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murderousginger · 4 years

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Drunk on Shadows

Peaky blinders John Shelby x reader

Warnings: Fluff. Steamy kisses. Power play. They’re criminals guys, they do bad things.

Word Count: 2,557

Note: I had multiple vague requests for a needy himbo John, and one that sent me into a tizzy, so I joined this all together for this one.

You sat near the fire and watched the flames flicker in the dark as the others talked around you. You were exhausted, every last nerve you had felt raw, but John's bright eyes were not easily ignored. You let him lead you to the bonfire and surrounded yourself with music and empty chatter.

John bounced around the gathering, talking and cheering with everyone one by one before he repeated his rounds. Johnny Dogs was loud and rowdy as always. He would circle the party and clap the backs of men or flirt with a woman. Bottles passed around to keep lips loose and tongues wagging.

You felt like a bump on a log as you watched everyone. You kept to the fringes of the party, watching everyone with a calmness that subconsciously pushed people away without being unfriendly. You didn't have it in you to shelf your troubles from your mind and chat like your head wasn't clouded.

"Love?" John said as his hand rested on your shoulder. "Are you alright? You don't look like you're enjoying yourself."

You smiled weakly up at him.

"I'm fine, really."

"Why are you lying to me?" He frowned and leaned down to kiss the top of your head.

"Your mind has been a box of bees all week," he murmured into your hair as he reached for your hand. "You really should relax and enjoy yourself."

He stepped in front of you and his eyes lit up as a mischievous grin split across his face and he pulled you to your feet. You giggled as you tried to tug yourself away but his grin only widened as he wrapped his arms around your waist and spun you around. You laughed and tried to hold on once he lifted you in the air and spun you around again and again until you were dizzy.

When he sat you back down he grabbed your arms and urged you to run around in circles with the fire between you, going faster and faster like children. He let go of one of your arms to spin you and crashed you into his chest to fall in a heep of laughter on his lap on the ground.

"That's my girl," he murmured as the laughter died down. "There you are."

He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear before he kissed your cheek. You sighed and melted against him.

"Thank you," you said softly as you patted his arm around your waist. "Sometimes I get lost in my head, but you always know how to pull me out."

"That's what I'm for, love," he said with a sad smile as he squeezed you tighter. "You're just like my bloody brother sometimes. You get lost in there," he tapped your temple, "but I can find you when you need it. I can do that much."

John was known as the carefree brother, the Shelby that came back from the war without a mark, but you knew different. All three had their ways with coping, and John was like Tommy in his need for control, but his execution was entirely different.

Tommy ruled others with an iron fist. He demanded allegiance and rules to be followed without question. He demanded immediate results. He was king, but his head would cloud and become dark and it affected his rule.

John never showed anyone how dark his mind was or when he was lost in worry. The mantle he picked up had been the jester of the brothers and he took it seriously. He was the relief in the pain and no matter how dark his own mind was he would drag others from their sorrows or at least not be another burden. Many people thought he had no ambition or thoughts of his own; a jester with a violent streak when Tommy needed another soldier, or a lover boy that flirted with every woman who breathed in his direction, but you knew different. His friendly demeanor wasn't exactly an act, but it wasn't as shallow as most thought. It was just as much an armor as Tommy's brains or Arthur's violence. It was tactical.

You shuddered in his arms as you realized the implication of comparing you to his brother.

"You cold, love?" He asked as he rubbed your arms. "We're already nearly on top of the fire."

"You're sweet," you murmured as you turned to kiss his cheek, cupping the other in your hand. "What did I do to deserve you?"

"Well you're the smartest woman I've ever met for one," he smiled. "And you're bloody gorgeous to boot."

You giggled as he twisted and pinned you to the ground, his arms holding his lopsided grin above you. His eyes held a glint that caught your breath.

"I think I'm sick of sharing you for the night," his tone was cocky as his hand pushed your skirts higher.

You giggled, squirming beneath him to catch his hand.

"People are watching," you whispered as your brows raised with your struggle. "You can't just take me in front of God and everyone."

"I'm sure they've all averted their eyes by now," John teased as he leaned forward to steal another kiss. "Johnny Dogs is no different than a cat in the room."

You gasped and pushed on his chest until you both were sitting up. His want emboldened you. His eyes were playful but quickly filling with lust, pupils blown out and drooping half lidded. Your hand found his chin and held him from meeting your lips with his.

"John Shelby," you whispered with authority, watching his eyes flicker at his name. "I said no. Be good."

He pressed against your hand like a dog pulling his leash, testing the boundaries. Your fingers wrapped his jaw and you pressed harder until he stilled. His eyes traveled your face, down your neck, your chest and back up. You waited until his eyes met yours again.

"Tell me what you want, (Y/N)," he breathed. "I'll do it."

You felt a jolt go through you at his words. He was pliant in your hand, his hungry eyes wandering your frame when you weren't forcing him to meet your eye. You were surrounded by people but his eyes never left you. It made you bold. It made you confident.

"You want me?" You asked as you lifted his chin higher and curled your lip in a half smile.

"You know I do," he matched your smile, challenging what you were to do next.

You leaned forward and bushed your lips along his neck, blowing cool air into his ear until his head tilted up from your hand.

"Then come find me in the dark," you whispered before you playfully licked the outline of his earlobe. "Say your goodbyes, count to ten, and come find me. That's an order, soldier."

He shook himself out of your hand and looked at you, his eye wide for a moment before the lust took over, dulling the surprise and smoothing his expression to a lazy smile.

"Yes," he hummed. "I can do that."

His hand grazed your calf, pushing the skirts up again. You tsked and his warm hand stopped cold along your outer thigh in mid squeeze, a sheepish grin along his face.

"You only touch when I say you can, John," you chastised as you pulled his hand from your leg. "Do you understand?"

"But I want you now," He whined under his breath.

"Soon, love," you soothed with a kiss.

You stood up and dusted your dress off. You walked out of the ring of wagons that wrapped around the fire without any goodbyes. The cool night air smelled sweet.

Most people knew you didn't tell anyone you were leaving unless John was on your arm, parading you around to say his own goodbyes. He liked to warn everyone that the fun was leaving and they would have to entertain themselves. You liked to slip away into the shadows without a warning, the same way you liked to appear.

Outside of the ring the world was pitch black except for the sliver of moon that lit up the clear sky. You made your way to the tree line, your steps soft on open pasture. Once you met the trees, you looked behind you and heard John's roar of laughter and shadows flickering among the camp. Anytime now.

As if on cue, John's shape stopped between two wagons, his coat squaring his shape, but you'd know his shadow anywhere.

"Go get your girl, John," you heard Johnny cackle. "She's a right treat in the moonlight, innit she?"

John immediately shot for the trees and you jumped at his suddenness. You ran further in as the leaves crackled underfoot. You huffed as you ran deeper into the trees, knowing it wasn't a thick forest and you'd find the other side quickly if you didn't slow down.

You smiled, a plan forming loosely in your mind. You chirped, hearing John stop to listen for you.

"(Y/N)," he called, "Where are you, love?"

You paused, listening to the crash of the underbrush, and hid behind a massive tree. You chirped again and moved stealthily among the trees, stopping and calling along the way. You heard John grow exasperated as he followed you, a wisp leading him farther into the shadows. Always out of reach.

You stayed behind a tree and heard his footsteps trudge through the leaves closer to you. When he was just about to walk past your tree, you stepped in front of him with your finger on his lips before you stepped back. His face scrunched and he went to take a step forward but you raised your hand to stop him.

"Stay," you said and immediately giggled at ordering John like a dog, but he froze at your words and you couldn't help but feel the rush.

"You're not to touch me unless I say you can," you reminded him, growing braver. "You won't get what you want unless you play nice."

John put his foot down and shuffled anxiously in place, but he didn't step forward.

"(Y/N)," he pressed.

You gave him a look, daring him to ignore your demands, as you undid the fastens and pulled your dress over your head to reveal your thin slip in the slices of moonlight cutting through the branches above. His eyes danced over you.

He groaned, low and heavy; his hand instinctively flexing at his side. You threw your dress at him, the fabric hitting him in the face as you took another step back. It fell to the ground at his feet and you lifted a hand to motion him to follow you.

There's power in it; in coaxing him forward, in his bright eyes that begged you, in his outstretched hand that hesitated just before he touched you because he knew you told him he couldn't. And you yearned for that power. You needed it to anchor you and he knew that.

You led him backward to the edge of the trees, the knowledge that a pond was just on the other side. He followed you, two steps behind as if you would scold him for getting closer, or maybe he would break your rules if temptation was so close. You could tell John was getting restless, pent up as the rules stopped him from what he wanted to do. The delayed gratification far too delayed for his liking.

You stopped right at the edge before the clearing and John stepped directly in front of you, his nose almost touching yours and his whiskey breath on your lips.

"You've been a soldier," you challenged as you practically breathed his air.

You weren't sure whether it was the whiskey on his breath or the surge you got from making him listen, but you felt drunk, tipsy with lust. You couldn't see his eyes in the dark, hidden under his cap, and it annoyed you that his mouth was parted, panting for you, but you couldn't see his blown out pupils. You needed more.

"You follow Tommy's orders without so much as a blink," you taunted as you ran your hand up his arm, your fingers danced along his chest before you smacked his cap off of his head.

John didn't move as his cap flied off his head. Energy rolled off of him thick as the air before a storm breaks. You looked into his eyes, searching for an ounce of challenge, a modicum of his ever-present authority issues, but you found nothing but want.

He sat on the edge of your words waiting for an order, a way to please you, to make you happy. A way to close the gap.

"You say you want me, John," you whispered and leaned into him, dragging your lips up his neck to blow into his ear. "You so sure? I think that pretty thing by the campfire would have already let you between her legs. You'd have her following you around like a lost puppy before the sun rises. Her eyes were following you the entire night. She was green when you kissed me."

He cocked an eyebrow as he leaned away to look down at you, his eyes aflame.

"Why don't you find her, John?" You pressed. "She'd be a mess for you."

His hand raised, ever so slowly, until it was twitching beside your face.

"Because I'm a mess for you," he rasped. "Say the word, I'll happily make you scream loud enough to send her to her grave in envy."

You smiled as you stepped back.

"Take your coat off," you said, "I'll need a place to dry after our dip."

"Our?"

He shrugged his coat off as he followed you to the water's edge and laid his coat just far enough from the bank so the earth beneath it was dry.

"Would you rather stand on the bank and watch?" You teased as you kicked off your boots. "Then stand there like a good boy."

You walked backward in the water, knowing the cold water would make your slip translucent. You gasped as the water reached your hips and you splashed at John, his jaw locked as he watched you submerge yourself. You reached up, holding your hair above the water as you dipped to your shoulders and a growl rumbled from the shoreline like thunder.

"I'm growing tired of your games, love," he rumbled.

"Games?" You feigned confusion, stepping forward up into the air. Your slip clung to every curve, every last inch of your cold skin, illuminating you in the dark. "What games?"

He groaned, shuffling in place before he went to reach down--

"John Shelby don't you dare," you said as you stepped in front of him and grabbed his wrist. "No one's allowed to touch you but me."

"Let me earn it," he rasped as he twisted to pin your wrist in his grip. He leaned into you, his breath trailing up your neck, your ear, your jawline. "Tell me what you want, love."

You smiled as you reached and he groaned in your hand, the faintest touch a wildfire on his skin. You felt him rigged as you playfully mocked his moan back to him in his ear.

"Make me scream, John."

#john shelby #john shelby x reader #peaky blinders #peaky blinders fanfic #storytime with murderousginger

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jamesbbhoney · 3 years

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The Brightest Light

summary: Your abilities have never struck you as something with value beyond aesthetic, but to Bucky, your light counts in more ways than one. [Bucky x enhanced!reader]

warnings: mentions of drunkenness, implication of PTSD

note: hi! this is not my first fic but it’s the first one I’m ever sharing so woohoo :) enjoy and please feel free to share feedback with me!

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You opened your eyes to a dark room, only a thin stream of light coming in through your window from the crescent moon hung in the sky. With sleep still tugging at your eyes, you became aware of the smell of fresh coffee swirling in the air. You reached around for your phone to no avail.

“FRIDAY, what time is it?” you questioned into the darkness.

“The time is 3:41 a.m. Eastern Time, Ms. Y/l/n.”

You groaned gently, closing your eyes and leaning into your pillow. You knew very well who was up in the dark of the morning making coffee - Bucky. There was no one else on your floor of Stark Tower, and for that matter in the entirety of the Tower, who would be up and drinking coffee at this hour. Knowing that this meant you could steal some extra time alone with Bucky, you slowly propped yourself up, rubbing your eyes as they searched to make sense of the dark. You held your palm open in front of you, emitting a few marble-sized balls of light and releasing them like little fireflies into your room (first golden and warm, before you decided on a cool lavender color instead, watching the light dance and melt from gold into purple). You smiled softly at the way the light moved, perfectly tailored to your control yet almost alive on its own.

Your ability had never been one you felt was particularly meaningful or valuable. Being able to create and manipulate energy from your fingertips, emitting light in beams, rays, balls, shapes, any form you could imagine, really, was never going to save anyone’s life. You could never shake the feeling that you just didn’t belong with the elite, talented, gifted people you lived and worked with. Yet as part of a wave of Enhanced offered the chance to live and train at Stark Tower two years ago, you had somehow managed to land yourself in the circles of people like Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. Moreover, if often put you in the kitchen at 3 a.m. stealing moments among the quiet with Bucky Barnes.

That was largely the nature of your relationship with Bucky: stolen moments in the early morning or the dead of night, where the bustle of life seemed to still. When distraction waned and a certain super soldier found himself (more nights than not) unable to sleep. You couldn’t help but find yourself drawn to him whenever you were alerted to his presence, whether it was the smell of coffee in the darkness of the morning, or the fact that everyone else would go to bed and he would still be up, looking out the windows in quiet contemplation, eager to stay awake as long as he could muster.

- - -

One year earlier - July 4, 2:15 a.m.

“I’m fine, really, Y/n. It was just a tough night. You should go to bed.”

Decently drunk from the 4th of July celebrations and more defiant than ever, you crossed your arms and pouted. “What, you don’t want me around?” you said, giving him your biggest puppy dog eyes, knowing damn well that wasn’t what he meant.

He chuckled, looking up from where he stood at the edge of the balcony, looking out over the railing at the skyline to meet those eyes of yours. “Trust me, doll, that’s not the case.”

You inched closer to him as the cold of the night hit you. “Was it the fireworks?” you asked, studying his eyes as they held yours.

He looked down at his hands gripping the railing. He nodded solemnly. “Yeah… I should have known I wouldn’t be able to handle it all - the party, the blaring music, the fireworks…” he trailed off. He looked back up at you, forcing a smile. “But really, I’m fine, you don’t have to stay up with me.”

You rolled your eyes. A year you’d known him at that point, countless missions together, many late-night talks and hot chocolates, and you’d never let him stay up alone thus far, not when his eyes begged you to stay as he weakly encouraged you to go to bed. Why he thought his arguing would make any difference this time was a mystery.

“I know I don’t have to, Bucky. I want to,” you said, closing the space between you, unable to resist the way his presence pulled you in.

Still woozy from all the drinks and commotion of the night, you reached out to his forearm to steady yourself, instantly floored at how strong and stable he felt. He looked down at where your hand met his arm, looking slightly confused. He looked up at you again, his eyes sparkling.

You smiled back, relaxing at how grounded you felt, one hand on the railing of the balcony, one on your best friend who you had had a hopeless crush on since the moment you met him a year prior.

“I used to love fireworks, actually,” he said, almost breathlessly as he turned slightly to be facing you. “Just, the noise…” he trailed off again in a whisper.

You inched closer to him, drawn to his warmth as the night grew colder. You removed your right hand from the railing, holding it gingerly between you and Bucky. You willed a ball of soft red light into your hand, and gently pushed it upwards until it floated between you and Bucky. You concentrated as hard as you could, which was difficult given the drunken state you were in, trying to imagine the ball splitting into little stars and sparks. As you focused, the light followed your vision, creating a beautiful dance of twirling light and mock-fireworks in the space between you and Bucky. You smiled at yourself, enjoying the display you brought to life without the bangs and pops of real fireworks.

You looked up to see Bucky staring in awe at you through the light as it encircled you both. You met his eyes and the light transformed into a myriad of colors, brighter and warmer than you had any conscious intention of. Although you had lost focus on your control of the light completely, it seemed to mirror the butterflies in your stomach as Bucky looked at you with such wonder on his face.

The tension between you was palpable. The space between you was inching closed as his left hand found your waist, cool metal against the gap of skin between your jeans and white top. Your right hand found his back and it felt like eons passed as you simply stared at each other surrounded by your homemade fireworks.

He crashed his lips against yours, passionate but sweet. He tasted like bourbon and you breathed him in, desperate for this moment to last forever. You kissed him back with such intention, letting every moment of pining over the past year escape through your lips. Your heart swelled in your chest as you both pressed against each other, his soft touches turning into desperate arms pulling you against him.

He eventually pulled away, the pair of you completely breathless, and the lights surrounding you twirling and exploding with vigor. As your breathing evened out, the lights calmed down to the softest golden glow, swimming slowly across the entire balcony.

“Y/n, I can’t begin to tell you how long I’ve been wanting to do that,” he said softly into you.

“Me, too,” you laughed. Although you had been jolted by your kiss, you still swayed from the drinks in your system. Bucky clung onto you as his eyebrows knit together slightly.

“But you really should go to bed,” he said lightly with a chuckle as you leaned into him for support. “Come on, doll, I’ll walk you to your room.”

From that night on, you stole more moments when no one could see; when sleep graced everyone but Bucky, you graced him with your light.

- - -

You pulled on a white hoodie and your fluffy slippers, trudging into the hallway of the floor you shared with Bucky and a shapeshifter named Cal, brought in around the same time as you were. The lavender light followed you out and you held your palm out again, willing the light to come into your palm as a mini lantern to guide you down the hall. You stared into the orb, wispy and pulsing, before stepping into the open space of the kitchen, letting your hand fall and the light dissipate.

“Morning, sunshine,” you said softly. Bucky, leaning over the counter clutching his mug of black coffee, lifted his head to meet your eyes. He smiled sweetly at you, although his eyes were tired and swollen from a lack of sleep.

“Hey there,” he said, his body clearly relaxing as you made your way towards him.

You passed behind him to get your own mug, letting your hand brush along his back as you did.

You put the kettle on for tea, picking out an earl grey bag for your mug, and came up next to him, allowing your shoulders to touch comfortably. You looked up at him in wonderment, barely able to make out his features but even in the dim light of only a crescent moon streaming in through the big windows looking out over the skyline and balcony, you could see the light in his eyes, the jagged lines that carved out his face. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you steadily into him. You reached your arms up around his tense neck, gently massaging into his hair as he leaned into your touch.

“Nightmares, again?” you asked, watching him carefully.

He shut his eyes with a sigh and nodded as you continued rubbing circles at the nape of his neck.

“Mhm. Worse than usual,” he mumbled into the space between you.

“I’m sorry, baby” you whispered. “I wish you’d let me stay in there with you.”

Bucky refused to let you sleep in his room after he accidentally gave you a black eye from struggling in his sleep a couple months prior. Not wanting to reveal the full nature of your relationship to the team, you told them it was from sparring, and Bucky could hardly look at you for weeks given his guilty feelings.

“You know that’s not a good idea,” he said, his voice heavy, eyes still shut as he gripped at your sweatshirt.

You didn’t have it in you to argue with him; not tonight, at least.

The tea kettle started to boil and you slid gently out of his embrace to get your tea ready. He leaned back towards the counter.

With warm tea in one hand, you slid the other into Bucky’s right hand, pulling him with you towards the big windows in the living room, sitting on the floor in the corner, your usual spot. Bucky leaned against the wall, spreading his sweatpant-adorned legs open to make space for you to sit against him.

You nestled back against him, head resting in the crook of his neck as he set his coffee down and big arms wrapped around you from behind.

“How’s the training going?” he asked after a while of just sitting together looking at the moon through the window.

You sighed. You had been working with Wanda to try and channel your abilities into something with a bit more power. With all the field training and martial arts they had taught you, you were as good as any other specialized SHIELD agent, but as part of a crew of Enhanced individuals, you felt vastly inferior. All you could do was play with light, albeit often beautiful and mesmerizing, and you were really beginning to question your place there.

“Not great,” you said dejectedly. “I’m really trying, but it’s just not destructive, there’s something missing. It doesn’t work that way no matter how hard I try. Other than aesthetics, I’m as useless as ever.”

“Doll, you aren’t useless by any means,” he said, gripping you tighter. “You are incredibly gifted, and if there’s something else that’s meant to come from your gift, you’ll find it eventually. If not,” he shrugged slightly. “You’re still pretty damn amazing.”

You smiled, setting your tea down next to Bucky’s coffee and turning to face him. He inched away from the wall so that you could straddle him, and he held your back so easily, propping you up to stay face to face.

“I love you,” you said, wrapping your arms around his neck again, noses brushing.

“I love you, too, doll,” he returned.

You sat together for a while, drinking your tea and coffee, trading gossip from the team, venturing onto the balcony, gazing at the moon. You showed Bucky a new party trick you’d been working on, where you conjured light that took on the shape of a dancing couple, laughing and spinning together. You didn’t say it, but Bucky didn’t need to hear it to know it was the two of you you were thinking of.

Lying in comfortable silence on the balcony under a shared blanket, Bucky pulled you into him.

“It hurts, Y/n/n,” he said so quietly you barely heard him say it. “I hardly sleep because the pain in my dreams is so… real. It hurts, baby. I’m afraid to sleep.”

Your heart nearly broke in two. You rolled over so you were fully on top of him, elbows framing his head as your hands carded through his hair, the blanket cascading down, locking you into a safe little cove on the aid open balcony.

“I know, honey,” you said soothingly, leaning your forehead against his. “I wish I could do something to take your pain away.” A halo of white light began to form around your hands.

Bucky glanced up at your hands, his eyebrows knitting together. He looked to your face to see you as confused as he was.

You couldn’t explain it, but your hands felt like magnets drawn to Bucky’s head, fingers pressing ever so gently against his temples. As you did, you could physically feel the tension melt away, it was a sensation you’d never felt before - beyond feeling his muscles relax under your touch, this was feeling… his mind relax.

He exhaled deeply at your touch, eyes closing gently as he put his hands over yours so slowly and gently. You realized it wasn’t just your touch, it was your light, your power, that affected him this way. You had been right that your ability wasn’t destructive, but it wasn’t just passive entertainment. People had always been mesmerized by it in a way, in taking it in with their eyes, but you had never thought to try to use it to heal, to sooth strain. Now, you could feel the soft glow emitting from your palms draw out the strain, draw out the mental pain the man you loved shouldered every day and night.

“Baby,” he said, clinging to your fingers against his temples. “What are you doing?” he asked curiously, softly.

You let out a shy, breathy laugh. “I don’t really know. It just happened. I- I didn’t know I could do this.”

He opened his eyes to look up at you with the most adoration you’d ever been on the receiving end of. The connection between you only intensified with this newfound discovery. You could truly feel him, feel the tension he held, or rather didn’t feel at that point.

The glow slowly faded from your hands as Bucky gently pried your fingers off of his temples.

“Amazing,” he said between kisses pressed to your knuckles. “You’re just… amazing, Y/n.” He brought his hands to the small of your back, pulling you into him as you continued straddling him. “There’s nothing you can’t do.”

You leaned into him, pressing your lips to his, pulling back so slightly, not wanting to leave any more space than absolutely necessary between you. “It’s for you, baby. It’s all for you,” you breathed into him. “You bring out the best in me, the brightest of my light.” You kissed him again. “It’s yours, all for you.”

- - - - - -

there ya have it! my first published fic on here. loosely inspired by Video Games by Lana Del Rey (mostly just the last part of dialogue heh) feel free to leave feedback for me in my inbox or wherever! hope you enjoyed :)

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky fanfic #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky fic #bucky #bucky x female reader

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notebook-13 · 4 years

Text

Shigaraki • Development

Backstory

(Note: Tenko was Shigaraki’s childhood name.)

First things first: Shigaraki’s backstory is probably meant as an allegory. The house his father built is a microcosm of society, his father Kotaro represents people with power, Tenko represents people without it, and the other family members are bystanders. The power imbalance and communal emphasis on harmony enables Kotaro to take out his baggage on Tenko while Tenko is required to repress his. Resistance, even if it’s minor, causes Tenko to be shunned and beggared, as Kotaro locks Tenko out of the house in the backyard, in the dark, unfed, without even a roof over his head.

Edit: @codenamesazanka has an excellent reading of this allegory!

Theirs is a household that prioritizes unity and a façade of happy domesticity over Tenko’s wellbeing. His mom and grandparents treat him gently, reject him kindly, and refuse to admit to him just how terribly Kotaro treats him. Though the three adults understand that Kotaro is the problem (they criticize him in private or cry out futile protests during an incident), they are unwilling to disrespect Kotaro to Tenko’s face. Doing so would mean facing their victim and owning up to their own culpability, too.

So, throughout Shigaraki’s backstory, Horikoshi intersperses black panels with increasing grains of white. This references Shigaraki’s “wound in his heart.”

The first black panel appears when Tenko is crying to his mom, Nao, about his dad; the second appears when he is similarly comforted by his grandparents.

After an episode with Kotaro, Nao hesitantly asks Tenko if he still wants to be a hero.

Nao: “Tenko…do you…still want to be a hero?” Tenko: “Yup. Because like, nobody wanted to play with Mikkun and Tomo. So I said, ‘Let’s play together!’ And we played heroes, and it was super fun. And then Mikkun said, ‘You should be All Might, Ten.’ And I was nice and played with them even though they don’t have any friends.”

It’s hard to follow Tenko’s five-year-old’s logic here, but the gist seems like Tenko wants to be a good person who makes people less lonely, and he thinks heroes do that. The implication, then, could be that Tenko is lonely, and his admiration for heroes compensates for what’s missing in his family (a hero).

What’s also significant is that Tenko noticed Mikkun and Tomo were suffering, and instead of ignoring it or playing along like everyone else, he did something about it. What he emphasizes isn’t, “we played heroes and fought bad guys, it was really cool”; he emphasizes that he was kind, that he helped kids who were lonely. This isn’t a kid who wants to be a hero because heroes are strong.

