#this is why it affects me so deeply whenever anyone does validate me or tells me its ok to want things or that im loved or anything nice
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I feel like you've given most spn related things some lil spice but I always love the spice on this : hot spicy take on the "Dean is the most horrible character and ruins everyone's life and Sam and Cas are poor little meow meows who only do bad things sometimes because tyran Dean farted in their direction" takes that are not really only said by anti-Dean peeps ? Obsessed with that incredible thesis and would love the added spice ❤
SPICY HOT HOT GHOST PEPPERS CAROLINA REAPERS HELP I'M BURNING
I really try to respect other people’s opinions, and I believe there are a wealth of ways to interpret a story, and I think that’s a deeply beautiful thing. This applies to interpretations I don't agree with and outright dislike as well. That said, some opinions are simply and objectively bad, dishonest, and/or demonstrably false, and I truly do not believe you can sit down and honestly watch through the show with an open mind about all the characters, truly pay attention to what they do, say, and believe, and come to the conclusion that this show is about an evil manipulative abusive man terrorizing his pure and sinless brother and friend. It is an interpretation built from cherry picking facts to suit an ugly, miserable theory, making Mount Everest out of a bunch of the tiny mole hills, making the worst possible presumptions of feelings and intentions, and holding characters to completely different standards in order to neatly divide them into "abused" and "abuser" in a way that, frankly, fetishizes the abused person. I despise this interpretation of the story with every fiber of my being, and I have absolutely no respect for the opinion of anyone who peddles it, regardless of who they cast as villain/victim (because people have also done this with the others—it’s just more “popular” to do it with Dean... I mean... does anyone else remember how people were shitting on Sam after his emotional reaction in 14.12? Calling him an evil abuser? Because I do).
The thing that always gets me about this take isn't just how dishonest, unfair, mean-spirited, and compassionless it is in its treatment of Dean’s feelings, circumstances, and intentions... but how deeply reductive and offensive it is toward Sam and Castiel, sucking away their identities to turn them into effigies to mourn for their sad, Stockholm syndrome-esque attachment to their "abuser". Further, it grips the heart of the show—the relationship between Sam and Dean, and then the relationship among TFW as a whole—in a tight, uncompromising fist and pulverizes it. It literally rips out the heart of the show (the RELATIONSHIPS) and replaces it with something unprepossessing of any merit: A miserable, 15 years long story about a malicious abuser getting away with terrorizing those closest to him for his entire life, while his poor abuse victims suffer through until they die for him/happy to be reunited with him because they “don’t know any better” and never ever learned better, I guess. What a stupid, sad sack of a story.
Castiel is a thousands of years old celestial being who has literally beaten Dean into the pavement under no form of mind control, and has shown over and over again that he will do whatever the hell he wants, regardless of whatever Dean thinks about being sidelined. If he thinks whatever he is doing is in Dean's best interest, he literally does not care how Dean feels about it. He will nod and smile and then fly off and swallow thousands of souls with Dean begging him not to, shove Dean out of the way to attack the big bad, leave Dean alone in Purgatory, refuse to come out of Purgatory so he can self-flagellate, fly off with the angel tablet, help Sam with the Book of the Damned, let Lucifer possess him without anyone's knowledge or agreement, come into Dean's room under the guise of apologizing for ghosting him so that he can steal The Colt out from under his pillow and murder someone, decide not to murder that person and still prevent Sam and Dean from helping by knocking them both unconscious, get himself killed, make a deal to trade his life for Jack's and never tell anyone, hide information and worries and ignore phone calls, ghost Sam and Dean, and bicker and fight with Dean as if they are a married couple. Love sickness and feelings of worthlessness (which Cas has a wealth of reasons to feel—many of which aren’t even related to Dean but to his heavenly family) are reinterpreted as the result of some sort of constant, terrorizing emotional abuse. Power and authority that Dean does not actually have is forced into his hands by these fans. Maybe listen when Cas says, “Hey—not everything is your fault.” Maybe listen when he says “I loved the whole world because of you”, calls Dean a role model, says he enjoys their conversations, offers to die with him and dies for him multiple times. Maybe treat these feelings as genuine and valid and HIS and not as the delusions of some poor manipulated baby.
Sam is framed this way even more often than Cas, and it's a damn shame, because what I typically see is this: Sam’s development into a mediator and peacemaker is twisted and reinterpreted as coming from a place of weakness and/or fear. Rationality, maturity, wisdom, and compassion are not the traits of a scared, powerless child. They are the traits of a mature adult, who has been beaten down by life, and fought and raged against his circumstances, and somehow come out of it with more kindness and understanding and strength instead of less. He has made his own decisions whenever it was possible, within the set of circumstances doled out to him. From telling his dad to go fuck himself and going to college, to getting back into hunting to avenge Jess (NOT because of Dean—Dean took him home without complaint at the end of the woman in white case), to continuing to hunt after their father died because he wanted to feel close to him (Dean was actually weirded out and sort of disgusted by this), raging and fighting to save Dean from his deal against Dean’s wishes, continuing to hunt and working with Ruby (directly against Dean’s dying wish), drinking demon blood, jumping in the cage, leaving hunting to go be with Amelia, coming back to hunting to save Kevin, fighting with Dean over what he had with Amelia and threatening to leave if Dean didn't shut his mouth, leaving Amelia to go back to hunting (Dean ultimately suggests he go back to her—Sam chooses to stay), trying to kill Benny, demanding to be the one to do The Trials and saying he is going to SURVIVE them—that being the ENTIRE POINT, losing that resolve in a fit of depression but choosing to drop the knife, demanding space from Dean (and being given it), fighting to save Demon Dean who didn’t want to be found or saved, using the Book of the Damned against Dean’s wishes, telling Charlie that this is what he wants—that he used to want normal but now all he wants is to hunt with Dean and that he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he can’t have that, unleashing the Darkness in his desperation to keep Dean with him and even saying, “I would do it again” in the aftermath, saving the town being destroyed by Amara, getting into The Cage with Lucifer, leading a team against the British Men of Letters, nurturing Jack, punching Dean in the face when he was going to sacrifice himself, leading more hunters, wielding a gun against Chuck... and that’s just some highlights. Sam Fucking Winchester does not need your bullshit about him being some sad, scared, helpless baby lorded over by mean old Dean who has never let him do anything he wants.
Yes, in the text itself, there is jealousy and resentment at times, and there is legitimate and righteous anger on Sam’s part on a few occasions. There is blame cast on Dean by Sam for some of these choices/circumstances. Some of those moments where Dean is blamed are legitimate, and some of them... frankly, are not. Within the framework of the fucked up dynamics of the way they were raised, Sam and some fans bristle when they feel Dean is casting himself as the parent he is not, but Sam also has been guilty in the past of trying to reframe himself as Dean’s child when things got tough. Neither of them is responsible for the origin of that dynamic, but they BOTH have responsibility to change it, and they both, ultimately, succeed in doing so. For Sam, his part comes in recognizing and learning to fully own his own choices. Recognizing that he is not a child, and he is certainly not Dean’s child, and it isn’t just “Mummy—loosen the grip”, but Sam has to too—not claim independence only to blame Dean for his choices when his own decisions have an ultimate outcome he is unhappy with. That is a legitimate arc that Sam goes through imo, but he comes out the other side of it, and he and Dean relate to each other much better as peers from then on—and I’d like to note that throughout the entire series, when they don’t relate as perfect peers and teammates, it isn’t always Dean “bossing Sam around”, but Sam also trying to sideline Dean and yes—boss him around. And when they lied and hurt each other and yes, even manipulated each other, Dean most certainly wasn't always the one doing the lying and hurting and manipulating. Always, always, ALWAYS, they both had an understandable point of view, and it was complex, and you could understand why they made the choices they did, even if you thought of those choices as being wrong ones.
I also would like to point out (because this is basically what I see all of the time) that Dean being hurt by someone or simply voicing his feelings or opinion is in no way abusive or manipulative. Dean is certainly charismatic and loved and his returning love and respect is often deeply desired, but he is not an actual siren, who bends people to his will simply by speaking or being. People are, in fact, able to tell him “no”, and frequently FREQUENTLY do. Further more, no one is owed his affection, his unwavering loyalty, or his trust. He has a right to his boundaries, regardless of if it makes some poor sad sap feel deprived of the “wellspring of coveted love” while he works through things. He can be hurt and angry, and he can wear his heart on his sleeve at times, and he can be flawed, and broken. [Insert Castiel's speech from 15.18 here]. So can Sam. So can Cas. None of them are manipulating each other by virtue of getting angry, feeling hurt, being traumatized, needing space, or having differing opinions or feelings. Sam didn’t punch Dean in the face in 14.12 because he's a cruel, manipulative abuser trying to force Dean under his thumb. He didn’t work behind Dean’s back with Ruby, insist on doing The Trials, beg Dean to use Doc Benton’s alchemy, use the Book of the Damned to cure Dean, pump him full of blood to cure him of being a demon despite the fact that it might kill him, or scream at him and fight him for wanting to get in the Ma’lak box because he “doesn’t respect his autonomy” and “wants to control him” and “doesn’t respect his right to his own body”. He did it because he loves him desperately, and Dean could stand to fucking hate himself less, and he fiercely wanted Dean to live even when Dean didn’t want to or couldn’t picture what that could be like. He didn’t force Dean to do anything simply by opening his mouth to voice disagreement and swaying Dean when he did so. Now reverse that.
Cas didn't beat Dean into the ground in season 5 because he wanted to terrorize him into never going against Castiel ever again. He didn’t go behind his back dozens of times, sideline him, go MIA, all because he wanted to manipulate and control Dean and punish him. He didn’t throw sassy remarks at him to shatter his self-esteem. Now reverse that.
*Breathes*
Anyway, fuck "X is abusive” interpretations.
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Sorry if I request too much lol. I really love your writing. If you haven't wrote this yet, could you do headcannons of the safehouse crew (or just Adler, Woods, and Hudson if the whole crew is too much) with an S/O who feels unlovable?
Aw, of course I can. But just so you and all my followers know, everyone is worthy of love, even if you yourself may not feel it, I promise it's true :) I love each and every one of you, this blog and these writings are as much for you guys as they are me.
You are seen. You are valid. And you are loved, more then you may know 💖
Adler
This man knows exactly how it feels to consider yourself unlovable
He's divorced for Christ's sake...
Honestly, he's not sure he could receive a bigger "fuck you", let alone a "no one will love you"
Alder's lived with that pain for quite some time, the dreaded voice nagging in the back of his mind that his wife was right
That he'll never be enough, he'll never find someone to love him...
And those horrible scars on his face seal her words and his thoughts like venomous sting, a curse that will never be lifted
Too old, too ugly, too broken...
Why would anyone want him?
Words cannot describe how awestruck he was when he met you, let alone when you two became official
He does all he can to makes sure you never feel the way he has, rejected and discarded, but sometimes...
Adler feels so helpless when you feel that way, but all he can do is try to reassure you and sit with you on it
He'll do or bring whatever you ask, but he finds it most comforting to hold you until you feel steadied again
Hudson
Some may experience the sensation of feeling unlovable now and then, and certainly, he doesn't mean to invalidate that, but...
Hudson knows a thing or two of having every damn person he meets treat him as such
He knows he's a callus guy, and maybe the choice he makes for the betterment of most doesn't settle with the conscious of the few
He knows he's not one for socializing or engaging conversation like seemingly everyone else in this damn organization
But does he really deserve the shunning and disrespect most everyone directs at him?
He's not sure, to be honest...
You see, that changed when he met you however
Finally, someone who loved him for him and didn't cast him aside or treat him as less when things got tough
You are the most lovable and worthy of love person in his entire life, perhaps that he's ever even met
It breaks his heart to hear you feel otherwise
He's not very good with fancy, soothing words, so he hopes holding you and telling you he loves you while kissing you softly will be enough
He'll stay with you as long as you need, because nothing matters more to him then your wellbeing
Lazar
Now this big guy has a bit of a different angle then most of the others on here
He's friendly, kind, and all around a lovable person
He doesn't know much at all about how it feels to be rejected or denied affection
At least, not in a serious, traumatizing way that is
Admittedly, it's a bit hard for him to understand how you can feel that way
After all, you're the most wonderful, amazing person in his entire life!
He loves you deeply, whole and completely, through and through with every fiber of his 6'4, 240 lb frame
But, just because he doesn't understand doesn't mean he doesn't want to take the time to learn
He wishes he could shield you from all the hurt and pain that's in this awful world, and if he could take it all on for you, he would in a heartbeat
But for now, he listens to your feelings and provides a shoulder to cry on if you need it
Lazar tries to instill a sense wantedness and belonging in you by trying to take you out to little dates and places you love
Anything to show you that he hears you, sees you, and wants you to know that he cares for your interests and desires
Mason
Oof, honestly I'm not sure anyone on this list seems themselves as truly more unlovable then Alex
If we're being completely honest, he doesn't even love himself after all
He seems to be a mean to an ends wherever he goes
Someone's tool to accomplish their own, selfishly motivated goals
The Soviets, the CIA, the Military... It doesn't matter
The things something like that does to you, it's...
It fucks you up
Even when he does meet you, things are slow going to start a relationship
But once he's confident in his standing with you, there's no one he trusts, confides in, or loves more in the whole world
That said, it pains him to hear you feel that way, especially because he knows exactly how you feel
Mason isn't sure how to comfort you really, considering he finds most of his comfort in being with an s/o, but he hopes to provide reassurance through being present for you
He's a thoughtful listener and can provide a hug, kiss, or cuddle whenever you need
Park
Park is a bit of the odd one out tbh
She's had nagging whispers of doubt that's she's unlovable, mostly thanks to her scar, but she never seems to really buy into them
And, as far as she's concerned, why should she?
She's intelligent, successful, friendly, and a whole list of other approachable, inviting traits
But, she does underrated where you're coming from when you tell her how you're feeling
All she knows is what she would want to receive when she's feeling low and in that dark place
She may give that a try if you're feeling unable to communicate, but she will always try to respect your needs and ask what she can do for you first
If you can't conjure the words, she'll bring you a nice glass of water and sit with you, hip to hip, until you feel a little more soothed
Sims
Sims is a guy who's lived his whole life as a drifter
The key point however, is that this is by his own choice
He's never really allowed himself the opportunity to feel unlovable because he never puts himself in such a position in the first place
When he feels lonely, he hopes on to the next person
When he feels smothered, he finds the smoothest way possible to create distance
You however, are his first real romance and he's determined to see this one through for as long as possible
The idea of feeling totally and completely unlovable is a foreign concept to him and he, like Lazar, will need a bit of guidance to understand your feelings
But nonetheless, he's happy to learn and wants to support you to the best if his ability
He most likely takes the same route as Lazar anyways, and tries to plan bonding style activities for when you're feeling down
His hope is that doing something to bring you both closer together might help you in the long run one day
Woods
You know, he's not as emotionally unintelligent as most people seem to think
Deep down, when he has time to reflect, he does get that sense of being unlovable
He's so just fucked up
And that's not even scratching the surface
Who'd want him, right?
Now, he doesn't usually feel that way is the thing
But when he gets with you and you express similar feelings...
He can understand at least
God, he'd do anything to keep you from having to feel that way...
He does whatever he can to try and show his love
Through deeds, through words, whatever it may be
Sometimes he just wishes he could punch the bad feelings away
But not everything is a physical issue, and some things have to be learned through trial and error
Woods wants nothing more then to please you and you'll find an adaptive, quick learner in him
Once he gets on track, a favorite tactic of his is to provide physical comfort through warm blankets and long cuddling sessions
#black ops cold war#call of duty#russell adler x reader#jason hudson x reader#eleazar azoulay x reader#lazar x reader#alex mason x reader#helen park x reader#lawrence sims x reader#frank woods x reader
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Yanno it’s really shitty for Ashlyn to always have so much hate in her mentions but also imagine how it is for ali to always see ash being torn down and overlooked… like ali sees first hand the blood, sweat and tears that ash puts in and alis been there for so many moments of disappointment and injury. Like ali has to see the person she loves fight through so much adversity and never get the credit she deserves. Ashlyn can’t even win save of the week or save a freaking PK without someone coming at her and saying she’s overrated or trash or some shit…. Im just tired of it and ali and ash deserve so much better. I wouldn’t blame them if they took a step back from SM because the ‘fans’ and trolls have just gotten out of hand, it’s so awful and it needs to stop
Honestly, I never even thought about how much it would affect AK. Like, Ash has learned to brush it off/block out the noise, etc., but I can't imagine how much anger and hurt AK feels watching her wife get torn apart over every little thing she does (and even things she doesn't do). Like to be the woman who stands beside Ash, day in and day out, watching as she throws everything she has into the game, from her body to her mind, and never get the recognition or appreciation from anyone, regardless of whether they're the federation or "fans". She's given the national teams (youth and senior combined) more than half her life, given everything to the Pride even when other players fail to show up or do the same, keeps her head down and doesn't complain or get mad (unless at herself), and she is grateful and humble in every opportunity she does get on the field.
I especially think back to 2016, when distance came into it and Ash was becoming lowkey concerning with how many depressing tweets and IG posts she would make, and I remember that one post AK retweeted which was like "you matter to me" or something after Ash posted that long post about her self-worth and mental health. She's always worn her heart on her sleeve and it's taken advantage of by so many people (again, the "give an inch, take a mile" phrase Ash mentioned really sticks with me here). She is so selfless and has a massive heart under her hard exterior, and people love to paint her to be this self-indulgent, vain, supervillain that is shit at soccer. Not to mention, Ash could barely celebrate her best season because those were the years AK was kicked off the roster and she put herself aside to help AK train, supported her coaching career, and picked her up (literally at times) to get her through every day. She wasn't the nicest person to Ash back then either, and I doubt Ash minded, because at the end of the day Ash cares so deeply about her family, about her relationships, that soccer takes a back seat for so much of it. She's said it so many times that this is her career, but it doesn't bleed into her family life. I feel gutted for her in every interview when she beats herself up with the "I've failed miserably" or the "I haven't been the best daughter/sister/friend" or even "I've disappointed a lot of people". She is so hard on herself and yet is still so kind to others. This is the same woman who's faced countless criticism, countless struggles from poverty to addiction to injuries to mental health challenges, and she still treats every day like a gift, not a burden.
I think the thing that gets me the most about this Ash slander is how no one has ever stood up for her. She's gotten all this hate, all of this criticism, but when AK was dropped from the team, she got support. When Hope said what she said, Carli spoke up for her. Whenever a teammate gets down in the dirt, Ash defends them. She spoke out against H*nkle and the homophobia. She defended AK when she was left off the roster (though more subtle and more professionally). Like she's always standing up for others, being the big guy for the little guy, and yet no one really extends the same thing back to her (except now AK, and again in a very professional way). Should Ash be #1? No, things happened and she got injured at the wrong time and it was all a mix of different things, but she made her peace with it. She doesn't tell the media that it's disrespectful she got snubbed - she instead supports the crap out of Alyssa/AD/Jane and wants them to succeed because she's a team player, not an individual player. She cares about them as humans and would do anything for them in that supporting role. You could genuinely not ask for a better teammate than Ash.
I don't know how AK does it, watching the woman she loves get bullied on social media and be cast aside from opportunities with no valid reason. Every achievement Ash has is overshadowed by rabid fans either "defending her" and making things worse by making her look out to be an untouchable God of some sort, or the anti-Ashlyn "fans" who are just out to replay that same clip of her conceded goal from that Romania game, or outright saying disgusting and nasty things to her (and tagging her?? Like why the fuck are you tagging them in it, what bullshit). Both ways it's terrible; the people defending her so violently only make her look worse and it only encourages people's hatred of her or disrespect of her actual ability.
It's so funny people weave all these storylines and narratives for her but Ash remains unbothered (at least publicly) and I think this irritates those morons into posting more frequently with the intent to grab her attention or get her to talk back (which she is far too professional and compassionate to do). It's a shitty situation all around, but it's truly depressing to watch her get taken apart when she's done absolutely nothing wrong to any of those people.
#asks#this was a long ass rant but i am just so tired of people hating on her#you can criticize her mistakes when she makes them#she is human and she does make them though it is rare#but don't be just saying she perfect and can do nothing wrong when that's not true#because all it does is invite more hate because it makes those people sound irrational and delusional (which they kinda are)#the intent is there but the execution is way off
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Democrats often use the phrase “working class” as shorthand for “white” people. It’s a more subtle dog whistle than we are used to hearing from those Trump and Republicans use, but it is a dog whistle. (ahem)
I could continue with how “electability” is also code for “white,” and “likabity” is usually code for “straight/white/Christian/man,” but I’m not tryna write a book here.
This is why so many neoliberals and centrists frequently make the mistake(?) of putting “working class” people into separate boxes from other groups (usually minority groups), as if there’s no overlap. Similar to how people juxtapose “Black people” and “women,” as if those are somehow two discrete, unrelated groups.
Although it sometimes seems to be a popular centrist belief, you cannot separate class issues (ie., working class people) from race issues. To be clear, they ARE two entirely different things, but they are inextricably bound together. For Black people, race is often the modality through which we experience class.
SO ..... I (perhaps clumsily) said all that to say this: if we expand on that thought—that race & class, while distinct, are nonetheless very deeply bound together, especially in America—then it also applies for any minority or oppressed group; Black people experience racism that doesn’t magically stop impacting our class status, and gay people experience homophobia which does not stop impacting their class status .... being trans absolutely positively DOES affect someone’s class standing. And it has got to be demoralizing to hear a “Democratic” politician say on national television that standing up for a marginalized group somehow “cost” them a victory. It’s foolish to even suggest that transphobia is unrelated to economic (class) issues. It IS an economic issue. How people are materially treated and rewarded (economic class) has almost everything to do with their observable identity, be it race, religion, or sexual/gender identity.
And that’s without even touching on a person where several of those identities might intersect.
And as was pointed out in the tweets, Claire McCaskill can’t name one race where Democrats prioritized trans rights over economic rights. That was a deliberate lie. Framing politics as “economic justice vs. social justice” is a reliable canard that conservatives and conservative Democrats frequently use. It is also a well tread, divide and conquer tactic.(it’s literally telling people: choose - your money or your life. and it’s foundational for the bogus argument that someone can be “fiscally conservative but socially liberal” which is absolutely bullshit)
Lastly, Xander Berkeley is full of shit. He is a wealthy, old cis/het white man. He doesn’t get to talk over anyone. Whenever I hear someone (especially rich old white guys) say, “let’s just forget about it, move forward and let bygones be bygones,” it makes me feel like someone is running an okie doke on me, like I should check for my wallet to make sure nobody picked it outta my pocket. Beware of people who tell you to immediately put discriminatory behaviors into “the past,” and accept the passage of time as a substitute for a valid apology.
#politics#transphobia#classism#claire mccaskill#economic justice#conservadems#lgbtq#lgbt#dixiecrats#conservative democrats#msnbc#racism#dog whistles#racial code words#socially liberal fiscally conservative
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What is Scriabin from? He intrigues me greatly and also he has a majestic coat.
Hoo boy, here we go.
Where to start? There was an old indie comic in the 90s called Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez, the same mind behind Invader Zim (which I presume is how 90% of jthm fans heard about the comic including me). It’s basically about the titular Nny going on long rants and murdering people for various reasons, and eventually it goes into some supernatural worldbuilding, revealing that Nny had been infected by a supernatural brain parasite and chosen as something like a waste dump for all of humanity’s negative feelings for reasons, yada yada yada. In the sequel/spin-off I Feel Sick, it’s revealed that the brain parasites can be communicated between people, so Nny could potentially expose others to supernatural parasites that might settle in their brains and feed on their psyche in various ways. Keep that in mind.
So, in issue 2, there was a short four page story where Nny captured a guy named Edgar Vargas, and they ended up talking about why people were so unpleasant. By the end of it, the two of them were chatting pretty amiably, and Nny said he was sorry he had to kill Edgar, but he had to feed the wall in his basement (for supernatural waste lock reasons as mentioned above) so Edgar had to die, and then he does in canon. As usual for me, I started speculating about what would have happened if Edgar had lived instead, and that basic premise is what started Vargas, my incredibly long and long-running fic exploring what would change if Edgar didn’t die. If you really want the full story on Scriabin, you should read the fic, but it’s like 300k so I don’t blame you if you don’t have the time, haha.
