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Three Jokers Are Not Better Than One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow, what close analysis from Mr. Emotional Build.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then Book 2 starts, and goddammit. GODDAMMIT.

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

Ugh. UGGGHHH.

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

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

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

I cannot emphasize enough: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this "take."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then Johns fucking ruins it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🎶 Why the fuck you lyin'? 🎶

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

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

Lol comics are fun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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dayslynthesix · 2 years

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hello, this it parte 1/3 of what im calling the lovers series, you can read the prologue of this serie right here and i hope you enjoy this as much as i enjoy writing

as i said, this doesn't have any compromise with real life and despite the team that are mentioned during this serie exist they main character its not related to any of them or the players

let's consider thay in this reality covid never existed, I'm following the 2020 calendar just for chronological purposes also the Olympics still happened in 2021 again for logistical purposes

tw: volleyball injury, self doubt, Turkish GP because that's a sensitive topic for me, mention of intrusive thoughts

Delicate | Lewis Hamilton imagine

January, 2020, Brazil

It was a pretty nice night, after all, it was match night. Minas was winning 2x0 on the house, they were playing on their own court with all his fans, it was 17x14 on the board, Priya came from a back row attack, she remembered everything about that point. The ball was set, she gave three steps and jump, her hand hit the ball in the most incredible way, before the block could be put together the ball was already on the floor, also Priya. She jumped, she spiked that ball and once she landed on floor she felt an excruciating pain.

Priya PoV

I could feel every part of my body, i was super aware of everything, i heard people talking to me but i couldn't fully understand what they were saying, i got pieces like "injury" and "knee" and i was taken away from the court. I also remember my teammates look, they were terrified, no one saw that coming. During those first moments when the medical team take a look at me i knew something was really wrong. An injury on my knee, apparently was that, but i couldn't say the gravity of that injury.

"Someone call my mom, please." I remember saying that to no one in specific, all that night was a blurr, I remember the point, but after that it's all a blank space.

During the week I made multiple tests, x-rays and everything related, they told me I had a shattered knee, time of recovery: 6 to 8 months. They also told me it was better if I did the surgery back home, where I could have family support. My dad was in Brazil within 24 hours after the match, we were flying to Monaco within 72 hours, and in between a week I was with a surgery scheduled and full months of recovery to go.

It was that way my career would end?

The formula one seasons didn't have started yet, we were in January and the season was booked to start in March, so it wasn't much of a surprise when Lewis showed up at my appartment - temporarily mine. He looked incredible, as always, and the presence of his persona was something that always takes my breath away.

"Hi Priya."

"Hello Lewis." I was tired of people asking me how i was feeling, because I was feeling like shit, and I felt really grateful when Lewis didn't asked me that

"I saw the match, and the point, it was a pretty good one, you came from the back of the court and hit that ball, really impressive." he take the seat by your side

"Well, thank you, it was a pretty good point. I was feeling so good, you know? I was feeling all my body when I jumped... it didn't end well."

"Can I ask you how are you feeling?"

"I rather not, but I'm feeling terrible. No one says anything. They don't give one reassurance I'll be able to play the next tournaments, or my rehab time, or even if I'll be able to go to the Olympics... I'm exhaust, I'm frustrated and I'm sad, but yeah..." I let all out

"That's why I'm here. Your dad called me, he is worried about you, but he isn't an athlete so it's pretty hard from him to fully understand what are you feeling. I also talked to Angela, and she agreed to help you through the recovery process, all of it, if you want to, obviously." you could feel in love with that man, he was so gentle to me and I really need someone to be gentle with me without thinking I'm broken or something.

"Yeah, that would be nice, thank you Lewis, honestly." I reached for his hand, and he slowly came closer to me, I could feel his breath and his scent, that bring back memories

"Priya, I need you to be fine, and recover and I need you to play the Olympics, not because you're my favourite athlete, but because I know how much that means to you and how much the recovery process is painful, but as long as you want me here I'll be here with you."

"I just keep wondering, am I still good enough to be a high level athlete? I've seen injuries which was way less worst than mine that retired athletes, I shattered my knee, Lewis, I'm so scared that all I think about is if this is the end of my career, because if it is I don't know what to do, I don't know who am I without volleyball, I'm juts... its so much..." I was holding the tears, but at that point I let it all go, the gasp that came out of my throat was so awful that breake me all over again, Lewis held me closser, he take all the care with my leg and he kept me in his arms for long moments

"That's ok you are scared, I don't know what it feels like, but thats ok, you're gonna pass trough this, I'm with you, you're Priya you know, you are so much more than volleyball..."

"But volleyball is my life, I don't want to live in a world without volleyball. The worst part of the injury is not the pain, is the uncertainty, is the recovery, is all the doubts and that can break an athlete's mind in levels that the injury itself can't."

"I know that, i know how much you have put in volleyball and what it represents to you and your life, but you are more than an athlete, it might not look like, but you are. Ever since day one I met your dad he said he had a athlete daughter and his daughter wanted to go to an Olympics, you went once but next one its gonna be your show time, I've seen the incredible season you've made and how much you evolved all these years, you became an extraordinary player, Pietra, and this injury is not gonna take that away from you."

Lewis and I had talked before, countless times, but this time was the first time we were having a conversation that deep. I was never afraid to tell people what I was feeling, but the kind of vulnerability I was allowing myself to feel with him was different. And if you asked me where everything started I would answered it was the first day after the doctors cleared me up to physiotherapy.

It was middle May, it had been 4 months since the injury and I was cleared to started the rehab process. My knee hurt like a bitch and since I was out of any medications I was feeling like a bitch. I couldn't do much more than exercising my legs and some light stuff.

Lewis was out racing, the season started and he needed to go, Angela too, so I was pretty much on my own. I had my physio team, the people who has been with me since I started to play volleyball, but it was different.

Angela was one of the most sweet people I meet in my life, she talked to me during all the firsts session, she asked me how I was feeling physically and mentally, and she was walking with me, not just guiding me.

During the first days, Priya became distant, she wasn't talking to anyone, not even with her siblings, and everyone understood that, she was putting all she had left to heal and the healing process was painful, more painful than the bruises.

All the process Lewis was there, he got used to practice with Priya around and they could actually talk about different things. She became a continues presence on his days. Even if he was on some different country he would still call her so they could talk and work out together. Alan had called him multiple times to check on his daughter, even though she was staying with her dad, he couldn't reach his daughter the way Lewis and Angela could.

It had been a long time since she went to the paddock to watch a race from inside Mercedes Garage, but for the Austrian GP she was there, wearing a beautiful dress to cover her knee, she wasn't able to look at it, and she didn't want anyone looking either, not there was anything to see, outside it was pretty much healed, but yet; and looking all happy to see the drivers again, and meet the ones she hadn't yet. And even though she was still in pain she was smiling again, she was feeling better, 5 months was nothing to heal, but it was the start of the process, and she was confident with that.

It was really nice for Lewis to watch how she bonded with a couple of drivers who always had been really nice with him, even being a couple of years older than them, Priya became really closer to Charles, they shared more things than they could imagined and Priya became sort of a mentor to him, looking forward, Lewis think Priya was one of the main responsible to the mental strength himself and Charles had.

Even the RedBull people went to talk to her, Christian Horner itself went to the garage to say hi and talk to her, he asked how she was feeling, what the doctors had said; Max came latter that day, he was also very nice with her. Being a high level athlete, Priya was an inspiration to many of athletes in world, not just inside volleyball.

Priya watched the full race with the engineers and her dad, at some point her knee started to annoy her and someone inside the garage got her a bench so she could rest her legs. They were so involved with the Caspari family that at that point they were all family, and they wanted another champion on the team, more than that, they need Priya to be ok, they saw her grew up and became the athlete she is today, they need her to be that good because she wasn't putting much faith on the process, so they were keeping the faith alive. Once or twice someone came to her to ask her simple things about volleyball, her favourite athletes, where she wanted to play, what she was expecting from team USA, small things just to reassure her that she was still an athlete.

They watched how she started to feel better, GP after GP, how she was actually healing. How after long weeks she started to give interviews again, how she was walking around easily, how one by one her teammates started to show up at some Grand Prix.

Once the Italian GP arrived, Priya and Lewis were spotted running in Monza, at that point, there were already something happening between them. Lewis started to snitch out in the middle of the night to her room. Priya started to wear Mercedes jerseys with his number on it. Lewis showed up once in the paddock with one personal jersey from one of her teams with his name and number on it. They started to have lunch together, and dinner.

They were already something. It wasn't Priya the volleyball player. Lewis world champion. It was Priya and Lewis, always together.

Pierre Gasly won the GP, Lewis finished 7th place, not the result he wanted, but after everything that happened with the French driver, deep down everyone was happy for him, said that, Priya and Lewis went out to celebrate with him.

Things changed that night. After really long years sleeping around with each other, that night was the first night which the euphoria didn't take time with them. They were sleeping together because they had feeling for each other, it was beyond celebration sex. If there was any doubt the next morning erased all of them. They left the hotel together and went to her apartment back in Modena, where she could finally starting to hit again. They went to the closest court, some of her closest friends were there, Dahlia was part of the whole process and she wouldn't be anywhere else. One of the youngest players of the next generation of the Italian Volleyball was there too, and she was setting to Priya.

"You know, she was scared to run and jump, you being here make things easier, i couldn't thank you enough" Dahlia said to him while the other girl was busy

"She's doing so much progress, everyone is optimistic. Im here as long as she wants me here" Lewis answered back

"Trust me when I tell you, she doesn't want anyone else beside you here. You're pushing her to recovery in the best way possible, she doesn't want to stand behind a world champion and that competition is healthy for every athlete"

"She's an Olympian, I think we are even"

Priya spent the whole afternoon inside that court and seeing her so happy doing what she loved fulfill Lewis with a mix of emotions, he was happy, really happy, he was also proud, he was so proud that he couldn't contain the smile seeing her run, jump and hit.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked once the girl were gone

"I'm happy to be here with you and see the grandiosity of Pietra Caspari" she went red

"Don't make me blush, it's rude" but she was laughing, she was laughing and holding his hands, and they were hugging.

They didn't know back then, but Lewis heart was full of joy and Priya's soul was leaking happiness.

When the Turkish GP arrived, no one was expecting anything that happened that race. November 15th marked the day Lewis became a 7 times world champion. The garage was in completely silence after that last lap, for a couple of seconds you couldn't hear one single sound, and then everyone was celebrating.

"... And now he finds himself alongside Michael Schumacher as top in the records books, the world championship record is equals. Lewis Hamilton wins the Turkish Grand Prix and it's a seven times champion of the world." the narrator voice was all around, everything felt right in that moment, everyone was already leaving the garage to meet Lewis outside on the number 1 standing. Priya watched as he got out of the car and ran to his team, but most important, ran to her. He just won his 7th world championship and he went to her, he held her tightly and for what feels like ages for them were merely a couple of seconds to everyone, they hold each other gaze and they kissed, in front of everyone, all the cameras, the crowd, the public, they were all witnessing two of the most victorious careers in two different sports.

The podium ceremony was beautiful. Lewis was so happy that got everyone happy. Priya's sisters were there, her parents were there, her friends were there, they came all the way for her but at the end they were celebrating Lewis's victory like it was Priya's one, that's how much she cared for him and how much her friends care for her.

"You could've tell me you and Lewis were a thing." your mom started

"Yeah, instead we figured out with all the world." Samuel, your brother whispered to you

"Dad's not happy with that." that was Lauren

"If Dahlia knew and we didn't I'm seriously not considering you my sister anymore." Catherine ended

"Jesus Christ, all of you could be Oscar winners with all this drama. It's new ok? No one knew because there was nothing to know about it. Chill down. Let's celebrate his victory ok?" Priya put a final dot on the family drama

Your dad kept staring you from distance, and considering you were his first child and daddy little girl, you went to him.

"Dad?" you poked him "Don't be mad at me." the puppy eyes always worked

"Are you happy?"

"I am." he looked at you, deep into your eyes

"Ok. If you're happy I'm happy. And I'm really proud of you, soon as you think you're going to be playing again." you smiled, during that week you went to the medical team from VakifBank, you didn't tell anyone, but your dad deserved to know

"Vakif just offered me a 2 seasons contract, 2021 and 2022 I'll be playing for them again. It's a secret and I didn't signed yet because I want to see my doctors first and see the perspective of my knee, but I'm feeling fine, the pain is barely here anymore and Angela said I'm doing great, just wanted to tell you."

Your dad's eyes teared up.

"Oh my God, thank God. I couldn't stand you not playing anymore, I was in physical pain just to think about it. I'm so happy, Pia." your dad was the only one who called you Pia, you hugged him for long minutes, it was the place in the world where you felt more safe

As the podium ceremony ended you went to find Lewis, he was already back on his natural clothes, smiling like a child to his trophy. You smiled with the view.

"Hey you." you approached him and his smile got bigger

"Hello." he looked at you "I'm sorry about the kiss earlier..." he started

"Don't be. Im happy with this little bubble we have and I'm happier that you feel comfortable to tell the world."

"I like being with you, you inspires me." he got closer and held you face with both of his hands, his nose on yours as both of you smiled to each other.

"Thank you. For your support, for having my back, for holding me when I was falling. This year was brutal, but seeing you conquer this whole title makes me want to pursuit more, to be more."

"I'm the one to thank you, for all the kind words, all the time you put on me... I'm really happy to be with you right now, there's no one in world I would want to be with."

"I don't want to steal your spotlight but I need you to know... Vakif offered me a contract, two seasons, titular player, I didn't signed yet, but I'll, and you are the person who made me choose the yes, who make me say yes and didn't let me give up."

"Oh my God. You're playing for the biggest team in the world again. Priya, I'm so proud." he was hugging you after that.

The following days were full with news about you, the statements, even though there was still a couple of races left. You posted something on your social media congratulating Mercedes and Lewis, and people were nuts with it.

Later that week Priya and Lewis went to see a match between Vakif and some other team, Priya showed to him all the players and their positions, she let him know which one of them would play with her the next year, and they enjoyed that time there was left, because once the season ended, she would present herself to the national team back in California and the formula one season would have a break, Lewis and her spoke briefly about him flying with her to California, they agreed, but thay would be a brutar year.

When Abu Dhabi came you and Lewis went together to the paddock and the gala after. You were spotted together doing random things and people loved it.

January came with a call from team USA coach asking you to join the team in April to the VNL, the world competition and to let you know that the spot to the Olympics were still yours, even though you spent a year out.

2021 started amazing to you and Lewis, but no one was expecting the turn of the facts that your season was going to be amazing while his title would be steeled away from him.

New year, new obstacles.

that's part 1, hope you enjoy this as much as I, i love this idea, i love how this turned out.

see ya anytime

#formula one imagine #formula 1 #formula one #f1 imagine #lewis hamilton one shot #lewis hamilton #lewis hamilton imagine #lewis hamilton x volleyball player

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salvatoreren · 6 months

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I finally watched AOT's last episode and frankly, I am not okay, I have been sobbing a river oh my fucking god.

Anyways, it was really good, as expected of MAPPA anyway, I was pretty much crying the whole episode actually.

I have complaints, mostly because of the not included anime, little things like not having the flashbacks of Armin of reading a book in the rain, the squirrels etc. etc. I would have love to see them in the market and the way to the boy who sought freedom, goodbye was not implemented, I WAS WAITING FOR THAT COME ON

The anime only scenes were good too, like Levi giving food to the refugees, falco and gabi, i wish we saw their outfits tho, they slayed with that one.

the way they played 13 no fuyu, im killing myself, ive been listening to that shit since 2022 which mind you was when i was active once more in aot, the fucking flashbacks my god, that was so tragic RAHHH

i also saw aot's op, EREN WITH A BOW? EREN WITH A BOW!!! MIND YOU I JUST FINISHED WATCHING THE HUNGER GAMES SO IMMEDIATELY IM LIKE YES YES IT'S GIVING KATNISS EVERDEEN, WITH WHAT HIM BEING HUMANITY'S HOPE, ESP WITH THE FIRE COMING OUT OF IT FORMING A BIRD

THE SAME BIRD WE SAW ON S4 ENDING 1, oh my god, the opening was really cool omg, it perfectly showcased eren's journey, what he went through, despite being absent in the final chapters, it still showed Eren was still the protagonist...Which isayama did not understand when he made 139

Yes, I am bitter still with the ending, no, I am not hearing anyone out and no, I am not going to pour my disappointments with it STILL, here because yeah.

It's such a shame that's the last and final time we'll ever see it, devastating tragedy omg.

ARMIN AND EREN'S FINAL INTERACTION, IM GLAD THEY MADE THEM HOLD HANDS, THANK YOU MAPPA, PLS THE WAY THEY'LL BE TOGETHER FOREVER AND WILL BE WAITING FOR EACH OTHER IN HELL, GAGGED, IM DEAD, MY ROMAN EMPIRE FOR REAL

Now that's out of the way.

It's been a long and fun ride, regardless, the final season has been going for what three years, i've been with this series for three years, it was fun really it was, this series took such a simplistic and cliched approach then twisted into something more complex and truly gutwrenching. 2020 was nothing without AOT, in my opinion, watching AOT broadened my media consumption, yanked me into the anime world and i already have so many fandoms i'm in.

2020 was a hard time too, i couldn't have done it without this bloody series, god, i remember aboarding the train hype, everything was everywhere, fics, art, videos, memes etc. All those I read influenced my writing style, all those theories made me think more critically, those memes and videos of it made me laugh. It's funny how a series like this one comforted me so much.

