turned around, grasping his camera between his fingers as he positioned you so that he would block you with his height, raising his hand holding his camera to continue filming.

“Today’s video is gonna be a pretty free-spirited one, we hope. We asked you guys for your little Christmas date spots in the city and stories that you guys have about how you spent Christmas there! To make it not boring, we’ll be rating them too. Unless you think that’s boring then I guess you don’t have to watch this. But before I go on, lemme introduce the special guest I’ll be doing this with… and that is Season’s very own…”

“Do I come out now?” you asked, Johnny’s giggles bubbling out as he stepped aside to reveal you.

“You’re so loud, the camera definitely caught that,” he sputtered out between giggles, leaning forward slightly in his amusement, “Moony!”

You gave a tight-lipped smile, looking at yourself in the frame standing next to Johnny, tugging your coat tighter around yourself, “Okay, Moony. What’s our first stop for today?”

You unlocked your tablet, looking at the list of stories Johnny had taken the liberty of collating over the week and sending you, the first stop on the list being closest to where you two lived. Walking over to his car, you’d sat yourself in the passenger’s seat with a small grunt, Johnny getting into the driver’s seat and fixing the camera on the dashboard.

“We’re going to…” you scanned the list, “Starbucks?” you shot him a look, earning a giggle from him.

“I swear, it was a coincidence, the reader’s story really did take place there. But conveniently,” he directed his serious look to the camera, “Y/N and I haven’t had breakfast yet. So, we’re doing that first,” he broke into a grin.

Starting the car, you looked at the story, noticing that the reader mentioned going to a drive-thru and having their date in the car, so you turned to Johnny.

“Are we following what they do in the stories?”

Johnny nodded, “Y/N is gonna read the story while we make our way to the drive-thru.”

Turning to face the window as you let out a small yawn, you blinked harshly, tilting your ipad up to begin reading, Johnny calmly fixing his attention on the road as your speaking voice echoed through his car, something that relaxed him more than ever.

Spotting the drive-thru as you finished reading the story, Johnny flashed you a small smile, situating his car at the end of the little queue of cars that had formed.

“What do you want? Your usual?” he murmured, earning a quizzical look from you.

“You know what my ‘usual’ is?”

Johnny’s smile widened, “Want me to prove it?”

When you’d reached the order station, he rolled his window down, calmly reciting his order of coffee and getting you the order Chenle usually got for you.

Narrowing your eyes at him, you glanced at the camera and back to him, “Not bad.”

Shrugging, exaggerated nonchalance in his gestures as he turned to you with a smile, “Told you.”

Following the reader’s story, you’d both found a nearby carpark, you eating your breakfast as Johnny drank his coffee.

“I guess this makes for a cute date spot if you wanna get away from the public and all,” Johnny shrugged, eyeing your pastry, his tongue peeking out to wet his lips.

“Can I have a bite?” he murmured, making you huff, going to hand it to him when he was already leaning over with his mouth open, leaving you with no choice but to feed it to him.

“But yeah, I guess it’s a lot more private than if you were to just go to Starbucks itself for a date,” you returned to the topic at hand, “I guess it could count as a Christmas date spot if you’re not looking for anything too extravagant. Just you, your partner and your pumpkin nut latte or whatever.”

Johnny snickered, his nose scrunching and his eyes forming little crescents as he held a hand up at you, turning to the camera and shaking his head, “Forgive Y/N, she’s not an avid coffee drinker.”

You rolled your eyes, “But yeah. The reader mentioned that it was their ideal Christmas date spot because it’s always been a tradition for them to do this and just have some Christmas karaoke in the car,” you explained.

Johnny looked at you, a glint of playfulness in his eyes, “Would you like to have some Christmas Karaoke too?” You watched in anticipation as he was already pulling his phone from where it was sitting in the cupholder.

“Can I say no—”

You heard the telltale intro to ‘All I want for Christmas is you’, Johnny starting the car and beginning to drive as he sang along loudly with Mariah Carey.

===

“Reader says—”

“Oh, oh, this one’s good,” Johnny grinned, letting his camera hang from his neck as he made his way towards you.

“Johnny, would you be a little quieter, you’re gonna get us kicked out.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine, no one’s even here.”

“There’s literally five people sitting at that table trying to study.”

“Keep reading, Moony. Come on, dude!”

You glared at him, “Reader says she and her boyfriend— oh my god, wait I accidentally swiped out of the thing- okay, got it. She and her boyfriend worked here and during Christmas they would sneak mistletoe in the library and hang them from lights over the study table and they’d wait for people to share tables awkwardly because of the mistletoe just hanging over the both of them.”

You shot Johnny a blank look, “So, what? Are we gonna start hanging mistletoe over the study tables?”

Johnny hummed, distracted as he looked at you, his face close to you with how he was leaning against the bookshelf, “I mean, or we could be the ones sitting at those study tables…”

It took you a few seconds to process what he was saying, your eyes widening and hands darting out to shove him, making him erupt in a fit of giggles.

“God, I hope they edit that out.”

“Please don’t edit that out,” Johnny blurted between his giggles, resting his hands on his knees as he tried to collect himself, “I need everyone to see how you reacted.”

Huffing, you tried to mask your embarrassment, “Okay, I think i’ll clarify firstly that we’re not doing that…” you glanced at Johnny, who had fell into another bout of giggling, one of his hands clutching your arm and yelping as his knee hitting the bookshelf as he stumbled, “but this Christmas date idea is a little different from the rest—”

“Ma’am, is everything alright?” You saw the librarian approaching the both of you, your hand tapping Johnny as you did your best to drag him out of the library.

Holding the camera up again once you were out the double doors, you saw Johnny fixing his hair, a long sigh leaving him.

“Are you done laughing?” you couldn’t help the smile from your face, not being able to help the little hint of endearment towards him and his (very disruptive) laughter.

“Yes… I think.”

“Okay. We almost got kicked out of the library ‘cause of someone,” you gave him a pointed look, earning a nod from him.

“Yeah,” he groaned, adding an eyeroll for emphasis, “I wonder who that was, he was being really inconsiderate.”

Shaking your head in spite of your smile, you sighed, “Anyway, I was gonna say that this date idea is pretty laid-back as well. I think it’s really cute that the reader and her partner weren’t really like doing anything specific but I think there’s always something about watching other people in love that kind of makes you feel more in love if you are in love. What do you think?”

Johnny was very distracted, you were talking a lot and he tried reading your lips to focus more but then all he could think about was kissing you and then he was completely off track.

“Yeah,” he nodded, trying his best to regain his bearings, hand on his chest as he spoke, “Personally, I’m not really a fan of libraries, I prefer my date spots to be a bit more like, you know, conducive for conversation.”

“That’s just ‘cause you’re bad at keeping quiet. You always have something to say for everything.”

“Oh, but that’s what makes it fun, isn’t it? Keeps you on your toes,” he drawled.

Turning back to face the camera to stop yourself from getting flustered, Johnny simply smiled as he watched you continue.

“Anyway. Would recommend this date spot if you’re more into people watching, and if you’re not bad at holding back your laughter like some of us here.”

Johnny scoffed, “Speaking of people watching. Why don’t we head to our next location. I think it’d be better for us to talk a little more freely in the next location.”

===

“Oh, this one’s pretty interesting,” you hummed, Johnny looking over your shoulder, already halfway through his second coffee of the day as you walked towards the museum.

“I was visiting my parents for Christmas, and my flight landed early so I had a lot of time to kill before I was supposed to meet one of my friends for dinner. I decided to kill time by visiting one of the permanent exhibits in the museum that everyone seemed to be raving about. There were a lot of spaces where you could just lounge and have the whole room just be enveloped by the artwork and they had little viewing areas with bean bags all over and you could watch the artwork get animated all around you. I walked around for a while, trying to look for the perfect place to rest. By then, I was aching for somewhere to sit down, the jetlag was hitting me pretty badly. Finally, when I chanced upon this room with little bean bags at fixed spaces (you weren’t really allowed to sit anywhere other than the bean bags). Since there was only one left, I was heading for that one, but there was this other girl there heading for the exact same one. I’ll tell you honestly, I don’t think I could’ve brisk walked faster in my life. We were practically both racing for the bean bag, and quite nearly got into a fight about who got there first. Eventually though, we decided we’d just share the bean bag, sitting back to back with the bean bag smushed between us. I don’t know how, but we started talking, and we realised we had a lot of common interests. She lived in a different city, and was visiting her brother and his family in the city. We spent the rest of the evening together talking in that exhibit until it was time for both of us to leave. Afterwards, it kind of became our little meeting place each Christmas, doing the long distance thing until we both decided to date more seriously after I got a job offer in her city. Till today, that place is really special for us… we’ve got a lot of memories attached to the exhibit. Now, we’re married with 2 dogs, and we’ve even got a copy of that painting from the bean bag room framed up in our house. Reminds us of Christmas each time we look at it, which is always a great feeling no matter what time of the year it is, don’t you think?”

Johnny smiled, giving you an encouraging nod, as if reading was something he felt the need to praise you for. You hadn’t realised he’d tossed his empty coffee cup already, leading you through the exhibit with a hand guiding you at your back while you were so immersed with reading the story.

“That’s such a cute story,” you gushed, “almost sounds like something from a movie.”

Nodding, Johnny was pointing the camera towards you, a lot calmer and quieter than he was before, something telling you he was extra tired today.

“It’s on the third floor, by the way,” he told you, still leading you up the spiral stairs to reach the exhibit. True enough, it was pretty crowded, and just to satisfy his need for amusement, Johnny had gotten the both of you to sit back to back on the beanbag.

“We could bicker like the reader and their girlfriend, but that’s just another day for Y/N and myself,” Johnny told the camera.

You shoved him, hearing his telltale giggles that followed.

“Fine, fine,” Johnny sighed, “Maybe just every other day.”

You groaned, “Johnny,” you warned.

“Yes, my dear?” He blinked innocently.

You huffed, “I’m lucky you’re not the one editing this video, or I’m sure the viewers are gonna have a field day.”

“How do you know I don’t have connections in the editing team?”

Your lips parted.

“You’re kidding.” You should’ve known better, Johnny was very sociable. Too sociable, almost.

Johnny pursed his lips, shrugging. “What can I say? It just comes naturally.”

You smiled, shaking your head.

“Sure does.”

Leaning back so you could rest your back against his, Johnny sighed, “This place is really nice.”

You nodded, looking around the room and trying to take in as much of it as you could, pushing back your urge to think about how many submissions you had yet to work on, or what errands you had to get done. Today, your sole focus was experiencing things as they came, feeling emotions as they came, enjoying this time with Johnny while you still were able to use the excuse of work as a cover up.

“What are your thoughts on museum dates?” You hummed, earning a shrug from Johnny, who let out a small yawn before answering you.

“They’re nice. Never really went to a museum for a ‘date’ date, though, unless you count now. Usually I just went with my friends or my parents. What about you?”

You shrugged.

“Never really had a preference…” you spoke, trailing off when you felt Johnny shifting in his seat, stifling another yawn as best as he could as his hand went up to run his fingers through his hair, “Generally I prefer places that are a little more casual… but honestly, I think anywhere can be lovelier when you’re with someone you love.”

You couldn’t see his face but Johnny’s gaze was playful, full of intent as he quipped, “This place must be very lovely for you then, hmm?”

Again, you took a second to process what he said, a gasp leaving you as you rolled your eyes.

“Season should give me a pay raise after this project.”

Turning his head and leaning over, Johnny murmured, “It’s very very lovely for me, just so you know.”

Groaning, you turned away hoping your smile wasn’t too obvious, you shushed him.

“I think it’s time for you to get some vocal rest,” you muttered.

Johnny let out another yawn, shifting slightly, making you giggle from how the back of his head was rubbing against yours in a ticklish manner.

“Are you tired?” You asked, gaze following the animated waves of the artwork cascading across the walls, accompanied with gentle the sound of waves rolling against the coast.

“Yeah. Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, so maybe that’s why. I’ll be fine, though.”

You frowned. “Let me know if you wanna head home and rest, okay? We can always continue filming another day. Is it ‘cause of sinus problems or anything? I remember you used to have those issues…I have this humidifier that could help with that-”

You stopped yourself short when Johnny sighed, an amused huff leaving him.

“You see, I knew you’d worry if I told you,” the tired smile on his face was almost enough to put you at ease, “Don’t worry, alright? I’ve been looking forward to this day all week… I’m not gonna let a little bit of sleepiness take that away from me,” he huffed, making you roll your eyes.

You weren’t sure what came over you. Perhaps it was your desire to live a little more freely today. Or, at least, that was your excuse for now.

“Turn the camera off. Take a nap, I’ll wake you up in half an hour.”

Johnny was practically beaming.

Shifting again in his seat, he moved to sit next to you, resting his head on your shoulder as you leaned your back against the beanbag.

Sure, it was different, having Johnny rest his head on your shoulder, out in the open for whoever visited the exhibit to see. Very different from sneaking around and napping in cars on road trips, but you couldn’t deny that it was familiar, the way his breathing had evened out quicker than you expected, or the weight of his head comfortably nestling itself against you. You couldn’t deny that it was good.

So you sat, fiddling absently with his little camera as he slept, once again letting yourself feel everything that came to you. The unmistakable feeling of grace that came with warmth, comfort, peace, and if you were being honest? Maybe even love.

===

“Feeling better?” you couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him groggily staring at the waves after you woke him up, turning to you to give you a tired smile, one of his hands coming up to fiddle with his earring.

“Your shoulder is very comfortable,” he sighed, reaching his arms out in front of him and letting out a small grunt as he stretched.

Getting up from the beanbag, he held a hand out for you to take, helping you up with such ease you’d almost stumbled into him.

“Ready to head to the next location?” he asked.

“It’s the last one, right?”

Johnny narrowed his eyes at you, a hesitant hum leaving him, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Okay. Maybe when we’re done we can go get dinner or something,” you offered as casually as you could, Johnny poorly stifling his smile as he nodded at you, already pulling his phone out.

“I’ll tell Taeil we won’t be back for dinner.”

You’d ended up at an ice-skating rink, Johnny seeming to have gotten back some of his energy, the cold air seeming to have woken him up a little, eagerly getting his skates on as he insisted to the camera that he was gonna be a lot better at this than you.

True enough, he was very good at it, skating way ahead of you so he could use his film camera to snap photos of you trying to film or flail around on the ice as you tried to avoid the other groups of teenagers there.

“Just skate forward,” he told you, pointing his camera lens at you.

You held the camera just below your neck, not being able to direct yourself very well when you were busy looking through the small screen.

“Am I supposed to pose or something? This feels awkward,” you huffed, contemplating if you should’ve stopped filming.

Pulling his camera down from his face so he could look at you, he put on a serious look, “Try smiling.”

You mustered a smile, still skating towards him, waiting for him to snap the picture but frowning when 5 long seconds had passed and there wasn’t a single snapshot sound coming from his end.

“Johnny are you—”

You heard the snapshot sound when you were mid-speech, groaning when he’d burst into laughter, managing to elicit a smile from you as well.

“Why’d you stop smiling? You’re such a bad model!” he teased, pretending to be upset even in spite of the giggles that bubbled out of him.

Shoving him lightly (though he didn’t budge at all), you feigned menace in the glare you directed towards him, “you always do this.”

Johnny grinned, “Okay, okay. Again, again. Give me the camera.”

You tried smiling again, your gaze slowly turning to a knowing glare when you still heard no snapshot. About to break your pose, you couldn’t help the laughter that escaped you, your smile becoming less forced and more genuine, almost not noticing the snapshot that followed immediately after.

“Did you take the picture?” you asked, earning a nod from him.

“Yeah.”

“Was it nice?”

Johnny’s gaze held the same playfulness to it, giving you a simple shrug, “Meh, looks like a stock image—”

You huffed, about to shove him when he started to skate away, pointing the camera to you as he muttered something you couldn’t hear but you were sure was full of teasing, starting on your mission to chase after him (with your average skating abilities), being able to pick out the sound of his laughter even in the midst of the crowd.

It was strange, almost, how different you felt from just a few days ago. Calmer, freer, warmer. Not even because of Johnny, but perhaps because you weren’t trying to take yourself so seriously.

You weren’t trying too hard to maintain your ‘reputation’ or your clean cut image, or trying to remain so closed up so that no one could know enough about your personality to use against you, or trying to stay poised so you wouldn’t get embarrassed. It was quite the opposite. Sure you were embarrassed at the thought of Johnny taking unflattering photos of you, sure you were flustered by his teasing, sure you wouldn’t have been caught dead being a borderline nuisance in public libraries. But it was never the end of the world, and you were remembering that more these days.

You knew Johnny better than to think he’d let himself be caught so easily, so by the time you made your third round around the rink, you were starting to give up, skating to the barricade and situating yourself there. Adding the little extra dramatics as you moved to massage your calves.

In a matter of seconds, you saw him skating towards you, a hint of a smile lingering on his features as he let out a satisfied smile, “Tired already?”

Glaring at him, you huffed, “If you’re not, feel free to make another 5 rounds before joining me at the café.”

Johnny smiled, reaching over to adjust the scarf you were wearing and giving you a simple nod.

“I’ll make another round just to take a few more pictures, I’ll join you afterwards.”

Yanking off your borrowed skates with what felt like your last bits of energy, you slipped your shoes on, returning the skates before walking over to the little drink and snack bar they had next to the rink, getting yourself a hot chocolate and finding a standing table to wait.

Joining you shortly after, you frowned when you saw the can of redbull in his hand, watching as he took his place next to you, setting the camera on the little table and taking a sip of his redbull before setting it on the table.

“That was fun,” he sighed, making you laugh, looking at him incredulously.

“When’s the last time you went ice skating?” you asked, earning a thoughtful look from him.

“I think I was seventeen? But it was for a friend’s birthday party. Not like a date or anything.”

Humming, you shrugged, “I think the last time I went was with Taeil and my parents when we were really young. But for the entire time I've lived here, I’ve never actually gone here before.”

Johnny’s eyebrows raised, clutching a hand to his chest with exaggerated emotion, “I’m flattered to be the first one you came here with.”

Rolling your eyes, you glanced at the camera, not having realised it was filming.

“How would you rank this date idea?”

He responded quickly, “ten out of ten. It’s way more fun when you go with someone who can’t skate—”

“I can totally skate—”

“That’s what they all say. We’ll let the viewers decide when they watch the video,” he told you, momentarily distracted by the way you switched your hot chocolate with his redbull.

“Too much caffeine,” you murmured, “you won’t be getting any sleep tonight if you keep going.”

Johnny simply nodded, trying to contain his smile. He knew caffeine didn’t necessarily affect his sleep at night, but he was more than happy to be at the receiving end of your concern.

Navigating back to the topic smoothly, you continued, “I would rank this… a nine out of ten. Minus one point because it was so cold my feet felt numb. But I think it’s really good for a first date.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked, gladly sipping on your hot chocolate.

“First of all, it’s a great way to break the ice—”

“Very funny,” Johnny snickered.

“— and it sort of dissipates the awkwardness too? Reader was saying she went here for her first date and it wasn’t awkward at all because her date was helping her learn how to skate and you know… with that comes all the hand holding and whatnot. And because it’s outdoors there’s also a different atmosphere to it, when you can see the Christmas decorations and feel the excitement of the season.”

Johnny nodded slowly, humming in understanding “Ah, so you’re saying it’ll help to break that physical barrier, in a sense.”

You shot him a look, “Yeah, unless they’re coming here with someone like you, then good luck to them trying to flail around on their own while you’re out there performing a whole olympic routine.”

Johnny’s laughter was contagious, his hand touching your arm almost to keep him steady as he laughed.

“I was motivating you,” he insisted.

“Consider me still unmotivated.”

“But yeah, you’re right. It’s a good way to release some tension because you’ll be moving around, and sure you could still go to indoor skating rinks but this one in this city in particular has all the vibes you would want during Christmas.It costs a little more, we’ll put the details somewhere in the sceeen now, I hope,” he waved his hand inbetween the both of you, “But they have discounts for students and special holiday deals! Not to mention they have a couples discount, so couples are very much welcome here.”

You nodded, “I’d still say that regardless, you should probably wear some thicker socks if you’re planning to come here during the winter time.”

“And if you get cold easily like Y/N,” Johnny added, “As much as Y/N may not look like it, we definitely had a lot of fun here.”

You shot him a look, shrugging, “... okay, yeah. Fine, it was kind of fun.”

Johnny’s eyes widened, “You see, guys? She’s basically jumping for joy. Anyway, that brings us to the end of this video. Let us know if you’d like to see more of this content, maybe even a part two? There’s a lot of things you can do during Christmas as a date, even if we didn’t mention it in the video. Thanksgiving’s soon so maybe you could watch the Macy’s parade together or something.”

You nodded, “Yeah, or if you don’t celebrate thanksgiving you could do other things like… bake cookies or make gingerbread houses, or decorate Christmas trees and wreaths, or play board games,” you listed out, Johnny looking at you with an amused smirk playing at his lips.

“... and that was Y/N’s list of date ideas for homebodies.”

You scoffed, “I’m serious!”

“But yeah, if you guys would like to see more of these videos, make sure to let Season know. Otherwise, we’ll see you soon for another couples video next week! Y/N say ‘bye’.”

He turned the camera towards you.

“By—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” he teased, directing the camera away for his own amusement before turning it back to capture the both of you as he said goodbye, pressing the stop button and setting the camera down with a huff of laughter.

“It’s not that close to dinnertime yet, actually…” Johnny murmured, glancing at the time on his phone, “do you wanna just walk around until we’re a little more hungry?”

Shrugging, you nodded.

The sun was beginning to set, a warm golden glow leading and following wherever Johnny and you walked, venturing into a park and watching elderly couples and families with little toddlers having picnics or watching the view of the sunset against the pond.

“The buildings along this street are really nice,” Johnny hummed, his hands shoved into the pockets of his furry jacket, cameras now safely tucked in your bag, “don’t you think?”

You shrugged, “I guess… they probably cost a bomb, though.”

“I guess. I was actually looking at this area before Taeil told me about his idea for me to room with him and split rent so I could take my time searching.”

You frowned, “Oh. So, you’re still house hunting?”

Johnny nodded, “Yeah. I figured if I really wanted to put down roots, I wanted to kind of have my own space… have it conducive enough to settle down. I mean, I love rooming with Taeil, but obviously, it kind of doesn’t allow for a whole lot of privacy.”

You huffed, amusement in your smile, “Yeah. I learned that the hard way when I was in college… kind of awkward to study when you can hear people fucking even through your headphones.”

Johnny sputtered out a laugh, sighing almost wistfully, “College… actually, did you date anyone back then? Or… since then?”

You shot him a look, “I’m surprised you haven’t already asked Taeil by now.”

Simply smiling, Johnny shook his head, “I’m honestly surprised too…”

He wasn’t really. He just figured he wasn’t ready to hear it if Taeil’s answer was affirmative.

“For your information,” you began, a small sigh leaving you, “I didn’t. Well, nothing more than a talking stage, I guess.”

Johnny’s eyebrows raised in surprise, “Really? Why not?”

“No specific reason, just didn’t meet anyone I was really interested in, I guess.”

The way he was looking at you was making you feel as though you were a one-way mirror, making you desperate to fix his attention on something else, glancing elsewhere and spotting a food stand nearby, “Have you eaten that before? It’s pretty good.”

Johnny followed your gaze, humming, “I’ve heard of it, never tried it, though. Should we just eat that for dinner?”

You nodded, letting him lead you to the stand, buying your dinner and deciding to find a place in the park to sit and eat.

After a period of silence, you decided to ask the question that’d been lingering in your mind for the longest time now, “What about you? Date anyone while you were in Austria? Or France? Or Greece? Or wherever the hell you were?”

Johnny let out an amused huff, shaking his head.

“Nope,” he replied, popping the ‘p’.

You let out a laugh, sarcasm dripping from your tone, “Yeah, right,” you glanced at him, only to see that he was very much not kidding, “wait, you’re serious?”

Johnny nodded, smiling gently, “Is that so hard to believe?”

You stared blankly at him, “Sorry, but yes. Very. You really… not even like one night stands or like friends with benefits or anything?”

Johnny shook his head, “Yeah, none of that either.”

Your lips parted, mostly in surprise.

“Oh.”

He huffed, rolling his eyes with affection, “Yeah. ‘Oh’, indeed.”

“Any… reason behind that?” you dared to ask.

Johnny nodded, humming, “I mean, I met a lot of people… and sure they were beautiful, they were likeable, they were successful. But… I guess I didn’t want to. Couldn’t, honestly. It was weird… just kind of felt like it wasn’t even something I considered. I wanted to focus on studying, building my resumé, my portfolio and getting work experience. Somehow, all of the travelling still felt temporary, like I was working towards something bigger eventually.”

You huffed, “Did anything feel permanent for you?”

Johnny gave you a wordless look, and you didn’t have to hear the words from him to know what he felt.

Averting your gaze, you let him lead you both to a park bench, sitting down and understanding why he chose it immediately, taking in the vast view of the pond and the open area of the park, the reflection of the trees and the sunset in the water.

“How are you feeling?” he murmured as you took a bite out of your dinner, surprising you with the sudden question. You swallowed your food quickly before answering.