As I mentioned above, being in contact with Nny can get you infected with a type of parasite, and since Edgar was in contact with him, I figured he’d end up getting infected with one. Over a long period of time, that parasite fed off of his anxiety and neuroses (exacerbated by Nny continuing to be in Edgar’s life as a “friend”) and began to develop into its own thing, that thing being Scriabin.
Scriabin is an intangible, invisible, unremovable being who lives inside of Edgar’s brain, so to speak. He technically doesn’t have a physical form, but he does have a sort of visual avatar he uses to represent himself while Edgar is dreaming, which is what you see whenever I draw him, although even that can change and shift depending on his mood. He is almost always talking to Edgar and haranguing him about everything, playing a sort of Greek Chorus role to whatever Edgar and Nny are doing at any given time.
A simpler explanation might be, you know that mental voice you have that tells you you’re stupid, you’re a bad person, that brings up old memories of you being dumb and makes you feel bad about them, that criticizes everything you do and tells you you’re a big failure at life? Scriabin is basically an embodiment of that voice, although he is keyed specifically to Edgar’s insecurities. Given the opportunity though, he’ll happily tear anyone else to shreds if he has the chance. It’s something he deeply enjoys doing, after all.
Scriabin has his own set of issues that came with him becoming a more developed person… he’s both hugely vain and terribly insecure, and he’s obsessed with power and control since, being a disembodied voice in Edgar’s head, he has none of his own. He instead uses verbal/emotional abuse, lies (he is a compulsive liar), and manipulation to try and control Edgar’s behavior. He is completely obsessed with Edgar (understandably, since Edgar is literally his entire world) and desperate for his validation and affection, although he’d rather die than tell him that and paradoxically tends to punish Edgar whenever he tries to get close to him like he wants him to. He wants to be taken seriously as his own person and have his own life outside of Edgar, but since he can’t, he takes out his impotent rage at his position on Edgar instead. Even so, Edgar does care about Scriabin in spite of himself, and he tries to look out for him… when Scriabin will let him, anyway. Edgar did play a crucial role in Scriabin’s development and growth, and he feels responsible for him in a way. And at times, Scriabin tries to look out for Edgar too… or at least, that’s what Scriabin claims.
There really isn’t any one word for what Edgar and Scriabin are to each other. I once summarized it as “he’s my bff boyfriend brother son codependent soulmate abusive husband” and honestly that’s not really that inaccurate, haha. There are practically no boundaries between them, they can’t escape each other, they share memories and dreams together whether they want to or not, they can feel each other’s emotions (Scriabin always can, Edgar sort of can after practicing), Scriabin can read Edgar’s thoughts, they inhabit the same body… it’s a big complicated and unhealthy mess. As a result it can be hard to talk about Scriabin without also talking about Edgar and their relationship… they’re both kind of deeply intertwined with each other, as much as they may hate it, haha.
Scriabin often shows up in my sketchbook to insult or criticize me for various decisions I’ve made or how I’m feeling at any given point. As such, he tends to show up a lot more than some of my other OCs… that’s why I was able to use him to track changes in my art style since like, 2003 lol.
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#silverskypirate#asks and answers#scriabin#probably the most unhealthy and destructive relationship i've got in my stable#z art#i didn't intend for gaster's coat to look so much like scriabin's but it just happened naturally#vargas
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True Self
Summary: Thor wishes that you could see yourself how Loki saw you, maybe then you'd realize how much you'd meant to him. It was as if everyone on the team could tell Loki was madly in love with you, except you.
Word Count: 5383
Rating: absolute filth 18+
Warnings: dirty talk, bad language, sexual themes
Authors note: this has 2012 every one is friends and loves each other avengers vibes™️ and to be honest, we need that right about now.
♡if you enjoy this fic you’re welcome to leave a reblog/like/comment! feedback is not only welcomed but encouraged!♡
You were currently sitting in the living room of Stark Towers, for once all of you were able to enjoy a free day. Things were slow and before they got to 100 miles per hour again, you all were determined to enjoy it...even The God Of Mischief.
Loki was still relatively new to your group, and only you and Thor seemed to be able to get along with him. You didn’t know what it was, but when it came to Loki you just couldn’t help yourself.
Maybe it was the beautiful contrast between his pale skin and raven hair, or the way his intense blue eyes seemed to stare into your soul. It could be that infamous smirk of his, and how good it felt to be the cause of it.
Whatever it was, you had it bad. It wasn’t that you were inexperienced, but rather just shy...and the man was a god. You were just a mere mortal who happened to be able kick ass, but you didn’t have any special powers.
These types of thoughts stopped you from letting your feelings be known, but that didn’t mean your friends remained in the dark about them. Everyone seemed to pick up on them, even Thor himself.
Thor had become an extremely close friend to you, and you embraced each other's positivity and good heartedness. Whenever he saw the affect his brother had over you he would just laugh, “ I don’t understand you mortals, why do you hide your feelings?”.
You would just roll your eyes, “ Easier said than done coming from a literal god...I’m just me..”. His mood would shift when he heard you talk badly about yourself, it saddened him. He wished so badly for you to see yourself the way others saw you..the way his brother saw you.
Trust and friendship did not come easily to Loki, but they came easily with you. That was a miracle in itself, and Thor hated that you couldn’t realize it. Thor would turn to face you, always making sure you looked into his eyes for this was a serious matter.
He’d place a hand on your shoulder, “ A title like that means nothing, it is your actions that define you nothing else. Your actions make you a remarkable woman (y/n), it is a great misfortune that you cannot see that...at least my brother does”.
With that he would leave you alone with your thoughts, refusing to meddle any further. Thor loved you deeply, and he knew how lucky he was to have a friend like you.
Knowing that someone like you cared for his brother filled him with immense joy, if only you would act on your feelings. Despite what Thor told you, it was hard to see yourself how he saw you.
Currently you were in the kitchen talking with Steve and Bucky while the rest of the group hung out in the living room. Both the boys were arguing over who could make the best grilled cheese.
Bucky claiming that Steve “might’ve been frozen too long because his memory is damn wrong”. You sat there on one of the countertops, enjoying the bickering and teasing. Steve rolled his eyes, but laughed at Bucky’s comment.
He pointed the spatula at him, “ You and I both know I make the best grilled cheese in all of Brooklyn, Buck”. God they could argue over anything, but it was always lighthearted topics.
Things like, “ Who rode the Thunderbolt longest at Coney Island as kids” or even, “Who knew episodes of The Lone Ranger better”. You were just thankful that there was never any real fights between them.
Bucky was already getting the cheese and butter out of the fridge, “ Maybe that’s what you tell yourself to sleep at night…”. You laughed loudly at that, he was getting so into this. Steve grabbed the bread and pans, placing them next to the stove.
Suddenly both men turned to you, and you already knew what they were going to ask. Bucky spoke up first, “Why don’t we have our little (y/n) here be the judge!”. In hopes to get you on his side he finished his sentence with a wink.
Steve rolled his eyes, “ You’re barking up the wrong tree Buck, we both know who (y/n) has her eyes on”. You watched the smirk form upon Bucky’s lips, remembering your apparent crush for a certain Asgardian.
Trying to keep your cool you said, “ Right now I’d rather have my eyes on the best grilled cheese in all of New York, if either of you fools can make it”. They both pretended to be hurt by your comment, but the smirk only left Bucky’s face for a moment.
He raised an eyebrow, “ So what does it for you? The dark hair...the accent...his huge-”. Steve slapped Bucky behind the head, stopping his friend while he was ahead.
Bucky put his hands up defensively, “ I was going to say scepter, Captain Dirtymind”. Once again you found yourself laughing, you were lucky to have the friends you did. As if on cue Loki walked into the kitchen, maybe he was the god of bad timing.
Based off of the knowing glances both super soldiers were giving you, you were already blushing before Loki even said anything. He walked over to you with a book in his hand, “ Hello love, hungry are we?”.
You stood there for a moment without saying anything, your mind automatically drifting to more dirtier places. The sound of Bucky holding back a giggle behind you brought you back.
Smiling you said, “ I was going to see which one of these idiots could make the better grilled cheese”. You turned around briefly shooting daggers at both men, while they stood there smirking.
Since you were turned around you couldn’t see the smirk plastered across Loki’s face. He knew full well the innuendo he’d just said, and he knew why Bucky was laughing.
Loki questionably repeated the word, “ Grilled cheese?”. And you smiled realizing he had no idea what that meant. Steve spoke up, “ It’s a type of food here, that I just so happen to be the best at making”. For affect he turned to Bucky, a smug look plastered across his face.
You were eager to change topics, “ How’s the book coming along, do you like it?”. Loki shared your love of reading, and you’d actually got him to start reading one of your favorite books.
You’d given him your personal copy of, “ Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut” will all your favorite quotes underlined. He smiled, “ American authors write quite differently than Asgardians, I’m afraid most references go over my head”.
He watched that beautiful smile of yours fade away, and realized what he said might’ve come across wrong. Quickly he added, “ Would you mind explaining some of it too me love?”. Watching your smile form again made him just as happy, although he kept that to himself.
You got so excited, “ Are you sure?! I don’t want to bore you and-”. Loki laughed lightly knowing that was something you could never do. Holding your gaze he said, “ I find your passion for things quite intriguing darling”.
His words sent shivers down your spine, especially when he called you things like “love” or “darling”. Smiling you asked, “Usual place and usual time or for once will you actually get some sleep?”.
Loki laughed at your little joke, a smile forming upon his own lips. Before turning to exit the kitchen he said, “ I was thinking my room would be better, that way I can finally share one of my favorites with you”.
You nodded your head, way too excited for words to form. Once again he smirked, the effect he had over you was so thrilling for him. With that, he was gone, off to wander the halls until you’d find him later.
As you turned around you saw both Steve and Bucky smirking again. Steve smiled, “Usual place..usual time?”. You mentally slapped yourself for letting them hear that.
Bucky raised his eyebrows suggestively, “ Oh no Steve, he wants to show her something in his room maybe his-”. Once again Steve slapped Bucky behind the head, not wanting this teasing to make you feel too uncomfortable.
Bucky nodded his head, “Okay that time I wasn’t going to say scepter”. This caused you and Steve to crack up laughing. Steve’s expression softened, “I think he really cares for you (y/n) I mean have you ever seen him be that inviting with any of us?”.
Steve had a valid point, it did take a lot for Loki to open up. Thinking out loud you said, “Maybe Thor is right…”. Both men looked to each other, and then back at you. Bucky’s eyes widened, “ Doll don’t tell me HIS OWN BROTHER said he had feelings for you!!”.
You hushed Bucky, not wanting the rest of the group to hear what you’d been talking about. Steve spoke up, “If Thor said something to you (y/n) then it has to be true..he knows his brother better than anyone”.
You started to blush finding yourself finally seeing the truth in Thor’s words. Looking up you said, “Okay maybe Thor has mentioned it a couple times but-”. Bucky’s jaw dropped, and Steve was just as shocked.
Bucky looked at you, “ But what?! Please don’t tell me it’s what I think it is..”. You avoided his gaze, letting him know what he was thinking was right. Steve knew what it was too, “You have no reason to be insecure (y/n), you’re one of the most incredible women I know”.
Bucky walked over to you, taking your hand in his. He made you do a spin, “ You’re a bombshell doll, start to believe it”. Once again you found yourself smiling and thanking the universe for putting these people into your life.
Steve added, “ We love you and we wouldn’t lie to you, you have NO reason to be the slightest bit insecure...you don’t realize the way he looks at you”. You were confused, and raised an eyebrow.
Bucky rolled his eyes, “ Doll the way he smirks at you is sinful, I only know because I’ve been known to give a couple special women that look myself”. Rolling your eyes you ignored the second part of his comment.
He continued, “ I know desire (y/n), and it’s in his eyes everytime he looks at you”. This many of your closest friends wouldn’t give you false confidence, so what they were saying had to be true.
Smiling you said, “ I love you guys, and I promise I’ll judge your contest later, I have to go get ready”. Bucky cheered while Steve stood there with a look of happiness all over his face. Finally his best friend was going to get the love she deserved.
You quickly left the room which meant you couldn’t see the stares the rest of the room had given Bucky from his cheering. Clint casually said, “ Is (y/n) finally going to make a move on Horns?”.
Bucky nodded his head to which Nat responded with, “ Finally...by the way Stark you owe me $20”. Tony grumbled but handed Natasha the money, causing the room to look at her confusingly.
She smirked, “ What? Tony said it would take (y/n) another month, and I guessed it would be by the end of this week”. Steve gave Nat his best, “disappointed dad” look.
Sam grinned, “ Look the money was going towards a good cause, and Barnes you owe me $15”. Steve looked to his best friend, who pulled out the money from his pocket. Shocked Steve asked, “ You too?”.
Bucky shrugged his shoulders, “ Hey at the end of the day (y/n)’s the one getting laid, so who cares”. Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, god his friends were idiots...but their good intentions made up for it.
After the kitchen you went directly to your room, wanting to quickly get ready to meet with Loki later. You weren’t going crazy, not even wearing makeup, but you did wanna freshen up.
Before you’d shower you wanted to pick out your clothes for meeting him. You knew green was his favorite color, and man did you have a surprise for him. Nat had insisted you’d buy this dark green bra and panty set.
It was a mixture of green lace patterns and see through mesh. The underwear were high-waisted, but the see through mesh showed a lot of skin tastefully. It showed off your curves beautifully.
You decided that for clothes you would go the simple route. A pair of leggings and a white off the shoulder top, simple but beautiful. You wore your favorite necklace, it had been a gift from Steve.
Surprisingly it was a gold choker with about five stars that dangeled. You loved that he had taken the time to pick it out, giving you proof that chivalry wasn’t dead. Of course feetwise you’d only be wearing a pair of your favorite fuzzy socks.
Loki always found them amusing from the first night he saw you wandering the halls wearing them. You’d had a cup of tea in one hand, and a book in the other. Your hair had been tied up, but strands still covered your face.
He loved how disheveled you look, truth be told his mind drifted immediately. When you noticed him you smiled, “ Can’t sleep either?”.
Loki never forgot how you weren’t scared of him, or cold, like everyone else had been. You were kind and inviting, something he wasn’t used to. Smiling he answered, “ I’m afraid I never get much sleep love”.
Raising a brow you asked, “ Why is that?”. You seemed so concerned for him, something else he hadn’t expected. Walking closer to you he pointed to his head, “ Nightmares, strange how no bit of magic can seem to cure them”.
You stepped closer to him as well, “ Well I’m guessing wandering around alone at night doesn’t help...I always need to be with someone when I get them”. His expression softened, was this an offer?
You added, “ Buck’s the same way...total cuddler...but don’t let him know I told you he’d kill me”. Loki laughed softly, you were already so trusting. He said, “ Well that must make you a good lover”.
You snorted...lover that was a hilarious idea. He looked confused so you explained, “Bucky’s one of my best friends..I love him but not like that”. As you spoke you found yourself walking closer to him.
He raised an eyebrow, “Are there that many types of love for you Midgardians?”. That was when you remembered how tough Loki’s life had been, you doubted he knew any type of love.
Smiling you said, “If you’re one of us there is...and you seem to be working on it”. As he listened to you a smile formed upon his lips. Talking to you was like a breath of fresh air.
You added, “ If you ever want to wander the halls together I wouldn’t mind”. You never understood how you were so daring, but maybe it had to do with the fact that it was the middle of the night.
Loki smiled again, “ I’ll have to take you up on that offer, but I can tell that tonight you desire sleep”. You were extremely tired, and talking to him had calmed your nerves. With a glimmer in your eyes you responded with, “ You better be serious Loki”.
He laughed lightly, “ I shall come find you tomorrow night love, I promise”. To some a promise from the God of Mischief probably meant nothing, but you trusted him. Smirking you said, “ And if you break it I’m afraid you’ll be too dead for sleep anyways”.
You parted your separate ways, but not before seeing a smirk form upon his lips. Loki thought to himself, “ Oh this one shall be fun”. That was the start of whatever was currently happening between you both.
After laying out your clothes you jumped into the shower. The warm water felt wonderful on your skin, calming any nerves you had. You lathered yourself up with your favorite body wash; a mixture of lavender and lilac.
You made sure that every part of your body was freshly shaven and soft. Your hair looked extremely silky and smelt heavenly. This all made you feel extremely beautiful.
By the time you were actually ready an over hour had passed. As you looked at yourself in the mirror you smiled, being you was good enough. For once, you confidently made your way towards Loki’s room.
So many thoughts filled your head that you’d become distracted. While turning the corner you knocked into a very strong body, as you looked up you realized it was Thor. With ease he lifted you up, “ Sorry (y/n), you seem quite distracted though..”.
He took in your appearance and smiled when he noticed your socks. Smirking he asked, “Going to find my brother are you?”. You blushed wondering how he’d known, what could’ve given it away?
With a hearty laugh he explained, “My brother had mentioned his love for your...fuzzy socks?”. Looking down at your feet you smiled, and Thor realized he had gotten the work right. He added, “ Steve also told me of your encounter earlier in the kitchen”.
Looking up at Thor you smiled, “Loki said he wanted to share one of his favorite books with me”. Thor’s smile only grew, that was a big thing for his brother. Quickly you added, “I finally trust what you’ve been telling me Thor..that he cares for me”.
His eyes lit up when he realized what you’d said. Taking your hand in his he said, “ It warms me to know that you finally see your true self”. You hugged Thor, and smiled when he wrapped his arms around you.
Softly you said, “ Thank you for not giving up on me”. Thor only hugged you tighter, wanting his love to be known. When he let you go he said one last thing, “Thank you for not giving up on my brother”.
You continued to make your way towards Loki’s room, your heart now filled with love. You knocked on the door to which Loki said, “ Come in love”. Loki’s room was not what you’d thought it would be.
It was extremely simple, the more extravagant things being his extensive bookshelf, and overlook of the city. Instantly you walked over to the huge window, staring out into the night.
You would’ve forgotten where you were had he not come up behind you, “ Beautiful isn’t it?”. As you turned your head you realized he was standing directly next to you, shoulders touching.
He continued, “ I didn’t expect to find it so enchanting, but there’s so much more complexity here than Asgard”. You’d never been to Asgard, but from what Thor had told you it seemed beautiful.
Reading your mind he said, “Asgard is beautiful, but Midgard is so free..people aren’t just confined to one single planet”. You’d never thought of it like that, the only people to travel in Asgard had to be high authority.
Turning to him you said, “ I guess my escape is reading, which I’m guessing you share”. As he looked at you, he smiled again. He walked over to his bookshelf, “ When I was confined to my cell reading kept me sane...as sane as I could be”.
You followed him, “ I can’t imagine the toll that must’ve had on you Loki..”. No one had ever had that reaction, no one had ever considered his burdens. His fingers skimmed the books before finding the one he wanted.
Still not facing you he said, “ The price to pay for the crimes I’ve committed I assume”. When he finally turned around to look at you, immediately you saw the hurt in his eyes.
Walking closer to him you said, “ To live your entire life feeling like there was this part of you that made you not belong is an awful thing to go through”. His lips parted, but no words came out.
You continued, “Not to overstep my boundaries, but I don’t agree with a lot of things the All-father has done. He should’ve never hid the truth from you, or pin you against Thor, it shouldn’t be the case that only one can rule...but despite all this Loki I don’t think you’ve become an awful person”.
He thought he might drop the book he’d been holding, no one had ever spoken to him like this. It was like you were reading his thoughts, looking at what hurt him the most.
For once Loki struggled to find words, “ I didn’t think anyone could look past the awful things I’ve done”. Without even realizing he’d been walking towards you.
Holding his gaze you said, “You’ve made mistakes, but that doesn’t mean you should be condemned for them...people can always grow”. You shared such a unique perspective on life, and he now saw why Thor liked you so much.
Laughing softly he said, “If only others shared the same outlook that you do...the world would be different”. By now you were only a foot or so from each other, the closest you’d ever been.
Loki noticed you biting your lip, “ What is troubling you (y/n)?”. You had heard that Loki had a true form and you often wondered what it looked like. You didn’t want to make him uncomfortable.
Taking a step closer to him you asked, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable Loki, but I’ve often wondered what your true form looks like..if you don’t want to show me I won’t be hurt”.
From everything you’d been through, he trusted you. He took your hands in his, their coolness refreshing. Loki softly said, “ Close your eyes love”. No matter how much he trusted you, he was scared you wouldn’t like his true form.
A moment later he asked you to open your eyes, and you were mesmerized. His skin was a beautiful dark blue with light blue patterns all over it, his eyes a deep shade of red.
Instinctually you started to trace the pattern on his neck, and blushed when you realized what you’d done. Blushing you said, “I’m sorry..it’s just...your skin is so beautiful..”. His jaw dropped, beautiful?
Raising an eyebrow he asked, “ You don’t find me frightening?”. You couldn’t help but giggle, how could he be frightening? Smiling you said, “ Loki that’s the last thing I’d ever think of you”.
You watched him process your words, seeing him smile when he finally trusted them. You added, “ If you felt comfortable enough you could remain in your true form every time you’re around me”.
His smile grew, “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known (y/n)”. Holding his gaze was too much, so you turned your head to the side. He placed two fingers under your chin, turning you head to him.
Now that you held his gaze he said, “I care deeply for you (y/n) and now I know you feel the same”. You wanted to faint, he admitted his feelings for you. You no longer felt nervous, you were ready.
Placing a hand on his chest you said, “ I love you Loki, for who you are”. He moved his hands to rest on your hips, bringing your body closer to his. Leaning forward he kissed you passionately, his grip on your hips pressing your body into his.
You eased into the kiss, moving on hand to grip his hair on the back of his neck. Just as soon as it had started Loki stopped it, “ I didn’t mean to be so forward love...I just-”.
Smirking you asked, “ I thought the god of Mischief always took what he wanted”. You watched his lips shift into a smirk, and there was a different look in his eyes.
Loki looked at you like you a predator looks at prey, and it made you core ache. His voice was low, “Are you teasing me my pet?”. The way his words rolled off his tongue made you want to moan.
He began to kiss slowly up your neck, taking his time. Loki wanted to leave his mark on you, let the world know he loved you and you were his. He began to nibble on the area below your ear, “I do love you (y/n)”.
Loki began to kiss back down your neck, “ I love the way your breath hitches when I find the slightest ways to touch you..the way your eyes seem to beg me to claim you as mine..is that what you want darling?”.
By now Loki had picked you up, carrying you to his bed. He laid you on your back, and hovered over you by propping himself up with his elbow.
Loki helped you take off your shirt, “Do you want everyone to know that you are mine? That those pretty noises coming out from your lips are my doing?”. You were already so needy, and he had barely been touching you.
When Loki noticed what you’d been wearing under your clothes he groaned loudly, licking his lips. His smirk was sinful, “You shall be the death of me love”. You sat there, anticipation stopping you from saying anything else.
Loki snapped his fingers, “ Normally I’d love to rip your clothes off of you, but I’m afraid you’ve made me very impatient”. Not only were you left in your undergarments, but Loki was now only left in his.
The light blue patterns continued all over his chest and legs, and you were mesmerized. Bringing a hand to his chest you traced the patterns once again, and for a moment love replaced the lust in his eyes.
Loki couldn’t contain himself anymore, he picked you up once again making you straddle him. His back pressed against the headboard, and his hands on your hips. Looking down at him you said, “I think I can work with impatience”.
Once again he brought his lips to yours, kissing you fervorously. You couldn’t help but grind yourself against him, causing him to moan throughout the kiss.
Loki moved his hands to undo your bra, letting it fall slowly off your body. Without hesitation he brought his mouth to suck on one breast, his hand massaging the other.
He teased your sensitive nipples by dragging them lightly between his teeth, and then flicking them with his tongue. Moaning you begged, “ Loki please I need more”.