I remember being so traumatized by the first episode i'm like who the fuck would ever like this series with this much blood and that night i immediately searched for eren fics because i was like who is this boy i like him, i fucking dreamt of the beast titan, all those nights racing with my sister who could finish the series first, i literally woke up at 4 just to watch it before she could.

Fucking terrified which of my favorite characters were going to die next, literally sobbing over armin's death, god and the mindfuck with Marley and Eldians and Subjects of Ymir in the fray oh my god.

Can I just say, I wouldn't be who I was without AOT? Even with my cynical behavior, it's all because of it.

2021 who i never fail to reiterate and think fondly is good because of AOT as well, I figured wow, the final season is coming back, I should rewatch it again and so the hyperfixation began, i was sick too, almost dying too actually, dengue is dangerous and it was just a fond memory because i was watching aot and i acted like i never had watch these scenes in my life and despite feeling like dying i felt okay.

I was so batshit crazy when part 2 came out, that was the one that was actually peak AOT don't lie, I was literally screaming like i was giving birth OVER AN OPENING AND AN ENDING, i'll never forget any of it.

When I cried watching the whole episode, it really just occurred to me that this is really the end for AOT, i was only ever able to go through it because I have the anime and it what really kept the whole fandom alive, the anime's honestly the reason why it had this many fans as you can see.

And again the way it's heartwrenching for it to just be a simple series and then it's full blown war, jean and reiner holding out to each other, remembering how they used to be close and comrades then betrayals and war happened and it's all ruined.

The devastating realization of seeing the last few panels animated, watching the end flash through the screen, realizing there was nothing out of this now, no more next episodes, no more hype, it's gone and it's so devastating because how happy it made you, the way you'll never see these characters again, only in rewatches or art. But it's not the same.

I admit I don't feel as hyperfixated over it now, after getting burnt out of it last year, even good things go badly sadly and i was just here for eren now, but doesn't change the fact this series has nurtured my quarantine, i grew up with this series even if it was only recent, who changed the trajectory of my life and had me find my paths.

I'll never forget these characters who made my life, who brought life to the story, even if they were just moved by the plot now, i'll always have a soft spot for AOT, i will always love it, regardless how much i hate it, there will always be fondness within it.

It's kind of weird, really to see Levi who has done so much to the fandom just by existing and being drawn and animated now cease to exist? I suppose, looking at him feels weird like imagine comparing 2014 levi to 2023 levi now omg, that's where you really begin to realize how much time has passed and how much AOT has evolved AGAIN JKSDHJ

well, i'm still on eren's side, still hate what happened to him but i'll always love him, he is such an important character to me, i don't think i truly ever loved someone like him despite representing the total opposite of me, he just had that charm i suppose, his views are so hauntingly beautiful, idealistic, him representing hope, despite what he did, in the end he did what he could for himself and for his people IN MY HUMBLE ONION

eren yeager i'll always love you

i'm kinda scared what would happen to this fandom now, will it die now? Will it live? I doubt, I haven't even finished my eren fic and lol, either way i hope someone will still enjoy AOT, i hope still there will be new watchers.

This is long but this is just how I really feelt about AOT which I wholeheartedly do love and cherish with all the memories and the pain it gave.

Thank you Isayama for this world, for these characters, for these mindblowing revelations about war, life and freedom, for the heartaches and the joy.

Thank you WIT for raising AOT and truly breathing life to it, for garnering fans for it to be more appreciated.

Thank you MAPPA for continuing WIT's legacy, you are not the same but still delievered, thank you for carrying the final season and the fandom on your back, may you sleep well and have your deserved pay.

Thank you for the voice actors who breathed those memorable lines to be used in edits.

Thank you Linked Horizon for coming back, aot was iconic because of your openings.

Thank you AOT for everything.

#shingeki no kyojin #snk #aot #attack on titan #thank you aot #thank you isayama

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co-reborn · 2 years

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2 Year Anniversary

2 years ago, while waiting for an activity to begin at around this hour, I opened up Apple Notes and begin writing fanfiction and smut for the first time.

I first started posting on Wattpad before moving my primary posting place to Tumblr in June 2021, having gained a bit more confidence. But it was still obvious that I have much more to learn.

I kept working on myself, trying to learn a bit from several authors and seeking help from them. I’ve improved significantly from when I’ve first started (the bar was just too low anyways) but I do know I need to work on myself more.

In total, I have posted 58 fics although 23 was written when inexperienced and left to rot on Wattpad lol

I’ve also hit 2.5k followers 10 days ago no one understood my weird ass message on discord lol

Thank you for following me, whether it was for all 2 years or just minutes ago. I’ll keep working hard to provide more content that you’ll enjoy 😁

So with all those words aside, here are some key points of these past two years:

feel free to skip these

June 2020: Bored c.o began writing, churning <1k words chapters almost daily on Wattpad.

December 2020: My book on Wattpad hit 25k views, somewhat the first milestone I was excited about

May 2021: I began to post my works on Tumblr under co-writes

June 2021: I began to interact with other members of the community… wait no. I only interacted with @sinswithpleasure in DMs lol. He gave me the whole idea for Bucket List even before part 2 came out and I have became BL’s biggest fan and expert. I also began my Community Idea project which had some semblance of success (to the extent that Ddeun unfollowed me cos I was spamming the feed with asks lol)

July 2021: I began interacting with other members of the community by joining ELP’s discord server and it pretty much changed my life. I talk to these people almost everyday now and my writing life would be much more stale without them. Thank you guys.

October 2021: I posted Conquer, thinking it was going to be a oneshot. But @worldsover loved it so much that it’s now a collaboration (my first! and only) and what seems to be my most successful series rip my other dead ones lol

November 2021: I was unhappy with my seemingly slow growth on co-writes and it was pointed out that it being a secondary blog on the account might have caused the problem. Hence, I locked the account up and moved over to this very blog, resetting all my followers and notes progress.

January 2022: Before irl shit came into my life, I wrote what is my most successful fic ever: Bust or Bust. I have no idea why it’s so well received but I’ll take it. Also, it marked my first fic featuring an idol outside of Twice (Fun fact: the first non-twice idol appearing on my blog was supposed to be Jiheon in Conquered Odds but the power of the horni)

~~~~~~

Well, those are the key points of my writing career that I can remember/find. Once again, thank you for sticking by my blog and reading my fics. It really makes my day whenever I see people enjoying what I put out.

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theonetheycallhannah · 3 years

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The Treatment of Captain Syverson-Chapter 20: Second Assist

Characters: Captain Logan “Sy” Syverson, Shane Benton (OFC), various other original supporting/secondary characters

Summary: Shane reunites with friends and family, hashes out some feelings, and gets real with Sy. Can their relationship survive her trauma? And the threat that still looms above them?

Romance and Smut Abound HERE!

Word Count: 4500

Warnings: Mention of rape, alcoholic beverages, violent imagery…feels out the butt.

Author’s Note: You guys are so splendid and beautiful! I can’t thank you enough for your support and encouragement to finish this piece. First, welcome to new readers! I know poor Henry’s injury and subsequent physiotherapy has driven some of you here, and while I’m sorry for him, I’m glad I can consider myself something of a pioneer in this particular genre and provide you some help for your newfound thirst. To my OG readers, it is to you I owe this entire work, parts written and incomplete, and I hope an eventual book deal. I mean to mention you in my acknowledgements, should this ever reach a willing publisher. You’ve inspired me so supremely that I cannot quantify it, even with the words I hold so dear.

Since my last chapter was posted, we’ve said a relieved goodbye to 2020 and a tentative hello to 2021. To be honest, this year has started out worse than last year. Lots of bad weather in my area this winter, my sister is currently on her way to a new life in another state, and my grandmother, the last grandparent I had, passed away in February. Those last two things have been especially difficult to shake off and recover from, both coming to fruition pretty suddenly. Amongst all that, I’ve been pretty distracted by my other fandoms, especially Marvel, and I’ve been reading a killer book series that I’m utterly in love with. (The Throne of Glass novels by Sarah J. Maas. 10/10 recommend.) But I knew I needed to get back into Shane and Sy’s story, especially given the new and rekindled interest in the subject matter. In all honesty, I’ve had most of it written for months. It’s just been a matter of finishing it off to set up the rest of the story.

I really hope you all enjoy Chapter 20, Second Assist, and would love your feedback and notes. You are all so important to this story, and your notes, reblogs, and comments are cherished. Thank you so much for reading! Love from Hannah!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, any characters from his films, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3. Unbeta’d because this is for fun and escapism. This is an original work by me, Hannah. Please reblog if you wish to share. Please do not repost either in whole or part, as the work of anyone but myself. Thanks so much for reading!

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If you want to be notified when I post a new chapter or work, I’ll be happy to add you to my tag list! Stricken blogs are getting personal messages from me when a new chapter is uploaded because Tumblr’s faulty tagging system will not stand in the way of me delivering what the people want!(?) lol! (Although…their lackadaisical notification system might…sorry for that. I have no control. lol!)

X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@X@

Shane woke in her warm bed, late morning sun streaming in through her sheer curtains, the heavier drapes parted to let in the light. She wished she'd remembered to close them before now. She really was not ready to be awake.

She was sore. Achy. Her sleep had been fitful and full of shadowy nightmares and muffled screams. Beyond that, she didn't try to remember images or events. She knew the general premise of the dreams. It would take a lot of time, effort, or a miracle to make her forget those traumas she'd been through in the last week. Not even forget. She knew she never would. But move on from them. Accept them. And heal from them…even that seemed a mighty obstacle. One she was not sure she could surmount.

Through the open bedroom door, she could hear Lynyrd Skynyrd and the clanging and sizzling of pans, and she could smell bacon and freshly brewed coffee. Sy had left the room, but had not, it seemed, gone far. She gingerly sat up, stood from the bed, and donned her robe as she walked out into the hall and down the corridor to the kitchen.

The sight before her warmed her heart. There was Sy. In only his boxers, daringly frying the notoriously dangerous breakfast meat. Upon her entry to the kitchen, she could also smell pancakes, and she thought syrup, as well. He seemed to be warming a bottle of the maple unction in a pot of hot water. He turned as she stepped on a squeaky floorboard, and grinned widely at her.

"Mornin' sunshine." And she was struck by the irony of someone with such a radiant smile calling her sunshine. Especially when she didn't feel much like beaming. But she couldn't help return the expression, even through her pain.

"Mornin' bear. Did you go to the store?" She knew she couldn't have any bacon in her fridge, and she doubted her eggs and milk were still good at this point. But she also couldn't think that he would leave her for any reason.

"Nah, some of the guys brought over some provisions. Matt worked on your car all night, too, and filled up the tank. It's as good as new. He and Nate brought ‘er over as well as the groceries. I just had ‘em get stuff I knew your family wouldn't be bringing later. They've had tons of food given to them this week, and they're ready to share. You should have seen your mom loading me down with sandwiches and chips and whatnot when I visited them."

"I still can't believe you met them. I really wanted to introduce you personally." Shane's face fell. She would never be able to get that back. She wanted to cry. Sy had poured her a cup of coffee and sat it in front of her with her favorite creamer.

"Darlin' I’m so sorry. I had to talk to them."

"I know." she sniffed. "I'm not mad. Not at you. Just…"she didn't want to say Elliott's name. "I'm disappointed that the experience was stolen from me." That so many things had been stolen from her. By that monster. There was no other way to describe him. Sy growled. As if he could read her mind. He really just knew her well enough and shared her thoughts.

"Well, don't worry, we'll have a nice dinner with them one of these days, and we can pretend. Sound good?"

"Yeah, and I can feign nervousness." she laughed.

"And I'll pretend too. That I'm scared to meet your dad." he chuckled. "What if he threatens me with his shotgun?"

"I'll pull the ol' 'Daddy, no, I loooooove him!' line, as I throw myself between you!"

"That oughta work." he laughed and kissed her on the forehead as he stepped toward the stove and flipped a pancake.

As they sat eating their late breakfast, Shane's mind wandered. Nothing had changed on the surface, but everything was different now. This cozily mundane breakfast with her boyfriend felt like an out of body experience. As delicious as it was, as wonderful and comforting as it should feel, her guard was up. Even through her amiable façade. She was not the person she was two weeks ago. She was not the same woman who said goodbye to Sy at the base. Maybe that was the real transformation. Maybe that was why nothing felt normal. It wasn't the world, but her own self coming back into it.

"Shane?" Sy asked, gently, but it felt like he was speaking through a megaphone directly into her ear. She was so startled, she nearly dropped the half full mug of coffee that was paused midway to her lips. A bit sloshed out onto the table and splashed her shirt.

"Shit!" she chided herself. It wasn't a big deal, but she felt stupid jumping at the sound of her own name.

Sy reached for the closest towel, hanging from the oven handle, grabbed it and started for her clothes with it. She stopped him. But she couldn't think about why the intimate act made her uncomfortable.

"No, don't, it's fine. These clothes have seen better days, anyway." She pulled the towel from him and began to mop up the small puddles of coffee around her plate.

Sy seemed to note the stains already present on the shirt, as if trying to divine their history. She was something of a messy eater, so the battle wounds of many a barbecue, spaghetti dinner, and hurried breakfast peppered the now off-white SATB club tee she'd gotten her second or third year in college choir. She thought back to a huge room with high ceilings. White, cinder block walls, flecked tile floors, a beautiful, glossy, black baby grand in front of a long whiteboard with black lines to resemble sheet music. She thought about the mnemonic device she'd learned to help her remember what notes appeared on each line, and in the spaces between them. She pondered the deeper meanings and implications of these devices. EGBDF…every good boy does fine. She thought about the "good boys" in her life. She knew many. Her dad, her brother Ethan, Sy, obviously, her many male coworkers and friends…and honestly they did far better than "fine." They were wonderful. But she was letting the "bad boys" she'd encountered dictate her mood. Permeate her psyche. Tear her down. She didn't want to be like this. Then FACE came to mind, and above their purpose of indicating the notes between the lines on the staff, they called her to action. To face these newly minted demons with all the strength she knew she possessed, and she too would "do fine." But as with almost all actions, this was easier said than done.

She felt a warm presence on her left hand which had paused it's torture of the now coffee-infused kitchen towel. Sy's hand was squeezing hers gently.

"Shane." he uttered, barely above a whisper this time. She looked at him through tears that she had not realized had formed. He continued.

"Shane, what can I do, darlin'? I'll do anything."

"Babe, you're doing everything you can, and more. This…this is all going to have to come from me. I…don't know when I'll be myself again…" she paused, tears streaming now. "I'm…I'm different."

"You're not though." he reached for her face, but she pulled away.

"I am, damn it! Sy, I was…" Words had power. And the one she was thinking of had more power than she thought was warranted. She knew that uttering it would take away it's power…and yet mustering the courage and strength to actually do so…seemed impossible. She took a deep breath, and disassociated herself from the statement, even though it was about her own past.

"I was raped." She refused to cry. She felt it all again. She had never said the words. She had never thought it necessary. Everyone understood. Sy, his friends, and she was sure her own loved ones had made the connection. But she knew she needed to say it now to drive home the points she was about to make.

Sy, looked at the table, nodding, not needing to be told in so many words something he already had surmised from the clear evidence. He remained silent. She went on.

"I love you, Sy. I have since the day we met, on one level or another, and I believe that I always will. But I…right now I can't be a proper girlfriend to you. I can't…be with you, touch you, be touched by you, in the way we used to be. In the way you deserve…and I don't know when…or even if…I ever will. Not that I don't want to. That's ALL I want in the world. To go back. To be the woman who fell in love with this…incredible man. To make love with you, but…I can't."

Sy's eyes were full of tears, their predecessors already descending his round cheeks and disappearing into his thick, dark beard.

"Sy, I don't want to lead you on and keep you tied to a relationship with no life in it. You deserve someone who's whole. Someone who can be a fully invested partner for you, and not this broken, damaged--"

"You stop that, Shane. I won't hear no more of this kinda talk. Y'hear? You're my girl. My woman. My person. No matter what. You gotta know I'd never leave ya just cuz you aren't ready for sex again. You don't think that I would, do ya?"

"Well, you went to Virginia…you took that job…knowing the distance it would put between us. Literally and figuratively."

"Biggest mistake of my life." Shane raised her eyebrows in surprise as Sy elaborated. "I couldn't focus on my classes without wishing you were there. Wishing I could team up with you for discussions and hand to hand combat training…that thought got me a little too excited, if you catch my drift." He smirked, pulling a sheepish smile from Shane. "Then in that forest. I dreamt about you every night. I thought of you constantly. I could barely breath sometimes, I missed ya so damned much. I was an idiot. I was insane to think that I needed anything other than you. Any MORE. There IS no more. You're it. You're the MOST! The most important thing in my life."

The declaration hung like vapors in the air, more felt than seen. Tangible yet ethereal.

"And when I found out that you were missing…I was…well, I think I looked like death…and not warmed over. You can ask the program director I met with after I got the news. She could tell I was just sick over it. And as I thought about it on the way home, pieced things together, started thinking about who'd taken you, I got murderous. Shane, I have been in dozens of battles, skirmishes, firefights, you name it. War. But…the sheer bloodlust I felt thinking about what you could be going through…I've never experienced anything like it. Everything was red. Everything. For days. Until I saw you, alive. And then it went red again when I saw the fear and damage on your face." she could tell he was doing his best not to talk about the farmhouse and that basement, but she still flashed back to the moments before and after his appearance there. The moments when she simultaneously prayed to live and hoped to die.

"You don't owe me anything, Shane. I just want you in my life, and I don't care what your presence looks like. Romantic, platonic, or somewhere in between. I'm here for you. And I wouldn't have it any other way."

Shane felt the urge to wrap her arms around her boyfriend, but could not seem to move more than one arm to place her other hand on top of his. She hoped the gratitude and love behind the small, but heartfelt gesture landed. It was all she had in that moment, no matter how abundant her affection.