Also worth noting that in bnha, p much every kid wants to be a hero. By forbidding Tenko from even playing, Kotaro draws a line between Tenko and his classmates: Tenko is not one of them. He’s not allowed to dream he’ll be a hero like everyone else. In a society overflowing with heroes (and with adulation of heroes), Tenko can’t be one of them nor admire them.

^^ the first “wound” panel is the black middle one

When Nao tells Tenko that “it’s hard to be a hero,” especially right after hesitantly asking him if he still wanted to be one, Tenko understands that she’s discouraging him—similar to how Inko apologized to little Deku when he asked her if he could become a hero without a quirk.

When Nao tells Tenko it’s difficult, she’s essentially repeating what Kotaro says (“being a hero will cause him nothing but trouble”). By siding with Kotaro, she tells Tenko that he can’t become who he wants to be. He must conform to authority and let Kotaro determine his life. What he wants and feels don’t matter. Kotaro is right.

The wound begins to open.

Similarly, his grandparents offer him empty comfort because they, too, believe in presenting a unified front. The kids aren’t allowed to be aware that there’s conflict between the grown-ups: rules are rules, instructions from your seniors are absolute, social harmony (and by extension, social hierarchy) has to be maintained. Tenko himself is the troublesome one—he’s the one who needs to be comforted, who keeps breaking rules, who can’t pretend everything is okay the same way everyone else can.

The wound opens further.

The initial wound and its exacerbation are both brought on by his mom and grandparents, not by Kotaro directly. Why? Because it’s the permissiveness of the adults that socializes Tenko in how to react to Kotaro. Kotaro’s abuse is too much for a five-year-old to process, so he trusts the other grown-ups in his life to understand it and tell him how to feel about it/what to do about it.

What they tell Tenko, implicitly, is that his pain doesn’t matter enough to do anything about, and it’s his fault it exists. Underneath, he recognizes this and resents them for it. They might not actively participate in Kotaro’s abuse, but they actively support him by trying to wipe away the consequences without any accountability for the problems. They shift blame to other people (Kotaro, Tenko) without owning up to their own role in the proceedings, so that they can pretend life is good and think of themselves as good people who don’t make trouble.

Tenko has a related “wound” associated directly with Kotaro.

((When Kotaro approaches Tenko to begin smacking him…))

The “itch.”

Tenko is five years old, and kids that young aren’t known for their emotional intelligence. This is his little-kid way of trying to describe his negative emotions: agitation, anguish, panic, frustration, aggression, resentment, desperation, (thwarted) hope, and so on.

Tenko scratches himself frantically because he doesn’t know how else to react to the things he’s feeling, and he doesn’t know how else to react because nobody is trying to help him sort through them. He’s only been told to suppress them. Plus, in adulthood, Shigaraki scratches himself when he’s stressed about something, so it makes sense for this ~allergy~ to be the origin.

I dunno why Tenko fixates on his face—his eyes, specifically…maybe out of shame? maybe because his face and eyes are what express his uncomfortable feelings, and/or because his eyes are what he uses to fruitlessly beg for help? or maybe the eyes out of a desire for blindness, to not see what’s in front of him the way everybody else pretends not to see?

(The irony, ofc, is that Kotaro is accusing Tenko of wanting to hurt their family, when in fact Kotaro is the one hurting their family.

Judging by how Nao and her parents approach Kotaro after the fact and tell him that they will leave if he hits the children again, I don’t think it was common for Kotaro to smack Tenko like this.

Also, this is the first time Tenko is shown scratching his neck: when his thoughts are crying out, help me!)

Tenko isn’t begging mercy from Kotaro, which says leagues about their relationship. Instead, he’s begging for interference from the rest of the family, for someone to stand up for him, to challenge the public humiliation Tenko regularly endures as Kotaro’s scapegoat. Nobody does, of course, like always.

It takes a few hours, locked out of the house, for the trauma to set in.

The wound gets worse…but this time it’s different.

For one, it’s accompanied by dialogue, not narration, and “everyone” is centered right in the core of his rage. The second (iffier) difference is that this time the wound and the itch coincide. In the previous situations, he’s either scratching himself or the wound is deepening. This is the first time Horikoshi depicts the two occurring simultaneously, and it’s this moment that his quirk fully awakens.

Tenko kills his dog and begins to have a panic attack. His emotions are choking him; the only way he can ask for help is to reach out to his sister, finally, in the way he didn’t dare to reach out while Kotaro was smacking him.

I’ve seen people suggest his voice fails as a side-effect of his quirk, but I think it’s trauma-related, not physical. For one, he still describes it as an “itch,” and for two, once he processes his trauma and decides that killing his family wasn’t a tragedy, Shigaraki’s characteristic squiggly speech bubbles are replaced by average speech bubbles.

This is consistent, so, his vocal problem was solved emotionally. So maybe his quirk was reacting to his emotions and placing pressure on his vocal chords? But idk, seems to me it was a psychosomatic problem.

Either way, he kills his sister as she runs away, and her scream attracts his mom and grandparents.

Then comes the fourth panel.

(For context, the narration refers to how his negative feelings towards his mom and grandparents accumulated.)

The whiteness is gushing forth, and it surges when Tenko sees his mom staring at him with terror, unable to summon a reassuring smile or any words of comfort for him.

The noises catch Kotaro’s attention. He pokes his head into the hall and walks through the empty house until he spots the open door to the backyard.

(Tenko has now transitioned to mainly scratching his neck instead of his face.)

Tenko reaches out to someone for the final time, and his (deadly) hand is rejected—smashed away, really.

Kotaro’s life is in danger, he’s shocked by the deaths of his family, he panics, and he reacts cruelly.

The tipping point is what happens afterwards.

Kotaro is surprised and horrified by what he’s done. But, like always, he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge to Tenko his wrongdoing. Instead, he reacts by doubling down and asserting his authority.

“Mommy, why does Father say no all the time? Does he hate me?!”

I’m not sure quite what Kotaro is doing here. At first I thought he was smacking Tenko, the way he did earlier that day, but that blob in the lower right panel is part of the background, not his hand in motion. So instead, it looks like Kotaro is holding out his hand in a “stop, stand back, stay away from me” gesture, or maybe to literally push Tenko away. (Have to wait on the anime, I guess.)

Regardless, Kotaro tells Tenko “no” for the last time. The immediate blame, the dearth of kindness or sympathy, the reaching out to him—someone’s trying to save him!—only to deny him…it evokes their history. Tenko is already in the midst of a meltdown, and now he snaps.

I hate bringing up real-world examples when thinking about stuff like bnha, so I hope this will be the only time I ever do it, but I’m powerfully reminded of a gun violence incident in Mississippi where a nine-year-old kid and his thirteen-year-old sister got into an argument over a video game controller, and the boy retrieved their parents’ gun from another room and shot her.

It’s ludicrous to think he had any meaningful concept of what he was doing, and, regardless of how Shigaraki interprets his past, the same holds for Tenko. Just because Tenko had a good “reason” to want Kotaro dead doesn’t imply he had a meaningful grasp of what he was doing. He killed Kotaro because he was a kid with access to a deadly weapon, and there’s a reason kids aren’t trusted with those.

But it is meaningful that Shigaraki struggles to make the distinction between aggression and murderous intent. AfO deliberately trains Shigaraki to adopt this warped mindset by telling him that his bad feelings, his “itch,” are equivalent to bloodlust. Realistically, there’re plenty of ways to relieve negative emotion, but Shigaraki has been taught exactly one outlet: destruction. So, he doesn’t realize that his murderousness is a product of nurture, not nature. (Also, lol, “murderousness” is a real word!)

Anyways, for the first time, Tenko experiences catharsis for the negative emotions that have built up his whole life. A fluke of fate enabled him to subvert the established power dynamic, and the destruction of the house encapsulates the collapse of their family’s hierarchy. He still doesn’t understand what he’s done.

By the next morning, it’s begun to sink in. He ran away from the house and then wanders the streets, too consumed by guilt to speak, and he’s ignored by everyone. When someone finally pays attention and seems willing to help him…

He smiles, happy that someone is finally going to help him. But his dirty, creepy smile scares the old lady off.

(reminds me of his early design.)

To him, it’s like people can see what he’s done, and that’s why nobody will help him or even acknowledge him. Notice the lower left corner: the blackness and white grains, spilling over from his wound.

The itch returns, and the scratching and the wound overlap again. It’s hard to say whether the wound is reacting to the old lady in general, or if it’s tied to the narration line “being punished.”

It occurs when Tenko simultaneously wants to be saved but also thinks he doesn’t deserve it, that everyone can see how bad he is and knows he doesn’t deserve help.

What did Shigaraki learn from this?

Social harmony is forged by repressing conflict, not by resolving it. This happens at his expense, purposefully.

“This is the house my father built.” Creation, construction, building, making walls, making rules, making—these are bad, and they’re performed by the people with authority and power. These things happen for other people, not for his sake.

He’s not important enough to be helped / not worthy of it, and he resents that.

Origin of his self-loathing.

Other notes:

The “itch” is something he can find temporary catharsis for (through violence), and Shigaraki thinks the itch might have gone away if someone had just helped him. The “wound” is not something that ever alleviates or that he suggests could have gone away.

The wound’s origin is from the complicity of his family to Kotaro, not from Kotaro himself.

It’s interesting that his dream to destroy society is a reenactment of his destruction of his family/house, even though killing “everyone” the first time devastated him.

He switched from mostly scratching his face to mostly scratching his throat.

Both these are sites where emotion is expressed.

Hands are another site of expression, and he later develops his fascination with his family’s hands and uses his own hands for destruction.

Activating decay seems to have hugely worsened the scarring around his eyes. He says that he thought the “itch” had gone away, so it’s unlikely he was scratching himself overnight…so I think his quirk had the side-effect of exacerbating his scars? If decay made the skin around his eyes hurt, that could relate to why he switched to mostly scratching his throat.

Even as a kid, Tenko had a certain amount of pride/dignity, enough to blame others for mistreating him instead of blaming purely himself.

Tenko admired heroes partly because his family lacked one, but when he discovers Nana…? Now someone inside the family (inside the house) was a hero, so the rules were different than what he thought?

Upbringing by AfO

When Tenko killed “everyone,” that included himself. All that’s left of him afterwards is an empty shell. He doesn’t even seem to remember what he’s done.

But AfO is willing to extend a hand and touch Tenko.

He’s willing to acknowledge Tenko’s pain, something nobody else was or is, at the moment in his life when Tenko feels he least deserves sympathy.

Now, obviously it’s hella suspicious that AfO already knows Tenko’s name, knows what he’s done, and procures his family’s hands, but Shigaraki doesn’t seem to question it. Tenko’s arms dangle there, limp, as AfO embraces him and tears stream down his face. And, ofc, AfO echoes All Might’s motto.

AfO takes Tenko in and tells him he’ll be his master from now on. Then…

Tenko viscerally remembers what he’s done, and his immediate reaction is to scratch himself, puke, and then seize the severed hands, gathering them up and cradling them close to him. It’s probably then that Tenko discovers the feeling that Shigaraki describes—of feeling violently ill but somehow at peace, too. (“When a person’s life starts spiraling, what’s the one thing they want? Comfort.”) There’s way too much to unpack here, so, moving on.

The “purpose” that AfO alludes to is the destruction of society/the status quo.

While Tenko is huddled on the ground, cradling the hands, AfO continues.

AfO’s the first person willing to talk to him about his itch as emotional instead of as an allergy. He tells Tenko point-blank that he cannot control his impulses and that his release must take the form of destruction.

This moment baffles me. AfO openly admits that Tenko’s feelings will fade…if left be. As far as we see, he doesn’t explain to Tenko why it’s important that those feelings never fade, why emptying himself of his pain is a bad thing. But even after being told time would heal him, Tenko keeps the hands close to him—and I don’t think he was just doing what AfO wanted.

This panel is also interesting because it definitely makes it look like Tenko’s wound is glowing, like it’s a light in the dark. Also, AfO’s dialogue nearly obscures the early panel of the wound…hm.

Regardless, AfO implies that those feelings are the most important thing Tenko has, and he should keep them close. It’s not specified if AfO told him to wear his family.

Later, Tenko’s wandering on the streets (his hands aren’t with him) when he encounters a duo of thugs, who beat and mock him. At first, Tenko lurches to fight back, but…

I think these are more “wound” panels: the blackness with white grains. He backs down, even though his rage doesn’t dissipate.

When he returns home, AfO encourages him to embrace his feelings instead of holding them back. Tenko literally writhes on the floor from the force of his “itch,” going all out as he wallows in his overwhelming feelings.

AfO tells Tenko that ethics were invented in order to suppress people and that Tenko’s emotions are more important than anything else. Tenko responds by reiterating what AfO told him: he wants to destroy those thugs, and he can’t control this urge to destroy. He goes as far as to disintegrate one of Kotaro’s hands, even though not too long ago he clung onto it.

But, later, he wears his family’s hands for the first time.

Wearing them clearly affects Tenko adversely—he’s struggling to breathe properly, and he’s entirely slumped over. But these hands, and these feelings, are the only things he has left, the only things he knows, and he won’t leave them behind.

He encounters the same duo of thugs and kills them.

His wound again. Formless, but with a sense of shifting and movement. Undiminished, even if the itch is alleviated. Or, maybe this panel is supposed to indicate a deterioration, like the wound gets even worse after the murders?

Observing the event, Ujiko remarks that he’d thought Tenko had lost his memories. I think he’s commenting on how Tenko is wearing the hands despite not remembering who they’re from?

AfO comments…

Tenko restrains quirk subconsciously, limiting its disintegration to just what he’s directly touching, which makes it seem like he’s afraid of his quirk and feels guilt/self-loathing for it. He’s aware that his quirk is connected to the things he feels, maybe even blames his quirk in some way for making him feel this way.

It’s ironic that Tenko feels free while he’s being throttled and restrained by the hands of his relatives.

lol AfO gives away the game a bit, here. He tells Tenko to do whatever he wants and not hold back, and then praises Tenko for “holding back” his tears. He just wants Tenko to have no way to vent his feelings except violence. Also, the fact that Tenko is “holding back” his quirk…hmm.

Again, too much here to unpack rn, so, moving on.

AfO gives Tenko the hands of the thugs he killed, plus one hand of unknown origin to replace the hand of Kotaro’s that Tenko destroyed. Shigaraki describes the gift as soothing to his battered body, and he felt reborn. AfO gives him the name Shigaraki Tomura ad implicitly positions himself as Shigaraki’s dad by telling Shigaraki that “Shigaraki” is his surname.

What did Shigaraki learn from this?

Morals are illusionary, merely a tool used to suppress people without power in order to make things easier for people who do have power.

His “itch” means bloodlust, and he can’t control it.

He should just do what he wants (except crying, apparently), or else he’ll just suffer indefinitely.

Rejection of a society he had no hand in making and no place to belong in.

Other notes:

Even without remembering his aggression towards Kotaro, it’s Kotaro’s hand he shows the biggest fixation on.

Shigaraki has three “ailments”: the itch (the agitation he feels from bad things), the wound (the “rage” and “frustration” he feels from bystander apathy), and the nausea he feels when he wears the hands (self-loathing?).

Or maybe the nausea is part of the wound?

More on the wound?

I wonder when Horikoshi decided on how to visualize Shigaraki’s pain, and if he uses it as a pattern in bnha.

I’ve noticed a few panels that remind me of Shigaraki’s wound, especially that amorphous panel after he kills those thugs, but it’s hard to tell if the backgrounds are just atmospheric or if there is actually an attempt to connect these moments thematically.

Here are a few that I noticed.

I’m going to keep an eye out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: here’s another one. This is the most definite example so far: it occurs in ch250, post-Shigaraki’s flashbacks, and the distinct circle doesn’t produce an atmosphere the way the previous ^^ panels do.

^^ it’s worth mentioning that this appears during Fuyumi’s narration, detailing how Natsuo is the only one in the family who can’t move forward, ie, he’s experiencing social pressure to conform and validate Endeavor similar to how Tenko felt pressure to conform to Kotaro’s authority.

And then this next one, I’m pretty unsure about, but I’ll include it in case:

#bnha #bnha meta #shigaraki tomura #shigaraki development #this is mostly me like…summarizing what happened with a bit of active analysis #sorry that the tone is so weird #I wrote this as ref material for myself bc I was sick of jumping between chapters trying to put things in chronological order #and I needed to organize my thoughts on stuff #though I got tired by the end #maybe I'll update it when I feel re-inspired #but anyways here it is if anybody else wants it #bnha manga spoilers #mla arc #no.13

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Put On Your Raincoats #15 | Rainbows in the Dark

To the extent that a porn director crossed over to the mainstream, Gregory Dark would be it. Certainly, there have been directors who did one or two porn features early in their careers, like Abel Ferrara, William Lustig and Wes Craven, but they're known almost entirely for their mainstream work. There are also porn directors who did maybe one mainstream movie, like Gerard Damiano, but their careers were relegated to porn for the most part. Dark is the rare director who was prolific on both sides, so to speak, starting with massive hardcore hits like New Wave Hookers, moving on to directing softcore, thrillers and softcore thrillers with some regularity and eventually becoming a popular music video director. My initial plan was to explore the full gamut of Dark's career. I wanted to get a sense of each phase of his work and to see what elements of his style translated across them. Essentially I wanted to understand Dark as an auteur. But then something miraculous happened. I got lazy. (Also I had a muted reaction to some of his movies and became more interested in another director in the meantime.) So I decided to limit my exploration to a few of his early movies and call it a day.

The first one I watched was New Wave Hookers, his best known hardcore title and considered a classic in the genre. What I expected going in and what worked for me can be deduced from the title. Dark's visual style very much brings to mind the "new wave" in the title: big hair, fog machines and neon lighting, all of which are first seen in the opening credits, in which the female talent almost ritualistically present themselves to the camera. There's some stylistic precedent in the work of Rinse Dream AKA Stephen Sayadian (the artist I got more interested in as I delved into Dark's work), but Sayadian's aesthetic feels culled from the art underground. (Dark reuses a few of Sayadian's actors in some of his films.) Dark's style feels more commercial, almost packaged for MTV. (Dark intended his film as a reaction to hardcore porn features of his era, although I'd argue that his choice of camera angles still feels in line with other films of the era.) This is a movie that looks good and, thanks to some choice music courtesy of the Plugz (whose song "Electrify Me" accompanies the opening credits) and the Sockets (who provide the theme song), sounds good too.

What I gelled to much less was the sense of humour. The movie opens with two buddies played by Jamie Gillis (wearing a tie over a t-shirt) and Dark regular Jack Baker shooting the shit and watching another Dark production. ("That fuckin' guy looks exactly like you. Is that you?") Baker starts expounding on his thoughts about pimping and "programming" women to fuck with music. Baker also notes, "a pimp calls a chick a bitch". They doze off, and when they wake up they find themselves inexplicably in an office. Baker is wearing a yellow tracksuit, Gillis is sporting an East Asian accent, and there's a guy on the floor substituting for their phone. (Gillis asks: "Why do we not have a regular telephone?" Baker explains: "He got the power, the second sight.") As the movie proceeds to make good on its premise, wherein women have sex after listening to new wave music, we're treated to a steady stream of racial taunting. Baker grouses about black music being ineffective for their purposes, dropping the N-bomb. Gillis continues with his accent. The two get into racially charged arguments. A middle eastern client is served in a tent and barks like a dog after he's finished. At one point, Gillis wants sushi and is served by Kristara Barrington while East Asian style music plays on the soundtrack. I recognize that a lot of humour from the era is extremely politically incorrect and has aged poorly, but there's something about Dark's use of racist and misogynist humour that feels especially confrontational. I admit I was a bit bothered by all of this.

Still, there are moments of humour that did work for me. One of the headsets that the characters use has dildos protruding from both earpieces (pointing outwards, of course), and the production design, while not always stylish, is at least endearing in its blatant cheapness. To their credit, Baker and Gillis have undeniable chemistry and do sell the material as well as they can. (I laughed when Gillis, when confronted by the vice squad, drops his accent and exclaims "I used to work in your fuckin' office, and now I'm rich, I'm satisfied, and I'm Chinese, you assholes." Am I a bad person? Probably.) And in terms of how it meets genre expectations, I do think Ginger Lynn and Kristara Barrington have a real magnetism in their scenes.

Given the racial content in New Wave Hookers, it probably won't surprise anybody that Dark was a pioneer in interracial pornography. I am not a sensitive enough writer to begin unpacking all the implications of the concept, but I did watch one of his movies in the subgenre, Black Throat. This was a shot-on-video effort and looks considerably cheaper and uglier than New Wave Hookers, but shares some other qualities. It opens and closes with a punk song that references that film as well as Let Me Tell Ya Bout White Chicks, Dark's first interracial feature, and to be honest, the song is pretty fucking catchy. The movie follows Roscoe, a man who wears yellow sunglasses and both a polo and a Hawaiian shirt and his friend Mr. Bob, a talking rubber rat. He's searching through the garbage while arguring with Mr. Bob over what to eat when he finds a business card. "Madame Mambo's House of Divine Inspiration Thru Fellatio!" (All of the characters pronounce fellatio differently. Mr. Bob says "fell-uh-tee-oh" and calls Roscoe a "fuckin' honky", to which he responds "Fuck you, Mr. Bob!")

Roscoe insists he has to find her. "If I don't find her, I'm gonna die!" (When asked why, he responds, "I dunno, it sounded kinda dramatic, I guess.") Mr. Bob enlists the help of a "young urban professional pimp" named Jamal, played by Jack Baker. (He prefers the term "flesh broker" and describes upgrading his diet, clothes and investments.) Roscoe, Mr. Bob and Jamal go from scene to scene, watching other characters having sex in different racial combinations, asking them where they can find Madame Mambo. (Sometimes they ask the characters directly, other times they talk to their private parts.) The best of these scenes, in my humble opinion, is a light domination flavoured sex scene featuring Christy Canyon. Perhaps because of the dynamic, there's an element of actual acting involved here, and because Canyon is, uh, pleasingly proportioned and has a certain magnetism, I found this scene more engaging than the others, at least until it turns into a regular sex scene.

Eventually they go back to Roscoe's place and find a voodoo ritual taking place where a black woman with multicoloured hair (think the George H.W. Bush rainbow wig from the Simpsons, but straight, not curly) is jumping on their bed while a bunch of white dudes in hats, capes and sunglasses jack off around her. This of course is Madame Mambo and at this point the movie makes good on the title while drumbeats and funk play on the soundtrack. Given the premise, this movie proved (thankfully) lighter on racial humour than I expected going in. There is an element of racial critique in Baker's character, and Madame Mambo is certainly exoticized, but the racial content otherwise is limited to the interracial couplings and doesn't overload the dialogue. However, this is a fairly ugly looking movie, shot on video, featuring unimpressive camerawork and lighting as well as extremely cheap looking production design (although the movie does mine this for laughs). I also found the sex scenes overlong and the music a bit repetitive. I imagine if you were jerking off to this back in the '80s it was easier to get through, but trying to watch it now as an actual movie, despite some decent humour throughout, proved a bit of a challenge.

The next one I watched was White Bunbusters, which despite the first half of the title is not particularly racially charged. The theme song here, crooned in the style of early '60s rock'n'roll, explains that the movie is about anal sex, as the second half of the title suggests. We begin with Tom Byron thrusting into his wife Shanna McCullough (while wearing his glasses) only to be disappointed by her refusal to take it in the butt. The next day at the office (decorated by construction paper all over the walls, drawers sketched in magic marker and a crude sign with their business' name "Acme Proctology"), he hears an ad for the "A-Busters", an enterprising duo who will convince your wife or partner to let you put it in their butt. We cut to the A-Busters office and see them in yellow shorts, lime green suspenders and orange baseball caps, fiddling with their hi-tech instruments (which include an "anal listening device"). Soon we see them go to work on Jack Baker's girlfriend, taking a cash payment after the fact.

Meanwhile, Byron's friend Greg Rome hears about his woes and offers to let him fuck his wife Keli Richards (Rome is named Bob and Richards is named Bobette). Of course Byron takes advantage of Rome's generous offer, but later gets annoyed when Rome insists it was a "one time deal". They're interrupted by Jennifer Noxt, who asks about a secretarial position for the law office next door. Rather than correcting her, which would be the right thing to do, they have sex with her, which is absolutely not the right thing to do. ("So do I get the job?" "We'll call you later, baby.") We go back to the A-Busters, who go to work on a pornstar warming up for her first anal scene (the movie is called Hershey Highway to Hell). Eventually, Byron decides to make use of their services, and in the climax, when he's having a nice dinner with his wife (complete with plastic cups and paper plates), they crash the party and get to work. After it's all over, Byron thanks the A-Busters and shakes one of their hands, only to promptly wipe it off on his suit.

This is as lo-fi as Black Throat, and features a lot of raunchy humour, but thankfully no real racial content outside of the title. Perhaps because the focus is on a specific set of acts (threesomes, anal sex, double penetration), the execution seems more consistently energetic. The ratio of the threesomes is a little off from what I prefer, but I was not unmoved by the scenes involving Keli Richards, Jennifer Noxt and Shanna McCullough. I realize there are more dignified ways to spend one's time than watching in its entirety and singing the praises of a movie called White Bunbusters, but sometimes the lizard brain takes over. I feel compelled to report the facts, and the facts are that this is good at what it does. As an actual movie, there isn't a whole lot to this, but were I to rate this on the Peter-Meter as the filmmakers intended, it would fare respectably.

