#//it would be fun to have a character like annette shake up the way more serious guys i tend to go for | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

honestlywtfisgoingon · 4 years ago

Text

A Match Set

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Pairing: Benny Watts x Reader

Summary: After meeting one night in New York, you and Benny Watts are drawn to each other. As you go through different experiences with one another, you grow closer until it finally gets to be too much for Benny.

Word Count: 1890

Warnings: none

Notes: aye this is my first fic because there is a serious lack of benny watts fics and i had to change that for myself. this will probably be multiple chapters that can be read separately.

It was your first art gallery, and you were both anxious and overjoyed to see people surveying your work. You had put so many hours into each piece and all kinds of people had poured in to look. It was a well known gallery, but the variety still surprised you. You looked around and saw some interesting characters, but your interest was piqued when your eyes fell upon a particular cowboy.

He was inspecting one of your favorite paintings which had chess pieces as the subject. The pieces merely served as part of a metaphor in your art, as the game and all its complexities had never really been your thing. As you looked closer at the man you realized that, not only had his outfit sparked your interest, but he seemed familiar too. Out of curiosity, you walked over and stood next to him.

“What are your thoughts?” You asked, motioning towards the painting.

His initial expression showed surprise that you were talking to him, but he recovered quickly, saying, “It’s good. I think the artist has talent.” You felt a bit of pride hearing that. You opened your mouth to say thanks, but you decided not to reveal yourself. You wanted him to give his honest opinion without fear of offending you.

“So do you like chess?” He nodded to the painting. Hearing this you made the connection as to why you remembered seeing him before. Your father owned a little bookshop back home and you were looking into chess for the same painting you were discussing right now. You had seen this cowboy on the back of one of those books, but you hadn’t given it another thought, never actually expecting to meet him. You decided not to reveal this information either and continued with the conversation.

“I can play a modest game. You?”

“I can play a modest game.” He had a small smile as he shrugged.

“Your first lie.” You said smirking back.

He looked confused but curious, so you explained about your research, your fathers bookshop, the whole story. He puffed up a bit after hearing that, looking impressed that you knew who he was.

“What’s your name?” He asked, still curious.

“Y/n” you replied.

“Nice name. I’m Benny, but you already seem to know who I am. On the other hand I don’t know anything about you.” He reached out his hand to shake yours.

“You walk in here with a black trench coat but you make me out to be the mysterious one,” you smirked as you took his hand. He chuckled a bit, and after your introduction, you asked why he was here.

“My friend knows the artist actually. She told us we had to see her work before going out.” You hummed as you thought about what to say, but he interjected.

“I don’t usually do this, and I’m not sure why I’m doing this now, but maybe you’d consider coffee with me. I won’t tell anymore lies” he joked.

You laughed a little, mildly shocked. “you’re not sure why? That’s flattering” you teased.

“Not what I meant-“ but before you could come to a conclusion on his sudden offer, you heard an excited french accent.

“Y/n! Im so proud! You finally got to show off all that talent!” Your friend Cleo ran up to you and wrapped her arms around you. You hadn’t seen her since you lived in France for a few months and you had missed her. You left for France after you realized you weren’t really needed at home, so you dedicated yourself to trying to soak up some culture. She looked gorgeous like you remembered, fitting for a model. You continued your reunion embrace for a moment before she waved her arms to the men and woman behind her. She introduced the friends she had brought to your show as Arthur, Hilton, and Annette, who all smiled at you. Cleo paused to turn to the cowboy saying, “I see you’ve already met Benny.”

“Yeah we met,” he said, “but I didn’t know this was your work. I would’ve told you how impressed I am.” Your cheeks turned a light pink at the praise.

“Look at Benny, impressed with someone besides himself for once.”Cleo poked fun and the group let out a laugh.

“Hey I’m not a narcissist or anything, don’t listen to Cleo,” Benny made excuses to you, only mildly offended.

“Sure you aren’t. I have nothing against narcissists,” you jokingly assured him. This answer didn’t comfort the man who had essentially just asked you on a date.

You and Cleo continued to catch up and you talked more with her friends as well. Benny just stood next to you, and you caught him glancing at you once or twice, but you just ignored it. Eventually you agreed to go out for drinks with the group, walking with them to a bar a couple blocks down called Hal’s.

You all squeezed into a booth while Arthur went off to get drinks. You sat on the outside, watching the people out on the floor next to you giggling and dancing. Having a couple of drinks beforehand must’ve contributed to the large amount of people out there, you thought. Arthur eventually announced his return by laying a tray of drinks in the middle of the table.

You were all conversing and sipping on your drinks when Annette decided she wanted to dance. Cleo agreed enthusiastically, but the rest of us refused. She suggested we all take shots to make it easier, but once again we tried to turn her down. she pleaded, “come on guys, it’s a Saturday night, and you can’t possible lose something from it. Have a little bit of fun with me!”

We relented, having a feeling that she wasn’t going to give up any time soon. She gave a little clap and handed out the shots. You knocked yours back with everyone else and grimaced at the bitter taste. Shaking it off, you slid out of the booth so the others could get out. You moved back into your spot after they all made their way to the throng of people. You decided you would join them later, but you liked to observe first. You looked over and the only two left were you and Benny. You slid over to him, not wanting to sit awkwardly on the other end like he wasn’t there.

“I bet you five bucks that lady is bored out of her mind.” He pointed to a blonde on a date across the bar, “Either she’s an alcoholic or she’s trying to tune out baldie.” You looked at the woman and saw she was surrounded by empty glasses while the man in front of her seemed like he was boasting endlessly. You both started making observations about the various people in the bar. Most of them were snarky comments that you whispered into each other’s ears, giggling, but you also created imaginary lives for them, guessing who they were and how they got here. After sharing a couple laughs, you sighed and reached a comfortable lull before Benny brought up what you knew was coming.

“So have you thought about my earlier question?” He eyed you seriously all of a sudden, but you didn’t feel any pressure. He seemed the type of confident where he thought you would say yes, but he could recover if you said no.

You weighed in your impression of him. He was cute, with fluffy hair and nice eyes that were a kind of chocolate color. He was funny and you he seemed intelligent (I mean he had to be, he played competitive chess). Albeit his trench coat and hat were a bit eccentric, but that wasn’t a bad thing, in fact you found it attractive.

“So have you?” He asked again, leaning his head in.

“Oh uh” you hadn’t realized while you were thinking that you had zoned out looking at him. Clearing your throat you said, “I’m free for coffee.” You stopped, “But you have to wear the hat.”

“Wouldn’t leave home without it” he winked.

Suddenly you were shoved against him as your tipsy friends barreled back into the booth.

“We should probably join them” you said as you moved off him, pushing one of the leftover drinks towards him. He nodded and you both drank some more just to get on the same level as your friends.

“You two haven’t even danced! I saw you whispering. Too busy flirting?” Annette smiled as she slurred a few of her words. You just looked down, cheeks pink, leaving Benny to respond.

“How were you watching us when you were dancing with that guy, the one who looks like he’s only ever kissed his mother.”

“No, I’m sure he’s kissed other people! I mean he did seem young but...” Annette looked over to the guy she dragged to dance with her earlier. He stood sheepishly in the corner, looking like he hadn’t outgrown his baby fat yet, and was definitely not a city type. “He’s just shy!” She defended, but me and Benny just looked at each other, falling into giggles. You figured out that night that Annette was one of those drunks who got a little childish, but she was sweet.

You would’ve been content to keep hanging out with Benny, if it hadn’t been for Cleo who grabbed your hand and pulled you out to the dance floor. You looked back at Benny, but gave in and allowed her to twirl you into the crowd. You were having a good time with Cleo, Hilton and Arthur dancing on either side of her. You were soon out of breath, but didn’t mind, enjoying it all.

You had moved to the city a couple months ago, but hadn’t had time to make friends, focusing on your work and setting up your apartment. You missed having company, people who were fun and interesting.

You continued to move to the beat of the song until you bumped into someone. You looked back to see Benny smiling next to you. You smiled back and let him in to the little circle you and your friends had created. You felt a little warm, not from the dancing, but from being close to him.

After fifteen minutes you were all tired and made your way to the booth to gather all your things up and pay the bill. You walked out of the bar and into the chilly night air, grateful for the residual body heat that came from all the dancing. You hugged Cleo and your new friends goodbye as took turns getting into taxis and headed towards their homes. Hilton offered to wave you down a taxi too, but you declined, explaining that your home wasn’t a far walk. He shrugged and gave you another hug before climbing into the yellow car. Once again it was just you and Benny.

“Just the two of us again huh?” He spoke, and he definitely didn’t sound turned off by the idea.

“Fate I guess.”

“Sure” he said casually.

“Do you not believe in fate?” You asked. You weren’t a firm believer in the idea but something in his tone made you curious.

“I’ve had this debate before I think. I’m not sure, but I’d like to figure it out. How about you?” He said. You imagined him having a lot of debates. You had just met him, but he seemed to fall into the intellectual category. They always kept things interesting, and frequently offered new perspectives.

“I mean everything’s gotta mean something, there has to be a purpose. I just don’t know if we make our own purpose or if we’re given a purpose; fate.” You mused, not meaning to get existential. He didn’t seem to mind.

“You seem like the type to want to figure things out too.” He said ‘too’. So you and him both liked to do that. You added that to the growing list of things you liked about him.

“I guess I am.” He had a pleased look on his face and you just shrugged as you started to say goodbye.

“Wait” he grabbed your arm, “I heard you say you didn’t live far, I could walk you.” Before you could protest he told you, “it wouldn’t be a big deal, I heard you tell Hilton where you lived, we’re in the same direction.”

You agreed, finding yourself wanting to talk to him more. He offered you his arm casually and you laughed to yourself a little at the gesture, taking it anyway. You walked down the sidewalk, talking and laughing. You felt comfortable as you felt like you leveled with him. It seemed like too short of a walk as you suddenly found yourself at the door of your apartment building.

“Guess this is goodnight.” Benny said as you both stood on the sidewalk.

“What about coffee?” You asked.

“Glad you remembered. I’ll pick you up at twelve tomorrow, we can make it lunch. I’ll pick you up.” He said it decidedly, like it was just a fact. Something you noticed he did often.

“Ok then. Lunch. Tomorrow. Am I forgetting anything?” You said as you stepped halfway into the doorway.

“If you are we can figure that out later. I’ll see you.” He waved with a slight smile.

You waved back and smiled in return, watching him walk away before closing the door. You sped up to your apartment, letting yourself finally feel the excitement and anticipation of going out. You stripped off your clothing as soon as you got in and flopped on your bed, feeling sort of giddy. You felt like you and Benny were connected, though you had barely met him. As you laid down you smiled to yourself, looking forward to tomorrow.

#benny watts #benny watts x reader #the queen’s gambit #beth harmon #benny watts fanfiction #fan fiction

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uhhhhyandere · 4 years ago

Note

👉👈 more yandere dimitri pls,,, that last one you wrote,,,, WHEW

haha idk where this was going or like... what the plot is or even what it’s about... but i had fun HAHAHA and literally all that matters

so here’s 8k words of purple prose and pointlessness and idk what else i love him so much... also not proofread bc I'm lazy. y’all stan a lazy ass author.

warnings: gory, death of minor characters, kinda bloody too, injury, manipulation

”It’s stupid. I-I don’t think… I just don’t want to get my hopes up, Annie. It’s been years…” With Garreg Mach looming on the cliffside, memories began to resurface with each field and decrepit village you, Annette, and Mercedes passed. They were fields where you would train relentlessly in the early hours of the day. An excuse, you think, to see him more. Innocent enough. Who wouldn’t want to improve their skill with the future King of Faerghus? Under those very trees is where you would have clandestine meetings at the same time beginning after the celebration of your victory at the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. Undeniably, the best night of your life.

You silently thanked Sylvain for slipping into the wine cellars and claiming you all had to finish the stolen bottles and clear the evidence. The only people still okay enough that night to do any cleaning were Mercedes and Dedue. Felix was technically okay too, but he left far before Annette was vomiting in the washroom to actually help out.

Your drunken first kiss at your bedroom door that Dedue definitely did not see. The sober one the day after. The sneaky one after breakfast. Quick one after training. Goddess, the heavy one in the dead of night after you scurried upstairs that Sylvain and Felix one hundred percent did not overhear through the paper-thin walls of the dorms. Countless kisses under the shadow of covers, night, until the ball. If everyone and their mothers didn’t suspect something was up when you two did not even realize you were the only pair left dancing, all eyes on you, until Sylvain whistled from the crowd, well, you would be deathly concerned about them.

“But those memories are from a long time ago, Mercie.” You pulled yourself from your thoughts. “Thinking about them only hurts. This place, what’s left of it, only hurts.” Mercedes set a gentle hand on your shoulder. “You think after five whole years, it wouldn’t hurt as much, but I don’t think I’ll be okay until this war is over. Until the cause of this - of all this pain and misery - is put to rest. Back then, even if we could have died at the end of any month, I thought he was invincible. I fled Fhirdiad as soon as I heard. Like a coward.”

“You can’t honestly think that! The Empire was taking the city. If you stayed, you could have died too! Don’t think like that.” You rolled your head back to look at the dark sky. You would make it back before it starts, at the very least.

“Everyone grieves in different ways, and it courses through us all at different paces. You have to let yourself hurt.” You shook your head, beginning to see the shadow of the village at the base of the monastery.

“I’ve been hurting for years now. When I met up with Felix in Fraldarius territory, he told me that the distraction will get me killed. An hour later he saved my life in battle, so he's ever the same. I wonder if he decided to show today. Sylvain would inevitably follow then. I’ve always thought--hey, do you hear that?” You stopped your movements suddenly, holding your arms to stop them as well. FIghting.

“Is it the Empire?”

“I don’t know, but we should help out anyway,” Annette replied. “Come on!”

You expected the Empire, but you weren’t surprised when you encountered thieves attempting to saunter off with the abandoned riches of the monastery. It was just like any other weekend you were off the road of bandits with the Blue Lions to clear a path for bandits.

Until you saw him. A ghost. As pale as one, at least. A hulking, nearly unrecognizable mass of strength shrouded in black and blue. Relentless, he tore through his path of thieves, the professor and Gilbert hot on his trail. The… professor? They were alive too? Your hand shook at your side. They’re both… okay? You swallowed. The professor always did tend to micromanage Dimitri. You realized you could not swallow with a closing throat, wobbling along with your chest. Wheezing, crying, freezing in battle. You heard Mercedes and Annette all around you behind a wall of fog. Legs shaking, you fell to the ground, hand tight to your chest.

“Y/N, come on, get up!” It was Annette’s urging, but she stopped suddenly. Two sets of feet set up around you. A barrier to protect you as your muscles shook. Get up. You have to. Get off the ground and fight. Just as he always taught you.

Your bow came out quick, sniping an enemy in Mercedes’ blind spot. Before you can do anything, argue it was your imagination that conjured the sound of his grunts and the blue of his eye, you had to survive to see them and keep track of Sylvain in the corner of your eye. He still tended to always look right instead of left. Were you not so shaken up, you would have reacted to seeing the rest of your old house in battle, but your mind kept filtering back. You did not see him again in battle. He and the professor were far ahead, after the familiar bandit you had dealings with from Anna, with the remaining three bandits. You, Annette, and Mercedes went to secure the area to make sure there was no bandit unaccounted for.

Didn’t last, though, as you fell to the ground against the foundations of a destroyed house, legs outstretched and limp. With your palm being held tightly over your mouth, you squeezed your eyes tight to get any remaining liquid out.

“Y/N…”

“H-he’s alive.”

“We know. We saw-”

“He’s alive. I spent five years grieving for someone who was here. I-I should have known he was here. I thought about it. I thought about it, but then I second-guessed myself and said that it would only hurt more. Searching for the dead. Pining for them, but look. I-I don’t know. I don’t know if I can even face him.”

“And you don’t want to.” Felix’s voice was just as sharp as it always was. He was grimacing, pace fast as he joined the three of you. “He is not the Prince you fell in love with. He’s the boar that’s been festering underneath his polite smile” With an exhale through your nose, you looked away. Felix really could read you like a book. He scoffed. “You knew too, didn’t you? All this time. Of course. I shouldn’t have put it past you to push things under the rug as you always do.”

“Felix…”

“It’s true. It’s how they even got through the relationship. Not as perfect as you thought, huh?”

“Felix, I think that’s enough.”

“No,” you interrupted. “He’s right. I knew. I was at the rebellion. I was at that battle that is ingrained into Felix’s memory. I was in the Holy Mausoleum when we found out the Flame Emperor's identity, but he never told me… I didn’t know the extent. You all knew he would hide me from all harm, including himself. Do you really think he would tell me whatever plagues him now? Though, I could take a good guess after spending a few nights in his room back then.” You swallowed, wiping away the remnants of your tears. “How bad is he?”

“A lowly beast.”

“There you all are. Professor says to regroup. Says we have plans to discuss, if you all are interested - woah, you okay?” Sylvain scratched the back of his head. “Oh right, yeah. Well, I don’t know how long His Majesty is willing to wait. He looks pretty - uh - impatient.” You shook your head and used the wall to support you back to your feet.

“Reunions like this are usually supposed to be happy, aren’t they? I-I’m sorry I’m ruining it on you all. I really am so relieved to see you all okay. It’s just… there’s a lot of emotion going on right now.” It was Mercedes’ hand on your back. You needn’t look to know.

“You don’t have to face anything you aren’t ready for.”

“No, I need to see what he has become. It’s as Felix says. I can no longer ignore problems I must face. I can do it, but we still have to check the perimeter…” Sylvain shook his head.

“Teach had Ashe and Ingrid do it right after you left.” Your professor always knew you better than you could ever know. “Well, let’s go then. Don’t want to keep them waiting on us too long.” His brown eyes came in close. “You hardly look like you’ve been crying, if that helps.”

“It doesn’t!” Annette stomped on his foot. “Y/N, it’s going to be okay. Me and Mercie are right with you!” A smile broke out on your face. Albeit sad, you nodded your head and believed her. Though you both knew, in the scheme of things, you were alone in this battle.

“Sorry, teach. You know Felix. Walks like a grandpa.” Sylvain, as common as it is for him to be the asshole, was a kind soul. No matter how much he tried to hide it. You gifted him a small smile of thanks as he glanced back. You were in the back of the small group when you joined the semicircle surrounding Gilbert, Byleth and… and… you couldn’t do this.

His hair has grown long and unkempt. Grease and grime painted his hair, his skin, his clothes. The armor he wore just a few shades darker than the circles under his single remaining eye but, oh, it still glittered brighter than the rainy sky. That was his eye. Though only one remained, it was his. This was your Dimitri. You clenched your teeth, for you could not cry anymore. Even if this Dimitri, from what you have heard, would not care for your tears, Dimitri five years ago would. You would stay strong for him if no one else.

And when his eye met yours, goddess, the jolt was felt down your spine. You knew your face screamed your emotions. You were no Felix, Slyvain, or Byleth. Lips parting, your breath halted as he kept your gaze. Nothing on him reacted. Goddess, his gaze was so much more piercing. You did not dare to move. As if you were a stranger, his eye flicked back to Gilbert as the knight continued to speak. Annette grabbed your hand from beside you and you squeezed so hard you watched her wince, yet she remained steadfast in holding yours just as tight.

For the mornings spent under the trees in the field after training, you would not cry. Dimitri is alive. He is here. A few steps away, though miles remained in between, he was alive. Within his dead eye, people will find hope. You will find hope. You know Gilbert already has as he speaks about returning to the monastery to begin to plan for the retaliation against the Empire. You know the former Blue Lions have as well, as they follow the professor loyally back up the ruined stairs you used to trip on far too often. You wondered if Dimitri can feel your eyes on the back of his head, or if he has come to be numb to that as well.

Annette did not let go of your hand until it was out of shock in the chapel. Its remnants littering the floors. Still, the peace of the goddess remained. Its silence was a lullaby to your worries. She, it had to be her, brought back the ones you love most. There was no other power. There couldn’t have been. Even though there was a hole where she used to stand, you thanked the rain beginning to pour in.

You would be strong for the boy Dedue would sneak you to in the dead of night. To wherever the Duscur man maybe, you would do it for him, too.

But being brave and strong was always easy for the people in Ashe’s books. They did not hesitate through their fear. It pushed them to be the heroes they are, but you could not find that platform to jump from. A mouse approaching a wolf, a boar. You sought help from the expert himself.

“Have you? I mean, have you tried to talk to him?” Ashe fiddled with the padding on his glove.

“No, not yet. Felix, Ingrid, Sylvain, and Mercedes have, though. You should ask them. They can probably be more help than me.” Stepping onto the wall separating Garreg Mach from the cliff, you sat next to him, allowing your feet to dangle in the open air.

“No, I think I need someone as scared as me. Someone who wants to be a knight from one of your books, but is the measly coward in the back used for poetic comparisons. Not that you are. I’m talking about me.” Ashe shook his head.

“It’s only been a few days since we’ve arrived.”

“And you think I would have already sought out the man I fell in love with already? A faithful reunion. Not quite like the ones in the romances.”

“I don’t think anything going on is anything like a book.” You furrowed your brows. “I know that’s crazy coming from me, but no book is like another. They have similarities, but they are all inherently different. This one we’re in now, this is ours. This is what people will be reading about and looking to for help. Us. No book can help us right now. I think only we can help ourselves and each other.” You kicked your heel against the wall repeatedly. It wasn’t what you wanted to hear. “You should try. If Dimitri will listen to anyone, it’s you or the professor, and they tried already.” You could feel your throat beginning to close up.

“What do I even say? What if I say the wrong thing? He’s hurt, Ashe. He always has been. I don’t want to… I can’t push him more. He’s not off the deep end yet. He can’t be. I don’t want to be the final straw. I know what I’ll say if I get too… emotional.” The man sighed, green eyes scanning the clouds.

“Well, from my humble opinion, which you don’t have to take, is that, if what you’re saying is true, you’re hurting him by avoiding him.” He stopped fiddling with the leather. Instead, he placed his hand on your thigh. “He is, deep down, the same Dimitri we know. What if he was the same, and you were doing this?”

“That’s debating if he is the same underneath. Knights are torn, but I know he’s there. He wouldn’t so easily feed into it. I know it. It may be time and so much help, but he’s in there. This is part of him. This is not an imposter. This is just as much of him as the one we knew so well. It… has to be, because I don’t know what I’m going to do if it’s not.”