~~~~~~~~~~

Shane's family's arrival was a complete blur to her. It was joyous, tearful, and the happiest she'd been in a long time. The moment she opened the front door for them, she was surrounded, engulfed with hugs from her parents and siblings. They stood in their affectionate huddle for several moments before Peg waved Sy over with marked insistence. He'd been standing by, observing happily, but not wanting to intrude on the familial reunion.

When they finally dispersed, John asked the two younger men to help him bring in groceries. The women headed into Shane's bedroom for a more private setting in which to talk. Shane filled her mother and sister in the best she could given the rawness of the wounds left on her mind by the events.

She leaned against the headboard cuddling with Gabby while her mom rubbed her feet. She had insisted on doing this thing that had always comforted her children, and made them feel much better when they were younger.

"Well, I'm very proud of you, pumpkin." The girls both looked at their mother, who rather uncharacteristically hadn't spoken in some time. Shane was nonplussed. Peg elaborated.

"You survived something that many women don't. You're talking about it now, which even more women don't. You may think you're broken, but you're just a tree damaged by a storm, but standing stronger than ever." Trust her mom to lay such wisdom on her. When she felt like giving up. When she just wanted pity. When she could only see defeat. Her mother had always found a way to encourage and buoy her and show her the victory.

"Mom's right." Gabby affirmed, and it was Peg's turn to be nonplussed, as the two women, though similar in so many ways, never seemed to see eye to eye. "It's true. Shane I've seen a lot of women come into the clinic in shoes very much like yours. And trust me…some of them…they don't make it to this point. You've got a long way to go before you're fully recovered, don't get me wrong, but you'll get there. You have us. And you have Sy."

"And then there's Sy." She diverted. "How am I supposed to plan any sort of future with him when…" She looked at her mom, and hesitated. Peg rolled her eyes.

"Shane, I know what the two of you get up to when you're alone. You don't have to be shy with me."

"Still…" she took a breath and spoke. "When I can't bring myself to…sleep with him?"

"Look at him, you're kidding, right?" Gabby chided, insensitively, but recanted at the pained expression on Shane's face. "Sorry, sis. Trying to lighten the mood a touch. Too soon. But seriously, I don't think this reluctance you feel will be permanent."

"And even if it is," Peg took over, "that man is out-of-his-mind in love with you, Shaney." She kissed Shane's toe before putting a sock on her foot. "He almost seems to worship you. Now, you know how I feel about using that term outside of religious context, but that is exactly the kind of love I want for you. Devout, and unconditional."

"But, mom, I can't--"

"Did you hear me? I said 'unconditional,' sweetie." Peg interrupted. "No matter what. No matter the obstacle. No matter the distance. No matter the circumstances. Love unwavering. That's what Sy has for you. I've seen it in him. Trust the momma."

The insistence her mother placed on trust had always ruffled Shane's feathers. Gabby's too, who she could feel stiffen slightly beside her. But Shane, for once, really wanted to trust her mother, hoping against hope that she was right. And that she, herself wouldn't screw up the best relationship she had ever been in or was likely to ever be in again.

The girls had begun talking about some of the coworkers who'd brought food in the past week, and Peg couldn't resist remarking on the character of her favorites and judging the ones she didn't care for…oddly enough, getting more or less, the correct measure of them, as Shane saw it.

After what must have been an hour from the time they'd arrived, they heard a knock on the slightly ajar bedroom door. John poked his head in.

"Ladies, we've put a casserole in the oven, and completed various manly projects around the house--"

"Oh, daddy, what projects?" She cringed. She hated that the men had felt the need to "fix" things.

"Babe, your guest bathroom had not one, but two leaky faucets, your kitchen table seemed to be more of a teeter-totter, and half the light bulbs in the living room were out. Among other tiny things. You're welcome." he smirked his crooked smirk so similar to her own, and she returned it as if he was looking in a mirror.

"Thanks, dad."

"Anyway, lunch is almost ready. So, when you've finished your confab, let's eat."

Dinner passed amiably, Shane found a reserve within herself to allow some quasi-normal behavior, as long as you didn’t look too closely. She was talking animatedly with her siblings, making their parents and Sy laugh riotously. Shane noticed some odd looks passing between Sy and her father, but chalked it up to paranoia. She wished at least Gabby and Ethan could stay, but Heather would be over soon, and she deserved her own dedicated time. Shane wanted to give that to her.

She said her farewells to her family with promises to visit them the next day, and at least one more time before her siblings went back home, if she could work it out.

Sy was so wonderful the whole time. Standing by her, a hand resting lightly on her shoulder as they waved goodbye to the departing vehicle. He made her feel so safe. They went into the kitchen and cleaned up from lunch. Well, Sy cleaned. Shane was texting Heather about when she'd be over.

"Heather says she'll be here in about a half hour. She's picking up wine and pizza." Shane told Sy without looking up from her phone. She could see out of the corner of her eye, though, that he had just closed the dishwasher and was selecting a cycle.

"Sounds great. Do you want me to get out of here? Give you guys some time, one on one?" He asked as he dried his hands, wet from preparing dishes for the machine.

She thought about it, and shuddered. She played a scene in her head that startled her. In her mind's eye, she saw Sy leave and then moments later heard a knock on the door. Presuming it was Heather, she opened the door with abandon, only to see Elliott standing there under a flickering porch light, smirking maliciously at her and ready to overpower and abduct her again. She shook the thought from her head, but remained uneasy as she answered his question.

"Uh, no. Thanks. I'm sure she'll want to talk to both of us. She likes you." Shane grinned softly at Sy in an attempt to mask her trepidation over the thought of him leaving her alone for any period of time. She thought it had worked.

"Okay, well, whatever you think, sunshine. I don't wanna get in the way." He was wiping down the countertops. She felt so impossibly full of love for him, she was starting to wonder how she hadn't yet burst with it. She couldn't bear the thought of holding him back from a fulfilling relationship. He deserved everything she couldn't give him right now. And she knew she should make him leave her. Cut him loose. But she was, as she'd been since she'd met him, a weak woman. She couldn't stand the thought of being without him. Of him no longer being hers. And somehow worse, of not being his, herself. She would always need him for so many reasons, not least of which being her love for him. Maybe one day, she'd recover from this trauma, and be able to be who he deserved. To give him what he needed.

"You're never in the way, bear." She walked up behind him, wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed him as tight as she could. He placed a loving hand over hers, sighing and smiling, though she had no visual proof of the latter. It was just a feeling.

Heather's greeting was no less exuberant than that of Shane's family, but it was more joyful and less emotional, even though she was immensely relieved to see her best friend after so long. They talked as if no time had passed, and Shane mustered up the dregs of her former self to have one more interaction for the day. Thank God it was Heather and not someone who would require more. She wouldn't have it to give.

"I am so glad you're okay, Shane! Things around the clinic have been bleak as fuck. Susan is loosing her mind, Anita is beside herself with concern, and the rest of us just plain ol' miss the hell out of you. And not just because of all of the overtime everyone has been pulling to get your patients seen."

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize…wow, I'm awful. I didn't even think---"

"That you'd be missed? Think again, sister. The place would fall apart if you ever really left. But don't feel guilty. It's the least everyone can do, and they've all said it themselves. We all love you, and know that you'd do the same for any of us if you could at all. Hopefully you won't have to, though!"

Shane nodded, eyes wide in agreement. She wouldn't wish the last week of her life on her worst enemy. On the worst person in the world. Except maybe the people responsible. Tit for tat.

"Well, I'm sorry my absence has caused extra work for all of you." Shane looked into the deep glass of Chardonnay Sy had poured her from the bottle Heather had brought. She felt about as small as the air bubble making it's way up the sloping curve of the stemless vessel. She felt a guilt that she knew was fully void of logic. It made no sense for her to feel guilt for being kidnapped. But she had always had this notion, this nagging voice in her head that told her that her misfortunes were a direct result of her decisions. That she'd inadvertently stepped on the butterfly that resulted in the monsoon she was currently experiencing, and whatever cataclysmic events she would face next.

"Why in God's name are you apologizing for this, Shay?" Heather's tone was kind, but still mildly scolding.

"If I'd never been with Elliott, none of this would have--"

"Bitch, are you a fortune teller?"

"No, but--"

"Soothsayer?"

"No."

"Time traveler?"

"I wish!" Shane chuckled. But she really did wish.

"Have you any real and proven success at consistently predicting the future?"

"I don't, but--"

"No. No buts. No howevers. You had no idea what becoming involved with Elliott could have done. Were there signs, sure. But you can't look on the past as a rubric to judge the quality of your decisions. You know that. You can only learn from your mistakes. And you have."

"Heather's right, sunshine. You really have learned. You look for Elliott's behaviors in mine and shut me down quick if you see 'em. You're not going to let yourself go down that road again. And I'm proud of you for it."

Shane silently worried her wine glass. It was hard to argue with such truth. But it was hard to agree when her own feelings were in such stark opposition. So she did neither.

"Well, I've preached my sermon for the day." she laughed. "I've taken up enough of your time. Oh, your phone. It's in my purse. I think it's fully charged, but I turned it off."

Shane thanked her friend, then Heather hugged them both and took her leave.

"Y'okay, bug?" Sy asked her after what she surmised was several minutes of silence. Minutes she didn't notice as they passed.

"Mmm…" she trailed off.

"Can I do something for ya?" And she really thought about the question. He could probably do a lot of things for her. He could make love to her until she felt whole again, even if it hurt her at first. Not an ideal option. He could probably get them both some new identities and enough money to spirit her away to somewhere her past wouldn't follow. If she became someone new, literally, would she have to bring that old baggage, those old scars, with her? Again, suboptimal. But he could definitely take the source of all grief and turmoil in her life far into the Missouri back country, somewhere not even the hunters would venture, some fallow field or forgotten cistern, and end him. Snuff out his spark of life like a candle caught in a tornado. Spill a fatal amount of his monstrous blood onto the unforgiving earth and send him to the Hell to which he was undoubtedly destined. But did she want that? Did she want another soul as a scar on that of the man she so deeply cherished? He'd say it was worth it. He'd say he'd take a thousand more for her. A million. That was Sy.

"Nothing comes to mind." She lied. And he knew it was a lie, but didn't push it. She was so grateful that he respected her, not for the lie itself, but for the reason she wasn't giving him the whole truth just now.

His phone went off and he picked it up as he stood from his seat at the table. She could only hear that it was Matt, the guy she thought she understood had the car place, before she heard tension in Sy's voice. Even from the next room, she could tell something was wrong, though he was talking too quietly for her to make out words.

She heard him suddenly shout a stream of profanities that he rarely said at all around her, at least, let alone together. There was a bang, and the walls of her kitchen quaked like the tectonic plates beneath them were shifting.

Sy walked back in, his face was red, as were his knuckles. He was shaking an injury out of his hand.

"What's wrong?" she asked, deep concern at his appearance and demeanor, suddenly ominous.

"I need to fix your wall in there." he grumbled, evading, without success. She'd be doing therapy on his hand, next.

"What's really wrong?" she repeated, sternly.

"That was Matt. Elliott's…escaped, somehow. He's in the wind."

Shane's heart became so heavy, she could almost feel it smashing through the kitchen floor and burying itself deep in the cement floor of her basement.

"Oh, God! No! What if he goes to the police!?"

"Fuck that, I'm more concerned about him coming after you!"

The two stared, faces full of equal measures of concern for the other.

Up Next: Chapter 21-Patient Education

#netflix #netflix sand castle #captain syverson #Captain Syverson x OFC #captain syverson fanfic #sigh for sy #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x reader

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topsytervy · 3 years

Text

New Years with Rafe

Just a little post about Rafe and you on New Years that I whipped up cause my lonely ass will be sat on the couch with a pizza next to my dog as I rewatch JackSepticEyes Little Nightmares playthrough instead of cuddled on the couch with a gentlemen non-canon Rafe.

Warnings: mentions of drinking, swearing, poorly edited so probably spelling errors, if you haven't watched All Dogs Go To Heaven small spoiler for it but not big enough to spoil the entire movie I think, and I think thats it.

Word Count: 1,089

Blurb: you spend New Years Eve with Rafe instead of going out and partying cause you two want to keep people safe. No shade. Just facts.

~~~~~

You and Rafe Cameron had been best friends for as long as you could remember. You were only a year younger than him and just graduated high school, heading off to college a couple months later before COVID and Rafe ended up moving with you.

"I don't know, Y/N. You living in an apartment alone or in a dorm with a stranger just doesn't sit right with me." He told you honestly as you packed your things.

"What? You wanna move with me and away from all your loyal subjects?" You joked, adding a little bow to it.

"Yeah. Why not? Besides New Years will be boring if you're not here to almost flash everyone at a party and I stop you just in time." He grinned.

You smacked him. "It was once and it was windy, Cameron." He laughed, grabbing a pillow to act as a shield. "But if you're so worried about me, I wouldn't mind a familiar face around 24/7 even if it's an annoying one."

Rafe stood up and clapped his hands. "Then it's settled."

However, New Years parties were on hold (well, supposed to be on hold but you know how some people are) due to COVID.

"You were right about New Years being boring." You mustered through a yawn as you sat on the couch, curled up under a blanket as you and Rafe watched TV. A wine cooler sat between you two and you reached for the bottle, refilling your glass before refilling Rafes. "I think I'm going to turn in early. 2020 doesn't deserve a nice send off. It deserves a fuck you, get out, and never come back or I'll get a restraining order against you." You went to stand up but Rafe grabbed your hand.

Rafe checked the watch on his wrist. "Five more minutes. Just five. You made it this far, Y/N/N. What's five more?"

You blinked at him and he stuck out his bottom lip, pouting at you.

You rested your head on his shoulder and sighed. "Fine. But if I fall asleep, you have to carry me to bed."

"Fine by me. Wouldn't be the first or the last time I do."

It was so much easier to stay awake when you were away from your bed and surrounded by strangers and loud music. You and Rafe decided on a childhood movie marathon to help keep you two awake but it wasn't really helping. Rafe wanted to watch All Dogs Go To Heaven despite it always making you cry. And crying would only fuel the sleepiness.

"I really don't wanna go into the New Year crying." You mumbled as he put the disc in.

"I have so much confidence that this is the time that you won't let tears fall." Rafe reassured you.

"Yeah. Wait until we get towards the end then my heart will crack and the tears will fall."

Now here you were watching Anne-Marie hearing everything Charlie was saying that would lead to her running out and getting kidnapped.

"The tears are coming." You whispered, feeling your throat tighten as you held back sobs.

Rafe wrapped and arm around you. "She just got taken and they're about to tell everyone. This isn't even the saddest bit."

"It's just the sense of all the dogs, even Itchie who was pretty cold to Anne-Marie, are all spreading the word and willing to do anything to protect this little girl that half of them didn't even meet." The tears began to fall as you spoke.

"Okay, okay. I see your point. Maybe this was a bad movie to watch." Rafe rubbed your arm.

"It hurts so much worse when you lose a pet cause it's like 'wow, my pet was exactly like that with me. Willing to do anything to protect me', ya know. It just fucking hurts man." You blubbered.

"Want me to turn it off?"

"No."

"Alright. I'll pause it when we hit 15 seconds to midnight. Sound good?"

You nodded, sniffling as you tried to calm yourself down. Rafe reached for the box of tissues on the end table and grabbed some for you.

"Thank you, bub."

"You're welcome, Y/N/N."

The time came a couple of minutes later to pause the movie and begin the countdown, you had composed yourself for the countdown and Rafe nodded.

"10...9...8…"

You brought the blanket closer around yourself as you two counted down.

"3...2...1… Happy New Year!" You two cheered. Rafe reached onto the floor and grabbed the bottle of champagne he had purchased, opening it and pouring some for you both.

You two linked your arms and brought the glasses to your mouth, chugging the beverage before unlinking your arms from each other.

"To getting through 2020 together." You grinned.

"And to going into 2021 together but in a different way." Rafe added before grabbing your face and bringing his lips to yours.

You paused for a second before wrapping your arms around his neck and kissing back, pulling him impossibly closer.

Rafe pulled away first, grabbing the champagne and refilling your glasses. You kept an arm around his neck, a hand playing with his hair as you held your glass in the other.

"How'd you know, Cameron? I thought I was pretty good at keeping my crush on you secret." You asked, taking a sip from your glass.

"Oh yeah. If I wouldn't have found your journal and read it while I was waiting for you to get home one day after you graduated, I wouldn't have known at all about your little crush. You really don't flirt much, huh?"

You smacked him, mouth agape. "You read my journal?"

"Okay, underneath random books on your desk is a shit hiding place for a journal. Hide it in your underwear drawer or something. Literally anywhere else is a better hiding place than where you had it." He laughed.

You rolled your eyes. "Just unpause the movie so we can finish it and go to sleep, Rafe."

"As long as I get to sleep with you in your room tonight."

"Your room is warmer. I wanna sleep in there."

"Then we'll sleep in my room." Rafe grinned as he kissed the top of your head and resuming the movie.

"Now I have an excuse to crawl into your bed at 2 AM when I can't sleep and want your body heat."

"You never needed an excuse to come cuddle with me, sunshine. You just didn’t know it."