Where Gregory Dark's style and the sum of his provocations really worked for me was in The Devil in Miss Jones 3: A New Beginning and The Devil in Miss Jones 4: The Final Outrage, a two-part odyssey through hell. (Attentive viewers may note that the original Devil in Miss Jones takes place before the heroine is sentenced to hell, but this is not a direct sequel. There is also a second part by Henri Pachard and later sequels directed by Dark that I did not see. The narrative in the third and fourth entries feels pretty self contained.) The movie begins with close-ups of our heroine, played by Lois Ayres, taking a shower while "A Christian Girl's Problems" by the Gleaming Spires plays over the soundtrack, her interiority hinted at with an astute song choice. (It's worth noting that this was not an original song made for the movie.) The structure intersperses her story with a series of interviews with those who knew her: an ex-boyfriend who "had a disagreement about the relationship" (he slept around); a woman speculates that Ayres was "a closet lesbian" and that "she probably went to live in one of those lesbian islands in the Caribbean"; a girl who knew her as a prude back in high school, a priest with a thick accent who offers a eulogy; her brother, who speaks in new age euphemisms and resents that she was the favourite growing up; and a blind ex-boyfriend who claims she was the loveliest person he knew "after Helen Keller". (This last character describes his sex life as very "normal": no peeing or dogs, wouldn't fuck pizzas, etc.) All these people knew her, but they didn't really know her.

The actual story follows her after she breaks up with her boyfriend (over the phone, as he shaves another woman's pubic hair while feigning innocence). She heads for a bar, brushing off a stereotypical black pimp played by Jack Baker who mistakes her for a prostitute, and promptly orders a "taco" (a draught beer, a Bloody Mary, and a draught beer in three separate glasses). Beside her is a man asleep on bar in tuxedo, who turns out to have been stood up at his own wedding. They hook up, leading to a sex scene scored by a blaring saxophone that I assume was practice for Dark's softcore work. The scene ends when the heroine knocks her head against the headboard and wakes up in a pitch black space near a grave. In comes Jack Baker, riding atop a woman, to tell her what the situation is. "You are dead, you got no clothes, and this is hell!"

The rest of the movie follows them going through different rooms, the heroine being unable to comprehend her fate, as they watch the different punishments endured by the denizens of hell. There's the room full of "peepers", virgins doomed to only watch sex for all eternity. (One of them explains: "I showed my tits to a guy to get a Gucci purse. He went off an overpass.") There are characters doomed to fuck until their genitals wear out or are ravaged by venereal disease. Baker gives Ayres a raincoat "to keep the come off", but the moment she forgets about it she finds herself getting gangbanged and promptly has to be rescued by Baker (okay, not that promptly, we get to enjoy this for a few minutes). Along the way we're led to believe from the interviews that the heroine might have a fetish for black men, and the conversation between Ayres and Baker grows increasingly heated and racially charged. This idea culminates in a trip to the "racist room", where a white man with a swastika armband is having a threesome with two women of colour while a white woman is sucking off two black men in tribal makeup. Ayres and Baker have a final confrontation on the subject.

"What about all the black racists?"

"Look bitch, when a black man hits a white man, we don't call it racist!"

"What do you call it then?"

"Smart!"

"That's ridiculous, there are plenty of black racists!"

"No dig, you stupid ass white bitch!"

"Look, you're even one of them, calling me a stupid bitch and a white bitch!"

"We'll you're stupid, you're white and a bitch, so what is your motherfucking problem?"

"You're crazy, negro, and you're one of the sickest people in here!"

"That's right, I'm a crazy negro! I'm so crazy I'll eat my own arm!"

This is a deeply uncomfortable scene, and what follows is even more disturbing, as we learn the true nature of the heroine's relationship with her father, a reveal that Dark plays for maximum shock value in depicting "The Ordeal of the Taboo Breakers".

In some ways this isn't all that different from New Wave Hookers, but Dark's direction seems more purposeful here. The stylized depiction of hell, with its black backgrounds and harsh neon lighting, imbue a real sense of menace into the proceedings. With the exception of two scenes, the sex isn't all that outrageous, but Dark's mise-en-scene has a way of rendering it almost as horror. It's not exactly scary and probably still "does the trick" if you're watching this for those reasons, but there's an undeniable charge here. Likewise, the dark humour and the racial content seem to work in tandem here, and Ayres and Baker really sell their adversarial chemistry. (It's worth noting that even by the standards of the video vixens that appear in Dark's movies, Ayres has an amazing hairdo.) Dark may not have entirely thought out his thesis along these lines, but the movie is provocative in its handling of this content, and unlike New Wave Hookers, not in a way that hurts it. At a combined 2+ hours, this probably runs a bit too long, but it does shape the usual procession of sex scenes into a structure that carries an uneasy momentum that matches the heroine's trepidation. We might not like what we're seeing, but we also can't help but keep looking.

#film #put on your raincoats #movie review #gregory dark #new wave hookers #black throat #white bunbusters #the devil in miss jones 3: a new beginning #the devil in miss jones 4: the final outrage

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smuttyaf · 4 years

Text

Southside Serpent

The teacher was going through the attendance, calling out every name and making sure everyone was available in class or wondering who is coming late. It was third period so no one was surprised if people fluttered in late, but no one expected Calum Hood to walk into class after he missed the many in September.

Words: 5.8k

Rating: R

Request: Yes

The dry bread crunched underneath your teeth, as the feeling of the tasteless fried patty was unpleasantly warm and clammy in your mouth. Your face scrunched up at the bland chicken burger between your hands, which the café labeled as “Spicy” when it was just brittle and unappetizing. You placed the cardboard down on the metallic paper that you unraveled it from and sat back in the navy blue chair of the library, your fingertips grasping your ivory water bottle last minute to wash away the taste.

You sat alone and surrounded by books from different genres, from horror to facts, some with drawings and others with pages just filled with maps and locations. Your eyes gazed amongst the many brown pages, the hard covers and the flimsy paper ones, the view appealing to you as the different colours raging from neon to a burgundy were in your view.

You did not mind spending time in the library, it was quiet and rarely anyone ever came in here, unless to check on the computer about their popularity status or to fake study for their test. Other than that, no one came here out of pure enjoyment like what you did. You loved books, most of the librarians would joke around and say that you have read all of them; you would just your head at their teasing behavior and brush them off, because it certainly was not true.

You arrived at Riverdale High just a month ago and this was your safe heaven. It was sad to say that you did not have any friends, your only friends were the thirty year old librarians who let you eat and drink in the library because they knew the truth too, you were alone.

It is not like you have not been trying to make friends either, it is just difficult moving to a new school, in year eleven when everyone already has their friend group made up. What were you suppose to do? Barge in and make them your friend just because you’re new? It didn’t make sense to the librarians when you explained it to them, but it made sense to you. You did not want to harm any friendships that already existed since the beginning of the school year, which is just how you are. So you remained in the library, as the dust collected on the book shelves and the quiet hum of Sherry as she typed away on the computer.

Evil laughter erupted through the classroom speakers as the introduction of Thriller begin to sound throughout the room. You rolled your eyes at the corny implication that your English teacher did as you took your regular seat in the back of the classroom by the window were you can see the trees that cover themselves in orange, green, and red colour leaves.

You placed your binder, pencil case, and water bottle on the desk before pulling your seat out and taking your place. Your hands stretched and grasped your small black pencil case and unzipped it before placing it down and opening up your binder and flipping through your notes to get to a clean line sheet.

The class grew quiet as his feet shifted through the alignment of desks; his hair was a mess of loose curls, he wore sunglasses even though he was indoors, his clothes were still dark as usual and his personality still seemed like a mystery.

The smell of his cologne came crashing down on you as he took a seat next to you. Your body stiffened, your eyes bulging out of your head for minute realizing what has happened. You took a deep breath that you let out of your nose before piercing your pen to the line paper and beginning to write down the date.

“Is it that noticeable?” You hear the voice next to you whisper while leaning into you, your heart picking up. You let out a small cough, covering your mouth before speaking.

“I mean, you were gone for like a month?” You whisper back, your eyes meeting his gaze for bit. His chocolate eyes bore into yours; not even paying attention to the slides that presented themselves onto the screen. Your eyes tear away from his and let them float back onto the front of the class; your fingers begin to write.

“Oh come on, I was sick.” He excused himself; you shook your head and laughed a bit. Of course he was “sick”.

“Mhm, sure… Did you let the teachers know?” You spoke in hush voice.

“Ah fuck the teachers, the only thing they care about is their money,” He said, his fingers not even inching towards his wooden pencil and ruined notebook that sat upon his desk.

You hum ending the conversation so you could concentrate on what is going on. You did not want to miss anything, your grades were really important to you and you are not going to let a delinquent ruin it for you.

You brush off your beating heart and sweaty palms and concentrate. This was an absolute cliché; of course, one of the bad boys in your local town is seated next to the new girl, should you start making a Wattpad story with overly dramatized characteristics now. You let your eyes roll even at the thought of your preteen self living the life you wanted when you were thirteen years old, you nearly gag at the thought really.

In class, your teacher did a presentation about what the class will be reading in the next week as this would be the second book that your class has read altogether ever since the school year started, and it was only October.

The many people in your class were absolutely exhausted with the fact that it seemed that you were getting nonstop books, which was true but you did not mind it one bit. You loved it really, it made you spend more time focusing on your assignments and paying close attention to detail in everything that you did that left your updated report card making you pass with flying colours.

45 minutes past in your class room, your eyes peeling to look up at the clock; the class begins to pack up, the shuffling of chairs, pencil cases closing, and the sound of books stacking on top of each other before the closing sentence of your English teachers lips release to the class to have a nice day and do not forget the homework online.

Your heart picks up when you realize your preteen dream did not come true, you let a relieve sigh slip out of your nose as you stand from your chair and grab your books, your body leaving the classroom as you walk a few steps deeper into the hallway and go to your locker.

Your fingers circling around the knob of your lock and unlocking it, your arms putting your books into your locker before grabbing your art bag with your prize possessions so you can head to your next class.

“Jesus Christ, can you please help me,” You hear a voice exaggerate next you, and you think nothing of it, thinking it’s the person next you who is talking to their friend. So when you close your eyes and turn to head to your awaited destination you bump into a broad chest.

“So now you’re deaf and blind?” He questions and you immediately step back, your cheeks growing red as you let a scoff leave your lips.

“That’s not very nice to say,” You speak while looking up at him, his eyes rolling before landing onto your damaged paint splattered bag.

“You paint?” He says with surprise, his bottom lip caving into his mouth before letting his eyes trail away from the bag and back to yours.

“Uh, yeah,” You whisper before letting your gaze hit the ground, it’s quiet for a few moments as you hear the sound of his breath, lockers slamming shut and sneakers hitting against the ground.

“Listen I need your help… Sorry I never got your name,” He whispers back, your eyes still never the leaving the ground as you hear the chime of the bell telling everyone to head to class.

“Y/N,” You state letting your eyes peer back into his, your body backing away from his to get out of his personal space.

“So I need to head to class,” You continue, your hand peeling away from your side and point it towards the direction you should be heading in.

“Okay but I need you to help me,” He sighs, his brown orbs looking like puppy dog eyes.

“Help with what,” You say with exhaustion, the last thing you wanted to see yourself in was a part of this bad boy’s scene.

“Can I please get your notes, I need to study because this ass hat is making write two unit tests by the end of the week and I don’t know shit.” His body is slouching and his shoulders drop as his back curves in and his body slams against the lockers, peering at you dramatically.

“Everybody knows you don’t know shit,” You say, voice tasteless and strain as you look at him with a straight face.

“Thanks for that bit of encouragement.” He says while a half smile tugs at the ends of his lips as he shakes his head slightly.

“It’s the truth.” You state, your fingers rubbing against the stitches of denim in your jeans as you look at his lazy state. “Meet me back here by the end of the day and I’ll give you all my notes.” You say, your body beginning to rock on the balls of your heels as you feel your oversized cardigan brush against your clothed thighs.

“I need more then notes,” He sighs, voice annoyed as he looks at you, his eyes going back to the same one of a new born pup.

“Well that is all you’re going to get.” You say, eyebrows rose as you turn on your heels and beginning to walk to your class. Please, let this be a dream you thought to yourself at this stupid moment.

The pads of your fingertips brush against your cleansed face as you just finished rubbing your heavenly scented moisturizer into it. Your routine finally finished as you stepped away from your desk and fell onto your bed. Your head falling against your soft pillows as you let a sigh fall from your lips.

You let your feet dangle off your bed as you hear the usual chime from your phone, your upper body immediately flexing up and grasping it from your side and unlocking it, your fingers traveling to your messages to see an unknown number.

Hey

hi. who is this?

You forgot about me already

It’s Calum

how did you get my number?

I know people.

Your fingers dance around your phone screen as you suck in an eager breath. Who could he have possibly got your number from? You did not know anyone from this school nor have you made a friend. That causes a chill to run down your spine before finally coming together with message to write back.

did you need anything?

Yes actually. I was wondering if we could meet up to talk about your notes

why?

I just said why.

my notes has everything you need to know.

Anyways… so your place after school tomorrow? Great

calum i’m serious

What makes you think I’m not?

You leave the conversation there as you pull your phone away from your face and toss it back where it was before. You shook your head a bit, a smile stretching on your lips.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” You say, your hand holding open the door for Calum. His socked feet moved against the wooden floor boards that barely creaked under his steps, you watched as he shuffles deeper into your room, his fingers feeling over the end of your bed frame.

Four walls are painted with a rosy cream shade as your drawings and paintings covered every inch were your bed leaned against it; your desk was on the opposite side with even more art pieces on that wall, your plants were in the corner growing healthy as ever as the sun light shorn brightly through your room that your healing crystals that laid amongst your dresser made beautiful colours cast around your room. You had fairy lights loop through your bed frame and along the tapestry that was pinned to your ceiling, as well as led ones stripped to the bottom of your bed spread that was plain white with grey accents like your fluffy pillows and sheep felt blanket.

“Your room is neat,” Calum says while turning around to look at you, his teeth showing in his smile as he kept his gaze on you for a bit before wandering over to your drawings.

“I like this one,” He says, his body moving across your room and feeling over the art piece that had a head with flowers coming out of it while the face of the head had disoriented features.

“Thanks,” You say while placing your bag by the end of your bed, taking your books out and laying down.

“What does it mean, if you don’t mind me asking?” Calum continues his back never turning away as he still continues to take it in. You shrug your shoulders a bit while peeling your books open and sorting them on your bed.

“Well it kind of means how beautiful minds are in the saddest and insane people, I really shouldn’t say insane but…”

“I know what you mean,” Calum finishes for you before turning around with a straight face his eyes looking down at your state and the books on your bed. “Oh so we’re starting already? No refreshments, snacks?” He says while squinting his eyes making his way towards you.

“Shut up and sit down so we can get started because the last time I recalled you were the one who invited yourself to my house,” You say, your eyes looking at him with a pointed look and he lets a sigh leave his lips.

“You got me.” He huffs before plopping down on your bed swinging his bag from off his shoulders and peeling it open to grab his contents and beginning to start this studying process with you.

You knew the notes that you wrote out for yourself like the back of your hand, you knew everything that was going on in the course because you paid attention and tried extremely hard not to miss any days like the curly haired boy who sat next to you, listening to the words spewing out of your mouth explaining and breaking everything down that happened in the two units that he missed.

As you spoke to Calum you watched as his facial expression seem so captivated by how you spoke, how his eyelashes were lengthy, his lips so plump, with narrow tan cheeks but yet a rugged appeal. His curls came over his forehead, as his bushy eyebrows framed his brown orbs, and in that moment you really wanted to draw his face which extremely surprised you because you never done a self portrait before but his features are so extremely beautiful that you couldn’t help it cross your mind, you wanted to take a picture of him like this, in this moment to look over every feature and sketch it into your book and pin it on your wall.

“Hello?” Calum says, his hand waving in your face as a smile tore at your lips.

“Oh sorry,” You state, your cheeks growing red as you focus back onto the books in front of you.

“It’s fine, I need a break, this book sounded extremely boring,” Calum huffs as he repositions himself and straightens his back out on the bed, the smell of his cologne filling up your nostrils.

“I liked the book,” You say softly, your eyes tearing away from the hard cover and looking at Calum as he rolls his eyes.

“What did you like so much about it?” He speaks, his eyes flickering over your body as he lets his fingers grasp at his knees and take a deep breath.

“I like how she writes, it flows really well, and I like the plot, it’s a different yet a gross experience. If I’m being honest I did not like it at first, I thought it was a weird concept but then it started to grow on me and certain incidents made me want to put down the book but also wanting to figure out what happens next. It grew on me.” You say while closing the red book written by Margaret Atwood with thick brown pages that run smoothly over your finger tips.

“Snacks?” You say while climbing off of your bed and stretching your limps, your burgundy crop tank top lifting a bit as your knitted black mini skirt clings to your hips, your black cardigan feeling over your pantyhose thighs as you slip on your bunny slippers while peering at Calum.

“Yes please!” He says, a wide smile on his lips as his eyes beam, you shake your head for a moment before turning and leaving your room.

Your feet carried you to the kitchen were you made snacks for you and Calum. You cut up cubes of cheese and made a plate of crackers with fruits on the side, you also grasped two water bottles and juice boxes because you did not know what Calum was craving.

You didn’t know what this was, yes it was just a study session but honestly would anything change after this. Would you consider Calum a friend? Of course you wouldn’t because you knew what it was. It was just a moment so he can catch up what he missed, and after this he’ll probably miss another month of school and then come back to you and ask you once again if you would help him, and honestly you would. Calum was a nice guy; he was funny and sarcastically rude that you found him attractive in that sense, his hair was adorable and it seemed as if Calum’s chubby cheeks and wide smile were crafted by cherubs.

A part of you kind of wanted this moment to last forever, this was your first time ever talking and hanging with someone at Riverdale High. It felt nice finally to talk to someone, to share your opinion on what you thought about certain things and to also have someone in your presence, someone to talk to and joke around with even if it were just a moment of your life. After this things will go back to how it was before, lunch in the library and keeping your head down and doing art quietly in the back of your art class as Sales blasted through your headphones.

You walked back into your room and placed the refreshments on the bed and looked up at Calum as he was back on his feet and roaming around your room, looking art your drawings and letting his fingers slide against them.

“Please do not ruin any,” You say jokingly as you hop back onto your bed and pop a marble cheese cube in your mouth.

“They’re so engaging… I honestly haven’t seen any like this before,” He said, his eyes roaming amongst the many drawings with disoriented features, bulging or tired eyeballs, cheeks flush pink or red, even some of your drawings looking so morbid and almost scare as begging an onlooker to ask you what was going through your mind when you decided to make this art piece.

“Thank you,” You laugh lightly as you chew into the cheese as you grab your phone and go onto your social media.

“No really, these are so different… You’re really cool,” Calum says while turning and sitting down by the end of your feet, your eyes tearing away from your phone and looking at his lean body as he laid along your bed, his black shirt raising at his hips to show the happy trail leading down his belly button.

“I never got that one before,” You say while tearing your eyes away and looking at Calum, his arm peeling away from his side and grasping two grapes into his hands and popping them into his mouth, his eyes tearing away from the green globes and peering into your eyes.

“When did you move here?” Calum ask, his hand coming down to his chin to rub the naked skin there.

“July,” You speak your feet digging into your bed spread but soon to feel different as you accidently dig them into Calum’s calf, you don’t let it phase you though, he was warm and you were feeling cold. His eyes flickered from your eyes to your foot, and then back onto your eyes, his lashes fluttering as the end of his lips tug for a moment.

“Not bad? Where did you go to school before?” He questions again, his eyes running down to the three necklaces on your chest that all hold meaning to you, while also looking at your pierced ears.

“I was actually home schooled,” You continue, your eyes turning away from Calum’s as you grab a bottle of water and turn the cap.

“Home schooled? So did you have any friends?” Calum inquires, his head shaking slightly as his bushy eyebrows push together.

“Of course I had friends, lots of people think just because you’re homeschooled you just stay inside the house all the time,” You laugh as you take a sip of your water. “Yeah I had friends, I miss them a lot.” You say, your eyes looking over your room before turning towards Calum and smiling a small smile.

“Do you still talk to them?” He continues even further.

“Yes I still talk to them, god, so many questions,” You laugh, your eyes rolling, and you watch as Calum raises both of his hands to his chest in surrender.

“Sorry,” He said quietly, his eyes gazing away from yours, as you see a pink shade spread along Calum’s structure cheeks.

“I’m joking,” You snicker while reaching over and punching Calum in the shoulder and you’re completely caught off guard when you feel the hand that was glue to Calum’s chest reach over and grasp your arm in his and bring you closer to his face. Your cheeks growing immediately warm as you’re deeper in Calum’s personal space that you never thought you would be in.

“Ha ha,” He says bland and fake, causing you heart to hammer against your chest before you feel Calum press his soft lips onto yours, and you were not lying when you say you were completely taken back from this action, your eyebrows came to furrow together as your lips were still locked to his, your eyes were wide open before you felt the saliva drip down Calum’s lips onto yours before tearing away from him.

His eyes were glossy, lips resembling them as he looked at you with a cloudy gaze, and it was this luster state that Calum was in that caused your heart to stab in your chest as you leaned back over and pressed your lips against Calum’s again, your tongue swiping against his top lip as he welcomed you so lovingly into his mouth, his tongue wrapping around yours and tasting the sweetness of your mouth.

You let Calum shuffle his lean body off of your duvet and onto you, his arms lying by the sides of your head as you let him hover on top of you, his lips never leaving yours as his neck craned down and kissed you deeper and deeper that you felt like you were sinking and his lips were the only thing bringing you to shore. Your hand that was free from his grasp ran down his back flowingly as he continued to pepper kisses against your now bruised lips before peppering them down the sides of your neck, his lips running over the beauty marks scattered on your chest as you felt your cardigan and his leather jacket rub against your expose skin.

Your breath came out rushed and quick, your body colliding into his broad chest as he continue to pepper kisses along your collar bones, his eyes peering into yours and you didn’t want to look into his eyes so you let them trail up at the tapestry that rested on your ceiling that held your unlit fairy lights through it.

“You’re okay with this?” Calum questioned, and you felt his hard gaze on yours, and you didn’t want to look at him, a part of you just wanted this moment to happen and you wanted to get over it smoothly so that you could just think of it as the moment where you had sex with this bad boy in your room and there was nothing else left between the both of you.

But Calum had other plans; he didn’t want you to think this was just a moment, that you were just some plot he had in his notebook as if this was just something he did, later you realized that it meant more to him then it was to you.

His arm tore away from the side of your head and he let his fingers grasp your chin roughly in his hands, even though his eyes were glossy and held such a radiance of lust they were hard and cold, beckoning for you to be honest with him because that is all he simply asked of you.

“Are you okay with this?” He questioned again, this time his voice soft and assured, he wanted you to feel like you can back out anytime. Just because he held a title at the school didn’t mean that he could just kiss a girl and put his hands down her pants just because he was supposedly known.

In that moment you felt your heart lunge forward, your brain rambling on about cute this moment was, the preteen section of your brain speaking in its high pitch voice as it persuades you to fall in love with him, fall in love with the way he kisses you, and how his leather jacket causes creases in your skin, fall in love with the way his fingers are playing in your hair, and fall in love with the way he’s asking if your okay in the most vulnerable position you have ever been in.

You nod your head and lean up towards him, pressing a kiss against his lips, your eyes finally closing and welcoming the feeling you were pushing away for what felt like the longest of time.

You and Calum kissed for a moment, your tongues swapping together and tasting each other, feeling the way your bodies rubbed against each other, your finger tips feeling the creases of his skin and his lips learning the curves of yours.

Soon enough he pulled away and let his lips wander down your body, his hand tearing away from your head and running down the expanse of your skin, his fingers feeling over your tank top before running down your thighs and pushing your knitted skirt against your hips, the material getting tighter and tighter as it bunches up there. Your eyes peered down towards were Calum laid against your heat, his mouth breathing against your core and you couldn’t help the twinge of nerves racking up in your stomach.

His mouth breathed against your heat, his head leaning into your crotch as he breathed you in, the feeling of his tongue pushing against your layered core caused a moan to trial out of your mouth due to the small friction.

Your hands pulled away from your thigh and rested them into his ringlets of curls, his head still burring itself into your heat as his hips rutted into your sheets.

Quickly his hands slipped away from your hips and ripped your pantyhose, his fingers soon pulling your panties to the side as he let his mouth cup your silky self into his mouth as he let his tongue feel over your walls.

His lips smacking against yours as they were extremely wet against his, the feeling of his tongue wandering everywhere imaginable had your mind in the gutter, the sheer feeling of excitement ran down your spine and the feeling of the seductive enjoyment satisfying you that you let your fingers sink into his hair and push his head deeper into him. Your hips moving against his mouth as you feel his tongue run over your bundles of nerves over and over again that you couldn’t help the moans slipping out of your lip.

The best part of this moment was that Calum let you use him in the aspect to fill your needs, he let you take control and let your hips dance against his tongue, his lips gliding against yours and tasting the sweet nectar of your body run along his lips and drip into his mouth like milk and honey he use to have when he was a boy and couldn’t fall his asleep.

He loved the way he lost himself in the taste of you, never knowing that he could taste something so sweet and appetizing in his life that he kept on moaning against your heated skin. He loved this; he loved the way it dripped down his neck, slobbered against his cheeks, he love to cling to your clit like he was sucking your clothed nipples.

Your hips were now circling along his tongue as he let it laid flat against your core, his index finger of his free hand coming down and now toying with your bundle of nerves, that only caused your back to buck off the bed, your fingers tear themselves out of his head as a long moan trailed out of your mouth as this foreign feeling shuttered down your thigh and curled your toes.

“Calum… Calum… Calum…” Your mouth whispered on repeat as you felt your chest expand and let a cool breeze slip through your bones and out through your mouth as you unwrapped yourself against the brown eyed boy tongue.

Calum was letting his tongue continue to lap around your lips as you felt your body contract, your hips immediately tearing away from Calum’s as you tried your hardest to move your body away from his sinful lips. He let his hands go softly around your hips as he now peppered kisses against your matted sweat body, your hands tearing away from his curls and falling to his neck, your hands carrying him to your lips as you press kisses against his, your lips immediately pulling away as you laugh at the mess of fluid on his face.

“Sorry,” Calum chuckles lightly while letting his fingers rest in your hair, but you only shake your head before pressing a kiss against his lips before letting the palms of your hand wipe away the mess on his cheeks.

“Hm,” Calum hums, his eyes closing for a moment as he his face looks so relax, your eyebrows furrow together before peering down between the both of you, a small wet spot being sported against his denim jeans.

“Did you?” You ask, not finishing your sentence as you see his eyes flick open quickly his cheeks go blush again.