“Honestly? Kind of tired. I think the skating really wore me out, “ you couldn’t help the smile on your face as he giggled, “Feels weird, though. Usually if I spend this long not doing work or doing something productive I’d be an anxious mess by now,” you huffed, bringing your drink up to your lips to take a sip, “but I’m not really feeling any of that today.”

Johnny shrugged, “but you were productive today, and technically we were working. We shot a whole video’s content. You did well,” he assured you.

You could only huff. Just a month ago, you would’ve refuted him, saying you hadn’t done enough. Now, it didn’t feel as self-indulgent as you thought it would to want to give yourself a pat on the back.

“This is gonna sound a little ‘out of nowhere’ but… do you ever feel tired?” you began, “of like… you know, working and working and telling yourself you’re working towards something when you don’t actually know what that something is?”

Johnny tilted his head at you in curiosity, “Care to explain a little more?”

You shrugged, sinking down slightly in your seat as you fiddled with the packaging of your food, “No, I just thought of it ‘cause you mentioned something just now about how even though everything felt temporary, you still had to be chasing because there’s the idea of having to like, keep running towards something bigger? Or keep finding temporary things to chase?”

Johnny nodded, prompting you to continue.

“Taeil says I'm guilty of that… always feeling like I need to be doing, but isn’t that just how it is? Like… for such a long time I’ve just always felt like time is just gonna keep moving without me and if i’m not moving too I’m just gonna get left behind. I don’t really know where I was going with this…”

Johnny hummed, “like… chasing to survive?”

You nodded.

“Yeah. I’m just kind of tired of it, I guess, of feeling like I’m chasing because I’m scared of what will happen if I’m not. I guess I… just feel like I’m always seeing everybody chasing and settling for chasing the same things as them because I have to be chasing something. I can’t even remember a time when I wasn’t.”

Johnny gave you a soft smile, once again, able to feel and know the pages of your book and recite the words by heart. The image of a butterfly flitting around.

“I know you do, and that’s not a bad thing at all, you know?” he told you, gentle reassurance in his tone, “but you can’t let yourself get confused and chase things you don’t care about just because it’s what other people are chasing, or just because you like to chase shit,” he huffed with a smile.

“You’re right. I mean, I love my job and I know I have to work for money but… I guess what I’m sick of chasing is this idea of having to be perfect, or having to be some well-oiled machine that never makes any mistakes and never feels tired and never needs to rest because everyone’s depending on them.”

Johnny nodded, giving you a shrug, as if the answer was as clear as day to him (and perhaps, it was to you as well).

“Then don’t.”

You smiled, huffing, “What about you? Was this what you imagined you’d be doing? Working at Season doing ‘couple videos’ with me?”

Johnny snorted, “Yeah, totally, this was my end-goal for 10 years—” he stopped himself to laugh, falling silent just for a moment, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“I actually got a job offer from my old college… they were asking me if I was interested in teaching for their photography programme.”

Your eyes widened, “Oh.”

“I was actually thinking of taking up the offer… you know, after my contract ends with Season. I’ve always liked the idea of teaching… figured it was an opportunity I'd regret not taking.”

You brought your drink to your lips to take a long sip, nodding slowly, trying to understand the implication of his words.

“So… you’ll have to move again?” you dared to ask, trying to read his expression so you would know how to prepare your heart in anticipation for his next words.

“No, actually. I’m trying to work something out with them to see if I can teach classes remotely.”

You visibly relaxed, earning a smile from Johnny, who sighed softly, “I meant what I said, you know? I’m back for good.”

There was no other way to describe how that moment felt to you. Time was moving, time was definitely moving. Everyone else was moving around you, running after a bus, brisk walking, running late for their appointment, starting to pack up their things and head home as the sun set, people heading out with friends.

Looking at Johnny and hearing his words, reassurance overwhelmed you. The reminder that yes, things were moving, and it was more than okay if you were not.

In this moment, you felt like you were returning to a safe base after your long period of searching, exploration and discovery, returning to meet someone who was more than ready to share in your discoveries with you, to rest with you, to be with you until you were ready to explore again, and be with you even then.

You nodded, crushing up the empty wrapper of food.

You knew. You guessed you just needed a little more time for it to feel real.

“Wanna get ice cream?”

===

That night, Johnny and you were working on rather different things. While you were typing out your reply to your latest ‘Ask Moony’ submission from Suhnny Side Up, he was supposed to be sending the footage the two of you recorded to the editing team.

So, it was safe to say that when Taeil had walked into Johnny’s room only to see the boy staring at a photo of you he’d taken today that was now blown up on his large desktop screen, it was a little more than difficult for Johnny to explain why. If that wasn’t bad enough, he hadn’t even noticed Taeil’s presence in the room until the boy stood next to Johnny’s swivel chair, looking at the picture and then at Johnny, who bumped his elbow against the table in shock as he fumbled to minimise the picture.

“Shit, you scared the crap out of me.”

Taeil’s expression was eerily calm, Johnny noted, wondering for a moment if this was how people in horror movies felt when they were in the same room as the killer.

“Thought you said you were sending an email,” Taeil finally spoke, earning a calm nod from Johnny.

“I was.”

“So, you were gonna include that picture of Y/N in the email?”

Johnny nodded slowly, “Well… I was gonna edit them before I sent them to her,” he lied.

Taeil took a seat at the edge of Johnny’s bed, hands shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants.

“Then why’d you close it when you saw me? Almost thought I caught you watching something weird.”

Was Taeil playing with him? He never knew the boy to be so cunning.

Johnny’s lips parted, a huff leaving him eventually, trying to lighten the tension he felt.

“Dude, I know this is awkward, but trust me, there’s a simple explanation for all of this—”

Taeil couldn’t help the amusement from his features, “Okay… ‘cause is this the part where I tell you that I already know?”

“Y/N and I- wait, what?”

Taeil pressed his lips into a firm line, nodding as he sucked in a sharp breath.

“Yeah… I’ve kind of known about you guys’ thing for a while...”

Johnny tried to run through his memories in his head, wondering if it was the first night that you moved in here that gave it away, or if it was something he said when he was drunk.

“How?” Johnny’s lips felt dry, reaching over for his glass of water which unfortunately did not seem to help at all.

Taeil shrugged, frowning in thought, “I had my suspicions at first, ‘cause she was acting all weird in her freshman year. I mean, I just thought she had a crush on Sicheng, at first, ‘cause they were hanging out a lot to study and all, but… I think I was only sure when I went over to your house and I saw her moomin shirt in your laundry basket.”

Johnny’s lips parted in shock.

“Could’ve been my moomin shirt.”

Taeil shot Johnny a knowing look, “Definitely was not your size.”

“What makes you so sure? I was pretty lean.”

“Johnny, seriously,” Taeil rolled his eyes, “it was her favourite shirt. I’m pretty sure I would’ve seen it enough to know it was hers. And definitely not yours.”

Johnny sighed, “Fine.”

Averting his gaze from Taeil, he let out another sigh, “I’m sorry… for not telling you sooner. I was going to, but…I guess I was just waiting for the right time… and then I realised there was honestly never gonna be a ‘right time’ to tell you.”

Taeil huffed, leaning back to lie on Johnny’s bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Would’ve been nice to have heard it from you sooner. But I’m not mad or anything, just saying. I just… guess I kind of hoped you knew what you were doing, especially since, you know, you had a lot of… things going on back then.”

Johnny shook his head slowly, “Honestly, I don’t think I did.”

Taeil smiled, “I know. It was obvious.”

“Thanks a lot, dude,” Johnny’s tone was dripping with sarcasm, “Really makes me feel better.”

Taeil scoffed, “You don’t get to feel better for lying to me for nine years.”

Almost looking sheepish, Johnny sucked in a sharp breath, “Right, sorry.”

Slumping back in his swivel chair, Johnny fixed his blank stare on Taeil’s figure lying on his bed, wondering how Taeil must have felt knowing about it all this while, and more so why he never asked Johnny to confirm his suspicions.

“I have a question, though,” Taeil spoke up after a long pause.

Johnny hummed, prompting Taeil to continue, “Do you love her?”

Johnny let out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, nodding even though Taeil couldn’t see him.

“Very much… yeah. If I’m honest, even more now.”

Taeil hummed, sitting up slightly and supporting his weight with his elbows, “I could tell as much. Just figured I wanted to hear it straight from you.”

“Can I ask you something too, though?” Johnny hummed.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Why didn’t you let Taeyong date her? It confused the hell out of me, I thought he would’ve treated her perfectly.”

Taeil laughed, giving Johnny a look that only read ‘are you kidding?’

“Isn’t it obvious? She already liked you too much by then, she would never have given him the time of day. I knew it would’ve made more sense to just let him know he had no chance to begin with.”

Now, Johnny really felt foolish. But somehow, he didn’t regret how things played out. In fact, it felt better this way, like things were falling into place how they were meant to.

“Oh,” Johnny muttered, watching as Taeil got up from his bed with a grunt, a hand coming up to run through his hair, “you knew that early on?”

Taeil had a proud smile on his face, “I’m a lot more perceptive than you guys give me credit for. And plus, I don't think you realise how obvious it was,” he laughed, “Do you have any idea how sarcastic she became after meeting you? I could literally see how your behaviour was rubbing off on each other.”

Johnny’s eyebrows raised, somehow not having realised that till Taeil mentioned it.

“Literally, you guys even started using the same terms and all, it was like… something that happens when people spend too much time with each other. My mom saw it too but it wasn’t like I had any explanation for it back then.”

“Oh… that makes me feel kind of stupid,” Johnny admitted, huffing in amusement in spite of himself, “here I was thinking I was on some covert operation everytime she snuck out of your house-”

“You’d sneak her out?!” Taeil’s eyes widened.

Johnny’s expression mirrored Taeil’s, tensing visibly. .

“Forget I said anything.”

Taeil groaned, “Too late. It’s all starting to make sense now,” he sighed, grimacing, “I always thought she was just more tired from staying up late to study.”

Johnny’s smile was sheepish, his hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck, averting his gaze to the floor.

“Whatever, I know you guys are going through a… weird stage right now but I hope you guys make it through. I mean, I’m sure you’ll both find your way through it but… you know, just want you to know I’m rooting for you, I guess,” Taeil shrugged, “Also so I can stop feeling like my apartment is a filming set for ‘too hot to handle’ or something.”

Johnny rolled his eyes, “Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome,” Taeil grinned, “I’m gonna sleep now, goodnight.”

Johnny hummed, bidding Taeil goodnight and listening to his footsteps grow lighter till he was gone, the lightness seeming to mirror how Johnny felt now that that burden of a secret was off of his (and technically yours too) shoulders.

It was just past one in the morning when Johnny heard a soft knock at his door, turning around on his chair to see you standing there, one hand against the doorframe and the other running through your hair.

“Hey, thought you would’ve been asleep by now,” he frowned, earning a huff of dismissal in response.

“Nah, I was working on a submission,” you sighed. Truthfully, you’d just spent way too long looking at the comments on your forum and it was making you feel too shitty to continue writing, your legs had somehow just led you to seek Johnny for a distraction (or comfort, admittedly) without thinking.

“You should sleep soon, you can always continue working on it tomorrow.”

Nodding, you sighed, “I know, I might just do that,” you got slightly distracted from the song that was softly playing from his laptop, recognizing the tune almost instantly.

“Is that… Adele?”

Johnny glanced at the direction you pointed at, nodding at his laptop and turning to you with a soft smile, “Yeah.”

“She was so good live,” you sighed, recalling the Adele concert you’d gone to with Johnny in your Sophomore year (without Taeil knowing obviously). As much as he didn’t seem like it, Johnny was a rather big fan of Adele. You remembered just how much he listened to the nineteen album when he was in high school, knowing the words by heart like they were a secret language he invented.

Getting up from where he sat on his bed, Johnny made his way over to you, pulling you into the room by your hands, the music seeming much louder than it was before.

“Do you remember?” he murmured, and you didn’t have to ask to know what he was referring to.

“That lady that was dancing with her husband?” you asked, just to be sure you were on the same page, the way his smile grew only made your heart falter.

“Yeah,” he grasped your hand, twirling you around with the brightest of smiles on his face, bringing both your hands up to wrap your arms around his neck, his hands finding their way to your waist.

“Like this, right?” he spoke softly, and you could only nod.

You were surprised you remembered the moment so vividly, Adele performing one and only as you and Johnny imitated the elderly couple you saw dancing in the back of the venue, Johnny leaning over to press a kiss to your forehead, insisting that the song was somehow made for him. After all, even if it was when doing things like making hot chocolate for you, or writing his little notes he would stick in your textbooks for you to find during the day (‘otherwise you wouldn’t be studying your textbook properly’, he would say), he would always make sure you knew that they were from your ‘one and only, Johnny’.

You figured if the both of you were dancing, you would’ve at least been swaying, but somehow, you’d grown closer in proximity, somehow rendering the both of you almost paralysed as your bodies pressed against each other, faces were mere breaths away from each other.

His hand that was rubbing the skin of your waist under your shirt was almost enough to push you over the edge, your breath hitching in your throat as you felt him lean even closer, your lips parted, just barely grazing his, but neither of you were making any move to fully close the gap. It was as though he was waiting for you.

Your whole body felt like it was being held up by a single thread, you could feel his breath on your lips, the warmth radiating from him and the way you could practically feel the imprint of his hands through your shirt, the static feeling that would rush through you when your lips would brush ever so slightly.

At the sudden sound of his text tone, you’d pulled apart instantly, feeling breathless even though nothing had happened, his hands letting go of you and yours falling back to your sides, taking a step back as he glanced at his phone then back at you.

“I’m gonna…” you sighed through your nose, “goodnight.”

He blinked at you, once, twice, as though he were regaining his bearings, giving you a small nod.

“Night.”

===

Johnny thought things had been looking up, till he read your latest ‘Ask Moony’ reply. Arguably, it wasn’t a very pleasant way to start his Thanksgiving morning.

You didn’t see him at the office that day since you were swamped with meetings and he had shoots going on, but you spent the entire day with Chenle, and if you didn’t think it was that bad, you were given a reality check again today.

“What was with the post you put up this morning?”

“Hmm?” you pretended you hadn’t heard him, pretending to be busy with your mug you were already done washing.

You’d posted it on a whim, letting your rational side take over again, but you were beginning to regret it, something about your words in the reply not sitting right with you.

Chenle shot you a knowing look, leaning against the thick marble counter of the pantry as he used the empty packet of instant coffee mix to stir his drink.

“No, like, I don’t get it,” Chenle huffed out a laugh, “I had like three people ask me today if you were alright because your reply was so… unexpected. I mean, the past few times you replied this guy, you were supporting him and encouraging him and giving him tips, but the moment he comes out and says it’s his best friends sister you tell him to fuck off and die—”

“I didn’t tell him that.”

“Well, you might as well have,” Chenle scoffed, “You literally told him it wasn’t worth it, but you had no explanation for that other than that blanket statement you gave him about ‘secret relationships never ending well’, which was totally not statistically backed by the way.”

“Since when do you care about statistics?”

“Look,” his gaze was serious, “you know me. I respect what you do for ‘Ask Moony’, and I’ve never spoken to you like this about any of your articles before but I just wanted to check up on you because… I don’t know, that submission sounded nothing like what you would say. Did you really mean that?”

“But isn’t that…'' you frowned, an exasperated huff leaving you, “I mean, isn’t what I said what people want to read? I was reading the forum last night and I saw so many comments saying that I needed to be less idealistic or… or more ‘tough love’-ish, or that the girl that Suhnny Side Up was talking about was annoying and that he should just give up.”

Chenle sighed, bringing his glass up to his lips to take a big gulp of his coffee.

“Honestly? I don’t know what the forum says, but I saw the comments on the article and… they’re confused. Your past few articles and posts were great, they loved how personal you were getting and how intimate it felt, but this one… people aren’t convinced you’re being honest, that’s all I’ll say.”

You huffed, waving him off as you glanced at the time on your phone. You only had to work till three today since Season was letting people off early on Thanksgiving, and it was almost time for your meeting.

“Fine, I’ll go to a corner and think about what I did. Bye.”

“Uh-huh, please do. And for your sake,” he called as you were walking away, “I hope to God you don’t see that woman today.”

Your meeting had just ended, and you managed to have a peaceful lunch without seeing her. But after lunch was when your peace was disrupted again. This time not by Chenle, but perhaps you should’ve been thankful, since you could’ve been met with a lot worse.

“Hey,” you looked up into the mirror in front of you at the sound that echoed around the walls, watching Yeri coming up next to you to wash her hands.

“Hey,” you murmured, focused on washing the soap off your hands.

“Y/N, you’re pretty close with John, right?”

You frowned, “Why are you asking?”

Yeri’s expression was sheepish, “No, it’s just… he’s been really off today. He’s not making jokes like he usually does, or smiling… like at all. He honestly looks kind of upset,” she grimaced, “I was just wondering if you knew what happened. We’re all too scared to ask him. I figured you would know better than any of us.”

You frowned, shaking your head, “I don’t know. Maybe he’s really tired or something.”

Yeri didn’t look as though she believed you, but it wasn’t as if you had a better guess. It took a lot for Johnny to lose his temper, but he usually calmed down after a few hours and forgot what he was angry about.

“My advice would be to get him a coffee and give him some space. He’ll get over it in a few hours, whatever it is,” you huffed, waving her off in dismissal as you dried your hands.

“And if he doesn’t?” she winced, earning a blank look from you.

“If he doesn’t, it’s probably not work related,” you sighed, fixing your hair in the mirror, “It won’t be your problem after three pm anyway.”

Yeri eyed you carefully, “Okay, then… Well, are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She shrugged, leaning over to take a paper towel to dry her hands with.

“You seem a little… annoyed.”

You shook your head, “Yeah. It’s nothing, just having some problems with my post.”

Yeri’s eyes lit up in realisation, her lips parting, “Oh, yeah. Doyoung was saying he wanted to talk to you about it? He said something about rewriting it or taking it down before things get worse.”

You huffed, sourness lingering on your tongue as you nodded, “Message received. Thanks, Yeri.”

She shook her head in dismissal, “No worries… Happy thanksgiving.”

You hummed, “Yeah, happy thanksgiving.”

Making your way back up to your desk, you sat yourself down with a grunt, burying your head in your hands in frustration, frankly not wanting to check your computer for any hate mail right now.

You knew what they were telling you was right. You did feel hypocritical writing that post, telling Suhnny Side Up to give up and not put themselves at risk of getting hurt, that they were torturing the other person by holding on to the part of them that may not even be there anymore. Perhaps, it was even harder for you to type this out knowing very well the amount of similarities it had to yours and Johnny’s situation.

You wanted to satisfy what those people in the forum wanted, but when you tried, it felt unnatural, fabricated, because it wasn’t at all what you really wanted to say. You were making progress, you knew that. You’d just let the forum get to you. This wasn’t connected at all, in fact, it felt almost separate from your opinion, and you knew that was the problem.

Finally tearing your head from your hands, you turned your computer on, clicking on your email to see the latest one had come in, from [email protected].

‘Y/N, I just spoke to Chenle. You should know firstly that the forum is full of trolls, we clear out a bunch of spam hate messages everyday. I know I’m new here, and it’s probably very rude of me to be just emailing you like this without a proper reason but I swear Doyoung is backing me up in this email. I even CC’d him. Whatever the situation is, speak truthfully, and make sure you actually believe in what you’re saying. Season will deal with whatever comes afterwards. You should remember that the very reason why you have this column in the first place is because people want to hear your view on these things. Your job is to just speak from your heart, not to say things because you think that’s what they want to hear because honestly, what they want to hear is what you really think.’

Sighing, you went to your online column, clicking on your latest post.

Like you said, you were on a path to reconnect, and whatever this is, wasn’t helping. Reading the words you’d written, it felt as though you were looking through someone else’s lens, like Johnny had said before. Perhaps you would’ve been satisfied with this post, but only if you were looking at it from the perspective of the people who posted the nasty comments in the forum.

In your lens, the words didn’t align with you at all.

You deleted the post, returned to Suhnny Side Up’s submission, and you started again.

===

Moon Tael 3:20pm - you’re ending work soon, right?- 3:20pm - can you get some beer on the way back? we only have wine at home- 3:20pm -i asked Johnny to get it but he forgot-

You were beyond tired. You spent the rest of your time in your office trying to rewrite your article, and though you were satisfied with what you’d written so far, that didn’t mean you weren’t extremely tired from tapping into that part of your feelings and your energy as you wrote.

Walking slowly on your way from the office, lugging the heavy bag of all the beer you bought, you couldn’t help the little pull you felt to enter The Commune again.

This time, staring at the same two photos. You couldn’t help but sigh, staring at the pictures and trying to place the feelings it stirred within you.

You thought about what that stranger had told you the last time you were here, that everybody saw your photo as what they wanted to see it as. It was only limited to what you wanted it to be limited to.

You looked at the photo of you. This time, there were no feelings of frustration at the shadows, at the hidden nature of everything, at the distance you felt from the girl in the picture. Instead, you felt a strange sense of comfort.

Comfort at the knowledge that you had to be her back then, so that you could be yourself now. Neither you nor her was more important than the other. You guessed, when you had grown so used to trying to look at yourself through the perspective of strangers, the distance felt stronger, the sense of not knowing, the parts of you you tried to hide and keep hidden felt stronger.

It was like you said before, there was a feeling of a fog slowly being lifted, now you were left with a cold mist that lingered, but wasn’t as unpleasant as you expected.

You were looking at yourself. The imperfect, distracted, naive self, but you didn’t find yourself thinking of ways she was so foolish, or ways she could have been better, or pleased others more. You delighted in her.

Sighing, you turned around, making your way down the street and continuing on your way home.

Johnny was still cooking with Taeil in the kitchen when you’d reached the apartment, greeting them with hums of acknowledgement as you unloaded the cans of beer into the fridge.

“What time’s dinner gonna be ready?” You asked Johnny, earning a shrug in response, his gaze still fixed on the ingredients on his chopping board.

Frowning at his response, you tried again “What are you making?”

“Food,” Johnny grunted, still not looking at you.

You glanced at Taeil, eyebrows raising in question.

Taeil shook his head, sensing your annoyance as his hands came up to grasp at your shoulders and usher you out of the kitchen, his voice dropping to a whisper so Johnny wouldn’t hear.

“He’s in a mood… I think. Not really angry but really sulky. Do you have any idea why?”

You thought back to what Yeri had said, giving Taeil a shrug.

“No idea. Apparently he was like that at work, too,” you hummed, “whatever, I’m gonna go take a shower.”

You’d wanted to help in the kitchen after you finished showering, and you guessed it wasn’t that bad since it was just Taeil doing all the last preparations while Johnny went to shower.

Dinner was when you finally found out what was bothering him.

The three of you sat at the dining table, you next to Taeil and Johnny in the seat facing Taeil.

“We haven’t had a Thanksgiving dinner in a while, huh,” Taeil huffed, “But I think it’s a nice change, to have it in a small cozy group this year.”

Taeil glanced at Johnny, who was now staring at you with an intense look on his face, as if he would have an outburst at any second, and you who was looking back at him with a confused look that bordered on annoyance. Taeil wondered if this was how your mom felt in the past when you and Taeil were mad at each other.

Furrowing your eyebrows, you tore your gaze away from Johnny, mustering a tight-lipped smile.

“I guess we can do what we did last time and each say something we’re thankful for?” You suggested, “I can go first, I guess. I’m thankful for…” you glanced at the food, then at Taeil, then to Johnny who was still wearing that unreadable expression on his face.

“I’m thankful that we get to celebrate thanksgiving again with Johnny this year,” you pressed your lips into a firm line, taking a sip of your water just to soothe your embarrassment.

Taeil grunted, amused to say the least, “I’m thankful for the new apartment, and also… yeah, for friends and family.”

A pause followed, Johnny bringing his wine glass to his lips and taking a long sip.

“I’m thankful for friends and family too,” he murmured finally, and Taeil took that as the cue to start eating, the dinner being filled with the sound of clinking metal against glass instead of chatter like it would’ve usually been.

Majority of your dinner was spent talking to Taeil, Johnny remaining relatively quiet aside from the hums and ‘yeah’s that would leave him every now and then. You had a feeling by this point that it most definitely wasn’t work that was upsetting him.

It was after dinner, when Taeil had stepped out for a work call in his room, and you had offered to help Johnny clean up that he finally addressed you directly.

“Did you mean what you said?” he asked, blurting it out as if it was something he’d been waiting all this while to ask (which, in truth, it was).

You looked at him, halting momentarily as you worked on drying the dishes he’d already washed.

“I say a lot of things,” you huffed, almost retreating when you saw how he didn’t seem to find it as funny as you did, “What are you referring to?”

He let out a sigh through his nose.

“Your reply. The one you posted this morning.”

“Oh.”

He nodded, “Yeah.”

Your eyebrows furrowed, shrugging off your unsettled feeling in dismissal, “Why are you asking?”

Johnny let out a deep sigh through his nose, “I don’t know. If you did, just tell me. I’ll understand.”

You huffed, still trying to dance around his question, “Does it matter?”

“I’m sure Season doesn’t pay you to lie,” he quipped, his tone bordering on bitter.

“Yeah, well, lying seems to have been paying me pretty well.”

“Y/N,” his tone was dismayed, managing to annoy you in the moment.