~~~~~~~

#drew starkey #rafe obx #outerbanks rafe #rafe outer banks #rafe cameron #rafe x reader #drew obx

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aster-aspera · 3 years

Text

Just a short chapter I wrote for new year.

CW: child abandonment, homelessness

Pairings: romantic/platonic DLAMP, romantic anxceit

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you have a great day/night and I hope 2021 brings everyone better tidings <3

Masterpost

Janus ignored the urge to straighten his bowtie before walking up the small path that led to the house. As much as he wished he could make some final adjustments to his look, his hands were currently full, with flowers on one side and his cane on the other. He figured dropping either to fiddle with his bowtie would be a rather ridiculous look.

It would be fine, he told himself. It was just a small celebration at their house, it didn't matter how he looked. They loved him, they wouldn’t judge him.

And oh, those words. They loved him.

The thought made him simultaneously want to leap with happiness and run for the hills as fast as he could. It was so terrifyingly new and at the same time it felt so comfortably familiar. The phone calls that lasted way longer than they should. The bad days when all of them came over and baked him bread. The banter over the comms when he was too tired to join in on patrol. They loved him.

A raven haired head popping itself out the door distracted him from his brooding.

“Dude, are you just gonna spend the whole evening standing in our garden or are you gonna come in?” Virgil asked.

“I was just admiring the flowers,” Janus drawled.

Virgil raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Come in, everyone’s waiting for you.”

He stepped inside and handed Virgil the flowers.

“Aww, are those for us? How sweet,” Virgil cooed.

Janus definitely didn’t blush. “It’s polite.”

“It’s romantic,” Virgil teased.

“Virgil,” Janus sighed, trying to sound exasperated but only managing to sound fond.

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop. Come on, I need to start frying the gulab jamun.”

“You’re making gulab jamun?” Janus asked, pleasantly surprised. They were apparently a famed treat in this household.

“Yeah,” Virgil stopped when he walked into Roman.

“And now he shows up,” Virgil snarked “Here, go put these in a vase, I have dessert to attend to.” He shoved the flowers into Roman’s hands and quickly disappeared into the kitchen.

Roman beamed at Janus.

“Hello darling,” He purred “You look absolutely stunning.”

“You are not allowed to use that nickname, it’s mine, I licensed it,” Janus protested.

“Oh, but I just love the way it flusters you, darling.”

Janus could feel the heat creeping all the way from under his collar up to his cheeks. Roman was definitely getting back at him for all the times Janus had flustered him in costume.

“Roman, stop,” Janus sighed as he gently pushed his shoulder.

Roman just chuckled and led him into the living room, where Logan was arranging some snacks.

“Guess who arrived!” Roman announced to the entire house.

Logan looked over and smiled brightly.

“Hello Janus, you look good.”

“As do you,” Janus complimented as he walked over to shake his hand. Logan ignored the proffered hand and pulled him into a hug.

Well, okay. He hadn’t seen that one coming.

Of all four of them, Logan was the least keen on physical contact. Patton and Roman were always going in for surprise hugs and even Virgil would frequently rest his head on Janus’s shoulder. But Janus had only ever seen Logan hug his boyfriends. And that one memorable time when Janus had nearly drowned and Logan had cuddled him to keep him warm, but he really prefered not to think about that.

“Will you be joining us for patrol?” Logan asked when he pulled away.

“No, not today.” Janus lifted his cane a bit to illustrate his point.

Logan nodded understandingly. “We’ll be happy to have you on comms for tonight.”

Janus made his way into the kitchen, where Patton was sliding something into the oven as Roman bothered him.

“You can’t bake something at 1800 degrees, Roman, that’s not how baking works.” Patton sighed. He noticed Janus entering the kitchen and beamed at him.

“Dee!” Patton smiled at him. “I’m so happy you’re here. Food’s nearly ready. ”

“Why not? 10 minutes at 180 degrees equals 1 minute at 1800 degrees. That’s how math works.” Roman interjected.

“Well, it’s not how ovens work,” Virgil groaned, from where he was bent over the frying pan, a little closer to the hot oil than was probably safe.

“If you guys would just listen to me, food would be ready in a minute,” Roman sighed.

“Virgil’s right, sweetie, that’s not how ovens work,” Patton said.

Virgil stuck his tongue out.

“Very mature,” Janus laughed.

Eventually, when all the food had been baked at an acceptable temperature, they gathered around the table.

“So, does anyone have any new year’s resolutions?” Patton asked them.

“New year’s resolutions are just a festive way of lying to yourself. Nobody actually keeps them,” Janus said.

“See! He gets it,” Virgil said triumphantly.

“Come on,” Patton pleaded, “humour me.”

Virgil sighed and rolled his eyes, but Janus could see the fondness in them.

“Well, my new year’s resolution is to take more time to read books I’ve been meaning to read. I have a whole pile of interesting paperbacks,” Logan went first.

“Of course you would choose something so nerdy,” Roman teased, “My resolution is to spend as much time as possible with you, my loves,” He swept a grand gesture over the room and Janus tried not to think about how he was somehow included in that, “and I vow to give you all the kisses and hugs you deserve.”

“Well, next year I resolve to make better bad decisions and to remember to write 2021 instead of 2020,” Patton chimed in with a bright smile, “but in all seriousness, I hope to spend more time writing next year and maybe sign up for some art classes.”

“That’s a great idea, Pat, I might join you for those,” Virgil said.

“See, now you have some new year’s resolutions too.”

“What about you, Janus?” Logan questioned.

“Well, I guess if I have to, I resolve not to kill as many people this year,” He answered sarcastically.

Patton shot him a look. “Try again.”

“Fine,” Janus sighed, “I resolve to read more books, I guess.”

“Splendid resolutions, my dear lord of the lies,” Roman praised.

“Are we going to eat now? We have to patrol in a few hours,” Virgil complained.

“As always, you really have your priorities sorted, Virgil,” Logan said teasingly.

Logan shrugged himself into his costume with precise movements and fastened the cloak at his neck.

“You know, I really don’t get the cloak. Isn’t it awfully impractical?” Janus asked him from where he was draped against the door frame.

“Maybe, but I distinctly remember it coming in handy when you nearly died of hypothermia. How would people say it? It saved you ass?” Logan answered smugly.

“That was one time, you can’t tell me you wear a ridiculous cape,”

“Cloak.”

“Whatever, because someone might fall into the harbour. How often does that even happen?”

“More than you’d think. Also, Batman wears a cloak.”

“Batman is designed by nerds who don’t even know how to throw a punch, it’s a wonder you haven’t tripped over it yet when vaulting over rooftops.”

“Unlike some people who don’t need a cloak to trip when vaulting over rooftops?” Logan asked, voice full of faux innocence.

Janus growled exasperatedly and punched his arm, in the friendly way.

“As much as I love hearing you two bicker, we do need to start patrol,” Roman interrupted.

“Bye, Dee!” Patton hugged him and gave him a quick kiss on the nose before bustling out the door.

Roman and Logan followed in quick succession, pressing kisses to his cheek and forehead. They sauntered out of the room, leaving him reeling with the ease they had done that.

Virgil smirked up at him from where he was sitting at the computer, looking over some police reports.

“What?” Janus asked him.

“Nothing,” Virgil replied with a shit eating grin, “You just look awfully cute when you blush.”

“I’m not cute,” Janus snarled.

“Whatever you say,” Virgil replied as he walked past him. He stopped for a moment, staring into Janus’s eyes. His look didn’t bode well for Janus. He placed a gentle hand on the back of Janus’s neck and then pulled him close.

“Is this okay?” He asked, his eyes drifting to Janus’s lips.

“Very,” Janus managed, his voice a little rough.

Virgil leaned forward and pressed a soft but insistent kiss on his lips. Janus felt himself leaning into it, the sweet taste of honey and saffron overwhelming his senses.

After what felt like a mere fraction of a second, Virgil pulled away. Janus made a small noise of protest and Virgil chuckled.

“Later,” He promised, “I have to go patrol now.”

He walked out the room, leaving Janus feeling lightheaded and wondering if the others were as good at kissing as Virgil. He sincerely hoped so.

Patrol was surprisingly uneventful. Generally, the statistics indicated there was a rise in crime around the holiday period. New year itself was always quite a hazardous day, with the large crowd of people out at late hours and the fireworks masking any sounds that could give you away.

Yet this year, Logan had found himself inexplicably looking out to the new year. Maybe it was the fact that a certain former villain had enthusiastically agreed to come over and celebrate.

Whatever the reason, the city had decided to grace them with a calm night and Logan sat on a rooftop ledge, watching Virgil teach Patton a back handspring on the adjoining rooftop.

“Can you do one of those?” Janus asked him over the comms as they watched Patton fall onto his back for the third time.

“They’re not too hard.”

“That doesn’t answer the question, nerd,” Roman chimed into the conversation from where he was checking out an alleyway somewhere.

“I’m sure I could manage it,” Logan sighed.

“Like Patton’s managing this one?” Virgil quipped as Patton landed on the ground once more. Logan was incredibly grateful for the shock absorbent breastplate he wore.

“I nearly got that one!”

“Sure, pat.”

“Shit,” He heard Roman hiss through the comms.

“What?” Janus’s voice was immediately on edge and Logan heard the familiar clicking of keys, telling him Janus was probably pulling up the live feed from Roman’s mask.

“Oh,” He said.

“What’s going on?” Patton asked, righting himself from the wet rooftop.

“A kid,” Roman gasped.

Logan felt his heart clench.

“Is he hurt?” Virgil asked.

“No, not as far as we can see, but he does look malnourished,” Janus explained.

Logan got up and quickly swung down from the rooftop, the others right behind him.

They entered the alleyway, where Roman was crouched in the corner, whispering quietly.

He looked up and gestured for them to stay back. They obliged, Patton sitting down against a wall as Virgil walked a bit further back to make sure no one would enter the small street.

Logan leant against a dumpster bin, trying not to look too threatening.

“It’s alright, we won’t hurt you. Could you just tell me your name?” Roman asked gently.

“My mom told me never to give a stranger my name,” The kid deadpanned.

Logan smiled, if the kid was quipping back, he couldn’t be in too bad a shape.

“Touché” Roman chuckled, “you can call me prince.”

“Like the singer?” The kid asked with an audible chuckle.

“No,” Roman sighed and Logan heard Patton giggle.

“Well, you probably should have chosen a better name then.”

“Probably,” Roman said, “At least give me something I can call you, if you’re not gonna tell me your name.”

The kid thought for a moment. “Fine,” he drawled, “You can call me J.”

“Ok, well J, that corner doesn’t look all that comfortable, if you would come with us, I’m sure we could find you more suitable lodgings.”

“No!” J snapped, fear colouring his voice.

“Why not?” Roman asked, clearly taken aback.

“You’ll just stick me in the system and... they don’t want me there.” J choked up a bit and Logan saw Patton’s eyes fill with sympathy.

“No, we won’t,” Roman promised.

“Oh yeah? What’re you gonna do with me then? Nobody wants some abandoned street rat.” J sighed bitterly. Logan ached at how he seemed to have given up any hope of someone caring for him. The poor kid had clearly been through too much in his life.

“Do you really have no one left?” Roman asked.

“Do you think I’d be sleeping on the streets if someone still cared about me?”

Roman looked back at them helplessly.

“Isn’t there anywhere he could stay on short notice?” Virgil asked.

“I have people,” Janus interjected quietly.

“Dee, no!” Patton exclaimed, “we’re not going to drop some kid off with those thugs you work with.”

“Not like that,” Janus sighed and Logan could almost see him pinching the bridge of his nose, “I know someone who works for me who’s really good with kids. He and his partner have fostered kids before. I think they could help him.”

“Really? You think he’d just be okay with it if we rolled up with a kid?”

“I’d have to discuss it with him first, but I’m certain we can find a home for J, if not with this guy, we’ll definitely find someone else.”

“I could ask my moms,” Patton conceded,” I don’t think they’re up for another kid, but they might know someone who wants to take care of him.”

“And what for tonight? We can’t really show up at someone’s house and just drop him off.” Virgil said.

“Take him to our home,” Logan suggested.

“Are you crazy? That’s a huge security risk,” Virgil burst out.

“We can’t just leave him in the cold to freeze,” Patton protested.

“I have a safe house near where you are, just take him there,” Janus interjected.

“Is that settled then?” Roman asked them from where he was still crouched in the corner, the annoyance clear in his voice.

“Yeah, I think so,” Patton replied.

“Okay kid, let's get moving. We’re taking you to a safehouse near here,” Roman told him.

“Did you explain everything to him?” Logan asked, he really hadn’t heard Roman say anything.

“Of course, you guys were too busy bickering to notice.”

J still regarded them warily and Logan was vaguely worried he was going to bolt the moment they got out of the alleyway.

“Hey,” Logan said, trying not to sound too awkward, “we’re not just going to abandon you to the system. We're heroes and that means we’ll find a way to help anyone.”

J just looked up at him with an unimpressed expression. “Right.” He shouldered past Logan, heading to where Virgil was waiting.

Patton quickly caught up to them, probably because Virgil was looking at the kid like he wanted to flee to the nearest rooftop.

“So you’re really not gonna tell us your name?”

“No.”

“You guys want me to head to the safe house too?” Janus asked, ignoring their chatter.

“We’d love that,” Roman beamed, “We might even be just in time for the new year.”

They got J settled on the ratty couch in the squalid safe house. It wasn’t a terrible safe house, it was actually quite clean. It just clearly wasn’t used for much except the occasional emergency.

Janus arrived quickly, dropping a bag filled with what Logan presumed was food.

J froze when he saw Janus. “Deceit?” He asked and Logan felt his stomach plummet. Of course the kid would be afraid, they had trapped him in a small space together with the city’s most notorious crime lord. It didn’t matter that Janus had never and would never harm a child, his reputation was terrifying enough.

But inexplicably, the kid’s shoulders relaxed and he seemed moderately more at ease.

“You know, most people don’t look so at ease in my presence,” Janus said, clearly also puzzled by the reaction.

J shrugged. “You’re not that bad, you’ve helped a lot of my friends, gave them jobs and places to stay. You do more for the street kids of this city than these heroes.”

Roman gasped in mock offence. Logan shrugged. It made sense, they didn’t have the resources or connections to help kids like J, but Janus had been putting an effort into helping the worst off in their city for years. It seemed his efforts hadn’t gone as unnoticed as they had previously assumed.

Janus grinned at them, his expression smug and then grabbed something from the bag.

“Here,” He held out a soft sweater, “this is for you, it would be a shame if we went through all the trouble of getting you here and then you died from hypothermia.”

“You could just invest in a space heater for this place,” Virgil complained.

“Sure, because this space is used so often. It definitely isn’t a waste of money to purchase heaters for all those safe houses I barely use,” Janus snarked.

J ignored their bickering and sauntered over to the window, pulling the sweater over his head.

“Hey, guys,” Patton interrupted, “I think it’s time.”

Logan looked at the time on the corner of his display. He was right, the clock told him there was only one minute left of this year.

They all gathered round the window, looking out over the city.

“To new beginnings,” Patton announced.

“To new beginnings,” They all replied. J just rolled his eyes.

Logan felt Patton clutch his arm and Janus loop an arm around his waist as bright fireworks exploded over the city skyline. He looked over at his friends, how they stood gathered together, their faces awash with the colours of the fireworks.

And he looked at J, the young kid who was staring at the fireworks as if they were something magical, his hands tangled in the sleeves of his sweater.

Logan promised himself he would do everything to get him a good home, he deserved so much more than the world had given him.

New beginnings, it was a fitting sentiment.

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theseerasures · 2 years

Text

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2021

looking back i realize that declaring “it’s that time of year again!” on the SECOND year i did this was ill-advised, because now i don’t have any other way introduce this shindig that doesn’t end up repeating myself. might have been premature, too! because this is the year i came closest to not actually meeting the goals i set due to exam fuckery eating up the entirety of my November--but hey! that’s what catch-up weeks are for.*

*not actually what catch-up weeks are for, since catch-up weeks are for catching up to media instead of forgoing media altogether so i can cram more theory i don’t understand into my head

ANYWAY. explanation for what this is here, for the...actually not-few of you who started following me this year, but the tl;dr is that i consume a different content every week for 48 weeks and share my thoughts at the end.

(”but Helen!!!” one may point out, “aren’t you already obnoxiously long-winded when you limit yourself to talking about one thing? how much longer will it take for you to talk about 48 at once???”

and...yeah. buckle up.)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 trade finished 1/1/2021): distinctly remember last year saying something to the tune of “don’t think i read enough to form lasting impressions” and wow!!!! i love being right and correct as usual. there was a literal moment when i was reading the trade this year when i whispered “holy shit” to myself, because holy shit!!! the action and characterization picked up and were top notch.

The Baby-Sitters Club (TV, 1 season finished 1/6/2021): after demon tiddy apocalypse in 2019 and Eastern European depression in 2020 i was like “fuck this!!! i’m gonna pick a CHEERFUL thing and that too will foreshadow how this year goes” and guess what! this year was terrible anyway!! but i did enjoy BSC immensely, because it was an updated adaptation with some actual thought put into it, and all the middle schoolers LOOK like middle schoolers. and are adorable, even if their middle school shenanigans gave me so much secondhand embarrassment i had to watch “Boy-Crazy Stacey” in 30 second spurts and now THAT is Leah’s entire impression of the show as opposed to the gazillion times i have protested that it is actually good

House of X/Powers of X (comic, 12 issues finished 1/7/2021): obviously i’d already read them, but X of Swords made me nostalgic all over again so i went back. still care nothing for the conspiracy mytharc nonsense, but damn does Hickman know how to characterize. Emma Frost overlooking Krakoa before sighing and declaring “one more time, then. for the children” is just *chef’s kiss*, even if i’m not too fond of RB Silva’s weirdly leonine character art.