“I’m so sorry,” He says, his head falling into the crane of your neck as you only giggle at his embarrass state.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” You say, your fingers feeling over the leather of his jacket as your head turns to face Calum’s. You let your bruised lips press a small peck against his skin while feeling him under your rough fingertips.

You both spent a few moments in silence before Calum twisted his body, his head turning away from yours before leaning up on his hips, his upper body turning and looking down at you.

“Shall we keep on studying now we got that out of the way?” He says, a smile leaving his lips, and you just laugh while shaking your head.

“Sure, but why don’t we clean ourselves up a bit.” You say, your body now raising up and looking at Calum with a pointed glare.

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“Would please get your fatass off of my locker,” You state while trying to get your locker open but it immediately slamming as Calum continues to lie against it.

“You’re not listening to me!” He exclaims, his arms slamming down at his side as his notebook and pencil were fitted between his hands.

“Because you’re going to do fine, stop worrying,” You say, your body finally giving up and looking up at Calum tiredly.

“How do you know that?” He asks, his eyes looking lost and uneasy as you see the nerves etched into his face.

“Calum, we studied all this week after school, you remembered everything really good. If you still don’t think you’re going to do good go over the cue cards but I really need to finish my art project so please would you stop bothering me for a just moment.” You state, your eyes looking up at him tired of hearing him put himself down when you knew Calum was going to do perfectly fine.

“Okay… okay, okay, fine. I’m sorry,” He says, his head falling down as he moves his body off of your locker and you sigh while finally peeling it open and grabbing your art bag.

“Can I get a kiss for good luck?” He questions just as the bell chimes and you just roll your eyes at him.

“Go to class,” You say before slamming your locker and turning to head to your art class, but you soon feel Calum gasp your elbow in his fingertips, causing you to stop for a moment as he plants a kiss behind your ear, your head immediately turning as he quickly pulls away and rests them on his chest a cheesy grin on his lips.

“Wish me luck.” He laughs before turning into your English classroom leaving you feeling happy for once since you got to Riverdale High.

281 notes · View notes

sloppy-butcher · 4 years

Text

Mechanical Memories

Amanda Young (The Pig) X Survivor! Reader

Notes: Just a lil fanfic idea I’ve been dying to try write. Amanda is a complex character and I’ve been chomping at the bit to try to write for her! maybe it goes well?? idk? I tried keeping the reader gender-neutral but if I’ve messed up I’ll change it!

You have many enemies lurking in the Fog of the Entity. Yet one of them sticks out the most for being the most savage and brutal. A woman who runs around with a Pig mask on her head. But what lies under that rotten flesh is something, or someone, that seems all too familiar.

word count: 3148

TW: mentions of death and self-harm

She’s hated you from the first moment she saw you. Whenever you were unfortunate enough to be dragged into a trail with her it would always end in either of two ways. Sometimes she would single you out among your friends, driving you like cattle away from your safety in numbers until you were all alone with only her and that knife of hers. An easy target. This was her offer for a quick death.

Other times, you were not so lucky. She would kill everyone else and then kill you. It would be a long, drawn-out trial, one which would be filled with the anguished screams of the others as you failed to help them followed by your equally long and drawn-out death. If you were cunning enough and not in an altruistic mood, you would escape having used your friends as bait and diversions. But, of course, the trade of 3 dead for 1 escape is not a good business model and in the end, you’d always buckle and succumb to your stupid human desire to help others. Those eyes of black, sunken beneath the rotten pig’s head glared at you with undeniable, unquestionable hatred.

You could never understand why or from where such loathing had stemmed and for a long time you had bitterly accepted that you would never know. It was their job to kill you after all. Why expect them or her to show anything other than pure, unadulterated malice. But something was off about her kind of hatred. There was something in how she would chase you, feverishly and unrelenting, and in how she seemed to take immense pride in your downfall. Watching you suffer seemed like a drug to her but you assumed it was like that for all the other bastards in this hell-hole. Until you realized that with her it was different.

It was never like this with the others. With them you could feel why they hunted you; some for sport, others a meal and a few simply because they were told too. Obedient dogs, all of them. Except her. She never played by the rules and she never liked it when you didn’t either.

She would have hated you even more if she knew what you were doing. It was so quiet, the night was cold and the woods around you was seeped with fog and darkness. Right now you weren’t in a trail, rather you were in the in-between time. The moments where you would be allowed safety and rest while you waited for other victims to join you around that eternal campfire. But you weren’t by that fire of warmth and solace. Instead, you were walking deeper and deeper into that ever-expanding, ever-darkening forest.

You don’t know what exactly compelled you to all of a sudden get up and just start walking. You had no destination in mind, no motive and no reason to leave the circle of fire-light. You knew it was a fruitless effort wandering this wood, every time one dares to venture in they are always turned right back. Be it either the cold, the lack of true direction, fear for what may lurk in that darkness or some other-worldly forces that drove those back to the campfire, none had ever escaped the forest. But you kept walking.

You looked down at your hand and saw the jigsaw piece. A disgusting memento cut from, presumably, the skin of a person. The piece burned in your palm and seemed to almost glow under the cast of pale moonlight. From where you had acquired this distasteful piece was unknown but you had a suspicion. It was from her. But you couldn’t seem to remember when she had given it to you. It confused you. Made your brain rot with its presence and possible implications. Why did you have this? Why would she, of all things, give this to you? The jigsaw piece made you think. And it made you walk.

Your twisted desire to understand the purpose of such a grotesque keepsake pushed you forward into the forest. It put fire under your feet and seemed alive as it led you through the quiet trees. Something about the jigsaw piece... was odd. Still moist with blood it looked almost familiar. But you pushed that thought aside and kept walking on. Step after step, foot before foot. Weaving through trees and pushing through small bushes. You had been walking for so long that your mind had begun to wander away from you. You were barely paying attention to your surroundings, everything just looked the same under that half-fill moon, until your foot hit concrete.

Your eyes focused and you saw the forest floor give way to cracked cement beneath your feet. Raising your head you were surprised to see the Gideon Meat Factory stand before you in all its glory. You didn’t actually believe you’d make it here. With all the stories you had heard about how the woods never let anyone leave the camp-fire, you just assumed that eventually, you would end up back where you started. Yet here you were, bathed in the flickering lights of the warehouse. But you didn’t give yourself time to ponder the small details nor gawk at the building's outward might. You were here now and she was waiting for you inside.

It was easy enough to squeeze through the large metal door and it was even easier to find your way around the interior. Its layout was exactly the same as it was in trails and you had had enough of them to know this place like the back of your hand. However, it wasn’t easy finding her. You had nothing to alert you to her presence, no heartbeat, no ominous aura, nothing. You had been searching for her for several minutes, trekking through the place as quiet and nimble as you could. Looking in corners and in all those little hiding spots you could remember that were downstairs. You were almost ready to give up when you stumbled upon her.

It was the room above the shit-covered bathroom. The walls were lined with pig-masks and designs for other torturous machines. In the center was a work table, on it were those signature devices, reverse bear traps the others called them. And working at the table, with their back towards you, was her. Wiry black hair cascaded down the shoulders of a red-coated woman.

She didn’t seem to notice that you were there, your ability to remain silent impressing you. You were better than you thought. But now the problem was how to announce your appearance to her without triggering her attack mode. You considered clearing your throat. Or taking a more dramatic approach and just outright speaking. In the end, however, you didn’t have to decide anything. For she had already turned around to face you.

You froze. There was quite a distance between you two but even from where you were you could have sworn you saw her jump at the sight of you. Maybe you surprised her. The only reason she turned around was not to greet you but simply to retrieve a part for her project. Now she was stuck under your stare, shocked to see you in this place.

There was a long silence between the two of you, in that time no one dared move. ‘So what now?’, you thought. ‘What do I say to her? Or do I just leave? Would she even let me leave?’ Again that decision was taken from you as you felt your own right hand move as if on its own accord. It reached out in front of you and dropped the jigsaw piece to the floor. Suddenly you knew what to say. You knew what to do.

“Who is that from?” Your voice carried around the metal walls of the warehouse. You were surprised, and if not a little grateful, that it sounded so normal and loud. She, however, didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes fixed solely on you. Under ordinary circumstances, you would have been terrified beneath that glare of hers. But now wasn’t the time to be scared. You had to fake it, fake your confidence and conviction until she did something.

She didn’t. She never moved and never broke your stare. But as the tension built up, so did your understanding. She didn’t need to speak to give you an answer. You already knew who the jigsaw piece was from. You just didn’t want to admit it.

“No!” You cried. Your outburst echoed impressively around the whole building. “No. It can’t be from me!” You began patting your arms and legs as if to check yourself for something. “I’m not... missing anything! I...” your breathing hitched and you began to feel yourself becoming unhinged. Desperate you look up at her. “I haven’t died. I-I’d remember if I had! I’d remember if you had cut that”, you pointed the flesh on the ground, “from me.”

You took a moment to bring your racing mind back under your control and as you did you were hit with the realization that you were wrong. Many times you had watched your friends get butchered by the killers yet somehow they’d always end up back at the camp-fire safe and healthy. No one ever seemed to remember that just hours before they were hacked into by a knife or someone’s claws. You assumed they just didn’t want to think about it but... it makes so much more sense if they just forgot. No one ever remembered their death, not even you.

You felt your hands begin to sweat. “How many times?” Your voice now was barely above a breathless whisper. Again she gave no verbal response, only watched as you came to your own conclusion. A lot. You felt your hands begin to shake. “All this time. All this death. And...” Your eyes began to swell. “I’m still not happy.’’ You had to stop yourself from crying. You could feel the wave start to crescendo and you knew it wasn’t long before you’d break and drown. But you couldn’t do that here. Not in front of her. A flame burst inside you and gave you the strength to keep the thoughts at bay therefore not offering her the front row seat to the show of your fall into despair. You wanted to spite her.

So you bit down of your sadness and, with newfound fire, scowled at her. She blinked in amused surprised. Although rage burned in your heart, you weren’t going to give her the satisfaction of watching you go up in flames. You were under control now, total control. You let your anger give you strength but you did not let it consume you.

“Why do you hate me so much Pig?” You asked, your tone holding no emotion save for tired indifference. You were done playing games, tip-toeing around the fact that this whole situation is one big fuck up. You were tired and you just wanted answers. You couldn’t help but pass a small chuckle at her expected silence. “Of course, I know the answer to that as well.” Her interested peaked, she cocked her head ever so slightly to the side as an indication for you to elaborate. She was going to allow this, for the time being, you provided entertainment for her, a well-needed distraction from her otherwise mundane work.

“I’m not stupid despite what you might believe.” You were picking up steam now, the words seeming to pour out of you like an unchecked facet. “I know it’s your job to kill us. The other killers like you do it because they like it, watching us all suffer. But you, are different.” You pause and cast your eye over to her, ensuring that she gave you her whole attention. “You hate me specifically. I’ve seen how you look at me. Forgive me if I sound egotistical but I cannot deny the way you seem to dislike me so much more than the others. You only ever want to see me suffer. You couldn’t care less about the others.”

The room hummed with the ever-flickering electrical lights and you watched her intently, waiting for a sign. She remained still but you could hear her breathing. Heavy and filled with anticipation. She was eager to hear your answer. “Those eyes, that look of utter angry and loathing, I’ve seen it all before. Its the look I give myself when I look in the mirror.” Pig raised her head and narrowed her eyes, where were you going with this?

“You hate me,” you swallowed, suddenly nervous at the prospect of revealing your ideas. “You hate me because I’m just like you.” This seemed to have stirred something within her as she inhaled slowly, puffing out her chest and squaring her shoulders. She didn’t like that accusation at all. It was a bold statement and her mannerisms indicated that you needed to provide proof for such a claim. You quickly obliged. “We’re the same, you and I. We both hate ourselves. We sit alone in self-made isolation and we drown ourselves in our own hatred. But, I suppose, the reason you stand there,” you point to her as if there was an imaginary line separating you and her, “and I stand here is that you took that hatred and dispelled it onto other people. And I...” You trailed off. Taking a deep breath you continued, you voice light with airy resentment.

“But I see that even after killing and hurting other people, after indulging yourself in what you thought would help you, you still have enough self-hatred left to...” your eyes trailed down her arm. She quickly shoved her hand behind her back and growled.

“Leave.’‘ Her voice boomed. It caught you so off guard that she even spoke to you that for a moment it didn’t even register what she said. Regardless you had come too far to just walk out now. So you remained put. She growled again. “Leave. Now!” Her voice was scratchy and deep, riddled with what sounded like neglect, like she hadn’t spoken in years.

“Or what?’‘ You were getting cocky now, “You’ll kill me? I think if you really wanted me dead you would have done so the moment I-”. Suddenly you felt something hard strike your chest, knocking the air out of your lungs. She had lunged at you, closing the space between you two in one swift step. With incredible strength she tackled you to the ground, your head hitting the floor with a dull thud and making your vision blurry and leaving everything smelling like copper. She loomed over your chest, blade no longer hidden beneath her sleeve.

“You know nothing of me!’‘ Her voice oozed with an animalistic need for violence and blood. “How dare you come here and make such statements! You know nothing.’‘ She was breathing heavily now, unhinged and letting her emotions run away with her. You looked up at her and saw yourself looking back. You saw a person with the ability to hurt and the ability to do horrible things. She was in a dark place but if your theory was correct and she was truly like you, then she could come back. Or at least, try. You sighed.

“So I was right. We really are alike.” You expected her to end you, to drag that knife across your throat and end you but she didn’t. The Pig’s eyes widened as she realized she was playing right into your trap. She was in the same state of hysterics that you were in just moments before. She looked down at you on the floor between her legs and wanted nothing more to kill you. But she didn’t. For some reason, she could no longer find the will to hate you anymore.

Slowly the Pig’s breathing regulated and her body lost its stiff tension. ‘This is all so stupid’, she thought, ‘This kid, this stupid little brat... has come all this way just to see me?’ She looked down at you and saw no fear in your eyes. There was nothing, no contempt or resilience. Only exhaustion and something she knew all too well, the look of someone who didn’t care if they died. You weren’t scared, you were just here and you were just waiting. How she envied that, how you didn’t appear to care about dying. About losing your legacy and being a disappointment. She didn’t want to fade, she was given new life and wanted nothing more than to preserve it. But she went too far and let it consume her until she was left with nothing but the hatred for herself because she knew that she will never be good enough for him. Or for you.

She didn’t want to think about all those horrible things she had done to you. She couldn’t bear the thought of it all. She didn’t deserve this. She was immoral, unjust and a failure. Her head began to swell with all the self-directed detest and you watched as she began to slip away back into that dark place. You needed to pull her back somehow. You needed to keep her here long enough so that she could find herself again. You reached and gently touched the hand clenched around the neck of your shirt. She filched at your fingers and snapped her head towards you. For a moment you thought she was going to attack you but instead all you saw was...

“Brown.” You whispered. She blinked, confused.

“What did you say?”

“Brown.” You repeated just as vague as the first time. “I always thought your eyes were empty and black but they’re brown.” The Pig gawked at you, disbelieving and utterly shocked. Eventually, she let out a breathless laugh.

“You’re fucking crazy.” She sighed and stood up. Surprisingly she offered you a hand. After a moment's hesitation, you took it. “Just like me.”

The next time you encountered The Pig was in a trail. You had been preparing yourself for the worst but nothing too brutal or devastating happened. It was ordinary, well as ordinary as things could be in a place like this. When she eventually downed you and stuck her head into the jaws of that metal contraption, she seemed to linger above you. You inhaled sharply when you felt a hand slip into your back jean pocket. It was her. You didn’t need to see what she had given you in order to know what it was. Another jigsaw piece. She wanted you to come back.

The thought of returning to her alone and without the judgment of the cosmic ‘thing’ that drove her to madness ignited something inside you. And you couldn’t help but feel a small smile tug at the corners of your lips.

#dead by daylight #dbd #dbd writings #dbd The Pig #Amanda young #dbd x reader #tried my best but still failed

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whumpitywhumpwhump · 4 years

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Here’s Mafia Week Day 7! Prompt: Vendetta.

There’s a bit where they discuss homophobia briefly, and also there’s some death mentioned too (specifically of a pregnant person).Oh, and a brief mention/reference to a bad childhood home (implied child abuse, but nothing explicit here).

Beck didn’t leave his apartment for two days. He also didn’t hear from Simon.

Instead, he sat on his couch, icing his face, clutching a pillow against his aching chest. Usually after a good beatdown, the pain made it too difficult to entertain thoughts, but this time the panic was cutting cleanly through all other sensations. Where was Simon? Was he ok? Did Pat even know yet? How long would it be until he found out? And after that, would he piece together the truth about him and Simon?

If it were any other family that had gotten ahold of the briefcase, Beck thought bitterly, it would have been alright—survivable, at least. But the Connells? They’ve been the enemies for decades, long before Beck even joined up. Back when he was still a toddler three states away, hiding from his parents as they smashed dishes against walls and screamed, Pat and his wife Mirabel were expecting a child—an heir to the family business.

Simon told him the whole story one night, while they were sitting in Beck’s car, maybe three months after they’d started dating.

“How come Pat never married or had his own kids? He always calls you his heir and stuff, why not have his own?”

“He was married once, but it didn’t end well for Aunt Mirabel.”

“Wait, really? What happened?”

“Aunt Mirabel was a fierce woman and ran as much of the business as Uncle Pat did. From what everyone says, she was nothing like Ma. My mother is great, but she would never be willing to go head-to-head with, say, the head of the Bertinessis or something. Aunt Mirabel would walk right in, and they’d be scared of her. Even after she got pregnant. You don’t have to guess why Uncle Pat loved her so much. Nick used to tell me about the two of them together, what Uncle Pat was like back then. He was… warmer, apparently. Not with anyone else, just with her.

Anyway, she was like, 5 months along or something, right? And Uncle Pat’s got this sting planned on the Connells, at one of their old hideouts, a seafood place down by the dock. And everything was going just as planned, until one of their people escaped the hit, and took matters into his own hands. It was the Connell heir at the time, this kid named Joel. A lot of his relatives died in the hit, so he decided to strike back, right where it hurt. He came to Uncle Pat’s house and started shooting through the windows—this was his old house, not the one you’ve seen. My uncle wasn’t home, because he was waiting at the deli for the report after the hit. By the time he got home, Aunt Mirabel was… well, he took her to the hospital, and they couldn’t do anything for her or the baby.”

“That’s terrible.”

“He couldn’t remarry—that’s why I’m his heir. A blood nephew, next best thing to a son of his own. It’s also why he hates the Connells so much. He’s basically had a vendetta against them ever since then. Anything they’re involved is immediately life and death, no negotiations, no second chances, nothing. Which, I don’t agree, necessarily, but I get it, you know?”

“Yeah, makes sense.”

Beck hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now—well, now, that vendetta put a target on Simon’s head. And, he supposed, on his.

The idea of falling in love with Simon hadn’t seemed that dangerous before it happened, or even while he was falling. It was only after that he realized the implications. Again, Simon had to spell it out for him.

“My uncle can’t know we’re dating.”

“Wait, what? Why not? I though he was ok with gay people—isn’t Mad Dog gay?”

“Oh no, Uncle Pat’s not homophobic or anything, he doesn’t really care about that stuff. Like, my mom dated a few women back in the day. It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

“Well… I’m his heir.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“I’m the closest blood relative in the next generation, you know?”

“Yeah?”

“So one day, I’ll need an heir.”

“Makes sense, but—”

“A blood heir. I need to make a kid. Biologically.”

“But Uncle Pat chose you, and you’re his nephew, not his son.”

“True. But I don’t have any siblings, so I can’t choose a niece or nephew. It has to be my kid, or at least, it has to be under Uncle Pat’s rules at least. Once he dies, I’m just gonna do what I want to, but for now, he can’t know. You can’t let him know, Beck. He will kill you if he thinks you’re a threat to the family line. I’m serious, ok?”

Simon wasn’t serious often, but then again, he never fidgeted either, and when he asked Beck to keep their relationship secret, he was curling and uncurling his fingers in his lap. So Beck had nodded.

“I won’t say a word.”

And he hadn’t. Beck had done everything in his power to keep Pat from finding out about them, because he didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want anything to happen to Simon. But now, if Pat killed Simon, and he figured out that the reason Simon screwed up was a secret relationship with Beck? Well, in short, they were both fucked.

Normally, Beck could keep his calm. But he also usually heard from his boyfriend pretty quickly when things were dangerous because Simon knew he’d worry.

Two days, and not a single text or call from Simon—that was not good news.

Beck pulled himself up from the couch, stifling a groan as his ribs shifted. They still hurt like hell, but he’d just take another ibuprofen and ignore them. He shuffled into the kitchen and pulled the fridge open. The little light flicked on inside, illuminating the scant contents. With a sigh, he grabbed the container of sliced ham, a few slices of cheddar, and the jar of mayonnaise. Halfway through prepping his sandwich for dinner, he heard his cellphone buzzing in the next room. He considered going to check it right away, but a grumble in his stomach convinced him it could wait for two minutes while he got this sandwich ready.

Carrying his dinner on a plate, he returned to the living room and settled back onto the couch. He balanced the plate on the arm and picked up his phone.

MR. RIGGS flashed on the screen—the codename he’d used for Simon in his phone. He swallowed hard and unlocked his phone, opening the message. The text was short, but thorough.

He knows.

As Beck’s thumb hovered over the keys, trying to figure any way to answer that, a second message appeared.

He knows about everything.

Sweat broke out along Beck’s hairline. His skin crawled like he could already sense a gun pointed at him. A third message came up, longer.

He’s going to kill me—I’m in my room, door’s locked, but he’s coming up. Beck, you need to leave the city. I love you, I’m sorry.

Beck typed out the words, “I love you too, Simon,” but before he pressed send, one last message flashed onscreen.

I’m scared, Beck.

Somehow, that was worse than the other messages. Simon was never scared, not enough to admit it to anyone. Beck’s eyes watered, and he straightened up on the couch.

He was not going to let Pat kill Simon—not tonight, not ever.

Beck closed his text with Simon and typed in a different number in his phone, one he hadn’t used in years. He typed as fast as he could, trying to say everything in as few words as possible. She never liked long, winding explanations.

Hey, Sadie. It’s Beck. I need your help. My boyfriend is Pat the Butcher’s nephew, he leaked info to the Connell family (my fault), and Pat is going to kill him. Text me back ASAP.

Looking down at the message, he clicked send, then chuckled sadly. It wasn’t how he planned on coming out to his sister, but then again, he’d planned on never speaking to her again.

Her reply popped up maybe two minutes later.

They’re taking him to the docks, pit stop at the deli for a beatdown. Cement shoes. Be there in 20, wait 30 secs after they drop him, go in after. I’ll pick you up on the corner of 8th and Bettler, 10 mins after, black SUV with Oregon plates.

Perks of having a sister who was also a criminal mastermind—he’d never found a limit to what Sadie could find out or fix. Who she called in the organization to get those details, he’d never know, but he was so grateful she did. As he pushed himself up from the couch to grab his keys, his phone buzzed again, and he looked down to see another message from Sadie.

When he unlocked the screen, he grinned softly. It was just a little rainbow flag emoji.

He shook his head, dropping his phone into his pocket. He grabbed his keys, wallet, and a coat, stepped into some sneakers, then rushed out the door.

It was time to go save Simon.

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twdmusicboxmystery · 5 years

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TWD 10x06: Bonds - First Thoughts

How did everyone like the episode? I really loved it. I’ll go over a few broad, first thoughts today and then Details tomorrow, as usual.

***As always, spoilers abound below. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

Beth Mentioned! (Sort of):

First, let’s talk about the Carol and Daryl scene, because I know that's what everybody really wants to hear about. I actually loved this scene, guys. We, as TDers, we couldn't hope for anything better. Where should I even begin?

1. The can they throw acorns at looks a lot like the music box. It was more yellow than pink, where the MB was more pink than yellow, but the coloring was still similar.

2. Then we have Carol mentioning Daryl’s love life. Now, putting aside who his partner will end up being (even though we all know) i's very significant that they even bring this up. In the five years since Coda, no one has once asked Daryl about his love life. It hasn't been mentioned, it hasn't been broached in the show at all.

And as I said in an Ask yesterday, you could come up with a lot of reasons for why that is. Carl was happy and living with Ezekiel, Daryl was living out on his own with Dog and wasn't around to be asked about it. And of course in S5, right after he lost Beth, he was simply too sad, mourning too much to really sustain any kind of relationship.

But my point is that if they're bringing this up now, it's because Daryl is going to get some romance pretty soon. If not this season, then possibly next season, but it's close.

3. Then we have the fact that Carol asked him about Connie. This actually establishes something really important: that Carol is not interested in Daryl romantically. She literally encourages him to go find love with somebody else. And yes, I know certain shippers are jumping up and down about this scene, but they really shouldn't be.

And again, you could argue that, in reality, things change over time and it could still happen. But again, it's the precedent of the thing. It's the dialogue foreshadow. It's the way it's being written. The writers are telling us that Carol wants Daryl to be happy and find love, but not with her.

If you ask me, this actually felt like a very motherly conversation. Like something a mother would say to her son about him finding a nice girl to settle down with.

4. Then comes Daryl's wonderful reaction. He said it was not like that with Connie. Then he looks Carol straight in the eye an says, “Not at all.” If he were being shy and awkward and uncertain about it, perhaps you could argue that he was lying and just embarrassed, but that wasn’t the case. He sounded very firm and resolute in what he said. Very calm and confident. Yeah, Donnie is not a thing. This was the writer’s shutting that shit down for good.

5. Then we have a ton of Beth dialogue parallels. Like, Carol and Daryl hardly say two words in this scene without tripping over Beth lines.

"What does it matter?" "Because it does." That's the “it does matter” theme, which Beth said to Daryl in the golf club.

Carol says, "There aren't that many people left to find out there these days. Much less good ones like her." Another of Beth's signature lines, "there still good people, Daryl."

"You don't have to be alone." A reference to the episode where he actually lost Beth!

No freaking way that's a coincidence. No freaking way he’s not thinking about Beth right here.

He even seems to get a little bit annoyed with Carol prodding him. He obviously doesn't explain why he doesn't want to move on with Connie or anyone else.