He moved his free hand down to tease your clit through the fabric of your panties, his cold fingers an amazing contrast to the heat of your area. Loki moaned realizing how wet you were, “These are soaked darling, such a good little girl”.
You began to grind yourself against his fingers, needing any sort of friction. Loki laughed softly, “So needy for me”. With a snap of his fingers nothing separated your bodies anymore.
He teased you further by rubbing circles around your clit, his cold fingers sending shivers down your spine. Moaning loudly you said, “That feels...so..good”.
Had your eyes not been closed you would’ve seen his smirk, “ Perks of being a Frost Giant darling”. The coldness seemed to tease you more, and you’d never felt anything like it.
It made you so needy, “ Please Loki I-”. He stopped what he was doing with his hand, and you finally felt his hard member pressing against you.
Loki smirked when he saw you taking in his size, “That’s just a perk of being me love”. So Bucky was right...he did have a huge...scepter. Everything about the man was amazing.
You brought your hand down to slowly pump him, “ What happened to impatience love”. Loki smiled hearing you tease him, mocking his tone.
You moved your body down, your face inches from his member. No sly comment left his lips, he needed you just as badly as you needed him. Slowly you licked up his member, watching his pupils dilate.
When you got to his tip you flicked your tongue over it causing his breath to hitch. Finally you took him into your mouth, taking as much as you could. Loki moaned loudly feeling himself hit the back of your throat.
To his dismay you changed positions. Now you moved your mouth to lick the underneath of his balls, knowing that it was a very sensitive area. Loki moaned, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
It was your turn to smirk sinfully, and it felt good. You moved to take him into your mouth again but Loki pulled your body up. His voice was needy, “If you do that again this will be over before it has begun”.
With one hand Loki slowly pressed himself up and down your slit, “And it’s much more pleasurable this way”. His eyes seemed to search yours for any remaining doubts, he didn’t want to rush you.
You took his face in both your hands, “Loki I am yours”. That was all he needed to hear, slowly he inserted himself inside of you. Your walls stretched around him, causing you both to moan.
You started to bounce up and down, loving the feeling of him going in and out of you. Loki moved his hands to your hips again, guiding you. He moved you forward and backward, riding him.
In between thrusts he said, “You look so beautiful like this (y/n)”. With your hands holding onto his shoulders you leaned forward, letting him go deeper inside of you. With each thrust he was hitting your g-spot.
This angel gave him the perfect opportunity to suck your breasts again, giving you even more pleasure. The chill of his mouth against your hot skin made your pleasure only intensify.
Together your bodies moved as one, needing each other badly. This was all becoming too much, “Loki I’m so close”. You felt yourself right on the edge.
Loki was panting, “Tell me whose you are love”. You didn’t know if you could even speak right now, you only seemed to be able to moan. Picking up the pace Loki repeated himself, “Let everyone know who’s making you feel this good”.
Loudly you screamed, “Loki...you are Loki...fuck”. Somehow he went even deeper and faster, and you knew you couldn’t hold back. Loki nearly growled, “Cum for me (y/n) cum for me right now”.
His words pushed you over the edge, your orgasm now washing over you. It felt like a tsunami that started at your core and caused wave after wave of pleasure to crash throughout your body.
All you could do was moan his name, you were screaming it out. As Loki felt your walls clench around him, he was pushed over the edge. He’d never felt anything like this before, it was so intense.
Loki came just as hard, yelling out your name. Together you rode out your orgasms, wanting this feeling to last forever. Neither of you had felt something this good.
When Loki finally opened his eyes and saw how disheveled you looked he found his heart swelling with love again. Looking deeply into your eyes he said, “I love you so deeply (y/n) and as long as I live you shall be mine and I yours”.
This time when you brought your lips to his the kiss was slow, as if you both wanted to remember this moment forever. You felt him smile against your lips, and you laughed softly.
You rested on top of his chest as he asked, “What is so amusing darling?”. You looked up into his eyes again, he was still in his true form. Smiling you said, “ I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have you Loki”.
He kissed your forehead softly, “And I the same”. For once Loki felt at peace enough to finally get some rest, the rise and fall of your chest calming him.
He closed his eyes, shocked when only good thoughts crossed his mind. Although magic couldn’t fix his nightmares, maybe your love had been the answer. Loki fell fast asleep, not questioning it further.
♡ thank you for taking the time to read this, you’re a babe♡
Forever tags: aka some amazing people: @moonlessnight14 @sexyvixen7 @angieptt @painkiller80 @becca-dolan @team-heichou @thatpeachybandgirl @allthesesonsobitches @buckybarneshairpullingkink @couldabeenamermaid @taeeemin@littleredstarfish @nali67 @only4wakingup @mcenziehughes
*if there is a line through your name that means that for some reason it won’t allow me to tag you*
*forever tags are always open*
#loki#Loki Laufeyson#loki fanfic#Loki Angst#loki smut#loki filth#loki x reader#loki imagine#loki fic#tom hiddleston
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Secret Santa 2019 — In A Hopeless Place (We Found Love)
Aaaand I’m finally here to publish my @inusecretsanta story! @witchygirl99, I am your Secret Santa! I hope I didn’t make you wait for too long, and I hope you will enjoy it!
Also available on ff.net and Ao3.
The first sticky note the Office Lady leaves him is green. Inuyasha doesn’t pay much attention to it. He rips it off, reads the “Hey, would really appreciate it if you could make sure not to leave crumbs on the desk :) Have a nice day, K.”, written in calligraphy that he can’t help but identify as cute, scoffs, crumples it, and throws it in the bin.
The Office Lady is the woman who uses the same office as him half of the week. He gets Monday, Friday, and Wednesday morning; she has Tuesday, Thursday and Wednesday afternoon. Yes, it’s fucking stupid. He’s aware. Not to mention, he got the short end of the stick. She gets the longer week-end and he has to get up on Wednesdays. He blames it on Sesshomaru. Yeah, the guy only owns the company and probably didn’t meddle in his personal schedule, but he’s more than happy to blame absolutely everything he possibly can on Sesshomaru.
The K. signature kinda bothers him, though. So far, he hasn’t given much thought to the other person who occupies the office. He’s noticed the cactus she brought, and by her smell he can tell that she’s a human woman who, frankly, has no business smelling that fucking good, but he doesn’t even know her name.
K, huh? Certainly couldn’t be Kikyo. Last he heard — by a friend of a friend of a friend, ‘cause he most definitely ain’t checking on her — she had moved and was getting married. To a doctor. A human one, at that, so her family most likely hadn’t complained this time. Good for her. Probably. They were water under the bridge at this point. Maybe they wouldn’t have fucked each other up so bad, if they had been just a couple years older. If they’d been more experienced, more willing to compromise, more…
Why the fuck is he thinking about Kikyo? There’s a fucking reason why he keeps the memories buried as deep as possible.
Ah. Right. He glares furiously at the bin, at the bottom of which the notes lays. Crumbs, she said. Yeah, yeah, he’ll try. He was late on Monday, he ate in the office, and he definitely doesn’t remember cleaning up afterwards. Politeness would probably require him to write a note back, apologizing and promising it wouldn’t happen again.
He doesn’t.
Inuyasha hears from her again a couple of weeks later. If she was offended by his absence of response, she doesn’t show it. The note is still green. Again, he doesn’t pay attention to it. This time, he rolls his eyes and takes it off while he goes to open the window. He focuses better when the room doesn’t smell like her. He’s not sure why he’s so affected by it, quite frankly. It’s definitely very new. People who stink, sure, but people who are just so damn tantalizing? New. Some might even say a first.
Anyway, what does she want this time?
“It really isn’t a problem if you want to borrow a pen or something, but please make sure to leave everything the way you found it :) Have a nice day, K. PS: thanks for taking care of the crumbs, hope I didn’t come off too annoying last time!”
Ugh. He just has to roll his eyes at it, because how the fuck can she be so ridiculously sugary? God. If there’s one thing he hates, it’s people who act fake. He would know, he’s faced his fair share of them, being a half-demon, and he considers it a fact that they’re worse than people who openly hate you.
There’s no way she means that. There’s no way she’s that accepting and nice and not frustrated at him, even though this time, he didn’t even do anything wrong. Must be Miroku, the guy has a habit of dropping in to borrow stuff from him. He’s told him off multiple times, but it doesn’t seem to change a thing. He probably got the wrong side of the desk this time.
Also, who even notices that kind of stuff? He wouldn’t know if Miroku took half of his fucking supplies. Out of curiosity, he opens one of her drawer, and fucking hell. Pencils are organized by colors and sizes. Everything has its place. He lets out a disgusted noise. He’s not going to bother and try to rectify the misunderstanding, ‘cause that sounds like a stupid waste of time. If it had only been up to him, they would have never interacted in the first place.
He doesn’t need any more people in his life. The few ones in it are more than enough for him to handle, thank you very much. He doesn’t see why he’d need to be friendly with each other, either. They’ve never met, and he can’t think of any reason why it would change in the future. So, without thinking much more about it, he puts the note right where it belongs.
In the trash.
This time, it doesn’t take as long for him to hear about her again. The note is yellow, and Inuyasha vaguely pauses at the new color. How many does she have? Does she change them depending on her mood, or on the importance of the message? What kind of psychopath does that?
“You left the window open and it was really cold by the time I got there. Please don’t let that happen again. Have a nice day, K.”
Aw, no smiley face? The mask is starting to slip, then.
He does have some responsibility in this one, though. He has probably opened the window Wednesday morning as he always did, and then left it open. He can handle the cold pretty well, being a half-demon and all, but it is October already, and the Office Lady is human. Still, it had only been a few hours. No way it was that bad. Yet another thing he would make sure wouldn’t happen again, only this time, he may be feeling the tiniest twinge of guilt.
He hesitates longer before throwing out the piece of paper, and actually considers replying “Sorry”. Maybe it would deescalate things, get him back on her good side, where she writes on green paper.
He looks out the window, at the grey, cold sky. It’s generally cloudy, but Wednesday it was clear and blue. He remembers enjoying it.
Ah, fuck it. It’s her fault in the first place if he opens the damn window, even if she doesn’t know it and there’s no way she can do anything about it because he’s not communicating with her. He’s not going to write back on a colored sticky note. Plus, it’s Friday, so even if he did, he would probably rip it off when he would come back Monday.
His hand hovers above the bin, then with an annoyed growl he puts the note in one of his drawers. He doesn’t know why. He didn’t even keep the nice ones. He tells himself it’s because that way, he’ll keep track of the things she asks him and it’ll be easier. He tells himself it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s starting to enjoy this contact with this unknown woman who smells strangely nice.
Nothing at all.
Then, the Office Lady leaves a furious pink note on the desk, and Inuyasha realizes that yes, they are color-coded, and apparently she bases said color on the severity of the offense. She’s fucking weird. Who does she think he is, a five-year old? (Miroku does tell him he acts like one, but he refuses to take it into consideration right now)
“Listen. The crumbs, the pen, that’s okay. The window, it’s annoying because I have to keep my jacket on and it makes squeaky sounds whenever I move, but I can survive it. You not answering me, I think it’s rude and you probably have some deeply seeded issues about communication, but again, I’ll manage. The fact that you emptied my stapler and didn’t put any staples back in? That’s unacceptable. I want new ones. K.”
What did he say? A psychopath. She’s a fucking psychopath. Still, he grimaces at the note. Him not replacing the staples is breaking the main rule of an old code between office workers. There’s only one thing that’s worse, and that’s not putting paper back in the printer once it’s empty.
Not that it justifies her tone. Who does she think she is, exactly? Think she’s perfect, huh? Well, he doesn’t have dirt on her right now, but there’s no way she didn’t annoy him since they started sharing the space. She, erm, she left the computer on that one time and he certainly didn’t write her a green note to complain about it. And she left her key on the locked drawers on her side of the office and did he scold her for it? Nah, he didn’t even touch the thing — that would have deserved some yellow note, at least.
Again, he could, and maybe he should, apologize. He could reply on her note. He definitely doesn’t. He’s not playing her weird game. At this point, frankly, he thinks it must be a kink of hers. There’s no other way around it.
He knows he kept the yellow note for whatever reason, but this one, certainly, should go straight into the trash. He crumples it in his hand. Then he hesitates. Maybe she’ll try to murder him one day and this will be evidence that she was insane from the very beginning.
He keeps the note.
When Inuyasha arrives on Monday, he has a little stack of staples refills, which he puts on her side of the desk. He could write her a note about it.
He doesn’t.
The Office Lady replies with a yellow note, and Inuyasha feels strangely satisfied when he sees the color. Not that he feels guilty about the whole thing, ahah, certainly not, or that he wants the Office Lady to at least think of him in friendly ways, but, well, since most people out there hate him for no valid reason, maybe he can do with one less person disliking him.
“Thanks. K.”
He’s not disappointed by the one-word reply, and even if he was, it would not be childish. Miroku would say something about how he can’t expect people to congratulate him for basic decency, and he would retort that this was not basic human decency, that if she wanted him not to empty the stapler, she shouldn’t have left it out, and that he had no obligation to buy her refills.
Thank God he doesn’t talk to Miroku about that shit. Miroku does most of the talking for them both.
He moves the notes into his locked drawer. He doesn’t want her to know he’s keeping them, or anyone, at this point. Weirdly enough, this is the most he’s interacted with someone he didn’t already in quite some time.
“Thanks”, she said.
Well. It’s some sort of improvement, isn’t it?
November starts without any new notes having been sent, and Inuyasha finds himself getting bored at work a lot. He tries to tell himself he’s not expecting anything, but well, he’s lying to himself and he knows it, and he also can’t stop himself from thinking about how fucking stupid it is.
The Office Lady could be anyone. She probably doesn’t think about him half as often as he thinks about her, but hey, she doesn’t have to handle his smell. They’re not fucking lovers, they’re certainly not friends, and they’re not even acquaintances. They’ve never met, never seen each other. She doesn’t owe him anything, and their only interactions were one-sided, from her point of view at least.
He hates himself.
But on Friday morning, he walks in the office, and is almost knocked out by the overpowering smell of flower. His vision blurs, and he can only press a hand against his nose to try to lessen the smell. It’s not exactly working. A reasonable person would probably call for help, but ‘reasonable’ was never a word one could apply to Inuyasha. He manages to stagger to the window and to open it. There, he takes long, calming breath of air, before turning furious eyes to the offender.
Lavender. With the smell so strong that he can barely breathe, even now. He takes off his jacket and uses it to protect his mouth while he grabs the pot and puts it on the window ledge. Thankfully, the wind blows the smell away, and he sighs in relief.
Inuyasha walks to the desk in what can only be qualified as a blind rage. He has to move slowly so he won’t rip off the handle for the top drawer, and once he’s there, he has to try several time before he stops tearing to shreds the notes with his claws. Finally, he manages to get a pink one.
Yeah, he’s aware, he said he wouldn’t write back to her, and certainly not use her color-code, but fucking hell, she’s done it now.
“Don’t. Bring. Flowers. Again.”
His writing somehow manages to be agressive, but he cannot care less. As far as he is concerned, this means war.
Pink.
“You killed my lavender! If you don’t like flowers, couldn’t you just wait a day? K.”
Pink. (He can’t believe he is using her code. Maybe he should change it just to mess with her. They’re her notes, after all.)
“No.”
Pink. So this is a war.
“Wow, amazing, so glad you’re communicating with me.”
Pink. What a fucking bitch.
“Printer is empty.”
Pink.
“Oops, didn’t notice. You should fill it.”
Pink.
“You emptied it, you fill it.”
Pink.
“Why’d you kill my lavender?”
Pink.
“Who cares? Fill the printer.”
Pink.
“No.”
Pink.
“Are you a fucking child?”
Pink.
“How can you call me a child?”
Pink.
“The smell was too strong. Fill the fucking printer.”
Pink.
“The smell was too strong?? What are you, a dog?”
Pink.
“Half dog-demon, yeah. Took you long enough for the printer.”
Yellow. Shit. He wants to stay mad at her.
“Oh. I’m so sorry, I had no idea. I should have thought about it. I deeply apologize.”
Yellow. Inuyasha really, really wants to reply with pink, but he holds back somehow.
“You couldn’t know. Forget it.”
Green.
“No, seriously. I’m sorry. Can I get you something? Are chocolates off the table because of the dog thing?”
He wishes he could say it doesn’t make him laugh.
Green.
“Ramen.”
Next time, there’s a green note on a small pack of ramen, saying “Enjoy! :)” Inuyasha answers with a green note that says “Thanks”.
It’s probably the nicest exchange they’ve had since this began.
The Office Lady puts out a family picture. It features an old man, a middle-aged woman and a young boy who’s probably in high-school. Inuyasha doesn’t really want to comment on it, but he wants to know if she’s the woman.
He picks a green note, and for once, he starts the conversation. “Who are they?”
Green note.
“Mom, grandpa and little brother! You can put your pictures up if you want to, I don’t mind :)”
He would be lying if he said he didn’t miss the smileys.
Green.
“No pictures. We didn’t get enough time.”
Green.
“Shoot, sorry again :( Me and my big mouth…”
Green.
“’s okay. Been a long time.”
Inuyasha laughs when she gets him another pack of ramen as a way of saying sorry, and then he realizes that she got him his own set of notes. There’s green, yellow and pink, obviously, but there’s also blue, and he’s never seen her use blue.
He gets a green one. “What’s blue for?”
Green.
“Work. Boring >:(”
She’s fucking adorable.
Mid-November, the Office Lady starts decorating the office for Christmas, and once more, Inuyasha thinks about how much of a psychopath she is. Can’t she wait for December like everyone else?
After a few days, though, the tinsels grow on him, and he leaves a note, almost despite himself. Almost.
“The decorations are cute.”
Green.
“Aw, thanks! I’m so happy you like them :) I was afraid you’d be a bit of a Grinch.”
He’s a bit offended by how right she is.
Green.
“How about we meet for lunch on Wednesday?”
That’s stupid. He knows it’s stupid. And she will probably find it weird. But he writes quickly and then practically runs out of the office so he won’t change his mind.
On Wednesday morning, Inuyasha finds out she replied “I’d love to!! :)))”, and it has him grinning for the entirety of his work hours. Miroku drops in and acts shocked at seeing him smiling. Inuyasha throws something at him — his stapler. Miroku’s lucky, because the Office Lady’s cactus was right next to it, and it was really tempting to throw that, but he doesn’t want to start another pink-note war.
At noon, he waits in the office.
And waits.
And waits.
After an hour, he wonders what the fuck he’s still doing there. She ain’t coming. He’s not even sure why he stayed there for so long. It’s not like it’s the first time someone stands him up, and he barely even knows the girl.
He throws his jacket on, grabs his suitcase and walks out. Everything looks and feels cold, deserted. It’s noon, so there’s almost no one in. It doesn’t improve his mood, but it does make him feel a little better. At least he doesn’t have to watch them try to stay away from him in the elevator today. No such thing as a small victory.
As he walks out, he notices a woman running towards him. Wind is blowing in her black hair, and she’s wearing a green dress which only reminds him of the notes. He considers dropping the door and letting it hit her in the face, because he’s in a bad mood, but he’s also feeling sentimental today.
She shoots him a bright smile that makes her blue eyes shine when she realizes he’s holding the door for her.
“Thank you!” she breathes out as she runs in, moving past him pretty fast, for a human.
He only recognizes the smell after she’s gone.
She was late. He considers running after her, catching up with her, telling her. He doesn’t move. Sure, she’s early for her work hours, but she’s still late, so it must mean she didn’t want to see it that much, right?
The next morning, there’s a green note that says “I couldn’t make it I’m so sorry :(”
He doesn’t reply.
He is very surprised when he runs into her again, because it’s not one of her days. She’s running through the building, trying to keep up with someone who Inuyasha recognizes as Miroku’s Office Lady — Sango. Yeah, Miroku knows who his Office Lady is, because, like the weirdo he is, he communicated with her. Then asked her out on a date. Then she said no. Then he asked again. Repeat that for a dozen times, and then she showed up at his office and threatened to kill him.
Needless to say, Miroku’s in love.
Anyway, Inuyasha’s Office Lady is running after Sango, but they’re also both carrying big boxes of stuff that might very well belong to Miroku. If he was a good friend, he’d stop them.
He doesn’t even think about it.
However, when his Office Lady trips, he barely thinks before stepping in and grabbing her arm, steadying her.
“Oof, damn, thank you so— Oh, it’s you again.”
She smiles brightly, and his heart drops to his stomach.
“You held the door for me!”
“…’cause you were running.”
Not to be nice. He’s not nice. Why did he just catch her? He has no fucking idea.
“Yeah, I was… late,” she grimaces. “I’m Kagome, by the way.”
Kagome. So that’s what the K is for.
“Inuyasha.”
Her eyes widen, and then her gaze moves up to his ears, like she just suddenly noticed them, along with the white hair and golden eyes. He rises an eyebrow. Does she know his name? But how? She opens her mouth, but then Sango reappears.
“Kagome, hurry! We don’t have that long before he comes back!”
He should stop them right? He probably should stop them.
Miroku deserves it though, so he doesn’t move.
“I really need to help my friend,” she breathes out, “but you… We—We’ll talk again!”
Then she runs away, and he vaguely wonders if the whole thing actually happened as he stays there, standing with his hands in his pocket, looking at the corner at which she disappeared.
She smells even better from up close.
The only thing on the next note, green, is her phone number.
What the fuck is he supposed to do with that?
He waits for a little while. It’s definitely not the right move, and Miroku would kill him if he knew, but thankfully Inuyasha hasn’t updated him since the beginning of the note-war. Also, Miroku’s entire office was moved on the roof and he has been in a bit of a bad mood recently.
Tough.
One day, though, Inuyasha realizes that there are two golden plaques on the door. With his name — Inuyasha Taisho —, but more importantly, with her name.
Kagome Higurashi.
How did he never notice that?
He texts her that evening. Keeps it short and simple. Place and time.
She replies “It’s a date! :)”, and he kinda misses her writing, but it’s all set now. No backing away, and if she doesn’t show up this time, well, at least she’ll be able to let him know? He’s not sure about himself this time. He’s not quite the type to give people second chances.
Only, it might actually be worth it this time.
Of fucking course, she has to be late. It only makes sense, that she would torture him a little more. Inuyasha seriously considers running away the second the time is passed. But he waits.
Not for an hour, this time. Just a reasonable fifteen minutes, before she runs past the corner. She’s in good shape, he thinks when she gets by his side and is only barely panting, but he supposes if she’s often late, it would make sense.
“Hey, I’m so sorry, I had—”
“You’re always late, aren’t ya?”
She blushes, not in an embarrassed way but in an angry one.
Still just as adorable.
“No, no, not always, just… Just often.” She pushes some hair out of her mouth. “I’m Kagome Higurashi, by the way.”
“I know. ’s written on the office door. I had totally noticed.”
She laughs at that.
“I felt so stupid. You’re literally called Inuyasha. I can’t believe I made that dog joke, I’m so sorry by the way I—”
“That was a month ago. I’m over it.”
She frowns.
“You’re not really good at conversation, are you? Funny, I certainly couldn’t have told that from your notes.”
Is she making fun of him?
“So, wanna… Walk around? Grab coffee?”
Truth is, he didn’t plan the date, because part of him was worried she would bail on him, and he didn’t want to look stupid having to cancel a reservation at a restaurant.
“Actually, I need to go grab something at the office, if you don’t mind?”
“On a week-end?”
A psychopath. He knew it from the beginning. He can’t believe he didn’t pay attention to the signs.
“Oh come on. I went on week-ends when Sango wanted to get revenge on her Office Guy. It’s for myself this time. And kinda for you.”
Sango calls Miroku Office Guy. That’s hilarious. Did she miss the plaque on the door as well?
“’kay. I’ll follow you.”
Like he can say no to her. And they’re not even dating. Yet.
“Okay, just— wait a second, okay?”
Inuyasha shrugs. He hesitates a little before following her inside. He can’t say he’s really fond of the place, but mostly, he’s getting ideas now. Ideas that feature her sitting on the desk with her legs spread and him—
“Got it!”