The Prophets (book, finished 1/11/2021): what a fucking DEBUT NOVEL that instantly made it into my field exam list. “queerness among slaves in antebellum South” is breathtaking in concept alone, but the next level lyricism really made the book shine.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 2 trades finished 1/13/2021): was also more taken with this than i had been in previous years! “Hulk does social justice” feels like a hackneyed concept but Ewing’s virtuosity really makes it work.

The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata (book, finished 1/16/2021): am i lit snob?? rhetorical question don’t answer obvie but i’ve found that it’s usually books that leave me thinking “meh could be better” when i’d be more forgiving otherwise. i’d heard about Gina Apostol and both subject and style seemed like my thing so i really wanted to like it, but it didn’t end up doing a lot for me.

Evermore (album, finished 1/17/2021): is better than folklore??? as usual i am not prepared to die on this hill due to reasons of “i don’t actually care THAT much about Taylor Swift” but more songs stood out here imo

WandaVision (TV, 2 episodes finished 1/20/2021): wow, the first two episodes of this show were great, right??? i’m so glad i immediately stopped watching after the premiere so my opinion could remain unsullied, it was definitely on purpose

The Idler Wheeler is Wiser Than Wow Look at That I Made Slightly More Than a Token Effort to Write the Entire Title Down (album, finished 1/21/2021): i listened to this when it first came out, but i don’t think i was old enough to appreciate it until...basically now, almost a decade later. there’s something very disconcerting about Fiona Apple’s music, but damn does it get stuck in you anyway.

Remote Control (book, finished 1/26/2021): can you believe Nnedi Okorafor wrote TWO BOOKS this year?? it’s been a while since i read Binti, but i think i might prefer Remote Control, which is less sci fi and more...magitech realism? is that a thing? anyway, it was good. quality meditation on death, which is all anyone could want.

Lazarus (comic, 2 issues finished 1/27/2021): should i be calling it Lazarus Risen now? is that the official title? didn’t stand out as much this year, but maybe that’s because the other comics i read were so astonishingly good. i...think Johanna is planning something Devious that would upend the status quo, so i’m excited to catch up, but we haven’t gotten there yet.

We Could Be Heroes (book, finished 2/2/2021): see above: i’m a lit snob. it’s a cute book and an interesting concept, but given how much speculative fic has flexed its creative and thematic muscles in recent years it comes off as...well, as definitely a first book, which i’m not gonna fault Mike Chen for, but here we are.

Rainbow (album, finished 2/3/2021): see above: Fiona Apple nostalgia. the difference here i think is that i was already affected by this album the first time i listened to it, but revisiting it after High Road altered my experience, i think? the rage and heartbreak felt like it had more there-there, even as just a spectator.

Milk Blood Heat (book, finished 2/5/2021): absolute fabulous short story collection and probably my book of the year—and again, a DEBUT WORK. Moniz’s style is just. concentrated viscera cloaked in a matter-of-factness which both mutes and amplifies??? it’s magic??

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/7/2021): the past year’s worth of content was apparently so cursory i finished it in two days and have no memory of anything that happened. i think Lana flirted with that one buff Twi’lek sniper lady? was that this year? one of my husbands came back, the one i married less accidentally? it’s all a blur.

The Absolute Book (book, finished 2/13/2021): i don’t usually go for full-on fantasy in my novel reading these days, but i’m VERY glad i picked this up. probably the longest book i’ve read this year, and suitably epic with juuuuust the right amount of metatextual chin stroking. it was a little weird to read this and then That Ted Chiang Short Story About Angels almost immediately after for my exams, but i’m not ever gonna be UNPLEASANTLY surprised by more meditations on the divine than i anticipated.

Picture This (comic, finished 2/16/2021): don’t think i’m as taken with this than i had been with What It Is, but it’s. y’know. it’s Lynda Barry, so i loved it.

The Next Batman (comic, 4 issues finished 2/17/2021): proooobably should have read Death Metal BEFORE this instead of after, but if the point of Future State was to intrigue newcomers with accessible stories it…did succeed? i don’t know much about the Fox side of the Extended Batfam, but Ridley made them all interesting people with depth, so.

Hyperbole and a Half (comic, finished 2/19/2021): after not liking Solutions and Other Problems as much as this last year i thought i’d go back to this just to be sure i wasn’t remembering it with rose colored classes, and—nope, it’s still my preferred of the two, even though there are moments in Solutions that stand out more individually.

It’s A Sin (TV, 1 season finished 2/22/2021): as soon as i started watching i was like “this is gonna be my favorite thing of the year isn’t it” and…yeah. even if the rest of the year had not been a weirdly underwhelming trickle, this still would have clenched it. i HAVE critiques (obviously), but it’s Rusty and i love Rusty, and it feels like a Rusty who had more creative control, which…also explains some of the flaws, but i’m very happy it exists nonetheless. has the distinction of being the only show Leah and i successfully finished watching together this year

Legend of Zelda (game, Breath of the Wild finished 4/12/2021): BotW is still topical, right? the sequel released a trailer this year? anyway. i liked it! the story was decidedly on the Fine side of things, mostly because of Open World Pacing Syndrome, but Zelda was a BITCH and i love her. gameplay remains my favorite iteration of any Zelda, and i very much enjoyed watching Leah turn purple over the fact that i refused to get the Master Sword until right before the end. didn’t end up fighting a single Lynel, and i wasn’t even trying to avoid them? oh well.

Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (album, finished 4/13/2021): kind of waffled over whether i should count this since i have a strict “no re-release” policy wrt this project, but in the end i decided there was enough new content (and special context) to warrant including it. and it’s…impossible for me to gauge the quality of this, actually? a lot of songs from OG Fearless were popular during the only time in my life i listened to the radio, and hearing them again just hurled me back to the Bad High School Times, which was not fun. and it made me miss Marlena.

Way of X (comic, 1 issue finished 5/18/2021): Si Spurrier writes good comics! i feel like in recent years i’ve heard a lot of hype for his stuff, and even though i barely dipped a toe in here there was enough to get me interested. sidebar: i really do love the tight collaborative networks during Hickman’s X-Men—it feels like one writer can drop something that another WILL pick up, even if it might not be right away.

Fire Emblem (2 games: Fates and Three Houses, finished 6/12/2021): i think i’ve said all i’ve needed to on Fates and its truly GLARING misogyny here, so i’ll let that lie. Three Houses was good! i don’t think it was some kind of UTTER revolution in storytelling or whatever but it is certainly the most thoughtfully written Fire Emblem i’ve played. Edelgard is a small dumb baby and i cherish every moment i bully her. i have now played all four routes multiple times and am currently working on Crimson Flower Maddening, because i truly cannot overestimate how much Fire Emblem’s gameplay makes my brain go brrrrr, and…how the routes stack up against each other probably merits its own post, doesn’t it? so suffice to say i have complicated thoughts on it.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (manga, 5 volumes finished 8/8/2021): logistical note since i know the manga has been packaged a bazillion different ways since original publication: i was going by original tankobon, which in retrospect was not a smart thing to do because it meant that i finished Phantom Blood and then read a teeeeensy bit of *Googles furtively* Battle Tendency. the wholehearted campy hilarity was enough for me to finish the first arc, but the amateurish art and (again!) rampant misogyny put me off enough that i didn’t really have any interest in continuing. yes i KNOW the anime is better i have seen some episodes yes i knoooowwwwww the stories become more sophisticated but i don’t have the patience sorry

The Tangleroot Palace (book, finished 8/14/2021): i put Monstress on my fields list and then didn’t adore it and felt like a bad Asian, so i picked this up too, and i liked it a lot!!! Marjorie Liu’s prose writing roots are impressive, and it had queer shit AND fairy tale subversion, so if i crossed my eyes a little—actually never mind

Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth (book, finished 8/19/2021): here’s something no one here knows about me but will probably make everyone go “yeah that tracks”: for the (very very short) time i toyed with the idea of writing professionally, i mostly trained as a poet. i don’t think i’ve read Komunyakaa since those days and was kind of worried i’d stopped having Those Feelings (what feelings??? i unno the poetry ones), but it was great! the thing about poetry collections is that all you really need is a couple that stand out and you’re golden, and this definitely had that.

Pressure Machine (album, finished 8/14/2021): i think this came out like two weeks after i finally caught up on the Killers albums i’d missed since Battle Born. it’s a nice change of pace! especially since i feel like their sound has become increasingly homogenized since probably Day & Age. appreciated the pretentiousness, obviously, but also kudos for being somewhat oblique as far as “art influenced by COVID” goes

Inside (special, finished 9/10/2021): speaking of not being oblique! i largely missed the Bo Burnham train when he was hitting his stride, so i’m not as big a fan, but this was still just a...gutwrenching watch. uncomfortable and ugly in a lot of places (not the least of which is the way he literally embodies discomfort and ugliness throughout), but still made me laugh in way that i think i did need.

Ms. Marvel: Stretched Thin (comic, finished 9/25/2021): i’ve grown increasingly wary of how Kamala is used as a diversity shorthand by Marvel in recent years, so i was p skeptical going in. boy did it blow my expectations out of the water tho! stylish art and a well-told story really made me remember the original charm of the character.

Star Wars (2 movies: Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, finished 10/1/2021): how long can one person procrastinate watching a terrible movie she’s already seen? almost a whole year, as it turns out. they are Bad, but v fun to watch when the only expectations going in are that you and your fiance come up with some great zingers. and we did! we’re hilarious and never out of fresh material

Playlist for the Apocalypse (book, finished 10/3/2021): i swear i didn’t set out to read any poetry this year but then a whole bunch of poets i liked published their stuff. i’ve read Rita Dove more recently than i’ve read Komunyakaa, which...means it hasn’t been that recent at all, but here we are. it’s good! there’s a sense of humor to her work that i appreciate in this medium in particular, where everyone is in constant risk of disappearing up their own ass.

Wayne Family Adventures (webcomic, 7...episodes?? finished 10/8/2021): i kept reading after that, obviously. my freak out upon discovering its existence is already well documented, but yes: it’s the Platonic ideal of a Batfam comic for me, made even better by the fact that it doesn’t bother with overt retcons and just assumes everyone gets to hang.

Lost (TV, 1 season finished 10/22/2021): it’s been a while since i’ve rewatched the entire series and the first time i’ve watched it with Leah (who has never seen), and...wow!! parts of this show have really not aged well. i take some solace in the fact that my opinion remains much the same despite television as a medium changing so drastically in the intervening years, and my opinion is that season 1 is overrated, srynotsry

Harlem Shuffle (book, finished 10/27/2021): well, i guess after two consecutive years of giving Colson Whitehead lavish praise i was due for being underwhelmed. i respect his desire to experiment with genre, but in this case i think he leaned so hard into crime thriller that what i love most about his books (ie. lyricism, compassionate empathy) didn’t feel like a priority.

The Underground Railroad (TV, finished 10/28/2021): what’s this??? being disappointed by a Colson Whitehead thing twice in a row??? nowadays i tend to get very defensive when critiques of adaptation basically boil down to “how faithful is it to the source material” because it is SUCH low hanging (and often irrelevant) fruit, but i can’t help but feel like the ways THIS deviated from the source material resulted from compromises with whoever is in charge of programing at Amazon Prime. not everything added was bad, but some (the Ridgeway focus. i’m talking about the Ridgeway focus) feel like things neither Whitehead nor Barry Jenkins would have come up with. cool to see that Owen Lars was apparently so bitter his dad married a former slave he became a slave catcher tho

Red (Taylor’s Version) (album, finished 12/4/2021): toyed with listening to it when it first came out, but that was during exam month and i was Not Emotionally Ready. Red is my favorite Taylor album and the only i know by heart, so i was very glad that this was such a creative success. interesting that this release feels like it toned DOWN the production from the original, but i suppose that mirrors her shift from slick pop to a more indie vibe. i’ve never...particularly loved All Too Well? glad y’all were happy with it tho

30 (album, finished 12/10/2021): is it just me, or has Adele really started to phone it in with the song titles? her lyrics are still Adele-standard, but i miss the days when they had more oblique or metaphorical names like Chasing Pavements. then again, the album overall seems disinterested in metaphor--makes sense given the rawness of her emotional arc during it, i suppose, but i don’t think it resonated with me as much as her past work has because of that.

Bojack Horseman (TV, 4 seasons finished 12/22/2021): well, i’ve done it! i finally got caught up to...*checks notes* the last time i was caught up with Bojack Horseman. in all honesty, i’m pretty glad that i waited until after i was therapied and medicated before coming back to this, because it’s still. a lot. something about the writing of this show just gets stuck in my head and watching the first half of any season always makes me INCREDIBLY anxious, because the inevitable fuckups are just over the horizon, but i always end up feeling...a sense of fulfillment, i guess? whenever i watch it.

Winter Recipes from the Collective (book, finished 12/23/2021): so like yes my blog name is a Louise Gluck quote yes her poetry is good yes she literally has a Nobel now yes this collection has some very good stuff that is trademark Louise but also THIS POETRY COLLECTION WAS LESS THAN FIFTY PAGES AND COST THIRTEEN DOLLARS? WHAT THE FUCK LOUISE???

Disgaea (game, unfinished): haha! nope. i picked it up because i was jonesing for more turn based strategy and had heard it described as “Fire Emblem but more tongue in cheek,” which feels like my jam, but it very much was not. turns out the utterly woeful storytelling needs wholehearted serious commitment, because when it ditches that in favor of “haha! i also think this is absurd!!” it just becomes...embarrassing for everyone. will probably never finish it, to be honest.

last year i remember feeling exhausted from keeping up with all the franchises, so i went out of my way to pick less oversaturated stuff. results are...mixed? there weren’t a lot of bad things, but there were quite a few things that were mediocre, or less good that i’d hoped. the indie stuff certainly didn’t make me MISS franchises, though, because even though i wasn’t consuming them everywhere i turned another thing was getting remastered or spinoffed or released or what have you, so...am i out of touch? no. it is the children who are wrong

#conspicuous media consumption

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bang-me-bangtan-style · 3 years

Text

Archive

OLD FANFICS AND ONE SHOTS RESIDE HERE.

My 2013-2020 fanficion

This is a masterlist of old fanfiction I’ve wrote through the years. From when I first started writing at sixteen with FORBIDDEN ALL THE WAY TO 2020. It’s 2021 and I feel like I want to start new and fresh. So I took all my masterlist and put it as an archive. My new masterlist is empty. Will be Comming soon.

Don’t fret, I still may continture some of the series below. but for now all this work is going to remain in the archive unless i change my mind.

✔ - Completed || ••• - Ongoing || ✖ - On Hold -everything for now is discontinued

BTS

Kim Namjoon

Kim Seokjin

Series:

Oneshots:

Smut:

(SMUT) corrupted | bangtan smut series | JIN,bts | 2.4k words

Min Yoongi

Series:

Oneshots:

(SCENARIO) 01 the creator | you don’t own me series | YOONGI,bts

Smut:

(SMUT) 02 SUGA - 불타오르네 |bangtan smut series | SUGA, bts | 1.5k word

Jung Hoseok

Series:

(MINI SERIES ) forced break up | JHOPE, bts | 2 chapters | 1 , 2 | When Yoongi is your brother nobody wants to mess with you. no, not when Yoongi had set them all straight not to touch his little sister. Jhope is Yoongi’s best friend and Yoongis threats doesn’t scare him. What happens when Jhope goes behind Yoongi’s back to fuck his little sister. That sister being you.

Oneshots:

Smut:

(SMUT) 03 we on | bangtan smut series | JUNGKOOK+JHOPE,bts | 1.6k words

Kim Taehyung

Series:

✖ (FANFICTION) Updated Jan 14, 2019 | the temptation | TAEHYUNG, bts | With 2 chapter (s) | 4316 words | ON HIATUS | SUMMARY- Church. School. Work. Home. Home.work. school home. It was a hell of routine. But it was old. It was getting way too old. This pure innocent life was just a facade nowadays. Your mind had fell into the fifth circle of hell. And your boyfriend jungkook realized this. Especially after you cheated on him with the person he hated the most. Taehyung. And now according to him you would burn in hell for it. How long could you keep your legs closed after reviving oral sex from taehyung? Could you keep the rest of your innocence or did you really want to burn in hell like jungkook said you would?

Oneshots:

Smut:

(SMUT) 04 treat you better | bangtan smut series | TAEHYUNG, bts | 3.4k words

Park Jimin

Series:

Oneshots:

Smut:

(SMUT) 01 caught in a lie | bangtan smut series | JIMIN,bts

(SMUT) three is a charm | bangtan smut series | JUNGKOOK+JIMIN,bts | 4.4k words

Jung Jungkook

Series:

✖(FANFIC) Updated june 23, 2018 || (FANFIC) UNKNOWN || JUNGKOOK, bts || With 2 chapter(s) || 2,586 words || ON HIATUS|| SUMMARY- what if the famous front man of bangtan accidentally texts the wrong number thinking your his cheating girlfriend only it’s really you?