“What, Johnny? I’ve put out tons of replies in the last year that I don’t actually mean and you know that.”

“Which is why I’m asking you if you meant what you said in this morning’s one,” he repeated, his tone calm even in spite of the look on his face.

Your reply came just as quickly, feeling as though you had to defend yourself because you knew you didn’t mean it, and you knew what that meant in the context of your situation.

“And I’m saying it doesn’t matter.”

Johnny frowned, “What are you talking about? Of course it matters, it’s your column.”

You let out a deep sigh through your nose, setting the dry dish onto the rack and picking up the one Johnny had just finished washing, “Well, you’d be surprised how many people act like it’s theirs. People take what I say so seriously…I can’t just say whatever I want, you know?”

Johnny turned to look at you, “No, Y/N, they take your advice seriously because you say whatever you want.”

You frowned, “Was this why you were upset the whole day? Because of what I posted?”

Johnny huffed, seeming just as exasperated as you were.

“I wasn’t upset, I was… shocked. And confused. Both,” he huffed, “I just couldn’t wrap my head around why you said that. And I was trying so hard to understand. But was it really wrong to feel that way? Was it wrong to still feel that way after separation?” his frown deepened.

“Was it wrong of… him that he still felt that way even though she was different now? Because you made it seem like it was… and I was frustrated because you-” he stopped himself, shaking his head, “you made it sound like it was hopeless to begin with. As if she didn’t deserve patience. That you can try all you want but it just ‘won’t end well’.” He brought his fingers up in quotation marks, recalling what you’d written.

You held his gaze for what seemed like the longest time, turning back to the dish you were drying.

“I took it down already, okay? I didn’t mean it. I just said what I said because I thought that’s what the readers wanted to hear, okay? Happy? Now will you get off my back?” you huffed, more annoyed because you knew he was right, and that perhaps you needed to hear it especially from him.

“You’re so upset, it’s not as if you were the one that sent in the ask,” you commented, not having expected the silence that followed.

You were expecting a sarcastic comment, or a witty remark, not the tense, pregnant silence.

You were probably jumping to conclusions, weren’t you? Then again, the more your mind raced, the more Suhnny Side Up sounded like it could’ve been one of Johnny’s old myspace usernames, the similarities between their stories and your situation with Johnny. You couldn’t come to terms with it quite yet, though. Suhnny Side Up said he loved his best friend’s sister, a word Johnny had never uttered to you, or anyone, for that matter, for the longest time.

Turning to Johnny, you set the dish down, the sound of the running water from the faucet louder than anything as your hand hesitated to touch his forearm, settling for resting it on the counter in a clenched fist.

“It’s not you... right?”

Johnny turned off the faucet, taking the dishcloth from your other hand as he dried the last dish on his own, a sigh leaving him.

Trust Johnny to choose now to try to make things lighthearted.

“Remember?” he huffed, “You told me to ‘Ask Moony’ you if it was urgent.”

Your lips parted, as if you were reaching around in your brain for the right words.

“I was just being rude, you know.”

He gave you a small smile, though it didn’t beam like it usually did, “I know.”

“Did you mean what you said, then? In all those letters?” you asked, waiting with bated breath as though you didn’t know that Johnny was always genuine with you. And no matter how long had passed, that didn’t seem like it was ever going to change.

Johnny set the cloth down next to the sink, his gaze flickering to your neck, once again reaching over to bring the pendant from the back of your neck to the front, the pad of his thumb smoothing over the pendant before he met your gaze again.

Nodding at you, he let his hands go back to his sides, “Every word.”

“I’m sorry I was sulky for the whole dinner,” he sighed, bringing one hand across his chest to grasp his other shoulder, “I just… needed to know if that was how you really felt. ‘Cause, well, I meant what I said when I told you I'd understand if you decided you didn’t wanna try again… I just guess I thought things were different, that… you know, that they were looking up.”

You inhaled deeply, letting it out in a sigh.

“I need to… do my work,” you knew that was no excuse, but it would have to suffice for now, “I’m sorry. We’re definitely going to talk about this soon, just… not yet. I just need to… get things sorted out.”

Johnny nodded, “It’s okay, I get it.”

Nodding, you left the kitchen, trying to ignore the way the warmth of his touch lingered at your neck as you returned to your submissions sent in by Suhnny Side Up, rereading it but with a new perspective.

That first thanksgiving dinner, memories of when Johnny would come to your house and you’d feel too intimidated to even say more than ‘hi’ until he started a conversation with you about putting salt in your coke. How Taeil would always nag at you for being unfocused be it while playing games or doing your work and Johnny would simply smile and shake his head, reassuring you that it wasn’t a bad thing. How he would remain neutral and friendly when he joined your family for dinners and your parents would talk about how you helped your friends so much you forgot to care for yourself. And he would dismiss it in front of your parents, insisting he was the same even though everyone knew he wasn’t and he’d wait till it was just the two of you lying on his mom’s old picnic mat under the olive tree in his garden to tell you what a sweet girl you were.

Ever since he came back, you experienced arguments with him, tense moments filled with annoyance, reality checks, none of which were a common occurrence when you and Johnny were getting to know each other in college. But one thing you were sure of now was that although it was different, it was honest. It was good.

Johnny to you, you were realising a little belatedly, was a reminder that love, when dealt with honestly and sincerely, was grace. A grace you needed to receive and give to yourself especially now. A grace that, perhaps, you were finally ready to stop avoiding.

===

“Little birdie told me you and John Seo are fucking.”

You sputtered around your mouthful of tea, choking as you forced the rest of your drink down in a swallow, wincing as you plugged your nose, afraid that your tea would’ve left your body from there if you weren’t careful.

Giving Chenle a glare, you glanced at the intern Jisung who was sitting next to him.

“Language. There are children present,” your tone was pointed, earning a smile from Jisung.

Chenle rolled his eyes, “Answer the question, Moony.”

“Whoever your ‘little birdie’ is,” you gave Chenle a pointed glare, “they’re wrong,” you huffed, regaining your composure as you continued to focus on your food.

Jisung seemed to look just as much in disbelief as Chenle, both of them staring you down curiously (Jisung’s stare considerably less menacing, you were a senior in the workplace, after all).

“Oh yeah? Did you see how he was looking at you during the morning meeting?” Chenle spoke confidently, as though he were just waiting for you to confess.

Rolling your eyes, you tried to mask your curiosity as you dismissed his suspicions.

“That doesn’t mean anything more than…” you thought hard for the term, “active listening.”

Jisung frowned, his nose scrunching as he analysed you and Johnny’s Christmas date idea video on his phone while Chenle continued to push you.

“Fine, maybe he’s a good listener, I’ll give you that. But my little birdie said they saw you going to his apartment too. How do you explain that?”

“Your little birdie deserves a restraining orde—”

“Stop trying to avoid my question,” Chenle’s eyes widened, his tone raising in insistence, earning a small touch on the forearm from Jisung.

“Shh, I’m trying to focus over here.”

Your frown deepened, huffing, “He lives with Taeil, I was just… visiting Taeil after work.”

Jisung tilted his head at Chenle in confusion, “I thought you said she’s staying with Taeil ‘cause her building’s under renovation.”

Chenle narrowed his eyes at you, “Precisely.”

Your lips parted, setting your spoon down to focus your stare on him. “Fine, we’re all staying together. So what?”

You should’ve known better than to think Chenle was sweet (or afraid) enough like Jisung to have let it go.

Leaning back in his seat with a loud sigh, a bright grin on his face, “Well if that’s the case you could’ve just said so! What’s with all the hiding and lying, huh?” he leaned forward, a too-mischievous glint in his gaze, “Now, you’ve reallygot me thinking you guys are fuc—”

“We’re not, okay?” you tried to tell him as firmly as you could, glancing at Jisung as if in desperation for him to believe you and convince his stubborn friend, “And don’t you dare ask him about it either.” God knows what Johnny would end up telling them.

Jisung nodded, wide eyed.

“I don’t know about you, dude,” Jisung told Chenle, turning back to you, “but I definitely won’t. I learnt it the hard way when I saw Jaemin ask him if he had anything going on with you. He just turned it around on Jaemin and made it seem like Jaemin was the one with a crush on Y/N.”

You couldn’t help the laugh that left you, knowing very well Johnny’s way with words in flustering someone.

“Isn’t that true, though? Jaemin’s kind of whipped,” Chenle pursed his lips, poorly hiding his amusement.

“God knows, but it’s probably true,” Jisung shrugged, giving you a hard stare, his lips pressed into a tight line.

“If you did have something going on with him, mad respect to you,” Jisung shuddered, “that guy scares the shit out of me.”

You shot him a look, “He’s not that bad,” you insisted, earning a knowing look from Chenle.

“Anyway, just so you know, my ‘little birdie’ is a big mouth so they’ve got everyone speculating. I’d just be a little careful if I were you,” Chenle advised, giving you a shrug, “Well, unless you want them to think something’s up.”

“Shut up, Chenle.”

“What? I’m just saying.”

You didn’t think he was actually being serious, thinking it was just harmless gossip (but you should’ve known better, considering Chenle took his gossip seriously), until you and Chenle were at your desk talking to Doyoung who had just finished a meeting with Mrs Kang, hearing the chatter of your department quieten down considerably. Turning your head to see if it was because Mrs Kang had come out of her office, you were met with the sight of Johnny instead, who was making his way over to you with none other than your jacket in his hands.

“Oh, hey,” Chenle waved, a very delighted grin on his face, earning a smile from Johnny, who shoved his phone back in his pocket, his ID hanging from one of his belt loops as he strolled over.

“Hey,” Johnny greeted, “figured you might need this.” He held the jacket up, proceeding to take the liberty of draping it over the back of your chair.

Doyoung eyed you carefully, a hint of amusement in his smirk as he sipped on his hot chocolate, exchanging a look with Chenle that made you think the little birdie was the middle-aged gossipy aunt in the body of a tall 29-year-old social media specialist leaning against your desk.

You gave him a nod, hoping Chenle wouldn’t make things more awkward after his lunch conversation.

“Oh, you gave her a ride to work?” Chenle planted another mine carefully, earning a tilt of the head from Johnny, who gave Chenle a knowing look.

“Why? Jealous I didn't offer you one too?”

Chenle’s smile grew, understanding what Jisung meant now as he shook his head in dismissal, “Oh, no, no. Not at all. Just… you know… wondering.”

You cast a glare in Chenle’s direction, muttering a small word of thanks to Johnny, somehow not as unnerved by the stares you were getting from the people at other desks who were poorly covering up their attempts at eavesdropping, some of them looking close to falling out of their chairs.

“Mrs Kang says she wants to meet us at two, by the way. But I told her four was a bit better for me. Are you okay with that? If not, I can shift my stuff around and meet her at two.”

You shook your head, “No, no. Four is fine.”

Johnny gave you a small smile, nodding, “Alright, see you then.” He bid Doyoung and Chenle goodbye with nods before he’d left.

“That was… interesting,” Doyoung drawled once Johnny was in the lift lobby, earning a snicker from Chenle.

“Very.”

“What’s so interesting about that?” you laughed, “He just came to hand me my jacket.”

Doyoung shrugged.

“No, just… considering his office is all the way at the other side of the compound… but I won’t judge, of course,” Doyoung sipped his drink slowly, “I guess he could’ve just been out for a walk.”

Chenle nodded, smiling as he continued to give you that knowing look, “Uh-huh. A random mid-day walk in his busy schedule instead of just texting you about the meeting and handing you the jacket during your meeting with that woman.”

You rolled your eyes, taking a long sip of your water.

“You guys make this seem like a bigger deal than it actually is.”

Doyoung made a strangled sound of protest.

“No, but that’s because it is. Do you have any idea the number of people in our office who have tried hitting on him since he came here? And he’s like… immune. He even rejected Juyeon,” Doyoung’s tone was incredulous, and maybe even slightly offended, “But then here he is trying to hit on someone who’s like a pesticide for love.”

You scoffed, “That’s rude. I’m not a pesticide.”

Chenle grinned, “So, you agree that he’s trying to hit on you?”

Groaning, you waved the two boys off, “Okay, leave me alone, please. I’d like to get some work done before meeting Mrs Kang.”

Huffing in amusement, Doyoung got up from your desk, shaking his head as he gave you a pat on the shoulder, walking out ahead of Chenle, who turned his back to get in a last word before he left.

“Just saying, if you’re actually seeing him. I deserve to know first. You know, as your work wife.”

You couldn’t help your smile, nodding extra patronisingly for him, “Yeah, yeah, whatever, Chenle.”

===

“Excellent work on the latest video, by the way. Doyoung told me it’s being received very well,” Mrs Kang smiled at Johnny while your leg bounced anxiously in your seat next to him in her office.

“Thank you, Mrs Kang, we had a lot of fun filming it,” Johnny gave her a warm smile and you could see the way it made her blush.

“And it showed very nicely. You know, I always say, we humans are social beings, we crave connection, even if it’s through a screen,” she smiled, Johnny nodding intently even though it wasn’t the first time she was saying this. And it definitely wasn’t your first time hearing it either.

“Y/N, I wanted to also say that it was good on your part to have reuploaded your post from last week. I much prefer your authentic voice. It was almost as though I’d forgotten what it sounded like, but when I read your recent work again, it’s becoming clearer, defined in a way that it wasn’t before. So, good work on that, keep it up.”

You nodded, averting your gaze to your hands briefly. As much as you struggled with Mrs Kang sometimes, you couldn’t deny that her words had resonated particularly with you now that you were practicing how to step into your confidence.

“Thank you, Mrs Kang.”

“I’m sure John agrees, right?”

Your eyes widened, a forced laugh leaving you, “Oh, we shouldn’t drag him into this, right—”

“No, no, humour me. John, you mentioned before that you enjoyed reading Y/N’s column. Was there any article that you took a particular liking to? A favourite, even?”

You grimaced, unsure how Johnny would respond, figuring he would give a generic answer. After all, it wasn’t as if communication between the two of you for the past week had been anything further than awkward greetings or tense looks exchanged during meetings or at the coffee table.

“Personally… it was the article on ‘How to Give Yourself Grace’.”

Your eyebrows furrowed. You knew how Season’s website navigation was, he would’ve really had to sift through all your articles to have found that one. Even you yourself had almost forgotten all about it.

Mrs Kang smiled, folding her arms on her desk and crossing her legs.

“And why that one in particular?” she hummed.

Johnny glanced at you, then back at Mrs Kang, “Well, because… it was very… her.”

Mrs Kang turned to you with a knowing look.

“Need I say more?” she drawled, earning a small smile from you.

“Anyway, John, we can continue our discussion on your contract once your lawyer arrives. Y/N, dear, you’re free to go,” she told you, and you wasted no time to stand up, thanking her again before you exited the room.

Returning to your desk, you couldn’t help but let your fingers click around on your computer until you were neck-deep in your archive, fishing out the first full write-up you’d done in your time at Season. The article Johnny was referring to just now, ‘How to Give Yourself Grace’.

You were mentally prepared to face the little intrusive jabs writers tended to receive when they re-read their work (especially their old work). Jabs like ‘what was I thinking when I wrote this?’ or ‘I could’ve phrased this better’ or ‘why did I think this was poetic genius back then?’ or maybe even the overwhelming urge to wipe any trace of it clean from the earth.

But none of that came.

Instead, what greeted you was an overwhelming sense of familiarity. A foreign feeling, ironically but there was no other way to put it. You were proud of yourself, something you don’t think you ever stopped to feel since you graduated from college and started ‘chasing’. Sure, your work wasn’t extravagant, was kept simple in terms of vocabulary, had analogies and metaphors that were all-too-specific to your life, was written in a period of your life where you’d been having writer’s block for half a year. But it was yours. You recognized yourself and all your mess in your words and that was enough reason for you to be proud. No hatred, no overwhelming urge to resist or to cringe in embarrassment, just that little weighted yet freeing feeling of grace.

Different, new, but good.

That evening as you were getting off work, tired but satisfied from the time you’d stayed back to finish up the editing on your post, you got a text from Taeil saying that there were leftovers in the fridge and for you to ask Johnny if you needed a ride home.

You were walking aimlessly, rolling the little rock candy you’d stolen from the reception in your mouth as you soaked in your environment. The sound of laughter and chatter from the diners and restaurants you would walk past, live music echoing out of the heavy doors of a bar whenever people opened the doors to escape for a smoke, little children asleep in their parents arms and strollers, the rustling of trees and leaves against the ground, blowing against your face soothingly.

Glancing around, you saw the sign before you realised why the place seemed so familiar, your feet almost leading you inside the building out of sheer muscle memory. The Commune.

Heading inside, you let yourself be led to the exhibit you’d grown rather attached to, the familiar words of Sunflower Avenue on the wall eliciting a sigh from you.

“Today’s the last day,” the security guard had told you at the reception, recognizing you from your many trips here.

“Oh,” you hummed, earning a nod from the elderly man, “I would say I’m glad, honestly. The amount of rich people who’ve come here asking to buy the pieces… and they’d get so upset when the photographer told them no.”

“He told them no?” you frowned, earning a look from the security guard that showed his shared sentiments.

“Yeah. Said they were personal, or something like that.”

You nodded slowly, letting him give you your entrance sticker which you’d pasted on your shoulder mindlessly.

“I see… thanks,” you gave him a nod, earning a smile from him before you’d made your way into the exhibition once again.

It was like saying goodbye, somehow, as you made your way through every segment of the exhibit, spending enough time in each area and noticing things you hadn’t noticed the last few times you were here.

Walking out of the room after you were done watching the video loop, you took your time looking at the photos, recognizing the photos now as you walked. Somehow, you were with him in the photos, looking at the view you’d saved in your head that was unlike anything his camera lens could’ve captured. The view of the family on the beach watching the sunset. Strangers wouldn’t have known what it was like to have been there, they wouldn’t have known it was actually a sunrise instead of a sunset, how tired you were from the night of studying you’d been through before Johnny decided to bring you to the beach as a reward, the two of you sitting on the trunk of his car eating whatever you could find in the convenience store that would satisfy you at five in the morning. They wouldn’t have seen how the rest of the beach was void of people, abandoned sandcastles in the sand or stray slippers someone had probably lost the day before. That was your view, for your eyes only, saved in your memory more vividly than you expected.

You let yourself stop once again before the two pictures that had accompanied you for the past few weeks, the last of the fog seeming to lift from the memories. Only you would’ve known what it felt like to be in that moment, looking at the boy you love through the dark tinted glass of his favourite café, or looking at him through the lens of his camera, the feeling of one of his hands on your thigh to steady you as you knelt over him, to see his hand reaching out towards you, not to grab the camera, but to run his fingers through your hair. To hear his laugh, and experience all that followed. That was your view. Not even Johnny would’ve known what that felt like, even now as you looked at the photos, the grounding feeling of being present here and not wishing that you were somewhere else, not feeling anxious about how much time you were wasting. Simply put, grace.

Tearing your gaze away from the photo, you reached into your bag, about to pull out your phone when you frowned as your fingers hadn’t come into contact with the cold screen.

Shoving your bag open, you fished around for your phone, pushing items around till you saw an envelope tucked between your planner and your ipad, in such a way that reminded you of your old textbook.

Pulling it out from your bag, you wondered if it was a bill you’d meant to open, or a letter you’d meant to mail out but forgot, only realising what it was when you saw the familiar handwriting from the walls around you printed on the envelope, spelling out your name.

Tearing it open, you pulled out the paper, an amused huff leaving you when you realised it was a stolen page from one of Taeil’s legal pads.

‘Y/N, I don’t know when you’ll find this, but I wrote this on Wednesday (1st Dec), just so you know how long this has been sitting in your bag. You should really clean out your bag more often if you’re finding this a long time after Wednesday. I know you won’t open this till you know you’re ready to, so I guess I’ll just start. Honestly, I know what I said back then and I know what I told you. I know I told you you deserve nothing short of the best, and I still stand by that. But best is subjective, and I'm sure we both know that. What was good for us back then may not be what’s good for us now. I know for a fact that I needed time to grow, and time to realise why the idea of having to leave indefinitely scared me so much. I know now that it was because the thought of missing you and not being able to do anything about it seemed like the most unbearable thing in the world.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I came back. More than anything, I just hoped that you were doing okay like Taeil always said you were. I realised soon enough that he just said that so I wouldn’t worry like I did when I saw you as anxious, hardened, hurt, tired and frustrated as you were.

But with that being said, like you’ve changed, so have I. Every city I lived in, every person I met in the time that I was away, I learned more and more about how much more honest I should’ve been with you, how much more I realised that whatever I felt for you didn’t seem to go away, as if it was always part of my plan to return to you, the permanence i was hoping for. One thing I know for sure that hasn’t changed is that I care for you. I care for you still, and I will forever. Distance and time have shown me that much. And that I want you to be happy, and know that you have people around you who love and support you, including me. Especially me. And if you’ll let me, I want to continue doing that.

I don’t want to have to hide how I feel behind anonymous letters, or keep holding back from showing that I care just because of what other people might think. I don’t want to spend half the time caring for you and the other half trying to hide how much I do. If anything, I hope they know I care for you and that you mean a lot to me, if that means they’ll realise you have needs too and you deserve to be cared for. But like I said, I don’t wish to hide that from you anymore, even though I’m sure I've been doing a shit job at hiding it. So, if you’re willing, I need to tell you something. I need you to hear it straight from me. Only when you’re ready.

But fair warning, it’s probably going to be the worst thing you’ve ever heard.

Sincerely, Your one and only, Johnny.’

The warmth in your eyes had drawn you back to your surroundings, the lump in your throat and the strong thumping of your heart as you pulled your phone out, swiping over to Johnny’s phone number.

9:31pm - are you busy? -

The speed of his reply made you huff.

Johnny 9:31pm - no, what happened? -

You inhaled deeply.

9:31pm - meet me at the rooftop of the commune -

Making your way to the rooftop, you almost laughed at the sight of the sunflower beds that decorated the floor, as if you were asking him to meet you at your new makeshift Sunflower Avenue. You walked down the pebbled walkways leading to comfortable-looking benches next to the balcony, the height of the building revealing the breathtaking sight of the city lights at this time of the night.

Taking deep breaths, tugging your jacket tighter around yourself and breathing in the familiar scent of Johnny’s car that lingered on it, you waited until you heard the elevator ding, doors opening for Johnny to walk out wearing a long cardigan thrown over his big shirt and sweatpants, head turning and scanning the area until he spotted you, making his way over to you.

The two of you stayed in silence as he made his way closer to you, tucking his phone back into his pocket.

“I decided which photo is my favourite,” you finally spoke, seeing a smile grace his features, taking another step closer to you, but not too close that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from reaching over to hug you.

“Did you call me here to tell me that?”

You smiled, suddenly feeling shy in his presence. You shook your head, pausing before nodding.

“No. But I feel like I need to tell you, anyway. It’s the one I took.”

Johnny’s eyes were practically sparkling under the warm light of the rooftop, like a sunflower amongst sunflowers.

“Why was that your favourite?” curiosity laden in his tone, he tilted his head at you.

You let out a breath you didn’t realise you were holding.

“Because it’s mine,” you told him, heavy implication behind your words as you watched Johnny’s smile grow, the purest you’d seen in a long time.

“I called you here because… I read your letter,” you admitted, seeing his eyebrows raise slightly, nodding at you in understanding.

“Are you ready to hear it, then?” he prompted, earning a nod from you, grounding yourself in the feeling of the pebbles under your shoes, the breeze that almost enveloped the both of you, the smell of the sunflowers all around you, the warmth that radiated from his smile.

“Is it bad news?” you murmured, your tone almost teasing.

He nodded.

“The worst,” he told you.

“The worst?” you echoed, somehow not feeling the same anxiety you once associated with the words, all you felt now was the light thrumming of anticipation in your heart.

“That you’ll ever hear.”

Johnny took a step closer so he stood before you, daring himself to reach out and grasp your hands gently in his, your cold hands welcoming the warmth from his hands gladly.

His eyes widened, almost cursing as a small huff of laughter left him, “Ice hands.”

You huffed, your smile growing as he looked at you.

“What is it?” you murmured, taking your own step forward as Johnny warmed your hands in his, rubbing the back of your hands in repetitive motions.

Johnny dipped his head down just a little, his hair falling over his eyes slightly as he inhaled deeply, mustering his courage to utter words that seemed so foreign to him when spoken out loud but so familiar in his heart.

“I love you.”

Again, chiming like bells, All at once, one after the other, ringing in your ears as if they were calling you. Commanding your attention. Though this time, the longer you looked at him, the ringing had started to subside, fading off into a soft echo, like windchimes.

The smile you gave him was all he needed, feeling your hands come up to cup his face, your thumbs smoothing over his cheeks that were dusted pink.

You dared yourself to tiptoe, pressing gentle kisses on his cheek, then on his forehead, on his nose, the sight of his childlike smile making your heart warm, his hands finding their way to your waist, steadying you. With each kiss, Johnny felt his heart grow even warmer, a newness to the feeling that he wanted nothing more than to stay in forever.

He was right, you thought, about what was good for you now being different from back then. You were reminded again, now, that what you and Johnny were dealing with now wasn’t the anxiety of sneaking around, or trying to hide behind any other reason you were feeling how you were instead of admitting that it was love in all you had both learned and discovered it to be. This time, it was honest, and it was almost transparent as you looked in his eyes and saw nothing but love, the almost golden glow of hazel in his eyes from the warm light of the little lamps around you.