Nights seem to be falling earlier and earlier with nonstop cleaning, repairs, and supply running. Even if you wanted to, you lacked the time to seek the prince out. The greenhouse had to be fixed. The rubble had to be cleared. The holes had to be patched. Communication had to be made. Word was the Knights of Seiros would be arriving this evening. Preparations had to be made for that. How the hell did Cyril do this day-in and day-out?

You were exhausted by the time Seteth and company arrived and set to meet in the chapel. The second time you’ve seen Dimitri since the bandits. The millionth time war efforts were to be discussed. Most of that work was carried out by Byleth and Gilbert. You only needed to follow orders, and your orders were to clean. Sorting out your emotions was just a side job.

“Y/N. Y/N. Are you listening?” Seteth’s scolding, something etched into your brain from the academy, broke you from your thoughts. However, you first regarded Dimitri, who looked at you the same as he did the first time, before having the courage to look at Seteth.

“I-I’m sorry. Lost in my own thoughts.”

“I asked if you have heard anything from Aegir? I know you were in contact with Ferdinand during the past five years.” Dimitri’s eye burned holes through your head. You could feel the sweat from it on your scalp.

“Duke Aegir has been placed under house arrest, sir. Everything from their title and land has been stripped from them. I… haven’t heard anything since. It would be safe to presume that they will not be an in with the Empire.” Yours and Ferdinand’s history stretches only back to the academy; however, before you and Dimitri became official, you and he would occasionally… work some stress out. Casually. Dimitri always hated this fact, but he did his best to hide the jealousy from you.

“It’s not fair of me to judge you on what you have done in the past,” he said. “I will be more mature about my feelings.” Though the gleam in his eye now was all too familiar.

“I see. Thank you.” Something within you kept you from meeting Dimitri’s eye. A fear he would look away, so you focused on Seteth, Gilbert, and Byleth as they discussed the steps to making Garreg Mach the Kingdom’ base. When the meeting ended, however, you did not listen to such fear. Dimitri spent his time in the chapel. The spectacle to gawk at. It was no surprise when he did not move as the rest of the group disperse, and neither did you.

But he would not break first. Turning around, his cape followed him back towards the wreckage of where the altar used to be. You followed with steps as silent as possible. Opening your mouth to speak, you released only empty air. Inhaling, you tried once again, but a wall erected itself in your throat, cutting you off once more.

“If you have something to say, speak.” His words, guttural, reverberated in you. Wringing your hands together, you took one last deep breath.

“Dimitri.”

“Do you wish to speak of the past?” His head turned, so you could only see one eye peeking from under his bangs. “The boy you loved is long dead. There is nothing here for you.” You shook your head and took an adamant step forward.

“T-that’s not true.” A dry laugh escaped him.

“Is it not? Are you not frightened of me? Is it not why you have hidden yourself ever since you arrived? You know it as well as I.” You tapped your fingers against your thigh. You had to remain calm and patient. He was going to try to push you away, and you knew that. Do not stray from the path.

“It was not you I was scared of, Dimitri.” Another laugh. This one wry. He turned around to face you then. You knew he had gotten bigger, stronger, but he stood so much higher than you. A power stance you would not succumb to. This is the same boy who broke a pair of scissors and was scared Mercedes would yell at him and smuggled sweets for you two to have late at night to study for your certification exams. “Do not tell me it is because you think you could have changed something. Prevented something. Nothing would have changed whether you were here in the past five years or not. Do not think so much of yourself.”

You squared your shoulders. You did not want to take this route, but you had to provoke some type of emotion towards you. Something to tell you that you are more than the tool of war to use against Edelgard, and he had already given you a hint.

“Then what about at that meeting, when Seteth asked me about Ferdinand? I saw the look you gave me. I’ve seen it before too. You cannot hide that.” His jaw clenched, and for a moment, you felt successful. “You can say anything you want. How I am insignificant, a tool to use, another body to die in your path to revenge, but do not-” you pointed a finger at him “-tell me what we had was nothing. I want to see what you see. I don’t want you to shut me out.” His eyes trailed down to your finger, and with an armored, gloved hand, pushed it aside.

“So you admit it then? A tool at my disposal. To use and then break?” You shook your head, and your throat clenched once again.

“You would add me to the list of people who already haunt you?”

“You know nothing of the dead. Of what they say to me. There is nothing for me to be concerned about other than taking the head off of that girl’s shoulders. Should you die getting in my way, then so be it.” His lance to the heart, but you would not let the pain show. He was the same boy who broke his training lance and hit Leonie with the broken handle and fretted about it for the next month, despite the blood on his hands. You had to believe that. Latch on to that single hope.

“You always did what you could to protect me. From Demonic Beasts, bandits, Felix’s words, but right now, I think you’re protecting me from yourself.” Metal against your neck. In a blink of an eye, his lance touches the skin.

“Do not speak as if you know me, and do not speak anymore, or else I will slice your throat where you stand. Go away. If you return, I will not hold back, and I will use you to the bone.” A competition played out between your eyes, but, in the end, you succeeded. Walking out the monastery with a drop of blood on your neck, you did not allow any other droplets to fall until you crossed the bridge into the reception hall.

You don’t who you cried for, or for how long until Catherine found you and guided you back to your room. Thoughts floated from Dimitri, his words, the past, to Dedue and his untimely passing and your peers that were now your enemies that Dimitri was ready to kill without hesitation and the reality of your death that could come in any battle here on forth.

Three knocks on your door. Too hard to be Ashe’s, Mercedes’, or Annette. Not hard enough to be Felix yelling at you to train like he used to when he could find no one else.

“Sorry. I was just passing by, and, well, wanted to check in.” The last thing you wanted Sylvain saying was that he heard your balling your eyes out. With shaky hands, you wiped your burning cheeks and unlocked the door for him to enter. “Oh, what happened? What’s that bandage from? Don’t tell me…” You motioned for the noble to come in and relocked the door. You didn’t want any more visitors.

“Yeah, I talked to him.”

“He hurt you?”

“I went too far. I-I shouldn’t have pushed him so deep into his emotions, presuming things he felt. It was just a scratch. I’m fine. You have the eye, Sylvain. You must have noticed the meeting.” You sat on your bed, while he spread himself on your desk chair.

“I remember he used to come to me during those times. How he can show his love for you through other means. How he had lost you before even had a chance to try. He was so stressed, and so hopelessly into you. I thought he had it for the professor, but color me surprised when he sought me out for advice on you.” You shook your head.

“Never should have started that with Ferdinand.”

“Something about nobles, huh?”

“Shut up, Sylvain. I-Look, I can’t even focus on the past right now. I use it to remind myself I’m talking to my Dimitri, and not the monster everyone fears. That, that man suffering alone in that chapel is the boy who got nervous every time we kissed, but… but it’s so hard. As soon as I saw him that day, I was shocked, overjoyed, but I knew something was wrong the same minute. He’s been alone for five years. By himself. The only people to talk to him were the dead. What kind of… I’m supposed to be the one that knows this, sees this, and helps this, but all I can do is cry in my damned room!” Sylvain was lighting fast to wrap his arms around you, and you clung on tighter to his shoulders. The sleeve of his shirt, the victim of your tears, saliva, and sobs until you had pushed your own self out of consciousness.

When you woke the next morning, your head lied on a breathing pillow. It did not take much to recall the previous night and you let yourself relax under human contact. It was something you have missed dearly in the past five years, and you know, despite his reputation, Sylvain would never try anything with you. Your eyes, heavy still from crying so hard, lazily trailed across the room. The window Dimitri almost broke with his lance, the desk you both hunched over figuring out the mathematical side of tactics, the potted plant the professor gave you for your birthday that Dimitri also broke, but replaced with the long dead ones present. The broken locks on your door from -

“Sylvain!” You jolted up, slapping his chest harshly. He woke with a groan while you stood and approached the door.

“Mm, what?”

“Did you hear anything last night? Banging, or snapping, after I fell asleep?” He rubbed your pillow over his face, so you approached him, tore it from his hands, and smacked him. “Sylvain. My door is broken.” Brown eyes were wide and glowing under the sun from the window. He rushed to check out the damage. “I think I know who would have…” He met your eyes. “Which means he saw - “

“Yeah, I get it. I’m a dead man.” You shook your head.

“Hey, hey, not yet. We could try to guess why he would come in here.” Sylvain rolled his eyes.

“Isn’t it obvious? It isn’t to kill you. He already would have been in the chapel. Oh - we messed up. We messed up big time. I’m so sorry, Y/N.” You put your hand on his arm.

“It’s not your fault. You were here when I was sobbing. I can’t be mad at you for that. I’m mad at this whole situation. This war. Everything. You just need to avoid him at all costs. Stay with someone. Felix most likely. We could explain the situation to him, so he understands, and so he doesn’t think we… you know.”

“I get it. I get it.”

....

“Absolutely not.”

“Felix, it’s only until I get this sorted.” Felix groaned, tying his hair back.

“I’m not playing babysitter, and I’m not letting you handle this on your own. You’ll get yourself killed.” You shook your head.

“He wouldn’t kill me.”

“He actually told you he would.”

“But he wouldn’t. I trust that he wouldn’t, and if one of the two of us were to approach him, it could not be you. Out of the question. It would have to be me, and you both know that, and it has to be as soon as possible. I mean, as in-”

“Have you all seen Dimitri?” Ingrid popped around the corner. “It’s the Empire - they’re coming. Gear up and get ready. We don’t know what forces they’re bringing, but we cannot allow them to take the monastery again.” Of course, of all times.

“We’ll worry about this later. Do not let this distract you on the battlefield. Focus on surviving and nothing else. Got it?” Felix held a finger to your face. You nodded. “Good. Come on, Sylvain. We’ll see you out there.”

Focus on surviving. You were always focused on surviving. Battle was not merely just slaying your enemies. You were the priority. Not the oncoming enemies. That fact never changed during battle. That was the first thing the professor taught you; however, his selfless behavior on the battlefield would have anyone thinking twice. When it comes to fighting with people you cared about, priority gets muddled.

Dimitri was no longer focused on surviving. His priority was to kill, slaughter his way to Edelgard. Nothing else mattered. In this way, his fighting has improved tenfold. No reasonable person would want to confront him in physical combat, which made life harder for everybody else. Being a distance fighter, you, Ashe, Annette, and Mercedes were able to watch his back. Of course, Byleth couldn’t risk that many people micromanaging him. For strategy’s sake, it’s suicide. Mercedes was a critical healer and menace being trained a gremory. That source of power would not and could not be squandered. Ashe had worked incredibly hard to be a bow knight, and your most powerful archer can also not be used as a protector of one person.

The job usually came down to you. Both by order of elimination and by your lack of ability to focus elsewhere. Your eyes were naturally drawn to the splattering blood and the behemoth of a man as the source. Byleth knew this just as well as you. You were the definition of predictable on the battlefield.

But, the one thing you forgot was that, on a battlefield, nothing is predictable. To be able to predict the cavalier was able to reach you with his javelin was precautionary, week-one lessons, but, still, it sunk into your side. Unimaginable pain. The raw snap of impact. Warm blood cascading down your leg. Think… think! You had to get somewhere safe. Somewhere an imperial soldier wouldn’t finish you off. Hopefully, someone else would take care of that soldier before they reached you.

Each inch was crippling. The gathering of bushes and trees seemed so far, and your energy was slipping exponentially fast. You’d be out from blood loss in due time. It even began to drip from your mouth and onto the already stained grass. Almost there. The moment your foot crossed the threshold to the hideaway, you went lip on your back. Smoke and flames met the already decaying sky.

You glanced down your body. The javelin was at least a third in your body. Getting it out would just expedite the process, so you allowed yourself to lie your head back. Distant shouts and screams and metal clashing filled the air. The smell of the earth around you drowned out by the putrid scent of burning flesh. Something you never take note of while fighting for your life.

Peace was not a word to use in these places, but you had no other one to use as you lied still. Is this what Dimitri meant? You wondered what he would think and say when he heard, or even saw, your death. Your death. Another nameless, pointless death in Edelgard’s ruthless path to her goal. You can see Mercedes and Annie crying. Maybe even Sylvain and Ingrid. Felix, perhaps, would cry, but you were sure he’d be pissed at you. And Dimitri…

You sobbed. Perhaps you really were worthless, but you wanted to hope, to pray that he would be there each time you opened your eyes back to the gruel world around you. Each time, he wasn’t.

Until he was.

Blood dripped down his face, none of which was his own. It matted down his locks and dripped from each lock. Areadbhar glowed in his hand and dragged across the flattened grass and mud. The air was only able to jostle the very ends of his hair. His mouth opened, canines peeking from the corner of his lips. Leaving the smoke and fire behind him, Dimitri got larger and larger.

Goddess, he was beautiful. Even as he stared with an empty eye down at you, you couldn’t help but gasp. An angel of death. You moved to rise, but the rip of his lance on your breast pushed you back down. His eye traversed down your figure to your wound. The weapon rose and fell with your breath.

“Dimitri,” you breathed out.

“I told you, did I not?” His chin rose and Areadbhar’s tip dug just a hair deeper. “Foolish Y/N. You are too weak for the thick of battle.” You squeezed your eyes shut. “But you will not die by imperial hands. I will not allow it. If you are to die, it will be by my hands.” Your fists gripped the grass. Dimitri hummed. “You won’t say that I wouldn’t? Or do you finally realize the truth?”

“If you’re going to do it, just do it. Neither of us need this “ -you coughed -”stalling.” His elbow retracted and you winced, ready for the final blow.

“Y/N!” Sylvain. At the silence that followed, you peeked an eye open. Dimitri was focused on the source of the voice, giving you room to squiggle away until he forced the lance forward again. This time, the tip traced your left cheekbone. “Y/N!” Dimitri was daring you to speak, but, right now, you could hardly breath.

“You said you were not scared of me, before. Are you scared now?” He paused. “You said you want to see what I see. Do you keep your word? Do you honor it?” Were you supposed to answer? Fear crippled your ability to formulate words. “You will not die yet.” Areadbhar’s glow now dominated your left visual field.

In a second, everything in that field went black, and you screamed.

…

“I watched you go down,” Felix said. “You were at the higher ground, where you usually are in the midst of battle. You might as well have painted a target on your back if I can see you from across the plain, you idiot. That javelin went into your side,” amber eyes locked onto the bandages covering your side, “but I watched nothing touch your eye.”

Thank the goddess for Manuela and Mercedes. Without an expertise in white magic, you would be long dead. By the same token, thank the goddess for Sylvain who found you bloody and passed out in the cover of the bushes and delivered you to them on horseback.

Your fingers traced the bandages that wrapped around your head and covered your left eye. Everything to your left periphery and everything not covered by your right eye was black. It didn’t throb, didn’t hurt anymore, because there were no more nerves to send that pain to your brain.

“What happened, Y/N?” Ingrid cut in. Her, Felix, and Annette stood around your bed in the medical bed. You shook your head.

“I… I don’t remember. The last thing I recall is crawling towards the cover. I don’t even know if I got there.”

“Liar.” Felix abruptly stood. “Stop defending that boar, and just say it.” Your mouth opened, but Ingrid cut him off.

“Felix, are you saying you think Dimitri took her eye?”

“I know it,” he snapped back. “I’m right, aren’t I, Y/N? Just say it. Say that beast took your eye while we were all distracted in battle.” Your eyes glanced to the others, unconsciously asking for help.

“Felix, you’re adding unnecessary stress. Come on. We should give them space. We’re lucky they’re not dead” Her hand locked onto Felix’s arm. He grimaced, glaring down at you while he shook himself from her grip.

“When will you ever start caring about yourself? There is more death than just physical.” He spit out before stomping out of the room. Ingrid sent you a sympathetic smile and followed her childhood friend out. Annette left soon as well under the excuse of giving you time to rest, but you could not rest. Dimitri’s face haunted you every time your working eye closed. Every throb was its own lance. Its own mark.

His mark.

You thought you were crazy the first time you reflected on why you and Dimitri’s eye total was the same as a normal human being. You thought you were insane for romanticizing it. It was terrifying. Inhumane. To you, at least, but to him, you knew, it was a mark of possession. That when people saw you, thought of you, it would always be connected to him, but it was also a threat. Not only to those who dare try to do you harm that isn’t him, but to you. I told you. This is what you get and will continue to get.

You waited until the sun set, until the priests and priestesses would no longer be in your room to cry, so your pathetic cries of anguish would be bouncing off the walls in peace. Curling in on yourself, you buried your chin between your arms and stared into the dark room. Waiting and watching, a large silhouette emerged from the darkest corner and approached. Cold claws of his armor wiped away the tears on one cheek while simultaneously breaking the skin. You could only barely make him out through the moonlight in the open window next to you. Dimitri circled the bed, looking down at you from the side before bending down and planting his lips on your cheek. His warm tongue wiped at the newfound beads of blood, and you hissed at the contact. He separated himself just enough to look at the bandages around your eye.

“I get it,” you said. “I get it.”

…

Luckily (as lucky as you can get during the situation), the damage cut clean through the nerves, so all ganglion cells and connections to the optic nerve were completely severed. No nerves. No signal to the brain. No pain. Still, it would be a while before the tissue repaired and scabbed over.

You didn’t know what to do with Dimitri, frankly. Part of you was terrified to even approach him. Another was equally as terrified, but this was out of what he would do if you were with someone else again. You were sure of the correlation between your broken door and your stolen eye. You wonder, then, what else he could have seen? Sparring with Felix or advice sessions with Ashe or… too many instances come to mind.

Byleth pushed you to train more with your periphery severely impacted, and, when the time to march came, confined you to Garreg Mach until you were proficient enough not to get yourself killed.

“Good,” was all Dimitri said on the matter. It wasn’t until your assault into the Empire that Byleth deemed you ready for actual battle. Up until then, you spent your time training. First, it was with the knights, until all of a sudden they no longer desired to raise arms with you. Something about the demon over your shoulder. You looked to Catherine, who glanced to the door, where a large shadow quickly disappeared. You inhaled sharply and pursued.

“No one is willing to train with me. Do you have something to do with it?”

“They can’t help you,” he responded. He quickly strode down familiar, overgrown paths down to the fields below until you both reached the same field he had trained with you in years ago. Dimitri spun around, raising his lance. “They don’t understand.” From your blindspot, he swung, and you barely dodged out of the way, feeling the very wind from the force. “Get up and arm yourself.” You quickly shuffled to your feet.

“Why? Aren’t you… don’t you plan to kill me, anyway?”

“Equip yourself. I will not have filthy empire hands decide your demise, and I won’t have you staying behind on your own.” You gave up on trying to read into him. “Now, fight.”

It was brutal. Unlike the helpful and cautious nature of his corrections and demands, you learned through mistakes. If your leg got slashed, you moved it the next time. If you were pushed and forced to one side, you adjusted your posture for the next time. Dimitri gave you no breaks, no time to tend to the cuts and bruises he gave you. There was hardly time to catch your breath before he was charging again, forcing your back against a nearby oak. He seemed to not be bothered or fatigued at any point.

It would not be the first time your back was pinned against this very tree. Dimitri growled, his weapon lodged into the wood right behind your ear. A moment passed where it was five years ago, hands tight on your hips and heavy breaths swallowed by one another. Now, he pulled his weapon back and went in for another strike.

“It’s dark. I think we need to go back.”

“You think they will not use the guise of darkness? That we will always fight when the sun is out? Arm yourself.”

You limped back to Garreg Mach. The only real guide you had, with Dimitri’s brutal pace, was his footstep imprints and the sound of him pressing on. By the time you reached the gate, you nearly collapsed with Dimitri far ahead. Thank the goddess Anna was around to get help. Byleth’s dark cape flew behind them as they rushed through the market. They rushed you, as fast as you could go on weak legs, to the same bed you were confined to with your eye. Manuela dropped the elixir in her hand as you and your entourage busted through her door.

“Goddess, what happened?! No matter. Get them inside.”

Felix was going to kill you.

But still, when you were able, you met Dimitri again in the same field. And again. And again. Until you were no longer on the verge of death each nightfall when you returned. Your former housemates did not hesitate to chastise you or even micromanage you, but, inevitably, they had to do their own work, and you set off. Felix gave you an innumerable amount of choice words before it seemed he gave up.

You were confident heading into the empire. No opponent you would face, close up or far, was Dimitri. They were far smaller, thinner, and weaker. You’d even say they seemed to have less physical intent to kill you compared to the blonde. You traded in your bandages to a white eyepatch similar to Dimitri’s except there was still padding for the raw skin underneath. Something that inevitably drew enemy forces towards you.

“Y/N?” Despite the cruel, ruthless nature of battle, Ferdinand’s voice held the same noble gentleness. Your eye, wide and wild, met his. Across a stretch of corpses, the redhead stood tall, long hair matted down in the wind. You swallowed. “Y/N!” He called again, eyes wide behind you. In a split second, you turned to see an armored knight’s axe impending down on you. The next, a lance impaling them that breezed from over your shoulder.

“You killed your own man.”

“He almost killed you.” You hurried to dislodge his weapon from the body.

“...Thank you,” you muttered, handing the lance back to him. Your eyes rose to behind his shoulder. “F-Ferdinand!” Your warning came too late. Dimitri’s blunt force knocked him to the ground. There was no warning, no room for words, before the sickening sound of death cracked in front of you. Again… and again… and again. You squeezed your eyes shut.

“Keep your eyes open. This? Was your fault.” Blood splattered onto his pale features, adding to the pattern already decorating his skin. “Let’s go. Stay by me.” Not that you usually didn’t. Still, your legs would not move. Not with the fresh corpse between the two of you. “What?” Dimitri hissed out. “Are you upset? He was just another body in our way... unless it was something more to you?” You shook your head, taking a hold of your bow tighter. “Good. Let’s go.” Dimitri did not bother to even look back, and you… you could not even look down, and hurried to follow.

You didn’t sleep for days. Ferdinand’s kind smile on your mind. You did not dare tell anyone of his gruesome demise. Though, looking at the detail, the monstrous nature of it, it didn’t take too much thought to guess who was responsible for it. You couldn’t even bring yourself to celebrate Dedue’s return. The thing about him though was that he never let too many things go unnoticed.

“How are you?” He simply asked, and you lost it.