And I think it's interesting that when she says the thing about not many good people being left, he says, “I know." It's kind of like, he knows he ought to move on. It would be the emotionally and psychologically healthy thing to do. But he just can't make himself to it.

6. Another one that jumps out is when Carol says, "years pass, Daryl." Years passed since what? His childhood? The beginning of the apocalypse?

If you're talking about years passing, you have to be measuring from a particular event. Given that we’re literally talking about Daryl’s love life, the implication is that it's been years since the person he loved died, and he needs to move on now.

The only one who comes even close to meeting that is Beth. He's never had a relationship with anybody else in the show like her. And remember that Carol gave him Beth's knife, and therefore understood something about what he lost.

Guys, there are 100% talking got Beth right here. Daryl is 100% thinking about Beth right here. And of course they talk and think about her as being dead, because they don't know any different. This is probably the closest we've ever come to her actually being mentioned in the show since 5x10.

And again, that's important. From a writing/logistical standpoint, it tells us she’ll be showing up soon. And coupled with all the publicity about Emily's getting from the show? Yeah. She's pretty much circling the neighborhood at this point.

The acorns are also worth some consideration. I’m planning to do a whole post about acorns later in the week, so I won’t go into their symbolism too much, here. But I’ll tell you what I told my fellow theorists after I first watched this.

The first time I watched the scene, I thought the acorns represented romantic love. Before anyone freaks out at me for that, let me explain. I noticed that Carol used the word “kiss.” She was talking about their little game of throwing acorns at the can. Daryl hit it and she said it didn't count. She said he had to knock it over, not just "kiss" it. I suppose it caught my attention because we so seldom hear that word used in the show. Then, she picked up the “double-topper” acorn, and I had this thought that it looked like the two acorns were kissing. She gave it to Daryl and he kept.

Now, maybe that's just me being silly. I have no idea if that's what they're going for. But I did some research on acorns and trees, and actually do think that in this case they represent romantic love. Again, more on that later in the week.

I know the Carylers and others will say that, because Carol gave it to him, that represents romantic love between them. But obviously I don't interpret it that way. For me, I see it as similar to the symbolism of Connie bringing Dog back to him. Carol will be involved in bringing him and Beth back together. Which is something we’ve theorized that for a long time. Her and Connie and Aaron will all involved, I think. So, it's just more of the same stuff we’ve seen a lot lately.

If the if the acorn represents two people being together romantically, it's not unlike the symbolism of the serious piggyback. This was part of the Tarot Card theory back in the day, but Beth being on his back sort of symbolically melded them together like one entity. The symbolism is that of two halves of a whole, soulmates, etc. I feel like the double capper acorn could represent the same sort of thing.

And who did we see this symbolism with before? Carol? Nope! Beth!

So again, I feel like this sort of represents Carol “giving” him his soul mate. It also may be as simple as her giving him her blessing in some way.

So think about the scene. Confirmation that Caryl is not a thing, confirmation that Donnie is not a thing, a foreshadow of an upcoming romance for Daryl, and a symbol (double acorn) that may connect to the piggyback in Alone.

Yeah, to say I loved this scene would be a huge understatement.

Plot Stuff:

Let’s talk about the plot a little bit more. I think Carol taking this Whisperer hostages is what will really kick off the war. They have one of Alpha’s people and it's only a matter of time before she finds out.

And the real question is whether Carol is lying or not. Obviously, Daryl thinks she is, but I almost feel like they’re trying really hard to make us think she is. She looked at the gun, and I think we’re meant to think she took it, but did she really? We didn’t see it in the episode. So maybe she really isn’t lying (except about why she left the community) but it seems like she is, and Daryl is trusting her less and less.

So, we’ve got three really interesting threads going on here.

1) There's Carol taking Whisperer, which is probably going to cause conflict.

2) There’s Negan being in the Whisperer camp. I won’t say much about his part in the episode today. There were definitely some details that I’ll mention tomorrow, but for the most part, he was accepted into the pack by Alpha. And I still believe he's doing all of this in order to help TF bring Alpha down. So basically, they have an insider behind enemy lines, even though they don't know that. You could also call him a wolf in sheep's clothing, especially as he went back to calling himself the Big Bad Wolf before Beta took them captive.

3) Finally, we have Siddiq. His PTSD is also tied up with the Alpha and the Whisperers. A while ago, a Nonny sent me a theory about Siddiq perhaps aiding in Enid’s death. Maybe I’m hearing things because that theory is rolling around in my head, but I could swear when Siddiq had his blackout, we heard young woman screaming and it sounded liking Enid to me. Of course, he doesn't have to have killed her. Maybe he was just there when she died, and her death messed hi up more than others. Just no way to tell yet.

But this bit about him blacking out and ending up on the platform of the windmill was pretty frightening. Especially since holding the baby in his arms.

I'm thinking that whenever they come face-to-face with Alpha again, if she shows up at the gates, or Siddiq comes face to face with her again, it will probably bring all the memories to the forefront. Only then will we figure out what happened and what's actually behind his PTSD.

I’ll talk more about Eugene tomorrow too. I don’t have a lot to say about his arc here. Yes, it's obviously very interesting. He’s talking to this woman over the radio and that’s obviously leading somewhere. Their dialogue definitely contains some interesting detail symbols that I’ll get into tomorrow. But it’s also very early in this arc. We don't know exactly what this will lead to, so I guess I'm reserving judgment for the time being.

The last thing I want to mention is Rosita. I talked about how, in recent episodes, we saw Bethyl symbolism around her and Eugene, right? Well, I’m kind of wondering if Rosita might die from this sickness. I hope she doesn't, but she's very, very ill.

This virus of those has strong callbacks to the virus at the prison in 4a. But Eugene is obviously in love with Rosita and if she dies, and he loses her, then that might explain the Bethyl parallels around them.

It also occurred to me in this episode that maybe, just maybe, Rosita might be developing feelings for him. Maybe not, too. There's no way to tell. The way she talked to him on the radio made me wonder if she's actually considering that she might have feelings for him, now. But at this point, there definitely unexpressed.

So yeah. I think I will stop there for today. Those were the big things I saw in the episode. Tomorrow I'll get into the details, because there are a lot of them. What did everyone else think?

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

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wordssometimesfail · 5 years

Text

Textual Reddie & Queer!Eddie: A Masterpost

So I’ve been planning on doing something like this for a while, but it had fallen to the wayside until @skinks and I started talking about Reddie again, and my weak little heart was rekindled.

Speaking of reKINDLEd (ehh? Ehhhhh?), my Kindle copy of IT is full of highlighted textual support of unresolved Reddie feelings, and a queer reading of Eddie specifically. And lo, a disjointed essay-type meta was birthed. This fucker’s about to get long, so if you’re interested, dive on under the cut – but be forewarned, there are massive spoilers for the book and (probably) Chapter 2 below!

(Seriously, cannot emphasize the MASSIVE SPOILERS enough. If you don’t know what happens and you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read this.)

As a very general disclaimer, I am not going to be including everything that I highlighted. There is a fuckton, including a lot of small moments of Richie and Eddie interacting that don’t showcase anything other than their closeness. I’ll be paring it down here to moments that prove a larger theme, and some standout cuteness. With that said, IT is a 1,300-page behemoth, and it’s definitely possible that I skipped over something. If you know of anything significant that I missed, feel free to reblog with additions.

Note: I will be using terrible, half-assed MLA citations for this. Pagination is from my Kindle copy of the novel. All quotes will be italicized to help differentiate them visually from my points (if something was italicized in the original text, it’ll be unitalicized here). Unless otherwise stated, all bolded emphasis is mine. “--” will be used in place of em-dashes, “/” will be used to denote paragraph breaks.

PART I – ASTHMA

“When Eddie’s nervous he reaches for his aspirator.” (King 372)

It doesn’t get much more explicit than this. We’re told in no uncertain terms that Eddie’s psychosomatic asthma is rooted in nervousness, in things that make him scared and uncomfortable. The trigger for this particular explanation is being overwhelmed by the age and significance of Boston, but in an earlier scene:

“These shoes no longer looked just right... but he supposed they would do for where he was going. And for whatever he might have to do when he got there. Maybe Richie Tozier would-- / But then the blackness threatened and he felt his throat beginning to close up.” (King 112)

This is Eddie’s first on-page asthma attack. It hits him the first time we see him as an adult, having just received his call from Mike to return to Derry. And yet it’s the thought of Richie, not It or Derry, that makes Eddie nervous enough to need his aspirator. Notably, the thought goes unfinished. We don’t know, nor do we ever find out in explicit terms, what Eddie thought Richie Tozier would.

Of course, asthma is the most prominent symptom of Eddie’s hypochondria, so the attacks crop up often in the text. The most interesting of these attacks for our purposes (other than Eddie becoming nervous at the thought of Richie) is the following:

“‘The first of the ‘new murders’ [...] began on the Main Street Bridge and ended underneath it. The victim was a gay and rather childlike man named Adrian Mellon. He had a bad case of asthma.’ / Eddie’s hand stole out and touched the side of his aspirator.” (King 646)

Mike (speaking) tells the gang about the death of Adrian Mellon, and takes care to note three things about him: he was gay, he was childlike, and he had asthma. The connection between Eddie and Adrian is drawn quickly and obviously as Eddie reaches for his aspirator, seemingly out of reflex - but what we can also infer here is that this is making Eddie nervous. He could be nervous because a man with asthma was just killed by It, and he, too, is a man with asthma. He could also be nervous because the parallel that Mike and the prose have none-too-subtly drawn between Eddie and Adrian implies that they have more in common than a respiratory problem. But what?

PART II – EDDIE/ADRIAN

“[The other Losers] are being called--I know that much. Each murder in this new cycle has been a call.” (King 1116)

Mike writes this in the fourth interlude, referring to the way that It’s murders 27 years later all seem to be calling out to the Losers’ Club. By drawing a parallel between Eddie and Adrian through their asthma, King leads us to believe that Adrian’s murder specifically called to Eddie. He also leads us to consider how else they might be linked.

Adrian is virtually Eddie’s opposite. He’s out and proud and in a loving, unstrained relationship. He flirts openly with other men, teases his aggressors, and, to contrast with the neurotic and nervous Eddie:

“‘He didn’t have much in the way of protective coloration. He was one of those fools who think things really are going to turn out all right.’” (King 27)

His openness, however, is what gets him killed. While being harassed by some homophobes, Adrian teases and antagonizes them, and the next time they see him they assault him and unwittingly gift him, half-dead, to Pennywise.

It especially kills me that Adrian’s asthma is not significantly mentioned in his chapter. He makes a comment to his boyfriend that the “air’s better” (King 36) in Derry, which could imply that he has had less problems since he moved there, but the word “asthma” is never used. It’s not relevant to his story, and it’s not brought up until King has to draw a parallel between Adrian and Eddie. Because it’s not relevant to Adrian’s story, the connection that King draws between them feels almost half-assed and weak, until one considers their contrasting personalities and contrasting happinesses in their respective relationships. Along that same line of thinking, the implications of having Eddie directly paralleled by a gay man killed for being gay cast a suspicious light on Eddie’s presumed straightness.

If we accept that Eddie and Adrian are linked, that Adrian’s murder was a specific call to Eddie, then it goes without saying that there is a strong implication here that Eddie is closeted. He is being contrasted with an out gay man who fears no consequence for being out in a small, violent, hateful town. Eddie’s neuroses and fixation on his psychosomatic asthma are contrasted with a man who hadn’t a care in the world - not even his (presumably) real physical condition. The fear and self-hate that dogged Eddie his whole life never bothered Adrian Mellon, until it killed him.

If we accept that Eddie and Adrian are linked, and what that implies, then we can infer that Adrian is what Eddie could have been, were he happy, open, and out - and what happens to Adrian is the exact kind of thing that may have kept poor, terrified Eddie in the closet.

PART III – SEX, QUEERNESS, AND SELF-LOATHING

So, I think we all remember the leper scene--creepy in the 2017 movie, even creepier in the novel. One notable book-only detail is that the leper “[offers] to give Eddie a blowjob for a quarter” (King 400) in addition to chasing him around and being generally disgusting.

“Come back here, kid, the hoarse voice whispered. I’ll blow you for free. Come back here! / No, Eddie moaned at it. Please, go away, I don’t want to think about that.” (King 394)

Eddie is immediately terrified by the mere thought of getting a blowjob, of being touched by someone diseased, of being touched by a man. He doesn’t even want to think about it... and then the question becomes, does he not want to think about sex with the leper, or sex at all? Regardless, it seems pretty normal for an eleven-year-old boy to be scared of a blowjob from a strange adult with open sores on his face. But there is, of course, more to unpack here.

Another difference between book and film comes when Eddie recounts the tale to Richie and Bill...:

“‘He didn’t have leprosy, you dummy,’ Richie said. “He had [syphilis].’ / […] / ‘It’s a disease you get from fucking,’ Richie said. ‘You know about fucking, don’t you, Eds?’ / ‘Sure,’ Eddie said. He hoped he wasn’t blushing.” (King 400)

All of a sudden Eddie isn’t just afraid of disease, but of a sexually transmitted disease. Pennywise’s angle on Eddie is a big fuck-off combo of decay and sex--specifically gay sex. Not only is the “leper” a man offering him sexual favours, but Bill is quick to point out that men can get syphilis from “another g-g-guy if they’re kwuh-kwuh-queer" (King 402). Queerness and gay sex are therefore lumped in with Eddie’s fear of the “leper” from word go.

Since he’s a pre-pubescent child (in that same scene, Eddie recalls trying to masturbate and nothing happening), Eddie’s disinterest in and general apprehension towards sex makes sense without bringing the element of internalized homophobia into the mix. But this is my post, I can do what I want, and Stephen King already brought it into the mix for me.

Eddie is frightened by the thought of queer sex at another notable point in the novel as well, when he recalls a vignette from his and the Losers’ past:

“Patrick Hockstetter was down [in the Barrens]. Before It took him Beverly saw him doing something bad. It made her laugh but she knew it was bad. Something to do with Henry Bowers, wasn’t it? Yes, I think so. And-- / [Eddie] turned away suddenly and started back toward the abandoned depot, not wanting to look down into the Barrens anymore, not liking the thoughts they conjured up. He wanted to be home with Myra.” (King 720)

Myra, for those who haven’t read the novel, is Eddie’s wife. If you’re one of those people (or even if you haven’t read it in a while), you might also be wondering what exactly Patrick Hockstetter did to Henry Bowers in the Barrens that made Eddie balk and suddenly crave his wife’s company. Well, my friends, Patrick tried to give Henry Bowers a blowjob. Eddie has to turn away from the mere thought of two men (well, boys) engaging in a sex act. He has to return to his wife, the implication here being that she is there to shield him from queerness, from queer sex.

And the scene between Patrick and Henry, which we do see later from Bev’s point of view, is extremely telling as to why Eddie has to turn away. Henry gets violent and angry when Patrick propositions him, just like Adrian Mellon’s assailants got violent and angry, just like Eddie’s own mother gets defensive and cruel at the thought of a pair of (unconfirmed) gay men in their town with a nicer house than hers:

“‘Any two men who bother keeping a house so nice must be queers,’ Eddie’s mother had once said in a disgruntled sort of way, and Eddie hadn’t dared ask for clarification.” (King 712)

Eddie here is afraid to even question the root of his mother’s assumptions, or the very fact of her prejudice. Questioning, experimentation, being openly anything other than straight in Derry only earns you bile and violence from the rest of the town, and Eddie knows this. Why would anyone come out? How could they? Isn’t it better to just turn away and leave the thought unfinished?

And it is explicit that Eddie feels somehow wrong and incomplete, in addition to his general aversion to all things queer and sexual. At one point, compounding himself and the homeless “leper”, Eddie has an internal monologue that ends as follows:

“I got me a disease that’s eating me up. My skin’s cracking open, my teeth are falling out, and you know what? I can feel myself turning bad like an apple that’s going soft. I can feel it happening, eating from the inside to the out, eating, eating, eating me.” (King 405)

By conflating himself with the “leper”, Eddie makes the disease his own. He makes his fear of the “leper” falling apart a fear he has about himself. He fears something within himself, something rotten, turning him “bad” - bad like offering a blowjob to Henry Bowers in the Barrens. It’s a literal fear of disease, to be sure, but that sense of being rotten to the core, being bad on the inside in a way you cannot change, also feels like an apt metaphor for internalized homophobia in light of the subtextual queerness of the rest of Eddie’s fear. And especially in light of another scene in which he feels inferior, rotten, wrong:

“Simply reaching for the cubes of bread [at communion] became an act which required courage, and he always feared an electrical shock... or worse, that the bread would suddenly change color in his hand, become a blood-clot, and a disembodied Voice would begin to thunder in the church: Not worthy! Not worthy! Damned to Hell! Damned to Hell!” (King 1247)

We will absolutely come back to the fact that Eddie uses Voice with a capital V, but for now let’s focus on the rest of the scene. Eddie’s fear of being damned and unworthy is rooted in a story his Sunday School teacher told him, about a boy who blasphemed. Even as a small child, he has anxiety about his existence or behaviour cursing him – making him diseased, or turning bread into blood. And, of course, for the purposes of this reading, we can’t ignore the fact that queerness and American Christianity don’t typically go hand-in-hand. This compounded with the suggestion that he is rotten from the inside out suggests that Eddie has some reason to think he has blasphemed – and his persistent association with queerness suggests that this reason may be the knowledge or suspicion that he isn’t straight.

Eddie’s worries even follow him into adulthood:

“Get off it, Eds, Richie’s voice seemed to whisper. You ain’t solid at all […].” (King 715)

I included this quote because it reinforces my point about Eddie not feeling whole or right within himself. It’s not quite time for the Reddie part of this meta, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Richie is nowhere in this scene and has absolutely nothing to do with it, and still it’s his voice that voices Eddie’s subconscious fears about not being “solid”. Again, I will be going into this in more detail later. First, there’s one more element of this queer reading of Eddie that needs to be tackled.

PART IV – THIS ONE QUOTE GETS TO BE ITS OWN PART BECAUSE MY GOD

Most of you are probably familiar with Anthony Perkins, even if you don’t know you are – if you’ve ever been exposed to Psycho, either by watching it or through pop-cultural osmosis, you'll know him as Norman Bates. You also may or may not know that he was famously closeted. He reportedly only had relationships with men until he met and married Berinthia Berenson in his early 40s, and never came out during his lifetime. (Obviously one’s sexual history doesn’t necessarily determine one’s sexuality, but most sources I can find suggest that he was gay, not bisexual.)

Now, if you read Eddie Kaspbrak as gay, this may sound somewhat familiar. Married a woman, never came out, horror icon, it’s all there. But why do I bring it up? Well, because of this:

“Eddie--it was weird but true--had grown up to look quite a little bit like Anthony Perkins.” (King 628)

On its own, it’s a seemingly innocuous, if oddly specific, pop-cultural reference. Nothing to write home about. Compounded with everything else we know about Eddie, and everything else I’ve covered above? It’s telling as balls. King could have simply described Eddie, as he does immediately after this line, but he takes the time to compare a character repeatedly associated with queerness and sexual repression to a closeted gay man who eventually married a woman.

(Note: admittedly, IT would’ve been written in the early-mid 80s, at which point Perkins was not officially known to be gay, but according to my father there were plenty of rumours. He was, additionally, known as a repressed, shy “mama’s boy” who was made nervous by female attention. Sound like anyone else we know?)

PART V – REDDIE

And now for the main event.

If I unpack every individual piece of Reddie goodness to the degree that I’ve unpacked Eddie himself, we’ll be here for another 2,500 words. So, I’m only going to hit three major points:

PART VA – CLOSENESS

Richie is all over Eddie. He frequently pinches Eddie’s cheeks, calls him cute, and is all-around physically and verbally affectionate with him. Some notable examples:

“Richie […] pinched Eddie’s cheek. / ‘Don’t do that! I hate it when you do that, Richie.’ / ‘Ah, you love it, Eds,’ Richie said, and beamed at him.” (King 384-85)

This is their first on-page interaction, mind you. This moment sets the stage for the rest of their relationship.

“Richie jumped to his feet a second time and pinched Eddie’s cheek. ‘Cute, cute, cute!’ Richie exclaimed.” (King 390)

“‘[My aunts] all pinch my cheek and tell me how much I’ve grown,’ Eddie said. / ‘That’s cause they know how cute you are, Eds--just like me. I saw what a cutie you were the first time I met you.’” (King 446-47)

Listen. Do you think I’ll ever get over this? Do you think I can move on, knowing that this exists? Richie teases everyone, but he only ever uses “cute” for Eddie.

“‘Take it easy, Eds,’ Richie soothed, and leaned toward him. / ‘Don’t call me Eds and don’t you dare pinch my cheek!’ [Eddie] cried, rounding on Richie. ‘You know I hate that! I always hated it!’ / Richie recoiled, blinking.” (King 668)

This scene takes place when they’re adults, and I love it for a number of reasons – the easy return to form for both of them, Richie genuinely trying to comfort Eddie, and Richie’s surprise at being snapped at. My heart goes out to the man.

“‘I hate it when you call me Eds.’ / ‘I know,’ Richie said, hugging him tightly, ‘but somebody has to toughen you up, Eds. When you stop leading the sheltered igs-zistence of a child and grow up, you gonna, Ah say, Ah say you gonna find out life ain’t always this easy, boy!’ / Eddie began to shriek with laughter.” (King 1334)

There are quite a few scenes where they make each other laugh, but this one is my personal favourite.

And the cherry on top:

“[Richie] slapped Eddie’s can.” (King 1322)

The context of this is less than shippy (they’re squeezing through a tight passageway, Richie is behind Eddie and needs him to move forward), but there are few ships that can say that party A has canonically smacked party B’s ass, and I think we should appreciate that more as a fandom.

There’s also a strong element of protectiveness – Richie is very protective of Eddie in a way that Eddie’s mother isn’t. He genuinely pays attention to Eddie’s needs and tries to do right by him:

“It was Richie and Bev who went to Eddie. […] Richie dug his aspirator out of his pocket. ‘Bite on this, Eddie,’ he said, and Eddie took a hitching, gasping breath as Richie pulled the trigger.” (King 903)

“Richie heard Eddie cough twice […] and then fall silent again. He shouldn’t be down here, he thought […].” (King 968)

“...Eddie [agreed to follow Bill into the sewers] last. / ‘I don’t think so, Eddie,’ Richie said. ‘Your arm’s not, you know, looking too cool.’” (King 1251)

“Richie turned Bill toward him, looked at him as you would look at a man who is hopelessly raving. ‘Bill, we have to take care of Eddie. We have to get a tourniquet on him, get him out of here.’” (King 1396)

Hey fun fact? Fun fucking fact, Eddie’s already dead in this scene and Richie knows that.

On a cheerier note, and to add one last dimension to Eddie and Richie’s closeness, Richie is the only person with whom we see Eddie intentionally swapping spit/germs (outside of ritualistic bloodletting). Not only does Richie use Eddie’s aspirator at one point, but there’s also this scene:

“‘I can carry [the Parcheesi board],’ Eddie said, a little out of breath. ‘How about a lick on your Rocket?’ / ‘Your mom wouldn’t approve, Eddie,’ Richie said sadly. […] ‘[…] Ah say you kin get germs eatin after someone else!’ / ‘I’ll chance it,’ Eddie said. / Reluctantly, Richie held his Rocket up to Eddie’s mouth... and snatched it away quickly as soon as Eddie had gotten in a couple of moderately serious licks.” (King 1243)

The obvious humour of this scene aside (poor Richie, having to share), the fact that hypochondriac Mama’s boy Eddie doesn’t mind Richie’s germs in particular is both sweet and interesting. The imagery here, of Eddie licking Richie’s Rocket despite his mother’s disapproval (compounded with the pre-established association between Eddie and blowjobs) is just... interesting, to say the least. As is the fact that I totally stole this scene and reversed the roles for the sake of a fic that I would like to pimp as a reward for making it this far into this monstrosity. It has a happy ending, don’t worry.

What does all of this put together signify? Richie and Eddie are close. They clearly love each other as friends, and the almost flirtatious touching, cute-calling, teasing, protectiveness, and Rocket-licking can also all signify the beginnings of something else as well. If nothing else, it’s fun, sweet fic fodder.

PART VB – THE VOICE (WITH A CAPITAL V)

This is one of my favourite details. Eddie thinks of all the Losers from time to time, but Richie is straight-up one of the voices in his head. Richie refers to his impressions and characters as Voices with a capital V, and Very often, Eddie will think in them. He’ll hear jokes in them, Pennywise will taunt him with them, he’ll hear the very criticism and hate that he fears hurled back at him in Voices. Right from the start:

“‘Had any good chucks lately, Eds?’ [Eddie] says out loud, and laughs again.” (King 374)

As he drives to Derry, Eddie is already laughing and delighting in the thought of his friends (specifically Bill and Richie) and the way they used to be. Later in the same scene:

“‘Sure, kid, EV-ery day,’ he says in a Richie Tozier Voice, and laughs again.” (King 376)

King quickly establishes that Richie’s Voices are a source of joy for Eddie, and that Richie himself is one of the Losers that Eddie is most looking forward to seeing. Indeed, in several scenes (including one of the ones quoted above), we see Eddie laughing at or with Richie when he does his Voices, both in the present and the past. But Eddie’s love of the Voices gets twisted by his own subconscious fears – I mentioned earlier that it is a Voice with a capital V that tells Eddie that he’s damned to Hell during his imaginary blood-communion. And it’s Richie’s voice that reminds Eddie that he’s not “solid”, to cap off a scene where he literally runs away from thoughts of queerness and sex. Eddie’s fear of himself becomes conflated with the Voices in a way that suggests his fear is of Richie, of Richie’s hatred, contempt, and dismissal. He is afraid that Richie sees him as unworthy, damned, unsolid. He is afraid that Richie sees the thing that’s eating him from the inside out.

Eddie wants to be home with Myra. It’s easier to keep Richie and his Voices in his head than to risk what they would (--) do if they saw all of Eddie clearly.

