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supercorpkid · 3 years ago

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Kara’s Earth birthday.

Supercorp, Kara Danvers x Daughter!Reader, Lena Luthor x Daughter!Reader

Word Count: 2540.

“Oh, what you hiding in there?” You ask, coming from behind Lena and she jumps in fear. You chuckle at her reaction.

“Shhh, be quiet.” Lena says, shushing you with her finger. “I’m hiding Kara’s gift.”

“Oh! Momma’s birthday is coming up, you’re right.” You throw yourself in their bed, watching Lena carefully lock the lead box you gave her for Mother’s Day. “What are we doing for her?”

“I don’t know, baby. You’re not Superkid anymore so we can’t pick up her favorite foods from another countries, so maybe we just get potstickers and invite the Olsens.” Lena answers, still not paying attention to you, while she puts the box away. You breathe deep thinking about it.

“I could go.”

She looks back at you, looking confused. “No, my love. You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with just because it’s Kara’s birthday.”

“One: yes, I do. And two: it’s ok. I’m not uncomfortable with it at all.” You shrug. “It’s just flying, then landing in China and buying things from her favorite restaurant there. I don’t even need my suit.”

“Oh, you also don’t have your suit.” Lena says, moving to her closet and coming back with a box in hands. “Remember I burned it when I was you?”

“I do remember. Did I ground you for it, young lady?” You joke, making Lena roll her eyes at you.

“Here’s the new one.” She hands you the box and you open to see the House of El crest staring at you in its golden glory. You breathe deep.

“You know what? Just keep it.” You give her the box back. “It was here with you, anyway. I’m sure you’ll take better care now that you don’t have to wear it anymore.”

“Yeah?” Lena asks, unsure. You agree with your head.

“I’ll ask if I need it.” You watch Lena getting up and going back to the closet. You lower your glasses to see where she is keeping it, memorizing the shelf she put in. You adjust your glasses back on your face before she comes back into the room. “So-” You say when she shows up. “I’ll get the food. And I’ll make a gift for her in the lab. You already got her a gift, and we have the dinner planned.”

Lena smiles, agreeing.

“Doesn’t it all seem a little…” You think about it. “Basic?”

“Basic?”

“Yeah, I mean, isn’t it the same thing we do every year? Shouldn’t we try something different? Like, a surprise party?”

“A surprise party?” Lena parrots you. “For Kara?” You nod. “I think you’re forgetting we’ve tried that for years and we can never surprise her. She has super hearing and x-ray vision, baby. It’s like setting ourselves up for failure.”

“Ok, but what if we do it somewhere she can’t see through? Like the DEO. Or-or my lab!”

“You wanna throw a party in your lab?”

“I just want to try something different this year. Honestly, don’t you feel like this year we’ve been through all kinds of weird, miserable, fucked up things-”

“Language!”

“Sorry, but there isn’t any other word good enough to describe it.” You can see that your mom is agreeing with you. “For some reason I feel like this year we should be thankful we’re still alive and well and together.”

“You’re right.” She cups your face with a sad little smile. “We’ve been through so much; your momma deserves a really nice party with everyone here to celebrate.”

“Who’s everyone?”

“You know, everyone everyone.”

“Mom, everyone everyone who? We know like ten people.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just worry about the food, and straighten up your lab, so it looks less like a lab, and more like a place we could actually throw a party.” You see Lena’s eyes tinkling and you don’t even ask about it. You already have a long list of things to do. Gift, food, organizing the lab. You’ll need some help.

You go to your lab, you need to think of something to give her as a gift, and you only have two days to figure it out. It’s too short notice. Why the hell weren’t you thinking about this before?

You sit in your lab and think and think. What can you give Kara? You sit on the chair, on the floor, on the table. You lay in it, roll to one side, then to the other. You pace around the lab. You leave really quickly to buy some snacks and look for inspiration on the street. Then you go back to the lab. What can you give her? You play on your phone. Text your cousin -she doesn’t reply because she is at school-. You go see your mom upstairs -she is in a meeting and can’t talk-. You spend half an hour talking to Aly and distracting her from her receptionist job. You go back to the lab, lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling. Your entire day is a waste. You can’t think of a single thing to make and give to Kara.

The next day you ask Jamie’s help, when she leaves school, to make your lab more presentable. She has a lot of ideas. Some are very inflammable to do in a lab -honestly, most of them are-, but some are actually nice, and when you two are done your lab looks like someplace else.

“Can you move this table?” Jamie looks at your worktable in the middle of the room. “I mean, you probably can right?”

“I-yes, Jamie, I probably can.” You smirk, picking it up more than a thousand pounds with one hand and moving to the side.

“You know, that’s something I never get tired of watching.”

You think about how many times you’ve seen Kara with one couch in one hand, her phone on the other, while Lena vacuums under it. How do the rest of the world clean under heavy furniture? You don’t even know.

“Ok. How about now?” You ask looking around and Jamie agrees with a smile.

“It’s perfect.”

“Great! Now I just have to think about something I can make or buy for her.”

“Well, I can’t help with that.” Jamie says, grabbing her stuff and making her way out your lab. You follow her closely behind. “I had one idea and it was a little notebook that she can use for work.”

“That’s actually quite clever.” You grunt, frustrated.

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

Why can’t you think of something to give to your momma? It used to be so easy and now you can’t think of anything for the life of you. It’s so disappointing. You know that Kara won’t care about what you give her, but why on Earth is it so hard?

“Hey.” Kara knocks on your door, late at night. You look at your alarm clock, confused. It’s too late. “Heard you were still up.”

“Oh. Come in.” You say and you don’t have to call twice to Kara throw her body next to yours, flopping on her belly.

“You seemed distracted today. I wanted to check if you’re alright.” She slings her arm around your ribcage, and you smile to yourself. Rao, this woman deserves the entire universe. There’s nothing you could make that would be good enough for her. You kiss the crown of her head.

“I love you.”

“Oh.” Kara says, raising her head to look at you. “I love you too, babyface.” But she raises an eyebrow right after. “Is that all?”

“Mhm.” You smile. “I’m alright. You?”

Kara’s eyebrows pinch together, and you see her crinkle showing. You ease it up with your thumb.

“No need to worry. I’m actually fine.”

“My face betrays me.” She says with a laugh. “Gonna get botox for that.”

“No. You look perfect as you are, momma.” You cup her face, and she smiles, kissing your hand in return.

“Ok, I’m gonna let you sleep, then. Have a goodnight, kid.”

The very next day is the day of the party. You make some adjustments here and there. And wait for Lena to say its time.

“Hey!” Lena enters your lab with a big cake in hands. “The place looks great!”

“I know, right? Jamie had a bunch of cool ideas.”

“Your momma’s going to love it.” She places the cake on the table. “Ok, time to fly to China for the food. Here.” She gives you her credit card. “I’ll wait for the guests and when we’re all here, we’ll get her to come.”

“Ok, cool.” You look at the list of things to buy, and Lena’s card. It’s a lot of food. You wonder how many people she has invited.

When you come back, balancing all the food she’s asked for, your lab is already filled with guests, with portals opening, bringing more people in.

“Hey Superkid!” Barry says, coming from the portal with wife, kids, Caitlin Snow, Cisco, and a bunch of other people right behind him.

“Hey!” You try to wave without dropping the food, which is hard.

“Here, kiddo, let me help.” Alex shows up next to you. She grabs a few bags and helps you set up the table. “Nice party.”

“Thanks. Jamie actually helped decorate.” You say, and you hear Jamie’s voice right behind you.

“It would’ve been nicer if you had let me bring sparkles.”

“So we could burn this place down? No, thanks.” You answer and watch Superman walking in with his family following him closely by. “Hi, Kal!” And not far behind, you see Eliza. “Oh! Gramm! You came!”

“I sure did!” She opens her arms, and you walk into her embrace. “Look at you! You’re so tall now! You look exactly like your momma.”

“Speaking of her-” You hear Lena’s voice. “Seems like everyone is here already. Oh wait, here comes Nia and Brainy. Alex? Is J’onn and M’gann coming?”

“On their way!”

“When they get here, you call your momma ok?” Lena moves away from you, and you agree with your head. You look around again. There are too many people in your lab, you didn’t even know you all knew this many people, let alone that you could gather all of them in one place.

“We’re here! Sorry, sorry!” J’onn says walking in, and you look at Lena who nods at your phone.

You: Hey! You busy?

Momma: Going home, why baby?

You: I need help with something here in my lab. Can you come over? I have donuts🍩🍩🍩

Momma: DONUTS! Say no more!

“Guys, she’s coming!”

Everyone stops talking, and Lena comes at you with the cake. You look at it with a smile on your face, you still can’t believe she made a cake that looks like a potsticker. Your momma will freak.

“Little one?” You hear Kara from the other side of the door.

“Yeah! Come in!” You watch Kara opening the door and getting startled when everyone yells.

“SURPRISE!”

“What! You did not just surprise me! That’s so cool!” Kara comes closer with the biggest smile you have ever seen. “Awww, look at all of this! OH MY GOD, THE CAKE! LOOK AT THE CAKE!”

“Go ahead, blow it out.” Lena says.

“Gently.” Alex adds, making you chuckle at the thought.

“Make a wish.” You suggest right after.

“What else can I wish for?” Kara says with a soft smile, and your cheeks burn red. She blows out the candles, and it doesn’t take long for the party to actually start.

She goes around saying ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ to everyone, and you sit in a corner with Jamie to eat. Gramm joins right after and it’s great to see her for a while.

It’s really late at night when the portals start to open, people start to leave, and there’s no one left in your lab but your aunts, Gramm, Jamie and moms. They help you clean up the whole thing and soon enough they’re giving Kara their gifts.

You feel embarrassed that you don’t have anything to give her, so you slip out of the lab, praying she doesn’t notice your lack of gift for her.

“Hey, where are you going, kid?” Kara pulls you in, looking at you fondly.

You shrug and look down. How do you tell her you couldn’t think of a single present to give her?

“What’s that about?”

“I didn’t get you anything.” You breathe out.

“You didn’t-” Kara laughs. “Really? So a surprise party is nothing? And flying to another country to pick up my favorite foods doesn’t count?” You raise your eyes to finally look at her. “Why would you give me something else besides this whole thing?”

“I just-” You shrug again, cheeks burning with shame. She doesn’t push you any further, but she also doesn’t let go. Kara just looks at you, waiting for you to give her something. “Made all these big plans, because I wanted the day to be extra special.”

“And why is that kid?” She asks, and you bite your lip. “You know, I’m very happy with the party, and with the fact that I got to see everyone. But I would also be very happy if it was just you, Lena and me, and a little cupcake.” Kara says cupping your face. “Why did today have to be so special?”

“Because-” She raises her eyebrow encouraging you. “We had a difficult year, and I know that it was my fault.”

“What? Of course it was not your fault!”

“Momma, I almost died a few times, I went to three different realities, I was mind controlled, couldn’t get up from bed-”

“Ok, let me stop you right there.” Kara’s face becomes very serious. “You were kidnapped three times. You got tricked by an imp, which, by the way, I’ve been too. You were literally mind controlled by a villain. How-how can you say this is your fault?” You open your mouth. “How can I possibly think that it is your fault that you couldn’t get up from bed, when all of this has happened to you in less than a year, little one?”

You breathe out. You don’t know what to tell her.

“Yes, you’re right. It’s been a difficult year for the three of us. But what about meeting Maya, and everyone you met when you went to different realities? What about all the laughter, hugs, and kisses and the love we shared this year? Hm? Didn’t that make this year a little enjoyable?” Kara asks and you agree with your head. “I don’t need a huge party, the biggest cake you can buy, or any of this to make me happy. You know what I need?”

“Me?” You ask with a little smile, and she smiles widely at you.

“Yes, my heart. I need you.” Kara pulls you in for a hug and a forehead kiss. “And your mom too. Trust me, the fact that you’re both here in this universe with me, makes coming to Earth the best thing that has ever happened in my life.”

You smile, feeling less heavy.

“I love you, momma.” You kiss her forehead. “Happy Earth birthday. I’m glad you ended up here.”

“Me too, kid. Me too.”

#supergirl #kara danvers #supercorp #supercorpfamily #lena luthor #supercorp daughter #kara x lena #kara x reader #supercorp fanfic #lena x reader #happy birthday Kara Danvers

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its5amgotosleep · 3 years ago

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Hickeys and shattered hearts / Maria Hill x Stark!reader / Natasha x Stark!reader

A/N:This one's kinda sad but also kinda cute idk

Warning: Light angst, cursing ofc.

дорогой - Sweetheart

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You were new to the Avenfers despite being Tony Starks sister. They didn't know he had a sister because he never told them per your request. And only introduced yourself during the battle of New York showing up in an iron suit.

Although you had already worked for Shield even before Tony did as an agent. You helped him build some of his suits, even made your own

Tony and you were slightly different from each other with you being more on the nicer and sweeter side but still had his wit and sass.

You got along with the rest of them team really well, especially with a certain red headed assassin. Natasha had gotten to like you a lot after a few years of being colleagues, though was a complete wreck at asking you out.

Now you and the Avengers are in Sokovia battling with Ultron and his iron legion alongside new additions. Pietro and Wanda Maximoff.

"So when do you think help is on the way." You blasted through the robots that were lined up. "Any minute now cavalry."

"I didn't say we should leave.." You hear Natasha as you land to the ground. "There's worse ways to go." She finishes, you open your mask to breath a little better. "This isn't exactly how I planned mine to be." You said taking a few deep breaths.

"Where else am I gonna get a view like this." She motioned about the floating country. "Only once in a lifetime." You try to see through the smoke.

"I hope you like the view Romanoff. It's about to get better." Fury says through the coms as the helicarrier emerges up from the clouds and smoke. "Nice right? Pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty but she'll do."

"Fury you son of a bitch." You and Steve say as you looked in awe at the flying ship. "Oh, you two kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"I wouldn't really call her my mother, but yes I do kiss her with my mouth." You grinned as mask closed again ready for the second wave. Nat didn't know you were in a relatiowith someone only till a few weeks ago.

You were searching up on new technology to improve you and you brothers suits. Recently discovering about Nanotechnology, after days of research you've only managed to create a protoype for only the helmet.

You heard the door knock and said out a come in. "Hey, Y/N have you seen Bruce?" Natasha came in as you still had on the mask thst only reached the bottom of your neck.

"No sorry, haven't seen him since like an hour ago. Maybe he's in his room I guess." You shrugged as the mask slowly disappeared like it was dissolving from your face.

"Whoah how'd you do that you fuckin wizard or something." Nat looked at you surprised. "Cool right?" You grinned at her as you put the tech on a mannequin.

"I'll go find him, sorry to bother you." She smiled a little. "Yeah no problem." You focused on the computer. She was nearly out of the room when she noticed a bruise on the side of your neck.

Once you turned around a little it showed more purple and red spots on your neck. "Y/N.." She trailed as you looked up at her. "Yeah?"

"What happened to." She motioned to her neck and you looked at her in confusion. "Huh? Why? Is there something wrong?" You asked still confused.

"Look at the mirror." Her tone laced with a hint of jealously. "I don't what's- Oh!" You cut off your own sentence when you saw you reflection in the mirror. Red and purple marks scattered on your neck.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry you had to see that!" Shrieking you activated the mask again hide them and your embarrassed face.

You hit your head on palm of your habd a few times chanting to yourself that you were stupid to not notice. "Look, it's ok, I've seen worse. Do you want me to help you with it?" Nat brushed of the feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"No no, I don't want to take away more time from you. I can just cover this up with some make up." The front of the mask opened as you had a sorry smile for her. But Natasha wanted to stay longer, she wanted to stay with you.

"Ok just, just call me if you need anything." She said as you let out a final apology and a thank you. "F.R.I.D.A.Y, please call Agent Hill immediately please." You command the A.I thingking that the ex russian spy was gone.

"What is it Stark? Somethibg happened?" Maria said from the other line. Natasha hid behind a wall to eavesdrop, yes it was wrong, but she just wanted an answer to her question.

"Don't Stark me Hill, you know what exactly happened." You spat before sending a photo to her. "I can't believe you didn't tell me before I left!" You sighed running a hand through your hair.

"I don't get what- Oh, Oh!" Maria stopped midway when she saw the photo you sent. "Well you didn't exactly say anything when we were-" "Don't you dare finish that sentence Hill or I will slap you across the face." You threatened through gritted teeth.

Natasha left not needing and not wanting to hear your conversation. She only asked for Bruce to have an excuse to see you.

Now she's left to go to the gym to blow off some steam and to avoid her heart from shattering entirely.

"I think I know who you're talking about. You two together the whole night at the party right?" Clint said as he smirked at you as you flew past him.

"You're seeing someone and you didn't tell me? I feel betrayed- I am betrayed." Tony sounded genuinely upset over the fact that Clint new and not him.

"We agreed not to tell anyone, and that anyone including you brother." You said matter of factly.

You saw Clint rushing behind a rock with a little boy trying to get to cover from the iron legion who were about to rain bullets on them.

Also noticing a blue and silver trail speeding towards them, you land right infront of Pietro and Clint shielding the three from the bullets, after they were done it was your turn to start beaming at them.

"What you didn't see that coming?" Opening the front of your mask to smirk at Pietro who looked at you like you were crazy.

"After this Fury, I'm gonna take a break. I've seen enough robots for the year. Person I am seeing you owe me a date." You say taking down a few more robots.

"I am going to pretend I didn't see her nod her head and smile. Stark you two have sone explaining to do before any dates will happen." Fury eyed Maria giving the 'Really? You two?' look.

The three of you got on to one of the ships to the helicarrier. "I'm sorry for what's about to happen." You apologetically glance at Pietro about Sokovia.

"Not exactly the way I wanted my chapter to end, but I guess it's something. This is where my family was made, this was also where it was destroyed, and where my twin and I made into well.. Whatever we are." His thick accent following through every word..

After the battle with Ultron, the civilians were given the help that they needed. "Having fun staring at the wall? It's an interesting wall don't get me wrong." You smiled as you walked towards Natasha.

"What'd you call me for? You need help finding Bruce again?" You asl as she shook her head turning to fully look at you.

"Not really, I just wanted to tell you something." Nat looked nervous which surprised you for the very first time. "It's about you."

"Me?" You pointed to yourself. "I- jesus christ this is harder than I thought." Nat let out a heavy sigh as you put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey its ok, take your time." You reassured her.

"I like you." She knew that you knew what it meant and was expecting to take your hand of her shoulder but you didn't. "I'm sorry Nat I really am, you're an amazing person."

"I know you can't, that's why I'm telling you this to let it out of my chest." Sadness was evident in her tone but she had to accept the fact the you can't love her back.

"I'll go beat up Hill if she hurts you." Nat joked as you pushed her shouler lightly. "We still friends?" You mumble as you pulled her to a hug.

She reciprocated by wrapping her arms around you. "Always." She said against your shoulder. "I better not find you downing a bottle of vodka later." You threatened as she just chuckled.

"I'll try not to." She says as you pulled away from the hug to glare at her. "No promises дорогой." She playfully smirked at you.

Natasha swore to herself to be there for you until the end. Not as lovers but as friends. Always and forever

Natasha left with Steve because they were evaluating the new recuits for the Avengers, she asked you if you wanted to come with her but you declined saying you were gonna meet with someone.

"Hey.." Maria said as she leaned against a wall seeing you walk down the halls. "Hi, were you waiting for me?" You ask as you walked closer to the Agent.

"No I wasn't." She simply replied as she looked at you and smiled "Really? Cause you looked like you were waiting for me." You raised a brow at her staring at hers, cold blue eyes thst somehow radiated warmth whenever she looked at you.

"Maybe I was maybe I wasn't." She smirked at you causing you to roll your eyes by her answer. "What were you doing before going here?" She asked as you two walked together.

"Oh I jusst rejected someone." You sighed rethingking what happened earlier. "Was it Natasha?" Maria says non chalanty.

You looked at her with a 'how the fuck.' face. "How the fuck did you know?" Your eyes wide as they can be. "I've known for a while know. At first I was worried about it."

"Oh yeah? Why so?" "Because I love you and you love me, simple as that." She gave a quick peck before walking ahead of your blushing face.

"Atleast kiss me properly Agent." You caught up to her and pulled her down for a proper kiss, instinctively placing her hand on your waist.

You pulled away as Maria was about to deepen in. "Although I'd love to but I only said for a proper kiss." Now it was your turn to give her quick peck before walking ahead of her.

"This so very cringey but also so cute at the same time." Coulson solighed as he saw the whole thing happen.

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#black widow x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romonova #natasha x reader #natasha x you

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makeste · 4 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 291: The Endeavor Pamphlet

Previously on BnHA: Dabi showed up atop Gigantomachia’s back and was all “you’ll never guess who I really am!” and the readers humored him and were all “who?” and he was all “TODOROKI TOUYA” and we were all “WOW └(・。・)┘ OH MY GOSH I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED”, except for Shouto and Enji who were GENUINELY SHOCKED. Anyway so Touya was all “and guess what I’m doing right now!” and before anyone could even try, he was all, “STREAMING MY EMMY-NOMINATED MINISERIES ‘HELLO, I’M EVIL BUT ALSO TRAGIC AND SEXY, NOW LET ME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT MY DAD WHO SUCKS’’, THAT’S WHAT.” And everyone was all “oh my god” and Touya was all “ヽ(⌐■_■)ノ♪” for basically the rest of the chapter, and that’s pretty much it! Oh, wait, except for the part where he also doused himself in bleach in a fit of pure theatrics, which is actually pretty much the main takeaway from the entire chapter really because it was just wild af. ANYWAYS.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi introduces Baby Touya, the world’s most enchantingly sweet character, and is immediately all, “I sure can’t wait to tell you guys all about how his fucking jaw burnt off.” Thankfully he doesn’t (YET), and we cut back to the present pretty quickly, where Dabi explains how he took all of his brain cells that should have been used to stop him from pouring bleach over his head, and instead put them all toward his big brain plot of releasing an elaborate video detailing Endeavor’s various abuses and crimes, and even throwing Hawks under the bus as well because WHY NOT. He then leaps off of Gigantomachia’s back (like I said, no brain cells) all set to blast them with a Prominence Burn, only to be stopped by none other than THE LEGEND HIMSELF, MOTHERFUCKING BEST, PRETTIEST, NICEST, MOST OUTSTANDING MOTHERFUCKING JEANIST. Who’s no doubt outraged by the crime against hair he witnessed only moments earlier. GO GETTIM JEANY BOI.

so I haven’t had time to answer any of them because this has been the stupidest week, but I just wanted to tell you guys that I received no fewer than nine asks about Dabi’s hair. which, in a week filled with election memes and tumblr’s most cursed fandom briefly rising back up from the dead, is a pretty impressive feat for him if you ask me. like, I know I was making fun of it basically nonstop, but it sure did generate a lot of discussion so maybe I should rethink my opinions on Dabi’s PR strategies now, idk

anyway. it’s Saturday. time to catch up on this shit. let’s see how fucked the Todorokis are

OH NO HE’S CUTE

HOLY SHIT THIS IS TOO MUCH TO FUCKING PROCESS. I’M JUST TRYING TO ENJOY MY DAY HORIKOSHI, ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO TRAUMATIZE THIS POOR CHILD RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SALAD

“thanks for being all right” the fuck

who allowed this child to be so cute. I’m serious. who signed off on this

how could a child this adorable possibly want to murder his equally adorable baby brother. please, your honor. there must be some mistake here

guess how prepared I am to read all about Touya’s tragic past. mm. that’s right. zero ready. none ready

anyway. TWO THOUSAND DEGREES LOLOLOL. NO TRACE OF A CORPSE HOW CONVENIENT. A PIECE OF HIS LOWER JAW BONE FFFFMSGHKLSh. LOVELY. LOVELY

LMAOOOOO

listen you guys. I just want to take a moment to appreciate that Horikoshi Kouhei did one of two things here. either (1) he planned it out FROM THE VERY START that Touya would be born with red hair Because Fire Powers, but would then have his hair turn white due to trauma, thus making the Dabi/Touya connection very slightly less obvious, although Let’s Be Real Who Are We Kidding. OR, (2) the anime got it wrong and gave him red hair, and rather than allowing this plot hole to continue to exist, Horikoshi took it upon himself to concoct this elaborate storyline and pretend it was never a plot hole at all! in which case I sure hope someone at Bones is sending him a VERY nice Christmas card this year. got this man sweeping up all your messes for you. you’re just lucky he has some sort of wild compulsion to address these things

anyways!!

FATHER AND SON. how sweet. :| still zero percent ready for any of this btw

STOP BEING CUTE

THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I’M SO MAD RIGHT NOW. HE IS THE SINGLE CUTEST CHARACTER IN THE ENTIRE SERIES, and do you even know how many other baby characters I’m betraying in order to say that?! baby Kacchan, baby Deku, baby Ochako, baby Shouto, Eri, baby Hawks. I’M LOOKING YOU DEAD IN THE EYE RIGHT NOW AND TELLING YOU THAT BABY TOUYA IS CUTER THAN ALL OF THOSE PLEBS. AND YOU’RE LOOKING BACK AT ME RIGHT NOW ALL “YEAH IT SURE IS A PITY ABOUT HIS JAW MELTING OFF THOUGH.” THAT’S IT, I QUIT THE SERIES

and Enji’s smiling at him. he’s so proud of him. but then Touya won’t be able to do it, and Enji’s gonna stop training him, and Touya’s gonna feel like a failure and keep pushing himself in order to try and win his dad’s affections back, because that’s all kids fucking want, all they want is just love, that’s fucking it, you couldn’t just give him that?? and then he’s gonna immolate himself fflkdlskfh THERE YOU SEE HORIKOSHI, I KNOW THE WHOLE STORY ALREADY, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THE WHOLE “SHOW THEM THE DEAD DOG” THING YET AGAIN YOU PIECE OF SHIT

OH SNAP THERE GOES THE TWIN THEORY. R.I.P.