You barely registered your own murmur of love, a declaration of your own, watching his smile grow, beaming.

“I don’t…” you began, shaking your head, “I don’t want to keep you a secret anymore.”

Johnny smiled, nodding firmly.

“Good,” he leaned closer, pressing a kiss to your cheek, his lips close to your ear, “neither do I.”

Pulling back slightly, you leaned forward to close the gap between your lips, letting that familiar feeling of grace overwhelm you and encase you and creep into your heart to set its roots there. The feeling of Johnny deepening the kiss, desperate yet delicate, the feeling was foreign, but it was him unlike you’ve ever experienced before. And you knew that very well, his hands pulling you closer to him so much you were almost lifted off your feet, his other hand coming up to place itself between your shoulder blades, as if trying to find any way that would allow him to feel more of you, to have you even closer to him.

Pulling apart from the kiss first, Johnny almost found himself following your lips, a huff of amusement leaving him as he rested his forehead against yours, opening his eyes slowly, his hands still touching your face.

“I love you, my sweet girl,” he whispered, pressing a long gentle kiss to your forehead, to your nose, to your cheeks, pulling you into a hug and feeling another kiss on the top of your head, letting him envelop you with warmth as you stayed like that for as long as you wanted.

After what felt like forever, though not long enough, you heard the chime of a text tone echoing from your pocket, Johnny’s eyes widening in realisation.

“Who’s that?”

Your face stayed pressed against him, “Don’t care,” your voice muffled by his clothing, “probably Taeil asking me to get you to send me home. Or Chenle, he thinks we’re together.”

Johnny huffed, smiling before his eyes widened in realisation.

“Oh yeah, Taeil knows, by the way.”

Your eyes widened, pulling your head away from him to look at him with wide eyes, his hands almost instinctively going up to cup your face as he grinned, watching you scrunch your eyes shut in a wince, laughter bubbling out from you in spite of your shock.

“God, tomorrow is gonna be a long day.”

===

“Sweetheart, can I come in?” you heard Johnny knock on the door of your shared bedroom, “I wanna show you to my kids, a lot of them read ‘Ask Moony’.”

You glanced down at your laptop, “No, I’m not wearing pants,” you called out, holding your laptop up with one hand as you tugged your blanket higher over your body, just in case he barged in.

You should’ve known better than to think Johnny would let you off, hearing his giggle as he opened the door, giggling at the sight of him in his proper dress shirt and duck-print boxers.

“Nothing I’ve never seen before,” he smirked, oblivious to the way his chatbox was going crazy because he hadn’t realised he was very much not on mute.

“Are you muted?” you asked, earning a nod from him.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry, I’ll just show your face, okay?” He was already getting on the bed, scooching over so he was next to you. You spotted your faces in the little window on his screen, the many faces of his students on the screen as you mustered a smile.

“Johnny you weren’t muted—”

“Alright guys, this is Moony! See? Told y’all I wasn’t lying when I said I knew her.”

“I hope you don’t spend more time talking about me than actually teaching.”

Johnny waved you off, shrugging, “I established a good ratio.”

You saw the messages from his students coming in faster than you could process them.

‘He always brags about you’ ‘the videos you did on season were so cute!’ ‘John, is she your girlfriend?’ ‘Seems like you know her REALLY well’ ‘Are you guys married?’

“Okay, that’s enough. We’re almost done with our break, go get your drinks or whatever you need to settle down before we start again,” Johnny angled his camera away from your faces to give you a kiss before he’d gotten up from the bed with a grunt.

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

He exited the room quickly, shutting the door behind him and going back to the guest room you’d converted into an office workspace, setting himself down back at the desk, looking at the chat box as he sipped on his cup of coffee, a hum leaving him.

“Okay… you guys are very distracted, right now…” he nodded, his gaze still scanning the messages, “I understand, these things can happen… but c’mon, I wanna talk about the assignment, man!”

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strangestcase · 2 years

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Hello! If you've been asked something like these before I apologise, but I'm very curious - in your version of J&H, what are the reactions of Lanyon and Utterson to the Hyde revelation? Do they ever find out, or do any of the other characters find out instead? If he gets to continue the Hyde persona much longer than the book, how much does it impact Jekyll's work? Does he ever get to publish his findings in any way or get recognition for his Jungian findings or would that give the game away too much? Are there any conflicts with how Jekyll treats someone and how he truly feels about them as Hyde ie. If he gets annoyed as Jekyll but suppresses it and then seeks them out as Hyde? Does Utterson ever give up about the will or does it stay a point of contention between them? How much does Jekylls self hate manifest in Hyde - how self destructive can his behaviour become, if at all?

Sorry this ended up being a lot more questions than I anticipated and I'm stopping before I go completely overboard, thank you for your time!

AAAAAH THANK YOU!!! I DONT MIND! These are very interesting questions and I would love to answer them all!

Lanyon (he/she btw) doesn’t take the reveal well, as in, grows terrified of Jekyll and eventually dies of fright. Other than the fact that she was one of Jekyll’s biggest detractors in terms of psychoanalytical theory, Lanyon was one of the people responsible for this experiment being veto’d at Bedlam.

Utterson takes it better. Jekyll reveals it willingly, asking him to go fetch his confession at the lab. The discovery completely shatters his view of both Jekyll and the world. But the feelings of betrayal overpower the fear. Utterson gets angry at them, and rightfully so, then avoids him for a while, and only after they bump into each other at a common friend’s dinner party they reconnect. He still can’t forgive Jekyll for what he’s done, but he’s willing to understand and help.

Adam Frankenstein (he/it), Carmilla, and Dorian Gray find out when they accidentally walk into their friend Hyde “getting ready for the night”… something they shouldn’t have seen. Adam is angry that Hyde has been, well, hiding that information from it. Carmilla is curious. Dorian is slightly disgusted at first, but soon comes to start and tease Jekyll by reminding them he likes a certain part of him much better than the whole. The three of them take it well since they’re already monsters.

Erik Sinombre aka Opera Ghost aka Phantom finds out after seeing Hyde turn into Jekyll as the aftermath of a torture session. He’s as sickened as one can be, and promptly uses this to torment him.

James Moriarty aka Agent M finds out… well, he won’t say how. It’s as if he just knew…? Other than that, he and the members of the League don’t really care. I don’t plan on more characters finding out YET.

As for his findings, don’t worry! Jekyll had published his Aspect Theory long before the experiment took place, though 1) the scientific community found it a bit too “fantasy-flavored” for a psychological model and 2) that had taken decades of development already! However, he does use it as… a justification for keeping Hyde around. See, Jekyll claims Hyde is one of his patients, one he is fixating on studying to better adapt his theory to psychopathological processes. Basically, how does the model apply to mentally ill people. Most hear this, then meet Hyde, and assume he’s just some nutjob that is blackmailing Jekyll, but they don’t say that part out loud.

Usually, Jekyll feels neutral towards everybody as a baseline, or more accurately kind of dislikes everyone a little. He'd be way happier if he didn't have to do this awful thing called "socializing", thankyouverymuch. Since being Hyde messes with his brain... a whole lot, really, their emotions get heightened. Mostly the negative ones. And as a result... they hate everybody. Not everybody, actually, but what as Jekyll is a mild annoyance you can suppress, becomes a genuine and uncontrollable dislike as Hyde. His friends he will be bitter at, and his enemies... well... the one thing that is keeping them from killing every single person that has ever slighted them is because, at the end of the day, Hyde is a massive coward and about 30% of his personality is bluff by volume.

For as long as the sole heir remains this weird asshole that goes by Edward Hyde, the will is a constant source of tension between the two friends. Utterson tries to talk about it as often as he can, though it comes to a point he has to accept Jekyll won't fucking listen, because if there's one thing this man is, is HEADSTRONG AS FUCK. Funnily enough, the will thing... eventually goes away! The will is redacted to include Utterson instead of Hyde, and ever since the former suspects the latter might murder Jekyll the first chance he gets. Occasionally, it is brought up again. Henry isn't proud of that move, to say the least.

Oh BOY. Mostly, Hyde’s self destructive tendencies manifest as trash-talking and insulting Jekyll (they follow a twisted logic of “if I pretend I’m someone else it is NOT that unhealthy, right? Like it is allowed right?”). When it gets worse, he’ll go through his (Jekyll’s) personal belongings and destroy or deface them. They’ll also try to pick fights he can’t win and try to scurry away last minute like the rotten coward he is. Don’t get me started on the substance abuse; that’d fill up an entire book.

Sorry I took so long to reply! This was a lot to think of!

#doc talks #jekyll and hyde #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #dr jekyll and mr hyde #jh #long post #gothic fiction #gothic literature

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mst3kproject · 4 years

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Dracula vs Frankenstein (1971)

I’ve been meaning to get to this one for a while. It was directed by Al Adamson and stars Lon Chaney Jr. from Indestructible Man in his last and worst film. Also featuring appearances by Greydon Clark (director of Angel’s Revenge), Forest J. Ackerman (the comic book guy from Future War), and Jim Davis (the grandpa from The Day Time Ended, not the guy who invented Garfield), and generally being one of the shoddiest and most confusing movies I’ve ever sat through, it is a mystery to me why Joel chose Carnival Magic and just left Dracula vs Frankenstein sitting there. Maybe it was the widescreen thing.

It’s hard to say what the hell is going on in this movie but I’ll give it a try. Under the cover of a carnival freak show, mad Dr. D’Ray is decapitating nubile young women and then sewing their heads back on, because… uh… because. One night, his work is interrupted by none other than Count Dracula! The Count reveals that he knows D’Ray’s secret – D’Ray is really the last surviving member of the Frankenstein family, and Dracula has recovered the body of the original Frankenstein’s Monster and wants D’Ray to help him bring it to life, because… uh… because. Meanwhile, a woman named Judith Fontaine is looking for her sister, Joannie, who was last seen on the beach near Dr. D’Ray’s Creature Emporium. Judith and her boyfriend Mike eventually find their way into D’Ray’s lair, and the doctor and his various deformed assistants (obviously he has deformed assistants) are all killed as the couple attempt to escape again. What Judith and Mike don’t know is that they’re not safe yet. They still have Dracula to deal with!

That outline actually only represents a fraction of the madness in Dracula vs Frankenstein. There’s a rapey biker gang and a bunch of noticeably over-age hippies who seem to think they’re in a very different movie. There’s D’Ray’s hunchback Groton and his pet puppy, and Grazbo the Angry Midget. There’s the stunningly unhelpful detective who’s supposed to be looking for Joannie. D’Ray brings the Frankenstein Monster back to life with the help of a magical comet. The idea that creatures like Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster actually exist is treated as obvious and commonplace, and the climactic fight between the two is over who gets to feel up Judith. It’s a mess.

The reason Dracula vs Frankenstein is such a mishmash of incongruous ideas, at least according to El Santo of 1000 Misspent Hours, is that Adamson filmed for a while, then ran out of money and had to set the project aside while he raised more. During this intermission, he got a bunch of new ideas, and had to shoehorn them in with what he’d already shot to turn his original sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll film into a monster-versus-monster piece. It should therefore surprise nobody if the results are about as graceful as a giraffe on roller skates.

The two title monsters are astonishingly shitty. Frankenstein’s Monster looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy gone horribly wrong. He looks like his head got stepped on and they couldn’t afford to fix it. The first time you see him, when Dracula digs him out of a cemetery, you can barely tell you’re supposed to be looking at something’s face – it looks like a mass of home-made play-dough that’s been left out in the sun. He has claws for some reason. That sequence of similes still doesn’t do justice to just how absolutely terrible he looks, and yet, shockingly, he’s less stupid than Dracula.

Oh, god, this movie’s Dracula. His face is slathered in Observer makeup (though his hands aren’t, probably because it would have gotten all over everything) and he wears bright red lipstick and fake fangs that don’t allow him to fully close his mouth. His vinyl cape almost definitely came from Party City. His voice echoes like he’s talking into an empty garbage can, even when he’s sitting in the back seat of a car. He has an incredibly funky goatee and a ring that shoots fire. Everything he says and does is deeply, self-consciously dramatic and it all comes to an absurd crescendo in the series of priceless faces he makes as he turns to dust in the sun.

On a scale of absurd theatricality, Dr. D’Ray is only shortly behind him. The mad doctor dresses like Colonel Sanders, has some classic evil facial hair, and spends much of his screen time monologuing… but nothing he says ever makes a lick of sense. The stuff that comes out of his mouth is literally indescribable so I’m going to have to give you some examples:

Rambling in his lab, D’Ray describes his work as follows: “human blood is the essence from which future illusion may be created, but the secret is not to have the blood at rest. No, the circulatory system must experience a traumatic shock, one that is inconceivable to the human mind. The idea of trauma is not a new one, but I am sure I am the first such experimenter to incorporate the horror of an actual decapitation into later rejuvenation of a human body!” This is evidently supposed to be a justification for the sewing-heads-back-on thing – it ‘activates’ the blood and allows D’Ray to make his ‘serum’. He then injects that ‘serum’ into Groton, who transforms into an axe-wielding maniac. Later, Dracula claims that the same ‘serum’ would have made him invincible. I, uh… what?

Sorry, I was talking about D’Ray’s monologuing. When describing his Creature Emporium, D’Ray informs some guests, “the greatest mysteries in the world are not mysteries at all, unless we take time to become familiar with them.” Isn’t that the opposite of how mysteries work? It’s easy to believe in, say, the Loch Ness Monster, until you familiarize yourself with the history of the ‘evidence’ and realize that it’s almost all complete bullshit.

When Dracula shows up, D’Ray declares, “I am too old and too sick to be interested or surprised by anything, but when a man comes into my house and casts no reflection on my mirror, and on his hand wears the unholy crest of Dracula, there is no scientific answer to anything. Now, what is on your mind, Count Dracula?” Honestly, this nonsense is spoken with such conviction that you almost don’t notice that the end of the sentence has nothing to do with the beginning.

The movie has two things that might qualify as a ‘special effect’. One is Dracula’s zappy fire ring. It’s crummy, but you can tell what they’re going for. The other is the ‘comet’ that is instrumental in giving life to the Frankenstein Monster. This is represented by a slow pan past a flickering light bulb against a black background. Even having just heard Dracula talking about the importance of the comet, it took me a minute to figure out what I was supposedly seeing – it’s that bad. This might be halfway forgivable if the comet were somehow important to the plot… if the Monster, for example, had to complete some mission before it sets or something. But it’s totally gratuitous. They could have taken that out, avoided a distractingly awful effect, and made the movie a little bit shorter!

As for meaning anything… Dracula vs Frankenstein does not, and indeed seems to go out of its way to avoid it. The events that unfold are remarkably meaningless. Judith finds her sister Joannie, who is not dead but neither is she alive, and then the story just forgets about Joannie and gives her no resolution. Hippie girl Samantha is saved from being raped by her angry ex and his biker gang, but then she, too, is entirely forgotten. D’Ray and his henchmen die in a series of contrived accidents that serve no purpose but getting them out of the way so that Dracula and the Monster can fight uninterrupted. This is particularly anticlimactic because so far, D’Ray has been presented as our main baddie. Dracula disintegrates Mike with his magic ring and then the movie rushes to its climax without giving either Judith or the audience time to deal with it. Dracula, the movie’s actual main baddie, just turns to dust in the sun.

There are a couple of moments that are probably supposed to be social commentary, but they have nothing to do with the meandering main plot. One is the scene where a hippie guy says to his girlfriend, “let’s get ready for the big protest tonight.” She asks, “what are we protesting this time?” and he shrugs and replies, “I dunno, but I bet it’s fun.” Later we see this protest, which does seem to have a major ‘party’ component and features some very unspecific placards being waved. In another sequence there’s a druggie bar with the walls covered in graffiti that say things like POT and SOCIETY SUCKS.

Boy, I bet Adamson was really proud of sticking it to those angry young people.

Dracula vs Frankenstein is mesmerizingly bad. Usually the best bad movies are the kind where you can follow the story a bit, so you aren’t wasting time wondering what the hell is going on instead of appreciating the nonsense dialogue and unconvincing effects. Dracula vs Frankenstein is a singular exception. You never have any idea what anybody’s doing and yet somehow it doesn’t matter… the movie gives up on making sense very early, and just forges merrily ahead, dragging you along behind it. What’s actually happening never matters enough to distract. I honestly don’t know if this is a point in the movie’s favour or not… but it would have made a hell of an MST3K episode.

#mst3k #reviews #epsiodes that never were #dracula vs frankenstein #tw: rape #all carnival no magic #70s

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lo-lynx · 5 years

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Masculine embodiment in ASOIAF- aka, what’s up with the eunuchs?

CW: Sexism, cissexism, rape, sex, description of genitalia and bodily functions.

Spoilers: All of A Song of Ice and Fire, and a tiny spoiler from Game of Thrones season 8.

“’I hold the man’s balls in the palm of my hand.’ He cupped his fingers, smiling. ‘Or would, if he were a man, or had any balls.’” (Martin 1996/2011, 194) Ah, classic Littlefinger burn about Varys. In George RR Martin’s world of ASOIAF such jokes are frequent, but when last time when I re-read A Game of Thrones this one joke in Ned’s fourth chapter stuck out. Perhaps it was because I had recently watched the last season of Game of Thrones where Varys comments on Tyrion’s ever-present jokes about Varys being a eunuch (Game of Thrones 2019, 04:27). Perhaps it’s because issues of gender and sexuality interest me in general (see: all of this blog). Regardless, it got me interested at seeing how eunuchs are described in the books. I soon found that the connection between a man’s genitals and masculinity seemed to be very strong. Now, before I go any further, I feel like two disclaimers are in order. 1: I’m not saying that having a penis is necessary to be a man, I’m saying that both our society and the world of ASOIAF seems to think so. 2: I’m not saying that GRRM thinks this either, I have no idea what his personal stance on these things are, but I’m saying that he seems to have transferred these views from our world into his world. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, why focus on this aspect of masculine embodiment in ASOIAF? Well, as I intend to show in this analysis, by analysing how eunuchs are portrayed in the books, I think one can infer quite a bit of how men and masculinity is conceived of in Westeros and beyond. So, firstly I want to give a brief overview of how sex/gender was conceived of in our medieval world (mostly to show how this DOES NOT seem to match ASOIAF), and secondly how these things are conceived of in more modern times and compare this to ASOIAF.

So, before the 18th century or so, European conception sex/gender relied on what has afterwards been called a “one-sex model” (Mottier 2008, 33). This model was very influenced by the Greek philosophical idea that men’s bodies were active, hot and strong; women’s bodies being passive, weak, damp and cold (ibid, 5).

As the historian Thomas Laqueur has pointed out, the classical model of gender involved a ‘one-sex model’: since gender was fluid, men risked becoming more feminized if they lost heat, while women could become more like men if their bodies heated up. The psychological consequences of such beliefs was [sic] that gender did not appear as a stable, biological characteristic, but as an identity that was potentially under threat. (Mottier 2008, 6)

That is to say, during this time sex/gender was seen as fluid, and not a biological fact. As mentioned, this view didn’t really change until the 18th century. Mottier describes that shift like this:

From the 18th century, the traditional idea of the ‘one-sex’ body, which conceptualized women’s bodies as similar but inferior versions of male bodies (with female genitals being thought of as internal, much smaller versions of male genitals) started to be replaced with the idea of a clear biological differentiation between men and women. Male and female bodies came to be seen as fundamentally, biological different, not as part of the same hierarchical continuum. The gender hierarchy remained, however. (Mottier 2008, 33)

From this we can infer then, that during the medieval period in Europe, female bodies were perceived as sort of defect versions of male bodies, not fundamentally biologically different. It was after this model was replaced with the ‘two-sex model’ that men and women were seen as biologically different creatures. This biological difference also began being used as a justification for social difference (and inequality) between men and women. That is not to say that such social difference didn’t exist before that, but it wasn’t though to be the result of biological differences in the same way. In my view, this later conceptualisation of sex/gender is much more in line with how sex/gender seems to be perceived in ASOIAF. Throughout the books there are several references of women being of the gentle/weaker sex, or similar descriptions. One such is in Catelyn’s last chapter in A Game of Thrones when Catelyn tries to persuade Robb’s lords to sue for peace with the Lannisters. The Greatjon then says that because she is a woman she does not understand such things, while Lord Karstark says: “You are the gentle sex (…) a man has a need for vengeance.” (Martin 2011, 770) Such a view, seeing the female sex as gentler/weaker than the male sex, seems much more in line with a “two-sex model” than the “one-sex model” that would’ve existed in Medieval Europe. I shall therefore proceed to explain the male body has been conceived in more modern times.

In general, one can say that the male subject is expected to embody strength, toughness, and have a capability to exercise power over a space (Whitehead 2002, 189). This expectation also carries through to expectations of men’s sexuality, which is why many aging men might start to lose confidence in their sexuality when they can’t live up to this expectation (ibid, 200). This connection between masculinity and strength, virility etc. also impacts the importance being put on having “normal” genitalia. As Fausto-Sterling writes about the male body, from a medical point of view, the existence of a “functional” penis is often considered crucial for manhood (1995, 130). This is taken to the extreme that children born with a penis that is considered too small (even though the size of the penis at birth doesn’t seem to be a good indicator of adult size) will have their genitalia surgically changed into a vagina (for more on surgery on intersex children see for example: Amnesty 2017). Presumably this is partly because the sexual act of penetration is so closely linked to masculinity, that having a penis that is considered “too small” for this is inconceivable (as someone who works with sex education, I just want to add SIZE DOESN’T MATTER THAT MUCH. Just communicate with your partner and figure out what works for you!) Other studies have also analysed the way testicles are perceived in modern society and found that those seem to be closely connected to masculinity as well (Karioris & Allan 2017). The most obvious example of this is of course the phrase “grow a pair”, said when wanting someone to toughen up. Kaioris and Allan also write that fear of castration is often linked with a fear of losing one’s masculinity. This is all to say, that in our society genitalia seems to be very important to manhood and being “a real man”. Now, is this also the case in ASOIAF?

Short answer, yes. One example is of course the quote with which I started this text, when Littlefinger seems to equate Varys’ lack of testicles with his lack of manhood. Another example comes from A Clash of Kings when Tyrion expresses a similar sentiment when comparing himself to Varys: “Yet I’m still a man.” (Martin 1999/2011, 120). But the linking of lack of genitals with lack of masculinity doesn’t stop with Varys, it is also something we see with Theon after his torture by Ramsey. He himself thinks that he is no man (Martin 2011/2012, 566). Later, when Ramsey forces him to be a part of raping Jeyne Poole, he jokes about Theon (not) getting an erection by seeing Jeyne, and then says that Theon is: “Not even a man, in truth.” (Martin 2011d, 582). This equating of (lack of) a penis and testicles with (a lack of) masculinity/manhood isn’t contained to Westeros, however. Daenerys thinks a similar thing when describing the unsullied in A Storm of Swords: “(…) they were no men at all. The Unsullied were eunuchs, every one of them.” (Martin 2000/2011, 314). Speaking of Daenerys, in A Game of Thrones we learn from her chapters that in Dothraki culture, the only ones who ride in carts are those with a disability, women giving birth, the very old and the very old. Oh, and eunuchs (Martin 1996/2011, 373). Here it becomes very clear that eunuchs are seen as weak and unmanly when they are grouped together with pregnant women, old people and those with disabilities. How disability is portrayed in ASOIAF is not something I will go into further here, but I recommend the text “Power and Punishment in Game of Thrones” by Mia Harrison that does explore that. However, it seems clear that those with disabilities are not seen as “real men” either.

So, based on this, we can see that the Westerosi (and Essosi) view of what a man is seems to presume that he is strong, active and virile. It is apparently also very important to have functioning genitalia (whatever that even means). Therefore, those who cannot live up to that, such as eunuchs, are not real men. This is a very narrow definition of masculinity and manhood, yet it unfortunately rings true in our world as well. Not only does it exclude trans folx completely, it also limits people of all genders. We see the consequences of that in ASOIAF when Brianne is excluded from knighthood based on her gender, and in the way people of Westeros treat all of its “imperfect” men. And we can most definitely see it in our own world.