••• ⭐️ (FANFIC) Updated May 12, 2020 | THE CREATION | with 2 chapters | words | ONGOING | SUMMARY- Your mom Jeon Yoona was one of the greatest scientist of her time. She created a man made male fetus called Project 1997 (later known as Jeon Jungkook) in the GIO lab that resided in Busan,South Korea in 1997. Jeon went down in the hall of fame creating what was said to be the most difficult project of the decade. in 2002 Jeon Yoona died from cancer leaving you behind. This was also around the time when PROJECT 1997 (Jeon Jungkook) started having complications and had became very ill. Because of this the GIO lab wanted project 1997 to be destroyed because they couldn’t figure out what w as wrong and why he was defective. After being saved by Yoonas colleague- project 1997 (Jeon Jungkook) had fell into Your hands and you from then on raised him like a son. But you didn’t know that pretending to be PROJECT 1997’s (jungkooks) mom would be so hard, him angry, moody and bitchy all the time because all his friends wanted to do was fuck you. And maybe he wanted to fuck you too!

Oneshots:

(SCENARIO) 01 Jungkook | bangtan scenario series | JUNGKOOK, bts

(DRABBLE) mate killer | JUNGKOOK, bts

Smut:

(SMUT) 03 we on | bangtan smut series | JUNGKOOK+JHOPE,bts | 1.6k words

(SMUT) three is a charm | bangtan smut series | JUNGKOOK+JIMIN,bts | 4.4k words

(SMUT) 07 you’re mine | bangtan smut series | JUNGKOOK,bts

세븐틴 | SEVENTEEN (SVT)

Dino

Vernon

S.coups

Wonwoo

Mingyu

Seungkwan

Joshua

Woozi

Jeonghyun

The8

Hoshi

Jun

엔시티 | NEO CULTURE TECHNOLOGY (NCT)

(some members of nct is still under age, will not write any smut for underage 19+ and under nct members)

Taeyong

(SMUT) the dirty secret | nct smut series | TAEYONG,nct (4.5k words)

taeil

johnny

yuta

kun

doyoung

ten

(SMUT) the dirty secret | nct smut series | TAEYONG,nct (4.5k words)

jaehyun

winwin

jungwoo

lucas

mark

renjun

jeno

haechan

jaemin

chenle

jisung

갓세븐 | GOT7

Yugyeom

⭐️ (SMUT) lust of denial | got7 smuts | YUGYEOM,got7

Jackson

Jaebum

Jinyoung

Youngjae

BamBam

Mark

(SMUT) ewwww | got 7 smuts | MARK,got7

에스에프나인 | SENSATIONAL FEELING NINE (SF9)

Rowoon

Jaeyoon

Taeyang

Hwiyoung

(SMUT) guilty pleasures | sf9 smuts | HWIYOUNG,sf9 | 2.1k words

Dawon

Chani

Inseong

Youngbin

zuho

엑소 | EXO

Chanyeol

⭐️ (SMUT)breaking boundaries | exo smuts | CHANYEOL, exo

Suho

Xuimin

(SMUT) 01 | you’re mine | exo smuts | XIUMIN,exo

Chen

Kai

✖ Updated Apr 4, 2018 (FANFIC)degraded | KAI, exo | 8,806 words | |With 4 chapters | ON hold| In hopes of getting rid of Kim Jongin for ruining your life further after your friends with benefits disaster and your violent meltdown, you finally get him to agree to leave you alone for good give you some space…. you get a month of quiet. till one day he shows up at the same convenience store as you. from there he follows you home and fucks the shit out of you claiming you to be his again. Even with a girlfriend still on his arm your his play-toy again.Its all just a vicious never ending down spiraling cycle. He would never leave you alone. not until he calls it quits.what do you do when Kim Jongin won’t leave you alone? degrading you until you disappear? welcome to degraded.

D.O

Lay

Baekhyun

⭐️ (MINI FANFIC) drunk bitch | exo smuts | BAEKHYUN,exo | 1 chapter | what if you got drunk and didn’t realize what you were doing? Baekhyun being your victim.

⭐️ (SMUT) human mate | exo smuts | BAEKHYUN,exo

(SMUT) forced | exo smuts | BAEKHYUN,exo

Sehun

✖ discontinued | LISTEN I wrote this fanfic when I was like 16 ish or 17 it was my very first fanfic and it was a FORBIDDEN mess I’m now about to be 26 and cringe so fucking hard at what my 16 year old self was up in here doing, mom should have beat my a** 🥊 anyways I still have this on the internet to show where I came from it’s been what 8 almost 9 years since I wrote this sicko book, which btw way was requested I remember exo-Ls back in the day were.... anways if you read spare me I was young 😂😂😂 (FANFIC) forbidden | |15 chapters | SEHUN, exo | 57,146 words | ON HIATUS| Sehun is your twin.You’re his twin sister.You love him, More than you should.You push him away.He pulls back.You hate him he hates you back.You’re strangers, and he knows that.He misses you.You miss him back, but a question?Does he love you like you love him?

(SCENARIO) chanyeol’s noona | exo smuts | SEHUN,exo

빅뱅 | BIGBANG

G-dragon

(SMUT) mean because I like you | GDRAGON,bigbang

(SCENARIO) how to tame a dragon | GDRAGON, bigbang

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impala1967dwinchester · 3 years

Text

Sam Winchester: No I don’t need instructions

Pairing: Sam X Reader / Y/n, short mention of both Dean, John and Jessica.

Pov: Sams

Warnings: denial, building shit, not working, frustration, kisses, implied smut.

Summary: You and Sam buying a new bookshelves seemed like a good idea in theory, but seems to fall apart when someone doesn’t read the instructions. “Where are the instructions at?” “Honey you seem pissed?” “Don’t even say I told you so” “I wasn’t gonna say that..... I totally told you so” “You’re already manly baby, but I’ll give you kisses to make you feel better”

Word Count: 1,116

Y/n and I had been together for a short time now. But we had known each other for years. John had introduce us when he and her father were hunting together.

Y/n was only 2 years younger than me. It had started off as an innocent crush, than become more like an obsession. When I was in college I had decided that I needed to get over it, do I dated Jessica. her features far from Y/n’s.

2000′s

I was trying hard to forget about her, but all was lost when Dean of course had to come and take me away trying to find John. After the horrific event that happened with Jessica I had disassociated and wanted nothing to do with relationships.

Just when I told myself that I didn’t want anything. Y/n called Dean saying that she was in danger, something about a hunt going wrong and pissing off the wrong people.

Dean looked over at me. When we were kids he was the only one that had known about my crush on her, “Sam, I can ignore her. Say that we can’t help her, it’s all up to you lover boy.” Dean said teasing me.

“Well she’s in danger. I can hold it together.” I said. That had been a whole fucking lie. I hadn’t held it together, seeing her hurt and in danger had set me off. I spoke to Dean while Y/n was asleep in the backseat. “Dean, let her stay with us. I don’t what it is, but her being hurt... it just feels wrong to leave her off somewhere.”

He looked in the rear view mirror and sighed heavily. “Whatever, you want.” He said and kept driving. She had gone through everything with us. My deal with Lucifer, helping Dean, trying to find me after Dean makes his demon deal. Stayed with me even though I’m drinking demon blood, and everything else.

It had landed us in the Men of letters bunker. With everything we could ever need. The 3 of us hadn’t separated on purpose since 2005. It had taken so many years to finally tell her the truth.

2012

“Y/n, I know this life isn’t meant for love.I know that we could die tomorrow, so I am going to say this. You don’t have to say it back, but I love you Y/n.” I said. She smiled and wrapped her arms around me.

She kissed my cheek. “I love you too Sam. It took you long enough.” She giggled. “ I thought I was going to have to start chasing Dean.” Y/n teased me.

From that point forward everything was about Y/n. It was about keeping her safe. If a hunt was to risky I was stuck to her ass like glue. All plans were made to make sure Y/n was kept safe. If she was sick, I was there. If she was hurt from a hunt and I was too, I’d ignore my own pain and fix her up first.

Like I said it was an honest obsession to keep her safe. Dean has always teased me, but my brother wasn’t at that point anyways a relationship person.His own relationship ending horribly Lisa and Benny not ever able to remember who he was, I think it really broke him.

He covered that up with hunter everyday, everything revolved it. My everything was Y/n, and she was absolutely okay with it.

2020

After the year that we had been together. We had never gone through something like this, a deadly disease kicking everyone in the ass. Nothing that us hunters could do.

The fact that we were always stuck inside, finding new way to make our life exciting, something about the sickness made people not get hunted by the monsters.

I will say it was odd to see nothing bad on the news about people dying from ‘animal attacks’. Dying of covid, and covid rules, and being locked inside was what rocked the news.

But at the end of 2020, it was christmas. Y/n and I were both avid readers. Y/n had stacks of book in the the library corners, no more space for all her books, mine were starting to overfill the empty space in extras rooms.

So has a gift I had gone to Ikea and bought a couple of different bookshelves. One was a beautiful white, large corner bookshelf. The other was a wooden large shelf unit. One that you could put little bins inside the units.

2021

It had only been a few days and Y/n was getting annoyed with the boxes of these shelves sitting in the corner like her books. New years was over, so she looked over at me and said, “Sam when we are we putting these together?” she asked.

“Well first they’re your gift so there's no we, it’s all me. Second, whenever you want them to be put together.” I answered keeping my eyes on my phone. ‘Okay smartass, I want them to be put together now!” Y/n said with a giggle.

I looked over at her, and I got up putting my phone down. I pushed the huge table as far as I could trying to give myself the maximum amount of space. I pulled the boxes into the open space, and Y/n spaced out while watching the tv.

After hours of being stuck on how to build the damn bookshelves I whispered “Where are the instruction at?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Y/n slower look over at me, then once again I said “Where are the fucking instructions at?”

“They’re right here.” Y/n said lifting them from the seat I was sitting in earlier. “Honey? You seem pissed.” I looked over at her, my face telling her to stop talking.

Y/n went back to her show for another couple of hours, before she turned back around to look for the progress I had made. “Don’t you even say I told you so.” I said.

Y/n giggled and smiled. “I wasn’t going to say that.... I totally told you so.” She said instead. “Look I know I should have used the instructions, but I was trying to be more manly.” I said.

After I said that Y/n got up from her seat, came over and said “You’re already manly baby, but I’ll give you kisses to make you feel better” She said and then kissed my right cheek, then moved to my left cheek.

She moved down kissing my neck, leaving a few hickies, and then she got my lap. She grinded her hips against mine. “We might have to finish this project in the morning.” I said. “Hmmm, I think so.”

Completed on 01/04/2021

#sammy #Sam Winchester #sam winchester x reader #supernatural #supernatural fic #supernatural x reader #supernatualfluff #frustration #kisses #denial #ikea #ikeabuild #stupidshevles #instructions #kissestomakeitbetter

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milky-maid-library · 3 years

Text

I Am Sorry, Here is why:

Hello to smut writers on Tumblr,

My name is Milky and in the past others have known me as Miss Hush…and before that I was Shellberry. I intend on keeping Milky longest.

It’s something I really want to get off my page since I’m a desperate believe that kink is not a safe place for minors and minors need to stick to school and real world problems or pg+ 13 fanfiction.

I first signed up to AO3 in 2014. Let that sink in. My birthday is 3rd October 2001 (I’m a libra bishes). It was just after my 13th birthday I signed up to AO3 and began writing my first romance fanficitons under the name Shellberry WITH THE ABSOLUTE WORST PUNCTUATION AND GRAMMAR.

I began watching porn out of curiosity and discovered hardcore bdsm straight away. (Id like you all to note that I had never really used laptops until this point and time, I had started living with my grandparents at the start of 2013 after I ran away from my abusive household.) I was prone to this shit without guidance or anyone to tell me what I was doing was wrong. I also was told most of my life that I was “mature for my age” and believed that gave me a right to be viewing ‘adult content’. I then realised I loved reading and writing more and more than watching porn.

I came across my first Kidnapping/non-con fic and was blown away by the scariness and creativity in the plot. And I saw that smutty fics were getting a lot of attention in views and comments. As a victim of abuse I YEARNED for praise and attention… I then began a naughty habit of copyright in which I would steal and reword smut stories. One day I copied from a book called Mackenzie’s Mountain (still one of my favourite smutty books hehehe) and yea…. I was called out. It wasn’t long before I deleted my account. By this point it was 2016, I was now calling myself Miss Hush. And the habit vaguely continued, I tried writing the spy type genre with a fanfiction (still in my files) called A Game of Love.

Take note 2016, the presidential election was on. And I come from a incredibly conservative household and even though I lived in Australia….I cringe incredibly hard now….I was happy to call myself a trump supporter (but his propaganda is very convincing for young 14-15 year old me). I am no longer a trump supporter as of early 2020. I really started to talking to other people and realising that oh my god I’m a sheltered country mouse without realising it. Where does this play? Well I have been a Christian by choice since I was nine years old….and in 2016 I felt that writing fanfictions were dirty and wrong and if I continued to watch porn or think too sexually before marriage, I would be going to hell…. SO my writing floundered a lot and I couldn’t keep up with my updating promises. It continued to be like this until I gave up in 2018, I stopped writing for a very very, very long time…and then I confessed to a adult smut writer my true age and they were quick to explain to me what I was doing was wrong and needed to be rethought out. SO I deleted my account again.

2019 I came back but organised and under the name Milky Maid no more editing and claiming peoples fanfictions. I was still a minor, aged 17. I vaguely held that “Im told im mature its ok” mentality in my head. I started Yo hoe ho and A Lesson In service, both with girls around 16-19 (I need to recheck their ages).

I’m taking those fics down btw because they need editing and I just don’t feel comfortable with the way I left hem uncompleted.

The year is 2021, I am now 19 and I have upbranded myself to Milky Maid Library. So why am I confessing all of this?

Because of shame. I feel terrible that for so long I’ve lied or made myself appear innocent? I think a apology is due to every adult that I lied to back in the day (what’s ironic is I would say “I’m 19” but now I am actually 19 which is crazy and makes me feel old and embarrassed of kid me). I am sorry to you all, I am sorry to those who I stole from…not that I actually remember the names which could be seen as worse. I am sorry that I attempt to be a high and mighty wise woman when I have coincidentally been in the spot of those I disapprove of. I am ashamed I didn’t stop and live my life appropriately. I am sorry that I gave false hope to readers that didn’t realise I was writing porn and essays at the same time.

I need to make this clear, I don’t believe minors should interact with adults. I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from entering this realm too early. I am sorry I did this. I hope I didn’t hurt anyone, but I could have possibly.

I will be sending this post to those who I remember talking too. This needs to be confronted, I want to make amends….lol look at me being Bucky…

Thankyou to all that have read this post, I will not be surprised of have any ill feelings to those who want to unfollow, comment/reply critiquing my choices.

#discourse #writing #archive of our own #ao3 #Fanfiction #writing Fanfiction #tw mentions of abuse #minors in kink #mik

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twiststreet · 2 years

Note

Any thoughts on that new Station Eleven mini-series that Hiro Murai's directing? (The trailer just dropped today.) I remember you being a fan of Maniac and Atlanta, but not sure this one's up your alley.

Hmm. I'd read about a third of that book before getting distracted. Which isn't an indictment of the book at all-- I've had a bad track record of getting through books prior to this year. I've read 4-6 this year, almost all "research" for projects, so I'm doing better with reading lately, but. (I read a Donald Westlake book I had a nice time with, that wasn't research-- Castle in the Air? But it's (a) thin, and extremely insubstantial, and (b) very much just Westlake writing his own sequel to Topkapi or the Italian Job... except I like Topkapi and the Italian Job so I had a nice time. It's a heist romp except written during an era where the heist romp formula was very tightly constrained, and felt very different from what came after).

Anyways, I liked what I read of Station Eleven and remember a lot of it, even not having finished. (The troupe going near the town where things had gone wrong, say). But I remember the pleasures of it not being movie pleasures, so much as that novelist (Mandel? Mendel? Very pretty woman, don't remember, Emliy something?) and the prose and the kindness of her attitude towards what she was describing. That passage that everyone snagged on, describing the world that had passed, say. I'm not sure that's translatable... or I'm not sure how that book unfolds nonlinearly will translate either.

And I mean, jesus christ, does anyone really want a PANDEMIC THRILLER after 2020? Especially one i recall being kind to its characters whereas ... who feels kind in November 2021 to how human beings handle pandemics? I have a fond memory of the first four weeks of the pandemic when LA was a ghost town and I could walk across a four lane road, and the air became clean from lack of car exhaust, and everything was beautiful and lonely and quiet. But I don't know if that was a common experience cause... other people were all in quarantine, is the whole point of the thing. I probably shouldn't have been out there...

Or with anything that has that sort of generosity to it... when Hollywood puts it in a visual format, there's a real risk of a whiff of self-congratulation being in the air. Which ... I'd often rather put on an exploitation movie off Shout Factory’s free streaming website cause that whiff's not there-- no one who made Fly Me was congratulating themselves for making Fly Me, except arguably Dick Miller who seemed happy with the gig.

The trailer reeks of it. But 99% of that is that fucking "we took a song you know and did a very slow a capella version" shit that they do in every trailer. I forgot the trailer that got me MOANING in pain during the eighty minutes of trailers before the French Dispatch but it's EVERY trailer now. I hate it. I don't know if it's technically Nine Inch Nails's fault because of the Social Network, so let's blame Aaron Sorkin instead, the way I do when I look at the failed state of the American experiment. But it's the worst. I hate it. I hate it. Just sing normal! If you like a song so much, just put the normal song in the trailer! Or just put "let the bodies hit the floor" in the trailer-- that's why we have that song...