Thank God. He needs to cool the fuck down.
“It’s for you.”
She hands him a carefully wrapped present, and he can only stare at it.
“It’s not Christmas.”
December has barely started. Seriously, what’s wrong with her?
“I’m late most of the time, but I like planning. Aren’t you going to open it?”
He wants to, but he also doesn’t want her to realize he wants to. So he scoffs and rolls his eyes. She leans against the desk, watching him with amusement dancing in her eyes and, yup, not looking at her, it’s giving him way too many ideas.
He rips the paper open, and ignores her sudden fascination for his claws. She seems almost disappointed at how quick he is at opening it.
It hits him like a punch in the chest.
It’s a picture of his parents. He hasn’t seen many of them, and he definitely doesn’t own any.
“I asked your brother,” Kagome says softly. “He isn’t an easy man to get a hold of, but Sango helped. She… has her ways.”
So Miroku’s Office Lady is a force to be reckoned with. He’ll remember that.
He clears his throat awkwardly, and carefully puts the picture back in the envelope. Doesn’t want to rip it by accident, and he is trembling a little.
“I don’t have a present for you,” he mumbles.
“I mean, you can think of something else you could give me, right?”
He squints at her. Surely, she can’t mean… Is she pulling fucking mistletoe out of her drawers? How many decorations for holidays is she hiding in there? How in advance is she planning? Again, what’s wrong with her? Now she’s holding the mistletoe over her head.
“Not that you have to,” she frowns when he doesn’t move. “I mean, I don’t want you to feel pressured into anything, I thought we had a good vibe and—”
It takes one wide step and his mouth is on her, his body pressing itself against hers between her legs. He kisses her hungrily. He’s been imagining the way she tasted since he first smelled her.
He’s not disappointed.
When she wraps her arms around him and brings him closer, he decides that she’s not disappointed either.
Good. Cause he has no intention of letting go of her any time soon.
Tagging list: @shinidamachu @sailorbabydoll92 @sweetchcolate @clearwillow @zelink-inukag @cstorm86 @digital-art-monster @danycontreras90 @redflamesofpassion @lost-amidst-the-stars @eternalnight8806-3 @desiree239 @keichanz @ashleys-canvas @mustardyellowsunshine @meggz0rz @contacting-u @ramen---boi
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Psycho Analysis: Erik Killmonger
(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has always been able to tell compelling stories with its heroes, but for the longest time the films lacked a key component of any great superhero story: great, compelling villains. Sure, there were enjoyable foes like Ultron and Red Skull and then there was Loki, the poster child for villainy in the early days, but I think at some point we can’t JUST have fun, we need something compelling and engaging too. To quote one of the greatest MCU villains, it should be “perfectly balanced, as all things should be.”
Thankfully, we eventually got those compelling villains. Characters like Zemo, Toomes, and Ghost showcased a level of complexity and depth not really seen in anyone outside Loki, and fun villains like Hela and the Grandmaster were better than ever, with more engaging personalities. Then we got villains who were a blend, like Ego and Mysterio, and don’t even get me started on Thanos. But there is one villain who stands out even among the greatness of these villains, a villain who is one of the few Marvel villains that I would without hesitation call one of the greatest villains of all time: Erik Killmonger.
Killmonger is a character who solidified Marvel’s turning point from weaker villains into villains worthy of high praise. And not only that, he helped to completely redeem his actor, Michael B. Jordan, in the eyes of filmgoers everywhere after a not-so-fantastic previous outing into the superhero movie genre (though starring in Creed probably also helped him out). Killmonger’s story is almost Shakesperean, with a tragic life molding him into the ruthless man he became, a man whose entire motivation is founded on hypocrisy. But it’s these facets and more that make him if not the greatest, but one of the most fascinating characters in the MCU. And yes, I mean characters period.
Motivation/Goals: Erik had a pretty miserable life growing up. His dad was killed by T’Challa’s father for allying himself with Klaue due to wanting to end Wakanda’s isolationist policies after seeing black people disenfranchised in America, and his mom was apparently in jail (and she died there). Erik’s greatest desire is to carry on his father’s work, only on a grander scale: he wants to take the throne of Wakanda for himself and forcibly end their isolationist policies, supplying vibranium tech to black people around the world and giving them the strength to fight back at their oppressors. And, you know, I can’t really fault him in theory, his plan isn’t totally evil…
...but it becomes very clear that the only person Erik really thinks about is himself. He’ll oppress and murder black people if they don’t fall in line with his plans, he doesn’t give a damn about anyone who isn’t black in general, and most tellingly of all: he decides to keep the power of Black Panther to himself, destroying it to keep any future generations from getting it. While there definitely is some truth to his goals and desires, it’s hard to deny that Killmonger is also acting out of vengeance and a lust for power. Unlike most villains who lust for power, he at least has a lot of other things going in to his motivations, which keeps him from being bland like, oh, I don’t know, Malekith.
I think it’s also worth noting that even in the film, the characters point out Erik is still operating like a CIA wetworker, dismantling and destroying governments while masking his motives under the guise of rebellious ideology. The thing here is that he’s not working for anyone who’s going to swoop in and scoop up the assets from the ruins of the places he’s destroying – he’s the master, and all he is doing is leaving behind chaos, destruction, and death for nothing. His own goals are not truly helped by a lot of his actions, especially not when he decides to eschew Wakandan traditions in the third act, which helps lead to his downfall.
Performance: Michael B. Jordan is a very talented man, which anyone would be able to tell you provided they had watched Chronicle and sat out F4ntastic. Unfortunately, the latter managed to stick in most people’s minds since it ruined the career of Chronicle’s director and basically garnered a lot of vitriol for everyone involved, so it was going to be an uphill battle for Jordan with this film.
Boy did he win the crowd here.
Jordan manages to make Killmonger everything you would want to see in a villain. He’s cunning, he’s dangerous, he’s charismatic, he’s pretty damn hot (Did you SEE him with his shirt off?!). It’s to the point where despite the incredibly embarrassing CGI cat fight at the end between him and T’Challa, Jordan manages to turn Killmonger’s death scene into a poignant and emotional moment that ends up deeply affecting T’Challa as a character and setting the stage for his character growth to the point where you can almost forget that you spent the last ten minutes watching a PS3 cutscene.
Final Fate: For a comic book movie villain, there is about a 10% chance you will make it out of any given superhero movie alive. Killmonger does not fall into that 10%; thankfully, he does get a poignant sendoff, where he gets to watch the sun set on Wakanda (both figuratively and literally, considering T’Challa’s actions in the ending) and deliver one last line clinging to his ideology to his dying breath. Maybe he was just playing a bit to mask his own egotism, but you have to give props to a man who stays steadfast and defiant even to the end. Even when offered the chance to be saved, he chooses to go out on his own terms.
Best Scene: I can hardly narrow it down to one scene, because Killmonger basically steals the show whenever he’s onscreen. But his cold-blooded murder of his own girlfriend when she became a liability to his plans, followed up by executing Klaue and delivering his corpse to Wakanda? That’s just ice cold. Most villains wish they could get the lengths they’d go to established like that.
Best Quote: After going on about the poignancy of his dying words, how could I not put them here? When T’Challa tells Killmonger Wakandan science can save his life following the Video game cuts- er, final battle between the two, Killmonger responds thusly:
“Why? So you can lock me up? Nah. Just bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors who jumped from the ships, 'cause they knew death was better than bondage.”
Final Thoughts & Score: There is just so much to unpack with Killmonger.
I think one of the aspects about Killmonger I like the most is that despite his good intentions, there is an inherent hypocrisy in all he does which, despite valid points and incredibly valid grievances, firmly cements himself as a villain. For all his talk of aiding and liberating his fellow Africans from the opression they face around the world, he feels no remorse in appropriating from them (as he does to that mask at the start of the film, ironically after calling out a museum worker for stealing it) or violently subjugating them and destroying aspects of their way of life as he does when he comes to Wakanda. And his own gripes against white people, while founded in a place of legitimacy, are also filled with hypocrisy on his part, to the point where he actively does everything he rails against the white colonizers for doing, down to even oppressing and harming other non-white racial groups so long as it furthers his desire to turn Wakanda into a power that can oppress all other nations with its technological superiority. Now, usually such rampant hypocrisy would lead to a poor character, or even an idiot – but such is not the case here. His own hypocrisy only serves to make him a richer, more well-rounded character.
Compare him to Thanos. Thanos also had a plan that was inherently flawed, hypocritical, and not rooted in rational thought – and he is widely praised as an excellent character. This is because you are not supposed to agree with a villain, valid as their points or their anger are. But at the same time, their anger and their motives gives you an insight onto who they are and how they operate, a window into how their mind works, and Killmonger’s definitely shows how he is a broken, angry man who was failed by Wakanda and failed by America and has suffered bigotry, racism, and violence all his life. And in his shoes, would you too not be angry? Even with the numerous atrocities he commits and the horrible hypocrisies he wallows in, it’s hard not to feel a bit of pity for a man who could have offered so much, only to give in to hatred.
And the thing with Killmonger is that not only is his anger valid, it ultimately does have ramifications, it ultimately does change the status quo, though maybe not in the way he envisioned. T’Challa realizes in the end that Wakanda failed Killmonger, that Wakanda has been selfish and allowed horrible things to occur to their fellow Africans because they didn’t consider them their people. And so T’Challa opens the borders, decides to share Wakanda’s gifts with the world, and reach out and help disenfranchised black people around the world so that someone like Killmonger never rises up again. What this could mean for the MCU going forward is anyone’s guess, but it definitely shakes up the status quo of Wakanda a fair bit.
I think it’s rather obvious that Killmonger earns himself a 10/10, joining the ranks of Thanos, Mysterio, and Ego at the table of champions. As far as villains go, I’d say he’s probably the deepest and most well-written, though I’d still say it’s arguable if he’s the absolute best. Still, he is certainly a fine metric by which to judge other villains, and if nothing else he will most definitely wash the bad taste of Jordan’s Johnny Storm out of your mouth forever. Killmonger really is what I would consider the gold standard that other villains need to live up to in other comic book movies, and generally speaking, we’ve been getting that recently. Let’s hope that the pace can be continued, and let’s hope whoever T’Challa is fighting in Black Panther 2 can measure up.
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Trauma,
Let me paint a picture, a story in your mind. Trauma like a friend, has come to story time. With it , bring those flashbacks of the ones you'd rather hide . With it brings you forward all your petty lies behind the pride. A story left to tell for it's been hidden far to long;
Starting with a plane ride , and ending with one too. The day we picked you up the sky was just so blue. I thought this was a good thing,and boy I was so wrong for the trauma that consumed me --- would go on for far to long. You painted this pretty little picture of derangement in your head of how our life would be together as you stitched your thread together using my very soul, no noticed as you unraveling me at every point you could.
Compliant was I ever with the things put in my drinks you lied and told me , it was all just in my head as the flashes of me naked now fill my nights with dread. You claimed you where my master, you claimed you where a God, you claimed so many things you wanted without asking and reworded it as love . You forced my affection to feed your ego in this world of make belive. So scared was I, yet I stayed so hopeful that your promises of change where valid and authentic.
The moment you where angery the world stoped making sense, as your hands found my face over and over again. So bruised and so broken the ER was a home . So many lies that never unfolded as they saw the bruises you left scattered across my skin like a coloring book. Lies I told to save my life as you watched from the chair across the room . To busy would the cops have been , with what I was wearing to contrate on the purple way my skin tented after every time I disappointed you.
So mad where you with everyone's happiness that you took it out of me. Damaging my mind and my body in your pillaging drive to claim what was never yours.... Your name was their carved into my skin ... where you left it knife in hand. , where you left me on the bed in the dark alone, when you where done with your master plan . You gave me panic attacks and disguised it as love . As your fingers traced every mark in adoration of the ways in which you could unconsentually hurt me.
You stole every password, every shread of my identity, every inch of my existance hung on the balance of your every whim like the puppet I had become on a string waiting to be used whenever you saw fit to force my compliance. You reworded everything onto everyone else for the way you told us all the blue sky was purple in a hope to convince the world and yourself of the unfathomable horrors you claim to have blocked from your memory with the 7 plus other people you swore occupied your head. Still I belived you could change and such was the trauma , of every inch of my sanity slowly slipping away .
You took my peace of mind and the safty of home as you forced my phone into your hands and changed everything you could to block the outside world from me and me from the outside world. Because of you I'm scared to be in the dark for to long by myself, because of you I'm scared to go out at night or trust anyone at all , I guard my drinks closely , I watch what I eat and I try to hurry up in the shower so the water does not trap me in my own mind. Which attacks itself in constant fear of your return.
Somedays I dont pick up my phone at all because I can't bare one more alert, as you hack into things yet again. Screen shoting my words to send back to me in anger mophing me into a robotic version of myself only made to agree with you. So paranoid am I of technology as I block you on every form of media known to man yet you still find ways to torment me again and again. Because you tried to drown me in a tub and call it a baptism I'm scared to stay alone in the bathroom for to long. The sad thing is I know why I have these fears and still I see your face haunting me every second of the day . Because of you I am afraid of my own shadow and the thought of someone touching me alone is enough to drive me into panic.
Because of you I wake up screaming in the middle of the night and freak out enough to turn every light on in the house and hide under my bed. You duck taped my body and covered me in slurs as you dumped cold ice water all over me until I was drenched and still you didn't stop nothing was ever enough as you took pictures of me and sent them to your friends as you raped me and had no regret because of you I'm scared to have sex. Because of you I'm scared to even exist anymore. You took a chunk of my sanity the day you pushed me off the bed because I looked like a 'dead fish' after you assulted me.
The fear that never left my eyes as you shouted and screamed how stupid and worthless I was and how I would not amount to anything . The fear that never left my eyes when you punched me in the face and knocked me unconscious in a rage that two other people saw but yet you claimed you couldn't rememebr until they called you out on your bullshit. A fear to even use my bank because you forced me to give you the passwords and took all my money on the grounds I couldn't be trusted . Because you called and pretended to be me and closed my accounts .... there was never justification in your actions . In your financial, physical, emotional, mental , sexual or identity abuse because of you I have Trauma. There is no apology that can fix the mess you made as you tried to tell me you wished you could change, only to admit you where lieing in an effort to control me again. Which drove me insane.
You started drugs and forced every second of my 2019 to be as miserable as it could be , using our rent and car money to fuel your secondary needs as if the Meth you took was far more important then our need to survive. You hurt so many not just me but everyone else around us. Because of you I am afraid . Afriad to do the things I normally would have never been afraid to do . I'm scared to leave the house in fear of you being there again . You swore to me I would never be anyone elses as you created a fantasy I was forced to play along with for survival only to be thrown off guard as you knocked me unconscious and choked me so hard I turned blue . The cops and doctors never sided with you. All MY friends never sided with you. You ruined every inch of my sanity but yet you where insistent on taking more. This Trauma was never enough for you.
This is my voice, this is my statement from the nightmares, the terror filled dreams , the way I wake up screaming and crying and shaking like a leaf. Because the PTSD you caused is like a plague one of which spread to many different things as month after month my Stockholm got worse until I was so oblivious to your constant abuse. You caused me so much pain. Pain I couldn't handle as the doctors admited me for fear I may take my own life.... because of the trauma I endured. The trauma you spread over every part of our lives.
Anytime I was happy --- a road trip to a friends , three chances and at each turn you broke into my accounts... at each turn you dramatically lied to get your way for me to return. You threatened to kill anyone that stood in your way of getting to me. Yet still you saw no derangement in your illusions.
Trauma defined as a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. That is all you are now as my words flow off the pages that is all you are now an experince --- a bad one with some good points an experince a lesson --- I had to learn to become stronger yeah I'm scared but that wont change how far I've come . I wont be afraid of you anymore. I refuse to let it define me because you hurt me , you broke every inch of trust sure. My hope though is one thing you will never have... never take and never betray like you did so much else.
You were wrong once you are nothing like him, the man who hurt us so badly that we United in solidarity .... you became him in your own self involved Prophecy--- I refuse to accept the blame for your mistakes. I refuse to cover up your false truths and ignore the fact that you ... need help. Help I can not provide but this is over now , said and done they know your flaws everyone and though I didnt use a name people have heard my story of the days in which my fears cause me the most worry. Trauma is everywhere and that's okay right now. My wounds will heal both mental and physical, but you'll always be the one who hurt another human being.
The end.
#trauma#ptsd#aniexty#fear#survivor#struggles#words#lost#staying alive#broken words#tattered memories#flashbacks#mental health#stop stocking me
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im still alive i promise im just slow as shit
and i’m back on my bullshit
cross posted on ao3 please give me all the validation you can
Series: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
Pairing: Giorno/Mista
Rating: T
Summary: like i already gave it a pretentious summary on ao3 im not doing it here too
Warnings: uh obvious implications of past child abuse
Giorno is standing outside on the veranda again.
The sun has already started to rise. The harsh rays shine through the panes of glass that line the door leading out to the marble balcony, and it forces Mista to crack his eyes open.
He takes a moment to acclimate himself, to wake up enough, and he steps out of bed to walk towards the rising sun.
Giorno hears his footsteps on the marble floor; he knows, but doesn't react, as Mista opens the door and moves closer to him, and only twitches slightly when his Mista places a warm hand on his bicep.
“Come on.”
Giorno grips onto the stone railing a bit harder before relenting and turning around, being led back to bed silently.
***
Mista had never been used to being the responsible one.
Bucciarati was their fearless leader, the man who always had a plan. Told them what to do, and they would do it. Bucciarati handled the meetings with higher ups, delegated any missions that had to be done when he didn't just do them by himself. Kept a watchful eye over them but never got in their way unless it was ultimately necessary. Bucciarati was who they all looked up to.
But Bucciarati wasn't here anymore. And neither were half the people who looked up to him.
Giorno was here, instead.
He had always been similar to Bucciarati; a little colder, perhaps, but he had the same air about him, the same aura that made people want to follow him. Made people want to be with him. Giorno was always so confident, but humble enough to know he was not infallible. Knew what his limits were yet boldly pushed past them anyway.
Once the dust had cleared and Trish was safe, doing her own thing as a singer and model, did Mista have the startling realization that he was wildly unprepared for what actually taking down the boss meant. What actually taking his place meant.
He had to start wearing suits. Looking and acting professional. It wasn't insurmountable, but the sudden sharp turn into having to constantly present as dignified and poised when he was anything but had been tedious at best and utterly asinine at worst. Making Giorno's appointments, delegating where Giorno couldn't, meeting with businessmen and politicians who demanded their attention—it had been a difficult leap to make for somebody whose only responsibilities a month ago were shaking people down and maybe putting a bullet in somebody's brain if the situation truly called for it.
Giorno had handled it all with startling aplomb. Mista had been thrilled, at first, to have a good chunk of the work shouldered off to him—and to Polnareff as well, but to a lesser extent. Once everything had settled into place, though, the magnitude of what Giorno was doing had dawned on him in an unsettling way.
Giorno, Mista had one day realized, was only 15 when everything had started. He was only 15 when he decided he would uproot the entire command structure of one of Italy's largest mobs. He was only 15 when he decided that he would be willing to commit premeditated murder.
Mista had been failing chemistry class and getting his first girlfriend when he was 15. The first time he killed was in a heat of the moment snap decision so he could save a life, and he'd vomited in a toilet once the adrenaline wore off.
Once it all had clicked for him, any sense of fear or hesitation he had ever felt towards Giorno as a leader melted away, and was replaced with a deep sorrow and an even stronger urge to follow him. A stronger urge to be with him.
Their relationship had naturally progressed to the point where Mista knew Giorno the best out of anyone in Passione, in more ways than one. They shared a bed, intimately, and being the underboss was barely a factor in why he stuck to Giorno like a second shadow.
Yet, with his loyalty and affection in no question, Mista had an inkling, a niggle in the back of his mind that told him that he was just on the outside looking in.
Giorno himself stood at the peak, and Mista would just have to make peace with the fact that he would always be just a little bit below him, looking up.
If Giorno, who had done incredible acts of self-sacrifice in order to get where he was today, would be willing to pick up the mantle of running an entire mafia syndicate, then Mista could at least make sure that he survived long enough to see his change realized.
He just wished he could walk beside Giorno, instead of staring at his back, six paces behind.
***
Mista tunes out most of the meetings Giorno has. To the people Giorno delegates to, he's just a silent sentry with a gun on him as visibly as possible.
He keeps his eyes on them, of course, but the words coming out of Giorno's mouth became white noise a while ago.
“...Is that clear?”
Their backs straighten in unison and they mutter their words of affirmation. Giorno nods them off and Mista escorts them out, a practiced routine they've done the fifth time today.
He turns back to Giorno just in time to see him rubbing his eyebrows—the telltale sign he's got a migraine forming. Mista pauses for a minute. The words “you should take a break” are on the tip of his tongue, but telling him to do that never works, so he eyes the end table Coco Jumbo is snoozing on and reaches into the drawer to take out a bottle of Ibuprofen, the pills rattling from the movement. He sets it on Giorno's desk, and nudges his boss a little bit.
Giorno regards it coolly, but doesn't move to take any. He's going to be stubborn today.
“I'm fine, Guido. It'll pass.”
Mista rolls his eyes and uncaps the bottle, pouring out three in his hand and places them on the desk. Giorno visibly bristles. Mista moves them closer to him.
“I said—.”
“Gio. We both know it's going to get worse and you'll be bed bound if you don't deal with it early. Stop being a dick about this.”
He can see Giorno's jaw clench. If he were any other person in the organization, Giorno would've already killed him.
Mista keeps his gaze on him leveled. He stopped being intimidated by Giorno a long time ago.
Ultimately, Giorno breaks first, with a deep sigh accompanying his decision.
“...You're right. I'll take them.”
He takes the pills and swallows them without water in one fluid motion. His attention is turned back to the papers he has on his desk without a second thought, as if those few seconds wasted were deeply precious.
Mista places a hand on his shoulder and rubs gently, and Giorno only hesitates slightly before moving his hand up to link their fingers together. He leans down and presses a kiss to the crown of Giorno's hair. His hair smells like vanilla, no doubt from whatever new conditioner Trish sent him to try.
“If you want my opinion...” He presses another kiss against the top of Giorno's head. “I think those land development contracts can wait. It's time for lunch, anyway.”
Giorno tilts his head up for a proper kiss in lieu of an actual response, but the final answer is there regardless by the motion of him picking up his pen and putting his name to the paper, then turning it over and grabbing another one.
Mista breathes in sharply through his nose, and leans against a wall near the open window behind Giorno once more. If he moves his head slightly, he can see Giorno's reflection in the glass pane.
Giorno's pen scratching against the paper is the only sound other than the waves crashing in the bay. The salt from the ocean paints the breeze, and overtakes the scent of Giorno's vanilla conditioner in his mind.
And, just like that, he's back on sentry duty.
***
They typically make time for Polnareff whenever they can. As consigliere, Giorno runs most of his ideas by Polnareff before truly implementing any.
It's less common for them to speak about work-related issues, though. Mista steps inside the familiar space mostly to drink from the vast wine collection Polnareff keeps in there and vent to the only functional adult in their perilously small inner circle who has similar experiences he does.
“Giorno's upset again,” Mista murmurs, swirling Chianti around in a glass as he sits on a sofa across from where Polnareff was standing.
Polnareff leans against one of the sofas as he nurses his own glass of wine. When Mista doesn't continue speaking, Polnareff clears his throat.
“Is that all you came here for? To say that and drink my wine?” Polnareff's lip quirks up. “I know I'm good company, but really, this doesn't seem like the best use of your time.”
Mista rolls his eyes and sets his glass down.
“Well, I wanna get him out of his funk but I don't know how. I keep catching him looking at Bucciarati's hair clips. Those little...” He mimes ovals with his hands, and places them on the top of his head. “You know.”
“I know what hair clips are,” Polnareff says with a chuckle. “But yeah, I know what you're talking about. I catch him looking at Narancia's bandanna once in a while. I don't see him looking at Abbacchio's...” He mimes something being on top of his head. “I don't see that too much, but he does do it occasionally.”