References

Amnesty International. (2017). “First, do no harm: ensuring the rights of children born intersex.” Accessed 1 December, 2019. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/05/intersex-rights/

Game of Thrones. (2019) Winterfell. [TV-show]

Harrison, Mia. (2018). “Power and Punishment in Game of Thrones”, pp. 28-43 in Schatz, J L & Amber E George (Eds.), The Image of Disability: Essays on Media Representations. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Fausto-Sterling, Anne (1995). “How to build a man”, pp. 127-134 in Berger, Maurice, Brian Wallis and Simon Watson (eds.) (1995). Constructing Masculinity, Routledge, New York

Martin, George RR. (1996/2011). A Game of Thrones. Harper Voyager: London

Martin, George RR. (1998/2011). A Clash of Kings. Harper Voyager: London

Martin, George RR. (2000/2011). A Storm of Swords 1: Steel and Snow. Harper Voyager: London

Martin, George RR. (2011/2012). A Dance with Dragons. Harper Voyager: London

Mottier, Véronique. (2008). Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Whitehead, Stephen M. (2002). Men and Masculinities, Cambridge and Malden: Polity, pp. 181-204

#asoiaf #got #feminism #cw: sexism #cw: cissexism #cw: sex #tw: rape #idk how to tag this

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normal-thoughts-official · 4 years

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like it's not like magnus who would do shit to others for free or raphael who continuously helped simon, whom he didnt know at all -> Simon is literally Raphael’s progeny. Also let’s not forget what he did to Heidi just to be able to visit his sisters funerals. As to Magnus, he ditched his allies when the seelie queen kidnapped Maia. Those are facts, not the dig on the characters btw

simon being raphael's progeny is literally my point. he didn't have to take simon under his wing, or even give his body back to clary so she could bring him from the dead, he did it because he cares about others even if he doesn't know them. and he especially didn't have to keep helping simon after simon betrayed him several times and treated him like shit, but he did anyway, because he's loyal. he didn't owe a single thing that he did for simon, he chose to do all that he did, and that says a lot about him

as for the heidi thing: tbh like i said i mostly ignore that plotline because it was pointless anyway, felt out of character and forced (like the guy who literally burns himself with holy water because he feels like he's a monster just for existing and who put his life on the line for a guy he never even met is willing to torture people? sure man. the writers just did what they always do, they wanted to bring heidi back because she was popular for some reason, so they just changed whoever was available's characterisation for the plotline to progress, just like they did with alec in the b*dyswap pl*tline - that shit made no sense - or in both versions of j@ia) and didn't even make sense plot wise (she wasn't a daylighter, simon was, if he was willing to torture to get what he wanted, why not torture or blackmail simon to help him? or experiment on him like he did with heidi? like the writers literally didn't think that one through at all as usual) but okay either way you have a point since raphael was also willing to kill clary and other people when it was the most pragmatic decision

the thing is, i definitely don't think that raphael isn't willing to do Bad™ or at least morally questionable things, but i don't think he has to in order to be a kind person or a person who values kindness. like, the amount of times raphael literally put his life on the line to help people he didn't know and that would get him nothing in return is astounding, or straight up people he shouldn't trust at all (like simon post-betrayal or izzy, a literal shadowhunter who had been shitty to him and the clan many times, when she went to their lair and was about to be attacked, and then she literally immediately triggered his addiction on purpose so like lmao). not to mention he literally volunteers at a soup kitchen, became clan leader with the specific purpose of bringing justice to the vampires, and believed that he should welcome and take care of all new downworlders because he didn't want others to suffer like he did. so like is he 100% morally pure and perfect? definitely not. but is kindness, community, taking care of others, etc, something that he values deeply? definitely yes

and even with the killing clary part for example, he did it because it would bring a greater good (literally stop genocide, tbh i even struggle seeing that as a bad action but that's my personal moral code), and with heidi, he also tried to justify to himself saying that it would bring a greater good ("i wanted to do this for all the vampires, not just me"). don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that it was justified, because it definitely wasn't, and in that plotline, he was definitely doing it for himself, helping other vampires was just a bonus. but the fact that that's where he went to justify the unjustifiable tells me that again, this is something he believes in, doing good, taking care of others, and he needs to convince himself that that's what he's doing, which shows to me that kindness is something he values. again, i'm not saying that he's right or that it was justified, and that was an excuse at best, and what he did was terrible and he fucking knew that. what i am saying is that i think the houses represent what you believe in, not necessarily what you are/act as 100% of the time (cuz like i said raphael is kind and that was shown many times, even if in that plotline he wasn't), and i think that his justification here shows that kindness and community are something he values, even when he's doing the opposite of that (which he definitely was)

as for magnus and the seelie queen, i don't remember this plotline tbh udjdidnd but the whole thing with the seelie queen was like.... honestly he was between the cross and the sword, as we say in brazil, i don't think there was any "good" option from where he was standing, cuz keeping the alliance with the shadowhunters would also be terrible and tbh worse than the seelie queen, so jdndjdjd but anyway like i said, it's not about never doing anything wrong or being 100% perfect and morally pure, it's about holding kindness and caring for other people as a value above all others, regardless of whether or not you achieve that (just like there are coward gryffindors, dumb ravenclaws, unsuccessful slytherins), which i think magnus and raphael definitely do, or, at least, hold to higher standarts than the other options (bravery, knowledge/wisdom, and success, basically)

and like idk if ur the same anon as from that particular ask, but if ur gonna invalidate the possibility that magnus and raphael can be hufflepuffs because they did immoral things, then u can't argue for hufflepuff alec either, since he was also willing to torture meliorn, kill a bunch of downworlders, reinforce oppressive laws, and a lot of other shady shit. and don't get me wrong i'm not saying that alec is A Bad Person or that he doesn't care about doing good things, my point is exactly the opposite, really

#ask #anonymous #salt #discourse #anti sh writers #anti alec lightwood #anti magnus bane #anti raphael santiago #just to be sure #lol #anti simon lewis #anti izzy lightwood #for someone who thinks everyone in sh is perfect i sure have a lot of anti tags #sh

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lostinthewinterwood · 4 years

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AU Exchange 2020

Hey friend!

Looks like this letter’ll be going out on time, for once in my life. This one’s very long; there’ll be a list of fandoms after the general info so you can hop around and not get bogged down in the details that don’t matter for what you’re going to be writing.

Treats in any medium are welcome, my other exchange letters are here, and at the bottom there’ll be tags for each fandom I’ve requested, if you want to see whether I’ve requested them before and what I’ve said about them. Good luck, have fun, and thanks for writing for me!

General DNW non/dub-con; non-canonical major character death; heavy angst; hurt no comfort; graphic depictions of deliberate and methodical self-harm*; graphic depictions of suicide; smut; gore; grimdark; complete downer endings; character bashing; incest; cringe comedy; a/b/o; mpreg; graphic eye trauma; graphic and/or permanent hand trauma; issuefic; unrequested identity headcanons; a focus on unrequested romantic relationships**. *I don’t include things like, say, punching a wall in a fit of emotion under this. however, something like cutting would not be appreciated. **canonical levels of canonical ships are perfectly fine; background non-canon ships that I haven’t dnw’d are okay too (unless otherwise specified—see below for fandom-specific notes).

General Likes

– I really like plotty fics

– Secret identity and disguise shenanigans, the more layers to them and more absurdity the better.

– Crossdressing for whatever reason and gender disguises, also for whatever reason.

– A focus on family and/or friendship, especially characters realizing they’re not nearly as alone as they think they are, and just generally characters who like each other and enjoy spending time together

– Found family; families of choice

– Character studies

– Worldbuilding

- explorations of how whatever AU you pick to write affects the characters and/or plot, and the ways in which it doesn’t

Other General Notes:

If there’s an AU I’d especially like to see on its own, without any other AU in combination with it, I’ll mention it—outside of that, feel free to combine the AUs as you see fit.

All the times that the Dragon Rider au is one I asked for, I’ve framed it in my prompts as a sports story thing—while that would definitely be great, don’t feel pressured to make it be like that; it’s just where my prompting muse is at right now, so if you want to take it in another direction go right ahead.

Fandoms in Order of Appearance:

Hanging Out with a Gamer Girl

Harry Potter

Mother of Learning (x2)

Day Break Illusion (x2)

Hanging Out with a Gamer Girl (Manga)

· Fanfiction (Medium)

· Terazaki Kaoru (HOwaGG)

· Ousaka Nanami (HOwaGG)

· Group: Terazaki Kaoru & Ousaka Shouko (HOwaGG)

· Group: Terazaki Kaoru & Ousaka Nanami (HOwaGG)

Fandom-specific dnw: sexualization of Kaoru’s crossdressing, romance between Kaoru and Nanami beyond light shiptease à la canon (unless the AU chosen is a romantic fairytale, in which case go right ahead), full justification of Kaoru’s fears re: Nanami’s dad, heavy gender dysphoria.

Overall I love these kids and their friendship, and I also love how much Shouko feels like a mom to Kaoru even though he isn’t hers, even though he’s keeping secrets from her—he doesn’t seem to have that much parental support overall.

Whatever AU you pick, I’d appreciate that being preserved.

· ALL: Character was Stolen by Fairies as a Baby

· All: East of the Sun and West of the Moon Fusion

· All: Fairytale Fusion

· ALL: Fantasy/Magic Royalty and Palace Intrigue AU

· ALL: Magic is a part of everyday life

· ALL: Magical Girl Fusion

· ALL: Magical Realism

· ALL: Regency-Inspired Fantasy AU

For this set of tags, I’d love to see something that fuses the AU elements to canon, or replaces canon elements with them—maybe instead of gamers, the kids are magical girls! Or maybe there’s just magical elements wound seamlessly into their lives, or they instead live in a fairytale world, or…

Basically, this is my more generic magic!au set.

· ALL: Characters met as children

· ALL: Deaf Canon Characters

· ALL: Disabled Canon Characters

· ALL: Mute Canon Characters

· HOwaGG: trans girl Terazaki Kaoru

These are the generally mundane AUs—if one or both of the kids is disabled in some way, how does that affect them? If they’ve known each other longer than they have in canon, or used to know each other—how does that affect them? If Kaoru is a trans girl, is that something that she knows before their canon meeting, and maybe that’s a point at which she’s already begun transitioning? Or does the crossdressing give her a revelation?

· ALL: Daemon AU

· ALL: Daemons in Canon Divergent AU

I like daemon!aus a lot, though I’m not very good at writing them myself—if this world has daemons, what are the kids’? Are they fully settled yet, or not quite? Most people have daemons opposite to their sex—is it obvious that Kaoru’s daemon is female, and if so, does that pique Shouko’s interest? Does his daemon get him recognized by people who know Kaoru-the-boy even when he’s out looking like a girl?

· ALL: Dragon Rider AU

· All: Figure skating AU

Sports aus! One mundane, one distinctly less so… what’s it like, if they’re dragon riders? Is it a whole other world, or just our world +dragons? If it’s figure skating, what kind of skating do they do? Singles? Pairs? Ice dance? Are they just casual about it or competitive?

· ALL: Platonic Soulmate AU

· ALL: Soulmates - Soulmate Mark Appears At First Touch

· ALL: Soulmates Share Scars

These are probably my three favorite kinds of soulmate AUs—run with them! Tell me about the kids and their dynamic and the world they inhabit, with soulmates thrown into the mix!

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

· Fanfiction (Medium)

· Percy Weasley (HP - JKR)

Fandom-specific dnw: non-canon ships.

I’ve phrased this so broadly because it’s generally better safe than sorry on these things—essentially what I especially don’t want is non-canon ships between people on opposite sides of the war, e.g. drarry, harry/Voldemort, etc. If you want to toss in background, idk, Pansy/Daphne or something, or relationships between various Ministry people, that I don’t mind.

· ALL: Underground Resistance

· HP: Percy Weasley is a spy for the Order of the Phoenix during the war

· ALL: Character Is a Secretly a Spy for the Other Side

There’s really one thing I want here—spy!Percy! He spends so much of the war in the Ministry, surrounded by Death Eaters and their accomplices and enablers, to all appearances the black sheep of the Weasley family and not much of a threat. Now, this could be genuine… but it could also be him playing them; I want to see a world where he, at some point—maybe after he chooses to stay with the ministry instead of his family, maybe before—decides to be a spy for the Order et al.

What are the risks? What can he accomplish? Can he help people beyond simply passing out information, perhaps with seemingly-inconsequential little acts?

Mother of Learning - nobody103

· Fanfiction (Medium)

· Kirielle Kazinski (Mother of Learning)

request-specific dnw: physical parental abuse within the Kazinski family, significant exaggeration of canonical emotional neglect/abuse/general family dysfunction, romantic and/or sexual Zach/Zorian.

· All: Character has a secret identity

· All: Identity Porn

· ALL: Possessed by time travelling future self

· MoL: Kirielle as a Branded One

I’m fascinated by the idea of Kirielle somehow getting wrapped up in the time loop—what’s it like to live years and years of your life while your body stays nine? What does she do, what does she learn? Are Zach and Zorian still Branded Ones, or is she taking one or both of their places?

If you go with this, I’d rather not have her gate!soul erased—either let her escape, or don’t go far enough to need to address it, please.

The identity bits here are mostly leaning on the idea that, with her only being nine, Kiri would need some kind of identity obfuscation to do half of what Zach and Zorian do in canon, so…

· ALL: Daemon AU

· ALL: Daemons in Canon Divergent AU

Nothing particularly profound here—but! Daemons! How does this affect things? Is Kiri happier with someone to talk to who isn’t her siblings or parents or village children that her parents mightn’t approve of? I’d imagine her daemon hasn’t settled yet—what forms does it like?

· All: Changeling AU

· ALL: Fairy Tale AU

· All: Fairytale Fusion

· All: Historical Fantasy AU

· ALL: Magical Realism

· ALL: Nature Magic

The setting and/or mood change AUs—give me Kirielle-the-faerie child, or Kiri in a fairytale, or shift the setting more historical and into our world, or change the nature of the magic—the canonical magic system is fairly hard as magic systems go, which works well for the story as it is, but I also really like softer magics. What about a world where there’s simply small everyday magics present, or where Kiri has an affinity for green growing things quite beyond the natural?

· ALL: Deaf Canon Characters

How does Kiri’s life change, if she’s born deaf or becomes deaf? How does her role as Cikan Kazinski’s only daughter change? Does Eldemar have a Deaf community?

This could play into her desire to go to Cyoria, too—I wouldn’t expect Cirin to have much in the way of resources or community, but maybe Cyoria does; maybe that’s why she wants so badly to go.

· ALL: Finding Peace/An End to the War

· ALL: Legal Drama

· ALL: Magical environment/species conservation scientist au

· ALL: Magical horticulturists

This set is more likely future!fic than anything else—Kirielle’s growing up into a country on the brink of war; what’s she going to do when she gets older? Maybe she’ll be involved in that, or with the law—or maybe she goes to school and learns to be a mage, and then goes on to a career as a conservationist or horticulturist.

Mother of Learning - nobody103

· Fanfiction (Medium)

· Zorian Kazinski (Mother of Learning)

· Zach Noveda (Mother of Learning)

request-specific dnw: physical parental abuse within the Kazinski family, significant exaggeration of canonical emotional neglect/abuse/general family dysfunction, romantic and/or sexual Zach/Zorian (unless in a romantic fairytale au).

· All: Changeling AU

· All: Fairytale Fusion

· ALL: Fantasy/Magic Royalty and Palace Intrigue AU

· ALL: High Fantasy AU

· All: Historical Fantasy AU

· ALL: Magical Realism

· ALL: Nature Magic

Again, setting and/or mood changes—turn one or both of these two into a changeling child, or push them into a different setting, or change their world to feel a little more magical than it does in canon.

· All: Character has a secret identity

· ALL: Deaf Canon Characters

· ALL: Legal Drama

· ALL: Magical environment/species conservation scientist au

· ALL: Magical horticulturists

· ALL: Role Swap AU

This set is a combination of probably-post-canon things and things that could slide into the canon timeline—what if one or both of them went to more effort to construct a second identity, either in the loop or out of it, for anyone’s benefit? What if one or both of them was deaf—if you go here, it’d be interesting if you combined it with deaf!Kirielle too. A role swap—what if Zorian got there earlier and the angels didn’t think him unworthy, and Zach wound up his tagalong instead?

And the other three are basically what-ifs for the post-canon world—there’s Zach’s court case to be dealt with, and these two are both skilled enough to do basically whatever they want to, if it’s to do with magic. Why not become a conservationist or horticulturist?

· ALL: Daemons in Canon Divergent AU

· All: Figure skating AU

· ALL: Regency AU

· All: Robin Hood Fusion

· ALL: Spies & Secret Agents

· ALL: University AU

This is a whole grab bag of different AUs—they’re all fairly self-explanatory I think, though I will say that you shouldn’t feel pressured to keep the overtly mundane-seeming AUs mundane, if you don’t want too—I’d like the mundane versions of course! But there’s plenty of interesting things you could explore with, e.g., magic!figure skating, so. Go wild.

· All: Tam Lin Fusion

In a weird way, MoL already has its characters in the roles they need to be in for a Tam Lin fusion, though the structure is of course very different–what is Zach if not a sacrifice against Panaxeth’s release? What is Zorian if not the one who fights nigh-impossible odds to save him from that fate? I’d love to see a fic that goes into this.

幻影ヲ駆ケル太陽 il sole penetra le illusioni | Day Break Illusion

· Fanfiction (Medium)

· Tsukuyomi Luna (Day Break Illusion)

· Taiyou Akari (Day Break Illusion)

· Shirokane Ginka (Day Break Illusion)

· Hoshikawa Seira (Day Break Illusion)

· Group: Tsukuyomi Luna & Tsukuyomi Serena (Day Break Illusion)

· Group: Hoshikawa Seira & Shirokane Ginka & Taiyou Akari & Tsukuyomi Luna

fandom-specific dnw: heavy gender dysphoria.

· All: a character is transgender (binary)

· ALL: Alternate First Meetings

· All: Character has a secret identity

· ALL: Deaf Canon Characters

· ALL: Disabled Canon Characters

· ALL: Street Rats

This is basically the AUs of mundane level things; the broad strokes of canon are perfectly compliant with any of these, or at least they could be. What changes, if you go for any of the AUs listed above? What stays the same?

· All: Changeling AU

· ALL: Character was Stolen by Fairies as a Baby

· ALL: Daemon AU

· All: Fairytale Fusion

· ALL: Fantasy/Magic Royalty and Palace Intrigue AU

· ALL: Magical Realism

· ALL: Regency-Inspired Fantasy AU

· All: with the right postage you can send letters anywhere anywhen

Different flavors of fantasy—for the changelings, is the character we know from canon the stolen child, or their faerie replacement? Are their daemons affected by them fighting the daemonia; what happens to a daemon when the human is consumed by a daemonia? How do their powers and battles work in a world that’s more overtly magical? For the last—who/where/when would they send letters to? Would Akari send one back in time to Fuyuna, Luna to her sister, Seira to her friend? Forward to their future selves? How does this affect the timeline; do you have to be careful, lest you irrevocably change things, or are future-letters already set and immutable? Is this common or rare—what’s the price to send a letter through time?

· ALL: Character Journeys To The Underworld to Rescue Their Dead Friend

· All: Journey to the Underworld to Resurrect Loved One

Who are they rescuing? How are they going about the rescue? Are they bringing back Fuyuna? Seira’s friend? Luna’s sister, if it turns out she’s dead not just vanished some other way? Ginka herself, if we suppose that she died in the annihilation rather than going to battle elsewhere?

If a Daemonia’s victim is resurrected, does everyone remember them again? Either way, what are the consequences of bringing back a person who’d been erased?

· ALL: Dragon Rider AU

· ALL: Fencing AU

· All: Figure skating AU

Sports aus! Two mundane, one not. I’d love to see the kids in some kind of competitive something—are they teammates? Competitors? Is Sefiro Fiore a sports organization in this world, or are they both athletes and tarot users?

· DBI: Daemonia hosts aren't erased from the timeline when killed

So, one of the generally convenient things in this world—even if it’s not a particularly nice thing—is that none of the characters ever have to deal with the fallout of the deaths they cause; the daemonia’s victims are erased. Ret-gone, if you will. But what if they weren’t? What would the effect of that be; how would that change things?

幻影ヲ駆ケル太陽 il sole penetra le illusioni | Day Break Illusion

· Fanfiction (Medium)

· Group: Hanayume & Lymro & Mama Nagataki & Taiyou Akari (Day Break Illusion)

· Group: Hanayume & Lymro & Mama Nagataki (Day Break Illusion)

fandom-specific dnw: heavy gender dysphoria.

· All: a character is transgender (binary)

· ALL: Deaf Canon Characters

· ALL: Disabled Canon Characters

· ALL: Found Family

So, again, this is the more mundane aus—add these in!! tell me how they affect things, or how they don’t affect them!

Found family is… kinda canon? But there isn’t really much focus on that aspect in canon so I’d love some more here.

· All: Changeling AU

· ALL: Character was Stolen by Fairies as a Baby

· All: Fairytale Fusion

· ALL: Fantasy/Magic Royalty and Palace Intrigue AU

· All: Historical Fantasy AU

· ALL: Magic is a part of everyday life

· ALL: Magical Realism

· ALL: Regency AU (no homophobia)

· ALL: Regency-Inspired Fantasy AU

· All: with the right postage you can send letters anywhere anywhen

And these are the magic and/or setting AUs! How do these elements change their lives; what stays the same regardless?

See my previous set of Day Break Illusion requests for my thoughts on the letters tag.

· ALL: Daemon AU

· ALL: Daemons in Canon Divergent AU

Just—daemons! What are theirs? For Hanayume—what gender is her daemon? I’m sorry I’m running out of things to say at this point…

· ALL: Dragon Rider AU

· ALL: Fencing AU

· All: Figure skating AU

So, in canon, Hanayume, Lymro, and Mama Nagataki are kind of Akari’s fortune-teller aunts/mentors; if we change it so that Akari’s thing is fencing or figure skating or dragon-riding, why not bring her aunts along for the ride as her mentors in that sport, or, if we’re not including Akari—competitors themselves, perhaps, or maybe generally teachers?

If you made it all the way down here—first of all, wow, this letter was way too long so good on you for making it—second of all—thank you again for writing for me!! Good luck!!

#exchange letters #auex #au exchange #requested: harry potter #requested: hanging out with a gamer girl #requested: mother of learning #requested: day break illusion

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lunar-years · 5 years

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Okay, first of all, please don’t read this if you love Rafael or are pro-Jafael... just don’t do that to yourself. Also, warning for season five spoilers.

This is essentially an absurdly long rant post because I realized I’ve never fully articulated why I don’t like J*fael, and given the leaks/spoilers of the finale, I really want to just get out all of my thoughts out there about this horrible endgame. So here goes....

There are essentially two reasons I don’t like J*fael, the main one being that while I don’t think Rafael is fundamentally a bad person, I do think he is fundamentally bad for Jane. Neither of them are their best selves when they are together, and this has been shown time and time again on the show. The second reason is that J*fael would never work in the long-term, now in season five for the same reason they didn’t work back in season 1. Rafael as a person is incredibly self-centered, arrogant, and angry. He relies on unhealthy coping mechanisms and shuts people out if things don’t go his way. He needs to work through his own shit before he can be successful in any relationship, let alone one with Jane.

The biggest problem I have with Rafael individually is that he doesn’t handle conflict maturely, and never has. Obviously he has been through a lot in his life that prevented him from developing healthy ways of coping, but as a grown ass adult that is merely an explanation and not a justification. Rafael never holds himself accountable, and he never gets the help he needs. Unfortunately, the people around him (cough Jane) all enable him in this, coddling him and never calling him out on his bullshit behavior. He’s fine as long as things are going his way, but as soon as he feels his happiness is threatened, he’s a lose cannon. This magnifies and manifests whenever he fears Jane is going to leave him.

His behavior in season five, for example, has been incredibly possessive and toxic. He’s acting like a child whose had his favorite toy taken away from him, instead of being mature enough to see things from Jane’s point-of-view for once. Her husband has come back from the dead, for pete’s sake!! Michael didn't leave, he didn’t run away, he didn’t hurt Jane intentionally in any way. He was taken, tortured, and left unaware of who he even was. His relationship with Jane didn’t come to end on purpose. Yet Rafael acts like Jane is crazy for not wanting to immediately divorce Michael, and kicks her out of their house when she voices her confusion and pain and uncertainty after he gets his memory back. It’s completely irrational on Rafael’s part, who is acting like Jane is an object he has won instead of a person with real emotions going through a very real trauma. Obviously Rafael being hurt by Jane possibly leaving him for Michael again and having his life suddenly turned upside down is all valid. What's irritating is him acting like his emotions and hurt matter more than other people’s. Jane had her husband taken away from her against her will. Meanwhile Michael, frankly, is the only one who has lost literally everything. Yet Rafael doesn’t spare a passing thought about Michael’s trauma but instead immediately diminishes it and appropriates it for himself (i.e. his bullshit “I’ve got my memories back too” stance... which is just so problematic in so many ways but I digress).

His behavior now that Michael is back also shades his behavior when Michael was “dead.” For someone who supposedly changed so much in the five years after Michael died, and who was there to help Jane through her mourning, Rafael sure reverted back fast to his old ways as soon as the “threat” against him and Jane reemerged. Rafael was fine so long as Michael was dead and no longer taking away from Raf’s personal happiness, but as soon as Michael returns he is back to being a selfish asshole. That doesn’t say much for Rafael’s “helping Jane through her grief” and almost makes it seem like all along it was just something he did just to win her back when he saw an open window for it. Being there for Jane when she was widowed means he knows just how deeply Jane loved Michael and just how long it took for her to heal from that loss. Yet he still acts like it should be easy for Jane to immediately cut Michael out of her life when he reappears. Yikes.