“-I couldn’t do anything. I-I couldn’t! Or… or I didn’t. Oh, goddess, I don’t know.” Your hands shook in front of you. “He can do what he will to me, but to others? Because of me? I… fuck. I couldn’t tell anyone. Felix and co. are already suspicious enough.”

“I am sorry. I know those words do not mean much now, but, for what it is worth, I am.” He paused, furrowing his brows and focusing on the ground. “I-,”

“Y/N.” Dimitri hulked in the doorway. Where the hell does he come from? Dedue stood promptly.

“Your Highness,” he greeted. Dimitri briefly regarded the Duscur man before focusing on you once again.

“Come,” he said, and you followed, wishing Dedue a small farewell. Dimitri’s cape glided against the concrete. He led you across the bridge and into the empty echoes of the cathedral. It was far too late for any priests or students to linger. Especially with Dimitri lurking around in the late hours. “You still think about him.”

“I still think about his death,” you carified.

“Do not tell me you mourn for a man who was going to imprison you.” You scoffed.

“He saved me.”

“In order to take you back to the empire for information. Who else would he like to obtain than the one he grew feelings for? Do not be so naive to think he saved you so altruistically.” Your teeth dug into your bottom lip.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. You and I both know how war works. Do you think Edelgard and her army would not use every former connection to get ahead? There is no line on the path to victory. Being weak, showing compassion, is just how you get killed. How the enemy wins.” You shook your head.

“You said you were going to kill me. Did you not save me for that reason? My death is the same no matter whose hands it is by. It will have the same impact. One less body between Edelgard and you.” Dimitri’s eye glanced downwards, then shot back up to meet yours with a small chuckle.

“Are you not already dead? Have you not already succumbed to the wills of those who control your mind? Have you not already become your own form of monster?” You shook your head and took a step back.

“N-no, I’m not.”

“You are not? You allow these cuts and bruises to litter your body. You allow your own eye to be stolen. You allow others to die. You allow all of this without consequence. You are a worse kind of monster: the one that allows another to live, to unleash without consequence. You hardly see the others anymore. You do not train with them, eat with them. They tend to your wounds and you run to get more.” Metal fingers gripped your chin and forced your head upwards. “I told you I would kill you, and I have.”

HIs kiss was fire compared to the ice of his armor pushing against you. All-consuming, Dimitri’s lips molded to yours and his teeth pierced your skin. He licked at your lips, and you willingly opened your maw to let him in. You willingly allowed him to drown you out, to push you towards a pew and lock you between his body and the wood. He only separated to breath before digging for more, more. His tongue dragged across your own and touched upon your teeth, tasting your intricacies with increasing vigor. He inhaled every exhale you panted into his mouth. These were not the kisses Dimitri five years ago gifted you.

“You taste the same…” he whispered. “Show yourself to me. Let us be dead together.”

#yandere fe3h #yandere fire emblem #fire emblem fic #dimitri x reader #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #yandere dimitri #yandere dimitri x reader #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd x reader #fire emblem x reader #fe16 #fe16 x reader #fe3h x reader #tw yandere #tw: yandere #tw injury #tw: injury

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watching-pictures-move · 3 years ago

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Put On Your Raincoats #32 | Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (Sexually)

Dracula Sucks is, as it sounds, a pornographic Dracula. It's not, in the vein of The Mad Love Life of a Hot Vampire, a porno with Dracula with a bunch of shit happening. I would also hesitate to call it a parody, even in that lazy modern porn sense (hey, do you want to see [pop culture character] fuck? well now you can! I mean, people aren't exactly lining up to see Renfield fuck), although there certainly is some humour. It's an actual adaptation, which is where much of its novelty comes from, for better or worse. It most recognizably borrows the template from the Tod Browning version and updates the setting to somewhere around the '30s, judging by the costumes. Why? My guess is that the filmmakers had access to costumes from that period and not from the Victorian era that the story is originally set in. But this does give it a welcome level of production values. The movie also benefits tremendously from being set in a real castle, even if it's one in middle of the California desert.

Now, part of the fun of of seeing a story that's been adapted this many times is to see what the cast brings to the table. As this is a '70s porn production and features, even by the standards of the genre, a pretty stacked cast. (Not a pun...although in the case of Kay Parker, I guess it is.) Now, some of the cast, like Annette Haven as Mina Harker, carry themselves with a certain elegance and look entirely at home in a Dracula movie, what with the flowy white robes and whatnot. (On average, the women fare better than men.) Others, like John Holmes, who plays a character named Dr. Stoker, absolutely do not belong in a Dracula movie. Were Holmes a more forceful an actor, he could have had the same effect as Joe Dallesandro in Blood for Dracula (whose thick New York accent matches his character's arrogance and sociopathy), but alas, he feels more like someone in a Saturday Night Live sketch. And yes, if you must know, the bite that turns him into a vampire is on his, uh, claim to fame. Some of the actors fall somewhere in the middle, like John Leslie and Kay Parker as Dr. Seward and his sister, in that they're good actors even if they never really feel of the period. (The two have a scene that anticipates Parker's landmark role in Taboo. It's still a shock to me how prevalent incest was in these movies, given that mainstream modern porn goes out of its way to avoid it.)

Which brings me to Dracula, who is played by Jamie Gillis with a beard. Gillis has been terrific in other films I've seen with him, but I never found he disappeared into this role. He models himself explicitly on Bela Lugosi and delivers much of the same dialogue in a decent approximation of his accent, but where Lugosi embodied a certain otherworldly quality, Gillis comes off like he's play acting the part. Let me put it this way: when watching Browning's Dracula, I can't shake the suspicion that Lugosi might be a real vampire, so Gillis, despite an admirable attempt, can't help but feel like a Dracula hired for a children's birthday party in comparison. He recreates Lugosi's confrontation with Edward Van Sloan's Van Helsing, the role here played by Reggie Nalder (who does not get to fuck), and the result is noticeably campier. (Nalder is one of those people who definitely feels at home in this movie.) I must also make note of Richard Bulik as Renfield, who resembles Matthew Modine and is certainly no Dwight Frye but makes an admirable attempt at that kind of manic performance, and Paul Thomas as Jonathan Harker, who seems to actually play the piano and sing in one of his scenes.

The movie is directed by Phillip Marshak, whose Night Train to Terror I did not enjoy and left me with the most maddening, painful earworm I can remember in quite some time ("Dance with me, dance with me..."). That being said, he does have a decent handle on horror imagery and produces some of the visuals you'd expect from a vampire movie. Lots of fog and bluish lighting, vampire women in white, flowy robes, and of course the castle giving everything a touch more atmosphere. The comedic elements feel awkwardly inserted in comparison (hence why I feel it's a stretch to call it a parody), but I did chuckle regularly, particularly the manner in which Dracula dispatches Harker. There's also a running gag involving the radio, and I did like the use the dialogue from another Lugosi film (I think it's The Devil Bat, but I could very well be mistaken). Truth be told, the movie is kind of a mess, but also more committed to being a Dracula story than you might expect, given the genre's track record. I understand there is a shorter, more explicit cut available (the version I watched runs 95 minutes and trims most of the sex scenes, although I wouldn't call it softcore given that penetration is shown), but given that the best parts of this are outside the sex scenes, I suspect that one is only preferable for the raincoat brigade.

Dracula Exotica I've seen referred to as a follow-up to Dracula Sucks, but aside from Jamie Gillis returning as Dracula (this time clean shaven, as he normally was; O Gillis' beard, we hardly knew ye!), it's a completely unrelated movie. This one starts centuries ago, when a pre-vampiric Dracula was courting a woman played by Samantha Fox, whose family didn't approve of him so she turned to God and he turned to debauchery. But one day in a drunken rage, in the middle of a debauched gathering (featuring such wildly ill-fitting actors for the period as Marlene Willoughby, who I liked as the dowdy neighbour in A Woman's Torment, and Ron Jeremy, who I instinctively try to shoo off the screen whenever I see him, although he does juggle in this), he rapes her, and then after she commits suicide, wracked with guilt, he condemns himself to vampirism. Now, rape scenes can be uncomfortable to watch and their presence in pornography has an added nauseating quality given that they're often meant to arouse, but I must note that I found Fox's performance in this scene dramatically effective.

The movie then jumps to present day (or 1979/1980, whenever this film was shot), and Dracula's home has been turned into a museum visited by another woman played by Samantha Fox. As we find out, Count Dracula is alive and well (or as alive and well as a guilt-ridden vampire can be) and finds himself in the middle of some international intrigue involving Romanian intelligence, the CIA (sorry, "F.I.B.", which stands for the "Federal Intelligence Bureau") and a smuggling ring run by Vanessa Del Rio. This is further complicated by the fact the Dracula develops feelings for Fox, who happens to be tasked with killing him. Will love conquer all? Or will Dracula's immortality end less ceremoniously? I wouldn't dare reveal the outcome, but will hint that a little bat guano goes a long way.

Now, as you can guess, this is far from a conventional vampire movie, but what surprised me was how well it fit together. Certainly, there are the requisite elements (spooky vampire women, crypts, fog; a few more foggy movies and I finally get that decoder ring), but they blend surprisingly smoothly with the thriller elements and seedy pre-cleanup NYC atmosphere. The mix of elements and modern setting also mean that this movie doesn't have the same issues with incongruous casting as Dracula Sucks aside from the first few minutes. I actually liked Gillis a lot more in this than in the other movie, largely because he seems to be playing an actual character in this rather than just doing a Bela Lugosi impression. Samantha Fox provides the film's emotional core, and is a performer I've grown increasingly fond of merely for her presence in movies (I've developed a fondness for certain vintage porn actors the same way I like seeing the same group of actors pop up in Italian horror movies). Eric Edwards plays her CIA (sorry, "F.I.B.") superior in the movie's shrewdest bit of casting, his square-jawed, slightly stodgy quality a perfect fit for the contemptible authority figure he's supposed to be, and he delivers lines like "Goodbye you fucking commie greaser" like he's spitting out chewing tobacco. (In a nice touch, he plays the entire role behind aviator sunglasses.) And of course, I must acknowledge the extremely forceful presence of Vanessa Del Rio, who does an exaggerated accent but later puts a racist cop in his place in a scene where she sports a corset and bat wings. She also wears a well chosen pair of glasses when disguised as Dracula's secretary, and folks, I'm not made of stone.

While at 100 minutes, it runs a little longer than I like from the genre, it clips along at a pretty steady pace, even if it takes over half the movie for Dracula to board the ship and come to America. This is the first film I've seen from Shaun Costello, and while I can't attest to how this compares to the rest of his work, I did feel the presence of a sure hand who'd made enough of these movies to know how to keep them engaging. Even when delivering the obligatory sex scenes, which seem devised for maximum variety (there's even one that caters to those who enjoyed the morgue scene in Bad Boys II), there is an enthusiasm and imagination present that makes them feel far from perfunctory. I must confess that I didn't find a lot of them arousing personally (and the aforementioned rape scene I found quite hard to watch), but the climactic scene between Gillis and Fox combines the emotional throughline of the story with the vampiric atmosphere in a way that's surprisingly erotic and artful.

#film #movie review #put on your raincoats #dracula sucks #phillip marshak #dracula exotica #shaun costello

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butwhatifidothis · 4 years ago

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Damn, does the writers waste Claude's potential. How about his support with Ingrid? Someone who has the crest his advisor shares the last name with, and part of a family that broke off from the Alliance to the Kingdom. The same Kingdom that the nobles wanted independence from? Or, how about gauging her xenophobia, since his main goal is to bridge both of his heritages, and maybe use the other foreign nations as stepping stones as ridding prejudices? No, just inferior Sylvain/Ingrid? Damn it all.

...Alrighty there anon you had me checkin’ my drafts to make sure I didn’t accidentally post the thing I’m workin’ on rn because it’s all about Claude’s wasted potential lmao had me sweatin’.

Got long so under the cut

But yeah, Claude’s supports with Ingrid are some of my least favorite in the game because of the big flashing opportunity IntSys had to make Ingrid’s hatred for Duscurians something more than a “ahh let’s just have one support deal with this, I’m sure only Dedue would have any problem with this”. Dimitri is also fine with his childhood friend hating another close friend of his just because of their race, I guess. I get it, you don’t want a repeat of FEA/Fates where a character has That One Trait that keeps getting brought up in nearly every support convo, but like... this is kinda big?? Ingrid has supports with two of the biggest opponents of discriminatory thought, one of them directly related to the people she hates, and it’s just... never brought up by either of them.

The only reason I give the Dimitri/Ingrid supports a pass somewhat is because what we get is still interesting, but my god her supports with Claude are just... bland. Uninteresting. The same basic “You act too much like [x] you should be [y]/Nooo wait you were better as [x] you’re fine the way you are” shtick with barely any twist or originality whatsoever.

To spoil some of that post I’m doing, I was thinking that this is actually a perfect opportunity to see some hints of Almyra’s culture? Hear me out: Claude says that cringey “You should smile more” line (after re-working it to be less... so demeaning - Claude is rarely so blatantly rude so it’s always felt strange to see that here, it’s like the writers forgot they weren’t writing Sylvain sometimes in this support) and Ingrid reacts the same way as she does, but instead of Ingrid continuing on from that, have Claude... be confused. Have that saying be cringey and demeaning to Fodlani people, but not Almyrans. Have him say something like “Whoa, did I say something wrong?” and genuinely mean it. Have Ingrid be mad and go along the lines of “Oh, you know what you said, don’t even try to play stupid!” but Claude’s just like... what.

Because look, the guy’s only been in Fodlan for a year! And it seems like most of that time was spent in some form of politics - we never hear otherwise and we know how actually busy Claude is working on his dream. Some things about casual Fodlan culture are sure to fall through the cracks when he’s actually living in it and not just being told how Fodlan is like, which is something I desperately wished 3H explored more. Think of it like a “you shouldn’t shake hands with a firm grip” sort of cultural difference. So from this point in the supports we can hear from Claude some things about Almyra as a response to some of the things Ingrid accuses him of: A noble doesn’t yawn in public? Well, maybe her nobles don’t, but that’s not to say that’s the same everywhere (wink wink nudge nudge), something along those lines. We can also see Ingrid’s reaction to these differing culture ideals: Confusion over how different it is? Curiosity over want knighthood entails for other cultures? A positive or negative reaction? I wanna see that!

Hell, we already kinda have that - Claude meditating in the morning is a legitimate practice of Zoroastrianism, an ancient religion originating in what is now Iran (to give a basic description, to say the least), which Almyra is partly based off of, for example. This isn’t the first time something related to Zoroastrianism is brought up with Claude, as seen with Annette’s supports (the fire ritual he describes closely mirrors the Chaharshanbe Suri, a practice of Zoroastrianism that celebrates the spirits of the dead - again, to oversimplify it), so it’s likely this is something Claude genuinely does and is genuinely part of Almyran culture.

Give us more shit like that! Or focus on her hatred of Duscurians and how Claude reacts to seeing that kind of hate up close! Or give us more Judith/ Kingdom and Alliance lore! That’s three topics this support could have chosen to focus on that are infinitely more interesting from a character and lore point than the played-out trope we’re given - but on the other hand, like, even that had potential to go somewhere! Claude and Ingrid pointing out the other’s flaws and genuinely trying to fix that part of themselves but failing despite their earnest efforts could have been something! There’s a reason people like that trope! But they both just give up and the support cops out with the “you’re perfect the way you were :)” when no they weren’t! They pointed out legit flaws! Claude does come across as empty and dishonest even when he’s trying not to and that lowers people’s view of him! Ingrid does come across as self-righteous even when she doesn’t mean to and that pushes people away from her! Those are not quirky lil’ personality traits, they actively harm their relationships with others! But nope, Claude and Ingrid have to have the “cute” relationship of bumbling husband and nagging wife but oh neve you worry they have kids so it’s totally a loving relationship (which is what their ending depicts them as - fun fact, this is the only ending Claude has that mentions him having kids!), so they couldn’t dare, oh I dunno, help each other develop past their flaws or anything. Ingrid couldn’t help Claude come across as more earnest (because if there’s one thing Ingrid is it’s that she’s extremely honest) and Claude couldn’t help Ingrid relax some, no they had to reenact a dynamic you’d see on fucking George Lopez

Just... yeah. Wish something better was done with them.

#ask #anon #will always be peeved at this support #so many things they could have gone with and they made these two an annoying sitcom couple #what a waste

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beyondthetower · 4 years ago

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Songs of Gronder Field (Annette x Felix)

Summary: Felix runs to Annette after the post time-skip battle at Gronder Field

Characters/Pairing: Annette x Felix

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: Spoilers for Azure Moon maybe?

A/N: Way more angst than I was intending oops. Inspired by this beautiful art piece by @meintaiko! I’m obsessed with this art piece and it got my Netteflix feelings raging.

Nobody had known about them. He liked it that way. In all honesty, even Felix wasn’t sure he knew what they were. There had been a few moments of weakness; moments when the soft, cheerful sounds of Annette singing would drift into his path and momentarily cause a crack in his carefully built walls. He had tried to poke fun with his dry, sarcastic remarks, but after years of being apart he found himself seeking her voice out when he walked around the monastery. Until he finally got found out, hiding outside of the greenhouse, listening to her sing and wanting nothing more than to sit with her while she did it.

Of course, he regretted her knowing it. Telling her had been another moment of softness that made him angry at himself. But when she noticed him standing outside, watching the sky as he listened to her soothing voice, he was too flustered to lie. She hadn’t laughed at him, really. And she continued to sing for him. But other than that, he hadn’t seen her too much. He avoided her most of the time. Unless she was alone where he would sit with her and listen to her work, occasionally answering her questions or chuckling at her clumsiness.

He liked what they were. He liked that she never questioned him, or pestered him, but rather just let him find her when he needed to. He liked that she would find too, when he locked himself away at the training grounds alone. She would curl up on the stone wall, studying, and wait patiently for him to come sit quietly with her. When he did, she hummed absent-mindedly to herself. She didn’t force conversation. It was easy. It was unattached. He liked easy and unattached.

War, it seemed, changed him. After the professor had disappeared all of the Blue Lions had parted ways. He had gone back to Fraldarius territory to help his father hold back the Empire troops. Annette had spent some time with Ingrid in Galatea territory before making her way back to Fhirdiad. The change that occurred in her absence wasn’t exactly obvious at first. It hadn’t hit him until he saw her again at Garreg Mach: he had missed her.

He noticed it first in his fighting. His technique had changed. Specifically, it had gotten worse. His footwork was sloppy, his mind was foggy, and he found himself anxious at the idea of going back into battle. This day was no exception. The one thing he had been training for all his life and here he was, standing in the middle of Gronder Field, on the verge of tears.

A post-battle hum had settled over the landscape. Patches of high grass simmered in smoke left over from the attacks between former classmates.

Classmates.

They had been his classmates. He had sparred with them, eaten lunch with them. He had watched them dance to stupid songs across the floor of the reception hall and listened to stupid gossip about the Goddess Tower.

Now his sword was stained with their blood.

Felix turned to face what was left of his own army. He had been used to a similar feeling in their Academy days: glancing around to make sure that bandits hadn’t gotten the best of Ingrid or Sylvain or even Dimitri. This time was different though. This time his eyes seemed to have an acute focus that he couldn’t pin down. That was, until he saw her.

Out in the distance, Annette stood up from behind a cluster of boulders, dusting off her arms and calling out to Mercedes who hurried over and hugged her fiercely. Felix’s breath caught in his chest, and a weird mixture of relief and unmanageable fear sprang through his veins. He hadn’t talked to her much since the reunion. But as he saw Annette standing there, apparently given a clean bill of health from Mercedes, he absentmindedly moved toward her. He hadn’t realized he had been running, not until he was close enough to see the surprise in Annette’s face as he got closer. The blue-green currents of her eyes flinching and startled.

Without thinking, Felix threw his arms around her.

She was so small, he realized. He himself wasn’t a large guy, but she fit so perfectly against his chest. His arms wrapped around her in the kind of bear hug that illustrated the fierce protection he often felt over her. Hee realized as he held her that her protection hadn’t been his motivation for crashing into her now; it was his own.

“Felix-” Annette said quickly.

He said something back, his words muffled by her hair. She looked around with wide eyes, realizing that people were staring. Mercedes had excused herself, turning her back to them and trying to distract Sylvain and Ingrid as they limped toward them in confusion. Ashe had made his way over, doing a double take but trying to make himself busy with his bow.

“What?” Annette said, realizing she hadn’t made out what he had said.

Felix pulled away, his hands still grasping her waist. “Sing something,” he said sharply. “Anything, that stupid swamp beastie song I don’t care just-” His voice cracked, and he squeezed his eyes shut while the shame of weakness washed over him. Shame that only began dissipating when he felt the soft touch of a hand on his cheek.

When he opened his eyes he was surprised to see that his vision was blurred. He blinked a few times, hoping it would clear the fog from his sight, but was horrified to see that it had only shaken free tears from his eyelashes that landed on Annette’s cheek.

“Hey,” she said. “It’s okay.”

Felix shook his head angrily, suddenly aware of the heat rising in his cheeks and the eyes of his classmates staring from a few yards away. Feet shuffled around him, making him horribly aware that people could see them. He was careless. He had let his guard down. In front of his classmates for that matter. Classmates that, yes, were allies, but could very easily be enemies. He had learned that quickly. Anyone could turn against you. Anyone could use those weaknesses against you. Should any of his so-called friends turn against him they would have that weakness. His weakness. Her.

Felix felt his knees buckled underneath him. He steadied himself on the boulder behind him and didn’t protest when Annette reached for him again. She hovered over him, cradling the back of his head with one hand and steadying him with the other.

For the first time, at least the first time in his recent memory, Felix let himself fall apart. His forehead fell against Annette’s shoulder, and through his shaking breaths he could feel the tears continue to fall, sinking into the fabric of her jacket. He hated the way it made him feel: small and fragile and weaker than he was supposed to be. His brother had died in battle for heaven’s sake. He knew the reality of war. He had trained his entire life for the kind of battle he had been through that day. So why did it feel so hard?

There had been a darkness, he realized, that had seeped its way into his world. It had always been there, he was sure, lurking around the corner and waiting for his breaking point. Waiting for Duscur.