Mista snorts. “That's not surprising. Abbacchio treated him like shit.” His face turns stony and he turns his gaze back down to the red wine he had began swirling around again. “Giorno still cared about him, though.”
“He cares about all of the people who work for him.” Polnareff pours himself another wine glass.
Mista takes a sip, ready to correct him. “Abbacchio was working for Bucciarati.”
Polnareff raises a brow. “Are you sure about that? Are you certain about that?”
Mista grimaces.
“You've got a point.”
Polnareff sits down on the sofa across from Mista, and crosses his legs. “We're off topic. So he's upset. Are you going to do anything about it?”
Mista breathes out a sigh. “I don't know. What can I do? Usually he just sorts through it himself. I'm typically a non-presence whenever he gets, y'know, depressed like this. Nothing I try to do seems to matter.”
“Mh.” Polnareff swirls around his wine. “I don't think he knows how to deal with people supporting him. In the emotional sense.”
“Well, I'm not about to have a big sit down and talk about our feelings. Giorno has too much on his plate. With all this work he has to do—he barely eats. Whenever we get lunch together I end up eating most of his food.”
“So too little on his plate, then?” Polnareff responds with a grin that was a little too wide.
Mista narrows his eyes briefly before groaning and pinching the bridge of his nose.
“That was awful. Jesus, you should feel ashamed for that.”
Polnareff lets out a cackle, to Mista's unrestrained annoyance. After taking glee in his terrible pun, he dials it back and resumes discussing the matter at hand.
“Well, regardless.” Polnareff takes a sip from his wine glass. “This is a good time to bring this up. I kept meaning to tell you about this and just I never got to it, but the other day while you dealing with that stand user near the docks, Giorno and I got in a heated argument.”
Mista is taken aback slightly. Giorno getting into an argument, and a “heated” one at that, is incredibly rare.
“About what?”
“Something stupid. Honestly, I really can't remember the details.” He waves his hand absentmindedly. “But there was a point where I raised my voice, and he—I've never seen this before, he...shrunk back? It was the first time I've really seen Giorno look scared.”
Mista jerks. “Scared?” There's a brief moment where he pauses, confused, before realization dawns on him in a way that makes his stomach churn. “You don't think he was—.”
“I don't know,” Polnareff pointedly interrupts, holding up a hand to stop Mista's thought. “And it's not my place to ask. But speaking as somebody who had to take care of themselves, and...” He pauses in his sentence, visibly gathering himself. “...And a little sister, at a young age, on their own, I recognize his behavior.”
Mista rubs one of his temples with his fingers as he leans back in the chair and lolls his head up towards the top of the room with closed eyes.
“Jesus.”
Polnareff swallows the rest of his wine, and keeps the empty glass in a loose grip between his index and middle fingers.
“Mista, listen,” He starts, placing his glass to the side and leaning over with his hands clasped. “If I'm being honest, I don't think Giorno doesn't appreciate what you're doing. As underboss, your entire job is making Giorno's life easier. Even little things, like making sure he eats, I think, he does appreciate. I just...I think he doesn't know how to appreciate it.”
Polnareff stops speaking, briefly, and closes his eyes to gather his thoughts. Mista keeps quiet, and waits.
“...Up until something forces him to change, I think, Giorno...he's going to do everything himself.”
“But why?” Frustration creeps into the edge of Mista's words. “It doesn't make sense.”
Polnareff looks at Mista with a sad smile on his face.
“Because, for him, that's all he's ever known how to do.”
***
It's a day of meetings. Neither of them are thrilled about it.
Mista is sitting over a coffee table, cleaning his gun and waiting on the shower, when Giorno steps out, water dripping from his damp hair. He moves to sit at his vanity that's leaned up against a wall far across from their bed, pulls his hair back away from his face, and gets to work.
It's almost hypnotizing as Mista watches him go through his morning routine: toner, spot cream, face cream, eye cream, moisturizer, facial oil, sunscreen, primer, foundation, concealer, powder, bronzer, blush, eyeliner, eyebrows.
Giorno does not leave room for imperfection.
Mista almost feels drab in comparison.
He puts the chamber back on his gun, the last piece that needed to be added, and walks over to Giorno, who just finished blow-drying his hair. Giorno's mouth quirks up in a small smile as he sees him approach, and Mista toys with the ends of his hair as he stands behind him.
“Not sure about you, but I'm excited to sit in office after office of high-ranking Italian politicians vying for Passione's support.”
Giorno tilts his head up and their lips met.
“It won't be that bad, I'm sure.”
Mista snorts. “Every time we meet with people like this they're never under the age of 50 and they all smell like mothballs and too much cologne. That smell takes days to get out of my head, Giorno. Days.”
Giorno laughs, soft and airy. Mista can't help himself and leans back over to place a kiss on the star birthmark just below the junction of his neck and shoulder.
“I'll make sure to put an air freshener in the car after we get out, then.” Giorno wrinkles his nose a little. “They really do wear too much cologne, you're not wrong about that.”
Mista gives one last kiss against Giorno's jaw and steps aside as Giorno manifests Gold Experience to braid his hair, and he leans against a wall perpendicular to the vanity with his arms crossed.
“It's still pretty jarring to get used to, I gotta admit. Bucciarati would always go alone to these sorts of things—sometimes he brought Abbacchio but he did it by himself, I'd say like, 99% of the time. I don't think he was ever high up enough to meet with, y'know, senators and stuff, but he met with Polpo a lot, and some other capos from time to time.” Mista put his hands on the back of his head. “I think I really took for granted some of the stuff Bucciarati did for us.”
Gold Experience fades once Giorno's braid is perfectly fastened. Giorno sits silently, staring down at his pale fingers that rest on the edge of the oak wood vanity.
Mista sees Giorno's lips part in the mirror as he starts to speak softly. “How long did you know Bucciarati for, Mista?”
“About a year or so, I think? Give or take. I told you he bailed me out of jail after I got that bullshit ruling, right?” Giorno nods. “It was right after that. We had lunch and he wanted me in his group and I said yes.”
Giorno breathes in, then out.
“...Do you think he would be satisfied with how I'm running things?”
Mista stares at him with furrowed eyebrows.
He...doesn't really know how to answer that.
Bucciarati, for all his talents as a leader, never really had many grand plans the same way Giorno did and still does. Anything Polpo asked him to do, he would do it, and do it well. The only times Bucciarati ever spoke out against Passione were when Mista would overhear him speaking privately to Abbacchio or Fugo about his distaste for the drug trafficking and how he felt frustrated at his inability to do anything, but that's all it ever really led to: frustration. Bucciarati was in no position to do anything about the growing drug problem, and he knew it.
Then Giorno entered the picture.
Then Bucciarati was gone.
And all of his ideals had been passed onto Giorno like a burning torch.
The large part in Mista's brain that cares for Giorno wants to say “of course, you're stopping what Bucciarati hated most about Passione and you're doing an amazing job at it” but a feeling of hesitation stops him. While no doubt Bucciarati would have been thrilled at seeing how much cleaner Naples as a city now is, Giorno is brutally pragmatic and stopped being able to bloody his own hands a long time ago. Mista has no doubt that had Bucciarati taken over, he would've eliminated every threat on his own, with his own hands.
So his answer isn't the most confident.
“I mean...probably.”
Giorno frowns.
It's not what he was expecting, and Mista knows it.
“I see. Thank you.”
The conversation ends anticlimactically; Giorno ignores him as painfully and as obviously as possible while he puts rollers in his bangs. Mista walks away towards the shower, seeing Giorno picking up hairspray for his braid out of the corner of his eye.
As he rounds a corner in their bedroom, he hangs onto the wall and stops.
He opens his mouth to say something, and his eyes flick back over to Giorno, who he sees looking up at him in the mirror.
Nothing comes to his mind that sounds good enough, so he simply walks into the bathroom. Giorno doesn't spare him another glance.
***
Once a month, Trish deigns to visit the two of them in Naples, and each time, it's a great reprieve for everyone involved.
Their guards at the front can barely announce her presence before she's strutting into the palazzo. Her white Versace heels match the mink coat she's wearing over a short, black dress with a keyhole neckline. She keeps her hair the in the same, perfectly coiffed style, most likely by using enough hairspray that would choke a lesser being. Sunglasses costing at least €500 lay over her eyes, and with each echoing step of her heels she acts increasingly like she owns the place despite the fact that she's being led around by a guard—a guard who is obviously intimidated by her.
As soon as she's led into the room where Giorno entertains guests, her mouth splits into a grin and her heels clack even louder on the marble flooring as she darts up to hug the both of them.
“Giorno, it's so good to see you!” She grabs hold of his hands as she places a kiss on his cheek. When she pulls back, she sniffs the air slightly. “I see you've started using that conditioner I recommended.”
“Yeah, it smells great,” Mista interrupts, and wraps her up in a big hug. “I dunno where the hell you find half of this stuff but it's all amazing.”
She kisses his cheek as they pull back from the hug. “Still not trimming the hair on your knuckles?” The smug, knowing tone in her voice is hard to miss.
Mista grins, and fires back. “Still wearing outfits you have to be peeled out of?”
They all sit down on ornate couches with gold-trimmed crimson pillows, Mista casually throwing an arm around Giorno's shoulders as he drinks tea across from Trish. She plucks a macaroon from one of the silver trays set out with treats and pops it in her mouth.
“Milan fashion week was a shitshow, did you see? The Prada winter collection? Awful. It was all trash.” She takes a long sip of her tea. “If I'm being totally honest, none of the other lines were much better. Gucci kept using this terrible mustard yellow color. For winter!” She threw her hands in the air. “There was a bright spot, though, in that giant waste of fabric they called a fashion show. I met another stand user!”
Giorno raises an eyebrow. “You did?”
“Mhm. Her stand wasn't for combat, so it was nice not having to fight for my life for once,” She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. “We really hit it off. Her stand was like real-life photo touch up. She could smooth out their skin and make their make-up pop,” She makes a popping sound with her mouth as she says the word. “and all that stuff. Once they got a certain distance away from her it would wear off but it was really cool—I haven't...most of the stands I've seen were, 99% of the time, only useful in a combat situation. Well, besides Coco Jumbo. How is he, by the way?”
“Asleep,” Giorno says with a chuckle. “How did you find out she had a stand in the first place?”
“Well, I was waiting on my makeup and the chair I was sitting in was very uncomfortable, so I used Spice Girl to make the cushion I was sitting on softer. She was nearby doing makeup for another model and was amazed that I had a stand, too. She'd only seen a couple before mine. She called hers “Dress Down”, interesting name.”
Mista snorts. “You use your stand for shit like that?”
Trish straightens in her chair, undeterred. “I can and will. Sounds like somebody is jealous that all their stand can do is deflect bullets. Look at this,” She brought out Spice Girl, and the couch she was sitting in began to undulate slightly. “It's like I'm in a water bed now, I'm so cozy.”
“That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen.” Mista turns to Giorno with a “can you believe this” look on his face. “C'mon, back me up here.”
“I used to use my stand to grift people.” Giorno closes his eyes and sips the rest of his tea, looking more than a little bashful. “So I don't have a leg to stand on here, really.” He sets his cup down. “And sometimes, when nobody else is around, I do things like this.”
He grabs a book off of the coffee table in front of him, and takes Gold Experience out to morph the book into a small Calico cat. Trish gasps in amazement, putting her hands out and making grabbing motions. Giorno happily hands her over, while Mista looks mildly annoyed.
“Man, what the fuck.”
Trish holds the kitten close to her body, scratching under her chin. “Oh, she's so cute! Do you make them often?”
“I do. Making animals like that can be very therapeutic, actually. Cats, especially. Did you know that cats actually domesticated themselves? It started in ancient Egypt, I believe. It was more beneficial for them to lower their aggression and stay around humans for food—typically mice that would get into the farmed grains. Most cats purr at about 25 decibels, but the interesting thing is that nobody is quite sure how exactly they purr. One theory is that they use the muscles in their larynx to create the sound, but why they do it is also up for debate. They mostly do it as a sign of being content, but it can also happen if they're in pain. For example, cats can start purring whenever they give birth. Oh, and recently, I found out that a group of cats is called a “clowder”, and that they sweat through their...”
Giorno looks up, and sees Trish and Mista simply staring at him, bewilderment on both of their faces. He clears his throat, and gathers himself, uncomfortably aware of what just happened.
“...they sweat through their paws.”
Trish gently releases the kitten back onto the table, and Giorno turns it back into a book, silently staring at it afterward.
“Um,” Mista places his hand on Giorno's shoulder. “Gio—.”
Giorno shrugs it off and stands, offering a hand across the table to Trish. “Trish, I think it's about time we all gave Polnareff a visit, don't you agree?”
Trish clears her throat and nods, taking his hand and standing in one fluid motion. Giorno throws a look back at Mista, who jerks and stands up beside him.
“Ah, let's go meet with Polnareff and then have lunch?” Trish flicks her eyes between the two of them. “Is that alright with everyone?”
“Yes. It sounds great.” Giorno replies quickly, obviously eager to distract and move past his earlier diatribe. “Mista?”
“Uh, yeah. Sounds fine.”
Giorno nods and begins to walk forward, opening the door and leaving it wide for the two of them.
Trish yanks Mista by the wrist to get him to walk with her, her heels clicking loudly against the floor once more as they trod down the long hallway to Giorno's office.
“Listen.” She hisses out in a whisper. “I don't know what the heck is up with Giorno, but you gotta do something.”
“I don't—.” Mista sighs, irate. He looks up; Giorno is getting further away from them. “I don't know what to do, Trish! What am I supposed to do?!”
She shoves him back, nothing but anger showing in her bright green eyes.
“Do what he can't do for himself.”
She gives him one last glare as she stomps briskly in front of him, leaving him in the dust.
***
Mista wakes up shivering.
He blinks the sleep out of his eyes as much as he can, then turns to find the source of what's making him cold.
Giorno is on the veranda again.
At least the sun isn't up yet.
With a groan and a stretch, Mista pulls up the sweatpants he's sleeping in and gets out of bed. Even with socks on, the marble floor is icy as he walks across it.
Giorno's head twitches towards him as he steps outside. Mista doesn't say anything as he moves towards him, wrapping his arms around Giorno's bare chest and pressing a kiss at the junction of his neck and shoulder.
“You're freezing,” Mista murmurs, his voice low and groggy. The cold night air causes him to instinctively cling to Giorno tighter for warmth.
“Just a little longer,” Giorno whispers, his fingers squeezing the hand Mista has on his chest. “I just...need a little longer.”
What Mista wants to do is tell him that he'll catch a cold standing out on a stone balcony in the middle of the night as he stares at the calm, black ocean. He wants to take him back inside and touch him until Giorno stops thinking about whatever he's thinking about. He wants Giorno to say what's on his mind.
But Giorno won't talk without Mista prodding him, and Mista isn't going to do that.
Even though he wants to.
He just holds Giorno tighter and watches the crashing waves with him.
***
Mista throws open the door to their bedroom and the two of them slink in, utterly exhausted from another day of nonstop meetings.
While the election in Italy was already over and done with, it meant that most time spared went to meeting with politicians and making sure their goals were in line with Giorno's own. His power over Passione, while uncontested at the start, could easily slip if public opinion was against them. Getting politicians, and more importantly, their delegates, on their side, was key to consolidation.
That didn't mean it wasn't tiresome.
“Fuck.” Mista undoes his tie with his index finger and tosses it aside, shrugging off his coat jacket and unbuttoning the dress shirt beneath it and letting it drop to the floor before he falls onto their bed face first.
Giorno is only barely more collected than he is, and manages to get his own jacket, shirt, and tie in a small pile near their hamper before sitting on the bed next to where Mista collapsed.
“I'm going to be hoarse tomorrow from how much I talked today,” Giorno takes out the hair tie holding his braid together and shakes it out, golden locks cascading loosely over his shoulders. “I think they'll all be willing to work with us, though.”
“They better be!” Mista groans and rolls over onto his back. “With all the money we're willing to throw at them, I'm gonna be real pissed off if they turn their backs on us now.”
Giorno makes a noise of affirmation. “Half of the people we met with are so corrupt they don't really have a choice, unless they want us to release all the information they'd rather keep hidden away.”
Mista snorts. “What information? The mistresses? The racist comments? The illegitimate children? Or a combination of all three?” He groans. “These guys are such assholes.”
Giorno hums in agreement, and stretches his arms out, his joints audibly popping. “I'd like to shower,” He rubs his hand against Mista's shoulder. “Join me?”
He looks at Giorno out of the corner of his eye. “You're gonna have to help me up for that to happen.”
Mista feels Giorno move off the bed to stand up, and shortly afterward the cool, alien hands of Gold Experience help bring him up into a sitting position. He holds his own hands out to Giorno, who gets him onto his feet.
“You'll feel better afterward.” Giorno says, then pecks him on the lips.
They step onto the granite flooring of their large, opulent bathroom. In the entryway sits a long, marble counter with two sinks inset into it, in front of a framed mirror that spans the upper half of the entire wall. A broad, stone archway leads into the bathroom proper. Their shower, one that could easily fit six, sits nestled in the corner, with a half-wall coming between it and the toilet. Across from it lies an elevated, oval, drop-in porcelain tub that's the size of a small pool, two marble steps leading up to it. Fine art lines the walls, and a glass chandelier hangs high above the floor.
Giorno takes off his pants and briefs and enters the small cave they call a shower, turning it on and waiting for the water to heat up. Mista manages to stop gawking at him long enough to shed himself of his own remaining clothes to join him.
He places a hand on Giorno's bicep and kisses his neck, letting warm water run down his tired body. Giorno turns and links his fingers with Mista's, and Mista bumps their foreheads together, wrapping his arm around Giorno's slim waist.
His thumb brushes over a raised spot, and Mista furrows his brow as he looks down at a long scar across his lower back. He's seen Giorno naked more times than he can count, but he's never noticed that scar before. A few other scars mar Giorno's back, but they almost seamlessly blend in with his pale skin.
“Woah, I never noticed those before. Were these from when we were guarding Trish? I'm surprised you haven't used Gold Experience to heal the tissue.”
Giorno's reaction is immediate and severe. He breaks away from Mista, almost as if he's been burned, and takes two steps back from him. He's shaking, just slightly, and Mista's hand stays hovering in the air as he tries to process what just happened.
“Giorno, what—.”
“Don't touch me.”
He speaks in a low, cold tone, and Mista bristles. He's two steps away from immense frustration until realization dawns on him.
“Oh.” Mista rubs at his arm. “I don't...do you want to ta—.”
“No,” Giorno interrupts, his stare placed firmly on the shower tile below him. “Let's just finish showering.”
Mista starts to reach out him.
“Hey, Giorno...”
Giorno's head jerks up and he cuts down whatever Mista was attempting to do. His eyes are dark and unmoving. The hot water of the shower does nothing for the ice in Mista's veins.
Resolve crumbling, Mista stays silent and reaches up to grab some shampoo that sits on an indent in the tile wall, and lathers it up in his hair. Giorno's tenseness fades, and he takes his own bottle of lavender-scented shampoo off its ledge.
They finish up the shower in silence.
They don't talk the rest of the night.
***
“This doesn't seem like something you need to do, Gio.”
Mista leans back in the Lamborghini, turning his head to the side to get a better look at Giorno, who seems nonplussed.
“Repeated attempts to get them to stop via intimidation haven't worked, and I have no intentions of bribing a drug dealer.” Giorno crosses his legs. “It's about sending a message, Guido.”
“Yeah, but I probably could've done this on my own.” Mista crosses his arms. “How long has this guy been dealing drugs? A month or so?”
“Longer than that, probably.” Giorno's cheek presses against the car window, and he sighs. “Signs point to this person being a stand user, and even though many of our soldatoj are good at what they do, a significant amount of them don't have stands.”
Mista hums. “Still, I don't think this is something you needed to involve yourself in. Like, I could've gone with another stand user and taken care of this.”
Giorno smiles, and Mista can feel himself relax.
“It'll be fine, Guido. If all goes well, we'll be drinking wine and eating bruschetta in an hour.”
The car turns and drops them off in a large, abandoned alley that's littered with cracked walls and graffiti, leaving no spot barren. Giorno and Mista begin to scope out the area the second their feet touch the dirty concrete.
“This is right, yeah?” Mista takes out his gun and checks the chamber. “Seems a bit...I dunno, seems kinda shitty even for a drug dealer.”
“From what we've been told, this is the place,” Giorno murmurs in response, pushing around loose debris with his foot as they round a corner away from the car. He keeps staring in the distance before his head sharply turns towards Mista. “Stay here and cover my back. Don't let anybody down this alley.”
Mista nods, and summons his stand. No. 6 follows behind Giorno as he rounds a corner. With his back up against a decaying brick wall, all Mista can do at this point is wait.
Five minutes pass until something feels off. It's a change in the air or something like that, but the hairs on the back of Mista's neck stand up, and he makes sure nobody is coming towards him before peeking his head around the corner.
Large swaths of flypaper litter the ground and walls, and Mista's eyes widen. He grabs a bullet out of his pocket and tosses it about a meter away from him, into one of the pieces of flypaper on the ground. The bullet lands, and sizzles, melting into a puddle of goo and soaking into the flypaper until no trace of it remains.
He's seeing nothing but red flags, and what finally gets him moving is an alert from one-sixth of his stand.
“Mistaaa! Giorno's in trouble!”
He bolts. It's tricky; flypaper is literally everywhere, giving him very little room for footwork. His balance falters, just enough for the leg of his pant to lower to the point where it touches the paper. Part of it sizzles and burns off, being absorbed and fading into nothing. Once the acid finally stops, he can make out indistinguishable voices around a corner about six meters away.
Mista jumps between the spaces, being extremely careful to not let any part of his body touch the flypaper. The closer he gets to the voices, the louder and more distinct Giorno's own voice gets. No. 6 is waiting for him, jabbing its little finger around the corner.
He sidles up against the corner, and peers his head around just enough to see what's happening.
A man has Giorno pinned against the dirty brick wall, one arm caught behind his back and the other pressed into a swath of flypaper on the wall, his pale skin burning away and filling the air with the stench of melting flesh. He's wearing jeans and a sleeveless denim vest, but what strikes Mista's eye the most is that the skin around his forearm looks utterly bizarre. What looks like a ream of paper—the same color as his splotchy flesh—is fanning out of his arm.
The man grins; any teeth that weren't missing entirely are a sickly yellow. “...It takes about five minutes for 'Scar Tissue' to completely disintegrate a human arm, clothes included.” He presses Giorno in closer to the wall, and Giorno glares at him out of the corner of his eye. “Next, it'll be your face, Giovanna.”
“Giorno!”
They both look towards Mista; both equal amounts surprised. Mista levels his gun, the momentary distraction giving him the perfect opening. He's milliseconds away from squeezing the trigger, before Gold Experience is out and the arm that Giorno has stuck in the flypaper is cut off by his stand.
Mista's eyes widen.
He's too stunned to move.
Blood gushes from the wound on Giorno's arm, but Giorno barely pays it a second thought. Gold Experience decks the man in the head and he hits the brick wall behind him, landing square against a sheet of his own stand. He doesn't even get time to scream before Gold Experience moves in crushes his windpipe. His body falls to the ground, lifeless, and the flypaper spattered around the area fades away.
Giorno sways on his feet, woozy from blood loss, but has Gold Experience punch out a brick from the wall. It transforms into an arm in just a few seconds, and he presses it against the stump, fusing together cells, veins, bone, and muscle until he's making a fist with his hand to confirm it's back on correctly.
He looks up at Mista, and smiles gently. The shock finally wears off for Mista, and he walks up to Giorno and shakes him.
“Giorno. What the fuck.” Mista hisses.
Giorno's eyes widen. It's not the reaction he was expecting.
“I had the perfect shot—he was going to have a bullet in his brain in a second. There was no reason for you to rip your arm off like that!”
He can feel himself raising his voice. Giorno scowls, and roughly removes Mista's hands from him.
“I had no guarantee that his stand would fade when he died.”