The other infuriating thing about Rafael is his behavior and treatment towards his family. Rafael treats Louisa like shit. Flat out. He criticizes and judges her for her addictions despite struggling with alcohol reliance himself. He sells her out for his own gains, and he generally treats her with a “holier than thou” attitude that is incredibly irritating to watch and always has been. Then you have Petra and the twins. The scene when Petra calls Rafael out for treating her and their daughters like second class citizens is one of my absolute favorites because it’s so damn true and it’s about time Petra said it!! What’s annoying is that in the seasons since, Rafael has not learned from that confrontation or grown from it. Whether he and Jane are together or not at any given moment, it is obvious that he will always put Jane and Mateo before Petra and the twins. That's terrible parenting, I'm sorry, but it is. He also plays “good parent” with Mateo all the time, making Jane do all the grunt work of punishing and correcting Mateo’s poor behavior while he excuses Mateo’s bad actions instead of teaching him how to do better (made especially obvious in the last episode...yikes yikes yikes.)

Then there’s his relationship with Jane. Oh, J*fael. To be clear, I’ve shipped Villadero from the beginning, which probably made me biased about J*fael early on. Still, even when Michael was behaving horribly and the narrative was clearly urging viewers to root for Raf, I could never get behind him. To me, the Jane and Rafael attraction has always seemed so... surface-level. Like, they have a few wet dreams about one another and suddenly, because they’re accidentally having a kid together, they’re both fully invested in the idea of them being soulmates. In reality, Jane and Rafael have like, nothing in common. Seriously, what do these two talk about it? Rafael has proven multiple times that he doesn't respect Jane’s religion, he doesn't make any effort to see things from her less privileged life perspective, and he doesn’t really place any value in anything she values. They are quite possibly the blandest relationship on the show. The only thing they seem to have holding them together is Mateo. And the only thing they seem to do is to constantly have sex.

My obviously subjective view about their chemistry (or lack thereof) aside, Rafael and Jane simply seem to bring out the worst in one another. When Rafael disagrees with Jane, he gets angry and irrational. He tries to handle disagreements by kicking and screaming, instead of facilitating civilized discussion. Jane, meanwhile, just cowers in front of him and takes it because she’s so “blinded by love.” I’m sorry, what?? After the way Rafael treated Jane last episode, putting their child between them, I do not see any scenario where the strong-willed, independent Jane from season one marries that guy a few months later, though apparently that’s what’s happening (*gag*). Rafael is constantly pressuring her to do things his way instead of actually listening to her and trying to understand her perspective. I will never understand why Jane goes back to Rafael when he continuously treats her in that sort of way. Rafael bases his entire self worth in Jane, yet at the same time he doesn't seem to actually value Jane’s thoughts and feelings. These are not the makings of a healthy relationship. Jane's behavior in season five has also been out of character, with her asking Jason to leave and saying she wished Michael had never come back. While Jane might not be in love with Michael/Jason five years later, especially when he is totally different to who he once was, you cannot make me believe she wouldn’t still love him and want to help him anyway that she could, even if she wants to be with Rafael. And she would definitely be grateful that he gets to live. The poor writing this season truly feels like the writers are simultaneously proving why J*fael doesn’t work and then forcing them together once they’ve already fallen apart.

I truly truly hate the idea that Jane is now going to go back to Rafael, who still hasn’t gotten help for his personal issues, and marry him at the end of this godforsaken season where he's been treating her terribly. For a show that I have always viewed as progressive and unique, this ending is one of the most baseless, fan-service endgames ever. Rafael using Mateo against Jane last episode was the final straw. After that i truly do not see any scenario where Jane would realistically go back to him. Rafael needs to grow up, wise up, and focus a little more on being a good father, friend and brother before I will ever believe that he would make a good husband.

#jtv #villadero #anti rafael #anti jafael #jtv spoilers #if anyone actually reads all of this...thank you for your time #please don't come into my inbox with hate i told y'all not to read it if you like them #this is mainly just a rant post for myself

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beneaththetangles · 4 years

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Mr. Gorbachev, Tearmoon Down This Wall!

I’ve always been plagued by endlessly recurring thoughts about how I’m a bad stupid sinful selfish lazy arrogant rude useless ugly fat disrespectful hardhearted unlovable disgusting et cetera person. The name for this phenomenon is shame, and for me and many others, it’s a result of having been abused. I previously discussed how I Refuse to Be Your Enemy!, vol. 1, contained a profound depiction of an abuse victim. That post has a fuller discussion of what shame is, but in brief, shame is a distorted worldview that says “I’m bad,” and tells me badness is endemic to my identity. Shame isn’t about doing bad things; it’s about believing oneself to be a fundamentally bad person. Well, a mere two days after I Refuse to Be Your Enemy! released, J-Novel Club published a second new series that intersects with the same topic. The hilarious and thought-provoking narrator of Tearmoon Empire, vol 1, proved surprisingly helpful in my struggles with shame.

The book opens with protagonist Mia Luna Tearmoon’s execution on the guillotine. Deposed crown princess of the eponymous empire, she clearly evokes the historical Marie Antoinette (even making a comment reminiscent of the spurious “Let them eat cake” line incorrectly attributed to the French queen). Likewise, her nation has experienced a series of tragedies plainly inspired by the real French Revolution. So when Mia mysteriously wakes up back at twelve years old, with full memories of everything she experienced in the revolution, it becomes apparent that the prologue is essentially setting up a tale of time-traveling Marie Antoinette trying to avert the French Revolution. It’s great and you should check it out.

There is much to appreciate about this book, and the unusually snarky narrator is one of Tearmoon Empire’s outstanding elements. It’s uncommon to find a story where the narrator is one of those seemingly omniscient outside observers not at all present within the story, yet has a distinct voice that practically makes the narrator a character in his own right anyway. The narrator’s sardonic opinions regarding the characters and events of the story provide a lot of levity. But for me, the narrator became much more than just a source of comedy.

For as long as I can remember, shame has been the inner narrator of my life, dispensing harsh and (in hindsight) unfair and even nonsensical commentary about myself. Seriously, if there’s a way to put oneself down, I’ve done it: I found fault with anything and everything I did. I blamed myself for things that weren’t even my responsibility. I dismissed the value of my successes and minimized whatever talents I might possess. Instead, I exaggerated my flaws. I treated real instances of failure as proof that my entire character was corrupt, rather than as individual mistakes. I worried that I was a hypocrite who accidentally deceived other people into thinking I’m a better person than I really was. If others said complimentary things about me, sometimes I assumed they were exaggerating. Other times, I decided they were sincerely mistaken due to not knowing the true me; obviously if they knew how wicked I really am, they wouldn’t say such nice things. I’d just ignore any evidence that didn’t fit my preconceptions about my own worthlessness. In my head, believing the teeniest little positive thing about myself equaled pride, so I stringently stifled any thoughts that I ever did anything good or had any good qualities. Sometimes, if circumstances forced it, I might internally concede that I committed a superficially good action, but then tell myself it didn’t count because I must have done it out of evil motives. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Unbeknownst to me, shame was leading me to lie to myself on a daily basis. Long before I knew what it was, or I understood that I’d been abused, or ever saw a psychologist, I was dealing with shame that came from the emotional abuse I experienced growing up. Even after learning that my pervasive sense of self-loathing had a name and that it comes from abuse, shame’s lies remained persuasive and constant. I did start to question these self-attacks, but the accusations continued to sound incredibly reasonable in my head. I didn’t really want to believe these cruel thoughts about myself, and knew that I had justification for doubting whether they were true. I also had learned that genuine guilt is tied to specific acts, so if I found myself feeling badly, but couldn’t identify anything I’d done wrong, chances were good that I was feeling shame and not guilt. However, I was also paranoid that I might use shame as an excuse to ignore my sins. “What if some of the self-judgment is true and I’m just using this business about shame and abuse to salve my conscience as I go on living wickedly?” I worried.

Enter the snarky narrator of Tearmoon Empire. The narrator is scathingly critical of Mia and those around her. If Mia does anything “good,” the narrator is quick to jump in and insist that it doesn’t count because Mia really had a selfish or stupid motive and the positive effect she had was a complete accident. If she manages to succeed at something to such a degree that even the narrator must grudgingly concede Mia was “good” in some sense, he quickly dismisses the whole incident as trivial, insignificant, hardly worth paying attention to. Her seemingly good deeds must never be construed as evidence of any virtue on Mia’s part. If characters around Mia witness her behavior and regard it in a positive light, the narrator denounces them as delusional fools who pathetically misunderstand her. They only think well of Mia as person, the narrator says, because they don’t know the truth about her. Does any of that remind you of something? Like, maybe something you read, oh, in the two paragraphs before this one?

The narration’s snide disparagement is certainly funny, but it also challenges readers to consider whether Mia is as bad as the narrator insists she is, as good as the other characters believe her to be, or perhaps something in between. As I read Tearmoon Empire, vol. 1, and pondered this question, I had a stunning epiphany. I don’t have an exact quote from when I made this realization, but it sounded something like this:

“There is an uncanny resemblance between the shame-fueled self-narration in my head and the comically derisive narrator of this light novel.”

It was eerie seeing how much this hypercritical light novel narrator’s attacks on the protagonist echoed the things I’d tell myself on an almost daily basis. Minimizing good things, dismissing positive perspectives from other people as ignorant accidents, suspecting wicked motives behind everything one does… The narrator’s tactics were all too familiar to me. However, there was one very important difference between my self-judging inner monologues and the narrator’s charges against Mia: I treated the former totally seriously, while I found the latter obviously ridiculous.

Though the narrator’s critiques of Mia occasionally contain an element of truth, much of the time it’s laughable how different the narrator’s scornful remarks are from what Mia explicitly says and does, or from the conclusions witnesses draw about Mia. The narrator’s snarky commentary is humorous in itself, and it gains a second level of humor as one starts comparing the narrator’s claims with how Mia actually acts and how other characters react to her. It’s literally unbelievable that Mia could really be the moronic evildoer that the narrator makes her out to be. Keep in mind, not once does the narrator suggest Mia is trying to deceive people: according to him, she just bumbles around trying to be a jerk but inadvertently giving people delusions that she’s a good person. The longer the book goes on, the more silly it becomes how much over-the-top stupidity it would take for all the other characters to misinterpret the princess so thoroughly.

Thanks to Tearmoon Empire’s narrator, I could see numerous lies that I’d told myself placed in a different context that made it unmistakable how absurd and untrue they were. Cruel indictments that sounded plausible in my head became far less compelling when spoken by another voice about another person. Since reading this book a couple months ago, it’s been easier than ever for me to recognize when I’m starting to tell myself lies, and to fight back against that tendency. I’ve done so much better at telling shame to just shut up when it starts trying to spew more of its familiar falsehoods, instead of getting wrapped up in self-deception and spending hours mired in tearful self-recrimination. The gap between the narrator’s view of Mia versus the other characters view of her enabled me to see more clearly how wrong I’ve been for dismissing outside evidence of my worth and trusting only the philippics of my own thoughts. This wasn’t a light bulb switching on—this was a whole array of massive sports stadium lights flaring up all together and drowning me in their radiance. To put it another way, you could say that I found Tearmoon Empire to be a truly light novel in more ways than one.

I never would have guessed that I’d end up praising a light novel for helping me deal with psychological trauma, but life is full of surprises. “Now let me be clear,” I’m not claiming that reading a good book is sufficient to solve serious mental health issues. If you or those you love are struggling, seek professional help. It works! I’m certain that my years of prior psychological and psychiatric care were essential for helping me grow to the point where I could benefit from reading Tearmoon Empire. This book is only one step in a long journey that’s not over yet. But the fact remains that reading a Japanese novel about a time-traveling Marie Antoinette analogue was a life-changing experience that has helped me in dealing with the shame from my childhood emotional abuse. Thank you, Nozomu Mochitsuki, for writing this book, and thank you, J-Novel Club, for translating and publishing it. I’ll keep fighting not to let shame narrate my life anymore.

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Tearmoon Empire can be purchased through J-Novel Club or Amazon. We’ll be discussing volume one is our next Light Novel Club meeting, so please pick up a copy and join us then, on May 31st.

#Light Novels #Christianity #Tearmoon Empire #Tearmoon Teikoku Monogatari #Shame #Self deception #Trauma #Truth #Articles #Author: JeskaiAngel

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petty-revenge-stories · 5 years

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Treat everyone like crap, even thought your ass is on the line, go to jail (again)

A bit of background first (this will be a long one). also, I can list a lot of details (since I pretty much doubt anyone I know even knows reddit exists)

This happened about 6 or 7 years ago in my country (brasil) when I was in my last year of law school. College life here in brasil probably works a lot different than in other countries, so this is how it usually goes for law students: You get to do interships pretty much from the very start of your college life, in fact, it is expected of you that you work in courts, law firms, government agencies, and pretty much anywhere you can get even a tiny bit of experience, sometimes you even get paid.

I was working in a criminal court, and I had a decent job too, alongside a judge (more on her later) and also doing hearings (a.k.a. typing everything that was said during the hearing).

Also, here in brasil each city has it's own jurisdiction, and each jurisdiction is then subdivided in numbers, for example, the criminal jurisdiction of my city has 12 criminal "courts" or "varas" as we call them here, each number has it's own judge, judiciary employees and interns. I worked with the judge of the 9'th "court", and this court handled exclusively people who had been tried, found guilty, served some jail time and were on something like probation.

Here in brasil we don't have probation officers, when you're "released" from prision it is your obligation to come back every month in the court's registry office to provide information about yourself (where you're currently living, where you're working, where you're studing...), if you miss a single one of this appearances you can be sent back to jail (which happens A LOT).

Most of the judge's job is listening the excuses people come up with when they don't show up (we call those "justification hearings", and this particular judge is famous for being tough but fair and sometimes even helping people a little bit if they show they are genuinely sorry. One little detail, the judge is small and mean VERY small, without heels she's probably 150 cm tall (thats 4'9'' for the americans out there), and seeing tough looking grown ass men crumble and cry in front of her when they realize she's not buying into their bullshit is always amazing.

This is where the story finaly begins. "J" will be the Judge, "Me" will be me and "SP" will be stupid perp.

We were doing the justification hearings scheduled for that day, until one guy is called and comes into the room speaking loudly (not yet screaming) that he shouldn't be there since "someone" in the court registry said he didn't have to show up last month.

The judge asked him a few questions (why he didn't present himself, what was he doing, etc) and his response was always the same "one woman told him the last time he came that he could "skip" the mont", he gave no reason for why someone would say that to him, just that he had been told that.

I have to inform you that this somethimes do happen, but usually it's for everyone who have to present themselves, not for one single guy and even if his presence was waived for whatever reason and for whaterver how long there would be a note in his file, detailing who waived his presence, why and for how long. there wasw no such thing in his file.

The guy was getting louder and obnoxius by the minute, calling the people in the registry office incompetent and that if he went to jail because of someone else's fault someone would pay (he did got quiet when the judge threatened to send him to jail right away, but got louder again the next minute). By this point everyone was fed up, the Judge, the MP and me, but because of the slim possibility that someone in the registry really did screw up (it's brasil, it happens more times than we care to admit) she told me to go there with SP and find out who was that told him he could skip that day and why there was no information on his file.

So, me and SP get up and go to the next building (where the registry of the 9th court is located, and also where he was supposed to show up). As soon as we enter the room he points to one of my colleagues (a woman), and the conversation goes something like this:

SP: that one, that bitch there!

Me: no need to shout (I was trying to prevent my friends in there from listening this guy's nonsene). Are you sure that it's her?

SP: YES I'M SURE! SHE TOLD ME I DIDN'T HAVE TO COME THIS MONTH AND DIDN'T WRITE IN MY FILE, I REMEMBER HER BECAUSE SHE'S BROWN (he really said that, but it's was't like he was being racist, I think he just grabbed the first fact about the girl and used as proof of what he'd been saying. Even so, being pointed at by someone screaming and saying the collor of your skin alloud makes anyone unconfortable).

Me: again, no need to shout. are you really sure it's her?

SP: Y.E.S.!

Me: ok then, let's go back.

I immediately turned arround and went back, and as soon as we were sitting in our seats in the hearing room, the judge asks me:

J: So Arael, whos said he could skip this month?

Me: Weeeeeeeeeell, he pointed me who suposedly told him that, and I made sure he had the right person. The only problem is that the intern he said did it started working here 2 days ago, so there is no way she was here last mont to attend him.

The look on the guys face brings a smile to my face to this day, sadly he didn't cry.

I guess it's obvious he went back to jail, and I never saw him again, since I graduated a few months later and couln't work there anymore.

(source) story by (/u/Arael666)

#pettyrevenge #by /u/Arael666 #petty revenge #revenge story #petty revenge stories #revenge stories #last10

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destroyyourbinder · 5 years

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stumbling blocks

This is why I can't uncritically believe that gender transition is good, that gender transition is justified, even if some people who have done it are satisfied with their decision. It is because to believe it is good or justified is to believe this.

There is a special class of female people who cannot thrive so long as they leave their body parts intact and unmodified, so long as they do not conceal from others that they have them. These people cannot live their best lives, or perhaps even tolerable lives, unless they undergo medical intervention to make various aspects of their bodies imitate various aspects of male bodies and unless other people studiously ignore or never know that they are female. This fact about this special class of female people has absolutely nothing to do with how female people are generally treated-- as subordinates, as sexual objects, as lacking full personhood legally and socially-- but instead comes from somewhere else entirely. If conditions improved so that no girl grew up scared of men raping or killing her, if conditions improved such that a girl did not grow up feeling like she would have to fight the weight of human history to achieve anything at all, if conditions improved so that female puberty did not mean the death of a woman's participation in her own potential, then there would still be a class of female people who wished to become like men and live like men, and who would feel horror at their own bodies insofar as they still were distinguishable, somehow and somewhere, from the body of someone male. In a world with no men there would still be a class of female people with inchoate longings for their breasts to disappear and something else, maybe incomprehensible in this female-only world, to happen to their genitals. Perhaps you could say that in a major city's hospital delivery ward today there will be a few infant girls who will be destined to be miserable, someday, so long as they cannot get a surgeon to slice open their bodies so that they and everyone they know can never be reminded again of the femaleness of their own flesh. Perhaps we can call this fact about this special class of females an illness, even though there is no other illness like this. There is no other illness that we say is synonymous with a desire, where the cure and the fulfillment are the same.

I truly can't believe that there is such a condition, that it is inevitable there are these such not-women, and they ought to be made more perfectly-not through scalpels and syringes. I can't believe that there are women who are essentially, necessarily limited by their womanhood, even a womanhood understood and lived without misogyny whatsoever. I can't believe that any woman's ideal and most meaningful life could depend fundamentally on rearranging her body and erasing herself as a woman in public view.

Are there happy trans men? I'm sure. Are they happy because they transitioned? Who knows. People incorporate all sorts of things into their growth and life stories, including those things deeply traumatic and those that never should have happened. Trans people often present themselves as infinitely fragile, but like all people, they are more resilient than they give themselves credit for. So I have to ask, given that there are those who have transitioned or had transgender-related interventions who are now happy, who claim they could not have even survived otherwise: if they would have failed to survive, what would have killed them?

Gender dysphoric people often cite the lives of older transsexuals and the most marginalized gender non-conforming people in order to give voice to their fears that their lives will be intolerable, dangerous, perhaps deadly, if they are not converted into the other sex or some reasonable facsimile. But inner identity turmoil did not kill these people: it was HIV/AIDS, gay bashing, violent johns, police brutality, medical neglect, alcoholism and drug abuse, domestic violence. These things are the result of discrimination, marginalization, misogyny, homophobia, institutional violence: all social and environmental factors. Transition is supposedly justified by something else entirely; as trans people remind us, not all of those beaten by their fathers or the cops or their husbands or their pimps end up wanting to be a different sex.

So then we cite those who died by suicide because they could not survive themselves. This is often the crux of the whole thing: it is justification for the utmost urgency of gender treatment and justification for the most radical forms of medical intervention, such as genital surgery and the transition of children. Transition may still be compelling for those who understand that they are trying to hide from the cruelties of the world, but it becomes a much sadder journey, one traversed with grief and depleted of personal validation. For those who believe or fear that the existence of their own bodies as they are will force their hand against themselves, it must seem liberating to be freed from this bizarre kind of danger: the danger that their body demands its own destruction should it fail to comply with the desires of its animating force.

What is this desire or need to be male and seen as male at the potential cost of one's life? Why would a female person hold both the desire to be male and the desire to die so long as being male is not realized? It seems reckless for medical professionals to treat such distress, a perverse threat against oneself, with something that purports to ease the threat by making the body comply. One should not make a policy of caving to a dictator, even if the dictator is yourself, and even it is you that gets to make your own demands. Because the question is the same as with all such narcissists: what if the body ceases to comply, what if the demands for compliance change, what if it's never enough?

I could manage to tolerate-- barely-- my own breasts so long as they were small, but in my early twenties they ballooned, and I wanted to die. I truly, deeply wanted to die. And then my scope broadened and broadened until I found myself staring at my toes in flip flops, next to the hairy and knobbly toes of my male friend J., and I thought the subcutaneous fat on my feet was an excellent reason to declare the end of all hope and go home to a furtive fistful of Benadryl and Tramadol and Valium and Vicodin, washed down with brandless 'tussin from the back of the fridge. Nobody noticed I was all fucked up, in and out of sleep for a couple days; I spent months of my life like this, often triggered by the most humiliating (then and now-- for different reasons) bullshit: the length of my palms, peach fuzz, the diameter of my areolas, the wear patterns of my jeans, a single "ma'am". Gender dysphoria is peculiar; it is both self-avoidance and self-holding one self-hostage. It's the pattern of many self-harming, self-dramatizing practices; there's a reason many trans men have eating disorders or are cutters.

Transmedicalists might stop me here to fret about framing gender dysphoria in terms of these mechanisms. But absolutely none of this follows the pattern of a neurological disorder. Who truly has a phantom beard or phantom lack-of-thigh-fat? What person unable to recognize the left side of their body as their own is ragingly envious of exactly half of everyone they meet? Nobody with neuropathy of their feet rigidly pretends they do not have them in public. And please tell me where "Ms." and "Mr." are represented in the body map.

When we revisit the question above, why hold both the desire to be male and the desire to die so long as one is not male, this all looks tremendously stupid. Female trans people have tied themselves to a chair and seem to be holding the end of the rope: why not just let go of the whole thing and be freed? And indeed, this is what many transphobes note and thereby ask of trans people. Just shut the fuck up, stop being so sensitive, just accept yourself already, you're never going to be really the other sex, quit whining about facts and threatening us over reality, go ahead and kill yourself and see if we care. So the trans solution to justifying themselves in the face of invalidating, insensitive-to-cruel questioning of dysphoria-logic is to locate the desire to be the other sex outside of their realm of responsibility. See, I was tied to the chair since I was born, and I really can't reach the knots! I have been cursed with this desire to be male and cannot be rid of it, so the only thing that can be done is to be rid of what conflicts with this desire.

What rid me of the majority of my dysphoria was not desperately trying to reach the knots. I could not "just accept myself". I did not "learn to love my body". I remained "too sensitive" no matter what I tried. The ironic key to dissolving my gender dysphoria was telling the transphobes that they were wrong. Not about biological sex or its permanence, about pronoun usage or whether trans women were real women and trans men real men, but about the fact that gender dysphoria was unjustified, stupid, a gratuitous sign of privilege, a plaything for the bored or a figment of psychosis.

I was not crazy: being female was truly bad. I was not delusional or dumb: I was channeling directly the history of women's existential despair. I was not a spoiled brat: I had suffered enough and did not want to suffer anymore.

When my dysphoria became justified it finally became within my reach, and slowly, slowly, I picked apart many thousands of twists and ties.

Was I responsible for my own dysphoria? In many ways, no. I think this is the tremendous fear of most trans people, and female ones in particular. If they take responsibility for healing their dysphoria they are supposedly responsible for its genesis, and this is unbearable. This phenomenon, more than any other, is what tells me gender dysphoria is not neurological, not inborn, not the ensoulment of a man in a woman's body, not just "identity" and its affirmation. It would not be unbearable to be saddled with causing your own distress at being female unless you really felt somewhere that your distress was for good reason and caused by factors outside your control.

I really didn't need to be responsible for it through and through to take enough responsibility to guide my way out. Maybe my head is truly predisposed in some way to have trouble with existing in a sack of meat or to set me in these stupid traps, but in a world where women were truly safe and free, I don't think I would have fallen into this one. I got to the point where I did not need to believe my dysphoria was inevitable or innate, a disease or disability or problem with my brain, to believe that it was ok for my feelings of rage and hopelessness to be channeled in that way. I did not need to prove those who challenged me wrong by proving that erasing myself would fix my lot, dammit. I could use my agency instead to tell them to fuck off. I could learn I had the right to validate my own self rather than to bounce in devastating insecurity between the opinions of Supporters and Enemies. And gradually and almost without realizing it, I found that it was not my body that was the problem, it was not my rejection of my body that was the problem, it was what my body meant, what my body supposedly allowed others to do to me, that I was not meaningfully allowed to object to any of this, and that there was a question in society about whether or not there was a me at all alongside the body. My dysphoria had gone inside out, gone color-inverted, I found old angry girl-child change in the upturned pockets of pants I didn't know I was still wearing.

My stumbling block is that I can't believe transition is more justified than a girl looking at her lot and saying: this is a bunch of fucking shit, peace out of this body, peace out of this world. I don't usually use such language, but here I am. My stumbling block is that I can't believe this girl needs her tits cut off more than she needs someone to tell her: I know. My stumbling block will always be that I don't believe the best use of an angry and desperate girl's crushed-but-surviving autonomy is for decision-making about which cosmetic surgery she'll get. My stumbling block will always be the part of me that sees above, the part that sees the twins of my own grief at seeing my body and sees my girlfriend's grief at seeing her scars.