When Glenn died it took root in his soul. It grew around his bones and built him that sturdy armor of emotional distance that made him the kind of warrior he strived to be. It had come full circle, it seemed. It had sniffed out this momentary lapse in sturdiness--the wavering fear he felt in killing those he used to call peers--and was ready to strike it down. He could feel himself blooming into something different. Something dark. Something he wasn’t sure he wanted.

But then there was a splinter of light. And Annette’s voice broke through the cracks of his armor again. “It’s okay,” she breathed. Her breath was warm on the back of his neck, bringing him back to that post-battle stillness. Bringing him back to something that felt more like himself.

Felix tried to bury himself deeper into her shoulder. Crawling further into this new, safe, space that felt like home. He didn’t want that darkness to take hold. He didn’t want those roots to grow. He had found a new safeguard that she had planted and tended with those stupid songs and her cheerful laugh and the soft way she touched him.

“Oh how I just love to clean, clean the Library room…”

Felix could feel the pounding in his chest dissipating. His breath, labored as it was, started to regulate again. Annette stroked his hair in slow steady movements and he tried to match his breaths with it. He could feel her cheek pressed against his temple, her He listened as she sang about blowing up the library and almost smiled.

“It’s a stupid song,” Felix said quietly. He felt a shift and an exhale that sounded like an attempt at a laugh.

“Would you rather something else?” she countered. “Maybe one of the Saint Hymns?”

“No,” he told her. And he meant it.

Felix could feel her smile against his skin. She pressed a small kiss to his hair and went on with her song. He traced his thumb in small circles on her back as his hands hung limp against her coat. Having her within arms reach, within earshot, was enough to bring him back toward himself.

The war wasn’t done. There were sure to be plenty of other battles like this one, scary enough to shake him to his core. But maybe...maybe if he could still be near her, still be close enough to hear her voice or to call out when he needed her, that would be enough to get him through it.

#annette fantine dominic #felix hugo fraldarius #netteflix #fe3h #fire emblem three houses #felix x annette #annette x felix #fe3h fanfic #blue lions #gronder field angst am i right?#fire emblem fanfiction

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irandrura · 4 years ago

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Now, just for fun, I’m going to list everyone I recruited and give some brief thoughts on each one. If I spend more time on a person, it’s because I found them more interesting, or did more supports, or the like.

I did go a bit overboard recruiting people, but I feel validated by that decision considering the number of people I might have had to kill otherwise. As it is I only had to kill two people I didn’t want to – Lorenz and Caspar; Linhardt also appeared but I was able to avoid him – and while I’m sad, especially since I should have gotten Caspar for the paralogue with Mercedes and the Death Knight, it could have been a lot worse.

I will, however, skip the four DLC kids, since apparently you need to start their supports in White Clouds, I missed them, and didn’t feel like going back. So I don’t have the content there.

Here we go:

Byleth: I covered some of my thoughts on him in the post on Jeralt. I wouldn’t say that I dislike Byleth as such, but because Byleth has no dialogue and has few definite character traits beyond “doesn’t show emotion much” and maybe “likes being a teacher”, there isn’t much to work with. I suppose I find Byleth a serviceable enough player avatar protagonist, but if I were writing fan fiction or anything, I think I would need to work hard to develop a memorable personality for Byleth. As it is, Byleth only works because you imagine yourself in his or her shoes.

Sothis: I was originally quite worried about Sothis, since I thought she might be too sexualised. Fire Emblem has a bit of a tradition of uncomfortable loli characters, but fortunately in the game itself Sothis was not that bad, and definitely walks back the creepiness level from someone like Nowi. Instead it felt a bit more like Byleth was playing the same role as Micaiah, with a child-like fragment of the goddess accompanying him. I suspect other routes do more with Sothis, though, because on this route, you could probably cut Sothis from the game entirely without losing much. Azure Moon seems to be the route that is least interested in the history of the goddess, so I should not judge too prematurely.

Dimitri: The hero of this route, even if he sometimes feels like an anti-hero, or even just a psychotic maniac we unfortunately have to deal with. Of the three house leaders, I think it’s fair to say that Dimitri looks the most like a traditional FE protagonist, but as it shakes out, he might be one of the least. He seems to be quite straitlaced, reliable, and even bland at the start, but a lot of that turns out to be a cover and he goes on a real emotional journey, I suspect to a much greater extent than the other two. I do think his emotional arc goes a bit too fast and the game should have spent more time on it, but it was still a good idea, and I genuinely appreciate just how messed up and traumatised Dimitri is. He has issues, he suffers, he runs off into the wilderness and talks to ghosts, but I like it. I feel like he validates the idea that it’s okay to not have everything together. For him, overcoming his demons was the real triumph, and defeating the Empire was just a coda.

Dedue: He reminds me quite a bit of the Tellius games, with their overall subtheme of selfless service and lord/vassal relationships. Like Dimitri, he has issues, but because he’s such a quiet and reserved person, it can be easy to miss them. I suspect he’s a very easy character to misinterpret as well, both IC and OOC, where the temptation for Westerners to interpret him in terms of contemporary racial politics is going to cause problems. But ultimately I quite liked him, and felt that his faithful service really ennobles the person he serves. My one concern or regret around Dedue is that he isn’t present during the period of Dimitri’s madness, so we never get to see how his dedication to his lord might be tested. Would he enable or even encourage Dimitri’s instability? On the other hand, it seems like the belief that Dedue was dead was a major contributor to Dimitri’s madness in the first place, so perhaps if he’d been around, he would have held his friend back from the brink.

Felix: I like that Felix never stops entirely being an asshole. As time goes by his abrasiveness seems less important, and you get a better understanding of why he feels the way he does, but he’s still a bit of a jerk even to the very end, and that’s part of who he is. I also appreciate that he plays a useful role in being the only Blue Lion who actively dislikes knights and chivalry, so he’s important for the way he can provoke the others into justifying themselves. After all, the Blue Lions are a bit of a knight fan club, and he provides some contrast. Nonetheless, for all his scowling, he is a faithful retainer and can be relied on.

Ashe: He’s just a sweetheart, really. A commoner background contrasts nicely with the others, his lockpicking skill is useful, and he’s just generally very genuine and kind. Plus his appearance and voice-acting sell that he’s a bit younger than the others and on the callow side. I feel like he’s one of the characters who grows most in overall maturity, and his journey towards knighthood is probably the longest. He was a character I relied on a lot and I never got tired of him taking down the boss with a single arrow from halfway across the map. In my playthrough he ended up together with Petra and I am sure the knightly order they create will go on to be fantastic.

Sylvain: I’m a little confused by Sylvain. Early on it seems like he irrepressibly flirts with every girl he sees and always gets dumped, but later on, in part two, he clarifies that girls constantly flirt with him because they want to marry into a bloodline with a crest. It seems like it can’t be both ways? I suppose the best reading might be that Sylvain constantly flirts with strangers, who don’t know his heritage or his crest, while rejecting advances from people who do know about them, because what he really wants is someone who loves him as a person, not as a mere opportunity to increase in social status. For someone who seems so cheery and laid-back on the outside, he actually has some real problems beneath it all. That said, at times I was a bit suspicious of the translation: there are a few opportunities to call him a jerk, and I wonder if those were added, since otherwise his flirting seems like it’s presented as harmless, fun, or even a charming character quirk.

Mercedes: I didn’t think a whole lot of Mercedes at first: the caring healer character appears in a lot of FE games, she didn’t seem to put much of a twist on it, and I found her voice acting a little stilted at first. I suppose, to be fair, a soon-to-be-ordained friend of mine has a similar cadence, so it’s possible, but it did throw me off a little. For the most part I found Mercedes very reliable and my primary healer/mage, but I think a more full judgement of her character will need to wait until I do her paralogue with Caspar. Her family background and relationship with the Death Knight seem key to understanding her.

Annette: The translators and voice actor were clearly having fun with her dorky improvised songs, and I love them. They’re great. That said, Annette didn’t really come alive for me as a character until she got to interact with Gilbert. He’s probably a more interesting character than she is, really, but their relationship is what makes them both start to stand out. Overall I find her likeable and reliable, but, Gilbert aside, not one of the most fascinating characters on the roster.

Ingrid: Again, a quite straightforward character in many ways. She wants to be a knight. She trains hard. She becomes a knight. Okay. I did find it a bit odd that even at the end of the game she still talks about wanting to be a knight, even though she’s spent the last few missions entirely in the Falcon Knight and Holy Knight classes, has battled across the continent at the side of her liege, and has defeated countless enemy champions. Eventually I wanted to ask her, “What more could you possibly need to do before you’re a knight?” There is some drama around marriage and social expectations for her as well, and it surprised me that it took her so long to figure out that she could be a knight and serve her family. Her family don’t want a political alliance through marriage or anything: it is specifically money and resources that they need. Knighthood seems like a career that can bring you great wealth – plunder, ransoms, tournament rewards, etc. – so it seems like knighthood, no less than marriage to a wealthy noble after a crest, could be a path to restoring her family’s fortunes. (Also, she was the one I S-supported, so I suppose the marriage plan worked out anyway. *shrug*)

Ferdinand: Everything about him is laser-focused on this question of, “What is nobility?” At times it got a bit tedious, and I wanted him to just shut up about being a noble for five minutes. However, while he laid it on a bit thick sometimes, what I like about him is the way that his character development seems like it could really change based on which route he ends up in. After Edelgard declares war and dispossesses his father, he has a really interesting choice to make: take up arms against her and join the resistance, or accept her offer of rank and power in the Empire. Since I recruited him at the very last minute, in the last month before the assault on the monastery, I might have imagined him struggling with that choice, and I like to picture him debating the importance of visible rank and status to the nobility that he tries so hard to achieve. I could easily imagine him going either way on that choice, believing in Edelgard’s vision or passionately warring against it, and that to me made him much more interesting.

Bernadetta: Her voice actor was clearly having a ton of fun. The energy she brought to the role made the character very entertaining to listen to. That said, I feel bad for her: her extreme social anxiety is sometimes played for laughs, but knowing that it’s the result of an abusive childhood makes it quite a bit less funny. Oddly my favourite support with her was Bernadetta/Sylvain, mainly because of the supports that I saw, he was the only one who made a serious attempt to respect her boundaries and to communicate with her in a way she would find comfortable. Seriously, writing her a letter and tucking it into a book was quite clever and sensitive of him... even if he ruined it by just walking up afterwards and saying hello.

Dorothea: Judging from the online stats the game showed on loading screens, Dorothea must be one of the most popular characters in the game, and was deployed almost every mission. This makes it a bit awkward that I never really deployed her at all, or focused much on her. I don’t have anything against her, and she seems interesting enough, but I suppose I already had enough mages and other people were higher priority. Oh dear. Maybe next time. She seems to be a popular choice for the dancer class, but since I made Marianne my dancer…

Petra: On the other hand, I did like Petra a lot, built her as an assassin, and got a lot of use from her. I wonder what her odd speech pattern is in Japanese? Looks like in Japanese she misunderstands idioms, rather than misuses the present continuous tense. At any rate, I really like the role Petra plays in worldbuilding, since her status as an outsider taken to the empire to be educated as a hostage serves to characterise both Brigid and the empire itself. Like Ferdinand, I also think she’s in a fascinating position where she could plausibly end up either pro- or anti-empire. I enjoyed being able to fight for freedom and self-determination, but I could also see her buying into Edelgard’s vision of a reformed empire. That sort of flexibility seems really valuable in a game with different routes like this.

Raphael: Unfortunately another character I recruited only at the last minute and didn’t get to spend that much time with. The fact that I avoided brawlers probably didn’t help. However, from what I did see, I liked that they included a character who genuinely struggles with his studies, and I also thought it interesting that he presents yet another character who wants to be a knight, but for a totally different reason. Ashe has a romantic view of knighthood; Ingrid has a relatively romantic view as well but also thinks of fighting for her ideals; Felix outright hates knighthood and chivalry as a bunch of lies. In contrast, Raphael’s pragmatism is a little refreshing. He just wants to support his family, given his strength fighting seems like a good way to do it, and knighthood promises more stability than mercenary work. Good for him.

Ignatz: And yet another character thinking about knighthood, albeit again for a different reason. He doesn’t want to be a knight as such, but has to because it’s his duty. At times even I got a bit sick of the game constantly talking about knighthood, but the wide range of opinions on it was definitely a good thing. Alas, all Ignatz wants to do is paint and worship the goddess. Sadly I used Ashe as my main archer, so I didn’t see as much of Ignatz as I might have liked. Another playthrough, then.

Lysithea: See above, really. I get the impression she’s a quite popular character, but as with Dorothea, I already had a few mages and didn’t have much need for her. I’m guessing she would have a lot more importance on a route where her backstory with what are presumably creepy Slitherer magical experiments is more relevant? As it is, sorry, I just didn’t see that much. Young, likes sweets, ambitious in order to help her family because she hasn’t got long to live… but that’s about all I got.

Marianne: On the other hand, I did use Marianne quite extensively. She was my backup healer after Mercedes, and she was my dancer, so she was very useful. (Some might say it was cruel to make her dance in public: I thought it might help build her confidence!) Her paralogue also stood out to me as one of the most interesting and fun. At first I thought her self-loathing might be irrational or a symptom of depression, but it turns out that she actually has quite an understandable reason for thinking that she’s awful and that no one should ever get close to her. Bringing peace to her ancestor and giving her the opportunity to increase her confidence and bloom as a person was very heartwarming. Her character arc gave me some WAFFy feelings, and I enjoy that sometimes.

Leonie: It’s weird to me that a character defined by her relationship with Jeralt, the player’s father, is so easy to miss recruiting. Nonetheless I did pick her up, because I love cavaliers and use far too many of them. Still, most of the other cavaliers were nobles, which made Leonie’s role as a mercenary knight a nice change. I think it might have worked better, though, if I’d known a bit more about the role of mercenaries in Fódlan. Are there mercenary companies? How do they usually find work? It would have been nice to know a bit more about the world that Byleth supposedly comes from, and which Leonie is so keen to break into.

Seteth: I was not a big fan of Seteth at first, but he grew on me, which surprises me particularly since I was on a route that never actually explains what his deal is. I feel like every long-term series fan, on meeting Seteth and Flayn, must have gone “oh they’re dragons”, because they fit that archetype just so closely, but somehow I got through the entire arc without anyone figuring it out. Nonetheless, while he starts off as quite suspicious of you, and even hostile, I enjoyed how further supports gradually humanised him. Seteth/Felix or Seteth/Ingrid, for instance, stood out to me as nice: the older man going out of his way to give practical advice to someone who’s still sorting himself or herself out. He’s a good mentor. I know often the thing people remember about Fire Emblem is the young protagonists and the shipping and so on, but sometimes it’s the older, more mature characters that I find the most interesting.

Flayn: In contrast, I did not find Flayn as interesting as Seteth. She’s a nice enough person, and the enthusiasm of the Flayn/Dedue support was cute, but ultimately I didn’t see that much of her. Mercedes and Marianne were my primary healers, and Byleth had a high Faith skill as well, so I didn’t need another one and didn’t take her along that often. I hope there are more depths, because as it is, I wasn’t that struck by her.

Hanneman: Another character I generally did not take along, so most of what I learned about Hanneman was around crests and his scientific curiosity. I think Hanneman supports my previous speculation that Fódlan might be starting on an intellectual renaissance at the time of the game. He is the Father of Crestology, even though crests have been known for a thousand years. That suggests that the organised, academic study of such matters is in its infancy.

Manuela: Again, not someone I looked at too closely, and her most obvious character trait, her romantic loneliness, could be a little bit cringeworthy at times. I would have to do more supports and look more closely at her to form a stronger opinion. The parts that I found most interesting with regard to her were about her history with the opera. Her relationship with Dorothea seems like it might reveal some more about both of them, but alas I didn’t use each character much.

Gilbert: On the other hand, I did use Gilbert quite a lot, since Dedue went missing for a while and I needed a substitute tank. Gilbert is clearly a loyal man who has suffered an immense amount, especially under the weight of guilt and self-doubt. It’s striking that he abandoned his family and homeland and fled to the church in order to assuage the weight of guilt he felt for the king’s death; but in the end the separation from his family only intensified feelings of guilt and unworthiness. Nonetheless, despite being a man who’s really screwed quite a lot up, he stoically tries to coordinate the Faerghus war effort, even when Dimitri is in his worst state. I was very glad to eventually get the Annette/Gilbert paired ending, as a valuable reminder that even at Gilbert’s age, it is possible to start healing and putting your life back together.

Alois: I really only got the Byleth support with Alois, so I don’t have that much to say. His cheery optimism is a nice change after a lot of the other faculty and knights are either serious or sad, and I enjoy horrible puns as much as the next man, but I think I need to see more.

Catherine: Speaking of cheery knights, Catherine’s rough-and-tumble confidence is also pretty appealing. Unlike the students, Catherine is strong and she knows that she’s strong, with a confidence that comes of years of fighting. What I saw of her personality I generally liked, and I learned a bit about her history, but I’m going to hold off on any further comments until I get some more context for her and Rhea. She is obviously incredibly devoted to the archbishop who saved her life, and in some ways seems to have reinvented her life from who she was before (cf. Dedue, the loyal service theme again), but I think I should need to see a route where Rhea plays a larger role before I come to conclusions.

Shamir: I like Shamir quite a lot, and she might be my favourite of the knights, even though she doesn’t have much to do with the actual plot. Her outsider status is the most striking thing about her: unlike pretty much everyone else, she has no personal investment in Fódlan or its politics, which frees her to focus on the needs of the moment. I would like to know a bit more about Dagda and Brigid, to be honest, but I suspect I’ve seen all there is to see already...

Cyril: Unfortunately I never used him. I can tell that he’s the Est of the game, a young character who probably has excellent growths and can excel in any class, but my roster felt pretty complete by the time I got him, he didn’t seem like he had interesting relationships with other characters that I might want to explore, and he’s so young that I feel uncomfortable making him a soldier. I can completely accept that there might be really good material around him, perhaps especially on the Golden Deer route where Almyra might come up, but as it is I don’t know any of it.

Anna: Yep, she’s Anna. Not much to say. Anna is always the same character, and Fódlan’s Anna doesn’t seem particularly special or unique.

…phew, that took much longer than I thought. These games and their giant casts, man.

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floopsboopdedoops · 4 years ago

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17, 18, and 19 for the FE3H asks please!

*sighs heavily* Welp, time to get destroyed for these....Please be kind to me, I have Opinions and am gonna ramble a lot oop ldkjfdlsk

17. Rank the Black Eagles from your favorite to least favorite. 1. FERDINAND VON AEGIR! My sunshine boy, I love him so much, he’s just such a delight. He’s just so endlessly optimistic and kind and I??? My heart??? Anyway I love he :) 2. Petra, somewhat surprisingly. I love that she’s doing her best to adjust when she’s functionally a political prisoner (because yeah, she is ;-;), and I want the best for her. and also she’s cute and i love her hair but that’s besides the point 3. Hubert! I mean, I run a blog for this guy, so I have to have him near the top lololol - I love this awkward broody boy, even if sometimes I wanna shake him and go YOU HAVE A LIFE OUTSIDE OF EDELGARD, JUST LET YOURSELF HAVE ONE 4. Dorothea! Absolute QUEEN both pre and post timeskip (even if my heart hurts for her post timeskip), I love her lots. I would happily watch her performances even if I have the attention span of a goldfish </3 5. Caspar! He’s very excitable and fun, and honestly I relate with the whole “I wanna fight EVERYTHING” mindset - even if I’m the biggest coward around LMAO 6. Bernie! I love her lots, and I wanna give her a hug, but Intsys...siiighs...The way she was handled could’ve been a lot better, yknow? 7. Linhardt’s...there. I used to like him a lot more, but now he sure is there. I do relate to the constant sleepiness though. 8. Edelgard...ohhhh Edelgard. I can’t really say I hate her, but she is Far from my favorite. It’s mostly her ideologies and actions that make me really dislike her, even if I can appreciate her as a character. Maybe I’ll go into it some other time, but I’ve rambled enough already.

18. Rank the Blue Lions from your favorite to least favorite. 1. DIMITRI MY BELOVED...I love my boy so much I want to give him the world and the happiness he deserves. My heart absolutely broke for him post timeskip, and I will never not be mad about his VW fate. NEVER. 2. Ashe!! Soft sunshine boy...I want to give him hugs n happiness and I love his supports so much ;w; 3. Dedue!! I jus...I jus want him to not have to constantly restrain himself and be able to express himself and share his culture....he’s such a good boyo... 4. Annette! Lil sunshine gal...I love her songs and how absolutely cheery she is! ...I would absolutely kill Gilbert for her 5. Felix! He’s one grumpy boyo, but I do love him - even if someone needs to get him to take anger management classes. Badly. Very Very Badly. 6. Mercedes! She’s so soft and nice...I love her lots. I kinda wish I had more to say, but I don’t unfortunately - I just love how soft n kind she is sdklfjkds. 7. Sylvain...I care him, but GOD does this boy need to drink his Respect Women juice. Badly. I do have a soft spot for him though, deep down. Even if I wanna strangle him sometimes KJDLFKJS 8. Ingrid....ohhhh Ingrid. I know you’re traumatized, and your dad’s a bitch, but like. You’re not that great. I’m sorry to Ingrid-lovers but I cannot tolerate her racism(or homophobia....or implied transphobia in the Japan version...) and that’s of the stuff I remember.