BABY FUYUMI. PRETTY CUTE. NOT AS CUTE AS TOUYA THOUGH. HEY LOOK, NO REASON TO GET MAD AT ME I’M JUST STATING A FACT HERE

YEAH THIS IS GONNA GO REAL WELL OH BOY

I keep pressing the emergency stop button but this industrial tragedy machine just keeps on chugging along anyway, I’m pretty sure this thing is not up to code

:| I am so sorry sweet boy, Horikoshi is only getting started with you

FUCKING HELL WITH THIS NARRATION

but he wasn’t actually a child to you, he was just a little puppet child for you to live vicariously through!! and then you went and did the same fucking thing with Shouto afterwards and never learned your lesson until just six months ago!! fucking hell, Enji

so now he’s all “Touya is dead, that’s an unforgivable lie” fflkdhflk motherfucker does he look dead to you. if you really think that, tumblr and twitter have got a little over five years’ worth of archived theory posts to show you

oh shit Touya’s countering with “it’s an unforgivable truth”, which, damn. I actually think Horikoshi’s dialogue is one of his weaker points as a writer a lot of the time, but that comeback was snappy as fuck

actually guys, now that I’ve seen how ridiculously fucking cute baby!Touya was, I can almost understand why Shouto and Enji never put the pieces together before lol. any passing similarities would have easily been dismissed on account of he’d need to be at least 10x more adorable in order to get the full resemblance

OH MY GOD

NOW YOU SLEEP??? SO YOU POINT BLANK REFUSED TO PASS OUT WHILE YOU WERE BUSY MAIMING ALL OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS, BUT NOW THAT THERE’S AN OPPORTUNITY TO SEE YOUR REACTION TO THE “YOUR LIEUTENANT WAS SECRETLY RELATED TO ONE OF YOUR WORST ENEMIES THE WHOLE TIME” BOMBSHELL, YOU FINALLY DECIDE TO GET YOUR FORTY WINKS. I SEE

WOW DABI

I’M SURPRISED YOU DIDN’T ALREADY HAVE YOUR ANCESTRY.COM RESULTS PRINTOUT READY TO FOLD INTO A PAPER AIRPLANE AND ZOOM ON DOWN TO HIM

LOL NEVERMIND

gotta say, so far The Endeavor Pamphlet is just about as spicy as I could have hoped

(ETA: Natsuo’s face as he watches his beloved dead brother come back to life only to literally and metaphorically set everything on fire in one fell swoop is :/. why must you do this to me Natsu. can’t you see I’m trying to throw a Welcome Back Jeanist party here.)

HAVE YOU READ THIS?! TODOROKI ENJI ABUSED HIS OWN HEIR, AND DABI WROTE IT DOWN RIGHT THERE

WELL HE’S NEVER GON’ BE NUMBER ONE NOW / NEVER GON’ BE NUMBER ONE NOW / THAT’S ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT / THAT’S ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT

btw I neglected to mention this last week, but yes I do recognize and appreciate that this is Can’t Ya See-kun himself whom Horikoshi has chosen to be the face of this existential crisis which the general public is about to experience. rip CYS-kun

OOF

excuse me. putting aside the implications of Dabi sharing this context-less murder video of Hawks with the entire world for a moment, I just have to pause for a sec here, because when exactly did he get a chance to edit this all in?? complete with voiceover that seamlessly ties in with the prerecorded footage of him with DNA test results sans shirt?? you’re telling me this motherfucker, with all the smoke that was in the room thanks to his own quirk, somehow got a PERFECT SHOT of the PRECISE MOMENT when Hawks drove his feather knife into Jin’s back, using his MAGIC CAMERA THAT HE I GUESS HAD THE ENTIRE TIME IN THE POUCH RIGHT NEXT TO HIS BLEACH BOTTLE, and then immediately somehow got this very next shot as well FROM AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ANGLE

ALL THE WHILE IMMEDIATELY RUNNING THROUGH SCRIPT REVISIONS IN HIS HEAD, WHICH HE THEN PROCEEDED TO RECORD... WHERE, EXACTLY?? WITH SKEPTIC, WHILST RIDING ON MACHIA’S BACK??

AND THIS IS ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF???

and this after I just wrote that whole long paragraph positively GLOWING about this man’s ability to plug up a plot hole. jfc. just scratch out every damn word I said lol. just forget all of it

are you fucking kidding me, the footage was from the cameras Skeptic planted on Hawks??

that’s... actually... okay you know what, it still doesn’t make any sense in the slightest, but the determination to address it nonetheless... just, dammit... I feel like I’m constantly at war with myself over whether or not I want to shake this man’s hand or slap him lmao. whatever, then!!

anyway, since Shouto and Enji can’t actually see the damage that Touya is dealing to the hero industry even as they speak, Touya is taking it upon himself to give them the highlights

I think it’s a testament to how much Endeavor cares about Hawks that he managed to zero in on that comment even amidst all the craziness of his eldest son returning from the dead to announce how he’s been carefully plotting their destruction for years and years. like, he heard “Hawks” and his face immediately went like that. you think he’s worried that Dabi did something to him? because he’d be right to worry lol

so the Endeavor Pamphlet narration is now explaining all about how Hawks totally killed the Number 3 Hero Best Jeanist as well! yep... he sure did... totally...

OH MY GOD WE’RE CUTTING TO HIM AHHHHH

Hawks, that is. lol. not Jeanist. NO, JUST MY POOR HALF-DEAD WINGLESS BABY SON

NOOOOO HIS LITTLE WING STUMPS. BUT SOMEHOW HIS FACIAL HAIR IS STILL INTACT. OH TO BE AN ANIME PRETTY BOY BEING SET ON FIRE. “HEY, TAKE IT EASY, WATCH THE FACE”

EXCUSE ME WHAT

interesting! we suspected as much, I think, with the clues that Ending dropped, and the little flashback right after the name reveal. still not clear how Dabi found out about it though!

looooool okay here we go, breaking out the heavy-handed holier-than-thou shit now

you know, I do find it interesting how trying to model themselves after All Might’s noble Symbol of Peace image has kind of ended up being the heroes’ undoing here. like, I could write a whole essay on this, but what it basically boils down to is that they were all trying too hard to be perfect. All Might went out there and did his thing and was amazing, and so the powers-that-be built an entire system centered around this seemingly-infallible person, and they acted like the system was infallible as well. and so most of the population ended up becoming complacent over the years, and meanwhile the people who were unfortunate enough to fall through the cracks understandably wound up disillusioned and perceiving the heroes as these false idols

anyway, but I think one positive takeaway from this is that the new up-and-coming generation of heroes represent a breakaway from that system. like, imo what we’re witnessing is the downfall of the Perfect Hero, and the rise of the imperfect hero. and this new generation doesn’t shy away from their failures or pretend like they never happened. they pretty much can’t pretend, because their failures are all right out there in the open for everyone to see. Bakugou Katsuki, just to name one example off the top of my very biased head, has had his own personal character journey basically play out right in front of the media’s eyes. his humiliation at the sports festival, his kidnapping by the League, and all of the fallout afterward. this isn’t someone who can ever go out there and convince the world that he’s perfect. but what he can do, instead, is show the world that he’s trying. that he’s trying with everything he has to do his best, to be the best. rather than this untouchable godlike image, it’s instead the image of someone painfully human who is nonetheless striving with everything he’s got to keep moving forward, flaws and all, and work his way to the top

and ultimately I think that’s going to be a much more positive image to send out to the world when all’s said and done. because rather than merely inspiring awe, heroes like that inspire people to take action themselves. or at least that’s what I hope! and not just Bakugou, but the others as well. we’ve got Shouto, whose own personal trauma is being aired in front of the whole nation even as I sit here ranting. we’ve got Deku, who cries at the drop of a hat, and who fought to become a hero despite being quirkless (and I think it’s only a matter of time before that eventually becomes public knowledge as well). tl;dr because I’m getting way too long-winded here, but these kids have effectively been humanized in a way that the old generation never was, and I think that’ll go a long way towards building trust between them and the people they’ll someday be protecting, and inspiring the next generation in hopefully a much healthier way

anyway so where were we. ...oh yes, Dabi was explaining that heroes only protect themselves, and is presumably building up to his grand conclusion of “therefore you should all just let the villains take over and burn down the world”

omfg. YOU GUYS

DOES CAN’T YA SEE-KUN’S SHARK FRIEND ACTUALLY CALL HIM “CAN’T YA SEE-KUN.” HE HAS A NAME YOU KNOW!! UNLESS HE LEGALLY GOT HIS NAME CHANGED TO CAN’T YA SEE-KUN. OH MY GOD

ALSO, IS THAT CAN’T YA SEE-KUN CRYING IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT THERE OMG. GIVE THIS CHILD A HUG. EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW AND HUG HIM

BAKUGOU IS BARELY HANGING ON THERE LOL. GOTTA STAY CONSCIOUS... SO MUCH TEA BEING SPILLED... FOCUS... CONCENTRATE

IIDA’S ANGLING HIS HEAD IN A WEIRD WAY, LIKE DUDE. LOOKING SUSPICIOUSLY SNUGGLY THERE. MMM THESE IIDABAKU CRUMBS

HADOU IS ALL “WHAT EVEN IS ACTUALLY GOING ON” LMAO

LASTLY, POOR SHOUTO OMFG. WHEN YOU’RE ALL FINISHED HUGGING CYS-KUN THIS CHILD NEEDS YOUR ATTENTION!!

so now Dabi’s leaping off of this ninety-foot-tall gargoyle man like that’s a normal, smart thing to do. unless he can fly too now? saw his dad doing it back at Fukuoka and was all “hmm”

OH MY GOD SOMEONE TELL ME RIGHT NOW WHAT WORD SHOUTO IS USING TO ADDRESS ENJI, THESE TRANSLATIONS LOVE TO MESS WITH MY HEAD

ENJI GET MOVING DO YOU NOT SEE THOSE TEARS!!! SNAP OUT OF IT YOU BIG TREE

AHHHHH

OH KACCHAN YOU WOKE UP A LITTLE MORE THERE, HUH

lol he and Deku both look so determined but they’re basically sitting ducks. their “oh shit” faces do look remarkably like their “TIME TO SWING INTO ACTION” faces but don’t be fooled, they have one good arm and about six pints of blood left between the two of them. looks like this one’s all on you Shouto

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH --

BAH GOD... WHAT’S GOING ON HERE... THAT’S BEST JEANIST’S MUSIC

y’all. can’t even talk right now, my brain has completely shut down lol. just. ...

°˖✧◝(￣▿￣)◜✧˖°

#bnha 291 #dabi #todoroki touya #endeavor #todoroki shouto #best jeanist #hawks #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #you guys know that scene from the end of the lion king #the part where simba is walking up to the top of pride rock #and he lets out that roar as zimmer's score soars to a crescendo #yeah baby #that's the mood rn #welcome back king

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henqtic · 4 years ago

Text

𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨

pairing: draco malfoy x fem!hufflepuff!rReader

summary: you see a special constellation on Draco’s birthday.

word Count: 2.8k

warnings: Bullying

y/n/n= your nick name

masterlist. // taglist form. // request more works.

—————————

It was July 31st 1985.

The warm summer air was blowing past your dress. You were sitting on the field in front of the cottage that you and your mother had lived in. You were thinking about Luna and how you should pay her a visit she was a bit odd but, did make for a good person to talk to. Soon your thoughts were interrupted by a black owl landed on your shoulder you could easily tell it was your boyfriend’s Draco Malfoy.

ミ★

You have been friends since your second year of Hogwarts. He had gotten tired of you not listening to his bullying about you being a Hufflepuff and just offering him a smile and saying some sort of compliment that would make him blush every time.

“Hey l/n going to make more friends with more house elves,” he said with a smirk

“I like what you did with hair today Draco”

“I do my hair like this everyday,” he responded as he turned his head away from you trying to hide the blush that covered his cheeks.

It was near the end of the school year when Draco had found you under a tree with a book with chocolate chip cookies.

You were wearing a yellow sweater with flowers embroidered on it, paired with yellow plaid pants and banana earrings. An outfit that Draco had once referred to as “to Hufflepuff even for a Hufflepuff”.You were sitting on a comfy blanket that your mom had made for you for an occasion just like this.It was calming to be away from the castle more specifically Draco. He was so pale he looked like a muggle’s depiction of a vampire so you were surprised to even had spotted him outside without screaming of have much it burned.

“ l/n your sitting under my tree”

“Would you like a cookie,” you’d say as if you didn’t even hear what he had said to you.”Did you not unders- what did you say?” He was honestly confused as to why you a girl he liked but instead of admitting to it he bullied her of all things.

“I offered you a cookie their really good in my opinion” you’d say with a smile, “They’re chocolate chip, my prefect had to help me but I like to think I put most of my love in it”

“I- Well I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have a cookie,” he admitted. “Not like you poisoned it or anything,” He said with a low chuckle following behind. You responded with a breathy laugh. Maybe he’ll be nicer to me this time.

“You Hufflepuffs are entirely too nice for that”

You sighed as he sat on your blanket and gave him a chocolate chip cookie out of your bag with a sad look in your eye that didn’t go unnoticed by him.

Everyday he made fun of you, for something you couldn’t control. Something you never wanted to change. You noticed how his friends were more of bodyguards to him so you let him pick on you because it brought him some sort of “happiness”, but it was getting to you. If you ever told him that he would say that it was incredibly “Hufflepuff” of you.

You looked toward the blonde boy in front of you with a feeling of anxiousness. Maybe it was sadness starting to build up that would eventually burn your throat as you cried like last night.

“Why do you bully me so often?” you said with a sad tone while handing him a napkin and gesturing to his face.

He had a bit of chocolate smeared at the top of his lip although you were saddened and angry at his behavior towards you, you did know he liked to look at his best at all times. Merlin why am I so loyal to a boy who wouldn’t do a thing for me, you thought.

“I’ve been putting up with it for the past two years and its tiring Draco” Your statement was laced with a bit of anger. Something he had never heard before. “Us Hufflepuffs,” you spat, “Aren’t always nice and jolly you know.” You were staring in front of you. “I didn’t want to say this because it would inflate your already large for nothing ego,” you said as you turned to look at him. His face adorned a look of shock.

“But sometimes your words get to me,” your voice had completely betrayed you by cracking and a single tear dropped down your face that you quickly wiped.

He didn’t say anything with his mouth opening and closing it like a fish out of water. You scoffed as you got up and dusted off your jeans, “Here, you can keep the cookies you seem to like them,” no matter how sad and angry were, you, you still said that sentence with a sincere undertone. “I’m going to go somewhere where someone won’t make me feel horrible for something I can’t control.”

“Wait”

“Why should I wa-”

“I’m sorry” “your sorry,” you challenged in a sarcastic tone. “That is what I said didn’t I?” You shot him an annoyed look, you were not in the mood for him to start again. He noticed your face and quickly said “Sorry again.” He sighed and stood up right in front of you. “I’m sorry for bullying you and I want you to forgive me.” His wrote to his mum about his problem. She worded the apology differently but you still got what he was trying to say. “Oh” “Yea,” he said awkwardly while staring at his feet.

You had two decisions walk away and leave him to deal with himself or to offer a friendship. Getting tired of arguing with yourself you stuck out your hand and said with a small “I think we’ll do better as friends and not as bully and bullied. He looked at your hand for a moment before shaking it “That’d be nice, I guess,” he responded not trying to sound as eager as he was. He also didn’t want the only civil conversation to end with his crush so easily so he quickly said with hope in his eyes “We should sit back down, yea, I’ll share the cookies they’re not bad”

“Yea, we should.” For the next hour or two you and Draco talked and got to know one another

His crush grew and yours had started to bloom.

ミ★

He brought you to the yule ball as his date and admitted that he liked you more than just a friend and you admitted the same now you were reading a lengthy parchment about him apologizing about how he couldn’t find time to owl you because his father and mother were planning his birthday party on June 5.

He also mentioned how he convinced them to not throw a big one like they did every time, he describes it as less of a birthday party and more of an opportunity for his parents to talk to other purebloods and him to talk to their kids so he had no problem cancelling and instead spending the day with you.

“Very-un Draco and very Draco,” you said out loud while looking down at the bottom of the parchment.

╭┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄ · · · 🏹꒱₊˚・｡ﾟ･

┊ Love, can you actually believe I convinced mum not to throw a big party?

┊ She was at least two times as hard to convince than father. I just wanted to

┊ let you know that on my birthday, I hope you haven’t forgotten it but if you

┊ have it’s June 5th. I don’t want to spoil anything so trust me and flu or get

┊ your parents to apparate you here around 8pm. I hope to see you, have a

┊ great rest of your day and sorry again for not owling for three days.

┊ -yours forever Draco

┊

╰┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄ · · ·🏹 ꒱₊˚・｡ﾟ･

╭┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄ · · · 🏹꒱₊˚・｡ﾟ･

┊ I’d never forget your birthday Draco. I’ve had your gift wrapped and

┊safely tucked away in my dresser. I think you’ll really like it :) Of course

┊ I’ll come. Oh! and I’ll bring chocolate chip cookies I know how much

┊ you like them

┊ -yours forever y/n

┊

╰┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄ · · ·🏹 ꒱₊˚・｡ﾟ･

June 5th 1985, 7:50

Your mum was never a person to be late anywhere so you were dressed 10 minutes early with a white dress on, a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies, and Draco’s present in your bag.You did your makeup 20 minutes prior because although you did love to express your creativity, it was harder to draw flowers on your eyelids half awake.

“Darling hurry up we don’t want to be late,” you heard your mum call.

“Coming!”

“Do you have everything with you”

“Yes mum,” you said with an eye roll. “Isn’t it adorable a Slytherin and Hufflepuff,” you could say she was more excited about your relationship than you were with the way she was talking.

Your father too had been a Slytherin too while your mum was a Hufflepuff like you.Ironic really how their daughter was following in their footsteps.“Mum,” you said in a desperate tone “oh come on dear, grab on,” she said as she reached out her arm, you grabbed on and felt like you were being sucked through at time.When you touched the ground you smiled in a success of not throwing on your mum’s shoes.

Then, you took a moment to look around. Draco’s house manor was huge.You’d thought he had been exaggerating it maybe he was under exaggerating. It looked like a castle, a dark one at that it wasn’t very lively to be honest, and you would never trade the cottage you lived in for it.

Your mum went to knock on the door with you by her side when the door quickly opened and you were met with a tall blonde hugging you and you eagerly hugged him back.

His head was in the crook of your neck and he said in a tone only for you to hear “I’m happy you came summers been rather boring without you” “I wouldn’t have missed it,” When you pulled away Draco was met with the sight of your mum smiling like she had just seen the greatest thing in the world. He reached out his hand to introduce himself when she cut him off by hugging him and saying.

“Oh dear, you must be Draco,” She said as she pulled back, “ y/n/n here as told me all about you, how nice you are, how much of a great-” You quickly stopped her before she could say anything else to embarrass you “Mum let Draco talk yea, seemed like he had something really important to say”

You could feel Draco’s smirk burning itself into the side of your head and he looked away and said “Oh yes, mother and father wanted to say hi before you left the door is just down the hall and the third one on your right,I can take you if you want”

“Oh no that’s alright I’ll leave you and y/n alone, also happy birthday dear.” He smiled brightly and looked at her as she walked away and then turned to you and said smugly as he tucked one of your hairs behind your ear, “I’m a great what exactly” “A um great boyfriend,” it was embarrassing how you could lose your words around him.

He leaned in closer and said with a smirk “To me it sounded like she was going to say kisser” “Draco your a horrible kisser” “That’s the complete opposite of what you tell me normally,” he said with a mixed look of confusion and amusement. You were really regretting telling your mum everything about your relationship.He pulled away, grabbed your hand and said “Come on you have to see this''

He dragged you all the way to a spot with a blanket and an older looking telescope.It was beautiful really but it wasn’t your day “Draco this is beautiful but it’s your birthday you didn’t have to do this” “Love, of course i didn't have too but I wanted to,” He looked at you with a bright smile “I’d do anything for you and don’t worry the night is still mostly about me” He brought you to sit down on the blanket and immediately said “You did bring the cookies, didn’t you”

You rolled your eyes and said, “Yes,I brought them Draco.” He bit into one and said, “Your an angel for baking these for me love” “I’d do anything for you Draco'' You suddenly remembered the gift you had in your bag “Alright um here’s your gift” He carefully unwrapped it and it was a moving picture framed of you and him in your quidditch robes in third year his arm around your shoulders and you were both looking at each other.

“How did you get this,” he said as he admired the picture “Mum found it when looking through her things, said she took it and forgot about it and she gave it to me,” you said with a smile before he could even thank you reached into your bag again, “That’s not all” “Really,” he said eagerly.

“Really,” you reassured” “Mum found that after I got your gift” “You said as you grabbed the dark green box and handed it to him “It was rather hard looking for something that was exactly your taste but I think you’ll really liked it” “l/n are you proposing to me? Because you do I wanted to do that first,” He said smugly. “No but it is- ugh just open it and you’ll see,” you said not wanting to ruin the surprise. He breathed out air as he saw it, a silver snake ring that would coil around the finger he put it on.

“How’d you find one of these, I’ve been wanting one since second year ever since Crabbe mistaken it for a worm and threw it into the lake,” he said as he put it around his finger and looked at you with nothing but love in his grey-blue eyes. “That's just horrible. I'll have a talk with Crabbe when we go back to school.” “Even if it wasn’t a worm he shouldn’t have thrown it into the bloody lake”

“It’s alright, I prefer yours anyway,” he looked like he was about to say something when you pulled out your wand and said “Oh that not all I wanted to make a little extra you.” You tapped the wand on the snake’s head and it started to move. He looked at it in awe of how someone could be so brilliant. You saw the look in his eyes and smiled at how much he liked the gift. You turned your head to look up at the sky when Draco started to say something you definitely weren’t expecting.

“Merlin I’m in love with you” That was the first time he ever said that to you. You turned your head to be met with his eyes and swallowed thickly to try and make sure you weren’t dreaming. “What’d you say,” you breathed out with a smile on your face. “He got closer to you and said, “I said I’m in love with you” he kissed your nose and then spoke again in a softer tone “I love you y/n” You thought that right then and there your soul had been taken out if you and you had an out of body but before you could stop yourself you said, “ I love you too Draco” “So much”

“You really do?”

“Yes Draco, I really do”

“Say it again,” he looked at you with big eyes.

You kissed his forehead “I love you” Both of his cheeks “I love you” “I love you” his nose “I love you” and then pecked his lips “I love you” in the end of it he was left a blushing mess.

“Godric you're amazing” He cleared his throat trying not to scream at his lungs that his girlfriend just told him she loved him about six times. “The constellation I wanted you to see should be out now.”

You both laid on your backs and stared at the sky you scooted closer to Draco as he had his hand out looking for it.He abruptly stopped and said “It’s right there” You picked up your hand to point at the same place he was but you couldn’t find it exactly so he took both of your pointed hands and pointed it at the Draco Constellation.

“It’s the Draco Constellation,” he whispered loud enough for you to hear. You turned to look at him with your hand still in his as he said “I’m named after it.” He turned to you with a child like smile and said “Wicked right”

“Yea wicked,” you whispered back. Both of your faces were close as Draco took yours and his hand from pointing at the sky. He held your face with one as he leaned into kiss you.

This was in Draco’s opinion his best birthday ending with him kissing the girl he loved and the girl that loved him under the stars.

ミ★

A/N- I was in the middle of writing this right and I got the months wrong thinking that the Draco constellation came out in June and not July. Hopefully you can look over it for the sake of the story :) Dude and I’m also kinda proud of this one anyways feel free to leave any feedback or constructive criticism.

#draco fluff #draco x yn #draco x hufflepuff!reader #slytherin x hufflepuff #draco x reader #hogwarts #harry potter #harry potter fluff #draco malfoy #malfoy #draco oneshot #draco imagine #i want this to happen to me so bad

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reinerispretty · 4 years ago

Text

rotations. (zuko x f!reader) pt12

hi!! sorry i’m posting so late, i had a super busy day today! but i’m here now and i hope you guys are all having a wonderful time :) thank you so much for reading and being so supportive!! pls share if you can 💕

pt 1

pt 11

pt 13

Every time she saw him, the memories of all of their fights and the times he had made her cry over him came flooding back. But she also felt relief in knowing that he was safe and seeing that he was trying to make a change. Needless to say, (Y/N) spent most of her time avoiding Zuko, because her head spun every time she was around him.

To say that (Y/N) was happy to be back with her friends was an understatement. She was absolutely ecstatic. As they flew away from the Fire Nation and to the Western Air Temple, they caught her up on all the adventures they had had while she had been in prison.

“We were hunted by this guy that can shoot, like, supersonic beams from his head,” Toph informed her.

“I call him Combustion Man!” Sokka cut in.

“Toph and I got thrown into jail!” Katara said.

“And I went to Fire Nation school!” Aang called back as he steered Appa.

“I learned to swordfight from the best Master in the Fire Nation,” Sokka said, flexing his bicep. “Pretty impressive, huh?”

“Oh, you met Piandao? He’s so nice! He came to my birthday parties every year when I was younger.” Sokka pouted and leaned back into the side of Appa’s saddle.

“I forget that you lived in the Fire Nation.”

It took days until they reached the temple. As much as she loved Appa, (Y/N) was so thankful to be back on solid ground. She hadn’t worn real shoes in weeks and it was so nice to feel the stone and grass beneath her feet.

This Air Temple was just as breathtaking as the first one she had seen, back when she and her friends had traveled to the North Pole. It was built into the mountain, making it virtually inaccessible from any other way except airbending. It extended across the mountain range. The temples themselves looked as if they had been built upside down.