And so a woman is never ruined, wasted, an idiot, ugly, crazy, a freak for choosing hormones or surgery. She is making a bargain. Informed consent goes far beyond understanding the medical consequences of injecting testosterone, of removing breast tissue or the uterus and ovaries; informed consent means understanding the terms of the bargain, that one is making a bargain at all. So long as we frame transition as surviving oneself, whether for reasons of treating a medical condition or simply tolerating the unfortunate condition of not-being-male, we cannot hope to approach informed decision-making for anything about transitioning genders. (How do the medical professions deal with approving the reasonableness of a patriarchal bargain? There is a reason I don't believe they should.)

And so long as critics of transition-- whether conservative or "compassionate" gender critical feminists-- frame the women and girls who are attracted to it as delusional, stupid, spoiled weirdos they will drive both the desire and inability to take responsibility for healing it even deeper. My challenge to you if you fall in this camp is to think harder about your own bargains. If you're straight or bi you've made more of them than any angry asshole with a dirt-stache and blue hair you could possibly meet on Tumblr. If you're a lesbian you've made more than you'll probably want to dig out. It was lesbian collective inability to see their own bargain-making that convinced me I was trans and not just an unfeminine and angry dyke: I wasn't bold, brave, full of pride, always knowing who I was, with every decision I made, including those about the shape and color of my shirts and the branding of my personal care products, always being an authentic expression of who I was meant to be. I mean, if I had to deny my entire life-context to discover what desires were deep inside me beyond my responsibility I hoped they were bigger and grander than wearing flannel and talking about my rubber dick.

Honesty could have only helped me realize that women have it shit and lesbians have it real shit, and we all have to figure out how to deal with it in the end in a way that doesn't keep us up all night. So: what do you have yet to be honest about? How are you dealing with this whole raw deal, anyway? What keeps you up all night, and what have you put to bed, and what's lurking underneath?

My final stumbling block is this: I think telling other women these things is more important than letting us all keep it inside, to our own little private selves, imagining we're surviving so long as we don't reveal exactly how. I think telling other women these things is more important than telling them they can go to some guy with a knife who will take care of it all. Your decision, though.

#writings

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isidar-mithrim · 5 years

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Minerva is powerless in front of the Carrows’ tortures, painfully aware there’s only one way to protect her students: don’t protect them.

She also knows that, if Dumbledore was still alive, nothing like that would happened, and she can’t help thinking she failed her most important duty: to keep Hogwarts safe… to keep Hogwarts home.

It will be her own students to prove her that hope isn’t lost yet.

{Second installment of the ‘Have a biscuit’ serie, but it can be read independently}

[Read the first story, ‘Falling down’, on tumblr]

__________________________________

{Have a biscuit}

Standing Up

“Silence!” yelled Severus Snape, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, after a painfully short Sorting Ceremony.

The murmurs ceased instantly.

Snape stood up and looked with bored contempt at the tables full of hungry students.

“You’ll soon find out that this year there will be several… adjustments, here at Hogwarts. First of all, I introduce you Amycus Carrow, your new teacher of Defense Against the Dark Arts” said Snape flatly.

The man at his left raised and nodded at the students, but only few Slytherins cheered him.

“His sister Alecto, on the other hand, will teach Muggle Studies, which will be mandatory.”

Also the stocky woman at his right was applauded by a bunch of Slytherins only.

Minerva, on her part, glared at her, and felt a rush of satisfaction realising the Death Eater was barely taller than her even while standing.

“Professor Alecto and Amycus Carrow will also serve as my Deputy Headmaster, and as such they’ll be responsible of the discipline. Any rules violation will have to be notify to them, and the other teachers can’t assign a detention without reporting the rule-break and waiting for their approval first.”

Minerva’s lips got as thin as a razor while she listened to that folly once again.

“And now –”

She felt her stomach clenching when Longbottom’s hand shot in the air. She glanced at Snape: his eyes were narrowed, his lips curved down in disdain; she understood that he wasn’t about to let it go, and her bowels twisted even more.

“I wonder what’s so important that you can’t wait to end of the feast to share it, Mr Longbottom” sneered Snape.

“I’ve only got a question, Sir.” Longbottom had spoken calmly, but his voice was loud and clear. “I was wondering… do you reckon you’d get to be Headmaster, if you hadn’t murdered your predecessor?”

Minerva hold her breath, her eyes fixed on Neville, her heart pumping fast.

Pomona gently touched her hand, and only then she realised she was clenching her knife so hard that her knuckles had whitened.

“How dare you?” spat Snape, his voice filled of cold rage.

Alecto Carrow, though, was sneering smugly. “Let me handle this” she said to the Headmaster.

When Snape nodded and the Death Eater got up, Minerva felt Pomona’s fingers clenching on her wrist, and she wondered if it was in dreadful anticipation or to hold her still.

“Come closer, silly Gryffindor” said Alecto, a malignant glint in her eyes.

Longbottom stepped forward with a fierce expression, and Minerva felt a chill running on her back when he throw her a determined glance.

“Now you’ll see what happen to the people who don’t respect the rules” said the Death Eater snidely, raising her wand and grinning malevolent at the boy.

One moment Neville was standing few meters from them, holding her gaze without a blink. The next he was writhing on the ground, screaming in pain.

“NO!” yelled Minerva, her voice rising above the fearful cries of the students.

Neville’s shrieks ended in an instant when she pointed her wand at Alecto Carrow’s neck. Minerva didn’t even know if or how or she’d fought Pomona’s solid grip.

The Death Eater looked at her with wicked satisfaction. “Lower your wand, you old hag, or I’ll pick two brats among the first years to keep Longbottom company.”

Minerva stared at her, outraged, her wand hand trembling for the tension.

Within a moment, though, she collapsed on her chair, like drained of any energy.

You could have heard a mouse stirring in the Great Hall.

“You made the right choice, professor” gloated Alecto Carrow. “You can sit down, foolish boy.”

Neville had to push himself on his hands to stand up, his legs wobbling, and Minerva felt her eyes watering when he looked at her with pride and gratitude, before turning to reach his fellow Gryffindors.

She glared at Piton with hatred, feeling that somehow this treason was even worst than Albus’s murder.

“Make room!” ordered Minerva few hours later, working her way through the crowd of Gryffindors gathered before the Fat Lady.

“Professor, she’s not letting us in!” complained Robins.

“Yeah, she said the password has been changed!”

“I’m perfectly aware, Finnigan, since it was me who changed it.”

“What? Why?!”

“I believe Babbitty Rabbitty to be too impersonal. I reckon this year I’ll choose passwords that recall Gryffindor students’ exploits. The first will be Hungarian Horntail.”

The first year students looked perplexed, but the eldest cheered and clapped as she had just caught the Snitch.

***

It was still the first month of school when Longbottom passed by with a conspicuous cut on his left eyebrow.

“Longbottom!” she exclaimed, bewildered. “What happened to you?”

“Alecto Carrow” he answered simply. “I refused to write Muggleborns have stolen their magic, professor.”

Minerva looked at him for a long moment, an unwelcome anguish creeping in her guts.

She wanted to feel proud of him, she knew she should have been, but she unexpectedly yearned to say something very different. Please, don’t fight them, she wanted to beg. I can’t protect you.

“After your last lessons you’ll go to Madama Pomfrey to be treated, Longbottom” she said instead, trying to keep her voice even.

***

“Good morning, Minerva!” squeaked a cheerful professor Flitwick when they crossed path in the corridors.

“Good morning, Filius.”

“I suggest you to pass by the second floor, on your way to lunch” he whispered when he’d reached her, before walking away with perky steps.

Minerva followed his advice, extending the path between her classroom and the Great Hall to take a detour at the second floor.

She’d just climbed the last flight of stairs when she saw Filch walking down the corridor with Mrs Purr in tow, a bottle of Mrs Skower’s All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover in one hand and a mop in the other. She had the sudden certainty that he’d lead her to the right spot.

“Bloody students!” she heard him swear. “If I’ll find out who did it, I’ll –”

“You what, Mr Filch?” asked Minerva sternly.

“Professor!” exclaimed Filch, startled. “I… the Carrows…”

“It’s remarkable how hastily you forgot – again – how much Dumbledore has done for you” Minerva cut him off, her tone cold as ice. Mrs Purr was staring at her with narrowed eyes, and she glared back. “I doubt the Carrows would have been as accommodating as he was towards a Squib.”

Minerva put an end to his embarrassed babbling with a sharp gesture of her hand. “I don’t have time for your lame justifications, Mr Filch. I’d rather hear you explaining what happened” she said, resuming to walk along the corridor.

“Oh, yeah, well… This night some students got out of their dormitories and… and they made a graffiti…”

Minerva stopped. Now she’d seen the graffiti as well.

It was shining fluorescent in the exact spot where the Heir of Slytherin had left his message several years before.

Dumbledore’s Army, Still Recruiting

Minerva felt her eyes prickling and her chest filling with a pride strong enough to overcome the fear for what could happen if the Carrows’d find out who was responsible for it.

“They said… they said I have to wipe it out, professor…” mumbled Filch.

Minerva recomposed herself. “Absolutely, Mr Filch. Good luck” she wished him.

He looked at her bewildered.

“And see that you don’t stop until you’ve removed it all.”

Filch nodded eager, clearly relieved that she’d agreed with Carrows’ directives.

Minerva took several steps before letting a smug smile crease her lips.

She was quite confident that Mrs Skower’s All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover could nothing against the Permanent Charm she’d just summoned.

***

Minerva heard a knock on her door and rose her head from the scroll to see Longbottom standing on the doorframe, his right eye livid and swollen.

“Seamus told me you wanted to see me, professor.”

She sighed, trying to ignore the horror she’d felt at his sight.

“Exactly, Longbottom. Please sit down” she said sternly, gesturing at the hard chair in front of her desk.

He crossed her office and took a sit with ease. His expression was serene – determined, even – despite the black eye and the disheveled appearance, and for a moment she forgot she called him to scold him. She recalled another time he’d sat on that chair, when she had to told him the truth about Moody less then three years ago, and wondered what happened to that timid, insecure boy. She thought it’d be better if he hadn’t change at all, but a second later she regretted that shameful thought and pushed it away.

“Have a biscuit” she said, pushing a tartan tin of cookies towards him.

Longbottom’s eyes widened in surprise, and she suspected he was expecting a lecture too. Nonetheless, he thanked her for the offer and took a Ginger Newt without complains. He firmly hold her gaze while he chewed the biscuit, and somehow that brought her back to the right track.

“Would you care to explain what you were trying to prove, Longbottom?” she asked, her tone severe. “First you addressed the professors, and now this! What were you thinking?! Stealing Godric Gryffindor’s sword from the Headmaster office! Snape is furious, and I demand an explanationimmediately.”

She’d expected to read sheepish regret on Longbottom’s face, but she only saw disappointment, and it stung more than she’d care to admit.

“We… we thought you were on our side, professor…”

Minerva laid her forehead on her hand and closed her eyes, sighing deeply to let the anger fade.

“Of course I’m on your side” she murmured at last, earning Longbottom’s surprised stare. “That’s way I’m so worried about you.”

An awkward silence fell in the office.

Willing to broke it, she cleared her throat.

“Have another biscuit” she said sharply, nodding at the tin box.

Longbottom complied at once, and she suspected she just offered him the perfect excuse to keep his mouth shut a bit longer. For an instant he’d almost seemed intimidated – a glimpse of the boy he once was. She couldn’t believe she could still have that effect on a student that survived two battles, and that in his own way was fighting the third one.

“Despite how hard it is to admit it, Longbottom, truth is I can’t protect you.”

He hastily swallowed the last bit of biscuit, obviously eager to answer, and she hoped she’d found the right thing to say.

“We know it, professor, but we don’t care.”

“I care!” exclaimed Minerva, her unexpressed resolution to stay calm already put to an end. “How do you think I feel seeing you enduring a new detention every week, knowing there’s nothing I can do to avoid it?”

Longbottom seemed almost moved, and Minerva regretted losing her patient again.

“We considered giving it your name, you know?” he said with a serene tone – sweet, even.

“Giving my name to what?” she asked curtly.

“To the Dumbledore’s Army” he said as it was the most obvious thing.

Her face must have showed her surprised, because Longbottom smiled gently and began to explain.

“We’re doing it for you as well, professor. We know you wish to stop them as much as we do, and we know the only reason you’re not interfering with Snape and the Carrows is to protect us. You should have been our Headmistress, and for a bit we thought giving your name to the D.A. could be a way to honor that… to give you what you deserved, and Snape had stolen.”

Minerva felt her eyes stinging, and blinked hastily.

“But at the end we didn’t want to put you in trouble as it happened to Dumbledore, and in a way keeping his name feels like keeping him alive, you know? I mean, we know he’s gone, but… we think he’ll truly leave the school only when none here will be loyal to him… or to Harry.”

A tear run down her cheek.

“Why don’t you take a biscuit too? They’re good” said Longbottom with a warm smile, gesturing at the tin box.

Minerva was taken aback by his unorthodox offer, but she took a Ginger Newt and ate it in small bites. She felt indeed a bit comforted when she’d finished it.

She took a deep breath before speaking again.

“Listen to me carefully, Longbottom. It pains me deeply to admit it, but Dumbledore’s Army or not, without him Hogwarts isn’t a safe place anymore. You have to keep well in mind that the Carrows are Death Eaters. We don’t now how far they’re willing to push, and I fear that soon or later being a Pureblood won’t matter that much, after all. I beg you, don’t give them the chance to prove how ruthless they can be.”

Longbottom seemed let down by her words. “So… you want us to stop fighting?”

She sighed.

“I want you to be careful, and to understand there are worst things than being forced to write a nonsensical sentence. At least… pick your fight wisely, will you?”

Neville nodded, but it didn’t elude her that he hadn’t made any outspoken promise.

“You can go, now. Please tell Ginny Weasley I want to see her as well after her Charm class.” She didn’t expect that conversation to go any different, but it was still worth a try.

“I will.”

Longbottom had already gotten to the door when Minerva caught his attention once again.

“Neville… tell her I’m proud of you too.”

***

Minerva was horrified when she saw Longbottom’s purple and swollen face. She left her table and walked toward him in haste.

“Longbottom!” she exclaimed. “What have you done, this time?”

“He’s a chicken” someone laughed behind her, and she turned to see Crabble delighted sneer. Goyle was sniggering at his side, but he stopped immediately when she froze him with a glare.

“Thanks for your enlightening explanation, Mr Crabble. Now I kindly ask you to reach Slytherin’s table, thank you.”

He grunted his irritation, but didn’t dare arguing with her.

“Longbottom, I’m still waiting for an answer” she prompted him with a sharp tone.

“Amycus Carrow wanted us to practice the Cruciatus Curse, professor” he explained, his voice filled with a disdain she’d never heard from him before. “On the students in detentions.”

The horror she’d felt few minutes before looking at Longbottom’s face was nothing compared to the dread that was now twisting her stomach and making her knees wobble.

“He thought I was mocking him when I said I was willing to do it only on a Lestrange.”

***

“… I know you had a… rough time recently, but this is one of the most frequent task you’ll be asked to perform during your Transfiguration N.E.W.T., Mr Corner, so I suggest you to –”

Minerva was jolted when her classroom door slammed open and Amycus Carrow run in, his sister in tow.

“All of you, wands on the ground and hands on your desks where I can see them, and don’t you dare reaching for your wand!” shouted Alecto, her eyes moving back and forth among the students while Amycus stepped in front of Minerva, pointing his wand to her face with a malicious glint.

Eventually Alecto sweared in disappointment. “He’s not here!” she said to her brother, and he slammed his fists on the hard wood of Minerva’s desk, making her wince despite her effort to keep her rising anguish in check.

“Where the hell is he then?!” he shouted in her face.

Her heart was beating fast, but she spoked dryly and composed, clinging to the evidence that they hadn’t find whoever they were looking for – she was getting an idea of who he might have been, and that worried her even more. “I can hardly answer your question, if you won’t tell me who this ‘he’ is supposed to be first.”

“You know perfectly well who we’re talking about!” yelled Alecto. “You are hiding him, we know it!”

“I can assure you both I’m not hiding anyone, professors, unless you’d like to consider the otter I turned into a footrest at the beginning of the hour” she said with pretended calm, willing to keep them busy as long as she could. “Hopefully some student will be able to turn it back into its original form before the end of the lesson.”

“Don’t mock us, you old hag! He should have been here!” shouted Amycus, slamming his fists again. “Snape told us he had to be here!”

She felt a surge of hatred toward the traitor, but she clenched her hands upon her desk, her nails biting her palms’ skin, and kept the anger under control.

“I suggest you to solve this problem with the Headmaster, then, since you don’t seem keen to tell me who are you speaking about.”

“Longbottom!” exclaimed Alecto from the back of the classroom. “He got to be here! These are the seventh year students, we know that!”

Minerva felt her heart beating even faster hearing Longbottom’s name. She’d feared for a while that something like that could happened – they’d kidnapped Lovegood months ago, after all – but it was nonetheless terrifying knowing the moment had finally come.

“Longbottom hasn’t taken my class since his sixth year, I’m afraid.”

“But Snape said he was here!”

If she hadn’t been so scared for Longbottom, she’d probably be very annoyed by a similar show of stupidity.

“Then I suppose the Headmaster must have forgotten that piece of information.”

“You’re covering for him, I know it! Tell me were he is!” shouted Amycus.

She didn’t dare thinking what could happen to Neville if they’d find him, and she hoped with all her might that his fellow Gryffindors or the other D.A. members attending her class could reach him faster than she could. She was suddenly aware she’d made a huge miscalculation: keeping the Carrows in her class was a double-edged sword, or may be even an outright mistake, because until they were there none of the presents could warn Longbottom – she could even risk sending someone out with an excuse in front of Malfoy, but not in front of the Carrows.

“I’m not covering for him, and I’ve no idea where he is” she said curtly.

“You’re lying!” yelled Amycus, so enraged that drops of his spittle reached her face.

She didn’t care, though, because she’d just realised that Snape probably hadn’t sent them there by accident, despite what the Carrows might believe: forcing her to stay in her classroom – and under several Death Eater’s eyes, nonetheless – was the best way to keep her from helping Longbottom. Was Snape searching for him personally, then? A shiver run down her spine at the mere idea, and she dared a glance at Finnigan, hoping against hope for some good news; his eyes were fixed on his desk, though, and Alecto Carrows was near him, her wand high.

Minerva could only see one chance to send the Carrows out of the way, but she knew it was a lame try.

“Of course I’m not lying” she said with an indignant voice. “I gather you won’t believe me anyway, but I’m sure professor Snape can easily check it on the school records. You see, I don’t accept in my N.E.W.T. class students that earned less than an E at their Transfiguration O.W.L.; sadly, Longbottom only managed to grab an A during his examination.” And she’d never been more glad about it.

Amycus fixed her for a long moment while considering her suggestion, but to her chagrin he then turned toward Malfoy, who glanced at him hesitantly.

“Is it true that Longbottom isn’t in this class?” asked Carrow.

Malfoy nodded briefly before diverting his gaze.

Amycus sweared through gritted teeth, but a second later he widened his eyes, as he’d realised something important. “Well, it’s not our fault if Snape told us he was here, isn’t it?”

Alecto seemed pretty reassured by her brother’s words. “Yeah, he’ll have to blame himself if we don’t catch him! But we still have to look for him, don’t we?”

Minerva was about to suggest them to go back to Snape’s office to receive further instructions – another lame attempt, but it was worth a try – when Amycus straightened up and walked abruptly toward Finnigan.

“You!” he shouted. Unlike Malfoy, Finnigan held Carrow’s gaze with fierceness.

“Yes, sir?” he asked with pretended politeness.

“You sleep in Longbottom’s dorm!” Carrow shouted triumphantly, like that was the brightest statement he’d ever done.

“Yeah, I do” Finnigan said with a shrug. “So what?”

“So, when did you last see him?!” prompted Alecto, a greedy glint in her eyes.

“At breakfast, professor.”

“And where did he went afterward?”

“Well, I’m not be sure about that, ‘cause we split up when I came here. But… yeah, I remember he received a letter, and he hasn’t got his own owl, so may be he went to the Owlery?”

Minerva was ready to bet that – at least to Finningan’s knowledge – there were very slim chances to actually find Longbottom there, and hoped the Carrows took the bait.

Amycus pressed a menacing finger to Finnigan chest. “Do you really think we’re so stupid to believe any word you say?”

Minerva sweared inwardly, but kept her composure. “I wonder why you bothered asking, if you feel you can’t trust him.”

Amycus glared at her, then he turned and spoke to the whole class, his voice low and menacing. “If anybody knows or will know something about Longbottom and won’t come to me to inform us, I promise they’ll pay the consequences.”

“Yeah, we figured out that much” said Finnigan. Minerva wasn’t the only one who winced when Alecto lashed her wand in the air and a fresh cut appeared on Finnigan’s cheek, spilling blood on his robes. He merely raised a hand to press it on the wound, seemingly unperturbed.

Amycus looked at his sister. “We’re not starting from the Owlery” he said, and Minerva felt a shiver down her spine when Finnigan’s eyes widened in fear. In that moment, she saw what she had to do to help Longbottom escape.

She stood up. “I suppose you’ll want me to lead you to the Gryffindor Tower, then” she said to the Carrows, earning herself several surprised glances from her students, as she expected.

The two Death Eaters were taken aback as well.

“Are you playing us?” asked Amycus, aggressive.

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare, and believe me when I say I’m not looking forward to your company. Although, I imagine it would be quite embarrassing if you’d spent hours searching for him pointlessly only to find out he’d never left his dorm, so I assumed that’s the next place you’re going to check, and I’d rather let you in myself than see you threatening one of my Prefect or annoying the Fat Lady once again.”

The Carrow exchanged a quick look.

“Well, she’s the Head of Gryffindor” said Alecto eventually.

“I’m quite flattered that you remembered, professor Carrow. It’s only a decade or two that I’m covering that role, after all.”

“Don’t speak to her like that, stupid hag! You’ll take us into the Gryffindor Tower right now!”

“Of course” she said accommodating. She then addressed her students, ready to play her last card. “As I’m sure you’ve inferred, the lesson is over, but I still hope you’ll take advantages of this free period to practice Transfiguration.”

At the end she risked a glance at Finnigan, and he rewarded her with the tiniest nod. Reassured, Minerva gestured to the Carrows to follow her and stepped forward, thanking Merlin that neither of them objected her decision to let the students go.

But when they got to the door, Amycus stopped abruptly. “Wait” he said, turning towards the students, who’d begun to get up. “You can’t go anywhere!”

Minerva’s heart sank, and she started imagining stunning the Carrows and running to the tower to warn Neville, no matter the cost.

“Draco, you stay here and make sure nobody’ll leave the classroom” ordered Amycus, and she was filled with relief. She was sure several persons were ready to get rid of Malfoy and stoically face the consequences, and she felt a rush of pride towards her students.

She was also positive that Finnigan knew way more secret passages to the tower than the Carrows did: he had six floors to outrun them, and she hoped with all her might that he’d reach Neville in time.

The Carrow forced her to endure a pace faster than she’d hoped for, and despite their lack of knowledge about the shortcuts to the seventh floor she feared they were gettin there too quickly.

They only had one flair of stairs left when they heard someone running at high speed above their heads, his steps heavy and fast.

The Carrows run towards the last floor and Minervahad to makean effort to stay in tow. Despite her short breath and the blood pulsing through her veins, heart she felt ready to use desperate measures to prevent the Carrows catching Longbottom, if it’d come to that.

As soon as they reached the seventh floor, the two Death Eaters sent a barrage of spells against a figure in front of them that she knew must been Longbottom. He summoned a Shield Charm without stopping, and a second later he turned the corner and they lost sight of him.

When they turned the corner as well, Minerva saw with horror that Neville was walking toward them, but after a moment he changed direction again, and a door suddenly appeared on the wall beside him. He hastily hided behind it, and Minerva was ready to non-verbally summon her best Locking Spell when the Carrows stopped abruptly with widened eyes and gaping mouths.

“Where the hell he went?!” shouted Amycus, looking back and forth, apparently unaware of the door on the wall at his right. “How did he managed to Disapparate?!”

Minerva sighed in relief, finally understanding where Longbottom had just hidden, and grateful that he’d found a way to keep the Carrows out of the Room of Requirement. It wasn’t particularly reassuring that she could still got in – or see the door, at least – because who knew who else could too, but she hoped it was only due to the rush of the moment, and made a mental note to warn Finnigan of the problem.

“Look!” Alecto yelled, diverting her mind from her worries. The Death Eater was pointing at the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach trolls ballet. “It’s the seventh floor! It must be that Room! The Room of Hidden Things!”

“Malfoy’ll know how to get in!” Amycus said, a triumphant grin on his ugly face. “I’ll get him! You stay here with her so Longbottom can’t get out!”

But Longbottom didn’t try to get out, and neither Snape nor Malfoy – who apparently hadn’t been stunned (may be the D.A. knew how to communicate with Patronus, and had somehow managed to send Longbottom a message without Malfoy noticing?) – were able to see the door, let along breach into the Room.