19. Rank the Golden Deer from your favorite to least favorite. 1. CLAUDE, OF COURSE CLAUDE IS NUMBER ONE. His route was the first one I picked, so of Course I have a soft spot already. And then he’s just?? This amazing boyo I wanna love and support forever??? Like hello that is my BOY, wanting to End Racism!! 2. RAPHAELLLL MY BOY!! He’s a goof and a himbo and he’s a very loveable goof and a himbo. He’s just so nice?? Like he might not use his brain often but by GOD does he use his heart and I love it. There isn’t enough Raphael love around here and I am very sad about it. 3. Marianne!! Boy do I just want to give this poor girl a HUG, she really deserves it. I just wanna tell her that she deserves love and support before giving her said love and support yknow sobs 4. Ignatz!! Anxious artist son...Even if sometimes I wanna shake him and tell him not to blame himself and to believe in himself more, I’m always following that up with giving him love and support because he deserves it ALWAYS. 5. Hilda! I love her lots, yknow? Shes vibing and I love her for it....Eeeeeven if her racist moments make me cringe. A lot. Like girl, please, think before you speak 6. Lysithea! I feel so bad for her, honestly? Her backstory just makes me hurt, and the fact that most of her ending cards seem to end with her dying early on?? Just um...her attitude in the Academy phase really, really irks me. She really needs therapy (like most of the kids in Fodlan in seems...). 7. Leonie...I’m sorry, I know she’s probably not that bad. In fact, she’s probably really good! Just...god does her B support with Byleth really kill whatever good feelings I might’ve had for her. I’m still trying to give her a second chance, just...the timing and what she says don’t help her at all. 8. Lorenz...I will concede that he’s much better post timeskip than he is during the Academy phase. But for the most part, his attitude during the Academy phase just got on my nerves to the nth degree. Also doesn’t help he’s got the weirdest face + haircut I ever did see KLJSDLFKJSDKLFJS

#floops speaks #ask game #answered #song-of-faerghus #fe3h #THANKS FOR JUST. POSTING ON ME LIKE THAT...#anyway hello! nice to see ya here kjsfksjd #rip to lorenz edelgard and ingrid...#tbh there's other reasons to why lorenz is at the bottom but uh #i aint getting into that kdfjlskdjfsd

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izayoichan · 5 years ago

Photo

“Done…, You can go Rylan, and you Carl, you get to see the boss.” “Oh... I am going to kill him!”

He tries to stand to have his legs not work, slumping back down, with a sight, still angry at what he just saw happen.

“As soon as he comes closer…”

Vy makes Hayden sit down, glaring daggers at Carl, for pulling that shit and making both Rylan and Hayden upset, he gets up and walks to Carl, realizing Carl's taller than him only when he stands right in front of him.

“Stop!” “And what are you going to do little one?”

He looks at Vy, realizing he thought the same off Hayden earlier and was punched to the ground, still, this little one he can't see as very dangerous having noticed him look scared all day long

“Vy... don't..”

He has to admit he is pretty impressed with him walking up to Carl like that, but also worried what it might bring in return. Vy Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Rylan standing there.

“Not worth it, not in the least, come on, let’s just get ready to head back home.”

Vy glares at Carl, but he knows well he's not violent by nature, he looks back at Rylan then back at Carl.

“This is not how you gain someone's heart, this is how you push it away. You're being a creep! What you're doing is harassment and I am pretty sure illegal! I know, I have read it. Rylan and everyone here can sue you. If you keep being like this, someday you're going to need someone and you'll have no one left to help you. You're going to end up alone!”

He turns his back on Carl.

“You're not even worth getting in trouble over it, but if you upset my friends again, I am suing you for harassment!

He doesn't really know how to sue someone but he is sure mister Chris will help him, as he walks back to Hayden, wanting nothing more to do with the asshat that is Carl, Carl shakes his head and walks towards Annette’s office, knowing deep down that the little one is right in pretty much everything he said, Marie, catching him, and making him change before he goes to the office.

“Thanks though Vy. I'll just go change, and I'll come back here while Madelene is fixing our pictures.”

He smiles at both as he walks to his side of the changing room, shaking his head slightly.

“I thought he was going to hit you for a second… “

He pulls Vy into the sofa with him, holding him close.

“My brave guardian dragon.” “I was going to hit him, but I don't like hitting people, so I did what mister Hayle said, and looked him in the eyes and his eyes look hazy like he's not all there…”

They reminded him of Rylan's eyes did when he was lost somewhere in the distance until he snapped back by Vy calling him, but he didn't say that part. Not that that excused Carl from being a meany

“I was angry, and stupid really. It worked because it surprised him.”

He smiles at Vy.

“Pretty sure my hand hurt for weeks after.

He finishes changing, just standing in front of the mirror for a while, trying to wipe away the taste of Carl on his lips, making him feel sick to his stomach.

“He is wrong... “

He sighs and shakes head as he walks out to Vy and Hayden. Hayden smiles at Vy just holding his hand, noticing Rylan as well and noticing Maire leading Carl towards an office where he assumes Annette is.

“So, the pictures Madelene took of us?” “She'll probably be here with her laptop soon, to show you so you can choose the ones you want to be printed.”

He smiles and sits down on the sofa, happy to have them both therewith him, it makes not thinking easier.

“If you are still good to wait that is?”

Vy looks at Hayden then Rylan, then back at Hayden.

“How are you feeling? Think we can wait?” “I think we can wait.”

He smiles at Vy and pulls him into his arms, Rylan about to say something when Madelene comes walking over, sitting between him and Vy with her laptop.

“Okay, then boys, time to pick and choose, and I know one your parents will love to have!”

She chuckles and holds the laptop so they can all see, the one she clicks first is of all three of them, looking very sharp and fancy.

“Wow.. we look, fancy” “Yeah... we have to get that one framed and give it to our parents one day, like randomly out of the blue!

He almost said Christmas but stopped himself as the last Christmas was a fairly miserable thing with everyone too tired, one person missing and although hey had tried, it was just not the same.

“Oooooh! I like it a lot! So pretty!”

Vy looks at the photos with googly eyes. looking between the two, feeling as if it was like old times before everything went wrong. “Okay, so that one... and…”

He lets Madelene show them her favorites which as Rylan has mentioned before is pretty much always the best ones.

“I think the ones you just said, they are the best, Vy? Do you want anyone specific?”

Rylan looks at the pictures, his attention stolen for a second by Annette’s raised voice, but focuses back on their pictures.

“I'll get them fixed, background added and then I'll mail them to Rylan when you are done choosing of course.”

She smiles at them all, she had always loved working with Rylan, he was popular with the readers, he was popular with the people making clothing, yet he was always down to earth, the one that let her take some pictures when she was just starting out and no one wanted to work with her because her name was unknown, those pictures had lead to her being hired, and him suggesting she could be his “go too” photographer whenever he was doing shoots.

“I love all of them! Can I keep them? Can we keep them?”

Vy looks between them with a big smile, Madelene simply nodding.

“Of course you can, all it is!”

She chuckles taking her laptop with her, she walks off to get to work on adding background and so on to the shots.

“I’ll mail them for you later Rylan!”

Hayden just chuckles then looks at the two off them, an idea forming in his head after this day where they, as he was about to say it, it became apparent that his brother was thinking the exact same thing.

“You know... I have been thinking, should we see if the others are for D&D?”

He stretches, knowing they should be heading home now.

Have some fun again? “... D&D?... I think you killed my healer last time we played... again... And I had to make a new one!”

Vy pouts, but there's a small smile on his lips, clearly, he likes this idea too, some happiness in their life, normality and going back to how it once used to be.

“But are you sure? And should we be heading home?” “Why not, I can keep a certain character in the group as an NPC, hired hand, and we can just have some fun? I think we all need some fun. Besides, it gives me something to do at night.”

He smiles a little, what he does now is just hoping for another dream with River, or just for time to pass with playing a game.

“And yes, we should head home.”

He stands up and stretches, noticing Annette leading Carl out, sending him on his way as well. Almost pondering on waiting like five minutes to be sure he didn’t run into him.

“Just... stop killing our healers, will you? And yes, let's go home, so the poor people can have their air-con back.”

Vy nods, happy with the idea, yet like always, worried with Hayden and these ideas, he had a tendency to push himself without thinking.

“But you have to promise not to wear yourself out. And if you aren't feeling well, you tell us! You know you're still not fully recuperated!

He knew he probably never would be, but Vy didn't want to think about that, not now, not yet, it was too painful to dwell on it.

“I promise, I'd just like to have some fun, like today.”

He smiles, and kisses Vy gently on the cheek.

“So how about we head home now? I'm definitely going to need to be carried, these legs seem to have stopped working.

He winks at Vy, Rylan just shaking his head and gets up from the sofa, waving at Marie and Madelene to indicate they were heading off, noticing a wave from Madelene while Marie was busy taking clothing back where it belonged.

Beginning - Previous - Next

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nicolewrites · 5 years ago

Text

We Stand, Fate-Tested - IV

I'm still stupid stressed over school and procrastinating so I'm not sure when I'll get part 5 out, but here's part 4 for the meantime.

Rating: T+ Genre: Mystery, Friendship, Romance Characters: [Byleth/My Unit, Dimitri B.], [Byleth/My Unit, Claude R.] Words: 5,458

There's something odd about the 8th of the Ethereal Moon. / Marriage is work too.

AO3 | FFN

IV - Of Memories I’ve Lost

Garreg Mach University - 8 Ethereal Moon, 732 AU

Byleth was glad when Red Wolf Moon was over. She had been drowning in her own work as well as the marking for the class she was TAing. Because Seteth was teaching three different classes on top of his own research, he had delegated the marking of the term papers for the class to Byleth.

It really shouldn’t have been such a big deal, but Byleth had struggled to get them done on time thanks to her progressing research and managing the applications and interviews for the expedition. The start date for the project was rapidly approaching and, as of the previous week, they had finally managed to choose the undergrads would be a part of the team and had been rapidly working with them to try to get their skills up to snuff before they were handling real artifacts.

Even so, the marking was finally done and the essays sat in three towering stacks on her desk, just begging for a breeze to sweep by and knock them all over. Byleth was currently planning the first of several workshops that would teach practical skills to the undergrads. She kept glancing at the door of her office, waiting for the first students to come by to pick up their essays and she nearly spelt Lysithea’s name wrong on a sheet before she managed to shake away her distraction.

She looked down at the sheet in front of her and the list of eight names that she and Seteth had painstakingly chosen. There were the natural fits in Lysithea and Linhardt from Byleth’s tutorial as well as Ingrid, who had had an exceptionally well-written application. From Seteth’s tutorial there were also Annette Dominic and Ignatz Victor. The last three students were Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard. Byleth had a sneaking suspicion that their applications had been all written together and that they had all been Claude’s idea.

Nonetheless, they had their team of eight: Lysithea, Linhardt, Ingrid, Annette, Ignatz, Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard. Their applications had all been excellent and Byleth had been pleased with the level of enthusiasm exhibited by a group of undergraduate students, especially since technically none of them were actually Archaeology majors.

Someone knocked on the door and Byleth looked up, placing her pen down. Annette stood in the doorway, smiling shyly, as another girl stood just behind her. Byleth beckoned Annette in and the redhead came in, biting her lip and looking a bit skittish.

“Here for your essay?” Byleth asked.

Annette nodded. “I know your office hours haven’t technically started, but I wanted to beat the rush.”

Byleth waved her off. “No worries at all.” She flipped through the first few essays in her first stack until she found Annette’s essay and she pulled it out. She handed it over and Annette peeked at the grade before beaming and making her way out of the room.

After that, there was a steady stream of students that came by her office to pick up their term papers as well as to ask questions about the discussions planned for tutorial in the coming weeks. Byleth had handed back nearly all of the essays when her office hours officially ended and she started putting the rest of them away in the filing cabinet she kept for assignments and paperwork for the class.

“I hope we’re not too late, Teach,” a familiar voice called out just as she was closing the cabinet drawer.

Byleth looked over her shoulder and saw Claude standing in front of her desk, flanked by Lorenz and Hilda, the two friends who were in Byleth’s tutorial with him. She shook her head and pulled the drawer back open, fishing out the trio’s essays.

“I wanted to come right at the start at the hour, but these idiots said we should come at the end,” Lorenz said as Byleth retrieved the papers. It wasn’t surprising to her.

Hilda snorted a laugh. “We would have been late getting here if it wasn’t for me, so I’d watch your tone, Lorenz,” she snipped in reply.

Byleth handed Lorenz and Hilda their essays and was about to hand Claude’s back when he cleared his throat.

“I actually had a question about the essay, Teach,” he said before he’d even taken the paper out of her hand.

Byleth blinked in surprise and her grip lingered on Claude’s assignment for just long enough that it was awkward before he swept it out of her grip and sat in the chair on the other side of her desk.

“I’ll catch up with you guys back at the house,” Claude said to Hilda and Lorenz. His friends just shrugged and made their way out of the room, bickering about punctuality as they went.

Byleth watched them leave before she turned her gaze back to Claude and raised an eyebrow. “Did you really have a question about the essay?”

Claude grinned. “Just wanted to know what you thought of my topic.” He tapped the circled 88 on the front of the page and winked at her. “Apparently I picked a good one.”

Byleth shook her head. After three months she was getting to know Claude’s antics well enough. He was criminally light-hearted, but wicked smart. He liked to tease and poke fun, but he was serious about his work when it came down to it. Since the first time they’d spoken at Anna’s about Byleth’s research Claude had made it a habit to try and stop in on her office hours as often as possible so that they could talk about whatever research Byleth was currently doing.

It was a slightly weird relationship given that Byleth was the TA, but the semester was almost over and she somehow knew that just because she wasn’t seeing him in tutorial once a week, it didn’t mean he was going to stop coming around. And she didn’t really want him to stop. It was nice to talk about her passion to someone who was just as interested as she was.

“What do you want, Claude?” she prompted again.

He smirked. “Come on, Teach, tell me what’s new this week,” he urged.

Byleth rolled her eyes, but she turned her laptop towards him so that he could see what she was working on. “I’ve been doing stuff for Seteth all week so I haven’t really had any big breakthroughs since we last spoke.”

Claude scanned the screen of her computer curiously. “Do we have a start date yet?”

“Guardian Moon 17,” Byleth said. “You can pass that along to the others if you’d like. I’ll be sending out the email this weekend. We have our first training session next Wednesday night for everyone.”

“Wednesday?” Claude repeated, looking a bit perplexed.

“Problem?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe. I have archery on Wednesdays, and so does Ignatz, but if this is later in the evening we should be fine.”

Byleth leaned forward a bit and gave Claude her own sly grin. “Maybe I’ll just bring everyone to watch so we can put the pressure on you.”

He shrugged. “If you want to see me shoot flawlessly, be my guest.”

Byleth rolled her eyes and turned her computer back to face her. She tapped out a few more notes on the page before glancing back at Claude. “Did you actually need something?” she asked curiously.

“I came here to give you something,” he admitted.

Byleth was surprised, but Claude reached into his bag and pulled out a folded brochure. He unfolded it so she could see the front and passed it to her. It was in a mix of Almyran and Fódlani, but Byleth recognized the logo on the front of it.

She ran a fingernail over the looping script and glanced at Claude, furrowing her brow. “The Royal Almyran Gallery? This is in Almyra, you know,” Byleth murmured. “They’re not exactly jumping at the idea of a Fódlani researcher entering their royal galleries.”

“You’re hitting all the same deadends as everyone else who has ever studied the Guardian of Order,” Claude pointed out. “There’s no way that you’re going to make progress unless you try to tackle something that other people haven’t attempted to dig into.”

“Like the underside of Garreg Mach in the old monastery ruins, not in a foreign national gallery,” Byleth said. She placed the brochure down and shook her head. “I can’t exactly just get up and go to Almyra right now anyways.”

“What about over the winter break?” Claude asked. “The galleries aren’t busy during the holidays. Almyrans usually spend the holidays completely absorbed in family and celebration.”

Byleth spun the paper underneath her fingers. She had to admit, the idea was intriguing. Almyra had done a much better job of preserving artifacts from the Unification Era since they hadn’t suffered the Scorch of Garreg Mach or the riots in Fhirdiad that had followed it. Even so, the National Board of History in Fódlan had seen the Almyran collection and deemed it unimportant to Fódlan’s own history. She wasn’t sure exactly what the Royal Gallery could offer her, but she also didn’t know what it might have that could be useful for her work, even if it was all just speculation.

“You will consider it, won’t you?” Claude asked. “I’ll be in Almyra over the winter break if you did want to check it out.”

Byleth finally relented, picking up the brochure and sliding it into one of the drawers on her desk. “I’ll consider it,” she agreed.

Claude grinned. “Excellent. Now, tell me about that crazy dream you had last night.”

Byleth’s eyebrows shot up. She had said nothing of her weird dream to Claude. She had very briefly discussed it with Seteth in private a few hours ago, but she had said nothing to her student about it. She hadn’t the faintest idea about how he knew she had even had a weird dream.

“I had to see Dr. Cichol about a history assignment and I just happened to overhear part of your conversation,” Claude confessed when she had been stunned into silence. “I only know that there was a dream and that apparently it was weird.”

Byleth frowned. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business. That was a private conversation, Claude.”

He shrugged, looking only mildly apologetic. “You don’t want to get my opinion on it at all?”

Byleth leaned away from him, pursing her lips. “And why would I want your opinion?”

Claude tilted his head and looked at her. “I don’t know. For the same reason you haven’t kicked my ass for asking you a million questions about your thesis and for being probably the worst student in your tutorial section?”

“The worst student?”

“Well, most people aren’t on a first-name basis outside of tutorial with a TA, are they?”

“That’s just because I can’t get rid of you,” she teased.

He smiled at her again and the glint in his green eyes made her chest hurt suddenly. The satisfied look on his face combined with the mischievous gleam was pulling at something in her memory and she couldn’t help but remember the weird dream from the previous night. She dropped her gaze to the desk and took a deep breath.

“You’re sure that we’d never met before this year, right? We’d never had a class together or chatted at a party?” Byleth asked. The teasing humour had disappeared from her voice and Claude seemed to pick up on it.

His brow furrowed and he dropped his amused pretenses. “No, I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that,” he said.

Byleth bit her lip and nodded. “Have you ever felt like everything you ever did was leading you in circles?”

Claude looked genuinely interested now, his playfulness suppressed by his curiosity. “At times, maybe,” he said. “Something about this is familiar to you?”

Byleth opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a notebook. She flipped through it to the page where she had made the sketch that morning, after her dream. She turned the page to face Claude and let him pick it up to study it closer.

“It’s a throne,” he noted. “It looks like it’s Old Civilization.”

“It’s pre-Unification,” Byleth agreed. “That symbol,” she pointed to the roughly sketched swirl on the back of it, “makes me think it would be religious. Seteth says he doesn’t recognize it and I haven’t found any record of it in the old monastery’s records.”

“Maybe it’s in the capital somewhere?” Claude asked. “Dimitri and Edelgard have spent a lot more time in Fhirdiad than I have, so I can’t be certain.”

“It’s not in Fhirdiad,” Byleth said. “I don’t know why I know that, but I know it’s not there. I dreamt of a large, empty stone chamber for three days in a row and then last night I dreamt of the same chamber, but this throne was there.” She paused, recalling the longing that had coursed through her when she had seen it for the first time in her dream. “I wanted to sit on it,” she murmured.

Claude looked puzzled and he slid the notebook back to her. “Honestly, while I’m not one to subscribe to all the spirit stuff, it seems to me like you have real memories of it that have been surfacing slowly.”

Byleth closed the book and slid it back into the drawer. She brushed her thumb over the handle on the drawer and frowned. “That’s honestly what I’ve been kind of afraid of,” she admitted.

- ~ -

It was late in the evening by the time Byleth had finally finished up everything she had wanted to do on campus. The sun had set almost two hours ago and the dim, artificial yellow lighting across campus provided only enough illumination to make every student or staff that passed by her a looming shadow.

She pulled her coat tighter around her stomach and burrowed her nose into the scarf she was wearing. Byleth had just left the part of campus where the Archaeology and History departments had their offices and she was headed through the main part of the campus when she spotted a lone figure standing on the quad in front of one of the dean’s offices.

Her curiosity got the better of her, and she slowly approached the figure, squinting through the gloom to see if she recognized them. To her surprise, as the figure tilted their head up, illuminating their features, Byleth recognized Dimitri as he stared solemnly at the building. Almost immediately she stopped walking, pausing around 30 feet away from him. She wanted to approach him and check in on him, but at the same time, the moment felt strangely private and she wanted to respect that.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to make a decision, as Dimitri turned and spotted her himself. His shoulders straightened and he tucked his hands into his pockets. He strode towards her and Byleth noted the polite smile that he was wearing. It looked forced, but practiced at the same time and Byleth felt her heart clench. It was a smile achingly similar to the one she had worn after her father had died.

“Hello Byleth,” Dimitri greeted politely once he had gotten close enough.

“Hello Dimitri,” she replied cordially. “What are you doing here so late?”

He laughed lightly. “Well, we are getting into the end of term and I’ve got a few last assignments to turn in by the end of this week. I had been working in the library, but they’re closed now, so I’m headed home.”

He was lying. She wasn’t sure exactly how she knew, but maybe it was simply the fact that she knew Dimitri was a business student and the business library was at the south end of campus, not near the centre where they currently stood in the cold night air.

Byleth frowned. “Is everything alright, Dimitri?” she pressed carefully.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, smiling ruefully, but much more genuinely. “You are very perceptive,” he admitted. “Everything is alright though,” he assured. “I’ve just been feeling a bit off today. It’s like there’s something about this date, in particular, that is an itch I can’t scratch. I’d been trying to follow that feeling and I ended up here.”

Byleth glanced at the offices around the quad. This building was one of the oldest on campus and was part of the restored old monastery. Above each of the three main offices was a beautiful stone carving. From left to right they depicted a deer, a lion, and an eagle. They were the symbols of the three student-life houses that Claude had told her about, and if her research was true, they were also the symbols of the old Officer’s Academy that had been run out of the monastery.

“I get the feeling,” Byleth admitted. “It’s like there’s this string in your chest that’s yanking you along through memories that don’t feel like yours.”

“Yes,” Dimitri agreed. “I never spend much time on this part of campus, but this,” he gestured to the carving of the lion over their heads, “it feels so strangely familiar.”

“Maybe it’s the Blue Lions of old speaking through you,” Byleth suggested lightly and Dimitri laughed softly.

“I should like to think I would know if that were the case.”

He fell silent after a moment and Byleth studied him. He looked tired, but a lot less solemn than he had when she had first found him.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” Byleth said before she could stop herself.

Dimitri’s shoulders tensed, but then they relaxed and he sighed. “Yes, it seems like everyone is.”

Byleth reached out to touch his arm and he looked towards her. There was a deep, resonating sadness to the blue of his eyes and before she could stop herself, her hand had found its way to land on his cheek. Dimitri, to his credit, didn’t react to the boldness of the gesture and Byleth gently retracted her touch.

“I lost my father too,” she admitted quietly. “The circumstances were different, but I’m still sorry you had to go through that.”

Dimitri nodded. “I’ve been well supported, thankfully. I’m sorry for your loss as well. Unlike what people say, it doesn’t really get any easier.”