“There's only been two exceptions to that rule, Giorno! You couldn't have waited for me to shoot him before you ripped off your fucking arm?” Mista pulls at his hair with both hands, then rubs both down his face. “Don't—don't do that!”
“I can replace limbs, Guido. This isn't the first time I've done this, and I really don't think it's going to be the last.”
Giorno begins walking out of the alley, but Mista grabs onto his wrist to stop him.
“That doesn't make it okay! What the fuck?” Mista's voice is completely raised to a frustrated yell at this point. “There have been times where we've had to hurt ourselves to complete a mission, but this was not one of those times!”
Mista blinks, the red clearing from his vision, and he can see Giorno's entire body trembling. He lets go of his wrist like it's made of fire.
Giorno turns to Mista.
“Do not ever raise your voice at me.”
He tries to sound authoritative, but the tremor in his words betrays him. His hands, already pale, have turned even whiter from how hard he's clenching them. His eyes, normally a stoic and calm blue, are large and watery. Stray hairs fall from its normal braid, and frame his face in a way that makes the harsh angles look softer.
Giorno, Mista thinks morbidly, is finally acting his age.
All of the anger vanishes from Mista like a cloud of vapor. More than anything, he just feels so, so tired.
“Boss. Let's just get back to the car.”
Giorno doesn't respond to him, and Mista didn't really expect him to in the first place. They stand silently for a few more seconds before Giorno wordlessly leaves the alley and heads back to where the Lamborghini is parked.
The car ride back is silent. Giorno's reflection is in Mista's window, and he stares at it the whole time.
***
Three days later, and they've spoken less than 20 words to each other.
When a letter from SPW Foundation came in requesting a meeting with Giorno to “create a mutually beneficial business relationship”, all the details came from a meeting with Polnareff in the turtle. Giorno, conveniently, was out of his office when Mista entered and exited the turtle.
Just as conveniently, Mista wasn't needed for the discussion of how to go about meeting them.
That doesn't mean he didn't stand outside of Giorno's office and eavesdrop.
“You can't seriously be thinking about meeting him on your own,” Came Polnareff's voice, equal parts incredulous and concerned.
There's a brief pause in the conversation; presumably, Giorno is sipping his tea.
“We'll be meeting at a restaurant that I own. That I've been to several times, by myself, without issue. I really doubt that a stand user would attack me in such an obvious place.”
“There's always a chance,” Polnareff warns.
“Didn't you tell me that this man I'm meeting with was a stand user?” Giorno responds, his tone a little huffier than how a mob boss should sound.
“He's probably just as strong as you are,” Polnareff admits. “But he's not invincible. And neither are you.”
Giorno pauses again.
“I appreciate your concern, Polnareff, but I can take care of this on my own.”
Mista steps away from the open doorway, feeling a little hollow, and leaves before Giorno can tell he's been there.
Two days later, Giorno gets in his Rolls Royce and leaves for the restaurant. Five minutes later, Mista tails him on his motorcycle.
He hasn't done anything like this in a while, and it's nice to be able to get out of the palazzo without having to wear a suit. Even in ripped jeans and a grey hoodie, though, Giorno would easily recognize him, so keeping his distance is key. With a helmet covering his face, and a guitar case on his back to obscure the weapons he's carrying, he makes a sharp turn onto the street where the restaurant Giorno's going to is.
Mista can see Giorno's car drop him off at the entrance. The restaurant is open-air and viewing the sea, stone archways all around the perimeter. Marble stairs lead up to a second floor, thicker pillars holding up the ceiling with tables situated near the stone railing that runs along the second level. Potted plants hang from the middle of the archways, and granite tile lines the floor.
Not even two blocks away from the restaurant is a modest apartment complex, six stories high, giving Mista a perfect vantage point to watch Giorno from. He turns into a narrow alley, parking his motorcycle near a dumpster and placing his helmet on the seat. Eyeing the fire escape, he ascends as quickly as he can given the weight he's carrying on his back.
By the time he's at the roof, he's wiping the sweat off of his brow, and he drops the guitar case as gently as he can before opening it and taking stock. A revolver, useful as it is in most situations, isn't suitable for this range, so he picks out the semi-automatic rifle taking up a good 50% of the case and attaches the ammo cartridge and scope to it. Ostensibly, everything is ready to go, but Mista can't help himself. He looks longingly at his revolver, and decides to grab it and some spare rounds anyway. He places the gun in the back of his pants and the ammo in his jean pocket.
Everything is finally set up. There's no wind in the air, and it's a perfectly sunny day. A cement half-wall runs around the roof of the building, and he rests the rifle on top of it to keep it as still as possible.
Mista closes one eye, stares through the scope to get a perfect visual of Giorno, and then he waits.
Giorno is certain nothing bad is going to happen; Mista is going to keep that certainty in tact.
He sends out No. 3 and No. 6 to hover near Giorno; close enough give Mista a broader visual range of the restaurant but far enough away that he's certain Giorno can't see them.
Giono sits, poised, at a table in the middle of the restaurant, his position shifting as he sees someone coming towards him. Mista follows his gaze, and his eyes widen as he spots a large, hulking brute of a man in a white coat speaking indistinctly to the host before he's ushered towards where Giorno is. He says something to Giorno, who responds, but he can only make out faint murmurs. Mista places his finger on the trigger and keeps watching as he urges No. 3 and No. 6 a little closer so he can hear their conversation.
“...It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Kujo. I have to say, I'm surprised to be meeting somebody from America. I had assumed they'd send a European agent.”
Kujo pulls out the chair across from Giorno, and sits. “I wanted to meet you for myself.” He scoots his chair in. “This was a good opportunity.”
Giorno's eyebrows go up, and he leans back in his chair. “All this way just to meet the Don of Passione for a business deal?”
“Yes and no,” He responds gruffly. “It...has more to do with your birth father.”
Giorno looks confused, and a little stunned. Out of all the things Kujo could've said, that was hardly something he could have expected.
“You..knew him?”
Kujo pauses.
“I killed him.”
There's a shift in the air. Giorno does his best to put on airs that he's unaffected, but Mista can tell, even through a scope, that he's torn. His body language cools, his arms crossing and his back pushing further against the chair. Kujo himself doesn't try to speak, instead taking long sips of his water as he waits patiently for Giorno to gather his thoughts.
It's some time before Giorno opens his mouth to speak, and he's noticeably unnerved when he does.
“...I spent most of my life wondering who my real father was. All I had was a picture my mother gave me. I had thought, maybe, that we would meet, at some point.” Giorno's fist clenches. A childhood notion, held on for this long, finally dashed.
Kujo very obviously doesn't know what to say, so he keeps quiet.
Giorno collects himself, and breathes in sharply.
“...Did he deserve it?”
Kujo, stoic as he is, manages to convey an expression most would call “surprised”.
He takes a long sip of water.
“I've never killed anyone who didn't deserve it.”
Giorno stares at him, silently urging him to continue. Kujo takes in a deep breath.
“Your father—Dio Brando...He killed hundreds of innocents—there's no official death toll, but I would put it at over 500.” Kujo gets quieter, and he stares down at clenched hands. “He killed my best friend. Two others were killed on his orders. He almost...killed my grandfather.”
Kujo's hand is trembling slightly as he brings it up to adjust his hat.
Giorno himself looks shaken, having to process too much information too quickly. Kujo has no reason to lie to him—his father being a killer dashes whatever fondness is left of him. He still has that picture in his wallet, and Mista has a feeling that it won't be there for much longer.
His eyelashes brush against his cheek as he blinks, and looks up at Kujo with a solemn expression. He responds, just barely above a whisper.
“I'm sorry.”
“...To give an answer your question: yes. I think he deserved it.”
It's quiet for a solid two minutes, before Giorno speaks up in a slightly wavy voice.
“How do you...cope? With losing your friends.”
Kujo smiles a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, and doesn't respond.
The conversation comes to an end in two ways: one, with Kujo's lack of response, and two, with a gunshot that cracks the air from a gun that isn't Mista's.
It's not a stand user that tries to kill Giorno, but a regular assassin with a regular gun. It's something they rarely deal with anymore, but the oversight cost them.
No. 6 kicks the bullet out of the way before it can hit its intended target of Giorno's head, landing squarely in his shoulder instead. Giorno hisses and leans forward, grasping at his wound. The sound of a gunshot has the other patrons screaming and running out of the restaurant, leaving it and the surrounding area mostly empty within minutes.
Giorno has Gold Experience out, ready to turn the bullet into muscle tissue, and then something in the atmosphere changes and Mista feels his skin prickle. The table they had just been sitting at has been flipped on its side; Kujo looms over Giorno, hand on his bicep, looking at the wound on his shoulder as Giorno sits down on the floor with the table as his cover. A pit forms in Mista's stomach—it had been so nauseatingly similar to how it had felt when time skipped.
He dwells on the feeling for too long, too distracted to realize that a large, buff, purple man is holding No. 6 between its thumb and index finger. Mista blanches as No. 6 kicks and screams, trying to get out.
Kujo shows it to Giorno. “Is this a stand? Is this what's causing this?”
Giorno looks at it in utter disbelief.
Kujo dives over to another table and kicks it over to use as cover just as another gunshot goes off, clipping his long overcoat. Mista grinds his teeth, then lets go of his rifle, making a mad dash down the fire escape. His heart thumps in his ears, legs sprinting as fast as he can down the street and into the restaurant.
Giorno takes on a look of sheer bafflement as he sees Mista running towards him, loading his revolver all the while.
“What—.”
Several bullets are shot towards Mista and all are casually kicked away by 1, 2, 5 or 7 and made into holes on nearby buildings. He dives down once he gets close enough to Giorno, and takes cover next to him, who looks at him with a mix of confusion and irritation.
“What are you—.”
Mista ignores what he's about to say and places his gun on the ground next to him. He puts both hands on the sides of Giorno's face, and pulls him in for a kiss. Giorno reflexively kisses back, but makes a confused sound in the back of his throat. Mista continues to ignore it, and after he breaks the kiss, he wraps his arms around Giorno tightly, squeezing him, as if confirming he's really still there.
Kujo stares at them. Mista ignores him the most.
“God, you're safe, okay.” He places one last kiss on Giorno's forehead, then lets go. He narrows his eyes and looks over at Kujo, who is still holding No. 6.
“Hey! Let go of my fucking stand!”
Kujo blinks, and stares at No. 6 with mild amusement, before what Mista assumes to be his stand lets it go.
Mista jerks his head and sends No. 6 off to find the gunman, but Kujo does the work for him by pointing up at pillar breaking up the railing on the second floor. Mista sees a shadow on the pillar behind it, and relocates No. 6 a little to the left of where he's standing, then shoots.
He hears a gurgled scream, labored breathing, and a thud—then no sounds follow.
“Is he dead?” He yells up towards No. 6.
“Yup! Got him right in the throat!”
Mista sighs, and slumps down against the table. He reaches for Giorno's hand, and squeezes it tightly. The adrenaline still hasn't worn off, and his whole body is shaking.
“When we get back, I'll give you guys some pepperoni. The good stuff, I promise.” No. 6 fades away and he hears all six pistols cheer in the back of his mind.
The restaurant is utterly deserted now save for himself, Giorno, and Kujo, with a few new bullet holes added to the decor. He turns to Giorno, still gripping his hand, and notices the blood running down his suit jacket.
“Hey, you haven't healed your shoulder yet.”
Giorno blinks, eyes wide.
“Oh. Right.”
Gold Experience is out, and the hole is closed in a second. He barely even reacts, and in fact seems more upset that his suit is ruined than anything else.
Mista rises to his feet, and helps Giorno up as well. He's a little unsteady, likely from the shock of being shot at, but Mista helps right him. He glances over to see Kujo, who's still sitting on the ground. He's not hurt, but by all accounts, he seems a bit exasperated by the whole ordeal.
He walks over to Kujo and offers him a hand to help him up; Kujo takes it, and Mista wheezes from helping up a man two times his size, nearly toppling over onto the ground from the effort.
“You didn't get hit, right?” Mista grimaces, rubbing his hand.
“I'm fine.” Kujo cocks his head slightly. “Who exactly are you.”
“Uh, Guido Mista.” He jabs his thumb towards Giorno. “I'm his Underboss.”
Kujo raises an eyebrow. Mista's face reddens under the scrutiny.
“...Right. I should be getting back to my hotel.” Kujo adjusts his hat, and looks over Mista's shoulder at Giorno. “We'll be in touch, Giorno Giovanna.”
Giorno jumps slightly, still a bit dazed, then nods. Kujo brushes past Mista, and heads towards a payphone across the street to call himself a cab.
As they wait for Giorno's car to pull back around, Mista heads back up to the apartment building roof and gathers up his weapons, placing them all back into the guitar case he brought them in. As he's coming back down the fire escape, he sees Giorno's chauffeur open the door to the Rolls Royce for him, and Giorno enters it.
Mista saddles up in his motorcycle, revs the engine, and follows it back.
***
Giorno stays quiet even as they get inside the palazzo, and Mista doesn't even bother trying to start a conversation. He follows Giorno up to their bedroom and lets him get changed, lets him wash his face, undo his hair, and watches silently as Giorno walks out onto the veranda.
He closes the door behind him. Mista stares at him through the paneled windows.
Something in him cracks.
He can't do this anymore.
Mista stomps towards the door to the veranda and throws it open. Giorno turns around to look at him in shock.
The sun lights him up from behind, bathing him in a golden hue. His loose hair brushes across his face in the breeze.
“Guido?”
“I don't know what to do.”
Giorno looks at him quizzically.
“I don't know how to say—I'm not,” Mista runs his hand down his face and sighs, then steels himself. “You can't—you can't do that again.” He's mindful of how he keeps the tone of his voice, trying to stay low and even. “The only reason there isn't a bullet lodged in your brain right now is because I was there. Don't ever do that again.”
“I know. And I can't thank you enough, Guido, but I can't talk about this right now.”
“Giorno.”
He takes Giorno's hands in his own.
Mista breathes in, breathes out, and then starts to talk.
“Listen. I don't know what happened in the past to you. It's something you obviously don't want to talk about and I'm not gonna press you on it—if you ever wanna tell me, that's fine, but you don't have to and I don't expect you to. I just gotta tell you that you don't have to do this all on your own. You shouldn't have to do this all on your own. You feel so far away from me sometimes, it's scary.”
“I know you wish Bucciarati was here. I do too, y'know? He was always better at shit like this; I hate wearing these suits, Giorno, it sucks so much. He would be so much better in this position than I would be. But it's up to me, now. It's my responsibility. And more than anything, I want to keep you safe, but you have to let me. You've always made me feel like I can do anything, now let me put that feeling to use.”
Mista squeezes his hands before he gets down on one knee, and kisses the ring finger on his right hand. He lets his lips linger before rising to his feet once more.
“...I'm not here for Bucciarati anymore. I'm here for you, Gio. I'll follow anywhere that you go, but please, let me walk beside you.”
Giorno looks at him with widened eyes and cheeks dusted pink. Mista squeezes his hands and smiles at him. The ocean waves crash around them, sunlight glimmering off the water.
Giorno's golden hair flutters about his face as he turns his gaze downwards.
“...I remember making my own meals when I was two,” He murmurs, and Mista has to strain to hear him. “I learned how to do stitches by the time I was six because my step-dad...” He inhales sharply to cut himself off and lifts his head up to look at Mista with an emotion he rarely displays: uncertainty. “This...is entirely new territory for me, Guido. And I...I get scared sometimes.”
Giorno exhales sharply. The tension leaving his body is visible.
Mista pulls him into a hug, and Giorno winds his arms tightly around Mista's back, almost clingy.
“I'm just glad you finally said something.” Mista's voice is muffled in Giorno's hair, and he places a kiss against the top of his crown. “We can work this out. I'm...not great at this, either. But I don't want you to rely on just yourself from now on. Because you don't have to anymore.”
Giorno doesn't move or say anything for a bit, and Mista lets his words hang in the air. It's only several minutes later does he feel a small nod against his chest.
“...Okay.” Giorno pulls back, his hands sliding down to squeeze onto Mista's own once more. His voice is soft and tentative. Large blue eyes lock with Mista's own deep brown ones, and Giorno gives a small, genuine smile. “I can try. I want to try.”
Mista grins, and dips his head to catch Giorno's mouth in a kiss.
The sea salt lingers in the air as they stay on the veranda, watching the sun set. Mista keeps Giorno firmly in his arms. When the night air becomes too chilly to bear for any longer, Giorno takes him by the hand and leads him inside to lay on the bed. Throughout the night, they stay curled together in a warm embrace.
***
Things weren't always smooth.
Sometimes Mista had to insist more than he should have in order to get Giorno to crack. Sometimes Giorno would still take on more than necessary. Sometimes Mista would take long breaks outside of the palazzo because he was too overcome with frustration.
But things were improving. Things were better than they had been.
There was one day, one specific day, where Mista could tell the progress was being made—he would never be able to forget it.
He had woken up from a crick in his neck, his eyes adjusting to the soft blue hues of the room indicating the sun was starting to rise. Instinctively, he had looked towards the door to the veranda, but the curtains obscuring the windowed door had been closed.
Giorno had stayed, curled up against his chest, breathing softly, looking perfect even in his sleep.
Mista, with a grin on his face, had pushed back his hair and kissed his forehead, before wrapping an arm tighter around Giorno's waist and falling back into a deep, dreamless sleep.
#jojo's bizarre adventure#giorno giovanna#guido mista#fanfic#fanfiction#giomis#giorno giovanna/guido mista
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What do you think Rose Egbert would be like? :0 And Dave Harley, John Lalonde, and Jade Strider
Rose Egbert, raised in a supportive, loving home environment, would probably still be fighty and punchy because I don’t think there’s a single parent in existence that could ever change that about her, but she’s also very likely going to be more inclined to wait until being PROMPTED before she lets loose her floods of salt and snark. So like, a pretty regular girl on first impressions, definitely deeply entrenched in her Hot Topic mall goth phase, wears chokers from Spencers and whatnot, but pretty friendly at face value and in all the advanced literature courses, has been in every psychology class the public education system offers. On the debate team. And so you’re like, cool, she’s on debate, that should be fun, she’s pretty well composed as a person I bet she has some good thoughts. And then you attend one of the debate matches. And you see a side of Rose Egbert you never knew existed and holy hot DAMN you’re not sure if you’re terrified or in love with her. Possibly both. Probably both. She’s quick witted alright, devastatingly intelligent and in this to WIN. Dad Egbert has all of her debate trophies (medals? I wasn’t in debate idk how these things work) displayed as proudly as he displayed his clown statues in the canon timeline. Her role as a Seer of Breath is to best free the timeline and her friendgroup from the clutches of the Literally-A-Demon Lord of Time, who seeks to enslave them, their timeline, and the universe to his whims, to become his playthings. Her role is to forsee the best route, not in terms of luck, but as a specific, pointed fuck you to Doc Scratch, Lord English, and everything associated with them. That part in canon where Rose is talking to Doc and he’s like “do you even still have that emotion?” or whatever and she’s like “Why, yes, it seems it’s all been mysteriously relocated to my middle finger. The dark magics are at it again.” Like that but times a thousand she is SMART she has FORESIGHT and she is going to FREE THEIR TIMELINE, BITCH.
Dave Harley grew up alone on an island with a magic dog and some weird chess folk, so first of all he doesn’t know what a gender is so jot that down, second of all what do you mean boys don’t like boys? Obviously boys like boys, he likes boys, u r foolish, u silly human culture you. So uh, you know how Dave is like, this huge massive attention whore in canon and he starts out “I’m so cool are you noticing me being cool and not caring over here”? Yeah no, immediately bypasses that, this boy wants ATTENTION so TALK TO HIM DAMMIT. His only real guide for physical touch has been a dog and some people who are not human so Personal Space Whomst? Dave is here, he is in your personal space, you are paying attention to him bitches. His collection of weird dead shit is even weirder, given that it is a Harley tradition to taxidermy weird shit and also he lives out on an island now. Probably takes the PRETTIEST photos of like, the island views and stuff, which he naturally posts online and gets a lot of likes and reblogs for which, good, give him that sweet sweet validation. His selfies are everywhere. Go like them. His role as the Knight of Space would be a pretty important one, he’s upholding the balance of the universe and breeding the new one and stuff, which basically just means he’s the weird frog dad now. You see all those frogs? Those are his babies. He loves them. Smorch. Dave ew don’t kiss frogs that’s gross. Dave does not care, Dave is gonna smooch those frogs bc he loves them and all their mutant little paradox offspring. Dave the frog whisperer. Whenever Karkat’s getting screechy he just like. Takes one out of his sylladex or his hood or pocket or SOMEWHERE and sets it delicately down in front of Karkat when he’s not looking and Karkat proceeds to screech and flip out and Dave laughs at him. This Dave is likely a lot more carefree, but doesn’t have a good grasp of concepts like “responsibility” or “giving people space.” A good and goofy kid, with some nice tasty abandonment issues probably thrown into the mix there somewhere. He doesn’t wanna be alone again.
John Lalonde very likely has a very bad grasp of what consequences are. If he breaks shit, they can just buy a new one, if he pranks someone a little too mean or says something that goes a little too far, his mom is easy to forgive him. My dear sweet ADHD child probably didn’t do too good in school and did a lot of class clowning tomfoolery but Mom Lalonde didn’t discipline him for it at home so threats of “I will call your mother if you don’t settle down” didn’t have much of an effect on him. He’s a good kid! Friendly and loving and affectionate, but if he fucks up he doesn’t take responsibility for it and pulls the “it was just a joke!” card way too frequently and doesn’t know how to actually apologize or fix his mistakes. But even though he’s very outwardly childish, he’s also surprisingly mature for his age, by way of like, opinions and stuff? Like he’ll say stuff and it’ll seem totally left field for him cause John you’re like, the funny dude of our group, but he’s also the one who knows how to disinfect wounds and the RIDICULOUS importance of making sure your older sibling knows who their DD is when they’re off drinking with their friends and while he doesn’t have an emotional reaction to traumatic events right off the bat (like in canon) he does do a VERY good job of responding pragmatically to them, and that’s kind of a result of yeah, his mom’s his buddy, and yeah, she lets him get away with anything, but no, John doesn’t really get the chance to be a kid ALL the time, and in part he acts out like this because he’s frustrated that he CAN’T fully be a kid, so he’s overcompensating. His role as the Heir of Light would be as somebody who embodies luck and intellect, which he doesn’t really feel like he can do. He’s not smart, right? He’s never done well in school. But he has really high emotional intelligence, and he’s got street smarts no 13 year old has any business having, and he eventually comes to realize that he is lucky. He’s very lucky. He’s got good friends who love him and who he loves, a strong team who can conquer the world, the universe, even a demon with the strength of a green sun, and when John comes to appreciate consequences and ramifications of their actions, he would be better able to understand how to use his powers to become the luckiest little shit in the universe, and could look death in the face with confidence because he understands, now, he’s realized some things, some the easy way and some lessons were painfully hard, but he’s confident in what he’s doing and he’s got his friends at his back.