While her friends set up camp on the main level of the temple, (Y/N) had decided to walk down to the woods where she had seen a river as they flown over. They hadn’t been allowed to shower in their area of the prison, so she had weeks worth of grime and dirt caked onto her skin. She was surprised her friends had held her so tight when she reunited with them. She smelled horrible.

Sokka was hesitant to let her go by herself. “I’ll be fine,” she reassured him. “I can protect myself.”

“I know, but...” He let his sentence trail off, but he didn’t have to finish it. The last time Sokka had left her alone, she had been captured by the Fire Nation and tossed into a prison. He hadn’t been sure if she was alive for weeks. She understood his worry.

She kissed him quickly before smiling. “If I’m not back in an hour, then you can unleash you fury,” she said with a wink, walking away.

She sat in the river for a long time, just scrubbing her skin and combing her fingers through her matted hair. The water felt so nice on her skin. If she could, she would stay in there forever. But she knew Sokka would seriously come swinging down the hill with a sword if she was late, so she dried herself off and put on the Fire Nation clothes that Katara had given her.

(Y/N) slipped on a red, long-sleeved cropped shirt and matching flowy pants. The whole outfit felt light and airy and she couldn’t wait to firebend in it. Kneeling down at the edge of the river, she stared at her reflection as she put her hair into a traditional Fire Nation top knot, but this time with the flame bobby pin she had worn in her old life. She had kept it wrapped in fabric, tucked away in the bottom of Katara’s clothing bag. She hadn’t worn it for almost an entire year, but as soon as she stuck it into place, she felt whole again. There were some parts of her that would always be Fire Nation, and that was okay.

She traveled back up the hill, her hair still wet, but decided she’d just ask Aang to dry it for her. She hoped that Sokka had caught something for them to eat because it had been weeks since she’d had an actual good meal. Fish, rice, and maybe some mashed berries for dessert if they could find some? Her mouth watered at the thought. (Y/N) laughed at herself for a moment. Her palette had drastically changed since she had been traveling with her friends.

Instead of a nice, hot meal, (Y/N) walked back into the Western Air Temple to find all of her friends looking ready to attack. Confused, she turned her head and there he was. The boy she wanted to see least at the moment.

“(Y/N)!” Zuko exclaimed, running over to her. He grabbed her hands in his. “I’m glad you’re okay. I went back to the prison to break you out when I left, but you were gone by the time I got there.”

She pulled her hands out of his as Sokka walked up and shoved Zuko away. “Hey, don’t touch her!” He said, his voice low and threatening.

“Watch it!” Zuko snapped back. He looked at (Y/N) confusedly and she hated that she could still tell exactly what he was thinking at that moment. What’s going on here? He seemed to silently ask, and she averted her gaze as quickly as possible.

“You can’t just show up here and ask for forgiveness after everything you’ve done,” Katara snapped. (Y/N) looked up at Sokka.

“What’s happening?” She asked.

“He wants to join us,” he said, his eyes still narrowed at Zuko.

“I’ve changed,” Zuko said, but this time he directed his words at (Y/N). She tried hard to avoid his gaze.

“Are you crazy? You’ve tried to kill us, multiple times!” Sokka yelled at him.

“And capture Aang!” Katara pointed out.

“Please,” Zuko said. “I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done. I’m sorry for trying to capture you, I’m sorry for trying to kill you, I’m sorry for sending that bounty hunter after you--”

“You sent Combustion Man after us?” Toph questioned.

“I mean, that’s not his name, but yes.”

“The answer is no, Zuko,” Aang said decidedly. “There’s no way that we can trust you.”

“(Y/N)...” Zuko said to her quietly. She crossed her arms and walked away from him.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I think you guys are just holding grudges against Zuko,” Toph said that night at dinner. “Aang needs a firebending teacher.”

“You don’t understand, Toph. You weren’t there for all the destruction he caused,” Katara said as she sipped on her soup. “He betrayed me in Ba Sing Se and he’s hurt (Y/N) more times than I can count.”

“Besides,” Sokka cut in. “(Y/N) can teach Aang firebending!” She shook her head quicky.

“I’m too much out of practice. My family wouldn’t let me get training while we stayed in the Earth Kingdom. I know a couple advanced moves, but definitely not enough to help Aang beat the Fire Lord.” She smiled at Aang apologetically.

“On the one hand, it’s hard to forget everything that Zuko has done to us. But the monks taught me that everyone deserves a second chance,” Aang said.

“And a third and a fourth?” Sokka muttered.

“What do you think, (Y/N)?” Toph asked. “You were pretty quiet when he was here today.”

She stared into her soup to avoid everyone’s gaze. “The truth it, I don’t know how I feel about it. He’s done some pretty awful things. But you need a firebending teacher, Aang. A good one. And as much as I hate to say it, Zuko’s good.”

Sokka stood, his bowl clattering to the ground as he stormed off toward the bedrooms. Katara moved to go after him, but (Y/N) put her hand up. “I’ll do it,” she sighed, setting her bowl down. She walked briskly down the hall to Sokka’s room, where a sliver of light filtered through the door. She slid it open.

“What’s wrong?” She asked. He looked at her, his brows furrowed in anger.

“What’s wrong? You’re out there defending him!”

“I wasn’t defending him, Sokka.”

“Well that’s what it sounded like! After everything he’s done to you, you still want to just forgive him by letting him into our group?”

“Letting him in the group doesn’t mean that I forgive him! It just means that I’m willing to push past my own emotions so that Aang has a chance at beating the Fire Lord!”

“He can do it without firebending.”

“We both know that’s not true.” Sokka sighed and turned away from her.

“I don’t want to constantly be around the reason that I didn’t know whether you were alive or not.” She smiled sadly at him. She walked to his side and intertwined their fingers.

“Technically, Azula’s the reason I got thrown in jail.” She smiled at him until a small smile formed on his own lips. “We don’t have to like him, but we can put up with him for a few weeks until Aang beats Ozai.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once Zuko had defeated Combustion Man, the four friends begrudgingly let him join their group. It was a difficult decision for everyone, especially Katara, because she still held on to the memory of Zuko betraying her in the underground palace of Ba Sing Se. (Y/N) was also very uncomfortable with Zuko joining their group. Every time she saw him, the memories of all of their fights and the times he had made her cry over him came flooding back. But she also felt relief in knowing that he was safe and seeing that he was trying to make a change. Needless to say, (Y/N) spent most of her time avoiding Zuko, because her head spun every time she was around him.

She had been laying out the sleeping bags for the night when Zuko approached her. They were completely alone, so there was no one she could run towards as a distraction. She knew he was there but refused to look up at him. He cleared his throat to get her attention.

“I wanted to thank you,” he said. “For letting me join your group.” She raised her eyebrow at him.

“It was Toph’s idea,” she said simply as she unfurled Katara’s sleeping bag.

“I also wanted to say that I’m really sorry for everything I’ve done to you. I didn’t say that when you came to the shop in Ba Sing Se, but I wanted to. And I wanted to apologize for everything else that happened there.”

“Like betraying both me and your uncle after we both had thought you changed? Like letting me rot in prison while you played house with your family?” She saw him physically wince from her tone. “You’re here to teach Aang, Zuko. I have no interest in being your friend.” She laid out the last sleeping bag and walked away in search of literally anyone else.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took Zuko a while to actually start teaching Aang firebending. Because he had lost the anger he had toward the Avatar, he lost the source of his bending. (Y/N) laughed as she watched Zuko create little puffs of fire with his hands.

“How do you do it, (Y/N)?” Aang asked. She shrugged.

“My firebending teachers always told me that I was very headstrong and determined. I guess that’s where I get the source of my bending from.” She walked away from the conversation just as Zuko opened his mouth to say something else.

He and Aang traveled to the Sun Warrior civilization and (Y/N) would be lying if she said she wasn’t glad to have him gone. Not being around him gave her room to breathe. Every moment he was there, she was thinking of what quip she would give when he tried to talk to her, or the nearest way she could escape if he roped her into a conversation. It was nice to be able to walk around freely without having to worry if Zuko was around.

When Aang and Zuko returned, they both excitedly told the group of their discovery of the two last dragons in existence. (Y/N) was shocked to learn this because in school she had always learned that Iroh had killed the last dragon. She wasn’t surprised to discover that he had done it to protect them. Iroh was conscientious about things like that.

Slowly but surely, Zuko’s relationship with everyone in their group (except (Y/N) and Katara) was starting to improve. Toph had never had anything against him and quickly forgave him for accidentally burning her feet. Zuko was incredibly rough around the edges, but Aang learned to like him during their time with the Sun Warriors. Even Sokka would take Zuko down to the river sometimes and fish with him. They did it mostly in silence, but it was still an improvement from their previous interactions.

Every time Zuko tried to talk to Katara, she shut him down with a harsh comment. (Y/N) either did the same or completely avoided him altogether. He cared about becoming Katara’s friend as well, but it tore him apart inside whenever (Y/N) brushed him off like he didn’t exist. Every night, he lay in bed and thought of the good times they had had together. He thought about building sand castles with her at Ember Island, about attending boring etiquette classes and making silly faces at each other from across the room, and about sneaking into the kitchens on his tenth birthday and stealing fruit tarts for her.

He knew he had caused her a lot of pain, which is why he was trying his best to be patient. But every morning he woke up wanting to talk to her and when she wouldn’t let him, it was like a painful jab to his heart. Whenever he saw her toss her head back and laugh loudly at something one of her friends said, his heart swelled because he loved the noise and sank because he wasn’t the one making her laugh.

Zuko watched from the bank of the river as (Y/N) and Sokka wrestled each other in the water. They couldn’t stop laughing and sometimes Toph would create mounds of earth to come up and knock one of them off of their feet, furthering their laughing fit. He watched as Sokka wrapped his arms around her waist and tossed her into the water.

“So...” Zuko said slowly, his eyes cutting to Aang. The young Avatar sat on the ground beside him, feeding Momo berries and rubbing his belly. “Sokka and (Y/N) are together.” It was phrased as more of a direct statement, but he hoped that Aang would provide him with more information.

“Yeah!” Aang said as he scratched between Momo’s ears. “They’ve been going out for a few weeks now. About time, if you ask me.”

Zuko felt the anger growing inside of him and took three deep breaths to calm himself down. He had had a feeling that the two were more than just friends for a while now. They sat closer together at dinner and if one of them was alone, they always found the other. They acted the way (Y/N) and Zuko had, long before all of this had happened. He had known it at the back of his mind, but refused to believe it. Hearing Aang confirm it just made him angry. Aang must have sensed this, because he turned to him.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah!” Zuko said, just a bit too forcefully. “It’s just very different being around her now.”

“You mean how she doesn’t want to talk to you at all or have anything to do with you?”

Zuko narrowed his eyes at Aang, who gave a sheepish smile.

“I guess you’re not wrong,” Zuko admitted. Sokka had lifted her over his shoulder and tossed her into the water. She resurfaced giggling and threw herself into him to knock him over.

“When she first joined us,” Aang said quietly. “We could all tell that she missed someone a lot. It wasn’t until after Sokka rescued her from your ship that we realized the person she was missing was you. I think she really cares about you, Zuko, which makes this a lot harder for her than the rest of us.”

Zuko smiled softly at his friend. “Thanks, Aang.”

“No problem!”

---

Tag List!

@mdgrdians , @soft4kei , @bubblebars , @pleasantfankingdom , @vintageroses1014516 , @celamoon , @fangirlanotherjust , @gliderbudgie , @haylaansmi , @jada-cleo , @boxofteenageideas , @disgruntled-gay , @lie-ana , @jasmine-the-amazing , @svsoftie , @buckysfeet , @anime-simp , @imcravingyou , @rosetheshapeshifter , @alrightberries , @izzieserra , @hstott , @random-stupid-stuffs , @jackbamexpress , @jainaixo , @thefoxskinwalker , @kryptidkova , @bigbuckyenergy , @omgwhattheeven , @ohmigooosh , @snapchatisoverrated , @inlove-maze , @harapirena , @sooske , @sweeetteaa , @selenvx , @ilovespideyyy , @saaaasib , @mochminnie , @agentsofblinks , @happyariesbabey , @slytherky , @uglipotata72829 , @og-disaster-bi , @animeluver23

#atla #avatar #zuko x reader #sokka x reader #aang x reader #katara #toph #sokka #zuko #aang #azula #iroh #appa #momo #fanfiction #writing #the last airbender

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skycollides · 4 years ago

Note

Hi I love your stories you post. And I just reread a hank story of yours and It so sweet. So could you write a first date imagine with him? I also loved the one of ez and I thought one with hank would be so sweet!😍 Thanks in advance

@hoooli13 Thanks for the request. I hope you like it! 💜

First Date

Hank x Reader

Authors note: I apologize in advance for grammar mistakes

English isn’t my native language.

Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist.

Warning: none

Words: 1.715

You met Hank through your cousin Bishop. From the first time you met him at one of the parties you were fascinated. At this point you were sure that he was the most handsome man you have ever laid your eyes on. Sadly Bishop told you that his guys were off limits. He didn’t want this life for you. He wanted you to have a man who’s not in conflict with the law all the time or in danger. Nor did he want to see you in danger. Ever since you were children Bishop wanted to protect you and this was his way of protecting you. He also told the guys you were off limits the first time you set a foot into the clubhouse. After going to the clubhouse more regularly you and Hank had gotten closer and little did El Presidente know that things always go the way he wants them to.

You are currently at work the you get a text form Hank.

Hank

Hey Y/N,

I hope you’re well.

I’m sorry I didn’t text you

these past couple of days

but we were on a run.

I’ll make it up to you

if you let me.

Tonight?

Y/N

Hey Hank,

I’m good!

Are you and the guys alright?

Don’t apologize!

Bish is my cousin I know

you guys go MIA form time to time.

It’s okay. I understand.

Well you don’t have to but

I can’t say know to that.

Yes I’m actually free tonight.

Text me the details and

I’ll be there.

Hank

Yes we’re alright nothing

happened.

I’m glad you’re so understanding.

My place 7pm.

I can’t wait to see you darling.

You can’t help but smile. Did this incredibly handsome man seriously ask you out? Like for real? You could hug the whole world right now. Happiness that what you’re feeling right now. No matter what Bishop said you won’t let it stop you from seeing him.

After 3 more hours at work you’re finally free to go. As soon as you’re home you go straight to your wardrobe looking for something to wear for your date. After searching for a while not really knowing what to wear you come across a dress. You remember Hank telling you how beautiful you looked in that dress so you go for it. You look for matching heels before heading to the bathroom to take a shower. Once you’re done you dry your hair, put on some make up and get dressed. You take one last look into the mirror before taking your purse and your keys leaving your house.

20 minutes later you arrive at his place. Your heart is beating really fast and you’re a little nervous. You take on last look in the review mirror checking your makeup before getting-it heading to his front door. You know and soon after he opens the door.

’’Hey Y/N’’ he says with a huge smile on his face.

’’Hey Hank’’ you say and he pulls you into his strong arms and kisses your head. You breath in his scent and it calms your nerves a little bit. He lets go of you and says:

’’You look absolutely stunning darling. C’mon in.’’ you follow him inside and he leads you to his back yard. Once you’re there you can’t help but stare at the sight in front of you.

A table for two. Fairy lights and a lot of candles all over the porch.

’’You hate it don’t you?’’ his voice brings you back to reality. Hank took your silence the wrong way. You turn around and look at him with a soft smile.

’’Hank Oh my god. Why would I hate it. Its absolutely amazing. I love it. No one and I mean no one has ever done nothing like this for me before. Thank you so much’’ you say.

’’I’m happy you like it. Well looks like no one before me knew how to treat you properly.’’ he says and you reply with a short.

’’Looks like it.’’ You take a seat and Hank leaves you to get the dinner he prepared for the 2 of you. You look around still not believing that someone like Hank makes so much effort - for you. He shortly return and it smelly heavenly. he sets the plates down on the table.

’’I hope you like it. It was my grandmas recipe.’’ he says and blushes. You grab your fork and take a bite. You close your eyes and this is for sure the best piece of meat you’ve ever had in your entire life.

’’I think I’m going to kidnap you and keep you as my personal cook. Like for real. Hank this is so so good.’’

’’I’m glad to hear. Do you seriously think you’ll be able to kidnap me Y/N?’’

’’No but it sounds good’’

’’Well you wouldn’t have to kidnap me I would you with you anytime’’ he says and winks at you. You blush and look down at your plate hoping you can hide it. Little did you know it was too late for that. Hank saw it.

After the both of you finished eating Hank cleans the table. You offered to help him but the declined right away.

He returns to you with blankets and pillows. You raise your eyebrows and he walks past you and spreads one of the blankets on the lawn he nods with his head for you to come over and you do.

’’Have a seat beautiful it’s now time for stargazing.’’ he says and you sit down. He sits down next to you and hands you a blanket with the words.

’’Incase you get cold’’ you take it thanking him.

He lays the pillows down behind the both of you and lays down looking up to the sky. You watch him for a moment before doing the exact same thing. You lay there in silence - a comfortable silence. You’re thankful Hank did all of this for you.

’’How did you know I like stargazing? I can’t remember telling you about it.’’ you ask him curiously. ’’Well Bishop told me when I asked him why he calls you his little star. So when I thought about what to do on our first date this is what came to my mind. We both aren’t the type for super fancy restaurants so I thought cooking for you and watching the stars with you would be a good idea. At least I hope you feel the same.’’ he says grabbing your hand.

’’Ah now it makes sense. You’re right I don’t need all that fancy stuff. It’s not about the amount of money you spent on me. This night couldn’t have been more perfect. No one made the effort for me before like doing something like this you know?! Usually the guys I dated before simply took me out to one of those fancy restaurants. You just thought about what would make me happy and I really appreciate it Hank. I’m so thankful to be here with you and the stuff you did for me tonight.’’ you say having tears in your eyes - happy tears.

’’I’m glad you’re happy. That’s all I wanted sweetheart. The night isn’t over yet.’’ he says before leaning into you. You move closer to him as well and shortly after your lips collide. This is the moment you have been waiting for the whole night. Hank grabs your face and pulls you closer. You move your hand to his chest resting it there. He’s the first one to pull away. The two of you stare at each other sniveling like crazy before Hank speaks up.

’’I know its early and stuff but - could you imagine being my girl?’’ he asks you and you nod.

’’Yes I actually can. I’d be honored to be yours. We just have to keep it to ourselves for a while. Until I figured out how to tell Bishop you know. You guys aren’t the only ones with rules. He also told me that you guys are off limits.’’

’’I can live with that but we shouldn’t wait too long. I don’t wanna betray him this is more than just us you know his not trusting me any more is probably the worst thing that could happen - club wise. Besides I want to show off my beautiful woman and not hide her away from the world.’’ he says. You grab his hand and stroke the back of it.

’’I agree with you babe. The next party at the clubhouse is next week as far as I remember. We should probably have it figured out by then.’’

’’Yes we should.’’

It’s starting to get colder and your freezing by now even with the blankets you’re wrapped in.

’’Hank? I’m cold’’ you say and he gets up.

’’Let’s head inside.’’ he says and you get up as well. You help him picking up the blankets and pillows before going inside. Once you’re inside he says

’’As much as I love seeing you in that dress - do you want some warmer clothes? I can’t risk my girl freezing to death.’’ he asks you and laughs.

’’Yes that would be nice.’’ he leads you to his bedroom and hands you a hoodie and sweatpants.

’’There you go’’ he says and you thank him.

’’I’ll make you tea how does that sound?’’

’’Yes please’’ he nods and leaves the room so you can get changed,

After you’re finished you go back to the living room where he is waiting for you with he promised tea. You sit down next to him and say

’’Is it bad that I don’t wanna go home tonight?’’ he looks at you and replies

’’Is it bad that I don’t want you to?’’

’’I guess I’ll be staying then’’ you say and smile at him before taking a sip of your tea.

The both of you just sit there talking until early in the morning. The day couldn’t have been better for you. You had a perfect date with an incredible man. You know have a boyfriend that cares for you. You also came up with a plan to drop the news on Bishop. Looks like going to the clubs house more often wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Taglist:

@everyhowlmarksthedead

@mayans-sauce

@lovebennycolonmiguelgalindo

@spookys-girl

@queenbeered

@ocetevasgirl

@charcoocheurie

#mayans mc #mayans imagine #hank loza #hank x reader

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imjustthemechanic · 4 years ago

Photo

The Price of a Soul

Part 1/? - Agent Russel Part 2/? - The Letter Part 3/? - Miss Lake Part 4/? - The Stewardess Part 5/? - An Assassination Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - Face to Face Part 8/? - Deals, Details, and Other Devils Part 9/? - Baggage Part 10/? - Private Funding Part 11/? - Just Passing Through Part 12/? - Party of Four Part 13/? - Resolute Part 14/? - The Wreck Part 15/? - Body Snatchers Part 16/? - Out of the Frying Pan Part 17/? - A Miracle Part 18/? - A Matter of Circumstance Part 19/? - Nome Part 20/? - The Future Part 21/? - A Hero’s Welcome Part 22/? - Up to Speed Part 23/? - Expect Further Delays Part 24/? - The Welcome Wagon Part 25/? - Fugitives Part 26/? - A Reluctant Accomplice Part 27/? - Deja Vu Part 28/? - Interview with a Madwoman

Hey, check it out, I’m still alive.

Peggy knew she couldn’t spend all her time moaning over the romantic dilemma life had presented her with. She let herself dwell on it for a moment, then forced her mind on to more practical matters. By the time they returned to the farmhouse, she’d decided how she wanted to approach this interrogation.

“I think you should talk to her first,” she told Kay. “While I’m out of sight.”

“You’re the one who knows her,” Kay protested.

“Yes, but she’s expecting me,” Peggy reminded her. “If we start with you, it’ll catch her off guard.” She did not want Dottie to think she was in a position to make demands.

Kay nodded slowly. “All right, you go down by the hood. I’ll open the back.”

The back boot opened with a creak. Peggy could immediately smell ammonia. At some point during the night, Dottie had needed to relieve herself and had been either unwilling or unable to hold it in. Peggy probably ought to have felt sorry for her, but after all Dottie had put her through, it was hard.

There was a silence that was just a bit too long to be the moment in which Kay pulled the tape off Dottie’s mouth, and Peggy found it rather reassuring that the woman could still be taken by surprise.

“Dobroye utro,” said Kay. That meant good morning. “Olga Barynova.”

“Kto ty?” asked Dottie. Who are you? Her voice was level and measured, deliberately toneless.

“I’m you, but smarter,” Kay replied in English. “You didn’t read the message. You didn’t think you needed to, because you already know everything. Surprise!”

There was another silence, as Dottie re-assessed the situation. Peggy wondered what was going on in her head.

“You won’t take me back,” Dottie said. “You’ll have to kill me.”

“You didn’t read the message,” Kay repeated. “Do you want to know what it said, or are you just going to lie there in a puddle of your own piss trying to pretend you know what you’re talking about?”

Peggy really did rather wish she could see the expression on Dottie’s face. It was probably well worth seeing.

“What did the message say?” asked Dottie.

“That I have no intention of turning you back over to them,” Kay reassured her. “I want you and I to go back together, and we’re gonna burn the place down.”

Dottie laughed. “That’s exactly what you would say if you were here to drag me back, because it’s exactly what I would say to you if our positions were reversed.”

“You don’t trust me?” asked Kay. “You sure do seem to trust Peggy Carter, and I’m pretty sure she wants to see you rot in jail for the rest of your life.”

“Peggy thinks she’s one of the good guys,” Dottie snorted. “She keeps her promises even when they’re stupid. If you’re anything like me, you don’t know what a promise is.”

Peggy decided that was her cue. She came and stepped into Dottie’s field of view. It had clearly been a rough night for Dottie in the trunk of the car. She’d evidently struggled quite a bit, trying to loosen the tape, and had not succeeded. There were red marks on the visible skin of her arms and legs where it had dug into her flesh. Her hair was in disarray. She did look momentarily surprised when Peggy came into view, but hid it quickly.

“Peggy, Peggy, Peggy,” she said, clucking her tongue “You of all people should know better than to partner up with one of us. We’re bad news.”

“I decided I needed some expert advice,” Peggy replied. “Despite what Chief Thompson thinks, I am not nearly deranged enough to think like you do.”

“I’m not deranged,” said Dottie. “I know exactly what I’m doing. You just can’t believe that because it doesn’t align with your goals.”

“You want revenge,” said Kay. “You want to get back into the USSR un-noticed and destroy the people who made you. You don’t want another little girl to ever become what you are.”

“I’m not that altruistic,” Dottie replied. “I was seven years old when they put me and my best friend in a ring together and told us that only one could leave. I just want them to suffer.” She smiled tranquilly.

“So do I,” Kay promised.

“I don’t believe you,” Dottie told her flatly. “What’s in this for you, Peggy? Or are you the altruistic one?”

Peggy decided on the truth. “Kay has informed me that one of Captain America’s men is a prisoner in the USSR,” she said. “I want to help rescue him.”

“Aw, you’re doing it for love,” said Dottie. “That’s cute. So what makes you think I have any idea where to find him?”

“Because the same place that made us is also working on him,” said Kay. “He’s part of the Winter Soldier program.”

“And you don’t know where to find that?” Dottie asked suspiciously.

“My information is out of date,” Kay replied.

“I promise,” said Peggy. “I will not return you to your masters. I’m not sure what I am going to do with you, but I know to give you back to them would mean your death.”

“Oh, no,” Dottie shook her head. “It would be way worse than that.”

“I will rescue Sergeant Barnes, and you two may do what you wish with this Red Room and the people in it,” Peggy said. “But I promise that when I leave Russia again, I will take you with me.”