Byleth smiled sadly. “No, it doesn’t.”

A sharp, cool wind blew around them and Byleth bristled in her coat, shivering. She nearly stepped closer to Dimitri on an instinctual level but managed to catch herself before she could. She stepped away instead, leaving a respectable distance between them. They were familiar enough, but the intimacy in the moment they had shared was almost alarming to her and she needed a clear head.

“Get home safe, Dimitri,” Byleth said gently. She tugged her coat more tightly around herself and gave him one last reassuring smile. “I’ll see you in tutorial.”

- ~ - ~ - ~ -

Garreg Mach Monastery - 12 Lone Moon, 1 AU

“The church is really coming along, Your Grace,” Claude complimented. There was a teasing lilt to his voice when he said her title and Byleth elbowed him.

“Just because you don’t believe in the goddess, doesn’t mean nobody else does,” she scolded lightly.

Claude shrugged. “You’re the one who invited the foreign national to visit,” he pointed out.

Byleth sighed. He was right, but she didn’t want to admit it. She walked away from him instead, heading toward the Reception Hall of the monastery, assuming he would follow. He did so, after a few paces, and they walked silently back through the bustling halls of the monastery. Monks and knights would pause in their step to nod or bow to Byleth and she offered them the best smiles she could before they were passing her by and moving on with their tasks.

“It feels different around here now, doesn’t it?” Byleth asked as she led Claude into the Reception Hall.

“Maybe that’s just because we’ve all changed so much. It has been six years since we started our year at the Officer’s Academy. Cyril tells me that you’re reopening the academy in the Great Tree Moon of next year,” Claude commented.

Byleth laughed. “To say we’ve changed is a bit of an understatement. Fódlan has changed a lot too.”

“Definitely,” Claude agreed. “I can’t take anything away from you or His Majesty on that front. You two have done a wonderful job.”

Byleth paused in her step and studied him. “You could have helped us,” she reminded.

Claude laughed. “Yeah, but then I wouldn’t get to be here as foreign royalty. I would just be another Lord under His Majesty and the Almyrans would still be pounding at Fódlan’s Locket.”

Byleth sighed. “I suppose that’s true. What is it they have taken to calling you, the King of Dawn?”

He shrugged. “My father’s rule was stagnating. I suppose I have merely supplied a breath of fresh air for Almyrans. The new partnership with Fódlan has helped me curry more favour than I would like to admit.”

Before Byleth could reply, a familiar, booming voice pulled their attention across the Reception Hall: “Claude! Byleth!”

Byleth smiled at the familiar voice as she watched her husband approach them. He was smiling broadly as he took in Byleth and Claude. He paused to embrace Claude briefly before turning to Byleth and pressing a warm kiss against her cheek in greeting. Dimitri tried to pull away, but Byleth gripped his collar and planted a soft kiss on his lips before he could withdraw fully.

Claude laughed at her. “I see you two are the same as always.”

Dimitri slid one of his hands into hers as he smiled. “We try to be. How have you been Claude? We haven’t seen you in person since the Ethereal Moon.”

Byleth felt a pulse of unexpected bitterness rise in her chest and she bit down her retort. She didn’t want to snap at Dimitri when he was visiting the monastery, especially with how infrequent his visits had been recently. She didn’t want to complain, especially in front of Claude, about how she had spent almost as much time with Claude as she had with her husband since they’d been married.

Of course, it was a burden they had to bear. Byleth had a responsibility to the church at the monastery and Dimitri had a responsibility to the nation in Fhirdiad, so they spent much of their time separated by distance and work. It wasn’t exactly the married life she had imagined for them.

Claude and Dimitri had moved onto discussing some political motion that was in the works in Fhirdiad by the time Byleth managed to refocus on the conversation and she squeezed Dimitri’s hand. She stole a glance at him and noticed that he looked even more tired than he had when he had arrived three days prior.

“You must exclude me, Claude, my beloved, but I have something I have to do before dinner this evening. I will see you both then,” Dimitri said. He smiled at Claude and leaned down to give Byleth another brief kiss before he pulled his hand out of hers and was slipping away.

Byleth couldn’t manage to disguise her disappointment fast enough as she caught Claude giving her a curious look as Dimitri walked away. She quickly frowned and turned so Claude was only looking at her profile, hoping to dissuade whatever conversation he wanted to have about the interaction.

“This is different from the last time I was here,” Claude noted quietly. “His Kingliness is usually much better at picking up your signals. He was always better at it than anyone else, so it’s odd to see him so blind to it today.”

Byleth’s frown deepened. “We both have our own duties,” she said firmly. “There is no break for us in any of this.”

“No,” Claude agreed, “but surely a man can take a break to shower his wife with praises?”

Byleth sighed. “I don’t know why you think you’re qualified to speak on someone else’s relationship,” she pointed out sternly.

“Consider this the concern of a friend then,” he supplied. “Teach, I have never met a man more enamoured with a woman than Dimitri is with you. But, if that’s what all of your interactions have been like recently, something is wrong.”

Byleth sighed. “We got through the war,” she said simply. “We will get through this.”

She walked away from Claude then, not really caring if he followed her. It wasn’t that she was angry with him for his words, more frustrated that her own emotions regarding hers and Dimitri’s relationship had been so easy for him to discern. She was also frustrated that he had been right in the first place in noting the disconnect between the spouses. Besides their short, snipped conversations in the evenings and mornings, Byleth honestly couldn’t remember the last time she and Dimitri had had a real, personal conversation and it did make her nervous.

Without intending to, Byleth headed for the training grounds. It was an old habit she had of working out stress through fighting, something that had developed during her years growing up as a mercenary. The grounds were thankfully empty and Claude seemed to have picked up on her annoyance and had wisely chosen not to follow her.

Byleth set up a line of training dummies and then a line of magic targets on the far side of the hall. She forewent the training weapons, opting to work on her brawling skills. She picked the softest of the dummies and started with a few slow jabs before she worked into a faster, harder-hitting set that made her hands throb minorly. The pain was therapeutic, though. It reminded her that she was feeling and that helped, especially on days like this.

Once she had worn out her brawling drill, she chose to start in on her magic skills. Byleth called a crackling Thunder spell between her fingers and she turned to fire it at the targets she had set up, only to have to jerk her hand sharply left and blast lightning into the corner of the room, where it crackled and smoked with a bang.

Felix, who stood directly in front of her targets, seemed unphased as he strode towards her. Byleth folded her arms and frowned at him.

“I could have killed you,” she pointed out.

“I’ve taken a Thunder from you before,” he noted. “I’ve taken your spells at full-strength before, not when they were powered by your frustrations.”

Byleth blinked at him. “My frustrations?” she echoed.

“Don’t cast when you’re overly emotional,” he said. “You were the one who taught me that after I nearly burned Sylvain’s arm off. There’s nothing more dangerous to a magic-user than losing control.”

She had indeed taught both the Gautier and Fraldarius heirs the importance of control when they had been learning magic under her tutelage during their academy days and during the war. Byleth uncrossed her arms and brushed some of her hair out of her face.

“What are you doing here, Felix? I didn’t know you would be coming here with Dimitri.”

“Technically I’m not here with him,” Felix admitted. “We’re actually here to see Mercedes.”

“We?” Byleth questioned.

Felix’s lips pressed together and Byleth answered her own question as the pieces clicked in her mind. She smiled.

“Congratulations, Felix,” she commended.

He nodded. “Thank you. Annette will find you to tell you officially before we leave.”

“Are you just here to avoid all the celebratory talks then?” Byleth questioned, gesturing to the training hall.

“I was looking for you, actually,” Felix corrected.

Byleth frowned again, her optimism draining away. “Why?”

“Because I heard you and Dimitri got into it yesterday,” he admitted.

It was true. At the meeting with Claude to discuss foreign treaties the day before, Dimitri had pressed Byleth and the church for resources they couldn’t supply and she had, in return, pressed him for legislation that wasn’t supported by a majority of his advisors. It had definitely been one of their uglier discussions, especially since their wedding and doubly so since they had a spectator in Claude.

“We handled it,” Byleth said curtly, which was also true, but only thanks to Claude stepping in as a mediator.

“You did,” Felix pointed out. “Dimitri has been beating himself up about it all day. That’s why he’s been avoiding you.”

“Avoiding me?” she said.

“You haven’t noticed? How whenever you two run into each other, he miraculously has some meeting or something to get to shortly after you see each other? How he seemed to have more to say to your mutual friend than he did to his wife earlier in the Reception Hall?”

Byleth pressed her lips together. “I didn’t notice,” she admitted softly.

Felix exhaled. “I know. That’s why I’m here. Because, as much as he’d like to pretend otherwise, Dimitri will never be the same as he was before the war. He’ll never be that perfect, princely figure again and he’ll certainly never be able to see himself in the same way again. Professor, he loves you very much so he’ll do his best to make sure you never notice, but he’s still struggling.”

Byleth twisted her hands together, rubbing her wedding ring almost nervously. “How could I miss that? Shouldn’t I notice things like that?”

Felix reached out and, in a rare move for him, placed his hands on her shoulders. “Professor, he is taking all the precautions to ensure you don’t see what he’s going through. He’s gotten better at hiding things from you since you’ve been here and he’s been in the capital. That’s why we’re here, right now,” he confessed.

Something clicked in her head. “Dedue wrote to Claude to invite him, didn’t he? And you and Ingrid and Sylvain and the others made sure that Dimitri would be here where we wouldn’t be able to hide from each other.”

Felix didn’t answer her question directly, but the answer glimmered in his amber eyes. “You take care of each other. You bring out the best in each other.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped back. “Don’t lose that, Professor. There’s a lot riding on that trust and love going forward.”

Felix took another step back and then he was fully retreating, heading out of the training hall. The door closed behind him and Byleth was alone. She felt anchored to the spot and afraid. She was scared of being blind enough to miss the self-hatred that roiled in Dimitri. She had always been able to see it before and if she was losing that gift, she didn’t know what she was going to do.

She loved him, that much was certain, and obviously their friends cared about them both a great deal too.

Byleth immediately left the training hall and jogged through the hallways of the monastery. She hadn’t done much running in the halls since her ascension and there was something oddly freeing in the action. She felt a smile creeping up on her face as she dodged around people and made for the Cardinal’s Room on the second floor where Dimitri was supposed to be in a meeting.

She opened the door and immediately saw her husband speaking with a few Alliance nobles. The conversations halted when she appeared in the doorway and Dimitri rose from his seat, surprise etching across his face.

“Your Majesty,” Byleth said politely, “I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

Dimitri nodded politely to the nobles he had been conversing with and followed her out of the room into the hall. Byleth led him ten paces away from the door before she pivoted sharply to face him. She reached up and grasped his face, pulling him down for an urgent kiss. He reciprocated after a brief moment of surprise and Byleth pulled away, staring Dimitri in his good eye.

“I love you,” she said firmly. “I will never be angry with you for fighting for your country. I am proud of you and there is no one I would rather do any of this with,” she said, letting her emotions flow through her words.

Dimitri stared at her face for a long moment before he kissed her again, more firmly than she had kissed him, and he let the kiss linger for a second longer. He inhaled shakily and pressed their foreheads together. Byleth rocked onto her tiptoes to relieve the strain on his neck due to their height difference and Dimitri smiled gently.

“Okay,” he breathed out.

“I love you,” she said again.

“I love you too,” he replied.

9 notes · View notes

lapinbunwrites · 5 years ago

Text

Lion’s Gift Exchange

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: None

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Characters: Byleth, Dimitri, Dedue, Sylvain, Felix, Ingrid, Annette, Ashe, Dedue, Mercedes

Word Count: 2,444

Ao3 Link

As Byleth watched the snow fall, it reminded him of all the times he played outside in the snow with his father’s mercenary group. His father often told him that he loved playing in the snow whenever they were in Faerghus. He would often whine when they would leave. Maybe he’ll move there one day. After a few minutes of watching the snow, Byleth walked to his classroom.

“Welcome Professor,” Dimitri greeted him.

“You’re just in time!” Annette said, excitedly.

“In time for what?” Byleth asked.

“The gift exchange!”

“Gift exchange?”

“It’s a pointless event,” Felix said.

“It’s a tradition in Faerghus we call Sothis Day. At the beginning of the Red Wolf Moon, we put our names in a hat and pick a piece of paper. Whose name is on the paper we get a gift for. Once we do, we put it under a tree and open them on the last day of the month.” Ingrid informed.

“And the best part is that nobody knows who got who,” Sylvain said.

“That sounds lovely,” Mercedes chimed in.

“We need a tree or something to put presents somewhere,” Byleth said.

“We can use the one that Sylvain has,” Ingrid said.

“Wait-That’s a gift for someone!”

“What kind of woman wants a tree as a gift?”

“Uh..I’ll get the tree.”

While Sylvain went to go get the tree, and while the students bickered back and forth, Byleth wrote down their names and place the paper in a hat. He walked around, watching his students pick one by one. Once Sylvain was back, Byleth instructed him to put the tree by the window. He was then given the last name that they had. Sylvain smirked and knew what to get the person.

-----x-----

Each and every day for the past week Byleth would stare the tree. It was so plain and not very festive. His students became increasingly concerned. A few of them stood around the tree, trying to figure out what was wrong with it.

“There must be something wrong with this tree,” Ashe said.

“Yes, but what?” Mercedes asked.

“Ooh, I don’t know. I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Annette said. “It’s just a plain tree.”

“Maybe it just that,” Dedue said.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe if we put some decorations on it, it would liven up the tree.”

“What a wonderful idea Dedue! Maybe I can sew up a couple of things!”

“Oh, like a tree skirt!”

“Heehee! Yeah!”

“Ashe and I can find ornaments or something!”

“That’s a great idea!”

Both Annette and Ashe walked out of the classroom and into town.

“Would you like to help me with sewing?” Mercedes asked.

“I’m afraid that my sewing skills are less than adequate,” Dedue replied.

“That’s okay! Sometimes it’s better to make something yourself than buying it!”

Dedue faintly smiled and followed her back to her room to help her with sewing.

Ashe and Annette walked around town, trying to procure some decorations. Every store the went to, and every store they passed by, didn’t have any.

“Awe, no store has anything,” Annette said.

“I didn’t think finding decorations would be so hard,” Ashe said. “We can keep searching around.”

“Hm..I don’t think we would be able to find anything.”

“Hm…”

A few seconds of silence.

“Oh! I have an idea!”

“What’s that?”

“We can make our own ornaments!”

“Ar-Are you sure? Would it better to keep searching around?”

“I think it would be to make! Plus, if we look for too long it’s going to get dark, then...then...gh…” She trailed off. She was starting to scare herself.

Ashe was starting to shake. He knew what she was going to say. “D-Don’t say it!”

“Ghosts will come out!”

“Ah!” He screamed as he held onto Annette tightly. “Yo-You’re right. Let’s make them ourselves!”

When the two calmed down, they stopped at a few craft stores and a bakery to pick up some supplies. They picked up strings, hooks, apples, and some pastries. Once done, they made their way back to Garreg Mach and Mercedes' room.

“Wow Mercie,” Annette started, “your tree skirt looks amazing!”

“Thank you! Dedue and I also made a garland to go on the tree!”

“Wow that’s amazing,” Ashe complimented.

“I think it could have been sewn better,” Dedue said, referring to the portion he sewed.

“Don’t say that! I think it looks amazing!”

“He’s right!”

Dedue gave a soft smile to his friends.

“What do you have there?”

“We have some stuff to make ornaments!”

“Annette and I couldn’t find any shops with decorations.”

“Did you try Anna?”

“Surprisingly, she didn’t have anything.”

“Oh, but at least we have something!”

They all dug into the bags, each grabbing a few of the items. Dedue and Ashe made ornaments in the shapes of stars and flowers with the apples while Mercedes and Annette made ornaments in to shapes of hearts with the pastries. It to them most of the night to make, and instead of going back to their rooms, they decided to have a sleepover. In the morning, all four of them rushed to the classroom. Lucky for them, Byleth wasn’t there. Only Sylvain and Dimitri.

“What are you guys doing?” Sylvain asked.

“We are putting decorations on the tree!” Annette said.

“They don’t seem to be any ornaments out of tin or anything,” Dimitri said.

“That’s because they are made out of food!”

“We should probably notify Ingrid not to eat them.”

“We don’t have to tell her that they are made of food. She’ll never know.”

“Sylvain, you know that will not work.”

“It��s only a suggestion.”

Dimitri sighed. “At any rate, we should put these decorations on the tree before the Professor arrives.”

They took the next twenty minutes put everything together. When Ingrid and Felix walked in, Felix sighed an audible sigh of irritation at the sight of Sylvain sitting on top of Dedue’s shoulders. Ingrid felt the same, but she was at the point where she was expecting this.

“What’s going on?” Felix asked.

“Putting ornaments on the tree,” Sylvain replied. He got off Dedue’s shoulders and pointed at it. “Looks nice right?”

“No.”

“Oh come on! People worked really hard on this.”

“So? Why even bother? We have more important things to worry about.”

“Oh, is someone grumpy because they didn’t get someone they wanted?” Sylvain teased.

“No! I got dragged into this stupid event when I didn’t want to participate this year!” Felix yelled. “If it weren’t for the Professor, I wouldn’t be caught up this mess.”

“Well then. I thought it would be fun to have this little event to cheer you guys up,” Byleth said, walking into the room. “Especially after the past few months.” As he walked to the front of the room, he noticed the tree. “I like what you’ve guys done to the tree.”

Annette, Ashe, Mercedes, and Dedue smiled with validation.

“What’s up with the ornaments?” Ingrid asked. “Why is there food on the tree?”

Sylvain looked over to Dimitri in disbelief. He shrugged. He knew Sylvain was a smart man, but the fact he couldn’t predict a long-time friend's actions was rather astonishing.

After the day's lecture, the eight of them discussed whether or not if they should get Byleth a present. Everyone was in agreement that they should. It took them some time, but they were able to figure out what they wanted to get him. They all pulled their money together and gave it to Dimitri.

Within the next couple of days, there were a few gifts under the tree. It wasn’t all that hard to figure out what to give each other since they’ve grown so much with each other. Sylvain walked into town with a smile on his face and a whistle coming out of his mouth. He was all too happy. He was thrilled that he got Dimitri. He walked up to a merchant and looked at what they had. Books. That’s exactly what he is looking for.

Sylvain skimmed over each and every book title, hoping to find one specific book. His smile got bigger when he found the one he wanted. He paid for it and walked back to Garreg Mach. On his way back, he saw Mercedes. He noticed that she looked confused.

“Hey there Mercedes,” Sylvain greeted.

It took a few seconds for her to react.

“Oh, hello Sylvain,” she said.

“Whatcha looking at?”

“Some daggers.”

It didn’t take long for him to realize who she got. Felix.

“Go with the Toothed Dagger. It’s cheap and he’s been eyeing this for a while.”

“What?”

“You got Felix, didn’t you?”

“How did you know? I thought this was all anonymous.”

“Technically, yes. But sometimes you can guess who someone got by the things they are buying, if you are paying attention.”

“Oh.”

“Also, every time someone gets Felix with this exchange, they always give him a dagger.”

“Oh, I see. Maybe I should get him something else,” she sighed.

“Nah. He’ll love it all the same.”

Mercedes giggled and got him the dagger. The two walked back to the Monastery. They wrapped the presents and placed them with the others. There were now five gifts under the tree.

-----x-----

It was only a few days left until the end of the month. Sothis Day was quickly approaching. Felix still didn’t have his present for his giftee. He was putting it off so he could focus on something more ‘important.’ It wasn’t until Sylvain pestered him about it that he decided to go buy a gift. He walked to Anna’s shop and looked at what she had. She didn’t have much of anything that his giftee wanted or needed. She showed him one last thing. Sewing supplies. It was a perfect gift.

“A present for someone special?” Anna asked with a wink.

“No! It’s for a gift exchange for a tradition Faerghus.”

“Ah, well, it’s a perfect gift nonetheless.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Felix paid for the supplies and went to the classroom. He quickly wrapped the gift and left it under the tree.

-----x-----

Twas the night before Sothis Day and both Dedue and Ashe were baking their gifts. They took most of the night making them to perfection. The wrapped them nicely and made sure the gifts had the correct names on them.

The next day, everyone gathered around the tree. There were eight presents underneath it. Byleth walked in and looked at his students. They were all so eager to open them. He walked closer to the tree, grabbing a couple of gifts.

“This one is for Ingrid,” he said, giving it to her. “This one is for Annette, Felix, Ashe.” He then looked at one of them, squinting at the handwriting. “D-Dimi, Dimitri.” It was Sylvain's terrible handwriting. “Here you go Sylvain, Dedue, and Mercedes.”

“Oh, wow,” Ingrid started, “my favorite treats.” She took a bit of one of them. “It’s sooo good!” She shoved some more of the treats into her mouth. “Thabk youb!”

Dedue smiled. He was happy that she loved his gift. He opened his present and saw the gardening supplies. He felt warm inside.

Dimitri knew he would love his gift. He opened his and sighed. It was a book that was titled, “How To Pick Up Girls And Pick Up Lines.” He looked over to Sylvain with a glare.

He laughed it off, knowing he will pay for that later while they train. As for his gift, it wasn’t much different than the one he gave the prince. It was a book titled, “How To Be A Gentleman.” He looked over Ingrid. She smiled at him, fully expecting him to read the book. She was tired of chasing him around. Though, it still wasn’t going to stop him.

Annette opened her gift and was amazed at her gift. It was brownies in the shape of snowflakes. She started to eat them and became pleasantly surprised. “Ooo, so sweet! These are so tasty!”

Ashe was really happy and proud of the sweets that he made turned out fantastic. He was really nervous about how they turned out. But thanks to Dedue, they turned out great. He opened his gift and saw the ghost charm. Annette giggled when she saw his face turn red. It was like Ashe was trying to hide his fear of ghosts.

Felix opened his gift. The Toothed Dagger. He showed a small, almost unnoticeable smirk on his face. On this inside, though he will not admit it, he was happy to get it as his gift.

Mercedes looked over to him and took his small smirk as him loving his gift. When she opened hers, she was absolutely thrilled. “Oh, wow! These are such beautiful colors! I can’t wait to sew new things!” Felix would still never admit it, but it felt nice to see a big smile across Mercedes’ face.