(The worst trailer we saw was for the 355-- I don't care if it gets me thrown off tumblr, I'm not going to buy into a 105 pound girl kicking a 6'5" 230 pound man, as "good action"... give hot girls knives! There's an easy fix and the fix is give girls meat cleavers, wine openers, ice picks! The Raid 2 gave one of the prettiest girls in Indonesia a hammer and it's action magic. The answer to non-believable action movies is sitting in every kitchen in America. Give hot girls egg beaters. Will a hot angry girl holding an egg beater be the perfect action hero? I mean, technically no, an egg beater is not really built for combat. That's just more about me and my fetishes. Please god, give egg beaters to hot angry women. My community has gone underserved for too long!)

That said, I mean, yeah, I'm kinda invested enough in Murai (especially Atlanta, Manic was nice enough, but also he did a couple good episodes of Barry, which I'm really waiting to come back). I'm curious because of him, I guess. (And the editor he works with a lot, who did Gumbel and Le Typewriter and Actress for Channel 101, which I still think about... relatively often and very fondly). I don't like the trailer, no. I just hope it's a very bad trailer to an okay show. I think Murai has a certain ma to his work that I'm more curious about than with other people, a stillness, a willingness to be in a moment, and... the trailer shows glimpses of that (that opening segment, say), but it's just drowned out in a very rote, "standard" HBO trailer language... (The Boba Fett trailer being in that language really weirded me out this week). But he's a prestige TV-era director on a prestige TV show! How long can you do that and keep your voice? I don't know! I don't really dig prestige TV, hence me writing and writing and writing cause I can't decide what to watch tonight...

#All I Ever Write About on this blog is Television...

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katiebruce · 3 years

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adios, amigo.

Well, 2020. What is there to say that hasn’t already been said, tweeted or Instagram-ed a thousand and two times about you? I’ll save us all the generic stuff—“unprecedented,” “nightmarish,” “absurd”—yes, 2020 was all of those things, but on a deeper, more personal level, there is so much more I have to say that doesn’t fit quite into those clichés.

So, this will be my attempt to document and reflect upon one of the strangest years I’ve encountered in my thirty-one years on this planet. Buckle up, buttercup.

Like many others before me have frequently observed, the way I spend my New Year’s Eve has always set the tone for the year to come, and boy, was this year a picture-perfect example of exactly that. Because I had to work on January first, I spent my New Year’s Eve at home watching a depressing movie with T, quietly kissing on the cold back patio as fireworks went off in the distance. I remember feeling both happy and sad about this evening (a duality that was a major theme for me for the fifty-two weeks to come, if only I had known). I was sad not to be celebrating my favorite holiday and even remember telling T that I didn’t want the year to come to be one I spent not going out, staying home, and becoming reclusive as I finished up the stressful process of finishing my MFA thesis in the course of ten (or, what I thought would be ten) short months.

But on the other hand, being held in T’s arms, I remembered feeling so happy that I could have this little quiet holiday—something that felt so private and personal—so entirely our own. It really set the tone for our relationship for the year, and for the obstacles we not only overcame together but dominated, one right after the next.

January was cold, snowy, and full of flight cancellations, which I remember to be something worth celebration at the time. I stayed home and snuggled my way into Aquarius season, the time for me and my brethren to shine, feeling positive that I had lived my thirtieth year to one of great satisfaction and maximum travels taken. (If only I had known then that that late-January El Paso layover where my crew and I walked across the border into Juarez to eat street tacos and laugh over Mezcal would be one of the only times I would leave the country for the year, well, I might have taken a few shots of tequila and really enjoyed my stay abroad just a bit longer).

February came, and with it, the promise of friends. My darling Kristopher, as always, flew to Chicago on the day of (also the day I completed and passed my eighth recurrent [!]) and, thanks to my other darling baby, Nicole, scored tickets to one of the highly coveted format reunion tour shows happening in March* for me, her, and my momma.

(*It did not, in fact, take place in March).

I turned thirty-one in the way I’ve come accustomed too—surrounded by my favorite people (this year at Dorians—a jazz club to end all jazz clubs) too drunk and too smiley to even coherently remember the evening properly. As much fun as I remember having, I told T that I thought it was my last year to host some sort of birthday gathering, and to hold me to it come next year. (He did very well—a few weeks later, after spotting an ad in a discarded newspaper for the Chicago tour of Moulin Rouge happening on my birthday weekend, we bought tickets and I sat peacefully with the fact that one of my new year (or, new age) resolutions was so quickly and poignantly adapted).

By this time, I was already deep in the throes of my first thesis writing course, meaning that I was pretty stressed out all of the time and surely a misery to be around (sorry to those of you who were). Basically, in three semesters’ time, I was expected to draft, edit, and rewrite a fully formed novel (70,000+ words) and the idea of accomplishing such a feat felt like a ton of bricks being carried on my shoulders. I had at least four mental breakdowns in the beginning of the year (again, we all know what lays ahead for the year, I know—but at the time, this seemed like an unbearable amount of stress for one person to have to carry. The joke is not lost on me).

In the coming weeks, things began to get even weirder. Covid scares began sprouting up in cities all around us, and as the government asked people to stay at home, airline ticket prices became massively reduced, so more people began traveling. I mean, this shit was like spring break on acid—it was hugely stressful, and though the threat of the pandemic had yet to reach Chicago, I felt more and more at risk with each passing day as careless amounts of people cashed in on what they thought was the deal of a lifetime.

By the time March reached its midpoint, I, like so many others, was terrified. We had no PPE at work—literally nothing. No gloves, masks, or even hand wipes. Cleaning the aircraft still wasn’t considered a “no-go” item, as far as regulatory practices go. I remember watching the news on my layovers only to keep myself up at night wondering if the virus was going to take hold of me or anyone around me, and if so, how long until they would recover, or perhaps wouldn’t.

St. Patrick’s Day came, and after fighting about whether or not to go out with friends (we didn’t—and for the record, T and I rarely fight—but this was, after all, his first St. Patrick’s Day as a Chicagoan—so his resentment was more than justified) we saw a matinee movie (Onward) and while in the theater, read about how Chicago restaurants, as a precaution, were shutting down the next day due to rising concerns about the spread of the virus. We reacted by grabbing drinks & lunch at one of our favorite neighborhood eateries and tipping the waitstaff more heavily than I think I’ve ever tipped anyone in my life (not mentioning this to brag, or whatever—just remembering what it was like to feel utterly helpless and unsure of what to do or what was to come—we had to find our positivity in some way, and on that day, this was how we saw fit, and it helped).

Then it all sort of happened at once—Lauren’s store was closed with no impending reopening date. The grocery stores (and I swear to god, I will never forget this) became a madhouse—people taking things out of other people’s carts when they weren’t looking. I remember going into Mariano’s with T and insisiting we tie bandanas around our faces for safety, feeling like a goddamn bank robber about to make a heist. But there was nothing left to even take. Frantically, we got what we could and got out of there, and I went home to have a full-fledged panic attack about the state of the world we were currently living in and what we were going to do if things didn’t turn around quickly.

As if overnight, everyone cancelled their airline tickets. It was for the better, and though it put my job in serious jeopardy, I was in massive support of it but still felt an eerie sadness looming around the countless empty airports, airplanes, hotels and city streets. There were times when my crew and I were the only guests in a place—times when I had zero passengers on a revenue flight. And then came the mass flight cancellations—and I mean mass. Everyday became a battle of anxiety as to what was going to happen to my job in the next twenty-four hours, and then cooing my stressed-out thoughts to sleep, only to relive the anxiety with every phone buzz waiting to find out if I had lost my job overnight. By mid-spring, I was hugely considering dropping out for a period of time, just due to the stress of it all, but thanks to support from my friends, family and T, I chose to stick it out and roll with as many punches as I could until I was finally knocked-out.

Quarantines were happening all around me, and without the ability to travel or the (former) grueling expectations of maintaining a social life, I started to reconnect with myself in ways that felt both organic and new, yet much like returning home after a long time away. Lauren taught me to knit, and we celebrated her birthday on the floor of our apartment in an Indian-food induced daze renting Emma and making thousands of tiny knots onto needles that would eventually become blankets. We took walks, did puzzles, and Lauren drove me to and from the airport on the rare occasion that I actually had a flight to work, as the CTA had, unfortunately, become a cesspool of targeted attacks on flight crew members (seriously) because they were often the only person in any given train car.

A rare glimpse of optimism then presented itself via two different opportunities: a chance to take a ninety-day leave from work, and a job offer in the form of editing a book for publication. I said yes to both and hoped that I would be able to take a step back and deal with the crumbling world around me easier with both of these opportunities now on my horizon.

This period of the year (May-July) started off swimmingly. Knitting, reading, and even smoking weed for the first time in nearly a decade (I took two hits and spent the rest of the evening sinking into the couch painfully aware of how bad I am at breathing and worrying that I might stop at any given moment). I fell in love with yoga and felt myself loosening up parts of my body and my mind that had been twisted into a series of knots for god only knows how long. I spent days reading in the sun, baking bread like everyone else in the world, and learning to make my own pies. Things were going really well, and I was even ahead in school, now on track to graduate in August—when things started getting heated.

I’m not going to go on a rant about race, although I very much could, but I will say this—the fact that we are still in a race war in this country in the year 2020 (and even now, a few days into 2021) makes me so sick to my stomach I don’t know what to do. Every injustice that passes by us, overshadowed by the next untimely death or wrongdoing makes me angry in ways that I cannot even fathom putting into words. It burns the color red that is so hot and so vibrant that I can see it soaking through my eyelids even when I squeeze them shut. This country lost a lot of love from me this year, and even more respect. There are not only things we can do better—there are things we must change. And honestly, most days, I don’t think most of the country is ready to not only admit that but to also work for. And that not only sickens me, but depresses the living hell out of me. I feel so stunted all of the time when I picture a world so at peace with its own injustice. It’s just so unfair.

I watched as the world was (rightfully, although woefully) destroyed around me. My neighborhood turned into a desolate, looted shadow of itself—one where Lauren and I could sit on our back patio safely until dusk, when the crime and gunfire became so rabid that on occasions, we sat in the living room in total darkness, listening only to the radio, afraid to let anybody at street level see that we were, indeed, at home. The opportunists that took advantage of the message of this movement made me numb to such a large demographic of the population, and I found myself crying myself to sleep enough times that I thought it might be time to leave the warzone that had become Chicago for a little while as escape down to Florida. So, we packed our bags and left. It is not lost on me that so many did not have this option, and for so many minorities, just simply existing during this time was enough to cause assault. I know I am fortunate—I carry it like lead in my pockets every day.

While in Florida, the first retailers began to reopen and I found myself waiting in an hour-long line to buy soaps and hand sanitizers, and to get a glimpse of what this “new normal” might look like when things started picking back up again. Like many, it was jarring to see empty tables, capacity limits on items, cashiers behind plexiglass sheets shouting to be heard over both the physical barrier and the cloth one strung across their faces.

By the time T & I arrived home, Lauren was already making plans to reopen her store “safely” and I felt sorry for her. How could anything be safe when nothing had changed? Why were companies acting as if business could go on like before—even though nothing had gotten better?

My final months of my MFA were just ahead of me, and I had one month remaining free from work to finish my first full-length novel, and I all I really remember is stress stress stress.

And then Andrew, being Andrew, offered a glimmer of hope, in the form of a drive-in concert celebrating fifteen years of Everything in Transit in southern California, a mere matter of hours from where Nicole had been working. It took a matter of two or maybe three text messages to confirm that we would be attending, and once the ticket was purchased I practically packed my bags and headed off to visit her and try and make light of my heart.

As suspected, the trip was magical. Being around Nicole, per usual, was magical. My heart felt so fully aligned seeing a little piece of her story and getting to experience her way of life once more—drunken hot springs and all their glory. There truly are few things in my life I love more than sitting in the passenger’s seat as Nicole drives us all over the country, and experiencing it again felt so right and so perfect that I honestly thought it was one of the happiest experiences of my life. Because I had requested so, she drove me all the way to Venice Beach the day of the concert so we could see where the infamous album cover was taken. We ate cbd gummies and listened to jack’s and ate in-n-out burger like our lives depended on it. When the concert began, it was eerie, yet hopeful to see all the new protocols of something that had become so familiar to me in my former life. Drinks were ordered through an app and delivered, as was merch, and clapping was replaced by the exuberant honking of car horns. We streamed the sound through the radio and laid the in the back of Nicole’s converted SUV as we cried and sang along to the songs that made everything, even just for one night, feel like it was all going to be okay again. We ended the evening marking ourselves with our first stick and poke tattoos—hers a sun to my moon, positioned to kiss one another when we stand next to each other on our preferred selfie side (lol). I left worried about how long it might be before I could feel her warm embrace again, the embrace of one of the truest friends I’ll ever know, but also recognizing that we were lucky to have had such an experience at all during such an insane year and feeling eternally grateful for its memory.

The last weeks of what I referred to as my Rumspringa were ahead of me, and one sunny afternoon I wrote the final pages of my novel. In a mad rush to edit, revise and complete my portfolio for official review, I never really sat with myself and what I had accomplished or congratulated myself; I wrote a book in seven months’ time, and even though I am unhappy with it (more on that later) there’s no denying that I actually did it. I did it, and nobody can ever take that away from me; it’s an accomplishment I will forever have, and it’s all my own. And I need to remind myself of that. I need to let myself feel proud.

I was back to work in September and taking a huge pay cut, though working the same hours. It was stressful, but once I found out my portfolio had been accepted and I, indeed, would be receiving my MFA I felt a bit at peace for a while. I had let my hair grow long all summer, and all but stopped wearing make-up (mascara makes me feel entirely dolled up now). I felt in an odd way free—almost bare.

The fall came and went fairly quickly—the weekends alone at home and grocery-store-only outings feeling more and more like normalcy. It had been such a tough, trying year, that it suddenly felt nice to just stand still for a bit. So, I did.

In a brief amount of time, I watched (safely) as friends got married, got sick, got older and fell in love. I watched, with great anxiety, as our country voted in the most important election of our lives so far and took the deepest breath I’d ever taken as I watched that man face defeat—although he’s yet to swallow it. I watched as ex-lovers had babies, got engaged and never really stopped to think twice about any of it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the safety (and not in a lame, “safety-net” sort of way) of having T in my life has turned me into someone who not only craves quiet time at home, but really also sort of fell right damn into it very easily, though unexpectedly. I’ve heard the saying so many times before, but you really don’t realize everything is different once you find the right fit because that place feels like it’s always been home. I am grateful to not only have that now and moving forward, but most certainly throughout the trying, unstable times of 2020. In fact, I don’t know how I would have survived without it.

The holidays always creep up on me, and after being dealt a shitty hand from work (don’t even get me started, I’m still fuming) they came that much quicker. T & I were lucky enough to spend the holidays back home in the swamp, visiting my parents and his Dad. The time went by fast but was relaxing, fun, and reenergizing. We spent New Year’s Eve playing giant Jenga and yard Yahtzee with my parents in the cool, tropical winter of Florida. It was nice. We got tired right around 11, so we laid in bed until midnight talking, staying awake just long enough to share our new year’s kiss. It felt right—a proper send off to such a strange and unusual year. I was exctly where I needed to be—wrapped up in a blanket of T’s embrace, comfy in a bed in my childhood bedroom.

So now, here it is: 2021—the supposed upgrade to 2020, or so everybody secretly hopes. So now, as I sit here, drinking a warm, soy-chai latte (homemade!) I find myself having great difficulty setting an intention for the days ahead of me. I feel so beaten and bruised and physically fatigued for no reason but the experiences of 2020 and the courses they ran all over my life. I’m feeling reflective of having finished yet another year of my life (and my Saturn return! Halleluj!) and finding it hard to be anything but fatigued. I guess it’s from the year that’s just finished—more so than any other year it physically pained me at times to be alive at times. I’m missing so many of my friends who I haven’t been able to see for extended months at a time now. I am craving a sense of normalcy, of safety, so that I can feel better about making plans, but as for right now I just don’t have it. I am quietly trying to make subtle changes within myself and how I react to the world around me, but just like the start of this new year, that process is a slow one.

One of my resolutions (though I’m growing to hate that word more and more with each passing year) is to get back to writing. I had a good, albeit stressful, thing going while still in school, and after finishing my novel and receiving feedback, I couldn’t shake the feeling of absolute failure. It’s still there—it’s really hard to try and celebrate an accomplishment when you don’t feel like your work was good enough to warrant anything at all—especially not a fine arts degree. I never said I was a fiction writer—I just wanted to get better at writing fiction—so I need to remember that and allow myself to veer away from that for a while, to work on something new. Something I’ve been saying I’m not ready to write for many years now, something that when I now say that is just a plain old lie: My memoir. I’m ready to close the chapter in my life where I am a flight attendant, so the timing feels more than perfect.

I learned so much about what I want to do within my career and what sort of boundaries I don’t want to place on myself—and I’m trying, I really am. T gifted me with my own pottery wheel for Christmas and we are going to set it up this weekend and I am so excited to get my hands muddy and start creating. Until this year, I didn’t realize how much I needed a creative outlet other than writing—I had been depending on it for too long, my little cup felt bone dry. So, I’m excited to see where this new hobby takes me and how it influences my ability to return to the blank page—quite literally.