“What happens if I refuse?” asked Dottie. “Are you going to send me back to jail to have you hanged for treason, Peggy? I know you’re not going to kill me… that’s not your style.”

“No, but it’s mine,” said Kay. “And I doubt she’ll shed a single tear.” She took out a pocket knife. “I know you’re thinking of how you’re going to run away, or how you’re going to betray us both, but keep in mind. I know all your moves. I know all your hiding places. There is nothing you can do, and nowhere you can go, that I cannot anticipate. Do you understand?”

“Oh, yes,” Dottie said. “I understand perfectly.”

“Do you agree, then? You will help Peggy to find Sergeant Barnes, and in return I will help you to destroy the Red Room?”

“Absolutely,” said Dottie.

Peggy knew they couldn’t trust her, and realized she was counting on Kay to make sure they could keep Dottie under control. Kay had asked Peggy to trust her, hadn’t she? Now there was no choice. Was there a chance this still might turn around? That Kay might turn out to be the enemy after all?

It didn’t matter. Peggy was already in this too deep. Sunk Cost might have been a fallacy, but when the cost involved was one’s freedom and reputation, there wasn’t much to be done.

“It’s a deal, then,” said Kay, and started cutting the tape off Dottie.

“So,” said Dottie, entirely too casual. “It’s Kay, is it?”

“It is,” said Kay. “And what are you calling yourself these days, Olga?”

“Not Olga,” Dottie replied. “Olga Barynova died years ago. I like the name Peggy uses for me. After all, I am quite dotty, and I tend to do things under the table.” She looked at Peggy and smiled.

Peggy did not smile back.

“Then that’s what we’ll call you,” said Kay. She finished cutting the tape, and began peeling it off. “You’re hungry and dehydrated after being in that trunk all night. Come inside and we’ll give you something to eat.” They’d saved some of their own breakfast for her. “And you can tell us everything you know about the Winter Soldiers.”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Dottie wagged a finger. “I’m not stupid. I’m not telling you anything until you’ve held up your end of the bargain. When we’re in Russia and haven’t been caught, then I’ll tell you where we’re going.”

Peggy would have protested, but Kay just shrugged. “That sounds fair,” she said.

“And how are we supposed to know what part of Russia we’re going to?” asked Peggy.

“That I can tell you after breakfast,” Dottie said. “Don’t worry about money, I’ve got some stashed away for the occasion. Now where’s that food. I’m starving.”

The two women sat and watched Dottie eat her breakfast, and Peggy’s misgivings only increased. Talking to Dottie had reminded her rather sharply that Kay was a master manipulator… she’d manipulated Peggy when Kay had been the one in prison, and now she’d managed to play Dottie, too, something Peggy would have thought was next to impossible. Now it was her, of all people, whom Peggy had to trust with her life, because the only alternatives were jail or Dottie.

Somewhere along the line she’d made a terrible mistake. In fact, the longer this went on, the more Peggy was sure the whole thing had been a series of terrible mistakes, right back to…

… well, no. Not staying in New York wasn’t a mistake, because if she’d done that, Steve would still be frozen in the arctic ice right now. And anything she’d done after that… no, there was really no point at which she could have extracted herself from this and not gotten in trouble for it. Not unless she was willing to admit that getting Steve back at all was a mistake, and she couldn’t possibly say that. Or could she? When Kay had told her outright that this wasn’t how history was ‘supposed’ to go, maybe it was a mistake.

It didn’t matter now, did it? The future was already changed, and they couldn’t go back and fix it.

Dottie devoured the breakfast they’d set out for her without the slightest thought of table manners, stuffing so much in her mouth that Peggy was afraid she’d choke. Once she’d satisfied her hunger, she asked for some twigs from the woods. Peggy sat with her while Kay brought back an armful they’d already gathered up, intending to use them as kindling. Dottie selected the ones she liked the shapes of, and arranged them into a map of the USSR.

“We won’t get in from the west,” she said. “They watch that too closely. To go from the east, we’d have to pass over Chinese airspace and that’s just as risky. From the south we’ve got the Himalayas blocking the way, and I don’t think any of us are crazy enough to try to go from the north. Not even me.” Dottie glanced up at her companions and smiled as if this were a very funny joke.

Peggy did not smile back, but Kay chuckled a little.

“The way in,” Dottie went on, “is through Turkey. The area is mountainous and difficult to patrol, but the locals know their way around I have some things prepared. It’ll be a long hike, but we can take the train from Tbilisi to Stalingrad…”

“Volgograd,” said Kay under her breath.

“… and from there, I’ll tell you where we’re going next,” said Dottie.

“Mm-hm,” said Peggy. It seemed straightforward enough, though Dottie was right – it would be a very long walk through some hostile terrain. “You said we’ll need that money you mentioned… where have you got that squirreled away?”

“Nevada,” said Dottie. “Joseph’s hanging on to it for me.”

The first Joseph Peggy thought of who might have anything to do with Dottie Underwood was Josef Stalin, but that could not possibly be right. “Who is Joseph?”

“Joseph Strieber.”

It took a moment for Peggy to remember who that was, and then it seemed almost as unlikely as Stalin – perhaps more so. “The Governor of Nevada?” she asked. “He’s the one who wants you caught! The mafia is breathing down his neck after you robbed the Toucan Hotel!”

“Plausible deniability,” said Dottie. “If he’s the one shouting that I need to be in prison, the mob won’t realize that he’s the one who let me into the Toucan at their grand opening. I was his date for the evening.” She smiled. “And now I can make him do anything I want.”

“So we’re going to Carson City,” said Kay.

Peggy thought she’d better make sure Governor Strieber didn’t get a look at her during this visit… she had enough problems right now without a desperate politician getting any leverage over her. “Then we need to catch up with Steve,” she added.

“Steve?” Dottie cocked her head and smiled. “We’re taking Captain America with us?”

“It’s his friend we’re rescuing,” said Peggy.

“Well, if you’d told me that from the beginning, I might have agreed to help without all the threats!” said Dottie, delighted. “He’s a dish, isn’t he?”

“So people say,” Peggy said. People who’d never met Steve, and didn’t realize that he was so much more than that. But she had another worry now, she realized… Dottie liked to know people’s weaknesses, and now she already knew what Peggy’s was.

#fanfic #captain america #agent carter #peggy carter #steve rogers #steggy #fix it fic

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irandomblogfulb · 4 years ago

Text

FATE: What happens when you get a bunch of middle aged white guys to adapt a cartoon for girls

Well, I just went through 6 hours of fate and I have a lot of opinions on it. Yeah, this is going to be long (slightly under 3k words) so putting it under read more and obvious spoilers.

PSA before delving right in:

1) Yes, I will be comparing to the original. Any comparisons are not through rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. There are parts here and there that I genuinely think were done better in the cartoon on a writing standpoint.

2) This is purely my opinion and overall negative. Don't like it? Don't read. I'm all up for discussion but I don't want another person crying to me about how I “ruined” their experience of the show.

3) If you like Fate then good for you. This isn’t me bashing people who like it.

I've spit it up into sub sections just for my own convince.

1. The problem with the 'I'm not like other girls' trope

This pertains to the entire Bloom-Sky-Stella love triangle. I wasn't as pressed about it compared to other winxers (and I loved Stella's and Brandon's relationship on my rewatch). In fact, I was okay with it. But then I sat down and watched the show and there's a lot of underlying problems with the love triangle. Particularly pitting Bloom and Stella against each other for Sky's affection.

Now this part of the love triangle I already didn't like. Correct me if I'm wrong, since I dropped the OG Winx after season 5 but the Winx while they did have their conflicts and arguments, never fought over a boy. I really appreciated that from the cartoon so seeing that live action would fall into that trap – I was mildly annoyed at that. Then it hit me. It's Bloom and Stella.

The seemingly ordinary girl vs the pristine princess of Solaria. If the title didn't give it away, you should get the point by now. Others have already called it by now but the "I'm not like other girl's" trope in itself, while seemingly feminist is actually misogynist. Saying the more masculine type of girl is better than the feminine is inherently misogynist. Stella, the prime princess, girly and feminine, is villainized by the love triangle. Sky's and Stella's relationship is toxic and Stella's overt co-dependence and jealousy are already big fat red signs - but Sky's and Bloom's relationship is built on how she's "different". Bloom isn't like Stella, she's "real".

2. Am I supposed to like Riven?

As the title puts it, wtf am I supposed to feel about Riven. Is he supposed to be a good guy? Do I root for him? Is he morally ambiguous? Because holy shit compared to OG!Riven, this guy is diabolical and much much worse! OG!Riven is an asshole and he teams up with the trix but his arc was very simple and easy to understand. He joins the bad guys, distances himself from the good guys, the trix betray his ass, he self-reflects in the dungeon - escapes and redeems himself. Net!Riven is so bad to the point where you can't redeem him and the writers don't even try. Freddie Thorp is good in his role. (however, he definitely doesn't pass for a 17-year-old. He's 26 and it shows) and he actually makes the cringe dialogue work. But he's way too diabolical and downright predatory. The scene where he forces Dane to gulp down his spiked drink - it’s worse seeing it than reading it. That grossed me out more than the gore.

What makes it worse, nobody properly calls him out. Beatrix kinda does on his homophobia – “Homophobic bashing by GIF” - and Sky does chastise him, but they still tolerate him. It is kinda funny in a way Sky has a whole ass arc about how he's enabling Stella's problematic behaviour by still dating her after she blinded her friend but doesn't realize he's doing the same for Riven.

The only person that really puts her foot down with Riven is Terra and nobody takes her seriously about anything she says.

Everyone is very laissez-faire around him and that's not how you respond to your friend being problematic. (Hey, kinda like the other girls sans Aisha are with Bloom!) Everyone surrounding Riven is so disgusting and the notion of him supposedly being a good guy is very hard to buy into. His whole relationship with Dane has a section of it’s own because there’s just a lot to unpack.

3. Stella I am so sorry

I'm also in the majority hating how they've tarnished Stella. Basically, they turned her into the stereotypical rich bully with mommy issues.

I get that Stella has an abusive mom but that’s no excuse to be a total bitch to her roommates. And no, her roommates shouldn't accept her back with open arms. And she doesn't even redeem herself - the girls just accept her back after her mom pulls her from Alfea.

And this is also another issue with the writing were the characters suddenly just change their opinions on a whim. Suddenly Stella likes the winx, suddenly Terra misses Stella even though having that girl literally gives her anxiety. Suddenly Aisha's on Bloom's side in the end.

This isn't me simping for the cartoon out of nostalgia. I was mostly okay with the idea of Stella and Sky hooking up. But Looking at it from a creative standpoint - looking at the source material, and the many paths you can take this character, the best thing Brian Young and co. can think of for her was turning her into the stereotypical rich bully that we've seen time and time again? No deconstruction no meta take, it's played out exactly how you’d expect it.

Again, this isn't me simping for the show. Purely from a creative standpoint Stella was such a major let down. There's so much to the character and Brian Young took the easiest, saturated path.

4. That one scene with Bloom's parents

You know the one. Mike unhinges Bloom's bedroom doors and Vanessa cusses out and insults her child like a petty teen bully. Forgetting how utterly cringey that scene was, you can't have her mom go batshit insane on her child, then act like she's this loving parent that cares so deeply about her daughter. Screw that! Vanessa deserved those 3rd degree burns! She invaded her daughter's privacy. Bloom didn't even do anything wrong!

I can't buy into this narrative of Vanessa and Mike being loving parents when they do something like that. Seriously who thought that was okay?

5. Pity Parties for everyone.

I already discussed this in Stella’s section but I don’t like the “it’s okay for me be a shitty person because my life sucks :)” narrative Fate tries to pull. They did it with Stella, Bloom, Riven.

What I liked about the first season of Winx Club is Bloom’s arc and her character as a whole. Because while she went through shit, from the Trix, to finding out she was adopted, her existential crisis, not feeling like she belonged, losing the dragon flame, she went through a lot. She didn’t throw a pity party. She didn’t whine, bitch and complain. She allowed herself to feel upset, took it as it is and tried to make lemonade out of lemons. And I respect that.

Net!Bloom is agrevating. She does some dumb, reckless stuff but it’s excused because she’s the protagonist? She let the war criminal out, the school gets taken over by the bad guys because of Bloom. Faragonda fucking dies because she let the war criminal out! The burned ones attacked the school because she let the war criminal out!!! But no, Aisha’s villainized for calling Bloom out because Bloom’s existential crisis is more important then anything else.

Getting to Sky, he isn’t as bad as the others. He doesn’t become a shitty person because of his problems. (Though lowkey flirting with Bloom while he hooks up with Stella is uh not good.) But he does come across incredibly whiny. Because of the cringey dialogue and the unnecessary swearing I can’t take his speech on opening up to Bloom seriously. I laughed throughout the whole thing and Bloom leaving his unconscious body there was the icing on the cake.

One of the few characters that deserved a pity party is Terra. She’s very much like OG!Bloom in a way. She is bullied by Dane and Riven, has body insecurities, anxiety, nobody listens to her and at most only tolerates her. Despite all the crap that is thrown her way she still reminds humble, kind, and respectful. And she is one of the few characters that deserves more support than what she got out of the season.

5. Bloom, Aisha, Tokenism and their awful relationship

I’m going to be upfront, their relationship sucks. The core of their dynamic is what Aisha can do for Bloom. It’s very one-sided. Bloom only goes to Aisha to help solve her problems, which Aisha gladly does – but when Aisha disagrees with Bloom or says something Bloom doesn’t like, Bloom suddenly goes off and Aisha’s made to be the bad guy. Even though she’s right? And Aisha has her own problems as well, shown to also struggle with her powers. But nope, that’s pushed to the back burner because Bloom needs help.

I am all for creative freedom. I can stomach Stella x actual Sky. I can stomach turning Stella into a rich mean girl. I can stomach the dark academia aesthetic but what Brian Young and co. did to Aisha is just plain racist. Screw the “it’s an adaptation” excuse. Turning this character who had a rich storyline and was a princess into a white girl’s magical negro who fixes all her problems is racist and by definition tokenism. And by whitewashing the other two characters of color, making Aisha the only poc in the group – that’s the worst thing you can do to her.

And frankly we need more black princesses on screen.

6. Dane and the homophobia of the show

Towards the show’s climax it’s revealed Dane is helping Beatrix because she accepts he’s “different”. Not only does this go back to my pity party rant but like bruh,

1) Beatrix never really did anything for Dane? She hung out and smoked with him a bit, but that’s all. You’re telling me Terra wouldn’t accept Dane? Beatrix never helped him and he never really opened up to her about his struggles.

2) Nobody else, not even background characters bully or harass Dane for being “different”. It’s only Riven, the guy he’s crushing on. The whole falling in love with the bad boy/abuser trope is bad in a hetero relationship and that still stands for a gay one. And I know damn well if Dane was a woman half of the shit Riven did to Dane wouldn’t slide.

It makes no sense for Dane to side with the bad guys when Riven’s the one bullying him and Beatrix is complacent in the bullying. Oh, and having your second black* character who’s also lgbt+/potentially questioning be a villain? Not good.

I’m all for gay and poly rep, but not like this. If Stella and Sky’s toxic relationship is going to be called out for what it is, why not Dane’s?

*Idk if Theo Graham is light-skinned black or biracial so I’ll just refer to him as black.

7. The plot

It’s very predictable. Personally, wasn’t fond of the ‘twist of a twist of a twist’ style of writing. The story tries to be nuanced and deep but it’s not. Common sense is treated like a big revelation. Not trusting the war criminal you barely know isn’t as big of a take that the writers try to make it out to be.

8. Everything else

· Beatrix is fine. No Icy but did like the gothic bookworm aesthetic.

· Sam is just there to be Musa’s love interest and provide some dumb drama between Musa and Terra. I thought they’d go the Edward/Bella root – Musa’s drawn to Sam because she can’t sense his emotions for some reason. Nope, they just get together for the obligatory make out sessions. Don’t care much for the relationship or the character.

· Since the powers are all elemental shouldn’t there be classes purely for an elemental? Classes purely for fire fairies, etc?

· Musa’s powers are confusing. If she has no control over them and they are “always on”, shouldn’t her eyes constantly be glowing purple? Very wishy washy. Sometimes they overwhelm her and other times she has complete control. Her character is just there for plot stuff.

· Terra is one of the better characters but can’t enjoy her knowing about the whitewashing. Why can’t we have a plus sized character just exist and not have body issues?

· Sky doesn’t feel like a prince. Characters treat him like his dad is a war hero and not the King of Eraklyon. There was a point where I thought I misheard and thought his dad was just a war hero and not a king.

· Why try to justify Rosalind’s war crime if she’s going to be the big bad anyways?

· The way the characters treat death/act around death is very weird. Musa and Terra see a pile of dead bodies and they’re unreasonable calm. Especially Bloom an “ordinary teenage girl from earth”, reacts very nonchalant when death and war crimes are brought up. Doesn’t help the show tries to push this “they’re kids fighting a war” narrative.

· Can’t buy into the girls’ friendship. The Aisha/Bloom dynamic is centred on what Aisha can do for Bloom. Bloom only cares about herself and only goes to her friends to help with her problems. Most of Musa’s and Terra’s interaction centre around Sam. Stella didn’t care for the girls until her mom showed up and pulled a 180. The girls were quick to turn on Aisha when she sided with the adults.

· I have no problem with technology existing but why do they have Instagram, Tiktok and Tumblr? The otherworld is a completely separated from Earth, why do they have the same technology?

9. Brian Young, what do you mean by mature?

I grew up on the 4kids dub before transitioning to the Nick dub for season 4 and 5 then dropping the cartoon for good. So naturally on my rewatch of the cartoon I decided to go watch the RAI dub since I heard it’s more accurate and 4Kids are infamous for their horrid localisations straying too much to the source material. Upon finishing season 1 and currently watching season 2, a few things took me by surprise. For one, the cartoon is surprisingly dark. The schools are at war with the Trix and their army of Darkness, Sky almost dies in Season 2, Riven almost dies and the Trix thinks he suicided, it’s heavily implied in Season 2 Darkar murdered some of the pixies, the paedophilic undertones of Bloom and Avalon’s relationship, the list goes on.

When the interview with Brian Young came out, he said Fate would be a mature take on the cartoon. And I wondered, what did he meant by mature? Was he going to delve deeper into the darker aspects of the show, or did he mean he was going to have the girls swear and have sex? Watching Fate, I found my answer.

If you take out the gore, swearing, drug and alcohol usage from the live action, the maturity is on par with the RAI dub. The difference is in the presentation. This is what sucks about the mentality surrounding live action remakes. Because the OG!Winx was colourful with glittery transformations , was super girly and overall had a positive upbeat tone (not forgetting 2D animated) - it can’t be taken seriously. You have to strip all that, the colour, the kindness, the femininity in order to be deemed mature.

10. Wrapping up

I went into Fate expecting the worst and honestly, it wasn’t that bad. There were things I liked about it. The show looks pretty, and I did like what they were trying to do with Sky’s arc. The actors did what they could with the material. Freddie Thorp made the cringe dialogue work and Abigail Cowen proves she can carry a show as the lead.

Fate is your generic, YA, dark academia show. It follows all the tropes of the YA genre to a T. If that’s your niche, then you’ll love Fate and I’m not bashing anyone who liked it.

For me, as a creative, it doesn’t capitalise on the strengths of the source material. I’m not asking for Winx Club again, as I’ve reiterated, I’m all for creative freedom. But Brian Young, Iginio Straffi, whoever worked on this – they could’ve created something new, innovative, something that stood out from the hordes of other YA shows. They had good material in their hands! But what I got - I’ve seen before, and I’ve seen it done better. That’s a major disappointment.

As a winx club fan, don’t bother watching this. It’s a very diluted version of the Winx. In trying to capture the interest of the adult fans who grew up with the franchise – Iginio showed how out of touch he is if he thinks this is what they wanted.

#fate the winx saga #netwinx #back on my winx club bs #long post #this took me like 4 days to write

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rpmemesbyarat · 3 years ago

Conversation

RP meme from Scream Queens Ep 7 "Beware of Young Girls" (Note: Offensive content, use at own discretion)

If we're ever gonna find out what happened to that baby, we have to figure out who that woman was.

That got way out of hand.

I think I figured out what my problem is. I'm way too nice.

This is what happens to sneaky backstabbers.

Just so you know, I took all your clothes.

It's too bad you had to die before we found out what ethnicity you are.

God, I loved porking you so much.

Dearly beloved, we're gathered here today because a backstabbing little bitch got exactly what was coming to her.

I have a colonic!

You were a stupid, little trollop, and I hope you're burning in hell right now.

There's nothing left to talk about.

Do you find it so shocking?

And you tried to frame me for murder!

I promise to never betray your trust again.

You most certainly won't betray my trust ever again, because you will never have my trust ever again!

It has two dancing demons, a dead old lady and cute little pentagrams.

I am going to prove that bitch wrong!

I told you to get rid of him!

I do not want to hear about how this is hard for you, okay?

Now, will you please go kill some people?

Okay, I'm not totally sure you understand how fashion works.

In, like, five years, my clothes are gonna be super hip again.

I like the borderline-creepy way he looks out for you.

He's kind of the perfect guy.

Well, thanks for being cool with me.

I haven't been inside here in a while.

He was in his mid-50s, so he could only get it up, like, once or twice a week.

Tell us something you learned this week about what it means to be a woman.

Everywhere I'd go, she'd just be there, dressed exactly like me.

Hey, did you spill ketchup in the shape of an arrow on the floor?

Are you having sex with a goat?

You looked me in the eye and promised me you would try to be monogamous!

I am breaking up with you.

You are gonna close that door, and you're gonna hear me out.

My whole life, I've lived with a secret shame. And that secret shame is that-- I'm lactose intolerant.

Lactose intolerance afflicts around 50% of the human population, who spend their entire lives walking past Baskin Robbins knowing that if they even have a little bit of ice cream, they're gonna fart a bunch. And if you weren't so ignorant, and you cracked a book every once in a while, you would know that goat's milk, it's lactose free.

I'm so sorry I doubted you.

Look, if it makes you feel any better we can totally bang if you want.

I mean, I knew I had had one hurricane too many, but let's be honest, one hurricane is one hurricane too many.

When my mouth has been where it's been on your body, I think we can safely say we are more than kind of friends.

Look, this is super awkward, but someone killed and dismembered your ex-husband last night, and they put his head in a fish tank.

Seriously, you're under arrest.

They don't care. They're nuts.

I was just doing a little sketching.

Designing formal wear is an old hobby of mine.

Look what I've been able to accomplish with a little free time.

No booze, obviously, but the meds are divine. The little blue ones make you feel like your organs are floating in a warm bath.

I don't trust a girl with a huge bush of pubic hair. Makes me think she has something to hide.

I specifically told you I cannot eat deli meats. The sulfites in them send me into anaphylactic shock. No salami and certainly no bologna!

I want you to know that I think you killed them all, and I hope you get the electric chair for it.

I've frickin' had it with you!

Technically, she just said that he was cheating, but she never said anything about a goat.

Don't interrupt me when I'm talking to a dead girl!

Why do you have nine tampons? How big is your cooch?

I really think we should stop, because this is really, really freaking me out.

No, hooker! We're not stopping.

Have fun in hell going to dinner with Osama bin Laden.

But, I mean, can we really trust a satanic talking board?

Talking boards tend not to hold up in court.

I say we poison her bras.

We have to be super sneaky about it, because if we're not, she'll smell a rat and kill us first.

What the hell is a sugar party?

We were just talking about throwing a sugar party.

I thought you were dead.

I am dead. I'm burning in hell.

I came back from the grave to apologize to you.

Yes, there are waterslides, but they're lined with razor blades and you splash down into a pool of boiling pee.

As soon as I got there, I was like, "Where are the dinosaurs?"

I guess I was just intimidated by your beauty and intelligence.

I was just jealous. I wanted what you had, and I really needed my tube packed.

I accept your apology. And I'm sorry you got murdered and are dead.

Well, looks like I'll have to kill them first.

Be the bigger person!

Now rise up and be the leader I know you can be.

Yeah, I just, I just get a little faint when I see blood.

A perfect DNA match. That is what the lab said.

It's pretty suspicious behavior.

Oh, Mommy's home.

She's what a psychiatrist friend of mine refers to as a "capicolaphilist" which is not, as I thought, someone who's turned on by the sight and feel of lunch meats but, more disgustingly, someone who's turned on by someone who pronounces bologna the way it's spelled;"bow-log-na."

You're plotting to murder me.

What I'm curious about is what, exactly, is taking so long?

Rat poison only works because rodents don't have a gag reflex. If you gave a human rat poison, they would immediately puke it all up. So not only would I have survived your attempt on my life, it would have also made me skinnier.

It was stupid to try to murder you.

I'm willing to let bygones be bygones and chalk this attempted murder up to youthful enthusiasm.

Here's to young girls getting what they had coming to them.

You know what they say-- "nothing tastes as good as revenge feels." Actually, they don't say it. I just sort of made that up.

I've got to stay focused.

Are you hungry, 'cause I'm hungry.

#scream queens #rp memes #rp meme #rp starters #roleplay meme #roleplay memes #roleplay starters

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skamamoroma · 4 years ago

Note

hey do you mind summarizing what happens with martino and nico? i heard they broke up??? i’m just really curious how they changed s4. i don’t have netflix lol and don’t speak italin

Oh I can’t sleep so I’ll do my best - you need to watch yourself though! NOTE: I’m not fluent Italian so if I got anything wrong, please tell me! I had help in understanding it so I think I got most of it!

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS: don’t read!

- Nico keeps some pretty big stuff about his past to himself but effectively he had feelings for one of the Rose squad aka Sana’s brother’s friend, Luai

- Luai is gay (I think, not 100% on his actual sexuality) but this was NOT like the Og. They had an actual THING. Luai’s family took his sexuality VERY badly and things happened

- The fallout from it all is how we have Nico with us now. Luai was the one filming Nico for his piano video.