Jade Strider, I hate to say it, but I think she would end up a very meek individual. Very, very hypervigilant, aware of everyone’s mood around her and this HUGE people pleaser, because as far as she’s concerned “not actively pleased” might as well be utterly synonymous to “actively displeased.” Life is uncertain to her, she’s very diligent about reading the moods of others and making them happy. Everyone loves her and think she’s just absolutely the best, she’s always ready to listen, always eager to cheer her friends up when they’re feeling down, doesn’t say jack SHIT about herself. If people ask she straight up lies. She does NOT talk about her own problems, even worse than in canon. She is happy go lucky and pleasant to be around, see? She’s doing great. Don’t worry about her! Oh do you need to talk about something? She’s got hair-trigger reflexes and does NOT react well to sudden loud noises or jumpscares. She’s very forgiving, because it’s only natural that sometimes her friends will hurt her feelings, right? That’s what love looks like. Some things just can’t be prevented, so why bother. Lotta learned helplessness kinda shit going down. Very reactive to positive feedback and physical affection (as long as she sees it coming) but has no idea how to go about asking for it. She’s very popular at her school for being pretty and cool and badass and friendly all tied up into one but her friendships are very shallow with her school friends, because if she cannot open up about herself, what room is there for emotional intimacy? As a Witch of Time, her main thing that needs to happen is she needs to get fed up. She needs to get pissed off. She doesn’t deserve this shit! She’s thirteen! She doesn’t deserve a parent who didn’t love her, she doesn’t deserve to have the weight of the timeline on her shoulders, she doesn’t deserve to see her own corpse over and over and fucking OVER again! This isn’t fair, this isn’t right, she doesn’t FUCKING want this, fuck her Bro fuck the Game fuck keeping quiet she’s a KID and she’s HURTING and she will be fucking UPSET about it! And then she’s gotta let John, and Rose, and Dave hold her and tell her she’s right, she’s so right, she is absolutely entitled to her anger, she’s allowed to feel angry about this, she’s gonna be okay though, they’re there, they love her and they’re not gonna let anyone hurt her ever again, she’s allowed to feel hellfire down deep to her bones but then, most importantly, she needs to let her friends help her, she needs to trust them, and learn how trusting works, learn what love looks like and how all her little broken pieces fit back together. And no, she’s never gonna fully recover from that. She knows she’s gonna be a compulsive liar down to her dying day and she’s never going to be able to trust openly like some people do, but she’s got people who love her and who she loves dearly, and she’s going to be okay, and every day it gets a little easier. Some days are bad, yeah, some days she’s angry over stuff she thought she got over years ago, but at the end of the Game, after all has been ripped asunder and they’ve moved into their new lives on Earth C, she is allowed to recover and to rest and sure it’s not always easy, but she’s always trying, and things are better now.
#Rose Lalonde#John Egbert#Dave Strider#Jade Harley#Rose Egbert#Dave Harley#John Lalonde#Jade Strider#answers#Homestuck#John#Jade#Dave#kidswap#Homestuck meta#analysis#Homestuck analysis
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Episode 30: Lost Things
March 18, 798/489. In the Empire, Reinhard’s fleet prepares to warp Geiersburg Fortress into the Iserlohn Corridor. On Iserlohn, Yang prepares to submit to a dubiously lawful inquiry by the hostile—but democratically elected!—Alliance government. Hilda convinces Mecklinger to pay a visit to her sick cousin, who teaches us all about the importance of having hobbies. And Geiersburg’s test warp, thanks to Kempf and Mueller’s adept leadership, goes off without a hitch. Meanwhile, Reinhard sinks deeper into depression, Julian blows off steam at the shooting range, and Reuental and Mittermeyer (you guessed it!) go on a date.
Reinhard Alone
Reinhard may be dead inside, but he still looks amazing. Episode 30, in particular, has some of my favorite animation in the series, so please enjoy all the ridiculously beautiful heartbreak as much as you possibly can through your tears.
We haven’t spent much time with Reinhard since the traumatic season 1 finale, so we’re long overdue for a check in with our fast-rising Empire-side hero. How’s he been doing?
Not great!
(From episode 28.)
Once you're immersed in how LoGH tells stories, it’s tempting to say that Reinhard’s newly sour affect “should come as no surprise,” given what he’s been through. And though that is true on an in-universe level—nobody who suffered the tragic loss of a long-time romantic partner only months ago should be expected to have recovered already—it would be disingenuous of me to suggest that surprise at the way LoGH treats Reinhard’s grief is unwarranted.
In my episode 26 post, I talked about how my past experiences as a queer consumer of media had primed me for LoGH to handle Kircheis’s death poorly, and what a surprise it was when my expectations were subverted. In that light, Reinhard’s grief—the way it changes him, the way it has a tangible presence, the way other characters tiptoe around and discuss it—is a surprise. It’s a constant reminder not just of how important Kircheis was (and still is) to Reinhard, but also of how committed LoGH is to treating its queer characters and their relationships with respect.
LoGH can be a difficult show to watch. Not only does it have over a hundred incredibly dense episodes to get through—some of which are basically impossible to parse unless you watch them more than once—but it’s also deeply, sometimes overwhelmingly sad. Depending on the context, though, that can be good, or at least validating. And Reinhard’s grief, upsetting though it may be, is fundamentally important to a queer reading of LoGH.
Like I said during episode 26, Kircheis’s death is a turning point for the slow dissolution of LoGH’s heteronormative surface reading. And the unflinching portrayal of Reinhard’s grief from here on out is evidence of an ongoing decision on the part of LoGH’s creative team to allow what was formerly confined to subtext to remain above the surface.
The Locket
The way Reinhard’s voice softens when he talks to “Kircheis” via his locket is dramatic and says a lot more on its own than is possible to express in a mere text caption. If you missed it the first time, definitely go rewatch this scene in episode 28 (the timestamp is 3:45) to get the full effect.
The most obvious manifestation of Reinhard’s grief is, of course, his locket, in which he keeps a family photo and a lock of Kircheis’s hair. Some of Reinhard’s colleagues, as I’ll get to in a minute, worry about him because of how much he’s changed since Kircheis’s death. But I would argue that a lot of what’s so disturbing about Reinhard’s transition into Life Without Kircheis is the lack of change, at least in one respect: He still relies on Kircheis for emotional support, as is evident in the gifs above, and for strategic advice, which we see a bit of in episode 30 (below), and will see more of in the future.
Hilda is particularly attuned to Reinhard’s new habit of playing with his locket whenever—were Kircheis still alive—he might have looked to him for input, approval, pushback, or whatever.
There’s nothing inherently unusual about accessing one’s memories of a departed loved one for guidance, but Kircheis was Reinhard’s only intimate relationship before he died, and now that he’s gone, Reinhard still shows no interest whatsoever in diversifying his support network. As a result, his only intimate relationship is now with an inanimate object—or, to put it another way, he has nobody.
Of course, Reinhard’s isolation isn’t entirely self-imposed. Annerose was also a source of strength and comfort before she voluntarily withdrew from his life. If things had gone differently and Annerose had stayed, Reinhard might not feel so lonely—but would that have been healthier, for either of them? I’m not sure. My guess is: not significantly.
Other People
I’m not sure Reinhard realizes how obvious it is to everyone around him the extent to which he’s been utterly destroyed by Kircheis’s death. The fact that he wouldn’t care even if he did realize is, well, not unrelated.
From the relatively trivial to the life-altering, rumors and hearsay play a substantial role in our understanding of LoGH’s world and characters. Reuental and Mittermeyer, who have already spent a good deal of time gossiping about Reinhard and will continue to do so far into the future, are responsible for a good portion of the Empire-side gossip that we see—probably as a factor of their daily standing date. In episode 30, Reinhard’s two highest ranking admirals discuss the depths of his grief in vague terms:
It’s worth mentioning (as always) that Reuental and Mittermeyer’s bodies during this scene are beautifully aligned, without being symmetrical. The line of Mittermeyer’s torso is precisely parallel with Reuental’s left arm! Look at it! In case you hadn’t noticed, I am in awe of the animation team’s treatment of these two.
Reuental and Mittermeyer’s discussion of Reinhard and Kircheis is, of course, about more than just Reinhard and Kircheis—this is Reuental we’re talking about, after all, and he is pathologically incapable of saying one thing without also meaning at least five other things. For the time being, though, this scene mainly adds another, third-person dimension to Reinhard’s grief: We already know how it is affecting him personally; now we also know that it is affecting the people around him, that they’re aware of it, and that these are important enough facts to merit scenes of this length devoted to conveying them.
Hilda, on the other hand, is a lot less prone to gossip than Reuental and Mittermeyer—or maybe she just hasn’t found the right gossip partner?—so her feelings about Reinhard’s situation are communicated to us differently, mainly via looks (above) and internal monologue:
Worry not, dear reader: I’ll be spending tons more time on Hilda and her well-articulated emotional intelligence in the very near future. For now, feel free to repeat “Hilda knows everything” to yourself whenever you see her on your screen, because that basically sums it up.
I also love this little exchange, after Reinhard shuts himself away (again) in the room on Geiersburg where Kircheis died:
Kempf and Mueller’s quick look of mutual understanding here is so simple, but goes a long way towards expressing that the topic of Reinhard’s grief is never far from anyone’s lips among the admiralty.
These are all—even the lengthy conversation between Reuental and Mittermeyer—comparatively small moments in the overall landscape of LoGH. But taken together, they convey that Reinhard’s grief is not small; not for him, not for the people around him, and not for the galaxy.
Reinhard’s Oberstein Eyes
On a subtler character note, remember a few episodes back when Rebecca likened Reinhard’s eyes to Oberstein’s? Well, you may have thought she was being facetious, but she extremely was not. Allow me to demonstrate:
Here are Oberstein’s eyes as they appeared in episode 4. Their most noticeable trait is, obviously, the fact that they’re flashing red. But another distinctive characteristic of Oberstein’s eyes is that they don’t have any highlights or other details beyond the pupil and flat, uniformly blue iris.
In contrast, this eye-heavy moment from episode 28 is a good example of how eyes are typically animated throughout LoGH—with the remarkably consistent exception of Oberstein’s which are, of course, artificial. Mittermeyer and Reuental’s eyes here both have distinct highlights, and seem to move naturally.
Here’s an example, from episode 9, of how Reinhard’s eyes in particular have been depicted before now: Note the visible highlights that change and move with his expression. Reinhard’s eyes do a lot of characterization work for him, and obviously got a corresponding amount of attention from the animation team.
Compare that to Reinhard’s eyes here, in this moment from episode 27. Like Oberstein’s eyes, Reinhard’s irises are now flat and lifeless. They don’t move with the rest of his face and have none of the energy we’re used to seeing from him.
But unlike Oberstein’s, Reinhard’s eyes aren’t synthetic. So when he lets his guard down—which he can only do when he’s alone with his memories of Kircheis—we see unbridled pain and anguish flood back into them. Poor Reinhard.
Stray Tidbits
Can someone please explain to me exactly what is going on here? Why does Yang’s desk only go up to Schenkopp and Cazellnu’s knees? Why is Yang proportional to his weirdly tiny desk? Why is his entire head smaller than Schenkopp’s crotch? This single screenshot keeps me up at night with questions.
Maybe the furniture store that sold either Mittermeyer a tiny chair or Reuental a huge chair also has a location in the Alliance.
Try to imagine something more suspicious than not having a pet. How about liking books more than pets? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Time for some fun facts: Other than Da Vinci, the three historical figures that Hilda’s cousin mentions are Cao Cao, Lazare Carnot, and Tughril Beg. Biographical info on Cao Cao and Lazare Carnot makes it pretty clear they were both, like Mecklinger, Renaissance men who had a wide variety of cultural accomplishments in addition to their political/military careers; it’s harder to find information on Tughril Beg but my guess is that he falls into the same category.
#Legend of Galactic Heroes#Legend of the Galactic Heroes#author: Elizabeth#Empire#Reinhard#grief#queerness#eyes#Reinhard's locket#Geiersburg#gossip
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Go-Between
Someone sent me this reading about your sun and moon. I tried it and it is so true? I’m gonna try to himay and react to each sentence just for deeper analysis to myself.
Deep inside you likely feel a lot of doubt no matter how convincing and self-assured you may seem to people.
This was the first sentence, and all I could say was what the fuck. Just the first sentence and it felt like it read my whole self and life. Because this is fucking true. I do have a lot of self-doubt. I just pretend and act sure and confident, but yo. Deep inside I’m this coward doubtful person that no one must have known. Maybe this is one of those “mysterious” side of me as a scorpio, and only those whom I’ve opened up to must know how doubtful of a person I am.
It is next to impossible for you to set goals and define your purpose in life.
Again, this is true. I was only in the second sentence and I can’t agree no more. It’s very accurate especially now that I’m in my 20s and people expect me to have a plan in life. People around me do have plan -- whether older, same age, or younger. I always think about it but it’s so hard to plan and set goals? What more to define my purpose in life. Thinking about it further, my doubtful self, described in the first sentence, might be a factor as to why setting goals and defining my purpose is extra hard than anyone.
You have too much trust in those around you and this can be a weakness if you always want to hear everyone's views. The people close to you like all natives of Moon in Libra, regardless of whether they are friends or family, powerfully influence you.
Oh god. Another fucking true shit. I don’t know if it was because I doubt myself so much that I have more trust in other people, or it’s the other way around. Either way, this is still true. I always want to hear everyone’s side, opinion, their thoughts, because I trust other people more than myself. Hence, it is true that in way those people around me, those I listen to and trust, have so much influence in me because I tend to follow what they say more than myself.
The way others see you is how you tend to evaluate yourself, instead of by the way you really are. Acting according to your own true wants is important for you to learn. Do not worry too much about what other people might think of your behavior.
Oh my god. I can’t say anything but fucking shit yes. This may be synonymous to “I tend to compare myself to others and find validation from others.” I know, this is a really bad habit (and I promise I try not to do this but I really can’t help it) but I always compare myself to others that it makes me doubt myself more. I compare other’s prodcutivty and success and mine. Again, I don’t know who’s affecting who, if is it because I’m naturally doubtuful or was that exatly why I was doubtful. But the following sentences, made me feel assured that I should stop it. I’m always worrying and anxious about what people think of me, and I should stop it. I should just do what I want and be what I want.
Others are drawn to your leisurely and elegant personality and attracted to your charming nature.
In relation to that previous sentence, this sentence feels like telling me that I shouldn’t really worry about what people think of me because being my true self, being whoever I am is my charm? But is it? I’ve heard people tell me something like this. But really? Again, my doubtful self is showing (or is this I’m just afraid to validate or I’m afraid to be called suepr full of myself by admitting). Hopefully I can humbly accept this.
Your combination balances a peaceable and graceful Libra with a hard driving and forceful Scorpio. You know naturally when to use tact and diplomacy and when it is smart to be assertive. Your power to manage others works to your reward in life, even though you are not as assertive as your other Scorpios.
The first sentence made me felt, wow. That was a beautiful sentence. At the same time I somewhat understand it as there’s a battle (yes battle not balance fjslfjsd) of peace and force inside me. The following sentence, I’m not too sure or I haven’t noticed it myelf. Maybe I do know how when it is to be assertive? Do I? I’m not sure because I’ve never really considered myself as assertive. Just forcing myself to be one when it really, really needs to be, maybe yes. Also, managing others? Maybe, but I feel like I still have to learn a lot on this. But the last one, must be the answer why think this way. I’m not as assertive as other Scorpios. That’s true.
Maintain your freedom and concentrate on doing what you believe is best for you.
I think this is similar to one of those sentences previously. I feel like this sentence is telling me, again or maybe emphasizing, to trust myself more. Believe in myself. It would be best for me.
You are a dreamer and a romantic.
This one, maybe a few years back I would super agree. But not, reality hit me hard and I’ve become pessimistic (I’m not sure if this is the right term or another word similar to this). I’m not actually sure if I could still consider mysef as a dreamer when I can’t dream anymore. I don’t even know now how to set goals in my life. But okay. I just searched what dreamer meant and what I found was: “spend a lot of time thinking about and planning for things that they would like to happen but which are improbable or impractical.” On a second thought, I might be really a dreamer. I do spend time thinking about things but those aren’t gonna happen. Maybe I’ve come to realize as I aged that they’re improbable that it has been hard setting goals and defining my purpose. Always stuck in impracticality and when I try to set realistic goals, it’s just too hard.
For the romantic, at first, before I look for the exact definition, I can’t really see myself as one because first, I’ve never been in that romantic position. I can’t imagine how, and I’ve lost hope in finding love (i know im only 20 but wtf. I think I’ll still be really single even at the age of 30... or forever). But as I read the definition, “who often takes an idealized or old fashioned view towards love or who acts in a manner traditionally thought of as courting or wooing a significant other. An example of a romantic is a person who watches a lot of old love stories on TV,” I think it applies to me. When it comes to love I think I’m still old fashioned, an old soul or something that courting or wooing would be really nice? Unlike some people nowadays, if ever, and just if ever I’m not necessarily gonna be single forever, I’d still like to fall in love slowly, yet surely ? Wait it’s really hard to explain at this point since I’ve never experienced and only seen them through my friends’ love life or in k-dramas.
You like to delve deeply into things and you are never happy with surface impressions.
I’m not sure in which perspective should I look at this sentence but, between delving deeply into things vs surface impressions, of course I’d choose delving deeply. I think it’s more honest? It’s more trustful? More feeling of at ease to know what exactly behind things? Bottom line, I also agree on this.
You have a strong belief in people and the knowledge that they have.
I don’t know why this sentence keeps on being rephrased or does the person who made this really want to emphasize on this? Haha. But like what I said. this is true. I do believe in people and the knowledge that they have. It’s actually interesting how people think and what they know? How different are their knowledge from mine? Although most of the time, I feel more doubtful and dumber, but I do see how much potentials and capabilities they have, that’s why I believe in them. It’s just sad that most of the time, people don’t see it themselves. It’s sadder that I don’t see it on myself too.
You are too frequently only concerned with instant gratification even though you have the intelligence, charm, and magnetism to achieve a great deal in life.
Although I usually convinced myself that I’m not like this, but as I contemplate on myself, I am somewhat like this. I want to see results fast as fast as possible. and if I don’t I tend to consider it automatically as a failure, thus doubting myself, thus giving up easily. But maybe, as the following clause states, I should really stop this doubting and stop giving up easily. If I don’t get those “immediate rewards” or results quickly, I should stop thinking that I’m not worthy or I can’t do it because I can still. I just need to be more patient, and more persevering I guess?
Guard against taking less than you are able of accomplishing or becoming complacent.
Okay I think this relates to the sentence above. I’ve been doubting myself so much, and thinking that I’m not worthy or that I can’t do anything much that I’ve been scared to doing more of what I’m capable too. I’ve always underappreciated myself, and always and always think that everything I do is always not good. Hence, in order to avoid this, I always choose not to take risk and go to the safe zone.
Just as a counter-argument, but how can I know if I can’t do it? What if it really is out of my capacity? But I wouldn’t know if I wouldn’t try it right? But what I tried it and I really can’t and others are affected by my performance? So does that mean I should give up easily, again?
Your abilities are well suited to politics, law, and social work.
For this sentence, I want to laugh. I’ve never dreamed of being involved in politics or law, and I don’t think I would ever dream of it. I may eat my words in the future but I really can’t see myself in that field. Maybe once when I tried thinking if I could be the president. I told my parents I would tell all the people to plant trees. Back then, I didn’t know how hard it is and it’s not easy as just commanding people to plant trees. Maybe another time when I was watching legal dramas? I thought it was cool to be a lawyer or judge, defending the weak and such. Also another time whenever I think maybe it would be nice if I could by the first lawyer or something my family (immediate fam). But me to the person who made this: are you really sure??? How?? Which ability? Which aspect? You jsut told me I’m so doubtful. How are my abilities suited for politics and law? Just thinking about learning politics and law makes me doubt and stress myself. It’s too hard. Too complicated. Especially here in my country? Oh god. Maybe social work would do. But I think I’d choose that as a part-time work.
The creativity of the Scorpio enhances Libra Moon and gives you good taste and strong creative interests. You can be disconcerted if a color scheme does not match because you are very sensitive to visual stimulation.
This is actually cool. I’m not sure if this is true to myself though because I consider myself more of a trying hard artistic person, if I look at being creative in this perspective. Again, I consulted the best friend google and it says, “ having or showing an ability to make new things or think of new ideas. : using the ability to make or think of new things : involving the process by which new ideas, stories, etc., are created. “ Maybe I am really? More than people telling myself that I am creative, maybe I really am? I’m in the middle. I’m not sure exactly. It feels like I am creative but at the same time I’m not fully creative. I don’t know it’s still confusing. or am I again underappreciating myself.
For some Scorpio-Librans, zealotry is the result of the quest for truth. Your imagination is very strong and you need to guard against being fooled by charlatans who offer the secrets to the universe.
This part gave me a hard time understanding. I can’t comprehend exactly what it is telling me, such that what’s the connection of imagination with being fooled? I can’t understand this yet, maybe I need to think this over and over, and deeper. But with that phrase “guard against being fooled by charlatans who offer the secrets to the universe,” okay I might agree on that. People say I’m gullible (yes this is me validating my personality from others), and I’ve realized that too and I should be careful of this gullible-ness.
You will hurry whenever you sense injustice or unethical conduct is compromised, because you believe in fair play.
Is this why earlier it stated that my abilities are suited for politics or law? Lol. But in a way I have to agree on this 1/2. When I see that something is not right, or as the phrase states it, when I “sense injustice or unethical conduct is compromised,” not that I will act again, but it will really bother me. Maybe if I’m less doubtful or I’m good at speaking I would “hurry” and act on it, but it will bother me first. I will think about it first, if am I being in the justice side or not. Sometimes, I would also consult others first.
You need to be careful about your tendency to preach and moralize because of your code of ethics.
With this, I have to somewhat disagree. Like what I said earlier I do get bothered so much if I sense injustice or something unethical. But I wouldn’t act on it right away. I wouldn’t really preach or moralize most of the time, maybe if I really have to? Or if someone started debating or talking about that to me? and nowadays I’m also leaning towards doing something like Socratic method, rather than “preaching” and “moralizing,” I think. To some extent it might still be “preaching” and “moralizing” but strictly speaking, I’m not sure if I tend to be like that. To add, my friend also told me she doesn’t see me that way (yes, validating from others again).
Delight and leisure loving are found in the signs of your combination. Basically you are a libertine no matter how high-minded and idealistic you try to be.
This one. It’s so..... huh? I don’t know. Sure, I can see how I love delight and leisure. Super love especially alone times. But the libertine. high-minded. idealistic. Those words look simple but what definition exactly? how exactly? but maybe, and from what I can understand, it means that no matter how I try to pretend to be perfectionist? or having high standards? in reality I’m not? because at the end of it all, if I’m faced with something that delights me or seems to be a leisure, I’d be satisfied with it? Am I making sense? Am I even making the right interpretation? I need to think about this further.
The barriers to your fulfillment are laziness and self-indulgence.
And so the whole paragraph ended with a warning. It true but a little bit ironic. I think it’s true that laziness might be really a barirer to my fullfillment--but I’d rather call it easily discouraged. Sometimes, I think I’m lazy because I’m really lazy. Other times, I think I’m lazy because I’m discouraged and don’t want to do it. And speaking of not doing it, like self-indulgence, if I won’t do it, I won’t do it (unless needed or I’m forced to but I think that would just bring bad results). When I want to do it, then I will do it. And yes, I said it’s a bit ironic because going back to the very top, the first paragraph seemed to be telling me to do what I want and not be afraid of what people think of me, yet here it’s as if telling that at the same time be careful. Or maybe I need to find the right balance? This last sentence, is a warning, but a very hard-thing-to-do warning.
08.03.20
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I love you @witchwolfmouse. I love you with my whole heart
Honestly, and respectfully OP, it's literally EVERYTHING said above with a big cosign. Since I mentioned the pair the spares bit myself, I can speak for myself in that regard when I say it's literally everything said above and that's it.
The irony of this is no one, absolutely NO ONE has said Maria and Kyle are an awful ship. Even those criticizing those in fandom desperate to pair the two spares together to protect the ships they care about aren't saying Kyle and Maria is a bad ship. I'm literally one of those people who is side-eying some people's motivation behind shipping two characters that haven't even interacted, but I have also admitted (as have others like myself) that I'm totally game for the show exploring it for a lot of the reasons you mentioned, and I cannot wait to actually see the two of them interact because they probably will have fun chemistry and could be a cute ship.
There are like a handful of genuine Kyle and Maria shippers, and not content (can't wait for it though so bring it on), and they're more than entitled to have fun with their ship. I say the same thing for the Kyle and Alex shippers out there. Nothing delighted me more than seeing Kylex shippers too, so wholesome and sweet and I lowkey started shipping it myself thanks to them. 😘
But the people who are treating Maria and her love life or Kyle and his love life like an afterthought by shoving them together as an afterthought for the sole reason of them not interfering with their Malex and Echo ... those people are the only people who some fans are side eyeing. That's it. You can usually find them literally stating how cute the pairing would be in part because it wouldn't affect Malex. They're usually the same ones passive aggressively saying "this friendship is cute" under anything that remotely has to do with Michael and Maria. So, yeah, in that sense it's transparent, and those people and only those people are who some fans are annoyed by.