A smile grew across Byleth’s face when he heard his student's joyous conversations and happiness. It had been a long while since he felt a warm feeling inside his chest. His students looked at him and smiled. They gathered around him, handing him a gift.

“What’s this?” He asked.

“A gift,” Dimitri said. “From all of us.”

“Since you’ve become our professor, it’s kind of like you’ve become apart of our family.” Ingrid smiled.

“Our terrible, messy family,” Felix commented.

“A family nonetheless.” She said. She looked back over to Byleth. “You’ve taught us, trained us, grown with us these past few months, we’ve decided to get you a gift!”

“We know it’s not much, but we hope it’ll suffice,” Dedue said.

“I-I don’t know what to say.” Byleth smiled. This was a whole new feeling for him. He didn’t know how to describe it other than happiness. “Thank you.”

“Please open it!” Annette said.

Byleth let out a sigh. “I wish I could, but I’ll have to after my mission with my father.”

“Awe!”

He patted Annette’s head and gave her a soft smile before he left the classroom. Later that night, after his mission, he picked up his gift.

“What’s that?” Jeralt asked.

“A gift from my students.” Byleth replied.

He opened his gift and smiled a big smile. It was a light blue necklace in the shape of a lion. Jeralt smiled as the necklace reminded him of something that his son made for him not so long ago. He kissed his child’s head and told him to go to bed, only to be told the same thing. Byleth took one last look at the necklace one last time before placing it on his desk and going to bed.

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This is my @nagamas gift to meryuukan on Ao3! I got a few prompts and the one I did was the Blue Lions class gift exchanging! I based it mostly off of a secret Santa. I hope you enjoyed!

#my writing #nagamas #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem fanfiction #byleth eisner #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #dedue molinaro #sylvain jose gautier #felix hugo fraldarius #annette fantine dominic #ingrid brandl galatea #ashe ubert #mercedes von martritz #jeralt reus eisner

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letters-from-the-three-houses · 5 years ago

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I absolutely love your blog! Your hcs are really sweet and I'm amazed by how much effort&thought you put into interpreting the characters so far

you’re such a sweetheart! thank you for the warm wishes, anon; i’m doing (and will do) my absolute best for this blog and uni (`·ω·´)ゞ

and headcanons they shall be then! i really love your explanation of their dynamic—imagining sylvain all embarrassed and mercie becoming more open makes me giddy

i hope you like it!

sylvain is smitten the instant he sees her

mercedes?? gorgeous?? the word doesn’t do her justice

he calls her the apple of his eye

the flower amongst flowers

the goddess incarnate

the—

“sylvain, shut up”

(felix and ingrid grow tired of him really quickly)

of course, he also says the same to a lot of the other girls in the monastery so no one takes him seriously

but it doesn’t stop him from chatting mercedes up all the time

“seeing you first thing in the morning is the reason why i get out of bed”

mercedes always listens to what he has to say, smiling and nodding along as he showers her with praise

she never chases him away and waits for him to finish before she replies with a kind thank you and genuine joy

“i’m grateful you think so highly of me, sylvain. it makes me happy”

the others warn her of what he’s like

“a total womanizer,” ingrid says. “he’s trouble”

“don’t get caught unaware,” dimitri adds

“the buffoon’ll say it to anyone who breathes”

but she shakes off the unease by saying, “i believe his words come from a good place. he wouldn’t say it if there was no truth behind it, don’t you think?”

“that might be right, but…”

“thank you for your concern, dears, but you’re worrying too much. i think he’s rather sweet for never getting tired of saying so”

(when sylvain overhears this, he hides behind the wall and blushes)

(she thinks of him like that?)

(that’s worth more than any compliment he can ever give her)

since then, talking to mercedes feels wrong somehow

like there’s a weird sense of guilt that settles in his gut whenever he does

but guilt isn’t the right word

bc he is truthful

she is amazing

and yet, it doesn’t feel right

he fumbles around more, stumbling over his words, and he isn’t as confident as he usually is

but no matter the mishap, mercedes is still patient, waiting for him to finish before she claps her hands together and says, “thank you”

sometimes, she’ll quip back. “ah, there’s a speck on your uniform, sylvain. careful now. you have to look perfect for the girls, hm?”

and she’ll wipe the dust off and adjust his collar, her soft fingers almost brushing his jawline

when she’s done, she looks up at him, content, like the world could end at this moment and she wouldn’t mind

they’re close, breaths intermingling

he can see the stars in her eyes

her cheeks, rosy

the gentle sigh she lets out

but before sylvain can say anything, she steps back and gives him a polite bow, waving slightly as she walks away

his heart gets caught in his throat

there’s no denying it; he likes her

truly

absolutely

from the bottom of his heart, likes her

the revelation causes him to act even weirder around her

getting tongue-tied, tripping on air—the smooth and suave sylvain is nowhere to be found

his friends all share knowing looks but when he goes to them for advice, they pretend they don’t know what’s happening bc hahaha, let’s make him suffer

(dimitri will take pity on him eventually, but felix is mean and ingrid thinks it’s time for him to learn that his actions have consequences)

so watching him mess up whenever mercedes is around becomes a blue lions past time

one day, annette comes up to him, a determined look on her face, and straight up asks, “what do you think of mercie?”

he has a double take, before recovering and starting off with all the artsy prose that he usually spews out

but it dies midway

and annette stares, expectant, as he quietly says, “i think i like her”

“you mean like like her?”

“…yeah”

she beams. “okay! that’s great!”

he blinks. “you’re not going to stop me?”

she shakes her head, then looks around before leaning in. “you didn’t hear this from me, but to be honest, i think she likes you too”

eyes widening, he’s speechless. he can only muster the words “where is she?”

“the monastery”

and he dashes off with annette calling out “good luck!” behind him

he finds her praying at the front pews, the stained glass painting her hair in a holy light

he doesn’t know if the beating in his ribs is because he ran all the way here or because he catches sight of her

(he thinks it’s the latter)

not wanting to disturb her, he slips into one of the seats and studies her

her hair, framing her face in light waves

her voice, faint and calm, saying the goddess’s prayer

her

he doesn’t realize she finishes praying until her eyes meet his

and they soften almost immediately, like she’s glad to see him

he strengthens his resolve, moving to stand beside her and ask, “what do you usually pray for?”

“for peace, new friendships, the happiness and safety of the people i love”

“and of your own?” he asks

she thinks for a moment. “not as much, i suppose”

he clears his throat. “i don’t pray often, but will the goddess still hear me out?”

she nods. “of course. as long as you truly mean it”

so he kneels, clasping his hands together as the beating in his heart grows louder and louder. he feels mercedes touch his shoulder in comfort. “oh goddess, i—i have fallen in love”

her hand slips from him

“she is kind…and very considerate. she thinks of others before herself. but i wish she would see that she’s important as well. to me, and to all of her friends”

he continues, “she is the sun, the brightest part of my day. a constant comfort that i don’t believe i’m worthy of, yet one that i seek more often than i deserve”

when he glances at her, he sees her hanging her head, fists on her lap as she’s turned away from him

he looks back to the goddess’s statue. “but even if i am unable, i wish she can be the happiest she can be. with me, without me—despite me—for this poor fool can only be happy if she is. safe if she is. alive if she is”

he takes a sharp breath and shuts his eyes. “please,” he whispers, “protect mercedes von maltritz with your grace”

he hears a gasp

then, when he dares to look at her, he sees her covering her mouth, eyes watery

pain stabs his chest and he hurries to wipe her tears away. “i’m sorry,” he mutters. “all this talk of wanting you happy and here i am, making you cry.” he laughs, bitter. “forget i said anything”

but when his fingers brush her skin, she takes them within her own, splaying them on her cheek as she leans into his warmth

“it’s alright,” she whispers back. “the goddess heard your prayers.” when she smiles, he feels like he can give her the stars and the moon and the sky. “happiness, sylvain? in this moment, with you, i already have all i need”

a/n: if anyone is noticing a pattern to sylvain’s shippy headcanons, you’re right! i don’t know why, but sylvain gives me vibes of someone that confesses with a grand™ speech at the end of a teenage romcom drama what do you mean it’s just an excuse for me to write the cheesiest things no it’s not i don’t know what you’re talking about

#fire emblem three houses #fe16 #fe3h #sylvain jose gautier #mercedes von maltritz #asks #headcanons #anon #prerelease

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freedom-shamrock · 6 years ago

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The Underpinnings of Companionship - Chapter 9

Also on AO3 Chp 1 Chp 2 Chp 3 Chp 4 Chp 5 Chp 6 Chp 7 Chp 8 Chp 9 chp 10 Chp 11 Chp 12 Chp 13

@adrinetteapril prompt #4, Hide Me.

Hiding In Plain Sight

"Hey Ade, my app says Andre's just two blocks over," Marinette said, gesturing vaguely to a side street. "Want to ruin your diet." She grinned at him, arching one eyebrow. He delighted in doing things that would give his father a stroke if he knew about them, particularly on days like this.

Adrien's face lit up. "You always know just what I need. Thank you." With the warmer weather, she worried about him overheating under the wig cap and brown-hair-fringed baseball hat she'd made. She'd gone as light on his makeup as she could while still doing a bit of contouring to alter his lines.

"You're welcome." While his steampunk outfit was her favorite, it just suited him so perfectly, she was perhaps most impressed by this one. American frat boy Ade looked nothing like her boyfriend Adrien. And it was an appallingly easy transformation to make. "I can't believe you can pull of this look so well." She shook her head.

"Don't underestimate me, babe," he drawled in English. "I got this whole appearances thing in the bag."

She giggled and shook her head. "Oh my god. You have the persona down, too."

"I'm a… what's it? A method actor." He nodded decisively. "Yeah. And I take my craft seriously." He'd talked about expanding into acting, since he'd gotten to do some with his modeling. At least until he was able to figure out what he wanted to go to school for. He was appallingly bored with the business classes his father had selected for his summer enrichment.

In the walk toward Andre's cart, they were hailed by two different groups of American tourists. One group wanted a photo of themselves, and thought their fellow countrymen would be more obliging than the locals. The other was a pair of high school students who were completely turned around and had lost their group. They were grateful and surprised when Ade and Annette were able to give them the less well-known but faster route back to their meet-up point.

"I'm really torn," Adrien said quietly as they turned the corner and Andre came into sight. "I mean… I love the steampunk getup. It's so well made, and you look so sweet in yours, and I feel like it should be my favorite."

"But?" she asked, grinning. It wasn't the first time they'd been totally on the same page.

"This outfit is so fun. I bet I could walk past my father or Nathalie and they wouldn't know me." His sheepish face looked a bit different with the makeup, but his eyes still crinkled on the edges.

"This is probably the better disguise," she agreed. "But if we're talking about all around favorites, I'm going to stick with the one that's more likely to make me melt at the sight of your hotness."

His startled laugh was nearly a howl. "You think I'm hot," he sang smugly as they joined the queue for ice cream.

"Pffft," she snorted. "Eighty-three percent of Paris objectively thinks you're hot, even if they aren't attracted to you. Nine percent are self-inhibiting and live in denial. And eight percent are wired in such a way that they don't find supermodels with delicious abs appealing."

"Welcome to Andre's ice--" The cheerful man's greeting faltered as his smile slowly morphed into a curious assessment of them. After a moment, he chuckled, shaking his head. "Oh my. A couple of delightful American tourists who I have absolutely never seen before. Welcome to Paris."

Marinette grinned. She hadn't expected to fool him. "Thank you so much." She didn't have the heart to butcher her own language to stay in character. "We're so glad to be here."

"It's a good thing you speak French, Annette," Adrien said in perfect unaccented English.

"When we go to China, you get to translate for me," she teased back, though her English wasn't nearly as good.

"I have just the treat for you two," Andre said, his hands moving in their graceful dance to assemble his famous lover's ice cream. "Blackberry for her hair, peach for his lips, that Paris has never been graced by in the past," he wiggled his eyebrows a bit. "And a disguise of chocolate shavings sprinkled generously over the top." He held it out to them.

"It's a masterpiece," Adrien whispered, slipping the glacier some bills. "Thanks, Andre."

Andre bowed slightly before turning to the next customer.

"How do you suppose he knew?" Adrien asked as they settled on the low brick wall surrounding a garden.

"Magic," Marinette said, entirely serious. "We know there's magic. We've seen it in our heroes and the akumas, too. I bet there are all sorts of magic out there that we just don't notice."

I'm sitting in the hallway outside of dance class again!

Sorry this took so long. I've been swamped with work (yay money!), busy with tax prep (turned out ok!), and family shenanigans. Whew! I'm trying to squeeze some of these in, but I have a Something Familiar original novella release to prep for, so that may take away a few days of fanfic writing.

#Miraculous Ladybug #fanfic #my writing #adrinetteapril 2019 #Adrienette #Underpinnings of Companionship #Adrien #Marinette

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doux-amer · 6 years ago

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I FINALLY SAW CAPTAIN MARVEL AND I GOT EMOTIONAL WATCHING IT. Okay, calming down now. As a lot of you know, my expectations were low as the marketing was lackluster, I was nervous about certain choices that were made, etc., and even though I avoided any CM chatter, I heard murmurs of mixed reactions...so my expectations were pretty much on the floor when I went to see it. I just hoped it would be fun even if it was okay, but uh...I REALLY ENJOYED IT. It’s not perfect and when I was talking to Alanna, she said people said it reminded them of CA:TFA (it really does in certain ways and I get why they said it, but TFA, for all its cheese and its weaknesses, is one of my favorite MCU movies lol). BUT! I! LOVED! IT! I don’t care about the unevenness because all that fell to the wayside by the sheer, all-encompassing joy I felt watching it.

This is how I wanted to feel watching Wonder Woman because I adored Diana as a little girl and it didn’t happen although I kept quiet about my disappointment because I wanted people to go support it anyway as it was super important that it did well. THIS THOUGH. I wanted to punch my fist in the air so many times and laugh and hug and hang out with Carol. I JUST. GOD.

I’ve experienced unfettered happiness and fun before with Marvel—that’s how I felt with The Avengers and with Spider-man: Homecoming. But this? This was the first time I was a fan of someone from the comics before seeing a movie and seeing it come to life the way I so hoped she would. It was extremely special because of that particular element and I got emotional because of it which I didn’t expect. I really felt disconnected to Carol from what I saw in the trailers and was afraid the movie wouldn’t resonate because it would be very white feminist-y. It wasn’t. And that hero on the screen? THAT WAS MY GIRL CAROL. I’m kind of getting slightly misty-eyed writing this. But GOD, I waited years for this and it’s just overwhelming wth!

I’m going to do my usual bullet points. If you want to avoid spoilers, scroll past this long post:

I was turned off by the silliness of the trailers and Carol’s more serious moments came off as unconvincing in them, so I expected not to connect with her. I WAS WRONG. I GOT MY GIRL. I’M WEEPING! She’s emotional! She’s feisty and bullheaded. She can be serious and fueled by anger. She can be fun even when she’s a fierce warrior, but not to the point that it’s distracting! Her humor is very much her own and very much Carol. It’s not witty. It’s goofy. She clearly finds herself hilarious which I LOVED. SHE’S SO DORKY, SMILING AT HER OWN JOKES.

The movie stayed away from what could have been a cringeworthy white savior undercurrent by making Carol culpable in the suffering of the oppressed. I know the Skrulls are aliens and look like them unlike the other aliens we’ve seen who you can’t exactly forget are played by POC characters, but lbr that narrative is about refugees and...look at current events lmao. As a Kree warrior, even if she unknowingly participated in the Kree-Skrull war ignorant of the truth, she hurt a lot of innocent people. And that’s great! It’s not that she was this pure person swooping in to save the weak or whatever. This is something she had to grapple with once her memories came back and her eyes were opened and she knew she had to make amends.

It reminded me strongly of Tony in IM1 with Obie dealing under the table to terrorists and becoming a part of a corrupt machine without meaning to. It didn’t matter that that was the case; he still felt responsible and accountability became a huge part of his story.

This origin story reminded me of Cap’s, not because of the whole military aspect to it lol but because of how she’s “just human.” Carol never gives up and Steve doesn’t either. They get knocked down? They’ll shake it off and stand back up. I might’ve gotten a little emotional here too which I didn’t expect. Plus she wanted to prove to herself that she could do whatever the hell she set her heart on. The other parallel was the whole fighting for the government/military who end up not being so great and going rogue thing.

It made me sad because we won’t get the Steve-Tony-Carol friendship we so deserve, but lol while the credits were rolling, my sister was like “Yeah, Tony’s going to die” because she’s the obvious successor. Originally she said it was because of his powers when I asked why and then she agreed when I pointed out that it’s not just because of his powers, but in terms of personality and a whole slew of things that reminded me of him AND Steve (it’s like Peter in CA:CW and SM:H). She feels like the linchpin holding the MCU together like them too.

Like the fact that Carol was the reason for the Avengers’ existence! That was obvious, but that scene where Fury’s typing on the computer and he looks at that photo of her before changing the name of the initiative? HM....I WAS VERKLEMPT.

Also, I loved how they made her get her powers. It wasn’t an accident. No one sacrificed their life for her. She got her powers because of her own actions. She got her powers because she was being a HERO. SHE IS WHO SHE IS BECAUSE OF HERSELF. LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!

Speaking of that, I was surprised by the Mar-Vell plot twist because we all thought that would be Jude Law and I expected Annette Bening to be someone else (who she sort of ended up being anyway) lol. I didn’t mind that they did that. Love that she was Carol’s mentor.

I loved the female relationships. CAROL AND MARIA’S SCENES. MARIA BELIEVING IN HER. MARIA TALKING ABOUT HOW HARD IT WAS FOR HER AS A SINGLE MOM AND A WOMAN IN THE AIR FORCE, BUT CAROL DIDN’T CARE ABOUT THAT. THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THEIR LIFE TOGETHER...BINCH...I MAY HAVE BLINKED OUT A TEAR!!!!! Carol being cute with Monica! Monica urging her mom to be a hero while Maria wanted to watch out for her because she has Monica to think of now, not just herself. Monica being responsible for Carol’s Captain Marvel getup! Carol and Maria getting involved with Lawson because she was their ticket to proving themselves and moving up!

And yet the movie didn’t get too hammy and heavy-handed with feminism (I hate it when some people write stuff that way because I find it extremely sloppy and ineffective)! We didn’t have to have a female villain just because we had a female lead superhero. We didn’t have to have moments where Carol says preachy lines. That moment where she just raised her eyebrow at the motorcycle dude? Fantastic. She didn’t have to deal with that scumbag. That moment where Yon-Rogg tried to pull a typical Man Move TM by trying to make her prove herself to him (and trying to take ownership of her development and strength)? She didn’t have to be all cocky and say some quip or cheesy af line. She wasn’t even that angry because he’s not worth it. He’s an ant beneath her foot. He’s irrelevant. She just says it straight up that she doesn’t have to prove anything to him, and that was what made that so powerful for me. It resonated because she said it like it was the truth, plain and simple, and it WAS.

No romance shoved in not because Carol didn’t need no man as a Strong Woman but because there are more important things at stake and honestly, the romance was with her wife Maria her relationships with other humans and the Skrulls were the emotional crux. They’re an important part of who she is and of rediscovering her identity. God...like her relationship with Fury? So well done. It was the buddy cop movie that I so wanted. I loved their jokes and their mutual respect for each other. I love how they became so important to each other and we saw Fury deeply care about someone and showing that. One of my favorite scenes is the one where they’re washing dishes together.

They also didn’t shove Coulson in too much which I was afraid of. We got to see where Fury started off, a greener one but one who was as compelling because he was so human. We got to see Fury deeply caring about someone and so openly (this is the guy who said, “I'm just an old man who cares very much about you“ to Tony in AoU). It was nice seeing how the whole belief in superheroes thing truly started with the both of them (Coulson had his whole Cap thing, but I feel like this was the moment where he imagined having a hero like that in his own time was possible).

Uh let’s see. I love Goose. I don’t particularly care for animals in movies even though I know people obsess about them, but they didn’t overdo Goose’s part.

All the little callbacks to the comics! KSD showing up!

The period part of the period piece wasn’t overdone which I appreciated. Carol typing made me laugh, the slow download and AOL shoutout made me laugh, and damn, the fashion and music? I was over the moon. You didn’t have to go over the top to make us immersed in the 90s. Also, my heart sang when we got Carol on a bike on the open road in a leather jacket. The bliss I felt is indescribable tbh.

Ooh the special effects were good for the most part! Loved seeing her fly and loved seeing her gut ships and destroy missiles. It felt real. Space didn’t feel cheesy af to me which was a problem I had with GotG 1.

Speaking of flying and punching things, it was so viscerally satisfying to see her do that. One of the things that really did it for me was how she enjoyed her powers. It was exhilarating seeing her fly for the first time (similar to seeing Tony taking out the suit for a test flight in IM1). Her little laugh/whoop of excitement? That’s what it would be like to discover you can fly! That grin when she breaks free of the Kree dampening her powers and she can feel her powers at full force running through her? That’s what it would be like to be at 100% and have all that. I wanted to jump out of my seat and feel what she felt. It made her powers not feel very OTT-overpowered? Carol has....too many powers and is super strong to the point that she’s overpowered, but uh...idk I didn’t have a problem with it here, mainly because of this.

The post-credits scenes were good too like....WOW, HUH. I watched this in Dolby (my first Dolby experience!) and I GOT EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY THIRSTY OVER STEVE IN A BEARD AND OUT OF HIS SUIT AND A TIGHT WHITE SHIRT!!! I DON’T KNOW HOW I KEPT IT TOGETHER BECAUSE I ALMOST DIDN’T WHICH WOULD’VE BEEN EMBARRASSING. BUT PHEW!!!!!! STEVE? WHAT A *****!!! Thought the scene was nice too even though I wish Carol got better hair. I assume she flew and that’s why she looks so bedraggled, but uhfhghdaoifhas I hated her hair in this and want Carol to get the nice hair she deserves (preferably a short butch cut...thanks. C’mon, Brie wants it too). OH, ALMOST COMPLETELY FORGOT TO MENTION THAT IT BROKE MY HEART TO HEAR HER SAY, “YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHO I AM. I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM” AND TO NOT KNOW WHERE SHE BELONGS. SHE’S NOT KREE, BUT SHE’S NO LONGER FULLY HUMAN NOT ONLY BECAUSE OF HER POWERS BUT BECAUSE OF HER LIFE ON HALA AS WELL. I loved how we saw her journey to accepting that and who she is now and how that was all tied up nicely with her wearing her old leather jacket the Rambeaus kept for her and her new suit as she goes into space. What a great moment and a nice visual cue to a comics cover I really like of Carol wearing her jacket over her suit and staring up at the stars. I feel like trying to find her place and her identity are important to her so I loved that we got that here and we’ll hopefully see more of that.