I know this year will not be the quick fix that so many are hopeful for—I think quite the opposite, actually. But here are some things I know for sure will happen: I will move out of my apartment and in with T. We will then, immediately get a dog and a new apartment. This, alone, feels like enough to fill the pages of the blank year ahead of us. I will go long periods of time without seeing my loved ones, and without traveling (bleak as this lifestyle may be). I will write, even when it’s hard to. I will publish something—I’m at work submitting pieces as we speak, and though the process is slow, I can tell this is my opportunity—I am ready t fight for it. I will turn 32, and the numerology of my life will seem more aligned. I will spend my birthday at home, alone, because of course Moulin Rouge has now been cancelled (I’m fine with it). I will learn more about myself the more I use my hands to create, to plant, to sculpt, to mold. I will love with fervor. I will smile more, because it’s actually healthier for you, even though my black heart hates to admit it. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get to attend a live concert, though I realize this might be wishful thinking at this point. I will do mushrooms and giggle with the colors. I will cry. I will hurt and I will cause harm. But through it all, I will persevere. Because if 2020 taught me anything, it’s that I am capable of regenerating into new versions of myself that I didn’t even have the time to dream up. I can adapt to whatever is thrown at me, though it will often times feel impossible. I can, and will, create. I can be reborn (as many times as I’d like to, too).

So, thanks, 2020, for teaching me more about myself than any other period of five years has ever taught me. I definitely feel like I’ve been through the ringer a couple of times, yet I find myself still standing day after day. It must be the way a domino feels, standing up, time after time, knowing that something right in front of you is about to knock you down. But instead of thinking about what I’m bringing down with me, I’m thinking of the entire collective as a whole—we are all experiencing this together. And maybe, just maybe, on the other side, there’s a kid with a smile waiting to do it all over again. And that’s perhaps where the beauty lays: we have to tear everything down in order to do better, be better, make change. Nobody likes to catch fire, but everyone loves rising from the ashes. We’ll all get to where we’re headed, one way or another. And eventually, I hope, we’ll see that the other side is better than we could have ever dreamt of.

I hope that 2021 is a bridge that brings us from destruction to creation. I hope the journey is long, so we all appreciate the outcome.

I love you all and wish you warmth and wellness into this year and beyond.

Happy new year—honor the circumstances you have around you and let them help you grow.

#me #personal

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gracereadstoomanybooks · 3 years

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answering questions I’ve been asked on TikTok✨

QUESTION: how did you get into reading?

So, when I was in middle school (many moons ago) we had this thing called AR Testing. Basically, you read a book and take a test on it—the questions were things that happened in the book, it was really simple. If you got a good grade, you got points. The more points you earned, the more eligible you were for the reading party at the end of each semester. Me, being the nerd I am, got top of my class because I went through 8th grade level books like it was nothing. The librarian at my school brought me books from the high school to read since everything was easy for me, and alas, my addiction began. And now that I have adult money, it’s a true addiction. Also, telling my father “I’m bored” and his response being, “go read a book or something” so thanks dad.

QUESTION: what’s one book you ALWAYS recommend to people?

This one is tough because I’ve read THOUSANDS of books, but if I had to choose one, it would probably be Confess by Colleen Hoover. I fell in love with her work in high school when I first read Ugly Love, but Confess is the type of book that pulls at your heart strings, y’all. It has everything people love: humor, sexual tension, drama, love. GO BUY THE DAMN BOOK. Or honestly any book by Colleen Hoover—she’s a fucking amazing author.

QUESTION: outside of making TikToks, what do you do for a living?

I currently work at a restaurant and hate every second of it. If anyone tells you to become a server, DONT. It’s not worth the hassle, I promise you. Sure, you can make decent money but the amount of rude customers and shitty tips you receive each shift is very disheartening. If you really need a job, do anything BUT work in the food industry.

QUESTION: what’s your wattpad story about?

First question: which one? I have about 30 drafts sitting there waiting to be posted. But, I’m going to assume you’re talking about the Harry Styles fan fiction I’ve been working on for the past 4 years and haven’t had the courage to post. I’ll tell you a little about it: Elaine Aldridge is forced into a betrothal to a man she’s never met & loathes. She goes to his court and realizes things aren’t what they truly seem. And the guard her future husband sticks on her??? None other than Mr. Harry Styles. Add in some magic & deaths and you’ve got my story— The First Prince. (Honestly, that’s an extremely shitty description so if you wanna check it out go to my wattpad account)

QUESTION: how old are you?

Ahem. . . twenty-one.

QUESTION: what is your dream career?

Being a published author and having people rave about my books. That’s all. Or, an editor for a publishing company. Imagine reading all day and being paid for it🤩

QUESTION: what was your least favorite read of 2020?

I already KNOW I’m gonna get shit for this but....... the wicked king. YALL I LITERALLY COULDNT GET THROUGH IT IM SO SORRY, I STILL HAVENT FINISHED IT

QUESTION: current favorite author?

Sarah. J. Maas. I don’t know what it is about her writing style, but it’s addicting. Throne of Glass is hands down the best series I’ve ever read. A Court of Thorns and Roses is the first book I’ve EVER reread. Her stories truly suck you in and hold onto you—you get lost so easily in her writing and it’s like once you’re done with a series, nothing will compare. Or, at least that’s how I felt after finishing Kingdom of Ash. Honorable mentions: Jennifer L. Armentrout, Penelope Douglas, L.J Shen, Elle Kennedy and Kennedy Fox.

QUESTION: any recommendations/tips to give to a new reader?

I’ve always given this advice to people who want to get into reading: find what you like and start with that. If you like romance, I’ve got a list for you to choose from. Mystery? Another list. Sci-fi? I GOT YOU. Fantasy? Yes! Sports fiction? It might take me a second but I’ll find you a book. Nonfiction? I’m zero help in that category, honestly. The point of the matter is that you’re never going to enjoy a book if you aren’t interested in the underlying topics.

QUESTION: do you ever find yourself comparing your life to fictional life?

Yes. All the time. I daydream about being apart of the Inner Circle and living in Terrasen with Aelin and Rowan. I think about what it would be like to have real powers and a mate. It drives my boyfriend crazy—but he loves me anyway.

QUESTION: what are your most anticipated books of 2021?

Here’s a list:

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

The Crown of Gilded Bones by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Gods and Monsters by Shelby Mahurin

Crescent City 2 (Untitled) by Sarah J. Maas

A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer (I just ordered this one & it arrives tomorrow)

Blessed Monsters by Emily A. Duncan

QUESTION: why did you start a Tumblr?

Honestly, I used to love tumblr when I was in grade school (way too young to be on here then but what else is new). I like having an extra space to get my questions and comments out without having to compress it into a 60 second video for TikTok to see. Tumblr is a good place to blog & post things like this.

QUESTION: what’s your favorite song right now?

I’ve listened to Carry You by Novo Amor every day for the past two months and I cry each time.

QUESTION: why write Harry Styles fan fiction?

Simple: I love Harry Styles. I’ve been a fan of him and One Direction since they were on X FACTOR. Read that again. X. Factor. I used to watch their performances on YouTube before WMYB even came out. Of course, I love all of the 1D boys but I was always a Harry gal. And I look up to him in a way—I’ve read things about people wishing they knew him personally and honestly? I would never want to meet him. I like the version of him I’ve cooked up in my brain over the past 10 years. I like the symbiotic relationship I have with his music. Fine Line is a ✨masterpiece✨. HS1 is a ✨work of art✨.

now, some topics I’ve been asked way too many times and want to finally get to:

QUESTION: political views?

the saying “anyone but trump” has been in my brain for the past four years. No, I’m not a republican. No, I’m not a democrat. I like to think of myself as a progressive (ahem, liberal) Did I vote for a democratic candidate? Yes, and I’d do it again and again until the US isn’t one of the worst countries—I’m sorry, businesses— to be apart of. I wanted Bernie but got Biden, and I’m alright with that. And my girl Kamala🥳

QUESTION: how did you feel about the BLM protests?

I went to multiple BLM protests and donated a lot of funds to BLM & other organizations. It’s 2021, people... stop being fucking RACIST. And don’t be afraid to call racist people out! Black Lives Matter, even if no one is posting about it anymore.

QUESTION: thoughts on abortion?

your body your choice, queen! not my uterus, not my problem.

QUESTION: there was a comment on an old video of yours talking about r*pe, why did you delete the comment?

I made a video when I first started my account on TikTok about reading in public and feeling “turned on” by it. Go watch it if you don’t know what I’m talking about. BUT, some ignorant male decided to comment and say “this is how girls get r*ped”. Whew. So. I deleted the comment because ....

I am a victim of sexual assault. Along with a lot of other women. 1 in 5 women have been victims of sexual assault. Talking about being r*ped isn’t funny.

No one else needed to see his comment. I reported it immediately and his account was shut down.

I never got justice for what happened to me, and the fact that some random male—who had never even met me or seen me before my video showed up on his FYP—had the nerve to comment that? Unacceptable.

this question isn’t as controversial but

QUESTION: what’s the best way to get out of a toxic relationship?

okay, let me just start off by saying that the people around you who love and support you are going to be your backbone. Leaving a toxic situation is hard, and every situation is different, but my best piece of advice to offer you is don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your loved ones are going to be there for you when you need them, even if you don’t believe they will. If you explain what’s happening, someone you know and love will drop whatever it is their doing to make sure you get out safely. good luck my babes.

now, back to our regularly scheduled program:

QUESTION: any tips on making tiktoks?

Literally none. I post what I think is funny and relatable and if anyone agrees, I’m satisfied. Even if it’s one view, it’s good enough for me. So I guess my one tip is to not base your life off of an app and followers.

QUESTION: favorite Harry Styles fanfic?

DONT MAKE ME CHOOSE. Duplicity is up there, along with Stall 1&2, and Kiwi. After? Absolutely not.

QUESTION: favorite WEBTOON?

y’all already KNOW. LORE OLYMPUS BY USEDBANDAID. Rachel is a genius and I have reread the series a million times. Hades is my soulmate and Apollo can rot in the fiery pits of the Underworld. also, if we’re talking about other webcomics, reading Walk on Water on mangadex...🤫

QUESTION: favorite movie?

Howls Moving Castle. I will be getting my “a heart is a heavy burden” tattoo very very soon.

QUESTION: I read your Elain theory on tumblr, can you explain a little more?

I thought I was pretty straightforward but I’ll say it again: she is always the “good” one and it’s too suspicious. SJM has already given one Archeron sister a happy ending, Nesta’s is obviously inevitable, but Elain? She has too many options for a happy ending. Lucien, who is her “mate”. Azriel, who is intrigued by her slightly. Her human guy—I don’t remember his name—who is disgusted that she’s not human anymore. Or, alone, planting flowers all day. BUT! My point is that she’s not truly happy. She was forced into the Cauldron just like Nesta. She was ripped away from the life she loved so dearly and didn’t want to give up. The man she was going to marry now hates her guts because she’s a High Fae. She has the perfect set up for a villain plot line and I’m all here for it.

well, that’s all I feel like doing tonight. hope you enjoyed my little q&a! be kind, and talk to you later! byeeee!

#a court of silver flames #acotar #harry styles #one direction #sarah j maas #throne of glass #wattpad #tiktok #elain archeron #howls moving castle #lore olympus #q&a time #walk on water #persephone #lore olympus hades

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helenarlett-rex · 3 years

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Goosebumps Review #13

So remember way back in late 2019 when I decided I was going to go back and read all the Goosebumps books I never got to read as a kid and write reviews on them? And remember how once 2020 hit I kind of just stopped doing that because 2020 was, well... 2020...? Well it’s 2021 now, so I guess it’s time to get back to that. And I had some house work to do and an audio book to listen to while working so, new Goosebumps review!

(Spoilers ahead)

How To Kill A Monster

Goosebumps (original series) #46

I know back in my last review I promised to do Werewolf Skin next, but I don’t have that one on audio book so I couldn’t listen to it while doing housework. I was able to find this one though and there is another reason why it stood out and made me want to listen to it. The monster itself. The original cover art (shown above) doesn’t really give you much of a look at what the monster actually is. Those hands make me think it’s some kind of big greed teddy bear or something like that. Then we got the TV show adaptation of this book back in the 90s where the monster looked like this...

And is it just me, or is that a monster costume left over from Power Rangers Turbo...? I’m fairly positive I’ve seen that guy on Power Rangers...

So now I’ve got two conflicting images for what this monster is supposed to look like... But my interest suddenly peaked when I learned that the French cover for the book actually gives a depiction of the monster that is accurate to how it’s described in the pages of the book itself.

No way... It’s a furry alligator? An anthropomorphic furry alligator... And this is a swamp monster, right? Well... As a fellow author who has also written about swamp monsters that were just big, anthropomorphic alligators, how could I pass that up?

So the story focuses on Gretchen and her step-brother, Clark. Their parents are headed to in Atlanta, Georgia for work and along the way they are dropping Gretchen and Clark off at their grandparent’s house. And by house, I mean an actual castle in the middle of the swamp. Why do their grandparents live in a castle? Why is the castle in the middle of the swamp? Don’t know... It’s never explained. But a castle in a swamp is kind of a cool setting for a horror story, so I’ll let it slide.

Once the kids are dropped off with their grandparents, the grandparents turn out to be comical stereotypes. The grandmother spends all her time cooking, like, way more food than anyone could actually eat... (Reminds me of my late grandmother) and the grandfather is basically Mr. Magoo, if Mr. Magoo was deaf instead of blind... So... Exactly the kind of jokes you would expect in this book...

Kid out in the swamp. Grandfather waving to him from the yard asking if he wants to help him finish building the shed. Kid screaming “Help! There’s an alligator!” Grandfather being like, “What’s that? Later? Okay!” then walking away and leaving the kid to get eaten by an alligator. It’s funny because he’s disabled!

You know before he started writing horror, R.L. Stine wanted to be a comedian. It’s times like this when I’m reminded why he didn’t make it.

The book tries to be a slow burn, having the kids notice odd things here and there and wondering what’s going on? Why do the grandparents have a locked room on the third floor of the castle that they aren’t allowed to go into? Why does Grandmother keep making so much food? Why was Grandfather carrying all the leftover food upstairs? That kind of thing... But this book is very late in the Goosebumps series and I think by this point R.L. Stine had it worked into his contract that every chapter had to end with a scare, fake-out or not... so while I feel like he wanted to write a slow burn, it ends up being more like wasting the first half of the book with the kids just dicking around in the castle so they can get covered in cockroaches or jump out from behind corners and try to scare each other...

The book doesn’t finally hit its stride until about half way through when things actually start happening. The kids open the door they aren’t supposed to open and find the big, furry alligator monster inside. That’s where Grandfather has been taking all the leftover food. He’s been feeding the monster... The monster gets out of the room and the kids panic and run away. But then they find out that the grandparents have left the castle and locked them inside. Oh but it’s fine... They left them a note on the refrigerator. A note that explains, hey, a monster wandered into the castle so we trapped it in one of the rooms. The car was in the shop so we couldn’t go for help but the car just got delivered so we are going to do that now. Don’t let the monster out and you’ll be fine. Also we are locking you in so you don’t go out into the swamp and get hurt.

I’m not even joking about this. These are like the worst grandparents alive. I mean, why wouldn’t you take the kids with you? Or at least tell they you were going? You have the time to write out two long notes explaining everything that is going on, but you don’t have the time to walk up the stairs and say, “Hey kids, we’re driving into town to get some help dealing with that monster locked in the room we told you to stay out of.” And yes, there are two notes but the second one doesn’t come into play until the end of the book... Personally I think the grandparents are actually trying to kill the kids. It’s never said in the book, but it really feels that way to me. It’s the only explanation that makes the entire premise of the book not... stupid...

But either way, that leaves us with the last half of the book, where we have the kids running from the monster while it chases them through the castle, and their various attempts to kill it. Like trying to throw it down the stairs and trying to feed it poison... This half of the book was actually fairly good. Good for a Goosebumps book at least... It was nice getting the actual threat out in the open and having a full half of a book with real scares instead of constant fake-outs. Nothing the kids try to kill the monster works and if it this section would have lasted a bit longer it could have built up a real sense of dread. The growing sense of desperation and hopelessness as every attempt proves just as useless as the last.

Creature Teacher, which is still probably my favorite Goosebumps book, nailed this. By getting the monster out in the open right away and showing that there was nothing the kids could do about it, it really drove home that growing dread of the hopelessness of the situation. This book came close... but ended up falling short of that. If so much time hadn’t been wasted in the first half of the book with the kids screwing around, there may have been more room for that sort of thing, but sadly half the book is already over so there wasn’t enough time for more than a couple of tries to kill the monster. And that’s a real shame because being trapped in a castle with a monster you can’t kill was the whole selling point of the book.

And when they finally do kill the monster it’s the biggest cop-out I’ve ever seen. The monster finally catches Gretchen and licks her as he is preparing to eat her, only to suddenly go into anaphylactic shock as he realizes, Oh shit, you’re a human?! I’m allergic to humans! And again, I’m not joking. The monster questions her if she’s a human. Tells her he’s allergic to humans. Then drops over dead... Poor guy...

Of course then Gretchen and Clark break out of the castle and start making their way through the swamp trying to find their way to town, only to remember there was still a second note from their grandparents they hadn’t read yet... A note that says, oh by the way... if the monster gets out and you manage to kill it, don’t go into the swamps. There are other monsters out there and they are pretty pissed off that we’ve been holding their brother prisoner.

Yeah, and as you can guess, by the time they finish reading that they are already surrounded by more swamp monsters. So I guess Gretchen and Clark are dead! And their grandparents are going to be facing criminal negligence charges when the parents get back and find out what happened.

All in all it was an okay premise for a book, but had a really stupid setup. Very cool monster. Wasn’t utilized nearly enough. Very stupid death. I didn’t actually get to see anyone get eaten. Kind of disappointing...

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