- Nico doesn’t tell any of this to Marti and he’s clearly frightened but he still cares a huge amount for the boys. They were clearly a huge part of his life. At a party, Marti sees Nico looking at Luai across the room and Nico walks off to the Rose squad to say hello and they look very close. Marti looks betrayed. He reads into everything. Marti ends up losing his temper with the Rose squad and a fight starts because of what he saw.

- Marti feels lied to. Nico continues to lie to him because he doesn’t know how to explain it. Marti doesn’t believe him and Marti asks Sana about it but she respects Nico not to say

- Marti leaves Nico. They don’t really break up as such. It’s a little hazy. It’s more Marti freaking out and being terrified of losing Nico. He full on has what can only be described as a LOW POINT 😂 and is a real mess. He’s clearly so scared of losing Nico and their communication breaks down. He doesn’t speak to him because he’s too proud and frightened. I mean, Nico is his family!

- Marti is taken to Dr Spera by the boys and Elia calls Sana to help Marti understand. Marti is 100% heartbroken. Sobbing and genuinely his face broke me

- Marti moves in with Filo (scenes of hilarity!) and feels sorry for himself like a total ass. He is clearly freaking out because he believes Nico doesn’t want him, is going to leave him...

- Sana finds out that Nico has zero interest in Luai and that Luai is engaged! But he’s frightened to make it too known after what happened in the past. She tells Marti

- Gio and the boys tell Marti to stop being a dick. Marti says things are really tough and he feels like he’s going insane as Nico is being difficult and Gio (yes dude) tells him that Marti knew that things wouldn’t always be easy and that Nico tries so hard and basically tells him they love each other and to stop being idiots

- At Silvia’s birthday, Gio decides they should play a game of hide and seek and Gio chooses Nico as the searcher. Up until this point, Marti and Nico aren’t speaking and are sharing all these long puppy dog looks. Marti continues to be a dick about it all aka he’s frightened and feels he’s messed stuff up. The entire gang end up helping Gio to look them both in a bedroom. Marti is literally under the bed 😂 calls them all bastards. Typical Marti stuff. Nico asks if he can come under too and then we’re robbed of that scene 😫

- They’re back together, even if they weren’t necessarily broken up... just apart and, well, being idiots. It’s Marti’s birthday and they’re at the beach. Nico BUYS HIM A RED JUMPER (don’t think I didn’t notice that shit) and they banter and Marti says they need to be honest with each other and Nico says he will answer absolutely anything so Marti asks him a few questions about his past. Marti, like an idiot, spoils his own surprise birthday and they kiss which is seen by a fisherman who shouts homophobic bile

- Marti screams at him, calls him a dickhead, goes off on one and Nico calms him down, reminds him they don’t give in to people like that and to focus on the here and now. They have the sweetest cosiest cuddle and Marti asks if he can still throw the fisherman in the sea. Nico tells him no and smiles because Marti is an idiot but he’s his idiot and they’re both idiots together

It’s a LOT of mess and they’re genuinely given a LOT of time... and Marti has even more! But, for me, although it is messy, it works. Personally, I think all Evaks have the same experiences we just don’t get to see it. We do here and they both are in the wrong in different ways but both come with a LOT of complexity and a LOT of things that can make a relationship a challenge but through the entire thing, you can feel how much they adore each other. Marti is legit BROKEN by the whole thing and his own idiocy.

I love them both endlessly and I genuinely enjoyed seeing them tested. I trust Ludo with them. He knows Marti WELL. Marti has never been only sweet and gentle. He has always been spikey with a temper and blunt honesty. He can be a little jealous and manipulative. He can snap and can be insensitive. But he’s also incredibly brave and kind and loving and patient. He’s funny and loves with is whole heart. He’s sarcastic as hell, he calls you names out of affection, he’s horrendously literal... he’s VERY complex. But Nico also isn’t at all simple. Season 2 left them reaching a common ground and realising their love and we watched Marti realise he considers Nico his family and learning compassion. Here... that’s threatened to be taken away from him but all because of his own fear of being left and abandoned... he kind of orchestrates it himself 😂 albeit not helped by Nico keeping things from Marti and lying... again, out of fear that he’d perhaps mess things up if Marti knew. The whole thing is just fuelled by fear of losing the other!

The way they chose to test them, you can only do that with couples whose grounding is well established and I hope when you watch it you enjoy it! 💙

#nicotino #skam italia #skam italia spoilers #thoughts etc

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thenightgazer · 4 years ago

Text

Spark of Stardust

Chapter 2 : Under The Fair Moonlight After months of friendship, tonight is the first time for Vergil to visit Lyra's house for a tea... and some unexpected confessions.

Warning : parental abuse, drug abuse, PTSD, psychological/emotional abuse, munchausen syndrome by proxy