PART VC – EDS & EDDIE’S DEATH

Yes, we all know and love “Eds”. We love Richie being a little shit, we love Eddie being his tsundere self, and we love that Eddie canonically has a soft spot for the nickname:

“Man, he had hated it when Richie called him Eds... but he had sort of liked it, too.” (King 374)

We also love (or hate) that “Eds” factors into Eddie and Richie’s final exchange in the novel:

“But there was something else [Eddie] had to say [before he died]. / ‘Richie,’ he whispered. / ‘What?’ Richie was down on his hands and knees, staring at him desperately. / ‘Don’t call me Eds,’ he said, and smiled. He raised his left hand slowly and touched Richie’s cheek. Richie was crying. ‘You know I... I...’ Eddie closed his eyes, thinking how to finish, and while he was still thinking it over he died.” (King 1386)

(A.k.a. the scene that nearly made me throw my Kindle across the room.)

This ties into a broader theme with Eddie that I only began noticing when I started compiling my notes for this meta – his thoughts, when connected to other men, queerness, or sex, often go unfinished. He cuts them off before they stray somewhere that makes him nervous (the thought of Richie giving him an asthma attack), before they stray anywhere at all (the memory of Patrick and Henry making him yearn for Myra, not wanting to think about blowjobs), or before they even become thoughts (not daring to question his mother’s homophobic comments). And here, when he has to say one thing before he dies, when he’s finally allowing himself to conclude a sentimental, intimate thought that he doesn’t even know how to word... he’s cut off one last time.

And we don’t know what he was going to say. We can speculate, we can infer, but we don’t know, just as we will never know what “Richie Tozier would”.

Richie Tozier seems to know, though. When he realizes they’ll have to leave Eddie’s body behind, he kisses Eddie’s cheek (just as Eddie touched his in his final moments, and in contrast to the way he used to pinch them) and...:

“Richie got up and turned toward the door. ‘Fuck you, Bitch!’ he cried suddenly, and kicked the door shut with his foot. It made a solid chukking sound as it closed and latched. / ‘Why’d you do that?’ Beverly asked. / ‘I don’t know,’ Richie said, but he knew well enough.” (King 1427)

Richie’s shutting the door on Pennywise and the sewers and the whole horrible tragedy of it all, yes. But he’s also furious with the grief of losing Eddie, and shutting the door that will now forever separate Eddie’s final resting place from the hole where he died. Bev’s question allows Richie to do just what Eddie did, too – keep it quiet, cut it off, not acknowledge what he’s avoiding or what he’s just lost. Still, he knows well enough.

PART VI – CONCLUSION

I don’t know for sure that King intended for Eddie to be closeted, but I think he did. He’s gone on the record that he believes in leaving stuff like this for the reader to figure out. There are a lot of scenes, a lot of small moments, that suggest that Eddie is gay, and while many of them make sense without that reading, the entirety of the picture they paint does not. I’m partial to Reddie, and as I’ve demonstrated above, I believe there is a lot of textual evidence to support the theory that they had feelings for each other. Eddie’s death alone, and the fact that the last thing he had to say needed to be addressed to Richie while Eddie held his face in his hands, is... a LOT. But I’ll be honest – my loyalty is to queer!Eddie on its own.

If Eddie Kaspbrak is gay, then his story is ten times more heartbreaking. It’s a story of fear, not just of the supernatural but of the very real hatred and pain he would have faced being openly gay in Derry. It’s a story of fearing that something inside of him was rotten and sick and sinful, and that one of his closest friends in the world thought so too. It’s a story of self-loathing. And it’s a story without an end, because Eddie could never let himself think of how to finish admitting what he needed to admit to himself. The truth was lost in asthma attacks, in Myra, in death. In that sense, it’s fitting that King never explicitly stated that Eddie was gay, if that was indeed his intent – it's one more thing we’ll never know for sure, because Eddie couldn’t bring himself to tell us.

THAT BEING SAID. My loyalty is to queer!Eddie. Which means that my loyalty is to making this shit better, exploring and dissecting the hell out of it, and fixing it. Give Eddie Kaspbrak the ending he deserved! Let him finish his thoughts! Take these quotes, draw inspiration from them, and let’s all cling to each other in preparation for Chapter 2.

#it stephen king #stephen king's it #reddie #eddie kaspbrak #gay eddie kaspbrak #it meta #reddie meta #Aaliya writes #I have been working on this... for a long time #please tell me what you think and what I've missed #unless what you think is that eddie isn't gay because why are you here then #why did you read this #who are you

239 notes · View notes

scripttorture · 5 years

Note

I have a character who is tortured over a currently unspecified amount of time. I want him to have some serious scaring but would like to avoid his face and hands getting scarred up. I was thinking cigarette burns on his inner thighs, long cuts with a box cutter on his chest and sides, and maybe blowtorch torcher on his arms and back? I’m not so sure about that last bit. The torturers want to keep him alive as he’s being held hostage to manipulate his lover. How long could he withstand this(1/2)

(2/2) and what kind of scaring could I give him? I want this to be disabling to him and he will end up with a cane and a service dog to help him. Thank you so much for your help!!!

Well my first thought is that scarring torture is incredibly unusual in a modern setting. So if you’re choosing to use it I think you should stress in the narrative that this is unusual.

You’ll also need to be careful about avoiding the implication that only scarring torture is ‘real torture’. Be aware that the majority of torture today doesn’t leave obvious physical marks. This doesn’t make the injuries or pain of most survivors less real.

Don’t let your focus on this character’s unusual experience lead to a suggestion that other survivors suffered less.

I think losing the blow torch would be a good idea.

He could survive it but the chances of fatal burns or infections is a lot higher and I think the resulting injuries would lead to different disabilities, ie not the ones you’ve described.

Large scale burns on the back, smaller ones on the legs and cuts in the chest area probably wouldn’t lead to the character using a cane.

So I’m going to suggest replacing the blow torch with a torture that leaves no lasting external marks but could cause injuries that would require a cane.

I think that would let you avoid the suggestion that ‘clean’ (ie non-scarring) tortures are less dangerous while giving something that fits with the injury pattern you want.

Falaka is the term I use to refer to beating the soles of the feet. It’s a very old torture that’s used around the world. It can be scarring or clean depending on the implement used.

If the torturers use something rounded and soft, like a hosepipe, to repeatedly hit the character’s feet it wouldn’t leave any external marks.

But it could cause tiny fractures in the bones of the feet, resulting in life-long chronic pain that makes walking difficult and using a cane likely.

Not every survivor who goes through this would end up having trouble walking, but it’s a possible result and I think tying the character’s most obvious injury to something that doesn’t leave scars would really help stress how dangerous all torture is.

Which I think brings me to scars.

Cigarette burns leave quite predictable patterns of small circular marks. These do not always scar. If the character isn’t treated and if he is burnt repeatedly in the same place scars are more likely.

Cutting- can result in a really wide array of types of scars.

If your character is black then a raised keloid scar is more likely. I have no idea why that is but it’s a repeated observation from the body modification community.

Drawing on consensual scarring practices, it’s very difficult to predict or control how a wound will scar. Attempts at detailed patterns or words often fail because the scar blurs the pattern as it heals. Simpler geometric designs are possible.

If you’re picturing the character being repeatedly cut, with no addition or irritants or additional damage to the wounds, then it’s probably going to end up looking like a bunch of messy lines.

Extensive scar tissue can impair mobility. Scar tissue shrinks and it’s less flexible then normal skin. So when there’s a large area of scars, or scars over a joint, it can reduce movement in that area/joint.

From your description it sounds like the characters are cutting repeated lines in their victim’s chest/back. That’s less likely to reduce his mobility (unless it covers all his skin in which case blood loss may be the bigger issue).

Id suggest having the characters stick to the area protected by the ribs in order to reduce the chance of well um death by stabbing.

A time frame for this kind of attack is a bit difficult to pin down. It depends on whether you want to write this as one long assault or as a series of abuses over a longer period of time.

Both are possible.

For a prolonged assault where the torturers are constantly hurting the character one way or another- I’d say less then 12 hours. The torturers could cause all the injuries and scars you want them to in that time and leave the victim character in need of hospital treatment.

If you’d rather the character was held for longer, say a week, then the sensible thing to do is to write it as a series of attacks with periods for the victim character to rest in between.

An hour of sustained abuse a day, with the opportunity to eat and sleep in between, would be more then enough for the torturers to cause the injuries and scar patterns you want the character to have.

If you go with the idea of multiple attacks then I’d suggest having the cutting only happen once. That’s because it represents an infection risk and a blood loss risk. Having it happen repeatedly over several days increases the risk.

Having falaka happen repeatedly over this time period also increases the risk of serious injury to the victim, but in this case it’s an injury you want: lasting damage to his feet.

I can see advantages and disadvantages to both time frames, depending on the type of story you’re telling. Personally I’d pick between them by working backwards from the idea of how long it would take for the victim to be found or escape. But if you can see a good narrative reason for the character being held for a short/long period, pick what’s right for the story.

I hope that helps. :)

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#painthekiller #writing advice #tw torture #tw scars #scarring torture #clean torture #burning tortures #cutting #effects of scars on mobility #falaka #chronic pain #time frames #disabling torture

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ala-mhinyan · 4 years

Text

Dissension

Endless black was what greeted the Seeker when he found his way within the very center of his being; where his heart was most open and the melding of broken shards could acquiesce and converse with one another without one man looking half-mad as he mumbled to himself in the middle of the hallway. He’d accidentally done it once before after Yasu had turned him and his loved one’s entire lives upside down and he’d be damned if he let himself slip like that again. Ayanga promised him that home was a place where he could be safe, vulnerable and do what was needed in the safety of a place he’d never be hurt.

But. Home was the mouth of a shark. Not always. Not often.

But right now? It was the gaping maw of a predator ready to swallow him whole should he lose his footing and come tumbling down. He wasn’t ready to fall. Not yet. There was so much to do.

So his feet carried him far from home. Dunrai had gone home with Ayanga after his conversation with Kadour and C’tolemy excused himself to be alone with his thoughts. How he ended up on the sandy beach lining Costa Del Sol’s ocean? He could never tell you—he was already crossing frigid waters until he was alone on one of the smaller islands off the coast. No one would bother him; the moon steady overhead, bathing him in her radiance and promising to protect his lone form.

The lumbering form of red, leather and comfortable wool sat kneeling at the water’s edge with his head bowed toward the open ocean and the Night Mother’s omnipresent gleam. He lowered his guard, dropped his anchor and let himself fall within, carried along by the jangle of anklets and the slosh of ocean waves.

.::.

C’aziza was standing in front of him when he found himself within the inky abyss, her radiant self a perfect reflection of what C’tolemy was—only feminine. In the sway and curve of her hips, the full of her lips, the soft of her cheeks and the heavy sway of breasts that she didn’t seem at all bothered by. She retained his muscles, his wide shoulders and the overall dangerous outlook that he carried but she had a feminine wile in her that would not be tamed. He didn’t want to anyway.

She was beautiful.

She was the woman his soul represented and he was her perfect counterpoint; the man his soul represented all bound up and bowed nicely into the one everyone knew as ‘C’tolemy’. An amalgamation of woman, man and wild, unchecked aggression in the form of a gleaming yellow eyes.

C’tolemy, or—more accurately, Dasa, approached the golden women in a smooth motion of silver flesh—the contours of mountain peaks and hills mapped across his flesh to adorn him as something closer to godlihood than man. Each step sure and calculated, the flick of a long tail granting him grace you only find in performers and dancers well into their years. The flex of each muscle. The bulge and pinch of skin, sinew working underneath like a well oiled machine to move his hulking form. His golden eyes met her silver ones and her golden skin met his silver flesh.

Perfect, complete counterpoints. Two halves of the same whole.

She was the first to speak.

“We can’t do this.”

His expression veered from placid observation to politely controlled. Walled off. He was already pushing her away. “While I understand your concerns—”

“Do you? You don’t love him like I do. No one does.”

A snarl sets under his lips, “You’re right. No one loves him like you do. No one would be that stupid.”

C’aziza never could stand for insults and that was more true now than ever—with C’ajnee’s demise lingering in the distance and the growing rift between the shards within, it was no wonder she was the first to strike Dasa. The thunk and crack of bone against porcelain splits his beautiful jawline like a shattered vase. He doesn’t retaliate more than cut his eyes into a glare.

“Is this what you want, Dasa?! You want me to hurt you? To fight with you over what we’re going to do? You may pretend like you’ve changed since you met Dunrai and Ayanga but I am no fool! You can hide your heart behind the shroud of darkness and play at being heartless to everyone else but you can’t hide your heart from the one sharing it!”

Dasa rolls his jaw, popping it in several places. Unless his more feminine counterpart, he doesn’t rage wild and hot—he burns cool and steady. Ice to her fire.

“I want you, for once in your life, to be sensible. I know you love Kushal more than anything else in life but you have to see that if we go back to him he’ll break us into more pieces. It won’t end until there is nothing left of us and we’re dead in the ground never having lived a life of our own. Is that what you want? To be his.. His slave for the rest of our life?”

C’aziza bristles, a snarl rolling hot between fangs and the slim space of cheek with tongue. She looks like she’s just about ready to strike him again when she turns on her heel and stalks away from him, tail lashing. “You don’t understand. Kushal wouldn’t do this to us. He wants us.”

“He never wanted us,” he hissed bitterly, “You are the only one that still believes that lie.”

“And you want to believe it! You want to believe Kushal still wants us! That he’ll touch us tenderly and call us little one and stroke our cheek and look at us like we’re the one thing in this world he’ll never hurt! Why—Why do you always act like I’m the unreasonable one when you feel the exact same way as me?!”

“Because I won’t risk US again and YOU would! Want to, even!”

She’s upon him like a hurricane before he can think to put up a defense, crashing to the ground of the black void in a heap of glittering silver and gold. Blows are exchanged too quick to stop the tide, fists breaking against flesh and cracking it with each hit. The more they scuffle and fight, the more damage each receives—until they both are breathing hard and missing limbs. Dasa, without his left leg and Aziza missing her right arm. They separate in a flurry of color and circle about one another, hissing and testing ground between the two of them. Waiting for a slip.

Waiting for the moment one of them is off-guard.

This time, he’s the one to strike first.

“You have to face it.”

“There is nothing to face!”

“He doesn’t even care about us, you know it’s true! You know all we are to him is a toy. A play thing to use and abuse and toss away when he’s done. You think he doesn’t have another he’s grooming just like he did us?” C’aziza opens her mouth to retort but… nothing comes out. Dasa seizes the moment; tackling the woman into the ground and pinning her by the wrists so she has no choice but to look him in the eye. The struggle ensues but ultimately? He’s just a little more clever than she is powerful, catching her leg under his knee and forcing his body weight down hard to trap her where she is.

“I won’t let you undo everything we’ve done—All.. All of our progress, our growth, our healing just because you want to go back to the man that broke us in the first place! We’ve come so far, we’ve done so much—You want to throw all of that away?!”

“I won’t help you kill him!” She shrieks in return, voice hollow despite the bite and tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.

“FINE!”

C’aziza stills—Maybe she’s wo…

“I’ll do it by myself.”

“NO!”

Aziza sucks in a breath, beside herself with emotions that hit her from all angles at once—trying desperately to beat the man atop her off so that she can gain some distance… So that she can breathe. “We don’t have to do this, Dasa! We don’t have to kill him, we can go back to how it used to be! We—We can be together again! We can be perfect!”

“How can you even say that?! Did you forget what we went through? With every hit, every slap, every punch, every kick, every time he threw us off a cliff or starved us or slammed us into the ground—Every single time he hurt us he made us into a more perfect version of his fucked up little experiment, and for what?! For him to use us, train us like a damn dog?! YOU WANT THAT AGAIN?!”

“I DON’T KNOW HOW ELSE TO BE!”

She’s screaming.

“I DON’T KNOW EITHER! But I don’t want to be THAT! I NEVER want to be that again!”

“He’ll treat us differently this time, I know it!” Aziza cries out, struggling with shaking arms against the steel grip of silver hands at her wrists. It does her no good but she can’t just lie there and let this go on like this. So she struggles; she kicks and twists and beats her tail into his ribs like a bludgeon to get him off—to topple him in some way so that she can wriggle free and put space between them. “We won’t be broken like last time! Kushal is different, can’t you see it in his eyes when he looked at us? He wants to treat us so gently. He… He lov—”

“DON’T!”

The golden woman goes still.

“Please,” When did he start sounding so weak? So tired? “Please don’t say that.”

“It’ll be…” She swallows roughly, voice so high and strained. “It’ll be different. I know it will be.”

Dasa shifts above her in a slow, predatory motion until he’s properly planted over her belly and looking down at her from where he has her pinned. Golden eyes scream pain, reopened wounds of a decade gone by shining like blood on water in his gaze. She flinches and tries to look away from the hurt shes caused. He forces her to look at him with a cruel jerk of her arm, straining the socket enough to drive home his point.

“Do you understand what you’re suggesting? Really, Aziza? Can we disobey an order?”

“No, bu—”

“Do you still twitch when he raises his voice? Do you fear when his hand moves? Do you feel sick and anxious when you’re near him? Do you feel the dread? The terror? The panic?”

“Dasa—”

“We’re scared of him, Aziza. We… We shouldn’t be scared of the person we love. Is it really love if you’re terrified of their every move? Is it really love if you want to disappear when he says your name?”

. . .

“Isn’t it love that we want him in-spite of that?”

Dasa’s gut churns at the implication of those words and he’s starting to pull back just as Aziza pushes forward—flipping the tables in a turn over that has Aziza pinning the man of silver. Their bodies roll and the wild, feline screeching kicks back up as blows are exchanged between each form. It seems ceaseless for how long they continue this useless tirade and it’s only when Dasa stumbles back—missing his entire lower jaw and his tail in a mess of broken silver chunks on the floor that he finally speaks.

“If you won’t go—I will.”

“I won’t let you!”

Gold falls and crashes to the ground in a clatter like porcelain, the doll-like structure of both individuals leaving them vulnerable to each other’s targeted attacks. She stares at him with wide silver eyes, hands curled into tight fists at her side that she’s doing her all to keep to herself. Her leg is missing and there is a massive hole punched straight through the center of her chest. They both share a state of total disrepair, yet neither of them is willing to back-down from their stance. Neither willing to yield to the other’s demands for what they think is truth is so polar opposite to their counterpart.

They look like they are seconds from leaping at each other when a rush in the darkness catches their attention, the shifting darkness swirling around the form of an animal placing itself squarely between the both of them.

Pale yellow eyes stare back, unflinching as the beast holds its ground to their anger and rage.

Dasa stares the Wolf down for several long, tense, silent moments. He draws in a deep breath and edges down very slightly into relaxing, uncurling his fists to let his hands hang loosely at his sides. That seems to satisfy the wolf, turning slowly to turn that gaze onto the woman of gold. Where Dasa yielded? She hisses and snarls at the very presence of the third part of their soul.

“I will not let you kill Kushal. I—I won’t let you do it!”

The wolf takes a step forward and she takes a step back, screeching furiously at the beast as a threat to her person should it take another step forward.

“That’s enough, Aziza. It’s over.”

“This isn’t over! I love him, I won’t let you take him from me!”

“I won’t let you kill us for him.”

“We could have everything, Dasa. We’re so close.”

“And you want to ruin it all. I won’t let you.”

She snarls again, louder—hotter, burning as bright as the sun in the void space that surrounds the three of them. The brighter she seems to get, the warmer the space gets and the colder Dasa seems to run, despite the limbs they both lost in their scuffle. He lets out a low breath, frost gathering in a cloud at the tip of his lips. Everything stills and silence reigns.

Until…

“I’ll kill you if I have to.”

Aziza stares in utter disbelief at what the other half of her soul just said to her, the bewildered expression doing extra to drive that point home. The Wolf turns his head to look back at Dasa, then looks right back at Aziza and holds her gaze.

“You… You don’t mean that, Dasa. You can’t. That would ki—”

“I know.”

“And you would sti—”

“I will shatter everything that you are with my very own fists if you force my hand.”

“D...Dasa—”

“Don’t make me kill you, Aziza.”

That makes her stop and stare at Dasa like he’s alien to her. How could the other half of her very soul threaten her with destruction for chasing after the man they both love and both want to return to, even if it means breaking them apart into nothingness. She feels his emotions just as keenly as he feels hers; she knows he loves Kushal. She knows he wants to go back to Kushal. But he believes Kushal will be their undoing and she believes Kushal will be their rebirth. The look in her eye only makes Dasa tick his head up in open challenge. He isn’t backing down.

He means it.

Aziza’s face twists from disbelief to wild, uncontrolled hatred of the man in front of her—glaring daggers at him. Despite her anger and the way she snarls with malice dripping from her tone, she seems to relent. “Very well. Do what you must.”

Dasa takes a step forward and Lupa whirls around, a low growl building in the center of the wolf’s chest. It makes the man of silver take a step back and hiss low at the beast between him and his other.

“You’ve said your peace, Dasa. Leave her be.”

“I only want to keep us ali—”

“Leave. Her. Be.”

Golden eyes flick up from the wolf to rest on the festering glare of the woman just a foot out of reach—and he relents, turning his head away. If this is how it must be? It is how it will be. Aziza turns away from the man and wolf, stalking away. Dasa and Lupa soon follow her example, splitting off and going into three different directions. Their world wobbles hard and is swallowed by darkness, leaving nothing but an intense feeling of wrongness and hurt that cannot be explained.

C’tolemy’s eyes open slow, a hand reaching up to wipe away his tears as he gathers himself back together enough to stand up. His legs feel like jello, his heart aches so badly it feels like he’s moments from cracking apart but the deal has been settled. All he must do now is hold it together until the hunt is complete.

Then he will be free. They all will be.

A gathering of aether forms at the center of his person and he whisks himself away to Shirogane where a warm home and welcome family awaits. And he will greet them—

With a cat-like smile, both eyes closed and the edges of his lips upturned in a slight curl.

The smile he only gives when he doesn’t mean it.

#my writing #c'tolemy #aziza #lupa #c'ajnee #and the story reaches it's climax #back to writing hole

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screensirenfic · 5 years

Text

Black Leather - Chapter 30

The moment Steve’s sneakers hit the grass; you could feel the tension in the air change; a buzzing, almost electrical feeling whipping up my skin, like when a storm’s coming in and you can sense the change in air pressure.

I followed out after him; my boots noticeably lighter sounding despite their clunky design.

Slowly; step by step, we crept out in the open, already adopting the soldiers’ stance of bent knees and sharp eyes.

Dart let off a low chortle.

A warning. He knew we were after him.

I could see his hackles rising; a distinctly canine trait despite me knowing he was far from it.

Steve began to whistle; a cheery sharp sound more suited to calling a dog than a monster.

“Come on, buddy…’ He called, finishing it off with a series of whistles just in case he didn’t seem crazy enough.

“Come here, fella. Good boy.” Steve cooed as we crept closer, eyes fixed on the suspicious looking creature.

“Steve; cut it out. It’s not a dog.” I muttered under my breath, not entirely sure we should be treating this thing like a pet.

“Have you got any better ideas?” He pointedly asked, still not taking his eyes off the demogorgon.

I sighed, knowing he was probably right; goddamnit!

“Here boy…” I began to call, feeling every ounce the idiot as we cooed to a Lovecraftian horror like some puppy.

“Dinner time.” Steve coaxed it; and I tried not to think of the very real implications that we may end up in this thing’s stomach.

Dart continued to watch us, and I was beginning to wonder if this plan was gonna work at all.

“Aren’t you hungry, fella?” I asked; forcing a fake smile, because maybe this thing could read facial expressions.

“Human tasted better than cat; I promise…” Steve continued to tempt it, edging closer and closer still.

Finally; Dart started to respond, slowly approaching us; strange flowerlike jaws snapping at us experimentally.

Steve whipped his bat in front of him, warding Dart off like a lion tamer and his beast.

“Have you got a shot?” Steve asked, focusing on the creature in front of us in case it decided to pounce.

“Almost…” I said, lining up a shot with my gun so I could see Dart in my crosshairs.

“Just a little further…” I waited, because the fucking thing wouldn’t move it’s head and I needed a damn headshot.

“Come on, come on…” Muttered Steve, watching as the beast began to hesitate, almost as if it sensed my gun on him.

If it just moved left a little—

“Steve! Lola! Watch out!” Yelled Lucas from the top of the bus, but we didn’t have time to look.

“A little busy here!” Replied Steve, not taking his eyes off Dart, because goddamnit; we could see what it was doing! We didn’t need a—

“Three o’clock! Three o’clock!” Lucas yelled; and I turned my gun just in time to spot another demagorgon jump onto the hood of a junked car, hissing menacingly.

“Shit! You got that one?” Steve asked, noticing the other demodog, but not moving his bat away from the first.

“It’s alright. I got it in my sights. You just watch the other one.” I reassured him, settling my crosshairs over the advancing creature.

“Steve! Lola!” Yelled out the voice of Dustin, and I suddenly realised that must’ve meant he’d opened the bus door.

“Abort! Abort!” He yelled from the doors; and goddamnit! This kid was gonna get himself killed!

Suddenly, I heard hissing, and before we knew it, Dart was making a leap at Steve.

I fired at him; aiming for the head, but in quarters as close as these, it was hard to see if it met its mark.

I think my shot went wide, then—

Fuck!

The other demodog came sailing towards me, and I was beginning to think this was it…

Fuck me for watching out for Steve’s dumb a—

Shit! I landed on the metal hood of a car with a thud; the metal cold and hard against my back.

I immediately pressed my gun up, ready to fend off whatever had landed on top of me, only to realise it was Steve.

I didn’t get time to thank him for the save before the Demodog took another leap at us, but Steve managed to take a swing at it.

Wood met flesh with a firm crack, and I think Steve must’ve broken one of that thing’s legs, but it still wasn’t dead. I could fix that.

I lined up a shot with it quickly, before firing into its back.

It wasn’t a headshot, but I didn’t have time to check my kill, Steve already grabbing my arm to haul both our asses back to the bus where the kids were beckoning frantically in the doorway.

“Quick! Run! Run!” They yelled, and I swear the growls of the demagorgons had gotten louder, but I wasn’t about to stop and check.

We were almost at the door now, and I could literally feel the demagorgons snapping at our heels behind us.