Those same fans who think it's fucked up to entertain the idea of Maria sleeping with her best friend's soulmate if it's Michael are pairing the spares with Maria and Kyle even though Kyle is Liz's ex. If we really hated the ship itself, we'd bring that up a thousand times more because Maria knows about Kyle and Liz's history. She doesn't know about Michael and Alex's, right? But it isn't about that at all.
This fandom at least on here isn't the most open to those who aren't talking about the majority's issues, so any Maria and Michael fans on here mostly stay out of fandom or go elsewhere. They don't even have the space to discuss anything here. So what is this imaginary war if you will between two subsections of fandom with more similarities than differences who you need a telescope to find anyway?!
Especially when the issue brought up is explained. It's not the ship that anyone has an issue with, it's the motivation of some people for shipping it that people are annoyed by.
It's true. I don't even think anyone realizes that literally anyone who says anything that can remotely be perceived as anti Malex has to insist multiple times that they are in fact a Malex shipper or express how much they like the ship before they can state their opinion. Even then, one still runs the risk of being called homophobic or other things. Seriously, pay attention to how often people do that, like they're trying to prove something, or apologizing, or trying to make sure they don't get attacked, and then think about how messed up that is. Because that is mesed up.
All anyone wants is to be able to discuss all parts of this series. They want to discuss all the characters. They want to be free to discuss any and all ships, hell even crack ships without putting disclaimers up to make sure they aren't attacked or having what brings them joy shat on by the majority telling them they are wrong or not respecting them. Or reminding people that it's a reboot all the time, like no one knows that.
And Maria fans just want to talk about Maria. Maria's life. Maria's storylines. Maria's friendships. And yes, even Maria's love life whether it's Michael or Isobel or Kyle or someone else. They don't want an entire tag dedicated to a fantastic character to ONLY be filled with people speaking of her as a contrivance. That's it. That's the only complaint here, and it is annoying that it keeps getting turned into other things that it isn't about.
It's true that there has yet to be a single person who said a hateful word about Maria and she's well liked. But that doesn't mean that the way in which she is discussed isn't hurtful, and inconsiderate, and annoying, and problematic.
Simply put, people want to be free to discuss more than just one particular ship or topic or a couple of characters without those discussions or tags or photo sets or meta getting derailed or taken over etc. And the only reason the Kyle and Maria thing is brought up is because of how it ties in with everything else going on with fandom and Maria and even fandom and Kyle. The ship itself isn't the problem. It's actually cute af in theory and could be in practice when they give them screentime together to see if the chemistry is there. They're my favorites and I lowkey ship them with everyone myself, but whatever.
OK, I’m not trying to be wanky, but I find it kind of hilarious how offended I’ve seen some people get over the fact that there are those who ship Maria with Kyle. They are mad because the two of them have not yet shared scenes so apparently it’s a bad and offensive thing to ship them.
So, while I’m not a Maria and Kyle shipper per se (though I’ve considered the possibility of a future relationship between them), I’m gonna lay a few things out.
1) First off, let us acknowledge that both the books and OG has everyone conveniently paired off. In this version, we have the two major pairings of Max/Liz and Michael/Alex. Isobel/Noah are married but still presented as a lesser couple compared to the epic drama of echo and malex. Yet even they are shown to be deeply in love with one another, and Noah is not giving up on Isobel during her current crisis.
2) Kyle and Maria are both single as a pringle. Even with Kyle’s fooling around with Liz, they’re not in love or even in like. They are friends who have fooled around.
3) While the only scene they’ve shared is the brief pilot flashback scene with Max looking through the window, it can be established that Kyle and Maria know one another and have since high school. (And if it wasn’t for Heather having prior filming obligations, she would have been in HS scenes with Liz and Kyle, it’s very likely.)
4) Kyle and Maria have some similarities. They’re both trustworthy. They’re both smart. They’re both loyal friends. They’re both funny and kind of sassy. Neither are afraid to tell it like it is.
5) Yet their differences make for some fun potential and an interesting balance. Kyle- man of science. Maria- woman of faith. He’s a doctor. She’s a bar owner and psychic. He was a quarterback douche in HS, she was a hippie protester. There could be a fun dynamic.
6) People can ship whatever. And nothing against crackships, but it’s not even as though Kyle and Maria are one though some like to act that way. The two have some sort of established relationship even if we haven’t seen it on screen yet. And even if it’s in the past. You can’t use the argument of them not having scenes (even if they really haven’t run into each other in town in the last 10 years which is highly unlikely). Because Max and Liz didn’t see each other for 10 years either. And no one doubts that they have an established relationship of some sort.
7) Those those same people that I’ve seen complaining about shipping Maria with Kyle seem to think that shipping Maria with Michael is much better. Since they’ve shared two whole scenes together. And Michael is in love with Maria’s best friend (and him with Michael) and this has been the case for the past ten years. Like you can’t make this up. 🤣 But hey. That’s also perfectly fine. I mean why not? Just don’t act like you’re somehow above Maria and Kyle shippers or that your reasons for shipping M&M are more valid.
#roswell new mexico#maria deluca#kyle valenti#kyluca#rnm discourse#rnm notoriety#needless drama again#rnm fandom fkery
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Emotionally draining, emotionally drained
I have done my share to contributed to these feelings
I always do, even fer myself
I can’t always tell how much are due to my own self-destructive efforts and how much are the side effects of being close enough to someone where if they hurt you, it truly stings and resonates in ways that fuck you up
Cause you to reflect and reassess deeply
Take drastic measures to recover, regulate, resume a sense of stable n healthy normalcy
Yet I’m left to wonder what that looks like fer me and if I have ever achieved it
I have put into practice being unconditional regardless of feelings, and know I’m at least capable to some degree to feel like I can do it if I strive to apply myself
But it’s something you inevitably have to feel out to assess yer progress.
Avoiding doing so inevitably puts off the feeling in hopes it’ll diminish—something I’ve tried to negotiate within myself but it ultimately surfaces
It inevitably hurts
I can’t pretend it doesn’t or it won’t.
I can’t pretend my feelings don’t affect me:
And it fucks me up.
Bc I’m also v stubborn.
I’ll feel how I feel until I understand fer myself that I’m done, and I won’t rush it
Don’t know how to rush it either
Don’t know how let go, or know when to
My dedication can be to my detriment, but I don’t know how to call it,
If it’s more responsible to call it.
I have been feeling especially depleting, depleted, and vulnerable.
My coping has been sleep, eating/not eating, smoking herb, distracting myself w Netflix and spending a lot of my downtime on my own.
Only selectively hanging out, but only agreeing to—rarely reaching out as I would normally.
I can feel the walls I’ve built to buffer me from life’s external emotions—which isn’t fair but sometimes necessary
No one is outwardly judging me on this but I am judging myself:
I haven’t been the friend I want to be to many people, the friend I believe my loved ones deserve
Been having an existential crisis w intimacy, and how much / to what degree I let others in
Been real fucked up about my capacity fer closeness, especially in hopes of it ever developing into something more
Been feeling my own autonomy lately, what I enjoy about It and the things i simply prefer to share
Been processing my needs//desires to express my feelings in their full capacity in order to convey how much anyone matters to me, and how much of that is my own need to feel validated by it—to feel and be able to explore a new level of closeness openly and without fear of anyone shutting down, closing off
Change is inevitable, but /how/ is something I am currently coping through
The change I’m undergoing through is addressing a lot of old patterns, a lot of patterns that hadn’t served me aside from trying to control the process, control the feelings, control the outcome
Trying to control these things hasn’t really eliminated them, though
I am not coping any better
I am more aware, but I am no less destructive to myself or others
I volley back and forth between external anger and overall upsetness to internalizing what it must be like to deal w me
And ultimately feeling even more at a loss bc I wouldn’t put up w me
Mostly bc it’s me, not the reasoning why
I have greater patience fer others than I do fer myself
I wouldn’t even consider it putting up w others, bc that’s not how I see it
But this is one of my double standards
I don’t know what to do w it, aside from let it go bc it does not serve me.
Folx, friends, and fam will put up w as much as they feel like and that’s their choice
That’s up to them, despite my active pushing away
I honestly don’t feel like I deserve it
I do a lot of this to myself
I judge my own behavior
And I rule myself out
I justify these thoughts w the personally narrative that they’re better off without me
I keep to myself about my feelings
When they slip past me, I feel bad fer how I feel—what I feel like I put people thru
This is no more satisfying, but it’s my go to bc when I can no longer blame others, i blame myself
I’m causing all this pain bc I’m hurting and I don’t know how to resolve it fast enough
I leave little room fer anyone to know how to reach me
Let alone, continue to be close to me
I am aware of what I’m doing and how haphazard it is but I don’t know how to resolve it without feeling I’m making all the effort myself
That I need to change in order fer situations to improve
That I need to adapt in order to feel better
Which ultimately boils down that I am the cause of my own pain
Even though other people have done things that hurt me and that’s just what it is
I don’t know what I want from that
Do something that shows me yer trying is vague and doesn’t do justice to effort being made already
Do something that I can understand as effort
Give me what I need
These are important things to recognize, while also realizing how selfish and unrealistic they inevitably are
I feel so fucked up bc people do put forth effort and I just shut it down
I don’t always know how to receive it and sometimes it just doesn’t make a difference
Especially when I deeply identify w how I’m feeling // how ingrained it is in my narrative as how I understand myself
I don’t specifically choose it, but inevitably do whenever I identify w my feelings exclusively
How I feel becomes who I am they are so deeply entwined
I have yet to figure out how to separate
How to refrain from internalizing, esp in my longer and more intimate relationships
I have this unrealistic standard that after a long enough time, people should know better and therefore when I am hurt by them, it feels that much more personal
That someone should know me well enough to know how to not hurt me, and then not hurt me
Like that’s something you can truly ask//expect from anyone
Especially folx you let in and experience yer vulnerabilities
It’s unrealistic
But I’m awful stubborn about it regardless bc I don’t want to hurt
I know this doesn’t prevent more hurt but it does allow me to feel some sense of control
I’m hurt and this is what I’m doing about it kind of thing
Not to say that not being hurt is effortless, but when I do that, what happens to the hurt?
Is it absolved or forgotten about?
Is it worth hanging onto?
If it happens again, will it be easier?
Will it be easier bc I’m being more complacent or bc I’ve grown and healed?
I realize I’m at a point where I’m actively pushing many of the people I’m closest to away on the ground that I don’t know the answers to those questions
There is also a hyper vigilance that I’m not simply complying to cause less friction
I don’t want to foster the notion that friction is a healthy thing to maintain in order to understand my relationships to people
I’m not looking to challenge things unnecessarily
I will get lost in certain narratives and fixated on how others validate how i already feel about myself—even if unknowingly
I will attribute things that don’t reflect how i want or need them to be as reinforcing the narrative
Someone is always reinforcing the narrative, it’s just a matter of who
There are certain feelings so deeply ingrained in me that I understand them to be part of me
When it comes to rooting out and letting go of what no longer serves me, what may very well never as served me as a coping mechanism,
I feel distressed at the fact that I am changing, that I need to change in order to feel better
That someone else’s behavior can upset me so deeply and in order to recover from it, I need to change—if only fer my mental health to improve
But it does a number on my mental health recognizing the necessity of this change, that i need to change at all
Esp when someone else caused such a disruption in me
Dismantling my previous coping mechanisms as ineffective and therefore irrelevant
Challenging me ultimately when I’m not always in a place to be challenged more
I try to find respite in the saying, “Life only gives you as much as you can handle,” but I haven’t been the most stable to handle it
I haven’t been handling it well aside from keeping myself functional enough to maintain my responsibilities
I’m actively surviving, and doing anything more feels taxing even if it could make a difference overall
I am so exhausted that there isn’t much incentive outside of trying to figure out how to best maintain and honor my intimacies w people, recognizing that my feelings are not in a vacuum, and that everyone is having their own life experience in this and being affected in their own way.
Meaning that the cycle of pain continues as I hold onto and identify w this pain
How to redirect is still something I am working out without feeling like I’m losing myself to someone else’s decisions
Esp when they don’t reflect what I’d choose
And the double standard in that
As I simultaneously hope that I don’t succeed in pushing the ones I love away indefinitely
I keep eliminating myself from the equation thinking it’ll be easier bc I am still learning how to live, and value that choice
I have always distanced myself thinking it’d be easier to cope
Then I could handle my feelings however I needed to find relief and not hurt anyone but myself
That’s what I’ve thought all along
I’m still learning to value my presence—no matter what may come.
To be here fer it, and allow others to be when they choose to, and to not second-guess why
That’s the irony, I am so familiar w how I feel that I catch myself going to strange lengths to feel it
I’ve made the feeling so real that not feeling it feels artificial
I’m fighting w myself after I’ve pushed everyone away
Bc the friction is still there
The ways in which I’m hard on myself replaces any challenge shared
When they happen to exist simultaneously, i find myself shutting down
Coping w vices and avoiding bc I cannot stand how I’m feeling, I cannot stand myself, and I don’t know how to recover fast enough
What parts to change, despite feeling an experience change me—even if fer the better
I can’t seem to change rapidly enough to grow into who I am becoming, even if it’s who I’d hope to become
Fer who?
Fer me, first and foremost, but it’s hard to feel that way when it’s inspired by the results of someone else’s influence
The most comforting piece from today was this mantra I heard in a podcast I was listening to:
“I am not the body, I am not even the mind. Bc it is mine, but it is not me.”
The same goes fer feelings—I am not my feelings. My feelings are mine but they are not me.
I need to be reminded of this, as I am quick to identify and determine my life based off of how I feel
Especially since I determine a lot of my life based off of how i feel
It’s not foolproof but I contribute a lot of my positive progress to my intuition, my feelings
But identifying so much w this progress doesn’t leave me a lot of room to adapt to much beyond what patterns I’ve grown to anticipate
Leaving what often tends to be a battle of the egos
One ego determines something that requires an override of the other ego, and the other ego has to choose to agree to this or maintain ego
And I hate that conundrum
Bc it’s in the ego’s best interest to maintain its sense of self
Ego aside, the fear of losing oneself to someone else’s way of life and preferences is a legitimate concern
I never want to feel dominated by someone else’s life choices, shaped by their decisions
It taps into not only my sense of control but my desire to feel like I have any
A reiteration of hyper-vigilance
These coping mechanisms are what I’ve always done to feel any degree of control over whatever it is
Even if it does nothing more than create space from the distressed caused, and addressing what is distressing me
I am still learning how to address these things, bc I’m often reluctant to share any vulnerability at this point and sharing how I feel is vulnerable.
I don’t like being vulnerable when I already feel vulnerable so I often shut down
Sabotage
Self-destruct
Run away and avoid
I hate opening up about it that bad
I hate this
I hate feeling like I do
And it feeds into how I don’t know how anyone would choose to put up w me
I literally can’t relate
Like, I would walk away from myself, and so I’m waiting fer you to
Looking fer that feeling to be validated by someone who can walk away so I can continue to identify w how I’m feeling
When how I’m feeling is not being the friend I need, nor the friend I want, fer myself or anyone else.
I am embodying what I fear most, and I contribute to it by feeding into it,
Believing it.
I cannot exist like this bc it is no longer feasible.
If I do not change, I am choosing to limit my existence.
And by limiting my existence, I become that much closer to snuffing it out bc I’m giving myself less and less to work with by stubbornly capping my efforts at disengage as I try to figure out how to improve
I’m tired
I’m so fucking tired
My own feelings deplete me, let alone the feelings others stir
I’m so desperate to keep afloat that I’m going to great lengths to get to the root of this
To grow
Expand
Hold more space
To not identify so much w my thoughts and feelings despite them being my main sources of context, of identity
What is integrity then?
How significant is it anymore or is it another factor of ego?
What else have I misunderstood?
How much of social mores are actually objective and how much are subjective?
Or are they another form of standardization bias?
Is it so wrong to get upset when social mores aren’t upheld?
Do social mores help or hinder healthy relationship standards?
What is a reasonable gauge to determine a healthy relationship dynamic when thoughts and feelings are deeply hurt?
More than once?
Over and over in similar ways?
This is where I struggle to relate to people bc I just do not understand this process.
I don’t understand this cycle and I haven’t determined how to escape it besides actively reminding myself that these thoughts and feelings are not me
Meaning if I do not identify w them, I can be freed from their limits
Whether or not this caters to my disassociation, I have no idea
But the concept brings me some form of relief
Especially since I don’t always feel safe in my thoughts, in my feelings...
...And I welcome the relief wholeheartedly
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Friday the 13th
I’ve came to accept that writing and sharing on a blog for me is something i can barely control. It seems to require detachment for it to sustain. Like many other things in life that i try to condense into a way for me to avoid feeling like i’m in danger, the flow and consistency of writing seems to have it’s own intention. It also seems to depend entirely on my mental perspective day to day - my frame of mind. Lately i’ve been trying to get to know what and who i am more. I’ve been doing this for years actually with varying degrees of success, but my awareness of parts, patterns and habits is somehow acutely strong at the moment.
Some of the things i’ve realised are nothing new and probably very common, but i wonder - just because some things are common, this doesn't mean they’re normal or natural and without requirement to be challenged. I think very much the opposite is the case. It’s severely abnormal and unnatural to live in fear and suffer the way many of us do. With that in mind, what feels different regarding my approach to these ‘common’ aspects or ‘parts’ of being human is that i’m seeing them more clearly and experiencing them in action at the same time.
These thoughts/beliefs/patterns/things, whatever we call them, are within my own mental programming so it feels important to highlight and take responsibility for them. Maybe others can relate too.
So, those things...
- If i feel like i can’t do or have something, it makes me want to do or have it much more. More often than not this obsessively dominates my energy, choices and thoughts. I can live for days, weeks, months, even years following a false goal or desire, fostering many beliefs that at the foundation level are nothing more than an illusion.
- If i have to do something or feel i need to be a certain way or do certain things, i hugely resist and repel it. The feeling of being controlled or dominated spurs anger in me and eventually seems to paralyse me. I’m aware an aspect of this is rooted in childhood trauma but it also feels like something more than that. An unnatural mental position. Perceiving life and our responsibilities wrongly.
- Unknown future outcomes can deeply affect me. I feel depressed, scared, anxious and a sense of impending doom pulls at me from inside.
- I struggle with change - again a fear of the unknown, fear of not being in control, or not knowing if i will be okay or not.
These are some of my observations of how ‘i’ seem to function and as i’m writing i’m noticing even more by the words i’m using. For example - fear of the unknown. It’s not the unknown that we fear it’s the fear that is the problem. Fear is the dominant and primary source of our suffering, what we are scared of doesn't really matter because it’s the very same energy just in different clothing. I also see how these are all actually just beliefs about who and what i am. I could approach this as simply choosing and affirming different beliefs or not believing them at all but i haven't found much prolonged success with that. They still seem to be here. So i felt that there must be other approaches and maybe getting involved with trying to ‘change’ these mental thoughts and beliefs wasn't the most constructive or easiest way.
The patterns and habits are inconsistent, they come and go and aren't always obvious. My mental structure and foundation of beliefs are totally faulty to be producing often paralysing and unhelpful experiences externally. So i am trying different things as an experiment to subtly change the way i function - small changes with as little pressure as possible (this is a challenge for me in itself to let go). What i’ve found is that the changes i’m feeling to make are teaching me about what i feel is Love, with patience as the dominating element. When i let go I can sense a natural force that desires so very much to help me, it seems elusive and invisible to my eyes but i KNOW there is another way. I know there is more than many of us are seeing and it’s simple. Very simple.
I’ve realised and read many times about fear being in the mind and not being real, but experiencing this gives a total different understanding. If i try to explain what i feel fear is, the most obvious expression of it to me is the faulty functioning of our mind which at one point was most likely structured in a specific way with an intention to protect us. Recently I was astonished to see that fear ultimately cannot be real, even now i am trying to understand that, but i can’t and i don’t think i ever will, because the truth of this feels only to be an experience. Trying to explain here what i want to is subsequently quite difficult.
FEAR IS A STATE OF MIND. Temporary and ever changing.
A perception and perspective.
Someone can tell us fear is a state of mind as i have suggested here but it’s a personal experience that will reveal how true this really is.
I had a particularly challenging day on Friday. At one point i thought i was going to be physically sick from the mental pressure and incessant thoughts that were bombarding me. I was occupied physically by sticking labels on jars but a whirlwind was engulfing me from the inside which has often been the case. There was a situation the day prior that influenced an emotional stir and most of my thoughts were concerned with this. Strangely i appeared to be separate from the thoughts (a rare occurrence), i could see how they would bounce from side to side validating how i was right in the previous heated situation with a friend, but then within moments i would be the one who was at fault. How could both of these be true? Does that mean nothing i think is true? Something inside of me knew to breathe and told me to wait this out - be still and wait for the storm to pass.
So i did, i kept as quiet as i could and relinquished involvement in the mental debates no matter how alluring they were. It passed. The storm passed and what followed was a sense of surrender and presence. Not long after this i went to a local cafe and sat alone with a hot drink. I seen so clearly how my mind has dominated my life for many many years. If i had slipped and dropped my focus during that recent mental storm i may have still been trapped in an illusion - in blame, anger, resentment and stubbornness. How much of my life has been lived this way? How many thoughts have i believed that have resulted in deep suffering for months at a time? and the most shocking question - How much of humanity are dreaming a shared fearful dream?
I proceeded to write some notes in my journal and a few words to anchor me any time i felt unsettled inside -
‘Fear cannot be real. Why play a game so very elusive of trying to overcome, let go of or stop fear. Why and how is it even possible to get involved. We are trying to understand and change something that isn't real. A state of mind cannot be real. It does NOT exist. ‘Let go of fear’? How can we let go of an illusion. It’s a waste of intention and energy and an investment further into mentality.’
Anchoring words were -
‘Whenever a mind storm comes. And it will, even more relentlessly, once the truth is pondered. Hold tight. Keep quiet and let the wild beast inside express itself. But do not get involved or believe a single thing. Remember the answers and clarity come in stillness. The two cannot co exist.
SIT TIGHT and wait for the storm to pass. Breathe and do anything to relax as much as possible. Love and patience waters the flames of mental agitation. It’s purpose is to distract you, to pull you into it’s dream world and use you to live through. Because without you it cannot and does not exist. Do not believe thoughts or emotions, even feelings when in that stormy place and refrain from making any choices.’
I don’t believe fear is an emotion in itself. I believe it is a state of mind. It’s a choice we consciously or unconsciously make in every moment. So to me the answer to many problems we seem to have doesn't lie in getting involved with trying to change or stop fear. Seeing fear as something to change or fight only makes it more real and pushes us further into a dream. I suppose fear can be a broad term but here i’m referring to the more subtle and deceptive expressions of it - anger, jealousy, hatred, bitterness, blame, resentment... Part of my own experimenting is observing myself when i do experience these things and exploring if and how i may have falsely perceived something. How much peace do you feel in your life? Could it be true that you’ve falsely perceived something too?
What is nearly always called for when we are suffering then, must be a change in perspective.
Fearful state of mind generates energy.
This energy moves out into the world - energy in motion - fearful emotion.
Loving state of mind generates energy.
This energy moves out into the world - energy in motion - loving emotion.
I realise a lot of what i’ve wrote here doesn't give much tangible information on HOW to change our perception or shift to a loving state of mind but i do intend to share such things in future posts. Bearing in mind, i’m still learning how to do this myself! Also If you’ve managed to read this far..... WELL DONE. I would have probably checked out long ago.
If this subject and my thoughts here ignite interest in anyone i really recommend looking into a book called ‘A Course in Miracles’. It can be quite heavy in parts but another book that has been written based on ACIM’s principles is ‘A Return to Love’ by Marianne Williamson. This book in many ways has changed my life and helped me overcome challenges that i never thought i could. Hopefully it may find it’s way to others and bless them with new insights and possibilities too <3
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