By the time they gave up Minerva couldn’t see it either, and she had a very hard time hiding her delight.

***

“Very well then, Mr Coote” she said. “I’m happy that you’ve already made up your mind about your future, and that you seem well aware of the path you’ll need to follow. If you don’t have any other questions, you may go back to your class.”

Coote stood up. “I don’t have any question, professor, but… I’ve something for you” he said, taking her aback.

“Something for me?” she asked bewildered.

He didn’t explain further, but he flashed her an amused grin, and Minerva watched with wide eyes when he took a tartan tin out of his bag.

“Somebody heard you’ve almost run out of Ginger Newt” he explained with wink, putting the box on her desk.

She barely registered Coote leaving her office and saluting her with a nod, too taken by the tin in from of her.

She opened it with trembling fingers, and she instantly recognised the handwriting on the small bit of parchment above the biscuits.

It only said thank you, but it was more than enough.

***

She was chewing a mouthful of meat when a boy run in the Great Hall. Only when he stood up on Ravenclaw’s table she recognised him as Terry Boot.

“Harry Potter got into Gringotts and fled on a dragon!” he yelled triumphantly. “He robbed Gringotts and fled on a dragon!”

It’d been a while since the last time Minerva felt a similar rush hope.

It was the first new about Harry she’d received in months.

While she was forced to watch Carrow torturing Boot, she felt the pride devours the horror.

Minerva couldn’t believe her hears. Could it be truth, what Carrow was saying? Could Harry really be at Hogwarts?

The fierceness she’d felt so vivid that evening rushed through her again, and when Carrow threatened to blame innocent kids for his ineptitude, she’d already made her choice.

[Read the third story, ‘Moving on’, on tumblr]

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sailingsoo · 6 years

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July Overview

Monthly Drama Review: July 2018 Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun -

warning spoilers!

Completed:

Lawless Lawyer: The chemistry was beyond great, I could not have asked for a better cast. By the time we got to the last two episodes, I did not even realize it was about to end. It really was great from beginning to the end. Every character got what they deserved in the end.

Secret Mother: This drama really pulled through by the end. While it was boring the first half, all the mystery just made the ending better. I am so glad that Eun Young ended up being alive and Yoon Jin did not betray her. Like Lawless Lawyer, everyone got what they deserved in the end. On a side-note, the three mothers redeeming themselves was a great addition. Usually in kdramas those type of people never change, but it was nice to see them help Eun Young out in the very end.

Miss Hammurabi: Every episode left me as an emotional wreck. Maybe because the show was written by an actual judge that I was able to experience a variety of emotions. This is possibly Go Ara’s best role as her character remains passionate throughout the whole show. Having 3 different judges gave us different perspectives and showed us that not everything is black and white. Overall, a well-rounded series that hit different problems ranging from drug abuse, sexual harassment, and hierarchy in the workforce and society.

The Undateables: Adding the typical tropes like the bet and the love triangle kind of ruined the drama from what it had in the beginning where Hoon Nam and Jung Eum would work together to solve the undateables love life. Still a very cute drama thanks to the wonderful cast. Joon Soo is the definition of perfection by the way. I’m starting a petition to finally give Tae Joon the main role he deserves. Anyways disregarding all the other unnecessary stuff that happened during the drama, remember no matter age, appearance, and quirky habits you will always be able to find love. <3

What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim?: I actually dropped this drama midway but picked it back up because my best friend told me too. Although it does have lots of scenes that I find cringe-worthy, this was still a fun and loving drama. It also got dark too midway, but I love how they were still able to balance the comedy and lightness alongside with their traumatic past. I still can’t get over Lee Min Ki’s and Jung So Min’s cameo appearance. I wish there were more on Ji Ah and Gwi Nam’s relationship they were really cute together too! Nonetheless, a cute drama that kept me laughing and crying.

Age of Youth: I’m starting college soon, so I thought I would finally start this drama. The reason why I avoided this drama was because I do not like Hwayoung. I think what was revealed in 2017 after five years serves as justification as to why lol sips tea. BUT I think this is my favorite drama ever??? It’s just so good and I feel like I can relate to all the girls. It kind of opened my eyes a little bit about everyone’s circumstances. You really learn life lessons when you watch this show.

Ongoing:

Goodbye to Goodbye: I’m kind of wary on Min Soo’s quick character change. Why did it take him so long to show that he actually loved his girlfriend? I don’t really know how this show is going to end, so I’m gonna save my thoughts for next month.

Are You Human Too?: Am I the only one who doesn’t really care about the romance between Kang So Bong and robo Nam Shin. I still can’t really get behind it. He’s a robot and she’s a human, how will the writers logically end this so it doesn’t end up tragically (unless they want it to end like that). I’m more interested on human Nam Shin’s future actions. I don’t really get the people saying they want him dead though. Imagine being taken away from your mom because your dad is dead and being treated like shit for 20 years with only one friend that is siding with a robot now and also finding out that robot was made by your mom to replace you. I’m not excusing his actions of being a total dick mostly to Kang So Bong who has nothing to do with him. But man, I just feel so bad for this kid, he’s being compared to a robot that can never make mistakes. This is quite lengthy, but I’ll add on more for next month’s review.

Your House Helper: I’m so in love with this drama??? It looks so boring on the outside, but it just gets better each episode. They have a wide variety of characters all going through different situations and just creates a connection with the audience

Time: I liked Kim Jung Hyun during School 2017 and loved him in Eulachacha Waikiki but after seeing the press conference and a few interviews I became really really disappointed. However, after seeing the first two episodes I think his character did have a toll on him. Nonetheless he could of been more professional. Anyways, I would have dropped this drama if it wasn’t for Seohyun. Her acting improved so much from when I first saw her in Scarlet Heart <3 I don’t how they’re going to form a romance between the two, I would rather they do not. The drama itself feels like Uncontrollably Fond except with murder.

Your Honor: I don’t really have much to say about this yet, but I’m really excited on how this show will turn out.

Kimi ga Kokoro ni Sumishita: I actually started this literally right now, but I think I can relate to the main character in some aspect. Also, the psychological part has me hooked.

Dropping:

Wok of Love: Yeah I was really close to finishing it, I know but I already have too much dramas on my plate and it’s not as interesting as the other ones I’m watching. The chemistry between the main leads are just meh. The revenge plot isn’t that gripping either.

Hana Nochi Hare: I ended up rewatching Hana Yori Dango with Matsu Jun, so I’m not that interested in this one anymore. I even tried watching Meteor Garden, but my mind just keeps floating back to the Japanese version whoops.

Risky Romance: I want to watch this, but I already have a lot of stuff on my plate. I’ll save it for later ):

30 But 17: ^

Let Me Introduce Her: ^^

Mr. Sunshine: Wasn’t interested in this drama in the first place

Upcoming:

The Ghost Detective: A spooky drama with Park Eun Bin yeet.

Familiar Wife: I don’t know why but I got Go Back Couple feels while watching the teasers (which is a great drama that everyone should watch!). Definitely watching this one.

Lovely Horribly: Rom-com horror, an interesting drama I bet.

Someday Until This Rain Stops: J-dramas usually take a longer time getting subbed, but I’m definitely going to try and watch this one.

Hide & Seek: Probably not going to watch. The synopsis is really lacking to me.

I’m starting school next month and I really want to do well this year so I’m probably gonna cut down my drama watching and my activity on tumblr in general.

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for-peace-war · 6 years

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Long Post! Hit J if you want to skip!

My guild has recently had a lot of conversation on Jessica Price and Peter Fries who were recently fired from ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 development team. I’m pretty sure that most everyone that could care has heard about it, but what is confusing me is why people are trying to die on hills for two people that really did not come across as anything other than gatekeeping assholes.

To be clear, if you disagree with this statement then that’s fantastic. Because I am posting this on social media, I am expressing tacit approval for you to respond to it, dislike it, deconstruct it, or whatever you wish. This doesn’t mean that I have to like what is being said, but the condition that “if I post this on the internet, then someone may reply to it” is a fairly sound one.

To cut through a lot of the fluff, I’ll summarize:

A developer, Jessica Price, was on her personal twitter discussing the problems with MMO development.

Per usual, a mob formed to express their opinions. It’s the Internet, so that means saying a lot of crude, disgusting, sexist, and absurd things.

Within this mess, one person - Deroir - decided to voice his own opinion. I wouldn’t say that he’s an expert (I wouldn’t say that she was either since Guild Wars 2 is a mess...) but I will indicate that among the throngs of the “laymen” (as Fries put it), he at least has some affiliation with the IP.

Deroir Says: Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree *slightly*. I dont believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself (as your wording seemingly suggest). I believe the issue lies in the contraints of the Living Story's narrative design; (1 of 3) When you want the outcome to be the same across the board for all players' experiences, then yes, by design you are extremely limited in how you can contruct the personality of the PC. (2 of 3) But, if instead players were given the option to meaningfully express *their* character through branching dialogue options (which also aren't just on the checklist for an achievement that forces you through all dialogue options), (3 of 4 cause I count seemingly...) then perhaps players would be more invested in the roleplaying aspect of that particular MMORPG. Nonetheless, I appreciate the insightful thread! (End)

To which Price replies: thanks for trying to tell me what we do internally, my dude 9_9

And Deroir replies: You getting mad at my obvious attempt at creating dialogue and discussion with you, instead of just replying that I am wrong or otherwise correct me in my false assumptions, is really just disheartening for me. You do you though. I'm sorry if it offended. I'll leave you to it.

The above is their initial discourse and honestly because I don’t feel like posting all of the tirade that follows, I’ll leave it at that for now.

The initial concern was: Should Jessica Price have been fired for ‘going off’ on Deroir? An example of things said:

“Like, the next rando asshat who attempts to explain the concept of branching dialogue to me — as if, you know, having worked in game narrative for a fucking DECADE, I have never heard of it — is getting instablocked. PSA I’m not on the clock here. I’m not your emotional courtesan just because I’m a dev. Don’t expect me to pretend to like you here.”

That is not acceptable, at all. I would fire anyone that was interacting with my customers while being associated with me, on the basis of that alone. It is true that she was on her own “private” account, but she was discussing work related information, using her work related title, and using her work related position to open a dialogue (or a monologue, as it seems) with those that were actively purchasing my product.

There have been arguments that he mansplained (read: explained something to her as if she were unaware despite her experience based on her gender) and then secondary calls that “she had dealt with a lot of harassment before so this wasn’t her fault,” but those are two faulty premises:

First, because she was the one that opened this discussion on social media. If she wanted to avoid responses or only take on “educated information” then she could have either placed it in an article or circulated her complaint among her former co-workers.

Second, if there was a sea of hateful people that had been harassing her, then this hardly seems like the right time to “take it out” on someone. I do not know the struggles of women on the Internet, but I know what it’s like be a black person on the Internet so I can say only that while it is true that you will always assume a certain amount of hostility, just taking it out on the first person that speaks is absurd.

If, for example, there really was a rabid mob crying for Price’s blood, then why wouldn’t she unload her ‘emotional courtesan’ spiel on them and not someone that as objectively as possible was being inoffensive if not a bit tone deaf to her mood? The self-fulfilling remedy that he “was mansplaining” as justification for her very rude tirade absolutely does not address that his only offense was again, speaking to a very neutral point.

What is worse, this has become a matter of someone being fired over her gender rather than the truth of the matter, which is that she was just an asshole. People are canceled, rightly, from minority groups all the time. If Kanye West flew off the handle on someone, I wouldn’t rush to defend the ‘slavery is a choice” dude even if it is good to have black men in the spotlight. Cut the string and let them drown under the undertow of their own shit, as far as I am concerned.

Arguing that systemic oppression mandates random aggression is not appropriate. Certainly it explains why it happens, but as we all have our own independent dignities then you cannot justify a random attack as one that was “deserved.” Let us remove from the discourse that Deroir was a person affiliated with GW2 and leave it simply at a person says something that a person at a public forum doesn’t like. Because, private or not, twitter is public and social media... And that person then starts shouting at them for being an asshole, in what way is that permissible or excusable?

It isn’t. The company was right to fire her, not because of “capitalism” or “corporatism” but because she acted out of line. If anything, many of us have learned there is a higher burden against us for the fact we are of a protected class, yet that is not an excuse not to aspire and to strive. Female developers are pretty undervalued and underrepresented in the gaming industry, so why would she throw away her chance like that?

If you argue, “well she doesn’t have the responsibility of putting on for anyone else other than herself,” then you immediately invalidate the need to protect her. Being a woman is not the same as being a representative of what women can do. Margaret Thatcher and Joan Rivers are not hailed as feminist icons for a reason.

Now the “gatekeeping asshole” part comes up when you get into the nitty gritty of what Fries, who was also fired (and as far as I know identifies as a male), added to the conversation:

“Here’s a bit of insight that I legitimately hope he reflects on: she never asked for his feedback. These are our private social media accounts — imagine you’re an astronomer and you start sharing some things you’ve learned in the last few months since you began a research project observing Saturn, only to have observation techniques explained to you by a layman ... Jessica is great at her job and deserves to be treated with respect.”

The sentiment doesn’t hold water for quite a few reasons, so let’s deconstruct those because that’s what this post is about.

First, we’ve already touched on “these are private social media accounts.” Yes, we know they are “off the clock,” but they are discussing their job all the same.

The example of an astronomer also really sets the pace for what is to follow though. Is a game developer like an astronomer? A person that more or less puts down the tracks that players work through? I don’t think the requirements between the two are remotely similar, but let’s move beyond that and say, an astro-physicist like Neil deGrasse Tyson decides to get into a conversation with some people at a local pub!

Neil is a little miffed about research on Saturn’s observation and one of the pub goers chimes in that maybe it’d help if they used some of the techniques learned in deep sea exploration to observe Saturn.

Immediately, Neil says “Thanks for the non-answer, my dude” and then returns to say “And by the way, you colonizing piece of shit, I work at the Rose Center of Earth and I know than you ever possibly could, so next time you open your mouth remember that I know more than you ever will because I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, shithead. I’m not your emotional porchmonkey.”

I mean...

I assume you’re going to get a tap from someone about how that wasn’t okay to say? Now even if there were a lot of people getting boisterous, why pick that person out? Even if this is your “go in moment” why pick a person that’s inoffensive? Because you have something to prove. And well, the company has something to prove as well: it isn’t going to allow its image to be tarnished.

But at the heart of it, is this concept that the people she discussed this with are the knuckle dragging laymen incapable of understanding the Promethean wonder that is game development. If that is the case, then why discuss it at all? The questions continue to pile and the explanations became weaker.

In the end, I don’t like ArenaNet but I also think Reddit is a disgusting pit of scumbag racists, sexists, and shitlords. That being said, it really sucks that both of these companies had an easy pass to drop two people that were clearly negative elements to their environments.

This isn’t a hill worth dying on. Hell, this isn’t even a hill worth stopping and getting a picture of. Because at the end of the day?

Jessica Price isn’t right.

#jessica price #big post #rambling rant

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thelawyerthatwaspromised · 7 years

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Jon Studied Jorah to Learn How to Deal with Daenerys

Jon’s eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see.

- Bran I, A Game of Thrones

Jon Snow went to Dragonstone to convince Daenerys Targaryen to join the North in fighting the Night King. That was his stated goal. Everything about Political Jon is built upon that one single purpose.

His process changed along the way but Jon learned and adapted his approach based on what others around him were doing when it came to interacting with Daenerys. Oddly, after encountering Jorah, Jon Snow copied his approach the most obviously. Jon learned that in order to win her affection, he had to go to the greatest extremes.

But Jon’s trip came in stages. The first meeting? Did not go as planned.

This is contemptuous Jon, one of the greatest Jons.

THIS NEXT SCENE WITH JON AND TYRION IS KEY

Tyrion unwittingly sows the seeds of Political Jon. He also left himself at a political disadvantage in dealing with Jon and Daenerys’ dynamic due to misreading Jon.

Jon is brooding on the cliffs of Dragonstone. Utterly disgusted with himself for not listening to Sansa. He doesn’t know what to do next.

Tyrion also uses some words that Jon will later echo to Daenerys. About Daenerys protecting people.

Tyrion also makes it very obvious that Jon will not be able to “reason” Daenerys into supporting the North. Talking King to Queen as reasonable people will be fruitless if the objective is to get Daenerys and her dragons North.

Tyrion actually is probably the character that gave Jon the thought of changing his approach with Daenerys. And Tyrion even told him HOW.

You might consider asking some of the people here what they think of the Mad King’s daughter.

After Tyrion says what he says, Jon begins to leave. Tyrion acts confused. He thought this was Jon giving up. I contend this was Jon leaving with a purpose. Tyrion quizzes him when he begins to leave about what he wants...so you’re led to believe Jon was leaving aimlessly. But why would he leave? That is the spot he purposefully picked to THINK ABOUT NOTHING. Tyrion misread Jon dramatically.

Jon begins prodding people close to Daenerys, like Missandei. He thinks about the terms Daenerys used in describing herself like in her infamous “Faith in Daenerys Targaryen” scene. The scenes after this are Jon trying these different angles.

JON ON THE BEACH AT DRAGONSTONE

I actually think the cave scene was important in that Jon stepped up his “game” the first notch but it didn’t work. For the sake of relative brevity, I’m skipping to the beach when Daenerys is deciding whether to kill everybody in King’s Landing. Something you don’t really want to have to debate with someone who fancies themselves a Queen. But I digress.

Over time, Jon learns the key: Daenerys absolutely has to think of herself as extraordinary and can’t stand the thought of being like everybody else.

As a result, she listens ONLY to those that dress up their advice as “you’re special and not like the Mad King - you see the Mad King would burn castles and people but you’re wonderful and nothing like that!”

It’s absolutely a tactic that Jon identified and adopted. Here are multiple examples of his applications.

Almost all of these gifs are focusing on Jon and Jon’s reactions:

Jon just heard Daenerys berating Tyrion for not wanting to hurt his family. Besides thinking “dafuq?” Jon is then put on the spot by Daenerys asking for war advice. JON GIVES HER NO WAR ADVICE. HE ONLY TELLS HER NOT TO COMMIT ATROCITIES AND DRESSES IT UP IN GENTLE LANGUAGE.

Daenerys herself touted her achievements to Jon. They didn’t impress him then. All of the sudden he seems so impressed. Why? Is he speaking only to express his admiration? C’mon, you know better than that. He is attempting to keep her from burning a city of a million (give or take) people to the ground. But Jon knows that Tyrion and Missandei both go on about her accomplishing things no one else ever has. So he uses that. He knows only a few people have influence with her...so he tries to act like those people in dealing with her.

Then he uses a phrase that visibly hurts Daenerys. He didn’t say she’d be evil. He didn’t say she’d be the Mad Queen. As far as insults go, on a scale of 1 to 10 this is about a 0.001. And seems to have wounded her pretty deeply, the insinuation that if she’s willing to use her dragons, then she’s not different. Not special. Not unique. I actually believe this had the opposite effect Jon intended. He doesn’t yet know that she feels like she can ONLY be different if she uses her dragons.

This part really did stun me. You know what it reminded me of most?

Loki being faced with the prospect that strength alone does not make him special.

Jon is beginning to learn what Daenerys cares about. She cares about being special. About glory. About being revered. That makes sense. She was used as a pawn, she was traded multiple times, she was abused. She told Jon all of these things personally. Proving her strength to spite those that wronged her. That’s what moves her.

But guess what? That type of motivation as makes her a terrible ruler. What happens when there is no more to conquer? She is motivated essentially to prove people wrong. She is motivated to show the world it was wrong to make her feel small and weak. She’s there to fight “bad guys”. That’s the easy part. What happens when there are no more obvious “bad guys”? It’s why she can identify with a slave that wishes to break free from their master. But it’s also why she CAN’T identify with a former slave that still wants to work for their former master. Or why she CAN’T identify with a person who doesn’t take joy in killing...because everyone she kills, she views as an easy necessary decision against a “bad guy”.

That isn’t her experience so how can it be anyone else’s?

She is completely internally focused on her quest to be extraordinary.

So Jon knows what “moves” Daenerys. He’s already started to alter how he chooses his words. He still screws up though.

He smirks when she uses ‘beautiful’ to describe her dragons. He accidentally lets Real!Jon appear for a bit but very quickly tries to correct himself.

Then, Poor Jon makes it even worse. Calls the dragons beasts. You know how Daenerys views her dragons as her children? How they’re the only thing that make her special?

But this is how Jon really feels about the dragons. They’re dangerous beasts to him. He already told her using the dragons made her like everyone else. HER STRENGTH DOES NOT MAKE HER SPECIAL TO HIM.

So Jon still doesn’t really have a great example of how to interact with Daenerys. I think it was very purposefully done that in the very scene that shows how incompatible Jon and Daenerys are, Jon gets to observe someone who HAS shown he knows how to “get through” to Daenerys:

Jorah Mormont

Jon is initially confused when he hears Jorah’s name.

“That’s the guy who sold people into slavery, isn’t it? Now he’s with the ‘Breaker of Chains’, huh? The one that confiscated my ship and is holding me prisoner? Neat.”

-Jon, internally, probably

But then Jon starts watching how they interact. He sees how Jorah is 1000000% subservient to Daenerys. How he always addresses her formally and with admiration. Jorah and Missandei put Daenerys on a pedestal more than any other characters - and she treats them better than she treats any other characters.

Some people theorized Jon was jealous of Jorah here. No, he was observing.

If the explanation for why Jon fell for Daenerys is that he saw her courage when she saved everyone beyond the Wall, then there is not yet any jealousy on Jon’s part. If there is jealousy on Jon’s part, why did he never show it towards Jorah when they went beyond the Wall? Jorah sees Jon as an immediate romantic threat. Jorah is also wrong about Jon. Jon simply is trying to learn how to deal with Daenerys.

What’s my evidence?

Jorah sees Jon approaching as they are preparing to depart from Dragonstone.

He makes a deliberate show of affection for Daenerys.

If Jon sees a romantic counterpart...surely he comes up with some grand gesture as he has the last shot at a “goodbye” before they leave.

Except...

“I wish you good fortune in the wars to come. Peace.”

So Now Jon’s Learned

He’s gotten everything he needs to deal with Daenerys. He knows what motivates her. He knows what language pleases her. He knows that she enjoys assertive physical contact.

How non-specific is his justification when she asks him why he’s now willing to bend the knee? This is so value-neutral that if he actually is not attempting to manipulate her without feeling like human garbage, I can’t believe the writers would use such couched terms. He’s telling her absolutely nothing actually positive here.

D: Why did you pick chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream, Jon?

J: Because chocolate ice cream certainly is ice cream, my Queen.

-Jon and Daenerys, deleted scene, Beyond the Wall

Here’s the thing: he still actually does feel like garbage about this.

“Ok, I’ve bent the knee. It’s starting to work now, but gahhhh I wish I didn’t have to do this. But just maybe I’ve gotten her to forget about the Throne for a bit.”

The Dragonpit or the Crescendo of Political Jon

There is where Jon realizes he MUST initiate a physical relationship.

I see someone utterly unenthused about what he’s had to do so far. But in his mind, if he gains Daenerys as an ally, it’s what he must do.

Here’s Daenerys lamenting the fact that the dragons were locked in the dragonpit and lose their power. She sees this as tragic. Not because she cares about the dragons. She doesn’t say “poor babies suffered” or anything like that. No, something else makes her sad thinking about chained dragons...

- Here’s why -

Her greatest fear. Being ordinary. Being average. Not being special.

Sidebar time - There are two really good parallels / reveals about this little speech by Daenerys.

1.) What did Jon just get done hearing while on the way to the Dragonpit?

From the mouth of Jorah Mormont. Do you think Jon thinks unchained dragons are a good idea?

They are just beasts to Jon. Tools. Weapons of mass destruction.

2.) How antithetical can Jon be from Daenerys?

He needs to be told he’s a good ruler.

He doesn’t care how he’s addressed.

He is visibly uncomfortable with the thought of people calling him a god.

END OF SIDEBAR

So we pick back up...Daenerys just reinforced her fear of normalcy with Captain Normal whom we are supposed to believe is in love with Ms. HasToFeelSpecial.

You’re so special, babe. You’re different. I’m not going to go into detail on exactly how because there’s just SO MUCH. Just understand that you’re definitely extraordinary.

- Jon Snow, deleted scene, The Dragon and the Wolf

This is not language coming from Jon. These are words spoken by other characters being plagiarized by Jon.

And STILL...

Holy shit, Dany. You are so dense. You are going to get everybody killed over a chair. You have no business calling yourself a Queen, let alone my Queen. This sucks that I have to play this stupid game with you. Do you not learn!?!? Seriously, did they replace your brain with napalm? Why are you so obsessed with dragons and your terribly uncomfortable chair?

-Jon, internally, probably

Of course Jon sleeps with Daenerys after this. Jon knows Cersei is untrustworthy. He knows he’s tried literally everything except sex with Daenerys leading up to this. And STILL, Daenerys is one betrayal (by a person who can literally not help but betray) from getting every person on Westeros killed.

HE HAS TO HAVE HER AS A RELIABLE ALLY.

The tragedy yet to come is that his own identity as someone with an extraordinary name is going to cause his entire plan to collapse.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #jonsa is coming #mad queen #anti-d@enerys #anti-targaryen #political jon #political jon meta

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