We made a dive for the door, fully expecting not to make it and end up being dragged back by the ankles by a pack of vicious demagorgons.

Steve landed first; his heavier frame landed back first on the bus floor with a firm thump.

I came next, landing straight on top of him; hands quickly shooting out above him to stop myself from giving him a pretty debilitating headset.

Steve stared straight up at me; deep brown eyes sparkling with life and adrenaline, and was it just me or had his pupils gotten larger?

I smiled down at him, enjoying how he tensed beneath me, because fuck; Steve was such a sub, and a pretty one.

Steve was always so very pretty; everyone thought so, and here on the floor of a junked bus, he was no different.

Soft waves of brown hair spilling in a relative halo around his head, dumb pretty boy smile across his lips that just made you wanna kiss it off hi—

And what the hell was I thinking? This was Steve I was thinking about!

The same guy who I’d known since seventh grade.

The very same guy who made stupid jokes just to see me laugh.

The very same guy who dropped me home after Tina’s Halloween party; who held me when I’d cried because Billy had been a total dick, and goddamnit; this was Stev—

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The sound of three very heavy bodies colliding with the closed door snapped me out of my thoughts; me quickly dismounting Steve to scramble towards the other side of the bus.

“Shit!!” Dustin exclaimed, but Steve was already on it, grabbing a piece of scrap metal from the floor and holding it to the door with his feet.

I began to reload my shotgun, knowing Steve wouldn’t be able to keep them out for long.

“They can’t get in! They can’t!” Insisted Lucas, but I don’t think the demagorgons cared, still throwing themselves at the bus door with angry hisses and bangs.

“Shitshitshitshitshitshit!” Panicked Dustin, and I don’t think he was the only one—

Shit! The demagorgons had managed to break through, already clambering to get onto the bus, but Steve wouldn’t let that happen; already standing with his bat in hand, taking swings at it’s snapping jaws.

Meanwhile; I managed to get another bullet into my shotgun, silently cursing the day I’d convinced my dad that he didn’t need a newer model.

“Is anyone there? Mike? Will? God? Anyone?!” I could hear Dustin yelling down the radio; a last ditch attempt at getting backup, despite all of us knowing we were terrifyingly alone out here.

I raised my shotgun, aiming past Steve to fire at the attacking demagorgon.

BANG! BANG!

I fired both rounds into the monster, forcing it to retreat out of the bus, and goddamnit; why weren’t these things dead yet?!

I didn’t have time to contemplate the potential invulnerability of the demagorgons; the beasts in question having already circled the bus and begun to fling themselves at the back of the bus.

The kids began to shriek in terror, and I was really beginning to regret agreeing to this field trip, because goddamnit; I could deal with monsters, but screaming children?!

“We’re at the old junkyard, and we are going to die!” Yelled Dustin into the radio, stating the truth we really didn’t need to hear, even as Max and Lucas began hopelessly looking for an escape route.

Unfortunately, not all of us had time to panic; me already getting to work at reloading my shotgun, but I don’t think I brought enough shells for this, and fuck it; I don’t even think they were work—

BOOM!

Something managed to land on the roof; the whole bus shaking with the force of the impact.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I could hear heavy footsteps reverberating on the metal roof of the bus, but somehow; I don’t think my dad had managed to parachute down and rescue us--

“AHHHHH!” Max let out a scream, staring up from the foot of the ladder at something above the sunroof.

Me and Steve rushed over to her; already knowing what it was.

“Out of the way! Out of the way!” Instructed Steve, shoving her to one side.

I levelled my shotgun with the face of a snarling demogorgon; it’s jaws parting to let out a roa--

BANG! BANG!

I unloaded my shells into the back of its throat, watching as it fell to one side and off the roof of the bus with a sickening squelch.

The bus suddenly stopped shaking, and the demagorgons hissing and roaring started to become fainter as if they were—

They were retreating!

Thank fucking god!

I wanted to fall down on my knees and praise whatever god was listening for sparing us from a gory death, but I couldn’t quite yet; not until we knew for sure.

——————————————————————————

Five minutes later, after Steve and I knew it wasn’t a trap and we weren’t about to get jumped by demagorgons the moment we opened the door, we ventured out of the bus.

Steve went outside first, nailbat in hand, because despite the fact I was better armed and more suited to fighting at range; he still had to play the gentleman and keep me out of danger.

I followed, gun at the ready, because it would be a cold day in hell when I let his ass get killed over something as stupid as chivalry.

Nothing.

Not a single living thin—

CRACK!

Me and Steve both spun towards the sound of a twig breaking; both hyper alert and ready for battle, should things get ugly.

On the outskirts of the junkyard, I could see Dart running away back towards the woods.

I raised my gun, ready to take a potshot at him, when Steve stopped me, placing his hand over my barrel and pushing it down.

I let him, deciding that I could at least defer to his judgement just this once.

Besides; we didn’t want them coming back for vengeance.

“What happened?” Lucas asked, emerging from the bus first to take a look around.

“I don’t know.” Max replied; the next to get off the bus with a shaken look on her face.

“Do you think we scared them off?” Dustin asked, sidling up between me and Steve as if he’d done anything but screaming and whining.

“It’s possible—“ Steve replied,

“No.” I interrupted as Steve rested his bat on his shoulder, ready to call it a day.

Fuck; I was ready to call it a day, but I couldn’t, not if they were going.

I could hear the demagorgons growls and hisses in the distance, echoing as they retreated.

I knelt on the ground, studying the start of a blood trail leading into the woods.

“They’re going somewhere.”

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acklest · 5 years

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Jensen Ackles, AU!Michael!Dean, 14x10: Nihilism (and rambling about “range”)

Jensen was so fucking good, don’t even touch me right now, don’t even look at me. I mean, he’s always good, but with this episode, he kicked it in the ASS.

I don’t feel like I have enough WORDS for it. Behind a cut while I prattle on. (None of the gifs used as examples are mine.)

I watched the episode multiple times to see what Jensen was doing as Michael that so wasn’t Dean Winchester, because he was so fascinatingly NOT Dean. I know there are certain style choices that lend themselves to the differences, like his hair being parted on the other (wrong) side and the painstakingly dapper suits and the newsboy cap. Dean Smith (4x17: It’s a Terrible Life) had his hair parted on the wrong side, too. It’s some easy shorthand for “hey, something about this isn’t quite right.” (Like the French cuffs didn’t give it away.)

Demon!Dean was just Dean without the moral center. He was fun to watch, don’t get me wrong, for the brief time we got him. MoC!Dean was actually closer to what I thought Demon!Dean was going to be, so I enjoyed him more. Watching MoC!Dean massacre the Stynes was epic and so satisfying (and tragic I know because of the kid, I’m not like yay murder). As much as I love the real Sam and Dean, and I’m always happy when they get back to who they really are, these dark side digressions are so much fun because we get to see Jared and Jensen show off.

But there’s more to it than that. Jensen has said that his approach to each new script is instinctive (reads the script once or twice and decides what he’s going to do) and Jared is intellectual (reads it multiple times to feel like he’s really soaked it in). But here, I feel, Jensen has made some very deliberate choices.

First, A Tangent: I watch different Dark Angel vids on Youtube and there’s usually a comment somewhere about how Alec and Dean are basically the same character, or Alec is Young!Dean. They don’t (always) come right out and say, “He can only convincingly play Dean-like characters”, but the implication is there. The two characters have some superficial traits in common, like sarcasm, physical comedy, Jensen’s face (can’t be helped). But even his face doesn’t really come into it once you hit the latter half of S1 because Jensen’s face changed a lot in the interim. His jaw got stronger, his face got broader. So I watched an episode of Dark Angel and immediately watched an episode of Supernatural (1x3: Dead in the Water). @deanscarlett helped me figure this out: Alec is out for out for himself, Dean was always out for anything but himself (except when it comes to pleasure-seeking, when he even allows it). Alec has his own psychological trauma (2x11: The Berrisford Agenda) which adds facets to his character’s mercenary pursuits, but once he locks down that perceived weakness (”I’m always alright”), you don’t really see him break down like that again. His programming is strong; he just buries it. But it serves a purpose: Max had written him off as a loss after she saved his life at the expense of not getting a cure to the virus (2x3: Proof of Purchase). It showed her that he wasn’t just a “happy-go-lucky sociopath”, that he had a story like everyone else, and that meant he deserved a shot at redemption. Alec was relatively unburdened (I mean... genetically enhanced master assassin... star torturer in HELL... Dean wins this round, I think) compared to Dean, who’s had ever-increasing weight on his shoulders since “Take your brother outside as fast as you can - don't look back. Now, Dean! GO!” Even young, Dean was never this carefree except maybe in his imagination or as a way to distance himself from others, or when he got really into the “I’m a badass I save people” part of it.

In this scene, Alec (if the character is Jensen’s age) is 23. He’s found a bunch of transgenics that fled from Manticore (the only home they’ve ever known) because of a fire. They’re all children, ranging in age from elementary school to early teens. He’s annoyed because they interrupted his sexy times in a motel. He’s very dismissive of them and spends most of those scenes throwing pieces of popcorn at one of the X7s, who are all small children. Creepy black-eyed hive-minded small children, but small children nonetheless. He makes smart remarks and rolls his eyes while Max tries to get through to the children to let them know that they should absolutely not go back to Manticore if they want to live. In just a few minutes, she takes apart their foundations: You don’t answer to me. You’re not a designation, you’re a person. You have a name now. You have to make your own choices.

“Why would Manticore try to get rid of us?”

Alec answers:

Compare that to Dean as early as 1x3 Dead in the Water:

Dean doesn’t even talk the same way as Alec (except in the first few episode, while they were still getting used to their characters), and I don’t mean Jensen’s ever-more-gravelly voice, I mean the way he stubbornly pushes his jaw forward and talks out one side of his mouth or through his teeth. He has his mouth slightly open a lot. Sometimes he barely moves his mouth when he talks, speaking as if saying the words mostly to himself. Like 2x20 where Wishverse!Sam says “You slept with my prom date. On prom night.” Dean says, “Yeah that does kinda sound like me” while barely moving his mouth at all. Or in 4x01 where he holds up the empty liquor bottle and asks Bobby, “What, r’yer parents outta town or somethin?” That’s such a mushy line. He has a mush-mouth that’s only made mushier by hunter jargon and Dean’s... idiosyncratic way of speaking. If you weren’t in this fandom, would you know what I full-on Swayze’d that mother even meant? I always think of this (7x21):

(He can speak perfectly clearly when he wants to make a point, or when they’re pretending to be any kind of authority. I always think of the exchange in 5x14: My Bloody Valentine:

SAM: [mock sadness] That's when a dog doesn't eat-- That's when you know something's really wrong.

DEAN: [pokerface] Remarkably patronizing concern. Duly noted.

He can turn it off when he wants to. That Dean’s Master Adapter thing and it’s FUCKING HOT. Oh, I’m a production assistant now? Cool, aced it in a day. Oh, we’re in prison? This is fine, I’m gonna procure cigarettes. LARPing? Sign me the fuck up. Oh, we’re reporters? I can sound like a reporter. I’ve watched thousands of hours of television, I can mimic anyone. I can fake my way through almost anything. We’re in a different town two weeks from now, I can tell people whatever I want.

OH SHIT, DEAN TANGENT INSIDE OF A JENSEN RANGE TANGENT. Quick, make it look intentional!

Anyway, to me, Alec... Dean... not the same character. Going from one to the other was so jarring. For gifsets or edits where you want to show young Dean Winchester, it totally works for that. I mean, it’s Jensen’s face when he was that pre-Supernatural age... except that Jensen didn’t really look like Ridge Canipe or Dylan Everett when he was that age. (I love Dylan Everett. I don’t even care that his eyes are the wrong color.)

But something else Jensen does is put his own mark on roles that he’s given. Tom Hanniger wasn’t supposed to be as sympathetic as he turned out to be, and most people who watched it stated that they wanted someone else to be the bad guy (Axel was looking good for it) so that Tom would be okay. (Sorry if I just spoiled that for you.) Alec wasn’t supposed to be quite so likable, but that’s what Jensen brought to it. Even Kripke said early on that Dean was different on the page than when Jensen got ahold of him. He finds the heart of the character. Imagine if Dean Winchester had been the guy from the pilot this whole time, grossly leering at Jess to make Sam uncomfortable and defensive.

Remember that Jess first says “Your brother Dean?” with a pleased smile on her face.

DEAN: [instantly leering] Oh, I love the Smurfs. [ogles cleavage] You know, I gotta tell you. [steps too close] You are completely out of my brother's league. [suggestive grin]

JESS: [smile fading, clearly uncomfortable] Just let me put something on.

[JESS turns to go. DEAN's voice stops her.]

DEAN: [isn’t discouraged by her discomfort] No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it. [another leer] Seriously.

When I first watched that, I thought: “Pussyhound with control issues? That’s your brother’s girl, don’t be skeevy.”

But before long, you realize what it was: Contempt. He wasn’t interested in Jess. “I’m going to make you feel very unwelcome because who the hell invited YOU?” It’s very possessive.

Think about that first scene with Dean after “Easy, tiger!” and then Dean a mere 9 episodes later, in “Home”, trying to get through to John because he’s scared, his voice breaking, his eyes filling up. During that first scene, would you have predicted something like that? "My heart’s gonna break for this bossy bad boy creep.” In fact, by the third episode of the series, it has. Sam tries to make a note of it and gets shut down by Dean right away. "I’ll show you a little, but that’s all. Don’t test me.”

DEAN: You're scared. It's okay. I understand. See, when I was your age, I saw something real bad happen to my mom, and I was scared, too. I didn't feel like talking, just like you. But see, my mom—I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave. And maybe, your dad wants you to be brave too.

Later:

DEAN: Oh God, we're not gonna have to hug or anything, are we?

It’s not until 2x20: What is and What Should Never Be where you see how Dean feels about Jess now that he understands how important she was to Sam: He hug-tackles her from out of frame, and if she never died... There were more layers of Dean revealed in that episode than Alec got his entire season. (Don’t even get me started on that episode, I’ll just start crying and I’m already so off course with this post.)

Jensen took this role and made it as iconic as it is. He protects it.

I’m not saying another actor couldn’t have also “sold” that role and made it their own. What I am saying is, I don’t think that another actor would be playing the everloving fuck out of that role -- with all its twists and turns, advances and setbacks -- 14 years later with seemingly as much passion (if not more) than when they started.

But Jensen didn’t leave Dean in that swaggering, cocky, Han Solo place. He deepened the character, added layers, he shows us the cracks and the flaws. The show would NOT have lasted 14 seasons without these two actors. God, I only watch it to see what’s happening to them and see the ways they found to challenge themselves in otherwise unremarkable episodes. It’s like a troubled relationship where you’re like “No, I’m not watching it again ever” and then it texts you at 3am with “wyd” and suddenly you’re playing an episode and wondering about your life.

I went into that long-ass, rambling, what-even-are-you-talking-about tangent to set you up for this:

Nihilism was NOT an unremarkable episode.

This is not like any other role that Jensen has played before.

There’s really no trace of Dean Winchester in Michael except the resemblance (and the daddy issues, I suppose). And even that’s played down with the neat hair, the suit, the artful "I know my best angles” way that he presents himself to people. There’s not even a trace of other characters that Jensen has played. It’s an entirely new role for him.

Michael carries himself elegantly. The perfect posture, the poise, the careful, graceful motions. Dean kind of slouches, looms, or does a parade rest sort of thing where he’s braced for whatever might happen. He’s got a big ambling swagger. He puts his feet up on tables or sits with his legs sprawled apart.

Michael eerily doesn’t blink as much as you would expect. As Dean, Jensen blinks a lot and closes his eyes, sometimes for a few seconds in the middle of a line, as if he’s processing his thoughts. I love it. It doesn’t start happening until S4 or so, where he wants to show the general weariness of the character. It happens the most when he’s angry or exasperated. But Michael is laser-focused.

Michael speaks very precisely and almost ceremoniously, like he’s selecting each word for the maximum impact. He has ALL the time in the world. Dean talks like... well, Dean. This is the big one for me. He just doesn’t SOUND like Dean, even though it’s the same damn voice. It’s in the cadence. He also holds his chin upright so his voice projects differently, and his jaw isn’t clenched like Dean’s usually is. His voice comes across as smooth and oozes condescension.

Michael, in keeping with his wardrobe and (understandable) superiority complex is very fussy. While Sam, Cas, and Jack are talking, he’s speculatively opening and closing his hands in the background as if trying the cuffs, but he doesn’t even bother to struggle. While he’s talking to Cas during the big monologue, he absently picks a speck of something out from under a fingernail and neatly refolds his hands on his knee. He puts himself in those 3-piece suits. He has expanded to take up all of the possible Dean-ness and he’s very proud of his vessel. The human that used to be in control could not possibly matter less. As far as he’s concerned, Dean was his the moment he was even born.

Michael’s expressions are very different. Dean has a very expressive face. In one 5-second gif, you can identify a number of little micro-expressions he goes through. His face is almost never still unless something has gone very wrong. His eyebrows are all over the place. He’s squinty from having scowled for so long. He absently curls his lip when he talks. Because Michael doesn’t have all the trauma and worries that Dean has, he keeps his expression smooth. He looks completely dignified. Because he feels he has absolutely nothing to fear, his expressions are supercilious and disdainful.

Michael is very, very serene. He’s a BEING, and currently immortal. The things the “pig-filthy humans” are doing don’t really seem to concern him. “He's a gnat,” he says about Dean. He’s waiting them out because to him, they’re the blink of an eye. People keep trying to get a rise out of him, I think because he wears Dean’s face and they’re desperate to see a glimpse of him. Michael just doesn’t give a shit. Holy fire? Whatever. These cute handcuffs? That’s adorable.

Look at the image below. There is no Dean at all, there is barely even a flicker of concern. His smile here is almost like, “You are naive and tedious. I’m just waiting for my army to get here. Might as well relax.”

I’m sorry, I’m just very, very excited and I’m so proud of Jensen. He was already brilliant, but this kicked it into a whole new level.

What killed me:

* Don’t interrupt me.

* Dean’s not home right now. Please leave a message.

* (”With these angel cuffs on, Michael’s under control.”) You keep telling yourself that.

* THAT CREEPY ASS SMILE after Sam says that the Impala’s trunk could hold Michael!Dean too. IT’S SO CREEPY WHAT IS IT

* I called them. [smiles, fake gasp of surprise] It’s a party.

* (”Sam, are we going to die here?”) ANOTHER CREEPY LITTLE SMILE like he could not be less intimidated if he tried.

* I can hear you. [they move about 5 steps further] Really?

* Remind me, Castiel, we’re west of Kansas City? (Dudes, he is an archangel, did you think walking into another room was going to keep him from hearing you?)

* Yeah, put a chair against the door. That’ll help.

* The last thing you’ll see is this pretty smile. AND HE DOES THE TONGUE THING THAT JENSEN DOES so in the small moment to me he was Evil!Jensen. I would read that fanfic. it made me SO uneasy.

* I’m in his head. LITERALLY.

* (”He’s lying.”) No, I’m not. And I can still hear you.

* God -- Chuck -- is a writer, and like all writers, He churns out draft after draft. (The way he sort of labors over every letter in the word “Chuck”, it’s so contemptuous, almost like he’s saying “Fuck”?)

* He never would’ve been so... anemic. [absently cleans a fingernail]

* [leans forward] Even God can die. Ugh, the chill that went down my spine.

* Cool science project.

* When they put the electrodes(?) on him, he’s sort of glancing back and forth, HE’S SO AMUSED, he even laughs disparagingly.

* Oh, Cas. I believe in you. LOL

* In there? You’re all mine. *audible swallow*

Ugh, if AU!Michael!Dean was a lotion, I would smear it all over my body.

Thank you for coming to my Jensen Talk.

#spoilers #spn spoilers #supernatural #jensen ackles #i haven't written analysis in a long time so this might just be stupid #dean winchester #spn cast

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dreamersscape · 5 years

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The Raven Cycle: A Liveblog (Part 4)

(Let’s just pretend the gap since my last installment was a much shorter and more reasonable period of time than it has actually been, shall we? I tried to make up for it with the length of this edition. Suuuuuper long post under the cut.)

Me, reading TDT’s opening quotations: Okay, yes, good. Taking things out of your dreams into the waking world. Got it.

Me, reading the last quote: ‘I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven’t got the guts to bite people themselves.’?

YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING OF MY PEOPLE, AUSTIN STRINDBERG. GET THEE HENCE.

‘He always returned with gifts, treasure, and unimaginable amounts of money, but to Ronan, the most wondrous thing was Niall himself. Every parting felt like it would be the last, and so every return was like a miracle.’ RONANNNNNNN. (Is it weird that it feels like Ronan is supposed to be my favorite bc he seems closest to my type and goodness knows I can relate to the grieving-a-father feels, but that’s not really the case so far? I love him dearly, but it feels like I should love him more. Weird? Not weird? I dunno.)

*carefully takes notes about the alleged details of Ronan’s birth because I know now every minor detail is actually Very Important*

‘Theoretically, Blue Sargent was probably going to kill one of these boys.’ Oh, good, it’s only a theoretical death. Glad we got that sorted out. Guess I can stop worrying about it now, right? :P

'Adam’s hand glided over her bare elbow. The touch was a whisper in a language she didn’t speak very well.’ I really like this line! Also, somewhat sadly, relateable.

'It had five tiny white buttons: four arranged in a cross shape, and one off by itself. To Blue, that fifth button was like Adam. Still working toward the same purpose as the other four. But no longer quite as close as the others.’ Oh, so we’re going to make my heart hurt over Adam Parrish in the first ten pages of the book. Fine.

'In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys.’ Aw, those lines sound familiar. ;) And we’re all right there with ya, Blue.

'The dorms were emptier than they would’ve been during school term, but they were not empty.’ Whoops unrelated-to-TRC-but-nevertheless-on-brand feels ahoy.

So it’s been long enough since I read TRB that I can’t recall if I had any particular feelings about Declan then, but definitely feeling pretty sympathetic towards him now, what with his father’s seeming dismissive attitude toward him and the assault from this Gray Man. Also, have I read the word Greywaren before? Not sure.

Oh. So Ronan is the Greywaren, then. Guess that answers that.

’Mom is nothing without him’? Woooow, Declan. Wow. A bit less sympathy, now. (Maybe there’s something about their mother I don’t know yet, but still…)

’Creature was a good word for him, Ronan thought.’ Oof. He’s gonna make me eat my words, isn’t he? I already said I love you dearly, Ronan!

And now he’s gonna divert himself from his unpleasant thoughts with an external distraction. Oh good. That doesn’t mirror any of my other favorite characters at all.

'Back then, it had surprised Ronan; he hadn’t realized yet that Gansey could persuade even the sun to pause and give him the time.’ [drags a hand slowly down my face] Don’t do this to me, Maggie. Haven’t you already put me through enough with Adam and Gansey?

'His thoughtless expression was one of wonder or of pain; with Gansey they were so often the same thing.’ Well that–that’s a sentence.

’“Ronan, there’s no reason for that,” Gansey said sternly, as if Ronan had hurled a toy on the floor.’ Gonna start listing all the mom-friend!Gansey moments, 'cause I gotta.

'He laughed enough that Chainsaw abandoned her paper shredding to verify he wasn’t dying.’ This is cute, other than the implication that Ronan genuinely laughing is a all-too-rare occurrence.

’“So what you’re saying is you can’t explain it.” “I did explain it.” “No, you used nouns and verbs together in a pleasing but illogical format.”’ Hee!

I half expect tired-of-potential-and-only-being-useful-needing-something-more!Blue to break out singing ’I want much more than this provincial life/I want adventure in the great wide somewhere/I want it more than I can tell’ and I don’t say that at all in a disparaging way, that’s just what it made me think of. It’s a very understandable desire on Blue’s part.

’“Jane!” Gansey said joyfully.’ I will never tire of this. :)

'When she returned, she leaned on the table beside Adam, who touched her wrist. She didn’t know what to do in response. Touch it back? The moment had passed. She resented her body for not giving her the correct answer.’ So! Freaking! Relateable!

'Kavinsky headed directly to the large table in the back, and the postures of the other boys all changed drastically….Gansey stood, leaning against the table, and there was something threatening rather than respectful about it.’ I live a protective!Gansey appreciation life.

The Gray Man is quite a character.

Ummmm so chapter eight just hurt my soul a whole lot? Here’s a list of the culprits:

'He’d spent just two hours at the easiest of the jobs — Boyd’s Body & Paint, LLC, replacing brake pads and changing oil and finding what was making that squeaking noise there, no, there — and now, even though he was off, he was ruined for anything else. Sticky and sore and, above all else, tired, always tired.’

'The only rub was, Blue was another troubling thing. She was like Gansey in that she wanted him to explain himself. What do you want, Adam? What do you need, Adam? Want and need were words that got eaten smaller and smaller: freedom, autonomy, a perennial bank balance, a stainless-steel condo in a dustless city, a silky black car, to make out with Blue, eight hours of sleep, a cell phone, a bed, to kiss Blue just once, a blister-less heel, bacon for breakfast, to hold Blue’s hand, one hour of sleep, toilet paper, deodorant, a soda, a minute to close his eyes. What do you want, Adam? To feel awake when my eyes are open.’ (This hurt less than the 'to go home, to go home, to go home’ passage, but ONLY JUST.)

'He’d already seen the ignored, unopened envelope emblazoned with Aglionby Academy’s raven crest. For two days he’d been stepping over it, as if it might disappear if he failed to acknowledge it.’ (Ah, hello avoidant coping skills, my old friend.)

’[Adam] ached inside.’/'He still ached.’/'his spine aching, shoulders aching, soul aching’

'They stared at each other, both hurt.’/'He tried not to let it sound like he was still hurt, but he was, and it did.’/'She tried not to let it sound like she was hurt, but she was, and it did.’

’What do you want, Adam? He didn’t even know.’ (T.T)

'His wide eyes and gaunt face peered back at him, troubled but not unusual.’

I’m so done, he thought. No more. Please, I can’t take any more.’ (SAME.)