Part 6 of Tales of Apotelesma

You can also read this fic on AO3

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

~~~

He doesn’t remember how he ended up lying on the ground.

He stares at the sky, only to find the full moon staring back at him.

Where am I?

What am I doing here?

An agonizing wail distracts him from his own thoughts. If only he could move his body, it would be easier to find out what’s going on here. He starts to lose his sight as he feels something come out from his head, dripping to his ear, then to his back. He tries to glance at his surroundings in vain and realizes that his eyes are going to betray him again.

Then he feels it— pain.

A tremendous pain all over his body.

The woman is screaming again. This time it is louder and sounds a lot more terrifying.

As he struggles to move his body, with desperation creeping in his spine, he finally sees a glimpse of the woman’s figure. Standing on the rooftop of the house, she is trembling and sobbing. He can’t hear what she’s murmuring, yet something forces him to keep his eyes on her. It’s against his will, and he can’t do anything against it.

To be fair, everything doesn’t make any sense to him since the beginning. He just wants to end this absurd dream.

But now he’s sure of something; that he recognizes her face. He can see it clearly now. It all makes sense why she looks familiar since the first time he had this dream. The same cold, void eyes...

… that belong to the late Asteria Crescent.

---

The first thing that Vergil feels before he opens his eyes is someone else’s hand over his face. He stares blankly at the dark, which he soon recognizes as Dante’s hand blurring his vision.

He pushes Dante’s hand slowly without waking him up, recalling the memory before the twins ended up passed out on the Devil May Cry entrance floor.

The party went smoothly. Kyrie loved the music box that Vergil gave her and wore the bracelet after he told her its function. The meal was delicious. The kids were well-behaved—more than usual—they even went to bed early with Kyrie. After that, they played poker and Dante suggested having a drinking game. Vergil was never a heavy drinker, but of course he was forced to join the game. In the end, they drank too much and could barely remember who won the gamble.

Vergil doesn’t remember the details, but the last thing he knew was that the cards and the smell of alcohol were all over the place. The entire crew passed out. Succumbing to alcohol and an over-flowing fatherly instinct, Vergil moved Nero to the couch and put a pillow under the young devil hunter’s head. He said goodbye to Trish, who was half-asleep on the dining table. Then he dragged Dante with him, made a sloppy movement to create a portal to Devil May Cry before he eventually collapsed.

I shouldn’t have drunk that forsaken whiskey, Vergil curses himself.

The blue hybrid stretches his body and tries to get up feebly, kicking Dante’s waist. “Wake up, Dante. Don’t sleep on the floor.”

The younger twin replies with a soft snore.

Realizing that it’s going to be futile to wake Dante up, Vergil walks to the kitchen and grabs cold water from the refrigerator. His throat is dry and sore after swallowing too much whiskey. He empties half of the bottle while thinking about his weird dream again.

“... Huston...” Dante murmurs in his sleep.

Vergil furrows his brow. “Who?”

“Play me... Elena Huston...”

Vergil puts the bottle on the table and back to Dante, grabbing his little brother’s ankle and drags him to Dante’s room clumsily. The alcohol still exists in his blood, making him slightly difficult to coordinate his movement. After struggling a little while to put the red devil on the bed and taking off his shoes, Vergil covers Dante’s body with a blanket. Foolish, meddlesome, slovenly little brother, Vergil grumbles, unaware of his opposite brotherly act of love he has done to Dante.

“Hey Verge...” Dante mumbles.

“What?”

“Thanks... you ... sleep... too...”

“Shut up, Dante. Just sleep.”

Vergil chuckles silently after watching Dante go back to unconsciousness. He laments the time gap between them. He didn’t have a chance to grow up together with his brother, but although he was indifferent to humanity, he secretly hoped that Dante was safe, wherever his brother would be. Even when he had defeated Dante for numerous times, he had never meant to kill him even for once.

Vergil cares for his brother more than he would ever admit.

He heads out from the room and takes a seat on the couch. When he’s about to take off his coat, he feels his phone is vibrating. He takes the phone to decline the call and shut the phone down, but Lyra’s name pops on the screen.

Coincidence?

He picks the call.

“Vergil?”

“...”

“Vergil? Are you there?”

“I’m fine,” he replies, almost like a whisper. “Just a little... tipsy.”

Vergil hears her snorting. “I thought you hated alcohol? You said it makes you lose your control or whatsoever.”

“Let’s just say the crews made me do it.”

“Even Vergil Sparda couldn’t escape peer pressure, aye?”

A subtle smile appears on Vergil’s mouth. “This is midnight, Stardust. You should’ve slept.”

“I did. Then I woke up and couldn't sleep again. I remember you said cambions don’t need to sleep, so I reckon you are still awake. How was the party?”

“What can I say?” Vergil massages his brow, relieving the pain on it. “Kyrie loved my present. Nero was more talkative to me than usual. Dante was less annoying. For the first time since I came back from Underworld, Mary didn’t glare at me like she wanted to kill me. Trish was civil. Nicoletta still wants to touch Yamato. Morrison still insists to give me his cigarette. The three little rascals asked me to read them Animal Farm and they left early for bed.”

A mocking snort comes out from the librarian. “Normally you would say ‘ It’s fine’ or something like that, but now you bother to describe the entire events to me—not that I complained though—it just convinces me that Vergil Sparda is sloshed for real.”

“... I’m just... happy, I guess. That everything went well.”

“Glad to know it,” there’s a short pause before she continues to speak. “Hey... do you know that there's this flower called butterfly pea?”

“Consider this is the first time I heard that.”

“It’s originally from southeast Asia. It has a pretty blue colour and if we brew it, we can have a blue tea. Bought a jar of it from Chinatown. In fact, I’m thinking of brewing it now, and... I think it would be great if I drink it with a friend,” Lyra chuckles nervously. “Would you mind coming for a cuppa? I know it’s midnight and you’re inebriated right now but—”

“I accept the invitation.”

There’s a gasp. “Seriously?”

“Yes. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“I thought you would decline it, but never mind! See you very soon!”

Vergil looks at the phone screen blankly after Lyra hangs up the call. Sounds odd. This is the first time she invites me to her house. What if this invitation has something to do with my dream?

He remembers Lyra’s statement that she doesn’t believe in coincidence. It’s all but synchronicity, she had said.

Coincidence or not, he decides to leave anyway.

---

Lyra’s neighborhood is always quiet. Surrounded by meadows and woods, her house is secluded and quite far from the central city. No one would have thought that there’s a small cottage here and someone lives there. Lyra had said to him once that she wants to live in solitude and avoid having some neighbors, or else she would go crazy by neighbors’ endless thoughts.

The door opens immediately after Vergil knocks. Lyra’s tender face shows up, smiling at his presence. She wears an oversized blue sweater and long pajama pants. But that’s not his main concern at the moment—it’s her stature. The moonlight helps Vergil to look at her scrupulously and realizes that he has never noticed how pale Lyra’s fair skin is, like she hasn’t seen the sun for a long time. Along with her dark eyes and shady smile, anyone could mistake her as a vampire.

“Welcome to my small and humble cottage,” the librarian chuckles after examining the devil hunter in front of her. “You look fine for a drunken man.”

Vergil shrugs. “Cut it out, will you?”

“Just messing with you. Climb aboard.”

As he follows behind her to enter the house, Vergil’s cautious eyes wander off to the house’ interior. The house is small with a cozy living room attached to the kitchen. The two doors beside the living room are assumed by Vergil to be a bedroom and a bathroom. He walks to the windows framed with burgundy drapes; the lace inner curtains remain drawn, allowing moonlight to enter the house. There he can see Lyra’s small garden, blooming delicately under the night sky.

“I always fancy stargazer lilies and munstead wood rose.” Lyra says from the kitchen.

“They look exquisite,” Vergil murmurs. “I can smell the fragrance even from here.”

Vergil still stands in his place, watching the midnight breeze swing the flowers. Some of its petals have fallen to the ground. The next thing he sees is the butterflies flying around munstead wood roses. It’s rare to find butterflies in this metropolis. Knowing that there’s still beauty worth living, Vergil is grateful that he isn’t dead yet. He spent most of his lifetime isolating himself from the world, loathing the beauty inside it because he thought it was worthless.

He glances to the kitchen where Lyra puts the kettle on the stove and takes a jar— he presumes that it’s dried butterfly pea— but seems like she’s having a tough time opening it. Trying his best to keep his dignity by not mocking her adorable struggle, he approaches her and takes the jar.

“The strange and powerful human being with the ability to move every object only with her mind, couldn’t even open a goddamn jar.” Vergil remarks in sardonic tone. “Is this what you call friendship? Acting as your jar opener and transportation device?”

Lyra taps her chin. “Tut-tut, Vergil Sparda. You forgot ‘personal bodyguard’ and ‘heat provider’.”

“I’ve never thought that you’re such an opportunistic capitalist who used your friend for your convenience.”

“Says a megalomaniac who raised a demon tree to fight his brother only to be kicked in the arse by his son.”

“... that's... it won’t happen again,” Vergil looks away as he gives her the jar. “Nero hasn’t succeeded in defeating me since I came back from the Underworld."

“Sure~ I believe you.” The teasing tone in Lyra’s word says otherwise, much to Vergil’s dismay. He decides to help her prepare the cups rather than to continue their banter as she puts the dried butterfly pea flower into the teapot. Lyra had told him to let her do all the work, but she finally gives up after Vergil glares at her while cleaning the cups with a napkin.

“You finally made your dream come true.” Vergil says, putting cups on the saucers.

“What dream?”

Vergil points at a 36-strings lever harp beside the table in front of the sofa.

“Oh!” Lyra exclaims, turning the stove off and brings the kettle on the countertop. “Couldn’t afford to buy pedal harp, so I’m quite satisfied to have this one. Sugar or lemon? Plain blue tea tastes super earthy, only if that’s your preference.”

“Just lemon. Thank you.”

“Okay. Have a seat on the sofa. I’ll bring the tea right there,” she says.

Vergil takes his time to observe the living room, which he finds odd since he entered this house. This house is too... plain. Except for the harp, a chess board, some Rubik cubes on the table and an old radio on the kitchen counter, there’s almost no personal touch in this house. No family pictures, trophies, or even a bookshelf.

Considering she’s a bookworm, that’s terribly odd. But as she said, this cottage is small. He tries to ignore his hunch and turns his focus to admire the lever harp, plucking the strings cautiously and listening to its mesmerizing sound.

“You like it?” Lyra asks while putting the tray on the table and pouring the tea to their cups.

“It's magnificent,” Vergil takes his seat. “Let’s see if you’re capable of playing this astonishing instrument.”

“Challenge accepted!” the librarian drags the harp to her side. “Happy or sad?”

The blue devil stays silent for a while, staring at the cold fireplace before he glances at the window, remembering the moment when Lyra greeted him under the fair moonlight, causing his old soul to demand something soothing and nostalgic. “Play me Clair de Lune.”

Lyra nods cheerfully. “Easy peasy.”

It’s such a picturesque scenery, to witness Lyra hold the harp like she was born to play it. It’s the same bewitching phenomenon as their little adventure a few days ago when they stargazed together to see the Lyrids. He’s bemused once he hears the strings from the lever harp plucked and formed a beautiful composition. The brighter and folksy sound from lever harp is different from the classic pedal harp, yet it doesn’t change the beauty and romantic tone from the song.

Vergil finds himself frozen under the spell— it’s not just the song, he muses. It’s her.

Your soul is a chosen landscape

Where charming masquerades and dancers are promenading

Playing the lute and dancing, and almost

Sad beneath their fantastic disguise s

While singing in a minor key

Of victorious love, and the pleasant life

They seem not to believe in their own happiness

And their song blends with the moonlight

With the sad and beautiful moonlight

Which sets the birds in the trees dreaming?

And makes the fountains sob with ecstasy

The slender water streams among the marble statues.

By the time when Lyra finally reaches the song’s outro, Vergil senses his body is less tense and his head gets back its clarity after succumbing to alcohol for hours. Her fingers are getting slower as she plucks the pin and a string for the last time, a satisfied smile appears on her face, “I like this song.”

“So do I.” Vergil agrees.

She giggles. “Next time, it’s your turn to play me a song. Dante told me that you’re a gifted violinist. He sent me a video of you playing Caprice 24 yesterday.”

Vergil covers his face with his palm. “Kindly remind me to kill him soon.”

“You play eloquently. You should be proud!” Lyra giggles and pours honey inside her cup.

“Silence,” Vergil put a slice of lemon on his tea, the tail of his eyes spy on Lyra. “Instead of flattering me, why don't we just straight to the business?”

“Sorry?”

“It’s obvious that you didn’t invite me just for a cup of tea and impromptu recital.”

The puzzled expression on Lyra’s face answers it all. She doesn’t say anything for a quiet long time, still stirring her tea as if she’s still preparing what to say to him. Vergil suspects she would avoid his question, but she just sighs and finally sips her own tea, “You’re right. But first, drink your tea.”

Her eyes fixate on his, as if she commands him to mimic her gesture. He has no choice but to obey, lifting his cup to his mouth and carefully taste the blue tea. He enjoys the mixture between the natural flavor from the tea and the acid from the lemon, slurping more of them to please his throat. He would enjoy the tea more if Lyra didn’t give him that hollow gaze, causing him to wonder if she put poison inside the tea and wait for him to collapse, but if there’s any poison inside the tea, he would find it out even before he drinks it.

“What do you think?” She blows the steam from the tea.

“It’s good. Not too bitter, nor too bland.”

“Drink a little more, then.”

Again, Vergil obeys her.

Lyra puts her cup on the table. “It’s easy, doesn’t it?”

“What is it?”

“When I told you to drink, it was easier for you to drink it.”

“I don’t see why it should be difficult to drink it. It tastes good and it’s an act of courtesy.”

“An act of courtesy,” she smiles bitterly. “Oh yeah, it was easier for me too.”

Vergil puts his cup on the table with the intention to end Lyra’s vague trickery. The words he says next are full of certainty. “You had a dream of me.”

Her eyes are widened, but she already expects him to spill the question. She nods, her fingers trail on a Rubik's cube. “Twice. Weird, huh?”

“What did you dream about?”

“Last night? I was you, grieven by the death of your father. You wandered to your mother’s room and cried together inside a drawer with Dante. An hour ago, I was you again, chained up and this titanic, god-like demon tortured you and called you ‘disgraceful offspring of the traitor Sparda’. I think it was Mundus.”

“That’s bizarre. I believe I haven’t told you about Dante and I inside the drawer. And that was what Mundus exactly told me when he tortured me in the Underworld.”

“What about you? Did you dream of me?”

“I did,” he admits. “I’m afraid I failed to understand the context, since you haven’t told me any single things about you.”

“Fair enough. In that case...” she holds her breath while solving the cube. “What did you see?”

“I believe I was on your point of view when the dream occurred. You were gravely ill and your mother tended you. I still can recall how bad your headache was from that dream. Then Asteria— your mother— read you The Hobbit . In that dream, I didn’t know who she was, until you mentioned her name this afternoon. I decided to not bring it up to you until I found out why I dream about something I’ve never experienced and why it was about you.”

“The dream, then,” she continues. “Have you seen another one after that?”

He shakes his head. “None whatsoever.”

“Really?”

Sorry, Lyra. “Yes. Why?”

“... nothing. A lot of weird things have happened since our accidental mind link. The dreams must be our memories. Let's say the dream was our brain projection of what we’ve told each other about our past, then how could we feel the pain we’ve never experienced before? How could I know the face of the demon I’ve never met before? I got a hypothesis that whenever I dream of you, you must’ve dreamt about me. But this time you didn’t dream of me while I dreamt of you. Seems like it doesn’t work like that...”

The sound of clicking cube stops at once, making Vergil wonder whether she stopped the cube because of his answer or she has solved the cube since all the layers are already in the right places.

“I was sickly back then. Could barely leave my bed,” Lyra says, showing him the cube. “And this was the only thing I could do, aside from reading.”

Vergil receives the cube. “I saw plenty of this thing in my dream.”

She rests her back on the head of the couch. “What do you think of my mother?”

“She seems caring and nurturing.”

“Do you love your mother?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course.”

“I’m glad that you do.”

“You don’t love your mother?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbles, her eyes are dreary. She lifts her feet on the couch and moves her body to face the devil. “I don’t want to lie to you, Vergil.”

“Then don’t. We promised to not lie to each other.”

She chuckles coldly. “Where should I begin... oh right, I told you I was sickly. Mum said I got this rare genetic disorder called severe combined immunodeficiency. SCID made me extremely vulnerable of diseases. Therefore, I should live in a sterile and isolated environment. I could barely leave my own house, couldn’t even open the window just to smell my garden. Didn’t get a chance to meet new people other than my mother, my nurse— I forgot her name, I never liked her anyway— and my governess, Norma.”

Lyra closes her eyes for a while before she continues. “She was a great scientist. She was the smartest person I’ve ever known. She was the one who made me in love with astronomy. I could only see her infamous work on telly and newspapers. Some days, there were people who came to visit us and talked to mum. They were forbidden to meet me because of my condition. Some of them left me notes and little presents, wishing me good health. They told my mum to have faith and carry on. And whenever my mum had to attend international conferences, she cried so much a day before her flight because she had to leave me, even though Norma was there with me.”

“What about your father?”

“Never knew him. Mum was never married. She always looked blue whenever I asked her about my father, so I stopped asking.”

Lyra clenches her hand before taking the Rubik cube from Vergil’s hand and begins to play it again. “We only had each other, that means we need to protect each other. I never questioned anything because she took care of me and devoted on me. If it wasn’t my mother, who else wanted to take care of me? I liked Norma, but she was paid for nursing me. She could leave anytime soon, but not my mum. She was the only family I had, and I loved her.”

Lyra gazes at Vergil, whose face is straight still without any meaningful reactions. “I ate and slept as ordered. Took my medicines. Never once went outside the house. I did exactly what my mum instructed. But one day I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt dizzy almost every day. I threw up a lot. Sometimes I couldn’t even move my own body. I didn’t feel any better, just getting worse day by day. I felt like I could die any time.”

She shuffles the cube again after solving it. “One day, I stopped taking all of it.”

“The medicines.” Vergil emphasizes, remembering the nasty smell of medicine in his dream.

Lyra nods. “No matter how persistent Mum’s and the nurse' persuasion, I didn’t take it. I just wanted it to be over. Then something unexpected happened,” she lets out a small grin. “I was getting better. Much better. I could walk without taking a deep breath anymore. I went to the garden without having a nosebleed. I didn’t throw up. My headache was gone. I felt like I was... reborn.”

Lyra takes another deep breath; her hands stop shuffling the cube. “I never said it out loud, but Mum was sick. Very sick,” she taps her head with her index finger. “Mentally.”

Vergil tilts his head. That’s unexpected. “What makes you think so?”

The librarian puts the cube on the table, leaving it unsolved. “Any time I refused to take medicine or disobeyed her, she distanced herself from me. She didn’t reciprocate everything I did. She was just going straight inside her room and locked the door. It was almost like she resented me— no, punishing me for disobeying her. She loved playing this guilt-trip game so much. It seems like she liked it whenever she succeeded to make me think that I was a worthless daughter.”

“I know there are parents who treat their children poorly and abusively,” Vergil contemplates. “But I’m afraid I still couldn’t comprehend why your mother did that to you. You were only a child. A terribly ill child. She should’ve been happy instead of punishing you for your better condition. I understand that we could never judge a book by its cover, but… in my dream, she seemed like... she loved you wholeheartedly. Why would she want to hurt her own daughter?"

Lyra hugs her knees. “When someone keeps putting a person in ugly circumstances, I can only think that it’s either out of hatred or love.”

“Why would you put the person you love in such circumstances?”

“Love can be... poisonous,” Lyra stares blankly at the ceiling. “It’s always easier to hurt someone you hate. It makes more sense. But if you love someone, you’d do anything for them, even if it’s beyond logic, consciously or not. You’d call it kindness and love, but it’s actually poison. You hurt your beloved ones and say that you do that because you love them. You keep them close to you, shower them your love until they’re blind by your love and never find the help they really need...”

Noticing her body begins to shiver, Vergil takes off his coat and wraps it around Lyra’s body to keep her comfortable. He couldn’t help but empathized with her. She’s as confused as he is about human emotions, which is surprising. She always looks so confident, like there’s no obstacle that could damage her. But now while she slowly reveals her past, she looks extremely vulnerable. It makes Vergil want to help her somehow, even just to calm her down.

“Here,” Vergil says, hesitantly offers his hand. “Just until you feel better.”

Lyra’s anxiety gradually calms down as their hands are attached. Vergil’s gloved palm is hard as steel—one squeeze can crush her bone, yet she can only feel the warmth between their entangled hands.

She lets out a sad smile. How long has it been since the last time someone holds my hand?

“Do you feel better now?” Vergil finally breaks the ice.

“A little,” Lyra agrees. “Although I must admit, this is awkward.”

Vergil closes his eyes and chuckles as he rests his body on the head of the sofa. “I don’t know what madness leads me to do this. Perhaps it’s because of you. You are a terrible influence for me.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to your best friend!”

“How unfortunate.”

With their hands still attached, Lyra lowers the coat from her head, revealing threads of her golden brunette hair, shifting her body to lean on the sofa. “Have you ever heard about Munchausen syndrome?”

“A mental disorder in which a person deliberately malingering?”

“Yup. And there is another one called Munchausen by proxy. Means the caregiver is the one who fakes the illness in a person under their care.”

“You mean...”

Lyra scoffs bitterly. “I know one should not self-diagnose without proper professional assessment. Mum was never clinically diagnosed, nor that people noticed her traits. They only knew her as a devoted mother and a great scientist. But I’m the one who lived under the same roof with her and I knew her better than anyone else. I could give you examples of how much my mother loved me”

“There was one time after my refusal to take my medicines, she humiliated me in front of her colleagues,” she continues with a calmer voice. “I was helping her to arrange a bouquet of roses to be placed at the living room. It was unusual that she allowed me to do the ‘hard work’. I did what she asked. I wanted to please her, just to see her smile again. I wanted her to look at me as her daughter, not a failure. I cut the roses diligently, and my fingers were bleeding because I was careless. I didn’t know that Mum brought her colleagues home, and they saw my bleeding fingers. She went nuts when she saw my fingers, scolded me for touching the roses. She said rubbish like, ‘I told you to not touch them!’ ‘Why are you so careless?’ ‘Oh, my poor, darling baby’ while her colleagues gave us the pity look as Mum brought me to my chamber, tended my wounds exaggeratedly, telling me that the pain will be gone soon and the wounds won’t leave any scratches. I was going to ask her why she lied to her colleagues but she kept shushing me like I’m a bloody idiot. I was confused, like, what did I do wrong?”

Lyra glances at Vergil, whose eyes are fixated to the fireplace in a silent rage. “You might’ve thought I was too naïve to indulge her unhealthy behaviour.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You were too weak and innocent to defend yourself,” the door to Vergil’s memory palace where his darkest memories are stored is widely opened. “It sounds like self-justification, but we were just children. We couldn’t have known the cause of what was happening back then. You didn’t deserve everything your mother did to you.”

The contemplative words from Vergil slightly lightens the weight on Lyra’s shoulders. Her solemn smile emphasizes her hidden sadness and weariness. “At those days, I thought she was just knackered, or in a bad mood. Maybe she really worried about me. Maybe I was too stubborn and that made her gutted, so I endured. I took those bloody medicines because it was easier for me. She was so happy and for a moment, I thought I was happy too. Took it longer for me to realize that I was frightened, but I had no options but obeyed her.”

Vergil remains silent whilst feeling Lyra’s thumb tapping on the back of his hand. He waits patiently for her to gather herself before she mumbles quietly. “I’ve been wondering too... why would anyone want to go back to the person who hurt them?”

“Violence often acts in a cycle,” Vergil squeezes her hand lightly as a reassurance. “Once the perpetrator realized their mistake, they would beg for forgiveness. Some people mean it, some people don’t,” he sighs deeply, carefully putting his words together. “You thought by forgiving your mother, she could change for the better. That forgiveness would improve your relationship with her. You came back to her, sacrificing your safety and well-being to seek her love and comfort. She planted the fear inside you. It was a wheel you couldn’t escape. But you were never a fool for coming back to her. You loved her and you were a child who had no one to have your back but your mother. Even when your expectation failed you, you could only rely on her. ”

“I tried to break the wheel,” Lyra pulls away their hands and cups her face, sliding it to her head like she had a headache. “There were countless times when I thought about running away. But it never happened. I couldn’t even survive five minutes outside. If I told anyone about my suspicion of Mum’s actions on me, they would never believe me and call me a spoiled child instead. Norma was the only person who believed me. She was trying to help me, like quietly flushing the medicines whenever I couldn’t take it anymore. Then she was fired shortly after she spoke to Mum about her nonsensical punishment to me.”

Lyra bites her lips. “It seemed like Mum tried to cut every string with Norma. I never heard about her anymore. Never found her phone number or address. There was a time when I missed her but I couldn’t contact her. She was the only person who believed me and my mother took her away from me because Norma defended me from Mum’s fucked up behaviour.”

A sting of familiar dread creeps inside Vergil’s bone, despite his awareness that it wasn’t his own fear but residues from his first dream about Lyra. He remembers his futile effort to move the body and the way Asteria’s calm yet terrifying gaze at him when she feeds him. The unpleasant sound from the friction between the spoon and the bowl... Asteria’s shady voice as she told him her worries...

“I told you I never knew exactly when I acquired my power, right? Because as long as I remember, I always had this power from the very beginning. I knew what pawn Norma would pick whenever we played chess. I knew the next word my mother was going to say. There were times I accidentally moved things even without touching them. I thought I was just imagining things,” Lyra fixes Vergil’s coat. “Therefore, when Mum scolded me again, I felt my wrath burning and something inside me burst out. I was shocked because suddenly almost anything inside my bedroom was dropped—the books, the toys, the lamps. Mum was pale and silent like a ghost while staring at the mess, until the nurse came. She glared at me like I was a freak and the last thing I remember was I woke up and was unable to move my body. I suspected Mum had me drugged again to prevent me causing havoc. She still had the audacity to act normal, even read me The Hobbit like yesterday was nothing.”

Vergil’s icy eyes get wider slightly. “The event in my dream...”

“Now you know,” Lyra giggles but her face stays impassive. “Then a month later, there came the moment when we both fell.”

Vergil straightens up his body. The picture of his second dream of her comes up in his mind. The same soulless eyes that he saw back then when there was a murder in the library a few months ago appear once more on Lyra. Somehow, Vergil knows where this conversation is heading and he knows he won’t like it. “What do you mean by 'we’ ?”

The pure honesty in Lyra’s eyes makes Vergil’s blood curdle. “I told you, didn’t I? I don’t want to lie to you.”

---

It was the end of the fall season when six-years old Lyra woke up from her slumber. She glanced at the clock on the wall, grinning unconsciously. They say 3 o’clock in the morning is devil’s hour. Unable to go back to sleep, she grabbed her mauve cardigan and decided to take a little detour to the balcony. I could find some autumn constellation, she thought with excitement. She remembered her mother hadn’t packed the cool and sophisticated telescope she had always admired since the very first time Asteria brought it home, and she left it on the balcony this afternoon.

Little Lyra succeeded sneaking out from her bedroom. The mouthful and annoying nurse was nowhere to be seen. She was sure that Asteria is already sleeping. Lately, Asteria didn’t show her ‘lunatic’ nature to Lyra, which Lyra was grateful for. So when she found Asteria on the balcony, Lyra’s excitement instantly turned into fear. Her mother stood with her hands on the balustrade. The telescope was still there, but it seems like Asteria hadn’t used it again since the afternoon. Thinking that her mother wouldn’t notice her presence, Lyra tip-toed to going back to her chamber, but Asteria saw her and startled. It was almost like Asteria scared of being caught on the balcony.

“Solstice?” Asteria gasped. “Why do you— oh, never mind. You must be here to stargaze, aren’t you? Come here, sweets.” A warm smile appeared on her face as she sat on the chair and fixed the telescope.

Lyra’s fight or flight instinct soared up. It was already horrible to think her mother would scold her for sneaking from her bed, but the sullen face of Asteria was unsettling. It looked like she was able to burst any time soon.

“Come on,” Asteria insisted. “Look, there is Andromeda!”

Without making any sound, Lyra climbed on her mother’s lap timidly. Asteria told her to peek into the eyepiece, which Lyra reluctantly did.

“What do you think?” asked Asteria.

“Beautiful,” Lyra said. “But I don’t understand.”

“About what?”

“The pattern. Andromeda doesn’t look like she was chained. More like she fell from the sky and died on the ground.”

Asteria chuckled. “As per usual, sweets. You have a vivid imagination.”

“I just don’t like that story. It was Andromeda’s parents’ fault, but she was the one who got sacrificed.”

“The gods punished her parents too.”

“Yet the gods placed them among the stars. It’s not fair.” Lyra murmured.

“Well, it’s mythology,” Asteria caressed Lyra’s hair. “On the other side, I think Cassiopeia loved her daughter. Too much that she got the audacity to boast about Andromeda’s beauty. If she were really that self-centred, she’d boasted her own beauty instead.”

Lyra’s small hands adjusted the focusing knob slowly. “If she really loved her, she would think for her daughter’s safety.”

It took Asteria a quite long time to respond. She hugged her little daughter from behind, resting her head on Lyra's crown and massaging Lyra’s shoulders. “Why don’t you go back to sleep? It’s cold here.”

Mummy sounds tired, Lyra noticed. Yet asking questions right now wouldn’t be the best choice. Asteria gave her a good night kiss lightly before letting Lyra off from her lap.

“You’re right. Cassiopeia’s pride put her daughter in danger,” Asteria said, cuddling her daughter tightly. “I love you, Solstice. I’m sorry for everything.”

What was that? Lyra felt an itchy ache somewhere in her heart by just listening to her apology, but Asteria just smiled as if she had never said anything. She waved at her, telling her wish for Lyra to have a sweet dream.

Lyra walked away from her mother with heavy steps, despite her wish to stay a little bit longer. Asteria seemed to be in a good mood this time, and that tender side of her melted Lyra’s heart. She’s her mother, after all. She couldn’t help but love her unconditionally. I hope I don’t agitate her, she hoped as she turned her direction to enter the balcony again, planning to beg to stay for a while.

But when she turned around, the horror already waited for her there.

Lyra was screaming like a wild animal as she ran and ran...

“MUMMY!!!!!”

… towards Asteria, who jumped from the balustrade.

Don’t leave me here! Lyra’s body felt like it was burning in blaze. She could feel an overwhelming power within her burst out. Please God, let me use that power again!

Her breath got heavier as she jumped from the guardrail and reached her hand to her mother with a hope to save her. It felt like eternity when she realized that her mother was floating on the air instead of falling. With an eerie face, Asteria screamed her daughter’s name while she was brought by an invisible force to the rooftop again.

I did it! Lyra thought cheerfully, but not for long because she quickly realized her mysterious power didn’t bring her to the balcony too. She tried to focus on herself, doing whatever she can to release her power again. She knew her power was still raw and immature. She had planned to practice secretly tomorrow, but she had no idea that things would go south like this. The first was always luck or coincidence, Norma had said to Lyra when she found out Lyra’s little secret. But there will be no more luck for the second time. There is no such thing as coincidence, but synchronicity...

While Lyra was still thinking about why her power didn’t work, her body crushed on the ground violently.

She was sure she heard the sound of her fractured bones.

She had never experienced that kind of pain before. All those side effects from her medicines was nothing compared to this one. The pain gradually ended as the numbness consumed her body. She looked at the sky, thinking how poetic her fall was under the fair moonlight with her motionless body. She was sure she saw Asteria on the balcony, shrieking and saying something she could not comprehend. Why did she jump? Was that because of me? Maybe because I made Mummy angry again... maybe afterlife seems better than living with me...

Lyra was willing to go. Afterall, she was sick of being isolated. Death seems promising. At least she would be free from medicine and endless hope for getting a healthy body. I look like Andromeda , she thought as she felt her eyes getting heavier. Like someone lying dead on the ground.

She knew it’s time to go when her eyelids could barely manage to stay open. She hoped Asteria would live a better world without her. If only she could laugh right now, she would do it for the last time, so she wouldn’t feel too bitter about death.

Mum—

Unfortunately, she never got a chance to think further. The only thing she saw before she lost her consciousness was her mother climbing up the balustrade again, this time to follow her daughter to death.

---

“Stardust?”

The gentle voice of Vergil startles Lyra back to reality. She doesn’t know how long the time has passed since she told him how her mother died. The long, buried weariness and sadness inside her consumes her like she has just released a huge burden from her body at once.

“Sorry, I was preoccupied with my own head.” Lyra scratches her right ankle, a habit she couldn’t let go since that tragic day. “You alright?”

“I was supposed to be the one who asked,” the blue devil says. “Are you sure you’re going to continue? We could discuss this later.”

“Nah, I’m fine. Just adjusting myself because I’ve never opened up to anyone else before,” Lyra continues, ignoring Vergil’s pity look. “Anyway, after that, I woke up in the local hospital. They said my nurse heard my mother’s scream and went to check. That was how she found us and called the ambulance. When we reached the hospital, they said they couldn’t save us. They went insane because suddenly my heart started beating again in an hour. They put me under intensive care for three months. I got severely broken bones and head trauma—I needed to do a couple more surgeries and physiotherapy. They said it was a miracle for me to survive and recover rapidly.”

“That must have something to do with your power.” Vergil adds.

“That’s very likely. I woke up hearing voices and seeing things I wasn’t supposed to be. I thought I was just dreaming, but day by day I spent my time hospitalized, I knew it was real. Those voices and images were people’s thoughts,” Lyra chuckles with irony on her lips. “It was already too much for me to read minds at once, and then I found out that my mother died. I saved her life just for giving her a chance to jump again.”

She sounds ireful rather than sad, Vergil suspects. He can’t deny his instinct to not let his attention to Lyra’s right ankle, which he stores his suspicion for a long time.

“One day, Mum’s lawyer came to visit me at the hospital. She said since I’m an orphan and have no relatives, she will act as my guardian and I’ll receive inheritance whenever I reach legal age. The whole ‘guardian’ part was just formality because she’ll send me to an orphanage once I get discharged from hospital. Even I knew what she had stored in mind before she started to speak. But that didn’t really concern me,” Lyra takes a deep breath and exhales. Her expression is slightly twisted as she telekinetically raises a Rubik's cube and tears every cube apart before she smashes them into flakes.

What in the seven hells— “Lyra?” Vergil calls her, but the word seems unreachable to her.

“I was going to forgive my mother because I wanted her to rest in peace, yet again she proved it to me that she was a fucking devil.”

Another cube is crushed, followed by a loud cracking sound from the teacup.

“The lawyer couldn’t bear to tell me this, but she found fake prescriptions of my daily medicines and a drawer full of placebo pills in my mother’s room. The doctors told her that they found traces of placebo pills and a very tiny dose of rat poison inside me. A. Fucking. Rat. Poison—”

The radio on the kitchen counter starts playing by itself, followed by a loud bang from Lyra’s front door.

“It was all placebo. There was never a fucking SCID nor fucking illness. I was perfectly fine from the start! The only reason why I always felt sick was because of that rat poison and abominable suggestions from that fucking b—”

Vergil grips her shoulder. “Lyra, you will destroy the entire house. Please stay calm.”

The view of her floating table pulls Lyra back to the earth. She startles at first, but it doesn’t last as she finally gathers herself and puts the table back to the ground. The bleak on her face remains while she tightens up Vergil’s coat. “Sorry.”

“I told you to stop earlier.”

“I can never be ready to tell you the truth unless I do it right now.”

“Fine, but if I notice even a small sign of you going berserk again, we have to stop this conversation.”

“Deal.”

“Good. Then, did the nurse have any knowledge about the poisoning?”

Lyra shakes her head in disappointment. “She claimed that Mum just gave her my medical certificate and records, which the lawyer found to be fake. Mum made up those records as if they were authorized by a credible health facility. She made up things and fucked up my life for Hell knows what she was up to. Then she just fucking died and leaving me alone without any explanation on everything.”

Vergil wipes his face in frustration, This is more messed up than I thought it would be.

Lyra lets out a rugged laugh. “You know what happened next. The media never told people how my mother died.”

“That’s what I always thought to be very suspicious. They can’t just spread false rumour. There’s evidence, witnesses and statements from the police and hospital.”

“All I could think was that Asteria Crescent was an infamous astrobiologist with great reputation. Imagine if the world knew this brilliant person was a mad woman who poisoned her own daughter. That would destroy the reputation of academical world. Her good legacy must be remembered.”

“... Was that really easy for humans to alter the truth?”

The librarian laughs bitterly. “They do it all the time, Vergil. It’s easier than you think it is. Money talks louder than words. They must’ve silenced Mum’s lawyer too since she said nothing about the truth to me. I tried to tell them that my mother was insane and that wasn’t how she died, but they thought I was the one who lost my mind. PTSD, head trauma, reconstructed memory, call it what you want. I don’t know who started it, why and how, but they closed the case.”

“But who were these people? Why did such a grandiose plan just to cover up a scientist’s death?”

“Who knows. There’s always someone behind the stage.”

“And they really sent you to an orphanage?”

“Yes, maybe to shut my mouth. Mum’s lawyer managed my financial support, but she never showed up at the orphanage.”

Lyra bites her lips, like she doesn’t know how to continue and stumbles over her own words. She scratches her right ankle again. “Kids in the orphanage used to tease me for limping whenever I walked. It’s odd for me, even until now. The doctor said I had fully recovered, just needed to adjust myself to the outside world since I stayed indoors for too long. But the sore thing in my ankle here never really disappears. I never found out why. All doctors I’ve consulted with said despite the fading scar on the skin, my ankle is perfectly fine and should’ve been functional. People couldn’t even see me limping, at least until a certain sulky devil spotted it.”

“I’m not sulky.”

“The more you deny it, the more it’s true.”

“Your logical fallacy amuses me.”

A relieved laugh comes out from Lyra. “You got me there.”

With the smile on her face blooming again, Vergil feels a towering wave of unpleasant ache filling his whole heart. Right now, he can grasp the reason why Lyra acts too secretive. He knows that burden very well; to be unable to trust anyone but themselves. Lyra has never received the real love from her mother, which was different from Vergil. Her childhood and self-esteem were stolen from her own kin. That is also the reason why Lyra can easily understand him, despite his despicable sins. Lyra has already had the power and was able to save her mother, yet in the end Asteria chose to kill herself. Contrary to Vergil, who even had demon power since birth, but he couldn’t save his mother from her doom. His love for his family was Vergil’s motivation to gain more power, which is a total opposite from Lyra who hates her mother and resents her power. They are two sides of the same coin.

“Terra to Vergil?” Lyra snaps her fingers in front of Vergil’s face.

“Pardon me,” Vergil says. “I was just contemplating.”

“About what?”

“About how humans can be so much worse than demons. No offense.”

“None had taken.”

The blue devil hesitates before he asks. “How... How did you cope from that?”

“Hmmm...” Lyra mumbles and sighs heavily. “It’s not easy. It still affects me in a way. I grew up thinking that people can’t be trusted. Telepathy made it worse. I hesitate to live, but I don’t want to die either. It’s difficult to form any connection, no matter how much effort I took to fit in. I’m not even sure myself whether this is the real me or I’m just a skilled imitator who fits people’s expectations.”

She smiles, this time the gloom on her lips is fading. “I met people who were sincerely decent and empathetic. But somehow, I just couldn’t bring myself to open up and let them enter my circle. I used to blame my mum for this trust issue, but lately I suspect it was on me.”

“You’re not the one to blame, Lyra.”

Lyra shakes her head. “I choose to leave them before they get too close to me.”

“Because you don’t want people to see your scar?”

“I thought the reason I’m pulling myself from society was because I’m afraid that I’d get hurt. Took me a long time to realize that I’m worried that I’d hurt people. That’s what you got when you have a telepath as your friend. You’d get caught in endless insecurity of having your minds in constant danger, while I really don’t want to read one. If only Sparda’s magic didn’t protect you and Dante, you’d leave me since day one.”

“I won’t.”

“Mundus screwed up your brain, Vergil. You have a thousand reasons for hating telepaths.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I saw your dreams. I know how much you want to kill those who fucks with you.”

“And I saw yours too, Lyra. I know how much you hate your mother, but deep down you still love her. Even since you saw her falling from the balcony.”

The realization hits her hard. “Wait— you knew this all along?!”

“Forgive me, but you won’t tell me the truth unless I told you a white lie. Your hypothesis is true; that our dreams occurred simultaneously.”

“You—” Lyra glares at Vergil like he has done treacherous betrayal, but she gathers herself up since she knows she was the one who lied to him first. She can’t deny that everything he said was true. It has been said that the dead won’t stay only if the living sets them free. For Lyra, it jabs her heart whenever she tries to brush that fact away. She knows that her hatred would rot her soul, yet it’s difficult to forgive her mother, who had tried to end her life multiple times.

“I envy you, Vergil,” Lyra confesses. “You were an arsehole evil lord back then, but you had a reasonable motive for fighting. You have a family. I got none. I don’t see the point of keep going on. Everyone wants me dead.”

“People are afraid of what they don’t understand,” Vergil states without any doubts in his voice. “It’s understandable since you’re undeniably enigmatic and can be threatening. But my fool brother of mine was right; strength is a choice. You choose to be strong to prevent more loss. You have every right to live, for death is the end. Make a full life while it lasts.”

“I wonder if I had such a reason to stay.”

Vergil straightens up his seat with a wary and cautious expression. “Sometimes… It doesn’t have to be something big. “

“Such as?”

“I don’t know…” he chuckles half-heartedly. “Don’t you have something to cherish for? Something that makes you willing to trade your life with?”

“Hmmm…. I love my job. I love books and the stars. But I don’t think I’d give up my life for that...” Lyra hums indifferently. “I think not. Nothing very important in particular.”

“There are things that could be important, but not everything important is worth cherishing.”

“What makes it different?”

“As time goes on, important things could become less important. The urgency wears off,” Vergil says quietly as he curves a faint smile, reminiscing his bonding time with Nero. “But something precious, something you hold dear most... you will suffer when they are taken from you.”

“Something precious, huh...?” Lyra’s eyes wander off, her voice is softer than a whisper. “Like... you...?”

Vergil almost gets choked by his own breath. “Beg your pardon?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing!”

“I’m certain that you said something.”

“If you’re so certain about that, why can’t you listen and repeat back what I said?”

“Because I couldn’t hear that properly!”

“Your loss.”

“You meddlesome creature.”

“You angry kitten.” Lyra holds her mouth to prevent her laughter from going too loud.

Vergil glares at her. “What did you just call me?!”

“Nothing~ I’m sleepy~” Lyra stretches her arms, the corner of her eyes flashes a mischief as she glances to the oblivious Vergil. “Those self-help books were right. It’s relieving to have the right person to share the burden with—”

“Don’t you dare try to change the topic. If you ever call me an angry kitten again—”

“We’re still talking about that? Bloody hell, Vergil, I’m just kidding!” Lyra holds his palms and takes off his gloves. “Come on, we need to rest. You might be sober now but even the strongest demon needs to sleep.”

A light crumple curves on Vergil’s forehead. “Why do you take my gloves off?”

“Do you have a habit to keep your gloves on while sleeping?”

“Hold on,” Vergil hesitates as he pulls his hand. “You want me to sleep here? In your house?”

“Yup.”

“You know that it’s not… very decent for an unmarried woman and a man to stay under the same roof.”

“Since when do you care about custom?”

“I’m not necessarily care about customs,” Vergil grunts. “It’s your convenience that I’m concerned about.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Lyra cleans up the table and waves her hand to send the tray to the dishwasher before making her way to the bedroom. “But my sofa is too small for you, and considering I have a quite spacious bed that fits two people, I don’t see any reasons why I would let my friend freeze on the sofa.”

Lyra opens the door, glancing at Vergil and tilts her head as a sign for him to follow her into the bedroom.

~~~

A/N : the poem mentioned in this chapter is “Clair de Lune” by Paul Verlaine, which is the inspiration for Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune

Tagging : @drusoona @harlot-of-oblivion @shiranyaaww @queenmuzz @rubixa-seraph @andieperrie18

If you love my works and want to support me, kindly donate me on my Ko-Fi! :3

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#devil may cry #devil may cry fanfiction #vergil x oc #vergil #vergil x lyra #spark of stardust #tales of apotelesma #original character #oc #lyra #night writes

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theadventuresofamuslimrevert · 3 years ago

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Forgiving is hard.....

Every time I contemplate on all the heartbreaking episodes & events that i had to endure these past few months, I couldn’t help but to be filled with rage and/or great sorrow. Lately, it has kind of taken a toll on me. I often find it so difficult for me to fully focus & achieve khusyu’ in my ibadah or any task I do in general. As hard as I try to eliminate external distractions when I’m at something, my past always finds its way back to me. I start to be reminded of how hurt i was, and all the familiar faces that caused that hurt. Anger will peek in and just like that, I lose focus.

Now being distracted isn’t my main concern. It’s the fact that by losing focus when i’m in the middle of doing something, be it ibadah or work, I would end up not entirely satisfied of the outcome once it’s done- this bothers me a whole lot. Imagine how much better everything would turn out if I gave my 100%. Until I discover how to get rid of everything that’s bugging me, I don’t think I’ll ever be at peace. The question here is, why can’t I? Why is it so hard to get over everything? Then it occurred me last night that maybe, just maybe, the reason why I can’t let go of my past is because I’m withholding one of the most essential thing that is needed to move on- forgiveness.

In my effort to start fresh, I realised how I still get all emotional and mad each time I think of the ones who broke me. So I ask myself, if I still feel this way then have I really forgiven them? Hm, I don’t think so. But then, why not?

Although Allah has given us the right to refuse from forgiving someone, I’m pretty sure He does not encourage it. As difficult as it is to forgive, holding back forgiveness is way more tormenting and painful. It haunts you. In my idealism, I used to think that if I don’t forgive someone, i have done my revenge. They will not be able to live in peace because regardless of whether they have asked for an apology or not, i’d still consider it as ‘unsettled business’. But hey who am I kidding, because eventually, this mentality corrupts the heart. And a heart which is corrupted will never be at peace- including mine.