There are a bunch of negatives here (a bunch of stuff about the Tesseract that go against canon, the Skrulls (makeup, personalities, nerfed powers and threat level imo, etc.), subpar writing and acting at moments, etc.), but I seriously don’t care at all because I enjoyed the ride. My happiness dwarfs every little thing I could have nitpicked. I don’t care!!! I had so much fun! I liked the movie a lot!

#captain marvel spoilers

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ges-sa · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://ges-sa.com/captain-marvel-review/

Captain Marvel Review

Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers, soars into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) higher, further, faster, with much fanfare and a fair amount of anticipation as the first solo female helmed movie in the every expanding Marvel Studios cinematic franchise. Despite much derision and push-back from some corners of the fanbase due some poorly chosen comments along the movie’s promotional campaign, ‘Captain Marvel’ delivers just about what you’d expect from an MCU film at this point. A perfectly fine and entertaining film in its own right, but not necessarily one that overly excels in a given area or delivers any awe inspiring locations, effects, concepts that helped propel many other recent Marvel Studios efforts above the rest.

Taking place on Earth as well as space and alien planets, Captain Marvel gets caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races. Paraphrasing the synopsis, I’m still surprised there isn’t more to it. That is basically the movie in broad strokes. I should also add that along the way; Carol Danvers must explore her past to embrace her future. The movie starts off on a new set of alien worlds we have not yet seen before in the MCU, one of which would have been interesting to explore and get to know more, but we are only treated in this film to a cursory glance at this time. Things seem a little out of sorts and confusing at first as we are thrust right into the story and are placed in the protagonist’s point of view and attempt to make sense of lots of different information and exposition in a short span of time to figure out things along with her via information and flashbacks. This is an interesting narrative choice and something a little different from previous MCU offerings. As a result much of the first act seems to meander along and drag a little, despite an action scene to keep things from getting too stale early on, until the action moves to Earth which is when the movie starts to really get going and settle into a good stride. It’s no coincidence that this is soon when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) enters the story; more on him later. This movie does a less graceful job of carrying the girl power message than ‘Black Panther’ did in delivering a non exclusionary embrace of African culture. Most might not even notice among the kinetic action scenes and girl power music but there are some moments when the movie tries a bit too hard to take a jab at men or show how Captain Marvel could be so much more if not for these male figures in her life. While subtle enough to not overtly offend anyone (particularly at least about half the target franchise audience), it’s still there nonetheless.

One thing that the film has going for it is being set in the mid 1990’s and they do a decent job of playing up some 90’s brands, jokes and technology in contrast with what we’re more familiar with at the tail-end of the 2010’s. Visually speaking this is one of the more low key films from the recent years of the MCU. There’s some splashes of vibrant colour in space settings, in the visual representation of powers and energy blasts and some of the costumes are colourful and don’t downplay the colour palette but overall more of a low key affair visually for the most part, more akin to ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and earlier MCU movies of the early-mid 2010’s, which isn’t s knock on the production and visual effects departments as much as an observation. Aside from some good portrayal of the Skrull transformations, the most impressive thing visually is definitely the now infamous de-aging effects that have been used for a couple years now in multiple Marvel Studios and Disney related films. It is so seamless and so perfectly applied to Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg in particular (and possibly also Annette Bening perhaps) that you won’t even notice it. Some truly fantastic visual effects work in that regard.

The score courtesy of Pinar Toprak is an interesting one and bares some slight audio similarity in places to a ‘Thor: Regnarok’ or ‘Captain America: Civil War’, although much like the movie itself, a low-key score that services the visuals on screen and mostly fades into the background, so much so that I barely noticed it throughout much of the film compared to the songs. The main theme is probably one of the better pieces of music in the movie but it barely featured that I could tell except for perhaps the climax which is a shame.

The runaway star of this movie isn’t even the lead actress protagonist, but rather her co-star Samuel L. Jackson. He owns the role of Fury after more than a decade of playing the character and immediately commands the screen whenever he is on it and gets to portray a young, more bright-eyed and bushytailed version of Fury. He has so much personality, energy and enthusiasm and it comes across on screen. He has great interactions and on-screen chemistry with whom every he’s interacting with and elevates the whole movie simply with with his presence. Trailing behind (but not by much) is everyone’s favourite British villain Ben Mendelsohn playing alien Skrull leader Talos. He has some fun with the role and gets to play things up more than I’ve seen of him in other movies he’s appeared in and by the movie’s conclusion was of the character’s who left the most lasting impression. I left very impressed by Lashana Lynch in this movie, playing Carol’s best friend Maria Rambeau. I hadn’t recalled seeing her in anything prior to this movie and while she isn’t given that much to do and work with, she easily won me over in the time she got and with her delivery. Phil Coulson returns to an MCU movie for the first time since ‘The Avengers’ in 2011; having maintained a presence to the shared saga’s narrative though the televised series ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’. He is great for the time he is given but is criminally underused in this movie.

Brie Larson herself plays fourth fiddle in this movie and seemingly only escapes ranking fifth due to having more screen time and importance than Jude Law. Brie Larsen seems likeable enough as her character evolves throughout the movie although for the most part comes across as very stern and emotionless throughout. Early on these fits the character’s situation, but even later, save for a smile and slight chuckle her here there, she never seems to shake that. She seems far more expressive in interviews along the marketing tour and some interviews. Hopefully she will grow into the role and/or maybe get to display more under the helm of different director’s but as of right now, Carol Danvers seemed like one of the less engaging heroes to come from Marvel Studios in quite some time so hopefully she and The Russo Brothers can turn that around next in ‘Avengers: Endgame’.

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All in all, a rather standard film by Marvel Studio’s standards, which has set the bar high in recent years, but is still overall fun enough and entertaining compared to many action adventure films available. I didn’t feel like Marvel Studio’s out did themselves with this one as I did after ‘Captain America: Civil War’, ‘Doctor Strange’, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’, ‘Black Panther’ or ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ but also had a good time watching it all the same and I feel like audiences and fan of the franchise will as well. With a touching Stan Lee tribute and story to explore before ‘Avengers: Endgame ’ next month; there’s hopefully enough here to wet people’s appetites before then as if they aren’t wet enough already . And as always, mid and post credit scenes at the end so stay tuned and get your money’s worth.

#Ben Mendelsohn #Brie Larsen #Captain Marvel #Carol Danvers #Clark Gregg #Jude Law #Kree #Marvel #Marvel Cinematic Universe #Marvel Studios #MCU #Nick Fury #Phil Coulson #S.H.I.E.L.D.#Samuel L. Jackson #Skrull #Stan Lee #Movies #Reviews

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boogiewrites · 7 years ago

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Don’t Call Her Annie 7 Memories & Monologues

Characters: Jim Hopper x Reader (OFC)

Word Count: 3500

Summary: Annette Horowitz is Joyce’s younger sister. She hasn’t been the perfect sibling or aunt but after she finds out Will is missing, she finds herself crashing back into Hawkins to do everything in her power to help, driven by a need to prove herself. She hasn’t been around much in the past 20 or so years, but when she comes back home she finds old friends, old habits and old feelings she’d thought she’d finally escaped. Can she really change or is she just kidding herself?

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 8

You can check out my other work on My Masterlist.

Warnings/Tags: Angst. Fluff. Intense Situations. Violence. Slight Gore. Language. Feelings (insert Crowley gif here). Slow burn.

A/N: I'm tweaking their reality here, I know. But this fan fiction, so...I can do that. (Fun side note. This is the first piece I wrote for this series. This moment was what played in my head for months before I let myself write it and inspired the entire story. This is not the end...I hope you enjoy it.)

Tagged folks are at the bottom, if you’d like to be added or removed, just leave a reply and I’ll see it! Any positive feedback or messages are appreciated. Thanks!

Memory

One night after being grounded, but still getting wasted in your room you find Hopper outside alone. You were in your pajamas, which happened to be ones you'd worn before you hit puberty, so at this point, a robe would've been appropriate to have worn over it if you're getting out of bed. But at your level of sobriety in combination with your naive, aloof mind, you went outside in it anyway. You can't remember why you had gone outside, or why he was there too, but you were a drunk teenager and that felt like a lifetime ago. You do remember he was upset about something. But mostly you remember that the look on his face when he became distracted and flustered at your body made you feel things. So naturally, in your drunken, pathetic rebellion you said something inappropriate. Neither of you said much to each other after that night for a while. Your crush, however, remained, if not worsened through your denial of it. Your young, naive heart thought you loved him.

Then Joyce got pregnant. It crashed your outlook, it made you feel scared for her, for your relationship as sisters which had become strained as you tried to force everyone away from you. You saw her with Lonnie. You hated Lonnie. You and Hopper both loathed him. This was something you instantly bonded over. You'd seen the way he looked at him, it was how you looked at him too. Like he was taking something that belonged to you. You started being able to hold conversations alone together again. You weren't the same girl you were the last time you'd been close though. Because after Joyce got pregnant and you saw the life she had now you wanted to run scared. You wanted out of Hawkins. You felt caged and didn't want what happened to her to happen to you. This would be a theme that would follow you around your entire adult life up until you hear about Will going missing.

You'd thought the reason Hop stayed around so long after Joyce got pregnant was because of how much he loved her. He wanted to leave after he found out, he found it hell to deal with, but he saw how you reacted to the news. He knew Joyce wouldn't be able to handle you anymore with a baby and an abusive husband. He didn't want you to get hurt in the wake of the consequences of Joyce's bad decisions. He felt compelled to stay and make sure you didn't get in too much trouble because he saw your life going that way unless someone was there to look after you. Once he thought you had matured enough, which happened surprisingly quickly, he found after he started trying to correct your behavior, he felt he could leave without the weight of it on his shoulders. Very shortly after he left, you did too.

Sure you'd not been the best aunt. You had come to holidays when you weren't too far away to make it. You sent cards and called for birthdays and celebrations when you remembered. Sure you hadn't been as close as you wanted to be to your family, but every time you'd tried to settle down for yourself or with them, you got itchy and ran. You loved them, deeply and dearly you had just let yourself forget how to show and say that.

And all that brought you here. To this moment. This was how you would show them how much they meant to you. To Joyce, to your nephews, to Hopper.

October

"Why are you doing this?" he says slowly, his emotions in his eyes, his voice cracked. Shutting the door to the room across the hall he'd dragged you into without asking you first. He'd just grabbed you and moved.

"Because besides you, I'm the only one that can." you say matter-of-factly.

"Did you ever think they don't want you to do this? That I don't want you to do this?" his voice is hushed, he bares his teeth when he speaks to you unintentionally. How was he supposed to keep control when you kept breaking his heart like this.

"I have to." you say through gritted teeth, standing and wiping your face.

"Jesus, Ann! No, you don't!" his hands raise in the air in frustration. His nails digging into his palms as he tries to stay quiet and alert while also having this loaded conversation.

"If you think for one second, that I would even hesitate to die for them," you stutter, his shoulders wincing at your words. "then you clearly don't know me as well as you think you do, Jim." the tears sting your eyes, your stomach knots and you hold back.

His head falls down, he closes his eyes.

"You aren't the only one allowed to go and put yourself in danger you know," you growl at him, your hands planted on your hips, still mad about you and Joyce having to save him from his own recklessness in the tunnels.

He turns back to you, his hands on your shoulders, he takes a deep breath, "You know chances are you don't make it back, right?" he's never looked this intensely at you. You pull your mouth into a tight line so your lips don't tremble. A wave of nausea hits you.

"I know," you whisper, tears cresting out of your eyes and slowly rolling down your cheek. "It's worth it if you get them out of here." your voice cracks, you're having a hard time keeping all this in. He pulls you into his arms. You feel his face on the top of your head. "Promise me you'll get them out of here." your hands hold on tightly to his shirt, you close your eyes and rest your face against him.

"I promise." his voice was more somber, you feel a breath hitch in his chest.

You push away from him, wiping your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt. You and Jim share a weighted moment, just looking at each other. Neither of you had the words right now.

You reach to the doorknob and open the door after he moves out of the way to let you out. You look up and see Joyce standing there, her arms crossed, she's sobbing and practically leaps into your arms, this was going to be ugly. -----------------------------

He stands next to you while he helps secure everything on you, his face is hard and he hasn't said much. He put your earpiece in, checks the gun before handing it to you, and tightens the strap onto your shoulder. The rhythmic pulsing of the alarm light is the only illumination in the dark stairwell. This'll be the last time you see him. You'd said your goodbyes to everyone but him really. Well, the things you really wanted to say to him anyway.

"I know you're mad. I'm sorry." your eyes follow him as he continues not engaging with you, as he checks you over again. "As cliche, as it is I want you all to try to not feel bad too long." you grab his hands and shake them until he looks at you. He meets your gaze from where he'd held it at the ceiling. "At least leave me with the illusion that you'll try to be happy again." you frown and sigh.

"Alright. You're good to go." he motions to your gear with his head. You see he wasn't going to be honest unless you made a grand, sweeping gesture first. You grumble and take off the gun, he looks at you, confusion on his face.

"Give me your shirt, Jim." you hold your hand out, your shoulders low, your voice already tired.

"Why?" he shakes his head at you.

"Just give it to me." you groan. His eyes narrow at you, he takes off the flannel shirt layer. You walk over the glass panel still intact on the nearest door and you slip on the shirt. At first, you button a few buttons, admiring your reflection in the glass. Then you roll up the sleeves, and tie it at the waist and put your gun back on.

"That's just gonna slow you down, you know that. It'll get caught on something or grabbed or-"

"Shut up, Jim." you put your hands on his arms, your eyes tired.

"Look, I want you to come back, I know it's not realistic but I have to hold onto that as long as I can to deal with this. So if I let you go in that, I know it'll be my fault if it's what gets you killed and I can't have that added on top of everything else." it comes tumbling out of him, his shoulders falling as his words continued on. You were left with Jim. Class of '60 Jim. The golden boy of your teen years. You saw the same eyes, the same look on his face when he was truly exhausted.

"Can't you just let a girl die in your shirt, Jim? Jesus." you roll your eyes and let go of him, moving to the strap on your shoulder.

"Wait." he grabs your arm. "What?" his brow is bent but not angry.

"You really wanna know right now?" you raise your eyebrows at him with an annoyed attitude.

"Fuck. Well, I have to now that you said that." you almost smile.

"I didn't want to die not knowing what I looked like in one of your shirts." you admit much more easily than you thought. Your eyes move from side to side at your own surprise to the admission. You say it calmly, returning your eyes to his face after having no better way to share this information with him.

He goes through lots of expressions on a micro level, his eyes mostly read of surprise.

"Jim..." you chew the inside of your cheek, taking a big breath in. You decide to not hold back in the last moments you'd have here with him. You put your hands on the sides of his face and stare into his eyes.

You wouldn't have believed it if your older self could've told your younger self that your so-called first love would get even more handsome the older he got. The way his eyes crinkled and his cheeks folded as he smiled. The beard he'd be thrilled to have known he could grow eventually had come in. He grew even taller somehow, broader, stronger. You adored the soft middle he'd accumulated, you thought it matched his insides better than the rest of his rough outer appearance. You weren't completely sure if you wanted to be with him, you had thought you might over the past year. You didn't know if there was some happy ending for you two, probably not, especially not together. But you did know you loved him. Not just the smidge of romantic love that refused to leave your heart, left over from your teen years. But a fully thought out mutual respect that grew the more he revealed about himself. He was good, you'd known very few good men in your life and he deserved to be loved.

"There are so many things I'd love to tell you. I'll tell you next time I see you, okay?" you smile at him, genuinely.

"Annie..." he whispers, his face falling, he swallows hard as he holds in tears. You let him say your childhood name without rejection. But it doesn't come without its pain.

"But in the meantime, know I find it very fitting that you're the one here with me for this. I wouldn't want anyone else here with me right now." the corner of your mouth pulls back into a sad and reluctant smile. You let go of his face and sigh at him, taking it in one last time.

"Not even Joyce?" his voice is soft and quiet. You're surprised by his response.

"No. I don't need her for this. I need you." your voice is calm and confident.

He repeats your name. He grabs your face and his mouth opens, you never thought you'd live to see Jim Hopper's lips trembling at your expense. A few tears fall down your face as he moves in close to you. "Please, don't go." he hoarsely whispers. He couldn't help but feel the irony of his words, as you'd asked the same thing of him when he told you he was leaving Hawkins decades before. You squeeze your eyes shut at the sound of his voice, it's painful. He keeps saying your name and each time it hurts more than the last.

"I'm going to be a pain in the ass until the end. Especially yours. Same as it's always been." you put one of your hands over his.

"I'm sorry." you feel him shake his head as he squeezes you again. "For everything. For when you were younger and now. I'm sorry you were drawn into this. You don't deserve this." he rushes out his apology, you feel his breath tinging across your scalp.

"But I do deserve it." you sigh, you felt it was true, deep down.

"Don't say that." he says into your hair. "You are," he composes himself for a moment, "You are a pain in the ass." he lets out a huff of a laugh and you follow. "But you're also irreplaceable. I know you don't see how important you are but that doesn't change that fact." you could hear the anger bubbling under the surface of his kind words. "I really wanted better for you, sweetheart, I'm so sorry I couldn't do that."

"I gave up on trying to hold things against you a very long time ago, Jim." you give him a tight-lipped smile. "I forgive you for whatever you've made up in your head to be guilty about. None of this is on you." you shake your head at him. You start to pull back and he brings your lips together. Sharing a few slow movements before parting. At least you could die without wondering what his lips felt like against yours now. You sniffle as he pulls away, neither of you could tell who started crying first because both your faces were wet. You try to quiet your loud breathing, slow your chest trying to panic, your heart wanting to explode from the overload of emotions.

You stretch and crack your joints, taking many deep breaths, you stand at the edge of the stairs. You look down into the darkness. You put your hands around the large gun, and close your eyes. You feel Jim standing very close to you.

"Please. Don't do anything stupid. Try to come back to us." he pushes his forehead against the side of your head.

"I always find my way back to you, don't I? Whether I mean to or not it seems." you don't look at him, your heart is beating too fast to handle any more surging emotions.

He doesn't respond. He squeezes your hand and kisses your hair again.

"Maybe we'll get this right in the next lifetime." one hand rests on your chest to steady your heartbeat. It stays because you feel like it's the weakest part of you right now, on the edge of bursting and breaking. "I'm glad we had the chance to be friends again. No matter what you'll tell yourself later, I'm okay with this ending." you want to clarify, you could only imagine the years of his life he'll spend carrying the guilt of your death on his shoulders, even though he shouldn't. You turn your face to look into his eyes. "I love ya, Jim." you say with a slump of your shoulders. It felt so good to say it. You wished you'd had time to sit and live in the feeling of relief, but you didn't.

"I love you too, Annie." His face softens as the words fall past his lips. "Too bad we couldn't have said it more often." his face screws up slightly. You nod and give him one last kiss.

He backs away and stands in the doorway to the stairwell. Your lips quiver and you clear your throat and squeeze your eyelids shut to clear your eyes of tears. You couldn't kill these things if you let your eyes blur. Time to tap into your muscle memory. You take the first step down the stairs.

Jim hears you humming softly to yourself as you head down the stairs, your steps a beat to your favorite song. He slowly backs away, trying to recall the tune, it was so familiar. He thinks he recognizes the song as your voice drifts too far from his ears to hear and he goes back to the surveillance room. --------

"It's getting a little crowded up here so we're going to have to take this slow." Dr. Owens voice carries over the walkie-talkie you have in one hand, the gun in the other. Your eyes are wide, your heart pounding in your chest. Your ears try to pick up every possible sound and its cause around you. The buzz of the overhead fluorescent lights was deafening.

You start walking. You try to control your breathing. Heel, toe, heel, toe you move down the echoing hallways. You follow his instructions. You do everything you're supposed to but that didn't mean anything in this scenario. You hide around corners, in closets, you hold your breath and try to focus. It all happens so fast.

"RUN!" you hear over the walkie-talkie, your eyes land on one of the monsters. As your heart drops into your stomach and you push with all your strength against the floor. Your feet hit the tile in fast pats that mimic the rising rate of your heart.

You break through another set of doors. You see the front lobby, you hear your sister.

"ANNIE!" she screams. You feel the whoosh of air as the monsters break down the doors right behind you. You only lock eyes for a second with Joyce. You lunge out of the way and you hear her scream. You see Jim aiming the gun and your heart is beating so fast you make desperate noises with every movement you make, pushing your body to work as hard and fast as it can. You scurry across the floor, losing your walkie-talkie in the struggle. You see at least 5 more of the creatures moving together out of the bursting door. You make your way to the nearest clear doorway, pushing through them without looking back.

You hear Joyce screaming incoherently, gunfire, the sounds of the monsters growling and scurrying across the floor, more gunfire. When you hear the wood of the door you'd just ran through from the lobby split and crack, then you hear Jim scream. You involuntarily join them as you make your way blindly through the maze of hallways. You hear snarls and scratches coming from everywhere. You're dodging bloody bodies as you jump and slide your way farther and farther from the exit.

You see the metal door crumpled up against a wall, you dart into the room without thinking. You see the lift, you know it goes somewhere, you don't care where right now, you slam it shut and push the buttons and groan at how slow time is passing. As it lowers into the darkness, you hold the side of the basket, gasping for air, feeling your entire body shake with adrenaline and fear. A few hard sobs convulse your body as you descend. As you land you're grasping your gun again. You look around. It's quiet, you don't trust it. You feel air blowing on your neck and you turn to see dimly tunnels behind you. Your eyes adjust fully, seeing the cavernous expanse of the tunnels like Jim had been in when you and Joyce had saved him. The uneven pulsing floor underneath your feet made you stumble slightly. You didn't know why there weren't any of those things here, it didn't make any sense. You know this is your last chance to get out, you huff a determined noise and pick a tunnel to follow.

Chapter 8

The marked through ones I could not tag. Sorry!

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