'The difference in tuition between this year’s and next was twenty-four hundred dollars. That number again. It couldn’t be a coincidence.’ (SERIOUSLY THOUGH, I CAN’T TAKE ANYMORE GANSEY/ADAM TENSION/CONFLICT/FIGHTING. WHEN DO WE GET TO THE GETTING BETTER PART?)

'They couldn’t hurt Gansey. Nothing could hurt him; people who said money couldn’t buy everything hadn’t seen anyone as rich as the Aglionby boys. They were untouchable, immune to life’s troubles. Only death couldn’t be swiped away by a credit card.’ (Oh Adam honey, you don’t even knooooow. :()

Adam! Some people show and feel love through acts of service! It’s not an inherently bad thing! Concern and the desire to help are not the same thing as pity!

Also, Blue’s “Then don’t be pitiful!” response was kinda strange, even for an impulsively perturbed remark? Just felt weird.

'She was looking at the box that served as his nightstand. Somehow it had moved several feet away from the bed. The side was badly dented, its former contents scattered violently across the floor. Only now did he remember the act of kicking the box, but not the decision to kick it.’ (Crap.)

'He calmed enough to remember that if he waited long enough, carefully analyzing how it felt, the emotion would lose its inertia. It was the same as physical pain. The more he tried to mentally decide what made pain hurt, the less his brain seemed able to remember the pain at all.’

'He’d never escape, not really. Too much monster blood in him. He’d left the den, but his breeding betrayed him. And he knew why he was pitiful. It wasn’t because he had to pay for his school or because he had to work for a living. It was because he was trying to be something he could never be. The sham was pitiful.’

'Some nights he lured himself to sleep by imagining how he would word the favor for Glendower. He needed to get the words exactly right. Now he rolled phrases around his mouth, desperately reaching for one that would comfort him. Ordinarily, words would tumble and lull through his mind, but this time, all he could think was Fix me.’ (On a related note, I’m dead.)

'He had a strange, disconcerting feeling that he couldn’t trust his senses. Like he was tasting an image or smelling a feeling or touching a sound. It was the same as just a few minutes before, the idea that he’d glimpsed a slightly wrong reflection of himself. Adam’s previous worries vanished, replaced with a more immediate concern for this ragged body he was carting around in. He’d been hit so many times. He’d already lost his hearing in his left ear. Maybe something else had been destroyed on one of those tense, wretched nights.’ (*Spontaneously revives to continue worrying myself to death over Adam Parrish* WHY CAN’T I TAKE CARE OF HIM?)

'Ronan, Noah, and Gansey were at the Dollar City in Henrietta, loitering. Theoretically, they were there for batteries. Practically, they were there because both Blue and Adam had work, Ronan’s shapeless anger always got worse at night, and Dollar City was one of the few stores in Henrietta that allowed pets.’ These stupid codependent teens.

“Hello? Oh, hey,” Gansey said to the phone, touching a notebook with a handgun printed on the cover. The oh, hey was accompanied by a definite change in the timbre of his voice. That meant it was Adam’ [tries to feel the joy I deserve at this past my intense anxiety about the probable clashing over the tuition thing]

'Ronan rested his forehead on the topmost shelf. The metal edge snarled against his skull, but he didn’t move. At night, the longing for home was ceaseless and omniscient, an airborne contaminant. He saw it in Dollar City’s cheap oven mitts — that was his mother at dinnertime. He heard it in the slam of the cash register drawer — that was his father coming home at midnight. He smelled it in the sudden whiff of air freshener — that was the family trips to New York. Home was so close at night. He could be there in twenty minutes. He wanted to smash everything off these shelves.’ He and Adam both want to go hoooome and I wish I could provide that for them and turns out I am actually Gansey.

'“Glitter,” whispered Noah reverentially, giving it a shake.’ Truly Noah is their light in the darkness. I LOVE HIM SO MUCHHHH.

'Farther down the aisle, Gansey suggested to the phone, “You could come stay at Monmouth. For the night.”’ Like I said. Also, I really, really wish I could hear both sides of this phone conversation.

'Sometimes Ronan thought Adam was so used to the right way being painful that he doubted any path that didn’t come with agony.’ I mean, fair. And heartbreaking.

'Gansey’s back was turned to them. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ramirez? I didn’t talk to anyone at the church. Yes, twenty-four hundred dollars. I know that part. I —”’ Oh no. It’s happening.

'But one of the marvelous things about being Ronan Lynch was that no one ever expected him to do anything nice for anyone.’ I would hug you Ronan, except there is now more Adam 'n’ Gansey friction and I’m really bad at handling it!

'Abruptly, Ronan’s entire body went cold. Not a little chilly, but utterly cold. The sort of cold that dries the mouth and slows the blood. His toes went numb, and then his fingers….Then Noah reappeared in a violent sputter, like the power crackling back on. His fingers clutched Ronan’s arm. Cold seeped from the point of contact as Noah dragged heat to become visible.’ Oh, so Noah can do that with Ronan too? Because of his greywaren-ness?

'“I lost …” Noah struggled for words. “There wasn’t air. It went away. The — the line!” “The ley line?” Gansey asked. Noah nodded once, a sloppy thing that was sort of a shrug at the same time. “There was nothing … left for me.”’ Not allowed. Just saying.

'He didn’t say, Or maybe something terrible happened to Adam that day he sacrificed himself in Cabeswater. Maybe he’s messed up all of Henrietta by waking up the ley line. Because they couldn’t talk about that. Just like they couldn’t talk about Adam stealing the Camaro that night. Or about him basically doing everything Gansey had asked him not to. If Adam was stupid about his pride, Gansey was stupid about Adam.’ Yes, we know. :)

'From Ronan’s room, he heard Noah’s laugh. He and Ronan were throwing various objects from the second-story window to the parking lot below. There was a terrific crash.’ Having witnessed my younger brother doing basically the same thing once, I can vouch for the authenticity of this teenage-boy activity.

'Once, he had dreamt that he found Glendower. It wasn’t the actual finding, but the day after. He wouldn’t forget the sensation of the dream. It hadn’t been joy, but instead, the absence of pain. He couldn’t forget that lightness. The freedom.’ Yeah, don’t we all dream about the absence of pain. *buries face in hands* OH GANSEY BOY.

’“Do you want me to talk to her?” This was something he definitely, 100 percent felt certain in his guts that he had no interest in doing. “I’m really bad at talking, Gansey,” Adam said earnestly. “And you’re really good at it. Maybe — maybe if it just comes up natural?” Gansey’s shoulders collapsed; his breath fogged the glass and vanished. “Of course.” “Thanks.” Adam paused. “I just want something to be simple.” So do I, Adam. So do I.’ This right here? This A Whoooole Lot. Is there anything you wouldn’t do for Adam if he asked, Gansey?

'Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, “He threw me out the window!” Ronan’s voice sang out from behind his closed door: “You’re already dead!”’ OH. MY. GOODNESS.

’"You should come over.” “Not tonight,” replied Adam. I’m losing him, Gansey thought. I’m losing him to Cabeswater. He had thought that by staying away from the forest, he’d keep the old Adam — put off the consequences of whatever had happened that night when everything started to go awry. But maybe it just didn’t matter. Cabeswater would take him regardless.’ I dream of the absence of pain!!!

'His skin shivered and crawled, and he realized it was crawling with hornets, the ones that had killed Gansey all those years ago. There weren’t many this time, only a few hundred. Sometimes he dreamt cars full of them, houses full of them, worlds full of them. Sometimes these hornets killed Ronan, too, in his dreams.’ Oh, Ronan.

’Arbores loqui latine. The trees speak Latin. “You’ve done this before,” she said. Time was a circle, a rut, a worn tape Ronan never tired of playing.’ Huh. Has Ronan been dreaming of Cabeswater for years and years?

'Curled on the mattress, [Adam] covered his face with his summer-hot arm. Sometimes, if he blocked his mouth and nose, just this side of suffocation, sleep would overthrow him.’ THAT DOESN’T SOUND HEALTHY, MY BOY. :(

'He was awake enough to think of the invitation from Gansey. There might be an internship in there. Adam knew it was a favor. Did that make it wrong? He’d said no for so long that he didn’t know when to say yes….He hated the careful way Gansey had asked him about it. Tiptoeing, just like Adam had learned to tiptoe around his father. He needed a reset button. Just push the reset button on Adam Parrish and start him again.’ I am sad. (But maaaaybe he’s starting to reconsider the idea that he can never accept hep of any kind?)

'After he had exhausted this line of thought, Ronan gave in to the brief privilege of hating himself, as he always did in church. There was something satisfying about acknowledging this hatred, something relieving about this little present he allowed himself each Sunday.’ Oh, Ronan.

'“Hey, pal,” Matthew whispered. He was the only person who could get away with calling Ronan pal.’ Awww. :)

'Matthew Lynch was a bear of a boy, square and solid and earnest. His head was covered with soft, golden curls completely unlike any of his other family members. And in his case, the perfect Lynch teeth were framed by an easy, dimpled smile. He had two brands of smile: the one that was preceded by a shy dip of his chin, a dimple, and then BAM, smile. And the one that teased for a moment before BAM, an infectious laugh. Females of all ages called him adorable. Males of all ages called him buddy. Matthew failed at many more things than either of his older brothers, but unlike Declan or Ronan, he always tried his hardest.’ Whoops, I’m attached.

'Ronan had dreamt one thousand nightmares about something happening to him.’ *rubs heart*

'A lady reached over the top of Noah to pat Matthew’s head fondly before continuing down the aisle. She didn’t seem to care that he was fifteen, which was all right, because he didn’t, either. Both Ronan and Declan observed this interaction with the pleased expressions of parents watching their prodigy at work.’ Once again: Awww. :)

'Blue very much liked having the boys over to her house. Their presence at the house was agreeable for several different reasons….And the third reason was that it suggested permanence. Blue had acquaintances at school, people she liked. But they weren’t forever. While she was friendly with a lot of them, there was no one that she wanted to commit to for a lifetime. And she knew this was her fault. She’d never been any good at having casual friends. For Blue, there was family — which had never been about blood relation at 300 Fox Way — and then there was everyone else. When the boys came to her house, they stopped being everyone else.’ THEY’RE FAMILY NOW. <3

'Crossly, Blue realized that Gansey had now called her Jane so often that it felt strange to hear him say her real name.’ Embrace it, Blue. Embraaace it. :D

'He hid the insatiable wanting well, but now that she’d seen it once, she couldn’t stop seeing it. But he wouldn’t be able to explain it to Maura. And he would never really have to explain it to Blue. It was his something more.’ Awww. :)

(Sorry this liveblog is devolving mostly into either EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE or But this is cute! and if that is starting to become boring…)

’"What did they die of?” “Mom always said ‘meddling.’ Gansey completely forgot they were being secretive and let out a tremendous laugh. It was a powerful thing, that laugh. He only did it once, but his eyes remained shaped like it. Something inside her did a complicated tug. Oh no! she thought. But then she calmed herself. Richard C. Gansey III has a nice mouth. Now I know he has nice eyes when he laughs, too. This still isn’t love. She also thought: Adam. Remember Adam.’ 1.) I hope this line of rationalization works out for you, Blue. ;) 2.) I am still feeling torn, though. Blue and Adam are cute together. 3.) I’d be okay with a Blue-Gansey-Adam OT3 though.

'Maura frowned. In a low voice, she said, “I think I need to have a conversation with that boy.” “Someone does,” Calla replied, heading up the stairs. Each stair groaned a protest for which she punished the next with a stomp. “Not me. I’ve outgrown train wrecks.” Blue, alarmed, said, “Is he a train wreck?”| Her mother clucked her tongue. “Calla likes drama. Train wreck! When a train takes a long time to go off the tracks, I don’t like to call it a wreck. I like to call it a derailment.” From upstairs, Blue heard Calla’s delighted cackle. “I hate both of you,” Blue said as her mother laughed and galloped up the stairs to join Calla. “You’re supposed to use your powers for good, you know!” After a moment, Adam said to her, without lifting his eyes, “I could hear y’all, you know.” Blue hoped fervently that he was only talking about Maura and Calla and not about her kitchen conversation with Gansey. “Do you think you’re a train wreck?” “That would mean I was on the tracks to start with,” he replied.’ I would just like to say that I am miffed by this passage on Adam’s behalf. Thank you.

The chapter where Mr. Gray comes to 300 Fox Way was… interesting.

'Gansey, a furious sun, glowed from the other side of the universe, his gravitational pull too distant to affect Adam.’ WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME MAGGIE I CAN NEVER RECOVER.

So yeah, I just read the part where Adam is thinking back to how he and Gansey became friends and I think my heart just burst from emotional overload.

'Sometimes Adam wondered what would’ve happened if he hadn’t stopped that day. What would be happening to him right now?’ Sometimes, Allan wondered what would’ve happened if Robin hadn’t stepped out of the trees that day. What would be happening to him right now? SORRY, I HAVE A PROBLEM.

Also, it only just occurred to me that Allan and Adam are A-names and Robin and Richard (even if that’s not what Gansey goes by) are R-names. This makes me so unreasonably happy!

'Gansey was giddy now that they’d decided to go back to Cabeswater. He hated nothing more than standing still. He ordered Ronan to put on some terrible music — Ronan was always too happy to oblige in this department — and then he abused the Camaro at every stoplight on the way out of town. “Put your back into it!” Gansey shouted breathlessly. He was talking to himself, of course, or to the gearbox. “Don’t let it smell fear on you!” Blue wailed each time the engine revved up, but not unhappily. Noah played the drums on the back of Ronan’s headrest. Adam, for his part, was not wild, but he did his best not to appear unwild, so as not to ruin it for the others.’ REEELATABLLLLE!!!

'Adam felt like he was watching it all from outside. He felt like he was about to catch another image, like a flick of the tarot cards he’d looked at earlier. Was that someone standing by the side of the road? I can’t trust my eyes.’ Leave him aloooone. :(

'Gansey leaned back, head thrown to the side, drunken and silly with happiness. “I love this car,” he said, loud to be heard over the engine. “I should buy four more of them. I’ll just open the door of one to fall into the other. One can be a living room, one can be my kitchen, I’ll sleep in one …” “And the fourth? Butler’s pantry?” Blue shouted. “Don’t be so selfish. Guest room.”’ He’s adorable.

Huh. Cabeswater’s gone!

'Adam felt that the Pig’s status perfectly encapsulated how he felt. It was not really dead, just broken. He was held inside the question of what it meant for him if Cabeswater was gone. Why can’t things just be simple?’ While this is a legitimate concern, Adam, to be fair, just a few moments ago you were worrying about was going to happen when you returned to Cabeswater for the first time after your sacrifice. Poor guy’s anxious over everything. :/

'Ronan leapt out of the car and slammed the door. The thing about Ronan Lynch, Adam had discovered, was that he wouldn’t — or couldn’t — express himself with words. So every emotion had to be spelled out in some other way. A fist, a fire, a bottle. Now Cabeswater was missing and the Pig was hobbled, and he needed to go have a silent shouting fit with his body. In the back window, Adam saw Ronan pick up a rock from the side of the road and hurl it into the creeper. “Well, that’s helpful,” Blue said tersely.’ 1.) [Fond but exasperated] Oh Ronan. 2.) I appreciate your reaction, Blue. You’re not wrong.

'“I’m calling Declan,” Gansey said. “And telling him to bring a battery.” Ronan told Gansey what he thought of this plan, very precisely, with a lot of compound words that even Adam hadn’t heard before. Gansey nodded, but he also dialed Declan’s number. Afterward, he turned to Ronan, who leaned his cheek hard enough against the top of the window to make a dent in his skin.’ Please stop dealing with difficult emotions/situations by causing yourself pain, Ronan, honey.

'Gansey rounded on Adam, clutching his own headrest and looking behind him. “Why is it gone?”’ Why is my mental picture of this so endearing?

'Declan’s Volvo glided up, as quiet as the Pig was loud. Ronan said, “Move up, move up” to Blue until she scooted the passenger seat far enough for him to clamber behind it into the backseat. He hurriedly sprawled back in the seat, throwing one jean-covered leg over the top of Adam’s and laying his head in a posture of thoughtless abandon. By the time Declan arrived at the driver’s side window, Ronan looked as if he had been asleep for days.’ Oh, Ronan. What am I going to do with you?

'And as he sat there, observing the set of Declan’s shoulders and the way his eyes looked, he realized something startling. Declan was afraid. Probably it wasn’t apparent to Gansey, who was fairly oblivious, nor to Blue, who didn’t know what Declan looked like ordinarily. And Ronan’s feelings about his older brother were like blood in the water; he wouldn’t be able to see through the bilious clouds. But to Adam, who’d spent a fair amount of his life afraid — not only afraid, but trying to hide it — it was obvious.’ [Gansey voice] I am right to have Allan feels here and I will not be made to feel bad about it! (Also, in blast-from-the-past news, I’m really close to finally done with putting my anxiety-and-Allan thoughts into words and I’m excited for that.)

I love when Noah senses one of the other boys is in distress and goes to them and does his ghostly best to comfort or assist them. <3

'He thought about the day he’d been stung to death by hornets and lived anyway. Gansey ran over the memory until he no longer felt the thrill of hearing Glendower’s name whispered in his ear, and then instead gave himself over to feeling sorry for himself, that he should have so many friends and yet feel so very alone. He felt it fell to him to comfort them, but never the other way around. As it should be, he thought, abruptly angry with himself. You’ve had it the easiest. What good is all your privilege, you soft, spoiled thing, if you can’t stand on your own legs? ’ OH HONEY :( (But Noah does try!)

'“It’s not just the blood,” Ronan said. His chest moved up and down with his breath. “Something else got out, too.”’ Uh-oh.

Phew. They dispatched the nightmare creature while remaining mostly unscathed. Although they needn’t go around asking each other, "Are you murdered?” with the reply, “I think so.” anymore, please.

'“There was another one,” he said. “It got away.”’ Well, that’s not good!

'“It’s for the distasteful thing,” Gansey said. He plucked at the T-shirt with deprecating fingers. “I’m rather slovenly at the moment, I know.”’ [Fond, amused sputtering]

Oh, they’re going to the Barns!

'Gansey, a bit of the gallows in his voice, advised, “Poke its eye.”’ [Confused, taken-aback sputtering]

'“It feels the same as when you guys lived here,” Gansey said finally. “It seems like it should be different.” “Did you come here a lot?” Blue asked. He exchanged a glance with Ronan. “Often enough.” He didn’t say what Ronan was thinking, which was that Gansey was far more of a brother to Ronan than Declan had ever been.’ Brothers <3<3<3

'Ronan loved it so much. He nearly couldn’t bear it. He wanted to destroy something.’ That’s…one reaction to profound love. (Yes, I know. Profound love for something that’s been stripped away from you.)

'“Ronan Lynch,” he said. It was the voice Ronan couldn’t not listen to. It was sure in every way that Ronan was not. “Stop this right now. Go see your mother. And then we’re leaving.”’ More Mom-Friend!Gansey.

'Ronan walked directly up to her, close enough to see that she had not changed a bit since the last time he had seen her, months and months ago. Though his breath moved the fine hairs around her temples, she didn’t react to her son’s presence. Her chest rose and fell. Her eyes stayed closed. Non mortem, somni fratrem. Not death, but his brother, sleep. Blue whispered, “Just like the other animals.” The truth — he’d known it all along, really, if he thought about it — burrowed into him. Blue was right. His home was populated by things and creatures from Niall Lynch’s dreams, and his mother was just another one of them.’ Huh.

'My soul’s in enough peril as it is.” At this, Gansey’s face turned to a genuine frown and he looked as if he was about to say something. Then he just shook his head a little….“She didn’t try to see the future. It’s not something she became; it’s something she is. I could just as easily say that you’re evil because you can take things from your dreams!” Ronan said, “Yeah, you could.” Gansey’s frown deepened. Again he opened his mouth and closed it.’ Same, Gansey. Same.

'Ronan looked at him. That look, Blue thought. Ronan Lynch would do anything for Gansey. I probably would, too, she thought.’ If only he knew it. *rubs heart*

'Blue and Gansey exchanged a look. Blue’s look said, I’m so, so sorry. Gansey’s said, Am I the pretty one?’ Bless his cotton socks.

'Ronan thought of what Declan had said all those months before: Mom is nothing without Dad. He’d been right.’ Okay, but does Declan know about this stuff and how it works?

'Ronan interrupted the silence. “Cabeswater. Cabeswater is a dream.” Calla stopped rotating. “You don’t have to tell me I’m right,” Ronan said. He thought of all the times he had dreamt of Cabeswater’s old trees; how familiar it had felt to walk there; how the trees had known his name. He was tangled in their roots, somehow, and they, in his veins. “If Mom is in Cabeswater, she’ll wake up.” Calla stared at him. Silence was never a wrong answer.’ Okay then.

'But those words of Declan’s needled Ronan: She’s nothing without Dad. It was like he knew. Ronan wanted badly to know how much Declan knew, but it wasn’t like he could ask him.’ No, that would be too easy.

'“Says you and Dad were both dreamers,” Matthew said, “and you’re going to make us lose everything.” Ronan sat very still. He was so still so quickly that Chainsaw froze as well, her head tilted toward the youngest Lynch brother, purloined tuna sandwich forgotten. Declan knew about their father. Declan knew about their mother. Declan knew about him.’ Curious. Very curious.

The Gray Man is going to Monmouth Manufacturing!

'He had spent forty-eight hours more or less awake and restless and then, on the third day, he had bought a side-scan sonar device, two window airconditioners, a leather sofa, and a pool table. “Now do you feel better?” Adam had asked drily. Gansey had replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Hey, man,” Ronan said, “I like the pool table.” The entire situation made Blue apoplectic.’ Tag yourself; I’m Adam with a dash of Ronan. Pool tables are cool.

’"You are still wearing those incredibly stupid boat shoes, and of all the things that you have bought, you still haven’t replaced them!” Gansey, bewildered, observed his feet. The movement of his toes was barely visible through the tops of his Top-Siders. Really, in light of recent events, these shoes were the only things that were right in the world. “I like these shoes.”’ Update: he’s still adorable.

’[Gansey] exchanged a glance with Adam, because it had to be done’ 1) What does this mean? 2) I love them SO MUCH!

'In some parallel universe, there was a Gansey who could tell Blue that he found the ten inches of her bare calves far more tantalizing than the thirteen cubic feet of bare skin Orla sported. But in this universe, that was Adam’s job. } He was in a terrible mood.’ Oooooh. 👀

'So these were the people Greenmantle had warned him about. Fellow seekers of the Greywaren, whatever it might be.’ Curious and curiouser.

'Blue cheerfully spit a mouthful of brown water on his boat shoes. It pooled in the canvas over his toes. “Good God,” he said. “Now they’re really boat shoes,” she replied.’ Blue’s crusade continues.

'He knew what it was. He just didn’t know why it was. He said, “Well, that’s a wheel off the Camaro.” And it was. It looked identical to the wheels currently residing on the Pig — except this wheel was clearly several hundred years old. The discolored surface was pocked and lumpy. With all of the deterioration, the elegantly symmetrical wheel didn’t appear that out of place beside the shield boss. If you overlooked the tattered Chevrolet logo in the middle. “Do you remember losing one a little while ago?” Ronan asked. “Like, five hundred years or so?”’ Aggressively the Most Curious.

'Blue held his gaze, unflinching. Crisp, she replied, “None at all.” And it was a lie. It should not have been, but it was, and Gansey, who prized honesty above nearly every other thing, knew it when he heard it. Blue Sargent cared whether or not he was interested in Orla. She cared a lot. As she whirled toward the truck with a dismissive shake of her head, he felt a dirty sort of thrill.’ Oh, you kids.

'“Hey, Noah.” He was too busy being ghostly to attend to her, however. Currently, he was engaged in one of his creepiest activities: reenacting his own death. He glanced around the tiny yard as if appraising the forest glen containing only himself and his friend Barrington Whelk. Then he let out a terrible, mangled cry as he was struck from behind by an invisible skateboard. He made no sound when he was hit again, but his body jerked convincingly. Blue tried not to look as he bucked a few more times before falling to the ground. His head jerked; his legs bicycled. Blue took a deep, uneven breath. Though she had seen him do it four or five times now, it was always unsettling. Eleven minutes. That was how long the entire homicidal portrait lasted: one boy’s life destroyed in less time than it took to cook a hamburger. The last six minutes, the ones that took place after Noah had first fallen but before he actually died, were excruciating. Blue considered herself a fairly steadfast, sensible girl, but no matter how many times she heard his torn-up breath seizing in his throat, she felt a little teary. Between the twisted roots of the front yard, Noah’s body jerked and stilled, finally dead. Again.’ I feel w o u n d e d.

'They wandered to the door like that, a pretzel of dead boy and not-psychic girl.’ Don’t even look at me!

'Gleefully, Noah said, “There’s a pool table now! I’m the worst at pool ever! It’s wonderful.”’ THIS SWEET CHILD IS GIVING ME EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH.

'Gansey, pacing next to his ruined miniature Henrietta, set his eyes on Ronan. There was something intense and heedless in them. There were many versions of Gansey, but this one had been rare since the introduction of Adam’s taming presence. It was also Ronan’s favorite. It was the opposite of Gansey’s most public face, which was pure control enclosed in a paper-thin wrapper of academia. But this version of Gansey was Gansey the boy. This was the Gansey who bought the Camaro, the Gansey who asked Ronan to teach him to fight, the Gansey who contained every wild spark so that it wouldn’t show up in other versions. Was it the shield beneath the lake that had unleashed it? Orla’s orange bikini? The bashed-up remains of his rebuilt Henrietta and the fake IDs they’d returned to? Ronan didn’t really care. All that mattered was that something had struck the match, and Gansey was burning.’ #JusticeforMiniatureHenrietta

'“Don’t say anything stupid to him,” he told Gansey.’ Did I read that right? Did Ronan really just advise Gansey to be careful?

'The Gray Man recalled the buzz of his phone and patted his pockets. His phone was missing, however. Maura Sargent had stolen it while they were making out. In its place was the ten of swords: the Gray Man slain on the ground and Maura the sword driven through his heart.’ Interesting. Sorry that always seems to be my reaction to the Gray Man, but there it is.

#emily reads the raven cycle #status: tdt pg. 230 #jammeke #exlibrisfangirl

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