Oh come on, It’s islamic new year. If not now, can there be a better time? You see, forgiving does not only benefit the person at fault, but it’s equally as important & necessary for the forgiver as well. You should forgive others not only because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace. After all the crap they got you through, even if they never bothered to say sorry, forgive them. Again not because they deserve it, but you are way better than that. Because you are worthy with the quality of being forgiving. It takes the same amount of energy to forgive as well as to not forgive. There’s a certain kind of humility required to be the adult here. Not forgiving, as convenient as we ‘assume’ it is, just indicates the amount of pride and arrogance we have in us. Since when is life a battle of ego? Remember the story of Adam and Iblis Laknatullah? Ego was the exact reason why Iblis was taken out of jannah.

We are all children of Adam. We make mistakes. At some point of our lives, we have also wronged someone. We might have caused them hurt. With or without intentions, knowingly and unknowingly. It is certainly natural to mess up here and there. Yes right now you are torn. Yes you are shattered to pieces and broke to the bones. That person may have betrayed us, slandered us, or simply been a pain in the ass. But how can you be so sure you’ve never left anyone feeling the same way before? And because of that, we all owe each other forgiveness. If we hope to be forgiven, why is it so hard to do the same to people? Why are we withholding something which we are clearly not the rightful owner of in the first place?

Forgiveness, dear readers, it’s is not our forte. It’s not something we humans are experts of. For goodness sake, we are not God. Even Allah is Al-Ghaffur- The Most Forgiving. He forgives and He loves to forgive. It’s one of his beautiful attributes. A Godly one. Now since Allah is All-Forgiving, if the person at fault commits sincere tawbah (repentance), it is most likely for Him to forgive the person. But us humans? We on the the other hand, are different. We tend to come up with so many excuses and have the cheek to not forgive a fellow human being who breathe, eat, sleep and make mistakes just like us. Do we think that if we do not forgive them, we can refuse them jannah? Are we for real? Don’t compare who hurt who more, or ‘my pain is bigger than your pain’. If you look at it that way, you will never be able to forgive. We are not the bosses of others. I don’t owe you, you don’t owe me. Honey, who are we to punish people? If Allah can forgive people, why should we punish them more than they deserve to be punished?

It warms my heart every single time I recall on how forgiving our prophet Muhammad SAW was. Do you remember how he was once rejected by the people of Ta’if? When he arrived to Ta’if, he was pelted with rocks and stones until he bled awfully. His whole body was covered with blood and his sandals were clogged to his feet. Things got so ugly that Jibril was sent down to usher the angels in charge of the mountains to look after this matter. The angel greeted Rasulullah and said;

“Oh Prophet of Allah! I am at your service. If you wish, I can cause the mountains overlooking this town on both sides to collide with each other, so that all the people therein would be crushed to death, or you may suggest any other punishment for them.”

I bet you can guess what the prophet did next.

Yes, he forgave them instead. Allah. He was A PROPHET. A Nabi! He could simply ask Allah to destroy the people of Ta’if. But not only he forgave them, he also prayed for them. He prayed for his enemies. No grudges. No nothing. MashaAllah, such humility. Muhammad SAW raised his hands towards the heavens and said “…So long as You are not angry with me, I do not care. Your favour is of a more expansive relief to me.”

Allahuakbar

Here’s another story. Once during the time of the prophet SAW, a man was said to be given glad tidings of Jannah. A sahabah heard this news and due to curiosity, he observed that man’s activities for 3 days from the moment he wakes up, to the time he goes to bed. However he did not find anything that made the man stand out from the rest of the sahabah who seemed to be doing more good deeds. So one day, he gave up and decided to ask the man directly. The man revealed a truly virtuous act that he never forgets to do every night. He said “Every night, before I go to sleep, I forgive whoever has wronged me. I remove any bad feelings towards anyone from my heart.”

How beautiful is that?

I learnt that one way to be more forgiving is by reading more seerah of the prophets. How they dealt with people, particularly who hated them and had harm inflicted on them. They were so gentle towards others and they showed that it is absolutely possible to forgive with hikmah; to become strong, without being hard, and remain soft, without being weak. Personally, the more I read about the prophets, the more I feel so little. As if I have no right at all to NOT forgive people, despite how they were towards me before.

Again,

Forgive others not solely because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace

It’s a win-win situation, for both parties. Not only that, it is also an investment for our Aakhirah. Our “jannah access cards”. Give yourself a chance to be happy again. Get rid of all that intention of wanting to torment a fellow human being by not forgiving them. It’s liberating and life changing, you know. Set them free, while setting yourself free. Pray for them. Ask Allah to guide them and make them happy. I noticed that by making du’a for those who have hurt us, we will find that their happiness can also be our happiness too. Tell me how can we not be happy seeing our prayers being granted?

And to every single soul that I have wronged, if by any chance you’re reading this, I sincerely beg for your apology. Please make du’a for me. Also know that I have forgiven you and I wish you nothing but the best for both your dunya and aakhirah. May Allah grant you contentment and peace, and may he soften our hearts to continue forgiving.

I deserve peace. You deserve peace.

So may peace be upon us all, inshaAllah.

#reflection #islam #islamicquotes #beautiful quote #positivethinking #manifestyourlife #selfreminder #holy quran #prophet muhammad #forgiveness

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remywrites5 · 5 years ago

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jegulus???

Regulus carefully shifted the cake he was holding to one hand so that with the other he could knock on the door. Today was the day. He was finally going to tell James how he felt about him. He had been crushing on him ever since James had become Sirius’ flatmate. When Regulus had been helping Sirius move into his flat for Uni he had met and immediately started having feelings for James Potter.

James had been enthusiastic and sweet as they’d carried boxes into the flat, taking a break from moving his own stuff in and helping them out with some of the heavier furniture. He’d also taken his shirt off after getting too sweaty at one point and Regulus had nearly died because he��d never seen someone with abs in person before.

After everything was out of the van, the three of them had ordered a pizza and sat on the floor eating it as neither James nor Sirius had brought a sofa or a table but they did have three televisions and several gaming consoles between them because priorities. They didn’t have plates either and had to keep their pieces of pizza on a paper towel. They’d chatted, Sirius and James becoming fast friends, while Reg sat and tried not to stare at James too much.

Since that original meeting, Regulus had come to visit several times. Being home was a bit of a nightmare without Sirius around so Reg took any excuse he could to come and visit. James and Sirius didn’t seem to mind Reg crashing on the sofa (once they finally got one) and staying the odd weekend. His crush on James had just continued to get worse and worse the more time he spent around him. James had followed Reg on all his socials and was constantly commenting sweet and encouraging things on his Instagram selfies that always had Reg’s heart fluttering.

So he had decided he was going to do something about it. It was James’ birthday and Reg had driven up for the weekend to surprise him. He’d bought a cake and was going to tell James he was in love with him.

James flung the door open. “Reggie!” he said excitedly. “I didn’t know you were visiting! Oh my god, is that a cake for me?”

The moment he saw James, Regulus’ tongue decided to stick to the roof of his mouth and remain there. All he could do was nod to answer James’ question, his eyes feeling like they were going to bulge out of his head from sheer terror.

“You’re the best!” James said, taking the cake from Reg’s hand and hurrying into the flat. Regulus tried his best to swallow around his rebellious tongue as he stepped inside and closed the door. “We’re having a big party tonight to celebrate. I’m so happy you’re going to be there. “

“Reg?” Sirius called out, stopping on his way out of his bedroom. “You didn’t tell me you were coming up this weekend.”

Regulus shot his brother a look that must have alerted him to Reg’s absolute panic because Sirius rushed over. “Help!” Regulus whispered once his brother was close enough.

“We’ll just be a minute,” Sirius called out to James, taking Reg by the arm and leading him into his bedroom, being sure to shut the door. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m in love with James.”

Sirius smirked in response. “Oh little brother – “

“Don’t patronize me,” Reg said, batting his brother’s hand away from his arm. “I can’t tell him that. He’s going to think I’m so stupid.”

Sirius shuffled his feet and looked uncertain for a moment, like he was debating something with himself. “I don’t imagine James would think that.”

Reg narrowed his eyes. “You know something.”

“No I don’t!”

Regulus pinched his brother hard on the arm. “Spill it!”

“I can’t,” Sirius whined, backing away. “I can’t betray Jamie’s confidence like that.”

“I’m your brother!” Regulus said indignantly. “Where is your loyalty?”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Look, all I’m going to say is that you should tell James how you feel, okay?”

Regulus still eyed his brother suspiciously but decided to drop it. It was a good thing too because James chose that moment to burst into the room. “Come on you two! What are you doing hiding out in here? I want to go get balloons for the party.”

Sirius sighed. “You are turning twenty, Jamie, not four.”

“Shut up,” James said, sticking out his tongue. “It’s my birthday and I want some ruddy balloons, you party pooper.”

“Fine,” Sirius said, looking between Regulus and James. “Why don’t you and Reg go get balloons and I’ll stay here and finish getting stuff set up?”

Regulus shot Sirius a look and was about to open his mouth to protest but James was already giving an enthusiastic “Yes! That sounds perfect!” And then James was grabbing Regulus by the arm and tugging him down the hallway before Regulus could protest.

***

Regulus felt like any moment he was in danger of floating away like the old man in Up. When James Potter had said he wanted balloons it turned out he wanted basically enough balloons to fill the entire flat. As James continued to pick out different colored balloons, Regulus stood holding the ones that had already been filled. It was enough that he needed both hands to hold all the strings otherwise the balloons kept clumping together in an unruly mess.

James came bounding over, beaming from ear to ear, and Reg found he couldn’t help smiling in return. “You look adorable holding all those balloons,” James said, standing in front of Reg.

Reg’s blushed slightly and ducked his head down. “You know this is ridiculous, right?” he said, trying to sound exasperated but only succeeding in sound incredibly fond.

“Oh I know,” James said, pushing away some of the balloons floating in his face. “Hey Reg, do you know what I want for my birthday?”

“Other than an obnoxious amount of balloons?”

James bit his bottom lip for a moment. “Can I kiss you for my birthday?”

Regulus’ blush deepened. “Why would you want that?”

James pushed more balloons out of the way and stepped closer. They were surrounded by balloons on almost all sides creating a private little space for them amongst them. James reached out and cupped Reg’s face with both his hands. “Please Reg, it’s my birthday.”

Regulus swallowed thickly and then nodded. He struggled to keep hold of the balloon strings as James guided his face forward and their lips met in a soft kiss that had Reg’s toes curling in his trainers. “James,” he murmured against James’ lips. James hummed in response and changed the angle of the kiss slightly, gently licking his way into Reg’s mouth.

They finally broke apart after a few moments that had Regulus’ stomach threatening to drop as he was overwhelmed with emotion. “I love you,” he said quickly before he lost his nerve.

James smiled and gave Reg a few more tender, lingering kisses. “Works out,” he said, pressing his forehead against Reg’s in a moment of intimacy that Reg had never had before in his life. James fingers brushed against Reg’s jaw and cheek making Reg shiver in response. “I love you too.”

Regulus laughed quietly. “So I’ll be your birthday present then?”

“I’d like for longer than just my birthday, if that’s okay with you,” James said, pressing kisses to each of Reg’s cheeks and then capturing his lips again. Reg was alreaday getting addicted to the way James kissed him.

“I’d like that as well,” Regulus said, ducking his head down in embarrassment at saying something so soppy.

“Good,” James said, stepping back and taking some of the balloons from Reg’s hand. With his free hand he put his arm around Reg’s waist. Regulus put his arm around James in return and they began to walk in tandem. “Now I can introduce you everyone at the party as my boyfriend! Which is good because I may have told a few of my friends that you already were.”

“What?” Regulus said, his jaw dropping.

James adjusted his glasses and shrugged his shoulder slightly. “I’ve gotten caught staring at your Instagram a lot. It’s not quite as embarrassing if I say you’re my boyfriend.”

Regulus shook his head in amusement. “You’re unbelievable. What would you have done if I said no?”

James chuckled and pressed a kiss to Reg’s temple. “I had it on good authority that you were interested in me.”

“Sirius?”

James nodded. “Sirius.”

“We should get back to your flat so I can strangle him with some of these balloon strings,” Regulus said, frowning deeply. He couldn’t believe his own brother had betrayed him like his and revealed his feelings to James.

James laughed again and kissed the top of Reg’s head. “Don’t be angry with him,” he said, resting his chin on Reg’s head. “I pestered him about it constantly because I was pining.”

Regulus huffed in amusement. “Pining?”

“The worst kind of pining,” James confirmed, giving Reg’s side a squeeze. Already Regulus was getting lost in the small affectionate touches and gestures. “Endless pining. Yearning. He got so fed up he finally spilled that he was fairly certain you liked me.”

“Fine,” Regulus said, tilting his face up in expectation of a kiss. “I won’t strangle Sirius. But only because it’s my boyfriend’s birthday.”

James beamed at him before ducking down to kiss him once more. “I like that. I like you calling me your boyfriend.”

Regulus smiled against James’ lips. “Happy birthday, boyfriend.”

#jegulus #I write things #fluff #James Potters birthday #I'm a day late #shhhh #james potter x regulus black #university au #long post #anon prompt

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panharmonium · 5 years ago

Text

no man can know his destiny...

...because if we told him what it was, he might decide to tell destiny to bugger off!

all right, folks. i am obviously eight years late to this party (party? maybe not party; that’s...maybe not the best word), and i am aware that everybody who was ever in this fandom has probably already consumed all the finale reaction posts that they ever needed to read. i am putting this S5 finale round-up together for my own purposes anyway, because now that i’m no longer avoiding spoilers, i want to make sure i get all of my own thoughts down on paper before i accidentally run into anyone else’s.

fair warning before anyone decides to invest their time: this post is sixteen single-spaced pages long. i am putting it under a cut here, so feel free to scroll on by.

with that said, off we go!

in a land of myth and a time of magic (i fell in love with a ten-year-old tv show):

so, to preface this, i think it’s pretty fair to say that i very rarely complain about merlin.

i watched the first episode of merlin on a complete whim - i was by myself, on a trip to atlanta, and despite the fact that i usually never sit down and just decide to watch random tv, i was scrolling around on netflix before bed and saw merlin and thought “oh hey, that’s always been on my list as something i thought i might like.” i clicked it. i watched it. i thought it was going to be a silly, fun, low-investment show i could use to fill the spare time on my trip.

it was silly. and it was fun. it was not low-investment. i fell in LOVE.

and i know this comes through in the way i write about it, like - the vast majority of the blogging i have done about merlin has come from a place of THIS THING IS GREAT AND I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT’S GREAT. sometimes the story will go places that stress me out or make me sad, but usually that hasn’t impacted my enjoyment, because generally, when i evaluate stories, i react more to my perception of the story’s integrity, as opposed to whether or not i personally ‘liked’ the ending. so i might personally prefer stories that don’t end in tragedy, but if the story has earned its ending, with integrity, then i won’t feel any desire to criticize it. i will talk about how sad i am or how low it made me feel, but if the story has earned its ending then i can’t - i just can’t argue with it. i have to respect it.

and i think i’ve demonstrated that well enough in all the other blogging i’ve done about merlin. with 5.10 and 5.11 particularly; i felt those episodes were impossibly tragic and dark and SO unhappy, but i respected the storytelling, despite this. i wasn’t hopping on here to make posts like ‘ugh this is getting so dark this episode sucks!!!’ i was writing about the story they were crafting - which, yes, WAS getting dark, certainly - and about how impactful it was (even when that impact was just “OUCH”). i was still deeply engaged, at that time.

so - i think i have earned the right to say honestly that the following analysis does not come from a place of ‘this was SAD and that makes it automatically CRAPPY!!!’ that’s not how i assess things. 5.10 and 5.11 were devastating, but i respect them. i loved watching them. i would watch them again. i thought that the show had the potential to pull off something masterful, after those two episodes.

but the one thing this series has always struggled with a little bit is follow-through. bbc merlin is at its finest when they aren’t afraid to go barreling after the moral ambiguity and complexities that their show inherently contains (‘to kill the king,’ ‘the sorcerer’s shadow,’ ‘the disir,’ ‘the kindness of strangers,’ ‘the drawing of the dark,’ to name just a few), and they achieve real greatness in those moments. but they sometimes pull back from the difficult questions they pose. and i can’t tell if it’s that they’re deliberately chickening out, or if it’s just some variation of carelessness or ineptitude that makes them fumble the ball, but the end result is that they hit these amazing highs of “wow, i can’t believe we’re finally going there; we’re addressing the central conflict” and then all the complicated questions they asked just get dropped.

it happens in ‘the sorcerer’s shadow’ (which is an amazing episode otherwise), when kilgharrah kind of...word-of-god handwaves away merlin’s conflict, saying ‘we just gotta wait for arthur to be king, that’s the right way to go about this.’ and they double down on this by having merlin say that it was gilli, not merlin, who had betrayed their kind - which is just not - that is not what that episode had been saying, up until that point! the entire point of that episode was that yeah, merlin has in fact gotten himself into a position where he’s made a morally questionable decision to serve a regime that oppresses him and others like him. they show us how conflicted he feels when he’s confronted by this reality. they show us that he knows it’s true. it was brilliantly done - and then they pulled WAY back.

but even then i don’t think it was like...unforgivable, at that point. it doesn’t break the story’s integrity; i can definitely believe that merlin would take that tack - i’m not sure he’s quite ready to confront/accept the reality of his situation at that point. so i get it. it wouldn’t be a big deal - if the show had eventually addressed/followed through on this conflict in the end.

and i think the same is true of the episodes leading up to the finale. they were dark and complicated and tragic, but they were telling an important story; and none of the terrible things we saw happening to the characters were dead-ends, story-wise. there was a place for that story to go. there was room for morgana to have her arc resolve in a meaningful way. there was room for mordred’s arc to do the same. the place in which we found ourselves at the end of 5.11 was as dark and complicated as merlin had ever been, and it was still bursting with potential.

and then you watch the finale and it’s just - empty. i described it as a paper castle in some other post, and that’s what it felt like. no substance. it was like they stuffed us on a bullet train and whizzed us past material that should have taken an entire season to handle, and you didn’t see any of it or feel anything because the trip took ten seconds and the scenery was a blur.

it honestly felt like they thought they had another season coming and then someone popped in and told them “actually you have to wrap this up in two episodes.” i can’t think of another way to reasonably explain how dramatically the quality of the storytelling downshifts between 5.11 and 5.12. i wasn’t watching the show then, so i don’t know, but it’s - at least if that had been the case, i would UNDERSTAND what had happened. it’s just insanity, otherwise.

so anyway, with all that said, here are my own reasons for why i think the last two episodes were objectively bad writing, as opposed to just writing i don’t personally like. nobody is obligated to agree with me on any of these points, but i’m also not putting them up here to debate them, really - i truly believe that almost everything i watched in the last two episodes was poorly-conceived.

(there’s an entirely different discussion to be had, of course, about the relative merits of ending your, uh, hopeful fantasy story on a bummer of a death knell, and i might touch on that later, but that’s a little bit more subject to personal preference, and honestly, it’s not the point i’m trying to make here, because to be frank, these episodes are bad without even getting into who lives and who dies.)

i. plot contrivances: EVERYWHERE.

i don’t mean plot devices. plot devices are important, in a story. a plot device is something like how merlin throws excalibur into the lake in 1.09, and then is able to retrieve it in 3.13 because of a choice he made to show someone compassion in 2.09, and thus he is able to save the day and defeat the undead. excalibur is a plot device, in that scenario - the ability to use it in 3.13 unfolds organically.

a plot contrivance, on the other hand, is artificial. it’s unnaturally convenient. it doesn’t feel convincing. it’s what you reach for when you can’t think of a way to make something happen, but a writer is supposed to look at these things when they edit and think ‘hey. if i can’t make this happen without it being contrived, maybe it shouldn’t happen. maybe i need to look at this again.’

so like, from the very beginning of 5.12, we have:

the face-sucker slug. never seen one before. never heard of it before. never given any indication that any such creature ever existed. never given any indication that “stealing” magic was something that could even happen. no idea where morgana found it. created for and introduced in this very episode, just to give merlin a reason to go to the crystal cave; removed from the episode ten minutes after it’s introduced, forgotten.

gwaine’s sudden girlfriend. NEVER SEEN HER BEFORE. NEVER HEARD OF HER BEFORE. NEVER GIVEN ANY INDICATION THAT ANY SUCH CREATURE EVER EXISTED. where does she come from? why do we care? (surprise: we don’t.) created for and introduced in this very episode for the sole purpose of explaining how morgana could get the information she needed to interfere with everyone’s plans, which was a contrived idea in and of itself, because it relied completely on making gwaine act like the kind of dope who tells a civilian military secrets.

you just. you can’t. if your plot point can’t function without a) introducing a brand new character in the penultimate episode of your show and b) forcing a long-standing character to do something they just wouldn’t do, you can’t use it. you just can’t. you have to figure out something else.

this lady’s very existence is nonsense. absolutely, utterly contrived. to waste that much time on a character we’ve never seen before and don’t care about, in the last two hours of your five-season show...incredible.

morgana’s army. they outnumber camelot’s forces “five to one.” where did they come from? how did she amass such a force? in season 4 she was losing all her allies - the episode with annis and caerleon was specifically designed to show us how people were turning from her methods and aligning with arthur. and then she spent two years in a pit. how did she amass such a force in such a short period of time? what could she offer them? why do they fight for her? there is no explanation of who the “saxons” are or what they want - the show just needed an army for camlann.

aithusa. aithusa was, apparently, just a vehicle to enable mordred to obtain a blade forged in the dragon’s breath. beyond that, he served no purpose. he literally just vanishes, along with that entire storyline - the future of the dragons, everything - just dropped, forgotten, never mentioned again.

morgana in the crystal cave. “gee, i finally caught merlin, the guy who’s supposed to be my doom. i think i’ll just...trap him behind some rocks. wouldn’t want to kill him, while i have him completely powerless and at my mercy. how then would he escape from this super powerful magical cave and ensure that the next step in this impossibly weak plot unfolds?”

the crystal cave itself. what is the entire point of this detour? killing time while arthur and merlin are separated? i mean, the whole “merlin loses his magic for all of five minutes” thing was a contrivance itself, just to ensure that merlin and arthur had a reason to be separated during the battle. but even putting that aside, once merlin is in there, and balinor says ‘you have to go into the light to discover who you truly are, you have power of which you cannot conceive’ - what purpose did that serve? all we see merlin do once he gets to camlann is call down some lightning. he’s done that before. he...he did that in season one.

the entire detour in the crystal cave changed nothing. it was a contrivance to mark time so merlin didn’t arrive at camlann at the same time as everybody else.

arthur at camlann. the idea that we are supposed to believe that arthur somehow finds himself all alone on that battlefield, long enough for mordred to sneak up on him and stab him and for him not be found by a single other human being until merlin shows up. he is the KING. there is no conceivable circumstance where his army lets him go wandering around by himself after the battle has been mostly won. it doesn’t make sense. it isn’t believable. it’s a contrivance to make sure mordred has an opportunity to get him.

“only the sidhe possess such magic.” the SIDHE????? you guys. the last time we saw the sidhe was in that gooftastically wonderful filler episode where a pixie wanted to bone gaius. you can’t - you just - you can’t center your entire ‘this is how we save arthur’ plan on a race of beings that we haven’t heard of since early season 3 and which we never knew anything more about than that they once possessed a farting princess.

“not without the horses.” are you telling me. that the reason they don’t make it to this fabulous isle in time. is because. their horses. were conveniently scared away. that’s what killed the glorious once and future king. the horses ran off.

and the horses conveniently ran off because they were conveniently scared away by morgana, who conveniently happened to show up because she was conveniently put in a position to extract information from someone who conveniently knew where arthur was going - all of this, of course, predicated on the impossible-to-believe assumption that a) gwen would ever tell anybody where arthur was going, when the stakes were this high, when nobody needed to know and camelot had already fallen prey to spies multiple times, and b) that gwaine and percival would, if they did for some reason know where arthur was headed, be so foolish as to literally serve themselves up to morgana on a plate, when they know that the whole point of this scheme is that they WANT morgana to hang out in brineved wasting her time in order to allow arthur to reach the isle safely.

I SAY AGAIN: if your plot point cannot function without making characters do things we just do not believe they would do, you can’t use it. you can’t. you have to revisit what you’re doing. you can’t just make anything happen that you want to in order to drive the story to the place you want it to go. it has to make sense.

kilgharrah. is called just in time to deliver a pat explanation of the ending, but not in time to shuttle arthur over to the isle? merlin could have called for a ride ages ago. merlin and arthur weren’t traveling fast, or far. it’s not like kilgharrah was having that much trouble getting around. we see that he handles carrying the two of them just fine. we see that he flies away, zoop, no problem. there is no reason for him not to have been called even a single hour sooner, other than that the plot demanded that he could not be, because the plot demanded that arthur not get there in time.

it breaks the boundaries of disbelief. it takes you right out of the story. it reminds you, inappropriately, that all of this is a thing someone planned (poorly). all of it is contrived.

ii. dropped plotlines

i can’t believe i actually have to say this.

i’ve seen tv shows tank before, but usually, when tv shows tank, it’s just that the quality of their writing has declined, and they’ve resorted to resolving their plotlines in ill-conceived ways.

i have never, in my life, seen a tv show DROP all of its major plotlines before it ends. i have never seen a tv show just. FORGET. to address their premise. never. i still can’t believe it actually happened. i’m sitting here trying to remember if the merlin finale was actually some kind of anxiety-induced fever dream i had while i was gearing myself up to watch the last few episodes.

merlin bbc had, at its outset, two major plotlines. these would be supplemented later by other throughlines (many of which were also dropped), but the two major ones always stayed the same, one for arthur and one for merlin:

for arthur, the question of him one day becoming the greatest king in history and uniting the land of albion

for merlin, the question of him one day liberating the magical community from oppression and being able to live free from fear

those were the two constant throughlines in this show, from episode one. the struggle to unite the land of albion, and the struggle to make the land a free and just one for ALL of its people, not just those without magic.

this show, somehow, ended without actually addressing either of these things.

it’s amazing. i don’t even know how they managed it. somehow, this show ended without actually ending.

to elaborate on this (and other dropped plots):

a) the once and future king: we never see a united albion. the show is driving at it, in seasons 4 and 5, when arthur makes peace with annis in S4, and then gets annis’s permission to travel through her lands in 5.01, and then helps Mithian’s father in S5, and makes peace with odin in 5.04, and then tries to make peace with the sarrum in 5.08, and it’s all making sense, and you expect that plotline to continue until we see its eventual fulfillment at the end of the show. you would expect, if this were supposed to be such an important thing, that the big struggle at the end of the series would have been all the peoples of albion united together against a threat.

but we never see any of these kingdoms again. we never hear a peep out of them. no one ever mentions them. it’s like they all just vanished into the wind. as far as we’re aware, camelot fights morgana’s army on their own - it’s like annis and odin and godwyn and rodor and those five kings that came together to sign the treaty in 2.10 never existed.

the dragon says at the end, “all you have dreamt of building has come to pass,” but we’re just like - WHERE? we literally didn’t see it! it was never shown to happen! you can’t just say that the most important outcome of your five-season series happened when it never did! it demonstrably NEVER DID! you can’t…..oh my god, you can’t...try to end your show offscreen, lol; i don’t know what else to say!

look - this is something i wrote before i knew how the series ended, when i was considering the possibility of arthur dying:

i wrote that before i even knew what happened. that’s not the result of, you know, retroactive complaining because they killed a character and i didn’t like it. i was doubting the idea that they would even be able to kill arthur, because i legitimately didn’t believe the show had shown us the uniting of albion yet (and they hadn’t, lol).

it just...it truly doesn’t make sense. something got tangled as they approached these last episodes. in 5.10, finna tells merlin, “without you, emrys, arthur cannot build the new world we all long for,” indicating that it hasn’t been built yet. but that scene takes place just a few weeks before the finale - you’re saying “the new world” hadn’t yet been accomplished at that point, but now, a few week later, it has? arthur didn’t DO ANYTHING in that interval! we saw camelot fight off a bunch of invaders (alone) like they’ve done a billion times before. there was nothing to hint that now albion is united.

and if finna was referring to the “new world” meaning a magical world, i mean - arthur didn’t do anything to build that, either. he died.

something happened. some wire got crossed. i don’t know what it was, but it meant that the show ended without actually closing out Main Plotline #1.

b) one day, we will be free: this show also somehow managed to end without addressing the plight of the magical community, which was THE central conflict of the show for all five seasons. more than that, it was the show’s premise - it was how they crafted their entire idea; it was one of two defining features of their pitch to BBC: that they would “wind back the clock” to when the characters were young, and that magic in this universe would be outlawed.

they literally abandoned the show’s premise. the episode directly preceding the finale was entirely about camelot’s wrongdoing and the right of magic-users to stand up and fight for their rights. it is not a crime to fight for the right to be who you are. and then we literally never heard a word about this struggle again. it was dropped like a hot sack of bricks.

IMPOSSIBLE.

and yet

it’s just left, twisting in the wind. we have no idea what happened. the one and only glimpse of camelot that we get at the end of this show has nothing to do with magic; it’s grim and somber people chanting ‘long live the queen’ in the throne room. and then we’re gone from that place, forever, never to return. it’s like they don’t even remember that ‘freedom for magical folk!’ was the driving source of conflict for the entire show. you would never have known that “magical oppression” was ever a feature in this show, if you just watched the end. camelot’s wrongs are never addressed, never referred to, never amended. the fate of the magical community is never hinted at. we don’t have any inkling of what happened to those people. we literally do not even have any indication of whether the magic ban was lifted.

it’s like none of that ever existed. it’s like the show just FORGOT its entire premise.

this truly might be the most unbelievable thing about the finale, for me. i’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it. in a roomful of writers and editors and producers, not a single person pointed out “hey uhhhh...we haven’t actually resolved either of our plots?”

i was exposed to enough vague reactions from fans to expect the finale to be disappointing. i assumed that the show would resolve its major plotlines in ways that i either didn’t approve of or found unsatisfying.

i did NOT expect them not to resolve their major plotlines at all.

i have never seen a tv show literally forget to end. never. never seen that happen before in my life.

c.) i am the last of my kind: the reveal of merlin as a dragonlord ushered in a third important plotline - his responsibility to the dragons, his duty to protect them and help them thrive. and the question was always ‘all right, so as a dragonlord, how is merlin going to ensure the survival of the dragons as a species, since they’ve been almost exterminated - .’ and that was also dropped. like a hot potato. like it never was. we never get clarity on what the heck was going on with aithusa, and then at camlann, aithusa just vanishes. gone. literally never to be seen, mentioned, or wondered about again.

d) i am old, merlin: this is a smaller thing, but in 5.10 the show starts this subplot about kilgharrah being unwell and merlin suddenly confronting the idea that kilgharrah is not, in fact, immortal. and it was actually very poignant and made me emotional despite how kilgharrah kind of drives us insane. they set us up for the idea that we are going to lose him. they set us up to expect that we will eventually see merlin arrive at a place where he doesn’t have that voice in his ear anymore, kind of like when luke goes to cloud city and obi-wan can’t help him.

but then, in the finale, kilgharrah just shows up like he always does, and there’s no mention of anything that came before. he’s fine.

it’s - it’s inconsistent, it’s not appropriate; there’s no emotional throughline. the exchange they have in 5.10 is such a beautiful moment, when a wavering merlin asks “what will i do without you?”

and kilgharrah says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world, “you will remember me.”

that’s such a powerful thing. for someone like merlin, for someone who has lost so many people who mattered to him - you can feel that line expand to cover miles and miles of ground. it’s about more than just kilgharrah.

but having kilgharrah then show up at the end of the finale to deliver his neat little explanatory summary the same way he always does dilutes that previous moment down to almost non-meaning. there’s no emotional consistency. they emotionally prep us for this figure’s departure, and instead he shows up, the same as always, with no reference to the fact that a few episodes ago we were getting ready to watch him leave us.

it’s not good writing. it just isn’t good writing.

iii. i want you to always earn your ending

i think it’s hard to come to grips with the idea that bbc merlin was specifically a show whose kind of...big premise was being a deliciously torturous slow burn up to some massive and long-awaited reveal, and then it fizzled just before it gave the audience what it had been leading up to for five seasons. it’s really just...wow. i’ve seen shows fizzle before, obviously, but the fact that this one was specifically built on the idea that you were waiting for something momentous (and inevitable!) to happen - which then doesn’t happen? that’s just...hoo boy.

the long-awaited, promised “payoff” doesn’t happen in any way that is convincing or satisfying or remotely plausible. it’s a little walk in the woods, and it ultimately doesn’t matter, because as soon as it’s over, so is the show, and everybody except merlin is long dead.

not with a bang, but with a whimper, indeed.

for a show that had its audience waiting on tenterhooks for five seasons for merlin’s secret to be stripped away, the fact that the show’s biggest “payoff” ended up carrying so little weight and feeling so unconvincing is truly a shame. there was no way for the show to give this concept the weight it deserved by flying through it in thirty minutes. the audience knows that there’s no way this could have been resolved so quickly, so everything that happens between the “reveal” (such as it was) and the end feels...false. it doesn’t seem real. it’s not believable. it feels (again, to use the word that truly sums up the entire spirit of this finale) contrived. rushed and squished together to be neatly tied up in the time they had available.

and that’s poor craftsmanship. stories shouldn’t feel like ‘well, i needed to reach x destination no matter what, so i made this that and the other thing happen to ensure that we got there.’ a reader/viewer shouldn’t be able to sense the presence of the author. they shouldn’t be able to feel the hand of god reaching in and arranging pieces to force a conclusion or extract an emotion that hasn’t been earned.

stories, if they are crafted appropriately, should feel like they have no author at all. like they just are. like everything that happens is the natural next step to whatever came before, as if events could not possibly have unfolded any other way. and i don’t feel like the “reveal” and arthur’s reaction to it met those criteria. all the supposedly super sad and emotional moments they were having at the end made me feel absolutely nothing, because the things arthur says don’t feel real. they haven’t been earned in-story. i felt like i was watching that sequence from a hundred miles away...just like...clinical. removed. like i was taken completely out of the story. like i was in the lighting booth of a theater watching some scripted scene play out below me.

(and this might be the time to mention that this has NOTHING to do with the actors. the entire cast was killing it. they were AMAZING. their performance threatened to wring emotion out of me even despite me being completely unconvinced by the idea of what was happening.)

but that aside - how can you stay immersed in something when you can feel the creator’s hand coming down and forcing a resolution that doesn’t make sense, that hasn’t been earned? it snaps you right out of the suspension of disbelief that all stories require you to maintain in order for you to engage with them. the writers needed arthur to say these things sometime before the end of the show, and so he says them, regardless of whether or not it would ever actually happen like that. but i didn’t believe it, because it wouldn’t have happened like that, and so the emotional impact was zero.

here’s the truth: you can’t use lines like “i want you to always be you” and expect me to get weepy about it when you haven’t earned that kind of resolution. it’s a false tearjerker. the writers are relying on our previous emotional attachment to these characters and our burning desire to see merlin validated in order to slip a contrived resolution past us without actually doing the work to make it plausible. they’re playing on our affections in order to cover up the structural shortcomings of the story they cobbled together.

i don’t like when a story tries to manipulate me like that. i’m not going to play that game.

iv. you are destined to be albion’s greatest king (*thor face* are you, though?)

i think there are probably some people out there for whom arthur’s death would have been a dealbreaker no matter what the rest of the story looked like. i respect that.

i’m in the camp where i could have accepted the ‘legend-compliant’ ending, if only it had been earned. as it is, arthur is never allowed to fully realize himself before he dies. the show keeps saying, and i quote, “one day you will be the greatest king this land has ever known,” but arthur skips off to avalon after having reigned for a whopping total of three years, during which time he is not shown to accomplish the only goal that was prophesied for him (uniting the land of albion) and during which time he also becomes further entrenched in his father’s anti-magic views (along with the hypocrisy of using magic for his own purposes), as opposed to ever seeing the error of his ways. he doesn’t right his father’s wrongs. he doesn’t usher in justice and freedom for all camelot’s people. he doesn’t change the status quo in camelot much at all, to be honest - and then he dies. and they try to tell us “there will never be another like [him].”

how? how can that not fall completely flat? he hasn’t accomplished his goal yet! he hasn’t become what they’ve kept telling us he will become.

so i can understand the ultimate plan of arthur shuffling off this mortal coil and being prophesied to return, and i could even accept that as an appropriate ending, but not when it hasn’t been earned. the way it actually unfolded, watching this moment feels like we skipped a season somewhere. it feels like a sham.

we’re being asked to give arthur credit for something he did not actually achieve, and it makes the whole thing feel like a farce.

v. gratuitousness and inconsistency

i had no emotional reaction when i realized they had actually killed gwaine.

that is insane, because you know how much i love him. but his death was so ridiculous that I actually started laughing in disbelief. and that in and of itself should be a sign that something wasn’t working. when your emotional beats are landing this wrong - falling this flat - something has slid fundamentally sideways with your storytelling.

i laughed when they killed my favorite knight! but what other reaction was i supposed to have? it was laughably silly! the premise itself was already foolish - that gwaine and percival would even come out here and endanger arthur in that way - and then gwaine dies because morgana used a nathair to extract information from him? we’ve seen morgana use the nathair twice before! she tortured elyan with it. she used it on alator. neither of them died. it’s never been indicated that being tortured with this creature will kill you. which isn’t to say that it can’t be the case, but from a writing perspective, if you’re going to use a sudden inconsistency to kill a major character, it’s noticeable! it’s jarring! and it makes us feel, once again, that the writers just grasped at any little thing they could think of to make what they wanted to happen happen.

and then there’s the whole question of why they wanted gwaine to die in the first place. what purpose did it serve? gwaine didn’t have to die in order for morgana to get the information the writers wanted her to have. and you’d assume that if they still killed him after that, that there would be a reason for it, or that it would at least...matter, somehow, but - WE LITERALLY NEVER HEAR ABOUT HIM AGAIN LOL. i wasn’t even sure he was dead at first. that’s how insignificant it felt. i felt like zuko in the ember island players.

that’s it. we never see him or percival again after that scene. there’s this weird moment where percival examines a footprint and the implication is that he’s going to follow morgana or something, but then it never happens. it’s like the showrunners ran out of time and were like ‘ok well, we just won’t be able to get back to that dangling thread.’ they gratuitously axed their most developed knight and then forgot they did it.

that’s why i laughed. it was so unbelievably bad - there was literally nothing else for me to do.

vi. let the bodies hit the floor (but like, anticlimactically)

i don’t feel like i need to examine mordred and morgana’s fates too closely, because i suspect the subject of “they deserved better” has already been done to death, and that’s kind of a different conversation than what i’m dealing with here. i’m not here right now to argue that they should have lived (though of course, yeah, i have my opinions on what would have made a better story), i’m just here to deal with how ineffectively the story we did get was executed.

one thing that amazes me is that when i watched the S5 deleted scenes, i realized that the showrunners did in fact originally have the right ideas about making morgana and mordred’s arcs deeper/more nuanced, but somehow these ideas never made it into the final cut. there are two deleted scenes that change so much about what could have been - one where arthur and merlin are talking about morgana and arthur is expressing regret and confusion about what happened to her, and merlin says it’s not arthur’s fault, that “there were others better placed to help morgana,” indicating his own guilty feelings.

and the other one was after mordred defected to morgana, where he has a whole conversation with her about how he thinks there is still GOOD in arthur!!!! he’s uncertain about what he’s doing! I JUST

i can’t believe

they had the seeds

of this better story

and they consciously decided not to pursue them. it’s not like they didn’t have the idea. it’s not like they just never thought of it. they thought of it, filmed it, and deliberately removed it. unfathomable.

it’s also pretty remarkable that the big baddie they’ve been touting for the last three seasons just pegs out from a stab wound in about 5 seconds as we’re being hustled on to something else. there is no space devoted to morgana’s death scene (such as it was…). it’s a parenthesis. it feels like, ‘oh we gotta get this out of the way quick hurry up let’s move on.’

and the thing is, i am not wholly opposed to the idea of morgana ultimately destroying herself - it’s not necessarily my first choice, but there are ways they could have gone that route and still told a meaningful story - but if they wanted to go that way, her death would have to matter. it would have to be treated like the terrible failure it represents. it would have to be given the weight of tragedy.

but structurally, the way this scene is set up, there is no way for this to happen. the viewers are already hyper-strung out on tension, when she appears, because they’re suddenly starting to get this horrible realization that one of the show’s two central characters might actually be about to die, but nobody wants to stop clinging to hope despite their bad feelings so there’s just this desperate, screamingly loud ticking clock running in the background, and when morgana shows up in the middle of that clenching fear, there’s absolutely no way her death can receive the attention she deserves. the audience doesn’t have room for something like that. they don’t have room to feel anything on top of what they’re already feeling. they’re already about to explode. they’re already maxed out on investment. they can’t focus on her; they want her to disappear because something more urgent is going on.

and so the show hustles us past her, and her death is just this blip. it barely registers. if you sneezed, you would miss it.

(and then mordred, for his part, doesn’t even have the benefit of a structural problem to explain the anticlimax of his death. he just gets taken out like the trash. for a character that they just spent all this time developing and making sympathetic - boy.)

i think...the thing, ultimately, is this: if this show truly felt that what they had to do was take their previously hopeful premise and stun their audience with the death of the hero, then they should have understood that trying to stack other things on top of that is too much. trying to squash morgana’s death right up against arthur’s is foolish. it’s ridiculous to expect your audience to be able to process morgana’s death and arthur’s in-progress dying at the same time. these two things happen within two minutes of each other. the audience has been following these characters for five years. it’s unreasonable to expect your audience to hold so much emotion at once.

vii. you’ll just have to trust me

the last thing i want to say is a more general thing.

the rest of this analysis focused on the ways in which the finale is poorly-crafted, rather than on my personal feelings about who they did dirty. it’s not really about my own personal thoughts re: the merits of killing gwaine and morgana and mordred and arthur or stranding merlin across the centuries; it’s about if these things (and all the other things in these episodes) were done effectively, and the answer, sadly, is no. the show could have killed all these people and still written something i would have respected (even though it would have been devastating), but that’s not what happened.

but here, at the end, i think i can make room for a little sentiment.

so what i want to reflect on here is this: ultimately, i don’t end up rejecting stories just because they do things i don’t like. the pre-finale episodes were filled with things i didn’t like. i hated how merlin turned mordred and kara in instead of letting them run. i hated how he let the execution proceed. i hated how arthur refused to see the injustice of his own actions. i hated how merlin was getting so wrapped up in ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die’ that everything else was fading away, that he was doing things he could never have done in good conscience before. but i was still deeply wrapped up in these stories, because i believed they were plausible and true. i accepted them. it made sense to me, that these things would be happening, dark and unpleasant as they were.

i don’t start rejecting stories just because they go places i don’t want them to go. i start rejecting stories when i feel they’ve betrayed my trust.

writers and readers/viewers can only ever move together if they trust each other. i allow stories to take me places i don’t want to go because i trust the authors to keep me safe while we travel. i know that they may take me somewhere i don’t want to be, but i trust that they will never take me somewhere i don’t need to be. i trust that they are taking me somewhere intentionally, with the story’s integrity in mind. a creator i trust can take their story anywhere, because i know they will take care. a creator i trust can end their story tragically, because they remember that i am experiencing it alongside them. they don’t surprise-punt me off the edge of the cliff so i can crash, alone, into the painful conclusion. they carry me the whole way, and by the time we get to the end of the line, we can both look back and see that the road that led us here was straight and true. i don’t fault them for taking me here. it was the right place to go.

the end of merlin didn’t feel like that to me. putting aside the fact that it was all so contrived that it didn’t even feel real (illustrated clearly enough in the ten pages above) - the truth is that even if it had displayed the highest quality writing in the world, the way this show ended felt like the audience had been abandoned. the bond of trust between the creator and the consumer was severed. the show forgot to take care.

i’m a ‘galaxy far far away’ girl first and foremost, so i’ll borrow an excerpt from the world according to star wars in order to make my point:

kasdan: i think you should kill luke and have leia take over.

lucas: you don’t want to kill luke.

kasdan: okay, then kill yoda.

lucas: i don’t want to kill yoda. you don’t have to kill people. you’re a product of the 1980’s. you don’t go around killing people. it’s not nice.

kasdan: no, i’m not. i’m trying to give the story some kind of edge to it…

lucas: by killing somebody, i think you alienate the audience. (x)

i think merlin forgot this.

i’m not saying that merlin shouldn’t have killed anybody at the end of their show. i’m not even saying that they shouldn’t have killed arthur. i’m saying that they forgot to take care.

merlin bbc betrayed their audience. you cannot take a show whose underlying theme has consistently been the promise of better things and then turn around and end it like that without taking special care of the people who are watching. you cannot just take an audience who has spent five years listening to someone bright and full of unflinching hope say - without any indication that anyone should doubt the certainty of this statement - “one day things will be better” and expect them to walk into this kind of ending safely.

by killing someone, i think you alienate the audience. and this doesn’t mean that nobody can ever die. but it does mean that if you’re going to kill someone, you have to understand that there is going to be an automatic pain reaction from your viewers/readers/etc, and if you want to maintain their trust, you have to take so much care. you have to be sure that you know exactly what you’re doing. you have to be sure that it’s the right thing. the only thing. you have to make sure that it doesn’t betray the fundamental promises you’ve made whilst crafting the rest of your story.

the end of merlin is truly stunning in a) its utter reversal/unfulfillment of every major promise that comprised its premise and b) the casualness with which it throws its characters away in the last episode. it’s not just “killing someone.” it’s a slaughter. we have to watch almost half the cast die onscreen, and then at the very end literally everybody is dead except merlin himself.

and this is merlin! not game of thrones! merlin is a “family show;” that’s what the writers/directors/producers keep calling it when you listen to the episode commentaries and they talk about how they can’t show certain things or make it too bloody. they wanted to follow in the tradition of “big, kind of epic family-entertaining shows, that—across generations—work on lots of different levels.” but i cannot imagine a young person who has watched this show for five years coming into the finale to see mordred and gwaine and morgana and arthur violently executed, and to see gwen in mourning, and merlin anguished and then more alone than he ever was even when he was hiding his secret, and then, whoop, there’s the credits, that’s all folks. aren’t you glad you got on this ride?

the show ends without fulfilling any of the promises it made repeatedly for years. the liberation of magic, the uniting of albion, and, for merlin, especially, the long-predicted day when he would be known and recognized for who he was - all forgotten. all abandoned. the finale finishes without giving the audience any of the things that they have spent five years being told to expect. the show rewards five years of emotional investment with death and desolation. it breaks all of its promises. it doesn’t take care.

i was lucky enough to have been so disconnected by how shockingly bad these episodes were that i mostly sat there shock-laughing at them in disbelief, the first time i watched. but going through them again to put this write-up together was just like - that’s when a deep sadness kicked in, for me. not at the ending itself, exactly, because, as i’ve said before, it was so poorly put-together that i can’t even see it as real. but just - at the idea that i still had to see it, period. that i had to witness this thing that i loved so much descend into this misery, for all that i didn’t recognize it as something plausible or true. that i still had to watch merlin drag arthur all over creation, still trying, still scrabbling for that sliver of hope, only to have arthur bite the dust like ten feet from their destination. that all merlin ever wanted in his life was to be accepted and loved for who he is, and that he put all of this on hold so he could (supposedly) bring about a world where it would be possible, and then he never gets it. that a life of hiding himself and believing that everybody around him hated who he was inside - that was as good as it was ever going to get, for him.

the writers just - piled it on. ‘you can watch mordred die, even though we just went to all this effort to make you root for him! and now you can watch gwaine die (why????? we don’t know!!! it doesn’t change the story, but why don’t you watch it happen anyway!). and now you can watch morgana die! but don’t look too long, because arthur is dying! and now you can see camelot cold and in mourning - but only for one second, because now you can see merlin, who we never showed meeting any of his friends ever again, wandering around as a solitary old man thousands of years after everybody else is dead and the universe we spent the last five seasons living in no longer exists!!!!!!’

unbelievable.

it doesn’t upset me in the sense of “it’s so terrible that the story ended that way” because i know it didn’t, really. it was contrived and false enough that i laughed through most of the episode. i know it isn’t the way things would have gone, and i won’t have any trouble forgetting it; whereas if it had been well-done, i wouldn’t have been able to dismiss it so easily. but i still had to watch it, regardless. you’re forced to watch it, because you care, and the creators know you care enough not to look away, and they use that trust to keep you glued there while they gut-punch you over and over and over again and then peace out without concluding any of their plotlines, saying, “isn’t it clever??? we really fooled you, didn’t we? technically, we fulfilled the prophecies - nobody ever said any of the characters would get to enjoy the new world they would build! i bet you’re so surprised!”

it leaves you stunned.

it’s so...mean.

it’s so careless.

i don’t have any desire to subject myself to that a second time. after i’m done with this post, i know i’m never going to watch those episodes again. they weren’t good, first of all; and if you need more clarification on that, please see the first ten pages of this document. but more importantly, i don’t feel the need to subject myself once again to the callous disregard for the trust i gave this show’s creators.

if i’m supposed to trust a creator to carry me over rough terrain, i’m trusting them to carry me all the way to the end. they can’t violently dump me to the ground two feet before the finish line, run me over with an ATV, and then expect me to willingly climb back into their arms.

viii: if you want something done right

in conclusion, i guess the one nice thing about this is that we can crawl the last two feet ourselves.

for me, sadly, i think canon!merlin is always going to end at 5.11. the last two episodes don’t feel believable to me. i couldn’t watch them and be convinced that i was watching something plausible; i felt like i was watching two hours of scripted theater. which is, of course, what we’re always doing - but if the story had been crafted appropriately, we shouldn’t have realized it. we shouldn’t have been able to feel the writer’s hand reaching in and making improbable things happen. we shouldn’t have been laughing in disbelief as supposedly “sad” things were happening in front of us, and we definitely shouldn’t have been almost falling off the couch because the last scene was so jarring we thought it was an advertisement. (the TRUCK, people. blaring across the screen and bulldozering through medieval fantasy-adventure show merlin bbc. nothing on earth or in high heaven could have prepared me for that moment.)

but the one good thing about a piece of media that ended so unsatisfactorily is that it lights a fire under people’s butts to go ahead and sort of...row the boat themselves. i was afraid, before i watched this, that seeing it would make me never want to go back to merlin again. i put off finishing season 5 for an entire year because i was in the middle of writing a fic and i thought that if the end of the show upset me, i would never want to write another word. but now that i’m finished, i’m relieved to be able to say that the finale, while it will always be a bitterly disappointing sore spot, was also SO laughably bad that i don’t feel the slightest compunction about just...letting it lie unrecognized. if it were well-crafted and i was just ignoring it because it made me sad, i’d feel guilty for being petty. but it was Just Actually That Bad, so my conscience is clear.

and so is the path to more fun things, i hope, because that is the point of fandom, in the end, to have fun with something you love in the company of other people who love it the same way.

i hope i haven’t written the last merlin thing i’ll ever write. i hope there’s more inside me that i want to say. i hope i haven’t come in too late to make connections. i hope i’ll enjoy rewatching (most of) this show someday. i couldn’t imagine that any of these things would be true, when i knew the end was going to be a let-down, but now that i’ve finished, i feel like there’s infinite room to play, and that, at least, makes me smile.

i’ve said before that this was a hell of a ride. it ended in a trainwreck, sure, but i’m not sorry i got on.

#the once and future slowburn #merlin S5 #meta

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